In the Middle
Don Boudreaux points to an article by M. A. Adelman about the myths around oil production--how we are not "running out."#
Conclusion
U.S. oil policies are based on fantasies not facts: gaps, shortages, and surpluses. Those ideas are at the core of the Carter legislation, and of the current Energy Bill. The Carter White House also believed what the current Bush White House believes--that, in the face of all evidence, they are getting binding assurance of supply by OPEC, or by Saudi Arabia. That myth is part of the larger myth that the world is running out of oil.
Aaron Swartz on Philip Greenspun's theory of blogs and the web.#
Jason Fried on how absurd it is to cut the strap of watches. Many German watches are like this apparently, I had to do it too. Right now I wear it rather loose, because I anticipate that my arm will grow in the future. My watch company.#
Mark Bernstein wonders how many people read a weblog. I always check Technorati, Bloglines (which gives you a subscription count,) and Share My OPML.#
Chip Gibbons on Daniel Pearl:#
I'm sort of numb after watching it. Since I was prepared to be horrified, I wasn't so much horrified as astounded at the foolishness and stupidity of the whole act. It's so silly. Pathetic. Do these five thugs really think that murdering a defenseless 26-year-old man in front of a camera is going to change the world in their favor? I think it will change the world, but not in the way they anticipate.
All they did was show that five masked men could hack the head off of a man who could not defend himself. And that they are such idiots that they find meaning and value in such cruelty. Jesus fucking Christ, like I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKING impressed!
Anybody who finds courage, redemption, God, or morality in what they did is SO FUCKING INSANE that the day they are all wiped off the face of this planet will be perhaps the greatest day in the history of mankind.
Andy Budd is probably going to draw a lot of fire with this article.#
Over the years there have been many great articles extolling the virtues of CSS based design and bemoaning table based design. However there have been very few articles looking at things from the other side of the fence. This is probably because you really have to understand and use CSS based design before you can criticise it. Yet once converted, few (if any) people go back to the old way of coding.
In order to bring some balance back to the equation, and to have a bit of fun playing devils advocate, I've decided to write an article about why in some instances, traditional table based design can be as good, if not better than CSS and standards based design.
Michael Feldman taught me everything I needed to know about women.#
It was somewhat later that we discovered that the magical effects of flowers are multiplied many fold if you DON'T WAIT TIL YOU SCREW UP! Yes guys, making flowers appear, out of the blue, for no special reason, is the secret WMD, the heavy artillery, of the war between the sexes. So all you young guys out there searching for the secret shortcut to that paradise-between-the -thighs (you listening, Jay?) take a tip from an old geek (unfortunately it pretty much exhausts my store of useful knowledge on what makes women tick). A dozen roses is pretty much a sure ticket to a night of insane and affectionate pleasure. Even at American prices, its cheaper that dinner and a movie.
Jonathan Wilde writes about the "freedom" behind protectionism.#
America was founded on freedom of association, which is direct a consequence of the rights to life, liberty, and property. The people at Rescue American Jobs have a strange idea of "freedom". I do not consider it "freedom" if a group of peolple use physical force to prevent me from engaging in mutually beneficial exchange with my fellow man.
Rather, I consider it tyranny.
Scantily clad women in new kinds of bikinis.#
Neat kind of traditional fishing.#
things to do instead of crying: 1)be grateful you didnt join the marines on 9/12, 2)eat a bucket of pudding 3)remember that you'll die soon 4)listen to ac/dc's powerage 5)remember that tsar plays on wednesday 6)remember that the cubs play tomorrow and mr kerry wood is on the mound 7)be grateful that you dont have a penis the size of karisa's pinkie finger 8)be happy that youre not donald rumsfeld 9)be happy that youre not a khurd 10)be grateful that theres maybe four girls who would do you right now with one simple phone call and one is reading on your leather couch waiting to take you to her beachside hideaway.
Pictures of Tiananmen Square, April-June 1989.#
Friedensreich Hundertwasser links.#
Hans Hilte has a page about his postage stamps.
This Dutch site has a great deal of interesting pictures, but is not in English, it might not even be Dutch--some pages seem to be German. (Peter have you come across him in your architecture reading?)
This site has many interesting pictures.
More pictures at what might be the official site.
The official site above has an article on his philosophy. It explains about his distaste for straight lines.
Painting and sculpture are now free, inasmuch as anyone may produce any sort of creation and subsequently display it. In architecture, however, this fundamental freedom, which must be regarded as a precondition for any art, does not exist, for a person must first have a diploma in order to build. Why?
Everyone should be able to build, and as long as this freedom to build does not exist, the present-day planned architecture cannot be considered art at all. Our architecture has succumbed to the same censorship as has painting in the Soviet Union. All that has been achieved are detached and pitiable compromises by men of bad conscience who work with straight-edged rulers.
[...]
If such a fantastic structure built by the tenants themselves collapses, it will usually creak beforehand, anyway, so that people will be able to escape. But from then on the tenant will deal more critically and more creatively with the housing he lives in and will bolster the walls and beams with his own hands if they seem too fragile to him.
On Windows: "Some people say houses consist of walls. I say houses consist of windows."
And finally, There Are No Evils in Nature, There Are Only Evils in Man.
