This does not apply to most of you. However, this blog has a new policy:
We will no longer put ourselves in a position to lose more than $5 to Lawrence on any single bet.
Declaration of policy.
January 16th, 2012DEFCON 19 update.
January 16th, 2012I have not been able to watch it yet (Vimeo is blocked at work) but video of Deviant Ollam’s “Safe to Armed in Seconds: A Study of Epic Fails of Popular Gun Safes” presentation from DEFCON 19 is up.
Quote(s) of the day.
January 16th, 2012I find it hard to choose between these two:
from Walter Olson on the always amazing Overlawyered site, and:
from Tam over at her place.
My inability to decide is your gain!
There’s people out there turning free throws into gold…
January 16th, 2012The HouChron has an article about former Houston Rocket Dikembe Mutombo and his involvement in what might charitably be described as a questionable scheme to sell half a ton of gold from mines in the eastern Congo.
Much of the article sounds like the Nigerian 419 scams we all periodically get in our mailboxes. (“In late December, Lawal reluctantly turned over almost $4 million in cash, but only after getting a certificate of ownership and having the gold placed in a secure customs warehouse in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. A week later, Malonga — and the gold — disappeared. The purported customs facility was a sham.“) I’m more than a little amazed that anyone fell for this stuff.
Fun “fact” of the day.
January 15th, 2012On my way to breakfast with some friends, we got into a discussion of whether you could get butter from goat’s milk. (I had thought that I’d read elsewhere that goat milk was too low in fat to get butter from. It turns out that not only was I mistaken, but you can purchase goat butter
This led me to the Wikipedia article on goats, which notes:
Somehow, I am less than shocked by this.
Nice, bright colors.
January 15th, 2012I wanted to throw up a link to Zander Robin’s “Kodachrome 2010” documentary on Vimeo, but I felt like I should watch it first.
After watching it…well, there’s some interesting stuff in it about the chemistry involved in processing Kodachrome, and quite a few lovely images, but I really wish there was more to it. At less than 10 minutes, it seems like it is just the beginning of the story of Dwayne’s Photo and the final days of Kodachrome. I know it might have been a tough sell on the festival circuit, but I, for one, would have paid money to see a 90 minute version of this, or to download it from iTunes.
In any case, here’s “Kodachrome 2010” if you want to watch for yourself.
KODACHROME 2010 from Xander Robin on Vimeo.
(Hattip: PetaPixel.)
January 13, 1982.
January 13th, 2012It was a Wednesday, not a Friday.
Anyway, before the day was out, I did want to mention the WP package on the 30th anniversary of the crash of Air Florida Flight 90.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, call your office, please.
January 13th, 2012Oh, wait, it looks like you’ve already called in:
I wonder how you get a job as a Lenin maintainer. Is there an academic course of study you can follow? Is it a two-year or four-year program?
Like Steve McQueen.
January 12th, 2012Today’s NYT has an interesting article about an attempt to unearth and recreate the tunnel system used in Stalag Luft III.
It turns out that the team was unable to excavate “Harry”, but they did manage to dig down to “George”. They also constructed a new tunnel called “Roger”, “but in a trench just beneath the surface; anything deeper was deemed too dangerous”. (The original tunnels ran 30 feet below the surface.)
I am looking forward to this documentary showing up on PBS. (At least, I’m hoping it will show up on PBS instead of The Hitler History Channel.) I think this is a review of it from the Telegraph. Here’s a link to an older NOVA documentary. For any of my younger readers who are unfamiliar with the story, here’s the Wikipedia entry to use as a starting point. The Great Escape
Happy Hacker update.
January 11th, 2012We are compelled to note, for those keeping score at home, that Laura Hall’s latest appeal has been rejected by the state Court of Criminal Appeals.
That’s not a lawsuit. This is a lawsuit.
January 11th, 2012The Belle Meade Country Club (near Nashville) is being sued by a former chef for discrimination.
The twist? He claims he was discriminated against because he’s…Australian.
It is incomprehensible to me how anyone could discriminate against Australians. The couple of Australians I’ve met have been among the nicest people in the world. It would be like kicking a puppy.
Anyway, if this is true, I hope Mr. Jones gets all that he is seeking in damages, and uses the money to open a nice restaurant (barbecued shrimp optional).
Should have been a doctor.
January 11th, 2012More specifically, I guess I should have been a hand surgeon.
For those of you previously unfamiliar with the saga of Dr. Michael Brown, you can find a good introduction here.
The latest development? According to the HouChron, Dr. Brown was spending $60,000 a month on strippers (between, at least, December 2010 and August 2011).
Now, that sounds bad, but let’s think this through. An average month has 30 days, so that’s really just $2,000 a day. And according to the article, he was paying four strippers, so that’s really $500/day/stripper, which doesn’t sound too bad. (I guess, like everything else, strippers are cheaper when you buy in bulk.)
(Please forgive me for not linking to anything related to “Stacy Shey”, but, once again, my journalistic obligations have to take a back seat to the limitations imposed by writing these posts at work.)
Edited to add: Let’s give this some thought. Assume a construct called a “stripper-day” (similar to a “man-month
So working on the $500/stripper-day figure and the assumptions above, we’re looking at an hourly rate of $62.50. Which doesn’t sound like bad money. Of course, we can assume the strippers are independent contractors, so their health insurance/retirement/work expenses (such as high heels) have to come out of that $62.50/hour. On the other hand, we can figure that the strippers are young and in good health, so their health insurance rates are probably low.
Question: would $62.50/hour be pretty much the standard going rate everywhere? I suspect that in NYC and LA the rate might be much higher; then again, in larger cities there may be more competition, which would tend to drive down rates.
Question: are strippers fungible? I suspect so, at least within a certain general subset of physical characteristics (some of which are under the stripper’s control, such as hair color and bust size).
This sounds like a subject for the Freakonomics guys.
Holy Cow. (Part 2)
January 11th, 2012I suspect this is also going to be in “win the lottery” territory, but wouldn’t you like to be able to tell people, “Yes, my Swiss Army Knife has one terabyte of storage.“?
I know I would.
An idiot in the heartland.
January 11th, 2012A. G. Sulzberger is covering the Midwest for the NYT.
A.G. Sulzberger is a vegetarian.
A.G. Sulzberger wrote a piece for the NYT food section about how hard it is to be a vegetarian in the Midwest.
So, you’re a vegetarian, and you went to a steakhouse, a fried chicken restaurant, and the single greatest restaurant in the world (according to Calvin Trillin, anyway). Good planning, guy.
“Common sense” my ass. And as a dedicated carnivore, I’m no more bothered by the fact that meat is muscle than Mr. Sulzberger seems to be by the fact that tofu is coagulated soy milk.
This is the kind of thing that makes me not just agree with Anthony Bourdain, but wish that Mr. Bourdain and Mr. Trillin meet up with Mr. Sulzberger face to face one day and have a frank and open exchange of views.
(I do love the caption on the photo at the top of the article, though.)
Legal update.
January 11th, 2012We previously noted the Supreme Court taking arguments in the case of Juan Smith. Mr. Smith was convicted of five murders, but the prosecution failed to turn over exculpatory evidence to his lawyers.
Yesterday, the Court overturned Mr. Smith’s conviction on an 8-1 vote, with Clarence Thomas dissenting.