Author: swanksalot

Some additional reading August 19th from 06:40 to 11:12:

• The South Loop Historical Society – First Regiment Armory – "One of Chicago’s many under-appreciated contributions to world history is the birth of the labor movement. The Haymarket Affair, on May 4, 1886, was a demonstration by tens of thousands of workers at Desplaines and Randolph Streets (then called Haymarket Square) in response to a police crackdown after a general strike called on May 1. During the demonstration, a bomb was thrown that resulted in the deaths of seven police officers. …

  Yet in the aftermath of the violence in Haymarket Square, prominent business leaders in Chicago became concerned that they and their families might be targeted with violence. The area with Chicago’s most affluent business leaders in the late 19th Century was Prairie Avenue in the South Loop, home to Marshall Field, George Pullman, Phillip Armour, Potter Palmer, among others, on a stretch of opulent homes known as “Millionaire’s Row.”

• MobileMe: Supplemental 60-day extension eligibility and details – "The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was rockier than we had hoped. While we are making a lot of improvements, the MobileMe service is still not up to our standards. We are extending subscriptions 60-days free of charge to express appreciation for our members’ patience as we continue to improve the service."

Some additional reading August 18th from 17:26 to 20:50:

• TELL TALE SIGNS PT 3: MONEY DOESN’T TALK… – The new Bob Dylan Bootleg Series will–if I buy the two disc version at $18.99–cost me 70 cents per song, and the three disc version at $129.99 will cost me $3.25 per song!? But wait! I also get a book (that probably costs $15 to produce) filled with colorful pictures of picture sleeves! Whoopee! Is it really any wonder that people illegally download product and are killing the record companies? What do you say to the fans when you pull this kind of garbage? Do you really think that people are that stupid? You should be ashamed.”
• Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights – I think I just fell in love with Bitch PhD. Let me add her to my RSS feed, stat! Anyone that the Catholic League hates is ok by me. “On the home page of Bitch Ph.D. there is a picture of two children: one of them is shown flashing his middle finger. Today’s lead post, which was written August 17, is called ‘Jesus Christ.’ It begins with, ‘I’m a really crappy Catholic who hasn’t been to mass in ages because most parishes around here ‘will’ insist on being aggressively anti-abortion….’ The writer then objects to some children’s toys on the grounds that they are more offensive than desecrating the Eucharist. The toys are actually balloons that have been made to depict Jesus in various poses, including a crucified Christ; one of these images shows Jesus with a penis. Several who commented on this image made patently obscene comments.”

Some additional reading August 18th from 00:10 to 08:30:

• Fluke: iFLAC your Mac – "Fluke is really quite simple. The installer you download installs the components necessary for it to work: XiphQT, FLACImporter, and Set OggS. Fluke itself is an AppleScript saved as an application bundle. I kept the script inside the bundle editable so it's all nice and open-saucy."
• ThePanelist.com – The Holy Grail of Health Insurance: DENIED – "The Washington Post recently published an article, later picked up by MSNBC, on the fact that health insurance companies are now targeting patient’s electronic prescription records as a quick, easy and relatively inexpensive way to evaluate a person’s insurability.

  Gone are the days of contacting a physician's office or hospital business center and speaking with a live human or, alternatively, waiting weeks for medical records to be mailed. The Internet, once hailed as the harbinger of a paperless society, has finally succeeded in becoming just that. Unfortunately, this single instance of achievement is in precisely the sort of arena where human, rather than machine, contact is so essential, and delay (rather than haste) may err on the side of justice. "

• How to play .flac files in iTunes – Simple Help – "This tutorial will guide you in installing all of the required software (and in which order) to get iTunes to play .flac files. This works for iTunes version 7.4.1 (and Quicktime 7.2.0) running on OS X.

  Update: I’ve added a 2nd, much easier way to accomplish the same thing (playing FLAC files in iTunes. And this method works using iTunes 7.6.2."

• Hullabaloo They Did It – John McCain "is incapable of cheating because he was a POW. We shall hear no more about it.

  (Of course his first wife and the shareholders in the Lincoln Savings and Loan might disagree, but far be it for me to bring that up.)"

