Blognabbit

MUNI Simulation

2011-07-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

AWESOME! From Germany: a computer game where you can drive MUNI buses, streetcars, and cable cars. Sadly, it's PC only. (hat tip: the N-Judah Chronicles)

Willkommen in SAN FRANCISCO, einer Metropolregion in Kalifornien an der Westküste der Vereinigten Staaten. Bewirb dich bei den öffentlichen Nahverkehr und nimm Platz hinter dem Steuer eines Omnibusses, Gelenkbusses, Trolleybusses, Cable Car oder ganz und gar der Straßenbahnen. Insgesamt stehen dir 16 hochdetaillierte und animierte Fahrzeuge zur Verfügung. Steuere diese durch die riesige, frei erkundbare Spielwelt. Entdecke dabei hunderte von typischen Straßenzügen mit ihren originalen Steigungen und Gefällen. Stelle dich den Aufgaben des Alltages eines Mitarbeiters des öffentlichen Nahverkehrs und nutze dabei die vielen Funktionen im Cockpit, um den Fahrplan pünktlich zu erfüllen. Achte dabei immer auf Tankanzeige und Zustand deines Busses. Übernimm Sonderaufgaben, um dein Taschengeld aufzufüllen und erwirtschafte dir die eine oder andere Belohnung.

Catalog Living

2010-10-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

Photos from home furnishing catalogs.

Recaptioned.

The Most Incredible Miniature Pencil Art [20 pics]

2010-08-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

The Most Incredible Miniature Pencil Art [20 pics]

Pixels, by Patrick Jean

2010-04-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

Short film imagining what it would be like if the video games of 30 years ago attacked New York City.

San Francisco in Ruins (1906)

2010-04-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

(Hat tip: @brainpicker)

Using kites, photographer George Lawrence snapped an aerial photo of San Francisco just six weeks after the 1906 earthquake. (Quite a feat, considering the handbuilt panoramic camera weighed 49 pounds!) The photo, “San Francisco in Ruins” is housed at the Library of Congress.

The USGS has a zoomable high resolution version here.

For comparison, here's a modern day photo of the SF skyline from close to the same location:
Scott Haefner's site.

A tax form for the marginally employed

2010-04-15T00:42:00.001-07:00

Designer Sam Potts creates a tax form for freelancers for the NYT, including deductions for "Your food blog", "Your other food blog", and the "David Foster Wallace Memorial Deduction for Writers Who Use Footnotes."

Link

[Via Kottke]

Yatta!

2010-04-06T10:26:00.001-07:00

Nine years old, this one.

Japanese parody of a boy band music video, that also managed to climb to #6 on the Japanese pop music charts. [Wikipedia link]

YouTube link

We've got recession these days,

In goverment we've no faith.

Could we hit "reset," that'd be number one!

And since we're all here, it's just so much fun!

For those interested in the English translation of the lyrics.

[Via @EffingBoring.]

Ben Folds Serenades Random Strangers via ChatRoulette

2010-03-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

(hat tip to Fratelli Bologna)

ChatRoulette is a web site that randomly pairs people with webcams to each other. Want to chat to a complete stranger? OK!

Ben Folds, at a concert Saturday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, had his laptop and webcam open on his piano (and the screen projected so the audience could see it, so that he could serenade random strangers via ChatRoulette for 30 minutes. This clip is a 5 minute highlight reel.

Note: contains profanity.

Entitled "Ode to Merton," the piece is a tribute to "Merton," a ChatRoulette user who gained fame/notoriety a week ago for doing improv piano on ChatRoulette. (Merton's YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/PianoChatImprov)

Jimmy Kimmel: Handsome Men's Club

2010-03-13T00:31:00.000-08:00

I can't say I'm a Jimmy Kimmel fan... but when it comes to calling in favors to pull off a sketch, he's can get exactly who he needs in the room, from Ben Affleck to Lenny Kravitz.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses!

2010-03-03T21:46:00.000-08:00

Art History fun: How many paintings can you recognize in this music video from the band Hold Your Horses?

70 Million de Hold Your Horses !
by logreproduction

Late to the Plants Vs. Zombies Party

2010-02-21T22:58:00.001-08:00

Videogame composer and sound effects artist Laura Shigihara was wrapping up work on a cartoony tower defense title named Plants Vs. Zombies, in which a garden of plants defend a suburban house from a zombie invasion. She was struck with the idea for a J-Pop-style theme song to go along with the game.

The developer loved the song (because WHO WOULD NOT), and quickly put together a music video, which has garnered 1.7 million views on YouTube since it was posted last spring:

YouTube link

The song (available in both English and Japanese) has been on heavy rotation on my iPod since I discovered it a few weeks ago.

This week Plants Vs. Zombies (originally for Windows and Mac) came to the iPhone, and I decided to download and try it. It could very well be the title that turns me into one of these so-called “casual gamers”.

It. is. awesome.

Craig Ferguson on J.D. Salinger

2010-01-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

(via Ken Tucker's TV Blog at EW)
From the January 28 edition of the The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: host Craig Ferguson riffs on Catcher in the Rye --for pretty much the entire monologue... (starts at 2:30 into the clip)

East Bay snow

2009-12-07T15:05:00.001-08:00

IMG_0482
Originally uploaded by EBRPD Public Affairs

I drove the kids past Lawrence Hall of Science on the way to school today... not our usual route. Much of the traffic coming down the hill the opposite direction had a dusting of white, frosty stuff on their roofs and sides of the windshield.

The snow level hit about one thousand feet last night-- LHS had a light dusting on its landscaping and parking lots, and the fairways at the golf course in Tilden park were covered, too.

East Bay Regional Park District's public affairs office has a whole bunch of photos in their Flickr stream showing a different look to their parks-- dusted with snow during last night.

And blogger Rebecca Bond captured some photos of this morning's "snow day" at Sibley Regional Preserve in Oakland: Flickr set link

The Constitution: God's Gift to America

2009-10-08T14:17:00.001-07:00

Did not know that Jesus Christ authored the U.S. Constitution himself. That's how it appears, at least, in this painting which was passed around the internet this week.

Hover your mouse over the image to reveal details, including Ronald Reagan, Nathan Hale, a non-Christian immigrant (now seeing the light), a smug college professor holding Darwin's Origin of Species, Satan, and that most pernicious of Supreme Court decisions, Martin vs. Hunter's Lessee (1816).

What's not clear from the painting is whether Jesus is holding a copy of the Constitution that includes the 14th Amendment, or whether his version maintains that whole "three-fifths of a person" bit from Article I.

Of course the internet loves to eat itself, so now there's an alternate version of the painting with alternative captions.

Original :

Farmer
Truly the backbone of America.

Revised:

Farmer
The government pays him not to grow stuff. Is against government handouts.

[via Andrew Sullivan]

Berkeley Empties Its Dungeon

2009-09-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

At last, Cardinal Biggles can no longer poke prisoners with the soft cushion. At least not in Berkeley.

(Article from my new favorite local news source, InBerkeley.)

The Genuine Article

2009-09-28T10:49:00.000-07:00

I have this brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and the thing is, since they had a kid? They can never focus on the important things anymore. Like, when they lived in San Francisco? and they would watch the home shopping network in the middle of the night? and never buy anything?

God I miss those days.

Stunning San Francisco time-lapse

2009-09-20T08:23:00.001-07:00

Photographer Ben Wiggins likes to shoot time-lapse videos of cloud formations with his digital SLR camera. He also likes to photograph the transition from day to night. After dark he likes to shoot the flow of traffic, the glint of moonlight off the fog, and the dance of airplanes landing on and leaving the runway--like tiny fireflies in rhythmic formation.

Here Wiggins stitches together several sequences he shot in and around San Francisco this summer. It's awesome.

Click the four-arrow icon in the lower right corner to watch this fullscreen.

Another Cloud Reel... from Delrious on Vimeo.

Wiggins has other videos from the Fourth of July, the San Mateo County Fair midway at night, and underwater.

[via Laughing Squid]

Guerilla graphic design: Cardon Copy

2009-09-18T23:17:00.000-07:00

via Chris Jobs at Curbly

Graphic designer Cardon Webb takes flyers posted in the neighborhood. Re-designs them. Not just re-designs: admittedly, he hijacks the flyer and overwhelms the essential content with design.

Then he puts it back where he found it.

Essential content is lost in the translation.

But, oh, what fun for fans of design.

Cardon Copy

Catching Up With Auto-Tune

2009-09-06T21:30:00.001-07:00

I was about to post the link to the latest edition of Auto-Tune the News (#8) to the new Twitter feed when I stopped to consider that many of the current readers of Blognabbit/Twignabbit may be a bit old/white/tired/busy to have much pop-cultural context.

When I confirmed that neither Christa nor Tim were familiar with the seven previous editions I knew I needed to write more than six words about it.

"Auto-Tune" is the brand name of a digital audio processing technology used to correct pitch (on vocals or instruments). Since its creation in the 1990s it's been used to subtly (and unsubtly) modify musical performances both in the studio and live on stage, by pushing tones forcibly into perfectly tuned pitch.

Cher's single "Believe" (1998) was the first American pop hit to use Auto-Tune as a conscious aesthetic effect, with the settings cranked into overdrive. Previous uses of the technology had worked to hide its presence. At its most extreme, Auto-Tune eliminates the voice's natural ability to glide between pitches, creating a synthetic stair-step effect. Cher and her producers took what had been considered a quirk and placed it into the foreground.

