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Your week in Quickies
Jun 26 2010, 14:39 EDT
The Presidential Ham
[bobsalive]
Jun 26 2010, 14:39 EDT
An interesting, if bizarre, art project.
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A Little Hayek
Jun 11 2010, 07:21 EDT
Hayek's classic book, The Road to Serfdom has sold out. My copy is currently lent out (I've bought a half dozen copies over the years), so I'll post a paragraph from his later Individualism and Economic Order instead.
To the accepted Christian traditi
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Obituaries and a Decent Man
May 01 2010, 08:08 EDT [updated May 01 2010, 08:15 EDT]
The NYT has a nice piece on a man that had an impact on millions of lives. He designed a paper coffee cup that has been in use for 60 years. He died at the age of 87.
I was irked to read his death was from "complications of Parkinson’s disease, his son
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Bar Quiz
Apr 28 2010, 23:04 EDT [updated Apr 28 2010, 23:24 EDT]
bobsalive had some hours to kill before he picked up his special lady friend at Logan airport so we hit the local tappy on a night that just happened to be "quiz night." Over the course of two hours we slowly increased our lead from 64-60 to 114-107 over
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Night Mixed
Apr 11 2010, 21:12 EDT [updated Apr 11 2010, 22:30 EDT]
Tonight we played nobody - all the members of the other team were no-shows. By our league bylaws this is not a straight forfeit: their team cannot win any points but our team still has to win each game as if we were bowling against 4 players who bowled 1
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None So Blind as Those Who Will Not See
Apr 04 2010, 13:12 EDT [updated Apr 04 2010, 13:36 EDT]
How I love the internet, let me count the ways. I wanted to cite the Bible for the phrase "There are none so blind as those who will not see" and was very surprised to find out that it isn't a biblical quote -- very surprised because the saying has a ver
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Your week in Quickies
Mar 24 2010, 02:01 EDT [updated Mar 24 2010, 02:11 EDT]
A Takedown of the American Right
[jackdied]
Mar 24 2010, 01:51 EDT
Hundreds of links in one post. Consider it definitive for th
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House to Vote on Universal Healthcare
Mar 21 2010, 15:56 EDT
The House will be voting on the Universal Healthcare bill sometime tonight, likely during my bowling league. This bill is bad for several reasons: it creates a new social contract, we have no idea what is in it, it likely violates the constitution, and w
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Night Mixed
Mar 08 2010, 00:35 EST
Tonight was mid-season position night: 1st place bowls 2nd, 3rd vs 4th, etc. We are way down in the rankings (12/20) so we bowled the 11th place team. The result was a 4-4 point split. Our opponents were a 20-something first time team so we gave up 100
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Simple Music
Mar 07 2010, 09:51 EST [updated Mar 07 2010, 09:55 EST]
Music pings off our brains in very powerful ways. I'm a big fan of simple music - the White Stripes are a two piece rock band that do simple very, very well. Talk show host Jimmy Fallon just had on Joanna Newsom (new to me) and she did this number:
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Mark Pilgrim on Getting Rid of Stuff
Mar 06 2010, 17:49 EST
Pilgrim explains how he gets rid of stuff he doesn't need.
Herself: The TV doesn’t work.
Myself: I unplugged it.
Her: When?
Me: About six months ago.
I've linked to his colorful common sense before such as his review of the book "The Joy of Fathe
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Money vs Stuff
Mar 01 2010, 19:38 EST [updated Mar 01 2010, 19:45 EST]
I had a few conversations last week where people equated money and stuff ("stuff" being the catch-all for raw materials, consumer products, and services). In our day-to-day lives money and stuff are very similar: you trade money for stuff and the same am
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Mixed
Feb 28 2010, 20:45 EST
Team "Final Warning" finally took some points, 7/8 for the night. Everyone bowled above their averages on both teams but we just did it more so than the other guys.
Audrey 144, 130, 127 (23 over)
jackdied 165, 180, 154 (16 over)
Kerry 147, 174, 223 (4
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Ball Square News
Feb 27 2010, 12:08 EST [updated Feb 28 2010, 20:59 EST]
They killed the White Hen. Bastards. For non-locals: White Hen is a convenience store that is more like a Wawa than a 7-11; full deli, decent coffee, etc. The chain was recently bought by 7-11 and the stores are being redone to be 7-11s, which means no
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The Origins of Curling
Feb 27 2010, 11:33 EST
Chicagoboyz has the scoop
Duncan: “We’ve got naught to amuse our persons with save a frozen pond, some smooth river boulders and our wimmen’s brooms.”
Angus: “Oh, aye, and we’re drunk.”
Duncan: “And we’re drunk.”
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Re-Communicado
Feb 25 2010, 00:08 EST
I've been at PyCon in Atlanta for the last week and relatively out of touch. I somehow lost my phone charger so I've been really really offline. As it turns out the hotel concierge has a big box of phone chargers (they are frequently left behind) but no
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The 21 Hour Work Week
Feb 15 2010, 15:05 EST [updated Feb 15 2010, 15:07 EST]
The BBC has an article promoting the 21 hour workweek as opposed to the standard-ish 40. The listed benefits include full employment and a bag of lifestyle benefits. To the first: if full employment were that easy the French cap of 35 hours would have
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Extremely Local News
Feb 10 2010, 21:08 EST [updated Feb 10 2010, 21:21 EST]
Do you remember that scene in the movie Kingpin where "to pull a Munson" becomes a derogatory phrase attached to a person? Well the Lehigh Valley has a version of that. To be a "cudderman" is to be dirty, stupid, do a half assed job, or all of the above
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Your week in Quickies
Feb 06 2010, 10:43 EST [updated Feb 06 2010, 10:49 EST]
Schluss mit den Grundrechten [German]
[jackdied]
Feb 06 2010, 10:33 EST
It is a strange thing that we call daytime dramas "soap
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The Oxford Comma
Feb 03 2010, 16:54 EST [updated Feb 03 2010, 16:56 EST]
An ambiguous but benign sentence from a friend reminded me about the Oxford Comma. You can write a list as "A, B, and C" or as "A, B and C." Most of the time it doesn't matter because the intent is clear. Sometimes even when the intent is clear leaving
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Coincidence? I think not.
Feb 02 2010, 14:54 EST
Water vapor in the lower stratosphere suddenly dropped in late 2000 causing the atmosphere to cool. Do you know what happened in mid 2000? If so please don't tell my mother. Do you know what else happened in mid 2000? The Concorde had a crash and the
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Mixed
Jan 25 2010, 00:14 EST [updated Feb 16 2010, 00:45 EST]
We finished out the last half in the middle of the pack. Had we won even one more game by a single pin instead of losing by five we would have finished higher for an extra $30 a hand. Oh well.
The second half of the season is big. We have gone from 8
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Voted (1 image)
Jan 19 2010, 12:49 EST [updated Jan 19 2010, 13:23 EST]
The volunteers at my polling place were as polite and efficient as always (that's not a punch line, they are always polite and efficient). I was voter #498 today, which is well below the #845 in 2004 (I didn't write down my 2008 number). I voted at 1pm
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The Dangers of a Scott Brown Win
Jan 18 2010, 21:51 EST [updated Jan 18 2010, 21:54 EST]
If Brown (the Republican) wins in Mass the worst possible outcome is that all Republican candidates will see this as a referendum on the Democratic house/senate/whitehouse and will run as "we are not the incumbents" in the 2010 cycle. The last few electio
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MA Special Election
Jan 18 2010, 19:45 EST [updated Jan 19 2010, 08:50 EST]
[Lots of non-Mass people have been asking me about this one]
I find it hard to believe that a Republican will win the Senate seat this Wednesday Tuesday [update: my bad. I have a presentation on Weds so it's on my mind], but this poll has Brown up by 9%
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Please, Cancel My Favorite Show
Jan 16 2010, 13:39 EST
When TV shows get canceled before they are done filming it sometimes gives the authors an opportunity to air what they want to air instead of what they think the higher-ups or audience wants. The result can be magic or it can highlight why the show was c
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Fuzzy Thinking About Trade
Jan 14 2010, 15:38 EST [updated Jan 14 2010, 15:41 EST]
Humans weren't built to think about exchange at the national scale. Here is a non-sequitur from Victor Davis Hanson:
Of the some $50 billion in remittances that leave the U.S. each year to Latin America, perhaps $20 billion come from California reside
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Car Longevity Still Rising
Jan 14 2010, 15:13 EST [updated Jan 14 2010, 15:15 EST]
I saw this article on car makers in trouble which states that the worldwide production capacity of automobiles is 94 million cars & trucks a year. Back-of-the-envelope math says that is 1 car for every family of four on the planet every ten years. That'
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Your month in Quickies
Jan 03 2010, 11:52 EST
New Years, French Style
[jackdied]
Jan 03 2010, 11:51 EST
"Youths burned 1,137 cars across France overnight as New Year’s Eve ce
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Winter Bowling: Last Night of 2009
Dec 20 2009, 22:17 EST [updated Dec 20 2009, 22:40 EST]
The last league game of 2009 was tonight, but the final game of the half-season is actually in January. We got stomped 6-2. It was just me and the mighty George Jones (subbing*) versus team "I Hate Splits." I bowled 145, 181, 175 (my average) and Georg
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The Prisoner 2009 [SPOILERS]
Nov 19 2009, 17:41 EST [updated Nov 19 2009, 18:24 EST]
I loved the 60s original and I had high hopes for the remake, but bah!
The premise of a premise is that the writer gets to introduce one absurd idea at the start, the viewer takes it for granted and suspends disbelief, and then the writer gets to talk ab
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Night Mixed
Nov 10 2009, 17:55 EST [updated Nov 10 2009, 17:57 EST]
Remember last week when I averaged over 210 a game? I keep trying to remember that too. This week was 150, 141, 152. Thanks to my performance last week my average jumped up 7 pins to 170 so this week was extra sour because if I'd flipped the two weeks
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Misunderstanding Tonight's Elections
Nov 03 2009, 23:40 EST [updated Nov 03 2009, 23:41 EST]
There are a bunch of elections today and while everyone is trying to read the tea leaves it is important to remember: incumbents lose during a bad economy. You can't read anything more than that into the results; during the great depression left leaning
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Your week in Quickies
Nov 01 2009, 22:13 EST
Own a 50,000 year old coffee table
[jackdied]
Nov 01 2009, 22:06 EST
Kauri trees in New Zealand can live for over 2,000 years. The most
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Night Mixed
Nov 01 2009, 21:22 EST [updated Nov 02 2009, 08:26 EST]
Last week I averaged 185, but this week
195, 228, 210
A 633 series, which isn't just a new personal best it is my first 600 series. I'll post pics if I can figure out how to get them off my phone.
The icing on the cake is that tonight was the mid-s
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I'm very unhappy with XBox Live
Oct 31 2009, 20:42 EDT [updated Oct 31 2009, 20:48 EDT]
They deleted my account. It was probably due to inactivity - bobsalive reports that I haven't logged in since June - but I paid my $50 for a 1 year gold membership in January which should have carried me into 2010. I received no email about pending del
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We Are Doomed
Oct 26 2009, 20:24 EDT
I haven't read the book yet but I am looking forward to John Derbyshire's new book We Are Doomed. Derb is a pessimist's pessimist. I just emailed Derb to tell him that the 90 minute C-SPAN Book TV segment for We Are Doomed is available (I'm watching it
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Night Mixed
Oct 19 2009, 22:48 EDT [updated Oct 19 2009, 22:58 EDT]
This week lived up to the "Winter" moniker: Boston had snow for the first time this year. Keeping with the cold theme, I sucked: 154, 138, 170. This week I made some spares but no strikes - or at least no strikes that mattered because that final 170 inc
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Lehigh has a Homecoming?
Oct 09 2009, 16:41 EDT
Got an email from Lehigh asking me to register for homecoming. I had no idea we had such a thing; there is just the Lehigh-Lafayette game and that's it. Apparently "Homecoming" is Lehigh-Yale.
(and no, I won't be attending)
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Your week in Quickies
Oct 02 2009, 15:49 EDT
CanvasPop
[bobsalive]
Oct 02 2009, 15:48 EDT
Order any image you like printed on canvas. Pretty nifty.
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Last Chance for PyCon Talk Proposals
Sep 30 2009, 00:51 EDT [updated Sep 30 2009, 00:59 EDT]
As it turns out one of the marginal items that gets trimmed in a down economy is conference jaunts [Q: who would have guessed? A: everybody]. PyCon 2010 needs talks, so if you have something interesting to say to a few hundred people this is your chance.
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Night Mixed
Sep 28 2009, 18:19 EDT [updated Sep 28 2009, 23:47 EDT]
I didn't post last week - I "forget" on the bad weeks (156, 135, 157). This week was uneven but improved: 129, 193, 182. I would have been happy with that but Kerry bowled her 13lb straight ball for 185, 193, 182. When you have consistency you don't ne
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A Brief History of Quoits
Sep 16 2009, 16:58 EDT [updated Sep 16 2009, 17:38 EDT]
Yeah, you know, quoits? It is like horseshoes but with 4lb oversized washers. The semi-official history of quoits page tries to link the game to ancient Romans and their fondness for discus. To seal the deal they add
A good example of this weapon ca
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Winter Bowling: Sunday Night Mixed
Sep 13 2009, 21:42 EDT [updated Sep 14 2009, 00:33 EDT]
It's that time of the year again. This year I've switched back to the Sunday foursomes league from the Monday Sports league (which I doubt will happen this year).
161, 166, 167. I hadn't bowled all summer so my game was more variable than the scores su
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Somerville News
Sep 11 2009, 09:05 EDT
Not much happened this Summer, including Summer (it rained, then it got cold). In Ball Square construction news Pescatore seafood is expanding to 40-something seats, and Ball Square Wines is roughly doubling in size. There are still three or four vacant
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Understanding the Health Care Debate (simplified)
Sep 10 2009, 13:09 EDT
Thinking about it in terms of Obama isn't necessary. While there is a lot of politics-as-usual the larger left/right positions dwarf them in consideration:
Liberal position
Moral: Health care is a right.
Economic: Government can do it cheaper and F
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Obama's Prime Time Health Care Speech
Sep 09 2009, 18:38 EDT [updated Sep 09 2009, 21:04 EDT]
.. is tonight at 8pm. I don't see how it can possibly help him because I don't think there is anything new he can say that will give congressmen more cover with their constituents.
There are two ways politicians can sell a policy:
You will get more f
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Recession-Proof Careers in Public Service
Sep 03 2009, 15:03 EDT
I received an email with that title from Monster.com
Local and state governments are using billions of dollars to create new, recession-proof public service jobs right now. You can make it through these tough times by starting an exciting career in law
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Inglourious Basterds
Sep 01 2009, 21:09 EDT [updated Sep 02 2009, 20:59 EDT]
So Mrs. PeteDied and I made it out to the movies on Friday night to see Inglourious Basterds. I hadn't read much about it but am a Quentin Tarantino fan so I thought it would be a good choice.
First, we have Regal Cinemas down here in PA. Recently Reg
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Moonshine Legal in Tennessee
Aug 31 2009, 21:05 EDT [updated Sep 01 2009, 15:38 EDT]
Our long national nightmare is soon to be over as Tennessee is making distilling spirits legal. Lots of people do it anyway but it is against the law in (I believe) all 50 states. You can buy the equipment to distill over the counter, it is just illegal
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Your week in Quickies
Aug 31 2009, 19:37 EDT
Two People try to evade wild fire in a Hot Tub
[jackdied]
Aug 31 2009, 19:37 EDT
Two people nearly died in California wild fires because
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2 Trillion Dollars More
Aug 22 2009, 20:19 EDT
The Whitehouse just revised the 10-year budget and the deficit will be 9 trillion instead of 7.1 trillion dollars. That is an extra $9,000 for every man, woman, and child in the US - or $18,000 if you are in the half of the population that pays income t
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Unclear Writing, Hopefully
Aug 20 2009, 14:04 EDT [updated Aug 20 2009, 14:05 EDT]
This Wired article on testing mosquito repellent includes what is either an inaccurate description or the process or abuse by mad scientists [emphasis mine]:
For one of the tests, brave volunteers dabbed a bit of the substance on a cloth attached to thei
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Obama: Those who oppose Health Care are Sinners
Aug 20 2009, 11:52 EDT [updated Aug 20 2009, 12:44 EDT]
The full transcript isn't yet available but at a conference call with religious leaders Obama explicitly invoked a religious mandate for Nationalized health care and said his opponents were sinning by "frankly bearing false witness." In the same speech h
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Again With the Dollar Coins
Aug 07 2009, 18:23 EDT
The US Mint is at it again. I just received a $1 John Adams coin in change. The newest attempt at popularizing the dollar coins is the Presidential $1 coin campaign. The new attempt is slightly better than past (failed) attempts at introducing a dollar
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Your week in Quickies
Aug 06 2009, 21:24 EDT [updated Aug 06 2009, 21:27 EDT]
Machine translation of "Do Not Want" into Japanese
[jackdied]
Aug 06 2009, 21:23 EDT
That site translates a phrase from English
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Break-In at Kelly's Diner
Jul 28 2009, 22:33 EDT [updated Jul 28 2009, 22:35 EDT]
No, this isn't a reposting from last year. The power went out around 9:00pm and by 9:30pm a few guys were spotted walking around the closed Diner (breakfast/lunch only) with crowbars. The whole neighborhood was outside either sitting on their front stoo
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UMass Economic Dept is Great ... if you're into Marxism
Jul 20 2009, 22:27 EDT [updated Jul 20 2009, 22:35 EDT]
Sure, someone has to study this stuff but the UMass graduate course listing is all Marx all the time. Out of 35 listed courses twelve have marx, marxian, or neo-marxian in the short description. The words "classical" and "monetary" combined appear with
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The Ghost of Tom Jones
Jul 20 2009, 00:34 EDT [updated Jul 20 2009, 00:40 EDT]
Tonight, I had the experience of going to a Tom Jones concert at Meadowbrook Pavilion, an open air venue near Laconia. Yes, that Tom Jones. The man is now 69 years old, and came to fame in the sixties!
While tailgating(that's right.), I got a good lo
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Your week in Quickies
Jul 16 2009, 22:13 EDT
Man Fights Off Mountain Lion... With Chain Saw
[bobsalive]
Jul 16 2009, 22:12 EDT
Being a former marine probably helped, but still. Pre
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Government stops providing a service so Private companies start
Jul 15 2009, 17:26 EDT [updated Jul 15 2009, 17:27 EDT]
As a cost-cutting measure the Massachusetts DMV stopped sending expiration notices for driver's licenses. This was a very unpopular move, as you can imagine.
Local banks are stepping into the void. Signs that say "is it your birthday?" are popping up i
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The problem with a politically directed economy is politics
Jul 15 2009, 16:44 EDT [updated Jul 16 2009, 01:57 EDT]
To make GM into a profitable company again requires bringing their overhead down closer to their competition's level. This means cutting car dealerships and renegotiating Union contracts. Bankruptcy would have accomplished both but the Union-friendly ad
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Congressmen are not Philosipher Kings
Jul 13 2009, 00:16 EDT [updated Jul 13 2009, 00:21 EDT]
Rep Grayson (D-Forida) fell for a Ponzi scheme. He is a member of the Financial Services Committee who was taken for millions of dollars in a a financial scam.
Keep in mind non-savants like Grayson vote on bills to spend billions and trillions of your d
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The Low, Low Marketing Costs of Government
Jul 08 2009, 02:59 EDT [updated Jul 08 2009, 04:31 EDT]
An argument in favor of government doing something is that having the private sector do it comes with the extra costs of companies advertising that they do it in the first place. If the government did the exact same thing it could do it without an advert
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Your week in Quickies
Jul 07 2009, 19:14 EDT
Alec Balwdin says he's Alexis de Tocqueville
[jackdied]
Jul 07 2009, 19:14 EDT
.. at least compared to the Governator. This is an odd a
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Palinology
Jul 05 2009, 23:09 EDT [updated Jul 05 2009, 23:12 EDT]
Don't ask me to make sense of Sarah Palin resigning as governor. I haven't read anyone, anywhere that made a reasonable argument why it helps her achieve any future office. The only rational explanation is that she is going the Al Gore route; she has n
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Markets like predicatability, Politicians like votes
Jul 03 2009, 01:53 EDT [updated Jul 03 2009, 02:10 EDT]
A short op-ed at CNBC posits that Government spending promises are scaring business into spending inaction. This isn't a hypothetical today or during the Great Depression. Then we had the government making electricity generation [a new thing] a priority
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Retroactive Stimulus Idea
Jun 30 2009, 22:33 EDT [updated Jun 30 2009, 22:34 EDT]
The $800 billion stimulus package is slow to be spent. Estimates are that only 25% will be spent in 2009. As a retroactive idea why not just return all the money spent at the country's biggest oil producer and the country's biggest employer? Every bill
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Your week in Quickies
Jun 29 2009, 18:28 EDT
the blog of unnecessary quotation marks
[bobsalive]
Jun 29 2009, 18:26 EDT
Many, many examples of a grammatical pet peeve. (via)
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Obama's Health Care Infomercial
Jun 24 2009, 22:11 EDT [updated Jun 24 2009, 23:11 EDT]
I'm watching it so you don't have to. My prediction is that ABC will gladly echo the administration's message: FREE SHIT FOR EVERYBODY. Because no politician wins votes by promising to make anything worse and/or more expensive.
Summary
[written after
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Your week in Quickies
Jun 18 2009, 14:25 EDT
White House eyes Pocket Knife controls
[jackdied]
Jun 18 2009, 14:24 EDT
By reinterpreting an old law banning importation of switch blad
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Government is Good at One Thing
Jun 12 2009, 23:39 EDT [updated Jun 13 2009, 00:20 EDT]
Before my next post I'd like to reiterate:
The Government is Good at One Thing
That one thing is spending extremely large and inefficient amounts of money to attain a goal. Many people banded together can make a things happen just by brute force. Thin
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Wedding Trivia
Jun 07 2009, 12:10 EDT
If one of the menu options is "filet mignon with lobster tail" then the other options don't matter. In my locale of 50 people (6 tables) there were two girls who got the vegetarian option and one guy who got the chicken (he's from Florida, if that helps
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Have your Federalism cake and eat it too
Jun 02 2009, 17:49 EDT
The 7th circuit has ruled that the 2nd Amendment isn't incorporated under the 14th Amendment. The majority found the recent Heller decision by the Supreme Court doesn't apply to the states. The opinion lauds the legal laboratory of federalism but only a
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Your week in Quickies
May 24 2009, 13:26 EDT
I Was A Teenage Stock Photo
[bobsalive]
May 24 2009, 13:26 EDT
A woman's account of having her picture taken in 2001, then seeing it yea
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Somervile/Ball Square News
May 17 2009, 20:11 EDT [updated May 18 2009, 11:44 EDT]
Somerville has a confirmed case of swine flu. Go us.
Nearly three years after Urban Gourmet burned down the property has been reopened as Eat at Jumbos. Like Urban it is a pizza and burgers shop. Jumbos would like you to know "Eat At Jumbos is not aff
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The Power to Regulate is the Power to Destroy
May 07 2009, 19:45 EDT
.. or in the case of the "Car Czar" you can just threaten to destroy even if you don't have the power to regulate. Business Insider reports.
Confronting the head of a non-TARP fund holding Chrysler debt and unwilling to release it for any sum less tha
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Your week in Quickies
May 07 2009, 16:28 EDT
Jughead's Hat
[bobsalive]
May 07 2009, 16:28 EDT
A comprehensive history of Jughead's weird, crown-like hat.
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XBox360: Fighting Microsoft
May 05 2009, 14:10 EDT [updated May 05 2009, 14:26 EDT]
Most user interfaces are bad but some especially so. The worst are the ones that challenge you to guess the underlying departmental structure of the company that made them. If you've ever had trouble navigating a phone menu you know exactly what I mean.
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Quote of the Week
May 04 2009, 19:18 EDT
Grandstanding comes more easily to these folks than doing; and accomplishment without an audience is almost unthinkable.
- Peter Wood, talking about modern college students.
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The Economic Manhattan Project
May 01 2009, 02:23 EDT [updated May 01 2009, 02:49 EDT]
In a well meaning lecture forwarded to me and given by a Stanford guy it is suggested at great length that we should work to treat economics as a science. And then - get this - solve it! Because in 250 years of study no one has decided to sit down and w
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Would you buy a new luxury car for $20,000? How about a dollar more, or a dollar more ...
