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7 Mar 10Michael Lewis' The Big Short

Very long excerpt in Vanity Fair. I've been waiting for this book for a long time.

7 Mar 10NY Time goes after Scientology

Two words: utter fraud

7 Mar 10Why we can't get rid of failing teachers

One word: unions

1 Mar 10A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades | The Awl

Stunning, really. The slope of the LA Times line is frightening.

1 Mar 10What if author bios were brutally honest?

So true.

21 Oct 09Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta

Not the Gmail kinda beta either. Intrigued by the new import window...

UPDATE: Crap...Intel processors only. My G5's days are getting numbered.

9 Oct 09NBC Sucks

They cancelled Southland before it even aired an episode this season. The one show I was looking forward to. Solid work, you Hollywood douchepumps...see ya at the Free Polanski rally.

9 Oct 09The Yankees Suck

And the ridiculous Legends Suite is a good reason why.

28 Sep 09Enough Already

With the silly articles about/relating to Dan Brown and his new book that are written in the style of... a Dan Brown book.

28 Sep 09Obama Uses Feds to Protect His ‘Green Jobs’ Fantasy

Those shifty Spaniards are not helping with the narrative. They must be crushed.

24 Sep 09Eight Days

The article is not available online unless you’re a New Yorker subscriber, so find a way to get ahold of the Sep 21 issue and read James Stewart’s outstanding article about the crucial week last year at the heart of Wall Street meltdown. I wonder if we'll hear anymore about this quote from then-Treasury Secretary Paulson about GWB:

“People don’t want to hear this. They don’t like him. They want to see him as disengaged. But he was very focused on what was best for the country.”

22 Sep 09The NYT: We Suck Less

Barely. Although there is something to be said for setting low, but achievable goals and failing to meet them.

14 Sep 09Vanished...and Caught

Evan Ratliff wrote an article in Wired about people who disappear. He then disappeared and there was a $5000 prize to whoever found him. The full story will be in the December issue.

14 Sep 09The Final Days of Merrill Lynch

Fascinating inside look on Bank of America's merger with Merrill Lynch. The meddling of the government, specifically the Treasury Secretary and the Fed is troublesome. Other note of interest: Congress and others in government had a total coronary about AIG's $165 million in bonuses. Merrill paid out $3.6billion on over 15 billion in losses and not a peep.

14 Sep 09Counterfeiting II

Crazy dictator with a penchant for bling and nukes + international credit rating even Fannie Mae would choke on = waaaay more than $7 million in funny money.

14 Sep 09Counterfeiting I

Career criminal+ determination + Staples card = $7 million in funny money

14 Sep 09Making of an Agent

Interesting article about a Secret Service training class.

9 Sep 09shitmydadsays

Quite possibly one of the funniest things I have seen on the Internet.

3 Sep 09Serenity Now

Man loses a pile of money to Bernie Madoff. Man's wife has affair with Bernie Madoff. Man's wife writes a book and goes on talk shows about it. His reaction to all of this is not what you would expect.

2 Sep 09Pinboard - antisocial bookmarking

Delicious is so last year. I have been toying with a new social bookmarking tool called Pinboard. Very clean and simple. (via DF )

27 Aug 09The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?

Obama administration using NEA to help move it's message. Besides the obvious impropriety of this, it also seems mighty dumb. I'm willing to bet that folks opposed to Obamacare aren't going to change their mind based on what the NEA or artist community says, paints, sings, performs...or whatever.
UPDATE: NEA Communications Director lies about his involvement and then gets fired

27 Aug 09Still 'Crazy'

The first political writer I ever read was P.J. O'Rourke, in tenth grade, back when he wrote for Rolling Stone (!?). Twenty years later, he still has it.

26 Aug 09 Cheating the App Store

PR firm writing iTunes App Store reviews for their clients' products. I'm just shocked and stunned in disbelief.

24 Aug 09Designing With Web Standards, 3rd Edition

Update to the first book I bought on the topic of web design. If I hadn't, I would probably still be using somebody else's blog template. And that would be lame. Arriving this fall.

22 Aug 09Cash-for-Clunkers a Trend Item?

Well, since Cash-for-Clunkers turned out so swimmingly, nothing to worry about in terms of health care. The government blew through a billion bucks without sneezing, squaring away 1/6th of the economy should be a puss game

22 Aug 09Senator Kennedy Wants the Rules to Replace Him Changed--Again - WSJ.com

Well of course he does. Everyone knows the rules change when the political landscape does.

21 Aug 09Mega Nuclear Option

First Congress, now the President? Jonah Godberg has some interesting questions.

