Category: Links

suggested reading at other sites

Reading Around on June 29th through June 30th

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A few interesting links collected June 29th through June 30th:

  • Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – On giving Goldman a chance – True/Slant – I intentionally put a lot of yes/no questions on that list. If the underlying thinking behind any of those questions was faulty, it would have been easy enough for them to say so and to educate us as to the truth. Instead, here is the response that we got:

    “Your questions are couched in such a way that presupposes the conclusions and suggests the people you spoke with have an agenda or do not fully understand the issues.”
    …That this is a non-denial denial is obvious, but what’s more notable here is that they didn’t stop with just a flat “no comment,” which they easily could have done. No, they had to go a little further than that and — and this is pure Goldman, just outstanding stuff — make it clear that both I and my sources are simply not as smart as they are and don’t understand what we’re talking about. So the rough translation here is, “No comment, but if you were as smart as us, you wouldn’t be asking these questions.”

  • Dean W. Armstrong: The intersection of the online/sharing culture, copyright, and photography – The issues are completely muddy and complex–as a photographer, for instance, I feel I should be compensated for my work. Websites like say Chicagoist or Treehugger use flickr CC shared images to illustrate their stories. In the traditional media, the photographer would be compensated for their work, either by being employed or by a fee. This is not being done at all for most of the non-traditional sites on the internet. It is also a truth that these sites probably couldn't afford the going rate for photographs. Getting your image out for people to see for a photographer is a very important thing, but is it driving the image creation business out of a profession and into the hands of casual photographers? (The latin term amateur is perfect for here but misused–these photographers love what they do and are often just as good as a pro, but the amateurs are not paid).
  • My Dinner With Andre :: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies – Someone asked me the other day if I could name a movie that was entirely devoid of cliches. I thought for a moment, and then answered, “My Dinner With Andre.'' …impressed once more by how wonderfully odd this movie is, how there is nothing else like it. It should be unwatchable, and yet those who love it return time and again, enchanted.…
    We listen with Wally as Andre tells of trips to Tibet, the Sahara and a mystical farm in England. Of being buried alive and conducting theatrical rituals by moonlight in Poland. Of being in church when “a huge creature appeared with violets growing out of its eyelids, and poppies growing out of its toenails.'' After this last statement, Wally desperately tries to find a conversational segue and seizes on the violets. “Did you ever see that play `Violets Are Blue'?'' he asks. “About people being strangled on submarines?''

    Like many great movies, “My Dinner With Andre'' is almost impossible to nail down.

Reading Around on June 26th through June 29th

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A few interesting links collected June 26th through June 29th:

  • Men at Work accused of stealing riff from campfire song – “Australian pop icons Men at Work are fighting accusations that a riff in their 1980s smash hit Down Under was snatched from a popular children’s song.

    Publisher Larrikin Music is suing Song BMG Music Entertainment and EMI Songs Australia for compensation from the royalties the song earned its writers, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert.

    Larrikin claims the flute riff was copied from the refrain in a 1934 children’s song, Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, written by Melbourne music teacher Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides competition.

    The song about the kookaburra, a kingfisher native to Australia, has become a Girl Guides campfire standby throughout the English-speaking world.”

    Isn’t it a little late to be suing 1980’s hitmakers? Like 20 years too late? Lame. The song was published in 1934 – isn’t it in the public domain by now?

  • Gapers Block : A/C : Chicago Arts & Culture – Friday Flickr Feature – A fire hydrant made of canned goods on display at the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago. Captured by swanksalot.

  • Interviews > Moby: Wait For Me – I love a good old Clash record and I love listening to Pantera, I love listening to the Rolling Stones but the music that I adore the most is Nick Drake or Joy Division or Sigur Rós, quieter records and music that really aspire to be beautiful.

    I tend to think of it in terms of there’s social records and personal records. I love the Clash, it’s very social. If you had 20 people over on a Friday night and you’re all drinking beer put on a Clash record and it’s great. Lying in bed at 9 o’ clock on a rainy Sunday morning you want something that is more personal, and, as much as I love social records, it’s those personal records that I tend to really cherish. I listen to a lot of classical music, a lot of quiet electronic music, everything from Nick Drake to Leonard Cohen. I mentioned Sigur Rós, some Radiohead songs, songs where you really feel the artist, whether they are or whether they aren’t, but you feel as if the artist is making themselves vulnerable through their work.

