Small pieces of Stephen King's upcoming Under the Dome have been hidden around the Web, and fans are to find them and begin piecing them together as a sort of literary jigsaw puzzle.
For more info, see Stephen King's home page, the Contagious Magazine article, or the PSFK write-up.
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This left me wondering why there are so few creative marketing strategies for upcoming releases of books, CDs, DVDs, etc. With this particular strategy, I like the intention, but I think even if I were a hardcore Stephen King fanatic-geek, I probably would not go through the trouble. I think if I were about to release something, I would hide copies throughout different cities and give clues as to where they can be found. I am sure it has been done before, but why is not done more often?
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Happy Halloween.
Oct 31, 2009
Oct 30, 2009
Dan Ariely on wearing fakes [video]
Duke behavioral economist Dan Ariely describes the scary finding that something as subtle as wearing fakes can considerably change our honesty.
Income and wealth of every Norwegian now public record
I cannot wait to see the studies on this. E.g., how does this affect tax evasion, salaries, and what students select as their major?
Analogies gone bad: "Infobesity"
I get Timothy Young's point that we should monitor the quality of information we are consuming, but food and information diets are very different in one important way: You can have too much food, you cannot have too much information.
Some would argue this point. They say information overload; I say organization underload. Or as Clay Shirky puts it, "It's not information overload. It's filter failure."
(Hat tip: PSFK)
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Possibly related: How I manage 703 feeds
Some would argue this point. They say information overload; I say organization underload. Or as Clay Shirky puts it, "It's not information overload. It's filter failure."
(Hat tip: PSFK)
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Possibly related: How I manage 703 feeds
Oct 29, 2009
Black hole created in a Chinese lab
Technology Review 10/14
Their black hole consists of 60 layers of printed circuit board arranged in concentric circles. The printed circuit boards are coated in a thin layer of copper from which Qiang and Tie have etched two types of pattern that either resonate at microwave frequency or do not.
The metamaterial distorts space so severely that light or microwaves entering it cannot escape. The energy absorbed by the black hole is emitted as heat.
Life satisfaction and relative income
Part of the abstract for a new paper in the Economics of Happiness: Life Satisfaction and Relative Income: Perceptions and Evidence
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Related:
Four domains of life satisfaction
Three essential elements for happiness
The perceived importance of income comparisons is found to be uncorrelated with its actual relationship to subjective well-being, suggesting that people are unconscious of its real impact. Subjects who judge comparisons to be important are, however, significantly less happy than subjects who see income comparisons as unimportant.
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Related:
Four domains of life satisfaction
Three essential elements for happiness
Werner Herzog on Charlie Rose [video]
It does not get much better than this: one of the world's greatest artists sits down with one of the world's greatest interviewers. The September 4th interview was Werner's first appearance on Charlie Rose's show, and a rare media appearance.
Unfortunately Charlie Rose's web site seems to be having trouble hosting the video, and I could not find it on YouTube, but you can download it via this link: http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/090409CRS.wmv.
The interview goes from about 2:49 to 26:00, and it has a very cool clip of Mick Jagger acting around 22:00.
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Earlier: Werner's Wisdom
Unfortunately Charlie Rose's web site seems to be having trouble hosting the video, and I could not find it on YouTube, but you can download it via this link: http://charlierose.http.internapcdn.net/charlierose/090409CRS.wmv.
The interview goes from about 2:49 to 26:00, and it has a very cool clip of Mick Jagger acting around 22:00.
---
Earlier: Werner's Wisdom
Oct 28, 2009
Flags by color [infographic]
I think this is a couple years old, but it is making the rounds again.
While you are at it, check out other interesting projects from media designer Shahee Ilyas.
(Thanks to the lady.)
Oct 27, 2009
CEO pay table 2008
USA Today: Executive Compensation 2008. (hat tip: chart porn)
Care to guess which executive made the most money in 2008, and how much?
...I will let you think about it for a second...
...hmm...
Who guessed Aubrey the pink tie guy?
$One hundred twelve and six zeros. Wow.
Care to guess which executive made the most money in 2008, and how much?
...I will let you think about it for a second...
...hmm...
Who guessed Aubrey the pink tie guy?
$One hundred twelve and six zeros. Wow.
Adding value with made up stories
SignificantObjects.com is a project where writers make up a story about an inexpensive item and see how much they can get for it on ebay. A $3 Russian Figure, for example, sold for $193.50.
From yesterday's project update:
Could this be a new style of freelance writing? I could see stay at home moms or college students, for example, making a little $$ on the side by writing sentimental stories about trinkets. I am curious (and I have a few too many belt buckles), so I might try it myself. ...Will let you know how it goes.
Spark interview 10/13 with curator Rob Walker.
From yesterday's project update:
Aggregate cost of objects, sold so far: $111.03
Aggregate sales, post-Significance: $2,718.22
Could this be a new style of freelance writing? I could see stay at home moms or college students, for example, making a little $$ on the side by writing sentimental stories about trinkets. I am curious (and I have a few too many belt buckles), so I might try it myself. ...Will let you know how it goes.
Spark interview 10/13 with curator Rob Walker.
Health care: "Essentially no relationship between cost and quality"
Air America 10/23: Report shows health care quality stagnating
My $0.02 prediction: Today's health care will look just as primitive to people in 2109 as 1909 health care looks to us, if not more so.
My $0.02 prediction: Today's health care will look just as primitive to people in 2109 as 1909 health care looks to us, if not more so.
Oct 26, 2009
$45,500 road trip
Nicolas Rapp is crazy, but at least he knows what he is getting into.
He quit his job as Art Director at the Associated Press (meaning he got to choose which graphics and multimedia accompanied the stories) so that he could take a Toyota Land Cruiser and literally drive around the world. It will not be cheap, nor will it be safe.
The trip begins mid November and you can follow along from home on the Trans World Expedition blog. He will traveling through Durham on his way South, so I have sent him an email offering hospitality.
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Related: On Traveling
44 rich Germans say they are taxed too little
BBC News 10/23: A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes.
Dear 44 Rich Germans,
I can think of three alternative solutions to your dissatisfaction: 1. write the government a check for the amount you would like them to have, 2. write that amount minus 20% directly to whatever social and economic causes you would like the government to spend that money on (20% because that is approximately how much the government will keep for themselves), 3. write the check to me, which I gladly use to spur economic activity.
