Flahertypj

These were so fun to think up. If you wanna share any of your own, you can do so here!

Over the years I have taken several photos of dogs. Of course, this is what happens when you’re a grown man who suddenly blurts out, “DOGGY!” upon seeing any of man’s best friends and immediately takes out a camera, smartphone, or disposable camera that he apparently bought back in 1993 but for some reason left in his messenger bag. But the question has always been what to do with these dog photos. And the answer came—as it has so many times before—in the form of a another series of upcoming and soon-to-be unpublished coffee table books…

My Pet Poetry from Chronicle Books! (Click on images for more information)

A photo gallery of an uneasy truce.

Make sure to enter to win The Dog Days of Summer Photo Contest!
Check out all my pet poetry from Chronicle Books!

A couple of things. First off, ‘Close but no WiFi’ is something my cousin Nab said once, and it got me thinking about other sayings. Secondly, yes, some of these don’t quite make sense if you think about them too long—some are just meant to be funny. Also, ‘Don’t bite the hand…’ came to mind when thinking of the Google RSS debacle, and for some strange reason when I look at ‘Never judge an app by its icon’, I think of Marco Arment’s Bugshot (I know the story behind it, so in the words of Marco “Don’t email me.”). Also, normally with a post like this I’d ask for y’all’s ideas on other ones, but I plan on doing another set, so I don’t want to cheat by seeing some other great ones. ;) Thanks for reading this whole thing.

theatlantic:

The Geography of Bars and Restaurants 

Some cities really do have a bar on every corner.

[Image: Trulia]

Feel free to add your own children’s-books-gone-grownup to our Facebook page. Some great ones have already been submitted!

All the elements arranged by the country that discovered them

It’s a legitimate question and when legitimate questions need answering, there is no group of people more fit to answer them than the Dealbreaker community. So let’s get right to it. The facts: Ben Bernanke’s second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve ends on January 31, 2014. Ben Bernanke has “already stayed a lot…

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Tags: Ben Bernanke, Jos A. Bank, Men's Wearhouse, reader polls, tough calls

Why Conservatives Hate Citi Bike So Much, in One Venn Diagram

The Fellowship of the Colors

via Kurt White

mikeyfriskeyhands:

My brother saved this document and everytime he gets angry at our neighbours for being loud he prints it to their wireless printer and you can hear the wife shout “Why the fuck would you print this AGAIN?!” to her son.

Nikolai strolled into the stuffy office where the older man stood waiting behind a desk which had stood in the same spot back in Stalin’s day. The older man – Colonel Rakhmetov – gestured him brusquely to a seat in front of him, sat down himself, looked up and said “Sit”.

The Colonel glared at him. “The plan for Agent Gideon began under Brezhnev. Do you have any idea of the resources required to place a mole at the heart of the British establishment, trained from birth to further the cause of Communism? So can you tell me what, precisely, is happening in that miserable backwater right now?”

Nikolai took a deep breath. He was new to this world of hidden communist sleepers, left in place as the KGB became the FSB and knew he had to tread carefully around an officer who had earned his pips back when the letters CCCP still struck such fear into the heart of capitalists that they’d made concessions to the working class.

“Sir, you are familiar with the works of Nikolai Chernyshevsky?”

The wrong thing to say. The Colonel ran nicotine-stained fingers through his hair, glared. “I am. The originator of the doctrine of ‘the worse, the better – that only through a continual worsening of the conditions of the proletariat can they be motivated to throw off their chains. Author of the original “What is to be done?” a work that so inspired Lenin that he named his own book after it. What of it?”

“Well agent Gideon has rather taken the doctrine to heart. Rather than gradually introduce Socialism, as per his original instructions, he’s trying to incite the British working class to revolution. Thus, although government debt interest accounts for only a shade over 3% of UK GDP, he’s inflicted growth-destroying fiscal tightening of more that amount on the country already, with more to come. And to ensure maximum damage, he’s taken the bulk of the money from public sector investment – which he’s halved.It’s killing two birds with one stone sir. You kill economic growth and you also reduce the ability of the country to grow in future.”

