Paul Krugman posted an interesting map today. It’s this:
I think this resizing is important. In elections, what is more important than geographical size is the number of electoral votes. This map reflects the votes, and it reflects Obama’s victory. For more info, see the post: The decadent left, in its enclaves on the coasts – Paul Krugman – Op-Ed Columnist – New York Times Blog
On a day like today, oliveloaf design has just the images you want, so check it out. Images like this:
Know hope….
“No matter how fast your computer system runs, you will eventually come to think of it as slow.”
…was made in June, 2008. You can see it here.
I think it is a long shot, but not impossible. The 1964 election was a big event. So is this one.
Here at SmartPeopleIKnow, we …ok…I like to keep you up to date on how to best deal with zombies. Luckily, there is an entire site dedicated to fighting off that scourge. It’s the Zombie Combat Club, featuring combat techniques, weapons, and strategies to fight the living dead.
Did you know?
“During a zombie outbreak, 98% of individuals will have to kill an undead ghoul without the use of a firearm.”
I didn’t know that either. See? You need to check this out out ASAP.
No, not “old school”….foldschool. As their about page states,
“foldschool is a collection of free cardboard furniture for kids, handmade by you. The downloadable patterns can be printed out with any printer. Follow the instructions and assemble a stable piece of furniture.”
How awesome is that? You get to do something creative with your kids and you get to recycle. And if cardboard furniture is good enough for Frank Gehry, it’s good enough for me. 🙂
The designs are free, but they do accept Paypal. After having a blast making this stuff, consider sending them some paper (money) in return.
(Thanks to the always great GeekDad blog….which, by the way, is not just for dads…..moms, uncles, aunts…all are welcome. It does help to be a geek and a dad, but it isn’t essential.)
For each of these four sites Sentenc.es two, three, four and five, the idea is the same: cut down on the number of sentences you use in email.
It’s not as hard as you think.
State your request in one sentence, provide some background in one or two sentences if necessary, and close the email politely in one more sentence.
People will appreciate it.
All told in five.sentenc.es 🙂
If you are like me, you fool yourself sometimes into thinking that sandwich you bought for lunch or that muffin you eat on the go for breakfast is not all that bad for you. Chances are, you are wrong. However, if you had better information about the calories you were ingesting, you might choose a lighter alternative, I think.
Health Official in New York City thought so, too.
“Since last May, chain restaurants in the city have been required to list the number of calories for every item on their menus. According to a recent survey, more than 80 percent of those who saw the calorie count were “surprised,” even shocked, that an innocent-looking bran muffin could contain 470 calories and a full-fledged Big Mac attack (with soda and fries, of course) more than 1,200.”
Sounds like a great idea, right? Well, not to everyone.
“Some restaurants are suing to overturn the requirement. Many restaurants also back the LEAN Act, recently introduced in Congress. This deceptively named bill would pre-empt New York’s law, and a similar law in California, allowing restaurants to tuck calorie information at the back of the menu or in a separate brochure.”
I think this is a case of an opportunity in disguise. Smart restaurants will take advantage of such requirements to market new products to clients that help them with calories, rather than try and fool them. Everyone will be better off.
For more information, see the Editorial – 2,000 Is Really Enough in the NYTimes.com
There’s a treasure of good jazz on YouTube. This one, of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie performing “Hot House” in 1952, is one of my favourites.
It’s ironic that there are so many great versions of U2’s “One”. I’ve seen at least four.
On this one, the boys wisely take a backseat as Mary J Blige comes in and takes over.
Someone posted it on YouTube and titled it, “Mary J Blige featuring U2”. That’s about right.
You can see Mary on fire here:
I’d like to find a chance to get to NYC soon, just to get one of these jackets
Sadly, New York is the only city with Muji stores in North America, and they have five! Here’s hoping one lands in Toronto soon.
For more details, see the very useful blog post at The High Low on the Muji Jacket (for $139.95!)
