Harold Shipman

Harold Shipman was an Englishman who killed more people than possibly any other serial killer in recorded history: 218 confirmed victims, although that number is probably more than 250. How'd he do it? He was a doctor who ended his patients' lives with lethal injections. Most of them were elderly women; in fact, his youngest victim was a 41 year-old man.

No one knows for sure why Shipman did what he did, although there might be a confusing reason as to why, involving his wife and the National Health Service.

"MDMA got you feeling like a champion"

Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, is the chemical name for ecstasy.

Skip to 3:15.

In the next line, Jay-Z says: "The city never sleeps, better slip you an Ambien." Ambien is a drug used to treat insomnia. Now it all makes sense to me what the hell he was saying.

Are bars of soap self-cleaning?

No, but it might not matter anyway.

Tuesday Night Football

Since the blizzard in Philly canceled Sunday's game pitting the Eagles and Vikings, the league moved it to today. On a Tuesday. The last time an NFL game was played on a Tuesday was October 1, 1946.

Thundersnow

It's thunder, lightning, and... snow.

Press Complaints Commission

The Press Complaints Commission is a self-regulatory body for British magazines and newspapers (and their websites). The members of this commission include representatives of the major publishers. Because of its self-regulatory nature, taxpayers do not fund the PCC; its revenue comes from the annual levy it charges newspapers and magazines. However, it has no legal powers. The commission focuses mostly on the accuracy of reports, as well as invasion of privacy by the press. There is no parallel to the PCC in the United States.

Website
BBC report on the 10-year anniversary of the PCC

History of mistletoe and kissing

In the first century AD, the Druids believed that "mistletoe, taken in drink, will impart fecundity to all animals that are barren." But it wasn't until the 18th or 19th centuries that the British incorporated mistletoe for their Christmas celebrations. Washington Irving and Charles Dickens wrote stories in which men kissed young and pretty women under the mistletoe.

Why is Facebook blue and white?

Because Mark Zuckerberg can't see red or green.

Tokyo Tower

During the postwar boom of the 1950s, Japan searched for a monument that represented its rise to a global economic force. They built the Tokyo Tower, which was inspired by the architecture of the Eiffel Tower. It opened on this day in 1958.

Denisovans

The Denisovans are the new human group that scientists have discovered. They are a Neanderthal sister group, living in the same time period and inhabiting eastern Eurasia. (Neanderthals ruled western Eurasia.) The big thing about Denisovans: they most likely mated with modern humans, and perhaps even mated with Neanderthals.

Which other countries have the right to bear arms?

Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala.

Caliginous

Caliginous is an archaic term that means "misty; dim; dark."

Origin of Fig Newton

Fig Newtons were named after the town of Newton, MA.

Indian burn

Yeah, I think I may have had one or two of these in school. It's when you grab someone's forearm with both hands and twist both hands in opposite directions.

Schrodinger's cat

I've been really getting into The Big Bang Theory lately. I can't explain Schrodinger's cat any better than Sheldon.

Click here for more information.

Miscarriage statistics

15%-20% of pregnancies result in miscarriage.
74% of women say that the miscarriage was "partly their fault."
22% said they would hide a miscarriage from their spouse.

Skip to 8:55.

Bobby soxer

A bobby soxer was a teenage girl in the 1940s, usually a fan of Frank Sinatra. (Sinatra is considered the first teen idol.) By the 1950s, high schoolers often used their basketball gyms as dance floors, and girls were required to remove their shoes and dance in their bobby socks.

How to spot a conspiracy theory

A good summary of how to discredit a conspiracy theory.

Thomas Nast

Thomas Nast is known as the "Father of the American Cartoon." He worked for Harper's Weekly, and created the modern version of Santa Claus, the Democratic Party donkey and the Republican Party elephant, and the Tammany Hall tiger. Read what he did to Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall in the early 1870s.

Oakland Señors

The Oakland Raiders were initially known as the Oakland Señors. The Oakland Tribune held a "name the team" contest, and Señors won. After being made fun of and being accused that the results were fixed, the organization changed its name to the Raiders, which placed third in the contest.

Pearl snap shirts

This is what a pearl snap is. I guess it has two pockets in the front.

Honey trap

A honey trap is a woman planted by the government in order to seduce a sexual molester. Defenders of Julian Assange claim that a honey trap got him.

Pinckney Pinchback

Pinckney Pinchback was the first black governor of a U.S. state (Louisiana). Actually, he was the first non-white governor. He took office on this day in 1872, after the incumbent governor, Henry Clay Warmoth, was forced to step aside because of impeachment charges. After the charges on Warmoth were dropped, Pinchback stepped aside on January 13, 1873 (35 days).

Guyliner

It's eyeliner...for dudes. Rock stars wear it and shit. So does Johnny Depp.

whoever this guy is

Tiger stripes

National Geographic is celebrating Big Cat Week this week (still not as badass as Discovery's Shark Week). Did you know that no two tigers can have the same pattern of stripes?

"When I get sad...

...I stop being sad and be awesome instead."

Somehow people love stupid shit like this. I found this quote floating around a couple of my friends' Facebook profiles so I decided to look it up. It's from some show called How I Met Your Mother, or something.

I don't understand how a quote can be so great when it received almost no laughter from the audience.

Winnow

Winnow means "to separate or distinguish (valuable from worthless parts)."

