randomwalks/dj

Duncan Watts on the results of a study which show that a cultural product's popularity is partially determined by inital social adoption patterns. "This means that if one object happens to be slightly more popular than another at just the right point, it will tend to become more popular still. As a result, even tiny, random fluctuations can blow up, generating potentially enormous long-run differences among even indistinguishable competitors -- a phenomenon that is similar in some ways to the famous 'butterfly effect' from chaos theory." The effort to explain why popular things got popular is probably impossible...working your way back from effect to cause in non-linear systems is tough. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 14, 2007 11:55 PM

If you haven't seen "The Human Giant" yet, well that could be because you don't watch MTV (who does anymore?) and it's only two weeks old. But you're gonna. If you have any love for sketch comedy, oh yeah, you're gonna watch it. Because it's funny, and because there's no live audience and also? I told you to. Now you're going to go to their website, and you're gonna watch Shutterbugs and Illusionators (because you probably need more convincing) and then set your DVRs to record. You will not regret it.

Department of Eagles recently released a track online called "No one does it better than you." Listen to it. Love it.

Now go read this interview with Mindy Kaling. She's a writer/performer on "The Office" She plays Kelly and it turns out she has a shopping blog.

P.S.
On "Lost" the other night, the seemingly evil mastermind, Ben, mentioned that his last name was Linus, which made me giggle. Because "Linus" is the nickname Buster Bluth on "Arrested Development" had for his penis. Plus, Ben is kind of a dick.

Originally posted by Katie Spence from Your New Favorite, on April 14, 2007 10:49 PM

Billboard ban in São Paulo angers advertisers

[...which gets my vote for most shocking! headline of the year.]

The law is "a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash," Roberto Pompeu de Toledo, a columnist and author of a history of São Paulo, wrote in the weekly newsmagazine Veja. "For once in life, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost."

But advertising and business groups regard the legislation as injurious to society and an affront to their professions. They say that free expression will be inhibited, jobs will be lost and consumers will have less information on which to base purchasing decisions. They also argue that streets will be less safe at night with the loss of lighting from outdoor advertising.

"This is a radical law that damages the rules of a market economy and respect for the rule of law," said Marcel Solimeo, chief economist of the Commercial Association of São Paulo, which has 32,000 members. "We live in a consumer society and the essence of capitalism is the availability of information about products."

"What we are aiming for is a complete change of culture," said Roberto Tripoli, president of the City Council and one of the main sponsors of the legislation. "Yes, some people are going to have to pay a price. But things were out of hand and the population has made it clear it wants this."

Previously.

Originally posted by jwz@jwz.org from jwz, on April 14, 2007 8:55 PM

We've seen pet strollers in the SkyMall catalog and wondered who would buy them. We've seen them at pet stores and wondered again who would buy them. But then we've run into people pushing their pets in actual children's strollers, so it's clearly a market opportunity. This week, the Brooklyn Paper examines the phenomenon of stroller dogs and, you know what, it's just as mysterious. Senior dogs are likely candidates, but, then again, so are dogs who just like to laze about. One positive is dogs are less likely to eat anything off the sidewalk, but the drawback is that traditionalists will probably think you're crazy pushing your pet stroller. We think owners of multiple cats are a great target for them, because it's an easier way to transport them to the vet. MySpace Polls - Take Our Poll It's not a particularly new movement - Mariposa has a set of photographs of Dogs in Strollers - but it's something that doesn't cease to amaze us. Disclosure: We realized that we actually received a Pet-a-Roo Pet Carrier for Christmas. It's not a very big hit with the cat. Photograph by Mariposa on Flickr

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 14, 2007 7:09 PM

I continue to be amazed — and more than a little disappointed — in the lack of imagination people have about web-based applications. You have to read all of My kind of gutsy for context.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on April 14, 2007 3:14 PM

I continue to be amazed — and more than a little disappointed — in the lack of imagination people have about web-based applications.

You have to read all of My kind of gutsy for context.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on April 14, 2007 3:14 PM

Remember this? While randomly reading some assorted Digg posts, I saw someone mention the old Toshiba Liberato laptop. On doing a GIS search, up came a link to the "Apple Doomsday Clock". It just floors me that this anonymous anti-Apple blog (which even predates the word "blog"), is still online. It dates from the period when Jobs retook the CEO chair, and started turning the failing company around--the last posting was in June, 1999. Perhaps it should be treated as a historical site, and preserved for the future amusement of Mac users?

Originally posted by metasonix from MetaFilter posts tagged with apple, on April 14, 2007 2:06 PM

easily the cruelest and funniest Super Mario mod ever  

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on April 14, 2007 1:33 PM

    

    

"Multi-coloured paper cranes are appearing in all sorts of unlikely places. These cranes are all the work of our very own Liz Shuman who has set herself the ambitious (some might say crazy) goal of sending out one thousand paper cranes across the world. All she asks in return is that recipients take a photograph of their crane when they receive it and send her a print. I think the whole thing is a wonderful idea - I'm always amazed by the creativity and inventiveness shown by folk round here." -- dopiaza, Utata

If you'd like to participate, check the official group for more information.

Photos from kelly fish, .melissa., * cate *, and greengirlart.
See more contributions in the paper crane project pool.

Originally posted by Heather Champ from FlickrBlog, on April 14, 2007 12:37 PM

Screen shot of the defunct DylanHearsAWho.com

via Salon.com (thanks Tony!):

Tangled up in Seuss

When a musician recorded "Green Eggs and Ham" in the voice of vintage Bob Dylan and posted it online, the Grinch estate promptly replied: One fish, two fish, cease and desist.

By Dan Brekke

April 13, 2007 | Kevin Ryan doesn't want to talk about his recent fling with Web stardom. He's a bit rueful and more than a little nervous about it, in fact, and wishes the whole thing would just go away.

If you missed his star turn, here's what happened: Ryan, a 33-year-old Houston music producer and author, went into his home studio and engineered a sort of retro mash-up of two of his favorite artists, Bob Dylan and Dr. Seuss.

Ryan took the text from seven Seuss classics, including "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham," and set them to original tunes that sounded like they were right off Dylan's mid-'60s releases. He played all the instruments and sang all the songs in Dylan's breathy, nasal twang. He registered a domain name, dylanhearsawho.com, and in February posted his seven tracks online, accompanied by suitably Photoshopped album artwork, under the title "Dylan Hears a Who."

"Green Eggs and Ham" was set to a tune and arrangement somewhere between "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues," complete with Dylan's rushed, occasionally sneering phrasing. Familiar passages are run together in impatient run-ons:

Would you eat them in a box?
Would you eat them with a fox?
Not in a box not with a fox
Not in a house not with a mouse
I would not eat them here or there
I would not eat them anywhere

All this accompanied by an up-tempo electric band, complete with the jaunty skirling of a Hammond organ.

Listen to the MP3:

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/CM/Dylan_Hears_a_Who_-_Green_Eggs_And_Ham.mp3

It was clever and delightful. Ryan had immersed himself so fully in Seuss' words and Dylan's style that he managed to merge two quite different creative intelligences. Many who have heard the tracks come away convinced they're really listening to Bob Dylan.

Reached in Houston, Ryan confirmed the work was his but declined to speak about it on the record except to say he never expected it to attract any attention. Instead, "Dylan Hears a Who" was quickly picked up by bloggers and the popular Web site BoingBoing and went viral, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Then Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the La Jolla, Calif., firm that publishes the works of the late Theodor Geisel, heard "Dylan Hears a Who." Only two weeks after word of the site began spreading, Ryan got a cease-and-desist demand from the Seuss lawyers, who said the site and songs infringed the company's copyrights and trademarks. Ryan complied quickly and quietly. Instead of the Dylan/Seuss tracks, visitors to dylanhearsawho.com find a brief message saying the site has been "retired" at the request of Dr. Seuss Enterprises.

If you were caught up in the momentary wonder of how someone could execute such an ingeniously perfect blending of period musical style, '60s attitude and loopy storytelling, it was tempting to see all of this as just another case of a heavy-handed corporate copyright holder -- a master of copyright war, to call on the old Dylan oeuvre -- sticking it to the little guy.

Ryan -- best known as the coauthor of "Recording the Beatles," a meticulous investigation of every track, take and song the group committed to vinyl -- was face-to-face with a company that zealously guards its intellectual property. Losing a copyright-infringement case can be extremely expensive. In addition to the federal law's $150,000 maximum in statutory damages, defendants can find themselves on the hook for the plaintiff's legal fees. (Dr. Seuss Enterprises declined comment on "Dylan Hears a Who," questioning why it was even a subject of interest. Dylan's attorney did not return a call for comment on Ryan's work.)

As it happens, if Ryan was going to get into a fight over the legal limits of parody, he couldn't have run into a better-prepared opponent than Dr. Seuss Enterprises. The company helped write an important chapter in current case law regarding what is and what isn't parody for purposes of fair use. In 1996, Dr. Seuss successfully sued Penguin Books to stop publication of "The Cat NOT in the Hat," a send-up of the O.J. Simpson murder written and illustrated in the Seuss style.

Still, the Copyright Law of the United States was put on the books by the very first Congress not to secure the intellectual property rights of the corporate few, but to "promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts" -- even when that progress involves a writer, artist or musician lifting words, images or melodies from one source as part of making something new.

So if there was a legal defense for Ryan using Dr. Seuss' words and images -- and Dylan's name and likeness, for that matter -- it probably lay in the Copyright Law's "fair use" exception. The provision, which reaches back at least to early 18th century English law, allows "the fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ... scholarship, or research."

What does that mean when it comes to the unlikely trio of Dylan, Seuss and Ryan? [read on...]

Originally posted by joy garnett from NEWSgrist - where spin is art, on April 14, 2007 11:56 AM

Photo: Lisa Kyle for The New York Times
Corbis, started by Bill Gates in 1989, owns millions of images, some of them kept underground in a former limestone mine in rural Pennsylvania. More Photos >

A Photo Trove, a Mounting Challenge
By KATIE HAFNER
Published: April 10, 2007

[...] Corbis has spent tens of millions of dollars acquiring image collections and other companies, hired more than 1,000 people and set up two dozen offices worldwide. Although Corbis says it brings in some $250 million a year in sales, it has yet to turn a profit.

Now the company is shuffling its top executives as it takes on new challenges, building up a business in rights management and plotting its response to the rise of low-cost online photo services that threaten to undermine its lucrative stock photo sales.

The company plans to announce Tuesday that Gary Shenk, the president, is being made chief executive as well. Mr. Shenk, 36, is an expert in rights licensing who has risen rapidly through the Corbis ranks since he was hired in 2003 from Universal Studios, where he started a small licensing unit.

Steve Davis, 49, the departing chief executive, will continue as a senior adviser after 10 years of running the company.

The move into rights clearance, which involves sorting out the questions of who owns what material and how much they should be paid for its use, is a departure from the original vision for the company.

Mr. Gates started Corbis in 1989 with the idea that people would someday decorate their homes with a revolving display of digital artwork — interspersing, say, Stanley Tretick's shot of John F. Kennedy Jr. playing under the desk in the Oval Office with photos of their own families at play.

That is not how things have worked out. But meanwhile Corbis has built up a formidable stash of historical photos, including those in the Bettmann Archive. In 1999, Corbis acquired the licensing rights to the Sygma collection in France, and two years ago it did the same with a German stock image company called Zefa. It licenses those images for an average of about $250 apiece. [...]

In all, Corbis represents or owns the rights to more than 100 million images, including some of the most famous photographs ever — Arthur Sasse’s photo of Einstein sticking his tongue out and Marilyn Monroe on the subway grate. And Corbis handles the licensing of millions of other images on behalf of thousands of photographers.

The archival photos bring in about half of Corbis's sales, but the company also has a stable of professional photographers who generate stock photos for advertising and media clients — images of children on playgrounds, people sitting in business meetings and men in khakis swinging golf clubs.

Over the past few years, Corbis has moved beyond newspaper and magazine clients to pursue advertising and graphic design agencies, as well as corporate marketing departments, which are turning increasingly to high-quality stock photography rather than doing their own expensive photo shoots.

Those customers are also buying from Corbis's growing library of 30,000 short video clips — mostly generic scenes of, say, people shopping or running down the beach.

What Corbis did not foresee was the rise of so-called microstock agencies like Fotolia and iStockPhoto. These sites take advantage of the phenomenon known as crowdsourcing, or turning to the online masses for free or low-cost submissions. Thousands of amateur and semiprofessional photographers armed with high-quality digital cameras and a copy of Photoshop contribute photographs to microstock sites, which often charge $1 to $5 an image.

[read on...]

Originally posted by joy garnett from NEWSgrist - where spin is art, on April 14, 2007 11:35 AM

Google buys Doubleclick for $3.1 billion. My assertion more than four years ago that Google is not a search engine isn't looking too shabby. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 14, 2007 10:52 AM

Millions of White House e-mails may be missing, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino acknowledged Friday.

Originally posted by naughtYmike from Most Huffed News, on April 13, 2007 6:21 PM

And we'd subtitle the report "Or How 311 Doesn't Quite Work So Well." If you're looking for a page-turning read, look no further than the Department of Health's report - complete with next steps- on the rats at KFC/Taco Bell incident. Yesterday, Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said, "Our restaurant program performs well overall, but in this instance there were failings of personnel, policy and practice." Well, that's an understatement. The DOH detailed the rat incident: After four separate calls to 311 between December 11, 2006 and February 11 of this year PLUS a complaint from City Council Maria del Carmen Arroyo on February 7, 2007 (apparently an "administrative error" prevented any action from being taken before February 22), there was this 311 call (warning, it's really gross):

February 12, 2007. A caller to 311 complained of rats. The transcription of the call notes states, “He works at the Taco Bells and he has seen rats and rodent droppings in the oil where the food is fried, in the corn and nachos, and on soda machines. In addition, caller [says] the owner and the managers are not doing anything to fix the problem at all, and if a customer [says] they have seen rodents they are given their food for free. Caller also [says] workers are told not to eat the food. Caller [says] there are 2 restaurants in one and they both have the problem the restaurants are Taco Bell/KFC. Caller [says] the basement is the worst place of all. An employee was bit by a rat in the basement and did nothing about it.†A warning letter was sent.

Then, on February 21, someone at the Bureau of Intergovernmental Affairs finally got around to following up on City Councilwoman Arroyo's complaint, and then a health inspector was dispatched on February 22, and even though the "sanitarian" "identified three areas with a combined total of 76 to 87 rat droppings, as well as a 15-inch hole in the kitchen dishwasher area through which rats could enter from the other parts of the building," she only found the restaurant to have 10 points in violations ("8 points for evidence of rats and 2 points for conditions conducive to rodent infestation") - and a failing grade is 28. Isn't awesome to know that about 80 rat droppings equals so few violation points? The next day, at 1:18AM to 4:32AM, calls to 311 started to come in about seeing 50 rats. Then, WNBC 4 and other camera crews to the scene. Finally, the Department of Health closed down the restaurant and suspended the inspector. Oh, wait, and then lots of other restaurants were closed or cited in later, stricter restaurant inspections. Plus, Inside Edition devoted episodes to finding rats at NYC restaurants. Actually, the story's not over - it's the one that keeps giving (those rats multiply quickly!). The Department of Health says it will now, amongst other things, monitor 311 calls better, revise the inspection system when it comes to rats, and looking at initiatives to combat rats the the neighborhood level. Yes, the DOH is also in charge of getting rid of rats. The official next steps after the jump, along with the DOH's findings.

