randomwalks/dj

Please consider the cover of the April 30, 2007, New Yorker, by Harry Bliss.

The drawing shows a young couple standing before a large abstract expressionist painting, apparently in a gallery; they are pleasantly dressed. Hipsters, we might call them, but they're not hipper-than-thou: the boy wears a necklace and jeans, while the girl has a black tank-top and a red skirt.

The boy has just taken a digital photo of the painting, or part of it, and is showing her the results on its little screen. She stands slightly apart, her head inclined toward the camera, her hands clasped behind her holding the gallery map. While he is planted solidly on the ground, possessing his gadget with both hands, she is ever-so-slightly distanced from it. It is clearly his gadget, his photography habit, and his capture (of the painting that stands before them).

This drawing means several things to me.

On the one hand, it might represent an arrival. The boy and the girl are about my own age; they have my style; they have an interest in art—all fine things which I approve of. And the camera: it's an instance of the digital technology, whose arrival I spent my youth waiting for (never could I understand why anyone used those baroque, circular timepieces, when digital watches told the time directly!). This couple is not of the frock-and-shawl generation that decorated New Yorker covers past: no, these are the youngsters, probably with a bit of hip-hop as well as indie rock on their iPods, and no Gershwin at all. They might be product designers, or marketers. The boy might be a coder. Possibly, this picture is a picture of our arrival on the scene: an announcement that we, the jeans-wearing creative class, we who know innately the superiority of the digital approach, we are the cultural vanguard, we are at center stage for the hopes and dreams of bourgeois America.

I want to read the picture that way, and partly I do—partly I find some hope in it. But it seems more profoundly a criticism, rather than a triumphant arrival.

Looking at the two characters' postures, I see a rift. Rather than a couple in love with each other, with art, and with technological possibility, I see a boy with a toy, and a girl with patience. He is much more engaged with the devise; she curves demurely away. Digital cameras are the most dubious of "tools," as you'll see in a moment. Whereas a film camera is (of course!) a vessel for capturing light, for making pictures, digital cameras are rather more like handheld video games. They are full of settings and switches, a field for endless play—and not only this, they can also be upgraded. The memory card and the lens can be forever interchanged, providing opportunities to experiment, to buy, and to peruse catalogs and hobbyist magazines—all with the veneer of a respectable, even artistic, hobby (unlike riding a motorcycle, which raises eyebrows). It is a boy's dream, a Game Boy, dressed in grownup's clothes.

Women, of course, are wiser than this. Women know there's no satisfaction in relationship with a device. Nothing handheld holds much interest for them. Women are whole-body people. All that play amounts to nothing: not skill, not insight, not love. Just diversion. Yet women (so sad! so tragic!) have this need for a man, this need to be protected and supported. In the pursuit of that domesticity, one needs to put up with the obsessions of the other. The woman looks on, a little bored, a little disappointed that the man is so obsessed, but unable to say anything, unable to spark a passion in him, not a passion for art, nor for experience, nor for herself. She knows that the device is distracting, that its little screen or the prints that will be made later are no substitute for the present moment. But then, she wants to be loved, to be cared for, she wants stability. In that connection, having a little patience with the boy's habitual diversion is a small price to pay. Later that night, they will watch a little TV; she will make him dinner; he will watch a ball game while she gossips with her friends. They will share nothing of their souls, they will not connect. But peace will be kept.

This picture is a picture of my whole life, in 8 1/2 x 11.

Originally posted by ezra from Letters to an Unknown Audience, on May 5, 2007 5:41 PM

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton is increasingly banking on politically active women to keep her on pace with Sen. Barack Obama in the ongoing sprint for campaign cash.

Originally posted by Matthew Mosk from David Jacobs' Huffs, on May 5, 2007 2:20 PM

She had raised her daughter for six years following the divorce, handled the shuttling to soccer practice and cheerleading, made sure schoolwork was done. Hardly a day went by when the two weren't together. Then Lt. Eva Crouch was mobilized with the Kentucky National Guard, and Sara went to stay with Dad.

A year and a half later, her assignment up, Crouch pulled into her driveway with one thing in mind _ bringing home the little girl who shared her smile and blue eyes. She dialed her ex and said she'd be there the next day to pick Sara up, but his response sent her reeling.

