Y’all
The classic post in question, if you really want to see it, which you don’t.
The Economics of P.O.W. Camps
Cigarettes, not surprisingly, often become currency:
Although cigarettes as currency exhibited certain peculiarities, they performed all the functions of a metallic currency as a unit of account, as a measure of value and as a store of value, and shared most of its characteristics. They were homogeneous, reasonably durable, and of convenient size for the smallest or, in packets, for the largest transactions. Incidentally, they could be clipped or sweated by rolling them between the fingers so that tobacco fell out.
Cigarettes were also subject to the working of Gresham’s Law. Certain brands were more popular than others as smokes, but for currency purposes a cigarette was a cigarette. Consequently buyers used the poorer qualities and the Shop rarely saw the more popular brands: cigarettes such as Churchman’s No. 1 were rarely used for trading. At one time cigarettes hand-rolled from pipe tobacco began to circulate. Pipe tobacco was issued in lieu of cigarettes by the Red Cross at a rate of 25 cigarettes to the ounce and this rate was standard in exchanges, but an ounce would produce 30 home-made cigarettes. Naturally, people with machine-made cigarettes broke them down and rerolled the tobacco, and the real cigarette virtually disappeared from the market. Hand-rolled cigarettes were not homogeneous and prices could no longer be quoted in them with safety: each cigarette was examined before it was accepted and thin ones were rejected, or extra demanded as a make-weight. For a time we suffered all the inconveniences of a debased currency.
Machine-made cigarettes were always universally acceptable, both for what they would buy and for themselves. It was this intrinsic value which gave rise to their principal disadvantage as currency, a disadvantage which exists, but to a far smaller extent in the case of metallic currency; – that is, a strong demand for non-monetary purposes. Consequently our economy was repeatedly subject to deflation and to periods of monetary stringency. While the Red Cross issue of 50 or 25 cigarettes per man per week came in regularly, and while there were fair stocks held, the cigarette currency suited its purpose admirably. But when the issue was interrupted, stocks soon ran out, prices fell, trading declined in volume and became increasingly a matter of barter. This deflationary tendency was periodically offset by the sudden injection of new currency. Private cigarette parcels arrived in a trickle throughout the year, but the big numbers came in quarterly when the Red Cross received its allocation of transport. Several hundred thousand cigarettes might arrive in the space of a fortnight. Prices soared, and then began to fall, slowly at first but with increasing rapidity as stocks ran out, until the next big delivery. Most of our economic troubles could be attributed to this fundamental instability.
Dick Fuld
At about five-eight, Fuld isn’t physically imposing. But he has intensely dark eyes and a deep, wide forehead that slopes so sharply it reminds some of a can opener. Those features, and a palpable inner intensity, give him an almost animalistic presence. “Through these little physical cues, he made it seem like [a situation] will lead to physical violence if you didn’t relent,” says one former executive.
“I’ve given you fourteen years of earnings. I have one bad quarter. This is how you respond?” Fuld shot back. The veins on his neck popped.
But the bankers pressed their case. Actually, they wanted two heads. They would spare Fuld the indignity of a coup, but they wanted him to fire Joe Gregory, Lehman’s president, and Erin Callan, Gregory’s protégée, whom he’d made CFO and who had been the public, sunny face of Lehman as it spiraled down. Firing Gregory would be personally devastating to Fuld, as the bankers knew. Over three decades at Lehman, the two had rarely sat more than a hundred feet from each other. Professionally, they were complements: Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.
“If it’s not Joe, then it would be you,” said another banker. “And that would be a disaster.”
Fuld has a famously voracious appetite—senior executives sometimes ordered him a mid-morning plate of ribs. The joke was that he never gained weight; his intensity burned off the calories. That day, he hardly touched his food. At the end of the meal, he pushed out of his chair. Fuld had agreed to most of the bankers’ demands, but he had been careful not to make an explicit commitment to fire his oldest ally. He wanted to know whether there was any way he could let Gregory and Callan survive without the bankers blowing him up in public.
“What are you going to say when you leave this meeting?” Fuld asked.
“It’s not enough,” one of the bankers replied.
“I got it.”
The ax fell the next day.
Is it funny today?
Is it funny today is a new digg-like site that allows you to rate web comics and, while it isn’t the prettiest thing at the ball, it seems to have all sorts of RSS sexiness which always makes the design scheme more forgivable in my book.
It is still young, but I could see it growing once it impliments automatic submission.
Flying Things
Crazy Germans and their fantastic pictures.
Carmen Agra Deedy: Spinning a story of Mama
Hippies Crying Over Dead Trees
Walrus Playing A Saxophone
Well, only sort of.
White Russian
The NYT profiles the White Russian and why it has moved from passé to popular (not that everybody doesn’t already know):
“When I first encountered it in the 1970s, the White Russian was something real alcoholics drank, or beginners,” said David Wondrich, the drinks correspondent for Esquire. Now, ordering the drink is “the mark of the hipster,” he said.
Lego Modding
Other favorites of mine: Ron Burgendy, Star Wars’ Droid, Fallout Power Armor, Gorilla, and Jack and Sally.
The Family, 1976
A true to form photo essay, juxtaposed pictures with no text. (via Monoscope)
Miracle of 86 - “Surprise Me”
An all time favorite song from an all time favorite band.