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 13, 2007 4:41 PM

Blah blah blah Leopard blah blah October blah blah iPhone blah priorities blah top secret features blah blah blah Microsoft Vista blah blah sales dip blah blah natter natter blah.

Originally posted by Wil Shipley from Call Me Fishmeal., on April 13, 2007 4:35 PM

At the workshop I spoke at today, “Web 2.0: The Human Web,” I was asked what I think were the major trends I’ve seen in the last few years. My response wasn’t exhaustive (a lot has been going on), but these three things were the first ones that came to mind, and I thought worth sharing:

1. The web is moving away from big “sites” with lots of “pages,” and towards applications with interfaces.
This might be an artifact of the kind of work we’re doing, but we at Adaptive Path have been increasingly working on projects that don’t resemble web sites of old. The closest we get is our work with media (where the page metaphor makes sense), but even those are getting more dynamic and application-y.

2. Speaking of media, media websites are scared
We’ve had a lot of work with media companies over the last couple of years, and much of it is driven by the fear that media has in grappling with what some call Web 2.0. The decentralized, emergent, user-generated reality of the current web frightens media companies used to controlling what was published, and used to being the source of information for the public. Watching this space evolve has been fascinating.

3. Web user experience broadens to incorporate a whole customer experience
I’ve gone on a lot about this on this blog, and we’re starting to see companies approach it directly. Those companies that lead the way with Web customer experience are now realizing that customer experience are multi-channel… and that their web teams are ideally suited to evolve there.

Those were the ones that came to immediate mind. Thinking about it a little more, I would add not user-generated content (we’ve had that since we’ve had the Web), but the utility of social networks in bringing people together online (MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, even what we’re seeing with Twitter). People are increasingly comfortable participating online.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but I thought it was interesting what came to mind immediately.

Share This

Originally posted by peterme from Adaptive Path, on April 13, 2007 4:17 PM

Matthew McGough tells the story of his first day as a NY Yankees batboy. "The game starts in about two hours and I need you to find me a bat stretcher." (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 13, 2007 3:58 PM

Good news for a change: one of the WP projects for the Google Summer of Code is ‘easier template tags’. That’s fast, they’ve only been considering it eleven months. Also, two of the ten projects revolve around finding out what the competition are doing so we can VANQUISH them mwhahahah! When did WP become ‘the best [...]

Originally posted by that girl again from wordpress™ wank, on April 13, 2007 3:03 PM

* via BuzzFeed.

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on April 13, 2007 2:24 PM

Edward R. Murrow High School in Midwood doesn't have any varsity sports, but it's serious about its academics—and its chess. So while one of its star players, 16-year-old Crown Heights resident Shawn Martinez, might not be doing so well on the scholastic front (the days he's missed add up to months instead of weeks, he admits), the administration is doing everything it can to keep him and ensure he graduates. The reason for his truancy: Usually, he's playing chess for money down on Wall Street, winning large sums from stockbrokers who don't seem to believe that the beefy kid in the jersey and do-rag will beat them. Today's NY Times profile is fascinating and worth a read in its entirety; here's one passage we found particularly interesting:

[Martinez] rejected the opinions of adults that he benefits from his relationship with the game. “I became addicted to chess,” he said. “They think they did something for me, but they didn’t. Chess didn’t save my life. They want to make it like I’m a kid from the ghetto and I can play chess and that’s special. Why does it have to be like that? It’s embarrassing. They compare me to my environment—the way I dress to chess. You don’t have to be the brightest person in the world to play chess.”

Teenage Riddle: Skipping Class, Mastering Chess [NY Times]

Photo by MeFirstO.

Originally posted by Brooklyn Record from Brooklyn Record, on April 13, 2007 1:03 PM

Regarding Apple’s announcement that Mac OS X 10.5 has been delayed until October.

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on April 13, 2007 12:53 PM

Longish detailed interview with Chris Ware about comics, which he calls "the weird process of reading pictures, not just looking at them". (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 13, 2007 12:47 PM

Photo by Megan Holmes

Headlights is another indie pop band with boy-girl vocals — but their dreamy melodies and fuzzy guitars give them more in common with bands like Grandaddy than with cute-couple counterparts, like Mates of State or Matt & Kim. You've got two chances to catch them live this weekend — 2:30am late tonight/tomorrow morning at Galapagos or tomorrow (Saturday) night at Union Hall with Page France (doors at 8pm). We spoke with co-singers Tristan Wraight (who adds the fuzzed-out guitar parts) and Erin Fein (who plays keyboards) about touring, cooking, and hanging out in Brooklyn.

Seems like you guys have been on tour non-stop since the band got together in the summer of 2004. Do you ever get sick of sleeping on strangers' floors?
Tristan: We love touring! Sometimes it gets a little exausting but good shows get you through the bummer shows.
Erin: Touring took a little time for me to get used to. At first I thought I would lose my mind staying on strange floors, having so little personal space and so much time to kill. But after a few times out, I started to figure out little things that made it easier. I learned how to knit on tour and I always bring good books to pass the time. Brett and Tristan are really clean guys who also don't like to sleep in really gross places, so I am in good company.

Originally posted by Kara from Brooklyn Record, on April 13, 2007 12:02 PM

If you haven't been reading Stingy Kids, you're missing out on some great blogging. Music critic "Rhythmik" offers his critique of the Washington Post's Joshua Bell experiment: So the Washington Post attempted to essentially make fools of the general public, mind you the music listening public, modern day American culture, and in the end Joshua Bell concert ticket holders. I think that all they succeeded in doing was waking up the classical/serious music world to their own ignorance rather than waking us up to ours. In “an unblinking assessment of public taste…would beauty transcend?” I ask, should it? In When Gabo met Shakira, Adriana exposes the Guardian UK's 2002 "translation," of Gabriel García Márquez's famous 1999 article about the artist. "The Guardian reworking of this article is analogous to carving a Speedo onto Michelangelo's David because to do so would be more in keeping with today's fashion." Basics Made New, because that's a great link too.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on April 13, 2007 11:47 AM

If you haven't been reading Stingy Kids, you're missing out on some great blogging.

• Music critic "Rhythmik" offers his critique of the Washington Post's Joshua Bell experiment:

  So the Washington Post attempted to essentially make fools of the general public, mind you the music listening public, modern day American culture, and in the end Joshua Bell concert ticket holders. I think that all they succeeded in doing was waking up the classical/serious music world to their own ignorance rather than waking us up to ours. In “an unblinking assessment of public taste…would beauty transcend?” I ask, should it?

• In When Gabo met Shakira, Adriana exposes the Guardian UK's 2002 "translation," of Gabriel García Márquez's famous 1999 article about the artist. "The Guardian reworking of this article is analogous to carving a Speedo onto Michelangelo's David because to do so would be more in keeping with today's fashion."
• Basics Made New, because that's a great link too.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on April 13, 2007 11:47 AM

Feds charge 11 Brooklyn jail guards with attacking inmates [AP]
Porchetta Owner and Chef Head To Criminal Court [NY Times]
Crime, poverty still crushing Ebbets Field's spirit [ESPN]
Park Slope Woman, 30, Missing [1010 WINS]
Obamania hits Brooklyn [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
Photo by FlySi. Thanks to reader Caleb Wisdorf for the ESPN link.

Originally posted by Brooklyn Record from Brooklyn Record, on April 13, 2007 9:26 AM

I was excited to know that I could use the Wiimote with my Mac for games, but then I heard about kernel panics.

Read More...

Originally posted by jeff.smykil@gmail.com (Jeff Smykil) from Infinite Loop, on April 13, 2007 9:00 AM

Has your teenager started wearing black and smoling clove cigarettes? Don't be afraid! A Sussex Univeristy study shows that most goths are articulate, sensitive, literature-loving romantics, who are likely to grow into a well-paid profession in their adult lives, "They won't like me saying it, but their lifestyle, unlike the punk scene, is a middle-class sub culture." Dr. Dunja Brill, Sussex University. (thanks, Ray!)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rebecca's Pocket, on April 13, 2007 8:30 AM

Oh, wow. Writer's Rooms, including the studies of Antoina Frasier, JG Ballard, Sarah Waters, and Michael Frayn. "Something that has always surprised me about other people's work habits is how often they chose to have their desks by a window looking onto an agreeable view. For me that would be fatal. I can shut out some distractions when working, but not the temptation to watch what's going on out of doors." Diana Athill (via dm)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rebecca's Pocket, on April 13, 2007 8:30 AM

• Chris Heathcote: anti-mega: service design notes: tools, not services
  Tools are zuhanden – ready to hand. They should disappear in use, they aspire to be forgotten, but are absolutely necessary and useful. There’s money in tools. Tools can be used by more people for more purposes. Tools will be bent and misused – whic
  (tags: design development inspiration interesting interface service interaction)
• Keitai / OLPC in Thailand :-)
  (tags: emergingmarkets mobile mobilecomputing society social)
• Ahtisaari: Why I use Jaiku
  (tags: article communication jaiku mobile presence social SocialNetworking twitter mobility social_software sms)

Originally posted by charlie from Lifeblog, on April 13, 2007 8:26 AM

“There are times when I go to the gym and really try, and there are times when I just don’t. I gain a pound; I lose a pound. But I think I’ve developed a really good sense of when I’m doing something for myself as opposed to when I’m doing something because of other people’s expectations of me.”

--the curvaceous and lovely America Ferrara to W magazine

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from Daily Blabber, on April 13, 2007 8:06 AM

I had done some futzing around with EC2, but ExpoCal is the first web app I’ve brought up and run on it. Also my first outing with Fedora. Some links:

• Amazon EC2 Getting Started Guide - very approachable walk through on get EC2 up and running
• How I Set Up My EC2 Instance for Rails & Litespeed - bit more specific instructions, not entirely accurate
• Fedora Core 6 Lite Base Image - simple, actively used AMI. The Debian images came with too many caveats.
• Changing your mysql data directory - /mnt is the new /var
• Dead Simple Deployment (with Mongrel and Rails) - basic Mongrel cluster instructions.
• Time For A Grown-Up Server: Rails, Mongrel, Apache, Capistrano and You - never had much luck with Pen and co — Apache2’s proxying modules rawk!
• Fedora memcache + drupal walkthrough - memcached on Fedora
• Howto: rpmbuild - sudo yum install fedora-rpmdevtools
• My Rails Toolbox

Also some yum’ed packages:

yum install sudo gcc ruby ruby-libs ruby-mode ruby-rdoc ruby-irb ruby-ri ruby-docs ruby-devel rsync ruby-mysql.i386 mysql mysql-devel mysql-server mysql-admin httpd-devel apr apr-devel apr-util-devel subversion libevent

Originally posted by kellan from Laughing Meme, on April 13, 2007 2:19 AM

Music critic Rythmik generously offered to share his reading of the Joshua Bell experiment as a guest post, a first for Stingy Kids. The italicized quotes are from the Washington Post article "Pearls for Breakfast." If you haven't read this article yet, I suggest you take a look at it before reading Rythmik's critique.

Ok, well first of all. Joshua Bell is indeed an excellent violinist. As absurd as his little experiment was, we can’t deny him the recognition he’s earned. Serious music reaches a musical level in which an average listener’s mere opinions of like and dislike are no longer relevant. For instance, it’s not hard for anyone to love the sound of a Stradivarius, but if someone were to say that they don’t like it, well then simply put….they just don’t understand. True in this day and age it is now important for those involved in serious music to accept the theory that a casual listener doesn’t have to be musically knowledgeable in order to appreciate. However, as soon as the listener begins stating what is “good” or “bad”, we see that a musical understanding was needed from the start. And that is really the heart of the whole issue at hand.

So the Washington Post attempted to essentially make fools of the general public, mind you the music listening public, modern day American culture, and in the end Joshua Bell concert ticket holders. I think that all they succeeded in doing was waking up the classical/serious music world to their own ignorance rather than waking us up to ours. In “an unblinking assessment of public taste…would beauty transcend?” I ask, should it?

Why was this experiment done using a formally trained violinist? Why not a renowned percussionist, a rock guitarist or a famous jazz musician? Popular music has entered every aspect of our culture including that of serious music (i.e. neo-classicalism) to the point that we as Americans are no longer required to appreciate serious music in order to reach any higher elite level of musical appreciation. More so, modern day music has virtually erased the importance of context in musical performance.

"At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

"The awkward times," he calls them. It's what happens right after each piece ends: nothing. The music stops. The same people who hadn't noticed him playing don't notice that he has finished. No applause, no acknowledgment.

"I'm surprised at the number of people who don't pay attention at all, as if I'm invisible."
Well that’s because in a music hall the same people who ignored him at the metro believe that anything at that hall is great. They’ve been told that classical music is to be appreciated, loved and respected, but few truly understand what it is they are hearing. As a artist myself, I can only imagine what it must feel like to come to terms with the fact that your career is based upon a large percentage of listeners that have no real comprehension of your talent. Serious music culture must come away from this experience with a new found realization that many of the applauses, encores, etc. world-wide are demanded by these performers, not given in true appreciation for what they have just performed. Even within that world it is widely recognized that there only remains a small handful of cities in the world that are knowledgeable audiences of serious art. People attend performances simply because they are at a concert hall. If it’s not Joshua Bell on stage, then it’ll be someone else, but to the ears of the audience…it’s really not important.

"Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'"

Leithauser's point is that we shouldn't be too ready to label the Metro passersby unsophisticated boobs. Context matters.

Indeed it does, but more importantly, should this $5 million painting mean even more to us than our current art? Would the average museum goer recognize a modern popular artist? Perhaps the music and art of today is just as priceless to us as that of the past or that of serious art. What this article says really is that serious art must transcend time and place, yet modern art, however influential to the world it was created in, must remain where it is.

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

True, but perhaps this is just our new way of life to be accepted with new music to represent that, to echo the sounds of our subway stations, our youth, our fast paced lives, and to see and hear in every note the people who live in this day and age. This constant urge to criticize what we don’t appreciate or notice in art is what holds this era from recognizing the fine contributions it is has and continues to make. I think the real result of this experiment was that when Joshua Bell, Stradivari, and Bach stepped into the year 2007 that morning they found that they were simply part of the crowd.

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on April 13, 2007 12:19 AM

Guest blogger: Gollum (Smeagol)

Where isst it? So it iss back - so fissh, the fish, raw and wriggling, he hasst brought its back!

Angband, the Hells of Iron, yest, the ancient ASCII roguelike, child spawn of Moria and VMS, it iss here once more. We wants it!

