Saturday, May 15, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
A Bit of Fry and Laurie
Another English comedy series that I absolutely love - why is there nothing like this on television these days?
Stephen Fry's use of the English language is brilliant and Hugh Laurie is the perfect straight man in this one.
I love you, don't go in there, get out, you have no right to say that, stop it, why should I, that hurt, help, Marjorie is dead.
Stephen Fry's use of the English language is brilliant and Hugh Laurie is the perfect straight man in this one.
I love you, don't go in there, get out, you have no right to say that, stop it, why should I, that hurt, help, Marjorie is dead.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
A Universe of Photos
Tag Galaxy is a unique way to look at Flickr photos using the tags assigned by the posters. It's easy - enter a starting tag (I went with flowers) and the program brings up a 'sun' with various planets circling it. Each planet has it's own tag - you can select as many as you want, each planet / tag acts as a filter on the photos that will be displayed. I selected gardens and then macro. I have no idea what macro means.
When you're ready to view photos, click on the sun. The image above is what I got back. You can then click on any of the photos to get a larger view, use your cursor to spin the globe or click on the arrow at the top of the screen to bring a fresh set of photos. It's like making your own kalaidescope of photos - much cooler than the image looks above. Check it out - Tag Galaxy
via Webphemera
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Nashville Hurts
Mr. Blogger was born there and still has family in the area. In fact, his parents were there visiting when the storm hit and although their travel plans were disrupted, they were able to get home fairly easily.
Nashville Artist Kyle Jones has designed and is selling a $20 poster to help with that cleanup. $15 of the price goes directly to United Way of Nashville for flood relief, the remainder goes to cover cost of printing and shipping. Stop by and pick one up – you’ll be doing something to help plus you’ll have yourself a very nice poster.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
We Get What We Vote For (cont.)
From Joe Klein:
"Sen. Bob Bennett is a standard-issue conservative, a reliable, down the line Party-of-No voter...who, on occasion, bestirred himself to cast a bipartisan vote--or, in one extremely admirable case, co-sponsor a bipartisan health care reform bill that was simpler, more equitable and more radical than than the mish-mosh that Congress passed (the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act). For this, and for his longevity in office, he was defenestrated by the Utah Republican party today.
I never met the man, but his statement today certainly was classy:
"The political atmosphere obviously has been toxic and it's very clear that some of the votes that I have cast have added to the toxic environment," an emotional Bennett told reporters, choking back tears.
"Looking back on them, with one or two very minor exceptions, I wouldn't have cast any of them any differently even if I had known at the time they were going to cost me my career."
We are in a moment when anger seems more important than experience or wisdom. Sometimes anger is justified. Right now, a sober review of the problems we face in a very unstable world requires something more: it requires a judicious national conversation about the decisions we make as a people. Are we spending too much or too little? Are we taxing too much or too little? If we're spending and taxing too much, which services need to be curtailed--and I mean, real services that cost real money, like defense and entitlements. If we can't decide what to cut, then perhaps we need to tax ourselves more--if so, how and what should we tax?
The fact that we can't seem to have this sort of conversation right now, that's it is ripped away from the vast majority of decent Americans by telecharlatans and infotainers, does not speak well for our ability to survive as the greatest nation in the history of the world. The departure of Senator Bob Bennett is a small event in a national tidal wave of witless extremism and thoughtlessness.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/05/08/bennett-tea-bombed/
TW: The combination of highly motivated voting minorities and the apathetic/tired/distracted amidst the rest of the electorate have elected poor candidates since our republic was founded. The world changes many are afraid of it but Glenn Beck/Ms. Palin et al. ain't gonna make it better of that I have no doubt.
"Sen. Bob Bennett is a standard-issue conservative, a reliable, down the line Party-of-No voter...who, on occasion, bestirred himself to cast a bipartisan vote--or, in one extremely admirable case, co-sponsor a bipartisan health care reform bill that was simpler, more equitable and more radical than than the mish-mosh that Congress passed (the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act). For this, and for his longevity in office, he was defenestrated by the Utah Republican party today.
