feed the monkey

Towards a Subversive-Free internet.

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:13:20 -0400

Imagine you’re walking down the street and you say out loud, “Down with the government!” For all non-megastars, the vast majority of people within earshot will have no idea who you are. They won’t have access to your employment history or your social network or any of the other things that a Google search allows one to find. The only information they really have about you is your physical characteristics and mode of dress, which are data-rich but which cannot be directly or easily connected to your actual identity.

…
On the boulevards and town squares of Facebook, you can’t just say, “Down with the government,” with the knowledge that only a small percentage of the people who hear you could connect your statement to you…The pseudonym advocates note that being allowed to pick and choose a different name solves some of these problems. One can choose to tightly couple one’s real-world identity and online identity… or not. One can choose to have multiple identities for separate networks. In the language we were using earlier, pseudonyms allow statements to be public and persistent, but not attached to one’s real identity.

This is a problem to the extent that social activity online exists entirely within G+ and Facebook, which is why, as disgusting as it often is, a place like 4chan has real value. The online world can’t be subversive-free.

"The central irony of financial crises is that they are caused by too much borrowing, too much..."

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:43:00 -0400

““The central irony of financial crises is that they are caused by too much borrowing, too much confidence and too much spending, and they are solved by more confidence, more borrowing and more spending.””

- -Larry Summers.

[ed - That’s two Larry Summers quotations in two weeks. Time to slow down.]

Yes, you can bring a Goat into an Apple Store (h/t Gothamist).

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:23:00 -0400

Yes, you can bring a Goat into an Apple Store (h/t Gothamist).

"Because there was no real reason to kill this ant (it wasn’t in her house or threatening her..."

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:24:23 -0400

““Because there was no real reason to kill this ant (it wasn’t in her house or threatening her in any way) I read it as an act of existential revenge for what life had done to her body.””

- - Charles Mudede, satisfying his “write one gloriously crazy and inappropriate post per week” quota over at The Stranger

The American People Are An Ever More Spherical People

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:19:00 -0400

Yglesias, quoting some fancy study:

Within the course of the 20th century the American population went through a virtual metamorphosis from being the tallest in the world, to being among the most overweight. The American height advantage over Western and Northern Europeans was between 3 and 9 cm in mid-19th century, and Americans tended to be underweight. However, today, the exact opposite is the case as the Dutch, Swedes, and Norwegians are the tallest, and the Danes, British and Germans — even the East-Germans — are also taller, towering over the Americans by as much as 3–7 cm. Americans also have shorter lives. The hypothesis is worth considering that this adverse development is related to the greater social inequality, an inferior health care system, and fewer social safety nets in the United States than in Western and Northern Europe, in spite of higher per capita income.

We’re getting shorter, but at least we’re getting fatter. We still have the most mass!

parislemon: benkessler: [Click to Enlarge] Windows v. Mac at...

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:05:34 -0400

parislemon:

benkessler:

[Click to Enlarge]

Windows v. Mac at McDonald’s.

/via Josh Helfferich

Perhaps the best representation of Windows vs. Mac that I’ve ever seen. And it comes via a McDonald’s pamphlet.

I also love that step 1 for the Mac is to turn your AirPort on. In other words, for 99% of people, the Mac setup is actually only two steps: connect, and open a web browser.

Gojee: A Promising Food Site

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:41:15 -0400

Gojee: A Promising Food Site:

Enter an ingredient you’re in the mood to cook, and Gojee searches a well-curated selection of image-rich food blogs for a recipe that uses that ingredient. You also have the option of inputting the contents of your pantry, so Gojee will focus its results on using what you’ve got. Gojee knows I have quinoa and garlic, and was in the mood for an egg dish, and so, Quinoa Falafel w/ Tahini Sauce…

…among dozens of other results, all of which look good, in that they are handsomely presented, and seem to be good recipes. I’m quite impressed with the blogs the results are pulled from (Food52 and Not Eating Out In New York are personal favorites), as well as the sites they don’t pull from (Food Network, Allrecipes).

