We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I have a few friends who have taken trips to France or Italy to attend 5-day to one week hands-on cooking schools. Generally, husband and wife participate although one is usually more interested than the other. Some also offer classes for youth.
Many of the schools run from around noon or 1 through suppertime, when the students eat their creations together. The meal planning and local shopping are part of most courses except for the ones sited on farms.
People have told me that these have been the most fun they have ever had while traveling because it gets you into the culture and away from the "sights."
Just for fun, you can google "tourist cooking schools near Paris," or "in Provence", or "in Italy," etc. As you know, each region of Italy has its own cuisine and its own different produce.
Hello everyone. I trust you're all done sleeping one off.
Whoops, I meant to say, I trust you're all back from Sunday service now. If you're like me, there's nothing like a hot cup of joe and the Sunday paper spread out in front of you after church. Of course a printed newspaper was last spotted in my home back when Reagan was abroad in the land, and when the Pope wasn't pro-choice, so I have to make do with a passel of pixels spread out in front of me. On the plus side, the poorly cropped pictures are more plentiful, and some of the articles actually start talking to you, which give the voices in my head a day off. On to the news!
Smartphones, tablets and e-readers should have an automatic "bedtime mode" that stops them disrupting people's sleep, says a leading doctor. Prof Paul Gringras argued the setting should filter out the blue light that delays the body clock and keeps people awake later into the evening. The doctor, from Evelina Children's Hospital in London, said every new model was "bluer and brighter". He said manufacturers needed to show more "responsibility".
Or, you know, you could shut the stupid thing off, and make your kids shut it off. You know, like an adult.
A few years ago, WIRED’s chief photographer was standing in line at Starbucks when inspiration struck forcefully. “The ribbing on the drink holders reminded me of solar panels,” Winters says. “That instantly registered ‘TIE fighter’ in my head.” That sent him on a quest to create a Yoda-sized TIE fighter using only stuff from Starbucks. All told he needed one tall lid, 10 96-ounce coffee boxes, 12 sample cups, 37 grande cups, 63 drink holders, 216 stirrers, and a workspace significantly larger than a coffee-shop table.
Alternate title: How to Make an Infantile Adult Using Only Pop Culture and a Candy Store Masquerading as a Coffee Shop.
Earlier that year, the Comorian government had received a proposal from some visiting Arab businessmen. What if the Comoros started to sell their citizenship to raise funds? There was a great demand for passports in the Middle East, the men explained; for starters, wealthy individuals saw a second or third nationality as a shortcut to make travelling and doing business abroad easier.
I think France has also been toying with the idea of hosting some "visiting Arab businessmen." I wonder how that's going?
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Federal drug agents have built a massive wiretapping operation in the Los Angeles suburbs, secretly intercepting tens of thousands of Americans' phone calls and text messages to monitor drug traffickers across the United States despite objections from Justice Department lawyers who fear the practice may not be legal.
I have a dictionary. I fear that "Fear" is the wrong word in that headline. DILLIGAF might approximate their mood. however.
The hunt for those responsible (eight terrorists were killed Saturday night, but accomplices may still be at large) led to a number of raids in nearby Brussels. Evidence reportedly turned up included at least one PlayStation 4 console. Belgian federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon said outright that the PS4 is by used ISIS agents to communicate, and was selected due to the fact that it’s notoriously hard to monitor.
"The hunt for those responsible." That's a good one. I imagine common-sense Playstation control will fix everything. With an outright ban on assault Playstations, of course.
As humans, our failings are epic. Some of us eat too much, lie to ourselves, don’t exercise enough, and spend so much money that we have nothing left for that vacation in Hawaii. But technology, Dan Ariely believes, might save us from ourselves. Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, is an investor and the chief behavioral economist at Qapital, a Swedish-startup geared toward encouraging Millennials to save.
Or, you know, you could shut the stupid thing off, and make your kids shut it off. You know, like an adult.
First, a machine learning model takes a first pass on the data, or every video, image or document that needs labeling. That model also assigns a confidence score, or how sure the algorithm is that it’s making the right judgment. If the confidence score is below a certain value, it sends the data to a human annotator to make a judgment.