Apr 22 2009, 05:38 EDT [updated Apr 22 2009, 05:54 EDT]
The candy bars, tabloids, and gum at the grocery store checkout isle are very precisely priced. Tens of millions of people look at them a day and do or do not make a purchase. The purchases are laser scanned and the grocery store knows pretty damned wel
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Lesson: Never, ever say what you mean.
Apr 22 2009, 03:32 EDT [updated Apr 22 2009, 04:18 EDT]
One of the best reasons to hate politics is that those who lie have a higher chance of achieving their goals. It is best to have a clueless frontman who really does believe his own press because he is less liable to slip up. Witness these 1998 slips by
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Quick Computer Science Tutorial
Apr 22 2009, 00:51 EDT [updated Apr 22 2009, 01:26 EDT]
My cable info button says that "The Witches of Breastwitck II" is currently available. The title is barely clever: as any good Computer Science student knows punnery can be measured by a title's Levenshtein distance. This is the algorithm that spellchec
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Your week in Quickies
Apr 21 2009, 10:29 EDT
Wii Related Injuries on the Rise
[bobsalive]
Apr 21 2009, 10:29 EDT
At the NYT, no less. And yet, no tea party coverage?
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Curse the Sun!
Apr 19 2009, 18:48 EDT
Because it is still light out I didn't notice the time. This means I missed subbing in the Sunday Mixed bowling league (big league, they always need a sub). And that means I won't have enough games in the league to get an average before position night a
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Happy Easter
Apr 19 2009, 06:31 EDT [updated Apr 19 2009, 06:47 EDT]
Today is Easter for the Orthodox, so happy Easter to bobsalive.
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The Ides of April
Apr 11 2009, 03:00 EDT
A couple quips from Facebook about Tax Day
XXX: taxes... oh no!
YYY: is rendering unto Caesar that which, while not exactly Caesar's, seems to be demanded by Caesar anyway.
And if you think my friends are right wingers then you haven't met my friends (
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Wired: Government should spend money on stuff we like
Apr 10 2009, 17:47 EDT [updated Apr 10 2009, 17:59 EDT]
Wired magazine calls for a national broadband plan similar to that laid out by Australia. Free, fat pipes for everybody! But Australia's $31 billion plan works out to $1500 dollars per citizen (pop 21 million). Would you be willing to pay an extra $10/
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Politician Demands Culture Change (to make her life easier)
Apr 09 2009, 16:09 EDT [updated Apr 09 2009, 16:15 EDT]
A Republican Texas state legislator put her foot in it with a petty request for people to stop using nicknames because A.K.A. names muddle paperwork. The suggestion (it wasn't a proposed law) is that immigrants change their legal names to the ones they u
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Grow Your Own Taters
Apr 07 2009, 21:24 EDT [updated Apr 07 2009, 22:13 EDT]
As much as I enjoy the idea of gardening I don't actually have much experience with it beyond digging holes*. Spring is here so I scoured the internet to find gardening projects that would fit on my fire escape.
Did you mean not Potatoes?
The internet
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Slumaville
Apr 07 2009, 19:17 EDT
One of my neighbors was burgled last night between 11pm and 1am. You get no points if you correctly guessed this was the same residence that generated a flurry of cop cars for a drunk & disorderly a few months back.
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Your week in Quickies
Apr 07 2009, 15:59 EDT
Remembering RFC 1
[jackdied]
Apr 07 2009, 14:51 EDT
The NYT writes about the 40th birthday of the first internet Request for Comment. B
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Twitter Day 1
Apr 03 2009, 18:55 EDT [updated Apr 03 2009, 23:48 EDT]
I never "got" twitter despite a couple past tries to watch it. At PyCon this year twitter-ing went from nobody to everybody. I signed up today and here is the unlikely outcome of my first conversation. Keep in mind I'm following three people (all of wh
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PyCon Afterwards: Back in Boston
Apr 02 2009, 00:11 EDT [updated Apr 02 2009, 14:12 EDT]
I've returned from PyCon.
Short version: I killed. The raw data has yet to be munched but my talk about things you don't care about went over very, very well with people who do care about that kind of thing. The hall was standing room only (500+ people
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Your week in Quickies
Mar 25 2009, 12:27 EDT [updated Mar 29 2009, 11:29 EDT]
Meat Madness
[bobsalive]
Mar 25 2009, 12:27 EDT
A tournament of meats.
Fantastic, but the author is obviously tro
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Geeky Stuff goes Over There
Mar 24 2009, 23:12 EDT [updated Mar 25 2009, 00:17 EDT]
Irregular blogging for the next week while I'm doing deeply geeking stuff. bobsalive, teddied, and petedied will be holding down the fort here. If for some reason you want to read about Python (the programming language) things you don't care about, I'll
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Obama So Far
Mar 24 2009, 21:43 EDT [updated Mar 25 2009, 07:42 EDT]
I haven't written much about Obama because it's only fair to give the guy some time to settle. The common wisdom about our new president hasn't settled yet either (maybe Bush's never did, he was sometimes described as a dunce and sometimes as an evil gen
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Circle as Appropriate
Mar 24 2009, 01:16 EDT [updated Mar 24 2009, 01:22 EDT]
Bush was a good/bad president because he ran a $500 billion a year deficit to advance good/bad policies. Obama is a good/bad president because he is running a $1,000 billion a year deficit to advance good/bad policies.
Bonus question: Bush was/wasn't s
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More on Seeing Watchmen
Mar 12 2009, 09:55 EDT [updated Mar 12 2009, 09:56 EDT]
The four of us saw Watchmen at the Cinemagic Theaters in Hooksett, NH, on an IMAX screen. This was pretty exciting, it had been a half dozen years or so since I'd seen an IMAX movie.
Unfortunately, we didn't get there early enough. Walking in the th
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Mar 10 2009, 03:30 EDT [updated Mar 10 2009, 03:34 EDT]
167, 187, 158. A good day. We're still on the longest pattern which is mighty boring but just to disprove I only post my good scores: last week was 210, 113, 110 (bunch O suck).
What actually prompted me to post this week was an opponent's ringtone. R
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Your week in Quickies
Mar 09 2009, 23:26 EDT [updated Mar 09 2009, 23:27 EDT]
Greek Grilled Cheese
[jackdied]
Mar 09 2009, 23:23 EDT
No no, not the sandwich. This cheese you throw on the grill in blocks an
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We Watched the Watchmen
Mar 09 2009, 23:02 EDT [updated Mar 11 2009, 19:20 EDT]
Watchmen (1986), the original graphic novel (comic book!) by Alan Moore, is in the fanboy canon. It's revered by Comic Book Guys everywhere, and rightly so: by "deconstructing" superheroes and treating them as real people with their own issues, Moore ch
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Quote of the Week
Mar 09 2009, 11:42 EDT [updated Mar 09 2009, 11:43 EDT]
We think heaven on earth is a real possibility. There are resources enough to create it. And people are intelligent enough to advance it. Now all that remains is to market it.
--Olivier Toscani, (media director of Benetton), Colors #12
Seen at B
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BSG JFC
Mar 06 2009, 22:10 EST [updated Mar 06 2009, 23:33 EST]
Two minutes into the 3rd-to-last episode [pen-penultimate?] of Battle Star Galactica and it was all exposition. It is a hoary fact of writing that when you have to have a character look at the camera and explain things you have failed.
I only expect it
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RINOs are Conservitives Again, Too
Mar 03 2009, 11:08 EST [updated Mar 03 2009, 11:41 EST]
Quoting Tocqueville is positively viral. Christopher Buckley, Obama backer and son of WFB, has caught the virus. He is shocked, SHOCKED, that Obama is a big spending statist.
One thing is certain, however: Government is getting bigger and will stay b
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Republicans are Convervatives again
Mar 01 2009, 12:20 EST [updated Mar 01 2009, 12:22 EST]
The Weekly Standard published a piece that consists entirely of excerpts from Tocqueville. This is a big change from their previous tone; every piece could have been subtitled "Sorry, but this is the best defense we could think of for Bush policy." I u
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Python Language Summit
Mar 01 2009, 11:24 EST
I just got my invitation to the Python language summit. I had planned on going anyway, so the invitation just makes it less awkward for everyone involved. The summit overlaps with the tutorial days of PyCon because, well, by definition if you belong in
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Your week in Quickies
Mar 01 2009, 04:28 EST [updated Mar 01 2009, 04:33 EST]
Dolph Lundgren's Bio
[jackdied]
Mar 01 2009, 04:27 EST
Did Chemical Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockhol
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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Feb 27 2009, 10:11 EST
My neighbor reminded me that street parking permits expire tomorrow. Today is a Friday which means The Office of Traffic and Parking is open for three hours from 9am to Noon. If this year is like past years the line will be two hours long every day for
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Senate to Constitution: FOAD
Feb 26 2009, 18:10 EST
The Senate has passed a completely unconstitutional bill to give Washington D.C. a seat in the House. People used to call this kind of thing a "Constitutional Amendment" but now it just requires 60 votes.
Here is the conclusion from a National Review ar
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One of These Is Actually a Protest
Feb 26 2009, 16:15 EST [updated Feb 26 2009, 16:21 EST]
There are two ways to protest violence in the Middle East.
The Hitchens Method
One way is to do it like Christopher Hitchens. While he was walking down a street in Beruit he saw a swastika and promptly defaced it. Then he got shitkicked by some Lebane
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Democrats employ the Crazy Ivan strategy
Feb 26 2009, 15:30 EST [updated Feb 26 2009, 16:20 EST]
Are they doing a Crazy Ivan or just throwing flaming darts at the board-O-promises? First we have Obama's earmarks in the Omnibus (they are hangovers from 2008) and second we have Speaker Pelosi ditching the Assault Weapons Ban.
I have no idea what is g
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WalMart vs Congress
Feb 26 2009, 10:07 EST [updated Feb 26 2009, 10:25 EST]
WalMart, the largest private employer in America, had gross revenues of $405 billion last year and took 3.3% of that in profits . This month congress spent $800 billion on the stimulus and another $410 billion in an omnibus budget resolution. That is in
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Krugman's Sniping
Feb 25 2009, 23:33 EST [updated Feb 25 2009, 23:36 EST]
Paul Krugman is both a Nobel winning economist and a political hack. When forced to choose he always goes with hack:
Traditionally, the division between conservatives and liberals has been over the role and size of the welfare state: liberals think that
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Education is not for Everyone
Feb 25 2009, 07:04 EST [updated Feb 25 2009, 09:14 EST]
Some back of the envelope math. 1/3rd of the population is under 18, that's 100 million people. Last night Obama said everyone should go to college as part of their patriotic duty. Oh, and those extra four years will be "free." So we can expect an ext
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Single Bottle Beer Sales Banned in DC
Feb 25 2009, 05:18 EST
The busy bodies have gone and banned single bottle sales in the heart of the Leviathan. In addition to not solving the stated problem (homeless drunks) this will make it prohibitive to sell ultra-premium beers that go for $10+ a bottle.
Imperial Beer
T
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Jem != Jen
Feb 25 2009, 00:40 EST [updated Feb 25 2009, 00:44 EST]
I just found out that a woman I know is named "Jem" and not "Jen." I must have heard other people, including her husband, refer to her by name hundreds of times over the last five years. Thankfully the "Massachusetts pronunciation guide" says the names
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Obama's Address to Congress
Feb 24 2009, 21:51 EST [updated Feb 24 2009, 22:02 EST]
Remember when Bush said "When someone's hurting, Government has got to move?" This speech is like an hour of that. It turns out government is like a magic pony that can grant an unlimited number of wishes. In fact we'd all be soooo screwed if it weren'
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Proof That God Loves Me (and beer)
Feb 24 2009, 12:22 EST [updated Feb 24 2009, 12:30 EST]
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
- not Ben Franklin
We have had enough snow in Massachusetts that I'm behind on recycling. Today we have a curb again instead of a snowbank so I was putting out a month's worth of Harpoo
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Motto Bump
Feb 24 2009, 02:32 EST [updated Feb 24 2009, 02:54 EST]
The blog motto has been updated to
Men are not fit to rule men and saints don't run for office.
Paraphrased from C.S. Lewis quoting (?) his friend J.R.R. Tolkein (citation):
The most important job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at
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Goverment That Works
Feb 23 2009, 22:55 EST [updated Feb 23 2009, 23:19 EST]
This weekend Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger echoed Obama's inaugural address and called for "doing what works." The problem with programs "that work" is that no politician ever called for "programs that don't work." If the high hurdle for a new program
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Your week in Quickies
Feb 23 2009, 18:54 EST
Poaching may become a felony in PA
[jackdied]
Feb 23 2009, 18:53 EST
Poachers are dicks .. but a felony? Get back to me when you hear a
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Simple Civility
Feb 19 2009, 06:42 EST [updated Feb 19 2009, 09:02 EST]
At 6am sharpish the alarm went off across the street at the Italian restaurant/liquor store (they share the same building and Mom & Pop owners). After a couple minutes of beeping I decided it was a proper building alarm and not just a car alarm. So as a
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A Chicken in Every Pot
Feb 17 2009, 11:13 EST [updated Feb 17 2009, 11:14 EST]
On a lighter note I just started a 4lb chicken in the crockpot (crockpots being God's gift to bachelors). The recipe is simple:
Start with celery, parsley, and other flavorful things.
Finish with anything else you have handy like peppercorns, basil,
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Obama to sign Stimulus today
Feb 17 2009, 10:04 EST [updated Feb 17 2009, 10:13 EST]
It was so important that Congress was given just twelve hours to read it before voting. But Obama is signing it four days later? In Denver?! Go screw.
The excuse for the delay is that it took time to correlate and format the bill into a state fit for
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Ethics via the New York Times
Feb 17 2009, 03:08 EST [updated Feb 17 2009, 03:09 EST]
A column in the New York Times asks Why Not Bring a Neanderthal to Life? (by cloning).
I'm afraid I can't see the [ethical] problem. If we discovered a small band of Neanderthals hidden somewhere, we'd do everything to keep them alive, just as we try t
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President's Day Bowling: Hells Yeah
Feb 16 2009, 23:56 EST [updated Feb 20 2009, 23:06 EST]
The President's Day tourney attracted 21 entrants. As usual it was more multi-culti than the average faculty meeting or the current President's cabinet. White, black, asian; male and female; straight and gay. Oh sure, it was 2/3rds* [updated] straight
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Those Ignorant of History Are .. bound to screw it up.
Feb 15 2009, 22:16 EST [updated Feb 15 2009, 23:03 EST]
While vanity googling friends and family I ran across a picture of my brother, his wife, and her parents at a military ball. Her father is captioned as a "Pilot and WWII Veteran." The Top Gun in question was born after WWII ended and looks younger than
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BSG Plot Twists
Feb 13 2009, 23:30 EST [updated Feb 13 2009, 23:31 EST]
One time I was at a party and a guy introduced himself as "Steve." Then he started laughing and said "just kidding - my name is Mark!" Then he started laughing and said "just kidding my name is.." but I had already walked away.
That's my take on the BS
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Consider the Numbers
Feb 13 2009, 12:24 EST [updated Feb 13 2009, 12:38 EST]
If all 435 members of the House spent 24 hours a day for an entire 365 day year considering the $800,000,000,000 stimulus bill they would be considering $209,000 in spending per hour (link goes to google calculator). That number assumes they divvied up t
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Father Coughlin Returns
Feb 13 2009, 09:06 EST [updated Feb 13 2009, 11:50 EST]
The House convened this morning and started with a prayer by a Father Coughlin. Presumably not the Father Coughlin who was a popular radio host and booster of the original New Deal. That guy is a touch dead and was such a Socialist that even FDR had to
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Dems Won't Show Anyone the Bill
Feb 12 2009, 23:32 EST [updated Feb 13 2009, 09:02 EST]
Despite promises that congress would have 48 hours to read the 1500 page compromise bill before voting no one has it at 5pm with a 9am vote scheduled. Oh, except the lobbyists who were leaked their targeted earmarks. The most ethical congress in history
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QOTW
Feb 11 2009, 14:44 EST
Obama wants to stay in touch with everyday Americans, as symbolized by his reluctance to surrender his BlackBerry.
- Kathleen Parker, in the Washington Post.
Yes, just like the 0.3% of everyday Americans who have a BlackBerry.
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Your week in Quickies
Feb 11 2009, 11:23 EST [updated Feb 11 2009, 11:30 EST]
The Obamma Dollar Bill
[jackdied]
Feb 08 2009, 08:54 EST
Leader worship does not go over well with me. (via)
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The Stimulus is a Scam
Feb 10 2009, 22:54 EST
Remember the Patriot Act? Given a chance to write and quickly pass "emergency anti-terrorist legislation" every law enforcement bill that was possibly related was stuck in there. The stimulus package is like that but instead of law enforcement it includ
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Hopenchange Arrested
Feb 08 2009, 21:25 EST
As Bruce points out Shepard Fairey, the artist who did the iconic Obama "Hope" poster has been arrested for the 14th time. Is there anyone the Obama camp vetted?
As I mentioned a year ago Shepard may be a good artist but he's also a giant dictator lovin
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The Simple Love of Milk
Feb 08 2009, 00:43 EST [updated Feb 10 2009, 23:04 EST]
For a weekend post allow me this idle premise - milk rocks.
In this decade beer, bourbon, and gin (my other favorite beverages) have undergone a revolution of acceptance and a recognition of brand difference. Milk is overdue.
If you think that all milk
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My Day With Free Masonry
Feb 07 2009, 18:08 EST [updated Feb 07 2009, 18:09 EST]
Last weekend KZ and I went to an open house event at the Woburn, MA lodge. The free breakfast was shit and the presentation was only only slightly better. We might join despite.
I am heavily predisposed to liking the Masons: I am a member of the next o
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Fire People Now or Face Fines
Feb 06 2009, 21:20 EST
Politicians are simple minded fools on both sides of the Atlantic. Samizdata reports that the UK parliament is proposing to raise the amount of unemployment that companies will have to pay. The idea is to make the landing softer for those laid off but t
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Feb 02 2009, 22:15 EST [updated Feb 02 2009, 22:27 EST]
ANN: There is a 5-game Sport Tournament at Lanes & Games Sunday, Feb 8, at 9:30am. Price is $50 at the door. Each game is bowled on a different PBA oil pattern. It should be wildly infuriating. Unfortunately the lounge bar doesn't open until noon, but I
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Who Designs Cellphones?
Jan 31 2009, 18:53 EST
I just did my semi-regular cleaning and deleted a combined 56 pictures and videos of the inside of my pants pocket. I couldn't tell you what combination of the outside buttons takes pcis/video but it isn't uncommon enough.
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Your week in Quickies
Jan 30 2009, 13:56 EST [updated Feb 03 2009, 20:55 EST]
The Bacon Explosion
[bobsalive]
Jan 29 2009, 18:46 EST
Another glorious bacon culinary invention.
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No Wonder Baltimore is a Mess
Jan 30 2009, 13:41 EST [updated Jan 30 2009, 13:46 EST]
Meet Michael D. Sydnor Jr.
He's been arrested 101 times under the name Sydnor since 1994, but he sometimes uses the last name Thomas. He's been convicted more than 30 times for crimes that include dealing drugs and urinating in the street
He's been
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This is JEOPARDY!
Jan 27 2009, 20:24 EST [updated Jan 27 2009, 20:37 EST]
I found out about the online Jeopardy! auditions half an hour before the event (everyone has to take it at the same time so the J-folks can use just one set of questions). Mountain and Pacific people can take it Wednesday and Thursday. If I'd known abou
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Greater Boston USBC Bowling Tournament
Jan 25 2009, 18:01 EST [updated Jan 25 2009, 18:22 EST]
I played once in all three categories (singles, doubles, quad/team) spread out over yesterday and today. I had fun but won't be winning any prizes. There are no brackets or ladders or bowl-offs; prizes are awarded based on the three scores scratch/hand
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Climate Prophet's Excess
Jan 25 2009, 12:12 EST
New Scientist mag interviews James Lovelock. Lovelock is not very upbeat about the coming Global Warming Apocalypse [emphasis mine]
Q: Do you think we will survive?
A: I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2C of warm
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CNN Colors the News
Jan 25 2009, 11:48 EST [updated Jan 25 2009, 11:55 EST]
In Miami two people were killed when a gunman broke up a craps game Saturday night.
The headline on the front page is "Gunman used AK-47 to fire on crowd, police say" which makes it sound like a random act. I suppose a gunman could have randomly shot up
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The Prisoner
Jan 20 2009, 10:03 EST [updated Jan 20 2009, 10:38 EST]
Patrick McGoohan died (which bobsalive mentioned). I liked the guy even though I didn't know him. He had many roles including the bad guy in Braveheart but I saw him first and foremost for his starring, writing, and directing in The Prisoner (free to wa
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24 Everyday things that are about to be slightly less common
Jan 20 2009, 07:23 EST [updated Jan 20 2009, 07:52 EST]
Forwarded was Scout's list of 24 things that are about to go extinct (hat tip Hilary). As personally biting as the pending extinction of "stand alone bowling alleys" is, the list kinda fails. Many of the items have already become so niche that they are
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Cory Doctorow to Keynote at EuroPython 2009
Jan 19 2009, 23:08 EST [updated Jan 20 2009, 08:03 EST]
Announcement here. Doctorow is a sci-fi writer, devoted futurist, and a main contributor at BoingBoing. I'm just not sure what he has to do with python.
[later] I'm likely to attend but I'll need a new talk to make it certain (I did a talk last EuroPy
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Jan 19 2009, 22:06 EST
132, 142, 153. See? I don't just post when I have a good week.
The tournament is this weekend so I'll have to go in and practice every day during the week. Time to hot up the video camera again.
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Your week in Quickies
Jan 16 2009, 14:28 EST
Keanua Reeves to star in live-action Cowboy Beebop
[jackdied]
Jan 16 2009, 14:27 EST
People sometimes ask me "when is violence morally a
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Great Moments in Naming
Jan 16 2009, 14:19 EST [updated Jan 16 2009, 14:21 EST]
The Australians may have a strange rhyming custom which makes "afternoon" into "arvo" but they have a very plain naming custom for geographic features. See the wikipedia entries for the Great Sandy Desert, or the Snowy Mountains, or the Great Barrier Ree
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Congress Thinks Small
Jan 16 2009, 12:00 EST [updated Jan 16 2009, 12:22 EST]
The House has approved a bill to raise tobacco taxes to pay for a $32 million increase in SCHIP. That's $0.60 a pack of cigarettes and $0.40 per cigar.
My first reaction was $32 million? Only $32 million? Haven't these people gotten the memo that only
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Blackout Facebook for Earth Hour!!!
Jan 13 2009, 04:26 EST [updated Jan 13 2009, 07:18 EST]
May there be many small hells for the people that forward this piffle. This particular forwarded scheme involves turning out your lights for one hour to "raise awareness on our everyday energy usage and personal impact on the environment and climate chan
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Healthcare End Point
Jan 11 2009, 22:49 EST
You want universal healthcare? This is what happens.
The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs.
First the law makes you pay for other people's healthcare and then it regulates
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Home From The Holidays
Jan 09 2009, 02:12 EST [updated Jan 10 2009, 13:50 EST]
Lots of parties: Christmas Eve, Christmas, day after Christmas, day after that, New Year's Eve, and just generally hanging around. Plus some dinners.
I don't have a large family or 100 friends on facebook but I can't imagine those folks packed more into
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Jan 05 2009, 22:18 EST [updated Jan 05 2009, 22:20 EST]
147, 152, 160. Not too shabby.
January 24th/25th is the USBC Greater Boston Tournament. I'll be bowling once each in the singles, doubles, and four-man categories (you can bowl once on each of the two days in the team categories if your teammates are c
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Your week in Quickies
Jan 04 2009, 16:40 EST
Boston Extreme Beer Festival
[jackdied]
Jan 04 2009, 16:35 EST
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Quote of the Week
Dec 27 2008, 01:14 EST [updated Dec 27 2008, 01:21 EST]
Contains Quinine
- Vintage brand Tonic Water
My first thought was "is anyone allergic to quinine?" but the statement is in bold on the front of the bottle so it must be a brag and not a warning. This is a bit like writing "Contains Cow Lactation
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Novel Ideas
Dec 23 2008, 13:12 EST
An Anathem Review
As jackdied touched on in his halftime report, Neal Stephenson's latest is one long book. At over 900 pages, it's a bear to lug around and even somewhat daunting to look at.
