randomwalks/dj

North Market in Columbus, Ohio. Creative Commons/Flickr photo by TheeErin.

By Kelly Ferry

A food revolution is afoot in the downtowns of Ohio, and if you’re lucky, it’s marching your way. Our own farmers market in Kent, Ohio opened two weeks earlier this year and has doubled in size over the last three years. Some restaurants in town are considering sourcing local foods for menu specials, and new entrepreneurs are filling storefronts with the help, in part, from Kent’s branch of the Main Street Ohio program.

Earlier this month, I attended the Nourishing Downtown event in Southwest Ohio. Hosted by the nonprofit Heritage Ohio and held for the directors and volunteers of its Main Street Ohio initiative, this training session focused on building a local food economy in downtowns across the state. A statewide revitalization organization, Heritage Ohio seeks new strategies to help communities strengthen their economic base through a grassroots community-based approach.

Leslie Schaller, of the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet), presented an overview the role ACEnet plays in creating and supporting a viable food economy model in Athens, OH. “Commerce is the recipe for a successful food economy, and the ingredients are farmers markets, cafés and restaurants, entertainment districts, pubs, bakeries, ethnic groceries, specialty and natural food stores and more,” said Schaller.

Injecting capital into small businesses and connecting startups with local producers and consumers can help build a thriving local economy and keep money cycling within that community. Restaurants enrich the local scene by purchasing from area farmers and food producers. They deepen the connection by hiring local musicians to perform, and dedicating areas of their establishments to gallery space showcasing local artists. They can also host civic events and local product-themed events, like Athens does with its Ohio Brew Week Festival, which brings visitors from all over to experience Ohio’s fine craft beers and by extension, area foods, and talent.

Central to a thriving downtown food economy is the open-air farmers market. The market can grow stronger by finding ways to work with the other businesses in the downtown district rather than directly competing with them. Schaller mentioned that there’s a conundrum in the rising demand for farmers markets: a shortage of farmers. ACEnet helps establish small markets in targeted areas to support one or two farmers. The market supplements consumer demand for fresh produce with community-garden growers and small-market or backyard gardeners.

David Wible, director of the North Market in Columbus, OH, outlined the structure and operation of Columbus’s open-air market, a community landmark that’s become a destination experience for residents of Columbus and surrounding areas. This indoor/outdoor market is open four days a week and provides an affordable retail outlet for farmers, artists, artisanal food producers and purveyors, and the growing customer base that supports them. The market “particularly benefits women, minorities and immigrants who are starting small retail operations in the low-rent market, with many self-financed up to 80%,” said Wible. That’s a safe way to grow a business with lower overhead and a built-in marketing plan the owner can plug into: the market hosts festivals several times a year to help generate traffic.

“The idea is to grow the business organically a little bit each year,” Wible explained.

Brian Raison of Miami Valley Grown, OSU extension in Montgomery County, OH, prompted some good post-event dialog by requesting that everyone in attendance make a point of talking to two people every day about local foods. He said that the “best ideas come from people coming together to have a conversation, preferably while sharing a meal made with local foods.”

Also presenting were entrepreneurs and farmers showcasing how to run a profitable and sustainable business on a local scale. Mike Kunzer of the Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland, OH, shared how the popular microbrewery has built a strong brand by focusing on product quality. Great Lakes Brewing sources some recipe ingredients locally, and the company implements many reducing, recycling, and reusing initiatives in their brewery and in the restaurant. Its non-profit Burning River Foundation provides education and resources to support a number of local environmental and sustainability efforts. Great Lakes is choosing not to grow into a national brand, however, because it would have to pasteurize in order to go across state lines, which the brewmasters believe would dilute the flavor and their reputation.

Dan Kremer, owner and farmer of the E.A.T. Food for Life Farm in Yorkshire, OH, talked about his pastured organic meat and dairy operation. He said his driving philosophy is that good food is the best medicine, and his favorite words were “family, farm, faith, facts, food, flavor, favor, fun and fortune.” Then he laughed and told us that his son said, “Dad, there you go using all those ‘F’ words again.”

It was all delicious food for thought, and I’m excited to have heard so many great ideas and stories of growth already happening in the downtowns of Ohio. When I asked him what comes next, Jeff Seigler of Heritage Ohio said that participants left with a number of tools to build connections between area farmers and downtown. Readers who want to know more can check out the event slides and presentations available on the Heritage Ohio Blog.

Kelly Ferry is a writing and design consultant in Northeast Ohio where she also writes about food, gardening at Her Able Hands.

Originally posted by Guest from The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing., on April 25, 2009 11:40 AM

[Image: "People wear surgical masks as a precaution against infection inside a subway in Mexico City, Friday, April 24, 2009." Photo by AP Photo/Marco Ugarte].

1) In his under-appreciated novel Super-Cannes, easily amongst his best, J.G. Ballard explored the psychological, sexual, and even epidemiological implications of landscape design. This is "the secret life of the business park," Ballard writes.
At one point the book's narrator is speaking with the corporate director of Eden-Olympia, a planned live/work community in southern France. The director somewhat off-handedly refers to medical research that the narrator's own wife, a doctor, has been performing: "She's running a new computer model," the director says, "tracing the spread of nasal viruses across Eden-Olympia. She has a hunch that if people moved their chairs a further eighteen inches apart they'd stop the infectious vectors in their tracks."
Perfectly calibrated down to the inch – or perhaps the millimeter – modern space itself becomes a kind of medical regime, its bare white rooms an antiviral treatment that we mistake for interior design.
Just as our city streets are wide enough to accommodate the turning radius of a specific class of passenger vehicle, our office cubicles, kindergarten playrooms, courts of law, and university lecture halls could be measured against the infectious vectors of specific pathogens.
In the geometry of objects around us are the outer infectious edges of diseases we no longer suffer from; we have literally designed them out of modern space, denying their ability to spread.

2) You go to the Salone del Mobile next year in Milan and discover that I've somehow released a new line of furniture. Each piece varies just slightly from the rest, in that their measurements have been dictated not by human comfort, international rates of shipment, or even by industrial timber specifications, but by the distances medically necessary to maintain between yourself and others in order to avoid respiratory infections.
The common flu is now a dining table measured exactly against the reach of sneezes; SARS is a cubicle lined with an industrial felt that absorbs all coughs; pneumonia is a bar stool, hand-crafted from white pine, with a circumference of rails to prevent people getting too close.

3) The recent outbreak of swine flu in and around Mexico City and the U.S. border region, is "suspected of killing at least 60 people," the BBC reports. In fact, the outbreak "has the potential to become a pandemic," according to Margaret Chan, current director of the World Health Organization.
Chan has "confirmed the virus was an animal strain – a mixture of swine, human and avian flu viruses," which the BBC points out "is a classic 're-assortment' – a combination feared most by those watching for the flu pandemic."

[Image: Like the beginning of a zombie horror film, we read – via Twitter – "SWINE FLU SPREADING, CANNOT BE CONTAINED" (via @alexismadrigal)].

It's interesting to note, however, that swine flu, unsurprisingly, comes from "close contact with pigs" – that is, spatial proximity between humans and their livestock.
Swine flu, we could say, is a spatial problem – an epiphenomenon of landscape.
I'm reminded here of a point made recently by geographer Javier Arbona. Referring to the increasingly popular and somewhat utopian idea that, in the sustainable cities of tomorrow, agriculture will have returned to its rightful place in the city center, Arbona asks: "Did everyone think that so much lushness and farming envisioned in the city aren’t going to open up new Pandora’s boxes of infectious diseases and sanitation problems as we come into contact with more manure, more bacteria, and more wild animals that we urbanites are not at all 'naturalized' to?"
It's an important question. After all, it's incredibly easy, reading about sustainable cities, urban agriculture, and even the locavore movement, to conclude that chickens, pigs, cows, etc., have all been removed from the urban fabric as part of a profiteering move by Tyson and Perdue.
But there were very real epidemiological reasons for taking agriculture out of the city; finding a new place for urban agriculture will thus not only require very intense new spatial codes, it will demand constant vigilance in researching and developing inoculations. Few people want to see burning piles of livestock in Times Square or Griffith Park, let alone piles of human corpses infected with H5N1.
Indeed, one of the most prevalent, if mundane, reasons why avian flu has become a "global threat" to humankind, as Mike Davis refers to it in his book Monster At Our Door, is space: it sounds like a joke, but people are living too close to their chickens (or their pigeons, as the case may be).
Avian flu, foot-and-mouth disease, swine flu: if these are spatially activated, so to speak, and spread through certain unrecommended proximities between humans and animals, then urban design's medical undergirding is again revealed.
The space around you is no mere stylization; it is a strategy of containment.
The modern city would thus be a place to live – but also a functioning medical instrument.

[Image: From "Change of Heart: Rethinking the Prescriptive Medical Environment" by Marina Nicollier].

4) This brings to mind Marina Nicollier's final thesis project at Rice University, wherein she explored the medical effects of architectural design.
Part of her project dealt with the history of sanitarium architecture and, from there, the health implications of modern architecture. She wrote:

Popular ideas about what constitutes a healthy environment gave rise to many of the components that became the formal trademarks of modernism – the flat roof was devised as a means to provide additional sunning surfaces for tubercular patients; while the deep verandas, wide private balconies, and covered corridors served as organizational tools to isolate contagious patients from the general staff.

In other words, at its origins, modern architecture was a kind of medical prescription – not a pill you swallowed but an environment you surrounded yourself with.
Nicollier continues:

Visits to these establishments were prescribed, as were the conditions and durations of the exposures themselves. Today, of course, there is ongoing research to determine how and to what extent environmental factors such as temperature, natural and artificial light, and sound affect our health, and despite there having been some interesting conclusions, it is still an area of research that requires more investigation and exploratory trials.

This idea, of controlled exposure to specific architectural forms, makes the equation between built space and medical treatment explicit.
How, then, might we expand and re-apply this research to whole cities in an era of swine flu and SARS?

[Image: Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin for Paris].

5) The medical aspects of utopia seem under-explored in contemporary urban literature. Here, utopia could be retheorized as the city where no one gets sick. Through microbe-resistant building materials and a precisely measured anti-contagious spatiality, perhaps, your metropolis might even cure you.
Utopia becomes a hospital ward the size and shape of a city.
Perhaps BLDGBLOG should sponsor a new urban design competition in which only medical doctors can participate. Design your vision of the healthy city, these doctors will be told; what urban forms will result?
Briefly, I'm reminded of BLDGBLOG's 2006 interview with Mike Davis. Referring, again, to his book Monster At Our Door and its exploration of biosecurity, I asked Davis: "What would a biosecure world actually look like, on the level of architecture and urban design? (...) Do you see any evidence that the medical profession is being architecturally empowered, so to speak, influencing the design of 'disease-free' public spaces?"
Davis replied that this was "exactly how Victorian social control over the slums was defined as a kind of hygienic project – or in the same way that urban segregation was justified in colonial cities as a problem of sanitation. Everywhere these discourses reinforce one another."
Further:

Davis: Just as the Victorian middle classes could not escape the diseases of the slums, neither will the rich, bunkered down in their country clubs or inside gated communities. The whole obsession now is that avian flu will be brought into the country by –

BLDGBLOG: A Mexican!

Davis: Exactly: it’ll be smuggled over the border – which is absurd. This ongoing obsession with illegal immigration has become a one-stop phantasmagoria for… everything. Of course, it goes back to primal, ancient fears: the Irish brought typhoid, the Chinese brought plague. It’s old hat.

The fact that this week's swine flu outbreak originated in Mexico seems doubly interesting in this context.
You can check out the interview for the rest of Davis's answer – but I still think the question of urban biosecurity deserves more architectural attention.
If the Centers for Disease Control could design a city, what would it look like?
Could there be a medical equivalent of Baron Haussman or Robert Moses?
What is medical urban design?

[Image: Robert Moses stands above a model of the city he would create; via Wikipedia].

6) Producing a disease-free city, of course, requires the proper design tools.
Via Twitter (@qimet888), I was pointed toward a demonstration program: Dynamical Network Design for Controlling Virus Spread.
The clunkily-named program "shows the dynamics of the spread of the SARS virus in Hong Kong's 18 districts when the optimal resources allocation is used."

In the simulation, the color green represents an infection-free district, that is, one in which the number of infected people is smaller than one. For infected districts, shades of red are used to indicate the level of infection. Darker red means that there are more infected people in the region and lighter red means that fewer people are infected. The viewer can see that the virus is stopped very quickly using the optimal design: the regions quickly turn green regardless of the initial conditions.

The implication seems clear: toggle your parameters – move people, buildings, walls, hospital wards, sewers, etc., around until you find the right combination – and your city itself might help to eradicate disease.
It would "stop the infectious vectors in their tracks," as Ballard wrote.

[Image: Of SARS and the city: from Wolfram's Dynamical Network Design for Controlling Virus Spread].

7) Why not turn this into a game?
Design the ultimate disease-free city: SimCity: Dark Winter, Urban Outbreak, or even a biomedical version of Settlers of Catan. Your goal is to redesign a city in real-time in order to extinguish a burgeoning plague epidemic. Perhaps SOM could sponsor it – and own rights over the winning results – in an attempt to corner the market in infection-free city planning.
You could even reverse the game's moral order and require players to create the ideal city for disease transmission: whoever kills off their entire game's population in the shortest period of time wins. The all-time winner infects the world in less than a second.

8) All of this occurs as I've been reading Steven Johnson's book The Ghost Map. Having resisted reading it for nearly three years now – mostly because the story of London's 19th-century cholera outbreak seems quite over-told in popular media – it's actually an incredible book.
More to the point, it consistently raises the issue of public health as an urban design concern – and, at the risk of repeating myself here, it would seem like epidemiology should be a vital part of all city planning courses. Spatial epidemiology, in fact, seems so interesting, and so important, that I'm almost tempted to go back to school for it.
My final thesis would be a series of test landscapes – epidemiological prototypes – in which hypothetical diseases run their course against a landscape of airlocks and plastic sheeting, chairs moved 18" further apart, walls erected where there once were screens, and sewers buried another three feet deeper underground. The ideal landscape sterilizes everything; it is an abiological force in the world, annihilating animal life – wait a minute –
In any case, Johnson's book is an impressively patient and multi-scalar look at how apparently simple urban design decisions can produce very tragic effects in indirect arenas, elsewhere. Add to this demographic information about who lived where in London at the time, the economics of things like 19th-century water delivery, and the changing nature of medical treatment, and you get a fascinating look at how certain cities either cultivate or effectively stop the spread of diseases.
In the face of very real medical concerns, I might suggest that designing our cities according to historical expectations – let alone according to the spatial needs of the automotive industry – has never seemed quite so arbitrary.

[Image: The sewers of Paris as photographed by Nadar; taken from an article by Matthew Gandy on a tip from Justin Pickard].

9) With apologies for a brief personal anecdote, I was in Paris for a week in the fall of 1997; having just read Foucault's Pendulum for the second and third times, respectively, earlier that summer – somewhat inexplicably, I've read that book nine times now – I decided to take a tour of the Paris sewer system.
My "tour group," however, consisted solely of myself and another American backpacker, who had just finished reading The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett a few nights before. Doing so apparently made him obsessed with cancer; it was the only thing he talked about.
As the two of us walked through the unbelievable stench of Parisian wastewater, watching used condoms float by and rats crawl away in the darkness ahead, and while we listened to the slightly bemused narration of our female tour guide, the backpacker began telling me about the possible viral nature of cancer, the incurability of certain forms of the disease, and the inevitability that most of us would, in the end, develop it.
Strolling around through fecally-contaminated vaults beneath the city, discussing the history of urban sanitation amidst unhinged speculations about the possibly infectious nature of certain types of cancer, I could joke that the tour's end didn't come fast enough, but I was fascinated.
Between experiential urban infrastructure, Victor Hugo's subterranean chase scene in Les Misérables, and an overwhelming desire to spray myself with deodorant, it nonetheless could have been the ideal setting for a walking salon, so to speak, a conversational meeting of the minds about disease and the city.
Call it The Dante Project™: get doctors from around the world together in Paris every year for a series of long strolls through the well-sewered underworld. Swine flu, cholera, H5N1, cancer, AIDS, ebola: never again will they be as viscerally reminded of what they've devoted their lives to cure.

10) In the end, then, what spatial form might a medical utopia take, and how could it be architecturally realized?
In 50 years will you be walking around the edges of the city with your grandkids when one of them asks: Why are these buildings out here, so far away from the rest?
And you'll say: They're here because of swine flu: we redesigned the city and our diseases went away.

Originally posted by Geoff Manaugh from BLDGBLOG, on April 25, 2009 11:35 AM

Not much of a club but pretty cool bistro tables and tv's and great for foul weather and wind or for those who sunburn. You're looking at Row 5 of Promenade level seating. The whole right field section has obstructed views. That is lame. Guess the club access is the apology.

Originally posted by Sara Pepitone from Scoreboard Gourmet, on April 25, 2009 9:36 AM

Author: Fletcher Pratt

Language: English

Published: 1928

Originally posted by (author unknown) from manybooks.net, on April 25, 2009 9:20 AM

Last night, three 25–year-old NYU students were told by security in Citi Field to remove K cards from the left-field facade, during Johan Santana’s outstanding start during which he struck out 10 batters.

According to Newsday, “They were told by security to remove the white signs with Ks made of duct tape because they were blocking an electronic ribbon board.”

“They were afraid the signs would damage the board,” Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz is quoted as saying.

…we just want to be fans, have fun, spend a little money on food and drinks, hang out with friends, hope for a win and go home… it’s not complicated…

…these three guys were simply trying to continue a tradition that was started by Mets fans years ago, in Shea Stadium, when Doc Gooden inspired the K Corner… i bet the team’s solution will be to set up their own version of the K Corner, and assume this is good enough, while totally missing the point…

… this isn’t exclusive to the Mets, it happens in most all ballparks, specifically new ones, in that more and more aspects of being a fan are starting to be controlled, whether being told how to chant, when to clap, when and what to sing, and when and where to hold up a sign… it’s a shame… because, we, as fans, take pride in creating these traditions… it’s our way of being involved, it’s our way of supporting the team we love… we can’t step in the batter’s box, but we can make signs… unless, of course, they cover electronic ribbon board, i guess…

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 25, 2009 6:11 AM

Back in December the Paper Politics exhibition I curated was hung at the Red House in Syracuse. I got a bunch of photos from the show, but realized I had never posted them here. So below are some flicks of the show. I'm working out the details for a couple more showings of the exhibition now, and I'm definitely look for more venues. If you know of a good space for the show in your town or city, let me know!

Also, I'm working on a new catalog/book of all the work in the show. The first edition of the catalog has been sold out for a couple years. This new book will be published by PM Press and should be out in the Fall.

Originally posted by Josh M. from Just Seeds: Blog, on April 25, 2009 3:55 AM

It's Friday evening, Johan's pitches/strikes is 65/48 (with 8K), and they're wearing the blue hats. I repeat, blue hats. All I've got to say is it's about time. Now that's a good looking team out there, I tells ya. No coincidence we're winning (so far). Yes, it's the Nats, but I had no faith going into this one until I saw...the blue hats. Now if we could just get some pinstripes on those shirts. I know, I know...I should just be happy that progress is being made.

Originally posted by nick from Mandatory Mustache, on April 24, 2009 4:16 PM

Many thanks to this week's RSS sponsor, radar.net. Radar is a service focused on easy-but-powerful mobile sharing of photos; basically trying to make it easy to take photos from your cameraphone and share them with friends, either on radar.net or a number of other sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. (If you'd like, you could call it a Twitterized Flickr.) Although they are currently promoting their iPhone app and the service's recent integration with Flickr, they also have versions of the Radar app available for other phones, including the Blackberry and Sidekick.

To check Radar out, get the Radar app from the App Store and sign up for an account at radar.net.

Tags: sponsors 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 24, 2009 2:50 PM

In A Lesson in the Importance of Language Design, Zbigniew Lukasiak raised the question "How do we argue that this API is more elegant than that?"

It's a good question. There's more art to it than science. Yet good art always includes craft, so I believe that it's possible to identify several principles which contribute to elegance. The first is conciseness: saying a lot with a few words.

The Inelegant Way

This code for declaring a class which inherits from a parent and overrides methods in Perl 5 is idiomatic and familiar to many Perl programmers:

package Some::Class;

use Modern::Perl;

use base 'Parent::Class';

# or

@Some::Class::ISA = 'Parent::Class';

# or if you're paranoid

BEGIN { @Some::Class::ISA = 'Parent::Class' };

# or

use vars 'ISA';
@ISA = 'Parent::Class';

# or

our @ISA = 'Parent::Class';

sub foo { ... }
sub bar { ... }

1;

I've written before about how many Perl specific concepts you need to understand to write or comprehend this code. There are several -- a package is a class, the package global @ISA contains all parent classes in method resolution order, the base pragma has certain advantages and disadvantages, methods are subs with an invocant, etc. You don't have to know all of these to write modern Perl, but you should be familiar with the underlying mechanisms to some degree. What's atop is just syntax.

(Careful readers might note that parent may supplant base as the preferred inheritance pragma, for various subtle reasons.)

Would you call this code elegant? There's a simplicity to it, but a lack of uniformity. There's an orthogonal minimalism to other parts of Perl 5. Is it elegant?

Consider an alternative.

The Concise Way

use MooseX::Declare;
use Modern::Perl;

class Some::Class extends Parent::Class {
    method foo { ... }
    method bar { ... }
}

Can anyone deny that this example is more concise than the first example? Reading it is straightforward, even though the underlying mechanism is the same. The differences are merely syntax.

The second example has little or no superfluous concepts. It does not expose the underlying mechanism. It does not (ab)use other Perl concepts (such as the import() mechanism of use) visibly. It reads declaratively. Is there anything in the code that's unnecessary?

It's concise.

Not all elegant code needs special syntax, but sometimes a little bit of syntax can make a lot of inelegance just go away.

Originally posted by chromatic from Modern Perl Books, on April 24, 2009 2:31 PM

In the recent past we've been hearing about entire colonies of honey bees that have been wiped out due to the so-called Colony Collapse Disorder and now there's a report that it's been all been because of a fungal Nosema ceranae infection. Researchers have created antibiotics to kill off these infections and infected colonies have returned from the brink.

Is it just me or should we be searching (or mutating and breeding) for a naturally resistant honey bee rather than antibiotic-ing our way out of this? Wide application of this antibiotic would only increase the chances of creating a super-infection resistant to our antibiotic. Then we'd really be screwed. And the honey bees as well.

Or am I missing something here?

Originally posted by Nick from Fine Structure, on April 24, 2009 2:27 PM

It's not every day that Democrats in the Midwest will comment on a political event in the Northeast. But the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is now chiming in on the NY-20 special election, after Republican candidate Jim Tedisco conceded defeat in the narrow race, and contrasting this with Norm Coleman's decision to bottle up Al Franken's Senate victory in litigation.

"I congratulate Jim Tedisco for doing the right thing and conceding this race. Now the people of New York's 20th congressional district will once again be fully represented in Congress," DFL Party chairman Brian Melendez says in a press release.

"Unfortunately, Minnesotans are not as fortunate. Nearly six months after Election Day -- and the meticulous and fair process that followed -- we remain without full representation in the U.S. Senate."

Full press release after the jump -- plus a similar release from the Democratic National Committee.

From the DFL:

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party

Tedisco Did the Right Thing, Now It's Coleman's Turn

Following an extremely close special-election contest, New York Congressional candidate concedes

St. Paul (April 24, 2009) -- This afternoon Jim Tedisco, Republican candidate for New York's 20th Congressional District, conceded the race to Democrat Scott Murphy. Tedisco's decision to do the right thing and move on came after an incredibly close special-election contest, ending yesterday with a 400-vote advantage for Murphy.

The Minnesota DFL Party released this statement from Chair Brian Melendez:

"I congratulate Jim Tedisco for doing the right thing and conceding this race. Now the people of New York's 20th congressional district will once again be fully represented in Congress.

"Unfortunately, Minnesotans are not as fortunate. Nearly six months after Election Day -- and the meticulous and fair process that followed -- we remain without full representation in the U.S. Senate. Instead of putting Minnesotans' best interests first, former Senator Norm Coleman remains is still playing the dog in the manger, catering to national Republicans and their special-interest friends.

"Hopefully Mr. Coleman will take a cue from Mr. Tedisco's classy decision. If he has any respect for his former constituents and for Minnesota's future, he will realize that now is the time for him to put personal pride aside, do the right thing, and give Minnesota back its full voice in the Senate."

And from the DNC:

Jim Tedisco Does the Right Thing, Will Norm Coleman?

Losing Candidate in Special Congressional in New York Concedes Rather than Press On, While Norm Coleman Continues to Tilt at Windmills

Washington -- Today, Jim Tedisco, a Republican running in an excruciatingly close special election in New York's 20th Congressional District in which the vote was held on March 31st, did the right thing and conceded when it had become clear that he had lost. Tedisco decided to spare the voters a protracted legal fight and conceded rather than press on with challenges and other delaying tactics which would have left voters without representation in Congress. While the process in New York 20 took just three weeks, and the entire recount in Florida in 2000, which involved multiple legal appeals took less than five, Norm Coleman continues to tilt at windmills - insisting on dragging out a Senate race there after six months of legal wrangling and recounts which resulted in Al Franken being declared the winner last week

"Whether you are a voter in Minnesota or in New York's 20th Congressional District, you deserve to have full representation in Congress," said Hari Sevugan, national spokesman for the DNC. "Jim Tedisco had the decency to concede when it became clear that continuing was a lost cause, but Norm Coleman continues to tilt at windmills and hold the voters of Minnesota hostage to his political ambitions and the interests of Republican leaders in Washington, DC. Jim Tedisco did the right thing today in putting the interests of the people he sought to represent ahead of partisan politics. The question is will Norm Coleman do the right thing too?"

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on April 24, 2009 2:09 PM

There's just too much good stuff on the internet today. So rather than flood the site with a bunch of posts, I'm going to clear out my tabs and round them up here.

Dear Prudence: "I cheated on my wife while sleepwalking. What do I do now?" I've heard quite a few weird/bad things about Ambien in the past few months. Also, paging Emily Gould from The Awl, please A this Q.

Rocketboom covers Single Serving Sites in their spin-off series, Know Your Meme.

The Big Picture peers into North Korea with a collection of photos of the dictatorship taken from neighboring China.

Maira Kalman visits Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court, illustrating the story beautifully as usual.

I return to the court to hear Justice Ginsburg speak to law students. And in answer to the question "How does it feel to be the only woman on the court?" she answers simply, "Lonely."

The Society of Publication Designers has been busy posting nominees for their upcoming annual awards on their blog. Last year's winners are here. (thx, david)

Jamie Zawinski has used his keyboard so much over the past eight years that he's carved grooves into the M and N keys (with his fingernails?) and completely worn through part of his Alt key.

Tags: jamiezawinski  mairakalman  northkorea  photography  singleservingsites  video 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 24, 2009 1:54 PM

Filed under: Books and Blogs, Developer, Deals, iPhone, SDK, iPod touch

Some time ago I reviewed iPhone in Action from Manning. While there are other "starter" books out there, if you know how to code and you want to get up-to-speed on everything from web apps to the SDK, this book is a great primer. Of course, the pending 3.0 update to the iPhone's OS will add many new features, and the book's authors are hard at work with an update that I'm told will be available as a downloadable e-chapter. The authors will first serialize it on their blog, so you can keep up there as well.

Until the update is ready the good folks at Manning have provided a code that'll get you 50% off iPhone in Action until April 30, 2009. To get the discount, just go to the site and when you order use this code: tuaw50. Remember, this is only for the current edition of iPhone in Action.

TUAWGet 50% off iPhone in Action until April 30 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Originally posted by Victor Agreda, Jr. from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on April 24, 2009 1:00 PM

The elegant MVC framework Catalyst will make web development something you had never expected it to be: Fun, rewarding and quick. New Book! Jonathan Rockway's new Catalyst book, published by Packt Publishing, is now available for purchase. Get it now!

http://catalystframework.org/

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Originally posted by John Napiorkowski from david’s Neighbors, on April 24, 2009 12:51 PM

X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens in the US on May 1st, but the X-Men have been captivating audiences in comic books, cartoon television series, video games, and movies since 1963. Though they didn’t start out that way, the X-Men are now the most racially and ethnically diverse main group in the Marvel Universe! Couple that with their earthly origins and it’s easy to see why these relatable and accessible heroes are so popular!

Super heroes are always a solid costume idea and so many of the X-Men characters could be easily adapted into simple but identifiable costumes. However, leave it to Craftsters to conquer what I’d consider the most challenging character to pull off: Mystique! I mean, really, she’s completely blue and naked! Believe it or not, Mystique is actually the most posted X-Men costume on Craftster. Although I’ve only shown two here, there is at least one more you should definitely check out.

Since most Craftsters are ladies, there aren’t very many Wolverine Costumes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love Logan! jilltheimpossible took a small boy’s shirt and made it much for feminine and flattering. Miss_Vicki and meepum made Wolverine much more snuggly (snugglier?) with their plush versions.

By far, my favorite X-Men craft on Craftster is the personalized take on the comic cover depicting Jean Grey and Scott Summers’ (Cyclops) wedding. bunsenhoneydew13’s fiancee’s made it for a friend’s wedding. What an awesome gift! I’m definitely a sucker for the Rogue/Gambit crafts, too!

Don’t forget to check out the Xmen tag for more great projects! Are you creating anything special for the X-Men premiere?

Originally posted by jungrrl from Craftster.org Blog, on April 24, 2009 12:50 PM

    

    

Photos from pepleo, Petereck, KoriG, powerpig, NickIsConfused, and Tsuyu ^^’.

Originally posted by Heather Champ from Flickr Blog, on April 24, 2009 9:56 AM

Since I don't use Adderall or Provigil, it took me a few days to get through this New Yorker article about neuroenhancing drugs. The main takeaway? Like cosmetic body modification in the 80s, mind modification through prescription chemical means is already commonplace for some and will soon be for many.

Chatterjee worries about cosmetic neurology, but he thinks that it will eventually become as acceptable as cosmetic surgery has; in fact, with neuroenhancement it's harder to argue that it's frivolous. As he notes in a 2007 paper, "Many sectors of society have winner-take-all conditions in which small advantages produce disproportionate rewards." At school and at work, the usefulness of being "smarter," needing less sleep, and learning more quickly are all "abundantly clear." In the near future, he predicts, some neurologists will refashion themselves as "quality-of-life consultants," whose role will be "to provide information while abrogating final responsibility for these decisions to patients." The demand is certainly there: from an aging population that won't put up with memory loss; from overwrought parents bent on giving their children every possible edge; from anxious employees in an efficiency-obsessed, BlackBerry-equipped office culture, where work never really ends.

The article is full of wonderful vocabulary. Like the "worried well": those people who are healthy but go to the doctor anyway to see if they can be made more healthy somehow. Being concerned about how good you've got it and attempting to do something about it seems to be another one of those uniquely American phenomena caused by an overabundance of free time & disposable income and the desire to overachieve. See also the impoverished wealthy, the dumb educated, and fat fit.

Tags: brain  drugs  medicine  neuroscience 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 24, 2009 9:34 AM

The most intense rivalry in sports renews itself this weekend. Here are a couple of lists to get you started.

