From Kevin Kelley’s Breakup of the USA: “The fact that the USA will not always be as united, or at least united in the way it is now, is considered, well… unthinkable. But as Juan Enriquez notes in his amazing PopTech talk, based on his book ‘The Untied States of America: Polarization, Fracturing, and Our Future’, no US president has ever died under the same flag that he was born under. That is, the borders of the United States has constantly shifted even in modern times. The last state was added in 1959 and more could be added still. Americans are comfortable ADDING states, but it might not take much to subtract one.” [Also see Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S. in the Wall Street Journal]
True Love Leaves A Mark
January 4, 2009 – 01:17 pm
From the UK Times’ Scientists discover true love: “A team from Stony Brook University in New York scanned the brains of couples who had been together for 20 years and compared them with those of new lovers. They found that about one in 10 of the mature couples exhibited the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as people commonly do in the early stages of a relationship… The scans…revealed that elements of limerence mature, enabling [the long term couples] to enjoy what a new report calls ‘intensive companionship and sexual liveliness’.”
Best Songs of 2008
January 2, 2009 – 08:05 pm
Happy New Year, everybody!
Well, we took our little two week hiatus and I guess it’s time to get back to posting shit on the blog, huh? Dawn and I had an awesome time in Chicago for Christmas. I’ll probably upload some pictures next week, so I’ll save any stories I might have until then.
But in the meantime, I’ve gone ahead and compiled the third annual Best Songs of The Year playlist. Similar to last year, there weren’t a lot of songs from 2008 added to our iTunes library this year, but thanks to Jamie Stone’s visit in the spring, we did add a ton of new tunes to our digital jukebox. So in lieu of putting together a short playlist of new songs, I put together a long playlist of songs that were new to me. There’s stuff on here that goes back to the early nineties and stuff that just came out a few weeks ago. All together, we’re talking about an hour and ten minutes of good music.
I hope you enjoy it.
All I Have To Say About #14 Is…Holy Shit.
December 18, 2008 – 03:07 pm
From The Smoking Gun’s 2008 Mug Shots Of The Year: “On the following pages you’ll find the 2008 Mug Shots of the Year, 20 booking photos selected from among the tens of thousands reviewed this year by TSG’s staff (all three of us). While most of the images speak for themselves, on some pages you’ll find links to stories providing additional details about the arrestees. As seen below, the list, arranged in descending order, kicks off with an unruly Jersey girl who got bounced from a Shore bar and then kicked, punched, and bit some cops. And befitting a year marked by a historic presidential election, the list reaches its apex with a group of suspects busted in the act of advocating change.”
Ten Most Popular Posts of 2008
December 18, 2008 – 10:38 am
Why create original content when you can just repackage the old shit?
Motivations for Resolutions
December 18, 2008 – 10:04 am
From Daring Fireball’s That He Not Busy Being Born Is Busy Dying: “Traditions are comforting. But comfort, I think, tends not to breed innovation. It can be hard to tell whether you’re staying the course because it’s the right direction, or because you’ve dug yourself into a deep rut.”
Congress Gets Real
December 18, 2008 – 09:52 am
From Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional oversight panel of the $700 billion bailout: “[The panel’s first report on the spending of the bailout money] is tough and it’s fast. And I think fast was important here too. An ordinary Congressional panel would’ve taken three months to get up and running and would’ve fooled around with hiring staff and deciding who had what tasks and setting up deadlines and timelines and so on. We didn’t do that. In 13 days, we produced a hard-biting document that pushes hard for some real answers. We don’t have a phone, we don’t have a photocopier, we don’t have a coffee maker yet, but we have a very strong report. And there’s another report coming in 30 days and another one 30 days after that and another one 30 days after that. And I think that sets the stage.” [Via Signals vs. Noise, authors of the fantastic book, "Getting Real"]
Let Them Eat Cake…Except for Hitler…No CAKE FOR YOU!
December 17, 2008 – 10:16 am
From Boston.com’s Cake request for 3-year-old Hitler namesake denied: “The father of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, denied a birthday cake with the child’s full name on it by one New Jersey supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance. Heath Campbell and his wife, Deborah, are upset not only with the decision made by the Greenwich ShopRite, but with an outpouring of angry Internet postings in response to a local newspaper article over the weekend on their flare-up over frosting. ‘I think people need to take their heads out of the cloud they’ve been in and start focusing on the future and not on the past,’ Heath Campbell said Tuesday…”They need to accept a name. A name’s a name. The kid isn’t going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did.” [Hat tip to Adam for the link]
Dear Apple: Buy this, and put it in the next iTunes
December 16, 2008 – 11:32 am
From Tech Crunch’s MusicBox: a truly powerful visualization of your music library: “The idea behind MusicBox is that it analyzes every song for not only written metadata (artist, genre) but also beats per minute, length, tone, and a whole bunch of other semi-tangible quantities (check out the demonstration video). It then organizes them based on whatever axes you choose — looking for your short, fast-paced songs? They’ll be on the upper left if you tick ‘song length’ and ‘tempo.’ Want those songs that change up their beat? They’ll be on the left if you just tick ‘time signature stability.’ It even puts together graphic previews of the songs, much like what I found when using a spectrum analyze.” [Editor's note: Make sure you watch the demonstration video]
Appreciating Jim Carrey
December 15, 2008 – 09:53 am
From The Atlantic’s The Existential Clown: “This may also be why plenty of moviegoers (my mother-in-law, for example) will tell you that they cannot stand Jim Carrey. A noisome vacancy at the heart of him, a dreadful resounding hollowness, repels them -— for a man who regularly pulls down $20 million per picture, his (ahem) ‘unfavorables’ are abnormally high. But they’re getting at the core of his genius, these sensitive souls.”
