Daily Irk

Google goes dark?

2007-02-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

One environmental organization is proposing that Google switch its screen background from white to black. The logic behind this is that white pixels require more energy to light up and so the company estimates a savings 3,000 megawatt hours per year from the change. That's $75,000 in energy savings a year, which seems like a drop in the bucket, until you start thinking about extending this black background plan all the Anna Kournikova fansites on the Web, and then you're looking at some serious savings.

Thanks to Sonali for the pass-along.

Irksome conspiracy theories.

2007-02-03T23:31:00.001-08:00

With all due credit to the New Yorker piece that tipped us off, below is a video of a team from Princeton hacking into one of those Diebold electronic voting machines that were used in the last presidential election. Maybe Floridians have been trolling YouTube?

Keeping your calendar in concert.

2007-01-29T20:29:00.000-08:00

If this works, it's a music-lover's dream come true: a calendar that syncs with your iTunes and lets you know if one of the bands in your library has an upcoming show in your area.

Sushi and pureed peas.

2007-01-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

From the department of molding your children in your own image comes this story about parents who are exposing their young children to an increasingly wide range of foods, hoping that this will help them develop sophisticated palates. Included is the obligatory tale of the 18-month old whose Dad served him rare meat and got him sick. Meanwhile, the doctors quoted in the story explain that early food experiences don't necessarily predict preferences--there's a good chance your kid will go through a brown food phase even if he was eating edamame at 1 year.

Apple's dirty little secret.

2007-01-24T09:14:00.000-08:00

It's not back-dated stock options. Rather, an article on Slate uncovers that iTunes offers a whole array of songs to its foreign users that we can't get to here. If you sign out of your iTunes account, and then switch your country location (bottom of the screen), you can listen to the 30-second samples of all sorts of stuff that doesn't show up in American iTunes, but it's a no go on the purchasing. The article is particularly high on the selection of songs from Japan (*), and also points the way to a rollicking good time of a video that we won't post directly here because it leans towards the, well, stripperish (not that we're squeamish, but we wouldn't want to prove too irksome to those who don't share our loose coastal-urban values). Once again, if you're in another country, you can go ahead and purchase the accompanying song, but American money won't get you anywhere. Another sign of the plummetting value of the dollar?

The Myth of the Great Teacher.

2007-01-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

Though it's a little silly to remonstrate Hollywood for providing a misleading picture of the real world, this op-ed worries that most Americans buy into the movie version of how to fix American public schools:

The great misconception of these films is not that actual schools are more chaotic and decrepit — many schools in poor neighborhoods are clean and orderly yet still don’t have enough teachers or money for supplies. No, the most dangerous message such films promote is that what schools really need are heroes. This is the Myth of the Great Teacher.

The point seems to be that while it's correct to want talented, skilled teachers in our classrooms, it's off-base to think that that's the whole answer, or that if they only just put a little more of themselves into their work our nation's education problem would be solved.

Is that a filet mignon in your pocket?

2007-01-19T10:33:00.000-08:00

Apparently, meat is the most commonly shoplifted item in American grocery stores. It was formerly cough medicines, but now that many markets put the pill bottles behind a glass case, you're far more likely to see a shopper slip a rump roast into her pocket than some Nyquil. I say her, because it appears that it's not men who are doing the meat thieving, but women between 35 and 45. Men, it seems, are far more likely to purloin batteries or tylenol--either for resale or to support a drug habit.

Got noseplugs?

2007-01-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

Here's a NY Times piece about the ways that companies are trying to find ways to have their advertisements stand out above the clutter of all the other ads. My favorite: a series of billboards for milk that emitted the scent of freshly-baked cookies. It's an arms race to find new mediums or new spaces to slap up a company logo. We've covered the egg breakthrough in a previous post.

180.91 mpg!

2007-01-14T16:04:00.000-08:00

Another one from Mother Jones. Here's a story about a guy who can get 59 miles per gallon in his Honda--and that's a plain old Accord, no electric engine, no nothing. He's a hypermiler. By avoiding braking whenever possible, eschewing the use of air con and heat, and sometimes turning his engine off when he's in motion, he squeezes as much fuel efficiency out of his car as possible. In a competition against other hypermilers, he got 180.91 mpg out of a Honda Insight! He argues that if every car had a fuel consumption display, like many of the new hybrids have, American drivers would decrease their fuel consumption by 25%.

America's Rorschach.

2007-01-13T15:17:00.000-08:00

In the most recent Mother Jones, Jack Hitt explores the way Hillary Clinton's womanhood--and her sexuality--are the central polarizing agents in her candidacy. She is the first legitimate female candidate for president. And also the woman who, in the most famous adultery scandal in our nation's history, stood by her man. The possibilities for reading into this duality of roles are endless, and easily colored by ideological bent. To the left, is she the fulfillment of the promise of the feminist movement, or the woman who"had a chance to take a stand for all the women who've been humiliated" but then didn't? To the right, is she the principled mother who put family first, or the "clawing shrew who will suffer any ignominy to attain power?" The upshot, as has been covered ad nauseam, is that Hillary has a lot of people who really like her, a lot who don't, and very few who are undecided. To win an election, she's going to have to flip some people who have already made up their minds. Hitt wonders, however, whether women--liberal, moderate, and even conservative--might not, in the privacy of the voting booth, cast their ballots in favor of Hillary just because her womanhood, and not her work, has taken on such a central role in her candidacy. As Katha Pollitt wrote recently about the grief Hillary has received, seemingly only because she is a woman: "I just might vote for her to give these pathetic misogynists what for, and so might the rest of my coven."

(Speaking of the needless sexualizing of Senator Clinton, it seemed a bit of a pointless and crude inclusion for Hitt to guess at the cup size on the much-publicized sculpture of Clinton that played up the role of her gender in her public persona by depicting her wearing a skimpy bustier.)

The optimism conundrum.

2007-01-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

Is it possible to have low expectations but still remain generally optimistic? That seems to be the combined message of two recent NY Times articles. The first reports a study finding that optimists outlive pessimists. In other words, a good attitude leads to a longer life. The second article reports study findings that people in Denmark consistently rate more highly on measures of life satisfaction than folks in other nations. The explanation that researchers are giving for this: Danes maintain low expectations for life, and so are pleasantly surprised when things go well. So, we'll add both optimism, and low expectations to the list of longevity-producing agents reported in Irk, though how you're going to integrate these two new ones without some major congnitive inconsistency, we're not sure.

On that note, the current list of magical agents that will lead to a long and prosperous life looks something like this: education, money, social connection, and the optimum combination of beer and coffee. Go forth and prosper!

Quarter water!

2007-01-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

Irk has gotten a little caught up in highbrow foodie-ism of late, so as an antidote, I give you Bo-de-ga. If you don't know what quarter water is, you need to watch. Apologies if the outer-borough New York in me is blinding my judgment of good Internet.

How should you vote?

2007-01-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

On the off chance that you aren't sure of your political persuasion.

Hidden treasures of the Amazon.

2007-01-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Amazon.com offers a 30-day price guarantee. Buy anything from them, and discover sometime over the course of the next 30 days that they are offering it at an even deeper discount, they'll give you back the difference... as long as you ask for it. It's not something that they publicize, but Timothy Noah sleuthed it out, and gives the details here.

How much info is too much info?

2007-01-05T11:08:00.000-08:00

For those of us who have seen Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, or simply followed the Enron scandal in the news, the whole thing was a pretty open and shut case. A bunch of greedy corporate executives cheated their hard-working employees out of their pensions while making off with millions. The crux of their crime came in not disclosing the true financial status of the company to investors, and to their employees. Case closed. Jeffrey Skilling goes to jail, Ken Lay down to hell.

Well, except that it's a little more complicated than that, says Malcolm Gladwell, as Malcolm Gladwell is wont to do. Gladwell points out that Enron's techniques for making speculative profit look real, and for garnering loans despite already being millions in debt were all in their financial statements and other public documents. Moreover, when reporters started calling to ask questions, the corporate suits would answer them. In short, this wasn't a case of lack of disclosure--the information was out there. (Among the more amazing facts in the public record was that despite their massive reported earnings, Enron paid absolutely no taxes for several years because, well, their earnings weren't real.) The point is that no one in the financial community pointed this stuff out until the very end. It's a slightly different view of what exactly it was that the Enron guys did, and while Gladwell doesn't question the sleaziness of the Enron execs, he does seem to be arguing that Enron was operating in the margins of truth, rather than peddling lies wholesale. He even points to a source that wonders whether the Enron guys completely understood what it was that they were doing. Then there's the larger point, as to whether or not an expectation of honesty--disclosure--is enough to keep track of business dealings. Says Gladwell, "the idea that the more a company tells us about its business, the better off we are... has become an anachronism." Gladwell points his finger back at the financial community and wonders whether in this day and age of complex business dealings, some responsibility doesn't also have to be placed at the feet of the people whose job it is to know about such things.