I never met the man, but his statement today certainly was classy:
"The political atmosphere obviously has been toxic and it's very clear that some of the votes that I have cast have added to the toxic environment," an emotional Bennett told reporters, choking back tears.
"Looking back on them, with one or two very minor exceptions, I wouldn't have cast any of them any differently even if I had known at the time they were going to cost me my career."
We are in a moment when anger seems more important than experience or wisdom. Sometimes anger is justified. Right now, a sober review of the problems we face in a very unstable world requires something more: it requires a judicious national conversation about the decisions we make as a people. Are we spending too much or too little? Are we taxing too much or too little? If we're spending and taxing too much, which services need to be curtailed--and I mean, real services that cost real money, like defense and entitlements. If we can't decide what to cut, then perhaps we need to tax ourselves more--if so, how and what should we tax?
The fact that we can't seem to have this sort of conversation right now, that's it is ripped away from the vast majority of decent Americans by telecharlatans and infotainers, does not speak well for our ability to survive as the greatest nation in the history of the world. The departure of Senator Bob Bennett is a small event in a national tidal wave of witless extremism and thoughtlessness.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/05/08/bennett-tea-bombed/
TW: The combination of highly motivated voting minorities and the apathetic/tired/distracted amidst the rest of the electorate have elected poor candidates since our republic was founded. The world changes many are afraid of it but Glenn Beck/Ms. Palin et al. ain't gonna make it better of that I have no doubt.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Paint a tree
A creative advertising campaign from DDB China and the Chinese Foundation of Environmental Protection that encourages people to walk instead of drive.
A large canvas silkscreened with a leafless tree was laid down at a busy pedestrian intersection. Large sponges saturated with environmentally friendly and easily washable green paint lined the crossing points.
As pedestrians crossed the street, their green footprints filled the tree with leaves and sent the message: every step you take helps create a greener planet.
A large canvas silkscreened with a leafless tree was laid down at a busy pedestrian intersection. Large sponges saturated with environmentally friendly and easily washable green paint lined the crossing points.
As pedestrians crossed the street, their green footprints filled the tree with leaves and sent the message: every step you take helps create a greener planet.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Roger That
From Economist:
"Missouri police storm house, shoot dogs, find small amount of hash in pipe
MY KIDS' pet hamster died last night, so I had about half an hour of crying, explanations, and a funeral in the front yard to deal with.
Fortunately, though, I didn't have to explain why half a dozen police in scary black body armour had charged in the front door shouting and shot the family pets...
At some level, I think it goes beyond even the "war on drugs". I think there's a generalised problem of militarisation in society, leading an increasing number of Americans, both in and out of uniform, to hunt around for things to shoot so they can claim to have been protecting someone. The absurdity becomes exceptionally clear when police claim to have protected children by invading their home and shooting their pets, but it's really a broader issue."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/05/war_drugs
"Missouri police storm house, shoot dogs, find small amount of hash in pipe
MY KIDS' pet hamster died last night, so I had about half an hour of crying, explanations, and a funeral in the front yard to deal with.
Fortunately, though, I didn't have to explain why half a dozen police in scary black body armour had charged in the front door shouting and shot the family pets...
At some level, I think it goes beyond even the "war on drugs". I think there's a generalised problem of militarisation in society, leading an increasing number of Americans, both in and out of uniform, to hunt around for things to shoot so they can claim to have been protecting someone. The absurdity becomes exceptionally clear when police claim to have protected children by invading their home and shooting their pets, but it's really a broader issue."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/05/war_drugs
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete”
~ Buckminster Fuller
Mr. Fuller, inventor of the geodisic dome, was a wise man, we could use this kind of thinking now in just about every aspect of life on this planet.
And that's exactly what the Buckminster Fuller Challenge is all about - providing “a workable solution to one of the world’s most significant challenges such as water scarcity, food supply, and energy consumption.”