Originally posted by The Huffington Post News Team from Most Huffed News, on May 5, 2007 2:20 PM

The city cannot prevent the public from seeing documents describing intelligence that police gathered to help them create policies for arrests at the 2004 Republican National Convention, a judge said Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV made the ruling regarding documents about information the New York Police Department says it used.

Originally posted by The Huffington Post News Team from Most Huffed News, on May 5, 2007 6:00 AM

The city cannot prevent the public from seeing documents describing intelligence that police gathered to help them create policies for arrests at the 2004 Republican National Convention, a judge said Friday. U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV made the ruling regarding documents about information the New York Police Department says it used.

Originally posted by The Huffington Post News Team from David Jacobs' Huffs, on May 5, 2007 2:00 AM

While most of the blogosphere was atwitter over the tantrums being thrown at Digg, real injustice in Los Angeles was being ignored. After watching this video I was ashamed to be part of a community (the designers and evangelists of “Web 2.0?) which sanctimoniously promotes “people power” among the spoiled and entitled while disregarding the tightening grip of authority on the poor and disenfranchised.

Originally posted by yatta from unmediated, on May 4, 2007 10:15 PM

This Library Journal article sheds no additional light on why Susan Kent quit on Wednesday. It was "effective immediately" and she'd been there less than three years.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from iPalimpsest, on May 4, 2007 7:08 PM

A: I learned a new word?

B :Yeah?

A: Cookie-shine?

B: Oh, not this again.

A: Yes! It's real! It means "a tea-party."

B: Wot rubbish! You're more full of rubbish than anyone I know!

A: I would believe that, but...

B: On this particular point... ?

A: Right.

B: "Cookie-shine."

A: "A tea-party."

B: This is from the same dictionary with "skew-whiff" and "pebble-dash"?

A: Yes! It's real!

Originally posted by ezra from Letters to an Unknown Audience, on May 4, 2007 6:18 PM

Peruvian frog juice is a starchy, milkshake-like liquid that stings the throat. To make it "Carmen Gonzalez adds three ladles of hot, white bean broth, two generous spoonfuls of honey, raw aloe vera plant and several tablespoons of maca — an Andean root also believed to boost stamina and sex drive — into a household blender. Then she drops the frog in." I may be an adventurous eater, but a steaming beer mug of frog juice just sounds gross to me.

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on May 4, 2007 5:48 PM

Foie gras may be losing popularity in the US, but in Quebec, the delicacy is more popular than ever. "The province is home to an industry that produces about 8,500 duck livers a week, up from a couple of hundred just a decade ago, when only a few traditional French restaurants served the delicacy. Now, foie gras is a standard menu item at upscale restaurants all over the province." [via del.icio.us/ethicurean]

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on May 4, 2007 4:36 PM

Although the faked eggs looked practically the same as real ones, the consumer smelled chemicals when cooking the eggs. A look at faked egg practices in China, including the addition of dyes to make the yolks look richer and a totally "human-made" egg consisting entirely of chemicals. [via Jason]

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on May 4, 2007 3:28 PM

Clever technique for pinching the colors from famous paintings using the Match Color tool in Photoshop. "The Old Masters of painting spent years of their lives learning about color. Why let all their effort go to waste on the walls of some museum when it could be used to give you a hand with color correction?" (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on May 4, 2007 2:33 PM

Adam's got great photos of what to eat in San Francisco. I haven't been to all the places he visited, but I've eaten at many. Makes my tummy rumble just looking at those photos of Ad Hoc quail, the burrito, and the mere mention of Tartine.

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on May 4, 2007 2:26 PM

Her set at Radio City Music Hall was lush, memorable, and full of sensory overload. Full set of photographs on Flickr.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kathryn yu dot com, on May 4, 2007 12:56 PM

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom set the stage Thursday for a political showdown, telling his critics that if they don't like his proposal to open a special court to handle so-called quality-of-life offenses, they should throw him out of office.

 bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by stamen to communitycourt sanfrancisco tenderloin - more about this bookmark...