Cartoon characters for your Facebook profile picture

I'm pretty new to Facebook (2 months), so I'm not privy to the hip memes that happen every so often. I noticed that one of my friends changed his profile picture to a scene in Tom and Jerry. Badass cartoon, but dumb choice for a profile pic. Call me old school, or lame, but I believe everyone has a right to know what the hell you look like on a social networking website like Facebook. My pic is the best.

I commented on his pic that it was a dumb choice. He must have agreed, or something, because the next day he took it down and replaced it with a normal image of himself. But then I noticed everyone doing the cartoon thing. Turns out that I made my friend go against the grain, because last week Facebook users listened to the meme gods and did the cartoon thing. Something about stopping child abuse, or something.

If I have the power to make one person disobey the meme gods, imagine what else I can do....

Krampus

Krampus is a mythical creature who accompanies St. Nicholas during Christmas, warning and punishing bad children. He is popular in some European countries, especially Austria and Hungary.

This is from The Colbert Report, dated December 9, 2009.

You can put symbols in a URL

Apparently.

Our Lady of the Angels School fire

The Our Lady of the Angels School fire (elementary school in Chicago, IL) happened on this day in 1958. Shortly before students were dismissed for the day, a fire broke out at the foot of a stairway, eventually killing 92 students and 3 nuns. This tragedy generated sweeping school fire safety regulations.

No one has been prosecuted for it, but it's suspected that a fifth grader, who had been excused to go to the restroom at around the same time, set the fire. He confessed to the police in 1962 but later recanted.

The day produced this photograph, published in Life magazine, of a boy named John Jajkowski, Jr. being carried out by a firefighter. John, like most of the victims, died from suffocation of the black and oily smoke.

Pollyanna principle

The Pollyanna principle "describes the tendency for people to agree with positive statements describing themselves." Basically, we subconsciously focus on the positive, while consciously we look at the negative. The term refers to a young girl named Pollyanna in a 1913 novel of the same name, who displayed a limitless amount of optimism.

This concept is similar to the Barnum effect.

Great Migration

The Great Migration lasted from 1910 to 1930, when 2 million black Americans migrated from the south to the northeast, midwest, and west in search of jobs and an escape from discrimination. Another period, the Second Great Migration, stretched from 1940 to 1970 and involved 5 million blacks. As a result of both movements, 80% of black people resided in the cities.

But there has been another migration called the New Great Migration, which began around 1965, in which black people have been moving back south. This is because of improved racial relations and the de-industrialization of the northeast and midwest.

Why do birds have wattles?

To dissipate heat. Plus, it's an ego thing for the male birds.

Why do we eat turkey for the holidays?

Basically, Americans found them easy to slaughter and big enough to feed crowd, at a relatively cheap price. We also brought the custom of eating turkey from Britain. It wasn't until 1863 that Thanksgiving was officially declared a national holiday.

Our fellow... subjects?

From the Library of Congress:

Recent hyperspectral imaging of Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence has clearly confirmed past speculation that Jefferson made an interesting word correction during his writing of the document, according to scientists in the Library of Congress’ Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD). Jefferson originally had written the phrase "our fellow-subjects." But he apparently changed his mind. Over the word “subjects” he inked an alternative, the word "citizens."

The correction seems to illuminate an important moment for Jefferson and for a nation on the eve of breaking from monarchical rule: a moment when he reconsidered his choice of words and articulated the recognition that the people of the fledgling United States of America were no longer subjects of any nation, but citizens of an emerging democracy.

This was discovered this past July.

Small Business Saturday

The first ever Small Business Saturday will be held this Saturday. It's a day to support your local small businesses, a day after you give most of your money away to the big businesses.

Paradise tree snake

Did you even know these things existed? They fucking glide in the air!

"

Thatcher effect

The Thatcher effect is "a phenomenon where it becomes difficult to detect local feature changes in an upside down face, despite identical changes being obvious in an upright face."

Daniella Tobar

In January 2000, a 21 year-old Chilean actress by the name of Daniella Tobar decided to prove an artistic point, or something, and live in a 20 ft. by 7 ft. glass house right in the middle of Santiago. The best moments were when she stood naked in the shower.

Video.

"Pet peeve" origin

The first usage of the term pet peeve was around 1919. The word peeve is a back-formation of the word peevish, which means "ill-tempered." Pet, in this case, means "favorite" (as in a teacher's pet).

Armoire

An armoire is a standing closet used for storing clothes.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

What exactly is that? I've been hearing it a lot the past several days, sort of like a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. HHGTTG is a science fiction comedy series from England that originally came out on radio in 1978. It later got adapted to books, TV, computer games, comic books, and the big screen.

King George VI

King George VI of the United Kingdom, who reigned during WWII, suffered from a speech impediment for which he began seeing a speech therapist in 1925 (when he was Duke of York, before ascending to the throne). In 1939, at the start of the war, he made a speech to the British people. Despite some pauses he managed to finish it without stuttering.

The relationship between the king and his speech therapist is being brought to life in the new movie The King's Speech.

Ex gratia

Ex gratia means "as a favor or gesture of goodwill, rather than from any legal requirement."

How do people in wheelchairs take showers?

With shower wheelchairs.

What's a pick 6?

This is pretty embarrassing for me to admit because I've been watching football my whole life. A pick 6 is an interception returned for a touchdown.

But what's not embarrassing is Dimitri Patterson's pick 6 in tonight's Monday Night Football game. As well as the general ass whooping that Philly put on Washington.

Project Titan?

Why didn't I hear about this earlier? Maybe because I just recently joined Facebook. Facebook is coming out with this thing called Project Titan, which is supposed to kill Gmail, because Facebook will give us a personal @facebook.com email address. Will this be the beginning of the end of traditional email?

Firefoxes are actual animals

They're also known as the red panda. They're found mostly in the Himalayan region, and the species is classified as vulnerable in its conservation status.

See more pictures here.

What the hell's a forensic musicologist?

Someone who listens to music really, really closely.

Leonardo da Vinci syndrome

"When a highly creative person gets new ideas and visions faster than they can implement them, or even possibly fully record/describe them, leading to a state where someone is constantly starting new projects without finishing the old ones."

Kwanzaa

I always thought that Kwanzaa was an old African holiday celebrated by Africans. Nope. Turns out that it was invented in the 1960s by an American black nationalist.

Overwhelming exception

An overwhelming exception is a "generalization that is accurate, but comes with one or more qualifications that eliminate so many cases that what remains is much less impressive than the initial statement might have led one to assume."

Here are some examples:

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
- From Monty Python's Life of Brian

"Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"
- What an idiot would ask Mrs. Lincoln after her husband gets assassinated in the theater

Mocap suit

A mocap suit is a suit used for motion capture (hence, the name). It's those things you see actors wear on TV for video games and stuff.

Blue Book value for cars

It's what car insurance companies refer to when someone gets involved in an accident, as I did today when the woman admitted that it was her fault for ramming into me. The cop said the cost of damage to my car will probably exceed the vehicle's price, which means the insurance company will just pay me the few thousand dollars the car's worth. There are a couple of companies that give blue book estimates, but the one I've been researching is Kelley Blue Book.

Stressed...

...is desserts spelled backwards. Heard it on a Sonic Drive-In radio commercial.

Buttle

Buttle means "to do a butler's work."

Gojira

The word Gojira is the Man'yogana version of the word Godzilla (Man'yogana is an ancient writing system that employs Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language). It's a combination of gorira, which means "gorilla," and kujira, which means "whale."

Doc Powers

In 1909, Doc Powers was the first major league baseball player to die as a result of an on-field injury. (The only other one was Ray Chapman in 1920.) On April 12, Powers chased a foul pop-up and crashed into the wall. He had to get three intestinal surgeries to try to repair the internal injuries, but died of complications two weeks after the game.

Johnny Campbell

On this day in 1898, Johnny Campbell became the world's first cheerleader. He was a student at the University of Minnesota, and directed a crowd by cheering "Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-u-mah, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!" Actually, cheerleading started as an all guys thing. Females didn't start taking part until 1923, when the fellas were being drafted for war.

Comminate

Comminate means "to threaten with divine punishment; to curse."

Mange

Mange is a skin disease caused by parasitic mites, most often found in canines. It leads to fur loss and can cause the animal's skin to shrivel. Coyotes with mange are the most likely explanation to the chupacabra fallacy.

GTL

I've been watching Jersey Shore a lot lately. I never thought I'd come to this, but the Jersey Shore episode of South Park inspired me to watch the whole first season (and will finish watching the second season soon).

And what did I learn? GTL. It stands for gym, tan, laundry. Every fucking day.

Pale Blue Dot

In 1990, the spacecraft Voyager 1 took a picture of our planet from a record distance of 3.7 million miles. This picture became to be known as the Pale Blue Dot.

In his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Carl Sagan makes us take a step back and realize that we are virtually nothing in the universe. Here is a famous passage:

Ipecac

Ipecac is a syrup derived from a Brazilian plant that is commonly used to induce vomiting. Too much use might damage the heart and lead to death.

Have we exhausted any natural resources?

Kinda, but not totally.

Double standards

Chris Rock talks about two double standards that I hadn't thought about before:

Shared psychotic disorder

It's when one crazy person can make other people crazy just by being crazy.

The medium is the message

The term The medium is the message basically means that people are more interested in a product itself than what it does. For example, one might want the latest gadget just because it's the newest thing out there, instead of using it for its features.

MILF

The term MILF first appeared around 1995 on the internet, then was popularized in the movie American Pie.

How loud can a cicada get?

As loud as a rock concert--120 decibels.

Flipping YouTube videos to avoid copyright infringement

You can flip a copyrighted video--mirror it horizontally--and post it on YouTube without fear of it getting taken down (although there's no absolute guarantee that someone out there won't). YouTube has some kind of loophole in their terms or something that doesn't include flipped videos.

Johnny Bright Incident

The Johnny Bright Incident took place on this day in 1951 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Two college football players were involved: the white player Wilbanks Smith of Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State), and the black player Johnny Bright of Drake University. Long story short: The white guy, at the behest of one of his coaches, beats up the black guy for no reason other than race. Smith ends up breaking Bright's jaw.

Two Des Moines Register photographers captured a sequence of six pictures showing the incident. The sequence won the photographers the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, then made the cover of Life Magazine.

Ezail

Allen Iverson's (of Philadelphia 76ers fame) middle name is Ezail.

