Nefarious plans
Now, how to use this information…
A common parasite can increase a women’s attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says.
Now, how to use this information…
A common parasite can increase a women’s attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says.
You are traveling in a car at a constant speed. On your left side is a double decker bus and on your right side is a fire engine traveling at the same speed as you.
In front of you is a galloping pig which is the same size as your car and you cannot overtake it. Behind you is a helicopter flying at ground level. Both the giant pig and the hellicopter are also traveling at the same speed as you.
What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?
[Read more →]I hate puzzles. Not because I don’t like them, but because I’ll have to sepdn hours trying to figure them out. So a big non-thanks (< -- made up word of the day) to Foton for pointing out a puzzle I really have no chance at. I guess the Gnome was tired of living in the shoebox…
His clues:
* “Grouchy Gnome� has the same number of letters as my real name, first and last combined. * Emos dluow refer ot em sa suolupurcsnu. Srehto llits dluow refer ot em sa na live dneif. * My ronlam rekinom si utiqe rentfedif morf Emong Yhcuorg–it si lony eon drow dan sode ton ratts thiw a G, ghouth mose thimg garue hatt hist eon drow taniscon two.
My inprogress work:
Emos dluow refer ot em sa suolupurcsnu. Srehto llits dluow refer ot em sa na live dneif.
Some would refer to me as unscrupulous. Others still would refer to me as an evil fiend.My ronlam rekinom si utiqe rentfedif morf Emong Yhcuorg–it si lony eon drow dan sode ton ratts thiw a G, ghouth mose thimg garue hatt hist eon drow taniscon two.
My normal moniker is quite different from Gnome Grouchy-it is only one word and does not start with a G, though some might argue that this one word contains two.
Honestly, I don’t have enough knowledge of developers for the first clue to be of any use. The others are simple ciphers which I am ashamed to say that I could read almost the whole thing right off the bat.
So, ./ reports on Google expanding it’s services. The geeks in the audience applaud
The more registration data collected by Google, the more relevant search results and ads can potentially be.
Good thing it’s not Micro$oft, since that kind of information gathering would be eeeeevil in Darth Gates hands… (Witness the MSN Passport issues)
Since everything in life is all about Team Me, I’d just like to share this with you: [Read more →]
A week ago, I asked what the CMS in use at NRO’s The Corner was. Yesterday, Spoons had a better post critiqing their overall operation:
P.S. About 80% of the problems with the Corner could be fixed by just having someone who works there READ the thing about once an hour. Most of the rest could be fixed by having someone read the e-mail that they get pointing out those problems (and offering fixes). I ought to know: I’ve written dozens of those e-mails—all ignored.
They are capable of providing a blog-style article, just witness La Shawn Barber’s article on the lesser lights during Rathergate. Of course, she runs her own blog, so she knows how this stuff is done, in contrast to the journalists that are trying to be bloggers in the Corner. shrug At least they are trying.
I’ll be honest though, with the level of HTML(link)/web writing savvy over there, I would sincerely hope that they have a good CMS or something that makes it easy to post. For instance, simply using a database backend with the MovableType API (don’t need MT) allows you to use something like w.bloggar or Zempt. Using WordPress, I find just the default web-editor to be super easy, closing tags and doing code for me. Get a webmaster who knows blogs, people!!
Oh yeah: point for me!! Well, half a point for being first. :p
Seeing as blogging is an activity I participate in, the 2004 Weblog Awards are cool. However, they seem to be missing a category: Best Gaming Blog. How about next year, Wizbang?
There’s n3rfed, anyuzer, Lum the Mad, Terranova, and Zen of Design just to start. They provide a lot of discussion into the theory and practice of game design, customer (non)service, and other aspects that are related to a phenomenon which a moderate portion of the population indulges in. Hell, there’s a larger population gaming than blogging, so I believe that a Gaming section should be added.
For the blogging journalists at The Corner: What CMS do you use?
Jonah’s always double posting, and I usually run across a broken link (not bad, but the url is malformed). So, the question is, with their greater resources, what is the backend and its attached UI?
From Tuesday’s Best of the Web:
A Good Frenchman Is Hard to Find
The Associated Press reports from Paris on an antidiscrimination brainstorm from the French Parliament:A proposal being studied by lawmakers would require companies with more than 250 employees to only accept rĂ©sumĂ©s without candidates’ names, sex, age, address or photograph to give all an equal chance of getting that critical first interview.This is brilliant! All you have to do is make it impossible for a company to know who’s applying for jobs, and everyone will have an equal chance of getting hired—namely, zero.
Really, all you need to block out is name (avoid nepotism), sex (best person for the job), and photograph (takes care of sex and race). Why do you need these things in the first place since the interview is supposed to be the determining factor in hiring? However, it’s not the place of government to mandate this type of stuff since they’ll over-regulate it and turn it into the zero-chance of employment Best of the Web is talking about.
In the comments to “First Command”, Todd left a comment addressing the negative view that myself and some others have taken towards First Command’s policies and practices. I’m going to address a few of his concerns here, in order to move the issue up to the front of the site.
I don’t know why everyone busts on 1st Command so much. What baffles me is that everyone is PISSED that a financial planning company charges a FEE for SERVICE! Imagine that! Instead of doing the typical approach of a 5.5% load and an annual membership fee, they do the front load. Which in the end is a lot cheaper if you invest for a number of years.
What gets us upset is not the fact that FC charges a fee for a service. Them charging a fee helps us both because it ties their performance to their reward and is completely normal for a business to do. The problem comes back to how they charge that fee.
It all comes back to that magical thing called compound interest, which is the whole reason for saving in the first place. Let’s do a small intellectual exercise, starting with a $1000. (Compound interest explained here) We’ll assume a one time amount over 5 years, with an annual return of 8.5%. At First Command, that is $500 to plug into the calculation for FV, yielding a return of $21.70 after five years. That same $1000 in even a 5.5% load fund, from a starting point of $945 yields a return of $986.01, a gain of $41. After 30 years, your First Command investment is worht $645.17, while the other one is $1219.38.
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