randomwalks/dj

Who Reads Political Blogs?. The results of a blogads reader survey: mostly white, male, middle-class and Democrat. But the big suprise for me was the age range. I had assumed a younger audience, but everything from 30 to 60 seems heavily represented. The average age was 43.

Originally from Social Design Notes reBlogged on May 6, 2006, 6:00AM

Originally from Social Design Notes, on May 6, 2006 5:01 PM

According to The Mercury News, the smoldering rumor that Apple could someday unveil a mobile phone just got doused with gasoline.

"On Thursday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made public a December 2004 patent application by Apple describing a hypothetical wireless mobile device, as well as how a person could use such a device to mark media items -- video, ringtones, graphics or video -- for later download.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the filing. But at least one analyst believes it's a clear indication that an Apple-branded phone is not a question of if, but when.

... The main thrust of the document describes how a person using a mobile device could mark items for download later. The idea is that a person using a mobile device on a "low-bandwidth'' network, where a download would take a long time, could put off the download until they have access to a "high-bandwidth'' network, such as a home computer connected to the Internet via DSL or cable modem."

See also Engadget's perspective.

Originally from ringtonia.com by emily reBlogged on May 6, 2006, 3:50AM

Originally posted by emily from ringtonia.com, on May 6, 2006 5:01 PM

Garbage collection in Objective-C is confirmed for Leopard.

Originally from FatBits: John Siracusa's Journal by siracusa@arstechnica.com (John Siracusa) reBlogged on May 6, 2006, 2:38PM

Originally posted by siracusa@arstechnica.com (John Siracusa) from FatBits: John Siracusa's Journal, on May 6, 2006 4:50 PM

david posted a photo:

Originally from david's Photos by david reBlogged on May 6, 2006, 2:34PM

Originally posted by david from david's Photos, on May 6, 2006 4:50 PM

Pearl Jam, the lone survivor among Seattle's multimillion-selling grunge bands, played to a packed crowd at Irving Plaza on Friday night.

Originally from NYT > Arts by JON PARELES reBlogged on May 6, 2006, 2:45AM

Originally posted by JON PARELES from NYT > Arts, on May 6, 2006 4:50 PM

The surprise team with the best chance of sustaining its early success plays in Detroit.

Originally from Baseball Prospectus reBlogged on May 6, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally from Baseball Prospectus, on May 6, 2006 4:50 PM

Nick Gerakines says

Today at work I created an open source cocoa application that lets you upload images directly from your desktop to TypePad. It is rightly named 'TypePad-Uploader' and now has its own project blog. It also has more information on how to download and use it.

Today at work I downloaded Typepad-Uploader and used it to archive this image of Larry David in agony behind the Phoenix Suns' bench as the epic game 6 was winding down.

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 6:54PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on May 5, 2006 7:33 PM

Root markets + playsh + game neverending = bud.com, which "will turn our personal data trails into a playfield for a web-based massively-multiplayer online game... bud.com proposes to make that web more engaging through surveillance with non-threatening stakes: browser-based multiplayer play."

That's my bread and butter! I'll be watching this closely. Thanks, Justin!

Blog first, link later: I just noticed the playsh website has relaunched as a wiki with a useful reference of inspirational projects.

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 4:31PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on May 5, 2006 4:38 PM

The long rumored demolition of the BQE looks closer to reality, thanks to some DOT Billions. In it's place will be a Boston-style tunnel running the length of the west side of Brooklyn. This the best thing that could happen to Brooklyn right now, especially with real estate getting squeezed as far out as Bedstuy & Bay Ridge.

I live two blocks from the BQE, and there's no understating how much of a drag the BQE and the Belt Parkway are on the neighborhood's growth. The dust and exhaust from the highways covers the surrounding blocks in dark black soot, cars come flying off of the 3rd and 6th avenue exits onto residential streets at Highway speeds, making 65th and 60th streets some of the most accident prone in the city, and it acts as a physical barrier keeping residents from getting to the waterfront.

I often cite the The Power Broker as the most influential book I have ever read. Anyone who has ever wondered why the New York City highways are so weird and poorly constructed needs to read it. I have two copies, if you'd like to borrow one. I have also seen two copies on Joshua Mack's shelf, so I know I'm in good company. For more background on the objections made when Moses was building the BQE through Sunset Park, search inside the Power Broker on Amazon.com.

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 3:30PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on May 5, 2006 3:35 PM

I got an email weeks ago urging me to look at a new micropayment system called IndieKarma. Pretty much every other micropayment scheme I've seen is too clunky to actually be useful, but I was pleasantly surprised with IndieKarma when I got around to checking it out. Here's how it works.

If you're a blogger or web site owner, you sign up, put a bit of JavaScript code on your site, and whenever a reader who's signed into IndieKarma visits your site, you get a penny. Seamless and easy.

If you're a reader, you sign up, put some money into your IndiePass account (with PayPal), and then as long as you're signed in, whenever you visit a site that's using the IndieKarma JavaScript, a penny is deducted from your account and into the site owner's account. Again, fairly seamless and easy.

What I love about this system is that it's passive and based on actual usage. The reader doesn't need to decide that they want to support a certain site, just that they want to support the IndieKarma-enabled sites they read often. For a reader who doesn't necessarily want to support a certain site, if they happen to click through for a visit, it only costs them a penny and then they never come back.

Financially, if a reader visits a site 60 times a month (which is not that unusual for weblogs), that's $0.60/mo. or $7.20/yr...the price of a couple lattes at Starbucks. If you've got 1000 people who read your site that are signed up through IndieKarma, that's $7200 per year, a sizable chunk of change.

So that's the good part. Here are some problems with IndieKarma and some suggested features:

• The "dock" that's placed on the site is way too intrusive and inflexible. Ad banners and boxes are well-established as a way of delivering this type of information...why not use that format? When a reader isn't logged in to IndieKarma, the ad banner/box prompts them to do so and if they're logged in, they get a "receipt" message for their micropayment (e.g. "thanks for supporting the site). Optionally, as a site owner, I should be able to not have the banner show at all for a truly seamless experience for the reader. The easier you make it to pop into a sidebar for bloggers and site owners, the better.
• Lack of variable pricing. As a reader, I might want to give more or less money per visit to certain sites. I may decide to spend ~$20/yr on my Waxy.org habit and so opt to give three cents per visit instead of one. As a site owner, I should be able to set a suggested and/or minimum cost/visit for my site. If I've got 1000 people giving 3 cents/visit, they each visit 60 times per month for a whole year, that's $21,600, a living wage (depending on where you're living).
• Alternate payment methods. Readers could buy "subscriptions" to sites for a "buy now" price determined by the site's owner. Or an option for "gosh, that post/video/comic was really good today so here's an extra $5" payments.
• You could even incorporate advertising into the mix. An advertiser could come along and say, "I'm going pay for unlimited free visits to this site for IndieKarma members for 60 days" and in exchange, the IndieKarma banner is replaced with an ad for that advertiser.

But the big problem with IndieKarma (which I hope they can overcome somehow) is that it's one of those things that's only useful when there's a lot of people using it. As a reader, if only 1 or 2 sites I read are using IndieKarma to generate revenue, I don't have much incentive to go through the sign-up process, but if there are 30 or 40 sites I read that are using it, I'd be much more likely to sign up. Same goes for site owners...if 10 of my readers are using IndieKarma, that's not good, but if 1000 of them are using it, that's something.

It's a chicken and egg problem...you need users to get sites to sign up and you need sites to get users to sign up. This would work much better for someone who already has tons of signed-in users and payment systems (Amazon, PayPal, Google, etc.), established networks of sites that have lots of potential users across many similar sites (Gawker, BlogAds, 9Rules, The Deck, etc.), or really big sites that could sign users up in 4+ digit quantities (Slashdot, MySpace, LiveJournal, Drudge, HuffPo, etc.). Like I said, I hope IndieKarma can overcome this problem because I think the basic idea has a lot of promise to provide an alternative to advertising-supported media, both from the standpoint of readers and web site owners.

Originally from kottke.org reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 12:50PM

Originally from kottke.org, on May 5, 2006 12:44 PM

Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005 opens today at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum here in New York City. It's on view from May 5–October 29, 2006.

A journey through the evolution of Western dining from the Renaissance to the present, Feeding Desire features objects from Cooper-Hewitt’s world-class collections. The exhibition will address the development of utensil forms, innovations in production and materials, etiquette, and flatware as social commentary.

I can't wait to go see it!

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
2 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128
(212) 849-8400

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 8:15AM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on May 5, 2006 12:40 PM

TALKING MONUMENTS

The art group "Archeopterix" (Izhevsk, Russia) is pleased to invite artists working with different media to take part in the public art project Talking Monuments, which will be realized in the framework of the cultural marathon "Perm Cultural Capital 2006." The event will take place in September 2006 in Perm city, Russia. Please submit your project proposals before July 20, 2006. Further dissemination of the information will be highly appreciated.

Concept: The ten-days public art festival “Talking Monuments” aims to bring together artistic reflections upon the role of monuments in contemporary urban spaces. The idea is to question nowadays city environments from the position of monuments within them as living objects of city public life. How are they integrated into social activities around them? How does public relate to them? How do they participate in the public discourse? Can we make them sound and speak on their own? What kind of observations can be grasped thenWe are looking for new myths and stories about monuments. Within rapidly changing nowadays reality monuments are both cross-historical traces and witnesses of passing epochs and mythologies. They seem to be silent and immobile objects, but what about giving them an opportunity to speak out, to talk back to the public, to turn them into active subjects of communication?

GUIDELINE FOR PROPOSALS SUBMISSION

Please submit your project proposals according to the following four categories:

1. Talking Monument Art projects in formats of multimedia, kinetic installation; staged visual, musical, poetic performance. Your works are expected to be related to already existing monuments in the city and/or their context. Especially works aiming at bringing dynamics and new contextual experiences are welcomed. Works in this category will be selected in cooperation with the city administration. Please pay attention to special criteria for the projects in the category “Talking Monument”: Your project should not cause any damage or material loss to monuments. The project idea should correlate as much as possible with the festival theme “Talking Monuments ." References to the specific topics and aspects of cultural and social context of Perm are encouraged.

Authors of selected projects will be provided with the assistance for their realization, including materials, assistants, expenses. For more details please contact the organizers.

2. Monumental Video-Scape Video art works of the total length of 10 min maximum. The video art works are supposed to provide new environment or background for a monument, so it is going to be presented next to a monument which would be incorporated into the video-scape. The presentation of the project assumes that between the screen and spectators there will be a monument. For further information and assistance in choosing monuments and location please contact the organizers.

3. SMS Perm Novel Projects in the form of short text messages. One of the ideas of presentation of projects in this category assumes: on a pedestal of a monument the board with running line with text is mounted and transmitted. This category is open to your creative suggestion as well.

