The Gervais Principle

Here's an absolutely fascinating and insightful article about the psychology of company structures and lifecycles and the different roles people play within them, using the TV show The Office as an example:

The Gervais Principle, or The Office according to The Office

(This is from last year, but I didn't see it then, and it just got reposted on Hacker News. Long but worth reading all of it.)

It's quite dark and slightly cynical, but it's also pretty much spot on. Suddenly the business world makes sense.

The ideal religious fanatic

Sarah Vowell on Jon Stewart... with bone dry delivery:

He believed that those who didn't share his Puritan beliefs would burn in hell for eternity, and he thought that was punishment enough... on Earth we could all live together.

If there were more religious fanatics like that, maybe there would be fewer car bombs.

Video (if it deigns to allow full episodes in your area... else there is currently a shorter excerpt on the front page)

Things I've learnt from Mythbusters

1. You can get killed by someone else firing a gun into the air in a wild act of 4th-of-July glee. (Although not if they fire it straight up, because the bullets don't fall straight.)
2. When you get convicted for this in San Francisco, it is called negligent celebratory gunfire.