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The Real Kato
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Recent Comments
| On College Football 2022: Week 6 Recap and Week 7 Pre... Ken said: |
| Yeah, we've both had our share of hope and disappointment in this game. Let's just hope for a good b... |
| On College Football 2022: Week 6 Recap and Week 7 Pre... Dan* said: |
| I'm not sure how I feel about this game. On one hand, I feel pretty optimistic that we have the tale... |
| On College Football 2022: Week 1 Preview Dan* said: |
| Glad to see you'll be back writing football again, Ken! Congrats on the easy win today. You didn't ... |
| On College Football 2021: Week 10 Recap and Week 11 P... Ken said: |
| Yeah, sorry one of our teams had to lose. I've come to appreciate Penn State as a classy and sympath... |
| On College Football 2021: Week 10 Recap and Week 11 P... Dan* said: |
| Hey Ken, congratulations on the win yesterday! Some really odd choices by our coaching staff in that... |
Articles: interesting
Page 1| Frozen Lunches: The Year-End Wrap-Up | Friday, 2010 December 24 - 2:17 pm |
| Well, that's the end of my year-long experiment. All told, I reviewed 131 frozen meals; not quite the 150 I had planned, but still a good chunk. Here's the year-end wrap-up. Read more... |
Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: food, interesting, site-business |
| Rainbow in Kauai | Saturday, 2010 August 21 - 8:48 pm |
A perfect rainbow appeared while sailing around Kauai. Click on the image for a larger version. |
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Posted by Ken in: interesting, life |
| Waimea Canyon | Saturday, 2010 August 21 - 6:41 pm |
This is a panoramic photo of Waimea Canyon on the island of Kauai. Click on the image for a larger version. |
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Posted by Ken in: interesting, life |
| Ken's Tacky Christmas Tour 2009 | Friday, 2009 December 18 - 8:30 pm |
| You may remember Tacky Christmas Tour 2005, where I took you on a wondrous journey of North Carolina Christmas decorating. I have some new treats for you, after the jump... Read more... |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: funnyhaha, interesting, life |
| Wondering | Tuesday, 2009 November 3 - 8:16 am |
| Why is the process of making something cold called refrigeration? It's not like it was previously naturally, uh, frigerated. Also, it bothers me that the abbreviation for "refrigerator" is "fridge" with a "d" in it. Of course, while I was growing up, our family called it the "rif", which didn't make much sense either. |
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Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Word of the Day | Monday, 2009 November 2 - 9:56 am |
| The word of the day is "cinereal", which means "ashen" (as in "grey"), because it's so grey outside today. I would totally have thought the word had something to do with documentaries, as in "cinema + reality". But it actually comes from the Latin word cineris, meaning "of ashes". By the way, I've signed up for NaBloPoMo this month, so expect many more posts in this vein. |
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Posted by Ken in: bloggers, interesting |
| Five Lessons: How to tell how old you are | Tuesday, 2009 October 27 - 5:43 pm |
| It's been a while since I've posted a "Five Lessons" blog. I kinda ran dry on interesting topics. Five signs you're a guy who's either under 25 or over 65: 1. Your pants are too big for you. Under 25: "These pants are gangsta. You're lucky I don't bust a cap in ya ass." Over 65: "These pants are comfortable. You're lucky I'm wearing pants at all." 2. You call people "son" even though they're not your son. Under 25: "I own your ass in 'Call of Duty', son." Over 65: "I own 200 shares of Standard Oil, son." 3. You know nothing about politics. Under 25: you don't know who your senator is, but you're pretty sure you voted for the other guy. Over 65: you don't know who the President is, but you're pretty sure things were better under Eisenhower. 4. You're a lousy driver. Under 25: you talk on your cell phone while driving. Over 65: you tried to make a phone call using the stereo while you were driving. 5. You wear a baseball cap that you got for free. Under 25: the cap probably says "ass" on it. Over 65: the cap probably has a picture of a bass on it. |
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Posted by Ken in: funnyhaha, interesting |
| The Great Escalator Versus Stairs Debate | Sunday, 2009 September 27 - 3:17 pm |
| I had an interesting discussion with some co-workers a while back. The question posed was: if you walk up an escalator that's going down (i.e., you go the wrong way on a down escalator, at an upward speed exactly opposite the downward speed of the escalator), would that give you the same amount of exercise as if you walked the equivalent number of stationary stairs? Read more... |
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Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Five Lessons: Foreign Words | Monday, 2009 August 17 - 10:01 pm |
| Today's lesson: five cool foreign words or phrases that you can work into your everyday vocabulary. Read more... |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Five Quotes | Thursday, 2009 August 13 - 11:53 pm |
