William Entriken

Stand-up comedy is usually a one-person act presenting a story, analysis of a situation, or short jokes following some theme.  I have reviewed myriad comedy acts from the 1900s and helped to distill for your listening pleasure. There are other sites on the internet that are quick to point out top selling comedians or comedy acts, even some comedy albums. Upon reviewing these, you will quickly find that stand-up comedy is actually a more modern (1940s on) thing. And looking back, some of the comedians on those lists are comparable to a modern David Letterman. Either way, onward! How do you judge a good stand-up routine? Well first it has to be standup; outside of the below FIVE STAR list, some notable non-stand-up bits have been included. You have to imagine you are in the theater, with a light buzz, and in good company. This is hard because all the recorded acts have laugh tracks included, and it is easy to bias towards acts with a bigger following. An example is Wendy Liebman ...

This post stolen directly from Cruciverb mailing list with credit to John Farmer and research from the team led by Marc Brysbaert. Cruciverb is the forum for people that design crossword puzzles for the big newspapers. The possies I roll with, you don't even want to know... ---------------------------- Saw an article today on some differences between men and women in recognizing words of the English language.  Apparently we don't all share the same language.  (And this is news?)  Based on Ghent University study covering about 500,000 vocab tests, the lists below provide the dozen words better known to men and the dozen better known to women. For each word, numbers in parentheses are the percentage of men who knew the word followed by the percentage of women.  In brackets, I added the number of appearances in NY Times crosswords since 1975, by editor - Shortz, Maleska, Weng (per Xword Info; other DBs will have different data, of course). Source: http://www.bu...

In an embarrassing echo of "politically correct" language from the 1990's, a scientific press release illustrates why black people should be called black people: New FDA Nutrition Labels Will Help Consumers Choose More Wisely, Says American Heart Association  http://newsroom.heart.org/news/new-fda-nutrition-labels-will-help-consumers-choose-more-wisely-says-american-heart-association  ...  Finally, we applaud the agency’s requirement that potassium, a key nutrient, will now be listed on food labels. We know that diets high in potassium help decrease the negative impact of sodium. This is especially true for African-Americans, who consume less potassium, tend to be more sensitive to sodium and have higher prevalence of high blood pressure than other people . The faux pas here suggests that black people (even "people of African descent") have a higher sensitivity to sodium (Rosalind, 2000) but only while located in America but not, for example, Mexico....

Freedom Pop has cheaper rates for economically disadvantaged ("poor") subscribers. Additionally they have will allow you turn off the " Auto Top-Off " option. This stops you from getting daily $10 fees while using the internet. To do this, sign up using connect to compete https://www.fcc.gov/maps/connect-compete-home-broadband-coverage-map and use a ZIP code in an economically disadvantaged ZIP Code. Calling is a list of the ZIP Codes in Pennsylvania. The secret if you don't live in one of these ZIP Codes you can still get services. Simply use the nearest ZIP Code geographically to you. This will confuse their sign-up process. 15003 15012 15014 15018 15022 15027 15028 15030 15031 15033 15034 15035 15038 15045 15051 15056 15059 15062 15064 15065 15066 15067 15074 15075 15076 15081 15083 15084 15088 15089 15104 15110 15112 15120 15132 15133 15136 15137 15140 15145 15148 15201 15202 15203 15204 15206 15207 1...

Author Robert Gates Publisher Knopf Publication Date January 14, 2014 ISBN 0307959473 Pages 618 Date Read May 2014       Robert Gates is a capable writer, able to easily take the storyline of his time as Secretary of Defense and separate it into themes each with their own timelines while maintaining a flow that helps illustrate the complexities of the role. Gates gives an interesting and close look into largest employer in the world by sharing senior tactical decisions used to support the mission. The many interactions discussed let you see how responsibility, accountability and military authorization are shared between bureaucrats and legislators and generals and lower officers. There is also a great amount of information and opinions about some our foreign relations with some friends (Russia?, Saudi Arabia, Israel?) and enemies (Pakistan). A close attention to timing and geography in the book, which includes many such details, versus the names an...

When's the last time you heard a TV commercial to drink more water? How about a radio ad to eat more fruit. Have you ever seen a pop-up banner telling you to turn the computer off and spend more time with the family? As we march into the future, messages that are put in front of everyday folk are increasingly commercial and increasing personal. If you are watching a TV show, product placements are put in to give you a certain association with cool people. If you are using any website, your entire surfing history is mined to find the banner ads you are most likely to convert on. As we spend ever more time with "media", the media is being supported by more advertising, and the sales people are getting smarter and have access to more data. Luckily consumers have responded in kind, now able to easily ignore large classes of advertisements and misinformation. To stay alive in this world today without succumbing to diabetes from bullshit beverages, debt from buying too...