Monthly Archives: July 2014
Candy. From World Candy Confections. Some observations:
- The individual “packs” are quite cool. The designs are pretty simple, but with a bit of touching up could be made to look cooler than most real cigarette packs. The brand names are actually better than a lot of the real ones. I’m eating a “Victory” brand now, which makes me think of 1984.
- Other brand names include Target, Stallion, King, Lucky Lights, and Round-Up. I particularly like Target and King as designs.
- The “Carton” doesn’t actually say “cigarettes” on there anywhere. I don’t know if that’s a recent development or they never did. I can see why they don’t now.
- The pieces themselves don’t look nearly as cigarette-y as I remember them. I suspect this was the case before. But in my mouth they look as much like a glorified toothpick as anything.
- They taste exactly as I remember them.
- These things used to be relatively ubiquitous. For a time, anyway. It’s not surprising that they mostly went away.
Gamers, it turns out, are quite sociable.
Pluto and its moon Charon may share an atmosphere.
We’re taking a 3D printer to space. Such a thing might have made Apollo 13 a less suspenseful movie.
How well do you know your fictional world maps?
It’s become fashionable in some circles to predict the death of the NFL. Aaron Gordon looks at the various scenarios proposed and their (un)likelihood.
Nobody seems to want to and/or be able to live there, but Lloyd Alter says Buffalo is da bomb.
Noah Smith says that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the world’s best leader. Not bad for a guy who was office barely a year the last time around.
You know Japan is worried about their age-demographic spread when they’re actually debating immigration. China has a one-child crisis, though it may not be related to the actual policy since other states without the One-Child policy face similar problems. To be fair, though, a number of them have had anti-fertility policies over the years, even if not as dramatic as One-Child.
Mexico has a vigilante squad of Good Gals With Guns.
As David Fredosso says, there’s something in this for everybody to hate: Banning Sugary Drinks in Food Stamps Could Slash Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes
Gizmodo looks at different sports and calculates how much running is involved.
A 91-year old woman in San Diego ran a 26.2 mile marathon. Which is amazing. She broke a record for her age bracket of 90-and-over, which is even more amazing. Not that she broke the record (good for her on that, of course) but that there is an age bracket with a record.
1944: Iceland, Greenland, and the United States
2009: Pravda sweepingly reports that Greenland was going to become the 51st US state! Still waiting…
This post neither expects you to know anything about “Private Practice” nor does it expect you to care about the characters.
In lieu of listening to audiobooks, I am using my smartphone to listen to television shows again. I used to do this pretty regularly, but it’s harder on Android phones than it is on old school Windows Mobile phones.
Right now I am listening to Private Practice, a now-defunct spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy. I’m early into the fifth season.
In it are two lovers, Adison and Sam. Adison is getting older, has fertility issues, and wants to have children. Sam doesn’t want them, so Adison is looking at IVF. While considering IVF, Adison is going off her birth control. Due to this, she requests that Sam wears a condom. Sam tries to get out of it. She says “No condom, no sex.”
Other than condom promotion, this whole storyline is bizarre. She wants children, and has given no indication that she wouldn’t be interested in having his children. (She’s not looking for an all-star donor – never mind that even if she were looking for the perfect specimen she could probably not do better than Sam himself.)
I fail to understand how getting pregnant by Sam wouldn’t be almost ideal. Her baby has a great biological father. The father is the guy she wants to spend the rest of her life with anyway, and who if he wanted to whose children she would like to have. The only loser here would be Sam. So the natural plotline here is that Sam takes his chances, and if she did turn up pregnant then it’s Tough Luck Sam.
I can’t figure out if there is something that I am missing here, if condom promotion trumps all, or if writers are so used to the typical contraception storyline (she says where a condom, he doesn’t want to, he eventually does) that they simply couldn’t see that in this storyline it just fit at all.
Going cold turkey on opiates while pregnant can result in a miscarriage. Taking opiates – even in a maintenance program – isn’t allowed and will trigger CPS interest. NBC has a good piece on the conflict that occurs when following doctors’ orders is illegal.
David Leonhardt sparked a conversation about student debt, citing a study suggesting that the problem really isn’t people that racked up huge amounts of debt and graduated but rather those who racked up smaller debts and didn’t. Peter Coy added on. Cloire Sicha takes serious issue with the methodology. Freddie defends the study and Matt Phillips argues that the skew in coverage (towards graduates with a lot of debt, instead of drop-outs with less) is steeped in class.
Aaron Carroll writes with nihilism – and truth – on just how bleak the picture is for people trying to achieve permanent weight loss.
More nihilism: Short of shrinking the stomach, almost nothing works on a scale. (Note: If 95% of people can’t do something, it cannot really be said to work.
This didn’t actually “destroy my understanding of time”… but this list did tickle the mind a bit when considering the various cogs of time whirling.
