Author: Jon

GAAAH! Unwanted mental image!

Swimming Naked When The Tide Goes Out « Jon Taplin’s Blog

What Buffet didn’t say, but I will, is that the Bush-McCain Republican economic policies can qualify as “financial folly” and they are are going to be naked, clinging to each other as the tide rolls out this summer.

Since I’m going to spend the rest of the day with the image of George Bush and John McCain, nude and hugging each other at the beach, seared into my brain, I wanted to make sure that you all are, too. I don’t really know enough about the economy to really speak intelligently about the state of the nation (I know, ignorance has never stopped me before). But I do know that Columbia Heights is feeling the housing market difficulties. There are two large buildings of new condos that have been converted to apartments. One of them, Allegro, converted after taking deposits from many buyers, and is now refunding them. And there have been complaints on the Columbia Heights community forum about home tax assessments going down. A few years ago, it would have been unheard of for a home in the DC metro area to actually lose value. Usually, they say, the DC area is insulated against recession because so much of the money around here comes from the federal government, which isn’t going anywhere. There will always be people here, and there will always be jobs here, even if the economy is terrible. Columbia Heights is probably less insulated because it’s currently “transitional”, and so there is a lot of upheaval and a lot of young people moving in. These young people often have huge mortgages, and probably aren’t tied to their home as much as someone older might be. Without kids and whatnot, it’s much easier for them to pack up and move somewhere cheaper if it gets tough here. And that’s not even looking at the low income residents of Columbia Heights. The median household income here is below $40,000, I believe. Well more than half of the neighborhood isn’t even mentioned when you talk about home sale prices because they don’t make nearly enough money to even consider buying. The wife and I are lucky in that we have some room to cut back if things get much worse. We have some savings, and we’re living within our means (Even though she complains about my credit card bill). Plus we have families to fall back on if we ever got into trouble. But many people aren’t in that situation, and are getting into real trouble. All this to say that, while I would love to see the Bush administration get what it deserves (A 0% approval rating and universal recognition that the last seven-plus years have been an unmitigated disaster), I would rather see the economy improve and people stop losing their homes.

Giving stuff away

The nature of free

As I tried to explain in the Guardian interview, the problem isn’t that books are given away or that people read books they haven’t paid for. The problem is that the majority of people don’t read for pleasure.

Here is yet another author talking about how giving away books for free is a good thing, and tends to increase sales of other books. John Scalzi talks about this often. So does Charles Stross, and Cory Doctorow. And Techdirt talks about the value of giving away infinite goods to generate interest in scarce ones. I first read Scalzi’s Agent to the Stars shared free online, and then bought some of his other stuff. I first read Stross’ Accelerando shared free online, and now preorder his novels before they even come out. And I first read Gaiman when I got Anansi Boys from the library. My long-winded point here is that I have frequently purchased books because I read something the author had shared for free and I liked it. So I sought out more from that author. When someone finally makes a reasonably priced, non-DRMed ebook reader, I’ll do this even more. I have a bunch of free books saved on my hard drive that I haven’t read because I don’t want to sit at the computer to read a novel. Give me a good way to get that book over into the big fluffy chair in the sunroom, and I’ll be thrilled. However, I quoted Gaiman up above for a reason. It is interesting that he says that most people don’t read for pleasure. I don’t know how true that is in general, but I know many of my friends don’t read much or at all. I’ve gotten shocked reactions from people when I tell them that I get books out of the library (Although not so much lately now that I’m driving to work and don’t have an hour on the Metro to read every day). It’s too bad that people don’t read more. I have fond memories of reading while growing up. It was great to not even hear my mom calling me because I was so wrapped up in the book. See, kids, that’s a great excuse for ignoring your mom. Try it sometime. Edit: I should have checked Techdirt before I posted this. They have an article on this very subject up right now. And now Cory Doctorow mentions the very same Gaiman post up on Boing Boing. If I link to a post that links to a post that I already linked to, maybe we can create an infinite loop that creates an vortex in the internet which will spit out the Ghost of Christmas Past to visit the CEO’s of Sony, Time Warner, Random House, Apple, Adobe, and all the other DRM-mongers and show them the error of their ways. Then we’ll all wake up Christmas morning with open source ebook readers under the tree and thousands of free ebooks waiting at Amazon. Do you read for pleasure? Fiction? Non-fiction?

Battery standardization – probably not going to happen

Green Cell Eco-Concept: One Battery For All

Green Cell is a concept with a single simple idea: use safe, standardized rechargeable batteries in all portable gadgets.

I’ve argued this before – it’s ridiculous that every single portable device uses it’s own battery and charger. Even within the same company they often aren’t compatible. Nokia used to do it with their 5000 series cell phones, but I think they’ve gotten away from it. Anyway, this would be really cool if it happened. I don’t think it will, but it would be cool.

