Why is there no Q on the telephone dial?

clipped from www.straightdope.com

Phone company planners made a conscious decision to exclude Q the better part of a century ago and history has been proving they were geniuses ever since. It all started when the phone company began replacing human operators with mechanical switching equipment, which necessitated the use of dials. Bell wished to [...]

links for 2009-08-29

Fat Kid Successfully Avoids Ridicule By Swimming With Shirt On | The Onion – America's Finest News Source
(tags: video onion humor comedy fat kid pool swimming)

links for 2009-08-28

Levenger – Lap Desks, Totes, Business Card Holders, Leather Briefcases, Fountain Pens, Portfolios, Wallets, Desk Accessories, Organizers, Journal
(tags: shopping writing organization reading productivity books gtd office)

Masters of multitasking fall short in Stanford study

That explains a lot.

clipped from www.mercurynews.com

Hey, concentrate for a second here. We know you think you can simultaneously text your boss, e-mail your girlfriend, post a school photo to your Facebook page and shop for shoes online better than doing it the old-fashioned way — one task at a time.

Sorry. A team of [...]

Getting What You Want

“If you want to keep on getting what you are getting, keep on doing what you are doing”!”
-Unknown
It stands to reason that if you live your life moment by moment then at least one of those moments is going to leave you in the red.  The problem is that if enough of those [...]

links for 2009-08-24

Sam Barros' PowerLabs!
(tags: science electronics projects physics experiments diy tech howto fun)

PowerLabs Twin Tesla Coil!
(tags: tesla science project diy howto)

YouTube – HOME (English with subtitles)
(tags: video home earth hd)

Turbo-Charge Your Brain with Brainetics by Mike Byster
(tags: math brain memory games education shopping development kids educational video)

links for 2009-08-22

Tuning a Piano Yourself–A Simple Tutorial
(tags: piano tuning diy tutorial howto)

How to Repair & Tune a Piano: Video Series | eHow Videos
(tags: piano tuning video diy)

McCullough Tuning Tutorial
Piano Tuning Information
(tags: piano tuning)

Reader’s Digest plans to file for Ch. 11

“Bankruptcy” is the best medicine

clipped from www.bizjournals.com

Magazine and media publisher Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. said Monday that it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a move to reduce some of its $1.6 billion debt load.

Reader’s Digest is the parent company for Seattle-based website AllRecipes.com, which is the top online recipe [...]

links for 2009-08-17

nLite – Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation
(tags: technotebook windows software tools xp freeware slipstream utilities install microsoft)

Business Sustainability:How Do Companies Simultaneously Cut Costs and Add Services
(tags: news video business saving msnbc)

Greenhouse Shade Cloth, Plastic Film, Bubble Insulation, & Ground Cover from ACF Greenhouses
(tags: shopping greenhouse diy)

Teamwork PowerPoint Template – TemplatesWise.com
(tags: free powerpoint [...]

links for 2009-08-14

How Different Groups Spend Their Day – Interactive Graphic – NYTimes.com
(tags: statistics demographics visualization infographics nytimes chart time cool)