Mapcrunch


You can explore any random spot in the world from Google Street View. Highlight all the continents, hit go, and see where you end up. After visiting a nondescript neighborhood in Switzerland and then a nondescript country road in the Netherlands, I ended up on this mountain road in Oaxaca, MX.

The Self Repair Manifesto

Do you remember the days when there were people who made a business of repairing TV's, and even VCR's? I guess they have gone the way of the shoe cobblers like Brother Joseph at St. Augustine's Seminary.

Locally there are men and women who wait at the local dumpsters for salvageable stuff, and they frequently rebuild small appliances or home electronics. So, there is now a fix-it movement. This website aims to become the Wikipedia of Fix-it manuals and help. Pretty cool.

The only problem for me is that I have a deep sense of inferiority when I try to work on things. I get easily frustrated, I hear my Dad's voice telling me I'm the "oldest and the sorriest," and before long I'm cursing and throwing things. That really gets in the way.

This sort of thing represents the power and the triumph of opinion-shaping propaganda, or yellow journalism as they used to call it. But of course it is a depressing indication of what this country is in for:


see more funny videos

America: The Grim Truth

Ouch.

How Google works...

More information than you require.

Ted Koppel on the death of objectivity in TV journalism

...The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft-quoted observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts...

Housecat versus Alligator(s)



Yeah, the cat is all badass. But it bothers me that these people think it's cool to just let the gators hang out. Gators are not cute little woodsy animals. If that gator was hungry, it would have the cat or a dog or a small child in one bite.

GOP frosh: Where's my health care?

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in...

For a more detailed explanation of why America is going to hell in a handbasket, here is a very detailed explanation from Bill Moyers. 


Which brings to mind this Ben Sargent comic, which hits the nail on the head:

Privilege Denying Dude

You can make your own, but I haven't been able to improve on what's out there.

Thailand's Hellfire Pass: The True Story of the Bridge on the River Kwai

This would have been fitting for Veterans' Day, but oh well. This is the true story of the construction of the Bridge on the River Kwai, about which the famous movie was made.

My Mom told me that my biological father, William Beggs Milburn, had been a POW. She said he used to have nightmares about it, and he had pain in his legs, either from malnutrition or from injuries he received at the time. In one of my fruitless, half-hearted internet searches, I came across his name in a list of POW's from the Yogodawa POW Camp in Japan.

I did a little googling to see what my biological father did in WWII before he was captured, and he appears that he was assigned to an anti-aircraft battery in the Phillipines. Another member of that battery was reported to have been captured in May of 1942. If Mr. Milburn was captured at the same time, that means he would have spent 3 years in the POW camp. The roster shows the large proportion of the prisoners who did not survive their captivity.

McRib is Back!

But you know, I just don't think I can do it again. I've been hurt too many times. I know you don't hide the fact that you're only in town for a limited time, but I can't help thinking I'm somehow to blame.

Res Obscura blog looks back at A Compleat History of Druggs, first published in 1684. If you think people ingest some crazy stuff now, well, they had nothing on our forefathers.

German newsmagazine Der Spiegel goes there, and addresses the million dollar question of whether the American Dream is over.

...It was to be the kind of place where dozens of American dreams would be fulfilled -- here on Apple Blossom Drive, a cul-de-sac under the azure-blue skies of southwest Florida, where the climate is mild and therapeutic for people with arthritis and rheumatism. Everything is ready. The driveways lined with cast-iron lanterns are finished, the artificial streams and ponds are filled with water, and all the underground cables have been installed. This street in Florida was to be just one small part of America's greater identity -- a place where individual dreams were to become part of the great American story.

But a few things are missing. People, for one. And houses, too. The drawings are all ready, but the foundations for the houses haven't even been poured yet.

