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User since: March 25, 2005
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ms cegenation has posted 45 links and 169 comments on Alkaline Earth since March 25, 2005.

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2009 Oct 05 10:37 (#4184.12671):
I am late to the game and have only tenuous claims to either a Bacon or Erdos number (this is the DC variant, where you don't actually have to have worked with someone to claim to know lots about them and feel that you are close enough to network/leverage their connections ;-), but I wanted to play anyway.

Bacon-3: friends from college with one brian tjaden, whose brother brett developed the Oracle of Bacon linked above, and (I believe, unless my imagination has run wild over the years) met the man as a result. Bacon-4: my former roommate was an acting-friend/classmate in Chicago with Tyler Mane, who is a Bacon-2.

Erdos-4: I took calc3 with David Cox, who is an Erdos-3. He is a very nice man and by all accounts a very good mathemetician, but my lasting memory of him is that he totaled the points on my exams wrong. Twice. That I know of. (Once he forgot to carry a 1, and another time he completely left off a 20-pt answer because he didn't turn the page. I still harbor suspicions about my final exam grade.)

2009 Apr 04 02:36 (#4125.12514):
Oh, sorry to cause the confusion w/empty bracket. I didn't log in til after the tourney started, and then just to see the standings. Silly me, i should've known i could follow along here. :)

2009 Feb 12 10:13 (#4098.12404):
I thought readers of this post might also like this other one.

2009 Jan 26 08:37 (#4097.12378):
Panorama version, taken by a guy who evidently had really good seats (needless to say, also a v. large file). I had fun zooming in on the snipers on top of the House building in the background. [Then, if you look between them and the photogs on the bleachers, back to the second blue gate, that's where I was stuck until bailing. Harumph.]

2009 Jan 19 09:33 (#4086.12357):
Can I put this here even though it's no longer in the Music subject? It's the original Star Wars trilogy as related by someone who's never seen the entire movie -- and animated accordingly (sort of) by her friend.

2009 Jan 11 08:32 (#2582.12332):
Does life imitate pranking?　

2008 Dec 08 09:40 (#4053.12215):
Hm... would you be equally disappointed at someone knowing a Prizm from a Corolla?

2008 Nov 20 10:05 (#4052.12167):
The connect-the-line ballot is actually supposed to be more reliable than most (no misalignment, mislabelling, or non-entry problems). But I confess to nonetheless having a glimmer of the same nervousness the first time I voted in DC, which has the same setup. It's just absurd that there's so much variation, not just in ballots, but in voting regulations, election hours, etc., even within a single state, much less the entire nation.

2008 Nov 06 02:18 (#4033.12093):
My favorite parts of the FOX story on Palin's ignorance are the reporter's use of "knowledgability" (twice) and reference to how she was added when McCain's shortlist was deemed "not inadequate".

2008 Oct 27 05:23 (#4033.12065):
PS - Maybe the RNC consultant interned with Harriet Walters.

2008 Oct 27 05:11 (#4033.12064):
OK, my 2c, which should probably be devalued:
1. Is the RNC definitely claiming the shopping was done at those stores (sorry, I haven't had much time to catch news in the past week)? B/c for those amounts, I would have guessed that they went straight to the designers (suits $1-2K easily).

2. I would not be surprised if there was a hefty (25%ish) consultant markup. Also, is makeup included, or does that go with the makeup artist? Good makeup is freakin' expensive (well, to the tune of a couple thousand, not tens).

3. No matter what, it's a lot of clothes -- even at $1000/item (*not* hard to imagine, just pick up any fashion magazine, and I would guess there is also some heavy formalwear in there), that's 150 items to mix and match. I wouldn't mind that kind of wardrobe, though it's not in my personal realm of reality.

Is it justified? Maybe -- not the prices, but the quantity, given the degree to which any candidate is recorded and scrutinized (wear the same thing twice in a 3-wk period? Eeks, what would the media watchers say?!). I just can't really bring myself to care too much ... after all, I'm happy to have the RNC waste as much of its money as it wants on things like clothes, rather than anti-Obama ads. Your average Republican donor might want to object, however. But yes, i do think it's the RNC's doing, not Palin's, so I wouldn't use it as a talking point against her.

*Methodology/information note for mrflip: forget gloves and scarves; she's traveling the lower 48. You left out the all-impt bags category! A "good" (designer) handbag will run you $500-1000 easy. I also would have upped the jackets & coats (and belts) with that accessories money.

2008 Oct 23 01:23 (#3787.12046):
Well, well.... Is it time for a bet to be settled?

2008 Oct 14 11:56 (#4021.12008):
What a nitwit. "Hm, I'll take Ways to Piss Off My Daughter for $500, Alex."

2008 Oct 07 09:07 (#4016.11988):
All of your imperial additives are swill and bastardizations of the real thing. As is Lipton. (There, I've done my China-patriotism thing for the week.)

