i could care less

I just noticed this. After Deadline in the NY Times. It reviews spelling and grammatical mistakes in the newspaper. It's both interesting, informative, and funny. HA!

holy shit

Reddit has a "List your favorite 'Holy Shit' fact".  Some of them are interesting but I haven't verified any of them.  Read at your own risk.

1. Cleopatra was alive closer to the moon landing than the construction of the great pyramids
2. John Tyler, the 10th president has 2 living grandsons
3. Lightning is 7 times as likely to strike men
4. Cashews actually come from a Central American apple
5. There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover North and South America in one foot of water.
6. Charlie Chaplin took part in a Charlie Chaplin 'look-a-like' contest and lost
7. The number of ways to arrange a 52 card deck is close to the number of atoms in our galaxy
8. Aldous Huxley was George Orwell's high school French teacher

And one funny one.

In 100 years Facebook will be full of dead people (or better known as Zombiebook as someone commented)

rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Arabian Oryx Makes History as First Species to Be Upgraded from "Extinct in the Wild" to "Vulnerable"

While it was extinct in the wild it survived in zoos and conservation programs. That's one good looking animal.

[About Fred Astaire] "Sure he was great, but don't forget Ginger Rogers did everything he did backwards . . . and in high heels!" - Bob Thaves 1982

That's the best attribution I've found.  This is a pretty well known quote.  Used to show how women's accomplishments are often overlooked next to a man's.  I'm picking nits here but I can't for the life of me recall seeing Ginger Rogers dance backwards.  I've seen a couple of their movies and just checked on Youtube for some dance scenes I hadn't seen before.  And Ginger Rogers never dances backwards.  Fred and Ginger's style of dancing usually involved them twirling around switching off who was dancing backwards or dancing "cheek to cheek" and moving sideways or dancing where both are facing the camera.

I know next to nothing about dancing so perhaps there are some dance styles that involve the woman going backwards most of the time but I just haven't found it.  Anyone out there know what styles go backwards or the existence of a clip where she's going backwards.

She did however wear high heels.

clever

interesting obit

Owsley Stanley

• Chemist (Made LSD in quantity for Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and others and made the acid used by Ken Kesey for his Acid Tests)
• Has a high quality LSD named after him ("Owsley")
• Financial backer for Grateful Dead
• Co-designed the Grateful Dead's skull and lightning bolt logo
• Both the Grateful Dead (Alice D. Millionaire) and Steely Dan (Kid Charlemagne) wrote songs about him.
• Sound engineer praised for developing hi-fi sound at live concerts
• Moved to Australia to avoid what he thought would be an apocalyptic ice age in the Northern Hemisphere
• Professional ballet dancer
• US Air Force member
• Father was a congressman, governor of Kentucky and US senator (who fought Prohibition)
• Expelled in 9th grade for furnishing alcohol to other students
• Early Atkins adherent - Only ate meat (no vegetables, fruits, or anything else)
• Spent 2 years in jail for drugs
• Learned metalwork and jewelry making in prison

fate

Will modification - done
Health Care Proxy - done
Document Directing Health Care - done
Final Arrangements document - done

If I die today you'll know why.

income inequality

There have been many blog posts and news articles about income inequality lately but I find this one the most amazing.  Since 1971 all income growth realized has been by the richest 10%.  Now we're dealing with averages here and some rich become poor and some poor become rich so it's not exactly an accurate portrayal of individuals but it's still an amazing statistic.

Source

the wisdom of tolstoy

I love this list of rules by Tolstoy; made when he was 18.  I'm just amazed it's only 10. I thought all Russian author lists were at least 100.

1. Get up early (five o'clock)
2. Go to bed early (nine to ten o'clock)
3. Eat little and avoid sweets
4. Try to do everything by yourself
5. Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for every minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater.
6. Keep away from women
7. Kill desire by work
8. Be good, but try to let no one know it
9. Always live less expensively than you might
10. Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer

Personally I might also add 11, for some people; employ an editor.

golden voice

The Ted Williams story says something interesting about this world.

Background here.  He is the homeless man with a drug addiction and a "golden voice" who was discovered and subsequently offered jobs by MSNBC, Kraft foods, and an NBA basketball team.  Articles about the man were everywhere.  It was the feel good story of the year.

Since then the news has been nonexistent.  It turns out he started drinking again, checked into rehab, and recently left before the program was over.

These kinds of stories are quite common.  Almost every year some selfless person saves someone who has fallen onto the subway tracks in NY.  They meet with the governor and there are articles in every news outlet and calls for funds to be set up and streets or days to be named after the person.  Jobs are offered.  Lifetime supplies of this and that are offered.

The media establishment driven by our general love of feel-good stories eats this stuff up.  But we also have short attention spans and don't like to hear failure and bad news.  Hence the media hasn't really talked much about what has happened since.  And through all of this no one thought that maybe this guy might be better just dealing with his drug addiction.  No fund will be set up now that he's a "failure".  No streets or days named after him.  The jobs will probably be revoked quietly.  And no news articles either.

truism #29

To kids, the boxes that toys come in are usually more fun than the toys.

roach density

http://roachmap.com/

The Great Urban Hack 2010 produced a roach density map from restaurant inspection data.  Pretty cool.  In my neighborhood 3 restaurant inspections out of 26 had evidence of cockroaches; one of the better neighborhoods.  Now I just have to figure out which 3 it was.

bond

Remarkable. There is a blog devoted entirely to the clothing worn in James Bond films.

http://bondclothes.blogspot.com/

Of most interest are the posts on Dr. No which probably gives you a good basis for Bond's clothing choices. In summary,

• Shirts are Turnbull & Asser with a spread collar. I can vouch for how nice these are. I have a few; NY has a store on 57th. They are pricey but will last forever. I'm lucky in that their off the shelf version fits met perfectly. The custom are mind bogglingly expensive.  I've never seen the 2-button turnback wrist cuff he uses so it must be a custom choice.  It's probably more high maintenance than the 3 button barrel that is standard.
• Ties are Turnbull & Asser.
• Suit jackets are two-button with jetted pockets rather than a flap and double vents in the back.
• Suit trousers are double forward pleated.  Most trousers have a reverse pleat.  Forward pleats are folded towards the zipper rather than away. It's a much cleaner look.  And they have three button Daks tops which is an adjusting mechanism for the pant waist rather than belt loops.  Typically this is done with a buckle mechanism but Bond uses buttons.

cup o' bunny

elite

Do I win a prize?

which one is bigger

I love this question. Which is bigger? The U.S. or China?

They are basically the same which kind of blows me away. There's a few ways to measure the actual size but both are basically around 9.5 million square kilometers each.  And Canada is bigger than both.  10.0 million square kilometers.

geocities-isation

Visit here to see a beta of my new site redesign.

You too can Geocities your site here.

fuel tanks

I have no real way to know if this is true or not. I only have one test case scenario so far. But if it is true this eliminates a recurring problem I have. What side of your car (or rental car) is the gas tank on? Typically I try to use the side mirrors to sport a glance at the gas tank from the driver's seat. But this rarely actually works. Well this weekend my friend mentioned there was already a system in place to tell you exactly what side it is on. And to be honest I feel a little dumb not knowing this.

The fuel gauge shows an arrow identifying the correct side. Usually next to the icon for the gas dispensor. I'm just not sure if this is universal but at least it's something to try before getting out.

mr wind

This is a pretty clever commercial. It took me a second to figure it out.

escape

You owe it to yourself to read the account of NY Times journalist David Rohde's capture by the Taliban and eventual escape. It reads like a work of fiction. Undoubtedly this will be turned into a movie.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Epilogue
Interactive Features