History may have given Douglas McArthur a bum deal.
Russia ran a sleep deprivation experiment and found out what happens when people don’t sleep.
Olga points to an office for introverts. With the cubicle having become so standardized, will future generations look at the desire for anything else (other than shared workspaces, of course) as anti-social and Not The Way Things Should Be? For my own part, the open nature of cubes was probably good for the introvert in me, to get me to push my boundaries.
Extroverts do not want to go to Mars.
Piracy hasn’t lead to less music, because most musicians don’t expect to make much money. I suspect, if piracy or extreme price pressures were to hit books, the same would be true there. It’s film and TV I’m worried about, because it’s hard to justify the expense if you’re not going to make money. And yet… we have simply seen no sign of abatement, yet, and more rather than fewer outlets are creating original programming.
Ghostbusters! The Infographic.
Fifty states… as high school kids. I want to meet Louisiana and Idaho (unless Idaho actually is armed). I think I was Montana.
What would happen if we let states draw their own boundaries and how would that effect transportation? He has also looked at why states are an anachronism and why they matter.
I learned this a little while back in conversations with Jonathan McLeod, but apparently the North Pole has become an expression of Canadian nationalism.
Even unpleasant journeys often end up looking glamorous.
A little while ago I asked if anybody had a problem with splash pages coming up when accessing the site. CG Hill suggested that it might be Sitemeter, which is what I was already suspecting.
Having done some investigation into it, Sitemeter does appear to be a common denominator.
So, hopefully, mystery solved.
Goodbye Sitemeter.
The very first “Hit Coffee Mug” picture in 2005. (Never used.)
The mug became the primary icon of Hit Coffee shortly after the site was started. I needed some sort of object for the header photos and it was the only mug I had handy without some conspicuous logo on it. You may notice that the picture of the mug is always taken with the handle to our right. That’s because to take it on the other side is the name of the company that gave me the mug.
Despite the mug, and the icon of myself with a cup in my hand, the site has nothing to do with coffee itself. I’ve honestly never been a big fan of the drink.
That’s changed over the six months or so as I have tried to make a point of drinking coffee with regularity. I am mostly trying to transition away from drinking as much as I do in the way of soft drinks, and coffee is a good replacement. I only learned how to actually make coffee from beans about four months ago.
It is with a touch of irony that my newfound interest in coffee resulted in the destruction of the mug that has been this site’s icon for so long. I decided about a week ago to start using the official mug for my morning coffee drink. it turns out that, after ten years, it’s not particularly sturdy. The lid broke.
I can probably glue it back together for the sake of using it for pictures. Which strangely feels more “false” now than it did before. at least before, I knew that I could drink coffee from it. I will hold on to the mug, but I may get a new one as the site’s icon.
A coffee mug that I shall actually drink coffee from.
The Daily Mail has the scoop on a midnight raid:
[A] 10-strong team of vets and wildlife experts from the charity were joined by 20 forestry department officers and six policemen to seize Raju from his suffering in the Uttar Pradesh area of India.
The mission took place under the cover of darkness, as fewer people would be around for the dangerous rescue and the animal could be protected from the searing heat of the sun.
Raju is an elephant that was kept in chains as a tourist begging prop for a whopping fifty years. Elephants, its worth noting, are among the more intelligent and empathetic of animal species. According to the article, the elephant cried upon release.
Anyway, the article has lots of pictures.
“Carbon caps have not led to emissions reductions or even limitations anywhere. China will be no different.”
Eleven maps on American energy production.
New homes are ever-larger than their predecessors.
TechCrunch explores the history of housing in San Francisco, and how it got here.
Remember the whole Faces of Meth thing from Oregon? I was reminded of that when looking at these pictures of housing in Detroit.
The high cost of affordable housing: Inclusionary zoning, in effect, provides an annual subsidy to its winners on the order of $90,000.
Bill Gates wants to know… have you hugged a concrete pillar today?
The Washington Post has a good piece on the history of Dockers pants (specifically their reputation for being Dad pants). I don’t buy them, because I am a cheapskate and Puritan (Walmart brand) does the trick, but I have always loved them dearly.
Will Self doesn’t begrudge the smoking bans, but finds himself missing the smoke. There is a solution to that, of course, that is quickly being banned, of course.
Though we didn’t have one, I tend to think that lavish weddings often get a bad rap. But I have a hard time wrapping my head around the average Manhattan wedding costing $90,000. And, $3,000 wedding cakes?
The story of Karen DeCrow, the feminist who became a Men’s Rights Activist.
It’s too easy and often overly dismissive to say “Correlation does not equal causation”… but seriously, people.
These, on the other hand, can be nothing but causation.
We hadn’t noticed the problem until we got to the airport, which is a clear hour from our house. I asked Clancy where the diaper bag was. Instead of informing me that it was still in the car, she turned while. I went over in my mind everything I’d packed, and there was a duffel-sized hole in my memory.
