Media I've enjoyed recently 2012

Culture and Humanity:

- Donegal Tweed (Put This On)

- Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to global voices (TED Talk)

- Mark Bezos: A life lesson from a volunteer firefighter (TED Talk)

- Model: Network's Tiny Tendencies Lead to War or Peace (60-Second Science)

- Researchers Attempt To Count Drunk Sports Fans (60-Second Science)

- Ancient People Played Lots Of Games (60-Second Science)

 

Environment:

- Carl Safina: The oil spill's unseen culprits, victims (TED Talk)

- John Delaney: Wiring an interactive ocean (TED Talk)

- Farmed Oysters Could Help Revitalize Chesapeake Bay (60-Second Science)

- Presence of Parks Leads to More Physical Activity (60-Second Science)

 

Physics and Astronomy:

- From Eternity To Here: Sean M. Carroll's Quest To Understand Time (Science Talk)

- Simulation Says Single Collision Created Pluto's 3 Companions (60-Second Science)

- Alcoholic Beverages Induce Superconductivity (60-Second Science)

- Buckyball Traps Single Water Molecule (60-Second Science)

- New Evidence for Comet Sources of Ocean Water (60-Second Science)

 

Technology:

- David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization (TED Talk)

- Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic? (TED Talk)

- AnnMarie Thomas: Hands-on science with squishy circuits (TED Talk)

- Electronic Gadgets Before Bed Can Hinder Sleep (60-Second Science)

- Bacteria Help Restore Art (60-Second Science)

- Batteries Could Get Algae Boost (60-Second Science)

 

Law and Politics:

- Clay Shirky: Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea) (TED Talk)

 

Physiology and Psychology:

- Musical Chills Related to Brain Dopamine Release (60-Second Science)

- Device Cancels the Sound and the Feary (60-Second Science)

- Writing Exercise May Lessen Performance Anxiety's Effects (60-Second Science)

- People Drive to Reach Round-Number Goals (60-Second Science)

- Broccoli Fights Cancer by Clearing Bad Tumor Suppressors (60-Second Science)

- Associating with Brand Name Changes Behavior Even without the Product (60-Second Science)

- Bioengineered Blood Vessels Are State-of-the-Artery (60-Second Science)

- Handlers' Beliefs Can Influence Bomb Dog Alerts (60-Second Science)

- Being Multilingual Helps with Multitasking (60-Second Science)

- Just How Big A Deal Is Milk Drinking? (60-Second Science)

- Blind Fish Sleep Less, Forage More (60-Second Science)

- Addiction Centers Should Think Twice Before Banning Smoking (60-Second Science)

- Spit Analysis Reveals Hocker's Age (60-Second Science)

- The Eyes Have It: A Protein For Magnetic Sensing (60-Second Science)

- Mammoth Hemoglobin Could Provide Cold Comfort (60-Second Science)

- How The Koala Got Its Low Voice (60-Second Science)

- Chivalrous Crickets Benefit from Protecting Mates (60-Second Science)

- Women On The Pill Might Like Their Men On Paper, Not In Bed (60-Second Science)

Media I've enjoyed lately 2011

Wow. Lots to catch up on since the last time I posted on podcast episodes I really enjoyed. Not to worry, though, most of them are from 60-Second Science.

 

Science and Technology

Science Talk - The Poisoner's Handbook : The Sinister Side of Chemistry

Astronaut Love: An Interview with Spacewalker Stanley Love

TEDTalks - Mike deGruy: Hooked by an octopus - Mike deGruy (2010)

Hans Rosling on global population growth - Hans Rosling (2010)

Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine - Hans Rosling (2010)

60-Second Science: Trusting Souls Excel at Spotting Liars

Low-Level Moral Transgressions Make Us Laugh

Solar Panels Dust Themselves Off

Dinner Party Discovered 12,000 Years Later

Organic Strawberries Beat Conventionally Grown In Test Plots

Pirates Need Science, Too

Butterflies Choose Plants for Medicinal Qualities

Mice Prefer Treats They Worked Harder to Get

Neandertal Brains Retained Infantile Shape

Daydreaming Diminishes Happiness

Follow the Money to See Real Communities

CSIs Could Estimate Victim's Age with Just Blood

It's Even More Full Of Stars

Saturn's Rings May Be Remnants of a Moon

Database Tries to Track Culture Quantitatively

Young Female Chimps Cradle Stick-Toys like Dolls

 

