randomwalks/dj

Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver is putting his mark on the Mayor's congestion pricing plan by not doing anything. Today he said on the radio, "It's unlikely we [the Legislature] can take action within the next week," and then most of Albany has a recess starting June 21. Silver did suggest that the Assembly could discuss the matter when they come back in August,which is when a plan would need to be approved so the city can still get up to $500 million in general grants. Earlier, Silver voiced concerns about whether congestion pricing would really help the environment; for instance, areas outside the congestion pricing zone have high incidence rates of childhood asthma - will their neighborhoods become more polluted with parked cars? Bloomberg is no fan of Silver, especially after Silver helped kill the West Side Stadium, but he says that Silver "could not be more open" about hearing the city's pitch.

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on June 16, 2007 3:12 PM

A teaser trailer for Wall-E, Pixar's newest movie, due out in summer 2008. That sounds like a heck of a lunch. (thx, scott) (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 16, 2007 11:50 AM

Floyd Landis book, Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France, is on sale and he’s embarking on a book tour to promote it. The book and tour are making some news and the blogs are posting — no word if the WADA will test him during this tour.

Originally posted by Byron from Bike Hugger, on June 16, 2007 7:04 AM

Dear black hats, please create an iPhone killer app (I suggest a tower defense game) that also crashes AT&T's cellular network. Apple and AT&T both deserve it.

Originally posted by Wes Felter from Hack the Planet, on June 16, 2007 6:17 AM

Juan Pablo Claude recently taught the Big Nerd Ranch’s new “Django Bootcamp” at the offices of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The engineers in the class created a a blog of their experience.

What is Django? Django is to Python, as Rails is to Ruby.

We will be offering the class in Atlanta the week of Sept 10. We expect this to be a very popular course, so sign up soon.

Originally posted by Aaron Hillegass from Big Nerd Ranch Weblog, on June 15, 2007 7:02 PM

For her final project in a Media Lab class, Anita Lillie fastened three accelerometers to her body and tracked her movements while asleep. The data recorded allowed her to determine her sleeping positions and orientations (on her left side, on her back, etc.) and how they changed through the night. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 15, 2007 3:40 PM

This weekend all Joyent customers are invited to the first annual OpenSolaris Community Picnic. This is a family event for the entire community of developers, admins, users, and most importantly our families.

Joyent has graciously provided the event with BBQ (authentic Arkansas BBQ, smoked for 16+ hours, amazing stuff) and I’m hoping to see lots of you, and your families. There will be lots of swag, games for kids and adults, food, and great chat with your fellow community members.

If you’ve ever wanted to hang out with some of Sun’s best and brightest this is your opportunity. Don’t miss out!

• What: OpenSolaris Community Picnic
• When: Saturday June 16th, from 11am till whenever (show up anytime)
• Where: Baylands Park in Sunnyvale in the Amphitheater area.
• Who: You and your family!
• Register: If you want to, put your name on the upcoming list

Please feel free to bring drinks, snacks, deserts or whatever your clan enjoys to contribute to the event. Please note this is a family event and there will be no alcohol allowed.

This is a picnic, so bring blankets and chairs. There will not be tables or chairs, just grass and conversation.

For more info please Tamarah Rockwood’s Blog

Originally posted by Ben Rockwood from Joyeur, on June 15, 2007 3:27 PM

The New York Times investigates whether brown sugar is healthier than white sugar. Conclusion: in the category of sugar, brown-ness doesn't entail health benefits. The main differences between brown and white sugar are the taste and effect on baked goods; nutritionally, they're similar.

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Features, Videos and Required Eating, on June 15, 2007 2:30 PM

Two days ago I visited Yahoo! Photos upon reading that the site’s official closure has begun. I was impressed with the experience offered. It’s clear that the Flickr team is rubbing off on the rest of Yahoo!

It really couldn’t have been much simpler to migrate to Flickr. Since my browser was already signed into both Flickr and Y!, it was just 2 clicks to start the magic of moving my photos.

I also really like that they give you a means to export into competing services Photobucket, Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly and Snapfish. Of course, it’s a bit more complicated to migrate out of the Y! universe, but it shows a good user focus on the part Yahoo! to support alternatives. From the Flickr help FAQ:

“Do I have to move to Flickr?

Not necessarily. Yahoo! Photos has a number of other affiliates that you may be interested to move to, and each of them is ready to migrate your photos for you if that’s what you decide you’d like to do. They are Snapfish, Photobucket, Kodak Gallery and Shutterfly.

You can also download your favorite photos or purchase an archive CD of your entire Yahoo! Photos collection. (There’s more information on these options over at the Yahoo! Photos site.)”

I have been wondering how the Y! Photo and Flickr service offerings would mesh upon consolidation, and I’m starting to get some answers. Y! Photos offered unlimited photo hosting and unlimited albums, but Flickr encourages users to sign up for pro accounts in order to store a lot of photos and create more than a handful of “photo sets”. Well, it appears that they are upgrading everyone who migrates to a free pro account until Sept. 13th. I am way over the “free” number of photos and sets, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens in September.

The only quirk I found in the migration was the duplication of my Y! Photos albums. Each album was listed as two identical Flickr sets. This was simple to remedy with a couple clicks, but would have been a real hassle if I have more than 15 sets to deal with.

Share This

Originally posted by Dan Harrelson from Adaptive Path, on June 15, 2007 1:51 PM

Further background on London 2012, see also Sketchzilla.

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on June 15, 2007 1:50 PM

June 12, 2007 The Biggest Scam in the World Closing Down the Tax Haven Racket By RALPH NADER Lucy Komisar of the Tax Justice Network-USA (taxjustice-usa.org) spoke at the Conference on Taming the Giant Corporation last week about "Closing Down the Tax Haven Racket." Her words were so compelling that the rest of this column is devoted to excerpts from her presentation: "The tax haven racket is the biggest scam in the world. It's run by the international banks with the cooperation of the world's financial powers for the benefit of corporations and the mega-rich. [M]ost Americans, including progressive activist Americans, don't know what I'm going to tell you. And that's part of the problem. "Tax havens, also known as offshore financial centers, are places that operate secret bank accounts and shell companies that hide the names of real owners from tax authorities and law enforcement. They use nominees, front men. Sometimes offshore incorporation companies set up the shells. Sometimes the banks do it. Often someone will use a shell company in one jurisdiction that owns a shell in another jurisdiction that owns a bank account in a third. That's called layering. No one can follow the paper trial.

Originally posted by Dagvald from Most Huffed News, on June 15, 2007 12:26 PM

Eating Beyond Sichuan [New York Times]

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats: Features, Videos and Required Eating, on June 15, 2007 9:30 AM

This whole Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz "We're Totally Friends, We Swear" tour to promote Shrek the Third has officially made me suspicious.

In the first photos, they definitely looked strained -- putting on fake happy faces for the camera. At this point -- they're now in Rome -- they almost look coupley again. And now he announces he's not in love with Jessica Biel?

I'm wondering if this Shrek promo tour some kind of a reunion special? Would you even want them back together? Weigh in.

Originally posted by sbyrne from Daily Blabber, on June 15, 2007 6:17 AM

In "The Class-Consciousness Raiser" from the NY Time Magazine, June 10, 2007, there's an article by Paul Tough about Ruby Payne, who offers trainings on understanding class differences. The article explains how she was inspired to do this work... "'The book said, Make a list of what you want in your life and ask the universe to bring it to you,' she told me. 'So I did. I wrote: 'I want a life without financial constraints. I want a life without institutional constraints. And I want to make a difference with children.' And it happened!'".

A few years ago at a strategic planning meeting the facilitator talked about how libraries' budgets aren't getting any bigger. She said- "The pot is never going to get any bigger, so you have to figure out how to do more with less." And then she reminded us that more people search google in a minute than visit our branches in a month... or some sort of equally upsetting statistic... I can't remember the exact number, only my ensuing sadness. I felt like I'd been told we only have three years left to live, and not any longer so better make use of that short time.

