Page Too Is Dead, Long Live Page Too

Whoopsy.  Didn't realize that we failed to post a notice over here on page too when we integrated it into the main Coppola Comments site this fall.

All of the posts here on page too are now also on the main page, and all new posts have been going up there for a while now.

Tommy John

With Nationals' phenom Stephen Strasburg reportedly getting ready for Tommy John surgery the baseball corner of the internets has lit up with folks discussing the process and the road to recovery and comparing various pitchers who have returned to dominance after the procedure etc etc perhaps even ad nauseum.

The bottom line definitely seems to be that it isn't a career ending injury / surgery these days and that we'll have to wait and see.  Also, that this is a major bummer for baseball fans everywhere, not just those pulling for the Nats.

It looks like one of the most interesting things out there concerning TJ surgery may be Braves' pitcher Kris Medlin's  new blog documenting his recovery from the procedure two weeks ago.  If he keeps it up it will definitely be worth following.

Color Me Impressed

Pretty Sure this is about the most ridiculous baseball catch I've ever seen...



(via AC @ Kottke)

Sports Night

Raise your hand if that short-lived yet brilliant show was one of your favorites...me too.

Now go check out some of the latest musings on the sports that are currently important (hint: that means baseball and the kind of football that the rest of the world plays, no Lebron will not be making an appearance).

Let's start with some World Cup coverage shall we.  This is probably my favorite sporting event, the stage is enormous, the entire world gets way into it, and the stakes, tension, pressure, and excitement grow with every game.  It was a bit of a rough weekend with Ghana and Paraguay (the sides I was pulling for) going out in heartbreaking style.  Still good showings from both countries but still.  At this point I'm an underdog fan so go Uruguay! I hate rooting for teams that knocked off my previous interest, but that's just how it's gone this time around.  Plus Frolan has been a lot of fun to watch and way involved in every game. Maybe what I really want to say is go Netherlands though...

On the internets, Twitter has been a buzz during the Cup with lots of cool little features like the soccer ball for the #WorldCup and flags if you hash-tag the countries as well.  Also, perhaps not surprisingly, Twitter will often tell you that it's over capacity if you check it right after a goal or a game ends.

Roddy Doyle wrote a terrific little piece for the New Yorker's website on watching England lose.  And Joe Posnanski, who I hadn't pegged as a soccer fan, has been turning in excellent dispatches from his trip to South Africa.  Back at the New Yorker, Reeves Wiedeman has a nice look at the importance of soccer to the ANC prisoners on Robbins island in South Africa's ever-present past.

On the diamond, Joe P had a nice piece on Bob Gibson last week.  He's been on a streak of sorts writing eloquently about older players stars and less recognized guys alike.  Rob Neyer's look at the "rules" surrounding tender young arms is more than worth your time as well.  Now if I could just figure out what the Bull's rotation schedule looked like so I could go see Hellickson throw.

On a final note if you'd like to give your inner sports fan a good scare, or just stay on top of a developing situation the new blog Balls, Strikes, and Lockouts wants you to know that all of the major leagues have labor agreements coming up for negotiation in the next calendar year.  As a hockey fan who's seen two games since the lockout and still misses Coach on NHL Tonight let's hope they get this stuff sorted.  Balls, Strikes, and Lockouts looks to be a spot that will help you keep it sorted along the way.

You Should Really Just Be Reading Kottke

But in case you don't, watch this video he had up recently...



And yes, I was also unimpressed that an un-mortared brick wall fell over at the end. Overall still very cool.

Wi-Fi Everywhere

You can get a coffee pretty much anywhere these days, in some cities you can even walk across the street from one Starbucks to the next to see which one has baristas making the better espresso.

On July 1 you'll be able to cross the street and see which Starbucks has the quicker router set up.

That's right, starting next month Starbucks is running free wi-fi.

Lego Art

From Balakov's Flickr set Classics in Lego. His other Lego themed shots are pretty cool as well.

I do remember fondly the time before lego sold out and did movie deals when you had to use your imagination to play with the best toys ever though.

(via kottke)

Goodbye Productivity

So the Google Doodle for the Pac-man anniversary was awesome, and now it has a permanent home on the web, kiss your free time goodbye. At least for a little while, without extra levels it will get old soon enough.

Anyone remember how to play snake in your gmail?

World Cup Fever

Catch It!