2008 Oct 06 04:05 (#4012.11978):
Sorry, mrflip -- as many things as there are to rag on about College Park, I'm not biting on Metro connectivity: (1) half of the route on that Google map is actually on campus (shaded area), so it's actually only about a 10-minute walk to the corner of campus, which IME is only slightly more than from the average grad-student parking lot space; (2) it's a decent walk - residences and business, low-speed traffic, things to look at, not highway and office parks; (3) there are shuttle buses from the other side of the station; they aren't perfect, but I never felt stranded. Of course, I also didn't take them regularly. By contrast, think about what it takes to get onto Georgetown's campus... shorter to come from Virginia than any station in the District, if you can make it around Key Circle and the bridge without getting hit.

That said, the Purple Line is supposed to put a stop on the UMD campus (don't ask me how they'll get it through without hitting an underground garage, lab, or library).

2008 Sep 25 02:02 (#4005.11923):
Also, will this be your kitchen?

2008 Sep 25 02:00 (#4005.11922):
And he only passed out 14 times from the fumes!

2008 Sep 18 12:09 (#3948.11897):
@Valatan -- wait, you mean Matt Damon was wrong? (link to video incl.)

Oh, it turns out that his number is for McCain making it through a second term. Still, 1 in 7 does not make me feel a lot better.

2008 Sep 03 05:23 (#3984.11849):
Does the use of percentages to refer to portion of income rather than in/decrease in taxes paid bother anyone else? I find the labelling (big colored arrows vs little text box top left) very misleading -- a 10% increase in the taxes I pay (not that I am in that category, wishful thinking) would not seem like such a big deal, but an increase in taxes equal to 10% of my income is a different story.

[NB - this is not to say that i'm horrified by or even opposed to Obama's plan, just that I think it could be better presented. Too picky?]

2008 Aug 21 11:41 (#3970.11802):
Wait, it's Firefox? All this time i've thought it was the Great Firewall, and had pretty much given up on watching most videos til I get back...must go try in IE (ptooey!) now.

2008 Aug 21 12:41 (#3948.11795):
This is one of the things that annoys me about US party politics. The platforms are largely meaningless except as details for the respective bases to fight (and splinter) over. Anyone can declare their allegiance to either of the big parties without actually having to adhere to (or I would argue in some cases know) what the party itself stands for. Which (independent thinking) is one thing if it actually meant something come vote time, but especially in recent years, it means less and less as the parties pull in for bloc voting. And yeah, Liebermann's officially independent now, but they want him for the same reason that they got Zell Miller in 2004 -- to punch the Dems in the gut, not b/c they think Joe is oh-so-hot. But Miller (and to a lesser extent Liebermann) shouldn't have been a Democrat in the first place, at least going by where he stood on issues. I don't know that I want to go so far as to ask for a party-loyalty pledge (eeks), but I wish people would pay a lot less attention to party branding and more to the actual candidates. </rant>

2008 Aug 11 09:43 (#3863.11744):
Just in case mrflip, who has been known to change his hair for or as a result of various sporting events, needs some ideas. Just don't tell Mama Flip I had anything to do with it.

2008 Aug 07 11:37 (#3955.11731):
October 14, 2438 - LUCERNE: An article published in the November issue of 21st Century Archaeology postulates that the St Etienne valley, a 2.500 square-km circular depression that is home to Coq-sur-la-pont, is actually a 400-year old man-made crater. Scientists are unclear what kind of impact might have created the crater. According to Dr Friedrich Auslichen, an archaeologist familiar with the site, "our test results don't match up with what you'd expect from an incoming meteor or other satellite. Actually, it almost seems like a bomb went off from inside the earth, and pulled everything down. But we know that's not possible."
Further tests are ongoing. Coq-sur-la-pont is best known for its famed "Well with no Bottom" and its cheese.

2008 Jul 30 05:55 (#3863.11674):
Heh. I hope she does see him again and maces him, that would be sweet.

2008 Jul 24 11:24 (#3940.11650):
Do you think the CL one is fer realz? I think it's a fine piece of writing, but... hey, maybe it's James Frey... :)

2008 Jul 24 10:13 (#3863.11649):
"Hey, didja hear about Al's next party? I hear it's going to be scandalous." Graphic not quite up to NYT snuff, but when do you ever get to see the term Venn diagram in a layman publication?

2008 Jul 22 10:54 (#3931.11641):
OMG, please please oh please follow the awesome cake link to the original site of the Braveheart cake story and hang out there for a little while too. You will not be sorry, I promise.

