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Learn to read a map, idiots.
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links for 2009-12-29
Posted on December 30, 2009 by Marty Andrade
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Quote:"I received many gifts this Christmas. A sweater, some chocolate, some scotch. But the best gift, the absolute best gift I received was a gift from three of my friends.
Nothing.
Three men, three of my buddies, all three of them got me nothing.
And I'm being sincere when I say I appreciate nothing. And the reason why is this;
Nothing necessitates nothing in return."
// Well, I now have some material to steal for next year's Christmas Gift Guide.
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Imagine an hour a day without screens, beeps, rings, texts or anything else. Just contemplation and introspection.
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Photos from the Russian Space Museum
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links for 2009-12-28
Posted on December 29, 2009 by Marty Andrade
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Quote:"Chinese archaeologists have found what could be the tomb of Cao Cao, a skilful general and ruler in the third century who was later depicted in popular folklore as the archetypal cunning politician.
Archaeological officials say Cao's 8,000 sq ft tomb complex, with a 130ft passage leading to an underground chamber, was found in Xigaoxue, a village near the ancient capital of Anyang in central Henan province.
Historians say Cao Cao's outstanding military and political talents enabled him to build the strongest and most prosperous state in northern China during the Three Kingdoms period in 208 to 280 AD, when China had three separate rulers."// Awesome
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links for 2009-12-27
Posted on December 28, 2009 by Marty Andrade
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Quote:"7. I’ve seen some horrible things done to people's food: steaks dropped on the floor, butter dipped in the dishwater.
—Waiter at a casual restaurant in the Chicago area"Hey, if it's not busy and the conversation is flowing, I'm staying. Keep serving refills and I'll drop a tip worth the trouble. I can't go back to my house, it's a mess and I have no drinks. In fact, the only reason I went out and paid so much for a burger I could make for a buck at home was because your restaurant is nicer than my place or my friend's.
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Popular collection of jokes from 1739.
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The first collection of jokes
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Outline and history of humor
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History of the joke, including the most important joke hoarder ever: Poggio, an notable secretary to several Pontiffs.
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The List: 1. Bahrain
2. Canada
3. Australia
4. Thailand
5. Maylasia
// America comes in a respectable tenth.
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Quote:"Most economists say it could take at least until 2015 for the unemployment rate to drop down to a historically more normal 5.5 percent. And with the job market likely to stay weak, some also foresee another decade of wage stagnation.
Even though the economy will likely keep growing, the pace is expected to be plodding. That will make employers reluctant to hire. Further contributing to high unemployment is the likelihood of more people competing for jobs, baby boomers delaying retirement and interest rates edging higher.
All this would come after a decade that created relatively few jobs: a net total of just 464,000. By contrast, 21.7 million new jobs were generated between 1989 and 1999."
// Thank you baby boomers.
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Quote:"1. Aibo
About the size of a Chihuahua but a lot less annoying, Sony's robotic dog was much beloved by some, but not enough. Sony filled the pets with personality through software that also gave owners the joy of raising a dog from puppyhood, sans the messy newspapers. The company continued to add features during the dog's seven-year life span. Late models could sing, recognize faces and voices, and speak 1,000 words. The dog could even blog by posting photos from its built-in camera. But the price of about $2,000 discouraged a mass market for the herky-jerky pets. Sony discontinued Aibo in 2006 amid aggressive belt-tightening."
// I want an Aibo. Also on the list: Windows Vista (which I am proud to say I will never, and have never, used)
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From the Notebook
Posted on December 27, 2009 by Marty Andrade
The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.
–GK Chesterton
Though the debate is over, in the Healthcare debate, liberals used the flaws in the current system to promote a system empirically shown in other nations to promote even more flaws (mainly overconsumption, leading to government rationing).
Conservatives get stuck defending the flawed system and blamed for not having any solutions. The democratic farce continues. Needless to say, I am a skeptic of Obamacare to do anything more than cost a lot.
-I am still in search of some liberal blogs to read. Requirements: intellectual honesty, love of ideas, search for truth, aversion to fallacy, limited snark (and well-timed when present), honest sense of humor. Can anyone find me a few that match? just give me three.
language is such a pain. Recently I got caught using Gregorian instead of gregarious and photogenic instead of picturesque. Annoying. All that schooling wasted on business statistics instead of important things like how not to look like a fool in front of erudite friends. Overly erudite friends.