Most Total Base in a Game for the Yankees vs. the Red Sox since 1954:

  Cnt Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt PA AB  R  H 2B 3B HR **TB** RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BOr Positions
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+------+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---------+
    1 Graig Nettles     1976-09-29    NYY @BOS W  9-6   5  5  4  4  2  0  2   12     6  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd 3B
    2 Andy Carey        1958-06-01    NYY @BOS W 10-4   5  5  3  5  1  0  2   12     4  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 8th 3B

    3 Roger Maris       1960-04-19    NYY @BOS W  8-4   6  5  2  4  1  0  2   11     4  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 1st RF

    4 Cody Ransom       2008-09-26    NYY @BOS W 19-8   4  3  3  3  1  0  2   10     2  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 2nd SS
    5 Alex Rodriguez    2007-04-20    NYY @BOS L  6-7   5  5  3  3  1  0  2   10     4  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 4th 3B
    6 Jason Giambi      2006-08-20    NYY @BOS W  8-5   5  4  2  3  1  0  2   10     5  0   0  1   0  0  1   0   0  0  0 4th 1B
    7 Mike Stanley      1994-05-08    NYY  BOS W  8-4   4  4  2  3  1  0  2   10     3  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 5th C
    8 Don Mattingly     1989-06-11(2) NYY  BOS W  8-7   4  4  3  3  1  0  2   10     4  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd 1B DH

Most Total Base in a Game for the Red Sox vs. Yankees since 1954:

  Cnt Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt PA AB  R  H 2B 3B HR **TB** RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BOr Positions
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+------+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---------+
    1 Mo Vaughn         1997-05-30    BOS  NYY W 10-4   5  4  3  4  0  0  3   13     3  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 4th 1B

    2 Kevin Millar      2004-07-23    BOS  NYY L  7-8   4  4  3  3  0  0  3   12     3  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 7th 1B
    3 Jason Varitek     2003-07-04    BOS @NYY W 10-3   5  5  2  4  2  0  2   12     4  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 9th C

    4 Eddie Bressoud    1963-05-30    BOS  NYY L  5-6   4  4  2  3  0  1  2   11     3  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 8th SS

    5 Manny Ramirez     2006-05-24    BOS  NYY L  6-8   5  4  3  3  1  0  2   10     3  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 4th LF
    6 David Ortiz       2005-05-29    BOS @NYY W  7-2   5  5  2  4  0  0  2   10     4  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd DH
    7 Manny Ramirez     2004-07-01    BOS @NYY L  4-5   6  6  2  4  0  0  2   10     3  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 4th LF
    8 Jason Varitek     1999-05-19    BOS  NYY W  6-0   4  4  3  4  0  0  2   10     2  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 7th C
    9 Carl Yastrzemski  1977-06-18    BOS  NYY W 10-4   5  5  2  4  0  0  2   10     5  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 4th LF
   10 Carl Yastrzemski  1975-06-28    BOS  NYY L  6-8   4  4  2  3  1  0  2   10     4  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd LF
   11 Carlton Fisk      1973-04-06    BOS  NYY W 15-5   5  4  4  3  1  0  2   10     6  0   0  0   1  0  0   0   0  0  0 7th C
   12 Carl Yastrzemski  1967-04-16    BOS @NYY L  6-7   9  8  2  5  1  2  0   10     1  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd LF

Highest Game Score for the Yankees vs. Red Sox since 1954:

  Cnt Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt App,Dec    IP   H  R ER BB SO HR Pit Str **GmSc** IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP   ERA
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+---------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--------+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+
    1 Mike Mussina      2001-09-02    NYY @BOS W  1-0  SHO9  ,W   9    1  0  0  0 13  0 116  85     98         28 28  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.00

    2 Catfish Hunter    1976-05-22    NYY  BOS W  1-0  SHO11 ,W  11    3  0  0  3  5  0             93         36 33  1  0   1   0  0  0   2  0  0  0  0  0   0.00
    3 Stan Bahnsen      1968-08-01    NYY @BOS W  1-0  SHO9  ,W   9    3  0  0  0 12  0             93         30 29  0  0   0   0  1  0   0  2  0  0  0  0   0.00

    4 Dave Righetti     1983-07-04    NYY  BOS W  4-0  SHO9  ,W   9    0  0  0  4  9  0             92         29 25  0  0   0   0  0  0   1  0  1  1  0  0   0.00

    5 Don Larsen        1955-08-10    NYY  BOS W  3-2  CG 13 ,W  13    5  2  2  5  7  0             91         49 42  0  0   1   1  1  0   0  0  1  0  0  0   1.38
    6 Bob Turley        1955-05-06    NYY @BOS W  6-0  SHO9  ,W   9    2  0  0  5 13  0             91         36 30  0  0   0   1  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.00

    7 Orlando Hernandez 1998-09-14    NYY  BOS W  3-0  SHO9  ,W   9    3  0  0  0  9  0 113  78     90         31 28  0  1   0   2  1  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   0.00

    8 Mike Mussina      2002-08-28    NYY @BOS W  7-0  SHO9  ,W   9    3  0  0  1  9  0 103  72     89         30 28  0  0   0   0  1  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   0.00
    9 Bob Turley        1957-07-03    NYY  BOS W 10-0  SHO9  ,W   9    3  0  0  3 11  0             89         33 29  0  0   0   1  0  0   0  0  0  1  0  0   0.00

   10 Tommy John        1979-05-20    NYY @BOS W  2-0  SHO9  ,W   9    2  0  0  0  5  0             88         28 28  1  0   0   0  0  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   0.00

Highest Game Score for the Red Sox vs. Yankees since 1954:

  Cnt Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt App,Dec    IP   H  R ER BB SO HR Pit Str **GmSc** IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP   ERA
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+---------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--------+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+
    1 Pedro Martinez    1999-09-10    BOS @NYY W  3-1  CG 9  ,W   9    1  1  1  0 17  1 120  80     98         28 27  0  0   0   1  0  0   0  0  1  0  0  0   1.00

    2 Ray Culp          1968-09-21    BOS @NYY W  2-0  SHO9  ,W   9    1  0  0  1 11  0             95         29 28  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.00

    3 Jim Lonborg       1967-08-29(1) BOS @NYY W  2-1  CG 9  ,W   9    3  1  1  0 11  1             88         29 28  0  0   0   1  0  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   1.00

    4 Pedro Martinez    2000-05-28    BOS @NYY W  2-0  SHO9  ,W   9    4  0  0  1  9  0 128  89     87         33 30  1  0   0   2  0  0   1  2  0  0  0  0   0.00
    5 Greg Harris       1990-06-07    BOS  NYY W  3-0  GS-8  ,W   8    1  0  0  0  7  0  99  66     87         25 25  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.00
    6 Dave Morehead     1965-09-04(1) BOS @NYY W  1-0  SHO9  ,W   9    3  0  0  1  7  0             87         29 28  1  0   0   0  0  0   1  1  0  0  0  0   0.00

    7 Pedro Martinez    2001-05-30    BOS  NYY W  3-0  GS-8  ,W   8    4  0  0  1 13  0 121  81     86         29 28  0  0   0   0  0  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   0.00
    8 Roger Clemens     1991-09-20    BOS  NYY W  2-0  SHO9  ,W   9    3  0  0  2  7  0 110  69     86         32 30  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  1  0  0  0  0   0.00
    9 Tom Brewer        1959-04-17    BOS  NYY W  4-0  SHO9  ,W   9    2  0  0  2  5  0             86         31 28  0  0   0   1  0  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   0.00

Of course these are just the regular season games.

The only player with 10 or more total bases in a Yankees-Red Sox playoff game was Hideki Matsui who had 13 in the explosion before the implosion in’04.

The only starter to ever post a game score over 70 in a Yankees-Red Sox playoff game was Pedro’s 83 in game 3 of the 1999 AlCS.

Originally posted by Raphy from Stat of the Day, on April 24, 2009 9:27 AM

At Six Apart we occasionally use Review Board to submit patches for review. For a while I've been using Git with git-svn to work on our proprietary projects. So my workflow looks like:

$ git checkout -b feature-X
... work ...
$ git commit # multiple times
... work ...

# go back to my branch where I track subversion's trunk
$ git checkout svntrunk

# get changes from upstream
$ git svn rebase

$ git checkout feature-X
$ git rebase svntrunk

So then I need to send the patch for review, but a simple git diff svntrunk doesn't work with review board. I guess there is a better way (I even found git mentioned in Review Board's UI) but I couldn't find it. So I started with a simple shell script to take git diff output and change it to be accepted by review board, but in the last version Perl came to the rescue to make it a bit better and easier to read (So this entry counts for Perl Iron Man).

Here it is:

This removes a/ and b/ prefixes that Review Board rejects, add the subversion revision number and remove /dev/null that git uses to mark new files.

this thread gave me the inspiration: http://www.nabble.com/Using-git-svn-with-review-board--td16119879.html

Originally posted by Yann from Yann Kerhervé's blog, on April 24, 2009 8:53 AM

my Feed reader come up with this post:

Blog once per week [about Perl].

Every week.

Every single week.

Ten lines is fine. It's going to take all we failures some effort to get into this, so there's no going to be restriction on post length. There's going to be no barrier for how badly written it is. None of us are good enough, and that isn't a problem. What matters is we try. What matters is that we make some fucking noise. Show off cool new toys you've found, or cool new toys you're writing, or even trying to write. Show off neat tricks you came up with. Talk about your failures, too, because then maybe the next guy who makes the same stupid mistake will find it on google and think "I'm so glad that guy didn't mind sharing his idiocy because he's saved me wasting half a day because I'm an idiot too." Tell the world that perl5 is alive. If you're a perl6 true believer tell the world how it's soon going to be christmas. Talk about the stuff that you love, the stuff that you hate, the stuff that excites you, the stuff that drives you insane. But MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE because if enough of us do, the law of averages says there's going to be some of it that's well worth reading.

So, I've set up an alarm in my calendar and I'll try to do just that... Blogging and Perl: I had to do it... won't be pretty most likely, but not posting is even worse.

What about you?

Originally posted by Yann from Yann Kerhervé's blog, on April 24, 2009 8:35 AM

The Ministry of Type has a look at The St. John's Bible, a modern-day hand-lettered Bible.

Jackson has brought together an incredible range of styles for the bible, from rich, lush, gold-encrusted illuminations reminiscent of Eastern Orthodoxy to crisp and spare compositions more like the modern style of the Church of England (to my mind at least).

Looks nice. A Heritage Edition is available for $145,000.

Tags: bible  books  design 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 24, 2009 8:19 AM

--PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

---

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Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on April 24, 2009 8:03 AM

So much faith that he's stopped trolling for the managerial job. The funny part is that this was a job that Carter would presumably only get if the Mets started playing so poorly that Jerry Manuel got the Willie Randolph treatment and had to clean out his office. You tell me when this story doesn't seem like it's a prime target for "choking" jokes. But I'm a glass-half-full guy and it's Friday, so we'll try to look at this in a positive light. Take it away, NY Post:

Carter, managing the independent Ducks as they open their 10th anniversary season tomorrow in Maryland, has learned his lesson. Last year he created a firestorm, expressing interest in the Mets' job as Willie Randolph twisted in the wind.

Carter, a former Expos teammate of Manuel, still sends Christmas cards to the Mets skipper.

"If it was viewed as politically incorrect what I said about my interest, I would say yes it was a mistake," Carter said during Ducks' media day at Citibank Park in Central Islip, 45 miles from Flushing. "I wasn't trying to step on anyone's toes or undermine anyone. My intentions were sincere, certainly not malicious by any means. I've learned from it. It won't happen again. I'll tell you that."

...

"I'll reevaluate after the year," Carter said. "I've made my feelings known what I would like. This is a great chance for me because you're talking about players who've been in the majors. This might be a good test for me, and [for] other organizations to see what I can do as manager."

In reality, though, the Mets sit at 3 games under .500 (ZOMG IT'S APRIL!), a fact that likely has "diehard" fans sweating bullets. What this means is that talk of having Manuel replaced if the team continues to "struggle" will never truly go away, regardless of what Gary Carter has to say on the subject

It's still funny to think that Carter thought it was even necessary to even make statements like these. It really shows how little faith people have in the Mets to seal the deal after the last four years or so. Here's to you, cross-town jealous little brothers rivals.

Originally posted by J from 3:10 to Joba, on April 24, 2009 8:00 AM

I guess it goes without saying that Ticketmaster's public relations team has no influence on what the Security Check displays.

(this is the screen I got while buying PJ Harvey tickets)

Continue reading "4) How pricy" at BrooklynVegan.com

Originally posted by brooklynvegan from brooklynvegan, on April 24, 2009 7:13 AM

Here's an experiment for you: I'm going to solicit feedback about two potential works-in-progress without talking about them in detail. Or, rather, without spoiling anything. (It's still early. Forgive me.)

The first is a sequel -- not a planned sequel, but sequels are like kids, I guess: who plans such a thing? -- to The Four-Day Weekend. There was no sequel originally planned, but it looks like I have enough material for that, and maybe one more book, without the whole thing degenerating into a grinding wheel of repetition.

The problem: There is another story I'd very much like to write, a completely different one. It deals with a fellow who drifts by degrees into a syncretic religious community which turns out more and more to have the makings of a cult. As with 4DW, some of this is based on my own experiences but a good deal of it comes from observing folks around me.

Now: This other story could very well be absorbed into this 4DW sequel -- made a fully-functional part of it. I'm tempted to do that for the sake of killing a whole flock with one AirSoft BB (okay, strained metaphor, I know), but I'm also not sure that's the wisest approach. It might be best for each story, on its own merits, to get the full telling and complement of conceits that each deserves -- even though that means writing two entirely separate books with what might amount to a fair deal of crossover (shilling for repetition) between them.

So, really, that's what this comes down to. Do I tell two separate stories that might well fuse into one, or do I fuse them into one at the risk of being better off writing two?

I hate being vague, but I also hate ruining the fun.

Originally posted by Serdar from Serdar | Genji Press, on April 24, 2009 6:55 AM

Thank you for visiting the Eater Complaints Department, your unedited platform for voicing poor dining experiences, gross restaurant trends, and general underhandedness. Have grievances? Operators are standing by.

From: [an eater]
Date: Friday, April 24, 2009
To: eater complaints dept.
Subject: Taking it Outside at Del Posto

——

Last Friday, my girlfriend and I went to Del Posto and sat in the Enoteca room. We asked our head waiter about the $35 / 4-course prix fixe and right off the bat, he seemed annoyed and ran through the menu as he was walked away from our table -- although I noticed later on that everyone in the room ordered the same special. I then asked the sommelier to help pair our meal with the wine tasting flight (not full glasses) and he was rude and showed extreme frustration with the "great variety of seafood/meat dishes in our order which makes it too difficulty" but in the end, threw a few things together for us. Neither the waiter nor the sommelier checked up with the rest of the night (although the server was relatively friendly).

I gave them my credit card and once the receipt came back, I noticed that they had charged us for full glasses rather than the tasting flight. The server came by and I told him to call over the manager since I didn't think it was fair to complain to the one person who was polite to us the whole night. When I told the manager politely what had happened, beginning with the rude service from the head waiter and the sommelier, he kept rolling his eyes and saying, "I'm trying to work out the check for you but instead you're complaining about the service!" even after I made it clear to him that I was more frustrated by the service than the the extra charge on the bill.

This went on for another 5 minutes and the second I started to get upset, he raised his voice and demanded that I sign the check and leave right away. My girlfriend at that point scribbled the bill and he escorted us out. As we got closer to the door, he leaned in and whispered in my ear that we could just "take it outside"...I was stunned and asked him if he seriously wanted to fight me. He didn't respond and ran out the door in front of us and waited for me outside. As we walked away to catch a cab, obviously not wanting to street-fight the manager, he shouted, "NOT SO TOUGH NOW, ARE YOU?!"

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on April 24, 2009 6:20 AM

New York magazine has a great feature where they asked well-known New Yorkers about their first days in New York City. I could read these all day. Some of my favorite bits follow. Keith Hernandez, after the Mets won the 86 World Series:

It's one thing to become a New Yorker; it's so much weirder to become a New Yorker that all the other New Yorkers know.

Lauren Hutton wasn't going to stay in NYC at all:

I was supposed to meet a friend in New York, and we were going to take a tramp steamer to Tangier. It was going to cost $140. Once I got there, my plan was to take a bus for ten cents to the outskirts of town and see elephants and rhinoceroses and giraffes. I was as ignorant as a telephone pole.

Richie Rich (this one, not that one):

The first night I moved here, I met Madonna. She walked up to me at the opening of Club USA with a lollipop and a beer, and she was like, "Hmmm, you look cute." And I was like, "You're Madonna!" I'm like, This is New York. Wow.

Danny Meyer eventually realized he should be in the food business:

I entertained all the time, hosting lovely brunches where I would go out and source the best cheeses and pates I could find, which was a big deal for a 22-year-old back then.

Nick Denton moved here from San Francisco:

I finally decided to come here after 9/11. The foreign press was full of love letters to New York. Writers like Martin Amis were waking up and thinking, "Oh my God, we almost lost it!" I know it sounds sentimental, but no one would ever write a love letter to San Francisco.

My wife and I decided to move here after a visit in early 2002, which visit was influenced by some of the same writing Nick refers to. All these people writing so passionately about a place, it must be pretty special. We decided to check it out. But more specifically, we moved here so that Meg could start a company with Nick.

While the company didn't work out so well, moving here was one of the best decisions we've ever made. We picked the smallest apartment on the fifth floor of the crappiest building on one of the best blocks in NYC. I sporadically freelanced for Gawker and a few other companies but didn't find a full-time job until about 6 months in. But a pleasant walk home down tree-lined streets, good light into our small bedroom, an apartment layout suited perfectly to our furniture, and the intense immensity of the city made all the difference.

Tags: nyc 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 24, 2009 5:56 AM

New York magazine has a great feature where they asked well-known New Yorkers about their first days in New York City. I could read these all day. Some of my favorite bits follow. Keith Hernandez, after the Mets won the 86 World Series:

It's one thing to become a New Yorker; it's so much weirder to become a New Yorker that all the other New Yorkers know.

Lauren Hutton wasn't going to stay in NYC at all:

I was supposed to meet a friend in New York, and we were going to take a tramp steamer to Tangier. It was going to cost $140. Once I got there, my plan was to take a bus for ten cents to the outskirts of town and see elephants and rhinoceroses and giraffes. I was as ignorant as a telephone pole.

Richie Rich (this one, not that one):

The first night I moved here, I met Madonna. She walked up to me at the opening of Club USA with a lollipop and a beer, and she was like, "Hmmm, you look cute." And I was like, "You're Madonna!" I'm like, This is New York. Wow.

Danny Meyer eventually realized he should be in the food business:

I entertained all the time, hosting lovely brunches where I would go out and source the best cheeses and pates I could find, which was a big deal for a 22-year-old back then.

Nick Denton moved here from San Francisco:

I finally decided to come here after 9/11. The foreign press was full of love letters to New York. Writers like Martin Amis were waking up and thinking, "Oh my God, we almost lost it!" I know it sounds sentimental, but no one would ever write a love letter to San Francisco.

My wife and I decided to move here after a visit in early 2002, which visit was influenced by some of the same writing Nick refers to. All these people writing so passionately about a place, it must be pretty special. We decided to check it out. But more specifically, we moved here so that Meg could start a company with Nick.

While the company didn't work out so well, moving here was one of the best decisions we've ever made. We picked the smallest apartment on the fifth floor of the crappiest building on one of the best blocks in NYC. I sporadically freelanced for Gawker and a few other companies but didn't find a full-time job until about 6 months in. But a pleasant walk home down tree-lined streets, good light into our small bedroom, an apartment layout suited perfectly to our furniture, and the intense immensity of the city made all the difference.

Update: Ricky Van Veen shares his story about moving to NYC. Great story.

Everything was still new and exciting to us. Your first year in New York is great because there's so much you think you and your friends discovered, like "a great little burger place called Corner Bistro" or "the best corn in the world at this place Cafe Habana."

Ha! Meg and I discovered "these great cupcakes at this place called The Magnolia Bakery" shortly after moving here.

I met one of Ricky's partners, Zach Klein, through Nick Denton (him again!); we had brunch together one Satuday morning shortly before their New Yorker piece ran. The meal probably couldn't have gone much worse. I'd just had all four of my wisdom teeth pulled the day before, so I was all bloody and jacked up on Vicodin, trying to eat salad even though I don't care for it very much and wasn't that hungry anyway, and wondering why in the hell Nick wanted me to meet this guy who ran a joke and boobs site for college kids. After recovering my health and senses, I eventually met Ricky, Josh, and Jakob and got to go to a couple of those fantastic parties. The cabinet of crystal was indeed weird. (thx, andy)

Tags: nyc 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 24, 2009 5:56 AM

Little League Girl Throws Perfect Game:

Why isn’t the headline of this story “Little League Girl Throws Perfect Game”? Instead, it’s ‘Girl Throws Out First Pitch At Citi Field’. HEADLINE FAIL

—

BAYONNE, N.J. — On the pitcher’s mound, a 12-year-old girl from New Jersey is perfect.

Mackenzie Brown is the first girl in Bayonne Little League history to throw a perfect game. She retired all 18 boys she faced on Tuesday.

There are no official records of how many perfect games are thrown per season. Little League Baseball in Williamsport, Pa., estimates only 50 to 60 occur each year. No one knows how many have been thrown by girls.

Brown says she knew she had something special going in the fourth inning and just tried not to mess up.

She’ll get to throw out the first pitch at Citi Field on Saturday when the New York Mets host the Washington Nationals.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 24, 2009 5:53 AM

"What it was", says il Professore at Scuola di Espresso, "is the idea that you ought to change the way, the profile, at which you are roasting, depending on what?  What idea to pursue, say?  Look at Williem Boot's 'Ready to Roast' in September, October issue of 'Roast Magazine', a roast set for hard, for soft, for large."  

A new approach, right?  Not by roast outcome or cup but by green bean.  So we are gonna try what he's up to:  roasting a profile to match beans by hardness, by size; we oughta see results.
Hard:
What we got is Bolivia, Cenaproc D'Montana FTO, a beautiful hard bean, altitude of above 5000 ft for hard; and, we go at it, though as you will see we beat by wide margin Boot's ideal time, with high initial temp and a keep-it-rolling profile, into 7 minutes total.
 
This profile is high initial heat, to first crack (suggested 6 minutes);

reduce heat for two minutes;

increase for set finish temp (end time 14.20); ideal time from start of first crack to end of roast is 3 minutes (Boot recommending overall times for all roasts: 12-15 for drum with air, 10-12 for solid drum, faster for pure convection, Gimme's type).

Medium hard:
A Brazil, a Minas Gerais Santa Clara pulped natural at 3,000 ft, is a good choice here, and because of lower temp, the roast time is extended by 30% plus to 10 minutes.  Second, we choose to go dark, and by keeping the temp in extension mode, but still at exothermic, eliminating lots of blue smoke, which otherwise might have contributed to toasty outcome, and beyond, to treacherous blackness.

Charge at 30 degrees lower than hard bean temp;

moderate heat to first crack;

1 minute after first crack, reduce heat to extend first crack;

in most roasts, temp kept the same to end, except for exothermic spike.

Large:
Here you take a lovely Kenya AA, an Embu Karindundu, blue-green and super-sized.  Roast time very extended into 12 minutes, long and with an almost aggravating slowness, since at mid-point and after, there is a huge escape of aromatics in the roasted air column.  You want to ask if this is all good, likely just paint-stripping the volatiles?  Or is it a sign of what might show up in the cup?

(avoid roasting into second crack)

Charge at 30 to 50 degrees lower than hard bean;

maintain low heat to first crack;

sample constantly, establish bean temp increase of 6 degrees/minute, 1 degree/second, heat down 15-40 percent accordingly, gradual development observable to the eye.

From the il Professore's panel of cuppers, we get this tasting review of results:

Bolivia-hard, fast

It's the Professor at the E 61 for shots:  less fine grind consistent with a lighter and faster roast; oodles of cream, round cup, fairly full body, sweet to chocolate, but very mild overall, without edginess.

The traditional cup:  aroma and crema are rich, woody, beefy, taste is chocolate-sweet, honey, minty in middle, then soy and baker's chocolate, lacks body, slight creaminess, and slight buttery aftertaste too.

Brazil-soft, medium, lower atmosphere

The espresso grind changes to fine +, some spice in the demitasse, heavy oak aroma, going from sharp to mildly sweet.  On second try, the finish surprises with velvet-cream.

The cup:  panel finds the aroma is green pea, radish, beet root, just mildly vegetable throughout, taste is earthy, dry as freshly turned summer fields, green, vegetable again,
urging that the roast did not magnify but left  an uncovered heartland.

Kenya-large, prolonged at first crack

What it was was a fine grind for intense jasmine to butter aroma in the demitasse, very nice, then nutmeg, vanilla, pepper layered on top of cucumber final.  The crema dissipates and taste finishes clean, dry, pleasantly sharp.

The cup: the aroma is light with caramel, butter, faint melon, taste repeats melon, greenish, dry-dry and finishes as light citrus, not powerful, just a door opener on which you seek for more.

What to say, Professore?  "Nice way to consider profile changes for circumstance and to consider bean characteristics as well, yet the Brazil did not demonstrate valor, while the more standard Gimme profile with Bolivia had a good, round performance in shot and cup.  The Kenya espresso may lead to some further work, yes?  But the traditional cup was less responsive, underdeveloped?"

The Professore turns back to the E 61, in saying:  "Why not experiment with the same profiles of temperature using the same bean, say Bolivia, rather than 3 kinds.   What role does bean characteristic really play, huh?"

Okay, maybe next time, ciao Professore.

e. r.

Originally posted by John Gant from Gimme! Coffee News, on April 24, 2009 5:51 AM

He has a lot to choose from, too, because Joba is not exactly skinny as a rail. Anyway, Big Papi is apparently jealous that Kevin Youkilis is the only target for high and tight pitches from the namesake so he is trolling for his own attention as the MOST IMPORTANT BASEBALL SERIES YOU WILL EVER SEE IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE gets underway this weekend. Let the media orgy/ bad blood field day commence!

With Chamberlain scheduled to start for the Yankees in the opener of a three-game series against the Red Sox, David Ortiz yesterday said the talented right-hander should avoid using Kevin Youkilis' head as a bull's-eye.

"None of that, man -- just play the game the way it's supposed to be, and that's about it," Ortiz said, referring to Chamberlain.

"This is a guy, as good as he is, the next step for him will be to earn respect from everybody in the league. He's not a bad guy, but when things like that happen, people get the wrong idea."

Considering he has fired four pitches either near Youkilis' head or behind Youkilis in the last 20 months, Chamberlain quickly has emerged as a villain to Red Sox Nation in this rivalry.

Aww yeah, it's business time. But honestly, the Yankees don't need Joba throwing at people's necks this series. Just win the games and send a definitive statement that the Yankees are back to the team from Beantown and let it be from there.

I'm probably going to be so sick of hearing all the hype about this game that I won't even have the energy to watch it anyway.

Originally posted by J from 3:10 to Joba, on April 24, 2009 5:30 AM

Wang might be the nicest guy in the majors but he’s off to the worst start of all players this year.

Since 1954, here are all the teams with at least 3 games among their first 12 where the starting pitcher went no more than 4 innings and gave up at least 7 earned runs:

 Tm  Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
 MIN 1994     4 Ind. Games
 SFG 2001     3 Ind. Games
 SDP 2006     3 Ind. Games
 NYY 2009     3 Ind. Games
 BOS 2006     3 Ind. Games                

If you click through on each “individual games” link, you’ll see that the Twins had 4 different pitchers “achieve” the feat. The Giants had 3 different guys. The Padres got 2 such games from Dewon Brazelton and one from Jake Peavy of all guys. The Red Sox had 3 different guys.

Only the Yankees had the “feat’ achieved by just 1 guy in these three starts:

  Cnt Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt App,Dec    IP   H  R ER BB SO HR Pit Str GmSc IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP   ERA
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+---------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+
    1 Chien-Ming Wang   2009-04-08    NYY @BAL L  5-7  GS-4  ,L   3.2  9  7  7  3  0  1  73  40   12       21 17  4  0   0   0  0  1   0  0  2  0  0  0  17.18
    2 Chien-Ming Wang   2009-04-13    NYY @TBR L  5-15 GS-2  ,L   1    6  8  8  3  1  0  61  34    7       12  8  2  0   0   1  0  0   0  4  0  0  0  0  72.00
    3 Chien-Ming Wang   2009-04-18    NYY  CLE L  4-22 GS-2  ,L   1.1  8  8  8  0  1  1  52  34    7       12 12  3  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  1  54.00 

Those are some really ugly stat lines, especially for a guy who’s had so much success so far in his career as one of the top game-winner from the last few seasons. I hope there’s some sort of mild physical issue that Wang needs to recover from and he’ll get back to his competitive form. I’m a big fan of international players in MLB and it’s far too soon for Wang to leave the field.

Originally posted by Andy from Stat of the Day, on April 24, 2009 5:23 AM

toeingtherubber:

Joba Chamberlain
You suck you big bag of suck
Kill Joba with fire

Joba Chamberlain
Jon Lester slept with your girl
Now he’ll kick your ass

they’re not strictly haikus, because haiku must have a seasonal reference, but they’re damn funny.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 24, 2009 5:14 AM

The Mets will face Nationals LHP Scott Olsen tonight, marking the first time this season the team will face a left-handed starting pitcher.

Yesterday, Jerry Manuel told reporters he will likely start the right-handed hitting Fernando Tatis and Gary Sheffield in the outfield, while sitting Daniel Murphy and Ryan Church.

My guess is Manuel will put Tatis in left and Sheffield in right, and bat them in the sixth and seventh slots in the lineup, while keeping Carlos Beltran batting third and David Wright batting fifth.

Either way, from what I can tell, Sheffield better have a good game, if he hopes to stay with the team beyond May 1.

Personally, I think he is causing confusion on the roster.

Look, if he was going to hit well and be a presence, it was a worthwhile signing, because it would only cost $400,000.  He’s looking better at the plate, but he’s just not getting the results; and so, aside from making outs, he must also be making life difficult for Jerry Manuel, who has two outfield corners and four players to fill them, one of which is a rookie, in Murphy, who does nothing but hit and who needs to play every day if he is going to get better on defense, and another in Church, who is the second-best defensive outfielder on the team and who is also hitting .333.

I realize it has only been 15 games, but if he continues to struggle, and Manuel needs the roster spot for a relief pitcher, I say cut him and let Murphy, Church and Tatis find order in their well-earned and necessary roles on the team.

By the way, if you have yet to do so,
click here to vote in today’s MetsBlog Fan Confidence Rating.

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 24, 2009 5:09 AM

Radios are what thieves are usually after. Trying their hardest to avoid that chilly drive to the garage, Mr. Levy’s customers put ”No radio” signs in their windows. Or ”No radio. Already stolen.” Or ”This car is armed with an alarm.” ”I have one customer who wrote a full-page note,” Mr. Levy said. Some even leave the door unlocked so the window will not be smashed. A removable radio is not the answer, Mr. Levy said, because a thief may suspect it is hidden under the back seat. Even cars without radios are not immune. Mr. Levy has known thieves to break into cars to steal sunglasses, tokens and loose change.

–New York Times, 1989.

The city took a tentative step this week toward fulfilling the dream of a certain kind of urban idealist, saying that it will explore the possibility of creating a bike-sharing program that could make hundreds or even thousands of bicycles available for public use.

–New York Times, 2008

Its still hard to believe this is really the same town.

Originally posted by jeb from Modcult, on April 24, 2009 2:51 AM

[Image: EDAW's "If I could design London, I would... just add water"; view larger!].

Having been interested in the riverine nature of London for years now – not many people realize that it's a city of canals – when I stumbled on a poster produced by EDAW for an exhibition last summer called "If I could design London I would...," I was excited enough to print it out and pin it up on my wall here at BLDGBLOG Centraal.
Now that I'm moving apartments – again – and have been forced to take the poster down, I decided I should actually write something about it.

[Image: A close-up of EDAW's "If I could design London, I would... just add water"].

Using the trope of a fake newspaper article – supposedly published in the Evening Standard in the year 2041 A.D. – EDAW, a surprisingly interesting firm, I might add, write the following scenario. I'll quote the whole thing, in fact, as I don't believe it's been published elsewhere online, and it's an interesting example of fictional narrative put in the service of urban design:

With salmon leaping from Sydenham to Southgate and from Hayes to Hackey, the capital's rivers are now so clean that they are teeming with fish and anglers are feasting on London salmon for the first time in around 200 years.
This happy state of affairs stems from Project Salmon, a scheme launched in the run up to the 2012 Olympics to champion pioneering water-sensitive urban design, architecture and public realm design.
All 16 of the Thames tributaries have been brought to the surface once again. Acting as the main arteries for a London-wide water-cleaning system, these waterways are now fed by rain and waste water which is naturally cleaned in a unique network of rain gardens, ornamental channels, reed beds and swales.
Project Salmon has also improved building standards: all new buildings now include innovative designs for green walls, living roofs and integrated sustainable drainage systems.
Many of London's streets now incorporate new watercourses: in residential areas, these channels have become the focus for activities from canoeing to waterside promenading. In Kentish Town the Fleet River has become London's first floating market.
The impact this has had on London's economy and status as a tourist destination is immense. As many other UK and European cities are struggling to manage the annual temperature fluctuations, water shortage and flooding, Londoners have been sheltered from the worst effects of climate change. The success of the scheme has inspired other UK and world cities to follow London's example.

The city's buried waterways are returned to the service; roads have becomes rivers; polluted byways are retrofitted into fishing grounds; former car parks find themselves walled off as reservoirs; canals have been reclaimed by the boats of floating markets; roundabouts are overgrown to form wetlands; and green roofs overlook it all.
It's idyllic, sure, but it's no mere flight of fancy: the city is flooding, slowly but surely, over the course of coming centuries. Like it or not, in less time than now exists between us and Shakespeare, our descendants will be living in a London underwater: architects and urban designers – and, for that matter, novelists – might as well start planning now.
EDAW's project, and nearly two dozen others, can still be downloaded, a year after the fact, from Building Design.

Originally posted by Geoff Manaugh from BLDGBLOG, on April 23, 2009 8:22 PM

Last evening I presented with Bec Young at The NorthStar Center in Lansing, MI. In the discussion following our presentation, one of the women in the audience (who happens to be my good friend María) asked an interesting question about archival work and the role that radical graphics play in the visual history of movements. She was interested in discussing the lack of movement ephemera being saved or archived within mainstream institutions. As radicals, she noted, we rarely do a thorough job documenting ourselves and our histories. Moreover, she was disappointed by the absence of material written about radical art and culture.

In response, I noted that this is, in fact, quite a large problem. However, as some of know (or actively participating in) there are some folks out there doing amazing things to change these absences. For instance, I mentioned the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in LA. The director, Carol Wells, does an excellent job documenting radical graphics, both inside and outside the US, with Justseeds contributing one impression of each print to the Center.

Additionally, I began to think about the various curatorial and writing projects that JustSeeds members are engaged in. It is striking that JustSeeds is not simply producing art and participating in various radical social movements, but many of us are also actively writing texts about the history of radical. Although serendipitously happening on the very night that I posted my first writing on the blog, this discussion concretized my desire to post blogs of my writing.

With that said, here is my second attempt at offering my academic writings to the JustSeeds community. These two articles are a little older (2005). The first is an article I wrote about Diego Rivera's labor activism in Detroit. The second is an essay by Mexican philosopher Alberto Híjar Serrano that I translated into English for Third Text. They were published alongside one-another and function as a unit.

Feel free to post comments or responses!

