Some canned beans are being recalled after the discovery of a bird head. As with coughing up roofing nails, this sort of thing happens more than you might think...
Religious fundamentalists in Indonesia have succeeded in getting an artist and his models arrested, even before they've gotten their desired anti-porn bill passed into law. Religious fundamentalists here already use "pornography" and "obscenity" interchangeably, implying that porn is not constitutionally protected. I'm interested to note that virtually all the coverage I've seen of this issue is from the Australian press, even though the pressure in Indonesia is from the same factions that are so upset about those cartoons.
For no particular reason, here's some Mark Twain for your reading pleasure, courtesy of Project Gutenberg (bless 'em!).
MY WATCH--[Written about 1870.]
AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE
My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining,
and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come
to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to
consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one
night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized
messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set
the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart.
Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time,
and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to
set it for me. Then he said, "She is four minutes slow-regulator wants
pushing up." I tried to stop him--tried to make him understand that the
watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was
that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up
a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him
to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My
watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within the
week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred
and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the
timepieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteen
days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow,
while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent,
bills payable, and such things, in such a ruinous way that I could not
abide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I
had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing.
He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open,
and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery.
He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating--come in a
week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down
to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by
trains, I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watch
strung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest;
I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last
week, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and
alone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out of
sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling
for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I went
to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited,
and then said the barrel was "swelled." He said he could reduce it in
three days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For
half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking
and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting, that I could not
hear myself think for the disturbance; and as long as it held out there
was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the
rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all
the clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end of
twenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judges' stand all right and
just in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could
say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is
only a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to another
watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was
nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the
king-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger.
He repaired the king-bolt, but what the watch gained in one way it lost
in another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run
awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals.
And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my
breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker.
He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his
glass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with
the hair-trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did well
now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut
together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would
travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail
of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing
repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that the
mainspring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the works
needed half-soling. He made these things all right, and then my
timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, after
working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let
go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would
straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their
individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate
spider's web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next
twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang.
I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he
took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for
this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars
originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for
repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in this
watchmaker an old acquaintance--a steamboat engineer of other days, and
not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just
as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with
the same confidence of manner.
He said:
"She makes too much steam-you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the
safety-valve!"
I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense.
My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was,
a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good
watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what
became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers,
and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.
Via Lifehacker, the 4INFO Mobile Search service gives us yet another way to waste time (and money, for those of us who have to pay for messaging) with our cellphones. Want to know what the weather's like where you are (may be limited to US locations)? Text "w [zip or city]" to 44636 and get back current conditions and forecast. The most useful other services I saw were airline flight and FedEx/UPS tracking. You can also set up alerts at their web site.
At least the tards got reassigned (fired would have been better, but they are government jobs, after all) in this story of raid caps gone to the head.
They're really controversy-averse, but if you can find something that couldn't possibly offend anyone, or infringe on anybody's publicity rights (among lots of other restrictions), you could get it printed on M&Ms.
An item from the FDA announcing more stringent requirements for foods being labeled "whole grain" explains why so many foods were whole grain for a while there, since it was good for you and did not yet have a legal meaning. Back to eating oat hulls and wheat chaff for breakfast, I guess.
In a disgusting display of appalling hypocrisy, the US Congress is beating up US high-tech firms for complying (perhaps even coöperating) with the Chinese government in its attempt to gain all the advantages of modern technology without granting its people any of the concomitant freedom. Any of Washington's Congressthings—or any who voted to give China Most Favored Nation (I of course mean "Normal") trading status—who climb on this bandwagon deserve some serious Lady MacBeth-grade bad dreams.
Partial disclosure: I am not entirely clean on this issue; I worked for several years at a large aerospace company in Washington, and while that company's lobbying on behalf of China always irritated me, it was no more than a tertiary reason for my leaving.
Second Hand Songs has a list of cover songs that are interestingly searchable.
The Craigslist Craig addressed the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. Lots of good stuff in there, if you have the time to read it. I'll be interested to see whether the effort at collaborative filtering to which he refers fares any better than the countless others. (ThirdVoice may not have been collaborative filtering, strictly speaking, but it was an idea I had also had, and would have needed something like collaborative filtering in order to be useful)
Or maybe what I want isn't really collaborative filtering so much as delegated filtering, or maybe it's the same thing, and it all gets into trust networks, I imagine.
