Here Is New York - The Rumpus.net

Here Is New York - The Rumpus.net: I called my mother that Sunday, when the reports of the hurricane started coming in, splashing hysteria across twitter. I said, “Maybe it’s going to be like the blackout when you were here in 1977.” She laughed at me. “Go outside and stand in the middle of the hurricane when it hits. That’s what New York was like in the 1970s. Not during a disaster. Not during the blackout. Like, on a Tuesday afternoon.”

The RSC should not have pulled the Copyright paper | RedState

The RSC should not have pulled the Copyright paper | RedState: The Republican Study Committee backed off on copyright reform after publishing what was an important paper on the topic. The excuse is that the paper needed further review, but what I fear is that the paper actually went further than rent-seeking allies of squishy centrist Republicans are willing to go. I have no evidence to sustain this. It’s just my gut feeling. The paper went out, industry groups had to have seen it, given all the attention it got. Over the weekend they complained, and down the paper went on Monday.

I have a copy of the paper, and if we go point by point, it’s hard to find a real reason to oppose it though. So if there is another reason, I’d love to hear it.

Why publishers should give away ebooks | Rough Type

Why publishers should give away ebooks | Rough Type: The only technology you need to read a print book is the eyes you were born with, and print continues, for the moment, to be the leading format for books. If you start giving away downloads with print copies, you shake things up in a pretty big way.

1. So why give away the bits? Well, traditional book publishers have three big imperatives today: (1) protect print sales for as long as possible (in order to fund a longer-term transition to a workable new business model); (2) help keep physical bookstores in business (for the reasons set out in this article by Julie Bosman); and (3) do anything possible to curb the power of Amazon.com, the publishers’ arch-frenemy. Bundling bits with atoms helps on all three fronts.

Live From the Inside: A Radio Show Run by Psychiatric Patients - Amelia Rachel Hokule’a Borofsky - The Atlantic

Live From the Inside: A Radio Show Run by Psychiatric Patients - Amelia Rachel Hokule’a Borofsky - The Atlantic: "Didn't you know," he said, "Buenos Aires has the world's first and largest radio station broadcast live from a psychiatric hospital."

"What?" I spilled my cafe con leche, like a cartoon.

He shrugged. "Go visit," he said as he wrote down the address on a waxy-paper napkin.

Patience is a network effect | Rough Type

Patience is a network effect | Rough Type: If you want to see how technology shapes the way we perceive the world, just look at the way our experience of time has changed as network speeds have increased. Back in 2006, a famous study of online retailing found that a third of online shoppers (those with broadband connections) would abandon a retailing site if its pages took four seconds or longer to load and that nearly two-thirds of shoppers would bolt if the delay reached six seconds. The finding became the basis for the Four Second Rule: People won’t wait more than about four seconds for a web page to load. In the succeeding six years, the Four Second Rule has been repealed and replaced by the Quarter of a Second Rule.

I disagree with Sully in terms of tone here:

Marco Rubio Is Not A Scientist:
When asked how old he thinks the Earth is, Rubio makes that much clear:

I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

No, we have answered that. The earth was not created 6,000 years ago in seven days. Period. Anyone who says anything else as a factual matter is nuts. But when your party base is fundamentalism, your grip on reality is always going to be a little slippery.

Why Trevell Coleman Charged Himself With Murder -- over 20 years later

Why Trevell Coleman Charged Himself With Murder -- New York Magazine: The man stepped toward him, caught Coleman’s eye, and grabbed for the gun. Startled, Coleman squeezed off three shots. The man winced, but didn’t make a sound.

Coleman darted back to where he’d left his bike, threw one leg over it, and started pedaling as fast as he could. He felt the man behind him, trying to grab him, and when he turned to look, he saw him stumble. Coleman didn’t look back again and instead sped north on Park Avenue.

He made a loop—right on 115th Street, right on Lexington, right on 112th—and then stopped at the corner of Park and 112th to peek back at the spot where he’d just fired his gun. There was a car parked in the wrong direction, pointing south on the northbound side of the street, headlights facing him. And he thought he saw somebody kneeling over a body on the ground.

Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals | Northwest Public Radio

Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals | Northwest Public Radio: As part of Virginia's waiver to opt out of mandates set out in the No Child Left Behind law, the state has created a controversial new set of education goals that are higher for white and Asian kids than for blacks, Latinos and students with disabilities.

Virginia Democratic state Sen. Donald McEachin first read about the state's new performance goals for schoolchildren in a newspaper editorial.

"And I was shocked to find that the state board of education [was] putting in place permanent disparities between different subgroups — Asians at the top, African-Americans at the bottom," says McEachin.

Here's what the Virginia state board of education actually did. It looked at students' test scores in reading and math and then proposed new passing rates. In math it set an acceptable passing rate at 82 percent for Asian students, 68 percent for whites, 52 percent for Latinos, 45 percent for blacks and 33 percent for kids with disabilities.

The Long, Treacherous Climb Up the Fiscal Cliff

The Long, Treacherous Climb Up the Fiscal Cliff: For these reasons, I think it is almost a certainty that the fiscal cliff will take effect as scheduled. But I am far more sanguine than most economists. The dire forecasts of a sharp economic slowdown assume that the spending cuts and higher taxes are in effect for all of 2013 and after. A temporary fiscal cliff is no big economic problem, especially if businesses and financial markets are assured of a quick reversal, which is almost a certainty. All the hand-wringing is pure political theater.

How soon the fiscal cliff will be resolved and on what terms is entirely up to Republicans.

The Tunnels of Gaza - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine

The Tunnels of Gaza - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine: The tunnels supply the government with all the materials used in public works projects, and Hamas taxes everything that comes through them, shutting down operators who don’t pay up. Tunnel revenue is estimated to provide Hamas with as much as $750 million a year. Hamas has also smuggled in cash from exiled leaders and patrons in Syria, Iran, and Qatar that helps keep it afloat.

Samir told me that Hamas leaders and local officials are in business with tunnel operators, protecting them from prosecution when workers like his brother die needlessly. He’s convinced that corruption and bribery are rampant. His friends agreed. “Damn the municipality!” Suhail blurted out as Samir spoke.

The copyright study that Hollywood doesn't want you to see | Digital Trends

The copyright study that Hollywood doesn't want you to see | Digital Trends: Here is a summary of Khanna’s “three myths” of copyright, and why they are myths:

1. Copyright was not created in order to guarantee that content creators get paid, as copyright reliant industries claim; it was created to “promote the progress of science and useful arts,” according to the U.S. Constitution. Khanna adds that the “purpose” of copyright “is to lead to maximum productivity and innovation.”
2. Copyright is not, as some claim, “free market capitalism at work,” writes Khanna. It is the exact opposite: “a government-subsidized monopoly,” thanks to the massive, government-upheld penalties on those who violate copyright.
3. Copyright does not lead to “innovation and productivity,” writes Khanna. He argues that, instead, copyright policy has created “a system that picks winners and losers, and the losers are new industries that could generate new wealth and added value.”

Why Coke Cost A Nickel For 70 Years : Planet Money : NPR

Why Coke Cost A Nickel For 70 Years : Planet Money : NPR: In 1899, two lawyers paid a visit to the president of Coca-Cola. At the time, Coke was sold at soda fountains. But the lawyers were interested in this new idea: selling drinks in bottles. The lawyers wanted to buy the bottling rights for Coca-Cola.

The president of Coca-Cola didn't think much of the whole bottle thing. So he made a deal with the lawyers: He'd let them sell Coke in bottles, and he'd sell them the syrup to do it. According to the terms of the deal, the lawyers would be able to buy the syrup at a fixed price. Forever.

Andrew Young, an economist at West Virginia University, says the president of Coke may have signed the contract just to get the guys out of his office.

Notes from an Egyptian Mujahid in Syria "Salafi tweets prolifically from his iPad, quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., and works part-time for a successful alternative media start-up company."

Notes from an Egyptian Mujahid in Syria | Atlantic Council: If there is such a thing as a stereotypical jihadist, Ahmed is not it. The 22-year-old Egyptian Salafi tweets prolifically from his iPad, quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., and works part-time for a successful alternative media start-up company.

