Glyph:
As the students progressed through their schooling (and presumably thought more and more like economists), their scores diverged more and more from the general population towards more selfish, non-cooperating behaviour.

Professor Robert Frank had been interviewed on CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks in April '94.
"Selfish Economists: Dr. Robert Frank: New research shows that economic students are more selfish than others." (Unfortunately, they don't list an archived recording of that show - it was before podcasting was invented.)

When Q&Q's host Bob MacDonald asked him: "So, what is the implications of this finding?" (I'm not quoting here...):
- Suppose you've got 20 litres of some toxic chemicals to dispose of. As a regular person, you will drive across town and bring it to the toxic waste disposal site. Your cost: $10, for gas and wear and tear on the car.
If you're an economist, you'll think "If I pour this down the drain, it'll cost the city $300,000 to clean it up. $300,000 divided by 3 million people in this city: my cost: $0.10. I pour it down the drain."

When an economist says such and such a policy is good, (s)he really means "it's good for me".

Update as of Sept. 3rd. from Adam Savage, via CNET:

"There's been a lot of talk about this RFID thing, and I have to admit that I got some of my facts wrong, as I wasn't on that story, and as I said on the video, I wasn't actually in on the call," Savage said in the statement.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10031601-52.html

However, someone DID look into them here:
Vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID-enabled
Credit Cards
http://prisms.cs.umass.edu/~kevinfu/papers/RFID-CC-manuscript.pdf

From the abstract:
"Using samples from a variety of RFID-enabled credit cards, our study observes that (1) the cardholder’s name and often credit card number and expiration are leaked in plaintext to unauthenticated readers, (2) our homemade device costing around $150 effectively clones one type of skimmed cards — providing a proof-of-concept of the RF replay attack for cards, (3) information revealed by the RFID transmission cross contaminates the security of non-RFID payment media, and (4) RFID-enabled credit cards are susceptible in various degrees to a range of other traditional RFID attacks such as skimming and relaying."

Takuan:
It's a long and circuitous route, but yes, the mercenary which killed the Canadian soldier worked for an agency which is eventually owned by Blackwater.

I wonder how some of them will feel about this:
"..when the Canadian department of national defence - in an effort to staunch the flow of Canadian blood in the sands of Afghanistan (93 servicemen and women "fallen" so far in their hopeless Nato war against the Taliban) - has brought in a Virginia-based US company called the Terrorism Research Centre to help. According to the DND, these "terrorism experts" are going, among other subjects, to teach Canadian troops - DO NOT LAUGH, READERS, I BEG YOU DO NOT LAUGH - "the history of Islam"! And yes, these "anti-terrorism" heroes are also going to lecture the lads on "radical (sic) Islam", "sensitivities" and "cultural and ideological issues that influence insurgent decision-making". It is a mystery to me why the Canadian brass should turn to the US for assistance - at a cost of almost a million dollars, I should add - when America is currently losing two huge wars in the Muslim world."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/08/30-4
(The direct Independent link was way too long..)

PaulM: Yeah, pretty much all corvids are badass.

Mind of the Raven
http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/06_00/Mind_raven_review.php

Just to be picky, in the Boingboing post, it's not stated that there is no no-photos policy. The blogger said that the cemetery's website didn't state the policy.

And, as per the blog, the posted sign at the cemetery was hard to spot/read and had 1,000 words or so - which she thought was some sort of historical blurb. The policy about no-plastic-flowers, however, is clearly stated on their website.

Joshua Slocum: the first solo circumnavigation of the globe!

http://www.joshuaslocumsocietyintl.org/images/voyagemap.htm
Librivox.org has a really good reading of his book available (for free!).

The Shackleton Expedition to the South Pole!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton

I'm seconding the Rick Hansen and Don Starkell nominations; both astounding examples of guts and mental/spiritual strength and growth. I can still remember both of 'em doing regular on-the-phone updates to CBC's Morningside with Gzowski over the course of their voyages.

Marco Polo? Have you actually ever read 'The Travels'? Do you actually really think any of it was the truth?
Well, I've read it, cover to cover. I think "Writing MS-DOS Device Drivers" was a more interesting read, with a more substantial plotline.

I'm not even going to bother commenting on "Journey to the Center of the Earth".

I wonder if any manufacturers have any important function incorporated into their logo, so that covering it up makes it not work.

For example:
The IR sensor for remote controlled TVs.
The "Tuned" LED for receivers.

You get the idea.

Then,...the house burns down, the place is robbed, or you can turn on the TV.... Heh...

Could you sue the IOC?

There's a wonderful example of the tragedy of the anticommons. "Waking Ned Devine".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osmPlQXzXXA

"Pig Finn: Come on, Maggie!
Maggie O'Toole: I caught a whiff of something then.
Pig Finn: Oh no, it's peaches. Peach soaps, Maggie.
Maggie O'Toole: Oh no. It's something else.
Pig Finn: Could be strawberries. Oh, Maggie.
Maggie O'Toole: Finn.
Pig Finn: Maggie.
Maggie O'Toole: Finn. Oh no, sorry love, it's still there."

Find a good friend, curl up with a dram of whiskey (can I suggest The Macallan, Mordecai Richler's tipple of choice?) and be transported to a better place.

I whois'ed it:
"IP Location: CA(CANADA)-ONTARIO-TORONTO"

Oooo! I've got a warm-glowy feeling about that.

But nope, I don't live in a server room in Toronto. Too far from the ocean. Too much commute time.

HoltT:
I shouldn't have to read the marketing company's procedure manual to know how exactly how to ask them to stop calling me. I don't know what part of "Nope, I'm not interested" they don't get. Six times in a row.

