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Terminator: How Many Hints Do You Need, People?

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:30:41 -0800

The US Air Force has built MQ-9 'Reapers', an unmapped aerial ‘hunter-killer’ remarkably similar to the killbots in Terminator (not to mention Battlestar Galactica).
The UK is also deploying them, to be controlled by an IT system and matching satellites called—did you guess it?—Skynet (not to be confused with this link). Yes, just like in the movie. We might as well just surrender to them now.

Cow Arrested

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:13:56 -0800

A cow held up the trains of the Culver line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit for several hours, one-hundred-and-two years ago today. The cow was arrested and booked for obstruction of traffic. (New York Times, January 21, 1908).

Haiku Roadsigns

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:31:39 -0800

These haiku roadsigns have suddenly sprouted up all over West Hollywood, the work of artist Rebecca Lowry.

Crayola Crayon Timeline, 1903-2010

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:21:36 -0800

Some guy has actually put together a really cool timeline of Crayola Crayons from 1903 until the present.

To create the chart, Velo gently scraped Wikipedia’s list of Crayola colors, corrected a few hues, and added the standard 16-count School Crayon box available in 1935.
Except for the dayglow-ski-jacket-inspired burst of neon magentas at the end of the ’80s, the official color set has remained remarkably faithful to its roots!
Ever industrious, Velo also calculated the average growth rate: 2.56% annually. For maximum understandability, he reformulated it as “Crayola’s Law,” which states:
The number of colors doubles every 28 years!=

New York State Senator Diane Savino on Marriage

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 16:46:10 -0800

In the wake of New York’s embarrassing refusal to allow everyone to marry, here’s what State Senator Diane Savino (the anti-Palin) had to say (from Jezebel.com).

Out of yesterday's NY state gay marriage setback has emerged a new icon: Sen. Diane Savino, whose brilliant, off-the-cuff speech in favor of same-sex marriage has made her an overnight internet star. Just watch this. (Savino for President 2016!)
Some choice quotes:
"I'm over the age of 40 and that's all you're going to get from me, but I have never been able to maintain a relationship of the length or the quality that Tom and Lewis have."
"Turn on the television. We have a wedding channel on cable TV devoted to the behavior of people on the way to the altar. They spend billions of dollars, behave in the most appalling way, all in an effort to be princess for a day. You don't have cable television? Put on network TV. We're giving away husbands on a game show. You can watch The Bachelor, where thirty desperate women will compete to marry a 40-year-old man who has never been able to maintain a decent relationship in his life."
"That's what we've done to marriage in America, where young women are socialized from the time they're five years old to think of being nothing but a bride. They plan every day what they'll wear, how they'll look, the invitations, the whole bit, they don't spend five minutes thinking about what it means to be a wife. People stand up there before god and man even in Senator Diaz's church, they swear to love honor and obey, they don't mean a word of it. So if there's anything wrong with the sanctity of marriage in America, it comes from those of us who have the privilege and the right and have abused it for decades."