randomwalks/dj

By Washington Post Staff President Obama celebrated his first Fourth of July at the White House with a festive backyard party that included games, an all-American menu of hot dogs and hamburgers, and a salute to U.S. servicemen and women. Speaking from a balcony with 22 armed forces members behind him and his family by his side, according to a pool report, Obama thanked the military, noting the recent handover of security in Iraq's cities. "Because of what you did," he said, "a sovereign and united Iraq has taken control of its own destiny." The president also mentioned the day's other significance for his family: It was daughter Malia's 11th birthday. Malia "is just thrilled that you are all here," Obama said. "When she was young, I used to say that all these fireworks were for her. I'm not sure she buys that" now. The president likened the White House

Originally posted by (author unknown) from 44, on July 4, 2009 7:44 PM

IT'S HEEEEEERE. Live. Available to the public. You can't pre-sell a one of one, 2009 Allen & Ginter is open for business. Mario with the scoop as always. I can now officially go Allen & Ginter Crazy.

AND I SHALL

I finally got up the courage to watch the Beckett break. For all you conspiracy theorists out there, I'll have you know they only pull four of the ten possible 1/1 cut autos instead of the seven they usually are allotted. You can watch the break here if you wish (the cards pulled are actually pretty interesting), but I'm not responsible for personal items broken in a fit of rage or any cardiac-related medical conditions suffered by my more excitable readers out there. I was able to get through the break with only mild nausea caused by Chris Olds' reciting of the autograph list. Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps. MEH.

In other news, The Case Breakers are hard at work and posting on eBay. Well, there's at least a few of boxes worth of inserts up there. Since I am sadly not likely to have the time or the resources to build all the insert sets this year I will instead do what I did with the Heritage SPs and download the images off of eBay instead. No I'm not kidding, in March I did an eBay search for "2009 Heritage SP" and downloaded the best image I could find of each short printed card. There's always a way to be a collector even in the toughest of times. Expect non-stop Ginter for the next couple of weeks folks, we're off on a crazy ride...

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on July 4, 2009 7:19 PM

VeloNews | Sastre couldn't wear yellow jersey to start

Tour officials refused to let defending champion Carlos Sastre race today's Stage 1 in Monaco in the yellow jersey.

For years, defending champions could choose to wear the yellow jersey during the subsequent Tour's first stage. Lance Armstrong sometimes did (2003), and sometimes didn't (2004, 2005).

Since Armstrong's retirement, there was no returning champion in 2006 (Armstrong retired), 2007 (Landis banned, Pereiro not yet named champion), or 2008 (Contador and the rest of Astana barred from racing).

Sastre has been the Rodney Dangerfield of GC candidates, and would probably have liked to remind teams and fans that he was good enough to win this race last year, but the ASO decided the tradition had run its course.

Hood quotes Tour spokesman Mathieu Desplats:

“We decided to stop this tradition,” said Tour spokesman Mathieu Desplats. “It was a tradition, not a rule. It’s a new race, with a new start and new contenders. There’s no reason why to wear the yellow jersey.”

Armstrong's 2003 prologue start looks to stand as the last initial Tour stage with a rider in yellow.

Originally posted by Frank Steele from Tour de France 2009, on July 4, 2009 7:17 PM

TPM Reader MC checks in ...

Am I living in Bizarro world? Does anyone really think that there is any realistic way Palin could be a candidate for President after resigning as governor? Yet pundit after pundit is saying this is a "risky" move that "may pay off". This is absolutely preposterous, and any professional putting such ideas into print should be relegated to writing copy for infomercials. All one needs to do is imagine the campaign ads (Can we Trust S.P. to Finish What She Starts?; Palin Quits When She's Tired, Winners Quit When They're Done; or just string together a few clips from the Mistake by the Lake) to realize there is no recovering from this. This is no wily strategic move; it's running from a scandal.

As I said earlier, I think there's a small chance there's no specific scandal and that Palin is just very mentally unstable. But MC is 100% correct that any pundit who thinks this is some risky but potentially brilliant strategic move is absolutely smoking crack. Hitting the crack pipe, or, just as likely, being witlessly contrarian to set themselves apart from the common herd of sane people. The kinds of ads MC mentions are right on the mark. But they're really only the beginning.

To a degree it goes without saying. But it's worth reviewing just how deeply preposterous Palin's argument yesterday really was when she claimed that she refused to exploit the people of Alaska by serving out her full term.

When you run for governor, as for president, you run for a four year term. You commit, at least implicitly, to serving four years, though many people end up not doing that for various reasons. There's nothing in the implied contract about running for reelection. Indeed it's arguable that the public would be better served by a governor focusing for four years on running the state rather than laying the groundwork for their reelection.

In any case, Gov. Palin, who's served only a little more than half her first term (remember, she was elected in 2006), announces she won't run for reelection. And having decided that she won't run for a second term, she concludes that it would be exploiting the people of Alaska to agree to serve out the remainder of the term they elected her to serve back in 2006. This is apparently because she'll be a lame duck. And, she claims, lame ducks never get anything done and just spend a lot of money going on taxpayer funded junkets. So better to walk away from her job and pass it off to the Lt. Governor who no one hired to do the job at all.

You could keep plumbing the depths of this ridiculousness for some time. But as MC rightly notes it's simply poisonous, toxic, fatal for anyone running for president. Setting side political and policy stances, the one thing really key about a president is that they be steady under pressure, not rash, and not prone to spur of the moment freak outs where they just walk away from the job to go to Disneyland. A lot of nonsense gets knocked around about 'character' in presidential elections. But this is the foundational question of character that really is critical. Assuming this isn't about some soon-to-pop scandal and it's really that Palin just decided on a moment's notice (look at how much preparation went into the press conference to know how long this was in the works) to up and walk away from her responsibilities, that's simply fatal for anyone's presidential chances.

She may resurface as a latter-day Hannity or she may found some Palin-specific Anti-Defamation League dedicated to calling out obscure bloggers who've written mean things about her. But what very little shot she had as a future presidential candidate (and it was a much longer shot than I think many realized) is over. She's done. She's back to what she was -- a small person looking for someone to be angry at.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on July 4, 2009 6:04 PM

The good ol’ boys of Beckett Media already busted their boxes of Allen & Ginter but for us regular collectors, we finally have a chance to own some of the most-wanted cards of 2009 thanks to eBay.

Ironically enough, the first autograph from A & G to hit eBay is that of former Marlins, current Nationals pitcher, Scott Olsen. Although I love the idea of Marlins-related “hits”, I have to say these look an awful lot like last year’s effort.

It’s good to see Allen & Ginter start hitting eBay before its release, on July 4th no less. It, along with Topps Company is as American as apple pie and easily one of the most popular products of the last few years.

Click here to see more 2009 Allen & Ginter!

Originally posted by Mario A. from Wax Heaven, on July 4, 2009 4:54 PM

One thing I hated about being a corporate lawyer at Wilson Sonsini back in the day - we got to work on really cool deals (the last deal I worked on before leaving for a startup was the AOL/Netscape merger), but we were only brought in at the very end to paper everything. We fought over the fine print in the contracts after the meat of the deal was ironed out by CEOs. Skinning and dressing whatever the hunters bring back to the cave is fine for some people. But it’s not exactly being in the middle of the action.

PR firms today aren’t much different than corporate lawyers. They are paid to perform a service. They like to think of themselves as core to the strategic action of their clients. But more often, they’re just there to spin whatever happened in the most favorable light possible. Then they smile and dial and pray for coverage. Occasionally they are called in to smother a story, which is mildly more exciting, I imagine. But when a CEO is wondering what she should do next to drive her business forward, she generally doesn’t call her PR firm for advice. Or at least I hope she doesn’t.

PR firms are apparently just as frustrated by always being in the back seat as the law firms are.

I’m fascinated by Clair Cain Miller’s article in the New York Times today about PR in general and the birth of a startup, Wordnik, specifically.

Forget the tech blogs, said investor Roger McNamee. Brew PR head Brooke Hammerling instantly acquiesced, and decided to go with a sort of guerrilla approach instead by “whispering” into the ears of prominent Twitter users like Kevin Rose, Jay Adelson and Jason Calacanis. CNET was also given the story, but it managed to eek out only a single comment.

Ms. Hammerling, while popping green apple Jolly Ranchers into her mouth, suggests a press tour that includes briefing bloggers at influential geek sites like TechCrunch, All Things Digital and GigaOM.

But Roger McNamee, a prominent tech investor who is backing Wordnik, is also in the room, and a look of exasperation passes across his face at the mere mention of the sites.

“Why shouldn’t we avoid them? They’re cynical,” he says, also noting his concern that Wordnik would probably appeal more to wordsmiths than followers of tech blogs. “That’s where I would be most uncomfortable. They don’t know the difference between ‘they’re’ and ‘there.’ ”

Without missing a beat, Ms. Hammerling changes course, instantly agreeing with Mr. McNamee’s take. “I love you for that,” she intones. “I’ll leave the tech blogs out. Let them come to me.”

Instead, she decides that she will “whisper in the ears” of Silicon Valley’s Who’s Who — the entrepreneurs behind tech’s hottest start-ups, including Jay Adelson, the chief executive of Digg; Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter; and Jason Calacanis, the founder of Mahalo.

The result? Not much. Wordnik is flatlining at an abysmal amount of traffic. Comscore and Quantcast don’t even register the site as a blip.

Compare Wordnik to Topsy, another recently launch service. Topsy launched on TechCrunch exclusively. The domain now has 577,000 results on Google, compared to 56,000 for Wordnik. And the traffic difference is stunning:

I’d say this experiment in a pure social media launch failed.

The article goes on for pages describing Hammerling’s incredible networking skills and propensity to namedrop at every opportunity.

Ms. Hammerling’s connections have been crucial for Brew in finding and serving clients, says Ms. Cook, her business partner: “Without question, that allows us to play at a different level, because we’re not just doing P.R. and media relations; we’re connecting people at the highest level, helping deals get done.”

I know Brooke well. I guess you could say I’m one of her many thousands of “very close friends.” And I don’t dispute that she is well connected, or that those connections help her get clients.

I believe Brooke’s client have been better served if she stood up to McNamee and told him that Wordnik would have had a better launch if they hadn’t ignored the blogs that are interested in covering new startups. Instead she became a “yes woman” and told McNamee exactly what he wanted to hear.

Hammerling and her peers in the industry should help guide their clients through the minefield of journalists and bloggers, rather than simply avoid it entirely out of fear or ignorance. She isn’t in the room to drop names or “help get deals done.” She’s there to make sure the client’s news gets spread appropriately. In that they failed miserably, and the client suffered.

As cool as Kevin Rose is (and he did apparently Twitter that Wordnik was “truly amazing”), this is not a launch strategy.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Originally posted by Michael Arrington from TechCrunch, on July 4, 2009 4:34 PM

I love it when a single dusty bookshelf can telegraph so much about a person, even if that person has been gone for years.

These are just a few of the books found found on the shelf of an English woman who led a colorful young life and lived out her last years in the Mallorcan hills:

Claret And the White Whines of Bordeaux - Healy
Hedgerow and Pond - Lodge
A Short History of the English Peoples - Green
Annuals in Color and Cultivation - Mensfield
The KING of the DARK CHAMBER - Tagore
In Search of England - Morton
A History of Classical Scholarship - Sandy's
Poetic Works - Scott
The Twyborn Affair - Wythe
Winnie the Pooh - Milne
I Saw it happen in NORWAY - Hambro
Far Eastern Agent - Moore
The English Kings - Fowler

Filed under: found


Sponsor:
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Originally posted by (author unknown) from Heading East, on July 4, 2009 3:26 PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on July 4, 2009 2:14 PM

The Perl community needs to discuss the DarkPAN and the present and future of the language and its ecosystem in much more productive ways than accusations, hyperbole, and strawmen. This includes the people who want to destroy the DarkPAN as well as the people who believe that its stability must be preserved.

I write provocatively and deliberately. I'm writing a manifesto, after all. Yet I believe I never devolve to name-calling, strawmen arguments, nor misquoting people. (If I do, please tell me and I'll correct it.)

My motives are simple: I want regular releases of Perl 5. I want the default behavior of Perl 5.12 to encourage modern Perl programming practices. I want missing features added to the language, even in small steps at first if necessary. I want Perl 5 to be a better language for creating interesting new programs than for maintaining clunky old programs.

Here are some selected quotes from Rafaël Garcia-Suarez's The DarkPAN matters:

DarkPAN is just a slang word to express the fact that Perl 5 is now currently used all over the world in production and sometimes critical systems... asking this question, even rhetorically, makes you sound as if you didn't knew that Perl is actually used in production.

When I use the word "DarkPAN", I mean precisely this: code which p5p cannot see, cannot search, does not know the features of, and which may or may not exist. See also "We can't change this misfeature in the core, because it may break the DarkPAN!" -- funny how that sentence always ends there, rather than including "But of course, we may not, and we'll never know, because it's the DarkPAN."

I tend to think that the regular contributors of perl5-porters are a lot more likely to have informed opinions about the Perl 5 core development than people who don't even read it.

Pick on me instead then. If you don't like my opinions, feel free to revert all of my patches over the past eight years.

[Who's] trying to be realistic by attempting to release software with some quality expectations, notably by making the upgrade process seamless and introducing as little bugs as possible?

Yet those quality expectations did not work in the case of Perl 5.10, with well-known defects continuing to spread as more and more people upgrade to Perl 5.10. The existing process does not work. Call it "realistic" if you like, but it did not work for 5.10. (Note also that one of the blockers to 5.10.1 is RT #22977 -- see also RT #50528 -- a bug almost six years old that's been present in eleven stable releases of Perl 5.)

First, we should not consider breaking it. Breakage happens, but our goal is to avoid it. Secondly, breakage is detected after upgrades, usually (or it would have been avoided).

The original point referred to deliberate, backwards-incompatible changes. Note, however, that a regular release policy could revert accidental breakages on a known, fixed schedule. The current Perl 5 release policy does not address this at all, which is part of my objection.

We just don't like to introduce incompatible changes just for the sake of being incompatible.

The only people suggesting making incompatible changes for the sake of incompatibility are people setting up a strawman argument against people like me who write tests, write testing modules, write documentation, write manuals, explore bugs, give talks, teach new users how to write Perl effectively, and occasionally write patches for new features who say "You know, some of the existing features are wrong, and they'd be better off this way."

In other words, this is an attempt to diffuse the real issue. The question is not and has never been "Should existing code randomly stop working?" Instead the question is "Can the defaults change in such a way that existing code will still work with perhaps a one-time, one-line change?" (It may not even require that much change.)

[Code] changes don't happen because someone yells about it on a blog. They happen because someone actually writes code.

I wrote code. Rejected. ("What's the point of a class keywords? You can always use package and @ISA anyway! If you need something more, just use any of several dozen Class::* modules on the CPAN!") Jonathan Leto put together a potential Perl 5.10.1 release that needed only a pull from the appropriate perldelta and a pumpking to release it. Rejected. ("Perl 5.10.1 is just around the corner, really, this time we mean it! Small releases are silly and expensive because of stat calls! A regular release cycle is like believing in astrology!")

But we're not in the land of toy projects here. We can't bless any change (or revert it two releases afterwards) just because it looks shiny at the time. This is not the parrot you're looking for. People do use Perl 5 for serious things, and we must ensure that a certain level of quality is preserved.

I can predict the day and date of Parrot releases into the next century. The number of contributors to Parrot grows over time, as does the frequency of commits. Parrot right now supports features that the Perl 5 VM will never support, and that feature list will only increase over time.

Dismiss all of that because Parrot is neither as widely-used nor as old as Perl 5 if you like, or even because you think I'm a jerk and you hate everything I care about, but there's one overriding metric for software project management: can people use the software? (The corollary is that unreleased software effectively does not exist.)

Quibble about the length of our deprecation policy. Complain that we haven't implemented your pet feature in a way that you like. Beg us to move a milestone forward. Berate us for not fixing a bug you don't report. That's fine.

Yet I believe almost every Parrot committer will agree that our defined support and deprecation policies and our regular release cycle have rescued the project from the very real threats of irrelevance, quality problems, and uselessness.

"Shut up and write some code!" is just a polite (relatively) way of saying "Do it our way or not at all, and above all, do not question the process or its results -- unless you're a core hacker."

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Planet Perl Six, on July 4, 2009 1:42 PM

If you have a hard time believing that there is anything fly or dope, about roasting coffee this promotional video for Doma Cofee Roasting Company, might just change your mind. Doma Coffee Roasting Company is owned and operated by Terry Patano, who, even though I've never met him, I regard as something of a homeboy or "homie" in the street parlance of my particular hood.

Seriously now, I first tried Terry's coffee last year when he graciously sent some samples to my crib. Then I tried it again when he sent more and now that he sells the stuff online my wife, who gets goofy when she drinks the stuff, orders it about once a month. It's certainly the best coffee I've ever been able to buy on a regular basis. No Starbuck's style blast furnace treatment here. Every bean is roasted just enough to acheived a complex and robust nose, and no more.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Originally posted by Bob del Grosso from A Hunger Artist, on July 4, 2009 12:16 PM

What has the weekend brought? The conviction that our house smells funny, for one. We are not so very dirty, and even have a cleaner come in twice a month to make things even less dirty, because we are decadent.

However, we also have a cat and there is something inadequately freshening about the air currents in this house, because where I would prefer it to smell like the outdoors after a good clean rain, it instead smells gently but distinctly suboptimal.

The top note is a faint but not entirely eradicated whiff of cat pee, legacy of some years-old expression of feline displeasure. It slumbers most of the time but perks into life when it gets really humid--some hidden crystalline reserve that is being reconstituted by fresh hydration? There are undercurrents of damp, from the basement, and stuffiness, from not always flinging all the windows open. In winter it also smells of hot dust, from the ductwork.

Last night's dinner, whatever it may have been on any given day, adds its little something. And the other side of the duplex, where the owners live, contains two big dogs as well as two cats, and though they are very nice people, I have found when we have fed the cats for them while they are out of town that their side is oppressively redolent of golden retreiver. Some tendrils of this redolence may also subtly contribute to the atmosphere in our half of the building.

(This reminds me of a story. Once Snark and I were driving across the country and we stopped in a small town one evening, the fourth of July as it happened, actually, to spend the night. The town was pleasant enough, except that it smelled terrible.

Is it a meat rendering plant? we asked one another. A paper mill? Those smell bad, don't they? A tannery? Do you suppose the people who live here even smell it anymore? Maybe only when they go out of town and come back. Are they embarrassed to have their relatives come to visit?

Then on our way out of town we stopped at a grocery store to get more ice for our cooler and saw a copy of the local paper. Giant headline:

STINKY!

Apparently someone had illegally dumped some pig carcasses right at the edge of town, stinking up the whole municipality and providing the top news item of the day, if not the week or month. So yes, the people who lived there could indeed smell it.)

Anyway, it is making me lose my mind to think that we might have a Stinky House, a House of Pong, a house of do they even know how it smells? I have been neurotically reading all about electric air purifiers of various sorts and imagining them whirring away scrubbing the air to a perfect adulterant-free state, like so much distilled water.

I expect that I will place an order for one of these, the image is just too enticing. Maybe I should also replace all our furniture with lumps of activated charcoal. That would be chic. No one would have anything bad to say about our house then.

Originally posted by redfox from Adventures in the Pointless Forest, on July 4, 2009 11:18 AM

you can’t take the italians out of… umm… italians.

via www.pezcyclingnews.com

Originally posted by (author unknown) from velogogo, on July 4, 2009 10:27 AM

I’m sure a few of you have seen the Matt Wieters tribute site, Matt Wieters Facts, which includes a quote they pulled from one of my chats: “Sliced bread is actually the best thing since Matt Wieters.” The guys at MWF threw that quote on a T-shirt with a graphic of sliced bread (of course), and they’ve agreed to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the shirt to the GlobalGiving project to help disabled children in Kenya.

That was some pretty good bread, though.

Originally posted by keith from The dish, on July 4, 2009 8:29 AM

If you're new to the site, welcome! If you're back, thanks!

When I started TdFblog, back in 2003, there wasn't a lot of cycling coverage on the web. CyclingNews and VeloNews already had websites, but neither had much audio or video, and VeloNews didn't really create much content beyond what went in the magazine for the web.

