I'm an ice cream purist. I believe ice cream should be smooth, simple, and elegant, like Häagen-Dazs--not complicated and heterogeneous like Ben & Jerry's.
Give me coffee over Chunky Monkey ® any day.
However, Ben & Jerry's do have one thing going for them: a combination lock for pints of their ice cream.
'Course, a determined thief can just cut through the cardboard.
The only true safety is to eat the whole pint in one sitting. It's always worked for me.
[Posted by Noah:]
The SpamDemic Map traces the connections between various spamming companies and domains, including who does what for whom, who owns whom, and how mailing
lists are exchanged. Available in viewable .GIF and printable .EPS format.
I can't imagine this is true. It can't be. Right? Four women in Portugal were supposedly tricked into exposing themselves out the window in order to receive mammograms
by satellite.
Wow, this just shows how out of touch I am. When the Pledge of Allegiance was ruled unconstitutional yesterday, I was surprised--not because I disagree with the ruling, but because I thought it already was ruled unconstitutional. I guess I just assumed it was, since it's clear to me that it should be.
Thus, even though it's foolish, I'm even more surprised by the
widespread outrage at the ruling today. I realize that the majority of Americans, including those in government, believe in God and thus have no direct objection to God references. But in my youthful ignorance I thought that lawmakers understood why the government isn't supposed to endorse specific religious beliefs, even those beliefs that the lawmakers happen to hold. Especially those.
An analyst points out (correctly) that the word "God" already permeates government, but goes on to say
If any of those nine justices, having heard "God save this honorable court" every single day, if something was wrong with it, someone might have said something.
Ah, the old "it's how things currently are, how can it be wrong?" argument. Very nice.
It gets even better. This morning on the news, Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) exclaimed on the Senate Floor
I, for one, will not stand to see this country ruled by a bunch of atheists. If they're not happy with it, they can leave!
(Quoted from memory--if I can find the exact quote, I'll update it. See Comments.)
If that doesn't show a frightening lack of objectivity, I don't know what does.
They screened Lilo & Stitch at work today. Based on the previews, I had no interest in seeing the movie--the message conveyed by the previews was "Hey, he's wacky, you won't believe how wacky he is, come see the movie to find out how wacky he is!" I wasn't sure I could handle all the wackiness.
Plus, I'm generally lukewarm on the Disney Formula: angst-ridden youth, understood by nobody, just doesn't fit in until a zany sidekick accompanies him/her on an adventure which ultimately earns the youth acclaim and self-esteem. (See Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan.)
Out of the blue, The Emperor's New Groove strayed from this formula, and was a fantastic movie. (Notably, it was on track to be a standard musical pseudo-epic, but mid-production was handed over to new writers, who twisted it up and made it great. That's the story I hear, anyway.)
I couldn't tell from the previews how formulaic Lilo & Stitch would be. On a whim, I attended the screening today, and was amazed--it's really good. The Disney Formula is present, but largely subdued, and otherwise the movie is original, funny, and very pretty. (Even more so since the screening was digital.) CG is used sparingly, and works well where it's used. There are even two uses of photographic media (a movie clip and a photo)
integrated with the line art, which I don't recall seeing in any other Disney feature.
Against all odds, Stitch himself (the rabid four-armed blue guy) isn't even annoying. Really.
NASA's Earth Observatory has annotated satellite imagery of climatic and environmental interest. In addition to images of current wildfires, there are
volcanoes,
hurricaines,
ice floes,
and even aircraft contrails.
NASA's Visible Earth is a searchable index of more general satellite imagery, all in the public domain. If you live in Sydney, Australia, you can probably see your house in this one.
Siggraph 2001 was in Los Angeles, the city with the worst traffic in the nation. Siggraph 2002 is in San Antonio, the sweatiest city in the nation. What distinctions put San Diego (2003) and Atlanta (2004) in the sequence?
