Sometimes, the People of Walmart come through in a positive way. FTW

This was on People of Walmart. It is not a site I spend time on because it feels bad. Call me strange, but cringe humor that has more of the former than the latter is not my cuppa.

Anyhoo, this baby shows up there. It's awesome. Hats off. Isn't it nice to find a gem?

Happy Friday.

You know your eyeglass shop sends them to a lab, right? Do it yourself & save @eyeglasses.com

Sounds like an ad for www.eyeglasses.com, I know, but I just put lenses on a pair of rimless glasses AND a pair of rec specs (laugh if you must) for $230 ... shipped. Both require high impact poly-carbonate lenses for which I would normally pay $230/ea.

I was skeptical initially. I entered my full prescription data into the site, selected the lenses, asked their customer service people for advice, packaged up my glasses and sent them. To this point, I am doing exactly what your optometrist does, except I wasn't paying them as a middle man with a retail storefront.

If I sound exasperated, it is because I wandered into an eyewear store last month for a checkup. On the way out I stopped to get my first replacement pair. Cheap place. I thought, why not. 30 minutes later, I knew too well why not. My saleslady didn't understand lens materials, thicknesses, tint vs. polarization. Nothing. Just "These are thinner." Really? How much thinner for my prescription (modest)? "Dunno, but they are better." Ugh.

I went to Costco a week later and got better service and ended up with glasses at half the price. I am done with retail eyewear. So when it came to replacing lenses (Costco won't do these two), I needed a better option. Eyeglasses.com was recommended (Thanks Matt), and I am not looking back.

Ever see a German Wheel? This is harder...TRACES!

This is known as 'Ring Dance' by acrobatic troupe TRACES, currently in NYC. It's a single ring, permitting looser, faster tricks than the German Wheel. What is a German Wheel, you ask? Why this:

NPR's Reaction to is it's top 100 SciFi/Fant Book List...priceless.

So NPR ran a contest to see the most popular 100 Sci Fi and Fantasy books. 60K voters later, they had a list. Then they handed the reigns to Glen Weldon on their Monkey See blog for a reaction. Result...a splendid dissection of the content. That includes the first and obvious comment: Why are we even lumping Sci Fi and Fantasy together?

The one questions I still need answered: Cryptonomicon is Sci Fi/Fantasy? Really? Ever heard of historical fiction?

I think the guys who designed the front and back of the Olympic medals aren't on speaking terms....

These are the medals of the 2012 summer games. The left shows the front. The right shows the back. One of these things is not like the other - to the point that I find myself not liking the medals.

Now it is traditional for the front of the summer games medals to have the goddess on the front and the logo on the back, but medals like Beijing weren't so dischordant.

In contrast, the winter game medals are a free-f0r-all. Here are Turin and Vancouver:

I'll admit that the world might have needed Dirty Dancing, but I won't admit we need a remake...

News out of Lionsgate is that they are making the perfect dose of semi-serious camp that is Dirty Dancing over again. I think the best we can hope for is a scrubbing of all the class/ethnic separation themes and a complete ignorance of the abortion scene that were the only things to give the original any gravitas.

Oh, and if you've never heard, it, you must queue up Peter Segal's (host of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me) story of how his serious screenplay about love in post-revolution Cuba turned into 'Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights'. Find it in Act 3 of this 'This American Life' Show.

Forget the FOP, you now need a 'Thin Blue Line' Sticker.

So I have been seeing this sticker over and over and over all over the place. Turns out it is called the 'Thin Blue Line' and represents the 'thin blue line' of police protection that separates the public from, um, itself(?).

Anyway, if you're one of the cynical types that has a 'Fraternal Order of Police' sticker on your car so the po po choose to ding the guy next to you for speeding as you zoom past, you'll want to be adding this to your vehicular plumage.

There is a wave of positive story-writing coming out...are we ready for happy to be popular again?

Check out these two 'most popular' stories in the NYTimes yesterday:

Friedman imagines what the debt ceiling deal could have looked like. Seriously, it will make you wistful if there is a reasonable bone in your jaded body.

And then there's Rachel. She isn't a new story, but in her untimely death, she motivated adults to donate almost a million to charity:water. Again, for the story to get this kind of play indicates that perhaps we're ready to turn a corner on the acrimony.

