Oh wait, was that a spoiler? Just try to forget I've been reading The Scarlet Letter. Just finished, actually.
Surely that kind of thing would never happen today.
4.14.2012
LOL
These two roles of middle-aged humans — as super-providers and master culture-conveyers — continue today. In offices, on construction sites and on sports fields around the world, we see middle-aged people advising and guiding younger adults and sometimes even ordering them about. Middle-aged people can do more, they earn more and, in short, they run the world.
Yeah, take that, kids.
(Also, geezers can take the rest of the day off.)
No, this was not written 20 years ago
Facebook passwords: why companies don’t use them to see your posts - CSMonitor.com
“There is a legitimate and growing concern about privacy on the Internet,” says Katharine Parker of Proskauer Employment Law Counseling & Training Group in New York…
It was written, or at least published, three days ago. How friggin' retro is that?
And how about people?
Undernews: Dealing with the overabundance of deer
Tree Hugger - Towns, cities, suburbs, and rural areas all have at least one thing in common: An over abundance of deer and other large herbivores. The free-ranging herds cross busy traffic lanes, eat from gardens, and spread disease—among other things. But what can be done to control them?
The answer, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Oregon State University, is to cultivate healthy predator populations. Yes, this includes reintroducing wolves.
Finally, somebody makes some sense around here
Rome Still Having Trouble With Gladiators - Lowering the Bar
How do you catch a fake gladiator you think is beating up other fake gladiators? You get a cop to be a fake fake gladiator and see if the real fake gladiators try to hassle him.
God forbid we should make fairness our only goal
WEEKLY ADDRESS: It’s Time for Congress to Pass the Buffett Rule | The White House
And as many Americans rush to file their taxes this weekend, it’s worth pointing out that we’ve got a tax system that doesn’t always uphold the principle of everyone doing their part.
Now, this is not just about fairness.…
The only thing this Buffett Rule blabber says to me is that secretaries need a raise. A big one.
Wait. Who has secretaries anyway?
4.13.2012
No, the movie's not 100 years old, it just seems that way
Twitter Backlash for People Who Did Not Know ‘Titanic’ Was Real | Trending Now - Yahoo! News
The social news-sharing site Reddit has a knack for exposing people and situations. The latest topic of discussion to generate controversy is a series of tweets from people who did not know that the sinking of the Titanic was a real historical event.
Also, can anybody tell me what a "typewriter" is?
Fortunately I have options
I have a whole package of options, actually, called "hot dogs," which is strange because they are neither dogs nor hot (come on, they're in the refrigerator, dude). (Now that I think about it, maybe that's why sometimes we call hot dogs not hot dogs but tube steaks.) (Oh, never mind.) I was going to make beef stew but I got hung up on the phone trying to help someone solve a computer problem and missed the window. So, options for supper tonight. Which is fine, I like hot dogs. Especially if you count the ketchup as a veggie.
But boys and girls, really. It is a good idea to keep your software at least marginally up to date. Because when your software gets too old (when, for example, the mold gets more than two or three versions thick) it can seriously mung ("mash until no good," so not a totally accurate use of the word but very close in spirit) the way other software on your computer runs until the whole thing is, or is perilously close to being, well, munged. And you haven't run a backup in the last year or so either, have you. No. I thought not.
This is why you really should always have some options close at hand. Also, a bag of chips.
This whole thing is rapidly descending into thought-crime territory, alas
Affidavit: Zimmerman Did Not Use Racial Slur - ABC News
When a recording was released of a 911 call George Zimmerman made to police shortly before fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, some who heard it zeroed in on three words to suggest he had uttered a racial slur.
An affidavit released by the prosecutor who has charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder says he did not use a slur, however. The document filed Thursday did say Zimmerman "profiled" Martin. It did not elaborate.
4.11.2012
Down the hatch, up the GPA
Drink a couple of brewskies and you might ace that test - msnNOW
We can just imagine Budweiser's top brass high-fiving each other upon hearing that drinking alcohol before a test might improve your score (no, you're not sloshed, you read that right).…
–Noted by our Seattle bureau (we can only imagine why)
4.10.2012
Awww, is Georgie getting picked on again?