Dear 44 Rich Germans,
I can think of three alternative solutions to your dissatisfaction: 1. write the government a check for the amount you would like them to have, 2. write that amount minus 20% directly to whatever social and economic causes you would like the government to spend that money on (20% because that is approximately how much the government will keep for themselves), 3. write the check to me, which I gladly use to spur economic activity.
Media sources more negative than user sources [infographic]
Above: One of the slides from Nicholas Felton's 10/24 Pop!Tech presentation. A synopsis of his talk can be found here.
Oct 25, 2009
Oct 23, 2009
All the world's conflicts in one map
Conflict History is a fantastic idea but needs some serious touching up. It offers an interactive look at the locations of battles and other conflicts throughout history. Unfortunately, it limits viewable date ranges to 100 years at a time, and it cries out for better ways to parse and represent the data.
I think it would be best to have an animation not unlike Nathan Yau's Wal-Mart growth map with dots of different sizes appearing based on, say, the number of causalities. Ideally, the animation would show changes in countries' borders and population distribution over time. It would also offer interactivity so people could pause and click a dot to quickly learn more. It would be an enormous task, but an invaluable tool to anyone studying history.
World's Biggest Foods
Woman's Day has 10 of them.
I was thinking if I could create the world's largest food, what would it be? The answer was obvious: pumpkin pie. I looked it up and was disappointed to find that the current record is held by another country -- South Africa. This is so upsetting to me that it might get added to my bucket list; I would just need a couple of these and a small army to help me dice them up. Maybe then I could add a line to my headstone:
I was thinking if I could create the world's largest food, what would it be? The answer was obvious: pumpkin pie. I looked it up and was disappointed to find that the current record is held by another country -- South Africa. This is so upsetting to me that it might get added to my bucket list; I would just need a couple of these and a small army to help me dice them up. Maybe then I could add a line to my headstone:
Honorably reclaimed for his country the title of world's biggest pumpkin pie.
I like the sound of that.
Oct 22, 2009
NFL QB Ratings 2001-2009 [chart]
NFL QB ratings 2001-2009; Peyton Manning = blue, Tom Brady = red.
QB ratings have long been my favorite football statistic, and I noticed that this season the numbers seem unusually high. Doubtless there will be some regression to the mean before the season is over, but the chart above confirms the increasing trend.
I hope the chart is pretty self explanatory. It is the QB rating distribution in the NFL for each of the last nine seasons, with the distribution furthest to the right representing this season, and with Peyton Manning and Tom Brady highlighted in blue and red, respectively.
In case there are other Philip Rivers fans in the audience, the chart below is exactly the same except with different players highlighted.
NFL QB ratings 2001-2009; Philip Rivers = red, Eli Manning = blue, Drew Brees = peach, Ben Roethlisberger = yellow.
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Possibly related: LeBron James compared to Michael Jordan [charts]
Capturing sound
This blog, although largely visual, might soon become much more auditory. (In fact, with this post I am creating the new label "sound".)
The inspiration comes from Colin Marshall's new microphone gizmo and the clips published on his blog. I am intrigued by the idea of field recording and am seriously considering investing in equipment myself.
I think sound recording is in some ways superior to photography, which is limited in its narrow window of focus. I think we often fail to appreciate sound because our senses are overwhelmed with visuals. Consider that whenever we want to think or focus deeply, it is natural to close our eyes to prevent all the distracting visual stimuli from reaching the brain.
So why is field recording such a rare hobby when compared to photography? For most people, if they ever capture sound it is very crudely with a video camera. My guess is that most people do not stop to think about the power of sound, just as I hadn't until reading Colin's post.
I am interested in sound recording equipment that would enable me to hear better than the unaided ear just as many powerful cameras enable us to see better than the unaided eye, but such equipment is probably expensive and I am, after all, very cheap. Colin's gizmo is $300, and that is probably plenty good, but I still have to ask myself how much it is worth to record and document sound rather than just listen to it in the moment. One potential criticism of field recording is that is limits hearing to the ears. That might sound strange but I remember reading somewhere that much of sound is actually perceived through the skin. Maybe for now I will just appreciate the sounds around me and free ride off of the incredible field recording material online.
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I was curious about Colin's experience with his new gizmo, so I sent him a few questions and have pasted his response below, with permission.
---
Related:
Geotagged soundscapes
The four ways sound affects us (TED talk released last week)
The inspiration comes from Colin Marshall's new microphone gizmo and the clips published on his blog. I am intrigued by the idea of field recording and am seriously considering investing in equipment myself.
I think sound recording is in some ways superior to photography, which is limited in its narrow window of focus. I think we often fail to appreciate sound because our senses are overwhelmed with visuals. Consider that whenever we want to think or focus deeply, it is natural to close our eyes to prevent all the distracting visual stimuli from reaching the brain.
So why is field recording such a rare hobby when compared to photography? For most people, if they ever capture sound it is very crudely with a video camera. My guess is that most people do not stop to think about the power of sound, just as I hadn't until reading Colin's post.
I am interested in sound recording equipment that would enable me to hear better than the unaided ear just as many powerful cameras enable us to see better than the unaided eye, but such equipment is probably expensive and I am, after all, very cheap. Colin's gizmo is $300, and that is probably plenty good, but I still have to ask myself how much it is worth to record and document sound rather than just listen to it in the moment. One potential criticism of field recording is that is limits hearing to the ears. That might sound strange but I remember reading somewhere that much of sound is actually perceived through the skin. Maybe for now I will just appreciate the sounds around me and free ride off of the incredible field recording material online.
---
I was curious about Colin's experience with his new gizmo, so I sent him a few questions and have pasted his response below, with permission.
I decided on using the H4n to explore it because it seemed to meet my criteria of (a) sounds decent, (b) not particularly pricey and (c) has two XLR microphone jacks. (I wanted to be able to set up mobile interviews with "real" mics.) Also, this Ask Metafilter thread I started definitely helped me narrow down the field.
Despite the fact that I was walking down the street with a pair of headphones and a gun-like recording assembly held out in front of me, I can't say I noticed any especially weird looks. (I'd probably get a few if I were going around with, say, a boom mic, or pointing really conspicuously at people.) I think by the time people figure out what I'm doing, I'm already long gone.
And as for compiling the recordings I make, I'll certainly put together a page on colinmarshall.org when I get a few more in the can and post about it.
---
Related:
Geotagged soundscapes
The four ways sound affects us (TED talk released last week)
Oct 21, 2009
Managing 703 feeds
If you have ever tried to manage 100+ feeds, you know it requires a concentrated effort to prevent them from becoming overwhelming. Below I describe my process for managing 703 feeds (and growing).
