About three months ago, I saw that Don had an Obama bumper sticker on his car, and I said, “I want one of those.” So I went to the website, and much to my surprise, there was no way to buy a bumper sticker. No swag at all. Crazy. I decided to send them a […]
July 11, 2007
Summing Up My Views on Terrorism
Common Dreams: In the two hours or so I’m guessing it took Ignatius to crank out yet another 800 words of substance-free alarmism festooned with platitudes about the need for “unity,” about 350 Americans died. Since Sept. 11, 2001, approximately 14 million Americans have died. Some of these people died agonizing deaths on emergency room […]
July 5, 2007
Toilet 2.0
If you’ve been thinking that you use too much toilet paper, the Washlet might be for you. It also claims to increase happiness. Bubblegen provides a good overview of the strategic challenge.
May 14, 2007
Both Sides Are Equally Human
The Storytellers: Why Are Most Artists Liberal? Stories, by their nature, have some sort of conflict. Otherwise, they would be boring. Conflict, by its nature, has at least two sides. To be able to write these two sides well, the artist has to understand, deep inside, that both sides are equally human. The more he […]
May 12, 2007
A Big Inside Joke on Several Levels
No, silly, not the Bush administration – LOL!! Better, David McRaney’s fantastic article on Internet communication culture and sub-cultures, called A Special In-Depth Analysis L337 Katz0rz: Still, a fusion of sorts between learned, direct language and rapid, practical digital missives takes place with Leetspeak and macros. Both relay a great deal of information in a […]
May 9, 2007
Spare Cycles
Chris Anderson: In the next issue of Wired we’ve got a great story about a woman who cyberstalked the lead singer of Linkin Park. She correctly guessed the password to his cellphone account. The rest was easy. She was a technician at a secure military facility, the Sandia National Labs. When eventually confronted, she explained […]
May 8, 2007
Widespread Acknowledgment of the Magic
Via David Gans: Proclamation from the Mayor of the City of Ithaca, NY Whereas, the Grateful Dead have been recognized by many highly credible organizations, individuals and entities including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as significantly important and integral to the musical and social fabric of our contemporary culture, and whereas, on May […]
May 7, 2007
A Chat with Aaron Swartz
You may remember Aaron from when he was 12 or 13, and won a computer programming award (Wikipedia) from Philip Greenspun. Or you may have followed his weblog (archives) wherein he chronicled his arrival at Stanford, and the subsequent disillusionment and dropping out. Or maybe you knew he was a regular contributor to Wikipedia. Or […]
April 13, 2007
On The Price of Beer
Mind Hacks: A research report published in Applied Economics has found that the number of patients with violence-related injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms is related to the price of beer. […] The researchers examined admissions to 58 hospital accident and emergency departments over a five year period and found that as the price of […]
April 12, 2007
Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Lee Iacocca’s new book: “I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I […]
April 3, 2007
Firewalk’d
On Friday night, I, along with nearly 4,000 other people, walked barefoot over 12 feet of hot burning coals. At least 1,200 degrees. About eight or ten steps. Barefoot. It’s quite an experience. You can imagine the legal disclaimer (edited for brevity): In consideration of my participation in the seminar I agree to release and […]
March 11, 2007
Keith’s Song
When I first arrived at Top of The Hop for book group he was playing the piano, and I paused at the top of the stairs. He continued playing, but asked, “Too loud?” And I said, “No, beautiful.” There was another guy standing near him, and I thought maybe they were playing together, or studying […]
March 5, 2007
Real Maps
Fascinating maps showing the world boundaries drawn to reflect a nation’s strengths or weaknesses (alcohol consumption, military spending, toy imports, etc.).
February 27, 2007
Compare and Contrast
Today in links: A $1,000 brownie Brûlee’s “Brownie Extradordinaire with Saint Louis” is a chocolate brownie made with Italian hazelnuts, dusted with edible gold powder and served with a very rare port. After each bite, the dessert captain squirts a mist of the vintage port on your tongue with a $750 atomizer, which incidentally is […]
February 27, 2007
We Have The Power To Create Our Own Happiness
This I Believe: I believe this is something all of us can do: Try to be happy within the context of the life we are actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. —Wayne Coyne
February 22, 2007
Food Security
When I say that “the food supply is far more fragile than people realize,” this is what I have in mind. It looks like fruit/almonds/etc. might get pretty expensive soon. Big commercial bee keepers, that provide pollination services worth $14 billion a year, have been experiencing die-offs of 50-90% of their colonies over the last […]
February 7, 2007
Web 2.0 In Just Under 5 Minutes
Tour de force video explaining how Web 2.0 is changing the nature of online interaction.
January 26, 2007
Social Web Hits The Election Cycle
Great post over at Bokardo Social Web Design, altering us that Hillary Clinton is using Yahoo answers to gather the prol’s thoughts on health-care reform. One, Clinton is actually asking the American people what they think, rather than assuming or generalizing from the party she’s a part of. (this doesn’t mean she’ll listen, but it’s […]
January 11, 2007
The Speech
For my money, Andrew Sullivan sums it up perfectly. What we will discover in the next few months, therefore, is simply whether the entire premise of this strategy is actually true. The president is asking us to find this out one more time. He seems to disbelieve the overwhelming evidence on the ground – that […]