July 7th, 2010 Comments
Boring, bland, lifeless offices don’t benefit anyone:
Research has shown that a healthy office space with plants and open windows is more conducive to productivity.
I love my home office. It’s filled with plants, books, a fish tank, antiques and interesting objects My office at work is pretty bland and boring, but I’m going to try my best to make it good. If only I worked at Pixar.
July 7th, 2010 Comments
Nothing destroys the credibility of a site quicker than corporate shillery:
Should ScienceBlogs.com have agreed to host a controversial blog on nutrition, written by PepsiCo? No, say the site’s readers, as some of its star bloggers stop their blogs in protest.
It’s an idea so bad that you swear that The Washington Post and Publisher Katharine Weymouth were behind it.
July 7th, 2010 Comments
Despite the risk, urban cycling is a healthier option
The authors found that for the individuals who shift from car to bicycle, the benefits gained by increased physical activity were substantially larger (3 – 14 months of life gained) than the drawbacks of inhaled air pollution (0.8 – 40 days lost) and the increase in traffic accidents (5 – 9 days lost).
“Societal benefits are even larger due to a modest reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and traffic accidents,” the paper said.
We need to do a better job at encouraging cycling. It just makes more sense in urban areas and has clear health benefits. More bike lanes and training drivers to share the road would make adoption pick up considerably.
July 7th, 2010 Comments
‘Gate Fever Breaks – Dot Earth Blog – NYTimes.com:
The Independent Climate Change Email Review is finished and, within its constrained mandate, has cleared climate scientists and administrators at the University of East Anglia of claims of malfeasance rising out of the contents of folders of e-mail messages and files extracted from computers there and posted around the Web last November. Two other inquiries with slightly different focal points also cleared the scientists and school. (As I wrote last night, there is still a glaring unanswered question: Was a crime was committed in releasing or extracting the files?)
June 9th, 2010 Comments Off
Building more roads to alleviate congestion only causes more congestion:
It seems like a logical conclusion that if your streets are clogged, you need more lanes for cars. But, in a curious phenomenon known to urban planners, cars seem to fill whatever space they’re given.
What many cities have found is the opposite. Build bike lanes, sidewalks and better public transportation, throw in a few trees lining the streets for good measure, and traffic often slackens. The traffic that does flow through flows in a more orderly, safe fashion.
Read on to see why our transportation policy needs to be about more than just cars and roads.
Which is why, for the life of me, I can’t understand why Virginia is making the beltway around DC into eight lanes wide on each side. Maryland has taken the smarter approach by proposing a light rail line to mirror the beltway in Maryland. It only takes one bad accident to clog all lanes, even eight.
Car uses begets more car uses, which causes more congestion, more pollution, more road rage and less happy people.
May 20th, 2010 Comments
If the oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico can’t be contained, it could leak half a billion barrels of oil into the ocean. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez leaked about 11 million barrels of oil. Wow.
Matthew Simmons, former chairman of energy industry investment bank Simmons and Company sounds the alarm bells:
“This isn’t a well. This is a giant oil field. It could go on for a year-and-a-half. This is totally unprecedented.”
For those keeping track at home, no BP is not close to containing the leak.
May 20th, 2010 Comments Off
Christopher Montgomery, founder of the Xiph.org Foundation, on why software patents suck and need reform:
“Patents are like every teenager carrying a hand gun,” he told me. Sooner or later, one of those guns could go off.
Don’t get too excited about Google open sourcing the VP8 video codec. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have patent issues. Many believe it is impossible to develop a modern codec without violating previous patents.
April 6th, 2010 Comments Off
A debate has sprung up in the blogosphere about libertarianism and millennials based on this OkCupid post on political leanings and generations. (hat tip to Andrew Sullivan)
William Wilkinson has a great take home on why many millennials may lean libertarian and yet also feeling more comfortable with the democratic party, while boomers that lean libertarian are much more likely to identify as republicans:
One thing it suggests that the neo-Fusionist elements of the Tea Party movement are attractive primarily to older people. And I suspect that the more strongly certain libertarian ideas and tendencies are associated with the cultural politics of Baby Boomer conservative Republicans, the more strongly young people with libertarian inclinations will tend to identify with the Democratic Party and take on cultural assumptions and characteristics common to liberals. Here’s my bottom line. Democratic-leaning libertarian young adults are the primary “liberaltarian” constituency. They are to my mind who liberaltarianism is intended for. Liberaltarianism or libertarian-liberal fusionism is not about some ridiculous practical political coalition between Larry Kudlow and Bill Galston. It is about building a coherent, appealing, practical ideological identity for all those libertarian-ish young folks who don’t want a damn thing to do with the party of old, angry religious white people.
I find these tidbits from Wilkinson to be worth noting as well:
Because older libertarians in the contested zone lean Republican, they probably feel comfortable with elements of right-wing political culture that may have little or nothing to do with their opinions on issues which determined their place on the grid. They’ll be fairly patriotic, find Founder worship relatively unproblematic, feel a bit antagonized by “political correctness” and relatively untroubled by casual “commonsense” race and gender stereotypes, and will generally feel sympathetic to conservative assumptions about American identity. They’re a bit hawkish and worried about Islamism. They might make a show of enjoying guns, steaks, and cigars. They’re inclined to get a kick out of Glenn Beck. Or so I conjecture.
