Software Engineer at Google
San Francisco Bay Area
▼Change is bad. No, change is good. No, change is bad unless it’s great - Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life
One of the challenging things about working on large scale services that lots of people use every day is that they get attached to their experience with the site and enjoy the familiarity. A consequence of this is that there is a large population of users for whom any change whether good or bad is met with resistance. One of the things that you end up learning when building a product is that...Expand this post »
One of the challenging things about working on large scale services that lots of people use every day is that they get attached to their experience with the site and enjoy the familiarity. A consequence of this is that there is a large population of users for whom any change whether good or bad is met with resistance. One of the things that you end up learning when building a product is that...Expand this post »
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Like▼Found via Rick Klau:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h7hhE7n88yDGFz0o5lk6jUPYhIDA
http://www.go
Anne Bunner - Animal cruelty isn't funny. I hope you didn't post that because you found it amusing.Jul 27DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Anne Bunner - I should probably just stop trying to remind Andrew to have a conscience when he comes across as appallingly callous, like forgetting to realize that stalking victims might not appreciate that whole non-anonymity thing with that stupid game, or acting like seeing a donkey dragged "half-alive" out of a Russian lake is funny. Too many of his "friends" are total douchebags. Opensource is clearly an exception to that rule. But generally, it's like I'm reliving my childhood with Andrew disparaging my ideas whenever I open my mouth, except that he doesn't have to say a word: his douchebag friends do all the work for him.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - The plight of the donkey isn't funny. I thought it was wild some marketer managed to convince anyone this was a good idea.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Jesse Collins - A recipe for vegan peach pie from Andrew's friend:
crust:
1 cup whole oats, ground in a blender (oat flour will probably do)
1 cup almond meal
1/4 cup milled flaxseed
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
about 1 teaspoon salt
- mix dry ingredients first
3/8 cup unrefined olive oil
6 tablespoons water
- beat wet ingredients into an emulsion, then mix with the dry ingredients.
- take a bit more than half the dough and press out into a pie pan to make the bottom crust
- press out the rest into a circle on a piece of wax paper to make the top crust (to be added in a bit)
filling:
about 6 peaches, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon of cinnamon, or more (I like a lot of cinnamon)
optionally a few tablespoons of unrefined sugar (though if the peaches are sweet, it's not necessary)
3-4 tablespoons of whole wheat pastry flour
mix all the filling ingredients, add the top crust, and bake. I baked this one for 60 minutes at 350 degrees, though normally I bake pies for more like 40 minutes at 425.
Also (unrelated), I have a coworker named Hugh Cockburn. Not a douchebag or a friend of Andrew's (as far as I know -- I don't actually know the guy), but somehow it still seemed somewhat relevant.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
crust:
1 cup whole oats, ground in a blender (oat flour will probably do)
1 cup almond meal
1/4 cup milled flaxseed
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
about 1 teaspoon salt
- mix dry ingredients first
3/8 cup unrefined olive oil
6 tablespoons water
- beat wet ingredients into an emulsion, then mix with the dry ingredients.
- take a bit more than half the dough and press out into a pie pan to make the bottom crust
- press out the rest into a circle on a piece of wax paper to make the top crust (to be added in a bit)
filling:
about 6 peaches, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon of cinnamon, or more (I like a lot of cinnamon)
optionally a few tablespoons of unrefined sugar (though if the peaches are sweet, it's not necessary)
3-4 tablespoons of whole wheat pastry flour
mix all the filling ingredients, add the top crust, and bake. I baked this one for 60 minutes at 350 degrees, though normally I bake pies for more like 40 minutes at 425.
Also (unrelated), I have a coworker named Hugh Cockburn. Not a douchebag or a friend of Andrew's (as far as I know -- I don't actually know the guy), but somehow it still seemed somewhat relevant.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - Thanks, Jesse :) Actually, you and Anne are the only two people I know on this thread.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - And for the record, I disapprove of throwing animals out of planes.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Barbara Bunner - Okay, children, I think we all agree on the animal abuse. Now the peach pie sounds really good! Love, MomJul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Dave Cohen - You should see Andrew's "friends" in real life. 100% douchebags.Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anne Bunner - Forgive me for misinterpreting. In my defense, you appear to buzz things in mainly three categories 1) technical stuff 2) gadgetry 3) amusement. I figured the donkey was neither a programming language nor a cell phone, so I thought maybe you thought it was funny. Glad to hear you are not, in fact, that callous.Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼Cool game engine primitives being developed for Android.