2008 Jul 15 11:44 (#3923.11614):
(Ooh, I can answer this b/c a friend of mine was just there and i recognized the photos!) That's actually the S. Korean tourist point that straddles the border, so anyone can go there. That door behind the guard goes to N. Korea, and is where the incredibly off-limits portion begins (my friend's tour guide warned them strenuously not to even pretend to try to open it).

2008 Jul 15 11:33 (#3925.11613):
Speaking as a woman who entered college a math major and came out with a degree in history, I have to agree (at least on the student side) with mrflip's assessment that a larger peer group would prob make a big difference. A little encouragement can go a long way, and for depts that aren't seeing enough female prospective majors, how about a little recruiting? I'm not sure that it should be so tightly regulated, but I'm no longer in the thick of things and have no idea whether the situation really is bad. Some math/phys depts & engineering schools are prob still known for being more receptive to female students, while others are just ho-hum about it (Harvey Mudd stood out in the mid-90s for its deliberate efforts to boost female enrollment; I don't know what the score is now), so to me it does come down to an administratively-led culture (whether that is the dept head, College head, or Univ provost).

On the faculty side, I wonder if these actions are more or less a follow-up to the 1999 MIT study? I find the article strikingly uninformative about what NSF, NASA, and DoE are actually doing, and with what impact. I'm not sure who is making the leap to affirmative-action status (Tierney, his interviewees, etc), but I see Title IX compliance as a pretty different beast. Affirmative action is the one associated with quotas, while Title IX is about equal *quality* of treatment. In athletics, it has come down to equal field time and equal money for men's and women's programs, but since classrooms are shared (coed) spaces, I don't see the same problem.

However, to argue with natedogg (and myself, a bit), it's not individuals per se that feel they've been "AAed" by Title IX, it's (or it was) entire teams (wrestling and crew being the most popular examples) that have been cut and told it's because they have to make room for the women's softball team. Of course, in most cases they could also have been told that they're being cut because the football team refuses to cut 5-10% of their scholarships, but in the '80s the women were an easier scapegoat. Since the teams were cut a long time ago, individual athletes (for the most part) just accept that it's not theirs to have, not that it was taken from them.

2008 Jul 11 11:40 (#3921.11606):
That photo is classic frat-boy Bush. He's the guy who takes back his security deposit check and says, "Oh yeah, the shower's broken, and there's a hole in the floor under the sofa. Not sure how it got there. See ya!" I'm just going to be happy not to have an imbecile running the country, that's how low my standards are now (it's the reverse of kids rising to meet expectations).

2008 Jul 07 06:41 (#3905.11567):
I mean SatC. Rats.

2008 Jul 07 06:41 (#3905.11566):
All of the SitC girls, however, have at least partial representation.

2008 Jul 07 06:39 (#3905.11565):
So far still no SFs... I am too lazy to look up what that means about this here collective consciousness.

2008 Jul 04 11:30 (#3905.11548):
Also, apparently none of my famous co-personalities needed elaboration: FDR, Sean Connery, Madonna, and Yulia Tymoshenko.

2008 Jul 04 11:17 (#3905.11547):
I am late to the party, and also ENTJ (56/25/a whopping 1/44). I took a M-B in high school and also again last year, and I'm always ENTJ, but usually it's the N and J that are borderline, not the T. China must be making me soft.

I am also mildly surprised to come up as Carrie.

2008 May 20 12:18 (#3858.11313):
Meh. If 5 sentences (or less) works for you, hurrah, and I wouldn't object to adopting it as a general office policy. But I rank getting an honest to god, informative, LONG personal email up with getting actual personal snail mail (rare but does happen, at least in my world) -- obviously, these are from people I do not hear from 18 times a day, or even once a day.

The no-thanks page seems like a good idea, although I'd prob just tell someone directly if it really bothered me that much. I am also a Snopes responder (though i don't buy the 15-min minimum, sorry mrflip), and I think that's easier b/c you want someone to have correct information (and NOT spread bad information), whereas when you tell them you don't want their forwards, it seems like a personal judgment about their sense of humor, political views, being behind the curve, etc (even if it's not).

The Inbox series does sound intriguing; I'll have to check it out. At work, I'm ruthless with my inbox -- almost everything is instantly color-coded, filed, or trashed (replied to if necessary in combination with one of these) -- but I know a lot of people whose inboxes cause them serious angst. I think one guy at my last office had never filed anything despite having enough familiarity with the software to have disabled the auto-archiving feature, so as a result had an inbox with over 30K messages. Talk about driving your IT dept insane. ("No sir, we don't know why you have issues when logging into email from Turkey...")

