randomwalks/dj

I've been silent lately, but I've been thinking. Is there anything more beautiful than a miscut baseball card?

As collectors, we expect certain things from card manufacturers. One is that their design and photography departments are competent enough to create cards that we will want to collect. Another expectation is that the card-cutting machinery at their printing plants work correctly. Because without proper framing, we're just collecting cardboard rectangles.

As collectors, we bring a lot to the table in our understanding of how to read a baseball card. When a card is miscut, it's no longer a card in the most traditional sense. It lacks focus, a subject, or even proper boundaries. Our approach to reading it is thrown off.

A miscut card is cast aside as a goof with no real value. And while I won't argue the monetary value aspect, I've come to appreciate miscut cards as art, and worthy additions to my collection.

So... if you have any miscut cards, any wrong backs, blank backs, or blank fronts, I'd like to trade you for them. (I'm not looking for cards that you've attacked with a pair of scissors, a box of thumbtacks, or those cards covered in tape or with writing on the front. Those will have to wait for another trade proposal.)

If you're interested in trading, you can email me here or by clicking on the image of Clem Labine's wonderfully miscut 1953 Topps card (to the right). Let me know in your email what you'd like in return. I'll post the best cards I receive.

Originally posted by Ben Henry from The Baseball Card Blog, on August 16, 2008 2:50 PM

From Serious Eats

Photograph from Manjith Kainickara on Flickr

Nomato or Tonoto. That's what I'd propose calling what you find at the grocery store in the middle of winter, visually resembling a tomato but pale in color and completely tasteless. The nomato or tonoto is nothing like the tomato you'll find this time of year at your local farmers' market—vibrantly colored, sweet, and juicy. Tomato season means tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes! To celebrate, we've chosen a few recipes that will really sing with the freshest and most perfectly ripened tomatoes.

Tomato Recipes

Patricia Well's Tomato and Strawberry Gaspacho
The Silver Palate's Tomato, Montrachet, and Basil Salad
Stuffed Tomato Nests
Dorie Greenspan's Tomato-Cheese Tartlets
Pasta with Tomatoes, Corn, and Feta
Salina-Style Spaghettini with Cherry Tomatoes
Mario Batali's Spaghetti al Pomodoro

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats, on August 16, 2008 11:00 AM

We're assuming that, like us, you stayed up to watch the women's all-around gymnastics face-off, and already know that Texan (via Russia) babe Nastia Liukin took the Gold.

Since she's the next big female athlete, endorsement-wise, and happens to also be beautiful in an incredibly swanlike kind of way, PLAY: The New York Times Sports Magazine is already wondering whether she'll go beyond her current commercials, like AT&T, to something more "adult".

Nastia's already done some smiling for Cover Girl, but other than that, it's been pretty non-girly so far. But we're pretty sure we know the next best thing for her:

Wouldn't she make the most adorable Neutrogena girl ever? It's age-appropriate, it fits her target audience, and we could totally see her talking about how it's the only thing she'll use, or whatever.

In fact, we think she's more perfect for it than Taylor.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on August 15, 2008 10:30 AM

From Serious Eats

Photograph from roboppy on Flickr

Even Parisians need to eat five-minute meals sometimes. And when they do, they head to Picard Surgelés, the French chain store specializing in gourmet frozen foods.

The History of Picard

Founded in 1906 as a refrigerating company called Les Glacières de Fontainebleau, Picard opened its first food store in Paris in 1974 and now owns 730 frosty supermarkets all over France. It even operates a home delivery service for customers in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Barcelona. In fact, the brand is so ubiquitous that I didn't have to go further than a five-minute walk from my apartment to find my local branch—perhaps a strange choice for my last lunch in Paris, but after a friend repeatedly insisted that their microwaveable paella was the best food he'd ever eaten, I figured I had to check it out.

Frozen Food Surprises

Browsing the large freezer bins, I found all the items one might expect from the frozen food aisle. Vegetables? Sure. Microwavable pizzas? Absolutely. Ice cream? Of course! But the sleek, ultramodern supermarket also carried a number of surprises like frozen cooking herbs, figs, rabbit, pork confit, cheese, and sushi. I even found deep-frozen macarons, though it was hard to imagine how they could possibly reheat well.

French TV Dinners? An Oxymoron?

The dark horse candidate for the best lunch I ate in Paris: the remarkable French take on the TV dinner.

'If I Didn't Know Better, I Could Have Sworn It Was Fresh Off the Stove.'

But after sampling one of their frozen pastas, I was willing to trust even their microwavable crème brulée. Four minutes of nuking had turned a box of icy spinach and ricotta fagottini with tomato cream sauce into a hot lunch that, if I didn't know better, I could have sworn it was fresh off the stove. I suddenly understood why my friend had made me research the logistics of dry ice and overseas frozen shipping in the hopes that I might mail him some of his treasured paella. Preservative-free and costing a mere €2.75, Picard's fagottini occupied a plane of deliciousness far above the best of Trader Joe's microwavable pastas. Though perhaps not Paris's gustatory best, this reheated meal got surprisingly high marks on tastiness and a perfect score on awesomeness.

Originally posted by Sarah Wolf from Serious Eats, on August 15, 2008 10:00 AM

It surely is, and probably way overdue. First off, Holly at LuciteBox would really, really, really like your help in finding her this:



It was originally listed on eBay (by Red Buckaroo, but not in Holly's size. (You see the problem.) If you want to see a part of why Holly wants it so much, click through to her blog to see her adorable dog Oslo ...

Theresa sent a link to this slide show of First Ladies fashions, which is interesting not only for the pictures, but also for the evidence of the complete absence of copyediting ("shoulder-bearing" and "arm-bearing" where they should have "baring", sheesh).

Wink sent this rickrackalicious skirt ... with pockets! Nadia found us shoes to not-match, and Judy suggests these. And if that's not enough rickrack for you (and how could it be?) there's this rickrack fabric, sent by T.C.

Becca thinks the brown dress in this link may be a fauxlero. Opinions? [WARNING: link plays (bad) music]

Speaking of fauxleros, Wendy pointed out that the AMC Dress at BurdaStyle has a very nice one.

Robin sent a link (inspired by the discussion of one-yard patterns) to furoshiki, the cool Japanese practice of wrapping presents in fabric. I heartily endorse this idea.

Kathleen (at Little Hunting Creek) sent a link to this really interesting semi-Duro, up at Pattern Review. Check it out!

Leslie sent in this awesome typography poster. In a similar vein, Lorrwill sends us the link to the thesaurus t-shirt.

I can't believe it's the end of August already, but Jen at MOMsPatterns.com can and she's running a back-to-school sale on 1100-1300 new old stock children's patterns. You get a 15% discount with coupon code 'backtoschool' ...

Sorry it's such a short linktastic Friday ... but please keep those links coming!

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on August 15, 2008 9:54 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on August 15, 2008 9:41 AM

Om Malik did a good job today of summing up the conversation about the convergence of blogging and social networks that was started by Six Apart's launch of Movable Type Pro on Wednesday, with a full set of features aimed at allowing bloggers to create social network-like communities around their blogs.  A couple of things worth adding, though.  First, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, the "social" aspect of blogging platforms is one of the main things that differentiated them from the previous generation of content management systems.  Second, is that there seems to be a perception that the social network around a blog is meant to replace or compete with the mainstream social networks such as MySpace or Facebook.  Fostering community discussion and interaction wherever a focus of interest occurs is a good thing, and the blogosphere is a perpetual source of these focus points.  This is the inevitable evolution of blog commenting, which is what makes sites like GigaOm so interesting.  The social network capabilities will allow these blogs to take that to the next level.  However, these communities will be linked to each other and to the large social networks like Facebook through a variety of mechanisms, such as all the emerging standards like OpenID, aggregation tools such as FriendFeed and Movable Type's Action Streams capabilities, and other forms of data portability.  The nice thing is it's not going to be an either or choice, sometimes more is more.

Originally posted by Ed Anuff from Ed Anuff, on August 15, 2008 7:45 AM

From The Natural System of Colour by Moses Harris, 1766.

The curious should check out Sarah Lowengard’s The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe.

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on August 15, 2008 6:46 AM

In last night’s win against the Nationals, the Mets scored four runs in the ninth inning to extend their lead from 5 to 3 to 9 to 3.

Yesterday, in my MetsBlog Minute, I expressed concern over how the team has been so ineffective and silent during the final few innings of the game, which could prove to be quite detrimental against top teams down the stretch.

So, I was glad to see tack-on runs last night.

Hopefully, this continues.

Jerry Manuel, on the team’s offense last night, and scoring late in the game, while speaking to reporters, said:

“It’s something we have not been doing…We did a lot of good things offensively tonight.  We moved runners over.  We got runners in.  We played really unselfish baseball.”

Yes, unselfish baseball, much like Carlos Beltran used to say in the commercial from 2006, ‘Get ‘em on, get ‘em over, get ‘em in.’

Actually, this is the type of baseball I prefer to watch.  I enjoy a big home run, but I mostly enjoy small ball, hit and runs, stolen bases, hitting the other way, selection at the plate, etc., and this is what the Mets have been doing of late.

What’s interesting, it seems as though much of it is coming from the bench, from Manuel, sending out signals to slow the game down and force certain hitters, who may be struggling, to take a different approach, and, most important, the hitter is obliging.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 15, 2008 4:20 AM

this time last year (feels like forever ago). thanks, photojojo time capsule!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on August 15, 2008 4:08 AM

Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio prove they've still got it, as the couple reunite for the new flick Revolutionary Road. But what's the difference in filming those sexy love scenes now, as opposed to when they got in on in the car in 1997's Titanic? Well, now, Kate's hubby, Sam Mendes, is directing,

Awkward table for three, anyone?

"I just kept saying, 'This is too... weird,'" Kate told Entertainment Weekly. "And Leo was like, 'Oh, get over it.' And I'm going, 'Yeah, a little reminder: You're my best friend. He's my husband. This is a bit weird.'"

And Sam agreed. "I will admit it was quite bizarre to direct my wife in how to make love," he said of the gig. "But it's difficult whether you're married to a person or not."

But awkward or not, Kate says that they got through it -- and the magic that was Jack and Rose was still there.

"I hadn't realized how much my chemistry with him since Titanic would still stick," she said. "It's great to discover we can just slip right into it, like muscle memory."

Um, yeah -- it you and Leo -- duh!

Seriously though, Kate and Leo's romantic reunion is like heaven for most of us. And for her, too, it seems -- she admits to manipulating the situation to bring them back together.

"We knew that if we were going to do something again, it had to be something big and emotional," Kate said of the possibility of acting opposite Leo again. "I played this very clever cat-and-mouse game to get my husband and then my best friend involved."

Have you guys read this book? I'm going to get my hands on it so I can prep for the big-screen release in January.

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from iVillage - Daily Blabber, on August 15, 2008 3:26 AM

Spectators at the fencing competition at the Olympics are often treated to some dramatic, emotional scenes - played out by passionate competitors dressed all in white, hi-tech gear, meeting inside a large darkened stadium. It also makes for some dramatic imagery, which I'll share with you here -- 16 scenes from recent women's fencing matches in Beijing. (16 photos total)

China's Zhang Lei reacts to losing the Women's individual Foil round of 16 match to Italy's Maria Valentina Vezzali (unseen) on August 11, 2008 at the Fencing Hall of National Convention center, as part of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. Vezzali won 10-7. (ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from The Big Picture, on August 14, 2008 11:36 PM

Listen, I’m sure tonight was a big night for Nastia, but after you’ve appeared in Stick It, gold medals are practically old hat.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Jessica Coen, on August 14, 2008 9:27 PM

As anyone who saw last week's opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics knows, a community of motivated energetic people can create a pretty powerful, even beautiful, demonstration of the power of movable type. Since the milestone release of Movable Type Pro as part of the Movable Type 4.2 launch this week, we've seen a similar outpouring that, while a little less dramatic, has been extremely exciting for the whole Movable Type community.

You can see the results across the blogosphere and all over Twitter (Hello to all the new followers of the Six Apart account on Twitter!), but we've seen some great reviews and reactions from the press as well. Here's just a sampling:

• Darren Rowse of ProBlogger sums it up in Movable Type launch Version 4.2 and Movable Type Pro: "Today's Movable Type Pro launch marks another important step in the evolution of MT as a platform ... More and more bloggers are looking to find ways to integrate social networking within their communities and to this point most are having to settle for marrying two platforms together (one blogging platform and one social networking platform). Movable Type now offer a solution for an all in one package - something that will be very tempting for some bloggers."
• Peter Hagopian of InformationWeek covers the story in Movable Type 4.2 Delivers Speed, Security, And Social Networking: "Movable Type 4.2 was released today with a pile of new features and enhancements that make the payoff well worth the anticipation. ... Building on the solid foundation of its blogging and content management functionality, MT 4.2 adds a substantial new set of functionality in support of social networking. ... Probably the most trumpeted accomplishment of Movable Type 4.2 is the improvement in speed across the board. Page publication speed has been greatly improved, as has end-user-facing search. Movable Type's user community has been clamoring for these improvements for quite some time, and 4.2 really delivers."
• Scott Gilbertson over on Wired's Webmonkey leads with New Movable Type Pro Wants to Turn Your Blog Into a Social Network: "Movable Type Pro allows you turn your blog into a full social network platform, with features like user registration, profiles, ratings, forums, "following" tools, and more. ... The update is packed with features -- see the Six Apart blog post for more -- and the pro version especially looks like a very nice option for sites that want a full community-in-a-box setup."
• Irina Guseva at CMSWire says Six Apart Gets a Little Social with WCM: "It's been almost seven years since Six Apart embarked on its quest to make publishing available to everyone - and it is still going strong. In the new era, however, it is now all about the ability go beyond blogging and into the social publishing. MT 4.2 is here to offer a new level of interaction between bloggers and audience, integration with social networks and a lot more. ... That is certainly a very interesting development in the world of blogging, and we'll continue reporting on it."
• Kenneth Corbin at InternetNews offers Movable Type Moves Toward the Social: "Blogging pioneer Six Apart is souping up its Movable Type publishing platform, with plans to release a new version ... that will include a slate of social networking features such as profiles and discussion forums. ... Six Apart's evolution of its popular publishing platform is very much in keeping with the spirit of adding social features to content sites across the Web"
• Brian Heater's covering the beat at PC World's (Movable Type-powered!) AppScout, which has a brief item entitled Six Apart Intros Movable Type Pro.
• Kristen Nicole at Mashable says Six Apart Provides Social Networking Capabilities with Movable Type Pro: "Now that companies have begun to find more productive ways of interacting with their customers online, Six Apart is capitalizing on this growing necessity with additional social networking tools that can be integrated with the Movable Type blogging platform."
• David Chartier of ars technica offers up Movable Type Pro to meld blogging and social networking: "Six Apart summed today's release with a simple question: 'what are the other things we can do with blogging?' ... Six Apart is certainly gaining a leg on its competition by jumping on the social bandwagon with what sounds to be a very polished and integrated package. ... Movable Type Pro is an appealing all-in-one package for bloggers and businesses looking to ride the social wave."
• Rafe Needleman of CNET's Webware says that Movable Type is becoming a social platorm: "The 4.2 platform gives blog publishers better performance, according to Six Apart. But the really interesting thing about this launch is the new social features in MT Pro. ... Just as blogging is changing publishing, social networking is going to change blogging."
• Eric Eldon of VentureBeat has a post titled Six Apart to launch social networking features for blogs: "[F]or some publications, this is a great way to increase the time people spend on the site -- if you feel a part of a community, you often want to spend more time with that community. ... Now, Six Apart's goal is to create mini social networks for blogs. "
• Andy Merrett on the Blog Herald offers up Movable Type gets social with Pro version, built on MT 4.2: "Blogging and social networking have been happy partners for some time, so it's not surprising that at least one blogging platform is making the most of that alliance in their latest 'pro' version. ... It sounds like a great 'out of the box' solution for those already using, or keen to use, Movable Type, who want to integrate more social tools."
• Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb gets it at least halfway right (kidding!) with The Next Social Networks Will Be Powered By WordPress and Movable Type: "Now, the next revolution for publishing is to bring that same ease of creation to the process of building social networks. With Six Apart's recent release of Movable Type 4.2, that revolution has begun. The new release provides DIY tools for building your own social networking platform which includes member profiles, forums, friending capabilities, rating of content, and more."
• Heather Havenstein at Computerworld gets right to the heart of it with Six Apart adds social networking, content management tools to Movable Type.
• RSS Applied chimes in with MovableType adds social to the blog: "Considering blogs were the first link in the social networking chain, it seems only right that it would come back full circle. Most bloggers use social networks extensively to extend the reach of their blog, and it has become the common secondary effort of most bloggers. ... So this move by SixApart is a savvy one that accepts the direction the web has gone, and I'm definitely downloading and installing MovableType Pro on one of my personal blogs to see what it's all about."
• And James Lewin of Podcasting News wraps it all up Movable Type Wants To Help You Build The Next Digg: "Six Apart today announced an update to Movable Type and the launch of Movable Type Pro, a new version that's designed to let you build your own social networking sites. ... The announcement is good news for all bloggers, because it raises the bar for blogging platforms. If you've got a popular podcast, blog or Internet video, you'll soon be able to turn your site into a social network."