Originally posted by stamen from del.icio.us/stamen, on May 4, 2007 12:11 PM

What Makes a Place Great?. “Over the past 30 years Project for Public Spaces has evaluated more than 1,000 public spaces, and informally investigated tens of thousands more. From all this we have discovered that most great places—whether a grand downtown plaza or humble neighborhood park—share four key qualities....”

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on May 4, 2007 9:42 AM

I started roasting coffee beans at home a few months ago and the results have far exceeded my expectations. Freshly roasted coffee tastes great; the basic process is very simple; and with the Fresh Roast Plus, it's easy to get great, very satisfying results right from the very first batch. The FRP is basically a blow-drier in a can controlled by a simple analog timer dial. Hot air blows up into the glass basket that holds the beans -- heating and agitating them -- and then carries the chaff up through a trap before exiting the top. In five or six minutes, it roasts enough coffee to get me going for two mornings.

The heat gun/dog bowl method, which requires a tool that is essentially a hair dryer, in combination with a blend might provide more bang for the buck (if the goal is nothing more than a good cup of coffee), but this cheap roaster is a good tool for learning about roasting. The FRP allows me to hear, smell and see the beans during the roasting process, and the simple timer control permits ending the roast manually at any given moment. Still, this not a "set and forget" process. The roaster's timer is more about preventing fires than ensuring any particular result. It seems to me it was designed assuming that the user would monitor the roasting process and choose to stop at any given moment, but the house wouldn't burn down if the machine were neglected and the max time ran out.

Note: one part cracked about six weeks after I got it. However, the manufacturer sent me a replacement at no charge after a quick phone call. For longevity, I've learned, it's important to let the roaster cool between uses. This, coupled with the roaster's small batch size, might limit the roaster to one or two-drinker households.

I bought mine from Sweet Maria's along with an 8-variety assortment of single-origin beans (plus a pound of SM's French Roast blend), which meant I could plug and play. Fooling around with different roasts of single-origin coffees is great fun. Run a lighter roast and a darker roast of the same bean, taste them apart, then combine them in various proportions. Here the small-batch capacity of the FRP is not a liability, and every roast turns out a bit different even when you're trying to duplicate a previous roast. The FRP runs really quick as roasters go, and 15 seconds (or increasing/decreasing the amount of beans) can make a huge difference in the result.

That said, I'm still very new to this. When I started, I was getting great results with everything but the blend (first try was sour, second tasted burnt). I sent an email to Sweet Maria's, got a reply right away, and sorted it out. I really recommend purchasing beans from them. They sell coffee beans from all the major growing regions; many of their offerings originate from individual farms the proprietor has visited; and If you take advantage of their very deep website and buy a variety of beans, you can learns a lot about coffee such as where and how it's grown, how it's processed, and how it's bought and sold. As time goes by, I expect one can learn to appreciate "vintages" and how the coffee from a particular farm varies from year to year. Thanks to the variety of cultivars, climates and processing methods and the hundreds of flavor-influencing compounds present in each bean, not to mention the various ways of preparing coffee, it's quite a complex beverage. Roasting my own beans with the FRP adds another level to that complexity, as does knowing sometimes quite specifically about where, when and by whom they were grown. And I think there will always be more to learn.

I'd been thinking about roasting my own for some time and finally decided to start roasting when my local roaster raised the price of a pound of French Roast from $11.50 to $13.50. Most of the green beans I've bought were five to six dollars a pound. I think a pound of green beans yields about 14 oz of roasted coffee. Since switching to the Fresh Roast Plus, my electric bill has gone up three or four dollars a month (I'm roasting about six pounds per month, but had been buying three), but I think the roaster will pay for itself in less than a year. Bottom line: low initial investment, great early results, limitless potential for learning and surprises.

-- Alan Murdock

French Roast Plus Coffee Roaster
$73
$83 (includes 4lbs. of 8 coffee samples)
Available from Sweet Maria's

Or $80 from Amazon (roaster only)

Manufactured by Fresh Beans, Inc.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Cool Tools, on May 4, 2007 9:00 AM

This is exciting. Seven, yes 7!, new phones for the emerging markets (you know I love emerging market stuff). And these don't look like cheap phones, but feature-full phones and phones that fit the way folks in those regions need these phones.

