“Yahoo is clever. It just took me 15 minutes and a whole bunch of searching to figure out how to cancel my Yahoo Music subscription. That's how they keep their users....”
"But if you look at the political fights he’s picked throughout his political career, the main theme is not any ideology. It’s that he hates stupidity." - darren via Bookmarklet
Okay, that's almost believable, but I'm not sure how "backtracking on the anti-Nafta pandering he did during the primary" is supposed to be "dumb-avoidance". - ⓞnor
I'm with McCain on this one. Although he also has huge ties to the oil companies.... "Mr. McCain advocates eliminating the multibillion-dollar annual government subsidies that domestic ethanol has long enjoyed. As a free trade advocate, he also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the United States slaps on imports of ethanol made from sugar cane, which packs more of an energy punch than corn-based ethanol and is cheaper to produce." - darren via Bookmarklet
"So why are the zealots so happy? Many readers of my last post suggested that there is a tremendous amount of comfort — even happiness — in total certainty. I think this interpretation is right, and applies to fundamentalists of every stripe.
The troubling characteristic about fundamentalists is that those who don’t agree with them are not just wrong, but maybe even evil." - darren
"In short, roughly as many Chinese die every two months from the air as were killed in the earthquake. And the problem is becoming international: just as Californians can find Chinese-made shoes in their stores, they can now find Chinese-made haze in their skies." - darren
"The problem with CCS is that it will completely derail efforts to get off coal," Rochon said. "It's not going to be any easier 30 years from now to make the transition to renewables. It's not going to be any faster. And by then, it's probably too late." - darren
posted a message
“The Olympic torch just passed my office building. The crowd was shouting "jia you, zhong guo!", or "Come on, China!" The expression "jia you" literally means "add oil" (加油), as in "add oil to the fire".”
Interestingly, while Satoru swears by "八分目", Nori says that it's "七分目". The latter is closer to the Chinese proverb, "七分飽" . A Google search for both shows that there are about twice as many results for 七分目. But I guess it all depends on your own internal gauge of fullness anyway. ;o) - Ocean
Of course less than a day after this post I went to Brazilian BBQ with my gf. Yet we both ate more vegetables than meat, and left decidedly not stuffed. Imagine going to all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ and getting hungry again a couple hours later, with no stomach-aches or "I'm so stuffed I want to die" feelings. It's quite nice. - darren
No way! That must not have been Brazilian BBQ. Can't trust those Chinese people ... ;o) - Ocean
Admittedly, it wasn't very tasty, and this played a large part in the non-stuffing. =P - darren
WTF? "Continuity of Governance plans that were developed during the Cold War and aggressively revised since 9/11 go into effect. Surviving government officials are shuttled to protected underground complexes carved into the hills of Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Power shifts to a "parallel government" that consists of scores of secretly preselected officials. (As far back as the 1980s, Donald Rumsfeld, then CEO of a pharmaceutical company, and Dick Cheney, then a congressman from Wyoming, were slated to step into key positions during a declared emergency.) The executive branch is the sole and absolute seat of authority, with Congress and the judiciary relegated to advisory roles at best. The country becomes, within a matter of hours, a police state." - darren
"Plagued by a lack of funding and growing staff shortages, the San Diego Zoo and Ironwood State Prison were combined earlier this week, bringing local inmates and wildlife together for the first time under the same roof." - darren
One of the crazy things I worry about in China is whether the health benefits of aerobic exercise outweigh the risks of increased inhalation of particulate matter (from breathing harder). Any thoughts? And before you ask, I run inside. - darren
"But Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas, the senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the measure was meaningless. “If all the members of the House would go out onto the steps and clap our hands three times and say, ‘Down prices, down prices,’ that would have as much impact as passing this bill,” he said." - darren
"As an example, the company spends at least $14 per employee per day on all that free food. At 19,000 employees, that works out to $67 million a year, or about 20 cents per share that would drop to the bottom line if Google were to have the temerity to ask its workers - shudder - to pay for their own meals. Twenty cents is a trifle; analysts expect 2008 earnings of nearly $20 per share. But in a pinch? No-brainer." - darren
Getting rid of the food would be tremendously destructive. It would be like getting rid of the chairs, except worse. - Paul Buchheit
Worse than getting rid of the chairs? - Jim Norris
Doesn't it cost more to hire so many people? The model should be limiting the workforce, while keeping existing employees as productive as possible. Otherwise it's like outsourcing without going overseas. - Chris White
Not having to pay makes the cafeterias much, much, much more efficient. You don't need standard portion sizes, or packaged items, or specific entree/side choices, or prices on menus, or cash registers, or checkout staff, or stored value cards. Nobody has to wait in line to pay, you can have smaller cafeterias, you can put leftovers in fridges for people to take at off hours, and there's less wastage. Having seen this, it's really a wonder why any company *does* charge. - ⓞnor
