Archives
- 26 Aug 2008
- 10:31am EDT
- Uncategorized
links for 2008-08-26
-
The iPhone calculator screws up the commutative property. So phone, email device, music player, video player, web browser, gaming console, but NOT calculator. I can live with that.
-
(via Swissmiss)
-
Designers took up the call for better ballot design in the wake of the 2000 butterfly ballot fiasco. Many have put forth excellent recommendations (like these), but most jurisdictions still think you should feel lucky they're not handing you a pen and a pad of paper stolen from a hotel.
-
JetBlue's renovation of Eero Saarinen's gorgeous Terminal 5 at JFK is already drawing rave reviews. But if you think that's awesome, you should check out the food court.
-
From the post: Daddy Yankee accompanied McCain on the plane from Phoenix to Sacramento. He talked to reporters briefly on the plane before taking off, saying that he first met the Arizona senator at a Time magazine party a few years back. McCain aide Brooke Buchanan said “Gasolina” was McCain’s “favorite.”
When asked what that song was about, the rapper smiled: “Energy independence.”
-
Proponents of the racial explanation for the closeness of the campaign point to a New York Times/CBS poll last month in which 19 percent of white voters said that most of the people they know wouldn’t vote for a black candidate. Pollsters assume that these answers are really a proxy for voters’ own racial biases. And yet in that same poll, 16 percent of black voters said the same thing — which indicates that the answers reflect suspicions about other people’s racism more than the bigotry of the respondents.
-
As Jason Kottke notes, "I'm prepared to be *very* disappointed."
-
A Firefox plugin that automatically hides comments with terrible spelling and/or punctuation. As one might expect, it manages to clean out 90% of useless, spammy, or flaming comments, as well.
- 25 Aug 2008
- 5:05pm EDT
- Politics
- This post contains political opinions. Reader discretion is advised.
glad he's our governor
Gov. Tim “Eyebrows” Kaine (D-VA) on “Fox News Sunday,” talking about how Joe Biden might impact the presidential vote in Virginia:
Kaine: Well, first, Joe comes from a state, Delaware, that borders Virginia. The eastern shore part of Virginia and Delaware are not only bordering but very, very similar. And I think there’s a lot in common, and Joe understands that.
There’s about 20mi of Maryland separating Virginia from Delaware. Here’s hoping Joe understands that, too.
- 25 Aug 2008
- 10:30am EDT
- Uncategorized
links for 2008-08-25
-
Aaron Swartz looks at the "Hollywood" and invite-only beta models of launching web software. In a nutshell, big product releases lend themselves to massive opening day server crashes. (via Daring Fireball)
-
Michael Barone takes a look at the fascinating world of nepotistic Chicago politics, and why Obama needed unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers to get anywhere in the land of Daley.
-
Dems are shocked—SHOCKED—to find enormous cases of Medicare fraud. And they're right to be surprised: the government ALWAYS distributes private goods without waste or complications! Really, who ever heard of an inefficient, corrupt government?
-
Awesome poster from Posterlist.
- 24 Aug 2008
- 11:10pm EDT
- Politics, Technology
- This post contains political opinions. Reader discretion is advised.
don't hold your breath for "pelosiisms"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s message on energy, already evolving in recent weeks, might have to evolve a little more.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, the speaker twice seemed to suggest that natural gas – an energy source she favors – is not a fossil fuel.
“I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” she said at one point. Natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels,” she said at another.
Sure, she hasn’t the slightest clue about how the magical electricity fairies make her wall outlets work. And sure, she’s a heavy investor in the alternative energy sources that would benefit from regulating the hell out of the oil industry. But, man, at least she didn’t say “nuc-yu-lar”. Correctly pronounce the ways we can destroy the nation’s energy industry? Yes, we can!
how to destroy your state's economy
A tragedy in three parts:
I) The Communist(!) ruling government in West Bengal seizes land near Singur, 30mi from Calcutta, for Tata’s new low-cost Nano car. The proletariat rebels, egged on by opposition parties and Marxist leaders.
II) Tata threatens to leave West Bengal altogether. Farmers don’t actually want Tata to leave West Bengal, but would like to not be robbed by Communists. Industry still tires of constant land grab fiascos.
