Category Archives: Uncategorized

You can get a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon delivered to your email address every day, if you want.

The local news starts reporting on it.

YTMND.

Adapt or die, silly animals.

“Extinction rates are rising by a factor of up to 1,000 above natural rates. Every hour, three species disappear. Every day, up to 150 species are lost. Every year, between 18,000 and 55,000 species become extinct,” he said.

“The cause: human activities.”

A “Red List” of endangered species, however, lists only 784 species driven to extinction since 1500 — ranging from the dodo bird of Mauritius to the golden toad of Costa Rica.

Craig Hilton-Taylor, manager of the list compiled by the World Conservation Union grouping 83 governments as well as scientists and environmental organizations, said the hugely varying figures might both be right, in their way.

“The U.N. figures are based on loss of habitats, estimates of how many species lived there and so will have been lost,” he told Reuters. “Ours are more empirical — those species we knew were there but cannot find.”

So, every year something between 1 and 55,000 species are lost. Thanks for clearing that up.

It’s nice to see a positive spin in the news.

At lunch, the sun was out, it was getting near 60 and I opened my sunroof to let a little air in my car.

Little suspecting that it was going to hail and pour rain for an hour this afternoon. CURSES!!!!!

Pulp fiction, a defense.

Our entertainments have become effeminate and puritanical in their perversely and contradictorily sexed-up way. The pulp writers were red-blooded; contemporary popular fiction is “blue” in the pornographic sense and “blue” in the sense of its prickly correctness. Give us the red mist of the Lost Venusian Sea! To invest a few dollars in any of these beautifully produced books is to vote for civilization over barbarism.

Whales lost, refuse to ask for directions.

And why didn’t the traffic on the bridges bother them when they were going upstream?

Iowahawk does the Star Tribune. Genius.

You know how something just get paid monthly for years and you don’t pay any attention to them? Well, that’s all fine and dandy until your credit card number changes and they don’t get their money. Anyway, good times are in store for all of us now that I can post again.

And other Harry Potter spoilers.

Pat Buchanan and Rosie O’Donnell both defending Ron Paul. Ow, my head.

Kuh-niggit.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Google has completely revamped its look.

And iGoogle is cute. For a useless thing like a portal.

Fat people aren’t jollier than thin people.

Except Santa.

And people that listen to this song.

Thor.

May we never return to the 70s. Please.

A partial list of things that aren’t funny.

Which reminds me of a joke: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

That’s not funny!

Cordless iron.

What a clever idea.

I grant you there is probably some actual improvement in heat consistency with the newer model.

Thompson passes on the debate, which would have been spectacular, but this video is 40 seconds of genius.

See the pictures people are posting right now on Flickr from around the world.

I’ve been wondering if it was just my imagination or if there was an actual increase of autism in this country lately. The key question of why remains unanswered. I’m going to go ahead and blame Bush.

Reinventing the wheel.

A British inventor has come up with a way to prevent thousands of tons of plastic milk bottles from being dumped in landfills each year.

Martin Myerscough of the English town of Framlingham, has developed a recyclable cardboard bottle with a biodegradable bag inside to hold the milk, Britain’s Independent newspaper reported.

So, kinda like this eh?

Ridiculing your strongly held beliefs, and making a profit too.

The building fell at the rate science predicts it should fall. I blame Bush Giuliani.

On how his hometown has changed. I love his euphemisms.

He was a conspicuous figure because, having lost the use of an eye and both hands in an exchange of views in Afghanistan, he sported an opaque eye plus a hook to theatrical effect. Not as nice as he looked, Abu Hamza was nonetheless unfailingly generous with his hospitality. Overnight guests at his mosque’s sleeping quarters have included Richard Reid, the man in whose honor we now all have to take off our shoes at the airport, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the missing team member of September 11, 2001. Other visitors included Ahmed Ressam, arrested for trying to blow up LAX for the millennium, and Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian who planned to don an explosive vest and penetrate the American Embassy in Paris. On July 7, 2005 (“7/7,” as the British call it), a clutch of bombs exploded in London’s transport system. It emerged that one of the suicide murderers had been influenced by the preachings of Abu Hamza, as had two of those attempting to replicate the mission two weeks later.