I know! We could install a steering wheel in self-driving cars! That would let the passenger drive the car using their judgment! Of course, first they'd have to shut their stupid iPhone off, and make their kids shut theirs off. You know, like an adult.
While the term may mean little to your average retail investor, swap spreads have become the talk of financial markets in recent weeks as they plumb historic lows and seemingly defy market logic. At issue is the fact that swap rates—or rates charged for interest rate swaps—have dipped below yields on equivalent U.S. Treasuries, indicating that investors are charging less to deal with banks and corporations than with the U.S. government. Such a thing should never happen, as U.S. Treasuries theoretically represent the "risk-free" rate while swap rates are imbued with significant counterparty risk that should demand a premium.
Let's see: Barack Barry Hussein Soetoro Obama. I only count five.
T-Mobile, the wireless company, said last week that it would let customers watch as many movies as they wanted on services like Netflix and HBO as well as all other kinds of video, without having it count against their monthly data plans. Given the growing popularity of streaming video, its plan, called Binge On, should appeal to many consumers. But there are real concerns about whether such promotions could give telecommunications companies the ability to influence what services people use on the Internet, benefiting some businesses and hurting others.
Or, you know, you could shut the stupid thing off, and make your kids shut it off. You know, like an adult.
On August 21, a new hotel opened on the campus of Denmark’s foremost specialized care hospital, Rigshospitalet. Called the Patient Hotel, this 74-room building provides convenient accommodations for self-sufficient patients who have traveled from far away, for an exam or treatment. For patients undergoing long-tern medical care, the tranquil, sky-lit space also provides a temporary escape from the regular hospital’s blaring machines and daily bustle.
Wow. Those benevolent and intelligent Scandinavians have discovered that neurotic hypochondriacal lonely people prefer a four-star hotel over staying at home and reading Web MD -- if someone else pays for it. There's also a helpful picuture of of a member of this super-race of humans bicycling on two underinflated tires while texting.
Well, that's all the news that fits. Into my schedule, I mean. I think I'm going to, I don't know, shut this stupid thing off now. You, know, like an adult.
13:1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!"
13:2 Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."
13:3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,
13:4 "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"
13:5 Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray.
13:6 Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray.
13:7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.
13:8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.
Thinking by post: Isaiah Berlin's letters reveal how his ideas still hold relevance - One of the great liberal thinkers of the post-war period, Affirming: Letters 1975-97 makes clear the continuing relevance of Berlin's thought.
On your first visit, you have to stop by all of the main tourist destinations and see double late at night on the Spanish Steps. Vatican, all that. It's required. Generally-speaking, I do not think much of Rome itself as a city to visit, but I feel the same way about Venice so ignore me if you want to.
However, the best thing to do in Rome is to take a tour of Ostia - Ostia Antica. It far surpasses Herculaneum and Pompeii as a preserved Roman urban site. It's the old port of Rome, the ancient harbor which silted up but was never destroyed. A stroll around there will make you realize that the Romans lived quite similarly to the way Americans live today.
Central heat, fast food, running water, sanitary toilets, shopping areas, multi-story apartment buildings, whorehouses, gambling dens, paved streets, warehouses, factories, etc. They did not wear togas, either - except the senators and their ilk. They did not have tomatoes.
I don't get in nearly as many scrapes on Saturday Night as I once did. I'm always the toughest guy at the Olive Garden at 4:10, so no one dares front me over the newly rationed bread sticks, and I'm usually home in bed before the real heavy stuff comes down past 5:00.
I'm no shrinking violet, though. I was a welterweight pacifist back in the day. Since I didn't believe in violence, I was only allowed to fight with other pacifists in my weight class. I once gave an Indian burn to a Hare Krishna in an airport terminal that I bet he's hasn't forgotten yet.
Anyway, if you venture out this evening with a glint in your eye and the devil in your heart, be careful of hanging around known tough guys like Elton John. Did you ever listen to the lyrics of Saturday Night's All Right (for Fighting)? That dude would kick your ass with his crepe-soled sneakers at the drop of a straw boater.
Householders in America have struggled for years to work off the excess borrowing taken on during a global housing boom in the 2000s. The economy has suffered from a shortfall of spending as a consequence. The world economy was dealt a second blow, after 2010, when the delayed effects of that earlier boom were played out in a debt crisis at the fringes of the euro area, one that at several points threatened to break up the currency union.
