A Few Recent Interesting Reads

[with many more in Pocket waiting for me]

-Esquire: The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden... Is Screwed

The man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden sat in a wicker chair in my backyard, wondering how he was going to feed his wife and kids or pay for their medical care.

-Wired: New Mars Meteorite Contains 10 Times More Water Than Previous Finds 

 

-PSMag: The Formula [about the Gini number] 

-Baffler: The Long Con: Mail-order conservatism 

-The Atlantic: Life Inside the Aaron Swartz Investigation (by Quinn Norton) and Editor's Note to Quinn Norton's Account of the Aaron Swartz Investigation 

-NYT Magazine: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food 

-Terry Gross interview with Chris Hayes on Fresh Air [podcast] 

-MJ: The NRA Myth of Gun-Free Zones 

-BBC: New music 'rewarding for the brain' 

-NYT: Reasons Not to Stretch 

-SciAm: New Science Shows How Maggots Heal Wounds 

-Berkeley Wellness Letter: Is Inflammation the Root of All Disease? -> an idea I've been exploring recently is along these lines. Is it that diseases is bad or is the bigger problem the response our bodies have to infection/disease? Seems like it is the body's response is the problem and generally it is an inflammation response. 

-PhysOrg: Researchers use Moore's Law to calculate that life began before Earth existed [could support the "seeding" theory of life on Earth. If Universe is 14 billion yrs old then took 4 billion years for first life to appear then it scattered through the universe if this hypothesis is correct] 

-Wired: In the Programmable World, All Our Objects Will Act as One 

-PhyOrg: High home ownership can seriously damage your labour market, new study shows 

-PSMag: John McEnroe and the Sadness of Greatness 

-Nature: Geology: North America's broken heart

Aquaponics and Agroferstry News

below are some of the links I have been reading recently about aquaponics and agroforestry:

-John Robb: One Way to Make Aquaponics Easier

-SFGate: Aquaponics: Water plus fish poop grows plants (about the Aquafarm)

-IOL: Farming fish and plants side by side

-TimesFreePress: Aquaponics farms to be made in the Chattanooga region

-Resilience: Small Scale Aquaponics – From Fish Poop to Seafood Dinner

-Boulder County Business Report: Fresh fish: Bernsteins hooked on growing aquaponics business [about The Aquaponics Source]

-IBM's Smartplanet: Can aquaponics feed the German capital?

-Resilience.org: Small Scale Aquaponics – From Fish Poop to Seafood Dinner

-Resilience.org: Agroforestry: The Art of Farming With Trees

-WI Public Radio: Aquaponics Advocates Ramp Up Efforts To Raise Yellow Perch

-Gizmag: Aqualibrium uses fish to grow plants, and plants to grow fish

-MichTech: From Sustainability Demo to Fish Taco: Aquaponics at Michigan Tech

-USDA: Hooked on Aquaponics

-USDA: Agforesrty: USDA Reports to America [pdf]

-Thomson/Reuters Foundation: Agroforestry can transform rural economies - climate experts

-Treehugger: Aqualibrium Garden: modular aquaponics for growing food in apartments

-3P: How Aquaponics Makes Commercial Urban Agriculture Possible

-Inter-Faith Food Shuttle: Ef-FISH-ient Food: Mohan and Ben’s Aquaponics Adventure

-Sustainable Business Oregon: Aquaponics company launches hyper-local food in Bend -> about Volcano Veggies

-TheDay (CT): Stonington High graduate developing aquaponics farm -> about Fish Your Food, aquaponics in a shipping container

Our Amazing World

A few things that have made this year Amazing (so far).

-a baby was cured of HIV (NYT)

-LED light bulbs are now less than $10 (TechReview)

-a meteorite was filmed by a lot of people (AtlanticWire)

-you can order a drone that fits in your hand (Wired)

-a person had 75% of their skull replaced via 3D printer (SydneyMorningHerald)

-anything can be 3D scanned and then 3D printed (Verge)

-two rats had their brains connected across the Internet (Wired)

-teleportation across a lake (Ars)

Science Of Interest

[Recent links of scientific interest, and by recent I mean since March, 2011]

-SciAm: Bison versus Mammoths: New Culprit in the Disappearance of North America's Giants

-NewSci: Vikings' crystal clear method of navigation

-NPR: New 'Giant' Species Of Crayfish Found In Tennessee Creek

-Wired: Shark Teeth Found Stuck in Ancient Ammonite Shell

-80Beats: Scientists Find First Evidence That Weather Affects Movement of Tectonic Plates

-SurprisingScience: Gigantic Plume Beneath Yellowstone Now Even More Gigantic

-The Rach 3 recordings page

-Wired: Gut-Bacteria Mapping Finds Three Global Varieties

-80Beats: Ancient Stone Structures Herded Gazelles to Mass Slaughter [like Lake Huron?]

-SciAm: How Science Stopped BP's Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

-Time: More Proof That Vikings Were First to America

...a small group of Icelanders — roughly 350 in total — carried a lineage known as C1, usually seen only in Asians and Native Americans.

-PhysOrg: New theory proposed to explain Pioneer probe gravitational anomaly

-Wired: Lava Lamp Action Helped Create Grand Canyon

-USGS: US Topo – A New National Map Series

-Dr. Jeff: America's Achilles' heel: the Mississippi River's Old River Control Structure

-Spacenews: U.S. Weather Satellites Saw Tornado Swarm Coming 5 Days Out

-TR: Atmosphere Above Japan Heated Rapidly Before M9 Earthquake

-Wired: Hot, Rocky Pancake Formed Hawaiian Islands

-Wired: Humans Could Have Geomagnetic Sight

-SciAm: The Behavioral Immune System

-EarthSky: Discovery of new force driving Earth’s tectonic plates

-BBC: Gravity satellite yields 'Potato Earth' view

-EarthSky: MIT discovery: A drug to cure nearly any virus

-SciAm: Solar System Likely Once Had Another Gas-Giant Planet

-Wired: Recent Human Evolution Detected in Quebec Town History

-Wired: Ozone Gas May Signal Coming Earthquakes

-EarthSky: Was a fifth gas giant ejected from our solar system?

