Exasperated Calculator

The 100 most notable books of 2007.

Plenty of books that you won’t have seen yet. Plenty that I’ll never even consider reading as well…

The horrible shoes ‘Crocs’ are not only ugly, but also dangerous.

I really don’t understand the Crocs thing. For kids, sure - kids have no taste and do stupid things. But all the adults? Arrrgggh!

A $1 per gallon increase in petrol price would reduce obesity by 15 per cent.

Makes a nice amount of sense on an intuitive level too. Makes you wonder what the other unintended consequences of a carbon tax might be.

From a very funny column by Michael Lewis:

This is what happens when you lend money to poor people.

As always, with these things, there’s a bit of a grain of truth in there. Especially in this bit:

I trusted these people to get their teams of lawyers to vet anything before they signed it. Turns out, if you’re poor, you don’t need to pay lawyers. You don’t like the deal you just wave your hands in the air and moan about how poor you are. Then you default.

A clock in France’s Pantheon was fixed by “cultural guerillas” who broke in and conducted their restoration in secret.

It’s a wonderful idea. Of course, if it’s a Harry Seidler building conventional guerillas might be preferred.

Don’t send your children out on railroad tracks for coal.

OK, it’s from the 1920s. Which just shows the ‘warning about the obvious’ thing some liability specialists love to point out isn’t that new a trend.

Furniture pieces that you can use to build almost an infinite range of shapes.

It’s a good thing I don’t have one of these. I’d never stop rearranging it while watching TV.

10 of the best from SkyMall.

Incredible proof of the imminent destruction of society. The Hitch Critters are very scary.

Star Wars recast with various celebrities.

As with all Worth1000 contests, some of the entries are quite poor. But the best 10 or so are pretty clever.

The Discovery Channel is casting for a show where you have to construct Rube Goldberg machines.

OK, it could be a lot of fun. But it’s far more likely that it’d suck. Hope they work that strike out quickly.

Well, it’s all over.

The final polls were pretty close, with the final two party preferred result favouring the ALP 53 to 47. The ALP has won at least 83 seats so far, and is likely to pick up another four.

Kevin Rudd will be the next Prime Minister, with the cabinet to be announced later this week.

Ex-PM Howard looks to be defeated in his seat of Bennelong. If not, he’ll surely resign. Peter Costello has announced his retirement as of the next election, and will be on the back bench. Mark Vaile, Ex-Deputy PM, has also announced he will not seek the leadership of The Nationals. The Liberal leadership is open, and will be decided in the next couple of weeks.

An architect using Lego for the scale model of his house.

Hopefully that kit will be released soon. Bigger than even the Millenium Falcon kit.

Some simple advice for better presentations.

The average slide presentation I see is pretty bad. There are a lot of features in most of the software packages like Power Point that should never, ever be used.

Robotech and Voltron movies are coming soon.

There’s a 1 per cent chance these would be good. But it’s far more likely they will destroy everything good about these shows.

The story of the most famous political advert of all time.

The “Daisy” advert only ever ran once as an advert. But it’s been probably been shown more often than any other political advert ever.

The 10 biggest flops in video games.

Just wait until Spore comes out, I’m sure it’ll make it to this list.

Why economists use maths.

Cold comfort for those awaiting their results from ANU, of course.

Two bookcases designed for people who prefer design to actually storing books.

Very pretty. But I have to admit a preference for the bookcases that store thousands of books rather than look pretty.

A flat-pack wooden mallet.

Very clever. But very expensive, and without any kind of practical use whatsoever.

15 Castles built by people who didn’t know what they were doing.

Jim Bishop’s castle in particular is quite cool.