Saturday, August 18, 2007
President of 9/11 and presidential candidate Rudolph Guiliani claims to have been at ground zero as often as rescue workers. Turns out he was down there for about 29 hours total. So much for his campaign.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
27 acquatic lifeforms you’ve never caught, (because they are so rare or are deep sea creatures) including this excellent robot fish. The robot fish is located at the London Acquarium: 
Computer scientists at the University of Essex in the U.K. developed the self-guided robot fish, seen here swimming in the aquarium. The designers say it is the smartest such robot yet created—the fish uses artificial intelligence and built-in sensors to avoid obstacles and respond to environmental changes.  Â
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Check out a great home project in the dangerous science category: making your own hand held burning laser.
Matt Sanchez is up to his dirty tricks again, but unwittingly sullies the name of his right-wing associates. First, The Weekly Standard reports that The New Republic’s Milblogger Scott Thomas Beauchamp (identity now revealed) dispatches were fabricated. After raising a such a big stink, it turns out that TNR’s source was none other than our favorite gay porn star, former male escort, Wikipedia editor, alleged thief, and obsessive egosurfer Matt Sanchez. So much for reliable sources.
The New Republic has since found corroboration for almost everything they printed. Media Matters has since called Sanchez on his bullshit. Time Magazine’s Swampland blog has also picked up the story. Blogger Nate Nelson wants to ensure quite reasonable that this chicanery isn’t being done on the public’s dime.
You can always count on Mateo for laugh.
The Big Picture (great blog) sums up the story of the subprime meltdown very nicely in this post. Check out the nice graphs of Q2 delinquency rates and where they are occurring. All told, it had a troubling (though deserved) effect on investment bank share prices and market caps.
After many years of loyalty to Clairefontaine notebooks, I’ve switched (some may say I’ve seen the light) to Moleskines. I still really the Clairefontaines, especially the feel of and quality of the paper, and I will still use the large hard-covered notebooks, but convenience has won out. I really like the features: the hard cover seems very durable, the elastic strap keeps the pages together, and it’s a perfect pocket size. They’re also available in square rule which is my preferred line style.
Thanks to Google Adsense, this site may soon pay for itself, which would certainly be a great thing. I’m far from being able to retire on the income though. It seems it takes a lot of effort to make any dependable amount of money, beyond a few clicks here and there, it just feels a lot like work, which is really beside the point, isn’t it?
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
The Central Park Resevoir Fountain was operational again as of yesterday. It shoots water 60 feet into the air, quite pretty to watch.
Wired has a bunch of reasons you might reconsider having a cell phone. I just got rid of mine a few months ago. My top reasons from the article:
It’s horribly expensive
Total Cost of Ownership. Apply that idea to everything, not just cars and mortgages. The fact is that most cellphones will cost you thousands over the life of the contract. Short of paying-as-you-go with a Wal-Mart crapdybar, you’re in it for a good $1,000, and about $2,000 or so with a smartphone.
And if you get a new cell phone, locking you into a new contract, you just perpetuate it even longer.
It enslaves you to a one-sided contract
This is the magic that allows the previous item to happen, but is sufficiently vile to warrant an entry of its own. Everyone is at it, but the most iconic example of how times have changed is AT&T: Ma Bell has reglued itself together with almost Marxian inevitability, but now has the advantage of having countless customers under astonishingly abusive contract terms. Take that, deregulation.
Market power anyone?
It makes you perpetually available
If it’s on, they can get you. If it’s off, they wonder why they can’t get you. It’s a lose-lose situation for your Zen.
This is perhaps the top reason. If you have one, it simply becomes an expectation that your are always available by phone. There’s no room for uninterupted serenity or leisure.