Ancient Computer Rocks the Classical World

This NYT piece describes new research on the Antikythera Mechanism, built in the 2nd century B.C. to predict the movement of the moon.
2100 years later, and we're finally almost as cool as the Greeks were then.

Separated at Birth-- And Mama Only Loved One

They just have the same beguiling ne'er-do-well thing going on, is all.

And Who Will Police The Police?

So, uh.  Iraq is in the news again.

 

Gunmen dressed in Iraqi police uniforms and driving what appeared to be official vehicles rounded up scores of people inside a government building here today and drove off with them.

***

A spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the police, announced on state television several hours afterward that orders had been issued for the arrest of several police commanders who were responsible for the area where the kidnappings took place.

The kidnapping prompted an anguished address on the floor of Parliament, carried live on television, by Abed Thiab al-Ajili, the higher education minister and a member of the country's largest Sunni political bloc.

Mr. Ajili reported that 100 to 150 people had been taken, including employees and visitors to the building. He said he had repeatedly asked the government for additional security to protect his ministry and members of the university community, who have been under threat since collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime.

 

Arrest warrants have been issued for police commanders in connection with a 150-person kidnapping.

Iraq is seeking any police who are willing to try to serve the warrants, or anyone who will dress as police...

It don't take a brain surgeon to piece this one together

NY Times: "Neanderthals in Gene Pool, Study Suggests"

 

I thought they might be referring to my study of the sidewalks of New York.

 

Turns out the study has something to do with the distribution of a variant of a gene that regulates brain size.  Homo Sapiens - Neanderthal loving about 37,000 years ago, they say. 

 

Some days, I wish I could believe in Genesis.

Dowd Sizzles, Dubya Fizzles (Memailed)

Ouch! (Times Select, sorry, folks)

 

From Dowd's memailed column:

 

Poppy Bush and James Baker gave Sonny the presidency to play with and he broke it. So now they're taking it back. 

****

Two trusted members of the Bush 41 war council, Mr. Baker and Robert Gates, have been dispatched to discipline the delinquent juvenile and extricate him from the mother of all messes.

 

 

 

Teapot D'oh!

Q:  What's the difference between President Grant and President Bush?

A:  Grant ended a civil war.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Tenderfoot and I have talked about her moving out to Brooklyn-- my neighborhood is a lot less expensive and very livable (although she does live 2 blocks from work, which is a blessing of a sort).  I live in a nice one bedroom "floor-through" in a 3-story townhouse, convenient to good subways (the B, Q and 2/3) and close to Prospect Park.  I love the park and have been biking around it lately.  Plus, my mishpachah lives about 1/2 mile away.

 

I pay less than 2/3 of what TF is paying for her studio in a luxury building in Hell's Kitchen.  TF is the one who found my present apartment, sweet-talking the landlord into giving it to me instead of the hordes of other interested apartment-seekers.  He loves her and is always asking after her.  I think the rent I'm paying is probably below market because that the neighborhood has gotten safer and schamncier.  Occasional SHPOS harpoonings aside, however, I am an excellent tenant and add panache to any stoop.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I paid off a big chunk of my law school loans and was telling TF about it.  She said that she oughta move to Brooklyn.  Thing is, TF's family wouldn't like us living together.  They wouldn't like us dating either, but that's a whole other blog post.

 

So I asked her where she wanted to live in Brooklyn-- which neighborhoods, near which trains, etc.  TF said she wanted to be close to me-- one commute (to work) is enough -- near the same trains, safe, etc.  I set up this Craigslist search and said I'd check out some listings because I know the area.

 

Then TF says the best solution would be if she could move into the apartment on the third floor of my building.  Now, this is a very silly thing to say because (1) look alive, come on, renting two apartments in a 3-unit building? and (2) someone lives there.  No matter, we discuss this for twenty minutes.  The pros (maintain illusion for TF's family, proximity to Chez Litvak, cost) and cons (ridicule by friends, lack of near-work apartment, basically paying two rents for a big apartment with two kitchens, more ridicule).  I was on the "con" side, but mostly 'cause I thought it'd be silly.

 

I mention another con-- what if we broke up?

TF said she'd pour water on her floor to flood me, play loud music, etc.  I volunteered that I'd fill my landing with Rottweiller puppies (TF is terrified of dogs).  With all the contingencies addressed, we started talking about something else.  Probably how I knew Dr. Gray from Gray's Anatomy wasn't going to end up with Dr. McDreamy anytime soon. (Reason?  Then there's no plot left in the show.  Instead of whatver plot you get from intoning "Ally McBeal does surgery" over and over.)

 

Less than a week later, I'm browsing the Internet and check Craigslist.  In the list I see a 1BR with... my address.  For a moment, I think my landlord is renting my apartment!  Of course, it's the apartment above me.  The woman who lives there (it turned out) had just decided to move in with her boyfriend and posted the listing that morning.  I e-mailed TF, who called me back, excited, and I got excited, and TF called the woman who lives upstairs and my landlord... pre-empted another crowd of apartment hunters and is moving in on November 1st!

 

We're not sure if it's Destiny or silly coincidence or temptation from the Devil.  But I think it's pretty cool, if totally ridiculous.  Wish me luck with my new neighbor!

Movie Review: The Departed

The Depahted.

Matt Damon plays a "Southie" mole in the Massachusetts State Police (the "Staties"); DiCaprio plays a Southie Statie deep undercover among Southie gangsters run by Jack Nicholson.  Not a character played by Jack Nicholson, as far as I could tell, but by Jack himself.

