Nexus friend grapher is an app that uses the facebook api to analyze and map your network of friends. It’s amazing how quickly you can see the structure in a social network, the different circles of friends, the extent to which they overlap, etc.

Mine is interesting, primarily in that there is not much structure. I have two main clumps: ultimate and FHS, but there is obviously a lot of overlap. I think this is due partly to being in one town for a long time, but also due to the fact that I don’t seek out or accept a lot of friend requests from family and work coleagues. Basically these are the two groups i don’t mind getting drunk with, and therefore the groups that i don’t mind seeing the drunken photos that will be all over it. I do have a hypothesis, though, that people who play a lot of ultimate will generally have more inbred looking graphs (since the community is so tight knit and kindof follows us wherever we go). Hopefully as more of my friends create their graphs I can test it. Please post a comment if you do this so I can go check yours out.

Oh and if you are not on the facebook, this is finally the excuse you needed. That, and I’ll actually know when it’s your birthday.

Are listed here. My favorites:

eschew,
penumbra,
adroit,
epicure,
ebullient,
esoteric, and
pastiche.

H/t Slog, where “cockle” proved divisive.

I heard about these lil’ guys on NPR today. They are led by a 15-year old Californian whose parents wrote a book called “How to Raise a G-Rated family.” What he’s started is a fire of foregoing foulmouthedness akin to the flames which occasionally sweep into his periphery of his Pasadena neighborhood.

Kid’s now writing a book about it all.

As you can well imagine, he’s been cursed out quite a bit since beginning all this - by phone, email, physical face, you name it. NPR even played a harrowing death threat. But he’s “ain’t fazed” by all that bullying, he told Jay Leno. He just keeps on a-flippity-flappin’ those arms and rapping his message home.

If you look at the facebook page of the rap video below, notice how all comments have been disabled.
I’d imagine no less than 150,000 would have written something disparaging about the piece by now.

Don\'t CUSS!!!!

Steve Nash doing some crazy Matrix shit.

I can’t take credit for this. The good folks at Interbasket came up with it.

Obama may be wearing the pants now, but we still have a country filled with people like these:

42% of Americans support state-sponsored torturing.
55% of Republican Americans support state-sponsored torturing.
65% of Republican American men support state-sponsored torturing.

I could give this more nuance, but I’m not.

Okay, number 3 has to be the last one– until I move into a bigger place. As a smart women told me early on, typewriters are an impractical collectible.

But this one was a beaut, non-electric and in pristine condition.

The next time someone tells you that they prefer the judicial “conservatism” or “modesty” of Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito, because it limits the discretion of unelected judges, please kindly them refer to these justices’ recent opinion in Herring v. United States, No. 07-513, decided today. Because they’re wrong.

The Exclusionary Rule is a well founded doctrine of constitutional law. Generally, the Exclusionary Rule provides that any evidence obtained as a result of a 4th Amendment violation is inadmissable at trial. End of discussion. No judicial analysis or interpretation required. (Well…, I’m simplifying this a bit.) The Rule serves as the only deterrent against governmental violation of the 4th Amendment rights. Without the Exclusionary Rule, evidence obtained as a result of a unconstitutional search or seizure could be admitted against you.

In Herring, the conservative wing plus Justice Kennedy determined that the Exclusionary Rule is not absolute. Rather, judges must engage in a fact-intensive, case-by-case balancing test. Under the Herring decision,

To trigger the exclusionary rule, police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system.

The effect of this open-ended standard is, of course, to subject the Exclusionary Rule to substantial judicial discretion and personal bias– the exact opposite of what the conservative wing purports to espouse.

How much is a CEO worth to his company. For Apple, a whole lot. Which is why tomorrow’s going to be painful for Apple shareholders:

Saying his health-related issues were “more complex” than he originally thought, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, announced Wednesday that he would take a medical leave of absence from the company until the end of June.

NYT. Watch Apple’s stock fall here.

More than I would expect. After a solid month of unsubstantiated rumors about Steve Jobs’ cancer repressing Apple’s stock price, shares climbed more than 4% on Monday on news that Jobs was suffering from a mere “hormone imbalance”, not a recurrence of his cancer. Apple’s market cap is roughly $84 billion, which means that the fact that Jobs is only “kind of” sick and not really sick is worth roughly $3.4 billion for Apple.

Meanwhile, Tyson shares were at one point down 10% Monday on news that its CEO resigned. Tyson is a much smaller company: it’s market cap is $3.2 billion. So, without its CEO, the market thought (at least for a while today) that Tyson was worth $300 million less than when the day started.

Me? How much do I think I’m worth to my firm? I’m no CEO, and my firm is privately held. But if I had to guess, 0.0001%.

Mobiles? I’m really enjoying mine: metal, but delicate, ever-changing in shape.

This quip from the NYT is money:

You could say that absinthe is a kindred spirit of so many falsely subversive things: ear piercing for men, tattoos on women, those cigar bars, pole-dancing-aerobics classes, mind erasers, blogging about one’s bikini grooming, naming one’s bong after a cartoon character.

And a close second:

Once the naughty aura of the forbidden fruit is removed, all that remains is a grasp at unearned sophistication. If absinthe were a band, it would be Interpol, third-hand piffle masquerading as transgressive pop culture. If absinthe were sneakers, it would be a pair of laceless Chuck Taylors designed by John Varvatos for Converse. If it were facial hair, it would be the soul patch. If absinthe were a finish on kitchen and bath fixtures, it would be brushed nickel.

Here’s to health, wealth and stealth in the new year!