-I can’t wait to see if Mitch Berg declares this blog dead or undead.
Finished up a bunch of books this month:
-Reading through a “One Year” Bible the long way, by taking more than a year. It’s the New Living Translation (NLT), popular with some Evangelical friends. Books read so far are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, Psalms, Tobit, Sirach, Mathew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts. If nothing else, I’ve read enough to have an opinion on the translation. For the dense histories in the Old Testament, the translation is fine. However, the work in any of the literary areas of the Bible take away any literary quality. And the parts where literal is really important, the NLT is not literal. The work isn’t quite a summary, but I would only use the NLT to get familiar with a text, not for any serious study.
-Read Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon” using a 19th century translation that was basically unreadable. This was part of the Great Books of the Western World 10 year reading program. The wikipedia article on the topic filled in the gaps. At least I now know the penalties for sinful pride.
-Also read “Wittgenstein; Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief” edited by C. Barrett. These are basically just notes taken by a few students of Wittgenstein in the 30′s and 40′s. In a way, little books like this provide insight into the man of Wittgenstein better than plunging through his actual writings. Wittgenstein had interesting views on subjects I care about. He attempted to separate Aesthetics from psychology by asking if a pill could reproduce the effects of a beautiful thing, does that mean there isn’t really a beautiful thing there? Of course not was his answer. He tries to create a way to declare something objectively good looking, I’m not sure he came close. On Psychology, he pokes fun at the post hoc analyses of Freud. On Religious Belief, it’s clear he’s a skeptic. But he says “I’m not so sure” and doesn’t outright say “there is no diety” because he can’t be sure. (He was buried as a Roman Catholic). I don’t see any real value in this book for any but a small group of people, but I like anyway.
-Got Levitt and Dubner’s ”SuperFreakonomics” for Christmas. Finished it the next day. It’s a remarkable book, better than the first for sure. The political leanings are a little worse though than in the first book. overall, I would recommend picking this up and giving it a read. For one thing, it solves the whole Global Warming problem for about 100 million bucks a year.
-Picked up in “A” in “Strategic Management’, the last real class in the MBA program. Now I have to do the Thesis thing. If all things go right, I’ll be done sometime mid-summer.
-Any opinions on those links being posted up everyday? They are downloaded from My Delicious page automatically. It’s easy content but not aesthetically pleasing. It also feels like cheating. Then again, it’s just a blog.
-Sony Reader: Good so far.
-I’m never updating IE again. I went several years without updating, and now that I did I regret it. And no, no Mozilla Firefox for me, thanks.
Filed under: Books, From the Notebook, Personal Update, Reviews, The Blog | 4 Comments »
links for 2009-12-26
Posted on December 27, 2009 by Marty Andrade
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Quote:"SAN DIEGO, Calif. (CBS 8) – Nothing says New Year's like fireworks, but there will be no show over San Diego Bay next week.
The Port of San Diego and Port Tenants Association sponsor the annual display. They way they have to cancel the show after an environmental group threatened to sue over pollution concerns.
Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation says it doesn't want to shut down the fireworks display, and it just wants the port to get the permits so the fireworks shows are legal and safe for the environment.
The port argues there's not enough time to file the permits before New Year's Eve.
CERF argues it notified the port 50 days ago and the port took no action to file the permits."
// Via a commenter on CaptCap.
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links for 2009-12-25
Posted on December 26, 2009 by Marty Andrade
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Quote:"But it turns out that "Xmas" isn't a modern convention at all. It was used commonly in 16th-century Europe, when many people began using the term "Christos," the Greek translation for Christ, to refer to Jesus. The letter chi in the Greek alphabet is symbolized by an X and translates to "ch." So along with the Greek letter rho for "r", the term Xmas was used to refer to the birth of Jesus as an informed abbreviation, not an offensive one. Xmas was a way for Christian scholars to refer to Jesus respectfully in an ancient language — not to disrespect his name with a harsh symbol. In fact, variations of "Xmas" date back to 1021 . "
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Quote:" 1) Fill a shallow bowl with raisins, (or currants, if you want to make the game more difficult). Put in two or three raisins for each guest.