In our conflict management & negotion class last night we split into partners to negotiate over a crate of oranges. We thought we were in a bidding war, and trying to figure out whether we could make do with only half the oranges, but then, after sharing some info, it turned out one of us needed the rind, and the other needed the pulp, but we were so focused on the size of the pot, we didn't stop to share information (and I'd even heard this dilemna solution before, and still didn't think to apply it last night-- it's unusually difficult to remember to share when you're competing against someone).

So, what I learned is that the pot is an artifically imposed limit that need not exist. And yes-- of course we should streamline library procedures, and yes- maybe there isn't money to justify offering programs that don't draw a crowd (especially since not drawing a crowd in NYC probably indicates you're not meeting the needs/desires of the community), and of course we need to work within budgets.

But please, public libraries. I implore you. Think outside the pot. Decide how you want to be, without thinking about the limits, and then figure out how to do it.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from iPalimpsest, on June 15, 2007 6:01 AM

There are Georgia peaches (good), Texas peaches (good) Colorado peaches (very good), and even New York and New Jersey peaches (stellar every so often). But the best peaches, nectarines, plums, and cherries are from California and Washington. I know this may be disappointing to all of you Texas and Georgia natives, but it is the truth. I can prove it to you if you order peaches for your dad from Gold Bud Farms in Placerville, California. They won't be ready until July, but your dad will find it's worth the wait. These are the peaches of your dreams; drippingly juicy with the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity.

If it's juicy, sweet, bursting-with-flavor cherries you're after, the folks at Chef Shop ship Batchs Best Orchards' Bing and Lapin cherries starting in July. These cherries, just like the Gold Bud peaches, are expensive but worth every penny and the wait.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats: Features, Videos and Required Eating, on June 15, 2007 6:00 AM

Quick Post

A game show where people have to fit in specific holes. When people fail, hilarity ensues. [via defective yeti]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgqOKj1hdXM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on June 15, 2007 5:36 AM

Macworld: Parallels Server for Mac demoed at WWDC. ?Would it be technically possible? Yes. Will Apple permit it right now, no." Did they ask? There's gotta be a middle ground between cowering in fear and spitting in Steve's eye.

Originally posted by Wes Felter from Hack the Planet, on June 15, 2007 3:47 AM

TED partner Google has allowed for the first time a journalist (Saul Hansell from the NYT) to spend a day with engineer Amit Shingal and his "search-quality team" -- the people responsible for the very secret mathematical formulas that decide which web pages best answer each user's query. It's a delicate act, a mix of science and artistry: half a dozen major or minor changes are introduced in Google's search engine every week, and each change can affect the ranking of many sites -- although most are barely noticed by the average user. Hansell's story is a rare glimpse behind the world's largest search engine, which indexes billions of webpages in over a hundred languages and handles hundreds of millions of queries a day. It's a long article (3200 words) but since "it's becoming impossible not to visit with Google daily", as Swiss technophilosopher René Berger once said, it's worth knowing a thing of two about the way your host runs his house. Excerpts:

Google's servers basically make a copy of the entire Web, page by page, every few days, storing it in their huge data centers:

As Google compiles its index, it calculates a number it calls PageRank for each page it finds. [ BG: the picture at right shows the original PageRank algorithm, from a powerpoint presentation Larry Page gave at Stanford in 1998] This was the key invention of Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. PageRank tallies how many times other sites link to a given page. Sites that are more popular, especially with sites that have high PageRanks themselves, are considered likely to be of higher quality.

Mr. Singhal has developed a far more elaborate system for ranking pages, which involves more than 200 types of information, or what Google calls “signals.” PageRank is but one signal. Some signals are on Web pages — like words, links, images and so on. Some are drawn from the history of how pages have changed over time. Some signals are data patterns uncovered in the trillions of searches that Google has handled over the years. (...)

Once Google corrals its myriad signals, it feeds them into formulas it calls classifiers that try to infer useful information about the type of search, in order to send the user to the most helpful pages. Classifiers can tell, for example, whether someone is searching for a product to buy, or for information about a place, a company or a person. Google recently developed a new classifier to identify names of people who aren’t famous. Another identifies brand names.

These signals and classifiers calculate several key measures of a page’s relevance, including one it calls “topicality” — a measure of how the topic of a page relates to the broad category of the user’s query. (...) Google combines all these measures into a final relevancy score. The sites with the 10 highest scores win the coveted spots on the first search page, unless a final check shows that there is not enough “diversity” in the results. (...) If this wasn’t excruciating enough, Google’s engineers must compensate for users who are not only fickle, but are also vague about what they want; often, they type in ambiguous phrases or misspelled words.

And they must of course also keep out the millions of fake webpage created by hucksters who try to hijack searches to lure users to their porn or scam pages. Hansell's article also details the constant debate inside Google (and other search companies) about "freshness": is it better to provide new information or to display pages that have stood the test of time and are more likely to be of higher quality? Until recently, Google had preferred the latter. But last year, when the company introduced its new stock quotation service, a search for “Google Finance” couldn’t find it, and that pointed to a broader problem that was solved by developing a new mathematical model that tries to determine when users want new information and when they don't. The solution

revolves around determining whether a topic is “hot.” If news sites or blog posts are actively writing about a topic, the model figures that it is one for which users are more likely to want current information. The model also examines Google’s own stream of billions of search queries, which Mr. Singhal believes is an even better monitor of global enthusiasm about a particular subject. As an example, he points out what happens when cities suffer power failures. “When there is a blackout in New York, the first articles appear in 15 minutes; we get queries in two seconds,” he says.

Originally from TED | TEDBlog, on June 15, 2007 1:46 AM

We've been thinking a lot about authentication recently, both as consumers and designers of web API's. Although certain best practices in this area are being solidified, I still think it's a wide-open field for experimentation. This post is a run-down of various patterns we've encountered for authenticating applications and users, and has been greatly helped along by conversations with Shawn, Steve, Matt, and others.

Keys

The simplest application authentication method is the developer key. Flickr has been using these since day one, and they mostly help in monitoring usage. Generally, the idea is that a site issues a unique key to each application consuming the interface, and then requires that this key be passed along with every request. Keys are not expected to remain secret or be subject to rigorous control, but they do help Flickr keep tabs on how applications use the API, and provide a way to find someone to blame when requests with a given key cause problems. We used to routinely get mails from Stewart about Mappr's (ab)use of expensive search parameters.

Flickr's API keys are explicitly connected to Flickr accounts, and are issued via an application form that asks for a description of your intended use and a promise to abide by the terms of use. There's also a monitoring page that displays your own API usage:

When we designed the Digg API, it was decided that key enforcement was not a high-enough priority to warrant the overhead of administration, so we went with a simple form of consensual disclosure. Digg application keys must be provided, must be in the form of a valid absolute URI, and should point to a page that describes the application. The URI isn't checked for normal usage, so it's possible to experiment and play with the API with minimal hassle.

Tracking keys is enough of a hassle that companies like Mashery have popped to provide this as a service.

Usernames, Passwords

Authenticating individual users is more sensitive, especially when an API provides read/write methods for posting new information to a user's account. The easiest way to authenticate this is to require that a user's account name and password be attached to requests.

The original Del.icio.us API required HTTP basic authentication for all methods, including the ones that returned information available on public, anonymous web pages in the application. Basic auth is well-understood and reasonable well-supported, so this made it quite easy to write tools that used the API. The major drawback of this method is that account passwords can be sniffed on every request, making them wildly insecure. At some point last year, Del.icio.us began requiring that all API requests be done over HTTPS. This solves the problem of password exposure, but introduces a new problem: HTTPS is a considerable resource hog, and is expensive to serve. Cal estimates that the cryptographic overhead of HTTPS can cut a web server's performance by 90%. It is useful for HTTPS to keep the contents of an interaction secret where the data is sensitive, as with banks and medical records, but it's total overkill in the case of a typical web API.

A more subtle problem with asking for usernames and passwords is the inherent phishing risk. An API that can be operated with a user's permanent password is a magnet for potential abuse, because something you know might also be something someone else knows. Flickr's early approach to this problem was to ask for the user's e-mail address in the request, not their Flickr username. A sniffed API password would be useless for logging into the main website, and knowing a username and password wouldn't get you into the read/write API.

