randomwalks/dj

Taking the iconic Eames Shell Chair and improving it for the modern world, Garageworks Industries did up the classic design in carbon fiber. Not strictly auto related maybe, but we can totally see this in our garage, as we idle away the hours talking about or working on our rides. Especially if those rides happen to have a healthy dose of cf themselves, like the Lambos in the pics. Just like the original Eames chair showed off its fiberglass construction for all the world to see, these GI chairs are bare cf, and they are gorgeous. The most unfortunate part is that the GI website isn't really set up and their blog doesn't talk about price or availability. But click over and you'll see a few pics of both the rocker and the regular shell chair (above), as well as a classic student chair too (right) - all beautiful.

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/08/03/garageworks-industries-serves-up-carbon-fiber-seating-for-the-ho/

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Originally posted by ydnar from david’s Neighbors, on August 4, 2007 11:42 PM

Michael Specter quotes Matt Sergeant ("chief anti-spam technologist at MessageLabs") extensively in "Damn Spam" for The New Yorker (August 6, 2007). After the first page of the article, which mostly discusses how Richard Stallman supports the freedom to spam, I figured the article would be crap because Matt Sergeant hadn't shown up yet. He does show on page two (which is page 37 in the magazine), and ends up on half the pages. Poor Paul Graham barely gets a mention for filtering, which is slightly less than Bill Gates who said in 2004 "Two years from now, spam will be solved". Matt seemed the only quoted person to have any perspective: it's only going to get worse, and "[e]ach time we think we have them, they respond with something new." Too bad he couldn't say "Perl" every other word :)

Read more of this story at use Perl.

Originally posted by brian_d_foy (posted by brian_d_foy) from use Perl, on August 4, 2007 10:53 PM

Biz Markie & DJ Lovebug Starski Jackie Robinson Park, Manhattan Wednesday, August 8th Has there ever been anyone like else Biz Markie in hip-hop? Has there ever been anyone like The Biz in all pop music? A master free-style rhymer,...

Originally posted by souris from hustler of culture, on August 4, 2007 6:13 PM

I just finished watching this. It was great but I have to ask:

How did you not know he was gay? It was so obvious. His friends, his family. I mean, how did you explain the Wham days to yourself? What the heck?

Thank you. I'm done.

Originally posted by Angela Tucker from tuckergurl, on August 4, 2007 5:10 PM

After a discussion on the perl-qa list, and being blessed with a few hours free time, I wrote a shiny thing, which, given a module name on the CPAN, will find all its dependencies, and their dependencies yea even unto the Nth generation, and display a nice shiny report on their CPAN-testers results. I expect it to be useful for authors trying to decide what to depend on (you don't want to depend on stuff that itself has fragile dependencies) and also for people trying to figger out why the hell some random module won't install. To see half the CPAN, try pointing it at Angerwhale.

Read more of this story at use Perl.

Originally posted by drhyde (posted by brian_d_foy) from use Perl, on August 4, 2007 10:08 AM

Jürgen Fauth discovered a very interesting reference in Lynch's Inland Empire that is vertiginously meta. Lynch recreated a moment from the film within a film in Billy Wilder's classic Sunset Boulevard- Queen Kelly, an actual film directed by Von Stroheim, who plays Gloria Swanson's butler in Sunset.... A movie quoting a movie quoting a movie. Fauth has some nice ideas on what caused Lynch to add another layer of reference in this filmic cake. I remember reading Lynch talking about Sunset Boulevard in his Faber and Faber book as being the reason why he'll never reveal how he made the baby in Eraserhead. Sunset Boulevard was evidently one of his favorite films, he even showed it to the cast of Eraserhead before they filmed. Evidently someone revealed to him that Norma Desmond's house wasn't really there on Sunset boulevard somewhere but was actually on Wilshire and had since been torn down. At that moment Lynch decided never to reveal any secrets that might shatter the world that his movies created in the imaginations of his viewers, and has been tight lipped ever since.

Link
Found via GreenCine Daily

A side note: something I never mentioned before- When I was 15 I was an enormous Dune, Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet fan, but hadn't seen anything else Lynch had done yet. When I was in Dazed and Confused a writer from Details asked me what I thought about being in a movie and I told him that I liked it, but wasn't interested in acting again unless David Lynch needed a 15 year old for something. From what I remember, Jennifer Lynch read that and I somehow ended up being invited to a private screening of Eraserhead with some of the cast and crew of the film (That was the first time I met Jack Nance). I wish I could remember who all was there. Alicia Witt was there (she played Alia in Dune) and I had already met her during tryouts for Dazed... It was her first time seeing the movie too, and we were both confused and excited. That night I asked my father what he thought Eraserhead was about and he managed to advance a pretty solid theory about the horror of being a new father. Of course, that actually hit a little close to home, considering I was his son.
I never did get to meet David Lynch. The only time I ever saw him was at the Toronto film festival. We were supposed to show Waking Life there, but the day we were screening ended up being September 11th, 2001 (it was also Bob Sabiston's birthday).
From what I heard, David Lynch rented a car and drove all the way back to LA by himself.

Originally posted by weevil@wileywiggins.com (Wiley Wiggins) from News of the dead, on August 3, 2007 5:06 PM

There's an interesting pizza thread going on at Serious Eats: What Toppings Would Make Your Ultimate Pizza?

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats: Main, on August 3, 2007 1:47 PM

Totally weird: Authorities have found a "make-shift" submarine with three men in it near the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. WABC 7 reports that the men may have been trying to "set sail off Brooklyn." Right now, police do not believe there was anything terror-related, as a search did not reveal any suspicious materials. There were oxygen tanks, though. No charges have been filed yet. It seems like one issue is that the sub may have violated the security zone of the Queen Mary 2. The vessel, which is shaped like an orb with a circular hatch, is tied up off Red Hook and can best be seen at Wolcott Street, near the Snapple Warehouse. From 1010WINS: "The self-propelled submarine was escorted by police and the captain of the ship, from Greenpoint, was issued a Coast Guard violation for operating an unsafe vehicle and violating the security zone around the Queen Mary II." And WCBS 2 is describing the sub as a WWII-replica. UpdateThere's a Flickr set of the submarine, Adventures with an Egg, that reveals the artist behind the submarine may be self-described artist-patriot Duke Riley. Here's part of his artist's statement:

My work addresses the prospect of residual but forgotten unclaimed frontiers on the edge and inside overdeveloped urban areas, and their unsuspected autonomy. I am interested in the struggle of marginal peoples to sustain independent spaces within all-encompassing societies, the tension between individual and collective behavior, the conflict with institutional power. I pursue an alternative view of hidden borderlands and their inhabitants through drawing, printmaking, mosaic, sculpture, performative interventions, and video structured as complex multimedia installations.

As it happens, we even interviewed him two years ago. Thanks for the tip, Janelle! Update: WNBC reports that three men were arrested: One was in the submarine, which is actually based on an American Revolution-era sub, and two were in an inflatable boat. The Coast Guard said, "Basically, the vessel was not safe to sail. It had no lights, no flares. It was not registered. Instead of safety violations, this could have turned into a search and rescue."

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on August 3, 2007 12:43 PM

The recipe's title is being a tad modest. Sure, it is peas and mint. But that discounts the ingenious inclusion of Boston lettuce, which just compounds the green on green, with ... more green. You can use fresh peas, but frozen are acceptable, too—and it worked fine for us.

It was actually much better than fine. I served this up with a beautiful cornish hen, but all attention was focused toward the green. At the end of the meal, my fiancée and I were scraping the pan for any loose pea that hadn't made it to our plates. That doesn't happen too often. Tellingly, this great recipe came from Vegetable Love, by Barbara Kafka.

Peas with Mint

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
2 tablespoons chopped mint
1/4 head of boston lettuce sliced thinly
Pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon of sugar

Procedure

1. Melt the butter in a pan over high heat. Add the peas and cook for two minutes. Cover and drop the heat to medium. Cook for another 3 minutes or so.

2. Toss in the mint, recover, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the sliced boston lettuce, and cook until they wilt.

3. Turn off the heat, add the salt and sugar, and plate.

Originally posted by Nick Kindelsperger from Serious Eats: Main, on August 3, 2007 12:30 PM

• Overused Food Words "'Foodie' makes me think of groupies. 'Gourmet' makes me think of someone who is drooling." —Karen Resta
• What to Do with Canned or Fresh Artichokes?
  All the suggestions here are aces. I can't pick one that stands out from the rest.
• Sushi Chefs: Can We Talk?
  It's always interesting when an author or chef or other figure mentioned in a post shows up on the site to chime in or clarify something as writer Trevor Corson does in this sushi item Ed posted.
• Nobody's going to agree on with my opinion on tipping
  This conversation on tipping started by Aoife picks up some steam again after going dormant for some time: "The point is, everybody always makes the server out to be the hardest worked, most unlucky, poor SOB in the world. That's the problem, everybody tips them out of pity. Even if the waiter makes more than you!"—jsanders
• Oh dear...Low Carb Recipes?
  I like that, when LizNYC started this topic, cheffy jumped in with some great meals.
• Most Adventurous Meals
  "I've had smoked raccoon. It wasn't too bad. It seemed like the entire critter was dark meat." —PhotoKirk
• How Do You Describe the Taste of Mussels?
  This one gets my vote for the most philosophical topic of the week. And perhaps it was inevitable that jperlow responded simply with "Sex."
• Annoying Food Habits
  "... And then there's the point where there's no food left on the table but the oh-so-slowly disappeaing portion on companion's plate. The sometimes irresistible temptation then is to reach across the table with my fork and help out. I am careful about doing that, though, ever since witnessing a friend (one who frequents this site) try the same stunt with his wife and get forked in the back of the hand!" —kqrbob

I know kqrbob in real life, and I know who he's talking about ...

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats: Main, on August 3, 2007 12:00 PM

    Towards the end of the summer when I no longer have any students for three and a half weeks, I begin to look around me. Or I begin to watch TV---or both. "So You Think You Can Dance" is my favorite Reality TV show, a genre that appeals to my students much more than it does to their teachers. Usually I'm not a big fan of the genre, but in a former life I was briefly a dance writer, and dance performances hold a special fascination for me. Whereas all the commercials for the news shows I watch put me right in the targeted demographic audience for news (old), the commercials for SYTTCD put me with a much younger crowd.

    What do they see that I don't, and vice versa? It's a question that led me to Google and a blog search. TV Squad has multiple contributors, but the one who analyzes the performances on this show is Brett Love, someone who clearly knows about dance. The long list of comments he generates from his observations, and the clear youth of the site viewers, illustrates SYTYCD's broad appeal, and how analytical Brett and others are in their TV viewing.

