We went to the Moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians.
- Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and 6th person to walk on the moon.
Let Baconhenge be the site of your seasonal celebration! Let bacon stand in for the sacrificed Year King, French toast for the Grain Goddess, the eggs in the frittata for the Cosmic Egg, and the vegetables for the bountiful Earth on which we live.
I'm going to put on my Captain Obvious hat for a moment here and say that this does not look very healthy.
Read more here.
The Boston Globe presents the most detailed set of instructions I've ever seen along with accompanying illustrations on how to properly take a siesta or a nap. I'm not the best napper in the world so this will be useful to me.
Writer Joe Nocera published a harsh public letter today in the New York Times condemning Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang for negligently failing his duty to shareholders when he successfully engineered the rejection of Microsoft's takeover attempt of the company that he co-founded. What is interesting to me in this was the "poison pill" Yang instituted as a final safeguard against the "evil empire," which would have amounted to basically a "we have to destroy the village in order to save it" defense. What is this mysterious poison pill?
Viewing employee retention as Microsoft’s Achilles’ heel, Yang engineered an ingenious defense creating huge incentives for a massive employee walkout in the aftermath of a change of control,” reads the legal complaint. “The plan gives each of Yahoo’s 14,000 full-time employees the right to quit his or her job and pocket generous termination benefits at any time during the two years following a takeover, by claiming a ‘substantial adverse alteration’ in job duties or responsibilities.[...]
Indeed, according to the complaint, you wanted a severance plan far more aggressive than the one being recommended by your own human resources executives. Your compensation consultant called your plan “nuts” in an e-mail message. A Yahoo vice president wrote that it would be “a bizarre outcome if people who stick around make off worse financially” than people who are laid off. But another executive got to the heart of the matter. Your severance plan, he wrote, “will make things increasingly more expensive for msft though.”
Damn. That is some evil ingenious shit right there.
Read more here.
Update: One positive side effect of the Yahoo and Google ad partnership is that "Google Talk and Gmail users can chat with Yahoo Messenger users, in addition to AOL AIM users."
Ferris Bueller gets reworked into a new trailer set to music from Requiem for a Dream. It's lengthy (4 minutes) but worthwhile. I especially like the last moment in the trailer. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vy2aJY6rq8]
Amazing what music and editing can do to turn a comedy into something utterly creepy.
This video should accompany the definition of non sequitur. The more I watch it the more hysterical I find it. The look on the reporter's face is priceless especially since what she REALLY wants to say is, "Alrighty then, you are a moron." [youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry4PE93Y]
All this reminds me of the following joke:
How many kids with ADD does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
...
LET'S RIDE BIKES!
[Thanks Munira]
I tend to agree with one of the points in the Times's critique of NBC's coverage of the US Open that Tiger Woods won in dramatic fashion yesterday. While not much in sports can beat "Woods in the foreground of a camera shot, finishing a putt, while the fans erupt behind him," nonetheless golf analysts can and should do a better job of explaining their "insider terminology" as well as better illuminate what's taking place on the course for the casual or novice fan. Read more here.
This may be something only I find interesting, but on a micro level, what's the difference, in terms of strictly actual strategy and grass roots organization irrespective of politics or partisanship, this year between Obama and McCain? The difference rests with Twitter.
Don't get me wrong: the primetime TV spots, radio ads, mass mailings, phone canvassing and all the other traditional forms of campaigning are important. However, in an increasingly digital age with the decentralization of news and communication, the winner will be decided by those who can successfully leverage the Internet. As any student knows today, JFK was able to defeat Nixon in large part due to his ability to first exploit an advantage with televised debates, and thus ushering in an era marking the central importance of television for politicians. A similar revolution today is taking place. But instead of JFK and the TV, it involves Obama and the Internet.
Barack Obama has an active Twitter page with over 39,000 followers. Again, this is on a micro level, but it is a good representation that demonstrates how the Obama campaign "gets it" and is arguably running the first bellwether digital campaign that has successfully grabbed the Internet by its proverbial horns. Rather than letting itself be "Swiftboated" and its message controlled and twisted by others, Obama's presidential campaign is utilizing the vast array of vehicles of communication that are available online, be it social networking sites or user-generated content, and transforming it into a well-oiled hive-mind: E pluribus unum, or "Out of many, one." And that one being a particular message dictated by Obama's camp.
