Author Archives: Jeff Porten

  • Josh Centers:
    Tonight, I’ve discovered what Catholic guilt truly is. Thank God for every day you have on Earth.

No offense, but I’d rather thank the researchers who saved my life in 1969.

  • Josh Centers:
    I thank them as well. :-) Sounds like you have an interesting story.

  • Michael Shane:
    Anyone who was there will tell you: Las Vegas is a seltzer wasteland. A nightmarish post-apocalyptic hell world devoid of fizzy water.

Next time, try Chipotle on the Strip next to Harrah’s. There’s a soda button on the dispenser.

Attention all friends with Keurigs: you have completely trained me out of remembering to pour water in my hotel coffee pots.

  • Glenn Fleishman:
    Officially: K.I.T.T. or KITT? I mean, MASH was M*A*S*H. My house style is “no periods in abbreviations.”
  • Dan Moren:
    KITT! No periods needed if it’s not going to be confused with a word!
  • Glenn Fleishman:
    Says _you_. I was trying to find out how they spelled it in the series; if they ever showed KITT’s name.

The way I remember it, it was printed with periods on the dashboard in-show.

Torture doesn’t work. Again.

Posted on

Zero Dark Thirty: Why It’s So Important to Rebut Claims That Torture Works

Trained interrogators, in fact, argue that if some detainees did know about the courier who ultimately led the CIA to bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader could have been caught much earlier had those detainees been interrogated properly — not eight years later.

The accomplished Air Force interrogator who goes by the pseudonym Matthew Alexander told me in 2011 that, subjected to physical and psychological brutality, detainees “gave us the bare minimum amount of information they could get away with to get the pain to stop, or to mislead us.”

Although lightsabers against John Boehner are still under consideration

Posted on

In a more perfect world, the Obama administration would earn 30-40 approval points from online replies like these:

This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

  • The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
  • The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
  • Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

  • Roberto Baldwin:
    “Puppy!” “Don’t look At the puppy…” “Ok” Not looking at the puppy has been the hardest thing I’ve done all week.
  • Heather Kelly:
    Idea! What If CES companies replaced booth babes with puppies? They’d get so more attention. From me anyway.

clearly, SOMEONE needs to sit down and watch the entire Underdog series.

  • Rob Griffiths:
    This should be required equipment in every hotel room. Three power outlets and two USB ports on the desk.

or you can buy that adapter at Walgreens for $17.95.

  • Rob Griffiths:
    But then I’d have to remember to bring it…and I already have enough trouble remembering to bring the other stuff :)

I have a small number of things that go with me 24/7. That’s one of them.

  • Glenn Fleishman:
    If someone took my words, shorn of my byline and my permission, from a random place on the Web, they would be attacked for piracy. (1/2)

not that “attacked for piracy” has any teeth unless you have a battalion of lawyers.

  • Dan Moren:
    This astronaut ice cream tastes too much like astronaut.

Haven’t figured out if you’re on the CES team, and if you are, where the hell are you getting astronaut ice cream?

  • Dan Moren:
    I am not. I happened to have a pack in my house.
  • Glenn Fleishman:
    It always tastes to me like a bad joke played on children by parents and NASA.

This article includes, IMO, the best one-liner I’ve written in… well, maybe ever. Let’s see if anyone agrees with me on which one it is.

http://tidbits.com/article/13492 TidBITS CES 2013: Showstoppers from Useful to Insane

  • Jason Snell:
    This episode cold-opens with a cool away mission with Worf and Riker fighting alien creatures. Cool! “Holodeck off.” BOOOOO.
  • Glenn Fleishman:
    Post-CES hallucinations?

I swear, I saw *FIVE* convention halls.

  • Rob Pegoraro:
    That moment at CES when the boarding pass for tomorrow’s flight home shows up on your phone. Yay!

tomorrow? Only way I survive the week is with a poker vacation after.

  • Jacqui Cheng:
    10am on a Thursday isn’t too early to start drinking, right?

If you’re still at CES, you’re two hours late. Bourbon should be on night table.

Oh. I knew you were smart, didn’t realize you were *that* smart.