Since the trade frequency is going up now that I'm set building, I've decided that I'm not going to give every single package their own post, but instead wait until the mail comes on Saturday and recap the packages from that week. Individual posts take too long, clutter up the blog and I end up not getting to a bunch of them anyway. This way, I knock 'em all out at once, let everyone get recognized and don't get caught up in the temptation to write an Epic Post on every package I receive. And believe me, I could write one for 'em all but you don't want this to turn into Mailday Junkie, do you? Nah. Didn't think so. First up though: The Ziploc bad I got from Madding with Zane Smith on the front.

The Zane was an oddball decoy. Aside from that and 6 Classic Game cards the rest of the pack was all Braves minor league cards. Here's what was in there:

14 1989 ProCards Richmond Braves (Best card: David Justice)
1989 Star Durham Bulls Wes Currin (who looks just like Sad Sack)
1990 Best Burlington Braves Darren Ritter
6 CMC 1990 Richmond Braves (Including Justice, Avery, Merker and Mazzone)
2 1990 ProCards Richmond Braves (Geronimo Berroa)
2 1991 Line Drive Greenville Braves (Ben Rivera)
2 1991 Line Drive Richmond Braves (Phil Niekro!)
1992 Classic Best Lavy Lopez
1993 Classic Best Melvin Nieves
1991 ProCards Keith Mitchell
1990 Best Burlington Braves Glen Gardner
2 1991 Classic Best Klesko and Chipper
and finally a 1990 Procards Vinicio Castilla.

Cool stuff from Madding and there's still the plastic case to be opened so stay tuned...

Next, three cards from Don Sherman for my 1987 Donruss set. Don just sent them outright with was very nice. This is a good time to do a little baseball card history lesson. Here are the backs of the three cards:

The back of the Stillwell is 'flipped' from the Magadan and Davis cards. This isn't an error, it's supposed to be like this. For some reason Donruss flipped the backs like this on cards from their factory sets. Why? Who knows... It's some interesting trivia at least.

Chris Harris found some 1979 Topps off my want list after sending me all that Heritage a couple of days ago. Since it's Chris, you know what's coming...

1/1 STICKER AUTO GALARRA-JO!

Along with that treasure there were 15 cards for the '79 set. The Best:

and my favorite:

I could have sworn I had that card, but I didn't. Thanks again Chris!

Jeffrey from Card Junkie also sent a pile from my '87 Donruss list in a trade for some old Fleer cards he needed. He also sent this:


Could it be from this rip? This is pure history here, folks! There's also 15 Donruss cards in there lovingly protected by two '90 Fleer stickers. From the same YouTube video perhaps? Here's the best:

Knuckleballers rule! Thanks fellow junkie!

Ok, one last past to post. This one is a massive one from Dan Wood who has sent other massive packages in the past. One half of it was assorted Braves, which I will do a post on later, and the other was a pile of Timelines big enough to choke a mule. Included were:

13 base rookies (TOWELS!!!)

1 '92 subset

8 '94 Heroes subset

2 '95 Minors subset

11 '04 Timeless Teams subset

5 '93 SP short prints

6 '94 SP short prints

Awesome stuff from Dan! Dan collects these players if anyone wants to help him out.

Josh Hamilton
Billy Butler
David Wright
Lenny Dykstra
Jeff Bagwell
Mike Piazza
Jay Bruce
Keith Hernandez
Mark Grace
Justin Upton
Colby Rasmus
Travis Snider
Mike Moustakas
Beau Mills
Donny Baseball
Carlos Pena
Ryan Kalish

I've lost his list twice so I'm posting it here for eternity.

Once again thanks to Madding, Don, Chris, Jeffrey and Dan!

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on January 10, 2009 5:21 PM

There's a lot of empirical evidence and a lot of very knowledgeable people who believe the Obama Stimulus Plan (the general outlines of which are coming into focus) is simply not big enough -- not only in overall dollar size but also in the kinds of spending included in it. Paul Krugman has been posting on the issue at his blog, particularly in this post. And this article in the Times covers it more broadly.

The debate about spending priorities essentially comes down to how much bang for your buck you get in economic stimulus terms for tax cuts or rebates (even for middle or low income people most inclined to spend it) versus government spending, especially in the context of a dramatic economic downturn. And from what I can tell there's a lot of empirical evidence that the latter wins out by a substantial margin.

And yet the desire to get a substantial number of Republicans to vote for the bill appears to be having a big impact on the proposal's size and shape. Quite likely, leaving it too small and too tilted toward tax cuts to get the job done.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 10, 2009 3:45 PM

The most popular question on change.gov, the Obama transition website, is one from Democrats.com's Bob Fertik: "Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor -- ideally Patrick Fitzgerald -- to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"

George Stephanopoulos put the question to Obama in his interview, which is running tomorrow morning, and Obama apparently answered. So far they're just teasing it. Not completely clear if Obama addressed the question in a meaty or meaningful way or just sort of brushed it off. But I guess we'll know tomorrow.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 10, 2009 11:35 AM

I loved Mark Bittman's article about the modern pantry (via Ruhlman, who has a great comment thread going on the subject).

076 | Arborio rice
Originally uploaded by woordenaar

One of my absolute pantry favorites is arborio rice, because I love making & eating risotto. There are so many things you can do with it!

Just over the past couple of months, I've made a cauliflower risotto, a beet risotto, a sausage & pea risotto, a kabocha squash & arugula risotto, and a wild mushroom risotto. And those are just the ones I remember.

Once you get the technique down, risotto's easy (and even soothing) to make. A truly great fall & winter food.

Originally posted by btrott from Stupidfool.org, on January 10, 2009 11:13 AM

"Something as simple as putting a 'Digg this' link on a page in an Indymedia CMS would probably cripple the Indymedia network globally by triggering a discussion about the relative merits of open content aggregation versus the support of capitalist business. ... If we want to change society, we need to deal with this, or we're no longer a group of radical media producers with advanced technical platforms (which we were in 2000-2003), we're the equivalent of a Geocities page - lost, lonely, and slightly crazy-looking. Maybe it's time to change the white text / black background of indymedia.org, by the way?"

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on January 10, 2009 6:54 AM

Steep yourself in the delightful tones of this homebrew theremin, built with a mug of tea:

Theremug from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo.

The latest in TEDBlog's chronicle of the evolution of untouchable music, it joins this cool Wii remote hack.

Thanks for the tip via Posterous, reflectionof.me

Originally posted by from TED | TEDBlog, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 10, 2009 at 10:56 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Eyebeam reBlog, on January 10, 2009 5:56 AM

Obama’s Ride (via adamiss)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from shey.net, on January 9, 2009 8:03 PM

Percona has been building and contributing to open-source software since the company was founded, and individually we’ve been doing the same thing for many years.  We think it’s a huge value for our customers and the community.

We’re involved in a dozen or so open-source projects, but our three core efforts at the moment are the following:

• Percona patches, which are included in our own MySQL builds and then in OurDelta builds and perhaps others as well
• XtraDB, which is our new high-performance transactional storage engine
• Maatkit, which is a toolkit that provides advanced functionality for MySQL.

We have a team of dedicated MySQL developers working on the server and on ExtraDB, and a dedicated Maatkit developer. Other Percona employees also put significant time into these projects.

Outside observers have commented that our development process doesn’t seem very open-source.  That is, we typically just go build the software and then announce it. We don’t involve the community very much in our decisions about what features to include, or how they should get built; and we don’t encourage community contributions directly into our codebase.  There’s also some ambiguity about where the money comes from and where it goes.  These are all fair points to bring up.  Peter, Vadim and I thought we should address them and let everyone know how we really work on these things and what our vision for the future is.

How We Decide On Features

There are at least three sources of input into how we prioritize our work.

1. Clear and present needs. If we are crippled day in and day out by the lack of some feature, or the presence of some bug, then we will take the initiative to fix it. The most obvious example is our enhanced slow-logging functionality, which is part of our standard patches. These patches make it possible to learn a great deal about what your server is doing and how to optimize it.
2. Customer demands. Customers come to us and ask for the features that they see as clear and present needs; or they come to us with particular performance issues and we analyze it and find that the best solution is to modify the server. Many of the other features in our patch set are in this category, as is a lot of ongoing work that’s not released yet.
3. The general public. People comment on our blog posts, or send us email, and so forth. We notice these requests, and if they come up often enough and we think they’ll be useful, they start to stick in our brains and we eventually put them on the TODO list.

The order of priorities is this: paying customers, obvious needs for our consulting practice, and the public wishlist. However, even when work is sponsored by paying customers, we don’t just blindly put the features into our Percona builds. Firstly, customers get to choose whether they want us to do this. Secondly, the builds are designed to meet real-world needs and we are working very carefully to enhance the MySQL server but not end up with a chaotic mix of random stuff.

Some features are also so specific to certain customers that we don’t include them. When we do target an improvement for our builds, it’s a big win for everyone, because we share the development cost with the customer (you can think of it as an open-source discount; it is us contributing towards the public good) and we maintain the feature in subsequent minor versions of the server free of charge. Features that we don’t include in our public patch set don’t get forward-ported for free, so customers pay if they want a version that is ported to a newer server.

In a separate category, there’s also work that we do for customers which is not open-source. We are currently customizing the MySQL server and storage engines for some of Silicon Valley’s most innovative startups. I won’t talk about this any more, but I wanted to mention it for the sake of full disclosure.

How We Support Our Work

This work is usually supported by our customers. (It happens, but not often, that someone just writes new functionality for free in spare time.) However, if the work is open-source, we generally run this as a “less-for-profit” part of our business. I’ll clarify that in a minute.

There are generally two ways that we channel money to features. The first is when a customer says “I want this” and pays us to build it. In these cases, we work on a schedule to deliver the required features. We treat it as developer-for-hire with all the normal expectations of being hired. If we all agree that the result will be open-sourced and the general public will benefit, then we work for a discount. We’re still working for a profit — part of our business is custom MySQL development, after all — but we discount it.

The second way is when people say “here’s some money for the general fund to support your future planned features.” In this case, the money goes into the queue for when someone is available to work on the modifications, and we either pay attention to any preferences the donor has, or we use our judgment as to which enhancements will add the most value to our builds. In practice, this second model has not happened very often; we have used it more for Maatkit and MMM than for server patches. But we hope that will change as more people find out about the possibility for getting their wishes. This model lets us work on features that everyone wants but no one wants to pay for. And in this case we work on a non-profit basis: the developer who works on the features is paid at a special rate for “internal work” (as opposed to working for “external customers”).

You can also think about this as dual sources for the money to support the open-source efforts. One is customers who channel money directly to development. (Thanks!) The other is all of our customers who are indirectly sponsoring the development just by being customers. In other words, if you’re a customer, you’re contributing to open-source software development. (Thanks to you, too!)

If you would like Percona to create custom MySQL features or builds for you, please contact us.

Why We Don’t Grant Commit Rights

As far as we know, no one has ever asked for commit rights to our codebase.

That aside, the Percona contributions to open-source are not a potluck dinner where everyone brings something and puts it on the table. These builds are stamped with our name and are downloadable from our website. They’re a core part of our offering to customers (and non-customers can get them for free, too). If you’re a customer, we stand behind the builds and we support them. The builds power some of the most demanding MySQL installations in the world. All code has to be vetted very carefully, and all features have to deliver a compelling value.

There’s an overarching reason, though. Percona is not the ultimate upstream source. Community contributions ought to be going into the MySQL codebase, not the Percona codebase. Percona’s relationship to the rest of the community is that of a peer, not a parent.

Perhaps some of you are wondering, “why don’t you contribute your patches back to MySQL?”

We do contribute our patches. They are GPL-licensed, which is both generous and fair, and MySQL is free to take them without even asking permission, as long as they abide by the GPL. We welcome everyone to use our patches. OurDelta does so — it is a great example of how the community can aggregate patches and make something greater than the sum of the parts.

When it comes to Sun/MySQL, we actively and openly talk to them about it, and it’s an ongoing conversation. However, there are various reasons why it’s not the ultimate solution for our customers, and their interests come first. For one thing, getting patches accepted is a somewhat laborious process, and we don’t have the resources for it ourselves. We could do it, but we’d have to pass the costs on to our customers.

The second thing is that it takes far too long for patches to actually show up in a GA version of the server. Customers pay us to solve their problems now. This means that one way or another, we’re going to be maintaining the custom patches in our own tree and making our own builds, and there is no sense in doing a halfway job of it. So that removes the motivation for us or our customers to try to get Sun/MySQL to accept the patches — it wouldn’t add any extra value. We’d like Sun/MySQL to accept the patches, but with the customers’ needs solved, the onus is on them to do it, which seems fair — after all, Percona and Percona customers already co-sponsored the development, and Sun/MySQL will be reselling the results.

This is a large and contentious topic that has been discussed at great length elsewhere and is not appropriate to get into here in its full scope. But I’ll point out that some of our patches have been accepted in the past and there are signs that this might continue. We certainly hope so.

How You Can Get Your Wishes To Come True

If you have a particular need for some modification to the MySQL server, XtraDB, Maatkit, our InnoDB data recovery tools, MMM, innotop, or even projects like standard GNU utilities, we’re listening. You can contact us through our website, and offer to sponsor the work. There are also mailing lists for our various projects.

Here’s an example: wouldn’t it be great if there were a built-in type in MySQL that could store date and time with microsecond precision? Lots of people have asked for that. If you all put some money in the hat, it could become a reality.

Where It All Begins

Our open-source efforts flow from our company values. We believe that software and information wants to be free. We also support innovation and entrepreneurship. We like to combine these things when we can! The complexity of our customers’ different situations leads to the need for a lot of flexibility in our approach, which is why there are so many nuances. And we generally try to create incentive towards what we see as the public good. That’s the motivation behind our shared-development-cost model, for example — it creates an incentive for customers to say “yes” when we ask them to agree to open-source the features.

Open-source is not a passing fad. It’s not a marketing gimmick for us. It’s who we are at the core. Funding its development in a fair way is a great balancing act, and finding a balance that seems to make sense for everyone is very rewarding.

---

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Originally posted by Baron Schwartz from MySQL Performance Blog, on January 9, 2009 4:22 PM

Back in June, we rolled out a new favicon — the small icon that greets you when you access Google on your URL bar or your bookmarks list — and we encouraged our users to submit their ideas for this important piece of Google branding. We were impressed by the volume of submissions we received, and today we are happy to introduce a new Google favicon inspired by those submissions by our users. While the final icon is a reinterpretation of one contest submission, it draws on design elements and ideas from many of them.

Google's new favicon

André Resende, a computer science undergraduate student at the University of Campinas in Brazil, submitted the design that inspired our new favicon. His placement of a white 'g' on a color-blocked background was highly recognizable and attractive, while seeming to capture the essence of Google.

by André Resende

Although we changed the color layout slightly and moved the 'g' off center, his submission formed the basis for our new design.

Incorporating all four of Google's colors (red, yellow, green, and blue) into the four corners of the favicon was a theme we liked in many submissions. We also saw this idea in the designs submitted by Hadi Onur Demirsoy, Lucian E. Marin, and Yusuf Sevgen (pictured below).

by Hadi Onur Demirsoy

by Lucian E. Marin

by Yusuf Sevgen

We hope you like the new favicon, which nicely integrates all of our original criteria: distinctive in shape, noticeable, colorful, timeless, and scalable to other sizes.

While I'm sure we will update it again, we also hope our new favicon inspired by Andre is a warm, colorful beacon to Google on your browser tabs and bookmarks. A big thank you to Andre, Hadi, Lucian, and Yusuf, as well as all of the other people who helped us define our new look in a uniquely user-driven way!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience, and Micheal Lopez, Web Design Lead

Originally posted by A Googler from The Official Google Blog, on January 9, 2009 11:35 AM

Originally posted by hustler of culture from hustler of culture, on January 9, 2009 10:39 AM

Okay, fine, Blagojevich is clearly insane. I'm sitting here at my desk, listening to him chatter on in the background about the impeachment vote. And he's going on about how his policies let someone get a liver transplant, and should he really be impeached for that? It's like some bizarre performance art. Now he's quoting Tennyson.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 9, 2009 10:33 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Choire, on January 9, 2009 9:33 AM

A face-to-face back in April. Photo: Scoop08.

Yesterday the President-elect unveiled the broad strokes of his economic recovery plan at a DC press event, and Mayor Bloomberg was there to give his response. Bloomberg's message is critical for the prospects of green transportation in the upcoming stimulus package. Here's the abbreviated version via Liz Benjamin at the Daily Politics:

I have made the case to his incoming administration that a lot of the resources have to go directly to the cities, which is where these projects will get managed and built.

We've said it before and it definitely bears repeating: This is a big opportunity and Obama can't afford to blow it. If his team is serious about its sustainability goals -- and by most accounts the energy portion of the plan is legit -- they'll heed Bloomberg. Directing transportation funds to cities is one of the most effective ways to support transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure. The bigger the share cities get, the better. But that's not what one of the key players, House Appropriations Chair David Obey, has in mind:

Yesterday, Congressman David Obey (D-WI), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, stated on National Public Radio that stimulus funding directed towards transportation infrastructure will be allocated directly to states to determine how best to use the American tax dollars.

That's a recipe for disaster -- funneling tens of billions of dollars to highway-builders while starving the agencies that do the most to give people better transportation choices and more livable neighborhoods. On the campaign trail, candidate Obama promised he would talk about cities once in office. Now the inauguration is less than two weeks away. I don't think it's too early to say: "Let's hear it."

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on January 9, 2009 9:29 AM

A reader writes in with a point that had occurred to me too after reading this morning's article in the Post about Geithner's rejiggering of the TARP program -- namely, separate from the 'Stimulus Bill' proper, there's now a move afoot to reprogram the second half of TARP into something that looks a lot more like stuff you'd expect to find in a Stimulus Bill, rather than anything like what the program originally envisaged ...

I agree that the stimulus package, as currently detailed, is insufficiently aggressive or imaginative. But most reports have been underestimating its size by $350 billion.

That's because the second half of the TARP funds remain to be spent. The Washington Post reported this morning that the Obama team is planning to reprogram most of those funds. The new package will include spending a large amount of money spent on a foreclosure relief program, and a more tightly-focused approach to consumer credit markets.

No, it's not technically a stimulus package. And yes, half the money has already been wasted. But there's nothing in the stimulus package that has the potential to do as much as simply stemming the tide of foreclosures and stabilizing the real estate market. So it may well turn out that the most significant part of any turnaround comes not from passing new programs, but from spending the TARP funds in a way that will actually make a difference.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 9, 2009 7:38 AM

Late Update: As a side note (although it's pretty fundamental), I was more than a little chagrined to see that not only has the term "war on terror" not been retired by the new Administration, but we're going to "win" it.

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on January 9, 2009 7:34 AM

My favorite thing on the Internet right now is this video of Mike unfriending me, confirming my street value of 1/10th of one Whopper.

And as McCreath writes in his post on the Mule blog about the Burger King campaign, “Why the hell am I using “friend” as a verb? Stupid Web 2.0.”

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on January 9, 2009 7:15 AM

Originally posted by joshua mack from Joshua Mack's DefinitiveInk, on January 9, 2009 6:54 AM

I've got a new word-of-the-day calendar that I'm probably going to bring up quite a bit on the blog.  Earlier this week, it explained the origins of the word epiphany.  It comes from the "Greek verb epiphainein, meaning 'to manifest,', which in turn is based on the older verb phainein, meaning 'to show.' Phainein is also the source of such showy English words as 'fancy' and 'fantasy.'"

Originally posted by Valarie Smith from Crazed Teacups, on January 9, 2009 6:51 AM

Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001, is a clever, sprawling novel about two young cousins who become almost overnight sensations in the world of comic books, helping to launch the genre’s golden age leading into World War II.

Kavalier & Clay tells the story of Josef Kavalier, a Jewish refugee from Prague who flees the Nazis in a most unusual fashion, and Sammy Klayman (who adopts the nom de plume of Sam Clay), his American cousin with whom he goes to live. Sammy has a knack for storycraft but isn’t much for art, while Josef, in addition to being an experienced magician, is a skilled and meticulous artist. Seeing the success of Superman, the two cook up a new superhero, The Escapist, and convince Sammy’s novelty-selling employer to publish a comic book as a way to sell more useless gadgets to kids. The Escapist is a success, but after a few years of glory, the two cousins’ lives take rather sudden turns for the worse.

Chabon’s mind and typewriter appear to ignore boundaries and guidelines, resulting in a book that often lacks direction and needed cuts both to its prose and to its scope. There’s an entire section, depicting Joe’s time serving in Antarctica during the war, that is superfluous and insanely over the top (Joe survives carbon monoxide poisoning that kills almost everyone in the camp, then survives a plane crash, then survives being shot … come on). The major plot events are usually out of the blue; the first chunk of the novel revolves almost entirely around the development and publishing of the cousins’ comic books, with side stories about their two romantic entanglements, when, roughly two-thirds of the way through the book, Chabon suddenly shifts direction, hitting each cousin with a separate, shocking, tragic event, and turning the book dark as if he’d switched off all the lights.