Of course, we can continue with the examples forever -- there are already dozens of excited conversations about MT 4.2 and MT Pro all across the web. But perhaps most gratifying is that we're hearing the same level of excitement from the diehard community of Movable Type users as well. That is, after all, why these tools exist.

It's reminiscent of one of the most striking images in those opening ceremonies, the sprouting of the peach blossoms, a symbol of openness. That blossoming was followed by the revelation that all of the intricate, technical movements of the beautiful choreography were pulled off by individual people manipulating a nearly countless number of enormous blocks. While our own small efforts pale in comparison to the grandeur and scale of the opening of the Olympic games, there are still some lessons we can learn from the example. Our work is designed to increase openness, to bring people together, to make something that's designed to be beautiful. And most of all, it's designed to broadcast these things to the world, using the powerful combination of talented individuals and Movable Type.

We can't wait to see what you and your communities do next.

Originally posted by Anil Dash from Six Apart News & Events, on August 14, 2008 8:00 PM

Building a (fast) Wikipedia offline reader:

From inky:

An ingenious method for reading Wikipedia offline. It efficiently uses the 3.9 GB compressed XML dump, without requiring additional hard disk space.

I haven’t talked about it much here, but I’m actually very familiar with the Wikipedia data dumps. At my last job, one of my projects was the Clusty Wikipedia search. I wrote the entire parser to download the dump files, do useful things with the metadata, and convert the article contents to the search engine’s input XML format. I also had to generate short abstracts to show in the Firefox toolbar’s “Clusty Clips” popups (those were actually Tiff’s idea).

One of my project ideas has always been a complete Wikipedia offline reader (in case you haven’t noticed, I like offline web-page reading). I’ve started and abandoned a few prototypes. And I’m thinking of making one for the iPhone.

It’s not for the faint of heart. The Wikipedia data is huge, inconsistently formatted, unranked, and full of obscure list articles that you really don’t want cluttering up the index, especially if you’re short on space. It’s less relevant if you’re willing to use that 4 GB dump on a desktop hard drive, but it’s much harder to intelligently select a good subset and compress it down to an acceptable level for cramped laptop drives or an iPhone.

I have a few ideas on how to do it, of course. This will continue to sit in my idea closet for a few more years, at least.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org, on August 14, 2008 5:03 PM

Cleaning up my office, getting it ready for a new academic year, I came across a CD compilation of the Poetry Foundation's podcasts.  It must have been something I picked up at the AWP this year.  I generally don't listen to poetry or poetry-related podcasts while I'm working because of the concentration they require but stacking and filing papers didn't demand a lot of my attention.  The podcasts often complement the latest issue of Poetry magazine--for instance, a Kay Ryan interview on Robert Frost followed her essay in the September 2007 issue ("I Demand to Speak with God"). 

Readings by Marie Ponsot and Terrance Hayes were the highlights (for me) of the CD.  The March 2008 issue marked Hayes's first appearance in Poetry.  Go listen to his poem "The Blue Terrance."  The poet G. C. Waldrep observed at a reading that when he reads a poem out loud, he feels that he has created another, a second, poem.  I was thinking about that while listening to Hayes.  On the page, you notice the careful prosody, the word arrangement, the space the poem occupies on the page.  But listen to how Hayes reads "The Blue Terrance," how he lingers over certain words, how his breath spaces the poem in a different way.  To hear more of Hayes's work, visit his profile on the PBS website.

The Poetry Foundation has a lot of good material on their website.  I especially enjoy their "Poem of the Day" feature.  They run for a few minutes at the most, an amuse bouche of poetry.  But if you have more time to spare, browse their essay archive.  Ange Mlinko's essay on Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov, "Craft Vs. Conscience," is excellent and only appears online.

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on August 14, 2008 3:09 PM

My buddy and podcasting cohort Manton Reece has announced the release of Wii Transfer 2.6. His application is apparently a very cool means of interfacing content from your Mac over to your Nintendo Wii. I wish I had more hands-on experience, but unfortunately I do not yet have a Wii of my own to play with!

If you love your Wii and your Mac, then this app is probably worth taking a look at. Congratulations, Manton, for finally shipping :)

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on August 14, 2008 2:56 PM

Working during the day, using old-fashioned sunlight, is no doubt the best option for eco-saavy individuals looking to save energy. But as life sometimes requires working into the wee hours of the night, the Chain Desk Lamp, designed by Ilaria Marelli, offers a bright working environment while making use of LED technology.

(more…)

Originally posted by Olivia Chen from INHABITAT, ReBlogged by Addie Wagenknecht on Aug 14, 2008 at 05:47 PM

Originally posted by Olivia Chen from Eyebeam reBlog, on August 14, 2008 2:47 PM

From Recipes

Earlier this week I wrote about my garden in Brooklyn and its lone lacinato kale-plant-that-could. But I have a very different story to tell about my garden's tomato plants, especially the Sun Gold, which began as a Greenmarket seedling only a few inches tall and now towers over me at close to seven feet. I have no idea what I did to deserve this, or what magic there is in the Brooklyn water, but the sight of literally hundreds of tomatoes that will someday ripen is almost frightening.

Not that I'm complaining. Sun Golds are among the most delicious tomatoes I've ever tasted, a perfect balance of sweetness and acidity—you can eat them like candy. This recipe, from New York Magazine adapted from the Babbo kitchen, couldn't be simpler. The flavors begin with the traditional "caprese" basil-and-tomato, but calls for lemon basil instead of regular basil and adds chives. Look for Sun Golds at your local greenmarket or replace them with very ripe cherry tomatoes.

About the author: Blake Royer lives in Brooklyn and spends most of his free time cooking and writing about it here at Serious Eats and on The Paupered Chef. From 9 to 5 weekdays, he works as an assistant book editor in Manhattan.

Babbo's Sun Gold Tomato Pasta

- serves 4 -

Adapted from New York Magazine

Ingredients

2 tablespoons salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 pints Sun Gold cherry tomatoes or other cherry tomatoes, whole
1/2 bunch chives, cut into 1-inch lengths
12 fresh lemon-basil leaves, thinly sliced
1 pound pasta (bavette, linguine, spaghetti, just about any kind)

Procedure

1. Bring a large pot of salty water to boil. Cook the pasta until al dente, reserving some pasta water.

2. In the meantime, heat a large skillet or sauté pan with the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until it softens and just begins to brown.

3. Add the tomatoes, chives, and basil (reserve some for sprinkling at the end) and cook until the tomatoes just begin to burst.

4. Add the cooked pasta to the skillet and cook over high heat, stirring, for an additional minute to marry the flavors. Moisten with olive oil or pasta water as desired; serve immediately.

Originally posted by Blake Royer from Serious Eats, on August 14, 2008 12:30 PM

cake_wrecks is really something.

Wherein my thought process goes:

"There's a blog about this? WTF?"
"And it's extensive!"
"Oh, you Internets. Is there nothing you can't do?"

Originally posted by jwz@jwz.org from jwz, on August 14, 2008 11:47 AM

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, App Store

Last week, iPhone app shop tap tap tap released preliminary sales data for its iPhone applications. The figures were interesting (and impressive), but at the time, only seven days of data was available. As Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal on Monday, the App Store's first month generated about $30 million US in sales, and I was interested in how that would translate on a micro level. Yesterday, tap tap tap's John Casasanta posted its full July sales totals (save a few territories, which will likely have little effect on the final tally), allowing us to do just that.

As with the data released last week, the numbers are extremely impressive. Apple's reporting process calculated sales from June 29, 2008 through August 2, 2008. However, as John notes, because the App Store didn't launch until July 10, 2008, the sales data is actually for 24 days.

For tap tap tap's two applications, this is the breakdown:

Where to Go (App Store link) sold 24,094 copies at $2.99 a copy in 24 days.
Tipulator (App Store link) sold 3,168 copies at $.99 a copy in 24 days.

After Apple's 30% cut, tap tap tap's net revenue was $52,815 US for 24 days. Wow. That averages to just about $2200 US a day.

Read on for more analysis.

Continue reading More App Store sales figures

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Originally posted by Christina Warren from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on August 14, 2008 11:30 AM

Yesterday, the Mets announced that Mike Piazza and Tom Seaver will be among several of the team’s former players who are expected to be in attendance on Sept. 28, when the Mets play their final regular-season game in Shea.

This is great news, because, frankly, I’m sick and tired of the Yankees having a monopoly on Tradition in New York City.

The thing is, if the Mets are going to welcome people like Seaver and Piazza, and Keith Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry, I hope they also invite people like Gregg Jefferies, Doc Gooden, Wally Backman and Todd Hundley.

I mean, if it’s a night about honoring the stadium’s on-field past, then it would be unfortunate to ignore certain people for things that they may have done off-field, which ended up putting them in bad standing with the team’s owners.

Fact is, as a kid, Backman’s on-field presence and style was an inspiration to me; Gooden was a God; I had a Hundley jersey, and paid admission to specifically see him play; and I emulated Jefferies’s swing.

These guys, among many others, though not as prominent as Seaver and Piazza, are still a huge part of why I root for the Mets today - and I hope they are not ignored.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 14, 2008 11:00 AM

Margaret showed me this, the unusual and satisfying Coign of Vantage. It means "an advantageous position", but in this case, is a beautiful spatial aptitude challenge. From this:

... to this...

The high scores are astounding.

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, on August 14, 2008 10:57 AM

The most common e-mail I get seems to always begin by saying, “Matt, when are you going to rip (so and so),” or, “How come you haven’t written about (this or that),” which is usually followed by a paranoid, conspiracy theory that is triggering my ‘silence.’

However, if you have been reading this site since I started it in 2003, you know that I never rush to judgment. In fact, I am like this in most aspects of my life, much to the irritation of my family and friends, in that I do my best to let things play out a bit before I form an opinion.

That said, the following are Mets-related topics that I am thinking and asking questions about, things I want to write about in the future, but which I have yet to formulate an opinion on:

Do I care about prices in Citi Field, right now? On one hand, I love the Mets, and enjoy watching them in person. On the other hand, I assume tickets will be scarce, and in high demand, so it makes sense that they should be expensive. Also, the Mets are free to do what they want with their team, stadium and money. At the same time, how disappointed will I be when I am unable to attend a game, especially on a whim?

Will an increase in ticket prices impact the type of ‘fan’ who will attend the game? Will Citi Field become a giant, low-key conference room for businessmen, or will it still be passionate and lively, and ‘electric,’ like David Wright likes to say?

Carlos Beltran is batting .275, which is nearly identical to what he hit last season, as well as the year before. However, he’s on pace to hit just 22 home runs, nearly half of what he hit in 2006, yet he’ll have nearly the same number of RBI, doubles and runs scored as he had in each of the last three seasons. Is he totally misunderstood by most of his team’s fans? Is it because of his contract? At what point does his contract become tolerable enough to match his game? Or, is he actually underrated?

Is it fair that residents and businesses in the Iron Triangle may be forced to move out by the city to make way for the development of Willetts Point, a downtown setting of bars, restaurants and retail to accompany Citi Field. On one hand, as a modern-Libertarian, I feel this should be negotiated between the businesses that are directly involved, and not by Government. On the other hand, I love the idea of being able to hang out in a fun, downtown setting prior to seeing the Mets in Citi Field – assuming I can find and afford a ticket.

If you have any insight on the above, let me know.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 14, 2008 9:37 AM

Kate isn't the only Middleton getting attention these days. Sister Pippa (who along with Kate are sometimes known as the Sizzle Sisters in the English press) is getting a lot of attention for the company she keeps. Pippa has shared a flat with two cute young male members of some of England's most prestigious families: George Percy, who is the son of the Duke of Northumberland, and Edward Innes-Kerr, son of the Duke of Roxburghe. They might not be heirs to a throne, but to old school aristo-lover like Mr. Mickey, these boys are major major MAJOR catches!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on August 14, 2008 7:14 AM

Gawker graphs the most mentioned restaurants in Page Six over the first six months of the year, and while they get all the usual hot spots (The Box, Waverly Inn, Spotted Pig), there is a bit of a surprise: "It conforms to what you might expect from a gossip column, with one exception: Cipriani, whose 21 mentions (for all locations) took the top spot. Now, Cipriani is prestigious in its own musty old way, but it hardly fits in with the rest of the list, which is full of buzz-worthy celebrity hangouts and a few mogul meeting spots. Could there be a bit of favor trading going on here?" [Gawker]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on August 14, 2008 7:13 AM

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

There's a spectacular new book coming out at the end of this summer called Library of Dust, by photographer David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books. I had the intensely exciting – and flattering – opportunity to write one of the book's introductory essays; that essay now re-appears below.
I first learned about Library of Dust when I interviewed Maisel back in 2006 for Archinect. In 1913, Maisel explained, an Oregon state psychiatric institution began to cremate the remains of its unclaimed patients. Their ashes were then stored inside individual copper canisters and moved into a small room, where they were stacked onto pine shelves.
After doing some research into the story, Maisel got in touch with the hospital administrators – the same hospital, it turns out, where they once filmed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – and he was granted access to the room in which the canisters were stored.

[Image: Abandoned rooms of the hospital. From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

Over time, however, the canisters have begun to react chemically with the human ashes held inside them; this has thus created mold-like mineral outgrowths on the exterior surfaces of these otherwise gleaming cylinders.
There was a certain urgency to the project, then, as "the span of time that these canisters are going to be in this state is really finite," Maisel explained in the Archinect interview, "and the hospital is concerned that they're now basically corroding."