I think slow cookers are a great idea. Too often, though, I find the end result is boring.
This recipe, with the not so interesting name of Slow-Cooker Pot Roast from marthastewart.com, is anything but.
I think the secret is the scarce amount of liquid that goes in at first (a few tablespoons). Most of the final sauce comes from the carrots and the onions.
Not only do you not get too much sauce — in fact, it’s perfect — but you also get nicely glazed vegetables because they start off in so little liquid.
In the future I am going to try cutting back on how much water, stock, juice, etc. I put in my slow cooker: I am thinking I will see better results.
I replaced some of the carrots with parsnips and served it along side mashed sweet potatoes. Perfect for busy fall weekends.
Easy! Go to this great section of the nytimes.com where you can see a time-lapsed video of the entire course traversed in just over 3 1/2 minutes. I ran it 10 years ago, but I still recognize the course after all that time and despite that speed. The main difference is that instead of cars, you will be surrounded by lots of runners and a fantastic NYC crowd that covers the entire course.
Despite it being short, you have a sense of just how long 26.2 miles is as you zip along.
There’s also a good interactive map that traces the run through the five boroughs, from all the way down in Staten Island to all the way up to the Bronx, before finally landing in Central Park.
Oddee.com is my guilty pleasure. It is a contemporary “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” (another favourite of mine since I was a kid and they had small TV segments on during lunch.)
This piece, from a post called 10 Amazing Contemporary Sculptures is a scuplture of the King from 50,000 matchsticks!
All ten sculptures are truly amazing, and the Oddee site is truly fantastic. Go see! You won’t believe your eyes. 🙂
Bruce Nussbaum is onto something he terms ZipCar Capitalism at BusinessWeek. He is…
“…off to the World Economic Forum conference in Dubai on Tuesday night after I vote. Some 700 folks, including Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine, are going to brainstorm about making post-crisis world a much better place. I spent time on the subway this morning thinking about what a new economic model might look like and what might have any chance of succeeding and came up with ZipCar Capitalism. Treehugger calls it Rentalism but that doesn’t ring well in my ears. Actually it’s Tamara Giltsoff in Treehugger who did the fantastic article.”
I think it is a great idea, but I wonder if it is “new”. The use of the Commons, of communities banding together to accomplish something, and many more cooperative ideas, aren’t necessarily new. But it may be a new time to revisit these ideas. More sharing and cooperation wouldn’t be a bad way to tackle the many economic and environmental issues we face.
And to go with the day, here is David Bowie singing: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) live
On flickr is a wonderful photo of Children on the sculpture Crouching Spider by the great artist, Louise Bourgeois. (It’s part of a fine photostream).
What I love about this photo is that while the sculpture is almost monstrous by itself, with children hanging from it, it becomes something like a jungle gym. It transforms from a thing of horror to a thing of play and joy.
Reading some interview of Bourgeois, the reason for her fondness for spiders comes through. And yet although she is fond of them, she sometimes portrays them in a way that seems to want to play on our fears of them. It’s as if she wants us to think about them positively and negatively at the same time.
I also recalled a quote from her complaining about having children because of how it prevented her from doing her art. But in the interviews I found on the Web, the essays and interviews talk about her fondness of her children.
I wonder what she would have thought of this photograph. I think she would have liked it.
James Fallows over at The Atlantic has a good run down of why Barack Obama is such a formidable politician.
In short order, it is his:
Fallows smartly compares Obama to everyone from Clinton to Reagan to JFK. The thing is, he is all those things, but he is also something new. Someone others in the future will look back for comparisons.
One thing that Fallows left out is this: his ability to make others wrongly underestimate him. This is something Reagan and Clinton had. It’s a ease they have, that allows their opponents to relax or overestimate their own strengths.
It’s going to be an interesting eight years in American and world history. In the meantime, read James Fallows’s posting. It’s good.
Amanda Jones is 109 years old. Her father was a slave.
This U.S. election, she gets to vote for Barack Obama for president.
