Review of House, a show which I really enjoy. We only started watching it because we wanted to see Hugh Laurie do an American accent. We've kept watching (or, at least, I have) because the character Laurie plays is so wonderfully cynical (and Laurie does it well)--I feel a kinship with him (or whatever) even if he is only a fictional character played by a not as cynical actor.

From the review:

...House has an authentically sour tone that's rare in such a heroic field.

Oh, and last night Laurie's character put on a British accent. That's funny--a British man playing an American who puts on a British accent.

From Michelle. Like she said: points for style.

Article in Slate about missile defense and how it doesn't work.

I had a professor in college who was adamantly against SDI or Star Wars or missile defense or whatever today's name is. He wasn't a technical guy, he was a poli-sci prof. Basically, his argument went, we create an instability in MAD (or its modern day equivalent) by having a system that can stop the missiles that other countries launch at us. It makes countries that have the ability to destroy feel that they aren't safe as we will have a first strike advantage: we can launch our weapons at them, and even if they launch something back, we can stop it with our LASERs (or whatever) in the air. The opposing country becomes very frightened at the prospect and does something stupid in order to make use feel the fear they feel. We may say to the world that such a system is just for our own protection, but other countries see it differently--and we need to recognize that.

I agree with this line of reasoning, and also think that there is no way missile defense will protect us against terrorists. Terrorists aren't going to invest millions in a missile system to launch bombs from a distance, not while they have people willing to be suicide bombers.

Interesting article in Slate about Muammar Qaddafi. He is known only as "Leader" in Lybia.

At least this kook isn't trying to make biological and chemical weapons any more.

An excellent list of marked down toys for this holiday season from the Onion AV Club.

Best lines:

Clearly, punching people make Hulk smile, while card games send Hulk into towering rage. Just try and cheat Hulk at cribbage! Hulk dare you!

It's also the only holiday gift choice that includes instructions as delightful as "Glue the Jesus figure to the center of the blue foam base and then glue the children to Jesus as shown."

Amazon seems to hide its customer service number. Daniel Gross of Slate has found it.

And I am providing it here for your reference:

1-800-201-7575

Check out these really cool origami sculptures by Robert Lang. I'm impressed.

I want the moose for my desk.

Um, yeah. I want this.

I noticed this yesterday while I was driving:

A=pi(d/2)^2

pi=C/d

plugging the above in for pi:

A=Cd/4

which I find interesting (even if you don't :P ). It means, at least in my head, that the area of a circle is equal to 1/4th of the area of the rectangle made by it's diameter and circumference. I am not sure how this is useful, and I'm sure some one else has come up with this before--probably some one a long time ago (but I couldn't figure out how to search for this on google; that is something google needs: a way to search for a formula), but it is cool nonetheless.

Ha ha! I found a blogger in RI from my use of the navigation bar on the top of Blogger's blogs.

She is 13 years old, and loves baseball. Do I have to get her parents' permission to link to her page?

I am very amused by this post on Rodin's blog.

It has science and a story of messing with parents. Excellent.

Readers (all 2 of you, excluding Jason as this is partly for his benefit), I need your help!

Read the following quote from Family Guy:

Peter: Hey, Brian, my alphabets are talking to me. They're saying OOOOOOOO.
Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.

What episode is it in? We've been trying to figure it out for the passed few days but can't. A little help?

Um...is it just me, or does Johnny Depp look like a weird Michael Jackson in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie?

I miss Gene Wilder already.

Rather strange set of flash cartoons shilling a new clothing line by Nike. Enjoy...or whatever.

Oh, and thanks to Anna on this one.

A new-old way to waste time. I need it today, as work is rather slow.

I am not quite sure if this site is being serious or not. It does explain a potentially crackpot physics theory using Nerf. For that reason, and that reason only, it gets a mention here.

Something that PowerPoint desperately needs: a way to give the user an approximation of what your presentation will look like from a certain distance away.

After watching the presentations in my stats class last night and a "this is our new direction" presentation at work this morning, I realized that most people think that you can read teeny-tiny graphs and text on a slide when you are on the other side of the room. You can't. Get over yourself and use a large font.

So, PowerPoint needs a way for you to type in the size of the screen you're using for your presentation and give you the opportunity to see how your presentation will look from 10, 20, 40, 80 etc. feet away. It would be much easier to see if your text or graphs are too small.

People, please, for my eyes sake, use a larger font!

I think more parents should do this. I wonder what their demands are, and if they will be able to negotiate a good contract.

An appropriate article for today, as my company cut about 200 jobs. I'm still here, though. :)

I am rather amused by the headline on the front page of CNN.com:

NYT: Bush to replace Treasury Secretary

which, of course, begs the question: why the hell did Bush bother running the huge campaign for president, if all he wanted was to be the Treasury Secretary? I am sure he could have convinced Kerry to give him the position in exchange for letting Sen. Kerry win the election.

This is pretty astounding. I am very surprised they didn't get the crap beat out of them by the bouncers at the casino.

Potential beatings aside, even with the speed of the ball known, that had to be a complex set of calcs.

I was shown this site last night at a party. (Yes, Flash annimations were shown at a party. And guess what? That party was not in the People's Republic, and the majority of the people in the room did not have engineering degrees. Fucked up, huh?) Just click on the start button.

Another page that was shown was this one.

I think it was about 2 am when these came out, so I really can't assure the quality. Hell, they were wicked funny at the time.

A digital sundial thanks to Slashdot.

Check out this blog. It gives an interesting cross-section of people's reading preferences. On the Road and The Bible pop up quite a few times in the limited data.

Interesting game. It gives you a sense for just how long 0.2 seconds is. It feels much longer than you think.

This is very cool. Frontline has 42 episodes (currently) on their site that you can watch in entirety in streaming video. PBS rocks my world.

The Onion presents its sage advice on Fighting Insomnia.

Remember: Insomnia is only a problem if you are employed or have a reason to live.

Excellent! It won't be a problem if I am unemployed and suicidal.

From an interview with Richard Dawkins in Slate:

'You've called religion a 'dangerous collective delusion' and a 'malignant infection,' ' I said. 'Don't you think you're underplaying it a bit?'

Dawkins turned, smiled a small fox smile, and said, 'Yes!'

Ah. Richard Dawkins.