randomwalks/dj

The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. You may know them from such projects as How to build a fake Google Street View car, public domain donor stickers, internet famous class, the first rap video to end with a download source code link, or their numerous firefox add-ons (such as China Channel, Tourettes Machine, or Back to the future). FAT members have been hard at work standardizing various open source graffiti-related software packages, including Graffiti Analysis, Laser Tag, Fat Tag Deluxe and EyeWriter [previously] to be GML (Graffiti Markup Language) compliant. Fuck Google. Fuck Twitter. FuckFlickr. Fuck SXSW. Fuck 3D. FAT Lab is Kanye shades for the open source movement.

Originally posted by finite from MetaFilter posts tagged with copyright, on March 13, 2010 10:00 PM

By Curtis Jewell

You may have heard about a new and larger Perl distribution for Windows called "Strawberry Perl Professional". The idea behind it was known as "Chocolate Perl". You may have heard that name, too. What does that mean for Strawberry Perl for Windows, and for Perl in general?

Don't worry, Strawberry Perl will still be maintained. In fact, Strawberry Perl Professional would not be possible without Strawberry Perl as it has been for the past few years, and is directly installable on top of Strawberry Perl. The ideas behind Strawberry Perl and Strawberry Perl Professional overlap, but are subtly different.

Strawberry Perl is made for the "intermediate-to-expert" Perl programmer (although even newbies can use it), who is likely to be coming over from Unix and is needing to write Perl scripts and modules in the Windows environment. The goal is to be as close to the Perl experience on Unix as possible, and with a minimum of problems, while still staying native to Windows.

The goals of the modules that Strawberry Perl includes, therefore, are:

1. To be able to install other Perl modules easier, whether from CPAN, from .par files, or .ppm files.
2. To include hard-to-install modules (the databases, and the cryptographic toolchain).

Strawberry Perl Professional is made for the Perl programmer of any (or even no) experience writing Perl in or for the Windows environment, and includes in addition:

1. Modules that significant segments of the Perl community use on a regular basis (BioPerl, Catalyst.)
2. Modules that help improve the quality and readability of the Perl code being written, and make releasing Perl programs and modules easier.
3. Graphical programs to assist in maintenance and debugging of Perl code, viewing Perl documentation, and installing Perl modules.

To this end, Strawberry Perl Professional includes Padre as an IDE, and also includes a graphical CPANPLUS shell and Plain Old Documentation viewer. It also includes most of the modules in Task::Kensho, and more links to websites for the Perl community, especially relating to the installed modules, and introductions to programming Perl.

If you want to test out the first alpha version of Strawberry Perl Professional, read the announcement (so you know what you're getting into) and then go to the Strawberry Perl beta page and download and install it. Suggestions for improvements, and bug fixes to the component modules, are certainly welcome - I've already been given quite a few.

Curtis Jewell has been helping build and write Strawberry Perl for Windows for the past year, and also reports bugs and sends patches to other Perl projects.

Originally posted by Andy Lester from Perlbuzz, on March 13, 2010 6:38 PM

26 Days...

Originally posted by Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks Archive, on March 13, 2010 8:25 AM

“If we had to pay regular fees to become a developer, use only Apple-provided tools, and could release only approved software through an Apple store, things like the Processing project would not have happened. I can definitively say that any success that I’ve had has come from the ability to create what I want, the way that I want, and to be able to distribute it as I see fit, usually over the internet.”

- Ben Fry, On needing approval for what we create

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Coderspiel, on March 13, 2010 5:42 AM

Google Chrome is a great new browser from Google for Mac, Windows and Linux. The TypePad team loves it because it's speedy, stable and has a bunch of great features that are great for bloggers. If you're a Google Chrome user, we've made it easy for you to blog from Chrome, by making Blog It available as a Google Chrome Extension. You can install the extension with one click from the Google Chrome Extensions gallery, and once you do you'll have a TypePad icon in your browser toolbar, which acts just like the Blog It Bookmarklet.

via everything.typepad.com

I've been a faithful Safari user for years, now, and until this week, I'd resisted the advances of Chrome, aside from one or two attempts to use it before it was in beta.

But yesterday, I decided to mix it up, people! I'm a Chrome user now, for the next six days; and if I like it, I'll probably stay a Chrome user.

First impression: it's really good. And as a bonus, it supports Blog It as an extension, which is a huge bonus for me, since something like 95% of my posts--like this one--are composed using Blog It.

Originally posted by btrott from Stupidfool.org, on March 12, 2010 7:13 PM

Watching The Heavy's much-linked performance on Letterman, all I could think of was Robert Smigel's version of Lorne Michaels screaming "Noooooo!!! This needs to be on myyyy shooooooooooooooowwwwww!!!!"

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 12, 2010 3:59 PM

This visualization represents a year in color (summer is at the top, winter at the bottom).

The images were taken of the Boston Common, courtesy of Flickr.

Tags: color   Flickr   infoviz   photos

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 12, 2010 12:59 PM

In the spirit of our recent post about Harmony – the beautiful html5 drawing tool – comes flame. Another online drawing toy that lets you draw with a brush of flames. You pick the colour and brush size.

---

Posted by Matt Forsythe on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | One comment
Tags: Drawing, flames, How-To, online toys, websites

Originally posted by Matt Forsythe from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on March 12, 2010 12:29 PM

In our age of oversharing on the Internet, it was only a matter of time before people started looking to the same kinds of tools they use to connect with each other people to try to find ways to disconnect when those same people get to be a little… much. I couldn’t help noticing two of those tools get a little attention yesterday, just in time for SXSW: 

Avoidr hilariously uses the Foursquare API to secretly designate some of your Foursquare friends as people to avoid, and warns you of there whereabouts so you can stay away. I don’t have a lot of use for something like that in my life — I’m only Foursquare friends with people I’d be really happy to have join me, like Kenyatta — but I could see people younger than me, who might be connected to friends and roommates they secretly can’t stand, exes, etc., finding this kind of useful. And the site crashed yesterday from too much traffic, so I think they hit a nerve.

Meanwhile, if there’s someone you follow on Twitter that you normally love, but they’re in the middle of something they can’t shut up about (SXSW, Olympic figure skating, The World Series, a really awesome vacation, etc.), Mutetweets gives you a temporary mute button, allowing you to unfollow them for a set period of time, then automatically add them back when the period’s over. I’ve long thought this should be a core Twitter feature, and that you should be able to mute a person without them even knowing, but until then, here’s the next best thing. 

Looks like the beginning of a trend to me. What other apps are you all seeing out there that might qualify as antisocial media? (Answer over at the nextnewblog.)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from shey.net reblog, on March 12, 2010 11:43 AM

Shared by lschmeiser
The next time someone starts in on the "Poor people are fat because they're ignorant, not because it's cheaper to eat poorly!" bullshit, direct them to this.

This is also why you're fat. A graph of inflation-adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows how the prices of different food and beverages has changed over the past three decades. The price of crap food over the past 30 years has dropped. At the same time, the food you used to try to hide in your glass of milk has gotten steadily more expensive. No wonder the average man in his 60's is 25 lbs heavier than he was in the late 70's. Hey, govmnt, how about shifting some of those corn and soybean subsidies over to produce growers?

NYT:

Unhealthful foods, with the exceptions of cookies (the blue line), have gotten a lot cheaper. Relative to the price of everything else in the economy, sodas (the orange line) are 33 percent cheaper than they were in 1978. Butter (dark brown) is 29 percent cheaper. Beer (gray) is 15 percent cheaper.

Fish (the yellow line), by contrast, is 2 percent more expensive. Vegetables (purple) are 41 percent more expensive. Fruits (green) are 46 percent more expensive.

The price of oranges, to take one extreme example (not shown in the chart), has more than doubled, relative to everything else. So if in 1978, a bag of oranges cost the same as one big bottle of soda, today that bag costs the same as three big bottles of soda.

What’s Wrong With This Chart? [NYT Economix Blog]
PREVIOUSLY: Why A Salad Costs More Than A Big Mac

Originally posted by (author unknown) from The Consumerist, on March 12, 2010 11:04 AM

Over the course of their lives, salmon are known first as alevins and then fry, parr, smolts, grilse, and finally kelt.

'Smolt', 'grilse': as Richard Shelton observes, salmon are spoken of in a 'stained-glass language' of their own, their life stages marked by an ichthyological lexicon unchanged since Chaucer's time. Born in a 'redd', a shallow, gravel-covered depression dug by the female in the days before spawning, newly hatched salmon begin life as 'alevins', tiny, buoyant creatures with their yolk sacs still attached.

Tags: language

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 12, 2010 10:00 AM

Filed under: iPad

Much as I love AT&T's prepaid services, their interactive system for purchasing feature packages... well, it kind of sucks. I can't count the number of hours I have spent on their 611 purchase line trying to get the chirpy fake human at the other end (no, seriously, the robot is very cheerful and upbeat) to properly confirm my correct order.

With the help of human operators (who cannot, by the way, actually effect the purchase), I have a cheat sheet that sits next to my computer and gets updated as they change their menu system: sometimes you have to say "yes". Sometimes you have to say "buy it". It's all a bit of a mess.

So when I read through Apple's updated iPad 3G page, I was delighted to see that you can add your prepaid 3G feature packages from the iPad without ever having to speak to chirpy fake humans. It's all done from the padtop. And that, let me say, is marvelous.
No, you won't be able to use AT&T prepaid cards, which is a pity. I'd rather enter a card number onto my iPad when sitting at an airport, for example, than my personal credit card information (thank you, AT&T, not), and you have to sign up for recurring plans (see the screenshot), but it looks like it's going to be a way better and friendlier experience than my 611 nightmares.

One of the great things about the 250 MB limited plan is that you'll be warned about how much of your data you've used. Apple's writeup states, "[iPad] will even let you know when you're running out [of data]. You'll get three alerts as you near your 250MB limit -- at 20 percent, 10 percent, and zero." At that time, you can add more data (in 250 MB increments) or upgrade to "unlimited" (likely capped at 5GB) for the forseeable future. There is no option for "oops, I underestimated my needs, can I just pay the remaining difference and hop onto the unlimited plan just for this month," so keep that in mind as well.

There's a big old "Cancel Plan" button that you can tap at any time that will get you out of any further purchases. Being a pre-paid AT&T plan, there's pretty much a zero percent chance that you'll get any refunds on unused services, so watch your calendar carefully while living in auto-renew-land. It's unclear if Cancel Plan simply cancels any future autorenewals, leaving you with any remaining data credited to your account for the month (my personal guess, and the norm for prepaid feature plans) or whether it cancels all services immediately.

Apple's write-up indicates that your device can automatically take advantage of Wi-Fi connections when they are available, in places like Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, which offer free Wi-Fi for anyone who has signed up for an AT&T data plan. That's going to be another way to stretch your data if you opt for the 250MB plan.

TUAWiPad 101: Managing your 3G data plans originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Erica Sadun from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on March 12, 2010 10:00 AM

We at VAIN don’t mind admitting when we’re obsessed (Kevin Murphy hair products, anyone?), and Lady Gaga + Beyonce’s new “Telephone” video has got us there. Bright yellow curls! Pop-can rollers! Cigarette shades against a platinum updo! Beyonce’s bangs! A TELEPHONE MADE OUT OF HAIR! In the words of one of our stylists, it’s like a “visual hair orgasm.” Agreed. We’re speechless.

Check it out:

Originally posted by Rebecca P. from VAIN Blog, on March 12, 2010 9:40 AM

Natasha: Can I ask you something?

Choire: Yes!

Natasha: Do you 'get it'?

Natasha: Like Gaga overall.

Choire: I *largely* get it. I mean, obviously I groove on the, I guess, excitement level? And I don't despise the music, although it's remarkably unremarkable. But I get it!

Natasha: Good! Let's talk about this videeeeoo.

Choire: You mean: the night the Internet exploded?

Natasha: The night of broken Internet glass. Did it shock you?!

Choire: Part of the excitement with this Important Short Film was that everyone was sort of group-excited? Like pockets of Twitter were going "kablammo" and definitely all of Tumblr that wasn't talking about racism was like "UM TELEPHONE"?

Natasha: Which in itself is pretty mind-swaying is as how this is over a MUSIC VIDEO–a medium which was sacrificed largely by its maker

Choire: And not one made by actual prisoners in the Philippines or whatever. There's one thing that happened last night.

Choire:

Tom Scocca: I have not even watched.
Choire: Is a Tarantino pastiche mostly?
Tom Scocca: So… pastiche pastiche?

Choire: Which: right. So can we start with talking about Tarantino??? Who you and I are both largely on the same page about which is: yes please, QT.

Natasha: So a Tarantino pastiche–about ladies.

Choire: Right, the lady element is key. And I do wonder why the video is sort of like way more than just a tribute to Tarantino??

Natasha: So you have the pussy wagon, the girls bent on vengance, the kind of altered state feel of the whole thing a-la- Natural Born Killers–

Choire: Um and you have the HAIRDO on Beyonce from Death Proof, etc. On and on.

Natasha: Tarantino visuals are kind of a lingua franca to the youth organically.

Choire: Because your generation grew up all on him?

Natasha: Yep exactly. But what I think offsets everything, in a good way, is the LADYNESS of it.

Choire: Yes! That's what's I love and also what takes us back to Madonna again.

Natasha: She resonates with the ladies so furrriously. I think that it's largely because she comes out of theater instead of being a recording artist. The one way to snap your audience awake is by being grotesque. In the traditional sense of the term. Outrageous and over the top. Transgressive. And speaking of trans!

Natasha: The girl on girl trope is so tired but here we have here surrounded by surly dykes, leathery cholas, and forbidding black ladies. So here's where it gets transgressive because unlike say Madge, who leaned over and kissed Britney on a "GEE ARENT ME NAUGHTY" trip.

Choire: Well, you know, I *just* looked through Madonna's 1992 "Sex" book the other day. Because we found the opened and the unopened copies in the back of the closet. (Which: LOL, gays!)

Natasha: Were you scandalized?

Choire: Oh America came to a standstill back in 1992. I mean it was on the TV and stuff and there was "shock."

Natasha: Tell me what is was like the Before Time, Pa.

Choire: Well, you must not forget that people were enraged about "Beavis and Butthead."

Natasha: How do the "Sex" and "Telephone" compare in terms of visuals?

Choire: A WHOLE LOT of the imagery we're seeing in today's Very Important Video is not that different? Weird race spectre stuff, lesbian hot making-out, bondage, etc. etc. The thing I like more about the Gaga video is the color super-saturation and the timely updates. Also the Steven Meisel stuff in the "Sex" book was all very "arty"? Like, post Bruce Weber arty? Which didn't age particularly well. And "Telephone" might not age well but it does look very NOW. And it's more camp and outrageous and jokey, I mean, SMOLDERING CIGARETTE EYEGLASSES, which, I am still LOLing. The Madonna book was sometimes humorous but it was never like "HA HA SUCKA!"

Natasha: Yeah, what the Video definitely had was our Black President calls the fierce urgency of NOW-WOW! To it. I'd also say that while "Sex" was a scandal it was all highbrow.

Choire: Oh yes. It was Very Upscale.

Natasha: Like it was, here's a serious art piece libertine adults could put on the coffee table. Where as this is sticky crude pop–in the tradition of Tarantino. Like YAAAAYYYYY GET CRZYYY ON YOUR (VIRGIN MOBILE) TELEPHONE!! Let's talk about GaGa as a sex symbol. Because I think that's what makes her so important that she 1) actually does something different 2) and what she does is scary and exciting.

Choire: You know, Madonna spent most of the early 90s dealing with her trademark. She tried to get Club Madonna, the famous strip club in Miami Beach, to change its name; when she started Maverick Records, she paid a band called The Mavericks $25,000 for the name; she got into it with Madonna Jewelers for the trademark of the name. And I cannot EVER see Gaga being involved in something like that? She seems more like a cult leader than a business entity, and that's where Gaga is more interesting to me (despite maybe being a worse musician???) and what keeps her scary and funny and fun.

Natasha: Yeah. Her music is unremarkable. Except it is perfect dancing in your bedroom music for girls. Which is something we all do.

Choire: Sure we do! Look, that product is EAR CANDY. What's amazing though is that if you listen to Britney Spears' last two records, the production is radically more inventive and challenging than Gaga? And yet Britney is dullsville.

Natasha: This is where I think the theater thing matters. She's a performer first. Not a PR construct. Also, there is so much more honesty in GaGa's game.

Choire: Well she's her own construct. And sure, from Day One: Fame Monster, hello. Wait, can I tell you my fave thing about the video? Speaking of transgression? It's from the director's Wikipedia page: "Jonas Åkerlund was a Masonic member of the Swedish black metal band Bathory from 1983 through 1984 and openly worships Satan."

Natasha: You see, people take the Viking Metal Genre for granted. It's at their own peril.

Choire: FOR REAL.

Natasha: I think the reason why people, espesh, ladies of their mid twenties, are excited about Gaga as much as they are…

Choire: TELL ME ABOUT THE YOUNGS.

Natasha: …is that we matured during the Britney Days.

Choire: Oh, because you were all raised on crap and Nickelback!

Natasha: Madge was already brittle and creepy and a fading icon.

Choire: Whereas we had Kate Bush.

Natasha: Snd so here comes Gaga who has the kind of shamelessness of a reality tv star. In the sense that she's like "BOOM. MAKE ME FAMOUS." Which seemed a taboo thing in the before Britney? Who was like, "I just love to sing yall (covered in oil, grinding on a giant snake." And not only that but instead of the virgin slut bullshit.

Choire: I guess at least you guys had Tori Amos. But right. None of the "girls" in your time were allowed to be like, MAKE WAY BITCHES. Or be like, "I'm a horny lady!"

Natasha: We get the pain/pleasure. scary / twisted. And Tori was for Wiccans at my high school.There was Garbage and Manson. But every one was trying to hard to build their brand on shock or being an outsider. The triumph of GaGa is how mainstream she is.

Choire: The time now was right. And that stuff plays very well on Long Island, "IN DA CLUB."

Natasha: And ultimately, she clearly doesn't think girls will run screaming if she frenches a leathery dyke!

Choire: WHICH, WHO KNEW?

Natasha: AND as a fan? That makes me feel good! Gaga trusts me! Gaga ain't talking down to me! Gaga knows I like it rough! BECAUSE MOST GIRLS DO!

Choire: *runs, hides*

Natasha: **eats blood**

Choire: Well what seems great to me is that the lingering effects of Riot Grrrl are still with us. Like this video wouldn't have been set to dance music 15 years ago! But then it also wouldn't have co-starred who I guess is the MOST POPULAR SINGER of our day? But when you look at it, everything in it is punk, from the Klaus Nomi outfit in the "strutting down the jail" scene, to the chains, to the vinylwear, reminiscent of the late great Poly Styrene and company.

Natasha: And yet it maintained the girly fantasy aspect of it– like some half clad broads running around in bras being BAD.

Choire: Totes. And more ephemerally, the "attitude." Also you know KILLING EVERYONE. Ha. But can we talk about Beyonce? Because that part is baffling to me!

Natasha: Yes B is, how we say, PROBLEMATIC.

Choire: She has always been so image conscious? And always willing to rip her kit off down to panties basically, but you know, "classy"-like.

Natasha: What I find interesting is the GROWL. Like she can do that empowered black woman angry growl? Snd she does it on the track. But she has no VISUAL GROWL. Fierce but not scary.

Choire: Because she's sort of winking and backing away. She's the good girl who hangs out with the bad girls sometimes.

Natasha: She's not ugly and doesn't know how to be. And let's be honest. Gaga is average looking.

Choire: OH sure. That's why I like her. I mean she's emaciated. And she cleans up real pretty. But she's One of Us. (Not you, honey, you're gorgeous.)

Natasha: Oh I'm mistaken for Beyonce all the time. But Gaga, she does her make up like broken cabaret dancer! A woman on the edge! In a society that is falling! I also love the cyclical nature of her videos.

Choire: Well right, she loves drama. All she wants to make are dramatic moments. My problem with the Gags is that she's all tableaux? And hence there's some cyclicalism, yes.

Natasha: Like she's angry! She's kissing! She's dancing! She's making food! She's killing!

Natasha: Which for ladies, is how WE FEEELLL. We don't feel like Britney crucified by our own fame.

Choire: I have always wondered What It Is Like For A Girl. (In your Rhythm Box, etc.)

Natasha: It's like that! We have cycles!A vibrant pastiche of emotions!!! That can kill!! So I think that's why she resonates so much. I feel like she gets lady-ness from the inside and then paints it with fashion and music and images. Also, QUIT CALLING ME IM DACINNNNN'. And poor Yonce, who is a dynamic performer and force of her own, seems stilted and two dimensional. Because, well, she kinda is!

Choire: But she's the Actressess!

Natasha: Oof please. Let's talk about the 'acting.' It was so John Waters to me! Beyonce is no good. But the dialogue, the super unnatural way it was delivered, the cheesey lines…. It was all so Crybaby.

Choire: You mean: Broad Strokes? But most of that was Tarantino too? A little John Waters? Where they meet, in camp heaven? My favorite stilted camp part is Gaga waiting tables, just standing there. Like, GREAT BRECHTIAN ACTING.

Natasha: YES!!!!

Choire: Hence the countdown in German? IDK!

Natasha: ALL BRECHT ALL THE TIME!! There is that 90's vitality that they've exploited, without feeling retro. It feels new.

Choire: Could you do me the favor of rating your top three Tarantino movies in order?

Natasha: This is like my Sophie's CHOICE!!

Choire: "LOL"

Natasha: 1. Pulp, 2. Inglorious, 3. Kill Bill 2.

Choire: I don't think we should ever talk again!

Choire: Mine goes: 3. Inglorious Basterds 2. Death Proof 1. Jackie Brown

Natashia I think what the Tarantino and gaga have in common is that an angry woman, a jilted woman, bent on doling out justice to those who done her wrong is something the two get and show well and seem to believe that women have a higher moral authority. So when they got done wrong, they do bad! Snd not bad in the 'oops my bras showing spank me' way.

Choire: Yeah, that coy little girl BS.

Natasha: But bad like put me in jail and pump iron with cholas and then go on a glorious blood soaked rampage. THE SANGUINE SEX.

Choire: Finally, I do find something angry making: that they promise "to be continued." Cuz you know that is a lie.

Natasha: They repurpose the pussy wagon! I believe that they will! I think this just means future collaborations, if Yonce can keep up (doubtful). I'm seeing Rihanna as a drifter, with John Mayer's sacrificial head on a spike. Also, one last thing, and I'm not sure where it fits in, but girls want to be famous. It's the same reason as teenagers we stare at ourselves for hours in the mirror, and make photo collages on out notebooks, and tend so diligently to our MySpace pages.

Choire: Isn't that about "attention"?

Natasha: Beyond that. We want an audience. An adoring audience. This is something a lot of girls grow out of. But I think it's a very teenage desire.

Choire: You were all jeals of the lonelygirl.

Natasha: MMMHMMMM But the kind of fame Britney had? That was terrifying and not real. Something about the way GaGa does it makes me feel 15 again lip synching in the mirror and pretending there's an audience on the other side.

Natasha: I just realized that's what my Tumblr is.

Choire: Well of COURSE that's what EVERYONE'S Tumblr is!

Choire: But also this kind of fame? It involves your skin being scrubbed digitally in every single frame, because, MAN.

Choire: And anyway yeah, what do you people think you're doing on the Internet? You're starring in your own music video!

Natasha: Jerking off on Chatroullette?

Natasha: Oh one more thing. What did you think about the dick joke? And how the dick rumor is still like the favorite gag of a certain website

Choire: Oh, I enjoyed it, though I thought it wasn't narratively consistent with the clearly delineated lesbianism of the matrons? I have a lot of thoughts on the rest of that whole issue which I plan to put forward at a later time! It is, as they said in the 90s, "problematic."

Natasha: I think that reaction to her is the strangest.

Choire: Well and it's pretty obviously phobic right?

Natasha: Yes! And a testament of how she's grinding up against sexual norms that make people uneasy while selling millions of records. Pretty spectacular.

Choire: In the end? The fashion in this video is IMPECCABLE.

Natasha: OH. BEYOND.

Choire: And that's sort of all I care about!

Natasha: I see all movie fashions" Chinatown, Dr. Strangelove, Rocky Horror Fishnets–then the high concept hats!

Choire: It's ALL good. There is nothing in there that is not good. And that's the true victory of this joint.

Natasha: Yes. It belongs to the ages.

Originally posted by Natasha Vargas-Cooper from The Awl, on March 12, 2010 9:35 AM

As PaidContent's David Kaplan observes, at the top of the New York Times, it was a very good year.

(In the newsroom?  Not so much.)

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

• Staffers To New York Times: Innovate Faster, Don't Play Favorites, Help Us Be The Best (Memo)
• New York Times' New Strategy: Demote Editors To Writers
• More Layoffs At New York Times Co.?

Originally posted by Henry Blodget from Silicon Alley Insider, on March 12, 2010 9:14 AM

We've just open sourced GeoType, PostOffice, CAS, BuildTracer for Movable Type. These are cool plugins!

via hello.typepad.com

And Typepad Search is in Beta. See on hello.typepad.com

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on March 12, 2010 9:04 AM

The premier of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s video “Telephone” last night rocked the pop culture world.

Aside from the incomprehensible plot and the platitude of product placement, including 1950s mainstay WonderBread, Gaga’s own headphones, and a dating website… the fashion in the video was truly the star.

Today, Nicola Formichetti, Gaga’s stylist (and genius in his own right), posted still images of the video on his blog, detailing the looks and crediting the designers.

Some are sheer brilliance, like Gaga’s Thierry Mugler ensemble. These are careful plays on what it means to be a pop artist in a truly pop society. Others are classic pop, like her studded bikini, embodying the volatile video star look.

Click through to see more.

Originally posted by Steff Yotka from Fashionista, on March 12, 2010 8:45 AM

"I still can't get those neon red Maine hot dogs out of my head."

[Original artwork and photographs: Hawk Krall]

Past Weeks' Dogs

Tuscan Tony
Zweigle's
Cincinnati Cheese Coney
Texas Tommy
Philly Dirty Water Dog
Chicago Dog

My hot dog mania began in my hometown where I would scarf down fish cake combos at the long-gone Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, outpost of Levis' Hot Dogs.

Then reignited in a big way about two years ago on a camping trip to Maine where I stopped at Flo's (who use natural colored franks) and later discovered giant bags of Red Snappers at a Maine grocery store. I think we went through ten pounds of them in one weekend, cooked over the campfire and jammed into split top buns, then washed down with Moxie mixed with Jim Beam.

I've had hot dogs all over the country since then, but still can't get those neon red Maine hot dogs out of my head.

They're natural casing beef and pork franks, dyed with a healthy dose of FD&C Red #40. Great boiled or grilled, they have a serious snap and look great with just a streak of bright yellow mustard. Also available in Pepto-Bismol pink.

W.A. Bean's and Rice's Frankforts, two companies that have been around for more than 100 years, are the only brands left that are actually made in Maine, and have been by the same company—but with different recipes—since 2004. Kayem in Massachusetts is another major producer of red hot dogs for the New England market.

Why red? There's no definite answer but the stories range from a simple marketing scheme to the legend that butchers added bright red dye to hide the gray color of wieners made from old meat. This was likely perpetuated by the same folks who think hot dogs are made from toenails and the scrapings off of the slaughterhouse floor. (They're not, at least not anymore.)

It's also worth noting that red hot dogs are often found in areas where Chourico—bright red Portuguese sausages—are historically popular, specifically Massachusetts and Hawaii.

Believe it or not, the red hot dog phenomenon is not confined to Maine.

In northern New York state, Glazier Packing Company makes bright red beef and pork dogs that end up slathered in Michigan sauce.

Red frankfurters can also be found scattered across the South—from Georgia's famous Nu-Way to Virginia and Mississippi. Then in Hawaii you've got Redondo's Winners used for everything from breakfast to nori-wrapped hot dog musubi, and even red hot dogs in the Philippines, where they cook them up with spaghetti.

While every grocery store in Maine is likely to carry Red Snappers, what's not easy to find is a hot dog stand that serves them. Some folks still look down on artificially dyed weiners, but you can find them at Simone's hot dog stand in Lewiston, or stop by the W. A. Beans & Sons market and pick up a sack or two for your freezer.

Simone's Hot Dog Stand

99 Chestnut Street, Lewiston ME 04240 (map)
207-782-8431

W.A. Bean & Sons Meat Market

229 Bomarc Road, Bangor Maine (map)
1-800-649-1958

Nu-Way Weiners

Multiple locations in Georgia.

Originally posted by Hawk Krall from Serious Eats, on March 12, 2010 8:30 AM

From Jan Banning's series entitled Bureaucratics.

Tags: Jan Banning   photography   working

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 12, 2010 8:13 AM

But, then we also find ourselves having to beg them to face the non-negotiable reality of a scary, complicated, and hard-to-monetize new environment where nobody cares how attached you are to your spreadsheet. Bravely vowing to continue pretending it’s 1972 is a terrific treatment for a film, but it’s a crap way to run your growing business.

via www.kungfugrippe.com

Merlin's piece about entitlements and business model dirt naps is worth reading in full.

But the little bit excerpted makes me think that this would make a terrific film. Directed by Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman stars as a young, inherited-wealth magazine publisher who bravely vows to continue to pretend it's 1972, while all around him people in distressed jeans, sneakers and ironic t-shirts whiz past with their iPads and their Foursquare checkins.

OK, now that I think about it...maybe not.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 12, 2010 8:08 AM

Well, not everyone agreed with my Top 50 AL prospects or my Top 50 NL prospects, but that’s to be expected. From a traffic perspective, they were hugely popular, so hopefully everyone will enjoy critiquing the Top 100. After all, that’s what they’re hear for: we love reader input at FanGraphs. (As long as it’s constructive, that is.) I don’t think you can really take just one list/point-of-view and consider it prospect gospel; you have to read a variety of opinions, as no one person is right on every prospect or with every ranking.

So, with no further ado…

1. Jason Heyward, OF, Atlanta Braves
2. Stephen Strasburg, RHP, Washington Nationals
3. Desmond Jennings, OF, Tampa Bay Rays
4. Mike Stanton, OF, Florida Marlins
5. Buster Posey, C, San Francisco Giants
6. Neftali Feliz, RHP, Texas Rangers
7. Carlos Santana, C, Cleveland Indians
8. Jesus Montero, C/1B, New York Yankees
9. Domonic Brown, OF, Philadelphia Phillies
10. Pedro Alvarez, 3B, Pittsburgh Pirates

11. Christian Friedrich, LHP, Colorado Rockies
12. Dustin Ackley, 2B/OF, Seattle Mariners
13. Brian Matusz, LHP, Baltimore Orioles
14. Jeremy Hellickson, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays
15. Alcides Escobar, SS, Milwaukee Brewers
16. Justin Smoak, 1B, Texas Rangers
17. Madison Bumgarner, LHP, San Francisco Giants
18. Aroldis Chapman, LHP, Cincinnati Reds
19. Chris Carter, 1B, Oakland Athletics
20. Martin Perez, LHP, Texas Rangers

21. Logan Morrison, 1B, Florida Marlins
22. Casey Kelly, RHP, Boston Red Sox
23. Aaron Hicks, OF, Minnesota Twins
24. Andrew Cashner, RHP, Chicago Cubs
25. Starlin Castro, SS, Chicago Cubs
26. Tyler Matzek, LHP, Colorado Rockies
27. Tim Beckham, SS, Tampa Bay Rays
28. Wade Davis, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays
29. Michael Montgomery, LHP, Kansas City Royals
30. Devaris Gordon, SS, Los Angeles Dodgers

31. Derek Norris, C, Washington Nationals
32. Brett Wallace, 3B/1B, Toronto Blue Jays
33. Kyle Drabek, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
34. Jarrod Parker, RHP, Arizona Diamondbacks
35. Ryan Westmoreland, OF, Boston Red Sox
36. Freddie Freeman, 1B, Atlanta Braves
37. Julio Teheran, RHP, Altanta Braves
38. Josh Bell, 3B, Baltimore Orioles
39. Tyler Flowers, C, Chicago White Sox
40. Hank Conger, C, Los Angeles Angels

41. Mike Moustakas, 3B, Kansas City Royals
42. Shelby Miller, RHP, St. Louis Cardinals
43. Wilson Ramos, C, Minnesota Twins
44. Casey Crosby, LHP, Detroit Tigers
45. Eric Hosmer, 1B, Kansas City Royals
46. Fernando Martinez, OF, New York Mets
47. Yonder Alonso, 1B, Cincinnati Reds
48. Josh Vitters, 3B, Chicago Cubs
49. Austin Romine, C, New York Yankees
50. Michael Taylor, OF, Oakland Athletics

51. Austin Jackson, OF, Detroit Tigers
52. Matthew Moore, LHP, Tampa Bay Rays
53. Jason Castro, C, Houston Astros
54. Brad Lincoln, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates
55. Lonnie Chisenhall, 3B, Cleveland Indians
56. Zach Wheeler, RHP, San Francisco Giants
57. Arodys Vizcaino, RHP, Atlanta Braves
58. Jordan Lyles, RHP, Houston Astros
59. Brett Lawrie, 2B, Milwaukee Brewers
60. Tony Sanchez, C, Pittsburgh Pirates

61. Zach McAllister, RHP, New York Yankees
62. Zach Stewart, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
63. Ike Davis, 1B/OF, New York Mets
64. Jenrry Mejia, RHP, New York Mets
65. Daniel Hudson, RHP, Chicago White Sox
66. Tanner Scheppers, RHP, Texas Rangers
67. Jacob Turner, RHP, Detroit Tigers
68. Simon Castro, RHP, San Diego Padres
69. Jhoulys Chacin, RHP, Colorado Rockies
70. Brandon Erbe, RHP, Baltimore Orioles

71. Jordan Walden, RHP, Los Angeles Angels
72. Junichi Tazawa, RHP, Boston Red Sox
73. Jake Arrieta, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
74. Brandon Allen, 1B, Arizona Diamondbacks
75. Thomas Neal, OF, San Francisco Giants
76. Alex White, RHP, Cleveland Indians
77. Kyle Gibson, RHP, Minnesota Twins
78. Zach Britton, LHP, Baltimore Orioles
79. Jio Mier, SS, Houston Astros
80. Ethan Martin, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers

81. Mike Trout, OF, Los Angeles Angels
82. Matt Dominguez, 3B, Florida Marlins
83. Ian Desmond, SS, Washington Nationals
84. Michael Saunders, OF, Seattle Mariners
85. Nick Hagadone, LHP, Cleveland Indians
86. J.P. Arencibia, C, Toronto Blue Jays
87. Logan Forsythe, 3B, San Diego Padres
88. Hak-Ju Lee, SS, Chicago Cubs
89. Trevor Reckling, LHP, Los Angeles Angels
90. Nick Barnese, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays

91. Hector Rondon, RHP, Cleveland Indians
92. Mike Leake, RHP, Cincinnati Reds
93. Jose Tabata, OF, Pittsburgh Pirates
94. Danny Duffy, LHP, Kansas City Royals
95. Chris Heisey, OF, Cincinnati Reds
96. Andrew Lambo, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers
97. Mat Gamel, 3B, Milwaukee Brewers
98. Jaff Decker, OF, San Diego Padres
99. Jay Jackson, RHP, Chicago Cubs
100. Trevor May, RHP, Philadelphia Phillies

Originally posted by Marc Hulet from FanGraphs Baseball, on March 12, 2010 8:00 AM

I really don't go to the movies very much. I'm an old-school Broadway queen and have a cuckoo-crazy movie club. Those things keep me pretty busy although I do try and make time for really important films like A Single Man and Precious or blockbusters like Sex and the City. That's one reason I love taking long flights to Europe or India. It's movie time. Yesterday on Air France Flight 018 from Paris to Newark I watched three full-length films and I know you all are just dying to hear what I thought about: An Education, The Blind Side and 2012.

