Restaurants Choose Their Customers

An interesting little article highlights the fact that restaurants are consciously trying to pick their customers.

Who do they want? Smaller parties.

Apparently the average spend per diner is higher for smaller groups and the average time at the table is shorter.

It's pretty intuitive, but I hadn't thought about it before.

Rest In Peace Maggie

We had to put our dog Maggie to sleep on Monday night. I've been a mess ever since - can't believe how much I loved that dog. In her honor, here's a re-post of the canine commandments. I'm so thankful I read this before her death because it really struck a chord for me and I spent the last weeks of her life saying a proper goodbye. We always honored the commandments, but we really honored 8, 9 and 10 in the last few weeks.

Preemptive Caption Contest Winner

Strange photo from The Atlantic's In Focus Signs of Spring photo essay, but the caption really brings it home:
"A Canada goose nests in an urn as a deer keeps a watchful eye at Forest Lawn cemetery in Buffalo, New York April 8, 2011. For at least four days, the buck stood guard near the nest of the goose as she sat on her eggs inside a large urn at the cemetery, home to the remains of President Millard Fillmore and rock icon Rick James."

Rick James, bitch!

Solar Cheaper Than Coal in 2 Years - Then What?

Fast Company posted yesterday that Solar power is projected to equal Coal power in terms of costs* by 2013. At that point, in a sane world, we would not install another Megawatt (MW) of Coal power. Yes, we still need Coal for back-up and consistency (solar is not a reliable 24/7 power source), but you'd have that in place with the now redundant coal plants as we install more and more solar power. I think this is actually already happening in California, and I'd be shocked if California ever built another coal power plant.

But will it spread to the fly-over states, the ones that don't believe Global Warming is real, the ones that have major coal-mining industries, and the entrenched business and union interests that go along with them? I'm not so sure.

This is where our innate resistance to change collides with a Pareto Optimality. We'll be able to get incredibly clean power on the cheap, save the environment, save lives, save money, and we'll come up with a bunch of excuses why we shouldn't do it. I'm sure the Koch Brothers will play a role in convincing the public that solar power isn't a good alternative to coal, not even when it's cheaper.

As a reminder, courtesy of Seth Godin, here's how many lives Coal power costs us relative to other energy sources.



*The caveats are that it is equal if you're a big, West coast utility that can by solar panels at volume and can install them in an area with ample sun.

Hipmunk's Pedestrian Guide To US Cities

All looks right to me.

From the Hipmunk blog.

Great travel site too.

Gentrification & White Flight Explained

A brilliant cartoon from tom Toles, way back in 1998. See full-size image on Flickr

HT: Yglesias

Metric System Adoption Approaches 100%

Only a few backwards countries are still holding out (3 according to this map).

Click the map for a bigger version, though I think you get the point.

Not Too Much To Ask From Man's Best Friend

We are dog lovers here at The Coughing Dog (it's right there in the name after all). This list is very sensible and a great reminder that if you're a dog owner, you've signed up for a lot of responsibility, but it's definitely worth it.

From the Cool Dogs tumblr feed.

Sweden Getting Rid of Stamps, USPS Can't Be Close Behind

Interesting news last week that Sweden has decided to get rid of stamps. Instead, the people who still mail things will have to use a text message payment system.

All joking aside about the US Postal Service not adopting this in my lifetime, I don't actually think this is a good idea. If you think about it, people who are regular users of stamps probably don't overlap very significantly with people who are regular users of text messaging payment services.

Where does this leave 89 year old Swedish Grandmothers who wanted to send a small box of Swedish meatballs to their grandkids?

Passports By State

Yet another statistic for Mississippi to be last in. I don't think the state by state findings are particularly surprising here.

What I do find surprising is the high percentage of passport holding overall. Americans aren't quite as sheltered as previously thought.

Go to Grey's Blog for a full-sized version of the map, full data on the state by state passport holding percentages and some additional analysis.

Polish Movie Posters

Great collection of Polish movie posters.


The Big Lebowski is a collage of nuttiness:



Here's the full slideshow with so many other gems.

Yet Another Reason Not To Live In South Dakota

I have never been to South Dakota, and I have little interest in going. For me, the fact that there are 2 Dakotas is a farce. Combined they have about a million and a half people spread across a huge swatch of empty land. And apparently those people really hate abortion. The legislature (I assume the legislators all take horse and buggy to the statehouse) has introduced a bill to make it justifiable (which is to say "Legal") to kill abortion doctors or mothers trying to get an abortion.

Now, I totally get that there are two sides to the abortion debate and that they are reasonable people on both sides of the debate. But there is nothing reasonable about legalizing the killing of doctors and pregnant women. That's crazy. South Dakota crazy.

The Countries of the World Are Sinking Into the Sea

The headline is true if a bit alarmist. This story is a couple of weeks old, but I am still fascinated by the decline of the ultimate bubble city, Dubai. One of the biggest, most outlandish developments was a series of artificial islands created just off the coast to look like the countries of the world. Well basically no one bought into the development, and now it's bankrupt and the islands have started to slip back into the sea.

The Daily Mail has the full story.

2011 Ice Age

A beautiful satellite image of the white Northern Hemisphere:

Perspective on Income Inequality

I'm one of those bleeding-heart liberals who thinks that we should be hunting down hedge-fund managers, liquidating their assets and passing out the windfall to the poor and needy in this country. Income inequality is bad and getting worse, and it just seems immoral for some to have 6 houses and multiple yachts, while others wake up each morning not knowing how they will feed their children.

But with that half-cocked rant out of the way, I think it's important to keep some perspective about just how rich the USA is compared to the rest of the world. This chart will help.



What is shows is that the poorest Americans are still much better off than the vast majority of people in Brazil, China and India. Spare a thought for the less fortunate, but don't restrict your concern only to fellow Americans.

From the Econonmix blog at the New York Times

When Life Gives You the Tea Party Exploit Their Ignorance To Make Tea

Headline's a bit of a stretch, but I love the ingenuity from Hawaii here. They are proposing to make available to anyone willing to spend $100 Obama's Hawaii Birth Records.

A disturbingly large percentage of the population believes Obama was actually not born in Hawaii, but somewhere else. Hawaii will now exploit those morons to raise some revenue.

HT: Marginal Revolution

Bear vs. Cat

For the record, my stereotype of Russia definitely includes people keeping baby bears as pets.

HT: The Awl

We're Going To Need a Taller Fence

Glad we're spending all that money on the border fence.

A Gift Idea For Last Minute Christmas Shoppers

Happy Holidays From The Coughing Dog.

The Ad is Shameless

The actor is shilling.



The secret agent is drinking the wrong liquor.