The prose suffers similarly from the lack of editing. His vocabulary is immense, including a handful of Chabon neologisms, but he uses a number of words that will be unfamiliar to the majority of readers and would have been better replaced by more common terms. Does he really need to describe an after-lunch event as “post-prandial?” Why would he add the last two words to the sentence, “Lit thus from behind by a brimming window, Josef Kavalier seemed to shine, to incandesce.” Why refer to the “ordinary wailing and termagancy of the dogs” instead of referring to their temper or peevishness or (if he wanted to use a fancy word) choler? These words may all be perfectly cromulent, but it doesn’t mean they were the best words for Chabon to use in his prose. He’s clearly a man in command of the language - referring to an expanse of Antarctic water as “this grievous sea,” calling a dictionary simply “the unabridged” - but his verbal brake pads appear to be worn through.

The first two-thirds of the novel, before it turns dark, is witty. Chabon is deft at writing quick dialogue and providing dry, almost Wodehouse-ish observations (”He drank an extremely cheap brand of rye called Brass Lamp. Sammy claimed that it was not rye at all but actual lamp oil, as Deasey was strongly near-sighted.), adding the occasional flourish of grin-inducing detail, as in the footnote that tells us that the compendium of one character’s pulp-fiction works was found a half-century later in an IKEA store “serving as a dignified-looking stage property on a floor-model ‘Hjörp’ wall unit.” But those occasional footnotes are another symbol of Chabon’s expansive vision and unwillingness to narrow his scope for the novel’s own good; whereas the miraculous Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is fully committed to the novel-cum-historical-document approach, with copious footnotes and consistent use of fictional reference works, Chabon is a footnote dilettante and gives only splotches of fictional history as it suits him.

Kavalier doesn’t fare well in comparison to Jonathan Strange beyond their different approaches to adding realistic historical notes and details. Susanna Clarke created two flawed but compelling main characters, putting them in partnership and then in conflict, giving the reader incentives both to support and oppose each character in response to individual thoughts and actions. Neither Kavalier nor Clay is as fully-formed as Strange or Norrell; Sammy’s character, in particular, is only briefly explained by an odd chapter about his odder father, and Clay’s homosexuality is there almost as a plot convenience, with little exploration at all of the conflicts a gay (and mostly closeted) man would have faced in that time. Sammy is gay because it allows Chabon to mess with him twice in crucial plot points that wouldn’t have worked if he was straight. When he’s finally outed, the consequences are almost nil, which doesn’t seem remotely realistic for the time period.

Kavalier is worth reading for Chabon’s sheer vision - he researched his topic thoroughly and created a paean to the golden age of comics that also covers the Holocaust - and some of the book’s more successful inventive ploys, but the disjointed story and incomplete characters left me disappointed and unaffected at the close.

Next up: Another Pulitzer winner, the oddly out-of-print The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Oscar Hijuelos. About a quarter of the way through it, I’m not impressed, although I’ll save the biting commentary for the writeup.

Originally posted by keith from The dish, on January 9, 2009 6:41 AM

The TiltShiftMaker site lets you make your own fake tilt-shift photo (you know, the ones that make everything look miniature). Just upload a photo or choose one from the web, adjust a few parameters, and you're all set...no Photoshop needed. Here's one I did of Ollie in Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern (larger). (via chris glass)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 9, 2009 6:23 AM

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on January 9, 2009 6:04 AM

Artist and thinker at Mechanix Illustrated Frank Tinsley asked, in 1953, why there was so much investment in nuclear and so little in solar.

The American public has been largely oversold on the possibilities of atomic power generation. As the technical difficulties and radiation dangers of nuclear power plants gradually come to light, even the experts are beginning to cool off. Solar power on the other hand presents no such headaches....

...

Originally from TreeHugger, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 9, 2009 at 10:21 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Eyebeam reBlog, on January 9, 2009 5:21 AM

Food is an integral part of the Ikea experience. For many people, myself included, the trip begins with a helping of steam-table meatballs and ends with a 50¢ hot dog.

Somehow, though, the little grocery store just past the checkout never gets much love. The lure of the wiener stand, presumably, is too great.

But I was curious. Since everything else in my kitchen comes from the Scandinavian megastore, it seemed logical to slap some Ikea food on my Ikea plates. So, with the Swedish Chef as my muse, I decided to see what I could assemble from Ikea's grocery offerings.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

It might surprise you to know that there's not a thing in Ikea's signature meatballs that a conscientious home cook wouldn't put in his own.

I could have replicated the Ikea cafeteria experience at home, I suppose, but where's the fun in that? Instead, I dropped the frozen, fully-cooked beef-and-pork meatballs straight into a simmering saucepan of home-made marinara. Swedish meatballs are considerably firmer than their Italian cousins, but still fabulous over spaghetti.

Pommes Duchesse with Cream Gravy

Instant mashed potatoes, whatever you happen to think of them, have an even consistency that's ideal for piping or shaping into croquettes. And Ikea's version, containing nothing but dehydrated potato, is better for you than most.

Here, I piped the "Potatismos" into swirls of pommes duchesse, a dish not seen in fashionable restaurants since 1978. To recreate (or bastardize, call it what you will) this French classic, make up the mashed potatoes according to package instructions, but omit 1/4 cup of the milk; remove from the heat and stir in one egg yolk; spoon into a piping bag fitted with a star tip, and bake the swirls on a greased sheet pan in a 400 degree oven until lightly browned.

I served them on a bed of artificial but oh-so-good cream gravy (the kind normally served with the aforementioned meatballs.) Retrolicious!

IKEA Seafood: An Acquired Taste I May Never Acquire

Ikea has a moderate selection of bargain-priced seafood preparations, much of it from Swedish company Abba. I picked out a jar of herring in dill mayonnaise, a tube of crab pâté and some orange-red lumpfish caviar.

They also sell a Swedish flatbread that's moister and puffier than lavash, and less likely to split when rolled. I spread a sheet with the very crabby crab paste, rolled it up like a rug, and sliced it on the bias into 1/2-inch thick, maki-like rolls. Swedish "sushi", if you will, topped with a smidgen of the aggressively salty lumpfish caviar and a sprig of dill. If you like the pronounced flavor of oily fish like sardines and mackerel, you'll probably enjoy this hors d'oeuvre. If you don't, you'll probably gag.

The least successful of my endeavors was this open-faced sandwich of herring on rye bread. I baked the bread myself from Ikea's carton-o'-bread mix, which is an awfully cute concept, in its little carton, but far less cute when the dough simultaneously burns on the outside and stays runny in the middle. I salvaged the end pieces and topped them with the jarred herring, which, coated in a dill mayonnaise, was sweet, sour, and enduringly fishy, all in the same, deeply suspect mouthful.

Lingonberry-Glazed Sausage Bites with Crispy Onions

Fortunately, Ikea redeemed itself with this next trio of products: lingonberry jam, smoked pork-and-veal sausage, and, my favorite item of all, the 99¢ tub of roasted onions. These crunchy pebbles of golden onion are a miracle ingredient with a distinctly Asian flavor—ignore their Scandinavian origins and sprinkle them on your congee and noodle soup.

The sausages are fairly bland on their own, but once they're browned in a pan, glazed with lingonberry jam and topped with those crunchy onions, I wouldn't be ashamed to serve them at a cocktail party.

And to Wash It All Down

Since Ikea has not yet expanded into the alcohol market (a fact for which every liquor retailer in the world is probably very thankful), I used their sparkling pear juice and elderflower cordial to mix myself a virgin St.-Germain.

Best buys: Roasted onions, elderberry cordial, frozen meatballs
To avoid: Jarred herring, rye bread mix

Ikea

Multiple locations
www.ikea.com

Related
$3.59 Caviar at Ikea
Reviewed: 99-Cent Ikea Chocolate
Homemade Ikea Meatballs

Originally posted by Michele Humes from Serious Eats, on January 9, 2009 5:00 AM

David just linked this article below. But I'm going to do so myself because I think the piece from John Judis as well because I think it's so important. The scale and types of spending on infrastructure make me think Obama's economic planners are not getting the severity of the crisis we face. Definitely read this article. It's short, clear, will take you just a few minutes.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 9, 2009 4:28 AM

Judis isn't buying into the Obama stimulus package just yet either.

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on January 9, 2009 4:12 AM

For the first year or two after I moved to New York, I became one of those people who smugly criticized tourists for “looking up.” “Looking up” to ogle buildings as you walked down the street (causing you to inevitably bump into real New Yorkers like me with places to go) was about the greatest sin you could commit (well, after pronouncing Houston Street “Hue-ston,” of course).

I’ve really tried to mellow out as I move into my tenth year in the city, and I now make it a point to look up. Hell, if you don’t look up, you could miss something absolutely extraordinary like this:

Don’t see it? A little closer…

See it there? Perched on top of the corner brick building? I was standing this morning at the corner of East 1st Street and 1st Avenue paying for my parking meter when I looked up and saw this.

OK, seriously - did a tornado rip through Cape Cod and drop an ocean-side house onto an East Village apartment building? Christ, who the hell lives here?? Note not only the rounded front with two levels of windows, but also the octagonal window on the right, the fantastic tower, and the horse weathervane. No kidding, a horse weathervane.

Here’s a slightly different view:

I have never seen anything like this before, and maybe one of these days, I’ll have an excuse to scout it for a film. I would love to know if this is large enough for someone to live in, or is merely an extension of an apartment.  If anyone has any info, please comment and I’ll update the post.

Anyway, the real simple moral of the story: stop worrying about the tourists who are looking up and try it yourself. You might even find yourself at the nexus of the universe…

-SCOUT

Originally posted by Scout from Scouting NY, on January 9, 2009 3:01 AM

And here, I suppose, is the answer to the Redskins fan spotted rocking the Barack Obama '08 jersey this autumn. Behold, the Palin '12 Caps model, debuted sometime in the past week or so, according to reader Brian, who sent in the pic. If you want to send in an explanation, Mr. Palin Supporter (or you, Mr. Leonhardt supporter), the inbox is open. Also, I'll give 50 cents to the first person who sends me a photo of a Nader 04 Bullets shirt.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from D.C. Sports Bog, on January 9, 2009 2:49 AM

Lisa sent me the link to this eBay auction, ending Saturday. Go ahead and click through, you really owe it to yourself to look at this dress.




It's listed by Fast Eddie's Retro Rags (Their motto: Vintage for Your Inner Delinquent) and, at time of this writing, was at a Buy It Now price of $175 ... Bust 38.

Forget bicycles and rulers, I am now feeling a distinct lack of bongo-themed clothing in my life. I am also saddened to realize that my inner delinquent is pretty much my outer delinquent, except my inner delinquent 1) remembers to PUT ON the red lipstick she bought and 2) never gets it on her teeth.

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on January 9, 2009 2:00 AM

The New Yorker has announced the 2009 Eustace Tilley Contest. You’d better hurry though, the deadline is in a week and the amazing entries are already stacking up. Also, it’s open to (most) Canadians this year.

Above, the inimitable Marcus Parcus.

Previously.

Originally posted by Adam from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on January 8, 2009 5:25 PM

Shared by Eve
Hmmm. Can the Chronicle be far behind?

KING-TV
A Seattle TV station is reporting that Hearst will announce as soon as Friday that it's putting the P-I up for sale. KING-TV says Hearst does not expect another buyer to step forward and that Seattle will likely become a one newspaper town within the next few months.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Romenesko, on January 8, 2009 4:39 PM

Natalie Portman dreams about brussels sprouts. The first comment is: "i love you please marry me".

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 8, 2009 2:49 PM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on January 8, 2009 12:27 PM

(via

wikipedia entry on augustan prose

)

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on January 8, 2009 12:07 PM

Gothamist posted an interview with Janeane Garofalo yesterday. I was struck by Garofalo's answer to a question about her acting career slipping away after the 90s.

Oh yeah, of course. It ended around 2000. I had a lot of work in the '90s. And then for females especially, as you get older -- I'm 44 -- it's really difficult for a 44-year-old woman to get acting work. That's just the nature of the beast. And because it's an elective profession, it's hard to complain about it because nobody makes you do it. Also I did a lot of mediocre stuff towards the end of the '90s and then sort of the novelty wore off. And then I left acting to work at Air America for two-and-a-half years.

When I decided to go back into acting, it wasn't very easy. "I took two-and-a-half years off, but I'd like to work again. Please hire me." It sort of doesn't work like that. So I'm just sort of grateful anytime someone wants to hire me. And TV seems to be one of the only places where older women can seek employment. Unless you sort of get lucky. There's a saying: "you're always just one part away from being back at work in film" for women especially. So I'm just waiting for someone to give me the green light, "Oh, let's hire Janeane again!" I think I'm on the "has been" list until I'm not. It's like a game of Red Rover and somebody says "come over." Or you can create your own work, but I'm not really a screenwriter. I don't really feel like I have the story to tell. It would just be creating content for the sake of creating content.

An interviewer wouldn't dare ask that question of some other actors and if they did, may have received a defensive or angry answer. Garofalo answered it honestly, which is why we like her so much.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 8, 2009 11:17 AM

An article entitled 10 things that won’t survive the recession.

I hope this type of site design doesn’t.

(see also)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org, on January 8, 2009 10:23 AM

From Slice

Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza with his friends on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. —The Mgmt.

Along the northern border of Chicago, Jerry Freeman and Burt Katz opened Gulliver's Pizzeria in 1965. Not long after opening, the two split and Katz went on to start a few other pizzerias, including Pequod's (reviewed here on Slice) and Burt's Place (reviewed here). Freeman gave up his day job as an insurance adjuster and devoted himself Gulliver's, where he would remain for more than 40 years until his death in 2006.

Over time, Gulliver's changed a bit. Freeman developed an interest in antiques, particularly lighting fixtures and sconces. Over time, he became a man obsessed, scouring not only antiques stores and shows but going around to old buildings slated for demolition and buying up things to take back to his store. Eventually, he amassed what the restaurant claims is the world's largest collection of its kind in the United States, that "kind" defined as American and European antiques from the Victorian and Art Nouveau eras (1860 to 1915). And today, every wall, nook, and most of the ceiling are covered in Freeman's collection.

Gulliver's Pizzeria

2727 W. Howard Street Chicago IL 60645 (map); (773) 338-2166
Getting There: Red Line to Howard Street, then #97 bus west to California Ave.
Pizza Style:Deep-dish, stuffed, and thin-crust
Oven Type: Gas
The Skinny: Serving up high-quality deep-dish since 1965 in a setting that resembles a museum's attic
Price: $20.78 for a medium deep-dish pizza with two toppings

Fortunately, Gulliver's made a very good pizza—good enough that as businesses on each side of the pizzeria went under, the restaurant was able to expand to its present size with three dining rooms capable of seating about 350 people and, of course, holding even more antiques. In addition to the restaurant's size and its art collection, the menu also grew considerably over the years, expanding from pizza and a few additional Italian staples to one that includes burgers, sandwiches, and, oddly, a lot of Mexican options.

But it was the pizza that made Gulliver's famous and it was the pizza I was there to try. I had never been before, and since they are best known for deep-dish pies, that was what I went with. I was tempted by unique toppings, like turkey and alfredo sauce, but settled on a pie with spicy sausage and sliced tomatoes.

The deep-dish pizza at Gulliver's (which they call a pan pizza) is constructed with the standard half-inch or so crust, covered with a thick layer of cheese, then toppings, and, finally, a thick, chunky tomato sauce. As is the case with Lou Malnati's (reviewed here), the slices of fresh tomato go on top of the sauce.

The golden crust at Gulliver's was a touch lighter and crisper than is typical for a deep-dish pie, but it still held up well to the cheese, sauce, and toppings. The spicy Italian sausage definitely had a nice little kick to it that was well balanced by the tangy, chunky tomato sauce. My only criticism of the pizza was that after it was done cooking, the chef decided to sprinkle way too much oregano on top. If they're going to put it in the sauce, and they're going to give me all the oregano I want at the table, I don't get why the chef felt it necessary to dump so much on top of the finished pie.

I've read some online reports that Gulliver's lost some quality since Freeman's family sold the business last year. I never went while Freeman was still alive, so I can't comment one way or the other about that with any certainty. That said, to the extent that people have leveled specific complaints (e.g. one commenter said the sauce was runny), I did not find them to be accurate. Gulliver's serves a very good deep-dish pizza that has earned the praise that so many Rogers Park residents heap on it.

Related

Burt's Place: Home of the Pizza King of Chicago
Lou Malnati's: Home of Flawless Deep Dish
Pequod's: Come for the Carmelized Crust, Stay for Great Pizza
Uno's, Chicago's Original Deep-Dish Pizza
Art of Pizza, Usually a Classic, But Not This Time

Originally posted by Daniel Zemans from Serious Eats, on January 8, 2009 9:15 AM

The Book Cover Archive is a new site dedicated to the "appreciation and categorization of excellence in book cover design". They just launched but the site already includes 800 covers.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 8, 2009 8:58 AM

According to the New York Post, Omar Minaya is expected to speak with Pedro Martinez’s agent next week.

The Post believes Martinez could be open to an incentive-heavy, one-year contract to return to the Mets.

Last night on the MLB Network’s Hot Stove Live, SI.com’s Tom Verducci said Martinez recently rejected a one-year, $7 million offer from an American League team.

Martinez is capable of getting a guaranteed deal.  So, the thing with bringing him in to compete with Jon Niese, and, let’s say, Tim Redding and Freddy Garcia, and who knows who else, is that the Mets have not shown the ability to cut ties with a guy of his stature when he starts to struggle.  And so, my fear is that Pedro will beat out Niese, get the fifth starter’s spot, raise every one’s hopes, but then struggle - leaving us once again to watch old, stale re-runs of The Pedro Show, because, he’s Pedro Martinez, and the Mets will refuse to cut him.

However, in the end, I suspect Martinez’s future with the Mets has more to do with Derek Lowe and Oliver Perez, than it has to do with money and loyalty.

Yesterday, Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times said two teams, one from each league, are interested in Martinez.

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on January 8, 2009 8:58 AM

Shared by alaina
Almost makes me want to get married again!

Carlos Sanchez and Jennifer Avilla were the first couple to be wed on Monday in Manhattan's new Office of the City Clerk/Marriage Bureau. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

The city has spent $12.3 million to spruce up its Marriage Bureau and move it out of its drab old home in the Municipal Building by City Hall, all in an attempt to compete with Vegas as "the wedding destination of the world." That necessitated hiring designer Jamie Drake, who handled Mayor Bloomberg’s Upper East Side town house, to transform an old DMV office up the street into a peach and lavender connubial oasis.

Between 2005 and 2007, the number of wedding licenses issued in the Vegas area fell by approximately 20,000, so city officials see an opening for New York, where 16,000 weddings were performed at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau last year. At its former location, happy couples were greeted at the entrance with orders to empty their pockets and pass through metal detectors; the new experience promised by the Bloomberg administration is meant to be a bit more romantic.

The dreary DMV bathrooms have been turned into spacious dressing rooms with recessed lighting, and there's a huge photograph of City Hall that couples can use as a backdrop for pictures. You can even hand your iPod to the chapel clerk, who will play the music of your choice during the ceremony. ("Don't Fear the Reaper," anyone?) And for the first time, you can pay the $35 fee for the wedding license with a credit card, so no excuses, fellas. Plastic will also come in handy at the gift shop, where flowers, hairspray, disposable digital cameras and tissues are sold, according to the Times. Your move, Elvis Chapel.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Gothamist, on January 8, 2009 8:52 AM

Shared by alaina
YES! Can't wait to look for a new apt this summer.

Usually a down period in the sales market means good business for rentals, but not this time: hard evidence shows rent drops across the board and anecdotal evidence points to 10-30% declines. And check out this alarming stat: "In January 2008, 90 of the rental properties represented by Halstead were covering brokers' fees. By July, that number was up to 400. By November, it was at 1,300." Also, the Starck-designed Dwell on Wall/Dwell95/95 Wall Street is now offering three months of free rent. [NYPost]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Curbed, on January 8, 2009 8:52 AM

No doubt it’ll strike many as suspicious that a guy who pretty much only uses Helvetica would say this, but most of the new typefaces being released today seem very samey to me.

For instance, there’s plenty of good work on display in I Love Typography’s round-up of the best typefaces of 2008, but in my view, not a whole lot of new expression there. Newzald looks like Matrix, FF Utility looks like Klavika, Soho looks like Apex Serif, etc.

Oh, Mega

Granted, I’m just being a jerk here. The history of typography is one of subtle but meaningful variations between typefaces that are virtually indistinguishable to the uninitiated. You could probably measure the variance between Helvetica and the lamentable Arial (yes, I reluctantly use it here on this site) in millimeters, but the semantic and emotional difference between them can be measured in worlds.