    So I have decided to write next Monday's column on the "culture" portion of pop culture. How do we respond to art, dance, and choreography? Do the readers of TV Squad use the same high standards of art appreciation that you and I use at a museum? I will look at a particular piece of choreography from the show and relate it to how young people decide what they like and dislike---and link all this to my ideas for teaching aesthetics in the classroom, something all English teachers do even when we don't call it "aesthetics." (Mostly we ask the question, "Why is this a good poem or play?")

    Sometimes, in the dog days of summer, a television diversion can become the material for some deep thoughts. I hope my column can talk about a popular TV show and a blog targeted at the young in a manner that illustrates that pop culture is more than entertainment--it's an exercise in critical judgment.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on August 3, 2007 6:28 AM

The San Francisco Chronicle food section tasted eight lemon sorbets on Wednesday in search of that perfect sweet-tart ratio, smoothness, acidity, and real lemon flavor. What they found is not pretty: "Too much sweetness, off textures and strange, artificial-seeming flavors ... at least in the opinions of our five tasters."

The national brand that fared best was Häagen-Dazs (72 points out of 100). Häagen-Dazs finished second to Draeger's Sorbet Classico (78), an upscale Bay Area store brand. Ciao Bella (45) finished a distant third.

Sharon's Sorbet, a national brand I root for because it's still independently owned and operated, totally tanked. On the Chronicle's one to 100 scale, it received an 11. Ouch!

The Chronicle's tasting inspired me to do my own mini-tasting featuring Häagen-Dazs, Sharon's, and Ciao Bella.

The Häagen-Dazs was 17 grams heavier per half cup than the others. It was smooth and creamy, more like ice cream, but it didn't taste much like freshly squeezed lemons. Half a cup has 110 calories.

The Ciao Bella was icier but more lemony. I could actually imagine them squeezing the lemons into each pint. Half a cup has 140 calories

Sharon's, my beloved Sharon's, was, as the Chronicle judged, pretty awful. It was downright strange. Half a cup has 70 calories.

Aren't the calorie differentials striking? What could explain them? The ingredients are very similar, though Sharon's lists lemon juice as its first ingredient, while Ciao Bella and Häagen-Dazs list water. In fact, the Ciao Bella lemon sorbet had the fewest ingredients, five to be exact: Water, lemon juice, sugar, pectin, guar gum. Either the calorie counts are not accurate, or the Ciao Bella has way more sugar than the others.

Anyway, in the end I decided that either Häagen-Dazs and Ciao Bella would be a fine antidote to the oppressive summer heat we've been suffering through in New York lately, but they are merely good, and not delicious, as the Cookie Monster would say.

If I want delicious, it sounds like I have to get on a plane and buy some Draeger's.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats: Main, on August 3, 2007 5:00 AM

How much do Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes want to be like their buds The Beckhams? Enough to strip down and show their stuff in an upcoming issue of W?

Australia's News Weekly is reporting that Tom and liked Posh and David's sexy layout in the mag so much that they are in talks to snap some sizzling shots of their own. Supposedly a friend of the couple said, "They have already started planning some of the photos. One suggestion they were keen on was a shot of them posing together in the shower, dripping wet and covered by nothing but steam."

Suri's parents have been going for the very wholesome look, as of late, but now want to take things up a notch. "Tom and Katie really have amazing chemistry," says the pal. "They want to show the world how much."

I'm not sure how much of this story I believe, but can you imagine? If Tom and Katie do get naked, will we be able to see the control panels on their backs? It makes me think of that little girl from Small Wonder -- remember her?

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from Daily Blabber, on August 3, 2007 4:29 AM

gotta check this before I leave the Capital

 bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by fruminator to wahol banksy art - more about this bookmark...

Originally posted by fruminator from del.icio.us/fruminator, on August 3, 2007 1:17 AM

I know you're all chomping at the bit or champing at the bitte or biting and chomping or some such for me to post some more code, but, honestly, I'm not allowed to post Objective-C 2.0 code here (I asked) and I don't really use Objective-C 1.stinky any more, so... tough it out a little while longer. I've got something great in the cooker, just waiting for Leopard's release and my ungagging.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of stock market crooks everywhere, I thought I'd post some Apple news that I'm privy to that has nothing to do with me wanting to buy more stock at a falsely deflated price.

1) Apple has decided that cell phones "are for losers" and won't make any more after Thursday. I have it first-hand that they've called their suppliers and told them, "good luck, suckers."

2) Apple is also completely abandoning their computer business, in a bizarre turn. My friends on the inside said, "Look, Steve gets bored easily."

3) Basically, Apple is going to fold into itself and die. So, please, please, SELL SELL SELL that stock. Come on, be good little sheep, daddy needs a new Tesla. Seriously, you can trust me, because there's NO POSSIBLE WAY I could profit from Apple's stock price going down, unless I were to something incredibly complicated like buy it when it's low and then sell it when it bounces back again.

Originally posted by Wil Shipley from Call Me Fishmeal., on August 2, 2007 9:35 PM

a large-scale data visualization of the textual analysis of English translations of the Holy Scriptures, illustrating the relationships between Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism & Judaism.

in Similar Diversity, all characters are aligned alphabetically on the x-axis. their name & arc size is calculated from their total word count in all scriptures. the colored arc segments show the frequency of the word or the character in the particular Holy Books. bar charts below the names break down the activities of the characters in detail. the arcs connecting the names symbolize similarities of the activities assigned to a character pair.

[link: similardiversity.net|thnkx philipp]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on August 2, 2007 7:27 PM

Manohla Dargis' New York Times review of The Bourne Ultimatum has more than a few lines in it that I don't really understand but make me want to see the movie Right Now.

• "This is the passion of Jason Bourne, with a bullet."
• "...the more formally bold Mr. Greengrass shatters movie space like glass..."
• "It’s filmmaking with a rubber hose."
• "They take us inside an enormous train station and a cramped room and then, with whipping cameras and shuddering edits, break that space into bits as another bullet finds its mark, another body hits the ground, and the world falls apart just a little bit more."

OK, that last quote I understand. And seriously, I need to see this Right Now.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from (un)filtered, on August 2, 2007 4:38 PM

"Obviously there's ways to improve this and make it less verbose, and I went down that path for a while. But then I decided the whole path was wrong. Atom is XML. It's not the representation of some object I'm creating. If I have something that can't be represented in XML, it isn't Atom, and it doesn't belong in my Atom-related objects."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on August 2, 2007 12:21 PM

Ryan Freitas, whose culinary wisdom I can personally vouch for, just shared some insights into his idea that designers can learn a lot from the discipline of a well-run kitchen.

The article in Ambidextrous magazine (download the PDF, it should only take a minute) starts with a simple parallel between the two disciplines:

With careers as an interaction designer and a professional cook (sometimes simultaneously), I've noticed striking similarities between the design studio and the kitchen. Like their peers in design, chefs are under constant creative and competitive pressure to execute and innovate. Both professionals service an increasingly savvy customer base in a public landscape where only the tastemakers and trendsetters survive.

Though it's not mentioned in Ryan's article, the most relevant concept to me seemed to be the idea of mise en place, which is basically the discipline that good cooks have of preparing all of their requirements at the ready and properly placed when they begin to prepare a dish. From ingredients to utensils to preparation surfaces to oven temperature, getting everything lined up perfectly means a chef never has to pause to take care of preliminaries while in the midst of creating a meal.

I'm far from a serious cook myself, but I've found that keeping mise in mind when getting ready to cook something forces me to have to actually think through every step of the task I'm about to perform. So it's not merely that all the ingredients are chopped up, it's that knowing what to chop, and how much, makes it imperative that I'm keeping a mental image of the entire process in the front of my mind.

And good design mimics this process by giving you an experience that anticipates mise en place. You find, in the course of using a tool or performing a task, that a designed has thought through the entire process of your task at hand and placed the information and raw materials you need right where you'll need them. Delicious!

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on August 2, 2007 10:22 AM

Being an active participation in the "evolution of advertising" conversation I'm always on the look out for integrated, engaging campaigns that reflect a brand's true values in a way that isn't intrusive and annoying, but instead surprising and quite simply delightful.

Take Westin's [This is How It Should Feel] campaign.

Westin lives and breathes the values of personal renewal, what with their special programs for business travelers, in-room gyms, superfoods menus and their [Find Renewal] website that delivers insightful tips and reminders for better living when not melting into a Westin heavenly bed, (and I know this because they're my client and I helped build The Find Renewal site!)

Little wonder then that their recent advertising campaign in the cities of New York, Chicago and Boston would be cleverly integrated into their renewal brand message. Via a series of transformative experiences which occur on subways, highways, airports, escalators and elevators the weary traveler (moi) gets to escape from the hum-and-drum of Midtown-madness and feel invigorated, even if for a moment of two. So, not only are the advertisements themselves creative and clever, but they're present in all the right places - the places were you literally need to be transformed somewhere else.

I've always thought the best brand experiences are those that envelop you - seriously, you know that feeling when you are so overwhelmed by an emotion or thought that you really believe you are somewhere else. Well, watch the "RUSH HOUR" video clip in the sub-media section...for a moment there I was having flashbacks to Playa Paridiso in Culebra.

As for rush hour this evening, I might just have to take a detour via Grand Central and hop on the shuttle to check out the Iceland Shuttle Wrap. In this heat, Iceland is just where I'd like to be right now.

Originally posted by clairehyland from l-e-mental, on August 2, 2007 8:40 AM

Pretty nifty DOM inspector from Western Civilisation.

#

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on August 2, 2007 8:00 AM

Quite a buzz amassed the Chelsea store last week as we received a special visit from the undisputed heavyweight champions of coffee.  Rachel and Daniel Peterson of the Hacienda La Esmeralda farm from the Boquete Valley in Panama surprised us all with a slide show presentation and even more of the ever famous gesha (geisha) varietal that has never lost in a competition.

Taking us one step closer to origin, the Petersons spoke of the history of the family farm and the discovery of a unique, tall yet scrawny, low yielding varietal, that when cupped separate from the other traditional varietals of coffee (catuai, typica) had a profound flavor that reminded them of the best Ethiopian coffees.  Well, as it turns out, this long wanderer of coffee was spread around the world in an effort to create some genetic variation amongst coffee species in case environment routed traditional typicas. 