Am I hoping against hope?

Want to hear jaded? If hope gets popular, guess who benefits?

First 787 delivered by Boeing, 4 years late. Ouch.

Boeing delivered (not tested, flew, etc.) the first of its new aircraft, the 787 this week to Japanese carrier All Nippon Air, or ANA. Here's a history of the craft to this point.

One could scoff at the delays given that the plane looks like, well, a plane. The shape masks some pretty big changes. First, the shape is not a classic Boeing shape. Rather, it looks like the Cessna Citation with a downturned nose that is more prevalent in newer designs.

Second, you can see in the photo above that the wings don't have winglets- the upturned bits at the end. Actually, that's not so much a lack of appendages that reduce wind disturbance at the tip, but a complete redesign of the wing from a basically flat slab to an arched design that more closely resembles the organic shape of a bird's wing in flight.

Third, see the squiggly back end of the engines? That feature reduces noise and eases airflow on a set of engines that were redesigned (twice actually) from the ground up to be 30% more efficient.

All good. If you want to be a cynic though, I have to permit it. After all, Boeing managed to roll out its newest 747, the 8F between the start and end of the 787 project, borrowing a lot of the tech. And, of course, the 747 project was in part Boeing's response to the Airbus A380 megajumbo (it's 2 stories). I saw an A380 land at LAX. I just stood there and watched. It's so big it looks a little impossible. That airframe also has curved wings, composite body components, and upgraded engines. It took less time than the 787 even though it required airport retrofits to accommodate the number passengers getting on and off.

Oh well. Enjoy!

Diana Nyad, Godspeed and may we see you in Key West in 2 days' time.

Diana Nyad is attempting the 103 mile swim from Havana to Key West. The waters are calm and she's in the water. She actually has to swim quite a bit farther than 103 miles to handle currents.

You can see a lot more detail in this video: http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/25925304

S&P Downgrade of the U.S. 4 days after debt ceiling deadline. Really? Are you dumb or cowardly?

Standard and Poor's - they of the eponymous 500 - downgraded U.S. debt from AAA to AA+ on Friday. That means that U.S. borrowing could need to pay higher interest to offset the new risk.

S&P has been criticized for this, probably by many who have seen the move as 'unpatriotic.' Let's forget that and ask two simple questions:

1. Why did it take until Friday?

The debt ceiling deadline was Tuesday. The deal got done Tuesday. S&P claims it is concerned about the politicization of the debt ceiling process. Fair enough. I have concerns too. But those concerns were, if nothing else, lessened by Friday. If S&P really believed that the process created risk, why did it leave investors to twist in the roiling winds of the market this week before making its assessment?

2. Did S&P pay any attention to the market this week?

The DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) gave away all the value it gained this year, tanking 500 points Wednesday and barely bouncing back by Friday. Where did investors go as stocks (equity) dove? They went to bonds, specifically Treasuries. So the market players are still saying that U.S. Treasuries are the low-risk investment of choice. They clearly don't see the risk S&P sees.

And, again, if S&P throughout this months-long process thought the U.S. was riskier, didn't it have an obligation to speak up before the market tanked and investors would predictably head to Treasuries?

Instead, S&P downgraded Friday, after the market reaction to the resolution of the debt ceiling fight played out. That way, their downgrade would have little to no effect on the market. If so, what is the point of the rating at all now that market participants have shown their preferences? S&P, if you are to have any value at all, how about a rating when it matters?

The Keen Newport - Ode to the Greatest Shoe I Have Ever Owned

The Keen Newport sandal.

I bought the Keen Newport at Hudson Trail Outfitters just days before setting out on my honeymoon in the summer of 2005. While spending 13 hours a day, 6 days a week in the library studying for the bar, I had planned a month-long journey to southeast Asia including hiking, scuba diving, and lots and lots and lots of walking. Why southeast Asia? Well, there were literally no seats to Europe at the end of July. None. In fact, we had to fly back to NY instead of DC because those were the last 2 seats left from Tokyo.

When I got home from the bar (it was in Roanoke, VA, 3.5 hours south of D.C.), we had a week to pack. The wife and I needed shoes that could do hot, wet, cold, dirty, salty, and muddy, while staying comfortable and putting up with the miles. We hit on Keens. And we paid full price. And I didn't like it, but I needed shoes.

