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“Hey man, I don’t need tires. I don’t drive anymore.”

- Vice President Joe Biden, refusing to be lured into the tire section on his recent trip to Costco.

Today, Vice President Joe Biden visited a newly opened Costco in Washington, DC. After picking out a few Christmas gifts and other items, he talked about the importance of extending tax cuts for middle-class families.

Vice President Joe Biden picks out children's books at the newly opened Costco store in Washington, D.C., Nov. 29, 2012. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

“All the people you meet in here today and you see, these are hardworking folks who don't need to see their taxes go up,” he said.

But, if Congress doesn’t take action before the end of the year, the typical middle-class family will pay about $2,200 more in taxes starting in 2013.

“And so I think it’s important Congress acts now -- I mean right now,” Vice President Biden said. “All it has to do is take a single vote to extend the middle-class tax cut.”

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Luke O'Neil, TV host.

Cocktail scribe Luke O'Neil's TV pilot is now available for viewing. His first guests? Will Gilson and Louis DiBiccari. "Ever since I worked at Oleana ... I've been trying to open up in Inman Square," says Gilson, whose Puritan & Co. opens there this week. Meanwhile, DiBiccari says he's not into the term "pop-up" for his democratic-menu'd Chef Louie Nights, though preparing for them does require running around like a "deranged zoo animal" getting ingredients.

Other highlights: the chefs' mild bafflement over the sudden ramen craze (we're with you there) and their love of roast chicken. O'Neil taped this episode at the always lovely Saloon. Check it out right here. [Facebook/Carousel]

Earlier: Cocktail Guru Luke O'Neil Will Film a TV Pilot at Saloon

Read more posts by Kara Baskin

Filed Under: louis dibicarri, luke o'neil, tvland, will gilson

We have to give props to a press release that begins: "What would you do on your last day on Earth?" Thanks for making us contemplate the finite nature of our existence, Painted Burro; if we continue to consume your chupacabras, our dying day will come swiftly. Anyway, they're hosting a Mayan End of the World Bash on December 21, which will include a confession box and cocktails, some of them chocolate-based, because Mayans were the first people to eat chocolate. The party begins at 5 p.m. and lasts until the world implodes or 1 a.m., whichever comes first. [PB, Earlier]

Read more posts by Kara Baskin

Filed Under: foodievents, mayans, painted burro

Pressure-sensitive drawing is at last available on iPad, and I’m delighted that Photoshop Touch (available via the Apple App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore) now supports the Pogo Connect, Jot Touch and JaJa Stylus. The app has also been tuned to support smaller tablets. PM Stephen Nielson writes,

Photoshop Touch 1.4 is now optimized to work on smaller devices, including the iPad mini, Google Nexus 7, and Amazon Kindle Fire 7-inch and 8.9-inch devices. In fact, Photoshop Touch 1.4 will work on any Android 3.1 or later device with at least a 7-inch screen and a resolution of 1024×600.

Other new features:

• Smoother brush strokes
• Two new Effects: Lens Flare (under “&” menu) and Stamp Pattern
• Improved grid layout for projects, tutorials, and images
• New support for sharing to Facebook, Twitter, and other registered apps
• Quick access to last 5 colors with new shortcut (drag down on Color)
• Various bug fixes

In the NY Times, Gareth Cook writes about the advantages some companies have found in employing people with autism.

To his father, Lars seemed less defined by deficits than by his unusual skills. And those skills, like intense focus and careful execution, were exactly the ones that Sonne, who was the technical director at a spinoff of TDC, Denmark's largest telecommunications company, often looked for in his own employees. Sonne did not consider himself an entrepreneurial type, but watching Lars -- and hearing similar stories from parents he met volunteering with an autism organization -- he slowly conceived a business plan: many companies struggle to find workers who can perform specific, often tedious tasks, like data entry or software testing; some autistic people would be exceptionally good at those tasks. So in 2003, Sonne quit his job, mortgaged the family's home, took a two-day accounting course and started a company called Specialisterne, Danish for "the specialists," on the theory that, given the right environment, an autistic adult could not just hold down a job but also be the best person for it.

I particularly liked Tyler Cowen's observations:

Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University (and a regular contributor to The Times), published a much-discussed paper last year that addressed the ways that autistic workers are being drawn into the modern economy. The autistic worker, Cowen wrote, has an unusually wide variation in his or her skills, with higher highs and lower lows. Yet today, he argued, it is increasingly a worker's greatest skill, not his average skill level, that matters. As capitalism has grown more adept at disaggregating tasks, workers can focus on what they do best, and managers are challenged to make room for brilliant, if difficult, outliers. This march toward greater specialization, combined with the pressing need for expertise in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, so-called STEM workers, suggests that the prospects for autistic workers will be on the rise in the coming decades. If the market can forgive people's weaknesses, then they will rise to the level of their natural gifts.