So when I was there just a few weeks ago, photographing for I think the fourth time, there was a proposal being floated that each canister be put into its own individual plastic bag, and then each bag would go into its own individual black box that's made for containing human ashes. And that would be it.

To me, the arc of the project – if it ends like that, which it seems it probably will – has a certain kind of conceptual logic to it that I appreciate. I appreciate the form and the story of these canisters, that they're literally breaking down further every day, even between my visits to the hospital. My time of doing it, then, is finite as well.

In order to deal with the fragility of the objects, and to respect their funerary origins, Maisel set up a temporary photography studio inside the hospital itself. There, he began photographing the canisters one by one.
He soon realized that they looked almost earthlike, terrestrial: green and blue coastal forms and island landscapes outlined against a black background. But it was all mineralogy: terrains of rare elements self-reacting in the dark.
Maisel's photos have now been collected into a gorgeous, and physically gigantic, book. It's expensive, but well worth checking out.
The following is my own essay for the book; it appears alongside texts by Terry Toedtemeier and Michael Roth.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

• • •
In Haruki Murakami’s novel Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, a nameless man finds himself walking through an unnamed town. Its depopulated spaces are framed most prominently by a Clocktower, a Gate, and an Old Bridge. The nameless man is told almost immediately to visit the town’s central Library – an unspectacular building that “might be a grain warehouse” for all its allure. “What is one meant to feel here?” the man asks himself, crossing a great, empty Plaza. “All is adrift in a vague sense of loss.”

Once inside the Library, the man meets a Librarian. The two of them sit down together, and the man prepares to read dreams. They are not fairy tales written in pen and ink, however, but the psychic residues of long-dead creatures, a gossamer field of electrical energy left behind in the creatures’ bleached skulls. Weathered almost beyond recognition, one such skull is “dry and brittle, as if it had lain in the sun for years.” The skull has been transformed by time into something utterly unlike itself, marked by processes its former inhabitant could not possibly have anticipated.

Each skull is the most minimal of structures, seemingly incapable of bearing the emotions it stores hidden within. One skull in particular “is unnaturally light,” we read, “with almost no material presence. Nor does it offer any image of the species that had breathed within. It is stripped of flesh, warmth, memory.” It is at once organic and mineralogical – living and dead.

The skull is also silent, but this silence “does not reside on the surface, [it] is held like smoke within. It is unfathomable, eternal” – intangible. One might also add invisible. This “smoke” is the imprint of whatever creature once thought and dreamed inside the skull; the skull is an urn, or canister, a portable tomb for the life it once gave shape to.

The Librarian assists our nameless narrator by wiping off a thin layer of dust, and the man’s dream-reading soon begins.


[Images: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

Dust is a peculiar substance. Less a material in its own right, with its own characteristics or color, dust is a condition. It is the “result of the divisibility of matter,” Joseph Amato writes in his book Dust: A History of the Small and the Invisible. Dust is a potpourri of ingredients, varied to the point of indefinability. Dust includes “dead insect parts, flakes of human skin, shreds of fabric, and other unpleasing materials,” Amato writes.

Many humans are allergic to dust and spend vast amounts of time and money attempting to rid their homes and possessions of it, yet dust’s everyday conquest of the world’s surfaces never ends. Undefended, a room can quickly be buried in it.

Dust lies, of course, at the very edge of human visibility: it is as small as the unaided eye can see. And dust is not necessarily terrestrial. “Amorphous,” Amato continues, “dust is found within all things, solid, liquid, or vaporous. With the atmosphere, it forms the envelope that mediates the earth’s interaction with the universe.” But dust is found beyond that earthly sphere, in the abiotic vacuum of interstellar space, a freezing void of irradiated particles, where all dust is the ghostly residue of unspooled stars, astronomical structures reduced to mist.

Strangely representational, the chemistry of this stardust can be analyzed for even the vaguest traces of unknown components; these results, in turn, are a gauge for whatever hells of radiation once glowed, when the universe burned with intensities beyond imagining. Those astral pressures left chemical marks, marks which can be found on dust.

Such dust – vague, unspectacular, bleached and weathered by a billion years of drifting – can be read for its astronomical histories.

Dust, in this way, is a library.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

A geological history of photography remains unwritten. There are, of course, entire libraries full of books about chemistry and its relationship to the photographic process, but what the word chemistry fails to make clear is that these photographic chemicals have a geological origin: they are formed by, in, and because of the earth’s surface.

Resists, stops, acids, metals, fixes – silver-coated copper plates, say, scorched by controlled exposures of light – produce imagery. This is then called photography. Importantly, such deliberate metallurgical burns do not have to represent anything. Photography in its purest, most geological sense is an abstract process, a chemical weathering that potentially never ends. All metal surfaces transformed by the world, in other words, have a literally photographic quality to them. Those transformations may not be controlled, contained, or domesticated, but the result is one and the same.

Photography, in this view, is a base condition of matter.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

David Maisel’s photographs of nearly 110 funereal copper canisters are a mineralogical delight. Bearded with a frost of subsidiary elements, their surfaces are now layered, phosphorescent, transformed. Unsettled archipelagos of mineral growths bloom like tumors from the sides and bottoms – but is that metal one sees, or some species of fungus? The very nature of these canisters becomes suspect. One is almost reluctantly aware that these colors and stains could be organic – mold, lichen, some yeasty discharge – with all the horror such leaking putrescence would entail. Indeed, the canisters have reacted with the human ashes held within.

Each canister holds the remains of a human being, of course; each canister holds a corpse – reduced to dust, certainly, burnt to handfuls of ash, sharing that cindered condition with much of the star-bleached universe, but still cadaverous, still human. What strange chemistries we see emerging here between man and metal. Because these were people; they had identities and family histories, long before they became nameless patients, encased in metal, catalytic.

In some ways, these canisters serve a double betrayal: a man or woman left alone, in a labyrinth of medication, prey to surveillance and other inhospitable indignities, only then to be wed with metal, robbed of form, fused to a lattice of unliving minerals – anonymous. Do we see in Maisel’s images then – as if staring into unlabeled graves, monolithic and metallized, stacked on shelves in a closet – the tragic howl of reduction to nothingness, people who once loved, and were loved, annihilated?

After all, these ash-filled urns were photographed only because they remain unclaimed; they’ve been excluded from family plots and narratives. A viewer of these images might even be seeing the fate of an unknown relative, eclipsed, denied – treated like so much dust, eventually vanishing into the shells that held them.

It is not a library at all – but a room full of souls no one wanted.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

Yet perhaps there is something altogether more triumphant at work here, something glorious, even blessed. There is a profoundly emotional aspect of these objects, a physical statement that we, too, will alter, meld with the dust and metal: an efflorescence. This, then, is our family narrative, not one of loss but of reunion.

There is a broader kinship being proclaimed, a more important reclamation occurring: the depths of matter will accept us back. We will be rewelcomed out of living isolation. We are part of these elements, made of the dust that forms structures in space.

Maisel’s photographs therefore capture scenes of fundamental reassurance. The mineralized future of everything now living is our end. Even entombed by metal, foaming in the darkness with uncontrolled growths – there is splendor.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

To disappear into this metallurgical abyss of reactions – photographic, molecular – isn’t a tragedy, or even cause for alarm. There should be no mourning. Indeed, Maisel’s work reveals an abstract gallery of the worlds we can become. Planetary, framed against the black void of Maisel’s temporary studio, the remnant energies of the long dead have become color, miracles of alteration. There are no graves, the photographs proclaim: only sites of transformation.

That is our final, inhuman release.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books].

At the end of winter 2005, David Maisel traveled to a small city in Oregon. There were bridges, plazas, and gates. He was there to locate an old psychiatric hospital – a building now housing violent criminals – because the hospital held something that interested him.

Upon arrival, he met with the head of security, who already knew why Maisel had come. The two of them walked down a nearby corridor, where Maisel was shown what he’d been looking for. It was an isolated room behind a locked door – smaller, less official, than expected.

Within it was the Library of Dust.

• • •
David Maisel's Library of Dust is available through Amazon.com.
Don't miss my earlier interview with David over at Archinect – and, at some point soon, take a long trip through David's website.

(Thanks to Joseph Antonetti for his help with the images – and to editor Alan Rapp for instigating this book in the first place).

Originally posted by Geoff Manaugh from BLDGBLOG, on August 14, 2008 7:06 AM

Barack Obama and the DNC are seizing on Social Security's 73rd anniversary to launch a series of attacks on John McCain on the issue that try to link McCain with the original opponents of the program back in the 1930s (no, it's not a dig at McCain's age).

Obama uncorked a statement today hitting McCain for describing the program as an "absolute disgrace," adding: "The Bush privatization plan that Senator McCain now embraces would tell millions of elderly Americans that they're on their own, putting them at risk of falling into poverty...It's time to reclaim the idea that in this country, we're all in it together."

Meanwhile, the DNC has a new web vid featuring the grandson of Franklin Delano Roosevelt directly linking McCain to FDR's arch foes, who didn't want a government role in helping bail out the elderly, and saying that McCain "agrees with that old way of thinking" (Hmm, maybe it is an age dig?)...

The Dems are banking on the continued unpopularity of privatization to appeal to retirees, who could prove pivotal in some battleground states, and to offset whatever difficulties the younger Obama may have among elderly white voters. The DNC is also staging a series of Social Security events around the country, though absent any paid media it's unclear what sort of resonance this nostalgia play will have.

Late Update: In fairness, such events do have a real shot at getting local press around the country, which is their main goal.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on August 14, 2008 6:22 AM

Wall-E was so sweet, so sad and simply spectacular. I wasn't sure I would like it because I find most American animation films to be soullessly simple, sterotypical and soporific but Zee, who knows my taste , assured me that I would love it. Zee and I watched it, she for the fourth time in the theater, and I for the first and I fell in love. I would see it four times too! An extra bonus was the clearly Japanese design influenced Eve and Mo characters!

The first 40 minutes or so of “Wall-E” — in which barely any dialogue is spoken, and almost no human figures appear on screen — is a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in. The scene is an intricately rendered city, bristling with skyscrapers but bereft of any inhabitants apart from a battered, industrious robot and his loyal cockroach sidekick. Hazy, dust-filtered sunlight illuminates a landscape of eerie, post-apocalyptic silence. This is a world without people, you might say without animation, though it teems with evidence of past life.

Continue reading

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on August 14, 2008 6:10 AM

Last night, in a win against the Nationals, 23–year-old rookie OF Daniel Murphy was 3 for 6 with two runs scored, three RBI and a home run.

He is batting .467 through his first 11 games, with a .556 OBP.

I am trying desperately to not be so excited about this kid.  Every time he gets a hit, and I pump my fist, my wife, who is a Yankees fan, says, “Don’t forget Shane Spencer and Kevin Maas.”  And she makes a good point.

What’s interesting is that, from what I can tell, the Mets are far more level-headed about Murphy than most fans are.  You’d think the team would be hyping him up, while patting themselves on the back in an, ‘I told you our farm system was good,’ kind of way, but they’re not. 

I, on the other hand, am giddy beyond belief, though I know I should just shut up, enjoy his performance and leave it for what it is: a hot start. 

The thing is, he’s just so easy for me to cheer for – so, I can’t help but be excited.

Historically, I enjoy two types of players: either the hard-working, perfectionist professional, like Edgar Martinez and David Wright, or the overt, exciting, all-around, over-the-top showman, like Rickey Henderson and Jose Reyes.

Murphy falls in to that first category, obviously.

What intrigues me most is that, as I have been writing over and over again, ‘Daniel Murphy means Business,’ as he appears to be very serious about his job.

Also, for what it’s worth, I like how he prefers to be called Daniel, not Dan or Danny, as it speaks to the seriousness and discipline that he clearly applies to his game.

Equally entertaining is how he delicately places his bat on the ground with both hands following a home run, much like Lance Berkman – again, professional, no flare, he just hits and does his job.

I realize he’s played in just 11 games, which is nothing in the grand scheme of a baseball career, but he has shown an advanced comprehension of hitting, and the ability to execute appropriately in a variety of situations, which is not typical of most rookies.

So, while I feel I am justified in my excitement, I am trying real hard to keep it perspective since I may have made this exact-same post about Jeff Duncan.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 14, 2008 5:48 AM

And so it begins -- my foray into the land of the plastic-free. I have to admit that I really have no idea what to expect other than to expect to encounter plastic everywhere. For instance just this morning I thought, what happens if I cut myself? I can't use a band-aid? That's insane! What am I thinking?

But that's really not the point of this project. There is good plastic -- like bike helmets and band-aids, and there's bad plastic, the disposable kind -- like cups, utensils, and containers.

» This article continues

Originally posted by (author unknown) from EPIC FU blog, on August 14, 2008 5:03 AM

So, with the sardines that I bought at the farmers market this past weekend: Grilled Sardine Tartines With Onion And Arugula.

Yum, sardines!

This recipe combined a couple of my favorite things: sardines, arugula, thyme, and lemons. Oh, and grilled onions. And butter! And it turned out great, even though I didn't marinate the sardines for the recommended 2-8 hours.

Originally posted by Benjamin Trott from Stupidfool.org, on August 13, 2008 11:30 PM

Buzzfeed unveiled a little something new this week: contributions. The site has always had a feedback mechanism where people could suggest links to add to trends, but now anyone can sign up for an account and contribute links, text, videos, and images to Buzzfeed posts. The vast majority of comments on blogs are text-only but Buzzfeed makes it easy to post video, link, and images responses as well. Call it the Tumblrization of blog comments. Innovation in blog comments has been hard to come by for the past few years...this is a nice step. (Disclosure: I'm an advisor to Buzzfeed.)

Fire Eagle, Yahoo's personal location service, has been in beta for awhile but is now live for anyone to use. The service allows you to update your location through the site, your phone, or through 3rd party apps and services. You can broadcast that location to your friends or keep it to yourself for use with other Fire Eagle-enabled apps (e.g. show me coffee shops near where I am right now). Think of the site as an online wallet where you keep your location for use all around the web. The .net TLD is a nice touch, emphasizing the hub-like character of the site/service.

[And why paste these two sites together? Ze Frank. He's been helping Buzzfeed with their contributions launch and Fire Eagle took its name from Frank's The Show (Fire Eagle Danger Day).]

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on August 13, 2008 7:55 PM

via http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/user%2F08099815930828951939%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Freading-list

Originally posted by designisfine from FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE, ReBlogged by Addie Wagenknecht on Aug 13, 2008 at 04:47 PM

Originally posted by designisfine from Eyebeam reBlog, on August 13, 2008 1:47 PM

And now another word from Olivia, who will get her own Typepad byline, log in and tutorial once she has a spare moment between mailing things and booking flights...

After only a week and a half at SarahLacy.com, the title of assistant has now been more appropriately re-imagined. According to the banter at a recent Valley party, I have now graduated to Gatekeeper: controlling and containing Sarah’s life one email at a time. This makes Mr. Lacy the Keymaster (as he has the key to Sarah’s heart ba dum shhhh). And Sarah? Sarah is Zuul. Naturally.

So without further ado, I release the official dates of the next six cities on the Sarah Lacy User Generated Book Tour. Keep a lookout for more blog posts about event locations and times! As always if you want to help organize or spread the word leave it in the comments or email me at Olivia at sarahlacy dot com. There's a free t-shirt in it for you!

