Congratulations, Mister President. I, too, think it's premature, but that it will eventually be deserved.
Meanwhile, I'm a-gonna keep flogging Pete Seeger for the Nobel Peace Prize, since he deserves it at least twice over.
Every time I hear about the Phelps cult and its antics, I envision getting together a small army of thin, bearded men, putting them in robes and crowns of thorns, and pins (badges in the UK) that say "Lose Hate Now. Ask Me How" and having them completely surround the WBCers with beatific expressions, in silence, preventing anyone from seeing them -- and incidentally preventing the Phelpsians from leaving their spot without committing assault or something similar by virtue of running down one or more guys. (I know other groups have done similar things. But if these were true Christians, this image would goose them solidly.) And, of course, video of the entire thing...
Teresa @105: Maybe the mindset carries over. Maybe what keeps Amsterdam cyclists safe is that the drivers are cyclists too, only they happen to be driving a car at that moment...
If that were true, then surely we wouldn't have the myriad of drivers in New York City who are pedestrians on the same streets while not driving, yet utterly ignore the rights of pedestrians while they're behind the wheel. Not all drivers, surely; I like to think that I have learned precisely that lesson so that my treatment of pedestrians, as a driver, is what I'd want when I'm on foot. (And I'm not alone, by a long shot.) Also, many pedestrians bend and break rules to the point where they're beyond shameless and, in some cases at least, not quite criminal. Even so, there are enormous numbers of drivers about whom I find myself uttering my favorite road platitude ("I have no idea what you're doing -- and neither do you!")
It seems to me that it also makes violating the Ninth Commandment as easy as breathing. Either rumor can be spread about kids based on what's in their FB/MySpace accounts, or via those accounts by administrators with access.
FOAD is the mildest of responses those administrators ought to receive.
Avram @24: "Corporations" by itself is inadequate to describe "the ruling class"; I'd suggest "corporations and their heads" (including not just CEOs, but corporate officers and boards).
On the other hand, while many of the humans included in that group do in fact have little conscience or concern for those outside their class, corporations have exactly zero. So there will be times when it's useful to distinguish (particularly when discussing how to restrict unacceptable corporate behavior).
OpenThreadworthy: The big link making the rounds of my friends at LJ: Don't Be A Dick (by fragbert, whom I don't know). It's not as if he's saying things many of us don't know, or haven't said ourselves; it's merely said very well. Truly worth the minute or five (maximum) it takes to read. Here's a sample:
â— Make it a point to compliment someone today. On anything. Everyone has something worthy of praise and admiration.
â— Tell *everyone* you love exactly that. Life is short, shit happens, and the people who are important to us need to know they've had a positive effect on someone else's life. It's entirely possible that our own lives are measured solely on how we affected others.
Let's leave the goat for LJ, shall we?
A llama, on the other hand... :-)
Abi @18: Thanks. As you note @28, this isn't a technical solution -- but the context isn't highly technical, either. I had a longer explanation, but "horses for courses" is why I applaud the Crayola method.
Dave Bell @21: Thanks. That's an excellent summary of the actual technical side of the problem. I'd expect those to be handled in the technical solutions intended for professional color matching.
Randolph @25: No, I don't know precisely the cost of spectrometry, but I have an idea of its order of magnitude. In fact, I mentioned it to suggest the high cost of the extreme precision required for professional color matching, and to establish a contrast with this situation, which is neither extremely expensive nor extremely accurate, but which is, IMO, good enough for its use.
Um, yeah. What Abi said at #13. :-\
True graphic pros no doubt use spectrometry to describe colors, with wavelengths enumerated to six or twelve significant digits.
But failing that, this system is simple, easy to describe and to understand, works well enough (to within the limitations of Crayola's QA and the lighting) to describe shades of color, is easily reproducible by both the original user and any prospective seller (again within the limits of Crayola), is not meant to translate colors from some abstract numbering system to Real Life Color, and is dead cheap.