4. USB Stall or Art into the Masses! Any multimedia projects, which would suggest original ways of distribution of contemporary art content via portable and mobile devices widely used especially by youth: players, phones, PDAs, etc. For that a small mobile stall-poster with USB and flash ports is going to be established, where everybody could download the art, not only the detailed program and documentation of the festival, but also media art works as such. Visually the object will be similar to the flying device from planet Pluke from the cult Russian sci-fi movie "Kin-dza-dza" with mounted screens, speakers and video projector to broadcast the documentation and multimedia projects.

For more information on project, the list, photos and description of Perm monuments look at http://dacha.tyros.ru

DEADLINE for submission of project proposals is July 20, 2006.

Please use the electronic form in DOC format.

Put your last name in the name of your file, for example: (smith.RTF) and send it to anfimx[at]yandex.ru. Please send your files with brief description of the project and pictures illustrating the description in JPG or GIF format together with the electronic form to anfimx[at]yandex.ru

For any questions and suggestion contact: anfimx[at]yandex.ru

Further detailed information can be found at the web site.

The form for the application in categories “Talking Monument,” “USB Stall.” “Monumental Video-Scape” is below:

AUTHOR FULL NAME

ADDRESS

PHONE

TITLE

CONCEPT

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Originally from networked_performance by jo reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 12:33PM

Originally posted by jo from networked_performance, on May 5, 2006 12:31 PM

Wine Library TV: Episode #42 - How to taste wine. Great little video about, well, just what it says it is.

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 12:10PM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on May 5, 2006 12:31 PM

Mac OS X only: A new plugin for Quicksilver adds events to your Google Calendar from the Quicksilver interface.

Enable the plugin in Quicksilver's Preferences pane (do a search for "Google Calendar" in the Plugins area.) Then, to add an event to your calendar, invoke Quicksilver. Hit the "period" to allow text entry, and type your event (ie, "Coffee at Chochky's 9AM Monday". Tab to the next field and begin typing "Google Calendar Event." When the auto-fill is complete, hit enter. If you're not already, QS will prompt you to log into your Google account. Otherwise your event appears on your calendar. Useful! Thanks, Les!

Quicksilver

 
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Originally from Lifehacker reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 12:00PM

Originally from Lifehacker, on May 5, 2006 12:31 PM

Tim Berners-Lee On Network Neutrality

Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the web, so to speak, weighs in on Net Neutrality.

When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to ask anyoneÂ’s permission. [3]. The new application rolled out over the existing Internet without modifying it. I tried then, and many people still work very hard still, to make the Web technology, in turn, a universal, neutral, platform. It must not discriminate against particular hardware, software, underlying network, language, culture, disability, or against particular types of data. The Internet is increasingly becoming the dominant medium binding us. The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy.

More than anyone, I think it is time for start-ups and their backers to take stock of what the loss of network neutrality would mean to their business. Win or lose, this one has business implications, more so for many of the smaller corporate citizens. [blogged by Om Malik on Broadband] WHAT YOU CAN DO.

Originally from networked_performance by jo reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 1:53PM

Originally posted by jo from networked_performance, on May 5, 2006 2:32 AM

Make magazine today features SylphIRC, an IRC client for the Nintendo DS.

Also, Nintendo announced the DS Lite's release date and pricing in the states- (which everyone reading this probably already knows now): June 11th, for $129.99, just in white (we're assuming they will roll out additional colors later).

Originally from hello, nintendo by Wiley Wiggins reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 12:53PM

Originally posted by Wiley Wiggins from hello, nintendo, on May 5, 2006 2:32 AM

ODF, the ISO-approved Open Document file format, is one possible solution to the main problem with computing, which is not the use of proprietary hardware or software -- these things pass -- but the production of proprietary data, which can...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 5:35PM

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on May 5, 2006 2:30 AM

Great extensive list of old Sesame Street videos that you can watch on YouTube. Oh, the nostalgia. (Rubber duckie!!!)

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 4:48PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 5, 2006 2:30 AM

At the store

Originally from Joyeur reBlogged

Originally from Joyeur, on May 5, 2006 2:30 AM

The ABC News cameras locked in on Bush for Colbert’s "audition tape" segment for 7 minutes and 14 seconds.

Originally from Turbanhead.com by Administrator reBlogged on May 5, 2006, 12:43AM

Originally posted by Administrator from Turbanhead.com, on May 5, 2006 2:24 AM

<!-- START ATTACHMENT TABLE -->

<!-- END ATTACHMENT TABLE -->
<!-- enter description below -->Last night we had tons of fun at Julian Cash's where he did "painting with light" photography. In a dark room, he left the shutter open for however long he wanted, using various light toys to "paint" the darkness. I had no idea about this, and loved it!

[Click on the photos to enlarge.]

Originally from Kokochi by Mie reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 10:20PM

Originally posted by Mie from Kokochi, on May 5, 2006 2:24 AM

the only people fired were the terrible managers  

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 7:41PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on May 5, 2006 2:24 AM

John Gruber has more information on what's going on with Aperture at Apple. Bottom line: by throwing too many engineers at the problem, they made a late project later (see The Mythical Man Month, one of my favorite business books), and after it shipped, all those extra engineers were redispersed within the company and the managers responsible for the debacle got the boot. Good stuff.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 7:19PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 5, 2006 2:24 AM

• If you play Brain Age, you need to help buy Dr. Kawashima some fucking allergy medicine. Am I right? If you're not playing Brain Age, you need to get a DS and get with the program. It's like brain hacks in a box.

• Why should you trust me about video games? Because even Forbes magazine knows I am an expert on toys that are designed for six-year-old Japanese girls.

• George sent word of two new Prince-themed mixtapes mentioned over on Fader. I should get around to listening to and reviewing those... well, probably not any time soon.

• Writing about music makes me miss when I used to do more of that on my different blogs. Like the time I saw Justin Timberlake live a couple years ago. Yeah, go ahead and laugh -- I had fun that night and your broke ass was sitting home and you know it.

• Was nice of the 37signals crew to note that I'd contributed an idea on the Basecamp logo. I'd forgotten about that conversation, but the other thing I liked about the little mountain is it looked kind of like a chart showing an upward trend over time. Neat.

• Knitta, Please.

• I'm officially as tired of Web 2.0 jokes and backlash as I am of Web 2.0, but I'll make an exception for the fully-functional server-side blink tag demo. It's a DailyWTF come to life.

• Sometimes people ask how I can stand going out and trying to leave comments on half the blogs in the blogosphere every day, especially when people sometimes just like to bitch for the sake of bitching. Well, the answer to how I can do it is because sometimes people are amazingly thoughtful and kind. I told you it's good to have friends.

• The digg blog's post on ads on digg was the best thing I've seen since Brad's explanation of why people can choose to have ads on their LiveJournals now. It's not merely that they're explaining the benefits well; It's more that you can see a thoughtful person in the process of evolving their thinking on the utility of marketing or advertising in our culture. As a recovering Adbuster-zealot type myself, I like anybody who embraces moderation instead of extremism. Really, I feel that way about almost everything.

Originally from Anil Dash by anil@dashes.com (Anil Dash) reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 2:47PM

Originally posted by anil@dashes.com (Anil Dash) from Anil Dash, on May 5, 2006 2:22 AM

For the first time, Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS) has bottled that fresh, just-out-of-the-can, "eau de PLAY-DOH" aroma into a limited-edition fragrance as part of a year-long celebration of the beloved modeling compound's 50th birthday. Out in time for Mother's Day, the 1-ounce, spray bottle fragrance is meant for 'highly-creative people, who seek a whimsical scent reminiscent of their childhood.'

"One of PLAY-DOH compound's most notable characteristics is its scent," said Leigh Anne Cappello, vice president of marketing for the PLAY-DOH brand. "When you open a can of PLAY-DOH compound, you are instantly transported back to childhood. What better way to celebrate the 50th birthday than by bottling the scent for adults everywhere to enjoy as a reminder of their youth."(BUSINESS WIRE)

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 8:38PM

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed, on May 5, 2006 2:19 AM

Part homage to the urban renewal of Leeds, part obituary for Jane Jacobs, it's an article by Simon Jenkins, and it's in The Guardian.

Originally from Archinect.com Feed reBlogged

Originally from Archinect.com Feed, on May 5, 2006 2:16 AM

He says he's going to start doing yoga. Sounds like a plan.

That's just a small part of what we learn from Chris Paul's stint as a TV reporter covering the Washington-Cleveland series.

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 3:05PM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on May 4, 2006 11:54 AM

Render any content that runs in Firefox as a texture on some geometry in OpenGL.

Originally from unmediated by yatta reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 2:21PM

Originally posted by yatta from unmediated, on May 4, 2006 11:54 AM

also: Shabbat elevators, glow in the dark toys, and no origami! [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 2:01PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on May 4, 2006 11:54 AM

by Gina Trapani

Two weeks ago I proposed a simple structure for tracking your projects and tasks in a plain text file, todo.txt. Then I followed up with a set of scripts that edit and manage todo.txt from the command line. As someone who lives in the terminal, I've been using todo.txt to run my work day for several weeks now, and it's kept me more focused and organized than any other task manager I've tried. There's just one last thing missing: a bird's eye view of all the working projects and contexts you've entered in todo.txt, and your progress on each.

Today I've got that last piece of the puzzle - a script that analyzes your todo.txt and displays which projects you've moved ahead the most and which need working on at a glance. Step into my office to find out how to generate a todo.txt report that will help keep you on track with your most important projects.

Say you: Huh? If you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, start at the first article in this series, List your life in .txt, which explains the why and how you'd want to organize your projects and tasks in todo.txt. For those that need a quick refresher, keep in mind that todo.txt has three axes which you can slice, dice and sort by: project (ie, "p:homeimprovement"), context ("@office") and priority ("(A)").

Script: Bird's Eye View (birdseye.py)

Instead of telling you everything birdseye.py does, I'll just show you. Given sample data, here's a complete Bird's Eye View report. (Click image to enlarge.)

Here's how it works. You've been keeping a todo.txt of all your undone tasks, and archiving tasks marked as complete in a file called done.txt. (See previously-posted article Script your life in .txt for more on how.) Birdseye.py takes both your todo.txt AND your done.txt and runs through them, calculating what projects are in the works, how far along you've gotten, what contexts you've listed, and what projects you've completed.

Birdseye.py is written in Python, a freely available scripting language. The Python interpreter is required to run any Python script, including birdseye.py. Python comes with Mac OS X by default and is available for download with Cygwin on Windows. (Coincidentally, Cygwin lets you run all the todo.txt scripts previously published as well.)

Once you've got Python installed, to run birdseye.py, at the command line, type the following:

$ python birdseye.py /mystuff/todo.txt
/mystuff/done.txt

Be sure to omit the line break, and change /mystuff/todo.txt and /mystuff/done.txt to the paths to your .txt files.

The output displays projects in progress and all the contexts you've entered alongside the number of outstanding todo's. All contexts and projects with an asterisk next to them contain prioritized items. Last, all completed projects without open to do's are listed.

