Sun
May 2

Poison Pie is a nicely appropriate name for these gastrointestinal irritants. Their alternative name, Fairy Cake Mushrooms, is misleading to the point of irresponsibility. (from "Mushrooms", by John Wright; image.)

Mon
Mar 29

Sydney's forecast for this week (my dissertation is due Wednesday) EDIT: This forecast turned out to be right :)

Sat
Mar 20

Idea: start a gym club for logicians. Call it "The excluded middle".

Fri
Mar 19

History and philosophy of science lolcaterpillar, by Catie

Mon
Mar 8

It's hard to be concerned about Google's search tracking when they get things this wrong. ("Automotive anything" competes with "reading the digits of pi in a monotone" for thing I am least interested in in the entire world.)

Sun
Mar 7

I found out why half the Internet smells like an all-male dorm room

Facebook: Facemash "used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person".

YouTube: the founders of YouTube stated that they originally set out to make a version of Hot or Not with Video before developing their more inclusive site.

(quotes from Wikipedia)

Mon
Feb 22

Bears: Godless killing machines. (Stephen Colbert)
Spiders: Godless spinning machines. (Diogenes, fark.com)
Atheists: Godless sinning machines. (MandyJoBo, tressugar.com)
Americans: Godless sex machines. (billi789, mediamatters.org)
The Universe: Godless vending machine. (aish.com)

Special thanks: Google. Not yet in the Snowclones Database.

Sat
Feb 20

Catie got to my thread pool.

Sat
Feb 13

I love you, Joel Spolsky

Tedious caller: Hello Joel and Jeff. My name is Jeffrey Wiens, and I have been a developer for around four years. I'm currently in an applied mathematics graduate program because I needed something more challenging than what my previous jobs could offer. How would you deal with programmers like me, that are intellectually bored at work?

Joel Spolsky: There are no bored people, there are only BORING people. If you're bored at work it's because you're a boring person.

-- Stack Overflow podcast #82

Sat
Nov 28

Official Announcements I Heard On The London Underground Which Were Slightly Surprising To Me As Someone More Familar With Sydney's Cityrail

  1. "Ladies and gentlemen, at the present time, there is a good service on all London Underground lines."
  2. "Sorry for the delay -- it's due to this train arriving slightly early. We'll be moving shortly."
  3. "Mind the closing doors ladies and gents. Mind the closing doors. Alright ladies and gents, we'll try one more time. When I say 'mind the closing doors', and the chimes are ringing, that's not a time for you to try and commit hari kari."

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