About Patrick James

Patrick

multum in parvo

Location:

(USA)

Joined on:

11/29/06

Occupation:

Assistant Editor, GOOD Magazine

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  Business & Money

  

  Ballin For Bankruptcy

  We're not sure if you've heard, but NBA players make more money than most people. A lot more. In response to news about point guard Baron Davis' possible move to Los Angeles and 5-year $65 million contract, King Kaufman waxes incremental over that sum. An excerpt:
  
  "Davis' reported average salary for the Clippers over the next five years will be $3,302.85 per minute, even the ones he spends on the bench, or on the sideline. And that's about $55 a second. Two-tenths of a second left in the quarter? The Clippers won't be able to catch and shoot. They can only score on a tip-in. And in the time it takes the ball to travel the few inches from a player's fingertips to the basket, Baron Davis will make 11 bucks."
  
  That's some serious scrilla; however, as Rick Reilly reminds us, 60% of NBA players go broke within five years of retirement. Come again? Now, don't get us wrong. We don't wish financial ill will on anyone—especially someone with the potential to resuscitate the ailing Clips. But these numbers (and the holes they burn in those pricey pockets) are so baffling that we feel like our heads might explode. We're just sayin.

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  Posted on July 2, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Living

  

  The Moral Of The Story Is...

  ...Jezebel writer Megan Carpentier had a far better summer job than any of us. Her cautionary tale of unintentional harassment is, well, cautionarily telling. Also, a lot more men say they've been subject to workplace sexual harassment by women than you might expect. What would Sam Zell say?
  
  UPDATE (and answer to above question): He'd say it's time to fire as many people as possible. We really should have seen that coming.

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  Posted on July 2, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Media

  

  Fox News Somehow Gets Less Credible, Furthers Quest To Destroy Irony For Everyone Forever

  We all make mistakes. From time to time, even the most venerable people and institutions will, in a moment of weakness, say or do something regrettable. Even Fox News, the fair and balanced beacon of truth, experiences the occasional ethical hiccup. For example, take a look at the following Media Matters video clip. There's a summary of Fox's tiny indiscretion below it.
  
  
  
  It's bizarrely coincidental that Fox's accidental snafu happened during a segment on "attack journalism." That's so...something.
  
  Thanks, Nate.

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  Posted on July 2, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Mobility

  

  Mercedes Dumps Oil

  By 2015, Mercedes' entire line of cars will run on alternative fuels. Can you imagine what would happen if the companies that make affordable cars follow suit? Until then, you can always do it yourself.
  
  Via Inhabitat.

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  Posted on July 1, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Culture

  

  The Work Of Criticism In The Age Of Cinematic Reproduction

  While acknowledging the discrepancy between the populism of the movie-going public and the elitism of most movie-reviewing critics, Erik Lundegaard employs some creative math and clever charts to convey that (surprise, surprise) well-reviewed films do better at the box office.

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  Posted on July 1, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Health

  

  Ask Alice

  According to a study in a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, psilocybin (the drug in hallucinogenic mushrooms that makes all the wackiness happen) is good for you. That is to say, the hallucinations it induces can have long-term psychological benefits. It also might be helpful for treating alcohol and drug addiction.

  Now, it's still considered dangerous and categorized as an illegal drug, and the findings aren't all that conclusive. The only thing we know for sure is that mushrooms are very helpful for concocting stories about the bricks of the building you're beholding under a melting midnight campus sky wherein the bricks all work in a brick factory and get paid in bricks and, on Christmas, if they've been especially good bricks this year, are allowed some extra salt when they dine on their Christmas brick.
  
  Link. Image via Flickr.

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  Posted on July 1, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Business & Money

  

  It's Just Business

  These cartoons need very little in the way of introduction. They're poignant. They're hilarious. And they blow our mind every Monday. Visit Business Guys On Business Trips and you'll feel a bit of your office-sucked soul regenerate (or at least you'll find humor in the cankerous hole where it used to be).
  
  Thanks, Avery.

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  Posted on June 30, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Art & Design

  

  Offshore Drilling On Your Torso

  While perusing the bounty of fun that is Neatorama, we stumbled on this clever little Threadless number entitled The End of Summer. It transposes the iconic silhouettes of surfers Michael Hynson and Robert August from the movie poster of The Endless Summer to an imagined beach in a post-offshore drilling dystopia.

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  Posted on June 30, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Magazine

  This Week In GOOD

  Salutations, people of the internet. You might have noticed that we welcomed a new blogger to GOOD this week. Alexandra impressed us all week, with lucid, thought-provoking posts on the Everglades' slightly brighter future, jail birds, the real designs of a fake architect, Mars, Olafur, and more. We're exceedingly proud to have her on board this noble, little ship called GOOD. The better the crew, the smoother the sailing. Anchors away? See you next week.

