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Ned's profile

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Name: Ned
User type: Default
User ID: 18
User since: March 31, 2004
User last visit: 03:08PM on August 18
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Ned has posted 51 links and 63 comments on Alkaline Earth since March 31, 2004.

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2009 Sep 20 07:10 (#4185.12668):
I love the ending: A man weighing 250 pounds and moving at the rate of twenty miles an hour would be about as dangerous as a locomotive, and unless roads are reserved exclusively for fast fat men, not a day will pass without its fatal and horrible collisions.
They also take a shot at fat postal workers in there.

2009 Mar 24 12:03 (#4130.12469):
I'm part of that 1%, mrflip.

2008 Dec 18 12:41 (#4075.12266):
This picture shows the least scary police officers in history, with their little tiny guns and goofy, knockkneed stance. My message to them: the Segway, not as scary as you think.

2008 Sep 03 06:33 (#3984.11854):
'Average cut' would be a perfectly descriptive measure of the reality of each plan IF it was weighted by the number of people in each tax bracket. The same would have to be said for 'median cut':
The median tax bracket cut would be from the 5th bracket: McCain -2.5%; Obama -1.9%. The median tax cut for a family would come from one of the bottom three brackets since 60% of families are in those. That means: McCain: -0.7%; Obama -2.4%.

I can't figure out what method they used to get that 'average cut' they note.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics...

2008 Jul 01 10:16 (#3905.11505):
ISTJ (33/1/75/78). I'm surprised no one has commented on some of the asinine questions, like "You willingly involve yourself in matters
which engage your sympathies." What the hell does that even mean? "Do you like to help little lost puppies?"

2007 Oct 19 11:20 (#3582.10418):
Looks like a Nobel prize doesn't make you impervious to the consequences of dickheadery.

2007 Oct 02 01:28 (#3554.10325):
1: b) He bats about .333, his major league best.
2: d) Ordinary Joe kills Josh.
3: b) The ordinary guy wins the first race by a nose; when they race again, Greene smokes him.
4: a) Pete destroys Ordinary Joe, game after game.
5: b) They'd score 4-5 runs a game, similar to average scores in baseball.
6: a) Mediate kills Joe.
7: b) He kept coming this close but no cigar.
8: a) Paez smokes Joe, 5-0.

2007 Aug 22 12:35 (#3487.10142):
I think Beckto's aversion to guesstimate is more accurately described by "word rage" (as evidenced by her post above). It's described in the Language Log post as:

"Where people get angry at jargon or slang associated with a despised group, or upset because a word or phrase is felt to be incorrectly used, or annoyed at language that they perceive as redundant, or overly complicated, or pretentious, or a cliché, or trendy, or politically incorrect."

She does, however, have a visercal reaction to the word "knoll" (but not so much to "gnoll" or "noel" when pronounced similarly).

2007 Aug 08 08:44 (#3474.10115):
Whoever made that webpage got the amount wrong. It's clearly e^(i*pi) not e^(2pi). And since e^(i*pi)= -1 and the sum equals +1, the amount of the check is $0.002 or 0.2 cents. Which is much funnier than $536.49.

Does anyone know if this is related to the verizon customer who was misquoted the price for sending data via cell phone?

2007 May 19 04:19 (#3375.9830):
Hey TWitB, whom do you mean with that last comment? Beckto and I also do Wing Chun so I'd like to hear the story if you don't mind. My own experience defending a stranger didn't work out quite so well 'cause I didn't want anyone to get hurt, not even the attackers... Bad plan.

2007 May 18 11:58 (#3368.9819):
From Jim Theis's wikipedia link I stumbled onto William McGonagall, who "has been widely hailed as the writer of the worst poetry in the English language."

Consider this excerpt from his poem the Tay Bridge Disaster:
"Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time."

If that isn't fit for the unfounded Exploitation Poetry Fan Club, I don't know what is.

