From Mike’s “That’s Not A New Hit Song You Just Downloaded — It’s Japan’s Nuclear Secrets” (techdirt: 23 June 2005):
While IT managers may not see the importance of security software for themselves, you would think they would be a little more careful with things like interns and contractors. Not so, apparently. Over in Japan, a [...]
Posted on June 19th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management, law, politics, security | Comments Off
From Brian Montopoli’s “The Queue Crew: Waiting in line for a living” (Legal Affairs: January/February 2004):
ON CAPITOL HILL, a placeholder is someone paid by the hour to wait in line. When legislative committees hold hearings, they reserve seats for Congressional staffers, for the press, and for the general public. The general-public seats are the only [...]
Posted on May 31st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Writing Ideas, business, law, politics, weird | Comments Off
From Salon’s “Throwing Google at the book“:
Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor and copyright scholar, likes to tell the story of Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby, two North Carolina farmers, who in 1945 cast themselves at the center of a case that would redefine how society thought of physical property rights. The immediate cause of [...]
Posted on April 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, business, history | Comments Off
From Bruce Schneier’s “The Silliness of Secrecy“, quoting The Wall Street Journal:
Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, the federal government has advised airplane pilots against flying near 100 nuclear power plants around the country or they will be forced down by fighter jets. But pilots say there’s a hitch in the instructions: aviation security officials refuse [...]
Posted on April 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: True Stories, security | Comments Off
From Wikipedia’s “Canute the Great“:
[King Canute (994/995 – November 12, 1035)] is perhaps best remembered for the legend of how he commanded the waves to go back. According to the legend, he grew tired of flattery from his courtiers. When one such flatterer gushed that the king could even command the obedience of the sea, [...]
Posted on April 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, history | Comments Off
From “Relativity, Uncertainty, Incompleteness and Undecidability“:
In this article four fundamental principles are presented: relativity, uncertainty, incompleteness and undecidability. They were studied by, respectively, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. …
Relativity says that there is no privileged, “objective” viewpoint for certain observations. … Now, if things move relative to each other, then obviously [...]
Posted on March 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, science | Comments Off
From The New York Times‘ “1 Cafe, 1 Gas Station, 2 Roads: America’s Emptiest County“:
At last count (by Sheriff Hopper toting it up in his head), 16 people make Mentone their home and 55 others are spread throughout the rest of Loving County’s 645 square miles of parched, salty West Texas grassland and rattlesnakes  [...]
Posted on February 25th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, politics | Comments Off
From MSNBC’s “Very, very frequent flyer hits 1 million goal“:
On his blog “The Great Canadian Mileage Run 2005,†[Marc] Tacchi reported on Wednesday that he had racked up 1,003,625 mileage points and spent 56 of the last 61 days in an airplane. …
The 30-year-old embarked on his venture using Air Canada’s North America Unlimited Pass [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, True Stories, business | Comments Off
From The Washington Post:
And so it has come to this: Americans buy the most sophisticated computers, the coolest digital cameras, the most advanced automobiles, the most versatile cell phones and handheld organizers, and then . . . and then we forget, or decline, or flat out refuse, to read the directions.
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Posted on November 29th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology | Comments Off
From The Sun:
SHOCKED six-year-old Leah Lowland checked out a mystery bulge on her Incredible Hulk doll — and uncovered a giant green WILLY.
Curious Leah noticed a lump after winning the monster, catchphrase “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” at a seaside fair.
And when she peeled off the green comic-book character’s ripped purple shorts, [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, True Stories, weird | Comments Off
From Yahoo! News (March 2004):
Zombies Push Jesus from Top of North American Box Office
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Posted on November 28th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, True Stories, weird | Comments Off
From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
A convicted murderer being held in Atlanta is refusing to sign a waiver the district attorney says it needs to release the remains of an 8-year-old East Texas boy.
Without the waiver, the family of Chad Choice cannot hold a funeral, although the boy was killed more than a decade ago.
Patrick Horn’s [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, True Stories | Comments Off
From ABC News:
For the past seven years Terrifica has been patrolling New York’s party and bar scene, looking out for women who have had a little too much to drink and are in danger of being taken advantage of by men. She says she has saved several women from both themselves and predators who would [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, weird | Comments Off
From Tom Van Vleck:
In “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins,” Borges describes “a certain Chinese Encyclopedia,” the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, in which it is written that animals are divided into:
1. those that belong to the Emperor,
2. embalmed ones,
3. those that are trained,
4. suckling pigs,
5. mermaids,
6. fabulous ones,
7. stray dogs,
8. those included in the [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, On Writing | Comments Off
Scotland’s worst poet, William Topaz McGonagall: From “The Tay Bridge Disaster”:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time. …
Or here’s a few lines from “Glasgow”:
And as for the [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, On Writing | Comments Off
A postmodern joke from Disinfotainment:
How many deconstructionists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Even the framing of this question makes a grid of patriarchal assumptions that reveals a slavish devotion to phallocentric ideas - such as, technical accomplishment has inherent value, knowledge can be attained and quantities of labor can be determined empirically, [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book | Comments Off
From Ben Jones’ Benblog:
I wonder if, the same way we possibly have a residual ancestral memory of snakes eating early hominids that makes certain people fearful of snakes, if the inexplicable fear that some of us have for clowns and realistic dolls and marionettes and that horror of horror a realistic looking clown marionette, which [...]
Posted on November 22nd, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: overheard | Comments Off
From “American Jezebel by Eve LaPlante“, a review of a biography of Anne Hutchinson, in Salon:
If [Anne] Hutchinson had been born a man, some historians argue, she might have found a place in her society as a minister. She might have carved out a life like that of John Cotton, the unorthodox founder of Congregationalism, [...]
Posted on November 22nd, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, history | Comments Off
A conversation Denise & I had sometime in July 2003:
Scott: Hey, did you hear about that baseball player hitting that mascot dressed as a sausage?
Denise: Yeah!
Scott: That poor polish sausage.
Denise: Yeah.
Scott: From what I read, he didn’t mean to hurt her. He just tapped her. I mean, those costumes are pretty top-heavy.
Denise: Sure … [...]
Posted on November 22nd, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: True Stories, overheard | Comments Off
Welsh village with the longest name in the UK:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Longest domain name in the world:
http://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk
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Posted on November 15th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology | Comments Off