An Education is really an amazing film. It's so English. The costumes, hair, makeup and casting are all flawless. Why can't American movies do that? The British just get that if the movie takes place in the 1960s the leading lady shouldn't wear her normal contemporary hairstyle. Carey Mulligan is pretty irresistible as the lead, Jenny, a precociously bright girl from a working class family who might chuck all her college plans for a wild romance with Peter Sarsgaard. Carey's really really got star quality and talent to boot. The supporting cast which includes Emma Thompson, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Olivia Williams and Cara Seymour are all stellar. It's really one of the best movies of this or any other year.

From the sublime to the ridiculous I then watched The Blind Side. Let me start by saying I like Sandra Bullock and love like in a Julia Roberts-style story when a romantic comedy cutie digs deep and comes up with an Oscar-worthy performance. I also love sappy sentimental shit on planes and usually end up weeping hysterically regardless of what I watch even an animated feature like Ratatouille (come on, that was sweet!). Anyhoo, I thought The Blind Side was a piece of shit. Sandra is cute and likable as always. Tim McGraw is cute and the moments with Big Mike and little RJ have a pedestrian charm. I usually I love the Lifetime kind of movies where a woman becomes mama to some misfit and it shows that you don't have to be biologically related to people to be a family and all that goofy schtick. Well I didn't cry a single tear during The Blind Side!!! I felt cheated and lied to! I want a refund and I didn't even pay to see the movie. All I could think was this crap was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and Tom Ford's A Single Man was not. Tom was robbed.

Luckily, we got back on the right track with the action adventure spectacle 2012. I'm a happy upbeat cockeyed optimist type but for some reason I love a movie where a band of ragtag misfits have to deal with the earth coming to an end. I must say I'm not a John Cusack fan and I felt a little sad for Thandie Newton and Amanda Peet having to be in this movie, but the minute I started watching I was all up in it. Yes it was cliched and yes a lot of the characters were caricatures but this shit was exciting!!! I could have done without all the references to God but you can't have everything. The action stuff was insane! I was on the edge of my economy class seat and loving it! I was in a panic we would land before the movie ended, but luckily I had plenty of time. I didn't cry in this movie either but I was certainly entertained and excited.

And that's your update on Air France in-flight entertainment! See you at the baggage carousel kids!!

Originally posted by Mickey Boardman from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on March 12, 2010 7:25 AM

As we get down to crunch time on the big health care vote in the House, we're closely tracking which members who voted yes on the earlier House version of the bill are changing their votes to no on the Senate version of the bill. But as you probably well know, crunch time is also when a lot of deals are cut and congressman feel they have the most leverage. So you see a lot of gamesmanship going on.

Take the case of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). He voted for the original House bill. But as I mentioned earlier, he was on Hardball last night and said he would vote against the Senate bill bill because of the immigration provisions. That prompted some of our readers to call Gutierrez's office today, and they got a pretty different answer about what Gutierrez's position really is:

TPM Reader CP:

I called the Congressman's office to express my extreme disappointment. I don't think you should put him down as a no yet. His aide said the bill is still being put together and when it is complete he'll review and make a final decision. This may be posturing.

TPM Reader JG:

I am a constituent of Rep. Gutierrez. I just called his DC office and their current line is that he expressed serious reservations about the bill, but has yet to decide how he will vote. My bet is that he will be a Yes after a meeting at the White House.

TPM Reader BD:

Gutierrez is my rep. I heard about his 'waffling' and gave his local office a call to voice my support for passing HCR with the senate bill. I then asked, 'does he support the senate bill?', the staffer said 'yes', and I pushed further, 'is he going to vote YES on the senate bill?' and again the staffer said 'yes'.

While all that was going on, we called his office, too, and they gave us an official statement:

At this time, I am a 'no' vote on health care. It's no secret that I have been critical of proposals that would exclude our nation's hardworking immigrants from the health care exchange, and I would find it extremely difficult if not impossible to vote for any measure that denies undocumented workers health care purchased with their own dollars.

It doesn't take too much scrutiny to see a lot of wiggle room there: "At this time" and "extremely difficult if not impossible" are not absolutes by any stretch. So we'll have to keep a close eye on Gutierrez, but my gut is he may be one of the less common cases where what he's telling his constituents is closer to the truth of the matter than what he's saying for mass media consumption.

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on March 12, 2010 7:16 AM

Tiff:

I made a map of the most interesting ridiculously large roadside attractions in Texas in order to choose an entertaining destination for our (and maybe this guy’s) mid-SXSW road trip. […]

This is going to be fun.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org, on March 12, 2010 6:53 AM

Union Square's sad transformation into Times Square proceeds apace: Construction to turn the former Zen Palate space into a TGI Friday's is in full swing, while uptown barbecue chain Brother Jimmy's has already opened and is happy offering sustenance to suit-wearing douchebags for whom the cuisine of Heartland Brewery is a bit too "ethnic" or "challenging." If you stand on the corner of 16th and Union Square East, you will find yourself victimized by the cruel tyranny of choice: Which of the two equidistant glazed dough providers wares will pad your colon, Tim Horton's or Dunkin Donuts? Don't worry about the calories: A brisk trot across the park to Starbucks will give you some much needed exercise, and should there be a line you can return to the east side, where another Starbucks helpfully awaits. (Those of you working on advanced fitness routines will want to go the extra avenue to the Starbucks on 3rd.) Not all of the changes are for the worse, though: This weekend marks the resumption of Daylight Saving Time, when the clocks are set one hour ahead. This is excellent news for the giant monstrosity which hovers above the former Virgin Records: Having been off by an hour for the entire winter, it will finally display the correct time, give or take a couple of minutes, once more. It's the little things!

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on March 12, 2010 6:50 AM

If I am going to take the time to click on Post Options, then go to Post Date and Time, then click on the radio button for Scheduled at, then actually type in the exact date and time I want the post to be published, then click on Publish Post and then double and triple check my Edit Posts tab to make sure it is ACTUALLY scheduled I DO NOT WANT TO CHECK AGAIN IN THE MORNING TO FIND THAT IT HAS MAGICALLY BEEN PUT BACK INTO DRAFT MODE BY MISCHIEVOUS MAGICAL GOOGLE ELVES.

Fred McGriff says...

STOP DOING THIS

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on March 12, 2010 3:23 AM

Let’s just get this part out of the way: The Mets have issues. Lots of issues. But, as if Jose Reyes’ thyroid, repeated late-season meltdowns, questionable ownership finances, and an assistant general manager turning into Hulk Hogan weren’t bad enough, now this appears:

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – If Jenrry Mejia is assigned to the Mets’ Double-A team, he’s not going to be stretched out enough to immediately contribute in the Binghamton rotation. Jerry Manuel is determined to begin using Mejia in short and frequent relief spurts, to gauge how he reacts to pitching in that capacity, the Daily News has learned. The expectation is Mejia will remain in big-league camp through the final week working as a reliever.

The scariest part of this is not that Jerry Manuel is evidently making decisions on prospects. It’s that Omar Minaya is either in complete agreement or is totally indifferent to the situation at hand. Minaya’s job is to handle the team’s present and future assets with care and diligence. Manuel’s job is to manage the players assembled by Minaya and provide input on the margins, not to decide in autonomous fashion what capacity the team’s best pitching prospect should be used during spring. Neither is doing their job.

This becomes less of a possibility and more of a certainty once you realize who we’re talking about. Save the comparisons to Neftali Feliz and David Price. Neither began the season in their respective Major League team’s bullpen and both had more experience starting. Those two situations were of special circumstance (that circumstance being a heated playoff run). The Mets aren’t doing this to limit Mejia’s innings or propel them towards the playoffs. Well, they might actually be doing it for the latter, but more on that in a moment.

This is all tempting because Mejia is a great arm. Keith Law had his fastball sitting in the 93-96 range with cutting action and noted his overall repertoire as “top-of-the-rotation stuff” – big praise for a 20-year-old with a little over 150 innings of experience outside of short-season ball. Baseball America ranked Mejia as the Mets’ top prospect and quoted catcher Josh Thole as saying that the movement on Mejia’s heater convinced batters that it was a slider. They also note that Manuel watched Mejia during Arizona Fall League action to gauge whether he could be of relief help in 2010.

Could Mejia jump to the Majors in three weeks and succeed? Probably. He’d probably pitch quite well out of the bullpen. He has a fastball so hot that it removes the wrinkles from opposing hitters’ shirts. He could really dial that baby up even more in limited action. He might just be the best set-up man in the National League. Heck, maybe the next Mariano Rivera. And then what?

Well, then the Mets enter 2011, which happens to be the final year that Francisco Rodriguez is guaranteed a paycheck. It’s also the final year that Oliver Perez, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, and Luis Castillo are under contract. It’s a big year. It could be the final year they have this nucleus to really go for it before drastically altering the look of the roster. So, maybe they move Mejia to the rotation. Maybe he hits the ground running and never looks back. Or maybe, like Joba Chamberlain, he has a few hiccups moving to the rotation permanently, and rather than sending him down, they send him to the bullpen where he once again turns the eighth inning into Hades for opposing hitters. And then what?

Well, then the Mets enter 2012 and Mejia is their closer. And then what?

Well, then the Mets enter 2013 and Mejia is still their closer. And so on.

Yes, that entire scenario is derived from a lack of confidence in the Mets and their ability to properly handle the situation. Did it fall down a slippery slope and is it a bit melodramatic? Yes, most likely. But at the same time, if they place Mejia in the pen it will open Pandora’s Box moving forward. More concisely: It sets the table for confirmation bias when Mejia is moved back to the rotation.

This isn’t Earl Weaver with Dennis Martinez, Wayne Garland, or Scott McGregor. Those guys had hundreds of minor league innings before Weaver broke them in as a long reliever. This is reckless handling of a long-term asset in order to save Manuel and Minaya’s jobs. Maybe that’s too harsh, but these guys have not earned the benefit of the doubt.

Originally posted by R.J. Anderson from FanGraphs Baseball, on March 12, 2010 3:00 AM

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPad

Steph Thirion's first iPhone game was Eliss, a touchscreen-based arcade game that had you combining and maneuvering planets around one another, and trying to size-match them up with black holes to earn points. As he told us (stay tuned for an exclusive interview with the indie developer), it was pretty hard -- even more so than he actually intended it to be. So, for his second iPhone game, Faraway, he's gone much simpler. Inspired by the iPhone game Canabalt, Thirion has created a one-button game in which the goal is nothing less than to explore the universe. He has it running on a Mac at the show (so he can project the video onto a bigger screen), and we got to have some hands-on time with the new game.

You control a comet that flies around an inky black void speckled with dots and circles; the pixelated space aesthetic from Eliss is back. This time, however, there's only one control, and it's a tap anywhere on the screen. Doing so will cause your comet to gravitate towards the nearest static dot, which will then slingshot you around the star until you let go, and the comet flings off in a new direction. There's an arrow pointing off of the screen, and by timing slingshots correctly, you will face the comet in the direction of the arrow.

Once you get moving the right way for a length of time (the game has a counter constantly counting down), you'll hit a gigantic circular body, like a large white sun. Once you hit that shape, the screen flashes, and you enter into another gameplay mode -- your comet will drag a line around the screen, and anytime you gravitate to a star, the line will connect between the stars you gravitate to. Continue connecting the line, and you can continue to rack up points, but cross or touch the line (or the outside edge of the screen), and that point of the game is over -- you're given your score and your comet is sent off in a new direction, a little bit of time added to the clock that's still counting down to game end.

It sounds complicated, but in practice, the one-button simplicity keeps it fairly easy to understand. There are also various shapes to hit outside of the gigantic sun you're aiming for -- red polygons that hit your comet will make it go faster for a little while (allowing you to close space to the next sun that much more quickly), and white polygons will add time to the overall clock, letting you play the game that much longer.

The game tracks your best score, but that's it, really -- the goal is to keep the comet going for as long as possible. And it's addictive -- just like Canabalt, every time you play you feel like you've figured out a new trick, or if you just hit a star's gravity just right, you'll careen off into a new high score.

It's a lot of fun. Thirion hasn't decided on a price or release date yet (stay tuned for more information in our upcoming interview), but especially if you like the one-button simplicity of Canabalt (and who doesn't?), Faraway seems like it'll be a fun expedition into the reaches of space.

TUAWGDC 2010: Hands-on with Faraway originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Mike Schramm from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on March 12, 2010 3:00 AM

In retrospect, I think the tree form and the Walker might have been a mistake. If recursion is not allowed (as is the case here), it might work better to avoid the recursive representation entirely, instead storing the parsed regular expression in reverse Polish notation as in Thompson's 1968 paper and this example code. If the RPN form recorded the maximum stack depth used in the expression, a traversal would allocate a stack of exactly that size and then zip through the representation in a single linear scan.

via swtch.com

I can't say I recall (without consulting The Dragon Book of course), but I seem to recall it being a pain in the ass. The RPN based solution looks a helluva lot easier. Will mark the paper as "you must read this later."

Originally posted by apgwoz from fold, on March 12, 2010 1:44 AM

...at Purely Paula.

Originally posted by Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks Archive, on March 11, 2010 10:54 PM

Hi all,

We’ve open sourced a few more plugins, and they’re all available in the Six Apart Github repository!

• GeoType allows you to associate GoogleMap data with an entry. Each map extends the MT Asset framework, so it’s managed similar to uploaded images or documents, and associated to an entry in the exact same way.

• PostOffice enables blog posting via email. You may have been following along in MTOS earlier this week about this one, Brad Choate made a lot of handy fixes.

• CentralAuthenticationService allows you to configure MT to delegate user authentication to a CAS server in place of the built-in native authentication scheme.

• BuildTracer benchmarks statically-published templates and provides a visual display of how long it takes each tag to publish. It’s originally by Akira and available on his site, but we’ve been updating it in Github to match the latest builds of MT.

Since we’re releasing these plugins as open-source and they’re not officially supported by Six Apart, we invite the community to improve upon them. Anyone and everyone is welcome to follow and contribute to the projects’ Github repositories.

Enjoy!

Originally posted by Natalie Podrazik from MovableType.org - Home for the MT Community, on March 11, 2010 3:16 PM

We've just open sourced GeoType, PostOffice, CAS, BuildTracer for Movable Type. These are cool plugins!

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 11, 2010 2:23 PM

28 Days...

Originally posted by Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks Archive, on March 11, 2010 2:14 PM

In an unusual operation that was sparked by the team behind the Oscar-winning documentary film about dolphin hunting, “The Cove” the restaurant, the Hump, was investigated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the California Department of Fish and Game, and the federal Customs and Border Protection agency, which all concluded that the restaurant was serving endangered Sei whale as sushi. Jennifer Steinhauer wrote the primary article about the whale-sushi bust for the Times, but and then Andrew Revin wrote the follow-up on .Earth, the Times' environmental blog: Elsewhere in the world, the appetites and indulgences of wealthy consumers are sustaining the flow of gorilla hands and other bush meat from African forests to swelling cities and the flow of exotic, endangered species  to medicinal products companies and restaurants in Asia. Is it jarring, or not, to see such activity here?

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 11, 2010 1:07 PM

Touched by the Hand of God, By New Order, Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 11, 2010 12:29 PM

Up until now, we’ve done most of our reading using a single layer of data. This works well when you have abundant space, but breaks down when you try to work on a smaller device. As we pack more and more data into smaller spaces, we need to consider how this data is presented. The answer that provides the best compromise of accessibility and usability is to layer our data using modal dialogs. And now, a story.

via www.capndesign.com

Matt Jacobs publishes his notes on talk he gave about "The Tablet" and multi-layered computing. Well worth the read, or if you want the short-hand version you can page through his slides.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 11, 2010 12:06 PM

Up until now, we’ve done most of our reading using a single layer of data. This works well when you have abundant space, but breaks down when you try to work on a smaller device. As we pack more and more data into smaller spaces, we need to consider how this data is presented. The answer that provides the best compromise of accessibility and usability is to layer our data using modal dialogs. And now, a story.

Matt Jacobs' The Multi-Layered iPad is an excellent introduction to the challenges facing liberal arts 2.0^* thinkers. When Matt says "Book" I think "Blog," but that doesn't mean I love books any less.

^*As defined by Jason Kottke and SnarkMarket and then again by Apple.

UPDATE: I forgot to complain about the term "decablogger." Totally spurious.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 11, 2010 11:33 AM

Back in January news broke that management group OTG—they were behind the food offerings at JFK's Terminal 5—were planning a group of new restaurants for LaGuardia Airport. Today Dom De Marco confirms to Feast that he's in talks to join the project and add a branch of the famed Di Fara. Hopefully, he has another old man in the wings who can painstakingly make every single pie to get the ambiance right. [Feast]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater NY, on March 11, 2010 11:30 AM

As discussed, I gave a talk last night about The Tablet. Thanks very much to Liz for organizing the event. When I began planning my talk, I found it was easier to write it out as a blog post so I could find the narrative. I did just that.

What follows is the blog post and some of the imagery attached. At the very end, I included my slides from the talk, which have some additional imagery. (If you’re more of a visual person, skip to my slides on Slideshare.)

Up until now, we’ve done most of our reading using a single layer of data. This works well when you have abundant space, but breaks down when you try to work on a smaller device. As we pack more and more data into smaller spaces, we need to consider how this data is presented. The answer that provides the best compromise of accessibility and usability is to layer our data using modal dialogs. And now, a story.

photo by nirbhao

During college, I oftentimes bought my textbooks used, primarily because they were cheaper. The cheapest books were thoroughly marked up, with notes in the margins and important phrases highlighted. Sometimes, it was great to already have the important bits noted for me, but most of the time I just wanted to read. My wish was to be able to remove that layer of data only temporarily. Little did I know that 10 years later, that would be possible.

When data is presenting it a single layer, ancillary data exists separately from the primary text. When you’re studying, you write down the important parts in a notepad and create study tools with flash cards. When you’re watching a film, the credits appear at the end of the film and the deleted scenes are accessed in another menu entirely. When you’re reading a novel, contextual content is often in appendices and definitions are, well, in your dictionary.

The iPhone and other smartphones have improved the situation. Instead of having to make a note during a movie or keep your finger on the current page while flipping to the appendix, you can pull out your phone (or laptop or whatever) and look up the information. Of course, that is still two information sources in the same plane.

It’s also gotten a lot easier on the web. Sites like the New York Times offer the ability to double-click a word and get the definition. Flickr lets you annotate photos with text. The Definitive Guide to Django provides an online version of the book that lets you comment on each paragraph. As the ultimate example, Google lets you overlay a variety of information on top of a map.

Since we still do most of our reading on paper, we’ve been stuck with just a single layer of data. The best we’ve got are footnotes and notes in the margin. The introduction of the Kindle has provided a suitable replacement for reading devices. Having 1,000s of books in your hand is wonderful, but the Kindle only provides two layers of data: text and definitions. And without a touch screen, trying to get a definition is tough. You have to navigate to the word with the thumb nubbin before the definition pops up. It takes you out of the flow of reading a lot more than clicking a mouse or tapping the word.

How This Would Work

Bringing the multitouch interface to such a large surface area will allow us to bring far more layers of data to a document. Let’s come back to our studying example. My wife is taking an Anatomy & Physiology class and has a test coming up. She has out her text book, flash cards, a notebook and a reading guide. While going over her notes, she might want to refer back to the source text for some additional information. She has to find the right page, then find the right paragraph and look for context.

Now, let’s say Apple or some inventive fellow builds an iPad application meant for studying. You can download your textbook and, as you read, tap on a paragraph to open up a modal dialog for taking notes. Or maybe you just select some text and copy the text into your notebook. Next time you go through the book, you’ll see a little speech bubble, like the Django book example, alongside the text. When it’s time to study, click the ‘View notes’ button and you’ll see a version of just the text you’ve highlighted and your notes. Back to the book. If something you’re reading is confusing, selecting text could let you define or Google it. If that doesn’t pan out, you can add a public note. Your friends in the class would be notified and can answer your question. The answer will show up in context. Taking the social element further, being able to view your study partner’s notes overlaid on your page could answer questions you didn’t know you had.

Below are some design explorations I put together to illustrate the example.

These types of interaction could be carried over to a work of literature. If you’re in a book club, the reading questions could come be visible at relevant point. You could make notes in the margin that the rest of your book club could see. There’s also an opportunity for authors to provide something like a director’s commentary. When you find out SPOILER ALERT that Bella choses Edward over Jacob, Stephenie Meyer could put in a note explaining that it took her months to make this decision and it was only after talking to a bellhop at the Paris in Las Vegas that she made her decision. Or, possibly more interesting to some of you, how Malcolm Gladwell did his research about Hush Puppies.

As a final example, adding a touch interface to films, means one of my personal dreams can be fulfilled. When you want to know more about an actor, pause the movie and tap his face. Using iPhoto’s facial recognition software and a partnership with iMDB, the actor’s name and his last 5 films will pop up in a modal dialog. They’ll also be a link to any relevant extras that include that actor.

What We’ve Learned

There is nothing wrong with the old way of studying or reading, so long as you have all of your information around you. The challenge of bringing a comparable or better experience to the iPad is finding a way to improve portability without sacrificing accessibility.

Using modal dialogues and layering data lets you display ancillary content without taking away from the source text. Since that’s why people are coming to your content, that should have the focus. Providing the rest of the data should be seamless, but natural. Finding that balance will lead to an engaging (and hopefully unforgettable) experience.

Presentation Slides

Originally posted by Matt Jacobs from Capn Design, on March 11, 2010 11:00 AM

Most of you have probably heard about Microsoft's now-completed Visual Studio 2020 competition, where the grand prize was to meet Scott Guthrie, the effective head of the Developer Division. People were invited to make submissions, and one of them was shown on Code Project and began life as the Visual Studio 2010 Concept IDE.

Well, Ph.D. student Andrew Bragdon has his own take on "inventing the future". Code Bubbles is an IDE that will be presented at this years ICSE. The level of thought that has gone into this design is simply astonishing. It has the feel of a tiling window manager like XMonad or awesomewm, but without the traditional MDI Application or SDI Application WIMP metaphors we're used to; as a result, it eliminates a ton of clutter. It also integrates key ideas from Eclipse contributed by Borland/CodeGear: The Mylyn project for integrating workflow deeply into the IDE. This is some real inspiration for Gilad Braha's Newspeak project (Vassili Bykov's Hopscotch IDE) and Dan Ingalls' Lively Kernel, since the staple of any good Smalltalk-like language is the environment!

Will makers of 30" monitors will be shaking developers down by their ankles? :)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Lambda the Ultimate - Programming Languages Weblog, on March 11, 2010 10:54 AM

This is not really a call to action, but rather the name of a ☞ cool website that allows you to try out Redis commands through a web browser and follow a quick tutorial. It is very similar to ☞ Try MongoDB.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from myNoSQL, on March 11, 2010 10:51 AM

via tiffchow.typepad.com

Tiff blogs about how kids get pissed off when they learn that Pluto isn't a planet. BUT! Check out the dateline on that letter -- November 6, 2006. Kids that have been learning about planets since Pluto's been declassified have a completely different take...

Case in point: took the kids to the Chabot Space and Science Center this past weekend, and watched a great film with them about the solar system. My when the kids in the movie flying their animated cardboard rocket finally made it to Pluto my nine year old turned to me with this shocked look on her face and whispered "But Dad! Pluto's not a planet!"

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 11, 2010 10:50 AM

From Geekologie, via .tiff.

Originally posted by btrott from Stupidfool.org, on March 11, 2010 10:40 AM

It is expected to be in the high 30s and low 40s this weekend in western North Dakota and eastern Minnesota. The annual Red River "hundred year flood" is on. And in the its latest attempt to attract Anderson Cooper, the region is pulling out all the stops. Moorhead and Clay County have already declared states of emergency. Fargo's Cass County jail is prepping to move its prisoners north to Grand Forks where they stand less of a chance of being drowned. An upside of the rising waters? Real estate sales are booming. At least ten homeowners have sold their doomed riverside domiciles to the city of Fargo, which already purchased 24. And what could be more fun than watching all the action (live!) on the Grand Forks Herald 2010 Flood Cam.

Gripping.

Some readers may remember the flood last year. For those who do not, by all means check out the Big Picture's fantastic gallery. And by "fantastic" I mean "fucking nightmarish."

The flooding is expected to be less severe than last year when, after a near record snow season, temperatures went from 17 degrees below zero,on March 12, to 40 degrees two days, then quickly ratcheting up to 50 degrees. And then, from March 22 to 24, it rained.

Of course, residents, especially those in Fargo-Moorhead, are still shitting bricks… which they are then putting into bags and piling along the riverbank.

But seriously, freezing floodwater is abominable.

Abe Sauer is not looking forward to this.

Originally posted by Abe Sauer from The Awl, on March 11, 2010 10:30 AM

New bike routes will provide safer connections on the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge, in an attempt to divert cyclists from Delancey Street. Image: NYCDOT

NYCDOT unveiled a slate of pedestrian and bicycle improvements to the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 3 last night. Presenters asked for votes on two street safety projects: the construction of a planted center median on the Bowery between Canal and Division streets, and the addition of new curbside bike routes to improve connections to the Williamsburg Bridge.

Despite a few moments of crankiness from one member ("I can’t in good conscience vote for any more bicycle lanes"), the committee approved resolutions in favor of both measures.

The new bike routes on Suffolk, Stanton, and Rivington streets would complement improvements built last year, which extended the Williamsburg Bridge approach to Suffolk. Slated for implementation in May, the painted, curbside lanes are intended fill in key east-west connections north of where Delancey Street feeds into the bridge path.

The changes are important because Delancey remains extremely dangerous even as biking on the Williamsburg Bridge increases rapidly.

This January, 74-year-old Fuen Bai was killed by a school bus driver while riding in the no-man's-land between the bridge and Allen Street. Every year, traffic injures dozens of pedestrians and cyclists on the corridor, according to CrashStat. Meanwhile, DOT bike counts indicate that cycling on the bridge has quadrupled since 2004. Despite all the people biking over the bridge, the tantalizing proximity of the Allen Street bike path, and the dismal safety record of Delancey Street, the new plan does not address Delancey itself.

DOT's strategy is to divert Williamsburg Bridge bike traffic to calmer, safer side streets. "One of the issues is that people don’t know about the alternatives," Bicycle Program Coordinator Josh Benson told the audience last night. "When you get out there and try this route, it’s gonna make sense. It will change people’s behavior." DOT has no plans to add bike infrastructure to Delancey, he said.

Ian Dutton, a member of neighboring Community Board 2, noted at the meeting that a similar strategy on the other side of town has helped direct cyclists to side streets like Bleecker and Prince instead of the Houston Street traffic sewer. Still, he said, the proposal amounts to a tacit admission that Delancey Street is supposed to function like a highway.

Delancey Street "is obviously the most dangerous corridor in that part of the neighborhood," said Transportation Alternatives' Wiley Norvell. "We can’t continue to skirt it in its entirely. It’s time to give it the attention it deserves."

The CB 3 committee also approved a plan to build a raised, planted median on the Bowery between the Manhattan Bridge and Division Street. The project would reallocate some space from moving and parking lanes to create safer pedestrian crossings on some of the most hellish blocks in Manhattan, where crossing distances currently exceed 80 feet.

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog New York City, on March 11, 2010 10:25 AM

Hi all! I've been working furiously on ThinkTank over at Expert Labs for about six weeks now. Once in awhile I'll post an update on where we're at with the project. This is such an update, and it's cross-posted from the Expert Labs blog.

ThinkTank development has been going strong, but we need your help. If you're a ThinkTank tester and/or a web developer, join the mailing list, fork the code, install ThinkTank on your server, and help us build the software and documentation. If you don't know what you can do or where to start, here are the three main priorities for ThinkTank right now:

1. Facebook Integration. We've been working hard to make ThinkTank an extensible platform that any social network can plug into. We've just abstracted ThinkTank's Twitter functionality into a plug-in prototype, and it's time to try out plugging in another data source. Its popularity makes Facebook the next logical choice. To start, we need to add Facebook Connect functionality to the ThinkTank webapp, which will allow users to grant ThinkTank access to their Facebook account (much like you can via Twitter OAuth right now). If you've got experience implementing Facebook Connect in PHP, please help us build this plug-in.

2. Google Buzz Integration. Buzz may have just launched, but its instant adoption by millions of Gmail users (and its open APIs) makes it a perfect fit for ThinkTank. Like Facebook, we want to develop a Google Buzz plug-in that will feed posts and replies to those posts on Buzz into the ThinkTank database. Keep in mind that ThinkTank's plug-in framework is still under development, so we'll be refining it as we work on getting new services interfacing with ThinkTank.

3. Documentation. A big barrier to users and developers getting involved with ThinkTank is the lack of thorough documentation. While we've gotten several pages started in the ThinkTank wiki, we need more. If you've installed ThinkTank or plan to, document your experience in an installation guide. As you dive into the code and grok the app's design, add and edit the developer's guide. Documentation is one of the more tedious parts of developing code, but it saves future users and developers so much time, and it's the perfect way for non-coders to help out with the project. You don't have to ask permission: if you've got helpful information to share about using or developing ThinkTank, dive right into the wiki and press that Edit button.

While these are the project's major priorities right now, ThinkTank has over 30 open issues large and small. If you're interested in improving ThinkTank for your personal use as well as helping better-inform public policy, join us on the mailing list, follow and fork the project on GitHub, install ThinkTank and contribute what you can.

Thanks in advance for your time and interest.

Originally posted by Gina Trapani from Smarterware, on March 11, 2010 8:48 AM

Ad agency Mullen chose to focus on Zappos’ famous customer service for their new ad campaign. The twist is, behind the puppets and comedy are recordings of actual customer service calls. Mullen’s making of video explains how they basically pranked Zappos to get the audio for the ads. The results are funny, fresh, and true to the experience of calling Zappos. Awesome stuff.

Originally posted by Ryan from Signal vs. Noise, on March 11, 2010 8:33 AM

I’m not entirely sure of the source of this photo and normally I wouldn’t just grab something off of the internet and paste it onto our blog but this image must be shared. It’s nice having the streets back but those days of madness were a lot of fun, weren’t they?

I was alerted to it’s existence by The Peak, and the link to the photo is http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs519.snc3/27224_351893710875_581315875_4172162_1824896_n.jpg … if you know exactly where it came from please comment below so we can give proper credit.

Originally posted by Bob Kronbauer from Vancouver Is Awesome, on March 11, 2010 8:26 AM

Digg Going The Cassandra Way:

I’ve just read about another high profile web site, Digg, going the Cassandra way. While this is not absolutely new as we’ve already heard about Cassandra in production @ Digg, the important bit is in this quote:

At the time of writing, we’ve reimplemented most of Digg’s functionality using Cassandra as our primary datastore.

I also have found interesting what motivated Digg to reach this decision and the reasons why a NoSQL solution would fit their specific scenario:

[…] the increasing difficulty of building a high performance, write intensive, application on a data set that is growing quickly, with no end in sight.

[…]

Our domain area, news, doesn’t exact strict consistency requirements, so (according to Brewer’s theorem) relaxing this allows gains in availability and partition tolerance (i.e. operations completing, even in degraded system states). […]

As our system grows, it’s important for us to span multiple data centers for redundancy and network performance and to add capacity or replace failed nodes with no downtime. We plan to continue using commodity hardware, and to continue assuming that it will fail regularly. All of this is increasingly difficult with MySQL.

The same article mentions a couple of improvements Digg have added to Cassandra to make it more Digg-usable (all of these been promised to be open sourced):

• full text, relational and graph indexing systems
• increased comparitor speed
• better compaction threading
• reduced logging overhead and Scribe support for logging
• support for row-level caching
• support for multi-get
• slow uery logging
• improved bulk import functionality

I’d definitely be interested to hear more about the details of this process, so if you have any contacts at Digg it would be great if you could make the introductions! I bet their story will be as exciting as Twitter’s one.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from myNoSQL, on March 11, 2010 8:03 AM

While researching a This Recording post about how Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash’s love affair affected their respective artistic outputs — because, I guess, I have assigned myself to be the Us Weekly of 40 years ago? –   I fell into a YouTube odyssey of Graham Nash’s British Invasion band The Hollies, specifically, an odyssey of iterations of this song, Carrie-Anne.  One of the great things about writing a post on my own blog is that I never need to have a “peg,” but if I were writing for some other publication (”Can you have 1000 words about your longstanding obsession with the song Carrie-Anne by noonish? Ok, cool, make sure to include lots of parentheticals and rambling digressions about your own life!  Here is lots of money”) about this, I would mention that the Hollies will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday.  Ergo, this song is newsworthy.