A month later, I would have paid triple happily. Some reasons why:

Crossing the street on the way to Chumpon - Chinatown in Ho Chi Minh city - yes, they have a Chinatown, I was looking up at a health clinic and kicked a bag of offal. It burst and sent whatever the hell its contents were all over the street. If you've never been to a third-world city, you don't really get what modern plumbing, street cleaning, and smog reduction do for a place. Needless to say, the bag contained the diametric opposite of that. In an open sandal, I would have veered into the nearest god-knows-what-I'd-find and scrub down thoroughly for around 30 minutes to insure I didn't get an infection. Instead, we both exclaimed that it was gross, thanked the Keen gods, and went on our way.

A week and half later, we were hiking into the mountains to the Hmong village. I've blogged about this recently in regard to the game we saw played there. Everyone else on the trip packed socks and hiking boots + sandals for heading into waterfalls. We packed 1 light pair of shoes and never changed. They dry up real quick in 100 degree heat.

Then it was back to the south of Thailand for a week on the beach and in and out of boats learning to scuba. No stubbed toes against air tanks, no splinters from the deck, no problems period.

Since then, I have put about 1000 miles on these shoes heading on 5-12 mile walks to the zoo, to work, to museums. On trips, I've worn them as I got muddied up to my knees in a hike to the top of dormant volcano that is Saba and then spent the next 3 days washing them in sea water off the back of a diving boat. I've slipped them on a hundred times to head out with my daughter.

And I think this is finally it for them. I've worn nearly all the rubber off the ball and heel of the shoes. The straps have pulled at the foam footbed so often that they've created wiggle space. These shoes, in a word, have lasted much longer and held up much better in that time than any shoe I have ever owned.

So this week, their replacements are coming. A new pair of Keen Venice sandals. Here's hoping for another 6 great years. Heck, I'll take 3.

Is Danica Patrick Just a Pretty Face?

Danica Patrick could make the move full-time to the NASCAR Nationwide Series (this is the AAA ball of NASCAR, usually run the day before the Sprint Cup). She is, of course, well known in and out of the sport as the GoDaddy.com girl. For me, two questions loom:

(A) Is she any good?

(B) Does it matter?

Is She Any Good?

Kinda. There are a lot of people racing in Indy Car and the NASCAR Nationwide series - the two places she races today. She races a full Indy Car schedule, so lets look there first.

Danica's Indy Car Stats. She had a great year in 2005 and has come down from that a bit in recent years, but this year is on pace to match 2010, when she ranked 10th overall. She is currently 11th. In perspective, there are 43 drivers, but only about 20 of them run the full schedule, so she's in the middle of the pack. That puts her above everyone you've never heard of and below everyone you have (or might have...Dario Franchiti, Scott Dixon, Sam Hornish, etc.). So she ain't bad, but she's bringing up the middle of the pack.

The story is the same in Nationwide. She's 27th overall, but she has run just a 1/3 of the races - 6 in total. In points, she well outclasses other drivers with 6 races, and, in fact, drivers with 7,8, and 9 races, except Sam Hornish - her Indy Car rival. If we 'annualized' her points (i.e. assumed she'd have the same proportion of points if she'd run 21 races), she'd have 623 points, putting her in 7th place. That's not bad, but I should note that it is again just over 1/2 way up the list of 16 drivers that have run a full Nationwide schedule.

So Does It Matter That Danica Be Good?

This is fuzzier. NASCAR wants a good woman driver. Second, being a popular NASCAR driver is arguably just as important as being good. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has had several poor seasons. Tony Stewart is not at the top of the points standings. Carl Edwards has only again become a contender this year. Jeff Gordon, again spotty for a few years. All are more popular than Jimmie Johnson, who has won the points standings in NASCAR 5 years running. So personality and marketability, coupled with a respectable race record might be enough.

If I may, I would like to point out that great women drivers exist already. Ashley Force Hood - daughter of John Force, placed second overall in the NHRA Funny Car standings in 2009 on her father's team. No girls' division, no minor league ball. This was the big show and she killed it week after week on the line and the shifter. Then again, that was a small media market, so she hasn't gotten her due.

