...was a fellow by the name of Gaius Appuleius Diocles. He was a 2nd-century Roman charioteer.
Tags: sportsHis total take home amounted to five times the earnings of the highest paid provincial governors over a similar period -- enough to provide grain for the entire city of Rome for one year, or to pay all the ordinary soldiers of the Roman Army at the height of its imperial reach for a fifth of a year. By today's standards that last figure, assuming the apt comparison is what it takes to pay the wages of the American armed forces for the same period, would cash out to about $15 billion.
by Jason Kottke at September 03, 2010 09:14 PM
Better than the real deal I've heard.
Warning: once you make edamame2003's version, you may never be able to go back to commercial sriracha again. The vibrant color and piquancy of the fresh fresno peppers, combined with plenty of garlic and a boost of vinegar, make for a zippy, versatile condiment that would be great with anything from banh mi to scrambled eggs.
(via dj)
Tags: foodby Jason Kottke at September 03, 2010 07:47 PM
How do you simplify your life and possessions when kids are in the mix?
Don't feel guilty. Modern parents are made to feel as if they are depriving their children of "the best" if they don't sign them up for every lesson, take them to every movie, or buy them every brain-enhancing toy. Advertising companies are paying billions of dollars to make you think this. It is not reality... it is a fictional version of reality they are selling. Let it go. Don't "buy" into it. You are not depriving your children; you are enhancing their mental and emotional development by letting the real world around them captivate and interest them. Do you think the Smiths' kids are really better off because they spend all their free time in front of a television or playing with a DSI?
(via @brainpicker)
Tags: parentingby Jason Kottke at September 03, 2010 05:18 PM
Yesterday I was commiserating with another mother about the temperament of our infants who are close in age, although her son doesn't seem to have as much trouble as Marlo does with teething. I've mentioned this before, but when a tooth starts to poke its way through her gum she is inconsolable and sits on the floor screaming like someone stole the Oompa Loompa she had on layaway.
Another woman was in on our conversation, but she doesn't have kids, and she asked if it was really that bad. And I held out my arms to signify hours and hours and hours of bad. And she was like, wouldn't that be kind of fun, though? To have permission to sit in the floor and just scream all day long? And I could totally see where she was coming from, and wanted to extend that to having someone feed me grapes and wipe my bottom while cooing.
But then I thought about it for a second, and I don't think I could sustain a scream for that long. Even though I work out every day, I think I could maybe make it five minutes. Maybe. Think about the stamina it would take to scream for over and hour. And then think about how boring and monotonous it would get. Unless you're into death metal, then I guess it would be a total party.
Is that what I'm raising? Someone who is going to grow up and growl lyrics about violence and Satanism and necrophilia? Because I think my dad would prefer she turn out that way rather than vote for a Democrat.
There's hope yet, Dad!
by dooce in Daily, Marlo, Parenthood
© Armstrong Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Originally published by Heather B. Armstrong for dooce.com as The stamina of Chuck Schuldiner. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.
by dooce at September 03, 2010 05:05 PM
EDITOR’S NOTE: Spacing Votes — our dedicated 2010 election blog — will feature regular posts form our contributors that examine campaign promises and platforms that focus on Toronto’s urban landscape. Here’s our round-up of posts from the last seven days.
• It's been a race in which the issues are pushed to the wayside and bickering and past indiscretions reign supreme. As election day (October 25) comes into eyesight, most of the electorate is waiting for post-Labour Day to engage. But as Mike Radoslav writes, the important issues (substance) is being lost to Ford's history of substance abuse inter alia (scandal). So when are we going to start demanding discussion over, you know, some key issues in lieu of attention-grabbing headlines of past and present faux pas? October 25 isn't that far away, Toronto.
• If anyone knows anything about Sarah Thomson's campaign, it's her relentless push for an expanded subway system. It's basically mayoral race common knowledge. In our continuing series to look at each candidate's platform on transit, we put the spotlight on Thomson's robust expansion project. She's in favour of subway expansion over light rail transit, and even she admits that's going to come with a hefty price tag. But she notes there are options including road tolls, open payment systems and private sector partners for footing the bill.
• Twitter wasn't even around in the last mayoral race, so we look to how social media is impacting the current batch of candidates. Does the voteTO hashtag carry any weight in the race? Who's leveraging social media best and gaining steam? That's still undecided. But the ways in which Twitter and its social media friends are affecting mainstream media is of note. But the most anticipated aspect of the social media political race will be to see how many youngsters Twitter and Facebook will get to the polls.
• To stay robust in our coverage, Spacing Votes is also looking to council to see who is shaping up. The mayor's seat is just one of many seats that needs to be filled, of course.
photo by Robert Taylor
by Ryan Bolton at September 03, 2010 04:37 PM
One of the first things that Steve Jobs did after taking over as Apple's interim CEO in 1997 is to get Apple back on track with their branding. In this short presentation from '97, Jobs talks about branding & Apple's core values and introduces the Think Different campaign.
That might be one of the best five minute explanations of good branding out there. The campaign was very successful in rehabilitating Apple's image with the press and public.
What's interesting is how the iPad and iPhone advertisements focus almost entirely on the product. Apple no longer has to imply that their products are the best by showing you pictures of Albert Einstein and Amelia Earhart...they just show you the products and you know. But I don't see Jobs doing a "fake it 'til you make it" branding presentation anytime soon. :)
Tags: advertising Apple Steve Jobsby Jason Kottke at September 03, 2010 04:05 PM
"Bank Run at Bathurst and Bloor"
Southeast Corner or Bathurst and Bloor, 1923 - 2010
Before and After will appear each Friday showcasing mixed Then and Nows by local artist and Toronto history enthusiast Alden Cudanin.
by Alden Cudanin at September 03, 2010 04:00 PM
Susan Orlean writes about the lopsided intimacy of big cities and social media.
Tags: cities NYC Susan Orlean TwitterLife in Manhattan is like living inside a gigantic Twitter stream. What you get to know about people you don't know simply by accidental adjacency is astonishing.
by Jason Kottke at September 03, 2010 02:53 PM
Pseudovariety -- "the illusion of diversity, concealing a lack of real choice" -- is when you go to the store and see an entire aisle filled with hundreds of different kinds of soda but most of those soda varieties are owned by three companies. Click through to see a neat visualization of soft drink brands and their market shares and owners.
Tags: food infovizby Jason Kottke at September 03, 2010 01:03 PM
Dear Log,
If an idea or person follows from the ideas of Mao, it's Maoist.
If an idea or person follows from the ideas of Mo-Zi (墨子),
it's Mohist. Mohist.
Otherwise: Moist!
* * *
Also:
墨子 SUPPO子 HIS TOE子 ARE RO子 BUT 墨子 SUPPO子 ERRONEOUSLY!!!
Dear Log,
Glen McCracken is attempting to complete the first-person shooter game Modern Warfare 2 without killing anyone. Did John Conner tell him not to?
Tags: Modern Warfare 2 video gamesThis feat may sound impossible, but for Game Informer reader and hardcore Modern Warfare 2 player Glen McCracken, it's only a matter of time. In two hours of playing, Glen has reached rank 5 without taking a life. Using pacifist means to earn points, Glen estimates it will take him roughly two months to be the first player to reach rank 70 with zero kills.
by Jason Kottke at September 02, 2010 10:17 PM
Pssst, itSMF International is calling for nominations for the International Executive Board but it's a secret so don't tell anyone ok?
If your local chapter is on the ball they will have told you... or not. Since itSMF has no international means of communication other than the website, it's a bit disappointing it is not there.
by skeptic at September 02, 2010 09:05 PM
by delicious at September 02, 2010 09:01 PM
Here's what the communication between a web browser and YouTube looks like when the browser requests a video, slowed down 12X so you can actually see what happens.
Tags: infoviz video WWWby Jason Kottke at September 02, 2010 08:52 PM
A lot’s happened to Alexa in the past five years.
