Thursday, June 26, 2008

Thursday Links



Do it yourself.

How McCain should frame the issues.

What Bill Gates really thinks.

The new face of Al Qaeda.

The world's 10 worst cities.

Spielberg to be rescued by Bollywood?

Underwater wireless broadband through time-reversal.

I hear the Earth singing.

Free foreign language courses from MIT.

The new cold war?

6 comments:

Charlie Martin said...

Okay, I mostly prefer the girl --- that brunette, previously, is just exquisite btw --- pictures, but what the bloody hell is that?

Knucklehead said...

I was just going through the 10 Worst Cities list. The list is pretty clearly based on pollution levels which, I suppose, is at least a top criteria (I might want to look at crime, poverty, alcohol and drug addiction also, but that's just me).

Only one of the 10 in the gallery is in China yet the description of that city includes the little tidbit that 16 of the 20 worst polluted cities in the world. That only leaves 4 of the 20 worst outside of China. Let's say that all 4 of those would make the top (well, worst) 10.

I don't want to live in Pittsburg, Milan, or Mexico City but I suspect none of those three really belongs in a 10 Worst Cities list, especially if the primary criteria is pollution.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Seneca,

The caption reads "Sinkhole". Ich kann nicht weiter.

Knuck,

Well, ok, I should have titled it 10 most polluted cities, but that would have been inaccurate too. Mexico City is very polluted. How about "10 places some guy doesn't want to live in"?

Knucklehead said...

MHA,

I wasn't knocking your choice of title. I just found it peculiar that the gallery (I presume you didn't develop it) selected those particular 10 cities. I suppose it would have been boring to show us 8 or 9 cities in China rather than a nice international round-robin, but I suspect that there are a good 30 or 40 places worse than either Pittsburgh or Milan, bad as both may be.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Knuck,

I'm absolutely sure you are right.

Everything we read in the newspapers is skewed, skewed with all sorts of different biases. One of the most important ones is the "lack of access" bias, which occurs when writers are not given access (mental or physical) to a certain region. This mental black hole then entices them to project onto it whatever they want to believe. This used to operate in the Soviet Union, and is undoubtedly operating in China today but in a different way.

I'm sure Milan and Pittsburgh are fine places to live in the grand scheme of things. I was interested to learn that the air in Pittsburgh contains a high level of heavy metals.

Barry Dauphin said...

but what the bloody hell is that?

That's where Obama's stand on public campaign financing went.