January 2008
53 posts
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did you just double dip that chip? →
A Clemson University study sets out to prove Georgey right. On average, three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip.
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World's most recession-proof economy? The Super... →
Rooms at Scottsdale’s 5-star resorts are going for $3,000 a night (four-night minimum), average price of tickets sold on StubHub is currently $4,227, and tickets to the Playboy and Maxim parties are going for $2,000 to $3,000.
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too legit to quit
Remember back in ‘96 when MC Hammer declared bankruptcy with about $14M in debt? Well those days are long gone. Now he’s a tech entrepreneur! He co-founded A Large Corporation, Inc and is developing a site called DanceJam.com that will allow people to engage in virtual dance competitions. Read about it on his blog.
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you down with MHC?
Just read this interesting article in Time Magazine about how romance is linked to smell. We respond to olfactory cues and in fact, smell helps us narrow our choices of potential partners. MHC (the major histocompatibility complex), a set of genes that controls the immune system and influences tissue rejection is especially critical. You jive best with a partner whose MHC is sufficiently...
pro bowl tight end (& fellow Berkeley grad) Tony... →
well, kind of. The article states that his nutritionist persuaded him to “incorporate small amounts of meat into his plant diet.” A valiant effort, nonetheless.
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this story still blows my mind: woman finds 7 foot... →
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Cloneburger - at a supermarket near you
Have you heard? The FDA recently approved meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine, goats, and their offspring as safe for food. And the FDA isn’t requiring that cloned products be labeled differently. Consumers will have no way of knowing what’s clone and what’s not (The FDA will consider “clone free” labels on a case-by-case basis. Though anything organic, and thus...
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$600 for you to jumpstart the economy!!!
There’s a new plan in town - a stimulus package that will give $100B in tax credits for an estimated 117 million families by Spring. It awaits the House’s approval in early February, but once passed you could be rolling in the dough. Here’s how.. You’re single, earn less than $75,000 and pay at least $300 in taxes, you’ll get a $600 rebate check. (+ $300 per kid)...
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“One of the environmental groups in the US just completed a very extensive and...”
– Al Gore, in his talk with Bono and Tom Friedman at the World Economic Forum. Check out this and other webcasts here.
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Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
Know who he is? Well you should. He’s the “Arabian Warren Buffett” (per Time magazine), a member of the Saudi Royal Family, and worth $29.5B. He also happens to be the largest single investor of Citigroup, one of the largest US financial firms. Foreign investment into US companies was formerly ill received. Here are some examples.. Remember the Unocal dilemma a couple years...
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What happened today?!
It began yesterday, when international stock markets plunged due to the global lack of confidence in the US economy. Investors worry that the imminent recession in the US will drag down growth in the rest of the world. So they sold off their stocks. The Japanese market dropped 5.7% The Australian market dropped 7.1% The Shanghai market lost 7.2% The Hong Kong market dropped 8.7% The US market...
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“The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken...”
– Anna Wintour in response to Hillary Clinton’s backing out of a photoshoot for Vogue because she feared she’d appear too feminine.
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exchange rates & the dollar's decline
So you’ve heard about the dollar’s decline. You know it’s now equivalent to the Canadian dollar, 2 dollars equals about one pound, and about 1.5 dollars equals one euro. But unless you’re travelling out of the country why should you care, you ask? What do the exchange rates actually mean? Basically, the decline in the dollar indicates a slow in domestic growth and an...
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WatchJust ran into my buddy Phil. He’s doing some really cool stuff.
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“..it’s tragic that Kenya - a country I thought could provide a model of...”
– Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate and member of Kenya’s Parliament from 2002 to 2007. WSJ’s Commentary Section (almost planned spring break in kenya. going to chile instead.)
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I propose
that when giving directions, we indicate to which street or avenue the location is closest. For example, if the location is closer to 2nd Ave than to 1st Ave, instead of arbitrarily saying 4th between 1st and 2nd (just because it’s consecutive), we should say 4th between 2nd and 1st.
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yuck: fish bladder in beer, bugs in strawberry...
A scintillating 3 hour brunch yesterday at David’s Bagels (best bagel shop in the East Village by the way) brought my cronies & me to the subject of beer, and how it’s made with stomach lining. Further investigation shows that indeed, many beers are made with Isinglass which is a form of gelatin from the lining of fish gas bladders (the air-filled organs they use for buoyancy)....
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A fast-food quarter-pounder costs $3, and 1,300... →
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Second Life is banning unregulated banks from its... →
I don’t really know what Second Life is, but I think it’s a virtual computer world of sorts and I think that I would not want to be a part of it. Who wants to play in a virtual world where “banks default on their promises” and there is a “run on the bank that deplete[s] its reserves as panicked investors que up at virtual ATMs to withdraw their money?!” Someone...
how much is that doggie in the window... →
sent to me by cho
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new to new york? →
Register by January 11 to vote in the Feb 5th primary. Register on the link above & then mail in your registration. And just in case you’re curious… Because a primary is strictly a party election, only voters registered with one of the parties conducting a primary may participate in that party’s election. Voters registered without party...
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Foodflation
You may not have noticed, but food prices are increasing. And don’t be surprised if they continue to do so in 2008. In fact, there was a 23% increase in food prices in the world over the past 18 months. Though there is much talk of inflation in the US, which is a rise in the price of goods & services which causes purchasing power to fall, the current core inflation rate (which excludes...
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Unemployment up to 5%
The numbers are out.. Unemployment rose to 5% in December (up from November’s 4.7%). Though many see this as the harbinger of recession, a 5% unemployment rate is pretty low by historical standards (lower than the unemployment averages in the 70s 80s and 90s) Job growth is down, however. Nonfarm payroll rose by only 18,000, which is the weakest growth since August of 2003. In December,...
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très interesting article comparing today's US... →
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90% of big ocean fish have been fished!
It’s true. A study reported in 2003 accounting for 47 years of data shows that only 10 percent of big ocean fish like sharks, swordfish, tuna, cod, grouper, and marlin remain. This is largely due to industrial fishing which can reduce a particular fish population to one-tenth its original size in only 10-15 years, according to scientists.
BBC List: 100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year →
from pile from hot4discourse Denmark is the happiest country in Europe. The secret to happiness is accepting misery. Peanuts can be made into diamonds. IP addresses will run out in 2010. Bees can detect explosives.. and so much more!
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B.Y.O.B.
Did you know that Americans throw away 100 Billion plastic bags annually and only 1 to 2 percent get recycled. Plastic bags represent 2.7 percent of NYC’s residential waste stream? That means we throw away more than 90,000 tons of plastic bags every year! To combat this, earlier last year San Francisco banned plastic shopping bags. Oregon, Oakland, Annapolis, Boston, and even New York are...