December 2008
Where will all the web developers go? (Gareth... →
Good series of questions. I’m glad I have my pub-owning escape clause.
November 2008
“You may suspect that getting people to merge in a timely fashion, and without...”
– First Chapter - ‘Traffic,’ by Tom Vanderbilt - First Chapter - NYTimes.com
To the Spoils, Go the Victories -- Social Design... →
2008
“In 93 percent of House of Representatives races and 94 percent of Senate races… the candidate who spent the most money ended up winning.”
2006
“In 93 percent of House of Representatives races and 67 percent of Senate races… the candidate who spent the most money won.”
2004
“In 95 percent of House races and 91 percent of Senate races…...
Potentially Universal Mechanism Of Aging... →
Like our current financial crisis, the aging process might also be a product excessive deregulation.
Researchers have discovered that DNA damage decreases a cell’s ability to regulate which genes are turned on and off in particular settings. This mechanism, which applies both to fungus and to us, might represent a universal culprit for aging.
Jaime Danehey reviews "I Might Have Been Queen" →
Jaime’s back to her Ike and Tina read-along reviews, in honor of Tina’s birthday yesterday. These are so great.
“The deeper the relationship, the greater the proportion of it dedicated to...”
– Web Social Architecture: Twitter: Trivial. Beautifully So.
@Ario posted the heart of this quote to Twitter, of course. However, it’s the smartest things I’ve heard this year. Easily.
More smart stuff, directly about Twitter:
So I’m arguing for Twitter, or an analogous...
Vote to plant a large organic Victory Garden on... →
(via jayrobinson)
OK, now I'm totally reaching... - Ta-Nehisi Coates →
Unlike a lot of rappers, Withers doesn’t blame the girl, he blames himself, going so far as to say, “It ain’t too bad the way you using me, because I sure am using you to do that thing we do.” In fact he laughs at the people trying to help him, much as one might picture people laughing at some lefty for telling them “they aren’t voting their interest.” In...
Is the housing market performing “as expected”?... →
Rambling, and lousy charts, but some of the points are decent. The underlying trends that agents obscure to their clients.
footnoted.org: Former Tyco execs watch portfolios... →
That’s right: Dennis Kozlowski (aka Prison ID 05A4820) and Mark Swartz aka (Prison ID 05A4823) — the two former top executives of Tyco (TYC) — have seen their executive retirements blossom while they’re sitting in their respective prison cells, according to a footnote buried deep in the 10K that Tyco filed last week.
In footnote #16, which is on pg. 150 of the 10K, Tyco discloses that the...
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chumblespuzz:
[warning: awesome audio]
Evann’s finds boggle the mind sometimes.
Credit/debit cards need something like OpenID
Late last week, a bogus company called Adele Systems charged $0.22 to my main debit card account. Having seen irregular, test-the-waters activity from the “merchant” my bank—a well-respected credit union—flagged them for investigation and began notifying all cardholders with a similar charge. Adele Systems was found to be fraudulent, so all debit cards were cancelled within a few...
WatchThe New York Times - Video Library - Immersion “Photographer Robbie Cooper shows just how focused young video-game players can be.” Sincerely creepy. The girl (?) playing GTA kills me, though. (via elclon)
“I’ve been thinking about this record for 15 years; during that span, I’ve...”
– Chuck Klosterman reviews Chinese Democracy on The A.V. Club (via thewatchmakerproject)
36 Hours in Seattle - NYTimes.com →
Well, crap. Now my recommendations to visitors will sound like a NYT piece many will have read already. Time to get a new city.
Is it the real celebrity or a wax figure? →
(via elclon)
“He had the capacity in his writing to project himself into a great variety of...”
– ‘The World Is What It Is - The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul,’ by Patrick French
“This and nothing else is the desperately sought and tragically fragile...”
– Esquire’s 70 Greatest Sentences Quite a few great entries. Charles Bowden, Nabokov, a short theme about female anatomy, Eggers, DFW, Carver, Michael Bay….
‘Twilight’ in the eye of the beholder - At the... →
“Twilight” is a vampire movie, but it’s not a horror movie; if it were, it might sport a title like “The Pouting” or “Attack of the Albino Hollister Models” or “Bloodsucker Prom Date.” It’s never an easy task to bring a hit book to the screen, but by filling the screen with stares, stammers and silences, director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg tread into the territory of...
Why movie vampires always break all the vampire... →
Combined with Simon Pegg’s op-ed about zombie speeds and honoring genre traditions, do we *really* have to go through this discussion of truth paid to myths? Do we not have just about anything else to discuss? Why the sanctity of monsters? What about a discussion of pop culture reinterpretations of—I don’t know—anything serious?
The Forces Driving Women Out of Computer Science →
givemesomethingtoread:
Ellen Spertus, a graduate student at M.I.T., wondered why the computer camp she had attended as a girl had a boy-girl ratio of six to one. And why were only 20 percent of computer science undergraduates at M.I.T. female? She published a 124-page paper, “Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?”, that catalogued different cultural biases that discouraged girls and...
Credit collapse numbs Icelanders →
According to Isleifur Fridriksson, who oversees the [ocean cold plunge swimming] facility…this peculiarly Nordic brand of masochism has never been more popular.
In August, before the national financial collapse with which most of the world is now familiar, only about 30 swimmers turned up here. Recently, there have often been over 100.
