randomwalks/dj

Justseeds will be tabling at the Portland Radical Book Fair this Sunday December 2nd, alongside many radical publishers from the Northwest. Portland locals come on down please! It's at Liberty Hall (311 N. Ivy.... near the intersection of Vancouver and Fremont). Also there will be a bunch of Justseeds stuff at Reading Frenzy's Cheap Art Show, Thursday December 6th. Reading Frenzy is at 921 SW Oak, downtown near Burnside and 10th, opens in the evening and the show is up all month.

Originally posted by icky from Just Seeds: Blog, on December 1, 2007 5:43 PM

(From WGA Member Joss Whedon, originally posted on Whedonesque)

We're a week away from Mutant Enemy Picket day! Since the AMPTP have generously offered us a thimble of sputum in exchange for everything written ever, I think it's fair to say it won't be a picnic.

And in two weeks, I'll be in Boston, speechifying (look for some long, fancy words, yo) and rallying shoulder to shoulder with, among other people, my dad, who somehow lived through both the '88 strike and my adolescence. Word. (Long fancy.)

And after that? Well, we might take this to the streets of some other cities. Get the word out, remind everyone that corporate greed (it's nothing but) is hurting everyone in this country. Not just because they're robbing people of entertainment (and, on occasion, art) and strangling an entire (non-writing) community, but because they're sending a message to every union in the country: you're next. The actors know that in their case, it's literally true, but it's also true for the concept of a unionized workforce. We get a lot of flack for being well-fed, glamorous, rich and powerful. We've worked hard to dispel that stereotype but in fact, a select few of us are wealthy and influential. And we have the support of some of the most famous and beloved (and wealthy and influential) people in the country: TV and movie stars! So the fact that the studios feel perfectly comfortable SPITTING IN OUR FACES in front of the whole world cannot bode well for any other union that works under them -- or under anyone who sees how easy it is to deny the basic rights of workers even so public as we. This is bad for writers, bad for actors, teamsters, teachers, nurses, dockworkers... the shape of this country is changing. The middle class is being squeezed out. We're trundling back to the middle ages, people, and all we can do is lie there and take it.

But of course, that's not what's going to happen. The studios mean to starve us out. They can't. We know what's at stake. We take care of our own, and those around us who aren't our own. We dig in. And eventually, if after months of deadlock we still can't make an equitable deal, you will start to see real change. Change in the way we entertain you, change in the essential structure of America's most popular export. (Unless it's corn. Is it corn?) The fact is, the studios have been robbing us for twenty years. (Actually, it's been much longer, but the statute of limitations says I should let 'em off easy.) This grotesque insult of a negotiation is the end of an era. It will be remembered as the stupidest move the conglomotainment empires ever made. WE ASKED FOR PRACTICALLY NOTHING. And they...

Something snaps. Something changes. Chaos, meet opportunity. Let them try to starve us out. We won't just survive. We will THRIVE. We're known as a creative community, and those numb f#$%ing frost-giants are about to find out we're a lot more of both than they knew.

If they come back to the table this very Tuesday next with the deal we need (and they won't), the change will still have come. The snap. The thing that broke, that can't be fixed. The eye, still wincing from the light, but finally wide open.

Good going, guys! Way to think it through.

Originally posted by Kate Purdy from United Hollywood, on December 1, 2007 5:20 PM

Thanks everyone for all your kind words and support. It really means a lot to me to hear you all say such nice things about the artists on Stolen Transmission.

Stolen Transmission started IN MY BEDROOM as an indie label putting out hand made cds of bands that me and Rob Stevenson believed in. We werent funded back then, and we were really happy. We did everything because of how much we loved

Originally posted by Sarah from sarah's so boring ever since she stopped drinking., on December 1, 2007 3:56 PM

Guitar Hero is a solid gold hit. A sell-out across all major gaming platforms, and the ebay/craigslist trade on second guitars (sans game) is booming. I enjoyed a perfect song recently, and I was rewarded with 5 embossed gold stars. But this got me thinking... there's nothing less rock & roll than 5 gold stars! I hate gold stars! Unfortunately I kept thinking.

Shouldn't I be able to make my own playlist? The music selection is geared for alternateens. With the Wii selling nearly two million units a month, and many of those sales ending up in the hands of older gamers (all the way up to retirement homes), shouldn't there be some wider choice of music? I appreciate Sonic Youth and The Stone Roses, but the game forces you to "play" through schlock, and that is a chore.

The game also punishes you for improvisation - it's DDR in a guitar neck. This is the third iteration of the series, and Mario and Katamari have shown us how satisfying games can be when you remove walls - shouldn't a game whose hear is live performance do the same, instead of mindlessly mashing buttons against a guitar tab? Likewise, there's a second level of performance in video games, which is playing the game in a social setting. When playing with friends, there's absolutely no visual interest in watching the screen, unless you want a headache.

Despite all that, Guitar Hero is exhilarating and addictive, and this underscores what a fantastic experience listening to music is, which reminds us how remarkable it is that the music industry has painted themselves in the corner. There's still a tremendous opportunity for music technology that breaks in instead of breaking down the more you experience it.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on December 1, 2007 4:36 AM

Examiner column for December 3.

 U.S. News and World Reports has published a list of the 100 best high schools in America. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is #1, with Langley and Oakton in Fairfax County and Walt Whitman, Thomas Wootten, and Winston Churchill in Montgomery County also in the top 100. I have spent the last 20 years teaching at two of them, so I know part of what makes these Washington area schools so great.

    First of all, we start out with good students. TJ, where I spent four years, vetted every student with extensive tests and teacher recommendations. My son was one of the lucky few chosen for the TJ graduating class of 1994. TJ is unparalleled in quality of courses and students.

    I taught 9th, 11th, and 12th grade there for four years, and I loved the students. They were loyal for years to come. I went to Juliette’s wedding when she was in graduate school, and read Eric’s short stories online years after he had graduated. Mike invited me to his graduation from Stanford. Andy, now working at the Library of Congress, keeps in touch by email. And my son married a TJ classmate whom he met after college---a testament to the powerful TJ network that bonds graduates to one another forever.

    Oakton High School, my home for the past 16 years, also has qualities that create a good learning environment. I confess that when I was forced to leave TJ due to staffing cuts, I couldn’t imagine a life teaching students who were not of that caliber. How could I do what was successful at TJ in a “regular” school, without losing the interest of the students?

    Well, guess what? I learned that “regular” students can handle challenging reading, writing, and discussions. At Oakton, I co-created a “Senior Seminar” that incorporates the interdisciplinary philosophy at the heart of TJ’s curriculum. I can’t claim that Senior Seminar is the reason Oakton scores high in this national ranking, but I do know that the enrollment of more than half the senior class in this double Advanced Placement course helps put Oakton among schools that expose many students to advanced courses, with no admission barriers to limit enrollment. I agree with College Board that open enrollment to the best classes is America’s solution to the education crisis.

    I was not happy when I had to leave TJ, but what I brought to Oakton was the knowledge that students are most responsive not when I am lecturing or even when they are working on projects--it is when they can talk about how books and classroom topics relate to their lives.

    Does our government have the right to watch us all the time? (“1984”) What makes for a good marriage? (“Their Eyes Were Watching God”) Does introspection justify inaction? (“Hamlet”) These were important questions debated at TJ, and later at Oakton.  In Senior Seminar, art mirrors life, and that keeps students engaged.

     Engagement is what makes the difference between rote learning and education. That is at least part of what makes a school among the best in America.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on December 1, 2007 3:45 AM

The Lowell Spinners, Boston’s affiliate in the short-season New York-Penn League, held their sixth annual Alumni Awards Dinner on Friday night.  This year’s guest of honor was Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon, who started his professional career in Lowell in 2003.  Papelbon, who went 1-2, 6.34 in 13 games as a Spinner, shared some of his wisdom prior to the event.

On the Johan Santana-to-Boston trade rumors:

“I think that a lot of fans are making it more complicated than it really is.  It’s a matter of us having to give up prospects to win now, or saving prospects to win later.  So what do you do?  I think we can (win now), but that’s not my decision.  Really, I think it’s the whole, ‘New York wants him, so we better go get him — blah, blah, blah; whatever.’  But I think a big key in this situation is that you know what you’re going to get out of Santana.  He’s a proven winner and a Cy Young Award winner.  Sometimes you think a minor league prospect has a ton of potential, but you don’t know what his potential really is until he gets there.  That’s the biggest thing — you know exactly what you’re going to get out of Santana.”

On going grocery shopping in the off season:

“I actually went grocery shopping for the first time in awhile yesterday.  It was cool man.  I pushed the shopping cart and everything.  Some lady freaked out; she recognized me and everything.  I was like, “Look lady, I’m grocery shopping just like you are.”

On Mariano Rivera’s new contract:

“I called my agent that day and said, ‘You didn’t happen to see what Rivera signed for?’  He said, ‘Hell yeah, I saw!’  But I think that’s a good thing.  In the past few years, I don’t think the market for closers was necessarily evolving like the market for starters or position players.  I think (Rivera) has kind of set the tone for what closers are, and now he’s set the standard — set the market — for what closers will get paid.  I think teams are starting to realize how important it is to have a closer, and what a closer means.  Hopefully I showed the Red Sox how important a closer is to win a championship.  In my opinion, a closer is just as important as a starter.  What’s the difference between getting one quality win out of a starter every fifth day or preserving four wins in a week?  You don’t have time to golf as much (as a closer), but you can preserve four wins a week.”

On endorsement offers he’s received since the World Series:

“PETCO wanted to name a dog treat after me, or something.  I think they wanted to call it the ‘Papelbonbon treat’.  So it’s been some crazy things — like off the wall.  My agent must say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ a hundred times a day.”   

On struggling in his first professional season, in Lowell in 2003:

“I think it was just that I was facing professional hitting for the first time.  That’s a huge stepping stone in someone’s career.  It’s like in high school — you’re a big fish.  In college you go to being a small fish.  When you go to the pros, you’re back to being a small fish again.  And who knows, I might have stayed out late one too many times.  I mean, I kept the brewery electricity bill paid.  I probably kept them up plenty of nights, man.”     

Originally posted by David Laurila from Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered, on November 30, 2007 7:52 PM

They are lining up Greyhound buses from America to Heaven. May you jump them all.

Originally posted by Mike Monteiro from Mule Design : Off the Hoof, on November 30, 2007 1:10 PM

Ok, so we've finally got some answers from our sources. We'll have more as the day goes on, but here's the beginning of it:

Why aren't the writers still in the room negotiating? Why are we waiting until Tuesday to continue?

When they presented their proposal, the companies said it was incomplete. The Negotiation Committee still hasn't received the rest of the proposal, and they're waiting on the AMPTP to actually bring it. However, it's kinda hard to get excited about anything they may be bringing to the table, given the unimpressive track record they have so far.

But also, what the congloms are proposing is a new paradigm in these negotiations -- a flat fee for use on internet. As a WGA member, it sounds crazy to me -- I feel like percentage of revenue is a much more sensible model, and one that can accomodate all the fluctuations of this "new" media/internet that seem to have the corporations in such a tizzy. But it's fair (I guess; frankly "fair" isn't the mood I'm in) to examine this idea and its ramifications closely.

The corporations say they're offering us $130 million. Is that true?

Weirdly, no one knows if that figure has any relation to reality. Apparently the AMPTP haven't felt the urge to share where that number comes from. They didn't present it to the NegComm in the room -- the first time anyone saw it was in the AMPTP press release when they (unilaterally) broke the media blackout.

Since they claim that the internet just isn't going to make any money, and supposedly that number has some relationship to the internet money they're offering, it's... baffling.

We're trying to get an answer on that one. But frankly, it looks like that number, like the cheerfully 1950's-flavored wording of their PR release to the world, is spin, not substance.

UPDATE ON THE "$130 MILLION" ISSUE --

As well as not yet revealing where that figure comes from, the conglomerates are also refusing to say how many years it covers.

In other words, that $130 million could be paid to writers over 1 year -- or 3 years -- or 5 -- or 20. Or, as one NegCom member pointed out, the most likely number: "infinity."

Which could, for example, mean 10 bucks a year.

How about the rollbacks?

This is where things get really frustrating. We all know that television is headed toward internet delivery, and movies too; close to a third of television series are already rerunning primarily via streaming and downloads, instead of on tv.

Shows like LOST, for example -- this year it will supposedly be shown without a singe rerun. The only reruns would be on the internet via streaming and downloads. That means that a writer who would normally get a $20,000 residual the first time that ep was rerun on network tv, would get $250 dollars instead when it was shown on the internet -- and that would cover reruns for a whole year, no matter how many times it was seen. If that same episode was downloaded from iTunes for $1.99, the writer would receive about .6 cents. As in, slightly more than half a penny.

That's why it's a rollback. It about the future, yes -- but it's also about right now.

And of course, we shouldn't leave out "promotional use" -- which, as usual, means if they decide something is promotional, they don't have to pay anything. Ever. And by "promotional" they mean, well, whatever they want.

And that includes entire movies, entire television episodes, regardless of how much money the AMPTP receives for them. And they can unilaterally declare anything promotional.

Want to guess how much stuff they'll designate as promotional? Cause I'm thinking... everything.

Originally posted by United Hollywood from United Hollywood, on November 30, 2007 12:39 PM

I spent a better part of my youth on a Sears bike trying to jump and crash like Evel Knievel — him and the Bionic man were my heroes, later it was rock n roll.

Reading about his death brings back all kinds of memories of why I even ride a bike.

Originally posted by DL Byron from Bike Hugger, on November 30, 2007 11:45 AM

fig. a: naked city

On the morning of New York Pizza Tour 2007, I woke up with some serious butterflies. I'd gone from being a lifelong pizza lover to being a minor-league pizza fanatic (the kind of person who might drive several hours in search of great pizza, or, apparently, the kind of person who might drive several hours to a famous pizza Mecca in order to then spend several hours wolfing down as many slices of premium pizza as he can get his hands on, as opposed to the kind of person who settles for the local delivery outfit), but in spite of my numerous visits to the Big Apple over the years, I'd yet to really face up to New York pizza. Sure, I'd had a fine coal-oven pizza from John's some 15 years ago that had been a real revelation, and in recent years I'd had a couple of other critically acclaimed New York pies and some decent slices, but I knew full well that my New York pizza education was spotty and that I'd barely scratched the surface. I limited myself to just a cup of coffee in anticipation of the pizza marathon ahead. Michelle, on the other hand, was remarkably calm and collected, and, ever the daredevil, she actually went ahead and had a few doughnuts with her coffee in spite of the awe-inspiring schedule ahead of us. By 11:00 a.m., though, we were both outside anxiously waiting for the Pizza Express to pull up and whisk us away on our adventure.

