randomwalks/dj

Examiner column for February 25.

    How do teachers judge whether a lesson is effective? Education experts tell us that all lessons should result in demonstrable student learning. But who defines “learning”? Is it always measured by the end-of-course test?

    In my Advanced Placement literature course “Senior Seminar”, I operate with a double agenda that allows me to teach to the test and teach to the student at the same time. We read great books and write about them in essays that mirror the AP test format, and I give them several of the wickedly hard multiple choice tests that will constitute 45% of their final AP score.

    But the rest of the time I base my lessons on writing, reading, and class discussions that affect the student’s life and have fewer direct links to the test. I justify the class time by noting these lessons stimulate student thinking and ability to make connections--skills essential to both the test and success in college.

    I have no proof that spending time on college essays and discussing government surveillance (when we read “1984”) or changing women’s roles (when we read “Their Eyes Were Watching God”) directly result in higher test scores. What I do know is that students crave classroom links to the real world and, especially by their senior year, think the claustrophobic walls of the high school classroom are expendable—unless their teachers are able to convince them that what goes on within those walls is valuable after test day.

    One such class was the subject of last week’s column--a lesson plan born of necessity when I failed to get the test-directed multiple choice exam Xeroxed in time. Test prep was postponed and a life lesson on endings took its place.

    Margaret Atwood’s brief essay on “Happy Endings” was a hit with the students. In this piece, she composes several scenarios for the life of John and Mary. Ending A is the traditional 1950’s happily-ever-after ending; the others are variations that place roadblocks in the first story—derailing the fairy tale of A and turning it into a narrative that more closely mirrors the lives most of us lead. Her sobering conclusion is that the ultimate ending is always the same: “John and Mary die.” But Atwood adds that the important part is the journey--how we get to that end.

    I thought this three-page riff on endings would simply be a jumping off place for a discussion on the ending of the novel we had just finished. But Atwood’s compressed biographies of John and Mary resonated with students more than I expected and proved to be “an end” in itself.

    Cathleen commented on last week’s lesson: “It was seriously one of my favorite activities of the year. Atwood's ‘Happy Endings’ really got me thinking about how we should be focused on the journey that is our lives rather than if we get to have the house with the white picket fence, disregarding all that it took us to get to our ultimate ‘goal.’ You got me to think about life, and as you said, that's what Seminar is all about!”

    A comment like that is a teacher’s definition of a happy ending.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on February 23, 2008 6:58 PM

"Of course any comparisons between Fidel Castro and RMS are absurd. One's a bearded, long-winded Communist dictator who tolerates no dissent; the other one speaks Spanish." -- Anonymous Coward

Originally posted by Wes Felter from Hack the Planet, on February 23, 2008 9:34 AM

Even though photography is the main focus of my life right now, I’m still doing things in the tech space here and there. One place where this will show up is in the next release of Capistrano which sports a new way to associate roles with servers based on some work that I’ve done recently. It’s a simple little patch in retrospect, but was a nice piece of work to figure out. Thanks Jamis!

Originally posted by Duncan Davidson from Duncan Davidson / Combined, on February 23, 2008 9:10 AM

Buzzfeed: No One Cares: Buzzfeed collected together all of their least popular trends, based on how few people clicked on them, including Celebrity Memoirs, Green Rock Tours, and IHOP’s Pancake Day “controversy.”  The only one that bums me out: only 150 clicks for “Not Caring About New Orleans Again,” which may have just been due to a less than catchy trend title choice by the editors (whom I love, and some of whom are from New Orleans). It collected together stories about ongoing neglect of New Orleans by politicians, and is worth a read.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from shey.net, on February 23, 2008 7:31 AM

At the southeast corner of Lafayette and Spring in the SoHo-Nolita area, some sort of event (explosion?) occurred to knock off the heavy grates off the surface. The FDNY and NYPD closed down the street; it didn't look like a steampipe explosion or water main break (no water) - it looks more like an underground transformer vault (if anyone knows what these are, let us know in comments) explosion. The 6 line does run underneath, but there do not seem to be any delays.

Some of the bystanders speculated the snow and salt could have played a part in the explosion. And since this is the first substantive snow, that means possible electrocutions (dogs seem especially susceptible), though Con Ed has been working more aggressively to check stray voltage.

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on February 22, 2008 1:31 PM

PAPER film crazies Rebecca Carroll and Dennis Dermody give us their two cents on the upcoming Academy Awards.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on February 22, 2008 1:14 PM

For those of you who are not paying very very close attention to the MTOS repository and developers list, the details of MT 4.2 have been released and development has begun in earnest.

In summary MT 4.2 will focus on performance optimization and enhancements. MT 4.0 and MT 4.1 added a lot of great functionality and user experience improvements at a break neck speed. In all the wake of all that activity is a lot of unoptimized code. So this release is not is slated to begin addressing those issues and nothing more. (Somehow I think that will change and engineering will slip a few by product management. Just a hunch though.)

Already a new version of MTOS 4.1.1 has been release with a performance logging and monitoring framework in place. This work was closely followed by modularizing the gargantuan MT::App::CMS, a library/module that contained all the functionality of the MT CMS application weighing in at and approaching 1MB in size, in to many smaller modules. (A running log of performance enhancements are here.) Byrne Reese reports significant improvements in the memory usage and response times of early tests.

So far the previously mentioned memory leak problem does not seem to have been addressed which is a real bummer because it affects the largest most high volume installs that need these better performance the most. I could be wrong as I have not tested the latest rom the repository, but I have not seen anything in the commit logs that indicates changes have been made in this regard.

Originally posted by Timothy Appnel from Code / Appnel Solutions, on February 22, 2008 12:14 PM

As we expand UH into a resource for the talent community exploring the creative and business aspects of new media, we will post bits of news about what's going out there. Comment, question, send us posts about what you know and what you're doing, and look for the new UH: Artists l Audience l Business in the coming weeeks.  -TES

NewTeeVee writes today about UNDER THE ARCHES, a "reality" show that began as a series of short videos online and is now being turned into a "pilot" by a company called Madwood Entertainment.

NYU student Sean Patrick Murray, who created the show, describes it on Facebook as "8 college kids in NYC, the real "Gossip Girl."  You can see the 7-minute pilot there or get a taste here on the Gawker post, which described the show as "reality schtick - [all] about the fast-moving-cloud shots, the angsty Z-100 soundtrack and the whiny blond chicks" and creator Murray as "either a complete genius or a total tool."

According to NewTeeVee, the distribution plan is "to launch a video destination site that will stream ad-supported shows for free" and then “hyper-distribute the show to other video sharing-sites and social networks."

I like that plan to build audience, but whether it's already the big win Murray suggests or just the beginning of a strategy still to be tested, we'll see.  What do you think?

Originally posted by TES from unitedhollywood, on February 22, 2008 8:17 AM

As we expand UH into a resource for the talent community exploring the creative and business aspects of new media, we will post bits of news about what's going out there. Comment, question, send us posts about what you know and what you're doing, and look for the new UH: Artists l Audience l Business in the coming weeeks. -TES

NewTeeVee writes today about UNDER THE ARCHES, a "reality" show

Originally posted by TES from United Hollywood, on February 22, 2008 6:54 AM

Mets COO Jeff Wilpon was a guest during WFAN’s morning show today, hosted by Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton, and had the following to say when asked about the Home-Run Apple at Shea Stadium…

“The apple, as it sits right now, is in not great repair.  So we’re probably going to send it out somewhere to get repaired.  We’re going to see how much of it we can fix, or we’re going to make a new one.”

…so, this sounds like, maybe, they’ll try to fix it and move it to Citi Field…or, this is a way to frame the apple as beyond fixing, so when if they opt to leave it behind the excuse has already been set in motion…

To listen to Wilpon’s interview, click here.

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on February 22, 2008 6:16 AM

The public hearings have been held, the commission has approved a plan, now the votes on congestion pricing are fast approaching. As the March 31st legislative deadline draws near, Transportation Alternatives and other pro-pricing groups are ramping up the advocacy.

Yesterday, T.A. sent a message to supporters outlining its strategy. The ad to the right is part of a campaign directing New Yorkers to GetNYCMoving.org, a site run by the Campaign for New York's Future where visitors can tell their state legislators to support congestion pricing:

Last week, T.A. launched a major push for congestion pricing that plays to our strengths. With only a handful of weeks before the legislative deadline to pass pricing, we have rolled out full-page ads in 13 weekly community papers in key areas of Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Each of the newspapers serves a neighborhood that is due for major traffic reduction and transit benefits under congestion pricing. And to extend our reach, dozens of T.A volunteers have taken to the subways with flyers letting straphangers know exactly what congestion pricing promises for their commute.

Update: So far, the form doesn't include a way to contact City Council members, who vote on the proposal first.

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on February 22, 2008 5:52 AM

Students of all ages may be surprised to discover that homework is a relatively recent phenomenon. In rural America of the late 19th-century, homework was discouraged because it kept youngsters from their chores. In fact, in 1901 the U.S. Congress passed an act that abolished homework for students from kindergarten through eighth grade.

It was not until the 1950s that homework enjoyed a resurgence due to Cold War fears that Russian students were outperforming their American counterparts. By the time the Cold War ended in the 1990s, homework was an entrenched institution. In fact, a 2007 University of Michigan study found that it had increased over time. According to the study, sample of students between the ages of six and nine were spending two hours a week on homework, as opposed to 44 minutes in 1981. (Wikipedia -- History of Homework in the United States)

The Fairfax County Public Library offers an array of homework resources for students from kindergarten through college. See the Homework and Student Support page on the library’s Web site to learn about Live Homework Help, Web sites on school subjects and more.

Originally posted by Fairfax County Public Library from Fairfax County Public Library, on February 22, 2008 5:09 AM

I alluded to this in my debate sum-up below. But one of my big questions about this debate was Hillary Clinton's lack of aggressiveness toward Barack Obama. I think it spoke very well of her on a number of levels -- personally, as a potential leader, etc. She made her case on her merits and policies.

But there is no mistaking the fact that by every metric and every visible trendline Barack Obama is in the process of winning the nomination. At least conventional political logic would dictate that she had no choice but to go after him just as she has been doing on the campaign trail.

But she didn't.

Some are saying that she realizes she's losing and she wants to lose gracefully or not damage the interests of the Democratic party in the fall. Others that the tack she took is actually the best one for her to take. I suspect it's a bit of both.

But that was the big silence in this debate.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on February 21, 2008 5:58 PM

Profiles of 5 New Yorkers that dress in only one color.

Why gray?
I actually wore turquoise for eight years, but last September, I switched to gray. I'd had a bad year and needed to get out of it.

That's a big switch.
I like everything to be clean, and gray is clean. Gray is between black and white, so it's a noncolor, almost. I feel messy and unclean if I wear other colors.

Where do you shop?
I make all my own clothes. I can't wear anyone else's.

What about shoes?
That's hard because even the soles of my shoes have to be gray or white. I get annoyed if the soles are black.

Buzzfeed has more on monochromatic outfits.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on February 21, 2008 5:37 PM

Bootstrapping off of Jay’s previous post, I want to mark this with a bit more pomp and fanfare, and provide a bit of context. The short version, though, is that the NYPL’s now officially blogging.

Originally posted by Josh Greenberg from NYPL Labs, on February 21, 2008 5:20 PM

The Columbia Teachers College professor who was in the news last year when a noose was found on her office door angrily denied she plagiarized others' work. Madonna Constantine, who the Teachers College sanctioned after a year-and-a-half investigation, will appeal the charges.

Constantine, who remains a tenured professor, issued a statement, calling the memo (released to TC faculty) discussing sanctions "premature, vindictive, and mean-spirited," lacking "sensitivity and due process." She wondered "whether a White faculty member would have been treated in such a publicly disrespectful and disparaging manner." You can read the full statement, but here's an excerpt:

Evidence regarding my case will be presented to the Faculty Advisory Committee at Teachers College as soon as my attorneys and I can coordinate my appeal. It is my opinion that this investigation, along with other incidents that have happened to me at Teachers College in recent months, point to a conspiracy and witch-hunt by certain current and former members of the Teachers College community. I believe that nothing that has happened to me this year is coincidental, particularly when I reflect upon the hate crime I experienced last semester involving a noose on my office door. As one of only two tenured Black women full professors at Teachers College, it pains me to conclude that I have been specifically and systematically targeted.

Constantine's lawyer added that the investigation was "extremely underhanded" and suggested his client was the one who had been plagiarized. Additionally, he said the noose incident and plagiarism charges were TC's way to force her to leave. Paul Giacomo told Bloomberg News, "There have been attempts from the very top of the administration of Teachers College to intimidate and blackmail Madonna Constantine into leaving the college."

In late 2005, a former TC professor and students brought their complaints to the counseling and clinical psychology department, which was then chaired by Suniya Luthar. Luthar told the Columbia Spectator she informed the dean and handed over documents to TC attorneys in 2006, and in 2007 Constantine "allegedly presented her with a summons threatening legal action for defamation, slander, and libel" (see this Post story) but never followed up and eventually withdrew the complaint after the hate crime.

