This says something troubling about the state of our union

Spencer Ackerman explains why he's moving his non-day-job blog from Firedoglake to a new site:

… this is going to be my last post for FDL, a community I’ve been honored and fucking thrilled to join ever since Jane let me take Attackerman 2.0 here in June 2008. My departure is pretty mundane: the congressional press galleries are wary of giving me permanent credentials while I’m affiliated here …

Agree with his views or not, Spencer Ackerman is a respected reporter on national security issues. I wonder how many conservative news sites and bloggers have credentials for the congressional press galleries.

On the other hand, maybe this is all due to Jane Hamsher's alliance with that guy who wants to drown the government in the bathtub. I guess I could see that.

In any case: Attackerman now lives here.

It becomes self-aware at 6:50 AM eastern time, January 5.

Uncle Jimbo of Blackfive (yeah, him), posting on one of Breitbart's BigHo spinoff sites:

So the time is now, and the tool is me.

(h/t: Attackerman | title: cf.)

Video shorts for your inner geek

Debtris (via Datablog) -- about 90 seconds:

(alt. video link)

Also from Information is Beautiful: Debtris, the US version (about 70 seconds):

(alt. video link)

And here is a five-minute talk by Steven Walling titled "Wikipedians are the Weirdest People on the Internet," discovered on Ignite Show.

(alt. video link)

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Yes, good memory: Information is Beautiful was mentioned twice before on this blog.

Respect my authoritah!

So, I was testing this new search engine called DuckDuckGo, and by "testing" I mean "typing in my own name," and I discovered that a "Best Answer - Chosen by Voters" on Yahoo Answers had cited one of my blog posts.

Also, the answerer, Love Heart ♥ ("a full time model" with an "LLB Degree in Law & BA (Hons) in English Literature and Linguistics"), uses this for an avatar:

DuckDuckGo, it is claimed (via), does not save your search queries nor pass them along to the sites you visit by clicking on its results, unlike the Google, so that may be of interest if you are concerned about this aspect of your online privacy.

As far as my own concerns about online privacy go, I can only say that I am always happy to be discovered by well-educated environmentally conscious underwear models.

"Get Ready for a G.O.P. Rerun"

Good column by Bob Herbert.

A great hour: On The Media's Gaming Episode

I don't play any video or online games, and I haven't since Ms. Pac-Man was still big in bars. In spite of this, or because of this, I found the year-end episode of OTM, about where games are now and where they might go, and how they affect much more than we realize, utterly fascinating.

If you'd rather not sit here and stream the fifty minutes, you can download an MP3 here or on the episode page. Visit that page for transcripts of the individual segments, as well.

Also on that page: note the links to two full talks that were excerpted in the show, repeated here: Jane McGonigal's Ted Talk, "Gaming can make a better world," and Jesse Schell's DICE talk, "When games invade real life."

A small bit of good news I'm JUST HEARING ABOUT NOW

I am catching up on past episodes of On The Media and I just listened to this six-minute segment from the 17 December 2010 show, in which Bob Garfield interviews Elizabeth Williamson of the WSJ about the story she had co-written two weeks earlier on the then-looming passage of the CALM Act:

That's the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, but you probably already figured that out. President Obama signed it into law 15 December 2010.

Apparently, it won't be enforced for another year (because commercial makers have forgotten how to turn things down?), so keep those mute buttons handy.

(pic. source)

"The Joy of Stats"

Here is an entertaining and at times fascinating hour-long video from Hans Rosling of Gapminder fame.

[Update 2011-01-04 19:01] Sorry. Looks like embedding has since been disabled. Try the "alt. video link."

(alt. video link)

I think this would be a great thing to show high school and college students who have yet to take stats. Or maybe something to show them on the first day of class, if they've just signed up.

More to see on Gapcast's YouTube channel and on the TED talks site.

Nerd alert: You can get that way cool software (and other things) for free. See gapminder.org/downloads.

