Get Cynical

Unfortunately, I think they spent so much time on the road that they didn’t put any time into making a webpage that wasn’t, well, ugly.

Join Andrea and Jim as they travel during the summer of 2002, the full baseball season of 2003, and the summer of 2004 to visit all affiliated Single A through Major League baseball fields in the U. S. and Canada. During 2002 they visited all the baseball fields west of the Rocky Mountains. In 2003 they traveled to spring training in Arizona and Florida and then visited baseball fields east of the Mississippi River. In the summer of 2004 they will visit the remainder of the ballfields east of the Rocky Mountains. On the site you will be able to follow their travels with the most recent baseball fields listed at the top of each category.

This was bound to happen sooner or later. From Wired:

The World Wide Web experience is becoming less and less worldwide: What you see and what you are allowed to do these days can depend greatly on where and even who you are.

As so-called geolocation technology improves, websites are increasingly blocking groups of visitors and carving the Web into smaller chunks — in some cases, down to a ZIP code or employer.

Type “dentist” into Google from New York, and you’ll get ads for dentists in the city. Try watching a Cubs baseball game from a computer in Chicago, and you’ll be stymied. Pre-existing local TV rights block the webcast.

Try going here to see for yourself.
(via Waving at Myself)

Yep, this is about right.

I never really thought of a neck brace as art. A comedic device yes, but not art.

Welcome to NBAK. Born October 19, 1996 NBAK started out as a small but dedicated group of regular folks who share a common interest in “recreational & artistic” neck and back bracing. Over the years, NBAK has grown to thousands of dedicated fans from across the country and around the world. To date we have logged well over 1,000,000 hits and have been written up in several magazines as well as having a few interview offers from both Radio and Television

One day I decided to scan in the notes from all the courses I took at MIT, in my four years there 1995-1999. Perhaps some of them will be of use to you?
(via Waxy)

I was kind of surprised that I didn’t hear more about this story than on a few mentions on some blogs and online news sources. From MSNBC:

American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call “alarming” intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack

This isn’t the first time that an administration has mulled over “postponing” or canceling an election. This is a lengthy article but do a search in it for “THE CANCELLATION OF THE 1972 ELECTIONS” .

In 1970 a rumor was printed in William Howard’s Newhouse News Service weekly gossip column about a Rand Corporation study done for the NIXON Administration to determine the feasibility of canceling the 1972 election if radicals threatened to disrupt it. The Wall Street Journal wrote on April 24, 1970, that rumors of the study were hard to spike. The New York Times reported: “Rumors were heard in April and spread quickly across the country that the Rand Corporation was preparing a secret study on the implications of cancellation of the 1972 election.” Henry S. Rowan of the Rand Corporation released this statement carried by The Wall Street Journal on May 13, 1970: “The Rand Corporation has not undertaken such a study. It does not contemplate making such a study, nor has it been approached by anyone with a proposal for such a study.”

Who knows how legitimate that study was but it is an interesting read. Of course, scaring the public into letting a leader seize power to protect against terror and to restore security is one of the oldest tricks in the book. I wish I could think of a good example of that happening.
(Thanks Paul for the Nixon link)

For the linguists out there.

Pit two keywords against each other to see who wins.

The Living Room Candidate has video of presidential campaign commercials starting from 1952 up to 2004. Very fun to watch those older commercials, especially the “We Like Ike” one.
(via Boing Boing)