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on February 21, 2008 5:08 PM

Compare and contrast. The CNN moderator asks about Nancy Pelosi's contention that the super-delegates should follow what the pledged delegates decide at the end of the contest.

Hillary ducks it:

Well you know these are the rules that are followed. I think that it’ll sort itself out. I’m not worried about that. We will have a nominee, and we will have a unified Democratic Party, and we will go on to victory in November.

Obama reiterates his position that the super-dels will have to follow the popular vote:

Well I think it is important, given how hard Sen. Clinton and I have been working, that these primaries and caucuses count for something. And so my belief is that the will of the voters, expressed in this long election process, is what ultimately will determine who our next nominee’s gonna be.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on February 21, 2008 4:40 PM

Hillary is really cranking up the attacks on -- or "drawing contrasts with" -- Obama on every front. As noted below she hit him over that hapless surrogate's inability to name any Obama accomplishment. Now she's hit him on the charges that he's "lifted" speech lines. Hillary:

Well, I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That’s I think a very simple proposition. And you know, lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in — it’s change you can Xerox...

There is no doubt that you are a passionate eloquent speaker. And I applaud you for that. But when you look at what we face in this country...it is not enough to say let’s come together.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on February 21, 2008 4:04 PM

When I first saw this photo of "mshalalé" cheese on Marianna's blog, Swirl and Scramble, I thought it was a bundle of pasta. Marianna explains that the name of the cheese means braids/braided. The cheese, which is from the Middle East around Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, is usually served drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with nigella seeds. She describes the taste as, "not too strong, slightly stronger in taste then mozzarella, firmer and a bit saltier too."

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Main, on February 21, 2008 12:30 PM

massive compilation.

 bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by adamrice to reference software programming handy - more about this bookmark...

Originally posted by adamrice from del.icio.us/network/sudama, on February 21, 2008 10:29 AM

At his blog for Newsday, David Lennon reports that Orlando Hernandez did not have a bunion removed as the Mets said he did.

Instead, “He had surgery to fix a dislocated second toe, which is now actually shorter, affecting his balance,” Lennon explains. “Because of that, Hernandez is lagging behind the other pitchers as he tries to adjust.”

…so, basically, the guy is hurt so often, even his employer can’t keep track of what pains him…good grief…

In a second post, Lennon recaps lunch plans between Joe Smith and Mike Pelfrey.

Meanwhile, according to Adam Rubin in the Daily News, Jose Reyes may not be doing the Professor Reyes segment for Shea Stadium this season.

“I did it two years in a row already,” Reyes tells Rubin. “But I’ll think about it.  I haven’t said no yet.”

In the report, Rubin also writes of Shea’s alternate plan, using John Maine instead; as well as the latest on Oliver Perez’s contract status; and talks, or the lack of talks, with Freddy Garcia.

Speaking of Rubin, at his blog for the Daily News, he has posted a great Q&A with Carlos Delgado.

In the New York Times, Ben Shpigel profiles Jose Valentin, who has had a big influence on Reyes. 

Lastly, at MLB.com, Marty Noble takes a closer look at Brian Schneider, who looks forward to having ‘a hand in everything.’

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on February 21, 2008 9:08 AM

A journalist recently asked what it is about Gotham that we think suits the Obama campaign. We'll defer to designers John Slabyk and Scott Thomas to make that call — they selected the font for Obama for America, we merely provided it — but one thing we can say as type designers is that Gotham isn't pretending to be anything it's not, which makes it an unusual and refreshing choice for a campaign. Political typefaces have a way of being chosen because they underscore (or imagine) some specific aspect of a candidate, working hard to convey "traditional values" or "strength and vigilance," or any number of graspable populist notions. The only thing Gotham works hard at is being Gotham.

2008 is clearly a year of unusual thinking in political circles, because none of these familiar approaches can explain the utterly confounding typographic dress chosen by Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Hillary's snooze of a serif might have come off a heart-healthy cereal box, or a mildly embarrassing over-the-counter ointment; if you're feeling generous you might associate it with a Board of Ed circular, or an obscure academic journal. But Senator McCain's typeface is positively mystifying: after three decades signifying a very down-market notion of luxe, this particular sans serif has settled into being the font of choice for the hygiene aisle. One of McCain's campaign themes is "Making Tough Choices:" is this the one you would have made? — H&FJ

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, on February 21, 2008 7:00 AM

Recent reports, noted here as they broke, brought word of two intriguing developments in optics: a coating that is far blacker than any before, and preliminary successes at “cloaking” objects with strange refractions so that electromagnetic radiation (maybe, someday, multi-spectral light) flows around them. Hence, invisibility. They are different stories but they tickle similar kinds of amazement. At the Washington Post Rick Weiss took on the difficult job of stitching them together more or less seamlessly into an exploration of optical shenanigans. The result ran yesterday. It’s a good job of dropping the second shoe. After news breaks, enterprising reporters may wait for the smoke to clear and go back in to find out more of the back story, why some people care, and where it’s going. In this case, Weiss found two second shoes and dropped them together. Kudos.

Speaking of shoes, his kicker is delicious. Several reporters covering the cloaking progress news have noted that, if one is rendered fully invisible, one is also rendered blind. If photons aren’t interacting with you, your eyeballs haven’t much to work with. So much for walking unseen into some attractive person’s shower room for a boorish thrill. So how to communicate? Well, go read the kicker.
pic source ;

-CP

Originally posted by Charlie Petit from Knight Science Journalism Tracker, on February 21, 2008 6:56 AM

(ed.note: The first draft of this post was written before the publication of the Times article on McCain and Iseman. So please set aside whatever affairs or influence peddling you think McCain might be involved with to give these other issues their proper due. Thank you. -- jmm)

As I've noted a few times before, one of the key dynamics of the coming general election race is the unwillingness of most reporters to scrutinize John McCain's claims and statements to determine whether they are either accurate, contradicted by other public statements or even if they make any sense. One example is the current tussle between McCain and Obama over a pledge to opt in to the public financing system for the general election. McCain is insisting Obama honor his 'pledge' to opt in to the public financing system if his Republican opponent (McCain) agrees to do the same. Now, Obama's going to have to deal with the pledge issue on his own. But it's impossible to report on this gambit of McCain without at least one spit take. And probably a few more.

Back in August McCain opted into the public financing system for the primaries. Then in December he needed to come up with some cash quickly. Well, no problem. He was already guaranteed over $5 million from the feds. So all he needed to do was put that guarantee down as collateral for the loan.

Only McCain didn't want to do that because once he formally made the federally-guaranteed money collateral then he gave up his right to later opt back out of the system.

But, he really, really needed the money. So McCain, along with his campaign finance lawyer Trevor Potter (whom I've met and is a very sharp guy) came up with a workaround. It went like this. McCain wouldn't make the guarantee collateral. But he promised that if his campaign tanked he would opt out of the system and then opt back in. This would mean remaining a candidate even after he knew he wasn't really in the race in order to a) get back the public money to pay his creditors and b) assure he could sign the original loan note with the de facto collateral while nonetheless maintaining his ability to once again opt out of the public financing system at any one of many possible future junctures at which his campaign might pop back from life support and it would be in his interest to go back to raising money from donors.

Of course, McCain's campaign did come off the mat. And since he now wants to raise and spend as much as possible before the end of the summer, earlier this month he did actually opt back out. The FEC, the outfit that enforces the campaign finance laws, says McCain's not allowed to opt out. But whatever, he opted out anyway.

Explain to me how this guy gets out of the gate attacking anyone else about honoring pledges tied to the campaign finance system.

McCain's other angle over the last few days has been to call Obama naive for saying he would take military action in Pakistan, even without the Pakistanis' permission if they wouldn't give it. But according to the Post, that's exactly what the administration did only a month ago when they used Hellfire missiles to kill Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaeda commander in Pakistan. Here was McCain's response ...

Asked about that account as he drove to this small town to address a snowbound crowd at Young's Jersey Dairy, known for ice cream, McCain demurred, saying he did not know the facts of the situation. But he said Obama was still wrong in speaking publicly about the option.

"The one thing you want to do is not embarrass them," he said. "I've known these people and I have known them for many years. I know I can work with them for the good of the security of the United States. I would not broadcast to the world that I am going to bomb a sovereign nation in order to accomplish my goal."

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on February 21, 2008 6:25 AM

Setting the tone: In its performance report, DOT starts off by measuring how quickly it fixes traffic lights.

A preliminary version of the 2008 Mayor's Management Report was released last week [PDF], and the Department of Transportation section is déja vu all over again. Ten months after the end of the Iris Weinshall regime, DOT is still grading itself almost entirely according to how well it manages traffic flow, keeps highways looking tidy, and other car-oriented metrics.

Even the few new livable streets metrics in this year's MMR, like the number of speed humps installed near schools, fail to provide meaningful information. The MMR is legally mandated by the City Charter to serve as "a public report card on City services affecting the lives of New Yorkers." Yet, it tells us nothing about how the 101 new speed humps installed in 2007 have affected speeding and pedestrian injuries around schools or if more kids are walking and biking to school because of them. Rather, the report depicts a city agency that is more concerned with its own, internal bureaucratic activity than the outcomes of its policies.

The contrast with London couldn't be sharper. That city's transportation agency, Transport for London, sets targets and measures public policy outcomes, like reductions in carbon emissions, noise, particulate matter pollution, and traffic congestion -- as seen in it's detailed, 279-page, annual monitoring report on congestion pricing [PDF]. The report even goes so far as to gauge the effect of pricing on London's employment growth and economic trends, sector by sector, beginning on page 74. TfL's report does exactly what the MMR is supposed to do: It provides a treasure trove of data on how city transportation policies are affecting the lives of Londoners.

Graphs from TfL's Fifth Annual Report on congestion pricing.

Next to TfL's rigorous measurements and focus on actual policy outcomes, New York City's Mayor's Management Report looks laughably inadequate.

(more...)

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on February 21, 2008 6:07 AM

The artist David Horovitz maintains a web page titled "THINGS FOR SALE THAT I WILL MAIL YOU". On it he offers exchange of money for his time.

For example,

If you give me $400 I will take a train to a desolate area with a packed lunch and sit down and read Anna Karenina. I will do this for 6-10 hours. I will repeat the same thing the following days until I have finally read the entire book. Finally! I am only going to do this once, so this is an edition of one only. I will send you documentation of this from the closest mailbox to where I do this. I'll also write the location of the mailbox on the envelope if you ever wish to go to where I will have sent it to you from.

and

This one is really serious. I'm scared to do this. But I think I have to. If you give me $10 I will think really hard of someone who I need to apologize to. I will write them a letter of apology. I will make two copies of the letter. I will send one to you and one to the person who I am apologizing to.

(via jen bekman who spends most days sitting at a desk a few feet away from me in the 20x200 office and still manages to send several IMs and many emails a day)

Filed under: art
Tags: conceptual art, mail

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Heading East, on February 20, 2008 9:46 PM

Tonight is the last chance until December 2010 to witness a total lunar eclipse. This is the third such eclipse in the past year. With any luck the weather will cooperate. It looks like there will be breaks in the clouds over the city, which should make for dramatic views. Break out the tripods and cameras!

A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth wedges itself between the sun and moon, casting its shadow on the latter. Unlike a solar eclipse you can look at a lunar eclipse without frying your retinas! The partial eclipse, when the earth's shadow starts to take a bite out of the moon, begins at 8:43 p.m.. By 10 p.m. the moon will be swallowed by the earth's shadow and will remain that way until nearly 11 o'clock. Bad Astronomy Blog and NASA have lots more details. As the earth's shadow creeps across the moon the moon doesn't get completely dark as you might expect, but turns brownish or even blood red. The reddish hue is because some sunlight gets refracted through the earth's atmosphere.

The eclipse will be easy to find, just look for the moon. AMNY mentions that volunteers from the Amateur Astronomers Association will be at the following locations with binoculars and telescopes:

• Carl Schurz Park in Manhattan, overlooking the East River at 86th Street (4,5,6 to 86th Street)
• Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, the now out-of-service airport. (No. 2 train to the last stop, transfer to Q53 bus)
• Park Slope at Seventh Avenue and Ninth Street (F to 7th Ave)
• Northern Boulevard and 82nd St in Jackson Heights, Queens, in front of the firehouse. (E,F,V,R,7 to 82nd Street)

There will also be events at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows Corona Park starting at 7:30 this evening. And, if clouds get in the way, well, there's always animations from Orbiting Frog.

During the lunar eclipse, but on the other side of the world, the Navy will attempt to shoot down a failing spy satellite filled with toxic fuel.

lunar eclipse (crop) w/Saturn?? last March 3rd by Henry C on Flickr

Originally posted by Joe Schumacher from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on February 20, 2008 6:35 PM

I stumbled upon this 31 page 2007-08 Guatemalan Coffee Atlas published by Anacafé... a 26 MB pdf resource worth sharing.  The Search System they are developing also seems pretty compelling at first glance.

Originally posted by Kevin Cuddeback from gimme! coffee, on February 20, 2008 5:52 PM

The more power you have, the farther you are from those you make decisions for.

