Coolest map ever Open Thread.

Submitted by mmghosh on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 4:59am

Meta

http://www.submarinecablemap.com/ From a very cool site. http://www.telegeography.com/telecom-maps/index.html Also, in praise of [url=http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/feb/15/ebooks-cant-burn/]e-books.[/url] [quote]The e-book, by eliminating all variations in the appearance and weight of the material object we hold in our hand and by discouraging anything but our focus on where we are in the sequence of words (the page once read disappears, the page to come has yet to appear) would seem to bring us closer than the paper book to the essence of the literary experience. Certainly it offers a more austere, direct engagement with the words appearing before us and disappearing behind us than the traditional paper book offers, giving no fetishistic gratification as we cover our walls with famous names. It is as if one had been freed from everything extraneous and distracting surrounding the text to focus on the pleasure of the words themselves. In this sense the passage from paper to e-book is not unlike the moment when we passed from illustrated children’s books to the adult version of the page that is only text. This is a medium for grown-ups.[/quote] Amen.

The paean to e-books cracks me up.

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Submitted by Jordan on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 10:14am.

The "material world disappears" eh? "The fetish for ink and paper and famous names"? Gone is the fetishistic gratification of material things?

iPad 2 - $499-699

Verizon data plan - $129

Monthly data plans - $15-80/mo.

Digital edition books - $9.99 - $19.99 avg.

Who knew neoplatonism could be so spendy? Even if you go cheaper with the Kindle ($100-300, no data plan, generally cheaper Kindle book editions), you're still shelling out a pretty good chunk of hard cash in order to liberate yourself from the trappings of material property. (Seriously, trading printed books for expensive microelectronic devices is not my idea of an unmediated interface with pure language.)

As for the idea that iPad owners have moved beyond the fetishization of ownership, it is to larf. A medium for grown-ups, puh-leeze. :)

M Aurelius was probably right.

Respectfully disagree, sir. You have heard of Project Gutenberg

(#275828)

Submitted by mmghosh on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 11:06am.

naturally. Check it out to see how many books are available on it, now. You would already need a lifetime to read what is available just in the free arena. Add blogs, newspapers and other free discussion media e.g. the Forvm.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

I understand. There are lending libraries too,

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Submitted by Jordan on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 11:46am.

but portability is certainly a great advantage of e-books.

I'm just laughing at the idea that e-books give you some kind of "unmediated" access to literature in its pure state. Pixels on a screen are every bit as physical as words printed on paper. Not to mention, they cost quite a bit more. Also not to mention, people fetishize their portable devices at least as much as their paper book collections. :)

Also interesting, the author seems aware of some of the limitations of e-book formatting...a printed book is in some ways more flexible than an electronic addition. It's certainly easier to skip, to read things out of order, to peek ahead without losing your spot, to read several sections simultaneously (main text and footnotes, for example) in a printed book. E-books lock you into a more linear experience of a given text.

M Aurelius was probably right.

On that last part

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Submitted by hobbesist on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 12:03pm.

Endnotes, which all reasonable people agree should be tossed into the dustbin of history, are easier to manage in ebook format than in a regular book; oh I how I wish I'd had a Kindle when I was reading Infinite Jest.

But yeah, there are technical advantages to regular ol' books over ebooks (and vice versa), and the notion that ebooks offer a less mediated experience of reading is bizarre.

A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.

Just having hypertext

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Submitted by mmghosh on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 7:08pm.

adds immeasurably to a reading experience. OK, so few ebooks have hypertext - yet.

But they will.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

Yes and no

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Submitted by HankP on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 7:13pm.

unless done well, it can break up the narrative structure.

I blame it all on the Internet

Eh

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Submitted by Wagster on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 11:47am.

My kindle will pay for itself (through cheaper books) in about a year... if I read as much as some people around here, it would be a fraction of that.

Regarding my reading habits, I had resisted the New Yorker for a long time because it kept me away from reading full books. But nowadays I'm reading more non-fiction than fiction, and I've realized most non-fiction books yield their treasures in the first couple of chapters, and then after that is a lot of filler. Maybe article-sized reading is better for you.

"I don't want us to descend into a nation of bloggers." - Steve Jobs

A Reminder. . .

(#275838)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 5:45pm.