AndEngine – New ParticleSystem Examples - AndEngine
Hello Community, yesterday I uploaded some Examples for the AndEngineExamples. Including the following ParticleSystems, that (in my opionion) look pretty cool and are just a hand full of easy...Expand this post »
AndEngine – New ParticleSystem Examples - AndEngine
Hello Community, yesterday I uploaded some Examples for the AndEngineExamples. Including the following ParticleSystems, that (in my opionion) look pretty cool and are just a hand full of easy...Expand this post »
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Like▼I use Dremel for my job at Google and... these guys deserve major kudos. It's an extraordinarily empowering tool.
Reshared Dremel: Interactive Analysis of Web-Scale Datasets, Sergey Melnik, Andrey Gubarev, Jing Jing Long, Geoffrey Romer, Shiva Shivakumar, Matt Tolton, Theo Vassilakis. To appear in Proc. of the 36th Int'l Conf on Very Large Data Bases, 2010.
http://sergey.melnix.com/pub/melnik_VLDB10.pdf
Abstract:
Dremel is a scalable, interactive ad-hoc query system for analysis of read-only nested data. By...Expand this post »
5 people liked this - Jeff Huber, Matt Mastracci, Theodore Vassilakis, antonio marcos coelho fonseca and metalerik .
Sam Castillo - That's a type of drill over here, I was really wondering what google needs drilling so badly!Jul 20DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - If you like that, you'll enjoy one of Google's other favorite tools: "Sawzall" (not kidding, it's called that)Jul 20DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Lee Schumacher - http://labs.google.com/papers/sawzall.html Jul 21DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼Pretty Girl Who Can Do Lots Of Accents Has everyone but me already seen the Amy Walker video? The accents were pretty convincing... I have no idea where she's from.
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Like▼Surprising. They're using DOM elements (not the canvas tag) to render their sprites and claim that's easier than redrawing the canvas when sprites move.
http://blog.dextrose.com/en/2010/07/19/canvas-vs-html-based-rendering-in-the-aves-engine/
dextrose_inc: new Blog Post: Why Canvas is not an obvious choice for web games http://bit.ly/a6rmP3 - Twitter / dextrose_inc
dextrose_inc: new Blog Post: Why Canvas is not an obvious choice for web games http://bit.ly/a6rmP3
http://blog.dex
dextro
dextrose_inc: new Blog Post: Why Canvas is not an obvious choice for web games http://bit.ly/a6rmP3
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Like▼Does anyone watch "So you think you can dance"? It's an American dance competition with talented dancers, hard choreography and weekly costume malfunctions. Not kidding. Every week somebody's dress falls apart. They're made from sequins and that really thin ribbon paper that you decorate children's birthday parties with. It's weird that they spend so much energy on the other parts of the performance and so little on wardrobe.
Not that I watch that show.
Not that I watch that show.
Justin Chen - I think that's how they get people coming back to watch the show.Jul 19DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼If you live under an oppressive regime, it's important for good communication to be able to post anonymously. But if you live in the United States, the quality of the communication seems to be higher if you require people to post with their real identity.
Sit on that angry post for a night, kids. The nerf-ing of your favorite weapon in Starcraft isn't worth it.
Blizzard To Require Real First and Last Names For Official Forums - Slashdot: Games
An anonymous reader writes "Recently, Blizzard Entertainment implemented a Real ID feature for some of its current games and all of its future Battle.net-based games. Today, Blizzard announced that it...Expand this post »
Sit on that angry post for a night, kids. The nerf-ing of your favorite weapon in Starcraft isn't worth it.
Blizzard To Require Real First and Last Names For Official Forums - Slashdot: Games
An anonymous reader writes "Recently, Blizzard Entertainment implemented a Real ID feature for some of its current games and all of its future Battle.net-based games. Today, Blizzard announced that it...Expand this post »
Timothy Chen - Yea when I read that yesterday, I decided I would not purchase Starcraft II. Their policies surrounding their community and LAN play is disappointing. Curse Activision.Jul 7DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Brian Shih - I assume you saw that they rolled back on this decision already? http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20010198-1.html Jul 11DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - Thanks, Brian. I can see Blizzard's point of view in this. The level of dialog (at least in the States) is lifted when people use their real names. Witness Facebook or Buzz conversations vs. YouTube conversations.
