August 2011
“Unemployment will be higher than it would have been otherwise. Growth will be...”
– Mohamed El-Erian, chief of the bond investment firm Pimco, explaining the likely impact of Washington’s just-agreed to big budget cuts. (via officialssay)
July 2011
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Boehner’s problem: His party doesn’t like... →
If Boehner is to have any chance of passing his bill through the House, he needs to make it completely unacceptable to the president and the Senate.
If that doesn’t make any sense to you — and it shouldn’t — then perhaps it would help if I rephrased: In order to have any chance of surviving as Speaker of the House, Boehner needs to produce legislation that is completely unacceptable to the...
“When Boehner took over as speaker, he complied with another Tea Party demand:...”
– The Atlantic Wire
“Some companies have forbidden employees to plug in desktop fans; in others with...”
– NYTimes on Japan’s political and cultural push to reduce power consumption in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.
“A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to...”
– Prof. Jack Balkin, Yale Law
Straight out of Futurama. (Via ThinkProgress)
Apple has more cash than the US Government →
Thanks to a string of record earnings and debt ceiling nonsense, respectively. (Via the Financial Post)
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“The evidence that police have found in [News of the World’s investigator...”
– When the mother of an abducted and murdered child didn’t have a cellphone to tap, they fucking gave her one.
The ability of this story to constantly one-up itself is only comparable to a Mr. Show sketch. (Via Guardian.co.uk)
“Think about who we’ve produced - the likes of David Bowie, Jimmy Page, The...”
– Danny Boyle suggests The Smiths could feature in London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.
Yeah, let’s invite Morrissey to a multicultural spectacular. Probably not one of your best ideas, Danny Boyle.
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“In GPS technology, the phrasing “COCOM Limits” is also used to refer...”
– If your mobile moves faster than 1,200 MPH the GPS will shut off because it thinks you’re a missile. (Via Wikipedia)
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“I didn’t sign up for going mano-a-mano with the President of the United...”
– John Boehner, overheard by CBS News’ Jill Jackson following his speech last night.
So many knee-jerk responses are evoked by this report. However, the real crime is that I read about this on Gawker while CBS News never put it on air.
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“The boys themselves didn’t have any profound conclusions about the meaning of...”
– From GQ’s “Story of the Tokelau Teenagers Lost in the Ocean for 51 Days”
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"Aesthentic"
A fortuitous typo for our times. I’m coining the portmanteau now:
Aesthentic: possessing a deliberately visible production process or simulated signs of production, which intend to evoke a real or imaged nostalgic effect.
Examples of aesthentic works include:
Instagrams or Lomo photos
Chillwave albums or any contemporary garage rock
J. Crew clothing
Typewriter fonts
Bluebottle...
I really want a version of Reeder that runs on my Apple TV, and can be controlled via remote.
“If you are mentally imagining the reader’s awe at your acrobatic prose stylings,...”
– The Atlantic’s Senior Editor Megan McArdle
“The apparent recent hacking epidemic is more a function of news reporting than...”
– Bruce Schneier
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"Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color... →
Prelaunch. I’m not sure what Google investors should be more worried about: the apparent desperation for another innovation or the shortage of talent. Both probably contributed to this ridiculous bid.
Color (and everyone interacting with it) seems to be trying to will another bubble burst simply by acting like we’re in one. (Via TechCrunch)
The World’s First Emoji Domain →
Panic’s Art Department registered a new domain. If you’re running Lion, check out your address bar on arrival.
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“We extract the value where we create the value. We believe the content is the...”
– Paul Rossi, Publisher and Managing Director of The Economist, explaining why The Economist is growing in spite of media turmoil and a recession (and why it’s my favorite magazine). (Via Clusterstock)
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Creating a Registry of "Art" Among "Vandalism" →
Following the white-washing (heh) of Banksy’s pink gorilla in Bristol, the city is considering a plan to protect “public artwork” in the city:
The proposed register would mean planning permission would be required to alter street artworks.
Mr Comer has asked Bristol’s Neighbourhood Partnerships to put together a list of all the known valuable public artworks around the...
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In a Pinch, New Macs will Boot from the Web →
If your Mac problem is a little less common — your hard drive has failed or you’ve installed a hard drive without OS X, for example — Internet Recovery takes over automatically. It downloads and starts Lion Recovery directly from Apple servers over a broadband Internet connection. And your Mac has access to the same Lion Recovery features online. Internet Recovery is built into every...
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“Shopping is the time to be critical. (Eating is the time to enjoy.)”
– Mark Bittman, making an argument for eating at home. (Via NYTimes)
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“Someone has just tried to attack Rupert Murdoch. His wife Wendi seemed to slap...”
– The Guardian.
Of course. Do not cross Wendi Deng.
“I’m not really in touch.”
– Rupert Murdoch, when asked how often he communicates with the editor of News of the World.
“I’ve heard the phrase before and we were not ever guilty of that.”
– Rupert Murdoch, when asked if he’s ever heard of the term, “Willful blindness.”
The Cut, Cap and Balance distraction →
As policy, Cut, Cap and Balance is an effort to take the lessons of the past 10 years and then pass a constitutional amendment preventing us from learning them. For instance: if you’re worried about deficits today, you’re partly worried about them because we passed about $2 trillion in unpaid-for tax cuts over the past decade or so, and then we had a financial crisis that jammed...
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“The Kindle is wonderful for drunk people because you can climb into bed, press...”
– Elif Batuman, author of “The Possessed” (Via The Boston Globe)
News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower... →
(Via the Guardian)
“Everything Everywhere, the U.K.’s biggest mobile operator, said Monday...”
– WSJ, of all sources.
Interesting timing for an executive shakeup at a UK telecom.
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“What is the essence of a tabloid story? I think it’s the thought,...”
– Errol Morris, via On the Media
So much for a slow news day...
Rebekah Brooks is arrested the day before she has to testify with the Murdochs. No one knew about her arrest and some reports seem to imply she drove herself to the station. My bet? She’s flipped and is loading the gun before James or Rupert could be used against her.
The Met Police Commissioner has resigned. The Guardian reports: “Despite everything, he said that everyone who knew...
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“Michelin stresses though that when taken together, the maps, guides and digital...”
– The Financial Times, via Marginal Revolution
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“It turns out it has a lot of different facets, because while there’s many...”
– Biz Stone, on “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” (Via NPR) 