Unlikely Words » nytimes

And So It Goes

aaron cohen — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:59:59 +0000

"A lot of critics think I’m stupid because my sentences are so simple and my method is so direct: they think these are defects. No the point is to write as much as you know as quickly as possible." - Kurt Vonnegut

There's a Kurt Vonnegut just out and this quote was in the review of it. I liked it.

via And So It Goes

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What’s in a word?

aaron cohen — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:29:18 +0000

Do you think this quotation:
"Heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war."

Has a different meaning than this one:
"Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war."

NPR posted about Donald Rumsfeld's response to a Paul Krugman column about 9/11. For some reason, they left out the word 'fake' when highlighting the column. When I read the NPR piece, I noted to myself that Krugman called Kerik, Bush, and Giuliani heroes, which seemed weird. But he didn't. Why would NPR leave out that word, slightly changing the meaning of the quotation? What angle does that even push?

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Swimming from Cuba to Key West

aaron cohen — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:39:51 +0000

Just about every paragraph in this article has something that jumped out on me. The story is about Diana Nyad, a 61 year-old radio commentator who is going to swim from Cuba to Key West in 60 hours. Straight. As one of the marathon swimmers quoted says, "I can't imagine doing anything for 60 hours."

There will be liquid mixture of predigested protein, jellyfish stings, and swollen tongues from the salt water. Diana is the record holder for world's longest swim, and is probably going to go $150K in debt because she's only raised $350K of the $500K necessary. It costs that much because there are 22 people helping put this together.

But also, and let's be honest, this is why I'm posting this.

Two men in kayaks will follow Ms. Nyad’s every stroke. They will hold a shark shield — neoprene rods that emit electrical waves to zap sharks that come too close. The waters between Cuba and Key West are a notorious shark playground. But the shield is not foolproof. Just in case it fails, as it did last year in the Caribbean when another woman was on a marathon swim, four shark divers with spears will be onboard, ready to jump.

Lastly:
"Jack LaLanne was 60 when he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf, in San Francisco, for a second time, handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat."

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Somerville asks, ‘Are You Happy?’

aaron cohen — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:18:08 +0000

My city in the NY Times! I remember noticing this question on the City's census form a couple months ago, but I didn't realize it was among the first in the nation...

Officials here want this Boston suburb to become the first city in the United States to systematically track people’s happiness. Like leaders in Britain, France and a few other places, they want to move beyond the traditional measures of success — economic growth — to promote policies that produce more than just material well-being.

To draw up its questions, Somerville turned to a neighbor, Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor who wrote the 2006 best seller “Stumbling on Happiness.” Dr. Gilbert, who donated his time, is also helping the city do a more detailed telephone survey, using a randomized sample of Somerville’s 76,000 residents.

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Inside Baseball

aaron cohen — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 04:18:07 +0000

The Baseball Hall of Fame just announced this year's class of inductees, and there were some notable names missing. Here's Nate Silver on the numbers. His point is basically that good baseball players today are better than great baseball players of yesteryear.

If you’re not willing to reserve a place for players who meet or exceed the statistical standards of the average Hall of Famers at their positions, however — players like a Larkin or a Bagwell — the discussion really ought to turn to which players we need to kick out. No Barry Larkin? No Travis Jackson. No Tim Raines? No Max Carey. No Jeff Bagwell? No High Pockets Kelly. No Trammell and Whitaker? That’s fine: let’s boot Tinker and Evers.

Barry Larkin and Jeff Bagwell, 2 players who didn't make it but should have, are indicative of how people vote now. Barry Larkin didn't make it because he was merely spectacular for close to a decade, not eye poppingly amazing, during an era of steroid use. Jeff Bagwell, on the other hand, had amazing stats, also during an era of steroid use. It seems like Larkin is being compared unfavorably in light of ballooning offensive stats, for not doing steroids. On the other hand, Bagwell is being punished for having those stats during the same era, even though there's never been evidence of steroid abuse.

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This governance thing is easy

aaron cohen — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:02:26 +0000

I don't think anyone really gives a shit about the deficit, what people care about is whether they have a job. In any case, check out the NY Times Budget Puzzle. It was easy to solve the deficit and create a surplus by raising taxes and reducing spending. PS 30 year budget projections are a joke and a waste of time.

