September 23, 2011
September 17, 2011
Decoding book review language
Have you ever bought a book on the recommendation of a book review, then found it didn’t match up to your expectations? Here is a useful guide to what the reviewer is actually saying:
“absorbing”: “makes a great coaster” @DonLinn Don Linn, publishing consultant
“accessible”: “not too many big words” @MarkKohut Mark Kohut, writer and consultant
“acclaimed”: “poorly selling” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press
“breakout book”: “Hail Mary pass” @BookFlack Larry Hughes, associate director of publicity, the Free Press at Simon & Schuster
“brilliantly defies categorization”: “even the author has no clue what he’s turned in” @james_meader James Meader, publicity director of Picador USA
“captures the times we live in”: “captures the times we were living in two years ago” @mathitak Mark Athitakis, critic
“classroom-friendly”: “kids won’t read it unless they have to” @LindaWonder, Linda White, book promoter at Wonder Communications
September 16, 2011
September 13, 2011
September 10, 2011
NFL quote of the day
At the Daily Norseman, Eric J. Thompson puts the awful situation for both Ohio NFL teams in perfect perspective:
BROWNS over Bengals: Can we just have Ohio State replace one of these two teams already? Or would the Buckeyes’ salary put them over the cap?
I’m not a great prognosticator (I’m already 0-1 on the season — the Saints let me down against the hated Packers), so you can take these picks for exactly what they’re worth (i.e., very little):
- Atlanta – @Chicago Sun 1:00pm
- @Cleveland – Cincinnati Sun 1:00pm
- @Kansas City – Buffalo Sun 1:00pm
- Philadelphia – @St. Louis Sun 1:00pm
- @Tampa Bay – Detroit Sun 1:00pm
- @Jacksonville – Tennessee Sun 1:00pm
- @Baltimore – Pittsburgh Sun 1:00pm
- @Houston – Indianapolis Sun 1:00pm
- @Arizona – Carolina Sun 4:15pm
- @San Diego – Minnesota Sun 4:15pm
- @San Francisco – Seattle Sun 4:15pm
- New York (NYG) – @Washington Sun 4:15pm
- @New York (NYJ) – Dallas Sun 8:20pm
- New England – @Miami Mon 7:00pm
- @Denver – Oakland – Mon 10:15pm
Favourites listed first, home team marked with “@”.
September 9, 2011
The Guild S5E7 – Downturn
Delayed from yesterday as there was some problem with the embed.
Opportunities for humour with your bank’s “secret questions”
If you do online banking, you’ve probably been asked to provide additional security checks beyond your userid and password. Some banks only allow you to select answers from pre-selected questions, but others get you to provide both the question and the answer. In a post from more than a year back, Bruce Schneier offers a few combinations that lighten the mood (and there are lots of funny — and weird — suggestions in the comment thread):
Q: Need any weed? Grass? Kind bud? Shrooms?
A: No thanks hippie, I’d just like to do some banking.Q: What the hell is your fucking problem, sir?
A: This is completely inappropriate and I’d like to speak to your supervisor.Q: I’ve been embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from my employer, and I don’t care who knows it.
A: It’s a good thing they’re recording this call, because I’m going to have to report you.Q: Are you really who you say you are?
A: No, I am a Russian identity thief.
September 2, 2011
Christopher Howse welcomes the new dark (ages)
A welcoming column on the new “lights” of modern Europe:
Normally, to read a book, one turns on the light. I had thought of that, but the numerous light switches in the room only brought a dim glow from various lengths of compact fluorescent lamps, some shaped like paperclips, others coiled like something from the pavements of dog-loving Dijon. You could tell that they were switched on, but it was as if someone had given the lights several coats of opalescent lacquer. It almost seemed as if the lamps attracted light gravitationally from nearby parts of the room, which were consequently left in shadow.
[. . .]
Except for not emitting light, there is little wrong with the new energy-saving bulbs, apart from their causing night-time falls, triggering epilepsy and storing up deadly poisons. But we must expect to make little sacrifices to save energy.
All over Europe, people are tumbling down the stairs in the small hours, snapping their femurs like breadsticks when they venture out of their bedrooms, perhaps to go to the loo – it isn’t unknown. That is because the energy-saving bulbs in the landing light take time to warm up. Those who survive the nocturnal pitfall soon notice that the new kind of bulbs flicker. For some, this triggers migraine; for others, epileptic fits. For me, it merely induces nausea and a sensation that the room is moving backwards and forwards. So I should count my blessings.
As for the mercury that the energy-saving bulbs contain, I have always found it a most beautiful metal, aptly named quicksilver, shining like the moon. Certainly, the effects of mercury poisoning are no fun: shedding of skin, loss of teeth and hair, salivation, sweating and forgetfulness. Yet anxiety about such matters is soon dispelled by the FAQs on the Energy Saving Trust website. “Energy-saving bulbs contain only tiny traces of mercury,” it says soothingly. “Imagine a pellet smaller than the tip of a Biro.” Yes, I’ve imagined that. It sounds ideal for the tip of a blowpipe-arrow or a Bulgarian secret service umbrella.
So remember to be very careful when you dispose of these wonderful new high-tech devices.
. . . each fluorescent light bulb contains about 5 milligrams of mercury. Though the amount is tiny, 5 milligrams of mercury is enough to contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinking water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Low level mercury exposure (under 5 milligrams) can cause tremors, mood shifts, sleeplessness, muscle fatigue, and headaches. High level or extended length exposure can lead to learning disabilities, altered personality, deafness, loss of memory, chromosomal damage, and nerve, brain, and kidney damage, as stated by the EPA. There is a particular risk to the nervous systems of unborn babies and young children.