Di Fara

Adam arrived in the Pizza Express at around 11:15 and we promptly got on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and raced towards Midwood. Midwood is the Brooklyn neighborhood that's home to Di Fara and we had to hurry because Di Fara's renown is such that if you don't get in there nice and early you could very well end up with a 2-3 hour wait for your pizza. We had six pizza joints and seven hours of pizza eating ahead of us, so the last thing Adam wanted to do was to get caught in a snag on the first leg of the tour.

fig. b: Di Fara: Italian Heroes

We got to Di Fara not long after opening time and things were still just getting underway. Domenico DeMarco, Di Fara's legendary owner/pizzaiolo, was already very much in the thick of things, but the throngs had yet to show up. About a minute or two after we arrived, Dom pulled a pan full of Sicilian "square" slices out of the oven and we got our first glimpse of that DeMarco magic: he started scissoring fresh basil leaves overtop. According to Adam, these square slices usually get snapped right up, but for some reason the punters weren't buying on this particular morning. So Adam jumped in, asked for two, and deftly managed to slip in our other pizza order too: half regular, half artichoke. It was almost too easy--within two minutes we'd had a chance to look around (it doesn't get much more old-school than this), take in the scene (eager die-hards, with just a few other first-timers), get in our order (yes!), and we were already enjoying our very first taste of a Di Fara slice.

fig. c: Di Fara's Sicilian slice

The Di Fara Sicilian slice is a rustic, rectangular, semi-thick-crusted number--it lacks the finesse of Di Fara's regular thin-crust pies, but it's an honest and friendly pizza slice with plenty of sauce, Di Fara's trademark trio of cheeses, and a crisp crust, and it made for a perfect hors d'oeuvre while we awaited the main event. It also got rid of any and all remaining butterflies. From that point on I was good to go.

fig. d: Dom's office

And wait we did. Not long, mind you, because we'd gotten our order in quickly and the crowd was still relatively small, but Di Fara is no grindhouse. Dom doesn't let anyone else touch his pizzas, and he's nothing if not attentive to every single pizza he makes, taking the utmost care with his dough, hand-grating his trademark three-cheese blend (bufala mozzarella, regular mozzarella, and Romano), scissoring basil leaves over the pizza after it comes out of the oven, and giving each pizza a graceful spritz of olive oil as a parting gesture.

fig. e: Dom's magic

fig. f: the DeMarco boys in action

A few years ago Dom explained his unorthodox approach to pizza-making to Jeff Van Dam of the New York Times: "Pizza has become considered a fast food. This one is slow food. Anything you do, when you do it too fast it's no good. The way I make pizza takes a lot of work." Personally, we wouldn't want it any other way, because, frankly, all that work works. You can taste the care and the attention.

fig. g: portrait of the artist as a young man

fig. h: Di Fara's regular/artichoke pie

Both sides of our pizza lived up to our humongous expectations, but it was the artichoke half that we found particularly breathtaking. Dom being Dom, fresh artichokes--not canned--are trimmed down to their hearts and gently sauteed in olive oil before they're added to his artichoke pies. We'd heard that the artichoke hearts sometimes got a bit charred, and consequently a bit bitter, when in the oven, but our first experience of the Di Fara artichoke pie was flawless, each bite literally melting in your mouth.

This was just our first stop and already we were walking on air. We boxed up the last two remaining slices and moved on, eager for Round 2.

Verdict: home run.

fig. i: Franny's

Franny's

After another short drive across Brooklyn, we arrived at Franny's to find Ed Levine waiting for us. He'd kindly given Adam, Michelle, and I a chance to get primed and up to speed, and now he was ready to take charge. You'll notice in what follows that the number of photos drops off precipitously. Part of this has to do with the fact that you'd be hard-pressed to find a restaurant of any stripe that's as photogenic as Di Fara. It's got personality to spare. Part of it has to do with Dom's particular form of perfectionism, which gave us plenty of time to snap away--though we hit some pretty serious pizza parlors after Di Fara, not one of them exercised an approach to pizza-making that was as, well, deliberate as Dom's. But a good part of this drop-off in photographic documentation had to do with Ed. Adam had alerted us to Ed's gift of the gab as we made our to Franny's, and Ed did not disappoint in the least. What ensued alongside our 8-hour pizza-eating marathon was an 8-hour food-talk marathon led by Ed, and, to be honest, we couldn't have been happier. We liked these pizza guys--they were our kind of people.

Anyway, Ed was more than ready, so he jumped right in and started ordering. Two pies, naturally, one bufala mozzarella number and one clam pie--the best one this side of New Haven, apparently. Neither of us have had the pleasure of sampling one of those legendary Pepe's clam pies, but I did have a clam pie at Mario Batali's Otto a couple of years back and it was something of a disaster. The pizza crust was good--thankfully, by that time Batali had cleared up the initial problems he'd had with his griddle pies, as documented in Bill Buford's Heat and by Batali himself in Pizza: A Slice of Heaven--and the clams themselves were delicious, but they'd been piled on top of the crust in their shells (?). Imagine what the clam shells and their cooking liquid did to the crust. Imagine trying to eat such a thing. Ed agreed that Otto's clam pie was something of a conceptual debacle, but he assured me that Franny's version had no such weaknesses.

fig. j: pizza, Franny's-style

Our Franny's pizzas arrived and they looked impeccable, which is a funny thing to say about real Italian pizza or pizza with real Italian aspirations because a lot of what sets Naples-style pizzas apart are all those bits of character that novices might mistake for flaws--charring being at the top of the list. As Dom puts it, "fresh dough bubbles when you put it in the oven, and the bubbles get a little burnt. You see the pizza, and it's got a lot of black spots, it's Italian pizza. If you see pizza that's straight brown, it's not Italian pizza." A true pizzaiolo knows that charring is the price you have to pay for a pizza that's cooked properly, that's allowed its dough to reach fruition--a true pizzaiolo also knows that it's those blisters than bring out a pizza's complexities, its full potential. These were two pizzas that had definitely reached their full potential. Franny's crust was unbelievably light and wonderfully chewy, with just enough crispness, and that bufala mozzarella pie went down easy.

The real showstopper, though, was the clam pie. Dressed with Italian parsley, just a little bit spicy, rich in clam flavor, and beautifully saffron-hued, this was the clam pizza of our dreams. Turns out the pizza's alluring color comes from the fact that the clams were gently steamed in wine and then reduced, with a touch of cream added to the mix to really push them over the top. Like I said: the clam pizza of our dreams.

fig. k: Franny's kitchen

In many ways Franny's is a real anomaly. Andrew Feinberg, the head chef/co-owner, had never made pizza professionally before he opened Franny's with his wife, Francine Stephens. He was a professional chef with an impressive resumé, but he didn't have any of the usual New York pizza-making credentials (i.e. family ties to Gennaro Lombardi) and he apparently devised his pizza dough recipe very much on his own. Then he and Francine did something really orthodox: they opened Franny's as an environmentally responsible restaurant. In terms of approach to pizza-making, though, what interested me was that of the three standout pizzerias that we visited as part of our New York pizza tour, this was the only place that was also a full-service restaurant, including a bar, a large seating area, a full wait staff, a reasonably sized kitchen, and a full kitchen staff, including a team of pizza-makers. Top pizza establishments in the Neapolitan tradition live and die by the pizzaiolo. Those that have the best quality-control have as few as possible, and the best often only have one, so what we might call "the myth of the pizzaiolo" or "the pizzaiolo as hero" is crucial to your hardcore Naples-style pizzerias. I'm sure Franny's has a very select team of pizza-makers, but they're still open six days a week, including lunch and dinner on weekends, and their production volume is much higher than our other two standouts (especially during the warm-weather months, when they have a lovely patio out back). But by introducing the exacting standards of an exceedingly well-run top-notch kitchen, not only have they managed to offer an extensive menu that includes an outstanding selection of house-cured meats, they're also able to deliver on the promise of their big, beautiful brick oven.

Franny's was the one pizzeria listed on our itinerary that I'd had the pleasure of visiting previously. I'd visited one summer evening a year or so ago with a couple of hardened skeptics who were dead set on writing Franny's off. Four pizzas later, though, including an utterly daring, practically naked extra-virgin oil and sea salt pie, Franny's had left us terribly impressed (well, it left me terribly impressed and my companions quieted). This time around, I might have even left more impressed. The pizzas were extraordinary--especially that clam pie--but this time I also got a fuller sense of Franny's repertoire, including the distinct pleasure of sampling their house-cured soppressata, pancetta and bresaola plate as the warm-up act, and their phenomenal homemade fior di latte ice cream as the closer.

Verdict: home run.

Adrienne's

After two utterly transcendental pizza experiences, Adrienne's Pizzabar was considerably more down-to-earth--a little too down-to-earth. We'd gone there--to lowest Lower Manhattan, adjacent to Wall Street, of all places--in order to try a well-regarded Manhattan take on that Long Island pizza micro-genre known simply as "grandma pizza," and thereby further expand our New York pizza vocabulary. What exactly is grandma pizza, you ask? Well, it's more or less a rectangular Sicilian pie that's been made with an exceedingly thin crust, just like Nonna used to make. It's a Long Island-based phenomenon whose history as an established style dates back only about 20 years, but since then grandma pizza has popped up in all kinds of unlikely locations: Brooklyn, Pompano Beach, Las Vegas--even Lower Manhattan. Needless to say, we were very intrigued.

Our "old-fashioned" (as Adrienne's calls their grandma pies) looked pretty spectacular when it arrived at the table, but one bite and we discovered that its glorious appearance was hiding a nasty secret: it wasn't cooked through.

fig. l: pizza horror show

This was a major violation of one of pizza's most hallowed cardinal rules: you gotta let the pie to cook through. Ed was visibly upset. He'd already been a little taken aback by the crowd packing Adrienne's at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon, which he took to be a sign of Lowest Manhattan's exploding population (the fastest-growing on the island of Manhattan, apparently) and not necessarily of Adrienne's astounding popularity, or the triumph of grandma pie for that matter. But an uncooked pizza? That was too much for him. Not wanting to see a grown man cry, we quickly paid our bill and fled to the Lower East Side, hoping to get our momentum back.

Verdict: foul out.

TO BE CONTINUED...

aj

Originally posted by aj kinik from ...an endless banquet, on November 30, 2007 11:44 AM

Henry Abbott reviews a documentary called Quantum Hoops which documents the Caltech basketball team, winless for 21 years because all the players are walk-ons and subject to Caltech's high admission standards.

What we are used to as college basketball is really basketball as a college major, or in many cases instead of college. Not basketball as an activity. The version at Caltech puts stuff like health, education, and love of the game first. I can't speak for basketball, but I think a lot of colleges would be better off with that kind of athletic presence on campus. Maybe all the professional development of basketball players should take place somewhere else -- somewhere that is not supposed to be about academics.

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 30, 2007 10:52 AM

Beginning at noon this Saturday the New Museum will open its new doors, but this morning we snuck a peak inside. The gray aluminum mesh exterior of the building is a whimsical stack of rectilinear boxes shifted off-axis, not unlike a pile of blocks arranged haphazardly by a toddler. It's a bold, dynamic presence on the Bowery and, along with the Bowery Hotel, signifies yet another firm step away from the area's gritty past.

After the jump, tons of pictures from inside every nook and cranny of the museum.

Perhaps the most striking feature inside the seven story museum is the complete absence of internal columns; the building is held together by a series of cross-bracings and the skylights allow natural light to filter through spaces where the stories are offset. The three main floors of galleries are airy but not particularly capacious, creating a cozy, modest context for the work. The fifth floor is given over to an educational center; the ground floor lobby features a bookstore, cafe and glass-walled gallery space; the basement level houses a 182-seat theater. On the seventh floor, an outdoor patio and glass enclosed event space will be used for installations and private soirees; the view of downtown from up there isn't bad.

The inaugural exhibit is titled "Unmonumental" and is an "international survey on all three main gallery floors that opens with sculpture by 30 artists from around the globe, then expands over the course of five months into a dense, teeming environmental experience through the addition of layers and collage, sound, and internet-based art." This will be on view through March 23rd, and there are a few major commissioned installations on the horizon as well. You'll see one of these greeting you before you even enter the building: The "Hell Yes!" sign (Ugo Rondinone) brightens up the Bowery and will be the first of many public art installations on the facade.

Naturally the museum can't afford to be shy about jumping in bed with corporate sponsors, so the first 30 straight hours of its opening - which goes on continuously through the night - will be sponsored by Target and admission will be free. Naturally, all the free tickets have already been distributed. But don't despair; they expect some tickets to go unused, "thus it may be possible for visitors to show up during the course of the marathon event and get a ticket on the spur of the moment; but there is absolutely no guarantee!" In other words, you'll have a good shot of getting in for free around 3am. After they burn through all the Target sponsorship money, it'll cost $12.

Above photo of the lobby cafe, with mischievously mis-matched chairs.

Foreground: "Canon enigmatico a 108 voces" by Abraham Cruzvillegas. Background (sofa bed) "Fuck Destiny" by Sarah Lucas. Further back is "Cube" by Rebecca Warren.

Ground floor "BLACK ON WHITE, GRAY ASCENDING" by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries.

"Our Love is Like the Flowers, the Rain, the Sea and the Hours (Tree)" by Martin Boyce. Photo by Jake Dobkin.

Lower level theater.

"Split Endz (wig mix)" by Jim Lambie.

"Myth Monolith (Liberation Movement)" by Marc Andre Robinson.

"Untitled (Kerze)" by Urs Fischer. Photo by Jake Dobkin

Lots of architectural critics commented on the slim staircase from the 5th to the 6th floor-- there's a small gallery off the landing with an audio piece.

The bathroom tiling is totally insane.

No, seriously-- it's really totally insane. (Picture from our frenemies at Curbed.)

Skyline shot from the seventh floor balconies-- the view of downtown is the true highlight of the visit.

View from inside the skybox on the 7th floor.

Last but not least, a view of the lattice-skin mesh. It doesn't look as good up close as it does from far away, but it's still kind of funky.

More pictures can be found at the Gothamist Flickr stream.

Originally posted by Jen Carlson from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on November 30, 2007 10:51 AM

2 cups unsalted, roasted mixed nuts (or use all almonds or cashews)1 1/2 tablespoons egg white, beaten slightly2 tablespoons granulated sugar1 teaspoon garam masala 3/4 teaspoon cumin 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon allspicePinch of cloves 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, to taste 3/4 pound sliced bacon 1/2 cup light brown sugar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/dining/281arex.html?ex=1353906000

Send to a friend

Originally posted by Alaina from david’s Neighbors, on November 30, 2007 10:32 AM

(We want to welcome SAG Member Justine Bateman as a regular contributor to United Hollywood. We hope to continue opening the site up to more voices from SAG and other unions. Justine reminds us that this fight belongs to all of us. We're all on the same page.)

Attention all SAG Actors:

I believe it's appropriate at this time to call all actors into action in support of the Writer's Guild on strike.
I know many of us have been walking the picket lines and attending the rallies, but I want to challenge ALL SAG members to see if they can commit an HOUR-A-DAY to walking the picket lines.
The AMPTP has been jerking the Writer's Guild around.
1. They offered nothing but insulting Roll-Backs to the WGA in the negotiations that caused the strike.
2. They have planted "trolls" to post on the industry internet sites(corporate-paid people who troll the internet for places to pretend they are writers, crew members, and fans and post AMPTP propaganda).
3. They called WGA back to the table on Monday with no intention of settling as they AGAIN presented that rejected Roll-Back proposal. Their purpose in getting in the room again looks only like a weak PR move to get the public and the fans to change their tunes about calling a Christmas Boycott of DVD and downloads. I believe the fans will NOT call those Boycotts off now.
4. They tried to discredit Nikki Finke and deadlinehollywooddaily.com by planting mis-information about this weeks talks in an attempt to crush the spirits of the writers.

Ultimately, this is OUR strike. If the WGA had not called this strike, we would all be participating in MASSIVE stockpiling. Then, in June when our contract expires, the AMPTP would have offered US the no-gains-play-your-work-for-free-and-how-bout-some-rollbacks offer we're now familiar with.
And SAG would have to go on strike, but because of the stockpiling, we would have NO leverage. The AMPTP would have said to us, "Strike all you want. We have enough material stockpiled for 6 moths, maybe more."
And we would have been on strike for months and months and months.

