A French Bakery in New England

A write up in both The Economist and the NYTimes? Not bad for a small town bakery.

A Quick Newspaper Business Calculation

Not that it’s anything we think the New York Times Company should do, but we thought it was worth pointing out that it costs the Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead.

- Silicon Alley Insider

Fascinating.

Random Tuesday Stories

I’m cleaning out my RSS reader and wanted to share a few stories:

• Mathematicians are the happiest workers. Which belies the “they’re all insane” myth (see: Godel, Cantor, Newton, John Nash). Get your story straight media!
• The picture to the left is a sculpture that’s been around since 1997 in SF and is a building that has objects falling out of it. I have to go hunt this down the next time we go into the city.
• The FDA is broken: “No one was held accountable, no appropriate or effective actions have been taken, and the same managers who engaged in the wrongdoing remain in place and have been rewarded and promoted.”
• How to Live What Michael Pollen Preaches: “Real home cooking means having a good repertoire of reliable, quick, uncomplicated recipes and understanding enough of the underlying principles to improvise when needed. It means knowing how to stock a pantry and plan your menus so that you shop for groceries only once a week.”

Closing Some Tabs

• FDA Detains All China Milk Products
  “Two months after vast quantities of milk from China were found to contain melamine, sickening 53,000 children and sending 13,000 to hospital, the FDA announced all Chinese milk imports will be stopped at the border until they’re proven melamine-free.”
• Does the Full Moon Really Make People Crazy?
  “I’d always assumed it was an urban legend that the full moon coincided with a rise in human weirdness. But some scientists believe there is factual evidence (see chart) that human behavior takes a swerve for the worse during these werewolfish days.”
• Why Sexist Larry Summers Shouldn’t Get A Cabinet Slot
  “He then turned around and proved that maybe academia wasn’t his forté when, in 2005 at a conference sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, he said that biological differences between men and women might account for the relative lack of success of women in math and the sciences and questioned the role discrimination might play in the lack of success for some women.”
• Miracle Cure or Salt Water?
  “Mainstream food punditry maintains that brining the turkey practically guarantees a moist, tender roast. I agree, it does. But I’m still a no-briner.”
• Mystery Solved: How Bleach Kills Germs
  “It seems that hypochlorous acid, the active ingredient in bleach, attacks proteins in bacteria, causing them to clump up much like an egg that has been boiled, a team at the University of Michigan reported in the journal Cell on Thursday.”
• I Will Teach You To Be Rich is having a series of posts on how to save $1000 in 30 days.
• Does Rewarding Children Backfire? (Yes, and the post goes into why rewarding *people* backfires, not just kids.)
  “That’s why research shows that the more you reward people, the less interest they come to have in whatever they had to do to get the reward. The more you offer extrinsic motivators, the more intrinsic motivation tends to decline.”

The Daily Show

The NYTimes has a blog post about the Deep Secrects of The Daily Show (their title, not mine).

Mr. Bodow said the show’s writers had been blessed with “many, many, many comedic opportunities from George Bush” but were “very glad to see him go, politically and also comedically.” (Mr. Bush’s eight-year tenure has been longer than that of many writers on the show.)

“We’ve really been working with and on him for all this time,” Mr. Bodow said. “Let’s get some new material and some new challenges.”

Some News Stories

(I’ll get back to regular posting soon. I’ve got three more Lessons from the Garden to do and some other ideas bouncing around in my head.)