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on February 20, 2008 5:34 PM

In 2003, Slope, an on line poetry journal, published a special issue devoted to American Sign Language (ASL) poetry. The issue featured the winners of the 2003 Heart+Express National ASL Poetry Prize and presented their work in video format.  There is no other way to "read" this work.  Unlike Deaf poetry, which can be signed and/or written, ASL poetry is in, and only in, ASL.  At first, I assumed that the videos would feature subtitles, some printed "translation" of what the poets were signing.  This wasn't the case.  Instead, the videos are completely silent--that is, to someone who doesn't know ASL.  But it's clear from the careful hand, body and facial movements that a great deal is being expressed, and it is maddening not to be able to understand the poems. On the other hand, I think that the decision made by the Slope editors was brilliant.  ASL isn't simply a way of "miming" or literally translating English, rather, it is its own language and needs to be approached on its own terms:

ASL incorporates all the functions and structures of a fully developed language system, capable of expressing abstract ideas and poetry....Variations in handshapes, palm orientation, movement, and placement create rhyme, rhythm, tropes, symbols, stanzas and other recognizable characteristics of spoken and written poetry.  You need a video camera to publish a "book" of ASL poetry.

The judges of the contest, Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner, are also known as the Flying Words Project. For over twenty years, they have traveled around the United States and abroad sharing ASL poetry with deaf and hearing audiences.  Cook, who is deaf, signs on stage while Lerner, who is usually off stage, provides a voice for hearing audiences (you can view two of their performances on the Slope site and also in this YouTube video).  Cook is committed to sharing ASL poetry with hearing audiences but when asked if there is a sign for poetry, he draws an important distinction between "hearing" and "Deaf" poetry:

The sign for Hearing poetry is a generally traditional sign. The handshape is "P" (at dominant hand) and flat "B" (non-dominant hand). The P moves while the B stays. It is almost the same sign as for music. This sign is strongly associated with rhythms/rhyme. The other sign was created at the Deaf Way Festival at Gallaudet University in 1989 (I think)...I remember a meeting where we were discussing that we needed a sign that shows our poetry. Finally, we decided to use this sign: Handshape "S," start at the chest then move forward into handshape "5." This sign is similar to "Expression." It looks like this: HEART+EXPRESS.

Lerner's voice gives the hearing audience a sense of the poem, that is all. "My words are not designed to create the whole picture...If you close your eyes and just listen to my voice, you won't understand the poem," he says.

Amy Radil's excellent article "The cultural clamor of American Sign Language poetry" explains in greater detail the formal elements of ASL poetry:

Handshapes are at the core: They are basic forms like letters or numbers, which can be used in combination to construct many different signs. Repeated handshapes become the rhymes in ASL, while repeated signs or sequences generate the rhythm. In addition to handshape rhymes and repetition, poets can create tone through fluid or jerky movements. Two hands can perform different signs at the same time to juxtapose images. A poem can progress through different uses of space, with the performer turning to face different people or take on different personas. Signs for English letters may be incorporated into the poem, to intertwine the spelling of an English word among the signs. Eye contact, or a break in it, can signal shifts and interruptions.

Cook thinks of the process as creating a "language sculpture" that can be experienced as a pause or in motion. I think that attempting to translate these details of motion and gesture in writing would encourage written poetry to move in new and surprising directions.   This certainly was true of translation into ASL.

In 1939, Eric Malzkuhn ("Malz"), a graduate of Gallaudet University, translated Lewis Carroll's poem "The Jabberwocky" into ASL. His masterful translation is regarded by many scholars and poets as the beginning of ASL poetry:

[Malzkuhn's] ASL translation walked the same line between known signs and previously unimagined combinations. Not only was it a hit with audiences, it awakened Deaf people to a new dimension of their language. The performance helped ASL speakers in the audience see their language's potential to astound, to transform normal communication into something else entirely.

I wanted to see if I could locate a clip of Jabberwocky in ASL and found Carl Schroeder's version on YouTube.  From the comments left on his blog, I gathered that his version differs from Malzkuhn's but I recommend that you check it out.

Jabberwocky has been translated into many languages, and in most cases it requires that a translator really push the limits of the target language and, ultimately, embrace the creation of total nonsense.  This means, of course, that what results is not really a translation but a new poem entirely.  The same is true, I imagine, with the ASL translation(s) of Jabberwocky.  In Schroeder's version, his hands seem to fuse into each other in constant flows of movement.  In ASL, which Cynthia L. Peters calls a "visual-kinetic vernacular," Carroll's linguistic hybridity and play is animated, activated in ways that seem to me to be very true to the original.

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on February 20, 2008 5:22 PM

You may have read that a lot of prominent people have recently moved to Git and are loving it. I too am one of those who fancy this new kid on the block but never got very far with the bundle I started for it.

Fortunately Tim Harper recently picked up on my initial efforts and have done a great job at not only making this bundle functional but also downright impressive :)

The much improved Git bundle can be found at Gitorious and discussion about it can be directed to its Google Group.

For those too lazy to click the link above, here are the short install instructions:

mkdir -p /Library/Application\ Support/TextMate/Bundles
cd !$
git clone git://gitorious.org/git-tmbundle/mainline.git Git.tmbundle

After having installed it you can press ⌃⌘T in TextMate and enter git to find the “Administration → Update Git Bundle” action. Use this to update the bundle (it will automatically reload after having performed the update).

Originally posted by Allan Odgaard from TextMate Blog, on February 20, 2008 1:46 PM

When Apple first announced the iPod, way back in 2001 (!), I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t get it. It’s embarrassing, because to me the iPod now seems so obvious. Of course you want 1000 songs in your pocket. Who wouldn’t? For people who still don’t get it, I find it impossible to understand them. What is their life perspective that this device hasn’t transformed it?

The very first iPod looks sort of monstrous compared to today’s sleek beauties. An awkwardly mechanical scroll wheel, surounded by buttons with large enough gaps to gather dirt, sand, and who knows what. A monochrome LCD display takes up perhaps only 25% of the front surface of the device, looking tiny and ineffective on the cigarette-pack-sized case.

The lettering etched into its shiny metallic back reflects its originality: just an Apple logo and the word “iPod.” Branding for a product that stands alone in its market, one that doesn’t need to differentiate itself from the capacities or capabilities of a sibling product. An iPod exists. It holds 1000 songs. And you can buy one.

So I bought one, in spite of not getting it. The truth is, as an Apple employee I was given an offer I couldn’t refuse. Instead of paying the list price of $399, Apple would be offering all of us a one-time half-off deal. Putting a bunch of MP3 files on a portable device and walking around listening to them was the last thing I saw myself doing, but $200 for a 5GB hard drive seemed like a decent deal at the time. I bought the original iPod because it seemed like an affordable hard disk!

How could I not get it? I loved music, and still do. I should have been the ideal target market. But to me, listening to music meant selecting a CD or stack of CDs from my shelf, and carrying those scuffed plastic cases with me wherever I waanted to be entertained. Disorganized stacks were piled on the surfaces around my home stereo. A pile was routinely moved from the front seat of my car to the back, making room for a passenger. If I had a full load, they migrated further to beneath my seath. Pure convenience.

To me, there was nothing more liberating than a CD. The CD represented listening to my music wherever I was, whenever I wanted to. What did I need with MP3 files and a little device that forced me to transfer files to it? That sounded awkward to me.

I was suffering from a major “getting it” gap. My impressions of what I needed were so distorted and abused by habit, that I was blind to the notion that a new device and music in this new format might revolutionize and enhance my life.

What’s interesting to me about this nostalgic trip down memory lane is not so much that I was dense about the iPod and what it could do for me, but that Apple went right ahead and developed the thing anyway. I imagine that most people suffer from this same habitual resistance to new ideas, especially when the new ideas are trying to replace habits that people believe are already optimal. The density I describe here represents serious marketplace inertia for any company that develops game-changing products. How does an innovator convince ordinary people that they’d be happier on the other side of this mental gap?

And most interestingly of all, how does an innovator convince themselves there’s a gap, and that getting people over it will change the world? I only got over the iPod gap with the benefit of a physical object I could hold in my hand, a set of headphones, and some seriously rocking tunes. Apple got over it considerably sooner than that.

Many of us consider ourselves innovators, albeit on a smaller scale than a company such as Apple. So try to imagine a product, a philosophy, or a way of life. Hold it in your hands and examine it carefully. I know you’re sure you don’t need it, and you can’t imagine what you would ever use it for. Neither can anybody else. But in a few years we’ll wonder how we ever lived without it.

Now all have you to do is get over the gap and build it.

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on February 20, 2008 1:43 PM

Computers used to control the safe cracking device in Die Hard.

Originally posted by finn from Modcult, on February 20, 2008 12:53 PM

Did Alexander Graham Bell drink Elisha Gray's telephone-flavored milkshake?

On May 22, 1886, The Washington Post published a shocking front-page scoop: Zenas F. Wilber, a former Washington patent examiner, swore in an affidavit that he'd been bribed by an attorney for Alexander Graham Bell to award Bell the patent for the telephone over a rival inventor, Elisha Gray, who'd filed a patent document on the same day as Bell in 1876.

Even though Bell has been legally vindicated on this issue, Seth Shulman's new book, The Telephone Gambit, suggests that he did in fact steal a key idea from Elisha Gray. (via house next door)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on February 20, 2008 12:47 PM

In August 2006, I wrote “Highly Selective”, a detailed critique of the way keyboard-based multiple item selection works in most Mac OS X software. In short, there are two models for multiple item selection, anchored and unanchored:

ANCHORED: The selection grows in one direction, and shrinks in the other. In the anchored selection model, if you select two or more items in a list using Shift-Down, then pressing Shift-Up will deselect items from the bottom of the selection range. (And vice versa: if you start by selecting items with Shift-Up, Shift-Down will deselect from the top of the selection.)

UNANCHORED: The selection grows in both directions and never shrinks. In the unanchored selection model Shift-Down always extends the selection range downward and Shift-Up always extends it upward.

My argument was that anchored is better, because it allows you to correct for mistakes without switching to the mouse. E.g. if you press Shift-Down four times but realize you’ve selected one too many items, in the anchored model you can simply press Shift-Up to deselect the last item; in the unanchored model, pressing Shift-Up adds another item at the top of the selection range. The problem was that most Mac apps used the unanchored model, because it was the default for Cocoa’s NSTableView and Carbon’s Data Browser.

Key word there being “was”.

In Leopard, Cocoa’s NSTableView changed to the anchored model. You can see this in just about any Cocoa app that has a list that supports multiple selection: Mail’s message list, iChat’s Buddy window, Safari’s bookmarks, and Address Book are just a few examples. Regarding third-party apps, I wrote:

There’s certainly a consistency argument to be in favor of using the Apple-supplied default selection behavior, regardless whether you personally agree with it. The idea being that by using the default behavior, list selection will work the same in your software as it does almost everywhere else. And if Apple does change the behavior in some future version of Mac OS X, your software will pick up the new default behavior “for free”.

That’s exactly what happened — all apps that use Cocoa’s NSTableView, not just Apple’s, picked up the new anchored selection model for free on Leopard.

So if you’ve noticed this change in, say, Mail, it’s not Mail that changed, but rather the underlying NSTableView list control used in many Cocoa apps. Which is why the behavior did not change in apps that use the Carbon Data Browser control (the equivalent in Carbon to NSTableView in Cocoa). The Finder and iTunes are Apple’s two most prominent Carbon apps, and both still use the unanchored selection model. You can also see this in third-party Carbon apps like Interarchy.

I have no idea who pushed for this change at Apple, nor whether my essay was influential in the decision. But whoever you are, I thank you.

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on February 20, 2008 11:23 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on February 20, 2008 11:02 AM

A California judge ordered earlier this week that the whistleblower website, Wikileaks, be taken offline. The site allows people to anonymously post classified documents in hopes of discouraging unethical and illegal behavior of corporations and governments. A Cayman Island Bank, Julius Baer, took the matter to court after classified documents were posted on the site that contain, “what are alleged to be highly damaging documents about the bank's offshore activities," according to Wikileaks. The court papers stated that the stolen documents were posted by an angry ex-employee trying to harass the company, which violated confidentiality agreements and bank laws, The New York Times said today. But the court case only seems to have given Wikileaks more publicity. I didn't even know that the website existed until countless news sources and blogs began writing about it. The folks at Wikileaks were prepared for something like this to happen; though Wikileaks.org is shut down, the website can still be accessed as it was put online at other locations. A simple Google search and you can easily navigate the site and all of its classified documents. Jonathan Werve of Wikileaks Advisory Board said on the site:

Internet censorship doesn't work. Cut off one site, and a thousand more pop up.