For less than their price for pre-populated cookies, Tsue Chong of 801 S. King St. Seattle will place your fortunes (provided to them on 2½"x½" paper) in their cookies. It's $5.50 per pound of cookies stuffed with your fortunes, $8.50 stuffed with theirs. A pound is about 60 cookies.
A mailing list I am on recently covered the topic of Wikipedia: is it an appropriate source for school research? While it can be incorrect (which is why it shouldn't be your only source of information), it does cover some different ground than traditional encyclopedias. Britannica, for instance, seems to have no coverage of Hobo Nickels. Which I thought John Hodgeman had made up, but I guess not.
Yes, you have been warned that it will not help your productivity, but you're experimenting with RSS anyway. Did you know the Feds can add to your addiction? FDA Recalls, my man! If I could add Restaurant Closures, my day would be perfect.
I recently started tracking the addresses to which spammers are trying to send, and the number of addresses that have never existed in the domain, to which spam is being directed, surprises me. Most notable in this illustrious group (because I get why folks would try info, sales, admin, and the like) is johnsmithsvt. A quick Google indicates that it's showing up in other folks' rejection logs, too. Why? Is there some rootkit/worm/whatever that receives its orders at that address? The next message for that address that makes it through my RBLs (sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org, korea.services.net, combined.njabl.org, bl.spamcop.net, china.blackholes.us, dnsbl.sorbs.net, and dnsbl.jammconsulting.net (I have the last two set to return 4xx errors, since they're awfully aggressive, and that gives me time to whitelist the senders, where appropriate)) will end up in my inbox, so I can see whether it's just garden-variety spam or something more inimical.
Update: Garden-variety spam. For a variety of pharmaceuticals. I can't imagine why they're using that address.
Apparently the best reason anybody has for not recognizing Pluto as a Kuiper Belt Object and not a major planet is "you'd upset the schoolchildren." This, as it is with conversion to the metric system, is an imaginary problem that will sort itself out within a generation (granted, with the metric system, you'll probably have to replace some road signs earlier than you would otherwise). Take a look at the orbits: Pluto is far more elliptical in its orbit than the genuine major planets and more like a comet than a major planet in its inclination (here's the inner planet orbits chart for comparison).
Your assignment: find a better mnemonic than "My very excellent mother just served us nachos" (in order to qualify as "better," it must have a substantially different structure).
Outbreak: Plagues that Changed History (Y)
Formatted like an oversized picture book, this is a high-school level investigation of how six major plagues shaped the course of history. Excellent research, writing, illustration (by the author), and great variety of ideas raised. Guns Germs and Steel, but a little less thick. Five stars and a hearty hurrah.
Flush, Hiaasen (Y)
Well, it's not a horrible book, but hoo boy it compares so very unfavorably with Hiaasen's last book for the younger set, Hoot. Two stars and here's hoping he goes back to his tip-top style again.
Peeps, Westerfeld (Y)
Damn! This is officially the book that I will ramble on and on about how great it is at the slightest provocation. Parasites. Hipsters. Vampires. Eldritch beings swarming up from the depths of New York. Yee haw! It kept me up late and gave me scary dreams. One hundred thumbs up and five stars.
Assassination Vacation, Vowell (on audio)
Again Vowell's massive brain and interest in things impresses the heck out of me. I wish I even knew how to start going about getting such a good grip on US history as she seems to have. The book is also funny and tragic, too. The audio is really well done, and I want Brad Bird to narrate an audiobook on the life of Emma Goldman. Five stars.
Roadstrips: a graphic journey across America
Good selection of artists, but not a very exceptional collection of graphic stories. Two stars.
Pyongyang: a Journey in North Korea, Delisle
Not only a fascinating trip in the strange country of North Korea, but a very well-told and illustrated graphic nonfiction. Four stars.
Hey! Since when has there been a spy museum? It sounds so my speed that I'm astounded I haven't heard about it until now. They also have a new book coming out in May called I Lie for a Living: the Greatest Spies of All Time.
According to Publisher's Weekly, Warner Bros is making a movie out of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, set to be directed by Spike Jonze and adapted for the screen by Jonze and Dave Eggers. It will be live action with lots of CGI. I think my head just exploded.