H/T to Chris Greaves for the link.
September 1, 2011
August 31, 2011
Some good advice to young law enforcement employees
Ken at Popehat used to be a 26-year-old federal prosecutor. He learned a few things on the job:
But even at 26 I had a certain rudimentary old-mannish quality, and it occurred to me to ask — does that sound too good? So during lunch I wandered into the office of the U.S. Attorney — who had been my supervisor in rookie row not long before — to talk about it.
He listened sympathetically. Then he told me. “Ken,” he told me, “if your reaction to a proposal is “HOLY SHIT, THAT SOUNDS LIKE FUN,” then as a government lawyer and member of law enforcement, you almost certainly shouldn’t be doing it.”
It was a hard rule, but one that served me well for the rest of my government career. It helped me avoid some foolish cinematic flourishes, some bad but tempting decisions, and some social events. (Take, for instance, the local ATF’s notorious big-guns-and-barbecue-in-the-desert gatherings. Holy shit, that sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Yeah. Never attend a desert barbecue-and-gun-extravaganza by a federal agency that vacillates between “WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCK YEAH” and “Hey guys, watch this!” as a motto.)
Regrettably, many in law enforcement do not follow this simple rule. So some cops can be induced to do extremely foolish things — things that will shatter the constitutional rights of citizens, things that will expose them to vast liability, things that will threaten innocents with death — while under the influence of toys, cameras, celebrities, and tactical plans that wouldn’t make the table read in an A-Team sequel.
August 30, 2011
QotD: Casinos are a neon-decorated IRS
. . . no phenomenon of nature could possibly be as strange as the alternative reality one encounters entering Wendover, Nevada. In that physical regime, hotels and restaurants are connected to—and often concentric with—caverns with mirrored ceilings, walls, and columns, making it difficult to find your way across the room. Serried ranks of electronic slot machines are clung to by half-starved-looking wights — the cigarettes in their hands nothing but long cylinders of gray ash — worshipping runes that appear when they insert a coin and watch the lights and listen to musical notes that would make a Pac-Man fan start screaming, tearing his hair, and running for the roof with a rifle.
To be sure, there are other kinds of gambling going on. I saw a poker room, roulette wheels, and a genuine James Bond baccarat table. But they were truly lost in a great labyrinth of electronic slots. I was surprised not to see slot machines on a free wall of the men’s room.
I’d seen all of this before, mind you. I was in Las Vegas last year, and it was my second time. I first saw it only a couple of years after Bugsy Siegal did. And I gotta confess to youse guys, I just don’ geddit.
What I mean is, there are a number of points of view that various human beings have, which I am forced to accept purely intellectually. I know there are men who find other men sexually attractive, but I don’t really understand it. I know there are grownup people who seem to go into shock when they discover that their aged parents still enjoy sex — I think my mother would have lived longer if she’d had a boyfriend. And I know — but do not understand that folks like to hand their hard-earned money to casino owners who already have plenty of it.
Casinos are like a neon-decorated IRS.
L. Neil Smith, “The Past That Never Was — The Future That Will Never Be”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2011-08-28
August 28, 2011
Britain’s next military target?
James Delingpole tries to draw up a list of the next most likely place for David Cameron’s military adventure:
China
Pros: on the verge of taking over the world and enslaving us all; mines evil rare earth minerals in environmentally unfriendly fashion which Sam Cam, like, totally, like hates, even though it’s OK really because they go towards the wind farms which make Daddy nearly £1000 a day on his estates; a big, juicy target that would impress David Cameron’s Notting Hill friends way more than poxy Libya.
Cons: We’d lose
[. . .]
France
Pros: Would be hugely popular with the home crowd and guarantee re-election in 2015
Cons: Victory would depend, crucially, on whose turn it is to use the aircraft carrier.
[. . .]
The USA
Pros: Would send a clear signal to Guardianistas that Britain is not going to be “America’s poodle”; might well result in a sexy-sexy congratulatory tete a tete with Christine Lagarde; would make the Lib Dem element of the Coalition feel more at home than ever.
Cons: Our record of beating America in wars is not good. Then again, with a President as lame-duck as Obama in charge this could yet be our best hope.
August 26, 2011
August 19, 2011
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a rap music video
H/T to Maggie Koerth-Baker at BoingBoing (and I’m still a bit astonished I didn’t see it at Ghost of a Flea first . . .) [In-line update: of course he got there months ago. Silly of me to think otherwise.]
From the comments at BoingBoing, it’s apparently called “Chap-Hop“.
For some British rappers, nothing goes better with laying down rhymes than a gin and tonic and a Sunday afternoon stroll.
They have created chap-hop, fusing the American urban musical genre with the imagined lifestyle of the British upper classes. And this coastal town, with its candy-colored Victorian villas and seafront promenade, is the setting for the latest hip-hop feud.
In chap-hop videos, hip-hop tropes are subtly undermined: Barely clothed models are replaced with a ladylike redhead in a summer frock, cricket bats are substituted for uzis.
Professor Elemental, a self-styled “Steampunk Mad Professor” and leading chap-hop MC, is one of its top exponents. He is easy to spot in the Marwood Café here, even amid its décor of spectacle-wearing stuffed owls and dismembered mannequins. Clad in Victorian-explorer garb, complete with pith helmet, he is eager to talk about his planned trip across the Atlantic.
