Events

Via Jeff Atwood, San Francisco-based programmer Tantek Çelik's definition of Email as "Efail:" All forms of communication where you have to expend time and energy on communicating with a specific person (anything that has a notion of "To" in the interface that you have to fill in) are doomed to fail at some limit. If you are really good you might be able to respond to dozens (some claim hundreds) of individual emails a day but at some point you will simply be spending all your time writing email rather...

Essay by Liar's Poker author Michael Lewis, in December's Conde Nast Portfolio: In the two decades since [1989], I had been waiting for the end of Wall Street. The outrageous bonuses, the slender returns to shareholders, the never-ending scandals, the bursting of the internet bubble, the crisis following the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management: Over and over again, the big Wall Street investment banks would be, in some narrow way, discredited. Yet they just kept on growing, along with the sums of...

Via Calculated Risk, Merriam-Webster has declared "bailout" its word of the year: The word "bailout," which shot to prominence amid the financial meltdown, was looked up so often at Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary that the publisher says it was an easy choice for its 2008 Word of the Year. The rest of the list is not exactly cheerful. It also includes "trepidation," "precipice" and "turmoil." "There's something about the national psyche right now that is looking up words that seem to suggest fear...

Because the ParkerCam just isn't enough for some people, I commend to you the Puppy Cam. Yes, they are adorable, I have to admit. And more technologically advanced: live, streaming video vs. a once-a-minute static JPEG. But I have no idea who these puppies are. They might even be Communists, or worse, the way they're all in one bed together like that.

Via James Fallows, a profile of Dogfish Head Brewery (and other extreme beers): Dogfish makes some very fine beers, [Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett] Oliver says. But its reputation has been built on ales like its 120 Minute I.P.A., one of the strongest beers of its kind in the world. I.P.A. stands for India pale ale, an especially hoppy British style first made in the eighteenth century for the long sea voyage to the subcontinent. (Hops are a natural preservative as well as a flavoring.) A typical...

...Citibank just emailed me a notice that all of my deposits are protected by the FDIC. I wonder why they're telling me now? More: Via Paul Krugman, an informed rundown of what this means: Apparently Citibank and the U.S. government (i.e., we taxpayers) have reached a deal whereby we will backstop something like $300-billion in screwed assets on Citi's balance sheet. ... Here is the gist: Citi will carve out $300-billion in troubled assets, which will remain on its balance sheet The first...

Josh Marshall: "One country cannot stand a once in a century economic crisis, two wars and Norm Coleman. We have limits."

Parker and I walked past the Lincoln Park Zoo a few minutes ago, just as an ambulance passed by. The wolves in the zoo answered the ambulance. We had to stop and listen. Very cool.

Beloit College professors Tom McBride and Ron Nief annually compile a list of assumptions that first-years bring with them based solely on the year of their birth. It's fascinating: This month [August 2008], almost 2 million first-year students will head off to college campuses around the country. Most of them will be about 18 years old, born in 1990 when headlines sounded oddly familiar to those of today: Rising fuel costs were causing airlines to cut staff and flight schedules; Big Three car companies...

I have a Daily Dilbert desk calendar. Here is today's strip: Had to share.