She embodies alot of history, right up to this week. See: Daughter of slave votes for Obama
According to this, there has been a Coordinated Denial-of-Service Attacks on “No on 8” and “No on 2” (FLA) sites
My first response, on hearing someone say there has been a DoS attack on their site is: check again. Lots of problems could have occurred to affect your site. DoS is not usually the first probable cause.
However, when two sites like this are affected like this, the probability of it go way up. And the timing, just as No on 8 is pushing for a big fundraising drive, make it even more likely (and more serious).
I hope they catch who did it and the parties responsible go to jail for a signifigant period of time. DoS attacks may not be as dangerous as physical attacks on people or property, but what they are trying to achieve is the same. And what they are trying to achieve is removing people’s freedom of speech and association.
It’s time for lawmakers and law enforcement to get serious about computer crimes like this.
From the brilliant blog, indexed
It’s depressing how many of these alerts I get in my RSS feed reader. Alerts like this:
Still, it is better to know than not.
One misconception people should also know about is that store sliced meats are not necessarily safer than packaged meats. It appears many of these alerts are for packaged meats, but this alert also warns about “clerk-served sliced roast beef”.
Caveat emptor.
Normally, patronage in the political arena is seen as a bad thing. Here’s a chance where it can be a good thing.
Ana Marie Cox is one of the bright lights of U.S. journalism currently. She could use your support.
It’s easy! Just click on her name and go from there. As they say on infomercials, act now! 🙂
I am hoping that she meets her funding challenge.
I also would like to request that she take a portion of my money and use it to buy Joe Klein a drink when this is all over. He deserves a drink because (a) he’s written some great posts lately at Time’s Swampland (b) he’s had to put up with alot of unfair abuse from other writers (c) no one can mock Bill Kristol with the finesse that Joe can (he deserves a drink for that alone).
hat’s right: Microsoft Word hits 25 this year. ITBusiness.ca has a good rundown on the history — good and bad — of this software giant. I used to use Word 5 on an old Mac SE 30 and I thought it was just perfect for what I wanted. (Bonus: no $#%&* Clippy!) But Word rolls on, and new features roll along with (and into) it.
Take a walk down memory lane here: Microsoft Word Turns 25
Why? Because they are big and getting bigger. As this article shows, Marathons Grow in Popularity, but City Streets Have Limitations (NYTimes.com). So big cities are setting limits and rejecting alot of people.
Should you bother? Most definitely. The NYC Marathon is a fantastic experience. Imagine being in a 26 mile ticker tape parade in New York where you are the hero: that’s what it is like to run that city’s marathon. And anyone who qualifies for Boston has shown they are the top tier of marathon runners.
That said, there are lots of other good marathons out there not in big cities, like Columbus, Ohio, that are not as well known but very well run and very much worth attending. Big Sur on California is another. And Kiawah Island in South Carolina had a marathon in December which is a great time and great place to run. There are lots of great marathons to run. You just need to do some planning and you too can have a great experience.
I am guessing that men who wear red well will also get the attention of women. Regardless, more reasons to wear red (especially as the weather in this part of the world turns gray).
Penguin has always been a great publisher. But good books aren’t everything. You want to be able to talk about them, too. Why not talk to somewhere you can potentially hookup with? Wouldn’t that be great? Well, Penguin thought so, too! They decided to provide this. Now you can be smart and meet hot people, too! Life is good.
According to globeandmail.com there is a new source of X-rays: scotch tape!
Now, before you go and throw all your adhesive tape in the garbage, there is something to consider. For X rays to be produced from tape you need a vacuum. So while there is little to worry about, it is something to be interested in.
There are a number of sites mentioning that Alex Rivera, Photojournalist of Civil Rights Movement died today. Sadly, few of them do much more than edit and print the press release.
This is sad because he took some incredible photographs that are particularly relevant with the pending U.S. election.
Fortunately you can see an exhibit of them here and read about the exhibit here.
