December 2009
44 posts
“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and...”
– George Carlin (via kari-shma) (via quote-book)
wordboner:
[snip]
Are YOUU a Pokemon Master?! :D
Yes, and I will poke you.
[snip]
More questions/answers/ask your own here.
Movies and Character, II
(continued from Movies and Character)
I just remembered an incident a couple of years ago, late at night, when a group of us were sitting stiffly at a bench outside a now-defunct CyberACCAfe. A rather annoying person had, unfortunately, a good question for us: (paraphrased)
So why are you guys having an overnight camp? Are all of you just going to sleep together in a classroom? (Aren’t you...
Movies and Character
I think we all know this, but let’s get it out of the way first?
Catching a movie at the cinema is about the experience. Faded red carpet, musty air, big screen, wonky subtitles, deafening sound system, the smell of stale popcorn at the concessionaire, the long and roundabout route that leads from the hall to some forsaken corner of the shopping mall..
Then why do people watch movies...
“Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of all kinds of...”
– Haruki Murakami (via writingsarah) (via quote-book)
Derek Lowe: Things I Won't Work With →
Organic chemist speaks.
Air Products Safetygram #39: Chlorine Trifluoride... →
[…] instantaneously releasing 907kg of cold CIF3 liquid onto the building floor. […] One eyewitness described the incident by stating, “The concrete was on fire!”
Alex Payne — Criticism, Cheerleading, and... →
He sez, ‘There is the perception, particularly in American culture, that criticism and negativity go hand-in-hand. We understand well the idea of being in favor or something, or against something, but we don’t particularly understand how criticism fits into this dichotomy. As someone with a penchant for criticism, I’ve often found myself misjudged as “being negative” when mere complaint is...
“Three guys with laptops” used to describe a web startup. Now it describes...”
– Chris Anderson of WIRED and The Long Tail, in Seth Godin’s What Matters Now
“When you’re struggling with something, look at all the people around you and...”
– Nicholas Sparks (Dear John) (via kari-shma) (via quote-book)
“Did you know you can tell how many aperture blades the lens has by the number of...”
– LensRentals.com - Photographing Holiday Lights
eBay sellers are getting more clever. When you list something with a item price that’s ridiculously low and much much lower than the shipping cost, and you have a (very reasonable sounding) policy of not refunding the shipping cost, it’s quite easy and profitable to accept returns. The buyer has to pay for the return shipping too!
If it’s an auction item, then you get a bonus of...
“At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, all we really want is to be...”
– Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy (via kari-shma) (via quote-book)
tarmo.fi » Don’t draw diagrams of wrong practices →
The Waterfall software development model obviously doesn’t work in real life. So why does it still stick around? like those weird cures for random maladies?
Alternative Views - iphoting's Sink →
Someone who’s owned a Mac somewhat longer than I have writes about how he maximises his two LCD screens. I admit to never having seen DesktopLyrics and iCalViewer before.
“You love, you die, and the wheels on the bus go round and round.”
– The Bucket List (via kari-shma) (via quote-book)
“A verb is a chair slipping under your butt. An adverb is how quickly it slips....”
– Tucky (seen on facebook)
How to be the world's greatest ISP →
While there’s heavy coverage of European markets, it barely gives Asia a few paragraphs. Pity.
(oh and free.fr doesn’t charge for fixed IPs! and it’s 28/1 on ADSL and 100/50 on fibre!)
Let’s compare prices for a certain Australian product. (all dollar amounts in SGD)
Taobao merchant, shipping to PRC: $5.50-$7.50
Taobao merchant, shipping to Singapore: $24.50
Alibaba merchant, shipping to Singapore, MOQ 12 pc: $14
eBay HK merchant, worldwide free shipping: $20
Brand owner’s online shop, worldwide free shipping: $62.99
Which one is the scam? Hehehe.
I’ve finally gotten some idea of the cause of my hair-tearing antics the last week or two.
“… because we must make it look good and show that we’ve put in effort”
When your efforts are primarily directed at making it look like you’ve put in effort(s), you’re effectively setting the stage for the paper walls to waver and fall in the gentle breeze of a...
“Residents [of Panama] proudly call the narrow strip of prosperity along the...”
– The Panama Canal: A plan to unlock prosperity | The Economist
Recent Experiments That Haven't Worked Out And...
marco:
Wireless keyboards.
The MacBook Air.
Glass laptop screens.
PHP 5.3 on servers.
TV-connected computers and “media center” software.
Japanese beer.
Aperture.
Pedometers.
Coffee near the office.
Cool music.
Putting the head of the bed next to old windows in the winter.
Keeping a car in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn. Yeah, it’s fine for now, but it’s not for us long-term.
Win some, lose...
(i read this post and i thought of this image)
thespiky:
Every time I meet people, there’s really one thing that sticks in my mind. Its how different everyone is. People are individual, unique. And some people when they have a problem, they call someone else up to talk to, to pour their hearts out.
While others, well they choose to bottle all their feelings up, isolate themselves. Maybe they...
Ken Fisher in/on The Ten Roads to Riches: (via the aleph blog)
1) Build a significant business. 2) Manage a significant business. 3) Be the right hand man of a wealthy person. 4) Be a star athlete, entertainer, or one who significantly facilitates star athletes and entertainers. 5) Marry a wealthy person. 6) Be a lawyer that helps clients sue for major amounts of money on a contingency fee...
“If airlines worked like the cable companies… Airlines decide to remove...”
– Fiberevolution: Is the ‘Bandwidth Hog’ a Myth? – of misleading advertising, fine print, and what’s ‘abuse’.
The dark side of Dubai - Johann Hari - The... →
Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging.
November 2009
63 posts
Why we use cookbooks: The New Yorker →
“Expanding on the Rosetta Stone theme, I’d go with the language equivalent...”
– Grant Gould on Marginal Revolution: How do you convince someone to stay away? (from a nuclear waste site)