My personal email is a different story... but I heart Gmail as a result. The spam filter alone saves me from 90% of my email grief, making it much easier/less stressful/less annoying to deal with the bad forwards. :)

2008 May 13 10:15 (#3839.11290):
That's funny in a completely awesome way. The next Jackie Joyner-Kersee, maybe? And is it just me, or does she look like she's 30 in that photo?

2008 May 09 12:28 (#3840.11262):
Well, duh. He is a liberal and thus soft on immigration, which means border patrol will disappear, so you're going to need your guns to protect yourselves from the millions of Mexicans who will be coming over and through the holes in Pat's wall, and camping out in YOUR front yard. Also, he'll probably let everyone out of prison, especially all the people on death row, so really, you're going to be getting a lot of use out of that gun. Not to mention if you want to join Ross's little militia...

(sorry, i might be a little loopy today... :)

2008 May 09 05:52 (#3834.11257):
Oooh,oooh, agronomist in the house? Q for Vanalyn -- have you read An Omnivore's Dilemma, and if so, what did you think? Is Pollan generally accurate in making his points, or really exaggerating certain aspects? (I just finished reading it, so I am an inquiring mind.)

2008 May 09 05:43 (#3839.11256):
Yeah, I remember there being a lot written about this in the early 90s, particularly about female basketball players -- while ACL injuries are pretty common among both men and women in soccer, it's highly skewed in basketball (although my perception is that it's increasing in the NBA). I've heard the wider-hips theory (but that time in the context of the angle at which the bone sits in the joint), the muscle-mass theory, the over-rotation theory, the surface (astroturf) theory, the single-sport theory, and now the biomechanics theory... I don't think they really have a clue. There's so little emphasis put on actually figuring out how women's sports equipment should differ, rather than just making stupid stereotypical superficial changes for marketing purposes -- I'm still waiting for shoes that actually fit -- my feet are too wide/flat for most women's (read: narrower, pastel-colored) shoes, and most stores don't sell men's shoes in my size -- somehow all boys apparently jump from 5 to 6.5? </rant> -- so I don't expect them to figure this out anytime soon.

Anyway, ttj, my joints aren't great, but I don't walk like a retired NFLer or anything (and I never played as much as these girls). I find it hard to believe that the hard-core focus on a sport from the time a kid is 6 is good for anyone, but that's just my unfounded conjecture.

2008 May 08 09:38 (#3834.11249):
Two quibbles on funerals for mrflip: (1) while I understand your reasoning (1 funeral per person), in most cases you are not arranging or paying for your own funeral. Which means that you get guilted into not skimping (also that an only child is likely to pay for two, assuming 2 parents, but oboviously still not a regular expense). Your point is still taken, which is to say that the price of a coffin is surprisingly high, considering that its primary user is completely unaware of its qualities, but I remember this being deemed a racket, or "trend" a while ago -- funeral directors pushing larger, fancier coffins, while giving speeches about how you'd really be sending your loved ones off in comfort. So how many grieving people do you think say "nah, pack Mom in the wood box, forget the silk lining and the makeup"? (I wonder how much funeral plots cost, incidentally.) And you're even supposed to pick a coffin for cremation. (If you're feeling outraged, might I suggest donating your body to a med school? :)

(2) Depending on how you're using "budget," I would argue that you're thinking about a lot of this the wrong way. It's .2% of expenditures (or even better, as natedogg pointed out, purchases), which doesn't count savings or charitable donations. Which over 50 yrs adds up, to be sure, but I still maintain it wouldn't come close to the dent made by the "average" wedding.

2008 May 07 09:57 (#3834.11241):
Also, I'm curious to know why spending on pigs is down across the board, while chickens and cows are up. Has the price of pork & bacon gone down, or are people just eating less of it? I just find it odd b/c the big food story in China last year/early this one was how pig was in high demand and prices were rising too quickly. Eggs, however, remain cheap.

2008 May 07 09:52 (#3834.11240):
I think the spending on major appliances vs clocks and lamps has something in common with the inelasticity of men's suits: low replacement rate. Your major appliances are supposed to last about 20 yrs, but (e.g.) i have probably had to buy at least one clock or lamp in each apt/house I have had in the last 10 years (~5). Double that (or more for people moving to larger houses and requiring more lights/clocks), and voila, (clocks + lamps ) > one washing machine. Hm, I wonder if this went up with the housing bubble...

For the men's suits, I conjecture that they don't go out of style as quickly as women's suits (and/or men are less likely to change sizes?), so consumption similarly averages out, as opposed to, say 1992, when every working woman realized she needed to replace all of her suits with h-u-u-u-g-e shoulder pads IMMEDIATELY. Not sure if you were including shirts and slacks in there, mrflip, since they show a larger % change than dresses. Or perhaps it was an observation on absolute, not comparative, terms? I'll be curious to see whether spending on TVs bumps when analog gets cut, or whether everyone already has at least one compatible set.

