Mar 29, 2008

Anyone Speak Kurdish? 

I'm always on the lookout for obscure references to "gelwan". Can anyone translate this one? (Scroll down to it): "Di gelwan merc?n dijwar de ew bi d?v gotina kurd?ya resen de geriya , ew gotin di t?rik?xwe de parast
?tov?w?di nav gel de belav kir." (Kurdistan National Assembly - Kone Res - Bilbil? ?iyay?Botan)

9:42 PM   •  

A Victim Treats His Mugger Right 

"'He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'' Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, 'Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.'

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, 'like what's going on here?' Diaz says. 'He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?''

Diaz replied: 'If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome." (NPR)

9:26 AM   •  

Mar 28, 2008

MoOM 

The Museum of Online Musems (Coudal Partners)

11:47 PM   •  

16 Names Of Things... 

...You Never Knew Had Names: aglets, bibcocks, brassards, bretelles, duff, piggins, soliduses, tobies, zarfs, etc. (The Land Salmon)

11:01 PM   •  

'Either You Get It Or You Don't...' 

Peggy Noonan: "I think we've reached a signal point in the campaign. This is the point where, with Hillary Clinton, either you get it or you don't. There's no dodging now. You either understand the problem with her candidacy, or you don't. You either understand who she is, or not. And if you don't, after 16 years of watching Clintonian dramas, you probably never will." (WSJ)

The Hilary Deathwatch

Christopher Beam, Chadwick Matlin, and Chris Wilson: '...So the question now is not just "How dead is she?" but "When will she realize it?" ' (Slate)

Democratic Race Over?

"Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential race is over and Barack Obama won." (Reuters commentary)

Leahy: Clinton Should Drop Out

"Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to," he said... "As far as the delegate count and the interests of a Democratic victory in November go, there is not a very good reason for drawing this out. But as I have said before, that is a decision that only she can make." (CBS News)

Dodd calls on Democratic leaders to halt battling

"Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd says the war of words between Senate colleagues Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is undermining Democrats' ability to win the presidential election.

... He says that after primaries in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana, the national leadership needs to push the party to get behind a candidate." (Newsday)

And:

Approximately 15,900 results from a Google search on '"Hilary Clinton" withdraw|"drop out" '.

10:51 PM   •  

Elephant Paints Self Portrait 

I would love to find a way to be skeptical about the reality of this 8-minute video, but I can't. (YouTube)

10:07 PM   •  

Earth Hour 

"On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

What will you do when the lights are off? We have lots of ideas."

12:04 AM   •  

Mar 27, 2008

A history of the hangover 

Inigo Thomas:

"Hangovers were for a long time associated with stock market crashes; the 1929 crash has been written about as if it were the hangover after the wild 1920s. Whether or not traders are more likely to hit the bottle after precipitous falls in the value of their shares is hard to say—not least because it isn't clear what's going on with markets. Are the fallen masters of the universe at Bear Stearns drinking away what remains of their portfolios? One hopes that an enterprising sociologist is doing fieldwork in the bars near the bank's headquarters." (Slate)

7:26 AM   •  

Mar 26, 2008

CHute Find Rekindles Cooper Quandary 

"A tattered, half-buried parachute unearthed by kids had D.B. Cooper country chattering Wednesday over the fate of the skyjacker, who leaped from a plane 36 years ago and into the lore of the Pacific Northwest." (AP)

9:35 PM   •  

13 Essential Talking Points for the Earthquake Enthusiast 

(Mental Floss)

9:31 PM   •  

Is autism the symptom of an "extreme white brain"? 

"In several previous posts, I've discussed Simon Baron-Cohen's theory of autism as a symptom of an 'extreme male brain' (e.g. 'Stereotypes and facts', 9/24/2006), and also Mary Bucholtz's hypothesis that nerdity is defined by 'hyperwhite' behavior (e.g. 'Language and identity', 7/29/2007). I'm ashamed to say that it never seriously occurred to me to cross-pollinate these two theories, until...." (Language Log)

9:29 PM   •  

The Long Defeat 

David Brooks:

"The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near... Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance..." (New York Times op-ed)

12:33 AM   •  

Mar 25, 2008

Japan: URL's Are Totally Out 

"Within minutes of riding on the first trains in Japan, I notice a significant change in advertising, from train to television. The trend? No more printed URL's. The replacement?

Search boxes! With recommended search terms!

It makes sense, right? All the good domain names are gone. Getting people to a specific page in a big site is difficult (who's going to write down anything after the first slash?). And, most tellingly, I see increasingly more users already inadvertently put complete domain names like "gmail" and "netflix" into the Search box of their browsers out of habit — and it doesn't even register that Google pops up and they have to click to get to their destination.

But, I ask you: could this be done in the USA? Wouldn't search spammers and/or "optimizers" ruin this within seconds? I did a few tests with major name brands and they're almost always the top hit on Google (surprisingly, even Panic). But if Nabisco ran a nationwide ad campaign for a hot new product and told users to Google for "Burlap Thins" to learn more, wouldn't someone sneaky get there before they do?" (cabel.name)

11:46 PM   •  

Solution elusive for awaking in surgery 

"One thing is clear: Although some physicians have been known in the past to dismiss reports of awareness as simply a bad dream, the consensus is that it exists.

