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This is much more interesting than I thought it would be. I assumed most countries' names would mean something like "the land of our people," but in their own language. Turns out, no, not even close. The etymologies are really varied.
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Fed up with the U.S. releasing human rights reports on them, China has released a human rights report on us. It's actually pretty interesting. Assuming that it's basically accurate—which is a big assumption—this is a cold, statistical presentation of the facts of our country, at a remove from which I've never seen them.
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Randy Munroe explains why HDTV is so very disappointing. He's absolutely right. I've never understood why people think it looks so great. I had a better monitor in 2000.
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Bill Gates, on why he isn't leaving his fortune to his kids: "Well, when we pick our Olympic team, we don’t pick the grandchildren of the 1910 track stars. Society probably shouldn’t allocate its resources on a legacy basis." I love it.
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The guy who plays Pete Cambell in Mad Men lives in a shack with no toilet. He says it's in response to amassing so much *stuff*, one day he just snapped.
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It turns out that pollen production correlates with stress on trees and plants (like ragweed). Too much heat, or not enough water, and they pump up pollen production. Meaning that global climate change means worsening allergies.
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One of my favorite books on my bookshelf is a little paperback published in the Soviet Union in the mid-60s called, “A History of the United States.” It is an absolutely comical read.
I look forward to perusing the ChiComm version of U.S. human rights. After all… a good laugh is (nearly always) a good thing.
That sounds like a hoot. Those sort of outsiders’ looks at things can be even more entertaining when they’re inaccurate, IMHO.
One of the things I’ve absolutely never been able to sit comfortable with is the fact that every single culture and language has its own unique name for every other culture and language; we call it “Germany,” but they call themselves “Deutschland,” and in France it’s “Allemagne” … you’d think we would have standardized all of this about a thousand years ago, no?
Thanks for the link Waldo. And congrats to VQR on the Utne Award.
James, I’m with you—that’s always struck me as bizarre and unsettling. I didn’t learn about that until French class in seventh grade. Les États-Unis? WTF? We’re clearly named “The United States.”
Pat, I had no idea that was your website! I guess I must have known that when I found it—probably patrolling the internet for mentions of VQR at work—but it slipped my memory before I read your interview with the big man himself. We’re happy to have that award, too—thanks for mentioning it!
For the record, it’s not the TV that’s impressive, it’s the new content that has 720 or 1080 lines of resolution (instead of 480 or fewer). I don’t think anyone is saying the LCDs’ resolution is anything new. And the resolution difference is quite dramatic, especially on things like football.