For example, in one, taken only 60 years ago, of Sallie Nixon and her family. It says her husband was taken from his jail cell by white men and lynched in 1948. His “crime” was that he had voted.
Go see the site and share it.
Normally, covering Marvin Gaye would be a way to show that you are…well, not Marvin Gaye.
Covering two of Marvin’s songs in this way should just be a way of showing you are….stupid.
But this is Robert Palmer. And while Palmer is always good, here he just digs into these classics and makes them his own. I like his cover of “Mercy Mercy Me”. But as he moves into “I Want You”, he soars.
Ok, I am miffed. I was writing about low cost wines well before Robert Parker, and now he is cutting in on my act! 🙂
Goofiness aside, he has a good article on Fifteen California Wines for Under $25 in BusinessWeek. For Parker, anything in the $20-$25 price range is low cost, and he mentions some here that go as low as $10 (U.S.).
If you can find any of them, I recommend you grab them and given them a try.
PS. If you live in Ontario, you can get the Château St. Jean Fumé Blanc for $20.95 (vs. $13 in the US!), the Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay for $19.95 (vs. $15 in the US), the Tablas Creek Côtes de Tablas for $25.75 (vs $22). If it is indeed the same wine, you can get the Beringer Chardonnay Napa for $27.95 (vs $16!! WTF?!)
A few years ago, this was a famous commercial.
Humourous. Stupid, but humourous.
Now we have this.
Humourous. Anything but stupid.
True
I previously showed a photograph of Barack Obama that showed his resoled shoes. It’s a telling photograph, and it was taken by Callie Shell. Click on that hyperlink: it will take you to many more great photographs of Obama on the campaign trail. Not only are the photographs great — TIME has had many great photographers working for them over the decades, including Shell — but the commentary and the context provided make them even more enjoyable.
I am sure Barrack Obama can afford more than one pair of shoes. Instead, he got them resoled. Someone took a photo of them.
In running for president, the details matter.
How to look sharp indeed.
Photo from andrewsullivan.com
Not all business news is bad news. (Ok, maybe it’s bad news for Wall St., but not Main St.) According to the reportonbusiness.com: Oil tumbles below $67.
Hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago that oil producers were worried about it slipping below $100. And in mid-July it was over $147.
For people heating their homes with oil, this will be welcome relief for the early winter.
By the incomparable Jessica Hagy and found on the Molt:n Digital Blog
I had promised I would not blog any more about Damien Hirst, but this faux news article,
NewsBiscuit: Damien Hirst sets new auction record with ‘Investment Banker in Formaldehyde’
made me laugh.
Here’s the “work” in question.
The article is good for a laugh.
And if you are Mr. Hirst, you are laughing all the way to the bank.
Really! That’s what it is. Lots and lots of BROKERS WITH HANDS ON THEIR FACES!
Like this guy:
Actually, this is a cross between hand ON his face and punching himself IN the face, but you get the idea. Go see!
It’s another fine use of one of my favourite sites, tumblr.
Remember the Milk is a great site to help you juggle all the tasks you have to do. You can and should Learn More about it: it’s packed with good features. Just some of those features I like are:
If you want to make a lot of people feel better, here’s a very easy way to do it. All you need is a nearby marathon.
Go down to where the race is. Get yourself a coffee or tea. Then as the runners come by, cheer them on.Tell them they’re looking good, they’re doing great, hang in there, tell them about upcoming downhills, cheer, clap, yell woohoo. Whatever works for you. The best runners will appreciate you just being there. The rest will be rejuvenated by your encouagement.
I went down today to the Toronto marathon yesterday and in a short time made a few dozen people smile. Having run a few myself, I know how great it is for people to turn out and do that.
Everyone in a marathon is struggling to do their best in the face of great difficulty. Even the best of runners. Your encouragment is greatly appreciated. You can make a dozen people feel better in the time it takes you to finish your tea.
Smart People I Know 