Amalia Rodrigues

Amalia Rodrigues was a Portuguese singer in the 1950s to '70s who was part of the genre known as fado (the Portuguese blues). In fact, you could say that she was the ambassador of fado; she became its most influential international star, earning the nickname "Rainha de Fado" (Queen of Fado).

Rain check

A rain check is "an offered or requested postponement of an invitation until a more convenient, usually unspecified time."

Teach Me How to Dougie

Apparently it's some dance. Or something. It started in Texas. Or something.

Flauta

A flauta is basically a taquito made with a flour tortilla. Had this today, deep fried.

Roundhay Garden Scene

Roundhay Garden Scene is the oldest surviving motion picture. It was released on this day in 1888, was shot at 12 frames per second, and is literally two seconds long. Yep, two seconds.

Carlos the Jackal

Before Osama bin Laden, Carlos the Jackal (real name: Illich Ramirez Sanchez) was the world's most famous terrorist. In 1970 he joined the leftist Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and in 1975 he took over the OPEC headquarters in Vienna and seized 11 hostages. He was convicted in 1997 and is still sitting in prison.

Now they're making a 5 and a half hour movie about him.

The Most Interesting (Ly)Man in the World

The guy who narrates the PBS Frontline episodes, Will Lyman, also narrates the Dos Equis series of commercials, The Most Interesting Man in the World (not the actual man himself, just the voice).

Dashes, and Parentheses, and Commas, Oh My!

A guide of when to use each in your writing.

Rod of Asclepius

The Rod of Asclepius is the name of the medical symbol, with the snake on the staff. It's associated with the ancient Greek god Asclepius, who was the god of medicine and healing.

Difference between "further" and "farther"

Rule of thumb: use farther when talking about physical distance, and use further when talking about a metaphorical distance.

Ramiro!

Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo's middle name is Ramiro.

Duke

Duke is the name of the Java mascot.

Earlobe stretching

Why the fuck are people doing this nowadays? At least I've seen it only recently. They stretch their earlobes to fit some retarded version of an earring. A plug or something. Here's a guy doing it:

You know who stretches their ears? These people:

Pretty soon we'll be doing this...

...and this:

Home wrecker

A home wrecker is a jealous female who tries to break up her admirer's relationship.

Togo's fake soccer teams

Apparently, some guys in the West African country of Togo love secretly sending out a fake soccer team to play against other national teams. And "Togo" gets its ass kicked badly. And the conspirators love getting caught.

Thomas Fuller

Thomas Fuller was a Virginian slave who was a mathematical genius. He did calculations in his head that often took him less time than most people with a pencil and paper. His case was used as an example by the abolitionists that blacks were not intellectually inferior to whites. Others remarked that he was nothing more than a savant.

Alligator-on-a-stick...

...is actually pretty damn good. Had it today at the State Fair of Texas, where Oklahoma kicked the shit out of the Longhorns.

LA Times bombing

The bombing of the Los Angeles Times building happened on this day in 1910. Two brothers who were union members--John J. and James B. McNamara--were mad at the newspaper for publishing anti-union editorials, so they, uh, bombed the building. James B. admitted to setting the explosive and was sentenced to life in prison. John J. was sentenced to 15 years for bombing something else, then returned as a union organizer.

The bombing left 21 newspaper employees dead and 100 injured.

How to calculate QB passer rating

There are actually two methods: one for the NFL and one for the NCAA. The college one is even more irrational and confusing, but what do you expect from a league that refuses to adopt a playoff system, like every other normal sport on earth?

The passer rating was started by three NFL guys in the 1970s.

How successful was Jimmy Carter?

60 Minutes recently had an interview with Jimmy Carter, who is regarded by many, particularly conservatives, as one of the most unsuccessful presidents in history. But did you know that he "normalized relations with China; brokered a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt [I already knew that]; [and] deregulated railroads, trucking, airlines, and telephones"? And his "energy conservation programs resulted in a 50% cut in imported oil, down to just 4.3 million barrels a day." (He actually installed solar panels on the roof of the White House, which Ronald Reagan later removed.) Carter had more of his programs passed than Reagan, Nixon, Ford, Clinton, and both Bushes.

So why, then, do people generally think his presidency was a failure? See what he says in the interview:

Renting vs. buying

On the NewsHour today, a guy named Jack Hough laid out why it's dumb to give tax credits to new homebuyers, and why it would be better in general to rent as opposed to buying. This point, especially, really stuck with me:

If the three of us decided to go in together on a real estate investment and I said, gentlemen, I have a plan, we will build a 3,000-square-foot house that will fit only one family, you would say to me, that's not a very good plan. We should build a building where we can maximize the amount of rent that flows through it, and have people with just as much living space as they need.

The single-family house in America is almost a poor investment by design. Go back 30 years, and you had houses that were 1,700 square feet. Today, they have come down over the past year a little bit, but they're still 2,400 square feet, even though the size of the average American family has gotten smaller over that time.

Watch the whole damn video:

Stewardesses...

...is the longest word you can type on a keyboard with your left hand.

Kevin Kolb

Kevin Kolb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, "became the first quarterback in NFL history to pass for 300 yards in each of his first two career starts." Doesn't matter now since Michael Vick seems to be doing very well.

I'm a huge Eagles fan, by the way. And I live in Dallas.

