Correlation not being correlation, blah blah blah, everything else aside, it’s still a fun chart.

(via io9)

Things are looking Up.

(Nothing against Jazz, mind you.)

Whoniversal Appeal: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference on Doctor Who, and its Spin-Offs

14-15 November, 2008

(via, of all places, Crooked Timber)

A book’s journey from one language into another can be perilous. The Russian title for J. D. Salinger’s classic tale of adolescence translates as “Above the Precipice in the Rye.” A clerk in a Yokohama bookshop once told John Steinbeck’s wife that yes, he had a copy of Steinbeck’s “Angry Raisins.” Has this bumpy road gotten any smoother in recent years? Let the following quiz be your guide.

…

3. James Finn Garner dedicated his best seller “Politically Correct Bedtime Stories” to his wife, Lies (pronounced “lease”), which is the Dutch equivalent of Elizabeth. In the Norwegian edition, the book’s dedication reads:

a) “This book is dedicated to Untruths, for everything”
b) “For Dissembling, my everything”
c) “For Rental Unit, my north star”
d) “Lies Flat, I can’t live without you”

(via NYT: “Transloosely Literated,” by Henry Alford [6 Jul 2008])

Forget the Golden Gate Bridge and House of Nanking and Zeitgeist on a summer night — the heart of San Francisco beats loudest on the carpeted second floor of that South Van Ness building you thought was Bank of America.

…

“Thank you for calling San Francisco 311, this is Kyle speaking, how may I help you?”

Kyle Sutton is one of 50 or so customer service representatives, or CSRs, asking this question 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The free service launched in March not just to funnel 2,300 government phone numbers into a single line, but to give the city more of a service orientation. About 6,000 calls come in every day, and program director Ed Reiskin says 311 is on track to answer 2 million a year.

Officially, the purpose is to supply a handy route to non-emergency government services and information. Unofficially, it’s a glimpse into the funny inner mind of the city.

“Hello, how long does it take to build a cable car?”

“There’s cocaine all over my clothes! There’s cocaine everywhere!”

“My roommate has been passed out for two days.”

“There’s pig balls on the street.”

Ideally, every call would be like these and our city would have the best dinner parties ever. In fact, most people call about the bus. How do you get to Justin Herman Plaza? I’m on Clement and 8th Avenue, where’s the 2? My driver didn’t stop for me.

(SFGate: “Pig balls and stuck skunks: A 311 customer service rep has a window onto San Francisco’s secret heart,” by Chris Collin [4 Sept 2007])

(via WFMU)

Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same.

Surprisingly — stunningly, in fact — research shows that the majority of people select the first option; they would rather make twice as much as others even if that meant earning half as much as they could otherwise have. How irrational is that?

Surprising, and not. But are people really that status-conscious? I mean, I know they are. But, really?

(LA Times: “Why people believe weird things about money,” by Michael Shermer [13 Jan 2008]; via Lifehacker)