I was out sick a few days last week (you may have noticed a fever-induced tinge to my ramblings) and was reassured today (back at work) to find out that others had been ill last week as well. Being sick when all around you are well raises the question of what, exactly, is wrong with you, but if others have it then it’s whatever’s going around and probably nothing serious.
OTOH, I can’t really imagine how reassuring “Oh, it’s just something that’s going around” was circa 1350.
Babies by mail (and the picture from the Smithsonian)
After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination.
sort of via the comments in The Quantum Pontiff, via Quantum Moxie
[M]en alternately fondled t-shirts and bras (which were not being worn during the test). After touching the bras, men valued the future less and the present more, said lead researcher Bram Van Den Bergh of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Viewing ads with women in bikinis had the same effect.
[…]
The bikini effect does vary in strength from person to person, Van Den Bergh said. While most men are vulnerable to subtle types of stimuli — like sexy ads and touching lingerie — others may need to see a woman nude before feeling impulsive. No matter, Van Den Bergh warned, “being exposed to a sexy girl may influence what stock you invest in or what candy bar you buy.”
OMG, they may start using this to influence purchasing patterns!
Indiana Jones and the Fonts on the Maps
Whenever Indy is traveling great distances, which happens in all the films, there is a montage of the airplane or boat superimposed over an animated map showing the route. It’s an old-fashioned convention, an homage to the movies of the Thirties and Forties. Unfortunately, the typefaces would be more at home a few decades later.
We all know getting the physics right is the only thing that matters. Everything else gets filed under “willing suspension of disbelief.”
Not your ordinary balloon animals
via randomwebcrap, aka O, Teh Interwebz!
The new strategy, unveiled yesterday by DWP officials, is to dump hundreds of thousands of plastic balls onto the Ivanhoe Reservoir’s surface (a reservoir adjacent to the Silver Lake Reservoir) to shade its water from sunlight. The reason for this rather unorthodox approach is simple: by blocking the sun, you prevent the reaction between bromide and chlorine, which forms bromate, from occurring.
So now it’s a big wet ball pit
I “won” this a few summers ago at an arcade, after dropping about $5 in quarters into Skee-ball (and unDogmatically keeping the points for myself). I was on vacation, and Claire, a ~5 year-old staying a few doors down had won a similar Spidey inflatable Tombat (not its official name but certainly how it was being used) a few days earlier. Being the exact same age as Claire, this was my chance at escalation and revenge.
At work it has been used as a motivational tool on at least one summer intern.
Conn. police find pipe bomb stuffed inside chicken
The road was closed while the Hartford Police Department’s bomb squad came and blew up the chicken.
Sorry I’m late. I was waiting for someone to blow up the chicken.
Kerning is the adjustment of the spacing between letter pairs in printing. Improperly done, (overkerning?) this can make letters run together, and e.g. “rn” is difficult to distinguish from “m,” especially for those of us with less-than-perfect eyesight. (And take care not to shove your “L” too close to your “I” since that could be a real FLICK-UP.) This leads to the creation of the term keming: improper kerning.
I yeam for thee, my heart bums when you are dose.
Dangers of keming
MEGAFLICKS
Trick or Treat