Why so long for this coffee to make its way to the world market we wonder?  As it turns out the gesha varietal was abandoned on its long journey from Ethiopia back in the 1960’s as it was not a high yielder back in the days of mass coffee production, and only in the right conditions will this coffee produce that bergamot infused orange characteristic that we all know and love it for.  Daniel Peterson, who I shall abruptly name Chief Gesha Officer, says that the higher altitudes of the farm (1600-1700meters) are the only true growing areas for this coffee because of its long maturation period and desire for the cool air.  A lot of sweat was not only poured in picking this coffee, but also in its protection.  Their farm will receive in excess of 16 feet of rain per annum, and during the tradewind season air will rip from the northeast around 100mph (for those of us who have ever been on the bottom side of a mountain as the wind comes over the top, we are probably very glad to not be a coffee tree). 

And so with a unique varietal on hand, and learned farming experience, Café Grumpy is very pleased to offer the 2007 Hacienda La Esmeralda Gesha Microlot roasted for us by our friends at Counter Culture Coffee. Much debate has been in the air about whether or not this coffee is part of the auction lot that recently set records for $130 a pound. Truth be told, this is the same coffee, purchased independent of and before the auction coffee was sold (the gesha microlot is about 4% of total production from the farm).

Due to this coffees exceedingly bright cup, it was the job of the Grumpies to do there best dialing it in on the temperamental twins and bring out some body- which as the most recent addition to the family was my toughest assignment yet (wink, wink).  The results, even the Petersons themselves were impressed as they had their own maladies working with this coffee and the Clover at the SCAA Long Beach show.

On a final note, let me extend once again my thanks to the Peterson family and their fantastic farm (www.haciendaesmeralda.com), Counter Culture Coffee for delivering a fine roast as always, the Grumps at the head office for allowing normal folk to put our hands on coffee gold, and most importantly the coffee itself (please be sure to look at the unique structure of the beans and to smell the dry fragrance before you get your next cup as it will not last long.

-Jay

P.S.  Due to recent developments, we may have a field report live from Jaramillo next harvesting season from a few of the Grumps (knock, knock).

Originally posted by caroline from Cafe Grumpy, on August 2, 2007 7:05 AM

Ever since our original alpha launch last fall, the content at outside.in has been primarily made up of two sources: links to blog posts from regular placebloggers writing about their local communities, and links to other local news submitted to the site directly by users or freelancers on our payroll. But we've always known that there was an important group we were missing with this system: bloggers who write occasionally about places around them, but not exclusively. We're currently tracking over 2,000 regular placebloggers around the U.S., but the number of bloggers who have posted, from time to time, locally-relevant information is probably orders of magnitude larger.

It's true that you have always been able to submit an individual blog post as a suggested link, and so some of that part-time placeblogger content has appeared on outside.in in the past. But today we're making it far easier for those bloggers to share their location-based posts with the outside.in community. All you have to do is submit your blog URL using this form (assuming you're a registered neighbor), and then tag your posts with any of the four supported geo-tags described here: GMAP links, zipcode categories, the "Where" tag, or GeoRSS.

I've been using this system with my own blog for the past few weeks and it really works great. This post from earlier this week about Coney Island included a GMAP link to Coney Island's address in the body of the post. After an hour or two, it automatically showed up on outside.in, as a recent link for Brooklyn, for the Coney Island zip code, for the Coney Island neighborhood page, and even on the Place page for Coney Island itself. The end result is that my thoughts about Coney Island get introduced to a wider audience, and get captured in a geocoded format that will make them relevant months from now anytime someone is looking for information about that part of the world. And if you write about specific locations, you'll see your posts encoded on one of our cool new maps -- showing not only the places you've blogged about, but also the surrounding conversation (from elsewhere in the blogosphere or traditional media) about each of those places.

So if you've got a blog and got something to say about the world around you, sign up and start sharing. We can't wait to hear from you....

Originally posted by stevenberlinjohnson from stevenberlinjohnson.com, on August 2, 2007 5:49 AM

The Bi-State Office of Cellular Manipulation has declared all Fridays in August as Cell-Phone-Free-On-Public Transportation. The quasi government declaration says that anyone using a cell phone on a bus, train, or waiting area for the same will be the subject...

Originally posted by Anthony Buccino from NJ.com: Transit blog, on August 2, 2007 3:24 AM

Originally posted by jwz@jwz.org from jwz, on August 1, 2007 7:43 PM

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Originally posted by naughtYmike from Most Huffed News, on August 1, 2007 3:01 PM

The new J.J. Abrams movie which is still listed as Untitled, but is unofficially being referred to as Cloverfield, was filming on the Lower East Side yesterday and last night. Did anyone catch it? The monster movie is due out January 18th, 2008 - and this past week Abrams spoke of the somewhat mysterious project at Comic-Con.

"I just want to say I want a monster movie. I want a great monster movie. I've wanted a monster movie for so long, and I was in Japan a year ago with my son who is eight, and all he wanted to do was go to toy stores - so I know he's my son. And we went to the store and there were still all of these Godzillas, and I thought we need our own monster. We need a monster movie - not like King Kong. I love King Kong - King Kong is adorable - and Godzilla is a charming monster, but I wanted something that was just insane and intense. "So we decided to make this movie and we're making it for you now, and it's almost done shooting," Abrams continued. "I watch dailies and I'm more excited about the movie itself than the trailer, which has gotten an amazing response and I can't thank you enough."

The trailer was first seen before the Transformers movie in early July, and due to it's Blair Witch-like quality and the secretiveness surrounding it - fans have been worked into a frenzy! Abrams promised at Comic-Con that over the next six months a "real trailer," poster and more footage would be released, along with the title. For now, there are some websites cracking clues, and the official site is www.1-18-08.com. The main characters also have MySpace pages, here's one (check his "Top 8" for the others). You can watch the trailer here. Get ready for shaky-cam shots, NY1 Breaking News, screaming 20-somethings and a decapitated Statue of Liberty. The Daily News talks about how there's a resurgence of New York "disaster porn" on film lately, something that slowed down after 9/11. Next up: The Hulk. Photos of the "Cloverfield" set yesterday taken on Orchard Street between Stanton and Rivington, via Big Spider's Flickr. More here.

Originally posted by arts_jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on August 1, 2007 2:49 PM

Living in a walkable area of town is something that I’ve long stated is important to me. It seems others think so as well and have created a tool to rank how walkable a location is by its address. “>Where I live right now fares pretty well with a score of 91%.

As interesting as this tool is to evaluate how walkable a location is, it’s not infallible. It doesn’t take into consideration traffic, crime, or even just that intangible quality of life. But, it seems like a useful tool nonetheless.

Via Swiss Miss.

Originally posted by James Duncan Davidson from James Duncan Davidson, on August 1, 2007 2:20 PM

Paidcontent reports that Treehugger has been bought by Discovery for about 15 million dollars. Makes sense to complement their green TV programming. I've been a long-time (well as long as its been around) reader of treehugger and was impressed by the way they added new features. When they wanted to do video they posted to YouTube and then vlogged it before moving on to their own player. They also introduced a flavor of digg to cover environmental issues.

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on August 1, 2007 1:00 PM

Apple has now seeded a test build of yet another Tiger maintenance release to developers. 10.4.11 will be a somewhat surprising move, however, given the impending Leopard release.

Read More...

Originally posted by justin.berka@gmail.com (Justin Berka) from Infinite Loop, on August 1, 2007 12:51 PM

Even if you have since left LaunchBar for greener pastures, the quick launcher for OS X is still around and recently gained a few cool features that might make it worth switching back.

Read More...

Originally posted by jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) from Infinite Loop, on August 1, 2007 12:39 PM

I was a devoted LaunchBar user for a long time before switching to Quicksilver about two years ago. The new features in LaunchBar 4.3 have prompted me to switch back.

“Instant Open” lets you skip the Return key by just holding down the last key of the shortcut you’re typing. “Instant Send” lets you send the current selection from any app to LaunchBar just by holding down the space bar after invoking LaunchBar. There are a ton of other new cool features, too – really seems more like a 5.0 upgrade than a 4.3.

(Note to Quicksilver fans: they’re both great apps, and I know Quicksilver already has “Instant Open”.)

#

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on August 1, 2007 10:40 AM

Mac OS X Leopard is now UNIX 03 certified, joining a very short list of official UNIX 03 vendors. This ultimately makes Leopard a more attractive server option for business and enterprise uses.

Read More...

Originally posted by justin.berka@gmail.com (Justin Berka) from Infinite Loop, on August 1, 2007 10:22 AM

While I was off sunning myself, the iVillage folks were busy creating a Daily Blabber widget. Check it above. Fancy stuff. So if you have a Website or MySpace or My Yahoo or the like, you can make the Blabber part of your pages. Just follow these easy steps...

You can add a widget to your blog, web site or portal in three clicks.
1) Click "grab it"
2) Select your service
3) Follow steps to publish and/or copy and paste

Originally posted by sbyrne from Daily Blabber, on August 1, 2007 9:27 AM

Look alive, chumps! It’s the return of Rickey! It’s like “Return of the Mack,” because Rickey is the Mack! Rickey is the Mack Daddy, the Miggity Mack, and the Miggity Miggity Miggity Miggity Mack Daddy! Yeah, Rickey likes to get down with some Kris Kross - when Rickey’s doing his daily regiment of push-ups and sit-ups (because that’s all Rickey needs to do to maintain Rickey’s pulse pounding better-than-a-teenager physique - exercise is the greatest PED of all!), Rickey likes to get a little “Jump, Jump” going. If Rickey were still playing today, I’d hire Kris and Kross back together to write Rickey’s personal at-bat music. But instead of “Jump, Jump,” it’d be something like “Run, Run,” or “Steal, Steal,” or “Walk, Walk”. Or maybe just “Rickey, Rickey,” because Rickey makes you jump jump! That’s right!

And even though Rickey retired, don’t think that means Rickey can’t play anymore. I can still play-coach, like that mop-haired gambling chump Pete Rose. Everyone talked about Pete Rose and Charlie Hustle, and everyone loved him messing up some catcher in some All-Star Game. But if you’re Rickey, you don’t need to hustle - you ARE hustle. And if that bow-legged bowl-cut chump can put himself in the lineup to hit a few singles to pad his career stats and win himself some spending cash, then Willie can put Rickey in to work the count, work some pitchers, work the crowd, and work the box score.

Rickey can coach even if he’s in the game! “Hey, you - go do that!” “Hey, other guy - don’t do that anymore!” “Hey, Shawn Green - sit your no-talent loafing ass the hell down!” That’s coaching! Rickey does that all the time, and Rickey can do it standing on 1st base just the same as Rickey would standing next to 1st base. Coaching is like falling out of bed, except you have to wear a jock. And I’m going to stop right there, because there ain’t no need making all you chumps jealous of what Rickey’s got stuffed in his immaculate jock.

