Bird's Eye View
This LAT feature on the newly prominent aesthetics of roofs is even more timely In light of Microsoft's Virtual Earth--a direct attack on Google Earth and indirect attack on Mac users.
Dynamist Blog
Wishful Thinking
How about a loophole-closing, rate-flattening 1986-style tax reform from the new Congress? It would be a lobbyist nightmare, and a repudiation of the Clinton administration's zillions of tax credits for good behavior (extended by the Bushies). But if I squint really hard I can see it happening. Charles Schumer is talking the right way: "I don't think we want taxes to move higher at all; the kinds of things we're talking about easily funded about rearranging federal priorities making sure that some of the shelters are closed -- the offshore shelters and things like that. But the Democrats are against increasing taxes. We want to become more fiscally responsible." Not that I actually think this is anything other than Election Day spin.
Don't Buy a Vowel
Victoria Murphy Barret of Forbes writes about why startups these days are picking names with missing vowels (e.g. Pluggd, Flickr)--a fad that will give the survivors a nice vintage feel in five or 10 years. Next up: why so many startups with Zen-inspired z-names (Zubio, Zafu, etc.).
The Death of (Online) Print?
Glenn Reynolds is praising the Pajamas Media election coverage: "In particular, I thought the marriage of cheap digital cameras that shoot good video -- all the PJ video, except for my clip, was done with this inexpensive Canon Powershot -- with lots of people having access to YouTube really worked out well."
I'm sure he's right, for people who can't get enough talking heads. Personally, I hated the PJM election coverage, because I don't want to have to watch video online. I want to read, and PJM offered way too little written material. But with the right technology, video is much easier to provide--especially if you don't care about shaky-cam production.
A Democratic Sweep
Party labels matter most when voters know little to nothing about the candidates as individuals--not in hot Senate races like Webb versus Allen but in obscure judicial elections where only lawyers and their friends really know anything about the candidates. I don't vote in judicial elections, but a lot of people do. And in Dallas County, where an R used to guarantee a judgeship, the Democrats swept the judicial races and picked up the district attorney's post and county executive.
From the Country that Brought Us the Boy Scouts
Seen in the London Underground. It's hard to tell in this small version (click here for a larger picture), but the red one is an ordinary pocket knife--not something anyone but airport security usually considers a weapon. A schoolboy won an award for designing the campaign poster.
Growing Spare Livers
British scientists have grown a penny-sized liver from umbilical cord blood stem cells. Transplantable organs are still decades away, however, say researchers. In the short term, the mini-organs can be used for drug trials.