February 2012
9 posts
CNN’s Political Team Has It Covered →
A brief (hypothetical) snippet from CNN’s debate coverage.
WatchRicky Gervais, on Daily Show to promote new show, actually just talks to Stewart about panda sex.
Kickstarter - Double Fine Adventure →
I had to join this campaign, even though it’s already funded. Tim Schafer’s adventures are some of my all-time favorite games (e.g. Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle), and he wants to do an old-fashioned one here.
Get an extra 5GB of Dropbox space
Dropbox is beta testing some new clients that include automatic camera upload functionality. If you install one of these new builds and use the feature to upload a ton of new photos and/or videos, they will increase your storage limit up to 5GB above your current threshold. The files have to be new to Dropbox, and the videos can’t be too large; not sure what the cutoff is, but my guess is...
“We can look at this, sure, although I think we have a pretty good system set up...”
– FEC Chairman Caroline Hunter (R), on the rules that let Super PACs to hide their donors for up to 7 months.
Jonah Goldberg of the National Review wonders aloud whether they’ve got themselves a dud:
As a bunch of us have been writing around here for a while, the under-emphasized dynamic in this race isn’t that Romney isn’t conservative enough (though that’s obviously a real concern out there) it’s that he’s simply not a good enough politician. He may be the most electable on paper. He’s...
January 2012
7 posts
Finally saw Winter’s Bone. Pleasantly surprised. Usually the Odyssey is played out as a road trip in American movies, but this one goes in a different, more satisfying direction.
“Tell them to the find the money. If not we should...
Just realized Drive got no Oscar nominations. And this after I heard The Interrupters was shut out of the documentary category. Disgraceful.
“As you know, I think the outside super PACs and others is so disgraceful that...”
– John McCain. Can’t say I disagree.
venomous porridge: The Unprecedented Audacity of... →
dwineman:
Apple just released iBooks Author, a free Mac app for creating digital books for the new version of iBooks. I haven’t played with it much, but so far it looks like a very good tool. However, a curious thing happens when you go to export your work in iBooks format: This restriction — that…
December 2011
5 posts
Lowe's Is Sorry If Its Appeasement of Anti-Muslim... →
By pulling its ads from TLC’s All-American Muslim—a reality show in which Michigan-based Muslims (“terrorists”) hug, roller-blade, dance in their middle-class driveways, and engage in other banal activities (“fight the holy war”)—Lowe’s Home Improvement pleased and appeased America’s…
Devastating Explosions →
“Despite being in Washington for decades and leading the 1994 GOP revolution,...”
– From The Hill. Too erratic for their tastes, I suppose.
November 2011
6 posts
“Tomato paste is almost unique in its ability to provide a very significant...”
– PR flack for the American Frozen Food Institute, justifying the congressional designation of pizza as a vegetable. Proud day.
Omelas State University →
Good essay about the Penn State rape scandal.
In 30-Year Race, Bonds Beat Stocks →
The biggest bond gains in almost a decade have pushed returns on Treasuries above stocks over the past 30 years, the first time that’s happened since before the Civil War.
Pretty nuts.
October 2011
5 posts
Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of... →
understatementblog:
The announcement that Nexus One users won’t be getting upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich led some to justifiably question Google’s support of their devices. I look at it a little differently: Nexus One owners are lucky. I’ve been researching the history of OS updates on Android phones…
This really is a problem. What it means to me is that unless you’re...
September 2011
7 posts
The Onion: Team Returns To Stadium In Dead Of... →
COLUMBUS, IN—Members of the New Albany Bulldogs high school football team reportedly returned to East Stafford Stadium in the dead of night Friday and attempted to recover everything they had left on the field earlier in the evening. “We left everything we had out there, which was great, but now we have to get it back before our next game,” said Bulldogs starting tailback Chris Stephens, adding...
I’m cautiously optimistic about the Netflix split, with DVDs being spun off into a completely separate company. I’m partial to the DVD side of the service, and it’s gotten short-shrift for the last couple of years. Now each company can focus on doing what it does best. Qwikster can focus on delivering more awesomeness to my front door, starting with video games. Netflix can...
Did you know that the NCAA prohibits schools from giving multi-year athletic scholarships?
In October 2010, Agnew filed a class-action antitrust suit over the cancellation of his scholarship and to remove the cap on the total number of scholarships that can be awarded by NCAA schools. In his suit, Agnew did not claim the right to free tuition. He merely asked the federal court to strike down...
“The sociologist Max Weber, in his 1919 essay “Politics as a Vocation,” drew a...”
– George Packer
A Libertarian’s Lament: Why Ron Paul Is an... →
Will Wilkinson, himself a libertarian writer, on the Ron Paul doctrine, “a morally dubious ideology of privilege poorly disguised as a doctrine of liberation.” After laying out his positions on taxation and immigration (as described in Paul’s most recent book), Wilkinson surmises:
So when it comes to protecting the wealth of propertied Americans, Paul is an absolutist who...
AT&T-Mobile: Doomed, Delayed or Just Dented? →
Does competition in US wireless still live?
August 2011
9 posts
“Here lies the huge irony in this discussion. Persistent pseudonyms aren’t...”
– Kee Hinckley, on the war against pseudonymity. It’s amazing how ignorant the techno-idealist crowd can be about many people’s need to control their identities. (via Bruce Schneier)
“It is a privilege to view the Civil War merely as four violent years, as opposed...”
– Ta-Nehisi Coates, fighting back against the revisionist framing of the Civil War as a preventable “tragedy.”
Why they bought Motorola
According to Om Malik, “Motorola was in acquisition talks with several parties, including Microsoft.” This may have forced Google’s hand, given all their recent patent troubles. This makes the deal more comprehensible to me, because I don’t see how it directly support’s Google’s overall goals for Android: to get its search products on everyone’s phone....
Google buys Motorola →
This is pretty huge: Google is getting into the hardware business, and vertically integrating Android. Now how are all the other players going to react?
Apps a distraction?
Nokia’s head of North America was interviewed by Venture Beat. Here he contrasts the iOS/Android interface with the young Windows Phone 7, advocating the latter:
Weber called Android and the iOS phone platforms “outdated.” While Apple’s iPhone, and its underlying iOS operating system, set the standard for a modern user interface with “pinch and zoom,” Weber conceded, it also forces...
I’ve been hearing for years about how much money Facebook has raised, and about how its a great place to work, but I can’t think of anything new that they’ve done in ages. What is Facebook working on?
Why S.&P.’s Ratings Are Substandard and Porous →
Nate Silver takes apart Standard and Poor’s nearly worthless sovereign debt ratings.
Addicting is not an adjective.
July 2011
4 posts
Little Dragon - Ritual Union →
Loving the single, trying out the album.
Borders Forced to Liquidate, Close All Stores →