Sunday, August 08, 2010

open questions

These are things I've said that I haven't definitively disproved, but I assume now are incorrect. Some of these I could verify as false with a bit more research; perhaps I'll move these off this list eventually.
  • The head of the WHO doesn't allow wi-fi in his/her office.
  • Gasoline will not melt through a mountain dew bottle.
  • Cats are more likely to survive a fall from a great height than a medium-high fall.
  • 'It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye' was an expression developed during ancient roman wrestling matches.
Also, maybe polar body twins are real? I was pretty sure they were not at one time.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

a few corrections

  • Gordon Biersch is named after its founders, Dan Gordon and Dean Biersch.
  • The normal limit of human hearing is 0 dB - I'm guessing by definition. 40 dB is around the level of 'rainfall', and normal conversation is at around 60 dB, according to this random site.
  • The name of the style of architecture I was thinking of is High-Tech.

Monday, November 30, 2009

  • Epimetheus is Prometheus's brother. Twin? Plato said that he was, so I think that counts for something.
  • Multiplication is at most quadratic.
  • Here Come the Warm Jets came out in 1973.
  • It would probably be easier to read these articles about the difference between true fruit and culinary fruit and true nuts and culinary nuts than to bother listing just the things I need to correct.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

cats and other catastrophes

Saturday, September 26, 2009

  • Bertha's Mussels is in Fell's Point.
  • I couldn't find a flag that matched that hat. The closest is probably Macedonia, followed by Arizona.
  • There are five ferries in the Cape May/Lewes ferry fleet.
  • Yucca and yuca are very much not the same plant.

Friday, July 10, 2009

more corrections

  • Yggdrasil is the world tree from Norse mythology.
  • UVA was notable at its founding for being not affiliated with a religious movement. However, a chapel was built on the grounds in 1890. The closest reference I could find was to Noble C. Powell, an Episcopal bishop who preached in Charlottesville for several years in the early part of the last century.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

corrections

  • As far as I can tell, the Great Red Spot has existed for as long as astronomers have been looking, but its color changes slightly from time to time.
  • It was Hilary Clinton, not Bill, who (apocryphally?) overdosed on fondue. 
  • The restaurant I was thinking of is called Helmand, not the Khyber Pass.
  • The suicide rate in Alaska (and, for that matter, a variety of states that I would group together as 'lonely') have rates of suicide about the same as northern-European countries. However, suicide if often under-reported, or just generally mis-reported, so I wouldn't draw any conclusions about the 'livability' of these regions; it is not without the realm of possibility that a large part of the change could be due to Scandanavians keep better statistics, or that Alaska just had an unlucky couple of years.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

How to decide where to eat.

 Per Steve's advice, I have made a flow chart version of the previous post. The biggest hassle is keeping the three lists.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

various

  • Cisco owns Linksys, not D-Link.
  • While the yellow (amber) light wasn't deployed until 1920 for auto traffic, about 50 years after the first traffic light appeared, it was in common usage on the crowded northeast rail lines for at least 20 years before that.
  • NavyFCU did indeed have a loss last quarter, somewhat due to a 'stabilization' expense by NCUA, the FDIC equivalent for credit unions.
  • Chickens don't require roosters to lay eggs, just to fertilize them.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

How to Decide Where to Eat

First, keep three lists. Where you like to eat, where you've been meaning to eat, and where you've eaten recently. Then, based on your mood, pick either a comfort food from the list of favorites or a new place to suit a spirit of adventure. (Switch back and forth between the two lists, if you like.) Then, look at where you've eaten recently. If you are going for an old favorite, go to the one you haven't been to recently. If you are looking for a new place, go to one that fits in your budget. One exception: if you are in the mood for a specific kind of food, go eat that.
Any other advice?