Reading Around on June 25th through June 26th

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A few interesting links collected June 25th through June 26th:

  • Language Log » Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa – Jackson apparently claimed his version was Swahili, but he eventually acknowledged his debt to Dibango and worked out a compensation arrangement in an out-of-court settlement. In 2007, when R&B singer Rihanna released the song "Please Don't Stop The Music" sampling the line from "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,'" Rihanna got Jackson's permission but not Dibango's. In response, Dibango sued both Rihanna and Jackson earlier this year, seeking 500,000 euros in damages.
  • The Daily Clog » New Stanford Football Slogan Is … Definitely Something – Image Source: swanksalot under Creative Commons
  • Touched by an Angel | News Lead | Cleveland Scene – Early in the summer of '76, Ted received a package containing 25 shots of Farrah in a red swimsuit. She marked her favorite with a star: gleaming teeth, windblown hair, and . . . her nipple.

    Ted showed the photos around the office. Everyone had a different opinion about which one they should use. In the end, Ted went with the one Farrah had chosen. After all, who knew Farrah's assets better than Farrah herself?

    Soon after the poster hit the streets, it became a sensation. Sales increased exponentially. Seven thousand in September. Fifteen thousand in October. Thirty thousand in November. In December, the poster started receiving national attention and sold half a million copies.

Reading Around on June 25th

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Some additional reading June 25th from 11:50 to 14:04:

  • Flickr as an Interior Decorating Tool – Gadgetwise Blog – NYTimes.com – "Flickr as an Interior Decorating Tool
    By SONIA ZJAWINSKI"

    Just because you can steal, doesn't make it right. And not something the NYT should allow to be published without at least checking with in-house counsel. I hope Ms. Zjawinski is printing a little tag with the photographers name on every image she steals. And I bet if she left a comment on the photos she borrowed, most often the photographer would be satisfied. Just taking without asking is a bit presumptuous though.

  • UPDATED: Why the Village is so mad at Nico Pitney | Media Matters for America – Within hours of online writer Nico Pitney asking a single question at a WH presser, the WashPost's Milbank swooped into action, loudly mocking Pitney's involvement as being terribly troubling and phony. But please note that in 2005 when it was revealed that right-wing partisan James Guckert had been waved into the WH press room nearly 200 times without proper credentials, wrote under an alias (Jeff Gannon), and asked Bush officials softball questions, Milbank remained mum. (He wasn't alone.)

    According to Nexis, Milbank never wrote about the Gannon story.

    But Pitney, the national editor for one of the most-read and widely respected online news outlets? His singular WH presence sent Milbank into an immediate tizzy.

  • Media Recap: Credulous Press Ate Up Spin From Sanford's Office | TPMMuckraker – It feels absurd to have to point this out, but politicians and their staffers frequently have reason to dissemble, about issues far more important than an extra-marital affair. Too often, though, the press treats public statements from elected officials' offices — especially those purporting simply to provide information, like the Appalachian Trail line — as self-evidently accurate. It's as if, despite everything, some in the press can't quite bring themselves to believe that politicians might try to mislead people.

    Part of this is structural. There's almost no acceptable way for a mainstream reporter to explicitly tell readers that the information being put out by a powerful office-holder may be false or misleading. But the only way that this structural flaw will change is if individual reporters are willing to stick out their necks to change it.

    Until then, people will read blogs for stories like these.

Reading Around on June 23rd through June 24th

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A few interesting links collected June 23rd through June 24th:

  • Governor Sanford’s Disturbingly Adult E-Mails – "As naughty erotic missives go, Mark Sanford’s exchanges with “Maria” read like what your passionless 11th grade English teacher wrote in his half-completed novel. At some point, the lovers have an hours-long coffee where they talk about Thoreau while it rains outside. "

    including:
    "I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light – but hey, that would be going into sexual details"

  • Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews – "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

    The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots, Deceptibots and Otherbots is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed.

  • Daley's Nephew Brings More Questions of Clout – Chicagoist – "The city pays the most per square foot for a branch library in Chinatown — more even than it pays for downtown office space.
    The city has three leases with landlords who are clients of the insurance brokerage run by the mayor's brother, Cook County Commissioner John Daley.
    Two of the city's landlords have hired the law firm of Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th) — in one case to win a cut in their real estate taxes on property leased to the city."