I've been having trouble coming up with a new Five Lessons topic, so I'm doing something a little different today. My friend Anna wants each of her friends to come up with an original quote to put on a wall. So far I've come up with these possibilities:
I kinda wanted the quotes to be funnier, but I didn't want to sacrifice profundity. Anyone have their own original quotes? And I do mean original, not something you read somewhere. |
| Permalink 4 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Five Lessons: Probability and Statistics | Tuesday, 2009 August 4 - 5:27 pm |
| For today: Five Lessons in Probability and Statistics.. The math behind probability is fairly straightforward, but it often leads to counterintuitive results that confuse a lot of people. I've written to some degree about this topic before. I find this kind of stuff interesting; I guess I just like proving that intuition isn't a substitute for real thought. So here we go... Read more... |
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Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Five Lessons: Macroeconomics | Thursday, 2009 July 23 - 10:48 pm |
| Today's lesson: Five Lessons in Macroeconomics. Or, Five Things Conservatives Get Wrong About the Economy. This one is a little political, so sorry. Also, I'm just an armchair economist, so while I've put a fair amount of thought into these arguments, I'm not going to claim enough expertise to be 100% sure I'm right. Enough disclaimers. On with the smackdown. Read more... |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, politics |
| Five Lessons: Hard-to-Explain Rules in Sports | Sunday, 2009 July 19 - 11:27 am |
| This is a new feature here on realkato.com. Periodically, I'm going to start posting five (hopefully informative) tidbits on a particular topic. We'll see if this feature lasts longer than my earlier "Learn Something Every Day" feature that fizzled after a few days. If there are particular topics you'd like me to cover, let me know. Today's topic: Five Hard-to-Explain Rules in Sports. The assumption here is that you're a casual sports spectator who knows the basics about a sport, but then some obscure rule comes into play that leaves you wondering what happened. Read more... |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, sports |
| New Zealand Anti-Drinking Ad 3 | Monday, 2008 August 18 - 8:57 am |
| And, one more. |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, television |
| New Zealand Anti-Drinking Ad 2 | Monday, 2008 August 18 - 8:56 am |
| Here's another one. |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, television |
| New Zealand Anti-Drinking Ad | Monday, 2008 August 18 - 8:52 am |
| I found the anti-drinking advertisement on YouTube. I had a few details wrong, but I had the gist of it. Here it is. |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, television |
| Best News of the Day | Tuesday, 2008 April 22 - 9:34 pm |
| Masturbation May Prevent Prostate Cancer. |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: funnyhaha, interesting |
| Learn Something Every Day | Tuesday, 2008 April 15 - 12:33 pm |
| It's possible to be allergic to water. Sort of. Maybe. Specifically, there's a very rare condition called aquagenic urticaria (water-related hives) that causes a person's skin to react to water with rashes and blisters. Supposedly, there was a famous case of this some years ago, where a girl named Heidi Falconer was diagnosed with the problem; she had to be treated with a Swedish foam product that created a waterproof barrier for her skin, so she could do everyday things like taking a shower. This smells a lot like an urban legend, and there's very little reliable medical information on this condition out there on teh Internets. So I'm not really sure how real this all is. "Aquagenic urticaria" is more of a symptom description than an actual disease, and some suspect that hypersensitivity to chlorine is a more likely cause of the problem than water itself. Also, it doesn't appear to be a histamine reaction, like most allergies. So "allergic to water" might be stretching the truth a little bit. |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Learn Something Every Day | Friday, 2008 April 4 - 1:48 pm |
| I'm a few days behind with factoids, so I'll post several today. There's little scientific evidence that drinking 64 ounces of water every day is necessary or beneficial. No one is quite sure where the "8 8-ounce glasses" standard came from, but the new thinking is more like the old thinking: drink when you're thirsty. The word "disquisition" means "an elaborate analytical or explanatory essay or discussion". I'm not sure if there's a Spanish translation for that word, but then again, NOBODY expects a Spanish disquisition. There are three elements that begin with the letter "D": dysprosium (Dy), Dubnium (Db) and Darmstadtium (Ds). Of the three, only dysprosium occurs in nature. Also, there are no elements that begin with the letter "W", unless you count "wolfram", which is more commonly known as tungsten (W). These facts may help you if you're trying to name all the elements from memory. |
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Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Learn Something Every Day | Monday, 2008 March 31 - 11:17 am |