Then I tried actually reading it. Again as jackdied men
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A Technical Solution to a Social Problem
Dec 23 2008, 07:30 EST [updated Dec 23 2008, 07:40 EST]
"Idaho State Rep. Steve Hartgen, a former newspaper publisher, says he might introduce a bill to force people to use their real names when posting comments on the Internet." Says the AP
Rep. Hartgen is a fool and solving social problems with technical so
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Winter Bowling: Xmas Game
Dec 22 2008, 23:28 EST [updated Dec 22 2008, 23:36 EST]
140, 112, 169. Uneven but I didn't sh*t the bed.
After league I pre-bowled* for next week along with a few other players (two days after Christmas is too close for anyone traveling out of state). 145, 158, 188. Much better.
Leagues do small awards fo
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Just Arrived
Dec 22 2008, 16:15 EST
From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967. I have a full load of books to finish for the Holidays.
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Your week in Quickies
Dec 19 2008, 15:31 EST
25 Most/Least Safe Cities
[jackdied]
Dec 19 2008, 15:30 EST
Philadelphia gets listed twice on the Least Safe list if you count Camden.
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Regulation is Taxation
Dec 19 2008, 14:24 EST [updated Dec 19 2008, 14:38 EST]
I am fond of pointing out that US Government cash spending of 3 Trillion dollars a year is just the tip of the iceberg. The amount of wealth it silently spends through regulation is just as staggering. For instance there is a new federal law regulating
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Quote of the Week
Dec 19 2008, 13:10 EST
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements
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Speaking at PyCon 2009
Dec 16 2008, 09:23 EST
I received my acceptence letter for PyCon 2009, the annual US Python programming language conference. So I'll be in Chicago end of March giving a new version of the talk I did in the UK and Lithuania. Should be fun.
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Saturday Bowling Extravaganza
Dec 15 2008, 00:36 EST [updated Dec 15 2008, 00:38 EST]
KZ, Wolfe, and I went bowling while the girls were picking out bride's maid's dresses. We ended up bowling seven games (picking out dresses must be hard, fun, or both).
GamejackdiedWolfeKZ
Game 1128133160
Game 2150154123
Game 3160113154
Game 41131
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Welcome to Home Depot
Dec 12 2008, 12:30 EST [updated Dec 14 2008, 01:29 EST]
*ring ring*
Phone: Welcome to Home Depot Sommerville. We do not have any generators, how may I help you?
Me: Nevermind.
New Hampshire is currently fuuuucked (Somerville, MA is 50 miles from NH). This includes bobsalive. Bob talked to our friend Mik
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Dec 08 2008, 22:13 EST [updated Dec 08 2008, 22:38 EST]
115, 197, 131. I could do no wrong in that 197 game. It could have been a 200+ if I hadn't left the ninth frame open or if I had finished with more than 5 pins on my final throw. Oh well.
Next week we change oil patterns again, from the 42 foot Scorpi
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Hurray for the Spanish Curse
Dec 07 2008, 18:23 EST
The American Enterprise Institute has an article Grain and Oil that graphs the decline of the Soviet Union next to the price and production of Grain and Oil. Good stuff. The Soviets had stagnant grain production and a growing urban population who still
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Your week in Quickies
Dec 07 2008, 18:09 EST
Fat: The Cookbook
[jackdied]
Dec 07 2008, 17:49 EST
The book's four sections are dedicated to butter, lard or pork fat, poultry fat, and
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Blog TODO List
Dec 07 2008, 18:06 EST [updated Dec 07 2008, 18:15 EST]
Move blog hosting to Google's App Engine service.
Add comments.
Mark archive pages as non-indexable so google doesn't think we're a spam site - it sees lots of duplication because there are many URLs to get the same content.
Remove FAQ entry #1
Q:
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WalMart's own FEMA
Dec 07 2008, 17:42 EST [updated Dec 07 2008, 17:48 EST]
The whole article on WalMart's emergency management strategy is a must read. WalMart has stores everywhere so any natural disaster affects them. WalMart also has a huge number of employees so they can spare a few to just think about disaster relief and
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Obama Promises to Destroy 2.5+ Million Jobs
Dec 07 2008, 16:36 EST [updated Dec 07 2008, 17:54 EST]
Which is another way of describing his promise to create 2.5 million jobs. The money to "create" those jobs has to come from the private sphere which means private jobs are retarded by at least that 2.5 million amount (you have to factor in overhead and
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$15 Billion Bailout for Automakers
Dec 06 2008, 16:05 EST
According to the AP Congress & Bush have agreed on a $15 billion bailout for U.S. automakers. $15 Billion is better than the talked about $35 billion but it is still greater than zero.
$15 billion is $30,000 per employee of the Big 3.
$15 billion is $
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Python 3000 Released!
Dec 04 2008, 22:01 EST [updated Dec 04 2008, 22:06 EST]
The Python programming language has released version 3.0 aka "Python 3000" - a name that started as a joke "we'll put that feature in Python 3000." You can read the What's New summary to see, umm, what's new.
Oh sure, you probably don't care but I do b
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Speaking with an Obama Campaign Staffer
Dec 01 2008, 23:40 EST [updated Dec 02 2008, 00:04 EST]
I spoke with a professional Dem campaign staffer recently (petedied's wedding). Nice guy. We didn't talk policy but we did talk about the campaign. Smart guy. Nothing he said will make you angry or blow your mind.
Their biggest non-problem was chann
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Winter Bowling: Post Turkey Day
Dec 01 2008, 22:23 EST [updated Dec 01 2008, 22:27 EST]
129, 147, 124. As my excuse my legs were asleep from driving back from Thanksgiving. It turns out I won $20 in the pre-Thanksgiving day game. No one remembers for what but there was a $20 and a sticky that said "Jack $20 HDCP" so it was some handicap t
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Far and Away Thanksgivings
Nov 26 2008, 00:44 EST [updated Nov 26 2008, 00:45 EST]
ABC has a story of Thanksgivings overseas. I can attest they are a tough number. When I was an exchange student living in Australia my American host mother servered a "turkey loaf" because it was the nearest thing going (finger quotes 'cause "near enoug
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Your week in Quickies
Nov 25 2008, 16:42 EST [updated Nov 26 2008, 02:31 EST]
Bruce Lee plays ping pong
[petedied]
Nov 25 2008, 16:39 EST
It's just nifty but begs the question how would he do with a paddle?
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POSTED: No Hunting
Nov 24 2008, 23:58 EST [updated Nov 25 2008, 00:00 EST]
We did our hunter safe course last month but there hasn't been any hunting. I've been away and bobsalive needs to buy a new rifle. Plus, it's been frigin cold. Maybe next year or in the special (and pricier) Spring doe season.
As partial vindication I
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Winter Bowling: Position Night
Nov 24 2008, 23:51 EST
I threw 119, 133, 157. Ooph. We were dead last out of six teams going in and still are. Our anchor was out due to kidney stones but that didn't matter much because one of our opponents, who has palsy (not sure what kind), threw +30 per game over his av
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Hillary Clinton: Unconstitutional Sec State Nomination?
Nov 24 2008, 23:30 EST [updated Nov 24 2008, 23:35 EST]
The Volokh Conspiracy has the goods. There is a quaint law that says congressmen can't switch to an appointed office who's pay has increased during their term. The accepted workaround is to reduce the pay to what it was before that person's current term
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Reading TED Talks
Nov 23 2008, 21:52 EST [updated Nov 23 2008, 21:59 EST]
The Technology Entertainment and Design lectures are by leaders for leaders -- and mostly the geeky leaders in their fields. The underlying theme is painfully technocratic because the attendees are people with dough in search of solutions, but the talks
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Lehigh beats Lafayette 31-15
Nov 22 2008, 18:36 EST [updated Nov 22 2008, 18:38 EST]
The telecast party at The Harp was lightly attended this year, about 150 people. Apparently last year they screwed it up and didn't make sure the game would even be televised in Boston (this year it was on Fox College Sports Pacific -- huh?).
Afterwards
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Your week in Quickies
Nov 21 2008, 22:47 EST
Americans make great Japanese cars
[jackdied]
Nov 21 2008, 22:46 EST
WSJ on domestic auto production. Link title from a friend who driv
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Review: Gears of War 2
Nov 20 2008, 04:15 EST [updated Nov 20 2008, 04:18 EST]
I'm not finished the game and I might never be. The difference between the first Gears of War and the second is the difference between Smokin' Aces and Shoot 'em up. One promised little and delivered much and the other promised the world and did not mak
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Gears of War 2 arrived today
Nov 19 2008, 21:21 EST
The UPS guy must have been running late because he fudged all the delivery details. It wasn't down there at 2:55pm and it wasn't accepted by a woman. It was left on the front porch sometime between 3pm and 4pm. He could have at least rung the doorbell.
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Your week in Quickies
Nov 13 2008, 17:13 EST
Monopoly, The Movie?
[bobsalive]
Nov 13 2008, 17:10 EST
To be directed by Ridley Scott and in the same futuristic vein as Blade Runner.
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Everything you never wanted to know about Foosball and didn't know to ask
Nov 12 2008, 18:27 EST [updated Nov 12 2008, 19:12 EST]
This very thorough Foosball article by ESPN will blow your mind if you thought Foosball was just a [dead] bar game. The author writes as an outsider to the professional foosball circuit so the article covers all the points that should suprise you because
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ANN: Lehigh-Lafayette is the 22nd
Nov 12 2008, 18:07 EST
I'll probably be at the Boston telecast but I might go to Lehigh proper.
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Life in the Obama's Whitehouse
Nov 09 2008, 17:55 EST [updated Nov 09 2008, 17:58 EST]
UK's Mirror explains life in the Whitehouse including this gem:
To help him keep in shape, Barack will build an indoor basketball court - to replace the bowling alley that Richard Nixon installed.
This aggression will not stand, man. If any of the Ob
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What the lame duck Republicans and incoming Democrats should and SHOULD NOT do
Nov 08 2008, 14:11 EST [updated Nov 08 2008, 14:18 EST]
Two years ago when Democrats took control of the house and senate they missed a prime opportunity to stand up for federalism. Thematically it would have robbed the Republicans of an issue and realistically it would have netted the Dems 100% of what they
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Voted
Nov 04 2008, 17:43 EST
Nothing much to note, it was in the same location as my 2004 vote and the same machines (optical scan). This year they actually had "I Voted!" stickers and the PTA Moms had a table outside with free juice & cookies for anyone with a sticker (and the kids
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Obama's Infomercial
Oct 29 2008, 20:20 EDT [updated Oct 29 2008, 20:21 EDT]
I'm catching parts during commercial breaks in Pushing Daisies. Three themes: he's a leader, you get FREE SHIT and lower taxes. Lots of snippets about people undergoing hardships, frequently at the hand of corporations. Barack will heal all, somehow.
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Obama in his Own Words
Oct 29 2008, 05:59 EDT [updated Oct 29 2008, 06:05 EDT]
In the Kerry-Bush election my friends tried to believe that when Kerry said two things (which he did about everything) he actually meant the thing they believed in. When Bush said something they took him at his word because he only said one thing. Oddly
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Light Posting
Oct 29 2008, 05:06 EDT
Sorry for the light posting. The internets are generating such an insane volume, both opinion and fact-finding, that my free time is swamped just reading.
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Obama is not a Socialist and McCain isn't a Capitalist
Oct 29 2008, 04:57 EDT [updated Oct 29 2008, 05:24 EDT]
Two months after I moved to Boston I met my first honest-to-God Marxist (a Harvard prof, natch). He said that Communism wasn't a failure because it had never been tried. He was equally certain that Capitalism was a failure because it had been tried in t
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Your week in Quickies
Oct 28 2008, 08:27 EDT
French Accuse British of War Crimes
[jackdied]
Oct 26 2008, 19:11 EDT
At Agincourt, 600 years ago. The French have never been known to
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Massachusetts Ballot Initiatives
Oct 22 2008, 00:26 EDT
Here are the three ballot measures that will be voted on in Massachusetts, and our editorial opinion of them. Aside: ballotpedia.org is a pretty neat site.
Question 1: Massachusetts State Income Tax Repeal
Good Lord Yes. This will repeal the personal
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ANN: New Hampshire Senatorial Debate Tonight
Oct 21 2008, 19:19 EDT [updated Oct 21 2008, 21:07 EDT]
at 8pm on WENH, which is channel 11 on Boston area Comcast cable.
[afterwards] It wasn't a debate, it was a slaughter. Senator John Sununu wiped the floor with Governor Jeanne Shaheen. The only downside for him is that he talked over her several times
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Our Republic, Votes Cannot Be Trusted (Part III)
Oct 21 2008, 02:09 EDT [updated Oct 21 2008, 02:23 EDT]
Voting in our Republic has two agreed upon and contradictory goals:
Be as easy as possible, to encourage participation.
Be as accountable as possible, to discourage fraud.
The hard line between the two is that no individual vote may be traceable ba
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Our Republic, How we See the Candidates (Part II)
Oct 21 2008, 01:08 EDT [updated Oct 21 2008, 01:13 EDT]
Over at Volokh they are asking how people interpret intelligence in candidates.
It seems to me that when we talk about a candidate's "intelligence," we usually mean a mix of several different things. We might mean raw intellectual candle power, the sor
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US Mint vs Gresham's Law vs Strippers
Oct 20 2008, 23:54 EDT [updated Oct 20 2008, 23:58 EDT]
It's an odd conjunction, certainly. The US Mint is pushing a new line of dollar coins on the grounds that they are more environmentally friendly than dollar bills. It should also help that these coins (which I haven't seen) have presidents on them inste
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Oct 20 2008, 22:41 EDT [updated Oct 21 2008, 00:23 EDT]
We managed to take 11/21 points despite the fact that both my teammates were out this week; which means I was bowling with a -20 pin per game handicap. I didn't do well as much as the other team did badly. 149, 134, 133 (+3/game over my 135 average). M
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Our Republic, for Better or Worse (Part I)
Oct 18 2008, 01:39 EDT [updated Oct 18 2008, 01:42 EDT]
I'm going to be saying some harsh things about Democracy in America in the coming days (with references to Democracy in America, natch). But first and foremost I will say that I have great hope and faith in the basic virtues of Americans. Despite occasi
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Your week in Quickies
Oct 17 2008, 15:13 EDT
ZipSkinny.com
[jackdied]
Oct 17 2008, 15:12 EDT
Quick facts and charts about population by zipcode.
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Worst Political Ad of the Season
Oct 16 2008, 16:30 EDT [updated Oct 16 2008, 16:33 EDT]
It was for Carol Shea-Porter of NH and it starts with playing children. Carol voices over "If children could vote on health care they would have voted the same way as I have in Congress."
Go Carol, not just voting for the children but like the children!
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Deval Patrick's October Surprise
Oct 16 2008, 11:39 EDT [updated Oct 16 2008, 15:07 EDT]
MA has a budget shortfall! We're going to have to cut jobs and services! Kinda, this Herald article says the 1000 cut jobs and $1billion in spending cuts will target children, the elderly, and the homeless. Because sometimes you want to frighten the ho
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Obama, Populist, Socialist, Debater
Oct 15 2008, 21:11 EDT [updated Oct 15 2008, 21:42 EDT]
JFC. If McCain can't nail him for promising tax cuts to 95% of the population he deserves to lose.
And hey, he loses. What a schmuck. This had been debated for weeks, argued on blogs and op-ed pages, and all the easy talking points highlighted. Massi
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The Recession is satrting to smell like a Recession
Oct 15 2008, 20:28 EDT [updated Oct 15 2008, 20:38 EDT]
The op-ed pages have been announcing a Recession for a couple years now. It was easy to brush off because I remember the tech bubble mini-recession of 2000; friends with soft degrees (English, marketing, etc) were waiting tables and even Engineers with
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Hofstra Presidential Debate
Oct 15 2008, 11:41 EDT
Tonight's debate is being held at Hofstra University. I don't know much about it other than I have one friend who went there. Hofstra is definitely interested in doing Civics stuff because they sent busloads of students to New Hampshire for the primary
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Hunter Safety, Addendum
Oct 15 2008, 09:57 EDT [updated Oct 15 2008, 11:29 EDT]
As jackdied mentioned Monday, we both completed our Hunter Education field day over the weekend. It was pretty interesting for several reasons, and fun; enough so that I'm actually posting.
Orienteering
The day included a little instruction on a few of
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Gallows Humor (via IM)
Oct 14 2008, 16:25 EDT [updated Oct 14 2008, 16:36 EDT]
(4:16:56 PM) bobsalive: See this?
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the [capital gains tax] rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went
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Pelham, NH in Boston News
Oct 13 2008, 23:42 EDT [updated Oct 14 2008, 16:33 EDT]
The Boston NBC local news featured a home owner from Pelham, New Hampshire who stopped a burglar with a handgun. I'm guessing this made the local news because the NH guy A) stopped a burglar with a pistol, B) it was a slow news day, and mainly C) admitte
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Somerville/Ball Square News
Oct 13 2008, 22:14 EDT [updated Oct 13 2008, 22:20 EDT]
The Powderhouse Pub reopened yesterday. It wasn't so much a remodeling as a cleaning and paint job.
Crowley's Liquors now closes at the same time as Pescatore's next door. So now Luigi (who runs the packie) and wife Anna (who runs the restaurant) drive
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Hunter Education (6 images)
Oct 13 2008, 12:46 EDT [updated Oct 14 2008, 04:48 EDT]
bobsalive and I finished our Hunter Safety test yesterday. I had no idea what to expect so I'm writing about it here (with pics!) for the mildly curious. Feel free to skim because there was a lot of stuff - I added headers to make it easy. Fair warning
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Iceland Collapses
Oct 09 2008, 10:32 EDT [updated Oct 09 2008, 10:34 EDT]
It has nationalized the banks and suspended trading on its stock exchange. Why a country of 300k people needs a stock exchange I have no idea. Every county in New Jersey has five times that number of people and fewer stock exchanges.
The Russians were
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Five Cop Cars at My House
Oct 09 2008, 09:48 EDT [updated Oct 09 2008, 10:13 EDT]
No, they weren't there for me. Last night around 7pm the entire Somerville PD painted my street in flashing red and blue and eventually hauled a girl away in handcuffs. The online police blotter hasn't been updated yet so I don't know what for. My gues
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First Sighting, Obama TV Ad in Boston
Oct 08 2008, 21:34 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 21:37 EDT]
I'm not sure why he is advertising on Boston network TV [actually I am, it reaches New Hampshire] but I just saw a 15 second ad for Obama. The message was that Obama will lower taxes for anyone who makes less than $250k and that drop will be three times
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Fed cuts the funds rate
Oct 08 2008, 11:53 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 11:54 EDT]
The Federal Reserve has cut the base rate by 50 points to 1.5%. Good Lord, isn't a loose monetary policy what got us into this mess in the first place? The next president will be presiding over a Carter era economy. Let's hope he doesn't do the same th
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Estonia as USSR Satellite
Oct 08 2008, 11:46 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 11:48 EDT]
Instapundit has some doubts that Estonia was a Soviet country in regards to Barack's assertion.
I'm not sure what the quibble is: who cares if they were a member of the USSR or just brutally dominated by it? I was in at an Estonian wedding a couple year
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IPA Blogging the Townhall
Oct 07 2008, 20:43 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 22:35 EDT]
I had to at least peek. NB, Granite Rants is doing a more sane commentary on the debates, check it out.
9:10pm Obama leads by promising that CEOs of the companies that benefit under the bailout will not get golden parachutes. And that the $400k corpora
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Obama: Politics as Usual
Oct 07 2008, 20:22 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 20:36 EDT]
Obama funneled money to his family. Of course he did. This is baseline behavior for a politician. Once he was elected Senator his wife's income tripled. That is standard too.
100 Senators vote on 3 trillion dollars of spending annually. Any business
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Our Editorial Position on Tonight's McCain/Obama Townhall Debate
Oct 07 2008, 19:27 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 19:34 EDT]
(7:52:35) jackdied: townhall debate at 9pm. I'm finding it hard to care.
(7:52:54) bobsalive: I'm spectacularly uninterested.
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Bailout: Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Oct 07 2008, 17:30 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 18:31 EDT]
Johnny Cash plus anything equals win but this music + photo essay takes the cake. The video is about the bailout, the pictures are of the panjandrums Fed Chair Ben Bernanke (guy with beard) and Treasury Poobah Henry Paulson (bald, no beard), and the musi
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Six Months in Pictures (6 images)
Oct 07 2008, 15:43 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 16:13 EDT]
I haven't put up any new pictures in a while so here are some.
Annual Cabin Work Weekend This year we repainted the cabin. Below is the half-way point where we had applied the rented paint sprayer but hadn't done the detail work. It took three men thre
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Your week in Quickies
Oct 07 2008, 14:43 EDT
Football formation so effective it's illegal in 10 states
[jackdied]
Oct 07 2008, 14:43 EDT
The A-11 ("All 11" receivers) formation work
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Does the free market corrode moral character?
Oct 07 2008, 13:28 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 16:02 EDT]
An all star panel of essayists answer the question "Does the free market corrode moral character?." My short answer is: "The free market has nothing to do with morality." It allows people to be moral or immoral and even to define those terms as they se
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Iceland Nears Bankruptcy (1 image)
Oct 07 2008, 12:47 EDT [updated Oct 07 2008, 13:43 EDT]
Iceland may go bankrupt as a result of the global financial instability. Iceland is particularly fragile because it has a tiny population (1/2 the size of Boston, 1/20th the size of New York City), it is heavily socialist (most decisions are made by the
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Oct 06 2008, 21:33 EDT [updated Oct 06 2008, 21:41 EDT]
150, 98, 142. I was very uneven (duh) and only made six spares the entire night. My high games were mainly the result of more strikes. I left and missed six ten pins [that's the one next to the gutter for righties]. Everyone did badly and my team took
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No Yuengling For You
Oct 05 2008, 19:29 EDT [updated Oct 05 2008, 19:45 EDT]
If you are a Massachusetts resident, that is. The local packie owner was poring over the distributor's book when I walked in. He said* "you're from Pennsylvania, how do I get this beer? everybody's asking for this beer." On a slip of paper he had writ
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Gamboling in Chinatown
Oct 04 2008, 02:26 EDT
Gambling, too. 10 (half) the crowd played hold em and a few were green (*cough*women*cough*). I got knocked out on the third hand: the flop was A-5-10 and I was holding A-J. The gal who had gone all in once already went all in again. Then a guy who ha
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Presidential Campaign Summary
Oct 03 2008, 09:48 EDT [updated Oct 03 2008, 09:51 EDT]
McCain is a squish who has campaigned on being a [brave! - ed] squish. Obama is the leftmost member of the Senate who has campaigned on being a squish.
Thank god I live in Massachusetts where neither outcome can be attributed to me.
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1st Amendment Violations in Illinois
Oct 03 2008, 09:09 EDT [updated Oct 08 2008, 12:03 EDT]
Faculty at the University of Illinois have been prohibited from displaying candidate support in the form of buttons and bumper stickers. Unconstitutional doesn't begin to cover it.
Yes yes, they are likely 99% behind Obama and McCain would probably appl
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Mental Health Parity
Oct 03 2008, 08:59 EDT [updated Oct 03 2008, 09:01 EDT]
One of the things Biden mentioned in the debate was "metnal health care parity" which means health care plans should cover depression and friends as comprehensively as it covers broken bones.
It is a nice sentiment but extra coverage ain't free. Extra c
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Debate Afterwards
Oct 03 2008, 07:49 EDT [updated Oct 03 2008, 08:20 EDT]
I have my own biases so my common wisdom is never the common wisdom. The post-game show on CNN and FNC confirms this. Both had Palin exceeding expectations and CNN had Biden winning on polls. FNC kinda skipped the polls because their afterwards sucked
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VP Debates
Oct 02 2008, 20:55 EDT [updated Oct 02 2008, 22:11 EDT]
bobsalive and I started doing a live IM session of the debates which we were going to make into a post. This now seems less likely. Granite Rants is doing his usual policy-by-policy coverage.