Having followed her life in real time, I was looking forward to reading her book, but honestly, I kind of thought I’d be reading a lot of stuff I already knew about. Alexa is a singularly charming writer, and I knew I’d enjoy it, mind you. But part of me hesitated, because it was about pregnancy and babies and I’m done with all that. Then the more intelligent part of me purchased the book, because after all, this was Alexa. Duh.
I expected a diverting read, but I was blown away. Half-Baked is really, really good. I knew how it ended, I knew all the high points and low points along the way, and I was still mesmerized. I started reading on Sunday and I was finished by Tuesday. I read it every chance I could get. I lost sleep so I could read more. Sleep is my favorite thing to do, and I gave it up, for Alexa.
In a lot of ways, Half-Baked is a much more intimate look at what Alexa and her husband Scott went through than her blog was. Which makes sense: I can imagine that writing in the moment, especially when your child is in such a precarious state, you might not give voice to your darkest fears; you’re conscious of your audience and their expectations; you have to soldier on, and you’re distracted and exhausted and overwhelmed. It’s only afterward that you can look back and fully describe what you went through. And I’m so glad she did.
In short, this book is in no way a retread of her blog: it’s funny, it’s sad, and it’s gripping. I was so annoyed to find this in the “Pregnancy and Childcare” section of Barnes and Noble that I refused to buy it there. This is a memoir, and a first-rate one at that.
by Alice Bradley at September 02, 2010 08:09 PM
Professionally. From the tail-end of a recent interview with the sprinter:
Ultimately, he says, he'd love to make a go of playing football professionally. He's being deadly serious. One of the perks of being Usain Bolt is that sporting stars love to meet him, so whenever he's travelling and there's time, he tries to train with a top football team. Last year it was Manchester United, a few days ago it was Bayern Munich. He's still carrying a copy of the French sporting newspaper L'Equipe, which features a spread on his football skills and praise from Bayern manager Louis van Gaal. He shows me a photo of himself with his arm wrapped round the dwarfed 6ft German forward Miroslav Klose. "If I keep myself in shape, I can definitely play football at a high level," he says.
"With his physical skills, I reckon he could play in the Premier League," Simms says.
Professional American football would be even more of a no brainer...Randy Moss with Darrell Green speed++.
Tags: football interviews soccer sports Usain Boltby Jason Kottke at September 02, 2010 07:14 PM
Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.
You can’t reach everyone in the world.
Why? Because a lot of people are so incredibly different from you.
Some people really like fancy sports cars (I wish my superpower was the ability to stop all car traffic for a 1-mile radius around my current location,) other people really want to destroy the environment (I really wish we could save it.) still other people like going to garage sales and buying tons of junk they’ll never use to fill up their house (well, duh, I don’t do advocate this.)
The specifics of what I’m trying to say don’t really matter, the reality is that if you say anything at all that has any consequence, someone will have the opposite view of what you’re trying to say.
How to be uncontroversial.
So 80% of the people who are creators (especially on blogs) solve this problem by never saying anything specific. They don’t want to offend anyone, so they try to be safe and not say anything that matters.
They dumb down their writing until you could buy it off of a grocery store magazine rack.
The problem is that if you stop saying anything important, you end up saying nothing much at all.
Then no one cares.
The real reason why I turned off blog comments.
Recently I made the controversial decision to turn commenting off on this blog.
I listed seven reasons why you should invest your time instead of commenting on my blog, and the first reason was “write about what I said on your blog.”
So a whole bunch of people wrote on their blogs about how I was stomping on their freedom of speech by turning off comments on my blog.
The funny thing is, these people followed my advice that I listed in that original article. They proved that there was something better they could be doing than commenting on my blog.
Also, when they wrote about what I said on their blog, I actually had time to read what these people said.
Why? Because instead of reading dozens of comments a day, I only have to read the blog posts that pop-up on my google alert for my name.
(To be fair, around an equal number of people wrote about how awesome it was that I turned off my blog comments, and are considering doing it themselves once they have an overwhelmingly large following.)
Turning comments off isn’t a new blogging strategy.
What I’m saying here isn’t anything new, people have been turning off comments on their blog and upsetting a small fraction of their readers since the beginning of time.
I’m sure when Seth turned off his comments there was an earthquake somewhere simultaneously.
The truth is that any conclusion that you come to has the potential to make any person unhappy. If you stop saying anything important because you’re afraid someone will be mad, then you’ll never connect with the people who truly support you.
How to find your true fans.
My number one mission since my blog rocketed into the global spotlight has been to slowly close down the ways that people interact me until I have time to really contribute value to a small group of my true fans.
I’m under no illusion that all 70,000+ readers of this blog actually like what I’m saying. In truth, 70% of these people bounce after the first minute of reading.
Others send me emails telling me to stop writing what I’m writing because I’m contesting their ideas about consumption.
“I just want to go to Walmart, spend my money and not have anyone question that what I’m doing is wrong.”
This is the way it is for most blogs. Most people are just wandering around hoping they’ll find something to read that will make them feel good.
“Why isn’t your blog about Lady Gaga or Lindsay Lohan?”
Do you think Coca Cola likes what I’m saying on this blog? If you drink a coke once a day and drive to work, chances are you don’t like what I’m saying either.
But somewhere in the soup of readers that the Internet brings there are people who resonate with what I’m saying here.
Maybe these people aren’t you, but they could be you. I’m just laying a foundation for what is possible.
Three strategies that I use to find and identify my 1000 true fans.
1. Interview people who you admire.
The #1 reason that my blog has grown so fast is because I’ve systematically interviewed everyone who I admire. Interviews are the #1 way to make powerful people aware of your existence. Most people have time to do an interview, because it contributes value to both the interviewee and the interviewer.
If you want to interview me, just drop interview questions into my email box, or connect with me on Twitter. I’d love to talk to you.
Also, if you’re someone who used to really like commenting, an interview is a much better way to focus your energy. You’re welcome to ask tough questions. You could even ask me one tough question.
2. Write about work that changes the way you think about reality.
When I see something that really changes my thinking, I write about it here. This is why I’ve been able to recently connect so well with Gwen Bell recently. I wrote about the fact that she checks email once per day, and about her digital sabbatical — thus sending her blog noticeable amounts of traffic. The next thing you know we’re tweeting free business consulting advice at each other. Awesome!
When you spread the work of others, they will do the same for your work.
3. Write un-apologetically about what you actually believe.
I have opinions about things that matter. They may not really gel with your ideas about reality, but that’s okay. This blog isn’t for everyone — as we saw above, it isn’t for most people. I understand that only a select few are on their way to creating fully automated minimalist businesses.
I understand that only a few remarkable individuals are actually living with less than 100 things.
If you want to write a blog that people pay attention to, you need to say some things that will offend a certain group of people. You can’t make everyone happy, that’s okay. Say what you believe.
You’re still totally welcome to read if you aren’t doing these things, I’m just saying what is true. Not everyone is up for this challenge, mostly because they have more important things in their lives to worry about.
However, a select few people are changing the world. I’m so proud to among a group of people who laying the foundation for the shape of things to come.
Will you join me?
Write about the people that matter. Interview the people that matter. Say things that matter.
This is how you make a difference.
–
Speaking of Interviews, I have one coming up with Vagabonding author Rolf Potts next week. Want to find out how to travel around the world without any luggage? Don’t miss out! Sign up for free updates via RSS, email or follow me on Twitter.
by Everett Bogue at September 02, 2010 07:00 PM
The Stack Overflow Blog: “The Unix world loves to take sides. I don’t have to blog about this; Freud already did, in 1930. He called it ‘the narcissism of minor differences’”
Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.
by Joel Spolsky at September 02, 2010 06:43 PM
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs talk about their short career building illegal telephone equipment, aka blue boxes.
Interesting how their two stories differ...the engineer and the marketer.
Tags: phreaking Steve Jobs Steve Wozniak telephony videoby Jason Kottke at September 02, 2010 05:45 PM
On mornings when the timing works out – not all mornings, but definitely the best mornings – the whole family walks down Eugenia together, the girls in school uniforms and non-uniform tights and boots, their bright backpacks on their backs, and Jeremy and I in our serious grownup Linux hacker and industry analyst standard city equipment.