2007 May 17 06:06 (#3368.9811):
Add to that list the Epic Legends of the Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga (or ELotH:TES for short). It is the mass delusion to the individual psychoses of outsider art.

2007 Apr 24 11:20 (#3322.9665):
Not everybody has learned something:

"Mindy Bryan attended a segregated prom in 2001. 'There was not anybody that I can remember that was black,' she said. 'The white people have theirs, and the black people have theirs. It's nothing racial at all.' (emphasis mine)

Separate but equal: nothing racial at all!

2007 Apr 09 02:13 (#3300.9567):
It's an insurance commercial. Centraal Beheer is a Danish insurance company (I hear they also insure other pastries).

2007 Apr 04 06:27 (#3282.9531):
I'll try that this week as my version of the red ball.

2007 Mar 28 05:40 (#3267.9456):
"The longest domain name in the world is actually http://www.Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochuchaf.com which refers to the upper part of the village."

2007 Feb 16 05:55 (#3222.9282):
I like the merit badges. I nominate Beckto for this one and this one, Flip for this one. All of you who were in the loading dock that cryogenically cold night recieve these two. And everyone qualifies for this one. Do any AEarthers merit this one?

2007 Jan 09 04:22 (#3157.9047):
My favorite line is "These stores sold falcons (and falcon accessories)." Hmm, I wonder if the author is a Texan? Or maybe just a fan of Mike Judge.

2006 Oct 11 05:58 (#2995.8647):
Yeah, I'm surprised I never saw them at the Boston Marathon any of the 4 years I watched it in person. You'd think that someone would have known about them and we'd watch for them.

2006 Sep 08 12:37 (#2915.8487):
Jebus Christmas!! I looked at those horned rabbit pictures while eating lunch. That is fucking gross.

2006 Aug 20 02:34 (#2881.8367):
Seeing that movie was the most fun I have ever had in a movie theater, and that includes middle school. I think Alamo was the place to see it. I loved seeing that movie. Would it be good in DVD watched at home on a radom saturday, no, was it awesome at the Alamo with everyone hissing and Ned getting carried away, hell ya.

2006 Aug 15 11:46 (#2877.8344):
I don't want to rain on the parade, but does anyone else think that looks faked? A couple things I noticed: the cop car the bike starts next to looks different from the black-and-white to the right of the view; that makes me think the original tape was of a sports car running from police which got stuck between two big-rigs. (I did notice the flashing lights on the first cop car, so maybe it was an unmarked, or maybe the lights were faked, too.) The other thing is the crazy fast acceleration of the cyclist when the big-rigs begin closing the gap; of course, it's hard to say what is a feasible acceleration and what is not. And what's with the weird static blips throughout the video? I've never seen network news helicopter footage with that kind of static. One last thing: why would the driver of the big-rig try to hit the cyclist, an obviously dangerous strategy? If he was trying to corner a sportscar, it's a more easily justified move.

Faked video? Or am I a bike-hating troll? Discuss...

2006 Jul 13 03:21 (#2817.8163):
Or if it's related to the killer rabbit that attacked President Carter?

2006 Jun 23 01:22 (#2788.8050):
I'm glad everyone had a lot to say about this post; it was very thought provoking. But the tenor and subject of your posts imply that you missed the point of the article a little. The idea is not that pit-bulls are dangerous or not, or that people who deplane in the front/middle/end of the plane are drug-smugglers or not, but that there are far better predictors of behavior that are born out statistically but are not obvious when looking at an anecdotal case of a boy attacked by a certain breed of dog.

Twit-B's pit-bull could possibly have trouble with other dogs and maybe even children, but it won't. That's because the more accurate predictors of dog-bite fatalities: owner involved with dog-fighting, dog involved in past incidences of non-fatal dog-bites, dog chained up or mistreated; they don't apply here for the most part. (I know he was probably abused in the past, but you don't abuse him now.)

