(I’ve been too busy over the past couple weeks to keep up with low-priority things, so now that I’ve finished part of a project, I’m playing catch-up.)
One of the things that I like about Paul Graham’s essays is that they’re always thought-provoking. This one is no exception, and I recommend that anyone who has children or plans to (or even deals with them occasionally) read it immediately and take it to heart.
From the WFT? department… a company in Singapore is claiming that they own a patent for linking to other web pages by way of an image, and is trying to extort money from companies whose websites use that method (which is very common, and was enshrined in the HTML specifications well over a decade ago).
This is about as ridiculous as demanding licensing fees on any usage of the number three. I don’t understand why anyone would bother… the answer to this kind of thing is simple. Ignore any demands from the company claiming the patent. What are they going to do, sue you and get their patent invalidated for their troubles (not to mention opening themselves up to any countersuits that anyone can come up with)? I think they’re relying on the fact that a certain percentage of people will always give in to intimidation and pay them regardless of how ludicrous the claim is.
An interesting view of why Microsoft now says it’s going to add Open Document Format support to Office. I’m not sure I believe it though… Microsoft has a very long history of being less than truthful about why it’s doing things.
“Cats are like potato chips, you can’t have just one.” 🙂
GoddessJ and I went to see the Iron Man movie a couple days ago. Even she loved it, which is saying something, but I thought it was awesome. I’m definitely going to get the DVD as soon as it comes out… I hope it includes an extra about the scene where the red-and-gold armor is being put on him for the first time, showing exactly how much of that was done with CGI. It couldn’t have been all CGI, but there’s no way it could all be done in reality either.
I was at a Radio Shack today, and discovered a package labeled “High Speed USB 2.0 Beverage Warmer!” I had to read it several times before I convinced myself that I wasn’t misreading. A hot-plate plugged into your computer is fairly weird in and of itself, but it would only need to draw power from a USB port, so why would the person drawing up the packaging insist on pointing out that it’s specifically USB 2.0, instead of 1.x?
It wasn’t until I read the small type that I discovered that it was also a USB hub. It’s still humorous, but I found it a lot funnier before I saw that.
Some things just beg you to put on a puzzled and/or disbelieving expression and say “huh?”. This qualifies as one of them.
Vacationing in the buff? Hey, why not? 🙂
“Computer keyboards are filthier than toilets, according to a recent study.” Oh my, everybody break out the disinfectant wipes, pronto!
Has no one considered that the strength of your immune system, like many other biological systems, depends on how much exercise it gets? Regular exposure to common bacteria and viruses is what keeps it strong. Wipe out all of that, and the first cold virus that gets through your defenses will kill you. If you’ve got a healthy immune system, the only way to strengthen it (and keep it healthy) is to expose yourself to germs — the more minor germs you can get exposure to, the better. Then, when the next major and potentially fatal epidemic comes around, you’ve got a much better chance of being able to fight it off and survive.
Thanks, but I’ll keep my germ-covered keyboard just the way it is.
A look at the systematic and dishonest fiddling that has been done with climate data to make us think that there is a global warming problem, followed by a reminder that none of this is new:
Bear in mind that warming and cooling concerns are nothing new, as this alarming bulletin reminds us –The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.A RealClimate blogger? No, that was the US Weather Bureau in 1922. We saw a global cooling scare in 1924, a global warming scare in 1933, another global cooling in the early 1970s, and another warming scare today. The changes the USHCN promised Watts won’t help resolve anything for another decade or so, but perhaps future generations will be able to reduce the alarming increase in the number of climate alarms.
Maybe global warming is a real problem — but having dishonest scientists lie about it isn’t going to convince people of it.