Jun 14
Ben commented on Man of Steel: Superman Gets in a Very Long Fight.
Superman is boring if you think every story is about one person beating up another person, and the only source of suspense is the threat of losing a fight. If you think Superman is boring, you're probably boring.
Jun 12
Ben commented on The Wednesday Morning News (Now With More Midweek Flavor).
"In Berlin, where Mr. Obama will speak next week before the Brandenburg Gate, privacy is a highly sensitive political issue and the Prism revelations have stirred a furor."
Really, NYT? A furor? In Berlin?
Really, NYT? A furor? In Berlin?
Jun 10
Ben commented on The Science Today: "Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey Stuff".
@4: Not really, at least not from what little can be gleaned after passing through the press release/crummy science journalism filters. To the best of my knowledge, every one of these 'quantum teleportation breakthroughs' boils down to entangling two particles and moving them away from each other. Measure one of them, and then the other before light could travel the intervening distance, and have your PR guy type up a release about teleportation. But if you can't control what state the entangled particles end up in, you can't use it to communicate.
Try this thought experiment. You flip a coin. Without looking at the coin, you and a friend both take polaroid pictures of the coin, and put them in separate envelopes before they develop. You hop on a plane to Austranlia, your friend hops on a plane to Europe. You open your envelopes at the same time and lo and behold, they match! Somehow, your polaroid and your friend's polaroid must have communicated faster than light! Spooky action at a distance! Now we just need a way to force the 'transmitting' polaroid to be heads when we want heads, and tails when we want tails, but that's probably a pretty simple issue to work out. I'm sure it's only five or ten years away.
More...
Try this thought experiment. You flip a coin. Without looking at the coin, you and a friend both take polaroid pictures of the coin, and put them in separate envelopes before they develop. You hop on a plane to Austranlia, your friend hops on a plane to Europe. You open your envelopes at the same time and lo and behold, they match! Somehow, your polaroid and your friend's polaroid must have communicated faster than light! Spooky action at a distance! Now we just need a way to force the 'transmitting' polaroid to be heads when we want heads, and tails when we want tails, but that's probably a pretty simple issue to work out. I'm sure it's only five or ten years away.
Jun 10
Ben commented on The Science Today: "Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey Stuff".
News reporting on quantum mechanics makes me wish I've never read up on it. Because the reporting is always nonsense.
Jun 4
Ben commented on Glazed Over.
I picked up some of that vodka a few weeks ago, and it does smell and taste remarkably like glazed donuts. Not like sugar. Like glazed donuts.
And for the life of me, I can't find anything to do with it. It doesn't mix well with anything. The donut-iness is subtle and delicate enough that basically anything else overpowers it. So you end with a sweeter, subtly (and not pleasantly) weird-tasting version of whatever you put it in.
And for the life of me, I can't find anything to do with it. It doesn't mix well with anything. The donut-iness is subtle and delicate enough that basically anything else overpowers it. So you end with a sweeter, subtly (and not pleasantly) weird-tasting version of whatever you put it in.
May 28
Ben commented on Printing Guns.
I'm guessing you can't effectively rifle a plastic barrel. And the barrel doesn't really have to hold up for long, since the thing only holds one shot.
Look, just read this: http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/x-rea…
Look, just read this: http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/x-rea…
May 24
Ben commented on Don't Be Such a Mermaid!.
That WikiHow reminds me of a WikiHow my wife stumbled on once, entitled "How to be random."
One of the linked WikiHows was "How to deal with an annoying friend."
One of the linked WikiHows was "How to deal with an annoying friend."
May 21
Ben commented on Microsoft Resets Xbox to One.
Seems kinda like saying it's the end of phones because people don't talk on the phone as much anymore. My phone does all these other things now, it's the end of phones. In another ten years, no one will carry a phone anymore, they'll just carry a small computer that plays games and music and videos and connects to the internet and that they can use to communicate with people.
Poor old phone, going extinct like that.
Poor old phone, going extinct like that.
May 16
Ben commented on On a Wall in Pioneer Square.
Everyone knows they have the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney if they are arrested. Should we stop reading people their Miranda rights?
When our house was burglarized in November, the police made some suggestions for how to better secure the door that was kicked in. Was that patronizing and insulting?
For weeks after that spate of rapes around Green Lake back in February, there was a marked increased in police presence in the area; I would see upwards of eight or nine cruisers patrolling the neighborhood during my morning jog. Does that still count as "absolutely no other [action] to prevent rape"?
When our house was burglarized in November, the police made some suggestions for how to better secure the door that was kicked in. Was that patronizing and insulting?
For weeks after that spate of rapes around Green Lake back in February, there was a marked increased in police presence in the area; I would see upwards of eight or nine cruisers patrolling the neighborhood during my morning jog. Does that still count as "absolutely no other [action] to prevent rape"?
May 15
Ben commented on Michael Pollan Is the Steve Jobs of Food.
@32: I would guess that rather a lot of people who don't have much free time outside of work choose to spend it doing things they don't think of as more work.
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