Dylan AT Miner. 'El renegado comunista: Diego Rivera, La Liga de Obreros y Campesinos and Mexican Repatriation in Detroit.' Third Text, Vol. 19, Issue 6 (November 2005): 647–660.

Alberto Híjar Serrano. 'The Latin American Left and the Contribution of Diego Rivera to National Liberation.' Third Text, Vol. 19, Issue 6 (November 2005): 637–646.

Originally posted by Dylan Miner from Just Seeds: Blog, on April 23, 2009 7:53 PM

William Easterly’s The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good is, really, kind of a downer. He points out that billions in foreign aid poured into developing countries across three continents have accomplished nothing, that global pledges to end poverty and hunger have epicfailed, and that most if not all foreign aid efforts are built on a foundation of racial and ethnic condescension: The West acts as if the world’s poor people, who are largely dark-skinned, need the help of the educated, advanced, civilized white man. And that is far from the truth.

Easterley’s arguments against foreign aid as we know it are straightforward. One, Big Plans don’t work. If the goal is absurdly large, the project will fail. If the goal is vague, the project will fail. If accountability isn’t possible, the project will fail.

Two, aid projects rarely consider what the recipients want, but instead consider what the donors want. He gives the example of highways in Tanzania built with aid from foreign donors who didn’t provide funding for road maintenance; the roads “deteriorated faster than donors built new ones, due to lack of maintenance.”

Three, aid projects nearly always impose massive costs on recipient governments, both in manpower shifted to dealing with aid projects and in paperwork. In fact, Easterly questions why aid must always go to recipient governments, which, in developing nations, are often corrupt, autocratic, and even cruel (reason four).

And five, the West nearly always attaches stipulations to aid, such as changes to government policies or structures, that inevitably fail and take the aid-related projects with them. Nation-building doesn’t work, whether via military intervention or wholesale importation of another nation’s laws and policies.

Easterly backs up his arguments with anecdotes and analyses of data from the World Bank and the IMF (two of the main targets of his criticisms - he really tears into the World Bank’s penchant for doublespeak). The data are more compelling than the anecdotes, but the anecdotes carry the book along; without them, it would be borderline unreadable. It’s an advocacy book that isn’t written as one; Easterly is telling the story of the data, and given the evident lack of progress in combating poverty, hunger, and AIDS in the developing world, it’s hard to argue. Easterly devotes an entire chapter to the story of AIDS in the developing world, particularly Africa, pointing out, for example, that

For the same money spent giving one more year of life to an AIDS patient, you could give 75 to 1500 years of additional life (say fifteen extra years for each of five to one hundred people) to the rest of the population through AIDS prevention.

Yet Western aid programs are all geared towards getting expensive medications towards the 5% of Africans already suffering from AIDS because that’s what donors want (think of the brain-dead protests against pharmaceutical companies a few years ago). Teaching prevention through condom usage doesn’t make for great headlines, but it’s much more cost-effective and more closely tracks what recipients want.

Easterly points out that countries have developed from the Third World to the First with limited Western aid. Botswana was one of the few African nations to end up with a mostly homogenous population after the Europeans fabricated all sorts of borders across the continent, and through a stable democracy, some smart management of natural resources (mostly diamonds), and lack of interference before and after independence from their colonizers to build one of the fastest-growing nations in Africa. Their economy has even been strong enough to cope with a severe AIDS crisis. Turkey, Japan, and Chile all developed from Third to First World inside of fifty years without much aid or interference from the West.

The most interesting part to me was Easterly’s mention of globalgiving.com, a micro-charity site that aims to connect donors interested in supporting the type of projects Easterly encourages (because they work) with aid workers and local good Samaritans running just such projects. He gives an example of a project that was “so tiny, in fact, that it initially embarrassed” the site’s founder: a request for $5000 to build a separate toilet block for girls at a school in Coimbatore, India. They got the money and built the toilet block, and lo and behold, the dropout rate for girls who hit puberty dropped dramatically. It occurred to me that we might pick a project there as the target for Klawbaiting funds, which I’ll kick off with a $50 donation to cover past times when I’ve been successfully baited by readers. My suggestion would be this project to help disabled Kenyan children attend school. It’s exactly the sort of unsexy project that Easterly complains aid agencies overlook, but that has a higher rate of success and that meets a stated need of the recipients.

Next up: I’m halfway through Faulkner’s Light in August. I usually do a lot of reading in dribs and drabs - five pages here, ten there - but I find that Faulkner is best read in longer sittings.

Originally posted by keith from The dish, on April 23, 2009 7:50 PM

Brandon Bauer - a great Milwaukee based artist and longtime friend to Justseeds sent in this photo of his baby girl. He wrote, "Eden is already a budding radical, she sleeps with her fist in the air!"

Originally posted by Nicolas Lampert from Just Seeds: Blog, on April 23, 2009 7:27 PM

Even if all the 'charges' about Rep. Harman's phone conversations are accurate, is there any law she broke? More we look at it, it's less and less clear there's anything criminal (as opposed to unethical, wrong, etc.) about what happened.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 23, 2009 7:13 PM

The words may not be that surprising. But the speaker is. This is McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt on the Obama campaign ...

If you read history about Bobby Kennedy's unfinished race in '68, this was, in my view, the unfinished Bobby Kennedy campaign - the idealism, the passion, the inspiration he gave to people, it was organic and it was real and it wasn't manufactured at a tactical level in the campaign. It was a function of the president's unique skill set and presence, and it was really taken advantage of by a campaign that for the first time using the social networking technology....

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 23, 2009 6:28 PM

Buried in the San Francisco Chronicle's coverage of job cuts at Yahoo is the suggestion that Yahoo may farm out its maps to another company, which is generating a certain amount of reaction in the map blogosphere: All Points Blog, GeoWebGuru. Here's the actual quote from the story: "Yahoo Maps...

Originally posted by Jonathan Crowe from The Map Room, on April 23, 2009 6:07 PM

I’ve just come back from the WK Kellogg Foundation’s invitation-only Food and Society conference in San Jose, CA, where I was hanging out on the foundation’s dime with about 500 other assorted people working to change the food system — from grassroots activists to nutritionists, school-food administrators, filmmakers, and a handful of farmers. (You can see what kind of folks turn up in this slide show from last year’s conference, featuring portraits by my husband Bart Nagel. Click the photo at right, and be sure to turn on your sound!)

This is the third FASC I’ve attended, and it’s been interesting to watch the Kellogg Foundation’s shifting policy focus since 2007. WKKF is one of the largest nonprofits in the United States, and (I think) the single biggest funder of sustainable food and agriculture projects, through its Food and Society initiative. It was established in 1930 by the eponymous breakfast cereal pioneer, who donated $66 million in Kellogg Company stock and other investments “to help people help themselves.”

In 2007, the FAS conference was all about how attendees could support and drive changes in the food system so that by 2016, at least 10 percent of all U.S. food would be “healthy, green, fair, and affordable.” Last year, much to the shock and chagrin of many of the grantees, the foundation announced that it had a new focus: “healthy kids.” It wasn’t clear what role food and agriculture projects were going to play in that focus. This year, the foundation’s leaders reassured the audience that they were “not abandoning our commitment to food and society.” However, they see food — in particular healthy school food, and access to good food for all — as merely one of the critical social determinants in the healthy kids toolbox. The bigger picture for Kellogg is about “place-based initiatives” that would combat other social determinants, including unhealthy built environments and racism; the foundation will prioritize projects in Michigan, Mississippi, and New Mexico.

But, being neither a Kellogg grantee nor a lucky Food and Society Fellow, I don’t go to the FAS conference to read the philanthropy tea leaves. I go because it’s a priceless opportunity to meet and chat with the people getting their hands dirty in the messy business of food-system reform, network with fellow writers and bloggers, and to hear some of the stars in the movement speak.

This year I finally got to hear Will Allen, the (Macarthur-grant-certified) genius behind Growing Power, and his daughter Erika Allen speak in person. Growing Power is very well-publicized, and deservedly so: what the Allens have built since 1993, from one barren lot in Milwaukee, is simply staggering. It’s also just about the best antidote to the broken-food-system blues imaginable: a thriving, sustainable ecosystem, feeding thousands of families and employing dozens of people in communities of color, nurturing acres of compost (some of which it uses to heat its greenhouses in winter), breeding and shipping tons of worms, using an innovative 110,000 gallon water recycling and aquaculture program, and on and on. They’re squeezing $200,000 per acre of field production thanks to an intense focus on soil fertility. And this is all being done not in elite, arugulance-infested Berkeley, but in places like Chicago’s notorious housing project Cabrini Green, where Growing Power has spread compost on asphalt and grown a farm that employs local youth.

And not just any old hodgepodge of fruits and veg, but a well-planned, attractive one. Because, as Erika explained, we want to show “we can have aesthetically pleasing as well as productive intensive agriculture at the same time. It’s a way to improve and soften many of our communities.”

While I also enjoyed the session that BALLE research director Michael Shuman led about successful community food enterprises (here’s the list), the Allens were the standout formal speakers for me. But FAS is more about the informal connections that take place, both structured and un-. The second day of the conference is taken up with “Open Space” sessions run by the attendees themselves. All fired up about getting more farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods, farmworker justice, or even “vegetable infantilism (the baby produce phenomenon and how we fight it)”? Well, you can grab a meeting room, hallway, or poolside table and gather similarly concerned people to discuss your topic.

Dozens of sessions take place at the same time, and it’s really hard to choose. But when I heard Paul Willis, the founding hog farmer behind Niman Ranch Pork, grab the mic to announce he wanted to talk about Niman Ranch in the wake of its acquisition by Natural Holdings, I knew which one I was attending. More about that, and other FAS encounters, soon.

Originally posted by Bonnie P. from The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing., on April 23, 2009 6:05 PM

Truth be told, I'd never heard of the name "GIS Alley" before today, but it refers to the large group of geospatial companies located in and around Fort Collins, Colorado. Here's a puff piece in the Fort Collins Coloradoan by the director of the Rocky Mountain Geospatial Cluster, which uses...

Originally posted by Jonathan Crowe from The Map Room, on April 23, 2009 5:59 PM

There's a giant new show about squated social centers opening at ABC Nno Rio in NYC. If you are in town, check it out. Read through the whole post here, there is a schedule of great looking films and events at the end:

House Magic: Bureau of Foreign Correspondence
exhibition at ABC No Rio
April 21 to May 10, 2009
evening events Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings

Exhibition blog here.
Exhibition events website here.

The social center movement in Europe will be the focus of a project exhibition at the Lower East Side cultural center ABC No Rio during later April and early May. Images and information, videos and discussion will engage the realities of this vital urban movement.

An outgrowth of political squatting, the social center in occupied vacant buildings was a key feature of the Italian Autonomist movement of the 1970s and '80s. Squats on the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1990s borrowed elements of the English and German social center models, including cafes, infoshops (library/bookstores), performance spaces and art galleries. These models also influenced the “infoshops” of the anarchist movement throughout the US. Across Europe, the often short-lived social centers became important organizing foci of the global justice movement during the first decade of the new century.

The House Magic exhibition will be an open structure, a channel for a continuous flow of information from the social centers themselves. Bulletins will be posted, banners will be painted, soup will be served. Video documentaries will be screened, and guests will discuss their experiences with social centers.
The social centers arose out of direct action squatting. In the new century, however, these actions have been less about housing, and more intended to create social, cultural and political space for action in the city.

In many cases, social center squatting is a response to gentrifying development in the city, an instance of "bottom up planning and architecture." The social centers are usually well integrated into the neighborhoods in which they are set up, and provide free space for cultural activities to take place. Many social centers work closely with immigrant groups, organizing, supporting and demonstrating to protect their rights.
From April 21 to May 10, we will be working the theme at ABC No Rio, processing and presenting information about the social center movement. A key node in global justice organizing, squatted social centers have sprung up in cities throughout Europe. They represent a new wave of activism, often highly theorized, with participation by both radical intellectuals and grassroots activists.Increasingly architects, urban planners and artists are joining political activists in this movement.

House Magic is the first step in an ongoing project which invites public participation as we share the stories and synthesize the lessons of the vivid life and often spectacular deaths of these temporary autonomous zones.

Among the centers and agencies past and present considered in the show are Bowl Court, Ramparts, CoolTan, Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS) and 56a in London, El Patio Maravillas, Seco, Laboratorio, and Caracole (Madrid), La Casa Invisible (Malaga), Krax City Mine(d), (Barcelona), ESC Atelier Occupato (Rome), Rote Floria (Hamburg), ROG (Ljubljana), and many others.

Films about squatted social centers and related questions will be screened on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, accompanied by discussions around a bowl of soup and bread – an evocation of the VoKü (Volxküchen, or people’s kitchen) of German and Dutch squats. A $5 freewill donation is requested to cover the cost of the films.

Schedule of Events:
First Week
Tuesday April 21
Germany -- German films to be announced
Guest: Michel Chevalier, Hamburg

Wednesday April 22
United Kingdom -- “Take Over,” directed by Jordie Montevecchi
The film follows a group of Brighton, UK, squatters who take over an old church.

Thursday April 23
Netherlands, Amsterdam – “The City Was Ours,” by Joost Seelen (1996; Dutch with English subtitles)
Amsterdam squatting movement, 1970s to 1980s; short subjects

Second Week:
Tuesday April 28
Spain, Barcelona -- Octavi Royo, "Okupa, Crónica de una Lucha Social" [Spanish & Catalan with English subtitles] Reflexión sobre el fenómeno de la okupación que empieza con el desalojo del Cine Princesa en Barcelona (1996) y termina en la actualidad; Dara Greenwald "Tactical Tourist" [English]; selected bangin' shorts from "Resistir es Crear: 10 años junto al Centro Social - Casa de Iniciativas de Málaga"
Guests: Dara Greenwald, Brooklyn, others

Wednesday April 29
Spain, Madrid -- "Laboratorio 3, Ocupando el Vacio" (66 min.; 2007; Spanish with English subtitles); music videos from Casa Iniciativas, Malaga

Thursday April 30
Italy – program to be announced

Third Week:
Tuesday May 5
The Art Squat – “Dada Changed My Life,” directed by Lou Lou and Daniel Martinez (2004)
about the Zurich art squatting action that saved the Cabaret Voltaire
Guest: Olga Mazurkiewicz (invited)

Wednesday May 6
Open Date

Thursday May 7
Denmark, Copenhagen -- “Christiania You Have My Heart,” directed by Nils Vest (62 min.; 1991; Danish with English subtitles)
talk with Rebecca Zorach

Originally posted by Josh M. from Just Seeds: Blog, on April 23, 2009 5:51 PM

Some fun via Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index Pitching Game Finder…

Since 1954, there have been 122 “official” no hitters in the big leagues.   Yet, since 1954, there have only been 194 games where a major league starting pitcher has thrown at least 7 innings in a contest while not walking any batters and not registering any strikeouts.  So, does this mean pitching to contact is almost just as rare as pitching a no-hitter?  (Yes, I’m just kidding with this suggestion.  But, it’s still a fun compare…no?)  Here’s the list of starters since 1954 with 2 or more games with 7+ IP where BB and SO equal zero:

                   Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
 Bob Tewksbury         3 Ind. Games
 Bill Swift            3 Ind. Games
 Paul Splittorff       3 Ind. Games
 Lary Sorensen         3 Ind. Games
 Charlie Leibrandt     3 Ind. Games
 Bill Lee              3 Ind. Games
 Jim Kaat              3 Ind. Games
 Randy Jones           3 Ind. Games
 Tommy John            3 Ind. Games
 Ken Forsch            3 Ind. Games
 Mike Caldwell         3 Ind. Games
 Lew Burdette          3 Ind. Games
 Jim Barr              3 Ind. Games
 Warren Spahn          2 Ind. Games
 Scott Sanderson       2 Ind. Games
 Pedro Ramos           2 Ind. Games
 Andy Pettitte         2 Ind. Games
 Fritz Peterson        2 Ind. Games
 Joe Nuxhall           2 Ind. Games
 Don Newcombe          2 Ind. Games
 Bob Knepper           2 Ind. Games
 Bill Gullickson       2 Ind. Games
 Jeff Ballard          2 Ind. Games

Originally posted by Steve Lombardi from Stat of the Day, on April 23, 2009 5:42 PM

Shared by Eve
please stop talking about twitter

The Insider could barely contain our excitement when we got an e-mail this week telling us disgraced former Supervisor Ed Jew was following us on Twitter . Think of the possibilities! Jail tweets! Then we went to his Twitter page and realized, alas, that it's probably not his Twitter...

Originally posted by (author unknown) from City Insider, on April 23, 2009 5:37 PM

As someone who spends an awful lot of time producing words, I find it ironic that even though technology costs have declined to the point where I can have a monitor with enough pixels to word process a document in "2 page side by side" mode at 100% resolution, I rarely, if ever, work in a word processor.

Browser textareas just don't work quite the same way.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on April 23, 2009 5:01 PM

 The Washington Post is carrying an interesting story on the recently completed cow genome: “Cow’s DNA Sequence Reveals Mankind’s Influence Over Last 10,000 Years.” Most interesting is what was learned by looking closely at such a domesticated beast.  The scientists were able to clearly see where selective breeding has radically changed the animal that we now recognize as a cow.

Hidden in her [the cow below named L1 Dominette 01449] roughly 22,000 genes are hints of how natural selection sculpted the bovine body and personality over the last 60 million years, and how man greatly enhanced the job over the last 10,000.

This undated handout photo provided by the Agriculture Department shows a Hereford cow, named L1 Dominette 01449, with her calf on the rangeland of the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Livestock and Range Research Laboratory in Miles City, Montana. (AP Photo/Michael MacNeil, Agriculture Department)

Originally posted by Alexander Rose from The Long Now Blog, on April 23, 2009 4:50 PM

The number of people (who take surveys) that think that the economy is getting better has (on average across a number of surveys) pretty much tripled in the last two months.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 3:22 PM

I completely agree with The Post Family in saying that if these don’t go into production, there is something wrong with the world. I spend a few minutes every morning untangling my headphones and it gets on my nerves. I would buy these in 2 minutes.

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/04/22/zip-up-tangles/

---

Posted by Jaime in Technology. ©2009 Design Milk.

Originally posted by Jaime from Design Milk, on April 23, 2009 3:19 PM

“Also, Manuel wants Beltran to steal more bases. I’m glad Jerry’s been paying attention because we all know how well Beltran excels when he has a minor leg injury.”

- Monkey-Fighting Snakes on a Monday-to-Friday Plane. | Lone Star Mets :: A New York Mets Blog

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 23, 2009 2:04 PM

Jacob Clifton, of Austin, Texas, labors in the heart of the T.V. recapping industry. He handles “American Idol” duties. This week, in astounding fashion, he dealt with the issue of current American pop idol sexlessness and Christ-loving.

I grew up with George Michael literally taking his dick out for us, and I thought he was adorable. Even the NKOTB guys weren’t constellated around virginity as the ideal, it was just part of the package. Half of them looked like they were in their thirties anyway. But this new crew? Ugh, so creepy. What’s sexier than a boy who will never, ever fuck you? Waiting five years until your parts work, and then having sex like a normal goddamn person.

I get that they’re like, sex methadone, but it seems like a dangerous precedent to teach your kids to sublimate their sexuality in that way, like, the downside to abstinence porn is that you’re basically being asked to fetishize not having sex, paraphilically focusing how on not fucking is the new fucking, which… Why bring a little kid into that mess? That’s so gross.

It solves the problem now, but in the most twisted, confusing way where you hyperfocus on stuff that’s not even that interesting when you’re that age anyway, and then instead of just going, “Yeah, that’s normal, you’ll get there later” you take this bizarre left turn and say, “It’s natural, but it’s not natural, so let’s talk about how natural it is, but act totally unnatural about it, and instead you can focus those natural feelings you weren’t even thinking about on some weird absent void of sexuality.”

To review: “There is not an elephant in this room.” “Do not think about the elephant in this room.” “Over there is a monkey. Monkeys are the opposite of elephants. Instead of thinking about the elephant in the room, think about this monkey. Think about the monkey!” “Your favorite thing about this monkey is how much he hates peanuts! You like peanuts? So do elephants. Which don’t exist! You hate peanuts! Look at that monkey hating peanuts! Covered in peanuts, but just hating them. Are you hungry for peanuts one day? Don’t be bad! You’re a bad girl! Stop thinking about the elephant!”

Oh yes there is more

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 1:08 PM

A year ago, I collected a bunch of links related to what makes NYC pizza taste like it does. New York's fantastic tap water was a leading candidate. In a recent blind taste test of identical pies, a panel of judges -- including some noted NYC pizza chefs -- chose a pizza made with NYC municipal water over those made from LA and Chicago water.

Also, I just ran across this map showing NYC pizzerias which are outfitted with coal ovens. There are many more than I would have thought.

Tags: food  nyc  pizza  water 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 23, 2009 12:37 PM

Josh Korwin flew out from LA to door bust the tag sale. Since he had to fly, we let him come early and take a first pass. Don’t worry, that pesky checked baggage requirement kept him from grabbing too much, so there’s plenty left for tomorrow. Numbers are getting handed out starting at 7am, doors open at 9am. Here we are on Google maps for direction finding.

Also, tomorrow at noon we’re drawing a one random follower of our @houseindustries twitter account to receive a cast aluminum ampersand. Follow us if you haven’t yet.

Originally posted by Ben Kiel from House Industries Show and Tell, on April 23, 2009 12:36 PM

I was gonna save this for my Shift Memo tonight, but time got away from me and I need to run off for a bit. I do have a life outside of this website, you know. Anyway, it’s artist Derek Erdman’s Fortunate Teens Party With Morrissey, 1994. You can learn more about it here. Okay, you’re in Choire’s hands now. If that dude one-ups me with another Shift Memo I will be very irate. Anyway, enjoy!

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 12:20 PM

The news that Yahoo is shutting down Geocities got me curious about how Yahoo did on the deal. A decade later, was Yahoo right to make the acqusition in the first place?

I did some research, some math, and a bunch of instant messaging with Tristan Louis and came up with the following.

The basics: Yahoo paid $2.87 billion in stock for Geocities in 1999 after announcing a deal at $3.57 billion. Adjusted for splits and inflation, that's the equivalent of $1.54 billion in Yahoo stock today, or $1.2 billion in 1999 dollars--a far more reasonable figure than the dot-com-inflated sums that Yahoo and Geocities swapped. Considering that the transactions were all on paper, the deal already makes some sense. (Tristan's initial calculation put the value of the 1999 stock at $155 million--a steal!--but that may have been done without factoring in Yahoo's three stock splits.)

But did those billions pay off?

First, consider direct revenue. Geocities had $7.82 million in revenue the final quarter before the acquisition. Taking into account traffic trends for the years following, and estimating revenue based on industry flows, the total revenue from Geocities display advertising--for 10 years--comes to around $320 million (not inflation-adjusted). Not a lot compared to the $2.87 billion purchase price, but at least Yahoo got back 10% of its stock swap in cash.

Yahoo Geocities also had a premium model, with Plus members paying $4.95 a month and Advantage members at $19.95. Yahoo never released membership specifics, but we can generously estimate that 1% of Geocities' 14 million members signed up for a larger model, with a small segment going to Advantage. That program still exists, which means there's some incremental revenue even now. Geocities Plus probably pulled in more than $8 million in its peak year, which extrapolates to roughly $60 million total since its introduction.

We can assume Yahoo Geocities had all sorts of marketing partnerships, each of which generated as much as $250,000 per initiative above and beyond basic ad revenue. Let's generously peg this value at $20 million total, mostly during Geocities' peak usage years.

So that comes to $400 million in revenue. Decent money, but far from profitable on its own.

Then let's consider the traffic implications. In today's world, the traffic figures from the 1990s are laughable: Geocities was the fifth busiest site on the Internet in June 1997... and four months after that they signed up their millionth user. Then again, in the era of rapid growth, though, paying for traffic made sense. By the time the sale closed, Geocities was up to 3.5 million user sites and 19 million unique users.

From that angle, the sale paid some robust early dividends. Yahoo's traffic increased by nearly two-thirds following the acquisiton. That's a lot of new eyeballs seeing the Y! and becoming familiar with Yahoo's name and, ultimately, its other services.

Yet Geocities peaked in 2002 and has been in slow decline ever since. After hitting 27.7 million in March 2002, the numbers kept dwindling: to18.9 million in October 2006, then 15.1 million in March 2008, down to 11.5 million unique users last month. So the long term didn't play out perfectly, thanks to more robust social networks superseding Geocities' early style.

With all this hindsight, it is doubtful that Geocities can be called a profitable acquisition. It probably can be considered a break-even, though, given the number of different revenue streams and added Yahoo network traffic the site brought.

Geocities is also notable for what it did for Yahoo off the balance sheet. The bold acquisition of a social site, and its subsequent integration with Yahoo, paved the way for future site aggregations. Yahoo's purchases of Flickr and del.icio.us show Yahoo's continued commitment to community, and its willingness to assimilate other networks with its own (albeit with varying degrees of success).

Indeed, Geocities can be considered a hallmark of Yahoo's style and a bellwether in its corporate history. For better or worse, that alone makes the acquisition a solid one.

Originally posted by David Wertheimer from aiaio - the Alexander Interactive blog, on April 23, 2009 12:09 PM

Sad news on the Internets: GeoCities, a pioneering web-hosting service that you should probably ask an older relative about, is shutting down later this year. Even worse, Yahoo!, which bought the service in 1999 [for $3.5 billion], isn’t being very polite to the existing users who will still find themselves “Internet homeless.” In fact, if you read their Q&A page for victims of website foreclosure, you can almost sense a little bitterness and attitude on their part.

Why is GeoCities not accepting new customers?
Gee, I dunno, Einstein. Maybe for the same reason Sony’s not selling a lot of Betamax players these days.

I’m a GeoCities customer. What’s happening to my site?
Well, let’s take quick stroll down Sunset Strip and see: Oh, right, jack shit! Apparently you’re “super stoked for the imminent release of Fairweather Johnson.” Jesus, is that fucking dust on your website? How is that even possible?

Will something happen to my GeoCities Free or Plus account?
Are you really this slow or is it the dial-up? You’re done, dude.

Can I prepare for GeoCities closing now?
Yeah, do that. Hurry up and save your shit or else posterity will never know that you felt “alone/with a heart made of stone/because he’ll never phone” back in freshman year.

When will I get more information?
We’ll send you an e-mail telling you to “eat shit and die” in about a month or two. Of course, since the last registered e-mail address we have on file goes to a Hotmail account, you’re probably not going to see it.

Does Yahoo! offer another free hosting service?
No, Yahoo! does not offer another free hosting service. And you know what? NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE. Seriously, don’t ask around or anything, just trust us on this. We recommend our award-winning Yahoo! Web Hosting service, which includes a personalized domain name (such as widgetdesigns.com) and matching email, new site building tools, unlimited disk space and bandwidth, premium customer support, and more. IT IS THE ONLY OPTION EVER IF YOU WANT TO HOST A WEBSITE. [Cough]You fucking retard.[Cough]

So very tragic.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 11:59 AM

I'm a compulsive saver of links. Links I save for no particular reason other than their general greatness I tag on delicious as thisisgood. Here are five recent ones. If they're not new to you, then you can derisively snicker "seen it" and move right along.

1. I'm leaving forumville forever. Discuss.
2. Ezra Cooper on the job of being a production assistant on The Shining. "KUBRICK: No! Keep typing!" (There, I've spoiled the punchline. You'll have to clickthrough for the setup.)
3. A fantastic Talk thread at Serious Eats: What do you collect? There's the usual lists of course (fiestaware, hot sauces, etc.) but also a few gems like this one: "I think I have the world's largest collection of grasshopper pins."
4. Flowing Data on how to fix the uncommunicative table. I have no idea if those circles are actually a fix, but wow, they sure are pretty.
5. And, finally, I know, everyone's into Fuck You, Penguin. But I really loved the one about how Egotistical deer think they are always making your day. "It's really because deer are huge attention whores."

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on April 23, 2009 11:36 AM

I hate caption contests, but if you think I’m going any other way with this photo before we’re fully funded you’re out of your mind. Anyway, here’s my entry: “President Barack Obama greets professional golfer Tiger Woods in the Oval Office.” I think that’s really all that needs to be said, right?

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 11:06 AM

Photograph by Kathryn Yu

They’re sticky, they’re sweet, they’re incredibly fragrant—and they’re pricey as hell. But, apparently, getting less so. The much-ballyhooed Indian mangoes have landed in the United States for the first time this season, with confirmed sightings at Patel Brothers, the Indian supermarket, in Chicago, New York’s Jackson Heights, and Decatur, Georgia.

For seventeen years, Indian mangoes (such as Alphonso, Kesar and Banganpa) were barred from the United States. But that ban was lifted in 2007, and each spring since then, the arrival of the mangoes has been a major event. From the look of this April’s first boxes, prices are easing up. A case of twelve Alphonso mangoes is selling for $25 per box in Chicago, down from $36 two years ago. In Atlanta, they’re still going for $35. Have you spotted them anywhere else?

Patel Brothers

2610 West Devon Avenue, Chicago IL 60659 (map)
773-764-1857

1711 Church Street, Decatur GA 30033 (map)
404-296-2696

3727 74th Street, Jackson Heights NY 11372 (map)
718-898-3445

Originally posted by Carey Jones from Serious Eats, on April 23, 2009 10:00 AM

Things to think about during lunch! Here is a comment on a New York magazine Daily Intel blog post: “A writer at the NYTimes, Post (NY or Huffington), etc. researches and writes an article over X days/weeks/months. NYMag then takes the story and rebrands it as Daily Intel with (maybe) a link to the original source. Is the link considered payment for the source material? If so, is this journalism’s method of leveraging valuable content?”

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 9:56 AM

Now we're not the only ones who think that New York Times shareholders might end up with nothing.

Craig Huber at Barclays does hedge, though: He puts a $1 target on the stock.

Bizjournals: A case could be made that New York Times Co. shares are worth nothing as the newspaper company’s debt load threatens to overwhelm its earnings power, a Barclays Capital analyst said Wednesday.

“Net debt to (operating profit) is way too high,” Barclays analyst Craig Huber said in a research note. “We could argue the stock to zero given the high debt load.”...

 

Even if the New York Times Co. unloaded its 17.75 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures (NESV), which includes the Boston Red Sox, for an estimated $150 million after-tax, Huber estimated, the company’s year-end net debt would be 4.5 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). That’s still too high, Huber said...He cut the company’s stock price target to $1 a share.

Huber pegs the private market value of the Globe at $100 million, a far cry from the nearly $1.1 billion the New York Times Co. paid for the paper in 1993. New York Times Co. bought its stake in NESV in February 2002 for $75 million.

“We view the 17.75 percent stake in the Boston Red Sox as having among the very best long-term asset appreciation potential at the company, and thus we are disappointed that the company needs to sell it,” Huber said. “... In our opinion, the long-term viability of the company may be at stake, though.”

Read the whole thing >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• New York Times Cash Situation Still Critical (NYT)
• CHART OF THE DAY: Why The New York Times Is Firing People (NYT)
• CHART OF THE DAY: Remember When Online Ads Were Going To Save Newspapers? (NYT)

Originally posted by Henry Blodget from Silicon Alley Insider, on April 23, 2009 9:09 AM

If I could entirely grasp this account of the first collateralized debt obligation, I would understand everything. (And if you can, please come work here!) However, I do understand the phrase “the next shoe to drop,” so it is worth reading this piece by Felix Salmon all the way to the end even if your brain smokes a little in the middle.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 8:50 AM

If I could entirely grasp this account of the first collateralized debt obligation, I would understand everything. (And if you can, please come work here!) However, I do understand the phrase “the next shoe to drop,” so it is worth reading this piece by Felix Salmon all the way to the end even if your brain smokes a little in the middle.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 8:50 AM

Check out Miss Thing here! Once she gets away from her mother's glue gun monstrosities, it turns out she can actually put an outfit together!

She arrived at the Ed Sullivan Theater wearing a Roberto Cavalli dress, Jillian Lewis coat
and Ruthie Davis gold 'Odyssey' shoes.

Jillian Lewis Fall 2008 Collection

The shoes are a bit much and they don't really go with the outfit, but the dress is hot and we're thrilled that Miss Jillian's getting some exposure on her signature coat. Granted, the coat looks a little sloppy and wrinkled, but it was raining and besides, this wasn't really a "public appearance" outfit so much as it was a "running from the limo to the stage door" one (worth at least a couple thou, but still).


But wait, kittens! There's more!

Beyonce Knowles left the "Late Show With David Letterman" at the

Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City wearing a Elie Saab dress and Toni Maticevski shoes

Elie Saab Fall 2009
Model: Georgina Stojilkovic

It's a fantastic dress and she's rocking the hell out of it. We'd like the shoes more if they didn't have that foofaraw on the heel, though.

IN and IN.

[Photos: WireImage/Style.com]


Post a Comment

Originally posted by noreply@blogger.com (TLo) from Project Rungay, on April 23, 2009 8:46 AM

ATTN New Yorkers: “Subway and bus riders who buy unlimited-ride MetroCards before fares go up on May 31 must use them by June 8 to receive the full present value of the cards.” Of course that assumes the state legislature won’t come up with a plan to bail out the MTA and make fare hikes unnecessary. And we all know there’s no way they’d fail to do that, right? Right? Where are you going?