But Rickey’s got the Mets jumping, that’s for damn sure. Since Rickey’s joined the Mets coaching staff, we’ve gone 13-7, and everyone’s hitting all of a sudden. Sure, some folks might want to give that credit to that Howard Johnson, because he’s the so-called “hitting coach,” but you know who’s wearing the hitting pants in this thing. Howard Johnson’s probably a nice guy, and I heard he could hit some homers and steal some bases, but he’s no Rickey. Rickey could’ve done 30-30 by July if he wanted to, but Rickey knew that getting on base and messing with those chump pitchers did more for the team than Rickey going deep and trotting around the bases. Rickey wasn’t made to trot. Rickey was made for three letters. Those letters are R-U-N, and that spells Rickey. But Howard Johnson, he’s an OK cat, and his hotels makes Rickey’s favorite pancakes!

If there’s one thing that Rickey’s not happy about (other than having to talk to that red ass LoDuca every damn day - boy will not shut up, and he don’t hit enough to be worth a damn talking) is Progidal Son of Rickey, Lastings Milledge. Rickey looked at Lastings’ numbers, and that boy’s been caught stealing FOUR TIMES already! And has only one steal! Rickey doesn’t like those numbers one damn bit. So Rickey’s going to take extra special care to teach Lastings the Commandments of Rickey. And I’m going to tell them to you folks, too, free of charge (because Rickey’s getting paid). It goes a little something like this:

1) Thou shalt not steal first base, because thou cannot, chump
2) A base cannot be stolen unless thou gettest thou ass on base (and don’t get thine panties in a bunch because this soundseth like #1, just shuteth up and pay attention)
3) Thou cannot stealeth a base unless thou believe that base is thine
4) The base thou shalt steal shall be stolen off of the pitcher, not that no-talent fancy-pants throwing-from-his-kneeseth catcher
5) If thou get picked off by a right-handed pitcher, thou ain’t worth a damn to anyone, and thou should get thine ass home to your momma before it gets kicked
6) Thou shalt be like Rickey, but thou cannot be Rickey, because Rickey is Rickey, and there shall be no other Rickey, because Rickey sayest so

Once I’m done with him, all those crackers talking smack about Lastings and his hip-hop and his bling-bling and his blackness are going to be loving every single inch of his hip-hopping bling-blinging blackness. New York’s just full of 5-foot-tall corny-ass Jewish Italian white folk with no hair and pot bellies that can’t stand to see the Mets do good and the Yankees do bad, so they gotta take their shots, and it’s easier to ride some kid out of town for being a little flashy than to actually do your damn job and REPORT the news. If Rickey was a sports journalist, Rickey would write the truth, because Rickey is about the truth. And even though Rickey’s just the all-time stolen base and runs scored leader of all time, and not some overweight jealous punk that couldn’t hit a ball off a tee, Rickey is still about the truth.

And the truth is - Rickey is the greatest!

Originally posted by The Essex Snead from Yard Work, on August 1, 2007 9:22 AM

Wandering Bookmobile posted a photo:

Bought this shirt this weekend at Comic Con 2007. The can be purchased from questionablecontent.net Hooray for library merchandise!

Originally posted by Wandering Bookmobile from Photos from everyone tagged bookmobile, on August 1, 2007 8:18 AM

Tim on Etags: “What you want to do is compute the ETag based on the underlying data resources that actually drive the page creation; the input to that process, not its output.”.

Was explaing this to folks yesterday who were worrying over bandwidth consumption of their API. Etags can help with that, but if you aren’t computation/database bound consider that perhaps you haven’t built a successful enough service.

Originally posted by kellan from Laughing Meme, on August 1, 2007 7:41 AM

The work of the Italian artist Blu continues to make our fuckin' jaw drop. These latest photos come to us from Just in Berlin. The wall in Kreuzberg is part of "Backjumps The Live Issue #3".

You can see more photos here.

Blu´s next show is located in Malta at the kinemastik.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Wooster Collective, on August 1, 2007 7:02 AM

Last night, Picture New York held a First Amendment rally in Union Square to protest some wacky new rules the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcast. For instance, permits would be needed for a group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour as well as any group of five or more people who would be using a tripod for more than ten minutes. And did we mentioned the $1 million in liability insurance? While the rules are supposed to apply to professional filmmakers and photographers, many people are concerned that some amateur photographers and filmmakers would be targeted. Many people attended, especially as the rally took place right before the July Critical Mass Ride. Check out this WNBC 4 segment about it - apparently the MOFTB may consider revising the rules. The public comment period about the rules will end August 3. The NYCLU has a fact sheet about the comment period (PDF), the city's proposed rules (PDF), and the NYCLU's comments (PDF). There are some more great photos of the rally from edittrix, zodak and Tozzer. And was this guy arrested for riding his bike across the flag? Photograph of the First Amendment rally in Union Square by zodak on Flickr

Originally posted by jen from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on August 1, 2007 6:31 AM

With Citi Field construction making progress towards Opening Day 2009, we turn our attention to a relatively small detail at the stadium - the Home Run Apple. There's a movement afoot at SaveTheApple.com to...save the apple as it currently exists at Shea Stadium. While the website points out that renderings of Citi Field show an apple behind the outfield walls, there is no word on whether the apple is the same as the existing Shea apple or a new Citi Field apple. In a post from early today, SaveTheApple makes its case for the apple by pointing out that US Cellular Field has some of the original exploding pinwheels from old Comiskey Park. Fireworks from those pinwheels went off during a home run, much like the apple rises from its top hat (though Wikipedia says the "exploding scoreboard" is a replica. The current apple, which debuted in 1980, is about 9 feet wide, is made of plaster and weighs 582 pounds. The top hat it emerges from is constructed of plywood. SaveTheApple also has an online petition, currently with 162 signatures, to Mets ownership. While the apple is certainly hokey, it's been with the Mets so long that we can't imagine a Mets home run without it. It's one of the few things from Shea that we wouldn't mind seeing making it over to Citi Field. Update: Matt Cerrone over at MetsBlog sends us a link to their post in June that says the prospects for the Shea apple are grim. It may be replaced by a more elaborate apple with the current one auctioned off for charity. Photo of the Home Run Apple in 1994 by Triborough on flickr

Originally posted by tien from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on August 1, 2007 6:30 AM

I read Frank Bruni's hilarious piece on the weird things people do in fancy-pants restaurants, and, ever since, I've been trying to compile my own list of the way-out-of-the-ordinary or downright aberrant behavior I have witnessed at white-tablecloth spots.

I am coming up empty. I have missed out. I've never seen anyone having sex or stripping or offering gratis caviar to tables. And damn it, I feel deprived. I think it would be fun to witness some shenanigans at Daniel or Per Se or the French Laundry or Alinea or Le Bec Fin. I long to watch three attractive women strip down to their panties and take a dip in the pool at the Four Seasons. In fact, that floor show might make up for the overpriced, less than stellar food I probably would have just finished eating.

So here's my Five Point Plan, my new approach, to eating in fancy-pants restaurants, designed to maximize my viewing pleasure.

1. I'm not going to focus so much on my food. Food, schmood—there are spectacles to behold. If people are going to make fools of themselves, I cannot be swooning over the pork belly at Daniel.
2. I'm going to start making 10 p.m. reservations. Don't you think you have a better chance of seeing out of control behavior at midnight instead of six? I bet you don't see anything interesting or salacious while eating early-bird specials. I haven't, and I do tend to eat early.
3. I'm going to ask the maître'd and my server when I'm seated if there's any table or person in the restaurant I should keep my eye on. I figure the people doing weird shit are regulars who feel comfortable enough to do whatever they please. They practically consider themselves members of the restaurant "family."
4. The sommelier and the bartender (if there is one) must know everyone's potential for mayhem, since they're the keepers of the spirits. I figure $10 each should pave the way for a heads-up.
5. Make frequent trips to the bathroom. That's apparently where the action is. Maybe I should even ask to be seated near the bathroom.

What spectacles have you witnessed in fancy-pants restaurants? Are there any other tactics I should employ in my effort to get more bang for my buck at white-tablecloth restaurants?

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats: Main, on August 1, 2007 4:14 AM

Last night was Cafe Grumpy's first Signature Drink Night. Who needs Tokyo?

Creativity abound. Four judges (Dr. Crane, Kat from Oslo, Liz the infamous woman with camera and Caroline). $50 and prospects of glory.  Drink presentations ranged from simple to story-filled.

Here are the entries with a couple of their ingredients listed:
Karl: Dirty Mocha - chocolate and pepper...
Brian: Beruit - espresso, cardamom...
Kyle:  Islander - spicy chocolate theme, dash of salt...
Nick:  Bartolo - crazy "deconstructed tiramisu"
Kira: Bubbly Sweet Tart Kiss - seltzer, agave...
Phil: Mexican P-Rod Iced Coffee - condensed milk, baker's chocolate...
Cheryl:  Hot 72 - ancho chilis, pepper...
Chris: Morning Sunshine over Byron Bay - lemon, elderflower...
Jay: A Walk in Door County - blueberries, whipped cream...

And the winner was Cheryl with her drink the Hot 72 - beautiful milk texture, sweet but spicy, well balanced and interesting improvisation when the chocolates melted...all served up in a cappuccino cup...with honorable mention to Kyle for his Islander  - with surprising use of soy and half and half.

Look for the winning Hot 72 on this fall's menu. And look for pictures and descriptions here.

Originally posted by caroline from Cafe Grumpy, on August 1, 2007 4:10 AM

When should designers make a political commitment?

“It’s late afternoon at a sunlit café on a high-traffic street. Young faces stare intently at their laptops while the smell of roasted coffee and the beat of a downtempo groove fills the air. Cups clatter on white modernist tables amid laughter and the buzz of machines grinding beans. The coffee menu reads much like the day’s headlines: East Timor, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Colombia.

Bells on the door jingle as Robin walks in. Sam looks up from a bright orange couch.

Sam: Hey! How’s it going? How are you?

Robin: Excellent. You? How’s business?

Sam: Really good, actually. An identity design we did just got a big award. So that’s nice. What’s new with you?

Robin: Things are good. Let’s see... A poster we did helped turn out nearly a hundred thousand people to that protest last week.

Sam: Whoa! How’d you get involved with that?

Robin: I just heard about the march and got in touch. It was a chance to do something for a cause, something the studio believes in. And, honestly, it was an interesting design challenge.

Sam: Sounds great. But do you ever feel conflicted? I mean, look at those posters about the genocide in Darfur. I’m all for rising to the challenge, but don’t these things just take advantage of the cause by exploiting some tragedy as an excuse to make a clever design?

more...