Education and life-expectancy.

2007-01-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

Way back in 2006, we Irked about the relationship between wealth and health. This recent NY Times article offers up a slightly different twist, explaining that even better than wealth at predicting well-being is amount of education. At first blush, this seems to be a redundant finding, until the article explains that education level is not just a stand-in for socioeconomic status. In states where the amount of compulsory education increased, so did life expectancy--the effect was not merely the result of self-selection, with wealthier, healthier people continuing on in school. How have economists explained this correlation? Well, they're not quite sure, but the current prevailing theory is that time spent in school is linked with individuals' ability to delay gratification, a capability which is implicated in avoiding a number of negative health behaviors. If only these things played themselves out on an individual basis, maybe my advanced degree might have led me to avoid the pint of ice cream I just devoured. But seriously, ummmm, now can we start spending more money on education?

The above-average American.

2007-01-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

Apparently, it's not just Lake Wobegon where the kids are above average. That is, a number of studies have shown that people from Western cultures are consistently likely to assume that they have better than average ability in a given task, even when their measured performance is less than stellar. In these latter cases, people will attribute their underwhelming performance to some extraneous factor besides their actual ability in the task--that test wasn't really a good measure of ability, I had a bad day, I didn't work very hard. Interestingly, members of many non-Western cultures (e.g., Japan, India), show no such tendency, and actually may veer towards self-effacement, even when they have performed quite well. A study by Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama (1991), for instance, found that where Americans guessed that only about 30% of other people would be better than them at a task, Japanese respondents estimated 50% of other people would be better than them. Either Americans are playing out a little bit of a self-serving bias, or they have a really low opinion of their countrymen.

Sorry for the lousy/lack of links on this one, but most of the stuff was password protected.

Restaurantation relocation, pt. 2

2007-01-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's post linked this article, which describes the author's move to a new neighborhood in search of housing that was better appointed in terms of dining options. Besides serving as a symbol of the foodie movement, the article also begs the question: What are the characteristics of the optimum food neighborhood? From the article, it was pretty clear that "fine" dining was not the issue at hand. Rather, the impetus for the author's relocation was the bounty of cheap, and mostly ethnic food his new neighborhood promised. Certainly, this makes sense--even if you're a member of the Harvard Business School's Food and Wine Club, French Laundry and Daniel are only going to be once-in-a-while destinations. But where the article's author opted pretty far in the direction of ungentrified, how upscale a neighborhood does your average food-centric individual desire? Is it more towards the really good $5 entree (say, burrito), or the really good $20 entree (say, coffee-rubbed pork loin, and you're probably going to order a glass of wine and dessert with it)? And incidentally, no matter how gentrified you like your food, where do the corrollary items--the gourmet cup of coffee and the organic produce--fit into this equation? Unlikely to find these last two without some semblance of the $20 entree in the vicinity.

3 BR, 1.5 BTH, 45 Restaurants.

2007-01-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Seth Kugel moved from upper Manhattan to, of all places, Queens. Did he find a nicer place? Well, yes. But that wasn't the impetus for the decision. It wasn't floor plan, natural light, or space that fuelled his move--it was the food. Mr. Kugel (and I'm assuming the humor of his last name is not lost on him) wanted to be in striking distance of his favorite restaurants. The 'food move' needs a catchy name--Restaurantation Relocation?--but it is absolutely the perfect symbol for the lengths to which acolytes of foodie culture will go in order to achieve gustatory satisfaction.

Year in rock.

2006-12-30T10:28:00.000-08:00

Not quite done with your holiday shopping? The year-end music lists are out (*, +, $, @), and while there's something of a lack of consensus, everyone seems to like this. I agree. Might make a good belated present.

If you're just looking to flesh out an iTunes playlist with a single, it actually seems that the poppiest of the pop caught the critics' eye, with Justin and Gnarls heading the pack. Oddly, once again, I agree.

If you just want to while away a few musical minutes on the Internet, could someone please tell me why the kids from Be Your Own Pet covered their faces in shaving cream for their appearance on Conan? Or, you could just watch this:

Celebrating 2006.

2006-12-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

Traditionally, the end of the year brings us a ton of lists that celebrate the events of the past 365 days. Dahlia Lithwick takes a slightly different tack, giving us a list of the 10 most outrageous civil rights violations committed by the Bush administration in 2006.

The dining dead.

2006-12-28T17:45:00.000-08:00

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey's character looks around a restaurant, and seeing a bunch of bored couples, asks Kate Winslet's character: "Are we like couples you see in restaurants? Are we the dining dead?" We've all seen them, and all feared to be them, even as we know that spend enough time with the same person and you're bound to have a dead dinner or four. Slate runs this slideshow of bored couples, and isn't it striking that, for the most part, they all look, well, dead.

What do princesses grow up to be?

2006-12-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

Do you find this an acceptable fantasy for little girls in today's post-feminist age? The most recent NY Times magazine has Peggy Orenstein wondering what it means that little girls are just plain infatuated with the princess. Are parents terrified that living up to the feminist ideal means alienating all the prince charmings out there, and so they foster in their daughters the sugary-sweetest fantasies they can get their hands on? Is it the virginal fantasy that attracts parents who want to swath their little girls in as unsexualized a character as possible? (The problem being, of course, that the little girl princess outfit can very easily transform itself into one of those trampy rhinestone deals that have become so popular on much bigger girls. See exhibit A, to the right.) Or maybe, though Orenstein seems exceedingly dubious about this one, the current princess craze represents progress--an age when little girls can openly embrace their pink fantasies without sacrificing either ambition or power. After all, Orenstein's own daughter, despite her penchant for princessery, wants to grow up to be a fireman.

Kazakhstan is the new Thailand.

2006-12-26T11:27:00.000-08:00

In a recent column in Outside Magazine (you can catch the Podcast here--The Big Idea: Be Afraid. Please.-- though it's probably not worth the effort), Tim Neville points out that Americans of the 21st century are no longer afraid of the so-called dangerous parts of the world, and that, in fact, a little unrest may even make a locale that much more attractive. Neville says he used to be the only guy around that could drop the exciting travel story--his tale of being accosted by Bolivian gunmen would without fail make the ladies swoon--but now compalins that, "I'm likely to be one-upped by some guy in khakis showing off snapshots of his fiancee posing with Thai soldiers on their way to seizing Bangkok." As he says, a coup is pretty hard to top.

For travel writers like Neville to stay in business (and pretty soon, for Joe Average Traveler who wants a good story to tell), the ante will need to be continually upped. Should we be rubbing our hands together in anticipation of some truly absurd undertakings, or--if I can use this strong of a word--do we have a crisis on our hands? Will adventure become mundane? That's the indication out of the Explorers Club, once a bastion of ground-breaking adventurers that has now become a sort of old age home, because, quite simply, there's very little that's new out there for the next generation to tackle. Either way, prepare yourself for some truly odd juxtapositions in the pages of travel magazines in the coming years. It will be up to you to decide whether you should laugh at just how silly it is for Outside to be running a feature on surfing in Alaska (surfing? in Alaska???), or whether to cry because you just don't care.

Newsweak

2006-12-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

Jon Stewart is often at his best not when he's mocking the President or discussing Iraq, but when he's taking on the press. On Monday night's show, he did a bit on Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006. In case you haven't noticed it on the newsstands, this year's magazine has a mirror on it. Ostensibly the Person of the Year is you... or all of us. Clever, huh? In this clip, Stewart lambastes Time both for copping out and for taking itself too seriously.

If you've got some extra time on your hands (and presumably you do since you're reading this web site), it's also worth watching Stewart's interview with Iowa Governor and Democratic presidential candidate Tom Vilsack. In the interview, Vilsack tells Stewart that we need to end Iraq's culture of dependency on the U.S. What? We're barely able to keep Iraq from an all-out civil war. Where's the dependency? I don't get it and neither does Stewart.

The interview with Bill Kristol on Tuesday is also worth watching. Stewart just goes off on him and barely gives him any time to speak. It was unfair, but still funny.

All of these videos are available on the Daily Show website.

Congressional bigotry.

