Archives
- 24 Jun 2008
- 6:12pm EST
- Politics, Technology
- This post contains political opinions. Reader discretion is advised.
obama and government "innovation"
Barack Obama seems to think that one can’t put a price tag on innovation, as Sen. McCain wants to do with his (admittedly economically questionable) $300m bounty on a new, more efficient car battery. Apparently he hasn’t heard of things like “the venture capital industry,” which essentially does exactly that. To say nothing of earlier cited examples like the X-Prize, or the $1m price for improving Netflix’s search algorithm.
Someone remind me again why geeks love this guy. Is it his inability to comprehend economics? (In the linked speech excerpt, he says we need government involvement to find affordable energy, and then commends European alternative energy efforts.) Or is it just that John McCain is old?
- 24 Jun 2008
- 10:19am EST
- Nerdery & Sundry, Technology
travel channel GO
The Travel Channel just released a new mobile web app–Travel Channel GO–which gives information on restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions, and other points of interest. I may or may not have an ulterior motive in recommending it, but I know the TCM interactive team put a lot of work into the app.
It is a free public beta, and it works on Blackberries, Windows Mobile and Palm smartphones, any cell phone capable of mobile web, and of course, the iPhone.
- 22 Jun 2008
- 5:41pm EST
- Politics, Society (or \"the social\")
- This post contains political opinions. Reader discretion is advised.
the "conservative" case for gay marriage
Jonathan Rauch, a scholar at the Brookings Institute and a writer for the National Journal makes a good case for encouraging the movement toward gay marriage. For once, it doesn’t say “Gay marriage is good, because people who are against it are uptight Bush-loving Methhead NASCAR freaks who are probably closeted anyway.” Just a note: that case doesn’t win much support.
The final paragraph is an excellent one:
There are two ways to see the legal marriage of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon [the first gay couple to be married in California]. One is as the start of something radical: an experiment that jeopardizes millennia of accumulated social patrimony. The other is as the end of something radical: an experiment in which gay people were told that they could have all the sex and love they could find, but they could not even think about marriage. If I take the second view, it is on conservative – in fact, traditional – grounds that gay souls and straight society are healthiest when sex, love and marriage all walk in step.
Now if we could just rid ourselves of that annoying “Adam and Steve” cliché.
she doesn't know where it comes from, but she knows it tastes good
PETA has some beef (sorry) with Jessica Simpson:
Jessica Simpson was spotted wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Real Girls Eat Meat” printed across her chest — leading PETA to denounce the singer as a “stupid girl.”
Yeah, this is the same PETA that was content to wrap an intern in cellophane in the blazing summer sun. Real geniuses.
- 16 Jun 2008
- 12:28am EST
- Food
the accidental flatbread feast
Tonight could’ve been the worst night of cookery since the time I almost set Eric’s apartment on fire in an inept attempt at sauteeing eggplant. Through luck, help, and serendipitous
innovation, Amanda and I managed to salvage dough and dinner, and save Whoville. Well, we might’ve.
…
I had a plan for dinner this evening: a tasty palak-batata (spinach-potato) bhaaji, with a side of a sort of raitha. After returning from the grocery store, I discovered that I’d brought home neither yogurt for the raitha nor naan for the bhaaji. The raitha was pretty easy to substitute with cucumber slices, which I sprinkled with lemon, salt, and pepper. The bread problem was more serious. There is pretty much nowhere within a five-block radius where one can purchase naan. And I didn’t want to make rice, as that was for dinner tomorrow night.
That’s when Amanda came up with a chapati recipe. I hadn’t yet tried making the Indian flatbreads, as they take a lot of work and are best made with durum wheat atta rather than the all-purpose flour I had on hand. But her recipe seemed rather simple, so I gave it a shot. It was disastrous almost from the beginning. I unwittingly threw the proportions off with my hyperadjustment, leaving a sticky, glutinous mess. I decided to leave it alone until after making the bhaaji and hope for the best.
It was an unmitigated disaster. I tried to roll out the dough (with a bottle of Yuengling, no less!), but it snapped back into place. The laws of physics would not allow it to be rolled out into anything better than an oval. And it was still sticky to boot. After spending some time on stove, I came out with chewy, doughy, woefully undercooked hockey pucks. It was 10.00p, and I had no accompaniment.