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Free parking not actually free

aaron cohen — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:43:03 +0000

Tyler Cowen writes in the NYTimes

The subsidies are largely invisible to drivers who park their cars — and thus free or cheap parking spaces feel like natural outcomes of the market, or perhaps even an entitlement. Yet the law is allocating this land rather than letting market prices adjudicate whether we need more parking, and whether that parking should be free. We end up overusing land for cars — and overusing cars too. You don’t have to hate sprawl, or automobiles, to want to stop subsidizing that way of life.

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Treme Trailer

aaron cohen — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:17:59 +0000

"Treme", David Simon's latest premiers Aprill 11 on HBO. The show and Simon got the
New York Times Magazine treatment on Sunday...

The story lines in “Treme” begin three months after Katrina, and they follow a diverse group of characters as they rebuild their lives in a city torn apart, a city in which tens of thousands of houses are abandoned, in which only 50 percent of the population remains, in which neighborhoods are still without power. The main characters in “Treme” aren’t the overburdened cops, spiraling addicts, ruthless dealers, struggling dockworkers, corrupt politicians or compromised journalists of “The Wire.” In their place, for the most part, are musicians.

"Do You Wanna" Clip Trailer: Day

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Mad Men Barbie Dolls

aaron cohen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:38:27 +0000

I really hope we don't look back at this and say, "Then. It was then we knew the show had jumped." I mean... it doesn't mean anything, right? It's nothing. Shake it off.

The dolls are part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults that Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection. Although there have been Barbies and Kens based on other TV series, among them “I Love Lucy” and “The X-Files,” the dolls will be the first licensed line for that collection, Mattel says, with a suggested retail price of $74.95 each.

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Personal Flying Suit

aaron cohen — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:51:12 +0000

"Forget the Segway", indeed. I can't decide whether to make a tag for "Personal Flying Suit" or not... ###Possibly related posts:I’m In Love With This Flying Cat Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Personal Stories From Friends Best Personal Homepage Ever – www.jimcarrey.com ### Possibly related posts:

The Trouble With Debit Cards

aaron cohen — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:48:15 +0000

The NY Times discusses the problems caused by rewards earning credit/debit cards for merchants and consumers alike. Visa, and to a lesser extent Mastercard, come off looking like health insurance companies. Entities who don't add significant value to the economy, but manage to skim huge profits and act as a burden anyway. One solution:

Life might be simpler and more efficient if retailers could levy a surcharge that covers their costs to accept cards and let consumers figure out whether to pay it. But the card companies don’t allow that, and Congress hasn’t yet forced their hand, though this is now how things work in Australia (where some retailers charge excessive fees, alas).

And from a few days earlier, here is the Times talking about why the fees are so high.

The banks have used interchange fees as a growing profit center and to pay for cardholder perks like rewards programs. Interchange revenue has increased to $45 billion today, from $20 billion in 2002, driven in part by the surge in debit card use.

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Strategic Default

aaron cohen — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:14:25 +0000

I missed this NYTimes piece by Roger Lowenstein discussing how incongruous it is for big banks to be the main cheerleaders for the idea that people have a moral imperative to continue paying mortgages when their homes are underwater. This concept seems perilously close to a tipping point that would have disastrous results for the economy. What would the banks do then? Lowenstein, by the way, wrote the great, "Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital Management", which is as good as, "Liar's Poker" at helping to explain the genesis of this entire mess.

Think of private-equity firms that close a factory — essentially deciding that the company is worth more dead than alive. Or the New York Yankees and their World Series M.V.P. Hideki Matsui, who parted company as soon as the cheering stopped. Or money-losing hedge-fund managers: rather than try to earn back their investors’ lost capital, they start new funds so they can rake in fresh incentives. Sam Zell, a billionaire, let the Tribune Company, which he had previously acquired, file for bankruptcy. Indeed, the owners of any company that defaults on bonds and chooses to let the company fail rather than invest more capital in it are practicing “strategic default.” Banks signal their complicity with this ethos when they send new credit cards to people who failed to stay current on old ones.

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2009 NY Times Notable Opinion Art

aaron cohen — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:01:32 +0000

2009's Notable Opinion art from the New York Times. ###Possibly related posts:Google to Buy The New York Times? The New York Times Kills Itself and Bacon Meme at Same Time The Business Of The New York Times ### Possibly related posts:

Best Books of the Year?

aaron cohen — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:28:48 +0000

The Omnivoracious blog on Amazon compared their year end top 100 books list, with the New York Times 100 Notable Books and Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2009 to get a composite of the best books of 2009. There were 11 books that were on all 3 lists this year, plus 2 that were not on the Notable 100, but were on other NY Times lists. For what it's worth, there were 13 last year and 11 in 2007. No women authors made the cut, only 2 novels, and 2 graphic novels.

