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August 4, 2007

Carbon Fiber + Eames = FTW

Carbon Fiber + Eames = FTW

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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Matt Sergeant in The New Yorker

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.

NYC - Biz Markie & DJ Lovebug Starski Concert (08/08/07)

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,...

George Michael: Behind The Music

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.

CPAN dependencies and test results checker

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.

August 3, 2007

Sunset Boulevard and Inland Empire

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.

Dream Pizza

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

Submarine-Like Vessel - And 3 Men - Found in Brooklyn

2007_07_submarine.jpg 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."

Dinner Tonight: Peas with Mint

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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.

Look Who's Talkin': Recent Comments We Have Known and Loved

Watching the Serious Eats community grow and contribute to the discussion happening on the site is incredibly fun for all of us here. Talk topics and comments run the gamut from useful to funny to philosophical, sometimes—oftentimes—in the same thread. So, looking back at the week past, here are a handful of our favorite discussions and comments.

Thoughts On My Pop Culture Column

    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.

Is There a Lemon Sorbet You Love?

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.

Tom and Katie's Naked Pics

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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." Small%20Wonder_16%20018_0001.jpg

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?
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Warhol vs Banksy

gotta check this before I leave the Capital

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

August 2, 2007

Insider info on AAPL!

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.

comparing the holy scriptures

similar_diversity.jpg
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]

filmmaking with a rubber hose

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.

Atom Models

"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."

Cooking Up a Design

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.

Ambidextrous - Cooking and Design

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!

this is how it should feel

Rainforest1

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.

Iceland1


XRAY — Cross-Browser JavaScript Inspector for Web Developers

Pretty nifty DOM inspector from Western Civilisation.

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A man, a plant, and a dream

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).

Outside.in: Not Just For Placebloggers Anymore

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....

CELL PHONE FREE FRIDAYS - August

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...

August 1, 2007

Represent.

Pat Tillman: Three shots to the forehead?!?! | Corrente

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.

Abrams Takes Over Orchard Street

2007_07_arts_cloverfield.jpg2007_07_arts_clover1.jpg
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.

Walk Score 91%

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.

Discovery Buys Green Lifestyle Blog/Site Treehugger For About $15 Million

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.

OS X 10.4.11 update now being tested

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...

LaunchBar 4.3 gains a few Quicksilver-esque features

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...

LaunchBar 4.3

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”.)

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Mac OS X Leopard receives UNIX 03 certification

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...

New: Getting Widgie with It

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
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Rickey’s A Hit At First Base!

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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!

That's me! She blinded me with Library Science!

Wandering Bookmobile posted a photo:

That's me! She blinded me with Library Science!

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

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.”