Unknown White Male

This documentary about a guy with retrograde amnesia looks really intriguing. Via Mind Hacks.

Not that I'd want to live there, but...

This is a pretty impressive set of photos of 3D optical illusions on a grand scale. Thanks for that, geekpress.

A little outdated, but still fun

Which Supreme Court Justice are you? http://www.quizilla.com/users/bannana873/quizzes/Which%20Supreme%20Court%20Justice%20Are%20You%3F John Paul Stevens, oooh yeeeah. You're John Paul Stevens! You are the sole remaining true liberal on the court. You stand proudly for what you believe in, and you seem to refuse to slow down. You are strong when you should be weak, and by all accounts, you'll live to be 200, good job!

Funnier than SNL

We all know that the main problem with SNL is that they beat sketches to death. They beat and beat and beat and beat and beat and beat (and beat)^100 to death the poor sketches. In fact, I think it would be much better were they to just present the premise of their bits. Hell- just televise a pitch meeting; you get all the funny setups and none of the poor attempts at acting.

Shadowy G-man Seen On Gobbler's Knob

They should just start the Groundhog Day ceremony a couple of hours earlier. No way that groundhog's going to see any shadow if the sun's not up yet.

WARNING: Do Not Eat

If you're dumb enough to not realize that listening to music at a high volume can lead to hearing loss, you're dumb enough to be mocked for your silly-ass lawsuit. Mock, mock, mock.

Wait- Did They Just Say That?

Listenting to NPR, they're talking about presidential scandals. The speaker was droning on saying "Johnson had Vietnam, Nixon had Watergate, Reagan had Iran-Contra, Clinton had Lewinsky..." Hehe. Had Lewinsky.

This American Life... Wrong!

During this week's This American Life, entitled, I Enjoy Being a Girl (Sort Of),

Writer Sarah Miller attends a class on how to walk and talk and act like a man.

What she hears and "learns" in this class is pretty much the worst dreck I've ever heard. To summarize, being male is all about being crass, unclean, arrogant, possessive, unengaged, etc. It was really, really bad. And it was taught by a woman. Hmmm...

Funny Things Seen Around Town

A big sign in the front window of the Bearly Stitchin' Sewing Center proclaiming there will be a Super Bowl Sunday Sale! That's right ladies, come spend your money on notions and sewing machines while your men are otherwise occupied...

Shaun of the Dead

Watch this movie- it is really good! Had a ton of clever references, was really quite well done.

Mish eard

During a piece on NPR about Grand Theft Auto, a reporter misspoke, saying "Grand Theft Otter" which suggests to me a rich genre of spoof game titles...

• Grand Theft Otter (as above)
• Grant Theft Auto
• Grand Thrift Auto
• Ground Theft, Otto
• Grand Theft: A Toe

If I Only Had a (popular) Blog...

This is why we need to become wildly popular bloggers. Free trips are good.

Working the Brains Out

Cannot... think... much... more...

Sitting, Waiting, Surfing

Here's a silly little mouse-based game. How long can you last? I can do >30 seconds. This is insanely hard on a laptop trackpad.

Are jellyfish delish?

My guess would be no. This one looks downright terrifying. Apparently these humongous beasties (up to 6'7" in diameter!) are causing huge problems for the Japanese fishing industry. If people don't start finding ways to turn them into food (or reduce the population in some other manner), they will continue to wreck their jellyfish havoc.

Jellyfish Havoc? Band name, anyone?

Green ham and eggs?

I do not like pigs turning green.
I do not like their unhealthy sheen.
I would not turn on a black light;
I could not work past the fright.

Glad for Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, author of such gems as The Tipping Point, and Blink (both fine books) has an archive of his New Yorker pieces here. I frankly think that he's better as a long-piece journalist than an author of books. That's not intended to be anything other than praise; he's a fantastic feature-length magazine writer.

Finally... peace

My first first author paper has been accepted for publication. After production editing, it will be appearing in Optics Express. Yay, me.

B.S.

I've been listening along to the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings while I work. As with the previous ones I've heard, there's a pretty consistent refrain of both nominee and (Republican) questioner:

Can't prejudge! Can't prejudge!

Now, as far as it goes, this is a pretty reasonable restriction; you don't want an adjudicator to say what he thinks of pending litigation. However, the companions (I guess offered by way of explanation) to this refrain are:

Can't precommit to ruling a certain way!

And

Need specifics!

These rationales seem to me to be b.s. One need only apply the second to refute the first. It is damn near impossible that a real case a nominee (or justice) might hear would correspond in the specifics to a briefly outlined hypothetical question answered in hearings! Further damning this first explanation down the river is the willingness of the questioners to accept a nominees offer of "that was my opinion then" as "undoing" their previously held opinions. If it is possible that the nominee changed their mind on an issue (say, "Should government discrimination against women be permitted?"), then "prejudgement" does not matter, as events and changes in procedure occurring after the "prejudgement" can change the conclusion.

The second issue is a bit more reasonable- at least with regard to existing cases. It doesn't make much sense to avoid answering a fairly general question (say, "In what ways is it possible for the President's Article II powers enable him to overrule or ignore the legislation of the Congress?" (Possibly a poor example, as this may be in litigation soon)). General questions don't really call for specifics.

Mary Had a Little Dog...

Wow- an interesting poem by Billy Collins. A hauntingly effective edit by Kieran Healy, of Crooked Timber. Really evocative, both. Found at Grammar.police.