2006-12-22T20:26:00.000-08:00

I'm often disappointed by some of the things that members of Congress do. Selling votes. Macaca comments. Personality consultants. But the letter that Representative Virgil H. Goode (R-Virginia) sent to his constituents regarding the election of a Muslim to Congress is one of the most bigoted pieces of propaganda I've seen put out by a member of Congress in quite a while. Usually when congressional leaders decide to be bigots or racists, they try to be subtle about it. Goode apparently thinks he has nothing to hide. From Goode's letter:

I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

The Represntative at the center of the "controversy," Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), had this to say:

“I’m looking forward to making friends with Representative Goode, or at least getting to know him.”

Getting to know him indeed! Here is what the Daily Irk voice of authority had to say.

Mess for success.

2006-12-21T10:34:00.000-08:00

These folks are arguing that messy people earn more and get more out of life. Finally some vindication! New Year's resolution: I won't clean my room.

A few questions before I do.

2006-12-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

This article is at the top of the most-emailed list, so more likely than not, you've already seen it. It's a series of questions that married couples wish they'd asked each other prior to tying the knot. Nothing ground-breaking here--kids, religion, et cetera. Oh, there's also whether or not to put a television in the bedroom. And then there's the last question on the list: "Do each of us feel fully confident in the other’s commitment to the marriage and believe that the bond can survive whatever challenges we may face?" Maybe they can just incorporate that one into the wedding ceremony as part of the vows. 'Til death do us part?

Achoo.

2006-12-18T18:06:00.000-08:00

From Douglas Wolk's blog, I give you Panda Sneeze:

Video games lead to violence!

2006-12-16T23:42:00.000-08:00

Uwe Boll makes movies. Bad movies. And because his genre of choice is video game adaptations, Mr. Boll's bad movies have drawn a not insignificant amount of ire. It seems that people who like to play video games take their hobby very seriously, and also know how to use the Internet pretty well. And so a lot of electronic ink has been spilled decrying Mr. Boll's bastardizations of the beloved games. The bad press piled up, the box office take declined, and Mr. Boll got mad. Rather than make better movies, however, Mr. Boll chose a more constructive route: he challenged his critics to a fight. Oddly, four said yes. Did they think the ninja skills they had mastered in their video games would rub off in the ring? Needless to say, Mr. Boll, a former amateur boxer, won each bout handily, and may just face a bit less criticism when his next film comes out. It's sure to be very good. The plot summary felt the need to include the fact that one scene features "boiling blood" that "seeps" from someone's eyes, and that, generally, the film will "redefine the boundaries of extreme gore, physical and mental torture explored through cinema." It doesn't mention that it's very well acted, but I'm sure that's also the case.

Bad taste?

2006-12-14T16:42:00.000-08:00

The NY Times reports on this study out of MIT which showed that expectations have quite an influence on how food tastes. In the study, participants who were told that a beer contained a special ingredient preferred that beer over a comparison beer (even when the so called special ingredient was actually a drop of vinegar). So for the foodies out there, how much do you actually trust what your taste buds tell you? I especially wonder about what I'll call the find. You know, that little out of the way place that none of your friends have tried yet, the decor is shoddy, or a little bit idiosyncratic, and the owner, who hovers about the place is somehow 'authentic' or old school. Isn't that the kind of place the food geek just dreams about having up his sleeve to impress his friends? How much do you attribute the taste of those pan-fried noodles to the actual flavor, and how much do you attribute to the fact that you're eating them in a hut with a corrugated tin roof?

The end of the free phone call.

2006-12-14T12:20:00.000-08:00

We all knew it was too good to be true. For most of 2006, Skype has been allowing users in the U.S. to call U.S. based landlines and mobile phones for free. Starting in 2007, however, you will need to pay $30 per year for unlimited calling in the U.S. That's still a great deal when you compare it to landlines, cell phones, and other VOIP services such as Vonage, but free is way cooler. If you haven't tried using Skype to make a phone call, give it a go before they start charging. I find call quality to be better than landlines most of the time, though occasionally I get a bad connection (usually restarting the calls clears up the problem and when it's free I'm not complaining). Just to be 100% clear, Skype to Skype calls will remain free.

Ethical Food

2006-12-13T19:22:00.000-08:00

This week's Economist has an interesting leader and special report on ethical food. Per usual, they take a contrarian view, arguing that you're not actually helping the planet buy purchasing organic or local food. The basic logic against organic food goes something like this. Growing organic food is more land intensive so the benefits you gain by growing organic produce are offset by less efficient land use and greater degradation of soil. Obviously I've simplified this quite a bit, but hopefully you get the point. I can't say I know enough about this stuff to feel like I have an informed opinion, but it's worth a read (and worth learning more about).

Crazy Dog

2006-12-12T15:08:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you've all seen this already, but I just came across it. One word: hilarious.

I'll have a Venti, please.

2006-12-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

The BBC News is running a story about condom sizes in India. It seems that condoms designed to international standards are too big for the average Indian. Though the article is quite amusing, it outlines a serious issue; if condoms are the wrong size, their effectiveness is greatly decreased. Not surprisingly, though, most men aren't comfortable asking for smaller condoms. Well, I say we take a page out of the Starbucks play book and name the sizes after Latin words that no one understands. That way if you walk into the drugstore and ask for a Venti condom, no one will be the wiser.

Scientific breakthroughs?

2006-12-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

The problem with getting your news from RSS reader is that it doesn't contextualize the stories for you. So here are three blurbs from the NY Times Magazine that seem like they might all fit under the theme of scientific discoveries of some sort. Are they running a special issue? No idea. So I'll just say that this is pretty incredible, this has major cool potential, and this is, well, just kind of silly.

Catch the A train.

2006-12-05T00:11:00.000-08:00

Darius McCollum has been arrested close to two-dozen times over the last 25 years, the most recent of which was this past November. His offenses range from impersonating a New York City transit officer, to hijacking a subway train. Yes, you're right, the New York subway runs on tracks, and McCollum could not have taken the train anywhere other than round and round-- there was no get-away, and no damage. In all of these instances, and there have been several dating back to when he was 15 years old, McCollum has taken the train along its normal route with the passengers none the wiser. McCollum suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a disorder which often includes an intense infatuation with some seemingly random area of study. McCollum's infatuation is, you guessed it, NY subway trains. Despite the diagnosis, the court system has been less than understanding, and McCollum has spent a good deal of his 41 years behind bars. In either case, four years ago Harper's published a fascinating profile of McCollum, which I was so excited to find in its full form on the Internet, that I simply had to pass it along. The formatting is kind of terrible, and it's long, but I think it's well worth it.

Video games lead to violence? Sort of.

2006-12-02T12:57:00.000-08:00

Normally, the debate about video games is that they somehow lead to violent or aggressive behavior out in the real world. But the new Nintendo Wii seems to be producing in-game destruction and violence--broken TVs, light bulbs, windows, and cut hands. For those who don't know, the Wii controller uses motion sensor technology so that it can be swung, stabbed, poked, et cetera, in imitation of what the video game character is doing in the game, whether that be wielding a tennis racket or a sword. There's also no wire that connects the controller to the system. The upshot is that rather than staying seated in front of the TV, gamers are up and about, swinging their arms around. In some cases of these non-catastrophic injuries, the controller has actually flown out of users' hands and smashed into the TV. In other cases, gamers have simply positioned themselves too near breakables, like light fixtures. Nintendo has issued the appropriate warnings.

Thanks to Nate for passing this along.

Vulcanize my penis.

2006-12-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

I'm lifting this directly from William Saletan's blog on Slate, but it was too good not to spread the word.

A German company is currently perfecting the next great contraceptive innovation: the spray-on condom. Essentially, this will be a tube into which the man can insert, press a button, and then emerge... packaged? The advantage over the traditional condom, the creaters say, is that each condom will be perfectly fitted to the wearer. Now, whether this is an advantage because it makes for better contraception or because fewer women will have to listen to guys go, "Um, don't you have any Magnums?" I'm not sure. The obvious disadvantage, it seems to me, will be transport. You clearly won't be able to slip the thing into your wallet. How will men deal with this? Holsters?

You mean hipness isn't genetic?

2006-11-27T17:34:00.000-08:00

In what seems like the perfect companion piece to yesterday's post, the NY Times covers the burgeoning industry that caters to parental rock and roll sensibilities. We're talking songs by the Cure, Nirvana, and Pink Floyd turned into lullabies. Says the article: "To be a parent in 2006 — especially a coastal, well-heeled, contemporary-minded one — is to be blasted by possibilities for nurturing impeccable musical taste in one’s offspring."

I will freely admit it--I am right now fighting the urge to run to the nearest record store and buy rock-a-bye-baby Radiohead style for the opffspring who are as of now merely a twinkle in my eye.

Papa was a pretentious music geek.

