Video dump.

Rather than a bunch of annoying little posts I have decided to bug you with only one longer one filled with short videos.

Fenway cameraman tells you about his camera and shows you how it is controlled:

Fenway HD Camera - Sony HDC-910 - Canon 75x from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.

The da Vinci surgical system:


Escalator spinning:


The walking table:


LSD tested on a British army group:

The biggest drawing in the world.

Eric Nordenanker decided to draw the biggest drawing in the world by sketching a self-portrait on a world map and then paying DHL to fly a GPS tracking device around the world to these locations. But, you may be saying, what about those ridiculous loops in the middle of the ocean? Well, for any points that were un-named Nordenanker provided DHL with the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. Check out the list of locations here (.pdf). The continuous line of the drawing "[...] passed through 6 continents and 62 countries, thus becoming 110664 km long." (To save you the trouble: 110,664km= 68,763.4216 miles (according to Google's conversion mechanism).)

The video that first introduced me to this project:

Biggest Drawing in the World - Click here for the funniest movie of the week

"Bar-onomics"

[Update: Fixed source--New York Magazine, not The New Yorker]
[Note: I have simply copied and pasted the entire article (go here for original) from New York Magazine because it is so short.]

So you want to open a bar, huh? A profitable bar? We asked four experts to run the numbers on a make- believe, 1,000-square-foot neighborhood pub in the East Village.

• By Beth Shapouri
• Published May 17, 2009

Start-Up Costs
Rent for six months while waiting on a liquor license: $49,800 (assuming $8,300 a month)
Liquor license and fees: $9,000
Equipment, construction, and demolition: $60,000
Signage: $1,000
Décor and glassware: $21,000
Training for six employees: $858
Initial liquor order: $6,000 (45 percent on beer, 40 percent on liquor, 5 percent on wine, 10 percent on mixers)
Sound system: $1,000
Emergency funds: $50,000
Misc.: $2,000
TOTAL . . . . . . . $200,658

---

Ongoing Monthly Costs
Rent: $8,300
Booze: $10,000
Insurance: $500
Misc.: $1,900
Staff pay: $1,720 (assuming 100 hours a week at $4.30 an hour)
Utilities: $1,320
Taxes and fees: $1,000
TOTAL . . . . . . . . $24,740

---

The Markups
Draft beer: $3.59 a pint
Bottled beer: $3.85 a bottle
Well liquor: $4.65 a pour
Top-shelf liquor: $3.35 a pour
Wine: $3.48 a glass

---

Break-Even Point
Amount you’d have to gross in 18 months before you start turning a profit: $645,978 (monthly expenses of $24,740 for 18 months, or $445,320, plus start-up costs of $200,658)
Number of customers required per night to reach $645,978 in 18 months (assuming $5 per average drink and 1.5 drinks per person): 160

"Going Dutch"

This article by Russell Shorto (author of The Island at the Center of the World and Descartes' Bones) is a relaxed examination of the similarities and differences between the American and the Dutch social welfare systems. This is not a number-filled article, but rather a straightforward discussion of some of the pros and cons of both the Dutch and American systems. Shorto also discusses the cultural roots of the two systems and the historical forces that shaped the trends of each system.

One of the interesting points raised in the article:

This points up something that seems to be overlooked when Americans dismiss European-style social-welfare systems: they are not necessarily state-run or state-financed. Rather, these societies have chosen to combine the various entities that play a role in social well-being — individuals, corporations, government, nongovernmental entities like unions and churches — in different ways, in an effort to balance individual freedom and overall social security.

And, a hilarious summary of the Dutch personality:

'If you tell a Dutch person you’re going to raise his taxes by 500 euros and that it will go to help the poor, he’ll say O.K.,' [an American expatriate] said. 'But if you say he’s going to get a 500-euro tax cut, with the idea that he will give it to the poor, he won’t do it. The Dutch don’t do such things on their own. They believe they should be handled by the system. To an American, that’s a lack of individual initiative.'

Nobody doesn't like Tom Hanks

During Tom Hanks' interview on The Daily Show last week, a friend and I were discussing how he might be most well-liked man on planet. The interview makes it so clear what a professional entertainer he is - he knows exactly how to make everyone in a room look at him and like him. And if anyone did dislike him, you really couldn't after this:

Tom Hanks Saves Wedding



Can the man do no wrong (excluding, of course, "You've Got Mail")??

...like I need another hole in my head.

A doctor in Australia drilled into a twelve-year old's skull using a household drill (taken straight out of the maintenance room) in order to lessen pressure caused by internal bleeding suffered during a bicycle accident. The hospital had no neurological drills and no neurosurgeon, so general practitioner Dr. Robert Carson had to perform the surgery while being instructed by a neurosurgeon over the phone--this doctor told him things like where and how deep to drill (I imagine the answers to be 'the head' and 'not too deep.' Wow, those look dirtier than I realized they would.). The boy is fine and returned home on his thirteenth birthday.

Backwards discrimination.