Housing debt? Ten years roll by and somehow everything is still George Bush's fault.
The threat to individual liberty from stop-and-seize is painfully clear. Without requirements for an arrest or for a warrant, the power to confiscate cash is a clear diminution of property rights. Effectively, the police have been given official sanction to commit literal highway robbery without the threat of punishment. People whose property was seized must pay a lot of money and spend a long time in court for even the chance of getting it back, and police who seize money with no good reason don't, apparently, suffer any threat of discipline.
The verdicts, delivered after little more than two days of deliberations, left many in the courtroom stunned, most visibly prosecutors from the United States attorney’s office, which had spent years building a case against Mr. Asaro, 80, with testimony from high-ranking Mafia figures and recordings by an informer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
People are stunned that jurors don't want a purported mafia member angry at them. That is stunning.
France has declared a national state of emergency and tightened borders after at least 128 people were killed in a night of gun and bomb attacks in Paris. Eighty people were reported killed after gunmen burst into the Bataclan concert hall and took hostages before security forces stormed the hall.People were shot dead at restaurants and bars at five other sites in Paris. At least 180 people were injured. These are the deadliest attacks in Europe since the 2004 Madrid bombings.
Hmm. It would appear they don't - want - to live like a refugee. Don't want to live like a ref-huge-gee.
Apple bought Beats last year for $3 billion in large part for the technology behind its streaming-music service. Unlike so many recent acquisitions, Apple let Beats Music live on instead of its more typical strategy of immediately shutting down acquisitions after incorporating their technology into its own products.
William Howard Taft wouldn't leave a scrap of flesh on Tim Cook's bones.
Terraserver could have, should have been a product that ensured Microsoft would remain the world’s most important internet company well into the 21st century. It was the first-ever publicly available interactive satellite map of the world. The world’s first-ever terabyte-sized database. In fact, it was the world’s largest database for several years, and that Compaq was—physically speaking—the world's largest computer. Terraserver was a functional and popular Google Earth predecessor that launched and worked well before Google even thought of the concept.
Oh look. The same people who said Microsoft was an evil monopoly because they made an operating system and a web browser are mocking them for not taking over the whole Internet.
...the system uses an electrically driven shockwave within a stream of flowing water, which pushes salty water to one side of the flow and fresh water to the other, allowing easy separation of the two streams. The new approach is described in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters, in a paper by professor of chemical engineering and mathematics Martin Bazant, graduate student Sven Schlumpberger, undergraduate Nancy Lu, and former postdoc Matthew Suss.
Somehow I don't think Mizzou students would have come up with this.
The deceitful papers tend to be vaguer, more difficult to read, and have fewer quantifying words, the authors found. They also use a bit more jargon, with fraudulent publications containing 1.5% more technical terms. Another trend, Markowitz told ScienceInsider, is that spurious papers generally had more references. Such characteristics tend to make fraudulent papers more “convoluted” and “costly” in terms of readers’ time, he says.
The ultrasonic pitches are embedded into TV commercials or are played when a user encounters an ad displayed in a computer browser. While the sound can't be heard by the human ear, nearby tablets and smartphones can detect it. When they do, browser cookies can now pair a single user to multiple devices and keep track of what TV commercials the person sees, how long the person watches the ads, and whether the person acts on the ads by doing a Web search or buying a product.
I only watch football on TV so I imagine the continuous stream of high-pitched swearing will interfere with this scheme.
Where are you tonight? (Journey Through Black Heat), 1978
There’s a long-distance train rolling through the rain Tears on the letter I write There’s a woman I long to touch and I miss her so much But she’s drifting like a satellite
There’s a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze Laughter down on Elizabeth Street And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone Where she bathed in a stream of pure heat
Her father would emphasize you got to be more than streetwise But he practiced what he preached from the heart A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me The time and the place that the trouble would start
There’s a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage And she winds back the clock and she turns back the page Of a book that no one can write Oh, where are you tonight?