Nokia knows this is big - they created a specific site to highlight all the stuff related to this launch (here).

Link to another article: Nokia chooses India for latest mobile phone launch | InfoWorld | News | 2007-05-03 | By John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

Nokia chose Delhi, India, for Thursday's launch of seven mobile phones for emerging markets, including two intended for shared use by families or entire villages.

Originally posted by charlie from Lifeblog, on May 4, 2007 4:03 AM

"A simple algorithm is given which takes an arbitrary binary search tree and rebalances it to form an optimal binary search tree. The tree is strongly optimal in that not only does it have the minimal height possible, but further, for each node, the number of nodes in its left and right subtrees differ by at most one."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on May 4, 2007 3:07 AM

Christian posted yesterday a nice essay about mobile and multi-modal interfaces (link below).

He had given me a preview of it when I saw him last week and I've been begging to have him post it so that I could point out the key tenets of his mobile device philosophy (see below).* 

To me, 'one-handed, in-out of pocket, mobile use' is the key to the success of mobile devices AND apps. It's core to the Mobile Lifestyle I've been harping about for a very long time.

Read the article for some thoughts on how Software Transformers can make mobile devices even more useful. I think it's a great thought.

Link: ChristianLindholm.com: My speech at MEX, The SW Transformer A Vision for a mobile OS:

The N95 is what phones have become.

Phones and computer are inherently different.

1. A phone is used with one hand
2. A phone must fit into the pocket
3. It should be possible to use the phone while moving.

*Of course, I learned it from him, having known him for many years.

Originally posted by charlie from Lifeblog, on May 4, 2007 2:15 AM

Sorry Dirk, Cuban, and the Mavs. You just can't compete with underdog love.

Originally posted by Zentronix from zentronix: dubwise & hiphopcentric, on May 4, 2007 1:24 AM

At TED this year, Utne Reader was giving out free subscriptions to attendees. I received my first copy today.

"If Einstein were single would he join Science Connection?"

I'm going to guess no.

Sheet music to inspire social awareness, piano/vocal.

Pretty oblique activism strategies.

ANCIENT BIBLICAL HEALING SCIENCE! Wise men gave baby Jesus Frankincense/Myrrh. Recent lab reports reveal two most powerful immune builders!!

SOCIAL NUDISM! FREE CATALOG! DVD!!!

Please no.

I think my inner hippie died some time ago. I didn't notice til now. R.I.P. inner hippie. I'm glad you never tried to persuade me to wear ugly sandals. Have fun on tour.

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on May 3, 2007 11:27 PM

The fairie is still on the loose.

Originally posted by Anil Dash from hello, nintendo, on May 3, 2007 11:22 PM

an algorithmically generated visualization based on statistical information provided by Last.fm software, more particular every song listened to by a particular user over an 18 month period of time.

each colored band represents a musical artist, progressing left to right. the span is wider when listening was more frequent, & skinnier when it was not. the hue of the artist represents the time of the first listen for the particular user: cooler colors represent artists who have been listened to for a long period of time while warmer colors represent artists who are more recent in the user's listening habits.

"while this is interesting to look at, it is more significant on a personal level. when viewing your own music listening history you are reminded of past events that caused the trends to emerge."

[links: megamu.com & megamu.com]

see also visual music recommendation & musicovery & music plasma & color music & mystrands.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on May 3, 2007 10:26 PM

This week has revealed a lot about how the online mapping sites respond to disasters that close major routes and affect driving directions. Within two days of the MacArthur Maze freeway collapse in Oakland, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and MapQuest...

Originally posted by Jonathan Crowe from The Map Room, on May 3, 2007 9:28 PM

"It's a rare day that a truly good standard comes along. It's an even rarer day that the standard get widely adopted. So the developers of Atom should stand up and take a bow - not only did they hit a home run with the Atom syndication format, they've done it again with the Atom publishing protocol."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on May 3, 2007 8:43 PM

bwo the BytesForAll list/ Frederick Noronha (personally, I think the free everything - or is it 'easy everything'? ;-) is on the verge of exp/impl/osion as the irresoluble contradictions moment between the liberties given away (rather than granted) to the users will collide with their actual use of them - as in "the street finds its own use for things". The latest, hyper-bizare incident around a 'copy-righted number', spreading of which has led to people being kicked out of such 'free beer' sites right left and center, being, immo, a clear sign in that direction. By then, this particular 'business model'is bound either to collapse entirely, or to place such restrictions on users as to become completely unatractive and irrelevant. meanwhile I think people should make most of it while it lasts. cheers, patrizioo and Diiiinooos!) http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/andrewl/news/freebeer/ Free Media vs Free Beer by Andrew — last modified 2007-04-15 13:23 The free beer Richard Stallman loathes is everywhere

