The Brownbag

Brand new comic for the Brownbag by Mark Alpert and Gary Kwan

(more…)

By Noel Agnew

Good government requires foresight – looking into the future. Apparently not a lot of that went on as we careered into financial meltdown. So where will America be in 50 or 100 years from now? Authors have been keen to weigh in on our future prospects, especially in terms of the economy, population growth, and security.

In his new book The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, Joel Kotkin says that there will be 400 million people in America by 2050, so we better get used to the idea. This book, however, does not forecast gloomy conditions with cities bursting at the seams and lack of job opportunities.

(more…)

by Noel Agnew

On this day in 1904 the city of New York got its first official subway, riding from City Hall to 145th Street and Broadway. Run by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (even though it only served Manhattan when it opened), it attracted 150,000 passengers on it’s first evening of service. The track ran for 9.1 miles and served 28 stations. This marks the beginning of the current New York subway system and the MTA, but there were other underground rail experiments before 1904. Fully 60 years earlier the Long Island Railroad ran trains under Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and in 1870 the inventor Alfred E. Beachhad had a subway car blown by a giant fan for 312 feet under lower Broadway. 

The ornate station at City Hall where the first IRT subway journey started is no longer in use due to its curved nature which made it impractical to lengthen. It was shut down in 1945 and its entrances sealed. It is not quite lost to the public, however, experienced straphangers knowing that today’s 6 train still uses the old City Hall to turn from its downtown to uptown route. Just stay on the train at the last stop to do the loop (and hope you don’t get yelled at).

   In times of economic crisis and belts being tightened to match, some of us have opted for going out a bit less, hanging out at home and enjoying some good old TV nights ( because its not un-cool to do so when everybody is doing it). But here is the  issue,cable and Fios and dish networks and direct tv and all that good stuff can be expensive. These bills can run the average joe up to $70 a month and that is without “special” channels. They can shoot up even more when accompanied by (cue the reggeaton music ) internet and telephone services..four! four! Four! eight!. Ehem… If you are like me, you wont let the “Man” get away with taking  your money anymore ! Use your “frugal”  ways to  find alternative modes of getting your TV fix!     Some ways a recessionista like you and I can get some television without exorbitant monthly bills, if any, are the following: Get an HD Antenna! That’s right an Antenna and not the rabbit ear type your grandmother had. And yes,they do work even after everything changed from analogue to digital, but you will need an updated television, at least circa 90s to the present. These can run  anywhere from $14:99- $80 bucks if you care to spend that much. I purchased an antenna for about $30 online and can see up to 40 channels. By going to antennaweb.org, you can find the antenna that is right for your geographic region. Sure some of these channels are Korean, since I live in Fort lee, NJ, and sure some of these channels are the second and third and even fourth sister channel of the NBC network, but for the most part I can and do watch with incredible and uninterrupted HD definition  all the network shows I am interested in. I hide the sleek looking antenna behind the flat screen and no one is the wiser. Monthly cost: 0 bucks!
You may ask, what about the shows I love on cable? And movies?Well if you are savvy, you already know that most shows are online and on Netflix.  There are some cool little sites online like surfthechannel.com that have just about any show and any season. Furthermore Netflix, which for a low monthly bill , can get you anywhere from 1-3 dvds at a time and you can even catch some flicks online instantly. If you don’t want to watch  on your computer, you can purchase a wire that can connect your computer to your flat screen and voila!There you have it! Now you can go forth and prosper the recessionista way!

by Noel Agnew

Rubber strips, tinfoil, paper and sticks. On this day in 1947 a reported discovery of these materials in a field sparked rumors that America was being visited by extraterrestrials. It was Wiliam Brazel, a New Mexico farmer, who claimed that he found, “a large area of bright wreckage made up on rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks” on his land. Recent reports of UFO sightings in Roswell NM had Brazel convinced what he found was debris from an alien craft. On July 7th, reported the Roswell Daily Chronicle, Brazel went to town to see the sheriff and “whispered kinda confidential like” that he might have found a flying disk.

As you might expect the army, when dispatched to the scene, was unable to reconstruct a functioning craft from the wreckage. They did say, however, that they could use it to build a kite or weather balloon. I wonder where they put the “considerable Scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it”. Many believe that something did fall out of the sky in July 1947 and that Roswell is one of the US government’s biggest cover-ups, but it seems unlikely that Mr. Brazel’s paper and tape shed any light on the theories.

by Erica Goldblatt

 Every social worker has a patient they will remember as long as they live. Mine was Alex (name changed). She was barely 17 when she passed away, and to make a long story short, I adored this kid. When I looked at her, I saw myself as a teen: baffled and in love with the world, writing poetry riddled with metaphor and confusion. She somehow knew she wouldn’t live long, and when she succumbed to her brain tumor, I mourned her loss but understood that, while part of me went with her into the spiritual ether, my living purpose was to preserve her memory.