| Today's factoid: Fructose melts at 104°C (219°F). Dextrose and glucose melt at 146°C (295°F). Sucrose melts at 186°C (367°F). The reason I'm interested in this is because I'm trying to figure out if the slow-cooking process I use for beef ribs will, in fact, allow me to use add barbecue sauce during the cooking phase. The sweetener in most bottled barbecue sauces is high-fructose corn syrup (a mixture of fructose and glucose). So presumably, if the cooking temperature reaches the melting point of fructose, you'll start to get carmelization in the sauce, and that will destroy the flavor. Cooking at 200°F should be low enough to avoid that. But I think I may have to experiment with it before trying it out on my rib-loving friends. |
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Posted by Ken in: food, interesting |
| Learn Something Every Day | Friday, 2008 March 28 - 4:24 pm |
| You can use the fresnel lens from a projection TV to make a solar mirror that's powerful enough to boil a quarter in 25 seconds. Kids: do not try this at home. A completely unrelated fact: Today I discovered that teenagers are throwing around the term "sponge-worthy" without understanding what it means. Kids: do not use this phrase at home. |
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Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Learn Something Every Day | Thursday, 2008 March 27 - 7:12 pm |
| Today's factoid: In most of Northern England, the dialect doesn't have what's called the foot-strut split. This means that in that area, "cut" and "put" rhyme, as do "pudding" and "budding". I've long had a fascination with all the varieties of English accents. Most Americans only recognize one or two different kinds of accents from the British Isles, usually Received Pronunciation (RP, or "the Queen's English") and cockney. But someone from England could probably place another British person's accent to within 25 miles. Conversely, British people only recognize two or three American accents, like Midwestern, Southern, and sometimes Bostonian. I'd say the majority of Americans north of the Mason-Dixon line can recognize the distinctiveness of accents from Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and New York (even distinguishing Manhattan, the Bronx, and Long Island); most Southerners can recognize the difference between accents from North Carolina, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia. (Note for non-Southerners: I have yet to meet someone who has the stereotypical "plantation" accent from "Gone With the Wind". That'd be like meeting a New Yorker who still talks like Edward G. Robinson.) |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Learn Something Every Day | Wednesday, 2008 March 26 - 10:27 pm |
| In the course of surfing the Internet (and researching answers for Yahoo Answers), I do several dozen Google searches a day. (There you go, a plug for both Yahoo and Google in one sentence.) And I find that I learn a few interesting things every day. So I'm gonna try a new regular blog feature: "Learn Something Every Day". I'll try to post at least one random fact I discovered or looked up that day. Today I looked up a bunch of stuff about the cost of the Iraq war and the cost of U.S. energy consumption, but I covered most of that in my last post. So instead of those facts, I'll tell you about potatoes. Did you know? Potatoes are very good for you. They're loaded with Vitamin C, potassium, B vitamins, and dietary fiber. They kind of have a bad reputation as a starchy food with empty calories, but a potato has half the calories of a serving of rice, and considerably more nutrients. So, enjoy that potato! Just go easy on the butter. |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: food, interesting |
| Oh, the Drama | Thursday, 2008 March 13 - 9:55 pm |
| Well, I'm up to Level 4 on Yahoo Answers now. I've answered 325 questions, in topics ranging from law to, uh, vaginal discharge. And you know, up until now, I never would have thought the phrase "vaginal discharge" would appear on this blog. Twice. Read more... |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: dating, interesting |
| Debate on Whether God Exists | Sunday, 2008 February 10 - 8:17 pm |
| I found this fascinating: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (best known for his TV show, "Shalom in the Home") engaged the noted atheist author Christopher Hitchens in a debate on whether God exists. Read more... |
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Posted by Ken in: commentary, interesting |
| Hell Yeah the Plane Takes Off | Thursday, 2008 January 31 - 9:10 am |
For fans of kottke.org and/or Mythbusters, I'm sure you were very interested in last night's Mythbusters episode, where they attempted to answer the old "plane on a conveyor belt" question. I've blogged about it before, but here's the problem again, in case you haven't seen it:A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off? The answer is, as Kottke put it, "HELL YEAH THE PLANE TAKES OFF". Mythbusters demonstrably proved it, not just with a model airplane on a miniature conveyor, but with a real airplane sitting on a giant sheet of tarp, being pulled by a truck in an opposite direction of the airplane. Read more... |
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Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Make Me a Millionaire | Wednesday, 2007 December 19 - 4:13 pm |