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
Born Round by Frank Bruni
Cheever by Blake Bailey
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Fordlandia by Greg Grandin
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford
Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan (not in NYT's 100 Notable, but in their best cookbooks list)
The Jazz Loft Project by Sam Stephenson (not in NYT's 100 Notable, but in their Gift Books list)

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A Month’s Worth of Links About Newspapers

aaron cohen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:55:05 +0000

Photo by Flickr user danielweir.esq
It's important to note when discussing the problems at newspapers that spending on advertising is down almost EVERYWHERE, not just in newspapers. Industries that are dependent on ad dollars, of which Big Newspaper is just one, are all hurting. Yes, circulation is down, but there aren't less people reading the news necessarily, there are just less people subscribing to newspapers. If newspapers were able to charge higher fees for online advertising, they'd be in much better shape, obviously.

On that note, I noticed I had about a zillion tabs open related to the newspaper industry and I thought I'd collect them all here.

Via Daring Fireball, The Awl, demanding context from how bi-annual newspaper circulation numbers are typically reported, put together a chart showing newspaper circulation over the last 2 decades. It's pretty if you like looking at line graphs with dramatically plummeting line graphs. The LA Times' fall is breathtaking in its suddenness, and circulation is down 10% across the board.

In supporting Steve Coll's idea that newspapers should be nonprofits and in attempting to determine the value of local newspapers, Clay Shirky decides to do a "news biopsy" on his hometown newspaper, the Columbia Daily Tribune. From his biopsy, he finds that only 1/6 of the newspaper is "created news" or content created by the newspaper's 6 reporters and those 6 reporters work for a newspaper with 59 employees.

The city desk editors and the copy chief make the work...more valuable than it would otherwise be. But you can pick any multiplier you like for necessary editorial and support staff and that number, times six reporters, won’t be a big number. In particular, it won’t be 59, or anywhere near it.

His conclusion? "There are dozen or so reporters and editors in Columbia, Missouri, whose daily and public work is critical to the orderly functioning of that town, and those people are trapped inside a burning business model."

Also commenting on the "the power and necessity of local reporting" Esquire.com uses the recent Samoan earthquake/tsunami as an example of the big guys besting the little guys.

Newsosaur looked into pay walls and found that paywalls might never come because publishers are realizing they can't afford to lose the traffic a paywall would cost. Which is good news, because some columnists are quitting over paywalls. At the end of the Newsosaur's piece, there is bleating from Stephen Brill that, “You are misinformed about folks being less inclined” to add paywalls. Stephen Brill, by the way, founded Journalism Online, a company dedicated to helping publishers charge consumers for content, so, you know, he might be biased. (Journalism Online has a funny section of their site called Why Readers Will Pay For Online News, which features several different newspapers talking about why people SHOULD pay for news, but not why they WILL. That's a distinction worth making.)

Finally, via Kottke, Daniel Gross has a piece in Slate that says despite the falling circulations numbers, it's not as bad as you think. Several publishers were able to raise subscription revenue by raising subscription costs enough to make up for canceled subscriptions. "This is the new emerging model—cutting costs, raising prices."

I debated whether to include this last one because I kind of hate Megan McArdle's writing. I figured since I had already read her post and linked it, I'd leave it there for you to decide if you want to read it or not. ~~Here's Megan McArdle doing what she does best, spewing confusing nonsense. She doesn't add anything to the conversation, but wants you to know she's very concerned about the future of journalism.~~

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Jonathan Safran Foer’s Book About Meat

aaron cohen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:24:43 +0000

I read Jonathan Safran Foer's piece about eating meat in the NYTimes Magazine's Food Issue and didn't quite get it. The title was clear, "Why Jonathan Safran Foer Chose to Give Up Meat", but that didn't seem to be what the column was about. Admittedly, I skimmed the whole thing, but my sense was that Foer had given up meat several times (every other paragraph, it seemed) and that he had settled on eating it once in a while, but not serving it to his kids. Frankly, the column seemed jumbled and stupid [POT! KETTLE!], an attempt to get a famous writer to talk about their personal psychic struggle with eating meat. So I giggled a little at Bookslut's take on Foer's latest book, Eating Animals:

I am trying so hard to be nice to Jonathan Safran Foer, by which I mean I am trying to forget he exists on this planet. His book Eating Animals, however, is making this goal very, very difficult. It was bad enough when he was writing shitty novels, but now he's indulging in my least favorite form of nonfiction: the "I have never thought about this thing before until now, and despite the fact that other people have thought about this for years and wrestle daily with the implications, I think my brand new thoughts should be shared with the world." Whatever the topic -- religion, marriage, gender, food politics -- the books are always shallow, yet for some reason a lot of people take them seriously.

Via my blogbuddy, who got it from Prettier Than Napoleon who said accurately:

The proper place for deep thoughts on issues that you just started examining but which have already been exhaustively discussed by more informed people is a blog. GYOFB, Jonathan Safran Foer.

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Michael Pollan, For One, Is Optimistic

aaron cohen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:50:31 +0000

In his latest Op-Ed for the Times, Michael Pollan sounds an optimistic note that even the worst case health care reforms will result in positive changes to the diets, and health, of most Americans. It will be a hard fight, but it's expected that the bare minimum health care reform will make it harder for insurance companies to drop you when you get sick, while also not allowing them to decide to cover you or not based on preexisting conditions. This means, that for the first time, health insurance providers will actually be financially rewarded for keeping you healthy. If they have to face the consequences ($$$) of your soda drinking ass getting diabetes, they're going to do what they can to make sure you don't get diabetes, and they're going to use their friends in Congress to help them.

But these rules may well be about to change — and, when it comes to reforming the American diet and food system, that step alone could be a game changer. Even under the weaker versions of health care reform now on offer, health insurers would be required to take everyone at the same rates, provide a standard level of coverage and keep people on their rolls regardless of their health. Terms like “pre-existing conditions” and “underwriting” would vanish from the health insurance rulebook — and, when they do, the relationship between the health insurance industry and the food industry will undergo a sea change.

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Stimulus and the States

emdash — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:00:46 +0000

Photo by Flickr user Darren Hester

This is almost entirely wrong-headed: the point of stimulus aid to state and local governments isn't to save state and local government jobs. The point is to provide fiscal support so that states, which generally have to balance their budgets, don't make pro-cyclical spending/service cuts or have to enact tax increases during a recession.

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Allessandra Stanley Had a Bad Day

aaron cohen — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:50:36 +0000

Updated:
In a previous Unlikely Words post, we inadvertently implied that the Times publishes articles in which "All the dates and facts are wrong." In actuality, some articles only have mostly incorrect facts and dates. Unlikely Words regrets this error.
++
Proof from the New York Times that you too can be a journalist even if you don't want to use the correct dates or facts in an article. In fact you can use any date or fact you want as long as it's sort of close to the actual date or fact. This is OK even if ALL the dates and facts are wrong. This proof comes in the form of a correction of an Alessandra Stanley piece.

An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor.

Via Balloon Juice.

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Everyone Talking About Malcolm Gladwell Talking About Chris Anderson’s ‘Free’

aaron cohen — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:40:14 +0000

Malcolm Gladwell's recent review of Chris Anderson's latest book, 'Free: The Future of a Radical Price' caused a round of reactions from big thinkers. Here's a round up:
Gladwell started things off by disputing the thesis of the book:

The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws

Seth Godin stepped into it, saying Malcolm was wrong.
Mark Cuban says:

The videos on Youtube, magazine articles, newspapers reports, anything that used to be analog that now is digital have a perceived value that is based on their legacy delivery.

and

The music is often free, but it is NEVER freely distributed.

Anil Dash takes a step back, says the dust-up is likely conceived to sell books and magazines, argues that Gladwell's main point is that Anderson didn't provide evidence only anecdotes and then goes on to mention all the people who say Gladwell is heavy on the story and light on the science.
Henry Blodget agrees with Gladwell.
Mike Masnick at TechDirt is firmly in the Anderson camp.
The Opinionator Blog (at NYTimes.com) gleefully discusses some of the bloodsport.
Fred Wilson says some things will be free and some won't.
Finally, Chris Anderson somewhat bitchily responds (sniffingly referring to Gladwell as a 'journalist' (the horror!) using GeekDad to prove the idea of paying people to get people to wirte instead of paying writers.

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