On funerals: comparable to eyeglasses. Doesn't seem like that much to me. Where's the weddings category??

2008 May 01 09:54 (#3796.11218):
Hey, mrflip, i forgot to ask -- what was your take on the Nats park, after all? (Assuming airport delays didn't mean you missed the game.)

2008 Apr 16 05:25 (#3815.11191):
Great article. I love elevators and am happy to defy the stereotype of women not looking outside the glass. I'm surprised that passengers in Asia are considered more patient (but not that they cram more people in); from what I observe, the incidence of people jabbing repeatedly at the close-doors button is much higher over here... which makes it all the funnier that it doesn't work. I did notice that an elevator I was on the other day had a capacity of 10 ppl, 680kg, and wondered whether the average on a US elevator is substantially higher.

2008 Apr 13 06:03 (#3809.11177):
Please note that I use the term "cellphone" since "mobile phone" and "handphone," both of which are far more commonly used in Asia, don't seem to apply.

2008 Apr 06 02:49 (#3772.11146):
trusting mrflip's last summary, i hereby offer congrats to McD, and go off to sob inconsolably into my pillow (except that i have memphis in another pool, so not really on the second :).

2008 Apr 01 06:18 (#3785.11100):
Oh... if I learned to read all posts, I might have noticed that Valatan already said that. Sorry.

2008 Apr 01 06:17 (#3785.11099):

What I don't know is the extent to which tangible exports -- which largely terminate in Europe and Asia, and greatly outweigh their internet presence -- also fit.

You mean other than oil? That's where the bulk of their recent growth is coming from (rising prices). I sort of doubt that piracy is actually that large a percentage of the gross economy, although I think IT is pretty significant, so it probably depends on how you draw the line.

2008 Apr 01 06:05 (#3796.11098):
Good thing you said largely.

2008 Mar 30 03:13 (#3772.11077):
So if I am putting sufficient brainpower into this (which may not be the case), the only games that really matter for both first and last positions of the AE pool would be a TX-UCLA matchup and the final?

2008 Mar 25 09:27 (#3782.11037):
First, thank you mrflip, this is awesome. My college roommate and I used to do lyrics quizzes constantly back when the internets consisted of things like Archie, Veronica, and rec.music.lyrics.

Anyway, my own results to the contrary, I'm going to argue that the raps should actually be easier to figure out: more words overall = more potential for distinctive words, which at least for me are the big tipoffs (scaramouche? anaconda? if you know these lyrics at all, they're dead giveaways).

That said, I got over half of the NYT selections and only 30% of the rap ones... but I'll put it down to just not being as familiar with the songs, or at least the lyrics. First, there were 4 songs on each list that I still couldn't give you a tune for after I knew the answer, but that obviously becomes a large percentage difference. Second, I wouldn't call it lyrical sophistication (not to diss rap; sometimes it certainly is), but lyric delivery that tips it for me. I like Gold Digger, but I'd have to hear that song a lot more times than I have before I absorbed what he was actually saying between choruses. There's a reason everyone knows the lyrics to Baby Got Back, but I bet few less-than-fans could deliver three full non-chorus lines of a Dylan song (I certainly can't -- I got that one by dint of the distinctive words).

I say if you really want a challenge, take a handful of Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston/Celine Dion (ie., crooning love songs) lyrics and see if you can guess which ones are which. (all alone be by heart i love my want we with you...etc ;-)

2008 Mar 23 11:37 (#3765.11031):
Z, not to further confuse you, but you could also go with [day-ist] if it's easier. :)

2008 Mar 18 01:43 (#3739.11002):
Wanna see what the author looks like? (via Torontoist)

2008 Mar 13 07:59 (#3765.10987):
A freaky-nomic socio/anthropologist we all know and like thinks that if the guv had paid more, he might not have gotten caught.

2008 Mar 06 11:57 (#3725.10954):
So for anyone interested, video is finally up on this, with much indebtedness to mrflip for donating server space.

2008 Mar 05 07:55 (#3758.10948):
I constantly lament that standard vacation time in the US is 2 weeks, whereas my friends in Europe tend to get around 5. Ba$tards.

2008 Feb 27 11:57 (#3758.10922):
I just noticed that Kim Jong-Il's disappearance is predicted (2026), but Castro (F, but for that matter R as well)'s is not. I guess he's defied expectations too many times for them to stick their necks out on that one.

2008 Feb 24 07:32 (#3749.10909):
I started reading this, but somewhere around the 4th paragraph there was a knock on my door...

J/K. All fine here. Mrflip's posts, though, seem to have taken a dose of doublemint gum.