I can also understand kids not wanting to create a permanent legacy documenting their gaming habits.Jul 12DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
I can also understand kids not wanting to create a permanent legacy documenting their gaming habits.Jul 12DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Brian Shih - Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I am still surprised that Blizzard thought there wouldn't be a huge backlash to this.Jul 12DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Nick Achtien - Have you guys been following the slew of posts about this on Reddit?Jul 12DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Nick Achtien - Check this out - http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Americans-are-bad-at-games/Real-Names-on-the-Official-Forums-New-REAL-ID-function/1#comment_610660?gr_i_ni Jul 12DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Timothy Chen - <3 Reddit. There was definitely a lot of anger/amusing posts before they made removed plans for Real ID.Jul 12DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Nick Achtien - @Timothy, totally agree. The reddit community is awesome.Jul 13DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mariano Calixte Pictet - I'm totally cool to have my real first, middle and last name on buzz. I'd even like there to be a way to prove that they are indeed my real names (I'm in Europe) but I would never buy a game from a brand that obliges you to add your real name. I want to be able to be anonymous when I want to, and I definitively want to when I'm gaming.Jul 14DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anne Bunner - I'm glad to hear that Blizzard rolled back this decision, because it would have been very conducive to stalking and other kinds of violence against women.
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/07/wow-fail.html Jul 18DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
http://shakesp
Jeff Johnson - I am for requiring a registered account to comment or communicate, but I do not feel it necessary to require real names. I naturally skip anonymous posts now so it does not bother me any longer.Jul 18DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼The iPhone 4 may have a reception problem. Maybe. So a few people got together (with some lawyers) and said, "I'm only getting one bar. Let's sue the bastards."
It's wrong that companies have to spend money defending against jerks like these. It takes so much work to build, market and launch a product on that scale.
I have a Droid and, in as much as one can have a "side" in the smart phone wars, I'm rooting for Android. But Apple should be cleared in this case. They made a striking, new design and it may have a glitch or two. Welcome to technology. These things are hard to build!
It's not like it explodes...
It's wrong that companies have to spend money defending against jerks like these. It takes so much work to build, market and launch a product on that scale.
I have a Droid and, in as much as one can have a "side" in the smart phone wars, I'm rooting for Android. But Apple should be cleared in this case. They made a striking, new design and it may have a glitch or two. Welcome to technology. These things are hard to build!
It's not like it explodes...
6 people liked this - Barbara Bunner, Ginger Makela Riker, Hadi Montakhabi, Hoshang Varshney, Jen Hsieh and Nick Achtien
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David Dickens - It's a hard call. If there is a "defect" in the product, customers should be compensated. It only costs more because the company who originally sold the product did so with said defect. That being said, law firms should pick up the tab if they bring this stuff without some minimum standard of evidence.Jul 2DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Barbara Bunner - I certainly hope Apple doesn't get financial punishment for this "defect", I have a blackberry Tour and I'm on my 3rd one (the other two were defective) and no one is taking "legal" action against RIM. I'm going Android next time!Jul 2DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - I'm looking at it from the perspective of an engineer. Every non-trivial piece of software ever shipped has bugs in it. If the standard were "You have to ship bug-free software or you'll get sued" then product cycles would be painfully long. If we put too high a burden on innovators, they'll stop taking risks.Jul 3DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Justin Chen - I thought part of the issue was how Apple responds to these kinds of "defects." I think if they just said "Yes, sorry, there's an issue and we're going to fix it either with firmware or discount sleeves," then there'd be less people having an issue with it.Jul 4DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Nick Achtien - If you cover up any phone's antenna, you will have issues... just like if you cover up an LCD screen, you own't be able to see it.Jul 6DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - Justin's probably right about the response. Getting defensive or trying to place the blame elsewhere doesn't usually win people over in any dispute. I'm not saying "Apple's doing right", but from where I sit, the plaintiffs are doing wrong.Jul 6DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mariano Calixte Pictet - I agree. The iPhone is allowed to have defects, every phones has some. The problem is that Apple doesn't want that: they live off fanboys that believe that everything Apple does is more than perfect so they can't say "sorry, we $%&! up, but you can get a free plastic thinggy that solves the problem"Jul 14DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼Cute! The fox is built with this URL:...