Biden is lying through his teeth but Palin is talking too q
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Jimmy Carter: The Movie
Oct 01 2008, 21:43 EDT [updated Oct 01 2008, 23:29 EDT]
There is a documentary on Jimmy Carter currently playing on cable. Here is a quote from an intern addressing a Carter banquet:
[the Carter center asks] How can I save the world? From afar the Carter center was an institution that magically magically b
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Your Mother's Congress
Oct 01 2008, 10:24 EDT [updated Oct 01 2008, 10:33 EDT]
If congress wants to be taken seriously about all the "emergency" talk it really needs to start acting like there is an emergency. Instead on a normal budget bill we get business as usual:
"very few people have any idea what's in it." Cornered House m
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John/Jack and the Origins of Nicknames
Sep 30 2008, 05:47 EDT [updated Sep 30 2008, 06:09 EDT]
It has been years since I wrote what continues to be our most search-engine referenced post John's and Jack's over time. It described why I stopped being a John and started being a Jack and included some history and nifty graphs (Mmm, graphs).
The reaso
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Winter Sport Bowling: Bedshitting Edition
Sep 30 2008, 01:43 EDT [updated Sep 30 2008, 02:19 EDT]
159, 123, 118. Youch. Thankfully my teammates took up the slack and we won 16/21 points.
Only in America
My landlord showed up. Sorta. He was on the team of Department of Public Works guys repairing the water main break in front of the bowling alley
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German Anti-Fascists Shutdown Rally by Throwing Rocks, Punches (1 image)
Sep 30 2008, 00:34 EDT [updated Sep 30 2008, 01:00 EDT]
Wait .. what? 40,000 "antifas" Germans stopped a rally of "right wing extremists" by throwing rocks, shutting down the railways, and beating up the few "reactionaries" who managed to show face. I'm doomed to never understand the political labels of Euro
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That That
Sep 29 2008, 23:16 EDT [updated Oct 01 2008, 07:31 EDT]
I've consciously been trying to cull every use of the word "that" in posts. By some stylistic defect I use the word almost as often as "the." Eliminating thats doesn't hurt readability much but reduces length. For example [or "by way of for example" fo
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Dear John
Sep 29 2008, 22:21 EDT [updated Sep 29 2008, 22:22 EDT]
Dear John McCain,
Please stop sending me mail. Although I appreciate the weekly status updates I'm not going to give you any money.
[Of course the RNC knows what it is doing so spamming households must work, on average. In my last incarnation my com
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Econ Blogging?
Sep 29 2008, 20:32 EDT [updated Sep 29 2008, 23:33 EDT]
petedied: I'm surprised that my brother (jackdied) hasn't blogged about the economy yet.
Mrs. petedied: He's probably too busy looking for his wallet.
[jackdied]
My response is entirely predictable: there are two sets of morons in the equation; fi
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Your week in Quickies
Sep 29 2008, 06:13 EDT [updated Sep 29 2008, 07:19 EDT]
A linguist on Palin's Accent
[jackdied]
Sep 27 2008, 04:23 EDT
There are two kinds of linguists: one believes that there is a ri
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Is Obama Trying to Lose the Election?
Sep 26 2008, 01:36 EDT [updated Sep 28 2008, 20:30 EDT]
Threatening TV stations with license revocation for running anti-Obama ads is not a grown up thing to do. Then again this is the guy who won his first election by suing all his opponents names off the ballot.
With the help of the Dobrys, he was able t
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HOWTO: Get a New Passport, Same Day
Sep 25 2008, 21:15 EDT [updated Sep 26 2008, 03:40 EDT]
My well worn and much loved passport disappeared, and on the day I needed it. It turns out you can get one in just a few hours (instead of weeks or months) by following these steps. But first some general advice.
Smile, Dammit
Smile, and be polite. C
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First Sununu Sighting
Sep 25 2008, 19:39 EDT [updated Sep 25 2008, 20:04 EDT]
An anti John Sununu (New Hampshire Senator) ad just appeared on my Boston peacock network. New Hampshire abuts the Boston media sphere so it must cost big bucks (or at least bucks wasted on non-voters) to run political ads. New Jersey (North Jersey is N
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Anathem Halftime Report
Sep 25 2008, 16:34 EDT [updated Sep 26 2008, 04:28 EDT]
I'm 500 pages into this 1000 page tome. The stage is set in the first 50 pages; The world is pretty much like ours but 4000 years in the future. The narrator is a monk in one of the dozens of abbeys that have kept the world stable and knowledge alive o
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Boston Population Stats
Sep 24 2008, 03:09 EDT
Internet128 always has interesting things to say about Boston/Mass population surveys - at least when he isn't talking about the Patriots. The newest ACS data is out, here is a table of Suffolk county data which comprises Boston (600k) plus a little extr
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GOP Fundrasing Letters
Sep 24 2008, 02:17 EDT [updated Sep 24 2008, 02:18 EDT]
I've received a half dozen letters in the last week from various offices (RNC, McCain, etc).
They can send as many as they like but it is a waste of their time and money: I refuse to vote for McCain so I'm certainly not inclined to give him money eithe
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Note to Lehigh University
Sep 18 2008, 11:44 EDT [updated Sep 19 2008, 01:10 EDT]
Please stop inviting me to "Young Alumni" events. I graduated more than ten years ago, get over it. Also, keep the interns away from the keyboard. This is getting absurd:
Shiver me timbers!
Young Alumni Reunion is right around the corner,
Oct.
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Neal Stephenson's Anathem
Sep 17 2008, 23:35 EDT [updated Sep 17 2008, 23:39 EDT]
I have nothing to say, yet. Just that bobsalive says A-nay-thum and I say Uh-nath-um. If we each read 50 pages a day one of us will be finished by Christmas. Not this one, the next one. Stephenson really needs to get back to the brevity of his earlie
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Winter Bowling: Sport League
Sep 17 2008, 20:10 EDT [updated Sep 17 2008, 20:14 EDT]
The league continues to exist but the hoped for two extra teams didn't materialize so it is down to six teams and 18 bowlers. It would have been better for my team if I had stayed home but instead I went there straight from the airport. 155, 117, 134.
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Book Review: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Sep 17 2008, 16:48 EDT [updated Sep 17 2008, 17:27 EDT]
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a Robert Heinlein novel with a tooth-achingly sweet libertarian theme so naturally I loved it. It was one of his earlier works (Amazon has it out of print, sometimes) and was written in intentionally bad prose so it only
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Vegetarians Can Go Screw
Sep 17 2008, 13:11 EDT [updated Sep 29 2008, 05:52 EDT]
I received a wedding invitation in the mail today*. The dinner options read:
__ Filet Mignon with Merlot Bordelaise
__ Grilled Salmon Filet with Oriental Glaze
__ Vegetarian
It must suck to be a vegetarian, but really, you have no one to blame but
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East/West Coast Jaywalking
Sep 17 2008, 01:27 EDT [updated Sep 17 2008, 01:52 EDT]
In case any of my East Coast friends thought I was kidding that any jurisdiction would give tickets for jaywalking I'll reference this article:
I walked across a street when it seemed safe to do so, regardless of distance from lights, or their chroma
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Almost Have Passport, Will Probably Travel
Sep 12 2008, 13:41 EDT [updated Sep 16 2008, 22:21 EDT]
My new passport should be ready at 3:30pm. Now all I need is a plane flight...
[to be replaced shortly with a more informative and less harried article]
I did get there and my talk was well received. I made it back too. I can't give an accurate descr
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Winter Bowling: Errata
Sep 12 2008, 04:23 EDT [updated Sep 12 2008, 04:26 EDT]
One of the pleasant things about life is the people you meet. There are a lot of them and some are interesting. Double that for bowling. This week we played a team that included Bob. I asked Bob what kind of engineer he was which was presumptuous bec
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Gone Baby, Gone
Sep 11 2008, 19:01 EDT [updated Sep 11 2008, 20:25 EDT]
My passport is not here. Fuck.
As a small grace I have friends who know things and I hit a bingo on the first call. It turns out all I have to do is get proof of intent-to-travel from the airline, go to the Boston passport office in the morning, and th
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9/11
Sep 11 2008, 17:05 EDT
Evil does exist in this world. Maybe you didn't have any funerals to go to after the fact but I did and today will never be "in the past."
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Your week in Quickies
Sep 11 2008, 12:25 EDT [updated Sep 12 2008, 02:35 EDT]
World Names Profiler
[bobsalive]
Sep 11 2008, 12:25 EDT
Nifty plots of the popularity of surnames in various countries.
I enj
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Let's Play a Game
Sep 11 2008, 11:58 EDT [updated Sep 11 2008, 19:04 EDT]
Called "Where the fuck is my passport?" Normally a very good guess would be in the sock drawer next to the title to my car, birth certificate, and expired passport. Today, not so much.
Not a total disaster, I still have eight hours to turn everything i
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Go Screw
Sep 11 2008, 01:31 EDT [updated Sep 11 2008, 01:41 EDT]
Two months ago I was in Lithuania, giving a technical presentation. Tomorrow I'm in the UK, doing the same. Next month I'm in New Hampshire receiving a hunter safety lecture. All voluntarily.
Not to put too fine a point on it: no one represents me.
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A History of Good Ideas
Sep 10 2008, 23:48 EDT
As opposed to the unknowable history of why popular ideas were popular the history of good ideas would be much easier to write. Good ideas can be judged by their evolutionary fitness: if they survive ten generations - call it 200 years - then you can put
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A History of Popular Ideas
Sep 10 2008, 23:07 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 23:10 EDT]
It is a popular notion, a very human notion, that the good will out, light is the best disinfectant, and that the meek shall inherit the earth. The last two are promulgated by Christianity but also predate Christianity. If Christ isn't your bag, Karl Ma
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Winter Bowling: Sport Scoring
Sep 10 2008, 22:08 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 22:13 EDT]
The scoring system in the Sport/PBA league is slightly more detailed than in the normal leagues. The normal scoring is out of 7, 2 points for most team pins in each game and 1 point for overall team pins. The sport league has a more detailed scoring sys
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Defending Obama
Sep 10 2008, 21:52 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 21:54 EDT]
May I? Obama's recent remark about the McCain-Palin campaign being like "putting lipstick on a pig [of their policies]" was in no way offensive and I find it impossible to read it as such. I think this is a case of McCain-Palin supporters overreaching.
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Voters are [still] Idiots
Sep 10 2008, 21:40 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 21:45 EDT]
The WaPo published the editorial 5 Myths about smart voters. The five myths are variations of: voters know about politics (they don't) and that, no, your demographic isn't any better informed than the others.
This is worth repeating again and again beca
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Amazon's Red-Blue Book Sales
Sep 10 2008, 19:37 EDT [updated Sep 11 2008, 14:14 EDT]
Amazon has a State-by-state heat map of book sales by ideology and state.
I love graphs more than the next guy but I don't think this is useful because there are so many confounding factors. First, are some areas more likely to get books from Amazon/a l
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In The Mail
Sep 10 2008, 14:36 EDT [updated Sep 10 2008, 18:10 EDT]
Neal Stephenson's Anathem and Amity Shales' The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. If Forgotten Man is a chunky book at 500 pages then Anathem is an unabridged dictionary wrapped in a new dust jacket. I have a 12 hour plane ride tomor
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Winter Bowling Begins (and Ends?)
Sep 09 2008, 01:02 EDT [updated Sep 09 2008, 01:16 EDT]
The Winter bowling season, which runs September through May, has begun [Summer runs just the Summer]. More on that below.
First Night
I bowled 162, 129, 167. Which is nice because this league is on a PBA pattern; the same tougher lane conditions that
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Actual History and Actual Ideas
Aug 31 2008, 21:40 EDT [updated Aug 31 2008, 22:03 EDT]
A constant theme here (I hope that comes through) is that the left behave as if there is no history and every idea is brand spanking new (and new is good!). But that would be repeating the entire purpose of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism [I'll work up
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Somerville/Ball Square News
Aug 31 2008, 19:08 EDT [updated Aug 31 2008, 19:33 EDT]
The block of Ball Square anchored by Kelly's Diner is closed for renovations, except for the Diner itself.
The Powderhouse Pub is due to reopen in a week with a new kitchen and new everything; possibly to compete with the Tavern on the Hill instead of j
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Laws Have Consequences
Aug 31 2008, 18:02 EDT [updated Aug 31 2008, 18:29 EDT]
More on laws & consequences in a minute. Our Standards and Practices guidelines come pretty close to outlawing the cute, via the spirit if not the letter of rule #2
2. If you purchase a cat you will be expelled. If you post a picture of a cat it will be
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Rants is Blogging Again
Aug 31 2008, 16:44 EDT
Granite Rants is blogging again. Mostly good eye-rolling about the Dem convention. But also a Kerouac piece about a Radiohead concert:
The whole contrivance of live popular musical appreciation: Parking Lot, red party cups, drunk, go through admissio
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Winning a Campagn as Experience
Aug 31 2008, 16:29 EDT
Lisa Schiffren at NRO has a long post about how winning a campaign (as Obama has done) shouldn't count as proof you can govern.
Well yes, and if you've read your Hayek/Mises you would know this is exactly why politicians are worse at running things than
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Taxonomy
Aug 31 2008, 06:45 EDT
One of the cheapest flights to Birmingham, England was $330 plus $440 tax (total $770). I picked the option that was also $770 but with more of the money going to the airline than the state. See you at PyCon UK.
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Email.com == Tools
Aug 30 2008, 03:05 EDT [updated Aug 30 2008, 03:09 EDT]
First they made the service unusable by inserting ads every other page and recently they have instituted a 60 day purge policy. If you don't log in once every two months your mailbox (10 megs max for the free account) is deleted. Guess who just lost 10
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Sarah Palin as McCain VP
Aug 29 2008, 19:54 EDT [updated Aug 29 2008, 19:55 EDT]
Ignoring all her politics Sarah Palin is just plain likable. Extraordinarily likable. In this and her thin record of experience she is like Barack Obama but that is where the similarities end.
Her politics are small-L libertarian and her life is all lu
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Obama vs Bill Clinton
Aug 29 2008, 04:28 EDT [updated Aug 29 2008, 04:29 EDT]
Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are/were telegenic. One difference is that Obama includes in his speech "this in not about me, this is about you" whereas Bill just implied it, and mightily.
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Hunting, Safetily
Aug 29 2008, 03:40 EDT
bobsalive and I are now signed up for a hunter safety course. The course is not perfunctory; your choices are 10 hours of instruction or a written test, and both are followed by an 8 hour field practical that includes map reading, how to safely cross a
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Green New Deal
Aug 29 2008, 03:02 EDT
From the BBC
The outcomes of our plan, though, are not to be feared. They will create countless green collar jobs, introduce greater economic stability, bring huge benefits to the real economy and establish prudent environmental policy.
My main obje
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Obama's DNC Speech
Aug 29 2008, 02:24 EDT [updated Aug 29 2008, 12:29 EDT]
Lots of promises. The world, in fact. Good luck with that.
[petedied] I like when he called on past democratic presidents that showed the proper example for the party. FDR and Kennedy. He skipped the other meat heads like Buchanan who enabled the ci
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Good Eats Lied to Me
Aug 28 2008, 02:04 EDT [updated Aug 28 2008, 02:06 EDT]
The usually reliable Alton Brown's assertion that "Bananas are Iceland's third largest export crop" struck me immediately as bullshit and undercut my reverence for his show; especially where it lined up with my mothers non scientific advice
Mom: Let th
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Better Spin on the 2004 Graph
Aug 28 2008, 00:46 EDT [updated Aug 28 2008, 00:56 EDT]
A more concise way to explain my 2004 election rehash is:
You are most likely to live in a county that was evenly divided Bush/Kerry
The chances that you live in a county that went +5% for Bush or Kerry are about even
If you live in a county that wen
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How Many Communist Mentors Are Too Many? (2 images)
Aug 28 2008, 00:28 EDT [updated Aug 28 2008, 00:35 EDT]
The two party system doesn't allow for much gradation but the idea there is a fat middle is wrong. The pundits focus on the thin middle because that is where most of the action is. Here is a stylized graph of the US electorate.
Neither party can lose
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Obama isn't above Scortched Earth
Aug 27 2008, 23:51 EDT [updated Aug 27 2008, 23:55 EDT]
Instapundit linked to this piece with the headline Obama camp blasts National Review writer as "slimy character assassin." My first thought was "please be Stanley Kurtz" and indeed it is.
Kurtz was investigating Obama's connection with Ayers, an unrepen
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Your week in Quickies
Aug 27 2008, 23:03 EDT
Hats of Meat: Photographs and History
[jackdied]
Aug 27 2008, 23:03 EDT
The expression “I’ll eat my hat” traces back as far as the 19t
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Quote of the Week
Aug 27 2008, 01:21 EDT
I remember life before hyperbole. It was the WORST THING EVER.
JD commenting at the Reason blog
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Summer Bowling: Season's End
Aug 25 2008, 23:58 EDT [updated Aug 26 2008, 00:59 EDT]
The Summer leagues are at an end. Leagues don't end with a tournament but with "position night" where #1 bowls #2, #3 bowls #4, etc; You get one last chance to grab points from your closest rival. Helpfully the lanes were arranged so that the first plac
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Michelle Obama Still Isn't Helping
Aug 25 2008, 23:10 EDT [updated Aug 26 2008, 01:10 EDT]
I just caught the DNC highlight show on CSPAN. Michelle's speech (the bit they highlighted) went like this:
The path of history has met with the tide of hope - that is why I love this country.
This may be an improvement over "For the first time in
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Heh
Aug 25 2008, 13:46 EDT
Chicagoboyz has a poll Which of these is not a U.S. ally?. Choices include France and Georgia; The overwhelming choice, currently at 79% with 139 votes, is "The State Department." That's how I voted.
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Obama Picks Joe Biden as VP - Unforced Error #2591
Aug 24 2008, 01:46 EDT
Obama has picked one of only two men known for making more off-teleprompter gaffes than he does. Dan Quayle was apparently unavailable.
Presumably a team of actuaries ran the numbers and Biden helps Obama pick up one or two key states. That must be the
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Your week in Quickies
Aug 17 2008, 09:25 EDT
The Periodic Table of Videos
[bobsalive]
Aug 17 2008, 09:24 EDT
One video per element, and it's surprisingly entertaining.
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Chasing the Sun
Aug 16 2008, 04:55 EDT
According to weather.com sunrise in Boston is 5:53am and in Philadelphia it is 6:14am. That is a difference of 21 minutes which means the sun moves 15 miles a minute as the car drives (screw the crow). The difference is the result of Boston being more N
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Movie Review: No Country For Old Men
Aug 14 2008, 02:26 EDT [updated Aug 16 2008, 05:31 EDT]
4 Oscars for No Country For Old Men? I understand that it might have been "brave" to do a movie with no soundtrack, minimal dialogue, and a slow pace but while this movie might have done the best job possible of that .. it doesn't make it good.
The only
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Olympics Opening Ceremony
Aug 08 2008, 21:07 EDT [updated Aug 12 2008, 13:30 EDT]
The fireworks were beyond amazing. On the other hand they have an extra thousand years of practice over the rest of the world so the bar is pretty high.
I do wonder how they got all the houses surrounding the stadium to coordinate their colored outdoor
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God Damn the Pledge of Allegience
Aug 08 2008, 18:57 EDT [updated Aug 08 2008, 18:59 EDT]
American History continues to surprise. It turns out that the pledge, created in 1892, was the work of a Fabian Socialist and intended to yoke the people to the state. Wowzas. The gang at Marginal Revolution has more on the pledge.
The god bit was add
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Summer Bowling: The Slump is Dead
Aug 07 2008, 21:09 EDT [updated Aug 07 2008, 21:24 EDT]
Tuesday Night Trio: 161, 174, 164. My slump is officially over. The end of the slump is perfectly correlated to me telling my coach he wasn't allowed to add one damned thing to my swing until I got back into the 160s. I'm going to extend the ban until
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Summer Bowling: Return of the King
Aug 05 2008, 10:05 EDT [updated Aug 05 2008, 10:54 EDT]
We swept the #1 "Team Zenga" last night by an astounding 200 pins. The best part is that they hit their averages - we were just smoking. Half of those surplus pins were made by our sub Mike, formerly of the Suburban Achievers, who came down from bowlin
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Faux Philly Sunday
Jul 27 2008, 23:06 EDT [updated Jul 28 2008, 08:39 EDT]
There were some Superpretzel Soft Pretzels, a frozen pretzel that is about as close to a Philly soft pretzel as Budwiser is to Dock Street Beer. I also ate a bunch of Steak-Ums on soft rolls. The rolls certainly weren't Amoroso's but they did OK. Amoro
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Possibly Worst Hedge, Ever, Maybe
Jul 26 2008, 02:53 EDT [updated Jul 26 2008, 02:54 EDT]
The NYT on undiscovered oil reserves
This [new oil/gas find] would amount to 13 percent of the world's total undiscovered oil and about 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas.
Great, now we know exactly how much undiscovered stuff we have to loo
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Palm Treo vs the new iPhone
Jul 23 2008, 00:09 EDT [updated Jul 23 2008, 00:22 EDT]
This space reserved for bobsalive to document his conversion.
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The Only Real Protesters Are On The Right
Jul 22 2008, 23:46 EDT [updated Jul 23 2008, 00:49 EDT]
I hate protesters and protests, or at least what passes for them these days. As this blogginhead's segment (flash video) points out the real protests of the Left ended in the 60s. Old protests involved protesters wearing their Sunday Best and getting mo
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Summer Bowling: On the Road to Recovery
Jul 22 2008, 22:15 EDT [updated Jul 22 2008, 22:26 EDT]
I haven't posted bowling updates recently because I was out for a week and then my average went into a free fall. Two weeks ago I bowled 80 under my average for the night (so ~26 pins per game) and last night I was 25 under. My Monday average is now 137
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ANN: No Tap Tournament Wednesday Night
Jul 22 2008, 16:44 EDT
July 23rd at 7pm Lanes & Games is having a No Tap bowling tournament. There is no handicap so anyone off the street can play. It isn't bracketed, everyone plays three games and the highest combined score wins.
See you there!
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Your week in Quickies
Jul 18 2008, 05:47 EDT [updated Jul 18 2008, 05:50 EDT]
The Scary Truth About Puppy Mills
[jackdied]
Jul 18 2008, 05:38 EDT
All good advice but along the "there ought to be a law" line
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Quote of the Week
Jul 18 2008, 05:16 EDT [updated Jul 18 2008, 05:17 EDT]
a reader wrote, "I actually saw a Prius hybrid the other day without an Obama sticker on it." You mean they don't come with one straight from the factory?
-- Jay Nordlinger's "Impromptus"
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Speaking of End Times
Jul 18 2008, 04:00 EDT [updated Jul 18 2008, 04:56 EDT]
Jeff Soyer admits he "fell for" the Y2k scare. I kinda did too. I say "kinda" because while I believed it had merit (I'm a computer guy) I applied my belief unevenly. When I went to my parents' for Christmas I secreted a week's worth of food and water
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Al Gore's Limousine
Jul 18 2008, 03:41 EDT [updated Jul 18 2008, 03:48 EDT]
Calling someone a hypocrite is the lowest form of criticism. In the first instance you can only be a hypocrite if you take a moral stand at all; It seems unfair to fault people who try and fail more than people who don't try at all. Moreover it is quit
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MA Introduces post-Heller Laws; Minorities, Poor Hardest Hit
Jul 18 2008, 00:39 EDT [updated Jul 18 2008, 00:53 EDT]
The Massachusetts Governor has proposed an increase in all firearms fees in light of the recent Heller supreme court decision. It amounts to an extra $100 here, $100 there. I would like to say this effects the urban poor but it really doesn't - they cou
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Lithuanian Deer
Jul 17 2008, 23:28 EDT [updated Jul 17 2008, 23:29 EDT]
I asked the waitress what kind of deer I was eating and she said she had no idea (or didn't want to waste time saying). I got around to googling and it was probably one of the European Fallow deer or Roe deer, or less likely an Asian Sika deer.
I can te
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UK Police Officer Flees to Canada
Jul 17 2008, 22:12 EDT [updated Jul 17 2008, 22:27 EDT]
.. because being a Canadian cop is better than being a UK cop.
He lists some things that were "new" to him such as: physical training, weapons/melee training, and pursuit driving. If that all is new then what do UK cops do?