Dr Roget’s 990 lists
The story behind the guy behind the thesaurus:
Peter Mark Roget, the future Linnaus of the English word, began compiling word-lists at the age of eight. Why was he not playing with other children, honing his social skills? The problem was his mother, a widow at 28, who drained her son of sympathy. Catherine Romilly gave birth to a wonderful, handsome, talented boy , but couldn’t let him be himself. Independence, he would write in his Thesaurus under list 744, equals freedom of action, unilaterality; freedom of choice, initiative. But for freedom see also non-liability, disobedience, seclusion and liberation: the way one insists on freedom in the face of opposition.
Film Personality Test
Saw this at ToB yesterday before I hopped a plane:
It’s not strange to disagree about movies that are wildly different, and there are surely a few random movies that are very polarizing. What I find most interesting is which movie people consider the best movie from a particular director, as it is usually very telling and polarizing in a different way, so to this point I will propose a new personality test where you reblog your favorite movie from each of these directors:
1. Joel Coen: No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, Miller’s Crossing, Raising Arizona, etc
2. Wes Anderson: The Darjeeling Limited, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, etc
3. Hal Ashby: Being There, Shampoo, Harold and Maude, etc
4. Kevin Smith: Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Dogma, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Clerks, etc
5. Quentin Tarantino: Grindhouse, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, etc
And, today, I found Jason beat me to the punch, including Kubrick and and Anderson:
6. Stanley Kubrick: 2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, etc.
7. P.T. Anderson: Boogie Nights, Hard Eight, There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia.
8. Errol Morris: The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, Mr. Death, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, Gates of Heaven, etc.
My list is as follows:
1. The Big Lebowski
2. Rushmore (I stand firm on this one, no qualifiers)
3. Being There
4. Mallrats
5. Reservoir Dogs (The only Tarantino film I really like.)
6. 2001 (I have only seen about half his films and that half includes Clockwork Orange)
7. Magnolia
8. I have never seen an Errol Morris film
Hatfield Hotdog Launcher Documentary
Heaven-o
It is wikipedia so I find this suspect, but here is what it says (via ToB):
In 1997, Kleberg County Commissioners unanimously voted to adopt “heaven-o” as the official greeting of the county instead of “hello”. Kleberg County residents are now encouraged to use “heaven-o” to acknowledge one another. The reason cited for the change was the fact that hello contains the word hell.
Love in the Time of Darwinism
An analysis of the postfeminist dating scene:
It would be easy enough to hold up some of the callow ranting that the piece inspired as proof positive of the child-man’s existence. But the truth is that my correspondents’ objections gave me pause. Their argument, in effect, was that the SYM is putting off traditional markers of adulthood—one wife, two kids, three bathrooms—not because he’s immature but because he’s angry. He’s angry because he thinks that young women are dishonest, self-involved, slutty, manipulative, shallow, controlling, and gold-digging. He’s angry because he thinks that the culture disses all things male. He’s angry because he thinks that marriage these days is a raw deal for men.
Sex Kittens Go To College
Trailer for the 1960s film, old enough to be safe for work if you don’t mind the words “sex kitten” streaming from your office.
Dear Clusterflock
Are you a teetotaler?
Shit
Q: What does the U.S.’s current level of sanitation do to health care costs? What would you suggest we do to improve our sanitation and what could the effects of that action be on health care?
A: I don’t have figures for nationwide health costs, but you can guess by looking at the few studies that have been done. For example, a study out of Stanford in 2006 found that sewage outfalls near 28 California beaches caused up to 1.5 million excess gastrointestinal illnesses, which cost California up to $51 million in health care costs (in year 2000 dollars). And that’s just 160 kilometers of coastline.
Sewage outfalls are common in all water bodies across the U.S., and discharges of raw sewage are far more common than most people realize; because most sewer systems are “combined” (meaning they also take in surface water from streets), and because of population growth and the fact that many sewers are decades and sometimes centuries old, they are very vulnerable to heavy rainstorms. Every week, New York discharges over 2,000 Olympic swimming pools worth of untreated sewage into waters nearby.
keyboardr
keyboardr is a homepage. It speeds up your internet expirience. And if you like, it helps you keeping your hands on the keyboard.
In the first place keyboardr is a meta-search. You get Google, Wikipedia, Youtube altogether. The instant search and the keyboard navigation are replacing the feeling of “searching” with the feeling of “launching”.
via Rands
Introverts
An old article from the Atlantic (via Lone Gunman):
How can I let the introvert in my life know that I support him and respect his choice?
First, recognize that it’s not a choice. It’s not a lifestyle. It’s an orientation.
Second, when you see an introvert lost in thought, don’t say “What’s the matter?” or “Are you all right?”
Third, don’t say anything else, either.
Built to Spill - Distopian Dream Girl
The video is only useless text, but the song is an all-time favorite I found myself rocking out to this evening.
(And I also think Bowie is cool)
iPhone breathalyzer hack
Tellart used a store-bought-and-hacked breathalyzer attached to a 3G iPhone
Nabokov Reading The First Few Lines Of Lolita
…Plus other ramblings
via kottke (which if you don’t read, you should)