The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure To live it you have to explode In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed Sacrifice was the code of the road
I left town at dawn, with Marcel and St. John Strong men belittled by doubt I couldn’t tell her what my private thoughts were But she had some way of finding them out
He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same She was waiting, putting flowers on the shelf She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair And discovered her invisible self
There’s a lion in the road, there’s a demon escaped There’s a million dreams gone, there’s a landscape being raped As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape I won’t but then again, maybe I might Oh, if I could just find you tonight
I fought with my twin, that enemy within ’Til both of us fell by the way Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees While the law looks the other way
Your partners in crime hit me up for nickels and dimes The guy you were lovin’ couldn’t stay clean It felt outa place, my foot in his face But he should-a stayed where his money was green
I bit into the root of forbidden fruit With the juice running down my leg Then I dealt with your boss, who’d never known about loss And who always was too proud to beg
There’s a white diamond gloom on the dark side of this room And a pathway that leads up to the stars If you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise Remind me to show you the scars
There’s a new day at dawn and I’ve finally arrived If I’m there in the morning, baby, you’ll know I’ve survived I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m alive But without you it just doesn’t seem right Oh, where are you tonight?
Jan, Sue and Mary haven't seen each other since High School. They rediscover each other via a reunion website and arrange to meet for lunch in a wine bar.
Jan arrives first, wearing beige Versace. She orders a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
Sue arrives shortly afterward, in gray Chanel. After the required ritualized kisses she joins Jan in a glass of wine.
Then Mary walks in, wearing a faded old tee-shirt, blue jeans and boots. She too shares the wine.
Jan explains that after leaving high school and graduating from Princeton in Classics, she met and married Timothy, with whom she has a beautiful daughter. Timothy is a partner in one of New York's leading law firms. They live in a 4000 sq ft co-op on Fifth Avenue, where Susanna, the daughter, attends drama school. They have a second home in Phoenix .
Sue relates that she graduated from Harvard Med School and became a surgeon. Her husband, Clive, is a leading Wall Street investment banker. They summer in Southampton on Long Island and have a third home in Naples, Florida.
Mary explains that she left school at 17 and ran off with her boyfriend, Jim. They run a tropical bird park in Colorado and grow their own vegetables. Jim can stand five parrots, side by side, on his dick.
Halfway down the third bottle of wine and several hours later, Jan blurts out that her husband is really a cashier at WalMart. They live in a small apartment in Brooklyn and have a travel trailer parked at a nearby storage facility.
Sue, chastened and encouraged by her old friend's honesty, explains that she and Clive are both nurses' aides in a retirement home. They live in Jersey City and take vacation trips to Alabama and Virginia, usually camping.
Mary admits that the fifth parrot has to stand on one leg.
Well, if you manage to crawl to the finish line at 5 PM today, you've made it through another week. Look on the bright side. Unless you're melanin-challenged and work at a college, you'll still have a job on Monday, and you have two whole days to show your liver who's boss. On to today's links!
Although little-known to people who work at home sewing, writing, designing, illustrating, party planning or tutoring, their perfectly legal pursuits are deemed "unlicensed" by L.A. officials, and they must register with City Hall. Then, these tens of thousands of residents are notified to pay an obscure annual city "business tax."
Just drive an Uber cab. Your magic iPhone transubstantiates all regulations into ponies and cupcakes.
Between 1954 and 1973, the country erected public housing in the suburbs surrounding the City of Light. These towering structures, which included some six million units, embodied the prevailing idea that modernist architecture could help foster a utopian state by improving people’s lives. “They were praised as places where men could blossom away from the agitation of big cities,” Kronental says.
My Utopian dream is living in France after all these buildings are demolished.
When the house's asking price was announced last May, some people figured it was an absurd marketing ploy, since if the property fetches anything close to $500 million, it will obliterate the current world-record price of $221 million, for a London penthouse. But absurdity is all relative in today's gigamansion market—particularly in L.A., where previous milestones such as the $85 million sale of the 123-room Spelling manor in 2011 are beginning to look quaint.
The author of this article sure doesn't know much history. Try putting in an offer on the Biltmore Estate. You'll have to buy 1/6th of the Pisgah National Forest to go along with it. It used to be the back yard.
