Citizen Tube

Yes, the Health Care Summit is theater and no real negotiating or deal making will occur but it looks great on Citizen Tube from You Tube. Color me impressed.

I'd imagine that there's plenty of activity on the twitter and live blog arenas if you want commentary on the proceedings.

The Future - Holy Crap

So I don't know what the DICE Talks are (something to do with video games) and I'm not sure who Jesse Schell is (again, he does something with games probably of the video variety), but his 28 minute talk is fascinating.

It reminds me a lot of some of the best TED Talks I've seen. Think of the Malcolm Gladwell one about the different types of tomato sauce, only instead of telling us a cute story about marketing Schell is describing how the world will work...

(the facebook intro stuff is cool too)

Wii Games - E3 2010 - Guitar Hero 5

(via kottke)

I'm not sure whether I'm hopeful about the future now or just terrified.

How The Game Is Played

Jon Stewart takes apart the Republicans demands on health care reform and helps the Democrats do some math on last night's Daily Show...



House keeping note: Jon gets pretty much right to it (the first 6 or 7 minutes) but I've offered you the whole episode to watch because Hulu's embed codes work and Comedy Central (which offers segment clips) has crappy embed codes that are full of problems.

Getting Schooled...

In case you were curious here's the official bio of my school's Dean, who is a pretty cool guy based on our limited interactions.

And here is his IMDB page.

Yeah, interesting huh. Wait until you see the trailer...



Update:
I forgot to mention he has a blog as well.

Read This Now - It's So On...

At least according to Greg Sargent who reports that White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer just annouced on a conference call that the President "believes that the American people deserve an up or down vote on health care reform."

Go read Sargent's round up. Bottom line is that it's looking more and more like health care reform is going to happen and that the Administration and Democrats in the House and Senate are finally willing to do what it takes to overcome Republican obstructionism.

Read This Now - The Winter Games

Ok people, that Canada - US prelim round hockey game that just finished (and I managed to miss) wasn't even a medal game so lay off the exclamations about how exciting it was. Actually scratch that, all of you who thought it was so exciting need to start watching hockey regularly.

Everyone though, should be reading Nick Paumgarten's dispatches from Vancouver and environs. All of them have been fantastic. His latest is on skeleton racing, which I hold to be the most insane of the winter sports (hey I know how we could make this luge thing more dynamic, let's strip the sled down some and go head first, yeah!)...

At the sled track, the skeletons (sorry, I’m calling them that) zipped by like mail canisters in a pneumatic tube, and it was easy to get distracted by the socializing along the edge of the track. If you are standing at a turn, you hear a rumble—the sled approaching—and then a streak of color shoots past, so fast you’re hardly sure you saw it. You can get really close. If you’re used to luge (and who isn’t, by now?), the fact that the skeleton sledders are face down and face first (as opposed to face up and foot first) is disorienting; they look like mannequins being flung down the course in a Letterman segment—their feet are all floppy.

I've been reading them through the New Yorker's News Desk feed, but they appear to be gathered under The Sporting Scene, which has no links or site. Wherever you find them, enjoy.

A Leap Forward?

Stop the presses! Health care reform might not be all dead, but only mostly dead, and it's looking like we won't need Miracle Max to pull this one out either.

Between the letter calling for an up or down vote on the public option making the rounds in the Senate, President Obama's weekly address, and this new announcement from Harry Reid that the Senate will use the reconciliation process to reconcile the Senate and House bills, we may finally take a vital step forward in bringing our health care system up to par and providing care to the millions of Americans who lack it.

Actually just watch the weekly address here:



Fingers crossed etc, and what took so long?

The Flying Tomato

Not sure if folks are stilling laying that moniker on Shaun White. I am sure however that the dude can definitely ride a snowboard.

If last nights half-pipe still has you fired up you'll enjoy the NYT's video library of tricks, complete with rider interviews and descriptions.

(via news desk)

A Picture's Worth...

You know how this one goes. And this picture is surely worth a lot of those words that have been uttered in refuting the claims that no one could have seen the housing bubble coming (despite the fact that plenty of folks did see it).Yes, that is what a housing bubble looks like.

(via News Desk)

*comments are closed due to an inordinate amount of spamming in an Asian character language, sorry I'm not sure which one*

Listen To This Now - Mahalia Jackson

NPR just ran a great little piece on Mahalia Jackson, if you aren't sure who she is just listen...

Follow this link to listen to the piece.

It's probably better that you aren't behind the wheel, you'll enjoy being able to pay attention...

Map It!

Google maps is definitely not gonna let well enough alone. Not only have they been adding college campuses and other pedestrian areas they're also tackling the oceans (okay that's technically google earth not maps), and today they added some mountains...



Yes the street view man logo turned into a skier.

Snowed In or Out?

Well now the Nation's government can blame it's failure to get anything done on mother nature and not just the Senate Republicans.

(image from NASA's MODIS on 2/7/2010) (via DCist)

Tom Toles had the same thought...

(via EK)

Brace yourselves DC I hear you're getting more snow. I can't decide if I'm glad that this was the winter I chose to escape the DC or if I'm jealous of all the snow...

Super Ads

I had a great time watching the Super Bowl this year with a great crowd of friends, it didn't hurt at all that our host are big time Saints fans, with proper NO connections, who prepared some of the most kick-ass gumbo that I've ever had.

The ads are always an important part of any Super Bowl viewing as well. I found this year's a little lacking overall a couple stood out for me though.

First the crowd favorite far and away was the little kid Doritos one:


I also really enjoyed the Google ad, it was cute and different enough to catch everyone's attention, plus we all made references to googling things the entire rest of the night:


A final note after lots of talk about what a controversy the Tebow ad was and would be, it was such an uninteresting spot that none of us even knew it was on until the very end when someone said isn't that that Tebow guy?

Read This Now - Don't Move To Colorado Springs

I lived on the front range for a bit and enjoyed my time in CO immensely, it probably didn't hurt that I was living in Boulder though and not Colorado Springs.

The Denver Post has the story of modern day Colorado Springs, pretty much this is what happens when you don't collect enough taxes...

Officials across the city know their phone lines will light up as parks go brown, trash gathers in the weeds, and streets and alleys go dark.

They're also cutting police and firefighter jobs and closing museums and pools. A lot of what 'civilization' looks like is going to go away.

(via PK)

Freaky Deaky

So a friend of mine sent along a link to a book called Get High Now, which is astonishingly not about what you think, at least not exactly.

The web page offer some tidbits, and although the video's haven't been playing for me this grid is pretty wild...

For more on the book and how this grid works check out the website.

Thanks POH, now back away from the giraffe buddy...

The Taylor Mali Rabbit Hole

So I fell down a rabbit hole this afternoon, I managed to pull myself out so that I could share it with ya'll.

Sure a rabbit hole you may be saying I get it, but who is Taylor Mali?

Ever seen the 'What Teachers Make' video once again making the rounds of the interwebs? He's that guy, a teacher and a poet and an inspirational one at that.

Here is another poem / presentation of his that I particularly enjoy:



If you haven't seen 'What Teachers Make' yet here's a link to one of the several versions of it that currently exist, you may also be interested in Mali's homepage, his background on 'What Teachers Make', and the TED Talks page that got me started on this journey.

Enjoy yourselves, and beware it can get a little dusty when you watch some of these.

Zoom Zoom

Ezra Klein is right, this site is awesome. Zoom from the teeny, tiniest size imaginable all the way to farther than you could ever possibly see.

Remember that whole thing about there being laws to physics...