I am dying to try this:
via Clusterflock
Apr 292008
Apr 182008
I love this letter, written by the president of Blue Jeans Cable to the law firm representing Monster Cable. It’s the kind of letter I would dream of having the opportunity to write:
Dear Monster Lawyers,Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster’s, in form or in function, the better.
…
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and complex issues. My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle. In plaintiffs’ practice, likewise, I was always a strong advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement were on the table. I am “uncompromising” in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not.
Apr 172008
Click below to see a time-lapse video of a guy stuck in an elevator for 41 hours. Interesting article about elevators, too.
This week in the magazine, Nick Paumgarten writes about the lives of elevators, and tells the story of Nicholas White, who was trapped in an elevator in New York City’s McGraw-Hill building for forty-one hours. Here is a condensed look at White’s ordeal, as captured by the building’s security cameras.
Apr 162008
For Caines, here’s a commercial I just edited:
I’m looking forward to seeing this:
Expelled wears its ambitions to be a creationist Fahrenheit 911 openly, in that it apes many of Michael Moore’s comic tricks: emphasizing the narrator’s hapless everyman qualities by showing him meandering his way to interviews; riposting interviewees’ words with ironic old footage and so on. Director Nathan Frankowski is reasonably adept at the techniques, although he is not half the filmmaker Michael Moore is (and yes, I do mean in both senses of the phrase).
…
I should note that Stein and Expelled rarely refer to “scientists” as I did—they call them Darwinists. Similarly, this review may have already used the word “evolution” about as often as the whole of Expelled does; in the movie, it is always Darwinism. The term is a curious throwback, because in modern biology almost no one relies solely on Darwin’s original ideas—most researchers would call themselves neo-Darwinian if they bothered to make the historical connection at all because evolutionary science now encompasses concepts as diverse as symbiosis, kin selection and developmental genetics. Yet the choice of terminology isn’t random: Ben Stein wants you to stop thinking of evolution as an actual science supported by verifiable facts and logical arguments and to start thinking of it as a dogmatic, atheistic ideology akin to Marxism.
[From Ben Stein's Expelled: No Integrity Displayed: Scientific American]
Apr 152008
Interesting breakdown. I tried to download the original file but it came up as garbled text.
The think-tank Third Way released an analysis today of where your tax dollars are going this year. An American household earning a typical income of $63,960 would pay $13,112 in federal income and payroll taxes.Here’s how that $13,112 breaks-down:
Social Security $2,662.94
Interest on National Debt $1,085.29
War in Iraq $ 593.48
War in Afghanistan $ 159.82
All other Defense $2,008.01
Medicare $1,697.96
Veterans Benefits $ 355.03
Medicaid $ 872.92So, what about spending on needed programs on infrastructure, research to get us off fossil fuels, or assistance to needy American families?
Road and Bridges $ 77.15
FBI, DEA, ATF $ 41.46
Environmental Protection (EPA) $ 34.50
AIDS prevention $ 14.87
Heating Assistance $ 9.90
Renewable Energy Research $ 6.67
Consumer Product Safety Comm. $ .29
By the way, for all the emphasis on money spent on “pork barrel projects,” those accounted for just $60.45.
[From Mark Nickolas' Blog]
German photographer Walter Schels was terrified of death, but felt compelled to take these extraordinary series of portraits of people before and on the day they died. His partner Beate Lakotta recorded the poignant and revealing interviews with the subjects in their final days. The couple tell Joanna Moorhead how facing death changed how they felt about dying – and livingFrom This is the end – a German photographer captures the dying | Society | The Guardian]
It has been claimed that it can help remove toxic chemicals from the body, stop headaches, make you eat less, and even keep your skin healthier. Dr Dan Negoianu, and Dr Stanley Goldfarb, writing the the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, say that while dehydration can be harmful, there is scant evidence that large amounts of water offer any benefits. In fact, they said, there was no evidence supporting the standard US recommendation of “8×8″ – eight glasses, each containing eight ounces of water (a total of 1.8litres), a day. They wrote: “There is no clear evidence of benefit from drinking increased amounts of water. [From BBC NEWS | Health | Lots of water 'is little benefit']
