Big Pickles

If you're like most Americans, you've mastered every board of Desktop Tower Defense and are ready for something new.

Never fear, Whiteboard Tower Defense is here. I hope you weren't planning on being productive today.

Labels: games

The bailout failed in the House today, but there's still a good chance they'll rehash it until it passes.

What's crazy is that this is one argument that finds liberals and conservatives on the same side. No one wants to bail out Wall Street. I read a piece by Michael Moore this morning where, rhetoric aside, he basically agrees with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. What is the world coming to?

The only people who really want the bailout are Wall St. itself and the Bush administration.

The big question for me is why Ben Bernanke is so keen on it. If it were just Bush and his crew, a lot of Dems in congress would be more skeptical, I think. But I've heard several of them say that they trust Bernanke to be apolitical, so if he says a bailout is needed, they're inclined to believe him.

Bernanke is supposed to be this economics wonk fresh from academia, but all his colleagues seem to be against the bailout. I'd like to hear a point-by-point rebuttal from Bernanke about why he disagrees with someone like Allan Meltzer, or any one of these guys, for that matter. We need to find a way to tease out Bernanke's true motivations on this whole thing.

Glenn Greenwald lists the following ten principles for how our government functions, and how each one of them applies to the bailout.

1. Incredibly complex and consequential new laws are negotiated in secret and then enacted immediately, with no hearings, no real debate, no transparency.

2. Those who created the crisis, were wrong about everything, drive the process.

3. Public opinion is largely ignored, as always, and public anger is placated through illusory, symbolic and largely meaningless concessions.

4. The Government begins with demands for absolute power so brazen and absurd that anything, by comparison, seems reasonable.

5. Wall Street, large corporations and their lobbyists own the Federal Government and both parties, and therefore they always win.

6. The people who run the Washington Establishment are drowning in conflicts of interest.

7. For all the anger over what Wall St. has done, the Government--as it bails them out--isn't doing anything to rein in their practices.

8. When the Government wants greater and greater power and wants to engage in pure corruption, it need only put the population in extreme fear and it gets its way in every case.

9. On the most consequential and fundamental questions that define the country, the establishment/leadership of both political parties are in full agreement, and insulate themselves from any political ramifications by acting jointly.

10. Whenever you think that the Government has done things so extreme that it can't top itself--torture, theories of presidential lawbreaking, a six-year war justified by blatantly false pretenses--it always tops itself.

Labels: economics, politics

Like a lot of people out there, I'm sure, I've spent the past couple of weeks or so trying to wrap my head around this financial crisis we find ourselves in. Here's a convenient link to ten good articles of varying scope and detail about how we got into this mess.

If you aren't going to read any of those, read this one. It's short, easy to understand, and you already know the author.

Labels: economics

Schmapp!! is this super useful map program that you can download and use to see all the great tourist destinations and attractions for any city you would care to visit. I use it all the time.

Okay, I'm totally lying. I've never used it and honestly can't see that I ever would. (But you might still like it.) I'm only blogging about it because they used one of Melissa's Flickr photos for their Dallas Arts District page.

So yay, Melissa's a published photographer! Except my name is on the Flickr page, so they gave me the credit. Oh well.

For years we've been asking for more cowbell. Have we been getting it? No, we haven't.

Until today. MoreCowbell.dj is finally delivering the cowbell that we've been after all this time. You simply upload an mp3 file from your computer and then select the amount of cowbell and Christopher Walken that you feel is appropriate.

Don't hold back too much though. You're gonna want that cowbell on the track.

Here's an example:

	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

It's amazing how we will do stuff in the context of a game--especially video games--that would just be work in real life.

To wit, How To End Childhood Obesity.

I'm sure it would work, too. My mom has these Crystal Light drinks with "immunity" on the label and my kids go nuts for them. Because it's like something a video game character would drink.

Labels: food, games

I've found this procrastination flowchart to be eerily accurate.

Labels: internet

This is one of those political gotchas that's only possible because of the Internet.

You know Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speech writer, current Wall Street Journal columnist and occasional on-air conservative pundit. Here she is today in the WSJ, doing her thing, talking up Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate.