All of which is a prelude to pointing out that one of the choices on I Love Typography’s list is Jack Usine’s eye-catchingly unusual and quite beautiful MEgalopolis Extra. It’s full of alternate characters, ligatures and playful details. What’s more, it’s free to download, so go get a copy for yourself.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Subtraction.com, on January 8, 2009 8:46 AM

somehow, I missed several of these; every link is worth reading  

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on January 8, 2009 8:32 AM

Sarah, the ever-omnipresent force behind Colette, the world's original concept store, is doing her fair share to nip the recession in the butt by playing host to a 50 percent off sale through Saturday, January 10th at www.colette.fr. Talk about a retail moment worth savoring! We were able to nab Sarah to find out her top three discounts. 1. Comme des Garcons frill bag 2. Sergio Rossi strass shoes 3. YSL blue dress Happy shopping!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on January 8, 2009 8:29 AM

Introduction

It is a commonplace of the modern world that electronic data bases allow us to store millions and trillions of records, keep then safe, and allow us to sort and search among them.

SQL

Experience has shown that its best to separate the presentation of data, the layout, colors, fonts , logical organization and so on, from the generation of a result set, that is, from the specifican of which subset of the entire data base is relevant for the current purpose.

The lion’s share of popular commercial and open source data bases use the relational model, in which data is abstracted as a number of tables consisting of rows of data, one row per item of interest, and columns, where the columns represent relevant attributes of the item.

All relational databases (and many which are not strictly speaking, relational) offer a version of the now standard SQL, which is a non procedural query language. More about SQL can be had here

Analytics and Data Mining

Anyone with a potential interest in teasing out the knowlege hidden in all that data should be aware that our Oracle data base SQL implementation provides a number of extentions to the basic SQL language in the form of built in functions to help perform sophisticated statistical operations, correlations, filtering, moving averages, and so on directly in non procedural SQL. See ANALYTICS here

PL/SQL

In addition to the (somewhat) standard SQL non procedural Query language, Oracle provides a proprietary (sorry about that) procedural language called pl/sql.

Of course, pl/sql’s foremost strength is its close integration with the Oracle database. An ordinary sql “Select column From Table” can become a pl/sql statement “Select column INTO local_Variable From Table” . Better yet, a “cursor FOR Loop” can define a query and then loop over all rows of the returned data set, with the particular instance row of data available for manipulation in the body of the loop. The coder does not separately define, parse, open, fetch, test, and close the cursor. All the mechanics are done for you by the electonic monkeys.

Data types can by synchronized with the corresponding data base type so that if say a column width changes in the schema, corresponding variables in the pl/sql program can track that change with no recoding.

There is a very well developed mechanism for exception handling.

The language is not, stricly speaking, “Object Oriented” in the modern meaning, but it does derive from ADA and offers a “package” mechanism which provides data hiding, private routines and encapsulation. A package is very much like a Java class except that packages to not “inherit” from one another.

Like awk, perl, python, or ruby, pl/sql has a “hash” or “dictionary” data type (character indexed array) and it has a full panoply of perl-like regular expressions.

Over the years, pl/sql has evolved into a “real” language. For any application or portion of an application that involved going to a from the database, with complex selection criteria, tricky logic based on values in or derived from data base values, or just plain statistical bashing for counts, averages, correlations, distance measures, and the like, pl/sql is the way to fly.

Pl/sql is NOT meant for fancy presention, so one would do better to export numerical results, vectors, matrices, result sets carried by reference cursors etc out of pl/sql to a separate specialized graphics package or some language with more extensive graphics libraries.

Originally posted by Lee Horowitz from NYPL Labs, on January 8, 2009 7:36 AM

I'm pleased to announce the launch of Streetsblog San Francisco. We opened the doors to the site yesterday and, from now on, you'll be able to find it at this RSS feed and this address:

SF.Streetsblog.org

Streetsblog seems to be arriving in the Bay Area not a moment too soon. As Streetsblog San Francisco editor Bryan Goebel reports, the SF MTA's board voted to eliminate a critical piece of bike infrastructure at Market Street at Octavia Boulevard on Tuesday. Why? Apparently, the eastbound bike lane on Market Street is interfering with motorists' ability to make an illegal right turn on to the 101 freeway.

It looks to me like a classic example of old school traffic-engineering at its worst: Reduce cyclist and pedestrian injuries by simply discouraging cyclists and pedestrians from using the street. Frankly, it's incredible that this kind of planning and engineering still holds sway in a city whose mayor claims to be building "a new green economy" and a "sustainable vision."

Bryan and Streetsblog San Francisco reporter Matthew Roth are going to make sure that issues like this receive the regular coverage that they deserve and officials are held accountable for their press releases. It should be fun. And Streetfilms was already there...

A few notes:

1. We know that we need to redesign our web sites to make it easier to find Streetsblog San Francisco, Los Angeles and Streetsblog.net, our national network of 175 livable streets bloggers. We hope to have a quick, interim redesign finished soon and a more comprehensive redesign of the Livable Streets Network later this year.

2. Streetsblog San Francisco is funded by a generous donation from Jonathan Weiner, a bike-commuting, Muni-riding, San Francisco-based software entrepreneur, a grant from the Wallace Global Fund and ongoing support from Mark Gorton and The Open Planning Project.

Originally posted by Aaron Naparstek from Streetsblog, on January 8, 2009 7:33 AM

The epic New York season of Top Chef is finally upon us. To honor the occasion, New York comedian Max Silvestri takes us through the season episode by episode. His take, below:

Though it's only been three weeks, it feels like forever since the last new Top Chef. Who is even still on this show? Is Richard Blais on it? I love that guy. He's a Trail-Blaiser! Honestly, I'm kinda drawing a blank. I miss Daniel Notchface (Baba Booey). Notchface is the hero Top Chef deserves, not the one his beard needs. Huh? This episode better bring it.

Padma brings out acclaimed pastry chef Jean Christof Novelli to introduce this week's Quickfire Challenge. The chefs groan as they realize it'll be a dessert challenge, because adults who who actually appreciate food realize dessert is a total chump course. Oo, there, I said it. If you're hungry after a meal, order another appetizer or go back to the kids table. Catty in '09, guys! Somebody get me a saucer of milk.

But there's a catch: like Chubby Checkers in 1960, this challenge is going to #1 on the charts with...a twist. (That terrible ham-fisted simile joke is a sneak preview of the forthcoming horribleness of Toby Young.) Anyway, the chefs can't use sugar in their desserts. They have to use Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Fudge Soda! Is Dr. Pepper an adequate substitute in recipes for real pepper? Is this challenge an adequate substitute for real culinary skill? No to both? Cool. Let's get "cooking".

All the chefs make weird sugar-free desserts. Carla doesn't want to be known as a baker in this competition. (Don't worry about it, "baker" isn't in the Top 10 list of things I think you are.) Ariane is probably secretly really happy because all her favorite recipes actually include Diet Dr. P. Melissa says that her specialty food is Latin food, "at the moment." She must be really talented to change her specialty all the time. Or the opposite. And Stefan completely geeks out with Chef Novelli. "I'm French. JK! Mousse comes from Finland. JK!" French people make him nervous? Settle down.

At some point, there is a commercial break with former cheftestants Malarky and Stephanie showing an "awesome" "recipe" you can make with DDP. The soda sauce really "puts it over the top." They both look like they wish they were dead. Sorry, dudes!

Novelli doesn't like Ariane's food. Finally, Ariane on the bottom. (Yuck, that's what not what he or anyone said.) Radhika wins immunity. She's on Cloud 99 Brought to You by the 99 Restaurant's Bottomless Buffalo Fingers.

Time for Elimination Challenge. A lot of stuff happens: everybody splits into two teams to cook the food they actually want to cook family-style, Radhika picks the team without Stefan, and Eugene doesn't think anyone else has the balls to cook food as disgusting as his. Melissa might have said she wants to make "fish cooter tacos." Great. But that's irrelevant. We need to talk about Toby Young.

Toby Young, who once wrote a book about how he is a dick and bad at his job and is now a restaurant critic, is the new permanent judge. And is there anyone watching this show who does not think he is the absolute worst? And I don't mean that in a "how can he be so mean!" way, I mean that in a "who the hell invited that guy to the party who won't stop making extremely terrible and complicated conversation-stopping jokes" way.

He begins his judgeship on the show with a sixty second bon mot on how George W. Bush misled the American people by starting a war based on the false intelligence that WMDs were in Iraq when really all this time the weapons of mass destruction they were looking for had been in the soup that Radhika just made because the soup is so bad it has bioweaponry capabilities. Oh, Toby, you CARD. "Like Tom Cruise's cameo in Tropic Thunder, this dish was an unexpected surprise." UGH. More like NO-by Young.

My friend Gabe deftly pointed out he's like Simon Cowell without the talent or hair. But I think he's like the lady from the Weakest Link but with a more feminine physique. "You are the weakest judge. Goodbye!" Hey, remember when you thought you'd never hear another Weakest Link joke again? Well I thought the same thing about WMD jokes so I'm pouring one out for Toby here. I want to pour out arrows on his head. At one point I thought I saw a hearing aid in his ear and I got sad because I just saw the Wrestler and Mickey Rourke has a hearing aid in it and it's a little tragic. (Though I do wish someone would suplex Toby Young onto a pile of glass.) But then I realized it's probably not a hearing aid but a earpiece so he can be fed jokes live by his writing team, Bruce Vilanch and a mummy. I say a mummy because his jokes are old and slow-moving and are unable to kill even Brendan Fraser.

Sorry, I got worked up. More stuff happens. Each team sits at the judges' table to eat the other team's food. While that other team watches on secretly! Some feelings are hurt. Some bad food is served. Melissa cries because the judges think her fish tacos taste like cat food. Jamie, Stefan, and Ariane are the top three. Jamie's very happy because her ninth try at scallops brought her closer to being the next Top Scallop. (Fabio is the best.) Eugene, Melissa, and Carla are brought in as the bottom three, and two of them will be eliminated. They all make impassioned pleas to stay, which means they've started to figure out the game a little bit, but not enough to cook good food. Eugene and Melissa are going home. Lucky, Carla. She realizes she shouldn't have made a protein. She swears that one of these days "a vegetarian dish is going to come out of me." Yuck! Can we get a cleanup on Aisle Barf?

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on January 8, 2009 7:16 AM

I can't think of any artist who manages to outdo Adam Zaretsky in the art of combining a somewhat comical approach with a keen reflection on the legal, ethical and social implications of new biotechnological materials and methods.

Adam Zaretsky buys a pig heart at the Boqueria food market in Barcelona. Image credit, Capsula

Zarestsky has co-habited during one week in a terrarium with E. Coli bacteria, worms, plant, fish, frogs, mice, flies and the lovely yeast. He has dedicated part of his research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to paying Engelbert Humperdinck's Greatest Hits to fermenting E.Coli continuously for 48 hours and observing the impact the music had on the bacteria. In case you've never heard of this romantic singer, let me spoil your day with a video of one of his smashing melodies:

Zaretsky is a a bioartist, performer, researcher and art theorist whose work focuses on Biology and Art Wet Lab Practice. He has been lecturing and doing research in some of the most prestigious institutes around the world, including the MIT's Department of Biology, the Conceptual/Information Arts department at San Francisco State University, SymbioticA at The University of Western Australia and at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the Integrated Electronic Arts Department.

As you might remember, Zaretsky teaches Vivoarts, an emerging and politically charged field that brings together art and biology, at the University of Leiden (NL.) The Vivoarts: Biology and Art Studio course explores the intersection between art and biology and discusses the many cultural issues involved in bioart -and more generally in the field of life sciences- through a blend of hands-on laboratory protocols, critical readings, and the production of contemporary artwork. The ethics of producing living art are debated and made more tangible and understandable by the use of living material/organisms into the class final projects.

I posted it last year already but in case you haven't seen it yet, here's 'Dangerous Liaisons', a short documentary on his class at Leiden University:

And here's part 2 and part 3.

Zaretsky believes that we should "embrace our visceral and experimental mutant kindred. Life is not perfectionism. Life includes the open, onanistic and seemingly unacceptable faces of radical variation." As he states:

If I am a representative of any ideology, it leans towards appreciation of Full Breadth Genetic Alterity. If we are in the process of engaging in auto-evolution, then diversity, the inherent biological love of difference, implies that the human genome should be engineered with as wide a range of genre humans as there are art movements and swanky tastes in the world. Posthuman integrity is only guaranteed by an expanded aesthetics of anatomy, the more obscure the better... ! Let's alter our identity as a species by birthing versions of ourselves into every permutative potential of fleshbound imagination. Let's have a punk banquet of anatomy, a buffet of new senses, fancy new and multiple genital-orifice smorgasbords and the mad collage of multi-species brains. If we are to go this route, let's not start by being monocultural, paternalistic snotbags with assumed distinction ruling over the aesthetics of betterment. We must be done with the rhetoric of human enhancement.

powerFARM :: Woodstock, NY. Adding DMSO for Crypreservation. Still from video

I had the pleasure to share panels with Adam Zaretsky several times. The most recent was Media Art in the Age of Transgenics, Cloning, and Genomics, an event that the lovely rhizome people had invited me to curate. Now that i've finally recovered from the surprise he made us by starting his presentation with an extract from a biotech porn video he was working on, i feel that it is high time to 1. invent an opportunity to share another glorious event with him somewhere on this planet before it implodes 2. blog an online Q & A i had with him so that you can get to know him better. I focused this short interview on the work he has been doing in The Netherlands.

The experiments you describe in the video took place in the context of an avian embryology lab for non-scientists at Leiden University. How much knowledge did the participants have of biotech before they entered the lab room? What was their background? Does it take a long time before they can 'get their hands' into the genome?

The VivoArts : Art and Biology Studio Honors Class at Leiden was the first of its kind in the Netherlands. Since my class another Art and Biology Course has been taught at Leiden U. by Jennifer Willet and in April the third version will be taught by Caitlin Berrigan starting spring 2009 (so sign up now.)

DNA extraction in class. Image

Thanks go out to Prof. dr. Robert Zwijnenberg of The Arts and Genomics Centre for investing time and brave direction to make these courses a reality and for organizing the breadth of disciplines being exposed to this sort of Bioethics Art Practice. The participants were from Art History, Sociology, Philosophy, Biology and even Theology... But, there is no Art Studio practice degree at Leiden U. so we put out the word and a few artists applied or just showed up.

The simple answer to your first question is, no experience is necessary. All Vivoarts labs are hands on labs for the untrained. I guess it's a sort of biology brut or outsider biology. Informed opinions on present-day and near-future bioethical conundrums are more readily coaxed out of non-biologists through a hands on approach. It takes time to get approval to teach non-professionals and students whose focus is not biology or bioethics. After clearance, the students can come in with zero experience and leave having made time-based, hybrid, new media, wet-lab, living arts pieces: transgenic embryo sculptures, GMO bacterial paintings and/or tissue cultured embryonic stem cell totemic fetish objects.

The difference between a technical scientific learning session and a Vivo-artistic laboratory approach is mostly qualitative. While engaging in the technics, we also deal with the relational issues surrounding this type of process: pain, death, responsibility, curiosity, the meddlesome sadism of a personal genetic footprint/signature/graffiti/, risk assessment between foreign species and the ecosphere as well as critiquing admonitions against the urge to fondle the folds of mutant love.

There were some reticent parties on campus. They claimed that they were worried their patients might be afraid that artists a la Moreau were treating them. (...) I think that the reaction to an art class in the lab doing 'important' transgenic embryology work in the name of non-utilitarian, 'frivolous' artistry reflects a fear of demystification of transgenic process. Is the fear of attention given to playful transgenic embryological research procedures limited to wariness to contend with animal rights advocates often knee-jerk responses? Or, is it because often enough, well-funded Transgenesis research is as equally 'useless' or has just as little chance of producing important data as a hands-on Transgenic Developmental Biology Embryological Sculpting Lab for Social Commentary. But, these balkers are University researchers. Why hide from eager students in a castle of learning? Transgenic human production is a contentious cultural issue that is in need of interdisciplinary research before it goes to market. If we want an informed public to help us gauge the eventual results of aesthetic human engineering, we need people with experience who have their own ideas about the process, the results and the price of genetic tinkering.

Photo from the Transgenic Pheasant Embryology Lab, credits to Jennifer Willet from Bioteknica

You mention in some of the written documents that plasmid injections were made with homemade tools. Hackers and amateurs around the world are experimenting with technology in a creative way as part of a broad DIY culture. Do you think that this DIY approach could apply to biotech art experimentations like the ones you perform? Where are the limits?

About half of my labs are 100% DIY. A lot of the Art and Biology crew are interested in the demystification of technology. The dorkbot skillshare mentality is more than a hot geek dating service. It's about showing that the technology, in this case biotechnology, is comprehensible and actuate-able with home brew strategies and some kitchen sterile technique.

For instance, the microinjectors for our embryology lab were made of glass pipettes pulled over a flame into small-bore needles. The plasmid was literally sucked up and hand pressed into the living embryos. We squirted into the embryos. The hope was that the microinjection needles were smaller than the embryonic nuclei and that, without microscopes, the plasmid would be injected or find its way into some nuclei for incorporation into the genome of the unborn pheasants.

This is not how an embryologist would work. The odds of success are already low without such haphazard application technique. Expensive machines are used to pull glass needles of the exact bore which will penetrate the nuclei of the organism of choice (mouse, rat, human, frog or fly embryos for instance.) Injections 'usually' occur through the microscope and XYZ microcontrollers guide the payload into the organism with finesse and acuity. Microinjectors cost over 100,000 euro and are not usually available to the general public (although I did use one at MIT to inject wasabi and cream cheese into Tobiko.

But less accurate methods like gene guns or direct injection of DNA are also used in today's gene therapy trials. These human trials, which may be producing germline alterations, emphasize the porousness of our collective genome. The history of embryology is built on cheap contraptions and closet incubators. Look at chicken breeders, both their social status and their successes. How many of them used strange feed or other 'pushing of life' techniques to make their prizewinning mutants?

So, I would say that persistence will outweigh the technological edge especially because no one has any idea of what life is, what the future holds and what the long term effects of even supposedly 'controlled' experiments will have on ecology, living being and the concept of species integrity. As far as I can tell, a tattoo gun with a single point needle dipped in the right plasmid concoction might be a great nano-transfectant for the lotek-biotech artist who still likes to draw. If it takes a lot of microinjections to get success when working blind... then gene tattooing is the way to go. (You could also buy a cheap microscope and improve your odds at least 30X.)

Photos from the Transgenic Pheasant Embryology Lab, credits to Jennifer Willet from Bioteknica

(Warning: Gene insertion may eventually cure cancer but right now it can also cause cancer. (i.e. Leukemia, see the case of Jesse Gelsinger).

Now, when it comes to DNA sequencing and plasmid design, this is just starting to be a tabletop possibility with cheaper sequencers and biobrick sets from the megaMaterialists over in Synthetic Biology. But, the learning curve is steep and can be expensive if you don't want to work with ready-mades. Designing your future pet's body plan or your own prehensile tail or an extra brain in your lovely daughter's derriere... that will take some trial and error. The effect is not just material. The genes are multifactorial. We haven't a clue as to what metabolism is. We can't even distinguish between enhancement and a living curse. But still, I'm hopeful.

DNA extraction in class. Image

The lab obviously triggered many questions and debates. One of them drew a thought-provoking parallel between animal research and animal sacrifice, a pratique which nowadays seems outdated and almost barbarian. I know that you are careful to comply with legal limits and are deeply concerned with the ethics of what you are doing and preaching. But did you mention this parallel between sacrifice and research in order to highlight the more sinister aspects of research? What are the most sobresalient points of the research/sacrifice debate that took place among the participants of your class?

First I wrote this:

Funerals Rites for Transgenic Pheasants: Rituals of Bio-Art Practice

Some artists are utilizing lab technique as a new medium to produce living and often mutant living art forms. As these 'sculptures' live and die, often at the whims of the artistic investigator, the personal, non-repeatable moments take on a ritual air. What kinds of rituals do interdisciplinary Art and Biology practices entail? How do they reveal the implicit rituals of science? What new performative rites come out of mixing ethics and esthetics in the laboratory? Scientists also have their methodologies of creative flourish and humane sacrifice. But, scientific and artistic play is often based on different paradigms of what the act of experimentation is. As artists learn laboratory technique, the rituals of science and new rituals of sci-art unfold, decouple and reconfirm magical thinking in both arenas. How does animal research relate to the history of animal sacrifice? What is the role of subjectivity in developmental embryology? Is transgenic protocol also a ritual for the cultural production of liminal monsters? And how does mutagenesis impede or coerce the imaginary in the lifeworld? Through an analysis of artists confronted with the responsibility of ending the life of transgenic pheasant embryos, (which they had altered with plasmids in the name of art,) I hope to show living rituals for new biotechnological processes as they are invented.

Photos from the Transgenic Pheasant Embryology Lab, credits to Jennifer Willet from Bioteknica

But to be more down to earth, this is complicated and needs regular talk too. First of all the students were guaranteed a good grade even if they choose to be ethical observers. So there was no pressure to be hands on. Secondly, methods of humane sacrifice were discussed even if the concept is an oxymoron. Legally, embryonic birds are not organisms in Europe. What they really are is unclassifiable, but they are not free living nor do they have fully developed nervous systems. So they are conceived to be dim or not fully on. They may be thought of as a group of cells on the way to becoming a full-fledged, free-living organism. For this reason, they do not have rights in any way nor do they have a single preferred humane sacrifice method. Actually, humane sacrifice is not a prerequisite in embryonic end of life issues.