Creativity and Learning

TEDTalks - Cameron Herold: Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs - Cameron Herold (2010)

Aditi Shankardass: A second opinion on learning disorders  - Aditi Shankardass (2009)

John Hunter on the World Peace Game - John Hunter (2011)

Jok Church: A circle of caring - Jok Church (2007)

60-Second Science: Reach Kitchen Staff with Safety Stories

 

Health

TEDTalks - Ananda Shankar Jayant fights cancer with dance  - Ananda Shankar Jayant (2009)

Stephen Palumbi: Following the mercury trail - Stephen Palumbi (2010)

Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work - Nigel Marsh (2010)

60-Second Science - Ancient Brewmasters Made Medicinal Beer

A Few Drug-Resistant Bacteria May Keep the Whole Colony Alive

Salmonella Take Advantage of Our Battle Plan

City Living Promoted Resistance to Infectious Disease

Love Lessens Pain

Clenched Muscles Assist Self-Control

New Crop of Elderly Outsmart Their Predecessors

Receptors for Taste Found in the Lungs

Text Message Outreach Improves HIV Patients' Outcomes

Exercising to Music Keeps Elderly Upright

Ultramarathoners Reveal "Safe" Injuries

Think More to Eat Less

Trained Rats Sniff Out TB

Placebos Work Even When You Know

98.6 Trades Metabolic Cost for Fungal Protection

 

Simplicity

TEDTalks - Jessi Arrington: Wearing nothing new - Jessi Arrington (2011)

 

Tasty podcasts 2011

Thanks to a lot of plane trips lately, I'm starting to catch up on my backlog of subscribed media. Here's the cream of the crop! (Note for those on slower connections, the TEDTalks are all videos).

 

Science

Darwin Day Special, Part 2: Evolutionary Psychology and Religion Yes, yes, heard this two years late, but this is what happens when your commute is less than 30 feet.

60-Second Science: Caterpillar's Innards Move Before It Does

60-Second Science: Superstar Is Remnant of Three-Star System Mangled by Black Hole

60-Second Science: Case Study: Tongue Stud Play Causes Front Teeth Gap Don't get a tongue piercing, really.

60-Second Science: Almost a Million Years Added for Earliest Human Ancestor Stone Tool Use and Meat Eating And, on Steve Mirsky's excellent advice, I just visited the marvelous Australopithecus afarensis models in the Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It's a magnificent collection of exhibits and teaching tools, as well as being full of beautifully moving things like these little figures that loom so large in our understanding of our origins.

TEDTalks : Anthony Atala on growing new organs - Anthony Atala (2009)

TEDTalks : Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero! - Bill Gates (2010) An inspiring and encouraging talk about the great challenge and just how to address it.

TEDTalks : James Randi's fiery takedown of psychic fraud - James Randi (2007) Randi is always a kick in the pants.

TEDTalks : Bart Weetjens: How I taught rats to sniff out land mines - Bart Weetjens (2010) Hooray for hero rats!

 

Games

TEDTalks : Toys that make worlds - Will Wright (2007)  Heard it before, but loved it again.

TEDTalks : Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world - Jane McGonigal (2010) Super wonderful inspiration!

 

Culture and Change

60-Second Science: Fancy Brand Logos Send Mixed Messages Paging Cayce Pollard...

60-Second Science: Public Underestimates Savings of Energy Efficiency

TEDTalks : Institutions vs. collaboration - Clay Shirky (2005) Nice to view in context of more recent work. Interesting to see where his research focus has shifted.

TEDTalks : Eric Dishman: Take health care off the mainframe - Eric Dishman (2009)

TEDTalks : Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions - Sam Harris (2010) Grabbing the bull by the horns.

TEDTalks : Catherine Mohr builds green - Catherine Mohr (2010) Going greener isn't always obvious.

 

Food

TEDTalks : Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food - Jamie Oliver (2010) And that led me to his fun Ministry of Food videos available through iTunes. Looking forward to trying some of those recipes.

TEDTalks : Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish - Dan Barber (2010)

 

Art and Creativity

TEDTalks : All roads lead to Rome Antics - David Macaulay (2002) I'm a loooong time Macaulay fan and really enjoyed this insight into his creative process.

