Simon

:) At least, they weren't afraid to explore each item! - Anne Bouey

A pretty amazing story about ex-Apple employees continuing to develop a canceled project even after they had been made unemployed: " We found two [empty Apple offices] and started sneaking into the building every day, waiting out in front for real employees to arrive and casually tailgating them through the door. Lots of people knew us and no one asked questions, since we wore our old badges as decoys. [...] Once we had a plausible way to ship, Apple became the ideal work environment. Every engineer we knew was willing to help us. We got resources that would never have been available to us had we been on the payroll." - Simon

The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Simon

A beautiful story :) - Private Sanjeev

"the chairman of Britain’s top financial watchdog has described much of what happens on Wall Street and in other financial centers as “socially useless activity”. In a recent article titled “What Do Banks Do?,” which appeared in a collection of essays devoted to the future of finance, Turner pointed out that although certain financial activities were genuinely valuable, others generated revenues and profits without delivering anything of real worth—payments that economists refer to as rents. “It is possible for financial activity to extract rents from the real economy rather than to deliver economic value”. Turner’s viewpoint caused consternation in the City of London, the world’s largest financial market. A clear implication of his argument is that many people in the City and on Wall Street are the financial equivalent of slumlords or toll collectors in pin-striped suits." - Simon

"The 52-year-old longtime diabetic's blood sugar levels had dipped to a dangerously low level causing him to weave into another lane. A Hamilton County sheriff's deputy spotted him on Clough Pike and suspected drunken driving. Deputies broke the window of Harmon's SUV, shocked him seven times with a Taser, cut him out of his seatbelt and wrestled him to the ground, severely dislocating his elbow, and causing trauma to his shoulder and thumb. Even after learning the incident was a medical emergency, deputies charged Harmon with resisting arrest and failing to comply with a police officer's order." - Simon

On the other hand, maybe he'll get rich from suing the sheriff's office. - Gabe

"ten years from now [in 2008], the phrase information economy will sound silly." - Simon

The net effect might not be that big -- moving money from one place to another, mostly. But the impact feels big if you're a moved-from business or a moved-to business. - Bruce Lewis

"Let me tell you something, this is exactly how Nazi Germany started". Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose... - Simon

blue: beatles, red: jesus - Simon

"During the Napoleonic wars, a French ship was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool, England. The only survivor was a monkey, wearing a French uniform. On finding the monkey, some locals decided to hold an impromptu trial on the beach; since the monkey was unable to answer their questions, and many locals were unaware of what a Frenchman may look like, they concluded that the monkey was in fact a French spy. Just to make sure, the animal was thus sentenced to death and hanged from the mast of a fishing boat on the Headland." - Simon

It's really rare to have settled snow in London in December. I would have spent a little more time finding a nicer composition, by my fingers were telling me to get to the warm office as soon as possible :) - Simon

"Google Inc. and other providers of Web content aren’t contributing enough to the costs of telecommunications networks and may be forced to pay, the French minister responsible for the Internet said." - Simon

"Seif says it was an accident which he didn't realize until he arrived at his destination. He says he carries the glock for protection but forgot to remove it from his bag. He reported the incident as soon as he landed, shocked at the security lapse. [...] A person briefed on the latest tests tells ABC News the failure rate approaches 70 percent at some major airports. Two weeks ago, TSA's new director said every test gun, bomb part or knife got past screeners at some airports." - Simon

"Head of MI6 or the Secret Intelligence Service... discovered that semen made a good invisible ink. His agents adopted the motto "Every man his own stylo"" - Simon

"We are launching an experiment - the first YouCut Citizen Review of a government agency. Together, we will identify wasteful spending that should be cut and begin to hold agencies accountable for how they are spending your money. First, we will take a look at the National Science Foundation (NSF)" - Simon

This looks really cool. Anyone tried this app? - Simon

I tried the free version and it seems to work. There were some minor glitches but I was impressed. - Amit Patel

It's especially nice that they do it all locally. Google's translate tools are neat, but I need them most when I'm traveling, which is when my data connection is least likely to work well. - Seth

Another fun one: [the morrow] vs [tomorrow] http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph... - Simon

Email sure was popular in the 1800s: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph... - Amit Patel

Oh! - Amit Patel

1. iPad 2. Samsung Galaxy S 3. 11-In. MacBook Air 4. Google TV Via Logitech Revue 5. Nexus One 6. iPhone 4 7. Apple TV 8. Toshiba Libretto Dual-Screen Laptop 9. Kinect 10. Nook Color - Simon

"I think I was indeed the first because now the goo.gl link just says “The form you are trying to access has either expired or reached its maximum registration limit.”. Well, that’s pretty cool if you ask me ;-)" - Simon

it was a nice puzzle tehy got in their video there i didn't pay much attention to it but solution og google at chrome blog and solution process at jamendo blog are different it is the approach and how hard they tried that mattered - testbeta

"considered one of the hardest words to translate. It describes "a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that they both desire but which neither one wants to start."" - Simon

Taxi drives against traffic on a freeway... - Simon

It's amazing that a Hollywood actress (Kelly Hu) would be that calm ney excited while in a car driving into head-on traffic. - no name

"In an interview with a TV talk show Monday, the governor of South Sinai, Mohammad Abdul Fadhil Shousha, came up with this gem: “What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark in the sea to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question. But it needs time to confirm.”" - Simon

"This problem of “stereotype threat” is well known. It catches people in a vicious cycle, where poor performance leads to greater stress, which leads to poorer performance and even greater stress, and so on. Miyake’s exercise is designed to break that cycle.This isn’t the first time it has worked either. It was first used by Geoffrey Cohen (who Miyake works with) to turn the fortunes of black students in American high schools." - Simon

"In a similar warning, college students considering careers with the federal government received an e-mail this week warning against reviewing classified information posted by the document-sharing Web site. Career counselors at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs urged students not to post links to the documents or make comments on social media Web sites, including Facebook or Twitter." - Simon

Jennifer: It's not that they can't read the information; it's that the documents themselves are classified and they're just not allowed on unclassified government computers until they've been officially declassified. Being published in the NYT does not automatically make information declassified. - Gabe

" employment rates for men with bachelor’s degrees have declined only slightly, employment of men with only high school diplomas has fallen considerably—from a high of 97 percent in 1967 to just 76 percent today" - Simon

"Building was constructed by Israeli engineers prior to Islamic Revolution" - Simon

Seems like a stylized version of the software patent system... - Simon

"Can we get more people to obey the speed limit by making it fun to do? The idea here is capture on camera the people who keep to the speed limit. They would have their photos taken and registration numbers recorded and entered into a lottery. Winners would receive cash prizes and be notified by post. Better still, the winning pot would come from the people who were caught speeding." - Simon

So it'd be in my interest to encourage everyone else to speed … - Amit Patel

I heard an interesting podcast the other day about doing something similar with savings accounts to encourage people to save. http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010... - Benjamin Lee