Census Conundrum

wormpicker is in a pickle. He sent me this email yesterday:

Did you get your census form yet? We got ours today, and I'm already stuck. The cover letter, dated March 15, 2010, says Please complete and mail back the enclosed census form today.

Question 1 asks: How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?

What do I do? I can't lie. I have to fill it in and mail it today. I can't predict the future. I'm not even an illegal alien and I'm already confused and terrified over this thing.

L.A. Quake

Nothing to be alarmed about: 4.4 earthquake awakens Southern California; no major damage or injuries reported.

Southern Californians were awakened early Tuesday to a 4.4-magnitude earthquake centered in Pico Rivera that caused no major damage or injuries but put first-responders on alert and rattled nerves.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the temblor struck at 4:04 a.m. about 11 miles east of downtown Los Angeles and about one mile from Pico Rivera.

Too bad it couldn't have waited 19 days, until April 4.

Uninterrupted Text Spotted

It finally happened: Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text.

Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text.

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

"Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've looked everywhere-there's nothing here but words."

"Ow," Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about.

At 3:16 p.m., a deafening sigh was heard across the country as the nation grappled with the daunting cascade of syllables, whose unfamiliar letter-upon-letter structure stretched on for an endless 500 words.

Children wailed for the attention of their bewildered parents, businesses were shuttered, and local governments ground to a halt as Americans scanned the text in vain for a web link to click on.

"It demands so much of my time and concentration," said Chicago resident Dale Huza, who was confronted by the confusing mound of words early Monday afternoon. "This large block of text, it expects me to figure everything out on my own, and I hate it."

"I'm sure if it's important enough, they'll let us know some other way," Detroit local Janet Landsman said.

(Thanks Banjo Brad)

Cool Entertainment Center

Found at There, I Fixed it.

Everett True And The Plumber

Today, Everett True gets his bathtub fixed, and the plumber tells him how much it costs.

Does anyone want to guess what happens in Panel 2?

Stoking The Saint-Making Machinery

A joint paper from professors at Harvard and Columbia University: Economics of Sainthood (a preliminary investigation) PDF link.

Saint-making has been a major activity of the Catholic Church for centuries. The pace of sanctifications has picked up noticeably in the last several decades under the last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Our goal is to apply social-science reasoning to understand the Church's choices on numbers and characteristics of saints, gauged by location and socioeconomic attributes of the persons designated as blessed.

To carry out this research, we began by collecting long-term data on numbers and characteristics of blessed persons selected by the Catholic Church. The data apply to canonizations (approval as a saint) and beatifications (final stage of qualification for canonization).

Here's one of their charts:

The dummy variable for the last two popes shows a dramatic positive effect on beatifications per year-the estimated coefficient in Table 4, column 1, is 9.76 (s.e.=0.36). This effect compares with the overall mean and standard deviation for the beatification rate of 1.22 and 2.65, respectively.

(via Marginal Revolution)

Diamond-Studded TV

For $2.26 million, you can get the world's most expensive television.

The article starts out with some low-budget models, and ends with Stuart Hughes' PrestigeHD Supreme Rose Edition.

This 55M PrestigeHD television, powered by Metz, is coated in 28 kilograms of 18k rose gold embellished with seventy-two round cut, flawless 1-carat diamonds. That's not the end of the luxury materials used in its creation, however, as the most expensive television in the world features alligator skin hand sewn into the bezel.

Scaring Confessions Out Of Criminals

U.S. Patent 1749090 (from 1930): Apparatus for obtaining criminal confessions and photographically recording them.

The primary object of my invention is the provision of an apparatus for the creation of illusory effects calculated to impress the subject with their being of a supernatural character and to so work upon his imagination to enable an inquisitor operating in conjunction with the recording system to obtain confessions and graphically record them by light action under the control of electric impulses governed by varying intensities of sound waves.

The recording device is in the skull of the skeleton.

(via Futility Closet)

Of Mice And Men

Yesterday I saw Eric Zorn's glowing endorsement of the 1992 film adaptation of Steinbeck's novel: Of Mice And Men.

So I watched it on Netflix last night, and it was excellent. Now I want to watch the original 1939 movie -- but it's not available for streaming.

Facebook Beats Google

The latest score: Facebook edges past Google for weekly traffic.

Facebook nudged past search king Google in traffic last week to become the most visited Web site of the week in the United States, according to the online measurement service Hitwise.

Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise, said in a blog post that Facebook had 7.07 percent of all Web traffic for the week of March 13, edging Google's 7.03 percent.

Facebook has been threatening Google for some time, hitting the Hitwise top spot on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Day and the weekend of March 6 and 7.

Advances In Sewing Needles

In my 58 years on earth, I've threaded perhaps a dozen or so needles. It was never easy. This would make it easy: Spiral Eye side threading needles.

(via Oh Gizmo)

Travels With Mike

This could be one of the best documentaries in the history of the world: Travels With Mike.

More info here.

In early 2009, though weakened from a ten-year battle with lymphoid leukemia, Mike traveled through the southeast (Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia) by car to record some of the finest southern traditional banjo players in their homes. Filmmaker Yasha Aginsky accompanied Mike and his wife Alexia and filmed as Mike interviewed, recorded and interacted with the talented and colorful musicians who were being recorded.

(Thanks Scott)

Not Obvious Ghost Movie Recommendations

Curtis is back with Round 2 of his movie thing. The rules are:

Each person may list one to four not obvious films they recommend from the week's category. Films that are not in the category should be saved for future lists.

THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: Ghost Movies

People who don't conform to the rules and stay within the week's category are just lazy bastards and will suffer their just desserts in the Afterlife.

REMEMBER! NOT OBVIOUS FILM CHOICES!

(Signed)
Curtington

Meeting Everett True, Part II

This morning I posted the first panel from a 2-panel Everett True cartoon. People have been emailing me all day, wanting to see how it comes out.

Well, here it is:

One of the commenters at the original post predicted the outcome:

If Mr. True is true to form, the next panel will show him beating the ever loving crap out of that miserable slob.

He's a mackerel head, not a miserable slob.

Missing Brandy

In Yuma, Arizona: Time capsule unearthed.

A small crowd gathered around the site of a time capsule that was buried in 1985 on Main Street to watch as it was unearthed. Inside were letters from Somerton residents, photographs, an old VHS tape and a 1981 Time magazine with a picture of President Ronald Reagan on the cover.

But there was a surprise. Pancho Soto, Somerton's supervisor for the Streets and Solid Waste Department, explains:

"I was surprised when we opened it. There was a bottle of brandy, and right now it's not there. What happened? I don't know. When we buried it, the bottle was there. I thought it was going to be there and I told my friends and co-workers it was going to be there."

No one seems to know what happened to that brandy. It's a mystery. An enigma.