WRT the article, i do proxy to blogspot and wikipedia links that I care about enough to make the effort, and I do get that annoying "connection has been reset" message with some frequency. I suspect some of it is legitimately the lousy connection, though (according to my uncle, my broadband is 1Mbps max, and it speed-tests at less than half that, even to Japan) -- they're bad, but i don't think the UMD Terps are on the Chinese censorship list.

Interestingly, the link that has caused me the most annoyance is the youtube video of Sarah Silverman singing "I'm F---in Matt Damon"... a friend sent it to me, and I've tried to watch it several times (multiple URLs). I've never been able to get past the first 1:15 (of 4-5' clips). I hit pause to let it download, I come back and the bar is all colored in, I hit play, and all goes well until *poof*, "Email/Replay" screen, video done 1/3 (or less) of the way through. Sad, but it's probably not the censors. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

2008 Feb 20 09:42 (#3739.10890):
I'm around 19, which seeems accurate in that i should be roughly half as white as mrflip. :) I wasn't sure how to count certain things, as in "I like Jon Stewart, but I never bother to watch The Daily Show." I would go up to 22 with mrflip's additions.

2008 Feb 20 09:33 (#3740.10889):
I'll vouch for the China/Singapore version. I'd say it's true for the most part, with given variations (the way that I would say people in the US also use the same handhold to count bills onto a table/bank counter, etc.). Also, China seems to think it has a huge counterfeiting problem, so many places have machines like you'd find at US casinos, which (I guess) verify a Y100 (or presumably larger) bill, and count if there are multiple. When I've been at the post office, bank, etc., the teller counts by hand, sometimes twice, and then runs the bills through the machine twice.

2008 Feb 13 10:31 (#3705.10866):
Wow. I'll see what I can do, Valatan. Good, new mission! And natedogg - you should be able to get the good prawn chips at any asian supermarket over there. You don't want the Lay's ones, trust me. :)

2008 Feb 01 12:31 (#3716.10807):
Note to IE: Great pranks. Please get the author of the band-gig writeup some spelling lessons.

2008 Jan 20 06:35 (#3693.10770):
I think this is awesome (and aesthetically pleasing), but I can't help but wonder: how does he keep track of all the data? (see note, p.8) How much time does it consume? (not listed in daily breakdown) Do we think this guy is incredibly OCD, or what?

2007 Nov 29 12:09 (#3629.10589):
wait a second, where's the leap to "markedly better food"? are you talking about fresher produce (lower travel times), or what we buy? Because I think most nutritionists, MDs, environmentalists, and health nuts would argue that the food we consume now is markedly worse (corn subsidies = find more uses for corn syrup, corn starch; why junk food is cheap, why obesity is up, etc.).

2007 Nov 15 07:36 (#3621.10553):
Oooh, oooh. A semi-sciency question i actually understand. Sort of. :) A little more about it from some people I trust.

2007 Nov 15 10:46 (#3602.10540):
tsk tsk, mrflip. You live in a republic. :-P

2007 Nov 15 10:43 (#3618.10539):
I would've said convenience's myself, but Chicago indicates otherwise (why I am not a copyeditor):

"[While t]he possessive case of singular nouns is formed by the addition of an apostrophe and an s.... [t]here is one notable exception to the rule for common nouns, a case wherein tradition and euphony dictate the use of the apostrophe only:

for appearance' (conscience', righteousness', etc.) sake

"

Don't you feel smart now? :)

2007 Oct 17 10:02 (#3572.10394):
Well, the cockatoo does have a lower center of gravity, making it easier to coordinate... :)

2007 Oct 01 03:36 (#3554.10320):
My answers mirror Valatan's except for the midgets (almost never score a run) and the high jumper (I foolishly thought "10 ft" as i was clicking, not top of the backboard (which has to be what, about 13?). so really i believe he can't get it, but my answer is that he could. lookit that, skewing the stats already.

[Aside: I play in a pool league with my friend Chuq, who is very good (5/7 on the APA scale) but nowhere near pro champion, and when I first started (I was a 2/7), we went to a pool hall where he beat me right-handed a couple times, left-handed 3-4x, and one-handed 2-3x (sigh). So i have faith in Paez.]

2007 Sep 12 12:53 (#3519.10232):
When we have a HOF Post tag? :)

2007 Sep 06 10:37 (#3513.10180):
I thought I would have this one in the bag, but as it turns out, there were no Redskins to be picked. Alas.

2007 Aug 22 10:01 (#3488.10147):
The definition of chocoholic is taken to a whole new level.

2007 Aug 03 09:58 (#3464.10105):
Thanks for the suggestions, all (TJ -- yeah... easier/less time-consuming if there weren't 5 other elevators that also come when called :) As it turns out, my coworker is slated to get an LCD monitor in the next couple months, so she won't have to deal with it for too much longer.