• AIG To Halt Lobbying Efforts
  “The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that AIG was still engaged in a state-by-state effort to soften new federal regulations requiring mortgage originators get licenses and provide extensive background information. Abuses and fraud by mortgage originators helped ignite the crisis that threatened AIG with bankruptcy and forced the federal intervention.”
• You Have 60 Minutes To Do Complex Math Or Else You’re Dead. Go!
  “Fermat’s Room, from Spanish directors Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña, manages to turn math into a deadly, mysterious game. Everyone assembled in the room has secrets, of course, and motivations they are hiding. But as the walls literally close in on the characters, increasing desperation forces them into confrontation. As they try to unravel who is behind the crime, they must solve various “enigmas” to keep back the walls (though some of the problems are a bit too familiar, like the “Light Switch Puzzle”).”
• The Mommy Track
  “That may be part of the reason she has become virtually the only current A-list actress to achieve her status while completely bypassing romantic comedies. Nobody is ever likely to call her “America’s Sweetheart.””
• Roseanne Remains The Most Realistic Comedy on TV
  “But it still doesn’t change the fact that families like the Connors are not present on television in any way, shape, or form, even on reality TV. When Bravo airs the “Real” housewives of Atlanta, NYC, and Orange County, they show only the frivolous and the uberwealthy.”
• The Trophy Kids Go To Work
  “Millennials, of course, will have to temper their expectations as they seek employment during this deep economic slump. But their sense of entitlement is an ingrained trait that will likely resurface in a stronger job market. Some research studies indicate that the millennial generation’s great expectations stem from feelings of superiority.”

Closing Some Tabs

Delicious is being cranky at the moment and not accepting any updates. So instead of using the handy widget in the sidebar to highlight some interesting articles, here’s a post intead:

• Conscientious Cook: Mindful About Waste
• Paying Cash Only, Family Spends $1800 Less
• Third Ghostbusters Movie Rises From The Grave
• Neal Stephenson’s Tale of Two Planets
  And yes, I am so going to buy Anathem when it comes out next week despite my fears that he’s gotten too powerful and his editors can’t make him cut all of the stuff out of this book that they should have so it’s going to be another good 300 page book stuck inside a 900 page one and I’ll have just wasted $20 I should have spent on something more worthwhile.
• “Bechdel Rule” Should Really Be Called “Ripley Rule”
  “1. Does it have at least two women in it,
  2. Who [at some point] talk to each other,
  3. About something besides a man.”
• Kibera’s “Instant Farm” System Is The Future of Urban Agriculture
• Ghost Skyscraper
  When I worked for Amazon, there was this perfect point during sunset when you could look out of PacMed over downtown Seattle and it seemed like you were seeing through the buildings because of how the light was reflecting off them. It was lovely.
• Obama Promises National Tech Officer and a Space Advisor to the President
• A City Prepared for Disaster Is a City that Looks to the Future
• Sexy Librarians: The Appeal is Ethical, Not Asthetic

If This Is True, It’s Awesome

In the comments of this post about Julia Child being a WWII spy, someone claims that Dr Ruth was a sniper for the Israeli army. (Not to mention the comment “Never bring a boning knife to a Cuisinart fight.”)

Sometimes comments are better than the post.

Dr Horrible

If you haven’t watched Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog yet, you should. The first two of three fifteen-minute acts are posted, the third will be up in a couple of days. It started out as typical Joss-Whedon-y goodness and then the singing started. And then it was awesome.

Round-Up

Just because it’s been awhile since I posted or updated my delicious links or… Sigh. I hate it when work gets in the way of life.