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 8:45 AM

Lately whenever I hang out with basically anyone I know we end up having a conversation about The Death of Publishing. One time my friend Michael and I started to have the conversation and one of us, I don’t remember which, just held up a hand and said, “Can we skip over part where we talk about The Death of Publishing?” We ended up talking about it anyway, of course. More recently I had lunch with Choire and he showed me how text from a book actually looks on your iPhone, and demonstrated how un-taxing on the wrist it is to read a book on one’s iPhone in bed. Hmm! A few days later Alice and I went to a reading at the world’s most desolate Borders, the one on 57th and Park, and the sight of all the non-books — ‘In Praise of Stay At Home Moms’ by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, many shiny new biographies “written” by the stars of 80’s sitcoms and diet guides by Real Housewives of New York — stacked along the empty aisles depressed us so much that we decided we had to buy a bottle of wine before heading back to Brooklyn via the 7 train. Where, though, would we find a liquor store in that strange neighborhood? As it happens, there is an app. For that.

So now I sort of feel like, fine: bring on the digitized future of all media. I will totally buy an iPhone and use it to read everything. I have never been so into the romance of the physical periodical object anyway: on the train coming back from Maryland recently I procrastinated my way through every column inch of that day’s entire Times, and the whole time while trying to revel in the experience — which, by the way: the tone of today’s Times is often so sarcastic and snide, even or maybe especially outside its cultural coverage, I was surprised! — anyway, the whole time I was trying to love reading the actual paper I was actually hating the dry, dirty feeling of the newsprint on my hands.

The book-object is different, though. I do feel attached to the books I love, and I love being able to remember the physical location of a passage in their pages. I think what Harper Studio is working on, bundling ebooks and real books and audio books into one discounted package, is exactly right. Ideally you will eventually get a free ebook version when purchasing any physical book, though not vice versa, right? That would work for me. One of the reasons I hope physical books don’t disappear entirely (and I don’t think they will) is that I love browsing in a physical bookstore, a good one, not tragic Borders. I am a thousand times more likely to impulse-buy a book that I flip open to a random passage that catches my eye than I am to one-click-order the same book on Amazon. Something about the eerie destined feeling of the book flipping open to that page does it, I think.

Yesterday in Bookcourt this happened to me with Diana Athill’s memoir ‘Somewhere Towards the End,’ which is about being very old and having led an amazing life and being okay with death, which is not the kind of thing I’d typically seek out. I don’t remember why I picked it up, even — it has a plain taupe cover with a photograph of dead leaves on it. It had a pleasant heft, for a hardcover — not flimsy but its nice medium trim size made it look easy to slip in a purse. I guess it is about the size of a Sony eReader.

Anyway this is the passage I flipped to, which made me buy the book:

“An important aspect of the ebbing of sex was that other things became more interesting. Sex obliterates the individuality of young women more often than it does that of young men, because so much more of a woman than of a man is used by sex. I have tried to believe that most of this difference comes from conditioning, but can’t do so. Conditioning reinforces it, but essentially it is a matter of biological function. There is no physical reason why a man shouldn’t turn and walk away from any act of sex he performs, whereas every act of sex performed by a woman has the potential of changing her mode of being for the rest of her life. He simply triggers the existence of another human being; she has to build it out of her own physical substance, carry it inside her, bond with it whether she likes it or not — and to say that she has been freed from this by the pill is nonsense. She can prevent it, but only by drastic chemical intervention which throws her body’s natural behaviour out of gear. Having bodies designed to bear children means that many generations will have to pass before women are freed from the psychic patterns dictated by their physique, however easy it is for them to swallow a pill; and it is possible that they will never be able to achieve such psychic freedom. [ …] Because of all this, when they are at the peak of their physical actiivty women often disappear into it, many of them discovering what kind of people they are apart from it only in middle age, some of them never. I had started to have glimpses of myself earlier than most, as a result of being deprived of marriage and child-bearing, but not with the clarity I discovered once sex had fallen right away. My atheism is an example: it became much more firmly established.”

Athill kind of reminds me of the narrator of Mating with her matter-of-fact fondness for her own ways of thinking, but she’s more confident and less sad. And of course the narrator of Mating is absolutely lost in sex. Anyway, aside from the biological determinism which, generally, those don’t seem to me to be productive terms to think in (also the heteronormativity bugs me) I am interested in this idea of the personality freed from pernicious sexual distraction, and it makes me feel excited about getting old. If only I was already old right now, actually, or could just become old temporarily for a few months while I finish some things.

Originally posted by emily from Emily Magazine, on April 23, 2009 8:31 AM

Stephen Coles introduces the redesigned Typographica, one of my very favorite weblogs.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on April 23, 2009 7:59 AM

I never thought I’d say this, but the dude who played Jimmy on Degrassi spits just like Lil Wayne.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 7:52 AM

Remember Mavi Jeans?

They're working their way back into the denim world with their new organic line. And in honor of keeping Earth Day going year round, because it doesn't count if you're green for a day, they're giving you a free pair of totally organic, totally awesome jeans.

Well, one of you.

Tell them in three sentences or less why your year round green efforts deserve a new pair of jeans.

Do you save your pennies for Stella and Loomstate? Do you only buy vintage? Do you DIY your favorite runway trends?

Email work@fashionista.com by tomorrow at noon!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on April 23, 2009 7:49 AM

The lead eMarketer story today is How Much Ads Cost. It breaks down offline media CPMs in a handy graph, then makes a separate set of online assessments.

The biggest takeaway? Display advertising doesn't pay. Online display ads ran at a $2.46 CPM in 2008. That's less than 10% better than what outdoor advertising charges for billboards and bus stations.

The article goes on to note better returns in video (CPMs anywhere from $7.40 to $35, depending on placement) and search ($75!). But it doesn't eliminate the big message: online display advertising doesn't pay. Not well, at least.

Of course, display ads are de rigueur in much website creation, and a buoying component of media sites. But display has become a baseline and not a profit center. This is happening offline as well as online. The New York Times recently reported on evolving revenue channels at magazines, where subscriptions are becoming pricier profit centers--the opposite of the traditional model, where subscriptions covered postage and ad revenue ran the business.

Savvy online publishers are realizing this and similarly evolving their models. Beyond video advertising, sites can offer premium content, exclusive access, tools and other items to entice more value out of individuals. Business-to-business revenue needs to morph into something more profitable as well, whether it's through partnerships, sponsorships, cobrands, or something else.

Innovation is going to be key in the coming years. Because a simple ad banner unfortunately won't pay the bills.

Originally posted by David Wertheimer from aiaio - the Alexander Interactive blog, on April 23, 2009 7:08 AM

Living in a big city, you get to hear other people's conversations all the time. These are private conversations meant for the benefit of the participants but it's no big deal if they're overheard on the subway. And you know what people talk about most of the time? In no particular order:

1. What they had or are going to have for breakfast/lunch/dinner.
2. Last night's TV or sports.
3. How things are going at work.
4. The weather.
5. Personal gossip.
6. Celebrity gossip.

Of course you'd like to think that most of your daily conversation is weighty and witty but instead everyone chats about pedestrian nonsense with their pals. In fact, that ephemeral chit-chat is the stuff that holds human social groups together.

Ever since the web hit the mainstream sometime in the 90s, people have asked of each new conversational publishing technology -- newsgroups, message boards, online journals, weblogs, social networking sites, and now Twitter -- the same question: "but why would anyone want to hear about what some random person is eating for breakfast?" The answer applies equally well for both offline conversation and online "social media": almost no one...except for their family and friends.

So when you run across a Twitter message like "we had chicken sandwitches & pepsi for breakfast" from someone who has around 30 followers, what's really so odd about it? It's just someone telling a few friends on Twitter what she might normally tell them on the phone, via email, in person, or in a telegram. If you aren't one of the 30 followers, you never see the message...and if you do, you're like the guy standing next to a conversing couple on the subway platform.

P.S. And anyway, the whole breakfast question is a huge straw man periodically pushed across the tracks in front of speeding internet technology. There is much that happens on Twitter or on blogs or on Facebook that has nothing to do with small groups of people communicating about seemingly nothing. Can we just retire this stupid line of questioning once and for all?

(Would you like to post this link to Twitter?)

Update: From Twitter, two pithier reformulations of the above:

@phoutz: If Twitter is banal it is because you and I are banal (It's called social norming)

@thepalephantom: The "no one cares what you're doing" proclamation is a solipsists way of saying "i don't care"

Tags: twitter  weblogs  www 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 23, 2009 6:24 AM

Here’s a round-up of recent advertisements in the private jet category. Uh, good luck, fellas.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 6:22 AM

This is the first year in awhile that I'm Not going to a Yankees game in honor of my birthday. I'm not even watching on TV: there is no game today. Why didn't I go yesterday? Because it was the 5th inning when I could head up there and I had no idea the game was only 1/3 finished. I guess Opening Day will have to count since we went up to Little Italy for dinner after, part of the Birthday Tradition. Or maybe 4/30. We'll see.

Last year the Yankees were in Chicago on 4/23. I thought about going. Not sure what happened there. I do recall wishing the game was in Kansas City. Instead I considered the 4/17 game v the Red Sox to be all about my birthday, but went without parents or siblings (my usual birthday game companions).

In 2007, you already know, three of us went down to Tampa and realized Devil Rays are meanies. We also learned Never to sit in the Fanciest Seats at Tropicana.

2006: 4/23 home v Orioles (my brother in law's first game)
2005: 4/24 home v Rangers (a team that included Soriano and Teixeira; Yankees Andy Phillips had 4 rbi's)
2003: Opening Day 4/7; can't figure out 4/23
2002: 4/21 home v Blue Jays
2000: 4/29 home v Blue Jays

I'm confused about 2001 (no game 4/23 but home before and after) and 2004 (home v Red Sox; def did not go to that game). I can picture rain and right field with my family for at least one of these years.

This is thrilling. I thought I had a point but who cares because it's my birthday and I can be pointless if I want to. Can You remember your last ten years of birthday games? Can you believe how much Little Italy has changed in ten years? twenty? stopping there.

Yankees in Boston Friday-Sunday. Please skip Wang's start.
p.s. yes that Yankees Stadium vendor (above, picture) is checking an id.

Originally posted by Sara Pepitone from Scoreboard Gourmet, on April 23, 2009 6:16 AM

I often develop theories. Many of them are wildly off-base or miss some specific point which would completely undermine their validity. Or they’re just very obvious but I’m so self-adoring that I believe I’m the first one to have come up with them. Anyway, thanks to the magic of crowdsourcing, I can test them out in public, right here on The Awl! Here’s the latest:

If you are a politician whose career has been damaged or derailed by a sex scandal, the period of your rehabilitation is directly correlated to the popularity of your immediate successor. Think Spitzer and Paterson, obviously, but it also kind of works for Clinton and Bush. Conversely, former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey was followed by the immensely popular Richard Codey, so he had to go become a priest. Washington Senator Brock Adams left office under eight different clouds of sexual harassment, but everyone loved “mom in tennis shoes” Patty Murray, and he died a forgotten man. Etc.

Whaddya think? Does it hold up? I’m wondering if the McGreevey thing may also have something to do with the fact that his sex-scandal was a same-sex scandal; there’s been no rush to rehabilitate Larry Craig yet. But who knows? Just thinking out loud here. Gotta keep that posting frequency consistent.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 6:08 AM

Carlos Beltran, David Wright and John Maine talked to reporters from the clubhouse after last night’s loss, and said the following, according to SNY:

Beltran, on moving up to third from fifth in the batting order:

“Well, Jerry Manuel told me in spring training that we was going to be able to move the lineup around, and if he feels that way, my approach tomorrow will be the same as hitting fifth.  I don’t think just because you’re hitting third you have to do anything differently.  You just go out there and do the best you can.”

Wright, on the team’s offense in general:

“We’re in a tough spot right now.  We’re struggling a bit.  You know, we need to continue to put together some good at bats, and hopefully those line drives and hard ground balls start finding some holes and we can produce some runs… Jerry is the manager, I’ll hit where he tells me to hit.”

Maine, on his poor performance last night, during which he allowed five runs in five innings pitched:

“I’m a better pitcher than this.  I’m working hard between starts and I’m just not getting the results right now.  It’s gonna turn around, because a lot of times I’m making the pitches I want to make and I’m just hair off – once I get that I’ll be fine… I’m working hard.  I know I’m better than this, and it’s gonna turn around.”

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 23, 2009 5:10 AM

by Guest Contributor Jenn, originally published at Reappropriate

The first few pages of Secret Identities chronicle an exchange between Jeff Yang (writer of Asian Pop! at the San Francisco Chronicle) and Keith Chow (freelance writer) that originally inspired the Asian American superhero anthology released today. Yang, researching his now well-cited article on Asian American pop culture and comic books (Look… Up in the Sky! It’s Asian Man!), asks Chow about the appeal that comics have had for Asian American youth. Chow replies: “Comics have always been a refuge for kids who are shy or socially awkward. And I think for Asian Americans, the parallels are even stronger. You’re an outsider. You don’t fit in. But then you go to school and meet other people like yourself. You discover your secret heritage – the thing inside you that makes you special.”

Yet, it is frustrating that the comic book industry has failed to identify and acknowledge their loyal Asian American fan-base. While the number of Asian/Asian American superheroes has slowly increased over the last few decades, these heroes remain massively overshadowed by an overabundance of Caucasian protagonists (for a chronological listing of Asian/Asian American superheroes in comics, check out my site Outsiders). Those Asian/Asian American superheroes who do achieve the pinnacle of comic book success – their own ongoing title or mini-series – are frequently written in a one-dimensional (or even stereotypical) manner (often by non-Asian writers overwhelmed by the pressure to write a realistic portrayal of a person with a hyphenated racial and cultural identity). Instead, many contemporary Asian American superheroes end up as a tragic East-meets-West cliché, before they (or their title) meet an untimely (but ultimately predictable) end.

Enter Secret Identities, an anthology of comic short stories about Asian/Asian American superheroes written and illustrated by a superstar cast of Asian/Asian American comic fans, and edited by Yang, Chow, Jerry Ma (founder of Epic Proportions, an independent studio) and Parry Shen (Better Luck Tomorrow). A whopping 190 pages, Secret Identities runs the gamut from classic origin stories of a variety of Asian American superheroes (e.g. Sampler by Jimmy Aquino and art by Erwin Haya) to quirky commentaries on the roles Asian American characters play in today’s mainstream comics (e.g. The Blue Scorpion & Chung by Gene Yang and art by Sonny Liew). And what an amazing diversity of stories it is! Secret Identities is a spirited and gleeful act of protest against the invisibility of Asian Americans in the pages of mainstream comics: each story is a fresh reminder that we Asian Americans can be iconic superheroes, too. (more…)

Originally posted by Guest Contributor from Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture, on April 23, 2009 5:00 AM

Jared Kushner too dim to stick to talking points.

Outgoing Observer editor Peter Kaplan cited “more time with family” and “my contract’s up” and “my work here is done!” with reporters when he announced yesterday that he was leaving his job after 15 years. But Observer boy publisher and Ivanka Trump dater Jared Kushner can’t bear to keep himself out of the message: “We decided about a month ago that it was time for him to move on,” Kushner told the Post. Oy, honestly? (Full disclosure: I dislike Jared Kushner, even though I respect that he’s putting some of his money into paying for a newspaper.)

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 23, 2009 4:12 AM

Here is the source article. Here is an interesting article about judging creditworthiness by a person's looks. How different would the politics be if Geithner looked like Scarlett Johansson? Would...

Originally posted by TVCrunch from Blogs.com: Economics Posts, on April 23, 2009 3:23 AM

Only on Cocoa Fly will you see a blog post about Storm and Ellen DeGeneres. Before I get to them, how was your Earth Day? Growing up I heard that only white people are into the environment. That's not true. Check out the African American Environmentalists Association. However more of us should get involved. I think we as black people deal with so much in life already (poverty, racism, family,etc.) that the environment isn't a priority for some of us. But environmental justice in an issue in our communities. Many of us in poor areas live by dumps, factories, etc. These pollutants reach our air, water, land and affect our health. After Hurricane Katrina we should definitely be more concerned about the environment.
Going Green seems expensive but there are ways to Go Green on a budget. I recycle bottles and paper. Sometimes I reuse fliers as scratch paper when printing from home. I cut up old t-shirts and use them as cleaning rags. That reduces my use of paper towels. I save trees and money. I buy eco-friendly cleaners when they're on sale. Actually I've noticed the prices have come down. My favorite Green investment is my $19 Brita filter pitcher. I save a lot of money and help Earth by refilling the pitcher instead of buying water bottles. I take reusable water bottles and travel mugs with me on the go. When it comes to the electric bill, black folks have always been energy and money efficient. I can hear my grandma now, "Cut them lights off in the room if you not go be in there. "

Since we're honoring Mother Earth, one of the Fly Ladies of the Day is my favorite Head Sista in Charge of the comic world, Storm . She's not only Fly because she can fly, but Storm's mutant power is controlling the weather. Wouldn't you just love to zap somebody with a lightening bolt when they make you mad? Or part the clouds when you need a sunny day? Storm is African and the descendant of magical African priestesses born with blue eyes and white hair. Her mother was an African princess. Storm is fierce and is one of the highest leaders of the X-Men. She's poetic, strong and vulnerable at the same time. My sista's weakness is claustrophobia. Eric Jerome Dickey did a beautiful job writing her story for a special Marvel series . I think it's cool that she's almost like Mother Nature since the earliest evidence of human civilization can be traced back to an African woman. I know Iman is seasoned in age but I always thought she should have played Storm in the X-Men movies. You know I will be in the theater on May 1 to see Wolverine. Hugh Jackman is a cutie and I love the X-Men. Can't wait!!


The other Fly Lady of the Day is Ellen. The Ellen DeGeneres Show is one of my favorite talk shows. She is hilarious, but Ellen also talks about important issues. During her Earth Day show she suggested various ways to conserve water, including calling for bartenders to stop watering down drinks. LOL, I'm with her on that. I also applaud Ellen for making a big comeback when her first sitcom was canceled in 1998 after coming out. You never know when God has a better plan for you. On a more serious note I'm also giving Ellen props because she interviewed Sirdeaner Walker on her Wednesday show. She's the mother of 11-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover. He killed himself early this month because bullies called him "gay" and "a snitch." I don't know what's going on because the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported another 11-year-old boy Jaheem Herrera committed suicide last week after kids called him "gay" and " a snitch." Ellen said schools need to teach their kids compassion. I think that's a great idea. Let me add that parents need to teach their children compassion also. And black people, the homophobia and "Stop Snitching"movement needs to STOP. Listen to your children, get involved with your kids' schools and don't be afraid to get them counseling. Telling some kids to"toughen up" is not always enough.

According to Ellen's website you can donate money to Carl Walker's Fund here:

Carl J. Walker Trust Fund
c/o Hampden Bank
19 Harrison Avenue
Springfield, MA 01103

In closing of my Storm and Ellen blog post: be a hero or SHEro to your community and kids by showing them how to care for the planet and each other.

And you when you go to Happy Hour tonight, talk to your bartender about water conservation.

Originally posted by Jenee D. from Cocoa Fly, on April 23, 2009 12:42 AM

Work (both the paying and the other kind) have left me with less time than I'd like to just blog about casual subjects, but here's some musings about Movable Type:

• My kingdom for a decent rich-text editor. Unfortunately, the only way to do this reliably seems to be to use Flash. One thing I hate about the RTE is my cursor keeps vanishing for no particular reason; maybe that's a Firefox bug (I'm using a nightly). And why is it so damn hard to insert a simple <P> tag in the RTE? Hit Enter and you get <br>, but hit Enter twice and you get <br><br> instead of <p>. Maybe I'll have to hack this behavior into it directly. Blech. (I've found I can cheat by switching into HTML mode first, inserting a <P> tag in the head of the post, then switching back -- but that's, again, retarded. Less brain-dead workarounds are welcome.)
  
• I'm looking into a couple of different plugins to do auto-linking to pre-existing lists of links -- something Windows Live Writer does -- but it would be great if one of them worked in the rich text editor itself. That would mean one less program for me to use, but I'm betting that would be more work than most people would want to undertake.
• Customizing the fonts in the RTE and some of the behaviors therein was a terrible pain. I could do it, but the elements are all over the place -- I had to edit a file here and a file there, with no rhyme or reason as to why things are so scattered. I'm betting the reason is not something that presents itself on a casual glance -- I didn't develop the program, after all -- but it is kind of bewildering to have to bounce across so many different files and directories and repositories to edit the behavior of what from the outside is one thing. (Again, maybe this just says more about my perceptions than anything else.)
  
• I've been thinking about creating an actual paper book for it, perhaps something to go with the inevitable 5.0 version when it comes out. Consider that to be a "when I get my pension" type of priority, though.
  

Originally posted by Serdar from Serdar | Genji Press, on April 22, 2009 8:50 PM

We've got a great book club conversation going on about Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State over at TPMCafe.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 22, 2009 6:21 PM

Sylvie and Macchiato had kind of a rude awakening when Louis came home; they were no longer the center of attention, and they really let us know they weren't happy about it by sulking and/or acting up. Taking care of — ahem — "active" cats is a lot of work even without a baby, but we think they're slowly adjusting to life with a little brother.

But they're still funny and cute! Here are some choice S&M moments:

They don't understand why they keep getting kicked out of the new bed (i.e., changing table) we bought for them.

"What? I thought that's why you emptied it..."

That does NOT look comfortable!

Not the smartest of cats...

Head to head.

I don't think that's what they mean by "co-sleeper."

Sylvie demonstrates her prowess on the balance beam.

Macchi's security string

Yes? May I help you?

Sylvie takes advantage of an empty crib.

Here are some photos from the first days after we brought Louis home:

Macchiato welcomes Louis with a friendly pat on the back

Sylvie gets a closer look.

Whoa! There's a baby in here!

Sylvie and Louis napping (this one is more recent).

Macchi babysits.

Originally posted by Josh Boelter from This Boelter Family, on April 22, 2009 5:48 PM

MetsBlog asks "Where are the gangstas?" I couldn't agree more. I know I'm not the first to say it, but this team really seems to be lacking some fire. I've always thought that "heart," "hustle," and being a "gamer" are completely overrated in American sports. Give me some talent any day. But now I'm starting to feel like we are lacking some sort of killer instinct, and it's really starting to show...well, maybe it started to show two seasons ago.

Originally posted by nick from Mandatory Mustache, on April 22, 2009 4:52 PM

Recently a number of efforts have been made at re-imagining the packaging for movies, books, video games, and other media, mostly mashups and in the illustration style of typical of Saul Bass' movie posters or Penguin Classics book covers. I've collected several examples below.

Olly Moss made Penguin-like book covers for video games like Ocarina of Time and Half-Life.

M. S. Corley made Penguin-like versions of the Harry Potter books.

In his I Can Read Movies series, spacesick imagines Penguin-like book covers for movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Sixteen Candles, and Back to the Future.

Forrest Lucero designed Penguin-like book covers for songs from The Postal Service and Daft Punk.

Olly Moss also did simple red/white/black posters for some of his favorite movies, including Die Hard and The Deer Hunter.

A bunch of people on Flickr imagined Nintendo DS tie-in games for movies like Andy Warhol's Empire, Eyes Wide Shut, and 8 1/2. They also did some for TV shows, magazines, web sites, and all sorts of other media.

The folks on the NeoGAF message board made Criterion Collection-style box art for video games like Super Mario Galaxy, Black and White, and Super Mario 64.

Nikolay Saveliev made simple two-color album covers for the likes of Kanye West, Jessica Simpson, and Franz Ferdinand.

Tags: books  design  movies  music  remix 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 22, 2009 4:45 PM

Alright. Fine. In 1995, when I was first exposed to Python, any reference to "snake" was verboten. Python was named after Monty Python, not the reptile. If anybody was attacking, it was Knights who say Ni or possibly the Rabbit of Caerbannog.

In any case... back in 1994, I was battling fictitious baddies in the LPMUD scene. The Web was barely present, and broadband was unheard of. Low-bandwidth entertainment was the order of the day.

Wait. One more step back. 1979. My first computer was an Apple ][, and one of my favorite games was the Colossal Cave. Soon after that, I learned about and played Zork. I fell in love with the concept of interaction fiction and how a computer could lead you through these stories. These games hooked me, and led me into a life of computers. (and yes, you can imagine my ecstasy at meeting Don Woods some 25+ years later!)

So the MUD scene was quite interesting to me. But I wanted to help build these games. I met John Viega, a fellow LPMUD game author, coder, and designer. At the time, he was working at the University of Virginia in their Computer Graphics Lab, working on a system called Alice. Their system was intended for less computer-savvy and they wanted an easy-to-learn language for people to create animations. They chose Python for its clarity, power, and simplicity.

John was a huge fan, and pointed me at Python. "You have to learn this!" "Fine. Fine.", I said. The language was easy, yet powerful. It could do everything, without a lot of hassle.

That was February, 1995, and I haven't turned back.

Little did I know, at the time, just how pivotal Python would be to my career and my life. Thank you, Guido, for your creation.

Originally posted by Greg Stein from The History of Python, on April 22, 2009 3:35 PM

I've talked before about my favorite sports blog, Da' Bears Blog, but I wanted to quote a slightly longer passage from his recent missive about middle-aged writers complaining about Jay Cutler's nights out:

It's not just sports, of course. We live in a "you must have a wife and kids" culture. Happiness need not apply. And since I'm about to spend an entire year apologizing for every mistake Jay Cutler makes, I think this is the right time to point out that being young and having fun is not a mistake. Not at 26. Not in April.

Like Jeff (the author of the blog), I've long disliked reading into a public figure's private life. If Cutler shows up on day 1 and throws 5 touchdowns and 400 yards, everyone will be sending him jello shots and Long Island Iced Teas.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on April 22, 2009 3:23 PM

Editor’s note: Tomorrow, April 22, the California Air Resources Board is expected to debate in a public hearing and likely approve the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, an attempt to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions that is being widely viewed as an important precedent for national climate change legislation — as well as a make-or-break moment for the U.S. biofuels industry. (The Chronicle explains it all here in detail.)

We’re pleased to cross-post this op-ed by FoE Anna Lappé that that takes aim at the agrofuels component of the standard. An activist and best-selling author, Lappé is currently at work on a book about climate change and agriculture, and maintins the site Take a Bite Out of Climate Change.

By Anna Lappé

Let’s not let our state’s standing as a green leader be compromised by one misguided piece of an important environmental law now under debate in Sacramento.

The global food system is responsible for as much as one third of the entire global warming effect, yet one of agribusiness’s climate-destructive practices could be written into the California Low Carbon Fuels Standard under review in the Capitol today.

The new Fuels Standard is part of the state’s promising efforts under AB 32 to lower California’s carbon footprint and pave the way for a greener future. While other parts of the AB 32 bill promote fuel efficiency, performance standards, and limiting carbon emissions, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard is intended to reduce the carbon intensity of the fuels we burn in our cars, trucks, and other transport vehicles. Since motor vehicles emit more than 40 percent of the state’s climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions, this is no small task. Keep to the status quo and experts predict these emissions could nearly double within two decades.

However, the California Air Resources Board, charged with implementing the new standard, is allowing a dirty and destructive fuel to be swept in under the regulations. Biofuels — or more accurately dubbed, agrofuels — are made from plants such as oil palm, soy, sugar cane, and jatropha. These fuels have been included as a key means of achieving the mandate for lower carbon emissions.

In theory, this isn’t so far off base. Considering emissions from the tailpipe alone, agrofuels can release less carbon than fossil fuels. If that’s all there was to the story, agrofuels might be a good replacement for petroleum. However, these fuels’ supposedly small carbon footprint vanishes in an analysis of their entire lifecycle.

To scale up agrofuels production to the levels needed to fill government mandates like the Fuels Standard, massive tracts of land must be cleared. This land is either taken from communities, causing land wars and food shortages, or converted from forests or nature preserves. Because agrofuel feedstocks are often tropical, this conversion is typically occurring in the rainforests of Indonesia, Latin America and East Africa, making agrofuels one of the major drivers of deforestation today.

Because agrofuels are grown on large, monocropped plantations, they rely heavily on petroleum-based chemicals, which are major contributors to the release of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 296 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The synthetic fertilizer used on agrofuel crops like corn, for instance, require more than 30,000 cubic feet of natural gas to produce one ton of fertilizer.

When these impacts are taken into consideration, the environmental benefits of agrofuels over petroleum disappear. A recent study by Friends of the Earth showed that since a similar standard was enacted in Britain in April 2008, the increased use of agrofuels has led to extra emissions equivalent to putting 500,000 more cars on the British roads.

What about the economic argument that agrofuels will spur development in the communities where they’re located? It turns out that like oil rigs, agrofuel plantations do not make good neighbors. People who live next to agrofuel plantations can be poisoned by the pesticide like Paraquat, illegal or restricted in most of the world, which is sprayed over these plantations, and often over nearby villages and roadways, and seeps into local waterways. Or, communities are simply driven off their land to make way for plantation expansion. As the Indian magazine Mausam describes, “most of these lands [taken for agrofuels] are grazing lands, common pastures… and… lands of small and marginal communities… This is where the government and corporations are pushing for these fuels, displacing thousands of peoples.” [1]

To help us avoid the worst consequences of global warming, California Air Resources Board must enact policy that will discourage consumption of energy, instead of pursuing inefficient and unsustainable alternatives, like agrofuels, to meet our insatiable demand.

The Fuel Standards up for debate this week is the first of its kind in the nation and will serve as a model for similar bills making their way through state, regional, and federal governments. California has long been a leader on innovative and sound action to address our climate crisis. Let’s protect that record now by excluding agrofuels from the Low Carbon Fuels Standard. Our children’s lives, our climate, and the world’s forests depend on it.

[1] “Biofuels 2.0,” Ecologist, Feb. 2009.

Originally posted by Ethicurean from The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing., on April 22, 2009 2:34 PM

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial, Apple

Apple released its second quarter earnings today, posting revenues of $8.16 billion, a profit of $1.21 billion ($1.33 per share). This includes sales of:

• 2.22 million Macs
• 11.01 million iPods
• 3.79 million iPhones
  

During the conference call, it was reported that Apple is just hours away from selling its billionth app through the App Store. Approximately 37 million iPhone and iPod Touch units sold altogether.

Update (5:37 p.m.): There are plans to bring the iPhone to China within the next year. It was also reported that Steve Jobs is expected to make a return to his duties at the end of June.

The press release detailing the earnings is below the fold.

Continue reading Apple 2nd Quarter: $8.16B revenue, $1.33 profit per share

TUAWApple 2nd Quarter: $8.16B revenue, $1.33 profit per share originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Originally posted by Megan Lavey from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on April 22, 2009 2:30 PM

The Hawks are up 1-0 on the Heat and game two is tonight at Philips. Time to open another pack of basketball cards to keep the good luck going. Let's do a pack of Murad, one of very, very few I've found out there. I've only seen Murad at exactly one Target in the entire Atlanta area and those packs were just sitting loose on the counter. I haven't seen a blaster or box of it anywhere else other than the local hobby shop. Of course, I don't have the cash to be opening cases of the stuff anyway, but still. It would have been nice to get one lonely blaster of the stuff. If anyone has some extra commons lying around you don't need, I'd be happy to trade ya something for them.

31 Gerald Wallace

I love the way these cards look. The horizontally oriented cards especially so. The backs are a little plain, but who cares. I think it's cool that everyone in this set is playing ball out in the middle of a field as well.

16 Josh Smith

YYYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Josh Smith shall dunk all over the Heat tonight and then block everything in sight on the other end of the floor. So... Happy...

135 James Worthy mini

This pack is getting quite awesome. I love pulling the retro stars and the mini makes it that much better. Worthy got overshadowed by Kareem and Magic, but James was a hell of a power forward.

Checklist 23 of 30

Ooooooooh saaaaaay caaaan yooooouuuuu SSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Enrico Palazzo's singing the National Anthem here.

85 Martell Webster

Blazer! More Madding bait. I'm sure he knows who this guy is.

186 Roy Hibbert RC

Yay! a rookie. I don't know who he is, but rookies are good right? Heck it might even be an SP! Maybe. I still don't know what the SP list is.

Good pack! Now, on to Victory! Go Hawks! HOOPLA!

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on April 22, 2009 12:52 PM

In an interview with the inventors of Twitter, a simple quest to find out if they are as annoying as their invention.

Originally posted by By MAUREEN DOWD from NYT > Opinion, on April 22, 2009 12:50 PM

Feeling undervalued, some magazines are raising their prices and gaining both readership and revenue.

The Economist is leading the charge on expensive subscriptions, and its success is one reason publishers are rethinking their approaches. It is a news magazine with an extraordinarily high cover price -- raised to $6.99 late last year -- and subscription price, about $100 a year on average.

Even though The Economist is relatively expensive, its circulation has increased sharply in the last four years. Subscriptions are up 60 percent since 2004, and newsstand sales have risen 50 percent, according to the audit bureau.

I'm always amazed that something as great as The New Yorker can be had for a buck an issue when people routinely pay $4 for burnt coffee, $10 for crappy movies, and $12 for -tini drinks.

Tags: business  economics  magazines 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 22, 2009 12:42 PM

Whee! Open source MT plugins, represent. http://tinyurl.com/cjpkls #mt

Originally posted by snarkout (snarkout) from #mt - Twitter Search, on April 22, 2009 12:31 PM

We alreayd know that some of the Google staff are really into The Legend of Zelda. They’ve proven their love in the past via cosplay pictures. Now it looks like they’ve slipped a nod to the series in their special Earth Day logo.

