Christopher Galtenberg

"Starbucks was the gateway drug to specialty coffee. Customers tried it there first and then graduated to the often-superior products sold by indie shops. Even Duane Sorensen, owner of the proudly anti-corporate Stumptown Coffee in Portland, Oregon, concedes that Starbucks raised standards in the industry. Ward Barbee, publisher of the coffee publication Fresh Cup, is even more effusive. “Every morning, I bow down to the great green god for making all of this possible,” he told the Willamette Weekly in 2004. In short, Starbucks and indie shops grew up side by side. Indie shops learned from Starbucks’s retailing genius and built off its customer base. Then the indie shops left Starbucks in the dust." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

A must read review by Ebert of Stein's "Expelled". And a classic cartoon at the bottom. - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"You discover a small, promising production company named Premise Media. You like the sound of that word premise. It sounds like a plausible alternative to the word theory. To confirm this, you look both up in your dictionary: premise noun. A previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion: if the premise is true, then the conclusion must be true. e.g., if God exists, then he created everything. theory noun. A system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained. e.g., Darwin's theory of evolution. Your point exactly!" - Christopher Galtenberg

"There are millions of conservative scientists, and only a tiny handful disagree with evolution, because rejecting scientific proof is not permissive conservative behavior. In that one use of the word "liberal" the Creationist religious agenda is peeking through. I would translate it as "evolutionists side with anybody against a cherished Evangelical belief." Why are they always trying to push evolutionists over the edge, when they're the ones clinging by their fingernails?" - Christopher Galtenberg

"Sci Fi Channel has given the long-gestating "Battlestar Galactica" prequel "Caprica" a series order. The network has made a significant commitment to the project, ordering 20 hours, including a two-hour pilot." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"Terrorism in this part of the world usually means bombs exploding or hotels burning, as the latest horrific scenes from Mumbai attest. Yet alongside the brutal public terrorism that fills the television screens, there is an equally cruel form of terrorism that gets almost no attention and thrives as a result: flinging acid on a woman’s face to leave her hideously deformed." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"Welcome to computer science in the 21st century. Did you ever wonder how computers represent DNA? How they can download a web page containing population data and analyze it to spot trends? Or how they can remove red-eye from a color photograph? If so, this book is for you. By the time you’re done, you’ll know how to do all of that and a lot more. And Python makes it easy and fun." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

kind of a cool business model .. i will gladly pay you now for a hamburger i may eat tomorrow .. - Gregory Lent

For a quarter of a meat patty today, some cheese next week, and bun next month :) - Christopher Galtenberg

"Script not only takes CPU and battery life, it takes time. Time to execute, render and in some cases, time to fetch the remote code. By disabling script you significantly improve browsing speeds on low power devices and by definition, you save battery life. I tried it a few weeks ago with the noscript plugin and I’ve seen many comments on UMPCPortal from users that also use the technique. It really works!" - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"You lock yourself out of application sites like Google reader initially but it doesn’t take any effort to enable exceptions for these sites as you go along. No more hung page loads waiting for remote sites to time out. No more of those terribly annoying auto-start video ads that make browsing on a low-end PC a misery. There’s even an improvement in security." - Christopher Galtenberg

"Over the past year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has delivered a series of remarkable speeches echoing and advancing Rice’s themes. “In recent years, the lines separating war, peace, diplomacy and development have become more blurred and no longer fit the neat organizational charts of the 20th century,” he said in Washington in July. Gates does not talk about spreading democracy, at least in the short run. He talks about using integrated federal agencies to help locals improve the quality and responsiveness of governments in trouble spots around the world. He has developed a way of talking about security and foreign policy that is now the lingua franca in government and think-tank circles." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"This morning at the National Governor’s Association, Biden took the opportunity to talk a bit about the virtues of investing in rail" - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"We now know that blacks probably didn’t tip the balance for Proposition 8. Myth busted. However, the fact remains that a strikingly high percentage of blacks said they voted to ban same-sex marriage in California... One can mathematically deduce that of the raw number of survey respondents, nearly twice as many black women said that they voted for it than black men." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"Comparing the struggles of legalizing interracial marriage with those to legalize gay marriage is a bad idea... [And] don’t debate the Bible... Make it part of a broader discussion about the perils of rigidly applying yesterday’s sexual morality to today’s sexual mores. Show black women that it backfires..." - Christopher Galtenberg

"These individuals indulge in terrorism simply because they can, while their audience concocts a rationale on their behalf. Welcome to the age of celebrity terrorism." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"The invitation to the world's D-list malcontents reads as follows: No matter how corrupt your moral sense, how contorted your view of the world, how vapid and inarticulate your ideas, how talentless you are and how exaggerated your grievance, an obsessive audience will watch your every move and turn you into what you most want to be, just before your death." - Christopher Galtenberg

Dream Theater is a band that I would absolutely, completely love... if only they would do nothing but instrumentals. Their insanely godawful lyrics tend to absolutely ruin otherwise great tunes. - kris. nuttycombe

