Farhad Manjoo's page on the Internet

Twitter’s problem, as pointed out by Evan Williams today.

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:11:52 -0700

Twitter’s problem, as pointed out by Evan Williams today.

barbara: I’m Yours (ukulele)

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:50:20 -0800

barbara:

I’m Yours (ukulele)

Barnes & Noble's $259 Nook costs more than Amazon's $279 Kindle. Why? Tax.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:33:00 -0700

Barnes & Noble's $259 Nook costs more than Amazon's $279 Kindle. Why? Tax.:

Barnes & Noble released its long-awaited e-reader today, and it looks pretty spiffy. What’s more, it’s priced at $259 — $20 less than Amazon’s 6” Kindle.

There’s only one problem: Amazon doesn’t charge sales tax, while BN.com and Barnes & Noble stores do. What’s tax on $259? Where I live, it’s $24.61.

In other words, your checkout screen for a Kindle will look like this:

While your checkout screen at BN.com looks like this:

Isn't it possible Shepard Fairey forgot which image he used?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:36:00 -0700

Isn't it possible Shepard Fairey forgot which image he used?:

I’m still fixed on this story.

The AP filed court papers saying Shepard Fairey is lying about simply misremembering which photo he used to create the Obama Hope poster. (Fairey originally said he used the Clooney photo above, and now he’s recanted and says he used the close-up.)

The AP alleges:

“It is simply not credible that Fairey somehow forgot in January 2009 which source image he used to create the Infringing Works, which were completed only a year earlier in January 2008,” according to the papers filed Tuesday. “It also strains credulity that an experienced graphic designer such as Shepard Fairey misremembered cropping George Clooney out of a source image and making other changes … when no such cropping or other changes were ever made.”

But is this right? When I write, I’m always careful to link to and properly quote the source material that I’m using. Nevertheless, a lot goes on in the editing process—a process that goes on while you’re writing—and if you asked me a year later how I was inspired to use some turn of phrase or even where I got a specific quote from, I think I’d very likely misremember.

Look at the two pictures above: Obama’s expression is the same in each. The photos were taken by the same photographer at the same event, seconds apart. All you have to do to the Clooney one to make it into the close-up is apply one Photoshop transformation—Crop. It’s a one-second process.

Fairey is a slippery character—he’s admitted to destroying evidence to cover up which picture he used—but still, it seems entirely reasonable to me that he could have genuinely forgotten which picture he used.

The AP seems to simply misunderstand the ease of editing photos—or, really, editing anything—in the modern age. Copying, pasting, cropping, resizing—these are the bread-and-butter actions of modern info-mining. They are entirely forgettable.

Malcolm Gladwell's advice for young journalists: Go to grad school

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:13:27 -0700

Malcolm Gladwell's advice for young journalists: Go to grad school:

From a Time Q&A:

Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school. If I was studying today, I would go get a master’s in statistics, and maybe do a bunch of accounting courses and then write from that perspective. I think that’s the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing. Journalism has to get smarter.

Why did Shepard Fairey lie?

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:10:39 -0700

Why did Shepard Fairey lie?:

Shepard Fairey says he lied to his attorneys and destroyed evidence about which photo he used to create the Obama hope poster.

When he sued the AP in February (after they’d claimed he’d violated their copyright), he said he’d used a photo of Obama sitting next to George Clooney at the National Press Club — the first one here. The AP claimed he used another image from the same event — a close-up of Obama. Now he admits that he did use that image.

Here’s what I can’t understand: Why did he lie? He and his former attorneys—who withdrew from the case when he fessed up to lying—now say that the particular image he used doesn’t undermine his fundamental fair use right. That seems right to me; both images are from the same photographer at the same event, and each could easily have served as the basis for the Hope poster. If one of them can be appropriated under fair use, so can the other.

But if he believed that, why did Fairey say he used the Clooney image and not the close-up? Does the close-up image make the fair use case more difficult? Why? Was there a reason Fairery lied — or was he just dumb?

Randall Munroe writes to Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:06:00 -0700

Randall Munroe writes to Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle:

Mathew Honan, who did Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle, shares an e-mail he got from Randall Munroe, creator of XKCD:

Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:03:32 -0500
From: “Randall Munroe”
To: mhonan@gmail.com
Subject: Barack Obama (from Randall Munroe of xkcd)

Hi,

Assuming you’re the guy who did barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com:

You should try adjusting the randomizer on your site (barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com) so that it takes you through all the items before repeating one. There’s a subtle probability-related problem that occurs in showing people stuff at random that isn’t sufficiently appreciated.

If you have 1,000 factoids, you know how many you’ll have to show before the reader will probably see a repeat? 38. And when they see that first repeat, they think “okay, I’ve seen most of them.” Even if you write 10,000 entries, they’ll see a repeat on average after 119.