J and the girls take the bus south, I go north. The buses are frequent so there’s usually not enough time to wave, but one morning last week, Mission Street was empty for a while. I waved, the girls waved. I waved. They waved. I blew kisses, they blew kisses, I made heart shapes with my hands, they made strange squashy shapes with theirs.
Then we all paused. Still no bus. Awkward.
I made jazz hands. They made jazz hands.
All three of us started to dance.
We danced and danced. We boogied. We step-ball-changed. We twirled. Julia, especially, twirled.
For ten minutes, on two sides of Mission Street, we got our white girl funk on.
When my bus finally arrived I saw a woman on the other side of the street solemnly high-fiving Jeremy and the kids.
by rachel at September 02, 2010 05:02 PM
From the October 1971 issue of Esquire, Secrets of the Little Blue Box, an early mainstream piece on phone phreaking.
About eleven o'clock two nights later Fraser Lucey has a blue box in the palm of his left hand and a phone in the palm of his right. He is standing inside a phone booth next to an isolated shut-down motel off Highway 1. I am standing outside the phone booth.
Fraser likes to show off his blue box for people. Until a few weeks ago when Pacific Telephone made a few arrests in his city, Fraser Lucey liked to bring his blue box to parties. It never failed: a few cheeps from his device and Fraser became the center of attention at the very hippest of gatherings, playing phone tricks and doing request numbers for hours. He began to take orders for his manufacturer in Mexico. He became a dealer.
Fraser is cautious now about where he shows off his blue box. But he never gets tired of playing with it. "It's like the first time every time," he tells me.
Fraser puts a dime in the slot. He listens for a tone and holds the receiver up to my ear. I hear the tone.
Fraser begins describing, with a certain practiced air, what he does while he does it.
"I'm dialing an 800 number now. Any 800 number will do. It's toll free. Tonight I think I'll use the ----- [he names a well-know rent-a-car company] 800 number. Listen, It's ringing. Here, you hear it? Now watch."
He places the blue box over the mouthpiece of the phone so that the one silver and twelve black push buttons are facing up toward me. He presses the silver button - the one at the top - and I hear that high-pitched beep.
"That's 2600 cycles per second to be exact," says Lucey. "Now, quick. listen."
He shoves the earpiece at me. The ringing has vanished. The line gives a slight hiccough, there is a sharp buzz, and then nothing but soft white noise.
"We're home free now," Lucey tells me, taking back the phone and applying the blue box to its mouthpiece once again. "We're up on a tandem, into a long-lines trunk. Once you're up on a tandem, you can send yourself anywhere you want to go." He decides to check out London first. He chooses a certain pay phone located in Waterloo Station. This particular pay phone is popular with the phone-phreaks network because there are usually people walking by at all hours who will pick it up and talk for a while.
He presses the lower left-hand corner button which is marked "KP" on the face of the box.
"That's Key Pulse. It tells the tandem we're ready to give it instructions. First I'll punch out KP 182 START, which will slide us into the overseas sender in White Plains." I hear a neat clunk-cheep. "I think we'll head over to England by satellite. Cable is actually faster and the connection is somewhat better, but I like going by satellite. So I just punch out KP Zero 44. The Zero is supposed to guarantee a satellite connection and 44 is the country code for England. Okay... we're there. In Liverpool actually. Now all I have to do is punch out the London area code which is 1, and dial up the pay phone. Here, listen, I've got a ring now."
I hear the soft quick purr-purr of a London ring. Then someone picks up the phone. "Hello," says the London voice.
"Hello. Who's this?" Fraser asks.
"Hello. There's actually nobody here. I just picked this up while I was passing by. This is a public phone. There's no one here to answer actually."
"Hello. Don't hang up. I'm calling from the United States."
"Oh. What is the purpose of the call? This is a public phone you know."
"Oh. You know. To check out, uh, to find out what's going on in London. How is it there?"
"Its five o'clock in the morning. It's raining now."
"Oh. Who are you?"
The London passerby turns out to be an R.A.F. enlistee on his way back to the base in Lincolnshire, with a terrible hangover after a thirty-six-hour pass. He and Fraser talk about the rain. They agree that it's nicer when it's not raining. They say good-bye and Fraser hangs up. His dime returns with a nice clink.
"Isn't that far out," he says grinning at me. "London. Like that."
Interestingly, a number of the early phone phreaks were blind kids, including Joe Engressia, who could whistle a perfect 2600 hertz tone.
Tags: phreaking telephonyby Jason Kottke at September 02, 2010 04:15 PM
We've been eating off of old Mormon Church tables that the previous owner left behind until the table we ordered finally arrived for the breakfast nook. For a while there it felt like we were sitting down to eat refreshments at a wedding reception being held in the gymnasium of the church, but only Mormons will probably understand that reference. AND MY CRAVING FOR GREEN JELLO.
by dooce in Daily Style
© Armstrong Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Originally published by Heather B. Armstrong for dooce.com as Breakfast nook. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.
by dooce at September 02, 2010 02:54 PM
Commodity traders are following farmers on Twitter, hoping for clues about crop forecasts and such.
Tags: finance TwitterLast week Grisafi started receiving tweets from European farmers saying the weather was hotter and drier than weather reports indicated. He'd been short the wheat market on the assumption that prices would fall. After reading the tweets, however, he realized the commodity might be in shorter supply than the market expected and got out of his position, avoiding a loss as prices rose.
by Jason Kottke at September 02, 2010 02:22 PM
Try G-G the book.
“Silence is a source of great strength.” ~Lao Tzu
It’s a busy day, and you’re inundated by non-stop emails, text messages, phone calls, instant message requests, notifications, interruptions of all kinds.
The noise of the world is a dull roar that pervades every second of your life. It’s a rush of activity, a drain on your energy, a pull on your attention, until you no longer have the energy to pay attention or take action.
It’s an illness, this noise, this rush. It can literally make us sick. We become stressed, depressed, fat, burnt out, slain by the slings and arrows of technology.
The cure is simple: it’s stillness.
Take a minute out of your busy day to do this little exercise: pause in the middle of all you have to do, all that’s going on around you. Close your eyes, and sit still. Breathe in, and breathe out, and pay attention to your breath as it comes in and goes out. Just sit still, for about a minute.
This stillness might seem like inaction, which we’re taught is a bad thing. It’s lazy, it’s passive, it’s against our Puritan work ethic. And yet, this simple inaction can change our world.
Stillness calms us. It gives us a small oasis of quiet that allows us to hear our thoughts, that allows us to catch our breath, that gives us room to breathe at all. It is the antibody to the stress and rush we feel daily.
“Activity conquers cold, but stillness conquers heat.” ~Lao Tzu
Stillness has a calming effect on the world around us as well. By becoming still, we cause others to pause, to pay attention. Our quiet also quiets others. We set the mood for those who work and otherwise interact with us.
When we rush and set a frenetic pace, it stresses others and inspires them to rush frenetically too. Stillness has the opposite effect. It slows the world down, allows us to focus, gives us time for contemplation, for what matters most.
It takes strength to be still when others rush. It takes courage to be different, to go against the stream. But while others might think us weird at first, that’s OK. Sometimes it’s the weird ones that make the most difference. And soon, as our stillness inspires others to find stillness of their own, we won’t be the weird ones — we’ll be the ones with wisdom.
It takes strength to find stillness when the world around us is a chaos of activity, but it’s a strength that’s in us, and we need only to find it. Paradoxically, it’s stillness that will allow us to find that strength. Be still, look within, and it’ll be there.
It’s pretty simple, really, and you don’t need me to tell you to do this: to find stillness, you just need to take the time to sit still, every day that you can.
Find a time in the morning, when the world is still fairly quiet, to sit still. Don’t do anything, don’t plan your day, don’t check email, don’t eat. Just sit, and learn to be comfortable being still.