Slipstreaming,
originally uploaded by Frank Steele.

I started posting links to other bloggers, and to news sources that the average fan might not easily find, from the AP photo wire, BBC, and original sources not in English, like L'Equipe and AS.

Today, there are dozens of great bicycle sites, many of them focused on racing. Why come here? I hope to help English-speaking fans, who may only watch the Tour (and especially with Armstrong's return this year), gain an appreciation for the beauty and savagery of our sport. During the Tour, I'll link to dozens of stories in the main content column here, and hundreds more in the “Tour Posts at Other Sites" section of my left sidebar. I'm not picking those because they're from my content partners, or because they're part of my site -- the things I link are the things I like, whether I agree with them or not. I hope you'll like them, too.

The explosion of interest in the Tour and in outlets covering the Tour means it gets harder every year to find all the great Tour content out there, so I welcome (nay, beg for) your help. If you see something you think TdFblog readers would like to know about, please send it along.

Christian Vande Velde,
originally uploaded by Frank Steele.

And, if you're on Twitter, feel free to reply or to direct-message me (I'm @TdFblog) with content or comments. The Twitter feed will be the only place for my as-it-happens race updates, and I'll usually post links to content there before I post stories about that content to the site. If you've got to know everything first, you'll want to follow the Twitter feed.

I think it's important to attribute links, so I'll usually add a “via” on Twitters and always try to at least abbreviate the news source I'm citing. “CN” is CyclingNews.com, “VN” is VeloNews, “CW” is Cycling Weekly, “Euro” is Eurosport. I'm using #tdf as my Tour hashtag; I prefer it to #tourdefrance since it saves 9 precious characters in a 140-character post. I'll probably use the #22 tag for Armstrong (that's his race number), and may adopt that convention for other riders, as well. That's also why I use the tr.im URL shortener -- when you see a link to “tr.im” in my Twitter stream, it's a shortened version of a link like http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ cavendish-aims-for-stages-and-paris — that's 67 characters by itself! Feel free to retweet anything I've posted to Twitter.

When I post a photo on the site, clicking on it will always take you to a larger version in its original location. In the sidebar, I do that instead of attributing the photos in the limited sidebar space. If there's an uncredited photo in the main content column, it's probably one of mine: You can see many of my cycling photos on Flickr.

Originally posted by Frank Steele from Tour de France 2009, on July 4, 2009 4:19 AM

The Dark ‘n’ Stormy, a Bermudan cocktail, has been making a quiet resurgence in New York City bars and restaurants in the last couple of years.

Originally posted by By JONATHAN MILES from NYT > Fashion & Style, on July 4, 2009 1:40 AM

I find myself constantly battling with Cisco VPN client on my Mac. As such, I’ve recently turned to vpnc as a replacement. VPNC is available as a Darwin Port but won’t work with a simple install. %> sudo port install libgpg-error openssl libgcrypt tuntaposx vpnc That’s all there is to it. The [...]

Originally posted by rlowe from Pablowe, on July 3, 2009 3:38 PM

Manny Ramirez will be back in action Friday night following his 50-game suspension.

This is probably an unpopular stance to take, but I’m not entirely comfortable with the celebratory aspect of his return. I don’t know that he should be vilified — it’s not like Ramirez is the only player ever to test positive. At the same time, “everyone else is doing it” is no justification.

It’s great for the Dodgers and the game that he’s returning. I understand that, and I have little doubt that fans receive a superior product for their money when he’s on the field. I’m just not sure that celebration is the appropriate response here.

I don’t have kids, and goodness knows I abhor the tired “think of the children” meme, but how do parents who cheer his return explain their reasoning? I’m not being rhetorical; I honestly don’t know how you reconcile these two things:

1. welcoming back a person who was caught cheating
2. imparting to your children values that are beneficial to society

Maybe I’m just getting old and cranky. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Originally posted by Geoff Young from Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered, on July 3, 2009 1:29 PM

At first, the reports were contradictory. But now we've seen multiple reports that Sarah Palin plans to resign her office as governor of Alaska at some point in the very near future. Initially reports suggested only that she wouldn't run again; quickly followed by reports of an imminent resignation.

More in a moment.

3:26 PM ... A few have suggested that she's resigning to free up time to run for president in 2012. (She would have left office at the end of next year.) But I'm not so sure about that. Generally, when you run for election to a high office it's understood that you'll stick around to do the job. Many people run for another office while they're serving out one term and then resign to take the next job. Obama did that, after all. As did Bush and Clinton before them. But resigning an office just to run for another one leaves you open to a lot of criticism for not fulfilling your commitments. So I'm not certain this is really about freeing up time to run for president full time. And if it is, the wisdom of the move, from her perspective, is questionable.

Local station KTVA in Alaska has this ...

Palin announced that she will transfer power to Lt. Governor Sean Parnell. Parnell will be sworn in during the upcoming governor's picnic in Fairbanks on July 25. An emotionally choked-up Parnell said he plans to keep all state commissioners and continue to pursue a natural gas pipeline.

Palin did not field questions and would not give any indications as to her future plans.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on July 3, 2009 11:26 AM

Filed under: iPod Family, Developer, iPhone, SDK

Last week, TUAW showed you how to sign iPhone applications for informal developer-to-developer distribution. That approach lets you share applications between members of the iPhone developer program by using your signing credentials to authorize the application for use on your development units.

iPhone applications compiled for the Intel-based simulator can also be shared between developers. And, since the free developer program offers access to the simulator, the apps can be distributed even more widely than with the re-signing approach.

Simulator testing does not offer the full suite of device-specific capabilities. You cannot simulate the onboard camera or retrieve proper accelerometer feedback. The simulator does not vibrate or provide general multitouch input. (You can pinch, but that's about it.)

The strength of simulator-based distribution is that it lets you send out applications for early testing and feedback. Sim-only tests strengthen the preliminary design process; this approach helps solicit feedback on user interface and general program layout before the main development push gets underway.

Simulator-based apps are easy to transfer and easy to use, cutting out a layer of overhead that's needed for when you go to a full ad-hoc beta.

To distribute a simulator application, go to the Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/User/Applications/ folder in your home directory. There you'll find the application sandbox folders that are currently installed for your simulator. Each folder is named with a unique id (i.e. 56E66CE5...DC028F) that does not reflect the folder's contents.

You'll have to peek inside to determine which folder is which.The folder contains the application, and three sandbox directories: tmp, Library, and Documents.

To share a simulator folder compiled for 2.2.1 and earlier, you must zip up both the folder with the application and the .sb (sandbox) file that shares the same name as the folder. 3.0 and later applications do not use a .sb file. Just zip up and share the folder.

Install the shared app by decompressing its sandbox folder (and, for 2.x, its .sb file). The recipient must have installed the iPhone SDK. Drop it into the simulator's Applications folder on another machine and launch the simulator. The app should appear in the simulator, ready for testing.

TUAWDeveloper-to-developer: application sharing for the iPhone simulator originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Originally posted by Erica Sadun from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on July 3, 2009 11:00 AM

If you haven't noticed it, I figured I'd call your attention to our new "tweet spot" on the homepage of Serious Eats. The latest tweet from our Twitter stream now appears at the bottom of the upper right hand feature box.

We use Twitter in a variety of ways, but if you're not on Twitter yourself or are not following us (and, really, why aren't you?!?), you may be missing out on the fact that it's become a bit of a supplemental microblog for us. We often post links there that we're thinking about blogging on the homepage or that, for whatever reason, may not ever appear on the homepage but are still interesting, funny, or useful. So hit our tweet spot, why doncha?

And, of course, if you're not following us on Twitter, what the heck are you waiting for? We're @seriouseats.

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats, on July 3, 2009 11:00 AM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on July 3, 2009 10:04 AM

Originally posted in Street Use

I can't tell what this is for. Might be a portable night market stall (for food?). There's a generator on the tail and a light bulb hanging in the middle. Seems to be in Korea. That's all I know.  (Thanks Dave Gray)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from KK Lifestream, on July 3, 2009 10:03 AM

Tonight the Mets will play the Phillies in Philadelphia, their third consecutive game in as many days in a different road city.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, this is only the second time in franchise history that this has happened to the Mets, the last time from July 23-25, 1995 when they were in Colorado, Chicago, and St. Louis.

Originally posted by Michael Baron from MetsBlog.com, on July 3, 2009 9:01 AM

It is common knowledge that the Mets rank at the bottom of the National League with 50 home runs.

…however, these numbers threw me for a loop…

The Mets have the fewest strikeouts and the highest team batting average in the NL at .273.

They also lead the league with 79 stolen bases, have the second most hits, and are tied for the lead in on-base percentage with the Dodgers at .349.

…looking at this from afar, you would say there is no way this ballclub could be just a .500 team, but they are, which at this point has remarkably been good enough to compete in their division…

…this has to be attributed to the men they leave on base day in and day out…

Originally posted by Regis Courtemanche from MetsBlog.com, on July 3, 2009 8:24 AM

Photos by Donna
It began with pickles. I'd bought a quart of small cukes to pickle with tarragon but I wasn't thinking as I made the brine.  I wanted some spice in there so I added black peppercorns.  Then, here is the not thinking part, I put in a load of coriander seed, then the tarragon, but as I smelled the brine coming up to heat, it was clear that pepper and coriander would completely overpower the tarragon, and simply don't belong together.  So I removed the tarragon.  Donna arrived just then and said, "Mmm, smells good in here. Like corned beef."

Having ruined the brine for the pickles (using the standard 5% brine ratio from Ratio, bien sur), I thought let's put it to use with what pepper and coriander were made for.  I'd bought some short ribs intending to cure them with a dry rub to see how that worked, but now that I had a brine with corned beef seasonings, it would be a pickle instead.  I'd bought them specifically to make corned beef/pastrami, normally made with brisket.  But briskets are big and expensive and I wanted small portions. Also the brisket nowadays is so lean it can become dry. I wanted to use a well marbled cut, and short rib seemed perfect. (I thought I was being particularly clever, here, making corned beef out of short ribs, but apparently Asianjewishdeli has been doing it for months! Rats!)

The fact is, you can corn any cut of beef if you want, doesn't have to be brisket. The key ingredient is the pink salt, sodium nitrite, which keeps the meat vivid red even after cooking, and gives the beef its distinctive corned-beef flavor. So I simply added a half teaspoon of that to the brine, chilled it and submerged several boneless beef shortribs in the brine and left them for a few days.

I love the smoky spicy flavor of pastrami (corned beef coated in black pepper and coriander and smoked). To get this effect at home, without relying on a smoker, I grilled them over a hot fire. After grilling, they needed to be tenderized which we do by slow cooking. Corned beef is typically cooked in court bouillon, but I wanted to keep all the flavor in the abundantly seasoned meat.  So I wrapped them in foil with a little water to make sure the environment was moist and cooked them for a few hours in a 200 degree oven.

The result: exquisitely juicy, flavorful pastrami that's easy to do at home.  Several steps, yes, but all of them easy.

How did I prepare the pastrami? Neo-Reubens.  Pastrami, sauerkraut, gruyere, with a mayo spiked with sriracha sauce, sandwiched between English muffin halves and cooked in a skillet.  English muffin makes the perfect portion size for such a rich sandwich, we had with chips and beer.  The hardest part of this preparation was waiting for Donna to finish taking the picture so we could eat.

There's a complete corned beef recipe in Charcuterie, which includes mustard seeds, allspice, mace, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, all of which are fantastic, but all I used for this brine was peppercorn, coriander, garlic, pinch of ground cinnamon, and chilli flakes, and importantly 1/2 teaspoon of pink salt for about two cups of water (if you don't know about pink salt, there's more info at the bottom of this post). Pickle your beef for a few days in the fridge, coat with a mixture of equal parts peppercorns and coriander seed roughly cracked or chopped, grill them, then slow cook in foil as described above.  After tasting these, I can't imagine ever using brisket again. Corned beef short ribs are fabulous.

Originally posted by michael ruhlman from ruhlman.com, on July 3, 2009 7:22 AM

Becoming Minimalist:

I had a thought last night that I wanted to wake up this morning and get rid of 75% of the ‘stuff’ that I own. […]

How do you start to get rid of these things?

Get some sort of external storage. The basement, a small rental storage unit, your parents’ place, or New Jersey. The less convenient it is to access, the better.

Put nearly everything you own there. Leave out only what you’d pack if you were going on a trip for 2 weeks.

From that point forward, remove only what you need, as you need it, from storage. You’ll almost never need to do this.

After a year, get rid of everything that’s still in storage.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org, on July 3, 2009 6:54 AM

Last April, there was a flurry of “news” coverage on concerns about Up, and whether it not commercial enough.

Well, it has currently grossed more money than any other film this year (though Transformers 2 will blow past it soon. Still…)

Is anyone going back to the “analysts” and upbraiding them for their shortsighted work? Is there any punishment, demerit, or other drawback to having been so wrong?

Originally posted by peterme from peterme.com, on July 3, 2009 6:54 AM

This entry will be food-lite so I can focus on some of the spectacular scenery in Taiwan.  I was really surprised to discover so much natural beauty in the country and we ended up doing a TON of trekking.

 

Taroko Gorge: one of Taiwan's prettiest national parks known for the abundant supply of marble and some jade.  The name "Taroko" means magnificent and beautiful. Full Wikipedia article here.

 

 

 

Fishermen hard at work on a random beach: after they hauled in the catch, we bought some ultra fresh fish.

 

 Sun Moon Lake:  The color of the water was unreal and we ended up taking a boat around the lake

 

A mochi vendor in one of the nearby towns

A stack of bentos

Pork chop, chicken leg over rice bento with lots of bamboo shoots and greens - yum!

What a stylish little kid

 

Alishan Mountain: one of my favorite experiences of the trip though we were all freezing, soaked and had to wake up at 3AM to hike up to get a view of the sunrise.  This mountain area contained waterfalls, villages, high-altitude tea plantations and plenty of ancient trees.  Full Wikipedia article here.

 

 

 It's a golden pig!  See - I'd never let you guys down by not featuring at least a mention of a pig in every post :)

 

 

And then as we were driving down the mountain, we came upon this group of monkeys by the side of the road:

 

And we finally get to the sunrise:

 

Full photoset can be found on my flickr page.

Originally posted by aesis from NY Crumbs, on July 3, 2009 6:00 AM

Last night I had what may have been my last meal at Joe Jr.'s: cheeseburger deluxe and chocolate egg cream. As the news came out yesterday, Joe's is slated to close on Sunday after 35 years in the Village. They have lost their lease--one man at the counter stated, "They had the lease, but the landlord backed out at the last minute." Others said about the landlord, "It's the son, not the father, who's making problems." In an interview on NY1 the landlord said he would try to extend the lease through July and, about his son, "forget him altogether."



The little diner was packed and people kept flowing in--to sign the petition, give their regrets and outrage, and eat a meal. Some people were in denial, "It won't really happen." Others were somber, "It's a terrible shame." Some were angry, "The landlord is a greedy prick." The waitress was exhausted, "I haven't stopped since 3:00 this afternoon."



The petition on the counter filled up fast, people signing their names under the words: "DON'T LET JOE JR'S CLOSE: After 35 years in the neighborhood, please let the landlord know how important Joe's is to the Greenwich Village community. Joe's is our kitchen, our meeting place, our hangout, our comfort food. Our neighborhood will lose a treasure should it shut down this weekend."



Next to the petition was a paper with the landlord's name and number, urging people to call. One woman called on the spot, leaving an angry message for the landlord stating, among other things, "This is a shonda!"



Outside, passersby stopped to read the sign in shock, crying out, "Oh, no!" They went in to sign the petition, too. People lingered on the sidewalk, talking about what could be done to save Joe's--hire a lawyer, organize a rally, call Tom Duane!--and about the many losses of the vanishing city, in which anything can be taken away without much warning at all.

Originally posted by Jeremiah Moss from Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, on July 3, 2009 3:00 AM

this might seem morbid to some, but I find it inspiring  

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on July 3, 2009 2:40 AM

In the world of urban planning, there are few things hairier than transportation hypotheticals. When NYC pedestrianized Broadway in Times Square and Herald Square in May, the transportation commissioner said that traffic speeds would go up — but now it seems that we won't know until December at the earliest whether that's actually true.

At the same time, however, a smart model of what exactly would happen if you changed this or charged for that is a prerequisite for making any kind of informed improvements to a snarled-up central business district. And so, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Charles Komanoff's absolutely astonishing Balanced Tranportation Analyzer — a 3.5 MB Excel spreadsheet which is the product of many years of research and analysis into the question of New York City traffic.

This thing is so big and so complicated that even with all of the detailed explanations in it, it's hard to understand — you really need Komanoff himself to walk you through it. But he recently did just that for me, and so I can point you to the “Delays” sheet, for instance, where Komanoff attempts to quantify the externalities imposed by any given car in NYC traffic.

Being a cyclist, I'm acutely aware of the issue of externalities — it generally costs you nothing to blindly step off the sidewalk and into the bike lane, or to open your taxi door without looking behind you, but it can affect me greatly. Komanoff's a cyclist too, but he's concentrating in this spreadsheet mainly on vehicular traffic. After crunching the numbers, he calculates that on a weekday, the average car driving south of 60th Street in Manhattan causes a total of 3.26 hours of delays to everybody else. (At weekends, the equivalent number is just over 2 hours.) No one car is likely to suffer excess delays of more than a few seconds, of course, but if you add up all those seconds, it comes to a significant amount of time.

Many of those hours are very valuable things, especially when you consider big trucks, staffed with two or three professionals, just idling in traffic. Komanoff calculates (check out the “Value of Time” tab) that the average vehicle has 1.97 people in it, and that the value of an hour of saved vehicule time south of 60th Street in Manhattan on a weekday is $48.89. Which means, basically, that driving a car into Manhattan on a weekday causes about $160 of negative externalities to everybody else.

Of course there are lots of variables here; for one thing, the externalities associated with driving your car into Manhattan go up with the total amount of traffic in the CBD. If you think there's 5% less traffic in New York now than there was a year or two ago, for instance, the cost imposed goes down from 3.26 hours to 2.79 hours. Or, to put it another way, if you could somehow implement a policy which resulted in 10% fewer vehicles driving into Manhattan, any given vehicle would impose “only” 2.38 hours of externalities — an improvement of about $43 over the base case.

Komanoff, of course, isn't just analyzing the present, he also has a plan for the future. First of which, necessarily, involves congestion pricing. To drive into Manhattan south of 60th Street, you pay a toll: on weekdays, the toll is $3 at night, then rises to $6 for most of the day, and for peak periods (6am to 10am, and 2pm to 8pm) goes up to $9. At weekends, there's a similar but smaller toll, at $1/$3/$5 prices.

Then there's the subway fare: that too changes according to the time of day. At night subways are free; sometimes they're 50 cents, and most of the time they're $1. At ultra-peak hours (between 8am and 9am, and between 5pm and 6pm) a subway fare rises to $2, dropping to $1.50 the following hour.

One of the most interesting parts of Komanoff's plan is the bus fare: always $0, all the time. That speeds up buses considerably, since it basically eliminates long lines at the fare box as people hunt for their MetroCard. In turn that makes buses more attractive, and a lot of people, attracted by the free fare and faster speeds, will start taking the bus rather than driving or taking a taxi or a subway.

Medallion taxis do not pay the congestion charge, but there is a 33% taxi-fare surcharge. 10% goes to the taxi drivers and owners; 23% goes to the MTA.

Add it all up, and it's pretty much revenue-neutral, says Komanoff: the biggest line items are that you lose $1.46 billion in transit fares, while gaining $1.31 billion in congestion charges. But total time savings are the biggie: implement this plan and New Yorkers get over $2.5 billion of time back which would otherwise be spent wasted in traffic. Vehicle speeds in general rise about 20%, and as much as 25% between 9am and 10am.

All in all (see the “Cost-Benefit” tab), Komanoff sees $5.3 billion in gains and just $2 billion in losses. Sounds good to me. What's more, it's politically more acceptable than the last attempt to introduce congestion pricing into NYC, where the brunt was disproportionately borne by Brooklyn. This plan puts much more of the cost of the plan onto Manhattanites, largely thanks to that taxi surcharge. Here are Komanoff's charts (from the “Incidence” tab):

Komanoff's still working on this spreadsheet, but the main message is pretty clear — that smart congestion charging would be great news for New York, and probably for most other dense cities as well. If you're feeling really ambitious, you can even try playing around with the numbers yourself. Enjoy!

