Nate Edel's blog
I bought a new PocketPC/Phone device this weekend, and switched to Sprint:
PPC 6700 from Sprint
All-you-can-eat mobile IP access (email and web, mainly) is a very, very cool thing.
I still need a memory card for it (it’s got about 40mb of free storage on it’s own… *sigh* I remember when that would have seemed like a lot), and if I were *really* hardcore, I’d be posting this from it rather than my laptop. But hey, I’m getting there.
…and I don’t mean karma.
I was reminded of a wonderful coinage I was witness to on RASFF:
“The Napoleon-Clarke Law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice”
Trying to find the exact phrasing, discovered it cited on someone’s blog.
This in turn led me to another USENET post, one I missed, pointing out that the original phrase was older.
The point of this? Not much, other than being continually reminded of it by the Bush administration… which clearly manages a sufficiently advanced level of incompetence.
15 years ago today, my father passed away. It was half my life ago, within about a month of exactly. I don’t really really think about it most of the time, but for some reason I was reminded of it last night… I actually wrote this post then, and took it down because it didn’t feel right leaving it up. And now it’s back up.
I miss him, and I wonder what he’d think of my life today. I hope that my brothers and mom are hanging in there, and are spared being reminded of the milestone.
Russian squirrel pack ‘kills dog’
Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report.
BBC News, Last Updated: Thursday, 1 December 2005, 18:14 GMTPassers-by were too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute.
They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh.
A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are sceptical.
Police mistakenly impound driver with car
TORONTO (Reuters) – An 85-year-old Canadian man spent hours inside his impounded car in freezing temperatures after his vehicle was ticketed for illegal parking and then towed to a police compound, police said on Thursday.
[…]
“They accessed the vehicle and sure enough there was an elderly man inside. He was disoriented but he was not unconscious.”
[…]
Lammi said police were unsure what stopped the man from driving his car away.
Check out the article on 52 Pickup, on Wikipedia.
The joke may be gone soon, but it will likely be just edited out – look for the one in the history dated 14:21, 30 November 2005 by anonymous @ 161.112.232.22
From: Walgreen’s puts 4 Illinois pharmacists on leave for refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception at AmericaBLOG
I go to the pharmacy for medicine, not spiritual advice. If you’re opposed to the death penalty, don’t apply for a job as an excecutioner. If you’re allergic to animals, don’t become a vet.
Refers back to this boston.com article if you prefer to look directly.
Old news, but funny enough that when I saw it, I had to post it…
Brits steal carloads of F**king Austrian roadsigns
By Lester Haines
Published Monday 15th August 2005 13:06 GMT
Get breaking Reg news straight to your desktop – click here to find out how
An Austrian village called Fucking will not change its name despite sniggering Brits making off with its roadsigns.Mayor Siegfried Hauppl has asked visitors to lay off the signs which began to attract outside attention after British and US soldiers passing through in 1945 illuminated the locals as to the English meaning of Fucking, Ananova reports.
Hauppl explained: “We had a vote last year on whether to rename the town, but decided to keep it as it is. After all, Fucking has existed for 800 years, probably when a Mr Fuck or the Fuck family moved into the area. The ‘ing’ was added as a word for settlement.”
Also mentioned on Snopes
Leading online matchmaker sued for bogus dating scam
Sat Nov 19, 6:24 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) – Match.com, one of the top Internet dating websites, has been accused of hiring people as “date bait” to date some of their one million customers to encourage them to keep paying for the service.
Sorry, no attribution on this news story that I can repeat. I’m glad I met Marie back when the internet was still mostly college students and geeks.
87 years ago today, the First World War ended on the western front.
Breast implants may soon carry MP3 players!
Breast implants may soon carry MP3 players!
Asian News International
London, October 14, 2005Music may one day be very close to a woman’s chest, with BT futurology which manufactures computer chips that store music, creating a MP3 player that can be implanted into a woman’s breasts.
What’s the Average Age Of The 2000+ US Soldiers Who Died In Iraq? 30.
The average age of the soldiers who died in Vietnam was 19. It’s a sobering statistic — you can’t help but think about all those young lives cut short.
Thanks to the end of the draft, the story is quite different — but just as sad — in Iraq. After 2000 deaths (and 15,000 wounded), I added up all their individual ages to find out what the average was. It’s 30.
The whole Iraq war situation is depressing and a national disgrace, but this figure was particularly unwelcome on the week before my 30th birthday. I hope el Shubbito is excoriated in the judgement of history.
The sad thing is, despite the popularity of suggesting total withdrawal, I tend to agree with Kerry’s assessment/malapropism during the 2004 campaign — “you break it, you fix it” — we have to take responsibility for a mess of our own making there, and as such… we are probably (as Bernard predicted on RASSF) going to have to be entangled there for a long time to come. I hope those who support partial withdrawal are right.
And as long as we are there, where are all the people who supported the unelected President when he went to war? They should be signing up. And for those too old to serve, where are the war bond drives, so they can bear the cost in dollars? Chickenhawks, the lot of them.