Month: October 2008

Sometime between October 21st and October 22nd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• WTF, BROCCOLI?: She pointed- "Do you see?" See what? I didn't see anything. Just broccoli. Her finger tapped on a certain part of the box and she urged me to look closer. "There- right there. Do you see it? I'm not going to tell you what it is if you don't see it." And then, it suddenly became clear to me. WHAT THE HELL?
• RNC shells out $150K for Palin fashion: According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74…a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September…[and] $4,716.49 on hair and makeup…. A review of similar records for the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee turned up no similar spending.
• Al Qaida Web site Endorses McCain: The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Fermat’s Room: You Have 60 Minutes To Do Complex Math Or Else You’re Dead. Go!: Mathematics becomes more than the stuff of SAT nightmares in Fermat's Room, a tense thriller screened last night at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City. When four skilled mathematicians solve a puzzle and are invited to a secluded conference, they're promised the world's greatest enigma. Instead, they find themselves in a slowly shrinking space, with less than an hour to figure out how they're connected and who wants them dead — or the giant hydraulic presses will finish the job. Only by correctly solving the mathematical mind-twisters delivered via PDA can they buy a little time.
• School’s fundraising pitch gives alumni the blahs: "With the recent economic downturn and loan crisis, it has become even more important for Framingham State College to receive your support. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," one part of the letter read.

Sometime between October 20th and October 21st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Geoff Dyer on the changing face of war photography: From Roger Fenton's prints of the Crimea to mobile-phone images of Baghdad, every era of war photography has been marked by new technology. But what has always mattered more than technical brilliance, argues Geoff Dyer, is getting close enough to the epicentre of history
• Warning: In Case of Terrorist attack, do not discard brain.: This week’s comic is a friendly reminder: keep your brain running at all times. When you switch it off bad things happen.
• Rands In Repose: FriendDA: The FriendDA is a non-binding, warm blanket agreement that offers absolutely no legal protection. I’d suggest if the idea of legal protection is even crossing your mind that the FriendDA is totally inappropriate for your current needs.
• Oregon mom won’t return ‘Bunny Suicide’ book: The 2003 book by British author Andy Riley is a collection of cartoons showing a rabbit attempting to end his life in bizarre ways. Anderson's son told her he checked it out because his friends said it was funny. "It is a comic book, but that's not funny. Not at all," Anderson told the Albany Democrat-Herald newspaper. "I don't care if your kid is 16, 17, 18. It's wrong." (What a twit. The book — in my opinion — is hilarious, but even if it weren't, she doesn't have the right to dictate to everyone else what is or isn't appropriate. Submit the book for review and take your chances. Refusing to return it to the school library is petty and childish.)
• Rant: New Star Trek Movie Is Intentionally Cheesy: "So, to sum up: it's ridiculously retro, it's unthinkingly homoerotic, it's a cheesefest worthy of Michael Bay, and it's a gift to fanboys, who will probably hate it anyway." That's a pretty strong condemnation of a film seven months away based on about ten just-released stills. Hopefully the cynicism proves unfounded — but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried at all.

Sometime between October 18th and October 20th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Mac malware program MacGuard masquerades as antivirus app: Although Macs are considered to be comparatively free of viruses and other types of malware, some Mac owners still purchase antivirus software for a bit of additional peace of mind. Unfortunately, at least one unscrupulous company is attempting to prey on concerned Mac users by selling an antivirus application that is actually malware.
• Colin Powell Endorses Obama: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Sunday that he will be voting for Sen. Barack Obama. "He has both style and substance. I think he is a transformational figure," Powell said on NBC's Meet the Press. "Obama displayed a steadiness. Showed intellectual vigor. He has a definitive way of doing business that will do us well," Powell said.
• Curious about the Alaska Independence Party that the Palins have been associated with? Here’s the Voters Pamphlet statement for AK’s House District 31 candidate Daniel DeNardo:: I study the creation and impact of the Luciferian Marxist-Leninist Dialectical Sovietism that is the most encompassing secular historical force controlling every incorporated political party; the world's exchange systems based on perpetual indentured slavery through interest bearing irredeemable security obligations, i.e. federal reserve notes; Law Merchant advisory panels masquerading as 'juries'; bar associations composed strictly of card carrying Kommunist Komrade Kriminals acting in Alaska under the Alaska Supreme Soviet in conjunction with Soviet counterparts in NKVD through the Khabarovsk-Alaska Collectivization Project; and state sponsored Kriminal Globalism's "perpetual War for perpetual peace".
• Sarah Palin, the plastic Vice Presidential candidate: A LEGO bust of Sarah Palin winking during the VP debate.
• Newer Technology Universal Drive Adapter: The NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter makes it easy to transfer data between the old and new drives as well as give the old drive a second life as an external storage solution. It's a complete solution that allows any 2.5", 3.5", or 5.25" hard drive or optical drive* with any standard IDE/ATA/ATAPI 40 pin or SATA interface to be connected via USB to any USB equipped computer for file transfer, backing-up and storing file archives, and accessing data on stored backup drives with Plug & Play ease.

