Highlights from an article about procedure changes to assist Federal Air Marshals (important: not made for your convenience or safety):
"the mix-ups, in which marshals are mistaken for terrorism suspects who share the same names, have gone on for years — just as they have for thousands of members of the traveling public."
"one major air carrier reports roughly 9,000 false positive hits on the watch list every day"
"The Terrorist Screening Center announced April 10 it will automatically review nearly 500,000 names on its watch list that are frequently matched during airport screenings and other law-enforcement encounters with the general public, and remove those names that don't belong to actual suspects." (emphasis added)
"Additionally, Mr. Chertoff announced Monday that each airline can now create a system of limited biographical data including a passenger's date of birth to clear up watch list misidentifications." (but will they?)
A wonderful family portrait (of the family of Jerry Shores, in Nebraska), including whippet.
In a half-asleep state last night, it seemed vitally important that I let local restaurants know that it was OK to serve me pasta, potatoes, or bread instead of rice during the rice shortage*.
*Actually seems to not necessarily be a shortage (domestically, anyway), but there may be some sales limits in reaction to hoarding. But other starches are still OK with me.
I don't know if this is really worth the ink, but it is at the intersection of a number of cultural hot spots: I bring you Lolcavore.
I think a reason I don't like it more is that it misspells “ur”.
| Nutrition Facts | |||||||||||
| Amount Per Serving | |||||||||||
| Calories 1008 | Cal from Fat 356 | ||||||||||
| % Daily Value* | |||||||||||
| Total Fat 41g | 63% | ||||||||||
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| Cholesterol 125mg | 42% | ||||||||||
| Sodium 2511mg | 105% | ||||||||||
| Total Carbs 104g | 35% | ||||||||||
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| Protein 53g | |||||||||||
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| INGREDIENTS: 13" Tortilla,Rice,Black Beans,Barbacoa (4oz),Red (Hot) Salsa,Cheese,Sour Cream | |||||||||||
In the wake of the launch of Sputnik, Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) proposed a National Week of Shame and Danger. He was doing it to assist the political aspirations of Stuart Symington (D-MO), but I feel that we could get some modern enjoyment out of making a National Week of Shame and Danger an annual observance.
Things one can do to celebrate NWoSaD that are both shameful and dangerous:
Wear flammable pajamas with a hole in the seat
Kitten juggling (sharp claws)
Historic document theft
Fart-lighting
Tease a five-legged scorpion about its disability
This list of upcoming auditions came to my attention when it had descriptions of Dollhouse characters, but it's really a narrow window into what's going on in the world of talent.
Today, for instance, it's possible to see a casting call for DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD, a play I had not heard of. Probably not appearing at a church near you anytime soon.
An ad for coffee (from 1915) with enthusiasm bordering on the overstatement:
At home--en tour--wherever "White House" Coffee is in evidence--its charm lingers in the memory; commands delighted respect and enlists continued interest no other brand can possibly inspire. A veritable aristocrat among coffees, "White House" is an indispensable adjunct at every repast--; and its invigorating companionship banishes ennui like magic and helps to make life more worth while.
Mmmm, banishes ennui! That's my kind of coffee!
Man finds chicken in egg, uses phrase "fixin' to" twice in interview.
"American Greetings Corporation (NYSE: AM) is one of the world's largest manufacturers of social expression products."
Which is really just birthday cards and stuff, but it could be so much more... futuristic! Like a tablet to help you be appropriately sympathetic.
I ran across danelope through a series of events that don't really bear posting here, but it seems to be chock full o' goodness. I owe the blogger a beer for the article about userContent.css alone. No more blank spots on the BBC News site where ads would go for me!
There are a lot of works of art that I would like to be so elegantly crystallized, but for now, here's Batman.
A very odd story of a guy who defected to North Korea because he was drunk and afraid, and spent decades in the same state in that same state until he was freed to work in a Japanese cookie shop.
(4/14: link fixed)
On a recent Delta flight (I believe we were on a B737-800), the seat-back entertainment system needed to be rebooted, so everybody on the plane got to watch the startup messages scroll by. It was a Linux system booting with Redboot, running on a single-processor system (to judge from the single Tux graphic on boot). I was entertained by the warning that the kernel was being tainted by non-GPL code.
Not content to tell you how to find out what has been claimed as a trademark, we'll also point you at someone who's paying way more attention than seems entirely called-for to new claims and posting his findings in Trademork.
My librarian sent me this review of math-related literary works some time ago. I'm putting it here so I don't have to keep it in my inbox.
I had my first mouth guard related dream: "This bread is terrible!"
D.A., Willis
A short story in its own hardcover. Nonstop story pulling you along, a young YA title (though in the adult section at my library) very much like Heinlein's adventure stories for younger readers (Willis is a fan and has a shout out to him in the story). Fun, not ground breaking. Three stars.
Nextwave: Agents of HATE v.2: I Kick Your Face, Ellis
Like the first one, quite fun.
Our dumb world: the Onion's atlas of the planet Earth, seventy-third edition
Funny, but it's a whole book of geography jokes. So, pace yourself. Two stars.
Windows on nature: the great habitat dioramas of the American Museum of Natural History, Quinn
I saw many (not nearly all) of the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in New York-- they were really interesting, and a slice of a very particular time in nature conservation and museum education (when it was ok to shoot things to learn about them, and when informative signs were not as important. The signs also don't seem to have been updated since they were installed (not mentioned in the book) though they do mention updating the whale based on new knowledge). Pictures of the exhibits being assembled are fascinating, and knowing that the technology was somewhat limited makes them even more impressive. Also: I finally connected those amazing life-size dioramas with the tiny shoebox ones I did in elementary school. I kind of wish we had been shown pictures of what dioramas can aspire to to inspire us. Three stars.
Laika, Abadzis
It's filed with teen graphic novels in my library, but I think it's more an adult graphic novel with some teen crossover appeal. It's an imagined and reconstructed story of the life of Laika, the spacefaring dog. It's quite well done, both artistically and in story structure and character. A good book for a space anniversary. Four stars.
