February 2012
11 posts
1 tag
Independent Businesses →
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Setting Up Mac OS X →
It was time for a periodic update to my setting up a Mac post.
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“There are only two ways to write AppleScript code: 1. Copy someone else’s and...”
– Dr. Drang
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“Text is an amazingly versatile medium. Relative to other media, text has very...”
– Marco Arment in an interview at 512 Pixels
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It Gets Better, Corporate Edition →
Frank Bruni on corporate America’s sensitivity to public opinion on gay rights:
In addition to Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon spoke up for same-sex marriage. All have surely taken note of several polls over the last year suggesting - for the first time - that a slight majority of Americans supports it. All have no doubt taken even greater note of a generational divide. In a Gallup poll,...
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“I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a...”
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Pop and Circumstance →
James C. Mckinley Jr., for the New York Times:
Let’s say you’re a Republican running for president.
You’re looking for a rousing pop anthem to pump up your troops and underscore your message. There’s plenty of music out there, but you have a problem: most of the pop stars, it seems, prefer Democrats.
Perhaps a market failure?
6 tags
Paying Customers →
Marco Arment (developer of the much beloved iOS app Instapaper and co-host of the 5by5 podcast Build and Analyze) discussed his business model on NPR’s Planet Money:
Apple already had everyone’s billing information from iTunes … you could buy things just by typing in your password … That, for the first time, brought very, very easy payment to the modern software world....
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Vacations, Morons, and Encased Meats →
On the Hot Doug’s website (at least on 2012-02-01):
William Robertson Davies, one of Canada’s best-known and most popular authors, wrote, “I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin. To me, enjoyment comes...
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“The thing is, after college I moved to New York City and became a writer and met...”
– Benjamin Nugent on the DSM-5
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1 tag
“In Florida, as you go north, you go south.”
– Walter Mebane quoted in a 2004 Washington Post article on Bush’s reelection
January 2012
38 posts
5 tags
“Yes, Hollywood does spend a lot of money on politics. But so does tech. The...”
– Lee Drutman on SOPA and PIPA
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“I’ve always thought this was the real story behind the software that John...”
– Dr. Drang on browser chrome
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“Piracy is when people use violence, or the threat of it, to transfer your...”
– Tim Bray writing about SOPA
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“I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to...”
– Jonathan Ive
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“‘Don’t be evil’ has been over for a long time.”
– John Gruber on Google’s new privacy policy
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“What has been said about Newt is pretty much true. He had to step down because...”
– Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (so this could be true)
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iBooks Assessments
The two most reasonable assessments of iBooks, iBooks Author, and the near future of ebooks more generally come from Andy Ihnatko on 5by5’s podcast The Ihnatko Almanac: Some Assembly Required (episode #16) and Duke Sociologist Kieran Healy’s blog post Apple for the Teacher.
Both are recommended.
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UW–Syllabus →
I was under the impression we were required to make our syllabi publicly available. However in response to an open records request from an allegedly conservative political group, the University of Wisconsin System says not so much:
UW officials contend that university course syllabi are not public records because they are subject to copyright, and therefore exempt from production under...
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“English’s emergence as the global language, along with the rapid progress in...”
– Lawrence H. Summers on the future of higher education
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10 Championship Games in 12 Years →
The Hub of the Universe indeed.
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Police Stations as Markets →
As suggested by the Milwaukee police in response to several Craiglist-based robberies.
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“So I’ve had the experience of leadership. Now Speaker Gingrich has also...”
– Mitt Romney
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“It doesn’t have to be linear, but if you replace the longform text with video...”
– Baldur Bjarnason, “What is an ebook?”
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Breeding PACs →
Politico on hybrid PACs:
Here’s how it works: under new federal rules, a traditional PAC and super PAC may operate under one roof. These hybrid operations can raise and spend unlimited amounts of cash to promote or oppose candidates, as any super PAC can, while simultaneously giving limited amounts of money directly to campaigns and committees, like a traditional political action committee.
...
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Real Intellectual Property Theft →
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You're So Dodd to Me →
Former Senator Chris Dodd (CT-D) speaking as a lobbyist on behalf of the MPAA:
Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.
...
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The Hand-Held Highlighter →
Good-bye old friend.
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“How many major-league players have stood less than six feet tall and weighed (or...”
– Rob Neyer on forecasting
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Tornado 87 →
The Rural Alberta Advantage performing in a record store for the Paper Bag Sessions.
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1.5 Tons of Signatures Filed for Walker's Recall →
1 million signatures. Looks like we’re going to do some more voting…
“It is beyond legal challenge,” said Ryan Lawler, vice chairman of United Wisconsin.
Living in Wisconsin has been great for my election day photography (via Wisconsin Forward).
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I Have a Dream* →
*Subject to licensing fees and requirements from the Sony Corporation.
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“Why would you want to nominate the guy who lost to the guy who lost to Obama?”
– Newt Gingrich on time consistent preferences
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Am I Wasting My Time Organizing Email? →
Yes.
From a study of email refinding by Steve Whittaker, Tara Matthews, Julian Cerruti, Hernan Badenes, John Tang at IBM Research. From the abstract:
We carried out a field study of 345 long-term users who conducted over 85,000 refinding actions. Our data support opportunistic access. People who create complex folders indeed rely on these for retrieval, but these preparatory behaviors are...
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CEO of USA in NYT
Published in the New York Times on January 12th of this very 2012.
David Brooks:
If you look back over history, you see that while business success can sensitize a politician to the realities other executives face, there’s little correlation between business success and political success…. In sum, great presidents are often aristocrats and experienced political insiders.
and
Paul...
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Who's the Job Creator? →
See also Nicholas Kristof on “The Value of Teachers” (both via Wisconsin Forward):
What shone through the [Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff] study was the variation among teachers. Great teachers not only raised test scores significantly — an effect that mostly faded within a few years — but also left their students with better life outcomes. A great teacher (defined as one better...
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“To understand Newt Gingrich, you have to envision a mixture of ‘Kill...”
– Gail Collins (N.B. I have no idea what this means, but it’s funny)
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“The annual orgy of BCS championship football — of all big-time college sports —...”
– Greg Knauss
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Boys of Summer →
The Papercuts cover Don Henley.
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“Our journalists need to get something straight, or at least learn to fake an...”
– Jay Rosen on David Gregory
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Will Wilkinson Is Not a Bleeding-Heart Libertarian →
Via MR
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The Weight →
Wilco, Nick Lowe, and Mavis Staples rehearse “The Weight” (via Beau Colburn).
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“The last show of 2011, The Talk Show that Gruber did, it should have a little...”
– John Siracusa
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“[P]olitical journalism—unlike war reporting—long ago stopped being about what is...”
– George Packer
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Apple, Coke, and Cool →
When quality returns to scale.
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The War for Late Night →
Jesse Thorn has a great interview with Bill Carter on the The Tonight Show Saga II: Jay Leno Vs. Conan O’Brien.
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Love → Building on Fire →
Happy New Year.
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Correction: December 30, 2011 →
New York Times:
An earlier version of this article missated the title of one of Phish’s songs. The song is “I Am Hydrogen,” not “This Is Hydrogen.” And an earlier version of this correction erroneously stated that the song is an album.
So sloppy. This is why you won’t get my $700 per year. Sheesh.
December 2011
39 posts
1 tag
“In fact, the N.C.A.A.’s real role is to oversee the collusion of...”
– Joe Nocera