The Colonel’s brow wrinkled. He disapproved of initiative, which in his day had meant replacing a long retirement by the Black Sea with an early but short one by the White Sea.

“Yes so I heard. And the riots were surely promising, even if class-consciousness wasn’t entirely obvious in the raiding of sportswear retailers over government ministries and barracks. But now he’s run out of control. But wouldn’t it be more effective to just bankrupt the country by running up debt?”

“Not really sir. All the money in the UK is crying out for a home, so interest rates are extremely low. And the average maturity of the debt is 13 years, so it’s almost impossible to provoke a liquidity crisis – I think our other agents in the banking sector are much more promising in that respect. And without getting completely into the realms of fantasy, it’s quite hard for the government to get rid of a huge amount of extra borrowing without causing some economic growth. But the cuts are excellent for provoking discontent with the public at large.”

“Interesting. Sounds like things are going well. So why did you request this meeting?”

“Well sir, to be frank, it looks like Agent Gideon is going rogue. He’s overreaching, and it can only lead to his downfall. He’s been emphasising the privilege of the ruling plutocracy” – Nikolaj wondered if he should spit, decided against it – “by cutting taxes that only apply to the very elite, insisting on defending the privileges of the bankers who brought the country to its knees. Only someone with his training in Socialist theory would be quite so adept at underlining the injustice and contradictions of capitalism, and it’s only a matter of time before British Intelligence catch on.”

“Yes, I can see why this is an issue, and you were right to come to me-“

“Excuse me sir, but that’s not the worst of it. His latest scheme seems intent on provoking revolution this year, and I fear he’s overreaching. It’s called Help to Buy. Essentially it puts the government balance sheet – which he’s promised can’t be used for even essential infrastructure – to work to boost house prices without really increasing the number of houses being built. So the government can take losses, but all the benefit accrues to the homebuyer.”

“So he pushes up house prices in a country with already expensive prices, increases the risks to the banking sector, pushes more people into loans they can’t afford and spends money without creating any real benefits to society?”

“Yes sir. He did try to get it extended to buy-to-let landlords, but even the Treasury spotted that one. But it will make a nice subsidy for second homes for the rich.”

The Colonel frowned, but paused no more than a second. “We’ll risk it. This is the best chance we have to make England the vanguard of the new socialist revolution. You’re overruled. let Agent Gideon proceed.”

Update: The evidence mounts. Alex Hern of the New Statesman proving in the process that a teenager with Photoshop trumps a middle-aged man with Paint.

If not for some unnamed hero’s vague recollections of something called the Jones Act—leading to an otherwise unexplained new interest in improving corporate governance—Cap’n Lloyd’s Pleasure Cruisers might still be in drydock. In case you aren’t an aficionado of the rules of the high seas, the nearly 100-year-old Jones Act specifies that companies can’t operate…

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Tags: arcana, foreigners, Goldman Sachs, GSS Jersey, GSS York, totally not a blow-off class

Quand le printemps n'arrive pas.

When Spring doesn’t happen.

The scene was set and the soldiers were ready; the coup would take place that night.

(Photo: Catherin Ledner; Dwell)

Ed had been working on his Blue Steel, Ferrari and Le Tigre looks. Magnum wasn’t ready, he had to tame the beast before he could let it out of its cage.

'Getting to Gnome you' (Getty)

The Chelsea Flower show, that quintessentially British annual event where celebrities, business leaders, and horticulturalists rub shoulders with royalty, is in full bloom. This year it has generated a number of unusual talking points.

The chatter started with the Gnome controversy. This year the organisers, the Royal Horticultural Society, announced (well ahead of the show so Gnome collecting could begin in earnest) that they were lifting their ban on the love-them-or-hate-them ornaments. A plethora of photoshoots have now been held of the humble figures, displayed liberally around the show. Debate’s raged over whether they were tacky, somewhat lowering the tone of this highly polished event that kicks of the British social ‘season’, or whether it signified a welcome abandonment of snobbery and class discrimination.

