And I offer a wry smile at your "I haven't read much Le Clézio unfortunately, only three books"—that's probably three more than any other MeFites!

Hehe. Speak for yourself. Le Clézio is actually familiar to me when I was more heavily doing research into colonial Michoacan. He loves the state. He was the editor of Fray Jeronimo's La Relacion de Michoacan and wrote La Conquista Divina de Michoacan about Guzman and Tangazoan, the last Purepecha emperor.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 9:02 AM on October 9, 2008

Whoa!! That 'Conquista Divina' page just got updated in the past 15 minutes (did a 'reload' and it changed!). It only had 3 paragraphs. Now it mentions his Nobel and provides a bibliography. Looks like booksellers are busy updating their catalogs!
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 9:05 AM on October 9, 2008

Yes, but GE is a AAA rated entity; in other words, perfect credit, totally trustful. But even GE couldn't get money, they couldn't obtain a short term unsecured loan (which is what the Commercial Paper market is all about).

There was lots of cash out there, but GE (as well as other business entities) couldn't get money from the Commercial Paper market for terms longer than overnight - if at all. Over the weekend I caught up with some of my buddies who are active... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:16 AM on October 6, 2008

Thanks for the post! I'll add that I too try to avoid places like French Laundry and El Bulli where the spectacle has taken precedence over the food. The best food out there is not that hard to get, but you do have to know where to look for it.

My wife and I just made a special food trip to the Langhe region of Italy. We rented a car and drove through the steep and narrow hills of both the Langhe and the Monferrato. Its an area with few tourists. But its where Barolo... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:55 AM on October 2, 2008

Also, the fact that its hard to get into is a by-product of the fact that they only have 8 tables and one seating per night. So, its a bit of an artificial scarcity which produces demand. And demand fuels demand (everyone wants to join the club thats hard to get into)

If the counter-argument is that it must remain small for them to focus on quality, the operation is still too small. Denis Leary of Canteen in San Francisco has 16 seats and 3 seating per night. Perhaps he... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 8:13 AM on October 2, 2008

Here was my immigration process to Europe:

1. Married in Gibraltar on Feb 19.
2. Marriage certificate was mailed to me 2 weeks later in the US.
3. Submitted my certificate and a few other documents to the British embassy in Los Angeles. It was Fedexed on a Thursday.
4. Received my passport back with a visa stamp on Tuesday, 5 days later.
5. Moved to Europe in early April to live and work with my wife.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 10:33 PM on September 24, 2008

He even makes an appearance in the live action/animation blend "You Ought To Be in Pictures" (as the security guard at 3:50)

I've heard that voice too in some of the early cartoons!
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 7:55 AM on September 20, 2008

I'm going to buy my very own tonne of CO2 and name it Bjorn.

DU: That's addressed in the FAQ.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 4:37 AM on September 19, 2008

They also have a dinner which looks intriguing.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:41 AM on September 16, 2008

Can I edit it? Or can someone else?

I took care of it.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 2:10 AM on September 13, 2008

Regarding the eye, there's a Brazilian album cover which is an inversion of that:
Something that looks like an eye but, is in fact very NSFW.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 2:13 AM on September 12, 2008

Vacapinta—It just looks like a chick with a marble in her mouth.

Its a marble. But thats not her mouth.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 9:13 AM on September 12, 2008

Judging by the comments on the first article: Everyone thinks this is a good idea. But, then Everyone say they already know this too. So, then it is useless to tell people what they already know and thus a bad idea.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 11:17 AM on September 3, 2008

A fervent desire for privacy is the mark of those who fear that our differences are irreconcilable or that the secrets which all of us catalog in our hearts as terrible sins are indeed unforgivable.

That might wash in some egalitarian world where everyone has equal access to information and the ability to use it. But thats not our world.

Court trials are one big data transaction where each side tries to leverage what data they... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 10:28 AM on September 2, 2008

Do the people who live there take out the trash twice a day? Where are their tax records from the '90s? Where are the scrapbooks they made as kids? Where are the awesome prints and found objects that came into their lives? Where are the books? They probably composted that stuff, or never collected it at all.

Most of that stuff can go into storage somewhere else. How often do you really need most of that stuff? Books are great because they can fit... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:36 AM on September 1, 2008

My mom used to keep a bucket like this next to the stove. Heat up the frying pan and then "GLOP!" a big chunk of lard right into the pan.

After years of this, I'm alive and healthy which I suppose should be testament enough.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 5:54 AM on August 31, 2008

Nice photos. But it would have been nicer to get a greater variety of London beyond lots of office buildings. Something like the Mexico city aerial photos.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 1:40 AM on August 30, 2008

I keep hearing this claim and I keep not seeing it. He's calm, factual and understanding.

