January 2009
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Coal ranching
On Tuesday I got my first good look into the coal mines of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. This is literally where the deer and the antelope played, until the human appetite for power began eating it up. Featured are the Jacobs Ranch and Black Thunder Mines. The latter is featured in John McPhee’s Uncommon Carriers.… Continue reading
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Updike at rest
John Updike was a writer of astonishing gifts, discipline and scope. The sum of his work — novels, essays, poetry, criticism — is enormous. Besides his sixty-one books (including 23 novels), for more han half a century he was a reliably frequent byline in The New Yorker. Sourcing the magazine, USA today says Updike contributed… Continue reading
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Comment du jour
I dunno if this is a spam or not, but I got a chuckle out of it, so I let it fly. Continue reading
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Quotes du jour
“If you just want to write and not re-write, blog.” That was uttered by Anne Thompson, deputy editor of Variety, moderating a panel of screenwriters at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. Another: “What’s the point of living but to love one another?” That’s from Andrew Stanton, who wrote Wall-E. Both quotes from a report by… Continue reading
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Toward post-largesse journalism
My sources in Santa Barbara tell me “Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times”, a new documentary by Peter Jones, is an amazing piece of work — partly because of its quality as a picture, but especially because of its subject: the brilliant and dysfunctional Otis and Chandler families, who did more to build Los… Continue reading
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What does
— this graphic mean? That we do better under Democrats (Reagan excepted) than Republicans? That the times are reflected in their leaders? Neither? Both? I gotta say that I’m torn. My inner Libertarian agrees with Peter Schiff, who saw the crash coming, warned everybody about it, says — We have an economy that’s based… Continue reading
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Pixel pi
Check out David Bergman‘s 1,474-Megapixel GigaPan picture of the 2 gigaperson presidential inauguration last Tuesday. You can all but look in the noses of the people there. What impresses me most is how many cameras with extremely long lenses were there. Yow. Canon and Nikon were cleaning up. Hat tip to Sheila Lennon. Continue reading
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The perils of publicity
I’m pretty good at getting buzz when I want it. The irony of running ProjectVRM, however, is that I don’t want much of that. Not yet, anyway. About a year ago I did promote it a bit, got a lot of great response, and also spent a lot of time debugging bad understandings of what… Continue reading
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Killing spamlike comments
This blog’s dashboard has a line that says this: Akismet has protected your site from 128,720 spam comments already, and there are 4,868 comments in your spam queue right now. I rarely look at the spam queue. The only time I’ve found false positives there are when some of my own comments have gone into… Continue reading
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Pressing for respect
The Columbia Journalism Review whines, WhiteHouse.gov presents itself as a kind of social networking portal in which citizens can essentially “friend” the government–and it frames the ensuing dialogue as one that takes place directly between the people and the government. The press, it suggests by way of omission, need not be part of the exchange.… Continue reading
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Possession is 9/10ths of the 3-year-old
No concept is more loaded than ownership. Or more absurd. Or harder to establish. Or more important. Just ask Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Stephan Kinsella and Karl Marx. Kevin Kelly offers a practical angle on the whole topic in Better Than Owning, a long and substantive essay. One sample: Our sense of ownership is… Continue reading
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Spottings
My aerial photo of Giants Stadium, aka The Meadowlands, where both the Giants and the Jets play, made WikiNews Shorts today. Continue reading
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On inspiration
Of Obama’s non-reductive rhetoric, Gene Koo writes, Whatever the accolades for the speech that Obama delivered at his inauguration, it seems it won’t generate a singular sound bite as in JFK’s “Ask not…” or FDR’s “Fear itself” (Many of the major papers picked themes, rather than pluck quotes, although a few took to “hope… Continue reading
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Clueship fishing
Over at the ProjectVRM blog, two posts: Who in CRM 2.0 will help VRM 0.1? and What’s completely screwed about this picture? Continue reading
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Peelings
The Onion on the Inauguration: Security Measures For The Inauguration No One At White House Knows What To Do With Old Pair Of Rumsfeld’s Pants Most Frequently Heard Words In Obama’s Inauguration Speech Obama Inauguration Speech Ruined By Incessant Jackhammering Hillary Clinton Mouthing Along To Presidential Oath Congress Debates Adding Elaborate Dance To Obama’s Inauguration… Continue reading
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Dep’t of Minor Addictions
I don’t have a sweet tooth. Most candies don’t tempt me unless I’m very hungry, and then I know I won’t be satisfied anyway. My weakness is spice. Petty much anything with black pepper, chili, garlic and stuff like that… love it. But every once in awhile a candy comes along that I can’t get… Continue reading
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Chilling out
When it got down near zero (Fahrenheit) a few days ago, the ice formations on the windows were too delicate and interesting to resist shooting. Click on the shot above for a look through the whole series. Continue reading