stuckinkiel

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• Commented on China's mondegreen war on net-censorship
  Another one with kids singing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKx1aenJK08...
• Commented on China's mondegreen war on net-censorship
  I'm interested in the Chinese translations of "grass mud horse" and it's homonyms. Is Grass mud horse, 草泥馬 (cǎo ní mǎ), supposed to be 操你媽 (cào nǐ mā) or 肏你媽 (also cào nǐ mā)? Can any native Chinese speakers help...
• Commented on Demolition of a handsome 100-year-old Seattle house video
  This kind of thing wouldn't happen here in Germany. Even though they have tons of stuff that's hundreds of years old they should be protecting, they're talking about protecting crappy new stuff built in the 1960's and 1970's as "historic...
• Commented on AIG has insured $1.6 trillion in derivatives
  @63 GuidoDavid About your two proposals to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future. I understand you said some stuff in haste and in anger, two ingredients not conducive to rational decision making, but I would like to...
• Commented on AIG has insured $1.6 trillion in derivatives
  @55 Reginald Don't forget to add all the pension funds, universities, school districts and municipalities that bought CDOs and are depending on AIG to cover their losses. And while you listen to Zuzu shouting 'stick it to the man!', think...
• Commented on Twisted-wire junk-sculpture automata from Zimbabwe
  A worthy cause if ever I saw one....
• Commented on How much is a trillion dollars -- two perspectives
  It seems that many people who have made comments on this thread have a misconception about who "rich" people are and how they got rich. Many people have an almost primordial instinct that if one person has more than another...
• Commented on What could you buy with AIG's record-smashing $62 billion loss?
  While it *is* fun to think about just how much 62 gigadollars is in real terms, there is something that I find disingenuous about these kinds of examples. I mean, it's not like AIG "lost" this money in the sense...
• Commented on Anatomical shoes
  I love the cute little pink heart on the toe!...
• Commented on Gamerkitsch Warcraft steins
  I was interested to learn that in Germany this thing is called a krug, not a stein. A stein is a stone. Anyone have any idea why we call it a stein?...
• Commented on What happens to junk left behind in foreclosed homes?
  @13 bardfinn - My point was that we are at the beginning of a wave of mortgage defaults as housing prices decline. These mortgages are the base of a financial pyramid that is collapsing because the CDSs you are talking...
• Commented on What happens to junk left behind in foreclosed homes?
  Not to make light of the suffering of people who are loosing their homes because they have lost their jobs, but not all of the people who are being foreclosed on are in dire financial straits. Due to continually falling...
• Commented on Zine for unpublishable fragments: The Orphan
  This strikes me as a kind of literary version of the Journal of Irreproducible Result (a humorous publication for science geeks)....
• Commented on Computers inspired by computers inspired by kittens inspired by kittens
  @19 @23 - Yep, other peoples kids are especially un-cute when their parents are trying show them off as cute. Eww eww eww....
• Commented on Hindu extremists promote cow-urine soft-drink
  Urine is sterile....
• Commented on Ghastly working conditions in a Chinese keyboard factory
  As presented yesterday in Liam Casey, "Mr. China," and electronics manufacturing, the Chinese labor market is highly competitive and workers often quit jobs at one factory for better pay at other factories. Many factories have trouble holding on to workers,...
• Commented on Crowdsourced science: HOWTO do agarose gel electrophoresis using nothing but a drinking straw, a 9V battery and a pair of alligator clips
  @13,33,36,37 and anyone else who is interested in visualization: It is possible to visualize DNA bands with a UV lamp alone, using a simple trick. I used to do this by placing my gels on a piece of UV reflective...
• Commented on Scientist who criticised DJ for vaccination scare talk gets copyright threat
  There was a recent episode of This American Life called Ruining It for the Rest of Us that covered (in one story) a recent measles epidemic caused by a kid whos parents refused to vaccinate. I thought it covered both...
• Commented on Disney duck family tree
  Wow, I am dazzled. However, it would have been even more dazzling if they had used the standard notation for genograms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genogram...
• Commented on Mitigate heart-disease risk by exercising for seven minutes a week
  Whenever I hear about a new clinical study purporting to have discovered some amazing new link between something and health, I have to think about an article I once read called "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False". (Emphasis mine)...
• Commented on More finance news from The Oracle
  Instead of "irreverent", try boring, strained unfunny and uninformed....
• Commented on The Pet Dragon, by Christoph Niemann -- wonderful illustrated kids' book
  I agree with Aeon (#4). The lack of pinyin is the reason I won't get this book. If I got it as a gift, I would add the pinyin in pencil....
• Commented on HOWTO Make a Victorian flea chariot
  Don't try this at home. Seriously, I had heard somewhere that the decline in flea circuses is partially due to the difficulty in finding "human" fleas (fleas which naturally prey on humans), which are supposed to be stronger than other...
• Commented on More slide-projector lamps
  What's a slide?...
• Commented on Teaspoon-handled measuring cups
  As yet another Ami living in Germany, I understand where you're coming from. But I must say, part of the simplicity of American style recipes is that you don't NEED to buy special measuring devices. Just use a cup for...
• Commented on What the hell is a Credit Default Swap?
  @14 Zuzu I think it is very misleading to think of CDS as "just insurance". An insurance company is required to possess considerable financial holdings before it can offer coverage. This was (is) not the case with CDS. Also, I...
• Commented on What the hell is a Credit Default Swap?
  More ear candy about credit default swaps can be found on this Econtalk podcast: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/11/kling_on_credit.html It's a bit more academic, but still very accessible. I recommend the Econtalk podcast series highly. Even though I don't always agree with the economics...
• Commented on Buddha Machine 2: revenge of the ambient music transistor radio gizmo
  I ordered the Buddha Machine 1 from Staalplaat in Berlin when it first came out. Great little source of background ambient noises. This got me interested in 'original' Buddha boxes, the kinds you can often get for free (or for...
• Commented on Beautiful simplicity of a bottle opener
  When first I moved to Germany from the States I was surprised at how difficult it is to open beer bottles here. My German friends were equally amused at my attempts to open the bottles with my bare hands. Here's...
• Commented on Cool Pop Art "Pravda" animation
  Here's a translation of the German text: Pravda, the super sensual, the super vital, Pravda, the super new comic is here! For only 18 (Deutsch) Marks. I'm not sure if "vitale" has better translation than vital, maybe it was some...