It’s your fault Katie Couric isn’t doing better in the ratings.

“So I flounced off in a big queeny huff”

The 20 best Nike commercials.

I don’t know if I could even identify 20 Nike commercials. Love their shoes though. They just fit well.

Someone noticed that a warmer earth isn’t necessarily a worse off earth.

During the so-called Medieval Warm Period between about 900 and 1300 A.D., for example, the Vikings raised livestock on Greenland and sailed to North America. New cities were built all across Europe, and the continent’s population grew from 30 million to 80 million.

Driving home, facing west, 9:13pm, something big and flaming with a green tinge came streaking down the sky in front of me. Not like sissy Perseids or Leonids meteors, really big.

This is a reminder to check the news in the morning.

Yeah, the poor snake.

Two Stargate movies are in the works. Most importantly, one has Richard Dean Anderson in it.

George Lucas must be stopped. The fate of the world depends upon it. The suck emanating from these ideas threatens to consume the planet.

Sarkozy is starting off well….

Canada accounts for half of the pirated movies in the world. I had no idea. Also, the caption on the picture at the top of the page is not to be missed.

The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world. We are the Sioux nation,” Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons said, referring to the Civil War American general George Custer who was defeated by Native Americans in a battle dubbed “Custer’s Last Stand”.

I don’t think that analogy means what you think it means. Custer was an idiot for fighting that battle. You’ll notice that the rest of the army didn’t have his problems and ended up winning that war.

France is leaving behind Chirac. And heading toward the right.

First lesson: Don’t outsource your top secret type work.

According to the affidavit, investigators began probing the cell last January, when a video store worker contacted them after a customer brought a DVD to be duplicated. The DVD showed 10 young men “Shooting assault weapons at a firing range in a militia-like style while calling for jihad and shouting in Arabic ‘Allah Akbar’ (‘God is Great’).”

Also, DVD stands for “digital verstatile disc” , not “digital video disc”.

One step at a time.

One of the best kept secrets about men is this. There are only a few – maybe five – on this entire planet who know how to deal with hysterical women. Thankfully, none of those men were in the room and the ones who were went immediately into the classic, “pacify at all costs!” response. “Good God!” the looks on their faces said. “Make it stop! Someone please give her what she wants!”

Lileks’ column in his local newspaper is canceled. The internet is outraged.

Eight hours of sleep in three hours. Imagine the time I could waste if I only needed three hours of sleep.

El menú hoy: carnitas, con salsa y guacamol, y horchata. Hago una degradación de esta receta y muy entusiasmado acerca de tener algún alimento mexicano bueno. Si hay una cosa que pierdo acerca de California—aparte del tiempo, las personas y la variedad de cosas—es el alimento mexicano. Si tuve baterías que mostraría usted fotos de mi cocina deliciosa de carnitas, pero ay.

The menu today: carnitas, with salsa and guacamole, and horchata. I’m making a bastardization of this recipe and very excited about having some good Mexican food. If there’s one thing I miss about California—besides the weather, the people and the variety of stuff—it’s the Mexican food. If I had batteries I’d show you pictures of my delicious carnitas cooking, but alas.

freetranslation.com, ftw

More links than you can shake a stick at for the Republican candidate debate last night.

Okay, Bush isn’t on the Time’s list of the 100 most influential people of 2007. The man could say the sky is blue and millions would rise up, foam at the mouth and declare the sky to be green. That isn’t influence?

I’d also like to point out that it’s May, not December. Do they have fortune tellers giving them the rest of the year’s news or something?

So, I was cruising the internets looking at carnitas recipes (because I’ve never made them, people swear by them, and Cinco de Mayo is coming up) and I came across this site. That’s hardcore home cooking.

It still doesn’t help me decide on the whole boil in lard/boil in water, fry in fat controversy.

