Author: John

Dell: They’ve finally announced that new XT2 Tablet. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the fact that this is based on a standard Intel chipset is automatically a huge improvement over the woeful XT. Speaking of the XT, Dell’s also blogging about driver updates for it. Weird. Brand New: Yellow/Roadway’s new crappy logo. (As…

More Urban Farming: On the heels of Cleveland’s recent relaxation of zoning rules, Lakewood’s also looking at allowing residents to raise chickens. Ned Hill and Fran Stewart: The New City Beautiful. The “old” City Beautiful movement was about placing monumental buildings in park-like settings. Think Cleveland’s or Washington DC’s Malls. Gorgeous, but not very practical,…

Mary Beth Matthews: The 200 Day School Year. Gov. Strickland recently proposed extending the school year in Ohio. This particular part of his education plan has obviously hit a nerve with teachers. I’ve now heard from several teachers (and spouses of teachers) on Strickland’s plan and read a bunch of letters to the PD editors…

Writer’s Beat: Profit & Loss/Profitability & Liability : How Books Make (or Don’t Make) Money. Anna Genoese dives into great detail — with real numbers — about how the publishing and bookselling business works. For example, did you know that bookstores can get all their money back on unsold books just by sending them back…

Smarthistory: A very slick art history site created by the new digital learning director of the MoMA, Beth Harris, and the dean of the graduate school at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Steven Zucker. Basically they highlight representative works and discuss them. Simple stuff, but certainly more engaging — and fun — than your typical…

Singularity Hub: Best Robots of 2008. With video! Amazing stuff. Check out the self-healing chair.

Cleveland.com: Cleveland Council Approves Urban Farming. Kevin Kelley is one of three who voted against it. Gotta ask him why if I see him. Slate: Is it worth it to wash out your recyclables? Because if not, you’re just wasting water. So at first this article says no, since whatever’s in the bottle or can…

Scene: My House, Out Of The Ordinary. A fairly even-handed summary of the housing code enforcement push in Tremont that’s going on right now. If you listen to some people, TWDC is sneaking around and trying to tear down half the houses in the neighborhood whether they meet code or not. Certainly not the case.…

GreenCityBlueLake: Train Avenue Connector Approved. I missed this last week, but apparently the trail along Train Ave. between W. 65th and the new Towpath trail was approved by the Planning Commission. Very cool. Train Ave. is a really odd little road. It’s down in the gully that used to hold a creek called Walworth Run.…

Ruhlman: Popcorn. We also make popcorn on the stove top and have many of the same ambitions as Michael. Mostly how to get more of the corn to pop and less of the corn to burn. I guess that’s pretty much everyone’s main goal with popcorn. Although the Dog, who sometimes gets the more scorched…