MATTHEW ROSENBERG

officiallyrad: 4”x4” clear white decals mounted on glossy brand...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:40:27 -0500

officiallyrad:

4”x4” clear white decals mounted on glossy brand cards, fresh off the press in time for SXSW

Andy rocks.

Photo

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:28:34 -0500

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:12:00 -0500

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America:

But in fact a whole generation of young adults is likely to see its life chances permanently diminished by this recession. Lisa Kahn, an economist at Yale, has studied the impact of recessions on the lifetime earnings of young workers. In one recent study, she followed the career paths of white men who graduated from college between 1979 and 1989. She found that, all else equal, for every one-percentage-point increase in the national unemployment rate, the starting income of new graduates fell by as much as 7 percent; the unluckiest graduates of the decade, who emerged into the teeth of the 1981–82 recession, made roughly 25 percent less in their first year than graduates who stepped into boom times.

But what’s truly remarkable is the persistence of the earnings gap. Five, 10, 15 years after graduation, after untold promotions and career changes spanning booms and busts, the unlucky graduates never closed the gap. Seventeen years after graduation, those who had entered the workforce during inhospitable times were still earning 10 percent less on average than those who had emerged into a more bountiful climate. When you add up all the earnings losses over the years, Kahn says, it’s as if the lucky graduates had been given a gift of about $100,000, adjusted for inflation, immediately upon graduation—or, alternatively, as if the unlucky ones had been saddled with a debt of the same size.

I lived around cholla for 30 years. The fun for that guy has...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:38:24 -0500

I lived around cholla for 30 years. The fun for that guy has only begun.

The spines can’t be pulled out, because they break off. The pods must be clipped off, and the spines cut out surgically.

What about the ones that broke off under the skin and can’t be seen, you ask? (There are many) The docs wait until they become infected so they can see their location.

They always become infected. The one-way “barb fur” on the spines picks up all manner of crap from the air and are coated with it.

In the pre-antibiotic days falling into cholla (usually off a horse) was frequently fatal.

[via Reddit]

"Now that I’m in LA and can somewhat legally drive, when things get a bit overwhelming as they do..."

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:19:27 -0500

“Now that I’m in LA and can somewhat legally drive, when things get a bit overwhelming as they do from time to time, I’m like, where should I go that would make me feel better? Usually it’s somewhere extravagant or involves a fuck load of calories. But this was the first time, in maybe a year, where I was like, I have no place to go (this is a feeling that was constant in NY. Trapped by snow or pure laziness of not wanting to trudge over to whatever the fuck bodega to get something to eat or wait until my few friends were done boning whatever partner they were only somewhat devoted to when they weren’t devoting their time to ways of getting untangled from them. The cost. The noise. The threatening minorities. All that shit.) Anyways!”

- natashavc on her blog.

Alex Balk: I got nowhere else to go! I got nowhere else to go.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:17:32 -0500

Alex Balk: I got nowhere else to go! I got nowhere else to go.:

I was walking down Second Avenue yesterday when I saw a woman retrieving something from the trunk of a cab. She was attractive, mid-twenties, in great shape, and she was pulling out what, on closer inspection, turned out to be a baby stroller. I looked for a baby, and there it was, sitting on the curb in a carrier. This was all taking place in front of a nail salon, and a woman was sitting in the front window while her nails dried. This woman appeared to be in her mid-to-late-thirties and was well put together, but wearing a denim jacket in a failing attempt to somehow give the illusion of youth. She was staring at the baby and the look in her eyes was one of anguish and desperation. You could almost HEAR her thinking, “This is never going to happen for me. What choices did I make in my life that brought me to this place where it’s never going to happen for me?”

It smacked me like a wave, and it was one of those New York feelings that you only let yourself feel every three or four years where you’re just overwhelmed by how everything is too close, there’s too much anguish, it’s all too much in your face. The ragged homeless schizophrenic who mutters “I should call my mom, let her know I’m still alive.” The old man sitting alone in the diner ordering one more cup of coffee so that at least he has another few minutes before he has to return to the empty room where he’s the only one who knows or cares that he exists. The exhausted nurse smoking outside the hospital whose voice cracks on the cellphone as she tells her child that there’s something you can warm up in the oven, be sure to do your homework, I have to work a double shift tonight, I won’t be able to walk with you to school in the morning, before she hangs up the phone and lets the tears just roll. It’s all of it, all around you, and it never stops.

Then the next wave smacked me: The aging fat man, unshaven, shirttail hanging out, hunched demeanor, stopped short on the sidewalk staring at a woman in a nail salon. What’s his story? What sadness is he carrying around with him? Why the fuck won’t he keep walking?

