tingilinde

weather you can use

the frizz index ...  from accuweather

someone tell me this is a joke

interesting little vw

Autocar is reporting a VW that appears to be aimed at the Smart.  Two passenger, 1.2 liter gas engine (no hybrid), very clean and efficient - 60 g/km CO₂ and something over 110 mpg (the Autocar report lists imperial gallons).

There is some cleverness  - the four cylinder can shut down to two, the engine turns off when stopped and there is regenerative breaking (must be mechanical).  It might be just the ticket for many people and its specs are much better than the somewhat quirky Smart.

Something this size may also make a very interesting electric or PHEV.

pogue on the new blackberry storm

He isn't favorably impressed

Honestly, though, you’ll probably never get that far. When you look at your typing, slow and typo-ridden, and you consider the dents you’ve made banging your head against the wall, you’ll be grateful that Verizon offers a 30-day return period.

How did this thing ever reach the market? Didn’t anyone at RIM actually try it? Or was everyone involved just too terrified to pull the emergency brake on this train?

The iPhone isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but making something as good as it is not an easy task.  I wonder how many companies are up to it.

remaking stuff

What to do when 3d printing gets faster and cheaper ... the video

love: the hot and the cold

One of Garrison's classics  (it must be read aloud)

the things you don't think of department

Moving wind turbine blades is non-trivial.  (via NY Times)

the driver for the anti-gay marriage movement

Richard Rodriguez is one of the more thoughtful commentators on society.  Jeanne Carstensen interviews him on the intersection of church and the anti gay marriage movement.

snip:

You said recently the real issue behind the anti-gay marriage movement is the crisis in the family. What do you mean?

American families are under a great deal of stress. The divorce rate isn't declining, it's increasing. And the majority of American women are now living alone. We are raising children in America without fathers. I think of Michael Phelps at the Olympics with his mother in the stands. His father was completely absent. He was negligible; no one refers to him, no one noticed his absence.

The possibility that a whole new generation of American males is being raised by women without men is very challenging for the churches. I think they want to reassert some sort of male authority over the order of things. I think the pro-Proposition 8 movement was really galvanized by an insecurity that churches are feeling now with the rise of women.

Monotheistic religions feel threatened by the rise of feminism and the insistence, in many communities, that women take a bigger role in the church. At the same time that women are claiming more responsibility for their religious life, they are also moving out of traditional roles as wife and mother. This is why abortion is so threatening to many religious people -- it represents some rejection of the traditional role of mother.

In such a world, we need to identify the relationship between feminism and homosexuality. These movements began, in some sense, to achieve visibility alongside one another. I know a lot of black churches take offense when gay activists say that the gay movement is somehow analogous to the black civil rights movement. And while there is some relationship between the persecution of gays and the anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, I think the true analogy is to the women's movement. What we represent as gays in America is an alternative to the traditional male-structured society. The possibility that we can form ourselves sexually -- even form our sense of what a sex is -- sets us apart from the traditional roles we were given by our fathers.

cash + dylan

Very strange - in 1969 Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash performed together ...  listen

Cash is a much better singer, but we all knew that

Sukie reminded me of the little holiday game Winterbells...

molecular gastronomy and wd~50

Studio 360 had a piece on wd~50 in Manhattan.  The chef Wylie Dufresne, is into some unusual stuff and some of you (Norm?) will appreciate the part on deep-fried holiandaise sauce and a rather special eggs benedict. 

 

Here is the link page .. go through several of the small shows until you hit warning signs - then you are on your own.