Category: General

Please let this be the nail in the coffin of 733tsp34k.–if your Dad understands it, it’s not cool anymore. I can’t decide whether or not this is real, or a really good Onionesque parody; but intentionally or not, it’s hilarious. (And really, what sane person wouldn’t want to spend $400 US on a gold limited edition AvP tile?) Wow, a… Read more →

Both of my primary email addresses–the work one and the IEEE one that all my friends should be using–have spam filters that run on the server side. Both of those accounts, and some other less important ones, feed into my client-side mail store, on which I run a Bayesian spam filter. Very occasionally the server-side filter on my work address… Read more →

If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: nothing good will come of exploring the intricately carved ruins of the undersea cities. NOTHING GOOD. Tsunami throws up India relics By Soutik Biswas BBC News, Delhi The deadly tsunami could have uncovered the remains of an ancient port city off the coast in southern India. Archaeologists say they… Read more →

OK, so it’s sad that people are dying over this, but how can you not love a story about the underwater gnome colony? And, really, isn’t it a better story because the gnomes are potentially lethal, and have moved to a point where they are protected by the police’s own regulations? Underwater gnome threat ‘returns’ A secret underwater attraction that… Read more →

(If you were scared by some of my earlier posts following the US currency, you should stay away from this.) So, one of the interesting questions right now in the field of macroeconomics is: who is funding the US? Brad Setser has a great post outlining some of the aspects of this question. For example, we know that in 2003… Read more →

So, I have nothing but respect for Bob Geldof. ‘Diamond Smiles‘ is definitely one of my all-time favourite songs. ‘The Fine Art of Surfacing‘ is one of the best album titles ever. And ‘The Vegetarians of Love‘ is one of the most-played discs in my collection. Hell, I even read his autiobiography, and I don’t read biographies. And that’s not… Read more →

If you’ve been paying attention, then you will have noticed that Dan Gillmor recently stopped writing for the old media and has set out to explore the idea of ‘grassroots journalism‘ in this new century. One of the things he’s rethinking is the notion of objectivity in the media, and he has a lot of interesting thoughts. For example: Fairness… Read more →

So, in the course of confirming today that dans les vignes du Seigneur meant what I thought it meant (it does), I found The Alternative Dictionaries, which describes itself as ‘ a collection of various forms of “bad language” from many languages.’ So, if you ever needed to know how that in Hungarian the colloquial form of ‘go to hell’… Read more →

Apparently George Washington thought so, as a 229 year-old letter which is about to be auctioned proves: In the four-page letter dated May 9, 1776, he said the Loyalists detested their time in Halifax and preferred to die than to stay in the city. Fortunately, the city has improved greatly since the old days. Why, just ask the Barenaked Ladies.… Read more →

Oh my God. Please go and see “Query Letters I Love”, a blog dedicated to the public mockery of real Hollywood script queries from wannabe screenwriters. Here’s a sample bit: Micro Management is about evil midgets who take over Titan Industries, a United States defense contractor and missile manufacturer, and attempt to use the missiles to blow up Disneyland. The… Read more →

Look, I have always hated the idea of Ritalin. Hearing Henry Rollins do his spoken word bit about his experiences with Ritalin just confirmed all my uninformed prejudices. But, today I have seen something that I think is the most perfect, and most heart-rending, argument against it ever. Make with the clickie and see for yourself. The convincer. Read more →

“¿Quién es más macho…?” Read more →

First of all, let me just say that no matter how much the world blows dead goats, at least Jon is there for me. The worse things get, the angrier he gets, the funnier he gets. That being said, all I have to say is: “She’s a man, baby!” Of course I mean the alleged Isabella Rossellini, who we all… Read more →

In one of my earlier posts on the evolution debacle, I was lamenting the lack of Mencken-like reporters. Now (via William Gibson) I find a quote that causes me to lament even more for the broader political arena “…the larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, the first-rate man occasionally fights his way through,… Read more →