• Look at What My Kid Got at Wall-E
  So basically it’s a disposable watch brought to us by a movie about the dire consequences of thoughtless over-consumption, a watch that is just one of many—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—that will be coming soon to landfills near you.
• Happy Fugday!
  This afternoon, Heather and I realized that today — July 1, 2008 — is Go Fug Yourself’s fourth birthday.
• Is Feminism Doomed?
  She points out that a UK businessman named Alan Sugar recently discussed the law — passed in the ’70s — which prevents employers from asking women whether they plan to have children. “You’re not allowed to ask, so it’s easy,” said Sugar, “just don’t employ them.” Meaning: Don’t hire women. And guess what? A survey shows that 68% of employers agree with Sugar.
• Kit Kittredge: American Girl or Capitalist Pawn? Is There A Difference?
  And considering the pervasive skankiness of Bratz and their ilk, the American Girls franchise seems like a bastion of true childhood in an increasingly sexualized marketplace. But, as Scott painstakingly notes, it’s still part of the marketplace.
• LaVena Johnson: Murdered by Her Colleagues, Ignored By The Army
  When the Army returned her mutilated body to her grieving parents as a suicide, her dad, Dr. John Johnson, said to himself and the Army coroner, “Somebody murdered my daughter and you picked the wrong person to fuck with.”
• Rioting
  The suspicious death of young girl has sparked rioting in southwest China, Reuters reports. 10,000 people attacked government offices in Weng’an county, Guizhou province when the girl’s body surfaced in a local river. You see, the government called the death a suicide, but residents believe that the girl was raped and murdered by the relative of a government official.
• Dana Torres
  She’s 41 years old, has a two-year-old daughter, and won her first Olympic medal, a relay gold, in 1984. Torres is training to make the 2008 US Olympic team, but it’s not some casual attempt to relive the good old days: Torres set the American record in the 50-meter freestyle just a few months ago.
• Elements: Cast Iron
  To season cast iron, pour a half-inch layer of oil into it, put it over high heat until the oil is very hot or put it into a 300 degree oven for an hour or so, then let it cool completely.  Pour off the oil and wipe it dry with a paper towel.  (If you make fried chicken or deep fry potatoes in your cast iron, it will season itself.)  Never use soap on it, only an abrasive (a copper scrub pad or some kosher salt), dry it with a paper towel, and if it needs it, rub some more oil into it.  It will stay seasoned and glossy indefinitely.  If you neglect it, it can be re-seasoned.  Even old and abused cast iron pans can be cleaned, seasoned and reborn as first-rate cookware.

Save Four Star!

(Is Four Star even around any more? A quick internet search says yes. Ah, the wonders of a place that will hold Sixteen Candles for you at 2am while you quickly run over because you just have to see it.)

Tired of those giant monsters only attacking the big cities and ignoring the heartland of America? So is one film-maker in Madison, Wisconsin, apparently. Eric Lim brought the world-crushing kaiju action to Greenside City, which looks remarkably like his hometown of Madison, in his new film Zero Trooper-F, which just premiered last month.

I want to see the movie just so I can location spot. “Hey, I recognize that parking garage they’re running past!” Which happened while I watched the trailer.

Save The Planet

Yes, I know it’s an ad. Yes, I’m slightly ashamed at that. Still, it’s oddly moving.

There must be something in the water today.

Local Media

One of the things I’d meant to write about when we first moved here was experiencing Silicon Valley for the first time, and what it was like to live here. That never happened. But I do want to call out one of many local series of posts: the I Hate It Here* posts on Valleywag. Particularly “The Army’s New Handheld Lie Detector Would Be Useless in the Valley.”

Burbed.com — about the insane housing prices around here — is also pretty good.

* Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate it here. But there is an awful lot to make fun of.

Mr. Google

Given memes and popularity and a bit of network theory (influenced by The Black Swan, which I just finished), I can buy this:

Instead, there is a two stage process in the evolution of much of the landscape. The first stage is a brief discussion, from which Mr. Google picks a few winners. In the second stage, after that discussion has faded away, the continuing popularity of the winners is assured simply by their positioning in the Guidebook. Mr. Google has singlehandedly changed the way people travel, changing the selection of destinations from an ongoing referendum to a brief discussion from which he anoints a few winners.

What Kate Is Reading Online

I sort of enjoyed linking to the things I was reading from my RSS feeds last week. Let’s do it again! (But not all of them this time. That’s too many.)

• Go Fug Yourself. I wanted to pick just one post and link to that, but it’s all awesome.
• Teemu Selanne is back with the Ducks. I like Selanne, but, since San Jose has a bit of a mental block where they’re concerned, I’d rather the Ducks were worse than they are.
• A Profile of Eli Manning. It’s an interesting contrast to the uber-masculine media portrayal of Tom Brady. (Who was the subject of a great piece by Chuck Klosterman.)
• Maarten points out how badly Seattle-ites handle the snow. It matches with my experience living there. And makes me think what a calamity a couple of inches of snow would be here. Oy.
• The Sarah Jane Adventures returns (in the UK) for a second season. SciFi or BBC America, could you please see about bringing this to the US? I’m not getting enough Doctor Who in my life. Thank you.
• The case for being a recession vegetarian. It’s not a bad idea, but I do love my meat. Although I have been cutting back.
• Neil Gaiman. I just like reading what he writes, so there’s a link to his blog.
• The Five Whys — maybe I should start trying that at work.

