This is why the Death Penalty Cannot Work...

From NY Times / Freakonomics Blog 3/30/09

March 30, 2009, 9:59 am The Phantom of Heilbronn Unmasked | For 16 years, police in Germany hunted a female serial killer whose DNA was identified at 40 crime scenes, including six murders. Exasperated, investigators dubbed her “the phantom of Heilbronn,” after the town in which she allegedly killed a policewoman. A state prosecutor on her trail said he “just couldn’t believe that the same woman could be capable” of all the crimes to which she’d been linked. Well, it turns out she wasn’t. Police officials this week revealed the source of the DNA they’ve been chasing all over Europe. It came from the cotton swabs used to collect DNA evidence at each of the phantom-killer crime scenes. The swabs had probably been contaminated by a woman who works in the factory where the swabs were produced. (HT: Deborah Kenyon) (4)

How to Make Money on the Internet or How Twitter Happened

Great article that gives a concise, brief history of how twitter happened

Twittr History

"Here's a little test:"

Which saves more gasoline, going from 10 to 20 mpg, or going from 33 to 50 mpg?

If you picked the second that's exactly backwards. Replacing a 10-mpg vehicle with one that gets 20 mpg saves five times the gasoline, replacing a 33-mpg vehicle with one that gets 50 does.

Here’s the math. replace your old (10 mpg) with a new (20 mpg), over 100 miles you cut your gasoline consumption from 10 gallons to 5. That saves you five gallons. If you swap your old (33 mpg) for a new (50 mpg), that only saves you one single gallon over the same distance.

I did not know that!

Hey, wanna buy some grass?

From the NY Times...

"Yankees Sod will be available at New York City-area Home Depot stores near the end of the month. A patch a little bigger than five square feet — 16 inches by 4 feet — will cost $7.50, Mr. Andres said. It may cost a few thousand dollars to cover a large backyard, but the sod comes with a certificate of authenticity from Major League Baseball, complete with the counterfeit-proof hologram, declaring it to be the official grass of the New York Yankees."

Does the grounds crew come also. They could do YMCA at family picnics and stuff...

Now here is some creative advertizements...

This is for NFL football and are quite well done and humorous too...

NFL commercial

Remember the name Ross Ching

Ross is a California film school graduate and I ran across some of his work thru John Dvorak. Take a peak at this two minute wonder...

Earth, Water, Sky

It has a fantastic blend of images and music. He says that the three short films he made, totalling 7 minutes took 2 years to complete and you can see why.

Hello again

Well, I immediately broke my promise about writing more often but have returned to the scene of the crime once again in order to reaffirm my desire to write and post things more often than in the past.

I am going to focus on several areas; internet interests, my retirement, and "penguin droppings", those odd little bits about almost anything. I will twit when a new "PD" is posted and promise to make more of an effort in the near and far future. Thanks for putting up with me...