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I am Geoff Barnes and this here is
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Sep
2nd
Thu
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Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.
(via)

Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

(via)

Sep
1st
Wed
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Some things require real vision to appreciate. Among these, ADA compliance zealotry jokes are second only to their makers, which are second only to opportunistic puns like the one in the previous sentence.

Some things require real vision to appreciate. Among these, ADA compliance zealotry jokes are second only to their makers, which are second only to opportunistic puns like the one in the previous sentence.

Aug
31st
Tue
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♫ Who’s gonna riiiiiiiiiide your wild horses? ♫

♫ Who’s gonna riiiiiiiiiide your wild horses? 

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Though the Army screens out the seriously obese and completely unfit, it is still finding that many of the recruits who reach basic training have less strength and endurance than privates past. It is the legacy of junk food and video games, compounded by the cutting of gym classes in many high schools, Army officials assert.

NYT: Army revises training to deal with unfit recruits - Health - Fitness - msnbc.com

And lazy reblogging. Let’s not forget lazy reblogging.

Aug
29th
Sun
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The Here You Go website has a new look!*
*and I have a renewed admiration for the patience and flexibility of CSS practitioners.

The Here You Go website has a new look!*

*and I have a renewed admiration for the patience and flexibility of CSS practitioners.

Aug
27th
Fri
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Don’t judge.

Don’t judge.

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Setup for the Here You Go booth at tomorrow night’s Sprout Fund benefit, Hothouse, is nearly complete.

Come play our game of chance: Are You Mean or Nice?

Setup for the Here You Go booth at tomorrow night’s Sprout Fund benefit, Hothouse, is nearly complete.

Come play our game of chance: Are You Mean or Nice?

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Achievement Unlocked: Fiancée Vote of Confidence
Holy shit… “Fiancée”!

Achievement Unlocked: Fiancée Vote of Confidence

Holy shit… “Fiancée”!

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12 panels I want to see at SXSW 2011.

I put a ton of time into reading a ton (over 400 of ~3000 available) of proposals on the SXSW Panel Picker site this year, and it was overwhelming. I don’t know how people do it. I bet I voted for more than 50 of what I read, at which point I was all tuckered out. But, before I retired from my SXSW voting activity, I also wanted to share some of the ones that interested me - in a non “hey this is my cool friend, vote for him/her!” kind of way. Ergo…

The following is a deeply considered list of twelve SXSW 2011 presentation proposals that interested me the very most. Some include friends of mine; most don’t. If you want to make SXSW 2011 a better conference (yeah, yeah, in my opinion), check these out and vote to help get them on the schedule. Today’s the final day to voice your opinion. Thank you, and good night.

  1. Information Architecture as Storytelling, by me. You knew one of them was going to be my own. No point beating around the bush, so let’s get it out of the way. Information Architecture as Storytelling is essentially about my team’s somewhat esoteric, yet measurably effective, approach to structuring persuasive websites. It’s good stuff. I THINK YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR THIS

  2. Don’t Play Games with Me, by Brynn Evans. Brynn is smarter than anyone has a right to be, and her proposal on social media games and the greater good promises to be stellar. VOTE FOR THIS ONE 
  3. Generalist vs. Specialist: Who’s Best in Creative Teams, by Jeremy Fuksa. Really, I just hope a food fight breaks out during this one. I’m bringing food. VOTE FOR IT

  4. The iPad: Designing for Transparent Computing, by Rob Rhyne. Rob had me at, “Why are gestures the new design grammar?” YOU MIGHT WANT TO VOTE FOR IT

  5. Quick and Adventurous User Research Techniques, by Christine Perfetti. I need this. If you design websites, you need this. NEED IT

  6. Will New User Interface Technology Make Us Illiterate? by David Merrill. You already know what I think the answer is. I’m hoping to have my beliefs challenged. WE NEED MORE OF THAT

  7. 15 Slides, Three Writers, Three Ways — One Hour, by Michael Lopp. Gruber, Coudal, and Rands in a deconstructive slo-mo adaptation of Battledecks? IT’S BRAIN SEX

  8. The Content Economy and the Web’s Rumored Demise, by Richard Ziade. Overwhelming intellectual firepower, timely issues. NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN…

  9. Worst Website Ever II: Too Stupid to Fail, by Andy Baio. If we all attend together, we will never fall victim to groupthink ever, ever again. TRUST YOUR FEELINGS

  10. Geppetto’s Army: Creating International Incidents with Twitterbots, by Greg Marra. Anyone who turned their avatars green during the Iranian elections, prepare to be amazed. You never know what you don’t know. YOU KNOW?

  11. You Should Be an Internet Personality, by Darrin Robertson. Your basic examination of the purpose of seeking influence online, who benefits, and why. SERIOUS BUSINESS 

  12. Conversational Journalism: Do’s and Don’ts of Audience Participation, by Doreen Marchionni. They don’t come any smarter than Doreen. This presentation on the growing pains of journalistic production and consumption promises to delight, inform, and stimulate more thought than someone who struggles like I do with apostrophe’s can generally handle. YOU SHOULD TOTALLY VOTE FOR IT
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Evangelical Christians have won the public-relations war in the United States. They’ve sought to infiltrate the court system (and largely succeeded) and swayed popular votes against basic human rights. Now they’re going after Islam in a manner that is one part religious intolerance and one part racism. Yet, the irony is that they’re going after a version of Islam that mirrors their own version of Christianity, one that elevates the prophet to the throne that used to be reserved for the thing we didn’t know and never would in this life, which is God. It’s so stereotypically a house divided, The Montagues and Capulets, the Packers and the Bears, that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.

Tux Life: Everything That Rises Must Converge, or, How I ‘Got’ Religion on a Friday Afternoon (via Instapaper)

It’s funny to think of it as ironic that fundamentalist Christians are repulsed by fundamentalist Muslims. As Julie reminds me, almost too often, we tend to be triggered by other people’s similarities to us - not by their differences. Especially to the things in us we consider least defensible, of which we are least accepting. To my mind, the fundamentalist Christians’ vitriol for fundamentalist Muslims amounts to little more than a violent expression of a pervasive, irrepressible doubt concerning their own stated beliefs. It’s the fear that they’re wrong - about everything - amplified and caught in a destructive feedback loop with doctrinal intolerability of having, or admitting, doubt that directs them to take aim at their most similar competitive threats first.

There is such a thing as reasonable faith. I’ve never heard a sound argument that faith is inherently unreasonable. But to me (here we go with the beliefs and opinions again) the legitimacy of faith must be determined by the degree to which it effects humility and curiosity, as opposed to justifying arrogance and complacency.

Which brings me back to this one (of many - seriously, go read the rest) significant passage from Shandon’s post up there: It is precisely because we no longer teach (and are therefore increasingly incapable of performing) critical analysis that armies of myopic, ignorant, bigoted, paranoid dullards have been able to infiltrate not only the court system, but the educational system, the business world, significant portions of the media, national and state legislatures, the national presidency (2000-2008), and so on. “Infiltration” is deceptively mild at this stage. “Occupation” is more like it.

The issue threatening us is not religion vs. science, and we intelligent people of decent intent perilously distract ourselves by getting hung up on that debate. The issue is the death of the ability to reason in our society, and whether or not we have the will - and increasingly, the ability - to revive it.