2006-11-26T01:09:00.000-08:00

Check out this NY Times article about the teens and pre-teens of Brooklyn who are starting bands and creating their own under-21 indie rock scene. The interesting thing for me, though, is that the article is as much about the parents as it is about the kids. Indeed, these are parents who spend a lot of time modelling for their kids a proper disdain for all things pop, and boy is it a music snob's fantasy run wild when their kids take these lessons to heart. Says the father of the brother-sister (12 and 10 years old, respectively) act called Tiny Masters of Today: "They're making this kind of primitive, unprocessed, unfiltered music." My first question for Daddy is what we're honestly supposed to think about two pre-teens from one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Brooklyn playing a song with a chorus of: "Sticking it to the man everyday!" I also wonder how quickly the bile rises in his throat when he looks his kids up on iTunes and finds that listeners who bought songs by Tiny Masters of Today also opted for bubblegum masterpieces by the likes of Pussycat Dolls, Fergie, and Fall Out Boy.

A more pregnant message?

2006-11-21T00:23:00.000-08:00

William Saletan argues in Slate that the Democrats swept into office without a unified message other than the promise of change. Looking forward, Saletan argues that the Dems need something more coherent to hang their hats on if they hope to consolidate their gains and maybe add a like-minded body to that ovular office in the White House. Saletan's recommendation of responsibility as the theme that can do this isn't exactly novel, but it strikes a chord rhetorically as you read. Taking a page from the Republicans' success playing the values card, Saletan says that under the umbrella of responsibility, all of the disparate issues the Dems have brought up--fiscal responsibility, healthcare, the environment--can be dressed up in more value-laden talk. They are moral imperatives! To solidify his platform, Saletan argues that abortion needs to become a Democratic issue again, and says that this can be done if the Democrats push the idea of reducing the number of abortions through a serious commitment to contraception. Reproductive responsibility, so to speak.

Printing all the news about things that fit.

2006-11-20T17:33:00.000-08:00

You don't need to leave your home. No, seriously, you don't need to leave your home.

We've all known for a while that just about anything--legal or illicit--could be purchased on the Internet, but there were certain things that, convenience factor aside, you simply wouldn't buy on the Internet. At the top of that list was probably jeans. I mean, buy a pair of jeans without first trying them on and, well, let's be honest--your ass was going to look fat. According to the NY Times though, a new Internet site has changed all that. The site, Zafu.com, takes down info about your body type (well, right now, only women's), and spits back the fit that's right for you. Apparently, it even kind of works. I tried to vet the site for the Daily Irk fashionistas out there but it seems that the NY Times publicity has them slightly overwhelmed. Rather than loading, the site produced a message apologizing that all of its "fitting rooms" were full. Jesus, it's just like going to the mall.

Dump Pelosi?

2006-11-19T19:21:00.000-08:00

Timothy Noah analyzes Nancy Pelosi's choice to back John Murtha for majority leader and wonders if Democrats shouldn't just cut their losses and kick her to the curb. What kind of judgment does it show that she's backing a someone with Abscam in their past, Noah asks. Says Noah:

As a preview of the sort of instincts Pelosi will display as House speaker, her steadfastness in supporting Murtha was discouraging on two levels. Most obviously, it suggested that Pelosi lacks a sincere interest in maintaining ethical standards. On a more Machiavellian level, it suggested that Pelosi harbors the crude and entirely false notion that in order to lead, she must demonstrate an ability to prevail even after she realizes, or ought to realize, that her initial judgment was faulty. This is the same infantile notion about power embraced by President Bush when he pretended, prior to the midterm elections, that he would keep Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense.

I guess the bloom is off the rose.

In shocking turn of events, indie hipsters poke fun at corporate culture.

2006-11-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

Not content to merely scoff at the corporate bastardizaton of U2's "One" that made the YouTube rounds last week (and that was posted on the Daily Irk here), new Modest Mouse guitarist, Johnny Marr, and off-kilter actor/comedian, David Cross, performed that very song as part of a Modest Mouse gig in New York last night. As the video shows, the hipsters in the crowd laughed with glee. Spokespeople for Modest Mouse's small, indie record label--Sony/Epic Records--could not be reached for comment as to whether the song would be included on the band's upcoming album.

2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner

2006-11-12T20:33:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen this, it's worth a look. At this year's dinner, Bush did a routine with a Bush impersonator. It's pretty funny, though not nearly as awkward as Stephen Colbert's routine at the last one. Click here to watch the video.

How much do you love your company?

2006-11-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

This performance by some Bank of America employees is amazing. Who are these people? As one of the comments on the website says, "Look how earnest this is. Corporations are the new cults." I buy that. At least the guy has a really good voice.

Musical diplomacy.

2006-11-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

The NY Times runs this article on the trend for governments to provide funding for indie rock bands to tour overseas. The goal is for these bands to raise the profile of their home country abroad. As to whether this sort of ambassadorial mission provides any returns on the investment, the article isn't clear. Personally, I've seen the band that leads the story--the Figurines--play a couple of times, and while they put on a good show, I'm not sure that Denmark is that much more top of mind for me. I will say, however, that the Danish government might want to think about a dress code for its singing amabassadors. Exceedingly tight jeans are not a fashion that reflect well upon the mother country.

What century is this anyway?

2006-11-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure you all know, Saddam Hussein was recently sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. Perhaps you also noticed that he wasn't just sentenced to death, he was sentenced to death by hanging. For those of you who are curious, Slate is running a particularly morbid piece that explains how hangings work. Did you know that the last major innovation in hanging occurred toward the end of the 19th century? Now you know.

The Geek Bard.

2006-10-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's just because I'm white and nerdy, but I thought this paean to Weird Al qualified as pretty great. A Youtube perusal of his work shows that the spoofs still play pretty well, and the article argues that Weird Al actually has larger cultural significance than just silliness. Says the article:

Weird Al's essential service is to point out that, from the perspective of the middle-class suburban lifeworld, pop culture itself is weird. This is the paradox of Weird Al's weirdness: He's actually Normal Al, a common-sensical, conservative force. He's Everyman trapped on Neverland Ranch, exposing as many stylistic excesses and false profundities as he can.

If Weird Al's role is to force us to turn a critical eye on our pop culture, maybe his videos should be part of every high school curriculum just to provide a little counterpoint to our teens' bubblegum fantasies. Though they might want to leave my favorite of Weird Al's little ditties--his spoof of Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues--out of that particular curriculum, seeing as Joe Average Teen is probably a little more in touch with Chamillionaire and Justin Timberlake than with Mumbling Bob.

Changing Headlines

2006-10-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Watching headlines change on the New York Times home page can be pretty revealing. Unfortunately, the Times doesn't provide a mechanism for readers to track changes to headlines or articles (at least not that I know of). Here's an interesting modification that I caught today. A couple hours ago, the headline for this article was something to the effect of "Google Acquired YouTube for $1.6B." The headline now reads "Google Is Said to Set Sights on YouTube." Perhaps the editors were a little too quick to pull the trigger? There's nothing like getting the scoop, is there?

In My Country There Is Problem

2006-09-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

According to this article in the UK's Daily Mail the White House is actually going to have diplomatic discussions with Kazakhstan because of Sasha Baron Cohen's "Borat" movie. Even if this isn't true, the article is hilarous. Best line is Cohen's response -- in character -- to the Kazakhstani minister's complaints: "In response to Mr. Ashykbayev's comments, I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government's decision to sue this Jew."

Malcolm Gladwell in 17 syllables.

2006-09-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

New Yorker too wordy? You could wait for Daily Irk to post snippets about the articles of note, or you could click on this site, where entire issues of the magazine are condensed into haiku form.

Khatami at Harvard

2006-09-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard the news, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami is speaking at Harvard's JFK School of Government later this afternoon. If you want to watch the event live, it should be available on the school's website starting at 4:00pm Eastern Time. Also worth checking out is Alan Dershowitz's op-ed in the Boston Globe regarding universities and tolerance specifically with regards to inviting someone like Khatami to speak. Does the fact that a guest will offend people suggest that he or she should not be invited to speak or do universities have a responsibility to promote debate whatever the cost?

Meet the Vice President.

2006-09-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

Vice President Dick Cheney was on Meet the Press this morning. Kudos to Tim Russert for asking tough questions and not backing down and to Cheney for giving us insight into the Bush administration's view of the world. No matter what you think of Cheney, at least he does a good job articulating his point of view. The hour long interview is worth watching and should be available soon on the show's website. My favorite part of the interview was when Russert asked Cheney if he should be grateful that Cheney didn't bring his shotgun to the show. Cheney replied, "You're not in season, Tim."

Meta-irksome.

