I feel like Wire-lovers are a secret club, even though none of us can shut up about it.

Well, the word is definitely out. My love for The Wire has been well documented. With the fourth season, my love for this show has spun out of control. I have watched each of the first three episodes multiple times, and it drives me insane that I can't seem them all now.

While we wait for new episodes to come available "on demand" on Mondays and then play in HD on Sundays, I am left googling and googling. Did you know HBO links to the iTunes music store for all the songs appearing in the show? And here's a great quote frm David Simon from a Q&A with AOL Members:

And it's nice to be paid well for doing this gig, but if money was the goal I would not be trying to construct a television drama anything like The Wire. I think I've demonstrated, with The Wire and The Corner both, that I am capable of marginalizing myself in a niche within television's mass communications model. Specifically, I've shown the television networks that I can produce stories that receive critical acclaim but do not draw big Hollywood numbers, and therefore, my opportunities to make big Hollywood money are not there. Don't misunderstand: I am well paid. But if money were the purpose here, my bad guys would be Irish or Italian, my cops would hunt them down to great gratification, and the city depicted would be whiter, more affluent and filled with big-titted, long-legged women. The Wire is either not the work of someone thinking about payday, or if I am that someone, I am quite incompetent.

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 11:11PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on September 22, 2006 8:10 PM

Andy Griffin, the former owner of Riverside Farms, one of the spinach growers implicated in the recent E.coli breakout, has written a very informative post on spinach harvesting and why he got out of the baby greens business. (via mn)

Every sealed bag of pre-washed greens is like a little green house. The greens inside are still alive, as are the bacteria living on them. If the produce in the bag is clean, great, but if it isn’t the bacteria present has a wonderful little sealed environment to reproduce in, free from any threat until the dressing splashes down and the shadow of a fork passes over. Frankly, I think convenience is overrated.

And my most recent CSA newsletter has a bit to say about organic spinach growing practices.

Many media outlets, and so-called experts, have failed to understand the details of this event. [...] [T]hey have tried to make a connection between organic produce and animal manure, a potential source of E.coli. Fact: It is a violation of federal law, the National Organic Standards Act, to use raw animal manures on a crop that will be harvested within 120 days of application of the manure. No organic farmers are using raw animal manures on their spinach fields anymore, if they ever did. It  is far more likely that a conventional farmer would use raw manures —there are no regulations prohibiting the practice for anyone other than organic farmers. The FDA never insinuated this connection; they are intimately familiar with the organics law.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 8:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on September 22, 2006 8:08 PM

I’m certain that Gap’s new advertising featuring Audrey Hepburn will play extremely well with Gap’s elderly, homosexual male customer base. Except of course when the music switches to AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” which is clearly targeted to Gap’s other big audience: middle-aged, heavy-metal fans who still occasionally like to “rock out, man.”

Originally from Adaptive Path by Dan reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 5:21AM

Originally posted by Dan from Adaptive Path, on September 22, 2006 8:08 PM

This hot pink Park Slope brownstone pictured in today's NY Daily News feels like old news to us — after all, Brownstoner was on it over a month ago. The owner, Bernie Henry, decided to go fuschsia back in 1968, five years before the area became a historic district. He told the Daily News that "the current hue on his 105-year-old house is more or less a match of what it was when his wife, Viola, told him to paint it 40 years ago." According to the comments on Brownstoner, local kids love the house and some grown-up neighbors appreciate the outlandish color, but others are downright disgusted by its Pepto Bismol-like shade.
Brown-stone? Not Exactly [Brownstoner]
Back to the Fuchsia [NY Daily News]
Photo by Maisel for the NY Daily News

Originally from Brooklyn Record by Brooklyn Record reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 11:42AM

Originally posted by Brooklyn Record from Brooklyn Record, on September 22, 2006 8:07 PM

A friend recently asked me how to sharpen a serrated knife, and I realized I had no idea. I sharpen my chef's and paring knives at home on my sharpening stone. But I've never sharpened my serrated blade. Poking around online, I found a link that says you can sharpen on a stone by each individual blade serration. That sounds insanely time-consuming. Other sites say it should only be sharpened by a professional.

Anyone have any suggestions for how best to sharpen a serrated knife?

Update: Doh! Forgot to turn comments on. Fixed now, answer away.

comments are open

Originally from megnut.com blog by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 10:41AM

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from megnut.com blog, on September 22, 2006 8:07 PM

this does not bode well for the Guitar Hero franchise  

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 1:34PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on September 22, 2006 8:06 PM

I nearly cried when i had a mini cone of Honey Rosemary Goats' Milk from Capogiro. Luckily, it seems that you can buy pints across the country if you aren't in Philadelphia!

Originally from beXnlog by beXn reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 2:21PM

Originally posted by beXn from beXnlog, on September 22, 2006 8:05 PM

I'm going to post some of the reviews/links that SoundAbout is getting here. My earlier post about it is here.

GoogleMaps Mania:

Philly Sound and Maps Mashup - Here is a fantastic new Google Maps mashup from the "Official Visitor Site of Greater Philadelphia" (gophila.com) that combines sound with Google Maps. It's called Sound About Philly. Various guided audio tours bring you through Philadelphia's history, "flavorhoods", and residents' perspectives of this great city. You can also create your own sound mapmash and leave it for others to view. It's a model mashup for other city tourism sites!

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Blinq blog:

Philadelphia has a promotional podcast. The news is that as a walking tour, it's not totally lame.

The idea behind Sound About Philly was to create a series of audio bits for visitors and locals to hear while sauntering around town with an iPod  - or for someone listening in Peoria by laptop.

It debuted yesterday, this project from the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp, and it's got promise. Teams of interviewers have roamed about, telling stories of the usual places as well as the unsung spots that give this city its charm....

Nice comments from  Shel Holtz (who is helping with the online marketing of the tours)

Originally from DefinitiveInk by joshua mack reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 1:57PM

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on September 22, 2006 8:05 PM

I was today participating in a Nokia Design meeting, presenting some stuff at their “IN&Out speaker series” in Topanga (California). My presentation (pdf slides, 6.2Mb) was about tangible interfaces and some potential misconceptions drawn from user experience research, concepts I found pertinent and stuff I’ve read. It’s absolutely not academic research but more “food for thoughts” for designers, like what I do for video game companies. This material is meant to trigger some insights and discussion about design problems/solutions and ideas.

It was also a good opportunity to meet Jan Chipchase and talk more about what is doing it + methods.

Originally from pasta and vinegar by Nicolas reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 7:14PM

Originally posted by Nicolas from pasta and vinegar, on September 22, 2006 8:03 PM

Originally from random($foo) reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 7:12PM

Originally from random($foo), on September 22, 2006 8:03 PM

Yesterday’s Chicago Tribune ran an article about teaching math in school [registration required] that included something I’d never seen before: The multiplication grid.

I don’t have any idea if this is better/worse/harder/easier, but I just found it interesting. It’s refreshing to see alternate solutions (grid) to more common approaches (stacked).

Originally from Signal vs. Noise reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 6:27PM

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on September 22, 2006 8:03 PM

Each week at Slate, writer Alex Kotlowitz and Steve James (director of Hoop Dreams) dissect the week's episode from the fourth season of The Wire. Warning: they are unabashed fans of the show. AOL recently interviewed The Wire creator David Simon. (via dj) Negro Please is posting fourth season episode synopsiseses summaries...here's 4.2.
Update: Season four of The Wire scored a 98/100 on Metacritic, the highest score for a TV show on the site.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 6:05PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 22, 2006 8:03 PM

The Oprah definition
The technical acronym for RSS is “Really Simple Syndication”, an XML format that was created to syndicate news, and be a means to share content on the web. Now, to geeks and techies that means something special, but to everyday folks like you and me, what comes to mind is, “Uh, I don’t get it?”

