RConversation

"Sadly, No!" on Monday's "Cyberspace riots"

For mature eyes only... Sadly No! reports: Newsweek Retraction Sparks Riots in Cyberspace.

Required equipment for prospective boyfriends

You can buy this mind-reading machine now on e-bay.

(via Nick Lewis via Mind Hacks.)

This is why I love the internet.

Home flu remedies

After a year and a half of not getting sick, I've finally come down with a nasty flu. 12 years of living in Asia has put me off Western cold and flu medicine, so I'm taking some herbal Chinese stuff and making my usual Chinese chicken soup. Recipe:
- fill a pot full of water.
- chop up a big chunk of ginger and throw it in
- peel a head of garlic and throw most of it in
- cut up a big leek and throw it in
- throw in a bunch of chicken wings and/or a few chicken legs
- boil on low until the chicken starts to disintegrate

Somebody once told me about a home flu remedy of beer, pears, and ginger all boiled together, though I've never tried it. Would anybody else out there like to share their home remedies?

The Blogosphere & The Delta Quadrant

Various people have recently accused me of being from outer space. Now I've been outed.

Can't hide anything from these durn bloggers, can you?

Weinberger's blog-valentine sonnet

Berkman genius David Weinberger has the first entry in our Valentines Day sonnet contest. Here it is:

How do I blog thee? Let
Me count the odious ways.
As a producer of sweat
Thou compares to a summer's day.

I blog thee a fool,
a villain, a back door
spammer, a stool
pigeon turned crack whore.

You are so shreddible,
A vampire twice-bitten,
a journalist non-credible,
an eater of kittens.

Yes, each hateful word, suspect or ratty
Does, my love, boost you at technorati.

Kittengate

This latest scandal looks to be my downfall... this guy leaked the story first.. then this guy... now there's a del.icio.us tag... Joi Ito is on top of it... as is Bill O'Reilly, according to Nick Lewis... who is concerned enough about my Google reputation to censor himself. I thanked him for that and he replied with an interesting comment on the "high velocity of information."

In order to pre-empt the impending emergence of "kittengate.com," demanding release of photographic evidence, I hereby regurgitate the following:

恭喜发财！The Rooster Year Begins

If you live in Asia or have spent any time there, you know that today is Day 1 of the Year of the Rooster.   According to Chinese lore, this is a 本命年 - or "fate year" - for all people born in 1909, 1921, 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, and 1993.  That includes me (guess which year).  Chinese fortune tellers believe a person's "fate year" is not necessarily good or bad, but it can be tricky.  Traditionally, you are supposed to wear a red sash (红腰带) around your waist for your entire "fate year" to ward off bad luck.   Among modern urban Chinese who believe in hedging their bets, this has morphed most commonly into a red string worn around the hips under the clothing... although I happen to know somebody who wore red underwear (没错， 红裤衩！) - but not the same pair - for his entire "fate year." He didn't have a very good year, though. Maybe because he didn't have enough red pairs and sometimes ended up wearing other colors...

What am I doing to hedge my bets this year? Not telling. 

Thanks, Ethan.

So I emailed Ethan about some stuff and complained about a boring date I recently went on. He replies oh so sympathetically:

Uh, no offense, but you have to be the world's most intimidating dinner date:

RMack: Well, I used to be CNN 's bureau chief in Beijing, but it wasn't challenging enough, so I moved to Tokyo and became bureau chief there as well. What do you do?
Date: Uh, I'm an accountant.
RMack: So what do you like to do in your spare time? Me, I'm training for a half-marathon and helping reinvent media through weblogs. And you?
Date: Uh, I collect comics...