The future of the company is linking the “what you have in stock” portion of the site to your loyalty card at your grocery store, so you don’t have to manually update it as you buy new things. This seems like a cool feature that won’t get very far. (No loyalty card for the garden, farmer’s market, etc.).

Never Forget

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:17:00 -0400

Now that he seems to have descended into general tackiness, it’s more important than ever to remember that when Dennis Rodman was a crucial piece of the best basketball team ever, he used his time in the spotlight to be the weirdest, boundary-shiftingest sports star ever. Too many days pass without this being mentioned. It’s like it never happened. And now that he’s buried his makeup bag, we risk forgetting entirely. NEVER FORGET.

Weird Rodman, RIP.

The River, Part 1

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:22:13 -0400

I was very late to Bruce.

This was not for lack of opportunity. At sixteen, I got deep into Ryan Adams. I loved, and still love, Heartbreaker, a fine alt-country specimen. But I took more slowly to the follow-up record, Gold, in large part because everyone said he had abandoned alt-country for the sounds of Springsteen. To me, this was a self-apparently bad move. I have no memory of deciding that Bruce was lame. It seems like something I always knew, a fact inherited from everything. Eventually, I came around on Gold, but that never made me re-think my reflexive distaste for Bruce.

Freshman year of college, I had a fanatic on my hall, and older guy who I looked up to, and whose musical taste I was interested in. He got me into political rap (“Makeshift patriot, the flag shop is out of stock, I hang myself at half mast”) and Opeth (“warghghgh, wraaarwwwwghrghhg”), but he loved nothing more than Bruce. I couldn’t buy in. I sat through a few forced listening sessions, but I tuned out within the first thirty seconds. To me, Bruce might as well have been the Bee Gees, or Rod Stewart, or Bonnie Raitt. Someone you pretended to like to be contrarian, at best.

About a year ago, I discovered my error. It was a large error. Darkness On The Edge of Town and Born To Run are exactly as good as they are said to be. Darkness might be a top 10 record. Definitely top 20.

There was no interesting evolution, no good story of how I realized my earlier stupidity. Pitchfork ran a review of the re-release of Darkness, so I gave it a fresh listen, and I was blown away. And in truth, I have no regrets about coming around so late. I hope I keep realizing that artists I’ve hated posses months worth of back-catalogue glories. Every time it’s happened so far, I’ve had the fun of experiencing a convert’s zeal, a depth of feeling that gets harder and harder to muster for music as I get older. The list of my conversions reads like a list of my favorite artists (50 and older category):

Beach Boys*
Willie Nelson
James Taylor
Conway Twitty
Bruce Springsteen

After falling so hard for Darkness, I was pumped to see what happened next. Unfortunately, what happened next is The River. It is bloated. It is cheesy. It has great songs. Quite a few, in fact. And while I like it, it is bad. Not like, doesn’t live up to Darkness bad. It’s the kind of bad that makes me remember why I spent 24 years already having always known that Bruce was lame. And so I’ve retired from the Bruce catalog exploration business, for fear that every further foray will damage my ears for his good stuff.

And yet, these days, when I want to listen to Bruce, I turn to The River.

Check Back For The River, Part 2.

*I never actually hated the Beach Boys, I just spent ten years assuming that I had only liked them when I was six because I was six. Obviously any mature Dashboard Confessional fan would clearly have outgrown the angelic tones and zany sound effects and surf-o-centric content of the Beach Boys. Obvo. (“So kiss me hard ‘cause this will be the last time that I let you!!!!”)

Bartlett: Obama is a Conservative President

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:47:32 -0400

Truth:

Liberals hoped that Obama would overturn conservative policies and launch a new era of government activism. Although Republicans routinely accuse him of being a socialist, an honest examination of his presidency must conclude that he has in fact been moderately conservative to exactly the same degree that Nixon was moderately liberal.

Here are a few examples of Obama’s effective conservatism:

His stimulus bill was half the size that his advisers thought necessary;

He continued Bush’s war and national security policies without change and even retained Bush’s defense secretary;

He put forward a health plan almost identical to those that had been supported by Republicans such as Mitt Romney in the recent past, pointedly rejecting the single-payer option favored by liberals;

He caved to conservative demands that the Bush tax cuts be extended without getting any quid pro quo whatsoever;

And in the past few weeks he has supported deficit reductions that go far beyond those offered by Republicans.