So, to make RSS much easier to understand, in Oprah speak, RSS stands for: I’m “Ready for Some Stories”. It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place. How cool is that?

Link (thanks Lifehacker)

Originally from clusterflock reBlogged on Sep 22, 2006, 5:42PM

Originally from clusterflock, on September 22, 2006 8:03 PM

Saving lives is hard enough--what medical professional has time for significant romantic moments in the supplies closet? Anticipating tonight's Grey's Anatomy premiere, a doctor looks back on a lifetime of TV role models.

I should’ve been a hot neurosurgeon. The thought haunts me each time I see an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. If only I’d been wiser in med school, I could be spending my nights saving lives with a sexy intern I occasionally sleep with and my days exchanging sarcastic banter with my sometimes-estranged-yet-fairly-hot wife. Removing nails from children’s heads, performing radical brain resections, containing Code Blacks—all in a week’s work. And I’m not the only one who has these thoughts: Every patient’s eyes seem to say, “Why can’t Dr. Drayer be a little less scrawny? Must his nose be that crooked? And why so many chins?” I’m waiting for one of the 20 acne-suffering teens I see each day in my dermatology practice to ask me, “Who the hell came up with this character? He totally doesn’t play on screen.” Unfortunately, they’re right. Television transports us into foreign and often dangerous... Click here to continue reading this article.

Visit The Morning News.

Originally from The Morning News reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 10:40AM

Originally from The Morning News, on September 21, 2006 11:07 PM

Here's something from that some folks from Nokia are involved in. Sounds really cool. I'm looking forward to see how it develops. It combines many cool elements: mobiles, Web, people far away, people on the ground, the real world, a large display, Web and mobile tools to track the whole thing, sigh, it's so cool.

Will it fly?

I'll check it out next week.

Link: Manhattan Story Mashup.

Manhattan Story Mashup is an urban game, taking place on September 23rd 2006 in Manhattan, New York City. During the event, approximately 250 players will move around Manhattan, taking photos which match a given target. Targets are words from stories, written by you and other visitors on this web site collaboratively while the game goes on. The resulting illustrated stories are shown on large public signs in Times Square in real-time and on this web site.

Manhattan Story Mashup is organized by SensorPlanet, a Nokia Research Center -initiated research program on large-scale sensor networks. We are interested in combining the physical and the virtual worlds through new ways of sensing. As it happens, lots of people always carry a mobile phone with them, making it a perfect platform for this job. This game is a cool way to test our tools and theories in practice with a large number of people. Naturally we're also interested in sharing fun with other people in the Come Out and Play Festival, which gathers together many games like this in September.

Oh, dang. I just saw that Jürgen Sheible is one of the designers. I interviewed him for an article a long time ago. Geez, I gots to catch up with him.

Originally from Lifeblog by charlie reBlogged

Originally posted by charlie from Lifeblog, on September 21, 2006 11:07 PM

Dudes, remember when we talked about Vox a while back? Well it's only gotten better, and we should know since we've started another blog over there. We're using it to catalog quick picks and coupons, sales and deals and whatnot, and we'd love for you to come visit and leave comments and - Gasp! - favorite things!  Just like on Flickr!!

What? you don't have a Vox account? Because we offered them to all our readers and ran out in the first half hour? Guess what?? We've partnered with Vox to give out ONE THOUSAND INVITES to our Awesome readers!!!!!

The first awesome people to clicky click to that special page get a fancy invite to flaunt in front of their friends, and you'll immediately be added to our neighborhood. How great is that, really? We couldn't be happier, unless of course we got a dollar for every invite we gave away.

Hey, wait a second...why aren't we getting a dollar?  Oh yeah, because Vox is free!!

Originally from Awesome! by S H reBlogged

Originally posted by S H from Awesome! , on September 21, 2006 11:07 PM

Our inimitable sister site Gawker takes the Google map mashup to an olfactory extreme with the New York City Subway Smell map.

See what stations smell like perfume, food, poo or a whole host of other lovely big city scents. Having just spent a week back in NYC after a year of California fresh air, I can personally attest to the pungentness New Yorkers unknowingly get used to every day. Ok, so this won't make you more productive, but it might help you plan a less stinky commute through the five boroughs. — Gina Trapani

New York City Subway Smell map

Originally from Lifehacker

reBlogged by Matthew Haughey on Sep 21, 2006, 5:30PM

Originally from mathowie reBlog feed reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 1:57PM

Originally from mathowie reBlog feed , on September 21, 2006 11:03 PM

Jason's looking for cheap eating suggestions in NYC. Got some favorites? Go add them to the discussion.

Originally from megnut.com blog by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 11:44AM

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from megnut.com blog, on September 21, 2006 11:03 PM

Could the lines of this speaker Dieter Rams designed in 1960 (left) have influenced the iMac?

Rams was a key figure in German design and worked as head of Braun’s design staff in the 60s. His clean and simple style has been cited as an influence by many designers, including Apple’s Jonathan Ive.

In this Icon magazine profile or Rams, he discusses how design has to be a priority that comes from the top.

At Braun they were always willing to take a risk - nobody could tell you if a product would become successful. We as designers cannot work in a vacuum. The entrepreneur has to want it; the people at the top of the company have to want it…What’s missing today is that these kind of entrepreneurs are no longer there. Today there is only Apple and to a lesser extent Sony, but not to the same degree as was the case with Olivetti and Braun, or Peter Behrens at AEG, or Herman Miller and Charles Eames, Florence Knoll with Saarinen and so on. These kinds of connections are missing today.

He also talks about the importance of eliminating the unnecessary:

As designers we have a great responsibility. I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary. That means eliminating everything that is modish because this kind of thing is only short-lived.

Design Museum’s profile of Rams includes his ten principles that define “good design”:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design helps us to understand a product.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is durable.
Good design is consequent to the last detail.
Good design is concerned with the environment.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.

Originally from Signal vs. Noise reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 10:28AM

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on September 21, 2006 11:03 PM

Stylus magazine has a list of their top 100 favorite videos, complete with embedded YouTube clips of the videos themselves for your instant gratification. Ok, now let's fight about what was excluded and how wrong that is... (via paul) (Comment on this)

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 4:55PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 21, 2006 10:49 PM

I'll be staying overnight next Friday, along with 500 or so our closest friends at open Hack Day.

If you're coming, may I humbly suggest you do not place your caffeine needs at the tender mercies of Big Purple. Bring your own, bring some to share, you'll be popular. (truth be told, they do that whole "soda" thing ok, but the coffee is beyond mention)

And if someone gives me a lift, I'd be happy to bring my Zojirushi, and Saeco

Originally from Laughing Meme reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 4:48PM

Originally from Laughing Meme, on September 21, 2006 10:49 PM

Using 100% of the profits from his airline and transportation companies, Richard Branson pledges $3 billion to fight global warming over the next decade. Will the billionaire philanthropists save us from ourselves? BTW, this happened at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting; there's a live webcast (+podcasts) if you want to watch from home.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 2:38PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 21, 2006 10:49 PM

Originally from random($foo) reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 1:40PM

Originally from random($foo), on September 21, 2006 10:49 PM

We’re up to Draft 10 of the Atom Publishing Protocol, and it’s very close to what the final product will look like. The APP is getting more early developer support and interop testing than any standards project I’ve ever been involved with, and that includes XML. DeWitt Clinton covers some of the bases, but Dave Johnson makes it nice and simple: “Atom protocol can do everything that MetaWeblog API can do, and much more.” On the subject of the Atom Feed Format, I don’t think much more needs to be said, but the U.S. Intelligence community (which is quite feed-heavy internally) commissioned a study: RSS and Atom Considerations; it seems very thorough to me. In reading it, Wikipedia’s article on Intelink may be a useful reference.

