timxu

Over the past few weeks, I’ve discovered a new source of procrastination, one that has come to compete with reddit for my procrastination time. That source is Quora. Introduced to me by my manager from this past summer, Quora is not dissimilar to reddit in that it’s a community of people who post things, reply to things, and can rate up (or down) their fellow members’ posts. The key difference, however, is that Quora is focused on asking and answering questions. Given the fact that there are several members who are quite knowledgeable in their own fields – including some who are CEOs or VPs at startups! – the answers can be very enlightening. Further, because of the reply mechanism, debates and discussions can form around these answers, making for very entertaining reading.

You can read about an extensive criticism of Google+, why companies might fail at international expansion, or even the reason it’s bad to eat right before going to bed. It’s fascinating to read, and remarkable how people are willing to describe, explain, and debate at such a high intellectual level on the Internet. To me, it’s an alternative to the more basic entertainment of reddit, though I haven’t been able to contribute much in terms of answers, mostly due to my lack of deep expertise in any one topic. I definitely recommend it if rage comics or cute kittens isn’t enough for you.

In fact, you shouldn’t really give guns to anyone. But that’s beside the point. I went to the movies earlier and saw Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express. Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and, especially, Robert Downey, Jr. were pretty hilarious in Tropic Thunder, but they really can’t compare to Seth Rogen and James Franco in Pineapple Express. If you haven’t seen the trailer, the film’s a classic Apatow about a pair of stoners who are on the run from the drug lords. This eventually involves a laugh-to-tears chase scene and guns. Lots of guns. I’m not going to elaborate more – go to the theater and check it out for yourself – but it really verifies what we’ve seen already: movies make stoners seem like the funniest idiots ever. It’s like America’s Funniest Home Videos on crack, literally, for two hours. So, kids, don’t do drugs. Just go to the movies and watch stoners beat and shoot each other silly. Hey, maybe it’ll give you a natural high.