Some additional reading August 17th from 22:05 to 22:07:

• Oil, Alaska, Bakken, Middle East | Salon – "The upshot: Oil is a finite resource that takes a long time to create, but we use it quickly. So wouldn't it be great if oil were an inexhaustible, inorganic substance? A few researchers, notably Soviet scientists in the 1950s, have tried unsuccessfully to make this case. Corsi, known for his attacks on John Kerry, and now making the media rounds with a loopy book on Barack Obama, also promotes this view. In 2005, Corsi coauthored a book, "Black Gold Stranglehold," asserting that oil is inorganic and abundant, and he continues pumping out related columns at the conservative current-events site WorldNetDaily.

  Corsi prefers to cite a lone American academic supporter of the idea: Thomas Gold, the late Cornell astrophysicist and habitual scientific maverick who proposed that inorganic methane shoots up from the earth's mantle into the crust and turns into oil. "

• MicroStock Photography – Share Your Experience – In my brief exploration of microstock photography sites, they seem like a ripoff. Too much of the margin goes to the agency, not enough to the photographer.

Some additional reading August 16th from 16:32 to 22:26:

• Bob Dylan’s Poetic Pause in Hollywood on the Way to Folk Music Fame – NYTimes.com – Barry Feinstein, the rock ’n’ roll photographer, was digging through his archives last year when he came across a long-forgotten bundle of pictures, dozens of dark, moody snapshots of Hollywood in the early 1960s.

  And tucked next to the photographs was a set of prose poems, written around the same time by an old friend: Bob Dylan.

  “It was the lost manuscript,” Mr. Feinstein recalled in a telephone interview from his home in Woodstock, N.Y. “Everybody forgot about it but me.”

• Pinto beans – Am soaking some pinto beans for tomorrow, and discovered this factoid:
  "Pinto beans are an excellent source of the trace mineral, molybdenum, an integral component of the enzyme sulfite oxidase, which is responsible for detoxifying sulfites. Sulfites are a type of preservative commonly added to prepared foods like delicatessen salads and salad bars. Persons who are sensitive to sulfites in these foods may experience rapid heartbeat, headache or disorientation if sulfites are unwittingly consumed. If you have ever reacted to sulfites, it may be because your molybdenum stores are insufficient to detoxify them. A cup of pinto beans supplies 128.3 mg of molybdenum–that's 171.0% of the daily value for this trace mineral."
  Wine? Sulfites? eat more beans!
• Political Ephemera from the Vietnam War Era – "The University of Washington has put a collection of Vietnam War era printed ephemera (posters, flyers, pamphlets, magazines, mostly cheap mimeographs or photocopies) online. The browsable collection ranges from Defend the Black Panthers to How to Make a Revolution in the U.S. to the Planetary Citizen Human Manifesto to plain old Do Something. The collection offers a fascinating insight into the passion, energy and graphic sensibilities of grassroots, home-front politics in late 1960s and early 1970s Seattle.
  There are over 200 items, many with multiple pages (scroll bar in upper left frame)"
• Jon Henley on dining like an Olympic champion | – "Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer of all time, eats 12,000 calories a day. Eggs, mayonnaise and assorted fats make up a jaw-dropping proportion of his diet. How can he force it all down? And what is it doing to his body? With nothing to lose but his waistline, Jon Henley tries dining like an Olympic champion"

A few interesting links for August 15th through August 16th:

• 33 1/3: Interview with Slayer author, DX Ferris – Axl Rosenberg of Metalsucks has posted a great interview with DX Ferris, author of the Reign in Blood volume in the series.

  You can read the whole interview here

• Roof taking root on UIS building – Springfield, IL – The State Journal-Register – "Insulation provided by the roof is expected to reduce overall heating costs in the building by 8 percent and cooling costs by 16 percent.

  The floor directly below the roof should realize heating cost savings of 25 percent and cooling cost savings of 50 percent.

  A green roof has been shown to make a difference of 12 to 15 degrees in temperature compared with regular insulation on the floor directly below it if no internal heat or air conditioning is provided, said John Ringle, UIS director of housing and residential life."

Some additional reading August 15th from 12:08 to 14:48:

• RIAA has to pay $107,951 for court costs in failed suit against disabled single mom – RIAA is slime, plain and simple.
  "The RIAA has lost its lawsuit against Tanya Andersen, a disabled single mother, and have been ordered to pay her court costs of $107,951. But the good news keeps on coming: Ms Andersen is now countersuing for damages arising from her having to defend the suit.
  "Well, Phase I of the RIAA's misguided pursuit of an innocent, disabled Oregon woman, Atlantic v. Andersen, has finally drawn to a close, as the RIAA was forced to pay Ms. Andersen $107,951, representing the amount of her attorneys fee judgment plus interest. But as some have pointed out, reimbursement for legal fees doesn't compensate Ms. Andersen for the other damages she's sustained. And that's where Phase II comes in, Andersen v. Atlantic. There the shoe is on the other foot, and Tanya is one doing the hunting, as she pursues the record companies and their running dogs for malicious prosecution. Should be interesting.""
• Dispatches from the Culture Wars: That Pesky Constitution – "Here's the quote of the day, from the mayor of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, where a 24 hour curfew – that means no one can leave their homes at all, at any time of day – has been imposed:

  "If somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I'm fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here," Mayor James Valley said. "The citizens deserve peace, [believe] that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution."
  Um. Okay. Apparently there's a difference between infringing and violating constitutional rights. "

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Why Russia Was Wrong to Invade Georgia – "According to John McCain:

  In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations.
  Seriously. He said that without even a hint of irony. The mind truly boggles. And in related news, Ike Turner says you should be kind to your wife. Video below"

• Georgia signs cease-fire – A reluctant Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Friday he signed a cease-fire agreement with Russia and declared in the presence of the chief U.S. diplomat that the West had behaved in ways that invited the invasion.

  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had been assured that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign an identical document. The United States says the pact protects the former Soviet republic's interests despite concessions to Moscow.

• Netflix apology – "We’re happy to report that all of our shipping centers are resuming normal operations (after 3 days of issues). If you should have been shipped a disc Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it will ship today (Friday).

  We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. To all of you whose shipments have been delayed, we’ll be automatically applying a 15% credit to your next billing statement. Or, if you are new to Netflix and your first shipments have been delayed, we recognize that this is not a good way to begin your Netflix membership and we’ll automatically extend your free trial by a week."

• Time Out Chicago: The TOC Blog Things to do this weekend: Aug 15 – 17 – "Today’s featured shot from the TOC Flickr photo group comes to us from swanksalot.

  It’s lovely outside. I suggest you play hooky and go on a bike date. Or schedule a last-minute beach road trip."

• CD Baby: SETH ANDERSON: Songs From The Regal Ranch Sessions – This is a different dude, not me at all. I would never go to Oklahoma State! Ahem.
  "Songs from The Regal Ranch Sessions was recorded in a make shift studio housed in defunct A-frame saloon on the Regal Ranch property outside of Houston. Tracks for Ranch Sessions were also cut in Austin, New York City and my former hometown metropolis of Stillwater, Oklahoma. "

A few interesting links for August 14th through August 15th:

• About this blog at B12 Solipsism – Not a statement of purpose or anything so mundane, but a few bullet points about B12’s exercise in solipsism
• Wordie: Nugacity – Triviality; futility.
• Pure Pedantry : Bernie Mac Died?! -and- What the hell is sarcoidosis – " I also raised an eyebrow when I heard that he was only 50 because 50-year-olds do not typically die of pneumonia unless they are in some way immunosuppressed — either from medications or from some condition like HIV.

  Even though it wasn't the immediate cause of his death, Mac fought a poorly understood disease called sarcoidosis which may explain why he would be particularly susceptible to lung infections. Sarcoidosis is not something that most people have heard of, so I thought I would spend a little bit talking about it."

Some additional reading August 14th from 17:16 to 17:18:

• The Federalist Papers – "All violent policy, as it is contrary to the natural and experienced course of human affairs, defeats itself. …
  Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed, because they know that every breach of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a country, and forms a precedent for other breaches where the same plea of necessity does not exist at all, or is less urgent and palpable."
• Why You Must Blow Your Own Trumpet – Hard for introverts like myself:
  "There is one thing you must do.

  You must learn to blow your own trumpet!

  Lorna Page’s life story tell us why: Lorna wrote passionately for more than 70 years without sharing her writing with others. Then, in her late eighties, she decided to write a raunchy novel called A Dangerous Weakness. But did she show it to anybody? No, she put it into a suitcase and forgot about it. Until her daughter-in-law happened to find the manuscript and made Lorna send it to a publisher.
  What happened next was any writer’s dream: A publisher immediately signed her up. The advance rolled in, and Lorna suddenly went from poverty to affluence at age 93. She bought a 5-room mansion in southwest England. Then she started hauling her friends out of retirement homes, and installed them comfortably in her house."

Some additional reading August 14th from 15:40 to 16:26:

• Appeals Court Rejects Plame’s Civil Suit Against White House Officials – "A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling Tuesday dismissing former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson’s civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney and several other high-level White House officials who allegedly conspired to disclose her covert identity to the media five years ago.