Digests

One way to deal with the risk of password exposure without touching HTTPS is digest authentication. This is a pattern that uses one-way hashing functions such as MD5 or SHA to hide a password in transit, while still allowing it to be verified by the API server. Generally, an API client will send the server a hashed combination of username, password, and possibly other details. The server can't deconstruct the hash, but it can make one of its own and ensure that the two are identical.

At one point, the Atom Publishing Protocol defined WSSE as its preferred form of authentication. A visitor from the miserable world of SOAP, WSSE defines a simple way to hash up the user's password, the creation date of the message, and a nonce ("number used once") for a bit of randomness. The hashed tokens are difficult to pry apart, and the method helps prevent replay attacks by enforcing recency (via the creation date) and randomness (the client makes up a new nonce on every turn). WSSE has come under a great deal of criticism due to its requirement that the password be part of the hash. No sane application developer stores passwords in cleartext, but WSSE requires that this be the case in order for the server to re-create the hashed token for comparison.

Amazon's web services define their own authentication protocol that borrows a number of advantages from WSSE. First, the value that the client hashes includes HTTP headers, the request body, the URL, and the date, among other details. Second, the instead of asking for an account password, Amazon assigns each API user a secret key for use in such hashes. The secret cannot be used to retrieve API user account details, and it can be invalidated and re-generated if the user thinks it's been leaked. Third, Amazon offers several ways to attach the authorization signature to requests, from packing it into special-purpose HTTP headers to tacking it onto the request CGI parameters. The latter method makes it possible to generate limited-use URL's for private data, allowing an Amazon API user fine-grained control over public access to stored data. Because use of Amazon's API is billed, these features add up to a sane way to ensure that it's difficult to rack up excessive costs on user's account.

Tokens

A useful response to the phishing risk of passwords is a limited-user token, a pattern I'm starting to see used more often in authentication schemes.

Flickr switched to this model some time ago, adding the concept of a secret key to be shared between an application developer and Flickr. The general pattern is that authenticating as a Flickr user to a 3rd party web application involves having that application send you to a page on Flickr.com, which accepts your user credentials and asks whether the requesting 3rd party application should be allowed to read/write data on your behalf. The application and Flickr share a secret key which is checked at this time. If you agree, Flickr will redirect you to the 3rd party application's authentication handling page along with a freshly-minted frob. The 3rd party application can then convert this frob to a token, which can then be used to perform actions on that user's account.

There are a few significant things going on here. First, only Flickr needs to see your username and password, which is great security. Second, the frobs and tokens are tracked by Flickr, so the permissions you've granted to the 3rd party can be revoked at any time. Third, the secret key means that an intercepted frob is not useful to an interloper.

Unfortunately, this also means that Flickr's authentication process is (in my humble opinion) a total fucking hassle (sorry Aaron).

Google's AuthSub is a similar approach that I believe dispenses with some of Flickr's complications. Unlike Flickr, AuthSub does not require a pre-existing arrangement between the 3rd party application and Google, and there is no secret key. Instead, Google displays the authentication handler URL and domain name, and lets users determine whether they trust that application by name. The token sent by Google at this point (what Flickr calls a frob) is valid for a single-use, but can be exchanged for a session token if the user explicitly allowed this to happen. Tokens issued by Google can only be used for a limited subset of their applications, e.g. just gmail or calendars. AuthSub also agreeably allows for experimentation: it's possible to request a valid token without a publicly-viewable web application.

Google's access confirmation page looks like this:

Google rounds out AuthSub by providing a page in each user account that lists the currently-valid tokens and the web applications to which they've been granted. These can be revoked by the user on an individual basis, and offer a granular level of control over how their data is exposed and manipulated.

One potential security weakness in AuthSub is that the token may be intercepted and used. I'm not clear on how Google's web services use these tokens, though - it may be necessary to pair the token with some other piece of information that's harder to intercept, such as the user's Google account name.

An approach to keeping tokens secret that I've not yet seen in practice, but one that looks promising, is Diffie-Hellman key exchange. D-H uses a property of modular arithmetic that allows two parties to agree upon a shared secret over an insecure channel. The algorithm is roughly analogous to two people exchanging a box with two padlocks on it, keeping the box locked while in transit but not requiring either person to give up the key to their own lock. With a few extra round trips, the contents of the box can be exchanged securely.

This means that it should be possible to replace the open token transmission above with a secure exchange, resulting in a temporary secret shared between the API client and server, highly-resistant to sniffing.

Summary

I'm seeing a clear progression in API authentication from a two-party relationship between the application developer and the application user, to a three-party relationship between the application developer, the user, and the 3rd party needing temporary access to the application on the user's behalf, no doubt driven by the way popular applications are starting to treat themselves as platforms to be extended and built upon. One major recent entry that I haven't yet touched at all is Facebook.

Links mentioned above:

• Flickr API
• Flickr API developer key application form
• Flickr API terms of use
• Digg API
• Digg API application key requirements
• Mashery
• Del.icio.us API
• HTTP basic authentication
• Cal Henderson's book Building Scalable Websites
• Cornell CS 153 lecture notes
• Atom Publishing Protocol
• Amazon Web Services REST Authentication
• Google AuthSub
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange

Originally posted by (author unknown) from tecznotes, on June 14, 2007 6:08 PM

The New York Times, Wednesday, June 13, 2007, for a review of the Feist show at Town Hall.

Not my best shot (by far) as it was a really dark show and I was underexposing by a lot at 3200 ISO. It looks weird to me cropped and blown up so big! But thrilling nonetheless.

Thanks go out to Scott and Bob. Hooray!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kathryn yu dot com, on June 14, 2007 3:27 PM

Indian mangoes have arrived in the U.S. for the first time, and for me, my family, and my friends, this is a big freaking deal. I've got a lot to say about the subject, but if you weren't familiar with the fact that this is the first time in history that we in the United States are able to eat mangoes that are actually from the place that mangoes were born, it's time to get acquainted.

Some good recent news coverage:

• From the Boston Globe, Indian Mangoes Arrive At Long Last:

Last March, President George W. Bush signed two landmark pacts with India: one on nuclear technology, the other lifting a 17-year restriction on the import of Indian mangoes. The world's news media paid attention to the nuclear accord. But in the Indian community here and throughout the country, the magic word was "mango."

• In the Philly Inquirer, A new kind and queen of mangoes:

But this was not just any mango. It was most definitely not the pretty but bland mainstream specimens from South America that, Indians sniff, serve more to decorate the table than to be consumed. Nor was it the more aromatic, tangier Mexican imports found at many Indian grocers and sold cheap by the dozen.

This was an Alphonso from India - the hands-down "king of mangoes," as it's known. The deep-orange flesh oozes sticky juice, the texture is smooth, with hardly a fiber, and the heady aroma fills the room. And what about the flavor? The sweetness can be so intense that more than one Indian expat has described it as "heavenly."

• The Los Angeles Times, Mango Mania:

Though hundreds of mango varieties are grown in India, only three -- Alphonso, Kesar and Banganpalli -- will be available in the U.S. this season. Alphonsos and Kesars were the first to arrive.

Alphonsos, smallish and golden-yellow, are amazingly sweet and succulent, with floral aromas and a creamy, fiber-free texture. Los Angeles-based produce wholesaler Melissa's received a shipment the first week of May, says Robert S. Schueller, director of public relations for the firm. Although Melissa's distributed them to retailers in Texas, Pennsylvania and New York, L.A. retailers didn't bite, Schueller says, thanks to their high price -- they sell for $35 for a case of 12.

• There's also a primer on mango varieties in the LA Times as well.
• All Things Considered offers U.S. Braces for (Indian) Mango Madness

Oh, and in case you're really a beginner, check out the Wikipedia article on mangoes. Once you're done with all the required reading, we'll move on to more advanced topics.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on June 14, 2007 3:14 PM

we are really loving Captain Bogg & Salty’s new album, and it was so fun to see them recently. “Hey Sol, what do the pirates say?” “YAR!!” and the video they made for “pieces of 8ight” has been on their site for a while, but if you’ve not see it, GO NOW! EAT A LIME!!

