February 2004 Archives

This is being widely circulated right now, but it's well worth reading: Malcolm Gladwell on SUVs.

In a thirty-five-m.p.h. crash test, for instance, the driver of a Cadillac Escalade--the G.M. counterpart to the Lincoln Navigator--has a sixteen-per-cent chance of a life-threatening head injury, a twenty-per-cent chance of a life-threatening chest injury, and a thirty-five-per-cent chance of a leg injury. The same numbers in a Ford Windstar minivan--a vehicle engineered from the ground up, as opposed to simply being bolted onto a pickup-truck frame--are, respectively, two per cent, four per cent, and one per cent.

This is really just an excuse to try out some funky stuff with textile 2 and some perl to generate amazon links, but hey: Futurama Volume 3 is coming out soon!

David Foster Wallace's next collection of short stories, Oblivion: Stories, is due out June 8, according to The Howling Fantods.

I'm working my way through Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity now, and I'm sure the short stories will be good, but isn't it time for a novel to follow-up Infinite Jest?

Flickr - another fine product from the people at ludicorp. Another five years as a programmer and I'll be qualified for this job (Hey, I can dream.)

If you come by, look for me as icathing.

How else to respond to this but cringe, over and over again?

Fox Broadcasting Co. has picked up nine episodes of a makeover show with a twist: the 18 female contestants in "The Swan" will get plastic surgery as part of their transformations, but the finalists won't be able to see their new and improved faces until after they've participated in the finale, a two-hour beauty pageant.

...

Mike Darnell, Fox's executive vp alternative series and specials, stressed that in addition to going under the knife, the contestants will be put through rigorous emotional and physical reconditioning sessions as part of a three-month effort to transform "ugly ducklings" into "swans."

He said the drama of the show would be heightened by the women going through the "reveals" of showing off their new looks to the cameras and to their families before they can see it for themselves. The contestants will be winnowed to a final 10 by a panel of judges who will survey two women in each episode and decide which one of them has achieved "swan" status and will move on to the "Ultimate Swan Pageant," Darnell said.

Into the cuckoo's nest: a fascinating article about a psychology experiment 30 years ago where completely healthy people were committed because they expressed one 'psychotic' symptom (hearing a thud). When repeated recently, the healthy patient was proscribed unnecessary medication.

In no cases, it seems, was the subterfuge detected. Make of this what you will.