A teenager fell asleep, and drove through:
before landing in a:
It's like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but with a car instead of a caterpillar, and a swimming pool instead of a beautiful butterfly.
I have catalogued other car in pool things.
The acute effect of local homicides on children's cognitive performance by Patrick Sharkey in PNAS
Violence makes it tough for kids in a community to read, even a week after the event, and even if the kids don't witness it themselves. Living in inner city Baltimore, I am exposed to other things that make it difficult to learn. I don't have air conditioning, and city heat is stifling. The only real grocery store within walking distance closed in January. People fight and yell in front of my house.
Suburbanites talk about the city as a dangerous place. Sure, we have higher incidences of theft. Violence is more frequent, but it mostly happens between people with grudges, "don't start none, won't be none." Living in the city is hard, but mostly not from big things, like a car getting jacked; what affects me, drains me, is the environment, and what most affects urban kids is probably that plus lack of access to resources that are normal for me: healthy food, good books, safe, clean spaces to play in.
From Flathead: The peculiar genius of Thomas L. Friedman by Matt Taibbi:
Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I'll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:
I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.
Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.
CoffeeGeek - Why I like Bodum:
After work, one or two of them would come over, we'd set up on the back elevated sun deck of my home (actually, the roof of the car garage, with a fence around it). I'd boil the water, I'd bring the grinder right outside (there was a convenient plug), I'd grind up the coffee, and we would enjoy the aromas. I would carefully measure out the grinds, pour in the boiling water, stir just a bit, and set the plunger for a 3 to 4 minute 'steep'. We'd take turns each day on who would push it down, and dole out the goods, in the matching cups. Then we'd talk, reminisce, or watch the world go by (my house was on one of those streets that combine small shops and restaurants and cafes with homes). We'd play a variety of those intellectual-type board games, share experiences, and... become closer friends.
Bodum was a big part of this. The ritual, the subculture was one appreciated by myself and my friends, and I think this was (and is today) the company's intent - a culture of simple sophistication and the production of a quality beverage to go along with it.
It's hip to not like branding because it's manipulative. I like it when a brand is associated with an idea, and promotes that idea in an important way. I got my coffee press from Ikea, though.
I blogged some about Facebook recently. Here are some articles that I've seen in that vein: the problem with Facebook isn't that it's doing dishonest things to us (but it is), it's that Facebook is closed and makes it difficult to quit.
I have had a very stressful past two days, what with the death of my car. Yesterday, as a self-care activity, I went to Perfecto Coffeehouse, which is within easy walking distance of my house in Mount Clare, Baltimore. It's a new place, and I think they're still working out the kinks. I had ordered an iced mocha and a waffle. The waffle was a stunning deal at $3; it wasn't a huge Belgian waffle, but it had a delicious batter. I got mine with fruit (strawberries and mango) and whipped cream. I also got an iced mocha, but it wasn't very mocha-ey; the mocha syrup pump had gotten clogged. As an iced latte, it was fine; the mocha syrup pump was the same Ghirardelli syrup that I'd seen elsewhere. Seating was limited; there were only six tables: four inside, one on the patio, and one on the sidewalk. There wasn't any competition for my seat at 7 PM; I don't know what it would be like at other times of day. I had a great time reading while bohemians from Gallery 788 (warning: tacky MySpace site) bohem'ed through. I stopped by Gallery 788 on my way home; they have an opening the first Thursday of each month. I thought the art was pretty boring.
Warning: Do not go to Wilkens Service Center at the corner of Wilkens and Monroe. They completely misdiagnosed my engine problem; I hereby cast aspersions on their professionalism and insight.
I wanted a pleasant break while waiting for a diagnosis from my trusted mechanic. A mere block away is Grilled Cheese and Co, which opened a mere three months ago. It's a grilled-cheese-centric sandwich shop. I got The Fresco and I was delighted. I have had to have my car towed twice, my schedule had been completely ruined, I am out of fruit, and I had left my MacBook in the lab, so I couldn't work on my research. The sandwich helped me forget the suffering. I also had shoestring fries, which were pleasant. Grilled Cheese and Co was founded by Vic Corbi and Matt Lancelotta; Vic Corbi is related to Joe Corbi of Joe Corbi's pizza, so I guess it's a cheese thing. Jazz music is played; I was delighted to hear "Baby, It's Cold Outside" on a July afternoon.
I would like to remind you of my recommendation of Catonsville Engine and Transmission, an excellent, trustworthy mechanic. They confirmed that my car is dead, but have been great sports about helping me make burial arrangements.
My car broke down yesterday, and it's at the point where I should just get a new one. Well, new to me. I would like tips on getting a car. Here is my rule for advice:
Every car has some problems, and every model has some lemons. I hear that most lemons are made on Mondays and Fridays. Anyway, I want to consider overall statistics about reliability and total cost of ownership.
