new shit in the blogradio

Listen to "Take Me Out," it's hilarious.
Well, listen to all the songs. But especially that one.

Why are there airport delays?

An interesting article from Slate about why your flight is always delayed. Hint: it ain't the weather.

The most important source of late flights at big airports is completely within the major airlines' control. In fact, the evidence shows the major carriers are creating the delays on purpose. ...
Mayer and Sinai's study also identified the real culprit: the deliberate overscheduling of flights at peak periods by major airlines trying to increase the amount of connecting traffic at their hub airports. ...
American Airlines, for example, uses O'Hare as a hub and schedules a cluster of flights to arrive there from the east in the earlier afternoon. Another cluster leaves for points west and south soon after. In the 30-minute period between 2:45 p.m. and 3:15 p.m., American has scheduled about 18 takeoffs, not counting its regional flights. That comes close to maxing out the airport's capacity, without any other airline. Other airports are even more extreme. Continental has seven flights scheduled to depart during the exact same minute (11:45 a.m.) out of Newark, as well as almost 20 other flights in the surrounding half hour. Some of these flights leave late more than 80 percent of the time. The major airlines know perfectly well that these hideous statistics are inevitable.

They go on to report the obvious solution, which is to schedule flights more evenly throughout the day. The airlines won't do this, howevs, because customers won't pay for tickets with big delays (layovers) already built in. They figure that customers will continue to buy tickets that look efficient, even though there is little to no chance that flight will leave on time.
I fly into O'Hare every time I go home to Wisconsin, and I now avoid American Airlines for precisely this reason. Every time I fly with them, I get delayed. The airline business is one of the most competitive, so I took my business elsewhere. I fly Independence Air now, and while there are still delays, they are much more manageable. American Airlines lost my business.

Annie, the tragedy of the commons is also mentioned.

KNOCK KNOCK

Who's there?

Under the Patriot Act, we don't have to tell you that.

old enough to know better

Echinacea, the herbal supplement made from purple coneflower and used by millions of Americans to prevent or treat colds, neither prevented colds nor eased cold symptoms in a large and rigorous study.

The study, being published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, involved 437 people who volunteered to have cold viruses dripped into their noses. Some swallowed echinacea for a week beforehand, others a placebo. Still others took echinacea or a placebo at the time they were infected.

Then the subjects were secluded in hotel rooms for five days while scientists examined them for symptoms and took nasal washings to look for the virus and for an immune system protein, interleukin-8. Some had hypothesized that interleukin-8 was stimulated by echinacea, enabling the herb to stop colds.But the investigators found that those who took echinacea fared no differently from those who took a placebo: they were just as likely to catch a cold, their symptoms were just as severe, they had just as much virus in their nasal secretions, and they made no more interleukin-8. ...

"It's a product with remarkable traction," Dr. Straus said. "It has that traction because of the combination of folklore, myth and word of mouth which is much more than the science has borne out."

First, we learn that drinking lots of water is pretty much worthless, now we learn that echinacea is useless, too. Man, I just love it when all this new-age b.s. gets torn down.

life's a bitch and I'm her pimp

Men who spend big money wining and dining their dates are not frittering away hard-earned cash. According to a pair of UK researchers, they are merely employing the best strategy for getting the girl without being taken for granted.

Using mathematical modelling, Peter Sozou and Robert Seymour at University College London, UK, found that wooing girls with costly, but essentially worthless gifts – such as theatre tickets or expensive dinners out – is a winning courtship strategy for both sexes.

Females can assess how serious or committed a male plans to be and males can ensure they are not just seducing 'gold-diggers' – girls who take valuable presents with no intention of accepting subsequent dates.

the electric iPod acid test

A Welsh psychiatrist has claimed that some iPod users are experiencing what he calls "musical hallucinations".

Dr Victor Aziz said that the effect can occur when people spend many hours listening to the same songs. The hallucinations are characterised by a song " playing" constantly in the head, according to the psychiatrist, and the effect has caused sleeping problems for some of his patients.