Of the scientists I quizzed, the methods of sacrifice commonly applied were death by: autoclave, refrigeration, put down on ice or poured down the drain. I added to other options for my students: valium overdose or ritual sacrifice. The valium overdose was my idea of the most humane sacrifice for an embryo. It may have been the first time that an embryo was given such a respectful euthanasia. But, the ritual sacrifice option was wide open and I can tell you that we are still living in barbaric times.

Also, I offered to play executioner for my students. Often I had to not just respect their choices but enact them. It was a horrific part of the lab for me. But, I did learn a lot. I wouldn't dismiss the value of sacrifice in science, religion or even secular posthumanism. Some rituals were moving funerals about the traumatic pasts of the slayers. Some underscored visions of techno-obliteration, the War Machine (Critical Art Ensemble, see the first chapter of The Flesh Machine), which accounts for way too much of the world's economic and productive focus. Some of them were heartless and natural and sincere. One student's acts even inspired remorse for outsourcing an incineration. It is as if serial killing and bureaucracy were still strange bedfellows. All and all, the sacrifices were conducted in a responsible way even if they were non-utilitarian. The lab showed the range of human behavior when dealing with GMO snuff issues and unborn politics and it gave experience of the viscerality of transgenic process to the students.

Photo from the Transgenic Pheasant Embryology Lab, credits to Jennifer Willet from Bioteknica

To be quite frank and honest, I am still in a strange state of being torn around these issues. I think abortion should be legal and believe in a woman's right to choose. Yet, I believe in embryonic isness: that there is something dignified about a developing organism. I am anti-war and think capital punishment should be abolished. I support some animal research as I have seen results that do help with disease. I do think the focus should be on AIDS and Malaria instead of prostate cancer and new cholesterol blockers. But it is not that simple. Often enough, I approve of experimental curiosity in general. I understand that we have a strange human gymnastic need to scope and poke everything to see how it 'ticks' or even just as pornography. I do think most biological research is just in-group magical empiricism but I also think that it is effective in a social cohesive sense. So, I guess I am old fashioned when it comes to ritual sacrifice even with a lab coat shaman behind the lab doors. Nonetheless, we humans could be less nationalist and provide global food, shelter, clean water, free rent and a 'work-optional' baseline to all humans. And, if you believe the news, many Bioart practitioners, myself included, lay claim to a sort of relational bent, attempting to go beyond anthropocentrism in the name of respect for the non-human actants of the earth. That is, many of us do consider all life to have an existential specialty which is their own and which is often superior to Homo sapiens narcissism in diverse ways of niche working and play. Yes, if we have it in us, we need to give back a lot of the land mass we have 'cultivated' on the crust of this planet to non-humans for their rights to freedom, space and daytime walks. But when it comes to embryos, I admit, I eat bunches of them on a weekly basis: caviar, eggs, raw seeds, grain, and bean sprouts. Being alive is a sort of hypocritical stance.

We cannot apologize to the organisms we use, even our flowers after death, because I doubt they would accept an apology. We cannot thank them, as some of the native peoples of the Americas still do, for providing us dinner or art materials, because I doubt they would say 'you were welcome.' In a sort of Taoist or Fatalist sense, we can try to welcome the hunger of the living consumers of our living and hence dying bodies (whether they be human, other animal, vegetable, bacterial, insectoid, fruity or fungal) as they come to feast on our inevitable temporary-ness, our becoming food for others. For this reason, I am anti-embalming and believe in green burials as we are just mulch in the long-term sense. In the short term we are entropic, greedy, sensual, hungry holes in need of sustainable release through passionate spectacle. (see my video Retool Earth.)

I often refer to this type of trial by fire lab as a Milgram Experiment without authority. I proclaim myself an amateur, I give the option to not participate and yet, when given the legal thumbs up, most people will do what they know is ethically tarnished. At the same time, fear of implication in the lifeworld, shame of causing death in general, while causing death, is more dangerous than modern primitivism. The Nobility of Neurosis (J.G. Ballard re/Search) is part and parcel to the Latourian concept of modern distinction as a farce. So, although I wish the Hague War Crimes Tribunal had authority over the nation I live in which has no respect for the Geneva Convention, the Nurenberg Code or the Declaration of Helsinki, fertile eggs are still a popular food particularly in green non-vegan circles. A well-made fertile egg omelette is no casual funereal ritual. Baroque and gourmet productions take time and the nuance and the taste is not lost on the pallete.

Just to underscore that I am thinking while acting the clown...

The fertile eggs were named during incubation. This is a list of their names:
Health, Beauty, Longevity, Public Good, Knowledge, Profit, Erotism, Utility, Novelty, Animal, Poor, Queer, Captive, Slave, Fat, Ugly, Short, Stupid, Primitive, Unborn, Deformed, Poor in the World, Raw Material, Extinguish Humanely, Expendable Being, Educational Embryo, Pity Party, Defect, Murder Me, Loss and Lack, Death Row, Dead End, Destiny, Non-Being, Non-Human, Sub-Human, Pre-Human, Ancestor Rape, Use Me, Material, Fratricide, Torture Mirror, Somatic Machine, Responsive Behavior, Model Organism, Reflex Entity, Workhorse and Factory.

One of your documents mention a project in Spain? Why Spain? And where exactly would you like to perform new researches? Can you tell us briefly what this project would be about?

Actually, I talked to Marta de Menezes of Ectopia in Portugal (another Bioart Residency to look into) and she said that Bull Fights, the Politics of Primitive Tradition versus the Elimination of any Appearance of Injustice and Bull Sperm Sorting for Breeder Profit (transgenic as all hell) were all popular pastimes in Spain. So if I was in Spain or Portugal, I might like to look for some off target mutations in the garbage bin of a major Bull Sperm Sorting outpost. Really, the FACS Bucket text was just an idea for a residency that ended up getting published in Portugal. Due to parenting responsibilities, I can't spend more than two or three months a year outside of the US. The WAAG Society and The Mondriaan Foundation have decided to host/sponsor a public course and performance over the next year in Amsterdam. I would also like to work on making more transgenic pheasant embryos so I can fine tune my imaging and maybe even discover something that might make a reductionist out of my otherwise sticky fingers. I am looking for more funding so send money people to Lucas Evers

pSHEEP, screenshot from pFARM

Right now, I live in the Catskill Mountains of New York, Woodstock, USA. I am gearing up to initiate VASTAL: The VivoArts School for Transgenic Aesthetics Ltd. I would prefer it function independently of any university so it would be obscure, DIY and edgy. But this would need a real budget even for a two-year planned obsolescence trip. I also consider pFARM to be conceptually ready to make the move to something more than a small collective. The Organic Biotech Fetish Farm has started to attract devotees and as a cult grows, so must its infrastructure. We are still accepting applicants on subservient grassroots level at this time. Although I have traveled widely, I ask myself which other nation is there that deserves the kind of lessons I mete out. I can smell the Ku Klux Klan hay in every corner of the world markets but the USA has taken Superpower-Slumlord to a new low. So, I figure New York is my tropical island in which to experiment with human volunteers and their gonads... VASTAL 2010 ... Know any strange hosts?

I wish i did. Thanks Adam!

Transgenic embryo prints as exhibited at Imagining Science Exhibition, Art Gallery of Alberta, 2008-2009

In the news: Adam Zarestky is participating to the show Imagining Science that runs through February 1, 2009 at the Art Gallery of Alberta. Zaretsky and The pFARM Collective are part of the exhibition Corpus Extremus which opens in February 2009 at Exit Art in NYc. The book Imagining Science: Art, Science, and Social Change has won an award in the 2009 New York Book Show in the Scholarly & Professional category.

Originally posted by Regine from we make money not art, ReBlogged by andreapolli on Jan 8, 2009 at 10:59 AM

Originally posted by Regine from Eyebeam reBlog, on January 8, 2009 5:59 AM

A five-minute rap video that summarizes all five seasons of The Wire.

Police chief, yeah, his rank is proper
'Cause of the window, he starts a war with Frank Sobotka.

MIA's Paper Planes is still my favorite Wire-inspired song, but this is pretty sweet. (thx, about 2000 people)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 8, 2009 5:34 AM

Dare Obasanjo: We have a similar problem when importing arbitrary RSS/Atom feeds onto a user’s profile in Windows Live ... What I like about the first draft of Atom media extensions is that it is focused on the basic case of syndicating audio, video and image for use in activity streams ... The interesting question is how to get the photo sites out there to adopt consistent standards in this space?

If I may be so bold as to make a humble suggestion:  implement them.  Demonstrate the value.  If WindowsLive, YouTube, and FriendFeed could join in on the discussion, this would be a slam dunk.  Others would quickly follow.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Sam Ruby, on January 8, 2009 4:59 AM

• No Charges Filed for Killing of Ibrihim Ahmed; Candidate May Quit Council Race (News)
• Gov Beats Around the Bridge Tolls in State of the State Speech; MTA Pleased Anyway (News, NY1)
  
• Another Headline About Lee Sander's Salary -- No Raise This Year (News)
• Congestion Pricing: Great for Drivers (Freakonomics)
• DWI Killer Gets Off With 16-Day Jail Stint (Post)
• City Plans New Ferry Between Red Hook and Governors Island (Post)
• More About MTA Station Booths on the Chopping Block (Brooklyn Paper)
• Congressman Eric Massa Enters the Annals of Absurd Future-Car Stunts (Wheels)
• Building a Culture of Bus Riding (Santa Rosa City Bus via Streetsblog.net)
• 2008 a Boom Year for Passenger Rail (Starts and Fits)

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on January 8, 2009 4:02 AM

El Idolo Taco Truck Serving Cemitas Late-Night in The Village [Flickr Photo Pool/food_in_mouth]

· Developer Has Until February to Relocate Cheyenne Diner [BP]
· Former 3rd Ave Taco Bell Space to Become Thai Bodhi Tree [EV Grieve]
· Dicey: Artist Painting 6-foot Nude Portrait of Rachael Ray, Using Paprika [NYP]
· CB2 BK Likens Italian Restaurant to a Gin Mill, Blocks Liquor License [BP]
· The Brunz Recalls Another Name Controversy Before Forge's [Bruni Blog]

Originally posted by Kelly Dobkin from Eater, on January 8, 2009 3:30 AM

Originally posted in New Rules

...commerce, and social exchanges. New economic functions develop around the operating old. Barter, one of the earliest forms of commerce, has not gone away. The barter economy ran through the agricultural age, the industrial age, and continues today. Indeed most of what happens on the World Wide Web is barter. Even many years from now a significant portion of what the economy does will be done by the industrial layers--machines churning out goods and moving materials. The old economies will continue to operate profitably within the deep cortex of the new economy.

Yet the inertia of the industrial age continues to mesmerize us. Between 1990 and 1996 the number of people making tangible things--stuff you can drop on your toe--decreased by 1%, while the number of people employed in providing "services" (intangibles) grew 15%. Presently a mere 18% of U.S. employment is in manufacturing. But three quarters of those 18% actually perform network economy jobs while working for a manufacturing company. Instead of pushing atoms they push bits around: accountants, researchers, designers, marketing, sales, lawyers, and all the rest who sit at a desk. Only a minuscule percentage of the workforce performs industrial age tasks, yet our politics, our media, our funding, and our education continue the grand fantasy that industrial jobs need to be created. Within a generation, two at the most, the number of people working in honest-to-goodness manufacturing jobs will be no more than the number of farmers in the land--less than a few percent. Far more than we realize it, the network economy is pulling in everyone.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from KK Lifestream, on January 8, 2009 3:00 AM

Q: How does one get things done?

A: One makes a list.

I've been looking all week for a Task list, or To-Do list that really works. I was using Things, before they released their 1.0 product, but they put it out last week, and it was $49.95. That's too much -- to do lists are not a $50 problem. They're maybe a $10 problem, or a $20 problem, and I would conceivably pay $50 if they had a version of it in the cloud, as well as the desktop and iPhone apps. No webapp, no can do.

I used to do this all on paper, as the Church of GTD would suggest, but wanted an digital solution. No way to search completed items, or prioritize, and another thing to carry (and lose).

So I am using Remember The Milk, somewhat reluctantly. It has all the functionality I need, it integrates with Gmail and with iPhone, but the UX is just terrible. Editing is in the wrong place, there's this arcane method of selecting items and a pulldown menu with which to do it -- things aren't where you would expect them to be. I paid for the Pro version ($25) to get the iPhone app, which has the problem of introducing too many steps to get something done. But it is the best one that I could find. I looked at Tadalist, which was too simple, and Todoist, which didn't have device apps or mail integrations I could use.

Then there's this from Pretty Bitter:

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on January 8, 2009 2:36 AM

The Moka Pot has been brewing coffee on household stovetops for over 70 years. Using steam pressure, it yields a strong brew with a heavy body, similar to press pot extraction. It even produces a small amount of crema.

View the full gallery

Originally posted by Erin McCarthy from Gimme! Coffee News, on January 7, 2009 8:25 PM

A map of the Milky Way done in the style of the London tube map.

I was re-reading Carl Sagan's novel Contact recently, essentially a series of arguments about SETI wrapped into a story, and he alludes to some sort of cosmic Grand Central Station. That, coupled with my longtime interest in transit maps, got me thinking about all of this.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 7, 2009 3:19 PM

Latset! An Anthology against the War in Gaza is currently available as a free pdf download (Hebrew only).  In Hebrew, "latset" means "to leave, get out" and is used in this context as an imperative.  The anthology represents a collaboration between poets and visual artists, some of whom may be familiar names outside of Israel.  The work of the poet Aharon Shabtai, for instance, has been widely translated.  I'd also like to highlight the participation of the poets Salman Masalha, Rami Saari, Merhav Yeshurun and Efrat Mishori.  The anthology, Mati Shmuelof writes, "has been prepared with great urgency and rage, at the outbreak of the war, as an act of emergency protest."  It is also, "a collaboration of hope."  A number of journals came together to put together this anthology, including Daka, which I wrote about in an earlier post.  For those who don't read Hebrew, here's my translation of a poem that I thought was particularly outstanding:

She was killed in Gaza

by Roni Hirsch

Maybe I was killed today

I do not know

there were discrepancies

in the international news reports

maybe I was killed today in Gaza

my family and I embraced and watched the blue sky

afterwards we scattered, maybe it happened then

and maybe we were still together

I went back to the past

the war was still before us

I do not know

in which one I was killed

maybe it was World War II

and Italian planes bombed Tel Aviv

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on January 7, 2009 2:59 PM

image copyright The Qattan Foundation

Last Friday's edition of Haaretz featured a very interesting article by Yitzhak Laor on the young artist Randa Mdah.  Mdah was born in the Golan Heights and studied art in Damascus, Syria.  Laor and his friend traveled to Ramallah to see her work, which is currently on exhibit at the Al-Mahata Gallery.    

Our hosts show us Mdah's work, "Puppet Theater," which is in a back room of the gallery. Photos cannot convey its full power. The wall bears a 2- by 3-meter polyester relief, next to three full-sized figures representing Arabs, bound by ropes to the ceiling. Mdah says [John] Berger thought the thick ropes supporting the marionettes were unnecessary. She insisted; he was persuaded, she says. Why did she insist? Because human beings are bound here to a routine, she explains, and gradually lose their identity amid the power game between the occupation, the poverty, the religious and the political--among other forces.

The Qattan Foundation named Mdah one of twelve "Young Artists of the Year" for 2008.  The foundation's website includes a photograph of a detail from "Puppet Theater," which I included above.  I haven't been able to locate more images of Mdah's work, though I would very much like to.  She observes: "...I am confident that most objects, people and events are driven by a force beyond their nature. I see my surroundings as a theatre of rod puppets, with tight ropes controlling their movement at times and choosing their destiny at others. Trying to break free from the puppet inside me, I present this work as an attempt to capture reality."

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on January 7, 2009 2:27 PM

Just back from Kona and getting caught up, with more observations about traveling with a Macbook Air. As I’ve written, the computer does what it should, it’s not limited by the processor or graphics card. I ran a full compliment of software including iPhoto, Final Cut Express, and VMware fusion.

In context to cycling, the Air is like a light climbing bike — purpose built and does what a bike should, but I wouldn’t use it to carry cargo or bang around in a crit.

Just like a climbing bike, the lightness is apparent and that’s just in pulling it out of my hugga bag, grabbing it to check Google maps, or uploading photos to Flickr.

As Ultra-light portables go, Apple made its decision to have a 13-inch screen and full keyboard. For the work I do when traveling, I think those are the right choices. It’s one of the best keyboards I’ve typed on and the LCD is outstanding.

As for peripherals, I used a mini-travel hub and connected the iBike Pro and Sony HDR-TG1 to it. The Sony is a HD handycam that records to a memory stick. I’ll blog more about that shortly with our next HD huggacast featuring scenes from Kona.

The next trip is to SXSW for our Mobile Social. I’ll have the air with me and the Modal Travel Bike.

Originally posted by DL Byron from Bike Hugger, on January 7, 2009 11:16 AM

Q: What do 100 year old knitting patterns and a lost Robert Louis-Stevenson story have in common?

A: A digitally preserved newspaper page.

Q: What about if you add:

• URIs for knitting materials
• William Blake’s Engravings
• The similarities/differences between XMPP, HTTP and NNTP
• Web crawling as data integration
• Project coordination with rooms on FriendFeed
• brewing Kombucha

A: Just a typical lunch time conversation at Pete’s with a couple people I work with. The cool thing (for me) is that this is normal, involves a host of smart/interesting characters, and is routinely encouraged. I love my job.

Originally posted by ed from inkdroid, on January 7, 2009 11:12 AM

Caveat: I recognize that this is totally half-baked, but am optimizing for speed over fully-bakedness.

So there’s the requisite amount of noise today on blogs & Twitter about the price tag for “upgrading” your library to non-DRM’d music. Freedom-loving music buyers are directing ire at Apple for double dipping — charging them again for the tracks they’ve already paid for.

Leave aside for a moment whether said freedom-loving music buyer is in the right. That argument isn’t worth having.) Instead, let’s look at this a bit differently: what if the iTunes music store had been architected like the App Store? Where would the ire be directed then?

In the App Store, Apple’s “just” a channel, the host of the bazaar. When you buy an app, you buy from the developer, and they’re the ones that not only build the product, but set the price and do the marketing. And this means that when Apple comes along with iPhone 3.0 software, or a new device form factor, or even just some new feature that necessitates a new version of the app, the developer is the one who makes the decision about whether or not to charge the user for that new version.

And in the music store, Apple’s a more classic retailer — the manufacturer of the product (in this case the label, and yes, I know that’s the bug here) isn’t as important as the label on the product (artist name) or the retailer itself. The analogy isn’t quite parallel, obviously, but posit for a minute for that the ability to sell DRM-free music is a new “feature” of the platform, and that the content on that platform needed to be upgraded to take advantage of that new feature. Since the manufacturer / label is subjugated to the retailer / Apple, the decision to charge users an additional $0.30 per track for the upgrade appears to consumers to be Apple’s decision, regardless of whatever boardroom negotations had to happen to reach the place where they could offer this service.

I know there are a ton of historical reasons why the music store doesn’t work like the App Store (major labels, RIAA, fear, doubt, greed, ego, etc.). But the difference in the way the App Store works couldn’t be starker — they provide a valuable service (distribution, discovery, promotion and integration), extract rents for that service (30%), and then get out of the way. (Well, sorta.)

Here’s the point (finally!): if the music store worked like the App Store, the ire of the freedom-loving music buyer wouldn’t be directed at Apple today; instead it would be directed at the labels who chose to charge their listeners to convert the music they’ve already paid for into a format they should have offered from day one.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on January 7, 2009 11:09 AM

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Hacks, How-tos, Cult of Mac, Mods, MacBook Air

A little while ago, we posted about Gregory Cohen's eeeMac -- he modded an eeePC into an OS X-running ultraportable, including adding a little Apple icon on the back. And now, he's posted how he did it all on a blog, so that if you've got a few Saturday afternoons, an eeePC to destroy, and a big interest in making a really tiny (fake) Mac, you can do it too. And even if you don't want to crack the case and do a little modding, you can still try to just get OS X running on the little machine -- Gregory has done all the hard work for you and boiled everything you need down into a 22mb disk image (you'll also need a retail OS X disc, of course).

Very cool. I'd never have the time or insight to put one of these together, but I can definitely marvel at the achievement.

TUAWeeeMac creator tells you how to do it yourself originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Mike Schramm from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on January 7, 2009 10:45 AM

Ze Frank has started a blog of notes and advice about fostering online participation. Lots of good stuff so far.

Usually there will be a few contributions that are outliers in technical merit and scale. There is a temptation to reward these contributions by drawing specific attention to them while the project is running. This can sometimes have the effect of damping the project as a whole, since potential contributors will measure their work against an artificially high standard. Alternatively, only displaying the most recent contribution allows the tonality of the project to be at the whim of the last contributor.

