What kind of trees are these?
As seen near my house in Utah. Beautifully tall. Natural barrier-like trees. Love ’em. What kind are they?
I run this joint. Don’t know where to start? Let me show you around:
As seen near my house in Utah. Beautifully tall. Natural barrier-like trees. Love ’em. What kind are they?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTx3G6h2xyA[/youtube]
The kid who made this is only 17 and hails from France. It’s a remix of 39 pop songs. Dubbed Madeon, he’s purportedly already signed to a label and releasing an extended play album this summer. It’s seriously some of the best live sampling I’ve ever seen.
Says a friend, “I see this sort of thing and basically give up on playing music. I’m a no-talent hack compared to this guy…” which is why this kid will have a long career in music.
Mangnifique!
I can count the number of country albums I like in the order I discovered them on one hand: Patsy Cline’s greatest, Garth Brooks Ropin’ the Wind, Hank Williams’ greatest, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, and Jimmy Buffett’s greatest (if you can call that country).
Truth be told, I think the genre may be the second most cliche and boring kind of music ever, after industrial, of course (with exception to Pretty Hate Machine and Downward Spiral).
But I digress. I now have a new favorite country album: Brad Paisley’s This is Country Music. Whether you like country or not, know this: Brad Paisley is a phenomenal musician, songwriter, Telecaster guitarist, and one of the best lyricists in modern music. Of any genre. Seriously, he could give Brandon Flowers a run for his poetic memory. He’s that good.
So if you ain’t scurred to try new things, click on the above link. Not only will it make you want to buy a 10-gallon hat and a pair of wranglers, I’m pretty sure one of the following eight highlight tracks will speak to you when listened to in their entirety: This is country music, A man don’t have to die, Camouflage, One of those lives, Toothbrush, Love her like she’s leaving, New Favorite memory, and Don’t drink the water.
For reals, this album is stacked. It’s in my running as album of the year. No lie.
As adherents of the Word of Wisdom, my family tries to avoid drinking tea — more specifically, anything derived from the Camellia sinensis plant (which results in black, green, white, yellow and oolong tea).
I say try because we used to suck down Chai like it was nobody’s business. That is, until we discovered that it contains black tea, in addition to delicious Indian spices. (Ignorance is bliss, people. Should have never read the label.)
But fear-not, non-tea drinkers. There are still a lot of tasty herbal alternatives, some of which are even better than the real thing. Continue reading…
A year and a half ago, I ignorantly called e-readers The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Today, it is I who stands naked before you.
To be fair, I still buy printed books. But only because I’m a cheap skate and I like being able to pass my favorite books on to friends and family—can’t do that with my Kindle.
That said, e-readers are a great way to own hundreds of classics for free, not to mention the occasional contemporary book bought on discount. Not only that, but Kindle is a wonderful way to read literature.
New prediction: E-readers, will in fact, replace the majority of books (but not all, they will stay niche like pencils).
I have. On many occasions, in fact.
It all started in college. I’d head to class early to get a jump on my studies, get bored within 30 minutes, then open to whatever novel, biography, or paperback I had bookmarked for personal enjoyment. In the course of my four year, 63-credit undergraduate education, I’d do this several times each semester.
Once I remember ditching an entire day of classes — Neverending Story-style — just to read Dan Brown. I had only planned to skip my first lecture.
Oops.
I’ve even been know to play professional hooky from time to time. Deadline at work? Too bad, I gotta see how Tom gets out of his latest pickle.
Just today, I slotted in a few minutes of And Then There Were None underneath the backyard maple tree, after eating a delicious meatball sandwich (thanks, Lindsey). Once my mental clock chimed in telling me to get back to work, I consciously dismissed it just so I could see how soldiers five, six, and seven died.
(The book is bloody brilliant, btw. Not only that but it’s remarkably written.)
Admittedly, my boss is a softy and does a horrible job in tracking my time. But I can’t think of a better way of grabbing life by the horns than reading a book when you really should be doing something else.
That or an afternoon baseball game, whichever comes first.
See more: Books I’ve blogged about
See.
The money quote: “In the 75-year history of the wire service era, CBSSports.com research showed that it is nearly impossible to win a national championship at the highest level in major college football without cheating. Among the schools that have won titles since 1936, when human polls became the accepted form of determining the sport’s champion, only BYU has never had a major violation in football.”
Go, Cougars!
Great video, particularly from 2-5 minutes.
Fascinating book. To the point and practical.
For example, the best way to describe a retail bank is to call it a piggy bank. The best way to describe an investment bank is to call is a casino, which is precisely what each are.
Who knew a book about high finance, banking, and The Great Recession could be such a fun read?
With the 10th pick in the NBA draft, a lot of people became Sacramento Kings fans last night. I’m one of them.
Above is the kings.com homepage, updated a couple hours after Jimmer was selected. Nice welcome.
“See Jimmer live all season!”
From one of the most brilliant minds of our time comes…
… on the impending irrelevance of Blackberry. This coming from a six-year Blackberry user (but I’m in the minority, and only use it for texting and voice calls now — no portable apps or Internet for me).