Amanda noted that the bread looked like naan and could be used as naan, and it was indeed as thick as naan. But that would take another half hour to bake, and there was no guarantee it would work. Then, as we brainstormed other ways to use the dough, it hit me: fry them up! I poured a healthy dose of oil in the pan and dropped one of the pre-pucks into hot oil. It was crispy, but still doughy. Amanda rolled a couple dollops of dough out, and they came out much thinner.
After some frying, they…didn’t suck! They were a little crispy, so one couldn’t grab the bhaaji with chunks as one would with a normal flatbread. Instead, we were forced to eat in the fashion of chips-and-salsa.
The final product is displayed below. Tomorrow will feature a much, much simpler meal.
- 13 Jun 2008
- 7:33pm EST
- Uncategorized
- 11 Jun 2008
- 7:34pm EST
- Uncategorized
links for 2008-06-11
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Really? I’d say officials actually ADD a lot of manure.
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C’mon, Manny. For this you went to Oxford? Next you’ll tell us that supply and demand for commodities will play a major role in consumer prices.
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Restrictions on photography are particularly a pain for transit geeks like yours truly. And they’re not just a post-9/11 thing: Indians have had their cameras confiscated for decades by heavy-handed police officers for taking pictures of rivers with brid
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(via the previous Guardian article) A pocket guide to photographer’s rights, in a foldable form for portable reference.
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As you’re reading this, remember that generic party numbers (e.g., would you vote for a Republican or Democrat in your house district) often vary widely from the personified numbers (e.g., would you vote for Republican Jack Smith or Democrat John Doe?).
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PETA leaves an intern and volunteer wrapped in cellophane (in the manner of grocery store cuts of meat) for a half hour; the intern complains of pain and nausea. You might convince me, PETA, if you weren’t so choosey about which animals deserved to live.
- 10 Jun 2008
- 7:33pm EST
- Uncategorized
links for 2008-06-10
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Money quote, especially for you school choice types: “Candidly, I don’t think the taxpayers should be subsidizing something that doesn’t need to be. There are parts of government that can be run like a business and should be run like businesses.” –Sen. F
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Thurrott looks at what works in XP SP3 and what he misses in Vista. He notes that Vista’s being pushed back from its original ’04 release date crippled it, and it’s true: I fled for the Mac partially because I refused to wait six years for Windows to do
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Cutting edge architecture in some of the world’s least-free nations. (via Design Observer)
- 9 Jun 2008
- 7:34pm EST
- Uncategorized
links for 2008-06-09
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Lesson learned: crocs are a menace to society. They must be stopped.
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A service offering to send your loved ones a message about their last chance for salvation when the rapture comes. For $40 per year. It would be cheaper, but they can’t risk outsourcing to possible heathens.
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A scathing indictment of the OLPC concept, based on figures from a Romanian study that showed _adverse_ effects of computer usage. No doubt the OLPC people will become defensive and accuse the author of baby-eating.
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Self-explanatory. (Via Will, who needs to get himself a tumblog already)
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Rep. Young and Sen. Stevens, the hemorrhoids of the Republican Party, may finally be on their way out. Do the right thing, Alaska. Preferably in the primaries.
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When his friend actually comes to help, he falls asleep, delaying his rescue for another 90m.
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Related, from Twitterer and YLNT Carnation-winner “EffingBoring”: “Spanish speakers! If you like seeing your language sloppily teabagged, you’ll LOVE the title of Coldplay’s new album, _Viva la Vida_.”
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The Global Warmist Australian Broadcasting Corporation condones execution when you’ve expended your share of greenhouse gasses. It thinks I should’ve died at age six. (And I ride mass transit!) The global warmist jihad lives on, Insh’allah!
- 9 Jun 2008
- 12:19am EST
- Music
aimee mann, "freeway"
From Aimee Mann’s latest album, @#%&! Smilers:
Bonus for readers of Something*Positive: the real T-Bob is the bare-scalped fellow in the above video.