Has this happened to anyone (else)? I just assumed that Kelly Clarkson really was following me around the house, repeatedly singing "Since U Been Gone" with a full band in tow. Or that somehow Brian Wilson really was singing high harmony with me on "Sloop John B." Sure, it seemed weird at first, but then you learn to just ride that wave. In fact, I--wait...excuse me a second....What's that, Neko? I should come back to bed? Ok, dear...

Oh man!

That shit is hilarious! My favorite part is when she hands off the mic so she can clap her hands.

...cos they don't have any feelings

Lileks, on buying a fish tank:

Why not a big tank? Why not? Who doesn’t like to look at fish? If I ever designed the house of my dreams, I’d have a big tank two stories call with windows in every room. Not because I love fish; I’m rather indifferent to them, unless I’m snorkeling. A fish tank is the cable-access channel of the natural kingdom. But still, it’s better than nothing, and adds color, life, shifting patterns, and the reminder that one can still imprison and dominate some lesser creatures for your own aesthetic amusement. The Supreme Court hasn’t taken that away! Yet!

We just got a fish tank in our house. How timely. The fish are called Garlic Jr. and Bill. Garlic Jr. is a bully, and bides his time sucking up rocks like Tyrone Biggums, only to disgorge them on the other end of the tank. Bill is an algae eater with a mouth like a catfish. They nearly boiled alive last night when the electricity nodded out. Well, it was really only for a few hours, but it was terrible. Lappy's battery was out, the iPod needed charging, there was no wi-fi... Man, I'm glad I'm not a fish.

This is why it's ok to steal music

From the NYT:

"This is not a pretty picture; what we see is that payola is pervasive," Mr. Spitzer said, using a term from the radio scandals of the 1950's in describing e-mail messages and corporate documents that his office obtained during a yearlong investigation. "It is omnipresent. It is driving the industry and it is wrong."

It should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that radio these days sucks nuts. (Not your show, Rochester, obvs.) Although it doesn't help the situation, I'm sure that this neo-payola isn't the root cause. It doesn't matter how much you pay someone to play shitty music, it still gets on the air. What bothers me is that the industry has been bitching for years about how "piracy" and file-sharing have cut into it's profits, and now we find out that literally millions of dollars have gone to radio stations to promote shitty (or mediocre at best, in the case of Franz Ferdinand) music.

While many of the promotions detailed by Mr. Spitzer appear to come cheap - for example, $939 to fly a Buffalo programmer and a guest to New York City in connection with the addition of a Jennifer Lopez track to the playlist - they add up to millions of dollars a year. More than that, the settlement documents provide an unusual window on a sector of the music business where the public airwaves are discussed as a commodity, and where little is allowed to stand in the way of bolstering a song's chart position.

This is a corrupt business, and it's ludicrous to expect us to shell out the extra dollars per CD to support this crap. Get your music from iTunes, or better yet, from BitTorrent, then pay the artist by seeing them in concert. Otherwise, don't complain when you keep hearing Celine Dion on the radio.

up in da (computer) club

Also dubbed "nerdcore," this branch of hip-hop is for geeks, by geeks. Geeksta rappers adopt the same combative verbal-assault stylings of their forerunners, but bust rhymes about elite script compiling and dope machine code.

What's a dope machine?

"I think CS graduates have a better chance than most rappers at calculating and devising hitherto unheard rhyme pairings," he said. "50 Cent has dance clubs and oral sex, we have awesome video cards."

Congratulations.

Confessions of a dangerous(ly mediocre) mind

I don't feel like doing this anymore.

bird flu

Is anyone else fucking scared shitless about this bird flu? The stuff is a killing machine, and it seems to be spreading. The WHO puts the risk of a global pandemic at 3 out of 6, but still:

If an influenza pandemic struck today, borders would close, the global economy would shut down, international vaccine supplies and health-care systems would be overwhelmed, and panic would reign.

Damn.

File under WTF

Teams from across the globe have gathered in Edinburgh for the third Homeless World Cup. ...
A spokesman for the tournament said: "Street Soccer and the Homeless World Cup is significantly transforming lives around the world with players going on to find regular employment, come off drugs and alcohol, pursue education, improve their housing and even play for semi-professional and professional football clubs."

Uhh...what? How is this any better (or worse) than homeless boxing? I mean, people watch it for free, but isn't it still exploiting the homeless for entertainment? And anyway, do you think they dump a jug of Mad Dog on the coach if they win?

It's not about Iraq

PRIME MIN. HOWARD: Could I start by saying the prime minister and I were having a discussion when we heard about it. My first reaction was to get some more information. And I really don't want to add to what the prime minister has said. It's a matter for the police and a matter for the British authorities to talk in detail about what has happened here.

Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.

Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.

And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.

Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that? When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?

When Sergio de Mello was murdered in Iraq -- a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, a person immensely respected for his work in the United Nations -- when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that de Mello had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor.

Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.

PRIME MIN. BLAIR: And I agree 100 percent with that. (Laughter.)

Me too.

I make love good

Click here to see James Brown, fresh out of jail, acting completely unhinged on a TV news interview. HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

How hot is this?

Let it not be said that America isn't getting it's money's worth out of our recent investment in Africa. Here, we see some of the preliminary benefits, Jenna Bush lookin' cute:


And cos it's hot there, she wears a skirt. Below the knee, though, cos she still a republican:



John Adams' iPod...bringing you hot Bush (daughter news) since 2004!

What, no giant puppets?

Can I just say that I'm surprised this guy went to State and not UNC? UNC seems like it would be a little more tolerant of his dissent ideology. Maybe I should just stop questioning his patriotism. I'm sure he's a fine man.

Time to man up, hippies

Look, it's fast becoming flat-out ridiculous that responsible and intelligent people still insist that Iraq and Al Qaeda had nothing to do with each other. "The charitiable explanation is ignorance." I try to post this guy's articles about this whenever they come out, but this one is probably the best and most conclusive about the relationships between Iraq/Saddam and Al Qaeda/Bin Ladin. This is my favorite part:

Iraq's use of terrorism was so widespread, in fact, that it became an issue in the 1992 presidential campaign, when Al Gore accused the first Bush administration of a "blatant disregard for brutal terrorism" practiced by Hussein and ignoring Iraq's "extensive terrorism activities."

Rich. Also, read this, by the reporter who pretty much single-handedly uncovered the UN Oil-For-Food scandal.

That ain't just a little racist

Damn, Rochester, that ain't cool. If you don't want the US to give foreign aid to another country, fine. But to say that "the Jews" are sticking us with the bill is stereotypical anti-semitism. Besides, it looks to me like giving the Israelis some assistance here is in our interest:

The money will cover the cost of relocating military bases to Israel and improving security on the Egyptian-Israeli border after the pull-out.

If the whole purpose of the pullout is to improve the security situation in the middle east and elsewhere (by paving the way for a Palestinian state, thereby hopefully addressing larger causes of conflict in the region), then increased security on volatile borders strikes me as being very prudent. Also, each family that is resettled gets cash compensation. I think around US$8,000.

The affected settlers here are extremely religious types who see their settlement across Israel (from the Jordan River to the Meditteranean Sea) as a necessary precursor to the coming of the messiah. If they're being denied that, the least we can do is drop a little coin on 'em. Damn.

Mr. T was my moral compass

You've got to read this story about two guys who are obsessed with Mr. T stuff. Of course they have like thousands of Mr. T items, including soap, cereal, and loads of dolls bearing His image, but the real kicker is the role Mr. T had in their growing up.

"I thought, 'I'm just going to do what Mr. T tells me.' And I did. I've never done any drugs in my life. Not one. I didn't take a drink until I was 23. And it somehow dawned on me that if I didn't do drugs, my younger brother wouldn't, either. And he hasn't. He's never even had a drink." ...

Mr. T was like a light to me. ... The guy was my moral compass.

It just gets better, too. Wow.

Piano fire

Being unclear on exactly why this happened, I'm afraid I can offer no insight to the photos below. Alls I know is, my friend Ryan and some fellow shutter-/fire-bugs lit an old piano on fire and took some pictures of it. Enjoy...