I used to also get marketing calls from my bank. Well, from a subsidiary/acquisition that sold life insurance. It didn't matter how times I told them "I will NEVER buy insurance from my bank. It's too much of an unequal relationship. I'll never do it. Dopn't call me anymore!". They still called.

I even spoke to my bank branch's manager. He told me: "They're supposed to stop calling after the first time the customer tells them to stop. -So, you're OK if I'm rude that next time they call? -Yup. They're not supposed to call you back."

When they called again, two months later, I didn't hold back.

After my usual "I'm really, really sorry that it's you that is going to have to be at the receiving end of this, it's nothing personal. And I really, really, really wish it was the jerks who come up with these 'clever' marketing ideas that should have to deal with the annoyed customers rather than you, and I really, really hope this phone call is being monitored and recorded for quality assurance, but..". Then I got a rude.

I reminded them that I'd told them EVERY TIME they called me to stop calling me. I asked if I had to threaten to move my mortage to another bank in order to get their attention.

When the message finally through the poor person that I wasn't interested, I got the usual "It might take a few weeks, sir, for the request to have your name taken off our calling lists to, um, work its way through the system..."

I cut her off. "I'm a computer technologist, so I know what I'm talking about. There's no reason it takes weeks for my name to be removed from a calling list. I'm quite sure you don't use punch cards that have to be mailed from one city to another to transfer calling lists. Data can be transfered instantaneously these days, it's the friggin' 21st century. There's no excuse for not removing my name withing 24 hours."

The calls stopped.

Paul

ps.: Nope, arkizzle, I don't live in a server in, um, SanFran?

pps.: I just realized I have a user profile! Egad! I need a picture!

In the house where I was living before this one, I was too far away from Aliant's switching station to get DSL and could only get dial-up. I was even considering getting expensive satellite Internet service. Country living, eh.

So when Rogers installed repeater/amplifiers on the telephone poles along the highway to my village, I ordered Internet-only cable. No basic-plan cable. No digital cable, no specialty channels. Just the 'Net. (I used rabbit ears for the TV.)

I used to get calls from Roger Cable's marketing department about every five weeks.

Them: "We've got a deal on cable service this week! Why don't you get basic cable? You're already hooked up!"
Me: "Um, cuz I don't want it? Gee, is it already five weeks since the last time you called and I told you I didn't want it?"
Them: "Well, it's only $25 a month for basic cable. Special intro price!"
Me: "Yes, I know. But I don't want it."
Them: "Why not? It's only $25."
Me: "I get to see what's on cable TV because I travel a lot for my job and the hotel rooms always have cable. Believe me, there is NO WAY I'm going to pay for the 'offerings' on cable. The Shopping Network? The same episode of ST:TOS shown 40 times during the week on eight different channels? And while we're at it: The Golfing Channel? What's up with that? Nope, not me."

They only stopped calling me when I became rude and added: "There are lots of channels on cable, but THEY'RE ALL CRAP! WHEN WILL YOU UNDERSTAND THIS? I WILL NEVER PAY FOR THE CRAP ON CABLE BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO ENCOURAGE THE PRODUCTION OF GARBAGE! DON'T CALL ME ANYMORE!".

I may have added a "Please" at the end my screed: Canadians, according to Robert Fisk, are the most polite people on the planet apparently.

The calls finally stopped.

Like Logan Bouchard, the technician who wired up my 'Net connection was good and a most importantly, behaved like a human being.

He did a clean installation, clearly explained how the 'Net connection worked, and even replaced my weather station mast's ground to the alread-on-the-house's cable anchor/connection post but, this time, with a Rogers-supplied grounding strap rather than the wire I have installed. I called his boss and told him that the technician did a good job and that I appreciated that he treated me like someone who had a clue.

If the technician had behaved like the Comcast jerk, I would have canceled the contract.

Um, 'cuz I was used to dial-up and hadn't used broadband yet... Man, I'm not sure I'd cancel now. Speed IS addictive.

I, for one, am not wowed:

41 seconds to change two digits?

If slow updating of time is your thing, why not have a customized ice-cube dispenser spit out numeric ice cubes into the path of a blow torch, adjusted so as to melt them in a minute?

Or a robotic arm that paints the numbers onto a one foot square section of wall, then paints the numbers over, shifts to the next position over, paints the next minute's time. Sure, it'd take it all days to paint a wall, but you'd be able to enjoy beer and pizza with your buddies while it's working.

Or watercress growing into numerically-shaped plastic molds...

I'll stop now.

It could be Phreaks who don't like Rogier van Bakel. Someone else must have thought this too, no?

Just to be pedantic:

Isn't 'frozen gas' usually called a 'solid'?

$180 dollars for the software?!!!

Gulp!

I'll wait for some nice person to SourceForge it. (If I can coin a term...)

Boohoo! No MP3?

Etch-a-Sketch?

Canoe! Canoe! Where's the canoe?

This video underscores just how bad these folks are at observation.

If you've actually watched a primate in the wild eat a banana, you might have noticed that they start at the other end from the "pull tab". It's much easier to open the banana this way.

Try it.

You're welcome.

Ice-Spheres for serious on the rocks drinkers? Can you say "oxymoron"? I knew you could.

'Serious' whiskey drinkers drink theirs neat, no ice - maybe a little water, especially if there's a war on and tipple is rationed.

If your whiskey of choice needs ice to be drinkable, then it probably needs sugar too among other things, (shades of Mr. Bean trying to pass off vinegar as wine) and is good only for cleaning windows.

I stand corrected.

The in-focus, clear photo from the bottom of my link's page should accompany this article.

But then, the image would lose all its creepiness, I suppose.

Um, why are these cryptozoological/ufo/ghost videos/images always sooo blurry?

'Cuz they're fake?

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/fishface.html