• On the Limits of Self-Improvement, Part I
  Christopher Hitchens does self improvement.
• Amazon: Reinventing the Book
  Newsweek covers the new ebook reader from Amazon, the “Kindle”.

• Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer
  Via Davextreme.
• Real Geek Heart Beats in Xkcd’s Stick Figures

Cost of the war in Iraq compared to research and development of solar technology.
This is INSANE.

Hang on here. The war in Iraq is costing about $200 million per day, or a billion in less than a week. Yet George W Bush has just vetoed a bill that would give NIH an additional $1 billion per year, raising the budget from $29 billion to $30 billion.

And what does he do? He accuses Congress of being on a “spending spree.”

Here’s hoping the guy chokes on the irony.

Original here.

Obama’s innovation plan a Christmas list for the geekerati—analysis

Barack Obama’s campaign has now released a relatively comprehensive and extremely ambitious technology document (PDF) that lays out a whole slew of general and specific proposals for doing everything from reforming the patent system to implementing a national broadband policy. In releasing this “technology and innovation plan,” Obama is the first major presidential candidate on either ticket to release a technology policy document that’s this comprehensive—some of the proposals here have been pitched by Edwards and others, but Obama is the first to put them all in one place.

Lessig declares 4Barack. He seems to stand where I do: Edwards is the most appealing (Democratic) candidate because of his stances on technology issues and, for me at least, his focus on poverty. But Edwards also doesn’t seem like a viable candidate against Hillary. So that leaves both of us–Lessig and I–supporting Barack Obama as the anti-Hillary. Of course, I live in Florida, so it doesn’t much matter which Democrat I support. My vote doesn’t count.

• A Visit to the Creation Museum, 11/10/07 - a photoset on Flickr
• Your Creation Museum Report
• Golden Compass Wardrobe & Props
  Some cool props and costumes from the forthcoming movie.

A Lineman in My Bed: Notes on Teeth Grinding

I grind my teeth. Mostly I do it while I’m asleep, but sometimes during the day as well. This article was interesting, but nearly devoid of useful advice. I thought this quote was kind of funny though:

“It’s much like having a large football player standing on the tooth,” says Dr. Noshir Mehta, chairman of general dentistry at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and director of its Craniofacial Pain Center.

“The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.” -Willem de Kooning

I think the reason this quote struck me is this: the history of human progress seems to be the increasing fraction of time spent on leisure activities. Indeed, the people who make the greatest leaps forward seem to be the people who devote the most time to “leisure”, broadly defined. What I mean by this is that the less time you have to spend putting food on your families (as the president would say) the more time you have to devote to pursuing something you really care about. The holy grail, of course, is a job where you are doing what you would be doing otherwise and you just happen to be paid for doing it. The world would be a different place if folks like Isaac Newton hadn’t had the leisure time to sit around thinking and observing. The best thing about this is that our leisure time is set to explode in our lifetimes as robotics and miniaturization offload increasingly more human activity to machines.

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