February 2009
56 posts
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How much is your moral outrage worth to you?
spiegelman writes:
Three of the most archaic laws still on the books come with substantial opportunity costs that can be measured in dollars:
1) Ban on Marijuana. By keeping pot illegal, we’re wasting money keeping non-violent felons in overcrowded jails, and depriving the state of billions in tax revenue.
2) Death Penalty. It is more expensive for the state to execute a felon than to...
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And Were All the Copy Editors Out to Lunch, or...
Marco linked to David Pogue’s review* of Amazon’s Kindle 2, but I couldn’t make it through the first two paragraphs without my pedant hat bursting into flames.
Pogue begins:
In the high-tech industry, you live for the day when your product name becomes a verb. “I Googled him.” “She’s been Photo shopped.”
Well, no. Because that’s the first step towards the...
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How I Will Be Celebrating Pancake Day
c. attrib.; Shrovetide cock, a cock tied up and pelted with sticks on Shrove Tuesday;
1768 J. TRUSLER Hogarth Moralized 180 Throwing at a cock, the universal shrove-tide amusement. 1789 WOLCOTT (P. Pindar) Subj. for Painters 7 Martyr beat like Shrovetide cocks with bats.
Seriously?! Sounds like fun times.
(via the Oxford English Dictionary’s Daily Word)
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penllawen:
… Second: almost every major phone manufacturer agrees to move to a single charger standard (microUSB) by 2012. Which is great news! But why did it take so long to agree, and why is it going to take so long to do? Get on with it already! Owning redundant chargers makes baby tech Jesus cry.
Quite. Each of my Nokia seven phones* has had a different charger from all my previous...
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Five Greatest Gunfights of the Old West →
David E. Petzal’s Five Greatest Gunfights of the Old West:
Number Four: The Frisco Shootout
(December 1, 1884, Lower San Francisco Plaza, NM)
On that date, the self-appointed town sheriff, one Elfego Baca, arrested a cowboy who had shot at him. Baca was in turn attacked by 80 of the cowhand’s friends, and took refuge in an adobe house.
Over the course of a 36-hour siege,...
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In Latinamerican Spanish-speaking countries, he is known as “Mario Baracus,” while in Spain, he is M.A., for Mala Actitud, a literal translation of the original
Italy - his moniker is P.E. for ‘Pessimo Elemento’ (roughly assimilable to ‘Bad Guy’);
Russia - he is known as D.N., Durnoi Nrav - the Russian equivalent of “Bad Attitude”
France - he is referred to as Barracuda
Japan - Kong...
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rock 'n' roll
ragbag:
when the accordion first came out in fin de siècle europe, the catholic church called it, “hell’s bellows” on account of the fear that its dance-inciting sound would lead youths into temptation.
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Review of cold medicines
Marco used the opportunity of his recent illness to write an informative and amusing review of various cold medicines. An excerpt:
Natural stuff (vitamin C, zinc, herbal “remedies”, etc.)
Pros: No side effects.
Cons: No effects.
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Selected highlights from the Times Online obituary for Terry Spencer, a celebrated war photographer and WWII fighter pilot:
“Spencer downed a record of eight V1s and, like other V1 “aces”, developed a technique of nudging the bombs with his wingtip, toppling the V1 gyro and causing it to crash. …
Sent to Nigeria to do a story on the Sultan of Kano, Spencer received a cable asking...
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squashed:
Apparently Michigan’s economy is now so spectacularly bad that some counties are unpaving roads. Since gravel roads are cheaper to maintain, some county roads are being chopped into gravel.
Wow.
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“When men are employed, they are best contented; for on the days they worked they...”
– —Benjamin Franklin
It is disheartening that I have only just discovered this psychology in myself in the past few years, when Benjamin Franklin knew it a long time ago.
(Quoted in Shawn Blanc’s excellent review of the excellent Mac and iPhone task-management app Things, both...
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Why is it that we say...
…seven o’clock, but we never say seven thirty o’clock?
Seven-thirty is just as “of the clock” as seven is, so why does it get no o’lovin’?
Does it have anything to do with the prevalence of accurate time-keeping devices when the phrase was popularised?
Also, what the hell is going on here*, why do they not acknowledge the existence of the time...
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Map of Twitter during the Superbowl →
Sod it. May as well go the whole hog and have a geek day. Check out this very cool interactive map of Twitter posts made during the Superbowl by the NYTimes. I love the sudden burst of “Springsteen” at halftime.
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Nikon release 35mm f/1.8 for £199 →
This would be incredibly infuriating if, for the sake of example, you had shelled out over £200 for a 35mm f/2.0 lens*, only a month ago.
Thanks, Nikon.
* That’s less good, non-camera nerds.
(tip of the hat to Ben for the link)
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Countdown to a Cool Time →
This is easily the geekiest thing I have posted on here, but I just couldn’t resist. Only 3 days to wait!
I know what you’re all thinking. “But Richie! When was epoch time 55378008? Did we miss it?”
The answer, my friends, is 48 seconds past 11:46pm on Sunday, October 3rd 1971. And I’m afraid you did.
(via Andrew Butterworth, via Stephen Fry)
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“Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on...”
– Depressing, but also encouraging. Try harder! You’ll get there!
(via mischadehart, via jacobd)
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