In practice, we’ll gradually find that comfort, and we’ll become good at it. If mornings are no good, find time during your lunch break, or after work, or just before you go to bed.
Find a place to be still. It can be a chair in your house, or a front porch, or the roof. It can be a park bench, or the beach, or a path in the woods. Let this be a ritual that you come to look forward to.
From this small place of stillness, calm will carry to the rest of your day, radiating like a soothing force. You’ll be calmer throughout the day, and learn to find little pockets of stillness everywhere: when you first start your workday, when you are ready to sit down and create, when you’re about to eat, when you are ready to exercise, during a meeting, even.
Practice, regularly. Practice, and learn. Practice stillness, and the stillness becomes a canvas upon which you can paint the masterpiece of your life.
“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
—
If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.
by Leo at September 02, 2010 01:42 PM
Dear Log,
So, the Jesuses Against Teh-Gay, Instead USA Family Return To More Good Pray People weren't simply (and absolutely inexplicably) playing Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" at their gay-b-gone rallies... they were playing the Peter, Paul, and Mary version.
But IT TURNS OUT YOU HAVE TO "CLEAR" MUSIC FIRST!
And maybe "PAY FOR" it!
So of course PP&M heard about this and sent them a "dongs slapping your face!" C&D letter.
Fun facts:
* * *
Here's the page where you can see the "stop using the song" letter, and then "WELL, WE SAID STOP, BUT YOU KEPT...".
Folks, if any tendril of the music industry sends you a cease-and-desist letter, don't just make a paper airplane out of it. Music copyright law is the headdriller from Phantasm flying at your face. Publicly playing some music as incidental music for some event may or may not be fair use, but... WANNA CHAT WITH THE HEADDRILLER ABOUT FAIR USE? [sfx: freeeowwwrrrr]
If you're some dork trading Devo board tapes on Limewire, tra la. But if you're an organization, with funding, and expenses, and a legally established tax status, and papers of incorporation or the like... you're big boys now, and have to do things properly. You don't get to call "takesy-backsies!" Don't play songs you haven't cleared. And when they catch you at it, don't then keep playing the songs! Do not do these things!
Here's a news article about it all, from the large and in charge prop8trialtracker.com site.
* * *
So, suppose they stick to the public domain songs "The Circus Music" and "Blow The Man Down". But OH SNAP! "The Circus Music" and "Blow the Man Down" are songs in the public domain-- but new performances of them aren't-- those are very extremely under copyright. ℗!!!!
So suppose I take some century-old sheet music for CIRCUS.MID, and I go away with my keytar and my ProTools, and I whicketty-whack together a new performance of the circus music song. I will (fulfilling prophecy) call it the "Circus of Take Those Big Fat Uncut Brazilian Cocks Out Of Your Mouth Before You Pick Up The Keytar, f/ Hot Married Lesbo Action" 12-inch remix. I then release it on Internet as a $0.99 download at Amazon.
Public domain song, but copyrighted performance. Ergo, the No-Gay-Marriage Crusade Whistlestop Rallies tour folks will have to clear it with me before they go play it full blast at their rallies.
AND I AM WAITING FOR THAT PHONE CALL, SIRS.
SF Hits Waste-Reduction Target Two Years Early Another San Francisco Value: Protecting the environment. (tags: sfvalues environment) Read this post…
Read this post online:
links for 2010-09-02
By Derek Powazek
by Derek Powazek at September 02, 2010 10:31 AM
The way this particular textbook explains female sexuality, the human race would come to an end if men and boys were to start keeping their pants on in the presence of little girls -- but since this is unlikely to happen, there's no need to worry: the life-affirming penis envy will continue. As to why girls are so envious, the book offers this explanation: "with this organ [males] can perform feats -- urinating standing up, etc. -- feats of which little boys are inordinately proud and which they exhibit to their girl friends on every possible occasion and of which she is incapable." Come on, O. Spurgeon English, M.D., don't leave me hanging with that "etc."! What else can little boys do with their weenises? Can they spin plates or something? Because while peeing standing up is a neat trick, I demand more before I will concede that the discovery that she lacks a penis devastates the little girl into a heterosexuality from which she never recovers.
Also, I don't know what kind of upbringing these researchers had, but personally I don't remember a lot of parading of genitalia in my childhood. Maybe the eighties were a lot more pants-on than the thirties.
s = 7
"We're allowed to have multi-character variable names now, you know."
slots = 7
"Okayyy... Isn't that 7 sort of hard-coded?"
SEVEN = 7 ... slots = SEVEN
"Very funny."
SLOTS_PER_WIDGET = 7 ... slots = SLOTS_PER_WIDGET
"Getting there."
import widgetConstants ... slots = widgetConstants.SLOTS_PER_WIDGET
"Okay, that's..."
widgetModelFactory = WidgetModelFactory.getInstance() widgetModel = widgetModelFactory.getWidgetModel() slots = widgetModel.getSlotsPerWidget()
"Sure, okay, that's..."
context = Context.getCurrentContext() serviceDirectoryFactory = ServiceDirectoryFactory.getServiceDirectory(context) serviceDirectory = serviceDirectoryFactory.getServiceDirectory(context) serviceDescriptor = ServiceDescriptorFactory.getDescriptor("widgetModelFactory") widgetModelFactoryServiceLocator = serviceDirectory.getServiceLocator(serviceDescriptor,context) widgetModelFactory = (WidgetModelFactory)widgetModelFactoryServiceLocator.findService(context) widgetModel = widgetModelFactory.getWidgetModel(context) slots = widgetModel.getSlotsPerWidget()
"I'm not sure you've really got this whole Object-Oriented thing down quite right..."
slots = thisWidget.getSlotCount()
"Thank you."
In 1996, Tom Junot won the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for a story published in GQ called The Rapist Says He's Sorry. It's about a man named Mitchell Gaff:
Who is Mitchell Gaff? Well, he is that which, at this moment in our history, frightens us the most-about ourselves, and about our democracy's ability to contain what is worst in us. Mitch is a sex offender, but not only a sex offender; he is a rapist, but not only a rapist. He is, in the words of a law written in 1990 by the Washington state legislature, "a sexual predator"-that is, someone who "suffers from a mental abnormality or personality disorder which makes [him] likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility." Now, never mind for the moment that this law created a category of mental illness unrecognized by modern psychiatry, and that it did so for the purpose of enabling the state to achieve in the name of mercy what it couldn't in the name of justice: the removal of men like Mitchell Gaff from the face of the earth. What's important to know right now is that Mitch Gaff is or has been a human being who hurts other human beings for sexual pleasure: not out of need, not to gain the dire exigencies of food, shelter, money, transportation and status, but out of want-because he likes it. It's the wanting that scares us the most, of course, because of what we know about our own wanting-that it rises from someplace deep within us, that it is immune to intention and that it doesn't just go away. We want Mitch to go away. It hardly matters that he has done his time; that he has, in that quaint old phrase, "paid his debt to society"; and that his continued incarceration is probably unconstitutional. We want him to go away for as long as his wanting lasts, and that's why the state of Washington invented something called the Special Commitment Center.
There's a short intro available here as well as a special note by Junot at the end of the main article. And after you read the article, there are two further updates on Mitch Gaff here (complete with inappropriately lusty personal ads running alongside the article) and here.
Tags: crime Mitchell Gaff rape Tom Junotby Jason Kottke at September 01, 2010 11:47 PM
Psychosocial Rehabilitation (PSR) Mall
The PSR Mall is a centralized approach to delivering services where the individuals served and the staff from throughout the hospital come together to participate in services. Malls represent more of a centralized system of programming rather than a reference to a specific building or certain location. Mall interventions are provided, as much as possible, in the context of real-life functioning and in the rhythm of life of the individual. Thus, a PSR mall extends beyond the context of a building or “place,” and its services are based on the needs of the individual, not the needs of the program, the staff members or the institution.
PSR Malls are designed to ensure that each individual receives individualized services to promote his increased wellness and ability to thrive in the world. All decisions regarding what is offered through each mall are driven by the needs of the individuals served. Mall services are provided in an environment that is culturally sensitive and strengths based.