So I urge you, get out there on the lines. Go to www.wga.org and look at the list of picketing locations. There's a studio near you. Pick a gate, become their SAG mascot. Maybe there's a studio that is on the way to a meeting or near the school you drop your kids off at or on the way to where you need to run errands. Just park the car and pick up a picket sign for an HOUR-A-DAY.
These guys need us. We're 120,000 strong. Let's get out there and let them know we're WITH them.
Let them know we are Fighting For The Future, too.

Here are some links. Send any videos you think are important to your friends and family.

www.unitedhollywood.com
www.speechlesswithoutwriters.com
www.wga.org
www.sag.org

Best,
Justine Bateman
SAG Member

Originally posted by Kate Purdy from United Hollywood, on November 30, 2007 10:01 AM

WGA rejects studios' latest proposal, strike continues

The studios tried to get writers to agree to a (very low) flat fee instead of a percentage of sales. It would have been less insulting to the WGA for the studios to remain silent for a few more weeks.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org Tumblelog, on November 30, 2007 8:21 AM

Almost a year late, Roger Ebert shares his top movies of 2006 with us.

Yes, I know it's a year late, but a funny thing happened to me on the way to compiling a list of the best films of 2006. I checked into the hospital in late June 2006 and didn't get out again until spring of 2007. For a long while, I just didn't feel like watching movies. Then something revolved within me, and I was engaged in life again.

I've never met Ebert, but his love of movies resounds so emphatically from his writing that if he didn't feel like watching them, he must have been closer than I thought to shuffling off the ol' mortal coil. It's nice to hear his enthusiasm again. (via crazymonk)

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 30, 2007 7:58 AM

“More evidence that Web 2.0 people think the world is made of the 50,000 people who care about Web 2.0…”

- Scott Heiferman

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org Tumblelog, on November 30, 2007 5:41 AM

This is a question I am hoping to get your input on. I would love to hear what you think about the technology and what you think it will take for it to be a broad success.

I have only followed OpenID peripherally, but yesterday I spoke with Larry Drebs of JanRain, a startup that's contributed a lot to the OpenID effort.

OpenID is a set of open source technologies that creates a universal login and an authentication system. It's an idea that companies have tried to populariaze--without success--over the years. Why? Mainly because when one company or a camp of companies tried to control the idea, it was doomed to fail. The open source nature of OpenID, though, sets this project apart.

Now on Monday, OpenID is getting a new kickstart. After around 18 months of work, the 2.0 spec is being locked down and launched. According to Drebs, the main differences in version 2.0 are that it has beefed up security and added Identifier recycling and directed identity. Identifier recycling is a big deal for large companies that have millions of users and so can run out of names. This allows them to reassign names if someone isn't using it. Directed Identity lets you use the same password but change your identity if you're commenting on a blog, for instance.

Part of what's important, says Drebs, is that with OpenID you can create a reputation that's associated with one ID. And you can authenticate that a person is who they really say they are, helping to do away with spam.

So this sounds all well and good. And if the new specs deliver, then the 150,000 people who are now using OpenID could explode, right? Well, that's where I would love to hear from you to help me understand more about this.

The marketing part I get. Apparently there already are 160 million enabled OpenID users. That's because a couple of huge providers, AOL and France Telecom, have enabled their subscribers' accounts. If more big service providers, search engines, and portals sign up and start marketing this (Marshall Kirkpatrick has one good suggestion on how), then suddenly you could see an explosion.

Originally posted by heather_green from BusinessWeek Online - Blogspotting, on November 30, 2007 5:30 AM

The design of the iPhone is such that all other mobile phones, including those released after the iPhone, look not only old but antiquated and even defective. IMO.

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 30, 2007 5:08 AM

Early rave review for There Will Be Blood, the new PT Anderson/Daniel Day-Lewis film, calling it "maybe one of the best movies I've ever seen".

Without revealing much of the plot (it's probably better to go in cold), it's a complex man's simple story rendered hugely, horribly, and wonderfully in equal measure, and it's revelatory as hell.

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 30, 2007 4:02 AM

After being accused of discriminating against deaf customers, AT&T has removed the voice-only iPhone plans that it had previously introduced.

Read More...

Originally posted by justin.berka@gmail.com (Justin Berka) from Infinite Loop, on November 30, 2007 3:55 AM

fig. a: real Italian pizza in the making, New York-style

Those of you long-time "...an endless banquet" readers with exceptionally good memories may remember that earlier this year we were the recipients of a peculiar prize as a result of our participation in Menu for Hope III. Yep, that's right: we're a litttle embarassed to say it, but somehow we walked away with a pizza tour of New York contributed by Serious Eats and hosted by two of New York's most accomplished pizza cognoscenti: Ed Levine (Serious Eats, Ed Levine's New York Eats, and, Pizza: A Slice of Heaven) and Adam Kuban (Serious Eats and Slice, "America's Favorite Pizza Weblog!"). When we received the Good News we were absolutely ecstatic. We probably couldn't have designed a better prize ourselves. Here at AEB, any excuse to go to New York is a good excuse, but a curated tour of the city's best pizza haunts has gotta be among the best excuses imaginable.

That said, it took us a while to coordinate things--almost a year, in fact. Eleven excruciating months. But we didn't panic--not once--we just used the time to bone up on pizza and its lore (Slice, Pizza: A Slice of Heaven, Ed Behr, John and Matt Thorne, David Rimmer's Real Italian Pizza, etc.). A few weeks ago, though, when the Canadian dollar suddenly surged to $1.10 US, we took that as some kind of sure-fire sign from above that it was finally time to take the plunge. We got back in touch with Adam and made all the necessary arrangements.

What exactly does a pizza tour of New York entail? Well, aside from some gargantuan appetites, a motor vehicle, and a photographic apparatus or two to document the proceedings for posterity, it takes some good maps and some New York street know-how. The proposed itinerary for this particular tour had us traversing two boroughs--Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan--and hitting seven pizza joints over the course of about eight hours. The split consisted of two Brooklyn pizzerias and five in Manhattan, it also consisted of three seasoned classics and four brash, young upstarts. It came complete with "intel" (see links below) and it looked something like this:

"11:30 a.m.: Di Fara (the legend)

12:45 p.m.: Franny's (killer wood-oven pizza)

2 p.m.: Adrienne's Pizzabar (grandma pizza)

3 p.m.: Isabella's Oven (great New York-Neapolitan pizza)

4 p.m.: Una Pizza Napoletana (the now-legendary hardcore Naples-style place)

5:30 p.m.: Joe's Pizza (classic NY slice)

6 p.m.: Bleecker Street Pizza (great grandma slice)
[No Slice intel online :( ]"

We literally gasped when we read it. Then we did a little dance. And a couple of days later, after we'd recovered, we were on the New York State Thruway, heading south towards our date with destiny.

TO BE CONTINUED...

aj

Originally posted by aj kinik from ...an endless banquet, on November 29, 2007 3:33 PM

An exhibit at the main branch of the New York Public Library is drawing outrage from Republicans because some of the work on display depicts former and current members of the Bush administration posing for fake mug shots. Each official in the visionary series, called “Line Up”, is seen holding a slate with a date of arrest corresponding to a date when the official said something about Iraq that was not “reality-based.” Matthew Walter, director of communications for the state GOP, told the Daily News:

It is simply inappropriate to have political attack art, in the form of egregious doctored photographs of the President and other high-ranking officials who have dedicated their lives to public service, in a taxpayer-funded building frequented by schoolchildren and the general public.

No wonder conservatives are always ready to cut budgets for libraries – they’ve become places where an innocent schoolchild’s allegiance to public servants like George Bush and Karl Rove can be egregiously corrupted. Of course, it’s important to note that “Line Up”, by artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, is part of a much larger exhibit called “Multiple Interpretations: Contemporary Prints in Portfolio”, which includes prints from 23 different artists on a wide variety of themes. Among them are artists like Olafur Eliasson, who is the subject of an upcoming retrospective at MoMA, as well Ernesto Caivano, whose decidedly apolitical "Knight Interlude" consists of twelve prints depicting a knight transforming into a tree.

Herb Scher, the director of public relations for the NYPL, spoke with Gothamist and stressed that "the library collects work from a wide range of political satire going back centuries. This work fits into that tradition of caricature. At the NYPL we document what is happening in the culture and political satire is important to have in our collections to document for future scholars."

Nevertheless, we can expect the mug shots controversy to spread and are counting the minutes until Giuliani starts reliving his “Sensation” glory days by chiming in. What do you think – should the city slash the NYPL’s funding and burn all the art books or just let the liberals enjoy their ineffectual little fantasy at taxpayers’ expense?

Originally posted by John Del Signore from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on November 29, 2007 1:54 PM

Quick Post

I had been using VMWare and MultipleIE before, but this is a much better setup. I haven't tested it thoroughly, but I'm impressed so far.

http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on November 29, 2007 1:05 PM

If you are anywhere near a TV @ 6pm 6:30 tonight , be sure to turn on CNBC CBS (see below). I'm not sure how Rudy is going to talk his way out of this, this, this, and this.

And Mitt? His problems look like they are on more of a slow boil. But still...

UPDATE: And how could I forget this other Giuliani problem as well. Less sensational, but certainly far more serious.

Here's the thing: none of this surprises me. People in NYC hate Giuliani. People in NYC also love to tell people what they think. Put those two together, add the fact that Giuliani is an egotistical SOB, and it was only a matter of time before his campaign went off the rails.

UPDATE II: On second thought, the CNBC interview is likely to be useless. It's with Jim Cramer.

UPDATE III: Ah, but he is going on the CBS Evening News to talk to Katie Couric about this.

TPM is, not surprisingly, on this story in a very big way.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Good People Better Rise Up!, on November 29, 2007 12:05 PM

The possible zooming thoughts of Posh Spice as Look 57 slapped down the Marc Jacobs runway in September:

"Where's the rest of her?"

"Could I wear that with Burberry plaid booties?"

"Wait, am I wearing my underwear?"

"Aren't we right next to Pop Burger?"

"Do Stephen Hawking's theories on particle evolution relate to Oliver Curry's latest hypothesis?"

"I can't believe you're paying me for this."

"No really, can we go to Pop Burger?"

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on November 29, 2007 10:06 AM

Deal or No Deal for DS Review - DS Deal or No Deal Review this is hilarious, the type of game i wish i made

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Cory's Web LOG, on November 29, 2007 9:48 AM

While Jay Jaffe (below) takes a statistical look at Tim Raines, Scott Long of Baseball Toaster is taking a harder look at what else might factor in to Raines’ Hall of Fame possibilities. Long (full disclosure: a friend and writing partner) opens up the can of worms that is Raines’ known drug use.

In this winter of our steroidal discontent, it’s worth noting that Raines’ use of cocaine, a powerful stimulant, likely gained some performance benefit from the use of the drug. Faster reaction time, amplified sensory awareness, and energy are all known, proven effects of cocaine use. Is it any stranger to say that Raines’ HoF case was boosted by performance enhancers than it is to say that Mark McGwire’s might have been?

While I believe that Raines’ HoF case is solid, I think the issue bears some thought. If the voters have drawn a line in the sand on performance enhancers, how can that not be taken into account with someone like Raines. Here’s hoping that the voters note it, then note that he was a Hall of Fame player with or without the boost.

Originally posted by Will Carroll from Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered, on November 29, 2007 9:36 AM

Ex-NYC Mayor Koch: Giuliani Acted Improperly, Looks Like A Cover-Up: "I'm just amazed that Giuliani is doing as well as he's doing," said Koch. "He doesn't deserve it."

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on November 29, 2007 7:52 AM

FlowTV is a critical forum on television and media culture. Flow's mission is to provide a space where researchers, teachers, students, and the public can read about and discuss the changing landscape of contemporary media at the speed that media moves.

 bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by yatta to unmediated - more about this bookmark...

Originally posted by yatta from del.icio.us/subscriptions/djacobs, on November 29, 2007 7:44 AM

Google Experimental Search.

This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Justin Blanton, on November 29, 2007 7:35 AM

"I am a mathematician, and I would like to stand on your roof." This is how Ron Eglash greeted many African families while researching the intriguing fractal patterns he noticed in villages across the continent. He talks about his work exploring the rigorous fractal math underpinning African architecture, art and even hair braiding. (Recorded June 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania. Duration: 16:51.)

Watch Ron Eglash's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

Read more about Ron Eglash on TED.com.

Embed this video: Use this code to run the video on your own site:

Originally posted by (author unknown) from TED | TEDBlog, on November 29, 2007 7:33 AM

Steve Williams, re Digg API: "No, in fact that's what we want you to do instead of using the Activity endpoint: When you request the data over several HTTP requests, each request completes more quickly than would a single request to the Activity endpoint. Our system runs smoother when HTTP requests complete more quickly. It won't be seen as abuse."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on November 29, 2007 7:12 AM

The best resume I ever got, in response to an ad for a programmer, was from a guy who listed four years at the counter of a Taco Bell as his most relevant previous position. Because I was looking for “client-server experience.”

Originally posted by (author unknown) from An Entirely Other Day, on November 29, 2007 7:06 AM

sarahintampa wants to move off of TypePad and is trying to decided if MT4 is right for her. In posting her thoughts she writes:

I read somewhere that if you get Dugg, your MT site stays up and your WP site goes down…something to do with the database…? Anyone who can explain this, please comment!

This comes up frequently enough that I thought I would post it here for the benefit of others and my own future reference. What follows is a lightly edited version of the comment I made.

---

This is mostly true though given enough traffic or lack of server resources any site, regardless of the tool, will go down. A more accurate statement is that MT is more resilient to “getting Dugg” then WordPress and other dynamic publishing tools.

WP, and other tools like ExpressionEngine, uses a dynamic publishing model. This means with each request by a user via the browser, a page is compiled and rendered before being returned. The process means that one (and often more) database requests need to be issued to get your content so it can be merged with the markup in the template to produce the page that is sent back to the browser. The benefit is instant gratification for the author.

MT uses a static publishing model. The process of issuing database requests and merging them with the markup in a template is similar; however, MT will write a physical file to your server. These static publishing (formerly referred to as rebuilding in MT parlance) events are triggered in a number of explicit and implicit ways.

With a static file, when a user requests a page your web server simple reads the file and sends it down the pipe to the browser. The key benefit here is that each request does not need to make any database requests and there is very little computation needed. This makes MT powered sites more resilient to sudden spike in activity such as getting Dugg because serving static files use significantly less server resources.

Another benefit is that your database can go down, but your site will still be viewable. Only accepting comments and publishing new content would be affected. IMHO that’s better then your site just disappearing.

There are a few trade-offs to the static model that are worth mentioning. Given enough content or unoptimized templates you can experience very long publish times. You also have to be mindful of frequently updated sidebar or footer content in archive pages. MT’s default templates design around this issue. If you really want to include something of this nature there are work arounds using server or JavaScript includes. The issue here is that it’s not as intuitive for the developer/publisher designing the site.

I know that there are a few caching options for WP (wp-cache comes to mind) that will help it perform better making it more resilient. I haven’t worked with them personally so take that for what it’s worth. I’ve read mixed reviews and still a fair number of WP feeds going down when Dugg. Perhaps that is just a lack of user awareness. I don’t know.

Originally posted by Timothy Appnel from Code / Appnel Solutions, on November 29, 2007 6:39 AM

Deconstructing Facebook Beacon JavaScript.