  The U.S. Court of Appeals said there was no constitutional precedent established to allow the case to move forward and declined to set one. Additionally, the appeals court said it was reluctant to get involved in litigation revolving around national security issues."
  Surprise, surprise.

• Dylan on the Economy: Some Insights – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog – "Last week I asked blog readers to suggest the Bob Dylan lyrics they would use to describe the economy — a task requiring both deep knowledge of Dylan’s music and of current economic conditions.

  The intersection of economics and Dylan is bigger than you might think, and yields some terrific suggestions.

  And judging by the lyrics suggested, the Dylan-o-meter suggests that economic conditions are pretty bleak."

• Big Oil Earned $236 Per American Driver In The Last Year – "U.S. profits over the past year… $236 per American driver.

  Oil and gasoline prices have broken all records this year. Oil reached $147 a barrel, and gasoline hit a new high of $4.11 a gallon earlier this month. And oil prices were 90 percent higher over the past three months than they were a year ago. These sky-high prices have created record profits for the largest oil companies in the world—but these profits have come at a time of high costs for American families."

Some additional reading August 14th from 11:15 to 14:20:

• Time Out Chicago: The TOC Blog Welcome to the party, Chuffpo, things should pick up soon – "Since then, Windy Citizen has launched and started filling in some of the gaps of local coverage, Urban Daddy and Thrillist have started swinging their man-about-town weight around, the boys of the Curbed network have been trying to get a foothold here, and even the Chicago Tribune has started storming the gates of every social networking site with an RSS feed, in part to get a better sense of what its online audience is thinking. This week, the Chicago branch of The Huffington Post (which I’m calling ChuffPo until someone comes up with a better nickname) and The Onion’s Decider site launched. Like its parent site, ChuffPo is a collection of notable links and stories on other sites, and blog posts from some familiar Chicago voices."
• Semicolons have an interesting history. – "The Italian printer Aldus Manutius the elder was the first to use the semicolon to separate words opposed in meaning and to mark off interdependent statements:
  In 1560, it was introduced into English. A London printer, Henry Denham, used semicolons regularly; we can see them in the publication of “A Golden Chaine” by Thomas Rogers:"
  click the link for visual examples and more history

Some remaindered links discovered on August 13th from 12:43 to 20:11:

• Macworld | Mac Word | When Apple’s reach exceeds its grasp – “Play within yourself
  Which brings us to MobileMe, Apple’s successor to .Mac. MobileMe’s launch was fraught with problems, including long periods of downtime, an extended e-mail outage, sync failures, and deletion of data. MobileMe arrived on July 11, the same day that Apple released the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 2.0 software—which were themselves plagued by lengthy activation delays.  

  It makes you wonder: why did Apple decide to launch a brand-new phone, a major software update, the iPhone App Store, and a new Web service, all on the same day? I suppose the company thought it would make a big splash, and it did—but it was caused by a belly flop.”

• Play It Again, Sam (Re-enactments, Part Two) – Errol Morris – Zoom – New York Times Blog – “Last week, I wrote about re-enactments and the intentions behind their use. Why re-enact the past? Different kinds of re-enactments were discussed: re-enactments that purport to be real and re-enactments that re-focus our attention on specific details, in some instances details that have been overlooked or misunderstood. That essay also suggested that the real problem might be the brain: how we look at and perceive images. This essay continues where I left off and takes it a bit further”
• Gapers Block: Merge – The City in HD – “SeeChicago.com just launched with a HD Video library of the city’s neighborhoods. It’s aimed at Realtors, but we can enjoy it too.”
• The Raw Story | House Judiciary to examine claim of White House intel forgery – “The blockbuster claims that White House officials conspired to forge evidence linking Iraq to 9/11 plotters and ignored clear intelligence indicating Saddam Hussein’s lack of WMDs may not be getting as much attention as it should in the US press, but some key lawmakers are beginning to take notice.House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers says his staff will investigate these allegations and others”
• WordPress › Postalicious « WordPress Plugins – Added this plugin per suggestion of Mike3k “Postalicious is a WordPress plugin that automatically posts your delicious, ma.gnolia, or Google Reader bookmarks to your blog. The exact details of how your bookmarks are posted is very customizable and is designed to meet your specific needs. Postalicious uses the psuedo-cron functionality introduced in WordPress 2.1 to schedule automatic hourly updates”