Originally from ongoing reBlogged

Originally from ongoing, on September 21, 2006 10:49 PM

Originally from Gus's blog, adventures in Flying Meat. reBlogged

Originally from Gus's blog, adventures in Flying Meat., on September 21, 2006 10:49 PM

The most difficult part of posting a link to the work of Renato Alarcão is choosing which image to use. His collection of children’s book illustrations, in particular, is a goldmine of marvelous pieces of artwork like this one. And the website ain’t too shabby either

Originally from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog by Johnny reBlogged on Dec 31, 1969, 6:59PM

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on September 21, 2006 10:49 PM

Here's kind of a nice story, because it's always good to hear about really talented people getting a good gig (and after all, it's Happy Week). One of the new downloadable iPod games, Mini-Golf (pictured above) was created with the graphic contributions of illustrators Jeff Miracola, Julian Hector, Nuno Alves, and Justin Degarmo, all of whom were found by an EA art director because they had been featured by the awesome blog Drawn, one of our top 5 daily reads.

Buy Mini Golf here -- I don't know if that makes them any more money, but it's certainly supporting their work.

update: Check out the comments thread on Drawn, which talks about the pretty lame trend of game studios like EA increasingly not crediting artists on games. Makes me reconsider the whole above post a bit.

Originally from shey.net reblog reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 10:54PM

Originally from shey.net reblog, on September 21, 2006 10:48 PM

I bought this portable solar panel from SolarStyle on eBay for $20. This small solar charger has a built in battery (see this previous article for more information). With this portable solar panel, I charge my MP3 player, a portable amplifier, a set of battery-powered Sony surround sound speakers, a cellular phone, a digital camera, two LED lamps, a LED booklight, and a LED flashlight. If you are already positioning yourself to optimize sunlight, it is quite simple to do this. If I added a $50 solar panel, I can power two laptop computer, and have all of my audio-visual and computer devices running on renewable energy.

Originally from Treehugger

reBlogged by Matthew Haughey on Sep 21, 2006, 6:25PM

Originally from mathowie reBlog feed reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 10:23PM

Originally from mathowie reBlog feed , on September 21, 2006 10:48 PM

Here's an idea: let people suggest ideas for an application they'd like to see, and then get people to vote on it, and then get a team of dedicated developers to, uh, develop it. That's the plan behind MyDreamApp; in...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 7:40PM

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on September 21, 2006 10:48 PM

Here are the slides from my talk on Mobile Ajax development. I’ve got a longer-ish blog post in the works about getting a working emulation environment set up, but it’s taking much longer than I’d anticipated to try to track down some of these things (if you know anyone at SonyErickson or Obigo, drop me a line). Hopefully next time I give this talk I’ll be able to include a demo of the “foldable interface” thing I keep muttering on and on about.

There’s some fun data in the slides that the carriers would really rather not have disseminated, not that their collective folly hasn’t been laid bare qualitatively already.

Originally from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency by alex reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 7:38PM

Originally posted by alex from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency, on September 21, 2006 10:48 PM

david posted a photo:

Originally from david's Photos by david reBlogged

Originally posted by david from david's Photos, on September 21, 2006 10:48 PM

Originally from Perl.com by Larry Wall reBlogged

Originally posted by Larry Wall from Perl.com, on September 21, 2006 10:48 PM

We've long been fans of the Mirage (pdf).  Today we installed 2 idrocompressos at the Corning Museum of Glass.  They wanted bling and they got it:  The side panels were practically melting into the place.  They've been using our 3 group Idro for the past 4 months & loving it.

The roaster project is moving forward.  The new slab has been poured and the south wall framed in.  Windows arrive on Thursday and the NYSEG gas engineers should be on the job next week some time.  Having the 2" gas line in place will be a big shot in the arm.

Speaking of shot in the arm, Brooklyn got a shot in the neck (perhaps eyeball) this past weekend.  One of the dailies did a little spread (pdf) on espresso bars and mentioned ours as one of the trailblazers in the NYMetro coffee wasteland.  Two days later people were lining up en masse, gustafarians fixing for Allah, causing broken record sales.  Rumor has it, the house stereo played Kenny Loggins "Danger Zone" on continuous repeat.  They were denied pemission for a fly-by but did it anyway.

Yesterday Jason from the Coffee Equipment Co, Inc dropped by to explain how not to break our latest equipment asset.  So far, so good.

Originally from gimme! coffee by Kevin Cuddeback reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 9:12PM

Originally posted by Kevin Cuddeback from gimme! coffee, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

(This post first took hold over on VOX; and after it inspired some pretty active discourse I've decided to throw it here as well; but it's worth going over there and reading through the comments. I'll repost it here with a little extra gained insight, but no less conviction.)

The preceding image was taken from the front page of "The Future of Web Apps" Conference which recently took place in SF. Fourteen speakers; fourteen white guys. Now, I don't mean to single Carson Workshops out, but they're a good recent example, however they're far from the only ones. I know some of these white guys. They're talented guys, sure, and I don't mean to denigrate them. But there are also some fucking talented women in this industry (I work with FOUR of them!) and I'm tired of them getting the short end of the stick. It's becoming a fucking embarassment.

The industry as a whole will suffer from this exclusion. People generally solve the problems they are most familiar with; i.e. white guys tend to solve white guy problems. I'm sure that by the time Web 2.0 is done with there will probably be a way for my medicine cabinet to realize I am low on Rogaine, call in the order to Walgreen's and send me and SMS when it's ready for pickup. But where does that leave the rest of the world?

The way I see it, design is at the service of culture, it's here to solve problems, and that means problems for everyone. In order to do that it probably helps to get a look at who that "everyone" is, and not JUST give them access, but PULL them into the industry so that they may in turn have access to that problem solving.

Some of my colleagues have stated that there simply aren't enough women to put on these panels; or that they make a token attempt at inviting the two or three they've heard of and they don't come. That's a case of looking at the effect and calling it the cause.

My friend and incredibly brilliant colleague Judith Zissman (who you should invite to speak on your panels) who has organized panels herself, put it very well:

...the people we asked for recommendations of who to invite had not necessarily seen prominent women speakers at other conferences, had not schmoozed and networked and drank with them, let alone actually heard what they had to say about technology. This, of course, is the classic affirmative action argument - an open door is not enough. You actually have to bring people into the door. And an open door that isn't well-publicized beyond an already skewed audience isn't an open door at all.

Yes, this is hard. It's easy to ignore if you're one of the select few. But we stand at an interesting period in history, and it would be in everyone's best interest to open the scope of our discussion to the brightest minds possible. And we should do this BECAUSE it's hard.

From now on anyone speaking at a conference WITHOUT any women speakers will be held JUST as liable to abuse as the organizers. Be the role models the situation calls for.

Originally from Mule Design : Off the Hoof by Mike Monteiro reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 3:20AM

Originally posted by Mike Monteiro from Mule Design : Off the Hoof, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

Spotted tonight at the 3rd Street underpass. I think this captures everything I have to say on the topic.

» Read more on Vox

Originally from alaina browne lives here by Alaina reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 1:14AM

Originally posted by Alaina from alaina browne lives here, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

This weekend I co-hosted a shower for my preggers gal pal/sister Isha.  She is featured in this animated photo that the talented Ari designed.  I had this idea to do a "Waking Life" version of a pregnant Isha and knew that Ari was the best person for the job.  People seemed to really like the invite.

I am excited for this little boy to come into the world.  I am excited to be a loving, caring, kick butt Auntie/God Mother.  I am sort of nervous because I want to do a good job and I really have no idea what I am doing.  But I am excited to open myself up to loving another human being unabashedly.  It is something I have been holding back on and I think this little munchkin is a good place to start.