Nah, I agree with languagehat on this one. I'm aligned with Dawkins views for the most part but his particularly aggressive messenger-style actually makes me reconsider my position. Since this is a Gould thread, let me quote this Dawkins review on the web:

Stephen Jay Gould was all too happy to relegate science and religion to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 6:17 AM on August 27, 2008

What else did you have in mind? Runic divination? Crystals? Astrology? Telekinesis? Holy Books?
posted by inoculatedcities at 2:36 PM on August 27

Law, Literature, Art, Culture, Linguistics, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 6:43 AM on August 27, 2008

But as the tide of pro-actively anti-scientific religious provincialism has swept over the US in the past ten years, I can't help but view Dawkins, warts and all, as the absolute best representative of scientific rationalism in no small part due to his tenacity.

Also, I cannot agree that the best way to fight extremism is with extremism in the other direction. I've seen to many political arguments to believe that ever convinces either side.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 6:46 AM on August 27, 2008

Which Dawkins comes out against, somewhere? I've read most of was he's written. He's quite a fan of those things too.
posted by inoculatedcities at 2:45 PM on August 27

You asked me what other things there were in the world besides "Science" and I was answering that. But, in any case, find me a passage where Dawkins agrees that, say, the study of great Poetry or Literature is a valid path to a noble and enlightened life and I'll grant you the point.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 6:50 AM on August 27, 2008

Agreed, dabitch. But it also seems a bit difficult to accuse Kevin Carter of insensitivity:

"Two months after receiving his Pulitzer, Carter would be dead of carbon-monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg, a suicide at 33. His red pickup truck was parked near a small river where he used to play as a child; a green garden hose attached to the vehicle's exhaust funneled the fumes inside. "I'm really, really sorry," he explained in a note... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 5:50 AM on August 27, 2008

To be honest, I'd always thought that higher spatial dimensions should be part of math education in early secondary school. Kids are ready for it and who wouldn't be interested in "higher dimensions"? Its really not that difficult - an extension of basic geometry. Just add a 'w' along with your x,y,z and the same equations apply.

As can be seen by every breathlessly stupid science article these days (which always abuse the terminology), it is also a fundamental... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 9:44 AM on August 24, 2008

Huh? It certainly was for me. Why do you think it wouldn't be?
posted by Flunkie at 6:01 PM on August 24

Where I went to high school (San Diego) it wasn't compulsory. I think most people go up to pre-Calc and I dont think complex numbers are part of the curriculum.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 11:41 AM on August 24, 2008

Regardless, you didn't say that whatever page you were looking at says that it is compulsory in France, either.

The guide page, referring to Chapters 5 and 6.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 7:24 AM on August 26, 2008

Cool! Thanks for pointing that out.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 12:37 PM on August 26, 2008

But the author's right about a lot of this. I remember the subtle flavoring of many of those foods, and they're not there at all to my dulled adult senses.


Its the other way around isn't it? Kids have no appreciation for subtlety so they crave enormous doses of sugar.

As an adult I dislike milk chocolate which I used to love as a kid. I prefer dark chocolate which balances the sweet and bitter. My favorite... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 10:59 AM on August 26, 2008

In fact, it's hard for me to really even recall swearing as an element of the Wire dialogue.

Really? McNulty and Bunk at the crime scene of Deirdre Kresson. That was great, actually.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 7:14 AM on August 26, 2008

Meanwhile, over the past month, the dollar has been rising both against the Euro and the Pound.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 5:13 AM on August 26, 2008

The article takes the above objections into account. Also, any alternate explanation having to do with solar alignment has to face the fact that the cows are aligning with the magnetic pole more closely than with the geographic pole.

There are still objections to be raised of course. They posit that the orientations of cows at night are not influenced by solar thermal regulation which sounds ok but...what if , for example, cows dont like to move much and stay at night in... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:53 AM on August 26, 2008

This doesn't mean that magnetic fields are necessarily responsible—correlation does not equal causation.

For the Nth time, the cows are aligning with the north-south MAGNETIC axis, which is slightly different than the North-South GEOGRAPHIC axis.

In any case, the authors only present the data. They dont make any speculation as to why this should be the case.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 4:39 AM on August 26, 2008

Swedish Made Simple is one I highly recommend.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 1:44 PM on August 25, 2008

Malor: That is, it looks like a great deal of reality doesn't exist until something looks at it very closely; it's as though it's not being figured out unless and until it's needed.

Yes. Wheeler's delayed choice experiment:

We have chosen whether to know which side of the galaxy the photon passed by (by choosing whether to use the two-telescope set up or not, which are the instruments that would give us the information... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:23 AM on August 25, 2008

snarfodox, I'm also a fan of the transactional interpretation. The two particles are communicating. But they're doing so by sending signals that travel backwards in time. The problem is that the theory is too neat. These signals travel backwards in time with the particle itself, then reverse time-direction to follow the other particle. And the whole thing looks...like what we see as an experiment. I dont think its been disproven because, as it stands, its more of a philosophical interpretation.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:47 AM on August 25, 2008

I'll never understand why it isn't obvious that what we have here is multiple universes. There is no communication between particles. It is just that there are two universes. In Universe A, both particles are in one state and in Universe B they are in another. Observing one particle in the first state means we are in Universe A. The other particle in this universe is in the same state. No communication is required.

