Benjamin Miraski's Brain

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Northwestern Examiner: Wildcats win one at the Cell

There haven’t been many highlights for Northwestern’s baseball team this season, but Wednesday night could make up for a lot of the disappointment.

The Wildcats (9-23) defeated Notre Dame (20-13) at U.S. Cellular Field 5-1, behind Eric Jokisch’s strong arm and clutch hitting.

“I can't tell you how proud I am of this team," NU head coach Paul Stevens told reporters following the win. "They've battled all year and have faced a lot of adversity. Today that persistence paid off.”

Unfortunately, it was difficult to see. Despite playing at the major league park, the game was not picked as a featured contest for the Big Ten Network. That’s probably because the network felt Northwestern would be overmatched by the hard hitting Irish.

Not to fear though. The Northwestern News Network chose to cover the game live on their Web site, streaming the feed over the internet.

Read the remainder of this article at Examiner.com

MRISports: Projecting the Tournament: Finals Edition

For as poorly as the MRI did at predicting the NIT, it did amazingly well at predicting the NCAA tournament so far.

With one game to go (that the computer cannot win), the MRI was at the 73rd percentile at ESPN, having been helped by a number of upsets along the way. The computer needed the help because it landed just one of its Final Four teams predicted prior to the tournament beginning.

Its solid standing is better than a number of the personalities who get paid the big bucks to spout on about sports on a daily basis at ESPN. The computer is ahead of everyone at PTI, a solid three-quarters of Around the Horn, and is hanging in there against the Editorial staff.

Not bad.

Read the remainder of this article at MRISports.com

Man Books

Another recent Medill grad just went to work for Playboy magazine, which sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. But this was her dream job, even if she is starting with working on the Web site and not directly on the printed edition at this point.

The other day, she invited all of her contacts to visit the latest revamp of Playboy.com and comment on at least one article.

Other than the pictures of scantily clad women dominating the site, the article that stuck out for me was in the Entertainment section.

The Top 20 Books Every Man Should Read

Of the 20 books listed, I have read three and a half of them: Hamlet, Hell's Angels, The Long Goodbye, and who hasn't read Metamorphosis, the lead story of the Kafka collection.

Of those that I have read, I would agree that they meet the criteria that Playboy sets forth:

There are plenty of guy reads about war, sex and sports, but only a handful that transcend those topics. These are books that help a man discover and define his own masculinity.

Of those I have read, none meets the criteria better than Hell's Angels, a look inside the infamous biker gang based on Hunter S. Thompson's real life experience. Thompson went the distance, even getting beaten to within an inch of his life to get his story. It was a book I found after reading about his experience in another book detailing the New Journalism movement that Thompson was a part of.

The Playboy list does invite some scrutiny. What's a list of "greats" without some problems.

]]> First of all, there are way too many collections of short stories on the list. While a collection of multiple pieces could examine the male condition from multiple angles, why not choose a singular work that covers all of the bases?

There is one that Playboy itself picks: Fight Club. The masterful work of male bonding taken to the extreme not only looks at the personal struggles of its protagonist, much as Hamlet does, but it also covers the topics of sex, and addiction, and war (well, terrorism). Plus it has boxing, so sports is covered. Push aside one of these collections to include the singular.

The next beef is probably a personal one but it goes to the whole idea of being a man. Sure Maxim is the magazine that prides itself on being up on the gadgets that men love, but Playboy shouldn't fall behind the technological curve if it still wants to be relevant. The problem I speak of is the availability of the titles on the Kindle.

I went out to try and get samples of the books that I hadn't read on the Kindle. Wouldn't you know that most were not available? How can you have a list of "Man Books" without them being available on the latest device other than the iPhone that most men would actually like to own (if they read books)?

It seems as if there is an important piece missing. Plus Playboy missed a perfect opportunity for cross-promotion by not ensuring that the books were on the device. Imagine if Amazon were to have placed this list prominently on its home page. The discussion could have gone on for weeks, and Playboy could have taken in some of the profits from the sales, something that they could use if they want to stay in business.

But alas, most people will have to stay with the traditional book reading method if they want to complete the man-themed collection.

As for other quibbles, let me suggest a few books that should have been considered for the list, maybe at the expense of James Ellroy, who is the only author on the list who has a work that I have actually stopped reading prior to finishing. His books might make great movies, but his words put me to sleep.

