So now you know why wine isn’t sold in your grocery store.

They go on to conclude that higher wine consumption decreases traffic fatalities, but I don’t think it’s that simple.

• The case for cheaper wine, in one chart
• via The Awl

∞ Permalink

Wasn’t there an option here for freezing the display of the RGB values?

The results put me in desktop land and it asked “why don’t you move over to web apps?”

Then I tried to install the Amazon Windowshop app, which presented me with a pretty good reason:

It’s also sketchy that I need to sign into my Google account to install free web apps.

I know people who feel the decision is homophobic, and I’ve wondered what the argument from health organizations is regarding the decision. I’ve never heard it explained and I can’t believe there wouldn’t be some logical reasoning behind it.

According to the CDC, as of 2006, males who have sex with other males (MSM) make up more than half of new HIV infections.

This commenter has what appears to be a good summary of why gays and bisexuals can’t donate blood:

This is straightforward risk management.

About 50% of HIV/AIDS cases are related to male-to-male sexual contact. I’m no homophobe, and think homosexual males are about 5% of the population (under assumption 1 in 10 people are homosexual). Thus a random homosexual male has a 20 times increased chance of having AIDS. Even if the risk of false negatives is small (say 0.1%) for an HIV screening, its 20 (2000%) times riskier to accept blood from gay males to get only 5% more blood, which is not worth it.

So what’s the big deal? Isn’t all donated blood screened?

Well, yeah – but it’s not that simple.

It is all screened. The problem is the screening test looks for antibodies. If someone is in the very early stages of the disease, the test may come back negative. The chance of the virus getting through the screen process is small, but if blood is allowed in from high risk individuals, it increases the risk of infected blood making it through and infecting someone else.

Blood.co.uk also has a page of explanations I’ve never seen before:

How can the National Blood Service justify a policy which discriminates against gay men?
The policy is in place for the sole purpose of protecting public health by minimising the risk of transmission of HIV and other blood-borne viruses to patients through the blood which we supply to hospitals. Men who have ever had sex with men are at a higher risk of carrying such viruses. Since it is specific sexual behaviour which places individuals at risk, rather than their sexuality, there is no exclusion of gay men who have never had sex with another man, nor of women who have sex with women.

It’s nothing personal.

When the artwork switches in the artwork viewer it’s all Core Animationy or something. There’s a fading transition.

The artwork view switches from Now Playing to Selected Item when something other than what’s playing is selected.

Grid view scrolls like butter. 3803 albums in my library and it feels like iPhoto now.

In Coverflow, albums without artwork used to be black. Now they’re blue.

First iPad sync made me think something was very very wrong. Took forever, got beach balls.

Many ads and sponsored polls are written in a way that make it unclear who’s behind them. If I click this where will I go? What’s going to happen with the data I provide?

Here’s a good ad:

It’s clearly from Mailchimp. Mailchimp is a full company name mentioned in the copy and in the image. And you could win a wrestling belt.

Here’s a bad ad:

WTF is FBI? Not that FBI, I think.

Must be hacked.

No doubt I have had pleasure watching the back and forth between Conan and Leno. So let me explain two reasons why I’m fascinated by this whole thing, attempt to justify my interest, and make some outrageous claims in the process.

And clearly when I write “we” I really mean “me.”

It’s A Generation War

Some people hate Baby Boomers:

I know it’s a sin to hate, so let me put it this way: If they were animals, they’d be a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path and leaving but a wasteland. If they were plants, they’d be kudzu, choking off every other living thing with their sheer mass. If they were artists, they’d be abstract expressionists, interested only in the emotions of that moment–not in the lasting result of the creative process. If they were a baseball club, they’d be the Florida Marlins: prefab prima donnas who bought their way to prominence, then disbanded–a temporary association but not a team.

I think that’s how young people view Leno. Maybe it’s because we aren’t that familiar with Leno’s work before the Tonight Show. What we do know is that he likes to write about cars, buy cars, drive cars, and he starred in a lot of Doritos commercials. And then when he got the Tonight Show he coasted for nearly 10 years on OJ jokes.

We know Conan differently. We practically grew up with him. Conan indirectly molded my generation’s sense of humor. He wrote the monorail episode of the Simpsons, one of that shows best episodes. And when he got Late Night he introduced us to characters like Pimpbot 5000, the Masturbating Bear, Preparation H Raymond, The Interrupter, and those siamese twins connected in an unusual way (through one’s butt hole and the other’s penis…and no, they didn’t look alike at all).

This was for us. Meanwhile, Jay was doing Jaywalking and Headlines, relying on the stupidity of others to fill his show. Conan didn’t do that. Conan was the hardest working man on late night television.

Let’s put it this way: Jay has a bit on his 10pm show where he uses Bing. Who the hell uses Bing? Old fogies who stick with Internet Explorer defaults and ask you to fix their computer every Thanksgiving.

The Airwaves Are Becoming Obsolete

I can’t remember the last time I actually sat down and watched the Tonight Show, or even Late Night. I’m under 30, but I can barely stay up past 11:30 on a weeknight. These days if something funny happens on late night TV I catch clips of it within the next few days.

Who watches late night television regularly? My gut says it’s new parents and retired people. But mostly retired people.

Assume this and it’s not surprising that Conan wasn’t doing well at 11:35. He’s a little too far out for them, and he knows it. That’s why he had to change some of the things we loved most about his show before making the move (like encasing the Masturbating Bear in carbonite). He compromised for a time slot occupied by an audience that didn’t want him. They wanted amusing headlines and Kevin Eubanks as a straight man.

How appropriate it is then that those who love Conan and disagree with NBC’s decision protest by changing their Facebook profile pics to the “I’m with Coco!” picture floating around. They don’t get their Conan fix through the airwaves. They get it through their laptops.

It seems to me that NBC giving the 11:35 slot back to Leno was the best business decision. Late night television is not really for people under 40 anymore.

That’s why I watch this Conan thing with interest. It represents culture change. To me it symbolizes the resistance to inevitable change that my generation currently faces and will likely inflict upon future generations when we’re using whatever the equivalent of Bing is in 30-40 years.

Plus, Conan makes me laugh.

I don’t think that’s so shallow.