While I primarily associate Auto-Tune with the singing of The Backyardigans, anyone listening to Top 40 radio or music videos since 2007 (anyone? anyone?) would have heard and seen the rise of singer-producer T-Pain as the new king* of Auto-Tune, who has been popping up with hyper-processed backing vocals and refrains on hit after hit** on the R&B and hip-hop charts. While the technology was more than a decade old (and available to anyone with a Mac and Garageband), T-Pain brought a particular gift for Auto-Tuned lyrical hooks and melodies that have continued to keep him in high demand. His surge in popularity led to a revival of Auto-Tune among a variety of artists across multiple pop musical genres.

In June 2008 Sasha-Frere Jones was clueing in readers of The New Yorker to the reign of T-Pain. But by the beginning of 2009 T-Pain's ubiquity had started to become a punch line--one the singer was happy to play along with, kicking off Saturday Night Live's (i.e. The Lonely Island's) "I'm On a Boat" (clean or uncensored YouTube links) with his trademark call "Shawt-ay-ay!"***

This past spring saw the debut of "Auto-Tune the News", a loopy series of music videos applying Auto-Tune to political speeches and television talking heads. Ridiculous wigs, a gorilla costume, and low-tech greenscreen effects belie the creators' lyrical and musical dexterity, as they spin the words of Joe Biden, Newt Gingrich, Katie Couric (their favorite muse), and a variety of members of Congress into Auto-Tuned musical gold. (Interspersed with several "Shawt-ay-ays".)

Here's the 6th edition, featuring Anoka's own queen of darkness Michelle Bachman, plus Nancy Pelosi, minority leader John Boehner, Sarah Palin, and Jackson Family attorney Brian Oxman:

In June Jay-Z declared the "Death of Auto-Tune" with the lead single off his new album, criticizing other artists for "T-Painin' too much." But despite his seniority in the rap world (or perhaps because of it), his exhortation won't likely dim the use of the technology any time soon, if a quick listen across the top 40 charts in Pop, R&B, Country, and Hip-Hop offers any indication.

Which brings us to this week, and the release of Auto-Tune the News #8. The latest edition features none other than: T-Pain, who turns his appearance into a commercial for his other new release of the week: the "I Am T-Pain" iPhone app.

The app is a collaboration between T-Pain, Antares (the originators of the technology), and Smule--a top-notch iPhone developer that grew out of Stanford's electronic music performance department, making it no mere novelty. For $2.99 you can download a mobile version of Auto-Tune with which you use your iPhone/iPod for on-demand vocal processing.

And by branding it as a T-Pain experience (with the app's name and icon), the "king" keeps his name synonymous with the technology, even if its only use is to goof off with your buddies while you're waiting in line for a movie (the app also makes it easy to share via MySpace and Facebook).

Within a couple of days the application reached the #1 spot among paid apps in iTunes. Meaning that Jay-Z's proclamation notwithstanding, it remains T-Pain's world. We just sing "Shawt-ay-ay" in it.

Here's a playlist of all of the Auto-Tune the News videos, in sequential order. It'll take a good half hour if you want to watch them straight through. (YouTube link):

And I'm assuming you've seen "I'm On a Boat", right? Because that thing gets funnier every time you watch it. (clean or uncensored)

Here's T-Pain's website, YouTube channel, and Twitter feed.

And if you're not sick of it by now, here's another funny internet video positing the use of Auto-Tune in the workplace.

===========================

*Given the outfits and antics he often displays in music videos, T-Pain could as easily be described by overeducated postgrads as the clown prince--or even mascot--of Auto-Tune.

**"Good Life" with Kanye West (winner of the 2008 Grammy for Best Rap Song), "Kiss Kiss" with Chris Brown (prior to Brown's domestic violence conviction), "Low" with Flo Rida (a favorite on the Ellen show), plus tons more. You can check out iTunes' "Essentials" list of the top T-Pain tracks for sale.

***An Auto-Tuned pronunciation of "Shawty", itself a variant of "Shorty", the 00s alternate for "Girl".

Average Rating: 3 Stars

2009-09-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

What's a consumer to make of two business reviews on Citisearch? One's a 5-star and the other a 1-star. Should I just average them as Citisearch so helpfully does for me? Or perhaps reading the reviews will give me a little insight:

EZ Cleaners, 2308 Colorado Blvd, Pasadena CA

In this corner, alex c:

I've been going to EZ Cleaners for more than a year and their service is nothing but excellent. I am extremely happy when I receive my clothes because not once did I have a complaint. I trust my most expensive garment to be in their care and they also have reasonable prices.
PROS: great service, good prices
CONS:

But does he/she trust his/her second-most expensive garment?

And in this corner, Barbara S:

Over the course of two years, this dry cleaners damaged 4 different pieces of clothing and then refused to take responsiblity. When it was brought to owner's, attention, he said that I don't have proof that he did the damage because he didn't charge me for cleaning the item. Believe me he would have taken the money if I had been willing to pay for the poor service they provided. I refused to pay after seeing the damage. Did he think I would actually pay him for damaging my expensive clothing? The owner is rarely at his store, but instead is out opening more locations. His employees (the one's snagging, ripping, spotting
etc...the clothes) are not experienced in the dry cleaning business. Be aware of this sweat shop type place and take your nice clothes to a professional dry cleaners because this place sucks.
PROS: cheap prices
CONS: worst dry cleaners in town

Maybe I can request the one that's not snagging, ripping, spotting etc...the clothes.

TR Reid and the Healing of America

2009-08-28T23:04:00.001-07:00

TR Reid makes an entertaining case for why we need to end this crazy American rationing of health care. He brings his sore shoulder around the world to test out health care systems offered by various nationalized health care systems. Listen to the end and take note of his experiences in India.

Where can I send my check to help change our screwed-up Darwinian health care model?

Matters of Life and Twitter

2009-08-27T21:26:00.001-07:00

Recently an underemployed "analytics" firm looked at Twitter usage and announced via press release that 40% of tweets are "pointless babble." Stephen Fry expressed his disappointment on his blog that the number was so low:

I would have hoped 100% of Twitter was fully free of earnestness, usefulness and commercial intent. (Link)

Many of the people I follow on Twitter are inveterate wisenheimers, who have spent months (or years) chiding, mocking, and bitterly assailing those who attempt use the service for earnest, useful purposes.

This past January, however, Josh Hopkins, a popular (and often profane) member of the Favrd comedy crowd interrupted his flow of jokes with something unexpected.

Deficits could force the post office to continue reading your dirty magazines and delivering the rest of your mail to your neighbor. (Link)

and

Turns out, pregnant women don't want their body mass index calculated. God. Obese people can be so rude. (Link)

were followed by

On the way to the hospital. Baby and mom aren't doing so well. May deliver today. More details to come. (Link)

and shortly thereafter

Getting transported to NICU for C-section immediately. Baby has a heart defect. Not sure what's going to happen. I'll update after delivery. (Link)

Finally, a few hours later, just:

Lucy Kate Hopkins http://twitpic.com/18wad (Link)

and

Lucy is 2lbs. 1.5oz. & 13 1/2 in. Mom and baby are okay. Thank you everyone. You guys are so awesome. (Link)

Lucy Kate Hopkins was born 10 weeks premature, with two congenital heart defects and Trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome). She remained in the hospital for 75 days before Josh and his wife could bring her home.

When my own son was born he spent the first hour of his life in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) while they monitored his oxygen levels. Christa was being sewn up following the unplanned C-section, and I stood there by myself, watching my little boy attached to monitors and machines, unable to pick him up and hold him to me. The NICU was a lonely and frightening place, even knowing that he was going to be fine soon.

Contrast that with a baby like Lucy Kate, for whom the first few hours (or days) offer no easy assurances of survival. And yet Josh, the father, took the time to tap out a few words to a thousand strangers with whom he had previously shared little more than 140-character poop and dick jokes.

"Thank you everyone. You guys are so awesome."

This in response to the dozens (possibly hundreds) of heartfelt and humorous Twitter replies and messages he had received on his mobile device from this virtual community in support of him and his family during the early hours of their ordeal.

The NYT this week published a story about parents who suffer from PTSD following their experiences in the NICU with their premature infants. It quotes from Vicki Forman's new book, This Lovely Life. In it she writes “From the moment my twins were born, I saw potential for tragedy wherever I turned. It would be years before I stopped thinking that way.”

As he had before his NICU experience, Josh Hopkins saw potential humor wherever he turned, and shared it with the audience in his pocket.

Lucy weighs 2lbs. 11oz. today. I'm concerned about her weight gain. I think the Skittles I've secretly been feeding her are making her fat. (Link)

Looking at all the tubes, syringes and meth on the kitchen countertop, you would think we were running a meth lab instead of feeding a baby. (Link)

I don't know Josh Hopkins. I can't claim to know the many ways in which Lucy's health challenges and her time in the hospital have affected him or his wife. I do imagine that were their story to be introduced into the maelstrom of bullshit and bloviation that passes for "mainstream" discourse on television and Op-Ed columns and the internet, Josh would be accused of all manner of transgressions of decency, mental health, common sense, and taste (the latter I expect he would wear proudly), for sharing his experience in this way using something as public and "pointless" as Twitter.

And what interests me is not just Josh's story, but the experience of the 3000+ of his Twitter followers who have been "listening in" over the past week as Lucy has gone back into the hospital for heart surgery. In the middle of our days we've received updates of Lucy being placed on heart bypass, of her sternum being closed, of her arms and legs wiggling for the first time after sedation, of her being taken off the respirator, then back on again.

