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Matthew Yglesias on The Nordic Passion for Coffee

via yglesias.thinkprogress.org

The Swedes are actually a bit less coffee-mad than the Finns, Norwegians, Danes, or Icelanders but as you can see here all the Nordic peoples drink a ton of coffee, in the Swedish case a bit less than twice as much per capita as Americans do. The Södermalm area of Stockholm where Mikael Blonkvist and Lisbeth Salander live and Millenium and Milton Security are headquartered is just littered with coffee houses like nothing I’ve ever seen in America (incidentally, this is where I stayed when I was in Stockholm on the recommendation of a blog reader—it’s a hugely fun neighborhood, definitely stay there if you visit). Personally, I drink way more coffee than the average American and find this aspect of Swedish life congenial. Even I, however, had to balk at the extreme quantity of coffee I was served in Finland where consumption is absolutely off the charts.

Buster Posey

His first MLB at bat this year. Result: hit and RBI:

I will "Like," this, "Favorite" this, "Reblog" this, whatever. I welcome our new Buster overlord.

via mobile.quid.pro

On Mets Attendance

A recent New York Times article about the Mets' attendance is being widely discussed in the Metsosphere: "After 22 home games, attendance at Citi Field is down 6,852 fans a game, the largest decline by number in Major League Baseball."

Shannon from The Mets Police: "You kids won’t believe how many 'Mets fans' there were in the second half of 1986. If you are looking for them now, they are the folks with the Jeter jerseys with the name on the back."

Shannon also took notes during Mets VP David Howard's recent WFAN appearance in which he discussed attendance and earlier in the season exchanged some letters with the Mets front office about their ticket selling process.

Regarding the dwindling crowds, loving curmudgeon "Kingman" from Loge 13 opines, "There are lots of factors - bad economy, smaller stadium, awful team, epic meltdowns." On club access: "Met fans, regardless of ticket location, should be able to enter any place in the stadium if the Mets want the stadium to really feel like home." Good points!

This is not an easy problem to solve, but here are a few ideas...

Font rendering on the iPad screen is a [pain].

JH: Personally I disagree — we’re testing all of our screen-optimized fonts on both desktop platforms and the iPad, and the iPad’s rendering (especially in-browser rendering) is demonstrably superior to even Safari 4 for Macintosh. But this is a discussion for another day, since all the fonts on the Wired app were rendered on a desktop platform, and provisioned to the app in the form of flat PNG files. The Wired app does not use the iPad’s rendering software at all.

via informationarchitects.jp

Buried in the flame war over the Wired iPad app (which by itself qualifies it as a success) are these insightful comments by Jonathan Hoefler. I think that publishing a large set of .pngs and calling it an application is ... suboptimal, but it certainly created an opportunity for superior typography.

The comments Oliver made about Scott Dadich are a little bizarre. Why go there? Especially since there's so much good thinking about iPad design on Oliver's site.

From the MoMA.

As one of the sentiments expressed in the song is man's disregard for the natural world around us, we were concerned with how the animals we would be working with would be treated. Rest assured, not only were these animals treated with love, respect and tenderness, they were the stars. The word divas comes to mind. It was perfect, we worked on their schedule and pace.

via frontrow.ilovemetric.com

BREAKING: Trader Joe's Opening on 6th Ave

via hello typepad

It’s official. Many have rumored it, but now hello typepad brings you this exclusive. Trader Joe’s is definitely opening at 21st and 6th in the old Barnes and Noble space. The powerhouse of Grimaldi’s and TJ’s cannot be stopped.

DEVELOPING More information will be provided as we get it.

MUST CREDIT hellotypepad.com

UPDATE: Some people are questioning the scoop-edness of this scoop. I refer you to the foursquare location for "Future Trader Joe's."

Godspeed, my friend.

Colorized MacBook Pro Keyboard Backlight

I use my MacBook Pro for astronomy. The backlit keyboard would be great in the dark, but its white light is bad for night vision. This mod makes it red, or any other color you want.

via www.sealiesoftware.com

Cool idea!

Bill Lee, 1974

Josh Wilker has wrapped up his book tour, and the final stop was at Fenway Park.

A guy ambled over to us as we pulled in, and I explained why I was there. “You’re the authah,” he said.

It's Bill "Spaceman" Lee!

Bill was leafing through the book and telling stories about the players in the cards at the head of each chapter. He said J.R. Richard almost ended his life with an errant fastball that passed close to his head during a spring training game. He said John D’Acquisto once got so down after getting a tongue-lashing from manager Dick Williams that Lee and others had to hold D’Acquisto back from leaping out of an airplane. He criticized Mike Kekich for trying to distance himself from his unusual marital experiment involving teammate Fritz Peterson in the early 1970s (“You’ve got to own that kind of thing,” Bill said). He may or may not have said that [someone whose name rhymes with “Wedgie Paxson”] was an [something that rhymes with “mass soul”].

Lee is a legend when it comes to funny stories. But this is incredible:

Bill watched David Ortiz bat with special interest. He’s a bat-maker, and Ortiz uses one of his creations, made from a tree Lee had chopped down himself in Vermont. Later, after we said goodbye to Bill and went across the street to the game, Ortiz used that Vermont wood to clout a two-run home run, the difference-maker in a 3-2 win. It just barely cleared the top of the wall. I choose to think that Bill Lee’s handiwork made the difference.

via cardboardgods.net