So I think Danica could become a popular NASCAR driver and is good enough to make a respectable showing and that might be all it takes.

When under pressure, soccer goalies dive right 75% of the time; shots still 50/50

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/02/138922339/under-pressure-soccer-goalies-tend-to-dive-right

I don't know that I buy the explanation of why they dive right. It appears to be pure conjecture in the piece, but I'd love to understand it better.

Baca, Hinchey, and Moore didn't vote on the debt ceiling bill. Really? Didn't have anything to add to this one?

Representatives Baca (CA 43), Hinchey (NY 22), and (WI 4) didn't vote on the Debt Ceiling bill. Just didn't vote. I mean, I am kinda sick of the whole thing, but seriously, you're a representative. There is no more national a conversation than the debt ceiling for the last month. Vote YEA or NAY, but for the love of god do some representing!

Am I missing an angle here?

'Start and Park' Racing...broken NASCAR economics.

I know I lost a lot of you with the NASCAR reference, but if you are still reading, you are in for a treat. In a typical NASCAR race, around 40 cars qualify. Some don't finish. I always assumed those cars had mechanical issues and/or a crash.

Turns out, they might have just had money issues. Enter 'start and park' driving. You drive in qualifying - several solo laps to see who can run the fastest. You qualify. Then you start the race, run a few laps, pull onto pit round, into the garage, out of the car, and flip on the television to see the rest of the race for which you qualified.

Sounds crazy. Turns out it is an economic consideration. NASCAR grants points for starting the main race and pays out prize money based on finishing position, even if that finishing position was the result of a DNF (did not finish). So a driver who finishes 36th and runs the race to completion, expending fuel, tires, and parts and risking a wreck may only earn a few hundred dollars more than a driver who pulled in at lap 26 (of like 250) and DNFd at 37th spot. Prize money + costs avoided = good deal.

It is a particularly good deal if you have two cars. You use your main car to race and the start and park car as a cash machine. Second, if your main car crashes or has a mechanical, you swap and permit your start and park car to race to completion. Thing is, that car isn't racing to compete. It's racing to finish. A lot of fun that is to watch.

So start and park makes NASCAR less fun to watch: There are fewer cars out there and of those cars that are out there, the back of the pack is made up of people who aren't really and truly racing.

Boogity Boogity Boogity...Amen. NASCAR gets a prayer in line with its post-race interviews.

When life imitates art, you have to smile. When the life is NASCAR and the art is Talladega Nights, you have to laugh. You just have to watch this.

A balanced budget amendment would mean Congressmen suing Congress with Judges deciding what to cut.

Perfect. Explain to me how conservatives are for this?

http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=a1d274c926216e9fa0322d917c36529b

Clearly I was way out of my league even as a beginner mountain biker. I think my stitches make that clear.

(NOTE: this is a video of the trail I was on. It is not my video.)

So I decided to try my hand - actually my arm, but more on that later - at mountain biking this past Sunday. I ride 10 miles 2-3 times a week on roads with a decent number of hills. I have good bike control, so I thought, "Hey, there is a beginner race, why not?" So this past Sunday I loaded my bike into the civic, which requires dropping both seats, moving the car seat to the front and taking the front wheel and seat off the bike. And I drove 22 minutes to Wakefield VA.

This is not a 'hard' mountain bike trail. But I was to learn that I am not a 'competent' mountain biker. That's not really true. I am certainly in good enough shape. I was not sore after the race. I took to the back of the pack and focused on making it to the end.

And I did, unlike a poor gentleman on the trail who had to be gurneyed out over the berms on uneven terrain. I don't even want to know how long that took. But I understood how it happened.

You see, 'beginner' mountain biking is not like a beginner road race where you can just ride along at a clip and get passed; or a 5K run where most people can suffer to the end. You need to train on trails. Get comfortable with the bike. Learn positioning, traction on different surfaces, handling as you get tired, and so on and so on.

I had not been on a trail in 15 years.

The first lap went ok. I was passed a lot. No problem. My hands hurt from gripping the bars for dear life. I was amazed that anyone was comfortable zipping between branches. I will say that loved the stream crossings. The second lap started a lot better than the first. I knew the trail. I knew better where I had made mistakes in my line and gearing choices. I was focused and tiring some, but I was chugging. Then we hit the switchbacks heading down the berms and I ate it on a left turn.