TEDTalks :  Joshua Prince-Ramus: Building a theater that remakes itself - Joshua Prince-Ramus (2009)

TEDTalks : Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from - Steven Johnson (2010) A wonderful romp and encouraging (especially with concepts like the "slow hunch"). I'm happy that one of the next books in my to-read stack is by him.

TEDTalks : Ze Frank's web playroom - Ze Frank (2010) Ze's stuff is so beautiful. He makes the web and the world better.

Recently enjoyed podcasts 2010

Still catching up on my subscriptions, which are sized a little large for someone who no longer commutes or takes many plane flights. Despite that, I'm keeping the list I have because the content is just so frequently rewarding when I do make the time to listen.

Productivity

"David Allen - Guided GTD Mind Sweep"

 

History

Love love love the British Museum/BBC series A History of the World in 100 Objects. Here are some favorite episodes:

"Early Writing Tablet"

"Lachish Reliefs"

"Sphinx of Taharqo"

"Oxus Chariot Model"

"Head of Augustus"

"Warren Cup"
"Last week we looked at power and how it was exercised around the world 2000 years ago. The theme of this week's programmes is pleasure, social activities. We're spinning the globe again, taking in pipe smoking and ball games in north and south America and in China a kind of Debrett's guide to court etiquette for women. We start and end the week, though, with the Roman empire and with spice, both actual and metaphorical. We end with pepper and we're going to begin with porn."

"Hoxne pepper pot"

"The David Vases"

"Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy"

"Shiva and Parvati Sculpture"

"Durer's Rhinoceros"

 

Science, Technology, Education, Design

Some great bites from Scientific American's 60-Second Science:

"Last Supper Keeps Swelling"

"Climate Change Ups Infectious Disease Risks"

"Synchrotron Focuses on New Hominid Fossil"

"Cheap Photovoltaics Wins M.I.T. Clean Energy Prize"

"Baby Coral Home In by Sound"

"Entomophagist Calls for Cricket Casseroles"

"And the Weirdest New Species Are..."

"Bone Marrow Transplant Stops Mouse Version of OCD"

"Construction: Don't Hold the Rice"

"Tech Team Puts Microscope on Cell Phone"

"Encourage Walking with Urban Planning"

"Copying Butterfly Wing Scales Could Fight Forgers"

"Vodka Brand Differences May Reflect Water-Alcohol Arrangement"

"Male Voice Good Indicator of Physical Strength"

"Ostriches Offer Clues to Dinosaur Motion"

"Later School Start Time Leads to Better Students"

"Design Boosts Chances for Air-Powered Motorcycle"

"Sports Results Affect Voter Behavior"

"Mass Transit Encourages Exercise and Weight Loss"

"Arctic Genes Make Vaccines That Can't Stand Heat"

"Clothing That Can Record or Produce Sound"

 

TED Talks

"Eve Ensler: Embrace your inner girl"

"Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?"

"Fabian Hemmert: The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone"

"Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love"

"Heribert Watzke: The brain in your gut"

 

Ockham's Razor

"An innovator for the ages"

"A noun in your auricle"

Kobayashi Maru, man. 2010

I love Merlin Mann and Jeff Veen's kickass brains.

The whole episode of Dan Benjamin's The Conversation is very worth watching, but this bit resonated deeply:

Merlin: "There's still companies today where they are feverishly trying to lock down, like not let you get to Gmail and not let you get to any of this stuff, but you've got 3G on your phone! You know? It's there's this shift that – ...we usually use this in the sense of talking about media – but the toothpaste is out of the tube with this stuff. ... It's not like it used to be like you're describing, Jeff. Like back in the day when if I wanted to do anything with email, I had to go to the office and sit down with Eudora and my Hayes modem and that was a completely different way of thinking about my work than it is today. And I think that you're describing a shift, though, that's a whole constellation, a syndrome of changes that IT in particular is probably having a pretty hard time keeping up with."

Dan: "Well, you know, just the existence – to kind of support what you're saying - just the existence of apps like Gowalla, the existence of the Gowalla/Foursquare mentality, of something like that couldn't have existed the way it does now just a few years ago, let alone a decade ago. And I think people want to be in touch and it's like would a company now, today, a new one, ever be able to do anything but encourage this kind of thing? And when is enough enough?"