Six entries have been selected from a pool of more than 200 in this year's contest. The winner will be announced on June 2nd in Washington DC where he/she will be awarded a $100,000 prize. My vote for the winner: Eco-Boulevards, of course
Chicagoans discard over one billion gallons of Great Lakes water per day. This “wastewater” never replenishes one of the world’s most vital resources. As a remedy, this project re-conceives the Chicago street-grid as a holistic Bio-System that captures, cleans and returns wastewater and storm-water to the Lakes via “Eco-Boulevards.”Get more detail and watch a slide show at Urbanlabs
See all the finalists here
via inhabitat
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Hear, Hear (cont.)
Via Andrew Sullivan's blog:
"I’m feeling grateful to the prez these days because we happen to be in the middle of a bunch of midsized crises. There’s the oil spill in the Gulf (which is verging on a big crisis, I guess). There’s the Times Square bomber. There are various floods in Tennessee and elsewhere. The European Union is falling apart over the Greek debt crisis, and so on and so on. It’s good to have a president with equipoise. It seems to me that Obama is handling his role, which ranges from the marginal to the significant, in these events with calm professionalism. He’s active yet not annoying. He’s not taking credit for everything. He’s not creating friction by making any missteps. He is calm, cool and collected,"
- David Brooks on our temperamentally conservative president.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/05/why-his-approval-rating-is-ticking-up.html
TW: I think many of us have been saying this for quite awhile, glad to see a proto-conservative coming around...
"I’m feeling grateful to the prez these days because we happen to be in the middle of a bunch of midsized crises. There’s the oil spill in the Gulf (which is verging on a big crisis, I guess). There’s the Times Square bomber. There are various floods in Tennessee and elsewhere. The European Union is falling apart over the Greek debt crisis, and so on and so on. It’s good to have a president with equipoise. It seems to me that Obama is handling his role, which ranges from the marginal to the significant, in these events with calm professionalism. He’s active yet not annoying. He’s not taking credit for everything. He’s not creating friction by making any missteps. He is calm, cool and collected,"
- David Brooks on our temperamentally conservative president.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/05/why-his-approval-rating-is-ticking-up.html
TW: I think many of us have been saying this for quite awhile, glad to see a proto-conservative coming around...
Color my world
Good Luck...Jealousy...Nature
Quick - what color comes to mind? If you're American or from a Western culture, you're likely thinking green right now. But if you're Chinese or African, Good Luck comes in red and you don't really have a color for Jealousy or Nature.
What am I talking about? The graphic below by David McCandles is a cultural color wheel - a depiction of how various cultures associate color with different concepts.
click to enlarge
I found two things interesting - first, it seems that we Westerners associate color with just about everything. 54 of the 84 listed concepts have a color assigned to it in our culture. The culture with the next highest color association? The Japanese with 50. The Hindu culture, which appears to be far more colorful in everyday life (have you ever seen a Bollywood movie?) than either the Western or the Japanese, comes in a distant 3rd with only 30.
The second thing I found interesting - who do you think we overlap with most often, from a color/concept perspective? Once again, it's the Japanese - we connect on 21 different points. The next closest culture is the Eastern European with 8 match ups. I'm not really sure what this means - are the American/Western and Japanese cultures really that similar?
from Information is Beautiful
Quick - what color comes to mind? If you're American or from a Western culture, you're likely thinking green right now. But if you're Chinese or African, Good Luck comes in red and you don't really have a color for Jealousy or Nature.
What am I talking about? The graphic below by David McCandles is a cultural color wheel - a depiction of how various cultures associate color with different concepts.
I found two things interesting - first, it seems that we Westerners associate color with just about everything. 54 of the 84 listed concepts have a color assigned to it in our culture. The culture with the next highest color association? The Japanese with 50. The Hindu culture, which appears to be far more colorful in everyday life (have you ever seen a Bollywood movie?) than either the Western or the Japanese, comes in a distant 3rd with only 30.
