This has got to be the single worst headline I think I’ve ever seen.
From MSN’s Slate magazine: The Supreme Court tries sodomy
Right there in the courtroom?
Links
Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.
Bada-bing!
From the BBC this evening: Children “having sex at 11”
That’s nothing. In my day we had sex at 11 and 11:30.
Found this on Antipixel today, and it reminded me of this old joke I’ve had bouncing around in my head for years:
Celluloid factory burns down. No film at 11.
'an historic' vs. 'a historic'
Ever been unsure about the distinction between ‘an historic’ and ‘a historic’? The question came up in a thread here recently and I did some investigating.
No substitute
Well, here’s something that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone with a modicum of intelligence — spell- and grammar-checking software doesn’t always help, and can often hinder good writing.
How might you drag a good writer’s work down to the level of a lesser scribe? Try the spell-check button.
A study at the University of Pittsburgh indicates spell-check software may level the playing field between people with differing levels of language skills, hampering the work of writers and editors who place too much trust in the software.
I’ve been ranting about this for years — most recently, back in September. Software checkers can only do so much, and there’s no substitute for a well-educated mind.
India vs. New Zealand
Ever wondered what would happen if an English sports writer lost it while posting to a live website while covering a cricket match?
Well, okay, neither did I. But now we know…
It’s really simple: India are already through, New Zealand have to win.
Meanwhile, have you ever thought WHAT SORT OF LIFE IS THIS AND WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING BOARDING A TRAIN FOR MOORGATE AT 6.30 IN THE MORNING AND THEN STANDING AROUND FOR AGES WAITING FOR A TUBE WHILE STARING AT A SIGN TELLING YOU THAT IF YOU WAIT FOR FOUR MINUTES YOU CAN BOARD A TRAIN TO UXBRIDGE I’D RATHER WAIT FOUR HOURS FOR A JOURNEY WITH THE GRIM REAPER QUITE FRANKLY…
The entire thing is so worth reading. First the initial outburst, then the rest of the article is cricket commentary mixed with his responses to his readers’ messages. Wonderfully hilarious, and very honest.
If all sports writing were like this, I might pay attention more often.
I hope this is a joke
I really, really, really hope this is a joke, but the website looks all too serious. In a move even more mind-bogglingly stupid than the call to rename the second Lord of the Rings Movie, “The Two Towers,” due to post-9/11 trauma, a guy by the name of Josh Wander has posted a petition to give the Statue of Liberty ~~back to France~~.
Located in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty was a gift of international friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is one of the most universal symbols of political freedom and democracy…
Now it is time to give it back!
They can have their damn Statue!
On the bright side, though, while the petition already has almost 500 signatures, it looks like the majority of them are from people who take this idea about as seriously as I do. Here’s a smattering…
I’ve been joking about it since Freepers starting pouring French wine down sewer grates, but now this nutter’s made it reality. So, I figured I’d better sign the petition. I mean, what with Ashcroft and Ridge running the Department of justice and the Office of Fatherland Security, we clearly have no use for symbols of freedom. I think we also need to take the blindfold off of Justice and stuff a big wad of \$100 bills onto one side of her scales, and stuff the Liberty Bell in a basement in Fort Knox. Since dimplomacy is over, I think pretense should be, too.
I propose a trade — they get the statue, I get Audrey Tautou.
…and let’s give back any stuff we got from the Germans too. And the Russians, Mexicans, … um, all of ’em damnit!
I think we should aboslutely give the Statue of Liberty back. We’ve had it with those commie pinko ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality! Bring on facism, christian zealotry and rampant ignorance! USA! USA! USA!
Yeah! Give it back! And stop drinking Pasteurized milk, too!
Hey, maybe they are more deserving of the Statue of Liberty since they DON’T want to bomb the holy hell out of a third world nation for NO APPARENT REASON. Sounds like their democracy’s in good shape and ours is the one that needs some help…
Ah, well. Hopefully, it’s just a hoax, and the guy’s angling to get some attention. If he’s serious…well, I guess we need people on both ends of the bell curve.
Building 42
An entertaining little bit of trivia about Microsoft’s building numbering schemes over on Scott Guthrie’s blog produced this amusing bit of MS trivia:
[Building 42] is also a little unique in that it straddles the line between the cities of Redmond and Bellevue. This was apparently something of a challenge when getting planning permission — since Redmond had a town ordinance that prevented buildings from being more than three stories tall, while Bellevue allowed an unrestricted number of building floors to be built.
Microsoft wanted the new Building 42 to be a nice four stories tall — but despite the fact that 2/3rds of it would have lived in Bellevue, the planning permission folks in Redmond apparently insisted that it not be more than three. After a lot of wrangling, they finally reached a compromise whereby the 1/3rd of the building that lived in Redmond was built to be 3 stories tall — and the 2/3rds of the building which lived in Bellevue was built to the full 4 stories in height.
If you are ever driving past campus on 156^th^ Avenue, you can spot the exact Redmond/Bellevue city border by seeing where an otherwise normal, professional looking building suddenly changes height.
This isn’t my building — MSCopy, the Xerox printshop for Microsoft, is over in Building 123 — I just thought it was interesting.
Caucasian Shashlik
A collection of Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974. I’ve got tears in my eyes and my cheeks hurt from laughing.
[Bonus link:]{.underline}
The Gallery of Regrettable Food!
(Via MeFi)
150 SETI@home possibilities
A few years back, I was part of the SETI@home project, which uses spare processor cycles on your computer to help look for possible signals from life elsewhere in our galaxy. Unfortunately, various reformats, computer changes, and my own fickle interests led me to stop contributing to the project a while back.
As it turns out, though, the project has produced a list of possible candidate signals, and three members of the team will be going to the Aricebo telescope in Puerto Rico later this month to investigate 150 possible signals! Very cool!
Of course, one has to wonder how much of a bill 150 intergalactic wrong numbers would be…
Tom Tomorrow
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Tom Tomorow really should be on your reading list. He should be on everyone’s reading list. I end up wanting to point people over to his site with nearly every post some days. So, failing either that, I’ll just point you to his site (again).