Originally posted by Felix Salmon from Felix Salmon - All posts, on July 3, 2009 12:07 AM

There's a lot of tacky shit being sold on Etsy right now in honor of Michael Jackson. This, however, is nice:  Off the Wall crocheted and embroidered pillow.

Originally posted by Mena from Dollarshort, on July 2, 2009 8:08 PM

At Percona we provide services both Onsite - visiting the customers and Remote - logging in to their systems or communicating via email,phone,instant messaging.

We believe both approaches have their benefits and drawbacks and mixing them right way allows you to get your problems solved most efficient way.

Onsite visits are great as they allow consultant to meet your team in person and great for relationship building. It is great for architecture design and review as you can sit down with the team and use drawing board. It also often allows the best focus both for consultant and for participating team - when consulting visit is arranged it is usually the top priority for some of the staff members which provide consultant with information and assistance he might need.

Onsite visits also often allow to get prompt attention from other team - looking for network engineer to understand network topology or for someone from marketing to get the growth plans - they typically can be brought in for question.

I believe Onsite visits also offer unmatched training experience for the team - one of the team members can work side by side with consultants observing what he does and asking the question about the progress.

The Single Day visits are often extremely valuable as a kick off to do application redesign, for performance review or for starting long term Remote DBA or support relationships. They can be done with little planning as basically for any system there is enough work to spend efficiently understanding the system and working on the pressing problems customer may have. Such visits are often result in a lot of “homework” as application changes or implementing changes on production which when can benefit from remote followups to validate changes and provide further advice.

Multi day onsite visits require a bit more planning to be efficient. Many times in my career I would come to the customer for a week only to find I have created the implementation plan within 1-2 days and it will take a while to implement it and pass it through development and testing stages. Before long onsite visit it is very good to have a call with consultant to understand what exactly needs to be done, how much time and what resources it requires.

Projects which can be efficient as multi day visits are whenever implementation is required (coding unlike giving advice takes a lot of time) - migration projects, any forms of scripting, implementation (writing queries), hands on setting up MySQL, Replication, Monitoring, High Availability with MMM or DRBD are good examples.

Another good example of efficient Multi-Day visit is when there are multiple groups or multiple applications using MySQL - in such case each of the problem areas/groups can gets its own day or few hours which keeps consultant busy.

To make a Multi-Day visit efficient it is important to plan on what will be done - what people will consultant need to work with and which problems do they have. Providing proper access and having staging/test systems available are also often required.

Remote work has a benefit of consultant being available in the short time intervals and being able to multi task.

Working with the customer there are two types of “waits” which are often encountered. First - waiting on the customer. It could be fixing access problems, completing application changes, QA, scheduling downtime to implement changes and millions of other things. Second - waiting on database (or other) operations to complete - backup, restore, ALTER TABLE, load testing - all of these things take time and make consultant to wait for them.

In case you’re working remotely consultant typically has other tasks to do while such long processes are running. If you’re spending time onsite you may have other tasks or you may not while if you’re working remotely there are always things to do.

Another benefit of remote work - it truly allows to engage the team. If you have consultant onsite getting another one with some specific knowledge is complicated while getting another person to login to the system remotely for a quick look is easy and efficient.

Time is another interesting factor - onsite visits usually happen during office hours while changes to production are often avoided. With remote work it is much easier to do work which needs to be done at night hours.

Remote work however also needs to be well organized. The benefit of onsite work is - it is always planned at very specific time. Given date and time consultant will be there so both consultant and customer prepare for the visit. If appointment is just a phone call or online meeting there is larger chance it can be forgotten by ether party. In many cases the remote work not planned to the specific time at all which can cause it to be delayed because of either party delays.

If you need something to be done fast and you’re doing it remotely make sure to plan it to exact time and make sure there is someone to assist consultant if he needs any help such as access issues, some questions about setup or what exactly given queries are doing. Prompt responses can keep the ball rolling much faster.

Another trick to make remote work successful is to be very clear in your instructions especially if you’re not going to be available to assist consultant when he is doing the work. As remote work is often done cross time zones this becomes a very important factor.

In case you have a lot of work done in such “disconnected” mode it is a good idea to have daily/weekly/or be-weekly (depending on project intensity) calls to get team to discuss the progress and generally get team on the same page.

In general surprisingly a lot of things can be done in completely remote mode - we’ve done not only basic optimizations but architecture redesigns, large scale deployment, migrations and high available architectures implementation such a way often surprising customers (in a good way) of how little customers the work took.

The Great Mix As I mentioned before mixing Onsite and Remote work can be indeed the best mix especially for the complex projects. Onsite visit is great to setup relationships, get initial understanding of the system and get initial project planning. After it is done a lot of work can be done remotely quite efficient while there may be the benefit in onsite status-checks and team interactions as well.

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Originally posted by peter from MySQL Performance Blog, on July 2, 2009 6:01 PM

Wow, Michael Bay sounds terribly egotistical in these quotes. I saw Transformers 2, and I think Megan Fox has a very valid point! But even if she doesn't, it'd be much cooler to show a little more humility when you get criticized, especially when it's coming from someone who's a big part of your current success. And, honestly, does Michael Bay really think he's known for having good acting in his movies? Or writing? Or directing? Actually wait, what is he good at again?

Michael Bay Calls Megan Fox "Ridiculous" source Megan Fox slammed Transformers director Michael Bay for focusing more on special effects than acting, but he doesn't mind. "Well, that's Megan Fox for you," Bay tell the Wall Street Journal. "She says some very ridiculous things because she's 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, 'Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it,'" he goes on. Fox told Entertainment Weekly: "I mean, I can't s--- on this movie because it did give me a career and open all these doors for me. But I don't want to blow smoke up people's a--. People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting." Michael Bay Calls Megan Fox "Ridiculous"

Originally posted by jay smooth from tuberaider video, on July 2, 2009 5:57 PM

The combination of Pitt and Soderbergh and Lewis wasn't enough to keep the Moneyball movie afloat...Sony canceled it "days before shooting was to begin".

Accounts from more than a dozen people involved with the film, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid damaging professional relationships, described a process in which the heady rush toward production was halted by a studio suddenly confronted by plans for something artier and more complex than bargained for.

Sony was probably looking for something more BIG RED TEXTish.

Tags: books   Brad Pitt   Michael Lewis   Moneyball   movies   Steven Soderbergh

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on July 2, 2009 5:32 PM

Posted by Dave Arnold

Last Sunday my cousin, James (the guy who drew the cartoons for this blog), introduced me to his buddy, Devin Coldewey, a tech stuff reviewer for CrunchGear. He brought with him the coolest point-and-shoot camera I’ve ever seen, the Casio Exilim FC-100 (his review here).  This thing costs $300 and shoots slo-mo video at 1000 frames per second! 1000 frames!! Anyway, I cooked him dinner and in return, he agreed to come in Monday and shoot slo-mo of us sabering champagne.  So here it is: How to saber champagne, complete with slo-mo video (scroll to the bottom of this post).  Oh, and Casio: we’re adding the Exilim FC-100 to our wish-list (of things to get for free).  In fact, if we got one, we’d probably find a reason to use it weekly, if not daily.

Before we start: I don’t want to hear anything about saber vs sabre. Both are acceptable spellings, I do not fence, and saber looks more American.

While we are clearing the air, many people feel that sabering sparkling wine is useless and wasteful. I disagree. Sabering expensive champagne is wasteful (if you make a mistake). Sabering a $7 cava is an exhilarating and awesome party trick.  Whether or not a bottle will saber depends only on the bottle, not the price of the wine – so stick with the inexpensive.

What is sabering? Sabering is the art of cleanly severing the top off a bottle of sparkling wine. You hit the lower lip of the top of the champagne bottle and snap off the top of the neck. Yes, you break the glass; No, the glass doesn’t get into the drink because the momentum carries it away from the neck (but you may get a shard on the floor so be careful).  This works because there is a sharp radius where the lip meets the neck that concentrates stress, making the bottle want to snap cleanly.

Oh Yeah

Here is the procedure:

1. Select a bottle that looks like a standard champagne bottle.  Don’t pick one with a funky neck – it might not work (although I have a friend who can saber beer bottles).  Super-important tip: select a bottle you KNOW will saber.  If you sabered a bottle before (Paul Chenaux Cava, for instance or Gruet sparkling), odds are it will work again.  If you have failed with a bottle before (Cristallino Cava), you will probably fail again.  You don’t want to fail, it is embarrassing.
2. The bottle should be cold and let it rest upright for a while before you saber it.  Be gentle with the bottle before you saber.  Warmer bottles are easier to saber but tend to gush.  The best saber jobs don’t gush at all (take that anti-saber snobs).  You’ll see gushing in the bottles on the video because they warmed up while we were shooting and were treated roughly.
3. Don’t take off the wire cage until you are ready (or the cork may come out on its own).
4. Get a knife.  It doesn’t need to be heavy.  In fact it doesn’t have to be a knife.  I made a stainless steel pimp ring to saber at parties.  REMEMBER: you are using the back (dull) side of the knife.  I saw a drunk friend one night forget this and ruin a good chef’s knife.


super-saber pimp-ring

5. Find the seam running up the side of the bottle.  The seam is a weak point in the glass and further concentrates the stress when you hit the lip.



6. Angle the bottle away from you, your friends, glass, and food (don’t want any glass getting in your food).
7. Place knife on the bottle’s seam at the bottom of the neck making sure you keep the knife flat against the bottle.  If you don’t, the knife has a tendency to pop over the lip of the bottle.


correct knife angle


8. The moment of truth.  Slide the knife smoothly, surely, and SQUARELY up the neck of the bottle and sever the top.  It doesn’t take force, just confidence.  The biggest and most common mistake is to swing the knife in an arc.  If you swing in an arc, even a small one, you won’t hit the glass in the right place and you won’t sever the neck. Embarrassing – see the video at the end of the post.


proper way to saber



don't swing like this

9. If it doesn’t work, try again.  Don’t try 5 or 6 times on the same bottle.  Seems desperate and if the bottle doesn’t want to saber and you force it to, you might get a bad break.
10. Remember that the momentum carries all the glass shards away from the neck and your drink (that’s why I told you to hold it at an angle).

Well, there it is.  We are starting a list of which bottles saber well and which don’t, so please leave comment to tell us.  Here is the video, enjoy:

Originally posted by mindylvoff from Cooking Issues, on July 2, 2009 2:46 PM

I'm sorry I missed the annual fundraiser at the garden, but there is a nice three part video of the music and dancing.

Originally posted by Jill from Blah Blog Blah, on July 2, 2009 2:42 PM

Who was Abner Graboff? I had no idea. So, I decided to find out on my own.

Artist, illustrator & designer with a career that spanned several decades, from the 1940’s to the 80’s, Abner was best known for creating some of the most ingenious and vibrant children’s books during the mid-century era. But you’d never know it. There was practically nothing on the guy if you did a search online. It was frustrating for me, because I felt that his sense of construction and concepts when it came to designing children’s books was so fresh and bold. Surely there had to be something about the artist out there, right? Nope. Nothing. So I contacted his son, musician and producer Jon Graboff, and interviewed him about his father’s background, his influences, and overall career. The result of our conversations can be found on my blog in three posts:

Who was Abner Graboff?
The Art & Life of Abner Graboff Part 1
The Art & Life of Abner Graboff Part 2

Featuring scans from some of his kid’s books, cook book illustrations, jacket cover designs, as well as family photos. Jon’s been very cool in sharing with us his father’s fascinating life & career as an artist. A quote by Jon about his father says it all for me:

“He was artistically and intellectually curious by nature and he was always saying things like, I wonder why… I think that he believed that when you stop asking why, when, where, and what’s next… it’s all over.”

Who was Abner Graboff? Now, we can know.

More on Abner can be found here:
My Abner Graboff Flickr set
Abner Graboff in The Retro Kid
Abner Graboff on Biotope (Japanese site)

Originally posted by Ward from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on July 2, 2009 2:31 PM

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about Mike “King” Kelly. I do however know that when it comes to cool baseball cards, this might be the coolest ever done. It comes from 1888’s Goodwin Champions set, which was set to compete with Allen & Ginter.

What’s incredibly ironic is that Upper Deck will soon release 2009 Goodwin Champions to once again compete with Allen & Ginter, now a Topps Company brand. As for King Kelly, he was a great player who won the batting title twice, led the league in runs three times, and even had some pop (by 1800 standards).

Despite all those accolades, King Kelly was quite the bad ass. He often cheated by stealing bases when the umpire wasn’t paying attention and perfected the ‘King Slide’, which is now commonly done to break up double plays.

From Wikipedia:

“Baseball games had only a single umpire at the time, and Kelly would watch the umpire to see if he was watching the play at first base or looking to see if a ball landed fair or foul. When convinced the umpire’s back was turned, Kelly would immediately run across the diamond to the next base, skipping either second or third, in full view of thousands of fans.”

The King died just one year after his last game in 1894 after contracting Pneumonia. He left his wife and daughter with nothing and when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1945, no one could track down a single family member of Kelly.

The King was 36 at the time of his death.

Originally posted by Mario A. from Wax Heaven, on July 2, 2009 2:01 PM

Have I mentioned recently that I love this book?  Because I do.  And it’s worth mentioning again.  Because even if you haven’t visited Scott’s stomping grounds (Cafe Myriade in Montreal), you can still appreciate the level of dedication that Scott brings to our craft. 

Cafe Myriade

And even if you haven’t visited Cafe Myriade, you can rest assured that they’re not waiting for you to make improvements:

But even if you’re not a Fleetwood Mac fan (what? really? c’mon…), if you’re reading this chances are you’re a coffee fan.  And if you’re a coffee fan, you should own a copy of The Professional Barista’s Handbook.  Whether you’re a home barista, work in a cafe, or own a cafe, I guarantee you won’t regret this purchase.  If you live in Montana, they give autographed copies of the book away as prizes!  So seriously.  Order a copy.  It changes all you thought about coffee.  No brewer’s library is complete without it.

The Professional Barista’s Handbook by Scott Rao: Expert’s Guide to Preparing Espresso, Coffee and Tea.

Posted in coffee, espresso, training Tagged: brewing, coffee, espresso, science, taste

Originally posted by Mike White from ShotZombies.com, on July 2, 2009 1:53 PM

[That's light coming from within Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch early this morning, near Los Olivos, CA; image via Getty]

Originally posted by Richard Lawson from Gawker, on July 2, 2009 1:29 PM

After seeing VerySmallAnna's cute paintings of animals and food, I knew I had to make a request. A week later, Monsieur Manatee was born. This red beret-clad manatee likes to nosh on crusty baguettes and bags of treats from Pierre Hermé—just like me!

Thanks so much to Anna for making my office space a little bit cuter. If you commission a painting from her, I'd love to see what you end up with.

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats, on July 2, 2009 1:00 PM

A 64 year old woman developed a phantom third arm after a stroke, but unusually, the patient was able to see and feel the illusory limb. A study just published online in the journal Annals of Neurology used brain scans to examine the patient. They established that the phantom sensations were accompanied by similar sorts of brain activity as you'd get from a real arm.

Unlike a classic 'phantom limb', where a patient feels sensations as if they're coming from the previously amputated body part, a 'supernumerary phantom limb' is where a phantom seems to appear additional to the already existing arm or leg.

The condition is rare but has been reported before and is known as the 'supernumerary phantom limb' in the medical literature. As we discussed last year, it is usually associated with strokes that affect the subcortical areas of the brain.

One of the reasons this new case is so interesting is because not only could the patient feel their additional limb, but they claimed to be able to see it and feel touches from it as well.

Tactile sensations in the SPL [supernumerary phantom limb] happened when she clenched her hand (she could then feel her phantom palm with her phantom fingers) and when she “touched” certain parts of her body (in which case, the sensation was felt both in the phantom and the touched body part).

She could touch parts of her head, as well as her right shoulder. She claimed to be able to use the SPL to scratch an itch on her head (with an actual sense of relief). Moreover, she reported that the phantom could not penetrate solid obstacles (see supplementary materials for more details).

While a handful of cases of 'visible' supernumerary phantom limbs have been reported, this combination of seeing and feeling the touch of one is unique.

Importantly, the patient was not delusional - they didn't believe they had an extra limb - they knew the sensations were unrealistic, but the experience was still there.

The limb was also not permanently felt - the patient could trigger it at will - and it appeared "pale," "milk-white," and "transparent."

The researchers were keen to see if these sensations were reflected in the activity of the brain by using fMRI scans.

They found that 'moving' the phantom limb in front of the line of sight caused increased activation in the visual cortex of the brain.

Most strikingly, they found that when asked to 'touch' her cheek with the illusory hand, activity in brain areas representing cheek sensation increased.

There is always the chance that someone with very bizarre symptoms could be lying, but it is also the case that brain disturbance can cause all sort of confusions and distortions - so in some cases a patient's description of what's happening may not always be a reliable guide to exactly what they're experiencing.

In this case, the brain imaging suggests that the 'supernumerary phantom limb' was genuinely being perceived as a visible additional arm and that its 'touches' were being processed by the sensory system in a similar way to touches from existing limbs.

Because the condition is so rare, and so conceptually bizarre, there is no good explanation of why it occurs except that it may be linked to the disturbance of our already established body and action 'maps' in the brain.

Apparently, there is more information about the case in supplementary material which can be found 'in the online version of this article', but the additional information doesn't seem to be online. Ironically, the study seems to have a phantom of its own.

Link to study.
Link to PubMed entry for same.

Originally posted by vaughan from Mind Hacks, on July 2, 2009 12:00 PM

Ben Fry just updated his interactive salary vs performance graph that compares the payrolls of major league teams to their records. Look at those overachieving Rays and Marlins! And those underachieving Indians, Mets, and Cubs!

Tags: baseball   Ben Fry   infoviz   sports

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on July 2, 2009 11:57 AM

From Peter Bodo's Tennis World blog.

One of the themes emerging from this edition of the Championships is that the Williamses may have gotten better with age, even as they've had to struggle with (or simply endure) waning motivation as the siren song of "normal" life has lured them toward the shoals of inconsistency. The girls may not be as reliably destructive as they once were, but when they paint on their game faces, they may be playing the best tennis either of them has ever conjured up. This may not be true at all tournaments, either, but if you're going to pick one event at which to go medieval on your rivals, this one would be it.

I'm in the middle of re-reading Infinite Jest, and so I can't help but be obsessed with tennis lately, and look at everything through the lens of Enfield Tennis Academy. The Williams sisters :: The Incandenza brothers as Richard Williams :: Himself? (Yeah, on second thought, maybe not.)

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from sippey.com, on July 2, 2009 11:28 AM

Smart essay from Daniel Jalkut on how the GPL discourages participation from many (if not most) developers.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on July 2, 2009 10:38 AM

This is even worse than the Bush Administration’s TARD fund.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Alex Balk, on July 2, 2009 10:35 AM

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on July 2, 2009 10:32 AM

This very post is delivered to your browser or news reader by the famous and fabulous WordPress blogging system. In my work as the developer of MarsEdit, I am exposed to countless blogging options, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. And yet, I stick with WordPress because it strikes a balance of power and ease of use which feels comfortable to me. Not to mention that Joseph Scott and others are tirelessly working to improve its API.

WordPress is licensed under the terms of the Gnu Public License (GPL) which, in a nutshell, stipulates that you are free to use the software however you like, but if you make changes and distribute those changes, then you must share those changes under the same terms. This simple, radical restriction means that you are prohibited from taking a GPL project and incorporating it with a closed-source project.

Violating The GPL

Violating the GPL is easy. All you have to do is write some code, intermingle it with some GPL code, distribute a changed copy of the original, and refuse to share your contributions. Bam! You’re toast. Assuming the original authors discover your violation and decide to pursue a resolution.

Once a violation occurs, it might be settled privately, or could escalate to legal court procedures. But the most obvious form of resolution is for the author of the changes to release their code to the public under the terms of the GPL.