2006-09-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

A quick analysis of content here at the Daily Irk indicates a propensity for us to go meta--our favorite topics include blogging, Internet fame, and the future of the Internet. It is once again a bit meta to post Safire's most recent "On Language", in which he unpacks the derivations of a variety of derogatory terms used for bloggers of the partisan political type. The Daily Irk has, of late, avoided becoming too heated in its political opinionation, but moonbat is likely the correct descriptor.

Another tipping point?

2006-09-04T09:18:00.000-07:00

In a recent New Yorker article entitled The Risk Pool, Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the Tipping Point, discusses one indicator of the health of a company's or country's pension system--the dependency ratio, the ratio of pensioners to workers. In short, he tries to argue that the as dependency ratios increase, companies and countries are more likely to fail. For examples, he points to the economic success of Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s. Once Ireland made contraception legal, the dependency ratio started falling and it's economic success started increasing. Similarly, G.M.'s dependency ratio is at an all time high of 3.2 to 1 while the company is in dire straits. He uses this as an explanation for why universal health care and pensions are the only way to go. Though this provides interesting food for thought (and there are certainly some merits to this argument), I found Gladwell's logic incomplete and hard to follow. For example, he argues that pensions require a company to worry about it's nonworker-to-worker ratio creating a perverse incentive for companies to hire more people when they should be downsizing to account for productivity increases. Is this really the case? It seems to me that they should be worried about their gross profits, not employment levels and that the problem stems from overly optimistic growth forecasts in an uncertain economic environments. Despite the flawed logic, the article is thought provoking and worth a read.

Youtube guitar virtuoso discovered, but recipe for Internet fame remains mystery

2006-08-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

What makes an Internet star? Irk has previously noted that the jolly, uninhibited geek seems to get some attention. And more recently, it seems that the unassuming guitar virtuoso has been the apple of the Internet's eye (check out his original video here). Certainly, if the emotion in this guy's voice as he begs the youtube gods not to suspend his account is a decent barometer, the pursuit of Internet fame is a time-consuming hobby for many a folk out there. Not entirely sure, however, why that particular fellow thinks that piercing lemons might earn him renown. Far better to wittily comment upon recent news via blog, don't you think?

Pluto gets dwarfed.

2006-08-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

It would appear that several love poems, and certainly some new age cults of nature have just been ruined. References, prayers, and odes to the nine planets are officially passe because Pluto has been demoted and is now reclassified as a Dwarf Planet. The NY Times' description makes the whole proceeding sound almost like a political negotiation:

The decision at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when the group's leaders floated a proposal that would have reaffirmed Pluto's planetary status and made planets of its largest moon and two other objects.... That plan proved highly unpopular, splitting astronomers into factions and triggering days of sometimes combative debate that led to Pluto's undoing.

Certainly, some astronomy buffs will mourn Pluto's passing, but I'm sure second graders everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief--eight planets are a lot easier to memorize than twelve.

The endangering species act.

2006-08-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

Slate wrestles with the possibility that the Endangered Species Act doesn't serve its intended purpose, but actually, well, endangers species. After all, what would you do if you caught wind of a government plan to restrict the use of land you owned in order to protect an endangered species? If you were seriously concerned with your investment as a land owner, you'd probably try to slip in under the legislative wire and develop the land in whatever possibly lucrative way the government was about to restrict. Chances are, however, if the government hadn't threatened to restrict your land use rights, you might not have developed the land at all--after all, you hadn't already done so.

Americans, online.

2006-08-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

There's the privacy-related concerns raised by AOL's release of user logs, and then there's the voyeuristic pleasure that comes from the breach of privacy. This Slate article, besides using the data to analyze the different types of Internet searchers that are out there, also highlights some of the funnier/most disturbing individual search patterns.

CLICHE WATCH: Does money = happiness?

2006-08-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

The Daily Irk has previously taken up the relationship between wealth and health, and now turns towards wealth and happiness, of which there is actually a good deal of psychological literature. When all is said and done, it seems that once we move beyond the territory where basic needs are taken care of, wealth is a non-factor in predicting subjective levels of life happiness. People in nations where the the GNP is above $8000 per person report virtually the same degrees of life satisfaction. Likewise, while the filthy rich (we're talking Forbes 100 wealthiest range) do report being being slightly happier than your average Joe, the difference is pretty infinitesmal, and qualitatively, their enormous wealth certainly doesn't serve as a buffer against unhappiness. Finally, it seems that people get accustomed to their increases in financial well-being pretty quickly, such that a change in circumstances only has a positive effect on general happiness for the short term. Win the lotto and you'll pretty quickly just get used to your new lifestyle rather than feeling continually giddy at the material fortune you enjoy. People that predict an increase in personal wealth as the key to a better life are likely wrong, but then so was rapper Notorious B.I.G. when he predicted mo' money mo' problems.

Stupid human tricks.

2006-08-14T07:23:00.000-07:00

Any interest in donning a giant space suit covered in wheels--think a rollerblade made for your whole body--and hurtling yourself down hills? A street luge, of sorts. Some French dude thinks this is going to be the next big craze, and has given it a thoroughly horrific name: Buggy Rollin. I don't recommend adding stock in his company to your portfolio.

How to lose your job with one newspaper headline.

2006-08-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

Poor Ehud Olmert. The current Prime Minister of Israel did not ask for the job. He was thrust into the position when his predecessor and former Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, had a debilitating stroke which left him in a coma. Now Olmert is stuck in a difficult war in Lebanon with his hopes of withdrawing from the West Bank dashed. As if that weren't bad enough, check out this headline that appeared in Haaretz, an English language Israeli daily, a couple days ago. "PM wavers over ground ops." It seems to me that the last thing a politician wants at a time of war is to be seen as "wavering." Does this mark the end of Olmert and Sharon's nascent Kadima party? I have my money on Netanyahu of Likud taking over the reigns sooner rather than later.

Big Feet . . . Big Footprint

2006-08-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been interested in the idea of sustainable living, and in particular the (counter-intuitive) idea that living in a large metropolis like New York City is much more sustainable than living in a suburb. (There's a great New Yorker article about this from 2004 which unfotunately I can't link to, but if you have the complete New Yorker DVD set I recommend "Green Manhattan".) The reasons are varied but include more efficient heating, cooling, food distribution, and of course widely-used public transportation.
Anyway, I found this fantastic little site that allows you to figure out your ecological "footprint" based on how many acres of land it takes to sustain your food needs, to absorb your carbon emissions, etc. Check it out -- despite the annoying universal front page that makes you choose a country/language.

Not enough Joementum

2006-08-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Everyone should know at this point that Joe Lieberman, the 3 term Democratic Senator from Connecticut, lost the Democratic primary last night to Ned Lamont. It seems like it has been all downhill for Lieberman ever since the 2000 election when he was at his peak, receiving more votes for Vice President than the other guy. Since then his presidential campaign was a disaster and now he's potentially lost his job. I've been reading various analyses of the campaign to better understand what it was all about and I must say that I'm at a loss. Was this really just a referendum on the war in Iraq? Was it yet another case of an incumbent Senator who was out of touch with his constituents and lost his way? Was it too late when he realized the threat that Lamont posed? Or is this another example of how the primary system makes it nearly impossible for moderates to win elections these days. What I fear is that it's really the latter and what we get is more partisan bickering and less progress. Rick Santorum, meet Ned Lamont. I'm sure you guys will enjoy working together.

Guerrilla Warfare 2.0

2006-08-08T08:41:00.000-07:00

I don't think this article has gotten much attention on the Times website, but it provides an interesting look into the tactics and capabilities of Hezbollah. It seems that the group is far better equipped and, more importantly, far better organized than anyone ever expected. Could this be the future of the war on terror? From the article:

“They [Hezbollah] have staff work and they do long-term planning, something the Palestinians never do,” he [Timur Goksel, the senior political adviser to Unifil] said. “They watch for two months to note every detail of their enemy. They review their operations — what they did wrong, how the enemy responded. And they have flexible tactics, without a large hierarchical command structure.”

That makes them very different from the Soviet-trained Arab armies the Israelis defeated in 1967 and 1973, which had a command structure that was too regimented.

Major media outlet once again says that blogging will not transform the media. Denies self-interest.

