Yearly Archives: 2003

This is why you should by Idiot’s Guides, not dummies books

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If you’re using a particular book to make candles or soap, you may have a dangerous chemistry project on your hands. John Wiley & Sons Inc. is recalling 5,400 copies of the instruction book “Candle and Soap Making For Dummies,” which sold in bookstores and discount department stores nationwide in August and September for about $20.
The directions in the book for making lye instruct users to combine sodium hydroxide and water in an incorrect order. This could cause the mixture to bubble over, posing a burn hazard.

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And in-depth article on the ignorant fox news views phenomenon

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I posted a graphic about it a while back, but the Washington Post has more: turns out that an in depth study shows that people who have mistaken ideas about what’s going on in the news are overwhelmingly viewers of Faux News.
“People are proceeding from radically different sets of facts, some so different that they’re altogether fiction.”
“Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and the other guys at Fox have long demonstrated a clearer commitment to changing public policy than to reporting it, and an even clearer commitment to reporting it in such a way as to change it.”

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Another Article about the House Across the Street

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This time it’s written up in the Indy Star. I guess here in a couple of days, they’re going to have a segment on Channel 8 news with Dick Wolfsie, too. It was really interesting watching the “framing” of the house, since it’s made of aerated concrete, which is sturdy, lightweight, environmentally friendly, and fire-resistant. Also, here’s an article that Nuvo did on the house, written by Anne Laker, the woman that bought the house.

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Atget Re-Photographic Project

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Modern photographers set up and photograph the same Paris scenes as French photographer Eugene Atget, who took over 6,000 photos of the city between 1900 and 1926. Fascinating to see what is the same and what has changed over the decades.
Reminds me a lot of a similar project, Vertigo: Then and Now which reproduces shots of San Franscisco as seen in Alfred Hitchock’s movie Vertigo.
I’ve wanted to do something similar in downtown Indy with some of the old postcards I’ve found, especially ones with gorgeous buildings that no longer exist.

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This weekend

I put down a bunch of new insulation in the attic. I did much of the painting of the living room ceiling. I got a bed mat for my truck. I ordered a tonneau cover for my truck. I went to the Mutual Friends Autumn Fest.

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No means… well it means no, really.

I knew that sooner or later something about the Kobe Bryant case would send me into an apoplectic rage… and here it is. On Thursday, Gregg Easterbrook of the New Republic wrote a little column about how all men know that no doesn’t really mean that:
“Because men know this–because in the real world “no” does not always mean no–speaking the word “no” is not the ideal way to communicate to a man that what is happening has changed from persuasion, or pressure, to compulsion. Men not only want sex, the male mindset holds that overcoming the woman’s “no” is part of manliness.”
He goes on to suggest that instead of using the word “no” to mean “no,” that perhaps we should have some other mutually agreed upon signal, such as “this is rape” which would help the man understand that the woman was serious about not wanting his advances.
I have a different suggestion… how about this as a signal: when the woman says “no” and the guy doesn’t seem to understand that it means no, instead of the woman saying “this is rape” how about if she pulls out a gun, and blows the guy’s head off. That would send a pretty clear signal, I think. Or maybe he could just stop when she says “no” in the first place.

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Republican Astroturf spreads to the military

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By now you might be familiar with the concept of “Republican Astroturf” in which the Republican national committee writes a letter and sends it to “captains” all over the country, who are then instructed to send it in to their local papers as though they wrote it themselves. It’s usually easy to catch these, because if you can find one, you can Google a phrase from it and see it show up in local papers websites. The reason it’s so disgusting is because it’s basically a free ad on the part of the Republican party’s agenda.
Now the White House is using soldiers to send pre-written, pro-war letters home to their hometown papers in an effort to spin people in favor of the war. Unfortunately, in many cases, they didn’t get permission from the soldiers to use their names, or even notify them that the letters were being sent. Bad form!

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