Sometime between 09:54 and 16:37, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Fake Is Good: The People Behind Twitter’s Candidate Parodies: People such as Tina Fey may be grabbing all the headlines for their spoofs, but bubbling under the surface of the Web is a growing trend of folks using a microblogging service called Twitter to effectively parody the candidates. A few people in the Washington area have commandeered the accounts FakeJohnMcCain, FakeSarahPalin, and FakeJoeBiden to skewer and impersonate the candidates—and have gained thousands of readers in the process. (via Waxy)
• From the Reuters photographer who took the ‘Zombie McCain’ shot:: By the time I got back to my hotel room that night people were already discussing the photo on the internet and by the next morning my email inbox was filling with messages about the picture. Some people complimented me on the photo while others strongly criticized both myself and Reuters for shooting and transmitting a news photo of a very public moment that had taken place in front of more than 60 million television viewers at the culmination of a major and historic public event.
• The Things He Carried: Airport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease.
• Qwitter: Catching Twitter quitters: Qwitter e-mails you when someone stops following you on Twitter with a message like this: John Gruber (gruber) stopped following you on Twitter after you posted this tweet: What's the difference between Arial and Helvetica? (The example alone got a good laugh out of me.)
• McCain, Obama roast each other at charity dinner: Obama: "Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the planet Earth." (via Twitter)
• Wolfram Blog : Stock Market Returns by Presidential Party: The New York Times recently published an “Op-Chart” by Tommy McCall on its Opinion page showing what your returns would have been had you started with $10,000 in 1929 and invested it in the stock market, but only during the administrations of either Democratic or Republican presidents. His calculations showed that if you had invested only during Republican administrations you would now have $11,733 while if you had invested only during Democratic administrations you would now have $300,671. Twenty-five times as much! That’s a pretty dramatic difference, but does it stand up to a closer look?

Sometime between 06:40 and 16:05, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Cartoon-off: The New Yorker vs. XKCD: The Rules—each contender is to draw: The Internet, as envisioned by the elderly; String Theory; 1999; Your favorite animal eating your favorite food.
• Voter Fraud Fraud: The idea that Democrats try to win elections by arranging for hordes of nonexistent people with improbable names to vote for them has long been a favorite theme of Rove-era Republicans. Now it’s become a desperate obsession.
• Lexical Analysis of 2008 US Presidential and Vice-Presidiential Debates – Who’s the Windbag?: 1 minute summary Speech structural parameters of candidates fall within very narrow tolerances, suggesting high degree of wordsmithing and rehearsal. For example, noun/verb/adjective/adverb ratio is nearly identical, as is unique word count and noun phrase profile. Speech of Presidential candidates is more complex and less repetitive than that of their Vice-Presidential counterparts. Biden is the most repetitive speaker. The Obama/McCain debates began with balanced performance from both candidates but end with Obama verbally overpowering McCain with overwhelming superiority in concepts delivered.
• ‘Joe the Plumber’ says he has no plumbing license: Wurzelbacher said he was surprised that his name was mentioned so many other times. "That bothered me. I wished that they had talked more about issues that are important to Americans," he told reporters gathered outside his home.
• The Stranger Election Control Board Endorsements: Poorly formatted (a number of missing headers, so there's no indication of when they stop talking about one issue and start with another), vulgar, occasionally offensive, and with mildly NSFW ads…but that's The Stranger for you. Here's their recommendations for this year's election. Also available: a quick and simple cheat sheet .pdf.