Do you suffer Computer Back? I do. Mine is caused by the terrible habit of hunching over the laptop while also curling my legs under the chair in a sort of corkscrewed position that is osteomuscularly nightmarish but somehow conducive to concentration. When I stand up I look like a stooped, slightly concerned turtle.

My chiropractor calls it “laptop neck”. I’ll definitely be trying some of these exercises.

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Kim Kardashian is emblematic of the shallowness of American culture in the first two decades of the new millennium. While some cultural critics call her the prime avatar of the “famous for being famous” faux celebrity crowd, she along with Paris Hilton is a new breed of cat whose celebrity comes from the release of a sex tape and the canny exploitation of the resulting publicity.

It’s been taken down by IMDB, but the linked post has a screen capture. (As “Ben Thoma” in the comments points out, bonus points for the algorithm that chose an ad for a Kia with “class-leading trunk space”.)

(Via @thecajunboy)

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(Via @GourmetSpud)

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3. Buy many small pleasures instead of few big ones

Because we adapt so readily to change, the most effective use of your money is to bring frequent change, not just "big bang" changes that you will quickly grow acclimated to. Break up large purchases, when possible, into smaller ones over time so that you can savor the entire experience. When it comes to happiness, frequency is more important than intensity. Embrace the idea that lots of small, pleasurable purchases are actually more effective than a single giant one.

Atwood references a paper co-authored by Dan Gilbert, whose excellent Stumbling on Happiness is a real eye-opener on human perception, emotion, and happiness. Highly recommended.

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First up, this history of the income tax from Planet Money explains that Americans are relatively all right with paying their taxes. At least, we’re not a place like Greece where almost everyone dodges their taxes.

But (linked from that post) you must watch this Disney propoganda film commissioned by the Treasury Department from 1943 when almost everyone had to start paying income taxes. It has Donald Duck learning that it’s his patriotic duty (“Taxes to beat the Axis!”) to fill out the new simplified tax form (“Dependents: Huey, Dewie, and Louie”). It’s amazing.

Next up, an essay from Mike Dang at The Billfold about how he likes paying his taxes:

This is the social contract, isn’t it? We’ve all agreed to not kill each other, and to protect one another from harm. I love this country that we live, and I want all of us to prosper. I think that these are goals that we all share, and I am happy to pay my fair share help us get to a place where everyone in my community is safe and cared for.

And, more forcefully, Stephen King would like you to raise his fucking taxes:

Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.

Preach!

/raises lighter

/no one else raises their lighter

I guess we don’t do that for tax policy?

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(Via Warming Glow)

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The whole operation functions smoothly as long as the blogger-journalist doesn’t make a mistake, because a mistake draws attention to the inherent cheapness of the product and the ethical dubiety of the entire process. You see, the Post—or any legacy news organization turned aggregator—wants to have its cake and other people’s cake too, and to do so without damaging its brand as a purveyor of original cake.

You can see the problem: the more pageviews you seek, the more the work turns to drudgery; but the more it becomes drudgery, the more exacting it becomes to protect the integrity of the aggregation process, and, with it, the Post's brand. […]

Call me a sentimental old English major, but if you read through Ms. Flock’s work you can practically feel this young journalist's desperation to write something—anything—that wasn’t first written, hours or minutes earlier, by someone else.

I don’t have to do this sort of thing full-time – thank the heavens – but the few times when I do have to regurgitate some PR babble for a little blog post at work, it is drudgery. It’s a challenge to rephrase things in a way that isn’t outright plagiarism that also masks your contempt for the task. You start to understand why many people just copy-paste the press releases and call it “news”: it's more honest, in its own way.

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This has resulted in a whole generation of photographers who have been constantly reinforced in the notion that "image quality" is an essential building-block of a successful photograph. Actually, it isn't. Actually, it isn't at all. One can find examples of anything, and I'm sure you can find examples of photographs that "work" primarily because of resolution or color accuracy, but most simply don't. You could also find examples of just as many photographs, if not more, that work primarily because of poor image quality or lower resolution or color inaccuracy.

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(Via Kottke)

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