Depending on how much code you “mixed” with the GPL code, this could mean only a small portion, or it could mean the entire source code of your project. This so-called “viral nature” of GPL is what scares the bejeezus out of companies, large and small, who fear the consequences of having to give up their own intellectual property to the public.

The terms of the GPL sound pretty simple at first read, but due in part to the epic consequences of a violation, there has been a great deal of debate and uncertainty about what legally constitutes a violation. Most of the debate seems to boil down to two questions:

1. What counts as a change to the original product?
2. What counts as distribution of those changes?

If you can legally justify that your additions to a GPL project either don’t change or derive from the original product, or haven’t technically been distributed, then you are not subject to the restrictive terms of the license.

Take GIMP, the popular GNU-licensed image editing application. The application supports plugins, analogous to the types of plugins you might find for the commercial, closed-source application Photoshop. A savvy developer may argue that a plugin doesn’t meet the criteria of changing the original application, because the original application still runs in its unaltered condition whether the plugin is there or not.

But promoters of the GPL take the position that plugins, by nature of being loaded into the same code space as other GPL code, do constitute a modification of the original, and are therefore subject to the terms of the GPL. As far as I know this is not a question that has been well-tested in courts.

Let me take a moment to make this abundantly clear: I respect the rights of authors to license their software under whatever terms they choose, including the GPL. In my opinion, all the legal mumbo jumbo ceases to matter once the original author’s intentions are made clear. So if the author of GPL-licensed code clarifies to me that it cannot be run on Sundays, then their GPL means it cannot be run on Sundays. But this is one of the problems with the GPL: its terms are not often understood, even by the authors of GPL-licensed code.

WordPress Themes & Plugins

WordPress supports two explicit forms of extension, each of which may affect the appearance and functionality of the product. Themes tend to work as a “skin” for the appearance of a blog, while plugins tend to introduce completely new features. Since plugins in WordPress are analogous to GIMP or Photoshop plugins, it would stand to reason that they would also be covered by the terms of the GPL. But what about themes?

Themes have been controversial in the WordPress community, as a few commercial business models have sprung up to take advantage of bloggers’ desires for high quality themes at an affordable price. One approach is to distribute “free” themes that contains commercial ads. So you might stumble upon the perfect theme for your blog, only to learn that the glaring “Brought to you by Hostess Cupcakes” line near the bottom of your page cannot be removed.

But the terms of the GPL, if themes are covered, would require that end users be granted the legal right to modify and redistribute their own copy of the theme. Zap the sponsorship, reupload to your site, and you’ve got a free, high quality theme with no ugly ads.

Today, Matt Mullenweg of the WordPress project announced his lawyer-supported opinion that themes are partly covered by the GPL:

I reached out to the Software Freedom Law Center, the world’s preeminent experts on the GPL, which spent time with WordPress’s code, community, and provided us with an official legal opinion. One sentence summary: PHP in WordPress themes must be GPL, artwork and CSS may be but are not required.

If you’re starting with the understanding that WordPress itself is GPL, and WordPress plugins are GPL, then it’s not so much extra hay on the camel’s back, to also clarify that its themes are to some extent GPL. But it got me thinking again about my own blog, and about the restrictions the GPL imposes on the kinds of things I can do with the software that runs it.

GPL Stifles Participation

Now for the most controversial point of this article, where I suggest that the GPL does more to harm collaborative development than it does to help it.

For the purposes of this argument, let me reduce all the source code in the world down to three rough categories. I recognize I have omitted some classes of license here, but for the sake of argument, most projects fall into these camps:

1. GPL code. Changes may be distributed only in other GPL products.
2. Liberal-licensed code. (MIT/BSD/Apache/etc). Changes may be distributed anywhere. Appropriate origin-attribution may be required.
3. Closed-source code. May be distributed only by the copyright owner and other explicit licensees.

Now, there are a few people in the world who, for political or philosophical reasons, will only participate in a GPL project. And for compariable yet opposite reasons, there are some who will only participate in commercial, closed-source projects. But I propose that the vast majority of developers will participate in any project that is advantageous to them.

So let’s imagine a representative, run-of-the-mill developer who is working on a project that falls into each of these three camps. If this developer is not radically committed to their own project’s license, they will naturally look to outside resources in order to bolster the success of their own work.

As the developer evaluates communities to participate in, they must evaluate the legal impact such participation will have on their own project. The closed source communities are, by definition uninviting to outsiders. GPL communities are open and embracing of other GPL developers, but generally off-putting to liberal-license and closed-license developers. Only the liberal-license communities are attractive to developers from all 3 camps.

I know what some of the GPL-enthusiasts are thinking now: “leeches don’t count as community.” Many GPL developers take comfort in the fact that their hard work can’t be quietly taken and incorporated into a commercial product, without any payback of time or money to the original project. But you’re piloting an open source project, and the first step of building a community is to get people in the door. Liberal licenses? Whoo-eee do they ever get people in the door.

If you operate from the presumption that great developers love to build great projects, the first step in any successful open source project is to get as many great developers in the door as possible.

It’s Your Party

Yes, this is just me and my crazy theories. I haven’t done exhaustive research to prove that liberal-license communities thrive more than GPL communities. But the anecdotal examples are staggering. The very foundation of Mac OS X, the operating system through which I’m typing, is thanks to the liberally-licensed FreeBSD operating system.

Looking over to the right of my screen, I’m watching this sentence appear in a live web preview as I type, thanks to the WebKit project, whose liberal license makes it compatible with closed source projects such as Safari, as well as open source efforts such as Google’s Chromium project.

For years, the problem of a generic HTTP client library that runs on every major platform has been addressed by libcurl, whose liberal license has caused it to be embraced by countless companies and projects.

The popular Subversion source control system’s liberal license enabled Sofa, a commercial software business to contribute value to the community with its extremely polished, award-winning client application. Meanwhile, the newly popular distributed source control systems presents three major choices: git, Mercurial, and Bazaar. All are restrcted by the GPL-license, and therefore none is likely to inspire development of a Versions-caliber client.

I’ve touched the tip of the iceberg, and yes I’ve neglected to mention some GPL success stories such as Linux, MySQL, and gcc. These communities have thrived to some extent because the passions of the GPL community are strong, but we can’t know whether their success is in spite of the restrictions their license places on participation by the broader developer community.

Speaking of GPL succeses, WordPress is itself an example of monumental success. All of its developers have something to be immensely proud of. But whenever I am reminded that WordPress is GPL, my passion for it takes a bit of a dive. I’m more comfortable with the true freedom of liberally-licensed products. If a liberally-licensed blog system of equal quality, ease of use, and popularity should appear, my loyalties to WordPress would not last long.

It’s your party, and you’re entitled to write the guest list. But take a look around the room: not as many folks as you’d hoped for? Liberally-licensed projects are booming. Speaking for myself, a developer who has been to all the parties, I’m much more likely to pass through the door that doesn’t read “GPL Only.”

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on July 2, 2009 10:09 AM

Here is a very rare find: an interview of Michael Jackson on the set of “Beat It” with Tom Joyner.

Watch how Tom had to ask him about having real friends twice. Sad. Hope you guys like the interview.-Dr.FB

Originally posted by drfunkenberry from Dr. Funkenberry's Celeb News, on July 2, 2009 9:23 AM

Can anyone guess the entry codes for these door locks?

There are 10,000 possible four-digit codes, but you only have to try 24 on these keypads. The second is almost certainly guessable in one.

Originally posted by schneier from Schneier on Security, on July 2, 2009 9:09 AM

This morning, Politico published a story detailing an interesting flier apparently being passed around DC health care lobby circles: a dinner invitation from the Washington Post at the house of CEO and Publisher Katherine Weymouth, selling access to its news and editorial staff and top Obama officials for $25,000 to $250,000. A health care lobbyist passed the missive on to Politico staff because he felt "it's a conflict of interest for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its 'health care reporting and editorial staff.'"

Two and a half hours after the story was published, executive editor Marcus Brauchli sent an internal memo entitled "Newsroom Independence," in which he stated that the news department will not be attending the dinner. The sentiment echoes the statement WaPo spokesperson Kris Coratti made to Politico:

The flier circulated this morning came out of a business division for conferences and events, and the newsroom was unaware of such communication. It went out before it was properly vetted, and this draft does not represent what the company's vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers.

As written, the newsroom could not participate in an event like this.

Read the full text of Brauchli's memo and the original flier after the jump.

From: Marcus Brauchli
Sent: 07/02/2009 10:33 AM EDT
To: NEWS
Subject: Newsroom Independence

Colleagues,

A flyer was distributed this week offering an "underwriting opportunity" for a dinner on health-care reform, in which the news department had been asked to participate.

The language in the flyer and the description of the event preclude our participation.

We will not participate in events where promises are made that in exchange for money The Post will offer access to newsroom personnel or will refrain from confrontational questioning. Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable.

There is a long tradition of news organizations hosting conferences and events, and we believe The Post, including the newsroom, can do these things in ways that are consistent with our values.

Marcus

The original flyer:

"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate," says the one-page flier. "Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth ... Bring your organization's CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders ...

"Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama Administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less. ...

"Offered at $25,000 per sponsor, per Salon. Maximum of two sponsors per Salon. Underwriters' CEO or Executive Director participates in the discussion. Underwriters appreciatively acknowledged in printed invitations and at the dinner. Annual series sponsorship of 11 Salons offered at $250,000 ... Hosts and Discussion Leaders ... Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post ... An exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done. ... A Washington Post Salon ... July 21, 2009 6:30 p.m."

Originally posted by Versha Sharma from TPM Election Central, on July 2, 2009 8:21 AM

Via Serious Eats, here's Fancy Fast Food: 

These photographs show extreme makeovers of actual fast food items purchased at popular fast food restaurants. No additional ingredients have been added except for an occasional simple garnish.

Originally posted by Mena from Dollarshort, on July 2, 2009 8:13 AM

See more --> Supergraphic

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on July 2, 2009 7:57 AM

Did you catch the piece on writer/director/neck-lamenter Nora Ephron in this week’s New Yorker? It’s got some funny bits and nice moments, but there’s really nothing earth-shattering or new in it. And yet? I read the entire thing, a rarity for me. Which leads me to the conclusion that, at this point in 2009, writer Ariel Levy may be the best practitioner of longform profile journalism in the business. And I’ll stand on Vanessa Grigoriadis’ coffee table in my Kenneth Cole Oxfords and say that. (Kidding! You’re great too, Grigsy!) But, yeah… ever since she came to the New Yorker I have been consistently impressed with how compelling and well-written Levy’s stuff has been (this was probably the piece that sealed the deal); the craftsmanship is never ostentatious, but you’re always aware that her stuff reads much more easily than it must have been to put together. So, nice work, Ariel Levy! I salute you.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on July 2, 2009 6:40 AM

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on July 2, 2009 6:02 AM

One thing I often lament is the lost art of the movie poster.  Movie posters today are so slick and without creativity that it makes me sad.   They all just feature a still from the movie, the title of the film, some pull quotes and the names of the folk’s involved.

It is for this reason that I was so excited when I first saw the poster for The Informant yesterday.  It brought a huge smile to my face not only because it is hilarious but also because it is a welcome change in the slick, prepackaged world of movie posters.  The text, Matt Damon, the colors and their placement all work together in the most wonderful way.

Also, if you agree with me about the current state of movie posters there are some sites out there that do a great job of reminding us of the good work being done and that has been done in the past.  If you spend a few minutes looking at old movie posters you will quickly come to realize the potential that is out there and that is rarely being harnessed today.

I sometimes think that the state of movie posters reflects the state of cinema in general (at least when it comes to this country).  If there is any truth in this than I am even more in anticipation of The Informant than before.

Originally posted by blair@takepart.com from TakePart Social Action Network™, on July 2, 2009 5:56 AM

From Recipes

Editor's note: On Thursdays, Babbo pastry chef Gina DePalma checks in with Seriously Italian. After a stint in Rome, she's back in the States, channeling her inner Italian spirit via recipes and intel on delicious Italian eats. Take it away, Gina!

I live on the top floor of our six-story building, which takes the heat of summer to another level. As soon as the temperatures get warm and the days get longer, our tar roof begins to sop up the heat and then pump it into our apartment with the full-force vengeance of a busted furnace. If there are any other roof dwellers out there, you know exactly what I am talking about. It is a miserable, stifled, intensity that makes even the slightest bit of activity seem like torture.

It reminds me a bit of the kind of heat they get in Sicily, where at the height of summer it is not uncommon to awake at sunrise to soaring temperatures. Sicilians have unique coping mechanisms in place to deal with the inferno. They drive like maniacs in the streets of Palermo and Catania. They take to the seashores as much as possible, gathering on beaches and promenades, dangling off the decks of boats and rocky cliffs. And they eat ice-cold gelato, granita, and sorbetto for breakfast.

Starting your day with a huge mound of ice cream may seem decadent and misplaced to our somewhat Puritan sensibility of sweets and when they can be enjoyed. Remember when Bill Cosby fed chocolate cake to his kids for dinner?

Meh, meno male. Italians like to start the day with something sweet anyway, and the frozen part is purely common sense. Eating something very cold will lower the body’s temperature, a good idea when your clothes are going to be soaked with sweat by 9 a.m. In a larger sense it reflects the Sicily’s cultural history, an ability to adapt to any situation in order to further survival, as well as the ultimate enjoyment of life.

My favorite part is the soft, airy, buttery brioche roll that is the vehicle of choice for all of this frozen goodness. The bread is split open wide and stuffed to overflowing with gelato or sorbetto. Granita—basically liquid that is aerated and broken up by hand as it freezes—is looser and melts quickly, so it is usually served in a glass, layered con panna (with cream). Simply dunk and dip a piece of brioche into it, or load it on by the spoonful.

How can this breakfast be folly? There’s bread for energy, some dairy, maybe some fruit, and with Granita al Caffè Con Panna, your morning coffee all in one cool, heat-dissipating shot.

If you want to try your hand at homemade brioche, go for it, but since turning on the oven defeats the purpose of keeping things cool, I try to let someone else do the baking. It is hard to duplicate the kind of bread you would find in Sicily. Italian brioche differs from the French version; it is richer and fluffier, more like a cushy pillow, and the outer layer isn’t as flaky. If you have a good bakery near your house, you can get a brioche loaf and cut slices to fold around the gelato, or ask for a simple sweet roll.

To make the coffee granita, I follow this formula: 1/4 cup of granulated sugar for every two cups of brewed espresso or strong regular coffee. You can certainly adjust the sweetness to your taste. Whisk the sugar into the hot coffee, and let the mixture cool completely to room temperature before putting it into the freezer in a shallow metal or glass dish.

Monitor the freezing process; as the sides begin to freeze, using a whisk or fork to break it up and move it to the center. You’ll have to do this every 15 minutes or so, sooner as it freezes more; I like to use a little whisk for more aeration and to strategically target the frozen spots.

When there is no more loose liquid in the mix, give it a really good whisking and let it freeze for about 15 to 20 minutes more.

To serve, you’ll need some sweetened heavy cream whipped until it mounds softly. In a glass dessert dish or cup, put a generous layer of frozen granita. I like to add a small shot of ice-cold, brewed espresso here to get some extra coffee punch in the mix. Layer on some cream, then repeat the layers, ending with a mound of cream, which you can whip a bit stiffer for holding power. Top with some shaved chocolate and/or ground cinnamon and serve with brioche on the side. Dip pieces of the brioche into the mix, or fold pieces of it around spoonfuls of granita and cream.

Originally posted by Gina DePalma from Serious Eats, on July 2, 2009 4:30 AM

Photograph from What I'm Seeing, which has a nice piece on the California museum.

Laughing Squid points to a story in the San Mateo Times detailing the copyright-infringement suit that Pez has brought against the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia.

The giant Pez dispenser that Gary Doss and Nancy Yarbrough Doss created that got them into Guinness World Records is at the heart of the lawsuit:

Attorneys for Pez Candy Inc. argue that the 7-foot, 10-inch dispenser, which is topped with the head of a snowman, and other uses of the company's trademarked products by the Dosses "deceive the public into thinking that the museum is operating under the authority of Pez."

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats, on July 2, 2009 2:00 AM

Exploring my career options, originally uploaded by netwert.

Tonight I biked home with Chinese delivery. (It ultimately fit in my bike bag, not on the handlebars like the pros do it.)

Originally posted by David Wertheimer from Ideapad, on July 1, 2009 7:44 PM

Celebrities can be a boon to social networking sites, but they can also be a liability if they become unhappy.

Ning, the service that lets you create your own social network, is growing quick and attracting some big names. Author Seth Godin used the platform to start a private forum for marketing experts. Rapper 50 Cent has attracted such a following on his network, Thisis50.com, that other hip hop artists have started advertising on the site to find new fans.

On Wednesday, Wyclef Jean announced to his Twitter followers that he was abandoning Clef Zone, the Ning network that he only recently created. His specific objection to Ning is unclear (we have a call out to Wyclef, who for some reason posted his phone number on Twitter the same day), but he says on Twitter that "i want my own server" and "I wanna be in full control of my vision." The performer also hints that he's concerned about the security of internal messaging on the site, saying (sic) "I DONT TRUST A SOCIAL NETWORK WERE THEY HAVE YOUR EMAILS."

Guess who responded? Ning CEO Gina Bianchini, who frequently gives her users with personal attention -- particularly the A-listers. Wyclef's complaint and Gina's response are below. I'll update this post if I hear back from either party.

Originally posted by Douglas MacMillan from Blogspotting - Businessweek, on July 1, 2009 5:40 PM

From Recipes

This story in the Guardian has been making the rounds in the food blog world and people are rightly freaking out about it.

Guardian writer Tim Hayward is given access to a cache of books that celebrated British food writer Elizabeth David bequeathed to London's Guildhall library upon her death. In the margins and on slips of paper are "bitchy annotations," including one in which she designates the following recipe as the "most revolting dish ever devised":

Italian Salad

Ingredients

1 pint cold cooked macaroni
1/2 pint cooked or tinned pears
1/2 pint grated raw carrot
French dressing to moisten
2 heaped tablespoons minced onion
1/2 pint cooked or minced string beans

Procedure: Mix the chopped macaroni and vegetables; moisten with French dressing, flavouring with garlic if liked. Serve on a dish lined with lettuce leaves. Decorate with mayonnaise and minced pimento or chives.

The recipe and note were found inside Ulster Fare, published in 1945 by the Belfast Women's Institute Club.

What do you think, serious eaters? Is that the worst recipe ever devised? Or have you seen worse? Please dish!

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats, on July 1, 2009 4:30 PM

//Click the image to read the story of the design on Logo Log or see more of Buddy Creative's work here// --> Logo Log

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on July 1, 2009 4:14 PM

If you read Planet Perl Iron Man (and you should) or listen to the discussions of the corehackers project, you may have seen more discussion about Perl 5's DarkPAN problem.

One of the big tensions in the Perl 5 world is between progress and stability. (I use both terms with the same sense of distaste I hear the terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life". Then again, I sympathize with linguistic prescriptivism, if only to clarify motives and intent.)

"Perl 5 must change," some people cry. "There's no good reason Perl shouldn't enable strictures and warnings by default for all new programs!"

"Perl 5 cannot change," retort others. "There's too much existing code to change Perl's behavior!"

I find the latter argument ridiculous such that withering mockery is the only good response. That's rarely useful, however.

When people say "Perl 5 cannot change its default behavior!", I believe they have in mind several other points. Some of them are good points. Yet until the Perl community as a whole can address those points directly, we'll remain at an impasse. (The word "impasse" overstates things; to a man, the active Perl 5 pumpkings appear to hew strongly to the "Change is painful and bad and wrong" philosophy, even going as far to say that frequent releases are undesirable hassles because stat calls are not cheap.)

Translation to English of Various Meanings of "Stability Über Alles"

With that in mind, here are several possible meanings of "You can't change default behavior!

• Distributors may upgrade Perl 5 in their installations and may have to upgrade packages which depend on Perl 5 to work with the new version. This is true. This is what distributors do. This is what distributors do with all of their dependencies. This is why distributors exist. This is also only a problem if no optional mechanism of disabling new features exists -- and such a feature needs to exist.
• Changing Perl 5's default behavior may render existing tutorials and examples obsolete. Good. Many existing examples of Perl 5 code are horrible. A steadfast refusal to run unmaintainable code may even encourage the creation of better tutorials and the publication of better examples.