Services facilitated through the mall include courses and activities designed to help with symptom management, personal skills development and life enrichment. The mall capitalizes on human and staff resources from the entire hospital to provide a larger diversity of interaction and experiences for all individuals in the mall.
by delicious at September 01, 2010 09:03 PM
Roger Ebert's eating career is over, but his career as a food writer is just taking off. His new cookbook, which comes out in three weeks, is about how to prepare just about any meal in a rice cooker.
He both writes and thinks about food in the present tense. Ask about favorite foods and he'll scribble a note: "I love spicy and Indian." An offer to bring some New Jersey peaches to his summer home here on the shore of Lake Michigan brings a sharp defense of Michigan peaches and a menu idea. "Maybe for dessert we could have a salad of local fresh fruits."
"Food for me is in the present tense," he said. "Eating for me is now only in the past tense." He says he has a "voluptuous food memory" that gets stronger all the time.
"I can remember the taste and smell of everything, even though I can no longer taste or smell," he said.
Here are the opening couple of paragraphs from the post that evolved into the cookbook:
First, get the Pot. You need the simplest rice cooker made. It comes with two speeds: Cook, and Warm. Not expensive. Now you're all set to cook meals for the rest of your life on two square feet of counter space, plus a chopping block. No, I am not putting you on the Rice Diet. Eat what you like. I am thinking of you, student in your dorm room. You, solitary writer, artist, musician, potter, plumber, builder, hermit. You, parents with kids. You, night watchman. You, obsessed computer programmer or weary web-worker. You, lovers who like to cook together but don't want to put anything in the oven. You, in the witness protection program. You, nutritional wingnut. You, in a wheelchair.
And you, serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. You, person on a small budget who wants healthy food. You, shut-in. You, recovering campaign worker. You, movie critic at Sundance. You, sex worker waiting for the phone to ring. You, factory worker sick of frozen meals. You, people in Werner Herzog's documentary about life at the South Pole. You, early riser skipping breakfast. You, teenager home alone. You, rabbi, pastor, priest,, nun, waitress, community organizer, monk, nurse, starving actor, taxi driver, long-haul driver. Yes, you, reader of the second-best best-written blog on the internet.
There's also a Q&A on the Times site with Ebert.
Tags: books food Roger Ebertby Jason Kottke at September 01, 2010 08:20 PM
The Art of the Title Sequence interviews Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess about how the film's instant-classic title sequence came about.
We actually had Jon Heder placing all the objects in and out [of frame], and then showed it to Searchlight who really liked it and thought it was great, but some lady over there was like "There are some hangnails, or something -- the hands look kinda gross! It's really bothering me, can we re-shoot some of those? We'll send you guys a hand model." We were like "WHAT?!" This of course was my first interaction with a studio at all, so they flew out a hand model a couple weeks later, who had great hands, but was five or six shades darker than Jon Heder. So we reshot, but they're now intermixed, so if you look there are like three different dudes hands (our producer's are in there too.) It all worked our great though and was a lot of fun.
The interview also addresses Pablo Ferro's involvement and the Napoleon Dynamite animated series currently in development.
Tags: interviews Jared Hess movies Napoleon Dynamiteby Jason Kottke at September 01, 2010 06:14 PM
I’ve been working with kneath on this pretty much since the day we started at GitHub almost a year ago. Not full time but whenever we could steal time away from other projects. We’re both stoked to have finally shipped it.
I wrapped the original blog post draft with this sentence:
Pull requests elevate the collaborative aspects of development to creative works in their own right. We can’t wait to see where you take them!
We ended up striking it — a little too floaty for a product/feature announcement. I believe every word of it, though.
by github.com at September 01, 2010 05:15 PM
This summer's dry English weather has been unexpectantly good for archaeology. Aerial surveys over dry cropland has revealed the outlines of several prehistoric and Roman ruins.
The surveys show marks made when crops growing over buried features develop at a different rate from those nearby.
Photos here. (via clusterflock)
Tags: archaeology UK weatherby Jason Kottke at September 01, 2010 04:40 PM
by noemail@cmcrossroads.com (Administrator) at September 01, 2010 03:44 PM
Vanity Fair has a really interesting but depressing look at how The President of the United States spends a typical day navigating the upfuckedness of national American politics and its capital, Washington DC -- which Rahm Emanuel calls Fucknutsville.
We think of the presidency as somehow eternal and unchanging, a straight-line progression from 1 to 44, from the first to the latest. And in some respects it is. Except for George Washington, all of the presidents have lived in the White House. They've all taken the same oath to uphold the same constitution. But the modern presidency -- Barack Obama's presidency -- has become a job of such gargantuan size, speed, and complexity as to be all but unrecognizable to most of the previous chief executives. The sheer growth of the federal government, the paralysis of Congress, the systemic corruption brought on by lobbying, the trivialization of the "news" by the media, the willful disregard for facts and truth -- these forces have made today's Washington a depressing and dysfunctional place. They have shaped and at times hobbled the presidency itself.
For much of the past half-century, the problems that have brought Washington to its current state have been concealed or made tolerable by other circumstances. The discipline of the Cold War kept certain kinds of debate within bounds. America's artificial "last one standing" postwar economy allowed the country to ignore obvious signs of political and social decay. Wars and other military interventions provided ample distraction from matters of substance at home. Like many changes that are revolutionary, none of Washington's problems happened overnight. But slow and steady change over many decades -- at a rate barely noticeable while it's happening -- produces change that is transformative. In this instance, it's the kind of evolution that happens inevitably to rich and powerful states, from imperial Rome to Victorian England. The neural network of money, politics, bureaucracy, and values becomes so tautly interconnected that no individual part can be touched or fixed without affecting the whole organism, which reacts defensively. And thus a new president, who was elected with 53 percent of the popular vote, and who began office with 80 percent public-approval ratings and large majorities in both houses of Congress, found himself for much of his first year in office in stalemate, pronounced an incipient failure, until the narrowest possible passage of a health-care bill made him a sudden success in the fickle view of the commentariat, whose opinion curdled again when Obama was unable, with a snap of the fingers or an outburst of anger, to stanch the BP oil spill overnight. And whose opinion spun around once more when he strong-armed BP into putting $20 billion aside to settle claims, and asserted presidential authority by replacing General Stanley McChrystal with General David Petraeus. The commentariat's opinion will keep spinning with the wind.
(via waxy)
Tags: Barack Obama politics USAby Jason Kottke at September 01, 2010 03:10 PM
Well it is the first of the month and it seems like I have internet access still. That's good news.
Lets see what happens my DHCP lease expires. That's the real test.
I don't want to push my luck, but it looks like good news so far!
by Tom Limoncelli at September 01, 2010 01:40 PM
World champion free diver Herbert Nitsch is planning on executing a no limits dive to 1000 feet. That's 300 feet more than the current record set by Nitsch three years ago.
(via @dunstan)
Tags: free diving sportsby Jason Kottke at September 01, 2010 01:13 PM
I've lived in San Francisco for 15 years, which is 15 years more than anyone connected to this ad. San Francisco changed my life. I found a career here. I was married here. I bought property here. I'm never, ever leaving. So I think I can speak to what San Francisco Values really are. Here are a few of them.
Read this post online:
San Francisco Values
By Derek Powazek
by Derek Powazek at September 01, 2010 06:30 AM
When it comes to parenting — and most everything else — I'm cursed with both a competitive streak and terminal laziness. I deeply want to excel, but I'd rather not work at it. I'd prefer that my natural skills and charm catapult me to the top. That competitive mind-set kicked into high gear when I got pregnant. I compared myself with every pregnant woman I could find. I found it difficult, however, to figure out if I was ahead. How do you measure pregnancy success? Degree of rosy glow? Lowest number of stretch marks? To the extent that I could quantify my superiority, I found that instead of winning, I seemed to not even be placing. I spied a beaming pregnant woman in the bookstore, and she didn't have any lunch-related stains on her shirt. While taking a waddling stroll, I spotted a woman with what appeared to be a third trimester belly, and she was jogging. Jogging!
The rest is here.
This is my last column for Redbook. There's a new editor-in-chief, you see, and she's shaking things up. That's what she's there to do! If you have any opinion on that, there's a comment section over there. Is all I'm saying.
Updated to add: Whoa, readers of mine! Although my column is ending, I'll still be working with Redbook in the future, and I happen to be quite fond of my editors there. I appreciate the supportive comments on their site, but there's no need to threaten or abuse them. Also, remind me to stay in your good graces. Phew.
by Alice Bradley at September 01, 2010 02:32 AM
A reporter for the Toronto Star handed out prepaid credit cards to panhandlers and waited to see what happened.
"Can I trust you with this?" I said, handing him a $50 card and telling him to buy what he needs, but that I need it back when he was done. He nodded and scrambled to his feet. He said he would be back in a half-hour.
He came back right on time, slurping from a large McDonald's soft drink cup -- root beer -- and with sweat on his brow. He wanted to have pork and rice from a Vietnamese noodle joint on Spadina but they wouldn't take the card. So, he scrambled to McDonald's. Lunch was a double quarter-pounder with cheese.
The reporter's offer was frequently declined, which seems surprising at first. But panhandlers are savvy businesspeople. They didn't want a short-term and potentially risky venture interfering with their main panhandling income stream. Eyes on the prize. (via the browser)
Tags: business homelessby Jason Kottke at September 01, 2010 12:22 AM
I do so dislike the dentist.
"Is that a little sensitive?"
"Yeah, if you STICK A SHARP METAL THING INTO IT, it is."
"I see. Well, you'll need two onlays, which will cost eight hundred dollars more than whatever your insurance is willing to pay, and you'll have to come back four more times."
"..."
"Teach you to get fresh with me, boy."
That's not exactly how it went, but that's always how I come away feeling...
So these friendly Jehovah's Witnesses were talking to me about Bible stuff the other week, and for some reason that I forget at the moment we read Revelation chapter 14, where it talks about the hundred forty and four thousand, and how "These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins".
And rather casually they said "of course, that's a metaphor" (because in their story various married persons and all are member of that set).
Now, come on.
That's really specific and explicit.
It doesn't say "as pure as virgins" or "like virgins" or "as nifty as virgins", it says "they are virgins" and in particular that they "were not defiled with women."
If we can say that that's a metaphor, we can say that anything's a metaphor.
I mean, I can say that my theory that the Universe was created, and is ruled, by a committee of eighty-seven radishes named Fred, is perfectly Biblical, and where it talks about there being One God, that's just a metaphor for the wonderful consensus that exists among the Committee of Freds. And where it talks about Jesus being made in God's image, that doesn't mean that Jesus was actually a committee of radishes, it just means that he was as awesome as a committee of radishes.
It's a metaphor.
What else?
The little daughter (who I think I mentioned is apparently twenty years old) now has a driver's license! This is utterly terrifying, and also extremely convenient. She drove us all to a fancy restaurant last night or sometime to celebrate.
The kitten is still alternating between sleeping and pouncing anything that moves. M says she is much bigger than when we first got her, and M is always right about stuff like that (and, objectively, the kitten can no longer fit entirely into my sandal). On the other hand she (the kitten) still seems very smallish and kittenish to me, and I can still easily hold her in the air above my head in one hand for extended periods of time.
She makes the cutest baffled little faces when I do that, too.
(We have a million kitten pictures in the camera, but who can be bothered to extract them, y'know?)
I have a new little art gallery in SL, and I'm playing with ideas for a build for Burn2, wherein I have reserved a plot to build stuff on, which should be fun.
I want to write about partial-reserve banking sometime, because a couple of times now I've heard people decrying it as The Source Of All Evil, and this seems weird to me, or at least worth writing about in my weblog.
But I don't think I'll write that tonight.
Here is Full Metal Disney, which is pretty funny.
Oh, and speaking of YouTube, my Second Life self has his or her very own YouTube channel ("channel"), where I have thrown a couple of trippy Thingmaker videos. So now I am a certified XXIst Century Person, 'cause I have a youtube channel!
Also, the dentist has just sent me a Facebook Friend Request.
Shudder.
A transcript of a recent performance by the famous and fragrant folk music performer Rambling Kid Realitsm, of his popular number "Home on the Range":
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, saddle-down down in your seats now and share with me this sad ditty about a broken-hearted compu-geek, lost in the bowels of an office building, chilled to the bone amongst cheerless racks of servers, locked into the server room. He pines for the open range of his home WAN with a LAN in every room and wireless to the skies, where he can run barefoot through the root passwords and administrator privileges, free to trash and crash and rebuild on his lordly whim, king of his domains. Oppressed by evil managers who cut down his privileges and block his passwords, he weeps at the pain their soulless quest for reliability brings upon him, and slumped behind the storage array he sings this sad lament....
by skeptic at August 31, 2010 11:00 PM
Try G-G the book.
“I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years,” Steve Martin recalls in his 2007 memoir, Born Standing Up. “Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.” If you do the math, this sums to fourteen years of hard work before Martin saw returns on his investment.
Fourteen years.
That’s a long time to remain focused on a goal without reward, especially when the path is ambiguous (“The course was more plodding than heroic,” Martin recalls). But as he makes clear in his book, Martin found a Zen peace in the simplicity of his pursuit. He describes with relish, for example, the importance of “diligence” in becoming a star — a term he redefines to mean the ability to not work on unrelated projects — and he labels “loss of focus” as an “indulgence” that success cannot afford.
Martin’s story should resonate with those of us interested in the minimalist lifestyle preached here at Zen Habits. He injected minimalism into his life by orienting his world around a single passionate pursuit: innovating stand-up comedy. For Martin, there was never any doubt what his Most Important Task would involve each morning, and jettisoning unrelated commitments and distractions came naturally. As he discovered, when you know what your life is about it’s easy to sidestep all that threatens to clutter it.
In other words: passion breeds simplicity.
Even if we agree on their value, however, how do we find these simplicity-generating passionate pursuits in our own lives? This is the thorny question I address in this post.
Faced with the task of identifying their “passion,” most people have one of two reactions:
The first is a frantic search of their lives with the aim of uncovering some magical pursuit that unmistakably sings to their soul. As a writer of student advice, for example, I frequently receive e-mails from young people that begin: “I’m trying to decide what my passion should be…” (If only it were that easy.)
The second reaction is paralysis: faced with the life-changing importance of this discovery, many people freeze — hoping for a sign from above that will make things clear. (Spoiler: This can be a long wait.)
Neither of these approaches succeed, as passion is not something that can be forcefully identified, and though it sometimes bubbles up serendipitously, this is not something you can count on happening any time soon. So what’s a passion-seeking minimalist to do?
I found an answer in an unlikely place…
In the winter of 2009, I began researching a book on college admissions. Inspired by the type philosophy taught here at Zen Habits, I sought students who followed a Zen path through the college process — getting into good schools while still living uncluttered and authentic high school lives. It soon became clear that the students who pulled off this feat shared a common trait: like Steve Martin, they had organized their life around a passionate deep interest. (This interest, in turn, made them irresistible to admissions officers weary of reading the files of chronically over-scheduled and stress-addled applicants.)
To make my book useful, I needed to discover how such passionate interests are formed. After months of research, I arrived, finally, at Penn State University, where a professor named Linda Caldwell had made a career out of studying interest formation.
Excited by her results, and wondering how to translate them into everyday life, I gave her a call:
“You need to be exposed to many things,” she told me. “You should expose yourself even though you might not know if you’ll be interested.”
When you find something that catches your attention: follow-up; see if it sticks.
In other words, discovering passion requires a dedication to unstructured exploration. You have to leave large swathes of free time in your schedule (a technique I call underscheduling), and fill this time with the exploration of things that might be interesting. Of equal importance, when something catches your attention you must leverage your free time to aggressively follow up.