Today I have started day one of a two day seminar on Photoshop and other Adobe illustrator programs.  I have learned so much and though I was pretty beat afterwards (and PMSing may I add), I feel good that I have finally have a clue what the hell is going on in Photoshop.  I actually was a star pupil who at times was bored enough to surf a teeny bit on the internet during class.  I found this article about my (and Beebs') beloved director, Michel Gondry.  What a visionary!  I love reading about people like him and I am all over The Science of Sleep.

I came home and had a healthy microwaveable meal (Thanks to the new health food store on Atlantic and Nostrand in Crown Heights.  A single girl's dream!) with a glass of wine from a bottle that my friend bought me for my long past birthday.  I decided to open my mind to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which I had low expectations for.  I am the kind of person that hates hype around anything.  It makes me avoid it.  But even skeptical old me loved, loved, loved this show,  It was the best pilot I have ever seen.  Who knows what it means for the future but the 60 minutes I watched it were worthwhile!  Everyone is great on it.  Better than they have ever been on the other shows they were on.  (All right, it is pretty hard for Bradley Whitford to be better than he was on The West Wing but everyone else rocks harder here than they have anywhere else.)

Originally from tuckergurl by Angela Tucker reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 11:58PM

Originally posted by Angela Tucker from tuckergurl, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

Today New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni published his review of Lower East Site hot spot Freeman's. While he seemed to enjoy a lot of the food, it was the inconsistent service he kept returning to. Coincidentally, Freeman's is the restaurant I wrote about yesterday where I had poor service while dining with some friends. His review captured the experience we had at Freeman's on Monday night.

Mr. Bruni reports there was "dismissive service." A "bossy, brittle man" wouldn't let his party order the artichoke dip while they read the menu--at least our server allowed us that! He describes a hostess who "had all the cuddly charisma of Cujo." Ouch. In the end Mr. Bruni gave it no stars, simply "Satisfactory."

Yesterday, Eater ran a two-part (Part I, Part II) interview yesterday with William Tigertt, Freeman's owner. As I read it, I was struck by how much Mr. Tigertt was concerned with getting the food just right for Mr. Bruni's visit. He changed things on the menu and worried about what Bruni and his party ordered. It was as if running a restaurant were only about the food.

But in my experience, and as Mr. Bruni's review demonstrates, a great restaurant is more than just its food. It's a welcoming environment that sets you at ease. It's a place that treats each and every guest with respect, whether they're a big-time restaurant critic or a few friends stopping in for an early dinner with babies in tow. Perhaps the New York Times review will spur Freeman's to improve their service. I hope so, because I enjoyed their food, and I'd like to go back there again someday.

Update: Eater has a final update from the Freeman's owner. Even after reading the review, they're still concerned about the food. My hopes for a service improvement are dashed already.

Originally from megnut.com blog by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 8:36AM

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from megnut.com blog, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

In addition to everything else Amazon sells, you can now secure small portions of materials and mechanical parts suitable for building and repair. Amazon has teamed up with the supplier Small Parts (reviewed in Cool Tools previously) to supply a huge variety of metal tubes, springs, raw materials (titanium, nylon, polycarbonate, glass, etc.), gears, plastic parts, fasteners and bins of other stuff that tinkerers and mid-night engineers might need. Of course you can order from Small Parts direct, but Amazon's option takes advantage of their incredibly handy interface and billing system. Go to their "Industrial & Scientific" tab.

-- KK

Available from Amazon Industrial and Scientific

Originally from Cool Tools reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 9:00AM

Originally from Cool Tools, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

Race, income, and location all have profound effects on your health and lifespan according to a new fascinating study from the Harvard School of Public Health concludes "the differences are so stark it's as if there are eight separate Americas instead of one".

The longest-living whites weren't the relatively wealthy. [...] They're edged out, by a year, by low-income residents of the rural Northern Plains states, where the men tend to reach age 76 and the women 82. Yet low-income whites in Appalachia and the Mississippi Valley die four years sooner than their Northern neighbors.

Here is the editor's summary and the original paper itself (which is, by the way, freely available to be read and distributed by the public.)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 8:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

San Francisco, New York, and Washington have installed the "Intelligent Aquatic BioMonitoring System" developed for the Army to detect toxins in the water supply before it can reach the populace. It's most sophisticated sensor? Bluegills.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 8:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

This blog has retired. Please consider this site the Amanda archive from the Rocketboom era. Bye blogspot. You've served me well, but I won't miss you. PLEASE UPDATE YOUR LINKS AND SUBSCRIBE to AmandaAcrossAmerica.com through my ovlov feed.

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Originally from Amanda UnBoomed by Amanda reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 7:52AM

Originally posted by Amanda from Amanda UnBoomed, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

Congrats to Grant Aschatz and my friend Nick Kokonas of Chicago's Alinea for topping Gourmet's list of the 50 best restaurants in America (via Megnut).

I had the privilege of eating there this summer (eating's not really the right word for it...and I've been called pretentious but I'm not quite pretentious enough to use the verb "to dine"), and enjoyed (again...with Alinea "experienced" is probably the better word) the best meal of my life.  And then the next day Nick and I grabbed lunch and he told the greatest stories about meeting Chef Aschatz, lining up investors, renovating the building[1], marketing the concept, etc. I couldn't be happier for Nick and crew -- they've built something truly amazing in an incredibly short period of time.

[1] If you ever meet Nick, ask him to tell you the story of how he tiled the entryway basement of the restaurant himself in one all-nighter, just to show his contractor that "this is what it means to get shit done."

Originally from this is sippey.typepad.com by Michael Sippey reBlogged

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on September 21, 2006 9:29 AM

Frank Bruni kept a running history of his calls to procure a Per Se reservation. It is an infuriating system, but it's better than no "two month" rule. It's like no matter who you are, you have the same opportunity as anyone else of getting a reservation at the Laundry or Per Se. It's a slim chance for one and all.

Originally from megnut.com blog by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 4:10PM

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from megnut.com blog, on September 21, 2006 9:21 AM

I just finished reading The Monk and the Riddle, on the recommendation of Paul from Rogue Amoeba. It’s a sort of business philosophy book by Randy Komisar (with writing help from Kent Lineback).

It was a surprisingly fast read. Enjoyable and inspirational. But let me summarize it in one sentence:

Stop wasting your time working on things you don’t love.

The two most recurring themes in the book are roughly “the journey is the reward,” and “how can you change your current work so you’d be willing to do it for the rest of your life?” He describes a malady that many of us are probably familiar with: the “deferred life plan.” This is the rationalization of present unhappiness as a mere means to an end. We’ll work for 40 years at a job we hate just so we can pursue our passion later in life.

Great food for thought, and especially pertinent in the wake of my recent article about the indie life. I tried to examine my own circumstances using these criteria, and it boils down to four basic desires. I want a job where I build cool apps, blog, exercise, and make music. Whenever inspiration strikes me. A tall order, I know. I’m not quite there, but am hopefully moving in the right direction.

What do you want to do for the rest of your life? Are you suffering under the deferred life plan?

Originally from Red Sweater Blog by Daniel Jalkut reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 2:11PM

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on September 21, 2006 9:21 AM

Some photos from a recent trip to Austria, featuring shots from near Linz, Salzburg, and Innsbruck. I went so crazy with the photos in Austria that I didn't take a single picture once we got to Zurich...I was all photographed out.

Originally from kottke.org reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 2:06PM

Originally from kottke.org, on September 21, 2006 9:21 AM

From John:

The organizers asked me to design a flyer to hand out at the march. I took it as an opportunity to do something a little different from a typical flyer. ... The text is styled in the form of a redacted government document. It creates a parallel text that plays on themes of secrecy, coverup, and suppression of dissent, as well as seeing through the lies and reading what is erased.

