tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57062086235004822592011-08-01T17:49:33.623-04:00Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.comBlogger421100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-74287486066989691172010-04-12T21:03:00.012-04:002010-04-12T21:20:52.535-04:00

Just saw this on Facebook:Here's a close-up:It better be free! I'm not paying for it if they're going to make me guess one word per sentence.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-16378523844375791762009-12-09T10:09:00.004-05:002009-12-09T12:07:35.972-05:00

A friend sent me the link to a page on Design Boom that catalogues great metro rail station designs from around the world. A lot of them look gorgeous, or at least zoomy. But it hit me that the dimensional aspect of design is much more important than the aesthetic aspect (and, of course, the overall "usability" of a system and its stations is more important than anything else). In the long term,

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-47483650775331472212009-11-30T15:30:00.004-05:002009-11-30T15:35:07.663-05:00

From my uncle Iver, who's on the road out West:

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-72637765670331518702009-11-17T12:32:00.008-05:002009-11-17T13:08:53.320-05:00

There's an article in Sunday's New York Times about a Department of Sanitation garage being planned in what is now called Hudson Square – a formerly industrial neighborhood that is now largely residential and commercial. I'm less interested, for the purpose of this post, in the celebrity opponents to the garage – and even in the opposition – than in this excerpt:The area east of the garage,

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-70944157029943311622009-09-15T19:30:00.006-04:002009-09-15T19:41:19.063-04:00

This is fantastic (from http://www.kupit-krohe.ru/plavat-ranshe-chem-xodit-kupanie-novorozhdennogo/). I want to do it!

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-22409631131113489702009-03-30T15:43:00.007-04:002009-03-30T16:04:37.983-04:00

My wife recently joined CrossFit South Brooklyn, which is at the Lyceum on Fourth Avenue between Union and President. It's a fantastic space, with concrete floors, bare, brick walls, and a tall, leaky roof. Apparently, when other crossfitters see the space they go nuts about how it's exactly what crossfit is all about.Anyway, my wife is featured on CFSB's website today as "our resident crossfit

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-40181008990234214162009-02-17T14:25:00.013-05:002009-06-08T16:35:40.100-04:00

The UK's Ministry of Transport has been cranking out some fantastic commercials about transportation safety. Below is one about speed limits, which I found on Streetsblog. Warning: the video is graphic and disturbing. Whether or not you watch it, there is more text further down.I've become increasingly opposed to over-reliance on posted speed limits. Many roads are designed for speeds in excess

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-35749450871838061882009-01-22T18:53:00.008-05:002009-02-17T15:35:50.209-05:00

Great spoof of tough-guy rap by comedian Jon LaJoie, replete with lines like "My sexual performances are average!" andIf you wanna mess with meI think you probably can,Because I'm not confident,And I'm weak for a man.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-72699225564155625662009-01-10T14:34:00.000-05:002009-01-10T14:34:01.040-05:00

This came from an uncle:A man and a woman who had never met before – and who were both married to other people – found themselves assigned to the same sleeping room on a trans-continental train.Though initially embarrassed and uneasy over sharing a room, they were both very tired and fell asleep quickly, he in the upper berth and she in the lower.At 1:00 AM, the man leaned down and gently woke

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-55767587264138433332009-01-09T17:34:00.002-05:002009-01-09T17:34:01.866-05:00

Another Pearls Before Swine strip about Frank Lloyd Rat from Jen:

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-10614341253292027032009-01-08T20:19:00.002-05:002009-01-09T11:47:56.507-05:00

This comes from my friend Rob, who got it from his father, Lew. It goes in the "My People" category – miscellany about Scandinavians. (Coming soon in that category: news about Viking swords!)A Norwegian wants a job, but the foreman won't hire him until he passes a little math test."Here is your first question," the foreman says. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9.""Without numbers?"