You hasst not seen it, Angband? But perhapss you have seen one like it, the filthy, filthy NetHack, yess, full of such stupids and jokeses, and no Smeagol! We hates it for ever! But we loves Angband, yess, Angband has Smeagol and the fat hobbitses and yes, it has my preciouss! We loves it, Angband!

We hass thought it lost. When OS X was a little child and hungry for software, we knows how it calls to fissh. We knows how fissh missed Angband, dearly missed Smeagol, yes. And we knows how fissh stoles it, and worked his tricksy little magic, so he could go down into a Carbonized Angband on OS X. And we knows fissh did, and it was easy, Carbon madess it simple.

But fissh hasst brought it to Cocoa, now, all fresh and it glitterses so subpixel pretty with Quartz, and resizesss so smooth, and animates with pretty graphics! So precious to fissh.

And ssuch love for Angband so fissh made a borg screensaveres! So now you can visits Smeagol and wring the filthy little neck of Saruman and murderes the fat Morgoth in your sleep! The screensaveres, yes!

Goes there now, fat hobbitses! The game and the screensaveres and the source codess! Angband need you, yess!

Angband for Mac OS X

Originally posted by ridiculous_fish from ridiculous_fish, on April 12, 2007 10:57 PM

It's not just Imus Media Matters of America Contact Info for All the Talking Heads and their Stations

Originally posted by mommadona from David Jacobs' Huffs, on April 12, 2007 9:25 PM

Maybe I should just rename this blog to Hack the Fireball.

Originally posted by Wes Felter from Hack the Planet, on April 12, 2007 9:14 PM

Introducing ThreadBanger, a brand new website that's dedicated to DIY duds. The self-proclaimed "first network for people who make their own fashion," ThreadBanger posts a

Originally posted by jen from ReadyMade Blog, on April 12, 2007 9:12 PM

Jason's experience with SiteKey reminded me a little bit of my Windows Vista experience. Sadly, there's no option reading "our product sucks and it took you seven attempts to install it, move right along." I know that's a reach. Alternatively, I'd like to see a single option, "This Vista will self destruct." People are not going to enjoy using this software.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on April 12, 2007 8:00 PM

Jason's experience with SiteKey reminded me a little bit of my Windows Vista experience.

Sadly, there's no option reading "our product sucks and it took you seven attempts to install it, move right along." I know that's a reach. Alternatively, I'd like to see a single option, "This Vista will self destruct." People are not going to enjoy using this software.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on April 12, 2007 8:00 PM

Across the East River, those with more distaff artistic sensibilities can visit the newly opened Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art that has become a permanent addition to the Brooklyn Museum.

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is an exhibition and education facility dedicated to feminist art—its past, present, and future. Among the most ambitious, influential, and enduring artistic movements to emerge in the late twentieth century, feminist art has played a leading role in the art world over the last forty years. Dramatically expanding the definition of art to be more inclusive in all areas, from subject matter to media, feminist art reintroduced the articulation of socially relevant issues after an era of aesthetic "formalism," while pioneering the use of performance and audiovisual media within a fine art idiom.

An article on NY1's site reports that the centerpiece of the new center will be Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party", a large triangular representation of a dinner table with 39 place settings for iconic women or archetypes throughout history.

Originally posted by nyc_daveh from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 12, 2007 7:32 PM

It's been 33 years since the last Second Avenue Subway groundbreaking, so it's high time for new generations of straphangers to revel in the hope of a new subway line. We also expect the public -- especially the Upper East Side-residing public -- to become jaded with construction delays, traffic issues, and noise. Here's the press release from the MTA:

Tomorrow morning's historic groundbreaking ceremony for the Second Avenue Subway can be seen by all New Yorkers live on NY1, beginning at 10:30 a.m. The groundbreaking ceremony will take place in one of the subway tunnels built under Second Ave. in the 1970s but never used. Due to the limited capacity of the tunnel, the MTA arranged for the live broadcast with NY1 and will open its board room at 347 Madison Avenue for members of the public to join MTA staff for a public viewing and celebration. The ceremony will include a video presentation, remarks from federal, state and local officials and then the moment everyone has been waiting for as the assembled dignitaries ceremonially chip away at the tunnel wall, beginning the subway's southern journey. "The groundbreaking for Second Avenue Subway is a historic moment in the life of New York City, and we're thrilled that everyone will be able to see it live," said MTA Executive Director and CEO Elliot G. Sander. "I hope that many people will join us at MTA headquarters for this special day." Beginning on Friday, the ceremony will also be available on NY1 On Demand, channel 1110.

We wonder how many people are going, because aren't subway tunnels, you know, fairly spacious? Anyway, thank goodness for NY1. MTA Executive Director Elliot Sander assured NY1's Bobby Cuza that the MTA has "three-quarters of the money, as well as really strong support from Washington, Albany and the city," we bet someone knows the over-under on this project. Sander is also featured in the Observer, who talks 2nd Avenue Subway, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow and the job in general. He also wrote an ode to the 2nd Avenue Subway in Metro: "With funding in place and the political will to build, New York is finally going to have the East Side service this world city deserves." The groundbreaking is at 99th Street/101st Street and 2nd Avenue. The Second Avenue Subway will be called the T line, and the first phase of construction will be service between 96th and 63rd Streets, to meet up with the Q. Update: As the groundbreaking for the subway starts today at 10:30, we'll be watching along with NY1 (they're going to broadcast live from the groundbreaking) and giving you some thoughts. 10:30: No groundbreaking ceremony yet. The MTA is already behind schedule on the 2nd Avenue Subway! Clearly a sign of things to come! 10:34: MTA Director Elliot Sander is unsure of whether this is the 3rd or 4th groundbreaking. Is this kind of like how they have problems with keeping their books straight? They're showing a video on the background and problems in the 2nd Ave. line's history. It looks like they are underground for the ceremony, as it looks rather dark and dingy (and because there are hardhats in the background). There may not be A/C in the tunnels on the line, but something called "air tempering". 10:42: Sandler is thanking all the people that laid the foundation for the project and that have fought to bring the project to where it is today. He has confidence in the ability to complete the project as they are "here to finish the job." Every station will be ADA compliant and post-9/11 safety concerns will be addressed. Sandler says that the 2nd Ave Subway is no longer a bad joke, but our future. 10:46 Peter Kalikow steps to the podium and tells us that we now have the money (and political support) for the project, which is why it's different than the last groundbreakings. 10:48: Kalikow introduces Dan Doctoroff, who says it really is a "great day" because as goes the 2nd Ave Subway, so goes NY. He goes over the starts and stops of the project, backing up the statement. Well done, Doctoroff, well done. We're asserting our confidence and optomisim in the furure, that we've learned the lessons of the past and we won't relent as we move through the four phases of the project. In a few month's we'll be breaking ground on the 7 line extension and East-Side Access. We need these improvements to compete with other cities around the world. And how we grow depends on how we move people around the city and the region. Bloomberg isn't there today. 10:52: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is now at the podium and asks if anybody remembers who the borough president was in 1925, because he doesn't. The people in Manhattan recognize that this is a valuable economic engine and gives a "shout out" to Representative Carolyn Maloney people that did work to get this project going. 10:54: Council Speaker Christine Quinn now gets her time at the podium. She echos Stringer's "shout out" to Carolyn Maloney. Quinn says that she made the campaign promise to get the subway done, even though she had no real sense that she would be able to follow through on. Brings her dad on stage to deliver a story she heard as a child. She's now delivering to her dad, who was told in 1934 by his father that the subway was being built. 10:57: Carolyn Maloney is now up and says that it's the 4th groundbreaking. This project is a partnership at all levels - city, state, and federal. Praises Spitzer's support of the subway, Speaker Sheldon Silver for holding up the budget for the subway (now we have $1.5 billion because of his stalling), and praises Bloomberg as well. On day one it will move 191,000 people, more than any other federal project. She calls the Lexington line the most overburdened line in the nation (by some accounts) and relieve the line by 13%. 11:02: FTA Administrator Jim Simpson. NYC represents 1/3 of the nation's transit riders. Congress asked him if he would be biased for NYC if he was approved as administrator. He said of course he would. Lived on Sullivan before it was fashionable, then to Brooklyn, then to Staten Island. The full line is competitive (but no promise) for funding in the future. He wants thinking out of the box with partnerships to get this project done sooner. "If we're going to take this 2nd Ave subway down to Wall Street, maybe Wall Street can help us build it." 11:05: Speaker Silver and thanks his cronies in the State Senate. He's the first to mention 9/11 (we won't count the security features) and Ground Zero, but his tone is putting us to sleep. "Yes, there have been groundbreakings in the past, but I will join Congresswoman Maloney in saying 'the fourth time is the charm.'" 11:10: Governor Spitzer wasn't sure if he was going to a groundbreaking for a water tunnel or subway tunnel when he looked at his schedule this morning after he woke up. It's "deja vu all over again, all over again, all over again." This is different than the past, because we have the money. He wrote a paper in "urban economics class" as a junior in college that found that subways were a remarkable investment. He says that in order to benefit from the influx of people, this line is integral in the long term. Thankfully, Spitzer is the last speaker. While the boring machines will make a lot of noise, noise in this case is a good thing. 11:14: As they are getting ready to hit the wall for the "groundbreaking", tons of photographers jockey for position and NY1's still camera is rendered all but useless. Hopefully nobody hurts their back! And isn't Bobby Cuza on the scene? Why not give us play-by-play on the actual groundbreaking part? 11:16: It looks like ground has been broken as the flash stops popping and the leaders walk away from the podium. Ah ha! As they cut away, NY1 has a shot down the subway that reveals they are in the subway tunnel and that the backdrop was the side of subway tunnel. Perhaps they were actually in a future station delivering the press-conference. Photograph of one of the subway tunnels built in the 1970s by Satan's Laundromat

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 12, 2007 7:31 PM

God damnit.

I have to wait an extra four months for Leopard? Fuck!

Stupid iPhone.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Technological Supernova, on April 12, 2007 5:57 PM

Apple Statement: “While Leopard's features will be complete by then [WWDC], we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October.”

This is the sound of Gus hyperventilating. ;)

Originally posted by Brent Simmons from ranchero.com, on April 12, 2007 5:50 PM

I just completed my application to become a card-carrying member of the North Carolina Barbecue Society. The best part? The oath:

I promise to give some of my time, energies and funds to further the goals of the NCBS (a.k.a “THE FUN TRIBE™”) to wit: cook and/or eat barbecue as often as possible, preferably in the company of good friends, and to promote the Old North State as the “Cradle of ’Cue™” wherever my journey takes me.

I'll do my best.

A little more about NCBS at Serious Eats.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from A Full Belly, on April 12, 2007 5:41 PM

Dynamic messaging is one of the nifty features of Cocoa and Objective-C programming on the Mac. You don’t have to know which class, or even which method your code will call until runtime. The feature is utilized a great deal by the delegation pattern employed by most standard classes in AppKit. For instance, when a window is threatening to close, Apple yields the final decision making to a delegate method, if present:

- (BOOL) windowShouldClose:(id)sender;

If you implement this delegate method and return NO for a particular window, then the user’s attempts to close it are thwarted (hopefully because you just did something friendly like ask them if they were sure or not).

If we’re agreed that delegation and dynamic messaging are a good idea, we should be prepared to use them in our own code as well. Let’s say we’re writing a custom class where delegation of this kind would be useful. We’d like to be as much like Apple as possible, to further solidify the patterns that we all use on a regular basis.

My example application is a coffee maker, and it makes coffee at regular intervals unless the delegate method believes it should not:

- (BOOL) coffeeMaker:(RSCoffeeMaker*)theMaker
	shouldBrewForScheduledDate:(NSDate*)scheduledDate;

What must the code in the coffee maker do in order to satisfy this contract? The “scheduledBrewTimerFired:” method might look something like this:

- (void) scheduledBrewTimerFired:(NSTimer*)brewTimer
{
	BOOL shouldBrew = YES;

	// Give the delegate a chance to reject
	SEL delSelector =
		@selector(coffeeMaker:shouldBrewForScheduledDate:);

	if ((mDelegate != nil) &&
		([mDelegate respondsToSelector:delSelector] == YES))
	{
		shouldBrew = [mDelegate performSelector:delSelector
			withObject:self
			withObject:[brewTimer fireDate]];
	}

	if (shouldBrew == YES)
	{
		//...
	}
}

Nifty, right? Yes, nifty. But wrong. What’s the problem? It’s that line where performSelector is called. If you have as many warnings turned on as you should, you’ll see something along the lines of “warning: assignment makes integer from pointer without a cast.” The reason? The performSelector method returns an “id”, not a “BOOL”. We’re expecting magic to happen here, and those of us who grew comfortable with the nuances of PowerPC-based calling conventions have seen magic happen here more often than is healthy.

By violating the function prototype for performSelector, we’re robbing the compiler of its ability to accurately produce assembly code that retrieves the BOOL return type correctly. That means we’ll get the wrong answer some percentage of the time, where that percentage is determined by the degree to which BOOL and id return types are handled differently on the platform.

My first instinct in addressing this problem was to go down a layer. Surely if performSelector is using an unsatisfactory prototype, I could just drop down to objc_msgSend and handle the messaging myself. But alas! The lower-level function also returns an id. At this level, there are some special functions such as objc_msgSend_stret, which messages an object and returns a structure, but there isn’t a handy objc_msgSend_boolret for our convenience.

So what’s a conscientous developer to do? I was lucky to discover a mailing-list thread, in which the answer to this question was beautifully outlined by Greg Parker of Apple. Credit also goes to Rosyna of Unsanity, for asking the question that led to Greg’s answer. Rosyna later expressed appreciation in a follow-up post.

So what’s the trick? In order to get the freedom of dynamic messaging combined with the complete cooperation of the compiler, we need to define a custom function pointer. This points to the same address in memory as the objc_msgSend function, but is defined with a differing prototype. This way we get the message delivery functionality of the Objective-C runtime, while letting the compiler in on the fact that the method being messaged will in fact return a BOOL typed response.

#import <objc/objc-runtime.h>

- (void) scheduledBrewTimerFired:(NSTimer*)brewTimer
{
	bool shouldBrew = YES;

	// Give the delegate a chance to reject
	SEL delSelector =
		@selector(coffeeMaker:shouldBrewForScheduledDate:);
	if ((mDelegate != nil) &&
		([mDelegate respondsToSelector:delSelector] == YES))
	{
		// Give the compiler a clue - courtesy of Greg Parker
		BOOL (*MyMagicSender)(id, SEL, id, id) =
			(BOOL (*)(id, SEL, id, id)) objc_msgSend;

		shouldBrew = MyMagicSender(mDelegate, delSelector,
			self, [brewTimer fireDate]);
	}

	if (shouldBrew == YES)
	{
		//...
	}
}

Nifty, right? And correct, too. Enjoy!

