March 2011
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Antarctica, 1961: A Soviet Surgeon Has to Remove... →
And I thought I was hard the time I calmly removed a staple I got in my thumb:
I worked without gloves. It was hard to see. The mirror helps, but it also hinders — after all, it’s showing things backwards. I work mainly by touch. The bleeding is quite heavy, but I take my time — I try to work surely. Opening the peritoneum, I injured the blind gut and had to sew it up....
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“Over the past few weeks, we’ve sought to understand the science behind the...”
– Searching for Godzilla
December 2010
2 posts
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November 2010
1 post
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September 2010
11 posts
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“Magazines have always been novelty aggregators, and people who work for them...”
– William Gibson Talks Zero History, Paranoia and the Awesome Power of Twitter (via iamdanw)
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“Friedmanitis”
– “The syndrome has become all too common. A provocative op-ed piece appears in a major newspaper (for preference, The New York Times). Its logic is fragile and its evidence is thin, but the writing is crisp and the examples are pungent, and the assault on sacred cows arouses a storm of...
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Is Blair confusing fiction with reality? →
Peter Morgan, scriptwriter of the film The Queen, has pointed out that an account of Blair’s first meeting with Queen Elizabeth after becoming prime minister in 1997 in his memoir, A Journey, bears more than a passing resemblance to a scene in the 2006 film.
In A Journey, Blair says that Queen Elizabeth told him:
You are my 10th prime minister. The first was Winston. That...
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Why have UFOs changed speed over the years? →
Saucers flying like blue blazes are no longer a dominant part of our definition of a UFO experience either in film or lore. In an age where supersonic transports routinely cross the oceans, multi-mach jets are a staple item in every country’s military, and space shuttles regularly escape the bounds of earth, speed no longer seems so magical as it did at mid-century.
Levitation unassisted...
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Robert Fisk: Blair should take responsibility for... →
Fisk can be OTT but having watched the Blair interview I think he has a point:
It was all so very schoolboyish. Yes, “people” disagreed about the war. “People always want to look for a conspiracy.” And – my favourite – “this debate will go on.” But it’s not a bloody debate – it’s a bloody, blood-soaked disaster, for which Blair should take responsibility. But he won’t. He can’t.
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August 2010
20 posts
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“Atheists recognize intelligence, curiosity, generosity, charity, kindness, etc.,...”
– PZ Meyers: What were they thinking?
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A defense of jaywalking. →
This article is US-focused but the recommendations would make sense anywhere:
Instead, here’s what should be done. First, spend more money on making walking safer; despite the fact that pedestrians make up a large part of the traffic deaths in many states, funding is always disproportionately scant. Second, provide good places to walk. People instinctively strive for the conservation of...
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The Apocalypse as Ego Trip →
The desire to treat terrible events as the harbinger of the end of civilization itself also has roots in another human trait: vanity. We all believe we live in an exceptional time, perhaps even a critical moment in the history of the species. Technology appears to have given us power over the atom, our genomes, the planet—with potentially dire consequences. This attitude may stem from nothing...
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“I’ve said constantly [that] it’s the left that looks at people and...”
– Rush Limbaugh’s Craziest Remark Ever
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“He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be...”
– Google CEO Suggests You Change Your Name to Escape His Permanent Record (via iamdanw)
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“I can take $600, go into a bazaar, and make a device,” says one senior Jieddo...”
– U.S. Military Learns to Fight Deadliest Weapons [via]
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US politician sees bike hire schemes as part of... →
John Maes said that at first he thought the pro-cycling and other environmental policies of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper were harmless and well intentioned, but he says he has now concluded “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”
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“If Caroline Lucas and her Green Party continue with a policy of making room in...”
– Why Caroline Lucas should drop her support for Homeopathy
July 2010
16 posts
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The Billion Dollar-o-Gram 2009 →
This is great. Take any pet waste of money you can think of- war, NASA, the illegal drug trade or money blown on eBay- then weep as you realise that the cost of the global financial crisis dwarfs them all. Combined.
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“I’m not a misogynist, but God is.”
– Heresy Corner: The case against women bishops in the Church of England, reduced to seven words
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Geopolitical World Cup Coverage →
Just what were Stratfor thinking when they decided that somebody who obviously had no real knowledge of football should analyse World Cup teams from a geopolitical point of view? The whole sorry series is soon to end, but here are a couple of my favourite excerpts from the latest offering:
The end result may not help Spain overcome its economic crisis, but the satisfaction of knowing that...
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How feminist blogs like Jezebel gin up page views →
I normally like Jezebel but this did get me thinking:
On the Web, writers tend to play up the most jealousy- and insecurity-evoking aspects of controversy, and then anonymous commenters—who bear no responsibility for the effects of their statements—take the writers’ hints to any possible extreme. It’s just how the Internet works.
At the same time, many posts on these sites...
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headlinehaikus:
Iranian state /
decrees official haircuts /
flair for the passe.
A Little Off the Top? Only if Tehran Approves
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Campaign for Iranian woman facing death by stoning →
Brutal:
Under Iranian sharia law, the sentenced individual is buried up to the neck (or to the waist in the case of men), and those attending the public execution are called upon to throw stones. If the convicted person manages to free themselves from the hole, the death sentence is commuted.
Iran, embarrassed by the international attention over stonings, has rarely practiced it in public...
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Hidden cameras in parts of Birmingham 'will be... →
And number plate tracking will be more tightly regulated.
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The Enemy Within →
Some nice weekend reading:
Various labs assigned names to the worm. It was dubbed “Downadup” and “Kido,” but the name that stuck was “Conficker,” which it was given after it tried to contact a fake security Web site, trafficconverter.biz. Microsoft security programmers shuffled the letters and came up with Conficker, which stuck partly because ficker is German slang for “motherfucker,” and the...
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