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-71858218546424807382009-01-07T18:51:00.001-05:002009-01-07T19:05:19.307-05:00

The New York Times' "Freakonomics" blog posted a piece about congestion pricing yesterday, and a torrent of comments ensued. I jumped into the fray, intending to be brief; but as they say, I didn't have time to write a short piece. Here it is, with some typos removed:The success of any pricing plan aimed at reducing traffic congestion is determined by a) the effectiveness of other options (e.g.,

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-48388378955142959572009-01-07T17:34:00.011-05:002009-01-08T15:53:34.026-05:00

My friend Jen sent me today's Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis' daily strip:I love Pastis' drawings. The scarf and hat are priceless.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-69232888626209731402008-12-30T19:58:00.005-05:002009-02-17T15:36:30.570-05:00

This is pretty funny.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-32576628619263544892008-12-30T17:45:00.012-05:002009-01-09T11:49:42.954-05:00

*Sniff* Aw, man, was that you?New York Magazine has a funny piece about the new Will Smith movie, Seven Pounds: "How Bad Is Seven Pounds' Ending, Anyway?" Turns out it's pretty bad.Don't read the article if you're planning on seeing the movie and/or just don't want to know the ending.The comments section is also worth perusing. My brother and I agreed a few weeks ago that, as my brother put it,

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-57381812407567087962008-12-19T17:53:00.011-05:002009-01-07T12:05:45.210-05:00

Charles Kaiser lays out yet another failure on the part of The New York Times in his piece today in The Columbia Journalism Review. Vice President Dick Cheney admitted in an ABC interview that he approved the use of what the Bush Administration likes to call "aggressive interrogation techniques." That's a big story, and the Times ignored it.Kaiser quotes Harper's Scott Horton as saying the

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-48735398213867487402008-12-12T08:44:00.005-05:002009-01-08T11:24:49.416-05:00

Patrick Fitzgerald is my hero. He has just been kicking ass and taking names, and he has a clean-cut, Elliot Ness demeanor to boot. At a press conference a few days ago he read portions of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich's expletive-spiced phone conversations, and concluded one such quotation with the statement, "...the 'bleeps' are redacted."Gov. Blagojevich's behavior is appalling, and indicative of a

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-28784346447631199052008-12-05T08:37:00.016-05:002009-02-17T15:40:28.921-05:00

Here's a brilliant sketch on Funny or Die about Proposition 8 (AKA "Proposition Hate"). One thing that struck me is the little dig at anti-Prop. 8 forces near the end: having heard various arguments supporting legalization of gay marriage from Jesus (played by Jack Black) and Neil Patrick Harris, black-clad Fundamentalists, led by Allison Janney and John C. Reilly, exclaim, "We get it now! We've

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-18740168488197121462008-11-09T16:37:00.012-05:002009-02-17T15:19:52.142-05:00

Get Your War On has been nailing it for years. And it's demonstrated a great use for clip art, which use enhances the satire. If you haven't seen GYWO, check it out at http://www.mnftiu.cc/ ("MNFIU" stands for My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable). And now they're doing animation. This clip goes directly to the core of all of this campaign season's "real America," "Muslim," "Joe Six-Pack"

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-23523108062491426022008-10-28T10:35:00.006-04:002008-11-09T16:59:41.667-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about how to deal with this kind of...well, what passes for thinking. Should I be angry with them? More empathetic and understanding? The Christian thing to do would be to love them. But is that patronizing? From what little Nietzche I've read, I gleaned that he believed it to be disrespectful not to express anger.In my better moments, I tend to favor appealing to

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-58832945518374666042008-10-24T21:39:00.011-04:002009-02-17T15:43:48.263-05:00

This is profoundly sad and disturbing. I don't like it when people equate a politician's supporters with him, and I don't mean to do that here.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-37458465022371353082008-10-23T22:08:00.004-04:002008-10-29T21:58:31.324-04:00

This is one of the angriest Daily Show clips I’ve seen, about the “small-town" and "real" America that the McCain campaign has been touting so much.Some highlights:The church-going guy drinking at the saloon during the day, wearing tattoos on his shoulder of half-naked women representing his wife, mistress, and another girlfriend (the last of whom he brags is almost identical to her tattoo)The