I have a total of 34 folders in Google Reader that each feed fits into. The middle 32 are categories you might expect like pop news, local, info-viz, sports, science, etc., but it is the two folders on either end that are most important.
Many of the 703 feeds are only occasionally interesting, so it is important that I organize the feeds in such a way that I can quickly skip through the least important feeds when the number of unread items becomes overwhelming. And if I become extremely rushed, I need to be able to quickly pick out only the very best feeds.
The top folder is called "always". These are the select few blogs that have earned my trust as consistently interesting and I read (or at least look at) every post. I will share these feeds with you next week. (Some can be found on the right pane of this blog.)
The bottom folder is called "occasionally" and it contains feeds like TechCrunch, BoingBoing, and Andrew Sullivan that post often but only occasionally interest me. The bulk of the new items come from this folder and a lot of times I will ignore them all with a swift click of the "mark all as read" button.
You might wonder, if you are going to ignore these feeds most of the time, why not unsubscribe? With each feed I have my reasons. For example, I have Kanye West's blog in the folder because I do not normally feel like reading him except for the rare occasion when I am in a Kanye mood.
You might wonder, if you are going to ignore these feeds most of the time, why not unsubscribe? With each feed I have my reasons. For example, I have Kanye West's blog in the folder because I do not normally feel like reading him except for the rare occasion when I am in a Kanye mood.
My normal reading process goes something like this: I log into Google Reader and first look at the total count of new items. If it is too high (say over 500) I will immediately open the "occasionally" folder and mark all as read. Next, I will see which of the middle 32 folders have the most new items. If it is a count above, say, 30, I will open that folder and browse for interesting posts, then mark the remaining as read. After I have the middle 32 folders down to a manageable size, I will turn my attention to the "always" folder and go through each new item. Finally, now that I have my "always" and "occasionally" folders cleaned out and the middle 32 folders down to a manageable size, I will open all items (button in the top part of the navigation pane) and sift through the rest. If I come across an item that I would like to come back to later, I place a "star" on that item.
My reading times are sporadic, but I usually like to start my mornings with Google Reader. According to RescueTime data, I spend about 35 minutes per day in Google Reader, but I think this is an understatement. I am guessing it is closer to an hour or 90 minutes. Either way you see that having a lot of feeds does not have to require a lot of time. I think it is an incredibly efficient means of gathering information, and in fact one of the first posts on this blog was about how Google Reader has changed my life. (Back then, I *only* had 387 feeds.)
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You might wonder, how does one come to amass 703 feeds? Does he subscribe to every blog he has ever visited? I think I am actually fairly selective with blogs. I will not subscribe to a blog without first browsing the front page and learning about the author(s). And, once subscribed, if I find that the posts are too hit or miss, I will either unsubscribe or move the feed to the dreaded "occasionally" folder.
There are two primary reasons why I am subscribed to 703 feeds: 1. some of the blogs are inactive but I choose not to unsubscribe in case they become active again (there is 0 cost in subscribing to a feed that never updates), and 2. many of the feeds are not blogs. About 50 of the feeds are Google Alerts, notifying me whenever something new appears on the web with a given search term. Other feeds are for news, radio, TV, Twitter, and various other web sites. I use Google Reader as my everything aggregator. I do not do a lot of web browsing because everything comes to Google Reader.
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By this time next year I will probably have over 1,000 feeds, but all the better, I say.
My reading times are sporadic, but I usually like to start my mornings with Google Reader. According to RescueTime data, I spend about 35 minutes per day in Google Reader, but I think this is an understatement. I am guessing it is closer to an hour or 90 minutes. Either way you see that having a lot of feeds does not have to require a lot of time. I think it is an incredibly efficient means of gathering information, and in fact one of the first posts on this blog was about how Google Reader has changed my life. (Back then, I *only* had 387 feeds.)
---
You might wonder, how does one come to amass 703 feeds? Does he subscribe to every blog he has ever visited? I think I am actually fairly selective with blogs. I will not subscribe to a blog without first browsing the front page and learning about the author(s). And, once subscribed, if I find that the posts are too hit or miss, I will either unsubscribe or move the feed to the dreaded "occasionally" folder.
There are two primary reasons why I am subscribed to 703 feeds: 1. some of the blogs are inactive but I choose not to unsubscribe in case they become active again (there is 0 cost in subscribing to a feed that never updates), and 2. many of the feeds are not blogs. About 50 of the feeds are Google Alerts, notifying me whenever something new appears on the web with a given search term. Other feeds are for news, radio, TV, Twitter, and various other web sites. I use Google Reader as my everything aggregator. I do not do a lot of web browsing because everything comes to Google Reader.
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By this time next year I will probably have over 1,000 feeds, but all the better, I say.
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Addendum: The top 21 of my 703 feeds
Patented Lean
US patent 5255452, filed by Michael Jackson, describes the anti-gravity lean used in the music video for “Smooth Criminal”.
It cracks me up that he went through the trouble. 1. how many people can pull this off? and 2. of those, how many are going to "lean" for profit?
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Related:
Oct 20, 2009
"Everything I know about blogging in one slide"
From Merlin Mann. Visit the link for an accompanying 70 minute video (It enlightened and entertained me, but I would only recommend it if you are or aspire to be a *serious* blogger, whatever that means). (Hat tip: Hugh Hollowell.)
You would be hard pressed to pack more substance into a smaller space, but I would add a few more recommendations. Of course it is going to be different for everyone and depends on what you are trying to accomplish, but I try to blog by the following principles:
Know why you are blogging.
Dare to be wrong, often.
Study at least two or three bloggers you admire and aspire to match them in quality.
Separate the writing and editing process.
Pledge not to check traffic stats more than once a day.
Inject personal narrative into the blog, but not a lot.
Read at least as much as you write.
Post things that interest you even if they might not interest your readers; your audience will find you.
Have a system; "I'll blog when I feel like it" does not work.
Above all, get to know your loyal readers because whether or not you started this way, they will become the reason why you blog.
Plummers Island: Every plant species has a genetic "bar code"
Kress says the future is pretty far away — there are literally millions of species to sequence, and thousands more yet to be discovered.
But at least here, on these 12 acres in the Potomac, the job is complete.
"It's pretty amazing to walk through here and know we have a DNA bar code for every plant that's here," Kress says.
