Patrick Filler

Kungsgatan, Stockholm on Dagen H

How do you switch the driving side of the road for an entire nation? Let’s just say it’s quite a process — a process so involved it gets its own logo and name:

Dagen H (H day), today mostly referred to as Högertrafikomläggningen (“The right-hand traffic diversion”), was the day, 3 September 1967, on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The H stands for Högertrafik, the Swedish word for “right-hand traffic”.

(Link via @michael_nielsen)

New York Magazine asked statistician Nate Silver to try and objectively rate the neighborhoods of New York City. He used a wealth of city data and a number of factors to determine the top 50 neighborhoods. Brooklyn comes away smelling like roses — holding 6 of the top 10 spots.

Nate’s model is thoughtful and interesting and the article is well worth a read. However, as he writes on his blog, the real star is the “Livability Calculator.”

The coolest part, rather, is an interactive applet that allows you to determine for yourself the relative importance you attach to 12 different categories of data (housing cost, housing quality, transit/proximity, crime, schools, green space, food/restaurants, health and wellness, shopping and services, diversity, “creative capital” and nightlife). If you play around with the applet for long enough, you’ll find that it’s fairly easy to slot any of 15 or so neighborhoods into the top position, and any of 40 or so of the 60 that we evaluated into the top ten.

The calculator is a lot of fun to play with. If you’re looking for property (whether to rent or own), this would be a great way to choose neighborhoods to focus on.

This one doesn’t need much explanation:

Scores of Carlsberg workers walked off their jobs in protest Thursday after the Danish brewer tightened laid-back rules on workplace drinking and removed beer coolers from work sites, a company spokesman said.

It gets better:

Carlsberg’s truck drivers joined the strike in sympathy — even though they are exempt from the new rules, Bekke said. The truck drivers are permitted to bring three beers from the canteen because they often don’t have time to have lunch there.

The trucks have alcohol ignition locks preventing the drivers from driving drunk, he added.

I think I may join them in a sympathy strike.

After Scott Brown’s won Massachusetts special senate election in January, Republicans reacted as though they had defeated Health Care Reform once-and-for-all. Jonathan Chait, however, predicted that Health Care Reform was not dead — and that opponents of the bill would not react kindly to the its ultimate passage:

You can imagine how this feels to conservatives. They’ve already run off the field, sprayed themselves with champagne and taunted the losing team’s fans. And now the other team is saying the game is still on and they have a good chance to win. There may be nothing wrong at all with the process, but it’s certainly going to feel like some kind of crime to the right-wing. The Democrats may not win, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to try. The conservative freakout is going to be something to behold.

Despite his prescience on the bill and the freakout to follow, I doubt he would have predicted just how nasty things would get. The passage of the Health Care Reform Bill has inspired some truly insane and hateful reactions, leading law enforcement to offer at least 10 members of congress additional security.

Did I fall asleep or something? What freakin’ decade is this?

(link via Daring Fireball)

The title of this post was a question posed several years ago by a John Slabyk-designed Threadless tshirt. Now, Martin Jetpack may have provided the answer. The company has designed and built a jetpack prototype which offers a 31.5 mile range (flying at 63mph) and their web site indicates that production models may ship by the end of this year:

It is expected that early orders for sales to private individuals will commence late 2010. If you would like to register your interest in purchasing a Jetpack for private use, please do so through our contact page. We will note your details and contact you when pre orders are being taken.

While this demo video only shows the product in limited action (flying around a warehouse space), that won’t stop me from imagining what it’d be like to use for transit between NJ and NYC. I could get to the Shake Shack in mere minutes!

(Link via Northtemple)

Four years ago, a writer named Courtney Martin had a novel idea. She created a startup “charity” concept that gives people $100 to do nice things for strangers:

“One hundred dollars is not going to change anyone’s life,” Martin said. “It’s a small thing. The money is just a framework for people to use their imagination. It’s like a kick in the ass.”

One of the participants had trouble giving away the $100. It seems people are naturally suspicious when you’re being nice to them:

“I will give you $1 for you to give to someone else,” the sign said. Throughout the evening rush, Lockspeiser stood in the station, trying to give away dollar bills.

“Everyone though I was trying to scam them,” he said. “They wanted to know what I was up to. I told them they just had to promise to give the $1 to someone else.”

