Archives for Humor & Miscellaneous
Speaking of personal transparency and salaries, according to the BCC, “There has been outrage in Italy after the outgoing government published every Italian’s declared earnings and tax contributions on the internet.” The website was put up without warning by the outgoing government and has been taken down after complaints. Said the deputy economy minister: “I can’t understand what the problem is. This already exists all around the world, you just have to watch any American soap to see that. We had the system ready by January but we delayed publication to avoid arguments during the election campaign.” (Hat tip Drew.)
New episode of In Conversation is up: Nerds in space.
“A 60-foot phallus created by vandals on the grassy slopes beneath the Idaho governor’s mansion has been fig-leafed over by work crews on their second try,” the Idaho Statesman reports. “The grassy graffiti appeared in July after someone applied extra-strength weed killer. Officials said at the time it was too late in the growing season to attempt to remove the image.” (Via Political Wire)
Photos from my continuing Vegas adventure are up on flickr.
You must go right now and watch It’s Raining McCain. I don’t know what’s more petrifying, his disembodied head or when the lead girl washes her face with him.
Nerd improvement
Thanks for visiting this blog for the first time. Check out the home page for the most recent posts, or the archives if you're looking for something in particular. Here are some of our favorite posts, which you might enjoy:
- The Moleskine GTD tabs hack
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In this episode, Cord wonders why websites can’t be truly off-the-shelf, while Jerry obsesses over goofy Web 2.0 stuff that Cord’s still skeptical about. Also: Murphy’s Law and the Peter Principle, Napoleon Dynamite vs. the Wes Anderson oeuvre, web ads, why Elliott Spitzer’s unsafe at any speed, and nerds can fix things, so why can’t you? Check it out. To subscribe in iTunes, click here.
Jim, I’m doctor, not a Ph.D.
Chemical & Engineering News reports that seven U.S.-educated Ph.D.s at Germany’s prestigious Max Planck research institute are facing jail time because they listed themselves as “Dr.”According to German criminal law, the title “Dr.” is reserved only for individuals who received a doctoral degree from a European Union institution, explains Erik Kraatz, a criminal lawyer at the Free University, Berlin. Kraatz notes that the law also prohibits masquerading as a police officer, medical doctor, or professor. …
Indeed, to legally use the title “Dr.” in Germany, foreign-trained scientists must request permission from their local German state government. With this state-level consent, they can use the title “Dr.” anywhere in the country. But without the state’s permission to use the title, a scientist breaks two laws: the state law requiring approval to use the “Dr.” title and the federal impersonation law, Kraatz says.
I wonder if I.J. is available for foreign gigs? (Hat Tip Houman.)
The latest episode of In Conversation is up. Cord and I discuss Macs, immigration and assimilation, internet illiteracy, and niche vs. mass appeal online.
Flying is not my favorite thing to do—especially takeoffs and landings. Not sure I want to take to the skies anytime soon after watching this. Thanks a lot Jason Calacanis.
More on why writing is difficult
Via Delightful.
From SecondRotation.com’s about page, the most awful sentence I’ve read all day: “We’re also impacting the problem of e-waste.”
Does Ron Paul have a tell?
This is a little wacky, but I don’t feel too bad since I’m talking about Ron Paul.Check out this video of Paul discussing his racist newsletters with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. At about 2:30, when paul is making the claim that he has no idea who wrote the newsletters, he repeatedly looks to his right, the viewer’s left. According to the Internets, that particular eye movement denotes lying.
But who knows? Maybe he was distracted by something off-screen, like some shining gold bullion or whatnot.
Would you fall all the way through a theoretical hole in the earth? According to physicist Mark Shegelski, “The simple answer is, theoretically, yes.” He explains:First, let us ignore friction, the rotation of the earth, and other complications, and focus on the case of a hole or tunnel entering the earth at one point, going straight through its center, and coming back to the surface at the opposite side of the planet. If we treat the mass distribution in the earth as uniform, one would fall into the tunnel and then come back up to the surface on the other side in a manner much like the motion of a pendulum swinging down and up again. Assuming that the journey began with zero initial speed (simply dropping into the hole), your speed would increase and reach a maximum at the center of the earth, and then decrease until you reached the surface, at which point the speed would again be zero. The gravitational force exerted on the traveler would be proportional to his distance from the center of the earth: it’s at a maximum at the surface and zero at the center. The total time required for this trip would be about 42 minutes.Apparently you’d then fall back down the hole and this would repeat endlessly.
Posthumous E-Mail. Several services that will email your friends with a personal message when you die. I wonder if there’s a service that will let you set up a trust fund to keep your website running perpetually.
The Nerd Handbook. Great advice for everyone who deals with nerds. Has me pegged: A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That’s the nerd working on his project in his head. … [Y]our nerd’s focus can be deliciously overwhelming, but it will stop. Once a nerd believes he fully knows how a system works, the challenge to understand ceases to exist and he moves on in search of The Next High.
I like Jimmy Wales and love Wikipedia, but in this new promotional video he looks like such a toolshed. What’s up with the freaky close-ups of his eyes and the hand-wringing?
The Miami Herald reports that a group of 25 Cuban migrants who came ashore yesterday night made their way to an Oakland Park Waffle House at around 11 p.m. from where they called police. I couldn’t think of a better entree to the bounty of this country. No word on whether they had a patty melt. Hat tip Baylen.
“Jesus himself could come back as a Republican candidate these days, and there would still be some people saying, ‘I don’t know about that guy.’”
– South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), quoted by the Christian Science Monitor (via Political Wire).
I’m blogging at jerrybrito.com again. I’ve been doing most of my blogging at nicechat.info, but there’s some stuff that just doesn’t fit there. So, here goes again. I’ve redesigned the site, so if you’re reading this on RSS, I hope you’ll come and take a look.
Our new site: Paperclippy!
Just wanted to let you know about a new project Kathleen and I have started that I think you’ll appreciate. We’ve started a shopping blog for professional women at www.paperclippy.com. We’re doing a soft launch of the site today, which means we’d love it if you checked out the site and told us what you think. Feel free to tell friends about it, but don’t go crazy. In a week or so when the site is in better shape we plan to send out another email asking you to please help use spread the word. We’re very excited about it and we hope it’ll be useful to working women everywhere. Hope you like it!
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Welcome.
This is the personal site of Jerry Brito, a lawyer and writer in Washington, D.C. He’s an academic researcher and the creator of Unclutterer and several other blogs. More »
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