The point of this report is to give you an idea of where you've been and where you're headed. The report should help you answer the question, "What should I work on next?" during a weekly (or daily) review. You can make those decisions based on which projects have priority tasks or how far along (or not) you've gotten with a project. Likewise, you can choose to knock out contextual work. For example, if you've several items listed in the @shopping context, you know it's time to head out to the mall.

To download, right click birdseye.py and save as birdseye.py to your computer. (Be sure to remove the .txt file extension.)

This script is still very much a work in progress, and I welcome any feedback, bugs or suggestions in the comments or in an email to editor at lifehacker.com. In the meantime, review the Bird's Eye View report regularly to keep yourself on track and moving forward on your most important work.

Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, promises that this is the last of the homegrown todo.txt scripts. For now. Her semi-weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Wednesday and Friday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

 
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Originally from Lifehacker reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 1:30PM

Originally from Lifehacker, on May 4, 2006 11:54 AM

But Freeman has assembled comparisons that suggest Americans protect their vices more than they guard their rights, according to data he presented at an October meeting of the American Statistical Association in Philadelphia.

(via Digg)

Originally from Cynical-C Blog by Chris reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 12:28PM

Originally posted by Chris from Cynical-C Blog, on May 4, 2006 11:47 AM

analysis and great visualizations of Yahoo, Google, and MSN crawler activity for a year  

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 11:50AM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on May 4, 2006 11:47 AM

How will David Blaine hold his breath for 9 minutes? Relaxation and pure oxygen.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 10:56AM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 4, 2006 11:47 AM

Alright Star Wars nerds, here's the moment you've all been waiting for...the original as-shown-in-the-theater versions of Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi are being released on DVD, at long last. Han shoots first!

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 10:52AM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 4, 2006 11:47 AM

Software companies and their shill groups have been spreading around reports on the "cost" of piracy, which are made bogus by their assumption that every pirated copy of software equates to a lost sale, which simply isn't the case. Now, the MPAA has joined the fun, saying piracy costs it $6.1 billion a year. That's 75% more than previous figures, and the study was even supposed to account for people who were watching pirated films they wouldn't otherwise pay for. The MPAA didn't want to release the study, and it's little wonder why: doing so would not only call into question its previous research, but also be a tacit admission that its "war" on piracy is failing, and failing badly. But, of course, there's a flip side to this. Instead of waking up and realizing that the answer is changing their business models to reflect the changing times, they'll use the figures to run to Washington (or some other world capital) and get their Congressional lapdogs to expand copyright laws and give pirates more stringent punishments, since current laws "aren't working". Oh wait -- they're already doing that. The entertainment industry's misguided strategy, reliant on legislation and litigation, is only succeeding at one thing: turning customers into criminals. The industry is fighting a losing battle, and nothing will change until it puts a higher priority on reforming its business models than it does on locking down content and locking up pirates.

Originally from unmediated by yatta reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 10:06AM

Originally posted by yatta from unmediated, on May 4, 2006 11:47 AM

It\'s going to be $130 US when it drops June 11th. It\'s time to start saving.

Originally from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs by funkaoshi reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 9:40AM

Originally posted by funkaoshi from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on May 4, 2006 11:47 AM

Last summer at TEDGlobal, Sasa Vucinic explained in quiet tones his maverick idea: He wanted to sell "free-press bonds.". "If investors are willing to fund the US deficit, why wouldn't investors want to fund the press freedom deficit?" Vucinic asked. (BBC article on that talk)

Yesterday, he put that thought to the test. As TEDGlobal producer Bruno Giussani reports on his blog:

It's now reality: for the first time a social cause will be listed on a major stock exchange. The Media Development Loan Fund, a non-profit run by Vucinic (picture) and based in New York and Prague providing low-cost financing to independent media in emerging democracies, is launching a security that mobilises private investment to support a free press - basically a bond with a social element. They're doing so together with Swiss bank Vontobel and Zurich social investment specialists responsAbility.

(...) The timing of the issue is not coincidental: today May 3 is World Press Freedom Day. Vucinic said this morning in the Financial Times that he believes the new product could become "a blueprint for engaging private finance in social projects around the world".

Originally posted by June Cohen from TED Blog, on May 4, 2006 11:47 AM

Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT)

Our favorite uber-geek, Bill Gates, who has a pinch of money in the bank and in investments, said this about Google at a recent onstage interviews with ad execs: "We will keep them honest, in the sense of being able to do better in a number of areas."

Oooh boy, them's fightin' words if I ever heard them. With MSFT flirting with its lowest share price in four years, Gates wants to reassure investors that the past mistakes of his darling little software company are being rectified. Ok, that's a fair admission from the world's largest software maker and it says they are not invincible in the Internet arena. That's a good admission.

Now, onto the business plan that will rectify the problem since a company just barely a quarter of Microsoft's age is now posing a pretty aggressive threat. Stay tuned for that strategy as it develops -- story at eleven (we're not sure on the date, yet).

Another interesting twist given at the same conference, Gates also said that he wishes he was not the world's richest person -- because of the notoriety it brings among other things. Bill said that he won't enter politics like many other affluent people, but that he likes what he is doing. One thing I give Gates credit for is speaking in non-techno-babble in many public appearances, unlike some executives who can't separate their brain for different audiences. Undeniably the world's largest philanthropist ever, we're glad Gates likes what he is doing, because using that huge endowment to serve political special interests would be a bad, bad thing (or so says Chris Isaak).

[Disclaimer: I hold MSFT shares as of 5-4-06]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Originally from Blogging Stocks by Brian White reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 6:32AM

Originally posted by Brian White from Blogging Stocks, on May 4, 2006 11:47 AM

Currently coveting: the Galaxie Polaris type family from Village type foundry. Beautiful.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 4:45PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 4, 2006 10:04 AM

Interview with actor and (now) director Crispin Glover, who is screening his film What Is It? one theater at a time across the country.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 4:33PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 4, 2006 10:04 AM

Ivana Trump has filed an application with the Patent and Trademark Office to use the mark Ivana Trump in the real estate business. Ex-husband and professional douchebag Donald has filed an opposition, leading to the immediate creation of the easiest headline ever. Donald, Donald, Donald. Your early prenups were obviously weak. If you wanted to prevent Ivana from using your name, you should have taken it back in the divorce. (Via The Smoking...

Originally from Stay Free! Daily by Charles Star reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 3:00PM

Originally posted by Charles Star from Stay Free! Daily, on May 4, 2006 10:04 AM

for a service manual they're not even hosting; the thermal grease thread is great, too  

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 10:35PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on May 4, 2006 10:02 AM

a great post sums up how these two stories from yesterday are related  

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 10:21PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on May 4, 2006 10:02 AM

david posted a photo:

- Taken at 8:02 PM on May 03, 2006; cameraphone upload by ShoZu

Originally from david's Photos by david reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 9:04PM

Originally posted by david from david's Photos, on May 4, 2006 10:02 AM

"Why? It's the numbers. It's like mass media scouts are scanning the horizon and shouting back to the tribe, There! There's the audience we've been losing."

Originally from tecznotes links by Michal Migurski reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 8:43PM

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on May 4, 2006 10:02 AM

Check out the "GIF show" in SF for a new gif I made (pictured above....), & Ocularis on Monday for The Super Mario Movie. Also, I am not in it, but Hanne (aka the better half of Kick_out_the_internet_jams) has curated "Take it to the Net" in London,...

Originally from Cory's Web LOG reBlogged

Originally from Cory's Web LOG , on May 4, 2006 10:02 AM

for those wondering, i have been messing with this site,....i switched my web log software over to blosxom (thx Tim), because the other software i used would make hard links using really long strings of random numbers which kept me up at night. so after wrestling with Perl, CPAN, and LWP all day yesterday (thx barry), i finally got everything running!!...so yeah......though i did figure out how to keep the RSS feed at the same place NOW so everthing should be cool if you subscribed to the original location. rss.xml

Originally from Cory's Web LOG reBlogged

Originally from Cory's Web LOG , on May 4, 2006 10:02 AM

Phantom phone rings have emerged recently as an Internet discussion topic and has become a new reason for people to bemoan technology.

Originally from NYT > Technology by BRENDA GOODMAN reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by BRENDA GOODMAN from NYT > Technology, on May 4, 2006 10:00 AM

We just can’t keep it quiet in the Rails camp. The Agile Web Development with Rails is taking on a second edition after selling more than 40,000 copies of the first. And after filling up the invasion of Chicago in June for the first RailsConf, we’ve just announced that London is next. On September 14-15, RailsConf Europe will be besieging central London. If you’re into Rails (or interested in becoming it), that’s the place to be. The Chicago edition sold out in just about a week.

Now excuse me while I drag this oversized horn back to its chamber.

Originally from Signal vs. Noise reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 11:29PM

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on May 4, 2006 10:00 AM

david posted a photo:

- Taken at 10:20 PM on May 03, 2006; cameraphone upload by ShoZu

Originally from david's Photos by david reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 10:33PM

Originally posted by david from david's Photos, on May 4, 2006 10:00 AM

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

"What we have here 007: an ordinary gun, as you can see. But upon closer inspection -- put that down! Now, as I was saying, upon closer inspection it actually fires small pink teddy bears into the air, which parachute down safely to the earth. What's it for, you say? Why, it's a nascent Japanese wedding tradition of course, taking the place of tossing bouqets of flowers into the air. And would you please return it intact this time, James?"

[Via Uber-Review]

Originally from mathowie reBlog feed by Ryan Block reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 10:28PM

Originally posted by Ryan Block from mathowie reBlog feed , on May 4, 2006 10:00 AM

Guidelines from the Secret Service on the printed reproduction of currency. I once photocopied a dollar bill at the office on our uber-photocopier and was astounded how good it looked...I don't envy the SS's task here.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 10:27AM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 4, 2006 9:57 AM

A new study shows that, though they spend half as much on healthcare, the middle-aged English are healthier than their American counterparts. In fact, the health of the poorest Britons was about equivalent to that of the wealthiest Americans.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 8:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on May 4, 2006 9:57 AM

When is the last time you saw an NBA player get the ball with under five seconds left, and then drive baseline through three defenders for a game winning layup? (No dipsy-doodling around the foul line here. Not at all.) When's the last time you saw that in the playoffs? When is the last time you saw it in overtime? See it now on video.

LeBron James also seems to have already perfected Michael Jordan's turnaround fadeaway from the post, which is pretty handy. I'm starting to think this kid has potential.

Funny note about the highlight package above: every single Cleveland highlight is LeBron James, except for one little Flip Murray move.

Honorable mention from this game, which puts Cleveland up 3-2, Gilbert Arenas had 44 to James' 45.

Can you imagine if they still had 5-game first round playoff series? That play would have been the end.