Originally posted by elihu from action figures sold separately, on June 14, 2007 1:37 PM

It's never too early to start making plans for the fall fashion scene and, as Amazon will gladly point out, this year's theme is spotted cats.

Read More...

Originally posted by ars@niload.com (Erik Kennedy) from Infinite Loop, on June 14, 2007 1:05 PM

"Orange Alternative (Pomaranczowa Alternatywa) is a name for an underground protest movement which was started in Wroclaw in 1983. Its main purpose was to protest peacefully by using absurd and nonsensical elements. ... 'Can you treat a police officer seriously, when he is asking you the question: Why did you participate in an illegal meeting of dwarfs?'"

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on June 14, 2007 1:01 PM

Yep, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like there’s trouble on the horizon. On the RFC4287 syndication-format front, it may have been stable since 2005 and widely deployed, but watch out, there’s a new version of RSS 2.0! (2.0.9, to be precise). RSS 2.0 is sort of RFC4287’s main competition, and if there are two different specs, I guess that must mean it’s twice as good. On the Atom-Protocol side, Google’s John Panzer has made a shocking discovery, and I quote: “There seems to be a complaint that outside of the tiny corner of the Web comprised of web pages, news stories, articles, blog posts, comments, lists of links, podcasts, online photo albums, video albums, directory listings, search results, ... Atom doesn't match some data models.” Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from ongoing, on June 14, 2007 12:00 PM

As negative feelings towards the web application system for the iPhone cool down, a few applications are emerging.

Read More...

Originally posted by justin.berka@gmail.com (Justin Berka) from Infinite Loop, on June 14, 2007 11:53 AM

Watch here a new "taste of TED" video documentary shot at this year's conference, in March. In 7 minutes it gives a great sense of the atmosphere at TED and of the content of the conference. It is also available elsewhere on this site, and you can download it here (158 Mb).

Another documentary about TED, "The future we will create: Inside the world of TED", which was filmed at TED2006, is been shown this coming Saturday night at the Maui Film Festival. Producers Daphne Zuniga and Steven Latham got full access to the conference, and used it wisely to take the viewers behind the scenes -- on top of showing speakers ranging from Al Gore to Peter Gabriel. The full-feature documentary (74 minutes) had a premiere screening in New York a few weeks ago and later in Los Angeles. It has been released on Netflix (US only) last week.

Originally from TED | TEDBlog, on June 14, 2007 11:32 AM

Posted by Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, YouTube

Back in March we kicked off our You Choose '08 program, a hub of political channels on YouTube designed to educate, empower, and connect voters and presidential candidates through the power of online video. Since then, millions of people have checked out the candidates' YouTube Channels, and thousands have communicated directly with those running for President via ratings, comments and video responses.

Today we're announcing another way that YouTube is leveling the political playing field: The CNN/YouTube debates. For the first time in history, the questions asked in both a Democratic and a Republican primary debate will come straight from YouTube videos. More info here:



Needless to say we're really excited about this, but we'll be even more excited when the video questions start to roll in. So here's your official call to action: Create your own video debate questions for the presidential candidates and upload your submissions at www.youtube.com/debates.

Then tune in to CNN on July 23 for the Democratic debate to see if your question is asked. Also keep your eyes on the YouTube Blog and on this one, as we'll have much more to share with you in both places between now and the election.

Debate video guidelines:
• Keep it quick—your question should be less than 30 seconds.
• Make it look good—we're looking for high audio and video quality.
• Choose your focus—you can address one or all of the candidates on a single issue.
• Be creative—we'll appreciate unique settings and approaches.
• Be personal—we want your perspective and general relevance.
• Please note—all videos are subject to the YouTube Terms of Use.

Originally posted by Karen from Official Google Blog, on June 14, 2007 10:33 AM

By Lee Smolin

Einstein: His Life and Universe
by Walter Isaacson

Einstein: A Biography
by Jürgen Neffe, translated from the German by Shelley Frisch

'Subtle Is the Lord': The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein
by Abraham Pais

The Private Lives of Albert Einstein
by Roger Highfield andPaul Carter

Einstein in Love: A Scientific Romance
by Dennis Overbye

Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time
by Peter Galison

Einstein on Politics
edited by David Rowe and Robert Schulmann

Einstein on Race and Racism
by Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor

The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein
by Albert Einstein

Why more books on Albert Einstein? Two years ago we marked the Year of Physics, celebrating the centenary of his great 1905 papers, including those on special relativity and the particle theory of light. There is already a definitive scientific biography, published by Abraham Pais in 1982. That Einstein had an interesting personal life, with many entanglements with women and at least one extramarital child, has not been news since Roger Highfield and Paul Carter's The Private Lives of Albert Einstein and Dennis Overbye's Einstein in Love, published in 1994 and 2000, respectively. His private letters continue to come to light, but do they really add anything to the portrait of Einstein's character drawn so perceptively by Overbye?

Originally posted by Lee Smolin from The New York Review of Books, on June 14, 2007 9:00 AM

Crime in the three biggest American cities (NY, Chicago, LA) is down...and up almost everywhere else. In part, this is due to the aging of the population in those cities. "Together they lost more than 200,000 15-to 24-year-olds between 2000 and 2005. That bodes ill for their creativity and future competitiveness, but it is good news for the police. Young people are not just more likely to commit crimes. Thanks to their habit of walking around at night and their taste for portable electronic gizmos, they are also more likely to become its targets." Young people, your gizmos are hurting America! (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 14, 2007 8:30 AM

New York Magazine has a short profile of Edward Tufte. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 14, 2007 7:18 AM

One chef down. Thirteen more to go. If you missed the first installment of this summer's Top Chef, here's an edited version (Note: spoiler after the jump).

We're in Miami. There are so many damn contestants they can't squeeze in a 20-second voice-over intro for everyone. Who is the guy from San Diego? Dunno. Who is the girl from Brooklyn? Check the website.

The opening cocktail party takes place in the mansion where Gianni Versace lived and was ultimately murdered (um, creepy). The convivial kickoff cocktail party turns into the chefs' first quickfire challenge: You have ten minutes to make an amuse bouche using the leftovers from the buffet table. Surprisingly, the results looked great—almost top to bottom—and no one ran into time difficulties.

That wasn't the case for the elimination challenge, in which each chef (all 90 or so) was asked to create a "Surf 'n Turf" dish using exotic proteins like rattlesnake, kangaroo, geoduck, boar, abalone, black chicken, eel, etc. Two of the contestants got dinged by the clock and faced elimination for not getting their whole meal plated in time.

In the end, however, it was the well-honed tongue of guest judge Anthony Bourdain that brought the elimination into focus. Mississippi's Clay couldn't stand up to Bourdain's beating, and the Southerner was sent packing. It was no surprise that Bourdain made a compelling judge and an interesting choice for a first-episode pinch-hitter for Ted Allen.

All in all, it was a good start to the third season. The contestants' personalities seem like a nice mix of collegiality, competitiveness, confidence, and overconfidence. It's a solid recipe that has worked well for two seasons, and Bravo is smart to keep the menu largely the same for this upcoming run.

That said, I'm really looking forward to Ted Allen's contribution, which, despite his absence from the premiere, is already very evident on the Bravo website. If you're a completist, there's plenty there to keep even the most voracious fan satisfied from episode to episode. For instance, Tom Colicchio spills the beans on why Miami made a great location for Season Three: Despite being filmed in April, Miami gives the show a summer look to match its air dates.

Originally posted by Harold Check from Serious Eats: Features, Videos and Required Eating, on June 14, 2007 5:30 AM

Plants ‘recognize’ their siblings. “Though they lack cognition and memory, the study shows plants are capable of complex social behaviours such as altruism towards relatives.”