Update: Paul Kim via chat, and Jan Van Boghout in the comments below each noticed a flaw in my contrived example. Since I already know the selector I’m planning to call, I could just define it explicitly with a regular Objective-C method prototype. Then the compiler would know exactly how to generate the code if I called the delegate directly:

shouldBrew = [mDelegate coffeeMaker:self
	shouldBrewForScheduledDate:[brewTimer fireDate]];

That’s true, and it’s a fault in my overly-contrived example. But imagine a more dynamic scenario, where the prototype of the method is known, but not the selector. For instance, if the class offers clients the ability to specify a selector:

- (void) scheduleBrewingAtDate:(NSDate*)brewDate
	withBrewDelegate:(id)brewDelegate
	withDelegateSelector:(SEL)delSel;

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on April 12, 2007 5:20 PM

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, here's a statement from Apple about Leopard's release date. As far as any potential slip in Apple's stock price because of this, well, all I can say is BUY BUY BUY!

Originally posted by James Duncan Davidson from James Duncan Davidson, on April 12, 2007 5:11 PM

crazy hippie house. Photo by -anna-.
Questioning the DOT Over Pedestrian Safety [Gothamist]
Park Slope Loses Grocery Store, Gains Bank [Racked]
City To Get Tough On Negligent Landlords [Brownstoner]
Community Board Six and Proposals [Gowanus Lounge]
New Western Beef Smackdown [Across the Park]
Top Brooklyn Fish Spots [Over in Brooklyn]
Neroni Behind Bars [Eater]

Originally posted by Chris from Brooklyn Record, on April 12, 2007 4:59 PM

Apple has come out and said that due to iPhone testing, Leopard will no longer be released this spring and has now been delayed until much later.

Read More...

Originally posted by jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) from Infinite Loop, on April 12, 2007 4:42 PM

I used to watch Get Smart reruns as a kid. I loved agents 99 and 86. And I loved how Maxwell Smart had a shoe-phone -- I thought it was sooo inventive and cool. (Don't laugh, I was like 8 and it was looooong before cell phones.) My grandpa was actually in the Marines with Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart. They served in Australia together for a bit and my "Pop-Pop" later told me that he suspected Don of stealing his coat while down under. Of course that was long before Don was a star...

Which brings me to the Get Smart movie, which recently began filming. The flick stars Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway -- and this is the first photo from the set. The movie will be released in 2008.

Sign me up for anything Steve Carell is in.

Originally posted by sbyrne from Daily Blabber, on April 12, 2007 4:37 PM

I ate some fantastic crawfish over Easter weekend. Crawfish boils are a Easter tradition in Louisiana, and that makes sense, since the season typically begins in March and ends in June. As a New Orleans resident and the author of Eating New Orleans, Pableaux Johnson is an expert on such matters. Here, he aptly describes the tradition:

... [A] backyard crawfish boil—a traditional Easter event throughout Louisiana—is an epic affair involving 40-pound sacks of wriggling crawfish and bubbling cauldrons big enough to be stirred with canoe paddles. Unlike a New England lobster boil, where ingredients fit into a single grocery sack, Louisiana crawfish boils require planning and a pickup truck, used to transport a makeshift outdoor kitchen.

Read the rest of Johnson's "Mudbugs Madness" to learn everything you need and want to know about these tasty critters.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Posts and Comments by Alaina Browne, on April 12, 2007 4:30 PM

A new build of Mac OS X v10.5 is released to developers. Is this thing ever going to ship?

Read More...

Originally posted by ars@niload.com (Erik Kennedy) from Infinite Loop, on April 12, 2007 3:39 PM

9/11 Family Members File Petition with NIST. Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine today filed a petition with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) seeking correction of inaccurate factual statements and analysis in NIST's reports on the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Originally posted by Counsel from David Jacobs' Huffs, on April 12, 2007 3:24 PM

A few things about Wolfowitz. He is: universally hated at the World Bank, wears socks full of holes (warning: gross), is apparently still married, but got his girl on the side a job at the State Department that is still paid by the Bank, to the tune of $193,500 ($10,000 more than Condoleezza Rice makes!), and is just generally a misguided corrupt ghoul. And I'll never get over that comb video.

But I will give him this: when the man decides to apologize for something, he actually gets around to apologizing, and does it in a way that at least sounds sincere.

"I made a mistake, for which I am sorry." He says that he will accept any remedies the World Bank's board proposes.

See how easy that is, politicians and talk show hosts across the land?

written by Amy

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Amy's Robot, on April 12, 2007 3:16 PM

Ask and you shall receive. Armin Vit delivers one of his inimitable logo critiques for the new MSNBC branding effort. I do have to say I support the use of Gotham in almost all circumstances, but I still think something looks goofy about the way it's used in the new logo. On the other hand, I am a lousy designer, so what the hell do I know?

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on April 12, 2007 3:06 PM

Alex gave a phenomenal interview on Twitter and Rails a couple of weeks ago. This morning its all over the Net — but folks I think are taking the wrong lessons from it.

1. Ruby is dead slow. This is not news, though it can be surprising when you’re used to thinking about scripting languages as all being roughly equal.

2. Rails trades developer performance for framework performance. Also not news, as this has been the mantra of Rails since day 1.

More importantly he gives a quick insight into the how of making social software scale. It’s hard, it has ugly network effects, it makes databases cry. Alex mentions cache like mad. (because frankly no one but the content creator needs to see fresh data)

Also denormalize like mad, federate like mad, and prune features that make your site slow. (and these are the same techniques that they’re working on behind the scenes at Twitter, and that we use to scale Flickr).

You’ll never build a successful site if you build to scale from day 1, scaling is always a catch up game, but it’s the best game there is.

(And yes, this is my all Twitter all the time blog week)

Originally posted by kellan from Laughing Meme, on April 12, 2007 2:25 PM

I've been so busy doing stuff over at Serious Eats that I've been completely neglecting this site. I've built up a bunch of links I've been meaning to post though, so I'm going to just give them all to you in one big lump, since who knows when I'll have time to write properly about them or mete them out. Some are probably so old you've already seen them, but oh well. That's what I get for letting things sit around I suppose.

Organic crime in Bay Ridge looks at smuggling raw milk in Brooklyn, NY.

It doesn’t add up: math in the era of trans fat labeling. When zero doesn't mean zero.

Restoration on the Half Shell opines about oyster farming in the Mid-Atlantic states.

Was He the Eggman? A look at the history of eggs Benedict.

Jamba Juice may or may not have milk in their non-dairy mix. They also may or may not have a non-dairy mix at all.

The Red-Meat Miracle, and Other Tales From the Butcher Case. Harold McGee looks at why red meat is red, and how carbon monoxide can make older meat and fish look "fresh."

Cruelty-Free Carnivorism links and trend over at Buzzfeed. Assuage your conscience and fill your belly!

Bovine growth hormone: human food safety evaluation. An abstract from a Science article in 1990 stating "recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH) in dairy cattle presents no increased health risk to consumers."

And finally, The New Rules of Food. "Basic knowledge of where food comes from and how it is produced is lost on many Americans today. How differently would we eat if we got to know our food better?"

Gah, that's a lot of stuff I should have been posting! Hopefully I'll be more on top of things beginning next week. In the meantime, enjoy!

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on April 12, 2007 2:09 PM

I've been so busy doing stuff over at Serious Eats that I've been completely neglecting this site. I've built up a bunch of links I've been meaning to post though, so I'm going to just give them all to you in one big lump, since who knows when I'll have time to write properly about them or mete them out. Some are probably so old you've already seen them, but oh well. That's what I get for letting things sit around I suppose.

Organic crime in Bay Ridge looks at smuggling raw milk in Brooklyn, NY.

It doesn’t add up: math in the era of trans fat labeling. When zero doesn't mean zero.

Restoration on the Half Shell opines about oyster farming in the Mid-Atlantic states.

Was He the Eggman? A look at the history of eggs Benedict.

Jamba Juice may or may not have milk in their non-dairy mix. They also may or may not have a non-dairy mix at all.

The Red-Meat Miracle, and Other Tales From the Butcher Case. Harold McGee looks at why red meat is red, and how carbon monoxide can make older meat and fish look "fresh."

Cruelty-Free Carnivorism links and trend over at Buzzfeed. Assuage your conscience and fill your belly!

Bovine growth hormone: human food safety evaluation. An abstract from a Science article in 1990 stating "recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH) in dairy cattle presents no increased health risk to consumers."

And finally, The New Rules of Food. "Basic knowledge of where food comes from and how it is produced is lost on many Americans today. How differently would we eat if we got to know our food better?"

Gah, that's a lot of stuff I should have been posting! Hopefully I'll be more on top of things beginning next week. In the meantime, enjoy!

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on April 12, 2007 2:09 PM

ABC Radio National's All in the Mind recently had a two programme special (part 1, part 2) on the neuroscience of blindness, focusing on how blindness affects the development of the brain and how electronic neural implants and being developed to restore lost vision.

One of the most remarkable parts is the interview with psychologist Zoltan Torey, who became blind as a student in an industrial accident.

He has written The Crucible of Consciousness (ISBN 0195508726), a remarkable and highly regarded book on the conscious mind.

In the 1st part of the series, he describes how he constructs a a 'visual' representation of the world and how his blindness has informed his study of consciousness:

But what is new of course is just the way in which I am able to combine things in my brain without the interference of vision. Normally when people want to think they close their eyes because the flood of visual impressions that comes at you is a distraction. I have the privilege of not having to cope with that, of thinking without...I'm a sort of 'thinkaholic', if I might use this expression. This is the way I did my research work about psychology and the consciousness. Not being troubled with vision itself, it was possible for me to imagine complex internal systems, and so I have this marvellous opportunity to run an internal show like a movie director.

Researchers studying neuroplasticity (how the brain changes its structure and function) are now focusing on the brains of blind people, as it has become clear that, for example, the area of the brain normally functioning as the visual cortex in sighted people seems to be active during touch-based reading, which is something that doesn't occur in sighted people.

The second programme looks at the latest research on 'bionic' retina implants, that aim to process light and, through implanted electrodes, stimulate the optic nerve to act as an artificial retina replacement.

Link to The Blind Brain: Part 1 of 2.
Link to The Blind Brain: Part 2 of 2 - The bionic eye.

Originally posted by vaughan from Mind Hacks, on April 12, 2007 2:00 PM

Seattle Times: King for a day.

Last night’s complete game, one-hit shutout keeps Felix Hernandez’s ERA at 0.00 with 17 innings pitched in two games. 18 strikeouts, four walks, four hits. Opposing hitters: four for 52. More info at U.S.S. Mariner.

He turned 21 last Sunday.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from inessential.com, on April 12, 2007 1:46 PM

Last week, the Washington Post's Al Kamen questioned my critical stance on the Wolfowitz pay scandal....

Originally posted by tcd004 from Most Huffed News, on April 12, 2007 12:07 PM

As Ubuntu tries to increase its reach, and manage all the branches that are springing forth from it, the next development codename “Gutsy Gibbon” seems to be perfect. Mark Shuttleworth declared as much in announcing Gutsy Gibbon to be the chosen name for the developmental release that is expected to be released in October 18, 2007 (so this will be Ubuntu 7.10).

Gibbons are small apes found in South East Asia

Highlights from the announcement:

1. The Gibbon defeated the “Glossy Gnu” to the finish
2. This next version will also feature a brand new ultra-free, no-nonfree flavor of Ubuntu for the purists
3. Glossiness in the form of Beryl/Compiz enabled by default might hit the Gibbon
4. Any “monkey” should be able to install Gibbon - with new improvements to the installer to allow network-managed upgrades
5. Agility of deployment, together with integrated management will be a focus for the Ubuntu server team - leading to leaner, meaner and faster server version of Ubuntu
6. GNOME 2.20.0 will definitely be in Gutsy Gibbon, with GNOME 2.20.1 being a distinct possibility

You can view the Release Schedule for Gutsy Gibbon at the wiki.
Like Mark says, “Go Ape!” and celebrate the arrival of the new Gibbon. I love how he pushes the animal metaphor and displays a sense of humor in making these new release name announcements.

Originally posted by carthik from Ubuntu Blog, on April 12, 2007 10:57 AM

The headline blares that "NYC Blamed for 1% of Greenhouse Gases", which puts it on par with small countries like Portugal and Ireland, but they buried the lede on this one: "With 2.7 percent of the country's population -- 8.2 million of 300 million -- the average New York City resident contributes less than a third of the emissions generated by a typical American." (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 12, 2007 10:36 AM

A conducting-an-orchestra game?!

Apparently so, says Joystiq. Well I bloody never did. I must show my classical-loving mum, she's going to love this (probably more than Project Zero, although you never know).

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, on April 12, 2007 2:54 AM

WWW::OpenSearch has been under "development" since May. Not much has happened since the 0.06_02 release in June, so i was glad to finally get the go-ahead from miyagawa to release a new stable version.

My motivation for all of this work has been the need to have a perl client for the Lucene Web Service. We (Adam and I) constructed the web service in such a way that searches on the indices would return an OpenSearch feed. The rest of the API is based on the Atom Publishing Protocol. This makes it super easy to wrap XML::Atom::Client and WWW::OpenSearch to make our own webservice client mashup.

The client is only in the svn repository for now, but we hope to release it as well as a Catalyst model to tie the two together in the new feature.

Originally posted by bricas from Planet Catalyst, on April 11, 2007 10:01 PM

It must be spring, because in California at least, the sun's out, women are weaing diaphonaous skirts and high-heeled sandals, and the New York times is running stories about: the nature of sexual desire, the mystery of sexuality, and sexual selection.

Why do we call dating a "game"? Well, for one there are rules of play, both culturally derived (men should always at leaast offer to pay for dinner) as well as biologically mandated (the flash of the palm or the touching of the hair unconcsiously signals interest.) Understanding the interplay of those rules, however, is complicated, although as the articles referenced above prove, researchers have not stopped trying to read the code of human sexuality and desire.

For some reason (perhaps just feeling the spring blooming all around me like everyone else?) these topics have been on my mind frequently as well the past few days. What is the code of desire? How do we figure it out? How do we proceed, once we have?

Love is a game, a dance, because there is also pleasure in it. That first meeting, that flush of attraction, the flirting - those moments are all tiny rewards that make you want to keep playing. I know some people say they hate dating. I don't understand that. I love meeting new people and exploring them, as I do in games. Perhaps it's the difference between explorative play and goal-oriented play?

But what if we do figure it all out? What if a scientist can tell me, here, this is the specific range of pheromones you respond to; and having analyzed your dating history extensively, the perfect mate for you is between 5'10" and 6'2", has a BA, plays music, and enjoys cooking. That's what, presumably, sites like eHarmony try to do. What would I do with this information? I'm not sure.

Because it thrills me how unpredictable desire is. Just when I think I have it figured out, something will blindside me like a lightening bolt out of the sky. No action need be taken, necessarily; just feel it, know you're alive, and enjoy it. Explore the landscape of your own heart.

Originally posted by jane from game girl advance, on April 11, 2007 9:18 PM

Cory performing his addendum for Bruce Springsteen's "She's the One" for solo glockenspiel.

 bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by yatta to coryarcangel video youtube - more about this bookmark...