I admit the lolcats amuse me. Loltrek, well it starts slow, and the syntax isn’t quite right, but it picks up by the end.

An atheist’s delicate sensibilities was violently wrenched by an Al Gore presentation mentioning that God created mankind 200,000 years ago and a quote from the book of Genesis.

EFF has more than you want to know about the AACS-LA legal issues

It’s not the dying that kills you, it’s the resescitation.

The accent, the “yous”, the first half of class being announcements and attendance, great stuff. I haven’t actually learned anything yet, but I can’t stop listening.

Not that my teachers had Brooklyn accents, mind you.

It’s the new Truther site.

Let’s see how well that goes. I can’t wait to see how this whole Digg, Web 2.0, HDDVD DRM hack thing works out.

Digg founder’s words.

A wide-ranging essay on geopolitics and American political will.

Bonus: Sunni/Shia distribution map

I have a funny feeling this will end poorly. The plankton dying off will cause something, or crowd out some other vital little organism, or the sudden growth in numbers of whatever eats this plankton will cause something, and we’ll all be in a world of it.

A rundown of the Democratic candidate debate last night.

Also, Gravel!

This is just to remind me to try this Beyrl thing. Though that Bump looks cool.

Their Windows Home Server looks like a nice addition to any home network. So far.

If you have 3-D glasses laying around, you can see the sun in 3-D.

Or you can make your own glasses, if you want.

Proper picture-hanging procedure.

The eye-level thing is the most important one. It drives me nuts when people hang their pictures up where no one can look at them.

Flying cars, Class M planet, and now hyperdrive.

It’s been a great week.

There’s a woot-off today!

Book art. It’s a little painful to look at, but I guess you could do it to books you don’t like.

This morning I was at the grocery store. I was over in the healthy section picking up a power-type bar and had to get something for breakfast. I turned around and there was the healthy, granola-ey, organic cereals. And I thought, I need something for breakfast and they healthy-type people say this Kashi GoLean stuff is good for you, for a cereal, and it’s not any more expensive than what I was going to get anyway, so I guess I’ll try it.

Terrible idea. Now, I’m not the sort that demands my cereal be laden with sugar. I like Grape Nuts, after all. But this Kashi stuff is an abomination. Apparently it’s made of puffed twigs and rice and boy, does it taste like it. I don’t care how much protein it has per serving, it should not be eaten.

It gets a bit rah-rah at the end, but the article has a valid point that needs to be addressed.

This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year.

How the CIA got six embassy employees out of Iran in 1980.

“I can’t believe you’re the Cheating on me!“

If NASA would broadcast information about their flying car projects, people would drop the whole crazy astronaut thing.

Nevertheless, NASA is designing a flying car that would humiliate George Jetson. The agency is committed to a 15-year time line for three successive generations of flying cars. The first, scheduled for 2008, will resemble a compact Cessna with folding wings that converts to road use (it shouldn’t cost any more than a Mercedes-Benz). The second, with a rollout planned for 2015, will be a two-person pod with small wings and a rear-mounted propeller. The third will rise straight up like a mini-Harrier jet and should be on the market by 2020.

A hobbit-hole doll house. I have to say it’s cool, nerdy as it is.

The article is kinda dumb but this quote makes it all worthwhile.

Almost two years ago, also in Clovis, school authorities locked down Marshall Junior High School because a student was carrying a long object wrapped in a cloth. They soon discovered the object inside the cloth was a large burrito.

An eighth grader brought in the burrito as an extra credit assignment.

The White House praises Gonzalez. How long till he’s gone?

“He has done a fantastic job in the Department of Justice,” deputy press secretary Dana Perino told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One as President Bush headed for a speech in Michigan.

Some Republican anonymously objected to a government transparency bill.

UPDATE: Not Ted Stevens. Color me shocked.

Don’t swallow magnets, kids. Actually, just don’t swallow more than one magnet at a time, kids.

Feisty Fawn is out. I might have to upgrade. I’ve been using Dapper Dan for a while now on my laptop and have been quite happy with it. The reviews for Feisty Fawn look good though.