And of course Josh has had time to Twitter, because the experience of a family member in the hospital is nothing but endless stretches of time, waiting in an outer room, "showering" in restroom sinks, being unable to contribute in any meaningful way.

My wife and I finally ate burritos. I imagine it was like watching two lions attack a pack of zebras on the Discovery Channel. (Link)

Sleeping in the waiting room is the best sleep I've never gotten. (Link)

And using a different account, Josh is Twittering in the voice of Lucy:

Still not feeling well. My right lung is partially collapsed, but the doctors are taking care of me. I can't wait to wake up and play soon! (Link)

I'm starting to be more awake now. I tried to cry out but I couldn't, so my Daddy sang to me to keep me calm. (Link)

Again, the "friends" in Josh's pocket have responded to him, with messages of encouragement and more. A couple of folks helped manage donations to the family through Josh's Amazon Wish List, or cash donations through PayPal. Someone else thought to set up a special link to the new book Twitter Wit--featuring several contributions by Josh (and one by me)--through which a portion of each purchase would be given to Josh's family.

Myself, I feel paralyzed when trying to put something meaningful into a Twitter-sized burst of text to someone I don't really know who's sitting scared shitless in a hospital as his five-month-old is undergoing open heart surgery. Even though it's clear from Josh's tweets that the encouragement matters. And that it's okay if what you write is trite or if someone's said it before, and said it better than you.

But my own emotional and superegotistical roadblocks have kept me from writing much of anything to Josh, or to @AinsleyofAttack when her mother died, or to @Moltz as he sat alone reading Twitter messages while his wife was undergoing her double mastectomy in the wake of her breast cancer diagnosis. Then again I'm also the asshole who doesn't leave birthday wishes on people's Facebook walls.

Looking at my Facebook news feed yesterday, it was clogged from top to bottom with people's reflections on the death of Ted Kennedy--some thoughtful, some emotional, some with links to words or video from elsewhere. That's a fair amount of emotional and attentional bandwidth for someone none of these people personally knew.

Kottke blogged last week about the coming "abundance of death", in which the rate at which someone we are aware of (the famous and the micro-famous) will die will increase to a daily (or more than daily) event. The day will come sooner than that when death, tragedy, or life-threatening illness will affect the lives of someone we "know" on our digital social networks.

What will it mean to our psyches and emotional consciousness to have this persistent window into the hardships of so many individuals in something approximating "real time"? To receive up-to-the-minute updates of difficult labors, car accidents, families trapped in attics as floodwaters rise, kids dying of gunshot wounds, parents with Alzheimer's slowly slipping away? Tiny Lucy's journey has occupied a fair amount of my emotional space this week (and the time it has taken to write these 1500 words).

Then again, it doesn't fucking matter how hard it is for me to peer through these tiny, text-based windows into the suffering of others from the vantage point of my life (and its privilege and blessings).

What matters--to Josh, or to anyone who posts a Twitter message or Facebook status from a place of loneliness, pain, or fear--is the window out.

===========================================

Give some money to Josh and his family. You can follow Josh or Lucy on Twitter. Then, if you still feel like it, you can buy the Twitter Wit book through the special link. It's pretty funny. I show up on page 107.

===========================================

UPDATE: (September 14, 2009) Lucy Kate's progress is being shared on her own blog. Josh is raising money for the Indiana Down Syndrome Foundation in Lucy Kate's name.

Blognabbit gets all Twittered up

2009-08-23T07:32:00.001-07:00

There's a new member of the Blognabbit family in town:

http://twitter.com/twignabbit

Follow the @twignabbit Twitter feed for links to all Blognabbit posts PLUS additional links to videos, pictures, articles, and other tasty netmeats requiring no additional commentary.

Go on.

The Barry Gibb Talk Show

2009-07-24T15:04:00.001-07:00

I haven't watched an episode of Saturday Night Live in over a decade, so forgive me that I missed this semi-recurring sketch featuring Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake as brothers Barry and Robin Gibb (of The Bee Gees), hosting an American political talk show.

Timberlake and the writers must enjoy the sketch quite a lot--bringing back Fallon multiple times after his 2004 departure from the SNL cast.

This fourth edition aired in May of this year. Like many inhabitants of the SNL canon, it is structurally indistinguishable from the previous versions (although it is perhaps the most polished).

I was howling. Your mileage may vary.

Hulu link

The Onion: Sold to China

2009-07-24T10:46:00.001-07:00

This week's edition of The Onion shows its makeover as a new subsidiary of Yu Wan Mei Amalgamated Salvage Fisheries and Polymer Injection Corp.

The entire issue is worth poring through, including their lead story, "Potato Faced Youngster Lauded For Memorizing Primitive 26-Character Alphabet".

[Teacher Heather] Warner then gave the boy a star-shaped sticker, explaining that he had learned the unsophisticated system of characters containing no ideogrammic compounds or transformed cognates more quickly than she'd expected.

There are also reports from the new Onion Radio News ("No U.S. Military Leader is Worthy To Be Namesake of Breaded Chicken Dish") and ONN Video (complete with important messages about delicious Yu Wan Mei food products).

And holy crap. The Onion online store now features Yu Wan Mei specialty label products. Sadly the "Miscellaneous Tasty Paste" is sold out.

Of course you can read about more Yu Wan Mei products at their website or by following the company on Twitter.

In his farewell editorial, former publisher Herman T. Zweibel announces "Well, I've Sold the Paper to the Chinese."

In his inaugural editorial, new publisher (and CEO of Yu Wan Mei) Zuo Xiabing asks "Why Did No One Inform Us Of The Imminent Death Of The American Newspaper Industry?"

And announces The Onion is up for sale once more.

Wowee: Giant Aquarium Tank Video

2009-07-22T18:43:00.001-07:00

You need to click the link to view this video in HD.

Move your mouse over the video thumbnail to reveal the controls, then click the "full screen" button (four small arrows pointing diagonally outward). Give it time to load before playing.

This is a single, unedited shot taken at the second largest aquarium tank in the world, at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan.

The main tank called the "Kuroshio Sea" holds 7,500-cubic meters (1,981,290 gallons) of water and features the world's second largest acrylic glass panel, measuring 8.2 meters by 22.5 meters with a thickness of 60 centimeters. Whale sharks and manta rays are kept amongst many other fish species in the main tank.

Think about those measurements for a moment if you're feeling unconvinced.

If you don't like the song the videographer chose, you can mute it. But seriously. This one's awesome. Great for sharing with the kids.

Link

[via Kottke]

Mashup: Ocean's Eleven and The Great Muppet Caper

2009-07-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

Mexico Builds Border Wall to Keep Out US Assholes

2009-07-11T17:35:00.001-07:00

From the Spanish-language Onion News Network

Susan Boyle: The Movie

2009-06-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

Casting has begun. See link for top candidates.

John Hodgman addresses the POTUS

2009-06-20T09:00:00.001-07:00

Inarguably the nerdiest speech a sitting president of the United States has ever been asked to perform the lead-in to.

John Hodgman headlines the Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner*, where he contrasts the current "nerd" White House with the previous administration of "jocks", and also outs President Obama as a Star Trek fan.

His performance is a brilliantly deadpan nerdcore triumph, complete with references to typeface nerds, Conan comics, and the David Lynch movie adaptation of Dune.

YouTube link

*A room filled with nerds, all old enough to remember when that wasn't cool to be AT ALL. Meaning: too old to find Hodgman especially funny.

Obama writes girl a note for missing school

2009-06-12T19:09:00.001-07:00

At one of Obama's health care town halls, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a man asking a question mentions that his ten-year-old daughter Kennedy has skipped the last day of school to attend the event.

"Do you need me to write a note?" the president asks, then pulls out a pen to write:

"Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama."

He steps down off the stage to deliver the note before continuing the town hall meeting.

THIS is the Obama who as the junior Senator from Illinois killed (twice) on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

Link

Colbert: Why I Took This Crummy Job

2009-06-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, he's in Iraq this week. This week, he's also the guest editor at Newsweek.

When our local market becomes news

2009-06-07T23:03:00.000-07:00

Berkeley's a small town. When one of the grocery stores management gets shaken up, especially if that grocery store has its own foodie fan base, word gets around. I had heard that people were gathering at Monterey Market to say farewell to the couple that ran it. I didn't know the back story. Today, locavore blog The Ethicurean gave it to me: Fujimotos’ departure from Monterey Market a tough blow to local food chain

In other local news: the new Berkeley Bowl in West Berkeley has opened, and Black Oak Books in North Berkeley has closed its doors.

All of these stories, though hyperlocal, are getting more Twitter buzz than Shahrukh Khan in San Francisco. Apparently the intersection of those who Twitter in San Francisco and those who obsess over the Badishah of Bollywood have a very tiny insection. (Sigh)

Movie Star in Town. I'm Swooning.

2009-06-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

It's not unusual to see a film crew in San Francisco. Rare, but not unusual. But you don't usually see a major movie star at the center of the set. Spotted at the 280 on-ramp at 6th street in the city:

Sharukh Khan.
He's in town with Kajol. Jimmy Shergill. and Director Karan Johar (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham)

Pics from a Market Street shoot at Asian Outlook.

The movie, My Name is Khan, has Khan playing a Muslim man arrested as a terrorist in post 9/11 America for is odd behavior-- turns out he has Aspergers syndrome.