. . .from Mickey Kaus--and sadly confirmed by our archives here--that the sinestrosphere's venom hasn't been reserved for those who were as (allegedly) uniquely nasty as Mr. Breitbart.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

It goes both ways

(#275843)

Submitted by HankP on Sun, 03/04/2012 - 6:34pm.

[link]

... Mr. Moral Superiority

I blame it all on the Internet

Forget about increasing your income in the US

(#275900)

Submitted by catchy on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 6:33am.

If you aren't in the top 1%.

During this recovery, incomes in the top 1% have increased 11.6%, the top 1% has hogged 93% of all income gains while the bottom 99% have enjoyed a whopping .2% increase.

In the Bush expansion years, the top 1% increased their incomes 61.8% and hogged 65% of total income growth. Meanwhile the bottom 99% saw a 6.7% increase in incomes with the majority of this concentrated in the top 5%.

Average Income Real Growth

Full period 1993-2010 13.8%

Clinton Expansion 1993-2000 31.5%

2001 Recession 2000-2002 -11.7%

Bush Expansion 2002-2007 16.1%

Great Recession 2007-2009 -17.4%

Recovery 2009-2010 2.3%

Top 1% Incomes Real Growth

(2)

58.0%

98.7%

-30.8%

61.8%

-36.3%

11.6%

Bottom 99% Incomes Real Growth

(3)

6.4%

20.3%

-6.5%

6.8%

-11.6%

0.2%

Fraction of total

growth (or loss) captured by top 1%

(4)

52%

45%

57%

65%

49%

93%

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2010.pdf

What is the cut off for the 1%?

(#275901)

Submitted by mmghosh on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 6:57am.

Is it more than $1 million per year?

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

It's around 350k per year

(#275902)

Submitted by catchy on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 7:13am.

Paul Krugman and others like to talk about the top .001 instead of the top .01%, which is associated with over a million a year cutoff and where the vast wealth concentration and disproportionte income growth lies.

Is that just people earning 350k

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Submitted by mmghosh on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 8:03am.

per year as salary, plus investment income and so forth? And does this include assets such as in calculating net worth - home etc?

I noted, while in the UK, the value of inheritance income.

literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it

Income is Wages, Interest

(#275905)

Submitted by notyou on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 10:01am.

rents received, etc.

An asset such as a home is "wealth" and is not part of the recokoning here*.

Distribution of wealth is worse. (Or better, depending on where you stand.)

---------------

*Via the paper's first footnote: "First, our income measure includes realized capital gains while realized capital gains are not included in GDP" and Wikipedia's discription of the National Income component of GDP: "NY = Employee compensation + Corporate profits + Proprietor's Income + Rental income + Net Interest."

We'll be able to tell our grandkids

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Submitted by Jordan on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 7:44am.

what America was like without an aristocracy. Course it'll be illegal, so we'll have to wait until they're old enough to fear prosecution.

M Aurelius was probably right.

The future

(#275921)

Submitted by catchy on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 1:04am.

[img=440x440]http://www.thepaincomics.com/Liberals%20vs.%20The%20Empire.jpg[/img]

Before The future

(#275922)

Submitted by brutusettu on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 1:45am.

"I’m to believe that North Korea is so dangerously unhinged that they would attack without warning – yet so meek and easily cowed that they will sit quietly and not retaliate when we start bombing them."

Major Kong

Before it was on the F-P of the huffPo or dailykos

(#275911)

Submitted by catchy on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 5:48pm.

It was here on theforvm.

I'm pretty much like the drudgereport of the left.

Hey, for a philosophy guy,

(#275912)

Submitted by Jordan on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 7:30pm.

your economic forecasting & analysis is pretty damn good. I pay attention, at any rate. Your first Drudge groupie!

M Aurelius was probably right.

Stanley Kubrick, ace photojournalist

(#275906)

Submitted by wombaticus on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 12:51pm.

Who knew?

http://www.retronaut.co/2011/03/stanley-kubricks-chicago-1949/

They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...
-- General John B. Sedgwick, 1864

I had some Trouble with your Link re Kubrick...But...

(#275910)

Submitted by Traveller on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 4:23pm.

http://www.retronaut.co/2011/03/stanley-kubricks-chicago-1949/

What is most interesting to me is that Kubrick 1949 Chicago is very good...while Ansel Adams, Los Angeles, 1940 is not very good, as Adams himself noted at the time. Oh sure there is some interesting images of Los Angeles, but they lack the dynamism of Kubrick.

http://zev.lacounty.gov/news/arts-culture/civic-arts/ansel-adams-and-a-v...

