frontpage of nytimes at 2008-4-22 20:10 ET

(and it would be so much cooler if it didn't use Flash)

AppEngine - Web Hypercard, finally (Skrentablog)
Google's AppEngine is being compared to Amazon's EC2/S3. But Google deserves credit here for coming up with a pretty differently-positioned product. There may be overlap for many users of course, but it's really operating at a whole different level of the stack.

SOMETHING odd is happening to the cities of eastern Germany. Plattenbauten, the soulless prefabricated apartment blocks thrown up by the region's former communist rulers, are being knocked down. Occasionally one will be truncated, shorn of its upper storeys. Older streets are gap-toothed where wreckers have removed abandoned houses. Cityscapes are being pruned, removing dead and dying edifices in the hope of saving the rest.

More: Depopulation of eastern Germany | Tearing itself down | Economist.com

• 1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says (NYT): "For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report."
• Gun Crazy (NYT): "Atrocities like [the school massacres] make Americans feel angry and perhaps helpless."
• Rich man, poor man: The life expectancy gap EPI report showing (for Social Security-covered males) that "the increase in longevity for older participants occurred mostly among those in the top half of the earnings distribution."

University

• Online Video Lectures and Transcripts - European Graduate School EGS Videos of EGS' lectures at Saas-Fee. Also here: YouTube - egsvideo's Channel
• Fulfilling the Promise of Open Content :: Inside Higher Ed: Open content already! I'm not sure we should boycott closed access journals (Danah Boyd), but I'm for anything that speeds the process of making content open and available. I'll do my part by alerting anyone who isn't aware of arXiv.org already to it. If physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, and biologists can do it, why can't the social and human sciences?
• 24C3 - Programming DNA - #2329: Great presentation by Drew Endy at the C3.

Tech

• Opendns: My ISP has recently started serving up ads when you type in an internet address that can't be found. Admittedly it's not as bad as an ISP selectively banning a site, as recently happened in Denmark. The solution to both problems is Opendns. If you're not sure what DNS is, Wikipedia can explain.
• get.theinfo: Neat group for data monkeys. Website: theinfo.org
• "Ich mag technischen Schnickschnack" (Frankfurter Rundschau): Umberto Eco likes gadgets. (German)

Behavioral Economics

• The Audacity of Data: Fantastic article on the rise of behavioral economics.
• The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors (NYT): Behavioral economics lesson (well, sortof) by 3rd century B.C. Chinese general Xiang Yu.

Misc

• Ironic Sans: Idea: A new typography term: keming. noun. The result of improper kerning.

• SFMOMA | Making Sense of Modern Art: Pipilotti Rist: The guide, by Rist herself, is wonderful. I remember the exhibit well.
• Pipilotti Rist Videos
  
• ZKM: fast forward - Media: More commentary (in German)
• U B U W E B: Pipilotti Rist: Most of her videos.

Books

• The Internet Speculative Fiction Database: Interesting quantitative literary studies project.
• Steven Levy - Book Ripper Doesn't Bother Publishers -- Yet (washpost): "Could the publishing industry get Napsterized? ..."

More

• African American Lives: Zerfaserter Stammbaum: Frankfurter Rundschau's review of Henry Louis Gates Jr. African American Lives 2.
• N+1 PAMPHLET No.2, WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN: TWO DISCUSSIONS: Must read for any college student.

• 

  Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2008:"The EnerJar is an easy-to-build, DIY device that accurately measures the power draw of electrical appliances." (image)

• Croquet "is an open source software platform for creating deeply collaborative 3D multi-user online applications. " Interesting use of Smalltalk. Squeak by Example, Squeak: Squeak

(via sivacracy.net)

• On The Media—from WNYC in New York (feed).
• In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg— from the BBC (feed).
• Fresh Air with Terry Gross—from WHYY in Philadelphia (feed).
• Behind the News with Doug Henwood— from WBAI in New York (feed).
• Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!— news quiz show from WBEZ (feed).
• L'esprit public with Philippe Meyer— from France Culture (feed).
• Chaos Radio Express — from the Chaos Computer Club (in German) (feed).

I'm only starting to explore the world of German radio, and I'd love to find an analog of L'esprit publique (or something along the lines of NPR's Talk of the Nation, I suppose). I really shouldn't be starting from zero, but I am. Somehow I managed only to listen to Radio France Internationale when I was living in Berlin.

Inside Higher Ed :: Call to Arms for Academic Labor
Review of Marc Bosquet's How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation (book website)

Technology Review: "You Don't Understand Our Audience"
Wonderful commentary by former NBC producer on what's wrong with the media in the USA.

Walk Score - Helping homebuyers, renters, and real estate agents find houses and apartments in great neighborhoods.
Impressive use of GIS data.

Chaosradio Express - Chaosradio Podcast Network
In depth technology/hacking/programming podcast from Tim Pritlove of the Chaos Computer Club (in German).

Stanley Fish on "justifying" spending money on the Humanities
If there are blog posts on blogs.nytimes.com that get more comments, I'd be interested in seeing them. Fish's first post, Will the Humanities Save Us? had 484 comments. The second post The Uses of the Humanities, Part Two had 448.

Economics

• Brad DeLong's Political Economy and American Economic History lectures at UC Berkeley are online and made good mp3 player fodder for me. DeLong's a free trade neoliberal but says a bunch of sensible stuff, I thought. Here's a link to the directory containing the lectures for those uninterested in wading through the blog posts for links to the lectures. I found his gloss on Reich's Supercapitalism helpful. I also found it helpful to increase the tempo of the lectures 50% with Audacity. An hour is a long time.
• Decent comprehensive paper on the data on growing economic inequality in the US and UK from the latest issue of the Post-Autistic Economics Review.
• Gapminder's "GapCasts" are super. The newest installment compares France and Turkey.

Duke

• Some kind soul in Canada recorded Fredric Jameson's remarks at the opening Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto. The lecture's titled "Future of Culture, Future of Utopia" (mp3).

Vermischtes

• The Sunlight Foundation has a new project called Where Are They Now which tracks staff members of former members of the 109th Congress.
• Mackerel giving birth to Tuna.
• Jonathan Coulton's "Mandelbrot Set" is a pretty funny song. Coulton's also the composer of the equally enjoyable song at the closing credits of Portal. (mp3)