Originally from tecznotes

reBlogged by Matthew Haughey

Originally from mathowie reBlog feed reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 1:21PM

Originally from mathowie reBlog feed , on September 21, 2006 9:21 AM

You can collect most vegetable seeds without much fuss. Beans are literally left on the plant until they dry out, while peppers are as simple as scooping out the seeds and setting them to dry. Tomatoes call for a slightly more complex method.

Originally from ReadyMade Blog by Gayla reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 5:22PM

Originally posted by Gayla from ReadyMade Blog, on September 21, 2006 8:51 AM

The upcoming release of Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map served as a useful prompt for Steven's list of the best books about plagues in the Wall Street Journal.

Steven's list includes titles such as Plagues and Peoples and The Hot Zone, which I've heard of but never read. My own preferences for discussions of catastrophic plague outbreaks lean more towards broad cultural analysis, so I have to mention two titles. Guns, Germs, Steel is one of the best books I've ever read, and beyond its discussion of the importance of germs, it gives readers an entirely different framework for thinking about the evolution and competition of cultures. Another title which I haven't finished yet but am thoroughly enjoying is 1491, which offers a unique perspective on pre-Columbian America. (Author Charles C. Mann has also actively participated in the book's Amazon forum as well, which is great to see.)

The HIV pandemic and the threat of malaria or SARS or ebola or avian flu all show that germs can still be a significant danger today. But what's interesting to me is that there's been such a dramatic change; For those of us in the developed world, something like smallpox isn't an everyday concern, let alone a mortal danger. So the looming threat of genocide due to a viral danger is mostly something we can read about as voyeurs without actually being terrified.

My interest in these books isn't purely morbid, though. Hundreds or thousands of years ago, the greatest danger that faced societies was the introduction of a foreign culture's physical threats. I think these books are deeply instructive in a modern context, though, because the greatest threat to cultures today comes from not intermingling. Whether it's expressed in agriculture ("hybrid vigor"), or in the context of a cocktail party (being a "social butterfly"), making an effort to avoid cultural isolation is rewarded by making an individual or a society more healthy. That's not to mention the bonus potential of additional opportunities, higher potential for recognition, a larger market for trade or commercial interests, and a broader audience for communication of messages.

For most of history, peopled feared outsiders because they really could pose a mortal threat to an existing culture. Now that the situation has reversed, we have to have put just as much energy into reaching out from within our monoculture, not just because of our desire to be inclusive, but also for the health of our own culture. I see examples of this every day, especially from parents, as they choose not to let their children use antibacterial soap or start to explore the increase in asthma or allergies among children. In each of these cases, getting exposed to the germs we used to strive to avoid is necessary to keep healthy.

So, are there any great plagueographies that I'm missing? This honestly isn't a topic that I know very well, and I'd love to learn more about what research is being done.

Originally from Anil Dash by Anil reBlogged

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on September 21, 2006 8:51 AM

This is so awesome!! The team at Yahoo! News has been in touch with Flickr users in Bangkok and gotten permission to put together a slideshow of shots showing the scene following Thailand's coup. There is also an audio track from an interview with Flickr user Dan Caspersz.

I've been following the story in little breaks in the frantic work day and wondering what the situation was like on the streets. This was the best possible way to capture it. To watch, click the graphic below and it'll pop open in a new window (you can also find it on the News' front page.)

Elsewhere at Yahoo!, our brothers and sisters on the Maps team have been working the satellite imagery updates as fast as they can to make Flickr's maps even better. The latest round of updates cover many locations around the world, including this little A-to-Z: Antwerp, Bora Bora, Bordeaux, Cannes, Nice, Monaco, French Riveria, Lisbon, Minsk, Puebla, Springfield, Whistler, Winnipeg, Zurich. Hooray! And, more soon of course :)

Finally, Yahoo! Video & Current TV announced their partnership yesterday, and as mentioned elsewhere around the web, it's pretty darn good. Check it out: video.yahoo.com/currenttv

Originally from FlickrBlog by Stewart Butterfield reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 9:29PM

Originally posted by Stewart Butterfield from FlickrBlog, on September 21, 2006 8:49 AM

We've long been fans of the Mirage (pdf).  Today we installed 2 idrocompressos at the Corning Museum of Glass.  They wanted bling and they got it:  The side panels were practically melting into the place.  They've been using our 3 group Idro for the past 4 months & loving it.

The roaster project is moving forward.  The new slab has been poured and the south wall framed in.  Windows arrive on Thursday and the NYSEG gas engineers should be on the job next week some time.  Having the 2" gas line in place will be a big shot in the arm.

Speaking of shot in the arm, Brooklyn got a shot in the neck (perhaps eyeball) this past weekend.  One of the dailies did a little spread (pdf) on espresso bars and mentioned ours as one of the trailblazers in the NYMetro coffee wasteland.  Two days later people were lining up en masse, gustafarians fixing for Allah, causing broken record sales.  Rumor has it, the house stereo played Kenny Loggins "Danger Zone" on continuous repeat.  They were denied pemission for a fly-by but did it anyway.

Yesterday Jason from the Coffee Equipment Co, Inc dropped by to explain how not to break our latest equipment asset.  So far, so good.

Originally from gimme! coffee by Kevin Cuddeback reBlogged

Originally posted by Kevin Cuddeback from gimme! coffee, on September 21, 2006 8:49 AM

On TV tonight: Ric Burns documentary on Andy Warhol. Part 2 tomorrow night.
Update: NY Times piece on the Warhol documentary.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 6:19PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 21, 2006 8:45 AM

futureme.org +10 yrs.

Originally from tecznotes links by Michal Migurski reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 1:56AM

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on September 21, 2006 8:45 AM

Bill Clinton on the Daily Show.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 9:13AM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 21, 2006 8:41 AM

Rafe poses a simple test on the practicality and morality of torture. And as usual, he's right.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on Sep 21, 2006, 8:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on September 21, 2006 8:41 AM

As a die-hard Mets fan, I've been getting a lot of text messages and IMs along the lines of "go Mets", "Mets all the way!" and of course, "Yankees suck!" It follows that as a die-hard Mets fan, I'm far from confident - I remember Orel Hershiser in '88 and Mariano Rivera in 2000 much more vividly than Ray Knight or Lenny Dykstra in '86.

The Mets have a nice team, but quite frankly it's hard to see them beating the Yanks or the A's in the World Series. I'm not sure if it's hard because those teams are juggernauts and the Mets don't have a second basemen, a third starting pitcher or a healthy Pedro, or if it's hard because I've seen the Mets lose much more than I've seen them win.

But the real story this year is not the Miracle Mets, but the Miracle Marlins. Despite the public disputes between the manager and the owner, the lack of one true All-Star this side of Miguel Cabrera, and a combined payroll less than Derek Jeter, the Marlins have a fair shot at joining the Mets, Yankees, and others in the playoffs. From The Baseball Prospectus:

This isn’t just a case of the people at BP or ESPN missing on their analysis as the season began. Short of Nostradamus or the diehard delusional Marlin fan I dare say few saw this type of performance by the Marlins coming.

To place this in perspective, consider the following: 53 of the 59 players who showed up for the Marlins Spring Training camp this season had played at least part of last season in the minors. The Marlins dropped their Opening Day payroll $45,410,334, from $60,408,834 in 2005 to $14,998,500 in 2006; that's a 75.17% drop. The Yankees' Opening Day payroll of $194,663,079 was 1298% higher than the player payroll for Marlins on Opening Day. The last time the Marlins had an Open Day payroll close to this low was 1999, when it was $14,650,000. The Devil Rays had the second-lowest Opening Day payroll at the start of this season at $35,417,967, which is still 236% higher than the Fish.