As Caldwell’s research reveals, true passion can’t be forced. You can participate in personality tests and self-reflection exercises until you drop from exhaustion, but it’s unstructured exploration coupled with aggressive follow-ups that most consistently leads people to a life-consuming interest.
Here are some examples of this idea in action:
This advice can be hard to follow at first. When we think about passion we think about action: we want to start doing big things right now! But the reality of passion is more subtle. You have to do less to get more in your life. It’s a virtuous catch-22: by embracing a minimalist lifestyle now, you are more likely to develop the passionate interest that will support the lifestyle in the long run.
Put another way: take a step back; relax; then open your eyes to patiently take in all that’s out there.
Read more from Cal at his blog, Study Hacks, or subscribe to his feed.
by guest at August 31, 2010 08:14 PM
Designing Obama, a book chronicling how the visual branding of the Obama campaign came about, is available in several formats, most notably in a completely free online version. Written by the campaign's design director, the making of the book was funded through the first big Kickstarter campaign.
Tags: 2008 election Barack Obama books design Designing Obama politicsby Jason Kottke at August 31, 2010 08:12 PM
Holy eye of Sauron! (via bad astronomy)
Tags: videoby Jason Kottke at August 31, 2010 06:11 PM
The New Yorker has a long profile of Francis Collins, the ardent Christian whom Obama picked to head up the NIH, and the NIH's role in embryonic stem cell research.
Tags: Francis Collins genetics politics religion science stem cellsA year later, Obama's appointment of Collins seemed an inspired choice. The President had found not only a man who reflected his own view of the harmony between science and faith but an evangelical Christian who hoped that the government's expansion of embryonic-stem-cell research might bring the culture war over science to a quiet end. On August 23rd, however, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, halted federal spending for embryonic-stem-cell research, putting hundreds of research projects in limbo and plunging the N.I.H. back into a newly contentious national debate.
by Jason Kottke at August 31, 2010 04:59 PM
This is fantastic: a classically trained voice teacher who knows nothing about metal analyzes five singers from the genre, from Ozzy Osbourne to Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. Of Dickenson she says:
I have nothing but admiration for this singer. Listen how he starts off with a soft growl, then moves seamlessly into a well-supported, sustained high full-voice sound that then evolves into an effortless long scream! His diction is easily intelligible, regardless of the range he's singing in or the effect he's going for. He achieves an intensely rhythmic delivery of the lyrics without losing legato and musical momentum, something a lot of classical singers struggle with, especially when interpreting the many staccato and accent markings that crowd scores by Bellini, Donizetti, etc.
I'm no classically trained anything, but I have been listening to a lot of hard rock and metal from the 70s and 80s lately.1 Out of the context of its time, its genre, and whatever shock value the music held when it was first released, there is some genuinely good music there. (via clusterflock)
[1] Been doing lots of driving this summer and without a working iPod in the car, the rock stations are the only music that Meg and I can both agree on. Well, besides classical or NPR, but those won't keep the baby quiet the way AC/DC or Skynyrd will. ↩
Tags: musicby Jason Kottke at August 31, 2010 03:29 PM
We’ve been opening new Stack Exchanges left and right on a variety of topics. In almost every case, the Stack Exchange appears to duplicate the content of an existing community. For example, our WordPress answers site (now in beta) covers the exact same material as WordPress.org’s existing forums.
This is nothing new to us at Stack Overflow, which purported to cover the exact same material as hundreds (if not thousands) of other programming sites. There’s no rule that says that there needs to be exactly one Q&A website per topic.
There is, however, a compelling case for the Stack Exchange technology. WordPress.org’s forums don’t have voting, so you have to read through every answer and decide for yourself which one might solve your problem. They don’t have reputation, so there’s no way to see whether you’re getting an answer from someone who knows what they’re talking about. They don’t have wiki-style editing, so collaboration is impossible. You have to log on to ask or answer a question, so the burden of participation is higher. Stack Overflow is simply better than traditional forums, which is why it largely replaced proprietary forums. I remember hours of discussion with John Resig and the folks at jQuery who couldn’t decide whether to replace the jQuery Google Group with a forum or with a Stack Exchange. Ultimately it didn’t matter that much, because most of the jQuery Q&A activity happens on Stack Overflow anyway.
One day, the features that are standard on Stack Exchange will be copied everywhere. Until then, we’ll keep churning out new sites.
Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.
by Joel Spolsky at August 31, 2010 03:10 PM
I don’t really need to say much about Tammy Strobel, because I’m sure you all already know her.
Tammy runs the super-popular small living blog Rowdy Kittens. She was recently featured in not just The New York Times, but also MSNBC.com, Yahoo Finance, and a bunch of other places. Why? Because she’s one of the pioneers of the minimalist movement that is changing the foundations of our society.
Tammy just released an amazing digital work: Smalltopia: A Practical Guide to Working for Yourself.
I was lucky enough to still be able to interview her after all of her recent media coverage.
I’ve read the e-book from start to finish, and it is one of the more remarkable guides to self-employment that I’ve read this year. I’m not going to say anymore, and let the interview with Tammy do the talking. I even contributed a small bit on my own experience creating a minimalist business.
On to the interview! We spoke about developing multiple streams of income, quitting your day job, and how simplicity is the ultimate freedom:
Everett: For our readers who haven’t been following your exploits religiously on your blog, Rowdykittens, can you briefly describe what a Smalltopia is?
Tammy: Smalltopia is a practical guide to working for yourself. The guide reviews tips, tools, and strategies that will help folks leave a traditional 9-5 job and create personal freedom through a very small business. The guide is broken up into three sections: Smalltopia Philosophy, Smalltopia Essentials, and Smalltopia Case Studies.
The part I’m most excited about is the case study section. It features stories from more than a dozen folks that run the gamut of experience. From those who are just getting ready to break up with their day job, to crazy successful small business owners. The list of rockstar contributors include: Leo Babauta, Chris Guillebeau, Jessica Reeder, Chris O’Byrne, Russ Roca, Laura Crawford, Karol Gajda, Chloe Adeline, Victoria Vargas, Karen Yaeger, Jules Clancy, Heather Levin, Matt Cheuvront, Tyler Tervooren, and the one and only Everett Bogue!
Everett: Imagine I’m the average reader of Far Beyond The Stars, why would I want to create a Smalltopia?
Tammy: You said in a recent blog post that Far Beyond the Stars is about one very specific thing, freedom. Creating your own Smalltopia will give you the structure to live life on your own terms and the freedom to pursue your dreams.
Everett: You recently quit your job in order to build your own very small business. Why did you decide that working for other people wasn’t what you were into?
Tammy: During the past ten years, I spent time working in the investment management industry and then transitioned into the social service sector. I learned a lot in both of these fields, but working for someone else wasn’t fulfilling.
I love working with others, but I disliked the rigid routines and unequal ranking of people in traditional office environments. And spending over 40 hours a week trapped indoors was starting to make me feel crazy. I wanted the freedom to be able to work on projects that made me happy, and more importantly, I wanted the freedom to choose when, where, and with whom I wanted to work with.
Everett: In Smalltopia you talk about the importance of diversifying your “moolah”. Most people have all of their income coming from one source, which obviously means if you lose that job you’re sunk. How important is it to have multiple streams of income?
Tammy: I believe having multiple streams of income is essential to financial security. For example, my income streams currently come from freelance writing projects, books sales, consulting, and some web design work. For instance, if my book sales decrease one month, I can easily take on more freelance writing projects and adapt accordingly.
Like you said, if you’re laid off from a “traditional job” you’re stuck with no income stream. So in reality, I don’t think traditional jobs are very safe. It’s a myth that many of us (including myself) buy into. The generation of folks working for one company and building a pension is fading away. The collapse of Enron and recent bankruptcy of many financial management corporations demonstrate the illusion of “stable” income. Everything changes with time so it’s better to build a diverse and dynamic income model.
Everett: How has living a small lifestyle allowed you to focus on creating multiple income sources?