So it turns out that wildly ignorant racism by whites can be directed at whites, and not even in that neo-Nazis-hate-non-racist-whites kind of way. Born and raised in Mozambique, Paulo Serodio, a white man from Africa (also known as a white African-American), was recently suspended from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey for TWO YEARS after insisting upon calling himself African-American during a "[...] cultural exercise in a clinical skills course" (whatever the hell that is).

Well, let's keep the spirit going: America, fuck yeah!!!

And you think Twittering is rude???

No longer will our lawmakers be obliged to voice complaints through text alone as they listen to the president! In the future these oppressed people will be allowed to use their voices without even having to physically talk. National Instruments is working on the device in the above video, which intercepts signals sent from the brain to the vocal chords and translates these electrical signals into speech. The system currently has only 150 recognized words, but the creators compare this limited vocabulary to early speech-recognition systems. Current applications focus on those who have lost the ability to speak naturally (e.g. those with severe ALS), but someday soon let's hope that our lawmakers will be able to bitch publicly before the president even finishes speaking! Think of the possibilities: Boehner could criticize Barack via Twitter while having a call-in conversation with Hannity about how poor the speech is without ever moving his lips!

Maybe the bright side of this is that soon lawmakers will wear their collars more publicly, perhaps exposing some of the currently-hidden leashes that so dramitcally impact legislation.

(Twin) brother by another father.

I am not even going to bother moving beyond fact in this case: a woman had sex with her boyfriend, and then cheated on him soon after, leading to the one-in-a-million (seriously, 1/1,000,000) outcome of a set of twins with different fathers. The boyfriend has been told of the infidelity and has agreed to raise both boys as his own, despite being biological father to only one. Of course, since modern news stories only ever seem to hamper progress toward social equality, the family is black, the parents unmarried, and the lot of them live in good ol' Texas. America, fuck yeah!

Slick Willy heads for abroad...

(Come on, that title is funny.) Bill Clinton has been named Special UN Envoy to Haiti. Two aspects of this strike me as representative of Bill Clinton's personality: 1. He truly seems to respect the importance of at least the idea of the UN (let's ignore his beliefs on the UN's execution/hesitation issues in Somalia and the Balkans for the sake of this point); and, 2. Clinton is headed to Haiti, not some posh country where he can relax and live in high-society style--Clinton genuinely loves being around real people.

It is nice that Carter works with Habitat for Humanity, but that organization only focuses on the under-served within the domestic population. To have a (popular!) former president dedicate his time to the plight of some of those who are worst-off in the world is a demonstration that society seems to be gradually coming to the conclusion that suffering abroad is as unacceptable as suffering here.

Americans are the best...

...at killing the planet through consumption! The 2009 National Geographic Greendex survey, "[...] a comprehensive measure of consumer behavior in 65 areas relating to housing, transportation, food and consumer goods" (Greendex Highlight Report.pdf), has, for the second consecutive year, given the US the worst overall score. (This must be qualified in just a few ways: the survey is only in its second year, only includes 17 countries (14 in 2008), and is based entirely on Internet-based polling data.)

A bit more about the approach: The survey measures "[...] energy use and conservation, transportation choices, food sources, the relative use of green products versus traditional products, attitudes towards the environment and sustainability, and knowledge of environmental issues" (Greendex: Survey of Sustainable Consumption), in order to give each respondent a score in each of the four main categories listed above (housing, transportation, food, and consumer goods). Based on performance in these categories each respondent is given an overall Greendex score.

One more thing: Brazil's Greendex score went down from last year to this year, so they are clearly gunning for our position at the top. We must waste as much as possible in the coming year in order to keep our crown. I hope each of you will do your part.

Stupid people.

• Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton announced that Internet is pure evil. More specifically he said, “I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.”
• Florida prison guards, in an apparent effort to keep the retirees happy and the children docile, stun-gunned 43 children last week during ''Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day.'' Three prisons stun-gunned children while another facility chose to tear-gas them instead. Three firings, two resignations, and sixteen disciplinary actions have resulted so far.
• The National Inquirer is stopping to (possibly?) new lows. A freelance writer working for The Inquirer checked Brooke Shield’s demented mother out of her nursing home and drove her around hoping to prompt the confused woman to tell a juicy secret of her daughter’s.
• Two Yellowstone Park workers were fired after a web cam caught them peeing into a geyser. They also face charges.

"[...] Give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour [...]"

Some really hilarious quotes come from this interview with former wrestler and Minnesota governer Jesse Ventura, including, "[Water-boarding] is torture... It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."

Ventura also rips on Bush 43 and Norm Coleman, the man Ventura defeated in his gubernatorial campaign.

killing time at work

I really liked this article, which is basically a roundup of thoughts on how the recession is affecting New York.

The parts I found especially interesting are about how the negative psychological effects of being laid off are carried with you for years to come, and that being laid off now hurts your income potential 10 years from now. From personal experience, I can tell you that while I’m in a MUCH better place emotionally than I was during my three months of unemployment, the depression I felt then still sorta hangs with me (the article calls it “scarring”). The piece also discusses a study revealing that kids who graduate college during a recession have a lower earning potential throughout their entire careers than those who don’t (great). In the end, though, you get to read about John Sexton being verbose, creating absurd acronyms, and – one can only assume – hugging the reporter.