Originally posted by Patrice Riemens from gmane.culture.internet.nettime, on May 3, 2007 8:18 PM

The fairie is still on the loose.

Originally posted by Anil Dash from hello, nintendo, on May 3, 2007 7:22 PM

The top-ten 8-bit games. Can't argue with the top 5 too much, but the other selections might be a bit off. Whither Metroid? And Tetris? (link) (Comment on this)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on May 3, 2007 5:24 PM

More people know how to crack the encryption on HD-DVD disks than own HD-DVD players.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on May 3, 2007 4:37 PM

via London Review of Books:             

LRB | Vol. 29 No. 9 dated 10 May 2007 | Judith Butler

'I merely belong to them'
by Judith Butler

The Jewish Writings  by Hannah Arendt ed. Jerome Kohn · Schocken, 559 pp, $35.00

‘You know the left think that I am conservative,’ Hannah Arendt once said, ‘and the conservatives think I am left or I am a maverick or God knows what. And I must say that I couldn’t care less. I don’t think the real questions of this century get any kind of illumination by this kind of thing.’ The Jewish Writings make the matter of her political affiliation no less easy to settle. In these editorials, essays and unfinished pieces, she seeks to underscore the political paradoxes of the nation-state. If the nation-state secures the rights of citizens, then surely it is a necessity; but if the nation-state relies on nationalism and invariably produces massive numbers of stateless people, it clearly needs to be opposed. If the nation-state is opposed, then what, if anything, serves as its alternative?

Arendt refers variously to modes of ‘belonging’ and conceptions of the 'polity' that are not reducible to the idea of the nation-state. She even formulates, in her early writings, an idea of the ‘nation’ that is uncoupled from both statehood and territory. The nation retains its place for her, though it diminishes between the mid-1930s and early 1960s, but the polity she comes to imagine, however briefly, is something other than the nation-state: a federation that diffuses both claims of national sovereignty and the ontology of individualism. In her critique of Fascism as well as in her scepticism towards Zionism, she clearly opposes those disparate forms of the nation-state that rely on nationalism and create massive statelessness and destitution. Paradoxically, and perhaps shrewdly, the terms in which Arendt criticised Fascism came to inform her criticisms of Zionism, though she did not and would not conflate the two. [read on...]

Originally posted by joy garnett from NEWSgrist - where spin is art, on May 3, 2007 3:46 PM

"Beautiful singing" refers to a vocal technique and is the English translation of the title of Ann Patchett's 2001 novel Bel Canto, which I can't recommend highly enough to anyone interested in matters of translation.  The backdrop of the story, though fictionalized for the novel, is the 1996 hostage crisis at the Japanese embassy in Peru.  Patchett's novel imagines what could have taken place during the four-month stand-off, focusing on the emotional and romantic alliances that develop between human beings in such close proximity.  The opera singer Roxane Coss, the sole female hostage, meditates on the wonder of these encounters: "How else would there have been any way to get to know someone you couldn't speak to, someone who lived on the other side of the world, unless you were given an enormous amount of empty time to simply sit and wait together?" (Patchett, 238)  Of course, the character who most intrigued me was Gen, a polymath in the employ of a Japanese businessman who becomes the "official" translator for the captors and hostages.  Gen runs around all day, mediating between French, Russian, German, English, Swiss, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese but, ultimately, the hostages and their captors find themselves bound by the silences that they share and Roxane's bel canto.  Here are a few of my favorite passages on love, translation and music (spoilers ahead):

* "Wait," Gen said softly in English, trying to make the one word sound as benign as possible.  Wait, after all, did not mean that she would never go, only that her leaving would be delayed.
    She took the word in, thought about it for a moment.  She still doubted that's what he had meant even when she heard it in English.  As a child she had waited.  She had waited at school in line for auditions.  But the truth was that in the last several years no one had asked her to wait at all...And all of this, the birthday part, the ridiculous country, the guns, the danger, the waiting involved in all of it was a mockery...The line had stopped moving, even the women who were free to go now stopped to watch her, regardless of whether or not they had any idea of what she was saying.  It was in this moment of uncertainty, the inevitable pause that comes before the translation, that Roxane Coss saw the moment of her exit (70).