After three hours, Lockspeiser had managed to give away only $52. One passer-by did not take the $1 but, suspecting that Lockspeiser was down and out, handed him a pair of socks. [emphasis mine]

Read “Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy” at SFGate (via Marginal Revolution)

What if insects dropped by the mall for a photo shoot?

Praying Mantis by Thomas Shahan

Robber Fly by Thomas Shahan

Phidippus Mystaceus by Thomas Shahan

No, those aren’t 3D renderings. And they’re not dead bugs. Thomas Shahan’s incredible photographs are taken of live insects — usually in their natural environment.

Photo by Sam Martin

His willingness to comb through grasses and turn over logs pays off in a big way. The combination of strange insect features and brilliant, colorful backgrounds creates images so alien they’d make NASA jealous.

Jumping Spider by Thomas Shahan

Tabanus Horse Fly by Thomas Shahan

Check out Thomas’s Flickr photo stream for tons and tons and tons more amazing insect shots and videos (just be prepared to lose a few hours).

In May of 1943, the body of a British naval officer washed onto Spanish shores. A briefcase was chained to his body and he wore a life jacket — an apparent airplane crash victim. Britain demanded his remains and the briefcase be immediately returned and the Spanish complied — but not before they allowed the Abwehr (the German Intelligence Organization) to inspect the contents of the case:

Inside the suitcase was the letter from Sir Archibald Nye, vice chief of the Imperial General Staff to Sir Harold Alexander, the British commander in North Africa, which outlined the Allies’ plans to invade Europe from Sardinia, Corsica and Greece. This vital information was rushed to Berlin.

On May 12th, Hitler sent an order: “Measures regarding Sardinia and the Peloponnese take precedence over everything else,” diverting resources away from Sicily, through which the Allied Forces eventually invaded. This was because Germans had fallen for an elaborate deception: Major Martin never existed, and was part of a ruse named, “Operation Mincemeat”.

The ruse was quite successful and had an apparently significant impact on the outcome of the war. The Wikipedia article on the operation is definitely worth a read.

Yesterday, I finally found some time to haul our spare change container off to the bank for conversion into cash money. The container, a vintage flour canister, had been overflowing for several weeks and a trip was long overdue. As I heaved the coins out of the car, I found myself thinking about how I had heard somewhere that the materials used to make the penny (copper-plated zinc) were worth more money than the penny itself. That nugget was quickly forgotten, however, when I found out our “throwaway” change was worth just over $370. Disco party time!

This morning, the penny returned to my thoughts when @linklog pointed to a blog post about the production costs associated with the penny and nickel:

In recent years the penny has cost approximately 1.8 cents and the nickel approximately 9 cents to produce. Costs have exceeded the value of these two coins by over $100 million in prior years.

That quote comes from the 2011 US Budget which includes a directive enabling “the Department of the Treasury to explore, analyze, and approve new, less expensive materials for all circulating coins.” Is this what Obama meant when he promised to deliver “change?” (sorry about that, I couldn’t help myself)

Photo by ussouthcom

This is the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship sent to Haiti as part of the US military’s “Operation Unified Response.” The Comfort is a massive ship (just 100 feet shorter than an aircraft carrier) whose 1,000 person crew includes a 550-person strong medical team. It is a fully capable hospital offering 12 operating rooms and 80 intensive care beds.

Comfort’s size, however, seems to be no match for the effects of a devastating earthquake on an impoverished population — and resources are being pushed to extreme limits:

The ship’s space and supplies are overtaxed, forcing the crew to contemplate declining new admissions. The injuries are so abundant and severe that an otherwise acceptable caseload is unmanageable, forcing providers to choose between declining care and forgoing rest and food.

And the emotional demands of caring for the earthquake victims are made worse by the realization that the ship might have to accept a reduced standard of care for Haitian patients, who don’t have the luxuries of long-term rehabilitation or evacuation to the United States.

“Even if every day we could have a critical-care flight of 20 patients out of here, we wouldn’t be able to keep up,” said Capt. Andrew Johnson, the ship’s director of medical operations.

That reality, Johnson said, is forcing the medical staff to consider declining care to some critically injured patients, if only to free up room and resources that could be used to save more people.

That a ship operating nearly a mile off the coast of Port-au-Prince is currently Haiti’s most capable hospital speaks volumes about the level of crisis being faced there.

