Not So Fast

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.

Legos were temporarily banned then after some communistic re-education re-allowed at one school.

And in Hilltop’s new Lego regime, there would be three immutable laws:

• All structures are public structures. Everyone can use all the Lego structures. But only the builder or people who have her or his permission are allowed to change a structure.
• Lego people can be saved only by a “team” of kids, not by individuals.
• All structures will be standard sizes.

Woohoo! So much for letting your imagination run wild.

You know those “road ends” type signs? You should believe them rather than your GPS unit.

My sister on some intarweb TV thing talking about Darfur.

Apparently you need some massive bandwidth to watch more than 5 seconds consecutively. Otherwise the audio runs fine and you get the funnest looks on their faces when it freezes. Good luck.

This is a fun little “war”.

Flash point for WWIII?

Scott Ott is running for President money. That’s worth a buck.

Better Living through Activism. Excellent voice work.

via IMAO

The real reasons the Iranians are holding British sailors.

Soon it won’t matter where you buy your full-price books.

$7.99 for a 300 page paperback indeed.

Blackmailing greens on Ebay.

It doesn’t seem to be working. I think he needs bigger trees. Hmm, I could threaten the 30′ pines in my yard. I hate all the raking they cause me anyway….

No posts yet today. I wonder what I’m doing with myself. Maybe some later, possibly. You should probably just amuse yourself with the links to the right though.

Fry’s, $25.00 this week.

IMHO, taking people’s wash out of the machine and stacking it somewhere is not a breach of etiquette. The other person should have been there to take it out themself. If you relinquish that responsibility don’t be getting upset when someone does it for you. And don’t dump a used litter box into the washing machine.

Also, taking stuff out of the dryer is appropriate too. Really, really nice people will fold it for you.

Well, the Executive branch’s ferocity in silencing critics is legendary.

A NASA scientist who said the Bush administration muzzled him because of his belief in global warming yesterday acknowledged to Congress that he’d done more than 1,400 on-the-job interviews in recent years.

via Inoperable Terran

A new random Strongbad cartoon.

I want one.

This and this.

Which causes me to think, once again we had our Gay ’90s (I mean that in the classic sense and you know it) when all was well with the world, more or less. Leading to a bit of turmoil in the ’00s and what’s next? Another world war based on obscure reasons that are never clearly taught in history class, in a decade or so?

Somebody did say something or other about history repeating. Miss Shirley Bassey, I think.

Fred Thompson on Iranian sensitivity to 300.

Because even though I know all the words in the sentence, they don’t make any sense when they talk about cricket.

Windows versions through the years ranked for you convenience.

Annoying PETA is fun! I have no idea what I’m going to eat today, but no doubt meat will be involved.

It looks like idiots and the insane will no longer be barred from voting in New Jersey.

Who looks at the word idiot and thinks it applies to them?

The test said so.

Average score: 17.5
My score: 26
I’m 44.6% smarter than average.

And I clicked the wrong button at least once. So I’m smarter than I am coordinated. Or something.

GrandCentral.com is way too cool for the phone companies to let go on unchallenged for too long.

Now maybe electrons are just the end of long noodles of something or other. And there’s another state of matter to memorize.

Solid, liquid, gas, plasma, string-net liquid. It doesn’t flow. They need to work on that.

Unless you’re a Caesar with dictatorial ambitions. In that case, watch out.

IM conversation with my brother. He lives in Alaska and I’m afraid he’s turning into a hippy.

Josh : I don’t believe in summer anymore
Kristin : Ah. Yes, you’re just confused.
Josh : Well when I get to see summer again in 2008 then I might be straightened out but with moving in Sept I shall not see summer this year……Al Gore was right…..all of it!
Actually it was a decent watch for a documentary but that’s beside the point
Kristin : good to know. Still don’t plan to watch it.
Kristin : Watch out for swimming polar bears.
Josh : I’ll hug them and offer them hope.

Victor Davis Hanson on the Hugh Hewitt show.

Where have you people been for the last 6 years?

“Although we know the deficit is the symptom and spending is the disease, taxpayers ought to have the right to have their budget balanced, and balanced without tax increases.”

You only laugh because you think it’ll help.

I dunno.

This week’s Strong Bad email got a chuckle out of me. Therefore you should watch it.

