randomwalks/dj

ECLIPSE/MpowerPlayer
Looks like suitable instructions for getting J2ME MIDP 2.0 development going on the Mac with Eclipse using the Mpowerplayer SDK.
This has been a long time in coming.. Let's hope it works..

Originally from unmediated, on March 3, 2006 3:17 PM

Well, free via web services for now, downloadable db coming soon

Originally from unmediated, on March 3, 2006 3:16 PM

After having about 24 hours to play with the new Intel-based Mac mini, Jonathan Seff got the chance to pick the brain of Apple’s senior director of desktops, Tom Boger.

Originally from Macworld, on March 3, 2006 3:11 PM

Cranbrook student takes his 40-foot thesis on the road. Stay tuned... Story in Metro Times Detroit and the Hawktrainer School Blog. "Although still in the planning stages and waiting on funding from sponsors, Sutherland's "Wall of Water" consists of a 5,000-gallon tank, made from clear acrylic...

Originally from Archinect.com Feed, on March 3, 2006 3:09 PM

Originally posted by sudama from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 3, 2006 2:28 PM

Originally posted by sudama from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 3, 2006 2:27 PM

Feedwhip is built around a simple, powerful idea: we track all your favorite websites so that you don't have to. Every time one of your website changes, we'll send you an email!

Originally posted by exiledsurfer from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 3, 2006 2:24 PM

Originally posted by sudama from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 3, 2006 2:20 PM

Originally posted by latca from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 3, 2006 2:20 PM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 3, 2006 2:19 PM

Bill Simmons, who writes the Sports Guy column for ESPN.com is, to my mind, far and away the best sportswriter in America. If you're a sports fan and you don't read Simmons, shame on you. From time to time he does a feature called Curious Guy, where he emails with someone who he thinks might be interesting. He did Chuck Klosterman not long ago, for instance, which is well worth looking up.  Well, now he's done me. Part one is up today. Part two is up tomorrow.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060302

Originally posted by malcolmgladwell from gladwell.com, on March 3, 2006 3:48 AM

The Captain of Design himself points us to the ski trail maps of James Nieuhues. Nieuhues is a prolific fellow...he's done paintings for most of the large ski resorts in the western US.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 2, 2006 1:43 PM

Originally from lifeblog, on March 2, 2006 1:43 PM

"1) Managers are soul-sucking zombies. 2) Your co-workers are dumber than you think. 3) Simple is best. 4) The customer is always interesting. 5) Everything you may or may not know is temporary."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 2, 2006 1:43 PM

My favorite is Ingvar Kamprad's.
(via del.icio.us/linkblog)

Originally posted by Chris from Cynical-C Blog, on March 2, 2006 1:43 PM

My Dad writes in an email:

"If there's a place and an era I should remember, it is 1950s 'solidly working class London'. I was 17 in 1955 and these are photos of me at ages 16 and 17.

Memories of seeing Teddy Boys around are quite clear, but Teddy Girls, no - in fact I don't even remember the expression being used. It required a bit more cash than we had to dress in the 'drapes' with their velvet trimmed collars (only black was allowed!). I guess we thought of them as a different culture. They didn't do the things we enjoyed doing such as roller skating, riding motorcycles - even shooting magpies. In fact I don't remember them doing much of anything except strut around looking pretty. The few I came in contact with worked as store clerks.

The article is quite good. I have to agree with the mention of no teenagers. To us youngsters, there were adults who worked and kids who went to school. My first noticeable experience of teenagers as we know them today was when I arrived in Canada in 1959. I'm sure you remember me saying that many kids in the U.K. were leaving school and entering the workforce at 15 years of age."

So Dad, does this mean you didn't dance The Creep?!

Update: According to this site on teenage fasion history, Teddy Boys rejected their fathers' working class clothes, instead preferring the elegance of drapes, drainpipe trousers, brocade waistcoats, stiff shirts, shoestring ties and suede shoes.

"This fashion is thought to have really originated when 500 Jamaicans arrived in Tilbury in 1948 on board the ex troop ship 'Empire Windrush' in response to the UK's government plea to the Caribbean for workers. They wore Zoot suits and the Edwardian look is thought to have been an adaptation of the suit the Jamaicans were seen wearing about the East End towns... [T]he Teddy Boy outfit was not cheap to buy and when custom tailored usually cost up to £100 for one outfit. An ordinary mass produced drape suit cost approximately £20 and shoes £3. So sporting a new suit indicated to peers how well an individual was doing money wise. At this time a Teddy Boy would have earned between £5 and £12 a week."

And get this 1969 Hong Kong movie about Teddy Girls!

Originally posted by Anne from Space and Culture, on March 2, 2006 1:42 PM

"In the very early days of hypertext research, people worried a lot about hand-crafted links. How will we ever afford to put in all those links? We also worried about how we'd ever manage to afford to digitize stuff for the Web, not to mention paying people to create original Web pages. Overnight, we discovered that we'd got the sign wrong: people would pay for the privilege of making Web sites."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 2, 2006 1:42 PM

I started using del.icio.us this week.

Well, not really. I've had an account since summer '04, but I've never used it for much besides testing API features. Before hearing about Del.icio.us, I rolled my own database of text and URL snippets and experimented with various ways of pushing content in: via bookmarklets, e-mail, drag and drop to "hot" folders on my desktop, and so on. I have high personal inertia so this simple, personal database is still in use running my snippets feed.

However, Reblog 2.0 now supports Del-like posting bookmarklets, republishing items from RSS feeds, and plug-ins. I modified the snippets database to accept input directly from a Reblog plug-in, and activated Reblog's Delicious_Post plug-in as well. Now, the public output of my attention span can be seen in three different places:

1. Tecznotes snippets, with swanky looking posting activity chart. (RSS)
2. Del.icio.us migurski, with social view of links I find interesting and antihelpfully-truncated descriptions. I don't use tags, sorry. (RSS)
3. My Reblog, with attributions and OPML. This is technically the horse's mouth. (RSS, Atom)

This kind of link foraging and rebroadcasting is what Mike and I will be talking about next week at E-Tech. If you're there, please attend our wonderful session Thursday morning.

Originally from tecznotes , on March 2, 2006 1:42 PM

Since I started working for myself in the middle of last year, I've had to change my entire approach to how I approach and arrange my finances. I've fastidiously kept almost every receipt and missive from cable, mobile, credit card, student loan companies and anything that could remotely approach relevance come the Ides of April. Despite this, the pile of paper and impending math is intimidating, and I am constantly afraid of the mess that is my accounting "system." Since I do so much banking on-line, I'd been frustrated that my credit card companies couldn't offer me a spreadsheet of all my purchases, which would make all of this math much easier. I still get mail every week from American Express addressed to $$FIRST_NAME$$ $$LAST_NAME$$.

This week they offered $$FIRST_NAME$$ a "Year End Summary." Curious, I clicked through, and my dreams were answered. Here are all my purchases, not only in PDF, CSV or XLS, but broken down by category. I am floored! There's even an "interactive" version where you can re-categorize misfiled items, although it appears they did a great job. And they should, it's what they do!

Highs and Lows:

• $2000 in "travel" expenses, broken down into airfare, lodging, and other. "Other," the largest chunk, consists entirely of Subway and Amtrak fares. South By Southwest accommodations and three plane trips account for the balance. It would be nice if they could connect the name on the reservations, in two cases Adriana's, into the spreadsheet since I can't write off her tickets on my taxes.


• $1300 in restaurants - less than I would have guessed, but probably because it's so common to pay with cash in New York.


• $0 automobile related charge, account related charges and late fees.


• $[embarrassingly large number] in "Merchandise," the vast majority of which is mobile phone and server costs that I passed on to clients and co-workers. The rest is video games and books. Why did I make three trips to H&M in July? And Apple - wow. Just, wow. Five trips to Whole Foods: $474. Got to get that under control this year!

Originally from hello, typepad, on March 2, 2006 12:31 PM

Pruned has collected some lovely petri dish scenes full of fractal patterns.

Billions and billions of bacterial landscape architects pruning -- no less in environments poisoned with antibiotics -- other bacterial landscape architects, dead or alive, to form dazzling arabesque parterres. The self-organizing embroidery of organisms in constant Darwinian mode.

More here. See also ferrofluid.

Originally from kottke.org, on March 2, 2006 10:06 AM

Edward Tufte's new book, Beautiful Evidence, has finally gone to print and will be available in May 2006, but can be pre-ordered now. (thx, jim)

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 2, 2006 10:06 AM

Urs Fischer installation view, with Kenneth Anger's room visible in the background

James and I attended the press preview yesterday. I expect to write more, and put up some more photos, but I wanted to post some random initial impressions. Also, I can't use my catalog for reference yet since the cover fell off when I opened it and the pages haven't all been cut.

My first impression is that there are a lot more artists with whom I was unfamiliar, unlike the previous one. I'm pleased to see that, because I don't want the Biennial to show a lot of work that regular New York-based gallery-goers have already seen.

A number of works (such as those of Jutta Koether) were created in the spaces, with the curators indicating that the artists' responses to the Breuer building were an important part of this Biennial.

I was struck by the mention of the curators visiting Berlin to see works by young American artists. I worry very much about New York's ability to remain a cultural capital when it's so hard for artists to afford to live here. This week-old article from Crain's New York on the subject gives some statistics from a study by the Freelancers Union.

There is a great deal of political work in the show, which is fine by me, as well has heavily conceptual work. Joao Ribas has an interview on Artinfo with the curators in which they discuss the number of "anonymous" or "fictional" artists/collectives in the show. I would also say the spirit of Beuys is apparent in the show with works by Urs Fischer, JP Munro, and others.