The bad news, other than the obvious, was that this was the one time that we didn’t pack any diapers in her suitcase. We’re seeing the folks in two weeks anyway, so why not just have them keep the extras?
The good news was that we’d changed Lain right before leaving. Also, she tends to go rarely-and-big rather than frequently and small. So there was an off-chance that she would actually hold back until we got home?
We were not willing to bet on that (which turned out to be a good thing, because she didn’t. At all.) An airport worker noticed out distress and asked if there was any problem. She suggested that we go talk to Lost Luggage because they usually keep some spare diapers down there. The thought had never occurred to us, but it actually made sense. People whose luggage got lost freaking out because the diapers were on the suitcase. (Keeping all of your diapers in the suitcase? Ridiculous! The only thing dumber than that is… having them all packed in a bag you left at home.)
As it turns out, they did have diapers to spare. They didn’t have Lain’s size sixes, but they had size fours which required more care in putting on and aggressive changing, but would usually do the job. And did! Really, the only inconvenience was that I had to change her in the changing compartment in the plane’s tiny lavatory.
Other than that, the flight home went pretty well. Lain is getting impatient about being in the car seat throughout the flight. We get her a ticket precisely so that she won’t be sitting in our lap, but that was very much where she wanted to be.
In the old days, like the 1990s, if you wanted to raise money for an individual you had to either go person-to-person, or get a sympathetic reporter to do a story on you. I was a real Ebenezer Scrooge about those stories in my reporter days. I mean, if some family’s home got burned out, I was all over it. But stuff like college tuition or kids wanting to play soccer in Israel? Forget it. Like, one time we got a call from a “family friend” wanting us to do a story so people would give money to this girl who got into Harvard, but couldn’t afford to go there. No way, I told the editor. You think I didn’t get into places I couldn’t afford to go? I had to LIVE AT HOME during college! F**k her!
And even if you did do a story, there was no guarantee anyone would shell out. It was unpredictable. My story about that poor burned-out family attracted zilch. But someone did a story about a kid who supposedly saved his little brother from choking on a French fry (all entirely according to the family, who called in requesting the story), and some local business paid for them all to go to Disneyland.
Now sob stories are everywhere on news sites and blogs with little or no investigation — but always with links to a funding site. You get some presentable, charming kid like Griffin Furlong, who has a pretty blond girlfriend and a GoFundMe titled “Homeless Valedictorian: College Fund” (he hasn’t actually been homeless since he was 8 or 9, and he actually lives with his aunt and uncle or maybe grandmother, the details differ among stories), who managed to attract interest from feel-good outlets such as HuffPo and People and Diply. So far, he’s collected nearly $110,000 with no strings attached. As a reward for saying he’s poor, he now gets to be rich.
I guess you can’t blame people for trying after seeing that. I’ve been on Facebook for six years, and until recently, I’d only been asked for money once: for funeral expenses. A former classmate died of cancer, leaving three young children. I kicked in, using a Paypal account another alumna set up. That was three years ago.
Within the past several weeks, the requests have multiplied. And they’re getting — in my opinion — progressively less worthy. They’re not made personally. They come from crowdfunding sites such as GoFundMe.com, one of the main offenders.
The ones I gave to: 1) 3-D printer for science class at my kid’s school. 2) Classmate’s son’s Eagle Scout project, something about school supplies for poor kids. See, these are the causes I think of as classic fundraiser material.
One I ignored: Former classmate’s kid wanted to go to Africa for the summer to help some wild animal foundation. That’s nice, but don’t we all? I guess the charity part comes in with the non-profit foundation, so really it’s like a modern version of missionary work, only without the restrictions on sex and drinking.
One I’m on the fence about: Friend of a friend wants help with legal fees for a family law case. It involved a relative getting temporary custody of a mom’s kid, then moving away and leaving no forwarding address despite the court order. It’s believable because I’ve seen it happen. It’s stretching my usual views of the purpose of fundraising, but I sympathize. Then again, I don’t know the people.
This one made me feel a little uneasy: Single mom seeking donations so that she can bring her father from Cuba to meet his grandson. I mean, I feel bad she never got to meet her dad in person. But passing the hat to acquaintances to fund a trip? I couldn’t do it.
And here’s the one that really got me: Wine bar operator raising funds to expand the restaurant in her wine bar. Her justification seems to be that her business will be good for the community, and she promises to help promote worthy local causes, so therefore her endeavor is worthy of charity. If you donate a certain amount, she’ll provide you with free life coaching geared toward building your dreams. Her coaching philosophy appears based upon The Law of Attraction, you know, where if you visualize money, the power of your thoughts attracts money to you. If that’s true, I don’t see why she’d need crowdfunding.