That’s the most interesting stuff. At least in my opinion.

What Kate Is Reading Online

The “What Kate Is…” posts are on hold since I’m reducing my media use. (Although I may rework them to encourage better environmentalism.) Instead, here’s a link to everything I just read or marked to read in all of my RSS feeds.

• Double Talk: Adding Twins to the Juggle Because we know some people here who went for their second child and ended up having twins.
• Notes from the Road: Laos From Anthony Bourdain’s new blog
• A bunch of stuff from Apartment Therapy
• Sourcing Sisal Rugs
• In Praise of the Electric Kettle
• Bamboo Bath Towels: Pros and Cons
• House Tour: Tara’s Tiny San Francisco Hodge-Podge
• Blogging the SF Chronicle: The Year of Living Efficiently
• Sarah Connor Faces Chronic Decline I have to admit that we’ve watched the first couple of episodes, and it’s fun but… Let’s say that a lot of the fun comes from pointing out its flaws.
• Hackers Take Control of Your Electricity and Water For your paranoia needs.
• Saturn Blocks Out The Sunlight A striking picture.
• Dogs Rule the Planet in Life After People The TiVo’s recording this for me tomorrow night, and I’m really looking forward to it.
• Why Are Eight Year Olds Hitting Puberty? For your parenting paranoia needs.
• Dita’s Do Is Updid I don’t know about her hair, the material or the neckline, but the silhouette is classic and lovely.
• Yale University “Sluts” Strike Back at Sexist Frat Boys Common sense. It’s your friend.
• Black Women Bristle at that “Black or Female” Question Can we please remember that it’s about the content of your character?
• Why Retail Breeds Sexual Harrassment Ew.
• Meg Whitman’s Retiring On the one hand, EBay needs new leadership. On the other, boo for one less woman in a powerful position in the Valley. (Although didn’t I just make a comment about the content of your character being more important?)
• Fed’s Action Stems Sell-Off in World Markets Three-quarters of a percentage point? When there was a policy meeting next week? It smacks a little too much of panic… (Disclosure: We totally want housing prices to fall so we can finally afford to buy one around here.)
• Thomson Ends Campaign for GOP Nomination Finally.
• On Day of Surprises, Sharapova Is Biggest I like Maria Sharapova.

There you have it: decorating, feminism, science fiction, business, parenting, and some clothes. That’s a pretty typical daily snapshot.

A Short Ramble

I watched Roman Holiday this weekend and later started thinking: could it be made with the same ending today?

I don’t think so. Princess Anne (Audrey Hepburn) chooses to leave behind her personal happiness for the duties and obligations of her job — a job she’s been born into, not chosen. That contradicts much of the extended adolescence we see in the media every day. (Note, I don’t think that adolescence happens as often in real life, but the media — particularly movies — cater to the young.) At best, in an updated version, Princess Anne would have arranged it so Joe could work PR in the royal organization so she could continue her work, or she’d renounce royalty altogether.

In 1953, it really would have been her job or her happiness.* I don’t know how unique it is that she chose her job over a romance. Now you get more options and it’s more acceptable to work and have a good marriage. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. So maybe it’s good that it couldn’t be made with that particular ending again. It’s progress that she could try to have it all.

But that’s also missing the point of the movie. By choosing her job, she’s grown up. She realizes that she has obligations to her people and needs to fulfill them. What choice could she make in today’s world that would communicate that same sense of responsibility and adulthood?**

Picture from IMDB.

* I know it’s more nuanced than that — it was never the case that women were just shunted aside. I’ve had enough conversations with my dad about growing up in 1940s and 50s rural Iowa [a deeply conservative place] to know that if it hadn’t been for the women doing their fair share, life would have been a hell of a lot harder. But I do question the recognition that they got and the choices they were allowed to make.

** Have I just argued that trying to have it all, not wanting to give up either a romance or a job, is childish? I’m not sure how I feel about that. I think any adult realizes that you have to make tradeoffs and you can’t have everything. Hmm….