-Wired: Multicellular Life Evolves in Laboratory

-PhysOrg: Anthropologists clarify link between Asians and early Native-Americans: A tiny mountainous region in southern Siberia may have been the genetic source of the earliest Native Americans, according to new research by a University of Pennsylvania-led team of anthropologists.

-WaPo: Radical theory of first Americans places Stone Age Europeans in Delmarva 20,000 years ago

-Smithsonian | Surprising Science: Clovis People Hunted Canada’s Camels

-EarthSky: Correlation between tornadoes and activity recorded by seismographs
[very interesting that seismographs picked up noise before the tornadoes formed]

-Atlantic: Superweeds: A Long-Predicted Problem for GM Crops Has Arrived

-PhysOrg: How religion promotes confidence about paternity [in other words, the world's major religions were founded to keep control of women's sexuality]

-PhysOrg: Research finds Stonehenge was monument marking unification of Britain

-Wired: Spectacularly Preserved Fossil Suggests Most Dinosaurs Were Feathered

-Discover/80Beats: Star Formation is Coming to a Close

-Wired: Top Scientific Discoveries of 2012

-Ars: No absolutes: How shifting plates completely remake the Earth

-SciAm: The Most Fascinating Human Evolution Discoveries of 2012

Recent Long And Interesting Reads

-Outside: The Workout that Time Forgot [about MovNat camp; or adventure playgrounds for adults]

-FoodInJars: A Field Guide to Jars

-CanadianBusiness: Decades later, a Cold War secret is revealed [backstory on the KH-9 satellites]

-NYTMagazine: How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body
[reminded me of a line from 'Born To Run' - “Forget yoga. Every runner I know who does yoga gets hurt.” Also, CNN did a segment on the article and interviewed a former classmate of mine]

-NYTMagazine: Carrie Brownstein Starter Kit
[not surprised that we are both KITH fans]

-Smithsonian: The Most Terrible Polar Exploration Ever: Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic Journey

-NYT: Spirit of a Racer in a Dog’s Blood

-GQ: The Gary Oldman Story That Almost Wasn't

related interview with Charlie Rose from 2/22/2012

-Wired: The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)

-Prospect: Wolves to the Slaughter
This applies to deer hunting in Michigan too:

What the elk-hunting industry wants... is hunting that requires no effort and little skill, a kind of vanity hunting.

-Outside: On the Trail of the White Horse | Searching for Caballo Blanco

-NYT: Caballo Blanco’s Last Run: The Micah True Story

-FC: The Lost Steve Jobs Tapes

-Smithsonian: Matt Groening Reveals the Location of the Real Springfield

-GQ: The Man Who Hacked Hollywood

-Crain's Chicago: Sears – where America shopped [the story of the decline of Sears]

-NYMag: Born This Way: The new weird science of hardwired political identity

-NYT: As Bison Return to Prairie, Some Rejoice, Others Worry

-TheAtlantic: How Vegetable Oils Replaced Animal Fats in the American Diet

-NaturalRunningCenter: Bill Bowerman, His Wife’s Waffle Iron, Nike’s Early Days and Birth of the Modern Running Shoe

-NYT: Finding the First Americans

-NakedCapitalsim: Malcolm Gladwell Unmasked: A Look Into the Life & Work of America’s Most Successful Propagandist [I've always found MG a good writer but a less than convincing theorist]

-Fortune: The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal

Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.

-Slate: Why YKK? The mysterious Japanese company behind the world’s best zippers.

-FastCoCreate: Wes Anderson Maps Out The Peculiar Genius Of "Moonrise Kingdom"

-VF: Investigation: Mitt Romney’s Offshore Accounts, Tax Loopholes, and Mysterious I.R.A.

-ProPublica: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Voter ID Laws

-Reuters Special Report: How Washington went soft on childhood obesity

-The Daily Traveler Interview with Alton Brown: Alton Brown on Flying, Airplane Food, and Why Frosting Is Definitely Not a Gel  and  Alton Brown on the Importance of Slow Travel and Staticky Radio

-AdWeek: 'Good Eats' Host Gives Adweek the Dish on His Media Habits

-Smithsonian: Why Are Jim Thorpe’s Olympic Records Still Not Recognized?

-Wired: Biophysicist Opens Genomic Black Box, Finds Ramen Noodles

-Prospect UK: Why are languages so different—and disorderly?

-RS: Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital

-Zagat: Alton Brown on Next Iron Chef: Redemption, How Food TV Has Changed and More

-FP: The Nudgy State: How five governments are using behavioral economics to encourage citizens to do the right thing

-NYT: Snow Fall: The Avalanches at Tunnel Creek [beautiful use of HTML5 too]

-Atlantic: When the Nerds Go Marching In: How a dream team of engineers from Facebook, Twitter, and Google built the software that drove Barack Obama's reelection

Things To Be Happy About

Between 1991-1995 I compiled and kept a list of things I was happy about as a response to the book '14,000 Things To Be Happy About'

Today is a good day to re-visit that list, presented here as it was:

• late night outdoor basketball
• snow storms
• skyscrapers
• a fine cup of coffee
• driving cross country
• catalog shopping
• liz phair songs
• cedar point
• ayn rand novels
• falling in love in the spring (or any time)
• freshly cut flowers displayed in a vase
• vinyl records
• achievement
• AUDI V8 quattro
• sioux city sarsasparilla
• all you can eat buffets
• Calvin and Hobbes comic strip books
• the smell of burning leaves at dusk on a crisp Autumn night
• seeing a live performance of a band you love
• taking late night walks down the middle of the street in the summer
• doubleheader baseball games that last way into the night
• ice skating on a neighborhood pond
• sipping hot tea on a cold, wet afternoon as you look out the window
• campfires
• boating in Lake Erie, Michigan, or any special lake in the Great Lakes region
• baseball lingo
• Kids In The Hall
• porchin'
• a sudden evening severe thunderstorm to conclude a hot summer day
• a nice car with a nice stereo
• the British Isles
• draining puss
• drinking cold well water from a garden hose
• relaxing with a friend and smoking a cigar
• warm summer days and cool summer nights
• that empty feeling
• femininity
• using a precise scientific measuring device such as a Brunton compass
• a cottage on the lake
• finding money you had forgotten about
• returning home
• home run derby
• riding your bike on deserted streets at night
• your favorite comforter
• chicken and broccoli
• parody and sarcasm
• cute as a button girls
• art, especially architecture, that gives you an esthetically overwhelming feeling and you say "that's so cool!"
• kisses and kissing
• tennis on cool evenings under the lights, the U.S. Open would be an example.
• wood burning stoves
• chocolate
• the sounds a furnace makes between running
• chopping wood
• driving at night with your high beams on when it snows
• bundling up against the cold
• wool pants
• trivia
• the crackling sound of lightning when listening to A.M. radio
• A.M. talk radio
• ice
• the first snow of the year
• hot spiced cider
• potato soup
• table tennis
• making lists
• driving on summer nights with the windows down
• going to the library
• swimming in the rain (especially at night)
• PowerMac
• sitting at a large frosty window of a coffee house with a big bowl of hot cocoa as jumbo flakes of snow fall outside
• natural materials
• reading a quality morning newspaper before starting the day
• watching women's tennis
• daylight savings time

Unusual Trades In Baseball History

For only the fifth time in Major League Baseball history, a player was traded as compensation for a manager.

The Boston Red Sox sent Mike Aviles to the Toronto Blue Jays and in return received a pitcher and the Blue Jays manager John Farrell.

See NYT: Red Sox Make a Trade to Get a New Manager

However, the most unique baseball trade involved the legendary Ernie Harwell. In 1948 he became the only broadcaster to ever be traded for a player when Branch Rickey acquired him from Atlanta (source: USAToday).

Boats Are The Antithesis Of Performance

Boats. Yachts. Once a person gets one they can't stop thinking of it. It steals their free moments and their concentration. You can't think of anything else. You have fallen in love.

But a boat is different from a lover in that is not hidden. A boat makes a siren call to you and everyone knows it. Or should know it.

Linking poor performance to yacht purchases is a well known phenomenon. See Slate: The CEO Bought a Yacht?: Then it's time to sell.

I mention this because the Florida Marlins fired Ozzie Guillen as their manager after one dismal year.

Last fall after the White Sox let him go, he talked about buying a 62 foot boat then the Marlins hired him. And he got his boat and his Miami dock slip for the boat. And the Marlins had a horrible season.

This should not have surprised anyone.

One Day I'll Be Obsessed With That

I might be just a little obsessed with Sharon Van Etten's 'One Day' from her album Epic.

That is if listening to a song every day and finding as many live versions as possible can be considered obsessed. This is one of those rare songs that never becomes tiresome and I get some new insight from each performance.

There are times when I sing along and the thought I have is "this is the perfect song".

But maybe that is just me.

Some of my favorite performances:

 


Sharon Van Etten performs 'One Day' for WBEZ from WBEZ on Vimeo.

powered by Splicd.com

For me, the song puts me in the mind of of my favorite sonnet. 'I Know I Am But Summer to your Heart' by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The use of the seasons as metaphors for seasons of love and the wish that just as summer comes after winter, love can return after leaving.

Here is Edna in 1922:

I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of spring. 

Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.

And here is Sharon:

Snow is outside but I'm by your fire I feel all the love you'll bring
You gotta see how we can see this out
Summer in mind and spring by your side
You'll see all the love we'll keep
Gotta see that we couldn't be there 

Here is a different St. Vincent performing 'Surgeon', one of my top songs of 2011.

Beer Today

Some craft beer news->

-NPR: Canning Factories On Wheels Rev Up The Beer 'Canvolution'

-"Craft Beer" and "Gastropub" added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary

-BeerAdvocate: Number of US brewers reaches 125-year high with 2,126 open and 1,252 in planning

-NPR: Home Brew Petitioners To POTUS: Release The Beer Recipe and SF Weekly: Sign a Petition to Release the White House Honey Ale Recipe

Lyme Disease And Top Predators

Lyme disease is a growing problem, reaching epidemic status in some areas.

See:
NPR SciFri: Tick Talk: Lyme Disease Under The Microscope
Vancouver Sun: B.C. must act to combat Lyme 'disease explosion,' scientist says

The most common explanation is that warmer winters lead to better survivability and hence a growing range for the disease. I took CDC data from 2001 - 2010 to show the change in reported Lyme disease cases from 2001 - 2010:

 
The NYT reports on a new study indicating a plausible relationship between coyotes and foxes and Lyme disease carrying white footed mice: Predators, Prey and Lyme Disease

The hypothesis is with coyotes expanding east they are displacing foxes. And since mice are a main component in the fox diet this change in the top predator is contributing to a decline in mice mortality and this leads to more cases of Lyme disease because there are more mice.

Why are coyotes expanding their range to the Eastern U.S.?
[NatGeo: Coyotes Now at Home in Eastern U.S.]

