Your demographic trivia for today:

Eighty percent of Australians live within 80 miles of the sea; 50 percent of the country’s houses sit less than 8 miles from a beach.

Australia's a huge country/continent. It's amazing how much of that remains clustered on the outskirts.

Filed under :: Potpourri
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1. Shamos: Why e-voting paper trails are a bad idea | The Iconoclast - politics, law, and technology - CNET News.com - Are e-voting paper trails actually useful, or desirable? I think what the whole e-voting thang has raised is how secure (or insecure) our voting process is, and what risks we need to take (and which we need to work on reducing).
2. When the Ex Blogs, the Dirtiest Laundry Is Aired - New York Times - I don't know if it's a good thing, or a bad thing, that my divorce from Cheryl was in pre-blogging days.
3. The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure DVD news: Announcement for DC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures | TVShowsOnDVD.com - This makes me sooooooo happy! The SAHoA was dearly beloved by me as a child -- esp. for all the non-Superman/Aquaman bits, which is what this DVD set will collect. Glee!
4. BMWSportTouring Forums: Space Shuttle Processing: Rarely seen by the general public - How to assemble a space shuttle for lauch. Cool. (via GeekPress)
5. The Art of the Title Sequence - This looks like an extraordinarily cool site, looking at TV/movie title sequence. Pretty. (via kottke)

Filed under :: Blogging :: Love and Marriage :: Media :: Media - Cartoons :: Politics & Law :: Potpourri :: Science
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Time to clear out the various tabs ...

1. At what point do fanfic and fan websites cross the line from fair use to infringement. A new Harry Potter case may help pin that down.
2. What actually kills you in a crucifixion?
3. Not quite sure what Six Apart's new ad network is supposed to give me that simply including Google Ads doesn't do. Not that Google Ads have netted me any big bucks.
4. Recreating childhood photos.
5. Dora the Carefully-Tailored-by-Committee Explorer. Bruce mentioned this article the other evening. I thought we were past Dora, but since Kaylee loves it, Katherine's gotten back into it, too. And, worse, Go, Diego, Go.
6. Worst baby names. It's almost impossible to come with a name that some kid, somewhere, isn't going to poke fun at, but it's nice to at least make the ffort.
7. How to terminate a Terminator.

Filed under :: Blogging :: Media - Cartoons :: Media - Movies :: Media Moguls :: Parenting :: Potpourri :: Writing and Language
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1. Enchanted Tiki Room Swag! On the occasion of its 45th anniversary. Sweet ...
2. Six travel issues likely to be ignored - CNN.com - Well, travel issues aren't sexy enough for the candidates, I guess.
3. How like the Brits are the Americans? Not as much as some might think.
4. Starship Troopers: Marauder - Official Site - Yeah, it will most likely stink on ice, but it's not a direct-to-DVD, and it features powered armor, and, oh, yeah, the trailer's fun ...
5. village voice > news > Runnin' Scared: The NYPD Ignores Leap Day Crimes to Keep Stats Low by Sean Gardiner - Which sounds harmless, unless you're related to one of the murder victims that New York City says didn't happen that month.
6. the big dipper - a photoset on Flickr - Photos of an old wooden roller coaster, built in Ohio, in the 20s, abandoned in the 70s, nearly reclaimed by the woods in the 00s ...

Filed under :: Geopolitical Brouhaha :: Media - Movies :: Politics & Law :: Potpourri :: Travel
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I can't believe March is over. Yeesh.

1. Wiki Woman - An article on the Wikipedia wars on both Obama and Clinton's pages.
2. Most Awesomely Bad Military Patches 10 | Danger Room from Wired.com - Tenth in a series of stunningly improper / un-PC / goofy "morale patches" for various military organizations. This page has a list of the previous entries. I don't know whether to be appalled or to giggle or both.
3. Triviagasm: Far Out SciFi Worlds of Sid and Marty Krofft - I loved the Kroft stuff as a kid. Well, some of them. I was a big Bugaloos fan and Lidsville follower, And, of course, Land of the Lost rocked. Most of the others, though, I never got into.
4. Writing for Firefly and Battlestar - From the only person who did both, Jane Espenson.
5. Exchange: HBO's 'John Adams' (Parts 1 and 2) - A discussion between historians about the mini-series. I'm going to revisit this once I've read the whole thing.
6. Commentary: Inside the Twisted Mind of the Security Professional - A Bruce Schneier discussion of how security professionals see things differently -- and why maybe we should (sometimes) do the same.
7. Pulp of the Day - A pulp magazine cover a day -- complete with caption contest. Cool.