I'll probably order a print of that last one.

Hey, so...

Doesn't the contest end tomorrow? Where are you two at? Do you need more time? Judgement day is tomorrow!

On London

Right on, Rochester.

Drink when yer thirsty. Who knew?!?!

There is simply no need to drink water all day. Sorry, Nalgene, we're on to your game.

The supposed health benefit of consuming large volumes of water has become one of those urban myths that even some physicians have come to endorse without real insight into the science underlying water intake and its effects on the body. ...

Our young woman toting around her bottle of water can only retain a few extra ounces in her body no matter how quickly she drinks it. Moreover, the amount she can retain is truly only a drop in the bucket. The svelte 5'9" woman who weighs, say 125 lbs., has about 75 lbs. of water (about 35 quarts) in her body. The extra water retained in a few sips hardly increases the body's content of water and even then, the excess is rapidly eliminated in the urine. Therefore there is no possibility that consumed water can make a sustained difference in anything but how often she needs to find a ladies room. ...

And by the way, there is no evidence that the few ounces of extra water in the system improve the luster of your skin, either. Given the fact that those few ounces distribute themselves uniformly in the 35 quarts throughout the body--including the liver, muscles, brain, and skin--you cannot notice them. The idea that drinking water can "flush out impurities from your system" is an idea that also belongs in the toilet. The kidneys handle water in a manner that separates the amount of water excreted from the elimination of the waste products of metabolism as well as salt, potassium, calcium and the many other components of the urine. Drinking all that water dilutes the urine but does little else.

Read the whole thing.
I seem to gag and choke whenever I drink water anyway, so this is fine news for me.

backstroke of the west....wtf?

OMG, you have to go check out this dude's post. It's screenshots of mistranslated subtitles on some bootleg DVD of "Revenge of the Sith." Example:


Hilariouser example:


Check out the whole thing.

What is this shit? Pt. the fourth

New BlogRadio tracks. Something for everyone this time, assuming, of course, that your interests are in rap songs that use Star Wars music and effects or pop songs about prodigal conquistador sons.

Ya Boy- 16s. Yes, that's the Imperial March, and yes, that's Yoda and some lightsabers occasionally clashing in the background. How effing cool is that!?!?!?! The rapping, unfortunately, kinda sucks. Although, if you do, in fact, with to go 16s with Mr. Boy, I have been informed that he would undertake the (rap battle) challenge for free. Otherwise, you broke ho, stop calling his phone. Damn.

Happy Mondays- 24 Hour Party People. This song/general concept keeps popping up for me in conversation. 'Member in the movie when that guy said to Tony, "So, do you really think Shaun Ryder is a poet?" And Tony was all, "Yes, I do." And then the guy was like, "That's weird, cos everyone else thinks he's fucking retarded."? 'Member that? That was awesome.

Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)- Boy Blue. Ok, just listen to it, becaus eventually it gets past all the weirdo horns and old man-sounding vocal trickery and becomes a really, really rad pop song that you'll be singing all week. Actually, all that foofy shit at the beginning makes sense in context of the rest of the album, which is apparently some sort of concept album about finding the fountain of youth or something gay like that. I do believe, though, that the album is one the Beatles could very much have written had they not broken up, got stabbed or shot, or grew one of history's most legendary mullets.

Duran Duran- Ordinary World. I've always liked this song, and it's an overlooked masterpiece in my opinion. Have you guys seen "Layer Cake" yet? No? Well, you should, because not only is it a really effing cool movie that has all the prereqs (guns, tits, 'splosions, wise crackin' limeys), but it also uses this song as a musical backdrop as some dude gets the English beaten out of him. The falsetto at the end of the song is best, especially when Le Bon maybe flubbs a few of the notes.

Fountains of Wayne- Maureen. What kind of host would I be were I to not treat you to the freshest power pop? None at all, snatch. Enjoy this new track, from their new b-sides and rarities compilation, which also features covers of "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" by ELO (which I would've posted, but "Boy Blue" has been in my head more lately) and "Hit Me Baby One More Time."

