A couple months ago, I complained about someone who wanted to store dates in database as strings.
For you non-programmers, it’s like if you do the following: Take your paycheck, but don’t go to the bank to deposit it. Instead, go to a currency exchange center and cash it out — in yen. Now go to your bank and deposit the money.
Starcraft 2 was released today. How many game widows is this going to create?
Does anyone else think Kerrigan is depicted far too attractively for someone who’s been turned into a Zerg? I mean, look at the Infested Terrans; I can’t imagine any woman saying, “Yeah, I’d like to get some of that.” But in this picture, Kerrigan’s practically wearing stilettos and has perfectly formed legs and butt.
(Incidentally, if I completely stop blogging, cut off all outside communication, lose my job, and can be found huddling by a local Chick-Fil-A to take advantage their free Wi-Fi…you know why.)
If I had my choice of driving a car or driving a toaster, it’s a no-brainer. It’s the toaster every time. (It doesn’t help that I’m not particularly attracted by the Kia Soul.)
Still, the commercial’s catchy.
Mainstream science holds that our universe originated with the Big Bang. A fundamentalist from one of the monotheistic faiths believes we were directly created by God. A number of people dip from both science and religion, believing God initiated the Big Bang.
If you think about it, these explanations can’t really “make sense”. They’re so far out of the realm of everyday reality, it’s impossible to have a good intuitive feel about what explanation is most likely to be right.
This is why we have to make the best possible judgment with the incomplete information we have. If someone thinks they can apply Occam’s Razor to the origins of the universe, they are dogmatic, don’t understand what Occam’s Razor is, or both.
In the United States, we have to be so careful about the foods we shop for. Below is an aggregation of deceptive or tricky food labels I’ve encountered. If you have any to add, let me know in the comments. I’ll try to update this list from time to time.
Red Flags
Juice: The label should say 100% juice. If it doesn’t, you’re getting mostly sugar water. “Juice drink”, “juice beverage”, “made with real juice” and the like are guarantees there’s not much real fruit.
Even if it’s 100% juice, it’s still a little tricky. If you see something like “Cranberry Juice with another juice”, that other juice is apple juice, always. And apple juice will be the greatest percentage of the juice mix, because it’s inexpensive. Unfortunately, it’s not much healthier than sugar water. (Most other juices have greater health benefits.)
Made with [healthy ingredient]: It contains a pitiful amount of the healthy ingredient, just enough so it can legally put on the label. A specific example is bread (which is REALLY confusing); you don’t want “made with whole wheat”, you want “100% whole wheat”.
Reduced Fat: The sugar and/or salt have been increased. Similarly, reduced sugar or salt likely means an increase in something else bad. Compare the nutrition labels to the regular version of the product to see what changed.
No trans fats: Almost always an unhealthy food that’s high in fat, sugar and/or salt.
Electrolytes: Salt.
Deceptive ingredient labels: The ingredient label must be listed in order of descending composition (so the product contains the highest percentage of the first ingredient). A Smuckers strawberry jelly label had “strawberries” as the first ingredient. Sounds good, right? Problem is that the next 4 ingredients were simply different forms of sugar (corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and something else). In reality, there’s much more sugar than fruit, but the label is deceptive.
Made with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup: Somehow, the food industry has turned sugar into a health food. In terms of calories, sugar is equal to high fructose corn syrup. If you actually prefer sugar to HFCS, that’s fine, but the change won’t help you shed pounds. And the food itself is probably not that healthy.
Yellow Flags
Diet: Read the label to make sure you’re getting what you’re expecting. Sometimes it’s OK, but sometimes there are nasty surprises. A low calorie, but high sodium food is a common offender.
Organic: It does not mean “healthy”. Regular rules apply.
Natural: It also does not mean “healthy”. Regular rules apply.
The World Cup final is set, the Netherlands vs. Spain. We are all eagerly throwing our support to the Dutch, mainly because we’re afraid that CMoB or Tempo will fly over and beat us up if we don’t.
If I were at the game, I’d have this sign that said “Hey, Spain: You can’t Dutch this!”
A source says LeBron James will announce his retirement in his one hour special on ESPN tonight.
Frankly, he’s sick of this basketball garbage and all of y’all.
“Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 meters”. It’s hard to believe this wasn’t on purpose. (source)
This went without fanfare, but I decided to finish off Eggony once and for all a little while back. The final showdown with Benedict was added for level 7.
Yesterday, I got tired with actual work, and decided to upload Eggony to Kongregate to receive the expected criticism. People seemed to like the originality, but the implementation needed work. Most specifically, level 1 is not very interesting, and I think a lot of people lost interest with the weak opening.