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Justin Blanton, on June 14, 2007 5:05 AM

This is either the most brilliant idea for a blog, or a sure sign that all the good ideas are taken. Bad Spock Drawings invites artists to do their worst to everyone’s favourite Vulcan Starfleet officer. Check the criteria for what qualifies as a bad Spock drawing. My favourite item from the criteria is a toss-up between “Sloppy, as if a chimp with metal hooks for hands dipped them in ink” and “Not Spock with a beard; that is Evil Spock from the Dark Mirror Universe!”

Bad Spock Drawings is courtesy of Jason Robert Bell

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on June 13, 2007 7:22 PM

How did ethics become a staple of contemporary food writing? An examination of the many recent food books, such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, from the Columbia Journalism Review. "Are, then, these debates about the ethics and politics of food largely a pastime of a tiny elite–grist for editors’ dinner parties but of tiny relevance to most consumers, who rush to the nearest market and grab what they need?" Or do they indicate a profound change underway in America around what we grow and consume? [thanks Kathleen!]

comments are open

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on June 13, 2007 1:23 PM

Ben and Nate roamed Asia for months on a belly-expanding mission to find the best bowl of noodles on the continent, or possibly the world. Today they revealed their number one bowl hailing from a greasy ramen shop in Tokyo named Ramen Jiro:

As I look around and take in the sights and the sounds (mostly raucous slurping), the overwhelming fragrance in the room is a deep hue of soul wrenching pork stock. This is not a pretty bowl of noodles; it will taunt you, it will tease you, and after 5 minutes of eating the crap out of this thing it will somehow breed more noodles, more bean sprouts, more cabbage, more melty, fatty, juicy chunks of days-cooked pork, more chopped garlic, more soup, more...ramen. I notice that every single bowl that goes back on the counter has been completely demolished, perhaps only a bit of soup remaining. It becomes very clear to me that absolutely no one can leave there without finishing the whole thing.

Read the rest of Ben and Nate's "unforgettable journey of taste-bending glory," preferably not on an empty stomach unless you want to feel sharp pangs of ramen hunger. Also be sure to check out their other top Asian noodle picks: #2 and #3, and #4 and #5.

If you're interested in hearing more about the greatness of Ramen Jiro and the shame that results from failing to finish a bowl or the glory that comes after polishing off your order, listen to the excellent ramen battling stories in "Ramen Jiro Noodles: A Test of Greatness" on NPR.

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Features, Videos and Required Eating, on June 13, 2007 12:30 PM

With barbecue joints opening all over the country, even in barbecue wildernesses like New York, I decided my Father's Day Mail-Order 'Cue list should focus on smoked items that are hard to find outside their place of origin.

Southside Market's smoked hot beef sausage is so juicy, so delicious, and so reasonably priced it's worth ordering it in bulk and freezing what you don't use. That way your dad can be enjoying his Father's Day present for a long time. If you insist on getting Texas-style beef brisket, try Saltlick or Kreuz Market. But order the brisket and not the clod (beef shoulder). It's juicier.

At Alabama's Dreamland BBQ the ribs are porky, meaty and subtly smoked. Dreamland claims that there "ain't nothing like 'em nowhere," and they might be right. I don't think you'll need the sauce that comes with the ribs, but you can mop it up with the Sunbeam white bread that comes with your order.

No barbecue tour of the country would be complete without a stop in Kansas City, Missouri, and the best mail-order Kansas City barbecue I know comes from Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue. Their smoked brisket-laced beans are phenomenal, and its ribs and pork burnt ends are pretty damn fine.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats: Features, Videos and Required Eating, on June 13, 2007 9:20 AM

Soul of a New Machine is Tracy Kidder's vicarious account of the design and creation of Data General's Eagle minicomputer in the early 1980's. The project was a classic skunkworks operation, developed in competition against a more prominent, better-funded 32-bit project named Fountainhead (North Carolina, below). I first heard of this book in Bruno Latour's Science in Action, an account of the codependence between science and technology, "the role of scientific literature, the activities of laboratories, the institutional context of science in the modern world, and the means by which inventions and discoveries become accepted" (Amazon).

Page 57, on hiring:

North Carolina's leaders had assembled a large crew mainly by luring experienced engineers away from Westborough and other companies. But around this time a videotape was circulating in the basement, and it suggested another approach. In the movies, an engineer named Seymour Cray described how his little company, located in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, had come to build what are generally acknowledged to be the fastest computers in the world, the quintessential number-crunchers. Cray was a legend in computers, and in the movie Cray said that he liked to hire inexperienced engineers right out of school, because they do not usually know what's supposed to be impossible. Moreover, using novices might be another way to disguise his team's real intentions. Who could believe that a bunch of completely inexperienced engineers could produce a major CPU to rival North Carolina's?

Pages 119-120, on doing things well:

On the magic marker board in his office, West wrote the following: Not Everything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Well. Asked for a translation, he smiled and said, "If you can do a quick-and-dirty job and it works, do it." Worry, in other words, about how Eagle will look to a prospective buyer; make it an inexpensive but powerful machine and don't worry about what it'll look like to the technology bigots when they peek inside. ... To some the design reviews seemed harsh and arbitrary and often technically shortsighted. Later on, though, one Hardy Boy would concede that the managers had probably known something he hadn't yet learned: that there's no such thing as a perfect design. Most experienced computer engineers I talked to agreed that absorbing this simple lesson constitutes the first step in learning how to get machines out the door.

Page 177, on dumb jobs:

It did not work out he planned. "I thought I'd get a really dumb job. I found out dumb jobs don't work. You come home too tired to do anything," he said. He remembered a seemingly endless succession of meetings out of which only the dullest, most cautious decisions could emerge.

Pages 208-209, on naming:

The solution takes the form of a circuit called a NAND gate, which reproduces the "not and" function of Boolean algebra. The part costs eight cents, wholesale. The NAND gate produces a signal. Writing up the ECO, Holberger christens the signal "NOT YET." He's very pleased with the name. Schematics he's seen from other companies use formal, technical names for signals. The Eclipse Group, by contrast, looks for something simple that fits and if they can't come up with something appropriate they're apt to use their own names. ... It's the general approach that West has in mind when he says, "No muss, no fuss." It's also a way - a small one, to be sure - of leaving something of yourself inside your creations.

Pages 227-228, on skunkworks:

Alsing came away convinced, however, that West had an important strategy. "We're small potatoes now, but when Eagle is real, he'll have clout and can make nonnegotiable demands for salary, space, equipment and especially future products." Rasala came away with the same idea: "Maybe it's ego. But West has some interesting notions, ahhhhhnd, I kinda believe him. His whole notion is that he doesn't want to fight for petty wins when there's a bugger game in town."

Page 232, on staving off post-delivery depression:

West stubbed out his cigarette, lit another, and went back to looking at whatever it was he saw in the ceiling. "The postpartum depression on this project is going to be phenomenal. These guys don't realize how dependent they are on that thing to create their identities. That's why we gotta get the new things in place."

Page 242, on invisible computers:

Wallach and I retreated from the fair, to a cafe some distance from the Coliseum. Sitting there, observing the more familiar chaos of a New York City street, I was struck by how unnoticeable the computer revolution was. ... Computers were everywhere, of course - in the cafe's beeping cash registers and the microwave oven and the jukebox, in the traffic lights, under the hoods of the honking cars snarled out there on the street, in the airplanes overhead - but the visible differences somehow seemed insignificant.

Page 280-281, on pinball:

Their group, as they saw it, was the most dogged, hardworking, practical, productive and dangerous in the company, a bastion of the old successful ways, a paradigm of the company as it had been when it was small. The believed in the rule of pinball: if you win, you get to play again; but failure is unthinkable, so you'd better let no one get in your way.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from tecznotes, on June 13, 2007 9:12 AM

Ex-Ion Storm designer Harvey Smith, now working on Midway's forthcoming shooter Blacksite: Area 51, has been talking to Gamesindustry.biz about the recent Church of England vs Sony controversy. He compared the seemingly prevelant belief that videogames somehow trivialise real-life...