Seattle: August 20- 23

Portland: August 24-26

Austin: September 11- 13

Boston: September 14- 17

Memphis: September 18- 22

Toronto: September 23- 25

Originally posted by sarah lacy from SarahLacy.com, on August 13, 2008 1:27 PM

Filed under: Software, iPhone

Here's BtBx, for the iPhone and iPod touch. I think you pronounce it "beatbox". And it's lovely.

There's so much potential for music apps on the iPhone and I'm one of the people who's very keen to try them out. BeatMaker is top of the tree in the App Store right now, but there's a lot about BtBx that appeals to me.

The interface is cartoon-like, but I like it that way. It works and it doesn't crash, and those things matter more to me than aesthetics. The controls might be a bit confusing to anyone who's never used a sequencer before, but there's a brief user manual built-in. The app was built by the same team that created Rhythm for the PSP.

BtBx is cheap and it's simple, and simple is always good in my opinion. Right now there's no way to import custom samples (but that's on the way), nor can you save your patterns or export them elsewhere -- BtBx's greatest drawback at this time. For many people, that will disqualify it immediately.

But: the limitations and drawbacks haven't stopped me playing with it, messing with the patterns to build something interesting, and that's what I like most. The simplicity encourages creativity.

BtBx is a $3.99 download from the App Store.

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Originally posted by Giles Turnbull from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on August 13, 2008 1:00 PM

Prior to tonight’s game, the Mets told reporters that Billy Wagner will begin a rehab assignment with Double-A Binghamton tomorrow, during which he is expected to start and throw roughly 20 pitches.

Yesterday, Omar Minaya announced that Wagner would make at last one start, possibly two, before returning form the disabled list on Monday.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 13, 2008 12:57 PM

According to Jim Baumbach at Newsday, Mike Piazza will be in attendance for a special ceremony during the final weekend of the regular season to honor Shea.

Baumbach quotes a person familiar with the situation as saying, “The invitation went out and he accepted. He’ll be there”

…it would be great to see mike again, and he deserves to be part of the celebration…but i can’t imagine anything being better than his last game as a Met…grown men were crying like babies…

…added to by Mike Nichols…

…terrific job by the Mets and mike…i was hoping the Mets would have done more to honor their former players this season during each home game when they unveil the number the of games remaining at shea, but they seemed to hand those duties off to sponsors and others involved in the franchise…

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Originally posted by Regis Courtemanche from MetsBlog.com, on August 13, 2008 12:56 PM

Leitch and I debate the Olympics: I think they’re fantastic, and he thinks they’re lame, like watching the Biggest Loser or something. You know what, Will? You’re the biggest loser. So there!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Jessica Coen, on August 13, 2008 12:05 PM

The closing keynote speaker of the Netroots Nation convention in Austin last month was environmental and social justice activist Van Jones. Following his Sunday morning speech TPMtv caught up with Mr. Jones and asked him about the perception of the environmental movement in the black community and how to alter that perception for the better in creating a full-blown eco-populist movement ...

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Originally posted by Ben Craw from Talking Points Memo, on August 13, 2008 11:32 AM

In a report for the New York Post, Bart Hubbuch notes after a “very good” workout, the Mets still do not have a timetable for OF Ryan Church to begin a minor-league rehab assignment.

The Mets have handled this poorly from the start and now it’s becoming an increasingly frustrating situation.

After suffering his second concussion of the season on May 20, the Mets irresponsibly let Church dictate when he was healthy enough to return, which cost them to lose their everyday right fielder and their feel-good story of the season for the last six weeks.

Church was cleared to take batting practice on July 29. After working out with the team and taking batting practice for nearly two weeks, Church was cleared by the team’s medical staff to play minor league games on August 8. Five days later, Church’s minor league rehab assignment still has not started.

I understand the Mets took a lot of criticism with how they handled this from the start, but now they are handling this too cautiously.

I’m not saying the Mets should rush Church back or go back to letting Church decide when he is ready, but their cautiousness of late seems to be more of a reaction to the criticism they received rather than the progression of Church’s health.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Originally posted by Mike Nichols from MetsBlog.com, on August 13, 2008 11:18 AM

One solo shot against Venezuela...

And a two-run jack last night against Australia.


For the record, Crystl has two more home runs than Team USA's opponents have hits.

Think about that.

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on August 13, 2008 10:52 AM

From Serious Eats

And so our time with superstar intern Sarah Wolf draws to a close. This is Sarah's last day with us, after which she'll be heading back to Yale to buy books, schedule classes, and check off the rest of her back-to-school to-do list. We'll certainly miss her around these parts. She's written some great posts for us and helped out in countless ways—notably going out on rain-soaked frozen-custard runs. (Sorry about that, Sarah!) Plus, she's the only one here who seems to dig the iTunes playlist I routinely subject the office to.

Not to worry, though, she'll still drop by with posts every now and again, and we can all follow along with her as she eats her way through the upcoming school year on her blog Bulldogfood. Looks like she's been on hiatus for the summer, but I'm sure that will change soon enough.

Many thanks, Sarah! We hope you've had fun and learned lots of hot blogging tips in your time here at Serious Eats. Get all As!

Related
Meet & Eat: Sarah Wolf, Serious Eats Intern

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats, on August 13, 2008 10:30 AM

“The format of prss release is simple. Weekly we collect the ten posts of the past week that we think are cool, interesting, thought provoking, funny or which are worth publishing for any other reason we come up with (or not). We put these posts in a clean readable lay-out with the appropriate credits to those of who’s content we publish. We publish it as a PDF file, which is available for download for a few weeks, we keep an archive of all issues in the form of a hyper-linked tables of content to the original posts we used in each issue of prss release.”

(via [things](http://www.thingsmagazine.net/2008/08/prss-release-weekly-we-collect-ten.htm))

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on August 13, 2008 8:40 AM

Phillies RHP Joe Blanton’s ERA is over 1.5 runs lower with the Phillies than it was with the Oakland Athletics.  He’s walking more batters, but giving up fewer hits - sounds like the Phillies put a better defensive team behind Joe.

As the Braves get set for a double header today, 3B Chipper Jones is 7 for 16 in twin bills this season. He’s scored four runs and driven in two.

The Marlins claim they fixed the signs that caused both Wes Helms and Dan Uggla to make mistakes Monday night.

After nearly 140 years of professional baseball, teams should have this down.

Garrett Mock moves to the Washington bullpen, where his high strikeout numbers may be more useful. He has yet to allow a run as a reliever this season.

For more real-time information, news, links and stats from around MLB, check out Baseball Musings.

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Originally posted by David Pinto from MetsBlog.com, on August 13, 2008 8:21 AM

(YouTube link)
For the first time ever, a woman has won the hog calling title at the Illinois State Fair. Doris Probst of Effingham, Illinois entered both contests at the 2008 Husband and Hog Calling Contest, but didn’t place in the husband calling event. She beat out two previous winners to take the hog calling honor. Link

Originally posted by Miss Cellania from Neatorama, on August 13, 2008 7:21 AM

You know a city is getting serious about congestion mitigation when a new report comes out measuring how much gridlock costs the region.

In New York, it was the 2006 release of Growth or Gridlock, which pegged the annual price of traffic at $13 billion, that set off a public debate about congestion pricing that continues to this day. In London, the business group London First issued a similar report spurring Mayor Ken Livingstone to adopt a congestion charge. Now Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council has released "Moving at the Speed of Congestion" [PDF], which estimates that excess traffic costs the region $7.3 billion per year.

Chicago is already in the process of implementing performance parking and launching its first BRT routes (using federal funds that New York would have received if Albany had approved congestion pricing). The new report indicates that local policy makers will be urged to go further, perhaps in the direction of congestion pricing, though not necessarily a London-style cordon.

"The report shows that if we do look at pricing it has to be with a regional focus, not just in the city," says Mandy Burrell of the MPC. "There needs to be a menu of solutions that work collectively across the region."

(more...)

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on August 13, 2008 7:01 AM

Putting Your Poetry in Order: The Mix-Tape Strategy by Katrina Vandenberg

"Record" by Katerina Vandenberg (via Touched by a Monkey)

An Interview With Poet and Fiction Writer Grace Paley by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler:

I’ll tell you an interesting thing, at least interesting to me. The poetry before I began to write stories, some of it, was very literary. I was a big reader. I was a big imitator, too. I sounded like I was a little bit British in my poetry. The fact that I came from the Bronx was irrelevant. When I began to write stories, I had the luck of having written poetry so that I had the language in my mouth. On the other hand, it was much looser since it was prose. That had a great effect on me when I continued to write poetry. The poetry improved my prose, but the prose was equally good for my poetry. It loosened it up and made me more relevant to myself.

Featured Poet: Laura Sims @ Seven Corners

Parting Words: The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish:

I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a

   single word: Home.  (from "I Belong There")

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on August 13, 2008 6:17 AM

My Shared Items in Google Reader: In May, Google Reader decided to share.  I can finally see that...

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Ridiculousaurus, on August 13, 2008 5:21 AM

Rumors greatly exaggerated...

As you may remember, I had to take a hiatus of sorts from Bearskinrug back in February. Despite speculations to the contrary, I did not go on a pilgrimage; and even if I did, it wouldn't have been to Furhnersville, Ohio (I'm not even sure what religion is based there, Mr. Tolleson). Also, I did not go undercover in order to reveal magicians' secrets (get your head on straight, Biggest Apple).

Nor was I abducted by aliens — well, let me rephrase that. I was abducted by aliens, but that's really not why I went on hiatus. I mean, I was back the next morning. They did some light dental work, and replaced a crown — top notch job for extraterrestrials with beaks.

No, I actually was working on a graphic novel.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

If this name sounds familiar to you, it's probably because there's a movie of the same name being released in December. But, as tends to happen in film adaptations, the movie version deviates considerably from the original short story. So in December of 2007, local Philadelphia publisher Quirkbooks contacted me to see if I was interested in doing a graphic novel adaptation, intended to be as true to the original tale as possible. Seeing as it gave me a chance to draw people with large beards, mustaches, top hats, and bow ties, I summarily agreed.

As I'd hope you can gather from the amount of thumbnails pictured above, it was quite an undertaking. I needed to create approximately 115 pages of art, as well as the cover, within 5 months. And while I'd created comics before, I'd never worked on one so large in scope. What's more, being a period piece, I needed to do appropriate research on not just one single era of fashion, architecture, technology, and other social bric-a-brac, but on seven decades' worth (1860-1930). The story takes place in several prominent locations, including Baltimore, Yale, and Harvard, all of which have their own landmarks worthy of include. All of those landmarks then required proper research on how they appeared (and whether they appeared) in the appropriate time period. Throw in the usual responsibilities of properly-drafted anatomy and setting, clear storytelling, character design, and layout, and I had my hands full.

But thankfully, I was working with an excellent team. Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir scrupulously adapted the script and did the immeasurably tedious work of deciding what action and text appeared in each panel on each page. The book designer, Bryn Ashburn, handled the typesetting and design (and graciously shared the balancing act I had to perform with regards to type versus image hierarchy). Lastly, Jason Rekulak, the Editorial Director, kept the job and story on track, and added the "infectious enthusiasm" a recluse tends to need while said recluse is drawing 12 hours a day.

And that, as they say, is that. Hopefully that's an acceptable explanation for abandoning this website for several weeks. There's quite a bit of leftover concept art I hope to share, so keep your eyes peeled for that. The book itself will be released in stores come October, but for anyone interested in pre-ordering, it is listed on Amazon (though the interior samples it's displaying are the roughs).

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Bearskinrug Articles, on August 13, 2008 4:36 AM

Finally, a scientific look at the effects of drinking on driving (a Mario Kart, that is). (via Matt)

My verdict? I think the hypothesis needs more testing: "Coconut Mall", where I gather the tests were run, is a course where reckless driving might actually benefit the karter; but my guess is that such recklessness would actually be detrimental on e.g. "Wario's Gold Mine", or "Rainbow Road."

At the very least, it's probably worth another round of rigorous drinking testing.

Originally posted by Benjamin Trott from Stupidfool.org, on August 12, 2008 11:30 PM

From Serious Eats: New York

Photographs by Robyn Lee

Papatzul

55 Grand Street, New York NY 10013 (near West Broadway; map); 212-274-8225; papatzul.com
Setting: Casual, pleasant, but I wish our server hadn't decided that watching ESPN was more important than serving us
Compare It To: Dos Caminos, La Palapa, Mi Cocina
Must Haves: Guacamole, Ceviche, Fish Tacos
Grade: A-

New York's food radar is so powerful I used to think it was impossible for any restaurant to fly under it. The food media (both old and new) contributes to this state of affairs, as does our obsession with discovering the latest bit of deliciousness to be had here. But every once in awhile, a restaurant like Papatzul opens, and somehow, some way, the food intelligentsia doesn't notice.

Papatzul opened more than two years ago. Chef-owner Thierry Amezcua had been cooking in serious restaurants like Savoy and Il Buco for ten years when he decided to open a restaurant to serve the food he grew up eating in Mexico City.

I remember reading about it in a Village Voice blurb, but I wasn't spurred into action until my friend Steve, a fellow with solid taste buds, sent me the following email:

Let me take up the cudgel for an authentic nondescript place in the heart of trendy Soho on Grand Street: Papatzul. There's nary a mention on Serious Eats, and it doesn't even have a Zagat number rating. My Cali friend, who transplanted to New York years ago, routinely bemoans the awful Mexican food here, especially the typical mish-mash of Tex-Mex, Cali-Mex, Nuevo Mexicano, and Mex-Mex. He grudgingly went along, and we loved the cantina.

When we raved to the waitress, who was on her first week, she said she'd tell the chef. Owner-Chef Amezcua came over and was beaming. Said he'd bring us some homemade spicy salsa.

Well, the place was crowded (a lot of eye candy, by the way, befitting its location), and we paid the bill, which was pretty gentle for these days. As we left, the chef ran out and grabbed us: "I forgot the salsa, you can't go, I will send you dessert." And we had a lovely dulce de leche ice cream with great pecan brittle ("palanqueta," as I read in the New Yorker review).

Chef said we need to go back for the flautas and beef enchiladas. Some serious cooking is being done in there, and I'd be interested in reading your thoughts if you or your staff ever get a chance to go down there.

Steve's note certainly piqued my interest. What did I find?

Phenomenal guacamole ($9) made in the now de rigeur stone mortar and pestle. Creamy, salty, and perfectly seasoned without garlic (Amezcua is on a mission to disabuse Americans of the notion that guacamole must be made with garlic), it's served with crisp house-made tortilla chips that are mercifully not greasy.

The ceviche ($10) was just about as good. Made with shrimp, scallops, coriander, and plenty of lime juice, it came in a cocktail glass with guacamole underneath it. It actually reminded me of the ceviche at the Red Hook ballfields, but the scallops took the whole thing up a notch.

Having just come off a fish taco jag for my Pinche review, I hesitated before ordering the Baja-style fish tacos ($12) here. I shouldn't have. They are crunchy and delicious, and come with shredded lettuce instead of the traditional cabbage. I think Pinche would win a fish taco throwdown with Papatzul, but Amezcua's fish tacos are good enough that I can't say that with absolute certainty.

Since the chef recommended the beef enchiladas and flautas to my friend, I ordered them. The chef is right in a big way.

