I am Jack's sense of "he'll keep calling me"

 

 

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I am Jack's sense of "he'll keep calling me"

via kottke.org by jason@kottke.org on 4/29/09

More recent Ferris Bueller goodness from Metafilter: the Fight Club theory.

My favorite thought-piece about Ferris Bueller is the "Fight Club" theory, in which Ferris Bueller, the person, is just a figment of Cameron's imagination, like Tyler Durden, and Sloane is the girl Cameron secretly loves.

One day while he's lying sick in bed, Cameron lets "Ferris" steal his father's car and take the day off, and as Cameron wanders around the city, all of his interactions with Ferris and Sloane, and all the impossible hijinks, are all just played out in his head. This is part of the reason why the "three" characters can see so much of Chicago in less than one day -- Cameron is alone, just imagining it all.

Whoa. (via cyn-c)

Tags: ferrisbuellersdayoff  fightclub  movies 

 

 

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The Neighbourhood

Goodbye sweet denim couch! So comfortable, so smushy, so faded...

 

 

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The Neighbourhood

via furmy.com by Jesse on 4/27/09

The McA's have moved. Their neighbours are okay with it.

 

 

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interesting but long article on neuro-pharmaceuticals

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/04/27/090427fa_fact_talbot?printable=true

Re: Party at McArton's

Some of you may remember the denim couch. After hearing John reminisce about it on Saturday (and realizing that half the stains are from him spilling beer on it), Jesse & I decided the only fair thing was to donate it to them. "White Trash Party" anyone?

Perhaps donating it to the Bad Larrys for Gender Blender would be appropriate?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jesse
Date: Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 12:48 AM
Subject: Party at McArton's
To: Colleen & John McArton

The only thing better than your favourite pair of jeans is your favourite denim couch!

Life as expressed through Board Games

Brilliant imagery and math

U2 on tour

The Longest Run

How injuries affect performance

 

 

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How injuries affect performance

via From The Rink by James Mirtle on 3/22/09

I had some great stuff sent into me on the heels of this post earlier in the week on the man games lost to injury totals, including this chart from Kyle Joecken, a graduate student in mathematics at The Ohio State University: 

Essentially what this shows is the performance of teams and their injury totals from 2005-06 to 2007-08 (he did not include this season's projections). On average, teams during this period that had 100 man games lost to injury finished with about 10 more points than those that had 300.

And it's been virtually impossible to have a great season with more than 300 man games lost to injury. (This season's Capitals team will likely be only the second to top 100 points postlockout.)

Here's some geek speak from Kyle on this: "The equation for the line was y = -.0528x + 103.19. The R^2 value is .1018."

His conclusion based on this data (and ignoring the fact that some injuries are much, much more devastating than others)? 

"Basically, you lose one point for every 20 man-games lost."

Of course, that's all depending on averages, etc., and the correlation isn't that high, but if you apply that conclusion to a team rocked by injuries like the Islanders (on pace for an insane 566 man games lost to injury), they'd finish the season with about 28 more points than they're on pace for.

Or right about eighth or ninth in the Eastern Conference. 

 

 

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cool pix from high school experiment

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/scenes_from_30000_meters_above.html

Banff FF

Always gives me a happy, anticipatory feeling. Usually the trailer promises more than the local highlights deliver, but...

Writing like DFW

http://www.kottke.org/09/03/growing-sentences-with-david-foster-wallace

It's me!!!  Or rather, my writing style* was, at best, a pallid imitation combining the ellipses, non-sequitors, footnotes and densely packed allusions to other, better writers - who I may or may not have read, but how could you know, given the combination of ADHD and speed-reading gone unchecked by the familiar dyad of Ritalin and Adderall that spread virally throughout the 6 - 18 year old segment of the North American population or at least that part of the population with xy chromosomes - but then that particular style of mine was slowly extinguished under the oppressive weight of corporate reports, spreadsheets, marketing reports (such as a white paper (and why white, instead of ecru or the pale blue of bureaucracies past) entitled "Why Your Firms Requires An Enterprise Mobility Strategy Now!" paid for by a German software entity in support of an already out of date product launch) and a general turn towards Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" as a preferred stylistic exemplar.

* Warning - attempt at self-mockery follows. It may be funnier if you've ever read DFW. Or not.

Steamboat images

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These pictures were sent with Picasa, from Google.
Try it out here: http://picasa.google.com/

Banking, Fishing and Gendor Roles

Fascinating article from Vanity Fair on the recent economic disaster zone that is Iceland. "Wall Street on the Tundra" Well worth reading.

Why haven't we been attacked again?

Interesting series

1. Terrorists Are Dumb? http://www.slate.com/id/2211994
2. The Near-Enemy Theory http://www.slate.com/id/2211995
3. Melting Pot Theory: http://www.slate.com/id/2211996
4. Burden of Success http://www.slate.com/id/2211997

more to follow.

Looks More Comfortable Than The CSM

Skiing Vermont's Catamount Trail From End to End

How Much Water Do You Need To Make One Latte

It's more than you think...

Nature's Great Events: now on Youtube

Just fascinating film making. I'd definitely sit down and watch this - like the Planet Earth series from a few years ago.

Their official site
There's more here

Dinner with a Stranger

Well this is a cool idea, although mighty quirky / weird

Re: The Moneyball of Basketball

Vindication!  I've been saying this for years...he is a team-defensive killa.

Interestingly enough, right now Jamario Moon is one of the top players according to that same stats methodology.  Every Raptor is a plus with him on the floor, and every Raptor except for Bosh and Calderon is a minus without him.  Despite people calling him a tissue on defense and terrible at shot selection, he has that same effect on the team....at least from a stats point of view.

We'll see if Marion meets or exceeds expectations.  And files his TPS reports on time.

dp

On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Nigel <nigel.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

The Moneyball of Basketball

While there's clearly some flaws to this argument (see Memphis wins pre/post Battier), it's still interesting.

Goodbye John Updike

How can you argue with a man who wrote like this:

"He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted 'We want Ted' for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters."

Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu

and yet his range went far enough to encompass The Witches of Eastwick.