Traffic

After an idea by Aza Raskin.

If you like it, check out one of my favourte infographics ever, on a similar subject.

Calendar

Originally uploaded by halobrien

If you liked the old songs in bullet points meme, you'll love this one. (And if you need help with the resulting earworm, YouTube has the song.)

Adaptation

I've been thinking a lot lately about the challenges of adapting stories from other media to film. What, really, is the point of doing a film adaptation? What makes something a “good” adaptation? Eventually I hope to have my thoughts in enough order to write about it.

For the moment, I just offer this new trailer ...

... and the thought that if you try to adapt the classics, you need to swing for the fences. It may not work, but anything less is sure to fail.

AIG

Kevin Drum:

What happened at AIGFP is standard practice throughout corporate America. America's corporate titans like to talk endlessly about performance-based pay and how capitalism rewards risk, but in real life compensation packages are almost always constructed to avoid as much risk as possible. If you work in a growing industry, your bonus depends on raw growth rates. If you work in a declining industry, your bonus is linked to relative growth rates. If the market is up, your bonus is paid in stock. If it's not, suddenly deferred comp and increased pension contributions are the order of the day. Heads you win, tails you win.

Stephen Colbert: