In the event you're stopped by overzealous law enforcement or security officials attempting to enforce fictitious laws, I've designed these fictitious and official-looking Photographer's Licenses. If you have Adobe Illustrator, you can download the vector art EPS file and print your own. You'll need a photo of yourself, and OCR or an equivalent-looking font to fill in your personal information.

Department of Homeland Security Photographer's License
San Francisco Muni Photographer's License

[Via jwz.]

Psychopaths usually play on the sympathies of others. When people’s empathic responses are aroused, they are less inclined to scrutinize an individual’s behaviour, or they will attribute bad behaviour to an abusive childhood or other trauma. This provokes the sort of nurturing response that enables the psychopath to manipulate and extract what he wants from others.

The psychopath can be an exciting companion at first because she takes risks that others wouldn’t take and thus can appear courageous and impressive. Psychopaths often pose as brilliant eccentrics, misunderstood geniuses or difficult artistic types, and so people are inclined to attribute bad behaviour to a creative temperament. Self-assured, cool under pressure and socially adept, they may appear larger than life...

Because many psychopaths have a surplus of charm and the gift of gab, they are able to dazzle their audiences and con them into believing all sorts of outrageous stories. Excellent self-promoters and fast talkers, they boast and dazzle their targets with a variety of grandiose plans. The target usually experiences a wild ride and is left disappointed, financially poorer and wondering how everything the psychopath said could have seemed so plausible at the time.

You must listen to the words of Sun-Tzu. If you will not listen to the words of Sun-Tzu, one third of your army will die, one third of your army will desert you and one third of your army will point at you and accuse you of being obsessed with dividing everything by three.

thefourthvine

Tonight was the night the science project results were revealed, at my nephew's school's open house, and my sister was supposed to take a picture so I could show all of you.

Except she couldn't. Because my nephew's project, alone among all of them, was not displayed. After much back and forth with various people, my sister learned that apparently some people were uncomfortable with his conclusions. Specifically the part where he said that what he really learned from this project was that some people don't want to be called boys or girls, and that those people need an "other" option. (And also that they tend to prefer blue to green.)

jamjar

It's miserable and cheap and it insults the subject that teacher is meant to be teaching and the whole point of a science fair which is to show how science works.

Instead, it shows that science and the scientific method is only allowed to work when it doesn't do anything to make people uncomfortable. And you know, I'm old fashioned enough to think that that's something people should only learn when they're post-grad.