Even so, the issue of the Internet and the First Amendment are at risk. While the California Judge didn't succeed in shutting down the website, he had complete intentions of doing so. All this leaves me with a few questions: Why was the website taken to court instead of the alleged disgruntled ex-employee? He was violating the laws and agreements, not the website. Also, if these particular documents were the center of the court case, why didn't the judge order that only the documents in question be removed from the site, instead of the whole site itself? The situation sets a dangerous precedent for censorship on the Internet. And finally, if the documents are true and show that Julius Baer was engaging in illegal activities in the first place, who is taking them to court? —Posted by Brittany Mayne—posted by Intern

Originally posted by (author unknown) from MediaRights: Staff Blog, on February 20, 2008 9:42 AM

Jourdan Dunn was the first black model to walk the catwalk for Prada since Naomi Campbell in 1997. "Wow, it's been a while" is right.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on February 20, 2008 9:12 AM

In its lead editorial yesterday, the New York Times called out the presidential candidates for their failure to address issues facing U.S. cities in this year's campaign. If only the Des Moines Register's editorial board had published something like this back in November...

By now, many Americans have heard the presidential candidates talk about issues close to the heart of rural America. They fell all over themselves to praise ethanol in Iowa and condemn nuclear storage in Nevada. But as important as rural problems are, they're not nearly as big as the task of helping the nation's struggling cities -- where most Americans live or work. The cities have been the hardest hit as federal policies have failed or gone missing in education, housing, health care, jobs, transportation and environment, to name a few. Yet urban issues have gotten scant attention in this campaign.

It's not a new problem. For more than a generation, presidential aspirants have mostly resisted acknowledging the importance of the cities' well being. Blame the front-loading of the primary season with rural states, or electoral and legislative systems that give disproportionate weight to sparsely populated states. Whatever the reason, it is shortsighted. According to Bruce Katz, co-author of a Brookings Institution study promoting investment in metropolitan areas, the largest 100 cities and their surrounding communities are home to 65 percent of the nation's population and account for about 75 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

Originally posted by Aaron Naparstek from Streetsblog, on February 20, 2008 8:30 AM

If a bank teller told you had an unknown bank account with $5.8 million in it and the bank insisted it's yours, wouldn't you spend it? That's what Brooklyn resident Benjamin Lovell did - and now he's paying.

Lovell shares the same name as an employee at Delaware company Woodlawn Trustees. Woodlawn asked that their Lovell be added to a Commerce Bank account with $5.8 million in it, but Commerce somehow mixed up the Social Security numbers of the two Lovells and assigned the Brooklyn Lovell, a Keyspan Energy salesman who makes $600/week, to the account. Jeez, Commerce, you and Social Security numbers!

When the Benjamin Lovell of Brooklyn went to deposit $400 into his account last December, he was told about the account. Lovell did tell the Commerce officials it wasn't his, but they told him it was his. So Lovell did what any person would do: He withdrew $1 million that day, then another $1.1 million over the next month, blowing most of it on "failed investments, jewelry for his mistress, colonic enemas and other extravagances."

Naturally Woodlawn became alarmed when their account was depleted, and the bank contacted the authorities, who only found $500,000 of the withdrawals. The Brooklyn DA's office charged Lovell with grand larceny and he faces up to 25 years in prison. His family was very upset and his wife told the Daily News, "He's a good guy. He's a family man."

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on February 20, 2008 8:24 AM

Slate analyzes Hillary Clinton's food preferences, including lamb, red curry, and creamy desserts.

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Main, on February 20, 2008 8:00 AM

If you're Hillary, maybe Chris Matthews isn't so bad after all.

Here she is this morning, seizing on the Obama surrogate trainwreck from last night:

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on February 20, 2008 7:55 AM

Thanks to the blog, Strange Maps, for sharing this map of the four regions of South Carolina barbecue sauce (and to reader, jmunchie, for sending us the link!). The two dominant North Carolina styles, eastern-style vinegar and pepper and western-style tomato drift southward, and Georgia's ketchup creeps in from the west. South Carolina's own mustard-style, a reflection of the state's German heritage, holds back the outsiders from within.

Related Reading: "A Very Brief History of the Four Types of Barbeque Found In the USA" by Lake E. High, Jr., President, South Carolina Barbeque Association

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Main, on February 20, 2008 7:45 AM

A grower named Heath Putnam has asked me to spread a  potentially great proposal.  Many months ago Heath emailed me with questions about pigs and getting good ones to chefs in the Pacific Northwest.  He intended to raise some of the best pigs available, European breeds, slow-growing, lardy pigs finished on a special diet.  And he’s done that, he’s grown the woolly pig, the Mangalitsa (above), and my friend Devin Knell, a long time sous at the French Laundry and excellent cook, says that the pork they’ve gotten from Heath has been great, they've only had a young Mangalitsa but are waiting for a larger one to try.

Problem: Heath is a small farmer way the hell out in Spokane, WA.  It costs him a lot of money to transport these fantastic beasts to the chefs who can put them to use.  So much money it makes them prohibitively expensive for the chefs and too difficult for him to transport himself.

Solution: Heath wants to grow fleets of little piggies and spread them among farmers who are near great concentrations of chefs so that the chefs can afford to buy them and farmers can afford to grow them.  He’s created a plan whereby interested farmers could purchase these purebred Mangalitsa and Mangalitsa-Berkshire piglets and bring them back to their farms to raise (they’re not expensive to feed out, Heath says, especially if there are nut bearing trees on the  farm, so the cost is primarily in labor).

Any chefs or farmers who are interested in pursuing—dairy farmers might expand into pigs in order to make use of their whey, as they do in Parma—please be in touch with Heath, who has written a thorough description of his proposal at his site.  His goal is nothing less than to make the West Coast a place that grows the best pork in the world.

Originally posted by michael ruhlman from ruhlman.com, on February 20, 2008 7:00 AM

story links: interview with perfumist Douglas Hopkins on the art and science of perfume.

Originally posted by hello@rocketboom.com (Rocketboom) from Rocketboom, yea!, on February 20, 2008 6:54 AM

Streetfilms captured highlights of Enrique Penalosa's appearance with COMMUTE.

One of the most entrenched fallacies in the congestion pricing debate has been the assertion that blue-collar New Yorkers get the short end of the stick. The claim never withstood scrutiny, but now it is facing an especially strong counterargument from Communities United for Transportation Equity (COMMUTE), a coalition of organizations from low-income communities of color underserved by transit.

COMMUTE calls for giving poor New Yorkers better access to transit by implementing extensive, inter-borough Bus Rapid Transit corridors, funded from pricing revenues and the MTA capital budget. On Monday, they hosted an appearance by former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who described how he addressed what he calls "quality of life inequality" by improving public space for pedestrians and building the TransMilenio BRT system.

COMMUTE presented Peñalosa's story as a challenge to New York pols. "People want to see that pricing is going to benefit them directly," said Joan Byron of the Pratt Center for Community Development, a COMMUTE partner. "He really demolishes the argument of electeds who oppose the plan and have 20 percent car ownership and 5 percent commuting by car in their district."

The Pratt Center's Elena Conte brought this point home when she addressed the room following Peñalosa's Q & A: 

The example of Bogotá... reveals that inequities in the mass transit system can be addressed when elected leadership has the will to place the needs of the underserved above the long-established privilege of the tiny minority who drive cars

(more...)

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on February 20, 2008 6:15 AM

The structural engineers over at Hyder Consulting have announced that they are planning what will be, by an overwhelming margin, the world's tallest skyscraper, coming in at double the height of the Burj Dubai. The firm has "confirmed that the tower would be located in the Middle East region," we're told, "but would not give any further details." So is it just a media stunt?
I decided, nonetheless, to alter an old BBC diagram about the world's tallest buildings to give myself a sense of what this might mean, size-wise; the results appear above. I have to assume that the building's actual profile will not resemble what I've created... but you never know.
Note the comparative size of the Empire State Building.

(News item spotted on Archinect).

Originally posted by Geoff Manaugh from BLDGBLOG, on February 20, 2008 6:14 AM

…as usual, the Phillies sent fans a back-door link via e-mail to purchase single-game tickets in advance of tomorrow’s official sales date…

To access the link, and purchase single-game tickets to Citizen’s Bank Park before the general public, click here.

…thanks to CoreyNYC for the link, and god bless the blogosphere…

As noted in an earlier post to MetsBlog, according to their Facebook Group, more than 500 Phillies fans are planning a ‘Take Over’ of Shea Stadium during the Nationally-televised Phillies-Mets game on September 6, because they are ‘sick and tired of stupid Mets fans taking over Citizen’s Bank Park.’

For what it’s worth, the Mets travel to Philadelphia on Saturday, April 19 and Sunday, April 20, both of which are Nationally televised games.

…Update…10:40 am…

…MetsBlog’s Brandon Eddy has already gathered 24 Mets fans to attend to the Saturday, April 19 game, which will air on FOX…they will be sitting in Section 421…

…additionally, another reader of this site has organized 40 Mets fans to take a bus to the same game…

…so, if you’re thinking of buying tickets, go Saturday…maybe we can get a MetsBlog tailgate going…

…this is going to be a crazy season, isn’t it…oh, man…

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on February 20, 2008 5:32 AM

We’ve lined up our commitments, and it looks like we’ll be moving all around the country, appearing on both coasts, the Mountain Time Zone even, and for the first time ever, we should be making appearances in both the Cactus and the Grapefruit Leagues (with the details on the latter event in the Tampa/St. Pete area pending).

A quick list of the places we’ll be appearing in: Indianapolis, St. Petersburg (FL), New York City, New Jersey, Boston, Long Island, Denver, Chicago, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and the Bay Area, with more appearances potentially getting added to the slate as we go along. For further details on all of our appearances, see our events section.

We are immensely grateful to our publisher, Plume, and especially to Mary Pomponio, our publicist, for her tireless work in getting this already ambitious schedule put together. Just remember, there may be another event or two added. Wherever you are, anticipating the arrival of spring action as much as we are, chances are that you’ll be able to meet some of your favorite BP authors at a bookstore event near you.

Originally posted by Christina Kahrl from Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered, on February 20, 2008 5:19 AM

According to their Facebook Group, a large group of Phillies fans are planning a ‘Take Over’ of Shea Stadium during the Phillies-Mets game on September 6.

…thanks to our old friend Luke Halpert for the link…

The following appears on their webpage…

“Are you sick and tired of stupid Mets fans taking over Citizen’s Bank Park?  Well its time to return the favor!  On Saturday September 6th Philadelphia will be taking over Shea Stadium. Right now we are in the process of talking to sales reps at Shea Stadium to get group tickets available.  As soon as they are available we will post a log-in id and password so you can order your tickets!  This game will be a FOX SATURDAY BASEBALL GAME which means its on NATIONAL TV!!!!  I want as many Phillies fans there as humanly possible!  Lets send Shea Stadium out with a bang! F@#K THE METS!!!!!!”

…from what i can gather, more than 500 Phillies fans say they will try to attend the game…ugh…

For what it’s worth, the Mets travel to Philadelphia on Saturday, April 19 and Sunday, April 20, both of which are Nationally televised games.

Single-game tickets for Citizen’s Bank Park go on sale tomorrow, Thurs., Feb. 21, and can be purchased at Phillies.com.

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on February 20, 2008 5:09 AM

I had to have it. You understand why, don't you?

First off -- those little button flaps! Adorable! I really, really hope they actually button, but if they don't, well, I have ways of MAKING them button.

I've made variations of this pattern every summer for years -- short kimono-sleeved bodice and big full skirt. They're cool and breezy to wear and make up great in lightweight cottons -- even quilting cottons, which often don't hang right in a narrower skirt.

And the six-gore skirt is just ideal for adding pockets; it's so easy. (Figure out where you want the pocket to hit on the side gore. Trace the side gore pattern from that spot down to where you want the pocket to stop. Add seam allowances to the top and the bottom of traced pocket piece. You can either line/face the pocket or finish the top with bias binding. Finish the top of the pocket -- may I suggest piping? -- and turn under the bottom seam allowance. Top-stitch turned-under bottom of pocket to gore. If you don't like the top-stitched look, sew pocket to gore across bottom, right sides together, and press the pocket up. Sides of pocket will be secured when you sew the side seams. See? Easy!)

Whew. Sorry for that pocket-making digression. Anyway, I can't wait to get this pattern (from Best Vintage Patterns) and go to town.

And -- as for what the women in the picture are saying -- I think Yellow Dress just said something like "Check out that guy's butt!" and Black Dress is about to inform Yellow Dress that "That Guy" is in fact the boyfriend of Black Dress. But that's just my take. What's yours?

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on February 20, 2008 4:43 AM

It isn't every day that the Hillary camp points to something on Chris Matthews' show to make a point, but today the campaign is pushing this video like crazy -- it shows a key Obama supporter in Texas totally flummoxed when asked if he can name a single legislative accomplishment by the Illinois Senator...

It is indeed a brutal moment, particularly when Matthews says of the hapless fellow's inability to name anything, "that's a problem, isn't it?"

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on February 20, 2008 4:26 AM

Oh, Monsanto.

Just look at you. You’ve got your knit cap pulled down tight over your crew cut, and your stomach is sticking out beneath your skull-and-crossbones T-shirt. Your face is riddled with acne, and your eyes are all hard and mean. You’ve been left back a few grades now — summer school doesn’t always help much, does it? — and so now you are way bigger than everyone else.

You don’t have too many friends anymore. It’s tough to be the class behemoth, isn’t it? So you’ve taken to pushing other kids around on the playground and trying to take their milk money.