Of the many versions of this song that exist on YouTube, most are of the band lip-synching to their hit on variety shows, as was standard practice back in the day.   Because the recorded version of the song contiains a steel drum solo — per Wikipocrypha, it “may have been the first piece of pop music outside the Caribbean genre to feature a solo on steelpan” — there is always a weird moment in these videos when the band members have to stand there and try not to act awkward about the disembodied steelpan that, clearly, no one present is playing.  The version above is of a 1969 live performance (sans Nash, who spread his wings and flew LA-wards in 1968), and it replaces the steelpan solo with a solo by a disembodied string quartet; somehow this is preferable.  It’s still weird, though.  I mean, a lot of things about this song are massively weird.

For starters: it is supposedly about Marianne Faithfull, but if that’s the case it is a bizarre overextended metaphor about schoolboys and girls and teaching, and also contains a very harsh neg — “You lost your charm as you were aging, where is your magic disappearing?” — which, wow, if you think Faithfull’s magic is disappearing in 1968, you know, just wait til she spends  years living on the streets as a homeless heroin addict.

Also — and this is a weird thing that I love about the song — its verses, each sung by a different Holly, do not rhyme and have no set meter (there is probably a musical term for this).  “When we were in school our games were simple/You’d play the janitor I’d be the monitor/then you played with older boys and prefects/what’s the attraction in what they’re doing?”

The lyrical content about school and games might be what originally lodged the song in my consciousness. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was around 8 or 9 years old.  Music with a slight edge of naughtiness that I didn’t quite understand intellectually, but somehow understood viscerally, was just beginning to seem appealing.  I played my parents’ and grandparents’ records and listened to the Oldies station in bed at night, tape-recording songs I liked so I could hear them again later. I didn’t listen to the New Kids or Debbie Gibson or whatever would have been age-appropriate, I think due to nerdiness and not having cable.

That summer I took my first solo plane ride,  joining my grandparents on vacation in northern Maine.  I think I’ve written about this trip before; my memories of it seem predigested in a way that memories can only be when you’ve run them through the meaning-sieve a few too many times already.  I made this into a story, in other words, and now I have to sort out what really happened from the montage-sequence glue I stuck around the memories to glom them together. I remember the taste of the orange Bubble Yum I chewed on the plane to keep my ears from popping and the Maine smell of chamomile crushed underfoot, salt air, and damp clothes.  Also: a sense of constant feverish imaginative life — after all, I spent this trip mostly alone, left to my own devices by my grandparents, away from my parents; I felt like it was the beginning of my adulthood.

There was a boy about my age vacationing there that week with his family too.  This is the part of the story that I’ve told before, to myself at least.  I don’t remember anything about him, not his name or what he looked like; I have the vague impression that we spent rainy afternoons together in the cottage his family was renting, playing card games, and that we ran around on the beach together, but I don’t actually remember doing either of those things.  All the times I’ve played card games bored at the rainy beach in my life blur together and all I have is the familiar impression of antsiness soothed by a series of pointless challenges.  We fell in love, in my mind, obviously.  I had read a lot of books.

There was a wedding at the inn one night, the party held outside in a big white tent.  A misty rain may or may not have been falling, or maybe the sky was clear and every single constellation in the summer sky shone down on us.  The boy and I sat on the stoop of his rented cottage, which was just uphill from the inn, watching the party; the music was loud, mostly songs from the 60s.  And this song floated up the hill to us, the question of it repeated over and over.   I wanted to dance but I didn’t want to seem weird, so we just sat there, I think, unless I asked him to dance and he said no. “What’s your game now, can anybody play?”

Originally posted by emily from Emily Magazine, on March 11, 2010 7:14 AM

(Cross posted from the Google Mobile Blog)

Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering, demonstrated last December a preview version of Product Search for mobile with local inventory, which lets you see right in your search results whether items are in stock at nearby stores. We're happy to announce that as of today, if you're searching for a product that is sold by participating retailers, including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, or West Elm, you can just look for the blue dots in the search results to see if it's available in a local store. If you see a blue dot, you can tap on the adjacent "In stock nearby" link, and you'll be taken to the seller's page where you'll see whether the item is "In Stock" or has "Limited Availability" near you. You'll also see how far away the stores are from you -- as long as you've enabled My Location or manually specified your location.

If you have an iPhone, Palm WebOS phone, or any Android-powered device, and you're in the US, just go to Google.com in your mobile browser, tap on the "more" link, and then select "Shopping." Or look for the "Shopping results" section in Universal Search results when you search on Google.com.

Finally, if you're a retailer and you'd like to participate in this program, we want to hear from you. Please fill out this brief form to let us know that you'd like to be considered. In the meantime, you can get prepared by making sure your Local Business Center data is up to date, and ensuring that your Product Search data is in great shape.

Posted by Paul Lee and Yury Pinsky, Product Managers

Originally posted by Paul Lee from Google Merchant Blog, on March 11, 2010 7:00 AM

South by Southwest 2010 starts Friday in Austin, Texas, and the TED team is heading down to present two panels:

How to Create a Viral Video
Saturday, March 13, 11am

From pranks and mashups to world-changing talks, viral videos infect our minds every day. But how does a video go viral? Margaret Gould Stewart from YouTube, Jonathan Wells from Flux.net and Jason Wishnow, TED.com's Director of Film + Video, share strategies -- from editing to distribution to, well, having the right friends. Plus: hear direct from Damian Kulash of OK Go about their new 7-million-views-in-9-days music video -- and how his label's ban on embedding video led OK Go, just yesterday, to leave the majors and start their own label.

(We're having an OK Go moment here at TED. If you haven't yet seen the jawdropping treadmill video -- watch it. And the new, also jawdropping video for "This Too Shall Pass," proudly embedded above. They know from viral video.)

Offering Your Content in 100 Languages
Sunday, March 14, 9:30am

The web is a global medium, but most websites are siloed in a single language. A social translation program is one way to make your website more accessible to a global audience, while also turning users into contributors. Is social translation an option for your website? If so, how do you ensure quality? What motivates volunteers? Is machine translation an option? Learn from leading-edge social translation projects, including panelists from Global Voices and Mozilla, as well as June Cohen, who oversees TED's massive Open Translation Project, which has so far subtitled TEDTalks in 72 languages and counting.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from TED Blog, on March 11, 2010 6:10 AM

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Other Events, iPhone, App Store

"What kinds of games do you like?" Adam "Atomic" Saltsman asked of his panel audience at the Canabalt postmortem during the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. "Role-playing" was yelled out, as was "puzzler," and eventually Saltsman picked "platformer" as the genre. Without another word, he quietly went to work on a laptop. Then, his partner at Semi Secret Software, Eric Johnson, took the podium to tell us all about what it was like to make one of the App Store's most popular games.

He started by saying that the game was originally developed in just "five very long days," and was created for the Experimental Gameplay Project and based around simplicity -- it only uses six colors and, obviously, the one button. For a game that's so simple, it actually had a lot of complex influences. It drew from older games, like Another World and Flashback, as well as modern works, like Half-Life 2 and District 9.

The level design was originally assembled around the idea that "the farther you go, the harder it gets," but they later evolved the difficulty to be based around the player's running speed, so that, to an extent, you could self-mediate the difficulty by hitting obstacles and slowing down a bit. The buildings were all designed with what Johnson called "lego pieces" -- little bits of graphics that are interchangeable to create somewhat randomized designs.

Jackson also talked about what he said might be the most inventive part of Canabalt: the marketing. The game was originally designed as a Flash game, and throughout the entire time the game was available for $2.99 on the App Store, there was always a free complete version available online for the public to play. The developers were ok with that, however, for three reasons. First, they said, there was no Flash on the iPhone, so if you wanted to play the game on the iPhone, you had to buy it. Second, there was a "try before you buy" element that a lot of people liked, and that they believe sold some games for them. Third, they figured some people would buy the game just to support the developers, especially because of the Flash game.

Jackson said no matter what the reasons, having a free Flash version to play worked great for them (they shared that they'd sold 115,000 copies on the App Store in just five months), and while the server costs of keeping a popular game up online are not insignificant, Semi Secret Software will continue to do the same thing with their future games (in fact, you can currently play Gravity Hook HD, their next game, online right now even before it's released on the iPhone.

The other decision they made on marketing was with price -- despite calls to the contrary, they decided to stick with the $2.99 price on the iPhone. That proved to be very "polarizing" -- almost all of their App Store reviews mentioned the price, both positively ("this is totally worth the money") or negatively ("How dare you charge this much"). They believed that while they would have sold more copies at 99 cents, the $2.99 price gave them a different type of customer, and as they showed with the chart below, they got a different type of reviewer. Free apps, they said, tend to attract a lot more negative reviews in general, while people who pay for paid apps tend to take a little more "ownership" in the game they support.

Finally, the guys announced their brand new development kit for the iPhone, called Flixel. The app, which they're bringing into a closed beta right now but will eventually release publicly for free, is designed and used by the guys to bring Flash games right over into the iPhone, and help developers rapidly prototype Flash games in an iPhone format. To show off the software, Saltsman hooked the computer he'd been working on into the projector, and showed off a quick little platformer game (as per the audience's request at the beginning of the 20 minute panel) called "Platformer (I guess)."

The game was super simple (and bugged -- he had to tweak it a little bit as he played, and the little guy couldn't go downstairs), but it was a very nice working prototype of a possible touch-based platformer. Nothing you could sell, but as a demo for Flixel, it worked.

We'll keep an eye out for both Gravity Hook HD and Flixel, and we'll try to corner the guys from Semi Secret later this week to try and talk to them both about their work on Canabalt and what they're up to in the future.

TUAWGDC 2010: Canabalt postmortem originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Mike Schramm from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on March 11, 2010 5:00 AM

What a great way to start off this morning: a new series of map-based illustrations by Christoph Niemann. Reserve Battery Park is a favorite. So is this omelet recipe:

Tags: art   Christoph Niemann   maps

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 11, 2010 4:23 AM

It's time to welcome @ruthbourdain—a Twitter account that combines the haiku-like ridiculousness of Ruth Reichl's tweets with the pessimism and bad jokes of Tony Bourdain—to the dancefloor. The avatar alone is worthy of praise.
· @RuthBourdain [Twitter]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater NY, on March 11, 2010 3:53 AM

Improving the product, not faithfully reproducing the physical object, always gets priority. I passed on a long, complex page-turning animation because it didn’t make sense (you’re paging up/down, not left/right) and it would have been distracting. And I opted for an extremely brief cross-fade, rather than a slide, because slides take longer and are more visually jarring. DVD players don’t make fake whirring noises for five minutes before letting you eject a disc to simulate rewinding. Similarly, nobody should need to perform a full-width swipe gesture and wait two seconds for their fake page to turn in their fake book, and nobody should need to click the fake Clear button and start their calculation over because their fake calculator only has a one-line, non-editable fake LCD. via www.marco.org

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 11, 2010 3:45 AM

We’re often told that we should design our websites and software to mimic real-life objects. The iPhone strengthened this idiom, and Apple has been driving this home hard for the iPad.

But it’s not absolute, and it’s not always the best idea. My favorite counterexample is the typical calculator app:

Nearly everything about a real calculator is faithfully reproduced, but with the good comes the bad: nearly every limitation and frustration has also been reproduced. There’s very little reason to use the software facsimile over its real-world equivalent, and in some ways, the physical object is better.

Despite being faithfully designed to look and work like a real-world object, the Calculator app hasn’t made any progress. It hasn’t advanced technology. It hasn’t made anything more useful or created new interaction models.

My preferred calculator, which I will keep blogging about until it’s ubiquitous, wasn’t designed against any physical objects because there’s no physical equivalent to what it does.

Please ignore the two glaring errors I made while cobbling this together for the picture.

Functionally, it’s almost a calculator. But it’s also almost a spreadsheet and almost a list pad. By not constraining its design to that of a common physical object, it’s able to be and do much more than anything in the physical world ever could.

It does a much better job of a number of critical features than the Calculator app, such as multipart calculations, parentheses, editing existing values, and dynamic value references. Even trivial operations are so much nicer that Soulver converts rarely even open Calculator (or use one), preferring instead to keep a Soulver window open somewhere as a scratch pad.

The interface paradigm of mimicking real-world objects shouldn’t, therefore, be applied universally.

So last week, when good writers (1 2 3 4) started discussing the merits of emulating page-turning, I took notice. Especially since I added pagination to Instapaper Pro 2.2 and had to make some difficult decisions in the process. There was no question in my mind that it was better for reading than scrolling — even better than my semi-automated, low-effort tilt scrolling.

But I didn’t implement it because books have pages and lack scrolling. Books aren’t even the right physical-object equivalent for Instapaper. Not all reading happens in books.

Instapaper is more like a magazine than anything else, but I’m not about to try to reproduce the soggy, wrinkled covers from being shoved in the mailbox, the perfume samples, the ten-page “continued on” jumps in the middle of articles, or the subscription cards falling out as you’re trying to read.

(The iPad version of Instapaper that I’ve made so far, incidentally, doesn’t resemble any physical objects. I haven’t shoved huge newspaper or book graphics in there in a misguided effort to win an ADA. Just as Soulver looks like nothing but Soulver, Instapaper on iPad just looks like Instapaper.)

I implemented pagination because it improves reading, not because a related physical item separates text into pages.

Improving the product, not faithfully reproducing the physical object, always gets priority. I passed on a long, complex page-turning animation because it didn’t make sense (you’re paging up/down, not left/right) and it would have been distracting. And I opted for an extremely brief cross-fade, rather than a slide, because slides take longer and are more visually jarring.

DVD players don’t make fake whirring noises for five minutes before letting you eject a disc to simulate rewinding. Similarly, nobody should need to perform a full-width swipe gesture and wait two seconds for their fake page to turn in their fake book, and nobody should need to click the fake Clear button and start their calculation over because their fake calculator only has a one-line, non-editable fake LCD.

It’s important to find the balance between real-world reproduction and usability progress. Physical objects often do things in certain ways for good reasons, and we should try to preserve them. But much of the time, they’re done in those ways because of physical, technical, economic, or practical limitations that don’t need to apply anymore.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org, on March 11, 2010 3:24 AM

Another reason to protest Obama: His support for nuclear power plants.

Originally posted by Nicolas Lampert from Just Seeds: Blog, on March 11, 2010 3:00 AM

I was wondering at the picture of Heidegger's spatulate head on the cover of Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, then noticed what seemed to be missing from the back of his skull was in fact his slicked-back hair, and noticed the mustache he is wearing in the style most commonly associated with Hitler. Given the subject of the book, this is certainly not an accident.

I hadn't much followed Heidegger Nazi controversy, however the author of this book, Emmanuel Faye, believes that "the diffusion of Heidegger's works after the war slowly descends like ashes after the explosion - a grey cloud slowly suffocating and extinguishing minds", and that the vast literature on Heidegger continues to spread "the fundamental tenets of Nazism on a worldwide scale".

That seems hyperbolic, but OK. I'd always been entertained by the very thing that seems to most frustrate philosophers about Heidegger, such as when he writes things such as "the Nothing noths", but now it seems that was not as harmless an entertainment as I had thought.

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on March 11, 2010 2:41 AM

29 Days...

Originally posted by Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks Archive, on March 10, 2010 10:30 PM

via fourfour.typepad.com There is much wrong and much right about fourfour's Oscar's recap. The animated gifs on this page almost melted my Power Book, but they are worth it.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 10, 2010 7:43 PM

Comments

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Hacker News, on March 10, 2010 7:37 PM

March 10, 2010

Player of the Day: Jose Reyes, shortstop, NY Mets

Of course, different people have different ideas about what makes an exciting baseball player. But, in general, the blueprint would look an awful lot like Jose Reyes.

In fact, not that long ago, Bill James and I plotted out formula (admittedly the formula is a lot more me than Bill — he just offered suggestions) to try and determine the most exciting players in baseball. I lost that original formula, but I tried to recreate it, taking into account triples (the most exciting play in baseball!), stolen bases, batting average, defensive excitement (subjective) and a couple of other things. I’m pretty sure I created the most wildly flawed formula to appear on the Internet today.

Here then, according to this wildly flawed formula, are the 11 most exciting seasons of the last 25 years:

1. Jose Reyes, 2006.
2. Jose Reyes, 2008
3. Jimmy Rollins, 2007
4. Ichiro Suzuki, 2001
5. Carl Crawford, 2004
6. Jose Reyes, 2007
7. Chuck Knoblauch, 1996.
8. Hanley Ramirez, 2006
9. Tony Gwynn, 1987
10. Tim Raines, 1985
11. Carlos Beltran, 2001.

Obviously, you can create your own formula — and I hope you will — but the point is that at least according to one fairly standard view, Reyes defined exciting baseball. He hit lots of triples. He also hit doubles and a few home runs. He led the league in stolen bases three years in a row. He made dazzling plays at shortstop. Sure, there were always people who thought Reyes needed to get on base more and could have been a touch steadier defensively. But that stuff would come! The point with Reyes was excitement. He was exciting. The Mets were exciting.

Anyway, that’s how it was in 2006, when Reyes was 23 years old and the Mets won 97 games. That’s also how it was in 2007, when Reyes stole 78 bases — most in 20 years — and the Mets led the National League East by seven games in mid-September, you know, before losing 12 of their last 17 and blowing it to the Phillies.

Oh well, there was excitement even then. The Mets signed the best pitcher in baseball, Johan Santana. Reyes has probably his best season — led the league with 204 hits and 19 triples, stole 56 bases. And the Mets led the National League East by 3 1/2 games in mid-September, you know, before losing four of their next five and never again getting back into first place.

Sure, the late season fadeouts hurt. They hurt a lot. But — and it’s easy to forget this — the Mets still looked to be in awfully good shape. Reyes was exciting. Santana was dazzling. Third baseman David Wright was one of the best players in baseball. Center fielder Carlos Beltran was one of the best players in baseball. Carlos Delgado had hit 38 home runs — the 11th time in 12 years he hit 30-plus homers. Francisco Rodriguez came to New York after he had set the single-season save record in Anaheim — finally, the Mets had their answer for the Great Rivera.

So, how did it all go so wrong? Just look at the Mets now. They are now arguing over Jose Reyes thyroid. That’s the big story at Mets camp these days. The Mets seem to believe — based on what they’re hearing from doctors — that Reyes has an overactive thyroid. Reyes seems to believe — based on what he’s hearing from doctors — that his thyroid is fine. Everybody is waiting for the results from the latest tests. These days, Jose Reyes’ thyroid has the third highest Q-Rating in New York, behind only David Paterson and David Letterman. It could get its own show by the weekend.

Of course, the thyroid talk is just an emblem of the Mets issues — of Carlos Beltran’s knee surgery, of David Wright’s power outage, of Carlos Delgado’s hip injury, of the surgery Johan Santana had to remove bone chips, of the Mets abominable 70-92 record last year*

*The Mets became the first team in baseball history to spend $140 million (well, $149 million and some change) and have a losing record. Here is a list of all the teams to spend $140 million on payroll in a season and their win total:

2009 Mets: 70 wins
2009 Yankees: 103 wins
2008 Yankees: 89 wins
2007 Yankees: 94 wins
2007 Red Sox: 96 wins
2006 Yankees: 97 wins
2005 Yankees: 95 wins
2004 Yankees: 101 wins
2003 Yankees: 101 wins

In other words, the thyroid talk is just the latest in a whole bunch of really weird things to happen to the Mets. Of course, Mets fans — at least the ones I hear from all the time — seem to think this is all just part of being … Mets fans. The It’s all part of the tradition. The Mets have a proud history of “The Mets Being The Mets” that, of course, goes back to the 1962 team that most people would agree was the worst baseball team of the last 100 years.

The teams that followed were not much better — until the 1969 Miracle Mets and the 1973 Ya Gotta Believe Mets. Then, the late 1970s, another dreadful lull, that time when Joe Torre came to understand that it’s hard to be a genius with Lenny Randle at third, Doug Flynn at second and Craig Swan as your Opening Day starter.

Then, came the great mid-80s Mets that didn’t win quite as much as they should have won. Then came the dreadful early 1990s Mets, the good-but-not-good enough late 1990s Mets, the dreadful early 2000s Mets, and finally this team dealing with a spotty lineup, a spotty rotation and a thyroid problem.

The thing is, that if they could stop the bad momentum … this Mets team has talent. Johan Santana, if he’s healthy, is as good as anybody. Beltran appears to be on the mend after knee surgery — he says that he’s feeling better about his knee than he has in years. You would like to believe that David Wright, having worked out whatever swing problems he had last year, will return to being a terrific player. Jason Bay gives the Mets a strong middle-of-the lineup bat. The rotation — with 20-somethings Mike Pelfrey, John Maine and Oliver Perez — could be OK, and K-Rod is still a top closer no matter what Goose Gossage may have said about him.*

*I guess Gossage called K-Rod a “clown” because of his theatrics on the field, and K-Rod responded by saying he had never heard of Gossage. So, that went well. Gossage also suggested that while Mariano Rivera is the best “modern reliever,” he prefers himself and the 52 saves he got where he got at least seven outs. Rivera, he points out, only has two of those. Case closed.

And while this is off-topic, it should be pointed out that Gossage does not have the most 7-out saves in baseball history, and he doesn’t have the second most, and he doesn’t have the third, fourth, fifth or sixth-most either. One of his teammates, Sparky Lyle, had more.

The list of most saves, 7-or-more outs:

1. Rollie Fingers, 74 saves
2. Dan Quisenberry, 65 saves
3. Gene Garber, 64 saves
4. Hoyt Wilhelm, 61 saves
5. Mike Marshall, 57 saves
6. Sparky Lyle, 56 saves
7. Goose Gossage, 52 saves
8. Lindy McDaniel, 51 saves
9. Bill Campbell, 49 saves
10. Bob Stanley, 48 saves.

And then there’s Jose Reyes. He was hurt for almost all of the 2009 season. He has had a rough camp with his thyroid issues and with the FBI questioning him about his connection to Canadian doctor Tony Galea, who has been charged with conspiring to smuggle HgH into the U.S. But here’s the thing. He’s only 26 years old. He says that he feels healthy. He still has the talent to be one of the most exciting players in the game. And he and the Mets are due for something good … it has to happen one of these days.

Originally posted by Joe Posnanski from Joe Posnanski, on March 10, 2010 6:07 PM

Don’t forget, tomorrow night is the opening of the Eames Century Modern show at the Eames Office. 7pm to 11pm. Free and open to all, live music from The Mattson 2, screen printing on site with David Dodde and Fresh Pressed, and meet and greet with the Eames family, House Industries designers and Erik van Blokland.

Originally posted by Ben Kiel from House Industries Show and Tell, on March 10, 2010 1:49 PM

Shared by Bud
I like google reader, and when I talk with my friends, it quickly becomes clear that I'm some kind of super user. It sounds like this update will fix some of the cruft that currently infects this great product like the bizarre relationship between staring (now delineated as bookmarking) and liking (which is more akin to expressing an opinion).

Since I've been working on Google Reader, I've told a lot of my friends about how great it is. And while some of them try Reader and find it really useful, many of them aren’t interested in taking the time to get Reader set up. That’s why today, I’m happy to announce an experimental product from the Google Reader team that makes the best stuff in Reader more accessible for everyone, while giving Reader users a new way to view their feeds. It’s called Google Reader Play, and it’s a new way to browse interesting stuff on the web that’s easy to use and personalized to the things you like. Best of all, there’s no set-up required: visit google.com/reader/play to give it a try.

In Google Reader Play, items are presented one at a time, and each item is big and full-screen. After you've read an item, just click the next arrow to move to the next one, or click any item on the filmstrip below to fast-forward. Of course, you can click the title or image of any item to go to the original version. And since so much of the good stuff online is visual, we automatically enlarge images and auto-play videos full-screen.

Reader Play adapts to your tastes -- as you browse, you can let us know which stuff you enjoy by clicking the "like" button, and we'll use that info to show you more items we think you'll like. If you want, you can also choose categories, and we'll personalize your stream to only show you stuff from those categories. And you don't even need a Google account to use Reader Play. Of course, if you want to star, like, or share items, we'll ask you to sign in to your Google account. Since Reader and Reader Play share the same infrastructure, any actions you take in one will be reflected in the other.

You might be wondering where we find all the awesome stuff in Reader Play. It uses the same technology as the Recommended Items feed in Reader to identify and aggregate the most interesting items on the web. If you sign in, Reader Play will also be personalized with items that people you’re following have shared in Google Reader, and items similar to ones you’ve previously liked, starred, or shared.

Since Reader Play is an experiment, it’s launching in Google Labs for now. To be clear, Reader Play isn't intended to replace Google Reader: both Google Reader and Reader Play are about finding and reading interesting stuff online. In essense, Reader Play is a different view of Reader. It's designed to be a fun and easy way to browse interesting items, while Reader is a highly customizable way to organize your feeds, keep track of what you've read, and much more. In Reader, you can switch to this view by clicking "View in Reader Play" from the feed settings menu.

Try Reader Play today and let us know what you think. Send us feedback in our forum or on Twitter, and check out our help article for more info.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Official Google Reader Blog, on March 10, 2010 12:37 PM

via http://drubk.com/?page=6

Originally posted by rusdesign from FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE, on March 10, 2010 12:23 PM

Perhaps the simplest solution would be to ban marriage outright. Or, better yet, to declare everybody as married to everybody else. But then what would the database engineers do all day?

via qntm.org

This is probably the best commentary I've read on (gay) marriage in a long time. The data modeling is just an added bonus.

(Note to my wife. I'd never agree to ban our marriage or be married to anyone else)

Originally posted by apgwoz from fold, on March 10, 2010 12:14 PM

The news that Issue #60 ("Append file support") in the Quick Search Box for the Mac bug tracker has been marked as "fixed" by Dave MacLachlan will make a vanishingly small number of people exceedingly happy.

And since the other 99.99% of you have no idea what I'm talking about you can move right along. There's nothing to see here.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 10, 2010 12:06 PM

I’d heard about this for a while, but it’s quite a treat. You should absolutely read the whole thing, but this was my favorite excerpt.

Exploratory learning can be engineered into repeatable systems: Moments of delight and skill acquisition are highly reproducible. All you need is a well designed and balanced system of interconnected feedback loops that helps guide and encourage the formation of new skills.

Permalink: http://www.capndesign.com/archives/2010/03/ribbon_hero_turns_learning_office_into_a.php

Originally posted by Matt Jacobs from Capn Design, on March 10, 2010 12:02 PM

Serious Eats rounds up the best spots to eat in Austin. Filing this away for later eating.

Permalink: http://www.capndesign.com/archives/2010/03/where_to_eat_at_sxsw_2010.php

Originally posted by Matt Jacobs from Capn Design, on March 10, 2010 11:57 AM

via www.coolhunting.com

When coolhunting launched their fabulous redesign they used courier as the text font. I loved that but was in the minority. Other readers have spoken and they've switched to georgia. It does read well but I miss the retro.

(disclaimer ((if I actually need one)) - six apart services where I work helped with the redesign but I actually DO think it is fabulous.)

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on March 10, 2010 11:30 AM

Filed under: Apple

Unit testing refers to a software validation methodology that allows programmers to test individual program units for correctness. It's been an ongoing question in the iPhone developer community as to whether the iPhone's view controller class is testable or not.

In response to these discussions, iPhone developer Jonah Williams has written up a view controller unit testing how-to over at the Carbon Five web blog. His write-up offers examples that show how to incorporate some best practices into your code.

Williams points out how broken NIB bindings are a common problem for iPhone OS applications. To address these issues, he regularly adds simple assertions that test that each IB outlet and action are set properly from inside his view controller class implementations. These assertions check that IBOutlet instance variables are not set to nil and that IBAction targets have been assigned, adding a layer of protection against broken bindings.

Another typical view controller issue involves responding to application memory warnings. To respond, he adds tests that ensure that each view-dependent property gets correctly released and re-created as views unload and then later reload. By building these into test methods, he can execute this behavior on demand, and ensure that the sequence will execute flawlessly in real world conditions.

Finally, Williams discusses view controller interdependencies. Often instances are tightly intertwined, with objects acting as clients for each other. For example, a simple table view controller, living within a navigation controller, might present a detail view via yet another view controller when a row is selected. That's three separate controllers to account for, when you really only want to test one at a time. Williams suggests isolating these view controllers away from their interdependencies to test each component separately and provides examples of how you can do so.

What made Williams' approach pop for me is how he carefully exposes and isolates dependencies for testing. These are features that can otherwise be hard to inspect and validate in the normal course of programming. His write-up is well worth reading through, and provides an excellent jumping off point for investigating view controller unit testing.

TUAWiPhone devsugar: Unit testing for iPhone view controllers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Erica Sadun from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on March 10, 2010 11:30 AM

From Slice

If such a plan were enacted, a $2.75 slice in NYC, for instance, would jump 50¢ to $3.25.

Science Daily recently reported that researchers have recommended the use of surcharges (taxes and fees) on unhealthy food items like pizza and soda to help offset the nearly $150 billion a year the U.S. government spends on health care issues related to obesity.

Doctors Mitchell H. Katz and Rajiv Bhatia published an article titled "Food Surcharges and Subsidies: Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The two suggest that raising the cost of or specially taxing food items that are high in saturated fats and sugar will have consumers thinking twice before making unhealthy meal choices. Their recommendation is an 18% tax on such items.

On a $2.75 slice (an average price point for slices in NYC), that would translate to a 50¢ surcharge. On a large pepperoni pizza from Domino's ($13.05), that's an extra $2.35.

This tax would be similar to the cigarette tax that some states have in place in an attempt to reduce smoking. For example, New York State places a tax of $2.75 on a pack of smokes, whereas homes of Big Tobacco charges far less. Virginia only taxes 30¢ a pack; South Carolina, 7¢. I wonder if pizza-producing states like New York would similarly tax less for pies if some such bill goes through.

But the bigger question is whether states should tax "unhealthy" foods to reduce obesity-related medical expenses or just mind their own beeswax. Shouldn't it be up to individuals to decide how they want to consume their ideal (or even not-so-ideal) daily caloric intake? And what about the inclusion of pizza in public school and other government institutions' cafeterias?

Should pizza be generalized as an "unhealthy food" when there are endless possibilities and variations?

We want to read your thoughts on this. What do you think?

Originally posted by Pizzalicious Lauren from Serious Eats, on March 10, 2010 11:30 AM

Dear Emily,

I’m sorry for wearing sweat pants to our first dinner date and for getting stoned before meeting your parents for the first time.

This was in 1999, before we were married. We’d been friends for a couple years at that point, and had recently started seeing each romantically—the result of a particularly drunken night at the WXOU Bar on Hudson Street, near where we lived in the West Village. I’d asked you out for a first proper dinner date, to Hangawi, a fancy Korean restaurant on 32nd Street.

It’s funny now to think about what I was thinking as I got ready to meet you. It was a Saturday, and I had been wearing a pair of green sweatpants that I used to wear on weekends. They were the kind that George Costanza used to wear on Seinfeld, the kind that Jerry once said announced to the world, “I give up. I can’t compete in normal society.” It occurred to me that I might change into something else, but I stood in my bedroom and thought for a minute and decided against it. I put on a white polo shirt and my Converse All-stars and walked out the door.

It wasn’t that I was trying to feign ambivalence, to give the impression I didn’t care enough to put on pants with buttons and belt-loops. I had made it very clear, in fact, that I wanted us to be girlfriend and boyfriend. If anything, you were the one who took some convincing. (Glaringly easy, in hindsight, to see why.) My thinking, as best I can explain it, was more along the lines of "take me as I am." I was a guy who wore green sweat pants on a Saturday. I wanted to make a good impression, but changing pants for that reason felt wrong. Like I’d be faking it, presenting myself as someone I was not. This type of thinking makes very little sense to me now and is derailed by something as simple as the fact that I certainly didn’t wear those sweat pants exclusively. I had lots of other pants, many of which I often changed into before dinner without much thought at all. But that day, I felt myself in the hands of fate: These were the pants you put on this morning, these are the pants you shall wear tonight.

I don’t know. I used to be really superstitious, too. And that’s just a terrible way to live. I was smoking too much pot those days, I suppose.

Which brings me to the second part of this apology. A couple months later, our relationship having miraculously survived my sweat pants, you’d arranged for us to go to dinner with your parents—my first time meeting them. Bored, sitting around my apartment that afternoon, I came to the same kind of question as before: Here was a situation in which, on any other day, I would be smoking pot. Should the fact that I was soon to be meeting these important people, the parents of the woman I was falling in love with, should I let that change my routine? I knew that I’d be brighter-eyed and clearer in conversation if I refrained, and I definitely wanted your parents to like me.

But then I thought, well, the way things are going, chances are I’ll be spending a lot of time around these people in the future. There would be lots of days like this. I wasn’t planning on making any major changes to my personal lifestyle. They might as well get to know me half-lidded and cloudy-headed. I packed a bowl.

Dinner went fine. Your parents turned out to be groovy 60s-types anyway. Towards the end of the evening, after I recognized a reference one of them made to the Steve Martin-Lily Tomlin movie All of Me, and mentioned that it was as a favorite of mine, your dad said, “Anyone who appreciates All of Me is all right by me,” and my heart felt warm in my chest. I’d lucked out.

Still, thinking back, it seems pretty stupid. There’s a reason most people would choose not to get stoned before meeting their girlfriend’s parents. Just like there’s a reason to change out of sweatpants before going on a date to a fancy restaurant. Making decisions based on principle rather than pragmatism is a prescription for failure. Even more so when the principle is so confused and self-defeating.

Was all this a test for you? I guess in a way it was, odd as that sounds. Not that I’d meant it that way. But I remember the expression on your face when we met at the restaurant for that first dinner date. You looked down at my sweat pants, and then back up to me, and gave a bemused little sigh. “So this is how it’s going to be, huh?” You thought for a second more and said, “All right.”

Again, I lucked out.

Originally posted by Dave Bry from The Awl, on March 10, 2010 11:20 AM

Legendary art director George Lois shares his memories about his twelve favorite Esquire covers.

He tells how the job came about: "I was a well-known advertising agency guy, and the former editor of Esquire, Harold Hayes, he called me up. We met at The Four Seasons, and he said, 'Could you help me try to do better covers?' I got this Bronx accent, and he had this southern drawl, and it must have been a funny discussion. 'You have to go outside and find a designer, a guy who's talented at graphic design, but understands politics, culture, and movies,' I told him, and he said, 'Do me a favor, could you do me just one cover?' I said, 'Okay, I'll do you one.'"