As another example: when the DEA did away with all generalizations used in the past to indicate drug-smugglers (which when taken as a whole are a bewildering and contradictory lot), and used much simpler and most importantly STABLE generalizations the number of searches dropped by 75%, and the number of successful seizures improved by 25%.

Whew, long comment. Not that I don't love your comments even though they're slightly off-topic :-)

2006 Jun 15 05:38 (#2774.7993):
I love the goofy modern ones he slipped in there:

Graeca sunt, non leguntur - It is Greek, you don't read that.

Fortunatus sum! Pila mea de gramine horrido modo in pratum lene recta volvit! - Isn't that lucky! My ball just rolled out of the rough and onto the fairway!

Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre? - Is that a scroll in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?

2006 Jun 08 05:30 (#2764.7970):
In case you are wondering, in Mardarin Chinese (mainland, but not most of Hong Kong):
Bobo 伯伯 = Uncle (Father's older brother)
Shushu 叔叔 = Uncle (Father's younger brother)
Jiujiu 舅舅 ‍= Uncle (Mother's brother)

2006 May 24 11:40 (#2732.7903):
For the first few seconds I was impressed as hell, because I could never put an object down on the ground without basically throwing it randomly. Then I realized that he had tripwire traps inside some castle's great hall and flew up to the ceiling to watch some of the action. At the risk of spoiling the excitement, this was obviously down with a mod of the PC version that lets you edit the gameworld.

Still freaking cool.

2006 May 22 05:47 (#2731.7898):
That's cute and gross at the same time.

2006 May 22 05:22 (#2722.7896):
Yay! Let's all root for Ned!

2006 Mar 11 06:55 (#2521.7165):
I read the book "The Kite Runner," about a child in Afghanistan's capital Kabul before the Taliban came to power. While the book was mostly not concerned with kites, the kite-fighting contest was part of an annual festival and the participants ALL used glass-covered strings. It's interesting to learn from that article that supposedly only "some kite fliers" use this practice. The book also didn't mention any danger to anyone but the operator of the kite who, of course, had to pull on the glass-covered string.

An interesting footnote: there was great honor and fame for the child whose kite was the last flying, but there was equal honor for the one who retrieved the last fallen kite (the 2nd place contestant). Those who chased the falling kites were the eponymous kite-runners of the book.

2006 Feb 22 02:32 (#2465.6960):
B and I must really not make a big thing of our martial art 'cause I woulda thought there'd be no question which style you should study...

2006 Feb 14 12:43 (#2445.6839):
Some Ginger Kids, however, acutely feel the lack of a soul, and thus prowl the night looking for victims out of whom to suck the soul. Keep that in mind next time we're walking together after dark; you and your beautiful brunette or blond soul...

2006 Jan 13 10:32 (#2348.6457):
I like that the formula for the standard deviation appears in the penny-arcade comic. That seems to be the representative equation used to lend a picture some sardonic intellectuality. Didn't it appear recently in a link from another post?

2005 Nov 02 12:15 (#2118.5843):
I was sorry to hear about your accident, but I'm glad to see your spirits are good enough to categorize your post as "funny." (Not that what happened was funny...) Get better soon!

2005 Sep 27 12:55 (#2029.5513):
I'm confused about my GGR. "Ned Flagg" actually gets suggested after 4 letters, but since "ned" means "with" in danish, the results are a lot of pages about the flag of Denmark. Also, there are only 10 suggested pages when it finally gets the name right. :-( So I guess my GGR is only 2.5 ... BUT, if you ignore all the danish-language pages, my real self is in the second entry, that's kinda nice. It's the WingTsun website. "Ned Flagg" also has to compete with "Ned Flanders" up to the first "g"... D'oh!

"Edward Flagg" fares a bit better, still requiring 4 letters, but getting 127 results. GGR = 31.75, yay! Again, though, my real self is the second entry (Shih lab webpage), and the 9th result says I'm still working on my undergraduate thesis! They haven't updated that page in over four years! That prof doesn't even work there anymore.

