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January 21, 2010
The Saints are gonna wish they still had this guy this weekend!
January 04, 2010
Anyone know where the $65 M in profit goes? In all my hatred of UT's football team, it had never occurred to me that they were making this much money... perhaps I could be less angry of all the hype if the profits were being used for "good".
December 10, 2009
Maybe you like old holiday TV specials. Maybe you should go to the Classic Television Showbiz site or follow him on Twitter because he's been on a tear putting up very special episode after very special episode.
December 08, 2009
Eddie Would Go - drop-of-a-hat Big Wave surf comp going on now. Only held when the Waimea bay waves are deemed epic enough, which last happened in 2004. If conditions look right, every top surfer and fans from around the world race to Hawaii in hopes the event goes on.
The event is going on this year - it just started, and they're looking at up to 50-foot swells today (Tuesday).
Eddie's story is also interesting -- an awe-inspiring lifeguard and surfer, he perished trying to rescue passengers of a capsized boat.
A 50-foot swell is about three stories tall. Anyone have an estimate for how fast the waves are travelling?
NYT Magazine on Texas Republicans - "Hutchison, like Perry, gets high"
Peer review hasn't changed much over the years.
December 04, 2009
Holy fuck! Have you read about Erik Prince? This man is not going to jail any time soon. [more inside]
November 22, 2009
It's time for the best-of lists, decade style this time. Oddly, for the bands I like I agree with the choice and order of the AV Clubs best of 00's list but in a great many cases would've chosen different albums by the same artists (eg Jay-Z, Outkast, Kanye, White Stripes, MIA, Girl Talk). And though the full thing felt a bit too Dr Feeljay for me, it's a solid list.
Please post other lists below as they flame your righteous indignation.
November 19, 2009
Name that Movie - different than the earlier ones, these feature some wonderful black and white illustrations: six per film, no stars.
November 16, 2009
The largest graffiti in the world, courtesy the MTA Crew, is no more. It ran most of the length along the river "bank" between the 1st St. and 4th St. bridges. [more inside]
November 13, 2009
Confusion over where money lent on Kiva goes - I'm sure you all remember the micropayment service which allows you to pay small lone amounts to individuals in countries that need investment. What a lot of people (apparently) didn't know is...well...that's not really how it works. When you see the picture of that person on the site they've already gotten their money from a local microloan agency; your money just backstops that agency. Soooooo, if you're basically just lending money to a bank...what do you need Kiva for?
November 10, 2009
We missed it, but the AE definition of WAM was chosen as the Urban Word of the Day for 14 December 2006. [more inside]
November 08, 2009
Comparison of all the major Health Insurance Reform proposals - This kind of backgrounder is the most valuable thing a newspaper should provide, yet is all too rare. I'd rather read an 'importancepaper' than a 'newspaper', if only they'd publish one.
October 27, 2009
October 16, 2009
Obama to visit Texas A&M - an enjoyable piece of cognitive dissonance for all, I'm sure.
September 19, 2009
Fast Fat and Out of Control Attention people who teach intro physics: attached please find the contents of your Monday lecture, courtesy the 1884 New York Times editorial board.
"The time is coming, however, when fat men will rival in speed the fastest bicycle, and light men will be utterly unable to compete with them."
The article is scanned in, and so it begins on the lower part of the left side, and continues at the top
September 12, 2009
The Erdős-Bacon number quantifies how close a person is professionally to both Kevin Bacon AND Paul Erdős. If you're like me you might be thinking "Who even has a defined number?" and if so you're not appreciating the size of the network effect. It's not just professional nerds like Brian Greene or Carl Sagan but also professional actors-who-are-also-nerds like Danica McKellar and Natalie Portman.
I post this because it's interesting but also I know a lot of you nerds out there and I bet none of you have looked up whether you have a defined Erdős number. Surely someone in this group was an author with an author with an author.....
August 28, 2009
Chimps falling down and eating boogers! If you like to watch those things then you may enjoy this video of chimpanzee outtakes I made at my company. This is what I call "work"
August 18, 2009
A friend from high school edits this website, I figure y'all would enjoy. Enjoy.
August 11, 2009
While I ate my Trader Joe's frozen burrito for lunch, I read a great NY Times Magazine article by Michael Pollan, "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch". Pollan discusses the decline of cooking in the American household and how cooking shows are somewhat at fault. Prime time cooking shows are all about cooking as a spectator sport, and not about turning off the tv and getting into the kitchen. He also discusses a link between obesity rates and the time spent cooking. If the only way to get a cookie is to bake it yourself, you are less likely to eat it. So the food industry is also to blame for making all yummy, bad for you food so cheap and easily available.
In theory I am not in the norm since all the food network shows I've watched have inspired me to cook more and quite a few of our favorite recipes came from Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri, and Rachel Ray. There's something gratifying about accomplishing at least one major feat in the day. But now that we've added a baby into the mix, we have a lot less time and we are tending to have fewer steps in our cooking. We would love to eat healthier and even make our baby's food. But we are just so pressed for time nowadays.
Anyway, it's a good read. Enjoy.
August 10, 2009
In the midst of this editorial from a conservative attacking health care reform, there is this gem:
One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.
The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
Great fact-checking there, guys!
Thanks to Top Chef, I know all about this apparent movement in food culture called "molecular gastronomy" which mostly entails using a little science about how food processes work to create unexpected tastes and textures that really hadn't been explored before. Or, to most people, it probably just means "foam" because that is mostly how it was used.
Anyway, I came across the very stimulating blog Cooking Issues run by some chefs at the French Culinary Institute in NYC. Their interests range far and wide but the topics never fail to be interesting. They answer questions like "What is the best apple to use for cider?" by going to a university/government orchard and trying 200 varieties. They answer questions like "Why do the parts of the cocktail shaker stick together?" by (gasp!) doing math...and then an experiment to see how close the math was. They ask "What can you do with a centrifuge (and which one should I buy?)" and then do a bunch of stuff with a centrifuge. Oh yeah, also foam.