An article of mine is running in the Communication Arts August Photography Annual 2007. The dialog format is a bit different, so I’m curious to see how it’s received. It started out as a rebuttal to many things I’ve heard other, sometimes very prominent, designers say about why they eschew political engagement. Many of the points started as blog posts here. Thanks to Jamie, Adam, DK and Acacia for their feedback on the draft.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on August 1, 2007 3:05 AM

I wish I didn't have such a proclivity for hyperbole, so I could find the right words to express how excited I am about the teaser trailer for R. Kelly's new chapters of the Trapped in the Closet saga. Witness, courtesy of Stereogum, a preview of Chapter 13.

Don't watch this if you haven't seen the original film! It's chock-full of spoilers. And I guarantee you it'll leave you saying Oh, shit! I'm talkin' 'bout oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on July 31, 2007 11:58 PM

Fake Steve on a Fortune story reporting that Microsoft is doing well with three-dollar copies of Windows in China:

Freetard fails to notice the huge hole in his argument which is that – imagine Sam Kinison screaming now – fucking Linux is fucking free you fucking idiot! Linux is even cheaper than Windows. You can have it and all the other freetard apps that go with it for zero dollars, which is approximately three bucks less than what Microsoft charges. So, given the choice of a free software system or one that costs three bucks, the Chinese are choosing the one that costs three bucks. It’s not cheating. It’s called competition. The Chinese put the two products side by side and decided that if cost isn’t an issue, Windows is better.

#

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on July 31, 2007 8:21 PM

a dynamic visualization of an email inbox, based on the metaphor of microbes. all emails are categorized in 6 person groups: family and friends, school, job, e-commerce, unclassified, & spam.

an animal conveys the condition of an email message: the age of an email is shown by the size & opacity of the animal. the status of an email (i.e. unread, read, responded) is shown by the number of hair/feet & velocity. users can select messages & group them by different attributes, such as sender, status or time.

[link: carohorn.de & carohorn.de (mov)]

see also email thread & email mountain.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on July 31, 2007 8:13 PM

Invitation explicitly states product announcements will not be related to iPods or iPhone. New iMacs are a gimme; I think it’s time for revamped MacBook Pros, too.

#

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on July 31, 2007 7:41 PM

Over on the Inside Lightroom blog, I’ve just posted an entry about the color gamut of the 15″ LED MacBook Pro’s LED Display, complete with gamut plots of profiles and the like. The short story: The new LED-based display is good, but don’t toss out your Cinema displays yet.

Originally posted by James Duncan Davidson from James Duncan Davidson, on July 31, 2007 5:55 PM

A nonsensical question that is rarely qualified.

To quote Theo from his fine book

Languages aren’t slow; implementations of languages are.

and

Language selection and scalability have little to do with each other; architectural design and implementation strategy dictate how scalable a final product will be.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

The point is simple.

Just because a given language may be slower (note the “er”, that makes this a relative term) in parsing XML doesn’t mean that

1. it’s fundamentally slow (an absolute term),
2. that as part of a web stack it can’t do 10,000 requests/second, and
3. simply tells you something about it’s performance in a given situation not about it’s “scalability”.

In case you’re wondering, I just got off a call where I was asked this question not about Ruby but about Java. Interesting.

Originally posted by Jason Hoffman from Joyeur, on July 31, 2007 4:53 PM

Sketching User Experiences is Bill Buxton's new book arguing that the process of sketching is distinct from prototyping, and an integral part of design. Buxton opens with the canonical example of great design, Apple's iPod, to show that its "overnight" success actually came after 3+ years of development and updates, and moves on to talk about the lack of design in typical software organizations. These two topics are slightly out-of-tune with the remainder of the book, but I believe they were included to bridge the main thesis to Buxton's role as a Microsoft researcher. In particular, I like the argument for introducing an explicit design phase to the world of software development in accordance with Fred Brooks' opinion that mistakes caught early are mistakes fixed cheaply.

About 1/3rd through the book (see page 111, below), Buxton cuts to the chase with an 11-point definition of sketching as distinct from prototyping. Most importantly to Buxton, sketches are fast, cheap, and divergent. They develop quickly with only minimal detail to make a point, and are intended to communicate the essential ideas of a maximally-wide variety of design possibilities.

He also calls out the example of IDEO's Tech Box, a curated company library of technological toys and materials enabling rapid exploration and research in product design. This was the book's most explicit tie to Mike Kuniavsky's Sketching In Hardware conference series, demonstrating how the characteristics of a good sketch transcend pencil and paper.

Page 36, on wooden maps:

These are 3D wooden maps carved by the Ammassalik of east Greenland. The larger one shows the coastline, including fjords, mountains, and places where one can portage and land a kayak. The thinner lower maps represents a sequence of offshore islands. Such maps can be used inside mittens, thereby keeping the hands warm; they float if they fall in the water; they will withstand a 10 metre drop test; and there is no battery to go dead at a crucial moment.

Page 69, on the difficulty of making new things:

It suddenly occurred to me that our company was not alone in this situation. Rather, as far as I could make out, virtually ever other software company was pretty much in the same boat. After establishing their initial product, they were as bad as it as we were. When new products did come from in-house development, they were generally the result of some bandit "skunk works" rather than some formal sanctioned process (not a comforting thought if you are a shareholder or an employee). Across the board, the norm was that most new products came into being through mergers or acquisitions.

Page 73, on why:

My belief is that one of the most significant reasons for the failure of organizations to develop new software products in-house is the absence of anything that a design professional would recognize as an explicit design process. Based on my experience, here is how things work today. Someone decides that the company needs a new product that will do "X". An engineering team is then assigned to start building it. ... The only good thing about this approach is that one will never be accused of not conforming to the original design. The bad news is that this is because there is no initial design worthy of the term.

Page 76, on a suggested product development process:

Page 90, on the Trek Y-Bike:

The engineering prototype shown in Figure 28 works. If you look at the photo carefully, you will see that if you added pedals, sprockets, wheels, a chain, brakes, and handle-bars to this prototype it would be perfectly functional. You could ride it. ...it is almost certain that it would be a commercial flop. Why? Anyone can see that the bike is not complete. Not because of the missing parts, but because the design is not complete. What is obvious here with mountain bikes is not obvious with software. My impression is that what we see in Figure 28 relfects the state in which software products ship. They kind of work, but are as far from complete as this version of the bike is.

Page 108-109, some example sketches of bicycles showing speed and disposability:

Page 111, on a definition of sketching:

Quick: A sketch is quick to make, or at least gives that impression.

Timely: A sketch can be provided when needed.

Inexpensive: A sketch is cheap. Cost must not inhibit the ability to explore a concept, especially early in the design process.

Disposable: If you can't afford to throw it away when done, it is probably not a sketch. The investment with a sketch is in the concept, not the execution. By the way, this does not mean that they have no value, or that you always dispose of them. Rather, their value depends largely on their disposability.

Plentiful: Sketches tend not to exist in isolation. Their meaning or relevance is generally in the context of a collection or series, not an isolated rendering.

Clear vocabulary: The style in which a sketch is rendered follows certain conventions that distinguish it from other types of renderings. The style, or form, signals that it is a sketch. The way that lines extend through endpoints is an example of such a convention, or style.

Distinct gesture: There is fluidity to sketches that gives them a sense of openness and freedom. They are not tight and precise, in the sense that an engineering drawing would be, for example.

Minimal detail: Include only what is required to render the intended purpose or concept. Lawson (1997, p.242) puts it this way: "... it is usually helpful if the drawing does not show or suggest answers to questions which are not being asked at the time." Superfluous detail is almost always distracting, at best, no matter how attractive or well rendered. Going beyond "good enough" is a negative, not a positive.

Appropriate degree of refinement: By its resolution or style, a sketch should not suggest a level of refinement beyond that of the project being depicted. As Lawson expresses it, "... it seems helpful if the drawing suggests only a level of precision which corresponds to the level of certainty in the designer's mind at the time."

Suggest and explore rather than confirm: More on this later, but sketches don't "tell," they "suggest." Their value lies not in the artifact of the sketch itself, but in its ability to provide a catalyst to the desired and appropriate behaviors, conversations, and interactions.

Ambiguity: Sketches are intentionally ambiguous, and much of their value derives from their being able to be interpreted in different ways, and new relationships seen within them, even by the person who drew them.

Page 169, on the IDEO Tech Box:

It consists of hundreds of gadgets. Most are laid out on open shelf-like drawers. Some are toys, and are just there because they are clever, fun, or embody some other characteristic that may inspire, amuse, or inform (or perhaps all three). Others might be samples of materials that could be useful or relevant to future designs. ... Since the Tech Box is a kind of mini library or musem, it has someone from the studio who functions as its "curator" or "librarian." And like conventional libraries, all of the objects in the collection are tagged and catalogued so that supplementary information can be found on the studio's internal website. As an indication of how much store the company puts in having its employees have a shared set of references, there is a Tech Box in every one of their studios worldwide. Furthermore, even though anyone can add things to the collection, if you do, you must get one for the Tech Box in every on of the studios. These are circulated to the other studios by the local curator, who also makes sure that the appropriate entry is made into the associated web database.

Page 215, on the unevenly-distributed future:

Here we see the same thing. The period from concept to product is about 20 years in the industry in general, and in user interface technologies, specifically. So much for fast-changing technology! ... If history is any indication, we should assume that any technology that is going to have a significant impact over the next 10 years is already 10 years old!

Pages 350-351, on video sketches of matter duplication:

Page 413, on iconoclasm:

If you are going to break something, including a tradition, the more you understand it, the better job you can do. The same is true in classical art and design education. There are classes such as printmaking, life drawing, and water colour, whose purpose is to lay a solid foundation in technique. This underlies the complementary set of classes that focus on the content of the work - the art rather than the technique.

Page 418, in closing:

Like the word "mathematics," I think the word "future" should be pluralized, as in "futures." As long as it is singular, there is a bias toward thinking that there is only one future. That takes the emphasis, and attendant responsibilities, away from the reality that there are many possible futures, and that it is our own decisions that will determine which one we end up with.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from tecznotes, on July 31, 2007 4:24 PM

A simple Sudoku application built for the iPhone.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Apple Developer Connection Apple Applications Headlines, on July 31, 2007 1:55 PM

 bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by djacobs to dj-reblog eyebeam-reblog nintendo games perl - more about this bookmark...

Originally posted by djacobs from del.icio.us/subscriptions/djacobs, on July 31, 2007 1:47 PM

A printed circuit board manufacturer has reportedly just won a contract to begin manufacturing 6th generation iPods, starting in August and shipping in September. The jury is still out on the iPod's design, however.

Read More...