• Existing code -- left untouched for a decade -- may suddenly break.

  I don't understand this point.

  I ran into Perl 4 code the other day. Somehow the last sixteen years of Perl 5 releases have not yet managed to erase all perl4 binaries -- as well as the Perl 4 source code -- from the world's hard drives and tape drives and USB drives. Why should anyone believe that Perl 5.10.0 will not be available when Perl 5.10.1 comes out? Ditto Perl 5.12.0.

  Sometimes this argument has nuance to it. We must use a version of Perl supported by a vendor to whom we offer supplications of fresh fruits, wines, native crafts, and large checks. In other words, you're paying for the privilege of not upgrading. Good for you. Go bug the organization you're paying. That's why you're paying them.

  Sometimes this argument indicates that the arguer has no business working with computers in a professional setting. We don't know what software we're running and we won't know what will break if we upgrade and we don't know how to fix it if it does. If that's you, write your stakeholders a letter suggesting that they try to avoid upgrading, ever. Then find another line of work, perhaps something involving no technology more complex than one rock stacked atop another.

  If you can't test your software against newer dependencies, identify any potential problems, and work with upstream to resolve those issues before you perform an upgrade -- or if you're unwilling to do so -- then you are dangerously incompetent. That kind of incompetence is not the Perl community's responsibility.

  Don't short your stock, either -- that smacks of insider trading.

• Frequent, experimental, zig-zag changes to Perl 5 syntax and semantics will be confusing! Yeah. That's why no one's suggested doing them. Suggesting that Perl 5 could use real function signatures or strictures-on-by-default is very different from throwing every potential combination of hash-and-array-sort function into one big global namespace.

  The desire to add missing features and the desire for more frequent releases by no means implies a lack of foresight or holistic design, nor a lack of comprehensive testing, nor thoughtful refinement of an idea and implementation to the point where it's obviously right.

• Changes mean bugs, and we can't have bugs! There are already bugs. There are already regressions -- including a performance regression that would have affected only a few people if a stable 5.10.1 had come out in early 2008.

  The only way to avoid bugs altogether is to avoid writing software. The best you can do is make them unlikely, catch them early, and fix them quickly (remembering that unreleased software may as well not exist to your users).

• It's irresponsible to break someone else's code, especially if you can't see it. It's insane to support invisible code that may not even exist.
• There are so many competing implementations of this idea on the CPAN, it's obvious there's no one right way to do things! There are so many competing implementations of this idea on the CPAN because there's no obvious good, default, built-in way to do things.
• My code has to run on several different major versions of Perl; I can't take advantage of these new features. You have a change management problem. Not me.
• I can't show you a test case, but this change breaks my code! There's an invisible sign on the road by my house that gives me the right to charge a $5 toll. Pay up.
• This is the way it's always been. How's that working out?

A More Serious Take on Stability

Change doesn't have to be painful. Change doesn't have to be chaotic. It's possible to meet many of the real underlying goals with technical means.

The problem isn't technical, however. It's social. It's fear.

This is the fear of risk -- the risk that unknown problems lurk in seemingly minor changes. This is also the fear of the risk that the cost of mitigating this risk is too high. This is especially the fear of the risk that changing Perl 5 will appear so expensive that people will stop using it.

With all of that mockery out of the way, perhaps the Perl community can have a sober assesment of risk, bereft of fears and stupid technical blatherings that serve only to obscure the real question:

Whose needs do the features and policies and strategies and goals and visions of Perl 5 development serve?

Change for the sake of change itself is useless. Stability for the sake of stability is equally useless. No one wants complete stability or complete chaos. (Even if you think you want complete stability, you don't; when you find a bug or a typo or a confusing section of documentation, you've found a place where perfect stability gets in your way.)

(You'd almost think the Perl 5 community didn't have a few experienced project managers, methodologists, risk managers, and software developers, if not several thousand people who know how to create, maintain, sustain, and release free software projects.)

There must be a middle ground. There must be a way to identify real needs, prioritize useful changes, and deliver those changes to stakeholders in an efficient and effective fashion. I reject the false dilemmas which state that we have to make a choice between relentless, plodding conservatism and Psychotic Hyperactive Purposless-esque change...

... especially when the alternative is to suggest that every file containing modern Perl code start with a wall of boilerplate:

use 5.010;

use strict;
use warnings;

use utf8;
use Carp;
use Want;
use CLASS;
use SUPER;
use autodie;
use autobox;
use signatures;

use mro 'c3';

use IO::Handle;
use File::stat;
use autobox::Core;
use UNIVERSAL::ref;

I hate to channel John Stuart Mill, but if Perl 5 stays like that for long, it won't be a language suitable for novices to write new programs. It'll be merely a great language to maintain code written in the late '90s not yet replaced with something with slightly saner defaults.

That would be a pity.

Originally posted by chromatic from Modern Perl Books, a Modern Perl Blog, on July 1, 2009 3:31 PM

--> David Kaneda

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on July 1, 2009 3:30 PM

and some LSD….man See more of Richard Perez's (aka Skinny Ships) work on at his site or on Flickr --> FitaCola

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on July 1, 2009 3:10 PM

From the Wikipedia entry on Northern Calloway, the guy who played David on Sesame Street:

Near the end of his life, Calloway slowly began to exhibit signs of bipolar disorder which led to a nervous breakdown on the morning of September 20, 1980 in Nashville, TN. He beat his hostess with an iron rod, damaging it and giving his hostess head and rib injuries. He then fled into the suburbs of Nashville. Along the way, he smashed a plate-glass window and storm door at one house and did extensive damage to the the interior of another, destroying the family's collection of fine crystal, smashing a television set and breaking light bulbs with his bare hands. He also stole a backpack from a first grader and smashed a windshield with a rock. He was arrested after hiding out in a couple's garage, screaming "Help! I'm David from Sesame Street and they're trying to kill me!"

Now watch Calloway and "Maria" in what must be the only Sesame Street segment with genuine sexual tension.

Originally posted by Mena from Dollarshort, on July 1, 2009 2:48 PM

Obviously I am not a religious man, but it is precisely this kind of mendacious bullshit that makes me wish there were a God, so that He might best exact His justice on this sick fuck who was so instrumental in sending so many men and women to their death or dismemberment in the service of a philosophy that goes against everything America stands for. FUCK YOU KARL ROVE YOU FUCKING SELF-SERVING PRICK. Spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair while you shit into a bag wouldn’t begin to cover the karmic debt you owe to every American you put in harm’s way to promote your psychotic agenda.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Alex Balk, on July 1, 2009 2:42 PM

Two related things; read up and we can discuss in class tomorrow:
1. Anil Dash on the similarities between Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell.
2. Andrew Sullivan on “I don’t think it is that terrible a thing if most journalists start earning less money.” (Okay fine I’ll say it: but then how will he afford all that marijuana that is preventing him from thinking well?)

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on July 1, 2009 2:39 PM

When I saw Malcolm Gladwell doggedly dissecting Chris Anderson's upcoming "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" (see Chris' response here) my first reaction was: Brilliant! Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired, and Malcolm Gladwell is a top brand name at The New Yorker, and as corporate cousins, clearly Condé Nast's publicity machine must have engineered this beef, trying to boost sales of both their titles through a completely manufactured rivalry.

Their past titles have been champions of what I call the "Airport Books" genre: The elite class of business titles that I see sold in airport newsstands next to the magazines and crappy romance novels. (I might have unknowingly stolen "airport books" from someone else, but I can't find a citation.)

Alas, I'm assured that this particular contretemps isn't a planned corporate PR stunt. (Though I know lots of nice folks at Condé, they don't seem to mimic street-level hip hop marketing as often as one might hope.) Instead, it seems the criticism and counter-argument are sincere.

The core of Gladwell's argument is simple: "Free" fails to provide data to support its claims about the future of pricing, using anecdote and confident assertion in place of actual evidence. In his objection to this methodology, Gladwell seems uncharacteristically strident, compared to his usual measured tones. Whenever I see somebody getting their dander up, I think of one of the first things I ever blogged about ten year ago: We hate most in others that which we fail to see in ourselves. Ah hah!

Let's see what criticisms have been leveled at Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, the juggernauts of the airport book genre:

• The IUP Skeptical Inquirer's Wesley Cecil has a review of Blink which offers this up: "Gladwell relies heavily on anecdotal evidence. The centerpiece of each chapter is a short story or series of stories that are supposed to illustrate some aspect of his theory of snap judgments. ... [I]ntuitive feeling triumphs over careful study. ... [O]ne case does not an argument make."
• Slate's Jack Shafer on Gladwell telling a tall tale at The Moth, which kind of ridiculously insinuates that this is a character flaw instead of just a fun story.
• More definitively, the New York Times' Michiko Kakutani made this point in her review of Outilers, but extends it to apply to all of Gladwelll's books: "[His] books are filled with colorful anecdotes and case studies that read like entertaining little stories. Both use PowerPoint-type catchphrases (like the 'stickiness factor' and 'the Rule of 150') to plant concepts in the reader’s mind. ... 'Outliers' Mr. Gladwell's latest book, employs this same recipe, but does so in such a clumsy manner that it italicizes the weaknesses of his methodology. ... [His examples are] all based not on persuasive, broadband research, but on a flimsy selection of colorful anecdotes and stories."
• Joel Spolsky keyed off of Kakutani's review on his popular blog: "what's been driving me crazy over the last year... an unbelievable proliferation of anecdotes disguised as science, self-professed experts writing about things they actually know nothing about, and amusing stories disguised as metaphors for how the world works." (Bonus points to Joel for swiping en passant at airport book titan Thomas Friedman's cartographic ironing board along the way.
• Kevin Arthur's post built on Joel's rant, offering a slightly more measured, but still critical analysis: "I feel like clarifying my opinion on this... I think there is great value in pop science books, in articles written by non-experts, and in anecdotes. I read Joel's piece not as a rant against all those things but against those things badly done."
• Peter Coclanis at Open Letters just gets downright mean: "[L]et me say from the get-go that my goal in this piece, which focuses on Outliers, is to demonstrate at once how wildly overstated such just-jacket claims are and how egregiously incomplete, insubstantial, and unconvincing Gladwell’s explanation of success actually is. His methodology stinks, too, and, from his dust-jacket photo, he appears to need a haircut." I know what fun it can be to bash someone from afar on the web, but I bet Coclanis is a lousy dresser. Just sayin'.
• And not to belabor the point, but let's close up with Isaac Chotiner in The New Republic, taking a stridently snarky look at Outliers: "By the time Gladwell reaches his penultimate chapter, he is in full inspiration mode, and impervious to all forms of critical thinking. ... Here is the Gladwell method nicely on display: a questionable assumption, a partial walk-back of an earlier claim, and finally another questionable assumption synthesizing the half-reversal."

My point is not to ennumerate all of the criticisms of Gladwell's books — I enjoyed reading all of them, and I like his New Yorker pieces, and that's kind of all I would ask of the guy. But I can't help but wonder if being ceaselessly criticized for using assertions and anecdotes in lieu of hard statistical data has left him much more inclined to criticize others for using the same technique.

I haven't had a chance to finish reading Free yet, but I am sure that these authors' books absolutely do lean more towards anecdotal evidence than statistical proof. And honestly, it's okay that these books don't necessarily follow the tenets of hard science. In many cases, they're arguing that a cultural trend is becoming true, or is about to become true, and the reality is that asserting that these trends are ascendent actually helps them come true. In short, these are books designed to create culture, presented in the guise of reporting on culture. I like that!

But of course there will always be those who disagree with the idea of starting from a premise first, and then finding examples to support it. Perhaps the last word in favor of using hard data to support social observations may be from a story package in Wired a year ago, which was headlined "The End of Science" and anchored by a story called The End of Theory:

This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.

... But faced with massive data, this approach to science — hypothesize, model, test — is becoming obsolete. ... The new availability of huge amounts of data, along with the statistical tools to crunch these numbers, offers a whole new way of understanding the world. Correlation supersedes causation, and science can advance even without coherent models, unified theories, or really any mechanistic explanation at all.

The author of this compelling argument in favor of using overwhelming amounts of data to help replace formulating theories about human behavior? Former scientist Chris Anderson.

Bonus link: If you're interested in actual debate about the content of the book, Mike Masnick's excellent overview over at TechDirt is a must-read.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on July 1, 2009 2:17 PM

Fuck you, Gerhard Richter!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Alex Balk, on July 1, 2009 2:16 PM

//Click on any of the images for more information, or to purchase prints// In their youth, every parent learned nursery rhymes that they knew one day they would sing to their own children. The first three rhymes are short and sweet, with a bold graphic style that can pair with any decor.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on July 1, 2009 2:11 PM

Noise-darlings Holy Fuck have been making moves in the experimental-rock scene since 2004. For the past few months they've been traveling the roads, blowing minds one city at a time with their tumultuous tracks. As they round out their international tour in the US, the band has been slipping psychedelic 3D postcards into our mailbox. Today Holy Fuck greeted us from Houston... "Totally inappropriate air in front of the reflecting pool at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, TX. I suppose we had to let out all our energy after sitting around and being contemplative for all that time." Postcard by Yoonha Park using a Canon EOS 40D, LOREO 3D Lens in a Cap and Trick3D app for iPhone.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on July 1, 2009 1:59 PM

Today is, if you believe The Writer’s Almanac, the date in 1731 that Ben Franklin founded the first circulating library. The blurb is neat to read but short on references, so here is me fleshing it out a little.

It was on this day in 1731 that Ben Franklin founded the first circulating library, a forerunner to the now ubiquitous free public library. He started it as a way to help settle intellectual arguments among his group of Philadelphia friends, the Junto, a group of civic-minded individuals gathered together to discuss the important issues of their day.

Each of the 50 charter members bought an initial share into the company (40 shillings), which helped fund the buying of books, and then paid a smaller yearly fee (10 shillings) that went to buying more books and maintaining the library. In exchange, the members could borrow any of the books. Donations of books were gladly accepted.

They called their charter the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the next year, Franklin hired America’s first librarian, Louis Timothee. At first, the books were stored at the librarian’s house, but by the end of the decade, they were moved to the Pennsylvania State House, which is now known as Independence Hall.

Originally posted by jessamyn from librarian.net, on July 1, 2009 1:40 PM

    

    

Now you know how to greet a Canadian today.

Photos from talulayu, Dave77459, ɹǝʇǝd, Jeremyfortytwo, and Lynn McFulton.

Originally posted by Heather Champ from Flickr Blog, on July 1, 2009 12:50 PM

Mark Sanford: "I will be able to die knowing that I had met my soul mate."

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on July 1, 2009 12:07 PM

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

• Despite my many criticisms, I still totally enjoyed it.

• It was great to see Bumblebee kick some ass.

• The two twin autobots were just absurd. We need more autobots, but... autobots you can actually like.

• Same goes with the humans. I could have done without all the new humans, namely that college roommate.

• Some of the jokes were just incredibly cheap.

• Just about all dialogue was far, far too verbose. It was a bit exhausting. Even when someone was telling someone else to speak more clearly and concisely, the way the they were told was also way too verbose.

• Regardless of my nitpicks, I really liked the film.

Originally posted by Liz from Lather Rinse Repeat, on July 1, 2009 11:52 AM

Fourth of July #2, Independence, Missouri a 20×200 edition by Mike Sinclair

The Motorcyclists

My cuticles are a mess. Oh honey, by the way,
did you like my new negligee? It’s a replica
of one Kim Novak wore in some movie or other.
I wish I had a foot-long chili dog right now.
Do you like fireworks, I mean not just on the 4th of July,
but fireworks any time? There are people
like that, you know. They’re like people who like
orchestra music, listen to it any time of day.
Lopsided people, that’s what my father calls them.
Me, I’m easy to please. I like ping-gong and bobcats,
shatterproof drinking glasses, the smell of kerosene,
the crunch of carrots. I like caterpillars and
whirlpools, too. What I hate most is being the first
one at the scene of a bad accident.

Do I smell like garlic? Are we still in Kansas?
I once had a chiropractor make a pass at me,
did I ever tell you that? He said that your spine
is happiest when you’re snuggling. Sounds kind
of sweet now when I tell you, but he was a creep.
Do you know that I have never understood what they meant
by “grassy knoll.” It sounds so idyllic, a place to go
to dream your life away, not kill somebody. They
should have called it something like “the grudging notch.”
But I guess that’s life. What is it they always say?
“It’s always the sweetest ones that break your heart.”
You getting hungry yet, hon? I am. When I was seven
I sat in our field and ate an entire eggplant
right off the vine. Dad loves to tell that story,

but I still can’t eat eggplant. He says I’ll be the first
woman President, it’d be a waste since I talk so much.
Which do you think the fixtures are in the bathroom
at the White House, gold or brass? It’d be okay with me
if they were just brass. Honey, can we stop soon?
I really hate to say it but I need a lady’s room.

—James Tate

Digg This    Save to Del.icio.us

Originally posted by Jen Bekman from Personism, on July 1, 2009 10:21 AM

When I read this post from Caroline McCarthy about moving from New York to San Francisco, my first thought was, “you’re going to hate it.”

And perhaps that’s not fair, but it was my immediate reaction based on the preconceptions of the city as being made up of Mission hipsters and Silly Valley koolaiders. It is neither. Those are simply two facets of this place, but unfortunately they are often the only experience that short-timers immerse themselves in.

San Francisco is my home. I love it. I adore it. I’m institutionalized and ruined for pretty much anywhere else. And so of course I have some strong opinions about it. And when I hear people are moving here, I naturally want them to love it too. I hate it when people move here for a year or two, and move away having had a bad experience because they never really got to know it. I think that’s avoidable.

I don’t think the world should look like San Francisco, nor do I think that it should be home for everyone. But if you’re going to come here, even if it’s only for a year, you should make the most of it. And to do that (and this really goes for anywhere) you need to embrace what’s unique about it.

1. Live in San Francisco.
Here’s a novel idea. If you’re moving 3,000 (or even 300) miles to live in San Francisco; live in San Francisco. And by I don’t simply mean that you should not live in the East Bay or the Peninsula or Marin. I mean live in a part of the city that your great-grandparents would recognize as being San Francisco. Somewhere that was entirely residential, and all of the homes in your neighborhood existed, prior to 1915. If you’ve only lived in SoMa, you haven’t lived in San Francisco. I know a lot of people who’ve moved here from somewhere else only to settle in SoMa (which, when I first moved here, was sort of like NoPa in that it was really only starting to gain traction as a term for a neighborhood) or South Park or China Basin or some other reclaimed part of San Francisco’s industrial past. Big mistake. If you haven’t lived in one of San Francisco’s traditional neighborhoods, you’ve missed out. You haven’t ever gotten to experience one of its primary joys. Sure, you may be close to your job; you may have a lot of space and nicer weather, but by that logic you should find a job in a Phoenix exurb. This is a city of small communities, each with its own character. Get to know one, with its small shops and locally owned businesses, and you’ll find it infinitely rewarding.  If instead you choose to live in some light industrial zone, however, you may as well be in Seattle, or Atlanta, or Portland, or any other moderately-sized city. Except you’ll pay five times the rent.

2. Jump in the water.
If you’ve lived here more than a year and have never taken a dip in the Pacific; you’re doing it wrong. Take advantage of your local environment. One of the greatest things about San Francisco is that it’s bounded by so many amazing natural wonders. This is a place where you can—quite literally and I know people who have done it—go surfing and snowboarding in the same day. First and foremost, of course, there is the ocean. This is a region defined by the ocean and the scraping together of two plates. Swim in the Bay. Dive in the ocean. Hike along the seaside cliffs. Explore the tidepools. And when you’re finished, get your ass out of here to the Sierra, to Yosemite and Sequoia and Tahoe. One of the greatest things about this city—and it’s something that I think is intrinsic to the character of its people—is that you can have nature all day and culture all night.