Latest from Kasper Hauser

2009-06-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

San Francisco's comedy powerhouse Kasper Hauser has two new books being published in June:

1. Sunday New York Times Wedding Parody
NPR coverage, with live reading and Robert Siegel cracking up

2. Obama's Blackberry. Twitterlike hilarity in short bursts. Book coming June 8, online preview here.

David Kessler vs Carrot Cake

2009-05-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Your neural pathways are leading you down the road to ruin.

What’s interesting is that this conditioned hypereating (which is what I
call it in the book), this loss of control, this lack of satiation, this
preoccupation with food, it affects not only people who are obese and
overweight, but also a significant number of people who are healthy weights.

David Kessler (former FDA commissioner) on Adult Baby Food and other evils. Worth a listen: his recent interview on Fresh Air.

State of Paralysis

2009-05-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman at his best.

Man up, Cheney. Get in line.

2009-05-23T04:53:00.001-07:00

Olbermann may be off with his assertion that the long torture debate "ended today", but he does highlight an intriguing mile marker.

Nutjob radio host Eric "Mancow" Muller, fomenter of memes such as Obama as a secret Muslim, or the Michelle Obama racist videotape, hired a military specialist to waterboard him live on air to help prove that the practice was nothing like torture.

He lasted six seconds.

YouTube link

Muller parrots conservative talking points, but isn't considered part of the Limbaugh-Kristol-Hannity axis. One can hope, however, that more media figures claiming that waterboarding isn't torture will attempt similar stunts of their own.

Jesse Ventura asserted on Larry King two weeks ago that given a waterboard and one hour he could have Dick Cheney confessing to the Sharon Tate murders.

Now THAT would be appointment television.

via The Daily What

Holding Obama's Feet to the Daily Show Flame

2009-05-15T23:51:00.001-07:00

The question for the Daily Show was never really "Is there enough that's funny about Obama?" but "What will Obama do that's just as f-ed up as any other politician?"

This week had a couple of doozies.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Moral Kombat

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

The Kornbluth Brothers: Movie Pitch for "Love and Taxes"

2009-05-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

Josh and Jake Kornbluth pitch their latest movie, Love and Taxes, based on Josh's monologue of the same name, a sort-of sequel to Haiku Tunnel.

As an indie feature, they are shooting it bit by bit (as funding allows), and there's already a rough cut of one scene available: YouTube link

More info about the film at JoshKornbluth.com and the film's
fundraising page at IndieGoGo.

Perks for donors: methinks the $1040 level perk is a better deal than the $2500 appear in the movie: at the 1040EZ donation level you get a Case Name. In my book, being name checked in a scene about tax law would be even cooler than a walk-on.

Bristol Palin's New Gig

2009-05-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

Gail Collins is leaving Maureen Dowd in the dust.

100 days of Obama: the Facebook news feed

2009-05-04T00:09:00.001-07:00

Slate writers Christopher Beam and Chris Wilson relive the first 100 days of the Obama administration through the lens (and language) of Facebook:

If you're not on Facebook (or not extremely in tune with Washington politics) a few of the jokes might fall with a thud. But I totally loved this.

I'd have more to say about it, but I need to go catch up on Lost.

Link

The "We didn't know" defense

2009-04-21T23:17:00.001-07:00

The New York Times outlines how the members of the Bush Administration (and Congress) who advocated for and approved the torturing of prisoners in its custody had no fucking clue what they were agreeing to.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

They did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program itself had warned in internal memorandums that, morality aside, the methods were ineffective. Nor were most of the officials aware that the former military psychologist who played a central role in persuading C.I.A. officials to use the harsh methods had never conducted a real interrogation, or that the Justice Department lawyer most responsible for declaring the methods legal had idiosyncratic ideas that even the Bush Justice Department would later renounce.

The process was "a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm," a former C.I.A. official said.

This is why the rule of law matters. Because sometimes those in power lack the competence required to be put in charge of life-and-death decisions.

I am sick with disgust.

Read the entire story.

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

Twitter: You're Doing It Wrong

2009-04-19T19:58:00.001-07:00

Joined Twitter, but still don't get it? Perhaps these tips may help.

1. You do not need to follow celebrities.

Most celebrities on Twitter are dull. The fact that they have tens or hundreds of thousands of people following them does not make them any less boring. In fact it suggests to them that Twitter users are all too happy to read the lamest details of their celebrity life.

Now if you enjoy celebrity-watching, and feel a thrill knowing that Ashton Kutcher and P. Diddy are together on Larry King RIGHT NOW, or if it is your dream to get a 140-character answer to your question from John Cleese, go right ahead.

2. You do not need to receive breaking news

It can feel exciting to learn about an earthquake, or a plane crash, or a daring sea rescue minutes (or even hours) before the news shows up on nytimes.com. But unless there's something you can do about it, breaking news doesn't have much actual value to your life.

Alternately, you might want to be the person who turns around and shares the breaking news with others. In which case: sure, become the news desk.

(Note also that people who receive breaking news via Twitter are advised not to crack jokes about said breaking news in the real world, as no one will know what the hell you are talking about until they hear about it the next day on Morning Edition.)

3. You do not need to follow your friends

Unless you and your friends-in-real-life use Twitter to meet up at a conference or on a night of bar-hopping, you do not need to follow your friends' Twitter feeds to keep up with their lives. That is what Facebook is for.

Most of the people I follow (and who now follow me) I don't know in real life. Or, I didn't before Twitter.

4. It is okay to prune your list of people you follow

If someone you're following isn't posting tweets that are interesting, useful, or funny, feel free to stop following them. They might be funny and interesting and lovely in real life, but on Twitter their random mutterings are only so much noise.

5. There is no harm in trying

Find new people to follow by seeing who your favorite Twitterers follow. Funny Twitterers may also have a list of "Favorites", which may point you to other funny Twitterers. There's no cost to follow someone on a trial basis. If, after a week (or in some cases a day) you decide that the person's tweets aren't interesting, useful, or funny, you can prune them off your list.

6. Write tweets that are interesting, useful, or funny

Every time you type in the box and click "update", it's like you're stepping up to a microphone to make a brief statement. Make it worth everybody's time.

Smart people have two Twitter accounts: one personal, one professional. That way you can be interesting or useful about your job to one audience, and interesting or funny about your kids to another.

Me, I just try to be funny, regardless of topic. Which leads me to jokes at the intersection of HTML programming and bluegrass.

Perhaps I'm the one who's doing it wrong.

7. Someone has probably gotten to that joke before you

If you care about these things, there's search.twitter.com.

Tell me what I'm doing wrong below.

The unlikeliness of Susan Boyle

2009-04-14T08:21:00.001-07:00

My mom sent me this seven minute YouTube clip (embedding disabled) from last Saturday's "Britain's Got Talent" broadcast. If you haven't seen it I'd encourage you to give it a look rather than read my half-formed yammers about it.

I hate these shows. And while I am not a fan of the reality show in general*, by "these shows" I mean specifically the reality (and celebrity-reality) talent show. I hate the cruelty, the commerciality, the artifice, and the garish expressions of the lowest common denomination of taste. Oh and how I hate the padding.

But I cannot deny these shows' appeal. Which finds somewhat of an apotheosis in these seven minutes.

There is still much to be cynical about here: the bassoon underscore playing up the awkwardness of the contestant, the maudlin praise, the underlying condescension of the format. But as much as I wanted to dismiss this, or deconstruct it, there is something undeniably genuine and awesome in this moment.

Because despite all of the forgettable hours of ridiculous costumes, hairstyles, and product placements what everyone involved--the producers, the judges, the audience--most wants, deep down, is to witness is a nobody stepping out on the stage and coming back a star.

See it for yourself.

*Excepting Top Chef, The Amazing Race, and for a while I was able to enjoy Survivor.

Baraknophobia

2009-04-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart explains what being in the minority really feels like.

Oscar Mayer Commercial

2009-04-01T23:33:00.000-07:00

via boingboing

Monkey, Aware of Emptiness

2009-03-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

The boys and I were puttering in the backyard after dinner tonight, ostensibly working in the garden. ("How can we call it a garden when we haven't done any work on it since last year?" asked Liam)

Ronan picked up one of the many bamboo poles and began to pose with it and thrust it about as a weapon against imaginary enemies. I heard him announcing his powers. I realized he was not showing off his finesse with a light saber, but what I did hear surprised me. "Did you say you're Shah Rukh Khan?"

"No," said Ronan. "I said Sun WuKong!"

"Yeah, dude, you're Sun WuKong!" shouted Liam, and went over to instruct Ronan on the finer points of wielding Sun WuKong's cudgel.

In Chinese, Sun either means or implies "monkey," and WuKong is his Buddhist name, which means "aware of emptiness," or more precisely, ""the one who has Achieved the Perfect Comprehension of the Extinction of both Emptiness and non-Emptiness." 孫悟空, also known as the Monkey King, is the hero of the classical Chinese novel of the 16th century, Journey to the West.

I picked up several volumes of a 34-volume illustrated version of the novel at the Salvation Army. We've been reading them before bedtime this week. The illustrations are terrible-- turns out, this collection is likely the print adaptation of Shangai Animation Film Studio's 1960's animated series based on the novel. The books were released in English in the 1980s, about the time the animated series was released on video.

Monkey can fly (well, leap 54,000 kilometers in a single bound), transform himself, is on a mission (to escort the Tang Priest Xuanzang to the West to obtain Buddhist Scriptures), and beats the tar out of evil spirits and demons. In short, he's a superhero, albeit one that has a tail and take his marching orders from Kuan-Yin, the Goddess of Compassion.

Sorry, Yoda. The Force is with Monkey.

Power Ranger or Chinese immortal?

