My mother arrived yesterday on the start of her first holiday in Asia, and she’s decided to write about it! She’s a much better travel blogger than I, so for a blow by blow account of what we’re up to here, click through to her blog below.
Click through to visit "Daughter in Dhaka"!
Jon Seale recently charged a slice of pizza and a Coke to his Visa card. The amount he saw on his online statement: $23,148,855,308,184,500.
The global gross domestic product is, by contrast, estimated at between a paltry $60 trillion and $70 trillion.
The North Texas man tells Robert Siegel that after he quit laughing, he called the bank.
“The girl that answered the phone actually kind of choked when she saw the number on her screen,” Seale says. “They have assured me they will take care of that.”
Seale was not the only person who experienced the glitch. It turns out that a small number of people, all using their Visa cards, were charged the same amount.
“My son made the comment that maybe with this amount of money we could afford to get season tickets to the Yankees,” Seale says. “I told him for this amount of money, we could buy the Yankees.”
(via All Things Considered)
“It’s pie time that cupcakes moved on. What this country needs is a change of dessert attitude. Where cupcakes were individualized, pie is communal; where cupcakes were neat, pie is sloppy, where cupcakes were precious, pie is luscious; where cupcakes were frosted, pie is filled; where cupcakes were a business model, pie is a lifestyle. Cupcakes are over. Pie is now.”
– David Karp, LimeDuck
(via @wbur)
My senior year in high school, my marine biology teacher gave us a ‘safe seafood’ card – those you can eat, and those you should avoid for the species’ well-being. I’ve since lost it, and have been on the hunt for a replacement. Finally found it on the website for “End of the Line,” a new documentary about overfishing. It’s screening this Friday in Woods Hole for all interested!
So what kind of teachers could a school get if it paid them $125,000 a year?
…an eight-teacher dream team, lured to an innovative charter school that will open in Washington Heights in September with salaries that would make most teachers drop their chalk and swoon; $125,000 is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, and about two and a half times as much as the national average for teacher salaries. They also will be eligible for bonuses, based on schoolwide performance, of up to $25,000 in the second year.
The school, called the Equity Project, is premised on the theory that excellent teachers — and not revolutionary technology, talented principals or small class size — are the critical ingredient for success. Experts hope it could offer a window into some of the most pressing and elusive questions in education: Is a collection of superb teachers enough to make a great school? Are six-figure salaries the way to get them? And just what makes a teacher great?
An interesting project to keep an eye on. See the full story from the New York Times here.
Nudity at its cleverest.
(via Ezra.)
and now, some musicians to keep your eye on for 2009?
said the whale
check out the city’s a mess here.
elliott brood
a little man man esque, have a listen.
okkervil river
these fellers stole my heart shortly after they were recommended to me. haven’t heard a boy on boy duet this good since kings of convenience.
The Stories We Tell 