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey -- Sure the memoir turns out to be somewhat fictional, but don't we all put a little spin on our memories to make them seem more dramatic, even if it is only to us? The book deals with the same themes that Fight Club does: addiction, sex, inner struggle. Plus the book is the ultimate Oprah snub and any self-respecting man could get behind that (Ok, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections is the original Oprah snub, but Frey deserves some credit for making the queen of self-promotion lose her cool on national television).
Libra by Don DeLillo -- If you are going to kick James Ellroy off the list, why not replace him with another tale about JFK? DeLillo breaks down the time leading up to the assassination as only he can. We are taken inside the minds of all those involved in one of the greatest tragedies of our time, and it is mostly based on actual research done on the event to make it about as historically accurate as anything written about the event can be. DeLillo deserves at least some place on this list as he is one of America's least-appreciated literary greats.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein -- Heinlein not only takes on the challenge of describing the trials of being a man, he does it through the guise of a Martian. Sure, it is a little sci-fi in nature, but the novel still covers all the bases including sex, drugs, and it even adds in religion. There is no greater "outsider" view of life than what is put forth here and it definitely is introspective enough to handle being one of the "man novels".

So there you have it. Three books that I would put onto this list in a heartbeat. I think they could easily replace Ellroy, and any of the short story sets. After that, it would be in a tough fight to displace one of the current standing works.

And despite the criticism of the list, kudos still go to Playboy for continuing to embrace good work on the literary front and creating this somewhat-definitive list.

Penn State: The Improbable NIT winner

Penn State finished off Baylor last night 69-65 to take the NIT title. While some may mock the winner of this secondary tournament -- calling then No. 66 even though this title brings with it more prestige than dropping a first round NCAA game in an upset -- the NIT has been a stepping stone for many teams moving into the next season.

I wrote about this at Examiner, but here is a list of the teams that have turned recent NIT success into NCAA tournament glory the next season:

Ohio State turned last year’s championship into a No. 8 seed in this year’s NCAA tournament.
West Virginia, the 2007 champion, reached the Sweet Sixteen in 2008. The runner-up, Clemson, was No. 5 seed but ran into a hot Villanova team.

Two-time defending champ South Carolina started the 2007 season 10-3 before getting rolled by a hot SEC conference that ultimately produced NCAA champ Florida.

Ok, so Ohio State's tournament run didn't end with fireworks and parades, but they made the field. That should give Penn State a lot of hope going into next year, even with the loss of Jamelle Cornley.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Penn State's run to the title is how improbable the whole thing was.

Read the remainder of this story here.

Neglect

Sure, I have been neglecting this blog. Seems like that is always the way these things happen. It wasn't like I was tracking traffic here, and it is doubtful there was much. I am not exactly streaming video of puppies.

But rest assured that will all be changing. My brain will be back with a vengeance.

Northwestern Examiner: An early look at the 2009 football schedule

Adam Rittenberg of ESPN has posted a first look at the Northwestern Wildcats’ football schedule for next year, a slate of games that should have Northwestern looking at another bowl appearance.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that a 9-4 record may not be within reach according to Rittenberg.

Non-conference: Miami (Ohio), Towson, Syracuse, Eastern Michigan

“All four teams had losing records in 2008, and all four welcome new coaches for this fall. Northwestern will be favored in every game and has a good chance of running the table for the second straight season after failing to do so from 1964-2007.”

I would agree with Rittenberg on his analysis, but with new coaches are taking the helm at these schools, sometimes that has the effect of gelling a team that was just a little bit away from getting it together.

Now, none of these teams were that close.

Read the rest of this story at Examiner.com.

Space Junk

Seems that the astronauts outside the Space Station had a little trouble with their tools.

Grease leakage, and then floating tool bags.

Good to know that the tool bag shouldn't cause any issues... until its orbit degrades...

Could the tools survive the burn on re-entry?

Google CEO promotes new version of government

Originally published by the Medill News Service, Nov. 18, 2008
Appeared on Politico.com, Nov. 19, 2008

WASHINGTON -- There is an 800-pound gorilla sitting at the table as President-elect Barack Obama plans his transition to the White House.

But this gorilla isn’t measured in pounds; it is measured in dollars – a little more than $90 billion, the market cap of Google Inc., arguably the Internet’s most successful company.

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of the global search giant, has an honored seat on Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board. And if he and Obama have their way, Web 2.0 could give way to Government 2.0.