This quote makes the task of cataloging life sound far too simple. To catalog the whole of *plant* life on Earth would probably require resources in excess of the human genome project. A 12-acre plot near DC is one thing, but the tropical forests are a different animal. Then, if we wanted to catalog microbial life ... my god, we would have to shuttle in workers from other galaxies.
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Possibly related: Q & A with Rob Dunn
Oct 19, 2009
From the comments
I have been following the ongoing discussion under Friday's quote of the day post all weekend. The big question being asked (although it is never explicitly stated) is whether all morality is a human construct or whether there is some external, absolute morality. The discussion is primarily between a PhD astrophysicist from Washington (Bob) and a mechanical engineer from Utah whose quote is featured in the post (Robert). Both are really interesting guys and I wish the three of us could continue the conversation over a beer. If we ever cross paths, I am sure we will.
Below are some selected quotes from the conversation, but you might need context to truly appreciate them so do check out the full discussion. Me, I feel like my head is spinning, but it has been enlightening just to observe the clarity with which they approach these questions.
From Robert:
Again from Robert:
From Bob:
Again from Bob:
Below are some selected quotes from the conversation, but you might need context to truly appreciate them so do check out the full discussion. Me, I feel like my head is spinning, but it has been enlightening just to observe the clarity with which they approach these questions.
From Robert:
If you don't believe that people are inherently valuable (you know, like they shouldn't be harmed or killed, in a general sense) then how does that inform your decision making process? Do you use the fact that you don't believe that people are inherently valuable as a basis for action?
If you do, then you are rational (consistent in your application of logic). If you don't, then maybe you are relying on your feelings for deciding what to do. In that case, maybe there's not an important distinction between what you feel, and what you believe.
Again from Robert:
I guess what I really believe is that "shoulds" are real, and that internal experience (unreliable as it is) is all we have to work with if we want to get to the "shoulds". I realize that many people won't see it this way, and I realize how many pitfalls there are on the path I've chosen (there's a long history of murder and evil justified by "shoulds"), but it's the best I can do. I'm willing to hear arguments for another way, but it will be hard for me to accept anything as sterile as: Just do what's in your own best interest, everything else is nonesense.
From Bob:
What makes humans special? When we talk about this "value" of humans, is it unique to humans? Do rabbits or algae have this quality? Is this an anthropocentric model of value? Why should that be so? Did these external, absolute rights and wrongs exist before humans existed? What did they apply to back then? Were they just sitting in the ether, waiting for humans to evolve? Will these ethics still "exist" after humans have gone from this Universe? To what will they apply then? Should tigers not eat gazelles? Is this a case for vegetarianism?
It's much simpler and more plausible to me to think that our minds and our bodies evolved over the millenia to have affinities and aversions to our sensations. If you find sabre-toothed tigers to be irresistibly cute, you probably won't survive to reproduce. Likewise, the weirdos who enjoyed harming people didn't survive long, and their kind got selected out.
Again from Bob:
I have a substantive background in the sciences, and I will tell you with delight that I don't think science explains or predicts much at all of human experience. I have never heard a satisfactory explanation of what consciousness is, let alone how it becomes seemingly coherently packaged within physical beings. I love science, but I am no more committed to it as a philosophy than I am to external, absolute moralities.
What price love?
Orli Ross of NYC recently paid $10,000 for a [failed] matchmaking attempt. (The video is 11 minutes and probably not worth your time.)
I am tempted to use this post to explore the willingness to pay for a "suitable" mate, but I will resist the urge. Instead, Orli, if you are out there, I would like to offer some advice...
Understand this: Love is not something you go in search of; it is not even something that finds you. "Love at first sight," if that is what you are looking for, is not love -- it is infatuation.
Love is intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy means sharing things that you do not share with anyone else. Passion includes physical attraction and lust, but you can do as the nice matchmaking ladies said and put your hot pants away because it is not love if you do not call it love and have desire to maintain commitment.
You need all three things for it to be love. Without commitment it is just romantic love, without passion it is just a good friend, and without intimacy it is just a Britney Spears Vegas wedding. (Not K-Fed, the other one.)
---
Now, some suggestions on how to attract a mate...
Proximity, similarity, familiarity. Look for others who are physically close, similar to you, and familiar with you -- maybe a friend or acquaintance? These are the people with which you are most likely to find mutual attraction.
You can also exploit psychological biases to attract someone or make yourself feel attracted to someone. First, meet the person in a place that is likely to raise your heart rate and give you sweaty palms, etc. Maybe take a walk over a shaky rope bridge, or if that is not available in NYC, go see a horror flick -- you both are likely to mis-attribute your biological reactions (increased heart rate, sweaty palms) as attraction.
Also, we are attracted to people whose regard for us is gaining over time, so start low in displays of admiration. Playing hard to get works.
Finally, take care to look competent most of the time, but throw in some occasional blunders. Maybe "accidentally" spill ketchup all over your shirt because occasional blunders bring people down to earth and make them more attractive. (Blunder too often, though, and you will just look incompetent.)
I hope this finds you, Orli, and that you won't mind sending a little of the $$ I just saved you.
---
Most of the ideas in this post came from Yale Provost Peter Salovey's lecture on love.
I am tempted to use this post to explore the willingness to pay for a "suitable" mate, but I will resist the urge. Instead, Orli, if you are out there, I would like to offer some advice...
Understand this: Love is not something you go in search of; it is not even something that finds you. "Love at first sight," if that is what you are looking for, is not love -- it is infatuation.
Love is intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy means sharing things that you do not share with anyone else. Passion includes physical attraction and lust, but you can do as the nice matchmaking ladies said and put your hot pants away because it is not love if you do not call it love and have desire to maintain commitment.
You need all three things for it to be love. Without commitment it is just romantic love, without passion it is just a good friend, and without intimacy it is just a Britney Spears Vegas wedding. (Not K-Fed, the other one.)
---
Now, some suggestions on how to attract a mate...
Proximity, similarity, familiarity. Look for others who are physically close, similar to you, and familiar with you -- maybe a friend or acquaintance? These are the people with which you are most likely to find mutual attraction.
You can also exploit psychological biases to attract someone or make yourself feel attracted to someone. First, meet the person in a place that is likely to raise your heart rate and give you sweaty palms, etc. Maybe take a walk over a shaky rope bridge, or if that is not available in NYC, go see a horror flick -- you both are likely to mis-attribute your biological reactions (increased heart rate, sweaty palms) as attraction.
Also, we are attracted to people whose regard for us is gaining over time, so start low in displays of admiration. Playing hard to get works.
