Test Your Vocabulary

The above is my score from Test My Vocabulary. Take the test and see if you can get a score better than me. I dare you.

How Criminals Die of Natural Causes

Coroner: These two men died of natural causes.
Police: What do you mean? They were both shot.
Coroner: Yes, natural to their line of work.

Joke left by RunningMacon in

 Macon police searching for man in double-slaying case.

It's sad that the 90% bad ones make the other 10% look bad.

comment by "John" in 

Long Island Wedding Guest

 Charged For Trying To Steal Gifts.

The Addict Doctor in Reality and Fiction

...his remoteness, severity, and mordant sarcasm were the products of a daily struggle with addiction.

Frederick Crews, in the review

 Physician Heal Thy Self: Part 1 about the book

 Genius on Edge: the Bizarre Double life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted
 in the New York Review of Books Volume LVIII, Number 14

That sentence fragment could also describe a certain fictional doctor.

Theoretical, Historical and Current Air Lanes of The World

Years ago on this blog I posted a link to a study of shipping lanes in the 18th and 19th centuries, Windjammer and East Indiaman Shipping Lanes. Now very little commercial cargo is shipped on sailing ships. Instead now there are container ships and air cargo. Weirdly there is a coincidence. Fed Ex according to Wiki shipped 15 million tonne kilometers in 2004.  One clipper, The Blackadder, with a tonnage of 900 tons on a trip to Sydney was capable of shpping 20 million tonne kilometers in one 2 month voyage.

Here is a map of the air lanes of the world published as of 1944 from The Atlas of Global Geography. Link from Thande in Things that look like alternate history, but aren't at AH.com. Look at how Canada is nearly empty of air routes. And how the USSR has dense network of air routes compared to China, India and the Middle East.

Here is a map from 1920 about possible air lanes from The People's Atlas. This atlas was published so soon after WW1 with the result one of the only sections that is not prewar is this section. Helpfully it also has pictures of warplanes drawn to scale. As you can see the scale it presumes that commercial air travel was going to limp along at 100 miles per hour. What may please the those futurists who drew this map is that four airlines that were founded in 1920 still exist.

Here is an illustration of the air traffic in 2008 based on observed contrails. It is from a blog concerned with contrails, Contrail Science. The image below comes from a blog post about the growth of air travel in last 30 years, 30 Years of Airline Travel. The paper that blogpost is based on is not available.

Actual Working Phone Number Given in TV Show

The number, (323) 271-9162, is a an existing phone number in Los Angles. The screen capture is from The LA Complex S02E06. The last time I saw a TV show give a non 555 phone number was one of the early episodes of SCTV.

Taxes Versus Charity

I was listening to NPR coverage of the US Republican convention, while playing Civilization V. In a speech by Mike Huckabee he contrasted Obama's and Romney's charitable giving. In Huckabee's numbers Obama gave 2% versus Romney's 16%. Admittedly in the tax returns that Romney released showed he pay taxes at a rate of 15%. More of Obama's income is "earned" than Romney. However the idea to replace public sources of welfare with private sources of charity is a nonstarter. It has already been tried in the 18th and 19th century, read Dickens et al. 

"Here in North America"

"We are blessed with energy resources"

Condolezza Rice at the US Republican convention glossing over the fact that not all North America resources are American resources.

Misogynist Economist Joke

"I'm sorry you're so jealous of economists. Did they steal your wife?"

Yeah but they calculated that she was a Declining Value Asset and that the cost of entering into a long-term partnership with her held a strong negative correlation with their future growth aspiration graph, so they returned her. 

Truth in a discussion

 on Steve Sailer's blog about

this graph

Archives, Computers And The End of Histroy

Solzhenitsyn is one of the last major writers to leave behind a vast archives of handwritten manuscripts. (His successors will bequeath their hard drives if they dare.)