Jeff: "Well, I'll tell you, there's another shift as well, and it's not just this 'IT departments trying to exert control', but it's also this notion of how you measure productivity. Right? ... In the past corporate productivity measurements were about your butt in a chair for forty hours a week. Right? You know, filing your TPS reports. So that's why you see crazy stuff, like, you know, firewall filters that won't let you go visit Facebook while you're in the office. As opposed to... be more milestone-based, set out your objectives, know what they are, get them done, have a deadline, and then leave me the hell alone. I'll get my work done and that might actually require me connecting with somebody on Facebook to answer a question, or, or whatever! Right?"

Merlin: "Yeah, it's infantilizing!"

Jeff: "It is!"

Merlin: "What's funny to me in this is again another thing from the book, but, like, to me this is a huge pattern is that what is knowledge work at the heart of it? Knowledge work is you hire somebody because they're smart and they either know how to solve a problem you don't know how to solve or they know how to solve it better and more efficiently than you. So they're a part of this value chain where, like I call it the black box career, but you don't need to know everything about MySQL to go hire the guy who's your MySQL admin. You just need to know that that person does a good job with it. ...Pragmatic Thinking and Learning, Andy Hunt (one of the Pragmatic Programmer guys), he has this wonderful term, and I really recommend this book for anybody... and the phrase he uses is... that the problem at a lot of companies like you're describing, Jeff, is they're trying to herd racehorses and race sheep. And so, in that instance, you are infantilizing people whose job it is to figure out what their job is. ... You know what, just tell me the deadline and the rules. Kobayashi Maru, man. I will figure out how to do this, but, like, get out of my face and stop trying to give me unnecessary rules. In my opinion, that is a failure of management. You look at somebody like Lopp, right? Michael Lopp. You talk to Michael and he will just say 'You know what my job is as a manager? My job is to get out of the way, remove barriers, and then run defense so my people don't get interrupted.' And that is so different from 'You need to be sitting and checking email all day long so I know that you're there.'"

Jeff: "It's about trust, right?"

Merlin: "The lack of trust, absolutely, the lack of trust. And also... when you get to the big company level you end up having... more mortar than brick."

Handy city info for your address 2010

I was checking to confirm who my city supervisor is when I found this handy dandy service from the San Francisco government. Just type in your address (or a cross street) and you'll find out

• Your parcel information (block & lot, zoning, lot area)
• Elected officials with links to their home pages (Board of Supervisors, U.S. House of Representatives, State Senate, State Assembly, BART Board of Directors)
• Street information with – woo hoo! – street sweeping info for both sides of your block
• Nearest school and public library

Hooray for public information!

Recently enjoyed podcasts 2010

Since I no longer have a commute or do so much plane travel, I am not consuming podcasts at the same rate as I used to, but they are great while I do dishes or vacuum. I also use them to induce happy calm on bus rides with irritating fellow passengers.

Here's what's stuck out for me lately among my subscriptions.

Productivity:

"Goal Setting" from David Allen Company

Science:

"Olduvai Stone Chopping Tool" from the British Museum and BBC's brilliant 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' series. This stuff just gives me chills, even more so since I've actually stood at the lip of the gorge (on my 2005 trip to Africa). We all come from this heritage.

A bunch from 60 Second Science:
"Monkeys Hate Others' Bonuses, Too"
"Count On Steves to Defend Darwin"
"Earths Common as Dirt"
"Money Can Buy Happiness Sometimes"
"Waking in the Dark: Daylight Saving Time"
"Heart Keeps Pumping Out New Cells"
"Breathing Easy Thanks To Great Oxidation Event"
"Iron Will to Live for Antarctic Microbes"
"Monkey Drives Dinosaur Game Extinct"
"Elderly Who Forget Age Remember Better"
"Bad Mileage Driving Tips"
"Rain Zone Moving North"
"Profanity Bleeps Physical Pain"
"Cat Call Coerces Can Opening"
"What's Behind Birthers' Obama Belief"
"Hot Rocks Were Technology Revolution"
"Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blind Monkeys"
"Salty Origins for Early Earth Biomolecules"
"Teen Inventors Fight Tinnitus"
"Pill May Change Attraction"
"Wind Farmers Go to School on Fish"
"Black Hole Quasar Building Galaxy"
"Caffeine Merely Masks Alcohol's Effect"
"If Time Flew, You Had Fun"
"Lighter Drinks Avoid Heavy Head" (Or just try smaller, better drinks, mm?)
"Gunfight Tip: Faster to Draw Second"
"Ancient East Asian Found in Roman Empire"

Cocktails:

"Traveling Mixologists Rock Paris, episode II" from OhGo.sh

Happy listening!