Or, at least, to take away their ability to label their milk as rBGH-free. Makes you feel bad when they label things that way, like they know you’ve got cooties or something. Plus you lose money then, and you don’t like losing money. It makes you feel … small, somehow.

So you do what all oversized bullies do to keep themselves from feeling small: you push. You push all the kids you think you can get away with pushing.

Like Pennsylvania. You expected Pennsylvania would be a pushover, didn’t you? You thought it would be all fat, happy children at Hershey Park. Maybe a few old-order Mennonites. A handful of people downing cheese steaks and Mike and Ikes. I mean, I kind of understand what you were thinking. Pennsylvania is the home of Alice from the Brady Bunch and the "Time in a Bottle" crooner guy and Mr. Rogers and that geeky doctor from "Jurassic Park." But you didn’t bother to think about other folks who hail from Pennsylvania, like Joan Jett and Charles Bronson and Larry Holmes (Monsanto, dude, he beat Muhammad Ali and a guy whose nickname was "Bonecrusher"!). And, um, the Battle of Gettysburg? Pennsylvanians are tough, Monsanto. They’re tough enough to fight back. And they did. They turned around and kicked your @*s good. Pennsylvania dairies got to keep their rBGH-free labels. That must have made you feel very small.

So then you did the next logical thing. You found some other kids on the playground that you thought you could kick around. Like New Jersey. That one surprised me, Monsanto. I mean, Tony Soprano? Hel-LO? And did you see Ray Liotta in "Goodfellas"? And what about the vice president who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel? Not smart, picking on New Jersey. They’ve always been tough in Jersey. They crushed you. The Garden State can keep its labels, too.

Next you turned to a state that you think would be a reeeaally easy target: Indiana. But you never saw that movie, did you? The one where the Town Drunk and the Coach With A Checkered Past lead a bunch of earnest farmboys to the state basketball championships? And then, when the final game is tied at 40, Coach Dale calls a timeout and designs a play for Merle to take the last shot, but the players refuse to leave the huddle until Jimmy finally says, "I’ll make it" and then Coach Dale then redraws the play for Jimmy to take the last shot, which is what the team wanted all along? And then Jimmy makes it, he makes that last shot, and everyone cheers, including Shooter, who jumps up and down on his hospital bed? Didn’t you SEE that movie, Monsanto? The folks in Indiana have heart. They may be underdogs, but they are underdogs who know how to win.

Anyhow, they beat you, too. Indiana can say what it wants on its milk labels.

You’re still battling it out in Ohio, it’s true. But you’re facing nurses standing up and saying Hell, no! We won’t go! We won’t lay down for Mon-san-to! Or something to that effect, anyway. And even the Consumer Reports folks are saying the same. And if that’s not enough, I’ve got two words for you: Marilyn Manson.

So now you’re pickin’ on Kansas. You were imagining Dorothy, probably — wide-eyed, apple-cheeked, easy to knock over in a fight. But you must not have studied much history in summer school, Monsanto. Because if you had, you’d know all about Bloody Kansas and everything that came after that nasty little brouhaha, and you would know enough NOT TO PICK A FIGHT IN KANSAS.

So, here’s my question for you, Monsanto. It’s a question that all bullies must ask, eventually, after one too many times of kicking sand in other people’s face only to discover that it just isn’t a good life strategy: How much is too much? Do you know when to say when?

When will you decide you’ve gotten enough black eyes?

I’m going to be frank, Monsanto. You may own a pair of brass knuckles, but I’ve faced my share of playground scuffles, and I have even beat up boys. So I’m going to speak bluntly to you: It’s not working. You keep picking on these kids, and Monsanto, pal, you’re losing. You’re LOSING. They don’t want what you’re peddling. They just don’t want it, and your efforts to shove it down their throats, to hit them so hard that they won’t even know what kind of milk they’re buying, just aren’t working. They are stronger than you anticipated. Or maybe — just maybe — you are a little weaker.

I recommend a little therapy. No shame there. Do a little digging on the therapist’s couch, figure out where all that anger comes from. Because I’m thinking that perhaps it’s not the other kids on the playground that you’re angry at. Maybe you’re mad at you. Yes, you.

Could it be possible you even hate yourself a tiny little bit?

I understand — you don’t have a great model for love. You’ve got those shareholders, and they are always raggin’ on you. No matter how hard you strive for their approval, it’s never good enough for them. Record-smashing profits, 120% sales growth in just 7 years, and still — still! — they are saying, it’s not enough. It will never be enough. They want growth. More growth. Endless growth. Growth every quarter — every damned quarter! And you’re right, Monsanto: that’s not real love.

All of your old allies have left you behind. Starbucks, Krogers, Publix, Safeway, Dean Foods, Chipotle Mexican Grill…and now Kraft, too…they just don’t want to be associated with you any more. Just like all those kids on the playground.

But Monsanto? If you have to bully people into being your friend? That’s not friendship. That’s not real love.

Remember the serenity prayer? Because that’s what you need. You need to ask God to grant you the serenity to accept the things you cannot change (such as all of us consumers who want to know how our food is produced. You’re not going to change us. So sorry); the courage to change the things you can (you can change YOU, Monsanto. You can change YOU!); and the wisdom, always, to know the difference.

Godspeed, Monsanto. Godspeed.

 

Guest contributor Ali can be found at the Cleaner Plate Club. Her previous post for us was about teaching her kid to curse.  If Matt Groening wants to sue someone over the illustration, Bonnie gets the blame.

Originally posted by Guest from The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing., on February 20, 2008 4:00 AM

More of Lisa Black’s Steampunk Taxidermy.

(via Make)

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on February 20, 2008 2:55 AM

This Sunday February 24, 2008 at PS 1 there will be a panel called Protest and Survive at 2pm and a workshop that I will be part of called Pink Bloque Revisited at 4pm

PINK BLOQUE MEMBERS RE-UNITE TO PRESENT AT WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution AT PS1 MOMA

Please join members of the Pink Bloque this Sunday at 4pm as they reflect on their booty-shaking tactics, celebrate the histories of feminist street performance and creative resistance, and look toward the future of engaged feminist cultures! Presentation followed by interactive discussion.

Sunday February 24

2pm Protest and Survive: The Legacy of Collective Action with panelists Marlene McCarty & John Lindell (Gran Fury), Joyce Kozloff (Artists Against the War), Doug Ashford (Group Material), Eugenie Tsai (Godzilla). Moderated by Carey Lovelace. Co-presented by P.S.1 and The Museum of Modern Art's Feminist Future Series, made possible by The Modern Women's Fund.

4pm Pink Bloque Revisited, an interactive workshop with re-united members of the radical Chicago street dance troupe.

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Ave at the intersection of 46th Ave
Long Island City, NY 11101
T: 718.784.2084
All Presentations on the 3rd Floor

About the Pink Bloque:
The Pink Bloque was a multi-issue, multi-outfit radical feminist street dance troupe who used popular culture and dance as a protest tactic from 2002-2004. We used semi-choreographed hip-hop dance moves, new media technologies, and pop culture references to make protesting a real political party. We employed tight pants and tight political analysis to brush off the haters and give props to the lovers. Now in a reflective mode, the Pink Bloque wants to share what we learned and inspire others from our experience.
For more info: www.pinkbloque.org

Originally posted by Dara Greenwald from Just Seeds: Blog, on February 20, 2008 1:45 AM

The NY Press is doing a story about a city labor leader who's proposing that vehicles pay double the current rates to enter the city and mass transit made free. So for the cover illustration I created this image...

Originally posted by pa from invisibleman, on February 19, 2008 4:44 PM

Following Scott’s lead, we ordered some laptop stickers from Sticker Giant. They work as advertised. I’ve been putting them on all manner of items I shouldn’t and they come right off. You can even peel them off co-worker’s hair. (As an added bonus it turns out that Sticker Giant was started by an old friend of mine, John Fischer, so we got to reconnect.)

If you see us at SXSW next month, ask for a sticker. If I try to charge you for it, well, it’ll be ‘cause I’m drunk.

Originally posted by Mike Monteiro from Mule Design : Off the Hoof, on February 19, 2008 2:05 PM

Filed under: Video

If you're a fan of Handbrake -- the tool that allows you to extract your DVDs* into more portable formats (such as your iPod / iPhone / Apple TV) -- listen up. Handbrake has hit version 0.9.2!

So what's changed from the last version, released back in October last year? Well, first-off the application is Leopard-only which may well irk some readers (debate away in the comments, folks). Throw in improved queueing, Sparkle updating for keeping Handbrake up-to-date, iPhone Anamorphic video, 'multi-track audio on Apple devices' and Elgato .eyetv file support. Of course, there's many, many, more enhancements that we're not mentioning, and the changelist shows there's plenty of new goodness in this release.

All for the very excellent price of free, the new version is available from the Handbrake site for Mac, WIndows and Linux citizens.

*It goes without saying that you should only use Handbrake for DVDs which you are licensed to do so. TUAW does not condone piracy.

Thanks, Rouven!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Nik Fletcher from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on February 19, 2008 2:00 PM

This made the rounds today. The latest Björk album “Volta” seemed to have passed by pretty much unnoticed but the remixes from it have been a bit more solid. Spank Rock and SMD already did their parts and now Ratatat turns their attention to “Wanderlust”, this features some strange bleeps and sounds along with some of those Ratatat guitars and a quirky double time beat but it actually fits really well with Björks vocals. (Thank you Asian Dan)
Björk - Wanderlust (Ratatat remix) (YSI)
Björk - Wanderlust (Ratatat remix) (zShare)

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Originally posted by Discobelle from PROTEIN® OS -, on February 19, 2008 1:01 PM

While doing a little research on the South Carolina barbecue sauce map, I stumbled across the most excellent "A Very Brief History of the Four Types of Barbeque Found In the USA" written by Lake E. High, Jr., President, South Carolina Barbeque Association. It's worth reading in its entirety if you're a barbecue lover or geek, or a Southerner.

Below are a two of my favorite bits on the term "barbeque":

Unfortunately, most Americans who live outside of the South in general and   North and South Carolina in particular, use it as a verb or, if they use it  as a noun, use it incorrectly. Midwesterners or Yankees will say to friends, "I'm going to barbeque some hamburgers tonight." Or they will say, "Let's put some brats on the barbeque and break out some beer." And while everyone will be having a great time sitting around in the smoke, the use of the word in that way is incorrect. That neighbor is going to grill some hamburgers, not barbeque them. The cooker he is going to cook them on should be called a grill, not a barbeque.

[...]

The incorrect use of the term barbeque on television, in movies and in magazines which is, more often than not, written or spoken by people who know nothing about real barbeque, has led to the misconception, for instance, that beef is barbeque. It's not. Don't forget, barbeque is more specifically a noun, a specific thing, and that specific thing is pork, not beef or fish, or beaver, or shrimp or anything else. It's quite possible to barbeque beef; tens of thousands of people out west do it all the time. And it's oftentimes delicious. But it's "barbequed beef" not barbeque. The term barbeque is always properly reserved for pork. (emphasis mine)

Another great food map: The Sweet Tea Line, the availability of sweet tea in Virginia as a representation of the Mason-Dixon line. Did you know that South Carolina is the first place in the United States where tea was grown and is the only state to ever have produced tea commercially? More ice tea and sweet tea history.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from A Full Belly, on February 19, 2008 1:00 PM

by Harriette Yahr FLOW: For Love of Water, a thorough and alarming doc about the global water crisis from toxicity to privatization, premiered in the Documentary Competition section of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. FLOW was directed by Irena Salina whose previous work includes Ghost Bird: The Life and Art of Judith Deim. Gill Holland, producer of over 40 films and Spirit Award nominee for producer of the year, co-produced. Others involved include Yvette Tomlinson (co-producer, contributing producer for the Emmy-Award winning South Africa Now), Steven Starr (producer, founder of Revver.com) and Stephen Nemeth (executive producer, whose many producing credits include Dogtown and Z-Boys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). I spoke with director Irena Salina and co-producer Gill Holland.

Still from FLOW: For Love of Water

Harriette Yahr: Congrats on your Sundance premiere. How was that for you? Irena Salina: Sundance gives an amazing platform for independent film. I had an amazing experience; it was the first time the film was shown so it's great to get the reaction of the audience. Also, you are exposed to a range of distributors and journalists. I feel blessed that our film was there. Oh and we got a distribution deal.

Director, Irena Salina

Gill Holland: We had one of the most intense Q&As I have ever witnessed with a former head of a Vivendi subsidiary applauding us -- but not before terrifying the audience that he would lambaste us! -- and ended up with a standing ovation at the 400 plus seat Library Center which was exhilarating. Irena, I want to talk a little about your process. You filmed in many countries -- what hurdles did you face? I would say because of the lack of money you work on an intense schedule, not always giving you the time to stay long enough in one place. Sometime I had to go places alone, which can be challenging and overwhelming. But I was lucky enough that it always turned out well -- with the very exception of a tick bite in South Africa that gave me high fever.

