For people old enough to remember phone booths, a blunt reference to salary in a social setting still represents the height of bad manners. But for many young professionals, the don’t-ask-don’t-tell etiquette of previous generations seems like a relic. For them, salary information is now fair game, at least among friends. Many consider it crucial to prosper in an increasingly transient, winner-take-all workplace — regardless of the envy that full disclosure can raise.

— "Sharing Salary Figures on Facebook" by Alex Williams in the New York Times

On the eve of tomorrow’s hotly contested and relatively close Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania, a number of voting activists are sounding the alarm one last time about the state’s election systems. Over 85 percent of PA voters will vote on paperless touchscreen machines that are hackable, failure-prone, and fundamentally unauditable. 

— "PA primary will be unauditable; GOP blocks e-voting reform" by Jon Stokes in Ars Technica

Some people are determined to deliberately misunderstand much of what they encounter in life. Sometimes I have a hard time realizing that that’s their problem, not mine.

— Jason Kottke, interviewed at Clusterflock

CBS won’t be the only network experimenting with Realism Programs. NBC has a full slate of the revolutionary new programming planned, highlighted by Crooning With the Stars, Celebrity Hooverville, and New Deal or No New Deal. In that last show, contestants match wits with host Eddie Cantor for the right to receive government contracts handed out by a shadowy government figure — rumored to be Eleanor Roosevelt herself!

— "'Realism Programs' Turn Radio On Its Ear" from Radeeo, the April Fools edition of TeeVee

I told her I just want to bum around for a few years. She says, “your brother is a Vice President and makes over $100,000 a year.” Yeah, but we own the company. It doesn’t count when daddy buys you a business.

— Overheard in Harvard Square. Later she said she wants to open a bookstore in Italy, even though she doesn't speak Italian.

“Smart Balance really speaks to the essence of being a Brandeisian – a margarine-type oil spread that desperately wants you to believe it is butter,” says 2005 graduate Danny Silverman, now a systems administrator at a rival Massachusetts college. “Now substitute ‘Harvard student.’ ”

— "Brandeis butters up its brand" by Darren Garnick in the Boston Herald

Without giving away too many details of this stealth project, let’s just say if you’re looking for a decent knish, you’re gonna find a fuckin’ decent knish.

— Teaser copy from a site called Husky Jew. No idea...

What high-end clients pay for may surprise you. For example, according to my ongoing interviews of several hundred sex workers, approximately 40 percent of trades in New York’s sex economy fail to include a physical act beyond light petting or kissing.

— "Skinflint" by Sudhir Venkatesh in Slate

The superstitions that grip airport checkpoints and banks are themselves a threat to security, because the security that does not admit of examination and discussion is no security at all.

— "Time to fight security superstition" by Cory Doctorow in the Guardian

[N]ine-to-fivers have the connotation of someone with no passion, who’s just there for the paycheck. The spectrum is a lot wider than either you’re a nine-to-fiver or you’re a workaholic. That’s a bullshit dichotomy.

— "Fire the workaholics" by David Heinemeier Hansson at Signal vs. Noise

“We don’t tell these feel-good stories, these fairy tales,” Mr. Navarro responded to my unspoken skepticism. “It’s just what happened. It’s just how it is.”

— "Astounded in Arahuay", a progress report on the OLPC laptop project in Peru by Ivan Krstić

“Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss,” Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easy to measure in lost cash. In life, the costs are less obvious — wasted time, missed opportunities. If you are afraid to drop any project at the office, you pay for it at home.

— "The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors" by John Tierney in the New York Times

[A]nnoyed executives and analysts are wondering why someone would want to play a game with dry business calls that normally follow a tightly controlled formula — unless the game is the whole point. They can’t figure out how the caller is getting any benefit from so closely mimicking them. “If he was spoofing I would hope he’d be funnier,” says Bill Schmitz, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities.

— "Hoaxer Haunts Earnings Calls" by Betsy McKay in the Wall Street Journal. From the random humor department.

While continuing to hold Power, UP and HotSync, press and release the RESET button on the back panel of your device. This is very difficult to do with only one person; you may wish to hold the stylus in your mouth and use your hands to press Power, UP and HotSync.

— "Zeroing Out Palm" by Khoi Vinh. No wonder the iPhone is taking over.

In 1937, having run away from Greenville senior high school, where he had learned to wrestle and to play American football, he made his way to New York and then Washington DC, where a cousin happened to be the US assistant postmaster-general and took him in. By his own account, when he was 15 Fawcett had started an affair with his best friend’s mother. “If that’s child molestation,” he declared, “I would wish this curse on every young boy.”

— Obituary of Charles Fawcett in the Telegraph. In 92 years he fought the Communists (in several wars), rescued refugees and POWs, married six concentration camp survivors, acted in over 100 movies, slept with Hedy Lamarr, and convinced Charlie Wilson to fund his covert war in Afghanistan. Quite a full life.

Advertizing images display the Hydrogen 7 against a backdrop of wind turbines and solar panels. But the image is one of deceit. Because the hydrogen dispensed at the new filling station is generated primarily from petroleum and natural gas, the new car puts about as much strain on the environment as a heavy truck with a diesel engine.

— "BMW's Hydrogen 7: Not as Green as it Seems" by Christian Wüst in der Spiegel Online

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t to forget make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

— "As I was saying" by Neil Gaiman

So it’s not about language, and it’s not about “modeling the wrong behavior,” and it’s not about the color of your skin or your fur. It’s about class — the one subject that’s still taboo in America.

— Mark Pilgrim on why classic episodes of Sesame Street are now labeled as "not suitable for children"

I thought this was a movie about that casino in Las Vegas!

— My father, at the conclusion of Stardust

Among music industry insiders, Sergio Gómezs death and the previous killings are also forcing a quiet assessment of the influence drug trafficking kingpins wield over the business. It is common knowledge in Mexicos music industry, but not known to the general public, that drug cartels finance the careers of some budding musicians, then launder money through unregulated concert ticket sales.

— "The Savage Silencing of Mexico's Musicians" by Manuel Roig-Franzia in the Washington Post