End of Alaska 262 [Flickr]
Stewart posted a photo:
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September 15, 2007
Summer pastime
Summer pastime
Originally uploaded by schickr.
Where's the Next Chinese Rapper? HipHip.Cn's Rap Challenge, Deadline Oct. 8th, 2007
HipHop.cn is hosting a contest to find China's next rap star. Winner receives 100,000RMB worth of prizes (which is roughly $13,000). The contest rules state that you are supposed to download HipHip.cn's original beats - so it sounds like they don't want you to use your own beats which I think is really annoying, but maybe they're afraid of legal issues if people used another person's beats? Then you need to upload a video recording by Oct. 8th, and the public will decide the winner. I assume this means they will engage their online audience - so I can't wait to vote!
So far the only good rap artist who has a Chinese background is Jin, but he's Chinese-American (who's now also known at The Emcee). I would love to hear a truly original Chinese rapper - one who isn't trying to mimic the US, or trying to be "down." But one who creates their own hybrid style, fusing the US and Chinese cultures, and spitting lyrics with deep analysis and social commentary. I can't wait to vote! -tricia
Technorati Tags: challenge, china, contest, hip-hop, hiphop, music, rapper, vote, winner
iPhone Dev Team releases free GUI unlocking app, AT&T weeps (Updated 2x)
Hopeful iPhone owners around the world, rejoice! The iPhone Dev Team has released what you've all been waiting for: a free, 100 percent GUI iPhone unlocking app.
Clinton Picks Up Support of Wesley Clark, Debbie Stabenow
Hillary Clinton's campaign announced some big endorsements today, one from retired Army General and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark, the other from Michigan U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow.
"Never before have so many Americans had our well-being so closely tied to world events," Clark said in a statement on his PAC's Web site. "Our economic and national security has become more complicated than ever before, and we deserve a leader who draws on wisdom, compassion, intelligence and moral courage — in short, we need Hillary Clinton."
"Hillary Clinton has the experience required to walk into the Oval Office on day one and start delivering the type of change our country needs," Stabenow said in a Clinton campaign press release. "She understands the challenges facing our working families, and she has fought her entire life to make sure they have the tools they need to achieve the American Dream."
Anti-War Films
Anti-War Films. A list on Wikipedia.
One-Fifth of Retail Copies of Microsoft Office Are for Mac
From a CNet story on Vista’s slower than expected adoption rate:
Retail sales of Office products from January through June were roughly double those of Office 2003 during its first six months on the market and up 59.6 percent from Office sales for the first six months of last year. […]
While much of the sales were for the new Office 2007, Swenson said just over 20 percent of all boxed copies of Office were Office for Mac. Swenson credited the large number of people switching to Macs as part of the reason for the spike in Mac Office sales.
That doesn’t mean Mac Office account for one-fifth of Office’s total sales — the corporate enterprise market doesn’t buy boxed retail copies of Office — but it’s still impressive, especially considering that the current version of Mac Office is rather old and doesn’t run natively on Intel Macs. (Thanks to Alex Merz.)
Brain stem may be key to consciousness
An article in this week's Science News discusses whether the brain stem may play a more central role in consciousness than it's usually given credit for.
It focuses on children with hydranencephaly, a where the cortex fails to develop in children and instead, the space is filled with cerebral spinal fluid.
Typically, affected children survive only a few months after birth, but those that do survive seem to remarkably more conscious than you would guess based on theories that suggest the cortex is where all the action happens to support consciousness.
Swedish neuroscientist Bjorn Merker wrote an article [pdf] in February's Behavioural and Brain Sciences journal arguing that these cases suggest we need to rethink our ideas about how the brain supports conscious thought, and perhaps, even consciousness itself.
Merker argues that the brain stem supports an elementary form of conscious thought in kids with hydranencephaly. It also contains auditory structures capable of preserving hearing in someone without a cortex. In contrast, optic nerve damage in hydranencephaly frequently impairs vision, regardless of what the brain stem does.
Self-awareness and other "higher" forms of thought may require cortical contributions. But Merker posits that "primary consciousness," which he regards as an ability to integrate sensations from the environment with one's immediate goals and feelings in order to guide behavior, springs from the brain stem.
