ANTM: Go Home Kathleen

“How do you feel about fur, Kathleen?”

“I am against killing animals for fur, but if they’re already dead, I guess it’s okay.”

“But Kathleen, why would the animals be dead already?”

“Well, don’t animals fight sometimes, like in the forest?”

...

-- “Kathleen, it’s pretty clear that you didn’t quite understand what was going on in the shoot today.”

“I know, right?”

A tiny bit of paraphrasing above, but it’s all true, and no one should have any doubts as to why Kathleen was let go at the end of tonight’s season-opening episode of America’s Next Top Model.

See, and you thought models were stupid, didn’t you? Not America’s Next Top Model. Or something.

Bonus for Cycle 8 of Top Model: Two “Plus-Size” models for the first time ever!! God of gods, I almost had a stroke when I realized how revolutionary this is, and how empowering for women everywhere. This super-great affirmation of true beauty totally negates the humiliating “boot camp”-style opening of tonight’s show, which found the contestants being measured (bust, waist, hips, etc) and scrutinzed and objectified for a huge national audience (How huge? I don’t know about that - American Idol was on, too, after all.).

So, overall, a mixed bag this evening. The best part is that Renee (who looks strangely familiar to me) is both a young mother and a total bitch. Now that is a role we don’t see so often.

America’s Next Top Model - seriously messing with feminists for the eighth season. It is going to be a wild, wild ride.

Tasty Del.icio.us Links of the Day

This is a long list of links, because Blogger’s Email-to-Post thing has been dysfunctional the last few days. So I’ve combined a couple days worth of links for your clicking pleasure. What are you waiting for? Make those index fingers happy!

Links for 2007-02-27 [del.icio.us] Coca-Cola redesigns cans swfIR: swf Image Replacement Sound Garden - Asynchronous Improvisation GOOD Magazine - The 51 Best* Magazines Ever Rands In Repose: A Glimpse and a Hook Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes ♫ College students think they're so special - Mental Health - MSNBC.com 11 Top Underground Transit Systems in the World - Highlights, Pictures and Video Hard-Hitting News Investigation Proves That Emo Is Dangerous - Idolator Windows Vista Hinders Creative Users’ Efficiency Even More than Windows XP switching BUY (LESS) CRAP! Creative Think: Waking Up with the Goldberg Variations The 14 Point Web Design Checklist Harvey Danger - "the free download isn't a frivolous act" Beatnik Turtle: Indie Band Survival Guide WORLDPROCESSOR LiveScience.com - Strange New Creatures Found in Antarctica Was/Is/Will be The Powerbook Prank: He wanted a Powerbook. We gave him a P-P-P-Powerbook! How to Make Mac Icons

Check It Out!

Nifty Google Search box over there in the sidebar - go ahead and give it a whirl! Now, in addition to viewing Frivolous Motion content using the tag navigation above (or the post titles in the sidebar...or the “Older Posts” link at the bottom of the page), you can search for whatever you’d like, and you’ll be given a nifty customized Google Search page with content right from this blog.

You can also uncheck the “Just Frivolous Motion Blog” box if you want the search to return results from all over (you know, if one of my posts inspires you to learn more about something).

I hope you like it, and hope it helps you find something cool you didn’t know existed.

754,000 Homeless

According to some new government report, there are 754,000 people living on the streets of America - about 300,000 more than there are beds in shelters. In 2000, the census returned a figure of under 200,000, which was widely considered to be an undercount - but by 500K? That is a BIG undercount. I guess the homeless people are just really good at hiding. Just like Bin Laden, or something.

Good Golly!
What interests me about this figure - 300,000 without beds - is how small it feels for some reason. Sure, it is definitely far too many, and definitely something that needs to be solved by deeply examining and fixing many aspects of American life, but it doesn’t seem like a completely unmanageable number.

How expensive could it be to create permanent housing for this many people? Or for agencies to contact them individually and help them get jobs and keep them and become financially stable enough to move into their own residence? Surely not even close to the $400 billion and counting spent on the Iraq “War.”

I Mean, Seriously...
Where are our priorities as a country? As individuals? What is this American Life we claim to be protecting in Iraq? A way of life that says it is okay for one in three hundred Americans to sleep on pavement? Seriously, man, 750,000 is not so many that we can’t fix this situation with very little effort.

Admittedly, fixing it in the long run is the more difficult (and important) thing. But it doesn’t seem like too many people are working on this. Are you? I’d love to hear about it.