The web is somewhat up in arms about Beacon particularly because it just stinks of privacy violations, at least if you care about things like companies tracking your every move online. This post is going to dig deep in Beacon and see what makes it tick from a purely technical perspective.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Justin Blanton, on November 29, 2007 4:57 AM

November marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Tawana Brawley affair--an incident that inflamed racial relations in New York and across the country after a teenage girl alleged that she had been sexually assaulted and abused by police. The ensuing media circus thrust Rev. Al Sharpton into the limelight and established his bona fides as a community spokesman. It also tarnished the reputations of the people she accused of raping her and, later on, Brawley's own reputation after her truthfulness was called into question.

Brawley was found near an apartment where she once lived in the town of Wappingers Falls, NY, about 70 miles north of NYC. She was discovered partially nude, smeared with feces, and had racial epithets scrawled on her body. Brawley claimed that she had been abducted by a group of white men who raped her repeatedly and that at least one of them identified himself as a police officer. District Attorney Steven Pagones was eventually accused as one of her assailants. Police investigated the incident, but no charges were ever filed when conflicting statements and physical evidence seemed to contradict Brawley's account of her ordeal. (Brawley has since insisted that she is not a liar and was telling the truth.)
The Brawley affair became a flashpoint in an era of inflamed racial tension. The girl herself became a public figure, supported by celebrities like Bill Cosby and appearing in a video by the rap group Public Enemy. The accusation of sexual violence by white cops against a black woman further infuriated people already enraged by the 1983 death of Michael Stewart, a graffiti artist who died after being put in a chokehold by police in NYC. Both events were alluded to in Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing," with a major character dying the same way as Stewart and one scene showing graffiti that reads "Tawana Told The Truth!"

And now, two decades later, Tawana Brawley is a graduate of Howard University and lives in rural Virginia. Her parents still maintain that she was gang-raped by a group of white men. They spoke to the Daily News about what they consider a serious miscarriage of justice when the accused crimes against her are described as a hoax. Sharpton has transformed himself into a major player on the national stage of the Democratic Party and continues to advocate on behalf of victims of racial injustice, with the Brawley incident sometimes haunting him. Pagones successfully sued Sharpton and others for defamation, winning a judgment of $345,000 (Sharpton's share was paid for by Johnnie Cochran, among others).

Originally posted by Dave Hogarty from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on November 29, 2007 4:39 AM

Funny Engrish menu error at a Beijing restaurant: "stir-fried wikipedia". (via waxy)

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 29, 2007 3:55 AM

Just put up a password strength meter and encourage people to submit their passwords for testing. You might want to collect names and e-mail addresses, too.

For the record, here's how to choose a secure password:

So if you want your password to be hard to guess, you should choose something not on any of the root or appendage lists. You should mix upper and lowercase in the middle of your root. You should add numbers and symbols in the middle of your root, not as common substitutions. Or drop your appendage in the middle of your root. Or use two roots with an appendage in the middle.

Even something lower down on PRTK's dictionary list -- the seven-character phonetic pattern dictionary -- together with an uncommon appendage, is not going to be guessed. Neither is a password made up of the first letters of a sentence, especially if you throw numbers and symbols in the mix. And yes, these passwords are going to be hard to remember, which is why you should use a program like the free and open-source Password Safe to store them all in.

Originally posted by schneier from Schneier on Security, on November 29, 2007 3:03 AM

Google launches “GPS” for non-GPS phones.

The My Location feature takes information broadcast from mobile towers near you to approximate your current location on the map — it’s not GPS, but it comes pretty close (approximately 1000m close, on average).

[…]

[It’s] available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices.

Until GPS radios come standard in every mobile “phone” (and they will), this seems like a viable stopgap.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Justin Blanton, on November 29, 2007 1:29 AM

A reader emailed us an interesting observation about the stock prices of the four companies we're striking against whose core businesses are entertainment (ie: not GE and Sony). From day one of the strike (Nov 5) until yesterday, the stock prices have all declined:

CBS -4.5%

Disney -6.4%

Viacom -3.8%

News Corp -2.0%

Source: CNNMoney.com

Of course, many things factor into a company's stock price, but if you're a shareholder, you might suggest to your board that one way to boost confidence would be fostering productive, mutually beneficial relationships with the creators of some of your biggest revenue streams. A crazy notion, we know!

Originally posted by United Hollywood from United Hollywood, on November 28, 2007 11:08 PM

So I'm heading home from London today, but I had half an hour last night to go to Goldhawk Road -- and all you Londoners who told me to go there? You were right. I owe you all a drink.

I went to Classic Textiles (44 Goldhawk Road) where they had Liberty (in a very, very snug basement) for £5/yard! (Or possibly £5/meter, not sure.) They also had some limited Varuna wool and some £10/y-or-m Liberty as well, upstairs. Mostly florals, to be sure, but plenty of the abstract and figural prints, as well.

Sadly, though, I was The Difficult Customer, because I saw a roll of the pattern above (Splash) which I've wanted FOR-ever .... behind every other roll of Liberty. And so the poor guy, at closing time, had to shift about twenty rolls of fabric to get and cut me my four meters-or-yards. But he was nice about it, possibly because an even More Difficult Customer was in the shop, trying to get swatches of about fifteen different shirting cottons. (Him: "Now, y'see, I need to you cut me bits of all these, and make me a list, so I can call you up and say "I need 11 meters of #2," right?" Shopman: Nodding uncomprehendingly. Him: "Now, y'see, I need you ...")

The woman at the register also confirmed for me that Liberty wasn't making any more twill. "And their prices are silly," she said. I nodded sagely.

I did some brief poking around in some of the other shops (as they were vacuuming and rolling down grates) and saw this incredible flocked linen wallpapery print, but at £9 a yard-or-meter I couldn't justify it. I didn't have my camera with me so I took some not-so-great camera phone pictures ... remind me and I'll post them when I get home.

Home. As much as I love London, I'm looking forward to being in THAT place again!

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on November 28, 2007 10:17 PM

What are you dreaming up, really?

Originally posted by Chelsea Peretti from Chelsea Peretti, on November 28, 2007 10:01 PM

Matthew G. Kirschenbaum writes an elegant and concise critique of the National Endowment for the Arts' ominously titled new study of American reading trends, "To Read or Not to Read", which is a sequel to their 2004 opus "Reading at Risk." The basic argument is that reading, or what they rather awkwardly refer to as "voluntary reading" (that is, reading done purely for pleasure or self-improvement) is in a precipitious state of decline, especially among the young — a situation which poses a grave threat to our culture, democracy and civic fabric.

Though clearly offered with the best of intentions, the report demonstrates an astonishingly simplistic view of what reading is and where it is and isn't occurring. Overflowing with bar graphs and and charts measuring hours and minutes spent reading within various age brackets, the study tries to let statistics do the persuading, but fails at almost every turn to put these numbers in their proper social or historical context, or to measure them adequately against other widespread forms of reading taking place on computers and the net.

The study speaks, as Kirschenbaum puts it, "as though there is but a single, idealized model of reading from which we have strayed" — a liesurely, literary sort of reading embodied by that classic image of the solitary reader hunched over a book in deep concentration. Kirschenbaum rightly argues that this way of reading is simply one of a complicated and varied set of behaviors that have historically operated around texts. More to the point, many of these alternative forms — skimming, browsing, lateral reading, non-linear reading, reading which involves writing (glossing, annotation etc.) to name some — today happen increasingly in digital contexts, constituting what Kirschenbaum refers to broadly as a grand "remaking of reading." The NEA document takes little of this into account. Kirschenbaum:

...while the authors of the report repeatedly emphasize that they include online reading in their data, the report sounds most clumsy and out of touch when referring to new media. The authors of the report tend to homogenize "the computer" without acknowledging the diversity of activity — and the diversity of reading — that takes place on its screen. Our screens are spaces where new forms like blogs and e-mail and chats commingle with remediations of older forms, like newspapers and magazines — or even poems, stories, and novels. Reading your friend's blog is not likely a replacement for reading Proust, but some blogs have been a venue for extraordinary writing, and we are not going to talk responsibly or well about what it means to read online until we stop conflating genre with value.

The report also fails to acknowledge the extent to which reading and writing have become commingled in electronic venues. The staccato rhythms of a real-time chat session are emblematic in this regard: Reading and writing all but collapse into a single unified activity. But there is a spectrum of writing online, just as there is a spectrum of reading, and more and more applications blur the line between the two.

(He goes on to mention CommentPress and a number of other networked reading applications...)

There's certainly cause for concern about what might be lost as deep extended reading of deep extensive books declines, and in their crude way the NEA's stats and figures do tell a worrying tale of shifting cultural priorities. Indeed, the most appealing aspect of "To Read or Not to Read" is its passionate commitment to a set of humanistic values: sustained thinking, personal and moral growth, a critical outlook, the cultivation of knowledge. Few would disagree that these are things that ought to be held onto in the face of relentless technological change and a rapacious commercial culture, but to insist that the book and one particular romanticized notion of reading must be the sole vessels for transporting these values into the future seems both naive and needlessly limiting.

You could say that our group's mission is to advocate for these same values — values that we certainly associate with books, hence our name — but in the diverse landscape of new media. To the question "to read or not to read" we answer emphatically "to read!" But to understand what reading actually is demands a more nuanced investigation.

Originally posted by ben vershbow from if:book, on November 28, 2007 7:50 PM

In the last week, Pınar and I have been across and up and down through Texas. We’ve seen family and friends and I’ve gotten to show Pınar some of the places my family and I lived. And, we’ve been eating well. Very well. Joe T. Garcia’s, Goodson’s, Uncle Julio’s, Rudy’s, Chuy’s, Ironworks, Louis Mueller’s, and oh so much more as well as a home cooked Thanksgiving. The scale is not very happy right now.

Here’s what our trip through Texas looks like as of November 28th:

Currently, we’re in Del Rio right on the Mexican border. From here, we’re off to Big Bend National Park, Marfa, and then up into New Mexico.

Originally posted by James Duncan Davidson from James Duncan Davidson, on November 28, 2007 6:39 PM

On a conference call with conservative bloggers today, John McCain was asked about our stories reporting that Mitt Romney had nixed Muslims in his cabinet on a second occasion. His response: Maybe Mitt wouldn't allow a qualified Muslim to serve high in his administration, but he would.

"I’m proud of the Muslims who are currently serving in the United States armed forces," McCain said, "and my sense is that if they can serve in that manner, they can serve in any position of responsibility in America." McCain's comments were provided to us by his advisers.

McCain added: "I just think, appoint the most qualified individuals to positions of responsibility."

McCain's comments today built on his criticism of Romney yesterday: "I think his comment is indicative of how he might govern and I think it's absolutely wrong."

One interesting side note: Saying you won't appoint Muslims to your cabinet certainly isn't something that will hurt you in a GOP primary, so unsurprisingly, none of the other GOP candidates has had any criticism for Romney over this. Only McCain has been willing to go down this path.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on November 28, 2007 1:56 PM

The DC Comic Watchmen is coming to the big screen, and the NYC sets were recently revealed! They aren't tearing apart town or stopping traffic like Cloverfield or I Am Legend, instead they're filming the alternate universe New York, mostly circa 1985, in Vancouver. Director Zack Snyder said:

After a couple months of shooting at various locations and on stages, last week we finally made the transition to our New York City backlot. Since the New York City that is rendered in the graphic novel is so particular, it was very important to me that our backlot speak the same language, the vernacular of WATCHMEN. In addition, the backlot needs to function as many different parts of the city, countless store fronts, street corners, alleys, etc. So, with that in mind, we set out to build own own custom backlot here in Vancouver, BC. In my opinion, the results speak for themselves.

Some of the things you'll find in alt-NY: 100 unique and custom-designed graphics created for the various storefronts, 5,000 square feet of custom posters, 1,040 feet of 1:1 scale New York streets and a whole lot of creativity. In addition, the street had to work for 1938, 1945, 1953, 1957, 1964, 1974, 1975, 1977, and 1985.

Some problems we noticed: That vintage Chevrolet Malibu was never used as an NYC Taxi, and the fare sticker is also too modern. The traffic signals and walk/don't walk signals are all wrong. And, lastly, there is nothing that even remotely looks like that in the vicinity of the 42 Street-Grand Central subway station. Other bad news: Watchmen doesn't come out til Spring of 2009!

Originally posted by Jen Carlson from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on November 28, 2007 1:40 PM

Looks like the Dem debate set for December 10 in Los Angeles, to be moderated by Katie Couric, has been canceled due to the writer's guild strike:

Washington, DC - The DNC issued the following statement regarding the final DNC sanctioned debate:

"Due to the uncertainty created by the ongoing labor dispute between CBS and the Writers Guild of America, the DNC has canceled the December 10th debate in Los Angeles. There are no plans to re-schedule," said DNC Communications Director Karen Finney.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on November 28, 2007 1:14 PM

A highlight of Nirvana’s illustrious, short-lived career took place on November 1993 on MTV's Unplugged in New York, where Kurt Cobain and the gang gave one of their most compelling and raw performances ever; just four months shy of Cobain's unexpected death. The accompanying live album pushed over five million copies, reached #1 The Billboard 200 and won a Grammy for Best Alt Music Album in 1996. Alex Coletti, the executive producer of the landmark performance, chatted with PAPERMAG about the new, unedited, features-galore-filled DVD of the performance that came out last week. Blaire Huntley: What was it like being part of such a groundbreaking moment in music? Alex Coletti: At the time, we didn't know it would be as groundbreaking as it was. The entire series had a huge effect on the music industry and really changed how artists could present themselves to a live audience.

BH: What was up with all the covers? Did the band plan to all the Bowie and Meat Puppet songs or was that a production suggestion? AC: We always suggest that the band do a cover and bring a guest, but I did not specifically suggest a song or artists, that all came from Nirvana. BH: What were they like backstage? Was that grey sweater an MTV choice or did Kurt just know a trend when he saw one? AC: They were fine backstage. No human sacrifices or anything. It was petty normal. All wardrobe choices were the band’s. BH: The album was released a year after the performance. Why has it taken so long to come out with the DVD version of this performance? AC: I have no idea why it took so long to come out on DVD, but it’s worth the wait. The 5.1 audio and the new stereo mixes are stunning, plus without the time constraints of broadcast television, we were able to put every second of the taping on the disc. There's also great footage from sound check where you can see the band trying to figure out arrangements, especially for "Pennyroyal Tea," which Kurt ended up doing solo. BH: How do you think this Unplugged session has contributed to Nirvana's popularity and continuing legacy? Do you think this was the last great Unplugged special, especially in light of the album being released posthumously? AC: I have mixed feelings. I wish Unplugged were just another milestone in a very long Nirvana career, but that wasn't meant to be. It feels right that this is how many people will remember the band, because I think it shows them at their finest. It’s got a lot of different emotion and colors, and really shows the depth they had.

BH: Do you feel as if Unplugged was a '90s phenomenon? It seems pretty erratic these days, with about two sessions a season. Can we expect to see more in the future? AC: I wish Unplugged were like “Austin City Limits,” where it ran forever, but MTV is constantly evolving. I always wanted to give the show a proper send off, like “The Last Waltz,” but I’m glad we still do them, even if it’s fairly sporadic. Basically, the last few -- Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, Bon Jovi -- happened because the artists called and asked if they could. BH: Who's next up in the line up? Are we more likely to see more indie acts or do you think the series will gravitate towards the mainstream and pop? AC: I think calling it a series at this point is an overstatement. As for what’s next, I am not sure, but whatever it is, it won't be what you'd expect.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on November 28, 2007 12:38 PM

I was in a book store the a few weeks ago and noticed Zak Smith’s Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow, which is exactly that: a book of illustrations matching the action on each page of Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. I remember reading about this as part of the 2004 Whitney Biennial, but didn’t realize it was out in book form. It’s also available online.

