Putting for the Fences - New York Times: "Putt-Putt is not a generic name for miniature golf. It is the brand name of a company that builds and franchises a particular style of miniature golf course designed specifically to make competitive putting possible. For something that sounds as if it was named by a child, Putt-Putt has a surprisingly grown-up creation story. The first Putt-Putt course was designed in 1954 by Don Clayton, a 28-year-old insurance salesman trying to stave off a nervous breakdown. Clayton was otherwise successful and healthy, but one day he went to a doctor in his hometown, Fayetteville, N.C., complaining of a strange symptom: sometimes while driving in his car, he found himself crying. The doctor ordered a monthlong vacation. Clayton decided to relax by playing miniature golf, which turned out to be a bad idea, since there are few things more challenging to sanity than missing short putts, especially when the cause is poor design or an errant windmill."

Bedford/St. Martin's - The Bedford Bibliography

Literacies - The New Literacy Studies page 2: "They were not just learning technical skills,
they were learning literacy practices with their own social networks."

Steve Buscemi Bleach Stencil: "i'm so proud of it! i used an ordinary paper stencil cut out with a craft knife (damn, it took ages), after altering the image in photoshop. my secret was mixing the bleach (just a very small amount) with wallpaper paste! in fairness, it was my clever mother's idea, but it worked really well, because the mixture was thick enough to prevent seepage. i left the stuff on for a pretty long time, probably over an hour, and neutralised it with vinegar after rinsing. the fabric isn't showing any damage so far."

REALTOR.com: Find a Home - Search Results

Welcome to CounterPunch

OneMoreLevel.com - Avoider

In the 18th stage of the Tour de France, Armstrong chased down an off-the-bike rival, forcing a retreat from the breakaway group back to the peleton (kottke.org): "http://www.velonews.com/tour2004/details/articles/6647.0.html"

Defendant in teen rape cases ordered released :: The Daily Herald, Provo Utah: "A runaway from a Provo group home, the accuser said she had been made to sign a contract in order to stay at the residence. The contract allegedly allowed the males at the residence to do whatever they wanted to her if she fell asleep with her shoes on."

Edit Map : myGmaps

Outsource your job to earn more! - The Times of India: "Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: 'About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.'

Smarter techies are working for three to four companies at the same time, outsourcing all the coding and just supervising them for few hours a day. This way they are able to earn four to five time more than what they used to. "

AIM Column - Why Judith Miller Should Stay In Jail - July 11, 2005: "When that editorial was published, the Times was obviously unaware of Miller's possible role in providing information about Plame to the administration. But when she refused to testify about a story she didn't write and about a source who granted her a waiver of confidentiality, the Times must have feared the worst. The possible truth about her role could backfire not only on her but on the Times itself. So now the Times is engaging in a cover-up under the banner of protecting the First Amendment."

Bad habits, poverty undermine health

Amazon.com: Books: When Someone You Love is Depressed: "Ultimately, I wanted more focus on ME, the person who cares about a someone who is depressed, and less on the depressed person. There are a lot of good books out there for the depressed person. My expectations of this book were to have concrete ways to not 'catch' the 'contagious depression', to not 'lose myself' as the subtitle suggests. After reading the book, I don't see how my interactions with my two majorly depressed friends over the last year could have been handled much differently. And I did catch their depression, and I did lose myself for a time. So while I feel more educated about depression in general, I still am looking for more and better ideas for protecting myself while still helping my loved ones."

Amazon.com: Books: How You Can Survive When They're Depressed : Living and Coping with Depression Fallout: "'Although a depressed parent of either sex creates problems for a child, the bulk of the research on parental depression and its effects on young children has zeroed in on the mother, because she is the center of a young child's existence: the primary nurturer, teacher, and emotional and social contact. Ideally, a mother is a good listener, communicator, and problem solver; authoritative without being authoritarian; warm and consistent; and tolerant and patient. Mothers in the grip of depression are often just the opposite: harsh, critical, impatient, irritable, and unaffectionate. And because one in every four women will suffer serious depression at some time in her life--more often than not, right in the middle of her prime childbearing years of twenty-five to thirty-five--the research findings are applicable to a very substantial number of children.'"

Rove's Legal Beagle: "Lizza cites Luskin's 'Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity' comment to The Post. 'Maybe Luskin thought he was being technical and legalistic, but it's hard to see this statement as anything but a lie. For instance, one could say, 'Karl Rove's lawyer accepted 45 gold bars worth $505,125 from a South American drug cartel.' The statement does not actually mention Luskin's name, but even Luskin would have to agree it identifies him."

Music "criticism" | MetaFilter: "Henry Rollins once called music critics 'ants at the picnic of life.'"

KATU 2 - Portland, Oregon: "The police cannot find a body or solve the case, and eventually they file a death certificate. His business fails, his wife remarries, the kids grow up, his family moves on.