Finally, take care to look competent most of the time, but throw in some occasional blunders. Maybe "accidentally" spill ketchup all over your shirt because occasional blunders bring people down to earth and make them more attractive. (Blunder too often, though, and you will just look incompetent.)
I hope this finds you, Orli, and that you won't mind sending a little of the $$ I just saved you.
---
Most of the ideas in this post came from Yale Provost Peter Salovey's lecture on love.
Oct 16, 2009
Reader email quote of the day
From Robert in Utah:
I hate to be picky, but I'm not sure that evolution can be invoked as an answer to my question about how you know that people are inherently valuable. It works for explaining why you feel that way, but not why you believe that way. In fact, since you know that evolution has programmed you to feel a particular way (because it was advantageous for your ancestors to feel that way) then the rational thing would be to question the rightness of that feeling. It might be rational to doubt that people are inherently valuable (even though you feel it strongly) because of what you know about evolution. But I don't see how it's rational to believe that people are inherently valuable because of what you know about evolution.
I'm going to put myself on the line and admit that I believe (maybe more than anything else) that people are inherently valuable. And that I can't rationally defend that belief at all.
I truly cannot come up with a good response to this. What are your reactions?
Halloween Book Burning
A Baptist Church near Asheville, NC has announced its intention to celebrate Halloween by burning books and pretty much everything else that is not the King James version of the Bible. Lucky for you I have been planning to go camping near Asheville that same weekend, and my campmates have agreed to join me in witnessing the festivities. If all goes as planned, you can bet there will be a colorful write-up right here on WitW. (But with all the attention the story is receiving (front page of Digg) I am pessimistic it will actually go down.)
To me, this is another example that supports my philosophy on traveling -- all the culture you ever need can be found right in your own backyard.
The most entertaining part is not that they are burning country music and works of "heretics" like Mother Teresa, but that they will be providing complimentary "bar-b-que chicken, fried chicken and all the sides." Oh, the irony.
One cop issues 150,000 speeding tickets
On a typical day, he issues 60 tickets.
Doing the math, if he is working an eight hour day, that means he is issuing one ticket every eight minutes. Is that possible? I don't know how the police delegate responsibilities, but I would not have guessed that any had the full-time task of picking up speeders.
The town mayor estimates that he has *generated* (his word, not mine) seven figures worth of money.
Oct 15, 2009
Hierarchy of useful technology
I was thinking about the technology I would least want to do without. I came up with the list below in descending order of importance. I believe if I had only these things (and food, shelter, and clothing), that I could be completely happy and productive.
2. Electricity
3. Computer and internet
4. Basic soaps and cleaning supplies
5. Indoor lighting
6. Car (or comparably convenient transportation)
7. Sewage system
8. Refrigerator
9. HVAC
10. Washer and Dryer
11. Toaster Oven
12. Paper towels (multi-purpose: cleaning, plates, napkin, tissue, etc.)
13. Windows and shades
14. Sunglasses
15. Microwave
16. Silverware
Probably your list would look very different from mine, but I cannot think of anything really important that I am missing. I know a lot of people would include cell phone on their list, but for me it is mostly a nuisance.
It is amazing to reflect on the recency of availability of these things. 99% of humans who have touched the Earth never had the opportunity to use most of these things and still today many do not. I wonder how this list would look different if I lived 1,000 years in the past. Or 1,000 years in the future.
Religion in the US, 1990 and 2008 [infographic]
Oct 14, 2009
Punches in super slow motion [video]
It's a little hard to watch, but mesmerizing at the same time. It is all a teaser until about the 1 minute mark.
Oct 13, 2009
On Traveling
This is the first post in a series about my uncommon opinions.
The short of my travel philosophy: Traveling is nice, but people travel far too often because they overestimate the benefits and underestimate the costs. Although a small group of people have legitimate cause to go out of their way, run of the mill tourists like myself should limit vacations to times when they are going to be in the area anyway (e.g. business or family event). I will use the rest of this post to attempt to explain my reasoning.
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Preface
There are real benefits to traveling. I would point you to Ben Casnocha's treatise on why he travels for a well-reasoned list of benefits. My main point here is not to say that traveling is worthless, but that when considering how much the benefits are overstated and the costs understated, it is probably not worth going out of your way to travel.
I also think it is important to recognize the differences between types of traveling. I see it as a continuum from the American tourist superficially "seeing the sights" with a tour package in Paris to the Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. Certainly the latter is more worthwhile than the former. I often hear people tout their perspective on life by proclaiming "I buy experiences, not things," but I'm not sure a travel package in Paris is much of an improvement over a gold Rolex.
I also recognize that certain people have more to gain by traveling. People whose job security is dependent on their creativity could do well to take a sabbatical and do some traveling. Similarly, traveling might be worthwhile for people whose deepest interests have a high marginal return to traveling -- interests such as ancient architecture or tropical habitats. But even these rare individuals need to ask themselves, are the things that might be gained from the trip really worth the investment? I think for the run of the mill tourist the answer is almost always "not if I have to go out of my way."
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Overstated Benefits
Traveling is easy to romanticize. When people plan vacations, they often envision the cascading landscapes at sunset rather than the ordinary strip-mall-lined roads that will take them there. They are likely exaggerating the beauty and excitement of what they will see, and they are likely omitting the stressful and uncomfortable situations that they will inevitably encounter. Vacations rarely meet expectations and are sometimes devastatingly disappointing.
The good memories are probably not real. If, as I suggest, traveling rarely meets expectations, why then is it so rare for people to say how much their travels sucked? For one, people are usually unwilling to admit disappointment in something in which they invested so much physical and emotional capital. But people also have a remarkable ability to forget and overlook. At the surface, you probably remember really enjoying your vacations because the experiences that stick out in your memory are overwhelmingly positive. These are the things you took photos of, and the things you told your friends about over and over about how amazing they were -- it's easy to see why these selective experiences might not only hold a more prominent place in our memory, but how we might remember them as more positive than they really were.
Any event can be remembered positively. If we remember positively our travels and look back upon them fondly, why should it matter that they weren't actually that great? My response is that any event can be remembered positively if we perform the same tricks: 1. selective documentation and 2. in conversation, exaggeration of the positiveness of those events.
Any insights about culture are thin at best. Besides pleasure and good memories, another popular reason for traveling is to better understand cultures and your place in the world. To that I would say yes, there are differences between cultures worth exploring, but if that is your goal, you'd do better to study them from home. Ben Casnocha in a post 8/31:
It's said that after spending a week in China, you can write a whole book about the country. After spending a month in China, you can write a really nice magazine article about it. After a few months, a blog post. And after a year, you can't write anything, because you discover how little you actually know.