"The overall assessment when we collect information from the police, the Civil Contingencies Agency and the Migration Agency is that it is warranted to impose temporary border controls," interior minister Anders Ygeman told a press conference. More than 120,000 people have arrived since January in Sweden, which is, with Germany, one the favoured destinations for migrants coming to Europe and wich has, until recently, upheld what Ygeman called a "generous" policy.
At this point, wouldn't Swedish border controls only keep Muslims in?
The announcement came as the company celebrated the one-year anniversary of its nanodegree program. The nanodegrees are now recognized by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, including Google and Salesforce.
I guess homeschooling is only bad when conservatives do it.
What the researchers failed to find was any connection between helmet laws and bike-related hospitalization rates. That held true whether they looked at all cycling injuries or just traffic-specific injuries. Surprisingly, it also held true when they narrowed in on body parts protected by a helmet: the brain, head, scalp, skull, face, even neck. Since helmet laws don’t necessarily mean compliance, they looked at helmet usage, too, and once again found nothing.
Humans take chances. Increase their feeling of security, and they'll take bigger chances.
One thing uniting the most high-power leaders with the lowest-level workers is time: Day in and day out, we all have the same amount of it. Where the variation comes in is how we use it. Some of the most successful people tend to attribute their achievements at least partly to time management.
The most successful people don't spend all day reading lists on the Internet.
The painter's magnificent brushwork made (intuitive?) use of a property known as luminance, a measure of the relative brightness between different points. The eye is more sensitive to luminance change than to color change, meaning we respond more promptly to changes in brightness than in colors. This is what gives many Impressionist paintings that familiar and emotionally moving twinkle, as we can see, for example, in Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise.
Hey, NPR: His brain didn't work. His eyes were fine.
Comic books? Educational? The very idea is comical to anyone familiar with the 1954 Senate subcommittee investigation that linked juvenile delinquency to horror and crime comics. The politicians dealt the industry a staggering blow that it overcame only after superheroes, plus corny teens like Archie and a rascal named Dennis, came to the rescue. Still, comics are seldom associated with literacy. But Françoise Mouly started Toon Books precisely to get more young people reading, and thinking, and enjoying the printed word, lushly illustrated and handsomely bound as well.
So, my collection of Classics Illustrated never happened, right Francoise?
A group of Italian microbiologists had compared the intestinal microbes of young villagers in Burkina Faso with those of children in Florence, Italy. The villagers, who subsisted on a diet of mostly millet and sorghum, harbored far more microbial diversity than the Florentines, who ate a variant of the refined, Western diet. Where the Florentine microbial community was adapted to protein, fats, and simple sugars, the Burkina Faso microbiome was oriented toward degrading the complex plant carbohydrates we call fiber.
Florence, Italy, gave us the Renaissance. I'm pretty sure you can buy manganese mined by hand in Burkina Faso, which is pretty swell, too.
Everybody have a great day, and make sure to buy a drink for your whole microbial community tonight after work. It's the friendly thing to do.
At the hunting lodge. You can't have too many sheds. The fishing stuff is for Walleye: fried up in a beer batter, there is nothing better. I suspect that this log building began life as a cabin. Now it is a high-tech (ie temporary electric provided by a Caterpillar generator on a trailer) outboard engine storage and repair facility:
Gee, I still like those foods. And coffee jello with Miracle Whip. Good stuff. For the few Americans who still cook dinner at home (a rapidly-shrinking number partly because of the rise of women with day jobs), what they are fixing is more international and more sophisticated than 30 or 40 years ago.
As she notes, over the past 50 years food in the US has taken up a diminishing proportion of the family budget. Thus the boom in prepared food, fast food take-out, and restaurants in general. McArdle: The Economics Behind Grandma's Tuna Casseroles:
We were the sort of people who did our grocery shopping like a trade caravan moving from oasis to oasis. You started, perhaps, at Fairway Market in the 70s, for produce, and then you moved methodically up Broadway from point to point: Bruno’s for fresh pasta, Citarella for meat, Zabar’s for cheese and deli sundries, H&H for bagels, the Korean vegetable market on the corner for staples you might have forgotten to grab at some earlier stop. Then you cooked. Unless it was her busy season (my mother sold real estate when she was not simmering blanquette de veau), we had a fresh cooked meal from scratch every night.
