The "useful" that Gladwell advocates in Blink is the idea that we can teach ourselves to sort through first impressions to "figure out which ones are important and which ones are screwing us up."
as i was saying, i can answer you by editing your own words:
WHAT??!! Put down the worn copy of The Illuminatus! Trilogy and start reading her now, dummy! She's right up the alley of a romantically-inclined fellow like [your]self.
start with 'Pride and Prejudice'. if you want more, read 'Emma' and 'Persuasion'. 'Sense and Sensibility' would be next, though it's her 1st novel and a little flatter.
movie-wise the 5 hr BBC P&P is non pareil. 'Persuasion' and 'Sense and Sensibility' are both very good. neither recent version of 'Emma' is good (i'm comparing all of these to the books). 'Clueless', on the other hand, (which not many people know is an adaptation of 'Emma') is really smart and fun. in fact, we felt like the Paltrow 'Emma' was trying to be period 'Clueless' and didn't really succeed.
my favorite thing about Keira Knightley is that she looks like Natalie Portman (bet it's yours, too). she doesn't draw me to a movie.
on the other hand, i would like to see Bride and Prejudice, a Bollywood mashup. Incidentally, it has a Keira Knightley number of 1 because the director, Gurinder Chadha, also directed 'Bend It Like Beckham'.
Sorry for the long comment/post. You inspired me!
I think the real media bias is not to the liberal or to the conservative, but to the stupid.
And you see this in foreign affairs: the Bushies are simultaneously the realpolitik types who are unafraid to rely on dictators and the Wilsonian types lecturing the Egyptian and Saudi leaderships on becoming more democratic.
I honestly think ["Republican Carter" administration] captures what most Americans will vote for in 2008: not too aggressive, not so ambitious as Bush, but focused on encouraging positive change that's defensible on moral grounds. I don't see the Democratic contender yet who can deliver that, but I suspect there are several on the Republican side who will.
The Old Core spends more than a quarter trillion on ag subsidies to its own farmers each year, more than three times the money it collectively provides the Gap in Official Developmental Aid (ODA). The World Bank estimates that if all such subsidies were removed and trade barriers eliminated, the in-kind transfer to the Gap would be in the range of $100 billion in income-just like that.Who would you rather bet on? The corrupt governments of Africa or the farm households there? Which do you think will get you a middle class faster?
Today Google quietly updated its map service to add high-resolution aerial photography for much more of the globe than the previous limited coverage of North America. New additions include Scotland, Iceland, Kuwait and many, many more.+ Question to myself: If you're so opposed to GTD, why are you so obsessed with it?
Skipping this scene is also essential if you want to avoid entry #3 in the litany of Wrongheaded Star Wars Revisionism; namely R2-D2 CAN FLY WTF DON'T YOU THINK THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN USEFUL IN EPISODES 4-6??!!
can ultimately reach speeds much greater than those of a rocket-launched craft. At an acceleration rate of 1 millimeter per second per second (20 times greater than the expected acceleration for Cosmos 1), a solar sail would increase its speed by approximately 310 kilometers per hour (195 mph) after one day, moving 7500 kilometers (4700 miles) in the process. After 12 days it will have increased its speed 3700 kilometers per hour (2300 mph)... Given time, however, with small but constant acceleration, a solar sail spacecraft can reach any desired [non-relativistic] speed.
On the second story, it's interesting that the U.S. favors Japan getting a UN Security Council permanent seat but not Germany. I mean, Germany comes totally clean on all its sins of WWII (the reason why it's not on), whereas Japan continues to whitewash its own far too much. Hmmm. Wonder if Germany's opposition to the Iraq War has anything to do with this, as in "forgive Russia, ignore Germany, punish France."
We generate money by serving Google text advertisments on our website GWEI.org. With this money we automatically buy Google shares via our Swiss e-banking account. We buy Google via their own advertisment! Google eats itself - but in the end we will own it!
The 308 by 2,400 foot Olivenhain Dam appears to be nearing completion in this photo, although it's still under construction (there's a yellow crane at the centre).
As part of San Diego County Water Authority's US$827 million Emergency Storage Project, the dam does not block a stream or river but instead boxes off a 200 acre man-made reservoir (to the north) which will be filled with 7.8 billion gallons of imported water. The project is expected to be completed in 2010 (more information).
This 2.2 mile long trident off the Northern New Jersey shore is actually Earle Naval Weapons Station. Apparently the pier is capable of providing ammunition to nearly every class of ship operated by the United States Navy and Coast Guard and there's a few ships docked in this ground level shot.
This is a US Navy hovercraft base at Camp Pendelton, California. You can see some of the hovercraft parked up, and there is a massive ramp that goes down to the beach for them to get straight out onto the water. The giant 'GO NAVY' slogan on the tarmac seems to be a common feature on lots of these bases. I found this article about the base complete with a cool photo of a few hovercraft on the tarmac.
Looks like these trains are stopped at a level crossing on the Burlington Northern railroad track in Wyoming. The Northern one is chopped off by some low-res imagery, but scroll south to see just how incredibly long they are! Amazing.
In the comments, Eric Smith said:
These are unit coal trains, typically 100-115 cars long. These were probably going from/to the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, which is just north of the photo you found. Here is the loading loop, large enough to run one of these trains in a circle.
You can see that the image was taken just after the two ends of the train passed each other, as the black carts are fully loaded with coal.