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  Posted on June 27, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Magazine

  

  GOOD Q&A: Michelle Nunn

  Twenty-one years ago, Michelle Nunn was a recent University of Virginia graduate and a fledgling community activist. Motivated by her life-long zest for civic involvement and a sense of personal responsibility, she co-founded a small organization called Hands On Atlanta. Today, the Points of Light Hands On Network is the largest volunteer organization in the country, and Nunn is at the helm of it all.
  
  What does a $20 donation do for Hands On Points of Light
  For every $20 that’s being donated, we’re leveraging significant numbers of volunteer hours. We’re helping enable people to put up human capital and create human solutions. We’ve been doing a lot of work in the Gulf and for every $1 that’s invested, we’re leveraging $5 of impact, and that is helping people rebuild their homes, helping people file for social security and federal assistance, buying lumber for wheelchair ramps, and buying tutoring supplies. Those dollars are investing in the capacity of people to solve problems across the country and around the world.
  
  For our readers who are unfamiliar with Hands On, can you explain what the organization does?
  We are inspiring, equipping, and mobilizing people to take action that changes the world. We are focused on helping people discover their own power to be change agents in their communities. We have 370 volunteer centers across the country that are mobilizing people and literally putting people to work in everything from delivering meals to people who are homebound, to tutoring and mentoring children, to building wheelchair ramps, to helping people recover their lives on the gulf coast like the one we just had here in Atlanta last week.
  
  Read the complete interview here.

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  Posted on June 30, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Art & Design

  

  Fonty Freakin Friday

  Yes, yes, this is probably the fontiest Friday we've had all year. But we wouldn't have it any other way. Here's a place where you can check out 37 new typefaces for free, including the indefatigable Fertigo (pictured above). Go get your download on.
  
  Thanks, Jaime!

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  Posted on June 27, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Art & Design

  

  Fifty Favorite Fonts

  The designer James West has assembled a lovely new book called Fifty Designers' Current Favorite Typefaces. We're pretty enamored of it, not only because the title is so comprehensively descriptive, but because all of the proceeds go directly to UNICEF (for disaster relief). You can order it here for £3.
  
  Via Cool Hunting.

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  Posted on June 27, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Art & Design

  

  Surfing Pororoca

  In the spirit of those intrepid travelers we've covered in our current issue, we turn our attention to a new documentary about Pororoca—where dangerous tidal bores produce some of the longest waves in the world...in the Amazon River!
  
  
  
  Also, for a visually stunning Surfline piece, the photographer Jon Rose talks viewers through a number of Pororoca shots that you have to see (and hear) to believe.

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  Posted on June 25, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Magazine

  

  GOOD Q&A: John Wood

  In 1998, John Wood was a dedicated Microsoft executive who needed a vacation. That year, while trekking through Nepal, he encountered a village so bankrupt of reading material that he vowed to come back the following year with as many books as he could carry. Soon thereafter, he founded the Room to Read, an organization that builds libraries in the developing world. GOOD recently phoned Wood to hear his personal thoughts on global literacy, why he left Microsoft to found Room to Read, and which big-red-dog book most moved him as a child.
  
  For our readers who are unfamiliar with Room to Read, can you explain what it is?
  We do three things: We build schools. We establish multilingual libraries and fill them with thousands of books. And we provide long term scholarships for girls because girls are often left out of the education system. Basically, we’re a group that is committed to reaching 10 million kids across the world with the life-long gift of education. In education lies the key to self sufficiency—and the best long term ticket out of poverty.
  
  What does a $20 Donation do for Room to Read?
  This is a perfect price point. Twenty dollars is sufficient to sponsor a girl’s scholarship for one month. We can also print 20 local-language children books in languages that have never really had children’s books before. It’s one of the reasons there’s such an illiteracy problem in the developing world—there’s just no children’s book industry.
  
  Read the complete interview here.

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  Posted on June 25, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Environment

  

  Nintendo: No Cheat Code For Failing Environmental Grade

  Nintendo received the worst environmental ranking of any tech firm in Greenpeace's quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics. The game company claims it received the low ranking because it chose not to participate in what it thought was a voluntary survey. Greenpeace says the study was not optional.

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  Posted on June 25, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Media

  

  Don't Ask, Don't Deli

  For the record, the following Deli Mayo advertisement is not offensive. It's clever. It's charming. It even makes us consider purchasing some new condiments. But Heinz yanked it out of the airwaves after an innocuous man-man peck on the lips offended some very, very stupid people.
  
  
  
  This knee-jerk homophobia sure takes us back. Just after the release of GOOD 002, we caught surprising amounts of flak—and at least two subscription cancellations—for running a certain Marc Jacobs ad (above). Our guess is that no one would have complained if they were fighting.

