Zevils

Rice is Nice

Matthew — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:02:35 +0000

Today’s Times has a great article about rice cookers.

I want to try toasted rice ice cream.
I think that this should be our national loaf.
I want to stick a spoiler on my Sanyo, turning it into a rice rice cooker.

Lede By Example

Matthew — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:07:38 +0000

Here’s a lede I never thought I’d see:

A spokesman for the pirates … said that so far, in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood. —Somali Pirates Tell All: They’re in It for the Money, New York Times, 2008-09-30

Comcast Fail

Matthew — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:26:40 +0000

The downstairs neighbor got cable installed recently, and this is what the side of our house looks like now:

More glamour shots here. Off to call RCN and see if they’ll do something about it…

Update: Allegedly, an RCN dispatcher will be calling us tomorrow to send someone out.

Update 2: RCN came, and it turns out that it isn’t their wires. Before we and downstairs got RCN, there was a Comcast install. Comcast came and disconnected their wires once nobody at the place had Comcast, and they left the mess.

Update 3, 2008-09-15: I called Comcast on Friday, and they said they’d send someone out on Saturday. They didn’t. I’ll try emailing them this time…

Update 4: Email didn’t progress very far before they said I’d have to call or use their “live chat” feature. I called, and a very helpful and apologetic CSR scheduled an appointment for Wednesday, and said she’d monitor the account and call me back on Wednesday to make sure that someone actually came out this time. I think it’ll actually happen this time.

Update 5: Looks like they came and took care of it. Hooray!

Snarkiest Review Ever

Matthew — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:39:55 +0000

The New York Times reviews a trendy fashion boutique in delightfully snarky fashion. The place truly does sound bizarre; the sales clerk at the store was disappointed that they’d sold out of the dress that came with an instruction manual.

The Road Less Traveled

Matthew — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:26:03 +0000

Google Maps has walking directions now.

Now That’s Social Engineering!

Matthew — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:22:56 +0000

A federal agent strolls into a small Missouri town and helps clean up their meth problem, spearheading a string of arrests. The only problem is that he wasn’t really a federal agent, or any kind of law enforcement officer at all. Monica Davey for the New York Times writes:

Those whose homes were searched, though, grumbled about a peculiar change in what they understood, from television mainly, to be the law. They said the agent, a man some had come to know as “Sergeant Bill,” boasted that he did not need search warrants to enter their homes because he worked for the federal government. Sergeant Bill, it turned out, was no federal agent, but Bill A. Jakob, an unemployed former trucking company owner, …

Comics I Don’t Understand

Matthew — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:53:58 +0000

Comics I Don’t Understand finally re-did their site so that it’s actually readable. One of their latest entries is a particularly fine “Garfield” cartoon, although I’ll confess that I wouldn’t have got the reference without the explanation.

Unsafe At Many Speeds

Matthew — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:57:21 +0000

Do street signs make us less safe? This article argues that they do, by making excessive demands on drivers’ attention and training them to not think. It makes the case for, amongst other things, roundabouts over four-way stops, on the grounds that at a four-way stop, drivers look at signs off to the side of the road instead of looking in front of them; at roundabouts, on the other hand, focus remains on traffic.

I’ve also seen the argument that roundabouts are better because traffic proceeds through them more slowly. Also, I think they have better failure modes. If you don’t notice a stop sign, it’s easy to drive through an intersection at or near full speed, whereas it’s pretty hard to miss a roundabout entirely. If you don’t notice traffic that you’re supposed to yield to (or vice versa), you’ve probably at least reduced speed somewhat.

(Via AgBlog.)

Alpacas are Awesome

Matthew — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:55:37 +0000

While doing research for an upcoming trip to Peru (more details on that later), I discovered that alpacas are awesome. Check out the photo of an unshorn alpaca, grazing and the description of alpaca sounds, both courtesy of the also-awesome Wikipedia. I will not attempt to do the latter justice in an excerpt here, but let’s just say that they purr, and they orgle. Usually not at the same time.

The All Ighty Ollar

Matthew — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:31:05 +0000

Encyclopedias, human genomes… YAWN! The internet finally proves it’s good for something, now that classic Mad Magazine fold-ins are online. (Via dad.)