Instead of only focusing on technical ability, draw attention to qualities that can be expressed by anyone: simplicity, individuality, and humanity. Allow there to be a feeling of "Hey, I could do that too".

(via snarkmarket)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 7, 2009 10:39 AM

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White is getting some help in his argument that he doesn't legally have to sign the appointment certificate of Roland Burris -- which is the very flaw in the certificate that is currently being used to deny Burris his seat -- with state Attorney General Lisa Madigan agreeing in a motion filed before the state Supreme Court.

Everyone is waiting on the court to rule on Burris' lawsuit to force White to sign it. If they force White to sign it and he complies, then it's probably over. If they agree that the signatures is only "recommended," then the ball will be kicked right back into Harry Reid's court.

The ruling could come as soon as tomorrow.

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on January 7, 2009 9:54 AM

I don't usually make new year's resolutions -- I mostly just try AGAIN to do all the things I really, really meant to do in the previous year -- but if I were to make a resolution for 2009, it might be NOT to buy new fabric until I've made a dent in the fabric I already have.

Okay, let's see a show of hands from folks who have also made this resolution, in any year. (Hollow laughter optional.)

Of course, on the heels of that resolution, Stephanie kindly sends me this:




Wouldn't this make just the cutest ever shirtdress? I would, however, draw the line (no pun intended) at pencil buttons, as I am not a teacher. (But if you wanted to, I wouldn't judge. I'm not a judge, either.)

What would you do with this fabric? I know it's not to everyone's taste, so "set it on fire," is a perfectly acceptable answer ...

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on January 7, 2009 8:59 AM

The fine folks who’ve come together to create the Flickr Commons group on Flickr have launched a new blog: Indicommons.

“As you may have read in the discussion threads here, we have been working on an off-flickr place for some of the ideas and projects we would like to do with this group. Somewhere where we can showcase the cross-Commons Curation projects, post articles on more in-depth research and do features on some of the wonderful people involved in The Commons.” — Anna (BigBean)

Check out their interview with Shelley Bernstein, Chief of Technology, Brooklyn Museum. It’s the first in a series that will feature interviews with the various folk who make the Commons so wonderful.

Photos from the Brooklyn Museum.

      

Originally posted by Heather Champ from Flickr Blog, on January 7, 2009 8:31 AM

It has now been 12 days since Israel began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. On January 3rd, the Israeli Defense Force ground troops began entering Gaza, soon cutting the territory in half. Israel's stated goals are to end rocket attacks originating from Gaza - which had increased sharply following the end of a cease-fire agreement in December. As Israeli troops began entering Gaza, foreign reporters and photographers were denied entry to the territory by Israel, halting any reports originating from Gaza except those coming from Palestinians. As of today, since the beginning of this campaign, there have reportedly been over 650 deaths in Gaza, and 10 Israelis killed, including 7 soldiers. Israel suspended operations for a few hours today, to allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza. Officials from France, Egypt and Turkey are working with Israel and the Palestinians to draw up a cease-fire plan, but many details still remain unresolved. See previous Big Picture entry on Israel and Gaza from a week ago. (34 photos total)

An explosion is seen as missiles fired from an Israeli aircraft fall towards a target in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Gil Nechushtan)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from The Big Picture, on January 7, 2009 8:25 AM

while most gadget makers are showing off products with faster chip sets and bigger screen,
very few are focusing on their product’s sustainability. motorolo will be launching their new
renew w233 mobile phone during ces. while the mobile phone has minimal features and pretty
standard form factor, the phone is made from recycled pet bottles. motorola is claiming the
phone is the world’s first carbon neutral mobile, when compared to others using only a
percentage of recycled plastic. in addition, the device will come packaged in an earth-friendly
recycled paper case that uses 22% less material and only uses soy-based inks. but the
phone’s sustainability reaches further than the package and case, it is also designed to use
less energy when in use.

http://www.motorola.com



via cnet

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on January 7, 2009 8:23 AM

ja!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on January 7, 2009 7:45 AM

Brad Pitt continues to insist that Angelina Jolie was not the reason that his and Jennifer Aniston's marriage hit the skids.

"What people don't understand is that we filmed for a year," the actor says of Brangelina's Mr. & Mrs. Smith. "We were still filming after Jen and I split up."

"Even then it doesn't mean that there was some kind of dastardly affair. There wasn't," he says in the new issue of W. "I'm very proud of the way that it was handled. It was respectful. [The film] will mean something to our kids. It will, that's all."

As for his relationship with his ex, Brad says that no matter what we all think, he and Jen are buds.

"Listen, man, Jen is a sweetheart," Brad told the mag. "I think she got dragged into that one [when she told Vanity Fair that how Angie acted on the film was "uncool"], and then there's a second round to all that Angie versus Jen. It's so created.

"We still check in with each other," he continues. "She was a big part of my life, and me hers. I don't see how there cannot be [that]. That's life, man. That's life."

So, let's revisit the issue as a group. Do you believe that Brad cheated or not? If he didn't, he's certainly doing a good job of sticking to his story. Discuss below.

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from iVillage - Daily Blabber, on January 7, 2009 7:12 AM

In response to a thread posted, "Please Add a Professional-Level Efforts Topic" a number of Serious Eats members expressed the desire for a way to pose more practical questions and get the same response in kind. The author of the original post, mongoose, has generously worked with us to help define exactly what "Serious Efforts" are. Below is what we've come up with as a starting point, your feedback is naturally welcome! A new year is as good a time as any to try something new, so let's give this a go. ‘Serious Efforts’ posts are intended to draw on members’ practical experience. Regardless of level of experience, we all have something to offer, because we care about the food we prepare, and we (mostly) work in home kitchens, making any advice we offer particularly relevant. Is your question a ‘Serious Efforts’ post? The answer is ‘yes’ if it specifically describes a more complex technical issue or problem for which you would like input from others, and to which you have not found an answer elsewhere (including searches of the SE database). The title of the post should clearly indicate what you are asking other SE members (e.g. “Solution to croissant ‘slumping’?”), and the question itself should be concise and to the point. Questions that are hypothetical or vague (“What can go wrong if I make croissants”) would not fall into the ‘Serious Efforts’ category. Label your ‘Serious Efforts’ posts like this: ‘Serious Efforts: [your question title]’ Replying to a ‘Serious Efforts’ post: Please keep your responses objective, to the point, and based on first-hand experience. Humor is fine, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the delivery of useful advice.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Posts and Comments by Alaina Browne, on January 7, 2009 6:49 AM

Is everything connected with everything else? Not everyone thinks so. But that not everyone doesn't include Benjamin Cohen. In I Dream in Malcolm Gladwell, Cohen draws an unlikely parallel between marshmallow melting and the science of pediatric nutrition.

In an age when children are born nearly every day in America, and most of them to parents who have had intercourse sometime during the year prior, physicians have become troubled that once the children are born, they seem to lack the ability to feed themselves. The two researchers have been working for years on a study that may provide insight to the problem. Infants, their studies are showing, aren't very smart. Like melting marshmallows, it appears that breastfeeding is an unusual process difficult to understand. In this case, W- and S- believe, that process may involve both breasts and milk.

It all sounds so obvious when he puts it that way.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 7, 2009 6:48 AM

If I had more time I would write a shorter letter. ~ Mark Twain

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on January 7, 2009 6:27 AM

The inauguration of Barack Obama will bring the newest in a long line of Presidential limos.Because the Secret Service keeps details of the limo understandably private, even the most knowledgeable security experts don't really know how much gadgety tech is being installed in the new ride. But it's not stopping them making a few informed guesses.

Originally posted by Barack Obama from Wired Top Stories, ReBlogged by Roddy on Jan 7, 2009 at 10:32 AM

Originally posted by Barack Obama from Eyebeam reBlog, on January 7, 2009 5:32 AM

Tetris is good for easing the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), scientists have found. Yes, you read that correctly: the infuriating, mind-swallowing piece-twiddling row-building game actually has a medical value.

The research, which was conducted at the department of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, suggests using Tetris as a "cognitive vaccine" against flashbacks from traumatic events. It's published on the open-source science research Public Library of Science (PLoS) website.

Here's how they set out their recommendations:

The rationale for a 'cognitive vaccine' approach is as follows: Trauma flashbacks are sensory-perceptual, visuospatial mental images. Visuospatial cognitive tasks selectively compete for resources required to generate mental images. Thus, a visuospatial computer game (e.g. "Tetris") will interfere with flashbacks. Visuospatial tasks post-trauma, performed within the time window for memory consolidation, will reduce subsequent flashbacks. We predicted that playing "Tetris" half an hour after viewing trauma would reduce flashback frequency over 1-week.

In other words, if you're looking at falling squares, lines, hoooks and whatever those twiddly ones that are two overlapping lines of two are called, then you don't have time to visualise your previous bad experiences.

I'm glad I wasn't asked to take part:

Forty participants watched a 12-min film of traumatic scenes of injury and death (n = 20 per group). Film viewing was followed by a 30-min interval before simple random assignment to one of two experimental conditions. There were no baseline differences between the two groups in terms of age, depressive symptoms or trait anxiety or gender. Mood was equivalent between the groups prior to watching the film, and as predicted, both groups experienced comparable mood deterioration following the film (emphasis added).

(Tell me about it. Someone at work was looking for gruesome scenes from ER involving helicopters and instead found a real-life one. I'm recommending Tetris to him.)

Afterwards, one group just sat quietly, and another played Tetris, for ten minutes. They then kept a diary about flashbacks they'd had; this showed that the group which had played Tetris had significantly fewer (with a probability that it was chance less than 1%).

It's a remarkable finding; though looking at the long list of references, the idea of visual "distraction" as a method of desensitising people from visual memories has been around since at least early this decade.

But who'd have thought we'd find a potentially workable cure in a game that for a while 20 years ago seemed like a Russian plot to turn all our population into obsessive cursor-button pokers? (Wait, did it work?)

So maybe that's going to be the new treatment for returning soldiers from the front: Nintendo Gameboys loaded with Tetris. Then, all we'll have to worry about will be curing their Tetris addiction.

• Games
• Medicine

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Originally posted by Charles Arthur from Technology: Games blog | guardian.co.uk, on January 7, 2009 2:31 AM

to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the canvas all star basketball shoes, converse have produced
a limited edition of 1000 books containing a pair of shoes. using the theme of 'star', the book details
the history of the canvas all star brand and features interviews by 100 of today's biggest stars. also,
in an effort to support the young creative people of the world, converse have chosen 100 people
and put them together with the famous actors, comedians, stylists, photographers, art directors etc
who inspire them to pursue the same career. the shoes have been made especially for this project
and come in white, black and red, and in two sizes, 24cm and 27cm.






more:
http://www.converse.com
http://www.cibone.com

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on January 7, 2009 1:39 AM

Itoworld has produced a stunning animation [vimeo.com] showing edits to the OpenStreetMap project during 2008. OpenStreetMap [www.openstreetmap.org] is a wiki-style map of the world that anyone can edit. The animation shows worldwide contributions to the project over the course of 2008 and whenever a line is edited it flashes white and slowly fades out. You can see the beginnings of whole towns, states and countries and the steady refinement of existing data in more detailed areas.

You can watch the animation below, and see more examples from Itoworld's visualizations at Flickr. Read on for more background to the project itself.

OpenStreetMap's data comes mainly from users tracing over GPS tracks they have contributed, ensuring the data is free of existing copyright restrictions and can be shared under a Creative Commons license. In some countries the maps have been created entirely from scratch, while in others existing geodata has been imported either from generous donor companies (e.g. AND in the Netherlands) or from public domain sources (e.g. the TIGER-line data provided by the US census). Yahoo! also allows the use of its aerial imagery for OpenStreetMap users to trace, and other out-of-copyright aerial imagery and maps can be used too.

In the past few years the OpenStreetMap project has gone from strength to strength, documented on its comprehensive wiki, and the Itoworld animation shows that 2008 was its most impressive year yet. The usage statistics tell a compelling story about the growth in number of participants and contributed data, countless blog posts like this one, this one, and this one cheer the project on, but it's the resulting maps that speak for themselves.

OpenStreetMap showed early potential for being more than "just" a copyleft project when places such as Baghdad (map) were mapped using aerial imagery alone, long before any OpenStreetMap users ever set foot there. Now contributors all over the world are mapping their local areas too, there are frequent calls for participation to map areas in need (like Gaza) since the coverage of OpenStreetMap in many places exceeds the offerings of commercial mapping APIs.

Applying the wiki paradigm (aka crowd-sourcing) to mapping is certainly a compelling prospect, so much so that Google is doing it too with its MapMaker product. The MapMaker team is also producing progress animations and images (via O'Reilly Radar) similar to those produced by OpenStreetMap contributors to illustrate their progress. However, so long as Google owns the copyright to your MapMaker contributions, keeps the vector data to itself and has to selectively enable the tools in a particular region then the similarities to OpenStreetMap pretty much end there.

Guest blogger Tom Carden is an interaction designer at Stamen Design and was an early contributor to the OpenStreetMap project.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on January 6, 2009 9:21 PM

Link: When Fans Go Sour: Here's the thing: If you're a fan, and you paid a bunch of money for those seats, I guess you can do whatever you want. (I'd love it if you didn't curse up a storm, as I'd like to bring my kids once in a while, but whatever.) But if your long-term goal is to watch a winning team, I'm pretty sure booing does not get you there. Yelling at people, at best, might in some cases get you more effort. But was it effort that made Dooling miss that free throw? I suspect that in the long run supportive fans have a more positive effect on performance. Confidence is a huge part of performing well. And crappy, unappreciative fans ... that's just one more reason not to play hard, in the long run. It could also be a reason for a free agent not to sign in that town.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on January 6, 2009 5:11 PM

Happy birthday to my man Ibrahim.

Originally posted by Tyler Askew [New York] from M a blog / Tyler Askew, on January 6, 2009 4:21 PM

bordeaux, france december 2008

artist mark jenkins is well known for his art pieces that spring up on city streets around the world.
the artist has released a series of new works through photographs on his website. most of the new
works were installed in bordeaux, france while one was done in prato, italy. the four pieces each
feature fake human bodies placed in strange positions on the street. in one, a woman digs through
a garbage bag on the street while another features a seemingly dead child lying on an ice skating
rink. jenkins’ work deals with issues of community and communication in contemporary urban society.

http://www.xmarkjenkinsx.com

more

'glazed paradise' by mark jenkins and miho kinomura at diesel denim gallery
mark jenkins


prato, italy november 2008


bordeaux, france december 2008 with romain le liboux


bordeaux, france december 2008

via rebel art

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on January 6, 2009 2:57 PM

Ezra Klein of The American Prospect, Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress and The Atlantic, Ben Miller and Sara Mead of the New American Foundation, and other young political smart-people types, recently launched Internet Food Association. "We’d much rather talk about food...No, seriously Le Creuset. We’ll totally plug your shit."

Originally posted by Erin Zimmer from Serious Eats, on January 6, 2009 2:00 PM

Work related post ahead.

Nice to see one of my favorite co-workers at FM talking about something our engineering team believes so strongly in.

It is not easy explaining these principles to people who want to see a detailed six month GANTT chart that takes six weeks to create and six days to undo. If you spend six weeks actually doing the work, you'll be six weeks closer to the goal and six weeks wiser.

The dude with a GANTT chart just has a GANTT chart.

One of our investors has a great analogy about choosing between being a bus or a heat-seeking missile. The bus has a route, a destination, and an itinerary that it must stick to. The heat-seeking missile is built to adjust. You fire it in the general direction then iterate and evaluate as you move forward. Hit the thing that's hot, even if it moves (and it will move).

I'll leave you with a Winer-ism I like a lot from 1995 called We Make Shitty Software…With Bugs! It's just the first four paragraphs (pre-permalink era?) so don't worry about seeing the phrase "Indigo Girls" on that page.

Originally posted by torrez from Andre's Notes, on January 6, 2009 1:39 PM

Michael Paterniti penned a lovely eulogy for Bobby Fischer, the former chess champion who died last year.

This was the beauty of Bobby Fischer's mind, even then. The boy made very clean, simple lines out of very complex problems, and when the trap was sprung, his style of chess became so transparent you could instantly recognize its brilliance: efficient, organic, wildly responsive and creative.

Also worth a look is a short 1957 profile of Fischer in the New Yorker, written a few weeks after he won the US title at 14. (via snarkmarket)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 6, 2009 12:57 PM

The Politico is reporting that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), last seen getting bristly over Leon Panetta's appointment to run the CIA, says the Senate Democratic leadership was wrong not to seat Roland Burris.

Says Feinstein: "I can't imagine the secretary of state countermanding a gubernatorial appointment," Feinstein said. "The question, really, is one in my view of law. And that is, does the governor have the power to make the appointment? And the answer is yes. Is the governor discredited? And the answer is yes. Does that affect his appointment power? And the answer is no until certain things happen."

Let me first recite the catechism: Blagojevich is a joke, an embarrassment. And I think accepting the appointment from Blagojevich reflects poorly on Burris's judgment (though not in any fatal, ominous way, just a bad choice).

But Blagojevich is the governor of the Illinois. And the Governor appoints to senators to vacant seats. He hasn't been convicted of anything, which is no mere technicality. And I don't think anyone has seriously claimed that this appointment is tainted by corruption.

If there was a real belief that Burris's appointment had been bought, then I think more aggressive and expansive refusal would be justified. But as I said, I don't think anyone is really suggesting that. So as awkward and untoward as the whole thing may be, I really question the wisdom and possibly also the legality of not swearing him in. Rules are rules.

I could be persuaded otherwise. And I'm not losing much sleep over Burris's plight. But rules are rules. And I'm not sure what's being accomplished with this spectacle.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 6, 2009 12:50 PM

Describes the JavaScript Database, a SQLite database built into Safari that provides local storage accessible to JavaScript applications.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Apple Developer Connection Apple Applications Headlines, on January 6, 2009 11:55 AM

Here's that '85 Donruss rack pack I bought from Dave & Adam's. If you're jealous, go get your own. I think the big names in this set are Clemens and Puckett. I have maybe 150 cards from this set and at least 20 of those are Braves so I'll take anything but doubles.


434 Ron Darling - This was the last Met Paul's Random Stuff needed, but it looks like I'm too late to send it.

302 Rich Dotson - Rich is sporting the bright red White Sox unis of the '80s. This set had a weird color quality to it that shows up well on this card.

171 Alan Trammell - The first really good card! The back notes Alan's World Series MVP. There's s bump on the top of the card but who cares.

529 Sixto Lezcano - What a great name. Red uniforms (or even maroon stripey ones) look good on this design.

398 Mike Hargrove - Grover! Cool stuff on the back: One of Mike's two home runs in '84 was his first ever grand slam vs. Seattle on 6/23/84.

267 Matt Young - There's another Matt Young in the Braves farm system and this guy always screws up my google searches for him.

135 Jerry Hairston - I knew he had two kids in the majors, but I didn't know his dad played four games for the White Sox and his brother played three for the Cubs.

612 Ruppert Jones - Ruppert picked a good year to play one season with the Tigers. Did you know he was an RBI Baseball legend?

483 Dave Owen - This guy is entirely too happy for my liking. If I have doubles I know where this is going.

26 Bob Brenly Diamond King - Bob Brenly was a Diamond King? Really?? The back states he led the Giants with a "lusty .291 average". Ick.

88 Mike Flanagan - The design looks pretty good with orange too... Those lines sort of morph into whatever color is around them.

566 Brian Harper - Ok, the lines don't morph into yellow too well. Brian didn't get good until he went to the Twins. Why couldn't Lonnie Smith have knocked that ball out in '91?

435 Spike Owen - The only Mariners captain in history. That old trident logo kicked ass.

303 David Green - What is David wearing, a neck warmer?

172 Wade Boggs - The second really good card in the pack! Boggsy looks like he just got completely fooled by a pitch.

40 41 42 Lou Gehrig's crotch - Lou wasn't known as the Iron Horse just for the streak. Awww yeaaaah.

Not a bad start at all! Tomorrow I'll post Skeeter's section.

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on January 6, 2009 11:42 AM

A company called Fandrich & Sons buys cheap grand pianos mass-produced in China, upgrades them so that they sound more like expensive hand-made European pianos, and sells them for a reasonable price.

With his higher-end grands -- which the Fandrichs named "HGS" for "Holy Grail Scale" -- they start with pianos built in China. He and his workers gut the piano, replacing the hammers, felt and bass strings with German and American parts. They reinforce the underbelly of the piano by installing short ribs -- spruce beams between the existing main ribs.

Using a computer program designed in-house, the keys are reweighted across the board to eliminate friction and even out the response. The reweighting gives the Fandrich pianos their signature touch, one that some players have described as buttery, effortless.

In automotive terms, the Fandrichs are "trying to upgrade a Hyundai to run like a Bentley, for the price of a Honda". (via girlhacker)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 6, 2009 11:41 AM

This vid has been making the rounds via Streetsblog Network member Beyond DC. In it we see candidate Obama tell a crowd in Toledo that the Death and Life of Great American Cities is "a great book" and delve into some talking points about the importance of cities to regional economies. Read into it what you will. To me it says advocates for cities and urbanism should hold our next President to a very high standard, because he knows his stuff.

