NYT Article: Billable Hours Giving Ground at Law Firms

Over the last couple decades, high leverage--the practice of having each equity partner supported by three or more associates or income partners--was accepted as a basic tenet of profitability. A firm billed out these junior lawyers at significantly more than it paid them, often getting billings that were triple the lawyer's salary. It seemed like a sure-fire way to make money. But high turnover and rocketing salaries ate into profit margins. Now, the whole pyramid model is looking fragile. More here. 

8th Annual Wish Auction for Dallas Contemporary

Here is "Burmese Monastery" that I donated to the Wish Auction to benefit the Dallas Contemporary Art Museum. You can be on it here and the bidding starts a 60% retail value!

Does Apple have a case against Palm?

There's been some growling and teeth-barring between Apple and Palm lately, but Engadget wanted to know: does Apple really have a case against Palm for their patented technology? They put their legal correspondent, Nilay Patel, on the case, and in this long but very interesting analysis piece, he answers: probably. Here is the link.

E*TRADE Baby Outtakes

Gym Lets You Bench Press Dwarves

A GYM in London has replaced its dumbbells with human weights - including dwarves who shout encouragement to motivate exercise. Gymbox at Bank - in the centre of the capital's financial district - today introduced its bizarre fitness regime with human weights ranging from a 155kg man to a 30kg female. 

The human dumbbells wear black leotards with their weights printed across their chests and sit on adapted machines to let the weightlifter visualise what they are lifting. More here. 

The Obamameter

PolitiFact has complied about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on their Obamameter. They rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept or Promise Broken. Here is one of their Obamameters:

No. 505: Create a $3,000 tax credit for companies that add jobs

The Promise:

 

"During 2009 and 2010, existing businesses will receive a $3,000 refundable tax credit for each additional full-time employee hired."

The Update:

 

Congress balks at $3,000 tax credit per worker

'Virgin Mary' Underpass Stain Defaced With Devil Graffiti

A Chicago underpass stain resembling the Virgin Mary has been defaced by graffiti of a devil face. The stain, under the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago, was tarnished by the demonic purple scrawl sometime within the last two weeks, police told the Chicago Tribune. The graffiti is a face with horns, a sinister fanged smile and "666." The full article is here. 

Callaway FT-iQ

Ever since its 1991 debut of the Big Bertha, a spatula-shaped driver named after a World War I-era German howitzer, Callaway Golf has earned a reputation for creating clubs that are easy to hit. The latest weapon to emerge from the company's R&D lab in Carlsbad, California, is the Callaway FT-iQ, a sleekly tapered square-shaped driver. 

Composed of a titanium face, a carbon-fiber body and an aluminum back cradle fitted with internal weights, the club is designed to launch the ball higher and with less backspin than previous models. A high launch angle and a low spin rate combine to generate optimum carry given a player's swing speed. They also result in a boring trajectory that yields added distance to a drive by producing roll.

Another selling point of the FT-iQ is its promise of straighter shots thanks to an extremely high moment of inertia, the clubhead's resistance to closing at impact. The technology of the clubhead is augmented by a super premium Fubuki shaft from Mitsubishi Rayon, one of the finest shaft-makers in the game. Fans of Callaway's recent drivers will recognize the club's rather muted sound at impact, much softer than the thwack of many titanium models. But don't be fooled: The FT-iQ packs a powerful punch.

Irvin hosting reality TV show to win roster spot on Cowboys

This spring SpikeTV will air an Irvin-hosted, still unnamed show wherein 12 “football neophytes” get training and inspiration from #88. That dozen gets voted off week by week, by judges including former Cowboys players and Jerry Jones. The “winner” gets a spot on the Cowboys roster. Watchable?

Obama's First Fashion Faux Pas

While we're all rejoicing at the fact that Barack Obama is our new president, we did have some reservations about the tuxedo he wore to the inauguration ball (above). Simply put, the combination of a notched-lapel dinner jacket (by Hart Schaffner Marx) and a big, shiny white bow tie was not quite the thing for a commander-in-chief. We asked our old friend Alan Flusser, the world's leading authority on men's style who's been interviewed several times about Obama's dress sense, for his thoughts on the matter. Flusser is a renowned designer and author of several seminal works on men's style including Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion You can check out his video interview with Charlie Rose here.

In Dressing the Man, Flusser writes, "The whole idea of a formal suit [i.e. tuxedo] is to distinguish itself from the notch-lapel business suit, not replicate it." Flusser declares that a dinner jacket with notched lapels is nothing short of a "sartorial oxymoron, convoluting both the form's aesthetic logic and its promise of timeless elegance." A proper dinner jacket should have peaked lapels, or, for slightly less formal occasions, a shawl collar. As for the white bow tie, that should only ever be worn with tails - hence the classic "white tie and tails" - and should never be satin. More here. 

Can Creatine Build Muscle?

Before there was 'the Nomad Surfer', I popped my internet publishing cherry by producing this nice and informative site that compiled a bunch of scholarly articles (It was also an assignment for my Health Psych class).  Click here to expand your creatine knowledge. 

Obama Chia Head

Pre-order one while supplies last from Amazon. 

iPod touch M110 sniper rifle: another reason to fear the Cult of Apple

We're trying... we're trying real hard to cling to our pacifist ways. But damn if the fusion of this US Army M110 Sniper Rifle and mounted iPod touch running the BulletFlight external ballistics calculator (available via the App Store) doesn't make us want to kill. Tap in the variables such as weather conditions, ammunition type, distance to target, and wind speed before exhaling and gently squeezing back on your second amendment right. God bless America. Via The Firearm Blog

'the Nomad Surfer' Got Wordle'd

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. www.wordle.net

the Nomad Surfer Visits Apple Store in NYC

All Music Is The Same Four Chords

Don't watch this if you don't want to lose all faith in music. The Axis of Awesome breaks down your favorite songs into the same four chords — over and over.

Harold Simmons’ 14-year Nuclear Gamble Pays Off

Simmons once told D CEO editor Glenn Hunter that if he landed the right permits, one of his companies could easily net another $200 million a year profit. Well, today, after 14 years of trying to get the state to allow him to bury radioactive waste in West Texas (shown left), it’s finally happened. February’s issue of D CEO (on newsstands soon, if not now) describes how Simmons and his company, Waste Control Specialists, worked the State Legislature and the people of Andrews County, Texas, to grease the skids. Link to the D Magazine article. 

30-pound marijuana brick delivered to wrong address in Denton

When an address didn't exist in Dallas, UPS assumed that perhaps the addresser meant Denton. Such is how a Denton man discovered a package containing a 30-pound brick of compressed marijuana on his front porch Monday. When he realized it wasn't the Sears tools he ordered, he took the chronic to the police department.

The package, addressed from Pharr, TX, had a street value of $10,500.