Cairaguas

"Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice..."

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:47:38 -0700

“Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.”

- Interview with Justice Ginsburg pre-Sotomayor confirmation, where she talks about women in law, in the workforce, and in society.

“In a lively show, mathemagician Arthur Benjamin races a...

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:09:19 -0700

“In a lively show, mathemagician Arthur Benjamin races a team of calculators to figure out 3-digit squares, solves another massive mental equation and guesses a few birthdays. How does he do it? He’ll tell you.” One day, I’ll take the time to learn these algorithms. One day!

“Tim Wise on White Privilege.” Amazing speaker!

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:02:28 -0700

“Tim Wise on White Privilege.” Amazing speaker!

New Border Fear: Violence by a Rogue Militia

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:29:00 -0700

New Border Fear: Violence by a Rogue Militia :

NYTimes 6/26/2009. Minutemen enter an Arizona home looking for money and drugs to fund their cause. They shoot a father and his 10-year-old daughter. The family wasn’t even affiliated with the narcotics trade! They were victims of extreme xenophobia/racism. I am so sad.

"So many decades ago, it was words appearing letter by letter on a small computer screen, and we..."

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:02:00 -0700

“So many decades ago, it was words appearing letter by letter on a small computer screen, and we stared at it with wonder.”

- Jon Carroll has Twitter now. Sees tweets apprering like “a ham radio tuned to 1,000 stations simultaneously.” Is nostalgic.

America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show.

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:02:13 -0700

America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show.:

What’s more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.

Wolfram|Alpha: Making the world's knowledge computable

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:27:00 -0700

Wolfram|Alpha: Making the world's knowledge computable:

Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Search ideas:

structure of aspirin
cos(2x)
pka of acetic acid
sun vs. moon
weather in san francisco

Short LOLfilm about cars and dinosaurs and drifting into other...

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:09:45 -0700

Short LOLfilm about cars and dinosaurs and drifting into other dimensions.

Search the 1828 Edition of Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:00:00 -0700

Search the 1828 Edition of Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language:

COMPUTER, n. One who computes; a reckoner; a calculator.

"We’re fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and..."

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:30:00 -0700

“We’re fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we’re still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream.”

- Rolling Stone weeps over the absurdity of our economic situation and the way we let ourselves fall into it. 3/19/2009. 8 pages.

AmericanRhetoric.com

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:45:00 -0800

AmericanRhetoric.com:

This website archives famous speeches and makes them available for free to the public. All those famous speeches you’ve only heard bits and pieces of? Find them here, and finish hearing them.

"Ironically, then, the belief in a just world may take the place of a genuine commitment to justice...."

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:44:06 -0800

“Ironically, then, the belief in a just world may take the place of a genuine commitment to justice. For some people, it is simply easier to assume that forces beyond their control mete out justice. When that occurs, the result may be the abdication of personal responsibility, acquiescence in the face of suffering and misfortune, and indifference towards injustice.”

- Essay explaining the social psychology concept called The Just World Theory.

Waking up superbugs may destroy their drug resistance

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:13:00 -0800

Waking up superbugs may destroy their drug resistance :

1/16/2009. New Scientist. “The protein that enables some bacteria to become dormant and avoid the effects of antibiotics has been identified – sleep may no longer be an escape option.”

AIDS - A New Disease's Deadly Odyssey

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:04:00 -0800

AIDS - A New Disease's Deadly Odyssey:

February 6, 1983. New York Times.

This article details the medical knowledge of AIDS in 1983, and its history from its first appearance in 1979. If you want to see the news articles about AIDS before it even had a name, type in “Kaposi’s sarcoma” into the NYT search and start reading oldest first.

“2008 Bailout Costs As Much As Several Large And Famous...

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:55:00 -0800

“2008 Bailout Costs As Much As Several Large And Famous Government Projects Combined.” The Consumerist. 12/3/2008.

I’m unclear as to how exactly they generated the graphs, but I think they set the radius of the bailout graph (left) to be proportional with respect to the radius of the graph of the other government plans (right).

The other government plans: $3,920,000,000,000 (adjusted for inflation).
The 2008 bailout total as of Nov 2008: $4,616,000,000,000.

The ratio is 1:1.1776, or put another way, the bailout costs 17.76% more than all those other projects put together.

"The idea of using chemical isotopes to combat ageing may be new, but nature may already be onto that..."

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:59:00 -0800

“The idea of using chemical isotopes to combat ageing may be new, but nature may already be onto that strategy as a way of protecting us against free-radical attack, thought to be a key cause of ageing. Babies and mice are born with much more of the isotope carbon-13 in their bodies than their mothers, and women appear to become unusually depleted in carbon-13 around the time they give birth.”

- “Would eating heavy atoms lengthen our lives?” NewScientist Health. 11/27/2008.

That is weird.

"Barack Obama, our sexy, hot-lady-marrying, jump-shot-making president-to-be is also a pathetic nerd...."

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:01:27 -0800

“Barack Obama, our sexy, hot-lady-marrying, jump-shot-making president-to-be is also a pathetic nerd. Time’s Joel Stein warned against what he termed the “Urkel Effect” in the magazine’s pre-election blitz, the power of those undecided voters who would “walk into the voting booth and suddenly think, I cannot take four years of listening to that giant-eared nerd.” Now that Obama has secured victory, his utter geekdom can safely be revealed.”

- Washington City Paper. “Obama: First Trekkie President.” 11/7/2008.

This article amuses me. :)

Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:08:04 -0700

Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.:

This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.

In its broad strokes, McCain’s life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers’ powerful friends, both failed upward. …

What I wouldn’t give to have half the opportunities they were born with!

Tissue sample suggests HIV has been infecting humans for a century

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:48:00 -0700

Tissue sample suggests HIV has been infecting humans for a century:

Nature. 10/1/2008.

“In 1998, researchers reported the isolation of HIV-1 sequences from a blood sample taken in 1959 from a Bantu male living in Léopoldville — now Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Analysis of that sample and others suggested that HIV-1 originates from sometime between 1915 and 1941.”

Cairaguas

"Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice..."

“In a lively show, mathemagician Arthur Benjamin races a...

“Tim Wise on White Privilege.” Amazing speaker!

Top 10 Scientific Music Videos | Wired Science

New Border Fear: Violence by a Rogue Militia

"So many decades ago, it was words appearing letter by letter on a small computer screen, and we..."

America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show.

Wolfram|Alpha: Making the world's knowledge computable

Short LOLfilm about cars and dinosaurs and drifting into other...

Search the 1828 Edition of Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language

"We’re fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and..."

AmericanRhetoric.com

"Ironically, then, the belief in a just world may take the place of a genuine commitment to justice...."

Waking up superbugs may destroy their drug resistance

AIDS - A New Disease's Deadly Odyssey

“2008 Bailout Costs As Much As Several Large And Famous...

"The idea of using chemical isotopes to combat ageing may be new, but nature may already be onto that..."

"Barack Obama, our sexy, hot-lady-marrying, jump-shot-making president-to-be is also a pathetic nerd...."

Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.

Tissue sample suggests HIV has been infecting humans for a century