Ramblings… nonsensical ramblings… wildly nonsensical ramblings…
From Business Week:
If Monopoly constitutes a reflection of contemporary U.S. culture, here’s the world we now live in. Most of the game’s famous tokens are reemerging as branded products. They include a Toyota Prius (TM), a New Balance sneaker, McDonald’s (MCD) French Fries, a Motorola (MOT) RAZR, and a Starbucks (SBUX) coffee mug. The three nonbranded tokens are a laptop computer, an airplane, and a Labradoodle.
I just love Doonesbury:
[In case it wasn’t obvious, the backstory is that the football coach has a prosthetic leg.]
Get your own fix on Yahoo! News.
What is modern waterboarding? (Wikipedia):
The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last over two minutes before begging to confess.
Note to self… if you ever talk to a military CIA interrogator, don’t try to gain their admiration.
I’ve always been a fan of the constructive use of white space, and am frustrated when people don’t even break up their emails into separate paragraphs.
If there’s a natural breaking point in your narrative or prose — start a new paragraph people!
I had no idea goombah was a term of affection.
goombah (GOOM-bah) noun
1. Friend, accomplice, or crony.
2. Godfather or mentor.
I have plenty of gripes about the current Durham District Attourney Mike Nifong… that’s why I’m going to vote to Recall Nifong – Vote Cheek. There are many problems with the way the Duke Lacrosse case has been handled. The guys at the Duke Basketball Report do a better job explaining them all than I have time to…
Get out your vote, and fight for a fair legal system with the only tool citizens really have — your vote.
Wow… p2p put to good use!
Governments seeking inexpensive technology to warn of tsunamis may be interested in a free application that monitors vibrations in the hard disks of computers in an effort to detect undersea earthquakes that cause tsunamis.
…The kidnapper “relied exclusively on a Commodore 64 computer — a model popular in the 1980s but now considered an antique.
Lang told reporters the outmoded computer would complicate investigators’ efforts to transfer files for closer examination later, saying it would be difficult “to transmit the data to a modern computer without loss.”
It’s sad when we don’t remember how to load cartridges and retrieve the data on them…
If you live in or near Durham, NC, you should know about the upcoming World Beer Festival on October 7. It is held in the historic Durham Bulls Athletic Park (the one where Bull Durham was filmed).
I know several members of TRUB who will be working hard to make sure everyone has a good time… Over 150 World-Class Breweries will be there, and I will be attending. I enjoyed the festival the last few years that I went to it, and I expect it to be another great event this year. Hopefully the weather will be better than last year…