In my workplace, half of the men’s restrooms were recently closed for some sort of remodeling, and after that was completed, the other half have been closed. I finally found out why: they’ve installed Falcon 2000 Waterfree Urinals. While saving water is obviously beneficial, intuitively a waterfree urinal seems like a bad [...]

In 100 reasons why lists are stupid, Tom Harrison explains that the smallest interesting number is 4.  I presume he is only considering natural numbers.  But even there, I think he’s wrong.  1 is interesting since it is the smallest natural number.  2 is interesting since it is the only even prime.  3 is interesting [...]

I waited a little too long to put gas in my car today.  I was on the way to the gas station, and in fact was in the left turn lane waiting to make a U-turn to get to the station, when I ran out of gas.  That’s the first time I’ve done that in [...]

The Princess Bride, 20 years later
When it first hit the theaters, I didn’t even want to see it.  Fortunately for me, my friends forced me to go.  It’s in my top ten list.

Zombies in the Workplace: a film about diversity
(I had to do a Google search to find out what the wording on Mur’s shirt means.)
This Day in Alternate History #013: 07/11/07

The DHS I-9 form, used by employers to report verification of employment elgibility, has expired as of 31 March 2007, and the DHS not issued a replacement. Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq., the government cannot assess any penalty for failure to fill out the form:
Public protection
(a) Notwithstanding any [...]

A friend pointed out Natan Sharansky’s article “Leave Iraq and Brace for a Bigger Bloodbath” in the Washington Post. I don’t disagree with any of Mr. Sharansky’s facts or general reasoning, but yet clearly favor a different course of action for the US.
No one can know for sure whether President Bush’s “surge” of U.S. [...]

In a tragic accident, my baby sister was shot.  Rather than taking her to the hospital, I was just supposed to take a tissue sample.  I went outside, and found my car was being towed away.  I finally got to the hospital, but it was on fire.  Part of the hospital was still open, but [...]

Despite overwhelming evidence that it doesn’t work, the FCC still favors security through obscurity, and is issuing a new rule that essential bans the use of open source software (including Free Software) from use in software-defined radio. Despite the advice of experts in industry and academia, they think that keeping the source code secret [...]

New research has shown that yawning is not a reaction to O2 or CO2 levels in the blood, but rather cools the brain and is actually a mechanism to maintain alertness.  [h/t BBC News]