Links to the Economist

We got the year-end issue of The Economist last week, and it’s always a fun read. Here are a few stories I’d recommend:

Mao and the Art of Management
Who can help the under-performing, over-compensated chief executive fighting to survive intrusive journalists, independent shareholders and ambitious vice-presidents who could do a better job? Where is the role model for the manager who really needs a role model most—the one who by any objective measure of performance cannot, and should not, manage at all?

The End of the Pier
No construction is more appealing, or more redolent of mortality, than a jetty that sticks out from the shore. It tells men they can walk on water, and suggests they can stroll as far towards infinity as their engineering can take them. Piers symbolise escape from the everyday, from the shore, from work, from life itself.

Black and White and Red All Over
Yet in the 1980s there were fears of imminent extinction, and much debate about why. At first many said the panda was an evolutionary dead end: it had bad genes and was hopeless at sex. If that was the case, protecting it was going to be tough.

Birth, Death, and Shopping
Oddly, this most suburban American invention was supposed to evoke a European city centre. Hence Southdale’s density and its atrium, where shoppers were expected to sit and debate over cups of coffee, just as they do in the Piazza San Marco or the Place Dauphine. Gruen exiled cars, which he thought noisy and anti-social, to the outside of his mall. Most contemporary critics thought Gruen had succeeded in bringing urbanity to the suburbs.

Downstairs, Upstairs
Even in the poorest parts of the world, a modern kitchen seems to have particular aspirational value. Tim Dirven, a Belgian photographer, came across a bizarre but powerful illustration of this at a street photographer’s stall in a dusty run-down district of Kinshasa, the capital of Congo. Of all the pictures that customers could choose as a background to be photographed against, the most popular was a bright yellow and blue European-style fitted kitchen.

Noble or Savage?
Hunter-gatherers may have been so lithe and healthy because the weak were dead. The invention of agriculture and the advent of settled society merely swapped high mortality for high morbidity, allowing people some relief from chronic warfare so they could at least grind out an existence, rather than being ground out of existence altogether.

The Summer of Acid Rain
Laki belched out clouds of volcanic gases 80 times greater than Mount St Helens, though Mount St Helens had much greater explosive power. But because Laki was weaker, three-quarters of the gas reached only as far as the lower atmosphere (the troposphere), the level at which rain, ordinary clouds and surface winds are carried. The gases included enormous quantities of sulphur dioxide; at its peak, the eruption produced as much in two days as European industry produces in a year.

People or Media Construct?

I was reading this book review, and came to these paragraphs:

Think about chicks for a minute. They are the nameless girls who wait for boys to finish their interminable rehearsals in awful garage bands. They are the wives who accompany their husbands to business dinners and the next day someone ducks into the husband’s cubicle and asks, “How’s the missus?”

They are the young honeys who get whistled at on the street and get mad about it, and then the workers stop whistling and they get sad about it. Chicks will grow up to be old ladies who send supermarket greeting cards and newspaper clippings that aren’t relevant to anything. Chicks never get to have it their own way. Go to a dinner party, even now, and see who does the talking. Every woman’s magazine or self-help book still tells a young girl to learn to be a good listener. The reason for this is that, unless she exerts herself mightily, she may easily go through her whole life and never get a word in edgewise.

This is not part of the book review, this is commentary on what the reviewer thinks about a certain type of person. But here’s the thing: I don’t actually know anyone like that. I know people with one or the other of those characteristics, but never the whole set, and certainly no one who is actually that passive.

So here’s my question: Do you actually know anyone like that? Is there a significant subset of people in the world like that? Because the only time I ever come across these people is in books or newspaper articles.

Clearly, I’m Insane

Sorry things have been so quiet over here; it’s been a busy week. In lieu of a more substantial post, I’m confessing something. Every time I see Stephen Colbert on TV, even if it’s just the toss-over at the end of The Daily Show, I check to see if he’s wearing French cuffs. He doesn’t do it all the time, but on big nights: the first week of shows, the election special last November, and last night’s show with Bill O’Reilly. I like seeing it, and it’s not often you do. I hope he keeps it up.