Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-27

By Ricky in General No Comments

  • Why President Obama should have never said that he "hated the bank bailout": http://bit.ly/cuINEI #
  • I would trade legislative transparency for a health care bill. I've read Eating Animals. I don't want to see how it's made! bit.ly/9CgSCc #
  • Thinking about social media as a return to a pre-literate and not desirable age. #
  • Getting ready for game time—Let's go, Team Canada! #
  • Know any students interested in journalism and technology? We're looking for an intern: http://colligy.com/s/jobs/ed-intern/ #
  • Pulling the goalie with a one-goal deficit just seems stupid to me. I've seen it fail three times in the Olympics and succeed none. #

Why Obama was wrong to say he hated the bailout

By Ricky in General No Comments

As anyone who discussed Obama’s State of the Union address with me knows, I absolutely hated the speech’s opening in which Obama expressed his own hatred for the bank bailout. I hated it because Obama’s words seemed to me so, so untrue—or at least they should be untrue if he’s at all listened to the economists who surround him—so full of populist pandering. I was glad to hear David Frum echo this point on Marketplace a few days ago, arguing that it the problem isn’t just a lack of conviction but the fact that that absence of conviction will handcuff the government when it comes to pushing any sort of difficult, currently unpopular long-term policy.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-20

By Ricky in General No Comments

  • Why underdogs risk more in competition: http://bit.ly/98Eum4 #
  • "[GDP] measures everything . . . except that which makes life worthwhile." -R.F.K. #
  • Getting ready for South Africa: "A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern societies." #
  • I think I'm going to read Patti Smith's "Just Kids" and Edmund White's "Rimbaud" as a pair. #
  • Listen to the new K's Choice single, "Come Live the Life": http://bit.ly/diNf26 #

Why do drugstores and gas stations appear in clusters?

By Ricky in General No Comments Tags: , , , ,

Marketplace covered the acquisition of Duane Reade by Walgreens and suggested that drugstores in New York are on nearly every corner because consumers seek convenience. That’s true, but to really understand why they are all over, you need to understand a little game theory. Presh over at Mind Your Decisions has a very simple explanation of why competing gas stations are found across the street from each other and, similarly, why political candidates tend to be centrists.

Listen to the new K’s Choice single “Come Live the Life”

By Ricky in General, Music No Comments

One of my favorite albums, which I discovered by chance at FNAC ten years ago, is Almost Happy by K’s Choice. The brother and sister duo broke up and is now back together, releasing their first album since. It’s called Echo Mountain and its first single is called “Come Life the Life.” I heard the band’s lead singer, Sarah Bettens, perform it live on Tuesday in San Francisco. I’ll be posting more about her show shortly. For now, enjoy the new single:

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-13

By Ricky in General No Comments

  • Of course, pubs stagger release dates. If you want the cheaper, more portable edition, you gotta wait. Why should ebooks be any different? #
  • Why would I ever vote for a gubernatorial candidate who wants to run California like a business? #
  • "In what way do technological systems have moral characteristics?" http://bit.ly/d9unn1 #
  • Anyone know how to search tweets from only people you follow? #
  • Techies, pay attention: "…our greatest challenge now is the decision not to do what it is in our power to do." –Jedediah Purdy #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-06

By Ricky in General No Comments

  • Why isn't the Twitterverse reviving the #amazonfail chorus over the bookseller's dropping all Macmillan titles? #
  • Is Amazon nudging people to do the right thing and buy from independent bookstores?! http://nyti.ms/b0RKgS #
  • Amazon/Macmillan standoff is over. Now, stop licensing eBooks to readers and start selling them! #
  • Why haven't many people pointed out that the iPad can handle epub, PDF, and Kindle–all the ebook formats! #
  • An excellent, long interview with DFW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP9TWD5QaRY #
  • "…sending and getting…updates to and from dozens…of people every few minutes is an image from information hell." http://bit.ly/beXIaB #
  • "Any journalist who cheerleads uncritically for Twitter is essentially asking for his own destruction." http://bit.ly/cWGnkf #

Awesome, heartbreaking David Foster Wallace interview from 2003

By Ricky in Books, General 3 Comments

Get ready to give 90 minutes of your life right now.

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