The beef enchiladas are stuffed with tender braised beef, a sort of Mexican pot roast. They're topped by a complex green tomatillo-laced sauce that I slurped with a spoon.
Flauta ($11) are perfectly fried tortilla cigars stuffed with chicken and mushrooms and topped with shredded lettuce, crema, and spiked pasilla salsa. They come three to an order. I could have eaten ten.

My wife described soft tacos with seared hanger steak, sautéed onions, peppers
and melted cheese ($12) as a Mexican-style cheesesteak without the roll (they give you tortillas instead). An apt description, though this dish, called "Alambre de Res" on the menu, kills most cheesesteaks I've eaten in and outside Philadelphia.

A whole red snapper is prepared Veracruz style, with olives, tomatoes, and capers. The whitefish was perfectly grilled, though the sauce underneath it was too chunky.

Quesadillas ($10) came three to an order (beef, mushroom, and shrimp) with two sauces, and, as you can see here, looked more like empanadas. They were all tasty enough, but their fried masa casings were greasy.

Budin al pasilla ($17) made with chicken, tortillas, beans, cheese, and crema, turned out to be the ultimate Mexican chicken casserole, complete with small chunks of dry chicken breast.

The restaurant's namesake dish, Papatzul ($17), are Yucatan enchiladas stuffed with soft-boiled eggs and covered with two sauces—pepita, made with pepitas, and chiltomate. The eggs were closer to hard-boiled, and the dish as a whole lacked the dimension and character of almost every other dish I tried here.

Slow-roasted duck enchiladas in a rich almond mole ($20) read beautifully on the menu, and there was plenty of duck, but somehow the dish in its watery sauce never came together.

Salsa freaks should note that Amezcua also offers a salsa tasting on the menu ($3.50). Five different salsas come on tiny plates. Some were hot, some were sweet, and some were more interesting than delicious, but at a paltry $3.50, they were well worth trying.

Chocolate and chili pot de crème with cinnamon ice cream ($8) was supremely chocolatey and had just the slightest burn in each spoonful that was taken care of by the cinnamon ice cream. Perhaps even better were the churros $8), perfectly fried, dark-brown doughnut twiglets that you happily dip into a light caramel (cajeta) mousse.

Just because the chattering classes haven't been yapping about Papatzul doesn't mean it's not a very good restaurant. Go and see for yourself. For sophisticated, satisfying earthy Mexican food, Papatzul is hard to beat. My friend Steve is batting a thousand, at least so far.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats, on August 12, 2008 6:45 PM

Today is one of the most exciting days in the history of Movable Type. Our community's hard work has yielded one of the most significant and important releases in Movable Type's history: Movable Type 4.2. This new release is the fastest and most secure release of Movable Type ever. Plus it comes packed with new features that you've been asking for:

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Starting today the Movable Type Pro Blogger License is available for free to anyone and everyone not running an official business. With this license, users can have:

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But if you are a developer or a blogger, a professional or an enterprise, there is no better time than now to run your site on the same platform that powers some of the leading web sites and brands today, like AMC, Talking Points Memo, Kenneth Cole, the Washington Post and O'Reilly Radar. Download the open source version of Movable Type today, or head on over to the newly redesigned MovableType.com web site to download or get Movable Type Pro.

Upgrading to Movable Type 4.2

To help users upgrade we have assembled a great deal of documentation to assist in the process with our Movable Type 4.2 Upgrade Guide. Then once, you have the software installed and Movable Type has upgraded itself, documentation is available to help you update your web site to take advantage of Movable Type Pro's Community features, and to help everyone optimize the performance of their web site.

Originally posted by Byrne Reese from MovableType.org - Home for the MT Community, on August 12, 2008 3:44 PM

From Serious Eats

Tired of the over-sweetened, quinine-less offerings from Schweppes and Canada Dry, the Wall Street Journal's Eric Felten looks for something completely new to spice up his cocktails: Italian sodas. Turning away from the traditional trio of tonic, ginger ale and cola, Felten proclaims that "Italian sodas present one of the great untapped fields of cocktail development in the States." He praises Safeway's new O Organics house brand as well as the lemonade and orange sodas from San Pellegrino, but his favorite is a bitter citrus soda called chinotto made by San Pellegrino and Abbondio, among other soda companies. For ideas on how to use the bittersweet beverage, check out the article's cocktail recipes.

Originally posted by Sarah Wolf from Serious Eats, on August 12, 2008 2:00 PM

Prior to tonight’s game, Jerry Manuel told reporters he may consider moving John Maine, Oliver Perez or Mike Pelfrey in to the bullpen – even after Billy Wagner returns from the disabled list next Monday.

In a post to his blog for the New York Post, Bart Hubbuch writes, “Maine, Perez and Pelfrey all told reporters today they would be OK with a move to the bullpen.”

According to Manuel, the team’s biggest problem right now is finding a pitcher to ‘finish the game.’

…he’s right, in effect, because, by finding a ‘closer,’ it would allow pitchers like Joe Smith, Pedro Feliciano and Scott Schoeneweis, to return to going match-up by match-up, which is what they do best…

Manuel also told reporters that Eddie Kunz will likely serve as the team’s closer tonight, as Aaron Heilman is unavailable.

In a recent update on WFAN, Ed Coleman speculated that Jon Niese could be promoted from Triple-A New Orleans to replace whomever is taken from the rotation and put in the bullpen.

…i wonder how serious jerry is about all of this – or, is he’s simply trying to light a fire beneath the entire pitching staff by making maine, pelfrey and perez freak out a bit so that they put pressure – between teammates - on the bullpen…or, maybe he’s serious…

…either way, he’s thinking outside of the box, as opposed to simply ‘going with his guys,’ as some one used to say…

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 12, 2008 1:59 PM

According to ESPN.com, ‘a major league source’ is reporting that the Tigers have placed Gary Sheffield on waivers.

Teams have until Thursday afternoon to claim Sheffield, or if he clears waivers, he can be traded to any of the other 29 teams.

Sheffield, who is batting .219 with 10 HR and 33 RBI in 76 games, has one year remaining on his contract at $14 million.

…i know sheffield is not the middle relief help the Mets need right now but he is definitely the right-handed outfield bat we need in the lineup…if there is a time to pick up sheffield, it is when he has something to prove and i say take a shot…although the following year price tag worries me…

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Originally posted by Brandon Eddy from MetsBlog.com, on August 12, 2008 1:49 PM

Hugger Industries posted a photo:

what's that worth on ebay? 5 dollar? good thing though for AppleTV owners is when you lose a stupid-stick-of-gum remote, just take another from your iMac.

Originally posted by Hugger Industries from Bike Hugger, on August 12, 2008 12:56 PM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on August 12, 2008 12:30 PM

Americans who are "uncomfortable" with the prospect of a black first couple will find no shortage of products to help them articular their fears more clearly—or at least more obnoxiously. Here's a selection of merchandise we dug up online

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Radar Online Features, on August 12, 2008 11:37 AM

But someone should call him out.

From TPM Reader KB ...

Josh, I agree with your reader email that it is almost impossible at this point for Obama himself to call out McCain on playing the race card. But that doesn't mean an outsider can't call out McCain. Imagine if a respected, non-partisan, friend-of-McCain went public with concerns about the images in McCain's advertising. One wonders what Colin and Alma Powell think of the images in the McCain ad and the racial subtext to them. A Powell rebuke would be powerful and debilitating to the McCain campaign. It would change the game.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on August 12, 2008 11:25 AM

Insightful if not conclusive commentary on what went wrong with Apple’s shaky launch of the MobileMe service, from a veteran of Apple. Gasée accurately characterizes seamless synchronization as an underestimated challenge, but lets Apple off too easily, in my opinion. They had more than just the lead up to MobileMe to get synching right; they also had the several years when they were running nearly the exact same service as .Mac. And it was hardly seamless then, too.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Elsewhere, on August 12, 2008 8:59 AM

Reader thebest suggested I take a look at Wade Boggs and how well he did despite (or due to) often taking the first pitch.

Unfortunately, we have pitch-by-pitch data for plate appearances only from 1988 onward, and even then it’s not totally complete. We miss the first bunch of years of Boggs’ career. But let’s see what we can learn from what data we have available. All of this information comes from Boggs’ career splits for pitch data.

Firstly, just how often did Boggs really let the first pitch go by?

We can see that he had 367 plate appearances that ended on the first pitch. He had a .360 BA in those PAs, damn good even for Wade Boggs. He had 3418 PAs that ended sometime after the count went to 1-0. Clearly he took the first pitch in those cases. He had another 2905 PAs that ended sometime after the count went to 0-1. We don’t know what fraction of these were taken strikes vs swings that resulted in foul balls. Lets examine the two extreme cases:

Imagine that in the 2905 PAs that had a count of 0-1, Boggs took a called strike every single time. That would mean that he took the first pitch a total of 3418 + 2905 = 6323 times, as compared to 367 times that he swung, meaning he swung only 5.5% of the time, which does indeed seem quite low. Imagine, instead, that in those 2905 PAs, he swung and hit a foul ball every time. That means he took the first pitch 3418 times, meaning he swung at the first pitch only 49.0% of the time.

I wish we knew how often he swung, but we just don’t have the data available.

If Boggs truly did take the first pitch very often, then pitchers should really have made sure to throw him a strike. However, even if all those 2905 PAs with an 0-1 count were called strikes, they still threw him a strike less often than they threw a ball (as evidenced by the 3418 PAs with a 1-0 count.)

For comparison purposes, let’s look at a couple of other players. First, the best comparison for Boggs is Tony Gwynn, in terms of type of hitter and era of career.

Gwynn (again, after 1988) swung at the first pitch in 1009 PAs. He had 3216 more that went to 1-0 and 2571 more that went to 0-1. The ratio of 1-0 to 0-1 PAs is very similar to that for Boggs, but Gwynn clearly swung at the first pitch a lot more. Using the same two types of extreme cases as above, Gwynn swung at the first offering between 14.8% and 52.7% of the time. When I say that Gwynn swung at the first pitch more often, I’m assuming that the two players had a similar ratio of called strikes vs foul balls on the 0-1 counts–and that may not be a valid assumption.

Let’s check one more guy: Don Mattingly, who also had a reputation of taking the first pitch. After 1988, Mattingly had 465 PAs that ended on the first pitch. He had 2335 that went 1-0 and 1798 that went 0-1. That’s a range of swinging at the first pitch of 10.1% to 49.2%.

All of these quick results ignores stuff like HBP, which obviously affects the total number of times a player swung or didn’t swing.

Originally posted by Andy from Stat of the Day, on August 12, 2008 8:38 AM

»Superficial«, 2004 by Michel de Broin.

Originally posted by mail from VVORK, ReBlogged by Addie Wagenknecht on Aug 12, 2008 at 11:17 AM

Originally posted by mail from Eyebeam reBlog, on August 12, 2008 8:17 AM

via http://www.flickr.com/photos/ewedistrict/2730913756/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Originally posted by randometc from FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE, ReBlogged by Addie Wagenknecht on Aug 12, 2008 at 11:16 AM

Originally posted by randometc from Eyebeam reBlog, on August 12, 2008 8:16 AM

In a loss to the Pirates yesterday, David Wright was 2 for 5 with a double and a three-run HR.

Wright, on his performance, while speaking to reporters following yesterday’s game:

“As stupid as it sounds, some days you get hits and some days you don’t. It’s just a matter of going up there and having confidence, even when you are struggling.”

Wright is hitting .444 with three home runs and nine RBI during his last six games.

In the seven games before that, Wright hit just .115 with two RBI.

In the eight games before that, he hit .424 – and in the 10 games before that, he hit .204.

…i ran out of patience while looking at his stats, but i have a feeling that trend continues all the way through the start of the season…and so i wonder, is it ‘all or nothing,’ when it comes to wright’s offensive production…not that there is anything wrong with that, assuming other people in the lineup are performing…it’s just, if this is what he is, it would make me less frustrated when he’s struggling, because i know it will be short lived and he’ll be hot again next week…

By the way, Wright’s home run yesterday was the 120th of his career, moving him into a tie with Edgardo Alfonzo for seventh on the team’s all-time home run list.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 12, 2008 8:15 AM

I just reached former Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson to ask him for comment on Josh Green's big piece in The Atlantic reporting that chief Hillary strategist Mark Penn suggested a big effort to draw a contrast with Obama's "limited" roots to American values and culture, as Penn put it in a memo.

Wolfson's response: Penn's idea was a bad one, and all of Hillary's senior advisers rejected that approach.

"Mark had plenty of good ideas on the campaign," Wolfson said. "This was not in my opinion one of them. It was never seriously considered, in any way shape or form."

Wolfson insisted that Penn's approach wasn't ever a real topic of debate within Hillaryland.

"There were lots of long running debates within the campaign about strategy. This was not one of them," Wolfson continued. "I don't ever remember having a lengthy or serious conversation about this. None of her advisers supported this approach when presented with it."

Wolfson even insisted that Penn didn't continue to press for this approach: "In fairness to Mark, I don't remember him particularly pushing it," Wolfson said.

Josh Green's article reports that Hillary ultimately didn't adopt Penn's suggestions. "Clinton wisely chose not to go this route," Green wrote.

The question, of course, is how does the idea that senior advisers and Hillary rejected Penn's approach square with the fact that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright (along with other associations) became such a big issue in the campaign? Ultimately the media broke the Wright story, though that hardly rules out the possibility that some Hillary advisers were partly responsible for making that happen.

When the Wright story broke, the Hillary camp was initially reticent about it for a time, until Hillary herself responded to a question at an edit board meeting by saying: "He would not have been my pastor."

Of course, one could also argue that making an issue out of Wright is not necessarily synonymous with an all-out campaign to exploit Obama's "limited" roots in American values and culture, though they certainly have similar shading.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on August 12, 2008 8:05 AM

(Not actually my lamb burger.)

With the ground lamb: Lamb Burgers, with a tzatziki sauce.

Very tasty!

And the lamb itself was from Marin Sun Farms, who, I just read last night, would like to buy a slaughterhouse in Petaluma:

David Evans, whose family has been raising cattle in Point Reyes for four generations, intends to submit a proposal to buy Rancho Veal. ... He would like to redesign the existing facility at Rancho Veal, bringing it up to the standards Grandin established; potentially add an aging room and a small cut-and-wrap plant; and reconfigure the current setup to handle not only beef, but also pork and lamb.

Originally posted by Benjamin Trott from Stupidfool.org, on August 12, 2008 8:03 AM

Hi Coach Jenny, I am a late-30's mother of three (little cherubs!), who are age four and under. Needless to say, it is sometimes difficult to find time to squeeze in a workout. I have an elliptical...

ASK COACH JENNY! Coach Jenny Hadfield is the co-author of the best selling Marathoning for Mortals and the newly released Running for Mortals. She is a nationally recognized speaker, writer and co-owner of Chicago Endurance Sports, Chicago?s largest multi-sport training company.

Originally posted by jenny hadfield from Ask Coach Jenny: Everything you wanted to know about running but were afraid to ask., on August 12, 2008 7:35 AM

Computers have mastered chess and checkers, beating the best human players. Nowadays cheap computerized or even online players can beat most ordinary humans. The ancient game of Go, however, has long resisted the efforts by engineers to construct a Go-computer than can beat a human Go master. Some Go fans believed computers would never be able to beat a Go master. The vast combinatorial sums of possible moves are much greater in Go than chess, and there is there more of an emphasis on pattern recognition in Go rather than the brute force exhaustive search used in chess. Winning Go seemed a uniquely human achievement.