The desire to travel is inflated by social adoration and, in some places, political encouragement. People are less averse to spending their money on things that seem "good" or are socially adored. I think traveling is adored everywhere, and in some places -- Europe, for instance -- it is even politically encouraged.
There is a "grass is greener" bias. Places always seem more romantic and picturesque until you live there. For this reason, people overvalue exotic retreats compared to, say, local camping trips.
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Understated Costs
The decision is taken too lightly. For a lot of people the decision of whether to travel is a simple one: I have X number of days off from work this year, how do I want to use them? Understandably, a lot of people immediately think to use their "vacation days" for vacation. People want to get away from the 9 to 5, home for dinner monotony, and for most an exotic retreat sounds like a better option than staying at home to watch daytime television or catch up on chores. Too often people fail to see the opportunities beyond daytime television.
People value their time less during their "time off". Indeed, a day spent at home during time off might be seen as a day wasted -- a day that could have been spent traveling. I think in many cases people undervalue their time off because, again, they fail to see better ways of using it.
People underestimate the time-value of money, and many are even distrustful of money. I will discuss this more in an upcoming post, but I think you can gather the main points from my 6/16 post why I'm cheap.
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In Conclusion
To plan and go on a trip is to spend a lot of money and a lot of your most precious resource -- your time -- on something that is unlikely to add much to your life. A solution to this resource problem is to vacation only opportunistically, i.e. only if you are going to be in the area anyway.
I invite you now to tell me why I'm wrong. (Nicely, please.)
Flying Squirrel Men [video]
They are called "Birdmen" but I think it is technically more accurate to call them flying squirrel men. Either way, in case you missed it on 60 Minutes this weekend, here is what is likely to be one of the best segments of the year.
This video fascinates me for a couple of reasons. One is the pure production of the segment in camera work, questions asked, stories told, and stories not told. The other is the behavioral considerations...
It is obvious that these are some of the most purely hedonistic dudes on the planet. They seek to maximize happiness, but their view of happiness is limited. To them, momentary pleasure = happiness, and they neglect the idea of gratification.
I wonder what their lives are like the other 1,439 minutes of the day. How does one step down from that moment of exhilaration? I think it would surprise no one to learn that these dudes smoke pot and have lots of gratuitous sex, but they can't smoke pot, jump off cliffs, and have gratuitous sex all day. There must be some down time late at night when they sit in their underwear and eat left over pizza and watch re-runs of Family Guy. Even if not, they must spend some time waiting around airports or the DMV or paying bills and other ordinary tasks. How do they keep themselves from imploding of boredom? If they tried to go back to a desk job after a flying squirrel excursion, they'd surely be paralyzed with boredom. Am I wrong?
Space exploration [infographic]
I haven't a clue where this originated (this is why you label your infographics, people); I found it via the DataViz tumblr.
Update: Cool Infographics has the answer...
National Geographic published this amazing flight map that shows the flight paths of all 200 space missions in the last 50 years. A zoomable map is on the NG website, and a high-res image is available from Adam Crowe on Flickr.
Art by Sean McNaughton, National Geographic Staff, Samuel Velasco, 5W Infographics.
This is a beautifully designed infographic in every way except one: I understand it would be impractical to draw the distances to scale, but they could at least draw the sizes to scale.
Addendum: My friend the PhD Astrophysicist comments below that he thinks I would be unsatisfied if the sizes were drawn to scale, but looking at the image below, I still think it is do-able.
Oct 12, 2009
'Sheed's Shenanigans
Rasheed Wallace, one of my all-time favorite characters, is getting an early start on the shenanigans this season. He claims that his new team, the Boston Celtics, will surpass the Chicago Bull's 72 regular season win record.
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Amusing story:
In my senior year at NC State, I had to do a poster presentation on a statistics-related project of my choice. I was into sports economics, so I developed a model to help basketball coaches decide how long to bench a player in foul trouble. (Shockingly, coaches around the country remain oblivious to the model's brilliance.) But the model was not the best thing about the project; the best thing was the poster. Instead of being some generic Powerpoint layout, the background was a photo of Rasheed Wallace with his mouth wide open and teeth glaring, hands extended with palms facing upward, leaning down so that he was flush in the grill of a referee. I admit it did not help with readability, but I maintain that I had the coolest poster at the event. Somehow, though, my poster did not win any awards. Honestly, I think the judge might have decided to skip my poster as soon as she laid eyes on it. I'm not bitter.
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Possibly related:
Small World photography contest
137 photos from the 2009 entrants.
Test yourself: What do you think the photos below are? See the title of the image to find out.
Sorry I'm Late [video]
Watch a higher quality version at the video's official site.
(Hat tip: Lens)
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This is another one of those things, not unlike the 5 minute video that took 2 years and 6,000 paintings to make, that I have to wonder whether the novel effect was worth the investment.
Oct 11, 2009
Calling all missionaries
My girlfriend is religious. I am not. This had not been a problem for two years and three months, but things finally came to a head. She decided that she cannot be in a relationship with me if I continue to be a non-believer because of what that means about how we use shared resources, ideas about the afterlife, and just because the Bible says not to marry non-believers.
When I say that I am a non-believer, I do not mean to say that I am an atheist. If I have a position, it is that my brain is too feeble to understand it all. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, and anyone else, I am open to your message and have a sense of urgency to learn more.
If you have a strong belief on religious or spiritual issues, I want to know; indeed, I am begging you to tell me. If you know of a particularly convincing piece of writing, for example, please direct me to it. If you have a religious opinion you are willing to share, or maybe just an anecdote about a couple with differing religious views and how they manage that, please let me know.
My email is justinwehr@gmail.com, or if you prefer to remain anonymous, you may do so by commenting on this post.
I am open to any story so long as it does not boil down to "you've got to feel it in your heart." (Unless you can convince me that is a valid argument.)
It would also take some extra effort to convince me that there is anything special about humans, or that God is human-like. Or that yours is the one true belief.
Oct 9, 2009
Bull Market [photo]
The sculpture “What You see Might Not Be Real,” by Chen Wenling, was displayed at a Beijing gallery Sunday. The artwork is a critique of the global financial crisis, with the bull representing Wall Street and the man pinned to the wall representing Bernard Madoff.
