Word of the Day

panacea \pan-uh-SEE-uh\, noun:

A remedy for all diseases, problems, or evils; a universal medicine; a cure-all.

He considered education "the great panacea" and insisted that access to knowledge was the key to all social progress.
-- Diane Ravitch, Left Back

Song of the Day

Go Your Own Way

- Fleetwood Mac

More UK - Louisville Highlights

Below is an exceptional highlight reel, with Tom Leach's play by play. Its hard to get any better than this.

Florida Student Tasered and Arrested at John Kerry Forum

Here are some related links:
Kerry's Response
The Student's Website
The Facebook Group for a March, Taking Place Today

UK Upset Highlights

Below is the game winning pass, with Tom Leach's play by play. This is classic.



Another video of the pass. Note how incredibly loud the crowd is in this one. Unbelievable.

UK Upsets Number 9 Louisville!

What a game. Unbelievable. Andre Woodson to Steve Johnson on a 57 yard pass with 28 seconds left to take the lead. Here is a highlight montage from ESPN.

Takled the Number Right Off

I don't think I have ever seen this before - Alabama linebacker Rashad Johnson (49) had the numeral 9 knocked off his helmet during this play. My immediate inclination was to dismiss this photograph as one of the many photoshopped pictures floating around the internet - but this picture was taken by an AP photographer. Its the real deal. Nothing like a little hard hitting, SEC football.

NFL Coverage Maps

Here is a link to a pretty neat web site: NFL TV Distribution Maps, which shows which regional games will be shown in what parts of the country. Though I'm not nearly as passionate an NFL fan as I am of the college game, I always find these coverage maps interesting to see.

An old Favorite

Checking In

Right now I'm in the ATL airport with a few free moments until I have to hop on a plane. I just spent the past week in Greenwich, CT - possibly the most ridiculous town I have ever seen. I've included a small sample of pictures that neatly sum up the area. No kidding, as I was walking back from dinner last night, I passed two Corvettes, two Porches, a Lamborghini and an Aston Martin. The majority of the money comes from the ubiquitous hedge funds which are seemingly in every other office building. The last several weeks have been pretty rough for a lot of the "quant" funds, but most of them will be able to escape from the sub-prime mortgage mess.



Two weeks ago I was in Boston, and got to catch a sweet game at Fenway Park. Though I am a staunch opponent of the Red Sox, any sports fan has to recognize the special environment at Fenway.

The week before that, I was out in San Diego, and got to stay at the Torrey Pines Hilton, where my hotel room looked out upon the 18th fairway of the Torrey Pines golf course. Again, I am not a huge golf fan, but looking onto a perfectly manicured course is something anyone should be able to appreciate.

Hopefully my life will slow down a bit and I will be able to get back to posting here regularly on the Julep. Thanks for still checking it out.

I've been pretty busy the last several weeks, hence no updates here. I will be on the road for much of the next four weeks, so most probably posts will be limited until things calm down. With that, I leave you with this neat photo above by Harold Edgerton of MIT, and used for a lecture he gave at MIT in 1964, entitled "How to Make Applesauce at MIT."

Word of the Day

triskaidekaphobia \tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun:

A morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th.

Thirteen people, pledged to eliminate triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13, today tried to reassure American sufferers by renting a 13 ft plot of land in Brooklyn for 13 cents . . . a month.
-- Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1967

Here is one of the odder articles I have come across in a while. In New York, a man severely beat a peacock, claiming that the bird was a vampire.

Per the article on Fox News:

He seized the iridescent bird by the neck, hurled the creature to the ground and started kicking and stomping the animal, said worker Felicia Finnegan.

"He was going crazy," said Finnegan, 19.

Asked what he was doing, she said, the bird-beater explained, "'I'm killing a vampire!"'

iPhone Mania

With the iPhone coming out on Friday, there is much anticipation and excitement among many technophiles, anxiously awaiting the moment when they can get their hands on this new device.

Here is a very informative, 20 minute guided tour of the iPhone.

Everyone I have talked to seems either to think it will be an enormous success, or an enormous flop. Personally, I think the iPhone is going to be a revolutionary device. The price tag is the most difficult hurdle for sales. However, the high price becomes somewhat of a deal, when you realize that the combined cost of purchasing a smart phone and an iPod, is greater than the listed $499 price of a 4GB iPhone. Regardless of the success of the iPhone itself, it will nonetheless spur more research and development from competitors who will be trying to steal some of the market share. Its my own belief that Friday marks the end of the cell phone as we have know it. We are now entering the era of the all-purpose personal device, which will play music, make phone calls, take pictures, send e-mail, watch movies, and even more.

Update
- A very amusing, multi-city live blog of the madness very amusing
- Streaming live video from the line outside the Apple store in San Francisco.
- The Ultimate iPhone Campout Guide

Some pics:

The Media Revolution

A look into the future?

Oil Supply

This article maintains that the worldwide oil supply is diminishing at a rate faster than previously believed. I'm not sure I entirely believe it, but here you have it.

According to "peak oil" theory our consumption of oil will catch, then outstrip our discovery of new reserves and we will begin to deplete known reserves.

Colin Campbell, the head of the depletion centre, said: "It's quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it's gone."

Sounds pretty simple, huh. A more vexing, and obvious question remains: what to do when we run out of oil?

U.S. President's Job Approval Ratings

Graph from the Wall Street Journal.

Two interesting observations:
1. Every President, with the exception of Clinton, had a worse rating upon leaving office, than upon entering.

2. Every President, with the exception of W. Bush, had a better approval rating upon entering office, than the President immediately preceding him.

Christopher Hitchens on Paris Hilton:
"Siege of Paris: The Creepy Populism Surrounding high-Profile Defendants."

U.S. States Renamed for Countries with Similiar GDPs