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on May 4, 2006, 7:13AM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on May 4, 2006 9:57 AM

You all know my fascination with WINKsite, a really versatile service for building mobile Web sites that fits into the mobile lifestyle. It's simple, easy to adapt to any region, makes it easy for folks to connect (and there's more it can do there, still), is fueled by the users, and works on a wide range of devices (from PCs to basic phones to advanced phones). And, what is really important to me, it caters to something that previously could not be done – it lets regular folks easily build their own mobile world and interact with other similar mobile people.

I've been using an N93 for a few months now and I was a bit disappointed that my WINKsite (http://winksite.com/cschick/mobile) wasn't working in my new souped-up phone browser. This wasn't unexpected, since new phones usually send out different headers and such, causing mobile sites to cough at the unknown browser. But, in this case, I knew I could do something about it and started troubleshooting with Dave Harper, the big kahoona at WINKsite.

Well, suffice it to say, with tips from Nokia browser guru, Franklin Davis, we were able to get it all back in line. But, an off-hand comment from Dave regarding barcodes really got us rolling.

Barcodes, anyone?
As you may remember, WINKsite has been doing some interesting stuff with barcodes. Well, it so happens that the N93 comes with a barcode reader.

Of course, Dave and I needed to test it out.

Originally from Lifeblog by charlie reBlogged

Originally posted by charlie from Lifeblog, on May 4, 2006 9:57 AM

Here's part of a fun pixel illustration of Communication City by eboy:

Click through to see the whole image. eboy did the illustration for a Fortune magazine article on the resurgence of internet companies. The company also does amazingly intricate futuristic posters of cities. Oh, and this T-Mobile HotSpot map of London...I could go on and on.

Originally from kottke.org reBlogged on Dec 31, 1969, 6:59PM

Originally from kottke.org, on May 4, 2006 9:57 AM

Evolution on the molecular level appears to happen significantly faster for tropical species than for those that live in more temperate climates.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 2:27PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 3, 2006 12:55 PM

Google's attempt to use the US and European legal systems for competitive advantage -- a trick also used by the failing Netscape -- seems to have attracted more than a little derision. Many comments suggest Google is using double standards,...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 2:15PM

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on May 3, 2006 12:55 PM

...will be the name of my second book, for those of you who care about such things.

I bet you can guess what it will be about.

Originally from v-2 Organisation | Adam Greenfield reBlogged on Dec 31, 1969, 6:59PM

Originally from v-2 Organisation | Adam Greenfield, on May 3, 2006 12:55 PM

It's not a new interview, but somebody (cough) keeps sticking this kind of stuff on YouTube.

Fun to watch.

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 5:59PM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on May 3, 2006 12:54 PM

The incandescent light bulb, Thomas Edison's transformative invention that has become a universal metaphor for bright ideas, might be an idea whose time is passing.

While cheap to produce, this 19th century technology generates lots of heat, making it an energy waster and potentially dangerous. Ever since the introduction of flourescent lighting in the 1930s, electrical engineers and scientists have been trying to develop a better light bulb. Long-lasting, low-watt compact flourescent lamps (CFLs) are a start, but researchers are even more interested in light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

Efficient, cool-burning LED lights are all around us, but only recently have versions been developed that generate a white light bright enough to illuminate a large space. Now, scientists are intrigued by the possibilities of organic LEDs, or OLEDs, which can be produced in wafer-thin sheets that could theoretically turn walls, ceilings and other flat objects into lights -- something that in itself opens up a whole new world of interior design possibilities. OLEDs are nearly 100% energy efficient, meaning that nearly all the energy going into them is used to produce light and not heat.

Currently, the biggest challenge is developing an OLED that is moisture resistant, as even the slightest amount of moisture can foul the sensitive components of an OLED light. Researchers from Princeton University, the University of Southern California and the University of Michigan are joining forces in this effort. The team recently described their OLED work in a paper published in the journal Nature.

RELATED: Besides old-fashioned light bulbs, another unexpected source of energy consumption is so-called "vampire power," or the electricity used by transformers and electronics, even when those devices are off. This post from WorldChanging explains, and offers ways to monitor and reduce this waste.

Source: BBC

Tags: OLED, electricity, conservation, energy

Originally from FutureWire - futurism and emerging technology by Brian reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 5:26PM

Originally posted by Brian from FutureWire - futurism and emerging technology, on May 3, 2006 12:54 PM

More than 40,000 copies of the Agile Web Development with Rails book has been sold. That makes it one of the best selling computer programming books in its period, which would probably make the conventional wisdom "don't screw with the cash cow". But how much fun would that be?

Thus, today we're announcing the 2nd edition of Agile Web Development with Rails. It's more or less a complete rewrite that'll include the latest approaches and best practices developed in the Rails community over the past year. From RJS, to join models, to migrations, to RESTful interfaces, to Capistrano will be covered in the new edition following the same structure of building something real in an agile setting.

It's not done yet, though. Dave Thomas has been steering the ship since December and has so far navigated about half of the course. But what's there is already valuable enough to be worth seeding. So starting today, the beta version of the book is available for instant PDF download and for combo purchase (get the paper book when done).

Now should you get this book if you already own the first edition? Depends. If you're the kind of person who are already keeping up to date with the change logs through RSS, is constantly riding edge, and has a good number of applications under your belt, you might well not need it.

But with the more than 500 changes launched in Rails 1.1 alone, I can almost guarantee you that you missed something. Even members of the core team are routinely pleasantly surprised learning about new nuggets they didn't catch on commit.

What's even cooler about this beta book is that it'll ship as one package. The new chapters are clearly marked and distinct from the old ones. So you get a complete book with half the content being the rewritten stuff and half the content filling in from the old edition. And as the rewriting goes on, new versions will be available for download with more of the new stuff and less of the old.

BTW, checkout the cover. We're cycling through the metaphors. Now we've done trains and tracks, skating and bars, so you just know that the 3rd edition will be feature white lines of powder on a mirror. Right, Dave?

Originally from Loud Thinking reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 4:15PM

Originally from Loud Thinking, on May 3, 2006 12:54 PM

Anyone know where to find a build of Audacity that works on Intel Macs? Or any other program that will let me do rudimentary cut/fade/save on an MP3 file?

Update: Though I'd vastly prefer a GUI that actually showed me the waveform and let me select with the mouse and cut, the command line mp3splt program does basically what I needed (mp3splt -s -p rm foo.mp3). And thankfully, "port install mp3splt" worked. I wish it preserved the id3v2 data, though.

Originally from jwz by jwz@jwz.org reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 3:36PM

Originally posted by jwz@jwz.org from jwz, on May 3, 2006 12:54 PM

Are you an IT firm which is feeling the heat of the competition breathing down your neck? But you do not want to dilute your principles and go that extra mile to get the winning edge. So what do you do? If you are an open source firm, then you harness the tens and thousands of IT aware young minds from developing countries to create applications for your platform. And as an incentive, promise

Originally from All about Linux by Ravi reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 2:24PM

Originally posted by Ravi from All about Linux, on May 3, 2006 12:54 PM

Bryan has a couple of quick quick examples of using DTrace to go through some parts of a Rails application.

As one starts working more and more with web frameworks that depends on many pieces from other people, it’s pretty clear that being able to quickly and completely look at what your application is doing from the request all the way down to the kernel and networking stack is critical (look there’s even DTrace providers for PostgreSQL).

And this is done in production and in a non-interfering way.

Huge.

If you’re coming to one of the Scale With Rails workshops, expect to see plenty of this.

Originally from Joyeur reBlogged

Originally from Joyeur, on May 3, 2006 12:54 PM

Lengthy update on what Al Gore has been up to since the 2000 Presidential Election, including his work on global warming, documented in An Inconvenient Truth (my review).

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 1:15PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 3, 2006 12:50 PM

Barkley wrote a little tribute to the Canuck. It ends like this:

I'm a lucky guy to be living in Phoenix. The sun. The golf. And I get to watch Nash act like a magician on the court. Can't top that. And who knows? Maybe he'll inspire a whole new generation of kids to pass out of double teams the way he does. Like Nash, maybe they'll be selfless off the court too. That would be even better.

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 1:02PM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on May 3, 2006 12:50 PM

Blurb is a new San Francisco company that allows people to create their own books on their desktops. Downloadable software aims to make it easy to merge text, graphics and photos and to design the book cover. Then, upload the book to Blurb and they'll print it for you. The nice thing about Blurb is that you can order just a few copies of your book. So you can make coffee table books of your favorite photos for friends or family. Most traditional printers won't even talk to you unless you have a bulk order. Blurb can also slurp all your blog postings and turn them into a book. The concept is not entirely new. Mac owners can order photo books staright out of iPhoto. Qoop provides a similar service. And Lulu is another self-publishing company that has been around for a while. We recorded a podcast for Inside Silicon Valley with Blurb founder Eileen Gittins where she talks about the Blurb vision and how her company is different....

Originally from VentureBeat by Michael Bazeley reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 12:37PM

Originally posted by Michael Bazeley from VentureBeat, on May 3, 2006 12:50 PM

"Design Matters" with Debbie Millman: Intelligent audio interviews with leading graphic designers and type designers. DESIGN FOR YOUR EARS.

Originally from KALIBER10000 reBlogged

Originally from KALIBER10000, on May 3, 2006 12:50 PM

"I didn’t really know her well. We’d met in Toronto long after she’d left New York and then again when she—miraculously—accepted an invitation to speak at City College to inaugurate our annual Lewis Mumford Lecture. The Great Hall began to fill hours before her talk and, by the time...

Originally from Archinect.com Feed reBlogged

Originally from Archinect.com Feed, on May 3, 2006 12:50 PM

Stephen Colbert's address at the White House correspondents' dinner on Saturday has become one of the most hotly debated topics in the politically charged blogosphere.

Originally from NYT > Arts by JACQUES STEINBERG reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by JACQUES STEINBERG from NYT > Arts, on May 3, 2006 12:46 PM

Having lived in San Francisco, I've walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and driven across it countless times. The bridge is a nearly perfect metaphor for what some people go there to do. The view on a clear day into the city, the red painted cables glowing in the sun, the sudden way the fog comes in off the ocean to envelop the bridge, the path from the cold city to the warmth of Marin County. Death too is beautiful, dramatic, mysterious, abrupt, and an escape to another place.

In The Bridge, a film about the Golden Gate and suicide, director Eric Steel makes effective use of the bridge's imagery and its relation to death; you can see why so many people choose to end their lives there. The footage he and his crew got is astounding at times...families discuss the death of a loved one while that same person is shown pacing back and forth on the bridge, thinking, waiting. You see a group of police officers, looking almost bored (which was probably hyper-aware nonchalance), talking a man back over the railing.

And yet, I can't tell if that footage actually added anything to the discussion of the issues of mental illness, depression, and coping which were at the heart of many of the jumpers' problems. Does watching death make it any more understandable to family members. To audience members? The footage doesn't say why, it just shows us how, and those aren't quite the same things.

Here's an earlier post on The Bridge, a graph of suicides by location on the Bridge, and the New Yorker article by Tad Friend that inspired the film.

