Tuesday 27 Apr 2004

Artificially selected groups

If you’ve ever taken Calculus II, you’ve probably heard that Calculus III is easier.

Which people are in Calculus III?

Yeah, people that have passed Calculus II.

Saturday 24 Apr 2004

History in the making

JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com

Friday 23 Apr 2004

Modern ruins

New England Ruins — photography by Rob Dobi.

It isn’t completely obvious, but there are several photos for each location; keep clicking the “next” button after clicking a location.

I love this kind of stuff.

(via Geisha asobe blog)

Monday 19 Apr 2004

Superluminal phase velocity

Moiré patterns.

(via MeFi)

Sunday 18 Apr 2004

The decline of Western civilization

I went to the grocery store tonight. I bought Cheetos, Oreos, and milk. And Diet Coke.

This is not good.

Additionally today, I’ve consumed an espresso, a Red Bull, a bowl of macaroni and cheese, and a “chick” patty.

What’s happened?

Taylor series expansions have driven me to this.

Salads for lunch and dinner the rest of the week. Maybe a Pop-Tart or two for breakfast.

The checkout lady was unfriendly to the two Indian gentlemen in line with me.

I think maybe she thought they were Arabs.

I saw some mini-burritos labelled “4.20”. I thought the grocery store employees had a pretty good sense of humor.

Later I realized that was just the expiration date.

Interesting but never-reached

In the backs of textbooks there was material you could tell was interesting. The school year would always end before we got to it.

— Carl Sagan, in the preface to The Demon-Haunted World

Friday 16 Apr 2004

Friendly spam advice

Hi, my name is Michelle and I am an Account Manager at MetricsDirect. I noticed that you advertise your site http://www.wordparts.com on the Overture search engine under the search term ‘circuspenis’.

— junk mail from MetricsDirect Contextual Advertising

Of all my posts, they had to choose that one.

OK, wordparts is officially a circuspenis-free zone from now on. Sorry.

Anyway, on an only loosely related topic: so if somebody is offering to increase your annual sales by $100,000 and somebody else is offering to increase your annual sales by 45% and you’re thinking about dealing with them, I think it’d only be logical to do so in that order.

Wednesday 07 Apr 2004

“Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”

The nineteen sixties were times of innovation in American magazines. “New Journalism” was flourishing; Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, and Hunter S. Thompson were writing their most famous essays in Esquires, Playboys, and Rolling Stones that only slightly resemble their homologues today.

Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” is a famous example, and one I hadn’t read until just recently. It was originally published in Esquire in April 1966.

I’m young enough that I never experienced the Frank Sinatra “mystique.” I think I get it now.

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