David Remnick,

 In the Archives: the Widow's Peak,

The New Yorker, June 18, 2012

Computers make it easy to duplicate, manipulate, search, relocate information. At the same time it makes it easier lose stuff down the memory hole either by action, inaction, error, or mechanical failure. But any simple filing cabinet has a solidity that makes it hard to chuck out the window. I have came across several different predictions about our future data storage needs from sci-fi witters and/or futurists.  There is the scenario that we must eventually need to go space so we can find new places to store our records. In Raj Whitehall's world everything was in computer databanks, when computers failed. So all records, history, knowledge is lost. I have read other futurists that suggest this is the likely outcome and that future history will note a "dark age" where there are scattered and fragmentary records in proprietary obsolete formats.

Computers are great for ephemera, but there needs to be hard copies for posterity.

Hedonismbot Gets Own LOL Cat Poster - "Oh, The Indulgence"

Posted/made by Rainbow Sparkler in the AH.com thread ASB/ISOT - "A War of Atonement" by von hitchofen.

Reduction Campaign Preparing to Drop

The Reduction Campaign for Alien Swarm will be available on September 4.

And don't forget to go out there and kill aliens.

Reality Undramatic

"Generally speaking", Lobsang  pronounced, "reality having little sense of narrative, ancient sites are not heavy with swinging blades that decapitate, or rock panels that fold back to fire darts."

Lobsang, after discovering the enigmatic ruins

 of  a dead civilization in

The Long Earth

Ad for Mayan trap merchants from luvthecubs

 posted at Crack's 16 Unseen Jobs That Must Exist in Movie Universes.

A Kind of Respect/Fear

...the politeness you might observe when dealing with a politician belonging to a country that had nuclear weapons and a carefree approach to their deployment.

How Joshua Valienté

is treated after joining a powerful mega-corporation

 In The Long Earth

God's Eye View of the Universe.

To move across the milky way would take light 40,000 years, and this video spans the distance of a galaxy in a millisecond or two. So, 40,000 years is 14,610,000 days, is 350,640,000 hours, is 21,038,400,000 minutes, is 1,262,304,000,000 seconds, is 1,262,304,000,000,000 milliseconds. If we say that that the "camera" in this video is spanning the distance of a milky-way sized galaxy in 1 millisecond, then it's travelling at 1,262,304,000,000,000 times the speed of light. VERY rough estimate.

Nic Foster, explaining
what we are seeing
in the comments section of this video
on YouTube.

Explanation of this video/simulation/animation from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, The First Public Data Release from BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey .  

This video seems to be part of the Total Perspective Vortex as makes galaxies appear as meaningless specks of light. That is the view of the egoist needing validation of the universe. This animation makes your sized galaxy feel small and weak.

At the Clippie Awards For Delivery Boys

You have to sign for your prize/statuette/award.

Futurama S07E10

NPR News Host (Vacation Replacemnet) Doesn't Recognize Political Terms/Argot/Slang

RUDIN:...Eric Hovde and Mark Neumann backed by conservatives, Tea Party Express, Club for Growth, but they kind of split the anti-Thompson vote. Thompson's seen as kind of like a moderate, a squish - you know, squishy RINO, as some conservatives have called him. But he won the nomination narrowly, but he will be the Republican nominee against Tammy Baldwin, a very liberal congresswoman from Madison, Wisconsin.

DONVAN: Squishy RINO is - what's the allusion there?

RUDIN: Well, no, no, just the fact that he's not as strong. Like he backed some Obama stuff, he supported some...

DONVAN: He's not an elephant.

RUDIN: Well, he's a RINO not as in rhinoceros but RINO as in Republican in name only, not the rhinoceros.

How Ryan Will Shift Campaign Strategy In Florida

John Donavon is the summer replacement host at Talk of the Nation filling in for Neal Conan. Ken Rudin is a long term political editor at NPR.

Here is information on the Picard face palm meme from Know your Meme, part of the Cheez Burger Network.

The Perils of Auto-Transcribing

After looking at some puzzles at the Wall Street Journal I clicked on the discussion above, Why Buffett Is Betting Big on Housing. The man above is talking about the housing market and made reference to [the] Case-Schiller [index] instead that got transcribed into Kaye Scholer. Kaye Scholer seems like weird stretch of a personal name until wiki revealed that they are a high level law firm. The problem seems to be that incomplete references that are understood by humans can confuse programs by the lack of  small words like [the] and [index].