(Rating: 4.0/5 stars)

Originally from kottke.org reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 8:16PM

Originally from kottke.org, on May 3, 2006 12:46 PM

Probably the strangest Google Maps hack I've yet seen: ASCII Maps, which renders maps in coloured text characters. Weird, and possibly neat, but really quite useless. Crashes in Safari. Via O'Reilly Radar....

Originally from The Map Room by Jonathan Crowe reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 8:28AM

Originally posted by Jonathan Crowe from The Map Room, on May 3, 2006 12:21 PM

There is a lot of art out there that cobbles together timely social critique from classic video game and web imagery. But Michael Bell-Smith's videos, with their stylized colors, mini narratives, and figurative elements, have more in common with traditional painting than nostalgic digital bricolage. The artist's first solo show, entitled 'Focus Forward,' is now up at New York's Foxy Production Gallery, and the work on view typifies his painterly style. Displayed on an all-black version of a Pac-Man cocktail table, his figurative work, 'Birds Over the Whitehouse,' features colored blips circulating over a maze-like schematic of the famous home. The piece crafts the classic arcade console into an allegory for terrorist threats and the unreality of contemporary warfare. In 'Continue 2000,' Bell-Smith creates a video game-style cartoon apocalypse and uses it to channel the sublime awe of a Romantic painting into a critique of the fear and spectacle of modern disasters. The exhibition runs through May 27th, but if a trip to New York is impossible, each video can be viewed in its entirety on the gallery's website. - Bill Hanley

http://www.foxyproduction.com/exhibition/view/475

Originally from Rhizome.org: Rhizome News reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 3:00AM

Originally from Rhizome.org: Rhizome News, on May 3, 2006 12:21 PM

We were pretty deflated after Saturday's road race, the first of three stages in the Anderson Mayors Cup. There had been no challenging climbs to separate the field -- on the course's modest hills I amused myself by heckling those who struggled: "Why are we slowing? Is there an obstruction ahead? Are those gears I hear being changed? For this?" -- so after 43 miles the race came down to a bunch sprint. Since I was still recovering from an aborted break, I volunteered to lead Tim out. We had great position, me in fourth and him in fifth, but we got anxious and jumped way too soon. Riders zipped around me like two sides of a zipper zipping around something that ought not be stuck in a zipper. Tim got a disappointing 10th. I settled for 17th.

Then a funny thing happened: Tim killed the time trial. Must have been his skinsuit. He would enter Sunday's criterium in fourth place in the general classification.

Waking up Sunday, however, I wasn't even sure I'd race. Rain was forecast for the entire day. Crits are dicey enough when it's dry. A wet surface was a prescription for road rash, busted heads and, worse, dirty components.

The rain worked to our favor, however. It kept our field small, around 25, scaring away even the riders in contention for the overall prize, including second and third place. First place had a prohibitive lead, but if we could keep anyone from scoring points on Tim, he'd finish the weekend in second place.

Four of us stuck around for the crit. At the starting line we did a head count. One. Two. Three. Three?

Where was Tim, our great GC hope?

The promoter was ready to start the race. "Second place had a mechanical," I said, making something up, "but he'll be here soon!"

The promoter shrugged. We tried to stall.

"Is there a wheel pit?"

"Where is the feed zone?"

"Can you tell us more about the wheel pit?"

Apparently Tim had taken an extra warm-up lap and gotten stuck behind some pokey masters riders. Finally we saw him come around Turn 4, trying to catch up to us as if he were, as he'd put it later, the neighborhood fat kid. He was still about 50 meters away when the whistle blew, just in time for him to help himself to a flying start.

My job during the race was to chase down any moves by rider nos. 459, 460 and 485. Those were the threats to Tim's standing. Whenever someone attacked, I could count on hearing Tim behind me, saying either "Let him go" or "We need to shut that down," and I reacted accordingly. (Racing is much easier when I don't have to think for myself.)

The course proved not nearly as treacherous as I'd feared. We let the overall leader escape on a solo breakaway, and then a few attacks and counterattacks broke the lead group into a pack of nine. We took the corners single file, nice and easy.

With three laps to go, Tim and I settled into fourth and fifth wheels again. We spent the entire last lap discussing our leadout so that we wouldn't make the same blunder as in the road race.

It turned out to be moot: I led him hot out of Turn 4, but then another rider jumped way too early. Tim hopped onto that wheel and sprinted around it for the win, claiming second in the race and locking up second in the GC. After topping 35 mph in the homestretch, I threw for seventh, squeezing into 8th overall and into the money, insofar as winning $25 for a race that cost $65 to enter and $60 to drive to is "in the money."

Afterward, two different riders told us how mad they were that they had heard us blabbing about our plans but still weren't able to beat Tim. (Note to selves: Stop blabbing so much!)

Photo taken by E. Wight: April 30, 2006

Originally from Decisive Moments by luke

reBlogged by Matthew Haughey on May 2, 2006, 2:43PM

Originally from mathowie reBlog feed by luke reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 1:40AM

Originally posted by luke from mathowie reBlog feed , on May 3, 2006 12:21 PM

And when I say "new Outkast Song" I mean an actual song with both Andre and Big Boi on it, together, emceeing. A major event. So far there's only a low quality recording from ATL radio.. Okayplayer has it posted here, and Nahright has it here. My relative in jail... stay engaged To whatever make money now he married to...

Originally from hiphopmusic.com by jsmooth995 reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 1:05AM

Originally posted by jsmooth995 from hiphopmusic.com, on May 3, 2006 12:21 PM

Apple renewed contracts with the four largest record companies to continue offering songs at 99 cents each through the iTunes music store.

Originally from NYT > Technology by BLOOMBERG NEWS reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by BLOOMBERG NEWS from NYT > Technology, on May 3, 2006 12:21 PM

Shiny ball
Originally uploaded by schickr.

Mon 01.05.2006 18.59 Image035

Originally from Cognections by charlie reBlogged

Originally posted by charlie from Cognections, on May 3, 2006 12:21 PM

In today's New York Times, Organizing for an Indelicate Fight looks at a lawsuit filed by Sonoma Foie Gras against Whole Foods. Apparently Whole Foods (who does not sell foie gras for ethical reasons), "told Grimaud Farms last fall to stop processing and distributing Sonoma's ducks and foie gras or the grocer would no longer do business with the company." Sonoma Foie Gras has been unable to find another processor and is suing Whole Foods for, "intentional interference with contract."

If Sonoma loses the suit, it could hasten the disappearance of foie gras in California. In 2004 California passed a law banning the production and sale of foie gras by 2012.

"I hope I'm retired by 2012," said Thomas Keller, owner of the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and Per Se in Manhattan, who believes the government should not tell people what to eat. "If force-feeding a duck is cruel, then packing chickens in a cage is cruel, and then the veal and the beef. We are all going to be vegetarians soon if they have their way. We should probably start converting now."

Oh that TK! Seriously though, if PETA, et al have their way, will we ultimately end up eating humanely treated animals, or no animals at all? Accidental Hedonist raises a good point in her Chicago and Foie Gras post about how removed people are these days from meat production: "the mainstream public...are now so separated from the process of how our food is actually collected, harvested or made, videos showing gavage can be shocking and upsetting." When all your meat comes neatly packaged at the supermarket -- free of blood and bones and veins -- it's hard to remember you're eating an animal. Perhaps that's part of the problem.

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 12:17PM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

Today, we mostly feast our eyes and make plans instead.

Takeshi-San's bad ass exhibitionism knows no bounds. Here, he tap dances to the shamisen (YouTube).

Someone points a gun at your head and says: you have to learn Mandarin Chinese, or Japanese, or die like a dawwwwwg. Which do you choose? Obviously, not including the death option.

Originally from the lady upgrade project by mr tibbles reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 11:29AM

Originally posted by mr tibbles from the lady upgrade project, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

Tom Moody at Art Moving Projects. Opens this Friday.

Originally from MTAA Reference Resource by M.River reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 10:15AM

Originally posted by M.River from MTAA Reference Resource, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

welcome home to the island of dill
we promised a loaf of bread, a barrel of gold, and took and gave a fountain of lead, a famous commode.
a famous commode, a famous commode, the most famous commode of the northernmost tip of the island of dill.
and followed a pony until it was sold to the man with the six dollar bill.
we went to town in red rabbit shoes with garbage for breakfast
and balloons.
underneath the saddle was an embroidered woolen blanket...

the expression, "butterflies in the stomach" is lovelier than the sensation.

here's the vintage vogue pattern i bought in champaign.

david needs to return from china then i swear no more excerpts from poems. judgment goes out the window with excessive isolation and airports. perhaps that's a positive thing.

my favorite airport activity is imagining how my fellow travelers would look with better hair.

Originally from serenalarogers by serenalarogers reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 10:09AM

Originally posted by serenalarogers from serenalarogers, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

Apparently there are people in couples who are more drawn to movies about suicide then others. I realized this when Jason and I ended up seeing The Bridge together and I thought, "where's Meg and Jonah?" "Oh right, less drawn to this subject matter". I have to admit I was obsessed ever since I read the New Yorker article a few years ago, that inspired this documentary.

The film was simply and successfully structured. What it did especially well was interspersing interviews with the loved ones of the jumpers with images of the actual jumpers pacing, contemplating and jumping. Visually, it was incredibly strong. Also, the tremendous struggle that loved ones had over what to do to help, to what extent to help, etc was clear and an enormously interesting and worthwhile question.

What surprised me was that I found myself not as interested in the personal stories as I thought I would be. I'm the most emotional person always interested in the human stories so I wondered why I was hoping instead to get less personal, more statistical and clinical analysis. I think it's because depression is not foreign to me and I can't help but want analysis that makes me feel like we're getting closer to understanding and perhaps lessening the problem. I wanted to know about the studies that have been done about jumpers, what percentage of jumpers are on medication when do jump?, for most people is this the first suicide attempt or the culmination of several unsuccessful attempts?, what percentage of people travel to get there? Of course these questions would only be questions to start off the more difficult questions we should ask ourselves about the state of mental health in our society.

Check out Jason's review from which you can also check out a graph detailing jump spots and an interview with a guy who survived his jump.

Originally from Andrea Harner by Andrea reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 9:59AM

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

I was pointed to this exchange between Vinton Cerf and NEH Chairman Bruce Cole because it has a nice little back-and-forth about Everything Bad, but the rest of it is even more interesting.

Cerf: I stand in the middle of my personal library trying to remember which book it is that had a particular phrase and I have no way of physically going through these books in the library to figure out which one it was. Even if I couldn't read them online--I mean we're concerned about intellectual property protection, as we should be--but even if I couldn't read them online, if I could just find which one it was and what page it was on, I would be happy to go turn to my personal library or the public library or the bookstore to get the copy of the book. Having things online is vitally important for making knowledge accessible to everybody.

This is exactly I how I feel right now, trying to put the endnotes together for The Ghost Map.

