Well, it's Monday. Your favorite team lost, so the water cooler is looking less like an oasis and more like an enemy gun emplacement. Hey, Bob, did you see Peyton Roethlesberger throw a pick six and a tantrum on fourth down with the game on the line? You know, the one that caused my team to win, and your favorite team and their benighted fans to be consigned to ignominy and defeat? What did you think about that Bob? Did you enjoy it as much as I did? Whaddya say about that, Bob?
Me, I don't mind Mondays so much. I don't root for Jameis Manziel or Cam Bradford or Russell Brees, so it's of little consequence if the Green Bay Pacers fall to the Dallas Drovers. The first day of the work week holds no terrors for me. I kind of like it there. No one makes me rake leaves at the office. I don't have to change every battery in every smoke alarm in the building at 4 AM because I can't figure out which one is beeping. It would be silly to be required to paint the outside of a skyscraper, wouldn't it? I don't even know where to look for the gutters on a 50-story building, never mind clean them out. No, the office is just fine. Besides, the Internet connection is better, and I get to read the Maggie's Farm morning links while pretending to be working, instead of pretending to be asleep on the couch when my wife gets home with groceries.
Jury convicts brothers in H-1B fraud case, jail possible
Two brothers who used H-1B workers to create a low-cost and profitable on-demand workforce were found guilty Thursday in federal court of violating the law. The trial took place in U.S. District Court in Dallas and lasted for six days. At the end, a jury convicted Atul Nanda, 46, and his brother, Jiten "Jay" Nanda, 44, each of one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, one count of conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens and four counts of wire fraud. The U.S. filed the indictment in 2013. Penalties range as high as $250,000 in fines and upward of 20 years in prison. A sentencing date was not set.
Silly me. From what I've observed, I would have assumed that a "fraudulent H-1B case" would involve NOT bringing illegal aliens into the country to work like coolies.
I Used to Spend $1,000 a Week on Pot Because I Thought Smoking Made My Music Better. I Was Wrong
I was a total monster. I was spending $1,000 a week on weed, and everyone I was in the band with at the time smoked as much as I did. There's so much stupid behavior caused by weed, but I always had that cliché: I needed it for creativity. I've come to realize that at the end of the day, it's only you yourself that creativity comes from. It doesn't come from weed.
Um, it's really only necessary for your audience to be stoned, not you. Sober or not, your records sound like Sesame Street on Seconal, dude.
Increased intelligence is a myth (so far)
The standard error of measuring inches or liters is usually zero assuming you have perfectly reliable, standard measurement devices. Intelligence tests generally show high test-retest reliability but they also have a standard error, and the standard error is often larger for higher scores than for lower scores. Any intelligence test score change after an intervention needs to be considered relative to the standard error of the test. Studies that use a single test to estimate intelligence before and after an intervention are using less reliable and more variable scores (bigger standard errors) than studies that combine scores from a battery of tests.
I have always found that the only way I could measurably increase other people's intelligence is by drinking heavily. The girls get better looking, too.
Lured In by Two Manhattan Psychics, to the Tune of $718,000
He was a successful and well-traveled professional, with close to seven figures in the bank, and plans for much more. And then he gave it all away, more than $718,000, in chunks at a time, to two Manhattan psychics.They vowed to reunite him with the woman he loved. Even after it was discovered that she was dead. There was the 80-mile bridge made of gold, the reincarnation portal. “I just got sucked in,” the man, Niall Rice, said in a telephone interview last week from Los Angeles. “That’s what people don’t understand. ‘How can you fall for it?’ ”
Well, those psychics certainly measurably increased that guy's intelligence. While $718k isn't exactly cheap, it still cost less than a Head Start class.
Turkey blocks access to Reddit under controversial censorship law
An official government site confirms the ban with a generic message that reads, "After technical analysis and legal consideration ... administration measure has been taken for this website." The note is dated November 13th. According to the statement, Reddit was taken down under Turkey's controversial internet censorship law, known as Internet Law No. 5651. Under the law, Turkish Supreme Council for Telecommunications and IT (TIB) can ban websites and block internet content for a handful of reasons, including anything involved with pornography, prostitution, drugs, terrorism, illegal file sharing, sexual abuse of children, and "crimes against" Mustafa Atatürk, the first president of Turkey.
I've blocked Reddit from my computer under an uncontroversial lack of interest in the opinions of neckbeards law.
'Made in France' release postponed following attacks in Paris
"Made in France," directed by Nicolas Boukhrief, stars Malik Zidi as the journalist who uses his own Muslim background to infiltrate a mosque in the suburbs of Paris. He eventually hooks up with a group of would-be terrorists planning to "sow chaos in the heart of Paris," according to a synopsis on the French movie website Allociné.
The Paris gig has been cancelled. I wouldn't worry about it, though; it's not a big Cinema Verite town.
There’s a Downton Abbey Thief on the Loose in America
A local NBC affiliate reports that 30-year-old Branden Joseph Deel began his Downton Abbey–disc binge in January 2014, “when he stole 12 DVD box sets worth a total retail value of $560.88 and has continued to target retailers since then.” As Downton Abbey fans ourselves, we can‘t help but hypothesize that “the Downton Abbey addict” was so enraged by a story line early in the period drama’s fourth season—that Lady Mary would dare to entertain a flirtation so soon after the tragic death of her one true love, Matthew—that, in an act of misguided revenge, he tried to wipe out local retailers’ Downton stocks and possibly save fellow fans from future devastation.
Occam's Razor: he needs coasters and finally ran out of AOL discs.
What Is A Digital-To-Analog Converter, And Do You Need One?
And as more and more of what we listen to comes from our hard drives and cloud services, we’re less dependent on the medium itself and more dependent on the technology that turns data to drum beats. But the audio company, Schiit, which started back in 2010, argues that the best way to maximize the sound that comes into your headphones is to connect the headphones via USB to an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The idea is that, whether you have lossless, uncompressed files (which, unlike stripped down MP3s, hold more information and more accurately represent the original sound), iTunes, or a streaming service like Spotify, you’re not getting the full potential without a middleman.
First sentence begins with "And." Second sentence begins with "But." The author then uses parentheses to enclose a dependent clause instead of commas. The rest is all stupid, useless Schiit. So the answer to the second question is 01101110 01101111! Whoops, forgot to convert it to analog. NO!
Adblock Plus was in NYC last week waving the olive branch at advertisers
As the largest developer of ad blockers, Eyeo, with its popular Adblock Plus, has found itself at the center of a fierce debate about ethics and, potentially, the legality of blocking mobile browser ads. The subject has been a popular one in Europe for some time, but it caught fire in the U.S. in June when Apple announced that its iOS 9 mobile operating system would enable (and some say welcome) mobile ad-blocker apps on iPhones. (A new Adblock Plus iOS app for iOS 9 was approved by Apple in September.)
Adblock won't ever stop things like that Popular Science "article" about a particular brand of audio converter. Me, I just want a parentheses blocker.
Microsoft opens Sydney store, its first flagship outside North America
The Redmond-based tech giant has been eager to build buzz around the launch of its first standalone Asia Pacific location and second flagship, after the two-storey Microsoft store in Manhattan. Customers queued in the bright sun with the the promise of free concert tickets and lucky door prizes for early birds, before the window coverings dropped to reveal store staff dancing and cheering inside.
I wonder. Is it no longer possible for a tech company to survive in the market without pretending the entire business is a Gymboree?
That should be enough information to tide you over until lunch. If you fib and say you have a doctor's appointment right after, you might make it until 3:30 before you're required to do any actual work. Make sure to leave early, too. As they say on the Department of Public Works crew, "No sense killing the job."
