Archive for January, 2005

Friday, January 28th, 2005

Electronic Stability Control saves lives

As usual, I found some time to read Car and Driver at the newsstand this week, and the most interesting article of all was a column by Csaba Csere, one of their several smart, engineer-background editors. Kudos to them, by the way, for making the content available online. He was on about the genuinely shocking […]

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Friday, January 28th, 2005

Not-so-great Moments in Branding

Otis Spunkmeyer. Can you tell that’s a made-up, awful company name? Of course you can. Branding is a recurring theme in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, which includes the theory that the Tommy Hilfiger brand, because of its incredibly derivative and obviously calculated style, is the most soulless brand ever (this is important, because the main […]

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Wednesday, January 26th, 2005

Short and Boring

Dave sent me this video, obviously from some years ago (since some years ago is how long ago mountain bike racers would be caught dead in these colours) of a very interesting way of handling rider infractions. No posts lately? I haven’t had a lot to say. The weather is shockingly good, and I’m loving […]

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Tuesday, January 25th, 2005

The Sublime and the Ridiculous – A continuing series

I’m late. I know. My sincerest apologies for making you wait. I have been indisposed and haven’t even wanted to venture out of doors. Outside scary. Yet, I have put my fingers to work in order to bring you this installment of “The Sublime and the Ridiculous.” Again, I’m going to cheat a bit and […]

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Friday, January 21st, 2005

Welcome New Reader!

And a quick hello to new reader Kelly, who will be shortly perusing this site. Yes, the readership is that small that I can greet them individually. It’s like a PBS pledge drive, but without the annoying beggary. That starts next week. Half-remembered quote of the day: “they go brain dead for a few months, […]

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Thursday, January 20th, 2005

A Japanese Culture Reader

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a few websites devoted, I guess, to teaching the rest of us about their fair land. Notably, behold Trends in Japan, an earnest but interesting look at stuff happening there. It’s not J-list, and that’s a point in its favour. On the home front, I have been blessed […]

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Tuesday, January 18th, 2005

In Praise of Blowout Victories

Ah, TMQ, the great explainer of football. There’s a funny story about my current interest in the NFL: I started reading Easterbrook’s “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column (this was back when it was part of Slate), and it was so interesting I began to watch the football games so I could keep up with the column. […]

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Monday, January 17th, 2005

a cold day in hello

Sure, Tweety could fly away. But he doesn’t because it is all the better to torment Sylvester! He’s actually a twisted, twisted individual. Hmmm. This may be the one time that Grant’s minor in abnormal and clincal psychology could prove useful! I still haven’t brought my wired cola mug into the lab. I will, but […]

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Sunday, January 16th, 2005

The Sublime and the Ridiculous – A Continuing Series

Hello, everyone. This blog is brought to you from my bed which is warm and comfy. Bed – the soft choice. I’m actually witnessing a really ridiculous cartoon right now. I am not generally a cartoon watcher, except for The Jetsons, but an insomniac like myself sometimes falls prey to Sylvester and Tweety. Tweety can […]

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Sunday, January 16th, 2005

Now that’s a sunset. One of the neat things about the specialty modes of the Coolpix (sunset, night scene, etc.) is that they tend to suggest certain pictures. After all, if you’re out wandering the streets and you turn to see a dramatic sunset, well then you just have to whip out the old camera […]

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