“My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.”The Little Prince, Chapter 1 - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Drawing Number One Inspired by the Little Prince and in honor of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 110th birthday, we are dedicating this blog post to his timeless masterpiece The Little Prince. The Little Prince starts with a picture titled “Drawin...Expand this post »
“My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.”The Little Prince, Chapter 1 - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Drawing Number One Inspired by the Little Prince and in honor of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 110th birthday, we are dedicating this blog post to his timeless masterpiece The Little Prince. The Little Prince starts with a picture titled “Drawin...Expand this post »
@trench hcnert@ - On my phone... Returning to this for inspection.Jul 12DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - @christina isabel That's right! I still have it :-)Jul 12DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼Aren't you glad you don't live in Russia?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h-AsZk82lwI6hMLTJsletdUI6b0A
http://www.
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Like
Reshared 
▼Found on a Google whiteboard (credit: Steve Kobes) 2000 Charleston Rd, Mountain View, CA 94043 - Show map
21 people publicly reshared this - ShowNiranjan Tulpule, Ryan IT Lab, Brian Larson, Igor Foox, Abhishek Sethi, Roger Nelson, Rahul Gaitonde, Jon Perlow, Steven Rose, Erik Hanson, Joe Rideout, Andrew Maxwell, Jeff Timanus, Nicolaus Mote, Bin Chang, Kim Krieger, Matt Steiner, Kyle Consalus, Robert Konigsberg, David Matthews and John Pongsajapan
17 people liked this - Andrew Maxwell, Angela Bunner, Anne Bunner, Barbara Bunner, Darrell Webb and 12 others, James Salsman, Linda Lawrey, Louis Gray, Mariano Calixte Pictet, Matt Mastracci, Nick Achtien, Olivier Melcher, Ryan IT Lab, Sam Castillo, Sean McBride, Tiffany Teng and Todd Jackson
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James Salsman - Are camels additive in the frequency domain?Jul 7DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Ryan IT Lab - I love these!
More Google White Board posts.
Somebody better be collecting these!Jul 7DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
More Google White Board posts.
Somebody better be collecting these!Jul 7DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼go_nuts: RT @enneff: At the #golang tutorial, one thing people seemed delighted by was the simplicity of the rpc package. So many possibilities... - Twitter / go_nuts
go_nuts: RT @enneff: At the #golang tutorial, one thing people seemed delighted by was the simplicity of the rpc package. So many possibilities...
go_nuts: RT @enneff: At the #golang tutorial, one thing people seemed delighted by was the simplicity of the rpc package. So many possibilities...
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Like▼
Reshared bradfitz: RT @anildash: An absolutely amazing video of a new user discovering the front-facing video camera on iPhone 4: http://2.dashes.com/bnN1IW
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Like▼How could this sculpture be done with only 530 rolls of packing tape? Those would be some giant rolls.
Packing Tape Cobweb Sculpture - CRAFT
John Baichtal @ Make: Online spotted this packing tape installation by numen / for use that utilizes 530 rolls of the stuff and was executed over two days in Vienna. Read this article | Comment on this articleExpand this post »
Packing Tape Cobweb Sculpture - CRAFT
John Baichtal @ Make: Online spotted this packing tape installation by numen / for use that utilizes 530 rolls of the stuff and was executed over two days in Vienna. Read this article | Comment on this articleExpand this post »
6 people liked this - Cassius Wright, Kol Tregaskes, Linda Lawrey, Stéphanie Pluquin, christina isabel and nassim ghribi
Andrew Bunner - @June Tong I hear you're not using Buzz...Jun 20DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
James Salsman - Is this packing tape or pallet-packing plastic? See also: http://oilduct.pbworks.com Jun 20DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼How to Plant Tomatoes: 8 Things I Put in the Tomato Planting Hole - Kitchen Stewardship
I’m no master gardener, but I am a perfectionist and rather thorough when I decide to tackle a project. Three years ago, my new things was vegetable gardening. As a result of all my reading, watching me plant a tomato is almost like watching me make a complicated recipe in my kitchen. The 8 Things I put in my Tomato Plant Holes (Other than the Tomato Plant) for Awesome Yield: - banana peel - ...Expand this post »
I’m no master gardener, but I am a perfectionist and rather thorough when I decide to tackle a project. Three years ago, my new things was vegetable gardening. As a result of all my reading, watching me plant a tomato is almost like watching me make a complicated recipe in my kitchen. The 8 Things I put in my Tomato Plant Holes (Other than the Tomato Plant) for Awesome Yield: - banana peel - ...Expand this post »
7 people liked this - Christopher Johnston, Denis Labelle, Jen Hsieh, Jerrald Buchanan, Michael lee and 2 others, Steven Zhang and metalerik .
