Review of the Cask N’ Flagon up on Tablecritic
Had a great time out at The Cask N’ Flagon a couple of weeks ago, thanks to Carol over at Tablecritic.com. Mark and John treated me really well, gave me a bunch of yummy food and beer, and generally treated me to a swell time. My review of the evening is now up on Tablecritic, please check it out!
Povo.com
I am the featured blogger on Povo, just check their homepage and you’ll see me right there. Povo is an excellent local business guide to the Boston area, and the cool thing about the site is that it’s a wiki, and is totally editable by any user who creates an account. Something wrong with a business listing? No problem, just fix it. You can also see an excellent widget they provided for me on my sidebar.
Thanks to the folks at Povo for featuring SoMuchAwesum on their site, whose editability, usability, and layout certainly qualify it as the awesum.
“Embracing The Wide Sky” by Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet is a high functioning British savant who might be one of the smartest people in human history. Called one of the world’s “100 Living Geniuses” by a 2007 poll in England, I discovered him on in a 2007 segment on 60 minutes, which was part of a media cycle that began covering him after the 2005 documentary Brainmain introduced him to the world. He wrote a book, Born on a Blue Day, which I highly recommend. It talks oh his extraordinary mathemtical abilities; Daniel sees numbers in his min as brilliant colorscapes and waves, a condition called Synesthesia, and recited the first 22,000+ decimal places of pie from memory. The book is an emotionally tender and warmhearted memoir, describing the difficulties Daniel had as a child because of basic difficulties with communication, remembering people’s faces, and socializing.
Daniel is an amazing person, though, because unlike many savants, he is a highly funtional person and it is clear when he speaks that he has a deep love for humankind. In spite of his extraordinary mental capacities, he had to endure struggles with the most basic of things that so many people take for granted, and because of this, I find him to be a very hopeful and inspiring person.
As Daniel sees the prime numbers as brilliant poles of light in the wavescape of his mind, my far less complicated mind is dotted with negative memoryies of the past, something that consistently bothers me and which I would like to change. Why is it that even the smallest and most meaningless negative interactions have such an indellible effect on my mind? I’ve come to learn this is fairly common, and I am interested to read Daniel’s new book, which I pre-ordered today, Embracing The Wide Sky. This book touches on the capacities of the mind, and how intelligence is a creative process, rather tha an ability to regurgiatate information, that most people posses, but simply need to figure out how to harness. I’m very curious to delve into it; one of the most remarkable things about Daniel is his ability to articulate how his mind works, which many believe will be a key in unlocking the secrets of autism.
Here is a clip of Daniel talking about the book:
Read more about Daniel at his website Optiminem, or his Blog. Buy his new book at Amazon.
Job Searching in the 21st Century
So I picked up this article, For Help Finding a Job, Friends in Low Places from my friend Christine (check her at PSFK and HuffPo), and it resonated with me. I’ve been in the throes of a career switch for the better part of a year, and it is a huge challenge. The traditional methods I’ve pursued seem to always yield frustration; this happened again with a recent alumni mentorship program put on by college. I consistently turn to friends my own age, and younger, to try and make something of this search. I suppose my interest in the web field plays a major role in this, but still, the article is thought provoking as to how the landscape of job seeking has changed.
NYT Article on Detroit Bailout
Interesting read in today’s NYT byDavid Leonhardt in his Economic Sense column, cutting to the fundamental issue of any potential Detroit bailout: people simply don’t want to own American cars because they are so rife with mechanical problems. That must be fixed for a bailout to have any long term positive consequences. He makes the noteworthy point that labor costs - all the union wages and retirement benefits that have received a lot of attention - only amount to about 10% of costs for Ford, GM, and Chrysler.
Let’s use this opportunity to restructure the industry to produce mechanically sound, energy efficient cars that pollute less and actually attract buyers.
$73 an Hour: Adding It Up. Via NYT.
Mitt Romney: NYT Op-Ed Calling for the Government not to Bailout the Auto-Industry
Say what you will about his social leanings, but Mitt Romney has long had a sharp mind for business, and his analysis of the US auto industry is spot on. There has to come a time in this cycle of bailing out when enough is enough.
The US automakers have been withering for years, and it’s laughable to blame that on the current economic climate. The industry and its allies in Congress, particularly Michigan Democrat John Dingell have long fought against forcing the industry to make cleaner emitting cars, mainly because such a restructuring of the industries business model would cut short term profits because it would be so costly. Relatedly, Dingell is currently in a fight with Henry Waxman of California to save his chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee which will wield influence over environmental legislation and pave the way for any such measures Obama’s administration might try to push through Congress.
That little tangent aside, Romney says Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. Via NYT.
UPDATE: Waxman Ousts Dingell from Energy and Commerce Committee Chairmanship. Via HuffPo.
More awesum from Google: video chat
I installed this and got a chance to use it for the first time last night, and was amazed, as I usually am by Goggle bells and whistles. With my MacBook Pro, all I had to do was install the software, and it gives you a little voice enabled video conferencing window right inside your gchat. Too awesum!
Handy internet awesum: Gmail notifier and TwitterFox
Being plagued for eons by my MacBook’s insistence upon opening up the Apple Mail Client - which I have never ever used and will shortly delete from my machine thanks to this discovery - I did a little googling to investigate whether Gmail could do this. Low and behold, those Googy geniuses though of this and whipped up a little app to handle this.
What you need to do is Download and install the Google Notifier, and simply follow their handy 4 step instructions.
Thanks to Lifehacker for this.
Also, I noticed that my buddy Stadenco’s Twitter updates were coming from something called TwitterFox. I went ahead and installed this little Firefox add-on, and now I have a little Twitter t right in the lower right corner of my browser from which I can post single-click Tweets which also Update my Facebook Status via the Twitter FB app.
http://change.gov
Many amongst us took note all campaign long as Obama used the internet in unforeseen ways to reach small donors and spread his message to as many voters as possible. With Tuesday’s result, and reports of Obama reaching unprecedented numbers of young voters and new young voters, and winning that demographic convincingly, there can be no doubt that this election has solidified the internet’s place in our political landscape.
Indeed, HuffPo head Ariana Huffington said the real winner was the internet in this election.
And now, the Obama administration rolls out he very impressive website Change.gov, showing once again that they know the power of the internet to reach people and effectively convey a message. I’m on board!
Thanks to Jessica for sharing this.
Obama gets it done
So, Obama has done it and I must say I’m thrilled about this. I think he can do so much for our worldwide credibility and will be the force we need on climate change and new energy strategies that might actually give us a chance to salvage what we have left of our natural world. Not to mention, it’s great to be a part of - and a witness to - true history in the making. There’s certainly an air of unbounded possibility this morning.
Check out this outstanding Election Day & Night slideshow from an NYC based amigo of mine. Gorgeous work.
