I don’t watch The Maury Povich Show, but it seems that every promo ad for the show features a paternity test…
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Revealing More Than He Wanted To
Some geeks like to post pictures of their computer desktops for others to see. If you do this sort of thing, be careful that you don’t unintentionally give away your proclivities the way the guy who posted the screenshot below did (click the picture below to see the screenshot at full size).
What’s so embarrassing about this screenshot? Click the photo to see it at full size.
Here’s a hint if you can’t see what the guy who posted this screenshot is unintentionally revealing to the world: look at the names of the file folders on the desktop.
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A Sesame Street Thanksgiving
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Happy Thanksgiving!
One of the niceties of being a half-Canadian, half-American couple: two Thanksgivings!
Earlier this evening, I enjoyed a very lovely dinner, much of which was comprised of food that after all these years, I still find a little bit exotic: turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin bread and stuffing. Of course, what I think of as comfort food — adobo, pancit, lumpia — a lot of people might call exotic.
(My parents didn’t acquire a taste for turkey until recent years, and Mom doesn’t like the texture of mashed potatoes; they remind her too much of baby food. For the longest time, Thanksgiving at our house was rock cornish hens and wild rice, which are nothing to complain about.)
This was a particularly special Thanksgiving, as we were celebrating the Wendy’s brother’s engagement with him and his fiancee. Congrats, guys, and welcome to the family, Sue! (It’s hard to believe that two Thanksgivings ago, we were celebrating my engagement to Wendy. How time flies.)
Also joining us was J, who worked at Harvard with Wendy and whom I met at the Berkman Center’s blog group and over my many visits to Boston. It was good seeing you again, J!
As you might expect, posting’s going to be a little spotty until the end of the week. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the best Thanksgiving segment on a sitcom ever, the WKRP turkey debacle:
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The Korean Math Problem, Translated
If you read this blog last week, you might have seen the article titled Why Asian Kids are Good at Math. I put out a call for translations, and someone came forward in the comments! Here’s it is:
The top part:
Let’s assume that from the top part of the skirt to where the thighs meet is vertically 4cm. Also assume that from the end of the skirt to the point we are interested in viewing is horizontally 12cm. Looking from the side, the point of interest and the edge of the skirt form a triangle ABC.
The bottom part:
Extending BC we reach our ideal observation point E where we our point of interest comes into view. blah blah explanation of where ABCDE is we come to the conclusion that DE must be 53.3cm in order to achieve the optimum viewing angle. Assuming an average height of 170cm and seating height of 70cm the observer must bluntly lean over and reduce his viewing height by 17cm to see the inside of her thighs. I don’t think she would mind so much. Go for it.
I think the last two sentences — “I don’t think she would mind so much. Go for it.” — are actually editorial on the commenter’s part, but the rest of the translation seems to be legit.
Can you imagine the furor that would arise if this was presented as a math lesson here? Perhaps it might be good material for a “Borat” skit.
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Today’s "Global Nerdy" Stories
Global Nerdy is probably the only serious tech news site that would publish this photo:
How do we do it? Chutzpah. That’s Yiddish for balls.
(And I hope someday, I will be able to pronounce the word in a manner that my wife finds satisfactory.)
Today’s Global Nerdy stories so far:
- 21 Years of Windows Ought to be Enough for Anybody: That’s right — on this day in 1985, Microsoft release Windows 1.0 on an unsuspecting world.
- Whither Now Yahoo!? “First, you get the direct fallout from the Wall Street Journal’s story covering “the Peanut Butter Manifesto.” Then you get the secondary analysis of just what ails the world’s most popular network of web properties. Finally, Yahoo! announces a deal with a clutch of newspaper chains. What’s it all mean, and what’s the relationship between these stories?”
- Comedy is Tragedy + YouTube (With a Dash of Legal Stupidity). “This story starts out with video of a tragically bad corporate reinterpretation of U2’s “One” (commissioned to commemorate the union of Bank of America and MBNA’s credit card businesses). It was so painful, it became something of an internet comedy senation. The New York Times, however, notes that the tale has turned tragically stupid…”