Anesthesia awareness - regaining some level of consciousness during surgery - is thought to occur in perhaps one or two out of 1,000 surgical patients in the United States, a total of 20,000 to 40,000 cases a year. The bulk of them do not feel pain.

Still, for some it is so disturbing that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and must undergo counseling.

For general anesthesia, patients typically are given a mix of drugs - including one to "knock them out" and often another called a paralytic.

This relaxes the muscles to make surgery easier. But in the rare case that a patient starts to wake up - not able to speak - the paralytic effect can be horrifying." (Philadelphia Inquirer)

11:10 PM   •  

Mar 24, 2008

Medicine's Cutting Edge: Re-Growing Organs 

Man regrows lost finger with powdered pig bladder. (CBS News via boing boing)

10:27 PM   •  

'Mission Accomplished' Dept (cont'd) 

Overall US death toll in Iraq hits 4,000 (Yahoo! News)

8:08 AM   •  

Mar 23, 2008

Mickey Edwards: 'Dick Cheney's Error' 

"For at least six years, as I've become increasingly frustrated by the Bush administration's repeated betrayal of constitutional -- and conservative -- principles, I have defended Vice President Cheney, a man I've known for decades and with whom I served and made common cause in Congress. No longer.

I do not blame Dick Cheney for George W. Bush's transgressions; the president needs no prompting to wrap himself in the cloak of a modern-day king. Nor do I believe that the vice president so enthusiastically supports the Iraq war out of a loyalty to the oil industry that his former employer serves. By all accounts, Cheney's belief in "the military option" and the principle of president-as-decider predates his affiliation with Halliburton.

What, then, is the straw that causes me to finally consign a man I served with in the House Republican leadership to the category of "those about whom we should be greatly concerned"?

It is Cheney's all-too-revealing conversation this week with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. On Wednesday, reminded of the public's disapproval of the war in Iraq, now five years old, the vice president shrugged off that fact (and thus, the people themselves) with a one-word answer: "So?"

'So,' Mr. Vice President?" (Washington Post op-ed)

1:20 PM   •  

Giles Fraser: A funny kind of Christian 

"His thirst for scapegoats shows how poorly George Bush understands the meaning of Easter.

Somewhere in the Middle East, Jesus Christ is strapped to a bench, his head wrapped in clingfilm. He furiously sucks against the plastic. A hole is pierced, but only so that a filthy rag can be stuffed back into his mouth. He is turned upside down and water slowly poured into the rag. The torturer whispers religious abuse. If you are God, save yourself you fucking idiot. Fighting to pull in oxygen through the increasingly saturated rag, his lungs start to fill up with water. Someone punches him in the stomach.

Perhaps this is how we ought to be re-telling the story of Christ's passion. For ever since the cross became a piece of jewellery, it has been drained of its power to sicken. Even before this the Romans had taken their hated instrument of torture and turned it into the logo of a new religion. Few makeovers can have been so historically significant. The very secular cross was transformed into a sort of club badge for Christians, something to be proud of.

Two weeks ago, the most powerful Christian in the world vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal for the CIA to use waterboarding on detainees. "We need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," said George Bush in a passable impersonation of Pontius Pilate. "This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe."

Throughout his time in office, the president has frequently been photographed in front of the cross. Yet as his support for torture demonstrates, he has understood little of its meaning. For the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is supremely a moral story about God's identification with victims." (Guardian.UK)

8:06 AM   •  

Scents and Sensibility: 

John Lanchester on what the nose knows:

"Consider product A, in which

layers of cedar and raspberry strike a sharp upfront note, while clove and creamy notes add body while contributing an exotic, sumptuous character that conveys luxury in its essence. Might there also be a trace of rubber, though?

And then there’s B, with

its aroma of underripe bananas, and the way the fruitiness opens up on my tongue with a flick of bitterness that quickly fades to reveal lush, grassy tones.

Product C, on the other hand, is

fruity (with a high-profile role for the deliciously garbagey, overripe smell of guava) plus floral (powdery rosy) plus green (neroli and oakmoss).

These are descriptions of, respectively, a chocolate, an olive oil, and a perfume, but you couldn’t possibly guess that. I’ve never caught traces of red fruit in a dark chocolate, I don’t even know what neroli is, and, as for underripe bananas in olive oil, I’m more likely to catch the Sundance Kid in Bolivia. That doesn’t mean that the people who can taste these things are bluffing; rather, they have a vocabulary of specific sense references that I haven’t acquired. (To complicate matters, sometimes these people actually are bluffing.)" (The New Yorker)

1:16 AM   •  

Tinfoil Hats, Anal Probes Land at Alien Abduction Fest 

"TORONTO — Cross sci-fi with crafting and you've got the Alien Abduction Festival, an event built around tinfoil hats, UFOs and the infamous anal probe purportedly conducted by curious extraterrestrials." (Wired)

1:04 AM   •