Because younger libertarians in the contested zone lean Democratic, they probably feel comfortable with elements of left-wing political culture that may have little or nothing to do with their opinions on issues which determined their place on the grid. They’ll probably be relatively cosmopolitan, inclined to celebrate diversity, and sensitive to ongoing discrimination against women, ethnic minorities, and gays. They’ll be relatively unimpressed with rhetorical appeals to the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the virtues of really real American red-state American identity. They’re a bit dovish and worried about civil liberties under the Patriot Act. The might make a show of eating ethically, a penchant for indie rock, and a well-worn passport. They’re inclined to think Glenn Beck is a maudlin fool. So I say.
While I do have libertarian leanings, I can’t imagine identifying with the Republication Party that has embraced the Tea Partiers (I used to be a registered republican but that was before the Tea Party days, and I was largely turned away by Bush’s Big Government Conservatism).
The Tea Party movement is embarrassing. I don’t know how embarrassing to consider it, historically speaking (is it up there with white supremacists in the 50s and 60s? I don’t know), but I do know that I simply could not in good conscience put my name in the same hat with the Tea Party movement. Its members may or may not believe in small government, but they have exhibited unfortunate traits of bigotry, closemindness, anti-intellectualism, xenophobia, all while being laughably ignorant (see all the Tea Party people who want the government to keep their hands off of Medicare).
And for the love of God, I don’t want to hear about Obama’s birth certificate or how he is a Muslim or any other conspiracy theory nonsense.
Most of us don’t fit neatly into either party. This is why I am an independent, but the difference for many people my age between democrats and republicans is that identifying with the Democratic Party is not embarrassing. Sure Nancy Pelosi can be a little scary at times, but she is no Tea Partier.
So, no I do not support the big union cronyism that the Democratic party machine has long represented. I also think that charities do a better job at many social programs than the government. But I am pro education, pro intellectualism, pro science, pro environment, pro civil rights (especially with regards to gays), while trying to be urbane, cosmopolitan and open minded.
I don’t believe the government can solve everything like many liberals do, but I can more readily identify with the intellectual (or at least not anti-intellectual) trappings of many liberals. I do believe there is a place for government (as all libertarians do, otherwise they would be anarchists), but I demand that my government be smarter and run leaner.
The Tea Party movement really does appear to many of us as a group of uneducated (or at least people who hide their education), anti-intellectual, anti-science, bigoted, ignorant-of-the-facts-that-they-are-protesting, angry, old white people. Do you think that many young people honestly want to identify with that? Really? In the year 2010?
That’s not exactly my vision for the future of America. That’s also why I would tell the Republican party to distance itself from the Tea Party movement. America needs a strong and vibrant Republican party. America does not need Tea Partiers.
April 1st, 2010 Comments
By now, you’ve probably read glowing review after glowing review of the iPad by tech columnists, but I want to share my experiences with you when I get my iPad.
I will not have received an iPad for free, nor will I be testing it out as my job for a news outlet or tech blog. Rather I paid for my iPad, and I want to see how it can help me in my life and with my work.
Can I stop carrying my laptop every day? Was this worth how much it costs? How is it as a work tool? How is it at home after working at a computer all day long? Is it light enough that just about every time I leave the house I’ll want to bring it with me, just in case?
With that in mind, I’m devising a way to test the iPad and would appreciate your help.
Here are some things you need to know about me and my life
Why did I preorder an iPad?
I preorded the iPad before any reviews came out because I was not enjoying my current situation. My laptop weighs 5.2 pounds. The charger isn’s particularly light either. My Mifi is pretty light but with its charger and cable to hook it up to my laptop in case its battery dies, it starts to add to my already heavy pack. Then I bring a liter of water with me for my commute in an aluminum bottle. I also pack my lunch and usually have at least one book and one magazine with me.
I could replace all of that, except for the food and water, with the 1.6 pound 3G iPad. Instead of using a backpack, I could go back to using a messenger bag. And while my Macbook is fine for use on the larger Marc commuter train, it is too unwieldy to use on the metro.
And after lugging my laptop to and from work, I almost never want to take it to coffee shops or anywhere else. It is basically either used at home or on the way to work.
What do you want to know about the iPad?
How will I go about figuring this out?
I’m going to test the core components of the device and see how I like them separately. How is watching video on it? How about reading? How about sufring the video?
My rubric so far (and I want your help)
What else would you like to see?
I want to put the iPad through every day use. Let me know what you’d like me to test, and I can let you know how that works.
Judging by the early reviews, I think I’m going to really like the iPad. But liking something and something being worth your money and time are two different things. Was this a wise purchase? Will I be able to leave my laptop at home? Will I be able to sell my laptop?
These are the real questions that need to be answered.