So we know I'm not popular. Nate is approximately 3700 times more popular than me. Good thing I have healthy self-esteem! Anyone else have a definable, but very low GGR?

2005 Sep 19 05:13 (#2018.5454):
Okay, I guess I'll be the first to point out that a screen that displays subtitles won't assist *blind* people very much! :-)

Really ignorant and insensitive of the producers of that movie to not subtitle it, though. But a question: why does the author of that blog post include a quote that makes a distinction between "closed captioned" and "subtitled?"

2005 Sep 08 01:05 (#1983.5368):
In case you were wondering, from one of javalina's links above, my Yankee forbear painted the "I want you" poster.

2005 Sep 08 12:53 (#1981.5367):
I like that Chinaman is a trade, along with Lochsmith, the maker of Scottish lakes. But I wonder what the Coochmann is? Could be a fun job.

Also, does the Jubjub bird live in the Jubjube tree?

2005 Sep 03 06:29 (#1973.5346):
He's got two other clips of just him in Power Sitting --> Testimonials!!!

I'm gonna call our parents!

2005 Aug 31 11:03 (#1962.5304):
oops , I posted from Ned's computer. The previous post should be from beckto.

2005 Aug 31 11:02 (#1962.5303):
Ned and I got these stamps to send thank you notes. Being the dorks we are, we ripped off the backing that says who the people are and included it with the note. This way no one will ask the same question as the good doctor J.M.D. Lane.

2005 Aug 06 05:41 (#1888.5067):
Dude! Don't you remember commenting about the title when I posted this link exactly one month ago? I'm gonna send troopeses to charge your ass!

2005 Aug 02 10:28 (#1876.5027):
Actually one of my fraternity brothers is one quarter native Hawaiian and did, in fact, go to Kamehameha. And several other people at MIT went there too.

Native Hawaiians are very poor and typically under-educated so I'm not sure how I feel about a court making an all-Hawaiian school admit haoles (say, HOW-lees). Plus Kamehameha recieves no federal funding and its endowment comes from the will of the last Hawaiian princess who created the school to "educate the children of Hawaii." Which phrase has been taken by the school to mean only admit native islanders. Part of the ruling of the court said that they "do not read that document to require the use of race as an admissions prerequisite." Of course it doesn't forbid it either.

I don't know how the racial discrimination law is written but I thought that private groups are still welcome to discriminate if they want to. They just can't get any help from the government.

2005 Jul 12 01:00 (#1808.4802):
One of my fraternity brothers is on the MIT Solar Car team. I might look him up, even though he's young enough that I'm not sure I've even met him. Maybe a couple of us can get a close-up tour? That would be sweet, I'll see what I can do.

2005 Jul 07 08:01 (#1795.4750):
thanks, I was really proud of the away/awry part.

2005 Apr 07 05:20 (#1560.4046):
This list made me so happy! Yiiiiip yipyipyipyipyipyip, uh-huh, uh-huh!

2005 Mar 31 12:55 (#1521.3940):
I woulda beat you to this one, but I lost the address and deleted the email in which it came. Apparantly, one of my fraternity brothers is in an Ocean Engineering class with some of the underwater ROV team and they were grumbling about the article because they got the most points in the actual technical challenge. It really is a crying shame that the epilogue of the article is about how none of those kids can afford to go to college anywhere, even at the Arizona state school.

2005 Mar 21 12:04 (#1479.3833):
Habcous' first post, while not totally correct, is nevertheless a hilarious play on physics words. Bravo!

2005 Feb 15 12:55 (#1333.3421):
Are these Superman Comics covers for real? Or are they retyped speech bubbles?

2005 Jan 25 01:16 (#1233.3169):
That article explained the joke, sort of, but I still don't get it. Is that good or should I ask for clarification?

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