2) Warm some brandy in a pan on the stove, then pour it into the bowl, about a half inch deep.
3) Place the bowl in the middle of a table or on some other surface which can be protected from drips. We've always done this on a kitchen counter but the floor around gets pretty messy. I wouldn't want to try it over a wood floor or a pretty linen tablecloth.
4) Turn off as many lights as possible.
5) Light the brandy on fire. The brandy will flicker with an eerie blue flame.
Now try to snatch the raisins out of the burning brandy and pop them into your mouth. Presumably the person who eats the most, wins — it would probably be a good way to choose the Twelfth Night King or Queen, since who ever is bold enough to succeed at this game is bound to have pretty interesting ideas for further merriment." -
Quote:"Early readings from Toys R Us, Sears Holdings Corp. and several mall operators show packed stores on Christmas Eve following a busy week fueled by shoppers who delayed buying, waiting for bigger discounts that never came or slowed by last weekend's big East Coast snowstorm."
// Noticed the same thing working at the shop. Was mega busy.
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Felix Dies Nativitatis
Posted on December 25, 2009 by Marty Andrade
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links for 2009-12-24
Posted on December 25, 2009 by Marty Andrade
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Quote:"To put it as the devout Ned Flanders would, the Vatican's newspaper thinks "The Simpsons" are an okely dokely bunch.
L'Osservatore Romano on Tuesday congratulated the show on its 20th anniversary, praising its philosophical leanings as well as its stinging and often irreverent take on religion.
Without Homer Simpson and the other yellow-skinned characters "many today wouldn't know how to laugh," said the article titled "Aristotle's Virtues and Homer's Doughnut.""
// All the stuff about secular humanism doesn't bother L'Osservatore Romano at all, huh? Really?
Well, the Simpson's is awesome anyway.
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links for 2009-12-23
Posted on December 24, 2009 by Marty Andrade
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Quote:""The Nebraska compromise, which permanently exempts Nebraska from paying Medicaid costs that Texas and all other 49 states must pay, may violate the United States Constitution — as well as other provisions of federal law," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said."
If only we could find a way to make one really rich state to pay for all the medical costs of all the poorer states…Somebody call the Governator.
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Via The Corner; Obama signed an executive order loosening the constraints put on Interpol by president Reagan. Those restraints? The Constitution.
Interpol now has full diplomatic immunity, so no FOIA requests, despite the fact Interpol is not a diplomatic org, but a police org.
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Quote:"The husky, bespectacled trader laughs easily, but employees say he can quickly turn on them when he's angry. Mr. Tepper keeps a brass replica of a pair of testicles in a prominent spot on his desk, a present from former employees. He rubs the gift for luck during the trading day to get a laugh out of colleagues."
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Ah regifting. I oppose it. Instead of regifting a bad gift, toss it. Then give the person who gave you a crappy gift an even crappier gift, forcing them to regift the thing or throw it away, then call them on it.
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Quote:"WASHINGTON (AP) — Want to keep IRS auditors away? Keep your earnings under $200,000 and they won't bother you 99 percent of the time.
IRS enforcement numbers, released Tuesday, show that returns under that amount have a 1 percent chance of getting audited.
Returns showing income of $200,000 and above have a nearly 3 percent audit chance. The percentage jumps to more than 6 percent for returns showing earnings of $1 million or more.
The percentages apply to both individual and joint returns."
// Somehow, I don't think this will be difficult for me.
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Quote:" A woman in a wedding gown surprised her fiance by greeting him at a Texas airport along with a justice of the peace. Robyn Moore and William Acosta exchanged vows Monday at Corpus Christi International Airport after he got off a plane arriving from Toledo, Ohio."
// I bet they didn't spend no 10,000 dollars on this wedding.
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Quote:"Office workers of America, enjoy your Christmas break. Because come the new year, things could get a little hairy around the office. Microsoft Word is now scheduled to be prohibited from sale beginning January 11, 2010. That's less than three weeks away."
// Looks like the epic return of WORDSTAR. Somebody Cue Nelson Muntz (SCNM)
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