Good link Roger. No surprise. I was having an exchange with one of the Amazing Randi's minions at JREF once about the challenge--no, I was not applying.

I am left with the impression that people at JREF and CSICOP aren't all that objective.

I think the problem is they don't acknowledge how limiting their protocols are. And while they might be useful in debunking Uri Gellar, faith healers and such (real tough), they do little to explain, for example, what forces were at work when my wife awoke at 4 a.m. to announce her aunt had just died, several hours before we got the phone call. Someone at JREF might explain the event as it being mere coincidence. My wife just happened to have a dream of her aunts death at the exact same time she died, and if you look at the totality of such events over the course of any given person's like, there are likely to be such coincidences.

Really? Have they worked out the probabilities? There is no point as this event could never be replicated in laboratory conditions with proper controls, as though any event that could not be replicated under their conditions should be summarily dismissed.

Don't get me wrong. I think those people with booths at the psychic fairs are complete wackos. I simply feel this sort of skepticism is almost cult-like, especially when you consider how many law suits Randi has launched against people; that's not to mention the outrageous statements Randi had made, like blaming a scientist's suicide on Gellar. It's not unlike Scientology.

Holy poor choice of product licensing, Barnacle Boy! James Dobson and other fundamentalists already claim Sponge Bob is gay. Now they really have some evidence.

Of course, my hetero gaydar detects Squidward as being gayer than Snaglepuss in a tutu. SpongeBob might be, but he is still a sexual naif, whereas Squidward attended Bikini Bottom Community College, so we know he at least had the opportunity to explore his sexual identity. Then again I suppose SpongeBob is technically asexual, being a sponge and all.

It's very much confusing. I guess you have to be a hardcore born-again Christian filled with the Holy Spirit to really figure out the sexual proclivities of cartoon characters.

I think what disturbs some of us is that Microsoft's philanthropy always involves adoption of Microsoft technology. That makes it marketing more than philanthropy. And as someone mentioned, it's often not a good technological fit. I might add it sometimes has legally binding conditions forcing the recipient of the so-called gift to buy products only from the donor for a specified period. I see this happening quite frequently with school districts. The only winner in the end is the donor.

And by the way, most of our national historic institutions are not that hard up for money thanks to the patriotism of wealthy dead Americans. What is clear is that they are most certainly poor managers of their funding. Smithsonian is case in point.

As for Microsoft being picked on and that they have gained their success in a competitive marketplace--man, I wouldn't even know where to begin. You are very much ill-informed.

A pink MacBook? How gay is that?

Must have been HD, not Blu-ray, if stopped a bullet. Very HD.

#57:

No hard and fast definition for OTR. That sort of recording would certainly show up among the newsgroups.

I know very little of in the history of broadcast radio is actually public domain.

Thank you, Bren.

I would like to be an OTR evangelist for the elderly and perhaps post my collection in disk images for easy burning for people who work with the elderly. All it would take is a CD player or DVD player that reads MP3 hooked into a audio system. However, I know little of the legal problems I might encounter.

If anyone has a solid background in intellectual property/copyright law, I would appreciate knowing what I can and cannot do. It seems podcasters distribute with impunity, but there is a company (Radio Spirits) who has acquired rights to many old-time radio broadcasts, and they have sued people.

#43:

I would worry a bit about posting CD images to a static server, but you could easily make your own recordings from podcasts:

http://www.otrpodcast.com/
http://www.mystery-otr.net/blog/
http://boxcars711.podomatic.com/
http://porter.appstate.edu/~krb/stream/podcasts.php
http://radiomensa.podomatic.com/
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podcasts/1226
http://www.vintageradioshows.com/podcasts.php
http://www.botar.us/
http://otr-reviews.com/
http://www.podanza.com/podcast/the-best-of-old-time-radio/729b1d4a7b67a95a119e78a0915891e5/

Or go to the iTunes store and enter the search term "OTR."

Ask not for whom the balloon squeaks; it squeaks for thee.

I don't know. I wouldn't want some stranger making me look like an idiot, so I can only assume the octogenarian set would feel the same. Didn't fine it touching at all.

As for my part, I make OTR (Old Time Radio) recordings for old people. Jack Benny, George and Gracie, and Our Miss Brooks are favorites. I occasionally rip DVDs of old TV programming.

If you want to do something nice for old people, this brings them a lot of pleasure. For me, it all started with one CD for an elderly neighbor. She passed it on to a friend, and so on, and so on. I now do MP3 CDs which work with most DVD players. Little effort, great reward.