For a campaign or politician that doesn't "get it," the usage of Twitter would probably draw a complete blank (I have a hard enough time explaining the service to friends). However, Twitter can be described by a traditional political definition: Sound bites. Each Twitter update is essentially series of short sound bites, which are easily digestible, bloggable, and uhm, forwardable (you get the point). While 39,000 followers (or subscribers rather) is merely a blip, just picture the impact of 39,000 stones being tossed into a pond and the ensuing ripples. The impact can be exponential.
And on top of all this, the service is also FREE thus freeing up valuable campaign funds and resources.
I really hope political science professors are taking note of this BRILLIANT entry. Class is in session suckas.
[Note: I know that the soapbox is starting to get scuffed from all the times I've been stepping up onto it, especially as of late. I promise this isn't a frequent thing--just every four years or so. I'll soon go back to posting about absurd YouTube videos shortly, so don't go away!]
ESPN's Paul Jackson recounts an unbelievable tale of a marketing promotion gone bad for a then dismal Cleveland Indians baseball team in 1974 during a home game against the Texas Rangers. The Indians fans, fueled by an near endless supply of 10 cent beers where general delinquency with fans running across the field degenerated into havoc where essentially the inmates or fans "wielding chains, knives and clubs fashioned from pieces of stadium seats" took over the asylum and faced off against the Rangers players. The game was eventually forfeited with a phalanx of both teams--the players armed with baseball bats for protection--and "bench players forming a rearguard" escaping the chaotic stadium.
The 25 Texas players quickly found themselves surrounded by 200 angry drunks, and more were tumbling over the wall onto the field. The Texas Rangers had been ambushed.
Then the riot began. Indians manager Ken Aspromonte, his own defining moment upon him, realized that the Texas franchise might be on the verge of decimation. He too ordered his players onto the field. The bat racks in the home dugout emptied as the Indians mounted their own rescue.
10 cent beer night has to take home the award for both the worst and the best promotion ever, depending on which side of the field you are on.
The bases were yanked out and were never returned, which are probably hanging on the wall of a few Cleveland homes. In the most obvious statement of that year, American League president Lee McPhail, after the subsequent investigation, stated "There was no question that beer played a part in the riot."
Read more here.
RELATEDLY
A few years later the Chicago White Sox would have a fan riot of its own due to a promotion gone bad that resulted in a forfeit. A local DJ cooked up an "anti-disco" (disco being the rage during this era) event where fans could exchange disco LPs for a discounted ticket of $0.98 (the frequency of the radio station, naturally). The records were then placed in a crate that would be blown up.
When the crate on the field was filled with records, staff stopped collecting them from spectators who soon realized that long-playing (LP) records were shaped like Frisbees. They began to throw their records from the stands during the game, and the records often struck other fans. The fans also threw beer and even firecrackers from the stands. ...The large box containing the collected records was rigged with a bomb. When it exploded, the bomb tore a hole in the outfield grass surface and thousands of fans immediately rushed the field. Some lit fires and started small-scale riots. The batting cage was pulled down and wrecked, and the bases literally stolen, along with chunks of the field itself. The crowd, once on the field, mostly wandered around aimlessly, though a number of participants burned banners, sat on the grass or ran from security and police. People sitting in the upper deck could feel it sway back and forth from the rioters.
Watch the local news coverage (Thank God for YouTube) of this event with onsite video. It's pretty fucking wild.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=MpQfCcsqQ0E]
This violent anti-establishment fueled rage aimed against disco music may have sparked the beginning of the end of that genre, however ironically what song today at the stadiums gets people most jazzed? YMCA, led by the Yankees ground crews (poor saps).
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=4fVIjPY5fRo]
On the 25th anniversary of this incident Keith Olbermann interviewed DJ Steve Dahl, the guy if not directly responsible, then at least the public face of the fan riot. Unrelatedly, check out the smoking hot brunette wearing the white top in the background of the interview. I'd dance to Stayin' Alive with her any day:
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=8a_hBR9YuNw]
What's particularly interesting in all this is that utility player Rusty Torres was involved in both the Disco Demolition Night and 10 cent beer riots, as well as another fan incited forfeit in 1971 as a player for the Washington Senators on their last home game.
The weddings began in a handful of locations around the state at exactly 5:01 p.m. Pacific time, the first minute allowed by last month’s decision by the California Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage. Many more ceremonies will be held on Tuesday when all 58 counties around the state will be issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
CONGRATS JEFF!
Read more here.
I just may have to dust off the ol' long board for this event. Or does someone have a bike I can borrow?