Oasis- Lyla. Speaking of aging pop stars, Oasis is fucking back, y'all. The rest of the album is quite good, too. For a dude who once seriously considered having the Oasis logo tatooed on his person, I really flaked out around "Heathen Chemistry." In fact, I'm still not sure I've ever heard a track from that album. But at least I'm not some bullshit apologist, heaping undeserved shit on "Be Here Now," which is brilliant in spite of (or maybe precisely because of) all the cocaine they used at the time. Thrown on "D'You Know What I Mean" really loud sometime when you're all tanked, and just try to resist rocking out with your....er, bits out.


Play 'em loud, hippies, or don't play 'em at all.

I'm back, bitches (and on solid food)

Sorry for the unexcused absence, hippies. I'd love to say that I was off in Scotland, counter-protesting the unhinged idiocy. It would be much more accurate, though, to say that I just effed off and got drunk. I've been looking for a new drink, see. Gin and tonics (Beefeater's, snatch) have been my standard, but they're a bit tired now. At the J-Bizz 4th of July "Let's Grill Some Shit!" shindig, Rochester suggested the Orange Genius, which I'm crazy stoked to try. (He also demonstrated the impossibility, under certain conditions, of a shaken can of beer spraying everywhere.) But in the recent meantime, it's been scotch and soda. Shiny, but a tad potent. Rocks my effing socks off, true, but I need a drink that I can have, like, 5 of without dying. Scotch and soda is not that drink, as J-Wacks can probably attest.

Moving along, one or two important things have happened since I've been gone. Of course, we celebrated the anniversary of our nation's independence from the land of poor food, but a much more imporant anniversary also took place on July 4. Can you guess what it is, hippies? That's right! My blogiversary! Or is it my blogday? Whatevers! This blog turned one year old yesterday! Think of it! All the time you've spent reading my unhinged rants over the last year, you could've been doing something productive. You could've contributed to the nation's GDP by working, you could've learned to play the piano, you could've learned another language, or actually worked up the nerve to go talk to the cute red haired statistician who works on the third floor and drives a truck. But no. You've chosen to spend your time reading about iPod innanery and the Bush twins (speaking of which, we are not amused). For that I thank you.

Anywho, in the coming weeks, I hope to have the new design I promised you up and running. While you're waiting, not working, enjoy this picture of a ginormous truck I saw the other day. And check out the new traxxx in the BlogRadio.

Today’s the fourth of July
Another June has gone by
And when they light up our town I just think
What a waste of gunpowder and sky

I’m certain that I am alone
In harbouring thoughts of our home
It’s one of my faults that I can’t quell my past
I ought to have gotten it gone

Oh, baby, I wonder -If when you are older
-Someday- You’ll wake up
And say, ’my god, I should have told her -
What would it take?
But now here I am and the world’s gotten colder
And she’s got the river down which I sold her.’

So that’s today’s memory lane
With all the pathos and pain
Another chapter in a book where the chapters are endless
And they’re always the same
A verse, then a verse, and refrain

Oh, baby, I wonder -If when you are older
-Someday-You’ll wake up
And say, ’my god, I should have told her
What would it take?
But now here I am and the world’s gotten colder
And she’s got the river down which I sold her.’

Amiee Mann- 4th of July

Who did you think I was talking about?

OUR LESS THAN INTELLIGENT PRESIDENT: His experience as a politician was limited before he made it to the White House. According to one imperious professor from Harvard, "Never did a President enter upon office with less means at his command." A newspaper observed that he "cannot speak good grammar".

All of his rivals for the Republican nomination were far more accomplished and knowledgeable. He sought to compensate for his lack of expertise by appointing political veterans to his cabinet, but this only resulted in widespread perceptions of the president as a figurehead. Then with utter confidence, he led the nation into a major war that millions of Americans considered to be totally unnecessary and pointlessly destructive.

But enough about Abe Lincoln. He's been dead for a long time, so why rehash old debates about his presidency? By the way, the source for the material cited above is an essay by Doris Kearns Goodwin in the current issue of Time.

Oh SNAP.

Happy Birthday, Lindsey.