September 30, 2004
A vintage Russian camera, 3200 stock ...
... a sailboat, a bright moon, a lake, music and friends.
This is my favorite picture of me this year. It was taken with an old Russian camera that sticks two vertical pictures onto each 35mm frame.
Update: Credit to Lisa for the left side of the frame and Chris for the right.
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September 28, 2004
In the Red with the Fed
The graph below was inspired by this post at Daily Kos saying that Republican states take more money from the federal government than Democratic states.
I took these numbers from The Tax Foundation and crossed them with the latest Newsweek poll.
Red = Republican
Light Red = Republican Leaning
Gray = Swing State
Light Blue = Democrat Leaning
Blue = Democrat
At the top of the graph, North Dakota gets $2.08 for every dollar it sends to Washington (shown as -$1.08). At the bottom, New Jersey gets 62 cents for every dollar (shown as +$0.38).
I'm not sure if this means anything, but it is striking how the two trends synch up.
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September 27, 2004
Million, Billion, Tomato, Tomahto
Quick, million is to billion, as a penny is to:
A. A penny
B. A dime
C. A dollar
D. Ten dollars
E. All of the above
Answer: E, if you’re not really paying attention.
Here’s the difference in pixels.
If the words “million” and “billion” were proportional in length, billion would be spelled like this.
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Anyway, from Ted Kennedy’s speech today.
“The Bush Administration can't account for 8 billion dollars in Iraqi oil funds.”
This is what he was referencing.
Posted by dme at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 24, 2004
Time for a Timeline
I found the information for this timeline on Whitehouse.gov, JohnKerry.com and Google searches like, “John Kerry biography”, “George Bush biography” “John Kerry arrested”, “George Bush arrested.”
After finding just about everything I was looking for, I stumbled on two entries in Wikipedia. Everything I had found was double-checked and a few things I was still looking for were added.
Wikipedia: George W. Bush
Wikipedia: John Kerry
Still there are years I just couldn’t account for. What did George Bush do in the years after he graduated from Harvard? The Whitehouse says he moved to Midland, TX to pursue a career in the oil business, but it took him about 4 years to get started. One run for Congress, getting married and a DUI does not account for all that time. Kerry’s most undefined time is between military service and Law School. In that time he was an anti-war leader, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ran for Congress, got married, and had a child. Seems like a solid 3 years.
I tried to keep it factual, but when are facts partisan? Is it fair to list both men’s arrests? Clearly one fairs better than the other. Bush was arrested for getting drunk at a football game, stealing a Christmas tree while drunk, and drunk driving. Kerry was arrested with 440 other people for protesting the Vietnam war. How should I note the years where Bush was President? I chose Recession, 9/11, War, War, War. All true partisan facts.
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September 22, 2004
Moment of Web Zen
There’s a tree I’ve decided to put in my backyard. I know what it looks like, but I don’t know what it’s called. So I tried Google, and stumbled on this wonderfully strange Nursery web site. They seem to have randomly added images scanned from magazines, catalogs and who knows where, to the plant photos.
Here are a few favorites.
Leg with Peapod (scroll down)
That's "Mister Pink Fluffy," to you.
I don’t think this one is Photoshopped, but it’s just as inexplicable.
I’ve got a magnolia, and I’m not afraid to use it! (scroll down)
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September 21, 2004
Comments Back On
Looks like comments were turned off a few days ago. I blame the Bush administration.
They're back on now, so comment away. All three of ya.
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September 20, 2004
ACL: Mass Heat Exhaustion
This was the view behind us around 5pm on Sunday. So, this is what 75,000 people saying, "I don't feel so good," looks like.
More than 200 people were treated for heat exhaustion.
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September 19, 2004
ACL Sketch Diary: Ben Harper (band)
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ACL Sketch Diary: Ben Harper
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ACL Sketch Diary: Medeski, Martin and Wood
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ACL Sketch Diary: Wilco
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ACL Sketch Diary: Jack Johnson
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ACL Sketch Diary: Big Head Todd
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September 18, 2004
ACL Sketch Diary: My Morning Jacket
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ACL Sketch Diary: Big Head Todd Security Guard
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ACL Sketch Diary: Cat Power
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ACL Sketch Diary: Sheryl Crow
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ACL Sketch Diary: Ryan Adams
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September 15, 2004
Eeeeeee!
Eunoia, a book by Christian Bok, has 5 chapters using only one vowel in each chapter. The E chapter recounts the Iliad, really. It’s posted, just in case you don’t believe. Here’s a racy bit:
The empress revels. She sheds her velvet dress; then she lets repellent men pet her tender flesh. Her lewdness renders even these lechers speechless.
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Study: CNN Objects to Americans
A screen grab from early July.
Posted by dme at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)
Definition Seeks Word
******* n. 1. an imbalance of power that perpetuates itself; “A legislature should not draw it’s own maps, that just creates a *******”; “I had to close the shop after Walmart came to town, but that’s ******* for you.”
Am I just spacing on this? There’s gotta be a word for that.
Posted by dme at 08:11 PM | Comments (5)
My New Congressional District
The black outline shows the old District 10. Now that area is divided onto 3 districts.
The little black dot in a green tendril of the new District 10 is where I live. I buy groceries in District 21, just like people in San Antonio do. And when I rent a DVD, I go to District 25 which includes McAllen on the Mexican border.
So, last year, someone looked at a map of my neighborhood and saw that 65% of my neighbors voted for Democrats. Then they drew a line from here to Houston. The district is so Republican that the Democrats didn’t even run a candidate.
If you live in the new District 10, be sure to write this fellow in when you vote.
The new (1.6mb pdf) and old (1.6mb pdf) maps can be found here.
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September 12, 2004
Wake to Wake 180
Every once in a while I land one of these. In the last frame I'm looking back at the boat and actually nodding in imagined agreement, "That's right, I am sooo cool."
Thanks to Robin for a steady hand on the camera (and remembering to take the lens cap off.)
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September 10, 2004
A New Low for Typography
I was a little happy today to see two of my favotrite obsessions merge: Politics and Typography. But then I started to notice an attitude that somehow this was a new low for politics.
I'm not going to spend the day arguing about fonts and typewriters, because the whole thing is so goddamn stupid...
With a catch phrase like "W stands for wrong," is it any wonder that the political debate of the day is about kerning?
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Margin of Error
I've been thinking about how people react to polling numbers, and how that margin of error seems so important when your guy is behind but not when he's ahead.
First image is a hypothetical presidential poll with 4 pixels per point and +/- 3% shown as 24 pixel blur. The second uses real numbers from Gallup, but I'm not putting the numbers, because they imply more precision than really exists.
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September 09, 2004
Collect them all!
This thing has been bugging me all summer. Could anything be less collectable than a Gatorade bottle? What were they thinking? And 25? 25?!
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Today's Cartoon
Drawing by me.
From National Geographic
NASA engineers planned to stage an elaborate mid-air capture of the capsule using Hollywood helicopter stuntmen. The pilots began training for the mission in 1999.
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