=@nor. Funny, I remember eating there when they did make you pay, although there were less employees at SGI. :) - Chris White
Another equally obvious idea, which I assume the author thinks is exactly as good as that one, is a company-wide reduction of salaries by $14/day, from the most-valued employees to the least-valued. - j1m
Yeah, they could also start charging employees to use their computers, maybe put a little quarter slot on the side like at the video arcade. - Paul Buchheit
I agree, getting rid of the food would be tremendously destructive. Food expenses are likely minuscule compared to other expenses (e.g., corporate travel, just to name one). Although I suppose putting a quarter slot on the computers might encourage engineers to work less and save electricity? =P - darren
This is why I'm glad that random journalists don't run businesses. Can you imagine the carnage? - Adewale Oshineye
I think it's interesting / telling that there's no way to comment on articles on CNN Money. - Adam Lasnik
"Asked whether any decisions had been made on how to choose his successor, the Dalai Lama, who is 73, said senior monks had met here last month and agreed that there was no hurry. He said he assured them he would live “at least another two, three decades.”" Confident dude. - darren
"Ginormous sinkhole gobbles up yards" I just thought it was funny how the word "ginormous" ended up on the CNN front page. - darren
Okay, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. One of the articles is "Potty Problems: Beware of the Tinkler." Are we getting collectively dumber, and headed inexorably towards Idiocracy? - darren
"The other major reason Facebook chat hasn’t changed the world is because I don’t need Facebook. Gchat appears when you check your e-mail, a very common occurrence, so leaving Gmail open makes sense." - darren
"Senator Barack Obama has not joined the call for a tax cut, but Mrs. Clinton stuck to the idea, arguing that economists are elitists so one should not trust their judgment. Mr. McCain’s defense is simpler: he has already admitted that he understands next to nothing about economics." So, so sad. - darren
"Masataka Kinashi, the head of the tourism association in Usuki and a fugu dealer himself, suddenly stared down at his desk when asked about the widespread sale of fugu liver.
“Officially, you can never eat it here,” Mr. Kinashi said. “Well, it’s not that you can’t eat it, but, no, you can’t eat it. That’s the only answer I can give you.”" - darren
I tried fugu once in Japan. It was overcooked and extremely salty. Total letdown. I intend to go to a fugu-speciality restaurant next time I'm in Tokyo. - darren
"In another set of experiments, Dr. Dukas discovered that young male flies wasted a lot of time trying to court unreceptive females. It takes time to learn the signs of a receptive fly." - darren
"One clue comes from another experiment, in which he and his colleagues found that the very act of learning takes a toll. The scientists trained some fast-learning flies to associate an odor with powerful vibrations. “These flies died about 20 percent faster than flies with the same genes, but which were not forced to learn,” he said." Maybe they were afraid. Maybe the stress of knowing shortens their lives. - darren
"... brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks." - darren
"Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country." - darren
"``Unbelievable,'' said Laura Martin, an analyst at New York- based Soleil Securities Corp. ``This is management putting its employees and its job security ahead of current Yahoo shareholders' interest.''" Yeah, employees suck. Who cares about them? It's not like they run the company or anything. - darren
"The oh-my-God moment came when I realized that Israel can destroy all of its local enemies by inventing solar technology that makes oil uneconomical. Such an invention would do more harm than any military attack." - darren
"We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite." - darren
an interesting read that sums up my feelings on the matter quite nicely. - Chieze Okoye
posted a message
“I have a fiber optic cable going directly into my apartment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...) in Shanghai, which is like having a firehose with a boulder (Great Firewall) sitting on top of it.”
And they hooked it up to a 10Mbps LAN. Who designs these things?? - darren
The point of the fiber may not be to give you your own personal gigabit, but just to be an expedient way to move bandwidth into the building in aggregate. If you're building a telecom infrastructure from scratch, going fiber-to-the-room might make a lot of sense. - ⓞnor
Good point. I'm still disappointed it's slower than ADSL, though =P. - darren
"If truth be told, the McCain tax plan doesn’t seem to embody any coherent policy agenda. Instead, it looks like a giant exercise in pandering — an attempt to mollify the G.O.P.’s right wing, and never mind if it makes any sense." - darren
"The price of household necessities has surged, with milk topping $4 a gallon in many stores and regular gasoline closing in on $3.60 a gallon nationwide." I love how they juxtapose the price of milk per gallon and gasoline per gallon. - darren
"Mary Gregory, 55, a telephone company operator in Cleveland, used to eat red meat at least once a week. Now it is hardly ever on her menu. “I usually buy turkey instead,” she said. “Any recipe that calls for meat, like chili or spaghetti, I try to substitute turkey.”" HAHAHA. If it's not red, it's not meat! - darren
