Linkdump: Illicit Sympathy
··· Chicago’s Loss: Is Passport Control to Blame?
Probably not. Brazil hadn't had the games before, so it made a great deal of sense to give it to them if they can at all handle it. But an IOC member pointing out that entering the United States can be "a rather harrowing experience" in the Q&A session following Chicago's official presentation does make the brows raise a bit. Most importantly, though, I hope that this sticks in the news for a while and that public perception is that the TSA scared away the Olympics. That might lead to less of this (and this past linkdump of mine has three more incidents that piss me off, but none so much as the JFK detention article). I know that a lot of conservatives are blaming Obama for chasing away the Olympics. I haven't heard that sentiment since he got the Nobel Peace Prize, but that might be only because said conservatives are mouthfoaming about that now.
··· Bob Hertzberg is kind of an impressive guy. After a career in politics culminating with his being the 64th Speaker of the California State Assembly (Democrat), he went into the solar technology business. His first venture was in L.A., and relied heavily on job-creation subsidies that were pulled out from under him at the last minute. The business failed. So he started a new one, based in Wales, U.K. He went outside the US to escape regulatory mazes, seeking and accepting no government subsidies there except a smallish one to help build a fence around his factory. It was an existing building, formerly owned by the Acer computer company, and he powers his production largely (entirely?) with a bigass wind turbine.
And his product? Thin-film solar cells, and products using them. They're much less efficient than silicon-wafer cells, but also much less fragile, and generate more reliable and consistent power across a much greater range of light conditions than more conventional solar cell technology. And they're far cheaper. (Fortune Small Business article, G24 Innovations company website).
··· Reeeally thinking about buying these bamboo fiber sheets from Bed, Bath & Beyond. The price-$35 for a full set-is VERY reasonable compared to Amazon.com prices on bamboo sheets. The thread count is lower than I'd normally want, but apparently the material is naturally smoother than cotton, so I don't know. I'd probably want to hit a hard BB&B location to cop a feel before I bought.
··· Your brain is defective (optical illusion).
Update:
.
··· Hilarious Overheard in New York entry. This one is also good.
··· This has probably made the rounds, but here: What stormtroopers do on their day off.
··· A longish while back I saw this post on Boingboing about some multibladed shredding scissors only available in Japan. Now they're being marketed in the US as herb chopping scissors and they got another BB post. Funny! Anyway, they're less than $10 on Amazon [link]. All I really need to shred is account numbers and maybe addresses, so it feels silly to shred a whole sheet of paper in a bigass shredder that makes an obnoxious noise just to kill three lines of text. With these scissors, I could just snip-snip and be done with it in comparative silence. I've also been on the lookout for a full-on hand-crank shredder. I haven't seen any on store shelves, but Amazon has this and also this much more popular (and apparently crappier) model. I'm not sold; the scissors look much more appealing. I do have a little electric mini-shredder that has spent five years not dying under infrequent use, but I hate the noise.
Update: I ordered the scissors.
··· Steel velcro.
Probably not. Brazil hadn't had the games before, so it made a great deal of sense to give it to them if they can at all handle it. But an IOC member pointing out that entering the United States can be "a rather harrowing experience" in the Q&A session following Chicago's official presentation does make the brows raise a bit. Most importantly, though, I hope that this sticks in the news for a while and that public perception is that the TSA scared away the Olympics. That might lead to less of this (and this past linkdump of mine has three more incidents that piss me off, but none so much as the JFK detention article). I know that a lot of conservatives are blaming Obama for chasing away the Olympics. I haven't heard that sentiment since he got the Nobel Peace Prize, but that might be only because said conservatives are mouthfoaming about that now.
··· Bob Hertzberg is kind of an impressive guy. After a career in politics culminating with his being the 64th Speaker of the California State Assembly (Democrat), he went into the solar technology business. His first venture was in L.A., and relied heavily on job-creation subsidies that were pulled out from under him at the last minute. The business failed. So he started a new one, based in Wales, U.K. He went outside the US to escape regulatory mazes, seeking and accepting no government subsidies there except a smallish one to help build a fence around his factory. It was an existing building, formerly owned by the Acer computer company, and he powers his production largely (entirely?) with a bigass wind turbine.
And his product? Thin-film solar cells, and products using them. They're much less efficient than silicon-wafer cells, but also much less fragile, and generate more reliable and consistent power across a much greater range of light conditions than more conventional solar cell technology. And they're far cheaper. (Fortune Small Business article, G24 Innovations company website).
··· Reeeally thinking about buying these bamboo fiber sheets from Bed, Bath & Beyond. The price-$35 for a full set-is VERY reasonable compared to Amazon.com prices on bamboo sheets. The thread count is lower than I'd normally want, but apparently the material is naturally smoother than cotton, so I don't know. I'd probably want to hit a hard BB&B location to cop a feel before I bought.
··· Your brain is defective (optical illusion).
Update:
.
··· Hilarious Overheard in New York entry. This one is also good.
··· This has probably made the rounds, but here: What stormtroopers do on their day off.
··· A longish while back I saw this post on Boingboing about some multibladed shredding scissors only available in Japan. Now they're being marketed in the US as herb chopping scissors and they got another BB post. Funny! Anyway, they're less than $10 on Amazon [link]. All I really need to shred is account numbers and maybe addresses, so it feels silly to shred a whole sheet of paper in a bigass shredder that makes an obnoxious noise just to kill three lines of text. With these scissors, I could just snip-snip and be done with it in comparative silence. I've also been on the lookout for a full-on hand-crank shredder. I haven't seen any on store shelves, but Amazon has this and also this much more popular (and apparently crappier) model. I'm not sold; the scissors look much more appealing. I do have a little electric mini-shredder that has spent five years not dying under infrequent use, but I hate the noise.
Update: I ordered the scissors.
··· Steel velcro.