Emulating similar experiments in Paris, London, and Bogotá, Colombia, New York City will close off to traffic a 6.9-mile route from the Brooklyn Bridge to East 72nd Street on three consecutive Saturdays, giving New Yorkers to a chance to explore and enjoy “car-free recreation corridors” — well, for six hours a stretch, at least.[...]
The route will run from Lower Manhattan to East 72nd Street via Centre Street, Lafayette Street, Fourth Avenue and Park Avenue. Major crosstown routes — including Chambers, Canal, East Houston, 14th, 23rd and 59th Streets — will remain open to traffic. Buses that ride along the 6.9-mile route will be rerouted during the street closings — which have been scheduled for Aug. 9, 16, and 23, from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m.
I think it's about time the government aggressively explore ways to make this City more friendly for pedestrians and non-internal combustion engine operated modes of transportation such as bicycles, skateboards, roller blades, and for Ben and his new girl, tandem bikes.
The question is how do we do this without penalizing the working and lower-middle class who are responsible for transporting the goods and products that keeps everyone happy in this city? I know this is a complex issue, but I want a SOLUTION NOW! RIGHT NOW! AND WHERE ARE THOSE GODDAMN HOVERBOARDS?!?!
Read more here.
Europeans are perhaps even more entranced than Americans by Mr Obama's message of “change” and “hope”. They are also being forced to rethink some of their deepest prejudices about America. How can the land of “Stupid White Men” produce a Barack Obama? And how can Europe go on feeling quite so superior to America when it treats so many of its own minorities so badly? The French parliament has only one black person representing mainland France.
The Economist's recent Lexington column reflects on the potential hurdles facing Obama and McCain in rebuilding America's relationship with Europe, although our neighbors across the Atlantic are currently swept up in "Obamamania" where according to a new Pew poll taken in France and Germany, 80 percent believe that Obama will "do the right thing in foreign affairs" compared to 30 percent for McCain. Of course, what that "right thing" is gets to the heart of "possible future tensions" that may arise from some of Obama's positions on issues ranging from Israel (maintaining the status quo) to his schizophrenia on free trade where he "declares himself a free-trader" but then "saturates the airwaves with ads denouncing NAFTA."
That said, in the choice between McCain or Obama, the concerns the Economist (which was decidedly pro-Hillary) has towards an Obama presidency is overshadowed by what an overall improvement, I believe, Obama will be over McCain and most certainly Bush.
Read more here.
CE: You're not going to be in LA this Wednesday are you? Me: I think I was supposed to, but no.
CE: No!
Me: Yea.
CE: The Hills is filming at my boss's sushi restaurant this week and we are going to dinner there. You were totally on my short list of invites.
Me: Oh man. I hate my life.
Bomomo, a spiro-inspired drawing program is a fun diversion that I don't recommend for people with control issues. The various drawing and brush tools move in various patterns that may not exactly conform to what you want it to do but the result is always very cool looking. Here's my creation inspired by my closest friend and worst enemy, the New York City subway system:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKQ-xj5C2m8] Andy Green, the driver behind the wheel of the car that broke both the landspeed record and the speed of sound in 1997 at Black Rock Desert in Nevada described the experience as "the hardest thing [he'd]ever done: like trying to balance the point of a pencil on the end of your finger."
And the car may be fractionally different in shape from one side to the other. It's a hand-built car. We measured it as accurately as we could, but the tiniest difference, the thickness of a few coats of paint, can make the shock waves form earlier on one side. It happens with aircraft when you take them supersonic, but tiny corrections with the controls can fix that. With the car, it's the wheels that have to take the differences in load, and you start to realise the magnitude of the forces involved when a tiny difference can translate to an extra ton of load on one of the front wheels. Once you get well over Mach 1, life gets much easier. It's getting there that's the challenge.
Read more here.
Adolf Hitler's nephew William Patrick Hitler fought against the Axis during World War II as a US seaman. After the war, he disappeared to Long Island, New York with his wife.
I was to discover that the Hitler bloodline was carried on through William Patrick's four sons - one of whom died in a road accident in 1989 - and that the brothers had decided in a remarkable pact not to have children themselves in order that Adolf Hitler's genes would die with them.
Fascinating stuff. Read more here.
Tiger Woods has gigantic (golf) balls made of steel.
Answer a few basic questions about your weight, exercise, and health then find out how long you could survive in the vacuum of space!
What a curmudgeon!
How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year? I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred.
Entertaining interview with this vocal ever critical writer.
Read more here.