2006-08-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Pew Report on the blogosphere, which has been covered herein previously, is the topic of a Nick Lemann article in the current New Yorker. Once again, the gist of the analysis is that rumors of the demise of the mainstream media at the hands of citizen journalists have been greatly exaggerated. What the blogging world does well, Lemann points out, is serve as a forum for voicing opinion. Indeed, most of the blogs out there are places for people to muse on, well, just about whatever. As such, these citizen journalists are an addendum to the mainstream media, not a transformative force. (And Lemann seems to question, at times, if it is a very worthwhile addendum: "Even at its best and most ambitious, citizen journalism reads like a decent Op-Ed page, and not one that offers daring, brilliant, forbidden opinions that would otherwise be unavailable.") What citizen journalists don't really do--and hence why they will not really change the way that we receive our news--is provide any original reporting. Sure, there are the Internet-only scoops that come from a citizen who happens to be standing by when an event goes down. But when it comes to full-on investigative reporting, Lemann says, it's still the pros that are providing our news. Case in point: Daily Irk, your leading source for re-packaged news.

Need designer lighting for your jet?

2006-08-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

In this month's Atlantic, Sheelah Kolhatkar writes about the billionaire service industry. As you would expect, the article explains how difficult it is to be a billionaire and how an industry of service professionals has formed to serve the needs of the ultrarich. My favorite quote from the article comes:

"You have to be selective," says Mark Hancock, a managing director at Tiedemann Trust Company who handles finances for eight ultrarich families. "I'm not just taking any multibillionaire off the street."

I wonder if he laughs himself to sleep at night.

Wikiality

2006-08-03T09:33:00.000-07:00

Apparently Stephen Colbert (whose show The Colbert Report is getting funnier by the day) decided to have some phone with the Wikipedia on his show the other day. Here's a description of what happened and the video clip from the show. It seems he tried to prove that the Wikipedia brings rise to a new form of reality--Wikiality--where what gets published on the Wikipedia becomes true (much like how if something is published on the Daily Irk, it must be true). He asked viewers to post bogus information about elephants to the Wikipedia. Fortunately for the Wikipedia, the site's maintenance volunteers were all over it.

How to win friends and influence dictators.

2006-08-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

If you have a little time on your hands or need something to listen to during your commute, This American Life produced an amusing and thought provoking 45 minute segment about an unusual set of pen pals. The story starts with a family in small town in Michigan watching Manuel Noriega on TV. The father, an avid hat collector, decides he likes Noriega's unique hat, the family decides that their 10 year old daughter might be able to get Noriega to send them one by writing him a letter. What ensues is a unusual friendship between a 10 year old American girl and a notorious dictator and drug trafficker.

One thing you should know about this piece before listening is that it presents a biased and sympathetic view of Noriega which isn't necessarily accurate. If you want to know more about him, the Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of his life and the controversy surrounding his arrest by the United States after the 1989 invasion of Panama.

Divided We Stand

2006-07-31T22:11:00.000-07:00

Peter Beinhart has an interesting piece in this week's New Republic in which he argues, contrary to popular belief, that the Republicans are more seriously divided than the Democrats. He has a point. On issues from immigration to deficit spending to stem cell research to Iran and North Korea, the Republicans are more divided than ever. On the other hand, he argues, the Democrat's "underlying unity is obscured by the war of words between the party's Clinton-dominated Washington establishment and its insurgent, Deaniac activitsts. But that fight is about rhetorical style, political strategy, and, above all, power." Again, he has a point. The left wing is no longer split between proponents of big government and third way moderates. The weak link in his argument, however, is just how divded the Democrats are over Iraq. Beinhart glosses over this by stating that a withdrawal, which he assumes is imminent, will reduce the importance of the issue. I disagree. With the situation in Iraq looking grimmer by the day and the Republicans digging in for a long battle, it seems unlikely that this issue will go away any time soon--certainly not before 2008.

More Zidane ahead.

2006-07-24T22:09:00.000-07:00

In an article passed along by Deepa, we find that the Zinedine Zidane method of problem solving has apparently gained traction in the larger world of sports. This time, however, the perpetrator was a jockey, and the recipient of the head-butt was a horse. No doubt, Zidane is just as flattered by this instance of mimicry as I'm sure he is by the veritable cornucopia of Internet creativity that has sprung up as a result of his World Cup performance (Exhibit A). If Zizou finds he has developed a headache, either a lingering aftereffect of the incident itself, or a reaction to the hullabaloo that has followed, maybe he should try some HeadOn.

Broken record.

2006-07-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

The disappearance of the record store will probably garner much the same reaction as the disappearance of the independent book store--screes against big business and aghast exclamations that our society is culturally bankrupt, followed immediately by a trip to amazon or iTunes when next it comes time to make a musical or literary purchase. Speaking for myself, it feels like I should be upset about the passing of these independent stores. But then when I think about it, I don't really know why. I like them very much. It's thoroughly enjoyable to browse about and feel fetishistic about my fetishes. A record store or a book store is a place full of possibility--I could know about, have read, have listened to, all of this stuff on the shelves. Gathering all those albums or books together in one place allows me to revere them. But the truth is that the Internet is a much truer place of reverence. The music blogs and 'zines that litter the e-scape offer a far greater devotion for me to engage in than merely being able to fondle the CD's on the racks, and there's an actual growth of my knowledge in the process. After all, while I sometimes imagine that the hipster behind the counter at my local record store is nodding approvingly at my purchase, I never actually ask him about music, nor am I sure that I'd like his recommendations if I did. So, if you asked me, I'd no doubt bemoan the passing of these brick and mortar temples of culture, but I'm not sure it's completely logical of me to do so.

Blogging for apples.

2006-07-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

Today's Slate has Jack Shafer summing up a recent Pew report on the blogging world. The stats that Shafer focuses on: 12 million adult American bloggers, most of whom report that their readers include mostly family and friends--it seems that 100 unique hits daily counts as a large readership for Joe Average Blogger. Nine percent of the survey respondents (that's 1 million) said that some news outlet has taken note of their blog, though Shafer wonders if that stat might not be padded by at least a few respondents stretching the truth. Besides, the margin of error on the report is plus/minus seven points. This is all grist for the mill of one of Shafer's earlier claims, that maybe we have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves in thinking that blogs are transforming the media.

The yolks on us.

2006-07-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

A bad play on words, I know, but that's what we can expect from CBS--in our refrigerators--come this fall. The NY Times reports that advertisements for CBS's fall lineup will be appearing on over 35 million eggs. Done by a company called EggFusion, the advertisements are laser etched onto the eggshells at a depth of 50 to 90 micrometers--deep enough to be clearly legible, but at only 5% of the shell's thickness, not deep enough to damage its structural integrity.

There is likely to be some disgust generated by this announcement. For those of us who worry about the degree to which we are bombarded by media, these advertisements will seem incredibly intrusive. It's nice to think that, at least inside our homes, if we choose to turn off the TV, the radio, et cetera, we can insulate ourselves. Not anymore. On a more basic level, there might also be something of an ick factor. Who wants someone monkeying around with their food? Especially eggs! Those little white ovals are the very picture of sanitary. Of course, it is the clean, white perfection of the things that makes the move so brilliant--what could possibly provide a better canvas for a message? Finally, it escapes me right now as to how to tackle the symbolic value of this move (the egg!), but I'm sure there will be at least one cultural theorist much smarter than I am who will pick up that particular thread.

It's a beautiful day in the gayborhood.

2006-07-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Ed Helms did a hilarious bit on a heterosexual man who moved his family to the Castro District in San Francisco (the "gayest neighborhood in the gayest city in the world") and was subsequently outraged by the character of the neighborhood. As Helms points out, it's like moving to a house next to an airport and then complaining about the noise. Perhaps this guy should blow off some steam by taking his family on a nice vacation.

Burritos as high art.

2006-07-14T21:29:00.000-07:00

There is no taqueria in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, so I was a bit surprised to find a burrito within the museum's hallowed halls. The Art of Betty Woodman, an exhibition at the Met, is a retrospective of the artist's ceramics, mostly vases with attached panels (flaps? wings?) painted with patterns that claim roots in varied traditons from Etruscan to Japanese. One of the most arresting pieces, maybe because of its name as much as anything else, was not a vase, but as the artist had labelled it, an Erotic Burrito. There was no picture to be found online, but the New York Observer's review of the exhibit has this to say by way of description: "Erotic Burrito (1971) consists of a saddle-like orifice set upon a flaccid pillow of stoneware, and it suggests that sexual relations pose a burden that a burrito should never have to bear." Being from New York, it is not clear that the Observer truly knows the extent of the passion that burritos have borne. As I currently reside in San Francisco, I can say that I am quite comfortable with the notion of burritos as erotic.

The death race.

