An excellent short article in this week’s New Yorker, in the Talk of the Town section, explains how two cognitive biases make the case for health care reform difficult to make with the American public. I recommend you read the article yourself, but I will summarize its major points here.
The combination of two human [...]

I have nothing written ready to post, so I offer another photo blog entry.
This is Central Concrete, located at 24th and Peralta Streets in West Oakland, on the morning of March 27, 2009.

Close up of the giant metal woman sculpture, found on its side behind American Steel, on 20th Street between Poplar and Mandella Parkway.  This sculpture appeared earlier in the Art Shadow post.  Picture taken August 18, 2009.
I saw the sculpture being loaded on a flatbed truck just this last Tuesday (August 25), presumably on its [...]

This month’s Wired magazine published a good, but I think oddly critical article about Craigslist, called Why Craigslist is Such a Mess.  I say “oddly critical” because I don’t think Craigslist is nearly as bad as the article makes it out to be.
In a separate piece, Gary Wolf explains the motivation for writing the cover [...]

Recycling another old photo that I’ve never shared before.  Dusk after the rain, February 24, 2008, looking at North Beach.

It turns out that the cable car cable is not the only public transportation infrastructure requiring inspection in San Francisco.  These gentlemen were spotted last Friday morning (August 21) looking at the overhead wires used by electric buses on Chestnut Street.  The truck they stood on top of was driven very slowly up the street [...]

At Gary Brawer Guitar Repair they collect all the strings they remove from guitars they repair for reycling. Seeing them curled around in the box reminded me of the spiral tracks left in cloud chambers by decaying particles.

This picture is taken facing southwest (away from the Bay) while on the BART staircase at the northeast end of the station, standing at the MUNI level. August 14, 2009.

My reflection in the side of a taco truck, the morning of December 12, 2008.

I’ve heard it suggested that the Dutch health care system is a model that the United States should study as we decide if and how to restructure our own health care system.  Curious how the Dutch system works, I did the obvious thing, and happened upon Just Landed, an online guide for travelers and expatriates.  [...]

Here at Myrtle Street Labs I was conducting research for a different post, and stumbled upon this.
There is a gigantic hexagon on the north pole of Saturn. Its not apparent in the visible light spectrum, but the Cassini probe can image infrared radiation.
Apparently this isn’t even that strange. The earth has one, too. [...]