If he's right, virtually all vertebrates—which share a similar brain stem design—belong to the "primary consciousness" club. Moreover, medical definitions of brain death as a lack of cortical activity would face a serious challenge. At the very least, physicians could no longer assume that individuals with hydranencephaly don't need pain medication or anesthesia during invasive medical procedures.
Link to Science News article 'Consciousness in the Raw'.
pdf of BBS article 'Consciousness without a cerebral cortex'.
September 14, 2007
Six Apart get a new CEO
For some of you, this might be just another press release for just another Silicon Valley company (see quote and link below). For me, I see and feel a ton of things at once (hey, I won't get sappy on you).
I first met Barak in early 2004,* when Six Apart was a teensy company, before blogging swept the mainstream. We were introduced to him via Marko Ahtisaari, a personal friend of Barak's Neoteny collegue, Joi Ito.
Our little team was building a product called Lifeblog and we were starting to do some partnerships, get a feel for the field (a long story I'm willing to tell for a few beers), and make sure we did things in the proper way (another long story I'm willing to tell for a few beers).
From then on, I worked with Barak and Loïc, his counterpart in Europe, on bringing Nokia and SIx Apart closer together. The two of them were key in introducing me to a whole new world that was booming back then, a world that put individuals in the Web, a world newly-labeled to give meaning to what we were all doing, a world of people I admire for their creativity, sense of fun, and long stream of trend-breaking products.
I can say that I would not be doing what I do today - building Ovi.com - if it weren't for Barak and the people he so expertly led.
Thanks and I wish him the best.
Link: Six Apart - Press:
Six Apart, the world’s leading independent blogging services and software company, today announced that Christopher J. Alden has been appointed Chairman and CEO. Alden succeeds Barak Berkowitz, who has served as Chairman and CEO since January 2004.
Mena, the co-founder of Six Apart, says a few things on this. Also, Chris, the new CEO, looks back on how he got there.
*Heh heh, I just remembered that Barak and I sort of crossed paths at an earlier time, via his media agency Krause and Taylor. I wrote a few press articles for them, when Barak was running Omnisky, a cutting-edge mobile internet service. For laughs, here's a now quaint article, from 7 years ago or so, in which I mention Omnisky.
Modern Cellar wine storage pieces!
We finally found some wine racking and furnishings that we think are outstanding in form and function. Whether you’re looking to store just a few bottles or more than a few dozen, you’re sure to find something to fit your needs from the folks at Modern Cellar, whose creations we’re very proud to feature in our store. Go to the store to store some wine…
Search Plugin! Search API?
As we look at search, we are always looking for ways to empower our users. One of the things that we have used internally for years is a browser search plugin, and now we would like to share that with you. There are a bunch more things related to search that we would like to [...]
Michael Lewis on a new way in which insurance companies...
(link)The logic of catastrophe is very different: either no one is affected or vast numbers of people are. After an earthquake flattens Tokyo, a Japanese earthquake insurer is in deep trouble: millions of customers file claims. If there were a great number of rich cities scattered across the planet that might plausibly be destroyed by an earthquake, the insurer could spread its exposure to the losses by selling earthquake insurance to all of them. The losses it suffered in Tokyo would be offset by the gains it made from the cities not destroyed by an earthquake. But the financial risk from earthquakes -- and hurricanes -- is highly concentrated in a few places. There were insurance problems that were beyond the insurance industry's means. Yet insurers continued to cover them, sometimes unenthusiastically, sometimes recklessly.
The Education of a Columnist
Examiner column for September 17.
In today’s Examiner, I wrote the Power Profile on Dan Mote, and taking on the role of reporter instead of columnist was an education. Columnists are, by definition, presenting a slanted point of view; it’s “opinion,” after all. A reporter needs to be objective and check facts. It’s a much harder job than you’d think!
This column will be, in a way, the flip side of the Profile of Dr. Mote. The previous sentence reveals the first difference between a column and an article: Dr. Mote is a University President, and has earned his title. A reporter, however, treats all subjects equally. In the Profile, the quoted student is called “Murray” and the President is “Mote,” rendering every contributor equal in rank. In a column I can pay deference to people’s titles.