Oops, I broke IE

Oops. I was playing around with CSS last night and never bothered to check the site in Internet Explorer 6. So if you’re using that contemptible piece of junk to view the site, you’re going to see the right sidebar in the wrong place. Unless you’re at work, or somewhere else where you can’t change your browser, you really, really should go get a real browser. I am a huge advocate of Firefox. It is a better browser than IE in almost every way, and it’s free. You should try it. Anyway, I’ll fix the CSS at some point, but it will probably be over the weekend. For now, you’re out of luck.

You WILL like tofu and brussels sprouts

Caramelized Tofu Recipe – 101 Cookbooks

Here’s how it came together: a quick survey of my kitchen revealed tofu and a cluster of brussels sprouts. There was also a vibrant bouquet of cilantro tucked into the refrigerator door begging to be used. I scanned the cupboards and pulled down a small bag of (already toasted!) pecans and the remnants of a once full bag of my favorite sugar. Garlic? Check.

I know that a lot of people have a very strong reaction to brussels sprouts and tofu. Kind of like my reaction to Hillary Clinton. But the wife LOVES brussels sprouts, and so when I saw this recipe, I tried it out. It’s really excellent. If you don’t enjoy caramelized tofu with pecans, you’re crazy. Or allergic. And not only is it delicious, but it’s also made in only one pan (Two if you cook rice with it, which I recommend) so it’s pretty easy to clean up. Anyway, you should try it. I didn’t bother toasting the pecans this time (I did the first time I made it), and I didn’t notice a difference.

I hope my friends in Nashville are involved here

Nashville copyright craziness — success! Rematch on Mar 5 – Boing Boing

Yesterday’s rally in Nashville to stop a new copyright bill that would put the expense of policing the movie industry’s business model onto universities was a success — the bill has been stalled and won’t be reconsidered for ten days.

I have two friends down in Nashville (Well, just outside of Nashville, but close enough). One of them probably knows about this already. In fact, I was sort of expecting a post on the subject. I won’t elaborate on all the reasons why laws like this are absurd – BoingBoing does it pretty regularly, and I don’t really have anything to add. But if you’re in or around Nashville, especially if you are or soon will be a student at a Tennessee college, this matters to you. Don’t let them raise your tuition to support the lazy recording industry that stubbornly refuses to embrace the new business available to them through the internet.

Eat Well DC hires new chef – Washington Business Journal –

Eat Well DC hires new chef | Washington Business Journal

Eat Well DC Restaurant Group has hired a new chef to oversee the company’s four D.C. restaurants. Branden Levine, who was formerly chef and owner of The Tavern Restaurant in Heathsville, Va., replaces Sal Del Rosario, who was with the company for 18 months.

This is interesting news. I’ve been to Merkado once, and to The Heights numerous times (How smug are we about being there opening night?). I have no idea what’s going to change with a new chef. The food there is good, although I liked what I had at Merkado better than most of what I’ve had at The Heights. There’s something about the food at The Heights that knocks it down a notch. It’s not that the food is bad, because it isn’t. It just feels like they could tweak some recipes just a little bit and be much better. So, we’ll see what happens.

Getting back into music

I finally tried out Pandora. If you don’t know, it’s kind of like customized internet radio. You tell them artists you like, and it plays them, plus other stuff it thinks you’ll like. I’m still tweaking the station – at the moment it’s playing nothing but Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. Now, I like both of them, but I’m trying to find some new music, not just listen to stuff I already like. Crap, now it’s playing Ministry. I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong – it seems to think that I’m really angry now. Quick, what’s a happy band that doesn’t suck?

The dumbest thing I’ve read today

Like ‘O7’s No. 1, Ryan has a lot of questions to answer

Brilliant thought, Andrew. Really smart. I agree totally. Entering the combine, Rice was in the late-second-round realm, and I think he moved up some because he ran a 4.44 40-yard dash, which was about a tenth of a second faster than scouts thought he’d run. The criticism of him was that he wasn’t fast enough to run past corners, but I think he addressed that at the combine.

I don’t know why I read Peter King – I disagree with him on nearly everything. But I was reading this, and wow, am I glad I did. First, King goes on to say that Matt Ryan will be a good quarterback. I saw him play a few times, and I’ll tell you he’s a mediocre quarterback who played for an overrated BC team in a conference where nearly all the traditionally good teams had off years. I expect he’ll be a tolerable NFL quarterback if he gets on a team with a decent line. Anyway, what’s really ridiculous is how King thinks that Rutgers’ Ray Rice has silenced all critics by running the 40 a tenth of a second faster than everyone thought he would. Does he really think that an extra tenth of a second of speed is going to make that much difference? What’s the margin of error on the timekeeping at the combine? I didn’t see Rice play, although people have told me he’s absurd. Successful college running backs are not nearly as hit-or-miss as quarterbacks, and I expect Rice will do well in the NFL. Of course, that’s all ignoring the strategy that I’d take in the NFL draft, which is to trade away my first round (And maybe second round) pick unless I could get a game-changing player, pick up a dozen offensive and defensive linemen in the third round, and go from there.