(Hat tip: New Shelton)
Reflections on the governor's green job announcement
I was invited to attend an event announcing Cree's plans to expand green jobs in the area, and Governor Perdue was there to give the commencement. The invitation was extended to me and a few other local bloggers by Ginny from the blog, formerly of NBC-17's 30THREADS. She was recently hired by Cree -- an LED lighting company headquartered in Research Triangle Park -- to make a push in social media. As part of their push, they are reaching out to local bloggers like me, and I was grateful for the invitation to witness the events from a reserved seat in the front row. What follows are my reflections on the event (and a peek into the weird way my mind works).
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Let me get the substantive stuff about LEDs out of the way first and then I will take you on the journey of my wandering mind.
The first blue LED (light-emitting diode) was made in 1971, but blue LEDs were not commercialized until 1989. Now they come in all colors, and have been put to awesome use on things like Raleigh's Shimmer Wall. Their expected lifetime is 50,000 hours (5.7 years) -- in comparison, it would take an average of 10 Compact Fluorescents and 50 Incandescents to last that long. Many of the LEDs produced in the 1970s and 1980s are still in service today. Apparently we will be seeing many more LEDs soon because Cree announced plans to add ~600 jobs over the next three years, and Gov. Perdue might have announced her intentions to use LEDs for public lighting (but I couldn't tell because I had a hard time cutting through all the politospeak).
For more on LEDs, Wikipedia has a surprisingly in-depth page.
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Now, wandering thoughts on the event.
Gov. Bev walked in unescorted and greeted some state senators who were standing near the front. The hugs were a little on the stiff side, and I'm not sure but she might have forcibly pressed her cheek against theirs.
Bev sat to the side next to her untouched Le Blue as the Cree CEO delivered his introduction. The first thing I noticed was that Gov. Bev was sitting in a pose I hadn't seen before, with the sole of her right foot perched on top of the back of her left ankle. I thought that was interesting.
One of the first things that struck me as she stood up was her tiny size. There might have been a bit of an optical illusion comparing her size to that of the tall CEO -- the podium only reached the CEO's waist, but Bev's face barely peeked over it. Still, I am convinced she would not be able to ride some roller coasters.
Despite my small-government preferences, there is one thing I really admire about politicians: the ability to use many words to say so remarkably little.
There was an awkward moment where one guy tried to start the whole room clapping. Fortunately for him it worked, but I thought it would have been funnier if it didn't.
I could not tell if the use of repeated sentences was her way of creating a unified theme, or a desperate attempt to stay afloat for her allotted time. Twice in her ~15 minute presentation I counted "green is gold," and three references to "talking the talk." Either way, I believe she was fully successful in selecting language that everyone could agree with but from which no one could extract any real meaning.
Now you know why they don't usually invite bloggers to these things.
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A few related musings:
How do governors travel to local events? I am sure they don't have limos with police escorts or anything that extravagant, but do they at least have someone drive them? Or did Bev just pull up in her Volvo? (I assume that's what she drives.) Also, do they have anything resembling secret service?
How do people know when to clap? The answer, of course, is when everyone else claps ... but how does everyone else know when to clap? I would love to see a function that predicts applause and ovations. Just to get the conversation started, I would suggest some variables like whether the speaker is a politician, whether the hand makes a jabbing motion to punctuate the statement, the length of the pause between statements, and the degree to which the audience is well-fed and caffeinated.
Similarly, what characterizes people who try to start the applause? More importantly, how often are they successful?
Gov. Bev is so good at her speaking style that I have to wonder whether it is her speaking style. Does she use the same style at home? (That is a reality show I would watch.) If it's not her normal style, how did she learn it? She was not formally trained in English or Law, so who taught her how to so effectively combine colloquialisms and ambiguous language into sweet nothingisms ... and are they accepting applications?
Oct 8, 2009
Disney's Magic Kingdom [video]
From Disney Parks blog.
Tilt-shift is a photography technique that uses selective focus to trick the brain into seeing things miniaturized, which explains why it is sometimes referred to as "miniature faking" photography. Ever since discovering Keith Loutit's tilt-shift time lapse videos (post 1, post 2) I have been enamored and craving more. I set up a Google Alert which occassionally notifies me of very cool videos like this one. I will be sure to share any interesting ones that come along.
Reader email quote of the day
From David in Arlington:
I would be more of a libertarian, except I think a lot of people would get hornswoggled by fast-talking sharpies, and need to be protected.
Uncontrollable outbreaks of ... dance?
Dancing mania: (hat tip: best of wikipedia)
A social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 18th centuries involved groups of people, sometimes thousands at a time, who danced uncontrollably and bizarrely, seemingly possessed by the devil. Men, women, and children would dance through the streets of towns or cities, sometimes foaming at the mouth until they collapsed from fatigue. [...]Although no real consensus exists as to what caused the mania, some cases may have had an explicable physical cause. The symptoms of the sufferers can be attributed to ergot poisoning, or ergotism, known in the Middle Ages as "St. Anthony's Fire". It is caused by eating rye infected with Claviceps purpurea, a small fungus that contains toxic and psychoactive chemicals (alkaloids), including lysergic acid and ergotamine (used in modern times as a precursor in the synthesis of LSD). Symptoms of ergot poisoning include nervous spasms, psychotic delusions, spontaneous abortion, convulsions and gangrene; some dancers claimed to have experienced visions of a religious nature.
The question in my mind is how/why a fungus would evolve to make people dance en masse.
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Possibly related:
Oct 7, 2009
New Series: Uncommon Opinions
Update 11/2: I am putting this series on hold for a few reasons: 1. This is my blog, dammit, and have gotten bored with this series after the first post. 2. What good is analyzing my opinions to death? Why do I even need to understand them better? It hardly seems worth the time. 3. I have lost the desire to be right. I was never out to prove anyone else wrong, but I feel like I am trying to prove myself right, and I don't like that. If you want to know my opinion on any of these things, feel free to ask, I just don't want to analyze them to death.
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I started thinking about areas where I have different views from otherwise like-minded people. I came up with the list below (I may think of others to add later), and I intend to devote a post to each explaining my views. These are not issues where I am just in the minority, but issues where I would be lucky to find a single person who agrees with me.
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I started thinking about areas where I have different views from otherwise like-minded people. I came up with the list below (I may think of others to add later), and I intend to devote a post to each explaining my views. These are not issues where I am just in the minority, but issues where I would be lucky to find a single person who agrees with me.
