‘One toke of a joint would inevitably lead to mainlining heroin in these films, but the plot would be rounded off with a nice, happy, moral ending.’
This story has been around for a bit, and I didn’t think it weird enough to post on its own. Until I realised that a major international news site had used the word “bong” without explaining it. Follow the link and read for yourself. Reuters — Reuters! — just assume that everyone will know what a bong is.
‘Fences with bunny rabbits for railheads, razor-wire woven with butterflies, padlocks shaped like teddy bears and feline CCTV covers – a few of the products in the Sweet Dreams Security™ range. Matthias Megyeri has carved an exciting new niche market for products that respond to what he sees as an uncomfortable balance between the growing demand for security products and an over-saturation of the kitsch, the ‘cute’, the garden gnomes and the frilly curtains.’
Pictured here, lace curtains in the pattern of barred windows. (Via Schneier on Security.)
‘They suggest that locusts combine into swarms because they are frightened of being eaten by each other.’
‘And as with any good Tupperware-style party, after the talk and the demonstration came the chance to test the wares. The evening ended with the women sizzling away at an aluminium foil target as some of their husbands sat in the garden, smoking cigars in the balmy night air.’
This is the guy that wrote Here Comes Everybody. The talk is over ten minutes, but he nails the thing, and he’s funny.
‘Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of “cognitive heat sink”, dissipating thinking that might have otherwise built up and caused society to overheat.’
‘Here’s what four-year-olds know: a screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Media that’s targetted at you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for.’
(Via Kiyo.)
Nice to know I’ve been doing something right all these years.
‘Reusable spacecraft architecture is a bit of a novelty for NASA, which has traditionally built spacecraft from the ground up for each new mission — at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. By using a modular platform, NASA will no longer need to to reinvent the wheel again and again […] The compressed air propulsion system only allows the craft to hover for six or seven seconds, but that is more than enough time for the scientists to work out kinks in the design. When they switch to a conventional engine, most the flight control software will be nearly flawless.’ (Is this strange? Well, maybe it’s strange that they’ve never thought of doing it before…)
‘Although an atheist, Russell T Davies, the chief writer of the current series has previously acknowledged the benefits of religion. “I think religion is a very primal instinct within humans, a very good one, part of our imagination,” he said. […] The Rev Andrew Myers, vicar at St Aidan’s in Leeds, attended the course and said that he would use Doctor Who in future sermons. “We saw the Doctor persuaded to save a family of Pompeians in one of the most recent episodes, surely a reference to Genesis and Abraham’s bargaining with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah,” he said. ‘ (Via Comment is Free.)
‘Obviously, these guys are catering to rich, stupid people. Since a) no one except someone really stupid pays $999 for a one-page design, and b) except rich people with more money than sense.’
On the other hand:
‘Oh, and guys, again, it’s a tumblelog, not a Tumblr. The same way my photos on Flickr are just photos, not Flickrs.’
If they wanted us to call them “Tumblelogs” then maybe they should have named the thing “Tumbler”?
Believe it or not, you can take a photo and not post it on Flickr. Likewise, you can have a tumblelog and not use Tumblr. Maybe Flickr users don’t need a seperate word, but I like having one. So:
I’ll call my tmblg whatever I please, thanks.
(Sorry, Richard: slow news day.)
‘A convicted drugs criminal has escaped an order to have up to £4.5 million of his assets confiscated because no legal aid barrister would take on the case. […] The offender, who has served a nine-month sentence for two drugs convictions, could not pay for the legal fees himself because his assets had been frozen.’ (Via UK Liberty.)