III) Western India offers a site where factory openings won’t be marred by near-civil-war conditions. The deindustrialization of Eastern India continues.
And so continues the downward spiral of what was once India’s most-industrialized region. All this could’ve been solved if Eastern India had an efficient (or at least functional) legal system allowing for voluntary transfers of property. But that would hurt the one industry that is thriving in West Bengal: mass pissing and moaning.
- 24 Aug 2008
- 10:30am EDT
- Uncategorized
links for 2008-08-24
-
Beijing Summer Games officials have the unenviable task of assigning Chinese transliterations to Western players' names—and making sure the characters' meanings aren't offensive.
-
Christopher Niemann describes how the plans for pixelated bathroom tile art went from Titian to Warhol.
- 23 Aug 2008
- 10:31am EDT
- Uncategorized
links for 2008-08-23
-
The debate over the efficacy of preschool rages on even as the Dems push for universal pre-K.
-
As General Petreus leaves for CentCom, the WSJ looks back at the remarkable turnaround in the condition of postwar Iraq. Don't expect to see his detractors giving him any credit; no doubt magical "inertia" fairies caused it, like they brought down the Soviet Union.
-
A flash panorama of the National Aquatics Center in Beijing (I cannot bring myself to call it "the water cube"). It's pretty big.
-
Silver-Zinc batteries are the successor to today's Lithium ion batteries, and can supposedly fit 40% more energy in a given space than its predecessor. Apple is among the companies rumored to be first in line for the new battery. I can't wait: it would be nice to get more than 2 hours of battery out of my laptop. (Of course, buying a new laptop would help, too.)
-
Context for American readers: Uma Bharti is a formerly BJP politician and the Cynthia McKinney of India. No, Uma, if the BJP were trying to kill you, they'd free some cattle from slaughter and hope that by divine intervention, the cattle trample you. And when that doesn't happen, they'd bitch about it for five years.
-
"Celebrating last-place finishes at the Olympics. Because they're there, and you're not."
-
A No Reservations producer on fake-pooing and other adventures in Egyptian bureaucracy.
- 22 Aug 2008
- 3:35pm EDT
- & Cetera, Politics, War & Peace
- This post contains political opinions. Reader discretion is advised.
do people not check their acronyms regularly?
Someday, I’d like to tell the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that they’re motherfuckers. They’d kill me, but I’d die laughing.
- 22 Aug 2008
- 2:58pm EDT
- Politics
- This post contains political opinions. Reader discretion is advised.
quote of the day
It’s healthy one, from Peggy Noonan’s column on McCain’s resurgence:
I suspect everyone has the convention speeches wrong. Everyone expects Mr. Obama to rouse, but the speech I’d watch is Mr. McCain’s.
He’s the one with the real opportunity, because no one expects anything. He’s never been especially good at making speeches. (The number of men who’ve made it to the top of the GOP who don’t particularly like making speeches, both Bushes and Mr. McCain, is astonishing, and at odds with the presumed requirements of the media age. The first Bush saw speeches as show biz, part of the weary requirement of leadership, and the second’s approach reflects a sense that words, though interesting, were not his friend.)
But Mr. McCain provided, in 2004, one of the most exciting and certainly the most charged moment of the Republican Convention, when he looked up at Michael Moore in the press stands and said, “Our choice wasn’t between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war, it was between war and a greater threat. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. . . . And certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam’s Iraq was an oasis of peace.” It blew the roof off. And the smile he gave Mr. Moore was one of pure, delighted malice. When Mr. McCain comes to play, he comes to play.
I’m really sorry I missed the ’04 convention. I was sort of out of town at the time.
- 22 Aug 2008
- 10:32am EDT
- Uncategorized
links for 2008-08-22
-
The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics…in Legos!
-
Evil capitalist girls called "selfish" by the California mayor who shuts them down. Thank goodness: the eleven-year-old and three-year-old behind this capitalist machine were exploiting the community! Engaging in exploitative commercial activity without a permit! Thank goodness we had the government to put a stop to this scandalous activity