After the while OJ thing tainted Ford with the low speed Bronco chase, they dropped the Bronco from their line and replaced it with something to help shed the whole fleeing fugitive image: the Escape.
Rumor has it there will be an Arrested Development movie!
It’s a pretty mediocre SUV. Squishy, soft, fairly comfortable. It’s a little loud inside. These small SUV’s seem to combine the disadvantages of a truck (noisy, gas consumptive, big, slow) with the disadvantages of a car (fragile, not off-road worthy). This one was even two wheel drive only, what’s the point of that?
On Saturday, Mike Wehner and I went to the NIMBY party. It turned out really well, a good crowd and fun entertainment despite the anomalous efforts of the OPD to embargo the party. It was something I’ve never seen before: the police blocked access to the building thus locking out a few thousand would-be-party-goers.
They did not interfere with the party with respect to those people who found a way in or were already in attendance. They were polite and didn’t give anyone a hard time. They just did what they could to keep anyone from getting in. There was a rumor going around that an edict had been issued by a politician to the OPD to shut down the party.
A solid 500-1,000 people (it seemed to me) did get to enjoy the event including a therm demonstration, a very impressive stunt riding demonstration, and, of course, the boxing.
I’m not a fan of spectator sports of any kind, and have never actually watched a complete boxing match before, but this was particularly entertaining. Really drunk bikers knocking each other around (safely supervised, with gloves and mouthguards) was sometimes pretty hilarious, and sometimes a good excuse for a drink. A few of the men I saw get up there were technically pretty good and fun to watch.
By far though, the most entertaining fighters were the women. Some wrestled instead of boxed, which was awfully sexy from an oogling perspective (the most vociferous ooglers were other women, by far, who were the only one’s calling out for clothing removal moves I heard). What was most surprising was that some of the female bouts were actually really good boxing – far better than the men. They stayed clean for three rounds, fought well, had good form, and were just technically better fighters and had the most interesting bouts even from a purely athletic perspective.
UAL notified me that Secure Flight is about to be rolled out by the TSA. EFF has had a lot to say about this program, which is worth reviewing (donate to EFF, help them defend your rights!).
Practical issues to watch out for:
- You need to present your full name exactly as it appears on your ID. – You will need to give your birthdate and gender while making a reservation – Do you have a redress number?
There is now a mechanism to apply for redress when you have been penalized by bureaucratic mixup and have been flagged for special scrutiny or denied the right to fly without due processes or judicial oversight.
This is an important question: where did Worldbeat go? Worldbeat is the essential reference for news about both Penii and angry robots. Without my weekly does of worldbeat, the world seems colder, as if the sun is hidden behind a permanent haze that just won’t clear.
Even if you don’t know Chris Watson’s worldbeat, you want it back because until you get the chance to experience Worldbeat you will never know how bright the sun shines on absurdity. Where else will you learn:
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE
In March, a 13-year-old girl sent a letter to her mother. There were, however, some problems this letter. First of all, she didn’t put a stamp on it. Secondly, her mother is dead. And third, the letter was addressed to “Paradise Street, Heaven.” Two days after she mailed the letter, it was returned to her. It came marked “unknown at this address” and with a 1.35 euro fine for the missing stamp. Everyone got all pissy at the French post office, for what was seen as its callous treatment of the girl. Nobody got all pissy at a world that tricks kids into thinking there’s a magical fantasyland where their dead parents are waiting to get mail. Nobody except Worldbeat. Because that’s what we do here.
Michael Cahill of Cambridge Beat wants to know where Chris has gone too. Where is our worldbeat? I stopped by the offices of the Echo Weekly personally and asked, but nobody there knew.
It is time to demand answers! Write the Echo and demand Worldbeat!
Only 596 km on the clock.
Faith in pseudo-science annoys me. As I get older I find myself caring less and less what other people believe and have learned, mostly, to just walk away when people espouse anti-scientific ideas. But every now and then I find myself typing something like:
“While I disagree that there’s anything less than an unprecedented flowering of innovation at an ever increasing pace, there is a risk to further progress in weakened academic structure that has led to an increase in credulity as evidenced by growing embrace of faith in psuedo-science and outright anti-scientific religion. It is not so much that fanciful flights of faith pose any meaningful challenge to good science, rather the pointless waste of resources that ultimately harm the ignorant and drain overall productivity .
“As those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so too the directionless flailing of the uneducated repeat past failures and charge enthusiastically into dead ends long ago discovered and mapped in formal curricula. Those who bemoan the exclusion of the uneducated in scientific discourse deserve no more sympathy than obese couch potatoes whining over being excluded from consideration as contenders in marathons. Merely being qualified to appreciate progress requires a modicum of technical literacy, at the least a thorough understanding of scientific method, evidentiary proof, and basic mathematics; an understanding of which is a civic obligation regardless of profession.”
(The comment was not particularly anti-scientific and in true web2.0 abbreviated “update” form, ambiguous and without context. While it is likely a diatribe more in agreement with the original post than contrary to it, so much inspired consonance seems worthy of elevation from throw away comment against an abbreviated status post to the exulted position of “blog post,” in all vanity published glory, untarnished by critical review or editorial attention.)
Map It