Crazy Anonymous Comment Spam

Wow. It looks like Frivolous Motion has hit the big time. This evening I received an anonymous comment on my post “We Must Not Fail?” back in January, that contained President Bush’s State-of-the-Union Address. The comment, which I won’t repost in its entirety below is nothing short of insane. It is extremely long and tackles such disparate topics as the Atlanta Braves, indoor plumbing, AIDS, and the gods. It is a MUST read for its amazing spamminess. I am literally laughing so hard reading the entire thing that I don’t feel like deleting it.

Here is a bit from the end of the essay/comment:

Perhaps the gods intended on re-introducing a Jewish population after the wicked 20th century, bringing in fresh new clones with brains to re-establish a normal Jewish community (ie ascend with children, new clones in to replace, repeat, etc).
There was a major change in 2000 and one of those changes may be that ALL celebrities are all clones WITHOUT brains.
If Earth was to live. 911 says The End is coming soon. That they empowered me to share my message does as well.
This is the path. Take it and save yourself.

I can’t decide which is worse - the comment or the speech it responded to...

For the rest of the comment, go here, and scroll past GW’s speech. You will have never done so much scrolling in your life.

America’s Next Top Model Cycle 8

America’s Next Top Model (Cycle 8) begins tomorrow night (Wednesday, February 28th) on the CW Network and, as far as I can tell, will be just as drama-filled as past seasons. Who will reign supreme as America’s Next Top Model? Get your votes in now, and check back here weekly for updates and episode highlights, as Frivolous Motion follows these girls through weeks of intense competition.

Here are this season’s contestants:

Jael
Occupation: Band Manager
Age: 22
Hometown: Detroit, Michigan

Felicia
Occupation: Sales Associate
Age: 19
Hometown: Houston, Texas

Whitney
Occupation: College Student
Age: 21
Hometown: West Palm Beach, Florida

Cassandra
Occupation: College Student
Age: 24
Hometown: Seattle, Washington

Renee
Occupation: Stay-At-Home Mom
Age: 20
Hometown: Maui, Hawaii

Sarah
Occupation: Photographer
Age: 20
Hometown: Lake Zurich, Illinois

Jaslene
Occupation: Online College Admissions Advisor
Age: 20
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois

Samantha
Occupation: Sales Associate
Age: 19
Hometown: Pinson, Alabama

Kathleen
Occupation: Hair Stylist
Age: 20
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York

Natasha
Occupation: College Student
Age: 21
Hometown: Dallas, Texas

Brittany
Occupation: Bartender
Age: 21
Hometown: Savannah, Georgia

Diana
Occupation: College Student
Age: 21
Hometown: Garfield, New Jersey

Dionne
Occupation: College Student
Age: 20
Hometown: Montgomery, Alabama

Who looks good to you?

15 Answers To Creationist Nonsense

I found a pretty provocative writeup on Scientific American this morning that answers fifteen creationist contentions of the theory of evolution. It is a lengthy article, with detailed but clear answers to the challenges and is well worth the time it will take to read.

Here is a taste:

6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

This surprisingly common argument reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution. The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor.

The deeper error is that this objection is tantamount to asking, "If children descended from adults, why are there still adults?" New species evolve by splintering off from established ones, when populations of organisms become isolated from the main branch of their family and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. The parent species may survive indefinitely thereafter, or it may become extinct.

There is also a lengthy discussion of the article on Digg that is worth checking out, if for no other reason than those Digg people can get pretty insane. Here’s the link to original article so you don’t have to scroll back up.

iPhone Commercial - Hello

UPDATE: There is now a much better version (actually several different versions, including one in HD) of the iPhone ad that aired during the Academy Awards on the Apple website, so I have removed the bootleg Google Video from this blog (with a special apology to those using my widget, who had to endure some “glitchiness” due to the Flash embed).

Check out the still-awesome ad here. I absolutely love that they didn’t even call the iPhone by name. Sure, it could be because the ad was made while the copyright battle with Cisco was pending, but somehow I doubt that. After all, the Apple site has proudly called it iPhone since day one.

Instead, I think that this TV spot is a strong way of saying, “Who cares what it’s called? The important thing is that this device changes everything. You’ve never said Hello quite like this. Ever.”