There is a flip side to this tale. The reason the Marlins' payroll is so low is that the owner is notorious for dumping salary, to pad his own profits or to make a power play for a new stadium. It's also sick that the Yankee's payroll, which has grown to over 200 million dollars this season, is as high as it is. And of course, there's a good chance the Marlins won't make the playoffs.

Despite the fantastic story of the Marlins, I'm rooting for the Giants and Dodgers to join the Mets and the Yankees in the playoffs - it would be the first time all four New York teams have ever made it at once.

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 3:37PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on September 20, 2006 3:42 PM

I have a weak spot for narratives about male friendship that aren't conventional buddy films (I still think about the slowly evolving friendship between the two brothers in Six Feet Under season one), and so I'm naturally predisposed to like Aaron Sorkin's new series, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, given its focus on the working friendship of Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford. For the most part, I was completely delighted with the premiere last night; it's stylized and not entirely believable of course, just like The West Wing: everyone is just a tad too clever, and of course everyone talks too fast. But if we're going to have fictions in our fictions, I'd rather they revolve around people being too clever, rather than, say, being genetic mutants with superpowers. (Paddy Chayefsky's Network, which gets several explicit nods in Studio 60's premiere, suffered from the same problem, if it is indeed a problem.)

But I do think there was some irony in the rampant television-bashing that ran through the episode, and presumably will continue through the season. Alessandra Stanley got it exactly right in her review in yesterday's Times:

“Studio 60” is a polemic about television as a cultural wasteland at the very moment the industry is entering a new golden age. There is a lot more television than ever before, much of it bad, but it is hard to remember a time when there were so many good shows pushing up against the worst. Dramas especially, whether on cable or on broadcast networks, have never been as beautifully or thoughtfully made; few Hollywood movies come close. And “Studio 60” serves as exhibit A...

Originally from stevenberlinjohnson.com by stevenberlinjohnson reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 10:38AM

Originally posted by stevenberlinjohnson from stevenberlinjohnson.com, on September 20, 2006 11:47 AM

Each year, a panel of anonymous judges considers at least 1,000 people and chooses only 25 to receive a "no strings attached" $500,000 "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation. The Foundation is headquartered in Chicago, but this year New York is home to seven of the winners — more than any other city in the country. Among the winners is Anna Schuleit, a painter and installation artist who resides in DUMBO. "It's the most unimaginable thing that can happen to you," she told the Daily News. "If you win the lottery, at least you know you played, but I had no idea I was even being considered. I asked the woman who called me: 'Are you sure this is not a massive mistake and it's maybe a different Anna?'" The call was made correctly — the 32-year-old Brooklynite is one of the youngest recipients of the prize.
NYC Geniuses Get Half-Mil Grants [NY Daily News]
Pencil, ink, and rust on aged paper, 2005, by Anna Schuleit

Originally from Brooklyn Record by Brooklyn Record reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 2:12PM

Originally posted by Brooklyn Record from Brooklyn Record, on September 20, 2006 11:46 AM

"What the hell you just did to my file!? ... Now my file looks funny in Notepad!"

Originally from tecznotes links by Michal Migurski reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 2:00PM

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on September 20, 2006 11:46 AM

We've always had this joke, those of us who have been exposed to Chez Panisse or worked there, that Alice thinks she invented food. The great article about Alice Waters and the history of Chez Panisse from October's Vanity Fair is online.

Originally from megnut.com blog by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 1:49PM

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from megnut.com blog, on September 20, 2006 11:46 AM

I have just concluded my first WWDC pilgrimage. Following a January Macworld, I was very excited to in San Francisco for the big event. The excitement for advancements coming in Leopard are far beyond what I recall for Tiger. It seems as if Apple has put many pieces in place with Cocoa, Obj-C, Xcode, and the multitude of enhancements to core apps. It really does keep getting better and better. I have a feeling the recent Ubuntu converts will be renouncing their new love in the spring of 2007.

I made a statement in January that I would be learning Cocoa this year and it's not come to pass. However, I am newly inspired to pick up the thick books and with the help of cocoa dev friends I hope to be coding for Leopard in the coming months. Now if I can just figure out what in Kochrans book I should ignore. Perhaps some personal coaching from Aaron Hillegaas when in Atlanta next is in order.

Technorati Tags: cocoaradio, WWDC

Originally from CocoaRadio by Blake Burris reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 1:18PM

Originally posted by Blake Burris from CocoaRadio, on September 20, 2006 11:46 AM

One more post about Ferran Adrià's Espesso that includes a recipe.

Originally from megnut.com blog by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 4:55PM

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from megnut.com blog, on September 20, 2006 11:45 AM

Around 3,500 antiwar protesters rallied outside the United Nations in New York City today while President Bush delivered his speech inside. A decent turnout for a business hours on a weekday, and a very last minute call to action.

The organizers asked me to design a flyer to hand out at the march. I took it as an opportunity to do something a little different from a typical flyer. The goal here was not to grab the viewer and turn them out to the event, but to make something interesting for them to read while attending the event itself. The front is a statement by the organizers, the back lists upcoming events.

In the end UfPJ wanted something simpler — and something more like a typical flyer — which I delivered. But I like the way this version came out. The text is styled in the form of a redacted government document. It creates a parallel text that plays on themes of secrecy, coverup, and suppression of dissent, as well as seeing through the lies and reading what is erased.

Download 200 Kb PDF

Originally from Social Design Notes reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 10:59PM

Originally from Social Design Notes, on September 20, 2006 11:26 AM

The seminal Icelandic band, The Sugarcubes, will perform one last time on November 17 in Reykjavik. How will the concert hall hold all of Bjork's fans?

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 19, 2006, 9:08PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 20, 2006 11:26 AM

Fast food is becoming even faster thanks to the Internet and wireless communication, reports the WSJ.

"Busy people who don't like waiting in line to order pizza, a sandwich or a cup of coffee are using the Internet or text messaging on cellphones and other wireless devices to order. With a text message or a few clicks on a computer, users can have their food and drinks paid for and ready to go by the time they arrive."

Related:

-- goMobo: SMS Your Order, Cut the Lines - Justin Oberman walking in Manhattan, stumbled on gomobo, a new text messaging service that allows users to order and pay for meals via SMS (mostly in Mahattan for now) ...

Originally from textually.org by emily reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 6:16AM

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on September 20, 2006 11:24 AM

I'd mentioned that talking to regular people about the potential of blogging is one of my favorite parts of my job, and that's probably reason enough to pause for an unapologetic plug.

We're doing a series of Six Apart Business Blogging Seminars all over the country. We'd done a number of these seminars earlier in the year, and got some very positive feedback, along with requests to include more cities. So we're doing exactly that, and teaming up with some experts to help us tell the story. When you show up, you get to meet folks like the Feedburner team, or D.L. Byron or Alison Byrne Fields, and I'll be attending each event as well.

As I mentioned on our company site, it's a good opportunity to reach both people who are unfamiliar with blogging, as well as those of us who love the medium but might not necessarily get to use it as part of our day jobs yet. So, great, we're telling people about blogs. But the truth is, we damn well should be doing this much to talk to people about business blogging. We've all seen that communicating using all the tools of social media can make people's lives better. The reality is, those benefits can apply just as much to one's professional life as to one's personal life.

More importantly, there's almost nobody else to do it. Most of the giant muti-billion-dollar internet companies see blogging (or other social media tools) as a tiny fraction of a percentage of their bottom line. That's not to question the passion, conviction, and talent of my counterparts on those teams: They're good people who do great work. But on an endless list of priorities, where does "explain blogging to regular people" fall? I'm not sure. Each company places some different significance on the importance of this medium, and the place I work is at one extreme of that continuum. For us, encouraging everyone to take advantage of social media is a fundamental necessity.