George Washington invented coffee

Not that George Washington. This one was a Belgian who was living in Guatemala at the time he invented the first mass-produced instant coffee in 1906. It helped WWI soldiers kill enemies better.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

The Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is an actual cemetery. It was called Tarrytown Cemetery at first, but after Washington Irving died it was named after the poet's most notable work. The cemetery, which is located in Sleepy Hollow, NY (also a real place, located just a short drive north of NYC, and also originally called North Tarrytown until 1996), houses the dead bodies of Irving, Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, and William Rockefeller, among many other important people.

Colorado is the least obese state

Yep, at least for this year. It's probably because of their outdoors lifestyle. For some reason a lot of people I know, almost all of whom have no connection to each other, all vacationed there this past summer and hiked the mountains. One person said it's the perfect time to be there, I guess because of the low off-season lodging rates.

New horned dinosaurs

Dino diggers have found two new species of dinosaurs, both living in modern-day Utah, and both having horns on their heads. They are related to the famed triceratops. One species, Kosmoceratops richardsoni, had 15 horns on his head, the most pimped out dino head ever found. The other, Utahceratops gettyi, had a huge head with a huge horn on its nose.

Kosmoceratops

Hindu milk miracle

The Hindu milk miracle occurred on this day in 1995. A Hindu at a temple was randomly offering milk to a statue of Ganesha, which Ganesha, though having the obvious disability of being inanimate, accepts kindly by drinking from the spoon. Mass Hindu hysteria ensues across the globe. Of course, the "miracle" can be explained rationally, but you can't tell religious people that.

Amazon.com's $300 million version of the Easy Button

About a decade ago, this was Amazon's form:
Fields: Email address, Password
Buttons: Log in, Register
Link: Forgot password?

Simple, right? The article's too good to summarize, but read on to discover how Amazon changed the layout with an extremely easy but extremely useful fix: creating a checkout button and letting users buy stuff without having to create an account. This is what happened afterward:

The number of customers purchasing went up by 45%. The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million the first month. For the first year, the site saw an additional $300,000,000.

A Staples thing, but it can also apply here.

Bryn Mawr

Although it might sound like a person's name, Bryn Mawr is actually Welsh for "big hill." It's the name of several cities, colleges, and streets across the country.

Yuto Miyazawa

Yuto Miyazawa is in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world's youngest guitar player at 8 years old.

Vortex

A vortex is a spinning and often turbulent flow of fluid.

Wall Street bombing

The Wall Street bombing happened on this day in 1920. A horse drawn cart loaded with 100 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of cast-iron slugs exploded on the corner of Wall and Broad, right across from the J.P. Morgan headquarters. Thirty-nine people died, most of whom worked in the financial institutions. The attackers were never found, but a note found after the act suggested anarchists:

Remember. We will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be death for all of you. American Anarchist Fighters!

The political prisoners were two anarchists who had been arrested several days before for murder.

Crown Prince Dipendra

Dipendra was the prince of Nepal until he snapped in June 2001. Because his parents opposed his marriage to a girl of lesser status, he decided to kill his parents, brother, and six other relatives before killing himself.

I'm an alternating exotrope

I went to the eye doctor today, mainly to get a pair of really dorky-looking glasses, kinda like the one I saw Jay-Z wearing on Jonathan Ross.

This looks awesome.

But then they talked me into getting an eye exam. I said ok, just to make sure, since I hadn't gotten an exam in about 6 years. It was then that the doctor broke the news of my debilitating (not really) condition: exotropia, where the eyes divert outward.

Not only that, but both my eyes want to relax by diverting outward. It's when I try to focus on something that one of them actually comes into place, but usually not the other one, hence the alternation. So basically I have two part-time lazy eyes. Bastards. I guess I knew something about this before today but I didn't give it much thought. When I read something I find myself having to realign one of my eyes every few minutes.

Mosquito ringtone

The Mosquito is an electronic device that you can set at different levels of frequency. In Europe it's used as a way of getting misbehaving teens off your property, but here most people like to put it on their cell phones. We did this in class today and the pain of the high frequencies was damn near unbearable.

Beelzebub

What the hell's a Beelzebub? I had seen the word a few times, probably as I was reading Lord of the Flies in high school. That's because a Beelzebub is an ancient Semitic deity whose name literally means "lord of the flies" in Hebrew and Arabic.

Real meaning of "beg to differ"

Yesterday I learned the real meaning of "begging the question." There's another phrase where you do the begging, and that is when you want to differ.

But I had a hard time trying to find out the real meaning and origin of the phrase, and went back to the site where I looked up the meaning of "beg the question." This was one the paragraphs:

This usage is understandable and has presumably come about by interpreting the 'beg' of 'beg the question' as 'request' or 'humbly submit'. This is the meaning of the word in the similar phrase 'beg to differ'.

I didn't know what that meant at first, but I quickly realized, through some googling, that it literally means what we think it does. To beg to differ means to politely disagree with someone.

Real meaning of "beg the question"

Normally, when people say the phrase "beg the question," they mean that the issue they're talking about raises an interesting question. So one might say this: "The fact that Brett Favre is still playing begs the question: When the hell will he retire?"

But this is not technically how to use the phrase, although most linguistic purists have all but given up trying to pound it into the heads of the great unwashed (because there are too many of them). To beg the question is actually to "assume the truth that one is attempting to prove." This is quite common in circular reasoning. So a correct example of begging the question might be:

Bill: "God must exist."
Jill: "How do you know?"
Bill: "Because the Bible says so."
Jill: "Why should I believe the Bible?"
Bill: "Because the Bible was written by God."