So I kept walking. I mean, what else are you gonna do?

Big Apple BBQ - I am ready

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:23:07 -0500

Big Apple BBQ - I am ready

"New York, now that I’ve arrived / It’s like a joke that ain’t funny / It..."

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:19:18 -0500

“New York, now that I’ve arrived / It’s like a joke that ain’t funny / It ain’t how you spend your time / It’s what you get for yor money / But I don’t know how I stay alive / I’m infatuated with the human mind / And I go on and on, on and on, and I go on”

- Daniel Merriweather - For Your Love

Photo

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:44:05 -0500

Outlook for All Points West Festival in Jersey City This Summer Is in Doubt

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:36:09 -0500

Outlook for All Points West Festival in Jersey City This Summer Is in Doubt:

But many in the music industry doubt whether All Points West, which has been held in August, will return this summer. A number of prominent booking agents and other executives, most of whom requested anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize business with AEG, said that nothing had been booked and that it would be very difficult for AEG to put a lineup together this late in the year, since most artists’ plans for the summer were already set.

Bummer

Yesterday I tweeted that Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus was still...

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:15:25 -0500

Yesterday I tweeted that Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus was still the best song ever (and it pretty much is.) Late last night I saw I had a reply, and this message popped up. Kind of sums up this crazy digital age we live in - also brought a true smile to my face.

Soon.

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:00:00 -0500

Soon.

Skeleton is a fast winter sliding sport in which an individual...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:00:00 -0500

Skeleton is a fast winter sliding sport in which an individual person rides a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down, during which athletes experience forces up to 5g. It is pretty much insane.

"Good question. I don’t know what it means to be a New Yorker anymore. I guess if you work for..."

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:23:00 -0500

“Good question. I don’t know what it means to be a New Yorker anymore. I guess if you work for a giant corporation and you’ve lived here for more than six weeks, you’re a New Yorker now. I think I used to know what it meant to be a New Yorker. I guess if you don’t eat at Cosi sandwich shop you’re a real New Yorker. If you don’t go to Hopstop.com to find your way around the city, you’re a real New Yorker. If you make too much noise on the sidewalk at night and bother people living in overpriced apartments, you’re a real New Yorker. If you get mugged, and then immediately go eat a slice with the money hidden in your sock that they did not steal from you, you’re a real New Yorker. If you cross the street wherever and whenever you want, you’re a New Yorker. And if you walk fast, you’re a New Yorker. Nobody walks fast in this city anymore. Everyone walks slow, and then goes to Equinox.”

- Judah Friedlander - Daily Intel [via dbreunig and bbook]

"Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. How could you be..."

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:07:00 -0500

“Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? You’re looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to.”

- John Mayer (porn sherpa for a whole generation) in a Playboy interview.

"Before I die I want to know that I have done something truly great, that I have accomplished some..."

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:52:03 -0500

“Before I die I want to know that I have done something truly great, that I have accomplished some glorious achievement the credit for which belongs solely to me. I do not aspire to become as famous as a Napoleon and conquer many nations; but I do want, almost above all else, to feel that I have been an addition to this world of ours. I should like the world, or at least my native land, to be proud of me and to sit up and take notice when my name is pronounced and say, “There is a man who has done a great thing.” I do not want to have passed through life as just another speck of humanity, just another cog in a tremendous machine. I want to be something greater, far greater than that. My desire is not so much for immortality as for distinction while I am alive. When I leave this world, I want to know that my life has not been in vain, but that I have, in the course of my existence, done something of which I am rightfully very proud.”

- Edmund N. Carpenter, age 17, June 1938 [via WSJ]

Frontline: Digital_Nation

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:10:20 -0500

Frontline: Digital_Nation:

Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it? And is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we’ve gained?

In Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, FRONTLINE presents an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world. Continuing a line of investigation she began with the 2008 FRONTLINE report Growing Up Online, award-winning producer Rachel Dretzin embarks on a journey to understand the implications of living in a world consumed by technology and the impact that this constant connectivity may have on future generations.

Pretty disappointed with Frontline’s fear inducing episode on technology and children. Always amazed when the baby-boomers start trying to analyze our drunk on technology brains. ADD and Multitasking - we must run from the future.

I think my blog used to be funnier.

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:07:47 -0500

"We will soon enter the fourth decade in which Congress — and therefore government as a whole — has..."

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:48:16 -0500

“We will soon enter the fourth decade in which Congress — and therefore government as a whole — has failed to deal with any major national problem, from infrastructure to education”

- The State of the Union Is Comatose by Frank Rich [NYT]

Thats cool … from Fresh Direct.

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:00:00 -0500

Thats cool … from Fresh Direct.