You don't often see a river running under a river ! This is the Welland Canal, a part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway which is the system of canals that permits ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes as far as Lake Superior. You can see the size of of the ships a little further South at the edge of Lake Erie (thumbnail #2), and there's another to the North .
10 villages were submerged to allow the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and apparently a few remnants of sidewalks and building foundations can be still be seen under the water in some places!
It's harvest time in the fields near Salinas and most farmers seem to have at least one combine working the land. In one of the fields you can see five combine harvesters.
[Y]ou wage war on totalitarian states if they're weak enough to be had (otherwise you're stuck with containment, which is immoral if you can do better).
The dream would be that China and the United States start to recognize their complimentary regional security interests in Africa, with the U.S. playing more Leviathan when needed and China working more the SysAdmin angle. To me, that's an unbeatable combination of fire power and man power.
I fundamentally reject the conventional wisdom that says globalization diminishes the role of the state. Statistics are clear: the most globalized states features the most regulation, the most expansive welfare systems, and the biggest governments as a share of GDP.
Priscilla Owen, the Texas judge whose nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court is creating a storm in the US Senate (actually it has little to do with her personally -- it's a fight over how much power the Senate minority is going to be allowed), is a part of our extended Covenant Church family. Her Austin area congregation, St. Barnabas the Encourager Evangelical Covenant Church, is completing the affiliation process next month.
Can you tell I'm cleaning out my Bloglines again? >40...With Bittorrent and RSS, one can easily create an internet-based periodical broadcast of huge files with almost zero distribution cost. With MythTV and Torrentocracy, one can create a set-top box such as a Tivo or VCR that consumes such a broadcast... It's possible to replace your satellite receiver and DVD player with a cheap PC running MythTV.
The programming challenge that occupied two Russian PhDs for three years was to schedule the most profitable usage for the three seats available in 40-300 DayJet aircraft operating in a region about 500,000 square miles in size, and to do this all within five seconds.
Give up on hierarchical categories; these can screw up your tags.
"Bats live in the majority of Iowa homes without the owners even knowing it, said experts with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources." If true, can you imagine how mosquito infested Iowa would be if the bats weren't living in most homes?
It is useful, in this regard, to remember that America's cumulative losses in combat since the end of the Vietnam War are roughly equal to what we lost respectively on the beaches of Normandy on 6 June 1944 and in Pearl Harbor on 6 December 1941 (i.e., in the range of 2500 to 3000). To note that is not to diminish anyone's sense of loss, which is always profound when a loved one dies in combat, but simply to reassure us that as far as America is concerned war is becoming an ever smaller portion of our reality thanks to such ultimate sacrifices.
demote the concept of great power war from its perch as number one ordering principle of the Pentagon to that of merely hedged-against conflict scenario, meaning we dedicate a certain portion of our scenario planning and force generation against this particular scenario, trusting in our ability to maintain a sufficient hedge against what's out there in potential great power foes...This is not a guns-versus-butter choice, but a submarine-versus-body-armor sort of choice...[Otherwise, we] stock up on platforms we're extremely unlikely to need while denying our boots on- the-ground the equipment they are certain to need.
Naturally, risk is associated with both sides of this choice. But ask yourself: is it easier to manage the risk of a rising, increasingly developed China or the descent/collapse of failed or authoritarian regimes in the Gap? Which of these two great strategic scenarios of the 21st century do you think we can manage on the side, treating it as a lesser included to which we devote incremental efforts?
Here is the paradox to the U.S. military: seed that SysAdmin force and it's very existence will allow you to remain more Leviathan-like. Don't seed that force and you will be forced to do SysAdmin across the dial, and in that evolution you will most certainly lose far more of your warfighting capacity.
Over the last three decades, building materials have changed dramatically. Plumbing, flooring, siding, roofing - most are now made from synthetics. The same goes for the stuff inside the building, like foam rubber seat cushions, plastic computer cases, and nylon carpet fibers. As a result, today's blazes produce two to three times as much energy as a typical fire did in 1980, and most of that energy emerges as flammable gases. Those gases don't escape from newer buildings, which are well insulated and tightly sealed. Fires now project their energy much farther from their cores, making them more dangerous and more difficult to extinguish.
With a legendary thirst for power, Katzenberg has developed DreamWorks into a high tech version of the old studio system, a centralized organization in which talent is kept under contract and often shuttled from project to project. While Pixar director Brad Bird got to follow his own vision for The Incredibles, DreamWorks offers less room for creative freedom. Katzenberg takes a producer credit (he's usually the executive producer) on nearly every movie and uses at least two directors on each project, sometimes four. He favors the talent he calls the "quiet giants" - directors and storyboard artists like McGrath, Darnell, Tim Johnson, and Conrad Vernon, people he says call the day-to-day shots on DreamWorks movies. "Do I think the world will ever see them as the equivalent of Brad Bird?" Katzenberg asks after viewing the director extras on The Incredibles DVD. "No, but there are other ways of doing things. They just don't have the same ego Brad has."
So many experts in my country fear that Iran will dominate an Iraq that is itself dominated by Shiites, but I think it is the other way around. I think Iran's mullahs have much to fear from a Shiite-dominated Iraq that is democratic. I think a democratic Iraq can have the same destabilizing effect on the mullahs' rule in Iran as the rise of Solidarity in Poland in the 1980s ultimately had upon communist rule in the Soviet Union.
[P]lan on your retirement funds to support you through 125 years of age, just to be on the safe side. It's been my operating theory in investing for 15 years now.
