Interesting Links for 13-04-2013

[andrewducker]

• Margaret Thatcher Wizard of Oz track sparks chart debate
  (tags: music funny margaretthatcher )
• Introducing MigCoin (I giggled)
  (tags: funny bitcoin )
• Edinburgh gets more hybrid buses
  (tags: edinburgh environment transport electricity )
• Why you won't be using magnetic coils to use launch spaceships any time soon.
  (tags: technology magnets

Comments

[ninebelow]

Can someone explain why you'd want to buy toast on the internet?

Interesting "customers who viewed this also viewed" selection...

[andrewducker]

So, the main customers are MTG players...

[bart_calendar]

You'd buy toast on the Internet for the same reason Rome Girl used to buy Resse's Peanut Butter cups on the Internet - you are living in a new country and there is a specific brand of product you like and it's not available in your new country's shops.

[andrewducker]

But then you have _cold_ toast!

Surely you'd be better off buying bread, and then toasting it!

[bart_calendar]

Not if that brand of toast is something your mom served you in the morning when you are little and you really miss the way that particular toast tastes and know you are unlikely to replicate it yourself because you don't have access to whatever chemicals/flavorings they used to make that toast.

I could buy peanut butter and chocolate and make peanut butter cops for Rome Girl easily - but it wouldn't be the same.

[woodpijn]

Sounds like the disagreement is about buying toast at all, rather than buying toast online. I'd never heard of buying toast before (except in a restaurant or cafe where you buy it hot and eat it immediately), whereas it sounds from your comment as though supermarket-bought toast is an established thing where you come from. If so, then buying it over the internet seems logical.

Introducing MigCoin (I giggled)

[cartesiandaemon]

I assumed this was going to be a currency backed by Russian fighter jets...

Re: Introducing MigCoin (I giggled)

[andrewducker]

That would also be pretty awesome.

Re: Introducing MigCoin (I giggled)

[cartesiandaemon]

I went through some time thinking of pros and cons.

Pro: it makes robbing the bank a lot scarier.
Con: thin shells around mach 5 jet fuel don't exactly share the key properties of gold in being "desirable" and "long lasting"
Pro: if enough people are willing to pay for it, they don't need to go through the intermediate step of establishing a government to justify it for them, they can strafe whoever they want.
Con: ditto

But eventually I realised that a currency backed by a military-industrial complex wasn't exactly a new idea, it was basically what we already had :)

Why you won't be using magnetic coils to use launch spaceships any time soon.

[cartesiandaemon]

Hm. I always thought there turning-the-payload-to-jelly and burning-up-in-the-atmosphere were impediments to accelerating the rocket to escape velocity on the surface at all, regardless of what method of propulsion you used. But maybe not.

Can someone explain why you'd want to buy toast on the internet?

[cartesiandaemon]

I was going to say "because it's awesome even if it's useless". But it seems the right answer is what woodpijn and ipslore said, that if you want toast that's not necessarily freshmade, you can buy it (and then "supermarket" or "internet" are the same).