The History of GTA and Counter Strike

Watching these game retrospectives made me feel my age. The editor of these videos, blablue123, has also created similar videos examining the history of Max Payne, Doom and Hitman among others. But I never played those games so their history has little meaning for me.

The Midseason Replacement or Later

Here is the upcoming schedule for the sitcom Baby Daddy from a TV guide site, Not the official "TV Guide". Christmas in Ausust is the tip off that this wasn't originally made as a summer series.

Workforce Dumping - Update

There is a move by the Canadian government and business interests to admit 700,000 people in one year to clear the immigration backlog. In a move to support this action there have been a number stories sprinkled throughout the media about worthy small business that have trouble recruiting enough people. There was a story last night of a truck manufacturer and its trouble recruiting welders. Today in the Globe and Mail Jeffery Simpson had a snarky column about how Canadian employers have to recruit aboard because locals are unreliable. In this Simpson gave the example of Stanfield, Underwear makers, and how it has trouble recruiting locals (id est Canadians) because they (a) can't work (b) won't work (c) work badly.

My answer to these champions of free enterprise is pay more money. People are willing to do more for union wages (living) than for a few bucks above minimum. For the sake of saving $5 bucks a hour our champions of industry want more people in the country.

In Alberta there is an example of the difference over time between high quality, high wage, low turnover, jobs with low quality, low wage, high turnover, jobs. A couple decades ago when meat packing plants were primarily in cities there was a long strike at Gainers against Peter Pocklington. Pocklington wanted to reduce the wages at Gainers, a union shop, to a couple of dollars above minimum wage. Now the biggest Albertan packing plant is in Brooks. The wages there are $10/hr versus $20/hr twenty years ago at Gainers. After the plant was established it quickly ran out of people who would work at slaughterhouse for $10/hr. So the company turned to mass immigration.

In the NY Times there is a story of illegal immigrants that have been hired by contractors to clean up New Orleans. The locals are very angry with this development. The question is why would government contractors would feel they are free to hire illegals. Because in America immigration policy is aimed at maximizing are creating a large pool of insecure workers. Otherwise their illegal immigration problem would disappear if the crime of immigration violation would apply equally to employers as with the employees.

Mass immigration is crutch for bad employees. Productivity improvements occurs when more value added is created for each additional input. Attempting to get discounts on labour, raw material and energy is just way of getting productivity increases on the cheap. Technological improvements are more long lasting than any slight temporary saving. Also the business may be saving money through negative externalities as its costs are borne by the wider public.

Note

National contractors in New Orleans preferring to hire illegal immigrants over locals, In Louisiana, Worker Influx Causes Ill Will

I can't link to the Jeffery Simpson oped. The Globe and Mail's website has gotten worse. They have put more and more of their content behind a paid registration screen.

Update: November 6, 2005
Here is a recent story, link in cutout limbo, from the wire service AP about the abuse of illegal workers. A number were employed by subcontractors of a subsidiary of Haliburton. The entire crew were stiffed out of their pay. These "white collar" crimes are fraud, theft, and conspiracy. The local authorities should lay these and RICO charges all the way up the chain from subcontractor to Haliburton. The local law enforcement should actually lay charges and enforce laws but the practice of condoning immigration offenses by employers in the US has become traditional. 

Update 08/04/2012: For greater visibility.

Not Much of Difference Between Nazis and Commiess

(mugshot of Witold Pilecki taken in Auschwitz [1943])

(mugshot of Witold Plecki as taken in from Mokotów prison [1947])

While ambling around in Wikipedia I come across the story of Witold Pilecki, pictured in both sets of mugshots, before from his wiki page. A Polish career officer, he volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz, then escaped. After WWII he was killed in Soviet occupied Poland by the Soviets after being "convicted" by Polish Commies.

The reason I see them as the same is because they killed/kill and jailed/jail in similar ways. They had/have the same enemies. They made/make the same enemies. In this case they jailed the same man.

Nazism is totally discredited today. Its only adherents the twisted stupid and the dumb violent. Communism in all its doctrinal and regional varieties is able to attract some good, intelligent, sincere, people who believe in the virtues of Communism. It is the some individual commies personal virtues that blinds us to the sickness of their political philosophy.