Wrong! Last week on Thursday August 7, 2008, MoGo, a software program running on borrowed supercomputers (stuffed with 800 4.7 ghrz processors with 15 Teraflops of storage), beat a US Go professional. According to the American Go Association MoGo beat Myungwan Kim who is an 8-dan master. While the game was played on a professional 19 x 19 board (most previous wins by computers were done on smaller amateur level 9 x 9 boards), Kim is not the highest ranking pro (a 9-dan) and he gave the computer a nine-stone handicap. He beat the machine in two other games. Afterwards he estimated MoGo as a 2 to 3-dan player.

Still Go has been Turing'd. Driving a car has been Turing'd. The list of human cognitive activities that normal humans believe computers can't do is very short;

Make art. Create a novel, symphony, movie.
Have a conversation.
Laugh at a joke.

Are there other things people popularly believe computers can't do?

Originally posted by (author unknown) from The Technium, on August 12, 2008 7:23 AM

Rove Game. Apparently now in America, it is worse to call out subtle racism than to actually practice it.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on August 12, 2008 6:25 AM

Right now, Diane von Furstenberg is:

1. A major designer.

2. Head of the CFDA.

3. An icon.

And now, she's going to be a travel writer. She's set to document her own travels in Departures Magazine, starting with their Nov/Dec issue. Not only will she write about her ridiculously glamorous life, she'll also provide the photography to go with it.

Is the new: DVF and Karl?

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on August 12, 2008 6:00 AM

From Slice

Spacca Napoli

1769 West Sunnyside, Chicago IL 60640 (map); 773-878-2420; spaccanapolipizzeria.com
Pizza Style: Neapolitan, as verified by the VPN
Oven Fuel Source: Wood, of course

I wanted to love Spacca Napoli. I really did. Having taken massive amounts of grief for allegedly dissing deep dish Chicago pizza by characterizing it as "at best, a good casserole" in my book Pizza: Slice of Heaven, I was hoping to swoon over Jon Goldsmith's VPN-certified pizzeria in the Windy City and put Spacca Napoli in my pizza pantheon. The friend I met there, Andrew Huff, founder of Gaper's Block, compared Spacca Napoli to Pizzeria Bianco. High praise, indeed, coming from a fellow as smart as Andrew.

I met Andrew there at 2:30 p.m. The day before, serious eater Michael Nagrant had taken me on a phenomenal tour of Chicago (more about that in a future post) that featured the cemita and the huarache of my dreams and the best Sicilian sweets I have ever tasted, so I thought I could continue my Chicago eats hot streak at Spacca Napoli.

I ordered one pie with bufala mozzarella (above) and another with fior di latte and sausage. I wandered around the place waiting for my pizzas and Andrew.

The oven (above) was a gorgeous copper-framed, wood-burning beauty. Signs designating Spacca Napoli as a VPN-approved pizzeria were in plain sight. But there was one disquieting sign: Jon Goldsmith was there but not making pizza. At least he wasn't making my pizzas.

The pizzas arrived at my table just as Andrew showed up. They looked like typical VPN pizza: inch-high crust, dots of high-quality mozzarella, simple canned Italian tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, and a little extra-virgin olive oil. I wished the cornicione was higher, but maybe I'm nit-picking here.

I took a bite of the sausage pizza. The sausage was good, and the cheese was creamy, but the crust had no exterior crispness. In fact, it was downright limp. It was the pizza equivalent of what happens when all the air is let out of a bike tire. What had done this to my pizza? I could say it was the hot and ultra-humid weather, but the dining room was plenty cool. Even the open kitchen appeared to be air-conditioned.

Now, don't get me wrong. They were both fine pizzas, and I would be happy eating at Spacca Napoli every day. The bufala mozzarella was wonderfully tangy and had the slight sourness I love in the bufala mozzarella I eat in this country. I would even be ready to proclaim Spacca Napoli's greatness and shout it out to the world if I hadn't experienced true pizza greatness at Pizzeria Bianco and Una Pizza Napoletana. That kind of pizza greatness requires that the crust have a crisp exterior and give way to tender insides.

Spacca Napoli is pizza goodness, not pizza greatness. Sorry, Chicago. As the Cookie Monster would say, it's good, but it's not delicious. Another artisanal pizzeria, Great Lakes, opened a few weeks ago in Chicago. I tried to eat there with Mike Nagrant after our little Mexican food sojourn, but it was closed. I'll try to get there my next visit, which should be soon. After all, I love everything about Chicago except the pizza.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats, on August 12, 2008 6:00 AM

TPM Reader KD not optimistic ...

As a black guy I can appreciate what McCain is doing. The subtext of the add is hot WHITE chicks dig him. The genius of the strategy is that Obama cannot call him out without being accused of playing the race card again. Apparently now in America, it is worse to call out subtle racism than to actually practice it.

Now that McCain has in effect inoculated himself against the charge, you can expect to see these type of subtle ads kept being run. McCain will never run an add saying that Obama will sleep with your white daughter, but his ads will all have a subtle insinuation of this theme. The goal will be repetition. And they are counting on the media to play and talk about the ads. I dont think Obama can do anything about it.

If Obama loses, his decision to kill the 527's will be a key reason why. Right now they would be carpet bombing McCain into the stone age (no pun intended). Move On on other 527's would have numerous ads on how McCain thinks Americans are whining about the economy, how confused McCain always is, etc. McCain would be on the defensive, instead of making Obama react to every new ad.

The only hope now is that Obama's ground game. His ads have been most unimpressive. They lack creativity. The media really do not want to talk about them. One hopes that this all will change. Right now I give McCain's new campaign manager an A+. He may be despicable, but he knows what he is doing.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on August 12, 2008 4:57 AM

On Sunday, Jerry Manuel told reporters that Billy Wagner will be activated on August 18, the first day he is eligible.

The thing is, Wagner is tied with Ryan Franklin and Jason Isringhausen for having the most blown saves of any relief pitcher in the National League.

Manuel, talking to reporters after yesterday’s loss:

“Well, I probably need to make some adjustments.  Period.  We can’t continue to perform this way late in the game…I just have to make some adjustments…I’ve got to figure out what I have and who is willing to step up in those roles…I’ve got to use all the options that I have here…I might start using starters down there or something (smiling).”

Though Manuel never mentioned a specific starting pitcher by name, when asked if John Maine could be used as a one-inning closer after he returns from the DL tomorrow, he said, “Everything from here on out is a possibility.”

That said, Manuel did acknowledge that Aaron Heilman will no longer be used in such a role.

According to the New York Post, who has ‘learned all three main scenarios the organization is now mulling,’ the Mets will first turn to Eddie Kunz as the team’s closer, until Wagner returns; the Mets could keep Brian Stokes in the rotation, and turn to Maine or Oliver Perez to help in the bullpen; and, lastly, they intend to call up Jon Niese.

…actually, last week, i heard that niese could be considered as an option for the bullpen, since a) he is close to reaching his max innings in the minor leagues, b) he is a lefty, c) he has a wicked curve ball, d) he’s a smart, strong and healthy kid, and so e) he could be quite effective against major-leaguers who have yet to see him, especially when pitching one inning at a time…then, next season, he’d return to being a starting pitcher…

…regardless, at this point, all options must be on the table, because this is essentially the exact same situation that doomed this team last season…for all the praise the Phillies received, it was the Mets bullpen – and then starting pitchers – who ‘collapsed,’ letting the Phillies slide through the sidedoor and in to the post-season…

…if all else fails, the Mets should put Omar Minaya on the mound, because, frankly, it’s starting to feel as though his lack of action – be it in the off-season, or at the trade deadline – is starting to bite his staff in the behind…

…this is essentially the exact same bullpen that failed him in 2007, and yet omar’s only moves were Matt Wise, who is out for the year; Steven Register, who was cut from the roster; and hoping for a strong return from Duaner Sanchez, who looks exhausted and has totally lost his fastball in recent weeks…

…to omar’s credit, though, the buzz from shea during July was that he had been working hard to change the dynamic of the pen, as he tried to acquire a relief pitcher to add in the mix…however, teams were asking for too much in return, which is obvious when you consider that not only was Huston Street and JJ Putz not traded, but neither was George Sherrill, Luis Ayala, Cla Meredith and Ron Mahay, all while several teams were looking for relief help – in other words, evidence shows that teams were truly asking for too much in return…

…it’s easy for us to sit here and say, ‘Well, Omar should have done something.’…however, when other teams were just as needy and did nothing, like omar, it suggests an acquisition was not as as simple as just wishing for it to happen…

…that said, Arthur Rhodes and Chad Bradford were traded in exchange for one minor-leaguer…and while a player like Scott Eyre is hardly exciting, as he was recently traded to the Phillies, at least he’s some one different…

…in the end, it’s truly a shame, because, between the Mets, Phillies and Marlins, the Mets have the easiest schedule from now through the end of the season…of course, that means nothing if the bullpen isn’t there to close the deal…

ShareThis

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 12, 2008 4:52 AM

From Designboom:

art director willi dorner and photographer lisa rastl have collaborated on two project combining humans in odd formations and unusual locations. ‘hängende gärten’ and ‘bodies in urban spaces’ both set out to explore the “relationship between body, space and architecture”. the urban based series was created as a set of human sculptures which were spread throughout the city of vienna. the artist has effectively transformed the human body into form, a complete reversal from the classical convention of creating the human form from a material.

http://www.ciewdorner.at"

More images here.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Wooster Collective, on August 12, 2008 4:21 AM

Girl power!

According to Variety, Angelina Jolie has producers rewriting the script for Edwin A. Salt, an espionage thriller in which Tom Cruise was originally slated to star, so that she can play the main character.

Apparently Tom and other big names were interested in the lead, but once Tom's involvement fell through,Columbia Pictures decided to attempt a rewrite and go after Angie. Knox and Vivienne's mom has not yet signed on to star in the flick about a CIA agent who's accused of spying for the Russians, but sources say she is close.

Obviously they'll have to change the name of the movie. Or maybe Edwin will be one of her many aliases. Either way, Angie is probably going to be kicking some more big-screen ass.

Chalk one up for the ladies!

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from iVillage - Daily Blabber, on August 12, 2008 4:02 AM

Yesterday, Joe Smith, Pedro Feliciano, Duaner Sanchez, Aaron Heilman and Scott Schoeneweis combined to let up six runs in three innings, blowing a four-run lead handed to them by Pedro Martinez.

Martinez, regarding the bullpen, while speaking to reporters following yesterday’s loss:

“With me, it’s OK.  Everybody out there was trying to reel in and win.  They never quit, and you have to give them credit.”

…i admire pedro’s view, but forgive me if i am unable to be so peaceful and loving today…

The Mets have 20 blown saves this season, which is fourth-worst in the National League.

The Phillies have blown just eight saves, best in the league.

…i’m officially sick…do you realize if the bullpen had blown just half of that number, the Mets would be in first place by eight games, and have the best record in the league…

…one more time, in case you missed it: if the bullpen had blown just half of that number, the Mets would be in first place by eight games, and have the best record in the league…

This season, while Billy Wagner has blown seven saves, Pedro Feliciano is 0 for 2 in save situations, Aaron Heilman is 2 for 4, Carlos Muniz is 0 for 1, Scott Schoenweiss is 1 for 4 and Joe Smith is 0 for 3.

What’s worse, During the 10–game winning streak in July, opponents hit .191 against the bullpen – but, in the 22 games since, opponents are batting .289.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 12, 2008 3:27 AM

The "Madden 09" player ratings are here, and as the release of the game approaches it is sending Madden football nerds into a frenzy:

Madden 09 Player Ratings link EA Sports is celebrating two decades of video game football with the release of "Madden NFL 09: 20th Anniversary Special Collector's Edition," which includes full versions of the new "Madden" game, as well as the new "NFL Head Coach 09" strategy game and bonus video content, and everyone is waiting for the moment when they can see the new Madden 09 player ratings. "The launch of this Madden 09 is of a magnitude that only the Rose Bowl can accommodate," said Peter Moore, president of EA Sports. "Maddenpalooza, a games and music festival, will take place on August 11th in Pasadena, and approximately 10,000 fans are expected at the stadium to get their hands on the game, see the new player ratings and hear bands like Good Charlotte play." The "Madden" franchise has been the number one selling sports franchise in North America for six years. Since its inception, Electronic Arts has sold over 70 million units of the game worldwide. This year's version has more than 85 new features, the most ever for the franchise in one year. "It seems like every year Madden gets more and more realistic," said Miami Dolphin Jake Long. "When I watch someone playing 'Madden,' it's like I'm watching a real NFL game. The guys look so realistic and the features keep getting better." The player ratings for Madden 09 promise to be full of surprises..

Madden 09 Player Ratings

Originally posted by jay smooth from tuberaider video, on August 11, 2008 5:48 PM

Andrew Sullivan is right about this. This is something that transcends whatever immediate campaign tactics or even strategy Barack Obama may be pursuing. It goes beyond him. It goes beyond the Democrats. The whole country needs to wake up.

The foreign policy of the last seven-plus years has been an unmitigated disaster for the United States by virtually every measure. And John McCain would ramp up all the worst traits of the current administration. His instincts are always toward force and the people advising him come squarely from the Cheney wing of the current administration. In comparison to Bush he's not just more of the same. There's every reason to believe he'd be much worse.

The current situation in Georgia and his response should make clear to everyone how dangerous a president John McCain would be.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on August 11, 2008 3:27 PM

This morning one of our interns finished up one of his hackathon projects (every Wednesday is hack day -- our coders spend all day working on projects that they think are interesting, valuable, or just plain cool. And yes, we are hiring) which is a Perl library to create new hCards and parse existing ones from around the web. The Microformat hCard describes how to represent people, companies, organizations, and places by using a 1:1 representation of vCard properties and values in HTML. When developing this library, we focused on making sure that it worked with hCards in the wild -- including those that might not fully follow the specification -- and making sure that you didn't need to already know how hCard worked to make use of the library.

Some more information from the library's README:

This module handles three existing specifications from Microformats.org:

1. hCard -- http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard
2. adr -- http://microformats.org/wiki/adr
3. geo -- http://microformats.org/wiki/geo

Each of them can be used on their own (hCard uses adr and geo to parse addresses and geolocations, but adr and geo have no dependencies on any others, and hCard doesn't need either unless the corresponding elements appear in an hCard), though the primary appearance of adr and geo "in the wild" is as subparts of hCards.

This module exists both to parse existing hCards from web pages, and to create new hCards so that they can be put onto the Internet.

To use it to parse an existing hCard (or hCards), simply give it the content of the page containing them (there is no need to first eliminate extraneous content, as the module will handle that itself):

my $card = Data::Microformat::hCard->parse($content);

If you would like to get all the hCards on the webpage, simply ask using an array:

my @cards = Data::Microformat::hCard->parse($content);

The module respects nested hCards using the parsing rules defined in the spec, so if one hCard contains another, it will return one hCard with the other held in the relevant subpart, rather than two top-level hCards.

To create a new hCard, first create the new object:

my $card = Data::Microformat::hCard->new;

Then use the helper methods to add any data you would like. When you're ready to output the hCard, simply write:

my $output = $card->to_hcard;

And $output will be filled with an hCard representation, using tags exclusively with the relevant class names.