Originally from stevenberlinjohnson.com by stevenberlinjohnson reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 9:18AM

Originally posted by stevenberlinjohnson from stevenberlinjohnson.com, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

Filed under: From the boards, Newspapers, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO)

There's nothing like a hugely long and prominent story in the Wall Street Journal to get people talking. This one wasn't on the front page, just the Money & Investing section. But hey, it's got a catchy headline: A Microsoft Yahoo Tie-Up?

The question mark is a dead give-away that the authors have no idea whether or not a deal will really happen. And we already blogged last week about news reports that eBay, Microsoft and Yahoo! might be teaming up to combat Google. This seems like more of the same -- lots of chatting yielding lots of options.

Here's the gist of it: Maybe Microsoft will take a stake in Yahoo? That's not all that likely, the article admits, but points out that as of May 8, MSN will be headed up by veteran deal-maker and former Ask.com CEO Steve Berkowitz. Microsoft has already signalled it has some appetitite for dealing with other portals. Lest we forget, it was in serious talks with Time Warner a few months ago about joining forces with AOL, but that deal was scuttled when Google swooped in with a cool $1 billion for a 5% stake in AOL.

Frank Barnako at Barnako.com says, "Microsoft needs something!  Google and Yahoo have the Internet mojo right now. " He also links to Henry Blodget's post, "MSN: Another Quarter Closer to Irrelevant." Henry doubts MSN can ever be a serious challenger to Yahoo or Google on its own.

At the end of the story, the WSJ throws out that maybe Microsoft will sell MSN to Yahoo and take a minority stake in the portal? buygoogle.com says that is "terribly unlikely." I couldn't agree more. Microsoft has already taken a lot of pain in the past week for promising to spend big to get its Internet operations back on track. I can't see Ballmer backtracking that quickly.

Rafat at PaidContent notes, "this could be all smoke and mirrors for now..." And how.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Originally from Blogging Stocks by Amey Stone reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 7:03AM

Originally posted by Amey Stone from Blogging Stocks, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

The time has come for action, since he's clearly not willing to do the work himself. Help buy Dr. Kawashima some fucking allergy medicine.

Originally from hello, nintendo by Anil Dash reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 3:45AM

Originally posted by Anil Dash from hello, nintendo, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

The next few months are rapidly filling in with events, some explicitly Everyware-related and some not.

Nurri and I will both have the honor of presenting at this year's Aula conference in Helsinki, under the general rubric of Movement. That's 14 and 15 June...not, sadly, Midsummer, but close enough so that we should at least get to see some midnight sun. I'm really looking forward to this one.

Just about immediately after we get back to NYC, I'm off to the Bay Area for back-to-back brownbag talks at Adaptive Path and Institute for the Future; I'm not entirely sure how public either will be, but if you're interested I can't imagine it'd hurt to get in touch with the hosts and inquire about attending.

Then there's some (ha!) downtime built into my schedule, during which I'll hopefully get to develop The city is here for you to use a bit - have a look at the Institute for the Future of the Book for some big fat clues as to how I'm thinking of proceeding with this.

The basic premise of the book is examining the received classics of twentieth century urbanist thought - Walter Benjamin, Jane Jacobs, the Situationists, the Metabolists, Archigram, Kevin Lynch, and Christopher Alexander, to scratch the surface - and ask how their conclusions and recommendations about the city change under the condition of ambient informatics. I also hope to be doing some William H. Whyte-style observation and incorporating those findings.

July sees me right back here in town, for An Event Apart NYC at the frabulous Scandinavia House. (Among that venue's other blandishments, I really like the idea of rolling out of bed, strolling over to a speaking gig, and being back in time for dinner.)

After that, we're off to Korea, for a very exciting project that I can't talk about just yet, but which I will describe in all due detail as soon as I am able to.

And that's just what I know about now. If the past few months are any indication, there'll be more and denser to come. (Delighted and humbled, BTW, to find myself atop this list of the highest-rated panels at SXSW 2006, however unscientific the methodology. Thanks, kids!)

Originally from v-2 Organisation | Adam Greenfield reBlogged on Dec 31, 1969, 6:59PM

Originally from v-2 Organisation | Adam Greenfield, on May 3, 2006 12:17 PM

Originally from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs by froschhosen reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 11:46AM

Originally posted by froschhosen from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on May 3, 2006 11:37 AM

Silvio Berlusconi resigned as Italy's prime minister Tuesday after weeks of refusing to concede last month's national elections.

Originally from NYT > Home Page by IAN FISHER reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by IAN FISHER from NYT > Home Page, on May 3, 2006 11:37 AM

According to the plan, the federal government would stockpile 75 million doses of antiviral drugs and 20 million doses of vaccine to combat a flu pandemic.

Originally from NYT > Home Page by LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN from NYT > Home Page, on May 3, 2006 11:37 AM

Matt tells us about an application that lets you shoot photos of whiteboard writing with your Nokia N70 and turn it into a PDF file.

Originally from Nokia N70 Blog reBlogged on May 3, 2006, 4:45AM

Originally from Nokia N70 Blog, on May 3, 2006 11:36 AM

---

From US News and World Report:

Skewering comedy skit angers Bush and aides

By Paul Bedard

Posted 5/1/06

Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert's biting routine at the White House Correspondents Association dinner won a rare silent protest from Bush aides and supporters Saturday when several independently left before he finished.

"Colbert crossed the line," said one top Bush aide, who rushed out of the hotel as soon as Colbert finished. Another said that the president was visibly angered by the sharp lines that kept coming.

"I've been there before, and I can see that he is [angry]," said a former top aide. "He's got that look that he's ready to blow."

Colbert's routine was similar to what he does on his show, the Colbert Report, but much longer on the topic of Bush, suggesting that the president is out of touch with reality. Aides and reporters, however, said that it did not overshadow Bush's own funny routine, which featured an impersonator who told the audience what Bush was thinking when he spoke dull speech lines.

In fact, some aides crowed over reports that the president easily bested Colbert in the reviews of both comedy acts.

Some kind of personal smear will no doubt be surfacing about Colbert: "not today, not tomorrow, but when he least expects it." Bush is like the character Paul Lazarro from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Nursing grudges and getting payback is what he's all about.

Originally from Tom Moody by tom moody reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 3:46PM

Originally posted by tom moody from Tom Moody, on May 2, 2006 12:48 PM

Tonight the lineup is absolutely incredible. It's going to be a frenzy. I'm not usually a huge fan of "live blogging" games, but tonight I'm going to give it a whirl, just for fun. Join me if you'd like.

All times Eastern.
Pacers at Nets at 7pm. Just a few days ago, Indiana was up 2-1 and the Nets had no mojo. Now it's tied. Jason Kidd has looked old on defense, and he never really could hit a shot. But man he has won himself a lot of games. Does he have some more in him? Can he give the Nets enough to wrest back control of the series? And will Peja Stojakovic be able to play? Will Vince Carter keep kicking ass? I don't know. That's why I'm going to watch.

Bulls at Heat at 8pm. If I could only watch one game tonight, I'd watch this one. Probably. Or maybe the next one. I'm not sure. Man this is a good night of basketball. Anyway, this one has my favorite NBA player, Dwyane Wade, and a bunch of broken down and busted old famous dudes, vs. some young hungries from Chicago who are happy to tied 2-2 with the East's second overall seed. It has been pretty feisty, and if the Heat lose this series, all hell's going to break loose, because it will be clear their rebuild to be good now has been a total bust, and it's tough to imagine how they can get good again while Shaquille O'Neal's still healthy. That window is closing. That means it could be hard to keep Dwyane Wade... and you can see that there's plenty to play for tonight.

Kings at Spurs at 9:30 pm. Either the Spurs are just waiting to snap out of it, or this is the most important series of the first round. Everyone's pick to win the west is already on the ropes, tied 2-2 to a rejuvenated 8 seed. A Sacramento win tonight would be strong evidence that San Antonio has systemic problems against Sacramento. Teams around the league would sit up and pay attention. Detroit would see it's most feared opponent on the brink of elimination. Dallas, which has looked great so far, would be thinking Western Conference Championship, as would both of the L.A. teams. Don't forget, there have also been rumblings about the Kings needing a new arena, and maybe wanting to escape to Las Vegas where their owners are big shots. If they knock San Antonio out of the playoffs, the city's feelings about the team will be warmer and fuzzier than ever.

Lakers at Suns at 10:30 pm. No you can't go to bed yet. This series has the big star, and the single most exciting game of the playoffs so far. And it has been an incredibly close series throughout, despite the Lakers' 3-1 lead. I predict a Phoenix win, because they are home, and Kobe Bryant hasn't been sleeping much with that new baby. He'll see to it that none of us sleep much tonight.

UPDATE: Marty Burns previews these same games.

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 1:27PM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on May 2, 2006 12:48 PM

While waiting to catch the bus to work...out of the blue, a man approaches.

[man] you're going to have a baby girl, aren't you?
[me] ah, yeah
[man] wondering how I knew, huh?
[me] yeah...
[man] I just know these things. I have 2 boys and I knew when my wife was pregnant even before she did!
[me] wow...actually, it seems like every baby I meet these days is a girl. where are all the boys? ... we don't have a name yet
[man] oh, it'll come in your sleep. don't worry
[man] she's going to be a beautiful baby girl
[me] <smiles and is very happy>

By the way, it's 2 months 'til July 2nd...the supposed target date of Gargle's arrival. I like the suspense that she could arrive early or late. Nevertheless, the clock is beginning to tick louder...and I still can't believe she'll be here soon!

Originally from Kokochi by Mie reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 1:04PM

Originally posted by Mie from Kokochi, on May 2, 2006 12:48 PM

Today's featured submission for the Coolest Workspace Contest comes in from Jason, whose startup company's tight budget forced him to get creative, roll up his sleeves and mod a door into his desktop. The knob hole worked perfectly for running wires down under the desk!

<?php $setname = "Coolest Workspace Contest: DIY Startup Desk"; $username = "lifehacker"; include("/www/utils/photogallery/photogallery.php"); ?>

Jason explains his setup:

We recently moved to a new office and being a small startup company with little money, furnishing the office was a challenge. I didn't want to buy cheap furniture that would look crappy and eventually have to be replaced. I also didn't want to spend a lot of money and time looking for furniture that I liked. So I made my own.

My desk top is an 8 foot long 2 inch thick solid wood door (salvaged from the office renovation). The door knob hole conveniently accomodates the wiring for desk speakers and my lamp (free from Craigslist) so it doesn't have to hang off the back of the desk. The legs of the desk are made from pieces of 1" square steel (scrap from a previous project) which I attached to the table at angles with mitered ends for greater under desk clearance as well as aesthetic reasons. An under desk drawer (extra parts) was installed allowing for storage of normal desk junk yet remains hidden and does not interfere with the wide open design. With such a large desk it is possible for me to keep project binders out for quick reference while out of the way from my normal workspace.

