April 2011
3 posts
"Why You Should Care About Cricket" →
An American sportswriter discovers cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, and the Indian cricket team at the World Cup.
Just a few hours ago, on a mid-February morning, I landed in Dhaka. I came with a copy of “Cricket for Dummies.” The 2011 Cricket World Cup starts tomorrow, India at Bangladesh, and I know nothing about the sport, not even about the tremendous pressure on the Indian National...
December 2010
1 post
October 2010
11 posts
clientsfromhell:
Client: “Why is the text slanty?”
Me: “It is in italics.”
Client: “No, it is slanty.”
Me: “It’s called italics.”
Client: “I don’t care what you call it, make it stop.”
How to defend yourself from a mountain goat... →
1) They’re rare, so it probably won’t happen to you anyway.
2) Run.
3) Throw rocks at it.
4) Failing that, try to grab it by its “razor-sharp” horns. But you probably won’t be able to hold on for long.
Got it?
Watching football on TV is a waste of time →
According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.
Over the three hours of a typical pro football broadcast, about an hour is taken up by commercials and about 75 minutes consists of shots of players milling around and setting up for the...
Will China's economy in the next decade look like... →
An interesting, though economics- and business-heavy, article from Foreign Policy.
For the moment, Beijing is riding high, but China’s sustained success depends on understanding where Japan went so badly wrong.
Essentially, China needs to transition from an export- and infrastructure-focused economy to one that is more balanced and emphasizes consumer spending and forment competitive...
June 2010
1 post
Great Literature Retitled To Boost Website Traffic
wondertonic:
Including:
7 Awesome Ways Barnyard Animals Are Like Communism
8 Surprising Ways West Egg Is Exemplary Of The Hollowness Of The American Dream
6 Shockingly Evil Things The Turn-Of-The-Century Meatpacking Industry Doesn’t Want You To Know
Read the full list at McSweeney’s
Reminds me of another McSweeney’s post: Nietzsche’s Angel Food Cake
1. Allow the angel to...
May 2010
2 posts
The recurring tropes of the long-lost-wallet story →
Apparently, it happens all the time. And each time, it seems to kindle a kind of existential awe.
April 2010
15 posts
Foreign Policy: The World’s Worst Immigration Laws →
clientsfromhell:
Client: “We love the movie you’ve created for us, but it’s just not working for us”
Me: “Ok, what would make it work?”
Client: “We want it to go viral! It needs dancing babies or unicorns”
Earth Day is this Thursday. Here are some... →
Arnold Tukker of the Dutch research organization TNO laid out his top recommendations thusly: Insulate your home, choose energy-efficient appliances, drive a fuel-efficient car (if you must drive at all), moderate your meat and dairy consumption, eat what’s in season, and avoid food that’s been air-shipped.
Yet:
[W]e won’t save the planet by consuming differently: We...
“I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fucking...”
– Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo “The Lip” Durocher on Jackie Robinson’s 1947 debut with the club
(via aquabooks)
“Albatross” from The Besnard...
Feeling depressed? Maybe you should trying staying... →
From the NY Times:
Sleep deprivation used as a treatment for depression is efficacious and robust: it works quickly, is relatively easy to administer, inexpensive, relatively safe and it also alleviates other types of clinical depression. Sleep deprivation can elevate your mood even if you are not depressed, and can induce euphoria.
March 2010
12 posts
“On a Good Day” by Joanna Newsom.
...
The BBC
clientsfromhell:
Client: “We would like our commercial to run on BBC1.”
Me: “The BBC are not a commercial organisation. They don’t run ads.”
Client: “Well you are supposed to be the big media-man, you need to get us on BBC1!”
Me: “No one can run commercials on the BBC, they don’t show commercials.”
Client: “So we can totally own the BBC if there are no other advertisers! This is going to...
WatchICELAND, by Gunnar Konradsson.
Beautiful. As if I needed more reasons to visit this country.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
WatchFrom National Geographic’s new special Sizing Up Sperm, which “uses real people to represent 250 million sperm on their marathon quest to be first to reach a single egg.”
Ridiculous yet kind of amazing. I would like to learn more about the miracle of engineering happening right now in my pants!
February 2010
16 posts
You think there's been enough hand-wringing here... →
Olympic Pictograms Through the Ages →
The New York Times has created a nice, informative video looking at the history of these little Olympic symbols, which started at the 1936 Berlin Games but only became standard starting in 1964 in Tokyo. (One original purpose was to communicate the different events to those who couldn’t read Japanese.)
I’ve always liked these little images. In some ways I think they’re better...
Milk in bags coming to the US soon? →
I don’t understand how these advances in milk transportation and pouring technology still haven’t made it out to Western Canada.
clientsfromhell:
Client: “Can you re-touch the hat off the man?”
Me: “Yes, what kind of hair would you like?”
Client: “You will see when you take the hat off.”