obfuscated.org

Does anybody else find it ironic that these North Korean propaganda wallpapers are available for sale priced in US dollars? I’d buy the one of The Decider as a panting dog wearing a tie — because come on: panting dog, wearing a tie — if I wasn’t pretty sure that the money would somehow go towards hooking a car battery up to an unlucky dissident’s nuts.

(Propaganda wallpaper page two is equally priceless, featuring two doves spelling out the word “peace” next to a GIANT FIST CRUSHING THE WHITE HOUSECAPITOL BUILDING. What will KJI think of next?)

Lately I’ve been getting more cold calls at work, via the company switchboard, from recruiters who found my name on LinkedIn. This really puts me out, and I usually give the GFY to the offending recruiter.

So what’s with these people? Are they a vital part of the employment ecosystem, or does the fact that they have to troll LinkedIn and cold call people that they don’t know and can’t vouch for the qualifications of suggest that they’re simply not very good at what they do?

I think there should be a web site listing recruiters who cold call. I know that if I were using one of these people to try to hire somebody — and honestly, I can’t see myself doing this — I’d want to know if they were pulling names from a list of people that they knew and could vouch for as opposed to finding random people with the right buzzwords on their LinkedIn profile.

What do you think?

Oh, and for all you recruiters out there: I’m not looking for work. I’m not interested in your “exciting” “opportunities.” Please stop calling.

This snarkalicious guide to suburban Denver subdivision names is hilarious and then some. It’s not just Denver either. Suburban Kansas City is lousy with these places. I’m guessing the redonkulous names are there to put in some differentiation, as all of these damn places are exactly alike.

If I had to pick a favorite combination from the list, I think it would be “The Hearth at Spring River Run.” What’s your favorite tacky Denver subdivision name?

With three zillion trillion dollars burning a hole it its pocket, Google decided to purchase YouTube, the popular internet lawsuit magnet.

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., the most-used Internet search engine, agreed to buy YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion, adding the largest video-sharing site on the Web and an audience that watches more than 100 million clips a day.

Expect Yahoo! to respond by flying Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch in for an emergency all-hands* concert and beer bash.

* Sunnyvale campus only

Arms Control Wonk has some analysis of the recent nuclear test in North Korea.

Estimating the yield is tricky business, because it depends on the geology of the test site. The South Koreans called the yield half a kiloton (550 tons), which is more or less—a factor of two—consistent with the relationship for tests in that yield range at the Soviet Shagan test site:

Mb = 4.262 + .973LogW

Where Mb is the magnitude of the body wave, and W is the yield.

3.58-3.7 gives you a couple hundred tons (not kilotons), which is pretty close in this business unless you’re really math positive. The same equation, given the US estimate of 4.2, yields (pun intended) around a kiloton.

A plutonium device should produce a yield in the range of the 20 kilotons, like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. No one has ever dudded their first test of a simple fission device. North Korean nuclear scientists are now officially the worst ever.

I don’t know if this is correct or not, but there’s a funny picture of Kim the Illest from Team America: World Police (which was hillarious) in this post. Which is worth the price of admission.

I don’t want to be the guy to look at a reportedly man-made magnitude 4.2 earthquake in North Korea and say “holy shit, this is bad,” but I guess I just did. Here’s to hoping that cooler heads prevail in the region despite rather obvious lunacy.

Recently a good friend commented in her del.icio.us feed and made the following bold statement regarding an article about breastfeeding:

Man, you can’t trust ANY study you read nowadays! Eggs are bad, eggs are good, wine is bad, wine is good. I just don’t know anymore.

I think it’s important for the public to know the truth about these shocking claims. We’ve got science to back us up here; everybody who follows the field and knows anything about anything agrees: Wine is good.

This comes on good authority from any number of people. There is more supporting evidence for this than there is for any other proposition in the history of man. Using rigorously sound mathematical, logical and entomological methods, I will prove it to you.

First, it is delicious. What else needs be said? Each different variety is more yummy than the next¹. If you disagree, you are wrong. It’s as simple as that. You can demonstrate this to yourself using the scientific method. Hypothesis: wine is yummy. Your test: drink a bottle of wine. After the test, you will find the hypothesis verified. If you did not enjoy the wine, your testing methods were incorrect. Try again.

Next, there are many different kinds of wine. As the point most open to debate, this is often called out by wrongheaded wine detractors. There are, they say, very few varieties of wine, sometimes boiling it down to just “red” and “white.” I’m here to tell you that there is also pink and deeper shades of burgundy that the simple moniker “red” fail to properly capture.

Third, it is medically beneficial. Any ailment can be made to seem unimportant with the proper application of wine. As perception is reality, this is proof positive. Above and beyond this logical slam dunk there is more supporting anecdotal evidence — which is the best kind of evidence — than any one proposition needs. I’ve heard at least five stories in which doctors recommended a glass of wine with dinner, and probably seven where a sommelier did the same. That’s twelve members of highly respected fields. You can’t argue with that.

Fourth: Etc.

There are people out there who will disagree. Some of these people have been awarded degrees from the nation’s finest medical schools. I am sorry to say that they are all wrong, no matter what their reasoning. Unless they can soundly refute points one through four above — and they can’t — their opinion carries no water. I hope that after all of this mercilessly insightful logic you agree with me, because wine is in fact good. You can take that to the bank.

1. Order depending on taste, of course.

I couldn’t make it because of work, (and I probably would have been too busy had I stayed home anyway), but there was a great car show in Monrovia this has Saturday. LA-area artist Coop covers the event amazingly.

If they need help figuring out who to name the Ministry of Love building after, this list would be a good place to start.

Assholes.

Alexander (R-TN), Yea
Allard (R-CO), Yea
Allen (R-VA), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Yea
Bond (R-MO), Yea
Brownback (R-KS), Yea
Bunning (R-KY), Yea
Burns (R-MT), Yea
Burr (R-NC), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Chambliss (R-GA), Yea
Coburn (R-OK), Yea
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Coleman (R-MN), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Cornyn (R-TX), Yea
Craig (R-ID), Yea
Crapo (R-ID), Yea
DeMint (R-SC), Yea
DeWine (R-OH), Yea
Dole (R-NC), Yea
Domenici (R-NM), Yea
Ensign (R-NV), Yea
Enzi (R-WY), Yea
Frist (R-TN), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Gregg (R-NH), Yea
Hagel (R-NE), Yea
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
Isakson (R-GA), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Kyl (R-AZ), Yea
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea
Lieberman (D-CT), Yea
Lott (R-MS), Yea
Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Martinez (R-FL), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Salazar (D-CO), Yea
Santorum (R-PA), Yea
Sessions (R-AL), Yea
Shelby (R-AL), Yea
Smith (R-OR), Yea
Snowe (R-ME), Not Voting
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Sununu (R-NH), Yea
Talent (R-MO), Yea
Thomas (R-WY), Yea
Thune (R-SD), Yea
Vitter (R-LA), Yea
Voinovich (R-OH), Yea
Warner (R-VA), Yea