Tasty Del.icio.us Links of the Day

Links for 2007-02-23 [del.icio.us] Techdirt: Saying You Can't Compete With Free Is Saying You Can't Compete Period More Creative and Beautiful Wallpapers | Smashing Magazine Frankenfight: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD, Formats Not Equal - Gizmodo iTunes helps uncover a musical mystery hoax RIAA lists top 25 universities handing out piracy notices - Engadget

Tasty Del.icio.us Links of the Day

Links for 2007-02-22 [del.icio.us] welcome to the world of eeps Slife Labs iLounge Wallpaper Contest - Enter Now! Video Dog - Salon.com Fox Attacks Obama Crooked Timber » » What’s wrong with happiness measurement ? Steve Jobs' iTunes dance | Salon Technology

Apocalypto: Not A Bad Movie

Are You Sure It Isn’t Bad?
From IMDB:

Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.

Despite the fact that the man behind this movie (Mel Gibson) is apeshit crazy (in good company at least, with Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, and George W. Bush), this movie was actually “enjoyable.” I put that in quotes because two-plus hours of fast-paced gore-filled jungle action might not qualify as “enjoyable” for everybody, but the fact remains that Apocalypto is not a bad movie, as much as I wish I could say it is. Sure, there are some really lame things happening (like all the scenes of Jaguar Paw’s wife and son in the pit, which are just horrible filmmaking, with extremely bad props, and pretty likely not the doing of Mr. Gibson, but the second unit director) but for the most part, the time flies by, the characters are recognizable enough, the translated dialogue decent, and the filmmaking classic Gibson - energetic and strong battle and chase scenes abound.

Mayans Have Balls
It starts with an extended joke about the impotence of one of the characters, with lots of talk about balls (he is tricked into eating some tapir testicles), which is so screwed up that it actually worked at humanizing this lost race of people, something I wasn’t sure Mel was going to do. There was humor throughout, and some really nasty stuff (nothing so gross it made me forget Imprint), and some tender moments - everything a film should have. It even brings in some white people at the end, which no film can be without, right? Apocalypto has everything. Well, everything except this: A Point.

Why was this film made? (Honestly, I could ask that about 90 percent of the stuff Hollywood puts out). I don’t really know. I don’t really understand Mel. I don’t agree with his crazy views (and Passion of the Christ was decidedly not a very good movie).

Watch It Anyway, I Guess
But still, somehow in spite of all this, I found Apocalypto to be “enjoyable.” And I kinda think you should watch it. Why not, right? If there’s no reason for it to exist, then there is no reason not to see it.

Or something. Watching a movie like this messes with logic.

Tasty Del.icio.us Links of the Day

Links for 2007-02-21 [del.icio.us] Some Americans Reluctant to Vote for Mormon, 72-Year-Old Presidential Candidates MTmaster Photography Wii Interviews - In-Depth Regional Wii Coverage

Special Numbers

0 is the additive identity.
1 is the multiplicative identity.
2 is the only even prime.
3 is the number of spatial dimensions we live in.
4 is the smallest number of colors sufficient to color all planar maps.
5 is the number of Platonic solids.
6 is the smallest perfect number.
7 is the smallest number of faces of a regular polygon that is not constructible by straightedge and compass.
8 is the largest cube in the Fibonacci sequence.
9 is the maximum number of cubes that are needed to sum to any positive integer.

Something special about EVERY number from 0 - 9999 at this site, which has lots of other cool math stuff.

Breaking: Apple, Cisco Settle on iPhone

I saw it on Ars Technica first, so I will link them up, but I am sure this news is all over by now.

Apparently, Apple and Cisco have reached a settlement regarding ownership of the iPhone trademark. Somehow (the details are mostly confidential) they decided to share ownership, meaning that both companies can market and sell devices called iPhones all over the world. They have also agreed to work towards possibile interoperability and collaboration in the areas of “security, and consumer and enterprise communications.”

Cool. Now we just have to wait until June to see one up close.

The site construction continues. Have a lovely Thursday.

Changes Afoot

Changing up the layout. Please bear with me.

Nice Touch On The NYTimes Site

Ever read an article on the New York Times website, only to encounter words (especially names and places) that you don’t recognize? Or ones that you kind of get, but need more information to really understand? Now, if you’re at all like me, the last thing you want to do is open a new window or tab and do a Google/Dictionary/Wikipedia search for the word. As a result, I know I’m missing out on a lot of knowledge and stuff, but sadly I am too lazy to care that much.