Now here she is on MSNBC, giving her true opinion about Palin in a candid conversation with fellow conservative pundit Mike Murphy and NBC analyst Chuck Todd (none of them realizes their mics are still live).

If you can't make out what she says, there are transcripts out there, and her quotes are already on her Wikipedia page (of course). Let's just say that it would appear that she doesn't believe her own rhetoric.

Labels: internet, politics

The Hidden Radio has no visible user controls. Or, you could say that the whole thing is just a big volume/tuning knob. Interesting design.

Labels: design

Now that the Olympics are over I can get back to Mad Men. This is an awesome show.

Ever since I started watching this show I've been meaning to look up the exchange rate between 1960 dollars and current dollars. I estimated it at about 10 based on clues in the show, but that felt a bit high. Turns out it's more like 7. (That's not counting any adjustment for the difference in buying power of $1 in Manhattan vs. suburban middle America, of course.)

Anyway, they talk about money a lot on this show, so you need to have some feel for how much things cost and how much people are earning. I'm sure someone else has already done this somewhere, and when I find it I'll post a link, but until then:

Don Draper makes $35,000 a year, which would be $245,000 to us. He once got a $2500 ($17,500) bonus and tried to use it to take his beatnik mistress to Paris, but she declined. So he gives her the money, tells her to buy a car, and never speaks to her again. When he makes partner he starts making as much as $45,000, or $315,000 in today's dollars. When his long lost brother tracks him down, Don gives him $5000 to leave town and never contact him again. That's $35,000 to us, and more than Pete Campbell makes in a year.

Pete Campbell starts the show making $75 a week. That's $525 to us or $27,300 a year. Not nearly enough to afford the $32,000 ($224,000) apartment his wife Trudy insists on buying. Oh, but the Realtor says they can get it for $30,000 ($210,000) so that will help. Good thing Trudy's parents can front the down payment. Pete and Trudy got a "chip & dip" for their wedding valued at $22 ($154) which he was able to exchange for a .22 rifle.

Harry Crane makes $200 ($1400) a week, and is dismayed to find out that his coworker Ken Cosgrove makes $300 ($2100). That's $72,800 and $109,200 a year to us. Luckily, Harry finds a way to impress his bosses and earn a $25/week raise ($81,900).

Peggy Olson starts out making $35 a week. That's $12,740 a year to us, and even Don is surprised to hear how little she makes. He makes it sound like she's asking a lot when she requests a $5/week raise for taking on the duties of a junior copywriter, but he probably would have given her more. Even with her raise, she's making the equivalent of $14,560 annually. No wonder she was upset when someone swiped $3 ($21) from her locker.

Don's wife, Betty has to call a tow truck when her car breaks down. He informs her that he has the part she needs in the truck, and he can fix the car on the spot for $9 ($63). That's a little more than the $4 ($28) she has in her wallet, but she manages to get by on her charm, as she always has. Later on, their son Bobby breaks the hi-fi. Betty informs Don that it will cost $18 ($126) to have it repaired, or just $9 ($63) if they want to haul it down to the shop themselves. Don doesn't.

Anyway, if you think you might want to start watching Mad Men, you should probably practice multiplying by 7 in your head. Or have a calculator handy.

Labels: tv

So I'm watching an episode of Sesame Street yesterday for the first time in years (we just replaced our TiVo, and pickings were slim) and I happened to see Tina Fey and her Bookaneers in a segment that was irresistibly cute. Then Brian Williams did a short where he says "Squid squid squid squid squid squid."



Was Sesame Street always this clever or was I just too young to appreciate it? Anyway, I know YouTube is full of classic Sesame Street clips from the 80s, but they don't have everything. Muppet Wiki to the rescue. They document everything involving Muppets, which includes every episode of Sesame Street.

Check out episode 1575, where Mr. Rogers visits Big Bird but no one believes him, just like with Snuffy. Classic.

Labels: tv, wiki

Clive Thompson compares the Weight Watchers diet to Role-Playing Games (games like Dungeons & Dragons, The Legend of Zelda, or World of Warcraft). In those games, and similar games like The Sims, you spend a lot of time doing menial, repetitive tasks in pursuit of a larger goal, and that's kind of like what counting calories is like. Plus you get better at learning strategies to maximize your fullness per points and stuff, just like a game. I can totally see it.