Like a lot of college students, Ahmed loves road trips. But unlike most Egyptians his age, Ahmed’s last journey was to a war zone – Syria – where he spent six weeks fighting with rebel forces against Bashar al-Assad’s entrenched regime. Ahmed is one of a growing number of mujahideen (predominately Sunni guerrilla fighters) traveling from Egypt, Tunisia, and as far as Croatia and Pakistan to volunteer with the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Ashlyn Blocker, the Girl Who Feels No Pain - NYTimes.com

Ashlyn Blocker, the Girl Who Feels No Pain - NYTimes.com: I also saw her run without regard for her body through the house as her parents pleaded with her to stop. And she played an intense game of air hockey with her sister, slamming the puck on the table as hard and fast as she could. When she made an egg sandwich on the skillet, she pressed her hands onto the bread as Tara had taught her, to make sure it was cool before she put it into her mouth. She can feel warmth and coolness, but not the more extreme temperatures that would cause anyone else to recoil in pain.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells on Mitt Romney’s Lonely Candidacy -- New York Magazine

Benjamin Wallace-Wells on Mitt Romney’s Lonely Candidacy -- New York Magazine: And now, just a week after Romney seemed poised to become president, there is no segment of the Republican Party that could be called Romneyist. Paul Ryan and his young cohort—far more ideological, natural political animals—have their own emotional connection, and their politics deftly channel the bristling outsider individualism of their supporters. What Romney could offer was not a philosophy but something at once more intimate and more limited: only the capacities of a single individual, himself.

Letters of Note: Wretched woman!

Letters of Note: Wretched woman!: In 1834, 21-year-old Jarm Logue (pictured above some years later) managed to steal his master's horse and escape the life of slavery into which he had been born. Sadly, his mother, brother and sister remained. 26 years later, by which time he had settled down in New York, opened numerous schools for black children, started his own family, become a reverend and noted abolitionist, and authored an autobiography, he received a letter from the wife of his old owner in which she demanded $1000.

That letter, and his furious reply, can be read below.

Friday nights when random people believe you accidentally forced the resignation of the head of the CIA....

Chuck Klosterman on the David Petraeus scandal and living a CIA conspiracy theory - Grantland: I had an interesting weekend. Maybe you did, too. It's always a mixed bag, you know? Some Friday nights are drunken and exhilarating; other Friday nights are empty and reserved. And then, of course, there are those Friday nights when random people believe you accidentally forced the resignation of the head of the CIA.

We've all been there.

China's New Chief, Xi Jinping : The New Yorker

China's New Chief, Xi Jinping : The New Yorker:

“We are not complacent,” Xi said, in an acknowledgement that the Party has become complacent. “And we will never rest on our laurels.” He then ticked off a list so honest that he may come to regret it. “Under the new conditions, our Party faces many severe challenges, and there are also many pressing problems within the Party that need to be resolved, particularly corruption, bribe-taking, being removed from the people, and some Party officials’ reliance on formalities and bureaucracy.”

His speech was no barn burner, but it was refreshingly free of Party hymns.

David Simon | Stray penises and politicos

David Simon | Stray penises and politicos: Observe the process by which we remove some of the most essential American figures of the last century for having failed to corral their sexual organs in the marital bedroom: Roosevelt, gone. Eisenhower, gone. Kennedy, gone. Lyndon Johnson, gone. Clinton, gone. Martin Luther King, Jr., gone. Edward Murrow, gone. Follow the gamboling penis to an arid expanse of sociopolitical wasteland, where many of the greatest visionaries and actors can never tred, a desert in which only the Calvin Coolidges and Richard Nixons remain standing. Anyone who looks at the history of mankind and argues that private sexual fidelity exists in direct proportion to political greatness or moral leadership is either a chump or a liar.

And now comes General Petraeus.

Christopher Stevens and the Problem of American Diplomacy - NYTimes.com

Christopher Stevens and the Problem of American Diplomacy - NYTimes.com: “No one has sat back to say, ‘What are our objectives?’ ” said Prudence Bushnell, who was ambassador to Kenya when the Qaeda bombing took place there in 1998, killing more than 200 people and injuring 4,000. “The model has become, we will go to dangerous places and transform them, and we will do it from secure fortresses. And it doesn’t work.”