Tammy: Living a small lifestyle has reduced my expenses tremendously. I can afford to gamble on “risky” opportunities to develop more markets for my work. Now that I’m not shopping so much or constantly worrying about maintaining my stuff, I have the time and energy to focus on a variety of projects.
Everett: How has living a minimalist life contributed towards building your successful Smalltopia?
Tammy: Minimalism allows me the freedom and focus to pursue projects I’m passionate about which makes a huge difference in the quality of work I’m producing. Being happy and motivated comes through in my work and has contributed to a greater success in my business 
In addition, I have the time to build relationships with people. And that is critically important to creating a resilient business.
Everett: What is one action that our readers can take towards moving towards building a Smalltopia of their own?
Tammy: Well you only asked for one action, but I’m going to give our readers two tips.
First, get your finances together and pay of any outstanding debts. This is essential because it will give you a lot of freedom and flexibility in the long run. Make sure you prioritize paying off your debt by setting aside part of each paycheck. Little by little your debt will decrease and you’ll have more freedom to do what you love.
Second, start a blog. Blogging is an incredible way to connect with like minded individuals, the perfect place to test business ideas, and build a fan base. For instance, all of my freelance writing contracts and books sales have occurred because RowdyKittens. Without a home base on the Internet, building a small small business can be difficult.
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You can check out Tammy Strobel’s new e-book Smalltopia: A Practical Guide to Working for Yourself here.
by Everett Bogue at August 31, 2010 01:20 PM
A really well-done montage of cinematic dancing scenes.
Tags: dancing movies videoby Jason Kottke at August 31, 2010 01:15 PM
by jbotman@itgroup.net.au (Johanna) at August 31, 2010 10:34 AM
I know y'all can't live without another update so here it is.
The VerizonSupport twitter account sent me a secret URL to give them my account info and problem description. After filling it twice (separated by 2 days), I got no phone call, no email, no results.
Today I called and was told that the IVR system transfered my phone call to billing because I was entering my phone number (as asked) but since I don't have Verizion phone service it was confused. That is the phone number on my account, and it certainly is able to look up my account after I've entered it, but the person assured me that this was the problem. I should select the option where I enter my account number instead of my phone number and it should work.. promise.
When I got home (where I have the account number) I did as requested and of course the system said it is transferring my account to billing.
So what to do?
Well, I've tried billing and tech support with no luck. I decided to call sales. Stephanie and I had an ok conversation. She said that last month my account was "in treatment" and now it definitely isn't so there should be no outage on Wednesday. I pointed out that the IVR system disagrees, but she said I should "let it go". She also said that if I do have an outage on the first of the month, they can cancel the account and recreate it. I'd have a 20 minute outage. She wrote all of this up in my account notes.
Wednesday I'll be "oncall" for work from 4pm to midnight. If there is an outage in the morning, I'll be spending all day getting it fixed so that I can have connectivity for my oncall shift.
I've spent more than 10 hours on the phone with Verizon at this point.
by Tom Limoncelli at August 30, 2010 11:59 PM
The list includes Roman concrete, Damascus steel, and a napalm-like weapon called Greek fire. (via @ebertchicago)
Tags: best of listsby Jason Kottke at August 30, 2010 10:13 PM
It is harder to know who you are than it is to be who you are. Everyone says, “The important thing is to be yourself!” I say that when I give them career advice. People like you better when you are being authentic. Gay people do better in their careers when they are out of the closet. Women do better at work if they are feminine at work instead of trying to be like the guys.
But there is very little advice on HOW to be yourself.
1. Don’t be boring.
On the way to our board meeting today, it was me, and Ryan Paugh, and Ryan Healy, in a car, running late. Ryan Healy told me not to write about him on the blog anymore, but I think only because I used to write about him like he was my little brother or something. At this point, Ryan Healy is COO of the company, so I think I can write about him because really, how can I undermine him when I’m agreeing to report to him?
So I’m riding in the car with Ryan and Ryan and I finished my needlepoint and I didn’t have anything left to occupy my hands during the board meeting. I know that as a board member, and the majority shareholder in the company, I’m supposed to be enthralled at these meetings, but honestly I find them largely very slow and repetitive. (I know I am not the only one who feels this way because another board member went to the bathroom and when he came back and found out that we waited for him, he was disappointed.)
Anyway, I was in the car with them and I was panicking that I didn’t have anything to do in the board meeting except listen to the board meeting. Then I said, “I think I’ll pop a Xanax.”
And no one said anything. Ryan and Ryan are largely bored with my antics.
But when I’m anxious I’m chatty, and they had already said no to playing the license plate game. So I said, just to make casual conversation, “What do you guys think would go well with Xanax, because I don’t think this is working. And pharmaceuticals have been such a disappointment to me.”
Ryan Healy said, ‘You sure are a late-bloomer to this. By the time you’re going to board meetings you’re supposed to be done with this stuff.”
In fact, I am enthralled with mixing pharmaceuticals off-label. I am also enthralled with trying new things, learning what I’m like with new things so I know who I am.
But it gets old. Not knowing who I am. And anyway, it’s boring for other people when you don’t know who you are. I know that because when I was dating the twenty-five-year-old with the perfect butt and long, thick, curly hair, he had no idea who he was and it got boring, very boring very fast.
(Links about boringness: People do not want to know all of you. Some of you is interesting, some of you is boring. This is why confessional blog posts mostly stink. And it’s why you need to omit most of your life from your resume.)
2. Try a range of tools to express who you are.
I like to think that I know myself well enough to present a consistent and insightful portrait of myself. And when Eva, from Songza, emailed me to see if I’d put together a playlist that they could use on their music streaming site, I said sure. (By the way, if you want to get me to do something, make it fun. People ask for posts all the time, but few people ask for playlists.)
So I start doing my playlist and I think: People judge other people by their playlists. (Which is why Ramones t-shirts outsell Ramones albums ten to one.) I want people to think I’m fun and edgy and self-confident.
(Ad for my company: It think about this issue a lot because my company, Brazen Careerist, is basically a tool to let people know who you are by showing your ideas and potential. The tools on the site encourage you to display your best self in a professional, online setting. And every time I pitch my company, I end up telling people that you can’t show your true self if the tool you’re using is wrong for who you are.)
3. Understand how people perceive what you put out there.
I picked Moby and TruSkool for edge. I picked Beastie Boys and Arrested Development because I read that people who like hip-hop tend to have high self-esteem. And I picked Fergie for fun. I think when people say she’s for girls, they mean that she makes guys think of girls dancing while they watch. Then I picked Lilly Allen, Regina Specktor to say that I didn’t feel too much like an old-school Gen X-er. I picked Kings of Leon because Lilly and Regina are both girls.
It turns out that I would have done fine just picking out all Miles Davis, which would have probably been my instinct, but I thought it would be boring and pedantic (which is almost redundant but mildly nuanced instead, I think). It would have been just fine because people have positive impressions of people who like jazz.
This is surprising to me because people do not have positive judgments toward blog posts that are like jazz—complicated and difficult. In fact, my editor will probably slash this whole paragraph because it is off topic and difficult to read and jazz is not writing and so what if my brain runs like an Ornette Coleman composition?
When I sent my song list to Eva I asked her to analyze me. I said, “I bet you read song lists like I read resumes, so can you tell me what you see?”
She said she usually doesn’t see such a wide a range of songs on one list.
On a resume, lack of focus is bad. And in a life, doing many different things at once is bad. And in fact, I’m a stickler for focus because I love knowing one thing well, so it’s counter-intuitive to me that I would have such an eclectic list. In fact, it’s the result of me being scared to just be who I am and accept that I’ll be judged for it.
But P.S. Here's the playlist I made at Songza. And here's my favorite Miles Davis CD.
by Penelope Trunk at August 30, 2010 08:20 PM
A collection of photos of things organized neatly. If only life were like this.
Tags: weblogsby Jason Kottke at August 30, 2010 05:44 PM
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Last updated: September 03, 2010 11:00 PM