Anne Bunner - How can you contribute to the systematic torture, abuse, exploitation, and slaughter of animals while gardening? Fertilize with milk and dead animal parts!
Remind me not to eat your non-vegan tomatoes.Jun 13DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Remind me not to eat your non-vegan tomatoes.Jun 13DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Dave Cohen - It's biodynamic! At least this recipe uses fish heads and not cattle skulls like they do for biodynamic wine.Jun 13DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anne Bunner - Actually, the dead animal parts are less objectionable, because that is waste. No one is going out and paying fisherman for bones and heads, and you could probably get them without contributing to the fishing industry at all (ie, free). But the milk comes at a price:
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/ohdairy/ Jun 14DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
http://www.me
Dave Cohen - Don't forget the carbon footprint of the banana peel.Jun 14DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Laurence Gonsalves - Yeah, even as an omnivore, the "put some powdered milk on the soil every few weeks throughout the growing season" jumped out at me as being kind of... weird/extravagant/non-sustainable/incongruous.
That said, while that dairy farm video is horrific, it seems unlikely that that's typical of what happens at a dairy farm. I guess what I'm saying is I'd need to be convinced that the average (or better yet, most) dairy farms are cruel, rather than one particularly cruel dairy farm, before I'd agree that milk = cruelty. In the meantime, I hope the people in that video are punished severely. Jun 14DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
That said, while that dairy farm video is horrific, it seems unlikely that that's typical of what happens at a dairy farm. I guess what I'm saying is I'd need to be convinced that the average (or better yet, most) dairy farms are cruel, rather than one particularly cruel dairy farm, before I'd agree that milk = cruelty. In the meantime, I hope the people in that video are punished severely.
Anne Bunner - Laurence, you could not be more wrong about the dairy industry. The bottom line is this: if you bought in in a supermarket (Whole Foods counts as a supermarket), it was made on a factory farm. Factory farms are, without exception, places filled with torture and death. Every single time an undercover activist goes to a factory farm, the result is a horrific video documenting numerous violations of USDA policy. Remember the Hallmark/Westland meatpacking scandal of 2008 that caused the largest recall of beef in the history of the nation? That was a plant that slaughtered dairy cows, and it was shut down because of an HSUS undercover video. In addition, the production of veal is part of the dairy industry. The animals shown being abused in this video ( http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2009/10/veal-investigation.html ) were born on an organic dairy farm. These three cases are basically all of the undercover investigations that have been done in the past couple of years, because these organizations operate on small budgets and can't make new videos every week. The places they pick to investigate are not places with existing records, generally (although it sounds like there was a documented pattern at the veal plant.) They are randomly chosen, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that Conklin Dairy is any different than any other dairy farm. And even if there is variation between farms in the number of times a sick cow is kicked in the head and/or tasered, the confinement itself is something a decent person would judge very harshly if they saw it done to a dog. If you need more evidence, watch the movie Earthlings. Or read Cass Sunstein's book. This is not an argument you are going to win. The evidence for widespread, horrific abuse of animals in US agriculture is as overwhelming as the evidence for evolution. And there is only one way to describe people who continue to insist that humans aren't related to apes, or that meat, milk, and egg production is not an assault on the humanity of our nation: Denialists.
In other news, Biodynamic winemaking ~= witchcraft :) Speaking of cow bones, though, they aren't free. The sugar industry creates demand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_char Jun 14DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
In other news, Biodynamic winemaking ~= witchcraft :) Speaking of cow bones, though, they aren't free. The sugar industry creates demand: http://en.wikipedia.
Laurence Gonsalves - I think you misunderstand. I'm not arguing that dairy farms are not cruel in general. I'm just saying that a handful of videos isn't enough evidence to convince me that they are.