…
Conservatives will, of course, scoff at the idea of Obama being any sort of conservative, just as liberals scoffed at Nixon being any kind of liberal. But with the benefit of historical hindsight, it’s now obvious that Nixon was indeed a moderate liberal in practice. And with the passage of time, it’s increasingly obvious that Clinton was essentially an Eisenhower Republican. It may take 20 years before Obama’s basic conservatism is widely accepted as well, but it’s a fact.

Owning a home: good for people who are bad at saving money, but not good for much else.

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:32:10 -0400

Owning a home: good for people who are bad at saving money, but not good for much else.:

According to a newly released study, renting has been the better economic decision for the last thirty years. Felix Salmon defends home ownership:

[A] mortgage is a commitment device. You’re forced to spend all that money on your mortgage each month; if on the other hand you rent, you’re very likely to simply spend the excess, rather than save it.

I am bad at saving, but good at paying bills on time, so home ownership makes sense for me. For those built of stronger stuff, renting seems to be the way to go.

"I am only just barely managing to resist a late-night urge to rename this blog “Shabby Articles of..."

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 01:07:55 -0400

“I am only just barely managing to resist a late-night urge to rename this blog “Shabby Articles of Self.”

Time I understand it, but I never choose it. I can’t...

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 21:01:00 -0400

Time I understand it, but I never choose it.

I can’t explain it with words, I have to do it.

…

Up on the racks, old school cat from way back,

I gave him my meal, cuz he’s not right, but that’s just my impression.

He ask me ‘how you float all sharp and always have a fesh one,

And seem to know the answer to the most proverbial questions?’

I told him ‘wind the etch and swirl it in a book of sketches,’

I find the diamond underneath the subtlest inflections.

When you’re right, your’re right.

SONG OF THE WEEK

"One of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and..."

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:24:00 -0400

““One of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday afternoon at three o’clock, there are two possibilities. One is that they are looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an asshole.””

- - Larry Summers, regarding the Winklevoss twins

h/t Doug J, who makes another good point:

Is There Any Ceiling For Apple?

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:46:04 -0400

If so, Gruber doesn’t see it yet:

Apple is to the post-PC era what Microsoft and Intel combined were for the PC era. They control the dominant software platform and reap the majority of the profits from hardware. When people argue that Apple has somehow already grown as big as it can get, they’re not seeing the size of the opportunity that remains ahead. Imagine how big a combined Microsoft and Intel would have been 20 years ago. Then consider that the post-PC/mobile market is going to be bigger than the PC market.

Apple’s ceiling won’t be defined by other hardware manufacturers. Unless Google and Amazon become hardware manufacturers. Which they might.

Like Parents Fighting, A Review

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:06:00 -0400

The epic (to me) war of ideas between personal internet heroes Matt Yglesias and Ta-Nehisi Coates seems to be winding down. Yglesias won, and TNC looked unusually mean. In case you weren’t playing along at home, here’s a links-only recap. It’s worth your time.

Background: “A Population Changes, Uneasily,” NYT

Yglesias’s initial thoughts: “Are Successful Property Owners The Victims of Gentrification?”

TNC’s initial criticism: “Our Technocratic Overlords” [ouch]

Yglesias’s first response: “The Conservative Alternative To Progressive Neoliberalism” [zing]

TNC comes back again, but weaker: “Our Technocratic Overlords, Cont.”

TNC, realizing he had gotten better than he gave, giving it another go: “A Hard Look At Gentrification”

Yglesias, having long ago won the policy battle, also wins our hearts and minds: “In Defense of Chart Reading”

"She taught me how to breathe according to the basic principles of 19th century health guru F.M...."

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:14:44 -0400

“She taught me how to breathe according to the basic principles of 19th century health guru F.M. Alexander, and reintroduced me to my neglected spine, which I had long treated as a kind of hat-rack for my sundry, shabby articles of self.”