In other words, I use a dumbed down smartphone, so I’m not a target candidate.
If accurate (and I stress accurate, given that the photos are supplied by the company hoping to sell the new camera), this still unreleased camera sounds super cool. Since it reportedly records more information than a normal camera, the user can refocus after the fact. Try it by clicking the image above.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWHOF_0-6Hg[/youtube]
(Thanks, Tim)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiAHlZVgXjk[/youtube]
But if it’s anything like the book, Moneyball should be a good movie.
20 Century Fox
All this time, our neighbors down south had corn figured out. Butter is nice, but the following is better, as prepared by my wife last week:
Coat the corn with olive oil, grill it, then mix everything but the cheese and spread it on the corn. Roll in cheese. Enjoy!
All 10 songs can be looped and are definitely worth the purchase price. And the Brian MacDonald cameo on track 10 is choice. Enjoy! (Thanks, David).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I&feature=channel_video_title[/youtube]
A lot of good ideas here—dare I say more than OSX Lion. Would like to see how it behaves with a mouse and keyboard, however.
The owner of the second largest company in America walks into city hall.
It’s got everything a has-been skateboarder could hope for:
It’s obvious I’ll need to buy dork-pads before attempting my nearby skatepark. Nevertheless, it’s gonna be awesome.
In the mid 2000s, live blogging was all the rage. Since streaming video was still in its infancy, a live blog was the only way you could get real-time updates of an event from a remote location. It was a great recourse, as onlookers could react, comment, and update each other in real-time.
Today, live blogging is mostly useless. Take this year’s E3, for example. Every game company either streamed their live press conference or had a partner do it for them, most of which could be embedded and streamed live to your own website or blog. Nevertheless, every major blog I came across continued to perpetuate the “live blog” like it was still an asset to the reader.
Unsurprisingly, comments have decreased on these live blogs because no one really cares anymore. The solution: Just slap a live video embed on your site and be done with it. You’ll still get all the reader participation you had before and cut down your workload.
… At 10:30 am even. And here I thought the early bird always got the worm.
<br /> <a href=”http://polldaddy.com/poll/5115412/” mce_href=”http://polldaddy.com/poll/5115412/”>In the next 5 years, what platform will you play the most video games on?</a><span style=”font-size:9px;” mce_style=”font-size:9px;”><a href=”http://polldaddy.com/features-surveys/” mce_href=”http://polldaddy.com/features-surveys/”>customer surveys</a></span><br />
Today, auctions represent only 31% of all Ebay sales. A decade ago, Ebay was suppose to change the way everything was bought and sold. That didn’t happen. A new article in Wired tells why:
To begin with, the experience of auctions changed over time, generally in ways that made them less appealing to both buyers and sellers. Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor, which consults for ecommerce companies, points to the advent of sniping—the practice of placing winning bids at the last second—as something that has alienated ordinary shoppers…
Bargains, too, have become less common, as the market matured and people on both sides of the transaction became savvier…
Really, though, the biggest factor in the decline of the auction may simply be that the novelty of bidding wore off. “The Internet stopped being a source of wonder and became a place to do certain kinds of business,” Koehn says. “Once that happens, you start to think about things like ‘Does it make sense to spend this much time on an auction when I might not even get the item in the end?’” In econospeak, the hedonic benefits of bidding on eBay diminished.
In my opinion, I think the information age has simply normalized pricing. By that I mean you can save a buck or two on ebay, but you really have to work for it… and wait for it. Why not “buy it now” for a few bucks more elsewhere?
According to “certified” + estimated or “claimed” sales compiled by Wikipedia, they are as follows:
No disrespect, but I was surprised to see Madonna, Elton, and Mariah so high on the charts. Who knew?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yviIgIDxlwc[/youtube]
It’s gonna be awesome.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpUISVSoNOk[/youtube]
American men’s tennis has seen better days, although Roddick has kept things interesting, reaching the Wimbledon finals four times and playing in that epic match against Federer in 2009.
Via The Atlantic:
If The Federal Government’s household income was $55,000 per year, they’d actually be spending $96,500–$41,500 more than they made! That means they’re spending 175% of their annual income! So, in 2011 they’d add $41,500 of debt to their current credit card debt of $366,000!
Yup, it’s as bad as you thought.
Would be interesting to see what Rome’s debt-to-income ratio looked like before they fell.
Okay, that’s not true. But I haven’t IM’d more than 5-8 lines of text in the last five years.
Why? I loathe the technology. It’s so obtrusive. Consequently, I only turn on Skype when I need to make a call. And I haven’t logged in to Google Chat since 2006.
No, asynchronous email is a better respecter of your schedule when it comes to TCB (taking care of business). And meetings and phone calls are my go-to source for real-time communication.
What about you: do you still use instant messenger? If so, why?