It's interesting that you bring up the evolution debate, because there is a similar issue that comes up in both situations: burden of proof. In the question of "are all dairy farms cruel" I think the burden of proof falls on those who say that they are. After all, people are innocent until proven guilty, even if they work at a dairy farm. Given that the burden of proof is on those claiming that dairy farms are all cruel, videos from a couple of farms showing cruelty isn't enough evidence to prove universal cruelty, any more than a blurry image of Jesus on a slice of toast proves divine intervention.
In fact, I find it even harder to believe that we've seen all of the videos from these undercover operations, or that these farms were randomly selected farms, given that they all show extreme cruelty. It seems very hard to believe that every single dairy operation has such rampant cruelty and yet the only people who have reported it are undercover animal rights groups. It seems more likely that some sort of selection bias is at play here. Either all of the videos are from farms where known abuses had taken place, or undercover videos were recorded at farms where no abuses were found and those videos were not published.
In any case, like I said, I'm not trying to argue with you. You've at least made me think about the issue, but I'll need more evidence to be convinced. I'll look into the movie and book you mentioned.Jun 14DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
It's interesting that you bring up the evolution debate, because there is a similar issue that comes up in both situations: burden of proof. In the question of "are all dairy farms cruel" I think the burden of proof falls on those who say that they are. After all, people are innocent until proven guilty, even if they work at a dairy farm. Given that the burden of proof is on those claiming that dairy farms are all cruel, videos from a couple of farms showing cruelty isn't enough evidence to prove universal cruelty, any more than a blurry image of Jesus on a slice of toast proves divine intervention.
In fact, I find it even harder to believe that we've seen all of the videos from these undercover operations, or that these farms were randomly selected farms, given that they all show extreme cruelty. It seems very hard to believe that every single dairy operation has such rampant cruelty and yet the only people who have reported it are undercover animal rights groups. It seems more likely that some sort of selection bias is at play here. Either all of the videos are from farms where known abuses had taken place, or undercover videos were recorded at farms where no abuses were found and those videos were not published.
In any case, like I said, I'm not trying to argue with you. You've at least made me think about the issue, but I'll need more evidence to be convinced. I'll look into the movie and book you mentioned.Jun 14DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - @Anne Bunner is my sister and @Angela Bunner is my wife.
These are some of the most well-thought out comments I've seen on Buzz. Thanks, @Laurence Gonsalves and Anne. I was going to share something about whale sashimi, but not anymore!Jun 15DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
These are some of the most well-thought out comments I've seen on Buzz. Thanks, @Laurence Gonsalves and Anne. I was going to share something about whale sashimi, but not anymore!Jun 15DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anne Bunner - I'm sorry if I misled you, but this statement: "the only people who have reported it are undercover animal rights groups" is patently false. In 2001, the Washington Post published an extensive article about slaughterhouses, which is where all dairy cows end up. The article cites former employees, veterinarians, government records, even a meat inspector, in its discussion of the far-too-common occurrence of live cows being strung up, skinned, and cut up--cows that were supposed to be dead. The washingtonpost.com link won't work for me (see below) , but the text of the article is reprinted here: ( http://www.hfa.org/hot_topic/wash_post.html )
Many of the practices that animal welfare activists work to end are, in fact, industry standard practices that the meat, egg, and dairy industries don't deny. I mentioned confinement earlier, but there is tail docking in the case of pigs and de-beaking in the case of hens. These things are done because the suffering of animals just doesn't matter to people in the industry, although Prop 2 showed us that it matters to the public.
In addition, industry types talk about "losses," ie, animals that die in the sick and torturous environment of a factory farm because they develop illnesses that are a direct result of their environment and the way they are treated, kind of like a Guantanamo Bay detainee dying from positional asphyxiation. A classic example is the two illnesses that result from a diet of corn in cows, that Michael Pollan discusses in The Omnivore's Dilemma: bloat and sepsis. Bloat is when the cow can't burp because the rumen has been rendered bubbly by the corn, and the cow suffocates because the rumen squeezes the lungs. Sepsis is when the boundary between the rumen and the bloodstream is damaged by the acidification of the rumen caused by corn, and the bacteria that normally digest food get into the bloodstream and kill the cow. In this example, the cow sometimes receives treatment before it dies, but such is not the case for many animals in agriculture.