Motherlover.

Another entertaining SNL digital short.

Just kill the fucking series.

I can't even begin to share my problems with this: Maggie Simpson, voiced by Jodie Foster, spoke her first complete sentence during a re-worked version of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

Strangely Badass III

This week: Scott Altman. Altman is a Navy test pilot and a NASA astronaut who was among the four pilots who flew the military jets in the Tom Cruise movie Top Gun. Oh, and he is the mission commander of what the Daily Mail is calling NASA's "most dangerous ever shuttle mission."

The mission, known as STS-125 and scheduled to launch tonight (May 11), is intended to repair the Hubble telescope in order to make it useful for another five years. There are, as there must be with such an introduction, a few catches.

1. No ISS-cape: Unfortunately, "Due to the inclination and other orbit parameters of Hubble, Atlantis would be unable to use the ISS [International Space Station] as a 'safe haven' in the event of structural or mechanical failure" ("STS-125"). NASA's solution? Have a backup shuttle and crew ready to launch in the event that something goes wrong, a step taken for the FIRST TIME EVER.

2. Russian roulette space-walks:"During five highly risky spacewalks, [the astronauts] will clamber aboard Hubble to repair and replace instruments contained inside, upgrading its capabilities and prolonging its life for another five years" (Daily Mail). Five times is a lot of times to risk your life 350 miles above the surface of Earth.

3. The little things: "[The astronauts] will face major hurdles, such as unscrewing dozens of minute screws while wearing gloves five layers thick and removing razor-sharp circuit boards capable of piercing the $10 million spacesuits that keep them alive in the vacuum of space" (Ibid).

4. The good guys: John Grunsfeld, another of the astronauts slated for the mission, seems to be the type of guy you do not want to spend eleven days around in a cramped environment. While others are reserved and saying, "The adrenalin is certainly pumping," or, "This is really going to be tough, the toughest servicing mission we have ever attempted," Grunsfeld has chosen to pump out metaphors of difficulty allowing people to fully understand how awesome he is. So far he has said the mission is like "performing brain surgery in space" and stated that he "[considers] this the climbing Mount Everest of spacewalking missions." (Ibid)

Somehow having a guy from Top Gun save the Hubble makes me think we are getting one step closer to a real-life Armageddon. I hope Altman can complete his job as well as Bruce and Ben completed theirs.

Damn it. I hate taint.

Source: The Week

I was always angry that steroids tainted the competition of Major League Baseball to some unknown degree (I would definitely be less angry if the level of impact were known exactly), but it was always indirect for me--no important Red Sox player had ever been implicated (I say important because we did have the occasional visiting scumbag like José Canseco). Now steroids have tainted one of my favorite memories to some unknown degree as well, and there is nothing ever to be done about it. For the sake of both the quality of baseball and your (Katie and Chris, the only non-Boston baseball fans I know of who read this blog) own enjoyment of the experience, I hope that by the time the Cubs and the Cardinals next win there is a meaningful drug testing system in place.

Is this true?

A post over at The Atlantic says that the New York Times has not yet used the word torture when referring to any tactics used during the Bush 43 administration. Does anyone know if this is true? If so, what other major publications have avoided that word? Have any of them publicly stated why they do not use that word, or what, for them, would constitute torture?

One more thing: the post further says that the Times did use the word torture, but only in the obituary of an American who was tortured (using the same techniques as the Bush administration approved) while a POW in Manchuria during the Korean War.

A fascinating look at some banks.

Update: The link to the WSJ graphic is now included. Sorry about that.

The Wall Street Journal has posted a great "interactive graphic" that compares the 19 stress-tested banks on a number of criteria including new capital needed, tier 1 common capital ratio, and amount of TARP funding received.

A related aside: I love complex graphics along these lines and don't think that the value of such graphics can be overstated when one considers the graphics' ability to convey different depths of information for those of different intelligence and interest levels. Nate Silver does a great job with his graphics, for example "A Starry-Eyed Look at the 2012 Republican Field." The most cursory glance tells you nothing more than which candidates are present and which candidates might be similar to one another simply because there is little distance between them (basically the level of focus shown by someone who just wants to pretend to be smart around others, e.g. "I'd say Huckabee, Romney, Jindal, and Palin are the favorites."). The next level of information gets into actually looking at those axes and understanding what they imply. The third level takes into account the size of each bubble: the larger the bubble the greater the public support for that candidate. Finally, one can, as Nate suggests, consider the implications of the political 'gravity' exerted by each of these 'planets.' That is, one can imagine that when one politician gains support (that is, his planet grows) it must be pulling that support from elsewhere (that is, exerting a political gravity on the supporters of the other planets, pulling them away).

Honestly, this post did begin as a quick post only focused on that banks graphic; it spiraled out of my control once I started talking about the always riveting topic of graphics! I hope it all made sense.