A Guy In New York

Insight

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:57:05 -0500

Thirteen smoke jumpers died in the Mann Gulch fire [August 5, 1949]. White crosses below the ridge still mark the spots where the men died. But after several terrifying minutes [Wag] Dodge emerged from the ashes.
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[Mark Jung Beeman] recommends that, if we're stuck on a difficult problem, it's better to set the alarm clock a few minutes early so that we have time to lie in bed and ruminate.
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One of the surprising lessons of this research is that trying to force an insight can actually prevent the insight.
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Concentration, it seems, comes with the hidden cost of diminished creativity. "There's a good reason Google puts Ping-Pong tables in their headquarters," [John] Kounios said. "If you want to encourage insights, then you've got to also encourage people to relax."

"The Eureka Hunt: Why do good ideas come to us when they do?" by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker, July 28, 2008

Hat tip: Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution

Mann Gulch fire of 1949 - from Wikipedia
"Mann Gulch Fire: A Race That Couldn't Be Won," by Richard Rothermel,General Technical Report INT-299, US Forest Service, May 1993 (14-page pdf )
Mark Jung Beeman, Northwestern University
John Kounios, Drexel University
Earl K. Miller, MIT
Jonathan D. Cohen, Princeton

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Willis Loughhead at Country

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:07:03 -0500

Had a very fine evening last week enjoying a press/blogger dinner sponsored by Arm & Hammer at Country ... the recently renovated Carlton Hotel is very luxurious and comfortable in the Neo-Classical style.

Cocktails and dinner were served on the second floor over-looking the lobby. It was a sight to behold with the lovely chandeliers and Roman style mosaic-tiled floors. The executive chef, Willis Loughhead, presented us with a wonderful series of his creations, running from cod cheeks to pig ears. Wonderful service and lovely French wine.

Learned much about Arm & Hammer and their baking soda ... The next morning, I brought out my silver-plated soup ladle and polished with baking soda - what a brilliant shine! For many more uses of baking soda, see Peter Ciullo's "Baking Soda Bonanza."

Lauren Steinhorn and her crew from Edelman were magnificent ... it was a great pleasure to meet everyone.

Country, web site, 90 Madison Avenue, at 29th Street, New York, 212-889-7100 [savory ny]

"So Fresh, So Clean," Food Rush, July 18, 2008
"Country Steak to open this September," Strong Buzz, June 30, 2008
"Country Steak Planned for Country’s Upstairs," NY Mag, June 30, 2008
"Country and the Café at Country, under Chef Willis Loughhead," eGullett
"Country," New York Journal, May 12, 2008
"Willis Loughhead Brings Nose-to-Tail Fare to Country," gothamist, May 11, 2008
Willis Loughhead - Chef DB

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Sandra Rivera - Flamenco San Juan - FREE

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:47:44 -0500

Free out-door concert at the Naumburg Bandshell, naumburgconcerts.org

Sandra Rivera - Flamenco San Juan, July 22, 2008, 7:30 pm, at the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, enter at 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue, then go to approximately 70th and mid-Park, 718-340-3018

King's Seafood Restaurant

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:57:06 -0500

Another great discovery for Fine Cantonese cuisine in Chinatown ... King's Seafood .... a very fine replacement for the defunct Nice restaurant ... the menu comprising: Beijing duck, jumbo prawns with walnuts and broccoli in a mayo sauce, Hong-Kong style T-bone steak (medium rare), half-chicken in garlic sauce, salt-and-pepper pork chops, the whole flounder done two-ways, chicken chow-mein, beef chow-fun, saute "dao-miu" with garlic ... duck meat with green chives .... a very sumptuous dinner for everybody to enjoy ... for less then $30 a person...bring your own wine or champagne ...

I also went there to try their dim-sum lunch .... very, very good food and service but 2.5 times more expansive then Chatham ....

King's Seafood, 39 East Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, 212-233-3359 [Yelp]

Time for Some Campaignin'

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:37:02 -0500

Time for Some Campaignin' - from JibJab on YouTube

Happy Yorkie and owner

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:07:55 -0500

Happy Yorkie and owner, Richmond, VA

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Grand Sichuan

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:57:16 -0500

Last night, ate at the new location of the Grand Sichuan, web site, 15 7th Avenue South (at Leroy Street), NY, NY 10014, in the West Village. 212-645-0222 [MenuPages |NY Mag | Yelp | Ubereater]

real authentic Sichuan cooking, no-holds-barred very-very hot & spicy mung bean noodles, cool cucumber with green scallion sauce, crab-pork steamed dumplings, dan-dan noodles, tripe & tongue slices, etc. ... so hot that I needed orange slices to cool my throat ... only ordered from the appertizers ... so far, bring your own beer or whiskey ...