One more observation: I found it odd that a number of works dealing with African-American issues and politics were all put together -- including works by Dawolu Jabari Anderson, Robert A. Pruitt, and Otabenga Jones & Associates. I didn't see a specific mention of a conscious choice to put these near (or next to) each other in any wall texts, but I can think of few other obvious groupings of work dealing with "identity politics" in the show.

Originally from bloggy, on March 2, 2006 8:46 AM

If you follow Jonathan Schwartz, you will have observed a little flurry around our offer of free-trial (and maybe free-for-keeps) T2000 servers. If you read the comments, it’s become apparent that our systems for supporting this kind of marketing promotion, uh, need some work. I’m really glad that Jonathan did this, because I know from bitter experience how bad we are at offering hardware freebies, and this will force us to fix it. Particularly right at the moment, it seems to me a no-brainer that scattering a few of our Opteron and Niagara boxes in the direction of some worthy OSS projects and startup companies would be about the most cost-effective marketing imaginable. On lots of occasions I’ve gone running excitedly to the product groups saying “Hey, it would be really great if we could get XXX a server to try out!” and the reaction is along the lines of “Well yeah, but how would we do that?” It turns out that when you’re a big public company, if you have a defined process in place for doing something, it’s easy and efficient, and if you don’t, you’re in SNAFU territory. Lots of other good stuff in those comments too, check them out. In particular, I happen to know that Wikipedia already has one of the free-trial T2000 boxes, and that’s a very interesting application, so we’re going to work with them see how fast we can make it run on that box. Sun is full of Wikipedia fans.

Originally from ongoing, on March 2, 2006 8:46 AM

Blood in the water:

Originally from Mr. Sun!, on March 2, 2006 8:45 AM

listening today in a groove. words were music and problems were music. an autistic child tells the best jokes i ever heard.

coincidentally, my supervisor pointed to a catalog of tiny instruments and said the agency would pay! my pick.

i wish there was more secular human service, but bizzarely, sometimes things work anyway.

pictured a miniature ornament i made last summer, out of focus hence color saturation, tied with silver thread to a rose-scented geranium.

vincent d' vincent d' vincent. my trinity.

Originally from serenalarogers, on March 2, 2006 8:45 AM

Although the new Apple MacBook Pro looks nearly identical to the company's existing 15-inch PowerBook, something radical is going on under the hood.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on March 2, 2006 8:44 AM

he talked about the game in today's podcast; I posted the MP3 clip  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on March 2, 2006 8:44 AM

Originally from Wooster Collective, on March 2, 2006 8:44 AM

From a forthcoming Serge Gainsbourg tribute album I give you Cat Power & Karen Elson (jack white's missus) singing je t'aime bizarrely translated into english, a curiosity.
via Filles Sourires

Posted to music

Originally from Stunned, on March 2, 2006 8:39 AM

If you're in proximity to great produce in the Bay, know that we are currently envious.

Originally posted by beXn from beXnlog, on March 2, 2006 8:39 AM

Wow. First South Dakota, now Mississippi. All at once that rhetorical fear-mongering in the Planned Parenthood and NOW fundraising letters is starting to sound like cool, accurate assessment.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on March 2, 2006 8:39 AM

Pic of Day 3.1: Kid watching Portable Video
Originally uploaded by triciawang.

Q Train, Brooklyn

Originally from Hi Tricia!, on March 2, 2006 8:38 AM

Sun Microsystems to partner with Architecture for Humanity to create a community conduit to generate and support innovative and sustainable global housing solution.

Originally from Archinect.com Feed, on March 2, 2006 8:35 AM

New York State's efforts to modernize its election system have fallen behind the rest of the nation, delayed by government gridlock.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 2, 2006 8:34 AM

2005 was the biggest year yet for camera phones, those pocket-size precursors to the participatory panopticon and potential planetary protection tool (yes, I got a special deal on "p"s, why do you ask?). Market research group NPD reports:

In 2005, 45 percent of all mobile phones sold in the U.S. were camera phones, up from 26 percent in 2004. Asia followed a very similar trend. Western Europe had a higher incidence of camera phones at 64 percent, and Japan had a much greater adoption rate with more than 90 percent of all mobile phones sold with camera capabilities both in 2004 and 2005.

This tells us two things: we're on the verge of seeing a major blow-up between advocates of strict control over recordings of intellectual property and advocates of universal use of communication tools; and we're approaching a point where location-based information and communication systems relying on cameraphones will have a large enough base of potential users to really make a go of it.

(Via Picturephoning)

(Posted by Jamais Cascio in QuickChanges at 01:18 PM)

Originally from unmediated, on March 2, 2006 8:34 AM

"Americans know more about The Simpsons TV show than the US Constitution's First Amendment, an opinion poll says. ... About one in five thought the right to own a pet was one of the freedoms."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 2, 2006 8:33 AM

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color PURPLE and don't stop to notice it. - Alice Walker

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on March 2, 2006 8:08 AM

World Prison Population. (50KB PDF) by country, 2003. Though only 4% of the world’s population lived in the U.S. in 2003, the U.S. held 23% of the world’s prison population — more than any other nation.

Originally from Social Design Notes, on March 2, 2006 8:07 AM

Not a Toy. Adam’s posted a few images of an illustrated guide for children about the dangers of touching or playing around unexploded munitions. The illustrations cover free, blank softcover notebooks produced by US Army for distribution in Laos as part of the UNDP UXO program in the 1990’s.

Originally from Social Design Notes, on March 2, 2006 8:06 AM

Is it too easy for buildings to get certified as eco-friendly?. “Unlike other so-called green products... some green buildings are little more energy-efficient than traditional structures. Yet they manage to earn a coveted certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, a leading, private environmental organization.... At issue is the Green Building Council’s [LEED] checklist system that certifies projects as green. Some critics say the system gives too much weight to certain easy tasks, while giving the same weight to much more expensive ones.”

Originally from Social Design Notes, on March 2, 2006 8:06 AM

If you heart art, you'll heart we*heart*prints. Fantastic!

Originally from hello, typepad, on March 1, 2006 4:31 PM

$

20

Title: Pink Elephants Gallery: Tiny Showcase

Tiny Showcase has a new beautiful print by Andrea Offermann up today. Like always a percentage of the profits from the prints goes to charity, and they're selling out super fast! Update: They're sold out. Yes, already. I'm sad about it too.

Originally from we[heart]prints, on March 1, 2006 3:20 PM

$

30

Title: Number One Gallery: Nucleus

Out of all of the wonderful prints from comic book artist and illustrator Kazy Kibuishi on Nucleus, this one is my favorite. Something about the tree and the little bunny rabbit spirit really gets to me.

Originally from we[heart]prints, on March 1, 2006 3:20 PM

$

1,050

Title: Junks in Inatori Bay, Izu Gallery: Ohmi Gallery

I LOVE this print. Then again I am also obsessed with any sort of ship that even vaguely reminds me of pirate ships and Goonies and Pirates of the Caribbean. Made from a woodblock created in 1926, this particular print was made in the 40s/50s, and also happens to be one of the more expensive pieces out of the many prints for sale at Ohmi Gallery. Typical prices for individual prints are around a couple of hundred dollars, and there are many many more prints, everything from snowy japanese landscapes to images of geishas to more modern, abstract prints.

Originally from we[heart]prints, on March 1, 2006 3:19 PM

wikipedia: Octavia Estelle Butler (6/22/1947-2/24/2006) was an American science fiction writer, one of very few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards, and was the first sf writer ever to be a recipient of the MacArthur F

Originally posted by yatta from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 2:56 PM

Playing to the backlash against ubiquitous communication, a company called Natural Nano is developing a special high-tech paint that relies on the wizardry of nanotechnology to create a system that locks out unwanted cell phone signals on demand. Newsday reports. "NaturalNano has found a way to use nanotechnology to blend particles of copper into paint that can be brushed onto walls and effectively deflect radio signals. NaturalNano will combine this signal-blocking paint scheme with a radio-filtering device that collects phone signals from outside a shielded space, allowing certain transmissions to proceed while blocking others. It appears to be lefal (jamming devices that emit radio signals to prevent cell phones are against the law) - The radio filter would allow all emergency radio communications to pass through the shield With all other signals, like cell phones, the filter would act like a spigot to block or allow them to pass through—say, only during intermission.

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on March 1, 2006 2:54 PM

Tana of Small Farms blog has created a nifty map of chefs and farmers in the San Francisco/Monterey Bay area who directly support support local/sustainable agriculture....

Originally from A Full Belly, on March 1, 2006 1:30 PM

The restaurant industry is notoriously difficult. Margins are narrow, competition is tough, and restaurant operators are frequently held hostage to rising prices for energy and commodities. (In this study, nearly 60 percent of restaurants in Columbus, Ohio, failed over a three-year period.) But as an investment, restaurants are doing better than ever. Chipotle, which was spun out of McDonald's, went public in January at $22 a share and essentially doubled the first day. It has since tacked on a couple of points. Earlier this month, Morton's served up a juicy public offering. Several well-known eateries are on the IPO runway: Burger King filed for an IPO on Feb. 16. Donut chain Tim Horton's, a unit of Wendy's, will likely go public next month. Gordon Biersch, a 25-restaurant beer-and-fine-food chain, has likewise announced its intent to sell shares.

In theory, restaurants are a highly cyclical industry, dependent largely on discretionary spending. But in recent years, restaurants have grown faster than the economy as a whole. The National Restaurant Association forecasts that industry sales will rise 5.1 percent in 2006. Data from the Census Bureau shows that seasonally adjusted restaurant and bar sales have risen for eight straight months through January 2006. (SLATE)

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed, on March 1, 2006 1:30 PM

One of Joystiq's writers notes that Hot Coffee appeared on his Business and Public Policy exam.