Also not included in any reporter’s work is mention of the hurdles jumped in finding people to interview, then checking the text of the transcribed words, and checking all facts. It will be no surprise to you that the hardest part of interviewing Dr. Mote was driving around the Beltway from Virginia to College Park. That took about 90 minutes each way, with many frustrating, absolutely mystifying delays. I don’t normally drive in rush hour, so this was an education in itself!
Next I needed questions that would be interesting. We focused mostly on students, but when it was over, I wished I had asked more questions about his own academic work—which is impressive. He has 300 publications. 300! As an academic with few publications, I really wanted to know how he viewed himself: is he more administrator or more scientist?
What also never make it into print are all the checks and cross-checks of wording and statistics. The University of Maryland’s Director of the Office of University Communications is Millree Williams, and he and I were on a first name basis as emails flew back and forth. He was there for the interview, and there to correct facts and terminology and to give me an encouraging word now and then. He was the liaison through which I obtained Dr. Mote’s Five Tips for Success, which I think are words to live by. Thanks, Millree!
The most frustrating part of writing a portrait based on interviews is trying to capture the spirit as well as the letter of the subject. When Dr. Mote was talking about the mission of the university, he waxed eloquent about how “miraculous” it is that this country has “designed an educational system that reaches students at the optimum age when they’re ready to change. I never cease to marvel at the transformation that happens when a student gets a higher education.”
There was awe in his voice as he praised our educational system, and I felt his continued amazement at the beauty of the model. I was able to include part of that moment, but not all of it due to space limitations.
And so I return to the business of being opinionated, a job I enjoy. But I will carry with me my favorite moment as a reporter—the moment Dr. Mote reminded me of the miracle of education.
Power Profile of Dan Mote
This is my debut as an Examiner reporter, September 17.
“Drop by my office to shake my hand,” President Dan Mote told the new freshmen at the University of Maryland the day before classes started, and by early afternoon two young women in shorts and flip-flops had shown up at his office door. “We're here to shake hands with Professor Mote,” they told his assistant, who advised them to return at a time when he wasn't tied up in a meeting.
“We'll be getting a steady stream of freshmen from now on,” she said with a sigh, clearly accustomed to Mote's random invitations.
The book-lined president's office is not an ivory tower for Mote, who says he enjoys his position not for its status or power, but because it allows him to see the effect a University of Maryland education has on students. It's the place from which he has launched plans to change the University's physical plant and student culture.
Mote, 70, was recruited nine years ago to help put the 35,000-student College Park campus on the map. Although part of an 11-school group known as the System of the University of Maryland, only the College Park and Baltimore campuses have the legal title of “University of Maryland.”
At the time of his hiring, U.S. News and World Report ranked Maryland 30th among public research universities. By 2005 it had moved up to 18th, with the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Virginia holding down the top two spots. Among national universities, Maryland now ranks 54th out of the 262 institutions rated by U.S. News.
Although Mote has clearly accomplished the task of increasing Maryland's visibility, he does not take the rankings too literally. “It's nice to be ranked well,” he said, “but it is logically impossible to avoid bias if there is more than one variable in the ranking system.”
Mote takes more pride in “changing the way we see ourselves. We look at ourselves in a more positive way. I worked hard to get people to stretch their talents and to encourage the thought that we are a world class institution.”
Part of changing the way the university sees itself is improving the infrastructure. Within a year of taking the reins, ground was broken on a series of projects ranging from classrooms and laboratories to a performing arts center and a sports complex -- the biggest building boom in the university’s history.
Mote was also interested in changing the student culture. He actively seeks out the advice of students as he works to improve the university, offering to take them out to lunch if they call ahead and make an appointment. According to student newspaper reporter Sara Murray, this has only had limited success. “Students want to talk about tuition, and Dr. Mote has a lot of different interests he has to juggle. It's the nature of his job to be stuck in the middle.” But his lunch invitations meet with student approval. “Everyone likes free food,” Murray said.
Mote's vision was initially met with some skepticism. He replaced a popular president who previously had been a longtime faculty member at College Park. Not everyone was happy to see an “outsider” brought in, even one with three decades experience as a scientist and academic. But Jackson Bryer, professor emeritus of English literature, said Mote has “more than overcome this difficult beginning.”
