from the desk of stinkpot

apparently, chuck norris has a good sense of humor; he’s teamed up with the absurb “chuck norris fact” website to produce a line of t-shirts. you can buy them here.

and here’re the top facts getting put on shirts:

		Guns don’t kill people. Chuck Norris kills People.
		There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
		Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
		The chief export of Chuck Norris is Pain.
		There is no chin under Chuck Norris’ Beard. There is only another fist.
		Chuck Norris has two speeds. Walk, and Kill.
		The leading causes of death in the United States are: 1. Heart Disease 2. Chuck Norris 3. Cancer
		Chuck Norris drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.
		Chuck Norris is my Homeboy.
		The quickest way to a Man’s heart is with Chuck Norris’ fist.

#10 is my favorite.

a cool video showing the interior of the netflix dvd stork.

here’s a fun example of what you can do w/ the half-life 2 physics engine and a ton of time on your hands: [google-video-link].

christina being a finance major, and all, went ahead the other day and calculated how much money we’d spend renting for our > 5 years here in massachusetts, as opposed to just buying a place of our own. turns out by living the american dream, we’d save well over half a 100 grand, assuming that property values increase at the level of inflation.

so we’ve been combing craigslist now, trying to gain some intuition for how much things are worth around the boston area. i even started writing some code to start building some datasets, to see if there were any trends ….

but in a wonderful stroke of good timing, zillow has come out of beta. if you’re thinking of buying/selling your house or are even just curious how much the apartment you’re renting is worth, i highly recommend checking this site out. zillow cleanly summarizes a bunch of data from real estate sales databases in a slick google maps-ish UI. in addition, the site auto-generates useful property value graphs, giving you an indication of how prices have been evolving over time in a given area.

it’s hard not to read this story with a bit of glee. it seems that once again, president bush took an unqualified, but loyal supporter and installed him in a public office – and the guy’s now getting hung out to dry:

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters’ access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word “theory” at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch’s resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

Mr. Deutsch, 24, was offered a job as a writer and editor in NASA’s public affairs office in Washington last year after working on President Bush’s re-election campaign and inaugural committee, according to his résumé. No one has disputed those parts of the document.

what’s pretty interesting is that these events were probably precipitated by one blogger’s report. (amazing – he turned up this information only 2 days ago!)

nonetheless, this turn of events probably doesn’t change this administration’s attitude towards ignoring or even trying to blatantly obfuscate unfavorable science (like reports on global warming). one can at least hope, though, that this story will cause the public to examine the administration’s science policies with greater scrutiny.

Rakhmat is Uygur for thank you!

I came across this site the other day; it spells out how to say “thank you” in over 465 languages. It’s interesting to see how many different ways there are to show one’s appreciation, even within one language. For instance, this site lists 5 ways to say thank you in Punjabi (I imagine these represent various dialects):

Punjabi (India)                            Dhannvaad
Punjabi (India)                            Dannaba
Punjabi (India)                            Shukria
Punjabi (India)                            Miharbaanee
Punjabi (India)                            Tuhaadee kirpaa hai

i was poking through all the code i wrote during undergrad and came across one fun little gem. it’s a perl script that goes ahead and solves all the puzzles in the yahoo multiplayer game, “word racer.” in case you haven’t played it, word racer allows you to compete with other players online to form words from a jumble of letters on a small scrabble board. as with most simple online games, word racer is much more fun than it sounds.

in any case, if you get tired of getting beat up in word racer and would like to see all the solutions to each puzzle, my code can be downloaded here. of course, this code can also be used to cheat with. if indeed you’re considering using this code as a cheat program … i must admit it’s fun to do (heh, those yahoo word-racer junkies can get really really worked up.)

i’d always thought it silly to buy bottled water in non-third world nations; tap water is probably just as clean and free.

in any case, yahoo news has decided to run a story about the sham that is bottled water. get enlightenified here.

if you’re too busy/lazy to make the jump, here’s a pretty juicy quote:

To be sure, many municipal water systems have run afoul of government water quality standards–driving up demand for bottled water as a result. But according to the study, ”in a number of places, including Europe and the United States, there are more regulations governing the quality of tap water than bottled water.”

The U.S. EPA sets more stringent quality standards for tap water than does the Food and Drug Administration for the bottled stuff, it added.

i saw an article today on slashdot about one wasp’s amazing evolutionary adaptation. apparently, a particular species of moth has evolved a mechanism for turning roaches into zombies. the wasp then “drives” the roach-zombie back home, where wasp larvae ultimately burrow into the roach and consume it from the inside out. yummy.

since the link to the original article is down now, i’ve provided the transcript here. a very fun read.

and no, carl zimmer (the author) isn’t some kook. he looks to be a reputable science writer.

there’s this monster thread on the “student doctor network forums” i came across via boing boing.

the topic is “things i’ve learned in the emergency room.”

there are some real gems:

*** If you call EMS because your husband has collapsed on the floor it might be a good idea to mention that he did this 2 days prior. Should you let this minor point slip your mind try not to attack various members of the responding agency because they are not saving his life.

*** BASED ON A CASE TODAY…
don’t allow someone with a known poorly controlled seizure disorder to perform oral sex on you…
enough said…

*** tip #3. Always pay your drug dealer! Bad things happen when you don’t pay.

many more great tips can be found at the thread.