Here's a great source for those who subscribe to usenet:

alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime.highspeed

There are a lot of recordings on the www as well, but are generally of lower quality.

Now go visit your grandparents.

Yankadian shrugged.

Who would want this, apart from Ted Kennedy?

Am I the only person in the world who hates the Beatles?

David Byrne is a really, really nice person. I met him when I was all of 17 years old. It was 1983 in Vancouver. The Talking Heads were on their Burning Down the House tour, really at the height of their success. My friends and I had backstage passes, and he came up and said, "Your friend (local journalist) said you are really nice guys. I thought say 'hello.'" We asked him where he got that really big suit. He talked to us for quite a while. We were then invited to the backstage party.

As it happened, I had scored some really kick-ass ganja that week in Seattle (pot wasn't as consistent in quality back then) which I left at home that night as I was driving my parents' car. Tina Weymouth was complaining that they had to throw out all their pot before crossing the border on their bus and asked if we had any--what a missed opportunity!

In my subsequent career, I've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet many famous musicians. Mr. Byrne has always stuck in my head as one of the nicest, most real, most devoid of all the trappings of celebrity--sort of the standard by which I grew to hate many others. That's really saying something, believe me. Don't knock the guy because of his lack of Wi-Fi technical prowess. I'm sure he could kick your asses on Logic Pro, not to mention his encyclopedic knowledge of popular music--not to mention he's written some killer songs.

Leave David Byrne alone!

@24:

What do you mean by "buster?"

What to you mean by "howling plain of idiots?"

Finish this sentence:

"Poutine" is to "ambrosia" as "steamy hot bowl of shit" is to....

For those who don't know, poutine is a god-awful French Canadian dish consisting of soggy fries (you can still get fries done in lard there), chicken gravy, and cheese curds. I was forced to eat it when visiting the province, and I must say it was one of the worst things that's passed my normally very adventurous pallet.

One of the amazing things about Quebec is that they fancy themselves as more sophisticated than the rest of North America; however, the proliferation of casse-croûte (small restaurants that serve greasy fries, hot dogs, and hamburgers, along with the national dish poutine, sometimes by topless 40-ish waitresses) really makes one question the high regard in which the Quebec people hold themselves. The casse-croûte are more ubiquitous than McDonalds, and they have quite a few McDonalds to boot!

There are few so-called ethnic restaurants in most neighborhoods. In the States we at least have a few healthy alternatives when grabbing a quick lunch or dinner out. I tend to patronize those places rather than chain restaurants, which aren't all bad.

So did Astro Captain invent Astroglide?

@#8 Then I must ask why one would pay $600 for a carpet remnant.

Thanks, Nicol. I'll check the movies out. I wasn't really thinking about the gold standard, which also has disadvantages, not to take anything away from Ron Paul.

@#2

Mais heursement, une pipe c'est past toujous une pipe!

@ #6

Because editors are pure evil. A real writer should know that.

I work quite a bit with typefaces, and I must say Garamond is a close second to Times on the hackneyed scale. Bakserville always strikes me as old-fashioned, but I'll take it over times any old day.

I've been using the Stone family a lot lately. I'm so jadded with everything. I have 30,000 commercial fonts and can't find any I feel comfortable with.

That's just a shame. It's like making wine cooler from 1973 Stag's Leap Cab. Stupid.

I was depressed as hell at age 20, so were a lot of my friends, acquaintances, and girls I dated. It was the stress of university, lack of identity, overload of hormones, and pure emotional dependancy, I think.

If I have to go back to that state at 50, I say, "No thank you!" I'm going to take up smoking again.

That frisky Benguiat sure had charisma. Elsner was a bit flaky.

Robin:

I fail to see the difference between money and hoarding grain, cattle, precious stones or metals, land, spices, slaves, wives, what have you.

I do remember Marvin Harris writing on phenomenon of the Big Man in pre-state societies. They hoard to produce big feasts and strengthen allegiances, so in this manner there is at least sharing involved, although hardly altruistic.

I think there is an unshakable belief in some distant golden age when all was good and right with mankind. I very much doubt it ever existed.

Is there a writer's strike at the BBC as well? I guy walking to India seems like dull stuff.

But really, what's the difference between paper notes, coins, or even trading food--let's say papadums--as currency? Imagine Mr. Boyle gets a dozen papadums in payment for sweeping the steps of an ashram. He then trades three of those papadums for a mango. Would community break down faster if those were 12 rupees instead of papadums?

I really don't get it.

Wally @ #16:

Reminds me of my favorite visual puns from James Thurber:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cjas/images/agozzino2.png

I did not know that Celine Dion is Black.