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Urban Dictionary: Logophilia

when nerds like words so much, they are sexually excited by them

On The Media: "Bad Sourcing" (January 21, 2011)

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Gulf of Tonkin - epically bad official information. It’s exactly like bad food, sometimes deliberately poisoned, sometimes spoiled by accident or happenstance. And it should be treated like food, with some knowledge of its provenance and nutritional value, consumed only after judicious prodding and a good long sniff, because you need it to live but the bad stuff can kill you.

Getting Real: It Shouldn't be a Chore (by 37signals)

If your app doesn’t excite you, something’s wrong. If you’re only working on it in order to cash out, it will show. Likewise, if you feel passionately about your app, it will come through in the final product. People can read between the lines.

Enthusiasm manifests itself readily of course, but indifference is equally indelible. If your commitment doesn’t encompass a genuine passion for the work at hand, it becomes a void that is almost impossible to conceal, no matter how elaborately or attractively designed it is.

Can Apple Find More Hits Without Its Tastemaker? - NYTimes.com

In a conversation years ago, Mr. Jobs said he was disturbed when he heard young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley use the term “exit strategy” — a quick, lucrative sale of a start-up. It was a small ambition, Mr. Jobs said, instead of trying to build companies that last for decades, if not a century or more.

For Gervais, Another Trip To The Globes, Sans Script : NPR

“I’m going all out,” Gervais says. “They will never invite me back again. … If they wanted someone to read an Autocue, there’s lots of better people than me at that. And they look better. So whenever I’m hired, I’m hired for my particular cocktail of skills — or lack of them.”

On The Media: Seth Mnookin on The Panic Virus (January 7, 2011)

BOB GARFIELD: Seth, your book is nominally about vaccine hysteria, but it seems to me it’s really about something a lot larger, and that’s the willingness of human beings to accept as truth what there is no evidence for. There seems to be some human impulse to [LAUGHS] explain complicated or painful or unknowable things in easy terms that snugly fit into some preconceived worldview. So, in the end, is this a vaccine problem we’re talking about here, or is it a human problem?

YouTube - The Gauss Christmath Special

Goldman Invests in Facebook at $50 Billion Valuation - NYTimes.com

Even as Goldman takes a stake in Facebook, its employees may struggle to view what they invested in. Like those at most major Wall Street firms, Goldman’s computers automatically block access to social networking sites, including Facebook.

Urban Dictionary: This is actually happening

A phrase for use to highlight an ensuing awkward or unbelievable event.

Urban Dictionary: Raving to Jesus

I couldn’t sleep last winter, the house across the street was raving to Jesus.

Urban Dictionary: santa clause clause

A clause in a contract that is only true if you believe it.