NYTimes: Sugar is back. As a health food.

2009-03-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

Grocery store. Bread aisle. Several competing brands. Given two comparable varieties, say, Brand X multigrain, and Brand Y multigrain, which one do I choose?

I used to distinguish on price.

Now, I'll scan the ingredient labels. If I see High Fructose Corn Syrup, I won't buy it. If the competing brand lists Sugar in its place, I'll buy that one. Hell, I'll even pay a premium. I believe I've paid up to a dollar more for a loaf of bread to avoid HFCS.

I'll pay extra for the perception that I'm getting a more "natural" product.

The New York Times covers sugar's second act as a "healthy" food.

Good for sugar, I think. But then the article doesn't just cover this marketing trend-- adjustments by processed food and beverage manufacturers responding to consumer preference: it goes on to quote several scientists who point out that nutritionally-- there's no difference between HFCS and Sugar. An empty calorie is an empty calorie.

So much for my health.

Still, Coke tasted better in India. Like Mexico, they make their cola with sugar, not corn.

And I still get to feel righteous for sticking it to the tyranny of the corn states.

The post-news world

2009-03-22T21:10:00.001-07:00

Two brilliant and provocative reads on the future of news (and the collapse of the newspaper business) burned through blogs and RSS readers this week. Both writers sit far enough outside of the industry to offer a clear perspective and to be ignored by anyone inside the industry with the power to change it. (Although you can be sure journalists themselves were emailing each other about both pieces all week.) Both pieces attempt to confront the paradox of ever-falling revenue and ever-increasing readership.

Clay Shirky presents the more harsh vision of the future, which he telegraphs in his title, "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable."

He compares our current, electronic shift in information distribution to the invention of the printing press and italic type, and the massive cultural shifts those helped make possible. (Copernicus, anyone? The Protestant Reformation?)

And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.

Shirky doesn't claim to know what journalism will look like once the revolution is completed. He does believe that the future lies not in the hands of the newspaper publishers, but in the hands of the dozens (even hundreds, or thousands) of experimenters who are attempting wholly new ways of connecting people to information (and to each other).

Steven Johnson shortens the lens to look at his own past as a media consumer in a speech he delivered at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin entitled "Old Growth Media and the Future of News".

He describes days he spent in his youth checking the bookstore repeatedly for the arrival of each new issue of Macworld, a magazine he relied on for news that was weeks (if not months) out-of-date by the time he read it. He contrasts that time (just 20 years ago) with the overabundance of news and information he now has at his fingertips via the world wide web.

Johnson, the author of Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, is far more of an optimist than Shirky. He articulates a vision for the future of professional journalists and news organizations, and asserts that on the other side of the demise of the local paper will be an even greater awareness of the news in one's neighborhood.

I adore the City section of the New York Times, but every Sunday when I pick it up, there are only three or four stories in the whole section that I find interesting or relevant to my life – out of probably twenty stories total. And yet every week in my neighborhood there are easily twenty stories that I would be interested in reading: a mugging three blocks from my house; a new deli opening; a house sale; the baseball team at my kid’s school winning a big game. The New York Times can’t cover those things in a print paper not because of some journalistic failing on their part, but rather because the economics are all wrong: there are only a few thousand people potentially interested in those news events...

As we get better at organizing all that content – both by selecting the best of it, and by sorting it geographically – our standards about what constitutes good local coverage are going to improve. We’re going to go through the same evolution that I did from reading two-month-old news in MacWorld, to expecting an instantaneous liveblog of a keynote announcement. Five years from now, if someone gets mugged within a half mile of my house, and I don’t get an email alert about it within three hours, it will be a sign that something is broken.

Both posts are worth your time.

Shirky's essay is here. Johnson's is here.

And, for a bit of additional fun, here's a feature that ran on KRON-TV in San Francisco in 1981(!) about the future of "electronic newspapers", delivered via modem to your home "computer".

YouTube link

Jaw-dropping YouTube remix "album"

2009-03-10T00:36:00.001-07:00

A great deal of hip-hop and electronica artistry begins by digging in used record bins, searching for bits and pieces that can be digitized, chopped up, and reassembled into something new. A snare fill here, a bass line there. Snippets of guitar riffs, piano arpeggios, vocal backing tracks, etc.

For his latest seven-song "album", ThruYou, Israeli musician Kutiman dug into a different wellspring for sampled sound: YouTube.

There he found a treasure trove of audio: drummers, pianists, flautists, church organists, string quartets, guitar soloists, harmonica and bouzouki players, a capella singers and rap freestylists. Plus video after video of synthesizers, vocoders, and audio effects box tests, oscilloscopes and wave form generators, even the sounds of pressing buttons on mixing equipment he was able to put to use. He calls "ThruYou" the "1st movement", an apt choice given that this particular wellspring is so vast (and ever expanding).

I wasn't able to wrap my head (or heart) around the nerd remix smash hit of 2008, Girl Talk's "Feed the Animals". That madcap stirfry of the past few decades of rock, pop, and hip-hop (finely diced and shredded) seemed best enjoyed whilst reading the Wikipedia article that catalogued all of the samples to the second.

Here you quickly realize that Kutiman used video editing software to assemble his mashups, meaning that you can SEE his source material unfolding in front of you. (In his words, "What you see is what you hear.") For me, watching these dozens of random faces and hands, posted initially to YouTube by disparate strangers hoping to instruct, to perform, to show off, to practice, or to simply connect, now juxtaposed in rhythmic counterpoint in ways they could not have foreseen was surprisingly emotional.

It felt like one of the those moments where a technology-fueled future felt more (rather than less) human, and the possibilities for art and music and creativity opened wide.

Plus I liked the tunes. (My favorite is embedded above.)

See and hear them for yourself. Alternate link here, if the site is down.

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

Steve Wozniak: Dancing with the Startups

2009-03-08T12:29:00.000-07:00

Tim & I were wondering about Steve Wozniak's new path to stardom, and surmising that this could signal a much looser definition of 'star'. Please suggest your nominations for next season's lineup from any of the following new 'star' categories (please add more):

1) Retired Bush administration spokesperson Ari Fleischer.

2) Unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee Harriet Myers.

3) Popular southern food cookbook author Paula Dean.

4) Former congressman Larry Craig.

5) The two guys who sell the beanie babies on late night TV.

6) Liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga.

7) Daredevil stunt pilot Capt Sully Sullenberger.

8) Newly-retired president Pervez Musharref.

9) Popular 3rd season American Idol semi-finalist [name].

10) Comic strip star Cathy of "Cathy".

Economic Recovery by Design

2009-03-08T11:24:00.001-07:00

This week Barack Obama unveiled two new executive branch logos, one for recovery.gov, and one for the DOT's TIGER project (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery).

Of course branding is no substitute for results, but what's notable about the Obama administration's efforts (in contrast to the Bush administration's) are that they 1) look crisply modern, and 2) don't come off as baldface lies.

The former was accomplished by hiring Mode Project, the design studio that helped develop Barack Obama's campaign logo. They in turn enlisted the help of designers Aaron Draplin and Chris Glass, two surprising hip choices for government work.

The question of lying is not entirely a political assumption I am making; Bush routinely appeared in front of backdrops that made actual claims ("Helping Small Business", "Strengthening America's Economy", "Mission Accomplished"). Had there been a functioning Office of Legal Counsel under Bush they might have insisted on adding an asterisk to each of these "logos".

Bold visual design can evoke emotions and create implications, but doesn't make such claims.

Of course over the coming years we'll see if the product actually matches the implied brand promise...

Link

(Via Communicatrix, @gruber, et al.)

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

2009-03-05T21:54:00.000-08:00

(via boingboing)
For visual learners, artist/designed Jonathan Jarvis explains the credit crisis.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Jon Stewart wraps his mind around Twitter

2009-03-04T20:07:00.001-08:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Land of the Lost as a movie? They're not. Oh yes they are. Oh yes they did.

2009-02-23T23:04:00.000-08:00

Directed by Brad "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" Silberling.

Cheney Dunk Tank Raises $800 Billion For Nation | The Onion

2009-02-02T13:33:00.001-08:00

The stimulus has apparently been paid for, by Americans queueing up to dunk the exiting vice president at the 44th White House Carnival.

"All right, you candy arms, let's go,' Cheney shouted at the line of people, which consisted of Americans, non-Americans, out-of-work autoworkers, teachers, luminaries from the science community, gays, lesbians, military personnel, members of Congress, children, and the entire Arab-American population. 'Hey [former British prime minister Tony] Blair. I see you back there. Think you'll be able to stop crying long enough to throw the ball?'"

Read the story in full.

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

The Big Picture on the Inauguration.

2009-02-02T07:04:00.001-08:00

So yeah, it took me a couple of weeks to get around to The Big Picture's roundup of notable news photos of Barack Obama's presidential inauguration. (Link)

And yes there are striking images of the pageantry, and of the crowd in Washington (including that overhead satellite shot of those millions on the Mall, clustered in front of the giant video screens).

But as with most posts from The Big Picture, some of the most revelatory photos are taken in the margins--images not deemed central enough to the story to be featured in national media outlets.

Here some of the most striking photos are of people watching televisions. At an army base in Baghdad. A bar in Montana. A hotel room in Boston. A taco stand in Mexico City. Outdoors at night in Kibera, Nairobi. The Best Buy at the Mall of America.

And my favorites include the sea of cell phone cameras raised by ball attendees hoping to capture a tiny glimpse the Obamas dancing together. The changing of official photographs at Guantanamo Naval Base. Bush inside the helicopter after takeoff looking out across Washington.

