April 2002 Archives

CNN.com - Investigators probe fatal California train crash

A freight train ran a red light moments before slamming into a commuter train, killing two and injured more than 260, investigators said Wednesday.

That's really lame. Automatic systems to stop the train are not that hard. They are widely used in Europe. Likewise for systems that slams the brakes if the driver doesn't touch the controls or the "I'm still here" button for more than X seconds...

And talk about non-news, or what should be: It also was the nation's second deadly train wreck in less than a week. What I am whining about is that they really really really ought to also mention the ~100 people killed in traffic, every day. You don't hear much about that, do you?

Chuck Murcko got a virus whatever mail that was sent with my email address. A few emails later:

Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 00:06:03 -0400
From: Chuck Murcko
To: Ask Bjoern Hansen
Subject: Re: Tag!

Brilliant! :-)

(Funny how I always post at 1.something. Blah!)

Lying, then and now

Honest administrations are all alike, but each dishonest administration is dishonest in its own way. Actually, there are no honest administrations. But each presidency does bring its own unique style to the task of deceiving the citizenry. And at least you can derive some truths about a president from the way he chooses to lie to you. Consider the la three. (via Red Rock Eater News Service)

American Fighter pilot kills 4 Canadians, Rasmus Lerdorf tells that the Canadian flag at the border was at half-mast while the American wasn't. As he said: "Nice".

I don't know if this is real or not, but it's a bit funny and a bit gross, all at the same time. Even less chance I'll be going to McDonalds anytime soon. Blargh!

A comment from the #perl on rhizomatic,
<|siv|> what? they aren't supposed to look like that?!

These Golden Rules for Making Money written by P. T. Barnum in 1880 are awesome. As Jim put it: timeless.

Not getting anywhere with Customer Service? Frustrated with being transfered for hours without anything useful happening?

The Art of Turboing will help you. (via trainedmonkey)

Burger King Uncowed

Nutritionally, the BK Veggie has little to recommend it. The patty alone is composed of an astonishing 48 ingredients, including such marvels of modern food science as sodium acid pyrophosphate, hydrolyzed corn gluten and "grill flavor." Combined with its nutritionally deficient, refined-flour bun, the sandwich reflects the ingenuity of its engineers more than it does Burger King's concern for the health of its customers.

"Grill flavor"... oh man. I will continue giving my money to Urth Caffe.

A Pill to Stretch Your Day

"A new drug keeps people awake with no apparent ill effects. But is prescribing it the right thing to do?"

"It's not for people who work too long," he says. "It's for people with clinical illness." - ahh, too bad. Or good. We'll see how long it lasts before they'll sell it to the rest of us and (more interestingly) what will happen to us. The article also talks about the fact that we don't know how (lack of) sleep really affects us.

How the INS mistreats refugees - Really really bad and really really sad.

Carl de Marcken: Inside Orbitz

Here's an email Carl de Marcken of ITA Software describing their experiences using Lisp in one of the software industry's most demanding applications. Very interesting stuff!

I want a Harrison & Harrison 89b IR filter

So -- the Children's Books; a short

Intermezzo of a sort;

When I wrote them, little thinking

All my years of pen-and-inking

Would be lost among

Those four trifles for the young.

"You bet I did. And I enjoyed it."
Ad features New York mayor Bloomberg saying he liked pot...

As a shareholder in Horizon Organic (I own several shares!) they are sending me their annual report. Did you know that Heinz are also in the milk business? Green milk anyone?

FAQ for the board game Risk - I want to play Risk again!

I got a Linksys WEP11 yesterday to replace my broken Apple Airport. I had to get my old dysfunctional dual boot Windows 2000 thing to work for a few minutes (which took like a few hours) to configure it first though. Suck. The plastic seems a bit cheap, but so far it has worked great. For $135 it was a really good deal.

Eh, looking at the amazon page they just increased the price by $15. Lucky me.

The Top Ten April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time

Wow; some of these are pretty amazing. I can see at least one benefit of working in the media now. :-)