Zak Smith is now a porn actor under the name of Zak Sabbath.

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on November 28, 2007 12:14 PM

Reader Keith thinks he can top Topps 2008.

" I have collected cards for over 25 years and I am getting tired of the blah designs coming from all the card companies, especially Topps."


Not thrilled with the upcoming design for 2008 Topps? Think you can do better? Send me your design and I'll post it on the blog.

Originally posted by Ben Henry from The Baseball Card Blog, on November 28, 2007 12:06 PM

A terrific post recapping the early years of photography. The oldest known color photograph was taken in 1872.

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 28, 2007 12:01 PM

It has been brought to my attention that some users are experiencing a bug with FastScripts on Leopard, where keyboard shortcuts just seem to “stop working.” Unfortunately when this happens, there are no helpful clues in the console, and the application seems to need to be quit and relaunched for shortcuts to start firing again.

I use FastScripts constantly and, truth be told, I did see this behavior in an earlier Leopard beta seed. But since the GM 10.5 and 10.5.1 releases, I have yet to see this problem even once.

I’m hoping to get some feedback from other users who have been running FastScripts on Leopard, and might have possibly seen this behavior. Please let me know if you have any ideas about what might be provoking it. Whether certain scripts might cause it to start happen, etc.

Finally, if you recognize this kind of faulty behavior, perhaps something you’ve seen in another application that supports global shortcuts, I’d be interested in hearing about it. Basically, I’m interesting in any clues that you can provide to help me figure out what might be going wrong here.

Thanks!

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on November 28, 2007 11:31 AM

I hit 57, totally forgot all the frame-related ones and some of the more obscure table-related ones.

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on November 28, 2007 11:11 AM

On Moneymaking argues that it’s a good thing that Amazon’s Kindle is ugly:

6. You Can Be Pretty Later

The Kindle is ugly. It’s nothing like the iPhone, where people bought it just to show off the slick interface to their friends. Instead, Amazon focused on creating a product that does exactly what it’s supposed to do: give you nationwide access to over 80,000 books in the palm of your hand. They can make it pretty later.

For the retort, I’ll hand the mic over to Mr. Steve Jobs:

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on November 28, 2007 11:09 AM

this could have been fun and useful, if it was only opt-in on a site-by-site basis [via] 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on November 28, 2007 10:58 AM

Earlier today a lot of information was publically disclosed on the ProNet conference call by Product Manager Byrne Reese as to the next release of Movable Type (MT) version 4.1 also known as “Boomer”, and MTOS, the open source GPL licensed version announced last June. What follows comes from the rough notes I took during the call with a bit of commentary from me.

• The first beta release of Boomer will be next week, the week of December 3rd.
• The beta test will be conducted publicly and in a fashion similar to MT 4.0’s release using movabletype.org as the hub. (NOTE: movabletype.com is the commercial product page.) They will make new ever improving releases each week until the final release.
• One difference is that support and discussion of the beta will be done using Community Solution (MTCS) powered forums on movabletype.org.
• Other differences include the availability of the code via an open subversion repository and a public bug tracking system. (Rumored to be FogBugz). Byrne mentioned that there are logistical issues to work out that may hold up the immediate availability of these Logistics. Byrne also mentioned that they will support private bug submissions for when a bug reporter does not want to disclose confidential information publicly.

Features

The following is a list of feature that were disclosed that will be found in the core (personal and MTOS) system.

• Performance enhancements. Six Apart is putting a stake in the ground, no release of MT will get slower going forward. In the past Six Apart has put a lot of effort into scaleability, but they are now shifting their focus towards performance. This means things like better code segmentation and making the code easier to digest — in other words loading as little code as possible to execute a request.
• Compose screen “touch-ups” There were a number of edit/create entry and page interface improvements that were intended for MT 4 that didn’t make it in. They are now being included.
• The rich text editor introduced in MT4 is plugable. This will allow implementors to use the latest greatest WYSIWYG editor of their choice. Boomer will included a sample plugin of this type probably based on the FCKEditor.
• Better upgrade status message.
• Email templates can be modified using transformer hooks.
• rsync support returns to PublishQueue.
• A template tag for displaying content based-on on a users login status. This tag (mt:ifloggedin apparently) uses JavaScript. Byrne later noted that he see a lot of opportunity for plugin developers to create something more robust using PHP or other server side scripting.
• Template sets that appeared in MTCS are going core. There are plugin hooks that allow developers to extended these with their own sets. Byrne noted that chosing a template set is only at creation time. You currently cannot change a template set once a blog has been setup.
• MT now records a “blog type” attribute. Byrne reported that all blog will be inscribed with a type (for instance, gallery, forum, blog) in the system. This type can be used in plugin development to do things like conditionally display menu options based ont he blog type. For instance, a photo gallery blog may have a menu item like “Manage Galleries” instead of “Manage Categories.”
• MT template markup improvements to make it a “more complete programming environment.” The addition of for loops and else-if tags where mentioned as examples.
• The syntax highlighter will be improved and upgraded. One noted improvement was Safari (v3?) support.
• Inline tag documentation while edit template. Core and plugin tags can register a help URL that MT will use to generate a hyperlink to the all tags used in a template of easy access.
• hatom support to the default templates. Support of the hatom microformat makes support of a tool like Tumblr and quick link tools better by providing content to what is in the page. Byrne also mentioned that some search engines will use hatom information for better search indexing.
• Extended MetaWeblog API support. getCategories support is one that is apparently missing from MT. (What about AtomPub?)
• Avatar support will move to the core from MTCS
• The mt:authors tag can filter by role.
• Plugin settings can be defined via a YAML file. (Hooray!!)
• Globally shared template modules.
• Editing assets is possible. This is not an API change, but a interace improvement.
• “Several hundred bugs fixed.”

One item that didn’t come up and hadn’t come to my mind till later was about plugin packaging. Anything new? Any updates?

Byrne reiterated that MTOS will contain all features of MT 4.0 and all mentioned above. MTOS will not be “crippleware.” They will not extract functionality.

Nightly builds of MTOS will be available through the subversion repository. A stable release of MTOS will be released when Boomer launches.

The commercial release details are not being released at this time. Byrne did mention that some MTCS & Enterprise Solution features may come into the commercial version. He also mentioned something about the release (of just commercial?) may slide into January.

The rest of the call was spent discussing some features callers were hoping for. Overall this all sounds very exciting and more goodness for the community.

Originally posted by Timothy Appnel from Code / Appnel Solutions, on November 28, 2007 10:42 AM

to compare, I found recent intranet screenshots for Yahoo! and Microsoft  

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on November 28, 2007 10:32 AM

Have you ever wondered what a pallet-load of pencils looks like? This picture is your answer. Have you ever wondered what a pallet-load of pencils being delivered to a chagrined media mogul looks like? You'll find out soon!

The Pencils2MediaMoguls campaign is moving forward. And I'm happy to report that Miles Millar and Al Gough, the showrunners of "Smallville," have announced a fun incentive for those of you who haven't joined in. This email was sent out to "Smallville" fans this morning:

So, Miles and I were sitting around the other day (which is what writers do when they can't write and their picketing shift if over) wondering what we can do to kick this Pencils2Moguls campaign up a notch. Don't get me wrong, we are stoked by the response so far, but we felt there must be something we can do to really light a fire under it going into the holidays.

Then the answer hit us -- the greatest criminal mind of our time -- Lex Luthor.

We will give the gift of Lex.

Well, not really since he is, after all, a fictional character, but we do have Michael Rosenbaum, one of the best young actors of our time (in our humble opinion). We thought, why not offer a challenge to some of these other shows who have devoted fanbases (that's right Battlestar and Buffy I'm talking to you!) and see whose fans can really deliver the goods (in this case, pencils).

So here is the skinny:

For every box of environmentally friendly pencils you buy at Unitedhollywood.com, your name will be entered into an e-raffle. We will then pick a winner at random and they will receive at phone call from Michael Rosenbaum thanking them for their support of both the cause and the show.

That is right, Lex Luthor will call you directly! Make sure you list SMALLVILLE as the show you are supporting when you click on the icon.

So, Craig, please spread the word far and wide.....and thank you all for your continued support and good wishes. We are all in this together.

Best,

Al Gough

Now, if the gift of Lex isn't enough to motivate you, perhaps you'll take the advice of Jane Espenson:

First off, I just had a new idea for the pencils campaign -- when you put down what show or writer you support? Put your own name down. After all, you're the generation of writers who are going to benefit from this. It makes perfect sense. Go 'head. Support yourself; that's what you're really doing anyway.

And I think this applies not only to the future generation of writers, but to the future generation of actors, directors, set dressers, location scouts, caterers, costume designers, grips, everyone. The companies' unfair and greedy proposals threaten ALL of us in the industry. Let's send that message loud and clear.

Originally posted by John Aboud from United Hollywood, on November 28, 2007 10:30 AM

she continues the discussion on her own blog [via] 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on November 28, 2007 10:07 AM

Google Public Policy Blog: Candidates at Google: Barack Obama: ...He reaffirmed his support for network neutrality, saying: "The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history. We have to keep it that way." Obama laid out a detailed package of technology policies designed to strengthen online privacy, increase government openness and transparency, put high-speed broadband within reach of all Americans, improve the delivery government services, drive America's competitiveness, reform our abuse-prone patent system, and free up wireless spectrum for new connectivity and public safety.

Originally posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan from The Googlization of Everything, on November 28, 2007 9:37 AM

Martin Puryear
Originally uploaded by Anile P

As if I needed another excuse for a trip to New York, there's the Puryear exhibition at MoMA.  Tyler Green's been doing a series of posts at Modern Art Notes putting Puryear in perspective; today's post is about the  connection between Puryear's sculpture and minimalist painting. I'm an unabashed fan of minimalism (surprise!) and loved this sentence in Green's post:  "Of course to this day Puryear's sculptures are reductive, almost tidy in their banishment of anything even potentially, remotely extraneous."

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on November 28, 2007 8:58 AM

In the intense competition in South Carolina between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as native son John Edwards, the big winner in the new Clemson University poll is ... undecided, with a whopping 49% support. As for the actual candidates, Hillary leads with 19%, in a statistical dead heat with Barack Obama's 17%, and John Edwards at 12%. The margin of error is ±4.62%. In the last Clemson poll in early September, Hillary had 26%, Obama 16%, and Edwards 10%.

Hillary has had a bigger lead in other recent South Carolina polls, with far less undecideds — possibly meaning that some of her support in those is soft, made up of people who are simply leaning her way. The state has come to be considered a must-win for Barack Obama, due to the fact that African-Americans are expected to make up about half of the Democratic electorate.

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on November 28, 2007 8:57 AM

via WashingtonPost (thanks tyler! ):

'Black Panther Rank and File,' Rallying Its Own Art Movement
By Jessica Dawson
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, November 23, 2007; Page C02

BALTIMORE -- Can we distill the sweat and rage that fueled the militant Black Panther Party into something suited to exhibition walls? The group founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966 was as complicated as it was notorious, advocating violence against cops even as it initiated free lunch programs in the poorest schools in Oakland, Calif. Condensing its history would prove a fool's errand.

It's a good thing, then, that "Black Panther Rank and File" doesn't try. On view in the Decker and Meyerhoff galleries at the Maryland Institute College of Art here, the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party inspired the show.

Images Courtesy Of Jack Shainman Gallery

But the Panthers are just part of the story. Panther photos, video and ephemera are juxtaposed with artwork and artifacts unrelated to the movement yet evocative of American black experience. The show expands from the particular to the general, engaging race in America from a variety of angles.

The exhibition was organized by San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in conjunction with Claude Simard, a curator associated with New York City's Jack Shainman Gallery. Shainman represents many of the contemporary artists on view; the gallery also supplied a number of historical pieces.

Though Shainman is a well-known source for African American artists and ephemera, Yerba Buena's association with a commercial gallery raises questions about conflict of interest. The show favors Shainman artists, who gain exposure on this small museum tour -- "Black Panther Rank and File" originated at nonprofit Yerba Buena, traveled to nonprofit Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and now hangs in a university gallery. That kind of exposure can translate into higher earnings for Shainman artists, casting a shadow over this otherwise strong show.

On view: photos and video capturing Panther rallies; Panther pamphlets and newspapers; oral histories of former members. Those unfamiliar with the group will leave with a strong sense of what they stood for. Among the Panther ephemera hang works by 20th-century artists engaging racial issues either head-on or tangentially -- Lawrence Weiner, Andy Warhol, Carrie Mae Weems, Margaret Bourke-White and David Hammons among them. Historical artifacts -- 19th-century cartoons, banners and lithographs -- round out the show.

And so the show veers from the didactic to the open-ended, from artifact to artwork. It's an evocative mix, one that works more often than it fails. On occasion, though, frank historical objects cast weak artworks in harsh relief.

Take the page describing the proper transport of slaves, circa 1789. Among its many harrowing details, the text counsels that slaves negotiating the Middle Passage by boat should be brought on deck daily for exercise. The author recommends that males should be exercised by jumping up and down in their chains. "This, by friends of the trade," the author writes, "is called dancing." And on it goes, in chilling detail.

Nearby, a photograph of a clenched fist mounted on cardboard stands six feet tall; it's a 2005 artwork by Hank Willis Thomas. The black hand is raised in solidarity with black power but the arm betrays the trappings of success -- a gold-and-silver watch hangs off the wrist, a gray suit sleeve clothes the arm. The gesture deflates the Panthers' Marxist leanings and questions the viability of rage in a time of prosperity. But next to that 18th-century slave tract, such ironies feel shallow.

Other contemporary works come off better. Michael Britto's satirical "Dirrrty Harriet Tubman" videos recast the Underground Railroad conductor as a gun-toting Blaxploitation-style film heroine. One memorable segment finds Tubman and a crew of six dancers gyrating to Britney Spears's raspy "I'm a Slave 4 U." Tubman and company coordinate moves miming hoeing, cotton-picking and brow wiping -- a horrible vision and a hilarious one at the same time. You laugh even as you think you shouldn't.

As for the Panthers themselves, they come off as a media-savvy group. Their look was totally put together: the shades, the afros, the black berets and leather jackets falling to the hip. Even their symbol -- a fierce crouching cat, claws extended -- has remarkable graphic power. These folks knew the power of an image.

But what of the Panthers' critics, of which there were many? For the most part, this is a pro-Panther project. Yerba Buena worked closely with former Panther Bill Jennings to construct the show; he's even credited for suggesting the project.

To the organizers' credit, questions about the viability of a movement employing violence to beget tolerance do arise. (By the mid-1970s, even Seale had tempered his aggressive stance.) But the only overtly critical work comes from the painter John Bankston, who points out Panther homophobia in his 2005 canvas "The Sermon." In it, two latter-day Panthers have seemingly strong words for a transvestite and his companion.

But I can't fault "Black Panther Rank and File" for its point of view. Its engaging mix of artifact and artwork leaves room for a multiplicity of opinion.