Prior to 1850 coyotes lived in the plains and western U.S.
[via NWF]

While the wolf was top predator for most of the United States
 
 [via NPS]
(the lack of wolves in the southeast United States could be due to this being part of the historical range of Mountain Lions)

Wolves and foxes occupy different niches in the ecological ladder and are able to coexist in a shared habitat whereas coyotes occupy the range between these Canids hence wolves/coyotes and coyotes/foxes compete with each other for the same food with the smaller species the loser in these interactions. By extirpating wolves from their historic range beginning around 1850 humans set the stage for the expansion of coyotes. As coyotes became the top predators the fox populations declined. As this happened the population of the favorite foods of wolves and foxes exploded (deer and mice). As these former prey populations have grown so have their ability to be disease vectors.

The Inter-connectedness of Things

Therefore, the killing of wolves has likely led to a potential lyme disease epidemic.

An unbalanced ecosystem missing its top predator is nudged by the perturbation of climate chaos; and the result is an explosion in cases of Lyme disease.

"The Earth isn't fragile; we are"

Bio News

Some recent news about putting biology to work in areas I get excited about. Biofuels (specifically biobutanol) and aquaponics (aquaculture + hydroponics).

(Biofuels)
DesMoinesRegister: Ethanol plants may shift to biobutanol

GCC: Study finds biomass-to-liquids fuels could be economically competitive at current price levels

SciAm: First Dedicated Biorefinery Could Wean Hawaii Off Imported Oil

Record-Eagle: Teacher to launch biodiesel fuel plant

(Aquaponics)
UpNorthLive: Grand Traverse Academy Starts Aquaponics

HuffPost: A Tour Of Chicago's Amazing Vertical Farm

The Plant is a fish hatchery, hydroponic garden, commercial kitchen, and brewery for both beer and kombucha tea. Perhaps best of all, the waste from one part of farm serves as raw material for another, making it a net-zero energy system...

 The Plant (official site)

This Is What Peak Oil Looks Like

These things are related.

1. TheAtlanticWire: Suddenly, the United Arab Emirates Is Interested in Green Energy

2. ArsTechnica: We've hit "peak oil"; now comes permanent price volatility

Since 2005, the global production of oil has remained relatively flat, peaking in 2008 and declining since, even as demand for petroleum has continued to increase. The result has been wild fluctuations in the price of oil as small changes in demand set off large shocks in the system.

3. Total Vehicle Miles peaked in 2005 and have declined since then.
Federal Highway Administration

Projecting The Economic Gains Of Nationwide Carbon Pricing

The Analysis Group released the report The Economic Impacts of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on Ten Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States. It is a study of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative agreement between Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Findings included regional economic gains of more than $1.6 billion and 16,000 new jobs in the three years of the program.

The population of these 10 northeastern states is 40,494,453.

The population of the United States is 308,745,538.

(via census.gov)

Projecting the job and economic gains of carbon cap and trade for these 10 states to the United States as a whole gives (over three years):

-105,990 jobs created

-more than $10 billion in economic gain

For comparison, the Keystone XL Pipeline which is in the news has been projected by the Cornell Global Labor Institute to eliminate more jobs than it will create.

[original news item via ThinkProgress]

2012 Predictions

My 2011 predictions had mixed results.

I was definitely wrong about Twitter being a fad; Bonderman having a great pitching year; and alien life being confirmed though the Mono Lake announcement got people excited. The others are a mixed bag.

The ones I got really right were Verlander having an amazing year; Ford's improving reputation (sales were up 11% for 2011); almost all shoe companies started carrying minimalist shoes; marriage and home ownership continued to decline; suburbs are being abandoned; Ming Tsai's One Pot Meals (wok cooking) was a Top 100 cookbook on Amazon; and many people cancelled their cable TV service in 2011.

Here's what I am thinking about 2012:

• It will be Microsoft's make-it or break-it year. Windows 8 and Windows Phone takes off or Zunes away. Regardless, Microsoft will be out of the operating system business in less than 10 years.

• Chia will be the new superfood fad, and the fad will turn into a diet

• A new masculinity emerges in hip hop. It'll be introspective and vulnerable. Childish Gambino and Tyler the Creator both had songs in 2011 that represent this new style; Shad had it in 2010; and Jay Z's song about his daughter is what will propel it to the big time.

• Sharon Van Etten!

• Stephen Colbert's aphorism of "reality has a well known liberal bias" will become more self-evident

• People will really get tired of the phrases "everything is better with bacon" and "I try to keep it simple and let the food speak for itself"

• People who call themselves film critics will get tired of Wes Anderson while Tarantino gets elevated to even more mythical status. Movie goers will love Wes Anderson.

• Still no Arrested Development movie.

• Cable companies will realize they started as aggregators and that is how they can make the most money now. Everything will be packet based.

• The conventional wisdom will finally draw the connections between energy supply - food prices - wealth aggregation - access to jobs and the Arab Spring/Occupy movements.

• The debate of "is Internet access a fundamental human right?" will get noisier.

• The world won't end like in the movie 2012 though I would not be surprised to see unprecedented climate chaos that displaces a large number of people.

• Apple won't make a traditional stand-alone TV, but really, they are going to put apps on the Apple TV this year.

• The next iPhone will do more than a Star Trek tri-corder and will be able to scan reality to make virtual maps.

This Is Peak Oil

[Update 12/16/2011]
ExxonMobil's own chart shows 75% of today's oil was discovered before 1980.
Via WashPost: Oil’s getting harder and harder to come by

First check the Oil Drum for what Peak Oil is not: Five Misconceptions About Peak Oil

That puts in context the analysis at Early Warning that Saudi oil production has been declining for the past few months despite more rigs coming online: Saudi Oil Production Declining (also interesting that Saudi Arabia could not meet their promised increase in output earlier this year)

Pollution Must Not Be Trying Hard Enough

Republicans say environmental regulations kill jobs; therefore, pollution must create jobs.