* "We would need a dozen translators and arbitration from the UN before we could decide to overthrow the one teenager with a knife," Jacques Maitessier said, as much to himself as anyone, and he knew what he was talking about, having once been the French ambassador to the United Nations (113).

* In response to Roxane Coss's rendition of the aria "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka: "She sings Czech like she was born into it," he whispered to Gen.
    Gen nodded.  He would never refute the beauty of her singing, the warm liquid quality of her voice that so well matched the watery Rusalka, but there was no point telling Mr. Hosokawa that this woman did not know a word of Czechoslovakian.  She sang the passion of every syllable, but none of the syllables actually managed to form themselves into recognizable words of the language. It was quite obvious that she had memorized the work phonetically, that she sang her love for Dvo?ák and her love for the translated story, but that the Czech language itself was a stranger which passed her by without a moment's recognition.  Not that this was any sort of crime, of course.  Who would even know except for him?  There were no Czech's among them (163-64).

* He tucked her into the crook of his arm and she breathed into his shoulder.  This was what it felt like, to be a man with a woman.  This was the thing Gen had missed in all the translation of language (250).

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on May 3, 2007 3:02 PM

  A show of hands please… Let me remind you this is the only top vote-getting question asked.  Download (0) | Play (1)   Download (0) | Play (1)  (That's Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee with their hands up.)

Originally posted by SilentPatriot from David Jacobs' Huffs, on May 3, 2007 2:00 PM

Eastern Market, D.C.'s 134-year-old market and historic landmark was devastated by a 3 alarm fire earlier this week. The market is the oldest continuously operating fresh food market in Washington D.C. and home to cheese and fish mongers, butchers, a bakery, produce and flower vendors, outdoor farmers' market and restaurants. A couple of months ago, I visited my friends Shannon and Jason who live a few blocks from Eastern Market, and we strolled through on Saturday afternoon. We grabbed some lunch at Market Lunch, and Shannon and Jason picked up their groceries for the week. It's not hard to imagine what a loss this is to the neighborhood and city, but hopefully only a temporary one as rebuilding fund raising as already begun. Shannon and Jason have chipped in by starting a website, Save Eastern Market, aggregating and reporting on the latest news related to the rebuilding. Here are a few ways you can help. Photograph from delfeugo on Flickr

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Posts and Comments by Alaina Browne, on May 3, 2007 11:59 AM

very odd hybrid of poetry, art, and platform gaming [via] 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on May 3, 2007 9:49 AM

Design for the Other 90%. Opening at the Cooper-Hewitt, this exhibition features “30 humanitarian design projects, all addressing basic needs in the areas of shelter, health, water, education, energy and transport.” The focus on economical, “low-tech” projects addressing such fundamental needs is a (self-consciously) stark contrast to the ultra-techy buzz fest of the recent design Triennial (though the One Laptop per Child appears in the current show.) So does this mark a fundamental shift in priorities? Will the values expressed here affect the way the Cooper-Hewitt evaluates design? From here it seems more like more a cabinet of curiosities than a paradigm shift. I’m also wary of how “The Other” is addressed here, but see for yourself: a slideshow of a few examples.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on May 3, 2007 12:54 AM

MacZealots: “RubyOSA is a bridge from the Ruby language to the Apple Event Manager. The Apple Event Manger allows applications to send and receive messages, or Apple events as they are called, to and from applications that support scripting.”

In other words, you can use Ruby instead of AppleScript. Cool.