The second thing I found interesting - who do you think we overlap with most often, from a color/concept perspective? Once again, it's the Japanese - we connect on 21 different points. The next closest culture is the Eastern European with 8 match ups. I'm not really sure what this means - are the American/Western and Japanese cultures really that similar?
from Information is Beautiful
Hear, Hear
From Robert Rapier's blog speaking of the Gulf oil spill:
"Who is ultimately responsible for this? BP and Transocean obviously bear the most direct responsibility. But keep in mind that we enable BP because we demand cheap energy. There are very real consequences from our cheap energy demands, and this incident casts a spotlight on one of those consequences. When gas prices spike, the public gets angry and politicians promise their constituents that they will fix the problem. So what is the result? We continue to scour the globe for cheap fossil fuels to satiate the public’s demand to be able to pull up to the pump and pay $2.50 a gallon for gasoline any time they feel like it. So while BP is certainly responsible, so are we all.
I have read of demands that this needs to be a wake-up call that we need cleaner sources of energy. I think we have already had that wake-up call. I think people recognize that we need cleaner sources of energy. If you poll the public, you will find broad support for that. No, the wake-up call needs to be that people connect the dots from their own energy consumption to oil spills in the gulf and explosions in coal mines. When that wake-up call is heeded, perhaps people can begin to understand the consequences of our perpetual demands for cheap energy. Then maybe we can all decide that the “non-negotiable American way of life” is actually negotiable."
TW: I actually support offshore drilling as a least bad alternative, oil prices are going to go up even with such drilling, it is only a matter of how much. But the costs (e.g. negative externalities) of oil and coal and other fossil fuels must be integrated into folks minds when pondering alternatives. And blaming politicians for perpetuating the never-ending chase for cheap oil is hypocritical when we demand it. We are the hypocrites.
"Who is ultimately responsible for this? BP and Transocean obviously bear the most direct responsibility. But keep in mind that we enable BP because we demand cheap energy. There are very real consequences from our cheap energy demands, and this incident casts a spotlight on one of those consequences. When gas prices spike, the public gets angry and politicians promise their constituents that they will fix the problem. So what is the result? We continue to scour the globe for cheap fossil fuels to satiate the public’s demand to be able to pull up to the pump and pay $2.50 a gallon for gasoline any time they feel like it. So while BP is certainly responsible, so are we all.
I have read of demands that this needs to be a wake-up call that we need cleaner sources of energy. I think we have already had that wake-up call. I think people recognize that we need cleaner sources of energy. If you poll the public, you will find broad support for that. No, the wake-up call needs to be that people connect the dots from their own energy consumption to oil spills in the gulf and explosions in coal mines. When that wake-up call is heeded, perhaps people can begin to understand the consequences of our perpetual demands for cheap energy. Then maybe we can all decide that the “non-negotiable American way of life” is actually negotiable."
TW: I actually support offshore drilling as a least bad alternative, oil prices are going to go up even with such drilling, it is only a matter of how much. But the costs (e.g. negative externalities) of oil and coal and other fossil fuels must be integrated into folks minds when pondering alternatives. And blaming politicians for perpetuating the never-ending chase for cheap oil is hypocritical when we demand it. We are the hypocrites.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Zoo babies
Hard to believe that these cuties at the Bronx Zoo will soon be capable of ripping your throat out...but right now I just want to scoop them up and cuddle!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Chicago in 1948
This was really cool to watch - James Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks visits Chicago in 1948. As might be imagined, things have changed in the last 52 years. The scene that looked most different to me was the old water tower on north Michigan Avenue. It looked so lonely standing there all by itself.
Be sure to have your volume on and I highly recommend setting the picture to full screen. The video quality is pretty good and you will get much more detail.
If you're interested in more of Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks, more can be found here on YouTube.
Thanks to Christopher for sending the link!
Be sure to have your volume on and I highly recommend setting the picture to full screen. The video quality is pretty good and you will get much more detail.
If you're interested in more of Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks, more can be found here on YouTube.
Thanks to Christopher for sending the link!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
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