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-21050914656497499312008-10-03T16:11:00.003-04:002008-10-24T10:23:26.131-04:00

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-64101829313515366802008-10-02T17:18:00.002-04:002008-10-02T17:22:16.754-04:00

This email is going around:The Presidential VP Debate airs tonight at 9pm ET. The VP Debate "Shots" Game is simple: Whenever you hear one of the following phrases you must take a shot of whatever you're sipping on.With that said, many will not make it to work tomorrow!"Great State of Alaska""Bridge to Nowhere""Russia""Hockey Mom""Pipeline""Reformer""Maverick""Shore Up the Economy""Shake Up

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-34567538693569465092008-09-29T17:50:00.006-04:002008-10-03T16:43:16.595-04:00

Tina Fey's imitation of Gov. Sarah Palin is frightening for its near lack of exaggeration. It's noteworthy that Fey and Amy Poehler simply replayed some parts of the Palin–Couric interview verbatim, but I'm actually amazed the SNL writers felt compelled to write anything for this sketch.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-68081299992632344262008-09-25T18:26:00.004-04:002008-09-29T17:59:23.236-04:00

This is making rounds via email. I've removed some articles to make it more like those Nigerian scams.Dear American: I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-52474257083899035842008-09-25T17:41:00.000-04:002008-09-25T17:41:01.074-04:00

This is for anyone who saw The New Yorker's cover showing Michelle and Barack Obama doing a fist bump in the Oval Office and wondered, "Uh, why?" I like The New Yorker, but sometimes it's just too clever by half.Stephen Colbert wearing an Afro. I love this country.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-28833183931437380162008-09-24T15:53:00.005-04:002009-02-17T15:43:02.453-05:00

Here's an oldie but goodie.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-92088679307340173752008-09-09T18:24:00.004-04:002009-02-17T15:46:13.111-05:00

Every once in a while my friend J sends me an email with the subject heading, "What is with your people?" with an article, photo, or video that somehow concerns Scandinavians – or some extremely rough approximation thereof, like Belgians or the Dutch. God forbid he should refer to the Swedes as my people; those are the oppressors! (Note: While there is some factual basis for this, "oppression" is

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-49671527407048422362008-09-05T22:14:00.009-04:002008-09-25T10:56:19.361-04:00

The Republican National Committee's website offers rich material for comment. Take, for instance, the red bar on the homepage that displays a clock that counts down from "Biden's Last Gaffe." The other day Sen. Biden "again mixed up military 'battalions' with 'brigades.'" (*Snicker* Again!) There's also the website's "Audacity Watch," which might be more appropriately titled "Uppity Negro Watch."

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-51354644492576071512008-09-04T17:49:00.024-04:002008-09-04T21:23:51.314-04:00

Thank God for Jon Stewart; he's one of the best media critics out there. In the clip below he skewers Karl Rove, Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly, Dick Morris, and Nancy Pfotenhauer – all of whom can't seem to make up their minds on "the gender card."A highlight: a segment featuring Papa Bear commenting on two different teen pregnancies:First, on September 2nd, 2008, talking about Gov. Palin's 17-

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-32407021060989421492008-09-03T21:56:00.018-04:002008-09-04T08:44:33.928-04:00

I just logged onto the Republican National Committee’s website. The centerpiece of the homepage is a series of rotating graphics. One of these graphics – the one featuring Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. McCain’s running mate – caught my eye instantly.Look familiar? Just in case it doesn’t, now look at this:It’s part of the banner on the Obama campaign website. Compare the fonts, the colors, the

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-23564452997003924932008-09-02T15:39:00.024-04:002008-09-03T13:18:36.529-04:00

I learned about Many Eyes, the brainchild of scientists at IBM's lab in Cambridge, Mass., from my friend Adam. It's a Web tool that anyone can use to create visualizations of data. As a rabid fan of Edward Tufte (speaker, anti-PowerPoint crusader, and author of several books on the visualization of data, including The Visual Display of Quantitative Information), I had to pass it along.There are

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-23887510978362421842008-08-31T14:58:00.016-04:002008-09-02T17:37:52.867-04:00

From what little I've seen of what passes for news journalism on TV, I'd already been unimpressed. But I was still shocked by what I saw on Meet the Press today.Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's choice for his running mate, was the topic of the segment I saw. Maria Bartiromo came on to talk about her interview with Gov. Palin, which was to be aired on her show after Meet the Press.