Photo by mikkohypponen on TwitPic

This is a completely, utterly, normal and unexciting ATM dipper. If you’re a regular ATM user, you’ve probably seen hundreds of these. What could be so special about this one?

This one is a thief.

That’s right, this ATM has been fitted with an ATM card skimmer that clones your card data. Once it has the goods, the data is transferred (via a cell phone that’s also been discreetly attached to the ATM) to a crook waiting to go on a shopping spree.

Photo by mikkohypponen on TwitPic

More details: Krebs on Security | Photos via @mikkohypponen

After perusing Wikipedia’s “List of U.S. cities with most households without a car,” Jarrett Walker, a public transit consultant, attempts to reach some conclusions about why certain cities make the list. Surprisingly (at least to me), a city’s presence on the list is not purely a product of available public transportation (though it is an obvious factor).

If I then look across the whole list and try to identify factors that seem to explain, in different mixtures, each city’s presence on the list, it seems there are three: age, poverty, and dominant universities (i.e. universities that are large relative to the size of the city).

The top three carless cities (by percentage) are right in my neighborhood:

1. New York, NY (55.7% of households are carless)
2. Newark, NJ (44.17%)
3. Jersey City, NJ (40.67%)

Of the top 30, only San Francisco (28.56%) is west of the Mississippi.

(via Bobulate)

Sunday, the NFL is bringing us some great playoff match-ups. On paper, neither game looks like a blowout and there are some genuinely likable teams and players involved (well, except for that evil team from Minnesota). Under normal circumstances, I’d be stocking my snack cabinet for an epic day of couch potato-ing. Instead, I’m going to be schlepping into Manhattan for my first “Settlers of Catan” tournament.

“The Settlers of Catan” may be the most popular game you’ve never heard of. Though more than 15 million copies have been sold worldwide since its release in 1995, it has been slower to catch on in the United States. Americans are coming around in a big way, though. Early last year, Wired ran an article on how the game may be changing the way people in the U.S. think about board games:

Most impressive of all, though, Settlers is actually inducting board-game-averse Americans into the cult of German-style gaming. Last year, Settlers doubled its sales on this side of the Atlantic, moving 200,000 copies in the US and Canada—almost unheard-of performance for a new strategy game with nothing but word-of-mouth marketing. It has become the first German-style title to make the leap from game-geek specialty stores to major retailers like Barnes & Noble and Toys “R” Us.

Settlers is now poised to become the biggest hit in the US since Risk. Along the way, it’s teaching Americans that board games don’t have to be either predictable fluff aimed at kids or competitive, hyperintellectual pastimes for eggheads. Through the complex, artful dance of algorithms and probabilities lurking at its core, Settlers manages to be effortlessly fun, intuitively enjoyable, and still intellectually rewarding, a potent combination that’s changing the American idea of what a board game can be.

If you’re a fan of board games, I definitely recommend picking up a copy of “Settlers” (About 30 bones on Amazon.com) and giving it a shot. And no, you don’t have to dress as one of the tiles to play…

Photo by nickgraywfu

In his most recent ESPN column, Bill Simmons writes that even though Lebron James is already the best player in the NBA, he hasn’t yet reached his full potential. Though I’m only a casual NBA fan, I can’t help but get excited when I read something like this:

In the first quarter Saturday night, LeBron picked off an errant pass and took off the other way. Standing near midcourt, Eric Gordon turned and started running to protect his basket, only he wasn’t running with nearly enough urgency. In my section, a tortured Clips fan named Jesse screamed “GET BACK!” like he was about to watch someone get killed in a horror movie.

LeBron sniffed it out immediately. Cruised to midcourt, clicked in his nitrous canister like Vin Diesel and whooooooooooooooooooooooooosh! Flew by Gordon like a Beemer going 130 in the fast lane. Needed four strides to go from midcourt to the rim. Took off inside the foul line and ripped home a vicious dunk. “Whoa!!!!!!”

If you’re a sports fan and you’re not familiar with the writings of “The Sports Guy” (that’s Simmons’ nom de plume), I reccomend you spend a few hours reading through his archives. While there are some who consider his diehard Boston fandom and copious pop culture references a put-off, there are many, many more (myself included) who enjoy the way his sports fanaticism infects his writing. In a sports world filled with self-important anchors (see: Rick Reilly) and highlight-less Sportscenter episodes, Simmons’ “everyfan” persona is both welcome and refreshing.

