You're childish. No, you are. No. You.
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2007 4:52 PM by Will Femia
I was looking at some of the reaction to that "bed-wetter" article we saw in yesterday's Clicked and saw an unexpected theme: defining maturity. I'm thinking the cultural context for the question is that we typically think of diplomacy and negotiation as part of a rational grow-up profile and conversely violence and rigidity are seen as symptomatic of impulsive immaturity. The challenge to that convention says that being a grown-up means learning from mistakes and not making them again. Immaturity is characterized by cowardice and avoidance of the facts to preserve a deluded comfort.
I also clicked this Hot Air interview with the author of The Death of the Grown Up. Some of the points here aren't as clear to me as they are to the author because it seems some aspects of the proverbial death are more a matter of changing styles, which are different from the more concrete, definitional aspects of adulthood. Being respectful might be part of the definition of maturity, whether a tucked in shirt is a way of communicating that respect is more a question of fashion than philosophy.
Speaking of maturity through experience, 12 Investing Mistakes I’ve Made (and How You Can Learn From Them) - Advice based on lessons from mistakes is so much more convincing and authentic to me than advice from "experts." Admitting mistakes changes the tone of the advice from preachy to collegial.
Speaking of maturity, How to Accept Criticism with Grace and Appreciation
Still speaking of maturity (I think), remember those Canadian students who mocked the school bully by wearing pink? They've earned a day: Stand Up Against Bullying Day.
Beautiful hi-res moon photo
Birds in a fish tank - I feel like this would be somehow bad for the birds but I can think of any rational reason to justify that feeling.
Wall animation - It's a stop action film drawn on a wall. What's particularly cool is that as they make successive frames, they erase the previous frames, leaving a dark smear behind the animation.
Why municipal wireless networks have been such a flop.
Cops writing complaints about other cops who write them tickets. Obviously cops share a bond, but I almost wonder if this if fake because I can't imagine any of my cop friends complaining out loud like this.
Speaking of policing police, Missouri: Police Stake Out Brett Darrow Home - Darrow is the guy who got the cop fired by videotaping him making threats of false charges. I really like the idea of a blog devoted to the politics of driving. Considering the amount of driving Americans do it's surprising that isn't a designated news category. We get reports on gas prices, crash tests, traffic conditions, etc., but not under the heading of "today's driving news."
Speaking of driving, Extreme car mods - Awesome sound on that first jet car video.
This crazy Excel error sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories. Magical numbers and hidden calculations, surely coordinates for alien invasion or perhaps reflecting Lat/Long coordinates of a secret base or city where the world's elite will live after they nuke the rest of us off the planet. Send 20 bucks to me and I'll put you on the subscription list for the newsletter of the Church of the Excel Glitch. Don't be left behind. (Just kidding, don't send me money.) The actual explanation isn't quite as dramatic but I felt smarter for having read this so I encourage you to do so as well.
What does it mean when a nude-posing pop star has a high IQ? After giving it some thoughts and some clicks I'm pretty sure it means absolutely nothing.
Fight for Kisses - Babies train to fight back when they lose attention to cleanly shaven fathers. I didn't download the game so you're on your own there.
"$9.11 for Rudy"? Ick.
The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World
Folks online are very excited for the new MP3 tab at Amazon.com. I read this review, which is generally positive. Lately people seem to cheer anything that represents a challenge to iTunes.
How to deal with unwanted friend requests, the ethics of de-friending, and other social networking etiquette predicaments. Not the most satisfying answers but a good summary of the problems. The bottom line is that the more non-friends or distant friends you add, the less useful your Facebook account is.
As someone who has held up publishing a blog entry for lack of a good headline, whoever accidentally published a headline of "Think of a headline" has my sympathy.
"A film like Good Luck Chuck isn’t made, so much as perpetrated, like the seedy murder of a pimp in a dingy alley." In the way that negative reviews can be fun to read, this one is.
Speaking of bad movies, I think I saw one like this: "Two tractor-trailers carrying 70,000 cans and 44,000 bottles of Moosehead Lager were stolen early Wednesday morning." Does Canada offer a nickel back on cans? If so, I have an idea for how to catch the thief.
Where vehicles go to die. There are more links in the comments but I don't see any mention of the Staten Island boat graveyard, which has yielded a lot of great photos.
Coming soon to a terror scare near you: Urballoon art. It's a projector hanging from a balloon that projects text and images to the ground. Log into the site to see the map of where the balloon is at the moment and to submit your photo or message to be projected.
Hand written lawsuit filed against Google: "When the social security number is turned upside down in its entirety it is a scrambled code that does spell he name Google."
I don't really buy the explanation that no one noticed that this building looks like a swastika until Google Maps came along and we could suddenly see it from the sky. There's no way an architect doesn't know what his/her building looks like from above. Could it be they just said, "Oh heck, who's gonna notice?"