If you haven't been already you should go look now.

Who is on Twitter

2009-02-01T11:03:00.001-08:00

New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones rounds up just who is using Twitter, including:

• people who are just back from a really awesome run

• people who are involved in "social networking" and optimizing the power of re-Tweeting and "computers"

• people who are hungry

• people who can't figure out what their kids want to eat

• Rachel Maddow

Go read the entire list

(Via Scott Simpson.)

Hide it under a bushel, no

2009-01-29T07:12:00.001-08:00

The fact that your particular talent might not be traditionally performed within the context of a pageant is perhaps all the more reason to bring it.

Even if it isn't clear to the audience for the first two and a half minutes what your talent actually is.

From the 2009 Hawaiian Narcissus Festival.

via SeoulBrother, via @robot_operator

The Pooping Log

2008-12-18T20:32:00.001-08:00

Ronan has been telling us about the festive yuletide log with the smily face in his classroom.
If you beat it with a stick, it poops candy.

Tonight he predicted that Christmas Eve it might poop out sardines.

Normally, I'd chalk this up to the imagination of a 4 year old. But wikipedia says it's an old Catalan custom.

MDA: An Open Letter to the New York Film Critics Film Circle

2008-12-06T23:06:00.000-08:00

Mike D'Angelo posts his picks for the year's best, and quixotically asks the New York Critics Film Circle voters to go beyond the usual award fodder hyped by the studios. And, as usual, a great reference tool for heading to the video store.

That is, if you have time to watch videos anymore.

And if you even have a video store anymore.

Berkeley J-School: Multimedia Boot Camp --> Local News Sites

2008-12-03T22:42:00.000-08:00

First week of graduate school in Journalism at Cal: a crash course in audio and video editing, and Flash animation. Why? Because the school (and the Ford Foundation, which is funding this project) recognizes the role of multimedia, multi-platform storytelling in the future of journalism.

Next, the students targeted local communities, asked what locals would want in local news, and then set about building web sites. They went live at the end of October.

There's one San Francisco site:

Mission Loc@l

And six East Bay sites:

Oakland North

El Cerrito Focus

inEmeryville

East Bay West Online

The (510) Report

Albany Today

You access them all at: localreport.org

Award winning photojournalist and now J-School faculty member Richard Koci-Hernandez even created a video piece on the project (Vimeo link), but it's not as interesting as clicking around the student's local news sites.

Architecture - In Berkeley, Toyo Ito’s Plans for a Museum Wrapped in Honeycomb - NYTimes.com

2008-11-30T17:23:00.000-08:00

Latest on Berkeley Art Museum, from Nicolai Ouroussoff, the NYT architecture critic. Interesting part is on page two, where practical concerns from the client (the museum) clash with the vision of the architect. Ouroussoff sides with the architect.

Translating the analogy

2008-11-16T09:11:00.001-08:00

Tim, writing from the second leg of his India journey:

Autorickshaws in Chennai : autorickshaws in Delhi :: Asteroids : Sinistar

For those too young to remember, or who were busy with an actual life in 1982 to have been playing Sinistar at their local Golfland, I've provided a helpful visual translation.

In Asteroids, players control their ship with short bursts of thrust in an environment approximating zero-gravity physics (in two dimensions). Motion continues in a straight line, and even slows to a stop (as if there were somehow friction in space).

The asteroids you are attempting to destroy/avoid are also moving in straight lines at constant speeds. When they disappear off the edge of the screen, they reappear at the opposite edge (180° opposite), continuing to travel in the same direction at the same speed. The challenge is that as you shoot the larger, slow moving asteroids, they break down into smaller asteroids, now moving in new trajectories at quicker speeds.

At the start of each level, it is easy to sit in one spot and rotate your ship to shoot at asteroids passing by. As the level continues, you are forced to continually adjust your position with short (or long) bursts of thrust to avoid the paths of an increasing number of asteroids traveling at varied (if constant) rates of speed. The video below is illustrative (you do not have to watch the whole thing):

YouTube link

While unrealistic, the physics of the game are extremely predictable. When your ship is eventually destroyed, there is a sense that had you only done a better job of anticipating the various trajectories, you could have escaped your fate.

Sinistar begins cosmetically the same. You pilot a triangular ship in two dimensions, attempting to break apart large asteroids.

But unlike Asteroids,there are multiple things flying at you, in variable trajectories, at variable (non-constant) speeds. Worse still, one cannot control the acceleration of the ship with controlled engine thrusts. In Sinistar, THERE IS NO STOPPING.

YouTube link

Add to that the screaming Sinistar (skip ahead to 1:30 into the video), and a game of Asteroids begins to feel like a spa day in comparison.

Which is simply to say Tim's had an exciting first day in Delhi.

The End of Wall Street

2008-11-14T13:06:00.001-08:00

For a while I've meant to read Moneyball, the story of the Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane and his statistics-driven approach to building a winning baseball team.

What I didn't realize was that the author, Michael Lewis, was the same Michael Lewis who got famous for his book chronicling his time as a Salomon Brothers bond trader in the 1980s, Liar's Poker (which I also have yet to read).

Apparently Lewis has started to write a new book attempting to understand and explain the financial system collapse of 2008. After reading this corker of an article by Lewis in Portfolio I cannot wait for this book to come out.

Here Lewis introduces us to a handful of people in and around the industry who did see doomsday coming, and in some cases bet on it. But who themselves could not believe what, exactly, was going on.

One of these character, Steve Eisman, is a merciless character, willing to confront anyone whom he has judged as having no idea what they are doing. Here's a moment from a subprime-mortgage "trade show", at a speech by one company's CEO:

When the guy got to the part of his speech about [his company's] subprime-loan portfolio, he claimed to be expecting a modest default rate of 5 percent. Eisman raised his hand. Moses and Daniel sank into their chairs. “It wasn’t a Q&A,” says Moses. “The guy was giving a speech. He sees Steve’s hand and says, ‘Yes?’”

“Would you say that 5 percent is a probability or a possibility?” Eisman asked.

A probability, said the C.E.O., and he continued his speech.

Eisman had his hand up in the air again, waving it around. ... He had his thumb and index finger in a big circle. ...

“Yes?” the C.E.O. said, obviously irritated. “Is that another question?”

“No,” said Eisman. “It’s a zero. There is zero probability that your default rate will be 5 percent.” The losses on subprime loans would be much, much greater. Before the guy could reply, Eisman’s cell phone rang. Instead of shutting it off, Eisman reached into his pocket and answered it. “Excuse me,” he said, standing up. “But I need to take this call.” And with that, he walked out.

The article ends with Lewis sitting down for lunch with former Salomon Brothers CEO and "King of Wall Street" John Gutfreund, who has still not exactly forgiven him for Liar's Poker, what he calls "your fucking book".

It's crackerjack storytelling. I started reading it as my car's oil was being changed, and when they came to tell me my car was ready I was angry that they had interrupted me.

Seriously. Take the time to read the article. It's my favorite thing on the subject since The Giant Pool of Money.

(Via Kottke, who links to other Lewis pieces as well)

Michael Pollan's letter to the President-Elect

2008-11-11T08:27:00.001-08:00

Back in early October, Michael Pollan wrote a piece in the NYT Sunday magazine in the form of a letter to the incoming president, calling for an overhaul of the nation's food system.

[W]ith a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.

Of course, these "open letters" are merely literary devices that allow a writer to use prescriptive (as opposed to descriptive) language. They are designed to provoke discussion among a publication's readers, and there is never an expectation that the intended (or imagined) recipient actually reads these things.

Except, of course, when he actually does.

From Joe Klein's sit-down interview with Obama:

I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen [sic] about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs.

I don't know what's more awesome; that we have a president-elect that has at least been introduced to Pollan's reimaginings of food or that we have a president-elect that actually reads.

As to whether Pollan's prescriptions will make an impact: we'll know if we see Michelle and the girls planting a Victory Garden in the South Lawn.

(Via Kottke.)

Photos from the (long) campaign trail

2008-11-09T08:13:00.001-08:00

Photographer Callie Shell collects a series of her photos of Barack Obama taken for TIME magazine over a span of two years.

Some great stuff here: resting in a back stairwell, cleaning up after himself in an ice cream shop, a couple of spontaneous pull-ups.

Take a look.

(Via Kottke.)

I got the horse right here

2008-11-08T10:34:00.001-08:00

I've owned the CD of the 1992 revival of "Guys and Dolls" for fifteen years and did not realize until today that it featured J.K. Simmons as Benny Southstreet.

as featured in "Fugue for Tinhorns":

YouTube link

and "The Oldest Established":

YouTube link.

Simmons was of course the best thing about Burn After Reading, despite appearing in two scenes and not interacting with any of the leading characters.

Tarvuism: It's So Easy to Join!

2008-11-07T14:26:00.001-08:00

Link

It is all encompassing, and it's all non-encompassing. Learn more about Tarvuism here.

via Jesse Thorn

Wassup? 2008

2008-10-24T16:46:00.001-07:00

Eight years later the original "Wassup?" boys return, in a surprising, brilliant mashup of culture and politics. This is what YouTube was made for.

YouTube link

True dat.

You can watch the original Bud commercial (which itself was an adaptation of a short film).

(via Andrew Sullivan)

"a brighter day will come"

2008-10-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

My friend Pani linked to MC Yogi's pro-Obama hip-hop video "Vote for Hope" last week, both for its relaxed vibe and its skillful use of motion graphics.

