September 2008
53 posts
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Why can't we have interesting politicians?
Like Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso, who looks like a James Bond assassin:
Or Vladimir Putin, who last month saved a camera crew from a enraged Siberian Tiger:
Or, Carla Bruni (technically not a politician, but close enough), France’s First Lady:
Who is an extremely talented musician in addition to being gorgous, French, and sophisticated.
If they’re going to steal our...
“It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.”
– Mike Taibbi on Sarah Palin’s RNC speech
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“When endowed with profound religious feeling, your skin becomes transparent and...”
– Joe Frank
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Morning Banana
A diet fad has cleaned bananas off the shelves of Japanese groceries. The simple diet involves eating a banana or two in the morning, anything you want at lunch, and anything you want at an early dinner (no eating after 8).
The Morning Banana Diet, as it is called, looks like a slightly modified intermittent fast regime. If one limits one’s food intake between midday and 8pm (6pm is...
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Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic...
“Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US...
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Thanks for the loan, now go f*ck yourself.
From the draft text of “LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS”:
Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.
The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time
…
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this...
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Losing control
Khoi Vinh’s presentation, “Control”, conveys some important observations about the differences between print and interactive design.
I learned design principles while producing HTML back in the mid to late 90s, so never had the luxury of total control that print designers are used to. This presentation helped me understand interactive design principles that I had internalized...
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Daily Euphony
Jamie Lidell Little Bit of Feel...
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Blogging Politics
In the middle of rereading the article I just posted, “The F.A.Q.’s of Lehman and A.I.G.”, I had a realization: I don’t have the time to dissect the massive con game that is the U.S. financial/political system.
The convoluted and sophisticated array of financial, social, psychological, and behavioral mind games in those arenas overwhelm my ability to see any truth (other than to observe...
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A couple of U of Chicago professors explain recent...
For most of the last 20 years we have been studying banks, monetary policy, and financial crises. So for us the events of the last year have been especially fascinating.
The last 10 days have been the most remarkable period of government intervention into the financial system since the Great Depression. In talking with reporters and our noneconomist friends, we have been besieged with questions...
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The Best Aesthetics Lecture/Seduction Dialogue...
We join Allesandro and Janet in 1915, riding a train making its way North through Italy:
The train passed great and small cities and pushed on toward the mountains. The harvest, the sun, and October light had made Italy a chain of fields, their richness and tranquility shattered only by the railway, and even then, after the trains had passed through, contentment would close-in the way cold blue...
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“We have lost control. We cannot stabilize the dollar. We cannot control...”
– Ben Bernake, Federal Reserve Chairman Quoted by David Hale in the Chicago Tribune
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The Daily Euphony
Emiliana Torrini - Heard it...
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Daily Euphony
David Byrne and Brian Eno Strange...
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing...”
– Thomas Jefferson
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Daily Euphony
Marc Broussard - Inner City Blues...
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Cymbolism | Words & Colors →
New color aid for designers takes a different approach from the more scientific procedural based tools: group colors by the emotional tone they convey.
I’m a bit skeptical how this will work out, as colors can contextually convey quite different emotions depending on the colors with which they are displayed.
For instance, a dark blue color might be perceived as royal, trustworthy when...
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Daily Euphony Doin’ My Thang Zion from the...
“Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to...”
– Henry Miller
First Meeting of The Quantified Self Meetup Group →
Fascinating notes from the first meeting of a group of people interested in quantifying various aspects of their lives: exercise regimes, diet, weight, blood tests, work, time, learning and memory.
“Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me...”
– Emma Goldman “Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty”
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Daily Euphony: A eme O by Andrea Echeverri
A...
U.S. & Fox News Propaganda operation revealed
The syncronicities between life in the U.S. right now and countless dystopian police-state fiction stories keeps growing faster every day. I’m beginning to feel like I’m living in Orwell’s 1984. On bad days. On better days it feels more like Starship Troopers.
Today, Glenn Greenwalt writes about the collusion of Fox News and the US Army in obscuring the deaths of Afghani...
Awe and wonder
One of the wonderful things about reading astronomy articles is how they can make you feel like an infitesimal speck in a vast uncaring universe.
Take, for example, this bit from an article about an event that transpired on March 19th, where scientists observed the brightest object they’d seen:
“The optical afterglow was 2.5 million times more luminous than the most luminous...
“There are only two industries that refer to their customers as ‘users’.”
– Edward Tufte
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The Daily Euphony
Bonobo: The Plug (Quantic...
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The Daily Euphony
DJ Cheb i Sabbah’s...
“Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.” - Col. David...”
– The Brilliance of Military Warnings
Beautiful, sad - All the Books in the World →
Four years I've been using GMail, and haven't...
Until now:
Putin Baby Pitt Jolie Brad Pitt: My Baby Looks Like Putin Read It Now! www.russiatoday.com
Yes, RussiaToday, I believe I shall read it Now.
Emiliani Torrini...
has a new album coming out soon, and tracks are already starting to pop up.
It sounds wonderful, particularly “Heard it all Before”.
Neighborhood Landscapes
The neighborhood around my office building is in the midst of a revival: old, run down brick buildings share the streets with rehabbed restaurants, office buildings and upscale condos.
During lunch my friend and officemate Heathro and I explored a couple of nearby alleys. Photos to come.