Know whereof you speak, before you speak

Or, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt."

"The New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell explains how good teeth go bad: 'People without health insurance have bad teeth because, if you're paying for everything out of your own pocket, going to the dentist for a checkup seems like a luxury.'  The British, of course, have socialized medicine, which we guess explains why they have such great teeth." --- James Taranto

I think he's trying (not very effectively) to be sarcastic there.  (The give-away being, of course, that he said something nice about socialized medicine.  In my experience, when Americans, particularly "conservative" ones, say nice things about socialized medicine, it's always meant to be sarcasm.)  Ironically, I should note for the record that I'm a British citizen, I'm currently 45 years old, and I have never in my life had a cavity.  Not one.  Stuff that up your attitude, James Taranto.

TV by the terabyte ... if you live in Japan

Hitachi just released a digital video recorder with a terabyte of storage, "enough to record about 128 hours of high-definition digital broadcasting", the ability to record two HDTV streams from different channels simultaneously, and a built-in DVD writer.

[Hitachi] hopes its new line-up, which also includes models able to store 160 gigabytes, 250 gigabytes and 500 gigabytes of data, will help boost its market share and turn its loss-making DVD recorder business profitable in October-March, the second half of the business year.

Assuming the market lasts long enough before the MPAA manages to buy enough laws from Congress to make it illegal to record anything off your TV at all....

The recorders will go on sale in Japan from next month. They are expected to retail from about 130,000 yen ($1,180) for the cheapest model to 230,000 yen for the one-terabyte recorder, which stores data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives.

[...]

Hitachi said it did not have concrete plans for launching the products in overseas markets, explaining that consumers in Europe and the United States were not as keen on high-end recorders.

Not to mention that the US entertainment industry is trying hard to commit suicide by killing off the market altogether.

PSA: Underhanded marketing tactics

I got what looked for all the world like a bill for a National Geographic subscription renewal today.

There's just one problem ... we don't subscribe to National Geographic, and haven't entered a new order recently.  Careful examination revealed an explanation buried in the small print that says a renewal or new subscription will automatically be entered upon receipt of payment.  Unless I miss my guess, National Geographic is banking on people not looking closely at it, assuming another family member entered the order, and just paying it on the assumption that since it looks legit, it must be legit.  Hell, looking legitimate works for identity-stealing phishers, why shouldn't it work for selling subscriptions?

This is a dirty, underhanded trick, and my opinion of National Geographic just went down a big notch.