Black Panther Rank and File, at Maryland Institute College of Art Fox Building,1303 Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m, Sunday noon-5 p.m., closed major holidays, to Dec. 16. http://www.mica.edu

Originally posted by joy garnett from NEWSgrist - where spin is art, on November 28, 2007 8:39 AM

A new study performed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has found that eating garlic appears to boost the body's supply of hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide acts as an antioxidant and transmits cellular signals that relax blood vessels and increase blood flow. Researchers think this may be why a garlic-rich diet appears to prevent some cancers.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Main, on November 28, 2007 8:30 AM

Dave in Vermont thinks he can top Topps 2008.

"Four variations of a potential '08 Topps design, with slight differences in border and frame colors. Make me appreciate the hard work that goes into designing cards, even craptacular ones such as '81 Donruss."


Not thrilled with the upcoming design for 2008 Topps? Think you can do better? Send me your design and I'll post it on the blog.

Originally posted by Ben Henry from The Baseball Card Blog, on November 28, 2007 7:31 AM

Wow. We now have the first poll showing Mike Huckabee leading in Iowa. The new Rasmussen poll gives Huckabee 28%, Romney 25%, Giuliani 12% and Fred Thompson 11%.

Huckabee has been putting a huge focus on Iowa, pitching himself as the Christian right's alternative to the likes of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. And while this poll might just be an outlier — the other recent Iowa polls have had Romney leading, but by only narrow margins — this is definitely a sign that Huckabee has caught on. Now we just have to see if other polls will confirm it, and if Huckabee can build up his popularity in other states, too.

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on November 28, 2007 7:03 AM

Clare Smyth has taken over the kitchen at Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant, making her the first female chef in Britain to run a restaurant with three Michelin stars.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Posts and Comments by Alaina Browne, on November 28, 2007 5:42 AM

Nice interview with Nintendo game designer Yoshiaki Koizumi, particularly the bits about shifting from 2-D to 3-D Mario games and Mario Galaxy. The bulk of the gameplay in Galaxy takes place on spherical surfaces:

He explained that no matter how large you make the playing field, if you walk long enough you will run into a wall, and that will make you turn around, which makes the camera turn around and runs the risk of making the player lost. With a sphere, Mario can run all he wants without falling or hitting a wall... a useful concept for getting players totally absorbed in the moment. Koizumi added that the best thing about spherical worlds is the "unity of surface," and the "connectedness." Neither will the player get lost easily, or need to adjust the camera - by using spheres, Koizumi said, they had created a game field that never ended.

They also talk about the Galaxy's two-player (well, 1.5-player really) feature, which is a really nice way of getting a second passive player involved in what is essentially a one-player game. (via snarkmarket)

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 28, 2007 5:33 AM

We're all anxious to get someone on this site who really knows her fashion, and for one post only, we've actually done it:

Next week, Fashionista.com will host its very first guest blogger, Nina Garcia.

The author, stylist, and ELLE Fashion Director will take your fashion questions and answer them with more expertise and probably less giggles than we do, and we're thrilled to have her.

Nina was born in Columbia and raised in Massachusetts, where she went to Boston University and later to fashion programs at FIT and in Paris. She began her career as Marc Jacobs' publicist, when he was still at Perry Ellis. She later switched to the fashion closet at Mirabella magazine, and stayed there until ELLE hired her as their market editor. She's been the ELLE fashion director for seven years, and a Project Runway judge for three.

Earlier this year, Nina wrote The Little Black Book of Style, and later this year, we expect her to hurl some major and amazing fashion spears at some haughty reality TV kids (cough, Christian, cough). But next week, she's all ours.

Leave your questions for Nina as comments below, and she'll answer as many as she can. They can be about her job, about your wardrobe, about her books, about Project Runway, and about ELLE...

Meanwhile, our question for Nina is this:

When you saw Marc's grunge collection for Perry Ellis, did you understand its impact at the time? What was it like to balance its press blessings with the internal fury in the company? And do you still have any of the pieces from that collection? (!)

Sorry. This is really exciting for us...

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on November 28, 2007 4:02 AM

Drew Barrymore is just a fool for love. I feel like the girl gets super serious with almost everyone she dates, but I guess she's just in love with being in love.

Drew's latest honey, Justin Long, is totally into her, as well, which is cool. He actually took the actress home to meet his parents! The duo spent the Thanksgiving holiday with his fam in Connecticut, then, on Friday, they hung out a nearby brewery, where they dove deep into some massive PDAs.

"They started out in the bar area and then moved to a booth, where they sat next to each other and kissed and hugged," one spy told People. "Drew and Justin were adorable," another witness said.

Maybe Justin is "The One"?

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from Daily Blabber, on November 28, 2007 4:01 AM

I don't know why other companies don't do this, but Target has just become the first major retailer to offer "refurbished" electronics. Instead of just sending the (mostly perfectly good) electronics to be recycled, Target is fixing them up, and then selling them at reduced rates.

From my perspective, the hope is that electronics will become more like cars, having multiple owners throughout their lifespan and staying in use for up to ten years (instead of the more normal (and dismal) three.) It's just a test program, but Target's website is offering a variety of refurbished electronics including iPods, camcorders and a ton of flat screen televisions.

The site says that all refurbished items are "essentially as good as new" and that they've all be certified and guaranteed to be so.

Unfortunately, you won't find any refurbished items at brick and mortar stores, but quality pre-owned items at a big retailer like Target it is definitely a good start.

Via TreeHugger and Reuters

Originally posted by Hank Green from EcoGeek.org, ReBlogged by Leah Gauthier on Nov 28, 2007 at 08:38 AM

Originally posted by Hank Green from Eyebeam reBlog, on November 28, 2007 3:38 AM

I didn't get to see a great many sessions yesterday because I had a string of interviews to do but the four that I got to catch revealed a couple of interesting common themes. First is the notion that we are now mature gamers and we want deeper, more meaningful play experiences. Clint brought this up in his panel, Jon Blow talked about this in his awesomely inspiring and challenging keynote, Ben Sawyer lamented the lack of playable, shareable games for small children, and Koizumi Yoshiaki spoke about the need for a game that would be simple and fun for the whole family in his talk on Super Mario Galaxy.

It's true. We're not kids anymore. The power fantasies and the simplistic good versus evil tales which pleased us back when we were kids awed by Star Wars are still good fun, but we want something more complex now, maybe more challenging, more Citizen Kane and Chinatown and Breathless than Transformers or Die Hard.

I also realized something else, listening to Jon Blow's excellent critique of why Bioshock is manipulative schlock - he could put into words what I had intuitively felt about the game but wasn't able to express because I lacked the analytical tools. It also reminded me of Clint's really smart critique of the game. Why does it take game designers to provide actual critique of games in this manner? Because we don't have a real game studies department, we don't have writers who are training in formal analysis of game systems - the people who are most qualified to think about games in this way are people who are building systems and confronting systemic challenges constantly. I don't think it's necessary to have education to be able to talk about games as smartly as people like Jon and Clint do; but it would help. And I'm afraid that true game criticism will not come from game enthusiast press, which are essentially the modern equivalent of fanzines.

Well, more to think about.

Originally posted by jane from game girl advance, on November 28, 2007 1:21 AM

the same group responsible for the secret cinema and bar built in a cavern under Paris  

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on November 27, 2007 10:22 PM

So while the tech types commence with the time honored tradition of eating of their young, a couple of notes on why I want a Kindle.  Maybe not this Kindle, but a Kindle.

• My house has too much crap in it. Six years ago or so I ripped my whole CD collection, and on the rare occurrence when I actually buy a CD now, it gets ripped and then stored.  We used to have furniture dedicated to storing CDs -- no more.
• The books I keep on the shelf I keep for a reason.  I love books. Addicted to them, almost. About a year ago I went through a massive purge of the collection I'd been hoarding since the mid-80s and kept maybe 20% of them, tops.  I kept the favorites, the ones that changed how I see the world, and the great editions. These fill the shelves at home; the rest of them found new homes.
• Most of the books I'm reading now don't actually deserve to a permanent home on the shelves. This is sad, but true. I'm still reading great books, but after going through the experience of selling / donating the vast majority of my collection I'm much pickier about what ends up in our home permanently. And there are still too many for the shelves we have.
• All the other media I consume is getting lighter. You can make all the value judgments around this that you want, but the experience of buying and consuming all nine of Beethoven's symphonies is exactly the same as buying and consuming the latest Britney single or the latest espisode of Weeds: click, download, play. I'm spoiled by that experience and I want the same with books.

So those are all the rational reasons.  The slightly less rational reason is that a Kindle will let me hide my habits.  Kindle will let me buy and read books without having to worry about where they're gonna get shelved after the fact...or how they'll be perceived while I'm reading them.  Just imagine -- I could finally indulge my long-standing curiosity about romance novels and devour 10 or 12 of them in a row without having a single one show up in my bookshelf or in my bookbag. On the outside, it looks like I'm catching up on the latest in linguistic pshychology, while on the inside I'm enjoying the latest bodice-ripper from J.R. Ward. And no one but me -- and Amazon, and all of the trusted third parties my purchase history is shared with -- has to know.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on November 27, 2007 9:07 PM

http://ffffound.com/image/86677e2025e21e660f23e4e3264fa436a7ffc2f0

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Originally posted by ydnar from david’s Neighbors, on November 27, 2007 8:02 PM

Jori was just telling me she was hesitant to contact a friend with whom she rarely communicates. "Don't worry," I said, "there's no time like the present." I figure it's time to take her advice and jump back in. Here's the big stuff that's gone down over the last couple months.

1. (with a bullet) I'm getting married.

In just under eleven months, Jori and I will be married here in Brooklyn. We've been together for over four years and said, "We want tax breaks wine glasses and hibachi sets to plan a huge freaking party to confirm our love in a religious and spiritual ceremony." In all seriousness, it's awesome. She's smart, beautiful and tolerates my ability to out-annoy anyone — it was destined to be.

2. In November, I had the Shingles

Updating you on my attempts to contract every old man disease (see: sciatica), some newfound back discomfort turned into a week of debilitating pain and two weeks of itchiness. I wouldn't recommend it. My doctor said it's mostly caused by bad luck, while friends and the internet all told me it was stress related, which is certainly possible. The good news is you can't pass shingles to anybody — it comes from the chicken pox virus, which lives dormant in your nervous system. While saying shingles makes me feel all old timey, I also think herpes zoster sounds kind of awesome.

3. The New Capn Design is Close

I've got some new MT templates all gussied up and my beta setup is on MT4. Considering I'm busy with the holidays and wedding preparations, expect the new hotness by the first day of 2008. While I've said it here before, Khoi reminded me that saying things out loud makes it real.

Smaller News

Thanksgiving was delicious, I'm one year into my time at Apperceptive (A+++), Jori and I had a fantastic time in San Francisco and Yosemite and our two new roommates, Zack and Herman, have been a pleasure.

Phew, glad I got that post out.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on November 27, 2007 7:45 PM

Okay, some unexpected new evidence has emerged that corroborates our account from earlier today that Mitt Romney said on an earlier occasion that he is opposed to having Muslims in his cabinet.

As you know, Romney is in a bit of a spot because of an account in the Christian Science Monitor by an Islamic businessman who claims Romney said that he "cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified" for a Muslim. Today Romney denied this version of events, saying that he had actually been asked whether he thought he needed a Muslim in his Cabinet to effectively counter Jihad, not whether he opposed the idea of having a Muslim in his Cabinet.

But as we reported earlier today, we located two GOPers in Nevada who say that Romney had in fact been asked a similar question and given a similar answer at another event three months ago. George Harris, a state GOP official, told us that he asked Romney at a private fundraiser if he would have any Muslims in his Cabinet. According to Harris, Romney's reply was "most likely not."

We've now discovered that there's a contemporaneous account of this episode in something called Liberty Watch Magazine, which Harris publishes. In the September 2007 issue is this account by Editor Mike Zigler:

...when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently addressed a group of a prominent local conservatives at a Las Vegas fundraiser, George lobbed the first question: “If you are elected President,” he asked, “will you include any Muslim members in your cabinet?”

In the seconds before former Massachusetts Governor Romney responded, you could have heard a pin drop.

His (admittedly, very smooth) answer in a nutshell? “Not likely.”

The rest of the account describes the surprise that local GOPers felt upon hearing that Mitt appeared so hostile to this idea. And again, this account is contemporaneous -- it was laid out well before this ever became controversial.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on November 27, 2007 7:22 PM

Relief maps have finally come -- natively, that is -- to Google Maps with the release of its "Terrain" layer (the Hybrid layer moves to a checkbox on the Satellite layer, hiding or revealing street data). As is often the...

Originally posted by Jonathan Crowe from The Map Room, on November 27, 2007 1:25 PM

Hillary Clinton reportedly has an interesting idea for who would be a good representative of America: Colin Powell. According to Fox News, Hillary told a South Carolina audience that if elected she would ask people of both parties to go to bat before the world for a new American foreign policy.

"I won't even wait until I'm inaugurated, but as soon as I'm elected I'm going to be asking distinguished Americans of both parties — people like Colin Powell, for example, and others — who can represent our country well," Hillary said.

A spokeswoman for Powell told the New York Times that her boss has not been in touch with Hillary, and has no further comment. But this does invite an interesting question: Does Hillary really think Powell is still a credible, distinguished representative of America after his speech at the U.N. laying out all the supposed evidence for Iraqi WMD?

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on November 27, 2007 12:58 PM

Photographer Jus­tin Guariglia spent eight years documenting the secretive warrior monks of the Shaolin Temple.

With the blessing of the main abbot, Shi Yong Xin, Guariglia has earned the full collaboration of the monks to create an astonishing, empathic record of the Shaolin art forms and the individuals who consider themselves the keepers of these traditions. It is the first time the monks have allowed such extensive documentation of these masters and their centuries-old art forms-from Buddhist mudras to classical kung fu-in their original setting, a 1,500-year-old Buddhist temple.

Photos and video here. Watching the videos, especially the one featuring Tong Jian Quan, I was reminded of hip hop dancing (Michael Jackson in particular) in a way that watching kung-fu and other martial arts in Hollywood movies does not.

Also, Shaolin monk Hai Deng was famous for performing a one-finger handstand. The video seems a little suspect but this performance brings the single finger handstand into the realm of possibility.

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 27, 2007 12:47 PM

Don't bother turning your bullet list into a diagram unless the diagram communicates something the bullet list doesn't.

Originally posted by jjg from Jesse James Garrett's Hidden Agenda, on November 27, 2007 11:56 AM

Ever since Renee Zellweger paired with Carolina Herrera, pockets and evening dresses have become a style staple.

Amy Adams proudly wore her pockets on the Oscar red carpet last year, and on the runways, Oscar de la Renta and even Lanvin had pockets on their girls.

But most American shoppers won't ever hit a red carpet - their wedding is as close as they'll get.

Maybe that's why J. Crew just introduced this wedding gown with pockets at left. But do pockets belong on a bridal gown? We're not sure.

We wouldn’t condone buying an $1,800 anything from J. Crew (especially when it can only be bought via catalog - seriously, who doesn’t want to try on their wedding dress?) but the idea of pockets is so intriguing:

You can treat your wedding like the latest disposable fashion fad, and seem so cool and above it all.

Or you can follow your mom's lead and pretend this is the only cool thing you'll ever get to do - a lie, for sure, but a fun one on the day when you get to wake up, have your hair done, have your nails done, have your shoes cost way too much on purpose, and (hopefully) have a really good party, then really good sex.

Anyway, back to the pockets:

Okay? Or terrible?

