The Magic Screen And I Are Cousins

Oh baby, hoggify

2008-06-22T09:22:00.001-04:00

41 Hours in an Elevator

2008-04-21T23:08:00.001-04:00

My friend Alisha's former co-worker was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours

Predictive Text Entry

2008-03-24T15:56:00.002-04:00

1968 envisions life in 2008; neglects power of boomer nostalgia.

(Okay, the Newsweek cover is from November, but I saw it for the first time last week. Weren't the 1968 retrospectives in 1988, 1993, 1998, and 2003 enough?)

Billy Bragg on royalties (not royalty or Royalty)

2008-03-22T08:30:00.002-04:00

Billy gets a lot of things right, but...we need to protect musicians from their own lousy choices? Really? As Marge learned during Homer's brief period of musical superstardom, sometimes those choices aren't so lousy.

Fun . . .

2008-03-15T23:37:00.001-04:00

Computer Game

2008-03-05T11:47:00.002-05:00

James and I were discussing at old computer game, Robot Odyssey, which was about as original a game as I had seen at that point (probably early '80s). This one seems to have some similarity in encouraging one to think outside the box.

New book from JK Rowling

2007-12-23T19:26:00.000-05:00

Of course there are only seven copies and each costs a few million dollars. Luckily Amazon has purchased one of the copies.

Bill O'Reilly thinks Great Barrington is ruining Christmas

2007-12-20T23:22:00.000-05:00

Here is where Bill O'Reilly says that he thinks the town selectmen of Great Barrington are trying to secularize Christmas by deciding to turn off the town's snowflake lights at 10 PM instead of midnight, and by calling them "holiday lights" rather than "christmas lights."

Here is the Berkshire Eagle article about it.

Oy! There's a Bill O'Reilly video too somewhere. In the video the blame the "elitist secularists" who come up from New York. Apparently Bill O'Reilly thinks turning the lights off two hours earlier is going vastly reduce consumerism in Great Barrington, despite that fact that if you drive down mainstreet at 10PM, there's no one around except for a few teenagers smoking on a bench. Everything is closed by then.

Prof. Robert Frank

2007-12-13T13:12:00.000-05:00

I found a link to this blog on the Freakonomics blog, and I thought Mom might be interested in how her CAU professor, Robert Frank, is doing after his recent heart attack.

Clippingers Have A Way With Words

2007-10-31T09:29:00.000-04:00

"'Ay-yai-yai-yai-yai...'"

Conservatives to Upstate: Drop Dead

2007-10-26T09:42:00.000-04:00

Okay, it's not that bad, but this article in the house organ of the Manhattan Institute has an interesting discussion of the economic problems of upstate in general and Buffalo in particular, ending with the most generic conservative fix imaginable: reduce government spending and cut taxes.

Now, that being said...where does all that tax money go in New York State? Looking at the local-state tax burden data, the three states I've lived in represent the full spectrum. There are very clear differences in the level of public services between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, but I can't think of a difference between Massachusetts and New York.

This year's fruitcake

2007-10-17T20:09:00.000-04:00

I hate to spoil the surprise, but this is what I'm getting everyone for Christmas.

Energy From Cows?

2007-08-24T09:25:00.000-04:00

The Economics of Street Charity

2007-08-09T11:43:00.000-04:00

This article reminded me of having a similar conversation with Dad about street beggars when I was in 9th grade. My health teacher said when she lived in a city, she wouldn't give beggars money because they might spend it on booze, but would instead buy then some food. I thought this was a great idea, and told everyone that night at dinner about it. Dad's response was that the homeless person might need alcohol, not food, so you shouldn't make that decision for them.

Theory of Relativity . . .

2007-08-06T20:39:00.000-04:00

Milk: It's Carbon Friendly!

2007-08-05T21:42:00.000-04:00

This article seems right up Mr. Murphy's alley, until they start talking about bovinicide.

So that's why I still have my tonsils!

2007-07-18T07:02:00.000-04:00

Curious. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that the effect is caused by the doctors' choices. I suspect it's more a matter of lawyers' families having high standards when deciding on medical intervention, but maybe that's just anecdotal. I would be interested to see if there's a similar difference in procedure rates for an elective treatment (well, usually) like LASIK.

When the rain comes...

2007-07-13T13:35:00.001-04:00

An interesting article on induced rain in China can be found here.

All Right! Correcting Pigovian Taxes!

2007-06-23T08:01:00.000-04:00

Interesting post about the real costs of driving:

Three possible externalities associated with driving are the following:
My driving increases congestion for other drivers;
I might crash into other cars or pedestrians;
My driving contributes to global warming.
If you had to guess, which of those three considerations provides the strongest justification for a bigger tax on gasoline?

In addition to answering the "so, ballpark, how much are we talking about per gallon?" question for carbon taxes, the post also suggests that the high-mileage/low-density greater metropolitan Smyrna motoring lifestyle may not be so inefficient compared to the low-mileage/slightly-higher-density Waltham one.

(Of course, certain Bronxians have us all beat on the efficiency scale....)

What, no ATMs?

2007-06-19T08:02:00.000-04:00

When you care enough to send the very best to the dead: Hell money!

Copying Laura

2007-06-13T10:08:00.000-04:00

Laura posting pictures of her house made me want to follow suit. They are all in a wacky order.

Christine's room

Christine on the couch, my room, and christine in the kitchen

It's All About The Oil

2007-06-13T08:57:00.000-04:00

Interesting article well worth your time about how Stalin and the Saudis won the Cold War. Considering that it's by a major figure in the early Yeltsin governments, it's also delightfully snarky:

The shortest quotation about the intellectual capacity of the Soviet leadership came from the Politburo minutes: "Mr. Zasiadko has stopped binge drinking. Resolution: nominate Mr. Zasiadko as a minister to Ukraine."

Flight of the Conchords Pilot Episode

2007-06-10T02:26:00.001-04:00

A little awkward at times, but funny at the same times.

Maybe OM in Japan? . . .

2007-05-26T19:31:00.000-04:00

This group could do OM.

Policy Change

2007-05-10T11:03:00.000-04:00

So it turns out that you should give your children easy-to-Google names. This article has caused me to question my child-naming policy:

"Justin and I wanted our son's name to be as special as he is," she explains.

I'm not sure that I want my kid to feel he or she was given a special name because I think he or she is special. Nobody likes a cocky child. So now I'm thinking of just naming each kid James with a random number for a middle name.

Note that the first few Google results for each of us nuclear Clippingers are relevant. Even our uncles with common-ish first names do well with Google. Nice work on considering the future marketing implications of your naming decisions, parents and grandparents!