If you would like to have the parser determine the representative hCard for a page, simply pass the page's URL as an additional parameter to the parse or from_tree methods, and the appropriate property will be found if it can be determined.

Check it out on CPAN and let us know what you think.

Originally posted by David Recordon from Six Apart News & Events, on August 11, 2008 3:23 PM

Several months ago I joined the Indiespensable program from Portland's famous Powell's Books.  Here's how they describe it:

"Powell's subscription club delivers the best new books, with special attention to leading independent publishers. Signed first editions. Inventive, original sets. Exclusive printings.... Every six weeks, another installment to read and admire."

Indiespensable's Volume 4 just arrived today, the second package I've received since I joined the program.  Here's what I got:

Clown Girl, a little comic and a keychain

Limited edition + author info cards

Autographed, plus a squooshy chicken keychain with simulated egg-laying action

I gotta say, this is a much more rewarding experience than walking in to a bookstore or the library.  I worked in the music industry for years and you would have thought entire careers could have been made with just the right free, themed schwag to celebrate a new record release, so even though this keychain is kind of horrifying in person, I applaud how perfect it is for the book cover. 

For those of you who love books, love getting packages in the mail and have some disposable income, I highly recommend signing up for Indiespensable.

Originally posted by Krissy from art is the new religion, on August 11, 2008 3:16 PM

Josh Green's much-anticipated article in The Atlantic about the struggles in Hillaryland has just gone live online, complete with a treasure trove of internal Hillary campaign memos that paint a vivid portrait of the campaign's internal battles over strategy.

The memos show even more clearly than before that chief Hillary strategist Mark Penn advocated a brutally negative and xenophobic campaign against Obama, and they reveal a host of internal tensions on other matters.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from Talking Points Memo, on August 11, 2008 3:06 PM

From Serious Eats

A lot of the best chefs change their menus to reflect the seasons and to emphasize their most popular dishes. So we're doing the same thing! Here are a few tweaks we've made to the main navigation at the top of every page on Serious Eats, to help you get around the site more easily and maybe even discover some things you might have missed:

• We changed the order of the links at the top of the page so that the most popular items (Home, Talk, Recipes) are first
• All of the "Required Eating" content is seamlessly folded into the rest of the site. So, we've removed that tab, making room for a cool addition:
• Columns! We know a lot of you love the recurring features on the site, so now all of these weekly columns are just a click away

As always, we want to hear what you think. If you've got suggestions or complaints about the changes we've made, let us know in the comments and we'll keep adjusting the site to be an even better home for Serious Eaters.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats, on August 11, 2008 3:00 PM

A lot of the best chefs change their menus to reflect the seasons and to emphasize their most popular dishes. So we're doing the same thing! Here are a few tweaks we've made to the main navigation at the top of every page on Serious Eats, to help you get around the site more easily and maybe even discover some things you might have missed:

• We changed the order of the links at the top of the page so that the most popular items (Home, Talk, Recipes) are first
• All of the "Required Eating" content is seamlessly folded into the rest of the site. So, we've removed that tab, making room for a cool addition:
• Columns! We know a lot of you love the recurring features on the site, so now all of these weekly columns are just a click away

As always, we want to hear what you think. If you've got suggestions or complaints about the changes we've made, let us know in the comments and we'll keep adjusting the site to be an even better home for Serious Eaters.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Posts and Comments by Alaina Browne, on August 11, 2008 3:00 PM

Nick Wingfield:

In the month since Apple opened an online software clearinghouse called the App Store, users have downloaded more than 60 million programs for the iPhone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in an interview at Apple’s headquarters. While most of those applications were free, Apple sold an average of $1 million a day in applications for a total of about $30 million in sales over the month, Mr. Jobs said.

Regarding the kill-switch feature for third-party apps:

Mr. Jobs confirmed such a capability exists, but argued that Apple needs it in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program — one that stole users’ personal data, for example — to be distributed to iPhones through the App Store. “Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” he says.

We still don’t know how that supposed kill-switch works, though. I’m pretty sure it is not related to the Core Location blacklist that was publicized last week.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on August 11, 2008 2:44 PM

Josh Green's big piece in The Atlantic on all the behind-the-scenes drama that gripped Hillaryland during the campaign is about to go live online, and the host of internal campaign memos he's obtained are now up. They contain a bunch of new revelations about chief strategist Mark Penn.

Green's piece already got a bit of attention when an advance copy leaked out. But now that the actual memos are posted, there's buckets of new Penn sliminess to wallow in. Among the new revelations:

* Penn proposed targeting Obama's lack of American roots -- but also said the campaign could never do this publicly. Early accounts of Green's piece note a key revelation: That in a memo on March 19, 2007, Penn explicitly proposed drawing attention to what he called (with a rather jarring oxymoron) a "very strong weakness" for Obama: "His roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited."

But the memo has something that makes this even better: Penn said they'd never publicly do this. "We are never going to say anything about his background -- we have to show the value of ours," he wrote, adding: "I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."

As early as December of 2007, Penn was advocating a brutally negative campaign against Obama and even floated the idea of painting him as completely unelectable, a position the Hillary campaign was unwilling to embrace publicly. In a memo on December 30th 2007, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Penn wrote that if Obama came out of those contests "riding high," then "we will have to take him down."

One message suggested by Penn: That Obama "took a series of positions that make him unelectable," such as supporting "letting up to twenty-thousand drug dealers out of jail." During a campaign conference call with reporters during the primaries, Penn openly suggested that Obama couldn't win a general election, but the Hillary campaign rapidly distanced itself from Penn's claim. Turns out he was pushing hard for this to be the campaign's position months earlier.

Penn pressed for aggressive "vetting" of Wright and said that the issue should be raised "without hesitation." As earlier accounts of Green's piece note, in a memo on March 30, 2008, Penn asked: "Won't a single tape of Wright going off on America with Obama sitting there be a game ender?"

In the memo, Penn also wrote that "Obama must be vetted on Wright," adding: "If you believe that serious issues need to be raised then we have to raise them without continual hesitation and we should be pushing the envelope."

Though Hillary's public position in October of 2006 was that she was wholly focused on re-election to the Senate, Mark Penn was already busy planning the race. A memo written by Penn in October of 2006 sketching out one of his earliest overviews of the race shows that the Hillary team was already focused on the Presidential contest -- and was already forming the "inevitability" strategy.

Wrote Penn: "HRC is the power candidate -- she is perceived as the favored nominee if she runs and so she has to take this position -- and drive it to an inevitable reality."

In an interesting reminder of just how far off Hillaryland's radar that guy from Illinois was, John Kerry, Al Gore, and John Edwards each got their own entry in Penn's memo, while Obama was grouped in with a bunch of others. "Some candidates flirting with the race -- Obama the biggest, Dodd, Vilsak and Biden the smallest," Penn wrote.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on August 11, 2008 2:36 PM

...Gmail is down and all hell has broken loose in the Valley. Here's a visual representation:

For something more scientific, read all this. Hopefully the angst won't take Twitter down too!

Originally posted by sarah lacy from SarahLacy.com, on August 11, 2008 2:12 PM

Some iPhone developers in the community have called for iTunes App Store reviews to be restricted to only those who have actually used the app on their iPhone and iPod touch. The proposal is that Apple should track whether someone has actually downloaded an app, and then only allow users who have done so to review that app.

I think this is a terrible idea. The most fundamental reason why relates to statistics. But let’s first go through some of the less convincing arguments.

Overly-Broad Generalization

There are two assumptions underlying the argument that reviews should be limited to those who downloaded the app. The first is that those who downloaded the app to their iPhone are the only ones who have used the app.

But with the iPhone getting so much hype, it’s hard to live anymore without knowing someone who has an iPhone. Personally, I have two family members who have an iPhone, and my roommate has an iPhone as well. I’ve been reading articles about various iPhone apps, and have recommended many to my brother based on reviews I’ve read, despite the fact that I don’t have an iPhone myself.

The reason I’ve done so is not only to get help my brother find apps he wants, but to be able to try out those apps myself when my brother’s not using his iPhone. I’ve personally played several free games on the App Store such as Tap Tap Revenge, Spinner, CubeRunner, etc. I’ve also used one app that my brother had to pay for: Tiny Violin.

I have valid criticisms that I can make about all of these apps. When playing TTR with shakes, I have a huge tendency to accidentally touch the screen and pause the game when I’m shaking to the left or right. It annoys me to no end! One time, Spinner started erroneously reading the accelerometer and the playing field shook ridiculously out of control, even though other accelerometer-based games worked fine. CubeRunner gets way too tedious at times, and the author of Tiny Violin has the super-annoying tendency to choose violin samples that aren’t sad enough for the intended use of the program. (What’s the point of feigning sympathy for another person when the song that Tiny Violin plays is upbeat?)

Are people seriously contending that I should be banned from writing reviews about these apps that I’ve used? I can download the apps to my computer even though I don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch, and then review the apps, but why should I have to go to that trouble (or even pay the extra money) to do so?

Useful Criticisms

The second assumption is that people cannot make valid criticisms about an app without having used it. This may be a controversial opinion, but I think that this assumption is treading on very shaky ground as well.

The Mac community, in particular, is very obsessed about UI. The UI for a Mac program can be a real put-off to many Mac users, whether or not the underlying functionality is useful or not. Just take the example of TripLog/1040, an app whose interface is so horrible that it was widely maligned on Mac-related weblogs even before it was even released. This is more likely to happen in the Mac community—and by extension the iPhone community—because we’re so particular about our UIs.

But a UI criticism on a Mac-oriented website is just as much a review as an official review in the iTunes Store. And yet, some are saying that it’s OK to publish the former without using the app, but it’s not OK to do the latter? How is it reasonable for reviews on iTunes to be restricted to users who have used the app?

A review on a weblog is just as powerful as a review on iTunes, if not more so. Personally, I rarely look at reviews on iTunes to decide whether or not to purchase a song on iTunes, or to download an app from the web. On iTunes, I’ll listen to the 30-second sample myself, and for apps, I’ll look at the screenshots and the description of the functionality, and test out a time-limited trial if one is available.

But when I see a mockery of an app on Daring Fireball (even if it’s a one-line zinger), I’m more apt to notice. I don’t think this is very rare, either. A large portion of the Mac community has a very personal stake in their computer platform, and a large portion of them probably subscribe to Daring Fireball alone, not to mention the multitude of other websites that picked up on the mockery, and the reverberating conversations through Twitter. The criticisms of the TripLog UI caused the developer himself to respond to the criticisms, as he probably perceived that the press he was getting was going to dampen his sales. Would a single review on iTunes have had as much of an effect?

At the same time, were the criticisms of the UI not valid? I’d argue that they were pretty spot on, as I agree that the UI looks horrible. So if UI is important, and the UI is horrible, isn’t that an argument to not buy the app? Isn’t that a valid review? Why not allow the same things on iTunes?

Statistical Bias

Both of the two preceding arguments pale in comparison to this one: disallowing reviews from non-buyers artificially inflates App Store ratings. The tendency of these reviews to be high is so strong that it would make the iTunes reviews completely useless.

Consider the fact that most paid apps on the App Store don’t have time-limited or feature-limited demos that allow users to try out the app before paying for it. There are some exceptions, such as Twinkle and Twiterrific, but these demos usually don’t exist on the iPhone.

Suppose there are two iPhone users, user U who thinks app A for $5 is worth it, and user V who thinks app A for $5 is not worth it. U purchases and downloads app A, and gives it a five-star rating. V does not purchase app A, and is disallowed from reviewing app A. App A retains its five-star rating, despite the fact that only 50% of the users thought the app was worth buying.

Furthermore, consider user W who is on the fence about purchasing app A. Suppose he gives it the benefit of the doubt, and decides to purchase and download app A. After doing so, there is a high psychological tendency for user W to rationalize his purchase so that he doesn’t feel like he’s wasted his money. Even if user W sees faults in app A, the tendency is to give more weight to the good aspects of the app and less weight to the bad aspects. The effect is a further inflation of app A’s average rating.

Restricting reviews to buyers would simply cause ratings to not reflect the actual value of the app.

Capitalism

The underlying point is that price is absolutely a criterion on which to rate an app. Reviews exist precisely to guide other potential customers about whether an app is worth it at a certain price. If the price goes down, more users will ultimately deem the app worth it at that price.

That non-buyers will post negative reviews about an app is absolutely useful. It means that some people think that the features an app offers is not enough to justify paying a certain amount of money for that app. If I tell someone that a Prius is not worth $100,000, should Toyota be allowed to intervene and say, “Nope, sorry, you haven’t purchased a Prius, so your opinion is invalid.” I hope everyone agrees that this is ludicrous. Same thing goes for the App Store.

If a developer thinks that his app is worth $50, and users are only willing to pay $5 and they register their views on iTunes, tough fucking luck. The price people are willing to pay is not based on the price you set, but on the price people are willing to pay. Customers are not paying you for the time you put into the app; they’re paying you for how useful it is to them.

If you want to participate in a capitalistic system (whether it’s the iTunes App Store or the larger societal structure of some nations), be prepared to accept the consequences: some people don’t think that your work is worth it. There may be whiners who don’t want to pay for anything—some of which are open source whiners—but bitching about some consumers not wanting to purchase your app at a specific price is even more whiny.

App Store Shareware

Currently, the App Store effectively prohibits shareware from being listed. The current method for allowing users to try out an app is not shareware, it’s adware; that is, there is a free version of the app that includes occasional advertisements, and a paid version of the app that removes the ads. Feature-limited demos are possible on the App Store, but time-limited shareware demos are not.

Time-limited shareware demos on the Mac work like this: you download a single program, and it allows 30 days of free usage. When you’re ready to buy, you go to the website and purchase the product, receive a serial number, and then enter it into the app that you’ve already-downloaded.

Shareware could still work on the App Store with the current system, but it would be a little more complicated: there’d be a time-limited free app, and a separate app that you pay for. You’d have to download the (essentially) same app again when you pay for it.

The problem is that the data for each app on the App Store is sandboxed when you install it on an iPhone and iPod touch. So when you finally download and pay for the app, you’re actually installing a “new” app, and you’d lose all your data from the time-limited demo, unless they both offered internet syncing.

Not only that, but when a user deletes an app from his iPhone or iPod touch, all related preference and data files are deleted as well (as far as I know). So there’d be no way to enforce the time-limitation: the user could delete the app and then re-download it, and he’d have another portion of time to use the app. If the app used internet syncing to mitigate the first problem, then it’d exacerbate this second problem because a user wouldn’t be fearful of losing his data after deleting the time-limited app. (It’s possible that on first run, the app would obtain a unique ID and prevent syncing from a previous time-trial session, and therefore discourage this practice by encouraging data loss between time-trial uses. But this seems both overly-complicated and potentially dangerous.)

The problem with the rating system—that people can’t try out apps before they buy—is exacerbated by the lack of a way to put shareware on the App Store. On the Mac, many programs are shareware, and allow people to actually get valuable insight on the use of an app before being forced to pay for it to continue using it. This is not the case on the App Store.

So in the App Store’s case, negative reviews are more skewed toward users who haven’t downloaded an app. But that doesn’t mean those reviews aren’t useful.

And even if the App Store did have a mechanism for allowing shareware to be listed, the problem still wouldn’t go away completely. Independent Mac developers tend to use the shareware model, but it doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be apps that only offer a paid version. Thus, the afore-explained argument of statistical bias will still apply even if the App Store was less restrictive. This inevitable situation cannot be escaped.