Originally posted by Keith Stuart from Guardian Unlimited: Gamesblog, on June 13, 2007 8:57 AM

P1030113
Originally uploaded by ballulah

She was really, really great live. Her voice has more depth live than on the CD. Plus, she has so much charisma on stage. I did not even mind that she kept forgetting the words to her songs.

But why do concerts take so long to start? She did not get on stage until 9:30 when the doors open at 6:45. The opening act was ... not so great. I don't need the DJ to "warm me up". I don't need more time to buy medicore beer. I just want to hear the person I paid to see! Yes, I am showing my age but who cares.

(This photo is taken by someone else who was there. Thank you ballulah, whoever you are.)

Originally posted by Angela Tucker from tuckergurl, on June 13, 2007 8:34 AM

There's an interview with Alinea's Grant Achatz in July's Chicago Magazine in which we learn his favorite movie hero is "Mr. Incredible," he drinks several cans of Diet Coke a day, he doesn't sleep much, and most importantly his favorite blogs are: kottke.org, chicagoist.com and megnut.com! Megnut.com!! Can you believe it? I'm flattered and honored, and now I feel like I really should be doing a better job of posting!

comments are open

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on June 13, 2007 7:14 AM

• A Rat With a Whisk and a Dream - New York Times
  The Ratatouille team worked with Thomas Keller to get the food right for the film. Yum.
  (tags: food film pixar rataouille nyt keller)

Originally posted by Paul from pf.org, on June 13, 2007 5:18 AM

Things You Don't Know About Organics

Twenty years ago, the typical consumer in the organic market was generally labeled some sort of health nut or possibly an aging hippy. Ten years ago, the stereotype claimed the young, affluent upper-middle class.[...]

According to Barbara Haumann, press secretary for the Organic Trade Association, Hispanics and Asian-Americans are buying more organics than the typical white population. Meanwhile, the report, "Organic 2006: Consumer Attitudes & Behavior, Five Years Later & Into the Future" by the Hartman Group, reveals that African-Americans are 24 percent more likely to be core organic consumers than members of the general population. The Hartman Group also has found that many pregnant women are lured to the organic market as they begin to become more concerned with what they're eating.

(via OOB)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Rebecca's Pocket, on June 13, 2007 4:30 AM

Don Herbert, also know as TV's Mr. Wizard, died today aged 89. Here's part one of a 4-part interview with Herbert from the Archive of American Television. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 12, 2007 6:53 PM

Something to complement Slice's Sunday item about Di Fara possibly reopening this week: Reader Jim sent this photograph a friend took of the beloved pizzeria - this note has been written on a pizza box! Last week, Di Fara had been closed by the Department of Health; most of our readers were okay with Dominick DeMarco not using gloves but were concerned with evidence of mice.

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on June 12, 2007 6:21 PM

The Register: Leopard gets dose of Solaris ZFS. I want to to give a nice smackdown to the "Apple dropped ZFS to spite Sun" conspiracy theorists; dropping ZFS would hurt Apple's customers much more than it would hurt Sun and I don't think Jobs is that petty.

Originally posted by Wes Felter from Hack the Planet, on June 12, 2007 6:14 PM

5ives » Five Flickr sets that aren’t driving the long-term traffic you’d hoped for.

:)

Originally posted by kellan from Laughing Meme, on June 12, 2007 3:05 PM

Apple has announced features for the server version of Leopard.

Read More...

Originally posted by grover.saunders@gmail.com (Grover Saunders) from Infinite Loop, on June 12, 2007 2:35 PM

Lake/island recursion, including "largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island". It's like matryoshka dolls except with islands and lakes. (via fimoculous) (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 12, 2007 1:56 PM

Manifesto going in., originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.

This was my manifesto going in.

It’s been three and a half years - which is longer than I thought, but maybe also shorter than I thought at the start of the year.

It’s a long story but maybe we’ll talk about it some time.

It involves beer, the ever-present draw of a spiritual home, and an offer I couldn’t refuse from a man I wanted to work for.

And on the other hand - a small, perfectly formed idea I really wanted to build - with people I wanted to build something with.

Oh, and listening to Will Wright.

On the high-faluttin’ fancy talk above - maybe a start has been made, maybe I’ll reconnect with them on the next Orbit (2012? Timewave-0! Singularity! SolarMax!)

The team at Nokia Design are smart, funny and like to cause trouble, so I wouldn’t bet against it, or them…

Originally posted by Matt from Blackbeltjones/Work, on June 12, 2007 11:53 AM

The Core Animation functionality in OS X is expected to usher in a new wave of user interfaces.

Read More...

Originally posted by justin.berka@gmail.com (Justin Berka) from Infinite Loop, on June 12, 2007 10:10 AM

Will Leopard's Boot Camp integration be the end of virtualization? Probably not, at least for most users. But Apple has made Boot Camp significantly more appealing in Leopard, and may give the other two options a run for their money.

Read More...

Originally posted by justin.berka@gmail.com (Justin Berka) from Infinite Loop, on June 12, 2007 9:56 AM

Bad news from McSweeney's: their distributor filed for bankruptcy late last year and now they're out $130,000:

As you may know, it's been tough going for many independent publishers, McSweeney's included, since our distributor filed for bankruptcy last December 29. We lost about $130,000 -- actual earnings that were simply erased. Due to the intricacies of the settlement, the real hurt didn't hit right away, but it's hitting now. Like most small publishers, our business is basically a break-even proposition in the best of times, so there's really no way to absorb a loss that big.

To try and make up the gap, they're having a big sale and are also auctioning off some "rare items" like original art from Chris Ware, proofs from issues, signed copies of things, a painting by Dave Eggers of George W. Bush as a double amputee, and so on. In addition to Ware and Eggers, there's stuff from David Byrne, Nick Hornsby, and Spike Jonze. I've long admired McSweeney's for their editorial and business approach...it would be a shame to see them go out of business because of another company's financial difficulties. So give them a hand by purchasing something, if you'd like.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 12, 2007 9:07 AM

I wish I had time to prepare beautiful and delicious bento box lunches for myself like my friend Nita, or any of the members of the bento box group on Flickr. Lunch in a Box makes it sound easy, with great tips like how to pack and bento box and gap fillers.

Photo by wa-nita on Flickr

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Posts and Comments by Alaina Browne, on June 12, 2007 8:00 AM

An interview with Paul Ford about the work that he's been doing at Harper's, specifically putting the magazine's entire archives online. "It's obviously a lot for one person working alone to bring hundreds of thousands of pages online while writing, editing blog content, programming a complex, semantic web-driven site, and providing tech support for an office." (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 12, 2007 7:11 AM

Down at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party Sunday it sure seemed that everybody was having a grand ole' time. It seemed bigger than ever, with people spilled into every nook and cranny of the park, filed into a long row of picnic tables on Madison, and splayed out on to the sidewalk everywhere else. Our group was made of up veterans of the previous four events, had the lay of the land and knew many of the returning players. Everyone had an opinion, but when all was said and done, we enjoyed a delicious day of barbecue. The barbecue baseline in NYC has expanded rapidly in the past few years, and now includes Blue Smoke, Dinosaur, & R.U.B., among others. We learned at the seminar we caught with Jeffrey Steingarten, Ed Levine, Lolis Eric Elie, and moderator John T. Edge, that NYC has built a mighty fine circuit of reliable joints on this here island. In the seminar tent, quality spots like Blue Smoke and very promising newcomer Hill Country got namechecked, LA got dissed, the portability of the pit was discussed, and Steingarten essentially proclaimed that only the Southeast has a currently existing, solid culinary legacy. More gems from Jeffrey came courtesy of the opening General Manager of Blue Smoke who related a tale of an early visit he made. He observed everything in copious detail and forwarded a “laundry list long than most people's arms” of things the restaurant was doing wrong. Without missing a beat the retort came to the effect that “it worked and turned into a great establishment didn't it?” More analysis and photographs after the jump!

