Chris Spurgeon
- bio:By day a web developer for the Walt Disney Company. By night a data visualization hacker and a high-powered rocket builder. I also keep a blog called Spurgeonworld where I talk about things that are half art/half science.
- website:http://www.spurgeonworld.com/blog
Recent Actions
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Commented on Handcuffed, suspected bank robber eats alleged stick-up note
I know what the Ohio police academy will be adding to the "preserving evidence" section of their training program....
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Commented on Couple charged with trying to sell fake Warhols
Somehow I feel that Andy would have found that really funny....
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Commented on DC sniper to die today
Damn, MooseDesign beat me to it! That's just what I was going to say. I'm pretty confident he's ONLY KNOWN for killing 10 people....
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Commented on The lobster abomination
This isn't actually a comment on Maine's repeal of gay marriage (a decision that I abhor) but I notice that this posting and the boing boing home page doesn't have the retweet, facebook, and comment word bubble icons that other...
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Commented on What Role Should GM Food Play in the Future of Agriculture?
Reading Foley's essay in the New York Times, he doesn't seem to be saying much of anything other than take the best of all ideas from all types of agriculture. Well, duh. I don't disagree with him (there's not really...
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Commented on Video about world's greatest soda pop store
I'm pretty sure they do have Nehi, at least Nehi Grape....
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Commented on Singularity t-shirt
Woot! Got this shirt before it appeared on boing boing. I am officially, demonstratively, cool....
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Commented on Arnold Schwarzenegger's coded F-bomb in veto
Ooh, all good points lhopitalified ....
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Commented on Arnold Schwarzenegger's coded F-bomb in veto
Using the letter frequency of the English language at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency#Relative_frequencies_of_letters_in_the_English_language I get the odds of those seven letters showing up in that order as 5.3937610e-12, or a one in 185,399,394,575 chance. (There's probably a slightly different letter frequency when it...
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Commented on XKCD v airport security
Oh airport security, you wacky scamps! Will you ever run out of zany hijinks?...
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Commented on Legal battle over Shepard Fairey Obama poster takes an unexpected turn
Son of a BITCH. I believe that the ruling in this case, regardless of which way it goes, will have far-reaching legal consequences. There is a LOT at stake here, and this is JUST the type of dumb-ass move that...
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Commented on Shepard Fairey shirt for Creative Commons
I like Shepard Fairey, and I love Creative Commons and am happy to give them money, but IMO that shirt is butt ugly....
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Commented on Stop Making Sense turns 25
I love the clever technique Jonathan Demme used to make this movie. What was that, you ask? Glad to tell you! Demme shot the concert on three nights...one night with the cameras on the left, one with the cameras on...
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Commented on Psychologists answer the question "What's the one nagging thing you still don't understand about yourself?"
I love how many answers boil down to one basic concept: "We never learn."...
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Commented on After the big LA fires, terrain looks like a post-war moonscape: death, charred remains.
re #6, no one's saying they're not natural. But if you live directly downhill from the fires (as I do) you're not jumping up and down with joy at the prospect of mudslide season this year. I also live in...
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Commented on After the big LA fires, terrain looks like a post-war moonscape: death, charred remains.
I live in La Crescenta too, and last weekend I went hiking up into the burned area. The ground is all covered with about a quarter to half an inch of ash. One half inch times about 250 square miles...
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Commented on Boing Boing's September 11, 2001 archives.
I was working for a design firm in a high rise in downtown Philadelphia. Right after the first plane hit, we all gathered around a big screen TV in the conference room to watch. In addition to the general "holy...
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Commented on UK: Treatment of (gay) genius mathematician Alan Turing "appalling"
re @39 semiotix, you totally win! Brilliant!...
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Commented on UK: Treatment of (gay) genius mathematician Alan Turing "appalling"
The last sentence of the Prime Minister's statement is well said... "So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much...
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Commented on Rachel Maddow interviews Tom Ridge on politicizing terror threat alerts
Americans should watch Newsnight on the BBC. Full on critical questioning of political leaders seems to be the norm there. Why is that the case while it's vanishingly rare here in the U.S.?...
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Commented on Report: Deet, popular and potent insect repellent, is neurotoxic
re #14 a minor point, but DEET's anti-mosquito action isn't as a poison. In simple terms, DEET keeps mosquitos away because they just don't like the smell of it. It's a repellent, not an insecticide (as any kid who's doused...
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Commented on Bosch Cordless Hammer Drill: light, snappy and blows through brick like butter
Right, right, ya gotta drill one or more holes, or have a natural crack that you can pour the stuff in. It's available under a number of names, BTW. Dexpan is another trade name for it....
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Commented on Bosch Cordless Hammer Drill: light, snappy and blows through brick like butter
re #41, I don't know about that. But I do know if you need to bust up some rock and explosives are not an option, this stuff called Crackamite can work wonders! http://www.crackamite.com/crackamite.html...
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Commented on Bosch Cordless Hammer Drill: light, snappy and blows through brick like butter
Excellent. I agree, the first time you use a hammer drill it's absolutely a revelation. I lent one to a friend a while back and after using it for about 15 seconds he had to put it down, call me...
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Commented on Storefronts of a fading New York
I've got a little bit of skepticism of the premise of this book. Sure, New York now has a zillion Starbucks and Burger Kings, but there is *so much* street-level retail space in the commercial areas of Manhattan that it...
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Commented on Mysterious Youtube Videos of Famous Dancer
Big similarities here with "the footage" in William Gibson's novel "Pattern Recognition"....
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Commented on Clear, aka the "TSA fast pass," shuts down
re #37, because the fact that you passed a security check in the past is absolutely no guarantee that you won't do an act of terrorism in the future. If the security bollocks that non-Clear travelers go through every single...
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Commented on Half-man / half-Pooh Bear takes a break next to decapitated patriotic Mickey Mouse
Disney doesn't have a theme park in Madrid (the European one is outside of Paris). Must just be some guy in a Pooh costume? (With, one assumes, a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume near by)....
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Commented on Clear, aka the "TSA fast pass," shuts down
Setting aside the "business travellers are the driving force of the American economy" bollocks, the thing that always bugged me about Clear is that it just smacked of one buying their way out of the stooopid security theater that's being...
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Commented on Clear, aka the "TSA fast pass," shuts down
Good riddance. I remember when I first saw an ad for Clear (on Boing Boing of all places) I assumed it *had* to be a parody by the Yes Men or something. I now look forward to former Clear card...
