September 2010
29 posts
“I’m losing faith in humanity, one faked orgasm at a time.”
– Sleep Talkin’ Man
“A puppet master.”
– P2 conspirator Licio Gelli, when asked what he had always wanted to be.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
– Edgar Allan Poe
“I am my thoughts. If they exist in her, Buffy contains everything that is me and...”
– Oz, on learning that Buffy is telepathic. Buffy S03E18, ‘Earshot’
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
– William Shakespeare, ‘The Tempest’
Banana equivalent dose (n.) →
A banana equivalent dose is a concept occasionally used by nuclear power proponents to place in scale the dangers of radiation by comparing exposures to the radiation generated by a common banana. Bananas are radioactive enough to regularly cause false alarms on radiation sensors used to detect possible illegal smuggling of nuclear material at US ports.
Denis Diderot (person) →
“When the time came for him to provide a dowry for his daughter, he saw no alternative than to sell his library. When Catherine II of Russia heard of his financial troubles she commissioned an agent in Paris to buy the library. She then requested that the philosopher retain the books in Paris until she required them, and act as her librarian with a yearly salary.”
“I didn’t mean to kill nobody… I just meant to shoot the son of a bitch in the...”
– Blues musician R.L. (Robert Lee) Burnside.
“The best predictions of future scarcity are already [factored] into...”
– Jeb Cole
“Badly is an adverb. So to say you feel badly would be saying that the mechanism...”
– ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’
August 2010
70 posts
“morning is not optional
but waking is bravery.”
– Marty McConnell
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the...”
– Denis Diderot
Agricultural Bank of China robbery →
“The idea for the heist had begun when one of the managers, Ren Xiaofeng, stole 200,000 yuan (c.US$26,000) in October 2006 with the complicity of two security guards, Zhao Xuenan and Zhang Qiang. Ren then purchased tickets for the Chinese lottery, with the intention of winning a sufficiently large prize that he could return the missing funds before their absence was noted, and still have...