I figured it might take off big, like "Yes We Can", but so far it hasn't (just over 100,000 views so far). The rhymes are a bit simplistic, but the song's bassline, beats, and snippets of Obama's speeches have hooked it in my ear.

And almost any speech by Obama is a reminder of the value of oratory to the presidency. I remain hopeful that come election day the numbers will move towards this candidate who despite his flaws speaks a vision that speaks to people's hope for the future for themselves and their children.

And not to the once-dignified shell of a man who seems only to speak in sneers, sarcasm, derision, and scorn.

YouTube link

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

2008-10-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

Finally got to see this, albeit with two boys clinging to me and the last reel with the sound turned down. (Oops. Didn't check to see that this was PG-13). Liam pointed out that the thing that made the scary parts scary was the sound. And sure enough, with no sound, no music and no screaming and yelling, the adrenaline levels went waaaay down. The sound came back up for the necessary post-duel exposition that wraps up the story ("this is the boring part," said Liam).

The boys were prepared for the plot, knew many of the characters and planets from library books and The Clone Wars tv movie from the Cartoon Network, although after so many explosions and light sabers duels it's apparently hard to remember that the infant Luke will be a young adult in the next movie and it's the same person ("Whose house is that? What planet are they on? What happened to Luke's father?")

Satisfying, partially since the movie was an improvement over the previous two prequels, but mainly because it puts into place the story details that set in motion the first movie.

Absolutely stunning visuals... although I kept thinking of Hawaii Five-0, with long tracking shots of cars driving down the highway, and parking in front of office buildings, just to remind everybody "Hey, we're in Hawaii!" Lucas has so many subplots he's juggling, he has to put in establishing shots to remind us what planet we're on now, and each planet has to be distinct, just to remind us how big and diverse the galaxy is and how hard his art department is working.

But I wondered if the critics, who had a nominal duty to pass judgement on the film for those who hadn't seen the other five, thought it worked as a standalone. Some of them did, some didn't.

And then I found one critic who absolutely lambasted it. Hated it with a fiery passion. I burst out laughing reading his review.

The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith” seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.” True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.

Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

Hot Topics 2008: General Election Ballot Measures

2008-10-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

What's hot?
State propositions are hot!

Cal's Institute for Governmental Studies Library has once again provided state proposition analysis and an list of endorsements (updated as they come in) for all your democratic information-gathering pleasure!

Theme from Shaft. Live. On Ukuleles.

2008-10-15T21:34:00.000-07:00

Sheer awesomeness from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2007.

I'm also quite partial to their covers of:

Ennio Morricone's main theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
and
You Don't Bring me Flowers

Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals

2008-10-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Missed in the initial hubbub over the Palin/Biden/Ifill debate sketch, this two-minute Andy Samberg sketch becomes the stuff of SNL legend.

Via Jesse Thorn et al.

Late Show - George W. Bush: How'd He Do?

2008-10-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

Letterman & Co. look back at Bush's promises from the 2000 campaign and sees how well he executed on them.

YouTube link

Yes We Can (hold babies).

2008-10-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

An entire blog devoted to photos of Obama (and Biden) with infants and children on the campaign trail. Seeing babies being crowd-surfed over to the candidate is both awesome and vaguely alarming.

Link via Andrew Sullivan.

Take On Me: Literal Video Version

2008-10-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

Filmmaker and musician Dustin McLean literalizes A-Ha's iconic video from the 80's.

Ever wish songs just sang what was happening in the music video? Well now they do.

Hat tip to Chordstrike

Laura Marling, Singer-Songwriter, Myspace Artist

2008-10-02T21:46:00.000-07:00

Neo-folk artist Laura Marling is 18 years old, and drawing comparisons to Sandy Denny, the McGarrigle sisters, Martha Wainwright. Musically she reminds me of a young Suzanne Vega or Michelle Shocked, but with a darker mood. She started touring the UK soon after people started noticing her songs on Myspace when she was 17. Her first launch party turned into a busking session on the street because she was underage and the venue wouldn't let her in. Captured on video here:

No ukulele, no iSight gimmicks, although now that she's signed to Virgin records, there are several artsy music videos available on her web site.
I find them a bit too artistic as to distract from the music, so here's a live set in the studio in the Netherlands.

LA Times Buzz on the Berkeley Bowl

2008-09-25T22:27:00.000-07:00

Google News pointed me to the LA Times feature story on Berkeley Bowl, one of our local grocery stores with a justifably stellar reputation for its produce selection, quality, and price. (Back in 2001, I wrote about the store on Everything2 as a must-see destination in Berkeley)

Staff Writer John Glionna focuses as much on the antics of shoppers as much as the produce, and notes that the penalty at the Bowl for grazing (sampling foods before purchase) is being banned from the store, forever.

Today I learned (hat tip to the Daily Clog) that after it was published on Monday, Glionna heard from Berkeley Bowl owner Glenn Yasuda. According to Glionna's blog, Yasuda didn't like the tone Glionna took in the article, and banned him for life.

Glionna seems to take it in stride. Read the comments following his blog posting, though. I learned as much about Berkeley's reputation, culture, and recent history from these postings as anything I've ever read in all the time I've been living here.

In Case You Missed It: McCain Snubs Letterman

2008-09-25T09:07:00.001-07:00

You may have seen this buzzing around the internet this morning. I stayed up to watch the show because of the buzz moving through Twitter last night, and wished I'd waited for the YouTube edits.

For those who aren't caught up: along with McCain's announcement that he was "suspending" his presidential campaign, he called David Letterman hours before his scheduled appearance and cancelled it, saying he had to rush back to Washington to deal with the economic crisis.

Not only was Letterman ruffled by the last-minute need to rejigger his show, but he was genuinely bothered by the implications of McCain's decision to suspend his campaign. He spent much of the show stuck on the issue.

Even *before* he learned (during his sitdown with Keith Olbermann) what McCain was actually doing at the time.

If you only have three minutes, here's a quick version from Air America:

But I'd recommend this nine minute edit, which gives you a better sense of how much talk of McCain's cancellation dominated the entire program. It also includes Letterman's disclaimer in which he spends a full minute lauding McCain for his heroic survival in North Vietnam.

A surreal and classic pop culture moment.

Fictional advice for a real candidate

2008-09-21T10:27:00.001-07:00

Maureen Dowd hands over her Sunday column to Aaron ("The West Wing") Sorkin, who dramatizes a meeting between Obama and a certain former president.

OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.

BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.

Link

Got Cowbell?

2008-09-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

SNL. 2000. Will Farrell. Christopher Walken. "More Cowbell" sketch.

Web. 2008. Your mp3 collection. A web developer with a lot of time on his hands. Cowbell.

Add cowbell to any mp3 file.

Also, add Christopher Walken.


	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

A Pro-Life Catholic and Barack Obama

2008-09-17T09:29:00.001-07:00

Conservative and antiabortion legal scholar (and former head of the Office of Legal Counsel for Reagan and Bush I) Douglas Kmiec made waves last spring when he publicly endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain.

The clarity of thought expressed in his endorsement is remarkable, but it angered at least one Catholic priest enough to verbally shame him during mass and to deny him communion.

He recounts this story this week in an excerpt from his new book Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question About Barack Obama.

The irony of ironies was that my motivation for the endorsement was entirely Catholic. No, Obama doesn't share the Catholic faith, but he certainly campaigns like he does. As reflected in his book, the Senator is focused on the human person, on the common good, on the social justice of economic arrangement. All is so very Catholic.

Whether Obama and his base of support are able to capture the election in our current political and cultural environment remains to be seen. But I welcome any and all evidence of intellectual honesty and rigor in America.

Real clarity of thought (and LEARNING) on any issue of importance will always lead to accusations of hypocrisy and betrayal by those who would rather feel good about an issue than do good.

Link

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

Insanity is: Skateboarding down Claremont Canyon

2008-09-16T12:14:00.001-07:00

The shrinking of digital video cameras has allowed for the creation of new forms of cinema that would not have been possible otherwise. I make kids'-eye-view home movies, others toss their cameras in the air, still others hold cameras to their faces to create "POV" sex movies.

Skateboarding videos take up an entire wing of YouTube. Skaters have become increasingly skilled at performing tricks while holding small HD cameras, to capture footage inconceivable by Hollywood cinematographers and their enormous camera rigs.

This video manages to stand out from the crowd, simply by being UNBELIEVABLY FUCKING NUTS.

Two guys (Noah Sakamoto and Patrick Rizzo) in powder-blue suits and laughably insufficient head and hand protection, skateboard down Claremont Ave in the upper hills of Berkeley at speeds higher than I would probably drive (at one point they zoom past a car), all the while videotaping each other with an HD camera, outfitted with a fisheye lens.

If you can ignore the meaningless title ("Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD"), interminable opening credits, and opaque two-minute intro, you will be "treated" to two gravity-driven runs down the canyon that make street luge-ing seem positively serene in comparison.

Oh, and click through to Vimeo if you actually want to watch it in HD, full screen, so you too can clutch at your seat muttering bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea BAD IDEA BAD IDEA BAD IDEA BAD BAD BAD IDEA.

Link

(Via Kottke.)

Les Misbarack

2008-09-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

An improv company from LA pays homage to Obama. Or Les Mis. Or something:

Is it me, or does framing the election as the finale of Act I of Les Mis, seem to miss the point of both the campaign AND the musical?