3. Eat the food.
You may think of California as being the home of the entertainment or technology industry. But neither would be here without the farms that came first. California’s agriculture industry is a $40 billion a year enterprise. We have a longer growing season than just about anywhere else in the country, and nowhere else in the country has the year-round selection of local, sustainable, and/or organic options we do. You’ll have your pick of farmer’s markets, CSAs, and local dairies. Yes, enjoy the restaurants. We have great ones that focus on the local flavor. But do yourself a favor: Find a good source of local food and learn to cook.

4. Get a bike
Looking out my window, at this very moment, I can see where mountain biking was invented. Marin, Sonoma, and Napa counties have some of the finest road biking in the world. Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and (again) Marin likewise offer some of the best mountain biking to be found anywhere. Moreover, there’s no better way to get around San Francisco than by bike. Muni, especially the light rail lines, is okay for getting around. The bus system less so. Driving is an abomination; good luck finding parking. But on a bike you can be anywhere in the city—anywhere—within 15 minutes. Do it often enough and you won’t break a sweat getting there.

5. Make real friends.
This only applies to people working in the Internet and technology sectors, but you may be amazed to discover that most people in the city work in fields that have nothing to do with the Internet. It’s fantastic to have friends in the industry. You’ll have shared interests and they’ll always get your meme-of-the-day jokes. But if most of your friends work in the same field you do, that’s a little boring, right? Try to branch out. This is a city of people from all over the world, doing all sorts of interesting things. Get to know them. If you want to get to know a place, get to know its people. It will also help you keep things in perspective. If something is truly a big deal (say, an iPod or Facebook) it will be a big deal to your non-techie friends as well.

6. Be real yourself.
San Francisco is the kind of place where nobody will tell you when you have a bad idea. That’s just how it is. In an effort to remain tolerant, people go out of their way not to judge. That can be a bad thing. “Hey, dude, I think I’m going to pierce my eyelids with this sliver of depleted uranium for Burning Man this year.” “Right on, that’s cool.” No. No, it’s not cool. It’s a very bad fucking idea. But nobody will tell you that. And because it is a town where nobody calls bullshit, it’s easy to get caught up in your own. Stay true to yourself. Sure, let your freak flag fly. You can do whatever you want here and nobody will even look twice at you. Embrace that inner weirdo. But don’t be weird for the sake of being weird: That way lies blind hipsterism and the cult of the yogi. You moved here to set trends, not to follow them, right? This is California. You can do whatever you want. So do yourself a favor and make it real, make it genuine, make it your own. Otherwise you’re just going to burn out.

Look. You can certainly be a Mission hipster or Silly Valley type and have a wonderful experience here. But to do so you have to get off Valencia street and make some friends outside of the industry. You have to figure out what drew people here in the first place before it became populated by those stereotypes. It’s a great place to live. But you’ll never know that unless you truly live here.

caro:

GPOYW: Off We Go Edition

I’ve never lived more than an hour away from NYC, so this is sort of awesome and thrilling.  Most of the companies I cover are based in the SF region, so I’ll get much better face time.  And while I do have personal reasons for wanting to spend some time away from here, I don’t want to get all James Murphy about it and talk about how New York sucks.  Let’s face it: I’m a Northeast girl, and I’m coming back.  I promise not to return laden with any not-really-true Bay Area stereotypes like new piercings or tattoos, strange political leanings, arrests for public nudity, weird Mission-slacker boyfriends (that one is dedicated to Rana), or a bloodstream full of myopic Silicon Valley Kool-Aid.  Okay, that last one is a concern.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Emptyage, on July 1, 2009 9:43 AM

Blogs.com published a Top-Ten List for the Tour De France 2009 that we compiled for them. Note that the format of the list requires a blog to have an RSS feed. We can't deeplink into a site like Versus or Bicycling for Bobke's blog without it. The list isn't exhaustive, limited to ten, so we had to choose. Please add what blogs you follow in the comments. We can extend the list here.

We also hope Horner blogs about the race with notes on what he would've done on the hilly stages had he been there! We'll discuss the race at length on the Hub, as soon as it starts.

• Andy Schleck -- Andy is a Tour favorite and brother of Frank, another racer. He's aggressive on the road and writing about his experiences as a professional cyclist.
• Cycling Fans Anonymous -- A blog written by a critic of professional cycling, including the doping controversies.
• Cyclocosm -- An independent view of bike racing with in-depth commentary.
• Peloton Post -- Professional photos from the Tour de France, uploaded daily.
• Podium Cafe -- Bike racing blog with extensive coverage of the Tour.
• Road Diaries -- Rider diaries, tech talk, and more from SRAM, a bicycle components manufacturer.
• Tour De France Blog -- A fan-written blog about the Tour de France with lots of comments.
• Tour Tag on Flickr -- Fans and photographers upload photos from the race to Flickr.
• Tour de France Lantern Rouge -- A blog that celebrates the last- placed rider in the race.
• Tour de France on Twitter -- Follow #tourdefrance on Twitter for tweets from racers, teams, and fans.

Also see a collection of TDF-related gear on our Amazon Store and Wired published a list of why geeks should love the Tour.

Originally posted by DL Byron from Bike Hugger, on July 1, 2009 8:47 AM

I remember it as a dark and stormy night, that seems unlikely, but I’m sure it was late and chilly and damp. I remember being tired from a long day in the salt mines; that was during a period when I was always tired after work. I remember there being whiskey, and knowing @maureen, that seems likely.

I’d just won some internal battles regarding delegated auth, and implemented Google AuthSub for the new Blogger Beta, as well as Amazon auth for a side project. So when I wanted to share photos from Flickr to Twitter, I knew it wasn’t going to be over HTTP Basic Auth.

@blaine and @factoryjoe had pulled me a few weeks earlier into a project called OpenAuth that they’d been talking about for a couple of months — an alternative to yet another auth standard, and a solution for authenticating sites using OpenID.

So one late, damp night along Laguna St. with whiskey, we did a pattern extraction, identifying the minimal possible set of features to offer compatibility against existing best practice API authorization protocols. And wrote down the half pager that became the very first draft of the OAuth spec.

That spec wasn’t the final draft, an open community standardization process allowed experts from the security, web, and usability community to weigh in and iterate on the design. But many of those decisions (and some of the mistakes) from that night made it into the final version.

A little over two years later, yesterday we finally shipped Flickr2Twitter.

So it was nice yesterday when people commented on the integration:

“Uses OAuth!” “Doesn’t ask for your Twitter password” “Great use of OAuth”.

And I thought to myself, “It better be, this is what OAuth was invented for — literally”.

Originally posted by Kellan from Laughing Meme, on July 1, 2009 8:42 AM

Gina Trapani asked her Twitter followers if they were planning to buy a 3GS, and she compiled the 175 answers into a single post for her weblog. I love the first one, from Meg Hourihan:

Yes, iPhone = my computer, and $399 is worth it. Haven’t bought new laptop since late 06 and don’t plan to for long time.

This, to me, gets to the heart of the revolution at hand. A decade ago, my first PowerBook was a secondary machine to the desktop anchored at my desk. Now, my main machine is my MacBook Pro, but it feels a bit like an anchor now. My mobile secondary computer is my iPhone.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on July 1, 2009 7:49 AM

A quick follow-on to my article earlier today about David Ortiz about what Albert Pujols has done in his last 162 games.

Here are the numbers that would be career highs for Pujols if they were for one full calendar season:

HR: 52
RBI: 153
BB: 113
OPS: 1.160

Yeah…nice.

Originally posted by Andy from Baseball-Reference Blog, on July 1, 2009 7:14 AM

it was a requirement of their funding from the Knight Foundation  

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on June 30, 2009 11:32 PM

Sarah Manley: "This past weekend's Oakland Mapping Party showed what a difference a weekend of mapping can make! On June 27th and 28th, OSM experts and newbies joined together at the Rock, Paper, Scissors Art Collective, to work together to improve the Oakland map. Mappers concentrated on adding details to the downtown map, showcasing where restaurants, galleries, bike parking are located, as well as many other amenities."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on June 30, 2009 11:09 PM

Nick Bradbury: “These days it's common practice for programmers to actively involve customers in the creation of their software, but back in 1995 it wasn’t the norm.  I certainly wasn’t the first developer to take this approach, but I like to think I was one of the pioneers.”

Absolutely. Bravo, Nick! Good job.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from ranchero.com, on June 30, 2009 8:27 PM

"EveryBlock.com is an experimental news Web site that provides information at a "microlocal" level %u2014 by neighborhood or city block. It was funded by a grant from Knight Foundation, which requires the site's backend code to be open-sourced. Here is the code."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on June 30, 2009 6:03 PM

While many refuse to acknowledge the fact, the truth of the matter is that collecting is at an all-time low. With prices going through the roof, designs getting worse and worse, and a recession in the mix, it’s no wonder why many have been walking away from collecting in droves.

The truth is, despite all the brands being released monthly, not many products are taking risks. Even two of the most popular brands of the past few years, Allen & Ginter & Masterpieces, have become somewhat stale. The year that game-used relics were introduced and certified autographs became common, The Hobby went into cruise control.

Don’t get me wrong, a well-done relic/autograph will trump any card most of the times but as we collectors know all too well, those special cards come once in a lifetime, if they do at all. Most of the times we pay $80-$100 or more for a bunch of lazy designed base cards, a couple of plain jersey swatches, and a sticker autograph from a 25-year old prospect.

I challenge all collectors to bust an old school box of any mid to late-90’s Metal Universe brand to see what collecting truly could be. Every single base card is designed specifically for the player, meaning even the “commons” have value to those who love collecting.

The inserts & parallels are beautiful and despite being considered junk wax for lack of relics and/or autographs, still bring in some serious cash on the secondary market. Recently, the Michael Jordan parallel you see below which is #’d to 50 copies brought in close to $1,700 dollars without the help of an autograph or jersey.

Originally posted by Mario A. from Wax Heaven, on June 30, 2009 4:16 PM

Hugger Industries posted a photo:

@MadronaVentures for T-Rex, a Twitter Demo

Originally posted by Hugger Industries from Bike Hugger, on June 30, 2009 4:08 PM

The August 2009 issue of Runner's World includes a Q&A with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin about her lifelong interest in jogging. The interview reveals that she took an unreported fall while running with the Secret Service before the vice presidential debate and describes how Sen. John McCain loves being up a creek:

I used to joke around with John McCain during the campaign about coming jogging with me. And once I asked him what his favorite exercise was, and he said, 'I go wading.' Wading. He lives on a creek in Arizona, so he goes wading. That cracked me up.

The most newsworthy part of the story is probably the last question, where she affirms her support for Title IX, the gender equity law that requires schools to offer as many programs for female athletes as for males:

Is there anything else the world should know about you as a runner?

The only other thing I'd like to add is I've been very fortunate to be a recipient of all the efforts people put into Title IX all those years ago where girls got equal opportunity to participate in sports and extracurricular activities because sports growing up were my world. I'm so thankful for Title IX allowing equal access to these opportunities, and I'm a huge proponent of girls being able to realize what they're made of by participating in sports and whatever I can do there I'm going to be doing.

The story includes eight photos of Palin in running attire, and the last one shows that Palin still has a knack for turning a harmless publicity stunt -- like pardoning a turkey -- into a potential black eye.

Palin's violating the U.S. Flag Code, which you can read on the American Legion's site, in how that U.S. flag is treated in the photo. Under the heading Respect for the Flag, the code states, "The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise." There's also a rule against using it as drapery.

Though adherance to the Flag Code is optional, some people take it pretty seriously, as the American Flag wall of shame demonstrates, and a lot of them are in what Palin would consider the "pro-America areas of this great nation." You shouldn't drape it over a chair like a cover you bought at Bed Bath and Beyond.

It's a wonder that Palin hasn't shot her publicity team from a helicopter.

Update: A commenter points out a picture of Palin wrapping herself in the flag that was reprinted in Newsweek and taken by Wasilla, Alaska, photographer Judy Patrick, who has included it in her Palin calendar.

Originally posted by Rogers Cadenhead from Workbench, on June 30, 2009 4:02 PM

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released version 8.4, continuing the rapid development of the world's most advanced open source database. This release contains an abundance of enhancements to make administering, querying, and programming of PostgreSQL databases easier than ever before.

Originally posted by press@postgresql.org from PostgreSQL News, on June 30, 2009 4:00 PM

In this excellent VeloNews interview with Lance, Armstrong talks about the tour, and who is really the boss of Astana. Short answer, no one. In a scenario that's played out in the Tour before, Armstrong admits that the leadership isn't exactly certain, and that he needs to respect the Tour protocols and let Contador give it his all.

I sense, each time I hear one of these or read about this, some real angst about the issue of the leadership. At about 1:47 the interviewer pushes Lance on this sensing the same odd hesitation. His reply "I go out every day and ride with the thought that I'm going to show up as fit as I can, in order to win...." "Before number six and before number seven, I was confident... I don't have that confidence now." It's a far mellower Johnny than he's ever been, but I think that he's repressing some real conflict with the team dynamics.

He goes on to talk about how he doesn't know what's going to happen in the Tour. And I'm so happy to hear that, because wins number six and number seven were some of the dullest professional cycling I've ever seen. I can't wait to see a tour with so many champions fighting it out--can't wait.

Originally posted by David Schloss from Bike Hugger, on June 30, 2009 3:09 PM

New Kosher Accommodations at Wimbledon Jerusalem…by Idele Ross, KosherToday Middle East Bureau Chief…At the Wimbledon tennis championships, kosher food is available for the first time in the 122-year history of the games. Rabbi David and Sara Cohen are operating a kosher kitchen near the site of the matches. Rabbi Cohen who co-directs Chabad of South London Campuses told the Chabad website that when they found a house near the Wimbledon’s Center Court they knew they had to do something like this during the tournament. They are offering barbecue as well as sandwiches to kosher tennis fans. The Cohens also held an open house on Shabbat featuring a strawberries and cream kiddush. There will also be a special Shabbat Friday night program at the end of the tournament on July 3rd.

Originally posted by Sara Pepitone from Scoreboard Gourmet, on June 30, 2009 3:00 PM

dammit

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fimoculous, on June 30, 2009 1:51 PM

Shared by alaina
If this doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you're not a real New Yorker.

"His slices were so good that they didn't have to deliver."

The other night I started thinking about Sal and Carmine's. Adam reported on Sal's untimely death, but somehow I feel the only true way to pay one's respects to a pieman (and Sal was one of the all-time great piemen) is to have one of his pies.

So last Friday I left the Slice–Serious Eats office around 7 p.m. and took the 2 Train to 96th Street and Broadway. I know I could have taken the local one more stop and ended up a couple of blocks closer, but I wanted to start my homage to Sal by acknowledging the location of the original Sal's Pizzeria on 95th and Broadway, where my love affair with Sal Malanga's pizza began in 1973.

Sal and his brother Carmine opened the original Sal's in 1959, three blocks from my first New York apartment. I was making $111 a week working for the Department of Cultural Affairs in the New York City Parks Department, and though Sal's slices were 25¢ more than every other pizzeria's, it quickly became my go-to slice. How could it not? Sal's slightly bready crust was crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. Therein lies the magic about Sal and Carmine's crust: It never gets hard, no matter how long it's been out of the oven. The sauce was slightly seasoned (maybe it was canned pizza sauce—no matter), and the aged mozzarella they used had just the right touch of salt.

Once you had a Sal's slice you could accept no other. They were magical, more workmanlike and less idiosyncratic than Di Fara, but no less artful and satisfying. That's it, now that I think about it: Sal's slices were just so damn satisfying. And you didn't need a finely honed pizza aesthetic to know that. One bite was all it took. That was the way it was then, and you know what? That's the way it is now.

All these memories came flooding back as I walked up Broadway to 101st Street. I called to order my half-plain, half-sausage well-done pie. Sal's grandson Luciano Gaudiosi answered the phone: "Sal's." A quiet tribute to his grandfather, perhaps? Who knows. "Ten or 15 minutes," he said and hung up. Another Sal and Carmine's trademark: No name and no phone number necessary.

I walked in and saw Luciano manning the oven. I told him what I had ordered over the phone. I told him how sorry I was to hear about Sal. I introduced myself. Luciano responded, "Oh yeah, you're the one who didn't like the canned mushrooms." I was crestfallen. Here I was trying to pay my respects, and the only thing Luciano remembers is that I criticized his grandfather's use of canned mushrooms. I told him, "I loved Sal's pizza, except for those mushrooms."

"That's all right," he reassured me. He gestured toward the mushrooms: "It's just so much easier to use them."

Sal & Carmine's

2671 Broadway, New York NY 10025 (b/n 101st/102nd; map); 212-663-7651

I asked what had happened to his grandfather. He told me Sal had woken up in the days before he passed away, complaining about his back hurting, perhaps from sleeping wrong. He had gone to the hospital at his grandson's insistence, though he really wanted to come into work and make pizza. Sal couldn't stand being at the hospital, so he checked himself out.

A few days later Sal was readmitted to the hospital. His kidneys were failing. He was waiting to begin dialysis when his kidney failure led to cardiac arrest. Luciano told me this, obviously trying to rein in his emotions. "He was a good man," Luciano acknowledged with more than a touch of pride and love in his voice.

I told him that his grandfather had left his mark on the New York pizza landscape. His slices, I told him, were so good that they didn't have to deliver (Luciano told me there was a period of time, from 1959 to 1967, when Sal's did in fact deliver.) His pizza was so good that I used to pay the late charges to Hertz just to keep the car an hour longer to pick up a pie.

He smiled slightly. I think he knows that his grandfather was one of the last of the great New York City slice-pie men. I'm sure that's one of the reasons he's making pizza himself.

I hailed a cab to take my pizza home. My son, Will, was watching the Mets-Yankees game. We each put a slice on a plate and took a bite. "This is such good pizza," Will said. I had to agree. So satisfying, so seriously delicious, and so Sal. Sal would have been proud.

Luciano, along with Carmine, are doing everything Sal's way, the right way, the only way.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Slice, on June 30, 2009 1:49 PM

• Dear Malcolm: Why So Threatened? | Epicenter | Wired.com
  Chris Anderson responds to Malcolm Gladwell
• On a Mission to Mark Places of Long-Forgotten Historic Moments - NYTimes.com
  NYT article about the Here is Where project.
• Here Is Where
  A quirky and brilliant project to document forgotten US places of historical interest.

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on June 30, 2009 12:01 PM

I've never seen anything like this.  An entire 13-story building in Shanghai that was under construction just... toppled over.  And no one seems to know why.  Sadly, there was one fatality, but it's amazing there weren't more.

More photos here.  (Thanks, once again, to David for the link.)

Originally posted by Valarie Smith from Crazed Teacups, on June 30, 2009 11:47 AM

Gold mine of a discussion between two giants, from 1986.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Subtraction.com, on June 30, 2009 11:45 AM

This is pure genius: the Johnson County Library in Overland Park, Kansas, has tricked out their trucks to "remind us of the iconic nature" of some of these great books. Read more about their efforts here.  (Thanks to David for the link.)

Originally posted by Valarie Smith from Crazed Teacups, on June 30, 2009 11:39 AM

From Slice

"His slices were so good that they didn't have to deliver."

The other night I started thinking about Sal and Carmine's. Adam reported on Sal's untimely death, but somehow I feel the only true way to pay one's respects to a pieman (and Sal was one of the all-time great piemen) is to have one of his pies.

So last Friday I left the Slice–Serious Eats office around 7 p.m. and took the 2 Train to 96th Street and Broadway. I know I could have taken the local one more stop and ended up a couple of blocks closer, but I wanted to start my homage to Sal by acknowledging the location of the original Sal's Pizzeria on 95th and Broadway, where my love affair with Sal Malanga's pizza began in 1973.

Sal and his brother Carmine opened the original Sal's in 1959, three blocks from my first New York apartment. I was making $111 a week working for the Department of Cultural Affairs in the New York City Parks Department, and though Sal's slices were 25¢ more than every other pizzeria's, it quickly became my go-to slice. How could it not? Sal's slightly bready crust was crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. Therein lies the magic about Sal and Carmine's crust: It never gets hard, no matter how long it's been out of the oven. The sauce was slightly seasoned (maybe it was canned pizza sauce—no matter), and the aged mozzarella they used had just the right touch of salt.