Originally posted by todd.haselton@arstechnica.com (Todd Haselton) from Infinite Loop, on July 31, 2007 11:02 AM

BBC SPORT | Sinkewitz fired after confession

T-Mobile's Patrik Sinkewitz admitted he used testosterone gel in training, and asked that his B-sample not be tested.

“It was a big mistake and irresponsible toward my team, colleagues, the sponsor and the whole of cycling,” he admitted.

Sinkewitz, 26, said he had used the gel on his upper arm “without thinking, or simply in great stupidity, on the evening before the doping test.”

Sinkewitz added: “I could have achieved my performance without (drugs),” and pledged to help bring about "a new cycling without doping" in future.

T-Mobile has fired Sinkewitz, who withdrew from the Tour after hitting a spectator and suffering major facial injuries.

Originally posted by Frank Steele from Tour de France 2007, on July 31, 2007 7:57 AM

Post writer Joel Achenbach mulls the Fortune story, Can the Washington Post Survive?" His point is that the Post's greatest asset is a community that's passionate about news and boasts an enormous pool of talent.

He may be right. I've always resisted the idea of working as a journalist in Washington. The product of the dominant industry there is "message." Journalists become part of the supply chain, or maybe it's the sales force. Covering politics is like covering PR. In a way, I'd much rather write about steel: The message can't stray too far from reality, which is measured by the ton.

Washington's different. But maybe that's why it's built for Web 2.0 (if people still use that quaint term).

Originally posted by stephen_baker from BusinessWeek Online - Blogspotting, on July 31, 2007 6:20 AM

a huge collection of data visualizations aiming to explore Major League Baseball teams' game scores going all the way back to 1814. scores from baseball games are "bivariate data", with each variate being one team's score. the distribution of baseball scores can be viewed from a bivariate point of view, & then be filtered by other attributes such as day of the week, day/night, month, starting pitcher & so on.

can anyone spot any interesting patterns apparent from these diagrams for the non-experts between us?

[link: vanderbilt.edu & baseballplot.blogspot.com}thnkx Jeff!]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on July 30, 2007 10:24 PM

a real-time game based on oceanic exploration & shark research. online players take on the role of marine biologists who seek to learn as much as possible about sharks through advanced observation techniques. in the Shark Runners game, players control their ships, but the sharks are controlled by real-world white sharks with GPS units attached to their fins. real-world telemetry data provides the position & movement of actual great white sharks in the game, so every shark that players encounter corresponds to a real shark in the real world. ships in the game also move in real-time, so players receive email or SMS alerts during the day when their boat is within range of an encounter.

[link: areacodeinc.com & discovery.com|also at oreilly.com]

Originally posted by (author unknown) from information aesthetics, on July 30, 2007 9:07 PM

Stay Free! pals Negativland are going to be doing a rare live appearance this Thursday, at the Highline Ballroom here in New York, and you won't want to miss it. The show is modeled after the group's live radio program and has something to do with God. You can find out more about it here and in this excellent Time Out article. Steinsky, who you may remember (or not) from our Illegal Art Exhibit compilation CD, will be opening. For those of you outside of New York, the group also has dates in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, and Charlottesville. Here...

Originally posted by Carrie McLaren from Stay Free! Daily, on July 30, 2007 7:20 PM

Nikolas Schiller writes: The other day you featured my analysis concerning Google's censorship of downtown Washington, D.C. I am contacting you with two updates concerning this research. 1. I discovered that the area in question is the exact same area...

Originally posted by Jonathan Crowe from The Map Room, on July 30, 2007 6:31 PM

The San Francisco Chronicle's Ray Ratto on Bill Walsh; worth quoting at length:

He was also a complex man, well-read, solicitous, and curious about things beyond the 6,400-square-yard box in which he made his living and his reputation. Yet, at his core, he was the prototypical man of combat. He loved boxing, he was an avid reader of books about generals, and believed in the inherent truths of competition. That flew in the face of his reputation, largely unfair, that he was an effete, ethereal poser, not made of true coach's cloth.

Well, truth is he did like to cast the image of the grander thinker, the great conceptual artist, the whistled humanitarian, even the wry comedian. But he was very much a coach, with a coach's eye for skills, both ascendant and waning; for personalities, dominant and compliant; for the separate pieces and the greater whole; for strategies and tactics, for grace and brutishness  --  all the things that separate football from a bar fight. He built, dissembled and rebuilt with cold, remorseless precision, and his ruthlessness did not always sit well with those pointed toward the door.

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from (un)filtered, on July 30, 2007 5:47 PM

These architectural drawings and accompanying photos of the construction of the Eiffel Tower remind me of the days I spent poring over LEGO assembly instructions as a kid… only slightly more involved. (Thanks to Alex Noriega for the link!)

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, on July 30, 2007 5:44 PM

If you cook with bell peppers, you've probably cut one open at some time and have seen the phenomenon of the pepper within a pepper. But an egg within an egg is a little more freaky and rare.

It was the first Sydney University poultry science professor Tom Scott had seen in his 30-year career. He says a normal egg disturbed in the shell gland could move back up into the oviduct and start production all over again, resulting in an egg inside an egg.

Sorta puts a new spin on the "which came first" debate.

Photograph from stuff.co.nz

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats: Main, on July 30, 2007 4:15 PM

The reminiscence bump is the effect in the temporal distribution of autobiographical memory revealed in research by David Rubin and others that people tend to recall more personal events from adolescence and early adulthood (10-25 years) than personal events from other lifetime periods.

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on July 30, 2007 3:53 PM

Ladies and gents, Slice's favorite drive-by pizza reviewer is back after a long absence. That's right, DJ Bubbles, whose credentials are best explained by the man himself in his message below, has resurfaced with the following email, to which he attached two photos—one presumably of himself and the other, I'm guessing, his dog, who I'm going to christen DJ Doggles. Buon appetito! —The Mgmt.

Attenzione, New Yorkers: Slice is in Bubble Trouble again as New York City's number one player hater is back on attack. The primogenitor of the Definitive NYC Top Ten Pizza List (the most commented-on article in Slice's history) has undertaken many exploratory slice walks throughout New York County in search of the borough's best grandma, or nonna, slice. Rest assured, I found it, and it certainly was not the Levine-endorsed Maffei on 22nd Street and Sixth Avenue nor the bootleg hybrid that is Lazzara's pan pie. No, my new No. 1 nonna hosed both of those knockoffs.

All you Upper East Side yuppies need to take your goods to Vinci's on First Avenue (between 61st and 62nd streets) after your weekend jaunts to Bed, Bath, & Beyond for Manhattan's top grandma pie. Starting with a dough that’s chewy and pliant, the bottom has a golden-brown upskirt coming out of their standard Baker's Pride convection oven. No judgments, please.

While the mozz is aged, it's still moist and has just a bit of sharpness that provides a strong contrast with the smattering of tomato sauce. The sauce is the real star here, as you can taste its sweetness in concert with a subtle tang that lets you know what you're dealing with here—a real pedigree. Dare I say Vinci's sauce is cut with a couple San Marzanos for good measure? It sure tastes like it. To top it off, they throw on some chopped garlic that is baked in with the pie—great touch. Both times I've tried this stuff, I grabbed a reheated slice and knew that this was something to write Slice about. Having a slice right out of the oven would be out of this world—talk about really taking Maffei to school.

As an aside, the good DJ is still looking forward to an evening of pie-tasting with da Slice boyz, and I don't just mean my main man and fellow Syracuse alum, Seltzerbomb, but also Adam "AK-47" Kuban and former New York Times stalwart Fred Levine. Guys, come strong, have a take, and don't suck. PEACE!

—Bubbles out!

P.S., My next article will focus on my recent trip to Naples, where several of Fred's favorites, including Ristorante L'Europeo's "Margherita" (although, it should probably be reclassified as a "Filetti," per Anthony Mangieri's menu autentico, right Fred?) were put to the test and, once again, bested by a find of my own—the good 'ol Buffalo Brothers (Fratelli e Bufala). I spit hot fire!

Vinci's

Address: 1122 First Avenue, New York NY 10021 [map]
Phone: 212-751-1122

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats: Main, on July 30, 2007 2:00 PM

New goals for the application framework focuses on delivering web content quickly, efficiently, and in keeping with open source principles.

Read More...

Originally posted by cjade@arstechnica.com (Charles Jade) from Infinite Loop, on July 30, 2007 1:46 PM

Jo Jo's photo of ridge-cut blue potato chips from Trader Joe's reminds me of the shimmering crystals of an amethyst geode. According to Jo Jo, the potato chips are thick, not too salty, and devoid of grease despite the gleaming quality. Beautiful and tasty? I'll take a bag...[claws at the screen]...

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Main, on July 30, 2007 1:25 PM

Revista de estudios culturales urbanos - Worth learning Spanish for. The quality of material coming out of Chile and Argentina is peerless at the present time. Other key names include Buenos Aires journals such as Punto de Vista, and Prismas and writers such as Beatriz Sarlo and Adrián Gorelik and artists exhibited in the 2006 "La Normalidade". From South America's metropolitan vantage points, the knottings of postcolonialism, globalization and postmodern style are seen in a accutely political light, tempered by a sense of irony which enriches the analysis and a quality of humour and style which allows a broad readership to not reject, but appropriate these analyses as a form of autocritique.

Originally posted by Rob Shields from Space and Culture, on July 30, 2007 1:24 PM

Here’s how Daring Fireball’s syndicated XML feeds worked, up until today:

• The main feed, freely available to everyone, contained the headlines and a brief description of each full article. This feed did not contain any content from the Linked List, just the full articles. My best guess is that there are about 40,000 readers subscribed to this feed.

• There are other feeds which are only available to paying members; these feeds contain the full content of both streams: the full text of each article, and every item posted to the Linked List.

There are several problems with this setup.

Problem One: Many readers were confused. Especially, I suspect, new readers who’ve never seen a post where I describe the members-only feeds. On most weblogs, everything that appears on the web site also appears in the RSS feed; it’s reasonable to assume things are supposed to work that way here, too.

So what happened is that whenever I’d go a few days without posting a full article, but during which time I posted a bunch of items to the Linked List, I’d start getting email from readers asking if my feed is broken, because they saw a bunch of new stuff on the front page of the site but their feed reader hadn’t shown a new item in days.

Problem Two: Members with access to the full content feeds are frustrated. The members-only feeds are protected from public access by HTTP authentication; you need a username and password to access them. Most feed aggregators support authentication, but some of the ones that don’t are exceedingly popular, including Google Reader and the new .Mac Reader for iPhone’s MobileSafari.