Reading Around on June 20th through June 22nd

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A few interesting links collected June 20th through June 22nd:

  • Kodak to Retire Its Oldest Color Film Stock – NYTimes.com – Kodachrome was favored by still and motion picture photographers for its rich but realistic tones, vibrant colors and durability.

    It was the basis not only for countless family slide shows but also for world-renowned images, including Abraham Zapruder’s 8-millimeter reel of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

    The widely recognized portrait of an Afghan refugee girl that appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985, taken by Steve McCurry, was shot on Kodachrome. …

    Unlike any other color film, Kodachrome is purely black and white when exposed. The three primary colors that mix to form the spectrum are added in three development steps rather than built into its layers. Because of the complexity, only Dwayne’s Photo, in Parsons, Kan., still processes Kodachrome film.

  • Kodak: A Thousand Words – A Tribute to KODACHROME: A Photography Icon – "Today we announced that Kodak will retire KODACHROME Film, concluding its 74-year run.

    It was a difficult decision, given its rich history. At the end of the day, photographers have told us and showed us they've moved on to newer other Kodak films and/or digital. KODACHROME Film currently represents a fraction of one percent of our film sales. "

    Of course, I only use digital cameras these days, but I have a filter that emulates Kodachrome, and use it frequently

  • Congress Hotel Expansion Approved While Strike Continues | Progress Illinois – Just days after Gov. Pat Quinn and State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias joined labor and community leaders to commemorate the six year anniversary of the Congress Hotel strike, the establishment's owners netted a huge win at City Hall. In front of a rowdy audience that included a few dozen UNITE-HERE Local 1 hotel workers, many of whom were eventually escorted out by police, members of the mayorally-appointed Plan Commission approved an expansion proposal yesterday that would allow the Congress to add four floors to its southwest portion along Harrison Street and one floor on the side near Michigan and Congress.

    Images used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user Swanksalot.

Reading Around on June 17th through June 18th

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A few interesting links collected June 17th through June 18th:

  • Raw Story » Bachmann rebels, refuses to fill out next year’s census – The Minnesota Republican said she would only fill out the basic census information about the number of people living in the household, but would not fill out the rest of the form, the Washington Times reports.

    Under current statutes, that means Bachmann plans to break the law and could face a $5,000 fine.

    The claim that ACORN will be “in charge” of the census is the latest allegation by a politician who has developed a reputation for disseminating right-wing conspiracy theories. Most recently, Bachmann declared that President Obama is running a “gangster government” because of the GM bailout.

  • Health insurers refuse to limit rescission of coverage – Los Angeles Times – Late in the hearing, Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show “intentional fraud.”

    The answer from all three executives:

    “No.”

    Assholes

  • Blago at Second City: The Bizarre Happenings of Illinois’ #1 Criminal : The Core Junction – “In a truly bizarre moment, Rod Blagojevich made a guest appearance at The Second City, Chicago’s famed comedy club, on Saturday Night. After being prepped backstage, Blagojevich surprised the audience and started the show by entering the stage with his hands in a crucifix-like pose.”

    photo credit: swanksalot

Blagojevich Country

Reading Around on June 15th

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Some additional reading June 15th from 18:15 to 19:26:

  • Iran’s Disputed Election – The Big Picture – Boston.com – re Iran’s Presidential Election, Tehran and other cities have seen the largest street protests and rioting since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Supporters of reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, upset at their announced loss and suspicions of voter fraud, took to the streets both peacefully and, in some cases, violently to vent their frustrations. Iranian security forces and hardline volunteer militia members responded with force and arrests, attempting to stamp out the protests – meanwhile, thousands of Iranians who were happy with the election outcome staged their own victory demonstrations. Mousavi himself has been encouraging peaceful demonstrations, and called for calm at a large demonstration today (held in defiance of an official ban), as Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has just called for an official inquiry into accusations of election irregularities. (Update: several photos of injuries from gunshots at today’s rally added below)
  • The Fiery Judge | Mother Jones – comparing the substance and tone of her questions with those of his male colleagues and his own questions.

    “And I must say I found no difference at all. So I concluded that all that was going on was that there were some male lawyers who couldn’t stand being questioned toughly by a woman,” Calabresi says. “It was sexism in its most obvious form.”