If you can’t find the Triforce symbol in teh picture above, click through the jump to see the area highlighted. Thanks to Ruud for the heads up!

(more…)

Originally posted by RawmeatCowboy from GoNintendo, on April 22, 2009 12:06 PM

Shared by anildash
"If your mechanic wants to buy your car, it’s not time to sell it."

Anil Dash and Mike Monteiro have launched a web site evangelizing the idea of appreciating what you have. The idea is simple and may be particularly compelling during a recession, but should probably be in the backs of our minds all the time.

I’ll share a little story along those lines. I drive an old car. It gets bad gas mileage and has uncomfortable seats. I would love to drive a new car. But the truth is I don’t drive an awful lot and the car runs really well. A couple of years ago I mentioned to my mechanic that I was considering getting rid of it, and he told me that if I did, to let him know, because he would be interested in buying it. At that point, I looked at the car with fresh eyes. If your mechanic wants to buy your car, it’s not time to sell it.

Just recently I’ve gotten a problem with the driver’s seat fixed, replaced the tires with nicer ones than I probably would have ordinarily, and resolved myself to sticking with it for another couple of years. I bought this car because I loved it, and as it turns out, I still love it.

This mentality is why car manufacturers around the world are in so much trouble, and why the government is pursuing fiscal stimulus, but for an individual, I think it’s the most rational approach.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from rc3.org, on April 22, 2009 12:03 PM

When you love technology, it’s natural to lust after the latest and greatest gadgets and gear available on the market, even if what you’ve got already does everything you need. But if you decide not to give in and get that Kindle 2 or netbook, you can feel like you’ve fallen behind, like you’re being cheap, like you’re missing out. Truth is, passing on the latest and greatest because what you’ve got is enough is a decision to celebrate.

So I’m thrilled that my pal Anil Dash launched a new site this Earth Day called Last Year’s Model, where technophiles can take pride in sticking with the great gadgets they already own, even when they’ve been around for a year or two. While I’m guilty of running on the gadget consumer treadmill myself (Android phone and Kindle, anyone?), I’m proud of stepping off and bragging about the fact that I never bought an iPhone 3G, a MacBook Air, a Wii, or a netbook. Join me, will you? Tweet or blog a testimonial to the trusty gadget you passed on upgrading and include the #lastyears hash tag to get included on the site. See Anil’s full announcement for more on Last Year’s Model.

Originally posted by Gina Trapani from Smarterware, on April 22, 2009 11:50 AM

I knew it! Sent to me by ArtMusicLife on Twitter, some research on Early birds and night owls, which shows that in the morning both types have the same mental capacities, but towards evening, Night Owls stay more alert:

So even though both groups were sleeping and waking according to their preferred schedule, night owls generally outlasted early birds in how long they could stay awake and mentally alert before becoming mentally fatigued. The fMRI supported the behavioral results: 10.5 hours after waking up, the early birds had lower activity in brain regions linked to attention and the circadian master clock, compared to night owls.

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on April 22, 2009 11:20 AM

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd does not like Twitter. You are probably already aware of this fact. They have probably already tweeted the fuck out of it over in the Twitterverse. The jokes, as they say, write themselves, even at a maximum of 140 characters.

But so what? I mean, why should Maureen Dowd have to like Twitter? Maureen Dowd is a columnist at the New York Times, and given how long they let William Safire ramble about on that page, it’s pretty clear that it’s a tenure situation. Twenty years from now Dowd will still be making the same superficial observations about significant political and cultural events, only this time she’ll be working in references to her nursing home and the indignities of being offered senior movie tickets. She’s a Pulitzer Prize winner with a lifetime sinecure on the op-ed page of the world’s most important paper (N.B.: This whole train of thought assumes that there will still be a Times twenty years from now, so let’s just pretend that there will.); there is absolutely no reason for her to be tapping out “AT AMAZING SALE AT CUSP W/ @WIESELTIER” in her spare moments. She’s already built her brand.

And that’s exactly the point. Remember how when blogging started to get attention the whole gang of print journalists would snort derisively about how it wasn’t “really writing”? And then, a couple of years later, when their papers were dying off and ownership was so desperate for anything to staunch the flow of red ink that it forced them all to start blogging, and they were like, “Holy shit, blogging is hard!” Well, there was a certain protected class of columnists and reporters who, because they were so established, were not made to sully themselves by coding HTML and searching for pooping dog videos. You don’t make a Maureen Dowd blog, particularly when Jennifer 8. Lee will do it five hundred times a day and happily twitpimp the results.

So don’t worry if Maureen Dowd doesn’t like Twitter; it’s not for her. There are plenty of other journalists who desperately need it (and some who definitely need to be weaned from it—David Carr, you are FILLING UP MY DASHBOARD, YOU HAVE TO CHILL). Let the Dowds bury their Dowds; the rest of us are stuck slapping up the minutiae out of fear that we will otherwise become invisible. Which is, of course, the worst thing of all.

Alex Balk (@AlexBalk) hates Twitter.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 22, 2009 11:10 AM

Anil has launched a new site/idea that I am very much excited about. It's called Last Year's Model and it's all about recognizing you don't need to get on the newest gadget treadmill that some gadget blogs and manufacturers would like you to believe.

Design is by Mule, it's super fancy.

Originally posted by torrez from Andre's Notes, on April 22, 2009 10:55 AM

Here's the idea: We can fix the false impression that the newest gadgets are the only interesting ones by simply promoting the fact that we're getting a lot out of our existing products.

I am lucky — I get to talk to some of the smartest geeks in the world, and to learn from their example about cutting-edge technologies. One of the most interesting things I've seen is that, while so much of the talk in tech circles is about the latest-and-greatest, even alpha geeks often don't run out and buy the newest gadgets and electronics the minute they come out.

But you wouldn't know it from the way we talk about our gadgetry.

Instead, there's an incessant focus on what's just been released on the market, or what's becoming available in the future. It makes even those of us who have great, fancy, expensive devices feel like, well, we're slipping behind.

It ain't necessarily so. I bounced this idea off of a few tech experts I know, and they all agreed that the constant pursuit of novelty over actual value takes a lot of the joy out of loving great technology. So, to help promote the idea of being thoughtful about what we buy, and how long we hold on to it, I created Last Year's Model, with a design from my friend Mike Monteiro of Mule Design.

Today is Earth Day — I don't want to diminish the fact that being thoughtful about our consumption is good for the planet. But It's just as important to me that we really think about what we're doing with these tools and toys.

Fortunately, I'm not alone.

• Gina Trapani was one of the first people to really encourage me to put the site together, and she's already given a testimonial to the idea for the site and helped spread the #lastyears tag on Twitter with her announcement.
• Kevin Rose is on board, too, showing that there's no contradiction between loving the latest in technology and still not chasing every new shiny gadget.
• Joel Johnson at BoingBoing Gadgets a really thoughtful take on the idea.
• Chris Pirillo's got a personal testimonial of how he's getting the most from his current laptop.

And we've got a ton more examples popping up — I'll be sharing them on my own Twitter account as new ones pop up. You can also join the Facebook Cause to show your support.

I hope you'll participate. I'm very thankful to all my friends who've helped out with shaping this simple little site and the slightly-bigger idea behind it. If you've got a story of how you're getting the most out of the gear you've already got, all you have to do is visit Last Year's Model and share your story.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on April 22, 2009 10:10 AM

Here's the idea: We can fix the false impression that the newest gadgets are the only interesting ones by simply promoting the fact that we're getting a lot out of our existing products.

I am lucky — I get to talk to some of the smartest geeks in the world, and to learn from their example about cutting-edge technologies. One of the most interesting things I've seen is that, while so much of the talk in tech circles is about the latest-and-greatest, even alpha geeks often don't run out and buy the newest gadgets and electronics the minute they come out.

But you wouldn't know it from the way we talk about our gadgetry.

Instead, there's an incessant focus on what's just been released on the market, or what's becoming available in the future. It makes even those of us who have great, fancy, expensive devices feel like, well, we're slipping behind.

It ain't necessarily so. I bounced this idea off of a few tech experts I know, and they all agreed that the constant pursuit of novelty over actual value takes a lot of the joy out of loving great technology. So, to help promote the idea of being thoughtful about what we buy, and how long we hold on to it, I created Last Year's Model, with a design from my friend Mike Monteiro of Mule Design.

Today is Earth Day — I don't want to diminish the fact that being thoughtful about our consumption is good for the planet. But It's just as important to me that we really think about what we're doing with these tools and toys.

Fortunately, I'm not alone.

• Gina Trapani was one of the first people to really encourage me to put the site together, and she's already given a testimonial to the idea for the site and helped spread the #lastyears tag on Twitter with her announcement.
• Kevin Rose is on board, too, showing that there's no contradiction between loving the latest in technology and still not chasing every new shiny gadget.
• Joel Johnson at BoingBoing Gadgets a really thoughtful take on the idea.
• Chris Pirillo's got a personal testimonial of how he's getting the most from his current laptop.

And we've got a ton more examples popping up — I'll be sharing them on my own Twitter account as new ones pop up. You can also join the Facebook Cause to show your support.

I hope you'll participate. I'm very thankful to all my friends who've helped out with shaping this simple little site and the slightly-bigger idea behind it. If you've got a story of how you're getting the most out of the gear you've already got, all you have to do is visit Last Year's Model and share your story.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on April 22, 2009 10:10 AM

At least we're past the "Twitter Will Fail And Be Gone In A Year" phase. Now we're at the "Twitter Is So Stoopid" phase. Maureen Dowd interrogates two of the Twitter founders.

Originally posted by torrez from Andre's Notes, on April 22, 2009 9:41 AM

Nolita: In early February, cheap Thai hipster haven Lovely Day began offering delivery from a remote location after they were shuttered for over three months due to a fire. But a tipster tells us that for the last few weeks, they haven't been answering the phone, and it seems the delivery program has been suspended. However, there is this very vital silver lining: According to the above signage and their answering machine, they hope to be up and running by early May. Hurry back now, Lovely Day, the locals miss you.
· Waiting for the Day: Lovely Day Takeout Only Until "Spring" [~E~]
· Disaster Report: Elizabeth St. Fire Shutters Lovely Day [~E~]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on April 22, 2009 9:06 AM

The Department of City Planning released a study this weekend about the possibilities for bike-share in New York City, and if you can spare the time to look it over, it's a rewarding read. The best news: The city is thinking about bike-share on a scale that would successfully integrate cycling into the public transit system. The report recommends a phased implementation, starting with a 10,000-bike system and expanding to 49,000 bikes at stations in four boroughs.

The DCP study follows DOT's release last summer of a Request for Expressions of Interest to gauge the potential of a public bike system. City officials characterized the new report as a research document akin to a feasibility study, not an indication that bike-share implementation is imminent.

With New York's streets crammed to capacity at peak hours and subways and buses handling historically high levels of ridership, now is an opportune moment for bike-share, which can be implemented quickly and at modest expense. A network of public bike stations as dense as Paris's Vélib would make existing transit options more attractive and relieve crowding on packed trains and buses. Consider these examples from DCP's report:

Over 14,000 northwest Brooklyn residents (Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Fort Greene, etc) work in northwest Queens (Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside). While the distance between these areas is short, insufficient transit means that 42% of these commuters drive to work each day. In addition, for some households, the introduction of a bike-share program may help them avoid or postpone the purchase of a car, as trips to transit or other short trips could then be made by public bicycle.

A subway commuter living on the Upper East Side and working in lower Manhattan or Midtown currently walks to the Lexington Avenue subway (4/5/6), one of the most congested subway lines in the city. With a bike-share program in place, that commuter might bicycle to an express stop or choose to bypass the 4/5/6 all together and bicycle to 63rd or 59th Streets where transfers are available for the F and N/R/W trains. Similarly a bike-share system would allow a Morrisania or Mott Haven resident working at Columbia-Presbyterian, City College or Columbia University, to bicycle to the D train instead of taking a bus or the crowded 2, 5 or 6 train into Manhattan and turning around to go back uptown into work.

The report proposes a phased roll-out, starting where demand would be most intense and expanding to cover all of Manhattan and significant portions of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. The map comes after the jump.

As many as half a million New Yorkers would use the fully built-out network, the report estimates. I highly recommend browsing the whole document: It's full of stats, case studies of existing bike-share systems, and scenarios for implementation here in New York. With cities like London, Montreal, and Minneapolis slated to launch bike-share systems this year or next, it makes a convincing case for what New York stands to gain by joining their ranks.

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on April 22, 2009 9:05 AM

New York Observer owner and boy wonder Jared Kushner just bought a ("sexy") new $3.2 million apartment. In other news, we hear he'd like out of that paper. If only.

The rumors we hear say that Kusher would like an elegant, face-saving exit from the failing newspaper business, and that he's had talks with Politico and Huffington Post about buying or merging with the Observer, but neither one has bitten.

That would make Jared Kushner just like every other newspaper owner in America right now. The Kushners have surely lost a small fortune in real estate already in this downturn; no reason to be invested in another dying business on top of that.

But even though any half-savvy negotiator could probably get a newspaper just by taking over the payments, like a 2007 Toyota Camry, it's hard to see why anyone would want one right now. The last paper to sell was in San Diego (cheap), but that one had many more scrappable assets than the Observer has. The NYO is a great read but until the NYC real estate market starts booming and buying ads again, it's hard to see how the hell it makes any money. Suck it up, Kushner. At least you have a $3.2 million apartment.

Originally posted by Hamilton Nolan from Gawker, on April 22, 2009 8:30 AM

Democrats have so much faith in the mystic powers of their Godlike president that they think he’s already fixing the environment just by virtue of how awesome he is.  Or so suspects Nate Silver.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 22, 2009 7:49 AM

It’s been a mere two days since we flipped the switch and pulled up the grate on this innovative new site of ours, and we could not be more gratified by your enthusiasm. We’re particularly pleased with the reaction we’ve already received in the media and online. We don’t want to get too braggy just yet, but it does seem like a little round-up of early opinion is in order.

• Vanity Fair: “There have been some unkind words about the design”

• The Blog Herald: “A not so pretty blog”

• The New York Observer: “A bare-bones site”

• Unhealthy Obsession: “Inherent dullness”

• Silicon Alley Insider: “A 1995-vintage design”

• Guest of a Guest: “Looks like Gawker might have in ‘02”

• Continuous Line: “Damn that’s ugly.”

• Joel Johnson: “It has Choire and Balk. And ugly.”

• Nick Denton: “Confusing and amateurish.”

• MWOD: “Frightful, dire, offensive to the sight”

Thanks, folks! We’re happy to have you along for the ride. And don’t forget to GET YOUR BUZZ ON!

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 22, 2009 7:09 AM

Some people are working on cars that will go 800 or even 1000 miles per hour on the flat desert of Nevada.

The rules are simple. Clock the racer through a measured mile, turn around and do it again, then average the two speeds. Mr. Shadle said Eagle would need 11 miles for each run: a mile to warm up to 250 miles per hour; four miles to light off the afterburner and get up to record speed; a mile in the speed trap; and five miles to stop. The vehicle must have at least four wheels - two of them steerable -- and be back at the original start line within 60 minutes. And that's it.

Tags: automobiles 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 22, 2009 7:02 AM

Yesterday, it was decided that without a doubt, New York's banh mi trend peaked when LES sports bar Blue Seats added "bahn mi sliders" to their menu. Today, the bar has yielded to the will of the people...kind of. They have since renamed the sliders "Pork Meatball (spiced w/ lemongrass, shallots, garlic, cilantro, mint, fish sauce, w/ pickled carrots and cucumber, not a banh mi, more of a ninh hoa) slider." That about settles it then!
· Pop Quiz: When Did the Banh Mi Craze Run its Course? [~E~]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on April 22, 2009 6:59 AM

I'm not ready to completely discount the possibility that there were changes in Cheney's personality over the 1993-2001 period. But a number of readers have suggested a more Occam's Razor friendly explanation that I find pretty convincing. In all of Cheney's earlier assignments, he held powerful positions under strong, at least fairly competent executives. Under Bush, especially during the first term, Cheney was, and certainly saw himself, pretty much in charge.

TPM Reader JB makes the point ...

I've always been pretty dubious about the whole Cheney personality change theory, and not just because Bart Gellman doesn't seem to give it much credence. I think it overlooks a much simpler explanation.

Dick Cheney acted as George W. Bush's Vice President in ways he did not as Gerald Ford's chief of staff or Defense Secretary under the elder George Bush because George W. Bush was not Ford and was not the elder Bush. I don't really think the matter is any more complicated than that.

During the younger Bush's first term especially, Cheney operated in ways that suggested he really didn't think his nominal boss was really up to the job. He treated associates not directly useful to him with contempt and disregard for their roles in the government -- something Ford would have discouraged and the elder Bush would have as well. George W. Bush barely noticed it, though he may understand it now.

Neither of the earlier Presidents Cheney served were giants. They were both career government men, sensitive about the prerogatives of their office and aware that their own success in public life was due to how well they worked within the rules, not how creatively they broke them. They also, in fairness to Cheney, did not experience anything like 9/11. Cheney earned his reputation for being smarter, shrewder and harder-working than most of the people he worked with in government. During the second Bush administration he had few checks on his authority, and after 9/11 especially felt an imperative to fill the vacuum left by his President's limited interest in the details of government.

Cheney could not have been Cheney if Bush had not been Bush.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 22, 2009 6:54 AM

Carlos Beltran talked with reporters from his locker last night after the team’s loss to the Cardinals, and had the following to say about…

…not sliding in to home, on a play at the plate:

“When I took off for third I was watching the ball, and when I looked at home plate I was too close to slide - and Molina was on top the plate, so I tried to basically go over his feet, but I topped on his foot and was unable to touch home plate… I didn’t realize how close I was from home plate, so that is why I didn’t slide… I was running and looking at the ball, and didn’t realize how close I was too home plate… Razor Shines pointed to the ball, I didn’t react right away, it took me time, and that is probably why, had I reacted right away I would have made it, but that’s how it goes… In that play, as a player, you don’t have to ask for help, you just know what you have to to.”

…i have to be honest, i still have no idea what he’s talking about… it reminds me of the, ‘It’s too high,’ comment in the movie Major League… what does it mean…

…Daniel Murphy’s error, on which he let a line drive fly over his head:

“Well, that’s bad luck right there… He just slipped, he slipped on the play before.  I think he’s trying and doing his best, unfortunately things are happening to him right now; but he’s putting in the effort and working hard out there and he’s trying to become the best left fielder he can be… It’s gonna take him time to feel better, but I do believe that he’s going to get better… My advice is for him to relax and do the best he can.”

…this is correct… murphy is a rookie, we all know it, he knows it, and he is allowed a learning curve, no question about it… i mean, it’s not like he’s a million-dollar veteran who didn’t slide in to home on a play at the plate…

…the loss in general:

“Well, you know, every loss is not a good feeling… I believe we had the opportunity to win (last night’s game)… But, we walked a lot of guys, and every time you walk people those are runs that will haunt you sooner than later, and they did.  They took the lead and (the offense) just couldn’t come through.”

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 22, 2009 6:09 AM

Signs of the recession:

While their website may be offering ten issues for $24.50, in yesterday’s mail came a two year subscription offer to The Atlantic for twenty dollars. Disturbing! The magazine adjusted its rate base to 450,000 in January, and would presumably desire to keep selling ads based on that number.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 22, 2009 5:23 AM

I’m drinking my free coffee from McDonald’s. and later I will be taking my mug to Starbucks to get another free coffee. (viva la earth day!)

I went to the jeans store with the intent to buy a pair of William Rasts and came out with two pairs of 7s. …and, wait for it, one pair is high-waisted. ohmigod, i know what you are thinking, because i was thinking the same thing. but while everyone else is getting lower and lower rises, i have a mommy-that-birthed-three-babies belly that never needs to see the light of day. you see, i am ANTI-MUFFIN TOP, and therefore, i am pro anything that makes me look hot without it. enter my new gingers. hey…if they are good enough for Rachel Bilson, they are good enough for me. because, seriously, she always looks good. except for that one time that she went out wearing those thermal pajamas and boots.

although now that i look at this picture i am realizing that i’d much rather be wearing this than the ensemble i am donning today, which includes my new pair of mary janes that my dog has already chewed the hell out of. can someone explain to me why Indiana only enjoys MY THINGS? my shoes. my clothes. my bras. my v-string. oh my god, my v-strings. it’s a good thing i rarely wear underwear because i am down to about 3 pairs that don’t have itty bitty indy-sized teeth marks all over them. ew.

I am officially in a fight with Rubbermaid.

I have been invited to a Gold Party. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I have never. but, long story short, it’s a tupperware party. except that you don’t have to buy anything (which, good, because, hello, PRESSURE. when i go to parties like that i end up coming home with some $400 machine that makes perfect tea and i’m all jazzed up about it and then my husband has to remind me that i don’t drink tea. and then i cry) and you actually walk out of the door with money which is a plus because hopefully i will trade in enough old bat mitzvah treasures to pay for that tea machine for the next party i’m in invited to.

I went to a taping of CityLine yesterday. Now, if you are not Canadian, I will tell you that going to CityLine is like going to Oprah!! only if you ARE Canadian, you will know that i am a big, fat liar.

because it’s totally not. but, even though it’s not ALL that exciting, AND they WERE talking about furnishing the outside of your home (and let’s face it, i can’t even afford to furnish the inside of my home), it was still ridiculous fun to watch from my front row seat (set your pvrs for next tuesday where you will see ME! make weird faces at the camera and fidget a lot! awesome) and because I am a total whore with zero shame, i totally forced myself upon Brian Gluckstein

(even though until 3 minutes before the show started, i had never heard of him) (Ilana, Melyssa, and Tova had to give me the 30-second version of CityLine for Dummies. good thing for me i’m a total winger, and made it look like I totally watch the show every day!)

I am slightly less disturbed by Return to Neverland than I am with the original Peter Pan. but I am still totally ready for missabella to be done with this whole peter pan stage. only, she’s taken to walking around saying “i’ll always believe in you Peter Pan” in this faux British accent that sounds way more Eastern European-ish. I’m doomed, aren’t I? She’s also taken to saying things like, “Mommy, i’m pretty sure i’m turning into a dolphin. i mean, look at my feet!” If I could bottle up this stage in her life and save it forever, i totally would. It’s THAT good.

Originally posted by ali from Cheaper Than Therapy, on April 22, 2009 5:13 AM

letsgomets:

No Comment

AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 22, 2009 3:15 AM

Our pal Jeffrey Veen just posted a talk he gave at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo. Those who attended UX Week 2008 got to see that talk seven months earlier (and you can see it here).

Given the coverage that Jeff’s talk is getting, I thought you might be interested in a couple other talks from UX Week 2008 that look at interface and interaction innovations. The first comes from Michal Migurski at Stamen, discussing their approach to data visualization (17 minutes):

Michael Migurski | UX Week 2008 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

The other comes from Darren David and Nathan Moody of Stimulant, sharing how they approach the design of large-scale multitouch interfaces (25 minutes).

Darren David & Nathan Moody | UX Week 2008 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

What’s most exciting for me is that Michael, Darren, and Nathan will all be teaching hands-on workshops at UX Week 2009. This will give you a chance to learn directly from these experts, and prepare you for the imminent design future. (Use the promotional code BLOG and get 10% off the registration price!)

Originally posted by peterme from Adaptive Path, on April 21, 2009 7:12 PM

The Mets and the Yankees failed to sell about 5,000 tickets — including some of the priciest seats — to each of their first few games after last week’s openers.

Originally posted by By KEN BELSON from NYT > Home Page, on April 21, 2009 6:49 PM

Mark Penn, a former Clinton pollster, writes in the Wall Street Journal that:

In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers.

Understandably, Penn's catching a bit of flack for that and statements and the numbers he uses to back them up. From Waldo Jaquith at VQR:

Penn's thesis is that average American citizens are becoming professional bloggers, offsetting the loss in journalists, with millions enjoying a revenue stream from blogging and nearly half a million making a living at it. That's wrong on its face. There's simply no way there there's more than, say, 10,000 Americans are paying for their basic life expenses purely through blogging.

Scott Rosenberg, who has done all sorts of research about blogging for his forthcoming book, reacted similarly:

Technorati's are the longest-running and most valuable, and consistent, series of blogging studies over time, but like any study's numbers, they can be easily misrepresented: here, Penn relies on them for the datum that bloggers who reach 100,000 uniques a month can earn $75K a year. But if you read the source, you find this:

"The average income was $75,000 for those who had 100,000 or more unique visitors per month (some of whom had more than one million visitors each month). The median annual income for this group is significantly lower - $22,000."

In other words, the $75K average is skewed by a handful of outlier successes, but the great majority of bloggers who get 100,000 uniques/month earn more like $22,000. Here, the median is far more relevant than the average. Penn, of all people, knows this.

From my perspective as someone who does make a living blogging, Penn's numbers, especially this 100,000 uniques --&gt $75K business, are misleading at best and a complete fucking lie at worst.

Tags: business  markpenn  weblogs 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 21, 2009 6:27 PM

Nicolas Lampert Plier Insect $20 A silkscreen print of a recent image that is part of the machine-animal collage series. silkscreen 19" x 12" off white colored paper with visible fibers signed/unnumbered

Originally posted by Nicolas Lampert from Just Seeds, on April 21, 2009 5:16 PM

A 20-minute talk by Jeff Veen from Small Batch, Inc., also known from WikiRank, which was originally given at the Web2.0 Expo in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. During the talk, he focuses on some of the classic examples of information visualization (John Snow pump, Minard's map, the tube map, and so on), the issue of "decorating" data versus making it accessible, and the emerging challenge to empower lay people to participate in visualizing and analyzing their own data.

Considering the examples and his focus in the democratization of data visualization, I sincerely hope he reads infosthetics.

Watch the video below.

Thnkx Christina. Image taken from Anita Hart at Flickr.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on April 21, 2009 5:03 PM

....I've been readin this shit for years. Now that I clearly am not a lyricist like an early LL Cool, it is truly time to start realizing how great/shitty your fantasy draft is. I like to give my players about 2-3 weeks time to see who I then can start adding/dropping. So with this year's fantasy postings, I think I'll stick to some old school templates and then add some new stuff along the way. So here we go.........

Hitter of the weeks so far: Ian Kinsler
Look at these insane numbers to start the young season: 23 for 50, which equals a .460 batting average, 4 HRs, 14 RBIs, 13 runs scored, 6 SBs, and an OPS of 1.398. And the guy had a 6 hit cycle.
Big ups for honorable mention to: Matt Kemp

Pitcher of the weeks so far: Zack Greinke
Are you kidding me? 3-0, 0 earned runs? 26/5 in K/BB. At least 7 strikeouts in every start. Denton Cy Young is spinning in his grave.
Big ups for honorable mention to: Heath Bell

Sucking It Up: Chien-Ming Wang
There is no contest here. And its no secret how bad Wang has been. 34.50 ERA and he hasn't been in the game past the 4th inning yet. He's averaging almost 4 hits per inning and a WHIP of 4.83. He better get this figured out.
Big thumbs down for dishonorable mention to: Arizona Diamondback's offense for Dan Haren's starts

Diamond in the Rough: Ricky Romero
This guy has been phenomenal for our feathery friends up north. A 1.71 ERA in 3 starts with a 1.10 WHIP. On Sunday, he shut out the A's 1-0 and scattered 4 hits in 7 innings while striking out a career high 6. PICK THIS GUY UP NOW.
Big ups for honorable mention to: Adam Jones

Come back every week for another posting about fantasy highs and lows of the week. As always I'll end with my stat of the week......

Stat of the Week: Carlos Quentin of the White Sox has 7 HRs this season. That's more than either the San Francisco Giants or the Oakland Athletics. Billy Beane is probably too busy worrying about being played by Brad Pitt on the big screen to even notice.

Image courtesy of here

Originally posted by H-Unit from 3:10 to Joba, on April 21, 2009 4:50 PM

"Debits Field":

not the worst I’ve seen, but, still, if I’m going to call it anything besides its given name, I’m Calling It Shea

(You know, we do that at home. All the time. Can’t say Citi. Not trying to be ornery or make a point. It just comes out.)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 21, 2009 3:02 PM

Once upon a time I was in a bar (have you heard this one?). I believe it was August 2005. Neil Diamond was singing to a crowd at Madison Square Garden. A man named Mike Jacobs was at the concert. I, as I said, was in a bar. I was just returning from the bathroom when I noticed the words "Mike Jacobs" on the TV, on the Mets game.

It's hard for me to believe I knew how to text four years ago, but I am sure I sent a text to the Neil Diamond fan saying: "Some guy named Mike Jacobs is either pitching, or batting for the Mets right now."
To which he responded: "Not possible. Someone would have told me."
To which I responded: "I'm telling you right now."

He continued to disbelieve me, and he's pretty convincing so I started to disbelieve myself (quantities of drink help)...until I saw the words again on the TV.

Text: "Seriously there's a guy on the Mets named Mike Jacobs."
Reply: "No."

It should not be hard for you, dear reader, knowing what you now know, to understand why the Mike Jacobs who has been my baseball partner for four seasons came to be known TFMJ (The Fake Mike Jacobs) and that not so spectacular Met-Marlin-Royal got to be Real.

And now it seems I am not the only one who needs to differentiate between these two Mike Jacobs. Check out Joe Posnanski's article in Sports Illustrated: The Curious Case of Mike Jacobs, My New Favorite Royal.

I love it.

Originally posted by Sara Pepitone from Scoreboard Gourmet, on April 21, 2009 3:01 PM

with slight modifications, I think this class would be a massive hit [via] 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on April 21, 2009 2:37 PM

The National Archives confirms that Cheney formally requested the release of classified CIA documents to prove that the intelligence gathering ends justified the torture means.

Hmmm, Cheney using classified documents to buttress his political and rhetorical positions ... haven't we been here before? (see: Miller, Judy).

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on April 21, 2009 1:41 PM

Shared by Bud
Some very intelligent points regarding getting people to pay for online content. There are pay models that work. The niche idea is interesting.

Alan Murray, who edits the Wall Street Journal online, offers some thoughtful ideas about when it makes sense to charge for content:

Originally posted by (author unknown) from yglesias.thinkprogress.org, on April 21, 2009 1:34 PM

Schools are finally taking the end of print media seriously. Professor Robert Lanham is offering a class called Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era that will be graded on the "Raised by Boomers, Everyone's a Winner" system.

Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls.

OMG, this class is totes HFACTDEWARIUCSMNUWKIASLAMB.

Tags: robertlanham  weblogs 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 21, 2009 1:29 PM

Ed Bott:

In short, when I used this system as a netbook, it worked just fine. […] If I tried to use this system as a conventional notebook, running multiple Microsoft Office or OpenOffice aps, playing music in iTunes or Windows Media Player, and using third-party IM programs, I would probably be incredibly frustrated with the limitations of Starter Edition.

So “netbook” users don’t listen to music or run IM programs. Uh, OK.

Also, a few DF readers have emailed asking how this is different than Apple’s “no third-party background apps” policy for the iPhone. For one thing, Apple isn’t trying to up-sell you on a more expensive “edition” of iPhone OS — it’s not an artificial constraint imposed upon customers who pay less money, but a design decision. If you disagree that the iPhone’s background app policy is a good idea, go ahead and buy an Android G1 or a BlackBerry or whatever instead. The danger I see for Microsoft is that the more they push Windows users to consider alternatives, the more of them who switch.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on April 21, 2009 1:26 PM

Here's what you should be watching tonight while enjoying some hands-free Twitter.

- Reds at Cubs; 7:05PM
Watch Micah Owings swing the bat and Rich Harden get injured!

- Athletics at Yankees; 7:05PM
Rain, rain, go away. If anything can fix the A's offensive woes, it's the fucking launching pad in the Bronx.

- Rangers at Blue Jays; 7:07PM
Roy Halladay is good, Brandon McCarthy not so much. Rangers will probably win in a landslide now that I've said this.

- Dodgers at Astros; 8:05PM
Clayton Kershaw takes the hill, fresh off his dominant performance. The last time he was on the mound, there was a walkoff walk.

-Padres at Giants; 10:15PM
This is the marquee matchup of the evening as Peavy goes against Cain in the battle to see who can get the least amount of run support and still walk away a winner.

And there's the rest of the night games that I won't be able to enjoy. Devils game, here I come.

Originally posted by J from 3:10 to Joba, on April 21, 2009 12:45 PM

Filed under: iPhone

Some people may not be happy with the iPhone running on the AT&T 3G network, but at least it appears that network will be running faster. AT&T is already in advanced testing of its new faster 3G network, which was first revealed by Scott McElroy, AT&T VP of Technology Realization, in an interview with Telephony Online.

AT&T says it is going to increase the downlink capacity on its high speed packet access (HSPA) from 3.6 megabits per second to 7.2 megabits per second by upgrading the software at the base stations. Currently, AT&T has the enhanced network running in two test markets, but plans to extend the faster spec to its entire network. Then, AT&T plans to start migrating its networks to 'Evolved HSPA' which would triple peak speeds.

Of course the big question for many of us is will the iPhone work with these enhanced speeds? AT&T says most of the data cards, smartphones, and the iPhone will support the new tweaked specs, at least up to 14.4 Mb/s. It's probably a good idea for AT&T to drastically improve its network, especially as it is begging Apple to renew its partnership for another year.

Maybe that will get the SlingBox Mobile app running happily if it ever arrives. Grrrr.

TUAWAT&T is testing bumped-up 3G speeds originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Mel Martin from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on April 21, 2009 12:15 PM

-Photo by Getty Images-
Paula, Paula, Paula. When will she learn that every time she opens that mouth of hers something ridiculous comes out?