It is time that people treat communists with the same mixture of disgust and pity that neo-nazis are treated.

And communists, communist movements, communist terrorist groups, and communist governments  are still killing people today.

"I HATE the Internet" - Hitler

"The nerds have won. We live in their world now. This is reality, so must accept it."

Adolf Hitler,
after the failure of his kick starter project.

Mash up created by Ted Rall
after his kick starter project fails

Here is a another Downfall mashup, an early one apparently, that makes Hitler seem aphasic as random hipsters keep adding nonsensical subtitles.

"I believe someone may have altered your subtitles in an attempt to make you look silly"

General in the Bunker.

I Got Young Ears

Created by Oatmeal

Maybe this why I can't stand the music liked by young people.

Vegan Altrenative History

Here is a new TV ad from IKEA that postulates a world without textiles. The invention of textiles was a momentous one for world history but people were able to live out textiles. What people been unable to live without, especially in the higher latitudes, is leather and fur. As not far back as living memory the Inuit were without fabrics but of course had leather and fur. You could even do a similar video about only using leather and fur except it wouldn't all that weird at all.

For a normal some of the fur/leather non textile replacements are less practicable and expensive. On the other hand many "make works" are actually the default in our world with textiles. I have heard that some committed vegans actually try to live their lives without leather shoes and other animal byproducts. One begin to think that this ad pushes such a vegan agenda.

Recruiting Poster for Dogs

If you ever trapped under a

ton of rubble, I promise to sniff you out.

I promise to be worth ever cent of the $10,00

that it took to train me. 

I promise to ignore all other more fascinating smells

and concentrate on the scent of live humans.

I promise to go about my work with a wagging tail, 

even if my paws get sore.

promise to never five up.

Text from ad above tramscribed because

 it is hard to make out even in larger image. 

From the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation
which did not a copy of their print ad on their website.

In the comic Get Fuzzy Satchel Pooch reveals that his father was a sheep dog. As Satchel, a not very bright dog, explains a sheep dog is a smart dog with an intellectually demanding job. Satchel would probably consider search and rescue dogs in similar high regard. Curiously search and rescue is now the most prestigious job in many modern militaries. It is not a coincidence that Prince William is a search and rescue helicopter pilot. 

Weird Screw Drive Russian Tank

From a link provided by BELFAST 

in the thread United American Flight 817 2.0.

Technobabble - A Definition

At least you are avoiding Technobabble. To me technobabble is like saying "Gretzky has the ball, he shoots, touchdown!"

Coalition in the thread  

Darkest Before Dawn 

(an alt. ST:Voyager series with Riker in command).

Advertising at the BBC, Really

The BBC is famous for not being advertising supported network. Just now I went to there for a news story, Boris Johnson hails 'Olympomania' for torch at Hyde Park. It was preceded by a ad from HP. Admittedly video from the BBC is normally blocked to non-UKians.

New Light Sabres For Sale

I came across this ad at Cracked. The company, Ultra Sabres, sells light sabres and kits to make them as well as parts. I don't i think I'd prefer a sword that can really kill and maim. However as non lethal toys they sound like a good idea.

The Punisher Punishes

"Your Pod Bay Door is Open, Hal"

go to for full credits Newgrounds.

Motel Art 07/24/2012

Life is Hell - "Optimist"

How do you do it.  Even people like me who have criticized you really do admire your resolve.

Susan Berg, journalist

my usual answer is that I share the ethos with most Americans. If you work hard and give it everything you got tomorrow will be better than today.

Elaine Barrish, United States Secretary of State

And the truth?

Susan Berg, journalist

Most of life is hell, it is filled with failure and loss. People disappoint you. Dreams don't work out. Hearts get broken. Innocent journalists die. And the best moments in life when everything comes together are few and fleeting.

But you will never get to next great moment if you don't keep going.

Elaine Barrish, United States Secretary of State

two characters in the miniseries Political Animals.

Spiderman (2002) Rewatch

Things are stable for a long time then suddenly changes. Punctuated equilibrium can also explain social and technological changes. Things can change gradually and rapidly at the same time. Fashion can evolve and change slowly, adapt and then can be completely changed overnight.