"What the philistine media take for incoherence is, in fact, the fruitful ambiguity of verse. Here she is, in a work I have taken to calling “The Relevance of Africa.” In it, Palin blends the energy of free verse with the austerity of a classic 14-line sonnet." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

“And the relevance to me /With that issue, /As we spoke /About Africa and some /Of the countries /There that were /Kind of the people succumbing /To the dictators /And the corruption /Of some collapsed governments /On the /Continent, /The relevance /Was Alaska’s.” - Christopher Galtenberg

"A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges." - Christopher Galtenberg

Reminds me of "O Holy Cow," the gut-bustingly funny book of verse some jokers made out of New York Yankee announcer Phil Rizzuto's verbal meanderings (http://bit.ly/Rhxl). Alas, the Scooter was a much more likeable character than Palin. I just want her to go away. - Ian Wilker

"What's really going on in the Gulf of Aden? It's time for Somali Pirates 101." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"Yet philosophy does, at its best, clarify and promote a healthy scepticism. Since it draws (or should draw) no final conclusions - a conclusion in the sense of a fact would not be philosophy but science - it makes us aware that inconclusiveness is very deeply embedded in our language and, therefore, our natures. Only people who understand this are worth knowing and so, perhaps, only philosophers are worth knowing, though such people are seldom philosophers by profession. Anyway, happy World Inconclusiveness Day. I think." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"Man, we libertarians really fell for it. For a long time, I was kind of amazed by the libertarian rhetoric of the GOP, the way that somebody could argue for torture and corporate welfare and unchecked police powers and massive deficits and a global empire, and then follow it up with “Because I believe in limited government and the free market.” The cognitive dissonance wasn’t what bugged me (I’m cynical enough to take it as a given that politicians know how to lie) but rather that they would even bother appealing to the small government crowd that they feel free to screw over. I mean, aren’t we, like, a miniscule faction?" - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"And then it hit me–it was never about us. All those dog whistles that libertarians respond to whenever Republicans blow the whistle? Those were for other people. Second amendment? It’s a cultural thing, not principle. Free markets? Intellectual cover for corporate welfare. Limited government? This is their way of saying to the subsidized farmers of the Great Plains and the employees of the Military-Industrial Complex and all the other beneficiaries of GOP-style redistribution “Don’t worry, you aren’t a welfare recipient like all those city folks that I bash. You’re better than that. You’re a hearty, self-reliant person who supports limited government.”" - Christopher Galtenberg

"The fact that we fell for it was just a coincidence. The fact that some of us actually provided them with pet intellectuals was just icing on the cake." - Christopher Galtenberg

"The sources said that Daschle negotiated that he will also serve as the White House health "czar," or point person, so that he will report directly to the incoming president. By wearing two hats, Daschle -- not White House staffers -- will be writing the health care plan that Obama submits to Congress next year." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

Excellent point from Ezra Klein http://www.prospect.org/csnc/b...: "You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate. And he accepts because he has been assured that you mean to attempt health care reform." - Christopher Galtenberg

Continuing: "Daschle is a guy whose last job was lining up votes. He is also a guy who has recently written a book on health reform. Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis should now be on every health wonk's reading list. Among other things, his book argues that reform must be comprehensive, as we can no longer afford incrementalism or inaction, and that the real problem with health care reform is, well, Congress." - Christopher Galtenberg

Why is this big? "it has been demonstrated to run a Python interpreter and Nintendo Emulator" - Christopher Galtenberg

"When it comes to appointing a secretary of state, you do not want a team of rivals." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"Foreign leaders can spot daylight between a president and a secretary of state from 1,000 miles away. They know when they’re talking to the secretary of state alone and when they are talking through the secretary of state to the president. And when they think they are talking to the president, they sit up straight; and when they think they are talking only to the secretary of state, they slouch in their chairs." - Christopher Galtenberg

"To clarify, my definition of design goes beyond aesthetic qualities and into areas of maintenance, cost, profitability, speed, and purpose. However, I still think that the Drudge Report is an aesthetic masterpiece even though I also consider it ugly. Can good design also be ugly? I think Drudge proves it can." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"People talk about timeless design all the time. But most things people point to that are timeless end up being time stamped. The Drudge Report, on the other hand, has proven timeless." - Christopher Galtenberg

"The site feels like a chaotic newsroom with the cutting room floor exposed. I think that’s part of the excitement — and good design." - Christopher Galtenberg

Drudge has a design??? Wow. :) - kris. nuttycombe

"This doodle by then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama sold for $2,075 last year in a charity auction. Pictured are fellow Sens. Charles Schumer (from left), Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein and Edward Kennedy." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"Back in 2007 we had a customer who tried to pay for the download in Pakistan, and then paid for it with a debit card. It was the only card payment he had, and it was rejected. He had no other forms of payment, and we had to write it off as a loss while he got to enjoy using his software for free." - Christopher Galtenberg via Bookmarklet

"In October 2008 a letter came in the mail with a check from a customer for the Download version. Obviously this raised some questions as we could not process a download order paid by check. I opened up the file with the name on it, and lo and behold, there was the guy from Pakistan who we had written off the charge for." - Christopher Galtenberg