Tags: autism   business   economics   Gareth Cook   Tyler Cowen

First time accepted submitter novakom writes "Apparently during the cold war, one fall-back position the U.S. was looking at to ensure mutual assured destruction was to put nukes on the moon. This would ensure that the U.S. could retaliate against even an effective first strike by the Russians. The first step, of course, would be to detonate a nuke on the moon. And yes, Carl Sagan was on the team (and apparently leaked the info!)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Photo by Kristy Campbell

Bear with me here, because the lineage of these bands is a bit tricky to follow: First there was a California stoner-rock band called Kyuss, who broke up in the mid-90s. Josh Homme went on to lead Queens of the Stone Age, which also included former Kyuss member Nick Oliveri. Homme kicked Oliveri out of QOTSA in 2004. 

In 2010, former Kyuss members Oliveri, John Garcia, and Brant Bjork formed Kyuss Lives!, performing old Kyuss material. Earlier this year, Homme and former Kyuss member Scott Reeder filed a lawsuit accusing the members of Kyuss Lives! of trademark infringement and consumer fraud.

Now, the members of Kyuss Lives! have started a new project called Vista Chino. It's unclear whether or not the name change is a direct result of legal action, but the new act is made up of Kyuss/Kyuss Lives! members Oliveri (who seems to be working with Queens of the Stone Age again), Garcia, and Bjork, along with guitarist Bruno Fevery. 

The band will play their final shows as Kyuss Lives! in early 2013 at the Soundwave Festival in Australia before readying their 2013 release and tour as Vista Chino. 

Watch the video for Kyuss' "One Inch Man":

For this week’s Design Milk Dairy picks, I wanted to share some more of my favorites. It seems I collect more favorite prints than I can feature!

A French Ninja Cat (Le Chat Ninja) by Kyle Walters

Boston Tea Partyware by Lili Chin

Famous Weapons by Daniel Nyari — This one looks pretty cool as a t-shirt, too.

Solomon’s Knot (2011) by Gary Andrew Clarke

I love this as an iPhone case or laptop skin.

In an ongoing effort to support independent artists from around the world, Design Milk is proud to partner with Society6 to offer The Design Milk Dairy, a special collection of Society6 artists’ work curated by Design Milk and our readers. Proceeds from the The Design Milk Dairy help us bring Design Milk to you every day.

Share This: Twitter | Facebook | Discover more great design by following Design Milk on Twitter and Facebook. © 2012 Design Milk | Posted by Jaime Derringer in Art, Style + Fashion, Technology | Permalink | No comments

photo by Jennifer Foster

On November 14, 2012, Arizona resident Jennifer Foster was visiting New York City’s Times Square and secretly captured a shot of NYPD Officer Larry DePrimo giving a barefoot homeless man a pair of boots. She shared the photo with NYPD and they posted it on Facebook. It has since gone viral, being shared on Facebook many thousands of times by people and it has been picked up as a news item all over the world. Officer DePrimo is quoted as saying, “I didn’t think anything of it.”

Foster wrote this about her experience:

I have these size 12 boots for you, they are all-weather. Let’s put them on and take care of you.’ The officer squatted down on the ground and proceeded to put socks and the new boots on this man. The officer expected NOTHING in return and did not know I was watching*. I have been in law enforcement for 17 years. I was never so impressed in my life. I did not get the officer’s name. It is important, I think, for all of us to remember the real reason we are in this line of work. The reminder this officer gave to our profession in his presentation of human kindness has not been lost on myself or any of the Arizona law enforcement officials with whom this story has been shared.

Police Officer Larry DePrimo (seen here in 2011, when he was assigned to Midtown South Impact).

image via NYPD

Thanks David Klass!

Everyone in the KC region wants one of these trucks to show up at their house sooner rather than later. Cyrus Farivar

KANSAS CITY, KANSAS—I can summarize my whirlwind 36 hours in Kansas City in two words: bandwidth and barbecue.

I spent all day Wednesday testing a Google fiber connection, attending startup events, seeing Google’s “fiber space,” meeting entrepreneurs, chatting with a realtor, and interviewing a city official. All of that was washed down, at the end of the day, with a generous helping of delicious burnt ends and ribs at Oklahoma Joe’s—and yes, I’m exhausted.