Apple Blossom Drive, on the outskirts of Fort Myers, Florida, is a road to nowhere. The retirees, all the dreamers who wanted to claim their slice of the American dream in return for all the years they had worked in a Michigan factory or a New York City office, won't be coming. Not to Apple Blossom Drive and not to any of the other deserted streets which, with their pretty names and neat landscaping, were supposed to herald freedom and prosperity as the ultimate destination of the American journey, and now exude the same feeling of sadness as the industrial ruins of Detroit...

Placebo strikes again!

Placebo buttons? Yeah, it turns out that most of those crosswalk buttons at intersections don't work, and most of those "close door" buttons in elevators don't work.

Sometimes drug reps give us a free lunch and tell us about a new medication. I want to resist the lure of a free lunch, but the food smells too good! Plus, I am curious about the new medication. The drug rep hands out nice glossy pamphlets and goes over the results of the drug trials to tell us how the new drug stands out from the pack.

When I look at the bar graphs that compare drug results to placebo, I am always impressed with the power of placebo, which makes up at least 50% of the variance, no matter the drug or the condition. We need to find a way to harness the power of placebo. My next mosaic will address the Power of Placebo. Actually, it will have to be the one after my next one, because I've been assigned a Christmas project by Nan. (To all those I've promised a mosaic, I'm sorry. I just can't say no. I'm really having to force myself to work on them right now. Working on them used to be important to me and almost a necessity for my well-being, but lately the thought of them just depresses me.)

Baby and his car cakes

Baby wanted his Aunt Nan to make him a green 88 car cake crashing into and defeating Adrian's blue car cake, which he thought was 24, but it turned out that it should have been the 48 car cake. Oh well.

I think my fighting style is Housecat:

1) Bold Assault;
2) Haul ass at the first sign of trouble;
3) Then try to play it off all cool.

The worst moment of George W.'s presidency?


Not 9/11, Not the realization he had started a war on false pretenses, not the economic collapse of 2008, or the ensuing blowout loss of both houses of Congress and the White House to the Democrats, nor even Katrina itself. The lowest point of his presidency was when Kanye West declared on live television during the NBC Katrina telethon the Friday after the storm that George Bush doesn't care about black people. (Because it's so untrue.)

Six Flags over New Orleans, aka Jazzland

Here's a creepy but beautifully shot video walk-around of the ruins of what used to be Six Flags over New Orleans:



The park is in New Orleans East, a low-lying area hard hit by Katrina. When I was a kid, our parents would take us Christmas shopping to the big Lake Forest Mall in New Orleans East. Around it were large subdivisions of middle class and upper middle class homes. Over the years, white flight had turned the neighborhood into mostly a black area of town. The last time we were at the Lake Forest Mall would have been in the early 90's when Rachel was just learning to walk. By that time, the mall had changed its personality to cater to the black community, featuring clothing and other stores of interest to blacks. It felt odd to walk through a crowded mall in which there were very few white people. Katrina flooded New Orleans East for miles around, to a depth of probably 6 - 8 feet, tha brackish water standing for at least two weeks before the levee breaches were fixed and the water was pumped out. I'd say pretty much everything in Six Flags was ruined just like about 80% of everything in New Orleans was ruined.

We visited Six Flags in June of 2005 on our last visit home before Katrina. We rode over with our sister-in-law Amy and her children Kady and Kyle, as well as Amy's friend and son. There were very few people there besides us. It was eerie. I remember thinking that if the park didn't do better it wasn't going to make it. On some of the roller coasters, the ride operator gave us the option to stay on the coaster and ride it multiple times. I have never had that happen before or since at an amusement park.

I remember the visit well because the heat was stifling, so hot that we were miserable. Amy and her friend handled it well, but Nan and I had a hard time, and we even got sick on some of the rides. I felt ashamed that Amy and her friend might think we were wimps, but the heat was getting to us. By mid-afternoon it quit being fun and we left. I think Amy and her friend stayed longer. We may have taken Kady with us, because she and the girls were hanging out, while Kyle stayed with his Mom and his buddy.

