apple juice

are you there?

it’s me.

A.J.

with their myfaces and their spacebooks.

“Spending an idle morning watching people look at art is hardly a scientific experiment, but it rekindles a perennial question: What exactly are we looking for when we roam as tourists around museums? As with so many things right in front of us, the answer may be no less useful for being familiar.”

(Via At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus.)

One of my favorite experiences in Paris was the Louvre, mostly because of this gentleman, Eric Smee:

It was like a mini art class for a few hours. He started the tour by offering an out: He was going to show us less than the other tour guides would, but he’d spend more time discussing each one.

I was pretty happy that we happened to get his tour.

Malcolm Gladwell reviews Free by Chris Anderson: Books: The New Yorker: “And there’s plenty of other information out there that has chosen to run in the opposite direction from Free. The Times gives away its content on its Web site. But the Wall Street Journal has found that more than a million subscribers are quite happy to pay for the privilege of reading online. Broadcast television—the original practitioner of Free—is struggling. But premium cable, with its stiff monthly charges for specialty content, is doing just fine. Apple may soon make more money selling iPhone downloads (ideas) than it does from the iPhone itself (stuff).”

This is a very good critique about the concept of “free” information. It’s definitely challenged a few of my thoughts on the future of “free” ideas. I am someone who still buys music (on vinyl, no less) and I’m willing to subscribe to magazines that I can get for free on the internet.

It’s very clear that this is still playing out, and as Gladwell puts it, there are no iron laws as to how all of this will play out as newspapers, television and publishing continue to get ripped apart by the internet.

. . . raising children in the United States now isn’t more dangerous than it was when today’s generation of parents were young. And back then, it was reasonably safe, too. So why does shooing the kids outside and telling them to have fun and be home by dark seem irresponsible to so many middle-class parents today?

from Stop worrying about your children!

It seems to me that parents these days are worried about things they shouldn’t be, and not worried enough about the things they should.

I remember growing up with basically a home range. This amounted to the distance I could cover on my bike and still be home by dark. As I remember it, I would regularly bike to my baseball games, bike and walk to school, bike to friends houses, the mall, the library, etc. Granted we lived in the suburbs, but still. That was a lot of busy roads and what amounted to basically a 10 square mile area.

Up a bit earlier than normal this morning… here’s a collection of stuff I was reading…

Eurostar, the high-speed rail link between Paris, London and Brussels, said last week it was raising its target to cut emissions because it had already reached its original goals — three years early.

Seems to me that its time to end the moratorium on new nuclear plants. From: French Nuclear Power Cleans Up Eurostar

More on the environment:

The worst case scenario, ES&T found, would be irrigated sorghum grown in Nebraska and turned into ethanol. This would use up to 115 gallons per mile. Corn grown there would require 50 gallons of water per mile. Say good-bye to “food vs. fuel,” say hello to “Drink or drive.”

Ethanol from corn is an environmental disaster. Obama’s administration should stop the madness when it comes to subsidies for corn ethanol. From: The Water Cost of Corn-Based Ethanol

The new Wolfram Alpha “fact engine” looks like it will be pretty amazing. Here’s a series of screenshots showing examples of different types of searches.

Our friend (and Emilia’s godmother) Diane is working on a photo-a-day project. I’ve wanted to start doing this, since there are times where I’ll go weeks without taking any pictures. One of my disappointments from our recent trip to Seattle was that I didn’t take more pictures. I did grab this picture, which I’m quite fond of:

I’m catching up on some back posts from 43 folders and I came across a great quote:

“Marketing is the tax you pay for being unremarkable”

Try applying that quote to yourself. I don’t know if I’m doing a good job of just letting my actions speak for myself, but I’d like to do better. If you’re really doing a good job, people know. Conversely, if you’re doing a really poor job, everyone knows. But the languishing in the middle, it’s just kind of boring.