If this sounds unbearably precious, it wasn’t, because the great blessing of my life is that my mother did not let me become a food snob.
I have no idea how anything at the University of Missouri ever gets done. It's pretty clear this is a campus held hostage by a few entitled nitwit students and a few radical professors (some of whom have lost their job).
But I'm at a loss for words when it comes to stuff like this.
Black pain is not an easy subject to cover, but the lesson we can take from this encounter at Missouri is that our presence as journalists, with the long legacy of criminalizing blackness that comes with it, may trigger the same harmful emotions that led to the students’ protests in the first place.
We have a name for activists who don't want the media around. They are called fascists. They seek to impose their views by force, and having media around exposes their sometimes brutal and always childish behavior to the world. It has nothing to do with sensitivity or "safe space" (what the hell is that?). It has everything to do with hiding your aggression from visibility.
Now, as the University continues to spin out of control, we're learning that most of the claims were lies. We're learning the hunger striker is really just an entitled brat. The football team are just useful idiots, pawns in a bigger game of stupidity, which became apparent when the students sought to separate themselves to create "black only healing space."
I have no doubt these students have grandparents who fought to have schools integrated. So I'm confused. Did we come full circle? Is separate but equal the law of the land, or is separate but equal only in effect if and when a certain group of people say they want it to be in effect? I'm all for their right to voluntarily segregate themselves, but if they do so they should be aware they are simply making things unequal once again, and they have no standing to ask to be treated equally.
They have created a very arbitrary line. I think I'll go create my "white only healing space" to sort through my emotions on this, but I have a feeling I'd be called a racist for having that space. I know these kids are wrong. It's hard for opinions to be wrong, but when they are, they are usually wrong by a long shot. In this case there's no question. These are not students, because they've learned nothing and are acting out on childish impulses. If the university had a president, I'd think the correct response is to expel each and every one of them. There's always room for protest on campus, there's always room for freedom of speech. But there isn't room for lying, misrepresentation, and there's certainly no room for closing one's mind to history and/or the law simply because your emotions were 'triggered'. Time to grow up, snowflakes.
The social justice warriors (known now as SJW) have a big problem with how you think and how you talk. Even one or two of them can express "outrage" or feign feeling traumatized, and then you become controversial in the press.
It should all be funny, but it's not funny because you could lose your job. Freedom of speech does not protect your job - even in academia. People tiptoe around the office as if in an Orwellian world, and nobody says what they really think.
So my query to readers is this: What are the thought crimes today which could get you in trouble?
I was wondering. Does anybody know how to write jokes any longer? Or more to the point, write humorously? If they're extant, I haven't noticed it. It takes a light touch to write humor, and few seem interested in giving it a try. The best writers would only salt in jokes as foils to a larger humorous situation. Wodehouse had Bertie Wooster, who was impersonating Gussie Fink-Nottle, trying to tell an inappropriate joke at dinner, which is being hosted by a gaggle of grim old sisters, some of whom are hard of hearing.
- There are these three deaf chaps on a train and it stops at Wembley. - What's he doing? - Mr Fink-Nottle is telling an anecdote. - Anyway, there it is at Wembley, and one chap says, "ls this Wembley?, and the other says, "No, it's Thursday." - What did he say? - He said, "No, it's Thursday." - No, it's not. lt's Friday. - l know. - l changed my library book. - lt's a joke, Charlotte. - Thank you. - The third one says, "So am l. Let's go and have a drink." - lt's a joke about drink, Charlotte. - No, it's not about drink. - lt's about Why did the first man bring up the days of the week? - No, the first man is the one who says, "ls this Wimbledon?'' - No - That was the second man. - Let Mr Fink-Nottle finish his joke before we judge it. - Well, that was it, actually.
In the book this is adapted from, the text is funny because it is a comic situation described in an amusing way. The joke is an excuse to be humorous. It's supposed to be a bad joke, but it really isn't. Twain used the same sort of approach to tell good jokes, but by prefacing them by saying, "This is a bad joke," he had an easier time weaving a humorous narrative around them. The woefully misnamed "situation comedies" have become the modern version of this form of light comedy, but they are usually just a series of blunt jokes barely strung together. Not the same thing.