Meetings Cost A Lot 2010

I'm pleased to see that others have had the meeting cost calculator idea and done something about it.

Toby Tripp, Lydia Tripp, and Roy Kolak's Meeting Ticker has now been joined by Bring Tim.

Every tech company I've ever worked with (except those run by Clemens Pfeiffer) has needed a device like this, but some need it more than others. Yes, you with the weekly hour-plus meeting attended by the CEO and three VPs, I'm looking at you.

(Thanks for linky goodness, Boing Boing!)

2008

Go check out more great cartoons by Nick at Nearing Zero.

(Cartoon by Nick D Kim, nearingzero.net. Used by permission.)

Back from Philadelphia, and time for more links 2008

Food & Drink
First a couple restaurant recommendations in Philadelpia: James and El Vez. Great food, great service, two totally different styles. Alas, did not make it to Southwark, so it'll have to wait for another trip.

Politics
I enjoyed this useful summation of the U.S. presidential candidates' views on science, particularly evolution: Evolutionary Politics: Why we should care what candidates think about biological evolution by Ronald Bailey. This includes a most entertaining (and pleasing) quote from Senator Mike Gravel.

Science
Here's a nice overview of the kind of information we're getting from National Geographic's Genographic Project, Dr. Spencer Wells in Vanity Fair's Africa issue with an article called Out of Africa. You can also click through from this linked page to a short video on four different people's results in the Genographic Project after having been found by Dr. Wells in Grand Central station.

Sure, the new MacBook Air is nice, but I'd much rather map my entire genetic information and then have a multi-hundred dollar start on a health savings account to use toward preventative care for anything problematic it reveals. Here's an article on that kind of mapping along with a Wired Science video interview with Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki, co-founders of 23 And Me personal genome service. And here's a New York Times article on gene mapping by Amy Harmon, My Genome, Myself: Seeking clues in DNA.

The Arts
The lovely and talented Miss Varla Jean Merman will be performing her show Loves A Foreign Tongue at the soon-to-close Empire Plush Room here in San Francisco January 24-26th and Jan 31st-Feb 2nd.

What a wonderfully diverse day off I'm having! Thanks to friends for links & recommendations.

Holy crap, MORE links! 2008

The internets are full of neat things, I tell ya. Here, watch me.

First, tasty tasty science:
New York Times article on Greenland, ice melt, sea levels, coastline change and time. I am not buying waterfront property.

Murray Gell-Mann speaking delightfully on beauty and truth in physics.

Richard Wiseman's Quirkology is probably my favorite episode of the Point of Inquiry podcast so far. (I've been listening to them all, catching up with the several year old series).

60-Second Science's year-end episode Another Ellipse Around The Sun was quite pleasing.

How about a delicious cocktail or three after all that science?
Three in one with Chris McMillian of New Orleans' episode on the Brandy Alexander and its siblings.

And lastly a book to recommend:
Did I tell you how great Annalee Newitz's book Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters In American Pop Culture is? Well, I loved it. Good, solid academic writing; serious horror movie fan geek cred. Perfect balance on an unlikely razor edge.

A Kottkesque frenzy of links 2008

Oh so many things to link for you today!

Food!
I've only read a couple posts but already I know that I can highly recommend The French Laundry At Home. Carol cooks Keller - the entire book - at home and the results are great. Good photography and witty writing. Start here with Gazpacho with Balsamic Glaze. (PNord, you should be all over this one!)

Bento fans and parents will dig Lunch In A Box by Biggie.

Drink!
Lovely apple garnish here on the Angel Face Cocktail as made by Erik of the blog Underhill-Lounge.

Brilliant Cocktails is a nice video blog from bartender Chris Doig of Copenhagen. Must watch episodes: The Manhattan and The Old-Fashioned. Also recommended: The Cosmopolitan, The Margarita, The Sazerac, The Espresso Martini and The Cucumber Fizz/Collins. Unfortunately no new posts since last August, but a good body of work while it was active.

The friendly home host viewpoint is nicely provided by Steve & Paul of Cocktail Buzz. I like their low-key style and the way they do food pairings for each drink. Check out their episode The Vesper paired with Warmed Olives.

Though the delivery style of Alberta Straub of the video podcast Cocktails on the Fly and her chunky salad drinks can put me off, sometimes we agree and her episode on bitters is one of those times. I also confess to a desire to try her recipe for The White Russian which looks fantastic. Her Citrus Sugar and The Mary Ann With Ginger are also on my to-try list. (However, I will give my opposing viewpoint on two things: don't hit your shaker against the counter to loosen your glass, use the heel of your hand on the side of the metal shaker in the direction the mixing glass is already leaning (illustrated by Robert "Drinkboy" Hess in his bar tools & Caiparinha episode of The Cocktail Spirit), and don't sugar the rim of a glass on the inside edge).

Travel!
Buzz put up his guide to his favorites in New York City and mentioned in Twitter an addendum to the Cocktail Bars section: Employees Only.

All the video podcasts above can be subscribed to through iTunes except Robert Hess' The Cocktail Spirit.

End of year open browser tab closure link roundup 2007

Loved this very cool NPR piece on the 10th anniversary of the "web log". Travel back in time to the beginning of this blog, also dating back to the late 1990s. First mention of the word "blog" here? May 24, 1999 (the post titles were added later when I brought these pre-blogging software posts into Blogger & later Movable Type).

My friend Buzz found this great quote from Danah Boyd - my one-letter-different web geek conference badge sista - which nicely sums up what's wrong with social technologies. I spend time reading Buzz's Twitterings because he's worth my time.

Nice short little article from the SF Chronicle mentioning great San Francisco bartender William "Cocktail Bill" Boothby, whose 1907 book The World's Drinks & How To Mix Them you may recall my mentioning as the source of the Ruby Cocktail, our featured drink last New Year's Eve.

There's high praise for Boothby in a 1934 piece in The Recorder, quoted here (scroll down to "The Immortal Masterpiece of Mixology").

Bill was placed behind the famous bar of the Palace Hotel by the discriminating Colonel Kirkpatrick. They were all aces behind that mahogany, and Bill was the ace of aces. To see him rotating three cocktail glass between the fingers of his left hand while measuring a jigger of gin or vermouth with the right was to witness a masterpiece of art in the making. Alas! Prohibition came, and Maxfield Parrish's "Pied Piper" looked down upon no more cocktail and highball devotees.

Sadly, I'm not sure the current staff behind the bar know the glorious history. Elixer's counter-example isn't enough to convince me that the presence of televisions in a bar indicates lesser skill on the part of the bartenders.

Boothby fans stay tuned; how does Dinah spend an afternoon off? At the library in the historical collection, photographing every page of that 1907/1908 edition of The World's Drinks! This & other public domain treasures coming soon to a Flickrstream near you...

How did I not know of the the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society? What a totally cool use of all the new techniques for studying genetic information! I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my kit.

Next up: uncluttering the fridge with Serious Eats advice.

Interesting link roundup 2007

Lots of goodies for you today, most of them found via the amazing kottke.org, the only non-Achewood website I read almost every single day.

First some horror, the Bush administration's approach to executive privilege: an executive order cannot limit a president, the president can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise , and the Department of Justice is bound by the president's legal determination. By those rules, Watergate wouldn't have justly brought down an administration acting against America's best interests. Scary, scary stuff indeed.

You can wash the bad taste out of your mouth with some science by reading this cool piece by Bernard Foing on what Earth would be like if we didn't have a moon and how having a moon has influenced life on this planet.

The first four minutes of The Kingdom are a fascinating whirlwind tour of the history of American-Saudi Arabian relations.

I also liked this smart thinking found by Jason Kottke on Henry Abbott's TrueHoop: tell me what you know; tell me what you don't know; tell me what you think; and always keep those three separated. Very good advice indeed.

And your moment of zen (thanks to Jessamyn!): a running buffalo.

p.s. One more great video link courtesy of Beau: A truly great little video by wonderingmind42 talking about how to approach major scientific/social questions like the fear of catastrophic climate destabilization (a.k.a. "global warming"). (Good work, sports racer! It's great to see how Ze Frank's The Show has helped this kind of project bloom).

A small assortment of links 2007

Great diagram in this article showing the difference between the farm subsidies pyramid and the nutritional guidelines pyramid. Definitely time for some reform, methinks.

Deeply scary and underhanded stuff happening with the current administration's tinkering with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

At least one thing that makes you cry has a chance of relief: Onion Action Goggles!

