Nothing and Some More

The price of milk (and sex) in Cuba

The Spaniard left to go buy milk from the dollar store a hundred yards away, refusing my offer of payment. He returned with one of those European brick containers. When we opened it and poured some milk into a bottle cap, it was ochre. Probably old, no expiration date. Luckily I was feeding a dog, not a baby. The perrito gladly drank four bottle caps' worth. I'd have to give him a bath in the sink back at the hotel in Havana, I decided. And then I'd have to try to find a family to adopt him.
On my fourth visit to Cuba, I knew enough to realize that this would not be an easy task. Most families could hardly afford to feed their kids, much less a pet. This was why the lovely girls on the beach were sleeping with the foreign men old enough to be their daddies. And while well-off Cubans did have dogs, as often as not they were an element of conspicuous consumption and had to be recognizable breeds. This puppy was a mutt -- he wouldn't increase anyone's status.

Carl Hiaasen's archives seem complete and fully accessible. But he hasn't written anything in 2002 so far. Dave Barry's archives are limited to 3 months.

Viva Vermont, again: opt-in for everyone. (via Alter/)

Teleporting larger objects becomes real possibility (via Swaine's World)

I LOVE webmasters who change fast working websites for the sake of change. I wonder how many hours of usability testing they did.

NPR tunes in to multimedia reporting

For the past year, NPR has been asking its radio reporters to lug digital cameras and video cameras an assignments as a way of enhancing its Web site. Reporters are not required to add cameras to their usual bag of sound recorders, but the station's push for a greater Web presence has made incorporating multimedia into its reports inevitable.

Spin Cycle

Last week, a ''national music consumer study'' landed on my desk. The most fascinating stats weren't those about the rise of home-made CDs (half of those polled had them, compared to 30 percent a year before), or that three times as many record-store shoppers are likely to buy an album based on a ''display at end of aisle'' than a listening booth, or that new age is making a comeback.
o, the most fascinating -- and disturbing -- part of the survey was the chart listing where people buy their records. Topping the list, with a whopping 32 percent, was Wal-Mart, followed by Best Buy and Target (20 percent each) and Kmart (16 percent).

Cambodia on parade