(this video originally appeared in a Vimeo format which is no longer available)

World Cup commercials continue to be the best sports ads out there.

Who can forget this one...



(via Joe Posnanski for the new one)

Brighten Your Day

Color me impressed! These guys are managing to paint entire blocks of favelas in Rio, and are hoping to paint an entire one some day. Very crazy, but very cool, and apparently amazingly successful.

There's more info on their website, and a lot more pictures on their facebook page.

(via MF on fb)

Facebook, The Spread of Info and Growth of the Behemoth

That's a really long title for a post that's going to be quite short.

Matt McKeon put together this interactive info-graphic on the evolution of privacy (of your info) on Facebook. It's pretty much all over the internets by now, but I thought it was pretty neat and that you might like to see it.

There's some other interesting stuff going on, in terms of looking at how rapidly Facebook is growing and in it's drive to become more interwoven with the fabric of the internets in general. Arguably making itself a more useful and valuable resource, albeit improvements that may well come at the cost of your privacy...

Old News On A Former Luddite

Well the term Luddite probably isn't very accurate for Conan O'Brien without the modifier Web. Seems that despite 16 years on TV Conan had pretty much zero web presence until the late night brouhaha broke out.

Now he's all over the place and doing pretty well on the internets as this interesting NYT piece from a month or so ago details.

So Long Ernie Harwell

I don't know much about Ernie Harwell, just that he was an old school broadcaster. Ernie passed away today and I learned that he called Tigers games, many folks have stories about him, and that Ernie knew exactly what Baseball is...



(via Rob Neyer)

Green It Up

So I threw together some 30 second videos for the Nicholas School's Green In 3 video contest. Needless to say I didn't win, some dude with a helicopter did, but I thought I would share all the same...







Worth mentioning that the best thing I saw associated with this project was one of the countless posters advertising it on Duke's campus with "waste less paper" scrawled on it. Brilliant, and oh so apropos.

GLEE!

I finally have the internet at my house again- and now I have time to find totally rad videos like this one:

Pick A Font, Any Font

So I still can't get huge infographics to show up in blogger right. I'll put this one up and see what happens, I recommend clicking on the image to get taken to a full view of it.

A nifty little tool for choosing a font from Julian Hansen via JB's FB page...

Notes From A Master

David Mamet misses occasionally, but when he's on his game he is the top dog (anyone seen Heist... My guy is so cool when he goes to sleep sheep count him.).

If you like movies, or television for that matter, (and yes I mean good movies and tv) you'll enjoy the memo from Mamet to the writers of the erstwhile tv drama The Unit, for which he was a producer. It's been making the rounds, and it's worth the time. There's a copy up on Moveline.

On Brackets and March

So I didn't do a bracket this year (have I mentioned this already) but Jon Michaud at the New Yorker did, and Kansas did him in...

Friends, Kansans, bracketologists, lend me your ears;
I come to bury the Jayhawks, not to praise them;
The picks that men make live after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Kansas…The noble Dickie V.
Hath told you Kansas was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Kansas answered it…
Here, under leave of Dickie V. and the rest,
(For Dickie V. is an honorable man;
So are they all; all honorable men)
Come I to speak at Kansas’s funeral…
They were my pick, unprofitable and disloyal to me:
But Dickie V. says Kansas was ambitious;
And Dickie V. is an honorable man….
He hath brought many winners home to ESPN,
Whose brackets did his coffers fill:
Did this in Kansas seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Kansas hath swept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Dickie V. says Kansas was ambitious;
And Dickie V. is an honorable man.

(reprinted in full because it's just so good)

I Love The Internet: Vol. Something Or Other

I just can't imagine scientific proposals for the indirect surveying of zombies being written without the interwebs...

"How many zombies do you know?" Using indirect
survey methods to measure alien attacks and outbreaks
of the undead

Andrew Gelman George A. Romeroy

12 Mar 2010

Abstract
The zombie menace has so far been studied only qualitatively or through
the use of mathematical models without empirical content. We propose to use
a new tool in survey research to allow zombies to be studied indirectly without
risk to the interviewers.

Be sure to read the whole paper.

(via MR)

This Pisco Is Not Sour

Check out the CSM's photo of the day...

Pilar Olivares/Reuters

Follow the link for the details.

(via a certain special someone)

So That Google Phone Must Be Pretty Good...

