jenk | Entries tagged with trivia

...where "stupidity" equals "screw-ups in plan execution"

FBI Wiretaps have been disconnected due to unpaid bills.

Wisconsin included social security numbers on mailing labels.

System change-over problems prevented toll system from sending notices or fines out for 13 months....so $179.50 in unpaid tolls becomes $4,619 before the car owner is notified.

Dollar bills get stuck in the SLUT.

Current Mood: cynical

I think I remember being almost this scared in high school. We've seen before how Branch is not the most socialized creature on the planet, but hey, if Karla could stop being weird, there's hope for Branch too, right?

Gagh. Generally I identify with Karla now, but there are days....

On a related note, Home On The Strange is not only a fun webcomic filled with the stuff of my everyday nerdgirl life but the script for each strip is included at the bottom of each page. So I can enjoy seeing how Roni translates the scripts into visuals, and also note the few times that the dialog changes between the script and the finished strip. And in the meantime, the image-impaired can still read the strip if they want. :)

Current Mood: amused

In 2002, Tom R Tyler published an article title Is the Internet Changing Social Life? It Seems the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same in the Journal of Social Issues* From the abstract:

A review of the studies reported in this issue suggests that the Internet may have had less impact on many aspects of social life than is frequently supposed. In many cases, the Internet seems to have created a new way of doing old things, rather than being a technology that changes the manner in which people live their lives. As a consequence, the policy implications of increasing Internet use may be less than is often believed.

Here's an example:

A cute 30-something single from Lincoln, Neb., Minnie began corresponding with George Hoagland, a handsome young doctor from New Jersey [...] The two exchanged notes and photos and seemed to totally click [Turned out George was a white-haired septuagenarian who'd sent her a 40-year-old photo.]

A New Danger of the Internet Age? Not quite.

[T]his little drama took place in 1904, when singles sought each other out through matrimonial ads in newspapers like The Correspondent, The Matrimonial Register, The Wedding Bell, and The Matrimonial Post and Fashionable Marriage Advertiser.
- Seattle P-I.

Scam artists existed before - they just work online now instead of through print. If you're going to rail against the net, why not print?

It is fine to say that parents are responsible for what their children read. But no parent can realistically patrol a child's access to paper. [G]overnment regulation of paper is clearly needed. We look to Congress for a Paper Decency Act, to close the giant loophole left open when [the] Communications Decency Act was limited to electronic media.
- from Slate

All that said, some things have actually changed. For example, single and married women have far more legal rights now than in 1904, at least in 1st world countries - including the rights to own property, start a business, enter into contracts, and otherwise live a full life of their own.

Current Mood: mellow

Pitting science against religion “has never made sense to me. People get their own definitions of God, declare that God made one planet, only, and that everything else revolves around us. They call it a scientific fact,” Madeleine remarks. “Suddenly that gets blown to bits. Now we find we’re a planet that circles around a sun and there are probably many planetary systems, many galaxies. We’ve learned how much we don’t know—but God didn’t get blown to bits, just the original ‘fact’!” she exclaims, her voice showing her passion for the subject.

~ from a Madeleine L'Engle profile in a catholic magazine from June 2000.

Current Mood: good

on Elizabeth II:

The Queen sent her first email in 1976 from an Army base.

In June, 2002, The Queen hosted the first public concerts in the garden of Buckingham Palace to celebrate her Golden Jubilee. The Queen attended both the classical and pop concerts. The 'Party at the Palace' pop concert was one of the most watched pop concerts in history, attracting around 200 million viewers all over the world.

The Queen is the first member of the Royal Family to be awarded a gold disc from the recording industry. 100,000 copies of the CD of the 'Party at the Palace', produced by EMI, were sold within the first week of release.

Source: Buckingham Palace

Current Mood: amused

Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

It is also the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.

Thinking about those two events in light of the current 'civil disorder' in France is ... interesting. Disturbing that this could be another Kristallnatch. Hopeful that it could be more walls coming down.

Excerpts from a true/false quiz by Joyce Brothers:

1. The holiday of Halloween came from a night of sacrifice by the Celts that was named after their lord of the dead, Samhain.
( answer )

3. Stories about razor blades and needles in candy can almost always be traced to hoaxes by the parents or children themselves on Halloween.
( answer )

4. The only documented incident of a child being fatally poisoned by Halloween crime actually involved a parent killing his own child for the insurance money.
( answer )

5. Halloween is a field day for Satanists bent on human sacrifice and witches attempting to turn Christian children away from God.
( answer )

It's a good link to forward to anyone who's spreading "Halloween is all about Satanism"....

Current Mood: tired

I remember sitting at my desk in Washington State History & Geography class. The St Helens eruption wasn't even a year old, so naturally the volcanic ranges were a frequent topic of conversation, and there was lots of gee-whiz talk about "if it had been Rainer", within sight of Seattle, instead of St Helens.

"Rainer wouldn't need to erupt. All it needs is to melt a bit of its glaciers and it'll bury Tacoma in mud." The silence that greeted our teacher's pronouncement was deafening. He'd shut up a room full of 9th graders. Amazing.

I was reminded by this by The Seattle Weekly's coverage of geologists piecing together evidence of a huge lahar that reached Seattle 5000 years ago.

