Fnording
dollar bills is an old Discordian game, or maybe
counter-conspiracy tactic. Technically, it counts as defacing
the currency, but so does writing "37" or "555-1287" on a
twenty, and I've never heard of anyone being busted for any
of these things.
A born-again Christian presents
Three
easy steps to losing your faith.
CNet on the
evolving
"love" virus. Don't open attachments unless you know
they're legit, even if they're from someone you know and trust.
You
can
die
from drinking too much water, if you're exercising heavily
at the same time: loss of salt can lead to fluid build-up in the
lungs, and to death.
When marathoners collapse, doctors usually assume they've
had heart attacks; correctly diagnosed, and treated with IV
saline, victims of hyponatremia will recover.
I find this oddly comforting: we're always being told how
little Americans know about the rest of the world, but it
turns out the
British
are ignorant about us, too: 54% of those polled believed
that New Orleans was a state, and 12% thought Canada was.
Thirty
years ago today, National Guardsmen
opened fire
on student demonstrators, killing four and injuring nine
others. After 20 years, the university dedicated a memorial to
the "events" of that day, and the governor of Ohio apologized to
the families of the dead and to the surviving victims.
The Internet can change your life, or it can make it more so:
Internet
opens up whole new world of illness for local hypochondriac.
Also in this week's Onion, person-in-the-street
comments on
Vermont's
same-sex marriage law: "First, the military, now marriage.
Why do these gays want in on our worst institutions?"
Games
that
shouldn't
exist, from SimLaundry to Professional Painter.
I spent a delightful weekend with Diann: we hiked around
in Kent Falls State Park, where the falls were impressive
and appealing in the sunshine, ate good sushi, and did
quite a bit of gardening. I came home on the railroad, skipping
Grand Central Station (it's faster for me to get off in Harlem
and take the crosstown bus), with a collection of violets
for my own tiny, almost sunless garden.
So there I am, safe at home, about to unpack, when I felt something odd on my ear. I started to remove it, and it felt a bit like peeling a scab. I've never been much good at not picking at scabs, and couldn't imagine how I'd have gotten one there without knowing about it, so I peeled it off. It was alive. My partner identified it as a tick, the first one I'd ever seen, let alone dealt with.
No big deal, maybe, in some places, but Diann lives in Connecticut.
I read almost everything in the newspaper, including the Lyme disease advisories, and forget most of it. One dead bug and a night's sleep later, I went hunting around the Web. After a number of disappointing sites, full of promises that they'd supply photos, I got to the CDC's Lyme disease information. I am much reassured: the insect almost certainly wasn't on my body long enough to infect me, and it was big enough that it was probably not the kind of tick that carries Lyme disease.f
Nonetheless, I have to keep an eye on myself--or rather, get someone else to do it: have you ever tried to look at the inside of your ear?--for thirty days in case the characteristic rash turns up.
Memo to the Lyme Disease Foundation: the average surfer doesn't care what awards you've won, and doesn't want to enter your poster contest: she wants to know how to prevent, identify, and treat Lyme disease.
Studies of how the landscape on and around
Mount St. Helens has
regenerated
in the 20 years since the eruption have changed a
number of theories about orderly succession of plant species.
Protecting the youth of America from ideas dangerous
to the ruling class:
AOL's "youth
filter" will let children see the Web site of the
Republican National Committee, but not the
Democratic National Committee. AOL uses filters produced by
Mattel subsidiary the Learning Company.
AOL spokesman Rich D'Amato said today that he was "unaware of any conservative bias" in the youth filters used by the service.It's nice to know they do extensive usability testing. Meanwhile,
Susan Getgood, general manager of The Learning Company's "Cyber Patrol" division, said her group "uses a 'whitelist' approach," in which a specific list of sites is approved for young children.Somehow, I doubt she or anyone at the Learning Company bothered to notify the Green Party or the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence that they would have to apply specifically to be considered suitable viewing for children, any more than they tell parents that their children's surfing will be limited to political organizations savvy enough to realize that they should ask to be put on such a list.Getgood denied that the list has a deliberate slant.
"We have a regular process of reviewing sites that are submitted, and if they meet our criteria they are added," she said. "If some sites are included, it's probably because someone submitted them."
Detailed new data
from a balloon flown over Antarctica have
satisfied cosmologists that we live in a
flat
universe which will expand forever. Somehow, I
doubt this will comfort the Flat Earth Society, but I'm
pleased--not only that we know the answer, but with
what the answer has turned out to be.
For everyone
who remembers the book or the educational filmstrip,
Powers of 10
is now a Website, and a pretty cool one. How often do you
see the word "yottameter"?
[via Medley, which
also has some good comments about women on the Web and the
weird ways some boys react to us.]
Well,
it swims like a fish: by Vatican edict,
capybaras
are legally fish, which allows devout Catholics
to eat capybara meat during Lent. Just ignore
the four legs and the fur. (Note: this is the second article
on this page about the capybara as food.)
e-normicom will generate
your very own modern-sounding name, complete with logo, and
run everything past a focus group. All you have to do is click.
The
HalfBakery
is a giant compendium of random ideas, with comments.
Items have names like "Ansible" (not the
fanzine)
and "Aluminum Can Protocol."
[via /usr/bin/girl]
I wasn't
going to blog anything to do
with the Elian Gonzalez case, but Marie Cocco's
proposed
list of witnesses, and questions, for a Congressional
hearing is delightful.
Pollution
makes
you stupid: the dangers of lead are well-known,
but there are many other risks, most of them not remotely
in the control of the people affected:
Radiation from Chernobyl has led to an increase in Down's syndrome,
and Inuit children are suffering from PCBs used in the tropics.
The world is so full of a number of things:
two
new species of marmoset have been discovered in the
Amazon. Better yet, the discoverer, Marc van Roosmalen,
says he has found 17 more monkeys he believes are new to science, as well as five new birds and two plants.Get this man some research assistants!"I have to stop doing surveys because I keep coming up with something else and I don't have time to write them all up," he said.
Copyright 1999, 2000 Vicki Rosenzweig. Comments welcome at vr@interport.net.
If you like this, you might also like my home page.