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The tide is turning... the enemy is suffering terrible losses... -- Gen. George A. Custer |
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| Today is Bureaucracy 27, 3176 |
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DRT is on a short hiatus! We should resume our usual madness in a couple more days. In the meantime, please amuse yourself with our archives or see what's happening at The Cabal
| How To Buy a Jet | | | | Ever since Bill Lear revolutionized the private jet market with the introduction of his Learjet 23 in 1964, corporate chief executives and wealthy travelers have been flying in style on custom jet aircraft. The business jet has become so common that most passengers are middle management types. In fact, it's now a buyer's market. | | | [P] No Backtalk |
| The History of Felt Hats | | <via art for housewives> | | To this day there are three varieties of felt used for hat making. Wool felt, fur felt and Beaver felt. Beaver felt hats date back as far as the 14th Century with the majority of production being based in Holland and Spain. European Beaver skins were first sent to Russia to be used as coat trimmings and then re-imported into Holland as used furs would felt more easily. By the early-mid 1600s the beaver's European breeding grounds became exhausted, after which time North America became the main supplier of skins to the trade. The United States also became an important manufacturer of hats although in 1731 England passed a Hat Act that prohibited the export of hats from the USA. In the 18th Century Beaver Felt was still the preferred material for headwear, although a mixture of felts, beaver and wool, beaver and fur felt, became increasingly popular for the less expensive hats. | | Irrelated Posts: A Brief History of Body Odor | | [P] No Backtalk |
| Exploiting the Gramma Loophole | | <via Godlorica> | Sabbath law prohibits Jews from performing actions that cause a direct reaction; that would qualify as forbidden work. But indirect reactions are, well, kosher. In Hebrew, this concept is called the gramma. There are two types of grammas, Ottensoser tells me. Say you hit a light switch, but it doesn't come on immediately - that's a time delay, a time gramma. There's also a gramma of mechanical indirectness, like a Rube Goldberg contraption in which a mouse turns a wheel that swings a hammer that turns a key that launches a rocket. You can't claim the mouse actually launches the rocket.
Ottensoser gets manufacturers to build the easier time gramma into their products. Rabbis differ on how much of a delay is required; the Star-K rabbinical authority, Moshe Heinemann, authorizes a 5-second lag. To be on the safe side, Ottensoser increased the delay to 15 seconds and a random wait of as much as 10 seconds. Why? "An indirect action is one where you can't predict what's going to happen," he says. | | Irrelated Posts: The loophole Loophole | | [P] 3 Backtalks |
| Are You Ready To Be Possessed? | | | | It's almost time for possession season to start and I know that you've probably been too busy to prepare yourself for whichever one of the many manifestations will manipulate your mind this year what with all the fuss about the World Cup and the approaching asteroid about to destroy all life on Earth but never fear! for the world's leading, self-proclaimed possessxpert™ is on hand. | | | [P] 1 Backtalk |
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