All 220 photos here:

http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/DoSearch?databaseID=968&index=-1&init...

Best Wishes, Traveller

Any snobby film buff of the

(#275919)

Submitted by heet on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 12:26am.

Any snobby film buff of the American persuasion knows Kubrick was a photographer for Look magazine in NYC. Supposedly, he was a total film dork. Kubrick-lore has him designing super special low fstop lenses for Barry Lyndon. A cinematographic masterpiece, btw.

An update on that "after-birth abortion" article.

(#275907)

Submitted by hobbesist on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 2:30pm.

The authors offer an open letter in response to the outraged reactions. One of the strongest knocks on the article, it seems to me, isn't that it's conclusion is so outre, but that it differs so little from Tooley's 1975 argument (which, ftr, it's not unusual to find excerpted in an Ethics 101 textbook and basic Bioethics anthologies).

Here's an interesting remark on the infanticide issue from one of the writers at the New APPS blog (both the post itself and the author's expansion of it in comment #7).

A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.

Breitbartocalypse Descends!

(#275908)

Submitted by Jay C on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 3:59pm.

Though rock bottom might be nearer the starting point for this one...

The late Andrew Breitbart's site has just released the result of their departed founder's last "expose" - his target: President Obama.

The dire "revelation": in 1998, then-State-Senator Obama attended a play in Chicago. A play about Saul Alinsky.

And even more direly: took part in a panel discussion about it afterwards.

SRSLY. That's it.

Barry should just resign now, one supposes......

h/ts, Balloon Juice, Little Green Footballs

Radical communist agitprop

(#275909)

Submitted by Pranky on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 4:17pm.

theatrical production was reviewed by notorious pinko-rag the Chicago Tribune. Plus this scoop has been known for years

http://tinyurl.com/7stwose

http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2012/03/breitbarts-big-final-scoop-not-...

Fatal rage over nothing

(#275913)

Submitted by HankP on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 7:56pm.

a fitting epitaph.

I blame it all on the Internet

Another Smackdown For Gun-Grabbers

(#275916)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 10:01pm.

The best part--a well-constructed rebuke that will be quoted for decades even if the federal appellate courts aren't friendly to this decision:

A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.

Yeah, I'm looking at *you*, Nanny Bloomberg.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

Judge Legg got it right

(#275918)

Submitted by brutusettu on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 10:46pm.

And the obligatory non sequitur [url=http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110517/12313814301/4th-amendment-what-4th-amendment-supremes-say-police-can-create-conditions-to-enter-home-without-warrant.shtml]reference to 4th amendment[/url] And with the 4th, obligatory reference to the smack down Thomas' [i]thinking[/i] got in Safford Unified School District v. Redding.

Major Kong

What a disgusting state of affairs

(#275932)

Submitted by Darth Cuddly on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 1:07pm.

A man after my own heart with a name that turns my stomach

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=leg

In the medical community, death is known as Chuck Norris Syndrome.

Yes Scott

(#275923)

Submitted by HankP on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 2:26am.

they're coming for your non-existent guns. Especially Bloomberg, because he's now also the Mayor of Oregon.

I blame it all on the Internet

"A timeline of warnings since 1979"

(#275924)

Submitted by brutusettu on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 3:23am.

[url=http://www.juancole.com/2012/03/netanyahu-1992-iran-will-have-the-bomb-by-1997.html]"Netanyahu 1992: Iran will Have the Bomb by 1997"[/url]

Major Kong

Nice Find...Thanks....nt

(#275925)

Submitted by Traveller on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 3:27am.

Traveller

Laurens County, S.C. GOP

(#275936)

Submitted by wombaticus on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 3:39pm.

Ensures it will never have another candidate on the ballot. Future candidates must swear they've never had premarital sex, and will immediately stop watch pron.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/sc_county_gop_if_youve_had_pre-marital_sex_you_can.php?ref=skyboxes

They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...
-- General John B. Sedgwick, 1864

Best argument for being a RINO that I've seen nt

(#275938)

Submitted by HankP on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 3:45pm.

I blame it all on the Internet

Wrong, wombaticus,

(#275939)

Submitted by Pranky on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 3:48pm.

This simply means that you are now required to lie to be a republican on the ballot.

