Archive for December 7th, 2010

TMQ watch: December 7, 2010.

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

What’s in store for us in this week’s exciting TMQ column? Let’s take the shiny wrapping paper off and see, shall we? (As a side note, at least TMQ doesn’t have a giant bow on the top. Speaking of which, has Lexus stopped doing the “December to Remember” commercials? I haven’t seen one this year. Kia, yes; Lexus, no. Wonder what that says about the economy. But I digress.)

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Peeves petted.

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Daring Fireball links to two pieces: one arguing that information wants to be free, and the other (the Wikipedia entry on Stewart Brand) arguing that information also wants to be expensive.

I think it is time to set the record straight: information doesn’t want anything. Information is an inanimate good; it has no wants and no desires. People may want information to be free, or expensive, but information itself wants nothing.

Don’t anthropomorphize inanimate objects. They hate it when you do that.

Edited to add: Lawrence points out that I didn’t mention the Pathetic fallacy. Good catch.

Things you may have wondered about. (#1 in a series)

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

What ever happened to the very first commercial 747, Pan Am’s Juan T. Trippe? (Note the phrasing; the actual first 747 was only used for test flights, and is now in the Museum of Flight.)

The LAT has the answer; it became a (now closed) restaurant in South Korea. The couple who bought the plane paid $1 million for it, and “$100,000 plus” to have it dismantled and shipped; the LAT does not give a cost figure for the reassembly.

The LAT also does not tell us what kind of food the restaurant served; rumors that it was Seoul food are unconfirmed.

The airliner-restaurant trend quickly crashed. Several other similar restaurants shut down, and the couple found it difficult to make ends meet — it took a barrel of fuel oil every two days to heat the big plane. The location was also unfortunate because it is difficult to reach from a nearby freeway.

Nice to know that people in other countries make the same mistakes opening restaurants as people in the U.S.

Gone…gone…he ducked back down the alley…

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Josh McDaniels. No longer a Bronco, perhaps still a gentleman.