Charles Darwin will be known as the father of economics.
United States wind speed map.
Gore-Tex wars.
Filed under: Uncategorized
07/04/2011 • 1:24 am 0
criminally stupid
Conversations from people involved in an insider trading scam.
Personal favorite is the bit about laundering money by running it through the actual laundry:
He goes, “run it through a washing machine.” And I’m like, “you can do that?” and he goes “yeah.”
Awesomeness.
Filed under: Uncategorized
23/01/2011 • 5:05 am 0
trekking in nepal
The dark secret of wilderness around the world is that the land is usually not developed because it is too hard to profit off of
…
The opportunities are depressing. The government is depressing. The people have lived through hell and are seeing their country being built into a three-star hotel for assholes like me to come and experience their Himalayan dream. With more than 30% of the children not attending school, the government focuses on tourism in 2011. I don’t how this will help the core problems, major problems, at all. It will only hurt more.
I’ve never felt dirtier as a traveler.
-link
Filed under: sad, Uncategorized
22/01/2011 • 5:31 am 0
shatner, i’d fight william shatner
Fight Club and Calvin and Hobbes were the same story.
The evidence is here.
Filed under: Uncategorized
24/12/2010 • 3:34 pm 0
phd challenge winner
The 2010 PhD Challenge was quite simple:
The goal of this year’s challenge is to get the phrase “I SMOKE CRACK ROCKS” into the final, camera-ready version of a peer-reviewed academic paper
A winner has been announced.
Filed under: Uncategorized
30/09/2010 • 2:20 am 0
then and now
I watched Taxi Driver recently, here’s a look at how the places in New York where it has filmed have changed since then.
Filed under: Uncategorized
16/09/2010 • 4:28 pm 0
why inequality in the us is increasing
Slate has been running a series of articles on inequality under the title “The Stinking Rich and the Great Divergence”. In today’s entry, the author gives a “back-of-the-envelope calculation” of what the causes of the increase in income inequality in the US have been. He attributes the increase in equality to the following factors:
* Immigration: 5%.
* Changes in tax rates and rules: 5%.
* Labour union decline: 20%.
* Increased trade: 10%.
* Educational factors: 30%.
* And 30% reserved for factors related to what he calls corporate “pampering of the Stinking Rich”.
Filed under: Uncategorized
23/07/2010 • 1:16 am 0
the definition of rape
In Israel:
A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.
Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.
When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.
Juan Cole points out the history of similar ugliness in the United States.
That’s some pretty ugly racism going in Israel. It wasn’t about his looks or his intellect. Just the fact that he was an Arab.
Filed under: Uncategorized
02/07/2010 • 12:38 am 0
the press
When governments other than the United States waterboarded people, US newspapers almost always called it torture.
When the United States government waterboarded people, US newspapers almost never called it torture.
And I would be willing to bet money that not one of the people responsible for those stories ever considered himself a propagandist rather than a reporter.
Filed under: Uncategorized
02/07/2010 • 12:33 am 0
libertarians
The various species of the genus libertarian.
Filed under: Uncategorized
08/06/2010 • 12:38 am 0
advance to boardwalk
What is the shortest theoretically possible Monopoly game?
Filed under: Uncategorized
18/12/2009 • 3:35 pm 0
who should the democrats nominate in 2012?
It is Ben Bernanke’s job to control inflation and unemployment. He has said straight up that he is not interested in doing the second half of his job, for reasons that, as Paul Krugman explains, are simply bullshit.
Yet we hear not one word of complaint from the White House. Millions will remain unemployed who could be employed if saner policies prevailed, but we hear not one word of complaint.
Which brings me to my point, who should be the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 2012? This marks the point in time where I don’t think it can be Obama.
Filed under: Uncategorized
13/12/2009 • 11:45 pm 0
tale of the snake
Paul Kedrosky has a nice rant up on the decline of quality web search results:
Google has become a snake that too readily consumes its own keyword tail. Identify some words that show up in profitable searches — from appliances, to mesothelioma suits, to kayak lessons — churn out content cheaply and regularly, and you’re done. On the web, no-one knows you’re a content-grinder.
The result, however, is awful. Pages and pages of Google results that are just, for practical purposes, advertisements in the loose guise of articles, original or re-purposed. It hearkens back to the dark days of 1999, before Google arrived, when search had become largely useless, with results completely overwhelmed by spam and info-clutter.
Filed under: Uncategorized
10/12/2009 • 7:14 am 0
stat of the day
Colleges need to be aware, the report emphasized, that only about a quarter of those enrolled in higher education fit the popular image of a college student living in a dorm and attending classes full time. Almost as many have dependent children.
Filed under: Uncategorized
10/12/2009 • 4:24 am 0
if you fail, fail
Paul Volker is not impressed with the banksters:
The former US Federal Reserve chairman told an audience that included some of the world’s most senior financiers that their industry’s “single most important” contribution in the last 25 years has been automatic telling machines, which he said had at least proved “useful”.
Filed under: Uncategorized
05/12/2009 • 4:59 am 0
friday cat vocabulary lessons
Human phrases my cat knows (along with her interpretation of what I mean by them)
no (continue your current activity)
NO (pause for one second, then resume your current activity)
NO! NO!!! (hide under the couch for one hour)
up up up! (either wake up and get off my back or you’re getting rolled over on)
come here (feeding or petting is imminent, approach me at full speed)
it’s okay (the vacuum cleaner/thunderstorm/garbage truck is not an immediate danger to you)
hey! (I’m whining because I brought fingernails to a claw fight)
good girl (I’m under the pathetic misconception that if I praise you for scratching the scratching pad, you’ll stop using my overpriced down jacket as your preferred claw sharpener)
Filed under: Uncategorized
