New research has found that women “dress to impress” when they are at their most fertile.
Link here. Note: this is a little old, but new to the blog…
Women dress to impress when ovulating
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Personalized highway billboards
MINI USA, the company that makes Mini’s, is doing something very cool.
The idea is simple, first give MINI USA some irreverent information about yourself (nothing too personal). Then MINI USA then sends out a special keyfob (4-6 weeks after sign-up) that identifies you to each of the Motorboards you pass. When the boards detect that you are about the drive by, they deliver a personal message based on the information you originally gave.
So, if I have a Mini and drive past one of their billboards, I can have it say, “Jason, you are one handsome man!” for the world to see. In Chicago, the billboard is on 294 near O’Hare.
Watch stuff without downloading
Let’s see how long the site lasts before getting taken down. My guess: 1 month.
http://www.peekvid.com/
(Thanks Angie.)
Bush’s “responsibility” for the Iraq War
My favorite quote in response to Bush’s “acknowledgement” of responsibility for the War in Iraq.
And what the hell does it mean that “the responsibility rests with me”? Not “I take responsibility” or “I accept responsibility,” but responsibility coming, apparently under its own power, to rest in the general vicinity of George W. Bush. It’s his way of saying, “I can’t really get away with denying responsibility, so by default I’ll let it attach itself to me.” It’s really pathetic.
There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
As we sat waiting for our delayed flight in the airport, Chuck Norris was on TV kicking someone’s ass. My manager turns to me and says, “There is no chin under Chuck Norris’ Beard. There is only another fist.” He then points me out to the Chuck Norris Top Ten list.
Quote of the day
“He (Bush) should resign straight away and be tried by the same kangaroo court.” – Mahathir Mohamad, former Malasian premier
What is a “kangaroo court”? Turns out it’s a well-known phrase, one that I had never heard before. Although the picture below indicates a better vision of what I thought was meant.
There is no Spoon (or fork)
Look closely: the spoon and fork are suspended from the table, balancing across a toothpick on the very edge of the glass. I took the pictures, and they were not manipulated in any way. (I should have taken a picture of the full glass, but couldn’t find the right angle). Can anyone explain how it’s done?
EDIT: Here is a wikiHow article on this stunt. Unfortunately, the explanation is not really helpful.
EDIT: I think the center of gravity of the spork-combination must be directly below the edge of where the toothpick touches the glass. Is this true?
Open source Electronic Medical Records software
Chirag mentioned that the Department of Veteran’s Affairs has recently released the VA Vista EMR as an application, as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Having studied large-scale EMR systems to some extent, this made me a tad nervous as I hadn’t yet heard about it.
After a bit of research, turns out that I need not worry about this system replacing the likes of Cerner or Eclipsys without government intervention (no pun intended…). At the very least, it is a system that should be watched carefully to see how its use evolves.
The following from a site compiling open-source EMR systems. The bold text is my emphasis. (And, by the way, has anyone heard of the M programming language??)
- VISTA
- The U.S. Veteran’s Administration Software.
- Available free due to the Freedom of Information Act
- Becoming easier to install the basic system on Linux due to the packaging efforts of World Vista Team.
- Still very difficult to set up a working installation due to detailed working knowlege of M programming language, and other detailed knowlege of the system required. I suspect the arcane knowlege required to set up and maintain it ensured job security for the team of programmers who spent their entire careers working on VISTA for the VA. This worked well at the VA where the users contributed the ideas and the develpers responded, but resulted in extreme dependence on the developer team provided by the VA. This may be VISTA’s Achille’s heel for the open source transition. Hopefully VISTA can eventually be packaged in a way that mere mortals can set it up and maintain it.
- The M language used is still good, but newer open source programmers are not familiar with it, which hampers recruitment of new developers.
The new trend in shoe retailing
Two large-name sites have come up with semi- to nearly-fully-independent entities to sell shoes online since Oct 2006.
- Gap –> PiperLime.com
- Amazon.com –> Endless.com
There are also three other major contenders out there.
- Zappos.com (the leader in the category)
- Shoes.com
- ShoeMall.com
It should be interesting to see how Gap and Amazon take on these somewhat entrenched players. Also of note, Amazon’s site offers free overnight shipping. At ~$20/pair, this is a significant investment to drive traffic.
(Note: the link between Amazon.com and Endless.com was noted by TechCrunch. All five outlets are reviewed at Trunkt.net)
Checking the tread on your tires
I used the Lincoln Penny method of checking the tread on a set of car tires today, to determine if it is time to replace them:
- Take a penny and place it between the treads, Lincoln’s head first
- If you can see all of Lincoln’s head, your tires have approximately 1/16 of an inch of tread left
- If you only see part of Lincoln’s head, you are okay for now
Found this method online here.