Co-Producer, Gill Holland

Gill, can you jump in here and talk about funding. How did that all come together? Irena first approached me around 2002 to raise money while I was working out of my 5th floor walk-up, and I was like, 'Have you seen what the economy just did? There's no way I know anyone with cash for anything right now.' So Steven Starr came on board first, and then when we finally organized an LLC two or three years later and became official and had some footage in the can, I raised a good chunk of the financing, all private equity sources. Irena, do you see yourself an activist or a filmmaker or both? I see myself as a filmmaker and a concerned citizen! Your film is also titled For Love of Water. Tell me about that. Well It was first Flow and one day Steven Starr arrived in New York to see how the editing was coming along and he arrived all excited saying, "I had an idea in the plane... F-For L-Love O-Of W-Water." I thought to myself it has to start from a place of love. People used to worship water and in some countries they still do! That's a good idea... Water is such a big topic, how did you define your focus? Yes indeed, you can get drowned in such a big topic but at the same time a story that applies to Africa might apply to another part of the world. Take the example of when the films talks about pollution of water through certain herbicides and pesticides. Well you will see that it actually affects many places in different parts of the world. I don't know if I can talk in terms of define the focus. I worked five years on this film; I would do much research and use my intuition as well filter the story and let room for story that would come along. It's a process, sometimes I would throw myself in a direction and realize that I was going into a different horizon that didn't relate to the film and I would refocus myself. It really was an organic process for me. Also as we were editing it became also obvious what could not make it into the film. What have some real world results been from this film, any positive impact yet? Gill: We have had enthusiastic audiences pledging to boycott plastic bottled water so that is a great start. And one woman said she was no longer going to help her Scottish ad company try to convince the Scots to privatize their water (they are Europe's last country to still have public water). Awareness is growing, and word of mouth judging from the emails we get is building, and more and more folks want to see the film.

Still from FLOW: For Love of Water

How has making this film affected you? Irena: This film has affected me in a big way. First of all when you start traveling around the world listening to people and meeting new landscapes, it's hard not to be transformed. You come face to face with a very different reality. I lived in remote village in India, went to really poor townships in South Africa, met beautiful people in Bolivia. I could go on and on... So you bring back stories, faces, landscapes and lights with you and it never really leaves you, and those places call you back. After going a couple of times in India, I have since gotten involved in some social working there. Once you start doing something other than for yourself that when you really start living… and receiving in a big way. Gill, what excited you about the project? I am at heart a big old environmentalist and this is one of those projects you just have to do for the world, not for financial gain. Having my daughter during the editing process made me even more impassioned about it. Has your personal relationship with water in your life changed in any way? Irena: Water has always played a strong part in my life, but yes I can't look at bottle of water the same way now! Gill: Don't flush every time you urinate, don't drink plastic bottled water, drink tap, shower shorter, be aware of your "water footprint"! On a positive note, you stress the possibilities of clean affordable water even in remote locations, for pennies a day. Can you talk about that program? Dr. Ashok Gadgil came up with an invention: UV Waterworks. It is a simple water disinfection device using UV light, which is being used for emergency relief operations and for delivering safe drinking water to rural communities. After a certain number of years the community owns it. It has been implemented in South Africa, India, and the Philippines. The community operates the system and people that never had safe drinking water can get ten liters a day of fresh clean water at the cost than two dollars per person per year! What are your ultimate hopes with FLOW? Irena: To bring awareness. People can start paying more attention to water. I think it starts there: Awareness. People can really make a difference. Take the arsenic in water -- it took a bunch of civilians to force the EPA to have strong regulations so strong level of arsenic would not be permitable. The problem is people are not informed; once they are they can take action. Also if we can raise money for Dr. Ashok Gadgil's invention, so that small technology can be accessible to more people in need of it, that would be amazing. Same with the organization of Mr. Rajendra Singh who helps build rainwater harvesting in very poor communities in India. In the west there are a number of things people could do. As an example they could pay more attention to pollutants that should not be in our water. Where can people learn more about Dr. Gadgil's invention and how they can contribute money? Our website: www.flowthefilm.com What's next for FLOW? Gill: We are doing about 30 festivals so far this year, and will be opening theatrically in Louisville, Kentucky mid-March on our own. We did a deal with Celluloid Dreams for foreign and they are starting to sell those markets, and we should be on the TV in the states early '09. Stay tuned for details!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from MediaRights: News, on February 19, 2008 12:42 PM

A last minute mailer dropped in Wisconsin by the Hillary campaign hits Obama on the "present" votes. Key line:

"Illinois state legislators can vote `present.' But a president has to make the toughest `yes' or `no' decisions in the world."

Click on the images to enlarge:

Hitting the "inexperienced" and "unready" charge once again, obviously.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on February 19, 2008 11:02 AM

This portrait of Homer Simpson painted in the style of Rembrandt is strangely mesmerizing. Can't look away from those giant eyes.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on February 19, 2008 6:07 AM

Well it's only February, and 2008 is already living up to its title as the Year of the Cheese Cave. According to an article in last week's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Fermo Jaeckle, one of the founders of legendary Wisconsin cheese company Roth Käse, has purchased an underground cave that used to be the site of a huge marijuana-growing operation 40 miles northeast of Nashville. Jaeckle, of course, plans to age some serious cheese down there beginning in 2009.

The cave is more than five football fields long, and at 100 feet below the surface of the earth, with stable temperature and humidity, is a perfect place to age cheese. The property was auctioned off last year, and Jaeckle's winning bid was for $285,000, a price he says is well below what he might've paid for it otherwise.

Although Jaeckle's company Roth Käse was not involved in the purchase, it seems likely that at least some of the space will be used to age their signature and award-winning Grand Cru Gruyère. Jaeckle has also kept open the possibility of partnering with area cheese makers as well as wineries and (ahem) mushroom growers, all of whom can benefit from the climate-controlled environment. It will certainly be interesting to see how the space is utilized and marketed. Jaeckle may very well have stumbled upon one of those things that just seems to market itself.

According to the Journal Sentinel, "The cave's former owner, Fred Strunk, is serving 18 years in prison on charges of growing marijuana, money laundering and theft." Here's hoping that Jaeckle's lot proves better.

Photograph of Grand Cru Gruyère from Roth Käse

About the author: Jamie Forrest publishes Curdnerds.com from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife, his daughter, and his cheese.

Originally posted by Jamie Forrest from Serious Eats: Main, on February 19, 2008 6:00 AM

Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer is adamantly denying a report this morning in The Politico quoting an anonymous campaign official suggesting that the Clinton campaign will pursue Obama's pledged delegates. Singer sends me this:

We have not, are not and will not pursue the pledged delegates of Barack Obama. It's now time for the Obama campaign to be clear about their intentions.

It's worth noting that the Politico story quotes a Clinton official predicting that both campaigns will pursue the pledged dels. The Obama camp has not yet put out a statement on whether they'll pursue Hillary's pledged dels, though they very likely will soon.

More in a bit.

Late Update: The Obama campaign has ruled out this tactic, too. Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor sends me this:

"We would absolutely not use these sorts of tactics. Senator Obama is focused on winning contests and earning the support of pledged delegates."

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on February 19, 2008 5:55 AM

There is a good video of a prototype prosthetic arm developed by Dean Kamen, the man behind the Segway, on IEEE's robotics blog.

Dubbed the "Luke arm" after the bionic model sported by Luke Skywalker, Kamen's creation generated a real buzz when the first bootleg video of it appeared last year.

The IEEE's video shows the arm in action more clearly, with explanation from Kamen and others involved in making it and some user feedback. Seeing a man who lost both arms 26 years ago pick up and eat a small chocolate is quite striking.

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Originally posted by New Scientist from Protein® OS -, on February 19, 2008 5:35 AM

“Not that they want to see any prospect fail, but old-line major league scouts everywhere stood up and cheered last week. Jeremy Brown, the Oakland Athletics announced, had retired.” - Murray Chass, The New York Times, February 19, 2008

Not that they would ever wish this upon their worst enemy, but sports bloggers everywhere gave each other virtual high-fives and loads of Diggs last December. Stuart Scott, wonky-eyed ESPN broadcast personality and spoken-word maverick, was diagnosed with cancer.

Not that they’re sad and cranky old men milking their fleeting moment of fame for every photo op or press clipping they can scrounge up, but members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins popped yet another champagne cork on Februrary 3rd. The undefeated New England Patriots, supposedly the best NFL team of all time, lost the Super Bowl to the New York Football Giants.

Not that he doesn’t love the game any less than he did when he was one of the greatest players to ever lace them up, but Isiah Thomas harrassed unsuspecting women with an easy mind last night. The 15-37 New York Knicks, owners of the 3rd worst record in the NBA, had the day off.

Not that their myopic brand of misery and misanthropy hasn’t already been well established, but Rush Limbaugh and his cadre of “dittoheads” breathed a little easier yesterday. John McCain, presumptive Republican presidential nominee, inched another day closer to his impending death.

Not that enjoying the comedic stylings of a sub-literate redneck stereotype suggests anything about one’s own mental faculties, but a throng of upright feces-flinging morons are licking their chops and scratching their genital areas in breathless anticipation. Witless Protection, the new comedy starring Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy, opens in theatres this Friday.

Not that he was one for demonstrative shows of emotion, but Freidrick Nietschze performed the chicken dance with unforseen exuberance in 1882. God, creator of the universe, was dead.

Not that they’re not in some circle of Hell suffering a misery no mere mortal could hope to understand, but former Senator Joe McCarthy and his witch-hunting cronies managed to crack a smile today as barbed whips rent their tired flesh and their innards boiled upon the hot blades of endless plunging knives. Fidel Castro, long-time Cuban president and the most visible Communist figurehead of the late 20th century, announced his retirement.

Not that he’s flipping over couch cushions for pennies or cold-calling acquaintances for hand-outs, but friends and family exhaled a sigh of relief last Friday. Rickey Henderson, the greatest of all time, got paid.

Originally posted by The Essex Snead from Yard Work, on February 19, 2008 5:33 AM

The other day I posted a link to an article about Hervé This that mentioned how to unboil an egg.

He explains that when an egg is cooked, the protein molecules unroll themselves, link up and enclose the water molecules. In order to 'uncook' the egg, you need to detach the protein molecules from each other. By adding a product like sodium borohydride, the egg becomes liquid within three hours. For those who want to try it at home, vitamin C also does the trick.

Michael Pusateri tried it out (using vitamin C) and it didn't work so well.

The egg was whole and appeared completely unaffected. The texture of the egg outside felt normal and in no way 'unboiled'. While I am a professional engineer, I am a amateur scientist. There are several reasons this process might not have unboiled the egg.

Any molecular gastronomists out there want to give this one a shot?

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on February 19, 2008 5:28 AM

Today's Washington Post has some juicy behind-the-scenes detail on the battle between Hillary and Obama for black support, reporting on a private conference call among Hillary backers trying to cope with the pressure they say they're feeling to flip to Obama:

Last Friday, about 25 of them held an hour-long conference call to discuss what one described as an effort to "pester, intimidate, question our blackness" for not supporting Obama.

The catalyst for the call was a report in the New York Times that Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) was wavering in his support of Clinton...

This bit of news was extremely significant, for Lewis is one of the coveted "superdelegates," those 796 elected officials and party insiders who are not bound by anything that has or will happen at the polls...And with the nomination fight so razor-close, they are being wooed -- some say harassed -- like never before...

Some of Clinton's other black supporters decided to rally and try to blunt the fallout. Among those on the conference call were Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer, former Denver mayor Wellington Webb, and congresswomen Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio.

Palmer was among the more forceful voices, urging others on the call, as he put it yesterday, "to stand up and say why you're for Hillary Clinton in the face of adversity. We can't afford to be wishy-washy . . . Stand up. Fight. Advocate for your candidate. Don't capitulate. . . . Don't let nobody intimidate or threaten you. Just hold on."

The only explicit example of such pressure cited in the article was Obama supporter Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s recent assertion that black super-dels not backing Obama might risk facing a primary challenge down the road.

So it's not clear what intimidation the folks on the call we're talking about. But it's interesting nonetheless that Hillary's black supporters are trying to persuade one another to hold the line.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on February 19, 2008 5:25 AM

TPM wins George Polk award for legal reporting for coverage of the US Attorney scandal.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on February 19, 2008 5:03 AM

The Clinton campaign may try to peel away Obama's pledged delegates.

Late Update: The Clinton campaign is denying this report from the Politico and tells TPM Election Central: "We have not, are not and will not pursue the pledged delegates of Barack Obama."

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on February 19, 2008 4:10 AM

A good friend and upstairs neighbor dropped off a container of the ragu she had spend the entire day making. She had seen the story about ragus in the Sunday New York Times Magazine and decided that nothing would give her more pleasure than making the Beef Bolognese recipe from Marco Canora, the chef-owner of Insieme, the excellent new Italian restaurant in New York. We heated the ragu in the microwave and ate it with a couple of slices of light, airy, moist, and just crisp enough pizza bianco from Grandaisy Bakery. It was ragu from the gods: rich, tangy, meaty, and insanely delicious. I urge all of you to spend a day making this ambrosial Sunday sauce.