2007 Aug 01 08:46 (#3465.10099):
i personally went with the sextant. just 'cuz.

2007 Jul 18 10:35 (#3445.10058):
Only when there's snow.

2007 Jul 16 01:24 (#3441.10051):
But do migrant workers like the ones in the article count as part of the "single" population? Technically they're married, just separated from their families.

As for some of the previous points, I think it's a little misleading that the dot sizes max out at 40K -- the LA/NY comparison really isn't much of one at all at an almost 1:5 ratio.

I'm curious to know whether the prison population is counted in the tally; one of the factors often cited about the abundance of single women in E Coast cities is that African American men are in prison in such high percentages.

Not sure what I think about mrflip's question; I think the people I know are both all over the map but also not a particularly representative sample. I do think that the big east coast cities tend to be places where career-minded women find themselves on pretty equal footing, so if you are a woman more intent on a career than a family you may well end up there (having never lived in the midwest, I make no call about that). That may mesh with the colleges argument -- more highly educated women may be migrating to the larger cities and forming a surplus, whereas the single men remain more dispersed in the rural areas/smaller cities.

There's the number of elderly to take into account, since the distaff tend to outlive the XYers. And finally, there are just plain way more women than men over 25 in this country, whch may make the rest moot.

2007 Jul 14 01:56 (#3445.10046):
OMG I heart the spheres.

2007 Jun 19 03:40 (#3413.9965):
Plenty of historical state-carvings to go around, but as for current non-contiguous pieces of land: (1) Our selves (though to be fair neither was ever contiguous to a state that claimed to be its owner), (2) Malaysia, or Borneo, if you prefer to think of the act of carving, and within which is contained the two parts of (3) Brunei (apparently the result of war, not intentional carving).

2007 Jun 15 12:32 (#3410.9954):
While I'm sympathetic to Media Matters's mission and their argument, these graphs (and some of the others they post) make my stomach turn. It's a lot easier to give the impression of a nation of progressives when the 37th percentile

looks close to half the population when it suits you, or

close to zero when it doesn't. Amazing how visually discarding 40% of the population (>60 in the first graph) makes their argument that much stronger. I understand their desire to make a point, but I have to question whether, if Fox News used similar graphics to illustrate a story, MM would complain. (IMHO, they should, and if they didn't, someone should buy them a Tufte book or three.)

2007 Jun 14 12:32 (#3403.9944):
This must be the only movie quiz on the planet on which I can score better than natedogg (8/10).

2007 Jun 05 12:33 (#3390.9920):
Yep, natedogg's right, apparently I can't read a map without boundaries -- I can also chalk up Puerto Rico, Czech Rep (technically Czechoslovakia (from where i was almost deported to Vietnam?!), but i never made it to the slovak side), and Taiwan, but am absolutely no help with any part of Africa.

2007 Jun 04 11:37 (#3390.9911):
if mrflip is still updating a group map, he can toss in Brazil, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Benelux countries for me (yes, Luxembourg rocks... it's like a whole toy country :-)). I think everywhere else i've been has been covered.

2007 May 31 10:22 (#3390.9880):
hmmm... that global link doesn't work. Sorry about that -- correct address is here. At least it was working last night; now I'm at work with a shaky connection, so I can't verify anything.

2007 May 31 10:10 (#3389.9879):
Send Refreshments Soon
Sweaty Runners (are) Sexy (? -- ok, that one's a stretch)
Sprinting Refugees from Sanity (too bad it's not RSS. or something else entirely)

What characteristics does your team/company have that we can pick on? :)

2007 May 31 10:04 (#3389.9878):
Send Runners Soon

2007 May 28 04:57 (#3385.9865):
As a history-phd dropout, I am all for the time-to-graduation stat on a per-professor basis. I asked a lot of Burke's questions before I got to my dept, but after being there a year realized that the average can be greatly skewed by one or two outliers. We even had a professor who was rumored to have repeatedly delayed her rival's student from defending to keep him from graduating too far ahead of her own advisee, with whom he had started. Most of the other stuff Burke talks about is, I think, valid, but some not necessarily for the dept to publicize -- strengths/fields of study are readily available, and if you can't figure it out or ask about timelines, funding, and process for yourself, I fear for your future in grad school. And i'm not sure how they'd manage the "forseeable future" bit apart from tenure-track stages.

I also noticed that nobody in the article mentioned that (lib arts, at least; not sure about the sciences) departments rely on their grad students to be the TA/adjunct supply, and are thus reluctant to let the older (more experienced, less likely to give up and leave) ones out in a timely fashion.

2007 May 18 09:26 (#3373.9815):
mrflip, i'm shocked. #13 is my favorite (good) movie of all-time.

2007 May 17 03:15 (#3370.9805):
I'm gonna go with sarcastic critic, tester, or bot. Lorem ipsum is commonly used as dummy text by printers, publishers, etc. (translation incl. in link).