One thumbs up from this graphics pro.
Albatross @631:
Aside from the archive.org stash, here are a few resources for acquiring Dead shows:
Lossless Legs Dedicated BitTorrent tracker for the Dead and related bands. Registration required, and be careful about your upload:download ratio. Lossless (FLAC and SHN, mostly)
TuneTree has Dead shows to download. Lossless
Nugs.net has a stash of shows, including the Grateful Dead, that can be either downloaded or streamed.
Sugarmegs has long been a good place to listen to or download MP3s.
And, of course, Google is your friend.
Xopher @16 and Josh @21: Unfortunately, I know about them. They almost prevented a majority-Democratic State Senate from having a Democratic Majority Leader. I'd love nothing better than to have them chucked, but their polls are much too high for that.
Still, there's hope. But it would be nice if we had some stronger arm-twisters on the D side of the aisle in Albany.
Excellent!
Now, if we can just get the New York Senate to pass it, the Assembly and the Governor (who initiated the legislation this time around) are on board.
KeithS @87: Thank you. That explains rather a lot.
C. Wingate@68: Perhaps it's that the Duplo was pure of soul, while the laces demonstrated that they had no soles? :-)
More likely, it had to do with the resonant frequency of the Duplo plastic; I'm no physicist, but my understanding of nucleowavers is that the energy they provide is translated to heat by exciting resonances in the materials (particularly water) they strike. I suppose it's possible the Duplos were made of a plastic that didn't get excited by microwaves of commercial oven frequencies.
Then again, I could be utterly wrong (and would appreciate someone setting me straight).
Also, two significant deaths to note:
Fan and filker John Caspell ("Dr. Filk") has died unexpectedly while recuperating from surgery resulting from a motor vehicle accident. (He was hit on a bike by a truck that ran a red light, IIRC.) He was scheduled, along with Brooke Lunderville, to be the Interfilk Guest at Concertino (the New England iteration of the Floating Northeast Filk Convention) this June. I'd met him twice or thrice, briefly, and was looking forward to hearing them again.
Less personally, but more widely notably, Congressman, would-be President, ex-quarterback, and old-time conservative Jack Kemp has died of cancer at age 73. I was never fond of him, but if he were in office now, I can't help but think that the party would hound him for actually considering what his constituents thought and felt.
Terry @55: Thanks. I typically don't use well-liked ceramics in the microwave anyway, in case of air bubbles that somehow survived the kiln. It was the self-destruction after significant use that surprised me, and now I know the likely reason.
I had a mug that I used at work, to warm up clam chowder in the microwave. It was cheap, and disposable, because it lived at work, and it worked just fine. I got used to the soup hitting that critical point where it bubbled and blorped so that some hit the nuke's ceiling, and knew to turn the mug, stir the soup, and let it go back in for a few more seconds.
Until the day (oh, about eighteen months after acquiring the mug) when the blorp was LOTS louder and sharper than before, and suddenly I was running for the roll of paper towels by the sink, and swearing at the hottish soup all over the nuke (and some on me, before I got it under control).
Just a reminder that even the most tried and true utensils can sometimes surprise, in a not very fun way.
And, digressing slightly, this is Open Thread 123, which reminds me of When Michael J Was Cool. ("A-B-C/Easy as 1-2-3/Simple as do-re-mi, A-B-C, 1-2-3...")
I wish I could say I believe it could never happen to me. But we have a cautionary tale in our family that suggests it could -- and has kept it from coming about. My grandfather took my uncle, then in a pram, to a Brooklyn Dodgers game, and my grandmother, concerned about his ability to attend to the baby, came out later (without his knowledge, of course), found him at the game, and walked off with their son.
That's been firmly in my mind for the past decade, though we've mostly gotten to the point where I can rely on the kids to know where they are, and to speak up for themselves.
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| 2005 | 42 |
| 2004 | 53 |
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