At Alex’s funeral, a hummingbird hovered over her casket and refused to leave. I’ve heard that hummingbirds appear at gravesides, and I know that in her final days, Alex liked watching the hummingbirds at their feeders outside her window. I decided to add to my tattoo collection and have one of Baltimore’s finest tattoo artists, Chandler (name also changed), put a permanent hummingbird on my right inner bicep. (more…)

by Fleur Edwards
Appreciating maths and science as I do, I recently took a trip to Wolfram and his Alpha and was suitably impressed.
Whilst the recently launched Wolfram|Alpha has at times been misinterpreted as a google-est tool, it is really a much more focused, factually correct band of knowledge. This tool is not for all searches, but this ‘computational knowledge engine’ is accessible for many more that its catch phrase would imply.
Wolfram|Alpha grew from the old Mathematica crowd and they use that base to build across all areas, including chemistry, mathematics and biology.
It doesn’t stop there however and also delves into earthquakes, music, weather and education, complete with ‘D dominant eleventh chord’ for example.
Wolfram isn’t even going to give you directions to your friends house, nor is it going to give you a complete filmography of Brad Pitt, but it will let you know that his full name is ‘William Bradley Pitt’, his date of birth (December 18th 1963) and his hometown (Shawnee, OK). What sets Wolfram apart is that for the most part the information is succinct, factually correct and user friendly. It gives you a complete list of background sources (from accredited authors) and steers away from the freestyle community input approach of Wikipedia. Feedback is still welcomed, but quality is put ahead of quantity and all information is ‘combined and curated’ by the Wolfram|Alpha team prior to   being posted on the site.
The content is truly impressive. I was able to analyze an SAT score (not that I have one being from Australia and all) and see that an SAT score of 1750 puts only 25% of males above me and 22% of females above me as well as the number of tests sampled.
The depth is surprising and the ease of use and interpretation makes it suitable for people of all ages and levels of understanding.

Overall Wolfram|Alpha is innovative and extremely ambitious, with initial indications are that they are achieving success in their endeavors. It is not just a place for Nerds-R-Us, but one where the general level of understanding of the human race can be lifted which is an admirable quality in anything.

Check it out
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

by Noel Agnew

When not busy being a Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin used his spare time to paint, write, and invent things. On this day in 1752 he just may have invented the lightning rod. Attempting to prove that static electricity and lightning contained the same electrical energy, he had an ingenious idea. Perhaps as somebody one said he was told to “go fry a kite”.

He attached a string to a silk kite, and fitted the string with a key, which would act as an attractor. Franklin then flew the kite into rain clouds before a thunderstorm (not directly into lightning, that would just be dangerous). It was only when Franklin noticed some of the string’s threads standing erect that he knew he had been successful. Placing his knuckle near the key, he was jolted by an electric spark. As well as receiving plaudits at home, Franklin became famous in France and England and went on to publish instructions on how to protect houses with lightning rods. Then there was Declaration of Independence thing too…

by Noel Agnew
If you just can’t wait for overnight shipping, how does Missile Mail sound? On this day in 1959 a US Navy submarine launched 3,000 letters via missile from Virginia to Florida. It arrived at its destination just 22 minutes later. Happily the rocket’s nuclear warhead had been replaced by two Postal Service containers. One of the postcards it contained was addressed to President Eisenhower. This was a test run but Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield claimed at the time that guided missiles would be the future of long distance mail.

Of course this never happened, the cost of such a plan being ludicrously expensive. It makes even less sense today, e-mail is pretty quick isn’t it? Still, apparently America still has around 500 intercontinental ballistic missiles, stashed away since the end of the Cold War. I can think of worse uses than mail runs.

by Elizabeth Paul, a student at MIT, an American born Indian raised in New York as a Christian.
Worcester, Massachusetts: Old industrial city suffering from neglect and uselessness.
Me: Visiting a friend who goes to school there. Outside in the rain. No umbrella. Wrap a scarf around my head to keep my hair from getting wet. Walking to my friend’s car.
Local mom and daughter: Average, forgettable, overweight. Umbrellas. Pass me by on the street. “Look, it’s a real Muslim.”
Me: Turn around to look. No one there. Realize they’re talking about me.

There is something about this state that I don’t like. Once you can differentiate between students from urban areas and everybody else, things become frightening. I’m not saying that only people from urban areas are smart, but I do think that if you’re not from an urban area, you have to make special efforts to be informed. Because the rest of the world isn’t right there in front of you.

Take the issue of illegal immigration for example. Many people have never met an illegal immigrant. So they have this image in their head. Probably of a drunk Mexican who kills precious, beautiful blond haired, blue eyed girls in a DUI accident. Or maybe the Apu from the Simpsons type who doesn’t take showers and eats with his hands. Certainly you don’t want them to stay in our country if they have broken immigration laws. They are ruining our economy and stealing our jobs. You think that since they are immigrants, they are willing to take jobs for low pay and are therefore taking jobs away from us– the upstanding citizens who are entitled to every wonderful opportunity we get because our mothers decided to pop us out between certain latitudes and longitudes. (more…)

by Sudha Narasimhan

We are in a time of great self-promotion. With the proliferation of Facebook and Twitter, we are submerged into a world of constant reminders of each other. I admit loving to update my Facebook status frequently with obscure phrases, nonsensical euphemisms for scatological humor, and cries for help (see ‘Sudha needs a hug’ status update back on 9/22/08). And don’t even get me started on this whole “friending” and “unfriending”. (more…)

by Mery Diaz

For the most part, your garden variety irritants that come from being a Facebook user happen when your annoying coworker wants to ‘friend’ you, your ex is stalking your page, or you need to reject one of the many “Which Harry Potter character am I?” applications. But folks, we have a new threat in town. Your Mom! (more…)

by Noel Agnew

Jack Bauer is a terrifically entertaining television character, but should he really be influencing the military policy of the most powerful on earth? Sceptical? The New York Times reports that the creators of Fox’s 24 were visited by the Dean of the US military academy at West Point. He told them that cadets were being influenced by Bauer’s uninhibited use of torture. In Bauer’s own words: “You are going to tell me what I need to know, it’s just a matter of how much you want it to hurt.” (more…)