The Solution

So, here’s what I’m trying: As of about an hour ago, the main feed now contains the full content of the site, available to everyone free of charge. Every item posted to the front page of the site now appears in the feed. If you’re already subscribed, you should already see the results in your aggregator – the URL for the main feed has not changed. Article titles are marked with a star (★) to visually separate them from Linked List entries.

For now, let’s consider this an experiment for the month of August. I’m hoping it goes well, though, and can be made permanent. I may tweak the format and exact details of the sponsored messages in the coming weeks, but the goal is simple: to make it as easy and convenient as possible for everyone who wants to follow Daring Fireball via a feed subscription.

My thanks to Rogue Amoeba, the debut sponsor of the feed.

Sponsorship Opportunity

The full-content feed is available for exclusive sponsorship on a weekly basis. The sponsorship price and estimated subscriber numbers are available here.

Web page ads for Daring Fireball are handled through The Deck, a small but growing network of top-notch independent web sites. The Deck kicks ass – but, all ads on The Deck are network-wide. Sponsoring the RSS feed is a way for companies to promote their products and services specifically to Daring Fireball’s audience.

The Members-Only Feeds

For now, the members-only feeds continue to work, unchanged. As stated above, however, this experiment with an open-to-all full-content feed is as much for the benefit of members as it is for non-members. By far, the single most common request for the member feeds is to find a way to make them work with Google Reader. This is it.

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on July 30, 2007 12:57 PM

Penciled In: Intel, Racism Inside (via Anarchaia)

Originally posted by Adam from randomWalks, on July 30, 2007 10:51 AM

Like archeology, digging through the iPhone's firmware can turn up a lot of boring stuff at times. But a few interesting gems can be found here and there, which is the case with a few widgets not currently in use on the iPhone that Apple seems to have waiting in the wings.

Read More...

Originally posted by jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) from Infinite Loop, on July 30, 2007 9:38 AM

I love my job and I love Jane Austen. What I love about my job is just how much technology is changing our behavior. And what I love about Jane Austen is how what she wrote 200 years ago fits our world today.

So my point is, after readying a story in the NYTimes about the popularity of Jane Austen, I spent a couple hours on Saturday night emersed in the Jane Austen video mashups on Youtube. They are beautiful and creative and fascinating. Kids are taking either the trailer voiceover from the most recent moving, Becoming Jane, and mashing it with other videos (like an hommage to Harry Potter's Hermione) or with other music. Or they're taking clips from all the different movies of Jane Austen books and glomming them together with music or themes that mean something to them.

Massive copyright violation, but if I were the movie studios, I would be ecstatic. Companies try so hard to create buzz and following for their products. They throw video out there for people to use, but all too often only want folks to use the video clips they provide. This however, this incredibly clever massive copyright violation is exactly what any movie studios should hope to have.

Originally posted by heather_green from BusinessWeek Online - Blogspotting, on July 30, 2007 9:20 AM

 bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by yatta to lionelrichie awesome hello via:anildash - more about this bookmark...

Originally posted by yatta from del.icio.us/yatta, on July 30, 2007 8:06 AM

Times Online | Vinokourov fired after positive B-test

Alexandre Vinokourov, who created the Astana team after his Liberty Seguros squad was prevented from riding in last year's Tour, has been fired after Saturday's B-sample test indicated an illegal transfusion.

Tour of Germany organizers have said Astana is not welcome in their race, but organizers confirmed their participation in the Vuelta a España.

Originally posted by Frank Steele from Tour de France 2007, on July 30, 2007 7:53 AM

Clockwise from top left: the Onion Burger, the Butter Burger, the Pimento Cheese Burger. Photographs courtesy Jason Perlow

A big thanks to all you readers who made it out to the Gothamist–AHT Beach Burger Bash on Saturday. All of us here at A Hamburger Today and Serious Eats had a sin-sear-ly great time meeting you, eating burgers, and working burger-line detail.

With some volunteer help from the sponsoring blogs, Harry Hawk and the Water Taxi Beach crew formed a burger assembly line, with the evening's burgers built upon a base consisting of a four-ouce freshly ground patty cooked expertly on an ultrahot griddle. The patties were added to the griddle with an ice cream scoop, cooking for a minute or two as medium-size meatballs before getting the smash treatment with the back of a spatula. This helped create a crisp exterior crust while still leaving the coarsely ground meat loosely packed. To this base, different items were added to form the regional American burgers enjoyed by the 140-some people in attendance. Those burgers were ...

The Pimento Cheese Burger

The evening started with the Pimento Cheese Burger, with "Hamburger Matty" Jacobs on pimento cheese detail, scooping the Southern-inspired spread onto prepped bottom buns. I was happy to have finally tried this burger, but it was a bit messy. Still, I liked the mild kick the pimentos provided.

The Butter Burger

I gotta be honest with you. When readers picked this burger, I was none too excited. First, we did it last year, and, second, my doctor would be none too happy about its liberal dose of melty animal fat. But it was tasty enough, and people seemed to have a strange trainwreck-type attraction to it. And, thanks to the European-style butter used, it was rich and creamy.

The Onion Burger

This burger, at least from my perspective, seemed to be the burger of the night, with a lot of you telling me it was the burger you were waiting for. This one deviated a bit more from the standard procedure, with Harry and crew throwing onions on the grill first, topping them with the scooped meat, and then smashing the meat into the onions, basically ebedding rings of onion into the patty that would then caramelize a bit in the beef fat. This was my favorite burger of the night, and the only thing I think that could have improved it was a nice square of American cheese draped on top.

I recognized many returning faces from last year's event—thanks for your repeat attendance. And, I got to meet many more new folks as well as people I'd only known previously via the tubes of the Internet. It was good meeting you all. Coverage from bloggers in attendance is starting to appear, including an insane amount of documentation by Jason Perlow on Off the Broiler—with a podcast, video, and tons of great photos. If you have a link you'd like added to the list below, email me with it.

Coverage Elsewhere

Podcast #40: Gothamist/A Hamburger Today QBQ 2 BurgerCAST [Off the Broiler]
Probably Awkward Goes to Queens on Spring Break [Probably Awkward]

Big Ups

Thanks to Jen Chung, Jake Dobkin, and Tien Mao from Gothamist, who did a bang-up job splitting burger buns, schlepping beer, and dolloping butter.

Thanks to "Hamburger Matty" Jacobs, one of AHT's founding editors, for administering pimento cheese spread to the first round of burgers and helping out in general.

Thanks to Serious Eats's Alaina Browne for working the ticket redemption station and dispensing information to the ravenous crowd and to Robyn Lee for creating the cute burger meal ticket.

Thanks to Six Apart for sponsoring the first keg of the evening and to Six Apart's Anil Dash for helping with crowd control and logistics.

And, last but not least, mad props to Harry Hawk and the Water Taxi Beach crew for cooking some amazing burgers quickly and efficiently.

Originally posted by Adam Kuban from Serious Eats: Main, on July 30, 2007 7:30 AM

CyclingNews.com | Vaughters confirms Millar, Vande Velde, and Zabriskie

Jonathan Vaughters, looking to win a 2008 Tour de France wildcard invitation for Team Slipstream, has confirmed three major signings for the 2008 season: Saunier Duval's David Millar and CSC's Dave Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde.

Vande Velde confirmed the signing during Sunday's VS. broadcast, while Millar apparently planned to announce the change during the rest day Saunier Duval press conference where Vinokourov's positive became public.

The doping circus around this year's Tour would seem to only help Slipstream's chances. The team performs extensive longitudinal testing of each rider throughout the year, including blood profiling to discourage EPO use or blood transfusions.

Very nice Flickr photo of Millar warming up in London by graspnext.

Originally posted by Frank Steele from Tour de France 2007, on July 30, 2007 7:01 AM

Lionel Richie's "Hello" is, of course, the most moving and emotional music video of all time.* In the more than two decades since its release, it's also become a touchstone for inept sculptors worldwide. Especially in Iraq. Thus, it's imperative that I direct you to The Hello Experiment, a film for those who understand how truly important this work of art is. (Thanks to Ben for the link.)

* Note: You shut up with your whining.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on July 30, 2007 6:24 AM

After watching Next Food Network Star for 3 seasons, I don't think any of them has produced a star. Top Chef has proven to have more validity as a food vehicle for the foodie viewer. It's just my opinion, what do you think?

Originally posted by Mich23 from Serious Eats: Main, on July 30, 2007 4:46 AM

In my heart I would like to be a locavore purist, eating food grown or raised within a 500-mile radius of my house. When I read about Broadway East, a restaurant opening this fall in New York City that is going to serve three locavore squares a day, I applauded. I believe in local food, slow food, and every other kind of "food" movement that supports local farmers and sustainable agriculture. I pledge allegiance to Alice Waters every day. But what's a localist to do when the cherries taste better from Washington, 3,000 miles away from where this local yokel calls home?

All summer, I have been eating local cherries sold at both my local farmers' market and at Whole Foods, and though every once in a while I hit a vein of firm, sweet cherries, more often than not I'm left holding the bag (of cherries, that is) because the cherries weren't good enough to finish. So I am forced by my obsessive, compulsive search for the perfect bite to buy Washington state cherries at my local supermarkets and to even have them air-lifted to me at some justifiably inflated cost. And those cherries grown oh so far away are invariably better—firmer, sweeter, and tastier.

I have talked to farmers in New York state and in California about this issue. I have spent days on both coasts in the company of these farmers in their fields and orchards and at farmers' markets. My conclusion: Local does not trump nature and science. The best peach growers and cherry growers in California, for example, use sophisticated farming and irrigation techniques to produce cherries, peaches, and nectarines that just taste better. That superior taste is also a result of the climatic conditions they deal with. For example, Ron Mansfield of Gold Bud Farms combines his degree from the University of California Cooperative Extension and the requisite amount of sun, water, and cool nights to grow peaches that are far superior to anything you can get in Georgia, New Jersey, Texas, or any other state that proclaims peach superiority.

Conversely, Jim Kent at Locust Grove Farm in Milton, New York, grows apples on the land that six generations of his family have tilled that are so good they put any apple I have eaten in California to shame. And I have eaten New Jersey strawberries from Tim Stark's Eckerton Hill Farms in a restaurant with Alice Waters that had her swooning with delight. After she could swoon no more, she said, "We just can't get strawberries this good in California."

So I still pledge allegiance to Waters, localism, slow food, and sustainable agriculture, while at the same time recognizing that sometimes things just taste better grown in one region rather than another. Jim Kent explained this phenomenon this way: "As farmers, we can only work with what God gives us." That makes Jim not a religious man but a realist.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats: Main, on July 30, 2007 3:32 AM

A lot of the links in my snippets feed are visual, but I only post a small portion of the images I encounter. Even then, context is a bitch. All of it gets fed into my Del.icio.us account, which is Flickr-aware but not otherwise picture-friendly. So, I was really happy to find FFFFOUND! last week, thanks to Lydia for the invite.