Once you had a Sal's slice you could accept no other. They were magical, more workmanlike and less idiosyncratic than Di Fara, but no less artful and satisfying. That's it, now that I think about it: Sal's slices were just so damn satisfying. And you didn't need a finely honed pizza aesthetic to know that. One bite was all it took. That was the way it was then, and you know what? That's the way it is now.

All these memories came flooding back as I walked up Broadway to 101st Street. I called to order my half-plain, half-sausage well-done pie. Sal's grandson Luciano Gaudiosi answered the phone: "Sal's." A quiet tribute to his grandfather, perhaps? Who knows. "Ten or 15 minutes," he said and hung up. Another Sal and Carmine's trademark: No name and no phone number necessary.

I walked in and saw Luciano manning the oven. I told him what I had ordered over the phone. I told him how sorry I was to hear about Sal. I introduced myself. Luciano responded, "Oh yeah, you're the one who didn't like the canned mushrooms." I was crestfallen. Here I was trying to pay my respects, and the only thing Luciano remembers is that I criticized his grandfather's use of canned mushrooms. I told him, "I loved Sal's pizza, except for those mushrooms."

"That's all right," he reassured me. He gestured toward the mushrooms: "It's just so much easier to use them."

Sal & Carmine's

2671 Broadway, New York NY 10025 (b/n 101st/102nd; map); 212-663-7651

I asked what had happened to his grandfather. He told me Sal had woken up in the days before he passed away, complaining about his back hurting, perhaps from sleeping wrong. He had gone to the hospital at his grandson's insistence, though he really wanted to come into work and make pizza. Sal couldn't stand being at the hospital, so he checked himself out.

A few days later Sal was readmitted to the hospital. His kidneys were failing. He was waiting to begin dialysis when his kidney failure led to cardiac arrest. Luciano told me this, obviously trying to rein in his emotions. "He was a good man," Luciano acknowledged with more than a touch of pride and love in his voice.

I told him that his grandfather had left his mark on the New York pizza landscape. His slices, I told him, were so good that they didn't have to deliver (Luciano told me there was a period of time, from 1959 to 1967, when Sal's did in fact deliver.) His pizza was so good that I used to pay the late charges to Hertz just to keep the car an hour longer to pick up a pie.

He smiled slightly. I think he knows that his grandfather was one of the last of the great New York City slice-pie men. I'm sure that's one of the reasons he's making pizza himself.

I hailed a cab to take my pizza home. My son, Will, was watching the Mets-Yankees game. We each put a slice on a plate and took a bite. "This is such good pizza," Will said. I had to agree. So satisfying, so seriously delicious, and so Sal. Sal would have been proud.

Luciano, along with Carmine, are doing everything Sal's way, the right way, the only way.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats, on June 30, 2009 11:30 AM

Uh oh! Another author goes postal in the quick-publish Internet age! It is famed sports-blog shouter Will Leitch, who shares his outraged private letter with the world to bring maximum shame: “My first book was reviewed by rangersfan4324. So who are you, tomtom24? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? Your Twitter page says you are from ‘Tehran.’ SO WHY AREN’T YOU SPEAKING IN FARSI?” Oh Will Leitch, are you a victim of the performance-enhancing drugs as well as the Age of Venti Venting?

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on June 30, 2009 11:14 AM

Lost Skills Depository, instructions for mending clothes I started this project as I find mending well-loved clothes satisfying. I also like the idea that it’s a small but defiant act in the face of consumerism. I’d been thinking that now we have entered a recession, more people could be persuaded that mending their old clothes is a good idea, but as few people really know how to sew anymore it would be useful if they could access really simple instructions outlining basic techniques. Available to buy in the CA&D shop during the show. //Click the images to see more of her work// --> CR Blog

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on June 30, 2009 10:41 AM

This post from The Kitchn isn’t about steaming milk in your cafe, but some of the same science applies.

“When milk is heated, the water the starts to evaporate and the other elements become increasingly concentrated. The proteins – casein and whey – also have a tendency to coagulate once the milk reaches a temperature of about 150°”.

Think about that next time you ask for your latte to be made “extra hot”.

More about hot milk in The Kitchn.

Apartment Therapy The Kitchn | Food Science: Why Skin Forms on Milk.

Posted in cafes, training Tagged: science, taste

Originally posted by Mike White from ShotZombies.com, on June 30, 2009 10:29 AM

//Click the image to see more maps at iso50's blog// On a side note unrelated to this post: Scott Hansen of iso50 recently participated in probably the best game of Layer Tennis ever against Jason Koxvold, go see it here. --> Aisle One

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on June 30, 2009 10:09 AM

An item today on Silicon Alley Insider suggesting that this very website is a possible purchase platform for AOL’s growing portfolio of blogs has resulted in a flurry of speculation and what can only be characterized as a number of desperate counter-offers* from companies both large and small who have suddenly realized that our demographics and scalability offer an extremely cost-efficient revenue-positive traffic enhancer in an increasingly fragmented marketspace.

Our corporate structure is set up in such a way that editorial is only privy to negotiations when they achieve top-level status, so I consulted with Senior Head Of Business Development/VP For Content Integration Opportunities David Cho to see what the deal was. Unfortunately he was unavailable, but his away message (“Suck it, bitches! Maybe if you’re nice you can come smoke my crack with Tim Armstrong and all my hos on the bigass yacht I’ll be buying with that sweet AOL money.”) may provide something of a clue.

*The number is 0.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on June 30, 2009 10:08 AM

Statement by Jack Schulze of Schulze and Webb, presented during Matt Web's Reboot talk. >> View talk I don't know if I agree or not, but it's a valid point --> Core77

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on June 30, 2009 9:43 AM

John Nack:

Let me first mention that these Adobe shutdowns are nothing new. I’ve worked here for 9 years, and the company has done the shutdowns off and on throughout that time — at least since ’01 or ’02. I didn’t hear the news of this one and say (as DF does) “Uh-oh.”

He also says (and I’ve heard the same thing privately from a friend who works at Adobe) that there’s no pressure to work through the break. Company-wide vacation.

Update: Company-wide vacation, that is, for Adobe employees with vacation time. For those without vacation time, it’s a company-wide unpaid vacation. Next week, free shit sandwiches in the cafeteria.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on June 30, 2009 9:42 AM

Normally I would say that the best part of this “Early Show” interview with Transformers star Megan Fox is her tongue-in-cheek assessment of the film. “I’m in the movie, and I read the script, and I watched the movie, and I still didn’t know what was happening,” Fox tells Harry Smith. “So I think that if you haven’t read the script, and you go and see it and you understand it, you may be a genius…. This is a movie for geniuses.” But no! The best part of this “Early Show” interview with Transformers star Megan Fox is the way Harry Smith uses his stack of notes to hide what is no doubt a MASSIVE ERECTION. Dude’s got it BAD.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on June 30, 2009 9:30 AM

Excuse me, miss, what's the soup du jour? The Soup of the Day. Mmmm...sounds good, think I'll have that.

via Top Cultured

Originally posted by Liquor Snob from Liquor Snob, on June 30, 2009 7:13 AM

I’m upgrading to WordPress 2.8 today. If all goes well you shouldn’t see this message for more than a few minutes.

Originally posted by jessamyn from librarian.net, on June 30, 2009 7:11 AM

I just discovered autossh, an SSH parent process that automatically reconnects and re-establishes tunnels if they disconnect (and nicely detaches into the background with -f without needing nohup or &).

For easy installation and management, it’s in the Dag Wieers/rpmforge repository for yum and the default repository for MacPorts.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org, on June 30, 2009 6:54 AM

See, I would have gone with “That colored guy looked at me funny!” I guess that’s why Matt’s still the king.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on June 30, 2009 6:27 AM

I put this on Twitter last week while I was trying to figure out how to get permission to post one of these photos. The link got buzzed around really speedily and the photos were everywhere. I figured I’d drop it here for posterity too. Aren’t these trucks great looking? Another neat thing from Johnson County Library System (KS).

Originally posted by jessamyn from librarian.net, on June 30, 2009 6:12 AM

While you were sleeping, from Berlin:

I predict a return to blogging as people discover the power of being able to finish a thought, and to link to another site without going through an intermediary.

I'm not sure "return" is the right word, I think twitter will be gateway to people sharing more on-line (tumblr plays a similar role). 

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on June 30, 2009 5:28 AM

In continuing with my 40 days of Sesame Street, wherein I post awesome Sesame Street videos that showcase the issues we care about at TakePart, I’m going to take inspiration from a recent post we put up called Save Our Teachers and look at the times Sesame Street went to school.

Of course every Sesame Street skit is about education but the times they actually taught kids about what school is and the way school works are some of my favorite. I was able to find quite a few of those skits and post them below.

Grover tries to teach kids what school is in a typically Grover way:

______

Rhyming is fun cool when it’s done at school:

______

Being at school means raising your hand:

______

Chances are there are some teachers in your neighborhood:

______

*photo by Ben+Sam (CC)

Originally posted by blair@takepart.com from TakePart Social Action Network™, on June 30, 2009 5:24 AM

Despite being an avid baseball fan (glances at blog), I rarely tune into Sunday Night Baseball. Part of this often has to do with my indifference towards the teams playing, but a large part must also be related to the fact that I don't want to gouge my own eardrums out listening to the constant barrage of stupidity emanating from Miller, Morgan and Phillips in the box.

However, given that the Yankees and Mets were squaring off two days ago, I figured the least I could do was support the team. Boy, was I in for surprise. Lo and behold, at one point during the game, in talking about David Wright's decreased homer total, noted statistical hater Joe Morgan started discussing Wright's change in approach at the plate, most likely an adaptation to the spacious Citi Field. That is all very Morgan-esque, but what followed certainly was not. I do not have a screencap because I was too much in shock to take a picture of the television, but Morgan actually cited Wright's BABIP.

I know, right! I almost shit my pants too! But let's break this situation down a bit.

The Good

- It is great that ESPN is at least making an effort to bring "advanced" statistics into their broadcasts. For all of their stupid publicity stunts, ESPN always seems willing to pander to its perceived audience. In showing statistics like BABIP, the World Wide Leader may actually be acknowledging the changing demographic in baseball fans wherein more people are willing to use more complicated metrics to truly assess value on the field. As a leader in the sports industry, ESPN is in a unique position to spread this trend to other networks, therby spreading the statistical boners all over.

- Joe Morgan being the messenger. A lot of people listen to the guy, so him presenting the statistics gives them further weight.

The Bad

- Joe Morgan being the messenger. No, I'm not Jimmy Two Times, but this was the part that actually inspired the ironic title of this post. In his discussion of the graphic, Morgan neither accurately defined the concept of BABIP nor did he accurately represent its value as a statistic. In the case of the former, you risk losing "first time" viewers who are wondering what the heck is being show on the TV. This is especially the case for somebody like ESPN (as opposed to this blog, for example) where the "viewer" is not expecting to see that type of content and might get lost as a result. It takes all of two seconds to define what BABIP means and would help with the analysis even more.

The latter problem involves Morgan not interpretting BABIP the correct way. Shocking stuff, I know. What's the use of presenting something to an audience if you're not really giving them the whole story? That'd be like showing a first grade class a picture of Hitler playing with innocent baby seals and not telling them about the rest of the stuff he did. Certainly the children would walk out with a bit of a misguided perspective of Adolf...

In the case of Morgan, he showed that Wright's BABIP, which currently resides at .457, is the highest in all of MLB by a pretty significant margin. That's it. He didn't really say anything else. In fact, it seemed that he was lauding the Mets' 3B for having such a high BABIP, as if this statistic had inherent value. As said, this might have been the most egregious sin when trying to lure the audience towards appreciating statistics. You know some idiot from Queens left that broadcast thinking that Wright hitting .457 on balls in play means he's going to have his best hitting year ever when in all liklihood that number is going to prove to be pretty unsustainable in the long run and indicates that Wright may be on the lucky end of some defensive alignments. But Morgan never even mentioned this and it leaves quite the bitter taste in the mouth of a stat nerd like myself.

So what do you think? Should ESPN bother doing stuff like this if they're just going to get it wrong? Are incidents like these a good thing or simply two steps forward followed by one step back?

Originally posted by J from 3:10 to Joba, on June 30, 2009 5:00 AM

Hey, I could have shown you a cover shot of Japanese Kitchen Knives, but I thought you'd rather see a photo of the craftsman who actually fashioned the very knife pictured on the book's jacket!

Japanese kitchen knives are incredible, precise tools, and I spent countless hours practicing my cutting techniques these last few months training in Japan. I first discovered this book, written by Chef Hiromitsu Nozaki and Kate Klippensteen (check out her Cool Tools, too), while I was in Tokyo, and found it hugely instructive, helping me understand cutting techniques, knife maintenance, and the blades themselves. Kate recently emailed me to say Japanese Kitchen Knives, which I flagged in an post about sharpening, has now been released in America. If you're serious about Japanese cooking, you have to read this book.

I've been very interested in the blacksmiths and sharpeners who shape these blades in Sakai City, the epicenter of this craft, located just outside Osaka. These masters follow age-old traditions to hand-produce traditional Japanese single edged knives. It's incredible how much sweat and effort it takes to make each knife. I wrote about these masters last year (see my story in Salon), and earlier this month I visited Sakai again, where I met more of these amazing artisans. When I mentioned how helpful I found Kate's book, they told me they were the ones who handcrafted the knife on the cover. Incredible.

Originally posted by Harris Salat from The Japanese Food Report, on June 30, 2009 4:40 AM

BuzzMachine | Plain Dealer
Jeff Jarvis has a few things to say about Connie Schultz's "No Free Ride" column, and then she responds in his blog's comments section. Jarvis fires back, telling the Plain Dealer columnist that her argument "is outright dangerous to the First Amendment and the future of journalism."

Originally posted by Jim Romenesko from Romenesko, on June 30, 2009 3:46 AM

NYT: Bringing Flavor Back to the Ham, Harold McGee. Artisanal ham curers are rediscovering old techniques - and livestock breeds - to create American ham that rivals that of Spain and Italy.

European research found that the primeval fall diet of acorns and wild greens provided the ideal mix of fats and antioxidants for dry-cured hams, with the fat approaching the healthful composition of olive oil. Skeptical, Mr. Eckhouse compared hams from pigs fed on acorns, and on corn and soybeans. "It wasn't an instrumental analysis," he said. "I ate them. The differences were much bigger than I expected, especially in texture. The acorn-fed ham was creamy."

(via mamr)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rebecca's Pocket, on June 30, 2009 3:15 AM

Bananas, blueberries, and apples are all pretty standard pancake additions, so why not peaches? Olga at Mango & Tomato stirs cubed ripe peaches and mini chocolate chips into her usual pancake batter. It's pretty hard to look at this picture and not smile.

We're getting into stone fruit season—any other peachy breakfasts out there?

Originally posted by Carey Jones from Serious Eats, on June 30, 2009 3:00 AM

c8- h -10- n4- o2 by gilad davidi






c8- h -10- n4- o2 by gilad davidi


c8- h -10- n4- o2 by gilad davidi

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on June 30, 2009 2:16 AM

authoritative 518-page history of Lucasfilm, the creation of Pixar, and much more [via] 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on June 30, 2009 1:50 AM

Take a look at these 2003 Topps 205 Nick Markakis cards.

Nice pose, great design but something is missing from one of the cards.

Is this a case of Photoshop gone terribly wrong or was it done intentionally?

(thumbnail leads to full-size scan)

Originally posted by Mario A. from Wax Heaven, on June 30, 2009 1:41 AM

This past weekend, understandably, saw countless MJ tribute/ covers emerging all across the Web as various artists, producers and DJ’s scrambled to their respective studios, anxious to pay some sort of musical homage to their idol. And while we promise that this site won’t be housing too many of them, we couldn’t pass up on sharing one of the best of the bunch: The Roots and Erykah Badu’s dazzling rendition of Mike’s 1972 solo hit, “I Wanna Be Where You Are”.

Erykah has pulled off great remakes in the past (highlights from her stellar ‘97 Live album included amazing takes on Mary Jane Girls’ “All Night Long”, Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” and Chaka Khan’s “Stay”), and this gem, recorded prior to her guest appearance on last Friday’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, is no different, raising your spirits to a blissful crest with it’s hypnotizing merging of her expert vocal performance and The Roots’ jazzy support groove.

DL: “I Wanna Be Where You Are” (Michael Jackson Cover)” (alt)

Originally posted by dajo from mixtape maestro (2.0), on June 30, 2009 1:05 AM

This past Saturday, an entire apartment building in Shanghai collapsed. To be fair, the building was under construction and thus unoccupied, but it's still a minor miracle that there was only one fatality.

Sounds like there was a problem with some nearby flood prevention walls at the Dianpu River, but there's no hard evidence as to why this huge building simply fell over. Anyway, here are some sweet pictures of the architectural carnage. [Cellar.org via Twitter]

Originally posted by Dan Nosowitz from Gizmodo, on June 29, 2009 9:30 PM

Uh-oh:

Adobe Systems has shut its North American operations for the week as part of a cost-cutting effort that the company said it will repeat at least once more this year.

This strategy has never made any sense to me. In a manufacturing business — like an auto factory — I get it. But at a software company, shouldn’t every week be a productive week? And I can only guess that on some, if not most, teams, there is subtle (or even not so subtle) pressure to keep working from home on whatever your current project is.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a blog post from John Dowdell explaining how this is a positive sign for the future of Flash.

Update: Apparently this is old news, but it’s still bad news.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on June 29, 2009 7:38 PM

As you see MySQL is doing great in InnoDB performance improvements, so we decided to concentrate more on additional InnoDB features, which will make difference.

Beside ideas I put before http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2009/03/30/my-hot-list-for-next-innodb-features/ (and one of them - moving InnoDB tables between servers are currently under development), we have few mores:

- Stick some InnoDB tables / indexes in buffer pool, or set priority for InnoDB tables. That means tables with bigger priority will be have more chances to stay in buffer pool then tables with lower priority. Link to blueprint https://blueprints.launchpad.net/percona-patches/+spec/lru-priority-patch

- Separate LRU list into several lists, and in this way it will allow us to emulate several buffer pool, with features to keep different tables in different buffer pools and also to decrease contention on buffer pool. Link https://blueprints.launchpad.net/percona-patches/+spec/multiple-lru-patch

- We are looking to include Waffle Grid into XtraDB releases with some additional features like caching buffer pool on SSD.

If ideas are interesting for you and you want to support them, contact us

---

Entry posted by Vadim | No comment

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Originally posted by Vadim from MySQL Performance Blog, on June 29, 2009 7:21 PM

The New Yorker has an iPhone-specific site up. (thx, @level39)

Tags: iPhone   The New Yorker

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on June 29, 2009 6:22 PM

Colin Matthes ALI $27 This print of Muhammad Ali is based off an illustration I completed for an upcoming Justseeds book published by Microcosm Publishing. The text reads, "NO! I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters over the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end, I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here." - Muhammad Ali 2 color-screenprint 25"x19" acid free 100% recycled cover weight paper signed/numbered edition of 97

Originally posted by Colin Matthes from Just Seeds, on June 29, 2009 5:17 PM

My favorite project of the year may be Schwern's perl5i. His goal is to fix as much of Perl 5 in one swoop. Unlike my Modern::Perl, he's not limiting himself to core modules and pragmata. Anything on the CPAN that fixes a deficiency or problem in the language is fair game.

That goal may remind you of the goals of modern Perl.

That means autobox and autobox::Core and signatures and Devel::Declare.

The i stands for imaginary in the same way that the square root of negative one is an imaginary number. (Yes, clever Reddit and OSNews kiddies. It can also stand for "irrational", thus Perl 5 is irrational. Your scathing wit withers discussion. Have a lollipop.)

This is important for several reasons.

First, it's a great, grand experiment to discover what Perl 5 could be right now. It's a great language and you can do amazing things with it, but it has its flaws. What if someone could correct them? Perl 5.10.1 won't fix them. Perl 5.12 probably won't. The DarkPAN is too big and scary to change Perl 5's defaults all even by the time of Perl 5.14 -- but if you choose to use perl5i, presumably you know what you're doing. What would the language look like and how would it work then?

Perhaps some features will make their way into the core.

Second, it's a great, grand opportunity to make sure that all of these new pragmata and features and syntaxes work together nicely. It's much easier to makechanges now -- to discover incompatibilities and subtle infelicities -- when they all get used together. Better yet, the perl5i hackers can file bugs and work with individual distribution maintainers to seek out consensus and compatibility.