Here's one I'd never seen before, featuring Chief John Big Tree, the supposed model for the Indian Head nickel.

Tags: design   Esquire   George Lois   magazines

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 10, 2010 11:19 AM

Zack Greinke is the best pitcher in baseball. As a Royals fan, I’m biased, but I’m not alone. If you look at CHONE’s own runs saved above replacement, Greinke is the top pitcher projected for 2010. But I’m not interested in a “who is the best pitcher” debate at the moment. When all factors are taken into account, I can imagine good arguments for any one of a number of pitchers, including (but not limited to) Greinke, Tim Lincecum, Felix Hernandez, and Kei Igawa. My goal in this piece is not to argue Greinke’s case, but to argue that one “knock” on Greinke — his past struggles with depression and social anxiety disorder — should not be considered a significant factor.

Before I start, let me make three things clear: 1) I am not trying to minimize the seriousness of mental health issues; 2) I don’t have any special “inside” information; and 3) I am not a doctor, psychologist, or any other sort of expert or mental health professional; this is a lay opinion of a baseball blogger writing from the “outside.”

I’ve read comparisons of pitcher value going forward in which Greinke’s past mental health issues that caused him to leave baseball for a time in 2006 are given as a reason to grade him down. I disagree; if it’s a worry at all, it’s a relatively insignificant one. This isn’t meant as an “inspirational” piece about the power to overcome obstacles, either — there’s a place for that, but frankly, I’m not sure professional athletics is the arena to which we should look… that’s a rant for another time and place. This is more cold-blodded, it’s about how this should (not) factor in to valuations of Greinke.

First of all, despite the way many of the bandwagon-jumping pieces that came out during Greinke’s 2009 Cy Young campaign made it sound, it’s not as if Greinke was out of baseball until right before his historically great 2009. Greinke’s problem actually came to a head four years ago, in 2006. His ‘comeback‘ to the major leagues full-time was three years ago, in 2007. He pitched well in 2007 and 2008 already — he’s been back for a while, and has been fine.

Second, the time off in 2006 as well as the lighter 2007 workload means that Greinke (who has never had a significant injury in his professional career, as far as I know) has fewer miles on his arm — another important factor for his value. So that at least partially (and in my mind, more than fully) offsets whatever risk Greinke’s condition involes.

Third, think for a moment about how many people you know that have struggled or have ongoing struggles with mental health that requires some sort of ongoing treatment (and again, I don’t know any specifics regarding Greinke’s treatment). It seems quite likely that a fair number of baseball players (including very good ones) are dealing with this sort of stuff, and we simply haven’t heard about it (some we have, as with Khalil Greene’s difficulties) because they’ve managed to keep it private. Do you really think professional baseball players are that much different from the rest of us?* If they can deal with it, so can Greinke, who has been dealing with for a few years now.

* And no, I’m not including the ‘shocking‘ increase in the number of players who needed AdderAll prescriptions after baseball banned greenies (which, unlike steroids, definitely didn’t help players’ performance in the past, even if they did do them, which they totally didn’t.).

Fourth, again without minimizing the seriousness of mental health issues, keep in mind that in February 2006, Greinke was just 22. Undoubtedly, social anxiety was the primary factor in Greinke’s difficulties at the time, but it’s also an age at which many people are at a crossroads. In The New Bill James Historical Abstract, James recounts the 1978 tale of the 22-year old Robin Yount, who, like Greinke, had been brought up at a very young age and was going through something of a career crisis, as the Brewers were considering moving him off of shortstop. Like Greinke, Yount thought about leaving baseball entirely (in Yount’s case, to take up professional golf). Some saw this as immaturity, but, as James writes after he returned to baseball

…Yount became a better player than he had been before; his career got traction from the moment he returned. What I didn’t see at the time was that Yount was in the process of making a commitment to baseball… What looked like indecision or sulking was really the process of making a decision… In the biographies of men and nations, success often arrives in the mask of failure (p. 594)

Greinke’s case (aside from the obvious) is obviously different than Yount’s, but there are similarities. Greinke, too, wanted to leave baseball behind for good. But that’s clearly not the case now. Contrary the “Zack’s just so goofy!” stereotype sometimes projected onto him (due to some memorable quotes), the main picture one gets is of a guy who is super-competitive (in everything — Brian Bannister has called Greinke “the most competitive peson I’ve ever met in my life.”) and driven.

Moreover, given baseball’s relative unconcern with its drinking problem, why would teams be concerned about a guy who got help for a treatable problem four years ago when they don’t seem to care all that much about players hitting the town every night while on the road? I’m not moralizing, I’m just “wondering” which is more detrimental to high-level athletic performance. Who knows?.*

* It’s hard to imagine, but maybe Greinke also hits the town with a world-historically awesome entourage of Kyle Farnsworth (Drama), Brian Bannister (“E”), and Billy Butler (Turtle). Um, not that I watch that stupid show.

But I digress. There are many reasons why someone might (wrongly, in my opinion) prefer one pitcher or another to Zack Greinke. Relative to all the various factors, Greinke’s issues with social anxiety shouldn’t be one of them.

Originally posted by Matt Klaassen from FanGraphs Baseball, on March 10, 2010 11:00 AM

Daylight Savings Time has utterly ruined me forever, so here's some links in lieu of actual content.

The Infinite Baseball Card Set is a blog of homebrew cards from someone who actually knows what they are doing. Go check it out.

There have been a few changes in the blogosphere. Two perfectly good blogs run by

Thing

And a bearded weirdo (a different bearded weirdo, but you get the point)

were cruelly abandoned by their owners so they could go off and do other things. Specifically, The Mojo Beard. They are doing the first card contest that will likely have zero entrants so at least they are being innovative.

Also, Stale Gum and Wax Wombat have new addresses. Wombat by choice, SG because Blogger is a bunch of fascists. Update accordingly.

I have absolutely no time to write even a description sentence for these blogs, but I found 'em and they're good, so check 'em out and be pleasantly surprised.Ok, I'll write a one word description.

Pack War - Corky

Pack Addict - Ticker

The Hall of Very Good - Mustache

Detroit Tigers Cards - Duh

Open Ice Hits - Hockey


Finally, if you're not reading Axe Cop, then there's really no hope for you.

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on March 10, 2010 10:24 AM

Welcome to Try Redis, a demonstration of the Redis database!Please type TUTORIAL to begin a brief tutorial, HELP to see a list of supported commands, or any valid Redis command to play with the database.

via try.redis-db.com

Redis has been getting lots of press lately, because it's a more structured memcache, which (not-)surprisingly is needed sometimes.

It's stupidly easy to get going with redis, but even if "stupidly easy" was too much for you, you have now have no excuse to try it out.

Originally posted by apgwoz from fold, on March 10, 2010 9:50 AM

An interesting article about how composer and programmer David Cope found a unique solution for making computer-composed classical music sound as though it was composed by humans: he wrote algorithms that based new works on previously created works.

Finally, Cope's program could divine what made Bach sound like Bach and create music in that style. It broke rules just as Bach had broken them, and made the result sound musical. It was as if the software had somehow captured Bach's spirit -- and it performed just as well in producing new Mozart compositions and Shakespeare sonnets. One afternoon, a few years after he'd begun work on Emmy, Cope clicked a button and went out for a sandwich, and she spit out 5,000 beautiful, artificial Bach chorales, work that would've taken him several lifetimes to produce by hand.

Gosh it's going to get interesting when machines can do some real fundamental "human" things 10,000x faster and better than humans can.

Tags: ai   classical music   David Cope   music

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 10, 2010 9:46 AM

Lots of talk from Democratic senators today about reforming Senate rules to lessen the crippling effect (depending on whether you're the one wielding it) of the filibuster. Harry Reid says it time for a change. Chuck Schumer says he's going to hold hearings on the issue. One caveat: the senators are making the remarks at what they're touting as a "Progressive Media Summit," so they're pitching to a particular audience today.

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on March 10, 2010 9:36 AM

1. Mattel is coming out with a line of Mad Men Barbies. Surprisingly, Jon Hamm looks nothing like his Ken doll. [NYT]

2. JetBlue is handing out free airline tickets in New York today. They were down in the Financial District this morning and now they're heading to Rockefeller Center. Find out where they're going next on their Twitter account. [@JETBLUE]

3, KISS is apparently working on a kids television show. Their press release describes it as a "television series that galvanizes the band's iconic personas for its young fans." And by "young fans" they mean 50-year-old men. [Daily Swarm]

4. Freddy's Bar and Backroom in Prospect Heights is screening three local films tonight: Battle of Brooklyn, about the Atlantic Yards project, Fit to Print, newspapers' current dark days and A Hole in the Fence, about an empty lot in Red Hook. Filmmakers will be on hand to present their work. The event starts at 8:30 p.m. [Freddy's Bar and Backroom]

5. Oh dear. Someone has has created a Facebook page titled "My Sister Said If I Get One Million Fans She'll Name Her Baby Megatron." The baby isn't due until August, and the page already has 869,800 fans. [Facebook]

6. MEN, featuring Le Tigre's JD Samson, girlfriend d' recent PAPERMAG interviewee Sia, are playing tonight at Mercury Lounge. [Mercury Lounge]

7. Here's a frightening video of French shoppers going nuts for the new Sonia Rykiel collection at H&M. [Buzzfeed]

8. Hot Chip just announced they're playing at Central Park Summer Stage August 4th. American Express and Venue pre-sales started today at 11 a.m. [Ticketmaster via Brooklyn Vegan]

Originally posted by Jamie Granoff from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on March 10, 2010 9:08 AM

Following up the recent Top 10 lists for each club in Major League Baseball, we now have the Top 50 prospects in the American League. Tomorrow, we’ll look at the Top 50 prospects in the National League. On Friday, we’ll unveil the Top 100 MLB prospects list, which will be a blend of the two lists. I’d like to thank both Bryan Smith and Erik Manning for their inputs on the lists.

We have a pretty exciting year planned for prospect analysis here at FanGraphs and RotoGraphs… so be sure to keep us bookmarked. It’s going to be an exciting year.

The Top 10 AL Prospects
1. Desmond Jennings, OF, Tampa Bay Rays
2. Neftali Feliz, RHP, Texas Rangers
3. Carlos Santana, C, Cleveland Indians
4. Jesus Montero, C/1B, New York Yankees
5. Dustin Ackley, 2B/OF, Seattle Mariners
6. Brian Matusz, LHP, Baltimore Orioles
7. Jeremy Hellickson, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays
8. Justin Smoak, 1B, Texas Rangers
9. Chris Carter, 1B, Oakland Athletics
10. Martin Perez, LHP, Texas Rangers

Just Missed the Top 10
11. Casey Kelly, RHP, Boston Red Sox
12. Aaron Hicks, OF, Minnesota Twins
13. Tim Beckham, SS, Tampa Bay Rays
14. Wade Davis, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays
15. Michael Montgomery, LHP, Kansas City Royals
16. Brett Wallace, 3B/1B, Toronto Blue Jays
17. Kyle Drabek, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
18. Ryan Westmoreland, OF, Boston Red Sox
19. Josh Bell, 3B, Baltimore Orioles
20. Tyler Flowers, C, Chicago White Sox

The Middle of the Pack
21. Hank Conger, C, Los Angeles Angels
22. Mike Moustakas, 3B, Kansas City Royals
23. Wilson Ramos, C, Minnesota Twins
24. Casey Crosby, LHP, Detroit Tigers
25. Eric Hosmer, 1B, Kansas City Royals
26. Austin Romine, C, New York Yankees
27. Michael Taylor, OF, Oakland Athletics
28. Austin Jackson, OF, Detroit Tigers
29. Matthew Moore, LHP, Tampa Bay Rays
30. Lonnie Chisenhall, 3B, Cleveland Indians

31. Zach McAllister, RHP, New York Yankees
32. Zach Stewart, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
33. Daniel Hudson, RHP, Chicago White Sox
34. Tanner Scheppers, RHP, Texas Rangers
35. Jacob Turner, RHP, Detroit Tigers
36. Brandon Erbe, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
37. Jordan Walden, RHP, Los Angeles Angels
38. Junichi Tazawa, RHP, Boston Red Sox
39. Jake Arrieta, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
40. Alex White, RHP, Cleveland Indians

The Final 10 AL Prospects
41. Kyle Gibson, RHP, Minnesota Twins
42. Zach Britton, LHP, Baltimore Orioles
43. Mike Trout, OF, Los Angeles Angels
44. Michael Saunders, OF, Seattle Mariners
45. Nick Hagadone, LHP, Cleveland Indians
46. J.P. Arencibia, C, Toronto Blue Jays
47. Trevor Reckling, LHP, Los Angeles Angels
48. Nick Barnese, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays
49. Hector Rondon, RHP, Cleveland Indians
50. Danny Duffy, LHP, Kansas City Royals

So there you have it… Keep in mind that these lists – regardless of who does them – are subjective and I would probably create a slightly different list if I were to do it next week. There are certainly some players that I could rank a little lower or a little higher and still feel pretty good about it.

Originally posted by Marc Hulet from FanGraphs Baseball, on March 10, 2010 9:00 AM

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on March 10, 2010 8:34 AM

Yesterday, Gawker Media truncated its RSS feeds, and former Gawker editorial honcho Lockhart Steele immediately tweeted that “the only thing that excited me about Gawker's RSS truncation was picturing @felixsalmon's head explode when he heard the news”. I'm well known as a vocal defender of full RSS feeds, largely because of a 1,500-word blog entry I wrote on the subject back in October 2007. And so I asked Gawker's owner, Nick Denton, what he was doing.

Nick pointed me to a comment he left at Lifehacker saying that “this was a commercial decision”, and also this one:

Gawker Media is an ad-supported company. RSS ads have never realized their potential. At the same time we sell plenty of ads on our website. So, yes, it is in our interest for people to click through if enticed by an excerpt.

(He also published the address of Gawker's full VIP feed, which was nice of him, and which put paid to any theories that the truncation was due to worries about people stealing his content.)

In theory, I understand where Nick is coming from here. If people click through from RSS to the website, that generates more revenue for the company, especially since no one ever got rich selling ads in RSS feeds. But in practice, there's no evidence at all that truncating your RSS feeds results in higher traffic, and indeed there's quite a strong case to be made that it works the other way around, and that switching from truncated feeds to full feeds is the thing which results in higher traffic.

Not all the arguments I made back in 2007 are quite as strong today: back then, RSS was used largely by people who had their own sites and could drive traffic, while now, in the age of Google Reader, it's moved a tiny bit downmarket, even as the key people you want linking to you use RSS less and Twitter more.

But the fact is that pretty much the only time I read Gawker blog entries is when they turn up in a search of my RSS feeds, and they're much more likely to do that if the full blog entry is there than if there's only an excerpt.

At heart, my argument for full RSS feeds is similar to my argument against a NYT paywall, and neither argument has anything to do with a sense of entitlement on my part. Instead, both are simply bad business decisions. If you truncate your RSS feeds, you'll get less traffic than you had with full feeds, and you'll alienate an important minority of your audience. And if you implement a paywall, the increase in subscription revenues will fail to offset the decrease in ad revenues, even as you'll alienate lots of your audience. So neither makes commercial sense.

I suspect that Nick's move to truncate his RSS feeds was not in fact “a commercial decision” at all — even if traffic does increase a little, it won't be by enough to move the needle. Instead, I think it's connected to his recent reshuffle at the top of the Gawker masthead, when he replace Gabriel Snyder with Remy Stern. That move was largely an attempt to move Gawker away from being a big blog and towards competing directly with the likes of nytimes.com for serious online traffic. And while it's pretty standard for blogs of all sizes to have full RSS feeds, it's also very uncommon for big news sites to have full RSS feeds.

There might be a reason for that fact, although if there is I don't really understand it. But I do see this move as a signal that Denton is exiting the blogosphere and that he has his sights set on higher ambitions. Expect his next move to be to rejigger the home pages of Gawker and his other blogs so that the big featured stories at the top get bigger, and the amount of real estate devoted to a simple reverse-chronological listing of all blog entries gets ever smaller. The NYT has Times Wire, if you want a reverse-chronological bloggish content stream, but it's buried within the site and is something of an afterthought. Gawker is likely to be moving in a similar direction: towards an edited home page and away from an automatically-generated blog page. It's the beginning of the end of an era.

Originally posted by Felix Salmon from Felix Salmon - All posts, on March 10, 2010 8:27 AM

Shared by Bud
The key finding here is that Apple is optimizing for html 5 on the mac and clearly getting results, way better than google chrome on any platform, and google might be described as the biggest corporate advocate of html 5. Flash performance on the mac platform seems to suck no mater how you parse these results.

So, Apple, the proprietary solutions champ, seems to be championing the open standards solution largely to its own ends.

With the impending launch of the Apple iPad, the Cupertino-based company's shunning of Adobe Flash technology has been brought to the forefront of technological discussions. While it was one thing to forgo Flash on a small, mobile device such as the iPhone or iPod Touch, some are questioning whether lack of Flash support is going to be a make-it-or-break it feature for the new slate devices arriving next month - devices which, if you believe Apple CEO Steve Jobs - are "better than netbooks."

On the flip side, Apple supporters echo the company's sentiments that "Flash is a CPU hog" and including support for the technology in Apple's mobile line-up would negatively impact battery life.

Sponsor

However, recent tests have put Flash up against HTML5, the new web markup language that eliminates the need for the Adobe plugin. The results of these tests show that this is not a simple black-and-white issue. Is Flash really a CPU hog? Yes, in some cases. But, surprisingly, not all the time. In fact, sometimes HTML5 actually performed worse.

Testing Flash and HTML5

Jan Ozer is an expert in video encoding technologies, has worked in digital video since 1990 and is the author of 13 books related to the subject. Recently, he put HTML5 up against Flash in a series of tests that pitted the two technologies against each other on both the Mac and PC and in different web browsers including Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox.

The results of the tests in their entirety are published here on StreamingLearningCenter.com. The summary in a nutshell? Flash isn't always a CPU hog, sometimes that honor goes to HTML5.

Some of the highlights of Ozer's findings are below, broken up into both Mac and Windows test results.

Mac Tests

• With Safari, HTML5 was the most efficient and consumed less CPU than Flash using only 12.39% CPU. With Flash 10.0, CPU utilization was at 37.41% and with Flash 10.1, it dropped to 32.07%
• With Google Chrome, Flash and HTML5 were both equally inefficient (both are around 50%)
• With Firefox, Flash was only slightly less efficient than in Safari, but better than in Chrome

Windows Tests

• Safari wouldn't play HTML5 videos, so there was no way to test that. However, Flash 10.0 used 23.22% CPU but Flash 10.1 only used 7.43% CPU
• Google Chrome was more efficient on Windows than Mac. Playback with Flash Player 10.0 was about 24% more efficient than HTML5, while Flash Player 10.1 was 58% more efficient than HTML5.
• On Firefox, Flash 10.1 dropped CPU utilization to 6% from 22% in Flash 10.0
• In IE8, Flash 10.0 used 22.41% CPU and Flash 10.1 used 14.62% CPU

Hardware Acceleration Key to Flash Performance

In analyzing the results of the tests, Ozer determined that the key to better Flash performance was dependent upon whether or not it could access hardware acceleration. This feature, launched in Flash 10.1, allows the plugin to use the graphics processing unit (GPU) on some computers to decode video. Depending on the video card and drivers, (NVIDIA, AMD/ATI and Intel offer products that support this), the video decoding process in Flash 10.1 can now work for all video playback, not just full-screen playback as was available in Flash 10.0.

According to Adobe, hardware acceleration is not supported under either Linux or Mac OS X, the latter because Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. Adobe goes on to say "The Flash Player team will continue to evaluate adding hardware acceleration to Linux and Mac OS X in future releases."

Here's what this all means in layman's terms: Apple isn't allowing Flash to become more efficient on their Mac OS X/Safari platform (or their iPod/iPhone/iPad one, either) by not providing the access to the hardware it needs to reduce its CPU load. Adobe is waiting and watching to see if they do, but, as Ozer says "the ball is in Apple's court."

Will Apple budge? At this point, it's unlikely. In blocking Flash on Apple devices, the company can easily claim that it's simply not an efficient technology...and that's true for now, considering how it's set up. But if the company wanted to allow it and make it work, it seems reasonable to believe that they could. This is what leads some insiders to believe that the decision to block Flash is less of a technological one and more of a business-minded one. After all, if you could easily visit Hulu.com (or, overseas, the BBC iPlayer, for example) to stream TV shows and movies, then why would you need to buy them from the iTunes Store?

So while Flash's "CPU hogging" may be a contributing factor in Apple's decision to not support the technology on their mobile devices, that's probably not the only reason behind the block.

Thank you to Dan Rayburn, who pointed us to Jan Ozer's article featured here on StreamingMedia.com.

Discuss

Originally posted by (author unknown) from ReadWriteWeb, on March 10, 2010 8:24 AM

By Dan Hillier

(via annoushka)

Originally posted by finn from Modcult, on March 10, 2010 8:07 AM

Why is this one of my favorite cards? Well, surely by now you have seen the other Topps team cards that pepper the Series 1 checklist.  The most popular of these is card #1 of Prince Fielder and the Brewers. Other teams have the usual home plate celebration conglomeration demonstrated here by my beloved Cincinnati Reds:

Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of that this year, and I may have to bring it out each time the Reds win a game. Don’t worry, even if I do, you probably won’t see it that often. But you’d see it more than that Royals card if I agreed to do the same thing for them. That’s how confident I am this year. We are definitely better than Kansas City.

Back to the Royals team card. While other teams get their on card celebrations, the Royals get players shaking hands.  Royals fans get their team lined up like it’s the end of a little league baseball game and everyone has to show what a good sport they are before hitting mom up for a dollar or two to raid the snack bar. There’s no excitement there. No smiles. Just the team in rows, no doubt telling each other, “Good game.”

Everyone knows the Royals fans haven’t had much to cheer about in the last fifteen years. The promise of 2003 and 2008 was met with more failure in 2004 and 2009.  2010 doesn’t look very promising either, with the exception of Zack Greinke’s starts. Most are predicting around 70 wins, which means they’ll be flirting once more with 100 losses. It should be another long season in Kansas City.

But at least they are good sports about it. And they continue to play and continue to try for something, whether it’s that magical 63rd win or a Cy Young award for the league’s best pitcher. It’s why the Royals end up being a team most of us root for even though they aren’t our own. It’s hard to find someone who really hates the Royals anymore. They are like the lovable loser you want to see win big.

I wonder if Topps was going for a gentle poke at the Royals and their fans, but I prefer to think of it as celebration instead.  While there hasn’t been much cause for cheering in Kansas City since 1995, no one has accused the Royals of not trying.  No one has accused the players of throwing in the towel.

There are better times ahead for all who enter Kauffman stadium. It may just be a few more years before those days come, since most of their prospects still inhabit the lower rungs of the minors.

Until then, at least they tried to make it a good game.

Originally posted by handcollated from Hand Collated, on March 10, 2010 7:50 AM

Jeff Richardson on the story behind the photo that serves as the iPhone’s default wallpaper.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on March 10, 2010 6:17 AM

I loved this little bit from The March 1 New Yorker profile of Paul Krugman: "Once, he and [his wife] Wells gave a Halloween party where the theme was economics topics -- two guests came as Asian tigers, several came as hedge funds, one woman came as capital, dressed up as a column."

That's right: two Asian tigers. Imagine the awkwardness. 

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 10, 2010 6:15 AM

Nomar Garciaparra retired today, marking the end of a once-promising career derailed by injuries by age 30. Because of his drop-off over the second half of his career, Garciaparra will never be a member of the Hall of Fame, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past when it looked like Nomar was definitely tracking for Cooperstown. Through 2003, his age-29 season and his 8th in the majors, Garciaparra had these numbers:

Year	Tm	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
1996-2003	BOS	928	4176	3812	685	1231	272	47	173	669	82	28	271	390	0.323	0.370	0.555	0.925	134

Using the Play Index's Batting Season Finder, here are the players who met or exceeded Garciaparra's output (.323 AVG, 1231 H, 173 HR, 669 RBI) through age 29:

Rk		BA	H	HR	RBI	From	To	Age	G	PA	AB	R	2B	3B	BB	SO	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Joe DiMaggio	.339	1349	219	930	1936	1942	21-27	979	4417	3978	858	243	82	404	196	25	7	.403	.607	1.010	*8/79
2	Jimmie Foxx	.334	1852	379	1345	1925	1937	17-29	1561	6605	5551	1216	313	93	985	859	71	54	.435	.628	1.063	*35/2796
3	Nomar Garciaparra	.323	1231	173	669	1996	2003	22-29	928	4176	3812	685	272	47	271	390	82	28	.370	.555	.925	*6/4D
4	Lou Gehrig	.343	1558	267	1146	1923	1932	20-29	1232	5470	4542	1075	321	113	806	508	63	67	.444	.640	1.084	*3/97
5	Hank Greenberg	.326	1281	247	1003	1930	1940	19-29	1030	4587	3931	830	312	61	610	631	49	24	.418	.625	1.043	*37
6	Vladimir Guerrero	.325	1421	273	828	1996	2004	21-29	1160	4900	4375	765	265	36	433	558	138	74	.390	.589	.979	*9/D8
7	Rogers Hornsby	.363	1916	180	958	1915	1925	19-29	1400	6013	5271	984	327	138	587	435	114	64	.431	.580	1.011	*465/3798
8	Chuck Klein	.352	1340	211	807	1928	1934	23-29	938	4192	3802	777	273	52	344	305	54	0	.408	.618	1.026	*97/8
9	Joe Medwick	.332	1838	180	1047	1932	1941	20-29	1360	5901	5539	954	416	103	311	447	32	0	.370	.542	.911	*7/89
10	Stan Musial	.346	1624	174	815	1941	1950	20-29	1218	5392	4688	920	343	115	652	235	49	0	.429	.580	1.009	9378
11	Albert Pujols	.334	1717	366	1112	2001	2009	21-29	1399	6082	5146	1071	387	14	811	570	61	30	.427	.628	1.055	*37/59D64
12	Babe Ruth	.351	1251	284	889	1914	1924	19-29	1100	4511	3565	925	270	83	881	599	72	66	.482	.712	1.195	791/83
13	Al Simmons	.363	1580	173	1005	1924	1931	22-29	1086	4752	4349	816	315	89	292	327	61	46	.405	.596	1.001	*78/9
14	Frank Thomas	.330	1261	257	854	1990	1997	22-29	1076	4789	3821	785	246	8	879	582	18	15	.452	.600	1.053	*3D
15	Ted Williams	.354	1294	222	879	1939	1948	20-29	1029	4618	3655	932	275	53	939	328	15	12	.488	.640	1.129	*79/1

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/10/2010.

Here are the players meeting those same criteria, but through their first 8 MLB seasons:

Rk		BA	H	HR	RBI	From	To	Age	G	PA	AB	R	2B	3B	BB	SO	SB	CS	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Earl Averill	.325	1547	190	892	1929	1936	27-34	1195	5378	4763	924	309	95	550	345	56	49	.398	.549	.947	*8/9
2	Joe DiMaggio	.334	1495	244	1025	1936	1946	21-31	1111	4984	4481	939	263	90	463	220	26	7	.399	.596	.995	*8/79
3	Nomar Garciaparra	.323	1231	173	669	1996	2003	22-29	928	4176	3812	685	272	47	271	390	82	28	.370	.555	.925	*6/4D
4	Todd Helton	.339	1372	251	836	1997	2004	23-30	1135	4798	4051	832	328	22	667	542	30	23	.432	.616	1.048	*3/79
5	Chuck Klein	.346	1467	232	880	1928	1935	23-30	1057	4677	4236	848	287	56	385	347	58	0	.402	.605	1.007	*97/8
6	Johnny Mize	.332	1340	206	833	1936	1946	23-33	1097	4634	4039	713	261	76	546	344	20	0	.415	.587	1.002	*3/9
7	Albert Pujols	.334	1531	319	977	2001	2008	21-28	1239	5382	4578	947	342	13	696	506	45	26	.425	.624	1.049	*37/59D64
8	Al Simmons	.363	1580	173	1005	1924	1931	22-29	1086	4752	4349	816	315	89	292	327	61	46	.405	.596	1.001	*78/9
9	Frank Thomas	.330	1261	257	854	1990	1997	22-29	1076	4789	3821	785	246	8	879	582	18	15	.452	.600	1.053	*3D
10	Ted Williams	.353	1488	265	1038	1939	1949	20-30	1184	5348	4221	1082	314	56	1101	376	16	13	.488	.642	1.130	*79/1

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/10/2010.

Through age 29, here were his most similar players:

 Sim  Player              From  To Yrs   G    AB    R    H   2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB   SO    BA   OBP   SLG   SB   CS OPS+
+---++-------------------+---------+--+----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+----+
      Nomar Garciaparra   1996-2003  8  928  3812  685 1231 272  47 173  669  271  390  .323  .370  .555   82  28  134
 862* Ernie Banks         1953-1960  8 1078  4159  676 1213 188  55 269  778  398  502  .292  .354  .557   36  37  140
 829  Joe Torre           1960-1970 11 1357  4926  631 1464 210  36 181  753  470  694  .297  .362  .465   12  23  130
 826* Yogi Berra          1946-1954  9 1053  3964  646 1175 177  37 181  790  332  179  .296  .354  .497   16  18  130
 824  Miguel Tejada       1997-2003  7  936  3584  574  968 191  11 156  604  287  542  .270  .331  .460   49  20  106
 823* Travis Jackson      1922-1933 12 1265  4587  643 1367 237  66 103  695  328  374  .298  .346  .446   67  13  106
 820  Derek Jeter         1995-2003  9 1212  4870  926 1546 239  41 127  615  513  873  .317  .389  .462  178  48  121
 811* Chick Hafey         1924-1932  9  895  3206  576 1050 261  49 129  654  253  323  .328  .381  .560   60   7  138
 811* Tony Lazzeri        1926-1933  8 1130  4196  683 1274 235  94 114  825  528  541  .304  .383  .486  110  67  129
 810  Chipper Jones       1993-2001  8 1094  4041  773 1240 237  23 227  737  652  609  .307  .400  .545  106  36  141
 810* Charlie Gehringer   1924-1932  9  985  3846  739 1209 237  94  63  548  383  182  .314  .380  .474  110  63  118
+---++-------------------+---------+--+----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+----+

(I think we can assume that Jeter and Jones will also be enshrined in the HoF someday, which means 8 of Nomar's 10 most similar comps through age 29 were eventual Hall of Famers.)

Sometimes it can be hard to remember an athlete's glory days when they're still playing as a broken-down shell of what they used to be. In fact, some kids may not even be old enough to remember Garciaparra as anything but the oft-injured Cub, Dodger, and Athletic he was late in his career. But today, we should recognize that at one point less than a decade ago, Nomar Garciaparra seemed like a pretty good bet to make the Hall of Fame.

Originally posted by Neil Paine from Baseball-Reference Blog, on March 10, 2010 6:03 AM

1. ☞ QCon London is hosting a full day track on NoSQL. Presentations in the track:
   • Geir Magnusson: Project Voldemort at Gilt Groupe: When Failure isn’t An Option
   • Enda Farrell: Auntie on the Couch
   • Emil Eifrém: Not Only SQL: Alternative Data Persistence and Neo4J
   • Lars George & Fabrizio Schmidt: Social networks and the Richness of Data: Getting distributed webservices done with NoSQL
   • Mark Ramm: MongoDB: huMONGOus Data at SourceForge

   The track was recorded and InfoQ will publish the presentations in the upcoming month. As an example of what I’m talking about you can watch ☞ Facebook’s Petabyte Scale Data Warehouse using Hive and Hadoop.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from myNoSQL, on March 10, 2010 5:56 AM

Today Kathryn Bigelow is basking in the glow of her Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for Hurt Locker, but before ascending to the heights of Hollywood celebrity she was a member in good standing of the downtown punk scene of the late '70s and early' 80s. Living on Water Street, she shared a loft with filmmaker and costume designer Karin Luner in a building that also housed artist Robert Longo and rocker Hal Ludacer. Dressed in cowboy boots and jeans, she was a regular at The Mudd Club, a hub of downtown nightlife where art, music, film, media and fashion people intersected. Her student film from Columbia University -- where she took classes with Susan Sontag and Vito Acconci -- The Set-Up (1978), portrays two men (including Gary Busey) fighting each other in split-screen as semiotic provocateur Sylvère Lotringer deconstructs the images in voice over. Luner told me that she remembers Bigelow as "totally driven. She really knew what she wanted to do. One time she was working on a script of a Bataille story and she must have rewritten it 150 times; she was so determined to get it right." Her first full-length feature was The Loveless (1982), a biker movie which she co-directed with Monty Montgomery that in addition to Willem Dafoe included downtown scenesters Robert Gordon, Danny Rosen and Tina L'Hotsky with costume design by Luner.

Originally posted by Alexis Swerdloff from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on March 10, 2010 5:54 AM

New from Cameron Moll: the Roman Coliseum rendered in type.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on March 10, 2010 5:30 AM

Hyper-rational take on the situation.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on March 10, 2010 5:12 AM

Over at Reddit, an epic answer to the simple question "if you became the last person on Earth, what would you do?"

Hone your skills. You're now the worlds only Mechanic, Electrician, Farmer, Hunter, Gatherer and Doctor. Books are a remarkable resource.

As previously noted, I love this kind of thing.

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 10, 2010 4:48 AM

Documentation of any kind, in my experience, should be treated as old and out of date. The question is always "how out of date is this?" and, "who's brain has the latest view of the world?" via fold.sigusr2.net Same goes for blogging, but what I really needed was a reason to link to the hot new blog on the scene, fold.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 10, 2010 4:33 AM

grégoire ganter

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on March 10, 2010 4:09 AM

David Cole

John Yoo; drawing by David Levine

Whatever else you might say about John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who drafted several memos in 2002 authorizing the CIA to commit torture, you have to admit that he’s not in the least embarrassed by the condemnation of his peers. On February 19, the Justice Department released a set of previously confidential reports by its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) excoriating Yoo’s legal work—but stopped short of referring him for professional discipline by his state bar association. Since then Yoo has written Op-Eds for The Wall Street Journal and The Philadelphia Inquirer trumpeting his “victory.” In the Wall Street Journal piece, entitled “My Gift to the Obama Presidency,” Yoo argued that President Obama owes him a debt of gratitude for “winning a drawn-out fight to protect his powers as commander in chief to wage war and keep Americans safe.” Four days later, in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Yoo called the decision not to refer him for bar discipline “a victory for the people fighting the war on terror.”

