July 2011
101 posts
2 tags
4 tags
June 2011
54 posts
4 tags
2 tags
3 tags
NRC and industry rewrite nuke history →
When commercial nuclear power was getting its start in the 1960s and 1970s, industry and regulators stated unequivocally that reactors were designed only to operate for 40 years. Now they tell another story — insisting that the units were built with no inherent life span, and can run for up to a century, an Associated Press investigation shows.
…
Regulators and industry now contend that the...
3 tags
Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord →
Mr. Gregorio, 63, a witness to countless fistfights and occasional stabbings erupting from disputes over karaoke singing, did not dare choose one beloved classic: Frank Sinatra’s version of “My Way.”
“I used to like ‘My Way,’ but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it,” he said. “You can get killed.”
What.
The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling...
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
2 tags
Will a shop-vac kill bees? →
Can you use a shop vac to vacuum the bees and not kill them?
I have a colony in between floor joists and am considering using that to get the bees and then get the comb.
BEES
The shop vac will kill them, the hose has ridges and the vacuum is too strong, they’ll be mush by the time they get into the canister.
BEES
A shop vac will kill them. You have to have a middle...
3 tags
3 tags
4 tags
3 tags
5 tags
4 tags
"Starlight! Starlight Sun" →
Oh boy. WNYC’s soundcheck podcast just a feature on “Thriller”, to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of MJ’s death. And they’ve posted quite a gem.
First up is the podcast itself, discussing the genesis of Thriller. One notable bit happens around 6:00, where it’s revealed that Quincy Jones gave recording engineer Bruce Swedien the creative direction “Edgar...
4 tags
3 tags
4 tags
2 tags
3 tags
6 tags
2 tags
Dude →
Scott F. Kiesling, writing in the journal American Speech:
The patterns of use for the address term dude are outlined, as are its functions and meanings in interaction. Explanations are provided for its rise in use, particularly among young men, in the early 1980s, and for its continued popularity since then.
Dude.
Nah nah, for real dude, this paper ain’t a joke — it’s...
3 tags
Hackers Stole 200,000+ Citi Accounts Just By... →
Consumerist:
Basically after you logged into your account as a Citi customer, the URL contained a code identifying your account. All you had to do was change around the numbers and boom, you were in someone else’s account.
So if the URL was something like citibank.com/user/12345, all you had to do was change it to citibank.com/user/123456 and you had access to all of their account...
5 tags
Nissan LEAF leaks position, speed information via... →
The Nissan LEAF all-electric car is full of technological firsts. One of which is a GSM cellular connection to the internet for providing voluntary telemetry information to Nissan, new charging stations, competitive driver rankings, and even RSS feeds. This is called Nissan CARWINGS.
Apparently when CARWINGS checks RSS feeds, it sends a bunch of parameters in the query string. Parameters...
3 tags
3 tags
Assholes of the Week: Wisconsin Republicans →
The big news out of Wisconsin today is that the state Supreme Court reinstated the anti-union bill. Six Republican state Senators are facing recall elections because of their support of the bill, and three Democratic ones are facing recalls because of their opposition.
Last week, the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel obtained letters encouraging Republicans to support “protest...
4 tags
$500,000 in Bitcoins stolen →
I’m just going to go ahead and quote the OP in its entirety:
Hi everyone. I am totally devastated today. I just woke up to see a very large chunk of my bitcoin balance gone to the following address:
1KPTdMb6p7H3YCwsyFqrEmKGmsHqe1Q3jg
Transaction date: 6/13/2011 12:52 (EST)
I feel like killing myself now. This get me so f’ing pissed off. If only the wallet file...
2 tags
Quora: Is there any point in studying the Middle... →
Fantastic answer from an anonymous Quora user. The gist of it is that in studying the Middle Ages you’ll see:
The emergence and development of modern parliamentary democracy
The emergence and development of individual rights
The emergence of the concept of the “nation-state” / the growth of modern languages.1
The emergence of the modern system of education
The creation of...
3 tags
Watchcaseyj:
benjoseph:
collegehumor:
I’m Such a Nerd (with Katrina Bowden)
If you want to be her lover, you have to LARP with her friends.
Based on an idea from Sarah, I wrote this sketch starring Pat and the lovely Katrina Bowden of 30 Rock fame. I have huge crushes on both of them.
This. Is. Awesome.
Role reversal at its finest. Your homework for today is to really think about all your...
3 tags
APPLE: WHAT IS STEVE JOBS UP TO? →
On September 13, 1985, after financial troubles and boardroom maneuvering, Steve Jobs resigned from Apple Computer. Shortly thereafter, he founded NeXT with a few other former Apple employees. At the end of 1996, Apple acquired NeXT, and Jobs returned to Apple as an advisor.
In March 1997, Peter Burrows of BusinessWeek magazine wrote a piece on Jobs’s return. It’s an interesting look...
3 tags
4 tags
3 tags
4 tags
4 tags
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
5 tags
SEC stops Web campaign to buy beer company →
Note that the title I have given this post is not the same as the title of the article, written by Marcy Gordon of the AP. I have redacted a pun for your protection.
It seemed like an innovative way to buy a beer company: Start an online campaign to purchase the iconic Pabst Brewing Co. and sell shares on Facebook and Twitter to cover the $300 million cost.
Michael Migliozzi II and Brian...
5 tags
French media tweet and poke ban →
French TV and radio presenters have been banned from mentioning social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter on air.
The country’s broadcasting watchdog has ruled that doing so would break guidelines on advertising.
Stations can still talk about services without naming them, it said.
…
In a ruling, published online, the Conseil Superieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA), said:...
2 tags
Why Preserve Books? The New Physical Archive of... →
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, announced on the IA blog on Monday that they’ve been working on keeping a physical archive of the books they digitize.
Internet Archive is building a physical archive for the long term preservation of one copy of every book, record, and movie we are able to attract or acquire. Because we expect day-to-day access to these materials to occur...
2 tags
2 tags
4 tags
E3 2011 in a nutshell →
Would’ve uploaded the image here but it’s an animated GIF and Tumblr somehow screws that up, sorry about that. Just one more click through, that’s all I ask!
(source: reddit)
2 tags
2 tags
Coco, the Colossal Colon →
Colin’s out networking at WWDC, where by “networking” I mean “badgering Apple engineers and getting drunk,” so I guess it’s just you and me this week. And I can’t think of any better way to get started than with Coco, the Colossal Colon.
“Coco,” as the Colossal Colon® is affectionately known, is a 40-foot long, 4-foot tall oversized model of the human...
5 tags
British spies to terrorists: make cupcakes not war →
So that title of this article by Paisley Dodds of the AP is pretty terrible. But only because the actual gist of the story is somehow even better:
Britain’s spy agencies have a new message for terrorists: make cupcakes, not war.
Intelligence agents managed to hack into the extremist Inspire magazine, replacing its bombmaking instructions with a recipe for cupcakes.
…
The quarterly...
4 tags
Actually, "STFU" is an Initialism, Not an Acronym. →
Remember that an acronym is pronounced as a single word, whereas an initialism is pronounced as a series of letters. So when you say “I’ve got an acronym for you, buddy: STFU!”—well, you’re actually working to erode that distinction. It’s not as if one can pronounce the word “stuh-foo” or something. That would sound quite ignorant.
What’s that? You say you want me to “literally” shut my...