“He seems to have established very good rapport both with the state legislature and with individual donors,” Bryer said. “I have also found him, on a personal basis, a warm and engaging man who is unreservedly an enthusiast about the University of Maryland…He has won over pretty much the entire University community.”
Mote just returned from the People's Republic of China, a partner with the university in financing and supporting the Research Park adjacent to the campus. He thinks it's critical to prepare students “to live in the globalized world. They may live here but do business abroad, or live abroad and do business here.”
Mote's next goal is a redesign of Maryland's program to help students fit into this globalized world. “Everything is on the table, including the core curriculum,” he said. “How this plan turns out will reflect who we are.” Mote predicted that the core experience of an undergraduate will include more international study, increased numbers of interdisciplinary subjects, and more technology. He said it will also include a redesign of the graduate school, something Mote views as a turning point for the university.
This is heady stuff, but Mote said what continues to inspire him most are the young people in his charge. “I never cease to marvel at the transformation that happens when a student gets a higher education. The changes are all-encompassing and include establishing an identity, values, and responsibilities.”
Students often aren't aware of how their choice of school will change their lives, he said. “Seventy percent of university graduates live in the state of their alma mater for at least 10 years, and 80 percent of students who go out of state for higher education never return to their state, so students really need to think about where they want to live in the future.”
Additionally, students are often unprepared for “the richness of opportunity” awaiting them. Never again will they have the chance to experience similar “personal growth, opportunity for research with faculty members, opportunity for international study, and potential to build personal relationships.”
Mote compared the college experience to a football game. A team can't play lackadaisically for the first three quarters, get serious in the fourth, and still expect to win the game. Freshman year, he said, is the moment when “the game has started.” But that doeasn’t mean students need to find a major field their first year. “Having a bit of uncertainty is a good thing,” he said.
To expose future students to what lies ahead, the university hosts its annual open house, Maryland Day, the last Saturday of each April. More than 80,000 people attended last year -- incoming freshmen, their families, area high school students, members of the College Park community -- to gather information on more than 400 school-based programs. “It's very welcoming,” Mote said, “and includes 8,000 faculty and student volunteers.”
Mote sees himself not as a figurehead, but as someone who helps instill “a sense of value and purpose” in the university community he oversees -- a community now global in scope. “There is a partnership among industry, government, and the university today that there wasn't fifty years ago,” he said, “so a university president's responsibilities have broadened considerably.”
However broad the scope of his job description, his thoughts always return to his love of the academic world and this period of time in a student's life. So students would be well advised to drop by and shoot the breeze. In the office of the university’s president, every day is Maryland Day.
Coudal Partners’ Layer Tennis
At long last, the return of the game formerly known as Photoshop Tennis:
We’re just about ready to roll with Layer Tennis and we’re sure you’re going to find that it has been worth the wait. If you are going to be screwing around on Friday afternoons this Fall (and who isn’t?) make sure you’re screwing around somewhere with high-speed web access.
First match, Friday 24 September: Shaun Inman vs. Kevin Cornell, with commentary by yours truly. I can’t wait.
delicious is four today
Delicious is four years old today. Happy birthday! We've obviously got some big things coming soon, but to commemorate the occasion, here are some early screenshots I recently uncovered; one picture is probably within the first one hundred bookmarks saved.
Eating hyperlocal in NYC
In New York Local: Eating the fruits of the five boroughs, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik goes hyperlocal and lives to tell us about it:
You go local in Berkeley, you’re gonna eat. I had been curious to see what might happen if you tried to squeeze food out of what looked mostly like bricks and steel girders and shoes in trees. I wanted to do it partly to see if it could be done (as an episode of what would be called on ESPN “X-treme Localism”), partly as a way of exploring the economics and aesthetics of localism more generally, and partly to see if perhaps the implicit anti-urban prejudices lurking in the localist movement could be leached away by some city-bred purposefulness. If you could eat that way here, you could do it anywhere.
Each day I get less and less interested in localism, perhaps in direct correlation to its rise in popularity and its growing army of fanatics.
comments are open
Chris at Six Apart
It would be an understatement to say that it’s been a while since I’ve posted to Mena’s Corner. Personally, I’ve needed to take an extended break from corporate blogging and luckily this break was enabled by the great work our teams have done on the various product blogs.