How? Well, first let me say that I did this on my 'mountain' bike - a TREK 3700 that is perfectly nice on a bike back, but whose bottom bracket (the place where the pedals pass through the frame) was low enough to bottom out and hit many obstacles and knobby wheels were not up to this course. My fellow riders' bikes started at 3x the price of this thing and went up from there. They had larger tires with better rubber and tread patterns and better ground clearance. That would not have solved my problems, but it might have helped.

As I road away, I thought, "God, I hate that falling here means leaning forward into the fall (unlike skiing)." That was interrupted by a wet sensation on my left arm. Looking down at a flat spot I saw that my gloves were helping me grip the handlebar because they were soaking up blood from a decent sized cut. The rest of me was covered in red clay.

A mile later, tired and trying to ease it home, I fell again. Again on a left turn. This time, the browning blood got a layer of thick dirt. I got up and kept going. I finished near the bottom (but not at the bottom) and I was lucky enough to avoid a 'dnf' reserved for two of my compatriots in the class (Men < 34)

At the aid station, they looked in the cut. Poking a cut isn't fun. Just sayin'. Then it was up to me to clean off all the mud in the park bathroom - enough to get in the car, load up the bike, and drive home for a visit to the ER for a second poking. 3 hours later, I was showered, the car was clean, and I had 2 stitches in my arm. Oh, and I don't plan to head out in to the woods on a bike any time soon.

Don't let the happy music fool you, the trail at Wakefield VA is hard.

OK silly reporters, Mr. Robinson does NOT own the house on which he's attempting adverse possession.

The story of Mr. Robinson paying $16 for a mansion is making the rounds on the internet. The reason I am writing about it is that even Gizmodo has the piece. The normally thoughtful blog is caught up by reading headlines.

Mr. Robinson has filed a petition for adverse possession in Texas, cost $16, that would permit him to claim ownership of the house in several years if nobody sues to get him out. The mortgage company foreclosed on the house and went bust so the successor to the company's interests can oust Mr. Robinson and I imagine it will. So the headline should have read: Area Man Pays $16 to Squat. Might Win Jackpot in a Few Years.

Seriously, adverse possession is a holdover in American law. It is possible that 1-2 properties a year convert ownership under this method, but it takes years (around 10 in most places) to complete a claim of adverse possession, so it is rarely successful.

Incidentally, adverse possession has one of the better legal standards. The squatter's possession of the land must be 'open and notorious.' That is, you cannot conceal your possession and - to the contrary - there must be clear signs of your possession. Mr. Robinson certainly has the notorious part down.

I had to enable Captcha for Comments

You'll need to enter a word to verify that you are human before commenting from now on because I have been seeing some bot/spam in the comments. Sorry and keep 'em coming!

Sepak Takraw - Asian Foot Volleyball. Yeah. Link in to watch.

I first saw this sport in the native Hmong tribe villages in the north of Thailand on a trek during my honeymoon. It is not as exotic as it sounds. We wore Keens; the rest of the tourists brought sandals and hiking boots to change through as we transferred from trail to waterfall and so on. The guide - he wore plastic flip flops, pointed out where tribesmen had ridden mopeds up the trail bringing in food and water, and picked a beetle out of a tree (about 3 inches), hooked him to his shirt, and uttered 'snack' by way of explanation.

When we got to the camp/village, the guide set the women to make dinner and pulled out a wicker ball about the size of a regulation softball. The wicker was woven like a loose basket so the ball is totally hollow. If you listen in the video, you can hear the sound - like kicking a rattan ottoman. The white folks jumped in for a try. The rest of the world had a shot at this game having played soccer since their youth. I had no chance because I had not. Still I tried, picking up pointers from a tribesman who had sustained an injury years earlier and now hobbled on one good leg and used the poorly healed one to strike. Years of practice made him very very good.

And then there was dinner where I had to ask where the spicy food was. The Hmong pointed back to his house and brought out a few morsels. I am pretty sure his food works like an insect repellent pill. Anyone else remember the bug zapper Tabasco ad? That.