So how fast is Google Fiber? Really fast... and it may be far ahead of its time.

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Nendo partnered with Coca-Cola in a new collection of tableware made from recycled bottles. Bottleware makes use of the iconic 1916 “contour bottle”, the ones that are continually collected, rinsed, and reused over and over again. Once these particular bottles couldn’t be used again for their original purpose, Nendo got to work and created this set that was recently exhibited at DESIGNTIDE TOKYO 2012.

Nendo was enamored with the green tint that the bottles are known for, called “Georgia Green,” and the tiny air bubbles that show up in glass that’s been recycled. With a desire to showcase these traits, the designs were kept simple but with an intentional resemblance of the original bottle.

The exhibition:

All photos: © COCA-COLA

Share This: Twitter | Facebook | Discover more great design by following Design Milk on Twitter and Facebook. © 2012 Design Milk | Posted by Caroline in Art, Home Furnishings | Permalink | No comments

LLL0L GG G GGGGGGGGRRRAZZAZAZA;ZAZ;ZA;ZZAA;ZA;ZA;ZAZ;;AAZ’;ZZAZZZ;Z;ZZZ;Z;AZ;AZA;AAZ;A/A;A;AA/;/;AA/;/;AAA;A;A;AA;AZ;A;AA;AA;AAA;A @irlv

— Hungry Birds (@hungry_birds) March 17, 2012

Frustrated by the lack of actual birds on Twitter, Latvian creative director Voldemars Dudums came up with a clever system to get the birds tweeting on Twitter (video). Dudums placed pork fat pieces on a keyboard and left it outside in the frigid Latvian winter—when birds came to feed, they pressed random keys, creating mysterious nonsense messages that were then posted to Twitter on the account @hungry_birds. The birds were posting as many as 100 tweets a day before the project went quiet this spring. The Birds on Twitter project was a promotion for Latvian magazine IR.

via izmia & Colossal

photos via Birds on Twitter, video by Diagonal View

Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay's master whisky blender, shows us the proper way to enjoy Scotch. It gets a little messy.

Here's another video from the same guy in which he demonstrates what to do when a bartender hands you a Scotch on the rocks. (via the new yorker)

Tags: food   how to   Richard Paterson   video

According to the NYPD, not single violent crime (shooting, stabbing, murder, etc.) was reported in NYC on Monday, "the first time in recent memory" that has happened.

The rare day occurred on Monday, near the end of a year when the city's murder rate is on target to hit its lowest point since 1960, according to New York Police Department chief spokesman Paul Browne.

Browne said it was "first time in memory" the city's police force had experienced such a peaceful day.

While crime is up 3 percent overall, including a 9 percent surge in grand larceny police attribute to a rash of smart phone thefts, murder is down 23 percent over last year, the NYPD said.

Unfortunately, some are crediting the crappy NYPD stop-and-frisk policy with the drop in violent crime. (via marginal revolution)

Tags: crime   NYC   NYPD

Marc Orfaly in the kitchen, where he should probably stay.

In case you're not tired of them yet, Angry Facebooker Marc Orfaly and Mad Sandy Whose Pumpkin Pie Tasted Like Vomit will be on the Phantom Gourmet's radio show on Friday, report our chums at Eater Boston. Apparently they've kissed and made up. The Facebook feud, which contained witticisms like "you must like vomit you bitch" and "I find you as vomitous as your pallet" (yes, "pallet") went viral yesterday. Even BuzzFeed knows about it! But is there really anything left to say? After all, Sandy, who happens to run cooking classes for children, reportedly has announced that "we both have apologized for our words and we are now FB friends! He offered me a make up meal and I will gladly take him up on his offer. He seems like a really nice guy and is very passionate about food!"

OMG! FB friends! That's like besties! Hope he doesn't serve you any pie! And how about a little love for We Love Beantown, who broke the story? Hopefully their sleuth-worthy fame lasts longer than this relationship.

Marc Orfaly and His Critic Are Now Facebook Friends [EB]
Pigalle chef Marc Orfaly calls unhappy diner ‘fat,’ apologizes [Globe]
Earlier: Did Pigalle Unleash an Expletive-Laden Rant on an Angry Customer?
Pigalle Chef "Overreacted," Says Rep
Pigalle Picks Facebook Fight With an Unhappy Customer Over Pie [We Love Beantown]

Read more posts by Kara Baskin

Filed Under: feuds, angry pie, marketing gimmicks, phantom gourmet

Mark Bult

Each year, Consumer Reports surveys some 60,000 cell phone subscribers to find out which service providers are the best and worst. AT&T is on a real hot streak in these rankings—a hot streak of finishing dead last in customer satisfaction.

