Rustam's Blog

As a practical matter, this means a cyclist owns the road every bit as much as motorists, and is allowed (for example) to “take the lane” whenever necessary. It also means cyclists must obey stop signs, stoplights, and all other rules of the road.

The “right-hand turn” law for motorists, however, deserves special mention. As mentioned above, drivers should never pass a cyclist if they intend to make a right-hand turn, as they will likely be cutting them off.

This, a thousand times. A hit-and-run driver right-hooked me in Madison two years ago. I was very fortunate to come away with nothing but bad road rash and painful lessons learned.

The biggest changes in my riding-style post-collision: I am very aggressive taking control of the lane when I feel at all uncomfortable riding to the right of traffic. I never wait for a green light to the right of traffic, instead maneuvering in front of the lead car or taking the lane pre-stop. This is the point of bike boxes, but there's no reason you can't do the same without the paint markings.

As the linked article remarks, the best way for bikes and cars to share the road is for the operators of each to treat each class of vehicle as equal. I don't ride through red lights. I ride in the lane. I don't ride on the sidewalk. Frustrated by this as a driver? Tough shit.

PS. To the driver of the biege Lexus ES with "endangered species" series Wisconsin plates starting with an E -- I have not forgiven, nor have I forgotten. 

The subjects who tested positive for the parasite had significantly delayed reaction times. Flegr was especially surprised to learn, though, that the protozoan appeared to cause many sex-specific changes in personality. Compared with uninfected men, males who had the parasite were more introverted, suspicious, oblivious to other people’s opinions of them, and inclined to disregard rules. Infected women, on the other hand, presented in exactly the opposite way: they were more outgoing, trusting, image-conscious, and rule-abiding than uninfected women.

Rigorous studies show links between the Toxoplasmosis parasite cats carry and modified behavior in humans. Science!

Three mountain ranges, four lakes and a fucking Sound. That's a geographical feature your hometown hasn't even heard of.

The linked post's title is accurate despite the author writing about Seattle. New York is cooler than where ever it is you're from.

@Zuni

The warrior charged ahead. Weaker men would have lost their minds in the madness: telephone cords plugged into Ethernet jacks, AC adapters plugged into phone jacks, a lone VGA cable wrapped in a firm knot around an Ethernet cord. But the warrior bested the thicket, ripping away the vestigial cords and swiftly untangling the deadly trap.

And at last the warrior arrived at the Router.

"You're good with computers, right? Well, you see, when I Google 'Microsoft Word' it won't let me launch it! It used to work, I promise. Can you help???"

The scientists trained a large group of golden shiners, a small freshwater fish used as bait, to associate the arrival of food with a blue target. They then trained a smaller group to associate food with a yellow target, a color naturally preferred by the fish. Not surprisingly, when all the trained golden shiners were put in one aquarium, most of them swam toward the yellow dot; the stronger desires of the minority, fueled by the shiners' natural preference, persuaded the majority to follow along.

But when scientists introduced a group of fish without any color training, yellow suddenly lost its appeal. All of a sudden, the fish began following the preferences of the majority, swimming toward the blue target. "A strongly opinionated minority can dictate group choice," the scientists concluded. "But the presence of uninformed individuals spontaneously inhibits this process, returning control to the numerical majority."

This article is kind of bullshit – Lehrer brings in Hitler and the Nazis as an example of what happens if opinionated minorities control a political process. Godwin's Law applies everywhere on the internet, the Wall Street Journal included. More interesting than the somewhat feeble analysis is the referenced study.

Listen up. I know the shit you’ve been saying behind my back. You think I’m stupid. You think I’m immature. You think I’m a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I’m Comic Sans, and I’m the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.

Helvetica is to Hipster as Comic Sans is to ???

Mulleted drunk at the bar?

In examining the grade-point averages of the Oregon student body and the performance of the Ducks’ football team, the researchers found a relationship between declining grades and success on the field.

“Our results support the concern that big-time sports are a threat to American higher education,” the paper’s authors — Jason M. Lindo, Isaac D. Swensen and Glen R. Waddell — wrote.

I'd say anecdotal evidence confirms this study's findings.

The Numi has what is referred to in the industry as “bidet features”: it can wash and dry its user (there are modes for women and men). Both functions are accomplished via a wand that extends from under the seat that can spray water or blow air. Pressure and temperature are adjustable, as is the spray pattern, which can go from a steady blast to an oscillating pattern that can only be described as invigorating.

I wonder a) what operating system the toilet runs (NetBSD?) and b) what kind of reporting and analytics features it incorporates. For instance, I'm interested in the correlation coefficients between time-of-day, temperature and shit duration.