Originally posted by food_andrew from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on June 11, 2007 5:37 PM

Provides an overview of the JavaScript language, its object-oriented features, and coding best practices.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Apple Developer Connection Apple Applications Headlines, on June 11, 2007 5:00 PM

Describes how to use JavaScript in web content and Web Kit-based applications.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Apple Developer Connection Apple Applications Headlines, on June 11, 2007 5:00 PM

A map of the US with the states renamed for countries with similar GDPs. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 11, 2007 4:57 PM

Last night at the SF Mac Indie party, I met a lot of great people, and put the face to the name of many people I’ve come to know fairly well through the web and email.

I finally got a chance to meet Niall Kennedy, whose takes on technology I’ve learned are just as interesting in person as they are in his regular, detailed blog entries (and podcast!).

I learned from Niall that Marc Andreessen recently started blogging, offering his valuable opinions about the tech industry, informed no doubt by his important role in the early development of the web “experience.”

Among Marc’s earliest entries is one in which he identifies MarsEdit as one of the Killer Mac OS X Apps for 2007. Whoo! This makes me feel proud to be the new caretaker of this awesome application, and I’m sure Brent and Gus probably feel great about it, too. (I’ll have to ask them at Buzz’s party in an hour or so).

If MarsEdit is killer today in 2007 - I can’t wait to read how Marc and others regard it in 2008!

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on June 11, 2007 4:55 PM

Just over a week ago, Rumourreporter.com claimed to have insider knowledge of a planned fifth Monkey Island title: "...the fifth Monkey Island is coming. I know some of the guys who worked on the music compositions for the original PC...

Originally posted by Keith Stuart from Guardian Unlimited: Gamesblog, on June 11, 2007 4:20 PM

Some Apple fans see the end of the Mac mini in the Keynote at WWDC 07, but it's more likely just neglect.

Read More...

Originally posted by arsjade@mac.com (Charles Jade) from Infinite Loop, on June 11, 2007 3:54 PM

Michael Bierut on design lessons learned from The Sopranos. "On The Sopranos, interest in certain things, including but not limited to event planning, fashion design, literature, and certain psychological theories, are considered indications of effeminacy. A not unsimilar macho attitude often obtains in corporate boardrooms when it comes to design." (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on June 11, 2007 2:07 PM

Whenever I take a pig, lamb, or cow to butcher or sale at the sale barn I am supposed to pay a tax that goes to fund one of the industry “check-off” programs. The author is referring to the National Pork Board and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the folks that tell you pork is the other white meat and beef is what's for dinner. "I don’t believe that farmers like myself should be compelled by the government to pay for advertising an industry that goes against our principles and basic beliefs about farming. I don’t want every sale of an animal from my farm to go toward promoting the very factory farming system that I am trying to be an alternative to." [via The Ethicurian]

comments are open

Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on June 11, 2007 1:56 PM

Apple announced today that rich-web applications through Safari's engine would be the only avenue for third-parties to deliver applications to the iPhone.

Read More...

Originally posted by grover.saunders@gmail.com (Grover Saunders) from Infinite Loop, on June 11, 2007 1:22 PM

I did my Master’s thesis project (play with the prototype) on creating digital piles and piling as an alternative to folders and messy desktops. It’s interesting to see that Apple, who did work in this area about 15 years ago, is finally incorporating them into the Leopard version of OSX, albeit in a way I didn’t expect, making the piles spring out of the Dock, not on the desktop. It was rumored to be added in earlier versions but nothing ever appeared. Now it seems it has. Nifty.

I wonder, however, if putting these stacks in the Dock loses some of the readiness at hand and visibility that make our physical piles so useful. When I researched how and why people pile papers on their physical desks, I found some really interesting things about the anatomy of piles and how they get used that I then tried to build into my piling system. Based on my research, I came up with a set of design principles for piles:

• Items on the top of piles should be visible.

As files get accessed less frequently, they should drift deeper into the pile.

Piles should be easy to file when done.

Users need to be able to browse through the piles to find things not at the top.

Pile visualization should reflect the amount of items in the pile.

Pile visualization should reflect the last time accessed.

It should be easy to re-sort the pile (to move files back to the top or down to the bottom).

It should be easy to discard things from the pile.

It should be easy to pile things as they are received or created.

Looking over the new Stacks feature, I find few of these design principles being used. Granted, no one at Apple asked me, but I have to wonder how much the designers looked at physical piling behavior before creating Stacks. Most of my principles are fairly obvious with even a brief study of piling behavior. I didn’t spend overlong researching my piling system, but the time I spent in the field was invaluable to understanding what seems to be obvious, but definitely has some nuances that could be reflected in any digital re-creation.

I also can’t help but wonder whether having Stacks on the desktop instead of in the Dock wouldn’t have been a better design choice, so that some of the usefulness of analog piles could be recreated and reimagined more broadly. This doesn’t mean that Stacks won’t be useful, but possibly not as useful as they could be. Imagine physically being able to “scatter” stacks by holding down your mouse button and wiggling it over a pile. Or simply being able to see at a glance what the top three items you last touched in a pile were.

Apple, I think, did the same thing with Widgets–marginalized a powerful tool. By pushing widgets too much off to the side (effectively creating a widget mode) instead of incorporating them onto the desktop itself, they rendered widgets a lot less useful. I fear that’s the fate of Stacks as well. We shall see.

Share This

Originally posted by Dan from Adaptive Path, on June 11, 2007 12:03 PM

I so so so want to do this. Wear my beautiful dress which would otherwise never be touched again, in a photoshoot, the sole purpose of which is to create awesome photos without regard to the precious dress - radical! Anyone done this?

* via BuzzFeed!

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on June 11, 2007 11:52 AM

The Apple Keynote is over and the most interesting tidbit, in my opinion, is that iPhone apps do not require the use of a snap development kit (SDK). Creating an app only requires the use of web standards based design and AJAX functionality. This makes me wonder what truly useful applications could be built in time for the June 29th product launch.

Here are a few ideas:

• Where in the World is Tom Cruise? ? Not for stalking, but avoiding any possible chance encounter with the Grand Wizard of Scientology. Would require that we get Katie to shoot Tom with dart gun and then install a GPS enabled collar like they use for polar bears in the Northwest Territories.
• I heard it on KAPL ? For war-dialing radio stations around the world just in case they are holding a call-in contest. The app would not only dial repeatedly but also tell you what station you are calling and what to say in order to win a free lunch.
• R2-D2 ? For when you find yourself in a giant trash compactor and need something a bit more powerful than a RS232 interface to shut the damn thing down.
• Avalonstar ? Can't quite cope with your online life? Just open this app and a finger-tap on the "Easy" button shuts down your blog, deletes your 9rules account, and sends a call-in order to the nearest Starbucks with an order for a venti double-chocolate Frappuccino.
• iCoholic ? Had one too many for the road? Breathe into the iPhone and have the results sent directly to the local police authority. If they don't come in fifteen minutes then you must be good, go ahead and drive home.
• Get Real ? Ask your iPhone if you should meet with clients and it will reassure you with a firm 'no' and let you get on with life.
• Hoverboard ? For those who will own two iPhones, put them on the ground, launch Hoverboardz and then get ready to rollerskate on air but without wheels because you're hovering, you know, in the air.
• DrinkingBirdr ? Because no-one needs to live their life pressing the 'Y' key at work. Potential productivity increase of 300% possible but not probable.
• Tron Disc ? The iPhone looks aerodynamic, so maybe we could use them as boomerangs of the 21st century? Hells yes! This app won't do much but make really cool sounds when you throw your iPhone at people. Still, it's gonna rock.

What else we got?

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Airbag Industries, on June 11, 2007 11:34 AM

Quick Post

I just bought one.

http://www.threadless.com/product/543/This_is_not_a_Pipe?streetteam=capn

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on June 11, 2007 8:59 AM

At Per Se, the importance of staff meal takes on an almost religious intensity. "The fascination was simply in seeing how ingredients were alchemized, how that same English cucumber, vacuumed, compressed and barely recognizable in a Sunday-night salad, became the dice in a fine, simple yogurt sauce Monday afternoon for a North African family meal of lamb and falafel." I loved staff meal when I worked in a restaurant. We were always trying to one-up each other with what we could come up with based on left-overs and what we could use. Stuff like fish was off-limits because of its cost, so it forced everyone to be creative, but also experimental.

