Matt Lehrer

"Bikes can and should behave much more like cars than pedestrians. They should ride on the road, not..."

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:05:46 -0400

“Bikes can and should behave much more like cars than pedestrians. They should ride on the road, not the sidewalk. They should stop at lights, and pedestrians should be able to trust them to do so. They should use lights at night. And — of course, duh — they should ride in the right direction on one-way streets. None of this is a question of being polite; it’s the law. But in stark contrast to motorists, nearly all of whom follow nearly all the rules, most cyclists seem to treat the rules of the road as strictly optional. They’re still in the human-powered mindset of pedestrians, who feel pretty much completely unconstrained by rules.”

- Felix Salmon: A unified theory of New York biking

A must read for all New Yorkers, not just cyclists.

Deep-fried beer invented in Texas

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:24:07 -0400

Deep-fried beer invented in Texas:

crazynutjob:

The apex of human civilization has been reached.

(via naked capitalism)

"If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:47:00 -0400

“If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.”

- blue_beetle on metafilter (via @bryce)

I frequently think about the part before the semicolon but the part after is more important.

"He was on his way to a party, and he didn’t remember where the address was stored. Was it a Facebook..."

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:19:20 -0400

“He was on his way to a party, and he didn’t remember where the address was stored. Was it a Facebook event, or in an email, or in his calendar? It was a pain to try searching all these things from his phone.”

- Paul Graham quoted in The Other Half Of Search: Greplin Is A Personal Search Engine For Your Online Life

This is one of those ideas that you can’t believe doesn’t already exist.

Flickr’s photo of the day, by kaaaarly

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:43:18 -0400

Flickr’s photo of the day, by kaaaarly

Pipe dream! State is considering long tunnel to bypass BQE

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:24:15 -0400

Pipe dream! State is considering long tunnel to bypass BQE

fashism: The Fashism iPhone app is now available in the iTunes...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:02:42 -0400

fashism:

The Fashism iPhone app is now available in the iTunes store!

* Vote on the latest looks right from your phone

* Upload your look and get instant feedback on the go

Congrats!

theeconomist: Daily Chart: the world’s largest container ports....

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:05:00 -0400

theeconomist:

Daily Chart: the world’s largest container ports. Singapore nabs the top slot.

The displacement of Europe and the US from this list by China (and Asia ex-Japan more generally) is less interesting to me than the fact that the volume moving through the busiest port in the world 20 years ago wouldn’t make the top 20 today. Incredible explosion in world trade.

This is pretty wild: Here’s a a demonstration video of...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:27:29 -0400

This is pretty wild:

Here’s a a demonstration video of EmoRate, a software program that uses the Emotiv 14-electrode EEG headset to record your emotions via your facial expressions. In the video you’ll see EmoRate record my emotions while I watch a YouTube video, then index that video by emotion, and then navigate that video by simply by remembering a feeling.

Video

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:06:59 -0400

"There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of..."

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:51:23 -0400

“There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must … invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth.”

- Martin Luther (via azspot)

leitch: My cab driver coming back from LaGuardia this afternoon...

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:09:20 -0400

leitch:

My cab driver coming back from LaGuardia this afternoon handed me a clipboard and a pen and said, “Will you draw me a painting?” I am quite obviously not a skilled artist, but I obliged.

His name is Fabio Peralta, and he asks everyone in his taxi to “paint” when they get in. (I am not the first person to write about him.) He has been driving a cab for 41 years, but the picture requests have only been going on for 3 1/2 years. He said he was inspired by then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who made him feel like “I could be and do whatever I wanted.” He has collected 35,000 “paintings” — he refers to them exclusively as “paintings” — and he sells a book of his favorites to riders for “whatever you think it’s worth.” I gave him 10 bucks, though it was clearly worth a lot more. I hope you are lucky enough to hail him down someday.

"Most UGC sites try to spend time converting lurkers to contributors. Don’t. 90% of all users will..."

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:44:55 -0400

“Most UGC sites try to spend time converting lurkers to contributors. Don’t. 90% of all users will never contribute anything to your company. They are there to ingest content.

I wish Twitter understood this better. If they did then they would run marketing campaigns to let users know that “it’s OK to turn up and just consume content. Twitter’s great for that, too. You don’t ever need to send a Tweet to love Twitter.” I never understood why they don’t communicate that more broadly because I think most people’s fear of Twitter is that they don’t want to tell the world what they ate for lunch.”

- Mark Suster: The 1/9/90 Rule of UGC & Why It’s OK to Have Lurkers

If historical events had facebook statuses.

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:27:31 -0400

If historical events had facebook statuses.

Japan’s Ice Aquarium Displays Fish Frozen In Mid-Swim

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:22:27 -0400

Japan’s Ice Aquarium Displays Fish Frozen In Mid-Swim

U.S. ending combat operations in Iraq

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:10:00 -0400

U.S. ending combat operations in Iraq:

The last U.S. combat troops were crossing the border into Kuwait on Thursday morning, bringing to a close the active combat phase of a 7½-year war that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, forever defined the presidency of George W. Bush and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead.

Mission accomplished?

"From 1956 to 2006, for every dollar invested in all forms of rail, the nation invested six dollars..."

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:08:51 -0400

“From 1956 to 2006, for every dollar invested in all forms of rail, the nation invested six dollars in aviation and 16 dollars in highways.”

- Siemens Takes Campaign for U.S. High-Speed Rail Straight to the Customer

Will The Right Sacrifice California to Save Marriage Amendments Elsewhere?

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:54:50 -0400

Will The Right Sacrifice California to Save Marriage Amendments Elsewhere?:

[David] Barton: Right now the damage is limited to California only, but if California appeals this to the US Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court with Kennedy will go for California, which means all 31 states will go down in flames, although right now this decision is limited only to California.

So there’s an effort underway to say “California, please don’t appeal this. I mean, if you appeal this, its bad for you guys but live with it, but don’t cause the rest of us to have to go down your path.”

[Tim] Wildmon: So you think the better situation here would be California not to appeal …

Barton: Well, I’m telling you that that’s what is being argued by a lot of folks now because the other Supreme Court attorney who watched this from afar said “on no, you left too many arguments on the table, you stayed technical.” And now, knowing what Kennedy has already done in two similar cases to this and knowing that he’s the deciding vote, the odds are 999 out of 1000 that they’ll uphold the California decision.

If they do, there’s not a marriage amendment in the country that can stand. And so the problem is that instead of California losing its amendment, now 31 states lose their amendment. And that won’t happen if California doesn’t appeal this decision. It’s just California that loses its amendment.

via @felixsalmon

No one tougher than Scottie Pippen

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:30:21 -0400

No one tougher than Scottie Pippen:

It’s told famously by his high school and college coaches, but truly defies explanation. The supermodel skinny kid who didn’t play much in high school and wasn’t even sure he wanted to play in college, even if he could. But his high school coach called in some favors just to get him a look at NAIA Central Arkansas. Pippen, maybe 135 pounds then and 6-1, couldn’t get a scholarship and wasn’t recruited by even a junior college. He became team manager and went to school on a Pell grant before a scholarship came open late in his freshman year and he got it in more a charitable move. He cleaned the locker room and handed out the towels. He said he enjoyed that because he could just hang out with the guys.

And now he’s going into the Basketball Hall of Fame. C’mon, you cannot even make that up.

There is no member of the Hall of Fame who was farther from the Hall of Fame as a college freshman than Scottie Pippen.

Great article. I’ll never forget how Scottie guarded Magic Johnson in the 1991 Finals.

Words

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:10:12 -0400

Words