From Lileks:On this day in '85 Prince swept the Grammy for "Purple Rain." Now he’s getting a hip replacement.

Never trust anyone over 30 40 50 60.

From Andrew Sullivan, at The Atlantic:I think the GOP nominee may have just declared victory. Which means the battle will now be over how to spin the exit.

The bee guy, on K5:
I'm at the point in my life where the new generation of kids is making me really understand my parents.

Pournelle's lesson:

Unrestricted laissez faire capitalism allocates resources in a most efficient way to satisfy human wants without regard to the rationality or morality of those desires.

The difference between Libertarian and Conservative is that Conservatives understand this, and know that unregulated capitalism will eventually end with human meat sold in market places, and slavery.

Joel On Software
A file format is just a concise summary of all the features an application supports.

Rob Pegoraro, Wash Post tech writer. On buying a Mac:

You do realize, however, that buying a Mac entails all this other stuff, right? You have to trade in your car for a Prius or a Beetle, you need to start shopping at Whole Foods, and you have to put an Obama sign in your front yard.

The black turtleneck is optional, though.

Herding Cats

More animal stuff...

The last pyrenesse mountain goat left in the world was on a 24hr watch by park rangers. There was talk of cloning it, using a related goat species as the surrogate mother.

And then a tree fell on it...

And...

I'm a conservative. I don't have to believe there's a solution.

12) "Specifications are for the weak and timid!"

11) "This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual MIPs processors if I am to do battle with this code!"

10) "You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon."

9) "Indentation? I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!"

8) "What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes', leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in it's wake."

7) "Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters', they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM."

6) "Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak."

5) "I have challenged the entire SQA team to a Bat-Leth contest. They will not concern us again."

4) "A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!"

3) "By filing this PR you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!"

2) "You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!"

1) "Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!"

Generic loonie idea|group|person analogy template:
X has gone far beyond the lunatic fringe. He|She|It|They is|are well into the lunatic center and is|are running hard for the lunatic far side, currently locked in a dead heat with Indymedia|The National Review.