Except that is not what I found. My guess is pollution isn't trying hard enough to find jobs. No good lazy pollution.

The facts are the top 25 cleanest cities for year round particulate pollution have an average unemployment rate of 7.4%

The top 25 dirtiest cities for year round particulate pollution have an average unemployment rate of 9.7%

The national average is 8.8%.

If you look at the Top 10 Cities in each category then you find that the cleanest cities have a median unemployment rate of 6.3% and the dirties Top 10 have a median unemployment rate of 12.5%.

So I can literally claim that pollution doubles unemployment.

This myth is busted.

Stephen Colbert explains it further:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Sources:
-American Lung Association State of the Air 2011 City Rankings: http://www.stateoftheair.org/2011/city-rankings/
(I chose year long particulate pollution as the best proxy for overall environmental health factors)

-Bureau of Labor Statistics Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas: http://bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm

The data from my spreadsheet:

‪Dirtiest (yr round particulate) ‬ ‪Unemployment rate‬
‪#1: Bakersfield-Delano, CA ‬ ‪13.7‬
‪#2: Visalia-Porterville, CA‬ ‪ ‬ ‪15‬
‪#2: Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ ‬ ‪8.1‬
‪#2: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA 11.3‬
‪#5: Hanford-Corcoran, CA ‬ ‪14‬
‪#6: Fresno-Madera, CA ‬ ‪14.9‬
‪#7: Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA ‬ ‪6.8‬
‪#8: Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, AL ‬ ‪8.9‬
‪#9: Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN 8.7‬
‪#10: Modesto, CA ‬ ‪15.1‬
‪#10: Louisville-Jefferson County-Elizabethtown-Scottsburg, KY-IN ‬
‪9.6‬
‪#12: Charleston, WV ‬ ‪7.5‬
‪#12: Steubenville-Weirton, OH-WV ‬ ‪10.4‬
‪#12: Cleveland-Akron-Elyria, OH ‬ ‪7.6‬
‪#15: Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH ‬ ‪8.5‬
‪#15: Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, IN ‬ ‪8.1‬
‪#17: St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL 8.7‬
‪#17: Detroit-Warren-Flint, MI ‬ ‪11.7‬
‪#17: Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX ‬ ‪8.6‬
‪#20: Hagerstown-Martinsburg, MD-WV ‬ ‪8.9‬
‪#21: New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA 8.3‬
‪#22: Lancaster, PA ‬ ‪6.4‬
‪#22: Dayton-Springfield-Greenville, OH ‬ ‪9.2‬
‪#24: Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, TN 7.9‬
‪#24: Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD 8.4‬
‪#24: York-Hanover-Gettysburg, PA ‬ ‪7.4‬
‪#24: Parkersburg-Marietta, WV-OH ‬ ‪8.2‬
‪ ‬
‪Cleanest (yr round particulate) Unemployment rate‬
‪#1: Cheyenne, WY ‬ ‪6‬
‪#2: Santa Fe-Espanola, NM ‬ ‪5.4‬
‪#3: Tucson, AZ ‬ ‪8‬
‪#4: Great Falls, MT ‬ ‪6.4‬
‪#4: Honolulu, HI ‬ ‪5.7‬
‪#6: Anchorage, AK ‬ ‪6.2‬
‪#7: Albuquerque, NM ‬ ‪6.9‬
‪#7: Amarillo, TX ‬ ‪6‬
‪#9: Redding, CA ‬ ‪13.5‬
‪#10: Salinas, CA ‬ ‪10.1‬
‪#11: Bismarck, ND ‬ ‪2.5‬
‪#12: Boise City-Nampa, ID ‬ ‪8.5‬
‪#13: Billings, MT ‬ ‪5.4‬
‪#14: Flagstaff, AZ ‬ ‪7.3‬
‪#14: Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda, FL ‬ ‪11‬
‪#14: Fort Collins-Loveland, CO ‬ ‪6‬
‪#14: Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL ‬ ‪11.2‬
‪#14: Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL ‬ ‪11.6‬
‪#19: Claremont-Lebanon, NH-VT ‬ N/A
‪#20: Rapid City, SD ‬ ‪4.2‬
‪#20: Port St. Lucie-Sebastian-Vero Beach, FL 13.7‬
‪#22: Duluth, MN-WI ‬ ‪6.5‬
‪#23: Fargo-Wahpeton, ND-MN ‬ ‪3.3‬
‪#24: Burlington-South Burlington, VT ‬ ‪4.2‬
‪#24: Bangor, ME ‬ ‪6.4‬
‪#24: Orlando-Deltona-Daytona Beach, FL ‬ ‪10.2‬
#12: Cleveland-Akron-Elyria, OH 7.6
#15: Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH 8.5
#15: Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, IN 8.1
#17: St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL 8.7
#17: Detroit-Warren-Flint, MI 11.7
#17: Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX 8.6
#20: Hagerstown-Martinsburg, MD-WV 8.9
#21: New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA 8.3
#22: Lancaster, PA 6.4
#22: Dayton-Springfield-Greenville, OH 9.2
#24: Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, TN 7.9
#24: Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD 8.4
#24: York-Hanover-Gettysburg, PA 7.4
#24: Parkersburg-Marietta, WV-OH 8.2

Me Love TV

Some TV news that I am happy to hear about:

LesStroud.ca: SurvivorMan Returns!

Deadline: Netflix Picks Up New Episodes Of ‘Arrested Development’

Paste: Flight Of The Conchords Look To Make Film

In The Winter Time...

One More Thing (As Steve Sometimes Said)

To add to the standards he set, now his eulogy is the one all others will be compared against.