Bottom line, you can make the site much more enthralling if, for each visitor (IP/whatever), you shuffle the factoids and then show them one at a time, so there’s no repeat. This will look almost exactly the same to the reader for the first few refreshes, but it fixes the fact that under the current true randomness, the site looks like it has only 1%-10% as much content that it ACTUALLY does.

This affects a lot of sites, but yours is cute and I thought I’d let you know.

— Randall

Al Franken is masterful at explainaing healthcare reform

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:45:50 -0700

Al Franken is masterful at explainaing healthcare reform:

(via Ezra Klein)

Does anyone else have this issue with Chrome?

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:10:40 -0700

When I come back to Chrome after I’ve been away from the computer for a while, it always takes years to jog back to life. When I click on each tab, I’ve got to wait 10 or more seconds for the image to appear; the hard drive runs aggressively during this period, leading me to believe that Chrome has cached the data and is trying to revive it.

1) Is this common — have you experienced this problem? Or is it my-PC specific? (Likely not, since I’ve experienced this on two computers.)

2) Are you fixing this, Chrome? I can’t find reports on the bugtracker.

View from the inside of a failing kitchen

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:20:25 -0700

View from the inside of a failing kitchen:

Samin Nosrat, sous chef at the Berkeley restaurant Eccolo (which has just closed down), tells what it’s like to try to serve local, organic food during the financial crisis:

We did fine for a long time - barely making it is considered fine in the restaurant business - but when the financial crisis hit last fall, we felt an immediate impact. We started to tighten things up; when one cook quit, we divided the extra work amongst the rest of us, shouldering more responsibility and working longer hours for the same pay. And though I’d always monitored food cost like a hawk, I redoubled my efforts to save money without compromising our commitment to sustainable foods.

I re-examined my purchases. Instead of 25-year-old balsamic vinegar, I bought 15-year-old stuff. We stopped buying whole pigs; we couldn’t break even on them because few customers were adventurous enough to order soppressata, zampone or porchetta di testa, dishes we made to use up every part of the animal.

But there were things we couldn’t let go of without compromising taste - extra-virgin olive oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano, for examples. If we skimped on these, our food would suffer. I started to feel stuck: The choice always seemed to be between flavor and expense, and ours was a kitchen motivated by taste. Things started to get tense with our accountants, because our priorities were clearly different.

…..One particularly emotional battle revolved around eggs. A few years ago, Alexis Koefoed of Soul Food Farm near Vacaville showed up with a carton of speckled eggs. After tasting her pastured, tawny-yolked eggs, we began buying them. But investors kept questioning: If we could get organic eggs for $3, why buy Soul Food Farm eggs for $5? They felt customers couldn’t taste the difference.

The next week, we served garlic broth garnished with a poached Soul Food Farm egg. Table after table raved. One woman was moved to tears - she said she hadn’t seen yolks so bright and rich since being on her grandparents’ farm in Taiwan.

But in the end, the reality was the profit-and-loss statement, and we had to let go of the eggs. I almost quit over that. One by one, all my purchasing habits were scrutinized: Why spend the time going to the farmers’ market? Why buy Hoffman Farm chickens when precut breasts are so much cheaper? Why buy fresh squid that you have to pay an employee to clean when you can get pre-cleaned frozen squid?

The best way to navigate a menu

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:01:21 -0700

The best way to navigate a menu:

Frank Bruni, in his last column as NYT restaurant critic, offers this advice for navigating a menu:

Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them.

Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef’s vanity — possibly too much of it — spawned these.

Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.

Choose among the remaining dishes.

The $400,000 magazine story

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:26:00 -0700

The $400,000 magazine story:

In an online chat, NYT Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati says that this weekend’s big piece on one hospital after Hurricane Katrina cost $400,000 to produce:

The Magazine is publishing a 13,000-word piece on Sunday (it will be up online earlier) that we did in partnership with ProPublica, the independent, not-for-profit newsroom. One of ProPublica’s editors and I did a back-of-the-envelop calculation yesterday of what the total cost of the piece actually was, figuring in several years of reporting and nearly a year of editing. Estimate: $400,000.

Here’s the piece.

I have 91 Facebook requests. Why isn't there an Ignore All button?

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:16:00 -0700

I have 91 Facebook requests. Why isn't there an Ignore All button?:

Facebook tells me I’ve got 91 requests from various apps. Please, Facebook, add an Ignore All button! Or perhaps, Ignore All Requests From This App? We need help!

This is what my Pending Requests page looks like:

Student Reporter Damon Weaver Interviews President Barack Obama

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:20:32 -0700

Student Reporter Damon Weaver Interviews President Barack Obama:

The New Yorker is immune to cuts at Conde Nast

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:59:08 -0700

The New Yorker is immune to cuts at Conde Nast:

John Koblin reports:

The Observer has learned, however, that New Yorker editor David Remnick will be exempt from meeting with McKinsey, as will anyone from the editorial side of his magazine. Two well-placed sources said that Condé Nast’s chairman, Si Newhouse, reached out to Mr. Remnick shortly after the McKinsey announcement was made and told him not to worry about anything—the magazine would be just fine, and neither McKinsey nor company executives would be mucking with his editorial costs. (Mr. Remnick declined to comment, and Mr. Townsend said, “When Si and David speak at the lunch they have periodically, God knows what’s communicated between them.”)