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-65132465522969350452008-08-28T10:20:00.019-04:002008-08-31T16:30:07.728-04:00

In his piece on Newsweek’s website, “The Other Side of the Story: Rebutting Sean Wilentz on Barack Obama,” Charles Kaiser (full disclosure: my wife's uncle) explodes the kind of lazy – and often dishonest – criticisms of Obama that have been so prevalent these past two years. He calls out Wilentz for having written "a thinly disguised hatchet-job," and says, in part, thatWilentz reinforces the

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-37863670270084511392008-08-27T10:58:00.028-04:002008-08-27T18:23:04.100-04:00

Summer Streets, New York’s seven-mile road closure (or “opening”) on three consecutive Saturdays from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., is over. The City DOT will presumably now compile and analyze all sorts of the data to ascertain the program’s success. The biggest question to answer, and the one that has been most publicized, is this: were businesses hurt, as some had predicted, or did they experience

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-77654459006583238502008-08-21T21:19:00.059-04:002008-08-30T12:05:04.419-04:00

The men's and women's 4 x 100m relay teams' baton hand-off whiffs today at the Olympic Stadium in Beijing will be hard for the athletes and USA Track & Field to live down.Lauryn Williams (left) and Torri Edwards (right) dropping the baton in their 4 x 100m relay heat (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko).Darvis "Doc" Patton and Lauryn Williams – the latter of whom suffered the same fate in Athens four

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-46032650811605574702008-08-21T08:48:00.027-04:002008-08-25T19:25:38.776-04:00

Today I intended to write about the excellent documentary about conscientious objectors, Soldiers of Conscience – which my brother co-edited – and some of the concepts therein. Okay, I admit it, I was going to engage shamelessly in promotion of a beloved family member, and glory in my association with him.But I won't write about conscientious objection today – I hope to another time. Here's why:

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-4864650022116481362008-08-19T10:03:00.015-04:002009-02-17T15:49:07.333-05:00

I'm pretty late to post this video from April by East Oakland's Trunk Boiz, but I had to share it. A good friend on the Left Coast sent it to me, introducing it as "some bike culture that isn't totally stale."Urban Dictionary – upon which, I am distressed to admit, I am increasingly dependent to understand much of anything as I suffer the indignities of Time (I know, woe is me) – defines scraper

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-64257049104291920692008-08-18T09:26:00.028-04:002008-08-27T10:58:14.318-04:00

The weather forecast this morning called for a hot, humid day, so I decided to wear a T-shirt for my bike ride to work. I coast as much as possible to avoid over-heating when it's warm, and I actually end up sweating less on my bike than I do riding the subway; just standing on the platform makes me feel like the baby wearing the diaper that leaks in those old Huggies commercials.I grabbed the

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-34090970240145161662008-07-04T16:01:00.012-04:002008-10-24T11:50:38.379-04:00

How are we to react when a demagogue dies at a ripe old age? Upon Jesse Helms' death I feel guilty for thinking it's good that he's gone once and for all.Can we move on to a new chapter? One in which people who claim to be our leaders do not turn their backs on the equivalent of Nelson Mandela when he speaks on the floor of the Senate? One in which they do not refer to homosexuals as "disgusting

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5706208623500482259.post-81273058187590756332008-07-03T17:00:00.011-04:002008-08-25T19:28:42.070-04:00

Have you read the Declaration of Independence lately? It's a fascinating document. The propositions within it are nothing short of amazing.All of us, across all cultural, political, and social spectra, can append many faults to this country's name. Here are just a few that spring to my mind: the "mission-accomplished" "non-war" in Iraq; the related "war on terror," which is borderless, endless,

Nick Petersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06968818744649084446noreply@blogger.com0