2007 May 16 11:19 (#3367.9802):
Yeah... I should have included a little context. My bad. But also, from what I gather, some of the Nats seats are indeed going for $5. Anyone want to come to DC for a ballgame?

Also, it looks like they'll be in Houston in August...

2007 May 16 10:17 (#3366.9799):
Though paramedics tried to revive him at his office and en route to Lynchburg General Hospital, "Those very timely and very efficient and effective efforts were unsuccessful," [Liberty University executive VP] Godwin said.
Um... effective in their lack of success? Maybe Liberty could add a dictionary to their library collection.

2007 May 15 11:19 (#3365.9796):
My knees hurt just watching that video.

2007 May 12 11:04 (#3362.9786):
What's the assignment, mrflip? I don't think we can pick one up for you or anything... although my parents do live near one of the ones without a fence...

2007 May 12 10:50 (#3361.9785):
And since he probably thinks soccer is a wussy sport, I guess I'll overlook his oversight of the World Cup-meets-Thunderdome ads, too...

2007 May 12 10:33 (#3361.9784):
Ugh. As much as I agree with some of his top choices (both Tiger Woods, Charles Barkley, It's Gotta Be The Shoes, Chicks Dig the Long Ball), I think he's generally full of crap. All it takes is piano music to make an ad gripping? Please.

Mostly I'm appalled that he didn't include (and this is why I say "he"... well, that, and the Amanda Beard, and the "best things since cheerleaders" slogan) the If You Let Me Play ad. Maybe it's boring to guys, but to me (and pretty much any woman who played sports before the mid-90s) it was incredibly powerful. Talk about reaching your audience.

The other ad (or series of ads) I expected to be in the top 5 but was nowhere to be found was the fancy-dribbling one from maybe 2000 (see also: extended and spoof versions). No piano music, but good sound editing + neat choreo + big names + and mad skillz = way fun, cool ad.

And finally, I'm not sure how much of a sports fan he can really be if he doesn't consider [ahem, can't recognize] Scottie Pippen (yeah, that *is* him stretching in #11... with, uh, MJ) and Michael Johnson big names.

But yeah, Nike makes them some cool ads.

2007 Apr 27 11:27 (#3326.9681):
natedogg, do you have enough room to mount a lock from the top tube? I can use the down tube and seat tube for bottle & U-lock mount, but I've seen bike couriers around town with locks mounted on the top tube (and been slightly jealous, as I think it'd actually be more out of the way there).

2007 Apr 26 08:03 (#3326.9670):
I'm pretty sure I'm not the best person to be talking about this, but it was really the awesome bike-store people who set me up, so I'll share: I (well, the store folks) took the quick-release stuff off my wheels and replaced them with locking skewers. They're a very minor pain when it comes to having to change a tire, but for daily use i can't see it making a difference. These can apparently be purchased for your seat as well. Then I just U-lock the frame to the rack and leave it. No worries so far, but then again, the only place I tend to leave my bike for long periods of time isn't particularly high-risk (it's usually only out on the streets for 2-3 hrs max).

2007 Apr 12 09:57 (#3302.9594):
I'm with NanoCindy on lumping the orioles in... they've been pretty competitive with tampa bay and toronto for well over the last decade. I won't try to enter the stats-analysis debate, but wrt to the bad, bad devil rays, unexpected outcomes and good pitching vs hitting... one of my saddest baseball memories is being in Fenway for a game in which Pedro had 17 Ks, only to lose to a Jose Canseco solo home run in the 8th. 1-0, Tampa Bay.

(And to further derail the topic, my favorite so-sad-it's-laughable moment was leaving this game when the score hit 12-1, only to arrive home to find that we'd missed EIGHT more runs (with the Yankees still at bat). Sigh.)

2007 Apr 11 09:12 (#3280.9575):
I'm prompted to beat the dead horse by a NYT article, featuring cool calculator.

2007 Apr 09 01:47 (#3294.9564):
I think if I'd had a minute to hear it coming up the escalator, I'd have thought to myself, "wow, he's pretty good," and then stared as I walked by (but not stopped, unless I had time to kill). I wonder what my mother, who's legitimately a classical music connoisseur, would have done. I gotta say, though, I don't tend to think of L'enfant as a cultural hub -- not that I necessarily think you'd get a critical mass at Dupont or Foggy Bottom (closest stop to the Kennedy Ctr) either, but I wonder why they chose it.

I like staring on buses, too, unless it's going to provoke either crude comments or violence (or in one case, could be interpreted as encouragement for even more really bad rapping). People can be infinitely amusing.

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