2006-07-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

In this month's issue of Harper's (hard copy only, so no link), Jake Silverstein recounts his experience following the Carrera Panamericana, a car race across Mexico. Originally run in 1950 as a way of showcasing Mexico's newly built cross-country highway, the speeding cars resulted in so many fatalities that it was nicknamed "The Death Race" and discontinued after five years. The Carrera was restarted in 1988, though in a nod to its old-timey roots, only vintage cars, like those they would have had in 1950, are allowed to compete. The cars are not the only things that have stayed the same--from Silverstein's account, it seems that the drivers are just as likely to wreck today as they were in 1950. The descriptions are often funny, but also veer towards disturbing, and the article never quite deals with the swath of destruction that the reace leaves in its path. Who are these (rich, and often old) people who smash up these cars, risking their lives and others'? Are they just bored--the adventure traveler taken to the extreme? Here's a representative sample from the article:

That night in Oaxaca the news at the drivers' meeting was that a Red Cross medic had been killed. On the day's third speed section, a Studebaker piloted by Axel and Nicolas de Ferran, who some said were brothers and some said were father and son, had blown its engine and dropped its oil; coming along behind them, Frank and Evelyn Currie, an elderly married couple from southern California in a white Mustang, had hit the the slick, spun wildly off the road, and slammed into an ambulance parked beside the shoulder. Racecar drivers do not make good witnesses, and reports varied. According to all, the Curries had not been injured, but it was possible that they were under house arrest in Chiapas somewhere, or that they were undergoing a battery of tests in a Tuxtla hospital, or that they had been remanded into the Inspector Jefe's custody and were headed toward Oaxaca. The de Ferrans had fled the country or were at the hotel checking their email.... As I talked to racers around the hall, the Red Cross medic came back to life, briefly flourished, and then lost both her legs.

The incredible disappearing gorilla.

2006-07-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

Six people are on a basketball court, three in white outfits, three in black outfits. The folks in white are passing a ball amongst themselves; the folks in black are doing the same with their own ball. You are asked to watch this scene and count how many times the white team passes the ball. As you look on, counting away, a gorilla walks onto the court, beats on its chest, and walks off. Do you think you'd notice the gorilla? In a phenomena called inattentional blindness, only 46% of people do. The percentage is even lower if folks have been drinking. The NY Times reports that a study done by the Behavioral Alcohol Research Lab (BarLab!) at the University of Washington found that the number of people who notice the gorilla drops to 18% if participants have drunk enough to bring their blood alcohol level to .04.

Insert your own story of a few drinks leading to gross oversight here. Need not include a gorilla.

Boring billions.

2006-07-07T23:30:00.000-07:00

The Nation takes Warren Buffet to task for his choice to donate his billions to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Says the article about Buffet: "He is a decent man, a clever man at making money, but about all that can be said of how he is disposing of his billions is that his choice was safe, insipid and probably inconsequential in the long run." The article argues that in its commitment to eradicate disease, the Gates Foundation is essentially overcrowding a niche that many governments have already stepped up to fill, and argues that a better use of the billions would be a complete redesign of the American health care system. You can write in to the Nation with your thoughts on how the money should be spent, or just post your comments below and let the massive Daily Irk readership see your thoughts.

Train up your spouse (or child or students).

2006-07-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

As part of Irk's ongoing mission to repackage the NY Times, this article has been atop the most-emailed list for several days now, so it seemed only fitting to link it here. Its topic is how the techniques of animal training can similarly be used to teach domestic tricks to a spouse--things like tossing dirty clothes in the hamper, or ceasing to nag. Most of what the author credits to animal trainers is also pretty basic to psychologists, and incredibly useful not just in the home. Most well run classrooms, for instance, employ many of the recommendations. Among the techniques: 1) Use praise to recognize desired behavior, even behavior that is only sort of close, thereby shaping approximations into the desired behavior. 2) Negative attention is a form of reinforcement, so ignore undesirable behaviors. 3) Provide displacement activities that take an individual away from undesirable behaviors. They seem obvious, but run counter to our human impulse to, say, respond to that pointless fury with a fury of our own. Thanks to Deepa, Kellie, and Gregg for the discussion over drinks.

Gay marriage.

2006-07-06T17:34:00.000-07:00

Disappointed in the Supreme Court of my home state, which ruled that it is not unconstitutional to deny equal marriage rights to gay couples. It was not a complete no-win, however, as the decision ceded authority to the state legislature for changing the law if it sees fit. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in election politics--of the two Democratic candidates for Governor, one has pledged to fight for equal marriage rights, while the other opposes the legalization of gay marriage.

How Would Jesus Vote?

2006-07-05T10:43:00.002-07:00

You should listen to Barak Obama's controversial speech on religion last week. I like the way he's refusing to cede the religious high-ground to the far right. I'm not a religious guy, and I certainly don't want a less secular government, but it annoys me that the far right have managed to appropriate the Christian message. I mean, if you actually read the bible (cf Luke 6, Luke 18, Acts 4, etc.) any reasonable person would assume Jesus's politics lie somewhere between Ralph Nader and Karl Marx. On a more practical note, America is in the midst of a massive evangelical religious revival and if the conservatives claim sole right to speak for this movement, the progressives are going to be sitting in the cheap seats for a long time to come. As Obama says:

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.

Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's I Have a Dream speech without references to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

"Progressives cannot abondon the field of religious discourse," says Obama, and I tend to agree. There have been some interesting articles on this in Slate and other blogs, but I encourage you to listen to (or read the transcript of) the speech at the link above.

An excuse for becoming a nagging parent.

2006-07-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

Adults often struggle to know what to tell kids about drinking. The drinking age of twenty-one seems arbitrary to some, while others feel hypocritical prohibiting something that they did at the same age. And, of course, many just feel like the kids are going to do it anyway, so what's the point. According to this NY Times article, however, keeping kids away from alcohol until they're 21 makes a whole lot of sense. To begin with, the article outlines that kids who engage in heavy drinking at an early age are far more likely to become alcohol dependent later in life. More striking, however, is that alcohol appears to affect the brain function of teens in ways that adult drinkers don't have to worry about--excessive drinking may stunt neurodevelopment in the hippocampus with possible long-term effects on memory.

Ken Lay Fakes Own Death To Avoid Prison

2006-07-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

According to The New York Times, Ken Lay's spokeswoman announced today that Ken Lay passed away this morning at his vacation home in Aspen. I have four words for the Lays: show me the body. (Kind of a new twist on the right of habeas corpus.)

Blogging alone.

2006-07-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

How many people in your life can you talk to about the matters that are closest to your heart? According to a NY Times article, a study out of Duke found that the answer to this question for the average American adult is two. This is a fairly flimsy personal support system--the loss of just one confidant means almost a wholesale destruction of one's inner circle. This is concerning because previous studies about strength of social networks have linked them to things as important as life expectancy, educational outcomes, and drug addiction recovery. As the article points out, this study harkens back to the work by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone, where he decried Americans' shrinking store of social capital. It's hard to know how to take Putnam's findings or those of a study like this one--findings like this are often used to support statements about proper family structure (women in the workplace is one possible causal mechanism used to explain this data), or to point out that American values have gone down the tubes. So while it seems intuitive that broader social networks are better, and that we might want the average American to have more close confidants, it pays to be leery of the possible significances that are extrapolated from data like this. And, at least in the case of Putnam's work, other scholars have raised serious questions about the narrowness of his data collection and his definition of social network. Still, something to mull over. (As a side note, unlike in Putnam's original work, it's nice that this particular article allows for the possibility that social capital can develop through some of our modern electronic pursuits... maybe you're increasing your life expectancy by reading Daily Irk!)

The Internet is not a truck!

2006-07-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

Now, I know that the Net Neutrality debate is a bit complicated, but I would think that those who are empowered to determine the future of the Internet would spend some time studying the issue (or at least having their aides do it). Instead what we get is utter incoherence from Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explaining why he voted against the amendment:

"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

The Wired Blog has an abbreviated transcript of his funny and sad speech. The full audio is available here (be warned, it's both long and inane).

Thank you Ted Stevens for your dedication and service to this country. If nothing else, we are all dumber because of you.

Sandra Day and Anthony K.

2006-07-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

Slate has a piece about the way Justice Anthony Kennedy has taken over Sandra Day O'Connor's role as swing voter in the cases that come before the Supreme Court--and because the court is more or less at an ideological deadlock, with Kennedy in the middle, the piece goes as far as to call him a Supreme Court of One. Even more interesting is the piece's description of his tendency to decide cases on narrower grounds than his peers, and then to either write the majority opinion, or attach an individual concurring opinion to the majority opinion. It is the narrowest interpretation of a case that goes on to become law, so Kennedy is in effect moderating the more extreme opinions of the justices to either side of him when he does this. Finally, the piece engages in a little character analysis of Justice Kennedy, and notes that he is the most malleable--some might say open-minded--of the justices on the court, and is prone to be swayed by the opinions of others. He is also, it would appear, rather vain, very much enjoying the spotlight that his new role gives him. The article points out that Kennedy is suddenly oft-cited by his supreme peers in their opinions and briefings, and wonders if this isn't the other justices trying their darndest to appeal to his vanity and curry favor so they can nudge him to vote their way.