FFFFOUND! is a website for collecting and sharing images from the web, like Flickr for other people's pictures:

FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!

I've been using it for the past week or so, and have really been enjoying the experience. It fills a niche that my other micro-bloggy services, Twitter, Pownce, and Reblog, can't. It also has some interesting borderline social features thrown in to boot.

First, the good:

The site provides a bookmarklet for importing images. The expectation is that you casually throw interesting images over to your account as you move about the web. Activating the bookmarklet adds a heavy yellow border to all page images, so that clicking on them imports them to FFFFOUND!. The source URL is sent along as well, to maintain the connection back to the original location.

It's possible to add other people's images on FFFFOUND! as well, by clicking the "I (heart) This!" button below each site image.

Recommendations branch from each image, via a collection of related thumbnails. Browsing the site is a many-tabbed experience, and I routinely follow a thread of interesting pictures every time I visit. There's a healthy population of users here with excellent taste, most of them Japanese. Images range from Processing screen grabs, to fashion photography, to architecture, to excerpts from graphic design portfolio websites. There's a heavy emphasis on inspiration among the pictures I've browsed. There are also personal recommendations behind the "New For You!" link in the navigation. Both seem to work just like your basic Amazon "people who liked this also liked..." feature.

The site has no tags, which makes me happy. All connections and content are purely visual.

The site also has a decent respect for animated GIFs, even in thumbnail and preview form.

There are a few bits that need work.

The only way to pull new images into the site is via the bookmarklet. I've found this limiting in two cases: many excellent images live on the web in thumbnail form, with links to full-size versions invisible to FFFFOUND!. Also, I spend a lot of time on an old computer with a slow-javascript-performance browser, and I'm aggressive with turning off JS and Ajax on many sites. The bookmarklet doesn't work on Flickr and certain other sites unless I make a special point of temporarily enabling javascript. This inhibits the flow.

The site's "followers" feature informs me that I have 8 followers, but it doesn't say who they are. I assume these are people who like the same images as me and find them after I do, but I can't see their identities to understand what it is they find interesting. It also doesn't tell me whose follower I am, so I can see whose tastes I tend to share. This part may actually be a feature, keeping a focus on the pictures instead of the users.

There's no way to deny recommendations. You can either love an image, or mark it as inappropriate, but you can't politely decline. This decreases the value of the recommendations feature, making it necessary to wait for uninteresting stuff to scroll off the bottom.

The site is in private beta, and each new user gets a single invitation to pass on. Mine's already accounted for, but it sure would be nice to see a more ambitious invite policy.

They offer a screensaver built with ScreenTime, but it totally crashes my shit and generally doesn't work.

Overall, though, FFFFOUND! is a joy to use. I've been introduced to a steady stream of beautiful work, and the "followers" count is a tiny nudge of positive social feedback. I love seeing the images that inspire me framed on a gallery wall like this. The domain is just a few months old, and the site seems to be in a sweet spot of growth, with quality users posting beautiful pictures, and not a lot of noise. It's interesting joining a service where I don't know anyone (yet).

The site is cagey about its source, but the WHOIS lookup says it's a project of Yugo Nakamura, designer of the freakishly awesome Uniqlock and this ball dropping thing that's become something of a joke around the office for its frequent appearance in conversation.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from tecznotes, on July 29, 2007 10:05 PM

I don't know if it's just that I went to lousy public schools, or that the xenophobic maniacs who resent the common ideals of humanity were successful in their efforts to shield kids from good ideas, but somehow I'd missed ever learning about or reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights while I was in school.

The text of the document is surprisingly brief and incredibly well-edited, especially when you consider that it was written not just by committee, but by a committee of committees from around the world. For having (presumably) suffered at the hand of so many authors, it is an incredibly simple, even elegant declaration.

One of the most reassuring things about humanity is that we try to make things like this. One of the most terrifying things about humanity is that there are those who would find fault with it. There is of course much more on the Declaration at Wikipedia, but the most compelling related resource, to me, was the Declaration on Great Apes. From the preamble:

We demand the extension of the community of equals to include all great apes: human beings, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans.

Shades of "Ape Shall Not Kill Ape". Hmm.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on July 29, 2007 9:51 PM

Biologists Helping Bookstores is a guerilla effort to reshelve pseudo-scientific books (books on intelligent design, for instance), taking them from the Science section and moving them to a more appropriate area of the store, like Philosophy, Religion, or Religious Fiction. (via mr) (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on July 29, 2007 7:09 PM

ESPN.com | ZOOM Gallery - 94th Tour de France

ESPN.com has an awesome, full-screen slideshow of some of their best photos from the 2007 Tour. I don't think the captions were written by cycling fans, though - one of the featured photos shows Tom Boonen and Gert Steegmans' “stage-ending duel.”

Originally posted by Frank Steele from Tour de France 2007, on July 29, 2007 6:08 PM

Idiomatic Python and tips on better, faster, and more readable coding style. "YODA: Know you will when your code you try to read six months from now."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on July 29, 2007 5:14 PM

Merckx w/Armstrong, Bennati, final podium

GrahamWatson.com | Tour de France Stage 20 photo gallery

Soler, Evans, final jerseys

CyclingNews.com | Stage 20 photo gallery

Originally posted by Frank Steele from Tour de France 2007, on July 29, 2007 4:09 PM

I have so much to say about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, both good and bad, but my main issues with the book revolve around Severus Snape. I won't say any more for those who have yet to read the book/series, but i'll just leave you with a link to this Snape awesomeness!

Originally posted by beXn from beXnlog, on July 29, 2007 2:51 PM

Several of the web's most popular sites (Digg, YouTube, MySpace, CNN) are using the mullet strategy (business up front, party in the rear) for content to attract both boisterous users and well-heeled advertisers. "They let users party, argue, and vent on the secondary pages" -- that's the party in the rear -- "but professional editors keep the front page looking sharp" -- the business up front. (link)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on July 29, 2007 1:31 PM

I just passed my 1000th bug filed in FogBugz, and I thought I would share with everyone how I'm getting along with it (that's about 130 days, at 7.7 bugs filed on average a day).

*snip*

Ok, I had a long blog post here detailing why I like it so much and my workflow and so on, but it was getting too long and I'm a busy guy and I'm sure you are too and I thought I could just shorten it down real quick:

1) It rocks. It was way easy to setup. It works.
2) All email to support@flyingmeat.com goes through FogBugz which is a huge huge time saver for me. I can turn emails into bug reports, file them away, respond, easily see previous emails from the reporter, and generally do everything I need to do when I'm wearing my support hat. It's all easy and does what I need and want it to do.
3) It provides a link when I respond, so folks can see the status of their bug reports. That's cool.
4) The overall workflow is very sane.
5) Respond to an email + close is pretty nice. If a customer responds to a closed case, it pops back open again. I don't "lose" emails like I did in Mail.app.
6) It's a good bug tracking system in addition to email support.
7) I can easily see previous emails the sender has sent to me. I know who the trouble makers are!

The Gripes:
1) It is incredibly obvious the UI was done by a hardcore windows user. It screams Microsoft. It is disgusting, but I'll live with it because it works so well.
2) Two steps to close a bug kind of sucks when it's just you opening and closing bugs.
3) It doesn't wrap email properly when responding. I've got a quick script to handle that, but ... *sigh*.

Previously I had been using Jira to handle my bug reports, but two things got me to stop using it. The Java vm I was using needed to be restarted every night or else it would crash randomly. Not really Jira's fault but more of a combination of Java sucking hard and running the JVM on FreeBSD, which is very much a second class citizen in the java world. The other reason I left it was because I really wanted the email integration without spending a ton of money. I also tried out MailTank for a little bit, but it was just email support and I needed both bug tracking + email. MailTank was also subscription based, and I'm not too fond of subscriptions. I looked into other apps as well, but they were all horribly complicated or just... lame.

And here is what I'm sure someone is already thinking about leaving a comment on: FogBugz costs $129 per login (or less, depending on how many logins you need). You know what? It's worth it. Anything that makes my life this much easier in the support arena is worth 129 bucks. The idea of going back to Apple Mail to handle my support load makes me cringe. It's a time saver, and one of my rules for being an indie dev is to spend your time wisely. 129 bucks is nothing for what it does for me.

In short, (cc)Gus recommends FogBugz++uber+.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Gus's blog, adventures in Flying Meat., on July 29, 2007 1:21 PM

Apple updates its Windows tool for zero-configuration network discovery. Hey! Hey! Quit nodding off back there!

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Originally posted by ars@niload.com (Erik Kennedy) from Infinite Loop, on July 29, 2007 11:26 AM

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Originally uploaded by david.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on July 29, 2007 10:15 AM

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Originally uploaded by david.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on July 29, 2007 10:15 AM

Via the HA blog (an obviously unserved niche in retrospect), a very interesting 30 minute presentation on the Google Talk architecture.

ConnectedUsers * BuddyListSize * OnlineStateChanges

Interestingly people keep independently re-discovering that maintaining presence is the hard part of scaling these systems.

Its something that really came home hard in my talking with Twitter helping with their scaling challenges (so much so that we took a slide out of our “Social Software for Robots” talk to talk about it, and Blaine mentioned it again in his “Scaling Twitter” talk)

So by way of a PSA:

Presence isn’t easy.

Growth in social systems in non-linear. Ignore the network effect at your peril.

Kick the Tires

Also interesting was “Real Life Load Tests”. The GTalk team deployed to Orkut and GMail weeks before actually turning on the UI for the features to be able to monitor the load. These are the practices that make Bill’s recent observation on HA systems possible:

An interesting takeaway is that it’s clearly possible to re-architect data storage on super-busy production systems seemingly no matter where you start from.

For the rest of bullets see the HA blog post.

Originally posted by kellan from Laughing Meme, on July 29, 2007 8:36 AM

[ via nytimes ]

Originally posted by finn from Modcult, on July 29, 2007 8:23 AM

There Are 12 Kinds of Ads in the World. Slate digs up a 1978 analysis of propaganda techniques by Donald Gunn an ad man for Leo Burnett. Posted as a slideshow with associated YouTube videos of recent ads.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on July 29, 2007 7:54 AM

Did you see the note written to Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, in the paper a while back? The Miss Manners column is like a blog only it's printed in the newspaper and when readers write mail and send her...

Originally posted by Anthony from NJ.com: Transit blog, on July 29, 2007 3:59 AM