(h/t: RM and Open Culture)

Parenthetical Aside of the Day

From Charles P. Pierce:

(A brief lexicographical note before we continue. "Objectivity" -- which has its own problems as a standard of journalistic commentary, as we have seen -- is not a synonym for "critical" any more than it is a synonym for "complimentary." Being hypercritical is no more "objective" than being sycophantic is. And being hypercritical simply for the sake of being hypercritical, for whatever reason, doesn't make you any more "objective" than is the average fanboi suck-up. It makes you a fake. We continue.)

I'm more interested in it for what it says about the MSM's fetish for Balance™; i.e., how the lazy he-said/she-said style of writing makes for a misleading article and a misinformed audience.

I encourage you to follow the three quoted links, and then to follow some of the links you find at those sources.

You've probably heard me mention this topic a time or two before. Yes, this is one of my windmills. I really do think it's a serious problem.

is.gd to become v.gd

The URL-shortening service is.gd will soon be migrating to v.gd. The change, they say, will not affect any existing is.gd URLs you may created in the past.

Not only will this save you a letter on all of your shortened URLs, their pledge of ethics is pretty impressive. Among the highlights: by default, clicking a v.gd link will take you to a preview page, where you can see the expanded original link (example: http://v.gd/hiCnSq). You can shut this behavior off right there, you'll note. Shoutout to them for putting web surfers in control.

[Update 2011-11-15] See my later post for an easy way to be safe with other shortened URLs.

Two small pleasures in the battle against woo

PowerBalance has admitted their magical bracelets are a fraud:

In our advertising we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility.

We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

If you feel you have been misled by our promotions, we wish to unreservedly apologise and offer a full refund.

W00t!

Even better news: this is currently a top trending topic on Twitter worldwide.

Hope Shaq asks them to take this page down soon:

(embiggen)

And as long as we're being giddy with enthusiasm, let's pretend he's reading this, and invite him to donate the money they gave him to a worthy cause. Here's a suggestion:

Line of the Day: 2011-01-03

A slightly more charitable reading of this vote involves internal Republican politics: placate the lunatic fringe that got you elected prior to getting on with the real work of misgoverning.
    -- Dave Brockington

It's enough to make you wish there was such a thing as Opposable Thumb Soup

Fake Harper's Index (with real data):

4:	Number of humans killed by sharks in 2008
100,000,000:	Number of sharks killed by humans in 2008

Of these, an estimated 73 million are slaughtered solely for their fins to provide the shark fin soup that is so popular in Asia. The fins are sliced off and the sharks dumped back in the water; unable to swim, they sink to the bottom and die.

How We're Letting The Terrorists Win, Part MMXI

There's a whole bunch of things to be discouraged about in David Cole's op-ed, but this bit really takes the cake:

It is therefore a felony, the government has argued, to file an amicus brief on behalf of a “terrorist” group, to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s “terrorist” designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances.

Those last three words sound familiar? They should.

So, do we now start calling the Bill of Rights "quaint?"

Carl Zimmer tries to be skeptical about The Singularity

And mostly succeeds. Along the way, he describes the state of the art on a variety of fronts, mostly biological, as opposed to computer-ish. Very interesting read.

Now, if only we could get Scientific American embrace this singularity concept enough to put the article on one page instead of ten …

Marvel at the Digital Age: Save $1250 by buying the Kindle edition!

And no, I didn't forget a decimal point.

Amazon link | screen shot

Assuming the first link still works, I second what @carlzimmer says: "Don't miss the reviews." It's almost as though Jon Swift has been reincarnated.

(h/t: @seanmcarroll)

Best Line About One Of Bozell's Bozos Ever

Tintin on Tim Graham:

I mean this guy could lisp the word “banana.”

Something you've probably heard and believed turns out to be wildly wrong

You've probably heard something along the lines of "There are as many people alive today as have ever lived in the past." This turns out not to be true, not even close.

The claim is that the total number of people who have ever been born is over 100 billion. In other words, the current population is only about 6% of the total.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, the best guess for the number of people who had been born by 1 A.D. is 50 billion. (The comparative slowness in growth since then is attributed, in large part, to the bubonic plague.)

(h/t: George Johnson, speaking about his NYT article on cancer incidence throughout the ages. NB: In that video clip, he says "trillion" when he means "billion," and later acknowledges misspeaking.)