/Coach Z ftw

This is the kind of hard-hitting bullet-pointed political advice I need about the potential presidential candidates.

Daylight savings time bites. I’m not opposed to more daylight, or saving energy, or farmers having more light to work with, or any of those things it’s supposedly for. What I am opposed to is altering my internal clock. Why can’t we keep this time throughout the year if it’s so gosh darn important. I love the fall back part of the whole thing, but I’d gladly forgo it if it didn’t mean having to spend a couple weeks as a zombie a few months later. So enough with this wishy-washy switching back and forth. Congress, pick something and stick with it year round.

If you’re looking to buff up your geek status here’s a little musical help remembering the ST:TNG show titles.

Searchable Calvin & Hobbes database.

via EO

They have a name for the next Star Trek movie. Drum roll, please…..

….

….

….

….

Star Trek.

tada!

The Super Doughnut. An important part of this complete breakfast.

“I started my company, Super Foods, in 1990 with the goal of improving the doughnut,” said Harris, who studied food service and administration at Penn State before joining the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1972.

This man is living the American dream.

Adobe plans to put out plug-ins that detect alterations in photos.

South Korea and the European Union are setting up Laws of Robotics. They only need 3, or possibly 4, but I’m sure this will be some big old complex thing.

Yes, it’s changes in baseball that will save us from global warming. The impact of baseball on the planet cannot be exaggerated.

Some of the scariest and coolest VW Beetles you’ve ever seen.

The sneaky large-billed reed-warbler is fitter than conservationists thought.

I’m just going to say it. I think it should be a blanket rule that when security finds anything foreign (especially metallic items) in a body cavity search, you and your luggage shouldn’t be allowed to travel.

He made me laugh. Aloud.

“It’s not about sales,” I protested. “What profiteth it a man if he maketh a gazillion bucks but loseth hith entire thivilithathion?”

Yes, it’s cheap. That doesn’t make it less funny.

VDH reviews 300.

Commodore wants to bring back the glory days with high end gaming PCs.

I think C64 and I think Axel F, cause one summer we programmed them to play the song. Sweet.

Drew Curtis solves the news problem.

No more Nintendo for you.

If so, the researchers said, health officials who want to reduce obesity may need to broaden their approach: “Perhaps the most productive interventions will be those that target children’s behavior not only during school hours but also, and most important, after the bell rings.”

I can’t wait for health officials to intervene in children’s private lives. That will end well.

I’m underwhelmed.

I have a nationally recognized ID, my passport. It’s what I use when I fly nationally and internationally specifically because no one argues with it. The Idaho driver’s license gets funny looks.

Now I just know I’m going to have to pay more when I get my driver’s license renewed to pay for this secure new driver’s license which will be hacked within days, if not before, it comes out.

Finally, maybe the game will do what I want it to, instead of what buttons I accidentally push.

You thought we’d always have Paris, but the AP editor says no.

When did “denuclearize” become a word?

I would watch local news if it were more like this.

That’s right, offensive to all. No more bland, milksop reporting. I want comedy. I want to be entertained.

The DMV must be stopped.

Back in the day this promised fun thrills for kids. Today, fun thrills for lawyers.

It’s all been done before.

The high-stakes war to stabilize the fragile democracy in Iraq is a serious, costly and controversial business. But so have been most conflicts in American history. We need a little more humility and knowledge of our past — and a lot less hysteria, name-calling and obsession with our present selves.

Robots, WETA, biological studies, and tuataras.

Hugh Hewitt talking to Andrew Roberts, author of History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900.

The Helix Nebula. (warning: large pic)

Alien has been used as a legal description of someone from another country for what, hundreds of years?

“I personally find the word ‘alien’ offensive when applied to individuals, especially to children,” said Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami. “An alien to me is someone from out of space.”

I’m sorry you are not particularly skilled with the English language, but should the rest of your state have to suffer because of this?

Notice, it’s for the children. Of course.

How handy to have all your remotes in one easy to reach place.

The Economist on Gore’s response to his massive monthly energy bill critics.

The electricity usage is what Mr Gore consumes after things like solar panels and CFLs are taken into account; it’s hardly comforting that he could be emitting even more carbon, since that is true of almost all of us, yet has not stopped Mr Gore from hectoring us to reduce our carbon output still further.