Here is a random list of dif
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American Politics from a European View
Jul 12 2008, 20:40 EDT [updated Jul 12 2008, 21:02 EDT]
Much of the dinner conversation at EuroPython was deeply geeky stuff but the rest was wine, women, song .. and politics, and religion (well, just with the commonwealth attendees), and sometimes money. I don't believe in the prohibitions against talking a
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Chincey Passport Workers
Jul 12 2008, 17:03 EDT [updated Jul 12 2008, 17:05 EDT]
Would it kill Customs workers to stamp a passport? I just took a look at mine and going by the stamps I have entered/left Frantfurt in 2008, entered/left Iceland in 2005, and mysteriously entered the US in 2003 without going anywhere else first.
It migh
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Lithuanian Eratta
Jul 11 2008, 09:40 EDT [updated Jul 11 2008, 14:27 EDT]
[I'm back from the EuroPython conference. This is cross posted at my Python blog. You can find the slides of my talk here Class Decorators: Radically Simple.]
[added last, but should have been first] Vilnius feels safe, but isn't. The girls I met out
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Greetings From Lithuania
Jul 08 2008, 00:12 EDT
I think I was made to live in Vlinius. The town is unkempt but not ruinously so. The touch of the law is light - customs was a sign saying "find an officer if you have anything to declare." Food is dirt cheap - $10 for a dinner and $2 for a half liter
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4th Fireworks (1 image)
Jul 05 2008, 15:11 EDT [updated Jul 05 2008, 15:25 EDT]
Here is what $1000 of fireworks looks like. Just standing next to this cornucopia is enough to make you shout "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!" at the top of your lungs. Our display was at Northwood Lake in New Hampshire where all of these are legal.
The show of c
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Bike Shed Problems
Jul 03 2008, 03:43 EDT [updated Jul 03 2008, 16:48 EDT]
I should have mentioned the "Bike Shed Problem" in my post about Australia's broadband plan. The "bike shed" problem is what color to paint the shed in the backyard. The problem is concrete and everyone understands it. This enables everyone to have an
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Up and Out
Jul 03 2008, 03:10 EDT [updated Jul 03 2008, 03:12 EDT]
Posting will be light. I'll be heading North to New Hampshire for the 4th and then out of the country to Lithuania for a conference gig.
bobsalive, teddied, and petedied are in charge meantime. So if there isn't a post in my absence there may be firings
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Your week in Quickies
Jul 03 2008, 03:05 EDT
NRO Discovers the Cthulhu '08 campaign
[jackdied]
Jul 03 2008, 01:05 EDT
Cthulhu, the amoral, eternal, and anti-human god of H.P. Lovecr
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Australian Government Cheese
Jul 02 2008, 23:47 EDT [updated Jul 02 2008, 23:54 EDT]
Everyone loves to decry "special interests" but no one ever sees themselves as a special interest. Geek news site Arstechnica lavishes praise on Australia's broadband plan in a post titled "Australia shows US how a real broadband strategy works" (the re
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Obama, Like You and Me, Only Better
Jul 02 2008, 22:17 EDT
It turns out Obama got a deal on his mortgage. This isn't the same "Friend of Angelo" scandal that has plagued other politicians. Obama was just given a good deal by an Illinois bank, full stop. I have to side with Confederate Yankee's opinion which is
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I'm Wrong: Lithuanian is NOT Latinate
Jul 02 2008, 01:37 EDT [updated Jul 02 2008, 02:01 EDT]
My previous post titled Surprise! Lithuanian is Latinate should be retitled "Nice! Lithuanian doesn't require any sounds that someone who knows a few latinate languages can't manage." That is a different thing.
A fellow EuroPython speaker tipped me off
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Summer Bowling Update
Jul 01 2008, 23:22 EDT [updated Jul 02 2008, 00:21 EDT]
My new game (post lessons) has caught up with my old game. Monday I bowled eleven games for 150 average - only 140 during league, feh. Tonight I bowled seven games for 160 average - none were during a league (I'm not in the Tues league and no one needed
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Obama on the March
Jun 30 2008, 07:48 EDT [updated Jun 30 2008, 16:25 EDT]
From NRO
OBAMA TO MAJOR DELIVER SPEECH IN INDEPENDENCE, MO
On this Fourth of July week, Senator Obama will discuss what patriotism means to him and what it requires of all Americans who love this country and want to see it do better.
A
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Ha Ha
Jun 28 2008, 22:45 EDT [updated Jun 28 2008, 22:59 EDT]
Fireworks, public and private, have been going off all week here in Somerville, Mass. I just heard a raft of bottle rockets go off and as the last one ended a police siren matched it. I hope they stick the guy with a noise complaint, at worst. Fireworks
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Restaruant Deopt
Jun 28 2008, 21:21 EDT [updated Jun 29 2008, 00:33 EDT]
It turns out that places like Costco and Sam's Club are undersized. As I picked up my grilled salmon with a side salad the owner produced my Mescaline* Salad from a garbage bag size of greens. I asked her if it was from Costco and she replied "No, Resta
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Some Kind of Wonderful
Jun 28 2008, 06:54 EDT [updated Jun 28 2008, 07:45 EDT]
What would I do without cable? Some Kind of Wonderful is currently playing on HBO. This movie was the perfect storm of a date movie when I was in middle school (feel free to not look up the year). It was written by John Hughes and starred Eric Stoltz,
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Quote of the Day
Jun 27 2008, 17:47 EDT [updated Jun 27 2008, 17:51 EDT]
"Should we emerge victorious [in the election], which I believe we will, sure we won't be arrogant, we will . . . say Let's sit down and talk, and talk we shall," he told the crowd on the outskirts of Harare. "So there it is, let the MDC reject it or ac
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Fowl Laws
Jun 27 2008, 00:00 EDT [updated Jun 27 2008, 00:03 EDT]
As a child born in the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania I took special interest in the recent supreme court decision which quotes PA law both for the majority and in the dissent; the colonial constitutional convention was in Philly and Ben Franklin was
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Don't use Firefox 3.0 -- Yet
Jun 26 2008, 22:26 EDT
I liked Firefox 1.x and 2.x plenty but switched to 3.0 only because it was lauded as keeping memory usage low. I usually have 50 tabs open so that was a killer reason to switch. At first it did prove to be true; memory usage with a 40 tab test set drop
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Sit Back and Enjoy the Fireworks
Jun 26 2008, 21:42 EDT [updated Jun 26 2008, 21:48 EDT]
No, this has noting to do with the Supreme Court. For some reason the city of Somerville has decided to close Broadway and put on a fireworks show at the baseball diamond down the street.
I'd add my own 'splodey bits* but there are five cops within sigh
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A Democrat on Heller
Jun 26 2008, 20:56 EDT [updated Jun 26 2008, 21:17 EDT]
Balkinization's Sandy Levinson has some thoughts on Heller. He agrees with it more than not but thinks both sides were stealing bases like crazy. Surprisingly he thought it would be a unanimous decision for the individual right with split decisions on w
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D.C. vs Heller
Jun 26 2008, 19:42 EDT [updated Jun 26 2008, 19:56 EDT]
I've churned through 100 pages but I'm pooped. You can see the long post of my page-by-page reaction. I ended on what is a glaring dishonesty in the dissent. I wouldn't have caught it except that I'm from Pennsylvania so you can't pull a fast one on me
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D.C. vs Heller
Jun 26 2008, 12:32 EDT [updated Jun 26 2008, 19:43 EDT]
The 2nd Amendment case was decided today and the first reactions say that the 156 page decision affirms the individual right to own firearms but then stops. The DC total ban is unconstitutional but what is constitutional and by what standard constitution
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Quote of the Week
Jun 25 2008, 15:15 EDT [updated Jun 25 2008, 16:32 EDT]
Let me put this bluntly - every time the Supreme Court meets in secret conference, it sits as a constitutional convention, rewriting the Constitution at will.
-- Mark R Levin
He is talking about today's Supreme Court ruling that the death penalt
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Because things aren't notable unless they are Odd
Jun 25 2008, 02:12 EDT [updated Jun 25 2008, 02:30 EDT]
I don't use an RSS reader for watching blogs - I mainly use Bruce's blogroll with some random editing*. One of those blogs is the Barking Moonbat Early Warning System (which is one hell of a title, I'm envious). It turns out that we don't agree on some
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Fifteen Pounds of Joy III
Jun 24 2008, 13:50 EDT [updated Jun 24 2008, 22:02 EDT]
Another year, another new bowling ball. This one is a Roto-Grip Cell, motto: "The King of Them All!" My last ball will stay around for backup and my first ball is now in the hands of teddied.
Wow, just wow. I got the ball last night which happened to
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Odd Python Bits
Jun 18 2008, 20:12 EDT
I haven't done much geekery since I moved my Python posts to another blog but a couple oddities came across the transom today:
The Abstract Cheetos Attack
It is possible to determine the most-frequently used letters on a given keyboard on the target's c
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A Bold but Timid disclaimer
Jun 18 2008, 19:50 EDT [updated Jun 18 2008, 19:51 EDT]
Seen on a real estate site:
Square footage and acreage is approximate. Information on this site is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Thanks for clearing that up.
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Flag Day and other Summer Fare (2 images)
Jun 18 2008, 13:44 EDT [updated Jun 18 2008, 19:55 EDT]
Flag Day
When preparing for Flag Day I forgot that I would be traveling. So I ended up hanging my freshly minted 18th century flags on my parents house instead, viz
Pictured left is a Betsy Ross 13 star and a Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" right (it was
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Customer Service is about the Little Things
Jun 18 2008, 11:59 EDT [updated Jun 18 2008, 12:10 EDT]
I called the Molly Pitcher* Hotel (Red Bank, NJ) and a person answered the phone after the first ring. I wanted reservations so I was put on hold for about four minutes. But but but, once a minute the music stopped and the original gal got back on the l
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McCain Needs a New Economics Advisor
Jun 18 2008, 10:28 EDT [updated Jun 18 2008, 11:00 EDT]
.. or he needs to start listening to the one he has. Reason covers his recent innumeracy. McCain says that speculators are driving up the price of oil and should be punished. If McCain really believed this populist bunk he should make a campaign promis
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Politics as Total War
Jun 17 2008, 14:10 EDT
Some goofballs are having a lawschool conference to try Bush for war crimes. It is a planning conference to outline a list of crimes and venues where they can be pursued. They hope to try and then hang Bush and other "federal judges and members of Congr
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Why Drill for Oil?
Jun 17 2008, 08:51 EDT [updated Jun 17 2008, 10:02 EDT]
The AP brings us this quote
[Obama spokesman] Hari Sevugan said McCain's "plan to simply drill our way out of our energy crisis is the same misguided approach backed by President Bush that has failed our families for too long and only serves to benefit
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Surprise! Lithuanian is Latinate
Jun 17 2008, 00:34 EDT
What I know about Lithuania couldn't fill a thimble. I'll be going there in July so I ordered a phrase book and some CDs from Amazon which arrived today. I figure it is rude not to learn how to say good morning/afternoon/evening and please/thank you in
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BSG Exhaustion
Jun 16 2008, 17:38 EDT [updated Jun 17 2008, 00:42 EDT]
I really liked the previous seasons of Battle Star Gallactica but this year I haven't been able to care. The show was too complicated to watch with just one eye and that is too complicated for me. There were too many main characters with too many nested
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Can You Say That on TV?
Jun 16 2008, 13:06 EDT
I just saw a TV ad for a sit-up fitness aid. It was some kind of girdle for women. The spokeswoman said, literally, "Do you need to control lower pooch flab?"
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Your week in Quickies
Jun 16 2008, 06:57 EDT
50 Pun Store Signs
[jackdied]
Jun 16 2008, 06:56 EDT
You have to applaud "Master Bait & Tackle" for being the only dick joke in the lot
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Massachusetts Self-Defense
Jun 11 2008, 23:22 EDT
The local news is running this story on a rapist in Boston's North End. He looks nothing like me, so that is nice. Their advice for women is the standard: don't walk alone at night, keep your cell phone handy, and hold your car keys in your hand to use
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Lithuania, Yes. Kentucky, No.
Jun 11 2008, 06:18 EDT [updated Jun 11 2008, 06:22 EDT]
I regretfully inform you that I will not be able to make Lebowskifest this year. This breaks my bowling heart in ways you cannot imagine. Instead I'll be speaking at EuroPython in Lithuania. Immediately thereafter I'll be doing the time-limited Intern
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Hot and Muggy in Boston
Jun 08 2008, 19:32 EDT [updated Jun 10 2008, 09:17 EDT]
Today was the first day that has topped 95. In a bad sign of things to come my block in Somerville just had a blackout. I assume it was from all the air conditioning stress. Or maybe not - the power goes out on my block four or five times a year (it is
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Sunday at the Polo Grounds (2 images)
Jun 08 2008, 11:41 EDT [updated Jun 08 2008, 12:33 EDT]
Never let it be said that we're all about low-brow Bowling here (mostly? sure, but not all). We also enjoy low-brow polo matches. How, you might ask, can polo be low-brow? It kindof isn't but the first rule of high-brow is "let no one be embarrassed."
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Flag Day Prep
Jun 07 2008, 22:54 EDT
My two flags just arrived from flagline.com (I ordered through Amazon, flagline is a partner). One is a yellow Don't Tread On Me and the other is a Betsy Ross (13-star) flag. Combined they cost $10 plus shipping. They aren't high quality enough to fly
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I'm Going to Lithuania!
Jun 07 2008, 15:45 EDT [updated Jun 07 2008, 23:47 EDT]
Two months ago I would have bet very large sums of money I would never say those words. Since then my talk proposal for EuroPython (a technical conference) has been accepted.
So if you happens to be in Vilnius, Lithuania in July stop by and buy me a bee
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Your week in Quickies
Jun 04 2008, 02:38 EDT
Bunk Bed injuries in 18-21 yr olds
[jackdied]
Jun 02 2008, 16:18 EDT
Hmm, doesn't that really mean "drunk college students?" I
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Democracy Sucks
Jun 03 2008, 15:34 EDT [updated Jun 03 2008, 16:00 EDT]
Democracies suck and fortunately none of us live in one. In fact none of us have even participated in a total democracy in any aspect of our lives. Not in family, or work, or sports, or anything. We hold votes for lots of things but that isn't the same
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The Side Efffects of Downtime
Jun 03 2008, 11:23 EDT
The blog was down for a week last month. An unexpected side effect is that google dropped lots of our pages from its memory. I used to be able to add "site:jackdied.com" to a google search and find the exact post I was looking for. Now it returns nothi
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Summer Bowling: Monday League/Lesson/Errata
Jun 03 2008, 01:42 EDT [updated Jun 03 2008, 11:32 EDT]
Trio League
We won a 5-2 victory over Team #3. The guys on team #3 have been bowling casually on weekends for a while and decided to join a Summer league. Good to see (this is how Mike, Kristy & I started bowling last year).
I showed up 40 minutes ear
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Family Trivia
May 29 2008, 23:11 EDT [updated May 30 2008, 11:41 EDT]
I recently learned that Henry Kissinger is my Grandfather's Sister's Husband's Niece's Husband. In other words, no actual relation to me. But it does explain why my Great Aunt kept Kissinger news clippings in her scrapbook - she was at his wedding and k
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Nudge: The Problem with People is People
May 28 2008, 02:40 EDT [updated May 28 2008, 03:34 EDT]
I haven't said anything about Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness the book about "Libertarian Paternalism" by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. The idea of Nudge is that the government shouldn't force people to do things (the
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Quote of the Week
May 27 2008, 20:17 EDT
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
-Wilfred Owen, Soldier-Poet
As seen at this great list of war quotes (for, against, and ambivalent).
PS, like "Your Week in Quickies" the "Quote of the Week" is less than weekly so I'll occasionally p
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The New Hampshire Difference
May 27 2008, 17:42 EDT [updated May 27 2008, 17:44 EDT]
Yesterday was Memorial Day. MA and NH treated the holiday slightly *ahem* differently. All liquor stores were closed in Mass. New Hampshire went the other way and had a sale [apologies, the contents of the "Promotions" link have changed].
There is cur
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To the Indian guy who keeps calling me
May 25 2008, 12:04 EDT
As I explained to you last Sunday when you kept calling (during league!) you have the wrong phone number. No matter how many times you dial it it will still be the wrong number. I don't care that your nephew said it was his phone number, it just isn't.
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Unity? I'll show you Unity (not metaphorically - I mean with pictures) (2 images)
May 25 2008, 02:43 EDT [updated Jul 26 2008, 17:17 EDT]
Obama's pledge of "unity" is of the same caliber as George W's pledge to be a "uniter and not a divider." Bush's most popular acts in office (at the time) were the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. His tax cuts went along party lines (closer to 50%).
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The Fall of Conservatism
May 24 2008, 22:31 EDT [updated May 25 2008, 00:53 EDT]
If you want to know why conservatism is doomed look no farther than The Fall of Conservatism at the New Yorker. The long [long] piece is about how the successes Republicans earned through divisive politics and pandering are coming to an end at the same t
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Winter Bowling: End of the Achievers
May 24 2008, 15:43 EDT [updated May 24 2008, 16:24 EDT]
The Sunday Mixed league ended last week and so did the "Suburban Achievers." The final night included a "No Tap" tournament and awards banquet.
No Tap Tourney
A "tap" is a near strike where only one pin remains; So-called because you just have to tap t
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Summer Bowling: Monday Trio
May 24 2008, 15:00 EDT [updated May 24 2008, 15:03 EDT]
Monday was the first day of Summer bowling leagues. I'm in the Trio buy-a-ball league with Trudi and Larry (Mike & Kristy having retired to greener pastures in Derry, New Hampshire). "Buy-a-ball" means your weekly fees include a new bowling ball. Trudi
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Summer Bowling: Wednesday Instructional
May 24 2008, 14:45 EDT
I signed up for the Wednesday Instructional league which is led by our local bowling pro Don. Fortunately for me I was the only one who signed up. So the session was canceled but since Don also bowls on Monday nights we're going to do private lessons im
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Quote of the Week
May 24 2008, 14:26 EDT
Liberty without responsibility does not produce freedom. It merely enslaves the responsible to the irresponsible.
- Shannon Love at Chicagoboyz.
The gist is that allowing people to choose is fine as long as they pay the price for their choices
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Your week in Quickies
May 24 2008, 13:39 EDT
How to make Rotten Shark
[jackdied]
May 24 2008, 13:37 EDT
I've had this Icelandic, umm, delicacy and I described is thusly: "Dried shar
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PA Cops Don't Know the Law
May 24 2008, 13:26 EDT [updated May 24 2008, 13:34 EDT]
Well, cops aren't lawyers so they can't know all the laws but they should know the basics. Like not arresting people for open carry of guns. Or not confiscating guns for being "un-registered;" PA law prohibits a gun registry - the cops have tried to mak
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Other People's Jobs: Scrap Dealer
May 21 2008, 13:25 EDT [updated May 21 2008, 13:42 EDT]
Officially the place was a "recycling center" but it would be misleading to call it anything other than a scrap yard. My brothers and I were around for my father's birthday and as usual we were pressed into service. We filled up teddied's pickup truck [
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Philly spending your dollars on anti-gun ads
May 21 2008, 12:46 EDT [updated May 21 2008, 12:47 EDT]
I was back in Pennsy for my father's birthday and heard a radio ad on WMMR (93.3 rocks!) advising listeners on PA gun law and warning them on how the city police and district attorneys would come down with a brick bat on violations of gun transfer laws.
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Females and Engineering: Do Not Want
May 21 2008, 00:21 EDT [updated May 21 2008, 01:01 EDT]
The Boston Glob breaks this amazing story: women just aren't that interested in Engineering. The cited study reaches an unremarkable conclusion: women - even with high faculties in hard maths - choose careers that involve a humanitarian component. The
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Ted Kennedy Hagiographies
May 20 2008, 23:08 EDT [updated May 20 2008, 23:12 EDT]
After Ted Kennedy's hospitalization local news and talk radio have been praising the man's legacy left and right. Everyone is pointing out the baseball fields that wouldn't exist except for Ted, and the streets, and the buildings, and the parks, and of c
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Blog Downtime
May 20 2008, 22:23 EDT [updated May 20 2008, 22:25 EDT]
Sorry for the downtime. The blog is graciously hosted on my old company's servers and they did a big upgrade of the machine setup which didn't involve low priority services like this one. Needless to say their new setup is cooler than our last one which
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Hard Candy
May 11 2008, 23:19 EDT [updated May 11 2008, 23:57 EDT]
Hard Candy (2005) is a gem of a movie that I hadn't heard about but is currently playing on Showtime. Watch it. It is a small budget, two person, one room drama about a 14 year old girl who entraps and surgically castrates a pedarast (or whatever the eq
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Quote of the Week
May 08 2008, 19:21 EDT
Catering to your mentors is necessary in any subject not governed by mathematics.
- Robert Heinlein
Seen at Jerry Pournell's blog.
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Comcast is Incompetent
May 08 2008, 19:08 EDT [updated May 09 2008, 21:31 EDT]
If the YouTube video of the Comcast agent asleep because he had been on hold so long in someone’s living room didn’t convince you I’ll give it a whirl. Mainly because I hate them. Right now I’ve been on hold for 10 minutes.
So I decided to get Fi
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Suburban Achievers: Rolling Disaster
May 04 2008, 22:27 EDT [updated May 04 2008, 22:29 EDT]
In the second to last game of the bowling season we got swept 8-0 by the 2nd place team. We were 15 points out of 1st place going in so now we're an unreachable 23 points away. With a good final week we'll finish middle of the pack.
Kristy did well wit
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GovernmentIsGood.com
May 02 2008, 02:18 EDT [updated May 02 2008, 02:35 EDT]
Here is a site that made my head asplode. The purpose of Governmentisgood.com is to explain all the ways that .. Government is Good. I can sum up the site with this single item from their Myth vs Fact style FAQ.
Myth: Taxes are bad - and so they shou
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Other People's Jobs: Atlantic City Blackjack Dealer
Apr 30 2008, 01:56 EDT
I was in Atlantic City for a bachelor party recently and spent six hours at the blackjack tables. Blackjack is a great game because if you play it right the odds are merely 49%/51% against you. I can't gamble for shit but some of my friends can; so I ju
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Other People's Jobs: Lumberjack(ish)
Apr 30 2008, 01:30 EDT [updated Apr 30 2008, 01:35 EDT]
I take comfort in knowing there are lots of people doing lots of jobs that I wouldn't even expect to exist. I always enjoy meeting those job holders and it happens, frequently. Mike & Kristy threw a BBQ this weekend in green Derry, New Hampshire (the 10
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Bowling Update
Apr 29 2008, 01:28 EDT [updated Apr 29 2008, 01:43 EDT]
We are still bowling but the recent weeks haven't been memorable. With just two weeks left in the Sunday Mixed season the "Suburban Achievers" are ranked middle of the pack in our 16 team league.
Last night we swept the undefeated "Don't Tase Me Bro."
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Carrier debuts on PBS
Apr 29 2008, 00:35 EDT [updated Apr 29 2008, 00:38 EDT]
Carrier is a documentary/reality show on PBS that follows some of the thousands of people on the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier. Great stuff. It is part ordinary life with the gyms, dinners, soda machines and calls to your mom. The other part is deadly ex
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Your week in Quickies
Apr 28 2008, 21:39 EDT
The World's Best Whiskey is Now Japanese
[bobsalive]
Apr 28 2008, 21:39 EDT
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Book Review: The Modern Con Man
Apr 28 2008, 16:28 EDT [updated Apr 28 2008, 16:34 EDT]
Bad, really bad. The Modern Con Man: How to Get Something for Nothing is 200 small, glossy pages of bar bets. I was hoping for a list of scams or long cons or something I didn't know anything about (my 20s were a rich but unvaried time). Apparently the
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The Moral Equivalent of Bacon
Apr 28 2008, 11:13 EDT [updated Apr 28 2008, 11:20 EDT]
The tagline of the blog has been changed to "The moral equivalent of bacon." I can't say what it means exactly but I like it. I thought I saw it in a Volokh comment thread but google only sees it as a very recent mention at NRO's The Corner. I wouldn't
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Rev Wright: Holy Sh*t
Apr 28 2008, 09:39 EDT [updated Apr 28 2008, 10:10 EDT]
Obama's Pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright is currently doing a bombastic show at the National Press Club. The audience is half press and half black ministers. Wright is playing to the pastors and playing against the press.
