I will grieve mightily the loss of cellulose. Though I suppose forests everywhere will finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Arthur Sulzberger: 'We Will Stop Printing The New York Times Sometime In The Future'
Friday, September 10, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
"That trip to the hospital was the beginning of a five-week odyssey -- one that involved defying doctors, e-mailing specialists around the country..."
This reads like a Lifetime movie filled with persistence and determination.
Except for one thing.
It's. A. Freaking. Pinky. Finger. That's it. The end of a digit. We're not talking some sort of Schnindlerian tale of sacrifice and bravery. We're talking about a finger tip. A small one.
But read it if you must:
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Um. The world is ending. But you knew that.
"A considerable amount of evidence shows that humans are causing what biologists call the sixth mass extinction, an allusion to the five previous cases in the fossil record where huge numbers of species died out mysteriously in a flash of geologic time."
The article also mentions that we need to QUIT HAVING SO MANY BABIES.
And points out in the next breath that we aren't gonna do that. We just won't.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Well, hell, if Saudi Arabia and China can do it, why can't we?
I'm talking censorship of the Internet, not senseless institutionalized killing.
Oh wait...
Friday, September 3, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Hey! Who's in charge here? Me or mini-me?
Hot or iced? How a cup of coffee can trick your subconscious mind into thinking someone's a tool.
The Subconscious Brain - Who's Minding the Mind? - New York Times
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
States struggle to find ways to cover pension payments
"Actuarial necessity" trumps promised payments.
This just in: Yet another round of environmental illnesses for active duty soldiers.
Another refrain in the ol' our soldiers-are-getting-the-shaft ditty.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
The most isolated man on the planet. - By Monte Reel - Slate Magazine
The last member of an uncontacted South American tribe lives alone in a patch of jungle. Holy Jesus.
"In 2007, with ranching and logging closing in quickly on all sides, government officials declared a 31-square-mile area around him off-limits to trespassing and development.
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It's meant to be a safe zone. He's still in there. Alone."
Thursday, August 19, 2010
A Crude Awakening in the Gulf of Mexico | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine
Haven't read it yet, but Michelle's really good at what she does and I sorta want to be her when I grow up.
Whodathunk? Improving quality of life for cancer patients helps them live longer.
Super nice to see cancer care evolving past 'Let's throw everything we've got at it even if it makes the patient sick, miserable and dead sooner.'
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
For bikeped's sake, don't close the gate.
This article covers the possible gate closure between the Depot Marketplace and Granite Creek Park in Prescott. I'm hoping to goodness that someone's thinking about pedestrian and bicycle safety to and from the marketplace from all the neighborhoods west of the park.
Good neighborhoods have lots of passages and connections and pass-throughs for people on bikes and on foot. Closing the gate would close a vital, vital connection in a town that already has too few. I understand safety, especially at night, is a consideration, but in this case, closing the gate would swap one set of hazards for another.
Turning the gate over to the Depot Marketplace owner almost assures that commercial interests will supercede community interests. This is not a win for Prescott nor for its vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Montag's 10-procedure plastic surgeon dies by driving off cliff while Tweeting about his border collie
And dear Candace claps, howls and says, "We love this for so many reasons."
Yes, Cadence, we really do.
Healthcare: Japan's not just about trusty automobiles
This Newsweek article opens by stating that Japan is at the top of every comparative ranking in terms of quality, coverage and cost. Food for thought as we struggle with our expensive, bloated, inadequate and therefore deadly system:
"Japan produces ... high-quality care at bargain-basement prices. The aging nation spends about $3,500 per person on health care each year; America burns through $7,400 per person and still leaves millions without coverage."
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Riding with strangers after riding a 5-year post-Katrina wave
Ready...set...screenplay!
This is pretty tragic. Eastwood directs?
Friday, August 13, 2010
Seattle loses an inveterate digger of science dirt, gains a handyman
"To hear Tom Paulson tell it, his career in science journalism and its environs has been a long saga of “pissing people off.” During the 1980s, for instance, Paulson was working in public affairs at the University of California-Berkeley, where it fell to him to publicize the work of controversial biochemist Bruce Ames, who argues that natural carcinogens can be just as dangerous as synthetic ones. Paulson thought that was “ridiculous,” and therefore instructed a roomful of journalists about how they might “poke holes” in Ames’ claims. And when nobody took him up on the suggestion, Paulson went one better; He wrote a freelance article for the Sierra Club’s magazine debunking Ames and criticizing the journalists who’d failed to cover him with adequate skepticism. As a publicist, he had gone completely rogue."
It's a Carl Hiaasen wet dream, that.
Anyway, he worked for years at the Seattle PI and should be sliding off his severage package right about now.
Read the article: Science-less in Seattle
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Man Scrawls World’s Biggest Message With GPS ‘Pen’ | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
Man Scrawls World’s Biggest Message With GPS ‘Pen’ | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
Though for the record, I should note that A. Reading Ayn Rand caused me to vote for Dubya's daddy back in the early 90s, and B. Her novel, We The Living is among my top five favorite books. Beats The Fountainhead all over the block because it's way less with the political treatise and way more with the keeping it real. Rand herself was not pleased that this was the case, but really not for me to care.
And this, of course, is what any of us would have written:
Though for the record, I should note that A. Reading Ayn Rand caused me to vote for Dubya's daddy back in the early 90s, and B. Her novel, We The Living is among my top five favorite books. Beats The Fountainhead all over the block because it's way less with the political treatise and way more with the keeping it real. Rand herself was not pleased that this was the case, but really not for me to care.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Facebook to Google: Yer outevilin' me
You know you got an evil problem when Facebook — Facebook!! — calls you on it.
