Good Plate

Inbox Infinity

I could be mistaken, but I believe this is the widely used but little acknowledged 'archeological' filing system, a default of the brilliant-but-absentminded and not-so-brilliant-and-lazy professionals everywhere.

The system is beautiful in its simplicity, and for certain cases, extremely efficient, though admittedly, there are numerous cases where searchtimes can go well beyond O(n^2)

In a nutshell, it may described by the statement "The deeper it is, the older it is." This is usually implemented as one or mores stack (FILO) structures. In theory, this ordering can be maintained indefinitely, but extreme care is necessary.

In practice, however, those most likely to use this system are not willing or able to maintain the structure, and set items are apt to 'drift' randomly in their position in the stack, or unexpectedly shift to a different stack altogether. Lost set members are common, often ending up in a non-searchable null stack and considered unretrievable, unless or until the system is reset, which requires a time-consuming audit. Rather perversely, some adherents claim this as a feature of the system, saying "If I haven't found it in over a week, it must not have been that important anyway."

Sign Montage from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

New Music

The Undead - A Spotter's Guide

The Guide to Man Boobs

Do NOT want!

A new for one for the Westboro Baptist Church

"Mark 11:12-14 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14Then he said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again.' And his disciples heard him say it."

Want It!

Catch fish faster and have more fun with the Aviva Fishin' Buddy. It's a one-of-a-kind radio controlled fishing boat that zooms to where the fish are with twin props. Simply bait the hook, troll the waters and keep an eye on the bobber. Landing the fish is easy: use the telescoping Retriever Rod to hoist the fish and boat back to land.

The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense

A trip to Yellowstone

The "sampler" at the Neptune Brewery in Livingston. Eight six-ounce glasses. They also have awesome Thai food.

The way animal testing should be

How you gonna vote on I-161?

I-161 would ban outfitter-guaranteed hunting licenses (see link for more info.) We were down by Gardiner last week and a couple of miles of fence for the Dome Mountain Ranch had, "Vote NO on I-161" signs. The Dome Mountain Ranch offers guided hunting for out-of-staters.

We drive past the main gate to the Dome Mountain Ranch and there is a big "NO HUNTING" sign

So Dome Mountain want us to support their guaranteed hunting licenses, but we can't hunt there.

I voted YES on I-161.

This Should Be In Every Dorm In America

Just Remember . . .

Want It!

We saw a bear in Yellowstone

I"m working on my Halloween costume

Kalispell Graffiti

"They're Smoking Weed"

What I am reading now

Bageant mixes a reporter's keen analysis, a storyteller's color, and a native son's love of his roots in this absorbing dissection of America's working poor. Returning to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, after 30 years of life among the elite journalistic class, Bageant sought to answer the question of why the working poor vote for Republicans in apparent opposition to their own interests. On a broader level, he examines issues of economic class distinctions as he drills below the middle-class claims of his hometown. The reality is that two of five residents do not have high-school diplomas and virtually everyone over 50 has serious health problems in a town—and nation—with poor and failing schools and health systems. Still clinging to illusions of personal responsibility and the vain hope of someday achieving wealth, Winchester's residents fall deeper into debt, farther behind in ambitions beyond working in the local factory—if they're lucky—and, along with their children, subject to the de facto draft of economic conscription. Through the lives of his friends and family, Bageant explores the importance of hunting, religion, and redneck pride in what he describes as the "American hologram." A wise, tender, and acerbic look at life among America's working poor.

A Joke

A lawyer boarded an airplane in New Orleans with a box of frozen crabs and asked a blonde stewardess to take care of the frozen crabs. She took the box and promised to put it in the crews refrigerator. He advised her that he was holding her personally responsible for them staying frozen, mentioning in a very naughty manner that he was a lawyer, and proceeded to rant at her about what would happen if she let them thaw out. Needless to say, she was annoyed by his behavior.

Shortly before landing in New York, she used the intercom to make an announcement to the entire cabin,

"Would the gentleman who gave me the crabs in New Orleans, please raise your hand?"

Not one hand went up ... so she took them home and ate them.

Two lessons here:

1. Lawyers aren't as smart as they think they are.
2. Blondes aren't as dumb as most folks think

Hospital Rooms That Can Help Kids Heal

Want It!

Some Jokes

Q: What animal rotates at least 200 times after it dies?
A: Rotisserie chicken.

Q: Which side of a cow has the most hair?
A: The outside!

Q: How do you turn a dishwasher into a snow blower?
A: Give mom a shovel.

A farmer is milking his cow. As he is milking, a fly comes along and flies into the cows ear. A little bit later, the farmer notices the fly in the milk. The farmer looks up and says, "Humph. In one ear, out the udder."

Two cows were standing in a pasture. A young bull came by struttin’ his stuff and said, “Good morning ladies.” One of the cows said, “Mooooo!” The second cow thought to herself, “Dang! I was going to say that.”

Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant with a kangaroo?
A: Holes all over Australia.

Father Not Allowed To Lead Son's Boy Scout Pack

The dad is gay, so he can't be a Boy Scout leader. The Boy Scouts ban gays and atheists from being Scouts or leaders.

That's bullshit. I was a Scout and loved it and all of us learned many good things from being Scouts. Being a Scout helped form who I am as a man and and outdoorsman.

Our leader didn't care if we were atheists - when a couple of us refused to say, "to do our duty to God" as part of our pledge, Bill said, "Whatever."

That's the way it should be.

Life is kind of like that

How To Get There

It IS a technology thing.

FInd Your Ideal Alternative Therapy

True Size of Africa

Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex

Gay issues have been in the news a lot lately, from the debate over same-sex marriage in Congress to a sickening rash of gay-bashing here in New York City. We see a lot of emotion out there, instead of information, and we wanted to provide some data-based context on sexuality so that people might make better choices about what they say, think, and do.

We run a massive dating site and therefore have unparalleled insight into sex and relationships. Here's what we've found, in numbers andcharts.

Who Owns Congress?

What if members of Congress were seated not by party but according to the industries which gave them the most money over their entire careers?

Our Graying Congress

The 111th Congress, which convened in 2009, is among the oldest in U.S. history. The average age of members of Congress has risen steadily since 1981, with just a slight hiccup in the early 1990s; the rise is likely the result of a high incumbency rate, the aging of the U.S. population, and the first-time elections of older candidates. Roll over the charts below to learn more

Singles Time At The Watering Hole

From a good blog on camera trapping.

Birds Do It - change perspective

This is a bower from the one of the avenue species of bower birds — those who build a long avenue out of sticks, with a court at the end made of stones, shells, bones and bits of colored plastic. The female stands outside the avenue (where the photographer was lying to take this picture) and looks through it to the male bower bird who is dancing around on the stones at the back. The funny thing about this picture is that to us the stones look like they are all a similar size, but they are actually arranged with the largest ones in the back, and the smallest ones in the front. If you switch the positions of the stones, as Endler, Endler and Door (Current Biology, 2010) did in this photograph…

The World According to San Francisco

So last night in Yellowstone Park . . .

Yikes!

A Yellowstone Park employee took this picture from his vehicle.

The fleeing 1600 pound bison has shredded flesh on his legs and sides from an unpleasant encounter with the approaching 800 pound grizzly.

How to Degauss a Cat

Food for a Dollar

When Jonathan Blaustein bought 10 early-season organic blueberries for $1, he was a little upset by the price tag.

It wasn’t the visual contrast — one dime to one blueberry — that perturbed him. It was the fact that six weeks earlier, he had purchased 17 organic blueberries from Chile for the same price.

“The blueberries from Chile were almost half the cost of the blueberries from 800 miles away,” said Mr. Blaustein, a cook-turned-photographer who arranged the berries in two neat rows of five and photographed them, in all of their organic goodness.

He did the same thing with seven packages of shrimp-flavored ramen noodles, 48 tea biscuits from Spain, a little pile of rice.

It was a cheeseburger that initially encouraged Mr. Blaustein, 36, to pursue his project, “The Value of a Dollar.” When the economy was in the midst of its downward spiral, he visited a fast-food chain in New Mexico, where he lives.

“On one menu they had a cheeseburger for a dollar,” he said. What caught his eye, though, was another menu, which featured a double cheeseburger for the same price. That additional piece of meat, and the extra slice of cheese, somehow didn’t change the price.

So he set out to see what he could buy for one dollar in New Mexico. Then he turned the techniques used in advertising on their head, showcasing food in its most realistic form.

“I thought, ‘Well, I know what they tell me it looks like,’ ” he said. ‘What about what it actually looks like?’ ”

A radical pessimist's guide to the next 10 years

1) It's going to get worse

No silver linings and no lemonade. The elevator only goes down. The bright note is that the elevator will, at some point, stop.

10) In the same way you can never go backward to a slower computer, you can never go backward to a lessened state of connectedness

30) Some existing medical conditions will be seen as sequencing malfunctions

The ability to create and remember sequences is an almost entirely human ability (some crows have been shown to sequence). Dogs, while highly intelligent, still cannot form sequences; it's the reason why well-trained dogs at shows are still led from station to station by handlers instead of completing the course themselves.

Dysfunctional mental states stem from malfunctions in the brain's sequencing capacity. One commonly known short-term sequencing dysfunction is dyslexia. People unable to sequence over a slightly longer term might be “not good with directions.” The ultimate sequencing dysfunction is the inability to look at one's life as a meaningful sequence or story.

35) Stupid people will be in charge, only to be replaced by ever-stupider people. You will live in a world without kings, only princes in whom our faith is shattered

Gotta Do It!

A book

Er, I'm not giving you scholars any money.

Halloween Display, Kalispell

24 Free Songs on iTunes