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.

Cats land on all fours

I thought it was a myth. And it turns out that they suffer less injuries after falling from higher points than from shorter ones.

Ben Franklin effect

The Ben Franklin effect takes place when we tend to like a person more after we do them a favor. This is because we try to tell ourselves that we actually do like them after the favor, so we keep doing nice things. The same can be said when we hate the person. We keep hating them and eventually we chop their head off.

This is how Franklin won over a political opponent:

I did not... aim at gaining his favour by paying any servile respect to him but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."

The moral? Ask people to do you a small favor, but don’t immediately return it. And when people ask you for favors, watch out for feeling better about them.

Shangri-la

A shangri-la is "an imaginary, idyllic place that is remote and secluded."

How do I get people to stop thinking I'm the god of computers?

Pretend you know nothing about computers.

Cry for me, baby

Tears from male mice are an aphrodisiac. When the female comes in contact with it (she has to touch it, not just smell it), she is three times more likely to be turned on.

Good thing this doesn't work for humans or else there would've been a lot of pansies walking around. (I would've been one of them.)

Scone

The scone is that thing I eat all the time but never knew what it was.

Book publishers hate white covers because they get dirty so quickly

Skip to 1:10.

Farm-to-market road

A farm-to-market road is a state or county road that connects rural areas to market towns. This system is most popular in Texas, where I spent the better part of today getting lost and trying to figure out why they have the road name and F.M. on the same sign.

Robert Byrd's college degrees

Late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd is the only member of Congress to attend law school while in office. He received his law degree from American University in 1963, then received his undergraduate degree from Marshall University in 1994, summa cum laude, when he was 77 years old.

I guess The Netherlands is a pretty good team

They beat my pick, Brazil, 2-1 today in the World Cup quarterfinals. And I don't even watch soccer.

Leviathan whale

The Megalodon shark may have faced some stiff competition. Meet Leviathan melvillei, so named because of the author of Moby Dick, Herman Melville. This creature measured 60 feet in length, had a mouth that was 9 feet long and 7 feet wide, and teeth 15 inches long. It lived 13 million years ago on top of what in now a Peruvian desert, close to Megalodon. Both species hunted for pretty much the same food: smaller and weaker whales. I'd pay to see that fight.