I'm thinking of getting a car that's 2-3 years old. I hear that buying a brand new car is a bad deal. I also don't want to buy a car that's cheap, but so old it's about to die. Do you have any ideas about the sweet spot in terms of the age of a car?
I'm re-watching Fargo as I write this: are there any scams that I have to watch out for like Trucoat?
I'm interested in a few features, so if you have experience with these, let me know: * An aux-in plug for my iPod. I don't want a special iPod docking port, just a regular 3.5 mm jack. Also, it's really important that there's a 12 V adaptor for my iPod and GPS chargers. * The seats in the back seat should fold down so that the trunk can hold a bunch of stuff.
My family has had great experiences with Maven Motors. It's run by an Orthodox Jew who is honest and offers deals so good that he doesn't let you haggle. He has these cars on hand. I'm thinking especially about the Ford Focus and the Ford Taurus, and I'm leaning toward the Focus. Are there any other cars listed that catch your eye? Do you know of any reasons I should have trepidation about the Focus or Taurus?
I've also heard good things about CarMax. Any ideas?
Again, I'm not looking for one-off experiences, but overall insight that's evidence based. Thanks!
John Gruber and Aaron Swartz's Markdown is a plain and open tool for making blogging and other webby things easy and fun. It lets you represent the most common HTML tags that would be used in day-to-day web writing as intuitive punctuation. For example, instead of linking to Markdown by writing
<a href="http://daringfireball.net/
projects/markdown/">Markdown</a>
I write
[Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/
projects/markdown/)
I think the simplest way to use it on a Mac is to copy Markdown text to the clipboard, then run the following script:
#!/bin/bash
pbpaste|~/handyscripts/Markdown.pl|pbcopy
A marked-down copy of your text will then be on the clipboard. I pop up Launchbar to call the script in a jiffy, and using a clipboard with history helps manage the whole mess.
I first used the Internet when I was 10 or so. I made a webpage when I was 12; it was 1997 and I was using the Maryland library system's free text-only Internet service through a terminal emulator. It was a big deal when we found out about NetZero. When I was 14, I made a blog-before-there-were-blogs. Somehow, my friends kept up with what I was doing, and I kept up with what they were doing, without clicking a Friend button. We emailed a lot. Rather than writing notes to everyone, we emailed each other, having long, detailed conversations about spirituality, video games, politics, books, and magic.
Since I started using the Internet in 1995, a lot of things have changed, sure, but the biggest change in how I use the Internet is RSS. It used to be that websites were like textbooks: they were solid, you'd put them on a shelf, you'd refer to them when you wanted information. When a friend sent you a link to his website, you'd poke around on it for a while finding what he's made that you find interesting, and then you'd let it sit. Like textbooks, webpages got updated sporadically, and it wasn't clear what was new, or when you should go back and check a webpage. I would email my friends when I'd updated my webpage.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) changed this. RSS made the Internet feel, to me, more like a newspaper delivery than a textbook. For example, I'm currently kind of obsessed with Daring Fireball (thoughtful Mac journalism). Rather than going to DF several times a day, like I would have back in the 90's, I see new articles pop up in my RSS feed when they're written. I also read webcomics this way, blogs, some Twitter feeds, The Onion, and scientific journals.
Rather than explain how RSS works or how to use it, I would recommend trying Google Reader; it's pretty self-explanatory. There are oodles of other good RSS readers that are worth checking out, too, some are web services, like Bloglines, some are programs you run on your machine. I've had good experiences with NewsFire for the Mac. I think that Facebook is ubiquitous and Twitter is popular because most people don't use RSS readers. Twitter equals a blog limited to 140 characters plus the Follow feature, which is like subscribing to an RSS feed, except easier. Facebook's news feed is sort of RSSey, but also easier to use, but with much less control for the user. Facebook messages are to email as the Facebook news feed is to RSS. A Gmail user can email a Hotmail user who can email someone with an email address that they got from their job. It's impossible to send a Facebook message to someone without a Facebook account.
I use a custom Yahoo pipe to combine all of my feeds for my blogs into one feed, making it easier to keep up with all the stuff I do (see my website. FriendFeed and Buzz also allow you to export an aggregated RSS feed.
I like seeing what my friends are doing on the Internet. I also like Facebook for what it's good at: conversations about imported stuff, sharing contact information, handling guest lists for parties.
The harder it is for people to keep up with their friends without Facebook, the more Facebook is going to treat its users poorly. It's a little work to learn to use RSS, but it was a little bit of work to learn to use email in the 90's. I believe that we would see fewer cases of Facebook misusing personal information if everyone used open alternatives to as many bits of Facebook as possible.