At any rate, is this Wembley? Time for the links, all supplied with PG Wodehouse quotes to suit:
The Korean War began in the early morning hours of June 25, 1950, when North Korean soldiers stormed across the 38th parallel in a coordinated attack against South Korea. The first military action of the Cold War lasted three years and claimed the lives of 5 million soldiers and civilians. On the 65th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, learn about 10 notables—from astronauts to actors—who served in the conflict.
“...it has been well said that it is precisely these moments when we are feeling that ours is the world and everything that's in it that Fate selects for sneaking up on us with the rock in the stocking.”
Singles' Day was originally a mock celebration in China for people not in relationships. But Alibaba in 2009 co-opted the event into a consumption-fest for all, featuring steep discounts and other promotions aimed at attracting droves of customers online.
"You can't be a successful dictator and design women's underwear. One or the other. Not both."
Exactly how slow will it be? Will I be alive by the time it finishes? Will any of my grandchildren live to see how it actually ends? Will the inevitable heat-death of the universe interfere with the Rube Slowberg machine, or is that part of it?
“In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness.”
Young professionals willing to stretch their budgets now should consider Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., among other cities, according to a new report from Trulia. In New Haven, Conn., the typical millennial (defined by Trulia as an adult between ages 25 and 34) can expect to spend 37 percent of her income on housing in the first year of her mortgage. Three years later, though, the same homebuyer’s monthly payments will fall below 31 percent of her income, according to Trulia’s estimates.
“Beggars approached the task of trying to persuade perfect strangers to bear the burden of their maintenance with that optimistic vim which makes all the difference. It was one of those happy mornings.”
But despite those decisions and perhaps more importantly, the court was careful to make another point: That merely tracking the URLs someone visits can constitute collecting the contents of their communications, and that doing so without a warrant can violate the Wiretap Act. And that’s an opinion that will apply not just to Google, but to the Justice
Department.
“I mean, imagine how some unfortunate Master Criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at the old Grange, if he found that not only was Sherlock Holmes putting in the weekend there, but Hercule Poirot, as well."
Photographs of Peking, now known as Beijing, made by Thomas Child in the 1870s and 1880s are to go on show in London's Chinatown as part of Asian Art in London season. More than 30 original photographs from the Stephan Loewentheil Historical Photography of China Collection, the largest holding of historical photographs of China in private hands, are included in the show.
"Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is best not to stir them."
When I look around, I see people who want to make a contribution. I see people who want to make a better world, by doing groundbreaking scientific work, by creating impressive works of art, by writing critical articles or inspiring books, by starting up sustainable businesses. And you all have chosen your own instruments to fulfill this mission of creating a better world. Some chose the microscope as their instrument. Others chose dancing or painting or making music like we just heard. Some chose the pen. Others work through the instrument of money. Ladies and gentlemen, I made a different choice….I chose the gun.
“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”
Facebook Inc. director Marc Andreessen has sold nearly half his stake in the social network since Oct. 30, securities filings show.Between Oct. 30 and Nov. 6, Andreessen sold 921,362 shares in Facebook collecting about $96.5 million, according to three filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“As a rule, from what I've observed, the American captain of industry doesn't do anything out of business hours. When he has put the cat out and locked up the office for the night, he just relapses into a state of coma from which he emerges only to start being a captain of industry again.”
In fact it may be that the most seductive novelists are also the ones most willing to risk irritating you. Faulkner comes to mind, so often on the edge between brilliant and garrulous. Italy’s Carlo Emilio Gadda was another. Muriel Spark. Sometimes even Kafka. Resistance to these writers is never a surprise to me. On the other hand, I do spend endless hours mulling over the mystery of what others like. Again and again the question arises: How can they?
“It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.”
Head (Botox, hair-do and coloring) Shoulders (planks and pull-ups at the gym) Eyes (where are my glasses?) Ears (what?) Mouth (implants and periodontist) Nose (basal cell excisions) Knees (injections) Toes (pedicures, bunion surgery, Stuart Weitzmans)
The social justice warriors (known now as SJW) have a big problem with how you think and how you talk. Even one or two of them can express "outrage" or feign feeling traumatized, and then you become controversial in the press. 