I recently joined a major online service that has, as one its many categories, some fairly substantial (PG-13) gay content. I went “cruising” through the section and found a place where members post self pictures. While most of them were stunningly average, a few were simply stunning.
Observe (sized to 125px height; click for 100%):
(And just for the record, the majority of men were actually fully clothed. They just weren’t as funny.)
Not to lift from SI‘s playbook, but today I discovered an ad for something I would pick for This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse. It’s not sports-related, but it’s still scary as hell.
A large crowd stood in line outside the court before the oral arguments [of Lawrence v. Texas] in hopes of getting a scarce seat for one of the court’s biggest cases this year. A knot of protesters stood apart, holding signs that read “AIDS is God’s revenge,” “God sent the sniper” and other messages. — AP story
God sent the sniper?
Am I alone in thinking the Iraqi state TV broadcasters should have been hit long ago? If it’s essentially the propaganda channel, which it is, and we don’t want captured US/UK soldiers paraded about, which we don’t, then the choice seems clear.
How accurate were Patriot missiles during the Persian Gulf War? Did they hit:
The correct answer: all of the above, depending upon how you look at it. The first figure came from initial reports of 45 out of 47 Iraqi missiles destroyed. That’s the figure you heard on CNN, with plenty of Pentagon puffery. The B and C numbers are the new official figures, representing the percentage of intercepted missiles originally targeted at Israel and Saudi Arabia, respectively. The 9% figure comes from the Government Accouting Office, which found only that many attempts resulted in destruction. The last figure comes from the Israeli Defense Force. (All these figures come from Patriot Games, a story in Slate.)
Just something to keep in mind when Rumsfeld tells us how precise our technology is today. (And remember, these weren’t ballistic missiles.)
I always watch the Oscars, but this year I just didn’t. It wasn’t anything war-related; I just didn’t feel much need to watch them this year.*
But there’s one thing I wish I did see:
A few, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins among them, showed up in fuel-efficient gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles instead of limousines as a statement against U.S. dependence on overseas oil. — Salon
That’s so cool. As someone who is now on his 3d tank of E-85, I feel solidarity.
*I did maintain my tradition of seeing all Best Picture nominees, however.
If you happen to stop in the Gateway Country in Orland Park, IL and discover the IE homepage is Dell.com, that was me.
If you happen to look at the IE history and discover www.Dell.com/careers, that was the store employees.
After returning from my trip to Milwaukee, I noticed the ol’ fuel indicator was heading south. What better time to test out the E-85 (85% Ethanol, 15% gasoline) capabilities of my mother’s flexible fuel vehicle? And at $1.759 a gallon (here in Illinois, not the corn-friendly Iowa where mid-grade is actually cheapest) the price wasn’t even prohibitive.
Now if it all works out, the only problem is finding places to re-fuel. There’s a site at home, but it’s not available to me…yet. Perhaps if I commit a felony…
So nothing tonight.
Back in the days when a floppy disk was considered plenty of storage space, I remember calling the WordPerfect Corporation for technical support. This was at a time when the state-of-the-art entailed a blue 80×25 character screen and “multi-tasking” was pressing Shift-F3 to switch to a second document.
As antiquated as the software sounds, WordPerfect had the most impressive technical support operation I’ve ever had the great pleasure to reach. There was a raft of toll-free numbers to call for any conceivable problem. Once connected, there was never any question of serial numbers or other proofs of purchase.
It was a customer-friendly operation, and nowhere was that more evident than when you were placed on hold. You see, WordPerfect had a live DJ for their queued callers. I remember hearing “and now it’s time for the traffic report: we’ve got 9 callers waiting for printer help, 3 callers…”
Sure, touches like that are expensive. But on the other hand, I’ve been put on hold hundreds of times since, and I can’t recall another time that the company actually improved in my estimation as a result.
Things are different this semester, so I haven’t been using the computers in College of Design as much as I once did. Now that I’ve finally made my return, I can see that absence was a big error. Going from my home computer, where the network performance is erratic at best (it was down when I left), to a computer/connection that allows me to download a file that’s 110,043,136 bytes in 93 seconds (9.5 mbit/sec!) is enough to shock the system.
And yes, it is very geeky for me to write about it. But: wow. Why can’t all Internet be like this?
For those who wonder: it was one of the new BMW films, and they use Akamai for high performance downloads.
A few years ago I was in Amsterdam, and a panhandler tried to wheedle some money out of me. When I refused, he cursed me in a memorable fashion: “What did you have for breakfast this morning?” he bellowed. “Shit! Americans eat shit!”
I don’t eat breakfast, but the point was well taken.
A recent Fortune article tells the story of how one Manhattan school made an effort to “reverse the metabolic disaster of the modern American diet” by firing its catering company and installing a chef who converted the cafeteria to fresh foods, organic wherever possible.
It’s the first battle in what will be a long war to change the typical American’s diet. There are also major distribution hurdles, as melodramatically illustrated by the author:
Healthy food is not just more expensive than unhealthy food but less convenient. Imagine, for instance, that a crazed vegan were to burst into your office with a gun and demand that you produce, within four minutes, some fresh fruit. Could you do it? How about a soft drink?
(Sometimes usability guru Brenda Laurel made a similar point about movie theater food.)
But all is not lost. As I learned during my month of organic-only food, even smaller towns can have a respectable organic selection. And now that the very cool Pret-A-Manger has come to our shores (I enjoyed the food from one of their many London stores), the future looks even brighter.
Maybe now I can shut the Dutch up.
A few hours ago I found an old printout of the “Things You Would Never Know Without the Movies” forward and it’s a true as it ever was, especially when it notes that in the movies, “All telephone numbers in America begin with the digits 555.”
That little barrier to the suspension of disbelief used to bother me, but I changed my view after seeing the film Unbreakable. In one scene, a scrolling toll-free number that’s purportedly an Amtrak emergency line scrolls on a TV. I was so surprised it was an actual number that the moment I stepped out of the theater I dialed it… and was treated to a recording from the movie studio telling me it was a non-working number used for creative purposes. I felt rewarded, but also annoyed that the number lurked in my head for the remainder of the flick.
The same thing happened minutes ago with a Six Feet Under DVD. When a character calls for an escort, it’s a valid toll-free number. I was distracted for the final 20 minutes, wanting to run off and dial.
So perhaps it’s for the best that movie phone numbers are unbelievable. The momentary twinge I get from a fake number is probably better than the lingering curiousity from a real one.
(And then there’s the fact that both the aforementioned numbers are now phone sex lines.)
I’ve always enjoyed behind-the-scenes stories, and that’s one reason why I love Salon’s Ask the Pilot series (and the fact that pilot “Patrick Smith” is a talented and irreverent writer helps mightily.)
The most recent article added to my knowledge on flight paths. I knew there were established “lanes” that airlines tended to follow, and I also knew that illustrating them with the Mercator (and the Peters) projections was a fool’s errand. What I didn’t know was that the reason a flight from Tahiti to Paris might refuel in Anchorage is known as the “Great Circle.”
Smith does a good job of explaining the concept, and I found a site tool called, aptly, The Great Circle Mapper that illustrates it. The example on that site shows a route from O’Hare to Hong Kong.
It’s not intended to be used for navigation, but it’s a fascinating resource.
….try JetAudio. It plays RealAudio and RealVideo streams (I wonder if they used Helix code?) as well as Windows Media and even QuickTime files, without any annoying hidden auto-start programs.
I’ve only had it installed for a day or so but so far I’m pleased. (Though I will say I do think the RealOne Player is a nice-looking piece of software.)
Credit for discovering the program goes to my cousin Josh, who’s a good guy.