And you are here why?

*Every* coffee bean is individually examined - this is a passion for excellence!!!

In a short but blistering article ( "Dear Silicon Valley: Not everything can be solved with apps" ), Engadget's Nicole Lee calls out the hubris at the center of Silicon Valley's app-mentality. It's all part of a Messiah complex that Silicon Valley is sometimes prone to. Facebook and Twitter often pat themselves on the back for being the sites where people speak of injustice, but that doesn't mean they're beyond reproach. It's great that  the official Twitter account called for racial justice , but that rings hollow when you consider the company's failure to deal effectively with the violent hate speech on its own platform. What we really need is not an app or a tweet. We need more than just talk. We need action. There needs to be increased education, awareness, sensitivity and empathy across the board. We need the tech industry to use its enormous clout to speak to legislators, to work with people and groups who have already laid the groundw...

The bell has been rung, the sausage-making has been observed...

Really, no comment on the awesomeness that is the UK Parliament MPs are to hold an emergency debate on the Wilson doctrine, amid fears the convention designed to prevent politicians' communications being spied upon is "dead". The Investigatory Powers Tribunal has ruled the convention has no legal basis. Shadow Commons leader Chris Bryant led a successful application in the Commons for an emergency debate in response to Wednesday's judgment. M r Bryant said the judgment had resulted in an ``ambiguity'' which needed to be cleared up urgently, adding it had also cast doubt on the protections supposedly afforded by the convention  

From Deadspin , comes this masterful takedown of the utter insanity that is the Williams-Sonoma catalogue . Selected quotes include your perfect children standing by the table in their john-johns and singing gaily to you all as you pipe fresh, warm cognac into each other's butts Seriously though, who spends $16 on sugar cookie mix? How hard is it to make your own sugar cookies? I bet this mix is just a box of sugar. "Just mix with eggs, flour, and salt!" Soon we'll have a peppermint bark origin story. Very dark. Very gritty. I worry about franchise dilution. It used to be about the BARK, man Hey, you know what? I'm selling my own cronut knockoff, too. Pay me $80, and I'll come to your house with a bag of flour, and then I'll kick you in the shins. The kick is gluten-free. Double-winged, double-grooved auger crushes and presses food for maximum yield and minimum oxidation." and a whole lot more.  Its worth the perusal, go check it ou t!!! ...

This, and I swear this is true, is definitely not from The Onion .  Veronica Dagher writing in the WSJ (and with an accompanying oh-so-helpful video ) explains how you can be broke on $400K/year.  In Chicago. (emphasis below is all mine) They live comfortably, travel frequently and pay the mortgage on a home worth more than $1 million . They send their two teenagers to public school and put away about $12,000 a year for retirement and $10,000 for college tuition ... The couple's annual take-home income is $273,000 after setting aside money for retirement and college and after paying U.S. and Illinois income taxes... They spend   $87,000 a year on their mortgage , $24,000 on property taxes, $25,000 on home maintenance and $15,000 on utilities, cellphones and other household bills...Groceries for the family of four cost $575 a week, or $30,000 a year. The family buys a new car every four years, which amounts to $15,000 a year on average, and spends $9,000 annua...

"It's not just a vegetable. It's what a vegetable should be." /via The Atlantic

I know, I know. Its like shooting fish in a barrel.  But the Gods of Humor demand it! Hitchens on a roll Scalzi on Atlas Shrugged  ( " Objectivism: the spongy white bread at the Great Buffet of Human Ideas" ) That said, it’s a totally ridiculous book which can be summed up as  Sociopathic idealized nerds collapse society because they don’t get enough hugs.  (This is, incidentally, where you can start your popcorn munching.) Indeed, the enduring popularity of  Atlas Shrugged  lies in the fact that it  is  nerd revenge porn — if you’re an nerd of an engineering-ish stripe who remembers all too well being slammed into your locker by a bunch of football dickheads, then the idea that  people like you could make all those dickheads suffer by “going Galt” has a direct line to the pleasure centers of your brain.  I’ll show you!  the nerds imagine themselves crying. I’ll show you all!  And then they disappear into a crevasse th...

Will wonders never cease? Just when you thought that Thomas Friedman could not possibly get more tone-deaf, he one-ups himself, and puts forth a dazzler, a gem, a masterpiece  like today's exercise in awesomeness - " Monetizing your closet " We first have Tracy DiNunzio extolling the wonders of Tradesy “We have a section on the site for wedding attire,” she explained. “We have seen three brides wear the same dress.” The first bought a Vera Wang wedding dress for $8,000 and then sold it on Tradesy for $3,000. The second wore it and resold it for $3,000. “So the bride in the middle of that trade wore her $8,000 Vera Wang wedding dress for free.” ... “For those at the cutting edge of this trend, durable goods are viewed as temporal objects to enjoy and pass on rather than ‘belongings.’ Personally, I no longer feel like I ‘own’ anything. I enjoy my consumer goods for a day, a week or a year, take good care of them because I assume they’ll go on to have another life wit...

They just had a fawning, fawning , article on The Brant Brothers, and I tell you what? You don't know who The Brant Brothers are? That, as it turns out, is the point! You don't, and, quite frankly, you don't want to! NOBODY should care who they are, except for the doofi at the NY Times Style Section who have decided that they are going to push them as the New Hilton Sisters! Anyhow, the NY Times Style Section had a fawning, fawning article on The Brant Brothers , which has such brilliant phrases in it as Harry, 15, and his 18-year-old brother are the well-spoken product of cross-pollination of the Übermenschen. “Everybody loves celebrity children,” said Stephanie Trong, the editorial director of The Cut. “But perhaps the biggest appeal is that these guys live in the lap of luxury and they’re extremely open about their exploits. How many teens go to couture shows or fashion parties, much less document them on their joint Twitter feed, in such a hilarious, unc...