Originally posted by yatta from del.icio.us/yatta, on April 11, 2007 7:49 PM

Photographer Cara Barer creates twisty, rumpled sculptures out of damp books...the results are beautifully fractal in nature. (via your daily awesome) (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 11, 2007 7:22 PM

As part of Adidas's new spring line of End to End sneakers for Foot Locker, the German shoe manufacturer has created an EndtoEnd Project exhibit in an empty lot on Lafayette and Houston. Adidas had different graffiti artists create designs for shoes in an East London warehouse, so in bringing the finished shoes to the states, Adidas has the artists tagging a replica of a NYC subway car! Cue for a quote from City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. He told amNew York, "Graffiti has nothing to do with sneakers, so basically it's just another despicable corporation trying to look edgy by promoting a crime in search of profits. [It's] like posting a billboard calling on teens to break the law." A retired police officer also told AMNY that foreigners are mostly the ones tagging subway cars today: "The problem is, New York is like the Holy Grail. It's where the graffiti movement got started." And now is as good a time as any to recall Judge Jed Rakoff's 2005 ruling allowing Marc Ecko's graffiti party to go on:

"By the same token, presumably, a street performance of 'Hamlet' would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder... As for a street performance of 'Oedipus Rex,' don't even think about it... The denial of the permit on the stated grounds that the demonstration will 'incite' others to actually paint graffiti on subway cars is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment and cannot stand."

[Ecko had received a permit for graffiti artists to tag fake subway cars to coincide with the release of the video game, Getting Up, but the city revoked the permit.] This morning, there were easily at least 10 cops nearby, but this afternoon, we only saw one. And at any rate, Adidas's subway car is a whole lot more realistic than Ecko's subway car facades. The subway car, with DJs providing music, will be around until 8PM. More pictures, plus bios of the artists, after the jump:

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 11, 2007 6:05 PM

The assumption that buying is preferable to renting is so ingrained in our national real estate psyche, that to suggest otherwise could result in someone questioning your financial, if not actual, sanity. The New York Times did some serious nationwide number crunching, however, and is concluding that renters fared better than buyers over the last two years. The turnabout is the result of buyers facing higher monthly costs than renters, while losing money on their investments as home prices declined. The paper then goes on to discuss the necessary conditions for perceived order in the universe to return, when buying is again the smart move.

Over the next five years, which is about the average amount of time recent buyers have remained in their homes, prices in the Los Angeles area would have to rise more than 5 percent a year for a typical buyer there to do better than a renter. The same is true in Phoenix, Las Vegas, the New York region, Northern California and South Florida. In the Boston and Washington areas, the break-even point is about 4 percent. “House prices have to fall more before housing becomes a clear buy again,†says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, a research company that helped conduct the analysis. “These markets aren’t as overvalued as they were a year ago or two years ago, but they’re still unfriendly. And that’s one of the reasons the market is still soft — people realize it’s not a bargain.â€

In one of those clearcut occasions when it is better to read the online version of the Times rather than the print version, there is this great interactive calculator that graphically shows the trade-offs between renting and buying based on a number of criteria the reader can adjust. The print version has just one static example that it snapshots at three different points in time. On his finance and economics blog, Felix Salmon admires the Times' effort in constructing its model, but also looks at some of the underlying assumptions involved and questions the paper's points of emphasis.

To read the article, the main variable in determining whether or not you should rent or buy is the amount by which property prices are going to rise in future. Most of the calculations hold everything else constant, and then wonder how many years it will take you to break even given different rates of property-price increase. But spend a bit of time fiddling around with the calculator, and you realize it's not nearly as simple as that. For instance, the NYT's calculations have a default rate of rent increase of just 4% per year. That seems low to me, given the fact that rent increases haven't remotely kept up with price increases in most of the country. If the two come closer into line with each other, some of that might come from prices going down – but a large chunk of it might come from rents going up. It's hard in the rent vs buy calculator to account for the risk that your rent will suddenly go up by 15% next year.

Both pieces are interesting reading and practically required, since there are few things New Yorkers like to talk about more than real estate. You'll probably be quizzed on it this weekend!

Originally posted by nyc_daveh from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 11, 2007 6:04 PM

The two-fer Tarantino/Rodriguez movie Grindhouse is going to be broken into two films for release overseas and possibly in the US. "There have been reports that many film-goers have been confused by the movie's structure - mistakenly assuming that there was only one film on offer and leaving the cinema en-masse after the Rodriguez section." (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 11, 2007 6:01 PM

Hip-Hop Pop-Up combines pop-up web advertising with product mentions in hip-hop songs. "For example, at 2 minutes and 38 seconds into the song Big Poppa when Puffy asks Biggie, 'How ya livin Biggie Smallz?' his reply, 'In mansion and Benz's Givin ends to my friends and it feels stupendous' would then pop-up the URL www.mercedes-benz.com." To try it out, be sure to disable your browser's pop-up blocking first. (thx, jonah) (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 11, 2007 4:03 PM

Publishers Weekly's summer books preview, with new stuff by DeLillo, Chabon, and William Gibson. (via rebecca blood) (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 11, 2007 3:42 PM

Posted by Andrew Bowers, Google Developer Programs

As some of you may remember, last June at the Googleplex we held a Geo Developer Day alongside the Where 2.0 conference. We invited a bunch of developers from Where 2.0 to come to campus and meet the Google Maps and Earth teams. Everyone at Google had a great time interacting with the more than 200 developers who came, and we knew we wanted to do something like it again.

When we started thinking about plans for this year, two things came to mind. First, we’ve released a number of new developer products over the past 12 months which we’re excited to talk more about, including the Google Web Toolkit, the Google data APIs, the AJAX Search API, and Google Gadgets. Second, as much as we love the Googleplex, we realize that not everyone can travel to Mountain View to hang out with us.

Put those two considerations together and what you have is this year’s Google Developer Day. Many developer products, 10 countries, one day: May 31^st.

The day itself will vary in format from location to location, but the goal is the same: bring Google’s developer community closer together, share our knowledge, and of course have fun in the process. We’ll be posting more details on the sessions as we finalize them, but in the meantime, here are just a few of the Googlers we have lined up across the globe:

• Guido Van Rossum, Google software engineer and creator of the Python programming language (Beijing);
  
• Chris DiBona, Google open source programs manager (London);
  
• Mark Stahl, Google data APIs tech lead (Madrid);
  
• Bruce Johnson and Joel Webber, co-creators of the Google Web Toolkit™ (Mountain View);
  
• Bret Taylor, group product manager for Google developer products (Mountain View);
  
• Lars Rasmussen, Google Maps™ senior engineer (Sydney); and
  
• Greg Stein, Google engineering manager and chairman of the Apache Software Foundation (Tokyo).
  

We’re excited to be inviting everyone. To find out more, and to let us know if you can make it, please visit the Google Developer Day site.

Originally posted by Karen from Official Google Blog, on April 11, 2007 3:27 PM

Time magazine says:

The war is over; American Idol has surrendered. Idol has conceded that Sanjaya is the star of this season, ceding him the plum last song of the night. Possibly having exhausted the possibilities of his hair, he’s now rocking a mustache and goatee, and giving all the 12-year-old girls out there the bedroom eyes. I’m told he also sang. Does it honestly matter? On to the next round, Sanjaya!

and we agree!

Originally posted by Administrator from Turbanhead.com, on April 11, 2007 3:26 PM

For those of you who actually work the 9-5 job, the 5 O'Clock is the perfect clock to tell you when to say farewell to the office and hello to the great outdoors.

Some details: This is a M&Co. 5 O’Clock, designed by the husband-and-wife team of Tibor and Maria Kalman, and is available through the MOMA Store online. Though one of the most important graphic designers of 1980s, Tibor may be best known for his work with Talking Heads, including the cover for Remain in Light and The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads. Sadly Tibor Kalman died in 1999.

Originally posted by clairehyland from l-e-mental, on April 11, 2007 3:08 PM

Musician, graffiti artist and long-time Brooklyn resident Dave Ellis has been working on one of his trademark murals over at the 58 North 6th media labs in Williamsburg. Ellis, who also goes by the tag SKWERM, is a founder of the Barnstormers, a collective of artists that creates large murals, many of which have been done in public spaces in Ellis' hometown of Cameron, North Carolina. We've been unable to ascertain any information about if and when the mural is going to be open to the public but we were able to spot it through the plate-glass window so we know it's still there. Anyone know anything about it? Regardless, the photo set is not to be missed.
Dave Ellis Mural Project Photo Set [Flickr]

Originally posted by brownstoner from Brooklyn Record, on April 11, 2007 2:03 PM

I'm so glad to hear it Lou!

Originally posted by Lilartist from Serious Eats - Comment Responses, on April 11, 2007 1:38 PM

Lee Gomes, in his "Portals" column in the WSJ, covers the "sanitized" blogging that's happening on the presidential sites.  Campaign blogs are nothing new, of course, but I think Gomes touches on what could end up being the meta-theme of politics on the web for '08:  effective cross-channel marketing that leverages the web for what it's good for.

These couple of paragraphs caught my attention...

As candidates deal with the Web, they will start to learn that many Web users have an extremely high opinion of themselves and the online lifestyle they are now leading. Last week, Joe Biden responded via a Webcam to a question posed to him via YouTube. The response was called "a milestone in presidential politics" by one blogger, as though it marked the first time a candidate had ever been asked a question by a citizen.

Then again, Sen. Biden's answer was one minute and 47 seconds long, which is the length of the average long report on a nightly newscast. The question involved the sorts of sacrifices Americans should be called on to make. The answer from the senator mentioned energy conservation and the war in Iraq. Being able to watch a candidate talk about an issue for a whole two minutes unfortunately has been a luxury in the U.S., though the Internet is in the process of changing that.

The soundbite goes to TV, the spin goes to print, the "conversation" goes to talk radio, the in-depth stuff goes to the web...but obviously not on the front page.  Front page blogs will almost by definition be sanitized; that's where the message of the day (and the enthusiastic reaction of the crowd) gets delivered. But the web gives candidates the ability to go deeper with voters, even if our expectations have been degraded to such a point where 1 min 47 seconds is considered "deeper."

So if this is really is all about cross-channel marketing and consumer engagement, then here's a thought experiment: abc.com/lost is to hansofoundation.org as barackobama.com is to <blank>.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on April 11, 2007 1:37 PM

Almost a week after radio host and "shock jock" Don Imus and his producer called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappyheaded ho" and "hardcore hos," the team and other university officials spoke out. And the consensus all around is that they are classy, inspiring, and leaders of today. The university had initially released a statement condemning Imus's words, but the team captain Essence Carson explained the press conference by saying, "At first we thought to let it slide, but when we read the transcript, we decided it was unacceptable." Carson added, "He's a broadcaster that gets his show across to so many people. Can you imagine how many people thought, 'Maybe there is some truth to this'?" Another player, Heather Zurich, said, "All of our accomplishments were lost. Our moment was taken away. We were stripped of this moment by the degrading comments made by Mr. Imus." Rutgers president Richard McCormick said, "Mr. Imus' comments were offensive to the Rutgers University community, as well as the entire nation. In this difficult time, we must make an increased commitment to tolerance, civility and equality," while the team coach, C. Vivian Stringer gave a passionate, 15-minute speech, asking, "It’s not about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. It’s about women. Are women hos? Think about that. Would you have wanted your daughter to have been called that?" The team has also agreed to meet with Imus, but the university did not say where or when the meeting would take place. For his part, Imus tried to explain himself on the Today show, with the Reverend Al Sharpton also present. Imus tries to say that the disparaging terms originated in the black community and complains that Sharpton wasn't as brave a man as himself. Watch it:

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 11, 2007 1:15 PM

Citigroup predicts a bright financial future for Apple in upcoming quarters, despite not expecting product introductions or refreshes before the summer.

Read More...

Originally posted by iljitsch@gmail.com (Iljitsch van Beijnum) from Infinite Loop, on April 11, 2007 1:14 PM

An anticorruption group in India is printing zero-rupee notes designed to be handed to officials demanding bribes. The note is "a symbol to express refusal to grease the palms of officials". (via tmn) (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 11, 2007 12:36 PM

Shipit is now accepting advance orders for Feisty CDs.

“

You can also request Kubuntu and Edubuntu CDs. I wish there were Xubuntu CDs for those that like their toast lightweight.

You can request 10 or less CDs using shipit. For mass orders (for your LUG, class, or country) try the special request form after you login.

Of course, the responsible thing to do is to download the CD image and burn it when it becomes available. Remember the CDs are shipped free of cost, and there is always someone else without a stable and fast internet connection who could use these shipped cds.

Originally posted by carthik from Ubuntu Blog, on April 11, 2007 12:29 PM

Liz Hurley has been accused of treating her new husband’s relatives like second class citizens at their Indian wedding ceremony.

Groom Arun Nayer’s father Vinod has now disowned the newlyweds, claiming that they showed disrespect to his family on their big day. Vinod has instructed Arun to leave the apartment and offices that he provides for his son in Mumbai.

Vinod has claimed that Arun banned him from the wedding platform during the ceremony, ignoring the Indian tradition of the groom’s father welcoming the bride.

The couple are also accused of ignoring Arun’s family in favour of European guests at the wedding, while Liz also refused to accept a £35,000 necklace purchased specially by Vinod and his wife.

“My wife Joanne and I feel we were publicly humiliated and treated like social outcasts for the sake of a Hello! magazine deal,” Vinod told the Sunday Mirror. “Liz and Arun have treated us very shabbily. My heart is heavy with pain.

“I knew she was very ambitious, but I never realised just how important fame and attention is to her. We were pushed into the background like poor relations. This has broken my heart.”

He added: “I felt like an unwanted guest. The whole thing was like an elaborate media event. It was like a stage show, not like a normal wedding at all. My cousins had to watch it on a screen outside.”[ via ]

We are pulling up the proverbial chair and popping the popcorn to watch the drama unfold!

UPDATE: Vinod Nayar’s side of the story, Liz goes ballistic and the Hello magazine photos.

Originally posted by Administrator from Turbanhead.com, on April 11, 2007 10:16 AM

Madonna is planning on making a "hip-hop" record and is recruiting Justin Timberlake for some help. The Queen of Reinvention has decided she wants to try her hand at yet another genre and Justin has confirmed that he is in on it.

“I have been working on some new music," the pop star said, "but it’s not for myself — I’m writing for other people. I’m working on some stuff for Madonna.” Sources say J.T. and Madge were in the studio together in London just yesterday.

Also said to be taking part in Madge's new venture, everything-I-touch-turns-to-gold Timbaland, and hip-hopper Pharrell. The new CD is scheduled for release in November.

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from Daily Blabber, on April 11, 2007 10:01 AM

The study found that the buildings, subways, buses, cars and decomposition of waste in America's most populous city produced a net emission of 58.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2005. The U.S. total was 7.26 billion metric tons for that year.

Originally posted by djacobs from David Jacobs' Huffs, on April 11, 2007 9:37 AM

Music textile is a large tactile interface for playing electronic music.

