Pennsylvania understands education
In yesterday’s elections, all eight members of the Pennsylvania school board that introduced intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office.
Movie Theater Police States
Boing Boing has an article on movie theaters introducing the idea of patting down customers and “coat checking” camera phones and cameras to prevent “copyright infringement” of movies. Apparently this is common at previews in California and is now making it’s way to Toronto and other theaters.
Yeah, good idea. I’m giving you my camera? No fucking way.
I can get a Netflix account and you can kiss my ass.
Indoor home composting machine
I ran across this product on a design site I read regularly, because it get’s good reviews for usability. It’s a compost machine that you keep in the kitchen next to your trashcan.
Since Stephanie and I have been dating, I’ve moved toward recycling almost everything: aluminum cans go to a scrap metal place where we get money for them; glass, plastic and tin cans go the the recycling near the grocery store; and all paper products, including cardboard, cardstock, magazines, newspapers and office paper go to the drop-off on south West street. Per week, I’m down to a single kitchen-sized garbage bag and cat litter waste that goes to the dump. If I could compost my food waste, I’d be reducing even further, plus creating mulch for my flower beds.
Currently, my recycling is in the extra room downstairs near the back door, but when I get to finally have the kitchen I want, a recycling closet/pantry in the kitchen is a must-have item.
Welcome, WISH-TV Viewers
If you’re here because you saw Dick Wolfsie’s report on the news this morning, thanks for thinking of me. My pictures of “Big Things” are here.
I think when I talked to Dick I mentioned some “Lost Big Things” that I took pictures of at one time or another which are no longer around. I mentioned Habig’s giant gardening trowel at 52nd and College as being one of them, but that isn’t correct. The trowel disappeared for several months, but it came back recently with a shiny new coat of paint, proudly displayed where it has always stood. I was very excited to see it.
The Giant Colgate Clock that the anchors were discussing is in Jeffersonville, Indiana, just outside of Louisville, Kentucky, and it is at the Palmolive Colgate Plant. It’s the second-largest timepiece in the world.
VW to make Hybrid cars
According to Wired Blogs, VW is working with the Hybrid Technologies company (see the press release on their site) to develop a concept car in North Carolina, using lithium ion batteries. The announced in September their plans to build a hybrid car to be sold in China.
The Wired blogger is rooting for a hybrid Golf, but if I had to guess my girlfriend would rather have a hybrid Jetta.
A nice cake is waiting for you: recent fortune cookies
A nice cake is waiting for you.
I’m being stalked by a cake. That’s just scary.
Your winsome smile will be your sure protection.
Um, can I have a ball bat instead? I’d feel more secure.
You are never bitter, deceptive, or petty.
Oops, I got someone else’s fortune.
A modest man never talks to himself.
What about singing in the shower? Does he do that?
There will be a happy romance for you shortly.
This one really ticked off my girlfriend
You will step on the soil of many countries.
I’d better get started soon, because we’ve all seen my “Where I’ve been” map.
Express yourself, do something creative.
Gosh, I’ll get right on that after I finish designing this website.
You will always have good luck in personals affairs.
Oh, silly fortune cookie. You are so wrong.
You will always be surrounded by true friends.
Okay, you’re not always wrong, fortune cookie.
And upward movement intiated in time can counteract fate.
Damn, this is the second time I got this ominous cookie, and the first was right before I found out about my heart surgery. Leave me alone, cookie! You’re scaring me.
To be a success in business, be daring, be first, be different.
I think I’ll start with “Be awake” and see how that goes.
Many people who have power become a deaf mute.
And then there are the power people who never shut up.
Good fortune awaits you at the end of the day.
Is it a free monkey? I like monkeys.
From your garden of dreams, many things will blossom.
Hopefully not weeds.
The next full moon will bring an enchanting evening.
With a werewolf!!
You are kind-hearted, cheerful, and well-liked.
I wish I knew which day opposite day is in Fortune CookieLand.
World Usability Day
It’s World Usability Day, people. Today we celebrate creating a better user experience in designing products. For those of us who design stuff every day, this is an important concept.
Light pole number 69
This is an interesting chart: a representation of the Golden Gate Bridge, and where people who have committed suicide (1,218 since the bridge was built) were standing when they jumped off.
So other than the purient, what’s the explanation for the most popular jumping spot being light pole number 69? I can’t imagine that the people leaping off here really chose that spot because the number is funny. It does make sense that people choose the east side of the bridge, where there is a pedestrian walkway, as opposed to the bicycle lane on the other side. But pole number 69 has over twice as many jumpers as number 67. I wonder if it would make more sense if I were standing on the bridge. Maybe it’s the furthest spot from police intereference, for example.
Am I really ghoulish for thinking of this at all?
1st Place 2005 Journalism: Commonplacebook.com
I’m going to be on WISH-TV’s morning news on Friday morning for my “Big Things” photographs again. I did an updated interview with Dick Wolfsie a few weeks ago, and it will air then. So check me out being all famous and stuff.
On top of that… I won first place in the (original link, no longer active – http://nuvolab.com/88#comments:Nuvolab 2005 Journalism Awards).
(original link, no longer active – http://nuvolab.com/88#comments)
My friend Bil won second place for his local group political blog, Bilerico.
Check it out; it’s cool.
Biomimicry, the law of unintended consequences, Chinese water torture
Via wikipedia:
Biomimicry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems. The term biomimicry and biomimetics come from the Greek words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate. Similar terms include bionics.
Law of unintended consequences
In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes that are not the ones intended by a purposeful action. The concept has long existed but was named and popularised in the 20th century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton. Unintended consequences can be roughly grouped into three types:
- A positive, unexpected benefit (usually referred to as luck, serendipity or a windfall).
- A negative, unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy (e.g., while irrigation schemes provide people with water for agriculture, they can increase waterborne diseases that have devastating health effects, such as schistosomiasis).
- A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when an intended solution makes a problem worse)
Chinese water torture is a process in which water is slowly dripped onto a person’s forehead, allegedly driving the restrained victim insane. This form of torture was first described under a different name by Hippolytus de Marsiliis in Italy in the 15th or 16th century.
The term “Chinese water torture” may have arisen from Chinese Water Torture Cell (a feat of escapology introduced in Berlin at Circus Busch September 13, 1910; the escape entailed Houdini being bound and suspended upside-down in a locked glass and steel cabinet full to overflowing with water, from which he escaped), together with the Fu Manchu stories of Sax Rohmer that were popular in the 1930s (in which Fu Manchu subjected his victims to various ingenious tortures, such as the wired jacket). Hippolytus de Marsiliis is credited with the invention of a form of water torture. Having observed how drops of water falling one by one on a stone gradually created a hollow, he applied the method to the human body. Other suggestions say that the term “Chinese water torture” was invented merely to grant the method a sense of ominous mystery.
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