Then, 12 years later, the missing man turns up alive and well."

jwz: "say -f foo.txt -o foo.aiff"

Converting text to speech in OS X.

Think Progress ? FULL TEXT: July 11 White House Press Briefing: "QUESTION: Scott, I think you’re getting this barrage today in part because it is now clear that 21 months ago you were up at this podium saying something that we now know to be demonstrably false.

Now, are you concerned that in setting the record straight today that this could undermine the credibility of the other things you say from the podium?"

Fictionwise: Excellence in eBooks, free eBooks, eBooks for Palm, Pocket PC, eBookMan, WinCE, Rocket, and PCs.

Why Do You Work So Hard? / Is it maybe time to quit your safe job and follow your path and infuriate the establishment?: "But the truth is, God, the divine true spirit loves nothing more than to see you unhinge and take risk and invite regular, messy, dangerous upheaval. This is exactly the energy that thwarts the demons of stagnation and conservative rot and violent sanctimonious bloody Mel Gibson-y religion, one that would have all our work be aimed at continuously patching up our incessant potholes of ugly congenital guilt, as opposed to contributing to the ongoing orgiastic evolution of spirit."

Tales of Colossus

BioMed Central | Abstract | 1471-2334-5-54 | Probable neuroimmunological link between Toxoplasmaand cytomegalovirus infections and personality changes in the human host: "Abstract (provisional)

Background

Recently, a negative association between Toxoplasma-infection and novelty seeking was reported. The authors suggested that changes of personality trait were caused by manipulation activity of the parasite, aimed at increasing the probability of transmission of the parasite from an intermediate to a definitive host. They also suggested that low novelty seeking indicated an increased level of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain of infected subjects, a phenomenon already observed in experimentally infected rodents. However, the changes in personality can also be just a byproduct of any neurotropic infection. Moreover, the association between a personality trait and the toxoplasmosis can even be caused by an independent correlation of both the probability of Toxoplasma-infection and the personality trait with the third factor, namely with the size of living place of a subject. To test these two alternative hypotheses, we studied the influence of another neurotropic pathogen, the cytomegalovirus, on the personality of infected subjects, and reanalyzed the original data after the effect of the potential confounder, the size of living place, was controlled."

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Lazy, stupid and evil design: "Lazy, stupid and evil design "

Economy of Scales News Blip: Unannounced M-Audio Flash Recorder : Gizmodo: "Economy of Scales News Blip: Unannounced M-Audio Flash Recorder"

Heuristic Inspections for Documentation: "We all are familiar with Jakob Nielsen's heuristics for evaluating the usability of interfaces. When I was conducting a study on documentation usability, I started wondering if there existed a similar set of heuristics for evaluating the usability of documentation. The natural place to pose such a question was the STC Usability SIG mailing list. The response was that there was no heuristics set available although someone had tried to open the discussion in the mailing list some time ago. An answer, which led to the list of heuristics presented below, was something along the line 'Well, now that you asked, why don't you put the heuristics together' and so I did.

"

The Heterosexual Revolution - New York Times: "The first step down the road to gay and lesbian marriage took place 200 years ago, when Enlightenment thinkers raised the radical idea that parents and the state should not dictate who married whom, and when the American Revolution encouraged people to engage in 'the pursuit of happiness,' including marrying for love. Almost immediately, some thinkers, including Jeremy Bentham and the Marquis de Condorcet, began to argue that same-sex love should not be a crime.

"

collision detection: a blog of clive thompson: "'I like Kobe, O.K.?,' Albert Arce said, referring to Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star. 'But I like to play him because I can make him pass to the other guys. When I see him on TV, it's like he doesn't know how to pass.'"

Debunking and deconstructing the Third Wave Story: "When the Sanskrit class proper begins Saturday morning, we are in a different space. Everyone follows the point. Everyone asks questions. This is like no classroom I have ever been in before. We learn at an incredible speed. By Saturday night, we have all learned the alphabet, and we are able to read sutras in Sanskrit, in the devanagari script. I mean everybody - not just the A students, but the old ladies too. Waiting for the slow students doesn't hold the fast students back - it helps us to go even faster.

After a few hours of this, there are no class divisions, no smart students and dumb students. We are all there together, in a way that we have seldom been together with anybody in our entire lives. Not only that, the effort of sustained concentration has a remarkably energizing effect. By Sunday afternoon we may be physically tired, but we hardly notice that. The class gives us an energy boost that lasts for weeks."

iTunes Podcast Subscriptions Top One Million in First Two Days: "iTunes Podcast Subscriptions Top One Million in First Two Days"

BuffaloWings&Vodka: "Last year, ninety-six minutes before it was due, I was lying on my couch, only half an essay finished, annoyed and disheartened because my substandard Torts grade was going to keep me from getting that sweet job at that one firm that gives you a Porsche and seventy-five virgins.

"