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on January 6, 2009 11:23 AM

Just talked with Dianne Feinstein outside the Senate chamber about her qualms with the Leon Panetta nomination. The incoming Senate intelligence committee chairman said that both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden called her after the fact to discuss the surprise choice of Panetta, who has no direct intelligence agency experience and whose nomination came as unwelcome news to Feinstein when it broke yesterday.

"I understand their thinking" in choosing Panetta, Feinstein explained, describing herself as "very respectful of the president's authority ... this is the man [Obama has chosen]."

I asked Feinstein whether her reticence about Panetta's lack of ties to the CIA would be mitigated by having Steven Kappes, her preferred choice for CIA director, stay on as the agency's No 2. "I believe very strongly" that Kappes should stay, Feinstein said, adding that Panetta's standing would be "very much enhanced" were Kappes to stay his deputy.

Feinstein seemed to acknowledge the Obama team's desire to find a CIA director who would signal an end to the abusive interrogation tactics of the Bush years. "We all want a break with the past," she told the reporters milling around her in the Senate. "I was the one who went into the conference committee" between the House and the Senate last year with an amendment that would use the Army Field Manual as the universal standard for detainee interrogations, she added.

"I understand the administration's desire to cut clean and open a new chapter and I support that. Whether those changes can be made" with Panetta at the helm, she added, remains to be seen.

* Late Grammar Update: As two eagle-eyed readers have pointed out, "reticence" suggests an unwillingness to discuss an issue, which the senator from California certainly was not. The proper term is indeed "hesitance".

Originally posted by Elana Schor from TPM Election Central, on January 6, 2009 8:09 AM

When baristas prepare espresso, they control how long the shot runs in order to achieve a certain extraction range. Ideally, this range is sufficiently long to pull out all the desirable flavors but stops short of bitterness and diluted mouthfeel. The only way to control this is by making the bed of ground coffee, or puck, of completely even density. Because water is lazy and follows the path of least resistance, it will find areas of lesser density and extract that coffee first, forming a channel.

In this picture, a bottomless portafilter affords a peek at a channeling shot. The lighter areas are in advanced stages of extraction while the reddish-brown areas are just beginning. There are still some dry patches where the espresso has not even penetrated the basket. The result is a shot that combines undesirable qualities from both sides of the ideal extraction range. Even if other variables are appropriately controlled, a puck of uneven density will cause inconsistent results. And after all, consistency is a barista's best friend. They have to trust that each shot follows the parameters that they set out. Otherwise, they would have to taste your shot before serving it to you, and no one wants to share a good espresso.

Originally posted by Jeremy Gauger from Gimme! Coffee News, on January 6, 2009 7:20 AM

In a post to Mets Geek, James Kannengieser compares the Jets and Mets, both of whom were once in first place and controlled of their own fate, but fell one win short of the playoffs.

In Kannengieser’s scenario, Bret Favre is Johan Santana; Eric Mangini is Willie Randolph; Jose Reyes is Thomas Jones; and September is December; among other similarities.

Actually, after having experienced back-to-back collapses with the Mets, I was shocked that my other favorite sports team, the Jets, were about to pull the exact same stunt.

However, thanks to the last two Septembers, I was prepared for Gang Green’s free fall and totally unsurprised by the pain it caused.

So, to the New York Mets, I say, ‘Thank You,’ for preparing me to best deal with the Jets.

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on January 6, 2009 7:13 AM

Sports Illustrated named 2008 the best year ever in sports. In my best links post, I said that three 2008 sporting events stuck out in my mind but this article reminded me of one more: Jason Lezak's amazing anchor leg in the 4x100 freestyle.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 6, 2009 6:39 AM

FBI agents doing the background check on Bill Richardson apparently started bumping into their colleagues who were investigating those pay-to-play allegations in New Mexico.

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on January 6, 2009 6:36 AM

Shared by alaina
Holy crap this is amazing!

There was once a time in Delhi when shining malls and Café Coffee Days didn’t exist as refuges from heat and stench. In this land before liberalization, sanctuary could be found in the local cinema halls that apparently dotted the Indian urban landscape. But multiplexes are driving them out of business — and, as collateral damage, taking with them the Bollywood poster painters who relied on their business.

Every year, Jenny and I send out a photoshopped holiday card to our friends and family. When we found out that some Bollywood poster painters are still eking out a living near Old Delhi, we knew that this year’s card would be hand-made. We dissected a bunch of old Bollywood posters for composition and style, took pictures of our faces in our desired poses, and set out a neighborhood near the Red Fort armed with vague contact instructions: “Find the Darya Ganj fire station. Make a right. Walk a hundred yards and ask the paan wallah for Vijay.”

The paan wallah sent us to a bicycle rickshaw stand, where sleeping rickshaw pullers competed for space with the myriad rickshaw parts strewn about. We sat at the stand and chatted with Manesh, who seemed to manage the rickshaw syndicate, until Vijay pulled up on a rickshaw of his own. Vijay and Manesh then took us up the dirt road across the street to Vijay’s open-air studio. Fading starlets gave us sultry glances from dusty wooden walls as we sat on a wooden charpoy to talk.

With Manesh translating, we told Vijay exactly what we wanted — the composition, the elements, the style, the poses, the title, the tagline. Happy for the business, Vijay was nonetheless confused about how we’d found him. Not sure how to explain that our relationship with the woman on the expat listserv who recommended him, we just told him that he was “very famous.” His smile told us that that was what he was hoping to hear.

I returned the next weekend with my father and money for the deposit. Manesh wasn’t there; this time, we sat at the rickshaw stand with a drunk mechanic who kept telling us “I speak English tutti-frutti” and “Vijay is my brother” and “You want some whiskey?” Finally Vijay and Ranjeet, his English-speaking partner, pulled up in a rickshaw. We discussed again the composition and the poses while the drunken mechanic danced around, sent a peon for soda, and interrupted us with “Vijay famous artist!” and “My cousin-brother!” and “You want whiskey?”

Jenny and I had anticipated a small poster, perhaps two feet in length — after all, our main goal was to reprint it on a postcard. Vijay, however, insisted that his work could be no less than five feet tall. We agreed, the peon returned, and we celebrated our agreement with Pepsi and whiskey. As we were walking out, the mechanic turned to me to whisper conspiratorially, “I speak English tutti-frutti.”

A week later, we returned to examine the work in progress. Five feet had become six.

And then, two weeks after we had commissioned it, Jenny and I came to Darya Ganj to behold our first starring role, captured in perfect 1970s Bollywood style. This poster accurately recreated the most exciting experiences we’ve had in Delhi so far: our spontaneous dances in various grand ballrooms, the time we fought criminals as special investigators in the Delhi police force, and that awful incident when our love of diamonds and danger forced us to turn our commandeered autorickshaws against each other.

And you thought we were working office jobs!

As Vijay and his team presented their work with pride, Ranjeet reminded us that poster painting is a dying art, and that we should tell our friends. So it’s with no hesitation that we recommend Vijay to capture your likeness in archaic Bollywood style. You can find him near the paan wallah, across from the rickshaw stand, down from the fire station; or you can just contact Ranjeet at 99996 29382 or ranjeet_2870@rediffmail.com.

P.S. Guess which one is the drunken mechanic?

      

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Our Delhi Struggle, on January 6, 2009 5:59 AM

The more we dig into this scuffle the more dimensions to the story there appear to be -- beyond the turf issues between the Senate and the executive, you've got issue of intel budgetary reform, the future of the CIA and anti-terror ops, the legacy of torture, the ability of the senate overseers to big foot intelligence operators who lack a clear political power base. Did the Obama team really brief junior members of the intel committee and not the incoming chairman? At each point, the first-bat questions yield more questions than answers.

We're digging into this in a big way today because beyond the particulars of intel policy (which are of great consequence in themselves), this strikes me as the first story of 2009 that's a real story rather than mere theater or ephemeral drama. This is going to give us our first read of the interaction between the incoming Obama administration and the senate Democrats.

As I wrote last night, my very preliminary impression is that the people whose opinions I respect most seem open to or in favor of the pick, whereas those opposing it strike me as more motivated by turf and power struggles. But that's only a very preliminary impression and we're looking for more data points, more reactions to put together a fuller picture.

Elana Schor is down at the Capitol as I write, probing different aspects of the story. And as usual, I'm eager to hear from knowledgable folks on the Hill and in the Intel world for your read about what's going on here.

For those interested in more, Laura Rozen has some more details at her new blog at Foreign Policy.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 6, 2009 5:49 AM

Last Sunday in New York, the Street Memorial Project organized a ride in memory of the 14 bicyclists and more than 100 pedestrians killed by cars in the city in 2008. You can see the StreetFilm about the ride here.

PBOT traffic safety expert Greg Raisman. Photo © J. Maus.

In Portland, OR, they marked a much happier milestone this New Year's. That's because 2008 was a year in which no cyclists died on that city's streets. Streetsblog Network member Bike Portland talked with the Portland BOT's "chief traffic safety guru," Greg Raisman, to get some insight into why and how it happened.

In an interview with Bike Portland's Jonathan Maus, Raisman makes the point that safe streets are by no means just good for bikers and pedestrians:

All traffic fatalities are a symptom of the same disease. It’s equally sad and tragic if a person is killed while walking, biking, or driving. It also appears that the conditions that make it safer for the most vulnerable make it safer for everyone. As roads become safe enough that a child can safety walk or bike to their friend’s house, the roads also become safer for driving to that friend’s house when you have to.

His attitude is inspirational.

Elsewhere on the network, Car Less Ohio reports on Columbus's efforts to become the "best bicycling city in the country," Greater Greater Washington posts on how urban bike trails aren't just for recreation, and The Transport Politic updates the banks/transit financial mess.

Originally posted by Sarah Goodyear from Streetsblog, on January 6, 2009 5:31 AM

2006 Allen & Ginter Want List

5 Ken Griffey Jr. SP
6 Nick Swisher
8 David Wright
15 Austin Kearns SP
16 Jhonny Peralta
20 Joe Nathan
23 Derek Jeter
25 Jason Giambi SP
35 Travis Hafner SP
37 Roy Oswalt
39 J.D. Drew
43 Carlos Delgado
47 Jeremy Burnitz
49 Moises Alou
50 Alex Rodriguez SP
52 Bartolo Colon SP
55 Hideki Matsui SP
56 Jermaine Dye SP
57 Victor Martinez SP
73 Jeremy Bonderman
78 Placido Polanco
85 Mike Matheny SP
95 Jorge Posada
99 Jeff Francoeur
105 Andy Pettitte SP
106 Nick Johnson
113 Coco Crisp
115 Greg Maddux SP
125 Mariano Rivera SP
126 Carlos Beltran
130 Mike Lieberthal
133 Randy Winn
135 David Eckstien SP
145 Jorge Cantu SP
148 Paul LoDuca
151 Ryan Langerhans SP
152 Kris Benson SP
154 Manny Ramirez SP
158 Adam Dunn SP
159 Cliff Lee SP
160 Grady Sizemore
175 Miguel Cabrera SP
176 Julio Lugo
185 Tom Glavine SP
193 Mark Loretta
205 Brett Myers SP
207 Mike Piazza
217 Gustavo Chacin
219 Troy Glaus
227 Cory Patterson
235 Shawn Chacon SP
238 Carlos Lee
240 Brad Lidge
251 Josh Barfield SP
252 Kenji Johjima
255 Matt Cain
256 Josh Willingham
265 Brian Bannister SP
275 Mickey Mantle SP
285 Yogi Berra SP
293 Dusty Baker
295 Jim Leyland SP
297 Joe Torre
302 Duke Paoa Kahanamoku
305 Danica Patrick SP
308 Carl Lewis
315 Jerry Bailey SP
324 Brad Hawpe
325 Kevin Mench SP
334 Kaiser Wilhelm
335 Queen Victoria SP
346 Bob Fitsimmons

Dick Perez
4 David Ortiz
10 Ivan Rodriguez
13 Mike Sweeney
14 Vlad Guerrero
15 Rafael Furcal
16 Carlos Lee
20 Huston Street
29 Vernon Wells

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on January 5, 2009 11:18 PM

I’ve been meaning to mention this for a while, but Michael Lewis’ article in December 2008’s Portfolio about the end of Wall Street’s boom could be the best article I’ve ever read, and it’s certainly the must-read article of the year. Lewis, who chronicled the culture at Salomon Brothers leading up to the ‘87 Wall Street crash in Liar’s Poker, just does an amazing thing here, drawing a portrait of a financial system so riddled with incompetence, greed, and shortsightedness that it’s utterly staggering.  Here’s the first paragraph to get you started. 

The End

by Michael Lewis | Portfolio, December 2008

To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital—to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn’t the first clue.

Keep reading…

Originally posted by (author unknown) from shey.net, on January 5, 2009 9:34 PM

A couple of years ago, this was one of the first songs I listened to in the new year. Today, by coincidence, it came on my iPod, now at the beginning of 2009. Well done, shuffle!

Here's a brilliant (though sadly shortened) live performance from 1989. (But wait, really: this was 20 years ago? Oh, dear.)

Originally posted by btrott from Stupidfool.org, on January 5, 2009 9:30 PM

View Larger Map

In the past hour, we've received five emails alerting us to the alarming news: The sticky sweet scent of maple syrup has made its 2009 debut! So far, the smell appears to concentrated on the Upper West Side, but please let us know if you've suddenly gotten hungry for pancakes because the scent of breakfast has been so overpowering. Email us at tips(at)gothamist(dot)com.

Previous maple syrup incidents: October 2005, March 2006, November 2006, November 2007, and May 2008. Plus a November 2007 cameo on 30 Rock.

Update: We added two more smellings (one at West 80th & Amsterdam, the other on East 82nd between Park and Lexington). In the past, a reader said it smelled like anti-freeze "which, if you ever spilled while adding to your radiator, has a nasty maple syrup smell."

Update (11:15 p.m.): More smellings added to the map (including ones in Queens); one reader was at her friend's apartment when the smell struck, "We thought at first it was her neighbors doing something kinky, or that it was a new form of bioterrorism!"

Another reader wondered, "Is this the first time it's not on a Thursday night? And why does it always hit at about this time of night?" We're not sure why it seems to strike at night, but as for the days of the week, the incidents on 10/28/05, 11/9/06, 11/8/07 and 5/29/08 were Thursdays, but the 3/13/06 incident was a Monday.

Update (11:34 p.m.): More smellings, map revised to include some readers' comments, including this gem: "In Tudor City, 43rd and 1st. I thought it was my own sweet bo at first!"

Update (midnight): Thanks for all the tips—keep them coming. We've added some in Soho, Midtown, and Brooklyn. In fact, one reader writes, "Yesterday I mentioned to my wife that I smelled the Maple Syrup Smell. We were at the Red Hook Ikea." We're not sure if that's the maple syrup canary in the pancake coal mine, but it does not correspond with the wind pattern hypothesis, which makes most sense to us.

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist, on January 5, 2009 5:24 PM

Original here

with related quote.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Kokochi, on January 5, 2009 4:01 PM

Better information leads to better design decisions. The more you know about the audience, the context, and the opportunities (and apply this knowledge) the more likely it is that you will meet a real need and do it well, even creatively.

Research can be very expensive, particularly quantitative research. For this reason, one of my very favorite resources is the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Their work “explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life.”

They produce some very useful reports based on phone surveys and qualitative methods that can balance out the hype and hysteria from news and media sources.

If you are designing an online product or service, particularly for an American audience, you will find something useful there. They cover everything from attitudes about health information to voter engagement and video games.

For a fun diversion, start with The Future of the Internet III, which is the output from a survey of “thought leaders.” Apparently everything online is going to get more awesome, but people will still be jerks.

Originally posted by erika from Mule Design : Off the Hoof, on January 5, 2009 3:19 PM

Sometimes I find it hard to describe Picasa without sounding like a late-night infomercial for a multi-bladed thingamabob: "It's a photo organizer! A photo editor! A web-savvy photo sharing and management system in just one tiny package!"

We try hard to avoid hyperbole around here, but it's true that Picasa software, working together with Picasa Web Albums, can help with nearly every aspect of owning and operating a digital camera. And because many of us take pictures in order to share them, we try to make sure Picasa does a great job of getting your favorite photos online, where friends and family can enjoy them too. In Picasa 3, that means powerful new features like automatically syncing changes between the photos on your computer and what you're sharing online, useful privacy controls integrated into the software on your PC, easier notifications, and more.

And today, we're releasing Picasa for Mac. While we've previously offered both a standalone Picasa Web Albums uploader and an iPhoto plugin for Mac users, Picasa for Mac finally brings all of the advanced sharing and sync features of Picasa to the millions of Mac OS X users who use Picasa Web Albums. Not to mention the "it-slices-and-dices" feature list that covers everything from color balance to collages.


Picasa for Mac looks and works much like Picasa on other platforms, and offers trademark Picasa features — such as non-destructive editing, and the ability to keep track of photos anywhere on your hard drive, then automatically account for new images as you add them.

Right now, Picasa for Mac is still in Google Labs, but we very much wanted to get an early version out to folks attending Macworld (you can learn more about this beta release at the Google Photos blog). To run Picasa, you'll need an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 and above. We hope you'll give it a spin, and give us your feedback in person — members of the Picasa engineering team will be conducting demos at Google's Macworld booth all week (you can also check out the video tour below).



Posted by Susanna Leng, Software Engineer

Originally posted by A Googler from The Official Google Blog, on January 5, 2009 12:25 PM

This has to be the ultimate[1] definition of “first world problem:” Matt (as in “where the hell is”) Harding had to book two zero-gravity plane flights to film a snippet for his ongoing project because on the first one his hard drive-based camcorder failed.

Like all modern hard drives, the Sony SR1’s hard drive has a drop-detection system. When it thinks it’s falling, the hard drive heads park themselves to prevent damage upon impact. Unfortunately, in zero gravity, the camcorder always thinks it’s falling.

[1] “Ultimate” in both senses of the word, because from here on out all problems identified as first world problems will be judged against this one.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on January 5, 2009 11:55 AM

It's been demonstrated over and over again, but businesses refuse to learn the lesson: Homogeneity is its own punishment in the world of business. From the Washington Post today:

[T]he experience of the past year suggests that we desperately need to bring more women into leadership positions on Wall Street, in politics, in regulatory bodies and in American life generally. For decades, corporations and financial firms have sponsored expensive training programs to promote more women into their ranks. They have launched much-needed maternity policies and flexible work arrangements. Most of these initiatives, however, have been pursued to make life easier for the women involved — or, more cynically, to remove the threat of lawsuit or adverse publicity for the firms.

The financial crisis has exposed a quieter but equally pressing concern: We need women in leadership positions not only because they can manage as well as men but because they manage differently than men; because they tend — over time and in the aggregate — to make different kinds of decisions and to accept and avoid different kinds of risk. We need women who will say no to bad decisions based on male-dominated rivalries and clubby golf course confidences. We need women to blow the whistle when risks explode and to challenge the presumptions that too many men, clustered too closely together and sharing a common worldview, can easily indulge.

As the constant wail from Wall Street should remind us, diversity isn't just nice in theory. It makes for better business.

There's a related question here which no one is asking, which is whether the economic catastrophe facing the global marketplace is a result of a failure of white culture in America. The media is always quick to ask whether problems like violence plaguing minority communities are symptoms of a toxic culture in that community, but I haven't seen any questions to that effect in regard to this financial meltdown.

I've written a good deal about monoculture on this site over the years; The correlation between diversity and success has been repeatedly demonstrated.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on January 5, 2009 11:49 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on January 5, 2009 11:41 AM

-Photo by Getty Images-
Oh no!

Hollywood good girl Jennifer Love Hewitt has split from her fiancé, Ross McCall.

"They broke up over the holidays and have ended their engagement," a friend of the couple told People.com. "They're both really sad about this. Even their friends are surprised; they seemed really happy. Everyone just wants the best for both of them."

Neither one of their reps had any comment on the split.

The Ghost Whisperer actress announced their engagement  back in November of 2007, but had been mum on setting a wedding date.

Poor Jen -- back to a party of one, I guess.

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from iVillage - Daily Blabber, on January 5, 2009 11:27 AM

According to Toby Hyde, at Mets Minor League Blog, Fernando Martinez has been added to Leones de Caracas’s playoff roster in the Venezuelan Winter League.

Martinez was 2-for-4 with a double and a home run in his first game.

To watch the double, click play below…

By the way, in a report for ESPN Deportes, Enrique Rojas says Martinez could be called upon by manager Felipe Alou to play for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic in March.

“My heart torn,” Martinez told Rojas.  “On one hand, I want to be in spring training with the Mets, to improve my chances of getting a job, but being in the World Baseball Classic with all the big stars would be a dream.”

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on January 5, 2009 10:51 AM

In late September, on WFAN, Mike Francesa said he had been told that Ryan Church ‘hated it here,’ while adding, ‘I know for a fact that he didn’t like the Mets, he didn’t like the city and he was not a happy guy here.’