1. Traveling
2. Charity
3. Saving
4. Voting
5. Abortion
6. Democracy
7. War
8. Health Care
Before anyone gets offended by my comments, please take note: There is no reason to think I am particularly insightful on these topics; I am just an ordinary dude who reads and thinks about these things probably an inordinate amount. And while my opinions on these topics are fairly strong, that does not mean they won't change. And in fact they have changed many times before -- yes, I admit, I'm a waffler. I am not posting my views to convince you that I am right or that I have anything particularly useful to say; truthfully, this is more of an exercise to understand myself better. My hope is that I will get some useful comments telling me why I am wrong.
I will begin by giving you some background on my worldview so that you might understand my opinions better. If you have read this blog for long enough, you probably already have some idea, but allow me to spell it out for you as best as possible ...
On Bryan Caplan's Libertarian Purity Test, I scored a 102 out of 160, which puts me in the "heady realm of hard-core libertarianism." For those not familiar with libertarianism, that means I am socially very liberal and economically very conservative. I think adults should be free to do anything except harm another person or another person's property. I think the government should be very small but not so small that they can't serve their role: to prevent the use of force and to define and enforce property rights. I believe strongly in the power of the free market, and I believe whenever the government steps outside of their clearly defined role, the burden of proof should be on them to show that a market failure exists. One area where I differ from some libertarians is in supporting subsidies or taxes in cases where there are externalities or proven biases -- so I am in favor of subsidizing parks and education, and in favor of taxing gasoline.
My religious views are hard to describe. I am certainly not very religious and I certainly do not believe in a human god. If there is one thing I am convinced of, it is that humans are not that special. We are not the end point of evolution. My girlfriend would probably call me an atheist, but I would probably put myself between atheist and agnostic, if that's possible. I am not opposed to religion, and I am not closed to the idea that there is a god or gods. I do believe there is likely something special about the laws of the universe and the way it all "works", but I do not hold hope that my feeble human brain will ever be able to understand what it all means.
Swine Flu saves lives?
BMJ 9/29: (Hat tip: Seth Roberts)
By any measure A/H1N1 is a benign flu virus. According to official statements, New Zealand, for example, usually has 400 deaths from flu each year. This year there were 17, so it could be argued that the pandemic has resulted in 383 lives being saved, which makes it more effective than any flu vaccine.
I understand the virus could mutate into something worse, but this statement tells me the virus has a long way to go before much worrying is justified.
Oct 6, 2009
This blog is about Me, dammit
Dear Reader,
Regrettably, I no longer care about keeping you happy. Not that I was ever out to maximize your satisfaction, but now I have decided that your satisfaction is, I am afraid, irrelevant to the decision of what this blog is about.
I noticed I have been spending too much time monitoring traffic stats and analyzing whether or not you might enjoy what I have to say. You are not, I am afraid, my customer. I have nothing to sell. The reason why I do this is not to make anonymous people happy but to find others with interests similar to mine, and to have conversations with them about those topics. I got into blogging without really examining the reasons why, but now I think I have a better understanding, and as a result, there will be some changes.
You will probably find more of my posts boring simply because I will no longer use that as an excuse not to post something. That's the bad news. The good news (I hope) is that there will be more original content. I will still point to interesting things with hope that it will spur a conversation either via comments or via email (and also because I just like to have a record of these things), but I want to do more creating compared to pointing. I have a lot of big questions to ask, and a lot of trivial things to get off my mind.
Although I am pledging to ignore your satisfaction with this blog, I want to know more about you. Who are you? Why are you reading this blog and how long have you been doing so? What things are you most interested in? I'd love to hear from you: justinwehr[at]gmail.com.
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Addendum: The benefits of blogging
Most desirable states and cities to live in
According to a Harris Interactive poll of 2,498 US adults conducted Aug. 10-18, the most desirable places to live in the US are as follows:
1. California
2. Florida
3. Hawaii
4. Texas
5. Colorado
T6. North Carolina
T6. Arizona
T6. Washington
9. Tennessee
10. Oregon
11. New York
T12. South Carolina
T13. Massachusetts
14. Georgia
15. Montana
1. New York City
2. Denver
3. San Francisco
4. San Diego
5. Seattle
6. Chicago
7. Boston
8. Las Vegas
9. Washington, D.C.
10. Dallas
11. Nashville
12. Atlanta
13. Orlando
14. Los Angeles
That's from the Triangle Business Journal. I was not able to find the exact poll results from a web search, but I did find this page from 2007 which shows the top 15 most desirable states and cities since 1997.
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I have often wondered whether my love for Durham is simply bias resulting from the endowment effect. It might be, but even dropping family ties and such, I cannot think of a single place on the east coast that I would rather live than Durham, North Carolina. The only city that I might be willing to pay more to live in is San Francisco, but that is based only on what I imagine the city to be, not on any hard evidence.
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Oct 5, 2009
The US government's credit score [infographic]
Above is one small piece from the Loans and Credit infographic. Apparently the US government's credit score is currently 620, which is one point away from being in the "poor" category.
Support for same sex marriage by state and age [graph]
From Ryan Sager. (Hat tip: chart porn)
I love the presentation of these data. The only thing that would make it better is to have an animation of how these data move over time. I suspect that the order of the states has stayed fairly constant over time but that the points in each state continue to move further to the right. How long before most of the X's are to the right of the 50% line? My guess is 15 years.
Oct 2, 2009
The longest pro tennis rally in history
Twenty-five year ago, tennis player Vicki Nelson-Dunbar played Jean Hepner in a 29-minute, 643-shot rally. The rally remains the longest point played in a professional tennis match. Nelson-Dunbar says the two-set match lasted 6 1/2 hours. She says other points in the game could have been longer.
It's hard to believe this record will ever be broken because lobs don't work against modern racquets.
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Earlier:
Beach warning [photo]
What cracks me up about this is the thought of the meetings and/or planning councils that decided there was a need for this, followed by what was going through the heads of the people who went through the trouble to draw it, line it up, print it, drive it to the beach and bolt it to a tree. Did not any of them, in their efforts to get the warning out, question the usefulness of this task and in doing so the purpose of their existence?
(Hat tip: the New Shelton wet/dry)
Oct 1, 2009
US household income and expenditures [maps]
These maps look nearly identical but there are some minor differences. For example, Oregonians and Northern Californians are spending relatively more than they earn, and Western Michiganders are spending relatively less than they earn.
Maps come from Forbes 05/09: Where Americans Are Living Well. (Hat tip: Bluematter.)
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