Navigable score on music textile XYi

The XY position of the performer's hand contact moving onto the surface of the fabric is transmited to a computeur via a 12 Bytes resolution Midi card. This allows 4000 by 4000 points resolution. Two conductive fabrics are fixed on a frame, each one weaved with conductive threads in a different direction. When the performer presses any point of the textile instrument, the upper layer connects with the fabric underneath and the current eletrical value is sent to the computer.

The videos on the website are pretty impressive. Image gallery.

Developed by Vincent Roudaud and Maurin Donneaud.

Check out the interface during Malaupixel in Paris, the installation will be exhibited at Confluences, on April 16 to 21, 12h-21h.

Related: Sonic Fabric, a musical dress made of textile woven from 50% pre-recorded audiotape and 50% cotton; Sonic City, a wearable piece that enables people to compose music in real time by walking through the city; etc.

Via a place to bookmark/del.icio.us/add to your rss feed: Bioject, Jean-Baptist Labrune's blog.

Originally posted by Regine from we make money not art, on April 11, 2007 12:34 AM

I finally took the time to make pymarc setuptools friendly. This basically means that if you’ve got easy_install handy you can:

sudo easy_install pymarc

If you haven’t looked at eggs yet, they are pretty much the defacto standard for distributing python code. The PyPi (Python Package Index, aka Python Cheese Shop) allows easy_install to locate and download packages, which are then unpacked and installed.

pymarc was basically an experiment to make sure I understood how eggs worked with pypi. Next up Rob Sanderson has sent me some code he and a colleague did for parsing Library of Congress Classification Numbers which I’m going to bundle up as an egg as well. Stay tuned.

Originally posted by ed from inkdroid, on April 10, 2007 10:43 PM

"If you didn't build it with your own hands, it's not really yours."

Read More...

Originally posted by iljitsch@gmail.com (Iljitsch van Beijnum) from Infinite Loop, on April 10, 2007 9:49 PM

The Washington Post is now offering 720p HD podcasts of some of its content, formatted specifically to be viewed on the Apple TV.

Read More...

Originally posted by justin.berka@gmail.com (Justin Berka) from Infinite Loop, on April 10, 2007 6:54 PM

Artist: Ellie Harrison Rhizome Terms: archive, Conceptual, Database, Documentary, Flash, identity, language, memory, Narrative, publish, Text Artist Terms: break time, data, durational, Ellie Harrison, England, London, Nottingham, ongoing, tea, Tea Blog, updated daily

Tea Blog is an ongoing project by British artist Ellie Harrison, which launched on 1 January 2006. Every time Ellie has a cup of tea (or a different type of hot drink) she notes down the thought which is most on her mind during the first few sips. These thoughts are then uploaded to the Tea Blog at regular intervals. Tea Blog aims to expand indefinitely over the next few years, developing over-time into a vast database of thoughts – a diary of day-to-day life via the ritual of tea-drinking.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rhizome.org Artwork, on April 10, 2007 5:10 PM

Rhizome Terms: 3D, bio, Installation, machine, nature, robot Artist Terms: system

This system provides light and food in the form of hydroponic solution for the plant. The plant reacts to the device by growing. The device in-turn reacts to the plant by producing a rasterized inkjet drawing of the plant every twenty-four hours. After a new drawing is produced the system scrolls the roll of paper approximately four inches so a new drawing can be produced during the next cycle. This system is allowed two run indefinitely and the final outcome is not predetermined.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rhizome.org Artwork, on April 10, 2007 5:10 PM

Iran planning to stop using U.S. dollar to price oil, central bank governor says. Side Note: Trouble ahead!

Originally posted by Snow Wolf from Most Huffed News, on April 10, 2007 4:43 PM

"As of today, when the 200 million users of Google Earth log onto the site, they will be able to view the horrific details of what's happening in Darfur for themselves."

Originally posted by djacobs from David Jacobs' Huffs, on April 10, 2007 4:11 PM

A recent Washington Post article on the Colombian pop star (and SK favorite) Shakira ("Sense and Sensuality"), predictably quoted from Gabriel García Márquez's 1999 profile of the artist.  I'm ashamed to say, however, that until a couple of days ago I myself had not read it.  A quick online search brought up the original Spanish version, published in the Colombian paper Cambio in June 1999.  I read it ravenously, mentally translating into English, as I tend to do when I really like what I'm reading and already anticipate sharing it with non-Hispanophones.  But then it hit me: Certainly, an article this well known already exists in English translation?  Indeed it does--sort of.

On June 8, 2002 the Guardian, a UK newspaper, published an article in English titled "The poet and the princess."  The tagline reads: "They are the greatest Colombians: Shakira, pop phenomenon, and Gabriel García Márquez, novelist.  Naturally, they had to meet--and he, the magical realist, was astonished by her fantastical work-rate."  Ignoring the ridiculous pun on "fantastical" and the over-used modifier "magical realist," what struck me about this tagline is that it suggests a contemporaneous "encounter" between "the poet and the princess," meaning one that occurred at around the date of publication.  Naturally, I assumed that what the Guardian editors meant was that "they had to meet" again, in addition to their 1999 meeting.  I started reading the English article and instantly recognized it as a translation of the 1999 interview, though no mention of a translator is made. 

This didn't make any sense to me.  This famous interview took place in 1999, so how can the article pretend to situate it in 2002?  The Spanish original makes several references to topical events--a benefit in Colombia for the victims of the 1999 Armenia earthquake, preparation for Shakira's first English-language album (the one that became Laundry Service), her current single-status, and others--so there's no way, I'm thinking, that any of this could pass as 2002.  But the editors of the Guardian had anticipated this chronological shift and their solution was, in my view, highly problematic, if not unethical. 

One familiar translation strategy that they attempted was substitution, to replace events in 1999 with parallel or similar events in 2002.  The an earthquake benefit for the 1999 Armenia earthquake victims finds a vague replacement in a 2002 benefit for "victims of an earthquake."  Shakira's age is updated (23 to 26), the only truly successful substitution.  But when things don't coincide seamlessly--for instance, Shakira was no longer single in 2002--the editors opted for omission (the original mentions an old boyfriend by name, which is left out in the translation).  February 2002 proved to be as busy and hectic for Shakira as 1999 but the dates in the 2002 translation don't quite match up with the 1999 calendar.  For instance, the Guardian reports that "on Tuesday 16, [Shakira] appeared on a live TV show in Costa Rica."  Yes, February 16, 1999 fell on a Tuesday but in 2002 it happens to be a Saturday.  Rather than reflect a "fidelity to the original," keeping the original dates in an already mangled translation just smacks of laziness.  Unless, of course, we're to believe that Shakira's yearly schedule doesn't change very much. 

This attempt to pass off a translation as a topical original undermines what made García Márquez's original profile of Shakira so interesting and, dare I say, important.  In 1999, Shakira was big in Colombia but was just starting to push her way into the U.S. and international music market.  It was a snapshot of a star about to become a supernova. She was poring through the English-language rhyming dictionaries that would help her write the songs of Laundry Service.  She had yet to date Antonio de la Rúa, to whom she is now engaged.  She was not blonde. To me, the Guardian reworking of this article is analogous to carving a Speedo onto Michelangelo's David because to do so would be more in keeping with today's fashion.   

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on April 10, 2007 3:52 PM

New Trailer for Oceans 13. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 10, 2007 3:44 PM

When I saw the title for this article -- 'Most E-Mailed' List Tearing New York Times' Newsroom Apart -- I said, hey this is going to be pretty interesting. But then I click through and it's The Onion. Which is funny and all, but I'd rather read a real article on the effect the most popular lists have on the decisions made by the editorial staff at the Times, the New Yorker, and other such publications. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 10, 2007 3:42 PM

Goodness, Community Board 8 is damned if it does, damned if it doesn't when it comes to plans for a new dog run. Even though a resolution was passed for a waterfront dog run to be created at the East 63rd Street heliport, the Sun reports that small dog owners are clashing with large dog owners over the proposed run. Why? Many small dog owners want a separate area for teacup-sized pooches, while large dog owners wanted one continuous space for their canines. The Parks Department says the dog runs are community board requests ("Sometimes there's a need for a small dog run, and sometimes the need isn't there."). What about the a run for the smelly dogs and one for the smellier dogs? Dog owners, do you think there should be a separate area for small dogs? And on the Dog Whisperer, the big and little dogs seem to get along, but, then again, that's probably because of Cesar Millan. Photograph of the Tompkins Square Dog Run where medium- and small-sized dogs seem to coexist fine by evilsugar25 on Flickr

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 10, 2007 3:36 PM

"Democrats subpoenaed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for more documents Tuesday, escalating their fight with the Bush administration over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys."

Originally posted by djacobs from David Jacobs' Huffs, on April 10, 2007 3:36 PM

PopTech is releasing video of some of the talks from their conference. Among the first batch, I'd recommend Thomas Barnett, Juan Enriquez, Erin McKean, and Theo Jansen. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 10, 2007 2:45 PM

This is cute: a big, plasticky Mario maze toy:

Anyone who's played Super Monkey Ball will take to Crystal Maze like a fish to water. By using the red joystick/lever located at the bottom of the game, players tilt the play board to move three metal marbles (one at a time) from the START area at the bottom of the board to the GOAL located at the upper left corner of the board. It's pretty challenging due to the convoluted and tight-spaced maze one has to maneuver through.

Hardly hours of family fun there, but definitely something I'd probably spend money on anyway. What a sucker!

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, on April 10, 2007 1:20 PM

* via The Harmony Blog!

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on April 10, 2007 12:31 PM

This article from the NYT magazine is a few weeks old but really interesting and asks the huge question: How does and should neuroscience affect criminal law?

From a ton of worthy excerpts I've whittled it down to these:

One important question raised by the Roper case was the question of where to draw the line in considering neuroscience evidence as a legal mitigation or excuse. Should courts be in the business of deciding when to mitigate someone’s criminal responsibility because his brain functions improperly, whether because of age, in-born defects or trauma? As we learn more about criminals’ brains, will we have to redefine our most basic ideas of justice?

Two of the most ardent supporters of the claim that neuroscience requires the redefinition of guilt and punishment are Joshua D. Greene, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard, and Jonathan D. Cohen, a professor of psychology who directs the neuroscience program at Princeton. Greene got Cohen interested in the legal implications of neuroscience, and together they conducted a series of experiments exploring how people’s brains react to moral dilemmas involving life and death. In particular, they wanted to test people’s responses in the f.M.R.I. scanner to variations of the famous trolley problem, which philosophers have been arguing about for decades.

The trolley problem goes something like this: Imagine a train heading toward five people who are going to die if you don’t do anything. If you hit a switch, the train veers onto a side track and kills another person. Most people confronted with this scenario say it’s O.K. to hit the switch. By contrast, imagine that you’re standing on a footbridge that spans the train tracks, and the only way you can save the five people is to push an obese man standing next to you off the footbridge so that his body stops the train. Under these circumstances, most people say it’s not O.K. to kill one person to save five.

“I wondered why people have such clear intuitions,” Greene told me, “and the core idea was to confront people with these two cases in the scanner and see if we got more of an emotional response in one case and reasoned response in the other.” As it turns out, that’s precisely what happened: Greene and Cohen found that the brain region associated with deliberate problem solving and self-control, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, was especially active when subjects confronted the first trolley hypothetical, in which most of them made a utilitarian judgment about how to save the greatest number of lives. By contrast, emotional centers in the brain were more active when subjects confronted the second trolley hypothetical, in which they tended to recoil at the idea of personally harming an individual, even under such wrenching circumstances. “This suggests that moral judgment is not a single thing; it’s intuitive emotional responses and then cognitive responses that are duking it out,” Greene said.

“To a neuroscientist, you are your brain; nothing causes your behavior other than the operations of your brain,” Greene says. “If that’s right, it radically changes the way we think about the law. The official line in the law is all that matters is whether you’re rational, but you can have someone who is totally rational but whose strings are being pulled by something beyond his control.” In other words, even someone who has the illusion of making a free and rational choice between soup and salad may be deluding himself, since the choice of salad over soup is ultimately predestined by forces hard-wired in his brain. Greene insists that this insight means that the criminal-justice system should abandon the idea of retribution — the idea that bad people should be punished because they have freely chosen to act immorally — which has been the focus of American criminal law since the 1970s, when rehabilitation went out of fashion. Instead, Greene says, the law should focus on deterring future harms. In some cases, he supposes, this might mean lighter punishments. “If it’s really true that we don’t get any prevention bang from our punishment buck when we punish that person, then it’s not worth punishing that person,” he says. (On the other hand, Carter Snead, the Notre Dame scholar, maintains that capital defendants who are not considered fully blameworthy under current rules could be executed more readily under a system that focused on preventing future harms.)

Morse insists that “brains do not commit crimes; people commit crimes” — a conclusion he suggests has been ignored by advocates who, “infected and inflamed by stunning advances in our understanding of the brain . . . all too often make moral and legal claims that the new neuroscience . . . cannot sustain.” He calls this “brain overclaim syndrome” and cites as an example the neuroscience briefs filed in the Supreme Court case Roper v. Simmons to question the juvenile death penalty. “What did the neuroscience add?” he asks. If adolescent brains caused all adolescent behavior, “we would expect the rates of homicide to be the same for 16- and 17-year-olds everywhere in the world — their brains are alike — but in fact, the homicide rates of Danish and Finnish youths are very different than American youths.” Morse agrees that our brains bring about our behavior — “I’m a thoroughgoing materialist, who believes that all mental and behavioral activity is the causal product of physical events in the brain” — but he disagrees that the law should excuse certain kinds of criminal conduct as a result. “It’s a total non sequitur,” he says. “So what if there’s biological causation? Causation can’t be an excuse for someone who believes that responsibility is possible. Since all behavior is caused, this would mean all behavior has to be excused.” Morse cites the case of Charles Whitman, a man who, in 1966, killed his wife and his mother, then climbed up a tower at the University of Texas and shot and killed 13 more people before being shot by police officers. Whitman was discovered after an autopsy to have a tumor that was putting pressure on his amygdala. “Even if his amygdala made him more angry and volatile, since when are anger and volatility excusing conditions?” Morse asks. “Some people are angry because they had bad mommies and daddies and others because their amygdalas are mucked up. The question is: When should anger be an excusing condition?”

The experiments, conducted by Elizabeth Phelps, who teaches psychology at New York University, combine brain scans with a behavioral test known as the Implicit Association Test, or I.A.T., as well as physiological tests of the startle reflex. The I.A.T. flashes pictures of black and white faces at you and asks you to associate various adjectives with the faces. Repeated tests have shown that white subjects take longer to respond when they’re asked to associate black faces with positive adjectives and white faces with negative adjectives than vice versa, and this is said to be an implicit measure of unconscious racism. Phelps and her colleagues added neurological evidence to this insight by scanning the brains and testing the startle reflexes of white undergraduates at Yale before they took the I.A.T. She found that the subjects who showed the most unconscious bias on the I.A.T. also had the highest activation in their amygdalas — a center of threat perception — when unfamiliar black faces were flashed at them in the scanner. By contrast, when subjects were shown pictures of familiar black and white figures — like Denzel Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. and Conan O’Brien — there was no jump in amygdala activity.