Church denied ever making such a statement, according to the Daily News in October, and again in November on MLB.com.

Meanwhile, again, in an in-depth report about the right-fielder, in last week’s Daily News, Church said:

“I never said it.  I have no clue where that came from.  I put a call in to make sure front office knew that was a bunch of bull.  I love New York - it’s where I want to finish my career.  I’m looking forward to putting my Mets uniform on.”

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

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on January 5, 2009 9:02 AM

My Christmas gift to myself showed up today. I probably would have had it last week had I not waited until Christmas Eve to place the order, but now I have a box to rip this week. I got it from Dave & Adam's mainly because the box was cheap as dirt and they had all those Holiday promotions going on. I felt bad not buying from the local shop, but I'll make a trip to the brick & mortar store later this week to show them some love. Here's what I got:

Forty-two bucks for a box was worth it to get a couple of autographs and hopefully a chunk off my want list. Packs are 5 bucks each at the shops, this way they're $2.33 each. Not too shabby. I'll be ripping this all week a few packs at a time for your viewing pleasure.

I picked up a couple of other cheap things to qualify for the free packs for spending $50. I actually would have bought this rack pack of 1985 Donruss even if I wasn't trying to spend more money. I love the design and I have very few cards from this set so why not? This pack has Ron Darling, Skeeter Barnes and Marty Barrett showing on top, with Lou Gehrig puzzle pieces on the back. I think I'm going to split this pack rip into three posts to keep everyone from overdosing on Timelines.


1991 Traded set for three bucks, how can you beat it? The Bagwell, Giambi and Ivan Rodriguez rookies would probably set you back a buck a piece if you bought 'em seperately. This will also cap off the '91 set I'm trying to build.

Here's my two free packs for spending a whole fifty bucks at one throw. As you can see there's a lovely holiday sticker on one of the packs. I was torn between these and three packs of Bowman Basketball. I decided the chance of me getting a decent framed card or an autograph was better than pulling an Al Horford rookie so I went with the Masterpieces even though I've got the set. I'm sure people will be begging me for my doubles once I open them anyway.

Not a bad little haul, eh? Look for the first two packs of Timelines to be ripped this evening.

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on January 5, 2009 9:01 AM

Filed under: Macworld, Portables, Apple History

Watch more Revver videos on AOL Video

Everyone in the Apple community is eager to see Phil Schiller deliver tomorrow's keynote address at Macworld Expo. While we're uncertain as to what he'll do, we know that he won't be leaping onto an inflatable mattress while holding a laptop. Because he's already done that.

At Macworld Expo '99 in New York City, Phil demonstrated a Tangerine iBook's wifi capabilities and accelerometer by falling from a significant height onto a small mattress below, thus ushering him into "The Demo Hall of Fame." It might not have been the Mother of All Demos, but still pretty cool. Way to take one for the team, Phil!

[Thanks to the folks at thinkingbricks for pointing this out]

TUAWPhil Schiller's death-defying stunt at MWNY '99 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Dave Caolo from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on January 5, 2009 8:00 AM

Whats going on with Twitter? First Fox News gets hacked, then Britney Spears. Is no one safe from this epidemic?

Well, yes, in fact — everyone who doesn't click on crazy emails that claim to be from Twitter but aren't. Twitter is the latest target of a "phishing" campaign — an attempt by hackers to gather usernames and passwords through deceptive means. Typically, the victim receives an email that directs them to a website where they're asked to log in. The website is controlled by hackers who then use the credentials to take over an account.

Just one question: Why bother? Online banking accounts have long been a target of phishers, since there's money to be made. But there's no money in Twitter. The service, which lets users post short updates to their friends, doesn't carry advertising, and hasn't figured out a way to charge people. Like Twitter itself, this hacking stunt is good entertainment, but not a clever business.

Seen a high-profile Twitter account hacked? Send it in. We'll keep a running list.

HACKED:

Fox News

Britney Spears

Rick Sanchez, CNN anchor:

Originally posted by Owen Thomas from Gawker, on January 5, 2009 7:31 AM

As you'd expect, the Journal editorial page is already coming up with a string of bogus insinuations about the Minnesota recount, all suggesting that the process has somehow big rigged in favor of Al Franken or even that there's some more Republican fantasy voter fraud involved. One point they don't mention though: the canvassing board, the outfit making all the key decisions has at least as many Republicans as Democrats, and may actually have more Republicans than Democrats. What's more almost every key decision has been made unanimously.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is an elected Democrat. He serves on the canvassing board automatically. For the rest he picked two Republican state Supreme Court Justices (justices appointed by Gov. Pawlenty (R)), one Independent judge appointed to the bench by former Gov. Jesse Ventura, and a fourth county judge who may be a Democrat or an Independent (we don't know because it was a non-partisan election).

Needless to say, the Journal doesn't mention this, but hints at it in this feeble excuse, claiming that the rest of the canvassing board has been "meek" in the face of Ritchie's "machinations."

Pretty pitiful, but standard fare from the Journal oped page.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 5, 2009 7:26 AM

Today is the opening day of the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, in Harbin, China. The festival lasts for one month, and features large ice and snow sculptures, ice lanterns, swimming in the icy Songhua River and more. The northern hemisphere is a hospitable place for ice festivals these days, so in that spirit, here is a collection of recent photographs of all things frozen, and some of the ways we live and play with ice. (34 photos total)

People visit an ice sculpture for the 25th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival at a park in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province December 23, 2008. The 25th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival will kicked off on January 5, 2009. Picture taken December 23, 2008. (REUTERS/Sheng Li)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from The Big Picture, on January 5, 2009 7:24 AM

Spurred on by the troubles at MOCA and other institutions, there’s a debate / discussion happening about museums and the practice of “deaccessioning,” or selling off art works in order to keep the doors open. Generally accepted practice is that it’s OK to sell off art if the proceeds are used to buy more art…not to cover ongoing operating expenses. This will be the topic of the year in art / museum land, because at the core of the discussion is the nature and role of the museum itself, and the relationship the museum has with the work it contains and the audience it serves.

Here are a few choice links and excerpts to get you up to speed.

Jori Finkel’s piece in the New York Times did the usual tennis-match back and forth on pros and cons, with the National Academy in New York as the ground to the debate’s figure…

Many museum trustees are themselves collectors and may have been tempted during the recent art-market boom to think of art as a commodity to be bought and sold at will. That attitude may explain why so many museum directors are using their trade group to build a strong firewall around the idea of a permanent collection. They are speaking not just to each other but to their own trustees.

I loved Berkeley professor Michael O’Hare’s take on the language around “deaccessioning.”

Museum people and art people like to call this deaccessioning, not selling, perhaps because the fine art world is so holy and refined and ineffable and generally ever so much more so than the rest of human enterprise that it just wouldn’t do to use a term so crude and trade-soiled. Gentlemen do not buy and sell, after all, any more than they write, paint, or sing; they have people to do that for them. I like to call it, um, selling, because it looks to me like exchanging a chattel for money, but someday I may acquire the polish and patina of a refined person and learn better manners.

Donn Zaretsky on his Art Law Blog on the fuzziness of institutional budgeting and higher-level goals:

Another question worth exploring is whether it’s sensible to draw such a sharp distinction between the acquisition of art, on the one hand, and other ways museums spend money, on the other. Take, for example, Whitechapel Gallery, only because it was just in the news earlier this week. It recently completed a $20 million renovation and expansion — a “desperately needed” makeover. “The added space will allow the gallery to remain open continuously, whereas before it had to close about 10 weeks a year when installing new art. Its educational space was too small to accommodate even an average-size school class, and the former library had no wheelchair access.” Is it not possible to see those things as every bit as important to the institution’s mission as the acquisition of additional artwork? Is keeping the museum open an extra 10 weeks a year not a good art-related reason? Does expanding space for education not count either? Why should we automatically assume that buying art always justifies a deaccessioning, but that no other use of proceeds — no matter how important to an institution’s mission — ever can?

Richard Lacayo of Time riffs on Zaretsky…

Zaretsky makes the best developed case I’ve seen for easing up the taboo on deaccessioning, and I might even be more inclined to agree with him were it not for one thing. If the profession didn’t discourage museums from using their collections as a piggy bank, I suspect a lot of them would be doing it more often, and not bothering with the hard work of fund raising. Zaretsky calls this a slippery slope argument, which it is, but one that I find compelling because in recent years we’ve seen a number of institutions already going down that slope.

And Tyler Green couldn’t disagree more with Lacayo and Zaretsky..

If an institution, such as the National Academy or someone else, can’t operate effectively enough to stay open, it should close. Then it should disperse its collection to non-profit institutions — to other museums. This way art collections held in a public trust remain held in a public trust. … The perpetuation of a failed institution isn’t what’s important: The art is. It’s imperative that organizations do what is best for the art, for the public, and for the legacy of the artists whose work is in the collection. Sometimes that means closing.

This is a debate worth watching; I’m still undecided on the issue.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on January 5, 2009 7:22 AM

Advice from Thelonious Monk.

(via

eliot shepard

)

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on January 5, 2009 7:20 AM

It's no secret that newspapers are in trouble. This condition has been worsening and becoming critical now that the economic crisis has gone from bad to worse. In an earlier post, I suggested that we support businesses that share our values whether local or global. With money is short supply, we must spend our dollars wisely. So why not buy a newspaper today! Take the New York Times, for example. Where else could you get such value for $1.50? Not to mention that it has been doing an amazing job covering the economy with daily stories explaining the arcane workings of the financial system and how integral it has become to our daily lives. If there's a war in the Middle East, the Times is there! One can always quibble about its coverage of this or that, but hands down it is delivering the goods on a daily basis about all sorts of things we would never know anything about if it weren't for them. Sure, you can read the online version and cobble together the news of what you need to know from the numerous sources available on the Internet, but the print version allows you to pop in and out of stories and to discover things you would otherwise know very little about. But that's not the point. Even if you don't care about what's going on in Outer Mongolia and who ends up being the coach of the New York Jets football team, supporting your newspaper of choice has become a civic duty. We need the Times and the Times needs us to come through for them. Lets get on the bailout bandwagon. For years, the Times has been running a series where they call attention to worthy people in need of help called "Help the Neediest." Well, now it's our turn!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on January 5, 2009 7:04 AM

This is the fifth annual selection of my favorite things I've linked to on kottke.org. This year's list includes games, photography, top-notch journalism, time-related material, architecture, design, and even politics, about 100 links in all. The format of the list is a bit different this year. Sprinkled amongst the usual high quality links are collections of links which fit into accidental categories that sprang up while going over the material, including my picks for the sites/blogs of the year. Enjoy.

Passage is a game that takes 5-minutes to play which possesses a poignancy that you wouldn't expect from such a simple game.

Beautiful slow-motion skateboarding with explosions. Directed by Spike Jonze. See also this video of slow-mo skateboarding tricks filmed with an ultra high resolution camera.

An extensive history of visual communication, from cave paintings on up to the present-day computer.

The NY Times published a stacked graph of movie box office receipts from 1986 to Feb 2008. More about stacked graphs.

Sites/blogs of the year: The growing cache of vintage photos from museums and other public institutions on The Commons project on Flickr barely edges out excellently edited superb photography of The Big Picture for the site of the year.

On the final episode of St. Elsewhere, it was revealed that an autistic child named Tommy Westphall had dreamt the whole show. Since St. Elsewhere had a number of connections to other shows, it turns out that a surprising number of other popular TV programs all took place in Tommy's mind too.

Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris article on Sabrina Harmon, one of the camera-wielding US soldiers at Abu Ghraib.

From The Onion: Pornography-Desensitized Populace Demands New Orifice To Look At and Researchers Discover Massive Asshole In Blogosphere.

Big Dog is a large robotic dog that can walk in snow and cannot be knocked down, even when kicked.

A 2104 messageboard about time travel reveals that you can't just go and kill Hitler whenever you'd like.

Maps of the Apollo 11 moon walks superimposed on a soccer pitch and a baseball diamond. They sure didn't walk very far.

This peeping shrubbery photo taken at a wedding by Mindy Meyers still makes me laugh.

David Attenborough narrates while two leopard slugs mate while hanging off of a tree branch.

An obituary recounting the almost unbelievable life of Charles Fawcett, actor, filmmaker, and adventurer.

Sites/blogs of the year, cont.: Backed by two huge and clueless media conglomerates, Hulu was never supposed to succeed but NBC and Fox managed to create a simple and compelling site for watching TV and movies online.

Matthew Dent's awesome designs for the new UK coinage.

Sentence Drawings and other literary visualizations from Stefanie Posavec.

2008 video for Something Good by The Utah Saints. Don't know why, but this makes me smile.

Elevators and stories about elevators, including an account of Nicholas White, who was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. Includes security camera footage of White's ordeal.

The interesting and extensively documented story behind that famous photo of Elvis Presley with Richard Nixon.

A map of all the streets in the lower 48 United States by Ben Fry.

An account of when Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator segment goes wrong and someone dies.

The financial mess of 2008: Early in the year before the full extent of the chaos was known, n+1 had a lengthy interview with a hedge fund manager and followed up with him a couple months later. This American Life aired two radio programs that did an excellent job of explaining what caused the crisis: The Giant Pool of Money and Another Frightening Show about the Economy. After much of the smoke had cleared, former bond salesman and current bestselling author Michael Lewis sums up what happened in The End of Wall Street's Boom.

City of Shadows, timelapse photos of people in St. Petersburg taken by Alexey Titarenko. Particularly this one.

Stunning photos of the electrified plume of the Chaitén volcano in Chile. Some bigger photos at The Big Picture.

John Resig ported the Processing visual programming language to JavaScript.

Photos of a wedding and then an earthquake in Sichuan, China.

A retrospective of the NYC restaurant Florent by Frank Bruni for the NY Times doubles as a history of Manhattan's ebbs and flows over the past 20 years.

US political election logos from 1960 to 2008.

Sites/blogs of the year, cont.: It technically launched in 2007, but this was the year that many people realized that Amazon's MP3 store finally made it easier and more convenient to search for and buy DRM-free music than getting it for free and illegally elsewhere (Bittorrent, etc.). And I haven't bought a single mp3 on iTunes since Amazon's MP3 store opened.

Unbeknownst to the family who hired him to renovate their house, architect Eric Clough hid a puzzle in their apartment that remained unsolved for more than a year.

Atul Gawande writes about itching in the New Yorker. Really, really interesting.

Urban prankster Remi Gaillard kicks soccer balls into all sorts of unlikely goals, such as garbage cans, drive-thru windows, and police station entrances. The AC/DC soundtrack makes it perfect.

The covers for the books in Volume III of Penguin's Great Ideas series, most notably the brilliant cover for The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

A classic text on the economics of POW camps in Europe during WWII.

A 1985 BBC documentary about the painter Francis Bacon. Entertaining and enlightening even if you don't care about painting.

Sports: Three 2008 sports happenings stick out for me. 1. The epic Federer/Nadal final at Wimbledon. It was almost 5 hours long (not including the rain delay) and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. 2. Usain Bolt winning both the 100m and 200m in world record time at the Beijing Olympics. Bolt celebrating so early before crossing the finish in the 100m was impressive but the margin of victory in the 200m was an astounding athletic feat. 3. The Michael Phelps / Milorad Cavic photo finish in the men's 100m butterfly final provoked much discussion and some of the only excitement on the way to Phelps winning a record eight golds at the Beijing games.

Christopher Hitchens writes about being waterboarded. Here's the video of his experience.

This Lego version of Stephen Hawking is uncanny.

A selection of thirty stunning satellite photos of the Earth that appear abstract.

David Carr recounts his time as a single parent and crackhead in Minneapolis.

Dorothy Gambrell documents a trip around the world, part of which happened aboard a cargo ship. Read from the bottom and keep clicking "Next Entries".

Things which aren't so much links as products:The Apple keyboard is the best keyboard ever made. RjDj is an iPhone app that samples sounds from your immediate environment and plays them back to you with music.

On June 19th, the Mars Phoenix Lander twittered that it had discovered evidence of ice on Mars.

Sites/blogs of the year, cont.: If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats showcases vintage photography in categories such as The Cool Hall of Fame, The Heretofore Unmentioned, and When Legends Gather.

Frédéric Bourdin is a French con man who made his way to the United States posing as an abducted teenager even though he was in his mid-20s at the time.

Brain researcher Jill Boyte Taylor tells the audience at TED about the time she had a massive stroke and how the experience informed her later research.

Bill Sizemore, a long-time observer of Pat Robertson's activities, pens a lengthy profile of the fundamentalist Christian for VQR.

Lenny "Nails" Dykstra, former Met and Philly, is faring well in the business world and remains highly entertaining.

Fantastic Contraption, an incredibly addictive Flash game where you build machines out of seemingly simple parts to solve increasingly difficult puzzles.

Switched at Birth tells the tale of two girls who were swapped for one another at the hospital and didn't find out more than 40 years later even though one of the mothers knew the whole time. See also The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar.

Sites/blogs of the year, cont.: Roger Ebert's blog demonstrates that he might be a better cultural commentator than film critic. Either way, he's never been better.

Some well-meaning kids show off their unintentionally hilarious science project posters.

Dyna Moe's excellent illustrated moments from Mad Men.

Merlin Mann wants to do Better.

Improv Everywhere used a Jumbotron, dozens of crazy fans, color programs, mascots, NBC sportscaster Jim Gray, and the Goodyear blimp to make a typical Little League game between the Lugnuts and Mudcats into The Best Game Ever.

Dan Hill explains extensively about the process for designing the web site for Monocle magazine.

Footage from a 1975 CBS News report about the final flight out of Da Nang near the end of the Vietnam War.

The literal version of A Ha's Take On Me video.

R.I.P. David Foster Wallace: Wallace gave what I think is his final interview to the WSJ's Christopher Farley about Wallace's book about John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. After Wallace died, I collected a number of online remembrances. David Lipsky's The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace for Rolling Stone and McSweeney's reprint of a 1987 profile of Wallace both capture who Wallace was and how much he gave of himself to his family, friends, and the world.

Test your visual geometric accuracy with the eyeballing game.

Michael Pollan's letter to the next President of the United States: "we need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine".

Filip Dujardin stitches together parts of different photographs of buildings to make pictures of new and sometimes crazy & impossible buildings. This one of those "I wish I'd thought of that" projects.

A segment from the This American Life TV show about a Chicago restaurant called The Wieners Circle which turns into a sexually and racially charged free-for-all on weekend nights, much to the delight of the patrons, the heavily tipped workers, and the owners.

Sites/blogs of the year, cont.: The Art of the Title blog obsesses over the increasingly elaborate and celebrated craft of movie title sequences.

Steward Brand posted the entirety of How Buildings Learn online. The 1997 BBC documentary was based on Brand's excellent book of the same name.

Charles Mann on the Earth's soil for National Geographic Magazine.

Google's archive of millions of photographs from Life magazine.

Barack Obama (and the other guy): Since meeting him more than four years ago, photojournalist Callie Shell has taken a number of great photos of Obama. Just after the election, Newsweek posted an epic seven-part series about the Obama, McCain, and Clinton campaigns resulting from a year of behind-the-scenes reporting. David Remnick weighed in on Obama and race in America. And a March 2008 interview with rapper DMX reveals that he has no idea who Barack Obama is. "The nigga's name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain't his fuckin' name."

An exploration of the link between the 2008 Presidential election results and the rich loamy soils left by the shallow seas of the late Cretaceous period some 85 million years ago.

The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway.

Video showing how to build an igloo, a must-see for those interested in architecture.

William Langewiesche tells the story of the midair collision in Brazil that resulted in the deaths of 154 people on Gol Flight 1907 in September 2006.

Sites/blogs of the year, cont.: I couldn't leave this one off. Christoph Niemann doesn't post to his NY Times blog very often, but each entry is a gem. I love his kids' obsession with the NYC subway.

Vanity Fair constructs several menus for George W. Bush's final days in the White House. Includes such dishes as Gored hearts of Palm Beach, with hanging chad; Deep-fried Halliburton, in Saddam Hoisin Sauce; and New Orleans flounder.

If you're still information deprived after all that, you can check out the lists from 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004.

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 5, 2009 6:49 AM

A short letter from Steve Jobs reveals that he's receiving treatment for a health problem and will continue as Apple's CEO in full capacity for the foreseeable future. I love the last line:

So now I've said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 5, 2009 6:33 AM

Since my earlier post was more arch and cryptic, I wanted to expand on what seems to be the problem with the Obama stimulus plan, as revealed in the current round of leaks. I would point to three key issues. And I'm going to base these three on the premise -- which is by no means clear -- that the business tax cuts included in the bill aren't particularly egregious on their own terms but rather ones that make some economic sense in the situation we find ourselves in.

So with that, the three.

First, there seems to be a decent consensus that the tax rebates from last year had little stimulative effect on the economy. So while it's a good thing for families on the margin to get another $500 or $1,000, it's not clear how much bang for the buck you'll get for the money spent in terms of creating demand/consumer spending in the economy.