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  Posted on June 24, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Mobility

  

  Picture Me Rollin'

  Andrew Bush shot photos of Southern California drivers in their cars from 1989 to 1997. The blond bird the pink corvette was, believe it or not, driving in Hollywood.
  
  Via Boing Boing.

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  Posted on June 24, 2008 by - Patrick James

• 1 vote

  Education

  

  David Harvey Reads Capital

  As a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York, David Harvey has made a name for himself in part by teaching Karl Marx's Capital, Volume I each year for the past 40 years. This time around, he's making his lectures available via embedded Youtube videos on his blog. The thirteen two-hour videos will take you from the commodity to the theory of colonization, and reveal why an excerpted version of Marx can't compare to a reading of the complete text. Oh, and we'll let you know if we find someone doing the same thing with Adam Smith.
  
  Via Archinect.

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  Posted on June 24, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Art & Design

  

  Objective Catastrophe

  What unfortunate honor do Sega's Saturn, Buick's Reatta, and Apple's Newton MessagePad share? They were all colossal flops. WSJ sifts through the detritus of those and a few other high-profile design failures with equal parts nostalgia and arms-up, head-shaking befuddlement.

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  Posted on June 23, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Mobility

  

  The Routes Of Indie Rock

  We hope you've had an opportunity to peruse Adam Leith Gollner's Guide to Guidebooks, a breakdown of five notable travel books from Lonely Planet to City Secrets. That piece in mind, we just got wind of a new and exciting book from those German audiophiles over at Rockbuch. The forthcoming Indie Rock Travel Guide will be comprised of a number of bands' takes on their hometowns (or their favorite tour stops). What better way to see New York than through the eyes of The Rapture? How better to hop through Hoboken than at the feet of Sonic Youth? And who better to build your itinerary in Melbourne than Architecture in Helsinki?
  
  Check out a longer list of bands/destinations at Pitchfork. Image via Flickr.

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  Posted on June 23, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Culture

  

  Punctuation's Not Dead

  Just before the weekend began, Slate ran a thoroughly satisfying piece on the disappearance of the semicolon in modern writing; it gave us pause.
  
  Today, Neatorama links to the work of Matt Sutter, an artist who assembles his "Typewomen" from the letters and objects of various fonts.
  
  UPDATE: Apropos of something, we'd like to add Allison Wilton's emoticon book via Josh Spear to this post.

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  Posted on June 23, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Magazine

  This Week In GOOD

  Today is not only the end of the work week, but also the beginning of summer. Zounds, what a day!
  
  On Monday we weaseled our way into some barely legal digits.
  
  Tuesday was bestowed with two-wheeled animal symbolism.
  
  Wednesday offered up some incomprehensible figures...you know, like Ross Perot.
  
  Thursday was, of course, Juneteenth, which was a perfect time to learn how to make change and compound words.
  
  Our advice for the weekend is simple: Stay sweet and keep in touch.

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  Posted on June 20, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Art & Design

  

  Olde Tyme New York

  Kottke just linked to some black-and-white nostalgia: century-old images of New York. They're so tactile, so soft. And they evoke this mechanistic allure that makes you wonder if future-people look back on our contemporary cities with equally-widened eyes.

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  Posted on June 20, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Business & Money

  You Want Expensive Fries With That?

  Calling all hungry, well-off Brits. Burger Kings in London have a new menu item: "Premium, prohibitively priced, Japanese-style Wagyu, flame-grilled, garnished with Italian truffles, Spanish cured ham, aged balsamic vinegar, Champagne onions and popped onto a saffron- and truffle-dusted bun." It costs a cool $200, and proceeds go to charity. OK. Cool? It's just tough to reconcile living in a make-the-most-expensive-version-of-a-food-item-for-PR-purposes world ($12,000 Knish, anyone?) when many parts of that same world are experiencing massive food shortages. The mix of logic and circular absurdity is baffling. Then again, as Jezebel puts it:
  
  "Why does its being a burger make this more offensive to people? After all, folks spend far more than this on fancy dinners—and not for charity, either. However, if we're shelling out that kind of cash, it's not to chow down in the neon confines of a Burger King."
  
  
  
  Thanks, Joanna.

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  Posted on June 20, 2008 by - Patrick James

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  Mobility

  

  Air Shenzen

  You might remember our discussion of astounding growth in the young Chinese metropolis of Shenzen (in GOOD 010). We already told you about the growth that has happened in Shenzen. But if you like reading about proposed feats of architectural brilliance sprinkled with delicious images of aeronautical eye candy, then take a look at the Shenzen Bao’an International Airport in China (many more images after the link).

  Comments (0)

  Posted on June 19, 2008 by - Patrick James