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on November 27, 2007 11:45 AM

Christopher Hitchens has written a pair of articles for Vanity Fair on the growing self-improvement industry for men, offering himself up as a guinea pig for our education and entertainment. In the second article, he gets new teeth (before photo, after photo...only 6 hours between the two) and gets his nethers waxed...the male version of the Brazilian. The description of his "sack, back, and crack" epilation is too good not to share at length:

Here's what happens. You have to spread your knees as far apart as they will go, while keeping your feet together. In this "wide stance" position, which is disconcertingly like waiting to have your Pampers changed, you are painted with hot wax, to which strips are successively attached and then torn away. Not once, but many, many times. I had no idea it would be so excruciating. The combined effect was like being tortured for information that you do not possess, with intervals for a (incidentally very costly) sandpaper handjob. The thing is that, in order to rip, you have to grip. A point of leverage is required: a place that can be firmly gripped and pulled while the skin is tautened. Ms. Turlington doesn't have this problem. The businesslike Senhora Padilha daubed away, took a purchase on the only available handhold, and then wrenched and wrenched again. The impression of being a huge baby was enhanced by the blizzards of talcum powder that followed each searing application. I swear that several times she soothingly said that I was being a brave little boy... Meanwhile, everything in the general area was fighting to retract itself inside my body.

Hitchens' first article is here.

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 27, 2007 11:26 AM

I've already received one response to the open call for designs. In fact, the response came merely hours after the post ... Hmmm ... seems like there are those of us out there who've been thinking about this for a while. This design comes from reader Frank. He writes: "It isn't great but its simple and to the point. I tried to somewhat model it after the 1975 set, which is one of my favorites, with the multiple colors at the top and bottom of the card based on team colors."

Originally posted by Ben Henry from The Baseball Card Blog, on November 27, 2007 10:35 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Elsewhere, on November 27, 2007 9:14 AM

NYC restaurant advice from a huge douchebag Don Juan about where to wine her, dine her, and then complete the rhyming trifecta later that evening.

I have given much thought to this question of romantic restaurants. In each case you have to study the girl and find the right restaurant for her. One If by Land, Two If by Sea. Forget it. A joke. The Terrace. Never. Never. The minute you walk in she knows what you have in mind. You might as well write her a note 'Tonight I expect to do it.' It's too obvious.

(via eater)

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 27, 2007 9:03 AM

As we noted here yesterday, we've been seeking responses to our story over at TPMmuckraker from yesterday saying that the White House and the Maliki government have reached agreement on guidelines for what in effect will be permanent bases in Iraq. Yesterday Chris Dodd responded to the story, coming out firmly against such bases.

Now the Obama campaign has responded, too. Here's the statement the campaign sent over:

"Barack Obama will make it clear from his first day in office to the American people, the people of Iraq, and to the world that the United States will not seek permanent bases in Iraq."

According to Spencer Ackerman, TPM's resident expert on such matters, this stops short of firm opposition to future permanent bases. That's because the vow not to "seek" permanent bases doesn't foreclose the possibility of accepting them should the Iraqi government offer them. Indeed, in 2005 the Bush administration's own Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, also used a similar formulation, saying that the administration does not "seek" such bases.

So for now it appears that the Obama campaign has left themselves some wiggle room on this question.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on November 27, 2007 8:05 AM

The powerful code editor for OS X, TextMate, gains some Quick Look goodness through a couple of new Leopard plug-ins.

Read More...

Originally posted by dchartier@arstechnica.com (David Chartier) from Infinite Loop, on November 27, 2007 8:00 AM

Posted by Larry Page, Co-Founder and President of Products

Clean and affordable energy is a growing need for our company, and we’re excited about the opportunity to help create competitive green alternatives. Our new initiative isn’t just about Google’s energy needs; we're seeking to accelerate the pace at which clean energy technologies are developing, so they can rival the economics of coal quickly. We've gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building data centers that lead the industry in efficiency. We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating inexpensive renewable electricity at scale.

Promising technologies already exist that could be developed to deliver renewable energy cheaper than coal. We think the time is ripe to build rapidly on the tremendous work on renewable energy. For example, I believe that solar thermal technology provides a very plausible path to generating cheaper electricity. By combining talented technologists, great partners and large investments, we have an opportunity to quickly push this technology forward. Our goal is to build 1 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic that this can be done within years, not decades. If we succeed, it would likely provide a path to replacing a substantial portion of the world’s electricity needs with renewable energy sources.

To lead this effort, we're looking for a world-class team. We need creative and motivated entrepreneurs and technologists with expertise in a broad range of areas, including materials science, physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, land acquisition and management, power transmission and substations, construction, and regulatory issues. Join us. And if you're interested, read about our previous work toward a clean energy future.

Originally posted by Karen from Official Google Blog, on November 27, 2007 7:02 AM

Jesse Jackson, an Obama supporter, had this to say about the Dem candidates in an Op ed piece in the Chicago Sun-Times today:

...the Democratic candidates -- with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans' Ninth Ward and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign -- have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country. The catastrophic crisis that engulfs the African-American community goes without mention. No urban agenda is given priority. When thousands of African Americans marched in protest in Jena, La., not one candidate showed up.

As Ben Smith notes, oddly enough Jackson makes no mention of Obama, the candidate he's backing in his Op ed. So his meaning seems pretty clear here.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on November 27, 2007 6:37 AM

Hrmmm - Do I really need these?
From Engadget

Originally posted by Andrew Martin from Bike Hugger, on November 27, 2007 5:42 AM

On the front page of the NY Times section A, there was a photograph of some workers in Haoro, India and an article titled "New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India." And in fact, the workers are barefoot, bare-chested, bare-handed, and bare-headed as they work in an iron foundry, helping manhole covers for Con Ed and other cities.

The Times explains that a photographer, J. Adam Huggins, who works with the newspaper brought the story to its attention - on a trip to NYC, Huggins noticed (like others have) that some manhole covers say "Made in India" and became curious about the manhole manufacturing industry when returning to India. Huggins narrates a slide show of incredible photographs.

Con Ed told the Times, "We were disturbed by the photos. We take worker safety very seriously," and said it's revising its international work agreements to make sure they include safety requirements. The NYC Department of Environment, which gets most of its manholes from India, via a city spokesman, said "state law requires the city to buy the lowest-priced products available that fit its specifications." And Shakti Industries, which is where the Times' photographs were taken, claims that there have been "no accidents, never ever. Period," though workers' rights advocates suggest accidents are largely underreported.

Some more facts from the article: The melted metal is about 2,500-degrees Fahrenheit, an Indian factory safety act (from 1948) only requires goggles as protective gear and Indian foundry workers are generally paid the equivalent of a few dollar a day, while American workers are paid at least $25/hour.

Photographs of Con Ed manhole cover and NYC Sewer manhole cover by Triborough on Flickr, who also notices that some city manholes are made in China

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on November 27, 2007 3:54 AM

Jessica Alba has never done anything to me personally, but I just don't get all the hype that surrounds her. Yes, she's a pretty girl, but pretty girls are a dime a dozen these days. Yet, people just swoon over her. My friend Craig actually just named his new HD television "Jessica" -- because he loves it almost as much as he loves the real thing.

Anyway, Jessica told Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa that there is a possibility that she will be taking her, somewhat questionable, talents to The Great White Way. "Well, there's a rumor. Yeah, I've been asked to do it," she says, of a role in Speed the Plow. Jess has been tapped to play the role of Karen, which was originated by Madonna in 1988.

"But this is just talk. It's not really happening yet. I'm freaked out!" Jess said of the possibility. "I would be honored to do it," she added, "I don't know if audiences would even want to see me on Broadway."

At least she's not delusional. Would you want to see Jess on Broadway?

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from Daily Blabber, on November 27, 2007 1:29 AM

- "Speechless" is drawing a lot of praise. Congrats to George, Alan and company on all the hard work. Here is a flattering piece in Time and one from the Associated Press (via CNN). The AP story also gives some journalistic love to Kristen and Peter, our fellow online activists at Hollywood Interrupted: The Virtual Picket Line. As of this posting, the group is 1723 strong.

- Mark Lisanti at Defamer beat me to this (like Nikki, that guy blogs as if it's his job or something), but I still want to quote this line from Ben Stein's New York Times column:

To the bosses, I say, “We are not afraid.”

I like to imagine Ben Stein intoning, "Counter... Counter..." But then, it's getting kind of late.

- Catherine Butterfield, a picketer at Sony, sent in this quote from New Yorker television critic Nancy Franklin:

"'Gossip Girl' has indeed become a hit, though not a megahit. It's now possible -- and necessary -- for Nielsen to count viewings of shows that people have recorded on their DVRs and watched within seven days, and 'Gossip Girl's ratings jump from not so hot to respectable when those figures are taken into account. It's also the top TV show on iTunes at the moment. It was on the basis of these two elements of our brave new multiplatform world that the CW decided recently to order a full season of 'Gossip Girl.' Advertisers being drawn to a show that sells well on iTunes wasn't even a concept until a couple of years ago. All the new ways of delivering shows to viewers are starting to pan out for the studios and the networks that own them. That they continue to balk at sharing a larger fraction of their stupendous wealth with writers -- the people who make that wealth possible -- is as mystifying as it is sensationally wrong."

Not just wrong, "sensationally wrong." Wow. Variety subscription: Cancel. New Yorker subscription: Renew.

- I'm guessing that in the time it took Nancy Franklin to type, "All the new ways of delivering shows," three new ways launched. The latest I've read about is SyncTV. Big thanks to Disney picketer David Simkins for sending me the announcement from MacWorld.com.

- More New Yorker content! Writer Dana Goodyear maintains a blog about Los Angeles. This week, she visited with Jerry Maren, "who, at eighty-seven, is the only remaining representative of the Lollipop Guild." And Jerry, a proud Republican, is no fan of big media.

[H]e was still bitter about his treatment at the hands of M-G-M, sixty-eight years ago: “They paid us fifty dollars a week. No residuals, no nothing. Midgets don’t grown on trees, you know.” Then he pointed out that “the dog” -- I guess he meant Toto -- had been making a hundred and twenty-five a week.

- WGA member Alan Shapiro has posted a round-up of strike coverage, and it's easy on the eyes.

- Yahoo!'s slideshow feature continues to add strike photos. And Eric Appel is the latest member to send us a Flickr pool.

- I found this parody protest song by Jill Sobule buried in the comments of a previous post. But she's right about what will happen without another season of "Mad Men." That's no joke. Back in September, Jill wrote an interesting essay about how digital delivery has changed the music business.

- I would go to sleep now if I weren't certain I'd have nightmares about Nick Counter's horrible robot minion.

Originally posted by John Aboud from United Hollywood, on November 27, 2007 12:36 AM

From Paul Ford's "$5 Chocolate Bar":

Brooklyn has squandered the treasures she brought with her when she burst out of her father's brain. She's thinking, they took the fire from Prometheus and made 'smores. And then--just a flicker out of the Gowanus and two man-shapes behind it. Something bright. A flash of cheer.

Paul Ford and I live a few miles apart in New York City, but we never really see each other. We grew up a few miles apart in Pennsylvania, but never met each other back then. He lived in a town where they make chocolate bars, and I bet some of 'em cost five bucks now.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on November 26, 2007 10:49 PM

one man's quest to connect his Guitar Hero controller to his C64 and develop a game to use it with [via] 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on November 26, 2007 9:51 PM

An interesting twist in the Kindle story reported at Dear Author:

Amazon’s pricing for mass market books has suddenly gone full retail, no discount since the release of the Kindle. When questioned in Newsweek about the low pricing, Bezos said “low-margin and high-volume sale—you just have to make sure the mix [between discounted and higher-priced items] works.” It looks like Bezos is hoping to make more money off the high volume of sales from those mass market purchasers.

...I guess this is one way of forcing readers to purchase the Kindle. If Kindle success rises or falls on the backs of the mass market purchasers, this is going to be ugly because I see a whole bunch of Amazon purchasers being pretty upset about this turn of events.

Thanks to Peter Brantley for the link.

Originally posted by ben vershbow from if:book, on November 26, 2007 8:01 PM

Ted Striphas knows more about the potential for and failures of electronic books than just about anyone. He is finishing up a book on the future of print right now. He wrote this about the Amazon Kindle:

...Though I may not be optimistic about Kindle's future, there are a few, significant differences that set it a part from earlier stand-alone e-reading devices. The most significant factor to me is probably Amazon.com, which is unusually well-positioned to market and sell the reader. But even more interesting to me is the careful messaging that's going on around Kindle. In contrast to many earlier forays into the realm of ebooks and e-reading, Kindle isn't being marketed as a replacement for printed books. Instead, media reports about the device, and indeed the marketing surrounding it, all speak reverentially about the smells, sounds, and textures of printed books. The Newsweek article I mentioned earlier even touted the printed book as having one of the best "interfaces" (to impose an anachronism) of all media hitherto created. Kindle's being touted not as a replacement for printed books, but rather as a supplement to them, or even as a way of augmenting them. This definitely shows signs of having learned from past mistakes. Here are a couple of the rubs for me. First, Kindle can only hold 200 books. Now, that may sound like a lot, but at a time when iPods and other such devices can hold thousands of megabyte-consuming songs, couldn't the designers of Kindle have done better with what is, after all, mostly text? What's more disturbing to me, though, are the terms of service Kindle and many other ebook devices attempt to impose. Once you buy a book and download it to your Kindle, you're done--as in, you can't pass it on to anyone else due to embedded digital rights management technology. In other words, this "friendly" new e-reading device, like many digital technologies abounding today, is working actively, if quietly, to undermine the First Sale Doctrine. This basically says (among other things) that once someone has sold you some good, they're no longer at liberty to dictate to whom you can give or sell it. In other words, Kindle represents yet another salvo in the book industry's war against the pass along book trade--and now, a major bookseller is in cahoots with them. I can understand why the book industry, as well as the Author's Guild and the sellers of new books, might be discomforted by the passing on and resale of books. None of these groups profits directly from the circulation of these objects in the after market. But I wonder: is it as simple as that? Does cutting off the ability to circulate books after their first sale really help authors and publishers? Or is this an unimaginative way of creating demand by manufacturing artificial conditions of scarcity, a way that neglects the degree to which informal and unauthorized economies of exchange actually can increase people's desire for at least some consumer goods? (Here I'll refer you to Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks, which addresses these concerns more cogently and in more detail than I can here.) All that to say, if you really want to revere the printed book (and I'm talking to you, Amazon.com), you need to respect its ability to circulate more or less freely and to create ebook devices that do the same. Lock down culture all you want. I'm not buying until I start seeing some keys.

So I have been wondering: What is the relationship (if any) between these commercial devices and the various online library projects (Google Book Search specifically)?

Originally posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan from The Googlization of Everything, on November 26, 2007 3:30 PM

Photo from pinkyhonor.

Originally posted by Heather Champ from Flickr Blog, on November 26, 2007 2:18 PM

Riders hope that low grades for the G line will eventually lead to improvements, while plans are in place to make the G a more usable line. Despite being the two largest boroughs in New York City, there is only one train line dedicated to getting people from Brooklyn (2.5 million people) to Queens (2.3 million people). All other passages must make their way from one borough, through Manhattan (1.6 million people), and then on to the third. The only body of water the G line crosses, however, is the Newtown Creek, separating Kings and Queens Counties. The service is regularly judged abysmal, although paradoxically it gets good grades overall through quirks of the MTA's rating system.