Coming to the rescue is a feature included on the NYTimes site that I stumbled upon this weekend. I happened to be rhythmically tapping my trackpad button on my MacBook Pro (I sometimes do this while reading) and all of a sudden, a window popped up! At first I had no idea what I had just done and was peeved that a window was popping up on my Mac. “Stupid ads,” I thought, until I saw what had just appeared.

And what does appear?

It was, in fact, something incredibly useful: A page with a definition and description of, apparently, the word I had been clicking. Turns out, any time you are reading an article, you need only double-click a word - any word at all - and a page pops up with the appropriate information. Easy as pie, and helpful as Omega-3 fatty acids.

Here is a screenshot of the window:


Check it out for yourself and you will never feel stupid again. It is pitifully easy to get the information. Awesomeness like this is precisely the benefit of content located online, and it is great to see this being taken advantage of by such a major institution in the print world. This is a beautiful illustration of the NYTimes’ devotion to moving from print to internet publishing, captured by this statement from chairman Arthur Sulzberger:

I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either ... The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we're leading there.

Very refreshing, Mr. Sulzberger. Very refreshing.

Teacher Faces 40 Years For Pop-Up Porn

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this story (NYTimes - requires subscription - won’t work forever) about the Connecticut substitute teacher who faces up to 40 years in prison for being unable to control a barrage of porn-filled pop-up windows, thereby exposing her students to some explicit facts of life and causing them injury while she was supposed to be teaching English. Surely these students will now be unable to function normally for the rest of their lives. Apparently the authorities think she did this on purpose, or at the very least have criticized her for not pulling the plug or turning off the monitor. She contends that she is afraid of computers, and ignorant to the point of being unable to do this, and she even frantically ran to the teacher’s lounge to try to get help. I buy her story, having worked with tons of people as afraid and lost as she claims to be. The kicker is that they never investigated whether or not the computer was infected with spyware! - the single piece of evidence that could have brought legitimacy to this case.

There is little else to say other than this case is completely absurd. If the conviction stands (YES, she was convicted!) we are all in trouble. Especially those of us who are running Windows 2000 or earlier (sounds like time to switch to a Mac, now doesn’t it?).

Gosh, seriously these kids would be more injured reading the word “scrotum” in a book. Which is to say this: No one is getting hurt, children aren’t getting corrupted, and the innocent are getting totally screwed for the mistakes of the software makers and previous owners who didn’t know where not to surf.

And besides, “it’s natural.”

House M.D. Dashboard Widget!

Though it is Presidents Day (allegedly the correct spelling/punctuation) and I am off from work, I just had to take a break from my lethargy to share this very cool something with you. My new venture into creating Mac OSX Dashboard widgets has progressed and after work into the wee hours of the morning I am pleased to present the latest fruits of my labor: An RSS feed from House is Right, a news site dedicated solely to the most awesome show on television - Fox’s House, M.D. starring the fantastic Hugh Laurie.

Give it a whirl and let me know what you think.


Download (532K)

If you’re on the fence, check out the back - it might seal the deal:

More of my widgets are available here. And even more are coming soon.

Have a great pseudo-holiday, America.

Britney Spears Has A Shaved Head!

Stories about this latest in a long string of “Oh God What Happened To Britney?” moments can be seen on Google News here. Head shaved, new tattoo, checked in and out of rehab.....

But she has a new website on the way! Britneyspears.com is being updated! What could that mean?

It just keeps getting weirder and weirder in the world these days.

Harry Potter Nude From Behind

Click this picture.
From this site.
Now also here on MySpace.

Worst Morning Ever

I have no energy to say more than this:

Fuck you, MTA/New York City Transit.

You fail miserably at the single most important thing in business.

You fail at communication.

Far more insidious than garbled subway announcements are times like today.

Times when you say nothing at all.

Frivolous Motion Dashboard Widget

I was messing around with Dashcode last night (this is an app that will come with OSX Leopard - I have the beta version, as I am registered as a Mac Developer), and ended up making my very first Dashboard Widget. It is an RSS widget that downloads and displays the 10 most recent posts on Frivolous Motion, letting you Mac users read the blog without opening up Safari or another browser. Simply hit F12 to show your Dashboard (or whatever hotkey or hot corner you have set for it), and the widget will automatically display anything new.