See web site for other locations

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Subway info (new window opens): MTA map | schedules | HopStop | Interactive Transit Map

Turn off the Internet

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:37:56 -0500

Turn off the Internet

(Hint: once you've enjoyed shutting down the Internet, press Alt then F4 to start it back up - works best with IE)

Globalization and Its Discontents

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:47:40 -0500

Red State Update: Budweiser Bought By Foreigners? - YouTube

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Tony Dragonas

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:27:09 -0500

An update on Tony Dragonas, the Greek street-hawker....

I have noticed with great sadness that the city planted tree has been totally embalmed with the greasy-smokey BBQ fire. That poor tree could not survive the constant bombardment of smoke and heat. It is now a blackened dead tree.

This is the good-and-bad about Tony Dragonas... I suppose he must be sent to a re-education camp...

Post by Peter

Save Tony!, May 24, 2008
"Tony Dragonas - best grilled hamburger in NYC?" January 10, 2006

"Bachelorhood And Its Discontents"

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:27:38 -0500

It wasn't just that the bachelor was untrustworthy, wrote [George] Ade, he was also a “draft dodger” and a “slacker,” one who had exchanged the traditional male role of provider for that of refusenik. Or, as another wag put it, “The bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce.” Until quite recently the office bachelor was seen as a serious liability, and earned considerably less than his married counterpart. Vance Packard, in his 1962 book The Pyramid Climbers, noted that, “In general the bachelor is viewed with circumspection, especially if he is not well known to the people appraising him…[However] the worst status of all is that of a bachelor beyond the age of 36. The investigators wonder why he isn’t married. Is it because he isn’t virile? Is he old-maidish? Can’t he get along with people?” By contrast, the married man was the steady one, the stable lot, not least because, in Tallyrand’s memorable phrase, "a married man with a family will do anything for money.”

"Bachelorhood And Its Discontents," by Christopher Orlet, New English Review, July 2008

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"Sources Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted by 2013"

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:37:34 -0500

The Onion: Sources Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted by 2013

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"Global Warming as Mass Neurosis"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:47:02 -0500

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it's time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.
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The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has been expanding for years. At least as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere's coldest in decades. In May, German climate modelers reported in the journal Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation. But be not not-afraid, added the modelers: The inexorable march to apocalypse resumes in 2020.
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A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence.

"Global Warming as Mass Neurosis," by Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2008

EPA's Climate Change Site
"Don't fight, adapt. We should give up futile attempts to combat climate change." Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, December 12, 2007
Global Warming: Frequently Asked Questions - from NOAA
GlobalWarming.org - from the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Global warming - from Wikipedia

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True calling ... and standard of living.

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:37:23 -0500

If one of the disadvantages of an elite education is the temptation it offers to mediocrity, another is the temptation it offers to security. When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up. But what of the opportunities it shuts down? An elite education gives you the chance to be rich--which is, after all, what we’re talking about--but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed. We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist--that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?

Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher--wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.

"The Disadvantages of an Elite Education: Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers." by William Deresiewicz, The American Scholar, Summer 2008

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Amazon down since Monday? 3-day Amazon outage?

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:07:35 -0500

Is it just us or has Amazon.com been down since Monday morning, June 9, 2008?

Since Monday, during the day, we have been able to reach Amazon less than 1 hour each day. We've tried 2 different locations using 2 different access providers, and can't reach Amazon from either.

Anyone else having these problems?

A Guy In New York

Insight

More

Willis Loughhead at Country

More

Sandra Rivera - Flamenco San Juan - FREE

King's Seafood Restaurant

Time for Some Campaignin'

Happy Yorkie and owner

Grand Sichuan

Turn off the Internet

Globalization and Its Discontents

Tony Dragonas

"Bachelorhood And Its Discontents"

"Sources Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted by 2013"

"Global Warming as Mass Neurosis"

More

True calling ... and standard of living.

Amazon down since Monday? 3-day Amazon outage?