Legislative fluff.

2006-06-29T22:10:00.000-07:00

Massachusetts state senator Jarrett Barrios became very concerned when he discovered that his son was being served fluffernutter sandwiches in his school cafeteria. Mr. Barrios took it as his civic duty to bring this issue to the attention of his distinguished colleagues in the state Senate--he proposed amending the school nutrition bill to limit how often public schools could serve the offending sandwiches. Mr. Barrios met with quite a stiff resistance, however. The Massachusetts state senate has been fiercely debating the issue for the past week, only just recently tabling it. The proposal spurred such heated resistance, certainly because most senators could recognize the sticky, sweet, fabulousness that is fluffernutter, but also because Fluff is actually the product of a Massachusetts company. Other senators came forward not only reviling Mr. Barrios' attack on their local product, but proposing that fluffernutter be made the official state sandwich. Questioned as to why he thought peanut butter and marshmallow deserved a week's worth of the senate's attention, Mr. Barrios claimed he was just trying to bring children's nutrition to the forefront of public debate. Mr. Barrios had no explanation for why, seeing the direction the debate had taken, he did not immediately withdraw his proposal and replace it with some other bill with content that was broadly relevant to the issue he claims to be so concerned with. Runor has it that Senator Barrios is imminently expected to introduce a bill mandating two-ply toilet paper in all public bathrooms.

1% Doctrine

2006-06-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

Ron Suskind has a new book about the Bush administration, keying on a speech in which Cheney said that if "there is even a 1% chance that a nation could provide nuclear arms to terrorists" then we have a right to act.

Interesting insight into the administration's policy: we can bypass the analysis of the entire intelligence community, or the civil rights of thousands of people, if there is even a small chance we are acting in the national interest. In fact, it is the government's right and duty to do so.

Everything bad is good for you.

2006-06-25T21:45:00.000-07:00

Recent study findings indicate that drinking beer may help prevent prostate cancer. It seems that hops contain a cancer-fighting agent called xanthohumol. The problem is that in order to get enough xanthohumol to see an effect, you'd have to drink seventeen pints of beer a day. That's damaged liver territory. Which would be a problem, if the scientific community hadn't also recently made the fortuitous discovery that coffee decreases the risk of cirrhosis of the liver --by twenty-two percent for each cup drunk daily! The equation ends up looking something like this: 17 beers + 5 cups of coffee = immortality. Thanks to Ferg for passing this along.

Watch out for Kasparov's left hook.

2006-06-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

Inspired by something he saw in a comic book, some guy in Germany has started a new sport: chess boxing. Participants compete in alternating rounds of chess and boxing--rounds of chess last four minutes, rounds of boxing last two--until one of the players has either been knocked out, checkmated, or exceeds the twelve minutes alotted for the chess match. Its inventor says that in its mix of physical competition and mental strategy, the sport captures "the duality of man," but really it seems like a recipe for watching lousy chess and bad boxing. When a Kasparov and a Fischer are willing to climb into the ring together between rounds of chess, I'll tune in, if only to see what they look like with their shirts off.

Facts about Cuba, for kids.

2006-06-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

ACLU has apparently just filed a lawsuit challenging the Miami-Dade School Board's decision to ban a children's book about Cuba (the original story can be found here). The book in question is aimed at children in the lower elementary school grades, and the offending material includes such passages as: "People in Cuba eat, work, and go to school like you do." From the description, it sounds like this is accompanied by cheerful pictures of children frollicking, et cetera. The book's critics argue that text like this over-simplifies and sanitizes the reality in Cuba to the point that it is factually misleading. ACLU is obviously arguing that the ban represents an infringement on free speech. Unless later pages include Fidel Castro yo' mama jokes or the illustrations are full of lewd gestures, I'm thinking an argument of either obscenity or pornography is a stretch. Moreover, this is a school, so it's the perfect place to make the book's portrayal of Cuba a topic of conversation. I guess I can understand the parents' concerns about the way the material is being spun, and I don't envy them the job of trying to describe communism and Castro to a first grader. I can imagine this would be even more troubling if the material were more insidious. But that's why freedom of speech in the abstract is sometimes a lot easier to deal with than freedom of speech in the specific.

Not quite the scariest disease ever.

2006-06-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

As if Ebola and Bird Flu weren't enough to worry about, apparently there's a stealth parasite in town that we've all been living with unawares, Toxoplasma. From the New York Times (where else?):

This single-celled pathogen infects over half the world's population, including an estimated 50 million Americans. Each of Toxoplasma's victims carries thousands of the parasites, many residing in the brain. As if that were not enough of an accomplishment, Toxoplasma is equally adept at infecting all other warm-blooded animals, as disparate as chickens and kangaroos.

Though scientists believe the parasite is usually harmless, it appears that it might be responsible for a myriad of problems later in life. Moreover, the article is filled with interesting tidbits like how a parasite evolves to target cats (Taxoplasma needs cats to reproduce--no joke) and how parasites can impact behavior.

And the Lord sent forth Superman to smiteth the gentiles.

2006-06-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

Apparently some Rabbi noticed that the kiddies liked Kavalier and Clay and decided to play piggyback. He has just published Up, Up, and Oy Vey, contending that comic books actually find much of their inspiration in Jewish tradition. Superman, propelled in a spaceship from Krypton to Earth, as stand-in for Moses and his journey down the river in a basket? Eh. Superman's love for Lois Lane as representing every Jewish boy's love of shiksas? That's a little better.

That new car smell.

2006-06-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

I've never understood all the hubbub about that new car smell. Maybe it's just jealousy speaking, seeing as I've never been able to claim ownership of a vehicle sporting that particular smell. But 'gross' has always been the word that came to mind when I got the chance to go for a spin in a new automo. From now on, however, the first word that I'll think of will likely be 'poisonous'. This weekend's SF Chronicle reports on the chemical sources of new car smell, and while the chemical concentrations don't seem to be high enough to cause major concern, none of the stuff the article reports on is something you'd want to sprinkle on your breakfast cereal.

Porn and Identity Theft

2006-06-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

In case you had any doubt, the link between porn and identity theft is now clear. Unfortunately for 2,200 Oregon taxpayers, their personal information may have been stolen when a state employee used a state computer to download porn.

The End of the Internet? (Part two)

2006-06-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

Following up on a previous post, I've been doing a lot of thinking about net neutrality, trying to understand exactly what it's all about and where I stand. While I can't say I've come up with a definitive answer, I have found some good material (thanks to Slashdot) that helps shine some light on the subject. First, the Wikipedia has a great (though somewhat technical) entry on net neutrality. CNN also recently ran editorials both for and against net neutrality.

One thing that is important to understand through all the FUD is that companies and consumers already pay different amounts for the bandwidth that they consume. A DSL line costs less than a higher capacity T3. Another key point is that different Internet applications require different quality of service (QoS) levels. Video and VOIP require low latency connections whereas web surfing and email do not.

What I can say in favor of net neutrality is that without regulation there is a real risk that telecommunications companies will abuse their power in a way that will stifle innovation and competition on the Internet. On the other hand, one of the best arguments I've read against net neutrality comes from an unexpected source:

It's true, of course, that ISPs could misuse their control of the onramps to the Internet in a shortsighted attempt to extract monopoly rents, rather than benefit consumers. But that's not a reason for preemptive regulation; it's a reason to see what happens. "In my view," said thenÂFederal Communications Commission Chair Michael Powell after blocking one local telephone/broadband provider's attempt to cut users off from Internet telephone services, "the surest way to preserve 'Net Freedom' is to handle these issues in an enforcement context where hypothetical worriers give way to concrete facts and, as we have shown today, real solutions." That's sound advice: Hasty regulation that responds to hypothetical abuses may also prevent us from discovering benefits we haven't yet hypothesized.

Perhaps this is the most moderate argument of them all.

The insurance companies solve global warming.

2006-06-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

Increasing the cost of driving has been one of the main strategies floated for decreasing our use of fossil fuels. The most common thought on how to do this is a gas tax. A recent piece in Harper's suggests a different way: pay-by-the-mile car insurance. The article points out that this wouldn't even necessarily mean a hike in prices for most drivers because the per-mile fee could be calculated based on current car insurance costs divided by the average mileage driven. To me, this proposal might have a psychological advantage over the gas tax in that each month when they get their insurance statement, drivers will get to see their costs measured out in a one to one relationship with car usage.