Charles Joseph Minard’s famous graph…

…showing the decreasing size of the Grande Armée as it marches to Moscow and back with the size of the army equal to the width of the line. Temperature is plotted on the lower graph for the return journey (Multiply Réaumur temperatures by 1¼ to get Celsius, e.g. −30°R = −37.5 °C) I thought Jake [...]

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“Screw that” cooking advice: the ceramic glass stove top

Why “screw that?” Because sometimes you read something so ridiculous in recipe that you have to curse. We will be signing a lease on a new house that has a ceramic glass stove top. I have heard anecdotaly that you cannot cook using a cast iron pan on one of these stove tops. So of [...]

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David Horsey on the GOP

It’s a beauty.

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My Bloody Valentine: Soon

Just saw them last night.

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Best Major League Soccer team names in order

1.    Seattle Sounders FC. Well I really had to choose that as my favorite. We kept the name from our previous soccer team and added an FC just to make it new. 2.    San Jose Earthquakes. Nice and appropriate for the area. 3.    Houston Dynamo. Anything with the word “dynamo” is fun. 4.    New England [...]

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Don’t listen to philosophers

No really, don’t. Remember Nietzsche, Marx? Not a good idea. Besides, lack of government intervention is what got us in this mess.

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Old Dance Song: Black and White movies

That’s what it’s called on Youtube. I think it’s neat.

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A sucker is born every minute

There is so much going on in this story; it’s hard to keep track. An art collector is suing Louis Vitton and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art for selling him what he thought was original art, but was actually leftover material from LV handbags. If he knew that the $6,000 he paid for [...]

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Texas, what are you waiting for

Via AmericaBlog.

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One-line understated commentaries on the latest headlines

Great, the people with the most incentive to not have children can actually control whether or not they have children. I’m getting the idea that national security had nothing to do with opposing the release of these memos; they were trying to save their asses. Umm, yeah. Couldn’t have said it better.

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Visions of Edinburgh

I enjoyed this video if only to see my favorite city. Via Rumproast.

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What a smile

I don’t think I’ve seen any pictures of this guy without him smiling. Weird.

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Lord what fools these mortals be

more about “LOON WATCH: Right-wing bets against U…“, posted with vodpod

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John Denver: Leaving on a jet plane

I’m learning guitar currently and this is the song I’m learning. I guess I never really appreciated this song before, but now I realize it’s quite lovely. And very popular for beginning guitar players.

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Quote for the day

I’m not sure whether this quote was Hayden’s or Mukasey’s. Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage, and is perfectly packaged for media consumption. It will also incur the utter contempt of our enemies. Perhaps you should have thought of that before you tortured people.

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Reading Essense for the first time

I picked up a copy of the magazine Essense because Michelle Obama and her mother Marian Robinson were on the cover. I’m really impressed with this magazine. I’m not really sure what the non-ethnic specific magazine’s counterpart would be, but it’d definately not Vogue, Cosmopolitan or Vanity Fair. Maybe Womens World? I can’t say because [...]

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Shepherd Fairey fights back

And quite convincingly. If you’ve been riveted by the story of the artist who created the iconic Obama hope portrait who is now being sued by the Associated Press then you need to see this. There is a PDF link on the this web site which takes you to the counterclaim prepared by Fairey’s lawyers. [...]

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Where pilots sleep

I like reading the “Ask the Pilot” column on Salon. I think my fear of flying makes me completely fascinated by anything to do with a plane. Today’s column is about the problem of pilot sleep deprivation. While the picture below is not typical of all aircraft, that is the problem says the author, it [...]

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The lessons of Columbine

I’m not generally a person who reads true crime books, but I am very tempted to purchase this book about Columbine. The first lesson is really one that we have unlearned, which is that there actually isn’t a distinct psychological profile of the school killer. Pre-Columbine, teachers, parents, journalists, and the general public were pretty [...]

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A solution for accomodating large passengers on a plane

With United Airlines announcing they will charge extra-wide passengers with an extra seat (if it’s available), William Saletan comes up with a pretty good solution. Two days ago, I spent seven hours on a United flight to London. The passenger in front of me was reclining the whole way. To stretch my legs, I had [...]

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Did you know you have to sing the national anthem at Yankee Stadium?

Well you’re required to stay in your seat at least. I’m contemplating going to tonight’s Mariners game at Safeco Field where I know no one gives a damn if you are in your seat during the National Anthem. Hell most people are still arriving and grabbing hot dogs from the vendors. A baseball fan says [...]

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Feeling lazy

Perhaps I will write a piece on just what laziness is. Perhaps.

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Natalie MacMaster

Please enjoy some Scottish fiddle music.

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F*** Qwest Field, Xbox Pitch and Paul Allen

I went to Qwest Field or Xbox Pitch or whatever the sponsor is for the day to see the Seattle Sounders play the Kansas City Wizards. This is the first year Seattle has had a Major League Soccer Team in quite some time, and amazingly we appear to be the most rabid fan base in [...]

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Glad I didn’t program that

As a computer programmer, I occasionally make mistakes that get noticed. Those mistakes are bad as opposed to the ones I figure out before anyone knows about it. I hate to be this guy at Amazon who caused a Twitter fiasco by un-rating all Amazon products that had gay/lesbian themes. In the comments to my [...]

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