A Real Proposal

Now, let’s not go overboard here. Reviews from those who have not used an app can be just as irrational and overly negative as those who have used an app and have had personal experience with it. And I agree that those who have used an app probably have a more reasonable view of the utility of an app. But reviews from users who haven’t downloaded an app are still useful.

So here’s how I think iTunes Store reviews should be changed:

1. Individual reviews from users who have not downloaded an app should be marked as such with a badge.
2. Average ratings should be calculated in a weighted manner: ratings from those who’ve downloaded an app should influence the average rating more than those who haven’t downloaded that same app.

Details, such as what the badge says, what it looks like, and the particulars of the weighting system are left to readers, or more likely, to Apple.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Technological Supernova, on August 11, 2008 2:04 PM

This video is best viewed in high definition. To view at 1280×720, press play, then click the HD button, then zoom to full screen and turn scaling off.

Here’s the complete Aurora concept video containing only the scenes of user interaction and leaving out the commentary segments. This version has some additional material connecting the four scenes together into a single narrative.

Video segments with commentary: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Originally posted by Jesse James Garrett from Adaptive Path, on August 11, 2008 12:36 PM

xkcd - Regular Expressions

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Scribbling.net, on August 11, 2008 12:10 PM

A couple of weeks ago, Sebastian Mary posted about experiments with sending out literature via Twitter. She found herself disappointed that DailyLit was neither "abridging the text savagely for hyper-truncated delivery, or else delivering the unabridged text 140 characters at a time"; instead, texts not built for Twitter were being shoehorned into the Twitter form. Twitter might be the electronic form du jour, but this is a problem as old as electronic writing: the presumption that texts are form-agnostic.

An interesting approach to the problem comes from an unexpected source: the New York Review of Books has begun serializing Félix Fénéon's Novels in Three Lines via Twitter in Luc Sante's translation. Fénéon was a fin-de-siècle French writer who's best known as the art critic who coined the term "pointillism". (Paul Signac's portrait of him, Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones and Tints, Portrait of Felix Feneon in 1890, is below.) Fénéon was a man of many talents; while publicly known as an anarchist and the first French publisher of James Joyce, he was secretly a master of miniaturized text. His anonymous feuilletonage in Le Matin in 1906 condensed the news of the day to masterpieces of phrasing:

In a café on Rue Fontaine, Vautour, Lenoir, and Atanis exchanged a few bullets regarding their wives, who were not present.

Fénéon's hypercompression lends itself to Twitter. In a book, these pieces don't quite have space to breathe; they're crowded by each other, and it's more difficult for the reader to savor them individually. As Twitter posts, they're perfectly self-contained, as they would have been when they appeared as feuilleton.

A quotation from Buckminster Fuller (from Synergetics 529.10) seems apropos for thinking about why Fénéon seems so suited to Twitter:

It is one of the strange facts of experience that when we try to think about the future, our thoughts jump backwards. It may well be that nature has some fundamental metaphysical law by which opening up what we call the future also opens up the past in equal degree.

Originally posted by dan visel from if:book, on August 11, 2008 9:18 AM

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone

Despite the complaints about the measly 2-megapixel camera built into the iPhone, it appears that ease-of-use trumps resolution. The iPhone remains the leader in camera phone usage on Flickr.

Flickr monthly statistics indicate that not only has the iPhone retained its lead (which it gained after knocking the Nokia N95 from the top spot) over other phones, but the lead has begun to widen. Why? It might be due to faster photo uploading from the iPhone 3G, the capability to geotag your iPhone photos, or just the fact that the iPhone photo app is easy to launch and use.

If you're not a flickr user, where do you keep your iPhone pictures? Leave a comment below!

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Originally posted by Steven Sande from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on August 11, 2008 7:30 AM

i’ve been on the lookout for a tablecloth for a small oval dining table. suggestions?

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on August 11, 2008 6:30 AM

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on August 11, 2008 6:09 AM

Streetsblog is running our weekend news wrap-up in two sections this morning. This section is devoted to stories about Saturday's inaugural Summer Streets event. Links to non-Summer Streets coverage are here. The following headlines are titled as they appeared in source publications.

Prior to the event:

• Will Car-Free 'Summer Streets' Work? (City Room)
• Streets Built to Roam for a Day (News)
• 'Ribbon of Recreation' to Wind Through NYC Streets (WCBS TV)
• Summer Streets [Interview with Bloomberg and Sadik-Khan] (Fox 5)
  
• Car-Free Saturdays Begin This Weekend (Downtown Express)
  
• City Is Set to Enjoy a Car-Free Park Ave (Metro)
  
• Businesses Brace for Summer Streets (WNYC)
• 'Summer Streets' for the Feet in New York (Trib)

After the event:

• No Traffic on a Saturday? Well, No Cars, Anyway (NYT)
  
• NYC Experiments With Car-Free Urban Playground (AP)
• Takin' It to the (No-Traffic) Streets (News)
  
• Gentlemen, Stop Your Engines (Voice)
• A Car-Free Day (Post)
  
• Car-Free Zone Biz Was Feast, Famine (Post)
• 7 Miles of Manhattan Streets Go Car-Free (WNYC)

A sampling from the blogosphere:

• Successful Start to Summer Streets Saturdays (Gothamist)
• Summer Streets a Success, Possibly Also Fun (Cap'n Transit)
• Summer Streets -- A NYC Bike Safari (VentriloquismNYC)
• Summers Streets a Blast and NYC an Inspiration (Philadelphia Bicycle News)
  

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on August 11, 2008 5:01 AM

Time's insights flow in both directions: anticipating the future can help us remove contemporary blinders to understand the past in new ways, and delving into the past can give us fresh perspectives on what might be possible in the future. Or, as I wrote earlier, when trying to explain the importance of environmental history, "The past is still doing its work in the present, and understanding that past gives us leverage on the problems we face today."

A key challenge in the study of history, especially as it relates to place, is putting the pieces together. If, for instance, we hit the archives in an attempt to know the history of a particular watershed, we might well find ourselves confronted with masses of information, including old maps, journals and letters, scientific observations, photos, business records and government files. Making sense of such a large array of sources is difficult.

But as we've discussed before, dealing with floods of data is not a situation unique to history, and historians are finding their way towards the same set of solutions that designers and scientists are moving towards: information visualization.

The field has come to be known as spatial history, and there's an explosion of projects and tools in that field right now, lead by Stanford's Spatial History Project.

The project, lead by Richard White, Zephyr Frank and Jon Christensen (disclosure: White is a former teacher of mine) is bringing together approaches from history and geography, employing GIS and other technologies to find new ways of understanding how the past unfolded in different places:

"The overarching goal of the Spatial History Project is to create dynamic, interactive tools that can be used across the spectrum represented by these research projects-from economic and technological changes, to social and political changes, and changes in science and the environment-and bring them all together to enable the creation of new knowledge and understanding of historical change in space and time and the possibilities for our present and future that may be found in the past."

It's a terrifically exciting undertaking, with all sorts of possibilities for introducing changed thinking into contemporary discussions. Better still, they're approaching the whole thing in a spirit of openness and tool-sharing, and have launched as well a spatial history wiki, Tooling Up for Digital Histories, a collaboration with the Stanford Computer Graphics Lab to "compile and create new tools for digital and spatial research in the humanities."

The wiki is already filling in nicely, and I have no doubt that it's going to be a great resource for those in the field. If I had one suggestion, it might be that it would be nice to see these tools explained and packaged in a manner that would be more accessible to intelligent people from other fields, and usable by non-academics to understand and describe their own spatial histories, and perhaps even imagine their own futures.

Spatial history stories can be powerful. Take the Mannahatta Project, which is using spatial history tools to mentally strip back the years and imagine Manhattan before the arrival of Europeans:

"The aim of the Mannahatta Project is to reconstruct the ecology of Manhattan when Henry Hudson first sailed by in 1609 and compare it to what we know of the island today. The Mannahatta Project will help us to understand, down to the level of one city block, where in Manhattan streams once flowed or where American Chestnuts may have grown, where black bears once marked territories, and where the Lenape fished and hunted. Most history books dispense of the pre-European history of New York in only a few pages. However, with new methods in geographic analysis and the help of a remarkable 18th-century map, we will discover a new aspect of New York culture, the environmental foundation of the city."

The project has already become a bit of a hit, getting written up in the New Yorker and elsewhere, and becoming the subject of a new book (disclosure: Deb Aaronson, who's editing the book, is also my editor).

Being a Westerner, being a 5th-generation Californian and having lived close enough to the Pacific to taste salt in the air for most of my life, the fascination with everything New Yorkish is sometimes baffling to me. But having gone to high school just outside NYC, and talking with New Yorkers who are excited about the idea, I think I can understand a bit of the Mannahatta Project's appeal.

Where I live, nature didn't go anywhere. Though I live in a city of 600,000 people, I can walk to a park where bald eagles hunt. Coyotes have been seen in my neighborhood. Salmon and orcas swim in the waters that surround my town. In the West, the wilderness isn't somewhere else, it's under your feet, it's in your view, it's on your plate. The degree to which it is eroding away is a major conflict point in our politics and culture.

But in New York, despite some amazing parks and green spaces, hundreds of years of city-building stand between residents and the ground they walk on. Stripping back that mass of concrete and asphalt and people and stories to get back to the natural systems that underlie it all must be an especially powerful experience for those who aren't used to thinking of where they live as being part of nature at all.

And that sort of insight, that sort of changed thinking, is exactly what we need more of if we're going to make better choices about the future we're building all around us.

Help us change the world - DONATE NOW!

(Posted by Alex Steffen in Features at 3:42 AM)

Originally posted by Alex Steffen from WorldChanging, on August 11, 2008 3:42 AM

In yesterday’s loss to the Marlins, Mike Pelfrey let up six runs and seven hits, while walking three, in just four and two-thirds innings pitched, raising his ERA from 3.85 to 4.11.

Pelfrey is 0-3 with a 10.67 ERA against the Marlins this season, yet 10-5 with a 3.45 ERA against everyone else.

Pelfrey, speaking to reporters after yesterday’s game, said:

“Numbers don’t lie, the last few starts I’ve struggled against them.  You can’t dispute that…I think that I executed some bad pitches, made some bad pitches, and I threw some stupid pitches.  I made some stupid pitches that I shouldn’t have thrown.”

…ok, then…tell us how you really feel, mike…

…today’s narrative in print and on radio seems to be that pelfrey is burned out, since he’s on the verge of throwing the most pitches in a season for his career…

He has thrown 138 innings this year, second-most on the team.

Pelfrey threw 152.2 innings last season, and is on pace to throw 191 this season.

As Ken Davidoff points out in Newsday today, “The conventional wisdom calls for a young pitcher to exceed his previous season’s total by no more than 30 innings.”

Maunel, speaking to reporters about Pelfrey, following yesterday’s loss to the Marlins:

“This is actually his first full major-league year, so that could be an issue, but we’ll do everything we can to try and keep him fresh.”

Pelfrey is on pace to next start against the Pirates, then the Braves, then the Astros, after which he’ll face the Marlins in Miami late in August.

ShareThis

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on August 11, 2008 3:38 AM

The DNC's committee for the convention announces the dates of two key speakers at the big event: Michelle Obama, and Hillary. From the release:

Monday August 25th's headline prime-time speaker will be Michelle Obama.

Senator Hillary Clinton, who is a champion for working families and one of the most effective and empathetic voices in the country today, will be the headline prime-time speaker on Tuesday August 26th.

The headline prime-time speaker on Wednesday August 27th will be Barack Obama's Vice Presidential nominee.

Not that this was in any doubt at all, but this would appear to confirm that Hillary is definitely not Veep. Reports have it that Bill will speak on Wednesday, too.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on August 10, 2008 4:08 PM

One of the greatest. More to follow.


Here's Fresh Air's 1994 interview with Hayes.

Originally posted by O.W. from soul sides, on August 10, 2008 12:16 PM

Wall Arch in Utah's Arches National Park has collapsed.
Other notable collapses in recent years:

• London Bridge, Victoria, Australia (collapsed January 1990)
• Old Man of the Mountain, Franconia Notch State Park, New Hampshire (collapsed May 2003)
• One of the Twelve Apostles, Victoria, Australia (collapsed July 2005)
• Natural Bridge in Aruba (collapsed September 2005)
• El Dedo de Dios, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands (collapsed November 2005)
• Turret of Miner's Castle, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan (collapsed April 2006)

Originally posted by Knappster from MetaFilter, on August 10, 2008 12:01 PM

I'm pretty surprised by how much I enjoy the new Walkmen album, You & Me, never having been much of a fan in the past. It's big, and nostalgic, and kind of dark.

Kind of like the season one finale of Mad Men, which we just watched a couple of weeks ago. The best part, where Don is leading the Kodak people through the campaign for the slide projector, while showing slides of his family:

It goes backwards and forwards, and it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called "The Wheel"; it's called "The Carousel". It lets us travel around and around and back home again.

As Mena said, at the time: "can I slit my wrists, now?"

Anyway, You & Me is out August 19, but you can buy it now for $5 (5 dollars!) from Amie Street. And in so doing, you'll be helping kids with cancer. So, you know, you'd sort of have to hate music and kids not to buy this album.

Originally posted by Benjamin Trott from Stupidfool.org, on August 10, 2008 11:23 AM

Inflatable Olympic mascots. Midway through the first half of the Argentina-Lithuania men's basketball game, it became clear that something was seriously amiss with Olympic roundball. The between-quarter entertainment started promisingly enough: two bizarre Olympic mascots ran out on the court, accompanied by the same sort of chipper young uniformed support staff who might work an NBA halftime show, carrying large pads and a trampoline. The mascots encouraged the fans to clap along. The fans complied. The mascots went to mid-court and got running starts. Then an ABA halftime show broke out. Huanhuan the Olympic Flame took a sickly jump off the trampoline and got stuffed by the rim. Yingying the Tibetan Antelope evidently got spooked and fared even worse, toppling over sideways after his missed dunk. It was the worst attempted dunk by a bright orange two-footed Tibetan Antelope I've ever seen.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from D.C. Sports Bog, on August 10, 2008 11:18 AM

"Raphael is a small JavaScript library that should simplify your work with vector graphics on the web. In case you want to create your own specific chart or image crop-n-rotate widget, you can simply achieve it with this library."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on August 10, 2008 9:05 AM

From Required Eating

Photograph by Robyn Lee

In the New York Times recently, Jane Brody reported on the recent findings of a study by Center for Science in the Public Interest on the potential harm and benefits of caffeine consumption.

The good news: Caffeine can enhance your mood and your mental and physical performance. Not exactly big news.

But here are some more interesting findings:

• Drinking caffeinated coffee might decrease your risk for Parkinson's disease
• Drinking 4 to 6 cups of regular or decaf coffee a day might lower your risk of contracting Type 2 diabetes
• Caffeine does not make you pee more
• Caffeine does not increase the risk of heart attack
• Caffeine does not contribute much to hypertension development
• Caffeine does not cause pancreatic, kidney, liver, or breast cancer
• Caffeine does not meaningfully contribute to bone loss

The bad news? It doesn't help people lose weight.

Overall it sounds like this study could have been paid for by Juan Valdez or Coca-Cola.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats, on August 10, 2008 8:00 AM