21 Aug 09Dollar ReDe$ign Project

What's in your wallet? Compared to this, it's kinda lame. Nice work.

21 Aug 09Personas | Metropath(ologies)

Very, very cool.

21 Aug 09Guide to the Most Epic FAILs in Star Wars Design

My addition: a throatpunch to the Empire defense contractor who sold Vader military vehicles on legs, like the AT-AT Walkers. Defeated by loops of wire. Not nearly as bad as it's younger siblings, rendered silly by rolling logs and Ewoks.

20 Aug 09How Astroturfing is Taking over Local Activism

Interesting article. And by interesting I mean all examples of astroturfing in the article are of a conservative variety. Not a single mention of ACORN, MoveOn, etc. I guess your chosen method of political discourse isn't really genuine unless you come dressed as a giant puppet.

20 Aug 09How To Fly Without ID

"Agents were informed directly by the FAA that they absolutely could not bar an American citizen from boarding a plane, even if a passenger refused to produce any identification at all." I had no idea - although that doesn't mean I would try this on my next trip.

18 Aug 09NASA is a jobs program.

Let me go find my surprised look. I'm willing to bet that NASA is by far not the worst at this. (Via Instapundit)

14 Aug 09Secrets of Magus

One of the best articles I have ever read. I now know why I like David Mamet - because he's friends with Ricky Jay. (Via Daring Fireball)

13 Aug 09The Nuclear Option

National Review's Jim Geraghty on an interesting twist regarding health care reform: is passing this legislation so important to some of the more senior members of Congress that they vote for it, regardless of the consequences at the ballot box? Or will self-preservation prevail?

12 Aug 09Netflix Magic

Neat behind-the-scenes story at a sort-of-secret Netflix warehouse

9 Aug 09House of Reps Buys Jets

Hope and Change? Draining the swamp? Whatever...we got places to go and coach isn't going to cut it.

6 Aug 09North Korea's First Family

Exhibit Z in the continuing clown act

6 Aug 09Learjet Repo Man

Fascinating story of the go-to guy when expensive private jets don't get paid for. Business is probably good for him these days.

24 Jul 09Meltdown at AIG

If Michael Lewis, of Moneyball fame, wrote the phonebook, I would read it cover-to-cover. Here he is with a fascinating article about the AIG trainwreck.

23 Jun 09New York State Senate in 'Chaos'

Everyone get in line for their new floppy clown shoes. I've seen kids' playgrounds more squared away than this.

23 Jun 09Sullivan Descending

Here's the definition of a cliche: I used to be an avid reader of Andrew Sullivan, but then I gave up ... insert reason here. For me, it was when the moral equivalence became suffocating and ridiculous. He did answer an email of mine once, though.

17 Jun 09You'll go by whatever I call you

Liz Liz Liz Liz You Suck Liz Liz Liz Liz...Epic Douche Fail.

21 May 09Newsweek to become an opinion magazine

Isn't this old news? I cancelled my subscription years ago and this pretty much guarantees I'll never get another one.

15 Dec 08Film Addict

I scored 51.3 %.

12 Nov 08Assembler

Cool timewaster of the day

20 Sep 08Rep. Charles Rangel (D)

Douchebag.

16 Sep 08Procrastination Flowchart

Otherwise known as my "my day."

16 Sep 08Cooliris

I linked to this previously when it was known as PicLens. Still one of the coolest things on the web, and now available for Safari.

13 Sep 08David Foster Wallace, RIP

How sad. DFW was one of my favorite non-fiction writers, footnotes and all. I wasn't a huge fan of his fiction and I never tackled Infinite Jest, but I was blown away when I read his 1996 tennis essay in Esquire. Ever since then his articles on topics ranging from cruise ships, talk radio and usage dictionaries (another fav) have been excellent. How depressing there won't be anymore of them.

20 Aug 08Interesting story...

...about what happens to the actual Olympic medals that get taken away from an athlete, for whatever reason. Interesting side note: while I had a vague idea of the controversy involving the US men's basketball team losing the gold medal in 1972, I did not know that to this day the US has refused to accept the silver medal and the medals remain in a vault in Switzerland.

20 Aug 08World Records Over Time

Pretty nifty infographic from the NY Times charting world records in various sporting events over time.

27 Jul 08New Order Channel on YouTube

My favorite band of all time. I first heard them back in 8th grade when Substance came out. Too bad they broke up last year for what appears to be the final time.

21 Jun 08PicLens

Quite possibly one of the coolest applications ever to reside on my computer.

4 Jun 08A Day at the Office

Complete and total meltdown. Must have been the late TPS reports.