Photo: Edmund Hillary
Take it away, fellas:
“Why make a fuss over something that’s done anyway? I was never one to obsess about the past. Too much to do in the future!”—Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to summit Mount Everest
“It has been a long road … From a mountain slave, a bearer of loads, to a wearer of a coat with rows of medals who is carried about in planes and worries about income tax.”—Tenzing Norgay, the Buzz Aldrin of Mount Everest (aka the second man to step foot on the summit, immediately following Hillary)
These words are loaded with so much more meaning given what each man accomplished.
Put differently, talk is cheap. Experience is everything.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVqe8ieqz10&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
The video could use a little editing, but it does an effective job in selling Google’s version of cloud computing. So much, in fact, I predict these “computer-like objects” will be a lot more relevant than tablets, but only if they come down in price. The reported $350-500 launch models, available June 15, are too much.
See also: My Chromebook is a fast tablet with a faster keyboard
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJFqRcvq3rw[/youtube]
Samsung sponsored this guy Kenton Cool (awesome name) to summit Mount Everest for a ninth time this month. In exchange, the company had him place the first cell phone call ever from the highest point on Earth, to his wife. What a moment.
The baby woke at 8:00 am today. She downed her bottle in five minutes. Played for 30 minutes. Ate for 30 minutes. Then played for another 35 minutes before giving the univiersal “I’m tired” signal: She cried.
By 9:45, she was dozing off in her crib. She doesn’t always take a morning nap this early; sometimes she’ll go until 10 or maybe 10:30. But like clockwork, our other two did this as well.
Noting that, imagine if adults could only go two hours in the morning before requiring a nap. Corporate America would get grouchy and fussy by 10:00 am!
This is neat and all, and the inventor created a great little game called Lost Winds that I enjoyed. But it seems useless without ethernet and/or wireless networking. Furthermore, if you can afford a monitor with HDMI-out, I’m guessing you can afford a computer. Am I wrong?
Among other things, I’ve been working as a media consultant for the state of Utah this year — specifically related to Utah Lake. To help promote the lake as a tax-funded and public resource, I helped officials launch and now maintain a new editorialized website at utahlake.gov (pictured).
Local media, however, isn’t a fan — at least not yet — and rightfully criticized the site’s birth warts. “Government officials have launched a website aimed at helping locals stay home to vacation on Utah Lake, but the launch hit rough waters,” wrote Caleb Warnock, reporting for the Daily Herald. “On Wednesday, repeated attempts to find recreation information were greeted with this message: ‘The page you were looking for could not be found.'”
Not only did the site launch with broken links, there were a few proofreading errors too, not to mention editing notes that were never meant to be made public.
Kind of embarrassing. Continue reading…
Ask any American what they think of the English Royal Family, and even the most liberal voter will tell you it’s a waste of taxpayer money (since the family is powerless). Whether or not that’s the case, the level of U.S. government waste far exceeds that of the Royal Family.
For example, the British Royal Family costs the UK taxpayer $64 million per year, excluding travel and security. That’s about a dollar per person. The travel budget for the U.S. president alone is several times that.
The Homeland Security Agency, which like the Royal Monarchy, is suppose to make citizens feel all warm and fuzzy inside, costs the U.S. taxpayer $55 billion a year! What do we get in return? Mandatory shoe removal at airports, 15,000 wasted jobs, a failed alert system, and more exciting deployments for the Armed Forces (you know, the people who should be managing homeland security in the first place, like they honorably and successfully did prior to HSA’s creation).
And that’s just one of hundreds of wasteful agencies.
So the next time you get all high and mighty on Team America for not wasting money on an opulent spokesfamily, ask yourself what U.S. department was watched by more than 2.5 billion people in a mostly favorable light this morning?
A $25,000 Office Pod.
In The Know: Should The Nation’s Unemployed Be Buying New Apple Computers?
Speaking personally, I’ve owned a Blu-ray player (PS3) since 2007, yet I only own maybe five Blu-ray discs. Yes the picture quality is nicer, but upscaled DVDs and streaming movies look nearly as good, and up until this year, they were a whole lot cheaper.
The May issue of Wired Magazine has a fascinated piece on injectable vasectomies that can be reversed with a follow-up shot. The procedure, dubbed by Wired as “the biggest advance in male birth control since the condom,” is flawless so far in clinical trials and dirt cheap to administer. Cool.
But I resent the article’s assertion that if successful, the procedure would “increase the chance” of humanity escaping poverty (p. 171). People aren’t poor because they have a lot of kids. They’re poor because they’re oppressed, complacent, or both. Offspring have nothing to do with personal wealth. (At least mine don’t, and I’m a freakin’ thousandaire!)
Of course, if you’re an absent parent and express your “love” in the form of material gifts, than yes—parenting children can be expensive. But otherwise, children have less impact than you think when it comes to a sinking or swimming family.
According to Walter Breuning, a resilient man who did:
What an inspired life. (Thanks, Tim)
My latest for Fox & Friends. Not a shocker, but I still found it amusing.
A recent quote my wife found:
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
Not only is Dr. Seuss a fun read for kids, he’s wonderfully metaphoric when read by an adult.
I’ve been in awe of his work while re-reading it to my kids.