Hot Coffee is a lesson for MBA students

The final question on the exam was on the topic of the Hot Coffee fiasco that rocked Rockstar last fall.

Originally from Sex & Games, on March 1, 2006 1:29 PM

The wisdom of Henry David Thoreau.

Originally posted by tima from tima thinking outloud., on March 1, 2006 1:29 PM

Originally from unmediated, on March 1, 2006 11:35 AM

Help Jed Berk finding ideas about what to do with peculiar geographical data generated by wherifywireless:

Write him there: berk (at) artcenter (dot) edu

If you’re curious about what jed berk does with animal data, have a look at his project COWdata:

This is an ongoing project, begun in 1995. The idea was conceived while standing in a cow field, thinking of my self as a cow. What emerged is a documentation of a peripatetic bovine, calmly observing life, as it is, in our global environment. The project represents a study in time and is added to on a continual basis. Over the course of the past ten years a considerable archive has been achieved.
I used the data to help realize patterns within the data to help determent new direction(s) for the future of the project.
(…)
My first consideration in gathering this data was to find a way to organize the documentation of the cow photos. I tuned to flickr, an online photo management and sharing application; that offers a good tool set for organizational purposes.
(…)
-Time line (10 years) or in parts
-Behavior, tendencies and narratives
-About the herd
-The time when pictures are not taken
-The places they go
-Night picture vs. daytime
-Time of year (seasonal)
-Favorites
-Participants in the project (other people contributing photos)
-Geographic location
-Dates of travel
-Patterns of recurrence,
-The unknown images?

Then he investigated the relationship between the horizon lines in relation to the placement of cows.

Originally posted by Nicolas from pasta and vinegar, on March 1, 2006 11:34 AM

This article reports China has detained a man "after he sent text messages telling people of a new case of water pollution,media reported on Thursday. Zhou Qinghai was detained by police for "reporting faulty alarms and making chaos" in Mudanjiang in northeastern Heilongjiang province,the scene of the country's worst water pollution in recent years after an explosion at a chemical pant in November in neighbouring Jilin.
Zhou sent text messages warning people of a possible water cutoff for three or four days after he overheard people talking on a bus about the contamination of the city water source and saw reports by local media questioning the quality of water,the Beijing News said.
He was detained this week, the newspaper said, without saying if he would be charged or giving other details. The "faulty information" had caused "bad social influence", and city residents had been rushing to buy and store water since Monday after an unidentified pollutant was found in the water supply. Xinhua news agency later identified it as a fungus caused by industrial waste. But the taps had not been turned off in the city as water samples had shown the supply to be normal,it added. Environmental degradation,from filthy air in the cities to toxic slicks in the rivers, has become one of the key issues sparking social unrest in China".

Originally from YouMeiTI 有媒体, on March 1, 2006 11:33 AM

david posted a photo:

Wed 01/03/2006 10:56 01032006207

Originally from david's Photos, on March 1, 2006 11:33 AM

T!: Gotta SHIT or defend your THESIS?:

Originally from Hi Tricia!, on March 1, 2006 11:33 AM

Regardless of whether or not the Wachowski's forthcoming movie take on graphic novel V For Vendetta is any good, the promotional artwork is undoubtedly fantastic. Concept Arts has stayed true to British artist David Lloyd's original comic book creations, many of which are going on show in London at The Guardian's newsroom from next Tuesday, 7 March 2006. As part of the ten-day exhibition, the man himself will be talking about his work on Monday, 13 March 2006. Eager fanboys are likely to snap up the tickets quick-sharp, but if you fancy going, email newsroom [at] guardian [dot] co [dot] uk.

via Londonist.

TAGS: Art, Design, London, News, Events, Film,

Originally from Cool Hunting, on March 1, 2006 11:33 AM

Starchef.com talks to San Francisco chef Chris Cosentino about sustainable eating in, Head to Tail.

'Sustainable eating,' according to Chef Cosentino’s eco-friendly culinary sensibility towards food and its preparation, encompasses the use of sustainably grown produce, humane animal husbandry, and an overall obsession with care and respect for the planet and the environment. 'Head to tail' cooking can be traced back to just about every cultural cuisine in the world, such as the Native American community who wasted no part of the buffalo.

I am a believer in sustainable eating as well, and have been trying to eat locally for a long time. More recently I've been adding the "whole animal" approach to my dining, both at home and while out. And I'll admit, it's a bit of a challenge. The other night I was having some friends over for dinner, so I decided I'd make this chicken liver mousse recipe from Gourmet (Feb 06). It was my first real experience with chicken livers. Previously my interaction with them involved removing them from the chicken, prior to roasting, and throwing them in the trash. Once I put them in a baggie and froze them.

I bought approximately a pound of fresh organic chicken livers at Whole Foods. I "cleaned" them, which I had no idea really how to do and ended up with a rather bloody mess on my cutting board as I removed some veins and fat. Honestly, it turned my stomach, but I forced myself to do it if I wanted to be a real "chef". Once that was done, it was pretty much smooth sailing, except that I put all the ingredients in a shallow bowl, and when I put my hand blender in and turned it on, some bloody liver bits went flinging out and stuck themselves to various appliances (toaster, stand mixer) and kitchen items (tea kettle, tiles) and clothing (my green sweater, should have worn a white coat!).

Aside from the horror filmness of it all, the mousse turned out lovely and was a delicious opening to a delightful dinner. I plan to make it again, and to experiment with other animal parts, and to continue to eat them when I'm out to dinner as well. That is, at least, until something goes horribly wrong and I eat something so gross that I revert to vegetarianism forever.

Originally from megnut, on March 1, 2006 11:32 AM

Originally posted by inkdroid from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 10:34 AM

Forum for the Introverted Lonely and Over-Sensitive Group.

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 10:33 AM

theses=feces

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 10:33 AM

If you think that there's more to Youth Media online than myspace, you will probably enjoy Tricia's new blog YouMeiTI, humbly defined as "Exploring the nexus of Chinese Youth culture, Media, Technology and Information within a global context."

There's more! My friends at evc just released their long awaited curriculum for teaching documentary. And if you like that, the excellent Youth Media Distribution Toolkit is a still available.

Originally from hello, typepad, on March 1, 2006 9:33 AM

Google has launched a new serivceto their mobile offering, reports Search Engine Journal, Google News Mobile, in beta. In their own words: Google News for mobile devices keeps you updated on current news articles when you're on the go. You can access top headlines, browse through news categories, or search for exactly the stories you want . Currently Google News Mobile is only available for access to English language news sources, but Google is planning on expansion.

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on March 1, 2006 8:48 AM

Canon, Sony, and Nikon top the list of the most-used camera on Flickr. Nokia is #11.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 1, 2006 8:47 AM

Harold Lee uploaded this picture, allweb2, representing the entirety of China's blogosphere.
Issacmao writes this looks like China's Web 2.0 (这是中国的Web 2.0 Logo “大全”吗?).
I think this looks like the beginnings of a fashion line desgined by youth bloggers :) - using what else but the logos from Harold's allweb2. here is the predecessor of China's Web 2.0 image. And this image is best accompanied by a reading from Internet Society of China's finding on Web 2.0

Originally from YouMeiTI 有媒体, on March 1, 2006 8:47 AM

３月まで SF なので参加できませんでした。See you in YAPC!

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 8:46 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 8:46 AM

The acquisition of the personal archive of William S. Burroughs will make the Berg Collection perhaps the premier institution for the study of the Beats.

Originally from NYT > Arts, on March 1, 2006 8:44 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 8:44 AM

"spontaneity and variation like this are what's missing from most games today"

Originally posted by rgreco from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 8:43 AM

Originally from Tuberaider Video, on March 1, 2006 8:42 AM

[Part of Mr. Sun's UNC v. Duke Saturation Coverage]

Attention, ladies who are currently undecided in the UNC v. Duke war.

Linnea Smith is famous for her lifelong fight against the objectification of women, a cause which her husband Dean and the entire Carolina basketball family fully support!

"Coach K," on the other hand, rhymes with "Dice Clay," a well known misogynist famous for demeaning women. Purty Boy Dookie Christian Laettner looked like a woman, but was in fact a meanie who stepped on a Kentucky player before hitting the all-time luckiest fluke shot ever. He also kills innocent fish. It is a well-known fact that mean people suck, and what goes around comes around.

Don't mind those magazines in my closet, doll. I've been helping Dr. Smith with her research. I know I don't have to. I want to, baby. You know, Dr. Smith says that by trying some of the things in those awful magazines we gain power over them. Come over here and bring the third magazine from the top with you. That's a very dirty one and it makes me feel so powerless.

Originally from Mr. Sun!, on March 1, 2006 8:42 AM

Yesterday, I e-mailed Ladybird and asked her a few questions. She answered them promptly, so here is the interview.
For those who have no idea who Ladybird is, she's been making waves all over the art blogosphere with her moss graffiti.. Her best works appropriate cracks in the ground and in walls, where she puts weeds and insects on display. Best described as "folk surrealism," she inspires childlike wonder with her fake beetles and insect houses. She subverts the cracks and potholes of modernity with her miniature dreamscapes.

Originally from Tiki RSS feed for articles, on March 1, 2006 8:41 AM

Originally posted by ezrakilty from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 1, 2006 8:41 AM

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has begun an initiative to collect a broad array of artifacts (including oral histories) about Hip Hop Culture and music.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on March 1, 2006 8:41 AM

SlashLinks is a tool developed by Eyebeam R&D for automatically mirroring links from the popular social-bookmarking service del.icio.us to your personal or institutional website. Posting, tagging, and management still occur within the del.icio.us interface, but design and layout can now be fully customized on your mirrored site. The tool also adds blog-like year/month/day archives (similar to Kottke.org's remaindered links) to the typical del.icio.us or flickr style tag browsing.