Schmidt addressed an audience of about 200 Tuesday at the Ronald Reagan Building. He spoke about government policy creation, information access and energy change.

The message was simple: Open.

]]> Schmidt advocated government based on the same principles which drove the creation of the Internet. The common phrase is to write what you know, or in this case, recommend what you know.

The Web was a collaboration between and public and private sources, balanced appropriately so that innovation could develop.

Schmidt asked why government can’t be the same way, starting with the fix for the economic slowdown.

“Unlike many other countries, we have… the people in the room not only to solve these problems but make a better place,” he said.

But innovation is something Schmidt doesn’t see slowing after the current crisis has passed.

He envisions it broadening to other areas, including developing new ideas for electricity generation, revitalizing the auto industry and helping encourage debate.

For Schmidt, the key is allowing everyone to participate in the discussion, mimicking a key part of the corporate culture at Google.

Google’s employees are routinely grouped together on projects where they have a common interest. And the culture is one of debating multiple ideas to find the best one.

“You never know where innovation comes from, but in an innovation environment, you welcome it,” he said.

Yet, this open innovative model may not have the appropriate influence when it comes to legislation, according to John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the libertarian Cato Institute.

“These [collaborative] networks are less territorial,” Samples said. “The problem is that representatives are. To influence them, they have to believe it matters to their re-election.”

The power of these online networks to influence policy and legislative changes might not exist.

Despite that, Schmidt’s vision for a new democracy relies on the government moving forward with its use of new ideas and technology.

“The government has not embraced generically the tools we use every day,” he said, pointing to the lack of blogs and other Internet innovations.

But that might be changing quickly. Obama pioneered political campaigning on the Internet, through his successful use of Facebook and multiple sites during his campaign. Now, in his transition, the use of the Web continues.

Obama posted his first address to the nation on YouTube, but that in itself wasn’t the innovative part. Instead it was what came after, Schmidt said.

By using YouTube, Obama enabled all the viewers to comment and respond with their own videos, opening the dialogue long before he takes office.

Welcome to Government 2.0.

Kindle is here

I now have had the Kindle for about a week. It is a wondrous toy.

I am able to read the paper on the train to the newsroom for the first time. Spreading out the Wall Street Journal before this has been a little cumbersome.

I am able to carry what amounts to about 25 books with me currently, although I am only reading about two.

I am also able to see previews of a number of books that are on my Wishlist at Amazon, especially some that i haven't been able to see at a real store.

Now if only I can get all of the books that I want to read onto the Kindle. I have been clicking on the new Amazon links that tell the publisher to put their book in Kindle format.

Bring on more books.

Three more weeks until my vacation. I fully expect to see my usage of the device go through the roof.

It's coming

After months and months of debate and a number of almost clicks, I finally broke down last night and bought a Kindle.

I got to play with one a few weeks ago and that sealed the decision-making process. It is probably surprising that it took me another week and a half before actually doing it.

I will be very excited to get out from under the mounds and mounds of newspapers and book and into the technological reading world, along with the rumored 240,000 other people who have bought the device.

Go me.

More updates as they happen.

Fed Speak - What does it say?

Since the time of Alan Greenspan, the guessing game of what the Federal Reserve will do at any of its Federal Open Market meetings has been turned into a parlor game.

The next meeting is August 5th.

My take? They are staying pat on the Fed Funds Rate at 2 percent.

I decode the Fed Speak in my latest post for Medill Money Mavens.

The pen is mightier

With the economy in the dumps, luxury sales are slowing.

Just look at the auto sales numbers for June. There is no good information there.

Even with the high gas prices, car sales normally will stay firm, especially at the high end. However, consumers are more likely to be moving to smaller luxury items these days.

Learn more about pen sales and why they might be soaring in my latest article for the Medill News Service.

Cool Economic Word Cloud

I can't take credit for this. However, this is one of the best uses I have seen of the word cloud concept yet.

A user named Econymous took Ben Bernanke's speech before Congress and turned it into a word cloud.

Anyone think that the FED isn't looking at Oil Price, Inflation, and the Financial Credit markets after seeing this?

Click through for a larger version.

Is it time for GM to hit the road?

Oh, GM, I believe the time has come for you to get out of town.

And by town, I mean the Dow.

If you want a rant, you get one at Medill Money Mavens.