“Will we use brain imaging to track kids in school because we’ve discovered that certain brain function or morphology suggests aptitude?” he asks. “I work for NASA, and imagine how helpful it might be for NASA if it could scan your brain to discover whether you have a good enough spatial sense to be a pilot.” Wolpe says that brain imaging might eventually be used to decide if someone is a worthy foster or adoptive parent — a history of major depression and cocaine abuse can leave telltale signs on the brain, for example, and future studies might find parts of the brain that correspond to nurturing and caring.

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on April 10, 2007 12:29 PM

My brother sent me the following quote ("I put the part I thought could apply to literature/translation in bold"):

Mozart belongs, like Bach, to the rare species of the conservative revolutionaries, or the revolutionary conservatives. We have seen that in the days when oblique parallels between music history and the history of the pictoral arts were favored, Mozart was compared with Raphael. But this is one of the most oblique of all parallels. For what Michelangelo said of Raphael is true: one sees in this young man what study can accomplish. Raphael's is an ideal, calligraphic, soaring perfection in which the soul is not involved. Mozart, too, was a great learner but his soul was never uninvolved. He took over a complete language, and used it in new combinations, giving it's words new meanings, to say things that were at once old and new, unknown and thrice known. Thus a great poet uses but the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, and without devising a single new word gives voice to thoughts undreamed-of.--Alfred Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work, 1945, Oxford University Press

This is a great passage! In writing, common words become uncommon in their relation to other words. But also, when it comes to writing, so much is in the arrangement of words on a page (or screen), the space between the letters, the font and kerning, the width of the margins. These relations shift meaning, redistribute weight.

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on April 10, 2007 12:28 PM

At 8 in the morning this coming Saturday, as many as 5000 runners—Brooklynites and otherwise—will gather on the boardwalk in Coney Island, braving the early morning chill off the water to run 13.1 miles through the borough of Kings. This is the Brooklyn Half Marathon, the third this year in the New York Road Runners Club's Grand Prix series of half marathons throughout the five boroughs.

The race begins with a lap to the end of the boardwalk and back. From there, runners will head down Ocean Parkway, passing through Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurt, Midwood and Borough Park on the way to Prospect Park. In the park they run the last 4 miles to the finish line.

As of last week, 4857 people had signed up for the race. If you think you can handle it, the Road Runners club is accepting registration until Wednesday at 5pm. If you know you can't, come out and cheer on the runners. They need all the support they can get.

NYRR Half-Marathon Grand Prix: Brooklyn [New York Road Runners]

-clay williams

Originally posted by Clay from Brooklyn Record, on April 10, 2007 12:02 PM

I'm always surprised when a celebrity makes a racist slur of some kind and then apologizes in the face of all the outrage. Seriously. I don't know a single person who would use the language Don Imus did, or go on an anti-Semitic bender when they are drunk. It's not that I'm carefully selecting my acquaintances. I simply don't know people who talk that way.

And it's not that I live on the liberal West Coast, either. I grew up in a conservative home in the Midwest, and respect was one of our family values, as it was for the families who lived around us. No one I knew growing up, children or adults, talked that way. I would have been in huge trouble if I'd ever used a racial epithet.

So the controversy surrounding Imus puzzles me. He's too old to have his mouth washed out with soap. Fire him.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rebecca's Pocket, on April 10, 2007 11:44 AM

Apple is not the “Microsoft of digital music”, and everyone ought to stop trying to view their actions as though they were. Alas, that’s too much to hope for, and so in the meantime, now that Apple has proven its commitment to DRM-free music downloads, keep your eye out for anti-AAC propaganda from those pushing an anti-iTunes or anti-Apple agenda.

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on April 10, 2007 11:36 AM

Radio shock jock Don Imus was suspended for two weeks by CBS, which owns WFAN and Westwood One (the radio outlets his show is broadcast and syndicated on) and MSNBC, which broadcasts a televised simulcast of the radio show, over remarks he made towards the Rutgers women's basketball team. MSNBC announced that Imus would be suspended first, then CBS announced a similar suspension. The suspension will begin on Monday, as Imus has a series of fund-raisers for sudden infant death syndrome at the end of the week. This morning, he said his suspension was "appropriate" and he told Matt Lauer on the Today Show, "'[the phrase "nappy-headed hos] phrase originated in the black community. ... I may be a white man, but I know that these young women and young black women all through that society are demeaned and degraded by their own black men and that they are called that name.'' And while Imus has made it clear he'd like to speak to the Rutgers women's basketball players himself, it's unclear whether they'll meet. The team will be giving a press conference this morning at 11AM. Yesterday, Imus appeared on the Reverend Al Sharpton's radio show to discuss the matter, admitting that he did go too far. Sharpton told reporters, "If he came to convince me, he certainly didn't convince me. I think he might have made it worse." How did he make it worse? From AP/AMNY:

The radio host also lost his patience after U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Michigan), the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, called in and criticized him for his on-air comments after the Rutgers team lost the NCAA women's championship game a week ago. "I can't get anywhere with you people," Imus complained, as everyone in the studio froze at what seemed to be another racial slight. "What do you mean by 'you people?' " Sharpton shot back. "You and the woman I'm talking to," Imus explained. Afterward, Sharpton said these two responses were examples of how the appearance may not have helped Imus' image. "I couldn't believe when he went to 'you people,' " Sharpton said.

You can hear the audio of the show on WNBC.com - you'll note how Imus calls Sharpton "sir." The Post's Phil Mushnick says that Imus's behavior is nothing new - when WNBC sportscaster Len Berman quit WFAN, Imus called him "Lenny the Jew." Gwen Ifill, who Imus allegedly called a "cleaning lady," has an editorial in the NY Times: "This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field." Ethicist Randy Cohen tells WCBS 2/AP that Imus should be fired And longtime Imus hater Howard Stern told his listeners yesterday that back in the WNBC days (dubba-yuh- enn- bee-cee!) he heard Imus call a black woman the n-word. According to MarksFriggin.com, the Howard Stern rundown blog, Stern said Imus's remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team "actually nothing compared to what he said behind the scenes at WNBC when they were there." Stern said Imus should have been fired back in the day. What do you think of the suspension? Is it an appropriate sentence, or should he have been fired? NOW is asking join its campaign to get Imus fired and here's the National Association of Black Journalist's list of Imus's racist remarks. Update: Rutgers is having a press conference on the Imus issue. Some notes so far: Rutgers AD Bob Mulcahy: The comments by Imus and his producer were despicable and the real story here is the 2006-07 Women's Basketball team. The team is the antithesis of Imus' comments and the comments were reprehensible and disgusting. Rutgers President Richard McCormick: Imus' words were hurtful to all of the Rutgers community as they were celebrating their basketball team and their season and they did nothing to invite the comments by Imus. As a community, they are supporting players as a community and the university has "their backs." Coach C. Vivian Stringer: The players involved in this are valedictorians, future doctors, even girl scouts and Rutgers is fortunate to have them. This isn't a story about what was said, but about the team's perseverance, hard work, and determination. The remarks were deplorable, despicable and unconscionable. These women are not political figures or professionals, but at Rutgers to get an education and to use their gifts. Heather Zurich, sophomore forward from Montvale: Team started at 2-4, with Coach Stringer calling them her worst defensive team ever. All the teams accomplishments were lost when Imus made his comments. What hurts the most is that he doesn't know any of them personally. They were insulted and angry and they said they did nothing to deserve the "deplorable comments". Instead of celebrating Easter, they were talking about this with their families. Essence Carson, junior, forward/guard, captain from Patterson The team is angry, disgusted, and deeply saddened at the racial characterization by the Imus remarks. She asks that people don't recognize them in this light, but in the light of their season accomplishments. The team has agreed to a private meeting with Imus in an undisclosed location to convey their deep hurt. This issue is about women across the nation and the world. They aren't attacking Imus, but something that isn't right. Photographs of Don Imus and Reverand Al Sharpton yesterday by Richard Drew/AP

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 10, 2007 11:27 AM

The New Yorker reports on the history and philosophy of the urban sport of parkour. David Belle, the inventor of parkour and the main subject of the article, demonstrates his sport in this 11-minute video. Lots more videos of parkour are available. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 10, 2007 11:18 AM

Carolina barbecue fanatic, Jim Early, has founded the North Carolina Barbecue Society (NCBS). As Serious Eats's resident Carolina barbecue advocate and lover, I'm thrilled by this news! The mission of NCBS is to "preserve North Carolina’s barbecue history and culture and to secure North Carolina’s rightful place as the Barbecue Capital of the World. Our goal is to promote North Carolina as “the Cradle of ’Cue” and embrace all that is good about barbecue worldwide. As we strive to achieve these lofty goals we will be guided by the polar star that barbecue is all about good food, good friends and good times." To that end, the NCBS board has selected 25 of the best barbecue places that are still cooking with wood or charcoal to be designated as NCBS Historic Barbecue Pits which make up the NCBS Historic Barbecue Trail across North Carolina. Road trip, anyone? Related: Dennis Rogers: Real 'cue deserves support Jim Early's book, The Best Tar Heel Barbecue.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Posts and Comments by Alaina Browne, on April 10, 2007 10:30 AM

In yesterday's Denver Post, John Wenzel reported that the Denver Art Museum is laying off staff. You remember the DAM:...

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Modern Art Notes, on April 10, 2007 9:08 AM

Version 7.1 of the draft 802.11n Airport Extreme base station addresses two security issues and increases USB disk performance a little.

Read More...

Originally posted by iljitsch@gmail.com (Iljitsch van Beijnum) from Infinite Loop, on April 10, 2007 9:03 AM

sol lewitt
Sol Lewitt has died. Here's a permalink to the times article.

Originally posted by G.H. Hovagimyan from post.thing.net - A lean, mean, media machine., on April 10, 2007 8:46 AM

NYT: Damon Darlin has pulled together a nice summary of a few next-generation airline fare-comparison sites, including one site that is built on the idea that human beings—in this case, a staff of 5—are better at spotting the best deals than computers can be.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rebecca's Pocket, on April 10, 2007 8:30 AM

One day I would like to travel to Italy. And when I do, I would absolutely love to stay in a convent.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rebecca's Pocket, on April 10, 2007 8:30 AM

Where your income tax money really goes. In fiscal 2008.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on April 10, 2007 8:20 AM

After reading Tim's Blogger Code of Conduct I have a few questions:

1. I don't see a link anywhere for buying my purple shroud. Is that coming soon or maybe that's a browser issue? I use Safari.
2. Are there Lite Brites in Heaven?
3. Will oatmeal cookies be served with the special Kool-Aid or should I bring my own?

 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Airbag Industries, on April 10, 2007 8:12 AM

Boris got a fresh overhaul of GVO out the door this morning, and it looks fantastic. The entire site has been updated, with swooshy drop-down tab areas for the previously-weird tag clouds, and just a general sprucing and buffing throughout. The site aggregates an epic volume of content from blogs around the world, with special focus on bloggers from outside Western Europe, North America, and Australia.

I helped in a small way, by implementing the contextual maps on the site's country and region pages. Boris saw the need for these things to provide some framing for local issues by showing their relationship to news from neighboring places. This was the project I worked on when I visited Tokyo last month. This project is one of a short list of early applications for Modest Maps, an ActionScript library I've been working on with Darren, Shawn, and Tom since January. We used satellite imagery courtesy of NASA's Blue Marble and country borders from the Mapping Hacks data collection.

The maps currently fit in the sidebar, but a week's worth of tonkatsu-fueled brainstorming had us thinking about a few other possibilities:

• Five minutes of playing with the Nintendo Wii's geographical news globe made it obvious that a full-screen version made sense.
• A little bit of geocoding applied to GVO's extensive backcatalogue could lead to stories linked to specific cities instead of just countries.
• It should be possible to drag, pan, and zoom these, but not in their current tiny sidebar home.

The maps have two states, roll over them on the GVO site to see both:

Originally posted by (author unknown) from tecznotes, on April 10, 2007 2:48 AM

Quick Post

I would like to see it in person, but the layouts and photos look nice [via youngna]

http://jeansnow.net/2007/04/08/mujis-new-pre-fab-home/

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on April 10, 2007 12:47 AM

Did you know that at any given moment 2% of the world's GDP are being driven around in UPS trucks?

Well, now you do.

I find this fact phenomenal on one basic principle - trust. UPS is a trusted brand. It's a brand that works so tirelessly, so seamlessly that we trust to carry out business on our behalf day in day out.

Truth is, if I asked you to tell me your favorite trusted brand, you'd never think of UPS. Probably because they do such a great job that there's never any whirlbang (my own word) press about them. But, now you might. Mightn't you?

Originally posted by clairehyland from l-e-mental, on April 9, 2007 9:40 PM

At half past six sharp on Wednesday, The First Annual Spring Cupcake Cookoff will take place at The Brooklyn Kitchen. This event will break the paper-wrapped baked goods up into three competition categories: the basic floor model (they’re calling it “Pure and Simple”), souped-up (“Additions”), and the Hot Rod (“Decorator’s Delight: Go crazy!” --emphasis ours). A small panel of exceptionally qualified buttercream and lavender sugar judges, including Melanie Schrimpe of Cheeks Bakery, and Jimmy Fallon agoniste Joe Garden, will be on hand to sort the entries. Ribbons will be awarded in each cupcake class, and a trophy of some kind will go home with the baker who takes Best In Show. All are welcome at the event. Every vote counts, at least for the Best In Show category, and the very future of cupcakes is in your hands. Furthermore, entries for the First Annual Cupcake Cookoff are still being accepted; be sure to register with Brooklyn Kitchen co-owner Taylor Erkkinen before Wednesday. Requirements for entrants: bring at least six of your meanest cupcakes for the judging panel’s discretion; bring as many more as you can for the in-store crowd. If you’ve ever harbored secret dreams of changing the course of cupcake history, this is your opportunity to get in on the ground level. Pistachio with lime-cream cheese frosting? Go for it. Vanilla with Jasmine tea frosting? Sounds pretty. Caramel with popcorn and salted buttercream? Well, maybe. It all goes down Wednesday night on Lorimer Street. Call or visit the Brooklyn Kitchen website for additional details. The Brooklyn Kitchen 616 Lorimer Street Brooklyn (718) 389-2982

Originally posted by goth_hugh from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 9, 2007 8:01 PM

With March Madness behind us and baseball upon us (Mets' home opener in progress!), a smoothing transition between basketball and baseball is necessary: like beer bracketology. The Washington Post conducted a tournament of head-to-head, single elimination, blind taste tastings over four weeks, in order to distinguish one beer above all other contestants as an MVB. We are pleased to report via the New York Sun that the Brooklyn Brewery's Brooklyn Lager was crowned the champion by a panel of five judges. The runner-up was another New York beer: Saranac Pale Ale.

Modeled on the NCAA basketball tournament, five panelists judged the beers in head-to-head, single-elimination matchups, choosing their favorites in blind taste tests. Brooklyn Lager, crafted by the Brooklyn Brewery in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, prevailed in the final round last week against another New York beer, Saranac Pale Ale by Matt Brewery in Utica.