On the margin, it may make some difference, since demand for electricity is not perfectly elastic, but nowhere near the one-for-one equivalence that carbon offsets would seem to suggest. Especially since the worst offenders, big coal-fired plants, are not the ones that renewables will substitute for; solar and wind power are not good replacements for baseload power.

LOL.

The cabbie that tried to run over a couple of passengers after an argument about religion, Ibrahim Sheikh Ahmed, is of unknown religion. The cops did manage to find out that the victims were Catholic and Lutheran. How they failed to find out the perpetrator’s religion is beyond me.

Not unlike those of no appearance in Australia.

Kids are more narcissistic than ever before. I wonder why?

Narcissism can have benefits, said study co-author W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia, suggesting it could be useful in meeting new people “or auditioning on ‘American Idol.”‘

So they have that going for them. Until Simon tells them the truth and they have a complete breakdown on national television.

“Permissiveness seems to be a component,” he said. “A potential antidote would be more authoritative parenting. Less indulgence might be called for.”

It’s like no one saw the consequences of the last 20 years of conventional wisdom in parenting.

We don’t have enough time for 24, but Dave Barry does.

Where were these people when I need them. Not that I actually did any homework, but I could have done without the hit to my grades from not doing it.

Tim Blair further documents the Gore Effect.

It’s a little scary when the UPS guy recognizes your name and although a package is addressed to your house which is on a different route, grabs a package and delivers it to you at work. Yes, that’s how famous I am.

I do appreciate that the package is not going to sit outside on my porch all day.

The US is beating Europe at the global cooling game.

According to data from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, from 2000-2004–the most recent period for which we have good, comparative data–U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1.3 percent. This is an increase, but a very modest increase. The EU-25, on the other hand, increased collective emissions by 2.1 percent.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

Those wacky polar bears.

Further explaination.

She genetically engineers cats to look like tigers the old-fashioned way.

Ordinary people with ordinary abilities.

Lileks has this North Korean cartoon. Sort of a GI Joe meets meets the Smurfs (if the Smurfs were animals) with brief musical numbers as interludes.

I can only assume that the raggedy animals underground are the Norks. Are we allowed to say that? I’m pretty sure we can.

Buzz Aldrin writing about the moon and the coming moon base.

On my last trip to the moon I didn’t get to stay the whole day and had to share my accommodations with another man. If I could go back, I would expect not only a larger room, but a longer moment to gaze at the stars and the cloudy blue ball that should only be mankind’s starter home.

Mugabe prepares for his birthday party.

The party has been deducting money from civil servants’ wages and bullying near-bankrupt businesses for donations to raise the 300 million Zimbabwean dollars (about £30,000 at real exchange rates) to pay for the celebration on Saturday

Tim Blair on the Great Australian Light Bulb Switch.

Australia’s output of greenhouse gases amounts to 1.6% of the global total. A reduction of 4 million tonnes in one year will cut that output to … 1.58%. Not a bad trade in exchange for becoming a half-illuminated nation of squinty mole-people.

Moving a church. Even without the choir it is a bit bizzare. Beautiful weather they’re having though. (via EO)

The horse that raced in some French bike race. The “oo la la” and “toot suite” from the commentators is the best.

Caturday III. The cats, they crack me up.

This just in, movies are not real. And now digital manipulation is making them even more not real, in a very realistic way, of course. Who knew?

Free pancakes at IHOP today. A late lunch perhaps?

Some saber-rattling going on in Eastern Europe over interceptor missiles that the US wants to put in Czech Republic and Poland as a deterrent against Iran, but Russia thinks is aimed at them. This will end well.

Bonus picture of a Russian general that looks surprisingly like the one in Stargate SG-1.

Motto: Making free market economies look good for 90 years now.

It’s all peace and love and really long bread lines in Venezuela.

via Right Wing News

Only Dave Barry today, seems Lileks is mired in writing “other”, more “important” things.

Not his normal sparkliness, but still good stuff.

The United States’s Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is all uptight about a Japanese ad.

I’ve told you this before, but I feel like sharing it again.

Little Debby Nutty Bars is the snack food of the gods. The wafery crispness, the creamy peanut butter, the chocolatey goodness, it’s the complete package.