The MTA has been distributing reader report cards recently, though, and allowing passengers themselves to assess what they thought of the lines that they ride. According to The New York Times, G riders expect the line to get a grade of F, and are even hoping for it. Supporters and detractors of the G line are hopeful that a poor grade on the rider survey will spur improvements to a line whose trains only consist of four cars, rather than the standard eight cars on other lines.

Currently the G line stops at Smith/9th Sts. in Brooklyn, stranding riders high in the air with a fine view of the Gowanus Canal until an F train comes along to carry them further into the borough. The Brooklyn Paper recently reported though that plans are in place to extend G-line service all the way to Kensington.

Originally, the MTA said the line would add stops at Fourth Avenue, Seventh Avenue, 15th Street, Fort Hamilton Parkway and Church Avenue only until the repair work to the viaduct was completed in 2012.

But now the agency says that the direct underground link between Greenpoint and Kensington — by way of Park Slope —will be permanent.The whole project is estimated to cost $250 million and will include a complete refurbishment of the now-grimy viaduct that carries the elevated F line across 4th Ave. at 9th St. in Park Slope.

Originally posted by Dave Hogarty from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on November 26, 2007 1:41 PM

Not far from the 7 train or the Sheraton LaGuardia where we had some world-renowned soup dumplings is Nanxiang Xiaolong Bao (aka Noodle House), a small restaurant with an equally small menu. Although the restaurant has far fewer menu options than a typical Chinese restaurant, Nanxiang Xiaolong Bao excels at what they do make. As their Chinese name implies, soup dumplings are their specialty. Orders of the soup dumplings are prepared in an area adjacent to the dining area, with the fine skin of each dumpling carefully rolled in plain sight.

While it takes longer to get your order of soup dumplings than some highly frequented establishments (we're looking at you, Joe's Shanghai), it's well worth the wait. The skin to the soup dumpling is delicate and light and the interior is plenty soupy. One thing to note, each soup dumpling order only has 6 dumplings ($4.50 for pork, $5.50 for crab), unlike the 8 you may get in other restaurants. In addition to soup dumplings, our table ordered some noodles (their English name is Noodle House, after all), and cold appetizers, which are in a display case by the entrance. The noodles and appetizers were also very good, but they didn't have all the items listed on their cold appetizer menu. One item we'll have to try on our next visit is their you tiao.

In a city that has some big name soup dumpling destinations, we think that ones at Nanxiang Xiaolong Bao are arguably the best soup dumplings we've had in the city.

Nanxiang Xiaolong Bao is located at 38-12 Prince St. in Flushing
Bean curd, $3.95; Jellyfish with radish, $4.95

Noodles with pork chop, $4.50

Originally posted by tien mao from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on November 26, 2007 12:41 PM

Because I run my own mail server, I'm able to watch for trends related to incoming email and crunch numbers on those that seem interesting. Today, listening to the voice which has been telling me for the past few weeks that spam feels to be on a major uptrend, I looked at the numbers of spam messages that have hit my own inbox. (Well, make that "tried to hit my own inbox," since I'm also able to run a general spam filter whcih catches most of the unsolicited crap.) And that voice appears to be correct; over the past two months, I've received way more than double the number of spam emails than in any of the months in the first half of 2007. For example, I've received over 28,000 spams through today in November, compared to just under 12,000 in January.

As always, stats can lie as much as they can reveal truth; I don't know what my 2006 chart would have looked like, whether there's always an uptick towards the later months of a calendar year, or any other such comparison information. Nonetheless, I figured this was interesting enough to share.

(with comments)

Originally posted by Jason from Q Daily News, on November 26, 2007 12:20 PM

The Italian mega-hunk has a new hobby, an energy drink, and a few important things to get off his impressively chiseled chest

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Radar Online Features, on November 26, 2007 11:27 AM

I didn't write about this story at first because we've seen it so many times before: a disk with lots of personal information is lost. Encryption is the simple and obvious solution, and that's the end of it.

But the UK's loss of 25 million child benefit records -- including dates of birth, addresses, bank account information, and national insurance numbers -- is turning into a privacy disaster, threatening to derail plans for a national ID card.

Why is it such a big deal? Certainly the scope: 40% of the British population. Also the data: bank account details; plus information about children. There's already a larger debate on the issue of a database on kids that this feeds into. And it's a demonstration of government incompetence (think Hurricane Katrina).

In any case, this issue isn't going away anytime soon. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologized. The head of the Revenue and Customs office has resigned. More is certainly coming.

And this is an easy security problem to solve! Disk and file encryption software is cheap, easy to use, and effective.

Originally posted by schneier from Schneier on Security, on November 26, 2007 9:15 AM

There are still places available for a screening of Black Orpheus this upcoming Thursday, November 29th at 2PM. Tribeca Film Institute and Media That Matters present TFI Youth Screening Series Arts Engine and Tribeca Film Institute partner for the yearlong TFI Youth Screening Series. As a gear up for the back to school season, the first screening started in September, kicking off with Arts Engine/Big Mouth Films production, Arctic Son. The series will run through May 2008. On a monthly basis a Media That Matters Film Festival short will be paired with a feature curated by Tribeca Film Institute. This will be presented to young people and educators in and around New York City. All films will screen at Tribeca Cinemas (unless otherwise noted) 54 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013 @ Laight Street, one block below Canal Street. For more information, visit: www.tribecafilminstitute.org. To book seats, please email youth@tribecafilminstitute.org November 29, 2007: Media That Matters Film Novela, Novela will accompany Black Orpheus Check back next month to download the official program for next season. More about TFI Youth Screening Series The aim of the program is to spark debate and galvanize awareness and action in young people around the issues that are affecting them. Study Guides: Each film will be accompanied by a study guide that will contextualize the issues raised in the film, allowing the discussion to be taken beyond the theater and into classroom and community group settings. Teacher Trainings: Tribeca Film Institute will also hold periodic teacher trainings where filmmakers and educators will discuss the methods of bringing media into the classroom. In-School Screenings and Outreach: For students or schools that are unable to attend the screenings at Tribeca Cinemas or would like to reach a larger audience of students with a TYSS screening, four 2007 Tribeca Film Festival films will be available for a limited number of in-school screenings. For these screenings, schools are asked to conduct a larger classroom project in conjunction with the film.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from MediaRights: News, on November 26, 2007 8:53 AM

The Crate Review System judges video games by how the length of time it takes a player to find the first crate, "which represents the point where the developers ran out of ideas".

Please note that by crates, we mean both crates proper and the circular crate, the barrel.

(thx, joshua)

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 26, 2007 8:26 AM

Mailer for Mayor (In Memorium) (Frumination) mailer for mayor

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Cory's Web LOG, on November 26, 2007 7:59 AM

"If Ashley was the Beatles, then Mary-Kate would be the Rolling Stones." -- Nylon editor Marvin Scott Jarrett, in his latest editor's letter

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on November 26, 2007 7:57 AM

Barack Obama ratchets up his criticism of Hillary in a new interview, suggesting that having been First Lady does not constitute Presidential experience:

"There is no doubt that Bill Clinton had faith in her and consulted with her on issues, in the same way that I would consult with Michelle, if there were issues," the Illinois senator told "Nightline" co-anchor Terry Moran.

"On the other hand, I don't think Michelle would claim that she is the best qualified person to be a U.S. senator by virtue of me talking to her on occasion about the work I've done," he said.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on November 26, 2007 7:20 AM

Finally a filter for stupidity on the internet (but isn't that the point?) via cory arcangel

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Stunned Weblog, on November 26, 2007 6:14 AM

and have many observations and even theories!!

Stay tuned and alert.

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on November 26, 2007 5:00 AM

One developer, xdd, has taken matters into his own hands when it comes to QuickLook's utter inability to show us anything useful when it comes to folders. Now, you can see a listing of contents inside of any given folder by hitting the space bar.

Read More...

Originally posted by jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) from Infinite Loop, on November 26, 2007 4:46 AM

Michael Stevenson wrote this and linked to it in the comments for the entry below:

... Two years ago, Google implemented the nofollow html attribute to prevent this very same comment spam. Nofollow is the default setting for comments on blogging platforms, meaning links placed in blog comments (including pingbacks) do not ‘count’ in search engine rankings. It is overwhelmingly obvious that as a prevention mechanism, it simply doesn't work - spamblogs and comment spam are just too easy and cheap. What nofollow does do, though, is help keep Google's search engine rankings stable. If Google is serious about preventing comment spam, wouldn't it make more sense to prevent these guys and girls from getting accounts on Google Ads? With the aggregation blog pictured above and the thousands of others like it, I have to complement the spammers on finding a solution for just about everyone involved: 1. Pingbacks are not followed, leaving rankings intact. 2. Google ads are a source of income for spammers and, ahem, Google. 3. I feel popular. (Excuse me while I go moderate some more comments.) When the spamblog is the perfect marriage between Google and the spammers, what does that say about blogs more generally? As content recommenders - as citation specialists - we create value with and benefit from the work of others. We recommend, aggregate and redistribute - the spammers automate this process, as does Google on a massive scale. Understandably, many have had enough of being this popular, and at least one blogger has issued a warning to the spammers saying they’re no longer welcome. Like anyone, like Google, she’s looking to protect an investment. A more radical approach might be to disable the Nofollow attribute en masse, invite the spammers in and watch as Google rankings become unsettled. From there, bloggers could wait for the changes in Google Ads policy to trickle (or roll) in. ...

This is very helpful. It corrects a mistake I made in the previous entry (that comment spam affects PageRank). And it makes clearer the complicated relationship between Web pollution and Google's interventions and interests. Thanks, Michael!

Originally posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan from The Googlization of Everything, on November 26, 2007 4:36 AM

Michael Lewis on the unique role that kickers occupy in professional sports.

There is still some faint resistance to the notion that a kicker could ever really do anything great. Brett Favre can throw 10 more game-ending interceptions and fans will still cherish his moments of glory. Reggie Bush may fumble away a championship and still end up being known for the best things he ever does. Even offensive linemen whose names no one remembers are permitted to end their days basking in the reflected glory of having been on the field. Kickers alone are required to make their own cases.

Maybe soccer goalies can identify with NFL kickers?

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 26, 2007 4:29 AM

Hillary Clinton might have Bill campaigning for her, but the Barack Obama campaign is set to bring out some serious firepower of their own. Oprah Winfrey will be kicking off a three-state tour for her candidate in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, beginning December 8 in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

This is the first time that Winfrey has taken to the campaign trail, and really the first cycle in which she's gotten involved at all for a candidate. Winfrey already hosted a big-money fundraiser for Obama earlier this year, and now the question is whether her presence on the campaign trail can sway any women voters away from Hillary and towards Obama.

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on November 26, 2007 4:06 AM

Another Congressional Republican — this time a very high-ranking one — is heading for the exits. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) will announce his resignation today, the Associated Press reports, taking effect before the end of the year.

A source told the AP that there is nothing wrong with Lott's health, but that he is instead leaving to pursue "other opportunities." The obvious possibility would be a job as a lobbyist, but we'll see what Lott himself has to say.

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on November 26, 2007 3:26 AM

As was the case last year, December is shaping up to be an amazing month of shows in New York.

This weekend, there are two shows that you won't want to miss.

On Friday night, WK launches a rare solo show in Brooklyn (see below). And then on Saturday night, Blek le Rat, Blu, Bo130, D*Face, Microbo and Space Invader will all be showing new work as part of "The Streets of Europe: A Survey of European Street Art" opening at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in Chelsea.

More on both shows later in the week.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Wooster Collective, on November 26, 2007 3:00 AM

Michael Frumin's grandfather passed along to him a campaign poster from when Norman Mailer ran for mayor of NYC in 1969. The scans of the poster are wonderful.

I'm about as far from a knowledgeable design critic as you can get, but this thing is an undeniable work of art, especially in the eye of any native New Yorker.

Does anyone know who designed the poster for Mailer?

(link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on November 26, 2007 2:56 AM

Back in June, we looked at a fascinating article from Scientific American titled "An Earth Without People." The article was based on the premises of a book by Alan Weisman called "The World Without Us." Both focus on what would happen to the earth if humans vanished from the planet immediately. The SA article even has some cool animation of what would happen to NYC here. This obviously inspired other artistic renderings of what a post-human world would have in store for the city, like the one above.

Instead of contemplating a city landscape altered, however, the picture above leaves us contemplating a landscape completely unrecognizable. With the Brooklyn Bridge closer to the point of view than the Manhattan Bridge, we'll assume that we're looking north and standing on the Brooklyn side of the East River. We're at a loss to explain how the Empire State Building moved from Manhattan to downtown Brooklyn. Closer in the foreground is the venerable SoHo bar/restaurant Fanelli Cafe. Perhaps rents got so high Manhattan that even Fanelli Cafe had to move to Brooklyn. One thing we love about this picture, however, is that even as skyscrapers topple, streets rupture, bridges crumble, and nature reclaims our great Gotham, all the fire escapes seem to be perfectly solid and up to code.

Can you find anything odd or out of place in the above picture? A larger version is available here for closer examination.

Originally posted by Dave Hogarty from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on November 25, 2007 5:12 PM

The WordPress source code is hideous.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org Tumblelog, on November 25, 2007 4:47 PM

Examiner column for November 26. I had to cut 100 words from the version below, so it will be shorter in the paper.

    This is the Monday after we have given thanks, eaten, and then given thanks again when the relatives have departed or we have returned home. Thanksgiving is a wonderful, present-free holiday, and we pay only in calories—not dollars.

    Students like Thanksgiving because they are perenially hungry. I tell jokes all the time, but the only ones that get laughs are those involving food. The rest, they tell me, are “lame.”

    On the day before Thanksgiving, the tryptophan had started working early, and not one student felt like getting in groups to discuss the essay due the day after the holiday. “Stop thinking about sweet potatoes!” I admonished them. There was a happy twinkle in their eyes that I didn’t know what they were really thinking, and they chuckled over that for five minutes.

    Even when our classes are distracted, Eliot Waxman and I agree this year’s 148 are our best students ever. We aren’t exact in defining “best” because we have had lots of wonderful students in the past, but this year we give thanks every week for the problem-free environment they have created.

    We have not had a single parent complaint. We have not had a single harebrained student complaint. The few student queries have been legitimate and have resulted in our changing something to better suit the student’s learning style.

    No administrators have questioned either our methods or our grading system, and we have both been asked to make presentations of particular lessons to other teachers at conferences or workshops. We must be doing something right.

    And so I am thankful for our pleasant, hassle-free year.

    As I am giving thanks for my situation, the revelations of mismanagement in the District of Columbia schools and government continue. If I were reading this in a novel and not in the news, I would dismiss it as unrealistic and exaggerated. How is it possible for a few employees to adversely affect so many?

    My only contact with Fairfax County’s finance system has been over the 18 years I have arranged for students to buy tickets to the Shakespeare Theatre at group rates. Each contract is approved by an administrator, and every penny I collect is itemized by student name. Fifteen years ago I suggested that I just “charge the tickets on my Visa and ask the students to pay me back.” My administrator nearly fainted.

    “Commingling of funds is not allowed!” he replied. A full-time employee in every Fairfax high school oversees accounts and makes sure there are no irregularities, including “commingling.” That oversight keeps student money safe.
    Because only a few D.C. school and government employees are corrupt, I would like to add all the honest employees of D.C.’s schools to the list of those we should be grateful for. I know there are many more of them than those who make the headlines, and they go unheralded.

    So thanks to all my Oakton students for making my life exciting and hassle-free, and thanks to my colleagues twenty miles away whose situations are much more precarious than mine, but who show up each day to teach nonetheless.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on November 25, 2007 1:48 PM