Links

Things I run across that I find to be interesting, but might not have the time or inclination to craft a fuller post around it. Generally, short little “go here, look at this, isn’t it neat?” posts.

Preliminary WTC plans unveiled

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Well, the cleanup from the Sept. 11th attacks has been finished, the authorities are working on identifying as many casualties as possible and returning what personal belongings can be returned, and today the first preliminary plans for rebuilding on the WTC site were unveiled. I haven’t looked at all the plans yet, but they can be viewed at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation‘s website.

Homeless for a week

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There was an article in the Seattle PI yesterday about a couple local guys who decided to try being homeless for a week to try to get some idea of what it was like. I skimmed over the article, but a rather scathing followup editorial printed today reminded me about it, so I started reading about it again.

It turns out that one of the two guys is Scotty Weeks, who I’ve known off and on for years in Anchorage before he moved down here to Seattle a few years back. Small world, eh? In any case, he and his friend Derrick had set up a website to keep a journal of their days on the streets. After poking around on it, Scotty’s site, and the two PI articles — well, I’ve got mixed feelings on the whole thing.

Read more

HIV-positive muppets?

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Aside from the many, many obvious jokes than can be made about this (and, admittedly, I could come up with quite a few without even trying), I think this may be one of the coolest news reports I’ve read in a while. According to an AP story on Yahoo! News, “The first HIV-positive Muppet will soon join the cast of ‘Sesame Street’ in South Africa to educate children about the deadly virus that infects more than 10 percent of the country.”

The report goes on to say that “…the Muppet will associate freely with the show’s other characters as a way to fight stereotypes and dispel myths about people living with the virus, said Yvonne Kgame of the South African Broadcasting Corp., which airs the program.”

I could easily see this as being one of the best and most effective ways to get some real HIV education out to children — and I can also, unfortunately, fairly easily assume that there is absolutely no way this would ever happen in the US. Can you imagine the uproar that would hit if news of this happening on Sesame Street in the US? Too bad, too — I think this is a great step.

All they wanted was a ride

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Okay, here’s a bizarre little situation — three women buy a beer for a guy they meet in exchange for a ride where they need to go, and end up trapped in the car during a wild police chase!

The women later told detectives they didn’t know the car was stolen and had never met the driver before. They said they had bought him a beer because he promised to give them a ride to the White Center area. They said that when the deputy started following him, Snow told them he had warrants out for his arrest, that the car was stolen, ‘and that he wasn’t going back to jail,’ the documents state.

I think I’ll stick to walking and taking the bus.

Political compass

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Here’s an interesting online test — a Political Compass that adds a vertical Authoritarian/Libertarian line to the traditional horizontal Left/Right line and uses a series of questions to map out your political position. I ended up with a score of -6.12/-5.90, which puts me in the same rough area as Ghandi, from the looks of it. Here’s the analysis, though they recommend that you take the test before reading it.

(via Rebecca Blood)

Guess I got out in time

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It’s official — Andersen is guilty of obstructing justice when they destroyed documents relating to the Enron debacle, and very likely won’t exist much longer. It was definitely interesting to be able to watch some of the downfall of Andersen from the inside for a while — and to see the final results as they come down the newswire. Neat stuff.

(via Blogdex)

tetris is so unrealistic

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Continuing in the quote theme, the IRC Quote Database is a repository for worthwhile (or worthless) snippets taken from online chat sessions. Their top 25 list nearly had me in tears.

<CrazyClimber> top dangling modifier of the day:
<CrazyClimber> “A jet going 100 m.p.h. slammed into a deer, which ruptured a wing fuel tank and dumped 70 gallons of gas on the runway.”
<CrazyClimber> i knew about cows and methane, but…
<me_tew> Dammit, when are they going to REQUIRE that fuel tanks on deer be moved away from the wings.

<doctorb> goth clubs should serve coffee. ice cold coffee. with nails and broken glass. and call then ‘depresso’s’

(via Daypop)

Short attention span voyeurism

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Here’s a cute little site that could make for an entertaining way to kill some time — In Passing…, a collection of snippets of overheard conversations.

It’s really hard not to go up to an intern in the middle of surgery and say, “Don’t freak out, but you’re doing that all wrong.” I try not to do it if the patient’s only under local.

— A man talking to a group of men on the patio at Raleigh’s.

(via MeFi)