Third, it's a great, grand educational tool to demonstrate corners of CPAN that deserve far more popularity than they have. For example, today I suggested the use of the Want module, which fixes a poorly named core keyword and extends it to greater utility. This module may even help the included autobox::Core handle reference contexts appropriately.

Right now it's not stable; it's experimental. It's worth downloading and testing in your own code, however. Write software. See what happens. File bugs. Suggest new features. See what's compatible and what isn't. Explore. Explain. Enjoy.

To help with development, please visit perl5i on GitHub or visit #perl5i on irc.perl.org.

Originally posted by chromatic from Modern Perl Books, a Modern Perl Blog, on June 29, 2009 4:17 PM

British designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau have designed a variety of household robots that feed on innocent pests to generate power — and to last long after their human owners die. And, they look just like furniture.

Auger and Loizeau designed a fly-trapping lamp that can be lit by digesting the insects attracted to its light; a table designed to catch and digest rodents to power its trap door and LED display; a clock that feeds on insects for power; and an art piece designed to attract spiders and recycle their kills. All of the furniture is designed to hill household pests while blending in with one's existing decor. Picutred below is the "lampshade robot," which emulates the killing methods of the pitcher plant. Bugs are lured into its illuminated interior, then consumed for fuel that keeps the lamp lit.

Other designs include flypaper on a conveyor belt that powers a clock (above), and a coffee table that eats pests that land on its surface.

Not satisfied to just kill pests, Auger has a larger goal. He tells New Scientist:

Although, for now, the robots rely on mains power, Auger believes they could become truly self-sufficient. "If the system fails, the grid goes down and all humans die, these robots could go on living so long as the flies don't go with us."

That's right: Auger designed his robots to go on long after we go off the grid by continuing to feed on whatever flesh can power its fuel cell. That seems like an excellent plan.

Domestic Robots With A Taste For Flesh [New Scientist]

Originally posted by Megan from io9, on June 29, 2009 1:36 PM

A couple of Banksy's graffiti works around his hometown of Bristol got paintballed last week.  I read through the whole BBC article and was about to click off when I thought, wait a minute.... And I went back and reread this:

Businessman Albert Murphy, Conservative councillor for Avonmouth, said he was using his own cherry picker to clean the Park Street work.

"The council won't do it because they haven't got the facilities to do it and we have.

"We're going to remove the biodegradable paint first and then it can be cleaned off with soapy water and then we'll start on the picture.

"I'll do it myself, there's no cost to the council whatsoever."

Businessman Albert Murphy, offering to clean up a graffiti artist's mural?  A Conservative councillor, agreeing to pay for the clean-up out of his own pocket?  I knew that the people (and the council) of Bristol had embraced his work, but that's really something.

Originally posted by Valarie Smith from Crazed Teacups, on June 29, 2009 12:13 PM

                    

                    

There was an amazing rainbow over Brooklyn yesterday, and everyone was out taking pictures of it. See more images of the rainbow by doing an Advanced Search for brooklyn rainbow, uploaded before June 29, 2009, sorted by most recent.

Photos from jetty., 13thWitness, circle sixty, jen (pluie latéralement), Danon’. [Live ... ou presque ... from the US!], Chris Shiflett, JimmyOKelly, MariaTeresaCB, RICHBRAT, AlbertoVargas26, Peter McCarthy, and simply photo.

Originally posted by Zack Sheppard from Flickr Blog, on June 29, 2009 10:40 AM

Neven Mrgan: Birdfeed is “as uncluttered as a Scandinavian rumpus room.”

And it is, as they say, a very nice Twitter client.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from ranchero.com, on June 29, 2009 8:56 AM

When the sell sheets for 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter first hit the Internet many questioned Topps’ decision to include Bernie Madoff in the set. Sure, he was to be featured in the subset, ‘World’s Biggest Hoaxes, Hoodwinks, & Bamboozles’ but even then it was a strange choice.

Either way, Topps removed the Madoff card from ‘09 Allen & Ginter and it was just announced that Bernie would be spending the rest of his life in prison. Well, that is unless he lives to be 221 years of age. Either way, the real Madoff is finished but what about his trading card?

What if this card were to accidentally make it into a few packs? It could be the biggest short print ever released and a much better idea than 2008’s ridiculous upside down cards that made it into packs of their flagship brand and whatever the heck Topps did with this year’s Heritage release.

(click on the thumbnail for a full-size mock up)

Originally posted by Mario A. from Wax Heaven, on June 29, 2009 8:48 AM

Even as a Yankees hater, it’s hard not to like Mariano Rivera. Unlike some of his most famous past and present teammates, Rivera comes with no baggage. By the time he hangs up his cleats he will likely go down as the greatest, most-dominant closer baseball has ever seen.

With 500 career saves out of the way, a feat only accomplished once before, it is now time to focus on Mariano’s rookie card. It of course comes from 1992’s Bowman and features Rivera three full years before making it to The Show. As you can see from the scan below, Rivera has not filled up much since then.

If this weird Bowman release is not up your alley you can always go with the much-nicer looking yet less desirable 1992 Fleer ProCards. While it doesn’t carry the weight of Bowman, it’s a must-have for any Rivera collector.

With no certified autograph or game-used relic option, it’s good to see the old school side of The Hobby getting some much deserved attention. Now, if you still require a little flash then 1996’s Leaf Signature is the way to go, considering it’s Rivera’s first certified autograph.

Did I mention it’s on-card?

Originally posted by Mario A. from Wax Heaven, on June 29, 2009 8:01 AM

Image: New York Times.

This image of Fifth Avenue unearthed by the Times' Jennifer 8. Lee (nice headline!) is a fascinating relic from the dawn of the motoring age. The new geometry pictured here nicked 15 feet of sidewalk from pedestrians to make room for two traffic lanes. In one fell swoop, the balance of space shifted dramatically: Two 30-foot sidewalks and a 40-foot roadway became 22½-foot sidewalks and a 55-foot roadway. The insets show the sort of "imperfections" slated for elimination on the auto-friendly Fifth Avenue: terraces, stoops, gardens -- the type of amenities that make streets more than simply thoroughfares to pass through.

Which got me wondering: A hundred years from now, how will we interpret images like this?

Photo: jblough/Flickr

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog New York City, on June 29, 2009 7:53 AM

BLIND ITEM:

What notoriously snooty beauty and her identically-snooty twin, usually the bestest of friends, were seen giving each other the VERY cold shoulder this last week? Could it have anything to do with a certain Hollywood playboy who, when put to the (romantic) test, couldn't tell them apart? We heard that the playboy, when confronted, suggested that if you can't beat 'em, maybe you should join 'em ... and our sources say one sister said YES and the other said NO!

[Pattern is from Sandritocat, who is having a one-day sale day sale tomorrow (Tuesday, June 30th). She's offering 20% off and she'll combine with her free shipping offers. Use the code "DressaDay20%off" -- and you can either pay through PayPal and get a refund, or you can wait for a revised invoice. And even though the sale officially starts tomorrow, Sandra said you can go ahead and start shopping today, if you like.]

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on June 29, 2009 5:56 AM

I love books, the feel of them, the way they are made, how the spines bend and crack, and all of the amazing ideas and images that can fly out of them when opened. But there is some serious trouble brewing in the book industry. The problems are part current economic meltdown, but even more so they seem to be part byzantine, inane and ass backwards corporate models of publishing, distribution and retail. There is also the rising cost of printing and shipping, the collapse of independent bookshops, and the specter of everything turning digital. So, I'm seriously concerned about the future of these things I love.

All my friends involved in independent book shops seem to be deeply struggling. Some are no longer paying themselves, others are going out of business. Bluestockings, a worker-owned, largely volunteer-run bookstore in New York City, has an amazing community that has developed out of it, yet is struggling to survive. Every time I stop by there are lots of people in there, and even people buying books, but it is still a huge struggle to pay the rent. When I moved to Chicago back in 1997, there were a couple dozen used bookstores on the Northside of the city, many of which I frequented, or at least checked into once in awhile. When I moved from Chicago in 2005, there were maybe 5 left, if that. I travel a lot, on tours, tabling at events, going to conferences or speaking gigs, and in most cities I have favorite bookstores. Increasingly I go back to cities and find these bookstores gone. These spaces are not simply locations to find entertaining and/or important books, but are social spaces, locations to meet people and talk about ideas. In Europe there is a healthy social centre scene, but in the US these bookstores and infoshops are all we've got. Now is the time to support your local bookstores!!

Libraries appear to be finding themselves in similar situations. Shrinking budgets, static space, and increasing publishing schedules mean that libraries need to sacrifice

old books for new. Every Sunday night is trash night by my studio, and the local library regularly has a stack of books out to be recycled. Even some university libraries are selling off huge chunks of their collections....

Increasingly large publishers are attempting to run their houses like giant media conglomerates (which many are owned by), signing "superstar" acts, throwing all their promotion behind one or two products, and hoping for bestselling books just like record companies hope for pop hits. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) most people don't read the same way they listen to music or watch tv, and most of the books people truly love or cherish would never have been published if it was assumed they had to become instantaneous hits to be worth putting out in the world. Ursula Le Guin wrote a great essay that explores this much more deeply and powerfully than I can in this blog post: "Staying Awake" was published by Harper's last year, and can be read online here. It's well worth the read.

With regards to the move to digital, and e-books, I'm hardly convinced by the hype. For one, most of the books I love are not simply words on pages, but are designed, full of images, and are unique and interesting objects. This simply can't be captured on a tiny screen. Art always looks bad online, and I see no evidence that the same isn't true and won't continue to be true for e-book readers. People hold up the promise of "saving the trees," but as my partner Dara says, there's little evidence that the server farms necessary to maintain all the data for every book in the world will do any less damage to the planet than the printing of the books. In fact, there's early evidence that the miles and miles of server farms needed to hold all our ideas digitally might do more damage (via energy use, toxic chemicals, mineral extraction) than the potentially well stewarded forests needed to keep printing books.

All of this is a long way of saying that books as we know them are in dire straits. I think they are important enough to save, and I think we all can do are small part to at least salvage the publishers and books we think are important. A number of small, independent, and political publishers have started subscription programs for their books. They may at first seem slightly strange, but in many ways they are like the Community Supported Agriculture programs that have become some popular over the past decade. A reader pays a monthly or yearly rate, and receives every book that publisher puts out. For me, there are a number of publisher who put out dozens of books I at least want to read each year (even if I never have the time to read them all). Here are some links to these programs for four different publishers. If you can spare any money at all, help me save books!!!!

Friends of PM Press
Friends of AK Press
South End Press Community Supported Publishing
Microcosm's Buddy System

(Thanks to Ramsey at PM for helping develop some of these ideas, and always pushing people to think in new ways about what they do)

Originally posted by Josh M. from Just Seeds: Blog, on June 29, 2009 4:35 AM

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on June 29, 2009 4:33 AM

In 1998, the Web Standards Project (WaSP) opened its doors with the rallying cry "to hell with bad browsers". Their goal was support for W3C web standards with the aim of preventing development costs from skyrocketing as the major browser makers of the time (Netscape and Microsoft) split the public with two diverging products.

One of the core arguments made by standards advocates focused on accessibility requirements, in particular the design of web pages that were available to blind users with screen reader software. Use semantic markup in place of layout tables, single-pixel image shims and GIF text, and what you write will be readable by everyone. I remember making this argument at the web design company I worked out fresh out of college, and it was always a bit of a hard sell even to myself. I didn't quite believe in the legions of blind users out in the world struggling to access my rave flyer portfolio through Jaws, and after a while it all took on a sense of righteousness-for-its-own sake, purity in the face of ugly real-world commercial requirements.

Fast-forward ten years, and I'm now using all those accessibility features on a daily basis. At some point during the dot-com bust it turned out that the written word was the payload, and regular people started using alternative browsing devices to access text from the web. Arguments about device-independent, semantic markup and graceful degradation suddenly have an additional halo of legitimacy because they affect everyone.

I recently bought a Kindle, and I'm again thankful for the past decade's vogue for separation of style and content. I'm pleasantly surprised by the dissolution of technology into behavior, with my "read later" Instapaper bookmarklet that time- and space-shifts all the usual tl;dr's into BART-compatible slugs of pure text on a reflective screen. Meanwhile Arc90 Lab has produced Readability, the browser bookmarklet designed to suss out usable signal from "all the insanity that surrounds the content we're trying to read". All those years of making half-hearted arguments for disabled visitors are paying off in usable content for everyone else. I read more now, and more effectively. Talented web designers are arguing for the abandonment of old technology that shackles content to form.

The web is the best thing that ever happened to reading.

There's one area that's lagging, and it's PDF. I love reading academic papers, but they're generally set in a two column skeuomorph form that's hell on Amazon's PDF-to-Kindle conversion feature. The text comes out interleaved, with a line from the left column followed by a line from the right column, repeat. Amazon does OCR on bitmapped PDF's, but they can't yet figure out this dinosaur format.

I'm looking forward to the day I can bundle everything off to Instapaper and the Kindle for later digestion. I'd love to see this last print-dependent content form liberated from uselessness.

Comments

Originally posted by (author unknown) from tecznotes, on June 28, 2009 9:56 PM

A couple of weeks ago Liz and I had the pleasure of speaking at LIFT+Fing France, a great conference about technology, design, society and the future. The lineup was fantastic and both the in-band and out-of-band conversations were great. I would not have predicted ahead of time that I'd end up discussing crowdsourcing techno-anarchist eco revolutions, but there we were and it wasn't even that many glasses of pastis in. ;-) My short talk focused on how Lawrence Lessig's concept of read-write culture applies to the computer-driven making of physical things, rather than just media, and how this has the potential to change our relationship to objects. The end of Read-Only material culture, as I mark it, began in 1985, with the release of the Apple LaserWriter, which was the first mass market device that merged the flexibility of bits with the tangibility of atoms. It could provide the precision and control of Industrial Revolution tools, with the flexibility of pre-Industrial Revolution techniques. It did this by making the instructions, the code, the knowledge for every part of the finished product changeable, while the end result was completely consistent. Now, someone can buy the tool, have it produce great...

Originally posted by mikek from Orange Cone, on June 28, 2009 9:24 PM

At a hearing on Capitol Hill in May, James Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told Congress about negotiations he’d just had with the online retailer Amazon. The idea was to license his newspaper’s content to the Kindle, Amazon’s new electronic reader. “They want seventy per cent of . . .

Originally posted by Malcolm Gladwell from The New Yorker, on June 28, 2009 8:00 PM

Astana's Chris Horner,
originally uploaded by Frank Steele.

Like a lot of folks, I was surprised to see Chris Horner left off the Astana Tour squad, but I completely understand why Johan Bruyneel did it. Certainly, after publicizing his desire to get out of his contract and race the Tour with another team (despite 2+ months of racing season still to come after the Tour), I wouldn't look for Horner back with Astana next year. Of course, given the financials, it doesn't look like anyone will be riding for Astana next year.

Bruyneel's made a career (as rider and DS) out of playing the percentages, and the percentage in the hand that he's got is to ride Contador to a 4th Grand Tour title (VeloNews story shows gamblers agree). There are plenty of teams that would let a rider with his pedigree and palmares stack the team with those teammates he feels give him the best chance at wearing yellow in Paris. If the Garmin rumor is true, Jonathan Vaughters was going to sign not just Paulinho but also Noval to support Contador.

You could make an argument that it's not Paulinho's selection that left Horner out in the cold, but Muravyev's, or even Armstrong's, both of which are for political reasons. Muravyev is a hat tip to the team's Kakakh registry, while Armstrong is here for the publicity and excitement he brings to the team's coverage, and in recognition of his enormous place in cycling history.

A bigger question, though, is “What's Armstrong riding for?” I don't know exactly what his goals are for this Tour, but I don't think he will be riding for the overall win. Certainly, he's showing up in great condition, and as a competitor, he's got to believe that he could win, if certain things happen on the road. But this Tour lines up better for the climbers than the TT men, and Contador has shown he's an extraordinary climber. That said, I have a hard time believing Armstrong will be happy carrying bottles for anyone, even the 2009 Tour winner. So what could Astana carve out that would satisfy both Contador and Armstrong?

Other than the maillot jaune, the only other jersey that Armstrong could reasonably contend for is the polka-dot jersey, but no sane team is going to let Armstrong ride off on a multi-peak points hunt, unless he's already down by tens of minutes, and that's how recent maillots pois have been won.

Armstrong certainly could find himself in position to chase stage wins, and there are even a couple of stages that might further polish Armstrong's reputation. Most obvious is Stage 20 up Mont Ventoux on the penultimate day of the Tour, which looks like the biggest stage of this year's Tour. As the marquee stage, there will be a lot of riders eyeing this one, and my guess is it will go to somebody who's more of a pure climber than Armstrong, like Andy Schleck, Robert Gesink, or Carlos Sastre, depending on the race situation. Armstrong himself, though, has expressed his regrets over Mont Ventoux, where he feels he “gifted” Marco Pantani a stage in 2000, and where he was beaten by Richard Virenque in 2002. “I left unfinished business there,” he told Versus.

Armstrong on Brasstown Bald, 2004,
originally uploaded by Frank Steele.

So, sure, maybe Armstrong's got a circle around Stage 20 on his calendar, but I think his presence here is more about the other half of the “Contador to Garmin” rumor: The 2010 Livestrong-Nike team. Presumably, Johan Bruyneel will be trying to match his UCI license to a sponsor after this season, and Livestrong and Nike are already close partners, with a new “It's About You” ad campaign that launched over the weekend and events planned in conjunction with the Tour. Would Armstrong be the uncontested leader on the road of that team, or did he come out of retirement to launch it with maximum fanfare, after which he'll return to retirement? We'll all know soon enough.

Armstrong spent today pre-riding Stage 16 (and here's video -- note that he's training in Livestrong gear, not Astana), one of 6 stages he's pre-riding.

So what do you think? What's Armstrong looking to take away from this Tour? You can comment here, or on Twitter, where I'm @TdFblog.

Also:

Cyclocosm | Astana's Tour Selection is a Ticking Bomb

Spelling out the worst-case scenario for Astana: a T-Mobile like glut of teammates riding for the win, domestiques who will only ride for “their guy”, dogs and cats living together, etc. Should be an interesting three weeks.

Originally posted by Frank Steele from Tour de France 2009, on June 28, 2009 6:35 PM

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on June 28, 2009 5:38 PM

Gonna Be Startin Something: The One Michael Jackson Article You Have To Read. You know what? Yeah, maybe. See also: What Is Your Favorite Michael Jackson Song? “Billie Jean” is winning in the NYT poll.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fimoculous, on June 28, 2009 4:31 PM

Kindle Sticks: Fast Company’s 4,400-word story on The Kindle is actually worth it, because it wanders into scenarios about how publishing might play out.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fimoculous, on June 28, 2009 4:31 PM

Chipotle pork cheeseburger, from gourmet.com

This--a chipotle pork cheeseburger--is what I'm going to eat tonight. We have leftover chipotles in adobo, and I bought some ground pork at the farmers market, and I made some mayonnaise, &c. I'm excited about this [1].

[1] Less so by the glass of water, though.

Originally posted by btrott from Stupidfool.org, on June 28, 2009 3:42 PM

A Spiral of Michael Jackson faces through the years. Notcot is about the best weblog going right now. You should subscribe.

Originally posted by torrez from Andre's Notes, on June 28, 2009 2:47 PM

According to at least one published report, the Phillies are expected to promote IronPigs right-hander Carlos Carrasco to start Thursday's game in Atlanta, filling the void created by the temporary absence of Antonio Bastardo. But according to a source within...

Originally posted by Nick Fierro from Lehigh Valley IronPigs - lehighvalleylive.com, on June 28, 2009 1:16 PM

Danish artist and environmentalist Tue Greenfort's photo series, Daimlerstrasse 38 lured foxes living in the industrial area in eastern Frankfurt with frankfurter sausages towards a hidden camera continue

Originally posted by Regine from we make money not art, on June 28, 2009 11:12 AM

Originally posted by Aurea Mediocritas from Aurea Mediocritas, on June 28, 2009 9:37 AM