UPDATE: If it’s good enough for Michael Dell….

FURTHER UPDATE: Thunderbird 2. w00t!

Matt points out Ace’s rebuttal to Mark Steyn’s column on Virgina Tech. And I have to say, they’re both right. Mark Steyn is absolutely right that these are adults and that they should act like it. Ace is right too, we really don’t know how we will react. We like to think we’d do the brave thing, but whenever I’ve been in vaguely life-threatening situations my first, and only, thought has always been to duck and run. Would I turn around, I don’t know. Hopefully.

And what bothers me the most is the fact that we have to discuss this now. It is incredibly hard-hearted to talk like this within days of this tragedy, but by the time people have recovered the news will have moved on and no one will want to talk about these important issues.

It’s like YouTube, only boringer. Okay, this is interesting, Spore!

via Slashdot.

Speaking of YouTube, brriiinng. Also; woosh, woosh.

The Asian American Journalist Association wants us to stop identifying people by their ethnicity in the news.

As coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting continues to unfold, AAJA urges all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason. There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people.

You, too, could win a trip into space, courtesy of Buzz Aldrin. Other than that, details are sketchy.

The Wii is too good and not good enough at the same time.

It does have helpful warmup exercises.

Tim Blair fisks a global warming “it’s for the children” article.

“I don’t like global warming,” Alyssa continues, her eyes huge and serious behind her glasses, a stardust of freckles across her nose, “because it kills animals, and I like animals.”

So do I, little one. That’s why I own a barbecue.

Inkjet printer prints bone grafts.

It takes only ten minutes for the printer, which is the size of about three filing cabinets, to print a typical bone graft.

I love technology.

“Let’s try to define where we think we should end up, what we think the Internet should look like in 15 years’ time, and only then would we decide the path,” McKeown said.

The next internet should look like wireless neural implants with constant access from everywhere in the world. And possibly the moon.

/still waiting on that rocketpack

Nailgun injuries are on the rise in America.

It would be news if they were on the decline. That thousands of people would injure themselves with pointy bits of metal flying out of a readily available tool at incredible speeds should be obvious.

It’s a nice dream.

Survey says TV has become increasingly less intelligent. I would have said they were becoming slightly more intelligent. Which isn’t saying much, I grant you. Compare and contrast Hawaii 5-0 and CSI. Battlestar Galactica and Battlestar Galactica. Greatest American Hero and Heroes. Lengthier story arcs, more involved character development, I think it points to a more intelligent show.

Looks like Gore is installing solar panels in his mansion. In the coming days, barring a death of Anna Nicole Smith stature, we will hear how this is, a. the greatest thing evar and b. too little, too late, the hypocrite.

A supermassive black hole. And thanks to an eclipse, NASA roughly figured out the size of it.

It contains a so-called active galactic nucleus, or AGN.

So-called? Is there debate about the terminology?

A movie choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping, starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Can the world withstand the forces of awesomeness that will be emanating from this movie?

VDH doesn’t help at all.

If the United States could curb its voracious purchases of foreign oil by using conservation, additional petroleum production, nuclear power, alternate fuels, coal gasification and new technologies, the world price might return to below $40 a barrel.

We know all this, so what?

Kurt Vonnegut has died. RIP.

Those guys at Leeds have too much time on their hands, but if it makes a better bacon sandwich, who are we to complain?

John Scalzi and Tim Minear on Instapundit’s podcast.

If the otters and the polar bears changed places all would be well in the world

Google Earth is focusing on Darfur.

When users zoom in to a level of magnification that keeps most of Darfur on a computer screen, the icons seem to indicate that much of the region is on fire. Clicking on flame icons will open windows with the village’s name and statistics on the extent of destruction.

A useful description of the situation over there.

The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.

I’ll add my 5 tomorrow.

Probably not, but just in case…

Today’s posting is nonexistent because I’m busy bringing happiness and joy to the NGO workers in Darfur with a new line of clothing and mugs just for them.