Filed under :: Blogging :: Elections 2008 :: Homeland Security :: Media :: Media - TV :: Potpourri
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1. The Mysterious Case of Ohio's Voting Machines | Threat Level from Wired.com - e-voting "irregularities" may be a lot easier than normal voting, but they tend to be (so far) more obvious than "old school" voter fraud. Speaking of which (and I'm sure you'll find this shocking): Whistleblower: Voting Machine Company Lied to Election Officials About Reliability of Machines | Threat Level from Wired.com.
2. Five Things We've Learned From D&D from 1UP.com - The influence of D&D on Video Games.
3. Obama on ‘Renewing the American Economy’ - New York Times - Inspirational and erudite? Yeesh. I can't imagine either Clinton or McCain talking about economic renewal and regulatory reform by putting it into an historical context.
4. YouTube - Under the Tusken Sun - Star Wars fun in the sun!
5. Anti-Emo Riots Break Out Across Mexico | The Underwire from Wired.com - Anti ... emo ... riots?
6. Earth Hour US - Earth Hour 2008 - Turn off your lights for an hour on Saturday night at 8 p.m. Doesn't say anything about turning off the computer or TV ...
7. Restaurant Names - Amusing restaurant names, that is. Or, rather, an academic paper about amusing restaurant names.
8. Speed Racer trailers and video clips on Yahoo! Movies - Go, Speed Racer, Go!

Filed under :: Elections 2008 :: Food & Drink - Restaurants :: Gaming :: Hi-Tech :: Media - Music :: Politics & Law :: Potpourri
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1. A guide to the French.
2. Inauthentic Medieval Food.
3. Freakonomics book covers from around the world. I'm amused by the subtle differences, and by the huge ones.
4. Forty percent of spam comes from one source.
5. Modular Windows?
6. Dean Kamen's amazing water machine. I saw this on Colbert. Hopefully this won't be another Segway (as cool as the Segway remains).

Filed under :: Food & Drink :: Geopolitical Brouhaha :: Hi-Tech :: Media - Books :: Potpourri :: Spam
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Time once again to clean out those browser tabs ...

1. When is dead dead? Not a trivial question when you're talking about organ donations.
2. The Toilet Sign Project. There are some pretty clever ones here.
3. The worst foods in America. I've eaten ... well, one of these (the Cinnabon).
4. One of those stealth patent infringement suits may have Sony's Blu-ray in its sights.
5. Not exactly how you'd expect a stingray to kill someone.
6. For all I've bitched about Microsoft not adhering to web standards ... its moves toward doing so will likely cause more problems. (More)

Filed under :: Blogging - Technical :: Food & Drink :: Health :: Hi-Tech :: Media :: Potpourri
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Michael Jackson's creepy Xanadu, the Neverland Ranch, is on the auction block.

The sprawling ranch north of Santa Barbara, Calif., has been vacant for some time. After Mr. Jackson was acquitted on child molestation charges in 2005, he began spending most of his time abroad. Local authorities shuttered the ranch in 2006 after the staff went unpaid and the insurance on the property was allowed to lapse.

Instead, the property has acted as one of his strongest bargaining chips as he tried to stay afloat despite immense debts. But he’s about to lose this chip, unless he comes across with $24,525,906.61 by March 19.

Filed under :: Potpourri
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1. How a cockroach got 30 people fired. It's good to be the king ...
2. Lesson from the Heathrow baggage snafu -- don't upgrade both your redundant systems at the same time.
3. That River certainly is a creepifying girl.
4. Using Google Spreadsheets to run a survey. I might have to try this.
5. Blogger gets fired for having a blog. Corporate myopia, employee naiveté, or both?
6. The risks and costs of using the Internet as your hard drive. That remains, honestly, why I keep so much of my online stuff on my own domain (where, if it goes away, it's probably my fault). Though, even there, I still host my mail on Google ...
7. Satellite spotting sounds like a fun hobby -- even if (or perhaps because) it causes the government security fits.
8. Now that security has made air travel even more miserable (and perhaps lethal), let's start ruining train travel, too.
9. I didn't do an obit for Steve Lieber Steve Gerber because, honestly, I was never much of a Howard the Duck fan. Thundarr the Barbarian, on the other hand ... (via Scott)
10. Exporting contacts from Outlook to Gmail is a fine idea -- except that it doesn't transfer snail-mail addresses. *sigh* 
11. One of the coolest things about the Internet is that if Katherine is trying to sing along to the lyrics to a favorite TV show, I can probably find the text for her online. Of course, it's usually transcribed, and so subject to individual interpretations.
12. Disney's Night Kingdom? If it saves the Adventurer's Club from oblivion, I'll fork over my money.

Filed under :: Blogging :: Blogging - Technical :: Hi-Tech :: Homeland Security :: Job Jollies :: Media - Cartoons :: Media - Music :: Media - TV :: Potpourri :: Travel
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