On the wall is a dry erase planning space which is easily updateable and highly visible. Shelves (from our old office) behind my work area work as my filing system (binder style) as well as drawer storage. Keeping everything out in the open makes finding things much faster as there are no drawers for things to hide in, it also keeps clutter buildup to a minimum.

A small desk (free from Craigslist) to the left of my main workspace holds my meatspace calendar (with nearly free refills courtesy of MS Excel's calendar templates) my phone and inbox.

My laptop when performing desktop replacement duties is propped up to an ergonomic eye level with a custom laptop stand (welded together one 12" piece of 1"x1" angle steel, two pieces of 1" flat bar and one 4.5" piece of .5" rod). Dabs of tool plasti-dip on the corners keep it from scratching the door, err desk. A wireless keyboad and mouse let me type from my lap (my preferred position), or from across the room when I give presentations in my office.

The total spent on furniture: $0.
Sweet!

Nice work, Jason!

Find out more about how you can enter for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to Amazon in Lifehacker's Coolest Workspace Contest.

 
Comment on this post

Originally from Lifehacker reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 12:30PM

Originally from Lifehacker, on May 2, 2006 12:48 PM

At the Vatican, a clash is shaping up between the church's ban on condom use and its advocacy of human life.

Originally from NYT > Home Page by IAN FISHER reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by IAN FISHER from NYT > Home Page, on May 2, 2006 10:59 AM

Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani visited the politically important state of Iowa today for the first time since 2004.

Originally from NYT > Home Page by PATRICK HEALY reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by PATRICK HEALY from NYT > Home Page, on May 2, 2006 10:59 AM

Stephen Colbert, of the "Colbert Report" was asked to speak at the White House Correspondents Dinner last weekend. I'm not sure who made that decision, but I'm really glad they did. Because it meant that President Bush (who was seated about 3 feet from Colbert) and the press-filled audience got to suffer through a mighty fine roasting. Colbert didn't just mock the Commander in Chief, he mocked his entire audience that night, and he did it with style. Not to mention he stayed in character the entire time.

Two of my favorite quotes from the speech:

I believe that the government that governs best is the government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

and (to the press):

Write that novel you got kickin' around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration....you know, fiction.

All of the Mules really respect Colbert for his giant stones. We wanted to show our support for him in a visible way. Thus, the Colbert Has Stones tee:

Why don't you pop over to You Tube and watch the video of the speech?

Originally from Mule Design : Off the Hoof by Katie Spence reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 8:24PM

Originally posted by Katie Spence from Mule Design : Off the Hoof, on May 2, 2006 10:51 AM

Originally from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs by jhmostyn reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 3:36AM

Originally posted by jhmostyn from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on May 2, 2006 10:48 AM

Passages in a novel by a Harvard student that was pulled from stores appear to be copied from a second author.

Originally from NYT > Home Page by DINITIA SMITH and MOTOKO RICH reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by DINITIA SMITH and MOTOKO RICH from NYT > Home Page, on May 2, 2006 10:48 AM

Nabokov on Lewis Carroll and his photography: "I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert. Have you seen those photographs of him with little girls?" Nabokov aside, there's no real evidence that Carroll did anything untoward with any of his photographic subjects. View some of Carroll's photos here, here, and here. (via tmn)

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 11:19AM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 2, 2006 10:46 AM

Today megnut.com is seven years old. It's hard to believe, actually impossible almost to believe it's been going for so long. This site has seen me through singledom, coupledom, engageddom and now marrieddom. It's seen me through tech start-up entreprenuer times, unemployed times, working as an independent consultant, more entreprenuer times, more unemployed times, and then a shift to restaurant and kitchen work, and now a more food-focused life. When it started, it was one blog among maybe a hundred. Now it's one in a sea of millions of blogs. Nearly every friend I have, including my husband, can be traced in some way to this site.

For a long time, it was just something this site was just something I had or did. I didn't put too much thought into what it was supposed to be or what it meant to me. But you can't do something for seven years and not realize, "Wait! This is really meaningful to me, and special, and I'd be really sad if it went away." As you may have noticed by the recent volume of postings, it's not going away anytime soon. In fact, I'm feeling a new-found excitement about blogging and this site and its potential. Seven blog years is like twenty dog years, which is like 80 human years, but don't worry, this old blog has a little life in her yet. Happy birthday megnut.com, old girl!

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 9:23AM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on May 2, 2006 10:46 AM

Gardening at Gitmo. (via rc3oi)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 8:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on May 2, 2006 10:46 AM

Based on comments we read from time to time on the Wooster site, it's clear that Marc Ecko is a fairly polarizing figure in the graffiti scene.

But for us, he's got our support.

It was Ecko, and Ecko alone, who backed seven high school and college kids and sued the city of New York over the recent ban on possessing spray paint and fat tipped markers if you are under 21 years old.

The results?

Yesterday a federal judge ruled in favor of Ecko's seven kids and overturned the city ruling, forcing the city to stop enforcing the ban.

Congratulations and respect to Marc Ecko and the seven kids who took on the city. Nice one indeed.

Here's the article from today's New York Times:

Judge Rules Against New York City Ban on 'Graffiti Instruments'
By THOMAS J. LUECK

In a setback to the city's efforts to curtail graffiti, a federal judge ordered the city yesterday to stop enforcing its ban on the possession of spray paint and broad-tipped markers, saying the law unfairly singled out a narrow age group.

Judge George B. Daniels of Federal District Court in Manhattan, who issued his ruling over the objections of a city attorney, issued a preliminary injunction, to take effect at 5 p.m. on Thursday, against a law banning the possession of what the city calls "graffiti instruments" by people 18, 19 and 20. The judge left in place a ban on possession of etching acid, a substance used to indelibly deface subway windows and other surfaces, by people under 21.

Gabriel Taussig, the chief of the administrative law division of the city's Law Department, said the city would appeal the decision before the Thursday deadline imposed by Judge Daniels.

The ban on tools used to create graffiti "imposes reasonable conditions on a limited class of individuals," Mr. Taussig said in an interview late yesterday. He said that 70 percent of the city's graffiti had been found to be the work of people under age 21.

In finding that the city had improperly singled out a narrow age group in its ban, Judge Daniels ruled in favor of a group of seven high school and college students who sued the city last week with financial backing from Marc Ecko, a Manhattan fashion designer who has championed graffiti as an established art form.

Mr. Ecko said yesterday that the group did not intend to defend anyone's right to vandalize property. But he said that many property owners in the city had allowed, and in some cases paid for, graffiti on their buildings.

"It is a visual dialect practiced around the world," Mr. Ecko said.

The plaintiffs had not asked Judge Daniels to lift the city's ban on etching acid, a particularly destructive material that in recent months has been used to mar thousands of subway car windows.

The city ban, which was written by Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. and took effect on Jan. 1, strengthened a prohibition that had already been in place on the sale of graffiti tools to those 18 and under.

The new rules broaden the ban to include possession and sale of the tools, and extend it to people up to 21.

Virginia Waters, a city attorney who appeared before Judge Daniels yesterday, said that the judge had not sufficiently weighed written arguments submitted by the city only hours before his ruling yesterday afternoon.

The preliminary injunction prevents the city from enforcing its ban on spray paint and broad-tipped markers while Judge Daniels hears more arguments and issues a ruling on the broader lawsuit, which seeks to permanently strike down the ban.

Originally from Wooster Collective reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 2:03AM

Originally from Wooster Collective, on May 2, 2006 10:46 AM

The Tigers assume the No. 1 spot. Yes, you heard that right.

Originally from Baseball Prospectus reBlogged on May 2, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally from Baseball Prospectus, on May 2, 2006 10:46 AM

Ryland tweaks his Church Sign Generator to thwart white supremacists [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 1:32PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on May 1, 2006 5:52 PM

don't bother with the torrent, use these YouTube videos instead [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 12:39PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on May 1, 2006 5:52 PM

If you’re aware of any voting software that would allow me to run a simple poll from my site (and have the results updated in real-time), please send me a link. I haven’t been able to find much and because of that I’m not going to outline the features I’d like to see (I don’t want to put something that I could possibly hack to my liking out of contention right off the bat). If this request turns up no real options, I’ll likely just code my own, but I find it hard to believe that what I’m looking for doesn’t already exist.

Originally from Justin Blanton reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 5:25AM

Originally from Justin Blanton, on May 1, 2006 5:52 PM

Do you really save time by riding instead of walking? Perhaps not when you consider that for every 1 minute you walk, you gain an extra 3 minutes of life.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 11:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on May 1, 2006 5:48 PM

Keyword Cartoons chronicles the adventures of GGirl, a character whose daily activities correspond with high-paying keywords on Google AdSense, like laser hair removal and asbestos cancer.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 10:17AM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on May 1, 2006 5:48 PM

The Independent looks at a restaraunteur who wonders, Can a menu be sourced solely from London produce?

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 9:30AM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on May 1, 2006 5:48 PM

Neat article from the New York Times Magazine, The Way We Eat: Olde School about old recipes and cooking methods.

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 9:25AM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on May 1, 2006 5:48 PM

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have have caught the brain in the act of losing its sense of "self" as it shuts down introspection and enters a flow state during a demanding sensory task.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 11:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on May 1, 2006 5:47 PM

Joseph DeLappe has developed dead-in-iraq as an online gaming performance/protest.

The artist entered the online US Army recruiting game, America's Army, using "dead-in-iraq" as a login name. He does not particate in the proscribed mayhem, but stands in position and types until he gets killed.

DeLappe intends to keep typing names until the end of this war. As of today there have been 2400 American service persons killed in Iraq.

Related: Can video games prepares soldiers to real war?, First Person Paradoxes: The Logic of War in Computer Games.

Via networked_performance.

Originally from we make money not art by Regine reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 12:00PM

Originally posted by Regine from we make money not art, on May 1, 2006 5:47 PM

One of the films premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival is The Bridge, a documentary by Eric Steel about suicide and the Golden Gate Bridge. The trailer is available on the festival site but be warned that it contains actual footage of people climbing over the railing of the bridge to commit suicide.

The Bridge was inspired by a 2003 New Yorker story by Tad Friend called Jumpers, a piece about suicide and the bridge. The subject of suicide is often not discussed in the media. Self-inflicted deaths aren't usually reported in the newspapers or on TV. Suicide prevention activists caution against suicide contagion due to media exposure of individual suicides leading to copycat deaths.

But that's just the start of the controversy surrounding the film. In order to secure a permit to shoot the Golden Gate (which he did for the entirety of 2004, amassing almost 10,000 hours of footage), Steel said he was shooting footage to capture "the powerful, spectacular intersection of monument and nature that takes place every day at the Golden Gate Bridge". He says he lied to discourage people to seek out his cameras to immortalize their deaths on film, but it's also true that Golden Gate National Recreation Area officials certainly wouldn't have given him a permit to film suicides.

Steel interviewed family members of the jumpers without disclosing that he'd filmed the death of their loved ones (again to avoid publicity for the filming and the death immortalization problem). Some family members felt manipulated by the omission when they learned of it.