Why would the sadism and barbarism you've witnessed be at all exceptional? The workers and management at these plants were no different than they are at any other plant, and we know that animal agriculture is profoundly unpleasant work. We also know these workers are spending their time in the same horrific and torturous environment as the animals, so they are probably profoundly unhappy. We also know they are underpaid and suffer from all kinds of worker's rights abuses like threats of deportation and such. We also know that terrified, tortured animals frequently resist the efforts of humans to hurt and kill them, often violently. How is that not a recipe for animal abuse? Believing that the sadism here is exceptional is like believing that your abusive boyfriend is really sorry this time and he really won't ever hit you ever again, baby.
But go ahead and fool yourself into believing that the sadism you've witnessed is exceptional. Even then, there is enough suffering in factory farming to make a decent person cringe. But there will be another video just like those three as soon as the HSUS can come up with the funds to send a man without an identity to another randomly selected slaughterhouse.
I'd also refer you to this very well-cited document:
http://www.veganoutreach.org/dairycows.html
Broken Wash Post link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A60798-2001Apr9¬Found=true Jun 16DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Many of the practices that animal welfare activists work to end are, in fact, industry standard practices that the meat, egg, and dairy industries don't deny. I mentioned confinement earlier, but there is tail docking in the case of pigs and de-beaking in the case of hens. These things are done because the suffering of animals just doesn't matter to people in the industry, although Prop 2 showed us that it matters to the public.
In addition, industry types talk about "losses," ie, animals that die in the sick and torturous environment of a factory farm because they develop illnesses that are a direct result of their environment and the way they are treated, kind of like a Guantanamo Bay detainee dying from positional asphyxiation. A classic example is the two illnesses that result from a diet of corn in cows, that Michael Pollan discusses in The Omnivore's Dilemma: bloat and sepsis. Bloat is when the cow can't burp because the rumen has been rendered bubbly by the corn, and the cow suffocates because the rumen squeezes the lungs. Sepsis is when the boundary between the rumen and the bloodstream is damaged by the acidification of the rumen caused by corn, and the bacteria that normally digest food get into the bloodstream and kill the cow. In this example, the cow sometimes receives treatment before it dies, but such is not the case for many animals in agriculture.
Why would the sadism and barbarism you've witnessed be at all exceptional? The workers and management at these plants were no different than they are at any other plant, and we know that animal agriculture is profoundly unpleasant work. We also know these workers are spending their time in the same horrific and torturous environment as the animals, so they are probably profoundly unhappy. We also know they are underpaid and suffer from all kinds of worker's rights abuses like threats of deportation and such. We also know that terrified, tortured animals frequently resist the efforts of humans to hurt and kill them, often violently. How is that not a recipe for animal abuse? Believing that the sadism here is exceptional is like believing that your abusive boyfriend is really sorry this time and he really won't ever hit you ever again, baby.
But go ahead and fool yourself into believing that the sadism you've witnessed is exceptional. Even then, there is enough suffering in factory farming to make a decent person cringe. But there will be another video just like those three as soon as the HSUS can come up with the funds to send a man without an identity to another randomly selected slaughterhouse.
I'd also refer you to this very well-cited document:
http://www
Broke
http://www.was
Laurence Gonsalves - You make some good points, but every time you use phrases like "go ahead and fool yourself" or "...to make a decent person cringe" it just makes me want to disagree with you. Try leaving out the personal attacks and people might be more persuaded by your arguments.Jun 16DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼I literally (as in "actually) LOL'd reading this.
Reshared New York resident Kathy Evans brought humiliation to her friends and family
when she set a new standard for stupidity with her appearance
on the popular TV show, 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.'
Evans, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two, got stuck on the first question
and proceeded to make what fans of the show are dubbing 'the absolute worst use
of lifelines ever.' After being introduced to...Expand this post »
8 people liked this - Andrei Palchys, Angela Bunner, Christopher Chen, Dave Cohen, Hoshang Varshney and 3 others, Sam Castillo, Sasha Gerrand and Sean McBride
Steven Rose - I ~love~ this story. And I absolutely ~love~ it when people humiliate themselves. Which is why debunking this pains me so :-) - http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/gameshows/millionaire.asp Jun 15DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - Oh no! On the one hand, I'm happy for humanity, but this debunking is a blow for humor. Thanks, Steven.Jun 15DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼Messenger Social: Building the Ultimate Social Dashboard for Staying in Touch while Eliminating the Noise - Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life
Over the past year or so, I’ve been part of the team working on building the next version of the social news feed on Windows Live. Yesterday, the next iteration of this feature was made broadly available on http://home.live.com and http://profile.live.com. As I look back at the work we’ve done there are a number of things I love about the philosophy behind what we’ve built and the actual featur...Expand this post »
Over the past year or so, I’ve been part of the team working on building the next version of the social news feed on Windows Live. Yesterday, the next iteration of this feature was made broadly available on http://home.live.com and http://profile.live.com. As I look back at the work we’ve done there are a number of things I love about the philosophy behind what we’ve built and the actual featur...Expand this post »
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Like▼Oh crap. I missed their talk :-/ They're building a Javascript game engine (2D isomorphic... think Diablo 2). Pretty ambitious.