His sister, Mona Simpson, in the NY Times: A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs [a must read]

Who Steve Jobs Was

I used to do my utmost to suspend belief
Until the day it hit me like a kick in the teeth

-Ivy, I Guess I'm Just A Little Too Sensitive



I usually listen to Ivy when sad. It happened when hearing about Steve Jobs. These two lines are what came to mind. Because...

We suspended belief when we stood in line for the new iPhone.
We were kicked in the teeth when heard the news Steve had died.

When Steve Jobs resigned in August I posted my thoughts. I'm finally able to read stories about Steve Jobs without tearing up and becoming consumed with grief. So I finally feel able to explore why I, and people from all over the world, felt this unexpected sadness.

I believe it was a relationship with Apple and by extension Steve Jobs that people felt. Because Apple and Steve were inseparable right to the very end.

My relationship with Apple started because I was hoping for a relationship with a fellow Geology student. She used Cricket Graph on a Mac in the computer lab (in the entire lab there were only two Macs) and so this is the computer I used too. Then when I needed help I had to ask her. It seemed like a crush but was much more and would impact the rest of my life. Steve Jobs sat in on a calligraphy class at Reed College and this seemingly small chance opportunity changed typography on computers forever. I feel that my seemingly innocuous attempt at flirting by choosing the same computer as a girl I wanted to talk to changed my life forever.

This little Mac was what I used to first experience the Internet, originally with NCSA Mosaic then with something called Netscape. And it was with a Mac that years later I found my callings.

Once I used an Apple computer there was no going back. It was the first time I saw design mattering. And that mattered to me, hence Apple has been a part of my life.

And Apple was Steve Jobs.

Ivy's song is about a relationship and that is what we had with Apple - with Steve Jobs. A relationship we never thought would end.

He wasn't my hero. I looked up to him but never wanted to be him. I looked up to him as people would look at a mythical figure. He was mystifying in that what he did seemed obvious in hindsight; so why did no one else have the foresight?

With that said, I do not believe Steve Jobs was a visionary. He was an evolutionary. He made evolutionary changes that led to revolutions. He was a change agent. He joined the loose connections.

And he set the standard of standards.

Consider these:

-all commencement speeches are now compared to his 2005 Stanford commencement speech
-all Superbowl commercials are compared to his 1984 ad. Plus he made the Superbowl the platform for big commercials.
-how devices are un-boxed or judged against Apple's packaging and now there are web sites just about unboxing.
-advertisement campaigns are judged against Apple's 'Think Different' campaign which he wrote copy for
-Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web on Steve Jobs' post-Apple NEXT computer
-Apple stores are the most successful retail stores in the world and Steve Jobs had final say in their architectural design
-then of course, look at phones, music players, tablet computers, computers, music stores, and video rentals before Apple entered those markets

Steve Jobs really did change everything. So when you see comments from people saying "I never used Apple products but..." they are misguided. Everyone has benefited from Apple. Because to compete, companies have had to be more like Apple in order to succeed. For just one example look at Android phones before and after the iPhone.

Apple design has spilled over all of our culture.

There won't be a "next Steve Jobs". But what we will start hearing is "so and so is the Steve Jobs of X industry".

Steve Jobs was our team captain. If we were visited by extraterrestrials and they demanded one specimen of humanity to interact with the world would have chosen Steve Jobs as our captain. And the amount of one word expletives I saw at the news of his death sounded to me like our reaction when the team we love loses unexpectedly. Our team captain had failed.

Steve was an actual Monomyth but we are used to our stories having a happy ending. He was supposed to live at the end of the story. If he can succumb to the inevitable then we all must succumb to the inevitable too.

That was a kick in the teeth.

Perhaps his greatest evolution is yet to be seen? Perhaps he did succeed in creating a culture of innovation of innovation at Apple.

I just can't stop thinking "What Now?"

For me, I plan on getting his biography this weekend.

Some of the things I have been reading about Steve:

Fortune: Steve Jobs and Me: A journalist reminisces

Slate: The Man Who Invented Our World

HBR: Steve's Seven Insights for 21st Century Capitalists

Wired: Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011

Wired: Guest Column: Steve Jobs, Obsession, and Those Whales

Wired: Guest Column: Steve Jobs as Frank Lloyd Wright

Wired: Guest Column: Steve Jobs, For The Love of Technology

WSJ: Mossberg: The Steve Jobs I Knew

MercuryNews: Why we all feel the passing of Steve Jobs so deeply

Esquire: Steve Jobs and the Portal to the Invisible

Slate: Steve Jobs and Me

Poynter: iMemorial: Steve Jobs honored on front pages, magazine covers, news & tech websites

NYT: Steve Jobs: Imitated, Never Duplicated

TheAtlantic: Why We Mourn Steve Jobs

Wirecutter: Steve Jobs Was Always Kind To Me (Or, Regrets of An Asshole)

RWW: What Steve Meant Back Then

"For an entire generation of young Americans who had every reason to believe what they were being told by their teachers, their friends, their bosses, even their family - that their dreams and ambitions were unattainable and that we were just cogs in a great machine we could never understand - Steve Jobs was living, breathing, human proof that it was all wrong. We were all vessels for something greater, we had it within ourselves to put on a game face and stand up to everything and everyone. He was the personification of "Hell, no!""

Ars: Steve Jobs: a personal remembrance

TheStreet: Steve Jobs' Death Is 'Setback for Humankind'

Macworld UK: Opinion: Why Steve Jobs's death feels so sad

TechReview: Steve Jobs, Storyteller

AllThingsD: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Say Goodbye to Steve Jobs

RWW: Steve Jobs' Legacy In the Pantheon of Great American Innovators

Recent Longreads

NYT: Can Antioch College Return From the Dead Again?