Because thats a hidden variable... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 5:16 AM on August 25, 2008

It's exactly like the lunches example. The kids themselves don't have to know they are in the same universe. The correlation of their lunches is due to the logic of how I give them the lunches. If I give one to A, B necessarily has one. Therefore when I check one, I know both.
posted by DU at 1:32 PM on August 25 [+] [!

Except that the lunches example has nothing to do with the experiment. Its only a good analogy if you only read news... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 6:05 AM on August 25, 2008

The chance of finding a sandwich in a (pair of) lunches that I've already found a milk in: 80%.

No, that wasnt my example. The chance of finding a sandwich goes up to 70% just by checking for a milk. Whether you found a milk or not doesnt matter.

The point is we're not talking about macroscopic reality but about quantum reality where we have state functions which are superpositions of different variables.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 6:44 AM on August 25, 2008

But in this case it's much the same as the US (and to a lesser extent, our) government identifying terrorism as the number one threat to the country. It's pandering moral panic bullshit.
posted by cillit bang at 7:31 PM on August 24

Well, except that:

The British Medical Association is very worried about alcohol consumption among young people, particularly young girls. It is shocking that, in Europe, the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 12:08 PM on August 24, 2008

Ok, I'll go ahead. Here's yearbook vacapinta.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 2:44 PM on August 19, 2008

An earlier article mentioned he had saved about £30,000 for the trip (about 60k USD). Obviously a big chunk of that is the travel costs. He was, after all, doing this alone, and even El Bulli doesn't cost more than say $400-500 for the food.

Perhaps something clicked in him after the 40th restaurant and he realized that he wasn't really enjoying this after all. The top 68 restaurants in 68 days? That sounds like a nightmare to me. I'd prefer to enjoy many of them,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 4:17 AM on August 19, 2008

I love Feneon's little crafted faits divers. I bought the book a while back.

But I have no love for this Twitter interface. In this case, it adds nothing. If you want to see more, there's a longer excerpt in this NPR piece. Or, buy the book.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 4:49 AM on August 18, 2008

How, exactly, do we all know this? (NB: honest question)
posted by MarshallPoe at 4:54 PM on August 8 [+] [!]

Ok. I'll name names:

Gazprom. Gazprom. Gazprom. Gazprom. Gazprom.

Never heard of them? They're the 3rd largest corporation in the world.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 9:12 AM on August 8, 2008

Thats a great observation dgaicun.

We now have to switch to post-McDonaldian theory in which the unifying effects of capitalism give way to the all-or-nothing fight for dwindling planetary resources.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 9:34 AM on August 12, 2008

Every single person in Europe is less comfortable relying on Russia for their energy than they were two weeks ago.

Oh, please. This surprised nobody in Europe. Europe's over-reliance on Russian energy is an old story over here. Here's a BBC Editorial from 2006:

"Europe at the mercy of Russian gas" is the headline in the French left-leaning Liberation.

"Russia's showdown with... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 9:23 AM on August 13, 2008

I've been flying a lot -- really a lot -- for the last 20 years. I have never traveled with an airline as shamelessly bad as United Airlines, ever. And this includes airlines in developing countires where at least they are conscious of their troubles and don't blow precious cash on stupid, expensive TV ads.

I'm with Mephisto on this. I've flown about 300K miles in the past 5 years and, no, if you have really flown "a lot" then surely you... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:50 AM on August 13, 2008

The airplane wings and such remind me of my old neighbor Telstar's house in San Francisco except, well, he did it himself.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 2:22 PM on August 7, 2008

Also Emmerich's "Library" doesn't actually have any books. That's already the complete opposite of my dream library.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 2:27 PM on August 7, 2008

Wealthy people get to sleep in.

The funny thing is that this directly contradicts another point where he points out that wealthy (successful) people work themselves to death and poor (unemployed) people have it easy.
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 12:45 AM on August 7, 2008

gnfti: I was actually typing out a similar list. For 9 and 10 I had

9. Starting off as nothing more than a brief glance, lifelong loves and friendships can form.
10. No matter how odd and strange your beliefs, there are undoubtedly lots of people out there who agree with you!
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 7:46 AM on August 7, 2008

From this Flickr comment:

I’d like to give credit to the writer and artist of that Calvin and Jobs satire. It was written by Jacob Lambert and drawn by Gary Hallgren. It’s from a two page spread in the current issue of MAD Magazine. It’s the Super Hero issue. Yep, the same issue that has the Sucker City Ad in it. The one that caused so much concern and then repentance from the folks at Circuit City. The Circuit City saga is here: www.gizwiz.biz.
MADly,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 3:56 AM on August 7, 2008