Originally from unmediated, on March 1, 2006 8:40 AM

As mobile phones become more powerful and pervasive, it was inevitable that they’d spawn the same kind of homebrew hacking culture as computers and the Internet. While the locked-down nature of cell phones and the closemindedness of wireless carriers has stunted that culture’s growth, a few developments are afoot that promise to give a big boost to DIY mobile programming. Whereas programmers must typically pick up platform-specific skills to develop for mobile, a number of ways for independent and casual developers and even enthusiasts to use skills they’ve already got—or can relatively easily learn—to build applications.

Gizmodo: Airtime

See also: Python for Series 60

Originally posted by Thomas (mailto:desktop@angermann2.com) from angermann2, on March 1, 2006 8:39 AM

Cartographic bonanza @
RADICAL CARTOGRAPHY

Related: Portapak Era on PDF

Via fake

Originally posted by Thomas (mailto:desktop@angermann2.com) from angermann2, on March 1, 2006 8:39 AM

Macworld’s Jason Snell was a big fan of the original Mac mini. So what’s his take on the new, Intel-based version?

Originally from Macworld, on March 1, 2006 8:37 AM

ZoneTag can automatically tag your photos with the location they were taken at.

Originally from unmediated, on March 1, 2006 8:35 AM

Jets seating four to six passengers will soon open new travel opportunities at small airports, the agency said.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 1, 2006 8:34 AM

Six Apart User Gathering
Originally uploaded by mgtrott.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 28, 2006 11:31 PM

good posters
Originally uploaded by david.

James Wolcott: The Red and the Black:

V for Vendetta may be--why hedge? is--the most subversive cinematic deed of the Bush-Blair era, a dagger poised in midair. Unlike the other movies dubbed "Controversial" (Fahrenheit 9-11, The Passion, Munich, Syriana), it doesn't play to a particular constituency or polarized culture bloc, it's working on a deeper, Edger Allen Poe-ish witch's brew substrata of pop myth."

More or less exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks, Tom Moody.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 28, 2006 3:31 PM

While chatting about Takeshi no Chousenjou Andy mentioned Penn & Teller's "Smoke and Mirrors," a video game with the same aesthetic sensibility as their stage show. That is uncomprising, rude, and not always done with the audiences interest in mind. Andy writes:

Among the minigames is "Desert Bus," in which you drive a bus across the straight Nevada desert for six hours IN REAL-TIME to score one point. Then you drive it home. Also, I've heard the bus veers slightly to the right intermittently, so you can't just leave it propped up. And going offroad immediately ends your game.

Andy's made the game and the emulator files you need to play it available on waxy.org. He also highlights what seems to be the most excruciating "feature," the bus occasionally veers off to the right.

This got my attention because spontaneity and variation like this are what's missing from most games today, even as game play and interfaces get more interesting. The steps in Dance Dance Revolution are exactly the same every time you play it, likewise the beats and cues in Taiko Drummer are so static it could be played with your eyes closed. Both games overcompensate for their lack of variance in game play with over-the-top psychedelic graphics and sound effects. This is not a new problem of course with Pac-man and Super Mario Brothers often held up as classic examples. Mario Brothers even has it's own tablature!

Madden football treats variance as a feature, in fact it's one of the game's top selling points. The conditions and gameplay change from play to play as players get tired and injured, the sky gets darker and the field gets wetter (if it's snowing or raining) and the crowd gets louder (which distracts the visiting team from making plays). There's literally no end to the variation of games to play, which is one reason that Madden is one of the few true blockbuster video games year after year.

There's a further discussion of weather in video games over at armchair arcade (also at pasta and vinegar). Animal Crossing gets a lot of this stuff right as well, but I stopped playing when I got bored of watering turnips and picking peaches. We have a real peach tree in our back yard, it's much more exciting than the nintendo peach trees (even in the winter).

Katamari Damacy is somewhat of a sacred cow in hipster video gaming circles, but it's one of the worst offenders when it comes to turning innovative game play into a parlor trick. As Jason pointed out, the game is basically 3-D Pac-Man, with ~wild~ graphics and Asian accent/dubbing jokes thrown in to make the game seem more interesting. "We Love Katamari" was so disappointing as a seque, because it was the exact same as the original but bigger. There was nothing to introduce variation to the game play. A few things they could have done -

• Variation in the number, size and placement of the objects to pick up. This one is a gimme. Katamari as it's currently designed is the exact same every time you play it, which is why people can go on speed runs to the moon or attach rubber bands to their controller to roll up 10^6 roses wihtout human intervention. Any game that involves a speed run probably has little or no interesting variation.
• Truly collaborative game play - two players could work together to grow large enought to break through a barrier, or to roll over a very large object at the same time to knock it over and break it into manageable bits. Social gaming (Madden, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart) is the most obvious and effective way to introduce variance into games.
• Game play should change with mood and weather - the Prince should get tired, or angry, or fed up and sad. Wouldn't you, if you're abusive father kept insulting you and threatening to replace you?

ames are basically 3-D pac-man," game designers often exclaim, which is exactly my point. I do love Katamari, but I don't think Video Game designers are innovating fast enough.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, nintendo, on February 28, 2006 2:31 PM

Microsoft's CFO became famous in the 1990s for his predictions that the company would not grow as quickly as others wished. looks like George Reyes, CFO of Google, is taking a cue. Hey, wait, is this managing expectations on Wall Street, and providing guidance? Whatever it is, GOOG is taking a hit. From a sub required WSJ article:

Google Inc.'s chief financial officer, George Reyes, said the Internet giant's growth is slowing due to the "law of large numbers" and it will need to find new ways to boost revenue.

ents, made at an investor conference, surprised Wall Street and triggered a selloff in Google's shares. In heavy trading, Google shares fell 9%, or $37.70, to $354 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The company's 18-month effort to boost search monetization by tweaking the advertising system has realized most of the gains possible, Mr. Reyes said. Now growth is being driven mainly by organic factors, like query traffic growth, which he called substantial.

"We're going to have to find other ways to monetize the business," Mr. Reyes told attendees of a Merrill Lynch investor conference.

Originally from John Battelle's Searchblog, on February 28, 2006 12:33 PM

"All afternoon I've been slogging through IBM's 25-page paper on their newly released Octopiler, and now things are clearer to me. See, Cell's greatest strength is that there's a lot of hardware on that chip. And Cell's greatest weakness is...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on February 28, 2006 12:30 PM

In exceptional circumstances, graphics from other news sites sneak into the Best of CNN series. This is one such circumstance.

Look at those beautiful bars. Does that count as desecrating the flag? (Yes.)

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 28, 2006 10:36 AM

Six months after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and we all watched one of the biggest fuck-ups in recent history play out, it's party time again in New Orleans. Mardi Gras! So we bring you a few interesting photos from...

Originally posted by Amy from Amy's Robot, on February 28, 2006 10:03 AM

So quantum computers, while still somewhat experimental, aren’t exactly cutting edge news, right? Well, a bunch of gearheads have built a quantum computer that works when it’s turned off.

Yeah, I’m not sure I get it either.

Originally from pf.org, on February 28, 2006 10:01 AM

''When people relate to a song that's not even in their mother tongue, you realize we are all made out of the same clay,'' she says.

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 28, 2006 10:00 AM

Michael McCracken delivers us: Voodoopad lines to iCal todos.

"Today I realized that I wanted a script to take line-items from VoodooPad pages and make them into Todo items in iCal, so I can track them easier."

Originally from [GusMueller blog], on February 28, 2006 10:00 AM

a display of a musical score without any measures or clefs, in which information about the music's structure is conveyed with bars of color representing the notes. these bars scroll across the screen as the music plays. their position on the screen conveys the pitch & the timing in relation to each other. different colors denote different instruments or voices, thematic material, or tonality, lighting up at the exact moment it sounds. [musanim.com/ & musanim.com/(pdf)]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 28, 2006 10:00 AM

Mardi Gras beads rest on a flooded crypt. It had floated out of its cemetery. Pearlington, Ms.

I've been missing, but I've been here. I've not abandoned this, or you, or lost hope, I've just been working hard in other ways. Ways that I'll talk about later this week. I'm just one person, and can only do so much at once, so I had to shut down parts of myself in order to invest in the future survival of my family, and my hometown. Most of you will understand. Some of you will never understand. I'm fine with that, but I'm sorry I've been gone.

I'm stuck in cold NYC right now. My mom and little brother are still in North Carolina. I just wish we were all in New Orleans today, wearing blue tarp costumes, screaming throw me something mister, scrambling for doubloons and beads, hoping for that Zulu coconut we'll never get.

But the fact that we're not there won't stop me from feeling it. I ordered a king cake, it should arrive today, just in time for my birthday on Thursday. I'm going to throw a big king cake party for all my Yankee friends, and we're going to eat and drink and be merry, knowing that tomorrow we could die.

And that feeling is Mardi Gras. And it's New Orleans, no matter where you happen to be. So, to all my fellow missing and exiled, laissez les bons temps rouler!

Originally from Operation Eden, on February 28, 2006 9:59 AM

Wikipedia now has both a mind and brain portal and a psychology portal which promise not only to keep you up-to-date with the latest encyclopaedic happenings, but also to broadcast news and messages for the psychology and neuroscience community.

The mind and brain portal seems to have been kicked-off by Italian philosopher Francesco Franco (username Lacatosias) while the psychology portal was the brain-child of Zeligf.

Both have been launched in the last few weeks and like everything on Wikipedia, the quality improves as more people pitch in.

So if you've never thought of contributing to the world's best and most dynamic online encyclopaedia, now's your chance.