Side note: I haven’t looked to see if it’s an actual OSA component or not. It probably doesn’t have to be—because who cares if it compiles and runs in Script Editor or not. But, for anyone interested in OSA components, years ago I posted OSAShell, a basic OSA component demo.

Originally posted by Brent Simmons from ranchero.com, on May 2, 2007 11:51 PM

**Updated to include link to partnership form.**

Over the past year and a half we've been excited and amazed by all of the original content that’s been created by members of the YouTube community. We've seen the content many of you create evolve to become elaborately developed series, concept videos, and sitcoms with tens of thousands of subscribers. Many of you have gone from creating videos in bedrooms and living rooms on webcams to becoming YouTube celebrities with fans and audiences all over the world.

Up until now there’s been a distinction between the content you create and the content created by YouTube's professional content partners. We want to start changing some of the perception here. Which is why we’re adding several of the most popular and prolific original content creators from the YouTube community to our partnership program. Now some of your favorite YouTube members, including Lonelygirl15, LisaNova, renetto, HappySlip, smosh, and valsartdiary, will begin to participate in the same revenue sharing and promotional opportunities that are available to YouTube's other partners. These include thousands of mid-sized to large content creators who range from video game companies to universities to production houses.

Initial user participants have been selected from the content creators that you have helped popularize by watching their videos and subscribing to their channels. Because they have built and sustained large, persistent audiences through the creation of engaging videos, their content has become attractive for advertisers, which has helped them earn the opportunity to participate on YouTube as a partner.

Participating user-partners will be treated as other content partners and will have the ability to control the monetization of the videos they create. Once they’ve selected a video to be monetized, we’ll place advertising adjacent to their content so participating user-partners can reap the rewards from their work.

So now that you’ve read this, you’re probably wondering, “How can I get in on the action?” This is only available to the initial participants. But if you create original content, have built and maintained an audience on YouTube, and think you might qualify for this program based on what’s above, you can express interest on our partnership lead form.

We hope that this program inspires people to keep creating original videos, building audiences and engaging with the YouTube community. What we’re really excited about, beyond our new partners, is that literally, at any given moment, thousands of creative people from throughout the world are posting new, original content to YouTube. It’s this community that’s shaping what the YouTube experience is now and will be in the future, and we’re incredibly excited for the prospect that holds.

Best,
The YouTube Team

Originally posted by rss@youtube.com from YouTube :: Blog, on May 2, 2007 11:00 PM

Thank GOD. I've finished Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones (what! Only 20 chapters!), and all the Advance Wars, and I've run out of brain-tickling strategy and/or adventure for my crusty old DS. So, thank you British Gaming Blog, for pointing out that Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is out soonish.

It's WindWaker-y:

Yes it is!

Jolly good!

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, on May 2, 2007 7:30 PM

Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

Originally posted by Massimo1 from David Jacobs' Huffs, on May 2, 2007 7:28 PM

Do you read [Theme Magazine], a quarterly publication that covers global avant-garde Asian culture for an increasingly international readership?

I hope so. Their Spring 2007 Issue no. 9 "NERDS" is possibly their best yet.

From the editors, Jiae and John Lee:
"When no one is watching, do you laugh out loud at a joke in your head, and give yourself a high five, then a low five, before you break out the DDR mat? Do you crank up Vivaldi in your car and ponder which rendition of The Four Seasons was the best, ever? Are you an embarrassment to your friends at parties when you get a bit tipsy and start quoting lines, verbatim, from "Doctor Who"? Did you ever read LOTR and The Hobbit all in one go, just to see what continous plot lines you missed out on the last time?

Admit it. You're a nerd."

I admit it, I'm a nerd. But hey hoe, nerds have never been so cool...read Theme if you don't believe me.

Originally posted by clairehyland from l-e-mental, on May 2, 2007 5:46 PM

Am I missing something here with People's cover story touting Rachael Ray's "Recipe for Marriage"?

Just last year Rach's horndog husband was outed for having an kinky affair with a woman -- over a five year period -- whom he paid to spit on him, rub her bare feet in his face and a bunch of other fetish things. And Rachael is the authority on having a successful marriage?

Pass!