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Originally posted by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan) from Megnut, on June 11, 2007 5:42 AM

Today Steve is going to announce the "iPhone@home." It's an ultra-portable tablet running a thin-client version of Leopard (like the iPhone), syncing through an iPod dock connector (the only port on the device) to a 30GB "NAND drive" which shares documents over wifi using Apple's new Google-backed .Mac service and sports a multi-touch 10" screen as it's primary interface. This rumor is objectively perfect, the superset of all Apple rumors ever. And it's a Newton! We'll see this, and also the network-focused Finder that Apple blogger Anil Dash anticipated in August 2002: The dock could easily be represented with a touch-sensitive panel that could be detached from the keyboard and clipped alongside a pretty LCD. In an OS that used to be, and is slowly returning to being, focused on direct manipulation, it doesn't get more intuitive than touching an icon to activate it. .... Even something as simple as minimizing, maximizing, or closing a window has no single-key equivalent. It's been almost twenty years since these things went mainstream, people!

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on June 11, 2007 4:32 AM

Today Steve is going to announce the "iPhone@home." It's an ultra-portable tablet running a thin-client version of Leopard (like the iPhone), syncing through an iPod dock connector (the only port on the device) to a 30GB "NAND drive" which shares documents over wifi using Apple's new Google-backed .Mac service and sports a multi-touch 10" screen as it's primary interface. This rumor is objectively perfect, the superset of all Apple rumors ever. And it's a Newton! We'll see this, and also the network-focused Finder that Apple blogger Anil Dash anticipated in August 2002:

The dock could easily be represented with a touch-sensitive panel that could be detached from the keyboard and clipped alongside a pretty LCD. In an OS that used to be, and is slowly returning to being, focused on direct manipulation, it doesn't get more intuitive than touching an icon to activate it. .... Even something as simple as minimizing, maximizing, or closing a window has no single-key equivalent. It's been almost twenty years since these things went mainstream, people!

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on June 11, 2007 4:32 AM

Ten years ago today I sat down at my trusty Apple PowerMac 7100 (66 Mhz), fired up a text editor and wrote the very first entry of this weblog. It said simply, "Life is a constant challenge." There was no...

Originally posted by Cameron Barrett from CamWorld, on June 11, 2007 4:23 AM

Ten years ago today I sat down at my trusty Apple PowerMac 7100 (66 Mhz), fired up a text editor and wrote the very first entry of this weblog. It said simply, "Life is a constant challenge." There was no...

Originally posted by Cameron Barrett from CamWorld, on June 11, 2007 4:23 AM

One might therefore ask what purpose is served by translating books from Estonian if they go unnoticed and are rapidly lost within the prolific and ceaseless flood of publications; (it is sobering to reflect on the fact that the French words meaning [publié], and [oublié], differ by only one letter!) In one of his poems, Karl Ristikivi writes: "A lizard's track over a stone also leaves a trace, even if we do not see it," (Ka sisaliku tee kivil jätab jälje/ kuigi me seda ei näe). I sometimes feel that we, translators of Estonian literature into French, resemble Ristikivi's lizard: each published translation, even if forgotten, is one piece of the mosaic which forms the image of Estonia in the French-speaking world, a trace which endures even if we do not see it, and which may be discovered, or rediscovered one day by another of those adventurers who walk, as do we, in Europe's literary margins, in search of hidden treasures.

(A lizard's track over a stone. Translations and Translators of Estonian literature into French by Antoine Chalvin)

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on June 11, 2007 4:03 AM

The Age has a brief article looking at how film makers are trying to avoid the 'uncanny valley' - the phenomenon where artificially created characters seem more unnervingly odd as they are made more life-like.

The idea is that we're so used to picking up the subtlies of human appearance that android-like figures seem cold and stilted whereas less life-like cartoons or animals can often seem more expressive and 'warm' because we aren't distracted by their not-quite-right attempts at being human.

This is a concept developed by robotics researchers but is also important when film-makers are trying to make likeable characters that audiences will warm to.

The article has noted that film makers have spent a lot of time trying to develop computer software to simulate things like hair movement, in an attempt to improve realism.

It's hard to say what exactly is off-putting about 'artificial humans' though, so it's not easy to know what to focus on to improve their likeability.

This might be one area where significant advances in human-computer interaction might be driven by the film and entertainment industry.

Link to article 'When fantasy is too close for comfort'.

Originally posted by vaughan from Mind Hacks, on June 11, 2007 3:30 AM

We've got a (spoiler-ful) summary of the episode after the jump, but we want to know what you thought of finale: Free Polls - Take Our Poll And tells us what you think in comments!

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on June 11, 2007 2:22 AM

And surprising too, especially when there is no real reason to buy a PS3 at the moment.

Originally posted by Greg Howson from Guardian Unlimited: Gamesblog, on June 11, 2007 12:01 AM

The call came Friday morning as I was leaving the house. "Ed Levine, this is Sam Schaeffer from Senator Chuck Schumer's office. Tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 p.m. the senator is having a press conference at the Red Hook Soccer Fields to lend his support to the current food vendors. We would like you to come out and say a few words in support of these vendors."

"I'll be there,' I stammered into the phone. After all, we had posted two days before about what serious eaters could do to support the thirteen immigrant families who have been cooking delicious Latino food at the Red Hook soccer fields for the last thirty years.

I arrived at the soccer fields at 12:30. With a half-hour to kill I had time to hit two or three vendors before Senator Schumer and I, along with vendor manager Cesar Fuentes, the local state senator, and A Voce chef Andrew Carmellini were to address the media. I had a pork and cheese huarache the size of my forearm. Excellent. I had a pork and cheese pupusa and ended up tallking to a Ben Benson waiter who was a Red Hook Soccer Fields regular. I was about to head over to the goat taco stand when my cell phone rang. "Ed, it's Sam Schaeffer. The press conference is about to begin." The goat tacos would have to wait.

The turnout was pretty impressive. There were reporters from the New York Post and the New York Daily News as well as numerous local television and radio stations. Bon Appetit editor Andrew Knowlton was there, as was Nina Lalli, who writes Eat for Victory for the Village Voice. Mr. Schaeffer introduced me to Senator Schumer, Cesar Fuentes, and the state senator. Senate Schumer addressed the media. He had obviously been thoroughly briefed by his staff, who were clearly serious New York food lovers. Schaeffer had a dog-eared copy of New York Eats (More), the book I had written about New York food that was last published in 1997, before I had even discovered the Red Hook Ballfields food.

Schumer said a lot of things that made sense: "This is a prime example of New York grit and immigrant ingenuity. Many of the vendors work here as a second job. It's a true labor of love. Removing this for something that might make a little more money for the City of New York makes no sense. We don't want McDonald's here."

And: "This park here in Red Hook is what New York is all about. These vendors, they have their roots here. They're like the trees here. You don't uproot the tree that provides shade and substance for an area."

In response, a Parks Department spokesperson said, "Our intention is not to push out the vendors, who we appreciate and want to keep, but to comply with concession regulations."

I know Schumer is a slick, ambitious, microphone and camera-loving politician with multiple agendas, but I have to say I was really impressed with his remarks. He knew what was going on with the Parks Department vis a vis these food vendors, and was able to articulate clearly and convincingly why these vendors were so important to the cultural fabric of New York City and the whole country for that matter. The only thing he didn't tell people was where they could sign the on-line petition.

His remarks were impressive, but they paled in comparison with something else he did to show his support of the vendors. U. S. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, ordered one of the killer goat tacos. I think he ate the whole thing.

Move over, Hillary. Chuck Schumer for President.

To show your support for the long-standing Red Hook Soccer Fields food vendors in their efforts to secure a long-term concession permit, please write adrian.benepe @parks.nyc.gov. And head to the Red Hook Soccer Fields as often as you can before September 9th, when the current vendor permit is supposed to expire. And have a goat taco. They rock.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats: Features, Videos and Required Eating, on June 10, 2007 3:52 PM