Link to Wikipedia Mind and Brain Portal.
Link to Wikipedia Psychology Portal.

Originally from Mind Hacks, on February 28, 2006 9:58 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 28, 2006 9:58 AM

Just ran this interesting discussion about the weather in video games. The author, Matt Barton (University of South Florida) worked on this topic for a paper called “How’s the Weather?: A Look at Weather and Gaming Environments” (in the “Playing with Mother Nature: Video Games, Space, and Ecology” book).

hat are some examples of good and bad use of weather in videogames? I’d really like a list of games that used weather not just as decoration or “atmosphere” but in ways that really affected gameplay. An example off the top of my head was Weather War, where players controlled hail, sleet, lightning, and rain? to destroy each other’s castles. Help me out here, please.

are some games you know of that make interesting use of weather?
2. What were the first games to include weather? How did they use it?
3. What are examples of games that turn the weather into a character, or feature bosses and such that manipulate the weather?

Why do I blog this? I won’t enter into the details of the discussion but the questions brings some interesting ideas about the connection between game design and video games weather. The weather is one of the contextual feature of an environment.

Originally posted by Nicolas from pasta and vinegar, on February 28, 2006 9:58 AM

The Bad Peter throws down for 10000 words or something.

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 28, 2006 9:55 AM

story links: einstein bot, notes to self (thanks, joshua!), lazy muncie (thanks, jared!), google map sightings: sea monster (thanks, joe!), witch (thanks, rich!), something design (thanks amil!), basra iraq, the syndicate conference, send in your shirts, microsoft origami, apple widescreen fake ipod video, girls are smarter than guys

Originally from Rocketboom, on February 28, 2006 9:54 AM

writing (creating a miniature world) was the natural solution to the problem of shoeboxes full of recyclables such as empty lotion bottles, round caps from milk cartons, broken belt buckles, molded plastic forms (to create miniature worlds).

when we moved, i faced the shoeboxes. larogers... if you move garbage... you pay movers to move garbage... that's crossing over. turning a dark psychological corner. accummulate again when it's 100% time to devote to miniature-building 100%.

but come on. probably i should begin again. to accummulate garbage. it's small and clean, and when the jaws of papier maché, superglue, scraps of fabric just big enough to upholster a miniature chair snap at my ears and bite my fingers, my forms will be endless, flying to my aid.

this is what goes in the tiny garden of my fantasies:



a post about jack kramer, look for it springtime

Originally from serenalarogers, on February 28, 2006 9:54 AM

Apple Developer Connection posted a piece on Using Ruby on Rails for Web Development on OS X.

It should come as no surprise that Mac OS X is a favored platform for Rails development. Rails and its supporting cast of web servers and databases thrive on the rich Mac OS X environment. The premier text editor favored by legions of Rails programmers everywhere is TextMate, a Cocoa application. And all members of the Rails core development team work with Macs.

Climb aboard.

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on February 28, 2006 9:54 AM

Alice popped this over last night, and it's a mind-boggler: If you can do the classic Rubik's Cube in your sleep, or maybe solve one in each hand simultaneously, perhaps you'd like a new challenge? Get a load of Magic Cube 4D!

It's extremely hard to solve from a full scramble and not many people have managed it, but if you've done the original Cube you've got the skills you need, and can build on them by starting with just one random scramble. If you're not sure your brain will bend around it, try the web-based applet - it lets you twist and spin the puzzle around without downloading anything.

Originally posted by Jen from Wonderland, on February 28, 2006 9:54 AM

• Something's gotta give -- I just can't see how this can be sustained.
• Coffee is supposed to be sweet. If you're drinking flat or bitter coffee, you're a coffee fool.
• This is about the most exciting thing in my life right now," she says, handing out corn cobs to the audience. Also see Kickstart.
• Does anyone know if the Yellow Bikes in Portland are still available? They used to have them in Amsterdam (white) though not anymore, and I rode some in Helsinki (which had striped wheels).

Originally from Caterina.net, on February 28, 2006 9:35 AM

Shadow of the Colossus would be a *lot* harder if it was pissing down with rain.

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 28, 2006 9:22 AM

Sam3 in Madrid uses a series of 10 module stencilsof a very long cord to wind his rope through the streets of Madrid. Like an interactive game, Sam3 can wind his rope around the city and adapt it to the specific space playing with the different combinations.

Originally from Wooster Collective, on February 28, 2006 9:22 AM

new04 Originally uploaded by fogboy. Welcome our baby boy, Solomon Leigh Rosenblatt. Born thursday night the 22nd at about 7:30 pm. lots more photos on our flickr page, and more news to come.

Originally from action figures sold separately, on February 28, 2006 9:22 AM

Clinton's Guantanamo. (via b&s)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 28, 2006 9:21 AM

Obituary, Robert Rich: How a war-time ice-cream manufacturer invented a soy-based, frozen topping and coffee creamer, fought off 42 separate lawsuits from enraged dairy men, and created the biggest family owned food-service company in America.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 28, 2006 9:21 AM

Originally from Lifeblog, on February 28, 2006 9:21 AM

Sony Ericsson has signed a deal with Google that will mean owners of the Sony Ericsson mobile phones will be able to file to a personal blog on the move as soon as they turn on their new phone, reports Pocket-Lint. "The company today announced that it will be integrating GoogleÂ’s Blogger and Web Search features on all its future mobile phones. Owners of a blogger.com account will be able to file stories via their mobile phone on the move with the included software." Related: - Nokia bundles Lifeblog.

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 28, 2006 9:21 AM

Thank you, Martin Turner, for turning me onto Alterslash!

Alterslash condenses Slashdot by taking the best five comments from each current story and displaying them on one page.

It's a boon because the "signal to noise" ratio on Slashdot has become about as healthy as the US budget deficit. Alterslash demonstrates the importance (perhaps necessity) of having a filter -- even within a community which already has one.

[Slashdot uses a rating system which relies on "moderators" to assign values to comments. The moderators are chosen from Slashdot subscribers and weighted in favour of people who have posted well-rated comments themselves. When using Slashdot, you can set a threshold level which determines how much noise you hear. It's a great system -- but quite a blunt instrument -- and it requires lots of clicking on different pages, which Alterslash avoids.]

Originally posted by Howard from Smart Mobs, on February 27, 2006 4:34 PM

Feb. 27, 2003 saw the Hello world post here at ongoing. Three years? Seems like thirty. This, when I post it, will be fragment number one thousand seven hundred and sixty-two. I’d calculate the word-count, but that would take some real work, and my time in front of a computer is full, full with things I want to work on and ongoing fragments I want to write. Thanks, 1,762 thanks, for reading, and to my co-workers and family, especially Lauren, thanks for putting up with the side-effects.

Originally from ongoing, on February 27, 2006 4:34 PM

If you’re looking for easy ways to save some money, Frugal For Life is an excellent resource. There’s a lot on the website about simple ways to make your own versions of common products, make old things useful again, keep pet costs down, reuse things you’d otherwise throw away, reduce your debt, and save [...]

Originally posted by Adam from ReadyMade Blog, on February 27, 2006 4:34 PM

david posted a photo:

Originally from david's Photos, on February 27, 2006 4:33 PM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 27, 2006 4:33 PM

the spool on YRB's ZoneTag - they point out it's US only... (also it's not open-source...) Think I'll stick with Merikatys/Meaning

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 27, 2006 4:33 PM

Ben Engebreth, a compadre of mine at the Eyebeam OpenLab, has released Slashlinks, a tool for automatically mirroring links from del.icio.us to your personal web site. At first glance it might sound like a simple archiving tool, a way to get your data out of del.icio.us, but what it actually does is reproduces your del.icio.us links on your web site.

Check out Ben's links for an example. If you click on a tag name, you can see that not only the links but the underlying tag structure has been reproduced locally. Once the links are on your site, you can style them how you wish (as Ben has), publish them where you want, etc. And Slashlinks will also keep your local links fresh...if you keep using the publishing tools at del.icio.us to add links, they will automagically show up on your site.

Originally from kottke.org, on February 27, 2006 4:33 PM

Spring is coming, and with the return of baseball and the chirping of young birds in the air, a young man's thoughts turn to... Internet standards.

As in years past, there are a number of new conversations going on around standards, some old and some new. For example, you can help make TrackBack a standard. Isn't that cool?

I'm really glad to see that an effort we've been working on for some time is finally seeing some light: TrackBack is being opened up to be governed by the community, and the initial response seems very positive.

The way I've learned about standardization efforts, especially in the weblog tools community, is from the history of RSS and Atom. Here's the key lessons I've taken from that experience:

• Users shouldn't have to know or care about this stuff.
• Being able to point to real-world benefits is important.
• Technologists sometimes have (enormous) egos, which extend to the belief that being good at technology makes one good at marketing, public relations, or interpersonal relations.
• Shipping an implementation pretty much trumps everything else. Most technical debates are eventually settled by looking at what is in current use. Sometimes this is phrased as "letting the market decide".
• There are a number of different communities of users and developers. Enterprise users and developers on platforms like .NET and Java often like more tightly-defined "correct" specs, and users and developers in the LAMP world often like more ad-hoc specs that are more human-readable. And non-technical users will frustrate both camps by being completely irrational in regard to specs.
• There's plenty of exceptions to that rule about de facto vs. de jure standards, but both audiences have trouble seeing the value of the other camp's preferences. You gotta have a Martin, and you gotta have a Malcolm.
• Some really quiet, helpful people will do really hard, thankless work and not expect any kind of reward. I am constantly amazed by this.
• "Better" and "open" are generally terms so vague as to be meaningless. People who are against these things are generally against motherhood and freedom.
• Personal attacks should automatically get the attacker put on everyone's kill file, even if they're accurate. This doesn't usually happen.
• Sometimes the person making the personal attacks is the person doing the thankless work. I suspect there's a correlation here.
• Criticisms of technologies are often wrongly interpreted as personal attacks by those technologies' creators.
• There's more than one way to do it.

