adambalsam.com

Got this from my niece today. It's not everyday you get an original hand-drawn junkyard from a young artist. Very nice Viola.

I can't stop making these. This one kind of reminds me of the Bobsled event on Winter Olympics for NES. I would say RC ProAm, but that didn't have split screen.

Created using about 600 screen captures from the Google Streetview car at the Mazda Raceway in Laguna Seca, CA:

But, obviously, the real question is WTF was the Google Streetview car doing on the racetrack!? I bet these guys had something to do with it.

The Huffington Post reports on three easy ways to tell if twitter is down.

#1 seems suspicious, but we can give them the benefit of the doubt that Twitter's blog is hosted on a different server than site itself. But #3? Really? Check a Twitter Feed to tell if Twitter is up?

Highlighted screen capture from Huffington Post:

For your entertainment, here's another screenshot. This is from their actual Twitter Feed. Great information here:

Maybe they need to tweak their keywords a bit. (and, more importantly, realize that this is a ridiculous way to determine the up-status of a service)

MLB.com has added the above feature to each of its game recaps. Thank god. Now I have a metric to tell me what moments I should have been the most excited about. It even comes with a handy "what is this" link at the bottom (because, really, what the hell is it). They describe it as:

Yeah.

It even gives you a random tweet when you mouse over an event.

It seems to me that the show "The Biggest Loser" has been screwing over contestants by measuring weight loss as rounded to the nearest whole pound.

Around week 8 of most seasons, the Blue and Black teams are eliminated and contestants compete as individuals. The two contestants with the smallest percentage of weight loss are labeled as "Below the Yellow Line" which means they are eligible for elimination by a popular vote of their fellow contestants. Percentage of weight loss is determined by rounding their weight at the end of week to the nearest pound and subtracting that from the previous week's measurement; then dividing the resulting difference by the previous weeks weight and multiplying by 100 for a percent (again rounded to two decimal places).

For example, in season 8, Amanda weighed in at 207 and 202 in Weeks 8 and 9 - for a weight loss of 5 pounds or a percentage of weight loss of 2.42%. But what if she really lost 4.51 pounds? Or 5.49 pounds? (both of which The Biggest Loser rounds off to 5 pounds)

Lets examine the three "smallest" losers from week 11 to demonstrate how this rounding causes problems.

This means that Allen and Liz were on the chopping block. Being that week's two contestants with the smallest percentage of weight loss - they were subject to a vote and Allen was sent home.

But what if Amanda actually lost 6.51 pounds? And Allen and Liz actually lost 8.49 and 5.49 respectively? All of those numbers would have been rounded to the same whole numbers that The Biggest Loser actually used. But it would change the table to look like this:

Now we see that it's possible that Allen actually lost a higher percentage of weight than Amanda. And, thus, it's possible that he shouldn't have been sent home.

I did the same analysis with the numbers from weeks 9 and 10. I found, again, that in week 9 Amanda could have fallen below the Yellow Line (this time, Rudy would have been saved from the chopping block even though he didn't end up being sent home).

So The Biggest Loser's bad math could have sent the wrong person to the chopping block (and the wrong person home) at least twice in just three weeks! What the heck?

I think you've officially broken the record for number of fonts used in a single advertisement (ten according to my count). And it includes Papyrus!

(click for full ad and ALL the glorious fonts)

Stay classy Olive Garden.

If you had to guess, what do you think is written on the sign that hangs where the arrow points above? (next to the tennis courts across the channel from the Science Museum)

Was a misspelled prohibition of rollerblading your first guess?

I wonder what was going on in those tennis courts circa 1991 that made the good people of Beacon Hill demand that sign?

I'm sure it was hellish.

Mouse over the white boxes for the answer to each component.

water, sugar, pear and grape juice concentrates, citric acid, water extracted orange and pineapple juice concentrates, natural flavor, vitamin E acetate
What I would use to make it: water
What they call it: Fruit punch flavored juice drink blend

whey (from milk), cheese culture, salt, enzymes, soybean oil, dried corn syrup, enzyme modified cheese, sodium phosphate, whey protein concentrate, lactic acid, sodium alginate, vinegar, calcium phosphate, potassium chloride, sorbic acid, natural flavor, apocarotenal
What I would use to make it: Cheese
What they call it: Nacho Cheese Dip

water, tomato paste, green chili peppers, vinegar, dehydrated onions, high fructose corn syrup, salt, modified food starch, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers, garlic powder, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, citric acid, spices
What I would use to make it: tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onion, chiles, olive oil, cilantro
What they call it: Salsa

yellow corn, vegetable oil, corn or cottonseed oil, salt
What I would use to make it: About the same/wouldn't make them
What they call it: Tortilla Chips

And what did all of these wonderfully over-processed components come packages as?

Click here for the answer

Nice title. "Adam Balsam: North End Blogger". I like the ring of that.

I want to point out that the essence of the original blog post was that there is nearly 100% non-compliance and next to zero repercussions.

My stance is that we should change the laws to reflect what is really being ticketed (gross non-compliance) or enforce the laws that we currently have (which we clearly aren't). I trust that our elected officials can figure out which is more prudent.

What drives me nuts is the current situation. The situation in which I'm told that I can't put trash out in a white bag but not told exactly why - and, most importantly, not punished if I do. That doesn't exactly instill a sense of confidence in those making the decisions.

Time to celebrate, Canadian style.

BTW, does anyone know who Parise plays for? He had a hell of game for the good guys, but a table full of hockey fans (excluding myself) could only come up with, "I'm pretty sure he was with the Islanders at some point".