Monthly Archives: May 2010

Medals of Honor

Of the 3,468 Medals of Honor so far awarded, 1,522 (44%) were awarded during the Civil War. By way of comparison, only 464 (13%) were awarded during WWII.

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99.999999999%

I got some junk mail from Amazon the other day, in which they mentioned, in passing, that “Amazon S3 standard storage is designed to provide 99.999999999% durability”. My immediate, and somewhat contradictory, reactions were: No way! What does that even … Continue reading

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Six Word Stories: Snake

Encoiled, the snake dreamt of gophers.

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NSURLConnection Helper

Jeff has got a good post up on the importance of using the iPhone’s built-in asynchronous communication classes and methods in lieu of threads: Don’t spawn threads for asynchronous communications unless you would have used threads in the same situation … Continue reading

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Kinetic Energy Weapon

Ever since I read “Count Zero”, I’ve had a weakness for the idea of kinetic energy weapons. So, when I read about the latest (more-or-less) successful test of the X-51A hypersonic demonstrator, I immediately started to wonder how much damage … Continue reading

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Rules for Radicals: Chapter 7 (Part 1)

Chapter 7 of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” (R4R) discusses “Tactics”. This is this big one: It contains most of the actual “rules”, and outlines Alinsky’s thoughts on trouble-making. It also gives us perhaps Alinsky’s most-quoted line (“Pick the target, … Continue reading

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Six Word Stories: Skyscrapers

Haunted skyscrapers: Disturbing on many levels.

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Manipulation

Seth posted a smug-ish piece on “manipulation” the other day. He defined manipulation as: “working to spread an idea or generate an action that is not in a person’s long-term best interest”. This definition is not helpful. The problem with … Continue reading

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Faking It

Scott Adams had an interesting piece a while back in which he argued that curiosity is a good indicator of attraction. For instance: [I]f you ever wondered if someone is attracted to you, the answer lies in curiosity. If someone … Continue reading

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Six Word Stories: Superhero

Inconspicuous Man’s costume: Sweatshirt and jeans.

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