Thousands of the finest automobiles ever made are now being abandoned every year since Dubai’s financial meltdown, left by expatriates and locals alike who flee in a hurry because they face crippling debts. With big loans to repay to the banks (unpaid debt or even bouncing a cheque is a criminal offence in Dubai), the panicked car owners make their way to the airport at top speeds and leave their vehicles in the car park, hopping on the next flight out of there, never to return…

Ferraris, Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes are regularly abandoned at the car park of Dubai International Airport, some with loan documents and apology notes simply left on the windscreen and in some cases with the keys still in the ignition.

…Residents complain about the unsightly vehicles hogging parking spaces at the airport and sitting slumped outside their fancy yacht clubs– it’s like, so not a good look.

There is more here, hat tip goes @jscarantino.  By the way, a 19-year-old in Romania may have just made driverless cars significantly cheaper.

My Pet Poetry from Chronicle Books! (Click on images for more information)

popchartlab:

Don Draper’s Old Fashioned, The Dude’s White Russian, Hunter S. Thompson’s Singapore Sling, Daisy Buchanan’s Mint Julep, and more in our new Cocktail Chart of Film and Literature.

Genoa is one of the best food venues in Italy, as is Liguria more generally.  It is also one of the best places in Europe for vegetarian dining.  Maximize the number of tarts and vegetable tarts you eat, skip hotel breakfast and look for small places with morning snacks, preferably baked goods, and treat them as the equal of cooked dishes.  Forget about meat altogether.

1. Antica Sciamadda, 14-16 Via San Giorgio, arrive at the 11:30 opening and keep on buying the tarts and farinata as they are freshly baked and put out on the counter.  There is a vaguely Arabic feel to the dishes, and there is an excellent video of the place here.  There are many excellent “sciamadda” in Genoa and they lie somewhere between a food stall and a very small restaurant, so do not count on them being open for dinner.

2. Trattoria alle Due Torri, Salita del Prione 53, near the Columbus house.  Order pasta and focaccia, this is some of the best spaghetti I’ve had, and the pansotti (ravioli in walnut sauce) is notable.

3. La Rina, superb seafood restaurant, don’t focus on the main courses.

There are relatively few tourists in town, although the most common group — by far — is Russians.  From Bologna, here is a post about flunking out of Gelato University.

If you love mushrooms, growing your own doesn't have to be a hassle. You can buy a kit like the kind we've featured, or try growing them in your fridge, but this method uses an old laundry basket and will yield more mushrooms without taking up valuable fridge space.

You'll need a few things to get started, namely an oyster mushroom spawn, a laundry basket, a cooler (to use to start the process, but you won't need it for long), some straw, lime, gypsum, and a few other items. It may sound complicated, but it's nothing you can't get at a local nursery or home improvement store (and nothing you wouldn't need for the fridge method we mentioned earlier). You'll need to prep some straw by pasteurizing it with hot water and mixing in the lime and gypsum. Then you can start your mushroom garden with the a nice clean spawn (instead of using an old mushroom—this way you get the best possible harvest). As long as you have a warm, dark room for your mushrooms to grow in, you're in good shape.

Hit the link below for the full details and step by step, but once you get started, the mushrooms kind of take over and handle themselves. It's a bit of a process, but this method grows a ton oyster mushrooms pretty quickly, and once you harvest a batch, you can get another two or three from the same basket before cleaning it out to clone them again. Plus, Instructables user velacreations' guide is so good, it won't lead you astray. It even goes down to the temperature and humidity you should aim for if you want pink oyster mushrooms versus white ones. There's even a recipe to use those mushrooms when you've grown enough to eat, although we can't imagine that part being a problem.

Oyster Mushrooms in a Laundry Basket | Instructables