Passacosa Archives
January | 2015
They Call Me Mister Asshole!
Friday 30 January 2015
With all of these reports of Comcast changing their customers’ names, I’m curious about something: If I get a bill addressed to Asshole George Randolph, am I legally obligated to pay it? I mean, that’s not technically my name.
The “N” Stands For “No”
Wednesday 7 January 2015
How depressingly fitting, that a shooting at a clinic occurs the same night PBS airs a FRONTLINE investigating the radicalization and subsequent rise to power of the NRA.
December | 2014
There Is No Spoon
Wednesday 24 December 2014
Max Fisher, writing for Vox: Kwangmyong, which is Korean for “bright star,” is North Korea’s officially sanctioned intranet. It looks sort of like the internet circa 1994; many users even access it with old-school dial-up or computer labs. It is a closed network that runs on pirated Japanese versions of Microsoft software and looks sort […]
Per Se
Friday 19 December 2014
Among linguists this is probably common knowledge, but the history of the ampersand (&) is one of the coolest etymologies I’ve heard. First the symbol. The Latin word for “and” is et. Long ago, when scribes would make copies of documents, the cursive form of the letters “e t” morphed into &. Since and was/is […]
In A New York Minute
Thursday 18 December 2014
Via the New York Times: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration announced on Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State because of concerns over health risks, ending years of debate over a method of extracting natural gas. 1 down. 49 to go.
Take A Number or Jump In With Both Feet
Wednesday 10 December 2014
As a perpetually impetuous young’un, Mark Shields’ latest column was quite interesting: The GOP is a little bit like Kiwanis or the Rotary Club. If you were sergeant-at-arms last year and you’re club vice president this year, then you’ll almost certainly be club president next year. Think about it. Ronald Reagan, who was runner-up to […]
November | 2014
Wake Me Up When It’s Ready
Sunday 30 November 2014
While I realize that already a countless number of words has already been written (and undoubtably will be written) about the new Star Wars teaser, one detail seems to have been lost in the shuffle. From the 91 seconds of footage we’ve seen so far, the consensus seems to be that J.J. Abrams isn’t going […]
October | 2014
Stay On Path
Sunday 19 October 2014
From an old Larry Wall interview: At the University of California at Irvine, when they first built its campus, they just planted grass. Then they waited a year and looked at where people had made paths in the grass and built the sidewalks there. I have no idea if this is true, but I like […]
The Jon Weekly Show
Wednesday 8 October 2014
Via Political Wire Before choosing Chuck Todd, NBC News president Deborah Turness held negotiations with Jon Stewart about hosting “Meet the Press,” three senior television sources tell New York magazine. One source explained that NBC was prepared to offer Stewart virtually “anything” to bring him over. What I would give to have been a fly […]
Someone In Desperate Need Of The Colbert Bump
Friday 3 October 2014
Dick Cavett, writing on his NYT Opinionator blog, back in 2013: And speaking of Dave’s presumably stepping aside some sad day, if CBS is smart, there is in full view a self-evident successor to The Big L. of Indiana. I can testify, as can anyone who’s met him and seen him as himself, how much […]
September | 2014
That’s A Big Asterisk
Saturday 27 September 2014
Via 9to5Mac Apple’s website states that to trigger this function, the user should be “out running errands with your phone in your pocket.” As implied by that sentence, the device needs to be locked to start randomzing its MAC address. This was confirmed by the AirTight study, which found that about two minutes after the […]