Bush Tax Cuts: George W. Wishes They Didn't Bear His Name - Yahoo! News
Making a rare post-presidential policy address, former President George W. Bush said he wishes the " Bush tax cuts" had someone else's name attached to them because "if they were called somebody else's tax cuts they'd probably be less likely to be raised."
The end of the entire universe
Why Young Americans Are Driving So Much Less Than Their Parents - Commute - The Atlantic Cities
“Unfortunately for car companies,” Jordan Weissmann noted at TheAtlantic.com a couple weeks back, “today's teens and twenty-somethings don't seem all that interested in buying a set of wheels. They're not even particularly keen on driving.”
4.09.2012
Yes, Bunky, we have gone back to the 50's
Street-legal aeroplane unveiled at New York Auto Show - Americas - World - The Independent
A small aviation company has created the first car licensed to fly as well as drive.
The Transition, made by Massachusetts-based Terrafugia, features two seats, four wheels and retractable wings, and was unveiled at the New York International Auto Show over the weekend.
As long as they don't say the private sector does it better
New GSA Video Puts GSA in Issa's Crosshairs - Yahoo! News
The GSA was under fire…for a video featuring a U.S. General Services Administration employee joking about excess government spending.
Even before that video came to light, the agency was being criticized for spending about $823,000 on a Las Vegas convention in 2010 for 300 employees, which included thousands of dollars spent on items such as a commemorative coin set, a mind reader, a comedian and a clown.
Some days it's just barely worth getting out of bed.
Calif teen breaks up with teacher after his arrest - Yahoo! News
MODESTO, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California teen who made national news when she and her high school teacher moved in together says she has broken off the relationship following allegations that he sexually abused another student.
Jordan Powers, 18, told ABC News (http://abcn.ws/I3hJPw ) that when her now former boyfriend, Christopher Hooker, called her from jail she told him, "We're done."
File under Stuff You Can Make a Lot of Money Doing
New luxury ‘Doomsday’ shelters line Kansas missile silo | The Raw Story
Tucked deep beneath the Kansas prairie, luxury condos are being built into the shaft of an abandoned missile silo to service anxious — and wealthy — people preparing for doomsday.
4.08.2012
OK, I'm not sure "explosive growth" is quite the phrase we're looking for here
Natural gas glut means drilling boom must slow - Yahoo! News
NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. natural gas market is bursting at the seams.
So much natural gas is being produced that soon there may be nowhere left to put the country's swelling surplus. After years of explosive growth, natural gas producers are retrenching.
Also, speaking of natural gas, didn't that little Georgie Bush say we were all going to be driving natural gas cars right about now? Or am i confusing that with horse puckey?
It blows over before your very eyes
While Apple Is Criticized for Foxconn, Other Companies Are Silent - NYTimes.com
Apple’s rivals are quick to say how much better, faster, cheaper or more popular their smartphones, computers and tablets are.
Yet when it comes to working conditions in the Chinese factories that build these competing products, Apple’s electronics rivals go silent.
Picky, picky
Undernews: Health insurance company raises rates 30% in two years
Orange County Register - Connecticut-based Aetna Life Insurance Co. has raised its health insurance premiums on small employers with 73,000 members an average 30.3 percent over two years, which the California Department of Insurance called “unreasonable.”
There'll always be an England; also tuna casserole
Divorce, British Style - Fault-Finding as Fine Art - NYTimes.com
LONDON — In her 30-odd years as a divorce lawyer, Vanessa Lloyd Platt has heard it all. The woman who sued for divorce because her husband insisted she dress in a Klingon costume and speak to him in Klingon. The man who declared that his wife had maliciously and repeatedly served him his least favorite dish, tuna casserole.
Piling up
Anchorage snow record broken with 134 inches | | The Bulletin
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A spring snowfall has broken the nearly 60-year-old seasonal snow record of Alaska’s largest city. Inundated with nearly double the snow they’re used to, Anchorage residents have been expecting to see this season’s snowfall surpass the record of 132.6 inches set in the winter of 1954-55. The 3.4 inches that fell by Saturday afternoon brings the total to 133.6 inches. National Weather Service meteorologist Shaun Baines said forecasters don’t expect more than an inch of additional accumulation.
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