President of Nauru in the NY Times. I can talk your ear off about Nauru if you let me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/opinion/19stephen.html?gwh=84D441227FC5BADC56E23FA8BEB96ABC

Marcus Stephen, the president of the 8 mile island in the S. Pacific is going to address the UN tomorrow about climate change. Nauru was strip-mined to the core for phosphate starting in the middle of of the 1900s. More recently, it housed a detention center for Australia akin to Gitmo. If that seems radical, consider the fact that the country has no water, few crops, and has been stripped of the one natural resource it had.

I've done a bunch of reading on this little place. If you want to listen a bit dazed and cock-eyed for about 20 minutes, ask me about Nauru.

Career Colleges have done a 180 - now want 'gainful employment' rules to apply to all colleges. Bye bye poetry major.

Here's the NPR report.

Intro to 'Gainful Employment' rules: The U.S. Dept of Ed created 'gainful employment' rules for for-profit educational institutions after studies showed that for-profit colleges, places like ITT tech, etc., had student bodies taking on big federally-backed student loans and graduating to a dearth of jobs. The rules said: If you want your students to be able to get student loans to attend your institution, you have to show that a certain percentage of graduates get jobs.

This is not controversial on two grounds: (a) you are a for-profit institution. If those profits are really the student loans of people you ought to know should not pay them back, what you are really doing is funneling federal dollars in the door on the backs of people who will default and ruin their credit to add to a long list of troubles.

(b) Most for-profit institutions are vocational programs. Their sales pitch on television, radio and internet is simple: Better degree = better job = better wages. If that promise doesn't bear out - and I don't mean per person, I mean across the board - then we need to suspend federal support.

I am surprised that for-profit colleges are so baldly going after non-profit colleges (what one would consider 'traditional' colleges) with the claim of equal treatment. First, the data doesn't back them up. The very reason for 'gainful employment' rules in the first place was the distance between student loan default rates from traditional colleges and these new for-profit colleges. The traditional colleges are the baseline that we've been ok with for years. There are two objections to this: (a) That non-profit colleges include ones with huge corporate deals and campuses and TV deals - how is that really non-profit? (b) Coupled with that is a sense that these colleges lock out the population seeking for-profit institutions on the basis of academics. Even if we set aside the fact that that translates into de facto discrimination on the basis of class, it is unfair to compare the repayment rates of a self-selected group of academic achievers to those who have not achieved. It is literally penalizing C students because their employment rates are not equal to that of A students.

Fair, but that doesn't change the fact that institutions focusing on the C students are not giving them more opportunity. Indeed, the numbers indicate that with more debt and no jobs, this population is worse off. That leads to the second point - the long-term solution to this has to be supportive, not destructive. Gainful employment is destructive - it aims to withhold from institutions that don't meet certain standards. That would leave the market without educational options for what is a predominantly low income and minority population. But America needs more craftsman, manufacturers, and other skilled laborers. So we need to find a way to support this education using something closer to the traditional non-profit college model. I don't know enough to set a path for this, but I have to imagine it is possible.

Nancy Grace, I hold you responsible if Casey Anthony gets hurt.

Nancy Grace publicly stoked the fires against Casey Anthony for months and months now. When Anthony was acquitted of charges and released, she was met outside by an angry mob. I don't know if Anthony is guilty and, frankly, I don't care. Her crime, if she committed one, is one of many committed around the country every day - it is a big place this America. And her prosecution, if botched, is, again, one of many around the country every day.

But what is not part of America every day - dare I label it 'Unamerican' - is to threaten the safety of a fellow citizen who has undergone the due process we have set up to deal with crimes.

And why the hue and cry? Nancy Grace. The woman's vitriol against Anthony on a daily basis is what sensationalized this trial. Indeed, it did as much or more for Grace's fame than for Anthony's. And if Anthony is hurt because people want to take their own vengeance, it will be at least in part because of not just the coverage that Grace provided, but the tone and context in which she delivered it.

Again, I don't have anything but disdain for someone who kills a child, let alone their own child, but we tried this woman for that crime and the people with access to the facts presented said she did not commit that crime. If you are angry at Anthony's lack of human compassion in this ordeal, you are no better if you act in an uncompassionate way.