Google Scribe

Google Scribe is one of Google's newest toys. It's a word processor that feels it should help you out by autocompleting every fucking word and sentence you type. It's really annoying. Their other new thing, the Google Instant search, is based on the same concept, but that one's actually pretty cool. The difference is, you type in a search query for 3 seconds and you're done, as opposed to seeing an endless amount of drop-down lists on your page when you might be trying to get something important done. Good thing they didn't pollute Google Docs with this garbage.

But wait. They already have Google Docs, which can do a lot more than just a simple word processor like Scribe. So what's the point of Scribe? Is it just to waste time typing in random movie quotes and seeing if the system has it? I'm confused.

I'm a programmer, and this reminds me too much of the autocomplete function on integrated development environments (IDEs) like Eclipse and NetBeans. Most other programmers would laugh at me, but I refuse to use an IDE simply because of that. I don't want the fucking thing telling me what I might be thinking of doing. Just give me a good ol' fashioned text editor and I'll type away unmolested.

Wheelie bin

I guess the term wheelie bin is the British version of a garbage bin. They have other interesting and stupid terms for things.

Convergent evolution

Convergent evolution happens when two different species find similar solutions to the same problem. For example, even though bats and birds are not closely related, both evolved wings to adapt to their environments. Neither knew what the other was doing, but both parties ended up with a similar answer.

This is how fast rabbits mate

Finagle

Finagle means "to get or achieve (something) by guile, trickery, or manipulation."

Carrying stuff on your head

You know how in a lot of eastern countries, the women carry things on their heads? What are the pros and cons of that practice?

Pros
* You can carry about 20% of your body weight on your head and expend as much energy as you would by just walking around with nothing to carry.
* And that's about the only pro.

Cons
* It only works for people who have been practicing for years. For the rest of us, carrying groceries on your head requires more energy than using a backpack.
* A permanently disfigured skull.
* Neck pain.
* A funny gait that's much less efficient than regular walking.

Main point: get a cart/backpack/bag/car and put stuff in it.

Call the shots

The phrase "call the shots" originates from target shooting, where the shooter announces where their next shot will hit. It also comes from billiards, where the player calls the hole in which they'll sink the next ball.

I always thought it came from basketball.

Netanyahu's educational background

Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister of Israel, lived in a suburb of Philly for six years, where he graduated from high school. He then attended MIT and got a B.S. in architecture and a master's in the MIT Sloan School of Management. Later, he studied political science at Harvard and MIT.

Original source from The New York Times: Israeli Peace Effort Rests on Netanyahu

Alcohol and health effects

There seems to be a lot of confusing debate as to whether alcohol is good for your health, but a new study gives more support to the idea that moderation is key. After controlling for a wide variety of potential confounds, the researchers discovered that people who don't currently drink tend to die quicker, even earlier than heavy drinkers. The moderates--those who consume about two drinks a day--seem to live the longest.

Most researchers also agree that regular drinking is good for HDL, which is the good cholesterol.

Chinese culture and language

You. Must. Read. This. It's about how in the Chinese language the same word can mean lots of different things, but the way you say it is what matters. You should also listen to the part where the person is trying to order takeout from a Taco Bell.

Social cognitive career theory

I have to write a research paper with this concept in it. It's really difficult to find anything about it online. But I did find this YouTube video. I'm sure my professor will readily accept this citation in my works cited page.

Lethologica

Lethologica is a psychological disorder in which the person, while conversing, is unable to articulate because s/he forgets key phrases or words, which makes him/her appear either slow or look like a deep-thinking intellectual. I think I might have a minor form of this disorder. I get on a roll for a little bit but then forget the word or phrase I had stored in my mind. Also, Charlie Rose. That guy definitely has it.

Left side, strong side

Apparently, the wallet is supposed to be on the left-hand side. And I've always put it on my right. And will continue to do so.

Karakoram Highway

The Karakoram Highway is the highest paved international road in the world, at 15,397 feet above sea level. It runs through some mountains and connects China and Pakistan. The Chinese and Pakistani governments struck a deal to build the highway, and in 1986 it was open for business, after two decades of work. A lot of that has been damaged, however, due to the recent floods in Pakistan. Now it may be "impassable" for many years to come.

Lakeview gusher

In March 1910, an oil well in the town of Lakeview, CA, 110 miles north of Los Angeles, spewed oil for 18 months, resulting in a spill of 378 million gallons. About 40% of it was captured. The incident left no human casualties, however, and environmental damage was limited. It is regarded as the largest oil spill in history (along with the Gulf War oil spill, which was intentional), and one of the greatest oil spills you've never heard of.

Damn with faint praise

To damn someone with faint praise is to offer a half-hearted compliment, to the point where you're actually disparaging them because the "praise" is too light to be considered praise at all. The concept can be found in the work of a hermaphrodite philosopher (seriously), who noticed that giving people backhanded compliments was actually more effective than outright criticism.

So an example could be:

Being both a male and female is actually an advantage, because you would be well-versed in the attitudes and behaviors of both sexes. Then you wouldn't have to read Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

Chinese room

I saw this in class today. One of the strangest videos I've ever watched.

You only need to go to 1:11 for the second video.

