Links and Thoughts 15: 25 May 2014
RIP SLYME – Galaxy
Good Morning.
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I think, just for a change of pace, I’ll do a set of themed book recommendations (all week) that have nothing to do with the rest of the links — those rec’s are good too (and feel like a good use for the feature) —but let’s get back to basics. This week the topic is cookbooks (but probably not what you’re thinking).
Today’s Book Recommendation is On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee.
OK, First: this is a food book and not an index-of-recipes (what we usually mean when we say ‘cookbook’) and I’ve owned my copy since the revised edition came out in 2004. Second, one would not be far off to describe this not as a cookbook but instead, as a comprehensive reference for ingredients — the stuff we cook — a gastronomic education (if not a revelation) for the common cook.
“[F]or its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment.”
If you are more of an engineer, and not an academic, McGee’s most recent offering Keys to Good Cooking is also recommended. Or both. Both is good.
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Media [consumption]:
“The majority of consumers who watch pirated films — some 94 percent — say they also buy legitimate copies. Those who only occasionally watch unauthorized versions of movies, or stream them because it’s convenient, can be most readily coaxed to pay, the study found.
“Occasional and convenience streamers account for about one-third of unauthorized viewing. These consumers say they prefer to watch a legitimate copy of a film, but they’ll watch the black-market version when the opportunity presents itself or when their subscription services don’t have the title they’re seeking.”
Movie Pirates Can Be Converted, Study Finds : Re|Code
Politics:
So, here’s a theory: The post-2008 Republican Party is just a long con that isn’t interested in ‘winning’, or the presidency, but instead is waging a war of attrition on the Federal level while aggressively and opportunistically spamming the legal codes on the state level.
GOP’s ‘Happy Loser’ Syndrome: Why the Right May Not Want the White House : AlterNet
‘Free Market Solutions’:
“Though Houston is not quite as unplanned as its reputation — it doesn’t have zoning, but it does have a number of other planning rules — the city’s generations-long pattern of growing outward without densifying the core is starting to reverse itself.”
Sprawltastic Houston Is Densifying and the Courts Can’t Stop It : Next City
If you don’t, I will:
“Many adults can’t stand kids. The tragic thing is that some of them are already parents.”
Do You Hate Your Children? : Acculturated
even Facts and Math are offensive:
…when the facts and the math are against you.
“This week, the Chamber of Commerce released a report claiming that a new requirement under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that corporations calculate and disclose the ratio of CEO pay to an average worker’s pay is ‘egregious.’
“The report notes that the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has to issue the regulation, estimated that the new rule would require an average of just 190 extra hours of paperwork each year per company, costing an extra $18,000.”
…in related news, adding $180,000, $1,800,000, or $18,000,000 to a CEO salary is business as usual and not worthy of comment. Spending $18,000 to report on CEO pay is tantamount to communism, calumny, and catastrophe. Actually raising an average worker’s pay by $1800 annually is unthinkable. (apparently you need an MBA to understand the math on that.)
Chamber Of Commerce Claims Calculating How Much More CEOs Make Than Their Workers Is ‘Egregious’ : Think Progress
Some Speech is More Free than Other Speech:
…I guess it depends on who paid for it.
“If you can’t recall any Tea Party protests in 2009 and 2010 being broken up by baton-wielding, pepper-spraying cops in riot gear, that’s because it didn’t happen.”
Law Enforcement vs. the Hippies : Mother Jones
The other theory is that one side assumes we are all one society and that the proper functioning of democracy requires discussion — to say nothing of basic decency, respect, and common courtesy — and the other side wants to pepper-spray me in the face.
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Diary entry for 25 May:
“The modus operandi is to LOUDLY accuse the other side of whatever it is we’ve been doing, for years – and without a single shred of self-awareness or remorse, and to DEFIANTLY proclaim that this constitutes a betrayal, a change in the agreed-upon rules, and dirty-underhanded-tricks.
“Because how dare the opposition stoop to the crap we’ve relied upon for decades. If they are going to resort to such base tactics, we *demand* they be smeared, besmirched, and potentially, forever handicapped in the future – for daring to use our own methods against us.”
I won’t tell you which side I’m talking about, but I think we all know, and that really says something. —M.
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