I think part of the bargain for "good" graffiti is that the viewing public receives some hidden artistic benefit that balances the basic vandalism.

I doubt the locals in Varanasi derive much benefit from something like this compared to a postmodern city like London. There was that idiot who "tagged" a glacier in NZ and was rightly arrested.

Already backpackers and trekkers have to overcome a bad reputation with the locals in cities like Varanasi, Kathmandu, and Rishikesh because of their association with drugs; graffiti is not going to help.

I agree with gtmoogle in that the blog seems to misrepresent an interesting study of fly behavior as some sort of statement on free will.

I am much more surprised when we find out the opposite: that we can accurately model ant 2-D navigation using four or five variables. I guess insect 3-D navigation is a tougher nut to crack.

Certainly a good spin to take when you get negative results, probably not a refutation of Calvin.

And when children come up to play with it?

My favorite part in the diagram is how one gets close to girls via chat rooms, but never quite gets there.

Its not simply for the heck of it. By looking at the graph, you get an idea how a good narrative structure works, how many decisions change the plot, how many don't, etc.

I like Cortazar's Hopscotch where the narrative would be designed so sometimes you would read the exact same chapter in two different routes, but the meaning to the reader would be completely different depending on what route of chapters you took before you read that specific chapter.

There's also a cool Borges short story where he writes of a story with nine different beginnings, that slowly combine three different middles, and the same ending.

My brother wrote me a cruel choose your own adventure when I was a kid for a birthday present, every single ending was a horrible, painful death.

I think the genetic homogeneity of humans is why we are so willing to trade, and the genetic homogeneity of celles in the body is why they are willing to trade as amulticellular organism. Trading is very uncommon in other species on earth, and when such symbiotic mutualism does occur, it takes a long period of evolutionary development for it to work. Coral reef fish go get cleaned at filter stations only because they are genetically programmed to not eat those specific cleaner species.

If we met aliens on spaceships, I hope our planet is uninhabitable for them and we serve them no value, like a penguin meeting an antelope. Otherwise it will mean trouble for somebody. Knowing our history, most likely them.

I am pretty sure it is a joke.

What type of culture counts money by putting money in random stacks on a table when hand counting is obviously faster? Also, my experience with Indians suggest they just use the American style

Good. Whenever I tell people how ridiculous the new regulations are, I think they often fail to fully empathize because the discrimination in how these policies are enforced.

There's a weird class system where travelers from some areas India, Africa, Latin America have been forced to accept these regulations for some time, but the EU's diplomatic and economic pull has allowed to get exemptions until now. Only when EU passengers have to deal with the crap and nice blonde Nordic Nokia executives get the Orwell treatment will there be a significant outcry at the stupidity of these regulations. That Icelandic girl furthered the debate more than the travails of hundreds of Mexicans.

It's like the airport passengers who are shocked at the inconvenience of getting searched, when my 89 year old Indian grandfather has had to deal with getting romanced by the metal detector for a long time.

rrsafety:

I think it straightforwardly wrong to assert that GITMO is better than normal American prisons. Do normal American prisons operate in a hazy legal standing because they are not considered under US Federal Law or military law? If GITMO was in California, It could not operate the same way regarding access to lawyers, being held indefinitely without charges, and many other issues. Is torture legal in the US? Can they waterboard in San Quentin? Can you be forced to remain in US prisons if they know you are innocent, but now don't want to release you because they fear the treatment will make you seek revenge for your false imprisonment( a state of events that is thought to cover a majority of those still in GITMO)?

I am sure Soviet prisons were nasty, but that doesn't make the gulags seem any better.

Re: C1JOSH

If you cook rice on a regular basis, using a rice cooker allows a level of precision and consistency that is impossible on a stovetop. Aside from control, the stove top is just inconvenient for pressure cooking. The whole "lid slightly off enough to allow just a little steam out" routine gets old very quickly.

I guess the black lettering is hydrophobic so water that drips into the white holes in the letters are trapped and slowly oxidize the surface beneath them to form those nice rust-colored spots. I guess the lettering is also bound to the sign better than the white background.

I like photos like these because they show aging of materials is so complex. When people try to produce aged or antiqued materials in video games, movies, or steampunk gadgets, there must be a great deal of thought involved in order to present it realistically.