    And what if such criticism came from a woman lawyer? Well, says Calabresi, women can be just as sexist as men in their expectations of how a woman judge should act.

    NPR played a couple of snippets of Sotomayor in its piece so listeners could judge for themselves. Ann did: “Listening to the clips, Sotomayor sounds an awful lot like John Roberts — who did not face any concerns about his ‘fiery temperament’ during his confirmation hearings. Totenberg exposes this talking point for what it is: straight-up sexism, with some racism mixed in for good measure.”

  • Daily Kos: Obama: Iranian people “should be heard and respected” – “What I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching.And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.”

  • Twitter Blog: Down Time Rescheduled – A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran

  • Competition For Dummies by digby Just think. This… – “Sadly, this is the result of misguided American exceptionalism (and years of convenient Republican gibberish.) Even people who by all rights should be well informed about the issues of the day just simply can’t wrap their minds around the fact that our health care system is not only bad by our own measurements but that it is far worse than the systems in other industrialized countries. Foreigners cannot possibly have better health care than America. This is the greatest country the world has ever known or ever will know! It’s impossible!

    Except it’s true.”

Reading Around on June 15th

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Some additional reading June 15th from 08:19 to 13:13:

  • Et Tu Google – Pay the artist, simple as that. “So, one of the things I hear constantly from my wife is her…annoyance at people who think they can get weeks of work out of her, but in lieu of cash, they’ll give her “exposure”.”Exposure” is a barely nicer way of saying “I’m not paying shit for your work, but maybe someone who isn’t a cheap douchebag will see your art and throw you a bone. Besides, aren’t artists against money?“
  • Oklahoma Highway Patrol finally releases video of trooper attack on paramedic – Before the encounter is over, [Officer ] Martin has assaulted the paramedic, frightened the patient, and created a neighborhood scene that is so unprofessional that it’s just about unbelievable. Enraged, he calls for backup, repeatedly threatens the unit’s operators, curses, chokes and slams White up against the ambulance several times–an action the patient later said rocked the unit, frightening her. He also keeps screaming “you insulted me.” The trooper later says that Franks made an obscene hand gesture as Martin passed the ambulance, a charge Franks denies. Martin plans a press conference on Monday, according to Fox 23. Martin, who had his wife in the patrol car with him for an as-yet unknown reason, later declared that he’d recently come back from service in Iraq

  • Troubleshoot your Internet connection – some good tips
  • Q and A: eMusic CEO Explains Controversial Price Increase, Sony Deal | Epicenter | Wired.com – “artists with albums soon to be sold on eMusic as part of the deal include Captain Beefheart, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Kate Bush, Miles Davis, The Clash, Miles Davis, Franz Ferdinand, Robert Johnson, Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse, Psychedelic Furs, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Spiritualized and the Stone Roses”

Reading Around on June 10th through June 13th

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A few interesting links collected June 10th through June 13th:

  • ESPN – OTL: Phil At Work – Jackson is not thinking about 10 rings. – He puts the players on alert with it. Trap now. Watch the double. Jump out on that screen-roll. See what the opponent is doing — read the floor. Its meaning shifts. It’s a text to be read, interpreted and acted upon.…His brother taught him the whistle when they were kids. Jackson used it to call his dog …when they were walking through the streets of his hometown of Williston, N.D. When he got to the NBA, and shouting stripped his voice, he turned to the whistle.”Now it’s the source of his power, in a way,” assistant coach Brian Shaw says. “If it were words he was shouting, you could hear them or not hear them, but with the whistle, he’s asking you to think, he’s putting it on you.”

    It’s equal parts advance and retreat, right? He commands attention, then backs off, maybe leans back in his courtside chair, even puts his hands in his lap. The whistle says he’s here and he has expectations, and at the same time it says he trusts you, believes you can do what needs doing.

  • Valassis Uses News America’s Own Clients Against in Trial; Feel the Wrath of Sara Lee! | BNET Advertising Blog | BNET – “Account reps for News America Marketing could face some uncomfortable meetings and phone calls with their clients over the next few weeks, because dozens of their clients’ names have been dragged into the ongoing Michigan state court trial in which the agency is accused of forcing its customers to take anti-competitive bundled deals on in-store promos and newspaper coupons.The News America clients named on just the first day of the trial were:

    Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Dial, S.C. Johnson, Georgia-Pacific, Campbells, Sara Lee, Pepsi, Church & Dwight, Johnson Family Co., Kraft, Coca-Cola, Conagra, Cadbury, Ocean Spray, Clorox, Novartis, Pfizer, Tropicana and Reckitt-Benckiser.”

  • Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive « alex.moskalyuk – Number 7 sounds like Apple’s iPhone 3GS and 3G pricing model:
    “A more expensive product makes the old version look like a value buy. An example here is a Williams-Sonoma bread maker. After an introduction of a newer, better, and pricier version, the sales of the old unit actually increased, as couples viewed the new item as “top of the line”, but old product was all of a sudden reasonably-priced, even though a bunch of features were missing”

Reading Around on June 7th through June 10th

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A few interesting links collected June 7th through June 10th:

  • Don’t mess with Kris – "“One of country music’s brightest stars,” by the way, was Toby Keith — the Jonah Goldberg of country music. It was 2003, remember: Dickhead Nation was in the ascendant and Keith was whoopin’ along with the rest of the rumpus room warriors all lathered up to start bombing brown-skinned people in Iraq. He’d had a hit with “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue,” so Keith felt entitled to play pompous ass in the presence of Paul Simon and Ray Charles, who had recorded more classics than Toby Keith could ever hope to make, years before Toby Keith was even out of grade school.

    That little encounter between Keith and Kristofferson is one of the most entertaining things I’ve read since “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” in which Gay Talese described young writer Harlan Ellison facing down Ol’ Blue Mouth during an encounter at a night club."

  • Firedoglake » Breaking: Lieberman-Graham Dropped From Supplemental – "According to sources on the Hill, the Lieberman-Graham detainee photo suppression amendment is out of the conference report of the supplemental.

    For everyone who made phone calls — pat yourself on the back.

    Let us all now sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Joe Lieberman throwing a tantrum. "

  • Hullabaloo – Goldilocks Journalists – But the media critiques of the left and the right are substantially different. The right thinks the media is filled with liberal operatives pushing the Democratic agenda. The left thinks the media is filled with insular, shallow and out of touch stenographers. If it makes Milbank and his friends think the anger at the media stems from the last election it's just more proof that the left's critique is correct.

Reading Around on June 3rd through June 6th

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A few interesting links collected June 3rd through June 6th:

  • Paying For Coffee by digby This post… – Those coffees and the Lincoln Bedroom were among the stupidest of the Clinton scandals — The DOJ said that the two events were unrelated, but that’s very hard to believe. If you were around during that time, we were in the grip of an hysteria not sen since the Salem Witch Trials. As far as the Village was concerned those coffees were worse than Watergate. I don’t believe for a minute that that the withdrawal of Tiller’s protective service was related. The prevailing narrative was that anyone who contributed to Clinton and attended those coffees had no legitimate claim to government services. It was automatically corrupt.

    You can’t blame Tiller’s assassination on this, of course. It was over ten years ago. But it underscores the fact that the culture wars are inherently political and that you can’t separate the conservative movement from the fringe. It’s a seamless system.

  • MenuPages Blog :: Chicago: Kevin Pang And The Infinite List Of Dick Jokes – [Pictured: Not the penis pho at Tank Noodle; rather #47; swanksalot / Flickr]

  • Pho - Number 47 and Rice Number 125

  • Thomas lawyer: court must ban all MediaSentry evidence – Ars Technica – “MediaSentry found Jammie by (1) using KaZaA to request a file transfer from Jammie’s computer to a MediaSentry computer; (2) using a separate program or programs to intercept the Internet packets being sent from Jammie’s computer to the MediaSentry computer as a result of this request; (3) reading the IP address of Jammie’s computer from these packets; and (4) tracing this IP address back to Jammie. This kind of investigation of network traffic is lawful only after certain procedures are followed: when there is prior approval by a court and when the person conducting the investigation is properly licensed. When these procedures are not followed, such investigation constitutes criminal wiretapping and the illegal collection of evidence by an unlicensed private investigator.”


Reading Around on June 2nd

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Some additional reading June 2nd from 10:55 to 18:58:

  • Craigslist’s Forced Censorship of Erotic Ads Saves Journalism Industry | Threat Level | Wired.com – Craigslist’s new policy barring the publication of erotic ads has not only saved lives and stopped prostitution, it’s also saving the dying newspaper industry.