In theory, new content will be marked with some sort of “New!” notification, but I haven’t seen this in action to confirm that it is working. Additionally, each post contains a couple links that let you email the post to a friend, share it on Facebook, Digg It!, and add to your del.icio.us bookmarks, making it super-easy to spread the Frivolous Motion Love around to the less fortunate.

There is a tiny little bug I know about regarding the display of Flash content (like that Murphy guy Slogan Generator I posted a few days ago), but otherwise it works and displays everything, including pictures. Also, the rear of the widget has a slider to change the post length, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t work yet.

You may download the widget here (274KB) and once you’ve got it on your desktop, it is super easy to install: just a double click, a confirmation, and you’re there, pretty much. I would really appreciate any feedback, and feel free to point other people to this post who you think might want to give it a whirl.

I will upload new versions to this widget as available, and plan to design a bunch of other widgets too, now that I’ve got my feet wet. What would you like a widget to do? What do you want or need on your Dashboard? I welcome any and all suggestions, and will do my best to make what you’re looking for. I am making an Ain’t It Cool News widget tonight, but after that, my options are wide open.

In the future you will be able to see all the widgets available for download by clicking the “widgets” tag in the sidebar.

Download (Frivolous Motion RSS Widget 1.0 - 274KB)

Gertrude Stein Gets It

Very fine is my valentine.
Very fine and very mine.
Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.
Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and mine is my valentine.

Happy Valentine's Day From Google

Following my tradition of posting some of the commemorative logos that make it to Google’s front page, here is the latest, in honor of Valentine’s Day.


I like it, but is it just me or does it say “Googe”?

Anyway, have a good one, folks.

Happy VD! - M&Ms Scandal!

Welcome to the 200th post on Frivolous Motion. And welcome to Valentine’s Day. I have a wonderful girlfriend of nearly two years and we spent the weekend together in Hartford, but since I live in NYC and she’s not here, I have decided to write up an Anti-V-Day post to celebrate the occasion. At first I wasn’t sure what would be appropriate, but after stumbling onto the MyM&Ms site (I was directed there by a TV commercial advertising a special promotion they are holding), I immediately knew what to do.


As you will see at the end of the post, the form on the site allowing customized messages to be printed on the candy is not so great when it comes to censoring offensive words and phrases. I spent some time with my roommate and another friend last night and this afternoon doing what you might call research into the words that get by the coded censors. Now, I recognize that no form validation can be perfect, and that we tend to use a lot of “clean” words euphemistically these days, but allowing “fag” and “homos” but not “queer,” or “vagina,” “boobs,” and “erection” but not “penis” just doesn’t make a shred of sense.

And the rejection of “kill” but not “murder” or “shoot” or “stab” or “poison” or “bomb” or “hang” or even “lynch” makes me wonder how else I could possibly kill someone. Now, writing this, I realize I haven’t tried “choke” or “smother,” but surely those would pass.

Below, I have posted screen grabs of a bunch of the more offensive phrases that got past the censor-bot, as well as some fun anti-romantic sentiments, and a few others I thought were noteworthy.

Click the image to see it full size, in all its glory!

I invite you all, in the spirit of this joyous holiday, to check out the site, and do your own research. Anyone reporting back here with a link to some screengrabs will get their pics included in this post. Alternatively, you can email them to me at kevinmichaelkeating at gmail dot com and I will get them up when I have a second.

If I can secure enough extra dough to purchase the minimum four (4) bags (About 50 bucks! - Anybody else want some candy?) I will place an order for a bag bearing one of the slogans I have posted below. And I will let you know if it manages to make it to printing and shipping right here in this blog, complete with pictures. It is my guess that the process from submitting to printing to shipping is totally automated, but who knows - a real person might intervene and stop the order and notify the authorities about the potential hate crime or terrorist act I may commit. Luckily I have this here blog post to absolve me of all wrong. Right?

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

Note: The pic is on Flickr, too, if you are into that.

Have A Slogan!

Click the guy (his name is Murphy) to generate a random slogan. EDIT: I have removed Murphy because he sings when loaded, and that is not cool to me. Click the link below to try it out.

Get one for your own site here.

Attractive Face Scale

Flickr user manitou2121 created this scale by making digital composites of pictures from Hot or Not, using the rating voted by users of that site to group the images.

What does manitou2121 have to say about it all?

What did I conclude about good looks from these virtual faces? First, morphs tend to be prettier than their sources because face asymmetries and skin blemishes average out. However, the low score images show that fat is not attractive. The high scores tend to have narrow faces.