Wired: Exclusive: Inside Facebook’s Bid to Reinvent Music, News and Everything

Esquire: Joplin Tornado Stories

Who Steve Jobs Is

I remember the day in 1997 when Gil Amelio left and Steve Jobs came back. For me it was a day of confusion as at the time I did not have an understanding of how and why Steve left Apple before. These were the days of endless rumors of Apple's Rhapsody OS to replace System 8 - of Red Box, Yellow Box, and Blue Box. And the days of factions of what Apple should do next. I was one of those who wanted Apple to buy BeOS. Others wanted Apple to keep pursuing Rhapsody. The NeXT aquisition was a surprise to many, but when you saw that it included Steve Jobs, then in hindsight it all makes sense.

This was also the time when Apple had failed to sell itself to Sun and Michael Dell famously said "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." (10 yrs later Apple was worth twice as much as Dell).

What no one saw is that Steve Jobs was returning from his personal diaspora with a new focus. But he knew it "Focusing is about saying no". (YouTube link) And this is why Apple has been such a great story. Like Neo returning from the dead in the Matrix, Aragorn returning from the Paths of the Dead, Luke Skywalker returning from Dagobah. What Joseph Campbell described as the Monomyth.

This is the path Steve Jobs has been on. Kicked out of Apple, years in the wilderness, and returned to lead what arguably is the most successful company in history.

When he came back he re-focused Apple.

The biggest change I see CEO Steve Jobs making is he returned Apple to what it was always supposed to be - a hardware company. While he was away Apple became mired in the OS wars. As the technology caught up with Steve he leapfrogged these arguments of the past and that is where I see his genius. To always be looking forward. To make Apple hugely popular but still innovative. To be appealing while having a mass appeal.

I do believe that his resignation as CEO but staying as Chairman of the Board is about Steve searching for a higher purpose at Apple. To finally let go of the details.

Because he has always been about the details and there is only so much mental energy you can devote to these things. When he announced he was resigning there were two anecdotes I read that, for me, capture what makes him so effective.

NPR: A Story About Steve Jobs And Attention To Detail

Business Insider: It Took Me 13 Years To Understand Steve Jobs

Fast Company has a long summary of these kinds of stories: The First Time I Met Steve Jobs...

Later, I asked him why he had seemed happier with the boy than with the two famous artists. His answer seemed unrehearsed to me: ‘Older people sit down and ask, “What is it?” but the boy asks, “What can I do with it?”

Other ways to understand who Steve Jobs is:

BI: Apple's Incredible Run Under Steve Jobs

Forbes: How Apple works: Inside the world's biggest startup: From Steve Jobs down to the janitor: How America's most successful - and most secretive - big company really operates.

Watch his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech

I look forward to the upcoming biography.

Brandon Inge

He came back from Toledo over the weekend and had a home run in his first at-bat and a double later in the game.

Yet there are haters. See DetNews: Tigers' Brandon Inge sounds off on call-up, life in Toledo

My guess is the people who hate on Inge are the same people responsible for Arrested Development getting cancelled. They just don't get it.

I made a Venn diagram to demonstrate:

Hoping This Science News Is Unrelated

Wired: Mystery Fossils Link Fungi to Ancient Mass Extinction

SciAm: Mystery Goo in Alaska Is Made of Fungal Spores

Who Is The Greatest MC Of All Time?

The safe answer is Rakim.

The correct answer is Big Daddy Kane.

He was the complete package. He could do many styles, had the dance moves and the cameo cut, was the lyricist for the Juice Crew, and was behind Roxanne Shante's battle raps.

I love Rakim but he was not as versatile as BDK.

In high school the margins of my class notes were filled with Big Daddy Kane lyrics. I made diagrams showing the links between BDK - EPMD - Biz Markie. They were the holy trinity of rap.

Doug E Fresh, Dana Dane, the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul and others were there too; but as planets around the rap stars.

I am still not sure how I found this music as a suburban kid. It all came as tapes from my friend Tom. They were the primer that led us listening to Marly Marl's The Symphony over and over in Matt's basement while we played ping-pong.

But Big Daddy Kane was always the one I listened to the most. Even in graduate school I was writing his lyrics on chalkboards when I was board.

When my wife was just my girlfriend I gave her a few quizzes, one test was on a drive from southwest Ohio to northern Michigan. Much of that drive was spent listening to Big Daddy Kane tapes. Had she complained our history would have been history. Rather she complimented his ability to work the phrase "party people" into just about every song.

His line that gets stuck in my head most often is "So pick a B.C. date because you're history".

And the song I listened to most often? Many nights were spent in the '87 Accord with 'On The Move' turned up all the way as I drove from Matt's and past Jill's on the way home.

Without Big Daddy Kane there would be no Jay-Z. Maybe not even a Paul Barman (which would probably make many people happy). But to my ears there is direct link from Big Daddy Kane's compound syllable rhyming (e.g., "the best oh yes I guess suggest the rest should fess/ Don’t mess or test your highness/ Unless you just address with best finesse/ And bless the paragraph I manifest") to today's MC Paul Barman incredibly clever quattro-syllabic to mono-syllabic rhyming. (e,g., "That sure made it sat-ur-at-ed")

What sent me on this sentimental journey was a post at Herohill that linked to a documentary about Big Daddy Kane.

Watch it then see the 2005 VH1 Hip Honors celebrating Big Daddy Kane.

PEACE

Triple Confirmation Of An Arrested Development Movie (Again)

[8/3/2011 Updates from Google Alerts]

TorontoLife: The Arrested Development movie receives the green light—for what feels like the eighth time—long after fans stopped caring

VV: Arrested Development Full-Length Film to Be Released Next Year?

NatPost: The Arrested Development movie is happening!

LostRemote: ‘Arrested Development’ movie is a go

[Original Post below]
LAist: Will Arnett Confirms 'Arrested Development' Movie Is A GO!