    After the site announced last month under pressure that it would no longer publish erotic ads, sales of erotic ads in local alternative weekly newspapers have soared, according to the Washington City Paper.

  • Good Luck With That – “There are commercial websites, not even bloggers, necessarily,” Bridis added, “that take some of our best AP stories, and rewrite them with a word or two here, and say ‘the Associated Press has reported, the AP said, the AP said.’ That’s not fair. We pay our reporters. We set up the bureaus that are very expensive to run, and, you know, if they want to report what the AP is reporting they either need to buy the service or they need to staff their own bureaus.”

    Bridis did acknowledge the importance of fair use. “Because we do it too, necessarily,” the AP news editor conceded. “If the New York Times has a story, we may take an element of it and attribute it to the Times and build a story around it.”

  • Marilyn Monroe – MARILYN: Never-Published Photos – LIFE – August 1950: A 24-year-old Marilyn, wearing a simple button-down shirt monogrammed with her initials, leans against a tree in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park for LIFE photographer Ed Clark. The negatives for these photos were recently discovered during our ongoing effort to digitize LIFE’s immense and storied photo archive, including outtakes and entire shoots that never saw the light of day. Click through to see more stunning shots of Marilyn, plus the reason why they may never have been published…


Reading Around on May 30th through May 31st

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A few interesting links collected May 30th through May 31st:

  • Our Man In Chicago: Alderman Carothers, allow me to educate you on James Brown lyrics – “Now, I’m not well-versed in matters of fraud and bribery – or no moreso than most people in Chicago and Illinois, which is to say “more than most of us would like to be” – but I do consider myself one of the top 20 experts on James Brown (Caucasian division). And I’m here to tell Alderman Carothers that, no, there is no “prominent” song by James Brown called “You’ve Got To Deal With It” (or even “You Got To Deal With It” as he was quoted by the Sun-Times).”Amused me as well – I’m only a top 50 expert in James Brown related matters, but was befuddled at this reference as well…

  • Should You Put Oil in Pasta Water? : Only if you want slimy spaghetti – CHOW – Despite a popular belief that adding oil to pasta water keeps the noodles from sticking together, Laura Schenone, author of The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, says that adding oil does nothing to prevent pasta from clumping.
  • Confessions of a Non–Serial Killer – Michael O’Hare – “he mail was from an amateur sleuth in California named Gareth Penn, who had been trying for some time to interest the police in the idea that I was the Zodiac killer. Perhaps he was trying to alarm me into confessing or doing something incriminating. Who knows. Even today, I know little about the man, beyond the odd detail I’ve picked up here and there—like the fact that he is a librarian and surveyor by trade, that he has (or had) a wonderful Jesus beard, and that he is a member of Mensa.”

Reading Around on May 28th through May 30th

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A few interesting links collected May 28th through May 30th:

  • Transportation: Dark and moody ways we get around. | Today's Photos: Today's best Chicago photos, handpicked by our editors. in Chicago – Traffic

    by: swanksalot

    two versions of I-90/94, southbound.

  • Photo Essay: 20 of the Freakiest Custom Bikes on the Road – "“No idea about who this is riding the chopper, just happened to snap it on Wells Street. I think he is part of the Chicago Critical Mass group.”
    Photographer: swanksalot"
  • Bill Simmons: Blowing the whistle on the NBA's flaws – ESPN – "Danny Biasone, who owned the Syracuse Nationals at the time. An Italian immigrant who arrived on Ellis Island and made his money by owning a bowling alley — no, really, a single bowling alley — Biasone wore long, double-breasted coats, smoked filtered cigarettes and wore Borsalino hats. (Note: I don't know what Borsalino hats are, but they sound fantastic.) For three full years preceding the catastrophic 1954 playoffs, Biasone had been unsuccessfully trying to sell the other owners on a 24-second shot clock that would speed up games.

    How did he arrive at 24? Biasone studied games he remembered enjoying and realized that, in each of those games, both teams took around 60 shots. Well, 60+60=120. He settled on 120 shots as the minimum combined total that would be acceptable from a "I'd rather kill myself than watch another NBA game like this" standpoint. And if you shoot every 24 seconds over the course of a 48-minute game, that comes out to .. wait for it … 120 shots! "