When I heard of the death of Tim Russert yesterday, the grand inquisitor (in a good way) of Washington, I repeatedly thought of Mark Leibovich’s Chris Matthews profile from the NYT Mag in April: On the morning of the Cleveland debate, Matthews was standing in the lobby of the Ritz when Russert walked through, straight [...]
Who says politics has devolved into a slideshow? Looks more like it’s the center ring. This was recorded for the WWE, broadcast last night. I guess they really are trying to get that working class white male vote. No more direct route than pro wrestling, right? I like how McCain suggests that he’s “the [...]
The good folks at China Digital Times have pointed us to a documentary by Chen Weijun about an experiment in democracy in Chinese grade school. It’s an amazing piece. With all the electioneering and scheming, you eventually forget that you’re watching a bunch of eight-year-olds in a (nominally) Communist country. Here’s the YouTube intro: In [...]
NY Daily News has the story, or, rather, traffics in the speculation (the “web of intrigue,” they call it, punny and appropriate): mike2008.com is online. Routes you to Michael Bloomberg’s personal web site/advertisement for himself. The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Independent’s people say they’re just trying to prevent web squatting. But fuel begat fire, and one wonders who might [...]
Backdate your Spoon fanhood a few years for maximum benefit, same as you do with stock options. And do it now, before Spoon gets so popular that it’s too late to proclaim your enthusiasm as still unique. Tell your friends you got in on the ground floor. If all you’ve had to go on for [...]
For a long time, when people asked me where I go, or went, to college, my first response was “New Hampshire,” or even, “New England.” Then they would slowly zero in: which school, or which town, until: Dartmouth. I abandoned that initial answer too long after I had started getting the question. While I thought [...]
Tony in Alaska (who also happens to be brother of “It is, in fact” founder Tim) sent in some images from last month’s Chatanika Days, mentioned in an earlier post on this site about outhouse races. Thanks for the pictures, Tony. Tony trying out an outhouse Some kind of race (probably drunk) Tug of war [...]
On February 16, I wrote about the tilt-shift effect and included examples of tilt-shift photography that I created using Photoshop. Two days ago, on the 27th, Boing Boing, the blog that leaves everyone breathless, published a post saying that you could, after all, fake the tilt-shift effect, and included a link to instructions on how [...]
I should have seen it coming. Will Smith had about 5 months to crawl to the top of my “most viewed” list on Flickr. He did it in the course of a day. Su Lin the panda has had about 4 days so far, and she beat Will in one day. It looks like it [...]
It’s been a real horserace, but as of 11:30 a.m. PST, Su Lin is now my most popular picture by 38 views. Which is actually quite substantial. (She’s also the most favorited, most commented upon, and most “interesting.” What will it take to overtake her?—ed.)
Despite my best efforts, people really just want to see photographs of furry, fuzzy baby animals. Sure, I could take a decent San Francisco picture, or one of some people on the street, or careless boaters with a tangled anchor, or flying octopi. But I woke up this Thursday morning to find that 25 people [...]
No problem. Let me know if you have any questions. 