This is a bit like a child coming home with an F on his report card and telling his parents that they should congratulate him for not getting suspended, or President Clinton proclaiming to Hillary that Congress’s failure to impeach him was a vindication of his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The one thing practically everyone interviewed by the OPR agreed about was that Yoo’s legal work on the torture memos was atrocious. Bush’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey called it “slovenly.” Jack Goldsmith, another Republican who headed the Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2004, said that Yoo’s August 2002 memo justifying torture by the CIA was “riddled with error” and a “one-sided effort to eliminate any hurdles posed by the torture law.”

Daniel Levin, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel after Goldsmith left and, like Yoo, was a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, described his reaction upon reading Yoo’s memo as “This is insane, who wrote this?” And Stephen Bradbury, who became acting head of the OLC after Levin’s departure, also under President Bush, and who wrote several memos authorizing torture himself, said of Yoo’s arguments about presidential power, “Somebody should have exercised some adult leadership” and deleted his arguments altogether. These are the assessments not of human rights advocates or left-wing critics but of Yoo’s Republican colleagues at the Justice Department.

The OPR itself, which is comprised of career civil servants charged with monitoring ethics violations by department lawyers and is not known for being eager to discipline its own, decided before President Obama took office that Yoo and Jay Bybee, Yoo’s superior, had violated their ethical duties as attorneys. After considering responses from Yoo and Bybee, the OPR reaffirmed that Yoo had “put his desire to accommodate the client above his obligation to provide thorough, objective, and candid legal advice, and…therefore committed intentional professional misconduct.” It found that Bybee, who signed the 2002 torture memos and is now a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, had acted in “reckless disregard” of the same professional obligation. It recommended that both lawyers be referred to their respective state bar associations for discipline.

So how can Yoo portray this process as a victory? Only because a single Justice Department official, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis, overruled the OPR’s considered opinion, finding that while Yoo and Bybee exercised “poor judgment,” they did not knowingly provide false advice, and therefore were not guilty of professional misconduct. But Margolis’s assessment was in no way an endorsement of Yoo’s theories or practices. He described the issue of whether Yoo engaged in misconduct as a “close question,” called the memos “an unfortunate chapter in the history of the Office of Legal Counsel,” and said he feared that “John Yoo’s loyalty to his own ideology and convictions clouded his view of his obligation to his client and led him to author opinions that reflected his own extreme, albeit sincerely held, views of executive power.” In short, no one reviewing Yoo’s work gave it a passing grade. And he narrowly escaped a referral to his bar association for disciplinary action only because of the decision of a single lawyer in the Justice Department.

The OPR and Margolis largely agreed that Yoo’s memos contained many serious flaws. Yoo interpreted the ban on torture to require the intentional infliction of severe pain of the level associated with death and organ failure, a standard he imported from a health benefits statute having no relevance to the issue at hand. The standard is literally meaningless, as neither death nor organ failure are associated with any particular level of pain. Yoo appears to have adopted it to permit the CIA to inflict an extraordinarily high degree of pain.

Yoo wrote that an interrogator could inflict even severe pain as long as he did not “specifically intend” to do so. He advised that the president could order outright torture, and that a criminal statute to the contrary could not constrain the president as commander in chief. (Indeed, he later told the OPR that the president could not even be prohibited from ordering the extermination of an entire village of civilians.) And he reasoned that an interrogator who engages in torture could defend his behavior by claiming that it was done because of “necessity” or because it was required for self-defense—of the nation, not of the interrogator himself. In both cases Yoo employed unprecedented and virtually unrecognizable versions of these defenses. (Indeed, the OPR report discloses that even the lawyer who worked under Yoo on the memos initially found his argument about self-defense “wholly implausible,” because self-defense requires an imminent threat to the person invoking it, and interrogators faced no such threat.)

The OPR and Margolis were in full accord that these opinions are deeply misguided. But where the OPR viewed the errors cumulatively as evidence of an extraordinary and ultimately bad-faith effort to contort the law to a predetermined result, Margolis considered the errors one by one, and concluded that no single error “of itself” warranted a finding of professional misconduct. Margolis, in short, missed the forest for the trees.

In a more fundamental sense, however, both the OPR and Margolis failed to confront the real wrong at issue. They focused exclusively on the manner by which Yoo and Bybee arrived at their result, rather than the result itself. What is most disturbing about the torture memos is not that they employ strained reasoning or fail to cite this or that authority, but that they do so in the name of authorizing torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of human beings. Remarkably, neither the OPR nor Margolis directly considered the illegality of the conduct that was authorized by the memos. The OPR stated that it “did not attempt to determine and did not base our findings on whether…the Memos arrived at a correct result.” Margolis also did not address whether the conduct authorized was illegal. But surely that is the central issue.

Why, then, did the OPR and Margolis fail to take up the question of the legality of the brutality itself? Almost certainly because doing so would have implicated not only John Yoo and Jay Bybee, but all of the lawyers who approved these methods over the five-year course of their application, including, within the Justice Department, Jack Goldsmith, Daniel Levin, and Stephen Bradbury, Bybee’s successors as head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and the two attorneys general, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales. Notwithstanding their criticism of Yoo’s errors, all of these men concurred with the basic conclusion of the Yoo and Bybee memos that the tactics being used by the CIA were legitimate.

Goldsmith, Levin, and Bradbury could have reversed the authority that Yoo and Bybee gave the CIA. They each actively participated in rewriting memos to replace or supplement the initial 2002 memos—but while the subsequent memos were written more carefully, they reached the same bottom line and continued to allow the CIA to inflict waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, and other illegal tactics on detainees.

Margolis sought to excuse Yoo and Bybee in part on the basis of the extraordinary circumstances in which they wrote their initial memos, within one year after September 11. It’s not clear why this consideration would warrant approval of torture. In any case, Yoo and Bybee’s successors in the Justice Department wrote their memos not in the heat of the moment, but after the program had been in place for years, and had been the subject of substantial criticism by the CIA’s own inspector general. He found, among other things, no evidence that the practices in fact obtained useful information that lawful, noncoercive tactics would not have obtained. Yet the OLC continued to approve of the practices.

Responsibility for the illegal brutality inflicted on CIA and Guantánamo detainees cannot be limited to Yoo and Bybee. It extends to all those who approved the tactics—even those so eager later to condemn Yoo’s reasoning. And unless we as citizens demand that these lawyers be held to answer for the wrongs done in our name, responsibility extends to all of us, too. We must continue to insist on accountability—whether in congressional hearings, citizens’ commissions, civil lawsuits, or the marketplace of ideas. The essential lesson must be that torture and cruel treatment are not policy options—even when a lawyer is willing to write an opinion blessing illegality.

—An expanded version of this piece will appear in the April 8 issue of The New York Review.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from The New York Review of Books, on March 10, 2010 4:00 AM

Unlike within the analytics community itself, there's no need to show your work; just offer up some simple sense, and that's good enough. Just make me smarter as a fan and more appreciative of the nuances of the game. I judged a research paper competition run by the conference; my favorite was a paper that compared NBA offensive strategy to driving your car in traffic. I got his point. I think that for next year, they should add a new category of essay: Explaining an advanced, interesting piece of analytics so that the average fan can get it. Frankly, there's an entire book in that for the conference if they can generate enough entries. via www.danshanoff.com Dan Shanoff considers how to make sabermetrics more accessible to the casual sports fan.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 10, 2010 3:11 AM

Note: With South by Southwest kicking off on Friday, March 12, until March 21, we knew there'd be bunches of hungry people in Austin. We turned to Austin-based blogger Citizen Taco to create our food-tineraries during the Music, Film, and Interactive festivals. —The Mgmt.

Clockwise from top left: Tacodeli, Smitty's Market, Caffe Medici, and La Mexicana Bakery.

[Image: sxsw.com]

There's nothing like South by Southwest (SXSW) Austin's three-pronged mega-major arts festival now in its 24th year, to draw thousands of visitors to an unknown city. Yes, you'll be running around crazy all week (parties, panels, screenings, and more parties) but you can still experience the best of what Austin's food culture has to offer.

Though if you really want to eat well amidst the festival madness, be prepared for a little extra leg work. Nearly all the great food spots hide outside the downtown area.Read about the best tacos, street food, barbecue, coffee, vegan eats, dive bar, and draft beer, all after the jump.

Tacos: Tacodeli

[Flickr: Portal and Friends]

How do you choose a single favorite in a town of so many superlative tacos? I can't, so instead I'll recommend Tacodeli, an Austin institution that boasts the best taco menu. With more than 30 different tacos (bison picadillo! portabella mushroom!) plus daily specials, you'll have a hard time deciding what to get.12001 Burnet Road, Austin TX 78758 (map) and 1500 Spyglass, Austin TX 78746 (map); tacodeli.com

Food Trucks: Odd Duck Farm to Trailer

The food truck fad has only invaded Austin within the last year or so, and more trucks open every week. One of the latest (and so far the greatest) is Odd Duck, where the simple yet inventive menu of small plates changes daily according to what's fresh on local farms, particularly artisan meats and cheeses. Head here for dinner before or after a screening at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar across the street. 1219 South Lamar Blvd, Austin TX 78704 (map); oddduckfarmtotrailer.com; Open Tuesday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m., and Friday/Saturday, 5 p.m. to midnight.

Barbecue: Smitty's Market

[Flickr: jaybergesen]

The capitol city's reputation for having great barbecue is a bit undeserved, only because the best in Texas happens to be around Austin, out in the hill country. You'll no doubt see caravans cruising toward the infamous Salt Lick, but if you aim a little farther Southeast, the real experience awaits in small town Lockhart at Smitty's Market (where, as per tradition, your hands are the only utensil). 208 South Commerce Street, Lockhart TX 78644 (map); 512-398-9344; smittysmarket.com

Coffee: Caffe Medici

[Flickr: Flickr Avatar]

Coffee is decidedly less fussed-over here than in, say, Portland or Seattle or New York, but the closest thing you'll find is at Caffe Medici. Both locations cater to a quieter crowd, serving French press and house blend espresso without a surfeit of self-consciously uber-hip baristas. 1101 West Lynn Street, Austin TX 78703 (map); 512-609-9899; and 2222 Guadalupe Street, Austin TX 78705 (map); 512-474-5730; caffemedici.com

24-Hour Diner: La Mexicana Bakery

[Flickr: TIMMER!!]

If you're looking for outstanding diner fare at all hours of the day—and don't mind nosebleed-inducing wait times—your best bet is Magnolia Café, but for a real adventure I like the neon mania of La Mexicana Bakery, where breakfast tacos still taste amazing at 3 a.m. 1924 South 1st Street, Austin TX 78704 (map); 512-443-6369; la-mexicana-bakery.com/

Vegan: Counter Culture

[Flickr: ilovemypit]

While Odd Duck relies on meat and cheese to work its food cart magic, Counter Culture uses neither one. Everything is vegan and half the menu is raw as well, including some of the best desserts (raw or not) anywhere in the city. Try signature items like gluten-free bruschetta or a jackfruit barbecue sandwich and save room for the weekly special "cheezecake" (if it's not sold-out). 626 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin TX 78703 (map); 512-708-8800; countercultureaustin.com

Dive Bar: Donn's Depot

Few cities do old-school dive bars as well as Austin. Where else can you find Chicken Shit Bingo every Sunday? (See it yourself at Ginny's Little Longhorn.) For something close to downtown without the festival madness, check out Donn's Depot, where a dance partner and retirement benefits are de rigueur.1600 W. 5th Street, Austin TX 78703 (map); 512-478-0336 donnar.home.texas.net

Draft Beer: Whip In

Though the best beer bar in the city has long been The Ginger Man, Whip In sports a powerful secret weapon: Indian food! Made from locally-sourced meats and produce, the recipes fuse equal parts Texas and tandoor. My personal favorite pairing? A pint of Belgian Kwak with a "Beef & Beer Chili" basmati rice bowl. 1950 South I H 35, Austin TX 78704 (map); 512-442-5337 whipin.com

About the author: Blessed with a fast metabolism and currently based in Austin, Texas, Citizen Taco eats everywhere and reports on the good stuff.

Related

Serious Sandwiches: SXSW Sandwich Checklist
Where to Eat: SXSW 2009

Originally posted by Citizen Taco from Serious Eats, on March 10, 2010 2:30 AM

future-o-matic theory maker, originally uploaded by russelldavies.

Originally posted by moleitau from Magical Nihilism, on March 10, 2010 1:48 AM

With Colby Lewis and Scott Atchison returning to the Rangers this season, I thought I’d take a look at the players who have had the most success after spending time in Japan.

Honorable Mention: Pedro Feliciano (2005, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks)

5. Julio Franco (1995, 1998, Chiba Lotte Marines) Went to Japan along with guys like Darrin Jackson and Kevin Mitchell after the 1994 MLB strike; left after the Marines fired Bobby Valentine, but returned after a front office change. After time in Korea and Mexico, made a lengthy MLB return in the 00’s.

4. Lee Stevens (1994-95, Kintetsu Buffaloes) Put up better numbers in MLB return than he did in Japan; played in late-90’s Texas division winners.

3. Rafael Betancourt (2000, Seibu Lions) Pitched 28.2 middling innings in Japan in 2000, has been steadily worth 1+ WAR since sticking at the MLB level in 2003, including an excellent 2007 season.

2. Matt Stairs (1993, Chunichi Dragons) Didn’t make an impact in his one season in Nagoya; post-Japan career needs no introduction.

1. Cecil Fielder (1989, Hanshin Tigers) After hitting 38 jacks with Hanshin, changed his Tigers to Detroit and ushered in the 90’s power era, presumably without the aid of ped’s.

Note: this doesn’t include non-Japanese players who started their professional careers in Japan, so former Carp players Alfonso Soriano, Timo Perez, and Ramon Ramirez weren’t considered. I’ll also give Melvin Mora a nod for the time he spent in Taiwan prior to breaking out with the Mets.

The closest thing to a trend here is that Stevens, Betancourt, Stairs and Fielder were all on the right side of 30 when they played in Japan. Franco is an exception because he went over following the strike. Aside from that, this is a scattered group. Stairs and Betancourt didn’t play much in Japan, and needed several more years of minor league seasoning before breaking out at the MLB level. Stevens got his MLB shot after a great year in 3A in 1996, Franco was already an established MLB player, and Fielder had been blocked by Fred McGriff prior to playing in Japan.

Originally posted by Patrick Newman from FanGraphs Baseball, on March 10, 2010 1:00 AM

30 Days...

Originally posted by Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks Archive, on March 9, 2010 9:28 PM

Robert Wright breaks down the numbers on Toyota’s safety record given all of the recent reports of uncontrolled acceleration:

My back-of-the-envelope calculations (explained in a footnote below) suggest that if you drive one of the Toyotas recalled for acceleration problems and don’t bother to comply with the recall, your chances of being involved in a fatal accident over the next two years because of the unfixed problem are a bit worse than one in a million — 2.8 in a million, to be more exact. Meanwhile, your chances of being killed in a car accident during the next two years just by virtue of being an American are one in 5,244.

This is the article I’ve been looking for since the mass hysteria about acceleration problems began. It strikes me as undoubtable that a Toyota purchased today is significantly safer than most of the cars I’ve driven over the course of my life. I used to own a 1977 Ford pickup truck that caught on fire under the hood more than once.

Originally posted by Rafe from rc3.org, on March 9, 2010 8:26 PM

EPCOR, the water utility company that runs the fountains up in Edmonton, Canada released this graph yesterday. It's water consumption during the Olympic gold medal hockey game, overlaying consumption of the previous day. How much do Canadians love their hockey? A lot.

The first period ends. Time to pee. The second period ends. Time to pee. The third period ends. Time to pee. Consumption goes way down when Canada wins and during the medal ceremony.

Finally, when it's all said and done, the rest of the country can relieve itself, figuratively and literally.

[via contrarian | thanks, @statpumpkin]

Originally posted by Nathan from FlowingData, on March 9, 2010 6:50 PM

Matt Jacobs, Product Manager and Designer extraordinaire, will speak at a School for the Visual Arts (SVA) program titled “The Tablet” on Wednesday, March 10 at 6:30 pm . Matt will join the Design Director for the New York Times,  Khoi Vinh, and Sophie Kleber, Experience Lead, HUGE, in discussing  how readers’ use of a tablet to consume content frames the user experience, and how interaction designers need to consider grid, typography and behavior in a new way. For more information and to RSVP, please visit the school’s site.

Originally posted by Ginger Tulley from Six Apart News & Events, on March 9, 2010 3:07 PM

I’m throwing it in when it comes to 2010 Topps.  Not giving it up altogether mind you, but throwing in the towel when it comes to purchasing a Series 1 hobby or jumbo box.  There’s too many other things I’m looking forward to this year and just not enough money to throw at them all.  And since Thorzul already took the idea of having people send him cards for free, I resorted to buying a lot off of eBay and taking my chances in the trading market for the rest.

It’s a lot different, of course, flipping through 250+ singles and pulling out your favorites rather than getting the thrill of pulling a good-looking card out from the confines of its foil wrapper.  But that’s what I’ve done, and I can finally put the end to your burning questions about what my favorite 2010 Topps cards are.  Just in time, too, since it’s only a month and a half old.

What I’ve tried to do is pick out cards I haven’t seen on other blogs to keep it fresh.  So I pulled out twenty or so and have narrowed it here and there.  All my favorites may not be here, but I’ll try to give the spotlight to some of those cards that haven’t gotten enough attention quite yet.

But before we get to that, I’m not giving these sixty-seven cards a fair shake:

1, 2, 3, 9, 13, 22, 23, 28, 34, 47, 56, 58, 61, 62, 64, 68, 79, 80, 82, 93, 94, 103, 106, 114, 119, 120, 126, 129, 132, 133, 141, 150, 153, 165, 166, 167, 171, 177, 183, 185, 189, 197, 222, 230, 232, 234, 235, 237, 239, 244, 247, 253, 254, 260, 264, 269, 271, 272, 274, 293, 295, 298, 318, 321, 323, 325, 330

Why not?  Well, those are the ones I still need.  And, as I said, if  Thorzul can get all 330 cards mailed to him, how hard should it be for me to get those sixty-seven, especially when I’m willing to send you something for them in return?  If you can help, send me an email, and I’ll do my best to help you out, too.  ‘Cause that’s what it’s all about.

Originally posted by handcollated from Hand Collated, on March 9, 2010 12:18 PM

The managers of the Chelsea Hotel are having some trouble pushing through liquor license approval for two new prospective bars. They have withdrawn their applications after two contentious Community Board 4 meetings and complaints from the residents of the hotel. Says one, "We will oppose any foolish or further dangerous action he proposes, and we will follow it through to the bitter end." Thankfully Doughnut Plant doesn't need an okay before it moves in. [DNA Info]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater NY, on March 9, 2010 12:12 PM

It works, there is an explosion of blood and mess, I have a baby! via redfox.typepad.com Read the whole thing!

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 9, 2010 11:25 AM

The last collection by Alexander McQueen showed today, privately, and the slideshow is really worth a look. That this is a gorgeous and sentimental occasion does not make him any less of a complete asshole as well.

Originally posted by Choire from The Awl, on March 9, 2010 10:55 AM

If you are not a person who wants to read a story about girl bits, gore, babies, birth, or my embarrassingly short (but intense) labor, please visit this fine source of sleek, fur-covered cuteness instead. I think my baby is cute, but I will not lie: otters are cuter.

Tuesday, February 23rd is my due date. On Saturday the 27th, we go to a party. "What are YOU doing here?" someone says. 

"It's a first baby," I point out. "Those don't exactly go from zero to sixty all at once." And certainly I do not have a baby that night, or the next night either.

On Monday, I have a doctor's appointment. A little in-office sonogramming determines that the baby looks wonderfully healthy and lined up for action. Unfortunately she is also posterior.

The big Wrong Way position, as you probably know, is breech, when the head is not lined up to be the first bit out the door. Posterior presentation is just the little Wrong Way -- nothing dangerous about it, just a recipe for some extra painful back labor, as the back of a skull grinds up against your spine.

I feel that this sounds like a bad idea and resolve to spend a lot of time on my hands and knees to encourage things to change.

"I wonder how I will know when it is really truly labor," I say to Steve on the way home. "Oh well, I suppose you might be confused right at the beginning, but there comes a point when you cannot possibly wonder anymore."

Then I go off to work. I get some paperwork done and teach my Monday evening class, which is a delightful two-and-a-half hour graduate workshop. The students talk about research methods, and give one another advice on how to schedule their work for the rest of the semester. It is productive and pleasant. I lend them some books and tell them that since next week is spring break, I certainly won't still be pregnant by their next class meeting, and they can look forward to nice guest appearances by my colleagues. Have a nice break, everyone!

Steve gives me a lift home and I prepare some nice soup for our late evening supper. I am halfway through my bowl when I feel a  combination of a massive Braxton-Hicks contraction and an extremely solid baby kick, accompanied by a sort of POP! sensation. "That's... strange," I say, standing up.

"What's strange?"

"I think maybe my water is breaking?"

"Oh!"

"I'm going to go upstairs and see." [pause] "Oh YES my water is definitely breaking."

We call the doctor. I've had a contraction or two, I tell her, not too bad. "Well, it will get worse," she assures me brightly, but not unkindly. "I can promise you that."

Oh! OH. It immediately does get worse. I spend some time on my hands and knees on the living room floor. I send a few text messages. I crawl around a bit. "That's another contraction."

"Really? But that was only three minutes."

"Well, it was. Oh! That's another one."

"Oh dear."

Somehow I get upstairs and into a warm bath. I never want to get out of the bath. Lovely bath. Contraction contraction contraction contraction.

Steve (who has been timing things): I really think we need to go to the hospital now.

Me (firmly): I never want to get out of this bath.

Steve (correctly): Well, I think you really should. NOW.

By some magical process he gets me into clothes and into the car. Contraction contraction. I grip the little handle over the door and hang from it, panting. Whatever those are actually supposed to be for, they are ideal for clutching while contracting. Steve gives a beautiful impression of someone who is calm and relaxed as he drives.

We arrive at the hospital. "I am not getting out of this car until the contraction is over," I report. Steve goes inside to sort out the parking -- they have a valet service for labor and delivery! -- while I cling and pant. Steve fills out the form and exchanges a few words with the valet guy, who asks if I need a wheelchair. I do not! I am fierce. Ow.

Everything is undergoing construction. I have another contraction. We have to take the elevator! I am not waiting. We take the stairs. More construction, more contractions. Labor and delivery explain that they don't have a room just yet, so they're going to have me wait in the waiting room across the hall. We skitter over and I try sitting down. There is a tv on and I have Steve turn it off.

A woman comes in to have a quiet upset cell phone conversation with someone. I am sorry to intrude, until very quickly I cease to give the smallest bit of a damn. I can't sit any more and stand up and face the wall, gripping a chair.

"I can't possibly stay in here anymore. Tell them!" Steve goes off and tells them. A delivery room and lovely nurse named Sarah appear.

To the extent that I had a birth plan, beyond trying to do things as naturally as possible, because I am a big hippie, it went about like this:

1. I really don't want to go to the hospital too soon. They don't even let you go to the hospital until your contractions have been coming every four minutes for a whole hour, and the part before that goes on for hours. We'll play cribbage in between contractions and I'll walk around the house mooing.

2. When we do get to the hospital, I want to move around as much as possible.

It turns out, therefore, naturally, that I decide that in practice actually I am very very uninterested in moving ever. I want to lie ABSOLUTELY STILL. There are lovely chairs and birthing balls and a shower and all kinds of things. I remain firmly attached to the table in my awkward half-splayed position.

There are many contractions. People ask me admissions questions and I answer in a distracted little voice, frequently losing the thread altogether. I keep my eyes closed and stay very still and HURT.

"Here, hold my hand. You can squeeze it as hard as you want," Steve suggests.

That is far too much moving to contemplate. "No hand, thank you," I gasp.

I do not scream or cry or moo. However, I do say "Shit" and "Fuck" and "I really do not like this" and "This is awful" and "Fuck" some more. Once I move by mistake and it makes everything MUCH WORSE, very much worse. I yelp and say "I am never doing that again."

Time passes in this vein. The doctor from my own practice hasn't arrived yet. Periodically, a resident checks in and suggests that I would like an epidural.

Since it does hurt very much, I say, "Maybe? No? Yes? But it's already so far along..."

The delivery nurse, Sarah, talks me down. She has a genius way of putting her face right in my line of sight and making sure she has my attention first. She is by far the realest, most comprehensible figure in the room.

"You could take some Nubain. You're just about at the end of the time when you can do that, because you're almost at eight centimeters. You could get an epidural, if you can sit up for twenty minutes."

I root around in my tiny, panting brain and remember that my doctor has advised me not to take the IV painkiller unless I am sure I am going to get an epidural too, because one has a way of leading to the other. Sitting up for any time at all sounds impossible. I express these thoughts as follows: "Ah... uh..."

"My advice to you," says Sarah, a marvel of clarity, "is an epidural or nothing."

I do not get an epidural.

"This is really horrible," I remark. It is, too.

"Deep breaths," says Steve. "Deep breaths," says Sarah.

The baby's heartbeat is slowish, so I get some oxygen. This gives Steve something to do, holding the mask over my nose and mouth in between contractions. He does a lovely job, modulo some fumbling with my nose, which I hardly notice.

I enter a newly horrible stage of contractions: I feel I want to push, but also I can tell perfectly well that it's not time yet. I develop a hazy, addled strategy that involves directing the contraction downward in some inchoate way, because resisting is a bad idea but so is pushing. This works OK, but I can't say that I like it.

The doctor from my own practice finally arrives.

It's time to push! On the one hand, the contractions aren't as bad now, and the baby has turned the right way up -- on the other, I am suddenly acutely aware of the implausibility of getting a baby from one side of this opening to the other. I grasp behind my knees, and somehow manage to push.

Argh! I make bearing down grunting noises and am advised that as good as it feels to say GRRRRRGH, I should be holding my breath instead. I do my best, imperfectly. Oh God there is no way nnnnnNNNNNGGG gasp gasp.

After a number of unproductive rounds of this, Steve cleverly remembers that my doctor recommended looking in the mirror, as a useful tool for pushing more effectively. At first this seems to have been the opposite of helpful, because now I can see all too clearly just how unlikely the whole procedure really is. I quail. Also I cannot help but notice, in the midst of everything, that my bikini line is all rashy.

But, in fact, the mirror is a great help.

"Okay," says the doctor eventually. "One more big push, go go go go GO!" I look my nethers right in the eye, as it were, and

(silent) HNNNNNNNNNGGGGG

It works, there is an explosion of blood and mess, I have a baby!

"Thank you, you were wonderful," I say to Sarah. No doubt it is exactly in the tones of an extremely drunken person at a party who wants to makes sure you know just how much he loves you, man.

"I never have to do that again!" I say to the doctor. "Not if you don't want to," she agrees.

Originally posted by redfox from Adventures in the Pointless Forest, on March 9, 2010 10:33 AM

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on March 9, 2010 10:30 AM

Filed under: iTS, Retail, iTunes, Apple

This feature over at GigaOM has quite a few interesting insights about the iTunes LP program -- while Apple sells it wholeheartedly as "the visual experience of the record album," it appears the story behind the story is not quite so clean. According to an anonymous source in the industry (note, not Apple themselves), the service didn't come from Cupertino. Instead, it was designed by record companies, and agreed to by Apple as a "concession" to "make a gesture in favor of album sales." The piece also states that Apple subsidized the creation of the first few "LPs," some of which cost up to $60,000 to assemble and license.

As you might expect with any other less-than-popular product at Apple, iTunes LP isn't exactly being thrown into the spotlight, either. While a much more visual music experience would be perfect for the iPad, GigaOM notes that it didn't even merit a mention by Jobs at the iPad announcement. It's certainly possible that iTunes LP could find a new home in the future, if bands really get behind the service and make their own (a few have, as noted, but the cost seems pretty prohibitive, especially if sales aren't that impressive), but from what this anonymous source says, the LP service is a record company concession that hasn't paid off for Apple even in the way its originators hoped.

[via iPodNN]

TUAWReport: RIAA pressured Apple into creating iTunes LP originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Mike Schramm from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on March 9, 2010 10:30 AM

Via .tiff, Super Mario Fashion from Pixelgarten. This one from the Sims is my favorite, too:

Originally posted by btrott from Stupidfool.org, on March 9, 2010 10:29 AM

As part of December's deficit reduction package, Albany lawmakers took dedicated transit tax revenue from MTA operations to fund other parts of the state budget.

When the state of New York announced in December that it would slice $143 million from the MTA operating budget, it may have seemed like a belt-tightening measure for lean times. But the truth of the matter -- which often goes unstated, unreported, and unappreciated -- is more insidious.

The overwhelming majority of the $143 million reduction in transit funding did not originate from the state budget. Instead, Albany took dedicated transit tax revenues from the MTA and redirected them to the state's general fund. In effect, Albany stole $118 million from transit to subsidize the rest of the state budget. That's enough money to restore all the subway and bus cuts currently on the table in the MTA's austerity plan.

How did they pull off the heist? To explain, we need to give a short intro to the MTA operating budget.

In addition to fares and tolls, MTA service is mainly funded by an array of dedicated taxes, which total about $4.5 billion every year. A smaller portion comes from "state and local subsidies," of which Albany is supposed to contribute about $190 million. Already, we're only talking about a small fraction of the MTA's nearly $12 billion operating budget.

But here's the thing -- Albany's "contribution" consists almost entirely of tax revenue that's already dedicated to transit. This year, Albany put just $7 million from the general fund into MTA operations, according to the state Division of the Budget. The rest of its obligation to the MTA -- $183 million -- came from dedicated transit taxes.

So when the state made off with $143 million from the MTA budget in the December deficit reduction package, lawmakers were not reducing the state's contribution to transit so much as raiding the MTA piggy bank and robbing transit riders of funds collected specifically to serve them. When all was said and done, Albany had taken $118 million from dedicated MTA taxes.

(The remainder was accounted for by a $19 million cut in state funding for student fares and the elimination of $6 million in state operating support.)

In a statement released last fall, Gary Dellaverson, who has since retired as the MTA's chief financial officer, noted that this was "the first time that an existing appropriation to MTA has been reduced under circumstances in which the money was derived from a 'dedicated' MTA tax and had already been collected by the State." In other words, the state didn't pass onto the MTA the dedicated transit taxes it had collected.

The dedicated revenue source in question -- the Metropolitan Mass Transportation Operating Assistance Fund (MMTOA) -- was established in 1981 and consists entirely of taxes collected in the 12-county MTA region. (A report released by the New York City comptroller in 2008 [PDF] lays out some of the history behind Albany's declining contribution to MMTOA.) So $118 million in downstate taxes, meant to fund transit exclusively, disappeared into the Albany money pit. Nothing in New York state law prevents the same thing from happening again.

What does it mean going forward? New transit funding would be great. But transit riders must also protect the transit funding we already have. Albany faces enormous budget gaps and is desperate to fund politically potent programs like education and Medicaid. Transit riders should beware attempts to steal more money from dedicated transit funds.

John Kaehny contributed to this post.

Graphic: Noah Kazis.

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog New York City, on March 9, 2010 10:05 AM

In addition to sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami, Australian scientists have found evidence that humans can also taste fat.

"We found that the people who were sensitive to fat, who could taste very low concentrations, actually consumed less fat than the people who were insensitive," Keast told AFP. "We also found that they had lower BMIs (Body Mass Indexes)."

Tags: food   science

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 9, 2010 9:59 AM

OMG.

(via)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from lather rinse repeat, on March 9, 2010 9:56 AM

I'm testing blogging from Office 2010. Totally sweet. Consider this your Tuesday open thread.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 9, 2010 9:24 AM

Think of the first line as of an email "Subject" line.

In fact it will be used as "Subject" in the generated commit mails and it will also be used when generating the Changelog (e.g. git log –pretty=oneline). Please start always with the prefix of the subsystem that is modified by the commit (e.g.: "core: typo fixes", "tcp: stun fixes", "mem: faster malloc", "module_name: support for foo", "lib_name: critical bug fix").

(via sip-router.org (via defunktion junktion))

I'm a fan of more detailed commit messages. This specific style kills the -m flag, which in all honesty is probably for the best. Good messages should trump convenience.

Originally posted by apgwoz from fold, on March 9, 2010 9:08 AM

Shared by Eve
Right? "Linking is not brain surgery."

Did the New York Times just discover the Internet? The answer is obviously no -- even a cursory glance at their excellent website is proof they are head and shoulders above all other mainstream publications when it comes to the Internet. But still. Something about the Zachary Kouwe plagiarism debacle suggests otherwise.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from www.mediaite.com, on March 9, 2010 8:28 AM

Boing Boing notes that Popular Science has put up their whole 137 year historical archive on line in partnership with Google.  While you cant search by issue, you can do keyword searches.  I hope more long standing publications follow suit, this is a real treasure trove, especially the advertisements…

Search the Popular Science Archive

Thanks to Chaz for sending this in.

Originally posted by Alexander Rose from The Long Now Blog, on March 9, 2010 8:28 AM

Remember last fall when a slew of French chefs took over the kitchens of the Momofuku Empire and wd~50 for a night? And resys were pretty much impossible to get? And Dave Chang and Michel Bras cooked an all vegetarian dinner in Wylie Dufresne's kitchen? It was all brought to you by Omnivore, an iconoclastic French dining guide. And they're putting on another show this June.

Details are still scarce but the folks at Blue Hill do confirm the Reichl tweet that they'll be hosting a dinner on June 6 at 6PM. The chef tentatively scheduled to take over their kitchen is Italy's avant garde Massimo Bottura (praised here by Frank Bruni). Stay tuned for details on which other chefs and restaurants are involved and what shenanigans they have in store.

Oh, and that other big French invasion, the two day Le Fooding festival that took place at P.S. 1 last year, is also a go for 2010.
· All Coverage of Last Year's Omnivore Event [~ENY~]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater NY, on March 9, 2010 8:27 AM

    

Favorites are a great way to explore Flickr. You’ll almost always find jewels leading you to new photostreams and groups that you’d otherwise have never found. So next time you’re looking at someones photo, mouse over their buddy icon and click “Favorites”. The above photos were found by looking at one of my contacts favorites, finding a photo, checking out that person’s favorites, etc.