Originally posted by sbyrne from Daily Blabber, on May 2, 2007 4:59 PM

Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

Originally posted by The Huffington Post News Team from Most Huffed News, on May 2, 2007 4:20 PM

Public Radio Talent Quest If you've got a face for radio, here's your chance to be the next red hot public radio newscaster! (tags: Contest Media Talent Technology NPR) Coachella: Reunions, Installations and Bjork Slideshow Coachella highlights in pictures. (tags:...

Originally posted by souris from hustler of culture, on May 2, 2007 4:18 PM

Today is the eighth birthday of Megnut. I made the very first post back in 1999, which is hard to believe as that was ages and ages ago. Since that time this site has changed dramatically, and as you know, has spent the last year in its newest incarnation as a food site. I've really enjoyed writing about food and I've learned a ton. Alas that experience has also led me a bit astray. I got involved in helping Ed Levine get Serious Eats off the ground over the last eight months, and my postings here really suffered because of that. Now that Serious Eats is off and running, I'm turning my attention back to this site, and am looking forward to another year (or more!) of food postings and discussions. But before we take off into the future, for fun here's a look back at the year that was!

In April 2006 (ok, cheating a little bit, but in April I really started post about food in earnest) I looked at Further information about foie gras production from Jeffrey Steingarten's article for Men's Vogue.

In May I reflected on Four years since the French Laundry. Also I looked at War food and Memorial Day.

June saw the arrival of guest blogger Michael Ruhlman and a nice change from usual mumblings. All his posts can be found here.

In July I traveled a lot, so Ruhlman continued to pick up the slack. But I had time to have Fun with trout, when I tried to prepare Thomas Keller's truite a la grenobloise at home and boned my first trout. I have yet to try again, but was just talking about this experience today with folks. I must get some more trout.

August 3 should be a holy day around our house, as that's the day when I discovered I was Crazy for salt. After saving some fleur de sel in my pantry for more than a year after I purchased it in Paris, I opened it and my life was forever changed. There has been no going back. I am crazy for salt.

In September my husband and I went to Austria for vacation and we experienced garlic soup for the first time. I set about recreating it at home and wrote it up with A creamy taste of Innsbruck. There was also a good discussion about Getting too full during a great meal.

October will be remembered as the month I made chicken wings with Daniel Boulud (resulting in this Serious Eats Basics: Braising video) and he whacked a wing so hard that blood splattered all over my sweater. Also I Did the Daisy May Pig Gig, which entailed eating suckling pig with a batch of friends. Highly recommended.

November may go down in history as one of my favorite months of Megnut ever. I discovered the best pie crust ever and made three pies for my family. I almost lost my mind doing an extensive Thanksgiving round-up I called the "Thanksgiving Spectacular of 2006" (best viewed by reading the November 2006 monthly archive). Though that was fun, I'm not sure I'll do it again this year. And most importantly, I received a free lobe of foie gras and proceeded to kick the Amateur Gourmet's ass in Battle Foie Gras.

December saw me do some good cooking, with my büche de Noël and Christmas dinner with goose. I also discovered Sticky Toffee Pudding from Häagen-Dazs and ate a ton of it. It seems to be gone from my store now. :(

January 2007 got off with a whimper rather than a bang, and the most interesting thing I seemed to have posted about was How natural is natural food?

In February I alerted readers to the new trend of chocolate cereal. This is when you can see the effect of spending so much time in Serious Eats. The site really started to go down hill.

March saw an annoucement from Wolfgang Puck stating he'd "use products only from animals raised under strict humane standards" and I wondered about Wolfgang Puck's humane decision. I also foolishly announced a Best chocolate chip cookie search and promised to make all the recipes readers submitted. I am still working on this. Really! Also I gave up on food due to the confusion of the current nutritional dictates.

And just this past April saw me posting about Poor man's sous vide and I got all crazed about plastic melting into sous vided food. I have still not gotten to the bottom of this issue, but that probably doesn't surprise you.

So what does that portend for the rest of the year? Hopefully more of the same: good links, funny weird food stuff, great reader interactions, and some in-depth informative writing about issues that are really important to me, like sustainable and humane food practices. I know for sure that I'll continue to enjoy being a food enthusiast, and sharing that enthusiasm with you. Thanks for reading, whether it's been for eight years, or just a few days.

comments are open