That’s a pretty simple assessment, but what do you think? Is that true? manitou2121 has cropped out the bodies from the Hot or Not photographs, and we are left with just the faces. Is that enough to guess why Hot or Not users vote the way they do? I know that as a culture we supposedly find skinny women attractive, but is it about their body, or does it have something to do with their faces, skinny or not? Are there not overweight women who people find extremely attractive? And aren’t there also skinny women who are extremely unattractive? Or women with beautiful bodies, but fat faces? Or large bodies with narrow faces?

When you are on Hot or Not, what are your voting patterns like? Do you honestly pick a rating? Or do you simply click through with the same rating until you find someone particularly hot or particularly not?

Assessment of the digital composites aside, manitou2121 did a really nice job. And he mentions a couple sites I’ve seen before that are worth checking out, for their more scientific look at what constitutes beauty: Beauty Check and The Face of Tomorrow.

Get This Album When It Comes Out

The Fratellis - Costello Music (Available March 13 in the U.S.)

Okay, This is About Barack Obama

This is the first in what I am sure will be several posts about 2008 Democratic Presidential hopeful (unconfirmed until tomorrow!), Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D, IL).

So What About Him, Anyway?
I’m going to come right out and say that I strongly support Senator Obama, and hope he does run for president. Not only do I think that he can win, but I think that he should win. Moreover, I think that as Democrats (and Americans) we are doing ourselves a disservice by looking for a “viable” candidate instead of a great candidate. Why settle for someone “good enough” or “at least better than the other guys”? The very notion is defeatist and admits failure and lack of belief in the system (and, you know, the system might be flawed, but that doesn’t mean we should accept it as such, or reinforce its flaws by trying to work within them).

Why Settle?
Democracy is not about settling. It is about passion, belief, and true, well-considered compromise. There is a world of difference between settling for something that is just “okay” and working together to find a real solution. We settle too often, and work hard too infrequently. It’s easy to be cynical of Washington and believe that there’s little hope that things will ever be changed on an appreciable level. I want to think that they can be. And I also want to think that Barack Obama can help set this change in motion.

Change Ain’t Easy
I have read The Audacity of Hope (his most recent book), as well as pretty much every article about him that I can find, and what I am most struck by is that Barack Obama seems to realize that simply changing the faces of those who sit in the White House, or sit in Congress doesn’t really change anything. That the Democrats are equally capable of tyranny and unbending adherence to doctrine. That neither group has the answer exactly correct. That compromise, debate, and research is the only way to find real solutions. We’re too blinded by partisanship, by mantra, to see that we don’t have the perfect answer to all the world’s problems. Admitting the strengths of the opposing parties, and finding common ground on greater ideals about freedom, honesty, and equality is necessary if we want to keep this country strong in a good way.

But People Are Saying...
People have made a number of arguments why Barack Obama should not or will not win the party nomination. Some say he’s too young (at 45 he is older than JFK was, and will be nearly the same age Bill Clinton was when he became president in 1993). Some say he’s not done enough in Congress (like what? Vote? Introduce bills that he kinda came up with that get destroyed in committee? Talk in a filibuster? I don’t see how that is at all relevant. Plenty of past presidents never served in Congress. And if you think that Governorship is a helpful prerequisite, see our current Commander-in-Chief). Some people say he won’t win because he is black (Well, maybe that’s true, but it’s not a reason not to vote for or support him) or that he’s not black enough to carry the black vote (although here’s an interesting article disputing that claim. The basic thrust is that Obama can win without mobilizing extra black voters). Some say it’s because he admitted to using cocaine, or his name makes him sound like a terrorist, or he’s too smart, or he can’t beat Hillary’s insanely huge war chest. None of these make sense, and none of these are real reasons. They are people grasping for excuses to justify not voting for a candidate they actually think might be worthwhile.

Anybody But Bush? Still?
In 2004, the Democratic party line was “Anybody But Bush.” We can see how well that one turned out, with the lamely uninteresting and uninspiring John Kerry losing the election. That very thinking is behind the talk of Obama’s un-electibility. “We need to win, no matter what,” is what Democrats are saying, and it results in choosing the plainest of the plain, the most uncontroversial and mainstream candidate that no one really cares about but guess will be “fine.” If you want to support Hillary or John Edwards or any of the other folks, don’t do it because you think they would have the best chance at being elected. Do it because you think they will make the best President of the United States.