I realize that for many people the idea of making a Sunday sauce or ragu is an intensely personal experience related to the strength of family ties and memories. So if you have a family recipe for ragu or Sunday sauce we'd like to hear about it.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats: Main, on February 19, 2008 4:01 AM

Last week Al Gore warned Wall Street movers and shakers to rethink their investments in carbon-intensive businesses. Carbon won't be free forever and a business's carbon footprint will soon be priced into its value. "Subprime carbon assets" are poised to collapse. Most people agree that wanton, unrestricted production of carbon dioxide is bad (we're certainly convinced) but he seems to be suggesting that companies are going to be forced to account for their environmental impact in a new way soon. Sounds great, but what's going to make that happen? Is he predicting new, stricter regulations? (Fingers crossed.)

Originally posted by andrewprice from Good Magazine:, ReBlogged by Leah Gauthier on Feb 19, 2008 at 09:00 AM

Originally posted by andrewprice from Eyebeam reBlog, on February 19, 2008 4:00 AM

Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.Rolling Stone's second issue of 1989 was a mixed bag. We start with a lame cover story on Mel Gibson (as vapid as the star himself, although somewhat less alcoholic and definitely less anti-semitic), but it's balanced out by a profile of And Justice...-era Metallica (Jason Newsted: "Metallica is going to be one of the bands you look back on in the year 2008, that people will still listen to the way I still listen to Zeppelin and Sabbath albums"). Was he right, or did everything post-Sandman sully the glow? Either way, it's a good look back at the band as fan-driven phenomenon, when Lars was more into viral tape-trading than copyright beefs.

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Originally posted by Stereogum from Protein® OS -, on February 18, 2008 1:16 PM

There's an interesting dynamic in play if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee this summer. John McCain has been lying for several years about negotiations he held early in this decade over leaving the Republican party and either joining the Democratic party or, probably more likely, becoming an independent and caucusing with the Democrats as Sen. Jeffords (I-VT) was then doing.

The person who knows most about those discussions is former Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD). And Daschle is not only a supporter of Obama. He's played a key role in putting together the team of staffers and campaign operatives who make up Obama's inner circle.

Daschle has touched on this in the past but pretty lightly. And of course it wasn't until recently that McCain was running again as Mr. Republican. But I would think that at some point -- should Obama become the nominee, and possibly even if Clinton does -- Daschle's role in the campaign and what he knows about McCain will come into some tension.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on February 18, 2008 11:28 AM

I have been talking to a few people in the academy how and why they use Google Scholar. Anybody unaffiliated with academia have experience with the service? Does it serve you well? Have you found anything useful? How often to you use it? What sorts of searches send you to Google Scholar?

Originally posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan from The Googlization of Everything, on February 18, 2008 10:53 AM

Just watched the fabulous upcoming DVD release of Walker (out on Criterion). Director Alex Cox’s (Repo Man) 1987 visionary surreal allegory based on the true 19th century American adventurer William Walker (Ed Harris), who, with a band of mercenaries invaded and crowned himself president of Nicaragua (from 1855-57). Harris cuts a fabulous figure with his steely, incandescent blue eyes and large brimmed black hats foolheartedly striding through war zones as if convinced he is so touched by God he is invincible. Cox throws in anachronistic helicopters, Newsweek magazines and automobiles to make parallels to the 1980 contra war, and at the time, audiences stayed away in droves. It’s a shame too, because it feels even more startling, original and prescient now. And Joe Strummer’s glorious original score is haunting as it is memorably melodic.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on February 18, 2008 9:44 AM

Having a reputation as a note-taker, I was given by a co-worker two notebooks made by a Canadian company, Think In Ink, Inc. The 100 substantial pages are 3.5" x 5.5", and alternate between blank and lined (genius!). It's bound with a doubled plastic spiral that allows you to remove pages without ripping, and fits a standard ballpoint pen. There's also a plastic sleeve at the back to store loose bits and papers, and a laminated/plasticky cover that can withstand years of sweaty palmed abuse, or being carried in a back pocket. I brought the second notebook with me to Europe this year, and carried it everywhere. I started to get worried as it filled up. Despite Europe's plentiful stationery offerings, there didn't seem to be a replacement that had all -- or even some -- of the Think In Ink's admirable features.

Efforts to contact the company since I've returned have been fruitless -- the website (pocketthinkinink.com) has expired, and the only phone listing I can find for them goes unanswered. Since the business seems to be shuttered, I'm wondering if Cool Tools' readers could recommend a replacement?

-- Erin

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Cool Tools, on February 18, 2008 6:56 AM

Design Your Life: John Emerson, Principal at Apperceptive LLC, has just released a free brochure advising non-profits on how to use information design. Design steps up as both an art of rhetoric -- how can you use design to tell a story and promote a cause? -- and a tool of analysis: how can information graphics help you analyze data, make a plan, and clarify your ideas?

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on February 18, 2008 4:52 AM

• Liu: Transit Lock Box "Must Be Ironclad" (News)
  
• Anti-Pricing Lobby Zeroes in on City Council (Daily Politics)
• Gentile's Position on Pricing Hinges on Ferry Service Quid-Pro-Quo (City Hall)
• Villager: "Drive Traffic Pricing Across Finish Line"
  
• New Subway Fares Expected to Confuse Straphangers  (AMNY)
• Bus/HOV Lane on SI-Bound BQE Not Worth the Cost, Says MTA (SI Advance)
  
• Gas Truck Crashes on Tappan Zee, Spills Diesel Into Hudson (AP)
• Traffic Counts in Atlantic Yards EIS Have Glaring Omission (AYR)
• How Federal Policy Favors Highways Over Transit (Politico via Planetizen)
• China Spending Huge Sums on Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (Economist)
  

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on February 18, 2008 4:00 AM

What's the latest craze in Los Angeles restaurants? According to the New York Times, it's the rapid proliferation of immunity-enhancing items on menus: "First there was vegetarianism, which begot veganism, macrobiotic adherents, raw foodists and something known simply as “the cleanse.” Now make way for immunity-enhancement, via your chopped salad and salmon tartar."

Restaurants are now touting the immunity-enhancing properties of the ingredients they cook with. Steinhauer is more than slightly bemused: "But in Los Angeles, the connubial relationship of farm and pharmacy in restaurants is on the march. The former unadulterated pleasure of simply dining has been replaced with the feeling of a very expensive clinic."

It's an amusing if slightly terrifying story, isn't it?

Looking for straight answers the author, Jennifer Steinhauer, interviews a Harvard Medical School professor. Steinhauer concludes: "There is not enough hard evidence to prove that any food can enhance the immune system."

This year someone sued Dannon about the false claims it was making about its Activa line of yogurts.

It sounds like literally the jury is still out on this issue.

Do serious eaters buy off on this immunity-enhancing food stuff?

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats: Main, on February 18, 2008 3:50 AM

Bruce Schneier on denying illegal immigrants drivers licenses:

[W]e are a much more secure nation if we do issue driver's licenses and/or state IDs to every resident who applies, regardless of immigration status. Issuing them doesn't make us any less secure, and refusing puts us at risk.

The state driver's license databases are the only comprehensive databases of U.S. residents. They're more complete, and contain more information - including photographs and, in some cases, fingerprints - than the IRS database, the Social Security database, or state birth certificate databases. As such, they are an invaluable police tool - for investigating crimes, tracking down suspects, and proving guilt.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 18, 2008 2:30 AM

What’s the point? Nokia offers a fully featured sharing service, complete with unlimited storage for your files. Wanna know how to use it smartly? Step this way…

Originally posted by (author unknown) from NokNok.tv, on February 18, 2008 1:07 AM

(via)Read in Information Week:

“At an 11-store chain of Papa John’s restaurants in north Alabama, location data is being pushed directly to customers. Using an online-tracking system developed by startup TrackMyPizza, customers can watch online as their deliveries move street by street toward their doors. Drivers carry GPS-enabled handsets that feed location data to a TrackMyPizza server. There, the data is coupled with the customer’s phone number, providing location updates every 15 seconds.
(…)
Sound like technology overkill, just to know your pizza hasn’t gone astray? Rival Domino’s thinks consumers want more such information about their orders, and it’s doing a national rollout of a Web system that shows buyers when their pizzas have been prepared, cooked, then sent out the door. But it doesn’t offer location once the pizza leaves the store.
(…)
At Papa John’s, pizza tracking is delivering business benefits in its first two months by getting more people ordering online–a 100% jump in online ordering since the rollout, says Tom Van Landingham, the franchise operating partner. Online orders save phone-answering time, and Web customers spend about $2 more per order, since they can see the whole menu. About 18% of all delivery customers in the last 60 days have gone on the Web site to track their pizza. Van Landingham expects to begin using the tracking system to improve productivity behind the scenes, by plotting more efficient delivery routes, for instance. The service is only 2 months old, so it still needs to prove it’s more than a novelty. But the chain proved it can be done.“

Why do I blog this? The perspective of having people at home riveted to their computers, following the movement of their pizza mapped digitally makes me giggle. It looks like a weird version of Pacman where you don’t have any control on your little character. Perhaps there is something cultural that I am missing or maybe it’s the novelty who made people following their pizza on-line.

So, at first glance, this looks awkward and I am really curious to see if there are some user experience researcher already doing work on this kind of service. Beyond people’s motivation to track an artifact that may be in their stomach one hour later, it would be interesting to understand more what are the expectations towards the pizza’s location, the sort of happenstance people fear about this or even the reactions they would have if the pizza wandered around instead of taking a straight line to the consumer’s house. To some extent, this is a PERFECT tool to conduct psychological experiments!

Originally posted by Nicolas Nova from Pasta&Vinegar, on February 18, 2008 1:01 AM

"Side-projects are a sign that you care. They're something we ask about when interviewing at Twitter."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 17, 2008 10:52 PM

Michael Feathers: "There's something deep in software development that not everyone gets but the people at Bell Labs did. It's the undercurrent of 'the New Jersey Style', 'Worse is Better', and 'the Unix philosophy' - and it's not just a feature of Bell Labs software either. You see it in the original Ethernet specification where packet collision was considered normal... and the same sort of idea is deep in the internet protocol. It's deep awareness of design ramification - a willingness to live with a little less to avoid the bigger mess and a willingness to see elegance in the real rather than the vision."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 17, 2008 10:37 PM

My favorite event in NYC is coming up this Wednesday!
Its not a art-theme party of ridiculous proportions, not a yearlyshopping cart race, nor a dumpstered meal cooked by friendly folks and served for donations.

When I was a kid all I wanted to do was travel when I finished High School. I became very successful. I would circulate around the continent aevery few months in a seasonal cycle for years. Now even though I tell myself im settled, I've had 4 apartments in the first 2 years of living in Brooklyn. (I'm on number 5) I never found the best way to share my experiences with other people. No slick zine, slideshow, or lecture to share with my friends. Now there is Where Have you Been?

Where Have You Been is an event hosted by Jeff Stark, he interviews three people about "travel, adventure, and activism in front of a curious audience." The travel stories have varied from freighthopping adventures across the USA to direct actions at the base camp of Mt Everest.

I started the show in 2006 because I wanted a place to share stories about what happens in the rest of the world. New York has a way of swallowing homecomings. We are a notoriously self-interested city; circle the globe and your friends just tell you what you missed. This show is a forum for intrepids to bring the world home and share it with the rest of us — travelers as well as those of us who don’t get out much.

Whenever I'm in town for this monthly event I'm always entertained. Most presentations are humorous and all that I've attended have exposed me to perspectives. How else am I going to know what the Hajj is like for a queer muslim from the States, or that there is a program in the UN to map natural disaster areas?
One of my favorites was learning about Ethnobotany, the study of the relationship between plants and people, from Nat Bletters. He recounted a trip to Peru where he researched local herbs and created an audio book to preserve the indigenous knowledge.
I have always found opportunities to engage more with the presenters in Q&A and potential future exchanges. Nat pointed me in the direction of some good books about the histories of vegetables, and Leonardo may post photographs of Venezuelan Murals here on the Justseeds blog!

The next Where Have You Been? is this Wednesday, February 20th 7-8:30pm
It will feature interviews with three intrepids: Jef Wolfy Scharf
investigates the toilets of Europe, Ida Benedetto and Tim Kantz team up with fair trade coffee farmers in Western Guatemala, and Anastasia Andino palled around Thailand with a monkey. Bonus: slides from a pauper’s cemetery in New Orleans.

Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen Street, Manhattan
$5 sug donation

Some of the presentations have been audio-recorded, and available online. this is an aspect I wish would continue. I wish I could check out the ones I missed.

Originally posted by K C from Just Seeds: Blog, on February 17, 2008 10:33 PM

Cortijo Y Su Bonche : Sorongo & Tiempo De Amor
taken from the album "Sorongo" on TICO (1968)

Cortijo Y Su Bonche : Agua Que Va A Caer & Ublabadu
taken from the album "Ahi Na Ma! Put It There!" on TICO (196?)

Cortijo Y Su Bonche : Pa' Los Caserios & Pa Guayama
taken from the album "Pa' Los Caserios" on Actuality (197?)