Edit: added link to lahar entry in Wikipedia

Current Mood: interested
Current Music: Bruce Springsteen, "Cadillac Ranch"

Spotted in the WSJ:

Hybrids, Diesel Cars Top List Of Fuel-Efficient Vehicles

Associated Press / October 12, 2005 5:19 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen swept eight of the top 10 fuel-economy rankings for 2006 vehicles in the U.S. Ford Motor Co.'s hybrid SUV was the only American auto maker to crack the top 10.

The manual version of the hybrid Honda Insight tops the list, with 60 miles per gallon in the city and 66 mpg on the highway, and the hybrid Toyota Prius is second with 60 mpg in the city and 51 on the highway, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy said Wednesday.

The Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen vehicles were mostly hybrid electric-gas or diesel-powered. Ford Escape hybrid SUVs, two-wheel and four-wheel drive, round out the list.

The only gas-only vehicle to make the top 10 is the manual Toyota Corolla.

I do know our Prii don't get 60 MPG, but they get better than our gas-only cars did. More info is at http://www.fueleconomy.gov/. In particular they have a nice list of factors that decrease fuel economy. I was surprised that "vigorous driving" reportedly has a bigger affect than AC, but I'd say the biggest "yeah, like THAT's realistic" on the list is "The EPA test assumes vehicles operate on flat ground."

Current Mood: blah

It's amazing the amount of life that can be boiled down into 3 paragraphs.

Regina, 28, blamed a faulty contraceptive Depo-Provera shot from an Army nurse in Iraq for her pregnancy. In Arkansas, she receives the injection in her hip, where it is most effective, but in Iraq she got it in the arm - she remembered by the soreness she felt slinging her rifle. "I was in Iraq 13 months," she said. "I guess I got a little happy when I got home."

She arrived at the [abortion] clinic with a cut on her nose and bruises on her forehead and lip, which she sustained after telling her boyfriend she was pregnant. "He flipped out because he wasn't ready," she said. She had thought, upon learning of the pregnancy, that she "was about to get married," she said. She came in with two fellow sergeants, who wore their uniforms. Her boyfriend was in jail, she said.

"I've done this once and swore I wouldn't do it again," Regina said. "Every woman has second thoughts, especially because I'm Catholic." She went to confession and met with her priest, she added. "The priest didn't hound me. He said, 'People make mistakes.' "

I think it was the dispassionate tone that got me. This is from an article on abortion at 'ground level' in the New York Times: matter-of-fact reporting about women having abortions & clinic workers, interspersed with various statistics. Apparently I'm not quite the anomaly I thought I was: "[abortion rates] are lowest among educated, financially secure women." ( Read more... )

Current Mood: contemplative

You know, full sympathy for those who suffer loss from this inexcusable behaviour, but for the rest of us, lets carry on without the slightest whiff of terror and remind the rest of the world that when this happens to us we neither look snarling for the nearest person to hit, veins a throb in our head, nor rush en masse to the psychiatrist chair.

As has been said elsewhere by better people than me, we`ve told a better class of bastard to fuck off.
[...]
They want Terror. Give them never going to bed on an argument. Give them never letting a kind act left undone. Give them the hateful sight of you remembering to share your love with everyone you care about. Give them your turned back whilst you share the beauty of life with your nearest and dearest in the fullest way possible.

There will be no Terror. There will be no erosion of civil liberties justified by this non existent Terror. For that is the British way, all of us, race or creed be damned and we will simply not allow these things. - from a post by markeris

This may seem a strange response to the carnage in London from one of Britain's own. I disagree. I find it comforting that someone who was as much a target as the rest of the dead can choose to respond instead of blindly reacting. I find it comforting to focus on life and not death, love instead of fear.

Current Mood: ready

The death toll is at 37 now, according to the BBC.

A website claims (a) to represent a group of terrorists that (b) are affliated with al-Qaeda and (c) to have caused the blasts. The related BBC article includes the text of their statement.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was at an interfaith gathering today.

“As it happens I have spent this morning with Muslim colleagues and friends in West Yorkshire; and we were all as one in our condemnation of this evil and in our shared sense of care and compassion for those affected in whatever way.

“Such solidarity and common purpose is vital for us all at this time of pain and sorrow and anger.

“We in the faith communities will have to continue to stand and work together for the well being of our nation and for our shared understanding of the life that God calls us to. I hope that we shall all keep that vision alive at this deeply sad and testing time.”

- from his official statement.

Current Mood: ???

The WSJ has an article on aging and how much of the physical affects of aging are stress-related.

Think about that. Stress will make your body old before its time. Is that another thing to stress about, or what?

Hopefully you can laugh at that, because a positive attitude helps you to cope with stress - which can minimize the damage. Other habits to cultivate include social support, exercise, sleep, keeping informed, and controlling what you can.

In the meantime, I've had a nice nap on the couch, packed up my work bag, and I'm heading out for a walk ;)

( Full article )

Current Mood: refreshed

( Cloning is a different way of thinking about the recycling of life. It's a Buddhist way of thinking. )
( Bad forgeries are found; good ones aren't )
( Health benefits of smoking. )

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Bruce Springsteen, "Ramrod"

"According to Sue Shephard in her book, "Pickled, Potted, and Canned," all the preserving methods found effective in keeping food safe have, at one time or another, been applied to the preservation of human remains. The art of mummification evolved directly from the art of food preservation." - an article on MREs

Current Mood: Well, I *was* hungry...

I just read A Traditional-Archery Enthusiast's Guide to FOTR & Legolas/Orlando Bloom's archery. Wow. Useful info for any Tolkien and/or Green Arrow fan... ;)