Wigs, powered or not, were worn, as prescribed by fashion, by men from about 1650 to 1800.  There was gradual change in the shape, size, and color. Then there was sudden change as wigs completely fell out of fashion.

A similar process has happened/is happening with men's suits. At one point men of all classes wore suits, to the ball park, to picnics, even if they were complete and total slobs. Men would wear jacket and ties waiting in a soup line. Chaplin's character, the Tramp, mostly wears a jacket and tie. Now the voluntary wearing of suits and ties has declined. Worn now primarily when dress codes are enforced.

I decided  to rewatch Spiderman (2002) because of the unnecessary relaunch of the franchise. Weirdly for a movie only a decade old seems already to be from another era. A decade ago, when there were lan cafes, I saw ads this movie at the lan cafe I used to go to. Spiderman was filmed before the iPod when only a third of Americans had cell phones.

Here are some of the things I noticed are depict a world of last century and not the time we live in now.

Old style camera with film

Want ads on paper

Cathode Ray Television

Payphones

Overheard Cellphone Conversation #1

...he left me bleeding with Dexter...

Overheard cellphone conversation

7/7/2012 21:31

The Killer Within - At Microsoft

The first time we met face-to-face, I thought, This guy looks like an operative for the N.K.V.D. (sic)

Paul Allen, quoted in  Microsoft’s Odd Couple

describing Steve Ballmer.

Interesting article about the early years of Microsoft by its co founder Paul Allen, Microsoft’s Odd Couple, linked from slashdot, Microsoft's 'Cannibalistic Culture'. I also read the Isaacson biography of Jobs recently. The major similarity between Jobs and Gates is that they are/were complete and total bastards willing to screw their friends/partners for just a little more money/power.  

Disclaimer: I use a PC.

Smokey the Bear's Google Map Hack

Came across an interesting Google Map hack that maps forest fires, US wildfires. Unfortunately it only maps American forest fires.I would like something that ties together all world wide forest fires.

Remember what evil Smokey the Bear says, only you can prevent forests.

Amnestry International (Belgium) Slimes Darth Vader

I am going to defend Darth Vader from the accusations of sleaze in this ad. Darth Vader is a legitimate representative of a government that is currently suffering a minor insurgency. He is not our, western civilization's, enemy today and is unlikely our enemy tomorrow. On the other hand I fully despise companies that enter into commercial relations with our enemies be they communist and/or muslim tyrannies. Amnesty International (Belgium) should recognize that there is lot worse groups out there then arms manufacturers and the legitimate governments of Galaxies far, far away.

Nixon - "He May Not Be Perfect"

"...but do we really want some unknown new guy. I'll stick with the evil maniac I know."

Dr Zoidberg,

 neatly illustrating the benefits of incumbency,

 Futurama S07E03

Mustache Shared by Clowns (and Hitler)

The supposed motive for Chaplin making The Great Dictator was "he stole my mustache". However, I can't a good source for that quote.

Crazy Posers

Some of were crazy before it was cool.

Streetcorner Prophet, Futurama S07E02

Drinking At Work

You can't drink at work. This isn't a sawmill.

New beveragemachinebot at Planet Express,

 Futurama S07E01

Photo from Documenting Reality.

Is This Post Really New

Futurama S07E01

Dexter's Sign of the Cross

I am a father, a son, and a serial killer

Dexter,

 giving his own spin on the Trintarian formula.
Then he expounds upon the Manichean heresy.

 Dexter S06E12

New Harry Turtledove Alternative History Short Story Involving Robert E Lee

Twenty years ago Harry Turtledove wrote Guns of the South. It is story about some time traveling Afrikaners who bring AK47 to the CSA. Here is the short story, Lee at the Alamo.

Multiserver Map Server - ACME Mapserver 2.0

Lately I have been using ACME Mapper 2.0. It is a combination of 8 different servers. Half of the options come come directly from Google. The other options are varied and  and interesting.

There is an option that provides topographic in varying resolutions.Below you can see Mono Lake as it looks on three different scaled maps. This map server zooms in on one map and then changes to a different map as zoom in and out. The setback for this map server is that there is not complete coverage everywhere in the world.