In a new interview with Nightline, airing Thursday, Paula Abdul says she's pretty sure nobody could ever replace her on American Idol -- especially not newbie Kara DioGuardi.

"I don't think anyone [can]," Paula said. "First of all, Kara says, 'I could never replace you.'"

"Whenever there is change, it's not about replacing anybody, it's about possibly moving on," Paula, who's forever our girl even if her contact with Idol is up at the end of this season, said in the interview. But "I love the show, I do," she continued. "I love what I do on the show, and I'm loving it more this season than ever. It's taken me awhile to get comfortable in my own skin with the show."

It's pretty obvious that Paula continues to live in her own pretty, little world. She's still denying that she's ever been messed up on drugs or alcohol ("I've never been drunk in my life. I don't like it. It's not my thing" and "You can check my medical records...I was never on Oxycontin or Vicadin or anything like that. I was on nerve medicine and anti-inflammatories"), but what about the numerous meltdowns she had on her reality show Hey Paula?

"That was NOT an accurate documentation of my life! I'm falling asleep and a camera is on me!" she insists. "I don't have anything that's shameful. I don't have anything to be embarrassed about."

Okay, has she seen any episodes of that show?

You know what, though? She's right about one thing -- nobody can replace her.

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from iVillage - Daily Blabber, on April 21, 2009 12:11 PM

• The painful truth about trainers: Are expensive running shoes a waste of money? | Mail Online
  (tags: fitness culture running)
• Peter Shankman's HARO - Help a Reporter Out (TM)
  I'm not sure where I read this morning about how HARO is earning 1 million a year in revenue from the little ads that appear in the 3x daily newsletter's of reporter queries for experts but it is the kind of simple and nice business that I wish I had thought of and were running. You could do it from anywhere once it got going.
  (tags: journalism tools reporting)
• He’s the Man Who Sets the Table- a Profile of agent Jon Rosen who works with food personalities
  I have several close friends who write about food and who also occasionally appear on television, so this article caught my eye as I expect my friends either know or know of this guy. As I read it however I began thinking about the saying "with friends like these who needs enemies." I think the article is meant to be complimentary, but to me, it reads like anything but, and by the end I felt sorry for the subject. Maybe I'm misreading it, but the author does him no favors from calling him stocky and a "prowling bear", having his asst chime in like Jack Donaghy's on 30 Rock, centering the story around his upbringing in a family that had some financial struggles and how those lessons make him who he is, quoting a long Bruce Springsteen song, and having Rachel Ray speculate on his self-worth. Is it really a compliment when a SVP at your company says he "has a little bit of street edge in him...some of us are more refined." Maybe all press is good press but I don't think so.
• Dave Winer & Jay Rosen chat/podcast on news and newspapers etc.
  (tags: media)

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on April 21, 2009 12:02 PM

It's no secret that from time to time many of us have searched on Google for our name or someone else's. When searching for yourself to see what others would find, results can be varied and aren't always what you want people to see — whether it's someone else with your name, or the finishing time from that 5K you ran back in 2002. We want to make that better and give you more of a voice.

To give you greater control over what people find when they search for your name, we've begun to show Google profile results at the bottom of U.S. name-query search pages. These results offer abbreviated information from user-created Google profiles and a link to the full profiles. We've also added links so it's easy to search for the same name on MySpace, Facebook, Classmates and LinkedIn.


Don't have a Google profile? Just search for [me] and follow the instructions at the top of the page to create one. In just a few minutes, you can create a public profile that represents you and that appears when people search for your name on Google. Check out www.google.com/profiles to learn more.

Posted by Brian Stoler, Software Engineer

Originally posted by A Googler from The Official Google Blog, on April 21, 2009 12:00 PM

Here is a fantastic bio of Mutassim Billah Qadhafi, the hottie (???) in the slick Parisian-Libyan suit meeting with Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton today.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 21, 2009 11:58 AM

I need to make more time to read Bill Simmons' column each week. His NBA MVP picks are an informative hoot. (Informative Hoot happens to be on the shortlist of possible alternate names for kottke.org.)

Tags: basketball  billsimmons  nba  sports 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 21, 2009 11:43 AM

via http://johannawilhelm.tumblr.com/

Originally posted by kunze from FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE, on April 21, 2009 11:42 AM

Save Figgy:

hotfoot:

It is completely out of the Mets hands now, but Nelson Figueroa deserved better.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 21, 2009 11:33 AM

We've been releasing a bunch of sexy Hunch data via the academic API, which has revealed all kinds of great, and often hilarious, correlations such as the fact that people who are frequently thrown out of bars for rowdy behavior have worn cufflinks during the past several weeks. (You won't be able to get to a bunch of these links unless you're logged into Hunch.)

All the sexy data is a byproduct of the larger goals of Hunch and what we're really trying to do is use this data to help people make better decisions. As my friend Chris said yesterday, doing research online is something that super adept internet users, like us geeks, already know how to do, and is how we have been using the web to do our research since it began. We've trained ourselves to think like a computer and enter in just the right keywords to find what we need. We talked about how incredulous our geek (snob) peers are that so many people use Answers sites like Yahoo Answers (which I worked on) and Mahalo. We talked about how circa 1999 a lot of people publishing weblogs snorted at the idea of using "blogging software" like Blogger or Movable Type -- when we had Perl scripts or BBEdit and ftp why would we need anything else?

Hunch is essentially a tool for experts to help non experts -- and when we say experts, we don't necessarily mean people with Ph.D.s, but more often people who have taken the time to do research. For example, a colleague was researching whether or not he should spend the time and money to register a trademark, how much it cost, what the benefits would be. Once he was done, he could build a Hunch topic and share that research with others. Others who had similar experience with it could add their expertise as well. Hunch is re-indexing information that is already out in the world, and on the web, and putting it in the form of decision trees.

Someday, after the system learns enough about people, it should work like a really awesome Magic 8 ball on steroids and just give you the answer you need. It's not awesome yet, but will, we hope, be awesome in the future. On the Transcapitalist site yesterday, I found a post about a Hunch credit card search that's an early indicator of possible future awesomeness:

I am glad to have tried it. The first question that I explored, "which credit card should I own?", led me to an answer by asking seven related questions--are you willing to pay an annual fee? do you want your rewards to be in travel, cash back, or points? what is your bank preference, if any? what is your credit score? etc.." It took me about 30 seconds to answer these questions and then the site produced a #1 recommendation: the Chase Freedom Card. That IS my credit card of choice! The decision that took me hours of online research, informal polling of my friends, time sitting around making sure this was the right card for me was answered on Hunch in 30 seconds. Wow.

We find some of these posted on the site, like this one from the Canon PowerShot SD770IS 10MP Digital Camera Pros/Cons, written by Hunch user Kim Rossi: "Took this to see how accurate it would be. My top result was the camera I actually bought six months ago! Well done, Hunch." Hooray! A lot of the time Hunch still fails, but the more that it gets used, and the more different people we have adding tiny bits of data, the better it will get. We need to stay humble, stick to our knitting and keep improving it. Kaizen!

Another anecdotal success story from a new user, awgraham:

We went through a couple of different questions just to see look at the UI and get a feel for things. Then, I did the "pick a college" thread. I answered all of the questions and the top result was the actual school that I attended - Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Unreal. Then my friend did it and the two schools that she chose between showed up as #2 and #4 respectively, UC Davis, and Texas. Amazing.

This is where we're trying to go.

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on April 21, 2009 11:27 AM

We've been releasing a bunch of sexy Hunch data via the academic API, which has revealed all kinds of great, and often hilarious, correlations such as the fact that people who are frequently thrown out of bars for rowdy behavior have worn cufflinks during the past several weeks. (You won't be able to get to a bunch of these links unless you're logged into Hunch.)

All the sexy data is a byproduct of the larger goals of Hunch and what we're really trying to do is use this data to help people make better decisions. As my friend Chris said yesterday, doing research online is something that super adept internet users, like us geeks, already know how to do, and is how we have been using the web to do our research since it began. We've trained ourselves to think like a computer and enter in just the right keywords to find what we need. We talked about how incredulous our geek (snob) peers are that so many people use Answers sites like Yahoo Answers (which I worked on) and Mahalo. We talked about how circa 1999 a lot of people publishing weblogs snorted at the idea of using "blogging software" like Blogger or Movable Type -- when we had Perl scripts or BBEdit and ftp why would we need anything else?

Hunch is essentially a tool for experts to help non experts -- and when we say experts, we don't necessarily mean people with Ph.D.s, but more often people who have taken the time to do research. For example, a colleague was researching whether or not he should spend the time and money to register a trademark, how much it cost, what the benefits would be. Once he was done, he could build a Hunch topic and share that research with others. Others who had similar experience with it could add their expertise as well. Hunch is re-indexing information that is already out in the world, and on the web, and putting it in the form of decision trees.

Someday, after the system learns enough about people, it should work like a really awesome Magic 8 ball on steroids and just give you the answer you need. It's not awesome yet, but will, we hope, be awesome in the future. On the Transcapitalist site yesterday, I found a post about a Hunch credit card search that's an early indicator of possible future awesomeness:

I am glad to have tried it. The first question that I explored, "which credit card should I own?", led me to an answer by asking seven related questions--are you willing to pay an annual fee? do you want your rewards to be in travel, cash back, or points? what is your bank preference, if any? what is your credit score? etc.." It took me about 30 seconds to answer these questions and then the site produced a #1 recommendation: the Chase Freedom Card. That IS my credit card of choice! The decision that took me hours of online research, informal polling of my friends, time sitting around making sure this was the right card for me was answered on Hunch in 30 seconds. Wow.

We find some of these posted on the site, like this one from the Canon PowerShot SD770IS 10MP Digital Camera Pros/Cons, written by Hunch user Kim Rossi: "Took this to see how accurate it would be. My top result was the camera I actually bought six months ago! Well done, Hunch." Hooray! A lot of the time Hunch still fails, but the more that it gets used, and the more different people we have adding tiny bits of data, the better it will get. We need to stay humble, stick to our knitting and keep improving it. Kaizen!

Another anecdotal success story from a new user, awgraham:

We went through a couple of different questions just to see look at the UI and get a feel for things. Then, I did the "pick a college" thread. I answered all of the questions and the top result was the actual school that I attended - Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Unreal. Then my friend did it and the two schools that she chose between showed up as #2 and #4 respectively, UC Davis, and Texas. Amazing.

This is where we're trying to go.

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on April 21, 2009 11:27 AM

great 20-minute talk covering the history and best practices of data visualization  

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on April 21, 2009 11:20 AM

I did a lot of digging around in the numbers around blogging for my book, so I’m on alert when I read a piece like Mark Penn’s look at pro blogging in the Wall Street Journal, which is getting lots of attention this morning. A little skepticism is definitely in order.

Here’s the nub of hard numbers in Penn’s piece:

The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income. That’s almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click — whether on their site or someone else’s.

Where do these numbers come from?

“20 million bloggers” links to a 2008 report from Emarketer that costs $695 if you actually want to know how they got their numbers (I confess I haven’t made the investment).

“1.7 million profiting” links to a promotional page for BlogWorld Expo that cites no source at all for its data.

“452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income” is drawn from a Mediabistro rewrite of numbers from Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere reports. Technorati’s are the longest-running and most valuable, and consistent, series of blogging studies over time, but like any study’s numbers, they can be easily misrepresented: here, Penn relies on them for the datum that bloggers who reach 100,000 uniques a month can earn $75K a year. But if you read the source, you find this:

The average income was $75,000 for those who had 100,000 or more unique visitors per month (some of whom had more than one million visitors each month). The median annual income for this group is significantly lower — $22,000.

In other words, the $75K average is skewed by a handful of outlier successes, but the great majority of bloggers who get 100,000 uniques/month earn more like $22,000. Here, the median is far more relevant than the average. Penn, of all people, knows this.

Later on, Penn’s piece cites other sources, including a Pew study and this iLibrarian post which references a 2008 study by an outfit called BIGResearch. The BIGResearch study particularly flummoxed me as I was researching my book, and in email correspondence with a company representative I got to the root of the oddness of their numbers: Their study defined “blogger” as, basically, anyone who writes or reads a blog. That’s one way to muddy the waters!

The methodology of Penn’s piece seems to be: gather as many numbers as you can and don’t worry about the fact that they are from many different sources at different times using different methodologies and even differing definitions of what it means to “be a blogger” — just toss them all together and start drawing conclusions. Those conclusions, in turn, seem to be based on a misapprehension that bloggers are by definition opinion writers. Many are, to be sure; but many others — particularly in the “pro blog” world Penn focuses on — concentrate on becoming expert sources in a particular area, or informational services, or link reviews.

My suggestion to Penn (who — full disclosure — I briefly worked for, decades ago, during my college years, when he was starting his company): You should commission a real study of blogging, using real sampling techniques, and share the results with the world. No one has done this yet that I’m aware of. You know how to do it! And we’d get a lot better information than this crazy-quilt pastiche of mix-’n'-match stats.

Scott Rosenberg is cofounder of Salon and author of "Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters," which goes on sale this July. You can pre-order the book at Amazon. This post was originally published at Scott's blog, Wordyard, and was reprinted with permission.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• U.S. Now Has Almost As Many Paid Bloggers As Lawyers
• Gawker Alums Launch New Gawkeresque Blog, 'The Awl'
• Publishers Going Nuts For Books Based On Low-Effort Blogs

Originally posted by Scott Rosenberg from Silicon Alley Insider, on April 21, 2009 11:20 AM

The British press reacts to Stephen Hawking’s illness.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 21, 2009 11:09 AM

In Andy’s thread from yesterday, Tomepp asked: “Has there ever been an MLB game that was ended by a K/dropped 3rd strike?” I understood the question as meaning with 2 outs (otherwise the run scores because of the WP or PB and the K is irrelevant.) I quickly found 1 game, which I (sort of) posted in the comments of that thread, but with a little more research I decided that this game is worthy of a thread of its own.

There has only been 1 game since 1954 in which a pitcher has lost the game on the play in which he recorded a 2 out strike-out. Not surprisingly it was done by a knuckle-baller. Amazingly enough though, the loss was actually more painful that it sounds.

On June 16th, 1986, Chalie Hough had a  1-0 lead and was 2 outs away from a no hitter. However, a three base error by defensive replacement LF George Wright, followed by a single by Wally Joyner cost Hough both the no hitter and the lead.  A passed ball and  an intentional walk to Reggie Jackson sandwiched a strikeout and Hough was facing  1st and second with two outs and the game tied.  That set up that unique game-winning strike-out.

Hough struck out George Hendrick (according to the NY Times it was on a 3-2 pitch), but for the second time that inning Orlando Mercado couldn’t catch the ball.  Hendrick was safe at first and  Joyner scored all the way from second.  Glory had agonizingly turned into misery for Charlie Hough.

For his career, Hough would only throw one other 1 hitter. He lost that one as well.

In case you missed it here is the link to the game. This is how I found it. (All other years came up empty.)

Originally posted by Raphy from Stat of the Day, on April 21, 2009 10:40 AM

StLToday has a cool quiz up on their site today that allows you to pick out the real Stan Musial Cards from the fan-created fakes.Since many of my readers and fellow bloggers are well acquainted with the art of creating homebrew cards I figured this would be relevant to your interests. I took the quiz myself and got this:

Yeah, I actually missed two of them. There's absolutely no excuse for it either. One I really should have known better and the other was just plain stupidity since I actually have a copy of the card. Or a reprint of it, at any rate. Still, I'll never pass up a seat behind home plate. Can you beat my score? If you do, you will win a prize: the knowledge that at that very moment you knew more about Stan Musial baseball cards than I did about an hour ago (I have since committed his entire collection to memory in a fit of anger). No one can ever take that away from you.

Double hat tip to T.S. O'Connell for providing the link and the images of the originals.

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on April 21, 2009 10:34 AM

Is this one:



It's from fabric I bought in China, and it's the same pattern (Vogue 9670) as this dress.

Here's the neck facing, which is a bright pink that matches the pink in the flowers:



And the back:



I actually had fun matching the print here, on the center front and back seams. It wasn't as nit-picky or as tedious as I imagined it would be, maybe because the repeat of the pattern is a manageable size.


What I didn't do very well was the zipper:




The hem is done with pale blue bias tape but the sleeves are done with a pale aqua bias tape. Because I had some left over, and because it looked cool. (You can see that in the top photo.)

This is a really comfortable dress -- so comfortable, in fact, that I've made it four times now. I'm wearing the next two over the next few days, and I'll post pictures of them tomorrow and Thursday!

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on April 21, 2009 10:21 AM

alcentral:

Obama won’t allow the Royals to finish in first.

I just really gotta respect that the man is not a fairweather baseball fan. He has his team. That is it. No waffling; no hedging; no pretending.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 21, 2009 10:11 AM

I have never considered Python to be heavily influenced by functional languages, no matter what people say or think. I was much more familiar with imperative languages such as C and Algol 68 and although I had made functions first-class objects, I didn't view Python as a functional programming language. However, earlier on, it was clear that users wanted to do much more with lists and functions.

A common operation on lists was that of mapping a function to each of the elements of a list and creating a new list. For example:

def square(x):
    return x*x

vals = [1, 2, 3, 4]
newvals = []
for v in vals:
    newvals.append(square(v))

In functional languages such as Lisp and Scheme, operations such as this were provided as built-in functions of the language. Thus, early users familiar with such languages found themselves implementing comparable functionality in Python. For example:

def map(f, s):
    result = []
    for x in s:
            result.append(f(x))
    return result

def square(x):
    return x*x

vals = [1, 2, 3, 4]
newvals = map(square,vals)

A subtle aspect of the above code is that many people didn't like the fact that you to define the operation that you were applying to the list elements as a completely separate function. Languages such as Lisp allowed functions to simply be defined "on-the-fly" when making the map function call. For example, in Scheme you can create anonymous functions and perform mapping operations in a single expression using lambda, like this:

(map (lambda (x) (* x x)) '(1 2 3 4))  

Although Python made functions first-class objects, it didn't have any similar mechanism for creating anonymous functions.

In late 1993, users had been throwing around various ideas for creating anonymous functions as well as various list manipulation functions such as map(), filter(), and reduce(). For example, Mark Lutz (author of "Programming Python") posted some code for a function that created functions using exec:

def genfunc(args, expr):
    exec('def f(' + args + '): return ' + expr)
    return eval('f')

# Sample usage
vals = [1, 2, 3, 4]
newvals = map(genfunc('x', 'x*x'), vals)

Tim Peters then followed up with a solution that simplified the syntax somewhat, allowing users to type the following:

vals = [1, 2, 3, 4]
newvals = map(func('x: x*x'), vals)

It was clear that there was a demand for such functionality. However, at the same time, it seemed pretty "hacky" to be specifying anonymous functions as code strings that you had to manually process through exec. Thus, in January, 1994, the map(), filter(), and reduce() functions were added to the standard library. In addition, the lambda operator was introduced for creating anonymous functions (as expressions) in a more straightforward syntax. For example:

vals = [1, 2, 3, 4]
newvals = map(lambda x:x*x, vals)

These additions represented a significant, early chunk of contributed code. Unfortunately I don't recall the author, and the SVN logs don't record this. If it's yours, leave a comment!

I was never all that happy with the use of the "lambda" terminology, but for lack of a better and obvious alternative, it was adopted for Python. After all, it was the choice of the now anonymous contributor, and at the time big changes required much less discussion than nowadays, for better and for worse.

Lambda was really only intended to be a syntactic tool for defining anonymous functions. However, the choice of terminology had many unintended consequences. For instance, users familiar with functional languages expected the semantics of lambda to match that of other languages. As a result, they found Python’s implementation to be sorely lacking in advanced features. For example, a subtle problem with lambda is that the expression supplied couldn't refer to variables in the surrounding scope. For example, if you had this code, the map() function would break because the lambda function would run with an undefined reference to the variable 'a'.

def spam(s):
    a = 4
    r = map(lambda x: a*x, s)

There were workarounds to this problem, but they counter-intuitively involved setting default arguments and passing hidden arguments into the lambda expression. For example:

def spam(s):
    a = 4
    r = map(lambda x, a=a: a*x, s)

The "correct" solution to this problem was for inner functions to implicitly carry references to all of the local variables in the surrounding scope that are referenced by the function. This is known as a "closure" and is an essential aspect of functional languages. However, this capability was not introduced in Python until the release of version 2.2 (though it could be imported "from the future" in Python 2.1).

Curiously, the map, filter, and reduce functions that originally motivated the introduction of lambda and other functional features have to a large extent been superseded by list comprehensions and generator expressions. In fact, the reduce function was removed from list of builtin functions in Python 3.0. (However, it's not necessary to send in complaints about the removal of lambda, map or filter: they are staying. :-)

It is also worth nothing that even though I didn't envision Python as a functional language, the introduction of closures has been useful in the development of many other advanced programming features. For example, certain aspects of new-style classes, decorators, and other modern features rely upon this capability.

Lastly, even though a number of functional programming features have been introduced over the years, Python still lacks certain features found in “real” functional programming languages. For instance, Python does not perform certain kinds of optimizations (e.g., tail recursion). In general, because Python's extremely dynamic nature, it is impossible to do the kind of compile-time optimization known from functional languages like Haskell or ML. And that's fine.

Originally posted by Guido van Rossum from The History of Python, on April 21, 2009 10:05 AM

I created this image in the last few hours of the Justseeds installation, at UW-Milwaukee. I'm kind of obsessed with current economic events. So I decided to make a poster about it. The text came out of some discussions that Roger and I were having during the collaboration. Condos and high-end development projects have been a high priority for NYC's current mayor Michael Bloomberg, one that I reference in this image is the Atlantic Yards.

The Atlantic Yards is a mega-development project designed by Forest City Ratner a company with close relationships to powerful NY politicians as well as the NY Times. The company wishes to build a basketball arena and 13 towers, mostly residential, near downtown Brooklyn. There are so many problematic factors to this project like traffic congestion, desire to use eminent domain, community displacement, request of
"Federal Stimulus" money, and so much more. You can find a ton of information on blogs like NoLandGrab.com and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and Atlantic Yards Report to name a few.

I felt like referencing the renderings of this development project was appropriate in highlighting how overdevelopment of cities, like Brooklyn, has led to economic crisis. Construction combined with predator lending and stretching potential homeowners beyond their means has brought us to the stage of crisis that we are experiencing.

One hope of mine is to make this into stickers, for the front door of every new condo in NYC. If you are interested in using this image, gimme a holler, I can pass along a high-res file.

Iin thinking about my next image, maybe it will be about the wealth extraction from the majority of the populace to a small percentage of bankers, er, the ruling class?

Originally posted by K C from Just Seeds: Blog, on April 21, 2009 9:55 AM

Museum officials and trustees with whom I talk tend to be disinterested in the admissions issue. It's easy to understand why: For the most part, they go to each other's museums for free. For the trustees, money just isn't an issue and many (most?) lack the imagination to understand how an $88 visit to an art museum can be beyond the resources of most people in their community. [Image: An Art Institute of Chicago lion.]

But for everyone else... well, you should see my email today. The most touching have been emails from grandparents who wanted to take their grandchildren to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the exact reasons I outlined in this morning's Philly Inky op-ed... but couldn't because it was just too expensive.

It's not just the PMA that is acting irresponsibly. The Art Institute of Chicago's 50 percent admissions increase is back in the news. Yesterday the Chicago Sun-Times' Fran Spielman reported that a Chicago city council committee stood up to the AIC and demanded that the museum rescind its admissions hike.

True: Neither side is covering itself with intellectual glory. The Chicago councilman who is leading the charge is trying to determine the monetary value of AIC collections. The museum is telling the council to buzz off because it offers 401 free hours a year, which is a little like saying that the museum loves the help so long as the help knows its place. Even sillier: Last month an Art Institute of Chicago spokesperson said that the hike "is about not having an admissions increase in five years and about keeping up with our peer institutions."

There is so much wrong with that spin that I hardly know where to start (Although I certainly tried.)

Here's hoping some smart Chicago arts advocates engage the council and the Chicago Park District -- and fast. Someone should tell Chicago officials that even as Philly and Chicago injure themselves by trying to turn their museums into playgrounds mostly for the affluent, many American museums are going the other way and are doing all they can to increase public access to art and to our shared cultural heritage. As I've documented here repeatedly, top American art museums such as Indianapolis, the Nelson-Atkins and Baltimore have all switched to free admission. Cleveland has re-opened as a free museum. Seattle has embraced and promoted a pay-what-you-can approach.

Going free or dramatically lowering admissions costs is doable. It comes down to making a commitment to public access a priority. Sadly, in Chicago and Philadelphia it isn't.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Modern Art Notes, on April 21, 2009 9:45 AM

Maybe it's because I'm biased. I know some of the people behind serious eats. It's based here in NYC. I read it at least 3 times a week. Or maybe it's because the Judges at the James Beard Foundation don't stray far from their "old standbys". But WTF?

When I want interesting information about food, restaurants or nutrition. I mean cutting edge, made by the people for the people. I turn to serious eats not the nominees of this year.

In fact, I rarely even land on their sites. Gourmet.com, chow.com, epicurious.com? What?

Chow is owned by CBS now. And Gourmet and Epicurious are both owned by Conde Nast. Is anyone else with me on this? Against me, help me understand this. Do we need to reward those with the deepest pockets or those that produce some of the best content on the web?

Are these the "...best and brightest talent in the food and beverage industry." as the James Beard Foundation claims the awards are supposed to highlight?

Originally posted by angrywayne from Serious Eats: Talk, on April 21, 2009 9:27 AM

A press release received today at Awl HQ:

An eclectic crew of models (Maryna Linchuk/Catherine McNeil/Chanel Iman), billionaires (Ron Burkle), and hip hop couple (Janet Jackson/Jermaine Dupree) joined DJ Vibe and DJ Sal Morale Friday night at Mr. West to celebrate Liz Phair’s 42nd birthday!

We really hope Burkle doesn’t fuck and run. Or that she lets him lick her whitechocolatespaceegg. Or … okay, we’ll stop now. Because, ew.

Unpaid Photoshop internship available! Contact the editors for more information!

Originally posted by Awl Staff from The Awl, on April 21, 2009 9:25 AM

In an honest and emotional post to their family blog, here, Nelson Figueroa’s wife, Alisa, explains the ins and outs, emotionally, mentally and logistically, of the team’s decision to designate her husband for assignment, writing:

“Nelson is upset. He did what is asked of any starting pitcher in baseball - he gave them a quality start and kept them in the game… He expected more than 1 day in the big leagues this time around.”

…it did come out of no place… i mean, i think most people felt he would stick around as the team’s long man… then, bam, dfa’d in favor of Casey Fossum… i like nelson, he seems like a good guy, but he’s also a good pitcher, who i think can bring a lot to the table as a middle reliever, spot starter and long man – if given a chance… hopefully he clears and ends up back in Triple-A for the Mets, because he will almost certainly get the call again to help the 25–man roster later in the season…

Speaking of Figueroa, go here to watch a video clip of an interview he did prior to his weekend start for the Mets.

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 21, 2009 9:20 AM

Wait, Steven Soderbergh is directing the film adaptation of Michael Lewis' Moneyball? When did this wonderfulness happen?!! Last I heard, the director was the guy who did Marley & Me. Perhaps Pitt put the kibosh on that and lobbied for Soderbergh? (via fimoculous)

Tags: books  bradpitt  michaellewis  moneyball  movies  stevensoderbergh 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 21, 2009 9:12 AM

Thank you to 20×200, designer Matt Jones, and everyone who supported CC by purchasing one of these special edition prints, released on April 7. We are proud to announce that the edition did extremely well: all 200 of the 8×10 prints sold out within a day, and the other sizes available at different prices were very popular as well. There are still prints remaining, and all proceeds will continue to benefit CC, so if you would like to show some support for CC, head over to the 20×200 site and secure one of these exhibition-quality prints for yourself (they’d also make great gifts!): size 11″x14″ for $50, 16″x20″ for $200, and 24″x30″ for $1,000.

We are delighted that Matt Jones has chosen Creative Commons to benefit from the sale of his special edition prints, and as always, we thank everyone who has supported CC over the years, allowing us to continue our work supporting artists, educators, scientists, and creators of all kinds all over the world.

Originally posted by Allison Domicone from Creative Commons » CC News, on April 21, 2009 9:04 AM

I love this sculpture, titled Biografías , by artist Alicia Martín using 5000 books, all biographies. It was on display recently in Córdoba, Spain.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally posted by Becky Stern from CRAFT, on April 21, 2009 9:00 AM

The debate about Citi Field sight lines and oversight in neglecting Met history continues in bars, on sports radio and in blogs, including Loge13.

If the Mets were playing better, we'd have something better to talk about. I am convinced of one thing: I am getting tickets in the Pepsi Porch this year at some point.

Meanwhile, the New York Daily News ran a good column, touching on both sides of the issue. The Mets are definitely scrambling to announce a more accessible Mets Hall of Fame in the coming weeks and defuse some of the troubles. Here be the article, in case you missed it:

Who plays at Citi Field again?

The new $850 million ballpark got an electric reception last Monday, but a growing chorus of Mets fans are griping about a peculiar choice of which storied New York stadium the Amazin's have honored.

There's a glaring lack of Shea reminders amid an odd abundance of tributes to the long-departed Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field, fans say.

"All I know is there's got to be Mets stuff or it's embarrassing," said WFAN midday radio show host Evan Roberts. "It's a cold feeling and it doesn't feel like your home."

Sporting a facade that mimics the masonry of the Dodgers' old digs, Citi Field also has the Jackie Robinson Rotunda - with photos and film of Dodgers stars and Ebbets Field - and a field-level eatery named the Ebbets Club.

Images of the now-dismantled Shea Stadium, where the Amazin's played for 45 years and won World Series titles in 1969 and 1986, are much harder to find.

A Mets spokesman stressed plans to honor team legends in a museum at Citi Field.

"As previously stated, we will recognize our team's heritage and have announcements in the weeks ahead," the spokesman said. He didn't comment about the paucity of Shea pictures in the new ballpark.

"Respect should be paid and Shea should be honored," said Stanley Cohen, author of "A Magic Summer," about the 1969 Mets. "We lose the whole substance of what the game means if we don't have something that recalls the past."

Jason Antos, who wrote "Shea Stadium: Images of Baseball," was puzzled by the emphasis on Ebbets Field, which never hosted the Mets and represents Brooklyn, not Queens.

"It's a little confusing why, in the stadium where the Mets are playing, there's so much attention being paid to Brooklyn Dodgers history," Antos said.

At the Mets' home opener on Monday, fans also bemoaned the lack of Shea likenesses.

"We're still paying homage to a team that left over 50 years ago," griped salesman Paul Palmeri, 48, of Middle Village. "It's like going to a road game to watch your home team."

Mark Klimm, 48, of Newtown, Conn., stressed he liked Citi Field but will forever have a soft spot for Shea, where he fondly remembered marching on field at a Banner Day in the mid-1970s. "That was an experience I'll never forget," he said.

While fans won't see many images of Shea's blue windscreen panels with neon outlines of ballplayers, the brand-new ballpark incorporates some elements of the Mets' longtime stadium.

Citi Field includes Shea's Home Run Apple and the New York City skyline from the Shea scoreboard. The Mets also plan to mark Shea's bases with plaques in Citi Field's parking lot.

Last week, Mets brass announced plans to install a Mets Hall of Fame with plaques honoring the club's legends, possibly in center field.

Still, many fans said they love Citi Field as is.

Season ticket holder Monica Hickey-Martin, 44, of Stuyvesant Town, applauded the ballpark's link to the Dodgers, whose westward move in 1957 paved the way for the Mets' creation in 1962.

"So many Met fans became Met fans because they were Dodgers fans," she said.

Jeff Cohen, 46, of Flushing, even suggested the lack of images of Shea - where the Mets suffered late-season collapses in 2007 and 2008 - is for the best.

"You want to do anything you can to erase the specter of that reputation," Cohen said. "You want to have a fresh start and a new look - even if that's the look of the Brooklyn Dodgers."

Originally posted by Kingman from Loge 13, on April 21, 2009 8:47 AM

This may be old news to all of you, but it was new news to me. While enjoying my morning coffee, up popped this instant message.

Hmm, I'd never heard of this person "ExpeditedCoho." And the message didn't seem like your normal AIM bot, looking to start a chat about hot things. A little Googling turned up that this was the work of Project Upstream.

Project Upstream is an organization dedicated to promoting social ideals through the use of exciting new technology. Our most well-known service is our swarm of robotic fish, which connects AIM users to each other.

Which means that when I replied "Hello, ExpeditedCoho" Upstream connected me to another AIM user in their database, and, presumably, cloaked my username as another *Coho. Randomness ensued:

ExpeditedCoho: I IMed you first. If I deny this later, I'm lying.
msippey: Hello, ExpeditedCoho.
ExpeditedCoho: who art thou?
msippey: michael
msippey: but i'm sure my screenname appears to be something that ends in "Coho"
msippey: we've been randomly connected through project upstream
ExpeditedCoho: wait which michael
msippey: http://project-upstream.awardspace.com/
ExpeditedCoho: i dost not understand

There's a great LiveJournal community all about Project Upstream, with a perfect FAQ.

Q: What cool lingo do you use? I'm so confused!
A: "Salmoning/Trouting/Cohoing" is being IMed by a fishbot (see, similarly: "salmoned"/"trouted"/"cohoed"). "Hatting" is being hit by--you guessed it--a hat bot (also see: "hatted"). "Project Upstream" is the name of the group that created the fishbots. The "Hatmaster"/"Salmonmaster"/etc. we use to refer to the creator of that specific kind of bot, and an "operator" is a person operating the bot (not necessarily the creator).