31 May 08DNC Pissing Contest

Your Mom! No...YOUR mom. Via Instapundit

19 May 08AP2 vs LR2

Nice rundown of the pros and cons.

17 May 08Awesome Shipwreck Pictures

Via Simple Bits

30 Apr 081:5 Scale Model of an A-10

That actually flies. Amazing.

30 Apr 0850 Greatest TV Shows of All Time

If you are a science fiction fan. The only one missing is Misfits of Science.

26 Apr 08Multihulls in the next America's Cup

Sounds like 1988 all over again: no challenger series, multihull boats and court battles.

22 Apr 08Clinton's win in Pa. leaves Obama battered, party reeling

More popcorn please. This is getting fun.

21 Apr 08Muslim scientists want to replace GMT with Mecca time.

Ummm. Okay.

15 Apr 08Television Star Exits Scientology

You can almost hear Tom Cruise opening a can of whoop-ass.

9 Apr 08U of Delaware Thought Police

What an absolute, utter disgrace.

6 Apr 08Obama aims for pro-gun vote

Hey, there’s a straw... Grasp it!

5 Apr 08Strange Maps

All kinds of cool stuff. Via Vodkapundit

5 Apr 08Ohio Hospital Contests a Story Clinton Tells

Another lie. Standby while I go find my surprised look.

5 Apr 08Canada’s Human Rights Kangaroo Court

What a clown act.

2 Apr 08Adobe Lightroom 2.0 Beta

I'm still working on my Lightroom versus Aperture post and since it has been in draft, Apple has released AP version 2.1 and Adobe today released a beta of LR 2.0. Must. Type. Faster

2 Apr 08Hitchens: The real harm Hillary Clinton inflicted on Bosnia.

"Misspoke" my ass.

31 Mar 08Running tally of Superdelegates

Currently only 34 separate Obama and Clinton.

30 Mar 08How to locally install Movable Type 4 on a Mac

Excellent tutorial. Requires MAMP, which is a no-brainer as well. Perfect for testing purposes.

27 Mar 08Pics of the hookers Eliot Spitzer paid thousands of dollars to

YGBSM

26 Mar 08"Buy the Cheap Cables"

Also see this article about Monster Cables vs Coat Hangers. What a rip-off. And yes, I do own a Monster cable... or two.

26 Mar 08Saddam Financed Lawmakers' Trip

This was a pretty big deal when it happened. How interesting. I also loved this little gem: "The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children..."

22 Mar 08Democrats Play the McCarthy Card

Against each other...how rich. And from no less a complete tool than Merrill McPeak.

20 Mar 08WordPress 2.5

The new interface looks sharp. I locally installed WordPress (and Expression Engine) last year to see if I wanted to switch. At the time, I thought "no" - we'll see if that holds if the tinkering bug returns.

20 Mar 08Wired 1.1

Arrgh. I also have the first issue of Wired and was going to do a post like this. That's what I get for being lazy. The only other issue I saved was the Neal Stephenson eleventy-billion word cover story about FLAG - Fiber optic Link Around the Globe.

20 Mar 08Rent vs. Buy Myths

All those folks that gave me crap when I moved to Vegas almost two years go and didn't buy? I laugh at them daily.

19 Mar 08How to stop Aperture from crashing

Starring Your's Truly. It pays to be nice to folks that ask questions

15 Mar 08www.socksoff.co.uk

Nice collection of desktop wallpapers. Via Smashing Magazine

11 Mar 08Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' by David Mamet

One of the smartest things I've read this year. And I've been a fan of Mamet's for a long time.

22 Aug 07The Washington Monthly rates Texas A&M #1

The comment thread is, ahem... "interesting" reading

27 Jul 07The Truth about Fake Steve Jobs

I don't want to know...then it wouldn't be as fun to read.

26 Jul 07Astronauts Flew While Intoxicated

Well, that explains the whole "diaper" thing.

25 Jul 07Leader Rasmussen Out of Tour De France

This is now officially a farce.

24 Jul 07ESPN - Vinokourov tests positive for banned transfusion

How stupid can these Tour de France riders get?

17 Jul 07Attractors

Time Waster of the Day

8 Jun 07Schadenfreude

Noun, from German damage and joy. See Paris Hilton.

8 Jun 07Netscape?

Apple's Featured Download is what?! I didn't think they still made it. I'm sure the eight fanboys left in the world are rejoicing.

14 May 07Amazon acquires DP Review

I bought my first digital camera, a Fuji FinePix, based on their indepth reviews. And given my recent acquisition of a Nikon D40, I've been spending a lot of time browsing their forums. Congrats.

11 May 07Dolphins' Williams tests positive for pot