HuffPo: 'Arrested Development' Movie Happening, Being Written: Jeffrey Tambor

Movies.ie: Jason Bateman Interview for Horrible Bosses & Arrested Development

And what of the Arrested Development movie. It's been about to go into production for five years now, ever since the TV series ended...?

Like an awful lot of movies, it's still in pre-production. Mitch Hurwitz has the script, and it's all about signing on the dotted line basically.

Why do I even bother? This movie is turning into an X-Files "I Want To Believe" thing.

I'll just keep singing 'Here We Go Again' to myself.

Neko Case Knows Cars

Her cars are fast, not sure what that says about her.

Via Willamette Week: Neko Case’s Top Five Favorite Muscle Cars (click the link for her comments about each vehicle)

5. ’66 Rambler Classic 660

4. ’64 Falcon Ranchero

3. ’64 Chevy Apache

2. ’67 Dodge Polara

1. ’67 Mercury Cougar

Elegant Recipe Meta-Search

Gojee

[via Swiss-Miss]

Demonstrating Ridiculousness

Or there is no such thing as a 100% American made car (in fact Toyota and Honda are more American than GM).

So when I see those bumper stickers that ask "Out Of A Job Yet? Keep Buying Foreign" I have usually thought that those people lack a basic economic knowledge plus I'd probably see many of those at Wal-Mart which urges companies to move manufacturing to low wage countries.

But now comes Consumer Reports showing how even people who buy American brand cars are "buying foreign".

Via CR: How much of your car is made in America

Something tells me that this will have no impact on those stickers.

Things That Seem Related

Feels like there is a short line between these two items.

St. Pete Times: Billionaire's role in hiring decisions at Florida State University raises questions

...George Mason University, a public university in Virginia which has received more than $30 million from Koch over the past 20 years.

Wired: Climatology-Defying Paper Yanked for Plagiarism

The report in question was prepared by Edward Wegman of George Mason University. In it, he criticized the methods used to generate a version of the hockey stick graph generated by Michael Mann, a Penn State climatologist.

A Seiche On Whitefish Bay

UpNorthLive: Urgent water level warning

URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
COASTAL HAZARD MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GAYLORD MI
1115 AM EDT WED MAY 11 2011

...SEICHE DEVELOPING ON WHITEFISH BAY AND SAULT LOCKS...

.STRONG SOUTHEAST WINDS GUSTING OVER 50 KNOTS HAS RESULTED IN A
SEICHE DEVELOPING ON WHITEFISH BAY AND AT THE SAULT LOCKS...WHERE
WATER LEVELS ARE RISING AND FALLING RAPIDLY DUE TO WATER BEING
PUSHED TO THE WEST SIDE OF THE BAY DUE TO THE STRONG WINDS. THE
WATER THEN SLOSHES BACK TO THE EAST SIDE. OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL
HOURS THIS STANDING WAVE WILL DAMPEN OUT...BUT PERSONS ALONG THE
SHORE OF WHITEFISH BAY MAY EXPERIENCE WATER LEVEL CHANGES OF UP TO
2 FEET OVER A SHORT TIME PERIOD.

Catch Me If You Can

Read on TheAtlantic: Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism

And it reminded me of three long reads about chases that I have read in the recent past:

Outside: The Ballad of Colton Harris-Moore
In the Northwest's San Juan Islands, best known for killer whales and Microsoft retirees, a teen fugitive has made a mockery of local authorities, allegedly stealing cars, taking planes for joy­rides, and breaking into vacation homes. His ability to elude the police and survive in the woods has earned him folk-hero status. But some wonder if the 18-year-old will make it out of the hunt alive.

Wired: The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross-Country Sprint for Glory

VF: A Declaration of Cyber-War
Last summer, the world’s top software-security experts were panicked by the discovery of a drone-like computer virus, radically different from and far more sophisticated than any they’d seen. The race was on to figure out its payload, its purpose, and who was behind it.

"I Want My Country Back"

Does that mean you want Mad Men style at home and work, segregated drinking fountains, and a time when taxes were a lot higher?

From VisualizingEconomics.com, Top Marginal Tax Rates

It Is On

Will Arnett on Twitter confirms the Arrested Development movie is being written right now.

Related via The Guardian: Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz's guide to getting a sitcom cancelled

Make a show for British sensibilities

And then show it in America.

Craziness In Wisconsin

As Ezra says: Wisconsin is about power, not money

But not the power he is talking about.

Rather, it appears that Billionaire Brothers’ Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute (NYT) by Privatizing Wisconsin (Felix)

...a particularly audacious section of the Wisconsin budget-repair bill yesterday: the governor can sell off any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plants he likes, at any price, to anybody he wants, without any kind of auction or bid-solicitation process, and such a sale would be defined as being in the best interest of the state and to comply with criteria for certifying such a transaction.

A pet phrase of mine is "we accuse in others what we fear most about ourselves". Unless you have a nefarious intent, in that case a best defense is to go on the offense, what you do is you accuse in others first what you plan to do later.

Like this whole rigmarole about Obama being a flavor-of-the-month-ist and he's going to take guns, property, and your religion. Meanwhile Republicans do want to give things from individuals to corporations. Well played.

And The World Shrugged

Maybe because of the Egypt news, but this revelation had no impact on world crude prices.

See TheGuardian: WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices

Husseini said that at that point Aramco would not be able to stop the rise of global oil prices because the Saudi energy industry had overstated its recoverable reserves to spur foreign investment.

[via TheOilDrum]

La, la, la... nothing to see here.

Updates On An Arrested Development Movie

MTV.com: David Cross Knows The 'Arrested Development' Movie Plot... And It's 'Awesome'

DigitalSpy: Ron Howard could appear in 'Arrested' movie

HuffPo: 'Arrested Development' Movie Coming THIS YEAR, Says Mitch Hurwitz