I love the Internets.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on April 21, 2009 8:41 AM

This may be old news to all of you, but it was new news to me. While enjoying my morning coffee, up popped this instant message.

Hmm, I'd never heard of this person "ExpeditedCoho." And the message didn't seem like your normal AIM bot, looking to start a chat about hot things. A little Googling turned up that this was the work of Project Upstream.

Project Upstream is an organization dedicated to promoting social ideals through the use of exciting new technology. Our most well-known service is our swarm of robotic fish, which connects AIM users to each other.

Which means that when I replied "Hello, ExpeditedCoho" Upstream connected me to another AIM user in their database, and, presumably, cloaked my username as another *Coho. Randomness ensued:

ExpeditedCoho: I IMed you first. If I deny this later, I'm lying.
msippey: Hello, ExpeditedCoho.
ExpeditedCoho: who art thou?
msippey: michael
msippey: but i'm sure my screenname appears to be something that ends in "Coho"
msippey: we've been randomly connected through project upstream
ExpeditedCoho: wait which michael
msippey: http://project-upstream.awardspace.com/
ExpeditedCoho: i dost not understand

There's a great LiveJournal community all about Project Upstream, with a perfect FAQ.

Q: What cool lingo do you use? I'm so confused!
A: "Salmoning/Trouting/Cohoing" is being IMed by a fishbot (see, similarly: "salmoned"/"trouted"/"cohoed"). "Hatting" is being hit by--you guessed it--a hat bot (also see: "hatted"). "Project Upstream" is the name of the group that created the fishbots. The "Hatmaster"/"Salmonmaster"/etc. we use to refer to the creator of that specific kind of bot, and an "operator" is a person operating the bot (not necessarily the creator).

I love the Internets.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on April 21, 2009 8:41 AM

Street rider Danny MacAskill starts off by riding his bike across a narrow fence about four feet in the air...and the video only gets better from there.

Stunning. I want to see MacAskill in the next Bond film. (via waxy)

Tags: cycling  dannymacaskill  sports  video 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 21, 2009 8:28 AM

After my post yesterday about Google’s new image similarity search, a colleague sent me this link:

Oops! But, more importantly, it argues strongly that Google isn’t just using image content to perform the similarity search. In fact, I’d assume from this example that text content can easily overwhelm the contribution of visual similarity. Very interesting…

Originally posted by Daniel Tunkelang from The Noisy Channel, on April 21, 2009 8:06 AM

Andrew Sullivan had an interesting point yesterday about the whole torture memo controversy -- and particularly Dick Cheney's claim that he wants the release of other documents which he says demonstrate the effectiveness of his torture tactics. Cheney's claim seems more than a little improbable since all the available information suggests that the administration's torture tactics -- whatever their legal and moral standing -- just didn't produce much information.

But why not take Cheney up on the offer? And not just the handful of documents he wants to cherry-pick but everything. Or perhaps more realistically, assemble a diverse and accountable panel of distinguished Americans who will review the most secret records, lean forward in the direction of disclosure while taking a due account of the need to protect genuine national secrets and simply get about the business of letting us know what happened.

What we really need is more light and disclosure, not less. In other words, the sort of Truth Commission that many of us have been calling for for years now. And if Dick Cheney wants to enlist and array the forces of darkness on behalf of this much-needed proposal, great. Call him on his bluff.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 21, 2009 8:05 AM

Download "Nightmare" from Intermittent Signals by The Rats (1981)

Long overdue reissue is out now on Mississippi Records. Much better than their first LP, but comes in a step behind the final record, In a Desperate Red, which is still out of print (but definitely worth tracking down).

Glad this is available for a reasonable price, but based on the sales of past Mississippi releases you had better act quick.

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on April 21, 2009 8:03 AM

[Wined & Dined]

Question: When was the banh mi craze finally kaput? A) When The Times and NYMag ran trend pieces in the same week; B) When restaurant overlord Tom Colicchio said he was SO OVER them; or C) When LES sports bar Blue Seats added "Bahn Mi Sliders" to its menu?

Our polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

We're just having fun with the poll. For the record, the answer is C.

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on April 21, 2009 7:55 AM

(via

flickr

)

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on April 21, 2009 7:51 AM

Tom Taylor’s Microprinter is an experiment in printing data feeds via a PoS receipt printer, Arduino, and a lightweight web application.

(via

jack cheng

)

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on April 21, 2009 7:45 AM

Received some really nice news last night from Susan Mernit. She has won a 2009 New Voices grant from the J-Lab with support from the Knight Foundation and is going to use the money to kickstart Oakland Local in the Fall. The site will be "a daily-updated Web site and mobile service with a focus on environment, climate, transportation, housing, local government and community activism in Downtown, Uptown, North Oakland, West Oakland, Fruitvale, Lake Merritt, and the Diamond District." It will have a small staff; editor, publisher, paid part-time reporters, and community contributors.  While one would expect Susan to create an extraordinary new local site given her background, as one the leading experts in online news (she co-founded NJ Online with Jeff Jarvis in 1995), and social media, for me it is the focus on the issues that create the fabric and reality of place that is so interesting in this effort. She writes

"For me, the Oscar Grant shooting were a transformative factor in applying for this grant.  I saw that there was a gap in reporting that none of the blogs or local news outlets, as good as they might be, actually filled--and that lots of the best discussion was happening in smaller groups, on the margins, where people new to Oakland (like myself) or people who were not part of a particular community, might not have access to that information.  The vision here is to marry a deeper aggregation of community and non-profit content with more considered, analytical coverage of a narrow set of issues that have huge resonance for so many people in the O--and see what we can learn from the mix.

It will be really exciting to see this take shape and to see if she can pull the disparate and at times competing local groups into one place to create a force. 

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on April 21, 2009 7:03 AM

Legendary groupie Sable Starr passed away on Friday. The news was first reported by punk historian Legs McNeil. On Facebook.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 21, 2009 6:11 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on April 21, 2009 5:26 AM

Full size.

(via

waggish

)

Originally posted by finn from Modcult, on April 21, 2009 4:52 AM

Alec Icky Dunn Dr. Marie Equi postcard $1 A postcard of this Celebrate People's History poster. Great block-print portrait of Dr. Equi, a lesbian, anarchist, World War I war-resistor!! She has been called the Emma Goldman of the Pacific Northwest. Full color offset printed postcard 4"x6" unsigned/unlimited edition

Originally posted by Josh M. from Just Seeds, on April 21, 2009 4:42 AM

“The New York Times Company announced today a first-quarter 2009 operating loss of $61.6 million

compared with operating profit of $6.2 million in the first quarter of 2008.”

Here is their business plan, from their all-bad-news release this morning: “When advertising improves, we believe we will be well positioned to meet the needs of the marketplace and to benefit from our restructured cost base.” Oh, waiting for advertising to improve! That is why the execs make the semi-big bucks.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 21, 2009 4:40 AM

Jerry Baldwin, co-founder of Starbucks and now the director of Bay Area-based Peet's Coffee (the inspiration for Starbucks), knows it's tough to say goodbye to a loved one. Especially when that one is a little brown bean.

"I recall a customer who would drink only Sulawesi from Indonesia. When it wasn't available, he stopped drinking coffee until it returned." Peet's has eliminated several coffees—when sales volume decreases, it's too hard to maintain freshness. Baldwin laments the late blends on the Atlantic Food Channel, specifically apologizing to editor Corby Kummer for the loss of Sierra Dorada.

Originally posted by Erin Zimmer from Serious Eats, on April 21, 2009 3:30 AM

do i have too much art?

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on April 21, 2009 3:12 AM

'Protect Protect'
Jenny Holzer
WhitneyMuseum, New YorkNew York
Through May 31 2009

Linearity constructed as a representational praxis in the realm of
datavisualization as a contemporary means of presenting information
is a conservativeact. Our inundated visual culture symbolically
represents its vectors of meaning and content through personalized
media bands, where users and players intermingle and create the
algorithm in real-time, further personalizing andsharing visual
experience.

Search queries and semantic webs construct infinitely
complex folksonomys of intricately sophisticated subjectivities; a
breakpoint of tactility between the previous two decades is perceptible
as the difference between Usenet and Youtube. An intergenerational
and vastly disparate structure of representation engenders vertigo of
differentiality; the pre-internet, theinternet, and the post-internet
age groups interpolate profoundly different architectures of cultural
instigation. This emergence / dithering between vastly differ

Originally posted by chad scovil13 from gmane.culture.internet.nettime, on April 20, 2009 8:37 PM

From a NYT review of new translations of the work of C.P. Cavafy, an Egypian poet:

I ask myself whether in antique times
glorious Alexandria possessed a
youth more beauteous,
a kid more perfect than he.

This poem, “Days of 1909, ’10, and ’11,” extols the beauty of a working-class boy who sells his body to buy expensive clothes. The tensions between high and low are registered in the diction. Following a line dominated by Latinate words (glorious, possessed, beauteous), the Germanic and colloquial monosyllable in the third line carries an unexpected poignancy: a kid.

This shift in diction lets us hear something crucial about Cavafy’s tone (a directness that is never not elegant), but it also lets Mendelsohn’s translation exist fully as an English poem. Because of the polyglot nature of the English language, the sound of great English poetry is the sound of monosyllabic Germanic words chiming against multisyllabic Latinate words (Shakespeare’s “seas incarnadine” or Tennyson’s “immemorial elms”). Echoing such effects, Mendelsohn makes me wonder if it wasn’t the deliciously mongrel nature of English, which Cavafy spoke and wrote perfectly, that first provoked him to forge his own hybridized idiom. The fact that the few poems Cavafy wrote in English contain phrases like “penetrating eye” and “transcendent star” (the Latinate word wedged against the Germanic) suggests that the poet’s ear for English was at least as acute as his translator’s.

Originally posted by Valarie Smith from Crazed Teacups, on April 20, 2009 8:21 PM

Quick Post

Summary: we're pretty damn close.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4955212n

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on April 20, 2009 7:40 PM

Those who download illegal copies of music over P2P networks are the biggest consumers of legal music options, according to a new study by the BI Norwegian School of Management. Researchers examined the music downloading habits of more than 1,900 Internet users over the age of 15, and found that illegal music connoisseurs are significantly more likely to purchase music than the average, non-P2P-loving user.

Unsurprisingly, BI found that those between 15 and 20 are more likely to buy music via paid download than on a physical CD, though most still purchased at least one CD in the last six months. However, when it comes to P2P, it seems that those who wave the pirate flag are the most click-happy on services like the iTunes Store and Amazon MP3. BI said that those who said they download illegal music for "free" bought ten times as much legal music as those who never download music illegally. "The most surprising is that the proportion of paid download is so high," the Google-translated Audun Molde from the Norwegian School of Management told Aftenposten.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Originally posted by jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) from Ars Technica, on April 20, 2009 7:36 PM

Quick Post

Time Warner Cable attempted to introduce additional fees for heavy downloaders, but public outcry forced them to shut it down. The Bits Blog points out TWC's hypocracy as they refuse to offer bandwidth-based pricing to businesses but insist consumers must use it. Oh, it's also nominally more expensive for TWC to double bandwidth.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/the-cost-of-downloading-all-those-videos/

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on April 20, 2009 7:04 PM

Shared by Jake Dobkin
i'm a little concerned that the Awl is just the Morning News, but with shittier web design. Fuck you Balk!

“I’m a little concerned that we could be raising a generation of very focussed accountants.”

Okay, I’m finally aware of the terrible dangers that Adderall might pose to society at large.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 6:56 PM

American Heritage Holiday edition!!!

Patriot's Day




Earth Day




4/20

REMEMBER, KIDS:

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on April 20, 2009 6:29 PM

Examiner column for April 23.

    My last column bemoaned the nineteenth century factory model that still holds sway in our public middle and high schools. Students show up as products on an assembly line, undergo slight alterations at each station, then are sent down a long chute into the “real world” of college or the workplace. No wonder students tell me they feel like objects!

    Although the ideal solution would be to change every school to conform to an entirely new model, there are still things teachers and administrators can do within the old model to make students feel like individuals and not car parts.

    Students, no matter what their age, want to feel valued and recognized. The conveyor belt creates uniformity—a strength for factory goods, but inappropriate for human beings. Two examples from my own education come to mind.

    In sixth grade, I was pulled from my classroom to be part of a three-hour lesson on weather. Had I ever shown an interest in science? No. Was I the smartest person in the class? No. But I was one of five chosen for this study.

    We reported back to our class on cloud types and what they meant for weather. Decades later, I still remember cumulonimbus and cirrus clouds, parts of a lesson that labeled me “special.”

    Similarly, in tenth grade several of us were pulled from science classes to study DNA.  Crick and Watson had just won the Nobel Prize for their discoveries, and someone in my high school felt it was important for all students to know about DNA.

    We created drawings of double helixes and learned how to pronounce deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and were proud to introduce this exciting discovery to our classmates. I was interested in English, and not particularly “gifted” in science.

    Yet I remember minutiae about DNA that I would never have absorbed had it been part of a regular class lesson. Children love feeling special; they also love small groups and reporting back to peers on something unfamiliar.

    Every successful teaching technique I’ve used has been a variation of those moments. Small groups allow students the freedom to speak openly, without fear of group scorn. Being part of a “chosen” few heightens interest. When students believe something is offered for the sake of knowledge, and not a test, they absorb the lesson.

    Other ways to pull students off the conveyor belt include allowing them to share in pairs, read aloud, post online on class blogs, and speak freely in class discussion. In the successful senior Advanced Placement course I helped create at Oakton High School, all the above were used to great effect. Our top priority was to make students feel valued and heard; when we “taught to the test” we advertised it, and tried to convince students it was in their interest to test well. We never needed to convince them of the value of the not-to-be-tested portions of Senior Seminar.

    There are still more ways to make students feel like they’ve been singled out for the best education ever—even in a factory-model public high school. I’ll write more on that next week.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on April 20, 2009 6:13 PM

via http://bp1.blogger.com/_XnOOGE22nGU/R9_nFqE2OJI/AAAAAAAAAIU/7krbhwCU5-U/s1600-h/Don%27t+cry+for+me.gif

Originally posted by blakecfc from FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE, on April 20, 2009 5:48 PM

Shared by Eve
Between the Awl and Sexpigeon, why do I even try? Everyone else is too good.

“I’m a little concerned that we could be raising a generation of very focussed accountants.”

Okay, I’m finally aware of the terrible dangers that Adderall might pose to society at large.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 5:40 PM

This year we’ve assembled a team of seven Perconian representatives for the MySQL Conference & Expo/Percona Performance Conference. If you like a particular blog post we’ve written over the last year, have any other feedback, or just want to say hello - we’d like to meet you!

From left to right; Morgan, Ewen, Baron, Vadim, Peter, Tom, Ryan.

We’ll be at the Percona Performance Conference (Wed & Thur), at the Percona booth inside the exhibition hall (Tue & Wed), and at the Maatkit booth in the dot-org pavilion.   Feel free to bring your technical questions to booth #528, where a consultant will be available.   We’ll try our best to help you for the price of a free beer! 

---

Entry posted by morgan | One comment

Add to: | | | |

Originally posted by morgan from MySQL Performance Blog, on April 20, 2009 5:20 PM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from onfocus.com, on April 20, 2009 4:41 PM

-Photo by Getty Images-
Eyebrows were raised this weekend when Justin Timberlake partied at Kate Hudson's birthday bash sans girlfriend Jessica Biel.

So, is it over for the couple who have been inseparable for almost two years?

No way, says a source close to J&J. "They have not split," the friend said.

Another pal concurred, "Things are very good with them. They do things separately sometimes."

I get that. My hubby and I do things separately all the time. It's healthy to have your own friends. Maybe that's why Jess and Justin are doing so well.

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from iVillage - Daily Blabber, on April 20, 2009 2:12 PM

In an earlier post, George Willis, of the New York Post, explained how Doc Gooden signed his name on a wall in Citi Field’s Ebbetts Club last week, after which he took pictures with fans leaning up against the autograph.

However, according to Willis, “The Mets, who have been criticized for not showcasing enough of their history in their new ballpark, plan to erase Gooden’s signature from the wall, treating it as if it were unwanted graffiti.”

In the meantime, Peter Botte of the Daily News talked with Gooden, who doesn’t understand why the team is so adamant about removing the signature, saying, “I definitely didn’t think it was going to turn out to be this big deal. I didn’t do anything intentionally for the Mets to get upset. I was just doing it for the fans. I don’t see what the big fuss is.”

In a response on Mets Today, Joe Janish writes:

“It should be allowed to become part of the stadium and part of the team’s history.  The minutiae and folklore of this team - like skydivers, black cats and Bill Buckner - are created and shared by players and fans. Ownership can build the ballpark, assemble a roster and sell the tickets, but they can’t control the memories. Unfortunately, that is exactly what they are trying to do.”

…i swear, this could only happen to the Mets…

…i understand the team not wanting to encourage people to write all over the walls in their new stadium… so, they should take their cue from gooden, and either keep the autograph where it is, or erase it and have him sign a new, designated section in the ballpark, be it by the old apple, the bullpens, the Mo’s Zone, whatever, and begin a tradition of current, former and future players tagging the wall like a fraternity… the Mets should embrace the idea, and go with it… instead, it feels like they’re fighting the fans, and so they come off sounding like a teacher lecturing students about not writing on the desk…

…frankly, this probably would not be an issue if so many fans were not already worked up about a lack of Mets memorabilia and history inside the building to begin with… personally, this is not keeping me up at night, though i do find it peculiar…

Last week, Fred Wilpon announced that the team plans to open a Mets museum beyond center-field, however there is no official timetable for its opening.

…even this, while awesome, and great to hear, was received as being too little, too late, with lots of fans seemingly questioning why something like this was not done in the first place…

…and so, i don’t believe today’s dust up is truly about a signature… instead, i think some people are worked up because they feel graffiti-gate is yet another example of the team turning its back on its history, which most fans, myself included, are proud of… this is not to say the team is intentionally doing this, or is even aware if they are, but, believe me, a simple peak in to my e-mail or the comments on this blog and they’d realize it is how lots of fans are feeling…

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 20, 2009 1:06 PM

Our active society: “Interviews with orthopedists and sports medicine physicians revealed few serious injuries, but rather a phenomenon more closely resembling a spreading national ache: patients of all ages complaining of strains and swelling related to their use—and overuse—of the Wii.”

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 12:08 PM

Our active society: “Interviews with orthopedists and sports medicine physicians revealed few serious injuries, but rather a phenomenon more closely resembling a spreading national ache: patients of all ages complaining of strains and swelling related to their use—and overuse—of the Wii.”

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 12:08 PM

““I just wanted you to know that I’m a St. Louis Cardinals fan, and when you made that catch against Scott Rolen in Game 7 [of the 2006 National League Championship Series], I hated you,” the writer said. “But now that I see you every day and you’re smiling all the time, I can’t possibly hate you.””

- Chavez brings smile, speed to Seattle | MLB.com: News

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 20, 2009 11:26 AM

From Nomas-NYC.com:

It was a dump. But it was our dump. I knew the time had come too say goodbye, but I never truly believed that the name would be sold to the highest bidder. When the name Citifield was announced I cried a little. When I drove by the other day and saw that name in lights, I cried a little more.

So here we are in the great depression of 2009, Citibank has been bailed out. At that time several people wanted to call it Taxpayer Field. I heard this while listening to the FAN, and I remember commenting to my self, "I'm calling it Shea."

And that's what I'm calling it. It will never be Citifield in my mind. It will always be Shea. Join us, as we attempt to take back the real name of the park at Flushing Meadows back form those that stole it from us. Join us in always calling it Shea to your friends and loved ones. "Popcorn, peanuts all down at Shea, guaranteed to have a heck of a day."

Originally posted by Kingman from Loge 13, on April 20, 2009 11:17 AM

I found something I'd clipped out of a paper copy of Wired: Three Smart Things about Sleeping Late. I have a collection of these kinds of things, to arm myself for confrontations with readers of Poor Richard's Almanac. It's short, so I'll post the entirety of it here:

1. You may need more sleep than you think Research by Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders Center found that people who slept eight hours and then claimed they were "well rested" actually performed better and were more alert if they slept another two hours. That figures. Until the invention of the lightbulb (damn you, Edison!), the average person slumbered 10 hours a night.
2. Night owls are more creative. Artists, writers, and coders typically fire on all cylinders by crashing near dawn and awakening at the crack of noon. In one study, "evening people" almost universally slam-dunked a standardized creativity test. Their early-bird brethren struggled for passing scores.
3. Rising early is stressful. The stress hormone cortisol peaks in your blood around 7 am. So if you get up then, you may experience tension. Grab some extra Zs! You'll wake up feeling less like Bert, more like Ernie.

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on April 20, 2009 11:09 AM

Gabriel Sherman has a novella in today’s New York that chronicles the hurt and anger many on Wall Street feel at being made the villains of the current economic crisis just because of their boundless greed and damn-the-torpedoes risk taking. It’s a rich collection of entitlement and hubris, but are they necessarily wrong, considering that much of the last thirty years has been spent celebrating these folks for their boundless greed and damn-the-torpedoes risk taking?

Yes. Fuck those guys. But it got me thinking: All the talk we heard during the last up cycle about the “end of bust and boom” was really just an optimistic way of saying “the end of bust,” right? And if that’s true, doesn’t that mean that we’re not only due for but deserving of an extended “end of boom” period? I mean, aren’t we all, not just the people on Wall Street, somewhat culpable here? I know I didn’t do any reading up on credit default swaps until everything went to shit. Aren’t we going to emerge a much more cautious society, one which spend years resisting get-rich-quick investment schemes and “guaranteed return” portfolios? Sherman suggests that his subjects are able to delude themselves enough that they’ll be back playing the angles as soon as possible, but for those of us who don’t have jobs at Goldman, hasn’t the game changed forever? Or are we really going to forget everything that’s happened in the last two years?

While you ponder that, let me ask you another question: Would you like to invest in or advertise on a new website? Because once things turn around it’s going to be pure profit. Trust me, this time will be different.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 11:01 AM

Gabriel Sherman has a novella in today’s New York that chronicles the hurt and anger many on Wall Street feel at being made the villains of the current economic crisis just because of their boundless greed and damn-the-torpedoes risk taking. It’s a rich collection of entitlement and hubris, but are they necessarily wrong, considering that much of the last thirty years has been spent celebrating these folks for their boundless greed and damn-the-torpedoes risk taking?

Yes. Fuck those guys. But it got me thinking: All the talk we heard during the last up cycle about the “end of bust and boom” was really just an optimistic way of saying “the end of bust,” right? And if that’s true, doesn’t that mean that we’re not only due for but deserving of an extended “end of boom” period? I mean, aren’t we all, not just the people on Wall Street, somewhat culpable here? I know I didn’t do any reading up on credit default swaps until everything went to shit. Aren’t we going to emerge a much more cautious society, one which spend years resisting get-rich-quick investment schemes and “guaranteed return” portfolios? Sherman suggests that his subjects are able to delude themselves enough that they’ll be back playing the angles as soon as possible, but for those of us who don’t have jobs at Goldman, hasn’t the game changed forever? Or are we really going to forget everything that’s happened in the last two years?

While you ponder that, let me ask you another question: Would you like to invest in or advertise on a new website? Because once things turn around it’s going to be pure profit. Trust me, this time will be different.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 11:01 AM

This morning people were all like, “Oh okay, publishing Gawker’s office seating chart is one thing, but to be fair, shouldn’t you post your own? Okay, fine!

Here we are in the East Village.

Sad.

Also there are lots of bagel chips. On the floor.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 10:26 AM

Are New York baseball fans more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction than MLB supporters around the rest of the league? Uh, probably.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 10:23 AM

Shared by Eve
So now the sentinel is stealing Reuters content, too?

Professor Stephen Hawking, one of the world's foremost physicists, addresses a public meeting in Cape Town, May 11, 2008.

BY LUKE BAKER

LONDON - Professor Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s foremost physicists, has been urgently admitted to hospital, Cambridge University said in a statement on Monday.

Hawking, 67, who is wheelchair-bound and almost completely paralyzed by a wasting illness, was taken to a local hospital in Cambridge, where he is a professor of applied mathematics.

“Professor Hawking is very ill and has been taken by ambulance to Addenbrooke’s Hospital,” the statement said.

Hawking is renowned for his work on black holes and quantum gravity. He is considered one of the world’s leading scientists having achieved global recognition with the publication of “A Brief History of Time” in 1988.

A spokesman for Cambridge University was unable to confirm what Hawking was suffering from.

The head of the university’s applied mathematics department expressed hope that Hawking would recover.

“Professor Hawking is a remarkable colleague,” said Peter Haynes. “We all hope he will be amongst us again soon.”

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Originally posted by (author unknown) from San Francisco Sentinel, on April 20, 2009 10:03 AM

It doesn’t matter if you’re one of the greatest pitchers in team history, nobody but nobody writes on the wall at Citi Field.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 9:35 AM

Last month I blogged about Kid Koala’s anti-social social event, Music to Draw To, in Montreal. Now he’s bringing the quiet tunes to New York, L.A., and Toronto for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Awesome.

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on April 20, 2009 9:31 AM

Our pals Doree Shafrir and Jess Grose have been hogging all the press oxygen in the last few weeks with the release of Love, Mom, their collection of funny e-mails and IMs from moms just like yours. Maybe you saw them in Friday’s Times? Today, the New Yorker’s Lauren Collins gets the fever.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 9:28 AM

Today is Patriots Day in Massachusetts, and that means thousands of runners departed Hopkinton, at high noon, en route to Boston in the world‘s most famous marathon. It also means baseball in the morning, a tradition at Fenway Park since Cy Young took the mound for the Red Sox on the third Monday in April, in 1902. This year’s opponent is the Baltimore Orioles, who came into today’s 11:05am start looking to salvage the final game of a four-game set. With coffee cups steaming, Orioles manager Dave Trembley, and three of his players, shared some Marathon-Monday thoughts prior to the first pitch.

Dave Trembley on the Orioles having lost the first three games of the series: “It’s been the same for 100 years; the secret to this game is real simple. It’s starting pitching, catch the ball, and timely hitting. But it’s also an approach where you don’t get too out of kilter, one way or the other. The way I look at it, we’ve lost three games in a row here, but all three games have been such that the Red Sox had to come in with a closer. They haven’t been lopsided. Those things, I think, would cause more concern than the other. You just stay the course and remain positive. You work on the things you need to work on, you address issues when they come up, you put the best nine guys out there, you try to make the right moves, and you bring up, on an individual basis, the things that can be improved upon. Other times, you give the other team credit. Lester pitched a heck of a game yesterday. One at-bat, one way or the other, could have knocked him out. He would have still pitched a good game, but he would have been the loser instead of Koji [Uehara]. That’s baseball. You have to be realistic about it. Sometimes it’s just not your day. Everybody goes through it, and you have recover from it and not walk around like you have your finger in the dike. Don’t panic. That’s the key. Don’t panic.”

Trembley on morning baseball at Fenway Park: “It’s a unique experience. It’s a festive day. It’s different. It’s nice, because it’s the only game going, which gives everybody an opportunity to be on center stage. There was a lot of excitement around the ballpark coming in here this morning. But it’s not the first time I’ve been involved in a morning game. Most of you know that I was in the minor leagues for a long time and we had 10 o’clock games on school days, so it’s nothing new. Obviously, this is out of the routine, and major league players like to stay in a routine, but both teams have to play in it.”

”Matt Albers on what he knows about Patriots Day: “I’m from Texas, and I guess we don’t really celebrate Patriots Day too much, so I don’t really know too much about it. I’ve heard about it, and it‘s obviously a pretty cool thing. They shut things down here and have the Marathon in the morning, with the day game here, so it sounds like a pretty big holiday. I think it’s pretty cool to celebrate the patriots and everything they did for us.”

Albers on if he could imagine himself running a marathon: “No, I couldn’t. I do a little running in the off-season, but three or four miles at the most. So no, I couldn’t imagine running 26 miles, or even what it’s like.”

Albers on which Orioles teammate he could see running a marathon: “I think that if anybody were to do it, maybe Jeremy Guthrie. He’d be a guy who would possibly challenge himself to run that far. I don’t know many baseball players who would try to do it.”

Aubrey Huff on if he could imagine himself running a marathon: “No, not at all. Honestly, I get tired driving 26 miles. I couldn’t imagine running it.”

Huff on which Orioles teammate he could see running a marathon: “Nobody. It’s insane. Baseball players aren’t runners. But maybe one of our pitchers. Our pitchers run quite a bit around here.”

Ty Wigginton on if he could imagine himself running a marathon: “No. No interest at all. I mean, I don’t mind running, but I don’t see myself wanting to get up early in the morning to go run 26 miles, or whatever the heck it is.”

Wigginton on which Orioles teammate he could see running a marathon: “Luke Scott. But I’m just saying that because he’s standing right there.”

Originally posted by David Laurila from Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered, on April 20, 2009 8:42 AM

We’re probably supposed to encourage you to go back through the archives so we can maximize pageviews. And why not? This is, after all, a commercial proposition. If you feel like it, we’re not gonna stop you. If, on the other hand, you’d like a few links to a couple of older items we think you might enjoy, try these: Mary HK Choi’s Gluttony: A review of consumables, a reconsideration of Perez Hilton’s artistic career, a look at the real trends in Manhattan real estate sales, an investigation of the link between cellphones and tumors, and second thoughts on journalism as relates to that controversial LA Times front page ad. Dig deep!

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 8:34 AM

As Alinea chef-partner Grant Achatz tweeted last week when this video was posted: "Ppl ask - who eats @ Alinea. Think we only get sophisticated-rich- old. We get avg Joes 2. I swear..." [Video, after the jump.]

[via Sky Full of Bacon]

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats, on April 20, 2009 8:15 AM

Introducing Flickr integration for Radar, the leading service for real-time sharing of pictures, videos and conversations from any mobile device on any network.

Radar provides an ongoing stream of the pictures and videos your friends are sharing, whether on Radar, Flickr, or both, and 'Latest Comments' and 'Comments on Mine' views help you stay on top of your conversations as they happen.

Radar also lets you publish visual updates to Twitter and Facebook too.

The Radar mobile app is available for iPhone, Java, Blackberry and Windows Mobile.

Download the free iPhone app to get started or learn more here.

Originally posted by sponsorships@kottke.org (kottke.org sponsorship office) from kottke.org, on April 20, 2009 8:15 AM

Ladies’ Room door, Seibu Dome (Japan)

via Marinerds

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 20, 2009 8:05 AM

According to George Willis, of the New York Post, Doc Gooden signed signed his name on a concrete wall in Citi Field’s Ebbetts Club last week, after which he took pictures with fans leaning up against the autograph.

However, according to Willis, “The Mets, who have been criticized for not showcasing enough of their history in their new ballpark, plan to erase Gooden’s signature from the wall, treating it as if it were unwanted graffiti.”

…i can understand the Mets not wanting to leave the signature, but i also like that gooden did it… so, instead, the Mets should take their queue from doc, and the fan reaction, and set something up like this elsewhere in the ballpark, where current and former players can ‘leave their mark,’ so to speak…

…i have seen a lot of complaints from fans who feel there is not enough history in Citi Field… i get that, but, with all due respect to the team i love, the Mets have a subtle history, so i can understand why the team presented in a subtle way… i mean, if they went overboard with it, people would probably make fun of them for honoring a checkered past, and if they did what they did, they get ripped for not doing enough… where is the balance… i am  not sure… i do feel it’s more than they have, but i think too much would be silly…

…i would like to see more attention paid to guys like Casey Stengel, Gil Hodges and Davey Johnson, the three men who helped define what the organization is about… i like the signature idea… i like the banners they currently have outside… a few more murals inside, like they had it Shea Stadium, would be cool… but, there is time for all of this, and there is also an opportunity here to make new memories and new history that can be captured from inside the walls it will eventually be displayed on…

…by the way, thanks to m kook for the link…

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 20, 2009 7:54 AM

If you don't like this re-imagined NYC subway map, I'll kick you in the Brooklyn. Somewhat NSFW. (via illustration art)

Tags: maps  nsfw  nyc  remix  subway 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 20, 2009 7:41 AM

Ashlee Vance, reporting for the NYT:

The Oracle Corporation, the technology information company, announced Monday that it would acquire a rival, Sun Microsystems, for $9.50 a share, or about $7.4 billion. […]

The deal immediately disrupts the traditional relationships formed between some of the technology industry’s largest players and thrusts Oracle into the hardware business. Oracle, for example, has long-standing partnerships with Sun’s rivals, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

I wonder if Oracle cares about Sun’s hardware business. And I wonder what this means for MySQL. This makes more sense to me than IBM buying Sun, though.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on April 20, 2009 7:21 AM

Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man recently revealed details around his role in the upcoming George Lucas film Red Tails, which co-stars Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr.

[Visit SOHH.com for more information]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from SOHH.com Dailies, on April 20, 2009 6:45 AM

Gawker Headquarters Seating Chart

The lovely Gawker Media office in NoLIta, the headquarters of the well-known weblog company, is something to see! But who sits where? And more importantly, what percentage of their open plan seating is editorial? That would be: 25%. And what percentage are “subletters,” you ask? Yes: 25% as well.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on April 20, 2009 6:30 AM

The spouting bean concept illustrated by Jillian Tamaki for the "Green Chicago" issue of Hemispheres, the inflight magazine for United Airlines, is a little bit of genius.

