laderoda

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• Commented on Waterboarding used on pot suspects, says London police officer
  Kudos to the whistleblower. He's a hero and deserves to be recognized as such, for doing what's right....
• Commented on Why "new novelists" are all old
  I've been writing for a long time now--closing in on 20 years. I've had about a dozen short fiction pieces published in small press, haven't won any of the big awards, but did manage a couple of notable achievements, including...
• Commented on A library of the world's most unusual compounds
  I hope it includes that clear plastic used to package things like USB thumb drives and razor blades. That has to be the closest thing to an indestructible material ever made, and the most dangerous when you do get it...
• Commented on Mathematically modelling phantom traffic jams
  I actually remember seeing a show on Discovery or The Learning Channel about this a number of years ago. A computer model was constructed to introduce a tiny bit of variation in the speeds of vehicles travelling along a freeway,...
• Commented on Father's day photo-shoot ends with cops pointing guns, photographer face down on tarmac
  While I question the "threat" involved in taking pictures of a 65 year-old airplane, and while it does seem like an overreaction on the part of the security drones, I WOULD note that the fellow even admits he was standing...
• Commented on Coffin sofa
  I love it...I think. Makes me want to start LARP'ing the vampire thing...kinda....
• Commented on Infographic: all US one-time expenditures vs the bailout
  If you go to the site, there's a post that notes that the value of the historical events are "inflation adjusted". For example, the Louisiana Purchase was $15 million; the inflation-adjusted value is $297 billion, which is what's shown in...
• Commented on City in Montana requires job applicants to hand over all social network logins and passwords for background checks
  This is just...weird. How does this make anyone safer? If I POST on Facebook that I despise rubber trees and believe that all rubber trees should be rounded up and transplanted into rubber tree concentration camps, great. I've been pretty...
• Commented on Whatever Happened to the Self-Portrait of Hananuma Masakichi?
  I've been to Ripley's in Niagara Falls. It was a lot of fun, actually. As for the statue...it's scary-weird realistic. We're sure it's actually a statue and not the guy himself, right...?...
• Commented on Book drive for Canadian aboriginal youth in remote communities
  I've now had ten emails from folks from as far away as SoCal, wanting to send me books to donate to this. You folks are awesome....
• Commented on Wicked Klingon-style blades for kids' furniture and toys
  You mean this ISN'T the sort of furniture you're supposed to use for your children? Huh. Oops...gotta run. My son's playing with that Bowie knife of his again. It was cute when he was 2, but now that he's 3.......
• Commented on Kids lose their summer break due to impenetrable bureaucratic mess
  Like others, I can see some potential benefit to extending the school year. However, the fact the extension is not based on a thoughtful, considered decision intended to benefit the kids, but on ponderous and inflexible bureaucracy and a few...
• Commented on Book drive for Canadian aboriginal youth in remote communities
  I wouldn't be. While the "upper age limit" is given as 14, in fact, older teens and even adults in these communities will be thrilled to get whatever they can. I've been to more than a few of these isolated...
• Commented on Book drive for Canadian aboriginal youth in remote communities
  Right you are. When I said the Lieutenant-Governor launched this effort several years ago, I was referring to the office, not the individual. But you're quite correct, credit to James Bartleman for starting it up, and David Onley for carrying...
• Commented on Little Brother fan-trans into Slovak
  Well done! And I get a kick out of the fact that the Slovak translation of "Little Brother" includes the word "brat". I wonder if it's been translated into Serbo-Croat? The kids in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia NEED to read...
• Commented on Twitter comes to the Commodore 64
  Now where the heck was this when I was writing my M.Sc. thesis on my C64? I had absolutely NO access to Twitter, so I was COMPLETELY out of the loop in 1986....