Photos from Arman-h آرمان, Jim Patterson Photography, jasontheaker, LOlandeseVolante, Matilde B., and [Adam_Baker].

Originally posted by Zack Sheppard from Flickr Blog, on March 9, 2010 8:19 AM

Add the story of an elderly gentleman who was mauled by a rabid otter to your file concerning acts of war by the animal kingdom. The natural world REALLY has it in for us. And can you blame it? (In related news, a bear bit the fingers off of a Wisconsin grandmother, but because she was dumb enough to try to feed it through the bars of its cage, I think this one is far more understandable than the otter incident, which was apparently unprovoked.)

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on March 9, 2010 8:15 AM

For the past six seasons the Twins haven’t had to think about the ninth inning. If they had a lead in a close game, Joe Nathan was there to ensure victory. In only 25 of 272 instances did he fail to deliver. This year, though, the Twins will likely have to turn to someone else. News broke this morning that Nathan has torn his UCL and will probably undergo surgery before the season starts. He’s waiting two weeks to see whether rehab is an option, but at this point we can safely assume Tommy John surgery lies in his immediate future.

At RotoGraphs, Eno ran down Nathan’s possible replacements. The in-house options are pretty obvious: Jon Rauch, Pat Neshek, and Matt Guerrier. None of them stands a good chance to replace Nathan’s dependable production, but the effect on the closer role itself isn’t the Twins’ biggest problem. As Matt Klaassen has been saying all morning, they’ll lose perhaps two wins from that spot. There are larger implications, however, as Nathan’s absence cascades through the Twins’ bullpen.

For most positions, we define replacement level as the production of a AAA player called up to the bigs. This is not the case for closers. Replacement level for that position is the team’s next best reliever. When that next best reliever moves into the closer’s role, everyone else in the bullpen moves up, too. Relievers lower on the depth chart play a more prominent role. The biggest effect, then, comes at the back end of the bullpen, where the replacement level player shows up.

Teams, for the most part, can avoid using the seventh reliever on their staff in high leverage situations. But what of the former seventh reliever? He’s now the sixth reliever and will be pressed into more active duty. Such is the curse of bullpen chaining. About a year ago, Sky explained the process. His model agrees with Klaassen’s two-win estimate, but it also assumes a closer with a 3.00 ERA. The closest Nathan came to that was 2.70, and that happened five years ago. Clearly, unless one of the in-house replacements really takes to the role, as Nathan did when the Twins traded for him, the effect will be larger.

There’s no doubt that the Twins will miss Nathan’s dependable ninth inning performances. What they’ll miss more, though, is having guys like Guerrier, Neshek, and Rauch in setup roles. By moving them up in the pecking order, they’re allowing other, possibly lesser arms into the bullpen mix. That will hurt more than the mere ninth-inning downgrade.

Originally posted by Joe Pawlikowski from FanGraphs Baseball, on March 9, 2010 8:00 AM

If you haven't, go check out the Flickr Commons. "The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer." And if you're not the tagging or commenting type, browsing works, too because every once in a while you come across gems like this one from the collection of the State Library of New South Wales. (Baldessari, anyone?)

Peggy Bacon in mid-air backflip, Bondi Beach, Sydney, 6/2/1937 / by Ted Hood posted by State Library of New South Wales collection at Flickr

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 9, 2010 7:41 AM

[Photograph: Stumptown Coffee]

Writer Josh Ozersky gives a quick primer on "third-wave coffee" in Time magazine, highlighting Stumptown Coffee, which many coffeehounds hold up as the leader in the movement. While it may taste better to beanheads, it's nowhere near becoming the next Starbucks, Ozersky says.

[Stumptown founder Duane] Sorenson, despite being famous for his dismissal of coffee infidels, takes a more diplomatic tack: "Starbucks laid the path. They made people aware. They offered better coffee in their time than was out there. But now there's far more specialty coffee out there today, and there will be even more so five years from now that will give the consumer—Midwest, West Coast, East Coast, wherever—a lot more options than Starbucks."

Related

Stumptown Coffee—Let's Call a Spade A Spade Here »
The Original Starbucks at Pike Place Market and Trying Clover-Brewed Coffee »
The Changing Face of Starbucks—The History of the Logos Through the Years »

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats, on March 9, 2010 7:30 AM

I'd like a Chrome extension that redirects every article similar to the above to Armond White's Transporter 3, which is the last word on the topic as far as I am concerned.

via hello.typepad.com

David is on to something with this idea for a browser extension. "Oh! You think that article is interesting? Well you should check out the one that really matters. You'll thank us later." Or instead of a browser extension imagine a campus-wide proxy server that detects and automatically redirects based on student browsing activity. (Included free with your tuition!) We'll call that act of redirecting GETTING BLASTED BY THE CANON.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 9, 2010 7:25 AM

You probably read it there, since I'm sure the set of kottke.org readers fully encompasses the set of sippey.com readers, but Jason points out the news that the University of Texas has acquired the archive of David Foster Wallace.

UT's press release about the acquisition is essentially a microsite of material from the collection, including scanned images from the inside of some of the books Wallace owned. Here's the one for DeLillo's Ratner's Star:

That image makes my heart beat faster. Here's an excerpt of a blog post from Bonnie Nadell, Wallace's literary agent, about the collection...

What scholars and readers will find fascinating I think is that as messy as David was with how he kept his work, the actual writing is painstakingly careful. For each draft of a story or essay there are levels of edits marked in different colored ink, repeated word changes until he found the perfect word for each sentence, and notes to himself about how to sharpen a phrase until it met his exacting eye. Having represented David from the beginning of his writing career, I know there were people who felt David was too much of a “look ma no hands” kind of writer, fast and clever and undisciplined. Yet anyone reading through his notes to himself will see how scrupulous they are.

The inclusion of the words "and readers" gives me hope that some of the pieces in the archive find their way into books, on to the web, etc....and not just sifted through the inscrutable filter of academia. (And since everything comes back to this lately: I wonder what the market opportunity is for an iPad version of Infinite Jest annotated and overlaid with notes / revisions / edits from DFW?)

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 9, 2010 7:12 AM

Steve Coast: "One of the clear pieces of feedback from all the talk about improving the OSM UX was 'show us these users who really find it difficult to use OSM'. So, we're going to do that. We have a rough plan of action below. Nate Bolt of the splendiferous boltpeters.com has volunteered to help OSM with a user interaction review. Nate, as part of Bolt | Peters, did exactly this work with wikipedia."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 9, 2010 7:01 AM

Pedro Bustamante:

Interestingly enough, the Mariposa bot is not the only malware I found on the Vodafone HTC Magic phone. There’s also a Confiker and a Lineage password stealing malware. I wonder who’s doing QA at Vodafone and HTC these days?

In the comments, Bustamante writes:

Regardless, I don’t think this has to do with factory settings, but rather with poor QA process of refurbished phones.

One would hope this isn’t widespread.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on March 9, 2010 6:58 AM

COMPUTER IS A GOOD ILLUSTRATOR / COMPUTER DESIGN SERIES NO.2 (Random Walk Kennedy), 1967
Idea and design: Masao Kohmura, Program: Haruki Tsuchiya

Originally posted by ry from Modcult, on March 9, 2010 6:52 AM

Maciej Ceglowski tells the story of how the cure for scurvy was discovered, lost, and finally redsicovered, but not before it disrupted Robert Falcon Scott's 1911 expedition to reach the South Pole.

This is a good example of how the very ubiquity of vitamin C made it hard to identify. Though scurvy was always associated with a lack of greens, fresh meat contains adequate amounts of vitamin C, with particularly high concentrations in the organ meats that explorers considered a delicacy. Eat a bear liver every few weeks and scurvy will be the least of your problems.

But unless you already understand and believe in the vitamin model of nutrition, the notion of a trace substance that exists both in fresh limes and bear kidneys, but is absent from a cask of lime juice because you happened to prepare it in a copper vessel, begins to sound pretty contrived.

Tags: Antarctica   Maciej Ceglowski   medicine   Robert Falcon Scott   science

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 9, 2010 6:51 AM

We know that the story is a construct meant to elicit a response and then become a cathartic release when the good guys win. We know that it is only gesturally referential to ‘the real world’ or ‘a logical world’ and that, instead, it is simply put together in order for us to experience spectacle, regardless of whether or not it hold together ‘as narrative’. T:ROTF shows that it doesn’t matter a whit whether narrative coheres, because we are now comfortable with the idea that no narrative actually coheres. We just try and make them do so. via scrawledinwax.com I've read this article every year since 1995. Every year an action movie pushes the boundaries of style over substances, and every year film students fall over themselves to say this is a good thing. I'd like a Chrome extension that redirects every article similar to the above to Armond White's Transporter 3, which is the last word on the topic as far as I am concerned. ("NOTHING IN CINEMA this week is more important than Transporter 3. It’s been a long time since a new movie has been so spiritually and aesthetically exhilarating." - sound familiar?)

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 9, 2010 6:49 AM

You all know Atlanta Sports Cards as that site where you can get cheap boxes, but I know them as the shop that puts boxtoppers in the 50 cent bin. On a recent trip there I snagged some of the new Heritage strip toppers.

Topps has put these in their Heritage hobby boxes since 2008. It is basically a strip of three random cards uncut so it is impossible to safely store. As far as I can tell they aren't terribly popular, probably because of their clunkiness and because even obsessive team collectors don't have much use for them. What Cardinal collector would want a dirty Cub on their LaRussa card? Carlos Quentin won't even acknowledge the inferior team from his city to his right. Dempster feels like the guy in the middle seat on an airplane with two with Kevin Smith on one side and, well, me on the other.

The backs have ads for 2010 Heritage on them. Because, you, know, you might really want to learn about this new product you just bought 5 minutes earlier. Strips like these were given out as premiums to shop owners to get them to stock Topps cards back in the late 50's. That's what I heard at least, there isn't a whole lot of information out there on them. One thing I regret about today's collecting culture is that people won't automatically cut these strips up into three separate cards anymore. Maybe in 5 or 10 years from now eBay crooks will do so in order to market them as SUPER RAER 1/1 SOOPER SHORT PRNIT!!! Actually, I could cut this one up and have two of them traded off in a half a second. That would leave me with a Cub though... ew. No thanks.

Topps switched things up this year and added a second box topper. This one features two of their depressingly impossible to find stamp insert set from one team on a strip. The stamps aren't real, but are printed on the card. So Topps' #1 priority is to market to kids, and instead of making the stamps a cheap one per pack insert and including a stamp album as a box topper, they make it a 1 in a hundred something packs framed insert numbered to 50 each and throw these at us instead. Yep, marketing to kids right there... kids eat that shit right up.

For adults this isn't a bad insert set at all, especially for team collectors. The front features a couple of stars from one team and the back is chock full of team info. Why don't Topps add these strips to blasters? Back in the day, dang near every blaster had a jumbo sized insert in it. I guess now that they have no competition, they will be able to do such innovative things. Right?

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on March 9, 2010 6:45 AM

Michael Calore:

A job posting for a browser engineer at Lab126, the division of Amazon that develops the Kindle, indicates the company is looking for somebody to develop “an innovative embedded web browser” for a consumer product. […]

The Kindle’s current browsing experience is notably sub-par. It’s good enough to check your e-mail, post to Twitter or read Wikipedia, but it doesn’t handle images or more complex web apps particularly well. It certainly doesn’t live up to the same vision of the mobile web being outlined by the iPhone, or Android phones like the Droid or Nexus One.

Calore is right that the current Kindle browser is poor, but I wonder whether this job opening is for the Kindle. One problem Amazon would have with a Kindle armed with a good mobile browser is that it might encourage too much use of the browser — existing Kindles don’t have Wi-Fi and only access the Internet via “free” 3G networking. The reason Amazon can provide free 3G is that it’s typically only used for buying books. Add a great browser and I don’t see how they could afford free 3G. (Maybe future Kindles will be Wi-Fi only?)

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on March 9, 2010 6:39 AM

This artwork representing the Roman Coliseum was handcrafted character by character over the course of roughly 250 hours. Characters from the Goudy Trajan and Bembo Pro typefaces form the Coliseum, also known as today as Colosseo (Italian) and originally known as Amphitheatrum Flavium (Latin).

Additionally, glyphs have been recreated based on the work of master Italian calligrapher M. Giovambattista Palatino, as featured in Libro di M. Giovambattista Palatino Cittadino Romano, published in Rome around 1550 AD.

Each poster is printed on Somerset Velvet Black or Crane Lettra Pearl and letterpressed by Bryce Knudson of Bjørn Press in Provo, Utah, United States.

The detail level on this is stunning
-> Read the whole story and get a copy

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on March 9, 2010 6:29 AM

authors: roberto feo and rosario hurtado
publisher: name publications
year: 2009
size: 100 pages, 22.6 x 15.24 cm
ISBN: 978-0-9840566-2-0

http://namepublications.org/
_____________________________________________________________

designboom rating:
_____________________________________________________________

we find ourselves living victims within a world of 'structural residues',
occupying an environment that has been materially, graphically and linguistically shaped
by previous generations...

content
authored by london-based design studio el ultimo grito (EUG - rosario hurtado and robert feo),
'abandon architectures' reflects upon how contemporary culture incorporates, re-uses
and reinterprets the systems and structures it has inherited.

in this case, 'architectures', refers to the structure of anything, implying constructions by people
and not natural phenomenon. through EUG's personal experience and anecdotes, the book illustrates
how they use products and spaces, adapt to situations, imagine things as they are, how they are not
and how they could be, offering alternative ways to live, work and communicate:

'we declare ourselves a post-disciplinary design studio. post-disciplinary, because we do not
acknowledge the disciplinary classifications imposed by the academy and the market.
we understand culture and its objects from a multiplicity of perspectives, generating interpretations
of the world around us through an informative collage where all elements are treated without
establishing any hierarchy. and design, because design is not a discipline but the processes through
which people materialize thought, as signs, symbols, objects, food, images, buildings, languages etc,
thus viewing creativity as the driving force behind every human endeavour. (...)'
- el ultimo grito, excerpt from chapter 7: post-disciplinary

is it for me?
the book gets one thinking about how to see the world beyond its physical boundaries -
how to approach things without any preconceptions. it is for anyone who wants to
step outside the normal perceptions of space.











_____________________________________________________________

designboom ratings:

......................... interesting
................... good read, worth a look
............. very good
....... excellent, recommended
. must have
_____________________________________________________________

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on March 9, 2010 6:05 AM

The fabulous life of Ruth Reichl, cont.: "NY night:.Midnight munch at Inoteca. Wine, talk, terrific food. Marcus Samuelson wanders in. Katz's early morning madness. Pastrami to go." [Twitter]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater NY, on March 9, 2010 5:57 AM

A gallery.
(via Geekpress)

Originally posted by Chris from Cynical-C, on March 9, 2010 5:54 AM

Caught up with Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer over the weekend and it made me insane it was so good. Ewan McGregor plays an author hired to "ghost" the memoirs of a highly controversial former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) and is whisked off to a remote American seaside compound only to find himself entangled in a web of secrets and lies. What's so deliciously devious about this is the way the film unfolds -- with such nerve-jangling paranoia and superb suspense. Polanski has such command over the storytelling that you sit spellbound for two hours watching it fiendishly play out. Rush out and catch this in a theater while you can.

Originally posted by Dennis Dermody from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on March 9, 2010 5:29 AM

From Recipes

[Photographs: Chichi Wang]

Last Tuesday we discussed a few ways of preparing beef heart, a versatile organ that can be slow-cooked, quickly grilled or seared, or even ground up for heart burgers. There was, however, one application that I didn't cover due to an unfortunate shortage of heart in the kitchen. This week, there was more than enough of the organ to serve in what is certainly its most primal form: raw and unadorned, save for a bit of liquid and seasoning.

Tartare is a preparation most commonly applied to beef or fish flesh, but the idea of eating offal in its completely raw state has always appealed to me. Oftentimes I've held a brain, liver, or heart in my hands, inhaled the sweet smell of an organ that's so wonderfully pungent and perfect on its own, and felt compelled to eat it as is.

Tartare is an opportunity to do just that, to really get a feel for the texture and taste of the protein without the application of heat. Feeling inclined to check off another species of animal in my list of offal consumption, I met with chef Sebastian Zijp of New York City's Bar Blanc on a sunny afternoon to talk about venison hearts, which he'd just gotten into his kitchen for use in tartare.

My initial impression was that of surprise: venison hearts are only half the size of beef hearts. What the game hearts lack in size, they compensate for in smell. A whiff of the venison hearts called to mind the feeling of something wild and even a bit rank. Gamey, an amorphous term that's applied too casually to any protein that doesn't taste like chicken, pork, or beef, would inadequately describe the slightly sour aroma emanating from the raw hearts.

The venison hearts surprised me again when we tried the tartare of heart preparation on crostini. The taste was exceedingly mild, with just a hint of its mammalian origin. Still, it was the texture that made the heart worth eating raw: tender with much less of a chew than cooked heart, the tiny cubes of the chopped up organ were good enough to eat alone without the crostini accompaniment.

A classic French preparation of tartare would include some acidic elements, like lemon, vinegar, or diced capers paired with mustard, and something with a bit of kick like Worcestershire. On the Asian side of your pantry, try pairing the raw heart with yuzu, ginger, or wasabi for a change from the workhorse French flavors. The next time you with yourself with a really fresh beef or venison heart, save a few of the choicest chunks to eat raw - a fine appetizer for a second course of seared or grilled hearts.

Venison Heart Tartare

- serves 4 as an appetizer -

Ingredients

A few chunks impeccably fresh heart, beef of venison, about 4 ounces
A squeeze of lemon
1 tablespoon diced capers
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

1. Trim the heart for use: remove the tissue and the sinew, as well as the fat around the edges of the heart and inside the separate chambers. Use the majority of the heart for a cooked preparation, if you so desire, and reserve about 4 ounces for the tartare.

2. Very finely dice the chunks of heart. Add the seasonings, adjusting the flavors to taste. Serve as is, or with rounds of crostini on the side.

About the author: Chichi Wang took her degree in philosophy, but decided that writing about food would be much more fun than writing about Plato. She firmly believes in all things offal, the importance of reading great books, and the necessity of three-hour meals. If she were ever to get a tattoo, it would say "Fat is flavor." Visit her blog, The Offal Cook.

Originally posted by Chichi Wang from Serious Eats, on March 9, 2010 5:00 AM

The Ransom Center at the University of Texas has acquired the archives of David Foster Wallace, joining those of Don DeLillio and Norman Mailer.

The archive contains manuscript materials for Wallace's books, stories and essays; research materials; Wallace's college and graduate school writings; juvenilia, including poems, stories and letters; teaching materials and books.

Highlights include handwritten notes and drafts of his critically acclaimed "Infinite Jest," the earliest appearance of his signature "David Foster Wallace" on "Viking Poem," written when he was six or seven years old, a copy of his dictionary with words circled throughout and his heavily annotated books by Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, John Updike and more than 40 other authors.

Materials for Wallace's posthumous novel "The Pale King" are included in the archive but will remain with Little, Brown and Company until the book's publication, scheduled for April 2011.

The web site currently contains some tantalizing examples of what the archive will eventually hold, including the first page of a handwritten draft of Infinite Jest, his annotated dictionary -- circled words included benthos, exergue, hypocorism, mendacious, rebus, and witenagemot -- and some heavily annotated books he owned, including his copy of Players by DeLillo.

This is really exciting and sad all at once. (thx, matt)

Tags: David Foster Wallace   Don DeLillo   Infinite Jest   The Pale King

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 9, 2010 4:46 AM

To keep on top of their various projects, Panic installed an LCD screen with an overview of what’s going on. I’ve wanted to do this at home for the longest time.

Our support turnaround time is faster than it’s ever been. Just the simple act of “publicizing” those numbers — not in a cruel way, but a “where are we at as a group?” way — has kept the support process on-task and, I think, made it a bit more like a video game. (It helps that when all the boxes are at “zero”, a virtual bottle of champagne appears on-screen, and a physical one is likely removed from the fridge.)

Permalink: http://www.capndesign.com/archives/2010/03/the_panic_status_board.php

Originally posted by Matt Jacobs from Capn Design, on March 9, 2010 4:13 AM

Some quotes and comments from ☞ (a quite long) interview with Eliot Horowitz, CTO of 10gen, creators of MongoDB:

I think the first question you have to ask about any database these days is, “What’s the data model?”

The only thing I’d add is: “… and how does that fit my problem?”.

That whole class of problems exists because there’s a very clunky mapping from objects to relational databases. With document databases, that mapping becomes much simpler.

I only partially agree with this. There are some scenarios when mappings seem to be easier with document databases, but for very complex models (read hierarchical, multi-relational) things will remain quite the same — I am saying “quite” because you can still use some short routes, but at the end of the day it will depend also on how you’ll use that data.

I also think […] that the object databases before were actually more closely related to current graph databases than to document databases. The document database is really just taking MySQL, and instead of having a row, you have a document. So I think it’s a much simpler transition and it’s actually much closer to MySQL than a lot of people might think.

I assume that the connection with graph databases is based on the following arguments: the connectivity between objects can be very rich and while all that can be persisted it is not accomplished in a transparent way.

The second part is also worth emphasizing, as it is basically a validation of the schema-less relational database, that FriendFeed and others (see [1] and [2]) are using.

If you look at our road map for this year, there’s no one big feature. I think the only big thing we’re doing right now is getting the auto-sharding to be fully production bulletproof.

I totally agree. That auto-sharding feature has been in alpha for too long.

We are sort of similar to MySQL or PostgreSQL in terms of how you could use us, and people want all the features that they’re used to in MySQL and PostgreSQL. These include things like full-text search, SNMP, and all the assorted add-ons providing special indexing.

Is this the market MongoDB is trying to reach? Is MongoDB trying to become the new MySQL? Definitely interesting.

If there was a feature that would hurt our performance, we would think long and hard about implementing it, and we are definitely more interested in making the basics work than we are in adding more features.

I really appreciate this sort of opinionated approach, even if sometimes you’ll have to tell users a bit more about the tradeoffs.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from myNoSQL, on March 9, 2010 3:23 AM

While I’d probably love having the talent to write such ☞big statements, I’d still prefer to get things right firstly:

Elastic Caching Platforms Are KV Stores On Steroids

[…]

NoSQL Wants To Be Elastic Caching When It Grows Up

[…]

Say “Yes” To Elastic KV Stores In Your Architecture

I confess that I see this whole NoSQL and Elastic caching discussion quite differently, as right now it looks to me that elastic caching is the one missing features (especially persistence) and not the other way around. So maybe, Mike Gaultieri, the author of the above quotes, meant the opposite: elastic caching will become NoSQL when it grows up.

Update: Jeff Darcy (@Obdurodon) ☞ is at it again with a much more detailed comment than I could come up with.

I’m not saying that IMDGs (nb: in memory data grids) aren’t valuable. They can be a very valuable part of an application’s computation or communication model. When it comes to that same application’s storage model, though, IMDGs are irrelevant and shouldn’t be presented as alternatives to various kinds of storage.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from myNoSQL, on March 9, 2010 1:51 AM

There’s not too much to say, other than Karl Lagerfeld invited all of Paris to the Grand Palais (or it felt like it at least), put a few glaciers in the middle of a blue pond and sent out a parade of fur and winter white lace for Chanel’s AW10 show. Oh, and Brad and Baptiste stomped around in furry jumpsuits just to make sure we were clear on the theme.

Originally posted by Britt Aboutaleb from Fashionista, on March 9, 2010 1:32 AM

Really, really enjoyed this. First of KSR’s books I’ve read – arrived on my radar as I was finishing my talk on Time, and it’s a lovely meditation on time, science and humanity. Recommended.

Galileo’s Dream (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- Highlight Loc. 1497-1502 | Added on Tuesday, January 05, 2010, 08:33 AM

“Materials and power available are terrifically advanced compared to your time. And there is a principle called redundancy at the criticalities, do you know this term? Replacement systems are available in case of failures. Bad things still sometimes happen. But there you are. They do anywhere.’ ‘But on Earth,’ Galileo objected, ‘on Earth, in the open air, the things you make don’t have to work for you to survive.’ ‘Don’t they? Your clothing, your language, your weapons? They all have to work for you to stay alive, right? We are poor forked worms in this world. Only our technologies, and our teamwork, allow us to survive.’”

Galileo’s Dream (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- Highlight Loc. 2182 | Added on Thursday, January 07, 2010, 11:24 PM

“analepsis”

Galileo’s Dream (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- Highlight Loc. 3535-38 | Added on Thursday, January 21, 2010, 08:48 AM

“Humans sensed only a small part of reality. They were as worms in the earth, comfortable and warm. If God had not given them reason, they would not by their senses know even a minim of the whole. As it was, however, by the cumulative work of thousands of people, humanity had slowly and painfully built a picture of the cosmos beyond what they could see; and then had found ways to use that knowledge, and move around in the cosmos.”

Galileo’s Dream (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- Highlight Loc. 3676-82 | Added on Thursday, January 21, 2010, 08:49 AM

The present is a three-way interference pattern.’ ‘Like chips of sunlight on water. Lots of them at once, or almost at once.’ ‘Yes, potential moments, that wink into being when the three waves peak. The vector nature of the manifold also accounts for many of the temporal effects we experience, like entropy, action at a distance, temporal waves and their resonance and interference effects, and of course quantum entanglement and bilocation, which you yourself are experiencing because of the technology that was developed to move epileptically. In terms of what we sense, fluctuations in this manifold also account for most of our dreams, as well as less common sensations like involuntary memory, foresight, déjà vu, presque vu, jamais vu, nostalgia, precognition, Ruckgriffe, Schwanung, paralipomenon, mystical union with the eternal or the One, and so on.’

Galileo’s Dream (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- Highlight Loc. 4853-57 | Added on Sunday, January 31, 2010, 11:07 PM

“Really there was nothing but asynchronous anachronism. Time was a manifold full of exclusions and resurrections, fragments and the spaces between fragments, eclipses and epilepsies, isotopies all superposed on each other and interweaving in an anarchic vibrating tapestry, and since to relive it at one point was not to relive it at another, the whole was unreadable, permanently beyond the mind. The present was a laminate event, and obviously the isotopies could detach from each other, slightly or greatly. He was caught in a mere splinter of the whole, no matter how entangled with the rest of it.”

Galileo’s Dream (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- Highlight Loc. 4870-72 | Added on Sunday, January 31, 2010, 11:17 PM

But in the garden he would sit still, and think. It was possible, there, to collapse all the potentialities to a single present. This moment had a long duration. Such a blessing; he could feel it in his body, in the sun and air and earth sustaining him. Blue sky overhead-it was the part of the rainbow that was always visible, stretching all the way across the dome of sky.

Galileo’s Dream (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- Highlight Loc. 8926-40 | Added on Tuesday, March 09, 2010, 09:59 AM

“Reality is always partly a creation of the observing consciousness. So I’ve said what I like; and I knew him well enough to think I got it mostly right. I know he was like us, always looking out for himself; and unlike us, in that he acted, while we often lack the courage to act. I wrote this for Hera, but no matter what time you are in when you read it, I’m sure that the history you tell yourself is still a tale of mangled potentiality, of unnecessary misery. That’s just the way it is. In all times people are greatly lacking in courage. But sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they keep trying. This too is history. We are all history-the hopes of people in the past, the past of some future people-known to them, judged by them, changed by them as they use us. So the story keeps changing, all of it. This too I’ve seen, and so I persist. I hope without hope. At some point the inclined plane can bottom out and the ball begin to rise. That’s what science is trying to do. So far it hasn’t worked, the story has been ugly, stupid, shameful, sure; but that can change. It can always change. Because understand: once I saw Galileo burned at the stake; then I saw him squeak his way clear. You have to imagine how that feels. It makes you have to try. And so when sometimes you feel strange, when a pang tugs you or it seems like the moment has already happened-or when you look up in the sky and are surprised by the sight of bright Jupiter between clouds, and everything suddenly seems stuffed with a vast significance-consider that some other person somewhere is entangled with you in time, and is trying to give some push to the situation, some little help to make things better. Then put your shoulder to whatever wheel you have at hand, whatever moment you’re in, and push too! Push like Galileo pushed! And together we may crab sideways toward the good.”

Originally posted by moleitau from Magical Nihilism, on March 9, 2010 12:23 AM

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK

Steph Tirion is an excellent game designer who I've had the good fortune to meet a few times. He first released a great game called Eliss on the App Store and he's now announced the second game he's been working on, called Faraway. Eliss was a terrific little arcade game that made great use of the iPhone's touchscreen, and Tirion says that while his first game dealt with "planets and space management in sectors, Faraway will be about constellations and infinite space travel." Sounds exciting. The game will be playable at GDC this week, so I'll definitely make time to run by and check it out.

Tirion has also announced a new company to represent and sell his iPhone games, and he's calling it LITTLE--EYES. It's really great to see a very smart, independent developer come into his own like on a platform like the iPhone -- there's really no other mainstream gaming platform out there that lets developers really jump in headfirst and release experimental games like these to a a mainstream market. We'll keep an eye out at GDC this week for all kinds of indie developers making it big. While it's cool that Valve and other larger companies are finally coming around, we have to be sure not to forget developers like this either.

TUAWSteph Tirion, creator of Eliss, annouces Faraway originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Originally posted by Mike Schramm from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on March 8, 2010 5:00 PM

And so the floodgates open, if you ask me. Ribbon Hero is an addon for Microsoft Office, a game addon, that teaches you how to use Office.

Says Danc of Lost Garden, the designer:

Ribbon Hero, in part, was born from a speech I gave back in October 2007 on applying the design lessons of Super Mario Bros. to application design. I made the following bet:

• If an activity can be learned…
• If the player’s performance can be measured…
• If the player can be rewarded or punished in a timely fashion…
• Then any activity that meets these criteria can be turned into a game.

Not only can you make a game out of the activity, but you can turn tasks traditionally seen as a rote or frustrating into compelling experiences that users find delightful.

Fantastic.

Here's the full post: it's a must-read, especially for UX designers.

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, on March 8, 2010 2:16 PM

• Paula Deen Updates: She's opening a new restaurant at the Harrah's in Asheville, NC, and her sons are launching a magazine targeting male foodos. Busy little Deen family! [YumSugar]
• Food Network Oscars: Brian Boitano scores the Best Constipated Face award. [FNH]
• Fat Palate: According to a new study, skinny people can taste fat in food "better" than overweight peers. [DailyMail]
• Mr. Ferguson's Classroom: A blog chronicling school lunches across the Pacific. [CHOW]
• Wolfgang Puck: How and what he fed Hollywood at the Academy Awards last night. [Esquire]
• D.C. Street Food: Sâuçá is the latest truck on the scene. An odd international fusion concept, and three accent marks, seriously? [Washington City Paper]
• Pinotgate: A French wine merchant is accused of selling Merlot and Syrah as Pinot Noir. [San Francisco Chronicle]

Originally posted by Erin Zimmer from Serious Eats, on March 8, 2010 1:30 PM

SCENE

I am tidying some things in the fridge after our trip to the pediatrician, who has recommended -- quite possibly mainly as a strategy to give me something to feel proactive about -- that I not eat dairy for a bit, in case it is contributing to Jane's slightly suboptimal digestive performance. I come across a nice plump package of my favorite tortillas, which we normally use to make breakfast quesadillas.

"Ohhh." I go get a hug from Steve.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm a little sad about dairy products," I explain, dripping tears on his shoulder.

"I think you'll be able to have them again soon, you know."

"Yes, I know. And I don't even really care that much, it's just that all the nice little routines I was happy about resuming seem to involve dairy." Tears leap out of my eyes and puddle on his shirt.

"I really don't mind very much," I reassure him in sensible tones, sobbing all the while.

"I promise I am not experiencing feelings of hopelessness." I put my head down on the counter and weep shamelessly.

Two minutes later, I stop and feel entirely better.

Here's what I want to know: Is it possible that there is actually something in my system that I need to excrete through crying? It is an excretion, after all. The internet tells me that emotional tears contain prolactin, which I certainly have in abundance at the moment. Can it really be the case that every once in a while you wind up with too much and your body deals with it by making you cry about dairy products? Tell me, is this insane? Is it something everybody knows to be true? What's the deal?

Originally posted by redfox from Adventures in the Pointless Forest, on March 8, 2010 1:29 PM

I've read that an average start (by a starting pitcher) would have a Game Score around "50." (Related, one start in 300 reaches a score of 90 or better, and an all-time great performance would reach 100.)

Thinking about this, I wondered which team, since 1954, had the most games in a season where their pitchers had a Game Score of 50+. Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder, here's that answer:

Rk	Tm	Year	#Matching
1	LAD	1975	124	Ind. Games
2	LAD	1965	120	Ind. Games
3	CLE	1968	120	Ind. Games
4	STL	1969	119	Ind. Games
5	NYM	1968	119	Ind. Games
6	LAD	1973	119	Ind. Games
7	NYM	1988	117	Ind. Games
8	BAL	1972	117	Ind. Games
9	BAL	1968	116	Ind. Games
10	STL	1968	115	Ind. Games
11	NYY	1968	115	Ind. Games
12	HOU	1968	115	Ind. Games
13	ATL	1998	115	Ind. Games
14	DET	1968	114	Ind. Games
15	NYY	1963	113	Ind. Games
16	NYM	1989	113	Ind. Games
17	ATL	1997	113	Ind. Games

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/8/2010.

.

That's interesting - but, what would happen if we bumped the bar up to a Game Score of 65+? Here's that list:

Rk	Tm	Year	#Matching
1	LAD	1966	73	Ind. Games
2	CLE	1968	73	Ind. Games
3	NYM	1969	72	Ind. Games
4	DET	1968	72	Ind. Games
5	STL	1968	71	Ind. Games
6	SFG	1967	71	Ind. Games
7	LAD	1963	71	Ind. Games
8	LAD	1965	70	Ind. Games
9	CHW	1964	69	Ind. Games
10	LAD	1969	68	Ind. Games
11	LAD	1975	68	Ind. Games
12	BAL	1971	68	Ind. Games
13	SFG	1968	67	Ind. Games
14	NYM	1971	67	Ind. Games
15	MIN	1967	67	Ind. Games
16	BAL	1968	67	Ind. Games
17	CLE	1966	66	Ind. Games
18	STL	1969	65	Ind. Games
19	OAK	1971	65	Ind. Games
20	CAL	1972	65	Ind. Games
21	BAL	1972	65	Ind. Games
22	BAL	1969	65	Ind. Games

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/8/2010.