- Colson Whitehead, Occasional Dispatches From The Republic of Anhedonia, Part 2

G+ Peep Shows, Coming Soon

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:09:00 -0400

G+ Peep Shows, Coming Soon:

This is a neat idea:

As a Lifehacker user pointed out, the Hangouts are perfect for an impromptu video surveillance system. You will need two Google+ accounts to make this work — one for the camera side and another to view the stream. But that shouldn’t be that big of an issue. Simply start a Hangout on one side and then email yourself the URL. Once you’re at work, or wherever, just open the link to look through the other side of the portal.

This will not end well.

A Nuanced Look At Gentrification

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:14:00 -0400

Lest it seemed that Ta-Nehisi Coates’s position on gentrification was one-sided and simplistic, it’s worth taking the time to read his full thoughts. Highlights below:

A slew of newspaper articles have been written on the subject which assume the truth of gentrification. But any proponent of the gentrification thesis (explicit or implicit) needs to fully explore and answer the following question—Is white migration into the city forcing black migration back out?

Speaking as though this is the case because it “feels true” isn’t evidence. Indeed it’s the flip side of blaming white migration to the suburbs on riotous criminally inclined blacks.

I don’t say this so much in defense of hipster interlopers, as I do in opposition to the theory that black people are, solely, that which is acting upon them. Understanding the vestiges of white supremacy, isn’t the same as understanding black people. There needs to be a lot more agency in this discussion. There also needs to be a lot less nostalgia.

TNC comes back, again and again, to the point I’ve bolded above. It’s an important one.

It’s far too easy and comfortable to conflate an understanding of black people with a list of historical and structural ills that act against them. While this is usually a sympathetic move, it blots out agency, humanity, and nuance, just the same as racism.

Well this is a soul-crushing hypothetical.

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:51:04 -0400

Well this is a soul-crushing hypothetical.:

The thought honestly had not occurred to me.

rossneumann:

It’s always dangerous to ask this question when it comes to history (especially recent history) but it’s one worth asking when it comes to the revolution in the Middle East.

What if the US had never invaded Iraq? Would Iraq be going through its own revolution right now and would that revolution have taken down Saddam Hussein without a single American boot setting foot in Iraq?

It’s not a crazy hypothetical. Although the usual talking heads were initially skeptical of a fruit seller’s self-immolation catalyzing a real movement, the collapse of Hosni Mubarak’s 30 year old regime in Egypt, a country that was the standard of culture and stability in the Middle East, proved that no dictator, no matter how entrenched, was safe. Now, with Moammar Gadhafi (another dictator celebrating a stint in power spanning decades) resorting to gunships to quell protests in Libya along with major protests in Yemen, the relatively weaker dominos in the region are starting to tumble as well.

To keep with the hackneyed metaphor, Saddam actually would have been more likely to be the second dictatorial domino to topple after Tunisia than either Mubarak or Gadhafi. He was a long sitting ruler (would be over 21 years in power were it not for the invasion), ruled a country plagued by strong unemployment (somewhere in the astronomically high 50% range before the war), suffered from a weak economy and terrorized a society with a highly repressed majority. To put it in perspective, Mubarak’s regime still managed to fall apart despite having an unemployment rate of only 9.7% in 2010 and benefitting from a culture that provides a strong degree of societal cohesion across ethnic and religious divides. On top of all this, Saddam’s primary tool of deterrence, the military, would only have inflamed protests were it deployed as evidenced by events in Libya. In all likelihood Saddam would have been a victim of the Jasmine Revolution.

But beyond asking whether Saddam could have been overthrown by his own people instead of through American intervention, you also have to ask whether a revolution would have left Iraq better off than it is today. It is certainly fair to say that a grassroots movement which removed Saddam would have left behind, inadvertently, the same damaging power vacuum created by the United States’ dismantling of the Iraqi army and political class. Yes, there would have been sectarian strife and looting and likely widespread chaos, but one has to wonder if a bottom up revolution might have been the crucible such a divided society needed to see each other not as Sunnis or Shias or Kurds, but as Iraqis.

Of course, we can only ever guess at what might have happened had things gone differently. Nevertheless, from an American perspective, I can give you 4,408 reasons why a revolution in Iraq is one “what if” I wish was reality.