1. Capping interchange fees, from the new Ostrich blog.
2. James Boswell on courtship and sex.
3. Topalov had a computer cluster with 112 cores.
5. How the banking bill might affect consumers.
6. Has American commercialism, and the American Sunbelt, corrupted hockey?
6. Boy, talk about leaving out a lot of facts to make your point. Hockey moved into the Sunbelt to chase retiree and other transplant dollars, not to provide wholesome entertainment. A co-worker visited his parents in Chapel Hill, where they moved after his dad retired from Chrysler in Detroit. They gave him and his brother tickets to the Hurricanes game against the Red Wings. He said it was like being at Joe Louis Arena, Yzerman jerseys everywhere. It also leaves out that the move has been a flop, for the most part. The Predators almost moved to Hamilton, Ontario. The Phoenix Coyotes went bankrupt and also faced being moved to Hamilton.
As for the tacky new arenas, that’s just par for the course in modern sports. At least the Predators don’t play in a strip mall like the Hartford Whalers used to do.
“[...]while at the same time in this enchanting union he exults with a consciousness that he is the superior person.”
To a linguist studying articles, this is rather interesting. On a contemporary reading, it would seem to mean “the superior person in the relationship”, man as superior to woman. But this doesn’t make sense in context, where he is expressing a preference for higher-bred women. His apparent meaning, I would have to express with the indefinite article.
Good data. Thanks.
The real story is not Topalov’s cluster, but that 2 former (Kasparov, Kramnik) and one future world champ (Carlsen) were Vishy’s seconds. I believe this is unprecedented in the history of chess. Kramnik’s help is especially stunning since Vishy beat him for the world championship.
Goes to show how low Topalov’s esteem is among his peers, and how high Anand’s is.
Re: the Boswell link: somewhat irresponsible to post snippets such as this whereas the brilliance of ‘Life of Johnson’ might be inaccessible for those of whom have had this type of introduction.
I think Boswell’s London Journal burst on the world in the 1950s,
cortesy of Yale Press, and produced a sensation. The biographer
of the high-minded Samuel Johnson oscillating between high romantic
love and random assignations on the streets (with the reality of VD
in the foreground) had a strange fascination for quite a few readers.
One wonders if Johnson, a man of shrewd insight, had an inkling of
what the admiring Scottish laird was up to behind the scenes. Johnson
had a profound sense of man’s fallen condition and of the need for
redmption.
18th century rationality had its dark irrational side.
Tomasz, what is the reason interchange fees should be capped? Also, I was under the impression that there are multiple credit card companies competing with each other. Why do they spend money on advertisements building brand-recognition?
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