.

O.K. this drops the '75 Dodgers staff down a bit - but, most of the staffs topping them here are from the era where pitchers ruled the earth - due to a higher mound, larger strikezone, no-DH, etc.

So, does this mean that the 1975 Los Angeles Dodgers starting staff (seen below) is one of the best ever in the last half-century, or so, of baseball history? Granted, their home park helped them out...most likely. But, in terms of making decent starts, these guys got the job done...consistently...as a group.

Rk	Pos		Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS 6	IP	ERA+
1	SP	Andy Messersmith	29	19	14	.576	2.29	42	40	321.2	149
2	SP	Doug Rau*	26	15	9	.625	3.11	38	38	257.2	110
3	SP	Don Sutton	30	16	13	.552	2.87	35	35	254.1	119
4	SP	Burt Hooton	25	18	7	.720	2.82	31	30	223.2	121
5	RP	Rick Rhoden	22	3	3	.500	3.08	26	11	99.1	111
6	RP	Al Downing*	34	2	1	.667	2.89	22	6	74.2	118
7		Juan Marichal	37	0	1	.000	13.50	2	2	6.0	25

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/8/2010.

.

Originally posted by Steve Lombardi from Baseball-Reference Blog, on March 8, 2010 12:36 PM

The Oscars®: glitz, glamor, gossip, gold statuettes, much fanfare — and for many fans, Google search is increasingly a part of watching this live TV experience. Before and during the Academy Awards® broadcast in the U.S., we saw related queries on Google dominating the Hot Trends list. People searched for the TV schedule, printable ballots for voting on favorites, streaming video sites, nominee and film information, celebrity chatter and whatever else caught your attention. Here's a snapshot:

Fashion
Everyone knows the red carpet is all about the gowns. So which actresses made the best (or worst!) dressed list in search? Zoe Saldana's purple Givenchy haute couture gown won the day in searches, with just a few more queries than runner up Miley Cyrus, who walked down the carpet in one of Jenny Packham's finest. Both beat searches for Sandra Bullock's dress (Marchesa) by large margins. Sarah Jessica Parker, always the fashionista, ranked a distant fourth in Chanel. Certain designers were also popular in search, thanks to the stars who wore (and name-dropped) them. Elie Saab (worn by Anna Kendrick), Armani Prive (Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Lopez) and Marchesa (Sandra Bullock, Vera Farmiga) were all rising trends.

Winners
Throughout the night Oscar®-related searches rose and fell as nominations were introduced and winners announced. Avatar had the most searches before the ceremony, but as The Hurt Locker received more awards, searches for that film exceeded all others and peaked when it won Best Picture. Precious also had a good run throughout the night. Its peak matched that of "Avatar" during the ceremony:


The awards for best actor, best actress and best director are some of the most-anticipated in the program. There was a considerable amount of buzz about Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock and Kathryn Bigelow before last night, and considerable spikes in search volume when they each won. Here's a look at a few of the star searches last night:


Finally, the evening wasn't all about big wins. The awards help expose more obscure films — shorts, documentaries and foreign-language — to a much larger audience. Searches for these titles typically went up tenfold during the evening, and if they took home a gold statue, search volume spiked as much as 100 times higher. Music by Prudence, Logorama, Food, Inc., The Cove and The Secrets in their Eyes all experienced an exponential explosion of queries.

Gossip and memorable moments
People are always eager for more information about the Hollywood stars — personal stats like age, height, family and dating status. During this year’s Oscar® ceremonies, Kathryn Bigelow's height and Miley Cyrus's mother's tattoos were hot topics. Whose girlfriend was most searched for? Easy. George Clooney's (Elisabetta Canalis).

So what were the most memorable moments of the broadcast? When George Clooney wandered off the red carpet to greet the crowd, queries on [clooney] shot through the roof. Ben Stiller’s appearance as a Na'vi was another draw, and queries on him were high during his spoof. Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick’s John Hughes tribute triggered a flood of nostalgia; Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Home Alone all saw huge query spikes as well. During the memorial portion of the show, queries surged for those in the industry who passed away in the last year, including Ron Silver, Natasha Richardson, Patrick Swayze and Brittany Murphy. On a lighter note, Sandra Bullock set off a frenetic amount of searches when she mentioned a Meryl Streep kiss in her acceptance speech.

As we've seen in presidential debates, unusual words also generate great interest. The Oscars led to spikes in searches for [catharsis] (from Robert Downey Jr.'s presentation with Tina Fey) and [spooning] (Colin Farrell talking about Jeremy Renner).

We hope you enjoyed the evening, and want to thank everyone for turning to Google search to see the latest. And our parents deserve huge thanks, and our agent... oh, they're telling me to wrap it up...!

Posted by Qing Wu, Senior Economics Analyst

Originally posted by A Googler from The Official Google Blog, on March 8, 2010 11:41 AM

Fourfour has put together a nice little collection of Gifs from the Academy Awards, but by far my favorite is this one, of Quentin Tarantino fist pumping like a champ.  You know he gets only the finest uncut chiba on Oscar night.  He’s excited, because after this? Gym, tanning, laundry.  And FYI, that guy behind him, he isn’t real, he’s just this wizard that shows up whenever Q is really f-ckin high.

Originally posted by Vince Mancini from FilmDrunk: Movie news you can make fun of, on March 8, 2010 11:28 AM

If composing the theme song to Mad Men isn't enough to give RJD2, better known as 33-year-old Ramble John Krohn, a bit of popular staying power, the release of his fourth studio album,The Colossus, is indeed.

The disc, which features Krohn making his singer-songwriter debut, dropped January 19th, the same day Krohn took off in Knoxville, and was met with ample critical praise. The audience at Music Hall of Williamsburg, where he performed Saturday night, seemed to approve too.

A continued departure from his earlier works, the sample-heavy Deadringer and Since We Last Spoke, The Colossus features a more palatable Krohn singing and using instrumentation beyond his standard vintage synthesizers and Music Production Centers. That said, during the show, he made good use of his staple music-makers. At one point he projected a live feed of his hands onto a screen behind him, giving visual insight as to what it takes to manipulate a MPC. His hands flew over the buttons, pushing them at top speed, while the audience watched on the big screen behind him in awe.
Despite the interactive nature of Krohn's performance, he rarely uttered more than a few words between numbers. Sometimes he sang, other times he let the vinyl have a voice. He did, however, show off his sense of humor. When he whipped out a Mario Brothers figurine and had Mario man the MPC, the room ate it up. And, towards the end of his hit "Ghostwriter," he emerged wearing a full black space suit, attacking the MPC as it rested against his stomach, his face hidden behind what looked like a welder's mask.

Towards the end of the performance Krohn brought out guest singer Aaron Livingston, who appears on The Colossus, for "Crumbs off the Table." This lyrically smooth-as-silk yet instrumentally textured track proved to be a crowd-pleaser. The encore, "Making Days Longer," from Since We Last Spoke, elicited cheering and lighters held high. The evening was perhaps more subdued for what one might expect from RJD2, but after listening to the diverse The Colossus, it's clear Krohn has begun to span a wide breadth, from electronica to straight rock.

Once the show wrapped, Krohn leaned down to shake the hands of fans. After the tech guys began to pack up, he returned to sign ticket stubs, posters and t-shirts and pose for photos. He stayed with his fans for as long as the Music Hall's staff would allow, while venue employees swept up the plastic cups.

Originally posted by Jamie Granoff from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on March 8, 2010 10:59 AM

This weekend, I made this delicious bread, with Penelope's help. Isn't it pretty? And tasty--fresh bread is the best.

It's pain à l'ancienne, recipes here and here. The first of those is adapted from Peter Reinhart, who's written a number of great books on the subject of bread, including The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Originally posted by btrott from Stupidfool.org, on March 8, 2010 10:33 AM

"[He's] this person who stuck it to the bureaucratic culture and went on his own stand for the little guy and the consumer," Irish-born artist Duncan Campbell says of John DeLorean, the inventor of the iconic 80s super car the DeLorean DMC-12 and the subject of Campbell's new short film, Make It New John. "He had a maverick management style at GM. His life story is kind of Shakespearean; it's a real rags to riches story."

The imaginative sculpture of the DMC-12 still piques the American psyche -- with a two-year production run that eroded in 1981, both the car and the man, who rose up the ranks of Chrysler and GM before forging out on his own to risk opening his own car company, became a symbol for the grandiose nature of the 1980s.

And with those decadent days came greed. Campbell believes that questionable business dealings and tensions at the DeLorean factory in Northern Ireland, which employed Protestants and Catholics, hampered the car from the start. "The perspective you get in Britain and Ireland is that it's not so much the car as a consumer object," Campbell said. "It's got to do with the factory and the climate it created. It was massively funded by the British government. There was a lot of accusations of fraud and embezzlement."

Like some of the automotive industry, Campbell is on the fence about DeLorean. "He's a decisive character," Campbell said."People seem to like him or loathe him. I'm somewhere in the middle." Regardless, Campbell concedes that the DeLorean DMC-12's status as an 80s pop relic will likely always overshadow DeLorean himself. "The Back to the Future stuff is unavoidable," he said. 

Make It New John, which runs just under one hour, is screening at the Artists Space in New York City through May 1.

Originally posted by Jamie Granoff from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on March 8, 2010 10:14 AM

Being intelligent is like having a knife. If you train every day in using the knife, you will be invincible. If you think that just having a knife will make you win any battle you fight, then you will fail. This believe in your own inherent ability is what will kill your startup. Success comes from the work and ability you put in becoming better than the others, and not from some brilliance you feel you may have within you. via gercek.typepad.com Cheesy but true.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 8, 2010 10:02 AM

The American Dream is to find home. This dream shaded a 1972 trade featuring Charlie Williams. Charlie Williams was not the focus of the dream, however, and so ended up actually being taken from his home and moved elsewhere. This is the problem of the modern world, I guess, or one of them: the dream of home, always elusive and often invasive or worse (ask an Indian, if you can find one, how he or she feels about the American dream of finding a home), ends up making everyone more or less rootless and adrift.

The trade I’m talking about is the one that sent an aging Willie Mays from San Francisco back to New York, the city where he had begun his incredible major league career. The Mets sent Charlie Williams west to facilitate this homecoming, not balking at the fact that Charlie Williams had an even stronger tie to the Mets’ home than Mays ever could: the young pitcher was then and remains (according to Brian Joura) the only player in Mets history to hail from the very ground the Mets stood on: Flushing, NY.

The back of this 1977 card confirms the plumbing-evocative neighborhood name as Charlie Williams’ point of origin, and also relates that the pitcher decided after the 1972 transaction to try to make his new home in Foster City, California. Right around the time of his arrival, events in Foster City inspired an article in the San Francisco Examiner that went on to gain some renown entitled “Mouse Packs: Kids on a Crime Spree.” I haven’t seen this article, but its reputation is of a sensational report on rampant youth vandalism in a recently formed community that had been planned out with the highest aspirations.

A few years ago, a student looking to gather information for a project on the trouble in Foster City posted a question on an internet site hoping to get memories from any Foster City residents from that time. The responses almost all professed surprise that there had been any trouble at all. To them, Foster City was and is just fine. One responder did hint at some trouble out beyond the margins of the vision of the American Dream. It’s interesting to note that in this commenter’s description, the opposite of trouble in Foster City is a world saturated with baseball and with players, or one player in particular (a player who will forever pull Charlie Williams at least slightly into the limelight), who decades later can serve as a potent symbol of home, if not the whole idea of home altogether. Everyone wants to find home. For some of us, home means this game, these cards. Anyway, here’s the take of the commenter, “Joe2,” on the two versions of Foster City, one within the safety of the baseball field, and one beyond that safety:

I remember the “Mouse Packs” clearly. I was 13, it was summer of 1973 and it was baseball season. We played in a big field that used to be behind the fire station. We were good kids, we played in the parks, went swmming/sailing in the lagoon, joined a father & son group called “indian guides” and rode our bikes to Safeway to buy baseball cards. I still have my Willie Mays in action cards. There were a couple of bad influence kids arround, and I know they were going arround pulling hood ornaments off cars. They pulled the BWM crome plates off with screw drivers. I remember Dad told me about the Mouse Packs story, and I thought it was about these kids . . .

There were some bad apples, but we were good kids.

 

***

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot, as I am prone to do, about Kelly Leak, specifically the particularly iconic version of Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, and I have even gone so far as to begin trying to imagine Kelly’s life away from the baseball field.

This past weekend, I finally watched the 1979 film Over the Edge (which has come up several times in conversation on this site) while wondering about what might have happened to the star of the Bad News Bears after his heroics in the Astrodome (note: while asking “Where have you gone, Kelly Leak?” I do not and never will recognize the existence of the execrable, useless third Bears movie, The Bad News Bears Go To Japan). Put another way, as the 1970s came to a close, was there a place in America for Kelly Leak?

For a possible answer, I turned to Over the Edge, which focused on a community built on the core American Dream idea of perfect safety and harmony, of home, far from the dangers of the city.

Over the Edge was originally supposed to be set in Charlie Williams’ adopted home of Foster City, California, as it had been inspired by the aforementioned San Francisco Examiner article on the “mouse packs.” Because of some restrictions in the child labor laws in California, the production moved to a planned community in Colorado with significant similarities to Foster City, according to the filmmakers, most importantly the element that gave the film a haunting visual look that corresponded to and enhanced the central theme of alienation: building after building of eerily sterile and lifeless architecture, a dream of perfection that had forgotten to include a beating heart.

The community, called “New Granada” in the film, was intended to be the perfect home, a place of security and harmony and prosperity. But the community in Over the Edge is not well: the adolescent teens of the town are not given anything to do or anywhere to go. They have been left out of the plan for perfect American prosperity. What is there to do but wander around, smoke pot, drink, maybe break shit?

It is not too difficult to imagine Kelly Leak among these kids, especially the imagined, implied, offscreen Kelly Leak, who reminded every boy raptly worshipping his every move in the Bears movies of his own town’s cool, tough kids, who wandered around and smoked pot and drank and broke shit.

In the Bears films, Kelly is a loner, but that is only in the context of the boys on the team and their childish pursuits. In the first Bears movie, before he has joined the team, Kelly initially rebuffs Amanda’s attempts to get him on the team, telling her that the Bears (presumably because they still care about baseball enough to pull on their little yellow-trimmed uniforms and happily prance onto the field) are “fags”; early in Over the Edge there is a prominent piece of graffiti on the school that reads “jocks are fags.” Kelly Leak and the kids in Over the Edge seem to speak the same language and seem to be oriented in similar ways toward the world. It’s not that much of a stretch to think they might, once Kelly and his rapidly aging body are finally barred from pounding the pitches of small children, fall together some night at a darkened playground and share hits from a skull-headed bowl before going down to the highway overpass to throw lit M-80s at cars.

The scene of greatest exhilaration in Over the Edge is when the two main characters, Carl (Michael Kramer) and Richie (Matt Dillon, in his film debut) make a getaway from a cop in a vehicle Richie has swiped from his mother. Though the moment of freedom is brief and much more realistically rendered than the ultimate scene of male adolescent fantasy in Breaking Training when Kelly and his teammates start out toward Houston in a stolen customized van, I saw a key correspondence between the two scenes. Though presented in completely different ways, in both scenes there is joy. It’s the joy of believing that the world, after a whole life of wanting, is finally at the command of those who have seized the wheel.

Unlike the irresistible fantasy of Breaking Training, the scene of escape in Over the Edge last for just a few moments and ends grimly. Events in the movie escalate from there, and the action climaxes with a scene of a wildly destructive spree by the kids that reminded me acutely of Disco Demolition Night, which just happened to have occurred the same year that Over the Edge came out. It’s pretty much the same thing: Longhaired white kids getting high and setting things on fire and rampaging: rebellion, yes, but impotent, useless. Next stop for America: the candy-colored teen films of John Hughes, the reactionary reign of Ronald Reagan, and, by virtue of beefed-up security at ballparks, no more longhaired mobs going wild across the fields of the American Dream.

And Kelly Leak was nowhere to be seen. 

Originally posted by Josh Wilker from Cardboard Gods, on March 8, 2010 8:07 AM

With Brandon Webb possibly starting the season on the DL, the back of the Diamondbacks rotation will have to step up in the early goings. This affects no one more than Ian Kennedy, whom the Diamondbacks acquired from the Yankees this off-season. He came into camp expected to compete for a starting gig, and with Webb out his spot seems more of a certainty. The Diamondbacks sound eager to see what Kennedy can do now that he’s out of the AL East and in the weaker hitting National League. But can he succeed in the hitter friendly confines of Chase Field?

Kennedy is not short on potential. He put his talent on display during his first two seasons at USC, striking out 278 batters in 209.2 IP during his freshman and sophomore years. His performance dropped off during his junior year, as his ERA rose by over a full run and his strikeout rate dropped, though he still struck out a batter per inning. The knock on that year was that he lost a few miles per hour on his fastball. Despite the performance and speed loss, the Yankees picked him in the first round of the 2006 draft.

While, like many of his peers, he didn’t sign in time to pitch significant innings in his draft year, Kennedy came on strong in 2007. Starting in advanced-A ball he dominated the minors, climbing to AAA by August. His strikeout rate jumped back above a batter per inning, to about 10 per nine — though that dropped a bit at AAA. Impressed by his rapid rise through the system, the Yankees called him up in September to start in place of the struggling Mike Mussina, a pitcher to whom Kennedy has drawn comparisons. He pitched very well in his three starts, leading the Yankees to hand him a rotation spot the following year.

This is where Kennedy unraveled. In his first six starts he saw the fifth inning just three times. He had problems throwing strikes and ended up walking 20 batters in 24.2 innings. This seemed particularly odd, because walks were never a problem for Kennedy. He didn’t have the lowest walk rate, but it was at 3.0 per nine in the minors in 2007, a respectable rate. The walk issues begat baserunners, which begat runs and plenty of them. After allowing 23 in his six starts, the Yankees demoted him to AAA.

He returned to the majors twice, but faced similar issues. In his second stint he walked fewer batters, five in 14 IP, but allowed four home runs in that span. An injury shelved him for a month, and when he returned it was apparent that the Yankees did not want him back in the majors. His only performance afterward came on August 8, a horrible two-inning, five-run outing against the Angels coming after Joba Chamberlain hurt his shoulder. Even after Kennedy finished the season at AAA, the Yankees did not recall him in September.

Now, after missing almost all of 2009 recovering from surgery to remove an aneurysm under his right armpit, Kennedy will attempt to resurrect his career in the National League. While he might find it easier going than the AL East, his troubles could still follow him to Arizona. His minor league track record doesn’t bode well for his ability to keep runners of the base paths and, more importantly, his ability to keep the ball in the park.

Throughout his college and minor league career, Kennedy did a great job of limiting opponents’ home runs. He allowed just six home runs during his 2007 run through the minors, and then allowed just four in his 69 innings in 2008. This ability, however, had much to do with his unsustainably low 3.6 HR/FB% in the minors. This number figures to rise in the majors — it was at 7.6 percent in 2008 with the Yankees, and could get even higher at Chase Field, which has ranked as one of the most homer-friendly parks in the majors over the last three seasons. Even worse for Kennedy, he has always been a fly ball pitcher, allowing 41 percent fly balls in the minors and, in his limited major league experience, 48.7 percent.

His other college and minor league strength, his strikeout rate, probably won’t translate to the majors. Throughout his minor league career he struck out 9.63 hitters per nine innings, or 28 percent of the batters he faced. During his 59.2 major league innings that number has been 6.49 per nine, or 15.5 percent. While that could certainly rise, especially in the NL, he likely won’t approach his minor league numbers. That, combined with his unspectacular walk rate, could hurt his chances for success.

None of this, of course, precludes Kennedy’s success. Perhaps his work with the Diamondbacks coaches will help him rediscover what made him a standout college pitcher and first round draft pick. Maybe the aneurysm surgery fixed a lingering issue in his arm. His performance to date, however, in both the majors and minors, does not portent success. He’ll need to make changes in order to keep the ball out of the air, and in the park, while pitching in Arizona. Even if he doesn’t he could make a nice No. 5 starter, but if he does he could become even more valuable to the Diamondbacks. With Brandon Webb out to start the season and possibly gone after the season, they could certainly use the help.

Originally posted by Joe Pawlikowski from FanGraphs Baseball, on March 8, 2010 8:00 AM

He’s very kind to state that DF was an inspiration. I stole the intermingled short-links-and-longer-articles format from Kottke, though.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on March 8, 2010 7:52 AM

This Wednesday, March 10th, I’ll be speaking as a part of SVA’s Dot Dot Dot lecture series. The talk is all about “The Tablet”. There will be several very smart people talking including Khoi Vinh and I’m very excited to be a part of it. You can learn more and RSVP here. The important bits:

Wednesday, March 10th: 6:30-8:30pm
Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn (Map)
RSVP

SXSW

I’ll be making my first voyage to SXSW this year. I’m not speaking, just planning on having a damn good time. If you’re curious, these are the events I’m considering attending. If you have any suggestions for events or delicious eateries, I’m all ears.

I hope to see you at one or both of these!

Originally posted by Matt Jacobs from Capn Design, on March 8, 2010 7:50 AM

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks (which airs on ESPN on March 14th at 9 p.m.) is the latest offering from Dan Klores, an award-winning director who makes sports documentaries that get to the core of his subjects as people not stars. That is to say you don't have to be a basketball fan to enjoy Winning Time (but it certainly helps). This classic New York story chronicles the epic rivalry that arose between the New York Knicks and Reggie Miller, playing for the Indiana Pacers. 

Klores came to his calling late in life. After starting one of the city's premier PR companies, he decided to make a documentary about his old neighborhood, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, set around a group of his friends who played basketball together by day and got into trouble at night. The Boys of Second Street Park (full disclosure: some of my friends are featured in the docu, but I didn't know Klores back then), already bore the markings of his signature style; archival footage cut with new interviews presented in a straight-forward cinematic style that put the story front-and-center. He's probably best-known for Crazy Love, his meditation on a destructive love affair that won a 2008 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, but the world of sports has been his greatest preoccupation, from boxing (Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story) to baseball (Viva Baseball) to basketball (Black Magic).

Here he discusses his work, what holds it together and other insights he's had about people and sports over the years. 

Is there a thread that connects the movies you have directed.    
On a subconscious level, the commonality of my films centers around the outsider looking in: a bunch of lower middle class Jewish kids in Brooklyn emotionally trapped and afraid to break out of their small world thus the escape into drugs; the gay immigrant prizefighter, hiding from the outside world; the Spanish speaking ballplayer arriving in a new country unaccustomed to the language, people and skin color of his 'bosses'; the deeply disturbed and scared boy and girls from the Bronx who were too afraid to leave one another no matter how violent the relationship; and the black student, primarily from the South, finding a haven in the university and basketball court in a brutally racist society... Reggie too was relegated to a second class role by the adoration and intimidation that his older sister Cheryl represented.  Vulnerability is the thread.

Having talked to everyone about Reggie Miller, what do you think made him so special? Reggie was special because he grew up in a highly competitive environment, with a father who believed in military type discipline.  His sister Cheryl, one year older, was the greatest woman's basketball player in history.  His need to be better than her after years of living in a secondary role provided his drive, and that was remarkable.  He combined the God-given gifts of athleticism with a psychological yearning to stand out on his own... when you then add a work ethic of a champion you get a special athlete and very, very focused person.    

Of the current crop of sports superstars, which stories fascinate you?    
That's a tough question.  Maybe Oliver Perez of the Mets.  There is something so off with him that makes him interesting...s o much talent yet a basket case, if you will.  And A-Rod, the child prodigy who lives in his own secluded world of self absorption -- he's a "Bubble Boy."  Is it possible he can ever leave the world of the void, or is the damage so great that his vanity is only matched by his lack of curiosity?   

With steroids, guns and gambling grabbing the sports headlines, has the idea of the athlete as role model become passé? Has the era of team sports peaked out in favor of individual sports like skate and snowboarding, biking, etc.?
I don't think the era of team sports has peaked out -- this is, after all America, and the arena is Church-like.  It's no accident that pro football is on Sunday... but, selfishness stems from hope, and young athletes today are told by their parents they'll get into the NBA, a Division I college, an elite crooked high school specializing in "the game" first, second and third, and to do that it is all about themselves -- score more, win less.  We only read about the role of "money" when it comes to the devaluation of the games/sports -- no, these parents invest all their time hoping, training, hyping, scouting for their kids so they and the child will escape.  The result: selfishness, more A-Rods with a lot less talent.  It used to be that kids who played together created their own pecking order.  Now the moronic parents do, and it's all perpetuated by flesh peddler AAU directors and officials.    

How does the head of a prestigious public relations company wind up a documentarian? And what did you learn from doing public relations that helped you in filmmaking?    
I haven't been involved in my old firm for many years.  They do a great job without me.  I had written books and magazine articles before I started that business out of the desperation of being broke -- three dollars to my name in 1980.  I never, ever felt as if I were in PR or marketing, I felt that I was an editor who could create and shape any story.  That's why we hit it big: I'm a storyteller, and the documentary is a form of expression.

Originally posted by Alexis Swerdloff from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on March 8, 2010 7:44 AM

Despite all the snarky comments I’ve been getting, both about the film itself and about the director’s two acceptance speeches, I remain unrepentetly thrilled that Kathryn Bigelow won the Best Director and Best Film Oscars for The Hurt Locker. There are just some times when, for me at least, rampant and delirious auteurism trumps everything. I have loved Bigelow’s films ever since I first saw Near Dark in 1987. My book The Cinematic Body (1993) begins with a discussion of Bigelow’s 1990 film Blue Steel; and I wrote a long article on Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995) for this volume. There are just certain directors — not many — who captivate my gaze, and won’t let it go. Bigelow and Abel Ferrara are the only two American directors of their (and my) generation to do so. via www.shaviro.com Long (but worth it, I bet!) article about Bigelow.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 8, 2010 7:37 AM

I will not be in Austin this year, though the inimitable Paul Ford will be. You should find him and say hello.

I've never been to SxSW before. It surprises some people when I tell them that. It also surprises people when I cry or vomit, or get into bed with them well after all the other guests have gone home. But I've never had a job where they want to spend money to send me places to learn things. I think that's a very NYC thing; ideas and talent are supposed to come to us, preferably kneeling and begging, not the other way around. This approach is why the finance and publishing industries are enjoying such great years.

via www.ftrain.com

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.com, on March 8, 2010 7:26 AM

Despite all the snarky comments I’ve been getting, both about the film itself and about the director’s two acceptance speeches, I remain unrepentetly thrilled that Kathryn Bigelow won the Best Director and Best Film Oscars for The Hurt Locker. There are just some times when, for me at least, rampant and delirious auteurism trumps everything. I have loved Bigelow’s films ever since I first saw Near Dark in 1987. My book The Cinematic Body (1993) begins with a discussion of Bigelow’s 1990 film Blue Steel; and I wrote a long article on Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995) for this volume. There are just certain directors — not many — who captivate my gaze, and won’t let it go. Bigelow and Abel Ferrara are the only two American directors of their (and my) generation to do so.

I think it might have something to do with a kind of sensory immersion. This is aesthetics, both in the narrower sense of vicarious ravishment by works of art, and in the larger sense of “aesthetics” as a sensibility, a play of the senses, a kind of heightened reception. Near Dark, of course, is a nocturnal film, both as its title indicates and because it is about vampires, for whom sunlight is literally killing. “The night, it’s so bright…” Has there ever been a movie that has so well captured the tonalities of dim light (including starlight and artificial neon light), the ways in which (semi-)darkness is a sensual medium, a tender, welcoming blanket, an atmosphere in which previously unspoken desires can become manifest? These desires include the murders which the vampires must perform in order to feed; but they also include those of a romance in which the woman is the active one, pursuing the man; and Jenny Wright and Adrian Pasdar are both utterly ravishing. Not to mention the great Lance Henriksen as leader of the vampire clan. And then there are the marvelous set pieces, like the scene in the tough country-and-western bar, where the vampires take down a bunch of hardass dudes, while The Cramps’ cover of “Fever” plays on the jukebox… Near Dark is one of the great film about nighttime; and this includes poetic visions of dawn and dusk, and also the scene in which the vampires face a daytime shootout from the cops, the bullet holes in their motel room letting in stabs of murderous sunbeams. The vampires of Near Dark are classic American drifters, unmoored from the social contract, left out of the promises of the American dream, with a “family” that does not conform to bourgeois suburban norms. And although Near Dark ends, as genre pictures must, with the triumph of daylight and of “normalcy,” those nocturnal hauntings are what the movie leaves behind in our minds and hearts.

Blue Steel is, in its own way, as nocturnal a movie as Near Dark; its palette is largely blue-black, with hard neon lighting. Many of its scenes take place in the daytime, but the night scenes are the ones that stick in the mind. Add to that its scary gun fetishism, and Jamie Lee Curtis as a female cop stalked by Ron Silver’s psycho. Curtis’ performance is wonderfully butch, but at the same time she displays more than a hint of wry humor about her situation. This happens even as that situation becomes more and more unbearable, as Silver in effect draws Curtis into a situation of unwanted intimacy and complicity. As I say in my book, “the visual becomes violently tactile” in the course of Blue Steel; “something has happened to the act of looking… Bigelow pushes fetishism and voyeuristic fascination to the point where they explode.” I’d only add that this excess itself becomes sensual, bathed as it is in the alternations of darkness and light.

Point Break is also dominated by the color blue. But it moves in yet another direction, as everything comes out of, and returns back to, the element of water. Bigelow shows us the ocean and the beach as they have never been shown before. The images from this film that remain most in my mind are all those telephoto lens shots of waves breaking on the shore. (Though the images of bank robbers in Presidential masks are also pretty wonderful — especially the shot of “Reagan” as cheerful incendiary). Surfing and skydiving are both modes of activity in which beautifully vapid male bodies give themselves over to the primordial elements. The homoerotic tension/attraction between Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze is itself immersed in the dynamics of waves and water. Surfer hedonism is taken up and transcended by the universal upswelling of a fluid dynamics.

Water is also central, this time in relation to female desire, and oppression and resistance, in The Weight of Water (2000); but I have only seen this once, when it first came out, so I cannot say very much about it. I do remember a kinetic moving camera, and the splashing of waves against the boat, but that is about it.

Strange Days has its own unique poetics of vision, which is what my article on the film was mostly about. Bigelow lovingly envisions nighttime Los Angeles, as part of the depiction of a post-apocalyptic (or at least, post-1992-riots) city riven by racial tension and virtually under martial occupation. This is the setting for a series of fluidly moving Steadicam action sequence shots. But the film also bifurcates into two regimes of vision. On the one hand, there is its series of first-person-POV shots (which play a major role in the movie’s science-fictional diegesis). On the other hand, there is its depiction of (as I wrote in my article) “the play of light and shadow, the foldings of space, and the impersonal movements of crowds”, mostly involving “visual clutter,” and “nocturnal blue-black lighting.” The postmodern angst/cool of Strange Days, and its portrayal of urban racial antagonisms (not forgetting the tough performance of Angela Bassett, whom I unreservedly worship in this film) is very different in feel from the cosmic or oceanic feeling that I was describing for some of the earlier films. But in its own way, the ironic cognitive dissonance of Strange Days is in its own way an adventure of the senses, an immersion into perceptuo-affective elements that stretch far beyond our own subjective measure.

K-19 The Widowmaker does not seem to be highly regarded, even among us Bigelow aficionados; but I think it deserves at least a moment’s consideration. Harrison Ford has never been more iconic, more self-subsistent, and (dare I say it) more John Wayne-like — something of an irony in a movie where he plays a Cold War Soviet submarine commander. As befits a movie set almost entirely inside a submarine, Bigelow’s mise-en-scene is tensely and intensely claustrophobic. In dialectical opposition to Point Break and The Weight of Water, here the liquid element is something that must be kept out, at any cost. The result is a kind of gripping minimalism, almost to the point of sensory deprivation. If Bigelow’s earlier films all bathed in ambiguous, sensual elements, the narrative of K-19 crackles and burns in the effort to keep out any trace of the elemental.

Which brings us to The Hurt Locker. This is a film that is once again bathed in the elemental — or better, it is a film in which the existential communicates directly with the elemental, with all other layers of significance stripped away. This is why the film is “apolitical” — it doesn’t take a stance on the Iraq war, which means in practice that (in the absence of critique) it can only be read as ratifying the war (or, at least as ratifying the late-Bush-surge and Obama-post-surge versions of the war, if not the idiotic Cheneyism that got us involved in Iraq in the first place). But to my mind, the film’s reductionism is part of what makes it work, and The Hurt Locker is vastly to be preferred to all the liberal hand-wringing films about the war, which for all their humanist anguish are not really any more radically critical of US imperialism than Bigelow’s film is. (I also prefer, speaking politically as well as aesthetically, the overt militarism of The Hurt Locker to the ostensible anti-militarism of Avatar; at least The Hurt Locker spares us the fantasy that progressively-minded white Americans are there in an “exotic” locale for the good of the “natives.” The story arc in which Jeremy Renner befriends an Iraqi boy shows us precisely that such connections, fantasized on the part of the invaders, are never real.

