My iPhone slid out of my shirt pocket a few months ago and fell straight onto concrete. I was luckier than some: the only damage was a shattered back panel. I slapped a strip of black gaffers tape ove
On August 5, 2011, moments after the U.S. government watched a rating agency lower its credit rating for the first time in American history, the market for U.S. Treasury bonds soared. Four days later, the interest rates paid by the U.S. government on its new 10-year bonds were plummeting on their…
In an Harvard Business Review post Rob Wheeler makes the case for the Kindle Fire as a disruptive innovation. I believe that it is but crucially I disagree that the Kindle Fire is a low end disruption. My assessment of the Kindle Fire is based on the two attributes which Amazon highlights as the key…
Ten years ago, a New York real estate developer named Bruce Ratner fell in love with a building site at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn. It was 22 acres, big by New York standards, and within walking distance of four of the most charming, recently gentrified neighborhoods in…
Is Junk Food Really Cheaper? THE “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incom
United States | Government spending We lose money on each consultant, but we make it up in volume |1 min read By M.S. HOW could it possibly cost more for a government agency to hire a private consulting company with its own headquarters, executives, support staff, shareholders and so forth to…
Barbara Stanwyck: “We're both rotten!” Fred MacMurray: “Yeah – only you're a little more rotten.” -“Double Indemnity” (1944) Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten – how could they not be, given…
Once upon a time, it was all so simple. Pitchers pitched. Hitters hit. If the stars lined up, somebody with a glove caught what they hit. And that's how baseball games were decided. Boy, how 1963 was that, huh? If you think that's how baseball games are decided nowadays, it's very possible you're…
You should know by now that I normally do not get into much “news” around here. Especially when it’s not specifically Mac news. There are a ton of great Mac news sites out there and I leave that job up to them. That said, Chairman Gruber linked to a highly fascinating Wall Street Journal Liveblog of…
This has not been one of those blogs that serves as an online confessional. But for once, I’d like to bare my soul a bit and share something about myself that caught my attention over the weekend. Writing about it might prove to be utterly narcissistic, in which case I hope that you didn’t find too…
The Political Scene August 8, 2011 Michele Bachmann’s world view has been shaped by institutions and people unfamiliar to most Americans.Illustration by BARRY BLITT The transformation of Michele Bachmann from Tea Party insurgent and cable-news Pasionaria to serious Republican contender in the 2012…
I've published a series of harsh assessments of the savvy and game plan that the Obama Administration brought to the debt-ceiling fight. For a change of tone, here is a reader's argument today that su
Tea Party’s War on America You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them. These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republica
Progress Hits Snag: Tiny Chips Use Outsize Power For decades, the power of computers has grown at a staggering rate as designers have managed to squeeze ever more and ever tinier transistors onto a si
My love life hit a major speed bump last Tuesday night. As I climbed into bed that fateful evening, I had decided to slip into something a little, um, more comfortable: a Zeo head strap thingy. For those unaware, Zeo has developed a sleep system to monitor and improve your sleep patterns. The good…
The Art of Summer Music of the Spheres For most fans attending a baseball game is a summer diversion, an addiction, an act of devotion. I’m a music critic, so for me it’s something else too: an immers
The Financial Page July 25, 2011 Illustration by CHRISTOPH NIEMANN In the past few years, the U.S. economy has been beset by the subprime meltdown, skyrocketing oil prices, the Eurozone debt crisis, and even the Tohoku earthquake. Now it’s staring at a new problem—a failure to raise the debt…
Community-college students enrolled in online courses fail and drop out more often than those whose coursework is classroom-based, according to a new study released by the Community College Research Center at the Teachers College at Columbia University. To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.…
We’re twenty years in to this world wide web thing. Today, I myself celebrate twelve years of writing this blog. And yet those of us who love this medium, who’ve had our lives changed by the possibility of publishing our words to the world without having to ask permission, are constantly charged…
Comment July 18, 2011 Illustration by TOM BACHTELL In the midst of the debt crisis in Washington, D.C., Danny Hartzell backed a Budget rental truck up to a no-frills apartment building that is on a strip of motels and pawnshops in Tampa, Florida. He had been laid off by a packaging plant during the…
July 11, 2011 Leadership After you read this post, you’ll probably want to check out the follow-up, A Slopegraph Update. Back in 2004, Edward Tufte defined and developed the concept of a sparkline. (Small, word-sized charts, embedded in text or other data.) Odds are good that — if you’re reading…
The ritual of hurling people into space is ingrained in the fabric of Florida's space coast, a 40-mile strip of eastern shoreline that runs from Titusville through Cape Canaveral to Palm Bay in the south. In 1961, crowds gathered here to see Alan Shepard blast off aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket…
Online real money casino Australia Looking for the Best Online Casinos Australia 2025 for Real Money? The Australian market offers a variety of top-notch real money online casinos tailored for players who seek thrilling experiences. Whether you’re exploring casino games in Australia or aiming to…
An account of biscuit stamping, communion wafers, and whether the Oreo's success hinges on its links to the Freemasons Over at The New York Times Magazine's enjoyable 6th Floor blog, Hilary Greenbaum asks "Who made that Oreo emboss?" Oreo manhole cover, by Andrew Lewicki, an L.A.-based artist whose…
I f there’s one thing I learned in graduate school, it’s that the poet Philip Larkin was right. (“They fuck you up, your mum and dad, / They may not mean to, but they do.”) At the time, I was a new mo
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Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and, as you consider the career and future presidential prospects of an incredible American phenomenon named Michele Bachmann, do one more thing. Don’t laugh. It may be the hardest thing you ever do, for Michele Bachmann is almost certainly the funniest thing…
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