Incidentally, the reason I don't do WW is the same reason I avoid online RPGs like WoW. The games can be addicting, and I find that WW causes me to obsess about food to a degree that seems--I don't know--unhealthy.

Labels: food, games

At what point do we quit calling these "stairs" and just accept that it's a rock climbing wall with really well-defined holds?

Labels: pictures

Oh, so that thing is supposed to be a stack of french fries?

Melissa and I thought it was a sucker tree.

If you're at all interested in the recent Russian invasion of Georgia, what caused it and what it all means, War Nerd Gary Brecher gives a pretty good rundown of it at his blog, Exiled Online.

It's a fun read, but pretty irreverent. You've been warned.

Labels: news

...from just one letter from the movie poster.

Seems impossible, but you'll be surprised how many of these you know. I got 14.

ETA: Here's a hint. If no. 29 were a Jeopardy answer, it would be in the category "Stupid Answers."

Labels: movies

You've probably heard about US Men's Volleyball head coach Hugh McCutcheon, who is taking leave from coaching the Olympic team because his wife's parents were attacked in China.

During my freshman year at BYU, McCutcheon was an assistant coach for the BYU Men's volleyball team, and I took a couple of his PE classes. I just wanted to say what an awesome teacher he was. That was some of the most fun I ever had in college, not to mention the best volleyball I ever played.

During a scrimmage late in the semester, this one hot shot on the opposing team spiked the ball hard in my direction. Through a combination of involuntary reflexes and blind luck, I was able to make the dig and keep the ball in play. After the point, McCutcheon walked over to me and told me that it was a great play, but he didn't like my attitude. After a dig like that, he said, I needed to get in the face of the hitter and let him know just how much I enjoyed denying him the satisfaction of a clean kill.

That's probably what I liked best about him. He enjoyed cutting the cocky guys down to size and giving the quieter players the recognition they weren't claiming for themselves.

Labels: sports

I first came across this article a couple of years ago, but I was reminded of it again somewhat recently. I don't think I've blogged about it before, but if I have you'll forgive the repetition.

Repenting Hyperopia

This article proposes that supposedly farsighted (hyperopic) choices of virtue over vice evoke increasing regret over time. We demonstrate that greater temporal separation between a choice and its assessment enhances the regret (or anticipated regret) of virtuous decisions (e.g., choosing work over pleasure). We argue that this finding reflects the differential impact of time on the affective determinants of self-control regrets. In particular, we show that greater temporal perspective attenuates emotions of indulgence guilt but accentuates wistful feelings of missing out on the pleasures of life. We examine alternative explanations, including action versus inaction regrets and levels of construal.

(Emphasis mine.)

I think this article is interesting because it touches on something that I've felt and a lot of people I've talked to have felt, but rarely gets any press. Some of the work/life balance stuff out there gets close, I think ("Nobody on their death bed ever wished they spent more time in the office.") but those ideas are usually still expressed in a forward-looking context.

One example where I've seen this play out is by talking to former mission companions. Almost all of them have expressed regret for being so concerned about the rules and less focused on the immediate experience. If they could go back, they say, they would worry less about following the rules exactly and spend more time helping people and even having fun.

(Interestingly, I heard this advise repeatedly before my mission, from returned missionaries, but I largely ignored it. The incessant call for exact obedience from the leadership has much more sway with a new missionary who just wants to do the right thing.)

Obviously, the consequences of short-sighted decision making are real and can be dire, so I'm not advocating "eat, drink and be merry" by any means. I'm just saying that warnings against such may be over-represented, and that it might not hurt to remember that as life goes on, we value the memories of those times when we lived it up maybe a little too much over the memories of when we were careful and prudent.

...XKCD-style.

This morning when I checked the site he had just over 1400 donors. Now he has over 2300. Not bad for one day's work.

Labels: politics

Maybe you've seen this before, but it was new to me. VideoJug is chock full of instructional videos about how to do most anything. I ended up there while looking for instructions on how to operate a Trangia stove.

It appears to be British or European in origin, and professionally done. Some of them are pretty funny.

Labels: internet, video