Anyway, there's lots more lessons to be learned, but I'd love to see if people have any feedback on these points. If you don't care about standardization, congratulations! You're a Normal User.

Originally from Anil Dash, on February 27, 2006 4:33 PM

What do I have to do to see Jem Cohen's film Chain? I understood that a theatrical release was unlikely, so I've been patiently waiting for a DVD. What gives? This sounds like a really interesting movie that is being buried.

Tags: Movies

Originally from News of the dead, on February 27, 2006 4:32 PM

According to this report, it is a done deal.

Originally from True Hoop, on February 27, 2006 4:32 PM

One of the things we love most about doing the Wooster Collective website is that we are contantly learning new things from it.

We know from the emails that we receive that people come back to the site each not only to get inspired, but also to learn new things. Almost every day someone emails us asking how to do various things that they see on the site but don't know how to do... It ranges from how to make a sticker, how to create wheat paste...how to hit a high spot... etc

So, in follow-up to our past series including "A Day In The Life", "Give 'Em Props" and "My Workspace", we thought it would be cool to reach out to a group of our favorite people around the world and start a new series of posts on the Wooster site called "Wooster's How To...."

Over the next few weeks, we'll be posting a series of tips on how to do one single thing. Some will be art related. But many will not.

Originally from Wooster Collective, on February 27, 2006 4:32 PM

Mr. Tibbles of the Lady Upgrade Project pointed me to Takeshi no Chousenjou, or Takeshi's Challenge, the 1986 video game by one of my favorite directors "Beat" Takeshi Kitano.

I played the game a little bit using my GBA Movie Player. I don't think I unlocked the karaoke level in which you have to sing for an hour (not that the DS mic can emulate the old famicon mic), and I definitely didn't get to the boss that you have to punch 20,000 times to defeat, but I did enjoy the classic side scroller action and simple controls (jump and punch).

My understanding of the plot is limited by my lack of Japanese language comprehension, but I squished a lot of people. A man behind a desk kept offering me bundles of books that were either rewards or instructions (the dialogue was continually changing). If anyone who has an emulator and speaks Japanese, I'd welcome some pointers.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, nintendo, on February 27, 2006 2:31 PM

(Mom, you can skip this one).

XML-RPC (XML Remote Procedure Call) and REST (Representational State Transfer) are two different architectures for enabling conversations between web sites and robots. People argue to the point of tragedy over which is "better," "simpler," "easier," and "more correct."

While perusing the Weblogs.com API, I was impressed that they had made their data available over both XML-RPC and REST, and also that the two formats were functionally equivalent.The explanation of their XML-RPC API takes two and a half pages and 364 words. The documentation of their REST API takes 80 words and two and a half paragraphs.

I bet Skynet uses REST.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 27, 2006 2:31 PM

As some of you know I got the chance to work with the super joyful people of Happy Cog on their project for Ma.gnolia, that keen social bookmarking application that more and more people are using. With every large project there is a lot of unseen work that gets left behind in archived folders, Basecamp projects, and as attachments to old email threads. Most of which is never to be seen again, just saved as bits for posterity.

I have been granted a special opportunity which I think you will all enjoy (no, I did not turn down a job at Apple but I did get a job description sent my way. Apparently when Moll said "no" it sent Cupertino into a mild panic. And no, I don't know that for sure but I can read between the lines). Ma.gnolia and Happy Cog have agreed to let me show you the designs that didn't make the final cut and talk a little about the process. It's not every day that a client agrees to talking about things that were behind-the-scenes so I hope you'll enjoy this as much as we had fun making it (yes, we did have fun, the folks at Ma.gnolia were a breeze to work with, at least during the phase when I was involved).

Last October I was brought in to design the look and feel for the application shortly after Tanya Rabourn finished wireframing every template/page of the website. Every. Page. This was a bonus for me as I've never worked with anyone who took the time to go through a complete round of information architecture, it sure made my work a lot easier.

I had already worked with the client at the end of September to create a temporary website to help promote the product while it was in some kind of greek-lettered state. At the time visual direction was sparse as the people at Ma.gnolia were hard at work developing the software but they did have this fantastic logo created by Jason Santa Maria. And so I set off, inspired by Jason's work, to create a design that would do everything in its power to compliment and showcase the public unveiling of the new brand.

Thanks to the help of code-warrior Ryan Irelan, I was able to flip the jolly green site within a week. It was a fun project and it served me well as Zeldman, upon seeing the site, asked me to come on-board and design the "real thing".

Figure 0 — TEMPORARY SITE

The plan for designing the full application — the "real thing" — was to go from three designs down to finished Photoshop comps that would be handed over to Eric Meyer for coding. Three weeks, three design rounds. I have to admit I was skeptical at first. Similar projects to this scale jump out of their milestones with feature creep and decision trees that bend with the wind and my workload was already more than full but how often do I get the chance to work with Happy Cog?

Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

Ma.gnolia wanted to create a social bookmarking application that would appeal to everyone, not just young guys who are hip and into the social software scene, yet they wanted it to be clean and free of too many eye-candy elements. I took that to mean the site should not look like a man-tool while feeling clean, comfortable and hopefully inviting.

For the first comp my instructions were to continue the look and feel of the temporary site. Considering that design was created to hold short brochure-ware content for only a month, maybe two, I thought the design made for a nice fit on the full-scale application. It looked great but I had some reservations. Did it look different from other, similar types of websites out there: yes. Was it way too green to be used on a regular basis: probably so. Would it work better for an apple martini product site: most definitely.

Figure 1 — APPLE SOUR

Wanting to depart from the apple-sour look I went the other way with the second comp, enlisting the help of a few earth tones — nothing brings a project back down to Earth like a good neutral palette. Some of the elements of the first design were dropped in favor of gradients to give the client an different approach (normally when presented with three comps a client will pick and chose the elements they like across all three and then these things are married together in the second round of design). I liked this version a lot, as did Happy Cog, and a few of us thought this was it, the version that would be used for the application. I think in hindsight we might have liked it mostly because it wasn't day-glo green.

Figure 2 — CONTEMPORARY EARTH

By the time I launched Photoshop to begin working on the last design I was pushing a little burn-out having worked many, many twelve hour days for about a month straight (that's the glamorous life for the self-employed kids) but after a quick chat with the foreman I was re-engergized and ready to go. This time I started off with white. It is a great color (or absence of color), easy to read off of, it's clean, and helps launch anything non-white off the page. I also wanted to get away from the gradients and bring in some nice rules and boxes, serif type instead of sans.

The result was a cleaner, more sophisticated look that stood on its own while borrowing colors from the first two. Gradients are good and fun when used once and a while but there is a reason the drop-shadow fad fell from grace earlier in the decade. Object lesson: clean rules and boxes will beat overly designed shady backgrounds gradient fills every time. I bet Roger Black has said something similar but I don't know the guy well enough to quote him.

Figure 3 — JUST RIGHT

After I was done with the third comp I knew that it had to be the one. Not an amalgam of the three, just this one. I wanted to go back and delete my prior design work and blame it on a random dog or computer crash. Unfortunately Jeffrey didn't buy the dog story and I had already uploaded the files to Basecamp so crashing my computer wouldn't do any good.

A few moons passed when word from the client arrived and I braced for the worst. Amazingly they liked all three designs equally and didn't know which one to pick as being their favorite nor were they interested in picking any of them apart (when does that ever happen?!). Jeffery was able to work them over, I mean worked with the client to chose the right design — the one you have all come to know as today's Ma.gnolia.

The next two weeks were spent carving, sanding, painting, and moving things around until we had them in the right order. We elected to use Dan Cedarholm's Chameleon icons because they worked well with the product and there really wasn't enough time to roll our own and with all the great choices out there now, there had better be a pretty compelling reason for going to the trouble of creating custom icons. Eric finished the XHTML/CSS in the shortest time I would have thought humanly possible making me wonder if he can talk to the code and make it move for him. A little more than a month later the site went live and open to the public.

The three weeks allocated for the design phase went by in a hurry but every milestone was met and the client was pleased with the work all along the way. It was a real pleasure working my friends at Happy Cog and the good folks at Ma.gnolia — it is so easy to get work done with those good people.

Originally from Airbag, on February 27, 2006 2:25 PM

Reminding us that shoe customization has been around for decades, adidas is re-releasing the adicolor LO (originally from 1983) in a kit that includes the original plain white shoes, paints, brushes and a wooden palette. The box will also include sealant to keep your painted shoes looking great, though the fact of the matter is people who are able to get their hands on one of these are most likely going to keep everything in tact on a shelf behind glass.

adicolor is a huge push from adidas this Spring including the release of 36 pre-customized pairs that extend the concept beyond the original adicolor style to include Superstars, Centuries and Stan Smiths. All the pairs will feauture limited editions and the release will be staggered. Hypebeast has pictures and a release schedule.

via Sneaker Freaker

Related: adicolor Berlin

TAGS: Sneakers, Limited Edition, adidas, Customization,

Originally from Cool Hunting, on February 27, 2006 2:25 PM

You want to see the best list of advice ever, one that might save your career or remaining sanity? 9 tips for running more productive meetings.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 27, 2006 2:25 PM

Originally from WFMU's Beware of the Blog, on February 27, 2006 2:25 PM

New Yorkers, take note: Trader Joe's FAQ (Frequently Accessed Quantities). Informative and entertaining....

