Suicidal Tendencies

This makes me want to kill myself. Well, not kill myself, but attempt to.

Marcotte’s study found that after people attempt suicide and fail, their incomes increase by an average of 20.6 percent compared to peers who seriously contemplate suicide but never make an attempt. In fact, the more serious the attempt, the larger the boost—”hard-suicide” attempts, in which luck is the only reason the attempts fail, are associated with a 36.3 percent increase in income. (The presence of nonattempters as a control group suggests the suicide effort is the root cause of the boost.)

Once again, our leaders bless us with their boundless wisdom

Trent Lott on Iraq:

“If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. ”

From the people who brought you

Sodaplay: moovl.

Further evidence that Microsoft is evil

Mike learned that if you say the wrong thing at Microsoft, you’re dead meat.

Fun with telemarketers

When you get a telemarketer call, just tell them you’re busy stuffing your mother-in-law into a plastic bag and ask them to call back later.

Yellowstone is blowing up.

Like I said, stock up on canned food and shotguns. A geyser at Yellowstone has erupted for the fourth time in 18 months. “Not a big deal, they go off all the time right?”

No. This one historically has erupted every fifty years.

“Big deal, it’s just a geyser, right?”

No, it’s the biggest geyser in the world and it’s sitting on a geological timebomb that could drive the human species to the brink of extinction. So like I said, stock up on canned food and shotguns.

Sneaky

San Fransico dominates.

In a move some called gutsy and others childish, San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly used his powers as acting mayor Wednesday to appoint two people to the powerful Public Utilities Commission while Mayor Willie Brown was traveling in Tibet.

One of the people Chris Daly appointed was a former president of the Sierra Club. Nice work.

The end the end for Google?

Google is the most popular search engine in history. Not many would dispute this statement. Part of what made Google so successful (and profitable) was its responsiveness to customers rather than investors. This is because Google, unlike Yahoo, is a privately held company and doesn’t have to answer to shareholders who want ever-increasing profits.

This arrangement is about to end. Google plans to go public sometime next year, in what will inevitably lead to one of the biggest initial public offerings of stock in recent memory. Google will make a LOT of money, that’s guranteed. It might be the spark that leads to a new technology frenzy, encouraging more companies to be started, more venture capital to flow, and lifting the spirits of still-wary investors.

I’m pretty skeptical, because I saw what happened to Yahoo and it makes me wonder: how long will it be before Google starts showering us with pop-ups?

The greater of two evils?

We’ve prevented the Iraqis from getting nuclear weapons by invading them. Now will we invade Saudi Arabia?

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 20 (UPI) — Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have concluded a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation, an unimpeachable source said Monday.

“It will be vehemently denied by both countries,” added this ranking Pakistani source known to this correspondent for more than a decade as a knowledgeable insider, “but future events will confirm that Pakistan has agreed to provide KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) with the wherewithal for a nuclear deterrent.”

Stupid Web Tricks

A List Apart teaches nice tricks you can do with CSS, like this one. I’m going to digest the site fully when I finally come out with my long-overdue redesign. Look for it on my linkbar.