Second, the amount of the bill that comes in tax cuts leaves the spending side of the bill really small -- judged by the standards of what most economists seem to think is necessary, like $400 billion over two years. So it's not just the logic of the tax cuts on their own merits but the degree they're beggaring the spending side of the ledger. (A lot of this just comes down to whether or not you buy into the Keynesian premise of the whole exercise, of course. But let me note for the record that there does seem to be a decent rationale for significant tax cuts in year one of the bill, since you need to get money into the economy rapidly and there may not be enough projects that can be started quickly. That leaves the question of why so much of it is also included in year two. I fear that may be the 'tell'.)

Third, and in some ways this is the most troubling. It would be far better on many counts to bring in substantial Republican support for this bill. And I don't just mean that in the BS sense in which President Bush usually meant it, which was to say essentially, 'Of course we'd like you to vote for exactly what we want. More the merrier. But if you don't want to vote for our ideal bill, tough luck.' No, I think there's a real logic in not going the 51 votes model President Bush followed. But Obama seems to be telegraphing that to a significant degree the fundamental structure of the legislation is being built around accommodating the concerns of Republicans -- members of a political party that are about as unpopular and weak as you can get at the moment. And that sounds a lot like he's negotiating with himself, something that will embolden opposition and invite Republicans to up the ante even further.

These are just leaks. We don't have details. Some are speculating that this is part of some global head fake by the Obama folks. I hope so. But put me down as very skeptical.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 5, 2009 6:30 AM

Vital Shake Shack minutiae: The heat lamps are out but they are not on. We repeat: heat lamps present, not yet fired up. And this: "It appears that the Shake Shack is now on a weekly custard schedule. I don't know how I feel about this." [Blondie and Brownie]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on January 5, 2009 5:41 AM

Filed under: Apple Corporate

Who says Apple doesn't listen? More to the point, who says Steve Jobs isn't aware of the rumors? Earlier today Apple posted a letter from CEO Steve Jobs indicating precisely what has been causing his weight loss (a hormone imbalance, apparently treatable) and why he won't be at the keynote (he's spending time with his family).

Steve's no dummy. I applaud him taking this time to be with his family, and I'm personally quite happy to hear his weight loss appears to stem from a rather strange but reversible affair. While the keynote will be odd without him, let's hope this puts a little water on the doomsayers out there. Steve's not going anywhere just yet -- so everyone relax this week and enjoy the spectacle at Macworld.

TUAWSteve's OK, everyone relax originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Victor Agreda, Jr. from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on January 5, 2009 4:48 AM

In an Op-Ed piece for the NY Times called The End of the Financial World as We Know It, Michael Lewis and David Einhorn explore what checks and balances should have been in place to prevent the US financial markets from running themselves into the ground in search of perpetual short-term gain.

Our financial catastrophe, like Bernard Madoff's pyramid scheme, required all sorts of important, plugged-in people to sacrifice our collective long-term interests for short-term gain. The pressure to do this in today's financial markets is immense. Obviously the greater the market pressure to excel in the short term, the greater the need for pressure from outside the market to consider the longer term. But that's the problem: there is no longer any serious pressure from outside the market. The tyranny of the short term has extended itself with frightening ease into the entities that were meant to, one way or another, discipline Wall Street, and force it to consider its enlightened self-interest.

Here's part 2, in which Lewis and Einhorn propose some possible remedies.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 5, 2009 4:30 AM

Nine months after the Cheyenne Diner was reported as saved by Mike O'Connell, it still awaits a pricey move to Red Hook, a move that may not be a sure thing anymore: "...plans to move the more-than-100-foot-long structure in two parts dissolved after it proved too large to travel across the Manhattan Bridge, leaving a final option of floating it by barge through the New York Harbor to its destination in Red Hook." If that proves too expensive, O'Connell says he may just salvage some parts of the structure while leaving the rest. [Chelsea Now]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on January 5, 2009 4:14 AM

>>INTERSPECIES WEEK<<

Hippo and Tortoise, this aggression will not stand. When you lie next to each other, and kiss each other, and lay your heads on each other, and do whatever else you sick fucks do that they can't include in children's books, it is like you are mugging me, but leaving my wallet and just taking my dignity. STOP BEING SUCH A STUDY IN CONTRASTS. I can tell you think this is funny, Hippo. You're looking at me like it is fucking hilarious. But Tortoise, I am particularly disappointed in you. You are 130 years old, clearly you should know better by now. You've only got another 50 years to get your act together. These pictures are everywhere. Think of what your great great great great great great grandchildren will say to you when they see them. For shame, Tortoise.

Originally posted by bza from Fuck You, Penguin, on January 5, 2009 4:10 AM

• NYT: Obama Must Make Transit a Priority
• No Mention of Transit in Obama Address on Economic Recovery (CAHSR Blog via Streetsblog.net)
  
• Steel Industry Pushing for Transit Projects in Stimulus Package (TPM)
  
• TLC Wants Taxi-Mounted Cams to Improve Safety of Cabbie Driving (News)
• Street Memorial Project Visits Sites Where Cyclists Were Killed in 2008 (News)
• NYT Recaps Kent Ave Bike Lane Saga
• City Agencies Ordered to Cut Car Fleets By 700 Vehicles (NYT)
  
• Brennan Center: Albany as Dysfunctional as Ever (News)
• Raise Gas Tax, Says Federal Commission (NY1)
• SF Begins to Study Congestion Pricing Options (NYT)

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on January 5, 2009 4:04 AM

Here's a post on the WSJ's econ blog that you'll want to read just to get a better sense of the backstory and scope of the mess we're in.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on January 5, 2009 3:40 AM

-Photo by Getty Images-
It's time!

President-elect Barack Obama's family have packed their things and moved from their hometown of Chicago to Washington, D.C.

Michelle Obama and her two girls, Malia and Sasha, checked in to the Hay-Adams Hotel on Saturday. The Big Cheese was scheduled to arrive on Sunday.

The future first family will stay at the hotel temporarily, then they'll relocate to the Blair House on Jan. 15, before making the big move into the White House Jan. 20.

Winds of change! It's a good thing.

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from iVillage - Daily Blabber, on January 5, 2009 2:51 AM

It's getting worse:

More counterfeiters are using today's ink-jet printers, computers and copiers to make money that's just good enough to pass, he said, even though their product is awful.

In the past, he said, the best American counterfeiters were skilled printers who used heavy offset presses to turn out decent 20s, 50s and 100s. Now that kind of work is rare and almost all comes from abroad.

[...]

Green pointed to a picture hanging in his downtown conference room. It's a photo from a 1980s Lenexa case that involved heavy printing presses and about 2 million fake dollars.

"That's what we used to see," he boomed. "That's the kind of case we used to make."

Agents discovered then that someone had purchased such equipment and a special kind of paper and it all went to the Lenexa shop. Then the agents secretly went in there with a court order and planted a tiny video camera on a Playboy calendar.

They streamed video 24/7 for days, stormed in with guns drawn and sent bad guys to federal prison.

Green's voice sank as he described today's sad-sack counterfeiters.

These people call up pictures of bills on their computers, buy paper at an office supply store and print out a few bills. They cut the bills apart, go into a store or bar and pass one or two.

Many offenders are involved with drugs, he said, often methamphetamine. If they get caught, so little money is involved that federal prosecutors won't take the case.

It's interesting. Counterfeits are becoming easier to detect while people are becoming less skilled in detecting it:

Part of the problem, Green said, is that the government has changed the money so much to foil counterfeiting. With all the new bills out there, citizens and even many police officers don't know what they're supposed to look like.

Moreover, many people see paper money less because they use credit or debit cards.

The result: Ink-jet counterfeiting accounted for 60 percent of $103 million in fake money removed from circulation from October 2007 to August 2008, the Secret Service reports. In 1995, the figure was less than 1 percent.

Another article on the topic.

Originally posted by schneier from Schneier on Security, on January 5, 2009 2:34 AM

Via my work with 20x200 and Hey Hot Shot I see the portfolios of hundreds if not thousands of photographers, and I'm struck by is how very few photographs—even photographs by very good photographers—are truly memorable. Juliana Beasley has a knack for taking memorable photographs often of subjects who live in the underbelly of society (drunks, strippers, the insane, and the unloved). When I first encountered Beasley's project "Rockaways" a few years ago I think my impression was that the images were striking but that the work showed little compassion for their subjects. But over time the portraits of broken men and hard weary women photographed in harsh light worked their way into my subconscious. I realized my original assessment was completely off base. I mistook her bracing clarity for sarcasm. Many of the images are simply unforgettable. They stick with you. I've since been impressed by the range of Beasley's work and her ability to tell stories most people don't want to hear. She recently started a blog and I'll definitely be following along.

Note: The image above is from Beasley's series on Cambodian land mine victims, it came to mind today while watching this tangentially related but equally courageous story on Cambodian Sex Slavery by Nicholas Kristoff in today's New York Times.

Filed under: photographers
Tags: american photographer, cambodia, photography, rockaways

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Heading East, on January 4, 2009 9:12 PM

I am not sorry to see 2008 go. I've been battling vertigo/ dizziness now since May, and it has affected everything I do. More to the point, it's affected everything I don't do. I was unable to go to the TBA festival this year for the first year since its inception; I was unable to get to the Polish Festival for only the second time in 11 years (the other time I didn't make it was because I was actually in Europe at the time); I don't feel comfortable in restaurants (I've probably been out to eat, oh, maybe 10-15 times since May); I have had some periods where I couldn't even get to work (even now, I avoid certain spaces, and would rather not leave my desk); I've been unable to exercise for up to months at a time; the list goes on.  

In September and October specifically, it would not be uncommon for me to start dreading the work week on a Sunday night, thinking of the Anne Sexton line, "I am tired of being brave." Or getting American Music Club's "Now You're Defeated" in my head for days at a time. If you've spent your whole life walking confidently from Point A to Point B, without ever fearing you'll pass out or lose your balance and fall over, you have no idea how lucky you are. The world becomes a very fragile thing when you can no longer take such simple things for granted.

The good news is that I seem to slowly be getting better. I'm able to go on walks now and go to stores. I have gone out to dinner a few times over the past six weeks, with mixed success. I still have not-so-great episodes, but my collective average is getting better. (I can thank the infinite patience and wisdom of Dr. Margaret Rose Havlik, my naturopath, for that.)

The other news is that, boy howdy, do you read a lot more when you can't really get out of the house. This year, I've read 59 books and 17,864 pages, which is 13 more books and 1,200 more pages than last year. And literature, as always, is a consoling friend.

Rather than dawdling any longer on my dizziness, I'll switch to my year in reading. I usually do a top 10 list of books at the end of the year, but I've noticed some similarities among my favorite books and decided to group them that way instead.

Marie Antoinette: A Journey by Antonia Fraser

The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir

These were my two favorite books of the year, which is saying something considering I'm mostly a fiction reader. Marie Antoinette was an absolute heartbreaker. Anyone who quotes her as saying "Let them eat cake" in my presence is going to get an earful.

This Is London - Edward R. Murrow

1 Dead in Attic - Chris Rose

These books were eerily similar. The Murrow book was a compilation of transcripts from his radio show. Rose's book was mostly a compilation of his columns in the Times-Picayune about the physical, emotional and psychological damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath. While Rose's book is much more personal, both books urgently try to communicate the seriousness of their situations to their fellow Americans. Both were really powerful.

The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor (not the actress)

Gaglow by Esther Freud

These books had a peculiarly feminine aspect to them, and featured characters that I identified with uncomfortably. The Emperor's Children is about what I'd call the Seinfeld generation - those of us who became adults in the comfortable, prosperous 90s. (Of course, the book ends with Sept. 11.) In Blaming, a woman's husband dies on a cruise ship, and a stranger helps the woman sort out the logistical mess and return to England. The question is, what obligation does the wife have to the stranger? Must she be friends with her out of gratitude, when she really doesn't like her very much? This was a fascinating, subtle psychological portrait. And in Gaglow, Esther Freud (daughter of Lucian, great-granddaughter of Sigmund) examines, as she does so well, the relationships between mothers and daughters.

Cover Her Face by P.D. James

A Mind for Murder by P.D. James

Unnatural Causes by P.D. James

The Black Tower by P.D. James

When hearing a list of some of the British mystery writers I hadn't yet tried, it was my friend Becca who uttered to me the fateful words, "You must try P.D. James!" (Also thanks to Becca who, because I was not well enough to go to tea, kindly brought her tea service to me, if I may paraphrase Dickinson.) What on earth took me so long? James' books feature Inspector Adam Dalgleish and are the classic British country house whodunnits. They all start off with a group of about 10 people that are all somehow cloistered together (they work in the same clinic, perhaps, or live in the same house), and some of them will end up dead while you try and figure out which one of them is the murderer. I'm already sad for the day when I've read all the P.D. James that exist.

Rumpole at the Bailey by John Mortimer

The Trials of Rumpole by John Mortimer

Rumpole's Return by John Mortimer

I try not to repeat an author in a year, but with James and Mortimer, I couldn't help myself. Rumpole is witty, skeptical and takes to quoting Wordsworth in a pinch, but instead of ascending the career ladder, he prefers to remain a defense attorney to the criminals of London. It's not that he enjoys their company so much as he understands fallibility (the British do that so well), and believes that everyone is entitled to a good defense. "There but by the grace of God goes Rumpole," he says of his clients.

There have been a few other books that I just loved: Oliver Twist (I thought it would be a chore, not a page-turner); The Comedians (even a lesser Graham Greene book has more to say about the world and humanity than most other books); and The Night Manager, another exquisitely precise character portrait disguised as a spy thriller by John Le Carre.

Oddly enough, my new year's resolution is to read less this year, because that would mean more time watching movies, playing with my cat and, hopefully, getting out in the world, if my health is willing.

I wish everyone else a happy, healthy and book-filled 2009!

Originally posted by Valarie Smith from Crazed Teacups, on January 4, 2009 4:03 PM

Yuichi Hibi moved to New York from Japan in 1987, when he was 22. Walking the streets from midnight to dawn, he captured these images.

(via

caroline

)

Originally posted by finn from Modcult, on January 4, 2009 2:24 PM

A New York Times article from this week highlights some of the challenges of the bike shops these days. I recently posted a call to the Hugga’ community to get out there and support your local shops. The article provides more insight into some of the struggles. The credit pinch certainly isn’t helping.

What’s hurting the Local Bike Shops?:

• Inventory costs
• Bad assumptions on the size of the Commuter market
• Tightened wallets
• Low gas prices (doh!)

Originally posted by Andrew Martin from Bike Hugger, on January 4, 2009 9:26 AM

William Safire on the difference between profanities, obscenities, expletives, and vulgarities, in the context of everyone’s favorite foul-mouthed Illinois governor.

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Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on January 4, 2009 9:19 AM

Bill Richardson has announced that he is withdrawing his nomination to be President-Elect Obama's Commerce Secretary, due to an investigation of a political donor who has done business with the state of New Mexico, leaving the Obama cabinet-in-waiting now short by one member.

"Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact," Richardson told Andrea Mitchell. "But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process."

The last month has been been a rough time for the Democrats, with them becoming mired in ethics scandals before they even get to officially take control of the government.

Late Update: Barack Obama and Bill Richardson have released statements, both available after the jump.

Obama's statement:

It is with deep regret that I accept Governor Bill Richardson's decision to withdraw his name for nomination as the next Secretary of Commerce.Governor Richardson is an outstanding public servant and would have brought to the job of Commerce Secretary and our economic team great insights accumulated through an extraordinary career in federal and state office. It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he has removed himself as a candidate for the Cabinet in order to avoid any delay in filling this important economic post at this critical time. Although we must move quickly to fill the void left by Governor Richardson's decision, I look forward to his future service to our country and in my administration.

Richardson's statement:

For nearly three decades, I have been honored to serve my state and our nation in Congress, at the U.N., as Secretary of Energy and as governor. So when the President-elect asked me to serve as Secretary of Commerce, I felt a duty to answer the call.I felt that duty particularly because America is facing such extraordinary economic challenges. The Department of Commerce must play an important role in solving them by helping to grow the new jobs and businesses America so badly needs.

It is also because of that sense of urgency about the work of the Commerce Department that I have asked the President-elect not to move forward with my nomination at this time.I do so with great sorrow. But a pending investigation of a company that has done business with New Mexico state government promises to extend for several weeks or, perhaps, even months.

Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact. But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process.Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing, I could not in good conscience ask the President-elect and his Administration to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done.

So, for now, I will remain in the job I love, Governor of New Mexico, and will continue to work every day, with Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish, to make a positive difference in the lives of New Mexicans. I believe she will be a terrific governor in the future.I appreciate the confidence President-elect Obama has shown in me, and value our friendship and working partnership. I told him that I am eager to serve in the future in any way he deems useful. And like all Americans, I pray for his success and the success of our beloved country.

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on January 4, 2009 8:36 AM

Sunday's New York Daily News has a nice little profile of former Met Anthony Young.

AY is, of course, part of Met lore and baseball history for his 27-game losing streak in the early '90's.

Yet for those of us who watched this record unfold, AY is still registered in our collective mind as a good pitcher. The guy could throw, he was just ridiculously unlucky. AY was also ridiculously gracious throughout and after the streak. He never melted down or blamed anyone else. And it's great to see him years later, at peace with himself and his career.

AY also has a special bit of history in Loge13. The day he ended his streak - July 24, 1993 - was also the day our own Ron Hunt caught a foul ball IN HIS ARMPIT  in Loge13. It is still one of the greatest catches - dare I say one of the greatest feats of athletic prowess - I have ever witnessed. The man had a cup of ice cream in one hand and a glass of Jack Daniels in the other and still caught the Benito Santiago foul ball. Try that, Endy Chavez!

Someday, Ron or I will write up that entire play for posterity. For now, here is the AY article:

Fans sent Anthony Young all sorts of good-luck talismans while he was enduring his infamous losing streak - four-leaf clovers, horseshoes, rabbit's feet. One woman gave him her treasured $2 bill. Psychics called the Met offices offering aid. Letters of encouragement poured in from folks who sat in the bleachers as well as Hall of Famer Bob Feller.

More than 15 years after his record 27-game losing streak ended, Young still holds onto his memories of "what I'm known for," as he puts it. He still has most of the trinkets, stored in his attic in the same box he kept them in at his locker at Shea. Recently, he says, he poked around in the box and watched several old videotapes - his appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and a meeting he had with the family of Cliff Curtis, the pitcher who set the record from 1910-11 that Young eventually broke.

Nowadays, deep into a coaching career, Young gets occasional reminders from the kids on the five select teams he oversees. "Once they find out you were in the big leagues, they 'Google' you," Young says. "Then they say, 'Coach, you're known for a losing streak!'"

Young, who will be 43 later this month, had a 9-5 job at a chemical plant for eight years after his playing career ended in 1996. But he wanted to coach and now runs five different teams of kids from 9-13 years old in Houston, his hometown. He also gives private pitching lessons as part of his own company, AY Enterprise.

"It's a big business now and there's a lot of competition," Young says. Young says his teams have played tournaments against teams coached by ex-players such as Charlie Hayes, Chuck McElroy and Eric Anthony.

"Life is good," Young adds. "I'm a grandfather. It's been a pleasure watching my kids grow up and I'm keeping busy with baseball."

Young, who is also a regular at Met fantasy camps, knows that people will forever remember him as the promising pitcher who dropped 27 consecutive decisions from May 6, 1992 to July 24, 1993 - he's gone to memorabilia shows where people want him to acknowledge the streak next to his autograph. But sometimes he wishes everyone also remembers that he didn't pitch that poorly during the streak - managers don't keep giving you the ball if you're getting clobbered every time you pitch.

"I got a bad rap on that," Young says of the streak, in which he had a 4.36 ERA. "I always said I didn't feel like I was pitching badly. It just happened to happen to me. I don't feel like I deserve it, but I'm known for it. It was an 82-year-old record and it might be 82 more years before it's broken.

"Everything that could happen, happened. It was just destiny, I guess."

At one point during the streak, Young converted 12 straight save chances and threw 23.2 straight scoreless innings subbing for closer John Franco. He was 0-14 as a starter and 0-13 as a reliever.

It all ended on July 28, 1993 when the Mets scored twice in the bottom of the ninth against the Marlins. Young had entered at the top of the inning and allowed a tie-breaking unearned run after a Todd Hundley throwing error.

A few weeks later, Young flew to Los Angeles to be on The Tonight Show. While mired in the streak, he had been prime monologue material for Leno and when they met, Leno offered the chance for comic retribution, telling Young, "You can make fun of my chin if you want to."

"It was a lot of fun," Young says.

While the end of the streak offered relief, it is not nearly Young's favorite moment of his six-year career with the Mets, Cubs and Astros. That would be his debut against the Cubs on Aug. 5, 1991 when he relieved Pete Schourek with the bases loaded in the seventh and got Shawon Dunston to ground out to end the inning.

"That," says Young, "is one of the best memories of my life."

Originally posted by Kingman from Loge 13, on January 4, 2009 6:53 AM