Originally from A Full Belly, on February 27, 2006 2:25 PM

Originally from lifeblog, on February 27, 2006 2:24 PM

The rotting condition of a decrepit Victorian in Queens inspires some to concoct stories of how it came to be.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on February 27, 2006 2:24 PM

Fueled by a backlash on talk radio and taunting by blogs and comedy shows, the outcry about Dubai Ports World became a bipartisan chorus leaders could not ignore.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on February 27, 2006 2:24 PM

In providing the document, German officials offered more significant help to the U.S. than their government has publicly admitted.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on February 27, 2006 2:24 PM

If you’re into information visualization, the Licentiate thesis of Tobias Skog (Future Applications Lab, Göteborg) is very appealing. It’s called “Ambient Information Visualization” (1.7Mb pdf here) and it deals with various issues regarding informative art, everyday displays as well as their utility and evaluations.

This thesis investigates the concept of ambient information visualization. It has its background in the research fields of ubiquitous computing and information visualization (…) The term ambient information visualization distinguishes an area where these two research fields merge, and can be defined as the use of visual representations of digital data to enhance a physical location. These visualizations are typically displayed using flat-panel displays or projectors and ideally act both as information displays and decorative elements in the interiors where they are placed.

is describes a suite of design examples, where the first ones explicitly address the issue of creating a decorative surface by using the styles of famous artists as inspiration for the appearance of the visualizations, creating so-called informative art. Subsequent designs are developed under the superordinate term ambient information visualization and strive to find generic, inherent properties of peripheral information displays and how these properties come to affect design requirements. As a way of informing the design process, visualizations have continually been tested with users in different environments, including exhibition settings with large amounts of visitors as well as long-term studies of use in office settings with smaller user groups.
The knowledge gained from the design and study of these examples is analyzed and the results highlight issues that are of central importance when designing a visualization. These issues are divided into three categories that concern the information source, the mapping from data to visual structures and the use of the
visualization.

Some of the examples, my favorite is certainly the one using the Mondrian compositions as inspiration to show information about e-mail traffic:

Originally posted by Nicolas from pasta and vinegar, on February 27, 2006 2:24 PM

On Friday, Google made a small announcement on their blog about how it will allow people to sell items through Google Base, using credit linked to their Google Account. It was immediately slashdotted here. It is one more frontal against eBay. Here is the blog post by Google. Here are some screenshots of the offering. Meanwhile, Paul Stone, a market research guy in London, has stumbled upon strong evidence that Google is about to unleash a new calendar product....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on February 27, 2006 2:24 PM

by Kurt of Forum Blue & Gold:

Over at the generally brilliant 82games.com, one writer has come up with an MVP prediction system that seems pretty accurate. He had the data from the last 20 years to tinker with, to see what appealed to voters.

What he found was a few hard and fast rules – winners had a Tendex better than 20 (for those of you who don’t know, think of Tendex sort of like John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating, a kind of catch all stat), and he has to play in at least 70 games. Winners often were on a team that won at least 50 games, won a few games more than in the previous year and was usually best in its conference.

There’s a lot more to it but here is the bottom line: Apply it to this year and Chauncey Billups is first, Dirk Nowitzki second (he’d be my vote), LeBron James third and defending MVP Steve Nash fourth.

Originally from True Hoop, on February 27, 2006 2:24 PM

Bwahaha. Bonus points for using the Danny Elfman song from Pee-wee's Big Adventure that I don't know the name of but I'm sure someone will mention in the comments.

Originally posted by Chris from Cynical-C Blog, on February 27, 2006 2:21 PM

Earlier this month Mr. Sun gave me a top compliment: "I read a bunch of [hello, typepad] posts and I know a lot of things he likes and not much about what he hates. That's nice." Thank you, Mr. Sun. When the giver of life (and lyric) compliments you for being positive, you run with it.

I've been reblogging quite a bit (last Tuesday was a highlight), but it doesn't take the place of regular old blogging, so I'm going to try and pick up the pace again. This last week was full of drama (Sudama - was it the stars?) but I was struck by the good, rather than the bad, behavior of folks on the Internet.

Rogers Cadenhead stepped into a snake pit of xml pedantry and nearly a decade of failed ideas and nasty politics, in hopes of making software better. Some people in the tech community grouse about the "back channel" and then send private email messages around trying to intimidate people out of their ideas. These same people call for the end of venture capital as we know it, and then lean on friendly investors to lay out even more dire threats. Rogers' responses have been measured and reasonable. I trust him and the rest of the RSS advisory board to make software better.

In a similar vein, my friend Judith lost her camera in Hawaii. When Canadian tourists stumbled upon it, they did the right thing by alerting the park ranger, but then did the wrong thing by telling Judith they were not going to return it. Judith knows their name, phone number and address, but has refused to release that information even to the press. She could have their names dragged through the mud - honestly, she could probably have their house burned to the ground in twenty minutes - but instead she is patiently plodding through legal channels hoping the family decides to do the right thing. If you have something that's not yours you return it, right?

And finally, my friend Jason Kottke ended his year long micropatronage experiment. Jason's design and content is the gold standard of weblogs, and has been for years.

At some point last year I was sitting near Jason at Eyebeam, and he offered to show me some ideas he was working on for kottke.org. He opened up a photoshop document, and proceeded to zoom through 15-20 different styles and color schemes. The layouts were all top notch, obviously, but I was most struck by the thoroughness and level of detail in his own mockups. The layers were all logically named and grouped, so he could fly through ideas almost as fast as he could talk about them. If you know photoshop well, you know what I'm talking about.

It was really at that moment I realized how seriously Jason took his work - here was a document that less than five or ten people would even see or know existed, but it was of a higher quality than 95% of the work that professional web designers hand over to their clients. Jason took an enormous pay cut last year in hopes of making his blog better, a great gift to his readers. I think he succeeded, albeit maybe not at to the lofty levels he set for himself. I am sure kottke.org will continue to be outstanding, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

People like Rogers, Judith and Jason that make the Internet great.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 27, 2006 11:31 AM

President Bush is planning a two-day wind sprint across India this week, but he will not see the country's most famous monument, the Taj Mahal.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on February 27, 2006 10:40 AM

Today's link:

You Don't Know Richard

Not Our Production's production of You Don't Know Richard cuts right to the chase:

1. Learn the secrets to success with women.
2. Use them to your advantage.
3. Get laid.

You Don’t Know Richard is an interactive movie, more or less.

When FMV first started to make appearances in video games like Night Trap or Phantasmagoria, some in the adult industry saw this as an excellent means to reuse existing content. However, and not surprisingly, it turns out that people weren't really taken by "interactive" porn, particularly where interactive = interruption.

Originally from Sex & Games, on February 27, 2006 10:39 AM

Digidesign has promised Intel Mac versions (http://createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1166&Itemid=44) of Pro Tools LE and M-Powered by May. Naturally, they'll be testing that software, and last week sent out a call for testers (http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=965429&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=186&fpart=1) of the new release. [via (http://www.macmusic.org/news/view.php/lang/EN/id/4146/)]Note that this is LE and M-Powered only, because Apple hasn't yet shipped Intel Macs with the PCI slots required by TDM/HD systems. Unlike Live 5's public beta (http://createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1184&Itemid=44), this is a limited beta, but good luck getting on the list. Here's the question: have any of you gone out and purchased an Intel Mac yet, either an iMac or MacBook Pro? People have been asking me how performance is as though I know. (I don't, and I'm quite happy for the moment with my dual G5 tower, kickin' it oldskool with the PowerPC!) I'm editing our Mactel software watch now, but my general inclination would be to hold off on purchasing for a few more months: unless the only software you use is Logic Pro, you'll want to leave time to get not only your main apps ported, but all your favorite plug-ins, too. If you do get one of these machines, please, send us your reports. (No unboxing pictures, thanks -- how about a nice Live benchmark?)

Originally from createdigitalmusic.com, on February 27, 2006 10:39 AM

The Quicktime Tool lets you attach annotations to time segments of Quicktime video and audio streams. The tool can be used by instructors and / or student teams to critique student-produced video and audio or to provide a way for students to analyze scien

Originally posted by exiledsurfer from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 27, 2006 10:39 AM

The list of top flight employees hired by Google of late makes impressive reading. But what does it all mean?

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on February 27, 2006 10:39 AM

Chris Ware overrated? That's what this illustration fan thinks.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 27, 2006 10:39 AM

Kian and Remee are twin daughters born to a UK couple...one is black and one is white. "If a sperm containing all-white genes fuses with a similar egg and a sperm coding for purely black skin fuses with a similar egg, two babies of dramatically different colours will be born. The odds of this happening are... a million to one."

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 27, 2006 10:39 AM

The Googlerati are abuzz with the news of Malcolm Gladwell's new blog. It looks like he intends to post often, which would be a gift.

But my favorite new author's site came to me not as a blog, but as a plog - it's Marlon James' "space" on Amazon.com. His review of Wide Sargasso Sea immediately caught my attention: "Call it collective male guilt, or the result of living in a world where fathers never kept their side of the bargain, but I am drawn to stories of women who come undone and women who have to make do."

Mr. James, if you like, I'll set up your typepad blog for free. It will look less crazy than this blog, more like the Ted Blog, and you can escape that Amazon frame.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 27, 2006 10:34 AM

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 27, 2006 10:34 AM

In The Last Weblog Assignment, my Mom shows off her versatility as teacher and blogger:

But thanks to everyone for sticking with it. I have enjoyed cruising through your colors, shapes, words, movies, and books. You have increased the dimensions of my world and, I hope, of one another's worlds as well.