Obviously, any companywide cuts would still affect the magazine, but as the company prepares for a retrenchment of sorts, it appears The New Yorker will be immune from the pain that other editors and publishers in the building are anticipating. It turns out the popular line from several Condé Nast insiders over the last few weeks—“There are no sacred cows”—is only partially true.

The Chevy Volt Gets 230 mpg? Only if you use bad math.

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:54:44 -0700

The Chevy Volt Gets 230 mpg? Only if you use bad math. :

Mark Chu-Carroll writes:

Chevy has announced that for city driving, the Volt will get gas mileage of 230 miles per gallon.

That’s nonsense. Pure, utter rubbish.

The trick is that they’re playing with the definition of mileage. In city driving, the Volt is primary an electric car: it’s powered by its batteries which you must recharge every night, not by gasoline. On average, you can drive it for about 40 miles on a full charge before it needs to start using any gasoline.

The “mileage” figure, as it’s presented, is really meaningless - because it’s being presented for a situation in which the gasoline engine almost never runs at all.

They compute it by basically saying: “If I fully charge the car battery every night, how far will I drive the car in typical city commuting conditions before it’s consumed a gallon of gas”.

What if you drive your volt around the city all day? Your mileage will drop to around 50 miles per gallon once you’ve driven more than 40 miles. If you drive your car 100 miles in a day, you’ll consume a bit over a gallon of gas. That’s very impressive. But it’s absolutely not what you’d expect after being told that it gets 230 miles per gallon.

Keanu Reeves visits the 1984 International Teddy Bear Convention

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:16:55 -0700

Keanu Reeves visits the 1984 International Teddy Bear Convention:

(via Buzz Feed)

A Breastfeeding doll

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:04:24 -0700

A Breastfeeding doll:

Super Michael Jackson Bros.

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:53:37 -0700

Super Michael Jackson Bros.:

Kafkaesque conversation with Apple's App Store

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:19:00 -0700

Kafkaesque conversation with Apple's App Store:

Riverturn’s VoiceCentral app had been available for several months on Apple’s iPhone App Store, but this week Apple removed it and all other apps that connect to Google Voice. Here’s the conversation Riverturn had with a representative from the App Store:

Richard: “I’m calling to let you know that VoiceCentral has been removed from the App Store because it duplicates features of the iPhone.”

Me: “I don’t understand that reasoning. By that logic wouldn’t apps like Textfree, Skype, fring, or iCall be considered duplicates?”

Richard: “I can’t discuss other apps with you.”

Me: “It’s not the apps themselves I want to discuss just the lack of consistency in rule enforcement.”

Richard: “I can only say that yours duplicates features of the iPhone and was causing confusion in the user community. It’s against our policy.”

Me: “So what has changed that it is now against policy? It has been in the store for the last 4 months with no problem. There wasn’t a problem for the 1.5 months prior to that when you were ‘reviewing’ it. And this didn’t come up with any of the updates we submitted after it was already in the store.”

Richard: “I can’t say - only that yours is not complying with our policy.”

Me: “Can you tell me what portions of the app were duplicate features?”

Richard: “I can’t go into granular detail.”

Me: “Is there something we can change or alter in order to regain compliance and get back in the Store?”

Richard: “I can’t say.”

Me: “Well if we can’t figure out the issue then how will we know whether to resubmit the app. And how will we know whether to invest in any other development efforts? Future apps could be impacted.”

Richard: “I can’t help you with that”

Me: “So how do we know whether it is still viable for us to consider Apple a partner if this is how the scenario plays out. If you were in my shoes would you continue to invest blood, sweat, tears and money in something that can be killed off at any moment without your say so?”

Richard: “I understand your point but I can’t help you with that.”

Me: “Surely someone there at Apple asked you to make this phone call. Can I speak with that person about this?”

Richard: “I am the only one you can speak with on this subject.”

Me: “There has to be someone there I can actually have a back and forth with so that we can make some strategic decisions on whether this partnership makes any sense.”

Richard: “You can only talk to me”

Me: “Nothing personal since I know you have just been tasked to make this call but we aren’t really talking here. There’s no back and forth and you aren’t allowed to answer any questions. Can I implore you to ask your managers if there is anyone who would be willing to speak with me and have a real conversation? I don’t care if it needs to be off the record or we need to sign another top-secret NDA but we really have nothing to go on at this point. We will need to make business decisions on whether it makes any sense to continue developing.”

Richard: “I will relay that to my managers.”