Sorry for lack of posts. Between the 102 degree fever that had me stuck in bed and doing several shows last week (being groggy on stage is where it's at), I was short on quality record listening time.

Rafael Cortijo is a legendary figure in Puerto Rican music, being one of the first to bring the Bomba and Plena rhythms out of the slums and into the ears of the vast record buying public - in PR and elsewhere. He's perhaps most famous for his early recordings with vocalist Ismael Rivera and his later more straight ahead salsa records, but for a brief stint while Rivera was in jail on drug charges, Cortijo put together this highly original group "El Bonche". Before "salsa" was a widely recognized term (or musical concept), Cortijo used El Bonche to mix various Latin styles in new ways. Little bit of boogaloo, little bit of bomba, whole lot of descarga. These are the only three records I've seen with "El Bonche", and they lead the way up to Cortijo's one-of-a-kind foray into funk which was captured on 1974's "Maquina Del Tiempo" LP (also highly recommended). While these songs lack the wah-wah and fuzz guitar prevalent on that album, they make up for it with their highly danceable swing and playful, catchy hooks (see: "Ublabadu"). You can credit Cortijo's daughter, Fe, with the uncommon addition of female vocals - not sure why more Latin groups didn't do this at the time, it sounds pretty cool on cuts like "Tiempo De Amor" and "Pa' Los Caserios".

The man's output was such that I could easily do several more posts covering different periods of his carreer and have no difficulty coming up with hot tracks, but for now at least, that's all you get.

Originally posted by Captain Planet from soul sides, on February 17, 2008 7:46 PM

I won’t be breaking any news here, but I’ve been working tonight on strength-of-schedule adjustments for the PECOTA projected standings, and the AL East remains the strongest division in baseball by some margin. What follows are the average projected third-order wins by division:

1. AL East     85.6
2. NL East     81.5
3. AL Central  81.1
4. NL West     80.7
5. AL West     79.7
6. NL Central  77.9

So, we have two divisions that look like outliers: the AL East is clearly stronger than any other division, the NL Central is clearly weaker, and the other four are bunched fairly tightly together.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that these figures change for each individual club once we account for the fact that a team cannot play itself. From the Yankees‘ standpoint, for example, the AL East is only an 82.8 win division rather than a 85.6 win division, since once of the nice things about being the Yankees is that you never have to play the Yankees.

In fact, the general impact of this strength-of-schedule adjustment is to widen the standings gap between the strongest teams and the weakest ones, because of the sort of self-immunity effect that I just described. Seven teams gained at least a game in the standings as a result of the adjustment, and almost all of them were pretty strong clubs to begin with:

Cubs      89 –> 91

Indians   89 –> 90
Tigers    89 –> 90
Angels    89 –> 90
Brewers   87 –> 88
A’s       78 –> 79
White Sox 77 –> 78

Note that the Cubs, who have probably the easiest schedule in baseball, are the only team to gain two wins. Also, it’s a little strange that the White Sox gained a win, but the improvement was merely fractional (77.4 to 77.8, which now gets rounded up). These teams, meanwhile, lost one or more win.

Orioles   69 –> 67
Giants    72 –> 70

Pirates   71 –> 70
Nationals 72 –> 71
Mariners  73 –> 72
Twins     74 –> 73
Marlins   76 –> 75
Braves    86 –> 85

This adjustment will be reflected in future versions of the projected standings.

Also, a quick word about the depth charts: we’re aware that players who have switched teams are showing up in the wrong places in many instances. This will be fixed once the new round of the PECOTA cards actually goes up on the site. The projected standings themselves are not affected by this problem. Nor is PFM, which should be working fine. As always, we appreciate your patience.

Originally posted by Nate Silver from Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered, on February 17, 2008 7:28 PM

a circular timeline of the subjective history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, composed of historical & personal events. the size of the dots indicate how many people have chosen an event as a significant moment. orange dots indicate historical events, red dots indicate personal events, & dark orange indicates events that are both.

this particular visualization aims to raise the awareness of local & international audiences about under-documented Palestinian & Israeli joint civilian efforts.

[link: justvision.com|via backspace.com]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on February 17, 2008 5:41 PM

a booklet that aims to introduce advocacy & non-governmental organizations to basic principles & techniques of information design. clearly, "information aesthetic", "casual", "expressive", or "primitive" visualizations are playing a big part in the communication of data-rich information in more subjective ways, such as the highlighting of concepts 'about' the data, instead of focusing on patterns 'within' the data.
so it comes to no surprise that many of its examples have already been blogged here, including Exxon Secrets & Iraq Casualties & Gapminder & Worldmapper. the booklet also contains tips, excercises, & recommendations of Free Software packages to help polish up information graphics.

putting such works together as guidelines for others is a courageous initiative. people interested in the subject should also look at govcom, which is unfortunately not included in the booklet.

[link: backspace.com|thnkx John]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on February 17, 2008 5:03 PM

Lots of people have asked for my impressions, so I thought I'd post a more sober (literally) look at life with my little MacBook Air. With no cussing!

• It feels really nice, like a pebble. A large, smooth pebble, from a stream. This shape speaks to me, like the MOTOPEBL did, except that was a crappy phone and not a really nice computer.

• It is super-solid. It feels way more structurally solid than any laptop I've ever owned. I don't know if this like a synesthetic illusion because it is so beautiful, or because it has curved surfaces (== less flex!), or because it's just so darn light that there's not a lot of mass to flex.

• The prominent feet and rigity make the machine seem wobbly on anything but a 100% level surface. The antique wood tables at Zoka are not that perfect, so every time I type the machine rocks like a shopping cart at K-mart. Mushier feet, maybe? I dunno, you guys are the geniuses, you figure it out. But, seriously, wobbling things make me nuts. I'm going to start stuffing napkins under the corners of the machine, and that's not good advertising. [UPDATE: John Siracusa provided a great suggestion for this: the MacBook Air should have only three feet; three points always form a plane.]

• I love how the port door on the right opens and closes; it's a very solid-feeling mechanism, and very natural. Also, I feel like I'm in Star Trek (the new one).

• I don't run on battery much, but I've noticed it seems to take a billion years to charge it if it gets discharged, at least the first couple times. Odd.

• I got the 64GB SSD. It seems pretty awesome, but I can't fit my (legal) iTunes collection on it, even without movies, after I put my iPhoto collection on it and my source code and just a couple apps (Acorn, Twitterific, Zuma, iWork so far, MarsEdit coming).

• I'm moving over my old stuff as I need it. Copying stuff over AirPort is super-slow, but the ethernet adaptor is pretty decent. I tried to copy World of Warcraft from a friend's PowerBook (I have a legal copy, don't worry) and it was scheduled to take five hours, since she doesn't have 802.11n, even. Using the ethernet adaptor it was, like, five minutes. No surprises here, but the take-away message is, ethernet adaptor is a good idea.

• I don't try to access CDs or DVDs from my machine -- my previous machine didn't even have a working drive -- so I don't really care that it doesn't have one built-in. The external one is a thing of beauty and I almost want to buy it just because, but it doesn't work with other machines so that kind of stinks.

• The screen is so very, very bright compared to the (1st-gen) MacBook Pro. Games look much better. It's not something you realize you want until you get it -- you think increases in resolution or color depth are cool, but when you get a brightness upgrade this dramatic you realize AH! THIS is what I really wanted! Who needs more pixels when each of my pixels now shines so very, very brightly? ("I've seen things, you people wouldn't believe...")

• I think the machine's smallness is tearing up my neck. I'm sitting 8-10 hours a day working on this thing, and I end up looking DOWN at it more than my 15" MacBook Pro. I've had neck cramps since I got it, but I'm still adjusting, and I'm also in crunch mode with Delicious Library 2.

• It compiled Delicious Library 2 from scratch in 1'59". The 2.33GHz MacBookPro takes 2'04". SSD's LOVE compilations.

• SSD's love context switching, as well. Having an SSD is a lot like having 64GB of RAM in your machine. Sure, I'm going to lose in a Photoshop filter race with your machine, but I'm going to crush you switching between the 15 applications I have open right now. Again, it's not a surprise to say that if video editing or cutting-edge video games is your primary purpose, you'll probably find the MacBook Pro faster. But if you're writing software or just snurfing the web and running lots of apps, this machine is faster.

• Bizarrely, it still has a sudden motion sensor in it. Think about that for a minute.

• More bizarrely, if I drop the Air a foot (onto a soft, fluffy pillow on my bed -- I'm not an idiot) the sudden motion sensor will still shut down the SSD (tell it to park its heads?) and stop processing for a second. I think that's pretty funny. Hey, hardware guys: "SSD stands for SOLID-STATE DISK."

• I admit there could still be problems I don't know about with dropping SSDs, and I'm just being snide. I'm sorry, hardware guys. Still friends? Buy you a drink? Hug it out?

• I like using the "pinch" gesture. That's the only one I've really used. So far, it works great in Finder (icon mode) and iPhoto and Safari (just feels bizarre there, honestly) and two places Delicious Library 2 (shhh!). It's the right solution.

• The "swipe" gesture should have been mapped to "start scrolling and then after I stop the swipe keep scrolling slower and slower until you stop naturally or I stop you" like scrolling works on the iPhone. The Air team didn't ask me, but they should have. This would have been trivial to add to Cocoa (we added it experimentally once to DL2, may put it back). Sure I could file a RADAR bug on this, but isn't it more fun to complain on my blog like a prima donna? (Yes. Yes it is.)

• Jonathan Ive should design a laptop bag as beautiful as the Air, that just can contain the machine, a power cord, and a Wireless Mighty Mouse. I'd be in heaven. Nobody seems to have addressed the "I want a small, slim bag that can still hold a power cord without having a giant wart in the side" market. Like, duh, bag designers, STOW THE POWER CORD ABOVE OR BELOW THE LAPTOP, not STICKING OUT THE SIDE WHERE IT CREATES A TENT AND LOOKS UGLY AND BANGS MY KNEE.

• The Air runs World of Warcraft pretty damn well. Sure, I don't have, uh, specular water reflective anti-aliased spectroscopic quadrophonic roto-tilling turned on. But, you know, I can, like, heal things and run around and pick liferoot and run around some more. (PHEAR MY HEALING, EVIL-DOERS OF AZEROTH!)

• The Air's main performance limitation is heat, and mainly from the GPU. When it starts doing graphical things, it gets hot. When it gets hot, it starts venting out the bottom-back. If there's not enough clear vents (like, if you are in bed, and it's resting in your lap so the bottom vents are perfectly pressed into the fluffy down comforter) then it underclocks the GPU and you go into slide-show mode. This will happen in Zuma if you try hard enough, or if you're watching Hulu.com, even, but it's pretty easy to get it in World of Warcraft. Throwing off your comforter and getting nakeder with your Air is the only solution at this point, and also, it feels... so deliciously wrong.

• Note to hardware guys: don't put vents there, bokay? Laptops are for bed. Don't put vents right where the laptop touches my leg. (Aw, come on back, hardware guys! I still love you! Look, sometimes I just get a little angry, and when I've been drinking, well, you know my temper...)

• On the other hand, if this baby is plugged in and sitting on a flat surface, I can play Teh WoWz all day and it's great. (Not great for shipping DL2, so I don't do it, but I could. It's nice to know it's there, like a beautiful ex who still wants to have sex with you.)

--

This isn't a machine for everyone, nor should it be. Just as there should be three types of spaghetti sauce, you and I should not HAVE to agree on what we want in a machine. The machine should, instead, be designed to agree with us.

I admit my last post was a bit over-the-top; my point was supposed to be: "Look, this machine may not be for you, personally, but please acknowledge that there are people for whom it is perfect." For instance, Gabe told me he wants a new MacBook Pro, and I didn't try to push the Air on him (...much). He's an artist and a gamer. He wants pixels, and lots of them, and FAST. The MacBook Pro is going to run his Windows games faster than pretty much every laptop.

I will try to steer him towards the biggest MacBook Pro that has the LED backlight, because it's just SO DARN PRETTY. And if anyone offered a 128GB SSD, I'd be recommending that to all my friends who have cash to burn. Because it's the future, baby, and it's beautiful.

-W

Originally posted by Wil Shipley from Call Me Fishmeal., on February 17, 2008 2:36 PM

This week Jason linked to an article which claimed it was possible to "unboil" an egg by unrolling the protein molecules (yuck). At work we all turned around in our seats, argued about it for a bit and then went back to work. Agreeing that even if it was possible we wouldn't want to eat it.

Michael Pusateri, a man with a long history of documenting his experiments and projects, decided to try it.

Originally posted by torrez from Andre's Notes, on February 17, 2008 11:17 AM

Five years ago today, we officially launched Gothamist. Creating a blog about New York City was our way of capturing all that enthralled us about our hometown. We've learned a great deal while we've grown, thanks to the tireless efforts of our contributors, editors, partners and friends.

Most of all, we especially want to thank you, our readers. You are an important part of the the site - encouraging and challenging us every day - through your contributions of tips and photographs, suggestions and comments. We appreciate your support and look forward to many more years to come!

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on February 17, 2008 4:21 AM