On the other end, a lot of passionate people don't have the resources or organization (it takes a number of people working their asses off to make these things happen) to actually go on the road. Hell, we'd love to do even more cities if we could. The bottom line is that reaching out to new audiences is a responsibility for all of us who have benefitted so much from the explosion in popularity of Web 2.0 or social media.

One of the reasons I've been thinking about this was in reading Ev's post about attending events.

...I don't go to a lot of conferences, because it's hard to justify the time. But one thing I always forget is that it's not just the content, and it's not just the schmoozing (which everyone says is the real reason to go), it's that you come away wanting to do better.

I'm inspired every time by the people we meet who start with the curiosity and drive to learn about a new medium, and leave with the basic tools to actually make something new part of their careers and work life. I find that, though we describe the events as "seminars" and I get to speak at them, I learn much more in these conversations than I ever teach to anybody else. An average event is more of a dialogue than simply a seminar. In the real world outside of Silicon Valley, people are busy solving problems that we often overlook, trivialize, or deliberately ignore. It's instructive to be immersed in a culture outside of the one where we create new technologies.

So, if you're in Washington, D.C. next week, or in Detroit, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, or Miami in the weeks to come, I do hope you'll register for the seminars and join us. Also, I'm tentatively thinking of organizing a bloggers' dinner in each of the cities if I'm able, so if you're interested, let me know and we can start to arrange those as well.

Originally from Anil Dash by Anil reBlogged

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on September 20, 2006 11:24 AM

Scott McCloud, who wrote Understanding Comics, is taking an unusual approach to the education of his two daughters. Over the next year, the family will be traveling the US doing talks and presentations, with the daughters taking an active role in speaking, doing research, and recording the talks in various formats. Here's their travel blog on LJ. (via snarkmarket)

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 11:02AM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 20, 2006 11:12 AM

"I got a ticket this morning from the sanitation department due to a mess made by the people who dig through our recycling for cans and bottles," Erikka writes on the Brooklynian Park Slope message board, "Turns out they started digging in the garbage as well, and left garbage strewn all over the sidewalk." We've had exactly the same problem — and coupled with the senile nextdoor neighbor who takes out our recycling bin on the trash-only days — we've been hit with quite a few fines. Now we keep the recycling in the house until pick-up night, but does anyone have any tips on dealing with messy can collectors?
Can Collectors: Thanks for the Mess (and Fine) [Daily Slope]
Photo by Lauren Max

Originally from Brooklyn Record by Brooklyn Record reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 10:56AM

Originally posted by Brooklyn Record from Brooklyn Record, on September 20, 2006 11:12 AM

Chuck D, the fiery frontman of the hip hop pioneers Public Enemy, has called on the global music industry to reappraise its gold-rush mentality towards mobile content, reports The Belfast Telegraph.

"... The rapper, an early disciple of distributing music over the internet, said the mobile phone was akin to "a human remote control", making it a powerful tool for distributing music globally.

Yet he called on major record labels to rethink mobile content strategies. "The problem with corporations is that they come into any business with a gold-rush mentality of making a killing. They're going big, big, big, big on something so little - that doesn't make sense," he said.

Originally from ringtonia.com by emily reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 10:19AM

Originally posted by emily from ringtonia.com, on September 20, 2006 11:12 AM

Megnut's got the scoop: Gourmet magazine has named Alinea the best restaurant in the US, amazing considering its only been open a little more than a year. "[Grant Achatz] is redefining the American restaurant once again for an entirely new generation. And that -- more than his gorgeous, inventive, and delicious food -- is what makes Alinea the got-to-go-to restaurant in the country right now." (I would argue that the food is the real reason to go, but whatever...)

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 9:57AM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 20, 2006 11:12 AM

This summer Creative Commons had the privilege of participating in the Google Summer of Code. The Summer of Code is an opportunity for students to gain experience working on open source projects with financial support from Google. Participating projects provide mentoring to the students, and benefit from their efforts through the summer.

Creative Commons had three projects successfully completed this summer. Luke Hoersten worked on CcBanshee, an extension which adds license support to the popular Banshee music player. While Luke's initial project proposal was to write a simple plugin to handle this functionality, he found that he needed to make architectural changes once he began coding. Luke worked closely with the Banshee community to understand and extend the plugin API, resulting in the addition of a priority scheduler for plugins like CcBanshee to use. Luke also dug in and implemented part of his plugin as a stand-alone C# library which can be used for generic license validation, cc-sharp. Hopefully we'll see other Mono applications make use of this functionality, building on the great work Luke did this summer.

Bruno Dilly proposed and completed a project which will help bring two of Creative Commons' software offerings together in a natural evolution. Bruno worked with both ccHost and ccPublisher in order to allow users of ccPublisher to upload works to ccHost installations, including ccMixter. Bruno's work with two code bases in two languages was impressive, and we think that bridging these two projects adds value to both. Bruno's ccPublisher work is currently in a branch, and we'll be shipping it along with, or shortly after ccPublisher 2.4 later this fall.

Rob Litzke also worked on a ccPublisher-related project this summer, developing a plugin to support uploading of images to Flickr. Rob's work helped point out some deficencies in the current plugin API, which we're working to address in ccPublisher 2.4 so we can ship his code. Rob also took on the challenge of developing a specification and code for embedding license claims in JPEG files via EXIF metadata. While this part of the project wasn't as successful as the Flickr plugin, it did lead to a broader discussion of the role of embedded metadata, and the consideration of XMP as a preferred, multi-file-format way of embedding license metadata in media.

Thanks to all our students who spent their summer working to improve Creative Commons' technology, and thanks to Google for their continued support of open source software. If you're interested in working on a CC technology project, we have plenty of ideas; we'd love to hear from you.

Originally from Creative Commons Blog by Nathan Yergler reBlogged on Sep 20, 2006, 3:22AM

Originally posted by Nathan Yergler from Creative Commons Blog, on September 20, 2006 11:12 AM

so i think people find this blog worth looking at, every once in a while. i'd like to get a sense of who you are tho. please post a comment (below), or if you guard your privacy like i do mine and don't want to post publicly, send me an email "email me" link at the bottom left. tell me what you think. it's my birthday, consider it a gift.

Originally from lifeblog by Jesus Park reBlogged

Originally posted by Jesus Park from lifeblog, on September 20, 2006 11:12 AM

Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and best-selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink. In this talk, filmed at TED2004, he explains what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce. (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 18:15)

Download this talk: Video (MP4) | Audio (MP3)

More TEDTalks: TEDTalks website | iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video)

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Originally from TED Blog by June Cohen reBlogged

Originally posted by June Cohen from TED Blog, on September 20, 2006 11:12 AM

Handbrake is an OS X application that will, among other things, rip DVD video to a files that will play on an iPod (how to). However, I've found that this takes an absurd amount of time...2.5 hours for a 1.5 hour-long movie (on a 1.67 Ghz Powerbook with 2 GB RAM). Are there faster options out there? (Comment on this)

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 12:26PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 18, 2006 10:34 PM

Good grief, just the other day I was daydreaming about Center Parcs (or similar) creating some kind of fantasy village, game-related or otherwise, and what do I come across today? The Shire. A Hobbit-esque, idyllic village development in the middle of deepest Oregon.

The Shire is a development that borrows its basic design concept, styling and features from an era where the sense of community, the beauty of the land and the interaction of the residents with the land had high value. The Shire brings the spirit of a great age to daily living.

My jaw is on the floor. Check out the townhouses, based on "Old World Bree":

There're even Hobbit Dwellings. Amazing.