<3, Dr. Jacobs

P.S. I have checked them all, so don't try to publish on a previous date. Just be honest---always the best policy. I am happy to give you partial credit.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 27, 2006 10:34 AM

Unknown (relatively speaking) indie rock bands are turning down large sums of money from GM for licensing their music for Hummer ads. "It had to be the worst product you could give a song to. It was a really easy decision. How could we go on after soundtracking Hummer? It's just so evil." (via rw)

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 27, 2006 9:32 AM

Last week US District Court Judge A. Howard Matz ruled against Google and found them to be in copyright violation for thumbnailing images from the soft core magazine/site Perfect10 (NSFW)... more inside

Originally posted by cedar from MetaFilter posts tagged with copyright, on February 27, 2006 9:32 AM

abstract graphic design-like data visualization of the monthly average highest & lowest temperatures recorded for Chicago from 1975 through 2004. see also datacloud. [flickr.com]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 27, 2006 9:32 AM

A video aggregator. Users submit video, vote on the submissions, and the best ones make it to the main page

in the summer of 2000 I interviewed with a video startup called \"wooma.\" eery.

Originally posted by exiledsurfer from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 27, 2006 9:32 AM

Like a good plastic surgeon, the best photo retouch artists never leave a trace of their cuts and fills when they make bodies more seductive. But thanks to a project developed by members of OpenLab, Eyebeam's research and development fellowship program for technology projects, the unseen work of the retouch artist is coming back to haunt perfected images. 'The Art of Detouch' is an application that generates a pixel-by-pixel comparison of a picture before and after retouching. It then isolates and displays the altered elements using transitional animations and multiple color codes to indicate the location and intensity of the digital nips and tucks. The silhouettes that result are ghostly outlines of excess hair, skin, and clothing that were removed during the retouch process. The project contains a strong element of social critique--it draws attention to the heavy manipulation that goes into representations of the female body--but its real brilliance is measured by how mesmerizing the animated visualizations are to watch. As we interrogate our visual culture, it never hurts to use tools that are works of art in their own right. - Bill Hanley

http://detouch.org/

Originally from Rhizome.org Net Art News, on February 27, 2006 9:31 AM

Wondering if there's something interesting that could be done with this...

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 27, 2006 9:30 AM

BrainTutor is a free-to-download neuroanatomy package from the same people that make the brain scan analysis software BrainVoyager.

It allows you to rotate and 'slice through' a brain scan in 2D and 3D, and click on specific areas to get their names. It's straightforward to use, and is available for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows.

Some of the most important buttons are in the bottom right hand corner of the main window but are poorly labelled. They determine whether you are selecting, the lobes, sulci (the 'trenches') or gyri (the 'ridges') when asking for on-screen labels.

If the surface of the brain looks slightly odd in the BrainTutor software, it's because BrainVoyager tends to accentuate the sulci during visualisation. This is presumably to enable a better view of the brain activation when it occurs on the surface.

Link to Brain Tutor software (via Developing Intelligence).

Originally from Mind Hacks, on February 27, 2006 9:29 AM

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 27, 2006 9:29 AM

OK - so this makes me upset I'm missing Etech... I imagine there will be a lot of "SET" be played too...

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 27, 2006 9:29 AM

Artist Megan Whitmarsh embroiders little scenes featuring minipop-like characters - elves, yetis, and other familiar figures in unlikely groupings. This one is "Ace Meets Star Wars":

The guitar makes it for me.

Megan has also made a surreal short film called The Life of a Yeti, which is possibly not the most cheerful Monday morning viewing and it's done my head in a bit. It's pretty cool though.

[via whip up]

Originally posted by Jen from Wonderland, on February 27, 2006 9:28 AM

Here's an interview on BW Online with Six Apart's Mena Trott. Unfortunately, she doesn't provide any details on Six Apart's new product, codenamed Comet, that will start beta testing within weeks. The only hint ("It's meant for the next generation of blogs") really isn't much of a hint at all.

Originally from BusinessWeek Online - Blogspotting, on February 27, 2006 9:28 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 27, 2006 9:28 AM

For those that like wearing what you're eating, check out Jeremy Scott's food-inspired fashion. Hamburger shirt and french fry pants...yummy. (via culiblog)

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 27, 2006 9:26 AM

Bonnie Ruberg over at Heroine Sheik raises an interesting question:

In a place where body is utterly meaningless — where, in my opinion, watching avatars fuck on poseballs isn’t sexy, it’s hilarious –, why is body so important?

Check it out: The Persistence of Body

Originally from Sex & Games, on February 27, 2006 9:26 AM

by Jeff from CelticsBlog.com

Yup, an All-Zeke Bullets:

• Thomas to ruin Indiana Hoosiers?
• Bill Simmons hosts the Atrocious GM Summit
• Francis can't read
• Ian Thompson has questions
• New York fans react to the Francis trade

Originally from True Hoop, on February 27, 2006 9:26 AM

tabla_spices
Originally uploaded by Alaina B..

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 27, 2006 12:31 AM

david posted a photo:

"The ocean is on everyone's mind."

Originally from david's Photos, on February 26, 2006 11:44 PM

david posted a photo:

Originally from david's Photos, on February 26, 2006 11:44 PM

Originally posted by sudama from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 26, 2006 11:43 PM

3 parallel 8’ high by 3.5 ’ wide panes of mirrored glass placed side by side, each displaying rear-projected content from a high-lumen projector. content was designed in 3 dimensions, using scale, motion & depth perspective to make the user feel like she is immersed in & moving through the communication.
a user standing in front of the mirrors has the unusual sensation of seeing their reflection & the projected content simultaneously. sensors embedded in the structure above each pane register when a user reaches out to a “hot spot,” allowing users to navigate the projected content without ever needing to touch the “screen” or press a “button.” see also menu vista & bloomberg smart space.
[interactivemirror.net|via interactivearchitecture.org]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 26, 2006 11:43 PM

So long, 9th St.

Originally from Ftrain.com, on February 26, 2006 11:43 PM

In reaction to the South Dakota Senate passing an abortion ban bill, a woman named Molly has posted an abortion manual for the women of South Dakota:

In the 1960s and early 1970s, when abortions were illegal in many places and expensive to get, an organization called Jane stepped up to the plate in the Chicago area. Jane initially hired an abortion doctor, but later they did the abortions themselves. They lost only one patient in 13,000 -- a lower death rate than that of giving live birth. The biggest obstacle they had, though, was the fact that until years into the operation, they thought of abortion as something only a doctor could do, something only the most trained specialist could perform without endangering the life of the woman.

They were deceived -- much like you have probably been deceived. An abortion, especially for an early pregnancy, is a relatively easy procedure to perform. And while I know, women of South Dakota, that you never asked for this, now is the time to learn how it is done. There is no reason you should be beholden to doctors -- especially in a state where doctors have been refusing to perform them, forcing the state's only abortion clinic to fly doctors in from elsewhere.

(via cyn-c)

Originally from kottke.org, on February 26, 2006 11:43 PM

poems about celebrities!!

Originally posted by kick_out_the_internet_jams from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 26, 2006 6:17 PM

"The Enigma Machine was cracked in Poland in 1932, but three messages remain unbroken, despite having been intercepted in the North Atlantic in 1942. The M4 Project, named after the four rotor Enigma M4 used for encryption, is a distributed computing effort to break them. One message has already been deciphered successfully!"

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 26, 2006 4:50 PM

Anvil is a free video annotation tool, used at research institutes world-wide (see the Anvil User Web). It offers frame-accurate, hierarchical multi-layered annotation driven by user-defined annotation schemes. The intuitive annotation board shows color-coded elements on multiple tracks in time-alignment. Special features are cross-level links, non-temporal objects and a project tool for managing multiple annotations. Originally developed for Gesture Research, Anvil has also proved suitable for research in Human-Computer Interaction, Linguistics, Ethology, Anthropology, Psychotherapy, Embodied Agents, Computer Animation and many other fields.

Originally from unmediated, on February 26, 2006 4:49 PM

Wired is running a painfully detailed account of the Scanner Darkly production, that I'm not sure everyone involved would exactly agree with, but it's signifigant as the first public airing of some of the issues that occurred during animation. Originally I was kind of heartbroken that I didn't get to work on the film in some capacity, but In retrospect I'm kind of glad I sat this one out, as it would have been really painful to have been closer to some of the stressful things that were happening.

Link

Tags: Movies

Originally from News of the dead, on February 26, 2006 4:48 PM

also entertaining: the extra footage with scoble, israel and others from thursday's vidcast.

Originally from shey.net reblog, on February 26, 2006 2:32 PM

By Chetan Patel, Engineering Manager & Stephen Stukenborg, Product Manager

While Google Base provides data structure and distribution for a wide range of content and information, a subset of items are for sale. To help users more easily purchase and sell Google Base items, we're planning to enable people to buy items on Google Base using their Google Accounts.

Many of you are probably already familiar with the Google Account. You use it to sign in and pay for a number of Google services, like Google Video and Google Earth. We're now introducing similar functionality on Google Base.

For buyers, this feature will provide a convenient and secure way to purchase Google Base items by credit card. For sellers, this feature integrates transaction processing with Google Base item management.

We're starting with a very small number of sellers and we expect to include more over the next several months. If you're a seller and you're interested in getting an announcement when this feature is generally available, let us know. And if you want to know how this functionality relates to Google's broader work in payments, read this update. We hope this feature will make it even easier for people to use Google Base to post and distribute a wide range of content, whether information for sharing or goods for sale.

Originally from Official Google Base Blog, on February 26, 2006 2:07 PM

In this proposed show, final means final.

Originally from Mr. Sun!, on February 26, 2006 12:01 AM

... spreadsheeting world religions by how much heavenly booty you get in the hereafter. The results should be expedited straight to Pueblo, Colorado for a free brochure.

Originally from Mr. Sun!, on February 26, 2006 12:01 AM