December 2007
59 posts
Enjoying a late afternoon margarita at a Key West tea dance. Life is good.
Florida, perhaps predictably, is hot and very humid.
A special circle of Hell is reserved for airport baggage handlers.
Archaeology Magazine's Top 10 Discoveries of 2007 →
Wikipedia articles in which I'm mentioned
All related to the highest-profile single I ever remixed, though I’d have thought I’d also be in there for the work on Deep Forest or Angelique Kidjo. (You’ll have to go elsewhere for those citations.) “The Tide Is High” (Sand Dollar Remix) - Blondie Remixed Remade Remodeled - The Remix Project [US] Beautiful - The Remix Album [UK] And one place where my name comes...
Bruised and chilled, but satisfied with my snowboarding progress after two days on the slopes.
Setting out on my first day of snowboarding, ever. I understand I may be sore tomorrow.
Long Bet Winner: Weblogs vs. The New York Times →
“In 2002, blogging evangelist Dave Winer made a long bet with New York Times executive Martin Nisenholtz: ‘In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times’ Web site.’ “Today, Associated Press editors and news directors chose the top 10 news stories of the year, which makes...
Kayak Raises $196 Million, Buys Rival SideStep →
I haven’t used SideStep for years, but I love Kayak. It doesn’t have as much content as SideStep (almost none, in fact), but it’s got lots of AJAX-y goodness to make searching for travel deals fast and easy. It’ll be interesting to see if raising nearly $200M to take out a rival is a good play. They’ll have to integrate the user databases and settle on a single...
Megan McArdle: Gold standard...Ron Paul...both... →
Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines of 2007 →
They cover the Top 10 in depth, with videos and tasting notes. The full list is available as a PDF.
Not too shabby
23
Facebook Friend Lists let you manage your... →
This is a much-needed feature. I don’t have 5000 friends like Mark Cuban does, but I like that I can organize them myself. Haven’t tried it yet, but I assume you can add people to more than one list — which I prefer to think of as “tagging” them.
“The idea of tapping into a decentralized workforce to handle lots of repetitive...”
– The People Inside Google’s Black Box (Saul Hansell / NYTimes.com)
Errol Morris: "Cartesian Blogging" →
Morris’ “blog” at NYTimes.com is amazing. He opened with a series of riveting essays dissecting a pair of photographs from the Crimean War (yes, riveting), but his wide-ranging, erudite, and earnest responses to reader comments are even more impressive.
And Tango Makes Three
Google Books: “When male penguins Silo and Roy attempt to hatch an egg-shaped rock and find no success in their efforts, the zookeepers decide to place a fertilized penguin egg in their cage and end up with little baby Tango, in an amusing tale based on a true story from the Central Park Zoo.” It’s a children’s book, co-authored by Justin Richardson and his partner, Peter...
“Once there, they discover the sunshine isn’t enough. Nothing happens. They don’t...”
– This is how Nathanael West, in Day Of The Locust, describes those seekers who end up in Los Angeles. It’s how I felt about San Diego.
Overheard in the men's room
On the introduction of auto-flush toilets: “At least they didn’t add an automatic duvet — that would have been shocking.” Not to mention soggy.
Forbes 15 Fictional Rich List →
Includes fake billionaires from Scrooge McDuck and Jed Clampett to Gomez Adams and Tony Stark. Fake Steve is happy: “Personally I really don’t care for these lists but I must admit it did give me great pleasure to kick Willy Wonka’s sorry ass. I friggin hate that goddamn queen.”
Everyone Wants in on Latifah Wedding →
So maybe the question now isn’t “if,” but “when”. Take that, Oprah!
Apple Working on iPhone-Microsoft Exchange Fix →
Good point about the lack of cold-weather support. But then again, who wears gloves in Silicon Valley? :-P
The trouble with Italy →
But the food is so good…
Wayne Koestenbaum, queer intellectual →
Koestenbaum wrote for the Village Voice in the ’90s, which is how he first came to my attention. He is also the author of The Queen’s Throat, which explores the oft-remarked-upon predilection of gay men for opera. His new book, Hotel Theory, looks decidedly more experimental, combining “a critical discussion of the meaning of hotel life, and the aesthetic implications of such...
Darwin's Children →
More on the Moyzis paper, in typically lucid prose, by The Economist.
Evolution hasn't slowed -- in fact, it's...
I read about this study a few days ago, but the NYTimes has a good summary: Human evolution has accelerated enormously in the last 40,000 years under the force of natural selection. Dr. Moyzis said it was widely assumed that once people developed culture, they protected themselves from the environment and from the forces of natural selection. But people also had to adapt to the environments that...
Looking for a nice 1br apt east of Twin Peaks. New construction preferred. Gas stove a must. Any tips?
Iceberg ahead!
Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music, is probably the stupidest record company exec ever, which is saying something. (I worked at various PolyGram and MCA labels from 1990 to 1996, so I know whereof I speak.) Here Morris explains to Wired why he — and everyone else in the music business — couldn’t have been expected to understand the digital music revolution. Morris insists...
"Bill Me Later" added to Amazon payment options →
It’s not often that a new payment method takes hold, but “Bill Me Later” is getting traction.
deadpool @ TechCrunch →
Things are slowly heating up over at the TechCrunch Deadpool. Other than a flurry of Yahoo business-unit closures over the past six months, not too many big names landed in the drink — but the last month has seen Brightspot.tv, Edgeio, and PodTech (“I’m not dead yet!”) make appearances. But why’d they include the CompUSA shutdown? That’s as far from Web 2.0 as...
Anyone want to buy a 2006 Acurs TSX? Low miles, fully loaded. Make me an offer!
Proud atheists: Steven Pinker & Rebecca Goldstein... →
Haven’t yet read this interview that appeared in Salon back in October, but it’s printed out and waiting.
Egads! Markdown stopped working on my tumblog. (Definitely a first-world problem.)
'Futurama' — The Geekiest Show on TV →
SFZero: An interface for San Francisco
“That is to say, a new representation for the data that’s already there.” SF0.org is a roleplaying game for people who want to experience San Francisco in ways that they wouldn’t otherwise:
Your character [i.e., you] is able to do things that you may be unwilling or unable to do yourself. Your character doesn’t recognize the artificial boundaries that prevent...
“Our stores have become way too popular and are attracting people who simply...”
– Fake Steve Jobs
“A great many people have come up to me and asked me how I manage to get so much...”
– More Robert Benchley
The Sartorialist →
Candid photos of well-dressed folks on the streets of New York City. I miss my hometown — one never needs an excuse to look sharp. (Whereas in San Francisco I feel like I’m expected to apologize for wearing a sport jacket.)
The portable video camera carried by Chevy Chase in _European Vacation_ is the size of a VW bus.
“There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly...”
– Robert Benchley
"Thriller" is 25 →
It was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world during the first week of December, 1982. As was a certain someone I like very much.
Free will and the causal nexus →
I subscribed recently to Marginal Revolution, an economics blog, and almost every day there’s something worth linking to. I dipped into the MR archive today after reading a post about Tyler Cowen’s evil twin, Tyrone, and discovered that both Tyler and Tyrone are determinists — of a sort. Economics may be a dismal science but it’s not without hope and optimism, if one has...
“I think it’s time to restore freedom of contract to marriage. Why should...”
– Laissez-Faire Marriage