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It Is Winter In Boston, But #YouGottaBeKiddin

We had a dust of snow this morning. Which didn't stop someone claiming dibs on a "pahkin" spot they seemed to have cleared out themselves. By "pahkin theyah cah" on the spot.

From Twitter, via @UniversalHub via @DaveAhern, who wrote, "It's officially winter in Dorchester." He used the hashtag #yougottabekiddin.

I think the American flag guarding the hard-won spot is an especially fine sight. Maybe the flag is -- um -- on the fence (get it?) about the whole pahkin thing.

Why 'Wired' Seems to Have It Wrong About Amazon and Apple

The December 2011 issue of Wired is out, with a photo of the left half of Jeff Bezos' face on the cover.  I was excited about this issue, because I wanted to read about the moves Amazon.com [and my Amazon WishList] is making to be a cloud content provider in addition to seller of books and anything else you can find in a supermarket or shopping mall.

Instead, I was disappointed.

The article by longtime tech writer Stephen Levy repeated some tiresome comparisons between Amazon and Apple. Amazon is content company, right? Because it makes most of its money selling more content things, both real (like books, shoes, and DVDs) and electronic (like ebooks and streaming movies). Yep, it's not a hardware company, though its big news right now is hardware in the form of the Kindle Fire.

And Apple isn't a content company, right?
Because it makes most of its money selling hardware things, like computers and mobile tablets and smartphones. Yes, it's not a content company, even though its current big news is user content management in the form of launching iCloud.

The article also disappointed because all too soon it descends into a Q&A dialog that doesn't grab me. It doesn't talk enough about the Amazon consumer experience and what might be coming down the pike. The most I learn about consumer experiences at Amazon is that Amazon really doesn't like to talk to me on the phone, really is not proud of being a profit-making enterprise, would offer single pricing for movie streaming if, gosh, only the movie content providers would agree, and seems more head-in-the-clouds than futuristic.

There's an ethereal quality to Bezos that bothers me, and I'm trying to put my finger on why.

Remake Your Netflix Queue with NYT's Data Graphic

The New York Times did a cultural service for the rest of us with its guide to the most-rented Netflix movies of 2009, in various zip codes in a number of major metropolitan areas. The Flowing Data blog has its own take.

Seth Godin Rocks

Two reasons why author Seth Godin rocks:

First, provocative posts, like this. An excerpt:

More librarians are telling me (unhappily) that the number one thing they deliver to their patrons is free DVD rentals. That's not a long-term strategy, nor is it particularly an uplifting use of our tax dollars. Here's my proposal: train people to take intellectual initiative. Once again, the net turns things upside down. The information is free now. No need to pool tax money to buy reference books.

Second, a free book!

Potential Disaster: Could I Be Living in Republi-chusetts?

I just wrote to a friend about the concerns stirring in the Bay State that Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley just might be boring and passive enough to allow state Senator Scott Brown to win Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat for the Republicans. There's a special election in ten days.

Check out this blog post — headlined simply "Potential Disaster" — from the most prominent Democratic blog in the state: Blue Mass Group. Also look at the source of the numbers.

Someone hand me a phone bank list. I'd make a few calls to help out this campaign.

The Old Arrow Restaurant in Westport, Conn.

When I was a kid growing up in Westport, Connecticut, one of my favorite restaurants was the Arrow, an Italian place owned by the Nistico family. It was located here, east of the intersection of Charles Street with Saugatuck Avenue in the building that today houses Jasmine, a Chinese-Japanese restaurant.

But I never knew that the Arrow had a prior location, one that was responsible for its name. Dan Woog tells all.

Great Headline from Chicago: 'Area Man Wins Nobel Peace Prize'

For tongue-in-cheek topical humor, it's hard to top the headline on this post from the News Blog of the Chicago Maroon, the student newspaper at the University of Chicago:

The Maroon's blog stays on the Obama beat with this tidbit, too.

And just to be serious, here are President Obama's sobering remarks upon accepting the prize.

Geography Buffs, Unite!

 I love geography. I love maps.

So, I now love my newest favorite blog, Strange Maps.

Check out this post about accidental maps, such as an accidental asphalt map of Maine.