He is being a giant dick. This is
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Facebook Weirdness
Apr 25 2008, 02:01 EDT [updated Apr 25 2008, 02:31 EDT]
I do participate in the linkedins, myspaces, and facebooks of the world but reluctantly and usually just a few months before they become declasse. Linkedin and Facebook seem to have more staying power. Maybe it is a sign of maturity for "social applicat
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Nightline tackles Scientology
Apr 25 2008, 00:12 EDT [updated Apr 25 2008, 01:25 EDT]
Wow, ABC's Nightline covered Scientology for fifteen minutes. NBC lawyers were clearly involved because the piece only included personal factual statements by ex-members about their daily lives and chores. There wasn't a single mention of the Scientolog
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PA to Obama: I'll Show You Bitter
Apr 23 2008, 00:47 EDT [updated Apr 23 2008, 01:04 EDT]
Hillary was nominated most least unlikable in Pennsy. For the record McCain is a dick and Obama is veeeeeery overrated. But for now, some music.
Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, strong and true,
Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, we give our hearts to you:
The
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New Author: petedied
Apr 22 2008, 20:17 EDT [updated Apr 22 2008, 20:28 EDT]
Welcome to petedied, youngest of the 'died' clan. Recently it has become more work to read and incorporate his emails than is was to setup a login for him. He is now setup and has the same plenary run of the place as everyone else*.
Welcome aboard.
* '
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Those Racist Republicans
Apr 18 2008, 01:01 EDT [updated Apr 18 2008, 01:05 EDT]
Everyman has a min-roundup of Republican links. It is a useful reminder than Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican and that Charleton Heston marched with King and protested outside segregated movie theaters that were showing Heston's own movies. Jim C
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My Food Network Conspiracy Theory
Apr 18 2008, 00:01 EDT [updated Apr 18 2008, 00:04 EDT]
Normally I eat to live. If I didn't have to eat I wouldn't except for the occasional steak or to try something new. But when watching the Food Network I not only want to eat but want to cook. The conspiracy? The Food Network is supported by a cabal of
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The Terrible Jimmy Carter
Apr 17 2008, 19:06 EDT
From this WSJ op-ed [emphasis mine]
"In a democracy, I realize you don't need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels," he said over the weekend, responding to a question from an Israeli journalist who noted that Mr. Carter had been snu
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Dem Debates: Wrapup
Apr 16 2008, 22:07 EDT [updated Apr 16 2008, 22:10 EDT]
Hillary does not perform well. She always seems stiff and practiced. All too human and not made for TV.
Obama did much better. He comes across as much more likable and sincere. His remarks were sometimes more wonkish than Hillary's but they didn't fe
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Dem Debates: Obama's Closing
Apr 16 2008, 21:58 EDT [updated Apr 16 2008, 21:59 EDT]
To sum up "grassroots, grassroots, grassroots." Only the people can heal their wounds (left by Republican administrations). Only the people can make this country strong again.
Didn't Michelle Obama say only Obama's election would heal the holes in our
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Dem Debates: George Stephanopalous
Apr 16 2008, 21:49 EDT [updated Apr 17 2008, 00:48 EDT]
Who let Geroge moderate. He was a bigwig in Bill Clinton's administration. For better or worse he knows the Clintons well. Surely ABC has a third guy that could have filled in.
bobsalive clarified via IM "He's in the media now, so he's completely obje
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Dem Dabates: Oil
Apr 16 2008, 21:40 EDT
Hillary says oil companies are manipulating prices and should be sledged with a windfall profits tax. She also says the strategic petroleum reserve should be sold to drive down the global price of oil. One of these ideas is not insane. But considering
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Dem Debates: Guns
Apr 16 2008, 21:35 EDT [updated Apr 16 2008, 21:43 EDT]
Hillary and Barack agree. The 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. Except in any place where the legislature thinks it is a bad idea.
Thanks for clearing that up.
PS, bonus points to Barack for using murder heavy Chicago as an exam
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Hillary: I don't want to raise your taxes.
Apr 16 2008, 21:26 EDT
I'm watching the Dem debates right now and Hillary said she "doesn't want to raise your taxes." Umm, bullshit? I can't find the original Hillary Christmas video on YouTube because the spoofs are so prevelant. Here is one:
Look, I know she and Bill a
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My Eyes are Bigger than my Head
Apr 16 2008, 20:45 EDT [updated Apr 16 2008, 20:48 EDT]
Alternate title: Amazon loves me.
Arrived today:
Glasshouse by Charlie Stross This was easilly the most discussed book at PyCon and it isn't his newest (2006).
The Vision of the Annointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas So
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Obama Fails Pennsylvania
Apr 15 2008, 05:04 EDT [updated Apr 15 2008, 06:21 EDT]
Presidential primaries are hard things; you need to do your homework and not screw up. Pennsylvania is an interesting test because the candidates have had so much time to do their homework and plenty of time to screw up. Obama is doing more of the latt
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Authors Note: Hating your own words
Apr 14 2008, 20:15 EDT [updated Apr 14 2008, 21:12 EDT]
My last Obama post is a good example. Below are two other starts on the same topic. Very different in character and content to what I actually posted. I tried a bunch of things but eventually I just gave up and hit the "POST" button.
For me writing is
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Obama's Gaffe is Good for the Democrats
Apr 14 2008, 20:15 EDT [updated Apr 14 2008, 21:21 EDT]
Primaries are valuable for vetting candidates. Obama's recent gaffe where he said small town Pennsylvanians "cling" to God, guns, and racism because they are "bitter" about jobs is a good thing, especially if you are a Democrat. You are right to prefer
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Quote of the Week
Apr 14 2008, 15:56 EDT [updated Apr 14 2008, 16:03 EDT]
I may not have been born with balls, but I keep a little set in my makeup bag, and bring them out on an as-needed basis.
- Amy Alkon disputing the notion that women are conversationally oppressed by men.
Our language is filled with expressions t
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Your week in Quickies
Apr 14 2008, 11:12 EDT
HOWTO Remove Links From Your Watchband
[jackdied]
Apr 14 2008, 11:02 EDT
I just ordered this $10 idiot proof pin remover. My new watch
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The Eggs Have Hatched
Apr 11 2008, 10:39 EDT [updated Apr 11 2008, 10:44 EDT]
Boston is alive again and people are on the streets. A month ago the temperature stayed above 40F and the overcoats and peacoats went back into their closets. This week hit 55F and sweaters have been replaced with T-shirts. Bikers, joggers, and pedestri
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Super Mega Fscking Fast Service
Apr 10 2008, 20:42 EDT [updated Apr 10 2008, 22:51 EDT]
If you want to see a model of customer service go no farther than casino customer service. I mistakenly booked a room at the Tropicana in Atlantic City for tomorrow instead of a week from tomorrow (it's a bachelor party, I don't care for gambling). I ca
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Lehigh Sports Camps
Apr 10 2008, 14:45 EDT [updated Apr 10 2008, 14:57 EDT]
This summer Lehigh University is holding sports camps for school students ages 6-18. I can't endorse them personally but I did attend some sports day camps as a kid (lacrosse and wrestling) and it really helps; A few weeks of day camp is worth a season
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Macht Nichts
Apr 09 2008, 22:59 EDT [updated Apr 09 2008, 23:19 EDT]
German was the dominant language of Pennsylvania in 1776 so it isn't surprising that some German phrases are still in use today. The phrase "Macht Nichts" is now pronounced and written as "Mox Nix." The anglo translation is "six of one, half dozen of t
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Baby Jake is Saved (and tipsy)
Apr 09 2008, 14:05 EDT [updated Apr 09 2008, 14:33 EDT]
Congratulations to Jake, teddied (father), Gina (mother), Gina's sister (godmother), and me (godfather). Jake was baptized this past weekend. The service was a big production; being the third week of Easter (you knew it wasn't just a day - right?) each
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Your week in Quickies
Apr 03 2008, 15:32 EDT
Japanese Pen Spinning
[jackdied]
Apr 03 2008, 15:32 EDT
It is exactly what it sounds like: people twirling pens. Here is a good example
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Tales From the Airport
Apr 03 2008, 05:35 EDT [updated Apr 03 2008, 05:55 EDT]
Due to canceled flights I spent many hours in Chicago's O'Hare recently. I saw no Airmen or Marines but I did see some Soldiers. The Army guys were treated well and were gracious. I had to go from one end of the airport to the other; half on foot and h
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Wednesday Doubles Finale
Apr 03 2008, 03:14 EDT [updated Apr 03 2008, 04:15 EDT]
The Wednesday bowling league ended tonight with the distribution of cash prizes and a for-fun "no tap" tournament. Mike and I were awarded $50 for coming in dead last due to our firm anti-sandbagging policy; we bowled our best games in the first three w
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Arguing about turtles
Mar 30 2008, 04:09 EDT [updated Apr 03 2008, 04:02 EDT]
[I left this comment at GraniteRants but it was post-y enough I'm reposting it here]
The thing that bothers me about evolutionary biologists is that it's turtles all the way down (a very handy phrase to use at cocktail parties, btw). Their explanations a
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90s Chic
Mar 29 2008, 22:35 EDT [updated Apr 03 2008, 04:02 EDT]
Reading this story about barbers not being able to serve beer anymore reminds me of a couple stories I haven't told on the blog. Michigan has outlawed barbers giving free alcohol to customers. The author was a longhair who fondly remembers getting a fre
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Bowling: Non Update
Mar 24 2008, 16:34 EDT
I was out of pocket the past Sunday/Wednesday while in Chicago. I did get a text message from Mike saying he had won a ham* in the pizza game on Sunday (they theme the free pizza game for holidays - at Thanksgiving it was a turkey). Because of Easter th
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German, American, or Other?
Mar 23 2008, 04:00 EDT [updated Mar 23 2008, 04:09 EDT]
So I'm freshly back from PyCon which is a geeky conference about the python programming language. I was hanging out with the deeply geeky people which means they were disproportionately non-Americans. It was cheap for the casually geeky Americans to sho
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Denial of Service Attacks Against the Micromanagers
Mar 23 2008, 02:21 EDT [updated Mar 23 2008, 02:35 EDT]
For the non-technical a "denial of service" (DoS) attack is a computer term whereby the attacker shuts down a service by asking for a whole lot of it - enough that the provider can't keep up. The attacker wins by costing the victim more money/resources t
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Pedants of the world, Unite! (1 image)
Mar 23 2008, 01:53 EDT [updated Mar 23 2008, 02:02 EDT]
I shamelessly stole this image from Ivan Krstic's blog.
As a segue to recommending The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.You'll laugh and you'll cry. Great stuff.
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Your week in Quickies
Mar 22 2008, 22:23 EDT
ChickiPedia
[jackdied]
Mar 22 2008, 22:23 EDT
Killing kittens since 2007. (link goes to Scarlett Johansson's profile)
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Pescatore Blurb
Mar 22 2008, 21:11 EDT [updated Mar 23 2008, 02:02 EDT]
I might eat at Pescatore a bit too much, viz:
Phone: Hello, Pescatore Seafood.
Me: Hi, I'd like to place an order.
Phone: How was Chicago?
NB, the website should be up Real Soon Now at pescatoreseafood.com. They are waiting for the liquor l
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To Err is Human But To Really Screw Up You Need a Computer
Mar 22 2008, 01:31 EDT [updated Mar 22 2008, 08:30 EDT]
There were no killer stories from PyCon this year: no police run-ins or sunrise Denny's drunk-iins or random people passing out in their own shit in the lobby restroom*. But I did lose it on the final day. Here's how:
I was supposed to fly out of Chica
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Bonus PyCon!!
Mar 20 2008, 18:39 EDT [updated Mar 21 2008, 00:44 EDT]
I was supposed to fly back to Boston tonight after a successful PyCon but the fates intervened. Or United Airlines sucks - take your pick.
Well, United isn't entirely useless because they did manage to get my bags to Boston. Bastards.
I do get to spri
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Boston's Backdoor Rent Control
Mar 12 2008, 22:03 EDT [updated Mar 12 2008, 22:05 EDT]
KZ alerted me to this Boston Globe article on anti-student housing laws. The new zoning law, passed 9-0, prohibits more than four students living together. The supporters didn't even pretend the purpose is to cut down on noise or parties; they quite br
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Your week in Quickies
Mar 11 2008, 11:02 EDT
The World's 50 Most Powerful Blogs
[bobsalive]
Mar 09 2008, 10:30 EDT
It's just The Guardian's list and Icanhascheezburger is in the top
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The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season Finale
Mar 09 2008, 13:46 EDT [updated Mar 09 2008, 13:59 EDT]
This is how you do a season finale. The season itself was merely OK but the season ender was great. This five minute clip tells the whole tale:
Book of Revelations + Lord of the Flies + Johnny Cash + 30 FBI agents versus one terminator == Win
.
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Your Week in Wing-Nuttery
Mar 09 2008, 12:06 EDT [updated Mar 09 2008, 12:24 EDT]
[Our "Your Week in Quickies" feature is oddball stuff that is largely culled from fark.com and boingboing.net. This is a trial weekly of stuff from smaller sites on the conservative side]
Quote of the Week (via)
modern liberalism is the victory of sy
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New Hampshire Gov't: Worst in the Nation!
Mar 09 2008, 08:54 EDT [updated Mar 09 2008, 09:16 EDT]
.. and proud of it. This article at GraniteGrok celebrates the Pew study that ranks NH as "worst in government efficiency." Read the whole thing.
I haven't read the Pew study, just the brief blurb at the Boston Globe. Based on that blurb I am not wor
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Space Traders: Can you wire money to Mars?
Mar 09 2008, 08:05 EDT [updated Mar 09 2008, 08:06 EDT]
There is a real chance that people will visit or even live on Mars in my lifetime. I've read a lot of science fiction over the years but I can't remember a single one that deals with inter-planetary economies in a realistic way. So the question is: can
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Memory is a funny thing
Mar 08 2008, 08:32 EST
I'll never forget how to ride a bike or swim though I haven't ridden a bike in a decade and swim maybe once every few years. On the other hand I hand I couldn't even recognize a Zener or Laplace transform let alone do one despite the fact that a signific
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Ask someone 'Hows Business' and they will tell you
Mar 04 2008, 00:37 EST [updated Mar 04 2008, 01:15 EST]
I have a couple small obsessions with small businesses. The first is asking people "How's business?" They will tell you, just try it sometime. Well, try it sometime when there isn't a line behind you.
But really, they'll tell you. I've learned not to
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Break-In at Kelly's Diner
Mar 03 2008, 23:01 EST [updated Mar 04 2008, 02:11 EST]
Someone kicked in the front door of Kelly's Diner. There are three cop cars outside now. The same jerk also rifled through my car which was parked next to the diner, but didn't take anything. The only thing of value was the EZ-pass and he left it. The
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Larry Kudlow is an Idiot
Mar 03 2008, 20:30 EST
Larry says we need to strengthen the dollar but this is the same Larry Kudlow who has been shouting PRINT MONEY for as long as I can remember. See here, here, and here for just a few examples.
Printing money via Federal Bank rate cuts will weaken the do
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Cringe-worthy description of Louis Farrakhan
Mar 02 2008, 16:16 EST [updated Mar 02 2008, 16:21 EST]
In an article in the Sun Times about Obama's political weaknesses is this quote [emphasis mine]:
Farrakhan recently offered an unsolicited endorsement of Obama. He is considered by many Jews as an anti-Semite. At the Democratic debate in Cleveland last
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mar 01 2008, 16:51 EST
Dammit the 2nd annual Bacon Eating Contest was held this morning five minutes from my front door and I didn't find out about it until just now. The winner got off easy, this time.
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WFB Memorial Special
Mar 01 2008, 13:06 EST
A one hour TV retrospective tonight on FoxNews at 10pm. (via NRO).
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The Eyeglass Racket (1 image)
Feb 29 2008, 12:31 EST [updated Mar 23 2008, 18:38 EDT]
A few months ago, I stumbled across this post at lifehacker. In it, the author links to a story about buying glasses online for one tenth the cost of going to a optician.
A 90% discount!? That's crazy, I thought. But, as a wearer of glasses for 20
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Small Money and Law
Feb 29 2008, 02:31 EST [updated Feb 29 2008, 02:46 EST]
The worst laws are those that only effect (and affect) those that would largely obey them out of conscience even if there were not a law. Laws that are arbitrarily or randomly enforced are worse than no laws at all. They are just written hopes.
In my t
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Current Republican Wisdom (1 image)
Feb 29 2008, 01:43 EST [updated Feb 29 2008, 01:48 EST]
"I love my country more than I hate John McCain"
This is the best line of argument for the man, but I have yet to be convinced. Though Obama and Hillary are doing a yeoman's job to convince me. (via)
NB, I said current "Republican" wisdom and not "c
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Me and Noam Chomsky Sitting in a Tree
Feb 28 2008, 23:44 EST [updated Feb 29 2008, 00:15 EST]
Walking around YouTube I came across a clip of Noam Chomsky poo-pooing 9/11 conspiracy theories (first three minutes and second three). He states three reasons why Bush (or any US interest) couldn't have possibly planned it:
They couldn't be sure of t
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Stupidity is Contagious
Feb 28 2008, 01:32 EST [updated Feb 29 2008, 02:53 EST]
And stupidity is spreading North from Massachusetts as its residents flee to New Hampshire and carry the virus with them. I give you HR1291 (text of the bill) which mandates helmets for skiers under 18 years old.
Is this a problem that needs a law? Do w
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William F. Buckley, Jr., R.I.P.
Feb 27 2008, 16:07 EST
William F. Buckley, Jr has died at the age of 82. There aren't many great men in modern America and we just lost one of the greatest.
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His Holiness Comes to Lehigh University
Feb 25 2008, 05:19 EST [updated Feb 25 2008, 16:18 EST]
My multi-culti alarm bells are ringing. I can't tell if this email is about a rock concert or a religious event. The email starts
Special presale begins Tuesday at 10 a.m.
Password will be e-mailed Monday morning.
Limited tickets are available; sea
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Sunday Bowling: The Pizza Rolls On
Feb 24 2008, 22:26 EST [updated Feb 24 2008, 23:19 EST]
Mike & Kristy moved to New Hampshire today and missed league, though otherwise they will finish out the season.
Man, did they miss a game. Our opponents this week were The Hipsters (official name "Unholly Rollers"). Nice folks. I asked where they go
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Your week in Quickies
Feb 20 2008, 21:25 EST [updated Feb 20 2008, 21:27 EST]
The Great 2008 Hop Shortage
[jackdied]
Feb 19 2008, 12:43 EST
The price of hoppy beers like IPA is going up.
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Mythbusters do McGyver
Feb 20 2008, 16:34 EST [updated Feb 20 2008, 16:35 EST]
[It happens tonight so for timeliness this isn't a quickie.]
The Discovery Channel's Mythbusters are doing an all McGyver show for their 100th episode tonight at 9pm. I'll be running back from my Wednesday bowling league to catch it.
(via)
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Racism in the 21st Century
Feb 19 2008, 17:50 EST [updated Feb 19 2008, 18:53 EST]
John Derbyshire, who generally channels my inner curmudgeon, has a has a post up saying the young are more racist than they think.
"Oh, this race business, it's just you older types who go on about it. Young people like me, the 18-30 crowd, we really a
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Bowling Update
Feb 18 2008, 08:57 EST [updated Feb 18 2008, 15:19 EST]
I'm behind on bowling scores so here is a brief summary before I head off to the President's Day tournament at Lanes & Games.
Mike is owning our Wednesday league; his current average is 190, almost 30 pins better than his Sunday average. Last week Mike
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Doomed
Feb 13 2008, 20:51 EST
I love when the "info" button gives an editorial summary of movies. Here is the blurb for Doomed.
Drivel about a reality-TV show in which convicts stranded on an island can win millions if they survive flesh-eating zombies.
I can imagine the intern d
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Email from a McCain supporter
Feb 09 2008, 15:42 EST
My recent post expressing displeasure with McCain elicited the following email.
JUST GET OVER IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Much love,
Mom
Well, at least we'll have something to talk about at Easter.
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NH Lawmaker Solves Gun Problem, and Cheaply
Feb 09 2008, 14:37 EST [updated Feb 14 2008, 22:22 EST]
Eleanor Kjellman wants to put up signs at the statehouse entrance that say guns aren't allowed. Because everyone knows that criminals are unable to resist the written word. I wish I was kidding. If you want to watch five minutes of magical thinking fro
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McCain and the Second Rule of Politics
Feb 04 2008, 17:54 EST [updated Feb 04 2008, 17:59 EST]
Rule #1: If you want someone to vote for you: you have to ask.
All the candidates did this. Huckabee did it in a awkward way by suggesting he would burn the party if people didn't vote for him but I'll count it anyway.
Rule #2: If you want someone to v
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Your week in Quickies
Feb 01 2008, 16:55 EST
Cat Burning
[jackdied]
Feb 01 2008, 16:55 EST
The next wave of retro? It gets my vote.
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1950s Bachelor Chow
Jan 29 2008, 20:44 EST
I cook my own meals, mostly. For the times when the fridge is bare I keep the freezer stocked with frozen pizzas and the like. I recently bought an original style Swanson TV Dinner, the kind with turkey, peas, and mashed potatoes.
Eating TV Dinners wil
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Local News Says: Dunkin Donuts Kills Babies
Jan 22 2008, 00:05 EST [updated Jan 22 2008, 00:33 EST]
I realize that even in a city like Boston there aren't enough fires or murders to fill a half hour; so the local news has to report on something, but still.
The newest baby-scare is that excessive caffeine intake may cause miscarriages. It was a small
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Chalk one up for Amazon as a sales channel
Jan 21 2008, 21:19 EST [updated Jan 21 2008, 21:26 EST]
Amazon has a downloadable video service called UnBox. It is quite ordinary in every way and includes all the consumer unfriendly aspects of approved and legal internet media. You can't copy the videos you buy to watch elsewhere and they are encrypted ou
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Your week in Quickies
Jan 21 2008, 14:52 EST
Three Philosophies of Butter Substitutes
[bobsalive]
Jan 21 2008, 14:48 EST
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Weekend Song Lyric
Jan 19 2008, 16:23 EST [updated Jan 19 2008, 16:30 EST]
I mention the end-game song for the computer game Portal in a current quickie but it is just too good to leave alone - both the game and especially the song.
The game itself is wonderful not because of the graphics or a major breakthrough in gameplay: th
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Fred Stuff
Jan 19 2008, 12:43 EST [updated Jan 19 2008, 13:09 EST]
There is some good news on Fred in SC. But this is just one poll and others haven't shown the same thing. Here's hoping.
My older bro is also a Fred booster and reports that he gets tons of emails from the Thompson campaign. I wondered previously why
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Iraq: If we can't lose today let's lose tomorrow
Jan 17 2008, 23:31 EST
The JustOneMinute blog reports that the new anti-war strategy isn't "troops out of Iraq now!" but troops out of Iraq later. As in, after the country is stabilized - which looks likely - leave no permanent bases. I am a supporter of this strategy. I thi
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See You at the Chapel
Jan 17 2008, 22:16 EST [updated Jan 17 2008, 23:04 EST]
Exciting news, for some of the authors here anyway. Baby Jake is going to be baptized and I'm going to be his god father. There was some confusion about where the baptism will be taking place. Which allows me to delve into my backlog of Episcopalian ma
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HBO Fake News, Coming Up!
Jan 17 2008, 19:36 EST [updated Jan 17 2008, 23:11 EST]
HBO had an ad for an upcoming episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel which probes the underculture of drinking at sports events. There is drinking at sports events? Shock! Horror!
There are hundreds of millions of man-hours spent drinking at sports
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Push Polling: Pro Huck, Anti Fred
Jan 17 2008, 08:34 EST [updated Jan 17 2008, 08:40 EST]
Instapundit links this push poll that boosts Huck and slams Fred.
If you don't know what a "push poll" is it is Wikipedia has a good explanation. A push poll pretends to be a poll (what is your party affiliation, do you plan on voiting) but slips in som
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Halting State
Jan 16 2008, 09:37 EST [updated Jan 17 2008, 09:39 EST]
I just finished Charlie Stross' Halting State. If you like William Gibson's near-future fiction like Spook Country you will like Stross' Halting State.
The main premise is that the near-future world is highly networked with cell phones and heads up disp
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jackdied's dadsalive
Jan 15 2008, 19:37 EST
Not that you asked but my father is out of surgery and doing well. Early screening and modern medicine continue to assure that, given time, he will die in a horrific car accident and not in his sleep. That's progress for you.