Now I admit, if you don’t have to deal with Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission or regularly get your vehicles hijacked, these probably aren’t the products for you. But feel free to buy them anyway and make up more culturally relevant meanings for yourself.

Statements from the released hostages. I like the camo/blue/camo pattern in the picture.

Mark Steyn and VDH on the Iran/Britian hostage thing.

We invade Iraq to get the oil, and now they’re going to send it to China, Vietnam, Indonesia and India first. Meanwhile gas prices creep toward $3.00 here.

I’m so confused.

Why reporters should pass 5th grade life science before writing a story about squid.

They are deadly, huge and fast moving. Their tentacles can suck the life out of a human being and they’ve arrived in Northern California.

Tentacles suck the life out of you? Like the Wraith? Flay the skin off of you, sure. Suck the life out of you? Not so much.

They are giant squid.

These aren’t giant squid. Giant squid live far below the surface and rarely seen. These are probably Humboldt squid. Which are large, but not “giant”.

Squid aren’t fish. They are molluscs.

More interesting than it’s more popular cousin, BB stacking. No really.

See, if your nice to people, they let your hostages go.

Someday we’ll find out what kind of deal was actually struck.

An article to let you know that science doesn’t know exactly what makes us happy yet.

Lyubomirsky, Sheldon and another psychologist, David A. Schkade of the University of California, San Diego, put the existing findings together into a simple pie chart showing what determines happiness. Half the pie is the genetic set point. The smallest slice is circumstances, which explain only about 10 percent of people’s differences in happiness. So what is the remaining 40 percent? “Because nobody had put it together before, that’s unexplained,” Lyubomirsky says. But she believes that when you take away genes and circumstances, what is left besides error must be “intentional activity,” mental and behavioral strategies to counteract adaptation’s downward pull.

I probably won’t be bringing this up again until the end of the season and then only if they do well, so Go Padres!

Bush vetoed another bill! That makes, what, two so far?

Not that I mind the veto.

Top 100 April Fool’s pranks of all time. Or at least the last little while.

PC World ranks the 50 best tech products evar. I was expecting more along the lines of fire, the wheel, abacus, Babbage Difference Engine, Turing machine, ENIAC, you know, that sort of thing.

Instead I got Epson MX-80, Mirablis ICQ, and Netscape Navigator. All time = 30 years at PC World.

Lileks fills in for Dave Barry this week.

Eventually. Some, however, will be dying of nasty, virulent super-bacteria.

“Infection with MRSA outside hospitals is not uncommon, but this is the first time we’ve seen such a highly virulent and quickly progressing strain. Treatment is difficult and we want to warn people in the medical profession,” she said.

Apparently, blogging is writing and writing is about words. I learn something every day.

International blame shifting over Britian’s 15 hostages. Ingenious.

You will now be able to get DRM-free music from EMI and Apple, for a slight additional fee.

At least they offer it. Baby steps.

You too have a chance to have Saturn’s hexagon named after you.

A quick history of how Mugabe got power.

True words, but I don’t think Europe is going to change any time soon from it’s anti-Americanism.

In the future, smaller nations in dangerous neighborhoods must accept that in their crises ahead, their only salvation, even after the acrimonious Democratic furor over Iraq, is help from the United States.

Quite simply, there is now no NATO, no EU, no U.N. that can or will do anything in anyone’s hour of need.

Scary and painful. Our brains are interesting things how they manipulate us and all.

How to output your RSS feeds via Morse code. So handy.

Awesome keyboard, btw.

Every so often I go watch a batch of the I’m a PC/Mac ads.

I recommend:

• Self Pity
• Meant for Work

13 wacky things about the universe to keep you up nights.

Yes, the future will be completely different from today. Why look at my nuclear kitchen and my robot slaves and my trips to the moon, and my rocketpack!

WHERE’S MY ROCKETPACK!!!

Despite the serious consequences of delay, I think I’m still all for Congress not doing anything.

Mark Steyn gives us all another thing to worry about.

Lesson learned: Women, don’t take math tests in swimsuits.