Louis Wain

Louis Wain was a late 19th and early 20th century painter, best known for his work in which he anthropomorphized cats. In his later years, however, he suffered from schizophrenia, which can be seen in the evolution of his paintings.

Apologize, again

Last week I saw for the first time OneRepublic's video "Apologize." Turns out that that video, which doesn't show any of the band members' faces, is a later version. The first version that was released is this one. I think I like this one better.

I'm sure I'll find out something else next week.

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Venezuela's official name is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. When Hugo Chavez became president he changed the country's name, because of his tendency to compare himself to Simon Bolivar.

YMMV

YMMV is an internet acronym for "your mileage may vary," which originates from the automobile disclaimers. Online, the phrase means that your results may vary.

Irenic

Irenic means "promoting peace or conciliation."

Difference between stepsiblings and half siblings

Half siblings share one parent biologically. Stepsiblings don't share a biological parent.

Xmas

The X in Xmas represents the Greek letter chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ (Christos). The word Christmas has been abbreviated for at least a thousand years. And I thought Xmas was a secular thing.

Is China really communist?

Now that China has passed Japan as the world's second largest economy, I was wondering how they run their economy. That and the fact that I haven't checked my Google Reader in a while.

Aconcagua

Aconcagua is the highest mountain outside of Asia. It sits at the border between Argentina and Chile, and soars 22,841 feet above sea level.

All about BlackBerrys and water damage

I dropped my newly-acquired BlackBerry in a pool today. Actually, that's an understatement. I swam with it in my pocket for several minutes. Needless to say, I freaked out. A friend told me to take the battery out and we dropped it in a bowl of rubbing alcohol. I had no idea if what we were doing was right, but it turns out it was. Then at night I googled it and discovered this video, which is the most thorough explanation and step-by-step process I could find.

I didn't disassemble the damn thing. Too lazy. And I also don't have rice to put it in. But hopefully in a couple days it will start working again (that's a big hopefully).

Note: I went ahead and put the thing in a container of rice the next morning. And now it works! The screen is kinda water damaged, though, but the water does slowly dissipate somehow. Note that this technique doesn't just work on BlackBerrys.

Apologize

I'm not much of a music person. I recently heard of this song called "Apologize," which actually sounds pretty good. Today I discovered it has a video. I thought it was artsy.

Postville Raid

The Postville Raid was a raid at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, IA on May 12, 2008, in which federal authorities arrested almost 400 illegal immigrants. In June 2010, the plant's CEO, Sholom Rubashkin, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, was sentenced to 27 years in prison. The raid is the largest of a workplace in U.S. history.

Garage glamorous

What does Lady Gaga mean when she says "garage glamorous" in her song "Paparazzi"? This is the official Urban Dictionary definition:

Rock Star styled clothes you'll only see on people like Russell Brand and Jack Sparrow. Involves lots of black or just dark colors, ripped jeans or just ripped clothing, and possibly leather, if you wanna go all the way add a little black eyeliner. NOT to be mistaken for gothic, emo or skater clothes. This is the LESS-DEPRESSING and MORE fashionable version of them.

And just for shits and giggles...

Rule of three

Today I was asked to write a LinkedIn recommendation for a friend. (Check out my profile, just created!) I had no idea how to start, so I consulted The Public Speaker over at Quick and Dirty Tips. She had a great article. Then I learned about the rule of three.

The rule of three is a technique used in writing that says that things that come in threes are more memorable than things that come in other numbers. Examples include: the three little pigs, Goldilocks and the three bears, and the three stooges. Another example is the maxim which realtors love: Location, location, location. Simply saying that location is the most important thing to selling a house won't do. You need to make the phrase stand out in people's minds.

Why did boys back then wear girl clothes?

Have you ever noticed that photos taken of young boys in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries show them wearing dresses? Not only that, but most boys also have long hair, so you can hardly make out the gender. Why is that?

Because the parents wanted to show their son's dramatic ascent to boyhood. After the first 2 or 3 years of a male toddler's life, when he is clad in girly clothes and pimps a girly 'do, he could then graduate to pants and a manly-looking I-like-my-beer-cold-and-my-homosexuals-FLAMING crewcut. The Slate article called it a "sartorial bar mitzvah." This tradition gradually lost traction throughout those three centuries, however, and by the 20th century had pretty much disappeared, except for a brief run in the 1970s.

My favorite has to be FDR's baby pic. I saw a similar photo as I was reading his biography earlier this year, and I thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Paddlefish

Like the coelacanth, the paddlefish is a living fossil, whose two species live in the Mississippi River and the Yangtze River. They've survived for 400 million years.

Dousche and douche

It's douche, not dousche. Good thing I checked the dictionary before I spelled it here, but I always want to spell it with an s.

Swimless Americans

Around 33 to 50 percent of Americans can't swim. Generally, the percentage in poorer areas of the country tends to be higher.

The moon ain't really that wet

Remember all the talk about the moon having so much water? Scratch that.

Mien

Mien is another word for demeanor.

Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield was a British singer in the 1960s and 70s, an icon best known for her white soul style. She had 18 singles break into the Billboard Hot 100 in the span of six years. Her most famous hit is "Son of a Preacher Man."

Here's what I was doing at work today:
Spooky
The Mood I'm In
Nowhere to Run
24 Hours from Tulsa
Poor Wayfaring Stranger

And that's just a few. I'll be checking out more of her music in the coming days.

