I recently wrote that the “selfie” had probably reached its zenith with the pictures of a woman with a bald eagle. I was wrong.
And I’m not talking about anything that happened at the Oscars. I’m talking about the Royal Danish Air Force.
Via Buzzfeed/Facebook: flyvevaabnet
Your move, Instagram.
The selfie is one of those ubiquitous phenomena of the social media age that pretty much confirms whatever people already believe. It has given rise to countless thinkpieces about the narcissism of today’s youth, the rise of self-confidence in today’s youth, the assumption that posting a picture of oneself online implies consent to wider publication (or to receive unsolicited genitalia pics), and everything in between.
Aside from the fact that I think “duck face” needs to die a quick death, painless or not, I don’t care about selfies as a cultural phenomenon. I care that some people think the existence of selfies—or even just pictures posted online, period—is somehow an invitation to harassment, but that only happens after a picture appears online. If other people posting pictures of themselves causes you some form of grief, the problem might not be is not with the person posting the pictures.
Besides, if no one ever took selfies, there would not be as many pictures of extremely awesome Lara Croft cosplayers at Anime Boston (just to name one example).
None of this matters anymore, I posit, because of this woman, who posed for several selfies with a bald eagle: Continue reading
This album, which has been making the rounds on the internet for almost two years, ought to make you feel hope for true love in this world, and anger that war makes us feel the need to reassert the existence of love:
Taylor Morris lost all four limbs in a bomb blast while serving in Afghanistan. His girlfriend (high school sweetheart, actually), Danielle Kelly, helped him through his recovery, and they inspired the whole internet.
The hashtag #libertarianismin4words was trending on Monday, leading to some amusing critiques of what I will charitably call the political ideology, along with some breathless efforts to decry the ignorance of the mockers and some noble attempts to find four words to describe the libertarian worldview that weren’t all either “freedom” or “liberty.”
I haven’t exactly made my thoughts on libertarianism a secret around here, so I don’t need to rehash or go into any great detail here. I will note, perhaps gratuitously, that four words is probably a fair limit for defenders of the ideology, at least since my own experience suggests that it has nothing to recommend it aside from abstract nouns.
Voluntary transaction not coercion. #LibertarianismIn4Words
— Econlib (@Econlib) June 14, 2012
#LibertarianismIn4words Free Minds, Free Markets
— reason (@reason) June 13, 2012
I took the liberty (see what I did there?) of Storifying some tweets that I found amusing. This is by no means a complete set of tweets I liked, but rather just the ones that came up on a quick search of the hashtag:
Here were my thoughts for those who, as always, claimed that the critics just. don’t. get. it:
If you think that we who make light of #libertarianismin4words just don't understand REAL libertarianism – maybe it's you, not us (1/2)
— d.wells (@wellslawoffice) December 31, 2013
(2/2) because it's all based on what self-proclaimed libertarians say. But go ahead and try to backtrack. #libertarianismin4words
— d.wells (@wellslawoffice) December 31, 2013
I have used Chatroulette exactly once, out of morbid curiosity. After being “nexted” 4-5 times by bored-looking dudes who were disappointed (either because I don’t have breasts or because I wasn’t showing what I do have—I don’t know & I don’t judge), I decided it wasn’t really my scene. It has led to a few funny moments, I’ve heard, but I got to wondering whatever happened to those plans I read about a while back for software to block the unwelcomely-pervy side of Chatroulette—yes, in my family, holiday banter includes discussion of penis-recognition software (or PRS, as I’ll call it.)
My brother-in-law and I had an interesting unusual discussion about the process of creating a PRS algorithm. Not so much about the coding itself as the awkward discussions that might begin with “Why do you have so many pictures of penises open on the desktop of your work computer?” But did those rumors ever lead to anything? Continue reading
Inspired by Austin Java’s tweet to me (after I praised their bacon), I thought I’d see if anyone has invented a bacon emoji. I have no use for such a thing whatsoever, but how could humanity not benefit from such knowledge?
Anyway, all paeans to my inevitable historical legacy aside, I found emojis (or emoticons, or whatever) for bacon and eggs: 
🍳
Please go on about your business.
The question of whether cats really do love unicorn horns has finally been answered:
Dogs, however…
I had no idea what Snapchat actually was until a few days ago. I had heard the name, but thought it sounded like something that would shortly go the way of Chatroulette.
Apparently, however, its owners and investors are so confident in its $4 billion valuation that they felt comfortable turning down a $3 billion cash buyout offer from Facebook. This made me realize several things:
I don’t always hate it when I’m right, but sometimes I really do. Sometimes I really, really do.