Well, hypocrisy is

(#275940)

Submitted by AndrewSshi on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 4:07pm.

the homage that vice pays to virtue.

Homage?

(#275941)

Submitted by Jay C on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 5:19pm.

In this case, its poll tax, as well.....

The tax so nice they named it vice nt

(#275942)

Submitted by HankP on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 5:48pm.

I blame it all on the Internet

Duh.

(#276077)

Submitted by Bernard Guerrero on Thu, 03/08/2012 - 7:41pm.

I've been telling you guys for years, you're pretty well required to lie to be on any ballot, at least with any hope of success. Generally speaking, I'd usually rather vote for the bigger liar. It means there's less chance whatever stupid nonsense they promised during the campaign is actually going to get enacted.

"Unfortunately the universe doesn't agree with me. We'll see which one of us is still standing when this is over." -- Eliezer Yudkowsky

This

(#275951)

Submitted by HankP on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 10:53pm.

is awesome.

I blame it all on the Internet

"Woody, darling, light of my life.

(#275952)

Submitted by Jordan on Tue, 03/06/2012 - 11:16pm.

I'm not gonna hurtcha. I'm just gonna bash your Mattel brains in."

M Aurelius was probably right.

That's cool.

(#276087)

Submitted by heet on Fri, 03/09/2012 - 11:02am.

That's cool.

Memo To Mr. Manning

(#275958)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 2:17am.

Whether you play on for years, or call it quits after the press conference tomorrow--just make sure that you handle it with substantially more dignity than Favre did. You owe it to the fans who have supported you for the past decade and a half.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

That's a Small Plane to Have Those Two Big Men On...!

(#275959)

Submitted by Traveller on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 2:39am.

Irsay and Manning traveled together Tuesday night from South Florida on Irsay's private jet and will conduct a joint news conference at noon ET on Wednesday, which sources said will be to announce the quarterback's departure.

I imagine that the seating in such close confines could be awkward to uncomfortable.

But that's just me....as long as neither of them B*tch Slaps the other....I guess all is good.

Best Wishes, Traveller

Close confines?

(#275976)

Submitted by Spartacvs on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 11:43am.

Trav you have no concept:

http://www.google.com/search?q=interior+photo+bombardier+challenger+300&...

"Something I think most liberals don't understand is exactly how stupid many conservative leaders are." - Matt Yglesias

LOL...That Does Look Different Than the Cattle Car Economy I Fly

(#276003)

Submitted by Traveller on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 2:44pm.

...I ain't never seen nothin` like that in all my born days (true story)....I be too poor to even touch a plane liken that!

Best Wishes, Traveller

Indulge yourself

(#276004)

Submitted by Spartacvs on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 3:02pm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFI_qR_34WM

"Something I think most liberals don't understand is exactly how stupid many conservative leaders are." - Matt Yglesias

Oh, big deal...

(#276011)

Submitted by M Aurelius on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 4:44pm.

Just go down to Walmart, buy four knock-off La-Z-Boy chairs, some carpeting, a couple of fluorescent tubes, fake wood trim, and some heavy white cardboard. Hang the cardboard from the ceiling so it hangs to the sides, arrange the chairs as shown, put the tubes in to light the ceiling, fire up a vacuum cleaner in the next room for the engine noise, serve yourself something on the rocks, sit down with a copy of Barrons or something, and you are practically there. I do this all the time...

I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.

He should retire

(#275960)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 3:03am.

he has two little kids, he doesn't want to be playing with them while sitting in a wheelchair.

I blame it all on the Internet

Memo To Gene Wojciechowski

(#276017)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 6:02pm.

Step away from the bong, man.

And from the comments, what might be literally the most stupid comment ever uttered by a sports fan:

Andrew Luck = Ryan Leaf 2.0.

Thanks for the insight, Nostradumbass.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.

Well, there's always that chance

(#276025)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 6:26pm.

not so much for Ryan Leaf 2.0, but for a failure in the NFL. I can understand wanting to move to the new franchise QB ASAP, but not so much getting rid of Manning before the new guy has even gone through one practice game.

I blame it all on the Internet

It Wouldn't Be So Risky. . .

(#276030)

Submitted by M Scott Eiland on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 6:35pm.

. . .if they had a reliable backup. Of course, they wouldn't be drafting first if they'd had a reliable backup, so I assume they'll pick one up as a free agent during the offseason.

The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.