An Apple engineer who helped launch the iPod said he helped the US government build a secret version of the device that could covertly collect data.
— Arstechnica
Tag: USA
Politicians
This line from Matt Taibbi sadly sums up what “high-profile” politicians have become.
[…] they’re not even people, but are […] just robo-babbling representatives of unseen donors.
— Matt Taibbi in How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable
A Feast For Language Geeks
My brother just gave me a great present for ‘Eid: he sent me a link to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center’s (DLIFLC) Language Survival Kits. It’s unsurprisingly a little heavy on the vocabulary necessary/useful for foreign occupants (yay, USA!) … but it’s still a lot of fun. 😀
They provide the same set of sentences in several dozen languages with translations, transliterations and native writing. To top it off they have audio samples for unfamiliar sounds in each language and with a native speaker saying the sentences out loud and then saying them slow in order for you to repeat them … awesome! 😀
Interesting omissions from the list are German and South Korean, while the list even contains separate entries for several regional dialects of Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Pashto, etc. … o.O
Why choose the lesser evil?
There was a really funny column in the Washington Post right after Bush’s reelection in 2004 titled “An Off-Color Rift” … but the topic seems oddly familiar:
Besides, running away is never the answer, unless you are a teenage boy who has just blown up a mailbox. As Americans, we need to stay here in America and work things out, because regardless of what color or hue of state we live in, we are all, deep down inside our undershorts, Americans. And as Americans, we must ask ourselves: Are we really so different? Must we stereotype those who disagree with us? Do we truly believe that all red-state residents are ignorant, racist, fascist, knuckle-dragging, NASCAR-obsessed, cousin-marrying, roadkill-eating, tobacco juice-dribbling, gun-fondling, religious-fanatic rednecks; or that all blue-state residents are godless, unpatriotic, pierced-nosed, Volvo-driving, France-loving, left-wing communist, latte-sucking, tofu-chomping, holistic-wacko, neurotic, vegan, weenie perverts?
So this bears one question: why even bother choosing the lesser evil? 😉