(Via MeFi)

Originally from Wonderland by Alice reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 11:49AM

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, on September 18, 2006 10:34 PM

Get your child off on the right gourmet foot with this totally cute toy set of DUKTIG Cookware. It comes with a mini frying pan, stockpots, a strainer, a whisk, and a ladle.

Originally from megnut.com blog by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 4:16PM

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from megnut.com blog, on September 18, 2006 10:31 PM

Hobbit-themed housing development in Bend, Oregon [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 3:09PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on September 18, 2006 10:31 PM

I'm excited to announce that SoundAbout Philly a project I developed with the GMTMC (Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation)  soft-launched this morning. Over a year and a half ago I began working with the GPTMC and the Pew Trust on creating a site that would enable people to download walking tours of Philadelphia with the idea of turning the city into a living museum. The project which started as an idea that I shared with a friend of a friend at the Pew (who had been thinking about similar things) and then in turn with the GPTMC has turned out much the way I envisioned it.

• The tours are free
• Segments are individual units
• They are tied to a Google map mash-up
• They can be customized and tailored by interest and time
• They can be shared with others
• It is scalable and they continue to have new tours added over the next year

The project was for me a way to get right many of the things that went wrong with CityReads, the audio tour company I started several years ago, and it means a lot to me that it is now  in the world. It has been a long process that began two summer ago, got going  last Fall when the Pew gave the GPTMC a grant  for the project,  with a buildout  this summer.  The GPTMC  put together a super team of local resources and used the developer of their larger site to make it happen. They have a wonderful organization which has organized to put their marketing and promotional resources behind it which is pretty thrilling. During this long process, there were some personnel and technical changes (at one point I was actually going to build the thing) but I stayed with it, and it has been a real pleasure to help make it happen,  overall I'm very very pleased with the site.

Originally from DefinitiveInk by joshua mack reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 3:05PM

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on September 18, 2006 10:31 PM

1. get a blog
2. make a speech behind closed doors in which you confess to having lied, to presiding over a bunch of boneheads, and to having been a total failure in government, while swearing profusely, as only you know how
3. when the speech is leaked, post the transcript on your blog (English excerpts here), just like Ferenc Gyurcsány did today.

NB: lying in public is nothing new, neither is the resentment of the political elite, esp. the Budapest liberals, nor flag-waving, nor claiming to be the REAL victims here

separate, but related tip for news announcers and journalists everywhere: an .ogg of how to pronounce Gyurcsány's name is to be found here, and NOT ferenchjurchangy or however the hell you might feel like improvising it, gringos.

Update: right-wingers and football fans storm national TV building, tear gas, demonstrations nationwide, some very obtuse slogans on t-shirts, 1st item on BBC world service news, regional cops shipped up to the capital. Quotes from Gyurcsány:

It's great to lead a fucking country

“It is a fantastic thing, doing politics. It's amazing. It is sensational to lead a country. I managed to go through with the past one and a half years because I was driven by one thing: to give back the Left the faith that it can do it, it can win. That it doesn't have to bow its head in this fucking country. That it doesn't have to shit itself from Viktor Orbán and the Right and that it should at last learn that it should compare itself not to them but to the world."

meanwhile, Hungarian TV (until broadcasting was suspended) shows extended adverts for Greece, which you can visit (either?) 'with your friends or with your family'

Update no. 2: most sensible english-language summary so far. My Bp chum describes it as 'politics as usual with some nice made-for-TV antics'.

Originally from the lady upgrade project by mr tibbles reBlogged

Originally posted by mr tibbles from the lady upgrade project, on September 18, 2006 10:31 PM

Sources cited by The Independent say that George W. Bush is planning "astonishing U-turn" on his global warming policies, which, as Elizabeth Kolbert notes in this week's New Yorker, have been anything but helpful. Those who oppose Bush will give him a lot of crap for doing this just so he can salvage something from his shoddy Presidency, but if something genuinely gets done on the issue, I'll be happy...who gets credit for what and when needs to take a backseat here.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 7:48PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on September 18, 2006 10:15 PM

Other people are doing 3D prints from OGLE'd data. Finally!

First is Michael Buckbee at Fabjectory who has actually set up a for-fee service that will do the OGLE'ing, data cleaning, and 3D printing for you (calling all SecondLife freaks -- only $75!!!):

Next is SourceForge OGLE user askaniblue, who writes:

On the upside, the UI program for OGLE does a beautiful job at pulling things from Model Viewer and actually I like the precision of Model Viewer better than straight out of the game (I can select the exact pose and point in the pose animation that I want much easier). [img 1, img 2]

Originally from OGLE: OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam R&D blogs reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 7:47PM

Originally from OGLE: OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam R&D blogs, on September 18, 2006 10:15 PM

Originally from Wooster Collective reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 10:38AM

Originally from Wooster Collective, on September 18, 2006 10:51 AM

New York magazine's new food blog launches today. Grub Street promises hourly updates covering everything from the cult street vendor, nameless yet venerated, to the latest temple of gastronomy, awash in renown.

Originally from megnut.com blog by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) reBlogged on Sep 18, 2006, 9:48AM

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from megnut.com blog, on September 18, 2006 10:51 AM

Originally from hustler of culture by souris reBlogged

Originally posted by souris from hustler of culture, on September 18, 2006 8:47 AM

"The FatCaT (Faceted Classification Tagging) module allows for tagging of arbitrary data with tags arranged in a hierarchy."

Originally from random($foo) reBlogged on Sep 17, 2006, 7:19PM

Originally from random($foo), on September 17, 2006 9:46 PM

Here in the SF Bay Area, we are really lucky - we have virtually year round gardening weather. Fall is considered our second spring, and if I planned my calendar correctly, I should have fresh peas from the garden for Thanksgiving.

The challenge is knowing when to start seeds.

Originally from ReadyMade Blog by Kevin reBlogged on Sep 17, 2006, 3:49PM

Originally posted by Kevin from ReadyMade Blog, on September 17, 2006 6:28 PM

On the Google Maps API Blog, an explanation of recent performance and imagery upgrades to the API. The improved imagery was noticed on Google Maps proper last week; this post includes a list of the areas that got those imagery...

Originally from The Map Room by Jonathan Crowe reBlogged on Sep 16, 2006, 11:07PM

Originally posted by Jonathan Crowe from The Map Room, on September 17, 2006 4:08 PM

excellent set of unique web services, like the image nudity detector and bootleg IMDB API  

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on Sep 17, 2006, 2:43AM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on September 17, 2006 3:59 PM

A billboard I designed is up on display in Los Angeles. It’s part of a series of public art installations about the war, and will be on view until October 8, 2006.

The image is a map of Selected CIA Aircraft Routes and Rendition Flights 2001-2006, some of which transported prisoners to foreign countries to be interrogated and tortured. After years of silence and denial, the administration publicly acknowledged the flights in the last few weeks.

I worked with artist and geographer Trevor Paglen who provided the data. Trevor spent several years tracking down the flight information, and has a book out this month on his investigations, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights. See this interview with him on Democracy Now! with co-author, journalist A.C. Thompson.

The billboard is located at 6150 Wilshire Boulevard, near South Fairfax Ave, between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Here’s a Google Map.

Clockshop, a public arts organization in Los Angeles, funded the display. You can read more about the project at http://clockshop.org/here.php

Below is an image of the billboard at night. I hope to post some daytime photos soon.

Originally from Social Design Notes reBlogged on Sep 17, 2006, 3:34PM

Originally from Social Design Notes, on September 17, 2006 3:50 PM

here's first-hand video of the live painted elephant that everyone's fussing about [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on Sep 17, 2006, 12:42PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on September 17, 2006 3:50 PM