Just another moment from that well-known non-contact sport

Screen grab of an email from KK. Click it to big it.

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Color version of top picture here (via). More info on bottom picture (Dali Atomicus, by Philippe Halsman) here (via); link to free giant TIFF version, available from the Library of Congress, here.

Meant to post this great picture earlier ...

... but it's timeless, so let's do it now. Click it to big it.

There's a pretty cool story behind the picture, too -- the photographer, Morry Gash, didn't even know what he had.

(h/t: Tom Scocca)

Further Comment Would Be Superfluous

The 9th most emailed article from the NYT is, at this moment, "Boomers Hit New Self-Absorption Milestone: Age 65."

[Update 2011-01-02 10:32] Now #5.

Chesterson on the problems of dealing with the 21st century GOP

One can only find the middle distance between two points if the two points will stand still.

John Holbo has more. Be nice if Liptak read it.

Smell the panic

According to Blue Texan's tracking service, Charles Krauthammer is the latest prominent Republican hack to state that he simply does not care for images like this:

(Click for full-size horror)

(pic. source)

Someone give Adam Liptak a dope slap

One of the political "analysts" for the NYT -- no, not Matt Bai, the other one, although you could be excused for confusing them -- has a fawning story up about Saint Chief Justice Roberts calling for swifter approval of judicial nominees.

You expect a lifelong Reagan acolyte like Roberts to blame both the Senate and Obama for the slots not filled, but it's really annoying that nowhere in the story does Liptak give any context for how ludicrous this perennial "both sides to blame!!!1!" nonsense is. Yes, there was a small flurry of approvals as the year wound down, but let's not forget, say, this CAP chart (via C&L), from late July of this year, a solid year and a half into Obama's first term:

Your Party of No, hard at work!

This retyping of Republican press releases by Liptak, filtered through his chronic fetish for Balance™, is worse in some ways than the out-and-out lying from Fox, because at least in the latter case, three-quarters of the country's news consumers know not to trust it.

Cool math fact of the year

Tweeted by @mathematicsprof:

2011 is also the sum of 11 CONSECUTIVE prime numbers: 2011=157+163+167+173+179+181+191+193+197+199+211

Check, for you skeptics: here and here.

(h/t: @republicofmath, via @JohnAllenPaulos)

Something to look forward to

I credit Obamacare:

And from a caption in the slide show accompanying the article:

As a drug, "it’s better than Xanax," said Tena Alonzo, director of research.

Also, at that age, you don't worry about zits as much.

Your Year-End Moment of Awww

Don McArthur has posted a delightful two-minute video of polar bears not falling for the camouflaged spycams.

Which, of course, brings to mind this:

(alt. video link)

"Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2010"

I have not actually read* "The Best Posts of the Year, Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves" …

But I will! And a shoutout to Batocchio of Vagabond Scholar for the effort in reviving this grand tradition.

Another of our Sisyphean trips up the hill

Nicholas Kristof had a good column a few days ago about cutting military spending. John Quiggin's comments on it are even better, including this nice variation on the old "wouldn't it be great if the Air Force had to hold a bake sale" bumper sticker:

An obvious reason for the focus on military spending is that Americans have massive confidence in their military and much less in their education system, particularly the public school systems.

Yet judged by results, the opposite should surely be the case. Why is this so?

The US military has fought five large-scale wars in the past fifty years, resulting in a draw in Korea[1], a defeat in Vietnam, and three inconclusive outcomes in Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan. That’s a record that makes the worst inner-city public school look pretty good. At least the majority of students, even at the worst schools, end up more or less literate.

Your new Majority Leader, of course, has already announced that when discussing ways to be Fiscally Responsible™ and cut the budget, even mentioning military spending would make him cry.

Fun stat of the day, via Quiggin: we could pay for all of Afghan higher education by reducing our US troop presence by …?

243 soldiers.

And if you read the footnotes, it's probably not even close to that many.

Of course it is not that simple. Of course we are not Serious for talking about such things in such ways. Of course.

World O' Crap Has Moved (Pass It Down)

Evidently, there were some technical problems at the old site, so for now at least, there is a new home for World O' Crap.

(h/t: Doghouse Riley)