Here are images grabbed from topographic server at ACME Mapper 2.0 of  Mono Lake in three different resolutions using three different maps.

DOQ is also available but it is limited to the US. It looks interesting from a technical point, the curve of the earth is adjusted to create flat images.

There is a feature to tie into weather data. It is part of a system called NEXRAD, it is another American funded system however there is some limited coverage into Canada. Here are two images of a storm system in Lake Ontario taken about 40 minutes apart.

1:02 AM 6/19/2012

1:32 AM 6/19/2012

Mapnik is an open source mapping program, as such it can be uneven. Take a look at this region in Silicon Valley near the intersection of the Union Pacific and the Bay Shore Freeway. This area has the buildings outlines and driveways marked. Nearby neighbourhoods are not so extensively mapped.

Mapnik also allows for mapping of pedestrian pathways. Look at this image of downtown Toronto where the sidewalks, pavement in a park and underground passageways are all marked.

Too Many Cameras

Remember the Monty Python skit about a collector of of the boiled eggs of birds watchers, see here for bad camera pointed at TV screen. The problem is the observer effect. I long time ago I came across a definition of family from the south pacific: father, mother, brother, sister, anthropologist. Maybe there needs to be less observation and more theorizing and synthesis. Read here about an Austrian Pol who ran a foul of cameras set up to track wild life.

"Wanna Join Our Club?"

Another fine and confusing dream/nightmare from the same studio that brought us Betty Boop and Popeye.

Ballerina Hordes

Not every like little girl gets to do what she wants. The world could not support that many ballerinas.

Marie Calvert, Mad Men S05E12

Continuum - First Reactions

First reactions to the pilot of Continuum.

Good Things

Tony Amendola,

A TV show that is filmed in Vancouver that is set in Vancouver not Seacouver.

Smoking/Smirking Man

Prison Suit, Prison Shoes, see Escaped Prisoner

Bad

The Genius Teenager

Several problems with this character. First it is Dawson Casting. The other technological and business. The myth of the lone inventor is long in dying. As soon as tech is near practicable, business plans are written, money raised, company floated, patents filed.

Why Actors Act

"...getting jerked off while watching yourself on TV. Actors work their whole lives for that."

Matt Leblanc

 playing the character Matt Leblanc

 on Episodes S02E01

Just How Many People Has the Kool-Aid Guy Killed?

Besides Jonestown?

Hurry Up and Wait - as Realistic Gameplay

The Perils of Being a Soap Opera Character

I don't understand why this keeps happening?

Christina Yang; after being in a plane crash,
after having her dislocated shoulder put right without anesthetic,
after watching a friend die,
 after setting a compound fracture,
after telling the pilot of her crashed aircraft he will never walk again,
while tramping through the woods looking
for another friend who maybe dead or seriously injured.

Grey's Anatomy S08E14

When Not To Wear Tie

On Downton Abbey S03E04 the only proper times for not wearing a tie is:

when one is grievously  injured

on one's deathbed

Pirate Bay is Down

This story repeated at news sites, The Pirate Bay hit by DDoS attack, and nerd sites. The Pirate Bay Suffering Global Outage From Massive DDoS Attack.

I am reminded of a footer/quote I used to see;

More people support the KKK
Than the RIAA  

The Care and Feeding of Lawyers

This fake ad is actually from a business lobby group, Center for Consumer Freedom. In American conservative circles, I mean business lobbies, one of the rallying calls is against trial lawyers. Trail lawyers are defined as members of the bar that sue corporations without suing on behalf of corporations. That is lawyers who are not employed by business interests to further business interests. They need a better argument. This ad is funny but shallow.

Grammar Correction for a LOL Cat

Posted by NovaCameron, Emperor of Tion,
in the thread
Star Trek: A New Beginning
on AH.com.

Wishful Thinking

"There's no such thing as a bloodless victory. Not outside children's manga."

A fanfic writer on ff.net put it the best in a deconstruction of time travel-fics.

Warmaster Samiel

Official Police Cat

GO here, Police Cat on Duty in Japan, for more details