| In a recent article on Kottke.org, Jason prompted his readers to come up with a word that means "writing a blog comment or Twitter update, thinking better of it, and then discarding it by closing the browser tab without clicking 'Post'". I suggested "cwop", derived from "closed without posting". Usage: "I was going to comment on that article, but I cwopped out instead." My suggestion has received a few votes in the comment section. Please vote for me, because if it wins, I will undoubtedly receive a million dollars from the grateful Internet community. |
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Posted by Ken in: bloggers, interesting |
| A Test | Sunday, 2007 October 14 - 8:47 pm |
| This will test whether you're left-brained, right-brained, or just plain nuts. Read more... |
| Permalink 5 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Critical Thinking | Tuesday, 2007 September 18 - 11:41 pm |
| How would you do on a Google interview? Or... as President? Read more... |
| Permalink 9 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Random Thoughts | Wednesday, 2007 May 9 - 10:28 pm |
| A five-minute span inside my head. Read more... |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Let Me Talk To You About Jesus | Wednesday, 2007 May 2 - 10:31 pm |
| Or, "My God Is Not a Bearded White Man". I have some literature which may interest you. Read more... |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: commentary, interesting |
| Belief-O-Matic | Wednesday, 2006 October 25 - 6:10 am |
| What do you believe? Read more... |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| More Miscellany | Tuesday, 2006 August 29 - 9:25 am |
| Toilet news; a study on being overweight; and this year's "Survivor". Read more... |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: commentary, interesting, television |
| Opps | Tuesday, 2006 July 25 - 11:24 pm |
| The fascinating world of Internet history and lexicology. Read more... |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, techwatch |
| Humuhumunukunukuapuaa | Wednesday, 2006 April 19 - 8:32 pm |
| No, really. Humuhumunukunukuapuaa. Read more... |
| Permalink 4 Comment
Posted by Ken in: funnyhaha, interesting |
| Sign Generators | Wednesday, 2006 April 12 - 9:15 am |
| Dang, I love Internet sign generators. Read more... |
| Permalink 2 Comment
Posted by Ken in: funnyhaha, interesting |
| Counter-Intuitive | Tuesday, 2006 February 14 - 9:08 am |
| A couple of critical thinking puzzles for you. Try not to hurt your think bone. Read more... |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Things We Need | Wednesday, 2006 January 25 - 11:56 pm |
| After tens of thousands of years, we're still using the same old utensils. Read more... |
| Permalink 4 Comment
Posted by Ken in: food, funnyhaha, interesting |
| Briefly | Thursday, 2006 January 5 - 8:21 am |
| Wonkette is retiring; a California couple leaves their kids home alone; mooning is legal; Texas defeats USC; blonde joke. Read more... |
| Permalink 4 Comment
Posted by Ken in: commentary, funnyhaha, interesting, sports |
| Pervasive Geekdom | Tuesday, 2005 October 4 - 2:35 am |
| The geek shall inherit the earth. Read more... |
| Permalink 4 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| Jive Talkin' | Monday, 2005 September 5 - 10:28 am |
| Everyone talks funny... and I'm cool with that. Read more... |
| Permalink 3 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting |
| On Japan | Sunday, 2005 August 14 - 10:27 pm |
| My thoughts on Japan and its culture. I had intended to write something like this two years ago, but that was before I started blogging, so I didn't have an outlet for it. Read more... |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: commentary, interesting |
| Minimum Wage | Sunday, 2005 June 26 - 11:52 pm |
| Do you think it's enough? Read more... |
| Permalink 3 Comment
Posted by Ken in: commentary, interesting |
| If Only I Had A... | Thursday, 2005 June 2 - 11:47 pm |
| I've been accumulating a list things that need to be invented. Here are a few of my ideas. Read more... |
| Permalink 8 Comment
Posted by Ken in: commentary, interesting, science |
| The Way of Kato | Saturday, 2005 May 21 - 11:09 pm |
| Having talked at length about what I don't believe, here is the treatise on what I do believe. Read more... |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: commentary, interesting |
| So Where Are the Flying Cars? | Sunday, 2005 May 15 - 11:45 pm |
| It's 2005. Aren't we living in The Future by now? Read more... |
| Permalink 6 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, science |
| The Phase | Sunday, 2005 May 15 - 3:22 pm |
| Believe it or not, there was a time in my life when I considered myself to be a born-again evangelical Christian. Read more... |
| Permalink 9 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, life |
| Blog Note: Site Updates... and Recap | Friday, 2005 May 13 - 11:49 pm |
| Looking back on twenty months of blogging. Read more... |
| Permalink 3 Comment
Posted by Ken in: interesting, site-business |
| Stale or Boss? | Saturday, 2005 April 16 - 11:59 pm |
| I want to resurrect some old expressions. Read more... |
| Permalink 1 Comment
Posted by Ken in: funnyhaha, interesting |
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