Apple has just sued HTC over the Nexus One (aka the Google Phone). The prevailing thought seems to be that Apple is trying to slow down Google's Android phone os. Android, like all things google, will one day just take everything over.

I suppose it might be a good legal delaying tactic, but to the average consumer I think it does more to signal that Apple is scared that the google phone is better than the iphone than anthing else.

This Too Shall Pass

The song and blog post you'll one day forget. But this kick ass Rube Goldberg machine will be with you always...



That's probably the greatest Rube Goldberg ever, granted they're a band with funding to make it happen not one of the guys who just builds them around the house for fun, but I'm ok with that.

Getting Schooled...

In case you were curious here's the official bio of my school's Dean, who is a pretty cool guy based on our limited interactions.

And here is his IMDB page.

Yeah, interesting huh. Wait until you see the trailer...



Update:
I forgot to mention he has a blog as well.

The Flying Tomato

Not sure if folks are stilling laying that moniker on Shaun White. I am sure however that the dude can definitely ride a snowboard.

If last nights half-pipe still has you fired up you'll enjoy the NYT's video library of tricks, complete with rider interviews and descriptions.

(via news desk)

Map It!

Google maps is definitely not gonna let well enough alone. Not only have they been adding college campuses and other pedestrian areas they're also tackling the oceans (okay that's technically google earth not maps), and today they added some mountains...



Yes the street view man logo turned into a skier.

Super Ads

I had a great time watching the Super Bowl this year with a great crowd of friends, it didn't hurt at all that our host are big time Saints fans, with proper NO connections, who prepared some of the most kick-ass gumbo that I've ever had.

The ads are always an important part of any Super Bowl viewing as well. I found this year's a little lacking overall a couple stood out for me though.

First the crowd favorite far and away was the little kid Doritos one:


I also really enjoyed the Google ad, it was cute and different enough to catch everyone's attention, plus we all made references to googling things the entire rest of the night:


A final note after lots of talk about what a controversy the Tebow ad was and would be, it was such an uninteresting spot that none of us even knew it was on until the very end when someone said isn't that that Tebow guy?

Freaky Deaky

So a friend of mine sent along a link to a book called Get High Now, which is astonishingly not about what you think, at least not exactly.

The web page offer some tidbits, and although the video's haven't been playing for me this grid is pretty wild...

For more on the book and how this grid works check out the website.

Thanks POH, now back away from the giraffe buddy...

Zoom Zoom

Ezra Klein is right, this site is awesome. Zoom from the teeny, tiniest size imaginable all the way to farther than you could ever possibly see.

Remember that whole thing about there being laws to physics...

That's Not Bucky

Alternately titled Bucky vs The Weasel It Ain't. Check this out...



(via EK)

Team CoCo

I can't say that I've watched any late night tv in quite a while now. I've always been a Conan fan though and I could have told you (as could many folks but apparently no one in the NBC boardroom) that Leno at 10 was a terrible idea.

I have been entertained by the two week long train wreck that has been NBC coverage and programing. Mary Elizabeth Williams has a great wrap up on Salon that's worth a look whether you've been paying attention to this nonsense or not.

It seems like Conan spent the past six months or so trying to give us that extra cowbell he thinks we deserve, you should at least watch him say goodbye...

Far Freaking Out Man

CNN has the lastest high tech video craziness to hit the web, a 360 degree video that lets you pan the view around while the video plays. It's fairly wild.

The video itself is a walk through what appears to be a park / square in PAP Haiti.

You can zoom in as well, although it won't let you loop the loop over the top (you bet I tried). It's also fun to pan around and check out the shadow of the guy wearing the contraption to try and get an idea of what the video rig looks like.


(via kottke)

As Your Facebook Turns

Facebook just keeps growing and in the process becoming more important and harder to do without. For the most part they seem to do good things and to be fairly decently motivated.

The Rumpus has a neat interview with a fb employee from the end of this past summer, nothing that would be shocking if you're paying attention and a couple of cool bragging points, like translating the entire site into Farsi in 36 hours in the wake of the contested Iranian elections.

Have yourself a look, it's fun.

(via kottke)

No Man Misdeals With Joshua Quince

Just go already. Although I am a bit disappointed with Joshua Quince for The Jesus...

(via kottke)

Insanity Is Good For The Kitchen

It may however require quite a bit of clean-up...



These two really do make a great pair, I can't even imagine how poorly Andres would mesh with Letterman or Leno or Conan...

(via EK)