Category Archives: other

Waste of Space


I don’t understand this. So this old man that has loads of cash to spend on World Series tickets that are front row, right behind home plate comes to the game completely decked out in Marlins gear. A team that isn’t even playing. I know what he would say too, because I one time asked someone that wearing a complete outfit for the wrong team before. “I’m a Marlins fan, and I want everyone to know I care about the Marlins.” Of course, the guy I talked to was at a midsummer day game / bachelor party and hadn’t shelled out over a couple of thousand dollars in tickets, airfare and lodging.

And of course sitting next to him is Mr. John 3:16. (Although,
he did move down for the last out.) Yeah, that’s going to save some souls.

Mac & Cheese

I will never understand why someone would feel the need pour a can of corn into a perfectly fine pot of mac & cheese.

Commercial Aircraft at Moffett Field

Last week, while driving into work, I saw a rather unusual sight. An AirTran airliner was taxiing at Moffett. It looked like it had just landed. Why was it there? Did NASA buy the aircraft, and it simply wasn’t repainted yet? Was it an emergency landing, and if so, why not just land at Mineta which is just like five minutes further south? Was it some sort of bizzare mistake?

Googling around, I found the flight: AirTran 8141 from Halsey Field San Diego to Moffett. Halsey is NAS North Island, so it was flight from one government airport to another, but still seems a bit unusual for it be a commercial flight.

Giant Eye

A Florida man was taking a stroll on a beach when he stumbled across something out of the ordinary: a giant blue eyeball, just sitting there in the sand.

Slate reports that a giant eyeball washed ashore in Florida, and that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission needed help identifying it. Early money was on that it was the eye of a swordfish due to its color and the bones around the ball, and genetic testing confirmed the hypothesis. As for how the eye came to be disembodied / disarticulated, that’s a bit harder to figure out. The leading theory on that front is that it was tossed overboard from a fisherman.

Continue reading →

Hanger One Still On the Chopping Block

NASA’s inspector general is still gunning for Hanger One. Essentially, the IG and NASA HQ are upset with Ames Research Center’s leasing of property to private groups such as Singularity University, Airship Ventures, and the Google Triumvirate, and insist that future leases correspond to “current or future mission[s]”, and to sell any properties that can’t be leased. I believe the IG is referring in particular to the airfield itself.

Not having any particular knowledge beyond what I find in the local papers, but that seems a bit strange. I thought NASA Ames was one of the centers that was researching heavy lift airships for cargo transport to remote areas, and that Hanger One was intended to be used for these airships.

Same As It Ever Was

1981

As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. […] You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

– Lee Atwater, former Republican strategist and national chairman

2012

I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine. Let’s be fair and reasonable.

– Doug Preisse, chairman of the Franklin county or Ohio Republican Party

The voter suppression tactics to disenfranchise minorities and the elderly across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida is just so goddamn transparent it’s not even funny.

Zoe “Pablo” Smith Takes on the Internet

British olympian Zoe “Pablo” Smith takes on the Internet:

As Hannah pointed out earlier, we don’t lift weights in order to look hot, especially for the likes of men like that. What makes them think that we even WANT them to find us attractive? If you do, thanks very much, we’re flattered. But if you don’t, why do you really need to voice this opinion in the first place, and what makes you think we actually give a toss that you, personally, do not find us attractive? What do you want us to do? Shall we stop weightlifting, amend our diet in order to completely get rid of our ‘manly’ muscles, and become housewives in the sheer hope that one day you will look more favourably upon us and we might actually have a shot with you?! Cause you are clearly the kindest, most attractive type of man to grace the earth with your presence.

No Really. We suck.


From CNN:

Eight female badminton players were disqualified from the Olympics on Wednesday for trying to lose matches the day before, the Badminton World Federation announced after a disciplinary hearing.

The players from China, South Korea and Indonesia were accused of playing to lose in order to face easier opponents in future matches, drawing boos from spectators and warnings from match officials Tuesday night.

All four pairs of players were charged with not doing their best to win a match and abusing or demeaning the sport.

The Indonesian and South Korean pairs appealed the decision, the BWF said, and a decision on their appeals is expected later Wednesday.

According to reports, the players were intentionally hitting the shuttlecock into the net.

South Korea’s a appeal was rejected, and Indonesia later withdrew theirs.

Competitively Priced With Ketchup

In the new book, Marijuana Legalization What Everyone Needs to Know – operations research(!) and public policy professors from CMU, Pepperdine, and UCLA – attempt to determine what the price of marijuana if production was legalized. Using Canada’s industrial hemp industry as a guide, they estimate a price of about $5 per pound for mid-grade ganja, and a price of about $20 for good stuff. That’s 800 joints for a quarter. (But then again, who smokes joints when you can smoke a bowl?) As Matt Yglesias points out, this puts in the ketchup and sugar packet territory.

Of course, I don’t believe that the price would ever actually go that low. First, cannabis would taxed quite aggressively. Sin taxes and all that. Also there’s such a huge disconnect between the potential $3 per ounce price and the $300 per ounce price that consumers are conditioned to expect. While prices will no doubt fall, I wonder to what the profit margin would end up being? 10x? 50x?