dextrose_inc: Presentation at Google inc in Mountain View went well! Now heading to a exclusive interview with ajaxian.com, after that we will visit Yahoo - Twitter / dextrose_inc
dextrose_inc: Presentation at Google inc in Mountain View went well! Now heading to a exclusive interview with ajaxian.com, after that we will visit Yahoo
dextrose_i
dextrose_inc: Presentation at Google inc in Mountain View went well! Now heading to a exclusive interview with ajaxian.com, after that we will visit Yahoo
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Reshared Too Bad All Salty Snack Ads Aren't This Clever [Clips] - Kotaku
There are two words that can be used to describe these ads. The first word is "funny". The second word? "Brilliant". More »
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Like▼[Via Laurence Gonsalves]
MY DESK IS 8-BIT - Vimeo / Videos Laurence Gonsalves likes
I recently found myself wondering what a video game might look like in the form of a stop motion animation. While a normal person's response to such a question would of course be "who gives a shit?" I possess few of the qualities typically associated with normalcy and was irrevocably compelled to find out. This is the result. Also, I'd like to think I'm the first person to be inspired by Miche...Expand this post »
MY DESK IS 8-BIT - Vimeo / Videos Laurence Gonsalves likes
I recently found myself wondering what a video game might look like in the form of a stop motion animation. While a normal person's response to such a question would of course be "who gives a shit?" I possess few of the qualities typically associated with normalcy and was irrevocably compelled to find out. This is the result. Also, I'd like to think I'm the first person to be inspired by Miche...Expand this post »
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Laurence Gonsalves - I can't believe I hadn't seen that Rymdreglage video before. Commodore 64 references + Lego!Jun 7DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Like▼Work pic of the week courtesy Steve Kobes 2000 Charleston Rd, Mountain View, CA 94043 - Show map
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Like▼This is outside the office of my new boss 2000 Charleston Rd, Mountain View, CA 94043 - Show map
13 people liked this - =GoogleBuzzMan=Y.Shintaro=Jsonicboom =, Amy Baggott, Christopher Johnston, Dean Benninger, Gord Wait and 8 others, Joey Rozier, Josh Wills, Kol Tregaskes, Kyle Weller, Louis Gray, Michael lee, Peter William Lount and Todd Jackson
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Peter William Lount - Sweet!
On the Thai island of Koh Samui (http://thailandforvisitors.com/south/samui/bigbuddha/index.html ) there is a statue shop in the market next to the Big Buddha statue tourist trap/temple. It has many of these Alien critters! Check it out: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/holly_ken/1/1259433901/alien.jpg/tpod.html .
Did your boss get it from there?Jun 3DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
On the Thai island of Koh Samui (http://thailandforv
Did your boss get it from there?Jun 3DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Angela Bunner - I can't imagine how that'd get through airport security!Jun 4DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Brad Garland - RE: Airport security: hidden in a chest cavity!Jun 4DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Andrew Bunner - @Peter : I don't know where he got it, but it sure looks like the same style! Quick-link for the curious: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sm5ZRQNeQF4/Sd7shKkOyyI/AAAAAAAAA74/kMLmdIZqzvs/s1600-h/100_2043.JPG Jun 7DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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Reshared The video below shows a simple machine that moves faster than the object that propels it; it is analogous to the unintuitive fact that it is possible to build a machine that uses the power of the wind to move directly downwind, at speeds faster than the wind. (This is somewhat similar to, but distinct from, the ability to sail faster than the wind, that I discussed in the blog post linked below.)...Expand this post »
Sam Castillo - Very clever. I was completely wrong, but as soon as I saw it move it made perfect sense.Jun 6DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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