It's been twenty years, so it's kinda hazy, but IIRC this song musical counterpoint threading together inner emotional monologues from disparate subplots and building to a thunderous was meant to musically browbeat the audience into an emotional frenzy-- not because anything was resolved in the story to this point, it wasn't, but because Schoenberg wanted the audience to stay for the second act.

(Also, I'm not sure but I think the tune keeps modulating and the chord progression never resolves until the very end of the four minutes)

Also, while it's framed here as a rallying point for the Obama campaign, in Act II of Les Mis, the mob on the barricades is abandoned by the people and they all realize they're going to be crushed like bugs and that their movement accomplished exactly nothing and then they all die. Maybe that's the point, but seeing as this is coming from an improv group I kinda think they didn't think that far ahead.

Especially because most of lyrics expressed here DON'T fit the visual narrative (a one location number? no way. And if McCain is Javert in what possible world does it make sense that Palin is Madame Thénardier?)

Okay, I've just spent way too much time on YouTube and Wikipedia fact-checking a musical I wasn't that interested in two decades ago just so I could confirm that
this new mashup squandered a key musical theatre geek callback: the marching in place of the actors.

Although I have to say it's growing on me. The fourth time around the video isn't so grating and I'm ready to dash out to the lobby to buy me one of them tricolour Cosette/Obama mashup t-shirts.

The Particle Zoo: Subatomic Particle plushies

2008-09-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

When Boingboing posted the photo below of the plush toy version of the as-yet-unconfirmed Higgs Boson particle, I thought it was a rushed attempt to capitalize on this past week's news from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), in which they flipped the switch on their massive 17-mile long particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.

Turns out though, the Particle Zoo (a home-based business) has been offering plush physics particles, both real and imagined, since last year... you can get your proton, your electron, your neutron, quarks, leptons... and for the truly nerdy, the entire line is also available in their antimatter counterparts.

And, if you browse through the gallery at the Particle Zoo, you can see photos of various famous physicists with their plush particles, answering the question "What do you get a physicist for Christmas when he already has a Nobel Prize?"

Hats off to Particle Zookeeper Julie Peasley, the sole proprieter (and sole seamstress) of this venture.

The Daily Show does journalism. Again.

2008-09-05T10:15:00.001-07:00

The Daily Show spent a lot of its annual budget dispatching its sets, writers, and performers to Denver, CO and St. Paul, MN to cover the Democratic and Republican conventions.

But the sharpest segment of either week, as assembled by the writing and video research staff, could (and may) have been put together from the show's New York home base.

It leaves one wishing that "real" television news organizations were as quick or as skilled in retrieving footage from their voluminous archives.

Or as willing to call people on their bullshit.

Or go here

Pat Buchanan Gives It Up for Obama

2008-08-29T06:58:00.001-07:00

I wasn't watching MSNBC last night, so I missed this moment where Pat Buchanan declared Obama's nomination acceptance speech "the greatest convention speech, and probably the most important."

It's pretty remarkable to see this typically-condescending jackass express such unaffected enthusiasm, as he strains to read a passage of the transcript without his glasses.

YouTube link

via @laughingsquid and @KarinaLongworth on the Twitter

Stunning Olympic Photos from The Big Picture

2008-08-26T19:39:00.001-07:00

If you haven't yet been pointed to the Boston Globe's new photojournalism blog The Big Picture, then this wrapup of the Beijing Olympics is as good of a place as any to start.

One of the many casualties of the transition of newspapers from print to online has been the art of photojournalism; online news sites originally designed their template grids with a minimum of images to avoid alienating readers with slower internet connections. What photos do appear are too small to make much of a visual impression.

Enter The Big Picture, which assumes that a critical mass of Americans are now surfing the internet with fast connections and widescreen displays, and presents the work of some of the world's best photojournalists in gigantic, gorgeous, sometimes shocking color (since computer displays can present a wider range of sharpness and contrast than newsprint could ever muster).

Like a museum exhibit or a good coffee table book, The Big Picture reawakens viewers to photography's power to startle, move, and astonish, whether depicting the Iowa flooding, California's wildfires, or images of people from around the Northern Hemisphere merely trying to beat the summer heat,

It may sound like hyperbole, but I'd nominate this four-month-old site as one of the best uses to date of the world wide web.

Go there now.

Unresolved anthrax questions - Glenn Greenwald

2008-08-01T21:33:00.001-07:00

Taking a break now from the general internet oddities I've posted of late.

I would feel remiss if I didn't point to this article by Glenn Greenwald posing questions about the apparent suicide of Bruce E. Ivins, the FBI's most recent lead suspect in the anthrax mailings of late 2001.

Greenwald generally offers smart, lengthy, ridiculously well-researched analysis for Salon.com. Here he is clearly struggling not to jump to wild assertions or theories, despite a series of facts that in their aggregate stink to high holy heaven.

If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab, sent by a top U.S. Army scientist at Ft. Detrick.

That means that ABC News' "four well-placed and separate sources" fed them information [about the presence of bentonite, a chemical additive used by Iraq] that was completely false -- false information that created a very significant link in the public mind between the anthrax attacks and Saddam Hussein.

Lots more, including reports of suspicious behavior by Ivins back in 2001 that went uninvestigated by the Department of Justice, and a sideswipe at McCain that asks why he was asserting a link to Iraq even before ABC's original bentonite report.

(Via Boing Boing.)

InDecision 2008: The News Better Run

2008-08-01T11:50:00.001-07:00

The Daily Show loudly states its case as to why it has the best political news team (and the most Situation Rooms) on basic cable.

CNN mailbox, meet the Daily Show bat, as swung from a moving convertible.

Decoding Joe Cocker

2008-08-01T11:25:00.001-07:00

This is one of those bits with a premise (Joe Cocker's unintelligible Woodstock performance of "With a Little Help from My Friends", with added comedic subtitles) that depends entirely on the execution.

Which in this case made me laugh. More than I might like to admit.

By Jared Pike. Via Your Monkey Called

"Mom, Dad, I'm Into Steampunk"

2008-07-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

(via boingboing)

This gem available on Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Short Imagined Monologues

If you want to label me retrofuturistic so I can fit into your compartmentalized worldview, that's fine. But look past my airplane goggles. This is my lifestyle.

Dubya: It's The End of the World As We Know It

2008-07-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

via I'm Learning to Share:

Mashup of George W. Bush covering REM:

Ernie & Bert Ante Up

2008-07-21T10:17:00.001-07:00

This does not appear to be the first example of someone recutting Sesame Street footage to match up the muppet lipsync to rap songs, but the execution on this one definitely makes it a winner.

Here Ernie & Bert take on M.O.P.'s hit "Ante Up".

YouTube link

via Monoscope

Slate: You've already spent your tax windfall on gas and bread.

2008-07-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

Citing Merrill Lynch's chief economist, Slate's Daniel Gross writes:

The chunk of the stimulus package likely to get spent is roughly equivalent to the amount Americans are paying for higher food and gas prices because of inflation. Put another way, you've already spent your stimulus at ExxonMobil.

Here's the math. Merrill Lynch is basing its calculations on two assumptions:
1. that Americans will spend only 40% of their rebate (and pay down debt with the rest, or save it); and,
2. energy and food inflation combined is costing us $50 billion per quarter.

Total stimulus package in rebates: $120 billion.
40% of 120 is 48 billion, eaten up in one quarter.

At first I thought, big deal, there are still three other quarters in the year. People might--operative word, might --choose to spend more than 40% of their rebate. Say, 100%.

$120 billion minus $50 billion minus $50 billion minus $50 billion (3rd quarter) minus $50 billion (4th quarter)...

Oops.

We don't track the gasoline expenses in our house, but this year we're on track to pay $700 extra in groceries, not because the kids are eating more, or because of more organic produce, but simply the increased cost of everything at the store. $4.50 gasoline doesn't faze me. But $4.50 bread: I get sticker shock.

Wait. This isn't a fake documentary?

2008-07-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

(via Whack-a-Flick)

I watched this movie trailer, and wondered at first if it was a low-budget indie movie. Then, once the trailer revealed its premise, I thought it was a put-on. Like Christopher Guest doing a "Best in Show" take on the war in Iraq. (Warning: graphic images in the trailer)

Turns out, this is a straight ahead documentary.

There really is a fake town in the Mojave Desert where the military pays Iraqi refugees to play the part of Iraqi police and insurgents so that the army can conduct war games, complete with fake explosions and movie make up and funerals.

J. Hoberman's review in the Village Voice

David Edelstein in New York magazine

Ethicurean: Eating Local isn't about Greenhouse Gases

2008-07-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

Ethicurean, the group blog dedicated to the notion of food mindfulness, or, as they so artfully put it, "Chew the Right Thing", responds to Dubner's post in the New York Times Freaknomics blog.

Well, not directly. They respond to the same peer reviewed study that Dubner cites in his blog, namely "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States," by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews.

The paper does note that the last miles to the table are not the major source of greenhouse gas emissions... agricultural inputs are. So you make more of a "green" impact by reducing consumption of red meat (since you're using a lot less agricultural inputs (fertilizer) to grow soy and corn which is fed to methane-producing cattle) than by buying local.

Ethicurean doesn't disagree. But their analysis of the paper doesn't lead them to the conclusion that local isn't better. There are other quality of life reasons for eating locally (which Dubner doesn't address... since he sticks to simple economics).

Ethicurean also stands up to Salon's recent attack on localvores here:
http://www.ethicurean.com/2008/06/28/salon-locavore/

A dissenting commenter on this latter post dismisses the food miles issue and notes: "I buy food at farmers markets. Mostly for the reason you mention: it's picked later and thus tastes better."