Tags: design  illustration  jilliantamaki 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 20, 2009 6:29 AM

Striking photo gallery from East Germany, shortly after the wall fell.

The photographer, Karlheinz Jardner, recounts his memories of the trip:

People apologized for what they had. At breakfast, for example, they would apologize for the butter being hard – and yet it tasted so good to me! Even when I would tell them that, it seemed that these people felt guilty because they were able to offer me so little. Of course, some were skeptical, especially men, and their skepticism became clear in many conversations. They wanted to know how they would benefit from reunification, and what would happen to their jobs “when all those people start coming over from the West now.” What would happen to their business, their agricultural cooperatives?

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on April 20, 2009 5:58 AM

Magda Sayeg founded KnittaPlease in August 2005 in part due to so many unfinished knitting projects. Soon a "tag crew of knitters" was out bombing cities with colorful knits. Soon she'll be brightening up Montague Street in Brooklyn, so even though she's not living in New York, you can still benefit from her and her crews knitting powers.

How often do you create a public knitting piece? As often as possible! Now that KnittaPlease is my full time job, I am working almost constantly on projects.

How do you decide where to place them? It depends on the city. New York was easy, because it is filled with significant landmarks. Sometimes, I tag a site with high visibility. Sometimes, the object I wrap has some relevance to the country or city I am in. It is always the contrast of hard and soft materials. I like to stay connected to street culture, and what it inspires. One of my favorite pieces was a knitted pair of kicks I threw over a power line, (deadman shoes).

I tagged the pedestal of an organ grinder in Mexico City. The musician was in his 50's and was thrilled-it was sweet. I find myself attracted to the tiniest details that would otherwise be overlooked: an abandoned bike lock, or a small water pipe at the base of a tall building.

Recently you were in New York, what did you adorn while here? I have been to NY several times and have left many tags. I have covered a park bench in Central Park, a "No Parking" sign in Times Square, an old non working phone booth, the "Welcome to Manhattan" sign just over the Williamsburg bridge, to name a few.

   

Is there somewhere in New York you would love to tag? There are several dreamy projects I have thought about. I would love to tag a subway car.

What is the overall goal with the project? To work as much possible and encourage others to create and participate. I love it when another artist's work inspires me to rethink my surroundings, my job, my life. I think the "69 Meters" Project will allow me to go farther than I have ever gone with multiple tagging. I like wrapping numerous repetitive objects in the urban landscape. So, to have this opportunity feels extremely good.

How can people become involved in it? They can contact me through my website. I have information on how to volunteer. There is a pattern for the parking meter cozy as well as information for people who may be interested in helping the night of the installation. I will also post it on my Facebook group, Knittaplease.

Do you have a soundtrack to knit to (what bands are you currently listening to)? My music ranges from Qtip to Johnny Cash... and when I'm feeling nostalgic, I'll put on my dad's old copies of Joe Dassin. Actually, it is television I get into when knitting. I'm a Turner Classic Movie fan, big time. I love Sunday's Silent Movie Night. I geek out on Twilight Zone. When I want to return to this century, my new favorite obsession is Breaking Bad.

Originally posted by Jen Carlson from Gothamist, on April 20, 2009 5:30 AM

In my comments on the Harman story, you'll see I'm giving probably as much focus to the hows and whys of the government's role surveilling Harman as I am to what she's accused of. So let me early on make this point clear -- one issue does override or trump the significance of the other. I think both are critical. And I think it's deeply important to keep that fact in mind.

There've been a number of hints and examples over recent months and years of the national security apparatus wiretapping or otherwise surveilling members of Congress. In each case, there's some explanation. In some cases, we're told it was inadvertent. But what jumps out at me in the Stein's Harman story is the suggestion that Alberto Gonzales protected Harman because the administration needed her out there spinning the warrantless wiretap story on their behalf.

Now, Jeff's reporting seems to suggest that this was something Harman was going to do anyway. And Gonzales didn't want to let this controversy get in her way. But it does not take too big a leap to see this going down rather differently -- seeing Harman, fairly or unfairly, compromised by these wiretaps and thus beholden to the administration.

Whether or not there's anything to that hypothetical about Harman, this issue of wiretapping members of Congress gets into extremely dangerous territory. And I think we're at the point where we need some clearer explanation of how many times this happened under the tenure of the previous (and for that matter the present) administration.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 20, 2009 5:22 AM

Can we call this national make-pizza-at-home week?  That would make me really happy.  Why?  Because pizza at home is so good, so easy, and so so affordable.  But what I want to focus on here is the EASY part.  This is why I really loved Sam Sifton’s NYTimes mag article on pizza (except for that truly shameless plug of Jay McInerny’s new book—are they pals? Really had to stretch even to make sense).  But: Pizza at home IS so easy it got me wanting to make pizza for breakfast: bacon and eggs pizza?  Why not?! 

I loved his stressing the fact that you don’t have to have a stone oven that goes to 800 degrees to make pizza (or even a stone).  When I make pizza for the family, one of the pies goes on a stone but the other goes on a regular baking sheet.  And guess what—it’s just as good!  Want to try a fun method?  Bake it on an inverted cast iron pan! That works great, too!

The basic bread dough ratio, as I’ve said before, as I demo in the promo video for the new book, as I showed on CBS with Harry and Maggie (thanks for linking Bob and for the Plato ref!), as is well known as a baker’s percentage: is in essence this: 5 : 3, flour to water.  Works great for pizza dough as well.

For one decent pie for two, I use 10 ounces flour and 6 ounces water (plus a four-fingered pinch of yeast and a couple four-fingered pinches kosher salt).  I double it if all of us are eating.  Notice the Times recipe, adapted from the lovable curmudgeon Jeff Steingarten.  It uses 3 cups flour to the same amount of water I call for for about 4 CUPS give or take.  That's 25% more water! What does this mean?!  Which is correct?! Oh no!  What should I do?!  Who’s right?!

All it means is that one dough will be a little wetter than the other.  They’ll both be delicious.  Watch Jill on the Times video.  You can see her dough is slack and sticky.  I think that makes it hard to work with, but I know that it will make good pizza crust and will be easier to thin out.  Mine will be easier to work with at first but will need some resting when I roll and stretch it out. I actually think Jill is making it unnecessarily complicated (bread flour? AP flour? both?  Hint: they both work great! Don't not make pizza because you don't have bread dough—10 to 1 you wouldn't be able to tell the difference if you compared the two).  But I love her videos anyways because they’re clever and she’s so damned cute in that tiny kitchen of hers.

Yeast.  Is the amount critical?  No.  Which is why I now measure by sight for easy flat breads like pizza dough.  You just need to recognize that if you only use an eighth of a teaspoon it’s going to take a lot longer to rise than if you used a teaspoon (which is just right for 15 or 20 ounces of flour).

So mix all these ingredients together, add some olive oil for flavor if you’re feeling springtime in the air.  Mix it long enough so that it’s smooth and elastic (it needs to be able to stretch with the gas bubbles the yeast produces).  Let it rise for two or three hours.  And that’s it.  It’s ready to go or to be refrigerated till you need it.  That’s another thing I was glad to see the article note.  You can keep this dough in the fridge for a week.  You can probably freeze it (don’t see why not, though I’ve never tried).  So if you want to make the breakfast pizza for your lover next Sunday, mid-morning, make the dough this week. (Or get up earlier--you can actually do the below recipe from ingredients to table in 2 hours if you push it a little.)

After the yeast has had some time to get moving, roll the dough out.  It will resist you and want to spring back.  It needs to rest in between rolling.  When it’s shaped as you wish, cover it with whatever you wish and bake it in a 450 degree oven.  That’s all there is to it. It's  one of the  easiest dough preparations there is.

One tricky issue: if you’re baking on a stone rather than on a sheet tray you've got to get the pizza onto it.  The pizza will be heavy with ingredients.  I don’t have a peel, so I use a cutting board dusted with flour, cornmeal or semolina and those fine grains act like ball bearings.  If you use a baking sheet this isn't an issue.  Does a baking sheet give you a different crust than the stone?  Yeah, a little bit, but not so much that you shouldn’t make pizza at home because you don’t have a stone, or peel, or a standing mixer.  A bowl, two hands, and an oven work great!

Pizza at home, it’s so good so cheap, and so satisfying.  Bake some this week and post about it!  Honestly, if you've never done it before but like to cook, you'll never want to pay 20 bucks for pizza you can make better at home!

Spring Is In the Air Breakfast Pizza:
Homemade Pizza with Bacon, Egg and Asparagus

This is a recipe for one small pizza to share with your partner on a mid-Sunday morning.  The quickest I’ve done it is in two hours (you can hurry it by doubling the yeast and using warm water in the dough), but you might want to make the dough a day or two before.  Because it’s small—it will give you a ball of dough the size of a softball—it’s quickest just to mix and kneed it by hand.  If you want to feed more people, it can be doubled for a large pizza or two small pizzas.

—10 ounces flour (two cups)
—6 ounces water (if it’s warm the yeast will work faster, if it’s really really hot you can kill the yeast)
—Big pinch of yeast (1/2 teaspoon)
—2 big pinches salt (1 teaspoon)
—A drizzle of olive oil for flavor (optional: I don’t know if you can even taste it in small amounts, but you could make an argument that the dough will be more tender if you add it.  Do you want tender pizza dough?)
—3/4 cup grated cheese (I used 1/2 cup mozzarella and 1/4 asiago)
—4 to 6 thick strips of bacon cut into strips or and sautéed till tender but not overcooked
—6 to 8 asparagus spears (2 to 4 inch tender tops only) brushed or tossed with olive oil
—1 or 2 eggs (cracked into separate small bowls or ramekins to make sure you don't break the yolk and for easy application)

1. Well before you want your pizza (at least two hours and up to a week), combine the flour, water, yeast, salt (and olive oil if you’re using it).  Mix and kneed the dough till it’s smooth and elastic, about ten mintues (this is easiest to do by hand because there's so little of it, so if it does happen to be Sunday morning, have your partner read the Modern Love essay in the Times Styles section while you kneed—when he/she is done, so will your dough).

2. Put it in a bowl, cover it and leave it alone for 2 or 3 hours (a finger indentation should not bounce back but nor should the dough be slack with air, but for pizza this isn't really critical). 

3. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. 

4. Re-kneed the dough to redistribute the yeast (or remove your dough from the fridge if you’ve done it ahead of time), form it into a ball, then let it rest covered with a towel for 10 or 15 minutes while you get the other ingredients together.   Using a rolling pin, roll it out on a floured board.  You may want to roll it out half way, let it rest, then roll or pull the dough into its final shape.

5. Transfer the dough to a board or peal dusted with flour, semolina, or corn meal or to a baking sheet if using.  Sprinkle with the cheese, distribute the bacon and asparagus.  Put the pizza in the oven (or slide it from the board or peel onto a baking stone) and bake it for about 10 minutes.  Pour an egg into the center or on either side of the pizza and continue baking until the egg white is set and the yolk is still fluid, about 5 or 10 more minutes.

Originally posted by michael ruhlman from ruhlman.com, on April 20, 2009 5:17 AM

How can a team win a game when, as the very last play of the game, one of its own players strikes out?

I can only think of two examples. The first one I’m not sure even counts. Conceivably, a guy could strike out with fewer than 2 outs and a runner on third. If that pitch is wild or a passed ball, the runner from third could come home to score, and the game would end if that were the tie-breaking run in the bottom of the 9th or extra innings.

The second one is one we can find with the PI:

It happened most recently in this 2006 game between the Cubs and the Reds. (This game was found with a Pitching Game Finder search here.) It’s quite simply really; Rich Aurelia of the Reds struck out to end the fifth inning in a game in which the Reds were already leading, and then the game was called due to rain. Reds win, despite making out in their last at-bat.

The most recent previous examples are 2 games from 2005 and one game from 2004.

Originally posted by Andy from Stat of the Day, on April 20, 2009 5:07 AM

Short video interview of David Simon.

You know, newspapers are gonna say, "We already let the horse out of the barn door. How can you charge for content? Information wants to be free." All that bullshit. As I remember, there wasn't an American in America 30 thirty years ago who paid for their television. Television was free 30 years ago. Now everybody's paying 16 bucks a month, 17 bucks a month, 70 dollars a month.

Related: the NY Times recently ran the poignant story of a interracial Baltimore couple who turned to The Wire for comfort when the husband underwent treatment for cancer.

Also related: read David Simon's HBO pitch for The Wire from Sept 2000.

Tags: davidsimon  interviews  journalism  thewire  video 

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 20, 2009 5:01 AM

Swirling between Jeff Stein's blockbuster reporting on the Harman story is another question: Jeff's reporting refers to an unnamed "suspected Israeli agent", as the person Harman made the alleged deal with. Stein uses that phrase in quotations and says he was not able to determine the identity of the person. So presumably that was the description provided to him by one or more of his sources.

So my question is: what's the nationality of that person? In spy talk, an 'agent' doesn't necessarily mean a formal agent of the foreign power in question, as in a member of Israeli intelligence or a diplomat. In this context it just as likely -- in some ways, given the nature of the underlying investigation, perhaps even more likely -- means an American citizen who the investigators believed was acting as an Israeli agent -- a complicated evidentiary and legal question.

And here's where it gets sticky. The whole legal question would then depend largely, perhaps entirely, on whether that suspicion was legally provable.

To see what I mean, let's come at this from another hypothetical read of the facts. What if US citizen A comes to Harman and says, this AIPAC spy case is a total set up, an end-run around the first amendment (the argument the defenders have subsequently made, with some legal success). US citizen A asks Harman to weigh in with Gonzales (who she has lots of pull with) in exchange for help lobbying Pelosi to make her head of the intelligence committee.

To be clear, I'm not speaking to the wisdom, ethics or morality of such a deal. But if the person on the other end of the call is a US Citizen and the government can't sustain the charge that they were acting as the agent of a foreign power, it's really hard for me to see what criminal statutes that agreement would violate.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 20, 2009 4:53 AM

Working the bench at Tom Douglas Bread Bakery in Seattle. Photograph courtesy Tom Douglas restaurants

I’m a decent home cook, capable of rummaging through the pantry to throw together a quickie dinner or, on a quiet Sunday, searching my considerable cookbook collection for more elaborate recipes.

Yet when it comes to any combination of yeast and flour, I’ve always been a hopeless failure. Even when following the no-way-you-can-blow-it no-knead recipes, I flop.

So, I was nervous about working in the bread department of the Tom Douglas restaurants on my journey from critic to cook. Veteran baker Gwen LeBlanc seemed to sense my fear.

“Don’t be scared,” she said soothingly while showing me how to arrange ficelle on a loader, a contraption that looks a little like a hospital gurney, which deposits dough in the red-hot oven.

Like a baton-wielding maestro, Gwen waved a razor blade gracefully to demo the right way to score the perfectly formed lumps of dough: You want to go straight down the middle. Picture a rectangle and stay in the box. Cut smoothly and swiftly. Relax your wrist. Don’t overthink it.

Great. Kind of reminded me why I gave up golf. So many little details to try and commit to sense memory.

Funny thing happened in front of that massive oven, though. After a few hours, it all began to jell. Like a rare drive straight down the fairway.

Maybe I could really do this. It helped that Gwen and her small crew – Wendy Scherer, Darren Morey, Devon Deardorf and Nikki Leigh – were so encouraging. Even when I screwed up. Like when I failed to click the dough loader into place and a batch of rolls tumbled into a row of baguettes. Oh man! Rookie mistake.

Wendy was nice about it. Sometimes, you just have to let it go, she consoled. Miraculously, the rolls weren’t a total loss – just not as pretty as the others.

I felt bad because I had seen the Herculean effort involved in getting the rolls ready to bake, the measuring and mixing and shaping. I learned the importance of pre-shaping step to let the glutens relax, making it easier to get the proper tension in the final shaping. Pushing dough against the bench – the huge wooden worktable where all the shaping was done – was downright therapeutic.

I don’t know why it has always freaked me out. If cooking on the line is one big adrenalin rush, baking bread seems like a brisk walk in the cool woods on a sultry summer afternoon. (Where I might find some of my errant golf balls, perhaps.)

I later learned that it’s rare for cooks to cross over to baking. When one cook came to cross train in Gwen’s flour-y world, he didn’t last a day.

I was pleasantly shocked, though, to feel so much at home. I wasn’t afraid anymore.
Anybody care to share their crossover success story or bakery battle scars?

About the author: Leslie Kelly is a Seattle-based freelance food writer whose work has appeared in the (now defunct) Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, and the Spokesman-Review. She's currently working in the kitchens of Tom Douglas restaurants and blogging at Whining & Dining.

Originally posted by Leslie Kelly from Serious Eats, on April 20, 2009 4:30 AM

bruunb writes "Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. 'We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,' said Oracle President Safra Catz."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Originally posted by CmdrTaco from Slashdot, on April 20, 2009 4:11 AM

The (freely downloadable) book Emotional Cartography - Technologies of the Self [emotionalcartography.net] is a collection of essays from artists, designers, psycho-geographers, cultural researchers, futurologists and neuroscientists, brought together by Christian Nold, to explore the political, social and cultural implications of visualizing intimate biometric data and emotional experiences using technology. The theme of this collection of essays is to investigate the apparent desire for technologies to map emotion, using a variety of different approaches.

Probably the best known emotion maps are the ones resulting Bio Mapping project, a community mapping project in which the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), a simple indicator of the emotional arousal, is recorded in conjunction with one's geographical location. By combining the emotional responses of over 1,500 people over a period of 4 years, several "Emotion Maps" were generated of the city in which the participants roamed around.

Interspersed throughout the book, are the images of the printed Emotion Maps as well as photos of the participatory process. As mentioned before, the book can be freely downloaded and includes some compelling examples of mapping the subjective views of our daily experiences in a visual form.

Thnkx Bonnie.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on April 20, 2009 1:13 AM

In the recently released Sphinx version 0.9.9-rc2 there is a support for MySQL wire protocol and SphinxQL - SQL-like language to query Sphinx indexes. This support is currently in its early preview stage but it is still fun to play with.

A thing to mention - unlike MySQL Storage Engines, some of which as InfoBright or KickFire take over execution after parsing, Sphinx MySQL support has nothing to do with MySQL - it is implementation of the wire protocol from scratch.

For this test I was not interesting in the full text search performance, we already know Sphinx is much faster than MySQL build in full text search. I was rather interested to look performance of other queries, not using Full Text Search.

PLAIN TEXT

SQL:

1. [root@r27 sp]# mysql --host 127.0.0.1 --port 3307
2. Welcome TO the MySQL monitor.  Commands end WITH ; OR \g.
3. Your MySQL connection id IS 1
4. Server version: 0.9.9-id64-rc2 (r1785)
5.  
6. Type 'help;' OR '\h' FOR help. Type '\c' TO clear the buffer.

For the tests I used the table from the forum search engine, leaving just bunch of ids in it, removing everything else:

PLAIN TEXT

SQL:

1. CREATE TABLE `sptest` (
2.   `id` bigint(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
3.   `site_id` int(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
4.   `forum_id` int(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
5.   `author_id` int(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
6.   `num_links` smallint(5) UNSIGNED NOT NULL
7. ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

This table contained some 25 millions of rows and no indexes there defined - Sphinx does not support explicit indexes and it is clear when you can use index for sort MySQL will be a lot faster.

First - Sorting. Sphinx is smart doing sorting because it does not try to sort everything but if you ask but rather only number of rows it needs to reach the LIMIT

Sphinx

PLAIN TEXT

SQL:

1. mysql> SELECT forum_id AS f FROM sptest ORDER BY author_id DESC LIMIT 10;
2. +------------+--------+----------+
3. | id         | weight | forum_id |
4. +------------+--------+----------+
5. | 6739362135 |      1 |  2736983 |
6. | 6739362391 |      1 |  2736983 |
7. | 6739338327 |      1 |  1024599 |
8. | 6739357527 |      1 |  1023063 |
9. | 6739359063 |      1 |  1024599 |
10. | 6739305559 |      1 |  2558807 |
11. | 6739336791 |      1 |  2558807 |
12. | 6739300695 |      1 |   208215 |
13. | 6739297111 |      1 |  2736471 |
14. | 6739296855 |      1 |  2736471 |
15. +------------+--------+----------+
16. 10 rows IN SET (7.92 sec)

MySQL

PLAIN TEXT

SQL:

1. mysql> SELECT forum_id AS f FROM sptest ORDER BY author_id DESC LIMIT 10;
2. +---------+
3. | f       |
4. +---------+
5. | 2736983 |
6. | 2736983 |
7. | 1024599 |
8. | 1023063 |
9. | 1024599 |
10. | 2558807 |
11. | 2558807 |
12. |  208215 |
13. | 2736471 |
14. | 2736471 |
15. +---------+
16. 10 rows IN SET (17.91 sec)

As you can see Sphinx adds couple of extra columns to result set even if you have not asked it.

Another thing to try is GROUP BY - Sphinx executes GROUP BY in fixed memory which means results may be approximate - this is geared towards full text search applications when exact number is not important.

Sphinx

PLAIN TEXT

SQL:

1. mysql> SELECT max(forum_id) AS m,author_id AS a FROM sptest GROUP  BY author_id  ORDER BY m DESC LIMIT 10;
2. +------------+--------+----------+-----------+---------+
3. | id         | weight | forum_id | author_id | m       |
4. +------------+--------+----------+-----------+---------+
5. | 6739362135 |      1 |  2736983 | 139452247 | 2736983 |
6. | 6738995287 |      1 |  1762135 | 134125655 | 2736727 |
7. | 6739296855 |      1 |  2736471 | 139450967 | 2736471 |
8. | 6739297111 |      1 |  2736471 | 139451223 | 2736471 |
9. | 6739227479 |      1 |  2736215 | 139449687 | 2736215 |
10. | 6739227735 |      1 |  2736215 | 139449943 | 2736215 |
11. | 6739226967 |      1 |  2735959 | 139449175 | 2735959 |
12. | 6739227223 |      1 |  2735959 | 139449431 | 2735959 |
13. | 6739223383 |      1 |  2735703 | 139448663 | 2735703 |
14. | 6739223639 |      1 |  2735703 | 139448919 | 2735703 |
15. +------------+--------+----------+-----------+---------+
16. 10 rows IN SET (32.47 sec)

MySQL

PLAIN TEXT

SQL:

1. mysql> SELECT max(forum_id) AS m,author_id AS a FROM sptest GROUP  BY author_id  ORDER BY m DESC LIMIT 10;
2. +---------+-----------+
3. | m       | a         |
4. +---------+-----------+
5. | 2736983 | 139452247 |
6. | 2736727 | 134125655 |
7. | 2736471 | 139450967 |
8. | 2736471 | 139451223 |
9. | 2736215 | 139449687 |
10. | 2736215 | 139449943 |
11. | 2735959 | 139449175 |
12. | 2735959 | 139449431 |
13. | 2735703 | 139448663 |
14. | 2735703 | 139448919 |
15. +---------+-----------+
16. 10 rows IN SET (1 min 15.03 sec)

Another optimization I wanted to check is the "early block reject" which should allow to quickly throw away large blocks of attributes if they do not contain any data:

Sphinx

PLAIN TEXT

SQL:

1. SELECT max(author_id) AS a ,forum_id  AS f FROM sptest WHERE num_links=1;
2. Empty SET (2.70 sec)

MySQL

PLAIN TEXT

SQL:

1. mysql> SELECT max(author_id) AS a ,forum_id  AS f FROM sptest WHERE num_links=1;
2. +------+---+
3. | a    | f |
4. +------+---+
5. | NULL | NULL |
6. +------+---+
7. 1 row IN SET (4.29 sec)

I would expect much larger lead in this case because of this optimization but it seems to be broken in the tested version.

Also note the result set difference - Sphinx finds no rows and creates no groups while MySQL reports NULL group as a result.

SphinxQL at this point is rather picky - it wants AS for all the expressions, it also could not parse some queries for no reason though I expect these things to be polished in the near future. The good thing is the query execution maps to the same execution engine which is quite stable which means it will likely stabilize soon.

Sphinx also offers number of extensions to the SQL which are helpful for search use cases - WITHIN GROUP ORDER BY allows to select which item to pick within given group (like if you want to show most recent document, or most relevant) and others.

You might find using Native API more feature full at this point but command line language is very helpful for testing and debugging purposes as well as so Sphinx can be accessed from languages which doe not have native Sphinx API implemented - everyone seems to be able to talk to MySQL these days.

Now on performance - for given class of queries Sphinx was just 1.5-2 times faster. I honestly hoped for more, though I carefully picked queries which are reasonably good for both of them - it is easy to "break" MySQL making it to do group by with on disk temporary table which will make Sphinx much faster and few others.

The true gain from Sphinx however comes from its ability to scale almost linearly using multiple CPU cores and multiple nodes in the system. The raw scan speed was almost 10 millions of rows per second (this is on rather outdated CPU I used for testing) - this means you should be able to scan through 100M+ rows on the single modern 8 core server which is quite a number.

---

Entry posted by peter | No comment

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Originally posted by peter from MySQL Performance Blog, on April 19, 2009 9:34 PM

So by now you’ve all seen the fact that the Washington franchise in the National League is saving money by only embroidering some letters on the fronts of their uniforms.

I just showed my wife the photo, and the first thing she said was, “That’s great - but who are the Chefs?”

Originally posted by keith from The dish, on April 19, 2009 6:50 PM

Ballard is somebody who really has something to say. He’s saying it to a lot of different people. He’s never sold out, never wrote a cheesy trilogy. He had movies made of his books. He recovered. He didn’t care. They were okay movies, even. He had some money. His children grew to adulthood. He has grandchildren. He was never arrested. He hasn’t been in a jail or a clinic. He’s not Jeffrey Archer. He didn’t come to a bad end. He’s not an alcoholic. He has a life that many people would envy. And justly so. To that end, I feel very pleased about him. Not that I am an optimist about him or his worldview. I would not want him to have another worldview. I’m not going to criticise his sensibility. He’s a great artist. He’s given something very few people can give; in his case, he’s the only one who could possibly have given that. He gave a lot of it, it was good, it was consistently interesting. What more does one want?

--bruces on j.g. ballard

Originally posted by finn from Modcult, on April 19, 2009 5:51 PM

The other day I posted about what's not to like at Citi Field.

Now it's time to try and be positive, not my natural instinct but here it goes:

Fan Walk: I am a fan. The brick walkway outside is a classy touch. Met fans rose to the occasion and left behind some clever tributes and poignant memorials. I am especially impressed by the dude who used the fan walk as an opportunity to propose marriage ("I am not David Wright but I am Mr. Right. Will you marry me?" Damn I wish I thought of that. Oh wait I'm already married). We always knew Met fans were the wittiest and most passionate in all baseball. Now there is written proof around Citi Field.

The Dunking Station. That was the favorite place for my sons (The MLB09 video game hut came in second). Next to the wiffle ball field behind the scoreboard, there is an old-fashioned dunking station sponsored by Hershey Park. The dunked victim doesn't fall into a tank of water, however; just some foam. But the kids were loving it anyway. Smart move by the Mets to put a giant screen behind the scoreboard so parents forced to bring their progeny to all these attractions can still follow the game.

Bullpens. Once again, we can see who is warming up, at least for the Mets.

The old Apple. At one point, the Mets were going to trash Shea's old home run magic hat. Now it is one of the most popular destinations in the new stadium. Very cool.

The bridge. Between the Apple and the bullpen, the suspension bridge provides the most impressive view of the game (that's where the above photo was taken).

Citi corridors. There is much more room to walk within the concourses of Citi Field. And on the Promenade level, there are many open areas, so more natural light comes in. I especially like the Promenade food court behind home plate. They could use another video screen there for fans to watch the action while dining.  

Citi bathrooms. I have only been to one game but I never had to wait on line. And I got to listen to the radio, as they now pipe WFAN into the men's room. In fact, I was in the bathroom on Opening Day when the news broke about the death of Mark "The Bird" Fydrich. Someone flushed during the news, though, so I had to loiter in the men's toilet a bit longer than I felt comfortable with.

Citi staff. I did not see our old Loge13 usher on Opening Day. He may have retired; he's probably somewhere else. The folks I have met have clearly taken the new courtesy training very seriously. But that doesn't mean they are without charm or character. Good example: before Monday's game, the usher in our section heard me chatting with Ron Hunt  about the rock & roll hall of fame. He noted that lots of worthy bands are still excluded. I agreed and cited as one random example, Jethro Tull. Turns out, this guy was at Shea Stadium July 23, 1976 when Tull played Shea, and he cited the date as proof. Now that's what we want in a Mets usher.

Again, I have only attended one game so I may have overlooked or overstated something. Feel free to fill in the blanks.

Originally posted by Kingman from Loge 13, on April 19, 2009 3:52 PM

ciarrai84:

brighteryellow:

Who doesn’t love the Natinals? Fail. So much fail.

“How exactly does something this stupid happen to a semi pro baseball team? I have no idea, but I tell you what, it makes perfect sense that this happened to the Nationals.”

Since they’ve got the worst record in baseball, maybe they’re so ashamed they decided to go in the witness protection program and so they had to change the team name?  Epic fail guys.  YOU DIDN’T DISGUISE YOURSELVES WELL ENOUGH.

oh god. that’s *terrible*

Originally posted by (author unknown) from metsgrrl.com's tumblr, on April 19, 2009 3:02 PM

I caught some mostly good-natured flak when I fancifully gave President Obama a hard time for not allowing his wife to plant beets in the new White House garden. Now, according to Maureen Dowd's column in today's New York Times, Alice Waters also wants to introduce our President to the joys and pleasures of fresh beets simply prepared:

"I would like to serve him some golden beets sometime that were roasted in the oven, that were not overcooked, that were dressed with a lovely little vinaigrette, maybe even diced in a salad," she says in her seductive way. "Squeeze 'em with a little lime. It's fantastically nutritious."

And seriously delicious, I might add. Here's a recipe for the White House chefs to use, from Tabla chef-partner Floyd Cardoz via Dinner Tonight's Nick Kindelsberger.

Props to the Times copy editors for the headline on Dowd's column: "The Aura of Arugulance."

Photograph ©iStockphoto.com/Suzifoo

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats, on April 19, 2009 11:30 AM

A week ago, I announced a giveaway to help raise money for Share Our Strength.  This is another reminder to donate to this great hunger-fighting organization (and maybe win my favorite scale and a signed copy if Ratio).  Here’s the page to donate and on April 30, I’ll select 3 random winners.

As some know, I was in New York to speak to a couple of groups and to perform the unlikely feat of mixing one bread dough, two savory quickbreads, and one shortbread-style cookie, in four minutes, explain the idea of the book, and make engaging repartee with Harry and Maggie.  (Video here, at least I didn’t embarrass myself—or if I did, please don't say so.)

But I want to mention the culinary highlight: by far, far, it was the pâté selection at Bar Boulud.  While they served a large charcuterie platter with ham and dried sausage and a lovely array of condiments, it was the pâté that stole the tray.  Guinea hen, rabbit, beef cheek, a pate grandmere with just the right amount of liver, pâté en croute with foie gras and perfect head cheese.  It truly showed the elegance of the craft of the pâté.  Very impressive.  You want to see why the pâté is such a special creation?  Bar Boulud.  I’ve never had better.  Also had a delicious steak tartare at BLT Market (warning, both restaurant links have loud music--why do they do this? I just want info on the restaurant, not theme music) with a little paper cone stuck into the raw chopped beef holding a quail egg shell containing a yolk, nice touch—but then I’m a fan of yolks, as readers and commenters of and on the previous post know!

Help fight hunger.  Go to SOS.

Originally posted by michael ruhlman from ruhlman.com, on April 19, 2009 9:26 AM

I love to hate the Yankees, with a payroll of over 201 million dollars, most teams are easily considered the underdog when they match up. That’s why (seriously) the Yankees can SUCK IT.

My hometown team, sporting an ODP that’s 81 million (average among baseball teams) ruined the Yankees home opener and christening of their new baseball palace (which looks a lot like the old Yankee stadium on TV, very cool though) spanking the Yankees 10-2. Handsome Grady Sizemore added insult to injury by hitting the first ever grand slam off Damaso Marte in the seventh inning. Going going gone, I had to contain myself at my desk letting out a very noticeable evil mad scientist laugh.

The Indians’ Rout of Yankees On Saturday Is One For the Record Books

Indians 22, Yankees 4. I didn’t get to see the game so I’ll let you savor the New York Times reporting;

“Through it all, the Yankees — and their Highlanders forebears — had never allowed 14 runs in an inning…It never happened at Hilltop Park or the Polo Grounds. It never happened at Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium or anyplace on the road. But in the third game at the new Yankee Stadium — where the ball seems rocket-fueled when hit to right-center field — the Cleveland Indians erupted for 14 runs in the second inning of a 22-4 smackdown on Saturday.”

Cue more evil laughter…and you ain’t getting LeBron either! Bwaaa ha ha haaaaaaaa!!!

*Photo from last Thursday, Grady Sizemore #24 of the Cleveland Indians is greeted by Kelly Shoppach #10, Trevor Crowe #26 and Ben Francisco #12 after hitting a grand slam during the seventh inning on opening day against the New York Yankees at the new Yankee Stadium on April 16, 2009 in the Bronx borough of New York City. This is the first regular season MLB game being played at the new venue which replaced the old Yankee Stadium as the Yankees home field.

Originally posted by Jocko from Jockohomo Datapanik, on April 19, 2009 6:19 AM