The Ultimate Thanksgiving Bird
You’ve heard of Turducken, right? It’s got nothing on Turbaconducken, a chicken stuffed in duck stuffed in a turkey, all wrapped in bacon. It’s a heart attack waiting to happen, but man I bet it tastes good.
Vote For Pedro
You know that cool million bucks that Netflix is offering if you improve its predictions by 10%? Apparently, there’s a “Napoleon Dynamite” problem that’s driving the competitors nuts:
Bertoni says it’s partly because of “Napoleon Dynamite,” an indie comedy from 2004 that achieved cult status and went on to become extremely popular on Netflix. It is, Bertoni and others have discovered, maddeningly hard to determine how much people will like it. When Bertoni runs his algorithms on regular hits like “Lethal Weapon” or “Miss Congeniality” and tries to predict how any given Netflix user will rate them, he’s usually within eight-tenths of a star. But with films like “Napoleon Dynamite,” he’s off by an average of 1.2 stars.
The reason, Bertoni says, is that “Napoleon Dynamite” is very weird and very polarizing. It contains a lot of arch, ironic humor, including a famously kooky dance performed by the titular teenage character to help his hapless friend win a student-council election. It’s the type of quirky entertainment that tends to be either loved or despised. The movie has been rated more than two million times in the Netflix database, and the ratings are disproportionately one or five stars.
Personally, I thought the move was dumb.
Why Did This Guy Think This Was A Good Idea?
Kids these days…
What If Shawshank Redemption was Made in the Early 80s?
The ending of one of my favorite movies would’ve been quite a bit different if it were made 10 years earlier:
Cheap Plug
See that Cascade Winds banner over there to the right of this text? Click on it. There’s a concert coming up. I’m in the band. I’m a percussionist in the group — which really means I bang on stuff to sheet music — and have been for 15 years. It’ll be a great concert, and I encourage you all to come out (it’s family-friendly, so bring the kids). Full press release after the jump.
Duct Tape Use #1857
Restraining unwieldy airline passengers.
Update with correct link this time.
You Won’t See This In America
While American CEOs fly around the country in private jets to go beg their government for money, CEOs in other countries are doing the right thing in hard economic times: taking a pay cut. Like this Japanese CEO of Japan Airlines, who now gets paid less than his pilots, or the CEO of the Swedish postal service who is now working for free.
Update on 11/25: I stand corrected, even though AIG has gotten a ton of flack for using that bailout money they got for a lavish party, a hunting trip and to pester a blog.
Illustrative HTTP Error Codes
Some of these you have to be a Web geek to appreciate, but they’re still pretty dang funny. The guy has released them under a Creative Commons license that’s almost temping me to replace the error code pages all over this server.
They’re Just Trying To Do Their Job
But reporters still get harassed by people — a lot, as this site shows.