Then there's the matter of the filming itself. The film crew's basic job description was to wait for people to die...they needed people to die for their film. If there's no good footage of people jumping, there's no film. Without too much trouble, you can imagine Steel instructing his crew to shoot the next one at a wider angle, the crew refining their techniques for catching the jumpers on film, and the mixture of excitement, dread, and the satisfaction of a job well done when they catch a jumper on film. But the crew was also trained in suicide prevention and intervened in several attempts. And listening to Steel talk about the film, it obviously wasn't meant to be Faces of Death Part XII.

Here are a few more articles on The Bridge:

- Film documenting Golden Gate Bridge suicides premieres, San Jose Mercury News
- Golden Gate star of dark documentary, San Francisco Chronicle
- Man Survives Suicide Jump From Golden Gate Bridge, ABC News

Originally from kottke.org reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 10:38AM

Originally from kottke.org, on May 1, 2006 5:47 PM

Big news for those intent on building the next dapper, gleaming and endlessly scalable web application on the Ruby on Rails platform. Joyent is presenting three conferences this year called Scale With Rails, featuring our own Jason Hoffman and Luke Kanies. Jason and Luke will be focusing on every aspect of building high-end Rails apps: “power, space, location, staffing, hardware, components, network, operating system(s), development, staging, servers and, most importantly, the cost.” These are intense, two-day sessions, invaluable for everyone from developers to CTOs.

Early registration and team discounts are available.

Originally from Joyeur reBlogged

Originally from Joyeur, on May 1, 2006 5:47 PM

To me the three most incredible plays of last night's already legendary Lakers Suns OT thriller were:

• Smush Parker's three-pointer after a sour shooting night.
• Smush Parker poking the ball away from Steve Nash.
• Kobe Bryant's super high-floating layup.

In short, Smush Parker was big. And he says he cried a little after the game.

(via Lakers Blog)

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 4:23PM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on May 1, 2006 5:43 PM

Filed under: After hours, Google (GOOG)

Google just can't seem to stop ruffling the feathers of people it seems. After a spectacular earnings report a week ago Thursday, GOOG today settled down big time to a semi-stratospheric $398.90 at market closing -- a drop of one-hefty figure: over 4.5% from Friday's close. One of the large items (and we mean, extra large, as in biggie, mucho grande, super size, whatever) of the Google news day was the apparent moaning it's made to Microsoft about the billion-dollar search bar featured in the next iteration of the world's largest web browser, Internet Explorer. Version 7 is due soon, and it will feature an integrated search bar -- just like its competitor Mozilla Firefox has done for years -- right into the browser. Guess which search engine it will be -- at least at present -- defaulting to? You win the stuffy bear prize if you can guess. And no, it's not Alta Vista. You have two more guesses.

This is a big deal because it is estimated that over 30% of web searches -- responsible for almost all of Google's billions in quarterly revenues -- are performed now using search bars integrated into web browsers and the like. That makes the one-half inch by two-inch search bar in your browser the most hot real estate outside buying an island in the Caribbean. Seriously. Name an island with a $100 billion value (Google's market cap).

But outside this issue, the correction currently happening to GOOG shares is rather odd, even in light of what commonly happens to share prices after great quarterly results. While GOOG was up to $440 just a few days ago, it's now back down to earth (that's an oxymoron) to under $400. Who knew? Just look at the chart up above -- today's intraday movement. Looks like a downward trajectory that just doesn't happen a few weeks after a stellar quarter.

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Originally from Blogging Stocks by Brian White reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 12:36PM

Originally posted by Brian White from Blogging Stocks, on May 1, 2006 5:43 PM

It's in the current ESPN magazine, at the bottom of a column:

NETS. CHAMPS IN 2006. COUNT ON IT.

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 6:15PM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on May 1, 2006 5:39 PM

The Google Calendar widget for the Yahoo! Widget Engine (née Konfabulator) integrates your Google Calendar with a very cool desktop widget.

Currently the Google Calendar widget only shows a somewhat limited 3-day span, but other views are supposed to be added in upcoming releases. This looks like a nice start for Gcal-to-desktop integration, but in a perfect world you'd also be able to add events from the widget.

Google Calendar widget [Yahoo! Widget Gallery]

 
Comment on this post
Related: Getting good with Gcal
Related: Add Google Calendar events to your blog, etc.
Related: Add common events to your calendar with Mark This Date

Originally from Lifehacker reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 4:00PM

Originally from Lifehacker, on May 1, 2006 5:39 PM

Why God made the Portuguese
Originally uploaded by Mike Monteiro.

I almost asked about this at Chipotle today, and then decided not to.

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 3:59PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on May 1, 2006 5:39 PM

Anyone know what might have caused a massive spike in downloads of PyS60 for 1st Edition devices on April 25th and 26th? We normally see around 100 downloads per day, but those two days saw 35,000 downloads total! The SourceForge statistics don’t go deep enough for me to see whether this was the by-product of some lam3 script or legitimate downloads. (BTW, there’s a thread about this on the discussion boards.) I suppose there could have been some event that triggered massive downloads, but somehow I think this is a fluke. Thanks for any insight! –Erik

Originally from [eriksmartt.com/blog] by erik reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 3:38PM

Originally posted by erik from [eriksmartt.com/blog], on May 1, 2006 5:39 PM

WorldOfWarcraft Gold

Originally from Andrea Harner by Andrea reBlogged on Apr 26, 2006, 10:00AM

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on May 1, 2006 4:15 PM

(Thanks, Lee!)

If readers know of any other governments who have blocked SMS for political reasons, as the Ethiopian government reportedly has done, let us know:

The Ethiopian government has blocked the sending of SMS messages on Ethiopia's mobile network. Subscribers can still receive (from outside Ethiopia) but cannot send. The reason given for this is that the opposition party and others were using SMS to incite demonstrations and riots a couple of weeks ago when the government announced the delay in finalising the election results. The SMS ban will continue until after the planned July 8th announcement of those results.

Originally from Smart Mobs by Howard reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 1:25PM

Originally posted by Howard from Smart Mobs, on May 1, 2006 4:14 PM

Andrea Harner is drawing daily "Ggirl" cartoons, "a character that lives in the world of the most coveted words and concepts on the Internet. Each original work of art is inspired by a valuable keyword – assuring that this site is commenting on concepts that are socially, culturally, and economically relevant." When Ggirl herself becomes the most coveted and expensive keyword that is going to be some comic.

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on May 1, 2006, 12:47PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on May 1, 2006 3:37 PM

For anyone who hasn't seen them yet, Cabel Sasser of Panic Software has done some great posts on the DS Lite, inlcuding a video podcast.

Originally from hello, nintendo by Wiley Wiggins reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 1:30PM

Originally posted by Wiley Wiggins from hello, nintendo, on April 30, 2006 1:36 PM

NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff on the legacy of Jane Jacobs and why her views on cities aren't universally applicable:

The activists of Ms. Jacobs's generation may have saved SoHo from Mr. Moses' bulldozers, but they could not stop it from becoming an open-air mall. The old buildings are still there, the streets are once again paved in cobblestone, but the rich mix of manufacturers, artists and gallery owners has been replaced by homogenous crowds of lemming-like shoppers. Nothing is produced there any more. It is a corner of the city that is nearly as soulless, in its way, as the superblocks that Ms. Jacobs so reviled.

But I have a hard time believing -- as Mr. Ouroussoff does -- that:

...on an urban island packed with visual noise, the plaza at Lincoln Center -- or even at the old World Trade Center -- can be a welcome contrast in scale, a moment of haunting silence amid the chaos. Similarly, the shimmering glass towers that frame lower Park Avenue are awe-inspiring precisely because they offer a sharp contrast to the quiet tree-lined streets of the Upper East Side.

Surely we can devise better ways of introducing contrasts in scale into our cities than building Lincoln Centers.

Ouroussoff's article includes a companion audio slideshow of him talking about Jacobs and also of West Village residents sharing their views on their neighborhood that Jacbos lived in and wrote about long ago.

Originally from kottke.org reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 11:14AM

Originally from kottke.org, on April 30, 2006 11:07 AM

Now for something not food related! Yesterday I went to Jack Rabbit Sports, a sport store that recently opened near Union Square in Manhattan. (They've also got a Brooklyn location that's been open for a while.) It was far and away the best shoe store experience I've ever had, and I don't think I'll ever buy a pair of sneakers anyplace else again.

First step: evaluating your foot and watching you run. They put you on a treadmill in the shop and watch the way you run and how your foot strikes. Then they start bringing out shoes for you to try, and each time you get back the treadmill and test out the shoe. The guy we worked with was knowledgeable and very helpful, and sent me out the door with the first pair of non-Asics running shoes I've owned in twenty years!

They also offer classes, custom bike fitting, and 10% everything you purchase after your first purchase. They had clothes too, but I was so excited about the sneakers that I didn't even look at anything else. I [heart] Jack Rabbit Sports!

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 11:06AM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on April 30, 2006 11:07 AM

On April 25 the media reported the death of American-born Canadian writer and activist Jane Jacobs, best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States. Opposing expressways and supporting neighborhoods were common themes in her life.

"The key with Jane was that she believed that the world was a complex place. It was not a simple place, it was a complex place, and you couldn't just think in straight lines"

"You had to think about context, how things fit together. That was the key about her."

The Jane Jacobs Homepage.
Wikipedia provides an extensive profile of Jane Jacobs.

Originally from Smart Mobs by Gerrit Visser reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 3:59AM

Originally posted by Gerrit Visser from Smart Mobs, on April 30, 2006 9:37 AM

What do you get when you mix Doug Bowman's sense of aesthetic and the plugin-making machine that is Byrne Reese? A kick ass plugin, that's what... Want to see it in action? Check out his first two subjects. Awesome......

Originally from JayAllen - The Daily Journey by Jay Allen reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 1:22AM

Originally posted by Jay Allen from JayAllen - The Daily Journey, on April 30, 2006 9:37 AM

Hot damn! The Python Essential Reference has a new version out! Huzzah!

The 2nd edition of this book has been in my backpack for going on 3 years now. It is the only Python book I can’t live without. No offense to O’Reilly, but with the exception of “Learning Python” and the “Python Cookbook” books, their core Python language books have sucked major donkey. New Riders has them licked with just this one title. If you want a book on the best damned language this side of C and the other side of Scheme, “Python Essential Reference” is the way to go.

Originally from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency by alex reBlogged on Apr 30, 2006, 1:20AM

Originally posted by alex from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency, on April 30, 2006 9:37 AM

Jamie Lidell gets participatory @ Southpaw
Originally uploaded by yatta.

Dear Southpaw,

Close the doors and cancel all future shows.

Jamie Lidell shut that shit down last night.

(Actually, it was a great show but I'm exaggerating a bit. I'll do anything for a good punchline sometimes.)

Originally from braintag reBlogged on Apr 27, 2006, 2:03AM

Originally from braintag, on April 30, 2006 1:11 AM