History of the mullet

This is why the Slate Explainer is important. Did you know the mullet started in Ancient Greece?

Who the hell's Snooki anyway?

When Obama was on The View last week, someone asked him if he knew who Snooki was. He said he didn't, even though he mentioned her name at the White House Correspondents' Dinner earlier this year. (He was obviously reading someone else's joke.) Turns out Snooki is some moron from some MTV show called Jersey Shore.

I've become just a bit dumber for knowing that.

Sexual violence in the Native American community

According to a report in 2000 by the Justice Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes. That will hopefully change, as President Obama signed on Thursday the Tribal Law and Order Act. It will, among other things, give tribal officials more power to punish the offender, whether or not the offender is an Indian.

Obama on The View

President Obama's appearance on The View yesterday marks the first time a sitting president has gone on a daytime talk show. Last year he became the first sitting president to appear on a late night talk show, when he visited Leno.

Look, Ma! Just hands!

Finally, a way to do CPR without having to memorize so many things, especially for the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation part. New studies have revealed that just pumping the chest is at least as good as the traditional method of CPR.

Pet obesity

In the U.S., over 45% of dogs and 58% of cats are overweight or obese. Here's how they determine pet obesity.

But they still can't catch up to American humans!

Edit, 5/2/2019: Thanks to a user for helping fix a previous broken link!

World's largest LAN party

The world's largest LAN party took place at DreamHack Winter 2007 in Sweden. There were 10,554 computers and 11,060 attendees.

Completely useless information, I know. Unless you care about these things.

I’m a dinner jacket

Katie Couric uses the mnemonic "I'm a dinner jacket" to remember Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's name. Not even George W. Bush needed help with that.

Adblock Plus

Apparently, a lot of people might already know about Adblock Plus, the Firefox add-on that lets you right-click on an ad and make it disappear forever (but I didn't). It was #3 on Lifehacker's top ten list of add-ons for 2009.

Pisco Sour

The Pisco Sour is the traditional cocktail of Peru, though Chile also lays claim to it. The ingredients are: pisco, lemon or lime juice, egg whites, simple syrup, and bitters.

I had this today at the celebration of the Peruvian Independence Day in City Hall. They put cinnamon on top of the foam. Great stuff.

Ceiling fans + AC can save you money

From some article:

The cooling effect of a ceiling fan can make a room feel up to 10 degrees cooler. So, if you have your ceiling fan running, and then crank up your air conditioning thermostat 5 degrees to 7 degrees, you would still be just as cool and comfortable. And for each degree that you raise your thermostat, you save 7 percent to 10 percent on cooling costs.

....

Ceiling fans are also extremely efficient, consuming 90 % less energy than air conditioning. A ceiling fan uses about as much energy as a 100-watt light bulb, so it costs just pennies a day to operate. When you compare this to more than 50cts per hour for air conditioning, you can see how the savings begin to add up. In fact, studies show that ceiling fans can save you up to 25 to 40 percent on your summer cooling costs.

Dan Inouye

After the passing of Senator Bob Byrd of West Virginia, Dan Inouye of Hawaii became president pro tempore of the Senate, which makes him the highest ranking Asian-American government official in U.S. history.

Paraprosdokian

A paraprosdokian is a phrase, frequently used by comedians, whose latter part makes the reader or listener re-interpret the first part in some other way. An example would be from Mitch Hedberg:

I'm a heroine addict. I need to have sex with women who have saved someone's life.

Another would be this from Stephen Colbert:

Mark my words. No, Mark, I really need my words.

Longboarding

It's skateboarding, downhill.

Microsoft Kin

Apparently there was a phone from Microsoft earlier this year called the Kin, which lasted for six weeks, whose sole function was social networking.

And oh yeah, Google just killed its phone. That's a shame because I was planning on buying one.

Toy Story 3...

...is actually a really good movie.

Old Facebook users

From an article in The New York Times where Facebook is trying to figure out how to handle the profiles of its dead users:

Now, people over 65 are adopting Facebook at a faster pace than any other age group, with 6.5 million signing up in May alone, three times as many as in May 2009, according to the research firm comScore.

The coolest, of course, is Ivy Bean.

Note: The article includes an interview of Courtney Purvin, a 36 year-old teacher living in Plano, TX, my current residence. Fucking awesome.

There goes the neighborhood

The phrase "there goes the neighborhood" is used when a neighborhood just got its first family of a race other than its own, and the neighbors are pissed.

I was trying to bring back random memories and decided to watch P. Diddy's "Bad Boy For Life" from nine years ago. At the end he says, "Damn. There goes the neighborhood."

Josef Frank

Josef Frank is some Austrian-Swedish architect and designer who helped found the Vienna School of Architecture. Apparently Google thinks he's important.

Petanque

We played this today at the first annual Bastille Day in Dallas. It was fun but the guy judging the game was kind of an asshole.

Pyrrhic victory

A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that is gained at too great a cost. It's named after some guy called Pyrrhus of Epirus who won a battle over the Romans in 279 BC but whose military elite had died.

Quiche

Quiche is a baked dish that is based on a custard made from eggs and milk or cream in a pastry crust. The one I had today had spinach, eggs, and mozzarella cheese. The food originated in Germany.

And I guess now I'm not a real man. But I never claimed that title anyway.