AT&T did score one real win in the latest rankings, released today, with its 4G service being rated better than all of its competitors. "Its users reported the fewest problems with that higher-speed service, which most new smart phones now use," Consumer Reports noted. But AT&T was the worst or tied for worst in all other categories, including value, voice, text, data, and support. AT&T's overall score for standard service customers was 62 out of 100. That's just behind rivals Sprint and T-Mobile, well behind Verizon Wireless, and even further behind small carriers Consumer Cellular, US Cellular, and Credo Mobile:

Enlarge / Solid red circles are best, solid black worst, with white in the middle. Consumer Cellular's asterisk denotes that it offers no-contract service but bills monthly like standard carriers. Consumer Reports

Scores were based on responses from 63,235 ConsumerReports.org subscribers who were surveyed in September 2012. The above rankings are for standard service, the type billed at the end of the month, often under a contract. AT&T was also last in its prepaid service:

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

slashchuck writes "Niels Bohr is one of the greatest scientists who ever lived and a favorite of his fellow Danes when he lived in Copenhagen. Apparently, after he won the Nobel Prize in 1922, the Carlsberg brewery gave him a gift – a house located next to the brewery. And the best perk of the house? It had a direct pipeline to the brewery so that Bohr had free beer on tap whenever he wanted."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When Masahiro Hamada and his father, two master carpenters employed by the Kajima Construction company in Japan, built a teahouse in 1962, it was shipped away and he didn't know what had become of it.

Jack Kirby double-page spreads. Boom. Via Jason Barry.

“Fast Track” is a 167 foot long trampoline track that was installed in Nikola-Lenivets park in rural Russia for the Archstoyanie art festival back in July. The installation was created by Estonian architecture firm Salto Architects.

“Fast track” is a integral part of park infrastructure, it is a road and an installation at the same time. It challenges the concept of infrastructure that only focuses on technical and functional aspects and tends to be ignorant to its surroundings. “Fast track” is an attempt to create intelligent infrastructure that is emotional and corresponds to the local context. It gives the user a different experience of moving and percieving the environment.

via KNSTRCT, A/N Blog & Inhabitat

photos by Nikita Šohov & Karli Luik

Apple's newer, thinner iMacs are due to be released tomorrow, with the 21-inch models showing up in stores and shipping immediately, and 27-inch models shipping some time in December. While base model pricing and configuration options have been known ever since the new models were announced in October, Apple has not yet officially announced the pricing of any of the add-on options like video cards and extra storage, so potential purchasers haven't yet been able to nail down their total pocketbook impact.

Enlarge / Base pricing for the new iMacs. Image from store.apple.com

However, earlier this week MacRumors posted news from an Apple reseller named Expercom, which reportedly contains the entire set of iMac build-to-order upgrade prices. According to that list, a fully loaded 27-inch iMac will cost an eye-watering $4,249, before tax:

• Base price, 27-inch iMac, 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX video card, 1TB HDD, 8GB RAM: $1,999
• Upgrade to 3.4GHz Intel Core i7: $200
• Upgrade to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX video card: $150
• Upgrade to 768GB SSD: $1,300
• Upgrade to 32GB of RAM: $600

Tossing in 6 percent for a guess at sales tax (obviously, this varies by state and even city) yields a grand total of $4,503.94 for an iMac with every single upgrade box checked. Hope you brought a second pair of underwear... preferably one stuffed with $100 bills.

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Go deep inside the Klingon Bird-of-Prey with this technical manual. Go inside the Bird-of-Prey in a way you've never been able to before. Featuring a stunning cutaway drawing and, for the first time ever, detailed deck plans and incredible new computer-generated artwork, the Haynes Bird-of-Prey Manual is a technical tour $27.99

MoMA has acquired 14 video games for their permanent collection. Presumably they paid more than MSRP?

We are very proud to announce that MoMA has acquired a selection of 14 video games, the seedbed for an initial wish list of about 40 to be acquired in the near future, as well as for a new category of artworks in MoMA's collection that we hope will grow in the future. This initial group, which we will install for your delight in the Museum's Philip Johnson Galleries in March 2013, features...