He does pass along this ti
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Capitalism is Soulless, Two Authors Agree
Jan 15 2008, 19:12 EST
The indispensable Arts & Letters Daily recently linked two pieces that share the same premise: that capitalism is soulless. The two conclusions are quite different (otherwise this wouldn't be any fun).
Peter Saunders argues that capitalism is soulless i
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Isn't Desecrating Corpses a Crime?
Jan 15 2008, 15:37 EST [updated Jan 15 2008, 16:05 EST]
The UK's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has thrown his weight behind a proposal to change organ donation to an opt-out system.
The Prime Minister says that such a facility would save thousands of lives and that he hopes such a system can start this ye
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Magical Thinking
Jan 15 2008, 13:20 EST [updated Jan 15 2008, 14:23 EST]
In Doron Taussig's review of Starbucked, a book about Starbucks, he includes this gem about the possibility of unionizing Starbucks workers.
[the author] concludes that, because being a Starbucks barista is so simple and turnover at the job is so high,
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Suburban Achievers: Wednesday/Sunday Bowling
Jan 14 2008, 00:33 EST
Our 7th place finish last week entitled us to $60 a head in end-of-half-season prize money. We spent it on food and drinks. First place took home closer to $300 each which is enough to cover the cost of the season. The pot of prize money is raised by c
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DNS Problems. I can see this but you can't
Jan 13 2008, 23:24 EST
The site is technically up and running but you can't see it unless you know it's IP address. The whole thing is terribly custom including our DNS. I have a trouble ticket in and the issue should be resolved soonish.
The only upside is that maybe - just
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The Angel of 30th Street (1 image)
Jan 08 2008, 08:00 EST [updated Jan 08 2008, 09:13 EST]
You Must See This
(click image for CC licensed original)
If you pass through Philadelphia for any reason go to 30th street station just to see the war memorial statue by Walker Hancock (locally it is called "Garbiel" or St Michael or the "Angel of Mer
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Your week in Quickies
Jan 08 2008, 03:46 EST [updated Jan 08 2008, 03:52 EST]
New Jersey Officially Apologizes for Slavery
[jackdied]
Jan 08 2008, 03:43 EST
There are a lot of things the current residents o
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Weakness in Fred's Organization?
Jan 08 2008, 00:10 EST [updated Jan 08 2008, 01:35 EST]
So I donated cashey-money to Fred Thompson five days ago. I'm probably the kind of guy they want to spam with talking points, ask to be a warm body at rallies, and that kind of thing. I know all the political organizations have more work than they can p
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Software Engineers and Political Donations
Jan 07 2008, 23:53 EST
The lawyers over at the Volokh Conspiracy posted about how law professors are donating so I thought I'd do a comparison for software engineers. This is a bit dicey because there are many also-known-as terms for "software engineer" and maybe the term you
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Suburban Achievers: We're #7!
Jan 07 2008, 19:07 EST [updated Jan 07 2008, 19:17 EST]
League finals were anti-climactic. The season doesn't end with a big tournament it ends with you playing your closest rival in points. We were defending against #8 and managed our first win in a long time, 6-2. It was very close: we took game two by ju
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More Tales From NH
Jan 07 2008, 12:25 EST
Now that the video from the focus group is up, I should add my thoughts on the evening.
The focus group thing came together very oddly. An NR intern wearing a straw hat and bright red "Vote Rudy!" T-shirt went around asking people if they wanted to be
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Tales from New Hampshire
Jan 06 2008, 12:06 EST [updated Jan 07 2008, 11:42 EST]
National Review held a light hearted event for the Republican & Democratic debates last night. bobsalive, Granite Rants, and I attended (Granite has a write up). The big news is that bobsalive was interviewed after the Republican debate for "how did you
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Mother Knows Best
Jan 04 2008, 23:57 EST [updated Jan 05 2008, 00:18 EST]
I have a few political bellwethers: friends or relatives that are not political junkies or partisans. The holidays are always a good time because there are many hours at the table to fill with conversation, lots of people, and alcohol is involved. Beca
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Instapundit backtracks on 60 MPG Hummer
Jan 04 2008, 20:14 EST
Instapundit posted a one-liner about a Hummer that gets 60 MPG. The update to the link says lots of people emailed him to say the story was somewhere between an exaggeration and an outright lie. I was one of those people (but not the one he quoted). He
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I'm With Fred
Jan 03 2008, 19:15 EST
In October I said I'm Kinda With Fred but I'm now officially off the fence. Thompson has been campaigning for a few months now and hasn't said anything un-conservative. The other candidates' campaigns haven't changed except for Huckabee - whom I can't s
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Those Damned Foreigners
Dec 21 2007, 16:27 EST [updated Dec 21 2007, 16:36 EST]
Here are three unrelated bits I've stuffed into one post.
From Japan
Some of you have been emailing me "Hey Jack, your blog is OK and all but do you know of any other blogs? Preferably ones that are piled high with awesome?" Look no farther than On TV
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Seasons Greetings to our Lehigh Troops
Dec 20 2007, 16:53 EST [updated Dec 20 2007, 17:48 EST]
Much has been made of the hard leftishness of the Academy. My own alma mater (literally translated "nourishing mother") was not that bad. Politics just weren't part of campus life. Oh sure, in some years the campus newspaper tried to lash out at the "e
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Against Huck or Against Evangelicals?
Dec 19 2007, 19:53 EST [updated Dec 19 2007, 21:25 EST]
The Democrats have always been the home of identity politics but despite having a female candidate and a black candidate identity politics are largely absent this cycle. When people write about Hillary they don't write about her womanhood they write abou
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Knitting to the Death
Dec 18 2007, 22:14 EST [updated Dec 20 2007, 17:43 EST]
The Wall Street Journal has an article about a knitting competition based on the school game "Assassin". In the knitting version you take out your assigned mark by knitting them a pair of socks before your assassin knits a pair for you. Finally, a game
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Quote of the Day
Dec 17 2007, 18:59 EST
Jay Nordlinger in his Impromtus column.
... a story I learned from Tony Daniels. Sometime in the 1930s (I believe), 100 “Aryan” scientists signed a letter against Albert Einstein, declaring his Theory of Relativity to be a Jewish hoax (or something lik
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Extras Finale
Dec 17 2007, 02:22 EST [updated Dec 17 2007, 02:30 EST]
The final episode (not season, final final) of HBO's Extras is quite possibly the most casually depressing show ever. Wow, I would have preferred not to watch it. Lots of the bits that would have been passingly funny in any other episode just became pun
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Sunday Mixed: Holiday Break
Dec 16 2007, 22:24 EST [updated Dec 17 2007, 19:09 EST]
Tonight was the last game of the year and second to last of the half season (money is paid out and team rankings reset at the half-way mark). I don't have the exact scores because our recording secretary (Kristy) was absent this week. We tied 4-4 agains
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Your week in Quickies
Dec 16 2007, 17:46 EST
How many five year olds could you take in a fight?
[jackdied]
Dec 16 2007, 17:44 EST
I got 27 but I think that number is wildly optimist
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Dear Mr Suderman
Dec 14 2007, 14:16 EST [updated Dec 14 2007, 15:43 EST]
Dear Mr Suderman,
How can you write a review of Will Smith's I Am Legend without mentioning - even once! - The Omega Man. If it wasn't obvious enough just from the trailers that Legend is a remake a quick IMDB search confirms it. Or maybe they just s
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You, Me, and Australia makes three
Dec 14 2007, 00:42 EST [updated Dec 14 2007, 00:45 EST]
The recent loss of the UK to the EU might be temporary. In the meantime I'm counting friends on one hand. The big conflicts of the 20th century were not very fine grained so the alliances that formed weren't either. If the US was in it the UK was in it
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Prime Minister Overturns the Constitution
Dec 13 2007, 23:45 EST [updated Dec 14 2007, 00:17 EST]
Well, the UK doesn't have a written constitution but the headline is essentially the result.
As Detailed here Gordon Brown, the UK's Prime Minister has signed the entire UK onto the European Union despite the fact that his party promised a public referen
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I Don't Heart Huckabee
Dec 13 2007, 21:32 EST [updated Dec 13 2007, 22:32 EST]
Don't get me wrong - Mike Huckabee would make a great neighbor. His lawn would always be cut, his leaves raked, and his children tidy and quiet. Huckabee would be an awful Neighborhood Association President because he would demand that your lawn would a
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Sunday Mixed: Dennis Hagiography
Dec 11 2007, 19:02 EST
I did bowl in a tournament Sunday afternoon but more about that later (and the less, the better). Sunday's news was dominated by our anchor Dennis (who coincidentally won the same tournament I was in two years ago).
Our 4-4 ties in the last few weeks ha
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Bowl Much?
Dec 08 2007, 22:34 EST
I have a bowling tournament tomorrow so I spent today at the lanes. I bowled to warm up for my lesson. I had a lesson. Mike & Kristy arrived and then I bowled some more. A total of ten games in a leisurely seven hours (I ate somewhere in the middle).
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PyBook for me?
Dec 06 2007, 18:54 EST [updated Dec 07 2007, 03:48 EST]
Status update on the Python book. I just got some feedback on the previous chapters and I'm looking forward to having the rest banged out by the end of the month.
NB For the haters; this means I will retain the moustache indefinitely. There is also a c
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Bowling Extravaganza
Dec 03 2007, 18:13 EST [updated Dec 03 2007, 18:25 EST]
Thanksgiving is always good for minor embarrassments. Pete, Mr & Mrs teddied, and I hit Devon Lanes. I didn't have my gear; it turns out I average 130 with a lane ball and rented shoes. teddied averaged 140+ including a 165 (to be fair he did have his
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Fux0r3d by Alewife
Dec 01 2007, 20:45 EST [updated Dec 04 2007, 17:21 EST]
My car's computer went nuts and decided to kill the headlights and lock the ABS brakes. Which was neat because it did it as I merged onto Route 2. Some smoking, screeching, and then an hour of sitting around later it is towed.
Not a big deal but I'll h
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Minor Injustices in Somerville
Dec 01 2007, 13:04 EST [updated Dec 01 2007, 13:07 EST]
I went two months without a parking ticket. Two Months!. I just got two in the last two days for something I didn't even know is illegal (and heck, it might not be. Revenue is revenue). I received two $20 tickets for being parked while facing the wron
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Holy Fscking Linkedin
Nov 28 2007, 10:30 EST [updated Nov 28 2007, 11:18 EST]
So I haven't checked email since March. I'm now testing spam filters but meantime I'm greping through the 200k unread messages by doing searches to find things I might have missed. 90% was spam and even 90% of the remainder was broadcast newsgroups or n
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Your week in Quickies
Nov 27 2007, 01:02 EST
Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians
[bobsalive]
Nov 18 2007, 18:52 EST
Sometimes the internets just make me laugh for the strangest, most une
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No PyBook For Me
Nov 20 2007, 04:45 EST [updated Nov 21 2007, 00:27 EST]
I'm no longer working on the book. I am now working on tenpinz.com full time. Look for soemthing other than a blank page there come January.
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CNN staffers can't use Google
Nov 20 2007, 02:22 EST [updated Nov 20 2007, 02:37 EST]
I'll be more charitable than most and suggest that the six single-issue "independents" at CNN's last Democratic debate were the result of issue groups infiltrating the event and not CNN complicity (via). Hijacking media was pioneered by amateurs [but I
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John Lemberger, PhD of Clueless
Nov 20 2007, 00:58 EST
.. but I repeat myself. Here is an op-ed from Dr Lemberger. He argues that tax dollars are a good investment. You get a great bang-for-your-buck on just about everything. In fact he can't think of a damned thing his tax money pays for that isn't worth
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I'll be there for Chanukah
Nov 19 2007, 20:36 EST [updated Nov 19 2007, 20:41 EST]
I occasionally get neighbor's mail in my mailbox in error but rarely do I receive letters addressed to "Rabbi Michael Swirsky" at my address. The post marked date is a week ago so I infer that one of the other two apartments got it first and it eventuall
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Suburban Achievers: Turkey Day
Nov 19 2007, 15:38 EST [updated Nov 20 2007, 02:59 EST]
League got a taste of Thanksgiving last night. Normally the bowler with the highest score over his average in the second game gets a free pizza. This week the highest over average on each pair of lanes got a free turkey. In our pair of lanes it came do
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Illiterate Paper Pushers
Nov 17 2007, 00:23 EST [updated Nov 17 2007, 00:32 EST]
There is a sticker on my beer that says
HEY YOU!!
It is ILLEGAL to provide alcohol for people under 21!!
[then in fine print]
This sticker funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bureau of Substance Abuse Services. Sticker designed b
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Big Bowling Sunday
Nov 11 2007, 15:56 EST
I've been trying to practice three+ times a week but only got in a couple days this week. So while the pot roast was in the oven I skipped over to Lanes & Games. Pretty good: 194, 139, 135, 187. Now I'm going to pack myself full of meat and potatoes as
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Bad Kitchen UI
Nov 11 2007, 13:24 EST [updated Nov 11 2007, 16:27 EST]
While making a pot roast I was stymied by the user interface on my oven. The digital timer cannot be set for longer than 2 hours. Why? I can understand why the microwave won't let you set the timer for longer than an hour -- it doesn't have enough digi
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Your week in Quickies
Nov 10 2007, 18:39 EST
Fat Moms have smarter kids
[jackdied]
Nov 10 2007, 18:38 EST
The brain is a big ball of fat so this should surprise no one .. right?
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Sunday Mixed (3 images)
Nov 10 2007, 08:31 EST [updated Nov 10 2007, 08:39 EST]
I'm three weeks behind in bowling updates and I don't recall much about the older weeks. Three weeks ago we tied 4-4 and two weeks ago we lost 2-6. Dennis is getting frustrated that we always manage to choke.
Last week was a quirky 2-6 loss. We're cha
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Welcome to Elementary School (1 image)
Nov 09 2007, 19:28 EST
That's it. I'm ditching the short declarative sentences and going back to run on sentences with multisylabic words (and lots of parentheticals which up the per-sentence word count) because while it might be less readable apparently people can handle
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Pescatore and other local Somerville news
Nov 09 2007, 16:17 EST [updated Nov 09 2007, 16:22 EST]
I have not received a parking ticket in a month and half - a new personal record.
Pescatore Seafood
Pescatore Seafood got a much needed boost from a favorable Boston Globe review. Fridays are especially busy because of the tradition of eating fish on F
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Mark Steyn in Boston
Nov 09 2007, 15:16 EST [updated Nov 10 2007, 09:28 EST]
Mark Steyn came south of the border to give his talk Outsourcing the Future. bobsalive, Jim [update Jim has a summary], and I attended. The event was hosted by CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) at the Temple Emanuel in N
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Modern Christian Pacifist Philosophy
Nov 09 2007, 14:14 EST
David Kopel at Volokh.com has posted a working draft of his Modern Christian Pacifist Philosophy. It is worth reading and not too long at 32 pages. Don't let the "Christian" in the title scare you - most of the arguments are to natural law and not scrip
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The Many Problems of New Orleans
Nov 09 2007, 13:18 EST
The UK paper The Guardian has an article on crime plagued New Orleans. It points out that murders have rebounded after an initial post-Katrina dip (when the population was near zero). There have been a record 162 murders this year and two months left to
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Bacon Internet Roundup
Nov 06 2007, 18:14 EST [updated Nov 06 2007, 19:23 EST]
The internet has a lot to say about bacon. Here is some of it.
It's too late for Halloween this year but next year you can always go in your bacon costume. That sound you hear is a drunk gnawing on your shoulder.
What is better than bacon? Why a
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Blogging to resume in five, four, ...
Nov 06 2007, 18:14 EST [updated Nov 06 2007, 18:15 EST]
Sorry for the absence. I'm getting my apartment back together and doing reinstalls on my computers to make another run at the dot-com game. Today and tomorrow I'm going to try and burn through the hundreds of articles I've bookmarked in the last couple
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New Video Camera (plus bowling)
Oct 18 2007, 21:47 EDT
I bought a Sony HDR-SR5 digital video camera and took it to the lanes. As luck would have it I also rolled my first 200+ ever (sad, but true). The video starts in the 2nd frame because I forgot to hit record.
I didn't mean to chop off my head - the
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Suburban Achievers: Theory of Bacon Test
Oct 15 2007, 00:17 EDT [updated Oct 15 2007, 00:53 EDT]
So to test my "bacon theory of bowling" [eat more bacon, bowl better] I ate 3/4 of a pound before league. And some eggs. And a half gallon of whole milk. Really you could call it the "protein & fat theory of bowling." The results were inconclusive so
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Power Out Again
Oct 12 2007, 22:09 EDT [updated Oct 12 2007, 22:44 EDT]
Gee, that hasn't happened since July. Thankfully I have a few UPSs on the critical gear - which is why I can type this. Now to stick a 20 watt lightbulb in a desklamp so I can read. I have Garet Garret's "Salvos Against the New Deal" to finish.
Update
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Al Gore Wins The Nobel "If I Were King" Prize
Oct 12 2007, 14:46 EDT
It was announced Friday that Al Gore and the United Nations have jointly won the Nobel "If I Were King" (IIWK) prize. While other Nobel prizes such as chemistry, physics, medicine, or economics reward actual and finite accomplishments the IIWK prize is r
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YCombinator Application In
Oct 11 2007, 19:43 EDT [updated Oct 11 2007, 20:21 EDT]
I just submitted my application for the YCombinator Winter session (Jan-Mar 2008). YCombinator is essentially a startup coaching program. They give you $10-20k and lots of advice in exchange for 2%-10% of the company. I don't need the money but the con
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Suburban Achievers: Sunday Mixed
Oct 11 2007, 16:59 EDT [updated Oct 11 2007, 17:04 EDT]
Mike is back from his shoulder injury and is in better form than ever. He led off the night with a 202 and followed it with a 194 and 179 for a 191 average (+32). Dennis also excelled with 203, 243, 155 for a 200 average (+15). Me and Kristy? not so m
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Your week in Quickies
Oct 10 2007, 22:00 EDT [updated Oct 10 2007, 22:05 EDT]
You May Not Store Bowling Balls in the Overhead Bin
[jackdied]
Oct 10 2007, 22:00 EDT
Luggage restrictions from US Airways. You
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Republican Debate Redux
Oct 09 2007, 18:05 EDT [updated Oct 09 2007, 18:13 EDT]
Chris Mathews asked variations on this question for two hours
Mr X, in 30 seconds or less do one of the following:
A) Repeat any prepared soundbite
B) Justify your love of puppies, unicorns, and rainbows
C) Look senile by being unable to hear the qu
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Paul Krugman Has My Number
Oct 05 2007, 18:29 EDT [updated Oct 05 2007, 19:06 EDT]
Paul Krugman, who was formerly an economist, has become a walking cliche. As Charles Krauthammer once observed
To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberal
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I'm Kinda With Fred
Oct 05 2007, 16:12 EDT [updated Oct 05 2007, 16:28 EDT]
I have trouble endorsing any of the Republican candidates. They are all either unprincipled (McCain, Giuliani, Romney) or principled and crazy (Alan Keyes, Ron Paul). Huckabee is own his own class for proposing a national ban on smoking (way to court th
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Suburban Achievers: Sunday Mixed
Oct 02 2007, 08:15 EDT [updated Oct 02 2007, 15:46 EDT]
Our handicaps were recalculated. Ouch. My average jumped to 149 from 123 (last season average). Kristy's jumped to 147 from 131. Now we are in the position of our opponents last season; our paper averages are close to our real averages so new bowlers
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More Google Arbitrage?
Sep 28 2007, 12:26 EDT
In May I wrote about Google's crackdown on arbitrage. People were buying ads on Google to point to pages that listed Google ads. They paid a lower price for the ads they bought (for instance, typo'd words are cheaper) than money they received for ads t
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Your week in Quickies
Sep 27 2007, 19:40 EDT [updated Sep 28 2007, 14:16 EDT]
Fireworks Wars
[teddied]
Sep 27 2007, 17:20 EDT
A whole new level to a bottle rocket fight or a even roman candle one.
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Murderer says "It was an accident"
Sep 25 2007, 11:40 EDT [updated Sep 25 2007, 11:42 EDT]
This cretin must have read O.J.'s book. He was finally caught three years after committing a brutal murder and now he says:
It was an accident.
It is an accident when I cut myself shaving. I find it hard to believe it was an accident when he broke
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Suburban Achievers: Sunday Mixed
Sep 24 2007, 08:49 EDT [updated Oct 02 2007, 08:15 EDT]
[update: got the real scores from Kristy]
A 6-2 win for the Achievers over "Steric Hindrance" a group of four chemistry majors (Steric Hindrance is a chem term). bobsalive drove down to substitute for [still injured] Mike. Good times.
Kristy averaged
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Pocono NASCAR 2007 (8 images)
Sep 22 2007, 12:39 EDT [updated Sep 22 2007, 12:47 EDT]
Last month I joined the boys for the Pennsylvania 500 at the Pocono Raceway. Laugh all you want, the day was awesome. How awesome?
See that t-shirt with the two middle fingers on it? I rest my case.
Seriously though, there is no reason to get snobb
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Fed tries to reinflate the bubble
Sep 19 2007, 23:32 EDT [updated Sep 19 2007, 23:33 EDT]
Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke cut the interest rate by half a percent to 4.75%. The stock market thinks this is a great idea (Dow Jones up 300!), NRO's money guy thinks this is a great idea, and I think it stinks.
This move will cause banks to lend
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House and Senate to Constitution: Meh
Sep 19 2007, 20:08 EDT
Monday was "Constitution Day" but don't tell that to our elected representatives. The House has already passed a "DC Voting Rights Act" to give Washington DC votes in the house. The Senate just narrowly prevented a vote 57-42 (60 votes are needed to
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Suburban Achievers: Sunday Mixed
Sep 16 2007, 21:19 EDT
First things first: we now have lockers at the bowling alley. If I ever leave you a voice message "The you know what is in the you know where" and then die in a suspicious accident you can find the microfilm/computer disk/videotape in my bowling alley lo
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Rules of Thumb
Sep 16 2007, 03:42 EDT [updated Sep 16 2007, 03:54 EDT]
Here are the numbers I use as rules of thumb when reading any article. The numbers are rounded to make them easier to remember and to make back-of-the-envelope math easier: for instance the US population is 302 million and not 300 million and the govern
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Your week in Quickies
Sep 14 2007, 17:50 EDT
Portopong
[bobsalive]
Sep 14 2007, 17:49 EDT
Play Beirut (beer pong) in the pool on a floating surface.
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I'm an Uncle (again)
Sep 10 2007, 12:52 EDT [updated Sep 10 2007, 12:55 EDT]
Welcome to the world Jacob ("Jake"). Congrats to teddied and Gina. Gina deserves most of the credit for carrying Jake around for the last 290+ days. Despite the long gestation Jake came out at a standard 8lbs. Early reports indicate he has blue eyes a
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Suburban Achievers: Sunday Mixed
Sep 10 2007, 01:46 EDT [updated Sep 10 2007, 13:26 EDT]
The Summer season is over and the regular season has started. For reasons I don't understand the regular bowling season is nine months long. I don't mind bowling once a week for the next nine months but who really knows what they will be doing and where
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Tuesday Trio: Out With A Bang
Sep 09 2007, 23:23 EDT
[belated, the final league night was a week and a half ago]
We couldn't do worse than 3rd going in to the night and we didn't. To win first required the 1st and 2nd place teams finishing in a near draw and us at 3rd sweeping our opponents in 4th. Not t
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Hair Care Tips
Sep 04 2007, 02:04 EDT
I was at a wedding this weekend (congrats to Kev & Leslie). While browsing CVS looking for a card I picked up a tin of "Dax: Wave and Groom" pomade. I have never used pomade before so the brand was a random choice. The whole thing was impulsive but I f
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Your week in Quickies
Aug 25 2007, 13:10 EDT
Ron's Slip n' Slide Extravaganza
[jackdied]
Aug 25 2007, 13:09 EDT
You know how people in movies always say "nothing" when asked if they
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I Have Cousins
Aug 25 2007, 03:35 EDT [updated Aug 25 2007, 15:47 EDT]
I don't have some cousins, I have a s**tload of cousins. This past weekend was my Uncle's birthday and we had a celebration at The Lake attended by 30 members of my extended family. Half the guests were under 12 years old so it was a pretty tame affair[1
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Fish & Wildlife and Me
Aug 25 2007, 02:30 EDT [updated Aug 25 2007, 02:47 EDT]
I have a beef with the Pennsylvania Fish & Boating Commission. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would speak those words let alone care enough to speak them publicly. But that was before these Ranger Ricks started sticking their noses into my bus
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Tuesday Trio: Pyrrhic Victory
Aug 22 2007, 02:12 EDT [updated Aug 22 2007, 02:24 EDT]
In a magnificent show we beat the number one ranked "Team #14" by 150 pins overall for a 5-2 win. We have one of the higher handicaps in the league and these guys have 34 pins above that. Like us their real averages are better than their paper averages
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Tuesday Trio: vs The Widow Makers
Aug 16 2007, 00:08 EDT [updated Aug 16 2007, 03:22 EDT]
We played "The Widow Makers" last night who are so called because the trio of George, Andy, and Jones (yes, that Jones) compete for the highest personal averages in the league (193, 193, 197). That and all three use a make of ball called "The Widow Maker
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J/M/S Turn 30
Aug 12 2007, 05:20 EDT [updated Aug 12 2007, 14:32 EDT]
A few of my lady friends (and special lady friends of my fraternity brothers) turned 30 recently. The event was celebrated tonight with a organized bar crawl in Boston (including custom T-shirts and parents). The result was quite trippy.
