Exasperated Calculator: Star Trek & Economics
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A guide to English
[Petter Sellers runs through the various English accents](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLsVh6Qrpew). Quite brilliant.
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One last Halloween post
[How to make a fake bloody gash](http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/01/how-to-make-fake-gas.html). If only Australia took this one seriously, it could be quite a bit of fun. Try Georgetown (Washington DC) on Halloween to see what *real* Halloween is like.
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New ideas
[A push for plain English in US government forms and laws](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/28/AR2007102801146.html?nav=rss_politics). But, as always in politics, [George Orwell was there first](http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html).
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Timing
[Qantas buys 12 planes, and one week later that model is grounded in Europe](http://www.smh.com.au/news/news/safety-scare-qantas-on-alert/2007/10/29/1193555566931.html?s_cid=rss_news). Of course, this is far far better than *the other way around*.
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Management literature
[Why the movie *Saw* is good for middle managers](http://www.slate.com/id/2176637/fr/rss/). The *Saw* movies (and their close cousins, the *Hostel* movies) are the worst trash Hollywood has ever made.
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Pricing
Average fare from my house to Canberra Airport: $45-50 Current fare from [Canberra to Melbourne on Tiger](http://www.tigerairways.com/home/index.php): $49.95
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Election07: Alphabetic edition
*Announcements*: * ALP announces [a plan to save the Great Barrier Reef](http://alp.org.au/media/1007/msCCloopi290.php) ($200m). * Coalition announces [100 new Australian Technical Colleges](http://liberal.org.au/info/news/detail/20071029_100NewAustralianTechnicalColleges.php). ($270m, but $2 billion over ten years). *Other*: [Downer and McClelland to meet in a debate in mid November](http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/29/2073261.htm). *Line of the day*: Disendorsed family first candidate [Andrew Quah](http://www.smh.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/family-firsts-member-for-nowhere/2007/10/28/1193555533377.html), : > I might have…
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Hopefully not a trend
[The company anthem for computer game company Infogrames](http://www.joystiq.com/2007/09/12/infogrames-company-anthem-grrrrrl-you-have-no-idea/). The worst part is not actually the existence of the anthem so much as the words…
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Alarming
[A Darth Vader alarm clock](http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/clocks/darth-vader-alarm-clock-301128.php) Fortunately, my snooze button is more powerful than he can possibly imagine.
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Partying with cheese
[A cheeseboard that also works as a whiteboard](http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/27/dry-erase-cheese-boa.html). I shudder to think what would happen if this was allowed near most economists…