Dpt4d has crafted a wonderful look at the process of pulling espresso with 2008 US Barista Champion, Kyle Glanville. With the exception of the coffee, the video is done in black and white — an effect which causes the espresso to look incredibly appetizing. Consider yourself warned: if you watch this piece, you’re definitely going to want a shot for yourself.

Espresso, Intelligentsia at Vimeo

This is the first in a series of three pieces featuring Intelligentsia Coffee. I’ll be looking forward to the upcoming installments on syphon coffee and cappuccino.

(via @bmazza)

Improv Everywhere organized their first “No Pants Subway Ride” (yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like) in 2002. That ride included just seven participants (all male), but they had so much fun they did it again the following year — and again every year since. Participation has grown exponentially with each ride. This year’s ride included over 5,000 people in 44 cities all over the world (including some 3,000 in New York alone).

In 2008, a new wrinkle to the ride was introduced to the festivities. A “Pro Pants” group has entered the fray:

Pro Pants, now in its third year, is a counter-movement to Improv Everywhere’s annual No Pants! Subway Ride. The Pro Pants mission is to inform pantsless riders about the joys and advantages of pants and to persuade them to accept pants into their lives. The campaign’s methods are highly effective: an estimated 100% of pantsless people enter a long-term pants-full lifestyle within 24 hours of encountering a Pro Pants representative.

With pamphlets such as “Are Pants Right For Me?” and “Welcome to Pants,” it’s certainly no shock that their methods are so effective.

Count me in: I’m pro pants.

Illustrator Christoph Niemann put together a series of personal weather predictions for 2010. He’s not a meteorologist, but I’d wager on his forecast being more accurate than Al Roker’s.

April 23:
Sudden climate change from nagging about the cold to whining about the heat.

The whole series is worth a look.

(via The Morning News)

New York magazine has a nice one-page feature on the return of dollar slice pizza in New York City. One thing really jumped out at me:

The materials used in an average pizza slice cost around 30 cents.

As someone who has sampled slices at some of the city’s “lower-end” pizza joints, I don’t doubt that many of them are spending so little per slice. The grease that oozes from cheap pizza resembles some kind of toxic waste (hold the phone — did I just solve the mystery surrounding the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” pizza obsession?).

(via Slice)

I have let 44 days expire without writing a post and I can offer up a host of excuses of why I was too busy to make it happen (strep throat, the holidays, a 2 week travel stint, paid work, etc.). However, I’d be lying to you (and myself) if I said that busy-ness was why I hadn’t written a post in all this time.

Starting a blog costs almost nothing. There are countless free and easy services which enable the masses to share their unfiltered thoughts with the world. Decide to write a blog about tacos and the first post can be on Tumblr within minutes. Of course, it’s not hard to write that first post while your blog is new and the sky’s the limit. The next few posts will come easy enough as well.

It won’t take too long, however, before the initial creative burst wears off and writing entries begins to feel something like a job — the kind where you’re almost certainly not going to get paid. Soon, it’s been two weeks without an entry and writing the next post feels like an epic task. The internet is littered with abandoned blogs whose authors never got up the motivation to write that next post.

I’ve heard slumping baseball players talk about how each unsuccessful at-bat leads them to press that much harder for their next hit. Whenever their next hit finally comes, the pressure lifts and they’re right back to business as usual. I’m hoping this post can be the “ground ball with eyes” that breaks me out of my current 0-for-44 slump. By next week, It’ll be business as usual.

I’ll grant you that this post must seem a little dramatic for a tiny blog with an even tinier audience (hi, mom). If you’ve read this far, it’s my sincere hope that you’ll take a moment to consider how much time and effort your favorite bloggers have given you — and how little they’ve asked for in return. If you don’t have any favorite bloggers, I’ve offered some suggestions under the rss section of my sidebar.

See you tomorrow.

The Tesla Model S is not the first electric car on the market, but with seating for five and ample cargo space, it may be the most realistic candidate to replace your current gas guzzler. It doesn’t hurt that a quick 45 minute charge (from any power outlet) gets you a range of 300 miles and a top speed of 120mph.

With a price tag set at just under 50k (after a federal tax credit), the Model S could definitely steal more than a few BMW 5 series or Audi A6 customers.

(via Surfstation)