The games include Tetris, Passage, The Sims, and Katamari Damacy. No Nintendo games on that list, probably due to ongoing negotiations with Nintendo.

Tags: MoMA   museums   NYC   video games

Photo by Erez Avissar

A collective of big Radiohead devotees have compiled a video of the band's complete gig at Roseland Ballroom in New York City on September 29, 2011, as FACT points out. 

The two-hour concert film features soundboard audio provided by the band themselves, as well as video created by fans. The video is dedicated to Scott Johnson, the touring crew member who was killed during a stage collapse in Toronto this year.

The creators of the film have made it readily viewable through YouTube and elsewhere, but suggest viewers make a donation to Oxfam's Haiti Earthquake fund, the Red Cross' Hurricane Sandy relief effort, or Doctors Without Borders. Watch it below, after the setlist. And see photos from the previous night's show at Roseland here.

Radiohead at Roseland Ballroom:

"Bloom
"Little by Little"
"Staircase"
"The National Anthem"
"Feral"
"Subterranean Homesick Alien"
"Like Spinning Plates"
"All I Need"
"True Love Waits/Everything in Its Right Place"
"15 Step"
"Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"
"Lotus Flower"
"Codex"
"The Daily Mail"
"Morning Mr. Magpie"
"Reckoner"

Encores:

"Give Up the Ghost"
"Myxomatosis"
"Bodysnatchers"
"Supercollider"
"Nude"

Once again, IFC has posted another chapter of the new installments of R. Kelly's resurgent "Trapped in the Closet". Chapter 26 documents a therapy session in which Dr. Perry (played by R. Kelly) tries to help Cathy and Rufus try to save their marriage.

IFC will be airing a new chapter each day. Read our account of the premiere of the new chapters of "Trapped in the Closet" here.

Queens of the Stone Age continue reshaping their lineup this year in perplexing ways. After the news that drummer Joey Castillo had left the band and that Dave Grohl will contribute to the new album, now ex-Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri-- who's recently been entangled in some very serious legal issues-- is also on board. Stereogum points to a Facebook post from Oliveri's side project Mondo Generator saying that he recently contributed vocals to the upcoming record.

"NEWS: Nick has re-joined Kyuss, and has recently recorded his vocals on a new Queens of the Stone Age song! Stay tuned," the post reads." Oliveri left Kyuss-- the band that predated Queens of the Stone Age and reformed without Josh Homme under the disputed name Kyuss Lives!-- earlier this year.

Oliveri's reunion with Homme is very surprising. He was kicked out of QOTSA in 2004, apparently because Homme discovered that Oliveri had abused his girlfriend. Last year, Oliveri was charged with several felonies after he was involved in a domestic dispute with his girlfriend that resulted in a S.W.A.T. team being called in. He avoided jail time, but was sentenced to 52 weeks of anger management and 200 hours of community service.

Watch the video for Rated R single "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret":

Sara Lautman draws funnies and illustrations. This is her first time drawing Courtney Love.

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From time to time, Awl Music will be bringing you a themed playlist, which can best be enjoyed on the Awl Music app for iPad.

Early adopters in countries like Morocco, Algeria and Palestine have a more strongly developed and time-tested hip-hop scene—but across the greater Arab world, hip-hop has risen up alongside folk anthems as a revolutionary soundtrack.

And in the Western world, Arab diaspora rap preoccupies itself with questions of Eastern and Western dislocated identity. These artists take a great deal of inspiration from some of the greats of politically conscious rap in the eighties and nineties in the United States, particularly Public Enemy and Wu-Tang Clan. They also draw from the long history of Arab poetry and artistic political dissidence, from Khalil Gibran to Mahmoud Darwish and Ahmed Fouad Negm.

Here is a handy starter kit for listening to Arab and Middle Eastern rap and hip-hop music.

THE REVOLUTIONARY

The inherent "roll off the tongue and into your brain" qualities of Arabic itself is a critical part of what makes this music so powerful. One of my favorite examples of this is the first verse of "Rebel" by the Egyptian hip-hop trio The Arabian Knightz. The song, which samples Lauryn Hill's 2002 MTV Unplugged performance of "I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel)," was released during the eighteen-day revolution in Cairo and the opening verse is a great example of how fabulous Arabic sounds when used in rap music.

Read the rest at The Awl

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That makes Red Delicious the RIM of apples, right? Once America’s top apple, it’s popularity has fallen off considerably.

– Matt Eitelberg, via Twitter, in response to Farhad Manjoo’s post that Honeycrisp is the Apple of apples