Otherwise, you really should be voting for someone else. Playing the “Guess Who Is Electable” game is not just ineffective, it is irresponsible.

I am supporting Barack Obama because I think he will make a great president. I would love to hear your reasons why I shouldn’t. Or why you think someone else would be better. It is a long time from the primaries, but there’s no reason not to start the dialogue now. Tomorrow we are supposed to find out if Barack Obama is actually running. If he isn’t, well, then I’m going to have to find someone else to get behind. Who do you think that should be?

Anna Nicole Smith - Dead

Trimspa = BAD

The poor girl was found dead in her hotel room, collapsed. There are no words. Really, though, I am not mocking this. Link

Mmm. Tasty.

DELICACY Unlaid eggs, from hens destined for the soup pot, being cured in salt at Blue Hill in Greenwich Village. (Photo by Tony Cenicola/New York Times)

Read all about this beautiful...uh...food, courtesy of The New York Times. An excerpt:

This mostly lost treat is remembered well by anyone who grew up on a farm with laying hens, or who bought chickens from an old-fashioned butcher before the advent of factory farming. Now, when the tough old birds have stopped laying they are shipped off to places like Campbell’s, where they become chicken soup. They are worth so little that many are incinerated, their immature eggs unharvested.
...
Not everybody loves them, but ever since Mr. Barber dropped the term “embryonic eggs” from the menu in favor of “immature,” fewer customers have balked.

CDs Are Too Cheap?

The RIAA, further proving it has its head somewhere unmentionable, is apparently saying that the price we pay for CDs is, in fact, cheaper than it should be.

They try to say that the cost is related to the effort the artist puts in, and marketing, and inflation, but, well, they are out of their minds.

Big SHEESH.

Steve Jobs Speaks Out Against DRM

Flying around the web right now is news of Steve Jobs’ post on the Apple website called “Thoughts On Music.” In it, he wonderfully confronts the four major labels for holding tight to a broken system of digital rights management for what amount to a measly 10 percent of their total sales. CD sales, says Job, account for 90 percent of music sold and have no DRM whatsoever. So why have it on digital sales? Steve doesn’t know, and neither do I. Fear of the unknown, I suppose. The labels have a terribly negative view of its potential customers, and fail to realize that it is their own fault (through exorbitant prices - why are CDs the same price now as in the 80s?) that users stormed the peer-to-peer networks like Napster and Kazaa for free music only a few years ago.

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

That is rockin’. Half p.r. move it might be (though what does Apple have up its sleeve that it would be pushing with this pseudo-press release?), with this move Apple is making public its feelings about DRM, and taking the labels to task on a worthless practice. iTunes customers should now know that there would be an alternative if not for the Big Four’s big greed and paranoia.

Love or hate Apple, this is a big step towards a DRM-free future.

Which is to say, it is a step towards the future, finally.

Farmers Only - Online Dating

This morning the guys at Freakonomics posted about a niche dating site called FarmersOnly.com, which has apparently grown from 2,000 to nearly 50,000 members in the past year. This is great and all, and what is exciting about this and all of the related super-niche sites on the web is that everyone can find people who “get it,” whatever that “it” might be for them.

My only question is this:

Do farmers use dial-up or DSL?

Evening Art Number Five

SkyMall Demographic Visualization

You all know SkyMall, right? The awesome in-flight magazine that lets you order stuff like wine decanters and lawn furniture and ultra-hi-tech pillows straight from the plane, and it’ll be delivered to you before the flight is up (or so I thought as a kid)?

Well, at ni9e.com, fi5e has put up some awesome pictures that sort the faces in SkyMall by different demographics, including race, sex, “size,” and hair color. They’ve ripped all the faces out of the magazine and displayed them on the seatback tray table.


Pretty creative, if you ask me. Cultural artifacts like these are just screaming to be played with in this way. What common-yet-interesting objects can you pull apart to display something new and enlightening about its intrinsic properties?

View the ni9e.com post here.

SuperBowl Commercial Recap

So the answer was no. The Beatles are not yet available from iTunes. No matter - something tells me that not a small number of people already have much of their music. Though I could be wrong.

Below, I have posted what is, in my mind, the only decent commercial to be shown during the Superbowl yesterday. It is an ad for GM, and is very original, and very well done. Am I the only one who didn’t see any really new, worthwhile cam