September 2009
69 posts
“We are not here because the domain name could cause confusion. We do not have a...”
– Marc Randazza, lawyer for the Respondent - Talk show host Glenn Beck is pursuing the owner of the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, charging trademark violations and claiming rights to the domain. Now, the anonymous owner responds, telling an arbiter that “only an...
Chinese insurers clear to invest in real estate →
1 tag
“In Sonne’s native Denmark, as elsewhere, autistics are typically...”
– Thorkil Sonne: Recruit Autistics, part of Wired’s 12 Shocking Ideas That Could Change the World. Sonne started the company Specialisterne in 2004 after his youngest son was diagnosed with autism. I wonder if Tyler Cowen knows about this.
“New York City was originally given area code 212 when area codes were assigned...”
– Area code 212
THIS is why 212 creates status anxiety. I was surprised I haven’t seen it come up in all the discussion today. This is also why LA and Chicago have similar area codes instead of a regional pattern.
Lots of good bar, restaurant and other ideas in today’s Brooklyn Based: Romancing the Borough.
WatchProgress
How much of this is due to government action?
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“It is hard to think of a parallel in history. A country heavily in debt to...”
– Buttonwood, Chucking the buck: The dollar comes under increasing pressure
Over 300 Georgetown students have contracted the... →
The Last Days of the Polymath →
People who know a lot about a lot have long been an exclusive club, but now they are an endangered species.
Seen on both Tyler Cowen’s and Paul Kedrosky’s lists of links today.
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If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care →
Funny and depressing, via MR.
“With most infectious diseases, reducing everyone’s risk by a third would make...”
– Elizabeth Pisani: This is the worst kind of good news on Aids
“I assume that above comment was written by a human being. A’ la Turing, I...”
– Tyler Cowen The Internet is a strange place.
“The amount of money that ACORN has received in the past 20 years altogether is...”
– Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) (via unburyingthelead / curate / southpol)
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“For every newly converted vegetarian, four poor humans start earning enough...”
– James G. Workman
BUSTED: Burglar Arrested After Checking Facebook... →
thingsmydatereallysaidlastnight:
“I can see this going somewhere, but more like torrid disaster than engagement ring. You know what I mean? I’m into it.”
I’ll be surprised if this site doesn’t get a book deal in the next six months.
Paul Graham: Post-Medium Publishing →
Economically, the print media are in the business of marking up paper. We can all imagine an old-style editor getting a scoop and saying “this will sell a lot of papers!” Cross out that final S and you’re describing their business model. The reason they make less money now is that people don’t need as much paper.
A few months ago I ran into a friend in a cafe. I had a...
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The Web and Education: We Need Scale!
continuations:
Yesterday, I had a fascinating lunch with some very bright folks from the Gates Foundation. In addition to public health, the Gates Foundation appears to be ramping up its activities in education. A key topic at the lunch was the impact of the web on education. The discussion really helped clarify my own thinking about what the critical missing element is (at least so far):...
Discover Literary Oddities in the Weird Book Room →
A great collection. My favorite titles include:
Ductigami: The Art of the Tape
Doga: Yoga for Dogs
Bombproof Your Horse
Nuclear War: What’s in It for You?
Outhouses by Famous Architects
via MR.
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Expository Writing - Derek Jeter →
Absolutely brilliant, via @pkedrosky.
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Boxee Hires Ex-CollegeHumor Dude To Run Product →
“This weekend, thousands of ‘values voters’ will convene in...”
– Jews: Not “Values Voters”?
“We won this war because our men are brave and because of many things — because...”
– Ernie Pyle Op-Ed Columnist - High-Five Nation - NYTimes.com (via mikehudack)
I love this quotation.
Also, I’ve spent some time learning about WWII. The more I learn, the more convinced I become: we won because of Russia. If Hitler hadn’t been insane and greedy and just kept them as a nominal...
We're at 10%, help us reach 50% by the end of this...
brooklynskillshare:
We’ve raised $121 dollars (shout-out to: Britt Bolnick, MakerBeam, Teri Duerr, The Brooklyn Creative League, and Matt Lehrer) thus far through Kickstarter—a new way to fund ideas and endeavors!
We were able to raise $ at the benefit show, but we still need your help! Please take a moment to make a donation (no amount too small!) and help us make the 1st Brooklyn Skillshare...
Germany to Create Countrywide Hydrogen Fuel... →
Germany isn’t the only country trying to speed up the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology. Canada is working on a hydrogen highway to link Vancouver and Whistler in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, while Denmark is planning a hydrogen network to connect Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany.
President Barack Obama intends to get the White... →
Why you need to vote
mikehudack:
ohhleary:
When I went to my polling place this morning, the polls had already been open for two hours.
In those two hours, I was the fourth person to vote in my district. My district is the largest one at my polling place. It has two thick books of voter rolls. And in those two books, I was only the fourth person to sign my name in two hours.
At that same polling place last...
“What we measure affects what we do. If we have the wrong metrics, we will strive...”
– Joseph Stiglitz: Towards a better measure of well-being
3 tags
Ford finds buyer for Wixom plant, will be the... →
This is great news. A solar panel manufacturer and a large-scale battery manufacturer are teaming up to buy this 320-acre park built by Ford in 1957, investing $725 million and creating 4,000 new jobs.
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The ecological disaster that is dolphin safe tuna →
If you work out the math on this (and you don’t have to, because the environmental justice foundation did) , you find that 1 dolphin saved costs 382 mahi-mahi, 188 wahoo, 82 yellowtail and other large fish, 27 sharks, and almost 1,200 small fish. …
Is it worth saving dolphins, who were not and are not endangered, at the expense of sea turtles, sharks, and many other fish species who are...
“An overwhelming 91 per cent of Canadians rate their health system superior to...”
– Canadians!
That’s because all the people who didn’t rate it as high were allowed to die in the rationing line OR were sent straight to a death panel. Obvs. (via southpol)
Ha. The purest form of survivorship bias.
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Last.fm Scrobbles coming to a radio near you on... →
CBS is taking Last.fm to the HD radio airwaves on October 5, crowdsourced music trends and all. The company revealed in a press conference Thursday that Last.fm will take over CBS’ HD broadcast stations in four major cities across the US—Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—though listeners in other markets will also be able to tune in via Last.fm’s website as well as CBS Radio.
...
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“The brain accounts for only about two percent of a human’s body mass, but...”
– Nerve cells have an energy efficiency an engineer would love