Most of New Je
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What is wrong with me?
Aug 10 2007, 19:38 EDT [updated Aug 10 2007, 19:52 EDT]
So I went to the bowling alley for some light exercise and to clear my head. It was a very normal outing: 118, 169, 163 (150 average). I do that all the time but why the hell can't I do that during league?
Unrelated: I was listening to Pacifica radio (
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Tuesday Trio: Fighting for First
Aug 08 2007, 12:20 EDT [updated Aug 08 2007, 20:16 EDT]
Tonight we took our friends Trudi, Jason, and Brian for a 7-0 win. They are better bowlers than we are (combined handicap 57 pins lower) but this is a 100% handicap league and they did worse than average and we did much better. We won each game by 50-10
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Da Boot
Aug 02 2007, 22:06 EDT [updated Aug 09 2007, 00:06 EDT]
A big GFY to the Office of Traffic and Parking. I just went out to drive to 7-11 for some milk and my car was booted. This sucks because it must have happened between 11pm Tuesday and 1pm Wednesday when I paid my tickets online ($480, FYVM).
I must be
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Tuesday Trio: Bad Win
Aug 02 2007, 16:13 EDT [updated Aug 02 2007, 18:05 EDT]
We won 5-2 over Amy of "Two Girls and a Sandwich." The team name deserves its own story and I can tell it because we were bowling next to them in week 2 when they thought it up. The team has two girls on it (with enviable 129 and 139 averages) and one gu
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Tuesday Trio, Trio
Jul 25 2007, 00:04 EDT [updated Jul 25 2007, 00:50 EDT]
This is a writeup of our last three weeks of bowling league: two weeks ago, last week (I was in PA), and tonight.
Two weeks ago we scored a 7-0 victory over some dudes. We were doing above average and they kinda gave up about half way through. The thir
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Your week in Quickies
Jul 15 2007, 16:21 EDT [updated Jul 15 2007, 16:22 EDT]
FM Transmitter Station Finder
[bobsalive]
Jul 13 2007, 16:07 EDT
This little app lists unused stations in cities nationwide to h
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Your week in Quickies
Jul 08 2007, 17:01 EDT
Clockers
[bobsalive]
Jul 02 2007, 21:35 EDT
Script for a parody of the 1995 crap-fest Hackers. Instead of hacking computers, however, t
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A Young Kirk?
Jul 02 2007, 14:26 EDT [updated Jul 02 2007, 15:04 EDT]
Jonah Goldberg posted the following showbiz news tidbit to the corner:
Los Angeles (eCanadaNow) - Beam them up – stat! Matt Damon, Adrien Brody and Gary Sinise are in talks to play the Big Three in the Star Trek XI movie next year.
Fresh fro
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I'm off to Elba
Jun 28 2007, 20:31 EDT [updated Jun 29 2007, 01:05 EDT]
I have been enjoying my temporary retirement a bit too much which means I've been a royal shit to my publisher. I have about twenty chapters to do before the end of August but Boston offers too much in the way of wine, women, and song (if "song" means "r
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Living in the Third World
Jun 27 2007, 23:19 EDT [updated Jun 28 2007, 11:25 EDT]
Power has just gone out again in my section of Somerville. It went out for two minutes earlier tonight. This time it is ten and counting.
Thankfully like a good geek I have my cable modem and router on UPS. I'm typing this on my laptop. (and like a g
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I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
Jun 27 2007, 11:58 EDT [updated Jun 28 2007, 18:47 EDT]
This is the title of a book about the drunken fratboy antics of one Tucker Max. This read is not for the faint of heart. The stories vary between hilarious and kinda sad but they all involve copious amounts of alcohol mixed with either womanizing or the
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Tuesday Trio: Skint by the Skinners
Jun 26 2007, 22:34 EDT [updated Jun 27 2007, 00:44 EDT]
Our 3-4 loss last week didn't budge us out of third place but our 3-4 loss this week might. We played the dreaded Team #7 aka The Skinners (Mrs, Sr, and Jr). Mary holds most of the #1 records for women and is not to be trifled with. Jr (who is 30ish) h
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Comprehensive Immigration Reform Can't Work
Jun 26 2007, 05:01 EDT [updated Jun 26 2007, 06:27 EDT]
[Rush job, but I wanted to go on record before the cloture vote tomorrow]
1 - It can't and won't be enforced
2 - The reasons for amnesty don't go away
3 - There is no economic upside
4 - There is no political upside
5 - It is unfair to the immigran
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More Pescatore: Fried Clams
Jun 25 2007, 22:21 EDT [updated Jun 26 2007, 05:42 EDT]
The fried clams were good but after first taking a bite I put them aside for twenty minutes and they steamed themselves and the french fries/onion rings in the clamshell box. That made them un-crunchy.
They now have a couple tables for take-out customer
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Family Fun
Jun 23 2007, 01:02 EDT [updated Jun 23 2007, 01:12 EDT]
petedied and his special lady friend are in town for a wedding that is not theirs[1]. That by itself is not special or interesting. I have met his SLF several times but it wasn't until now that I learned she was in the top 100 line for the crown of Holl
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Pescatore II
Jun 20 2007, 23:41 EDT [updated Jun 20 2007, 23:53 EDT]
Tonight it was the Fried Haddock Plate with fries/O-rings and slaw ($10). The haddock was light and flaky and not overcooked (which is easy to do for fried food). The fries and onion rings were OK. I didn't actually try the slaw but it was only a coupl
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Tuesday Trio: Showdown
Jun 20 2007, 00:10 EDT [updated Jun 20 2007, 01:42 EDT]
After last week's debacle our ranking slipped from #2 to #3. Kristy's 174 game made it on the ranking sheet for top-3 women's handicapped games but was 10 pins shy of of the scratch list[1].
Tonight we played the unnamed Team #10. Not to be confused wi
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Pescatore Seafood
Jun 18 2007, 22:06 EDT [updated Jun 18 2007, 22:13 EDT]
Ball Square in Somerville has a new take-out restaurant (a small dine-in area awaits zoning for street parking). The Italian seafood joint is run by the same Mom & Pop who run the adjacent Crowley's Liquors[3] (guess how I know them!).
Tonight was openi
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Review: The Dangerous Book for Boys
Jun 18 2007, 14:10 EDT [updated Jun 18 2007, 14:23 EDT]
I bought this book for purposes of nostalgia and with half a mind to prove the nay-sayers wrong (see Die Feminists Die!) by replacing the word "boy" with "girl" and sending it off to my nieces. After all the feminists main knock was that the title was re
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Hamas Wins!
Jun 14 2007, 12:20 EDT [updated Jun 14 2007, 15:14 EDT]
Hamas has won in Palestine. Members of the *cough* democratically elected Fatah have been dragged out into the street and executed and their wounded shot dead in hospital rooms. It is a shame they couldn't both lose.
Palestine has always been a proxy w
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Tuesday Trio: Disaster Edition
Jun 14 2007, 10:19 EDT [updated Jun 14 2007, 10:33 EDT]
We lost 5-2 against the Eight Ballers. This was disappointing because we were ranked #2 going into the day. As an extra kick in the nuts if we had scored 10 pins better between the three of us in game three we would have won[2] the day 5-2. It was a fa
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Blog back up
Jun 14 2007, 10:06 EDT
The blog is up and running on some new hardware. The monthly archives are back and the time stamps on entries can be trusted again.
but ... adding one more box to the cage looks like it may have caused some heat problems. So the situation might change.
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Your week in Quickies
Jun 13 2007, 11:02 EDT
Midget hockey has more then one league in Canada
[teddied]
Jun 13 2007, 10:39 EDT
hem..."small people."
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Jimmy Dean is your friend
Jun 12 2007, 11:49 EDT [updated Jun 12 2007, 11:52 EDT]
I can't reccomend the microwave muffins enough. They are only as good as the ones you get at Dunkin Donuts but that is plenty. Available at your local super market. I cannot tell the difference between the Sarah Lee and Jimmy Dean but they are both acc
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Die Feminists, Die!
Jun 12 2007, 10:51 EDT [updated Jun 13 2007, 08:33 EDT]
Last Friday NPR spent an hour discussing The Dangerous Book for Boys. One of the authors called in and NPR added a feminist for balance. Her "balance" was unnecessary because it was garbage. Her general argument was that the "boys" in the title was a bi
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Cape Bachelor Weekend
Jun 10 2007, 11:40 EDT [updated Jun 10 2007, 17:02 EDT]
Good times, I spent the weekend at Cape Cod with a bunch of the boys for a bachelor party. Golf, poker, beirut, and all the ribs you could eat.
I had a minor scare on the drive back. The drive is 85 miles and my car said I had 100 miles worth of gas to
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E-Rased
Jun 07 2007, 06:06 EDT
or more acurately E-Updated; but like your average local news reporter I can't resist a pun. Good times, I am no longer listed on my last company's management team. This is quite proper as I have moved on (and amicably, FWIW). To double down on the upd
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Ignore Blog Errors
Jun 06 2007, 11:52 EDT
A few days after the server upgrade the blog software has gone haywire. The date handling code has crashed and burned so as a temporary workaround many timestamps will show up as June 6, 2007. The monthly archives are turned off because of this but the
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Eugenics Then and Now
Jun 03 2007, 15:11 EDT
The Logos Journal gives us The Mystique of Genetic Correctness, a retrospective look at the overstated claims of "science" over the years. The upshot is that policy makers have over played scientific discoveries (which are sometimes wrong) to further th
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Sox vs Yankees Report
Jun 02 2007, 21:24 EDT [updated Jun 03 2007, 21:26 EDT]
So bobsalive and I went to the Sox/Yankees game today (thaks Bob!). This happened on the way to the game.
jackdied: Hey look: Douchebags.
bobsalive: Who? The three guys in the convertible?
jackdied: Yeah
bobsalive: I don't get it. Wait .. is that
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Tuesday Treo Prelim
Jun 02 2007, 07:25 EDT [updated Jun 02 2007, 09:48 EDT]
The Suburban Achievers went to a 7-0 point victory over the unnamed Team #12. Points are 2 per game won and 1 for overall pin totals. The victory was especially sweet because it was a straight win even without considering handicap.
Kristy didn't drink
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Server Downtime
May 29 2007, 13:37 EDT [updated May 30 2007, 20:29 EDT]
The machine that runs the blog went down after 550+ days of uptime. It threw a harddisk which shouldn't have mattered because it had a RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks). Getting it back up and running was a chore.
No modern linux system would
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Cleaning out my wallet
May 26 2007, 13:04 EDT [updated May 26 2007, 13:13 EDT]
Most of the accumulated business cards in my wallet I can place. Some I can't like a card for "Stephen King" who works at Avon. A hand written note I left myself baffled me at first, it reads:
Silver Pallete
Moose Resteraunt
[not the Paris one]
Ol
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Tuesday Trio Prelim
May 23 2007, 00:17 EDT [updated May 23 2007, 00:51 EDT]
I didn't copy down the numbers but we went to a 5-2 point victory over the "Church of Strikentology." Good times: Lanna, Sam, and Kyle are nice folks and very good bowlers (Kyle included a 257 which looked like "XXXXX9/XX9/XXX9") but we did much better t
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Arbitrage and Google
May 22 2007, 00:52 EDT [updated May 22 2007, 01:12 EDT]
My 6" Websters[1] defines Arbitrage as
Finance: the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same securities, commodities, or foeign exhange in different markets.
Archaic: arbitration
Finance: to engage in arbitrage [Wha? The definition of arbitrage is
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Your week in Quickies
May 21 2007, 14:59 EDT
Neuromancer Movie in the Works
[bobsalive]
May 20 2007, 08:54 EDT
I'm looking forward to this, but also fairly sure they'll screw it up.
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Legal YouTube
May 17 2007, 23:38 EDT [updated May 17 2007, 23:47 EDT]
Local news is always a great example of reporting gone squirrely. Tonight's outrage was a YouTube only advertisement for Legal Seafood. The edited-TV-clip bleeped out every other word. This bland clip was probably thought edgy by some Marketeers at Leg
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Somerville smalltime politics
May 17 2007, 23:19 EDT
I live in Somerville, MA which has two main parties: The Democrats and the Progressive Democrats. Local issues however are the same as anywhere else. Home owners want restrictive parking rules and noise ordinances while business owners want the opposite
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Teaching Credentials in Private PA Schools
May 17 2007, 22:00 EDT [updated May 17 2007, 22:04 EDT]
My youngest brother (a teacher) informs me that a transformation has been going on in private schools in Pennsylvania. Credentialing (master in Ed and a state teaching certificate) is required by the public school teachers unions as a way to prevent entr
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Suburban Achievers: Tuesday Trio
May 17 2007, 20:46 EDT [updated May 17 2007, 20:51 EDT]
Bowling in a league continues to be a good time. There may be cut-throat leagues a-la The Big Lebowski (or really any TV show that includes bowling) but ours is not one of them. This week we played the unnamed team of Trudy, Jason, and [absent]; coworke
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Tater Mitts
May 12 2007, 17:35 EDT
This is the coolest thing, evar. As seen on TV I give you Tater Mitts (warning, audio). The gloves look like heavy duty kitchen gloves put with a steel wool like palm. You just rub the potato under running water to peel it. I suppose a garbage disposa
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Your week in Quickies
May 10 2007, 14:32 EDT
Terminator trilogy planned
[jackdied]
May 10 2007, 14:31 EDT
The first movie in the series will be the rise of the resistance against th
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Suburban Achievers: Tuesday Trio edition
May 09 2007, 01:09 EDT [updated May 09 2007, 01:19 EDT]
Mike, Kristy, and I joined the Tuesday night bowling league. Tonight was our first night and it did not go well, bowling wise. As a small blessing our opponents were a trio of bowling alley employees (they all average over 190 but because of handicaps t
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Mmm, Fresh Shark
Apr 28 2007, 08:24 EDT
Here is an an article about the prevalence of sharks in Queensland, Australia. The violent fishies are so numerous you can catch them in the canals and boatways that frequently abut condos. The wisdom of spending a pork chop to maybe catch a shark is qu
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Your week in Quickies
Apr 24 2007, 11:22 EDT
I got me an Easter Bunny
[teddied]
Apr 17 2007, 18:08 EDT
A little late for Easter, but bunny tastes good even after the holiday.
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Suburban Achievers (1 image)
Apr 18 2007, 12:18 EDT [updated Apr 18 2007, 12:19 EDT]
Mike: 160, 175, 244, 160
Huzza!
Kristy: 106, 117, 132, 118
jackdied: 143, 151, 152, 128
Avg open frames: Kristy 6, jackdied 5, Mike 2.5.
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Scalia Being Scalia
Apr 17 2007, 22:47 EDT [updated Apr 17 2007, 22:56 EDT]
Who said the law can't be fun? Here is a lengthy excerpt from Justice Scalia's recent dissent (joined by Thomas, Souter, and Roberts).
In order to contort the statute’s language
beyond recognition, the Court must believe Congress’s
intent so crystal
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For thee but not for me Corzine edition
Apr 13 2007, 19:07 EDT [updated Apr 13 2007, 19:10 EDT]
First let me say I wish NJ governor Corzine a swift and full recovery. Our politics may not mesh (to say the least) but he is not my mortal enemy by any stretch of the imagination. As a credit to our robust system of government I would have to think him
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PA Dems want your guns, kinda
Apr 11 2007, 22:48 EDT [updated Apr 28 2007, 08:47 EDT]
In Pennsylvania the Democrats picked up state house seats in the recent mid-term elections. PA is a "purple" state so a swing of a few seats either way makes some difference in legislative outcomes and a much larger swing in legislative proposals (i.e. b
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One Laptop Per Child (1 image)
Apr 11 2007, 21:53 EDT
I like the idea of One Laptop Per Child - I really do. The surest way to reduce poverty is to make more stuff and one of the best ways to get more stuff made is to educate the uneducated. I can't but help to look at this picture and think of opportunity
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Golfing with Caddies
Apr 10 2007, 21:06 EDT [updated Apr 10 2007, 21:12 EDT]
I live around Boston and the golf courses I play are generally crappy munis. Last week I was playing some nice courses in South Carolina with family and caddies were required. The thinking goes that if there is more than one guest a caddie speeds up pla
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Who says corporations don't care?
Apr 09 2007, 21:55 EDT [updated Apr 09 2007, 21:59 EDT]
Who loves me? Philip-Morris loves me. At a bar a few years ago I swiped my driver's license into a card reader in exchange for a free Zippo lighter. Every year since I have received a present on my birthday from the folks at Marlboro. This year it was
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Your week in Quickies
Apr 04 2007, 14:55 EDT
Find Sounds
[bobsalive]
Mar 31 2007, 09:23 EST
Nifty search engine for audio. If you can make your own custom ringtones, this is handy.
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Fifteen pounds of Joy II
Mar 31 2007, 00:21 EDT [updated Mar 31 2007, 23:58 EDT]
My wallet has given birth (again) to a new bowling ball, a Neo-Tac "The Khameleon" SN GRE3173 (not quite 'leet but it is "Greelte"). My previous ball was non-grip plastic so it could only do straight throws. This one is high-grip resin so I can start th
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Is price fixing anti-competitive or free market?
Mar 29 2007, 00:59 EDT [updated Mar 29 2007, 02:45 EDT]
It is currently illegal for a manufacturer to sell goods with the requirement
that the buyer never sells it for less than a set amount. I can't sell you
my watch for $10 and demand that you not resell it for less than $20. This
rule (originally impos
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Time Magazine Inkblot Cover (1 image)
Mar 28 2007, 22:20 EDT
The gang over at Blue Mass Group posted this picture of the four regional covers of Time magazine:
With the title "Much of What You Need to Know About U.S. and our MSM is captured perfectly today on Time's website"
Now when I saw this I thought "Ha, w
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For me but not for thee
Mar 27 2007, 03:19 EDT [updated Mar 28 2007, 22:04 EDT]
A Senate staffer was charged with carrying a gun and "unregistered ammunition" (sarcastic finger quotes because the ammunition is worth about as much as a cup of coffee). The staffer was just carrying his boss's bag (Jim Webb, D-VA) through security. If
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Beers, Bowling, and Guns
Mar 24 2007, 20:31 EDT [updated Mar 24 2007, 20:33 EDT]
teddied came to Boston for a four day visit. It was solid fraternal fun. We managed to work our way through Crowley's selection of IPAs (Harpoon, Ipswitch, and Shipyard). There was bowling with Mike & Kristy. We went to see 300. As a topper today we
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300
Mar 24 2007, 02:14 EDT [updated Mar 24 2007, 03:03 EDT]
teddied is in town and tonight we went to see 300. From reviews and personal recommends (bobsalive saw it) I knew what to expect. It was good. The plot is *ahem* Spartan but there is tons of blood and some rousing speeches. Lots and lots of blood -
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Unlikely free energy Down Under
Mar 21 2007, 15:28 EDT [updated Mar 21 2007, 15:34 EDT]
Some Australians have been working on extracting hydrogen from sea water.
An area covering 40 square kilometers would meet the country's energy needs.
40 square kilometers is 40,000,000 square meters. The country's population is 22 million. So eac
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Suburan Achievers
Mar 19 2007, 02:41 EDT [updated Mar 20 2007, 19:37 EDT]
bobsalive came down from NH this week. He got to see Jones and in his opinion I undersold Jones by a wide margin. Jones isn't just a 70s holdover; he is a rare specimen preserved in amber. Today he wore a bowling shirt (with his name on the back, natc
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Your week in Quickies
Mar 15 2007, 13:57 EDT
The Kegulator
[bobsalive]
Mar 12 2007, 20:27 EST
Nifty page that calculates how much beer you'll need for a party, given the number and
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Power Outage + Daylight Savings == Comcast Perfect Storm
Mar 14 2007, 22:22 EDT [updated Mar 14 2007, 22:36 EDT]
After my recent brief power outage my cable box was dead as a doornail (my TV watching is spotty - I only discovered this today). The box is four or five years old and had been acting flaky for months. I did happen to have a spare box that hadn't been p
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Woops
Mar 13 2007, 04:51 EDT [updated Mar 13 2007, 05:12 EDT]
Sorry about the deleted post. I'll reinstate it or restate it someday. It is a shame if only because of the line
I'm the least hircine of the group...
Add it to the list of outs on your next game of scrabble. If you see it in a crossword double
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deleted
Life imitates SciFi
Mar 12 2007, 23:01 EDT [updated Mar 12 2007, 23:05 EDT]
I check ESR's blog every so often to see if he's come out of retirement. Nope, his last post is still June 2006. This time I noticed that his last post now has over 1600 comments. Some of his posts used to get hundreds of comments ... but 1600?
Enter
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Somerville as Third World
Mar 12 2007, 21:41 EDT [updated Mar 12 2007, 21:43 EDT]
The power went out today. Thankfully I bought a couple UPSs yesterday. Had I taken them out of the box yet? Heck no. A few minutes later the power came back on. A few hours later the power went out again. Where were the UPSs? If you guessed "still
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Suburban Achievers
Mar 11 2007, 17:23 EDT [updated Mar 13 2007, 12:47 EDT]
Lanes & Games has its own version of Big Lebowski's The Jesus. If his shirt is to be believed his name is Jones. He found his perfect look in 1975 and has kept it up ever since. He is a wiry black guy with a mustache and man can that creep bowl. This
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Suburban Achievers
Mar 07 2007, 15:46 EST
Light week. The post-football crowd refuses to materialize.
Mike:148, 189, 154, 191 (avg 170!)
Kristy: 112, 120, 140, 109 (avg 120)
jackdied: 131, 139, 134, 137 (avg 135)
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Don't Mess with the OTP
Mar 05 2007, 15:33 EST [updated Mar 10 2007, 13:30 EST]
Apparently the lag time between posting about Office of Traffic and Parking and getting your car booted is about 48 hours.
Pay the outstanding tickets online ($400)
Walk to the OTP
Stand in line for an hour (there were only 12 people ahead of me!)
G
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Saturday Hold'em
Mar 04 2007, 12:06 EST
8 guys, $20 buy in, good times. The women folk made some food and anchored the game of quarters (where busted players go between games). I had hot cards pretty much the whole night so I managed to do OK. The first game I was chip leader early and manag
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Your week in Quickies
Mar 02 2007, 20:55 EST
Dinosaur Comics
[teddied]
Feb 28 2007, 18:02 EST
I have seen several people reading this lately. Interesting idea. Funny, not sure yet.
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Texas Days 2,3,4
Feb 26 2007, 14:20 EST [updated Feb 26 2007, 22:01 EST]
The PyCon conference is over (at least the conferency parts). What a ride. It was good to meet people that I've only known via email and to hang out with the folks I hadn't seen since the Iceland sprint. EWT (who sponsored the Iceland sprint) had a lar
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Texas Day 1
Feb 23 2007, 02:40 EST [updated Feb 23 2007, 02:56 EST]
I've been in Dallas for eight hours now. This is my first time in Texas. The lay of the land is flatter than back East but there are lots of trees (elms, maybe. No leaves so I can't say but the limbs are twistier than oaks). I can't say there are more
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Suburban Achievers
Feb 18 2007, 19:06 EST [updated Feb 18 2007, 19:11 EST]
Kristy: 128, 116, *cough*, 149, 107 (average 119)
Mike: 165, 169, 119, 154, 153 (average 152 |