Some enjoyable podcast episodes to check out 2007

Evolution 101 is a nice orderly laying out of the basics. The first episode, What Is Evolution?, and the fifth, Random or Nonrandom, have been my favorites so far of the six I've heard.

Nova ScienceNow podcast had a cool piece with Sheldon Glashow called Big Physics, all about the Large Hadron Collider and what it may tell us.

This episode of Science & The City with Alyce Santoro is super fun; I would have liked the baseline idea of a Dorkbot presentation getting picked up for national distribution in and of itself, but her project - sound fabrics - is really cool.

Blogging through the fog 2007

In headcold hell today, but am starting to go stir crazy to do *something* despite my thickheadedness. Thus for your enjoyment here are some links without the big insightful posts I'd intended to write (for weeks now, alas).

Economic news to make you gnash your teeth: Bush tax cuts make balancing budget impossible in 2007 through 2010. The trend beyond 2010 is even more scary, particularly when you look at the comparison between that lost revenue and benefits through Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. I am still rather unclear on what exactly these "conservatives" are supposed to be conserving; smells like bad fiscal management to me.

More pleasing economic historical analysis from Nicholas Wade, "In Dusty Archives, a Theory of Affluence" which anyone interested in the transition from traditional economies to industrial ones will find thought-provoking.

Wondering what happened to those old J. Peterman catalog writers? 2006

They're apparently working at Woot now:

Product Info

Paper Tiger

An hour out of Grenoble, Maigny wheeled the Citroën to a halt at a checkpoint high in the Alps. A groggy soldier in a tan garrison cap slouched toward the car, exhaling clouds into the frigid, fading light of early evening. Behind him stretched the darkening peaks of the Italian Alps. This was the moment, Maigny thought, his racing mind suddenly stilled by urgency. He had to get into Italy, to let Le Moineau know his cover had been blown. The entire Resistance could very well depend on it. And these papers had to get him across the border.

“Your papers, please,” the drunken Italian soldier muttered through the open car window. He was just a boy, Maigny could see now. Couldn’t be older than 16. If Mussolini was forced to draft raw, rustic youths like this, then his poisoned dream of a new Roman Empire must be tottering over history’s grave.

“Here you are,” Maigny airily replied, with the casual composure of a Vichy businessman. “I think you’ll find that everything’s in order.” He presented five packages of HP Premium Plus 4×6 Photo Paper to the confused Fascist teenager. That’s right, thought Maigny; look it over, take your time, allow yourself to be seduced by the luxurious glossy finish. Imagine the rich, intense color possible with this premium paper. You’ve never seen anything like this back on the sheep farm in Abruzzi.

“Che cosa è questo?,” the soldier finally said. “I need to see your papers. Identification papers. Immediately.” One hand moved to his revolver. Maigny gulped.

“Certainly, certainly. I just thought that perhaps a man like you deserved a small gift, in appreciation of all your hard work defending the Duce. Please, accept this HP Premium Plus 4×6 Photo Paper as a token of my thanks.”

At last, a light went on in the Italian youth’s head, reaching him through the two-ply haze of liquor and boredom. His eyebrows rose and he quickly slid the paper into his knapsack. After a furtive glance around for any superior officers that might be watching, the soldier unhitched the metal gate across the road. With a sleepy wave, he welcomed Maigny to Italy.

Warranty: 90 days

Features:

• High gloss
• 4×6 with perforated tab
• 11.5 mil
• 280 g/m2
• 75lb
• 45 sheets (times 5)

(Thanks to Joe for the linky goodness!)

Vidal 2006

Note to you: read this interview with Gore Vidal.

Note to self: read more Gore Vidal books.

Microloaning on Memorial Day 2006

What to do on a relaxing day off? Catch up on various paperwork and email inbox items, get my fiscal ducks in a row, listen to the new music I got when I sold old CDs at Green Apple, and enjoy the view from my picture window.

One of the fun things I finally got around to doing was making a microloan through Kiva. I'm helping George Bomboko in Banda-Kireka, Uganda, set up a groundnut business at which his brother will work to help support their family. He's still looking for an additional $300, so if you have $25 sitting gathering dust in your PayPal account, why not give George or one of the other small businesspeople on Kiva's site a hand?

Here's a neat set of photos of a recent group of folks receiving their loan funds after having their business plans approved by their peers.

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Woot! It's Tuesday midday and George only needs $50 more to launch his new business. Yay, microlenders!