Device

Charlie Sheen quote roundup

2011-03-03T17:03:00.000-08:00

Take the Charlie Sheen v Muammar Gaddafi quiz (I scored 4/10):
Cats quoting Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen quotes as New Yorker cartoon captions
And of course Live The Sheen Dream!
Updated with one more: Sheen, Beck or Gaddafi
And Sheen vs. Ron Burgundy (thanks TJ!)

The Shallows

2010-06-08T23:52:00.000-07:00

Socrates started what may have been the first technology scare. In the “Phaedrus,” he lamented the invention of books, which “create forgetfulness” in the soul. Instead of remembering for themselves, Socrates warned, new readers were blindly trusting in “external written characters.” The library was ruining the mind.

Beet fries in Austin

2010-06-08T23:23:00.001-07:00

Time Lapse to Albuquerque

2010-05-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

Time lapse of my drive from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, made with iTimeLapse:

Good conservative commentary on health care

2010-03-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

This very sensible article from David Frum has a couple of points worth repeating:

But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

It's scary that what was palatable to the right in 1994 is "socialism" 16 years later. Also this:

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? [...] So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished.

The first female ruler of Otuam, Ghana

2010-03-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

From the Washington Post:

Tsiami was wounded. “Why are you doing this?” he said petulantly. “You are trying to scrutinize our asses.”

Bartels turned on him with fire in her eyes and said, “That’s right! Big, small, medium-sized, short and tall asses, I will scrutinize them all! I will stick my head up there with a flashlight! Be prepared!”

Hamas killing

2010-02-18T18:04:00.000-08:00

Creepy footage of the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh assembled from various surveillance cameras:

Republicans filibuster twice as much as Democrats

2010-01-25T22:24:00.000-08:00

About halfway through this article:

Based on data provided by the U.S. Senate, cloture activities have doubled since the GOP became the minority. The average annual filed cloture motions from 2001 through 2006 was 34, but jumped to 69 in the three years since; average votes on cloture grew from 27 to 50; and per annum invoked clotures ballooned from 13 to 33. Neither party plays well with the other, but the GOP is more likely to throw a tantrum in the sandbox.

"Gutless wonders"

2010-01-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

Great post from Nate at 538:

This is not to suggest that there aren't legitimate reasons to oppose the health care bill. [...] Nevertheless, polls have consistently shown that support for the health care program increases dramatically -- probably to a plurality and possibly to a majority -- when you provide them with a neutral and accurate description of what the legislation actually contains.

There's more than way for democracy to become dysfunctional. One way is if the Congress consistently adopts policies that the American people don't support. Another is if one of the major political parties routinely misleads the public to manipulate public opinion, and the other party aids and abets them by behaving like a bunch of gutless wonders who can't see farther than the next midterm. Neither outcome is desirable -- but Iraq ought to be a reminder that the latter is every bit as much a threat to our democracy as the former.

Politically partisan, substantively bipartisan

2010-01-20T16:27:00.000-08:00

The New York Times says "The bills before Congress are politically partisan and substantively bipartisan":

The current versions of health reform are the product of decades of debate between Republicans and Democrats. The bills are more conservative than Bill Clinton’s 1993 proposal. For that matter, they’re more conservative than Richard Nixon’s 1971 plan, which would have had the federal government provide insurance to people who didn’t get it through their job.

Today’s Congressional Republicans have made the strategically reasonable decision to describe President Obama’s health care plan, like almost every other part of his agenda, as radical and left wing. And the message seems to be at least partly working, based on polls and the Massachusetts surprise. But a smart political strategy isn’t the same thing as accurate policy analysis.

And follow-up from 538.

The Antikythera mechanism

2010-01-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

I love ancient inventions:

Devices with this level of complexity were not seen again for almost 1,500 years, and the Antikythera mechanism's compactness actually bests the later designs. Probably built around 150 B.C., the Antikythera mechanism can perform a number of functions just by turning a crank on the side.

Reminds me of a book by the same name that I thoroughly enjoyed when I read it a while ago.

Deep Sea Santa

2009-12-18T16:18:00.001-08:00

A not-so-brief chat with Randall Stephenson of AT&T

2009-12-11T17:20:00.000-08:00

Great rant from Fake Steve Jobs:

And now here we are. Right here in your own backyard, an American company creates a brilliant phone, and that company hands it to you, and gives you an exclusive deal to carry it — and all you guys can do is complain about how much people want to use it. You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country.

The 9/11 of 1859

2009-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

Interesting history of John Brown in The 9/11 of 1859: "One hundred and fifty years ago today, the most successful terrorist in American history was hanged at the edge of this Shenandoah Valley town."

Op-Ed Columnist - Obama in His Labyrinth - NYTimes.com

2009-11-25T11:42:00.000-08:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Obama in His Labyrinth - NYTimes.com: Quoting Kissinger: "He reminds me of a chess grandmaster who has played his opening in six simultaneous games,” Kissinger said. “But he hasn’t completed a single game and I’d like to see him finish one."

Paying More for Flights Eases Guilt, Not Emissions - NYTimes.com

2009-11-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

Paying More for Flights Eases Guilt, Not Emissions - NYTimes.com:

"Passenger offsets purport to cancel out carbon dioxide emissions ton for ton through investments in green projects. But critics say there is no transparency about how companies measure whether that happens."

The headline makes it seem like all offsets are bad. But the above quote tells us the real problem: the offsets that people are buying are questionable. That just means we need better offsets, not that we need to abandon them altogether.

Brooks on values

2009-11-25T10:28:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/opinion/24brooks.html

Good article, although a little depressing if he's right about the trade-off.

View from the Santa Fe Institute

2009-11-19T22:06:00.000-08:00

I visited the Santa Fe Institute last weekend. It was snowing:

More expensive stuff tastes better, part 2

2009-10-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

In follow-up to my earlier post on the difficulties of accurately tasting and ranking wine: Jonah Lehrer quoting Dr. Vino:

Although Parker did not rate the wines yesterday, his top wine of the evening (Le Gay) was the lowest rated in the lineup from his most recent published reviews... For all the precision that a point score implies, it is not dynamic, changing with the wines as they change in the bottle nor does it capture performance from one tasting to the next.

And Lehrer says:

I certainly don't mean to diminish the impressive talent (and astonishing vinicultural knowledge) of Robert Parker. But I think his inability to reliably and consistently rate bottles of Bordeaux illustrates a larger problem with wine tastings, which is rooted in the sensory limitations of the human brain.

at the raceway

2009-10-16T19:50:00.000-07:00

Beach in British Columbia

2009-10-12T23:51:00.001-07:00

the scary hand

2009-10-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

Royal Canadian Legion Ladies' Auxiliary #65

2009-10-04T17:04:00.001-07:00

Best band name of the day

2009-10-04T14:59:00.000-07:00

"Genghis Tron":

Possible future of print news?

2009-10-03T15:41:00.001-07:00

An on-demand magazine created from images of the Australian dust storm:

It's as if holding something tangible is a more satisfying way to process and mark big events than bookmarking a page.

Turn-around time is a couple weeks but getting shorter.