The origins of our progressive tax system, the system that our new Republican overlords led by new Speaker-in-waiting, John Boner, will work on dismantling further, because they care so much about the deficit. (You see, the Boner plan to cut taxes to the rich will allow the rich to do those things they would like to do but currently can't because their taxes are too high. So, when their tax burden gets eased off a bit, they'll invest all that money in real stuff that the poor can't even comprehend, which will get our economy moving and all the ensuing jobs will lift us from our deficit and put us back in business.) Oh yeah, the quote, from that Socialist Thomas Jefferson:

The property of this country is absolutely concentrated in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards… I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on.

“—

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, October 28,1785. ME 19:17, Papers 8:682

(via stfuconservatives, via robot-heart-politics)

I have just about done this very thing:

 

Saints game beats the World Series game in the TV ratings

In a way it's kind of sad. I think there are a lot of reasons specific to the Saints/Steelers game, and some reasons more specific to how football is just way more awesome than baseball.

I don't care how great the baseball game is, there is a lot of idle tugging of crotches, looking around, spitting on the ground, staring off into space, adjusting one's crotch some more, and more spitting. The announcers have plenty time to talk about great players who played way before you were ever born and to go over boring statistics.

That is the action in baseball. Okay, sure, everybody gets tore up when there is a base hit or a double play or a big strikeout. Big whoop.

But on Sunday night, on every play you got to see Drew Brees threw back shoulder passes to Marques Colston that were physically impossible, while five huge guys were trying to kill him from all sides. You got to see Julius Jones get flagged for pulling Troy Polamalu's hair in protest of a flying tackle that did seem a bit uncalled-for. Or Will Smith jumping on Big Ben Roethlisberger's back and riding him like he was in the rodeo before he could get him on the ground. I'm sorry, football is just way more awesome than baseball. With all due respect.

And then you've got a prime time Saints game on Halloween, when the Guinness Book people are there to count the number of people in costume. (17,700, setting the record, by the way. Bam!) For example, you see my home boy Brett Favre here. Regular season Saints football is demonstrably more awesome than World Series baseball. It just is. But you also have to keep in mind that despite the matchup of two surprising and deserving teams, a San Francisco Giants/Texas Rangers World Series was just a major yawner to start with. And I mean that in a good way.

Cool Neatorama article on the Jungle River Cruise at Disneyland. 

This reminds me of my awesome trip that Dad won me to Disneyworld when I was in the 7th grade, in 1971, when the park had just opened. It was my first trip away from home, and at the time I had no idea how rare and awesome a treat it was.

The Jungle River Cruise was an awesome E-ticket ride.

Just another day at Yellowstone. 

A dude was taking some pictures of wildlife early one morning, when a bison that had been scalded in some hot springs came galloping up the road, with a grizzly bear hot on its heels.

Wired photo essay on the Chinese factory where iPhones are made.

The nets around the dormitories in this photograph are there to prevent suicides.

Ten Ways We Get the Odds Wrong

For instance:

I. We Fear Snakes, Not Cars

Risk and emotion are inseparable.

Fear feels like anything but a cool and detached computation of the odds. But that's precisely what it is, a lightning-fast risk assessment performed by your reptilian brain, which is ever on the lookout for danger. The amygdala flags perceptions, sends out an alarm message, and—before you have a chance to think—your system gets flooded with adrenaline. "This is the way our ancestors evaluated risk before we had statistics," says Paul Slovic, president of Decision Research. Emotions are decision-making shortcuts.

As a result of these evolved emotional algorithms, ancient threats like spiders and snakes cause fear out of proportion to the real danger they pose, while experiences that should frighten us—like fast driving—don't. Dangers like speedy motorized vehicles are newcomers on the landscape of life. The instinctive response to being approached rapidly is to freeze. In the ancestral environment, this reduced a predator's ability to see you—but that doesn't help when what's speeding toward you is a car.