Intersects

This post from N__B was a helpful one for me, as I am now doing some family-type stuff in Calgary and Calgary sucks. Where I am right now the sidewalk simply disappears once you exit from a main road: clearly there is no use for walking, and woe betide the pedestrian who wants to risk death trundling or rolling through the suburban wastes to the nearby Dairy Queen for a sundae. Really, best to drive the block-and-a-half.

But back to N__B's post, which, apart from the usual death, was about the injustice around what real estate gets used for.

Lately I pass through a certain intersection, which at rush hour is busy while the rest of the day leaves each section of road involved pretty jaywalkable. It is big. What else could fit there?

For some reason Google Maps likes to scale Brooklyn and Calgary a little differently, so with a little brute force and a lot of imprecision we scale The Biggest Penis in Brooklyn (outlined in throbbing red) to a typically boring Calgarian intersection like this:



So then the game is to figure out how many of Ned's penises - granted generous size compensation I think - you can fit into this intersection. The northwest corner is kind of hilly, but that didn't stop New Yorkers: WILL IT STOP YOU?

A Movie I Might Actually Go See

Hey, Elysium looks interesting:

Sony’s viral marketing campaign for District 9 helmer Neill Blomkamp‘s second feature film Elysium might have been the most interesting thing I encountered on the show floor on preview night at Comic Con 2012. They had an border checkpoint booth with a human-shaped automated system to find out if you qualify for homes on Elysium — a pristine man made spaceship oasis for the super rich. The film takes place 150-or-so years in the future where the Earth is overpopulated and ruined, and the rich live on this luxury space station protected by intense anti-immigration laws. The booth at Comic Con contained a bunch of photos of what your home on Elysium could look like, and flyers full of sales information. The flyer points to a website, itsbetterupthere.com, which allows you to apply to become a citizen of Elysium. We took photos of the booth and materials, and have included all the images after the jump for you to explore.

Is there a better recent science-fiction movie than District 9? Pointers please.

Faces of Agriculture

Gentlepersons, Start Your Photoshops

Maybe this one would help:

Teaching Science

The Lovely Daughter has been asking about what a thesis is. After some explanations she produced this:



Putting too much JanusNode in her cereal I think.

Shaming Myself

I should really play more with texture and background.

Mind you there's something to be said for cheapness.

Opinions?

Personally I feel that Thai Chicken can only take two or three cups of creamy made-to-order Alfredo Sauce before you start wondering if it's turning into Bengali Chicken.

Hey Kids!

Available at the zoo and perhaps elsewhere:

"Sometimes I'm Still That Little Girl"

A few more at this link.

Fun For Kids

Origin here.

Two Posts About Extra Attention

One:

That would have been it. I rendered some aid and when I was assured that everything was OK I bought the other helper a diet coke and left. “Would have”. But then I posted it on G+. For my six friends to read. And that could have been it. Could have.

But through a friend’s repost the post was picked up by Wil Wheaton. And that wasn’t it.

Since then my phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

First with reshares and comments. Then with phone calls.

Why? Because – ignorant and completely callous to the Wheaton Effect – I alluded to something in my post. The sign of a local megachurch whose followers are rabidly anti-immigrant and whose radio program spends more time demeaning immigrants than preaching the Gospel.

Two:

Several commenters mistook my use of the microwave as the way all Americans heat water and clucked their tongues in disapproval. I’m happy to report to any of those who’ve returned to the site that I’m quite atypical in this regard. The standard American way to heat water is to take a pot of water out to our pickup truck, open the hood (what the Brits call a “spanner”), and lock the pot onto the engine block using a set of latches readily available at any Wal-Mart. Then we drive around at high speed, reciting the Gospels and firing our shotguns out the window. After reading the Gospel of John for three minutes and sixteen seconds, the water is ready. I hope this puts to rest any confusion.

HA HA HA

News:

As many of you know, in late 2010, Echo decided to shift our product strategy and start offering a real-time platform as opposed to strictly a commenting application. Since then, Echo has evolved our original commenting solution into a new business model that provides a real-time platform for social tv, social news, social music and social commerce. As such, we unfortunately can no longer commit to the level of support that you have come to expect on our original commenting product.

Today, we are announcing our decision to “end of life” the commenting widgets previously known as JS-Kit Comments, Haloscan, and Echo Comments.

OMG IT WAS SO LOVED

When a friend dies, what should her loved ones do with the data on her hard-drives?

This thread is probably full up by now.

Misplaced Spam

The spam a confused robot added here really belonged over here.



The delicious potatoes wouldn't make me cry so much if they'd just stop pleading and whimpering.

UPDATE!

Stashed here for later use:

More Canadiana

Sleepy mountain town:



You are conquered!



Conquered!



CONQUERED!



It turns out the place I took those last three from looks kinda teensy from here:



And quite a bit teensier from here:



Have an only-mildly jiggly-looking panorama including some of the foregoing:



For those without enhanced senses, the JenniferCam:

Latvian Google (It Fails Us Now)

There is evidently some musical group called Jukebox.

Canadian Cliché Time

Whoops, uploaded them full size. Must have been a Canada Day frenzy.




That last one? Totally fake trees in front I swear.

Additional moosebats.



Also:

Fairness

I don't get this at all:

Today, Congress will vote on the Digital Goods Tax Fairness Act, an act which aims to establish a “national framework” for how digital goods and services should be fairly taxed at the state and local levels. Without this bill, consumers could presumably be taxed double and triple on digital purchases. Different states could potentially tax you on one online purchase. That’s not fair, right?

That’s where the Digital Goods Tax Fairness Act comes in to alleviate this impending problem. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) commented, “Digital goods and services are quickly becoming a driving force in our national economy. We need to establish a uniform framework for the taxation of digital goods and services so consumers won’t be double-taxed. Our Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act of 2011 would accomplish such a goal.”

Fairness is making sure that people in Tennessee destroy all their local businesses on behalf of corporations in California. Tax away!

How to Be Good and How to Be Bad

Boing Boing had a link to this search info, which is good stuff: if you search for things you should read it. I am embarrassed to say that I did not know the "intext" bit but I am pleased to say that I had figured out quotes around a single word after the Google assholes took away "+" for their stupid fucking Facebook killer that nobody's interested in. I swear to god the quotes didn't work at the time of that post I just linked to. Anyway: I used to have a little printout on my wall of various Google search tricks which became outdated and now Google's Help pages are fucking useless. I don't even appear to be able to make the search box on that help page work at all in Firefox or Explorer or Chrome. Well done, leaders of the future!

Real practical use of search is naturally sussed out by the bad people very quickly so in the absence of simple goddamned lists of ALL THE SEARCH OPERATORS and not SOME OF THE SEARCH OPERATORS I guess I'll stick with the people who are stealing passwords. Their advice is better. Mind you there are these milquetoasts.