High Concept?  Think "Good Will Hunting" meets "Reservoir Dogs."  But with even more blood.  And the characters all drop their "r"s.

 

The best thing in the movie is Mark Wahlberg playing a character who is supposed to be a cop or something, but whose job appears to be to drive every other character into a frothing rage with inappropriate insults taken to extremes.

Example:

DiCaprio:  Thanks fah meeting me, Sa(r)ge..  I'm sca(r)ed Jack Nicholson is gonna kill me, pa(r)k my ca(r).

Wahlberg:  #&(%! your mother.  I'm going to let them gut you and then I'll #&$! your dead %$^*!.

DiCaprio:  What's you(r) problem?  I wo(r)k fo(r) you.  I need your help.

Wahlberg:  Are you listening to me, #&$!*?  I'm too tired to help you after all the $(*%!@ your sister %$*#! $^^(#!$ on %^(!@ and $^*&!)#.  Oh, and ^$^&)(*&@!.

DiCaprio: ?

 

Not a bad movie.

No Time For Losers Cause We Are The Champions

Thanks to Jack Roy for this link about an insane lying Yale undergrad and his bizarre self-promotion, cons, and especially, his autobiographical video of how AWESOME he is. Read it, watch it.
Of course his name makes it pretty likely he's a member of the tribe-- and me without the power to cast him out.

That's a Hot Falafel

So, I wanted to make sure the best Lebanese place in New York -- Carroll Gardens' own Zaytoons-- is open for dinner tonight, and when I tried to open their webpage, I got this!:







Silly the Internet.
I'll have to check out that hot falafel-on-pita action at home.

First you get the money. Then you . . . give back the money.

Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, the brothers who ran the Cali drug cartel in Colombia, pled guilty and were sentenced to 30 years in a federal court in Miami.

They agreed to pay $2.1 billion in forfeiture.

The Miami US Attorney's office is definitely getting a better coffee machine.

Then again, there's these guys.

Ordinarily, I feel envious of other countries' leaders.  They just seem to be more impressive than ours.  The greatest sign of the power of the U.S. is that it can survive so many mediocre presidencies. 

But other countries need sharp, competent leaders.  And often have them, too.

Even the tyrannical ones are generally bright and well-informed-- Uncle Mushu is a badass, and so is Putin.

 

Then again, there's these guys...

"Guess which hand is hiding the uranium?  Go ahead, guess!"

Even Educated Fleas Do It

From the 9/27/06 Goats:
Some days the world makes more sense to me when I start from the axiom that we're all really puppets on the hands of a petulant intelligent broccoli god.

Thirty Thousand Feet Under the Sea

NYT reports that Chevron, Devon Energy and Statoil ASA have discovered an oil deposit in the Gulf of Mexico that boosts the U.S. petroleum reserve by about 50 percent.

Thirty thousand feet under the sea.

I just want everyone to know that that's really really deep.  It would take me a long time just to fall that far.

Litvak's Law #1

The world is composed of two kinds of people:  Those who cannot do the simplest things right, and those who can only do the simplest things right.

I'll Demote an Axe in Yer Gangly Shanks!

So, tha New York Times says tha International Astronomical Union has "demoted" Pluto to tha status of "dwarf planet."

Demoted, eh?
Well, we Dwarves will nae take this sitting down!
An', nae, I am not sitting down! I'm just short! A short Dwarf! Aye!
An' we don't need a Dwarf Planet. We have Earth, ye smooth-faced, uh, lanky type!

I guess that's all I hae ta say. Apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien, an' to Scotland fer borrowin' yer dialect.

Baruk Khazad! Khazad aimenu!

Amen.

Uncle Mushu's New Book!

Uncle Mushu (Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf) has an autobiography (In The Line of Fire:  A Memoir) coming out soon, reports the BBC.

 

The byline (By Zaffar Abbas BBC News, Islamabad) explains some of the gem quotes:

 

If projections being made by some sections of the publishing world are to be believed, the book has all the ingredients of a big hit, and possibly even a best-seller.

Uncle Mushu will be bigger than DaVinci Code!  I'm sure they'll cast Sanjay Dutt as Mushu, but who'll play A.Q. Khan?

 

Since [supporting the U.S.-led invastion of Afghanistan], he has been perceived by many in West as one of the most liberal and enlightened faces of the Muslim world.

...who ever controlled the Pakistani press with an iron fist?

 

Soldier he definitely is, but is Gen Musharraf also a writer?

Definitely, yaar.  Definitely a solider.

Sit Back and Build Up Armies!

"Jack Roy" at the Litotical Construct is all worked up that the GOP wants to goad us into attacking Iran , figuring that that's totally batsh*t insane.

But he hasn't considered the basic military strategy I learned from the game of Risk: "One of the easiest ways to gain armies is to hold continents. If you hold an entire continent for an entire turn, you receive a number of extra armies, which is dependent upon the continent."

So if we hold (not control, mind you-- that's hard) Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran at once, we'll generate, like billions of dollars worth of armies for free! It's like printing money!

Lebanon Link

I know everyone who visits my blog also slavishly visits my links, but just in case... if you're interested in what's going on in Lebanon, I've had a link to this guy for a long time, and he's great. 

 

Einstein, This Man Isn't

Check it out.

What an idiot.

Link courtesy of Paul Phillips.