Thane Plambeck

Northwest North Dakota

Northwest North Dakota has an opportunity for 5,000 people.

Not the first 5,000—the right 5,000.

If you are ready to get as far away as possible from urbanity and ease into sanity, you might just make the cut in Northwest North Dakota.

(From prairieopportunity.com)

I think I like this the best:

We have top-notch schools. Some are rural, some are very rural.

The Sleep of Reason

Beginning January 14, 2005, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco will present Sui Jianguo: The Sleep of Reason, an exhibition showcasing the work of Sui, one of the most well-respected sculptors in China today. The 14 works on view—ranging from a 13-foot tall caged tyrannosaurus rex painted bright red, a fiberglass replica of Mao Zedong sleeping surrounded by 20,000 tiny plastic toy dinosaurs, and life-size renderings of well known Greco-roman sculptures clad in Mao jackets—are witty, incisive, and humorous. As large-scale works, they are intended to address a public Chinese audience in urban spaces once dominated by ceaseless sloganeering and propaganda, as well as an international audience eager to understand social, political, and artistic changes in China. On view through April 24, 2005, Sui Jianguo: The Sleep of Reason was organized by the Asian Art Museum and is curated by Jeff Kelley, visiting curator of contemporary art. The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color catalogue.

Claim staking, or steak claiming?

Free land in the heartland (CNN Money). I wonder if Nebraska is contemplating this.

Call this wild speculation, but I'll wager that most people who know about pitchfork fondue were Bush voters.

According to the Wikipedia, the first claim under the Homestead Act was made for a farm in Nebraska on January 1, 1863.

Maples Pavilion Renovation

My dad is in town. Last night, we went to Maples Pavilion to see the renovations and watch the Stanford men's basketball team play Dartmouth.

DAD: Hmmm. Dan Grunfeld. I wonder if he is related to Ernie Grunfeld? I think he played for Tennessee. He even looks like him, a little bit.

THANE: I don't know. He probably is. Grunfeld is not exactly the most common name for a basketball player. It is a popular chess term.

Prison break

Twins Swap Identities for Jail Break.

"We knew there was a certain risk of a mix up, so we took some measures," said Lars-Aake Pettersson, the warden for the jail. "But this was apparently not enough. They managed to dupe us."

[Note to self: add this template (or at least that quotation) to the prison break story generator]

Huygens

European Space Agency's Huygens Probe Set to Detach From Cassini Orbiter - December 21, 2004 -- The highlights of the first year of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn can be broken into two chapters: first, the arrival of the Cassini orbiter at Saturn in June, and second, the release of the Huygens probe on Dec. 24, 2004, on a path toward Titan...

link

Also—the (always cool) Mission Summary (PDF)

Roller, busybuddha

My longtime friend, graduate school officemate, and software startup co-conspirator Anil Gangolli (a student of Persi Diaconis, who has a seemingly newly spiffed up web site, himself—I thought he doesn't use computers? Or was it only email?) has started a weblog. He's using a tool called Roller—apparently it's the official blogging tool of Sun Microsystems employees ("Sun has chosen Roller to power employee blogs at blogs.sun.com". Also—Tim Bray on that).

[This paragraph has too many links. It also just barely makes sense. I hate it when people do that. Now I'm doing it. Sorry.]

Mathematics by Experiment review

Welcome to the rich world of computer-supported mathematics! (via AK Peters)

Foolproof

Foolproof: A Sampling of Mathematical Folk Humor, in the AMS Notices:

A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to a western country. They drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and found there was no pilot on board. Terrified, they listened as the sirens got louder. Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft. He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out. The sirens got louder and louder. Armed men surrounded the jet. The would-be pilot's friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!! Hurry!!!" The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple pole in a complex plane."

Luck of the Bodkins, relocated

The previous link I sought before.

I was too lazy to look it up before, and then when I did, strangely, Google seemed not to have indexed it.

What's the use of having all my stuff on this website if Google doesn't index it? Wait—I'll answer it—it's a big waste of time.

My Gods sometimes disappoint me.

Red Clay

From an Amazon customer review:

Red Clay just comes out and clobbers you over the head with jazz/funk/fusion/bop and whatever until you just shake your head in disbelief.

knotology

knotology

Benld, IL

map

How the hell do you pronounce that?

Benillda? (Probably not—still, it's my favorite)

Benlid? (Maybe)

Benold? (Best bet)

Bend? (?)

New Glarus, Wisconsin

America's Little Switzerland

[From the random location generator], of course.

I think I'm going to add a Google-indirected "I'm Feeling Lucky" to this perl script.

Added later: Ha! Did it. But it's not so interesting for most little places, it usually takes you to a stupid page generated by another bot.

My Cat Hates You Dot Com

link

Five random US locations

I just fixed the Mapquest links on this ridiculously mesmerizing perl hack. (Thanks to Marc, who suggested the simple fix!)

The meaning of catastrophe (via puzzlers.org)

[Rosalie Moscovitch] In today's paper: "If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur." Well, I liked it.

* * *

[Doug Hoylman] For being on a last-place bowling team, I once received a statuette of the back half of a horse. Now had the animal been a feline, THAT would have been a catastrophe!

Information on torture in FBI records

Interesting set of records released in response to "torture" freedom of information request, at the ACLU. We should all thank our respective Gods for the ACLU. I just love this organization, they do great work every day. There's probably no organization more worthy of a donation of money I think, especially now.

[Here's the background.]

Best $0.99 I ever spent

This little baby slices right through even the most irritatingly resistive CD wrappers.

You push the CD edge into the little thing under the "tower.com," and it exposes a little knife that rips right through everything.

Push it hard, and ENJOY

A problem in Google-based historical tech etymology

Locate the first online use of the term distro, referring to a version of a software distribution.

I don't think I had ever heard the term, up to 1995 or so. But I'm no expert. The Google groups may be the place to start