This is what my life is coming to: Kale chips
And I substituted dulse flakes for the seasoned salt. I no longer argue that I'm a hippy. I spend more time at the natural grocery than I do on all of my personal grooming activities.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Wired.com: Why Google became a net neutrality surrender monkey
Wired's got good journalism, and this is an important issue.
"Mobile openness is the tool of the outsider, not the incumbent. ... Phone-to-phone, Android is now outselling the iPhone. Google doesn’t need openness anymore."
Our brains are as the Internet...
...and yet the Internet appears to make our brains work more like flitty little dragon flies. Weird.
Check out this awesome free screen capture software
Monkey girl never fails to install this software on any new computer. And it it seems like the company would appreciate a plug, so here it is:
Saturday, August 7, 2010
WMD as an arch example of irrationality, and why it might pay
This one is for Cadence who notes that despite the global warming deniers in government, the Pentagon is taking measures to deal.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
God help if you film bad behavior by an off-duty cop
Articles about legal action against folks who film cops are showing up with alarming regularity:
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Facebook sets out best practices for news sites
This is actually a pretty fascinating read — so much so that, given my relative lack of anything better to do up here in Reno at the fam fam reunion, it actually spurred me to create this blog and add to it some special features, such as the devilish Facebook like button.
On an interesting sidenote, Poynter's web site, itself frequently a fount of social media best practices, doesn't make the sharing of its content very easy. Hit the share button and all you get is an unannotated link to the article named after the website rather than the article.
Jonathan Thompson coulda died but lived to tell about it
Jonathan was my editor at High Country News and now he's writing sardonically about his experiences in Germany. It's well worth the read. And in the tradition of writing well about that which tortures us, it is, of course, hysterically funny.
Read the post here:
Saturday, July 17, 2010
My favorite McMurtry song today
I'm sitting in a precious Tulum, MX motel getting work done while my soaking wet father explores nearby ruins by bicycle.
This song popped up on my media player and gave me yet another reminder of why I love James McMurtry, and why, if I had half a brain, I would move to Austin to be able to catch him playing every Wednesday night.
"James McMurtry atones for his sins on electric guitar in this live performance recorded surreptitiously on a cell phone and delivered by carrier pigeon to a secret transmittal station in the desert outside Socorro New Mexico where it was uploaded via satellite to an offshore web site where I then downloaded it to share on YouTube."
This song popped up on my media player and gave me yet another reminder of why I love James McMurtry, and why, if I had half a brain, I would move to Austin to be able to catch him playing every Wednesday night.
"James McMurtry atones for his sins on electric guitar in this live performance recorded surreptitiously on a cell phone and delivered by carrier pigeon to a secret transmittal station in the desert outside Socorro New Mexico where it was uploaded via satellite to an offshore web site where I then downloaded it to share on YouTube."
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
This song made my friend Candace very, very happy.
Check out this song:
I Wrote A Song About Your Car by Mike Doughty
"I wrote a song about your car. I wrote it fine and feckless," Doughty sings.
It's a fabulous theme for Candace McNulty and me. She is the friend who, in the tradition of Grey's Anatomy, I refer to as my person. Tonight we are in her house, writing fine and feckless with her music and cats to keep us warm and the green afternoon light and tile floors to keep us cool.
Life is good here.
The sea floor has never been so weird
Well, I suppose it has. We just didn't know about it. Regardless, on to the taxonomic comic relief: Check out 10 of Wired magazine's favorite deep see worms, et al.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The genealogy of a stateless family – and the need to become a citizen - CSMonitor.com
The genealogy of a stateless family – and the need to become a citizen - CSMonitor.com
Twelve million isn't a lot of people, but it's a fascinating predicament. And it makes me wonder what will happen to the children of undocumented Mexican immigrants if Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce has his way.
Also note at the bottom of the story where the Christian Science Monitor, once a thriving paper outlet now a hopefully-doing-OK online outlet, has joined the ranks of High Country news in finding alternative ways to fund its journalists' exploits.
So I'm gonna try something different with this blog. For the last couple of years I've been posting article commentary via Facebook, and from the feedback I've been getting, a lot of my FB friends have enjoyed it. Which is great. It's fun being all witty and snarky and throwing out my take on things, but the problem is that the content I've been creating is helping Mark Zuckerberg sell those friends' eyeballs to advertisers (for an apparently pretty damned healthy amount).
I stuck with it anyway because I figured my reading base was more on Facebook than anywhere else. I did, anyway, until a coupla weeks ago when I decided to deactivate my Facebook account to see if life was any better without it. And lo, I discovered it was.
Posting to Blogger is a little more of a pain in the ass than posting to Facebook, but what's life if not one grand experiment, eh?
Us 'Mericans are getting fatter and fatter.
Check out this article: A Picture is Worth... In 1991 The Fattest US States Were As Thin As The Leanest in 2009 : TreeHugger
The writer calls out agricultural incentives for producing corn-based sugars and cheap protein, but I can't help but wonder how much our fat-free, pro-carb craze has fed into this.
But regardless, I have to once again harp on the fact that if we build human-friendly cities, neighborhoods and even shopping centers where people can walk, people watch, ride bikes and generally engage in activities that make them happy anyway, we would probably a/ stop self-medicating with food and b/ get more exercise and ergo, slim down.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
How much would YOU pay to read the NY Times online?
And here's my weigh-in:
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