But I digress. What I loved about The Hurt Locker was, once again, as in Bigelow’s other films, the experience of sensory immersion. Only this time, we are not immersed in water, nor in the ambiguous protection and menace of the American rural and urban night. Rather, we get the harshness of sun and sand, the glare of the desert. Though there are a few night sequences, when we brush against the mysteries of the dark (particulary the on in which Renner’s character’s insistence upon nighttime pursuit puts his own men in grave danger), for the most part we are in a world without water or shadows, where everything is exposed to the sun’s pitiless glare. Now we are bathed (if I can still use that metaphor) in an element that leaves us fully exposed. The resulting harsh minimalism is comparable to that of K-19, but on a level of greater intensity. Despite the various incidents that crop up now and again (the Iraqi boy, the nighttime pursuit, the soldiers fighting in the barracks) the film is mostly a grim procedural (I am using this word on the analogy of the genre of “police procedural” — though here it is military rather than police). It moves from one set piece to another; and each set piece is another version of the dilemma of how to disarm a bomb. (The one more conventionally military episode in the middle, involving the sniper shootout in the desert, is itself a different sort of set piece, suggesting that the war as a whole has no narrative with beginning, middle, and end, but is itself only a series of endless, numbing serial repetitions). The macho bravado of Renner’s character also only makes sense in the context of this purely routinized professionalism. The professionalism in turn seems only to be an inevitable quality of the element of sun and sand in which it is immersed. And this element is itself evoked, not only by the setting, but by the utterly dry and precise style of camera movement and editing, without a wasted moment or movement. Bigelow organizes each scene with the same tense exactitude that characterizes the actions portrayed in the scene. This is an amazingly self-conscious, higher-order-reflective version of action editing: it moves on a higher meta-level, but in an entirely different way than is the case with the usual self-reflexive pomo turns that we get in the films of Tarantino, the Coens, and all their lesser epigones. In The Hurt Locker, the senses are stretched to a point of acute tension and wary, analytical alertness; but one facet of Bigelow’s greatness is the way that this sort of subjective state, as well, can be seen, heard, and felt to overflow as a kind of nonsubjective sensorial immersion.

Let me bring this back to the overall question of Kathryn Bigelow as an auteur. I am entirely in agrement with Kathleen Murphy and Robert C. Cumbow, both of whom see Bigelow as a feminist daughter of Howard Hawks. And her action editing, of course, owes much to the example of such (male) predecessors as Sam Peckinpah, Don Siegel, and Walter Hill. But there is something else as well — a kind of directorial “signature” in Bigelow’s films. I am here thinking less of the French and Anglo-American auteurisms of the 1960s and the 1970s, than of the way that, in his first Cinema volume, Deleuze describes the “personal signatures” of Kurosawa and Mizoguchi, and relates them to the ways that these directors engage the elemental forces of landscape and weather, e.g., the sort of thing that makes Kurosawa “one of the greatest film-makers of rain”). Each of Bigelow’s films deploys a certain assemblage (to use a Deleuze/Guattari word) of color, camera movement, and physical/elemental atmosphere. These assemblages define a mode of perceptual experience, but they equally define a mode of that-which-is-perceived, and a mode of being of the environment — or, better, of the world – in which this perceptual interchange takes place. (I prefer “world” to “environment”, to emphasize that it is not just a setting for the subjective perceiver, but a matrix of which the perceiver himself/herself is also a part). This (ultimately asubjective or more-than-subjective) atmosphere of affect is what captured and captivated me when I first saw Near Dark, and what continues to enthrall me with regard to all her films. Given the Academy’s lame choices for best film and best director over the years, Bigelow’s Oscars can scarcely be credited as a verification or proof of her auteurial status; but I am nonetheless greatly pleased, and indeed thrilled, and indeed a bit amazed, that so singular and powerful an artist has actually (and quite unusually) received this sort of recognition.

Originally posted by Steven Shaviro from The Pinocchio Theory, on March 8, 2010 7:17 AM

The Beastie Boys' Adam "MCA" Yauch recently addressed his battle with cancer last summer and the status of his group's upcoming Hot Sauce album.

[Visit SOHH.com for more information]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from SOHH.com Dailies, on March 8, 2010 6:45 AM

[ by way of ]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on March 8, 2010 6:30 AM

Fully draggable, zoomable, Zelda-like map of NYC...this is awesome. But where are the Octoroks? (via waxy)

Tags: maps   NYC

Originally posted by Jason Kottke from kottke.org, on March 8, 2010 6:02 AM

Whether you were rooting for Sandra or Carey to take home the little gold dude last night, we were sitting on the edges of our couches in anticipation for this year's Oscars dresses. The runways were rife with killer options last season, and we couldn't wait to see who would thrill us on the red carpet, who would bore us, and who would leave us dazed and confused. From looks that we swore we saw at our Junior Prom to some brilliant examples of risk-taking done right, this Oscars separated the wheat from the chaff when it came to who has the best red carpet prowess. We've rounded up the best, worst, most divisive, and most dull looks at last night's Academy Awards. See more red carpet looks at FabSugar.


Best



Vera Farmiga—Pleated ruffles can easily make you look like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, but we think Vera's fuschia frock got it just right.

Sandra Bullock—The lipstick! The modern hairstyle! The gorgeous silver dress! Sandra's look is making us swoon.

Rachel McAdams—Watercolor prints could look a little Miami-Beach-y, but the ethereal pleating and sweet little bodice keep this dress killing it in all the right ways.

Carey Mulligan—We never thought we'd see a mullet dress that could give us heart palpitations. This encrusted Prada number suits Carey to a tee.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Refinery, on March 8, 2010 6:00 AM

At TED2009, Tim Berners-Lee called for "raw data now" -- for governments, scientists and institutions to make their data openly available on the web. At TED U in 2010, he shows a few of the interesting results when the data gets linked up. (Recorded at TED University 2010, February 2010 in Long Beach, CA. Duration: 20:07)

Watch Tim Berners-Lee's talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 600+ TEDTalks.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from TED Blog, on March 8, 2010 5:43 AM

A survey of 200 students at Stanford University revealed the newest crippling dependency that is sapping the vitality of our nation's youth: iPhone addicition. Nearly half the survey's participants admitted to being very or completely addicted to the devices, while 41 percent admitted that they would characterize the loss of their iPhones as a "tragedy." Also:

There was also a tendency among the survey participants to anthropomorphize their iPhones and treat it differently than other electronics. For example, 3 percent of the students said they don't let anyone touch their iPhone; another 3 percent have named their iPhone; 9 percent have patted their iPhone and 8 percent admitted that they have at some time thought "My iPod is jealous of my iPhone."

Other signs of iPhone addiction are thought to include an irrational desire to have the latest popular tech product, a willingness to shell out money for a device whose actual "phone" aspect remains only a slight improvement on two Dixie cups connected with a string, and a deep misunderstanding of what "addiction" actually is.

Originally posted by Balk from The Awl, on March 8, 2010 5:40 AM

via www.papermag.com Dennis Dermody is one of my favorite bloggers right now. I almost excerpted the whole post but instead i excerpted none of it.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello typepad, on March 8, 2010 3:39 AM

Knockin' Three trade posts out with one stone. Here's a whole bunch of additions to my Yo Momma set. According to the initial sell sheet there's another one in series two. Oh bother.

This pile came from a fellow ATLien, Jim Garrison...

 

 

These are from Rob, who has a blog, but I forgot what it was...

This Nolan Ryan back was in another of  long line of packages from Madding at Cards on Cards.

These I stumbled upon whole tracking down some more Code cards (which I haven't redeemed yet since the Transmogrifier is pritting out junk again)

Thanks to all, your packages are ready and will be in the mail as soon as I can get to a post office. The hunt continues...

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on March 8, 2010 3:39 AM

From Slice

A Margherita from Ken's Artisan Pizza in Portland, Oregon: "charred" or "burned"? [Photograph: Adam Kuban]

This week's poll is dedicated to avid home-pizza-maker dmcavanagh, who often comments about the fine line between "charred" and "burned."

A Margherita from Pizza Brutta in Madison, Wisconsin: just right? [Photograph: Guil Barros]

When I first started eating pizza from coal- and wood-oven joints around NYC and made my first forays onto the various food boards discussing pizza (this was around 10 years ago), I noticed that "char" was something pizza hounds desired. Pies coming from intensely hot ovens seemed to be considered failures unless they had just the right splotchwork of flaky, black, carbonized crust.

The idea seems to be that A) charring gives the pizza a just-so smoky flavor and that B) the absence of charring indicates that the oven may not be at the high temperatures needed to produce a "proper" coal- or wood-cooked pizza.

I'll be the first to admit that I've used somewhat ridiculous language in the past: "artfully charred" comes to mind. :-S

A pie from Di Fara in Brooklyn: Oh, this one is *definitely* burned! [Photograph: Adam Kuban]

But not everyone likes the black splotches. Dmcavanagh, for instance, says:

Charred vs. burnt is an interesting argument in pizza circles. Here's my thought, do you put a pizza in the oven and hope to pull it out with a black crust? I don't think so, I know that's not my intention when I make a pizza. I think the "charred" concept is just a convenient excuse for "whoops, I left it in a little to long, don't want it to go to waste, let's called it "charred".

And I've talked to pizza-makers such as Lawrence Ciminieri of Totonno's, who says that people visiting the original Coney Island, Brooklyn, location seem to tolerate and even expect the "char," while folks who visit the Manhattan branches often complain that the pizza is "burned" and that he has his pizza-makers there ease back on the cooking time to yield golden-brown crusts instead.

And the Texas branches of Brooklyn-based Grimaldi's seem to have learned the hard way that Lone Star Staters send back "charred"/"burned" pizzas. Texas food writer Robb Walsh even noted this and wrote about it here.

All this to get to the poll:

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats, on March 8, 2010 3:15 AM

Yesterday, in his first start of the spring, Oliver Perez gave up five earned runs on seven hits, while striking out two and walking one, during three innings in a loss to the Nationals at Tradition Field.

Perez told reporters he was a little nervous, but happy he felt no pain in his knee, from which he had scar tissue removed last summer.

He tossed 33 strikes out of 49 pitchers, which was Perez’s goal for the day, according to pitching coach Dan Warthen.

“I thought it was an extremely positive day for him,” Warthen said.  “He maintained everything he’s been working on.”

…i agree… from what i can tell, the team didn’t want him to be fancy, they simply wanted him to go out, be comfortable, and throw strikes… he did this, and only used his slider a few times… usually, he mixes his pitchers more… so, if he threw strikes and felt  no pain, i guess it was a success… also, it’s his first start… i try not to get overly analytical about performance, good or bad, until later in the month… right now, they’re just not pitching at the same level, and they’re trying to do different things, like work in new pitches, or work on delivery issues, etc…

“Ollie threw strikes; that was the main focus,” said Jerry Manuel, who was very satisfied with Perez’s performance.  “We felt that if he could get some level of comfort out there and throw strikes, we would be very satisfied with the way he was going… When you get the results of strikes, you’re doing some things right mechanically.”

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on March 8, 2010 2:49 AM

Jessica found this incredibly steampunk Norman pattern and wonders if anyone has information they can share about Mrs. N.R. Norman, inventress. This is Centennial Pattern No. 8, for those keeping score at home, and is from the 1890s. It may be a St. Louis company -- it's marked St. Louis. Any information? Please leave a comment! (Here's a bigger image.)

Speaking of comments, Becky O. left one on Friday pointing us to this WONDERFUL writeup by TrueUp about the different on-demand fabric printers. Exhaustive and well-researched, definitely worth checking out.

Kate found the button-top (not dress) I was thinking of. Great for Rolling Stones fans!

Kristen sent this link to dresses knitted from trash. So cool. (Although probably itchy.)

Anna sent me a link to The Sewing Machine Attachment book. (It's a book about different attachments FOR your machine, not about fostering your attachment TO your machine.) I have purchased mine, will review when I get it!

Lucy (who is the person behind Home Movie Day London) sent this link to a digitised (British spelling, in Lucy's honour) film of 1930s fashions. Lovely!

A few self-promoty links:

If you like words, and are on Facebook, might you not consider being a fan of Wordnik on Facebook? Our fan page is here. If you're not a Facebooker but still want Wordnik words of the day, that link is here. But the only place you can see the Wordnik LIST of the day (a collection of related words) is on Twitter:@wordnik. [If you're looking for me on Twitter, I'm @emckean for word-type stuff, @FakeErinMcKean for "what-I-had-for-lunch" type stuff.] (Whew! That's a lot of social media in one place ...)

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on March 8, 2010 1:28 AM

Seriously, why is everyone in such a rush?

Originally posted by lcfr from Abstruse Goose, on March 7, 2010 7:00 PM

So apparently the revolution has begun.  Thorzul and Chris at Stale Gum have started the campaign to mail Ethan Orlinksy (the guy who works for the MLBP and who stated that the real winner of the Upper Deck/MLBP agreement are the fans who no longer have to wonder if a card is officially licensed without confusion) all your extra 2010 Upper Deck cards.  And they hope by doing this that it will send a message to Ethan that he should collect 2010 Upper Deck should realize that collectors aren’t idiots and that the MLBP should relent in the face of Upper Deck and allow them to run willy nilly over copyright laws release baseball cards in 2010.  I think.

Were Ethan’s words poorly chosen?  You bet.  Of course the real winner here wasn’t the collector, it was the MLBP since they’ve ensured anyone who wanted to release cards in the future will have to go through them.  I get that they guy said something dumb.  I’m not sure what sending him all these cards is going to do to change that.

(Editor’s note – Prior to hitting the publish button, I sent this to Thorzul to get his take, and I now have a better understanding (I think) of the whole concept.  So I wish him, Chris, and all those who choose to participate the best of luck. Oh, and this is pretty funny, too.)

But for me, the real question is this: are people really mad that the MLBP went to the courts to defend their trademarks and copyrights?  Wouldn’t the devaluation of these copyrights in the face of Upper Deck’s arguments lead to a massive over-saturation in the market and the eventual downfall of the hobby we enjoy?  The hobby section at the local big box overflows already with a myriad of worthless blasters, and had Upper Deck been victorious wouldn’t we see that many more cluttering up the shelves?

I may be overstating this a little, but so are those who claim the hobby will crumble without competition and the end is nigh if Topps is in charge.  Am I the only one looking forward to this year’s Allen & Ginter, Chicle, and even Pro Debut?  If I am, then yes, the hobby is sunk.  But I don’t think that I am.  And if Topps does release junk set after junk set, no one will buy them and even the hardcore collector will turn up their nose and go somewhere else, like philately or comic books, until another competitor enters the ring and saves the hobby once more.

Now, I do understand the high enders laments.  Upper Deck does high-end very well and Topps doesn’t.  And I hope Topps realizes this weakness and works to improve things in the future.  Otherwise, it will be a long time before these folks are satisifed.

I’ve read countless stories on countless blogs about people leaving the hobby when they become disenchanted by it only to return later when they find something new to love.  Remember, I’m trying to be more optimistic about the hobby lately.  But I don’t think this is the end of innovation, no matter how much Upper Deck wants you to believe that with the latest on their blog.

Even when Topps was an exclusive they tried various oddball releases (deckle edge, stand ups, ruboffs, supers, tatoos, etc).  I haven’t spoken with a collector who doesn’t think the silks aren’t cool. And wasn’t it Topps that first did the mini back in 1975?

And why would I believe that it’s the end of innovation when Upper Deck the company can still implement their great industry changing ideas in, say, that other sport they have an exclusive contract for?  And in light of that deal, is Upper Deck really going to claim that it has led to a staleness in the hockey card market because they have no reason to innovate?  It must have, right? And I also should point out that some Upper Deck’s innovations (such as relic and auto cards) are now some of the same things us bloggers bemoan as worthless and leading to overpriced hobby wax.

I have no pity for Upper Deck on this one.  None.  They knew the rules, they tried to break them, and as a result, they agreed to a whole bunch of things that people don’t seem to like.  But remember, Upper Deck agreed to them.  They agreed to stop releasing unlicensed product. They agreed not to air brush logos or release cards with uniforms or “trade dress.”  It’s not just the MLBP that made these rules.  If Upper Deck didn’t like the agreement, they should have gone to court.  I would have preferred that outcome to hear the merits of their arguments and have a judge rule upon them.  Instead, we’ve got Upper Deck giving up quite a bit in order to save itself.

And remember, as Upper Deck noted in their press release, they aren’t gone from baseball.  They just have to “see  how innovative and creative [they] can become now,” to quote Richard McWilliam.  I encourage them to do it, too.  I’d love to see it.  Why not a NCAA set?  Goudey should still be very doable, it will just have to be more arty and full of close-ups.  The original Be A Player hockey set featured an on card autograph in every pack (and autos are not part of the released agreement terms) and featured hockey players in everyday clothes.  And guess who owns the Be A Player name?

Hopefully some of this innovation comes in the quality control department, too.  Stop putting factory damaged cards in your packs.  You know this is a problem, yet you continue to ignore it.  Or you just make sure that I get the special boxes.  Either way, it only seems to affect your  baseball releases, so that should help narrow things down for you.

Finally, I don’t want you to take this as a pro exclusive license screed.  It’s not.  While I don’t think innovation or creativity will suffer as much as some people apparently do, I do like choice.  Some people prefer Upper Deck’s cards.  Others like Topps.  I get that, and those people should be able to choose what they like.  Instead, the MLBP has taken away the Upper Deck fans’ involvement in the hobby altogether and forced them to choose either what they don’t really want or nothing at all.  The MLBP should know that not everyone’s going to choose what they don’t really want, and they must be hoping that Topps courting of kids will make up for that loss.

So will the exclusive be a net positive for the hobby over time?  I have no idea.  But rumor is that the NHL wants to get away from their exclusive contract with Upper Deck when it comes up for renewal, so maybe they’ve learned something that MLB and the NBA haven’t.  I do know that I’m actually excited about the future of the hobby today, even in light of the exclusive contract.  Topps will have to work to keep the market from getting stale, and Upper Deck will have to innovate in order to get people to purchase their unlicensed product.  To me, that’s win-win.

So here’s to the future of the hobby as a whole.  I only hope that I’m right.

Originally posted by handcollated from Hand Collated, on March 7, 2010 6:44 PM

After more than a month of neglect--and really, what's a month or two after three years--I took advantage of Oscar night to work on my home page while the Mrs. watched the Oscars. So my home page is finally new. Whew.

In a fit of abject creativity, my new home page is, well, basically a bunch of links. But that's sort of the point. In an age where one's social profile extends to myriad web sites with poorly interlinked commonalities, I like the idea of having a pivot. So no more netwert.com branding, as I did for more than a decade; instead, a little more me branding, or at least, me-gregation, or whatever the word would be. In due time I'll get the utility of the interior pages of the site to more or less match, and as I play with the site design, I'll give the new home page some much-needed design flair, too.

I also went about perusing my website archives, and I must say, long before it became a paragon of boredom I had some pretty sweet home page ideas. All hail flatbed scanners and randomizer scripts!

Originally posted by David Wertheimer from Ideapad, on March 7, 2010 6:41 PM

It has been a while since I posted anything, so I wanted to send a quick update: We’ve applied for our land disturbance permit so we can begin construction of the Big Nerd Ranch facility. Fulton County is supposed to send us approval (or, more likely, comments) any day now.

Walden, Otto, and I went out to the land today to kill some invasive non-native plant life. The daffodils are blossoming. Otto, who is five, took this photo.

Everything in this project has taken longer and cost more than expected, but I am enjoying the process and learning a lot. The people who are helping me (the builder, the architects, the engineers, the landscape architects, etc.) have shown great skill in their work and great patience with me.

The builder gave me the project schedule which indicated that we could be holding classes there a year from now, but I have enough experience now to be skeptical.

On an unrelated note: A lot of my liberal friends are surprised that I am an advocate for free trade and globalization. I finally found a really good explanation of why free trade makes the world a better place: Russ Roberts on Trade

Walden, who is eight, took this photo of me and a daffodil.

Originally posted by Aaron Hillegass from possible/probable, on March 7, 2010 3:34 PM

From The Acaeum:

I have been working on and off for about 2 years building our “D&D ROOM” to hold most of our collection and give us a cool place to play. I did 99.9% of the work myself with just a bit of help in the attic from my brother Shawn. All lighting is controlled by the DM via a dimmer/control box mounted under the table. When you walk in the lights automatically come on via a contactor mounted in the closet. There is also hidden strobe and fog machine for effects. I also mounted speakers in the beams and have a sound system in the closet. Here are a few photos…

(via Boing Boing)

Originally posted by Chris from Cynical-C, on March 7, 2010 3:18 PM

Meredith Stern Catarchy $8 It's winter, which for me usually means hunkering down to do some reading. I was stuck on making a print, so I figured I'd make a cat reading a book. I was trying to think of what symbol cats might have for an anarchist uprising, and I figured; a paw in the air. So, here is my twisted fantasy of a cat reading anarchist theory in the dead of winter, so that once spring comes, uprising will cometh. 2 color linoleum and wood block 12.5" x 4" signed, edition of 44

Originally posted by Meredith Stern from Just Seeds, on March 7, 2010 3:08 PM

this morning

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on March 7, 2010 2:26 PM

A scene from Babette's Feast.

With Oscars on the mind, we started thinking about the great food films. This isn't a new topic here. From Babette's Feast to Tampopo to Julie & Julia (and maybe some love for Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle?), these are the films that make your stomach growl. Which is your favorite? Take the poll! »

Originally posted by Erin Zimmer from Serious Eats, on March 7, 2010 12:00 PM

So, we’re going to start something here, something that I fully intend to regret, something I will call The Player of the Day. The idea is to write about an interesting player from a different team every day leading up to Opening Day. My hope is that the player will somehow reflect what I think about the team. You may ask: Why would anyone start a lunatic project like this?

And I would answer: Because it’s there.

We start with Joakim Soria, reliever deluxe for the Kansas City Royals.

Johan Santana was 21 years old when the Minnesota Twins got him in the Rule 5 Draft. Well, technically the Minnesota Twins took Jared Camp with the first pick from Cleveland, the Florida Marlins took Santana with the second pick from Houston, and then they swapped. You may ask why they did it that way … and the answer seems to be that the Twins wanted to save the 50K that it costs to make a Rule 5 selection. That should tell you how things were in Minnesota then.

Santana had not pitched especially well in the minor leagues. But he had a great arm — even then his strikeout numbers were terrific — and he was left-handed, and the Twins were awful, had been for seven or eight years, so carrying him seemed a viable option. Santana pitched 86 innings in his Rule 5 year for the Twins, had a 6.49 ERA and walked about as many as he struck out. Obviously, he was raw. But the Twins saw something great in him. In 2002, they sent him to the minors to perfect his change-up. He was down there for 48 innings, he struck out 75 batters.

And when he returned, he was ready. He spent the last month of 2002 in the bullpen, and he struck out 26 in 18 innings, allowed just three runs and was helpful as the Twins rolled to their first division championship in more than a decade (helpful but not decisive — the Twins entered September with a 14 game lead). There seemed no doubt that Santana had the skills to be a dominant bullpen guy, and for the first three months of the 2003 season, that’s exactly what he was — threw 66 innings in the bullpen, struck out 77, held the league to a .215 batting average.

And then in mid-July — with the Twins mired in a terrible stretch when they lost 12 of 13 games — they made Santana a full-time starter. He lost his first start (though it was a quality start, six innings/three runs) and he made his second start with the Twins 7 1/2 games out of first place. He was dazzling that second start, terrible his next two, and then Santana finished off the year going 8-0 with a 2.51 ERA, leading the Twins to their second straight division championship.

Santana won the Cy Young the next year, probably should have won it again in 2005, did win it again in 2006, and so on.

OK, so what the heck does that have to do with our Player of the Day, Joakim Soria, and the Kansas City Royals?

Well, of course, Soria was also a Rule 5 selection. He was the second pick of the Royals in 2006 off of the San Diego Padres. The man behind the draft was first year Royals GM Dayton Moore — well, he listened to the advice of the excellent baseball man Louie Medina — and the Royals made one heck of a find. Soria had pitched just 120 innings in the minor leagues. He had missed seasons after going through Tommy John surgery. He did not throw breathtakingly hard — topped out at 90 or 91 — but he had secondary pitches and he had this calm about him. The Royals thought he could be useful. Just after the Royals drafted him, Soria threw a perfect game in Mexico.

One big difference between Soria and Santana is that, against all odds, Soria was already a finished product by the time the Royals got him. Nobody knew how that happened, and even now nobody knows. But Soria started the year with Kansas City and did not allow a run his first five outings — heck, he only allowed one hit. He got hit a little bit, and then beginning mid-May and for the next two months he was basically unhittable — he allowed one run in 22 2/3, struck out 29, walked 6 and allowed the league to hit .128 against him.

It was remarkable to see. Soria still did not throw that hard. But he had this slow curveball that fluttered like a wiffle ball*, and this good slider that dived away, and this change-up that left hitters muttering. And anyway, his command was SO GOOD on the fastball that he didn’t really need any of those other pitches. He was something else.

*Royals starter Brian Bannister has one of my favorite Soria stories — he went up to Soria and asked him how he threw that curveball. Soria just shrugged and said something to the effect of: “I just throw it.” Bannister wanted to know how he gripped it, where the pressure points where, what the arm action was — that’s how Brian is, a technical thinker. Soria tried to show him but had no success. Bannister walked away shaking his head. Soria really did just throw it.

After those dazzling two months, the Royals made Soria their full-time closer. He was typically great, though, of course, the Royals did not really need a closer. They lost 93 games, finished in last place for the fourth straight season. Well, people have different views about the importance of closers. Many good baseball people believe that a closer is one of the three or four most important pieces of a good team because a late inning loss can be so demoralizing and because teams may play with a certain confidence if they know they have a dominant guy to pitch the ninth. Others believe a closer is like a sun roof for a car — you probably want one, and you will like having one, and it’s standard on all upper-level teams … but overall a closer is pretty low on the priority list and it doesn’t make much sense to get one for a cheap car that breaks down all the time.

Just about EVERYONE, though, believes that a high quality starter is significantly more valuable than a dominant closer. Even Mariano Rivera failed as a starter — or, anyway, did not pitch especially well in 10 starts his rookie year — before turning into the greatest closer in baseball history. Sure, some pitchers because of their stuff clearly seem to fit the closer role better — nobody knows how Rivera’s one-pitch arsenal would have played out as a starter but it’s a pretty good guess that closing suits him better. Some pitchers blossom as closers — Jonathan Papelbon’s already good stuff went electric when he became a one-inning pitcher. There are good reasons to make some pitchers relievers — the Yankees, I suspect, will find in the end that Joba Chamberlain is better throwing Goose Gossage fastballs out of the pen than a middling starter with shaky control.

But, all things being equal, everyone would take the ace over the closer, the Wainwright over the Franklin, the King Felix over the K-Rod, the great starter Santana over the great reliever Santana.

And so, the Royals had a choice with Soria. They had this gift fall from the sky, this preternaturally calm right-hander with four pitches. They could make him their closer — they knew he was good at closing games. Or they could move him to the rotation and see if he could become their own version of Johan Santana.

And … the Royals kept him as closer. They never even tried to make him a starter.

Now, there were reasons for this … the Royals did not just back into the decision. There was this sense among some Royals deciders that Soria was too frail physically to be a starter, that his arm was better suited for short work often than the long haul of 100 to 120 pitches every five days. And there was this feeling that Soria had already proven he could be a dominant closer and so little had gone right for the Royals for a decade — you don’t mess with proven success. There were some who just felt like the Royals NEEDED a good closer for psychological reasons — the young starters needed someone to close out their victories, the young hitters needed to know that if they could just take a lead into the ninth they would win. And, finally, there were some who thought the Royals were about to contend and contenders need good closers.

Of course, there are also counter-arguments for all those. Soria might very well be BETTER with five days rest — shoot, the guy did throw a perfect game in Mexico — and his four-pitch repertoire seems perfect suited for a starter. Soria was only 23 years old that rookie season — there was every reason to believe that he had tremendous potential in whatever direction the Royals pushed him. The psychological benefits of having a closer may or may not be real, but the ACTUAL benefits of having a potentially dominant starter to join Zack Greinke are pretty obvious. And the Royals were not ready to be contenders, and you could argue that non-contenders need a dominant closer in the same way that a McDonald’s meal needs a white tablecloth.

The point is this: The Royals never tried to make Soria a starter. They talked about it … quite a lot, in fact. They hammered it back and forth. But they never tried to do it. Soria was one of the best closers in baseball in 2008. He saved 42 games with a 1.60 ERA. Soria was awfully good as a closer again in 2009. He had some injury issues — people talked about his frailty again — but he saved 30 games, posted a 2.21 ERA, and he actually made six 2-inning appearances (going 1-0 with five saves). No other closer in baseball made more than two 2-inning appearances. Now, he seems entrenched as a closer. The Royals do talk about making one of their relievers into a starter — but that reliever is Kyle Farnsworth.

Should the Royals have at least tried out Soria as a starter? I think so. But my point here is more about the quirks of luck. One of my all-time favorite jokes involves the man who prays every night for his lottery ticket to finally hit. Night after night he prays for his lottery ticket until finally he asks, “Lord, I have lived a good life. I have tried hard. Why has thou forsaken me.” And he hears a heavenly voice that says, “Look, I’ll do what I can but first you have to BUY THE TICKET.”

Point, of course, being that, to a large degree, you make your own luck. The Minnesota Twins ended up with a brilliant Rule 5 guy — they kept him on the team, sent him to the minors, brought him back as a dominant reliever, turned him into a starter, and he became the best starter in baseball. Both years he won the Cy Young Award, the Twins went to the playoffs.

The Kansas City Royals ended up with a brilliant Rule 5 guy — they pitched him in the bullpen, saw that he was good there, kept him in the bullpen, made him a closer, where he has been quietly excellent, saving about half of the Royals all-too-rare victories. If the Royals ever get good, they seem to have the closer to finish the job. But, of course, the Royals are a long way from being good. Could Soria have been a dominant starter? How good would the Royals be with a dominant Greinke and dominant Soria in the rotation? We’ll never know. And you make your own luck.

Originally posted by Joe Posnanski from Joe Posnanski, on March 7, 2010 9:47 AM

Clark Hoyt, the NYT's public editor, has a good post-mortem on l'affaire Zachary Kouwe, and asks whether “the culture of DealBook, the hyper-competitive news blog on which Kouwe worked” was partly to blame for his plagiarism.

It's a good question, but also a dangerous one, because I fear it will help to keep blogs marginalized at the NYT and elsewhere: is there something inherent to the culture of blogging which breeds a degree of carelessness ill suited to a venerable newspaper?

The answer, in truth, is not that the NYT has gone too far down the bloggish rabbit hole, but rather that it hasn't gone far enough. Kouwe was a reporter for the newspaper as well as for Dealbook, and as far as I know he has never had a blog of his own before or since. Big mainstream-media publications, when they hire people to write their blogs, generally hire people with no blogging experience at all — something which is both ill-conceived and dangerous. Some journalists make good bloggers; most don't. So rather than gamble that you've found one of the rare exceptions, why not make prior blogging experience a prerequisite for such positions?

The fundamental problem with Kouwe was that when he saw good stories elsewhere, he felt the need to re-report them himself, rather than simply linking to what he had found, as any real blogger would do as a matter of course.

Kouwe's interview with John Koblin is a portrait of a journalist utterly failing to grok what a blog can do:

Mr. Kouwe says he has never fabricated a story, nor has he knowingly plagiarized. “Basically, there was a minor news story and I thought we needed to have a presence for it on the blog,” he said, referring to DealBook. “In the essence of speed, I’ll look at various wire services and throw it into our back-end publishing system, which is WordPress, and then I’ll go and report it out and make sure all the facts are correct. It’s not like an investigative piece. It’s usually something that comes off a press release, an earnings report, it’s court documents.”

“I’ll go back and rewrite everything,” he continued. “I was stupid and careless and fucked up and thought it was my own stuff, or it somehow slipped in there. I think that’s what probably happened.”

If there's a minor news story on a trustworthy wire service, and you think you need it on the blog, then link to it. You add no value by rushing — with “essence of speed”, no less — to get the exact same story yourself. You're a well-paid full-time journalist at the New York Times; there are surely higher and better uses of your valuable time than going back to rewrite a story which already exists elsewhere.

The sin that resulted in Kouwe's departure from the NYT was that he rewrote badly, and left large chunks of other people's work unchanged in his own copy. But the true underlying sin was that he spent so much time rewriting in the first place: the beauty of blogs, which exist to link elsewhere, is that he should never have needed to do that at all.

Kouwe once wrote, in an email quoted by Teri Buhl:

Things move so quickly on the Web that citing who had it first is something that is likely going away, especially in the age of blogs.

Anybody who can or would write such a thing has no place working on a blog. If it's clear who had a story first, then the move into the age of blogs has made it much easier to cite who had it first: blogs and bloggers should be much more generous with their hat-tips and hyperlinks than any print reporter can be.

The problem, here, is that the bloggers at places like the NYT and the WSJ are print reporters, and aren't really bloggers at heart. I discovered this a couple of weeks ago, after I posted a long and detailed blog entry on the court case between JP Morgan and Mexico's Cablevisión. The WSJ's Deal Journal blog didn't link to it, but a couple of days later, the blog's lead writer, Michael Corkery, had a piece in the print version of the newspaper which added nothing to the story, quoted the same Cablevisión executive that I had spoken to, and didn't mention my post at all.

The decision not to cite or link to my blog was made by Dennis Berman, the editor of the WSJ story and a former Deal Journal blogger himself. Corkery and Berman read my piece and spent a couple of days re-reporting it, yet despite the fact that both of them have worked as bloggers, neither felt any need to link to me — or even to link to the court ruling in question. It's a print-newspaper mindset, and it reveals something important: if even the WSJ's bloggers eschew obvious links, there's really no hope that the newspaper will genuinely embrace the power of the web at any point in the foreseeable future.

Both the NYT and the WSJ have built blogs as something of a link ghetto: if you want to find an external hyperlink anywhere on their sites, the only place you'll have a decent chance of finding one is on the blogs. (There are a few noble and notable exceptions, Frank Rich being one of them: the web version of his column is always full of interesting external links.)

That's depressing enough — but what's more depressing still is that even the bloggers at the NYT and WSJ are link-phobic, often preferring to re-report stories found elsewhere, giving no credit to the people who found and reported them first. It's almost as though they think that linking to a story elsewhere is an admission of defeat, rather than a prime reason why people visit blogs in the first place. It's a print reporter's mindset, and it should have no place at Dealbook, Deal Journal, or any other blog.

Originally posted by Felix Salmon from Felix Salmon - All posts, on March 7, 2010 8:08 AM

There's been a small flurry of press and features on a couple of my recent projects, the Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today book, and the Signs of Change exhibition in Portland. Check it out if your interested:

1. Paper Politics interview on ZNET
2. Paper Politics review on Alibi.com
3. Signs of Change review on Printeresting.org
4. Signs of Change review in the Portland Mercury
5. A great radio show on KBOO about Signs of Change (narrated by none other than Justseeds' Alec Icky Dunn and Dara Greenwald)

Originally posted by Josh M. from Just Seeds: Blog, on March 7, 2010 2:45 AM