Euphemism Watch
( Education and General Idiocy )
Via Fark: Primary drops ’school’ from title. The decision was defended by headteacher Linda Kingdon. She told The Sheffield Star: “We decided from an early stage we didn’t want to use the word ’school’. “This is Watercliffe Meadow, a place for learning. One reason was many of the parents of the children here had very negative connotations [...]
( more )Life Imitates Fiction, Once Again
( General Idiocy and Hysteria Watch )
‘Third-hand smoke’ is a new hazard, if you believe the New York Times and a study published in this month’s issue of Pediatrics. But you shouldn’t.
( more )‘A Branding Type Of Situation’
( Government Idiocy )
The airport in St. Louis doesn’t have big signs announcing that you are at the airport, and apparently this is a problem. From the story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The signs are part of a multimillion-dollar initiative to make the airport more inviting. One would think that it’s the airplanes that go places that make [...]
( more )The Use Of Force Sometimes Looks Violent
( Police-State Watch )
There’s a Washington Post story today about Jimmy Justice, the ‘video vigilante’ who records cops and other NYC official vehicular malparkage and posts the results online. The story also discusses the crowded genre of videos of cops beating the crap out of people. The police commissioner in New York has said that the [...]
( more )American Accents
( Random Interesting Thing )
Most British people, when they attempt to do American accents, generally wind up sounding like movie cowboys to my ear. Actually, just one movie cowboy: It sounds like they should be addressing everyone as ‘pilgrim’. The guy in their ‘master class’ recording likes to say ‘Louisianer’ when doing what I assume are Texan and southern [...]
( more )What The New iPhone Should Include
( Technology )
iPhone iPhone iPhone iPhone iPhone iPhone iPhone iPhone iPhone iPhone!!!11 Presumably we’ll see a new iPhone tomorrow, and not a moment too soon. I have an iPhone, and I’m happier with it than I’ve been with any phone I’ve had in the past (though probably less happy, all together, than I was with [...]
( more )Kindle Newspapers Have Text-Encoding Problems
( Technology )
Or at least the Washington Post does. Or at least today’s Washington Post. In a story about how Hispanics mostly voted for Hillary, and not Obama, yesterday, the Post has a quote from one Cecilia Muñoz, from the National Council of La Raza: Text-encodings are the bane of my life, so I have a [...]
( more )Kindle Newspapers Suck
( Media and Technology )
Or, The Washington Post sucks on the Kindle. At least this morning’s version. Amazon offers a two-week free trial of newspaper subscriptions on the Kindle, so this morning I poked and prodded, and wound up with the Post on there. And it’s terrible. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’ve been complaining [...]
( more )Apple ‘getting away with it’?
( Technology )
Jimmy Gutterman writes: Radar’s Nat Torkington has a smart take on this. (He’s away on vacation, so I’ll quote him.) “Success breeds risk of failure,” he writes. “Some alpha geeks are turning away from Macs. Not all, but some. The reasons they cite are quite reasonable: It has surprisingly flaky hardware, many Genius bars [...]
( more )Pravda On The Potomac
( Cultural Note and General Idiocy and Media )
According to this Washington Post story, Muslim women are having a hard time of it in homeless shelters: When Muslim women are sent to shelters that serve the general population, they are often exposed to lifestyles that challenge their faith, such as drinking, abusing drugs, eating pork and undressing or bathing in front of others [...] This [...]
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