Tidings of an all-New York electoral championship game?

Originally posted by nyc_daveh from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 9, 2007 8:00 PM

Matt Fox, whose work we've seen before, has started a new blog about Google Earth content -- Google Earth Library -- which already has a ferocious amount of material posted. Via Google Earth Blog....

Originally posted by Jonathan Crowe from The Map Room, on April 9, 2007 7:28 PM

Even in its religious and occasionally controversial later years, I still had a soft spot for B.C., so I was sad to read that creator Johnny Hart passed away this Saturday at the age of 76. Hart died at his drawing table, which is how I imagine all cartoonists would like to leave this world. (With Hart’s beliefs, however, I imagine he wasn’t in favour of being turned into a pencil)

In other sad news, The Daily Cartoonist points out that B.C. will not be retired from the comics page, instead becoming yet another strip by a deceased creator taking up space that denies newer work from reaching an audience.

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on April 9, 2007 5:25 PM

Because of the bulge in the earth at the equator, a 20,702 ft. high mountain in Ecuador is actually closer to outer space than Mt. Everest...1.5 miles closer. (via buzzfeed) (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on April 9, 2007 5:12 PM

ALL ROADS LEAD TO DICK CHENEY. Many people know that Cheney was a congressman from Wyoming. Some even know that he was one of the founders of the Project for a New American Century. Well-read people know that the Project for a New American Century, in turn, called for a new American empire well before 9/11, and lamented that, without a "catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor", transformation of America into an empire would be very slow. Note: However there are some things you may not know about Dick Cheney...

Originally posted by Snow Wolf from David Jacobs' Huffs, on April 9, 2007 3:22 PM

Chris Butcher offers up an in-depth “public service announcement” to introduce his Western friends to the all great works of Japanese manga artist, Taiyo Matsumoto.

Matsumoto’s work has been translated into anime and now adapted into a feature film. Butcher likens Matsumoto’s success to that of Frank Miller (300, Sin City).

Originally posted by Matt from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on April 9, 2007 2:11 PM

Five years ago, I got my first death threat for something I wrote on my blog. The same week, some of those readers called my boss and tried to get me fired. A number of others publicly asserted that I supported terrorism. All because they felt that's the appropriate way to respond to one of my blog posts that they didn't like.

It gets worse -- the Wall Street Journal's website chimed in later that week, maligning me by mocking words on my site, despite the fact that they were actually those of a commenter, not my own. Because the WSJ doesn't call its OpinionJournal site a "blog", some thought that carried the full weight and credibility of their print paper, and didn't realize that even a theoretically responsible bastion of journalism could participate in a blogosphere pile-on.

Three years ago, I ended up in the middle of another online fracas; No death threats this time, but perhaps that was because this had to do with my job and not my personal blog or politics. Still, the incident featured numerous threats of violence, against both me and my coworkers, usually in the form of "they ought to be beaten" coupled with an unabashed reveling in the fact that those making the threats were participating in an angry mob.

Conduct Unbecoming

With that context, it's not surprising to me in the least that the New York Times is finally covering the story of how we're dealing with the profoundly unkind place the blogosphere can sometimes be. Now, I should be clear: Though I may have been less certain in the past, I know in retrospect I was never in any real danger from any of these incidents. But it's hard to articulate the visceral, emotional impact of hearing a total stranger, especially an anonymous total stranger, wish you ill. This is true even if your rational mind knows it's likely just an empty threat.

The first incident I was describing was the result of criticisms I made on my site about the community on a political blog. Perhaps appropriately, one of the main points of contention on that site was whether mainstream muslims do enough to disavow and denounce the actions of the radicalized fringe of extremists. Interestingly, as far as I've seen in the half-decade since, there's never been a similar debate about whether to denounce the radical fringe of web communities.

But it's not limited to any one site, and the blame can't be placed on any one community online. When the company I worked for stirred up passions three years ago by changing the license on a software product, many of the responses that were angry took on a strikingly personal tone. Interestingly, the personal nature of the attacks was more vehement because we were a small company whose principals were known and could be addressed personally; People in corresponding positions in faceless multi-billion-dollar corporations, whose actions are theoretically much more far-reaching and potentially nefarious, are shielded from the vitriol by the sheer anonymity of their enterprise. Instead of being rewarded for being approachable, we are punished, whether in a personal or professional context.

There are countless recent examples to pick through, too:

• Sweetney, one of the most popular blogs in the parenting community, was the victim of a site dedicated to disparaging mommybloggers. The incident, which involved some horrible images that were created by modifying photos of innocent children, galvanized the entire parenting blog community for days. Though these parenting sites often have more readers than popular technology/media bloggers, they are less frequently covered in mainstream press. As a result, the dramatic debates that ensued didn't end up with prominent stories in traditional media, and many who have participated in the debates over the past few weeks are unaware of the incident.

• Even American Idol contestants have faced this issue: Chris Sligh, a former contestant in the current season, got death threats on his blog after posts that some perceived as slights against the show. "He attributes his toning down the jokes in recent weeks to hate-postings on his blog, telling reporters, 'I think it kind of scared me, quite honestly. I had people who were telling me that they hoped I’d die...'"

• And of course Kathy Sierra's ordeal, which has had such an impact on her life and work that she's reached a crossroads with what to do in her career going forward.

Mend it, don't end it

Now, after those examples, it's important to point out that blogging has changed millions of lives for the better. At the same time, we've been ignoring the cost it exacts on many of its most dedicated practitioners and proponents.

Because, regardless of the circumstance of any of my own anecdotes, what's instructive here is the pattern: Threats, often violent threats, are a common part of public discourse in the blogosphere. Now, they're common in other parts of the web, and on public streets and at shopping malls and schools, as well. But this is the medium that I give a damn about, and it's the medium I want to help as much as I can.

Every single person I know who has a significant public web presence has been threatened at some point, and nearly every woman in that group has faced an online threat of sexual violence.

The solution requires all of us who care about this medium to first acknowledge the truth of this situation, recognize that this is our community's responsibility, make explicit that this behavior is unacceptable, and enforce consequences for transgressions. In short, we need to encourage accountability.

And here's the challenge -- every significant effort to encourage accountability raises the hackles of the libertarian core of the technology community. Most of these people are apologists for those who resort to violent threats in lieu of reasoned debate. You will find this group falsely describing accountability as censorship, regulation or "political correctness". They will deliberately conflate the issue of accountable speech online with some infringement on the right to free speech, or will misrepresent the effort as a requirement to "only say nice things". And they will disparage those who suggest such measures as feminine or weak, using euphemisms and slurs that reveal their inherent misogyny.

Where we go from here

I'm an imperfect ambassador for this message, and I'll be the first to admit it. I've worked on the effort to create technological solutions, supported those who've spoken up about the issue, and spoken about this concern myself to nearly the point of exhaustion. But I've been ill-tempered and flown off the handle a number of times myself -- I'm sure that, having written this, someone will rush off to document exactly how.

Despite the fact that it's a difficult topic to discuss, and despite the fact that it certainly isn't the sort of conversation that attracts lots of traffic and readership, I think it's important for all of us to try to show leadership in solving the probelm. I will not settle for having the reputation of a medium I care about be compromised by the few antisocial members of our community. I will also try not to allow myself or my peers to stay complacent about the issue, because there is far too much good created by bloggers and blogging communities.

Imagine if every person who got an a telephone line had to dread the day when some anonymous stranger would call them up and threaten them over a conversation they'd had. We certainly wouldn't be carrying mobile phones around with us everywhere we go, and there wouldn't be love songs about people waiting expectantly by the phone. Blogs can, and have provided as many meaningful moments in my life as phone calls ever have; In order to make sure that other people have that potential, too, we need to be active in stopping those who threaten the medium as a whole.

Related links:

• Learning From Experience, the post where I first tried to articulate some of these concerns.
• Winning at what cost? Which revisted those ideas last year.
• Call for a blogger's code of conduct by Tim O'Reilly
• Some links to Mena Trott's discussions of blogging and accountability
• President George H.W. Bush attributes a coarsening of political discourse to the incivil tone of political bloggers.
• The Old Boy's Club is for Losers, which is about the pervasive misogyny of much of the tech industry, which often fuels the incivil tone of discussion in blogs.
• Finally, bringing things somewhat full-circle, a post about a blogosphere attack cycle at Tim O'Reilly's expense. I can't help but think this helped inform Tim's initiative as well.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on April 9, 2007 12:55 PM

As we mentioned last week, a group of guerilla artists set out to take over an F train on Friday, with the goal of giving it a homier feel. While they only ended up doing the full makeover on one car—a process that involved putting up curtains and paintings, and arranging flowers, pillows, and rugs—most riders were pleased when they stumbled into the installation. One of the main goals of the lead artist, Ellen Moynihan, was to see how the MTA would react; but other than enduring some words of displeasure from a police officer (who ultimately didn't stop the project), Moynihan's team worked without interruption. Now if only they would repeat the project on weekends, potentially alleviating some of our annoyance over the constant service changes on the F...
Railroad Apartment [NY Post]
Photo courtesy NY Post.

Originally posted by Brooklyn Record from Brooklyn Record, on April 9, 2007 12:03 PM

Jeremy Piven won't be going back to Nobu anytime soon. Entourage's Ari Gold was told he better keep away from Nobu Matsuhisa's restaurant empire after his behavior in the Aspen during the recent Comedy Arts Festival there. How does one get banned from Nobu? After a rude comment to the manager on his way out of the restaurant he left a DVD of the first season of Entourage...AS A TIP. Allegedly an employee ran up the stairs and hurled it at him as he was leaving. The Daily News reports that Piven said through his rep: "I'm such a fan of Nobu and all of his restaurants. I had a great dinner at the Nobu in Aspen. As always, the meal was excellent and the service was great." We're gonna have to side with Nobu here, we've seen what he can do with a knife! Ultragrrrl relays another story (through a friend) of Piven's behavior:

"some friends of mine are in somewhat popular band and when they were in LA recording their cd, they went to a justin timberlake show and snuck into the VIP area. their guitar player introduced himself to jeremy piven and they made some small talk, then he started talking about the band. i guess piven stood there for about 30 seconds boredly nodding his head, then all of the sudden he literally grabbed the kids ear, pulled him towards him and whispered "i dont give a FUCK about your band, now get the fuck away from me" and pushed his head backwards and walked away. i really would have been disappointed if jeremy piven HADN'T done that."

Looks like Piven could use another trip to India, the above photo is from his Journey of a Lifetime show.

Originally posted by arts_jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on April 9, 2007 11:15 AM

Those who are interested in surveying the current status of new media art, as it's been informed by a few decades of development, ought to visit or read the online essays for the Neuberger Museum of Art's exhibition series, 'New Media: Who, What, Where, When and Why.' Based at the State University of New York, in Purchase, the museum has made a major commitment to the study of new media with this series that has already spanned three years. 'New Media: Who' opened in 2004 and included 'heavy-hitters' ranging from Nam June Paik to net art pioneers Mendi and Keith Obadike. 'New Media: What' took on the precarious challenge of defining what constitutes new media, while ultimately displaying the diverse nature of media-based practices in effect today--including digital animation, machine vision, sound art, and web-based work. 'New Media: Where' focused on the theme of displacement and what the organizers saw as 'our sensory and social projection into the abstract digital world.' The current episode of the series, 'New Media: When' is on view through June 10 and includes work by Char Davies, LoVid (pictured here), Marshall Reese and Nora Ligorano, and Brooke Singer. The focus, in this case, is on time: our perceptions and representations of the temporal, as well as the ways in which artworks can change in form, as they evolve. - Elizabeth Johnston

http://neuberger.org/exhibitions.php?view=126

Originally from Rhizome News, on April 9, 2007 3:00 AM

My news alerts picked up on Wired's Compiler blog and Cybernet News pointed to Webware's Newbie's Guide to Flickr which provides a great overview and might be useful for handing off to friends and family who are just getting started.

And — totally unrelated — since it's nice to have photos in the blog posts, a few samples from an thread on usual extreme sports photos on our internal mailing list:

Offroad Unicycling: By Mountain Hardwear

Extreme ironing (in a kite buggy) By Rivertay

It takes all kinds!

Originally posted by Stewart Butterfield from FlickrBlog, on April 8, 2007 11:54 PM

Homelessness has nothing to do with a lack of shelter. Graphic desgn student Mark Daye posted official looking signs in downtown Toronto noting the homelessness nearby. More in the Toronto Star and its reaction, captured on Torontoist.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on April 8, 2007 5:23 PM

On Friday, I caught a screening Helvetica, the film at the New School.

The film is a breezy valentine to type, typography, graphic design, and designers. The editing puts a nice leisurely pace to it, and I thought the sound design, which could have been disastrous in other hands, was suitably sensitive. It’s not a bad first film.

It consists mostly of two types of shots: interviews with bold-face name designers and scenes of type on the street — interspersed with occasional animated renderings of famous posters. The designers talk about the type, its use and origin, and their relationship to it, love or hate. It certainly helps to know who the players are, though most of the personalities sparkle through regardless.

On top of the brief historical survey, the broader question raised by the film seems to be, “How does this typeface come to dominate our visual environment? How did it come to be seen as so ‘neutral’?”

The answer provided by the parade of talking heads is of mostly a matter of taste, period fashion, and eventually a response to the momentum of a critical mass of usage.

But a look at counter-examples might have been illustrative: why does Gil Sans dominate in the UK? Why does a more condensed gothic sans seem so popular in France? I think a clue is in the usage by the state and the power of its projection. This is alluded to by many shots of the Helvetica-like sans serif on New York City subway signage, and by Paula Scher’s association between the powers that use Helvetica and the powers behind the Viet Nam war.

But mentioned only in passing is, I think, the most important point: bundling. Before desktop publishing, the font was widely available for linotype, as presstype, and for other printing methods. But now the font (and its twisted cousin Arial) comes pre-installed on every new computer sold. The film never really investigates why or how this came to be, or the consequences of it. It’s just assumed that Helvetica was a sufficiently “classic” and popular face. I think this is another case of designers ignoring systemic and structural forces. Its power is invisible, and well, what’s “normal” is just taken for granted. Further evidence of this systemic short sightedness is the fact that of the 21 designers interviewed on screen, nineteen are white men and two are white women.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on April 8, 2007 5:04 PM

Blog to Broadside. Inspired by a post she read on Yolanda Carrington’s blog The Primary Contradiction rebutting frequently asserted assumptions about gender, race, and power, ravenmn put together a flyer based on Yolanda’s post and using artwork inspired by her blog design. Now that’s a nice trackback.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on April 8, 2007 3:18 PM

After waiting for so long (close to 2 years), Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 code named Debian Etch has been taken out of development cycle and is given the stable tag. A couple of months back, I had tried out Debian Etch while it was still in the testing stage and my impression of it was very good - what, with most up to date versions of popular and most used software packages and a pretty graphical

Originally posted by Ravi from All about Linux, on April 8, 2007 12:16 PM

Is this a phrase the kids are using?

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on April 8, 2007 12:56 AM