Guys, guys, guys!

I'm famous. Well, more like I bought myself some fame from a cool webcomic that my friends recently introduced me to, Poly in Pictures (hi PiP visitors! sorry my site's so neglected and cobwebby). (And now the recursive linking circle is complete.)

Because it's not a proper webcomic post without an example:

confidence is an illusion

I came to this view of because people insist on viewing my various behaviors through the framework of confidence. When I have a realistic view of my ability to do some particular task well, I am labeled confident, as opposed to simply accurate. When I predict that I would be below average at some particular task, based on years of knowing myself, I am labeled unconfident when in fact I am simply right or wrong. Where does confidence come in?

I would extend this to optimism/pessimism - I hate those terms. They're both... useless.

genderfork

"I'd much rather have 'geek' as my gender. It tells you so much more about me." -Genderfork

Merry Christmas Dogbert

why some emails go unanswered - The Oatmail (comic)

Same goes for phone calls... (yay for voicemail transcriptions!)

XKCD: Sickness

you've surely all seen this by now, but still:

The Modern Iconoclast (Non Sequitur comic)

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller

xkcd strip - Positive Thinking

flavor text: "Having a positive attitude is almost tautologically good for your mental health, and extreme stress can hurt your immune system, but that doesn't mean you should feel like shit for feeling like shit."

Andy Ihnatko's Sheldon Moment

human nature in a nutshell (and why designing things that are new or different is always so challenging to get acceptance of):

I was having a true Sheldon Moment. I couldn’t come up with any credible reason why the sudden change to this familiar layout bothered me. Yet I found myself wanting to tell the person at the register “But that’s not where those tables go. Why would you do that?” in a calm but very firm voice.

The New Cosmopolitan

Looking for fans is about looking for people who appear to have given a great deal of thought to how they dress and what they’re doing, and who have, in the process of applying all this thought to their daily lives, concluded that they would like to behave differently from the norm.
....
Reading Patterson’s recent biography of Robert A Heinlein, Learning Curve, I was struck by how much fringey stuff old RAH dabbled in: telepathy, radical politics, polyamory (or ‘‘companionate marriage,’’ as it was called in his day), nudism, and all manner of funny business, all of which is reflected in his books, and all of which can be summed up with ‘‘all laws are local.’’

It's rather arrogant of me to claim this, but I like to believe that this is the philosophy of my entire life. I think that this is why the geek worlds tend to be much more embracing of things like "alternate" gender presentation, "fringe" sexuality, or many "nontraditional" lifestyles in general with barely a second thought.
[via Waxy Links]

"smart-phone" is an inaccurate name and why phone calls are so annoying

... When my so-called phone rings, my first reaction is "Shit. What's wrong now?" When I get an email or text message, I feel a tingle of optimism.

Text and email are polite invitations to a conversation. They happen at the speed and leisure of both the sender and the receiver. In stark contrast, when you get a phone call, it's almost always a convenient time for the caller and a bad time for the recipient, who I refer to as the "victim" because I insist on accuracy. My philosophy is that every phone conversation has a loser.

Yes, yes, and more yes. [via Marco]

"Building a Nation of Know-Nothings"

NY Times editorial on the horrifying political scene we have with even basic facts flagrantly lied about - this terrifies me - it is distressing how easily our species falls for this over and over again... and if we have this sort of purposely-spread lies/nonsense/ignorance on things so basic and fundamental, how the fuck can we make progress on things like transgender rights or not causing our own extinction or fixing our poverty gap... [via Daring Fireball]

quote of the day

"Trying to describe the gender spectrum using only 'man' & 'woman' is like trying to describe the color wheel using only 'red' & 'blue'"

- Genderfork

"it's not me, it's bad design" (comic)

by Lunchbreath

MC Lars - Twenty-Three

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

"This Is Why I'll Never Be An Adult"

Hypoerbole and a Half [via Derek Powazek]