However, it just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t take the time to wake up the corner and personally write a post about some Six Apart related news that we’re announcing today. In brief, Chris Alden (who has served as EVP and GM of our professional division – basically, the Movable Type and TypePad businesses) is going to be the new Chairman and CEO of Six Apart, having been handed the reins by Barak Berkowitz.
When Barak officially joined Six Apart as our CEO in July of 2004 (he’d been acting CEO since January), I wrote in great length (my God, it’s five printed pages!) about the reasons we wanted him to be a part of the company and what it meant to Ben and I on professional and personal levels.
Naming Barak as CEO brought on a new phase for the company and for Ben and me personally. While it was a really tough decision for both of us when I handed over my CEO reins to Barak, we knew that it was a necessary step to take the company to the next level. Barak helped Ben and me to expand our own ambitions for the company and to really see how Six Apart could grow the blogging industry as a whole, and since he joined the company as CEO, that’s what he and Six Apart have continued to do. And for that, we’re incredibly appreciative.
In the post I wrote three years ago about Barak, one of the stories I told about him was when he did the wiring in our old San Mateo office:
At our office, we had phone cables running up and down walls and doorframes and across the floor. This mess was around for months until one day Barak came to work with a T-shirt, some tool-belt type thing and some device to do phone wiring. During the course of the afternoon, Barak installed our phone lines and cleaned up the office. … The fact that Barak will do this sort of grunt work is why he fits in at Six Apart.What’s worth noting is that when I talk to people who have read my post, the above anecdote always sticks in their mind most clearly: that Barak is a guy who’s willing to be hands-on at any job at the company, and whatever he does, he’s going to dive in and do a good job at it. For people who know Barak, I think that’s something that really rings true about his character and personality, and it’s certainly one of the things we’ve appreciated most over the years.
And now, today.
We’re incredibly excited about what Chris will be bringing to his new role at Six Apart. As GM of our Professional Division, he’s led, inspired and motivated an amazing team that has injected a new passion and life into Movable Type 4.
While Chris will be the first to admit that reinvigorating and building Movable Type 4 was a group effort that involved his entire team at Six Apart as well as the outside community, I couldn’t help but be blown away by how Chris made us all feel the energy around the product.
While Ben and I were lucky to be able to contribute in small ways to the development of Movable Type 4, it wasn’t until we saw Chris present a preview of the product at our internal weekly company meeting that we understood just how exciting the launch was going to be (and frankly how much the product had grown). Over the past couple of years, it’s no secret that Movable Type hasn’t had the attention it deserves; that was just the reality of having such ambitious (and good) goals and a relatively small team to accomplish them.
To see the glow of Movable Type come back not just as a glimmer, but as a full-on spotlight, literally gave me goose-bumps, and the result—Movable Type 4—is the best version of Movable Type we’ve ever created at Six Apart.
It’s a really exciting time for Six Apart and I continue to have great faith in what we’re accomplishing. As I realized myself, being a CEO is a big job, and Barak has filled it for four years of hard work as we all built this amazing company. He moves on, but will continue to be a valuable advisor to us all. The Six Apart that’s empowering millions of people to express themselves wouldn’t be what it is without Barak, and for that I’m incredibly grateful.
--
Here is Chris's post on the transition.
Map of the Day: Lower Manhattan, 1660 Vs. Present
You can see how similar or different Lower Manhattan is against the 1660 Castello Plan map at this Yahoo Maps page. The map used is the 1916 re-draft of the original map; the Castello map is super-imposed over the same streets of today. You can manipulate the opacity of the map and realize "Hey, so that's what 400 years of landfill looks like!" We've looked at the 1660 map before, but in the context of flooding.
Radar expands sharing
Radar, which focuses and helping groups of close friends share photos mostly on phones has added a new sharing feature. While Radar's focus is still allowing small groups to share their private moments, Radar now allows you to share those photos that you don't mind everyone seeing. They've got the necessary widgets and stuff to make this easy too.
I invested in Radar because I think that the small group co-presence sharing is different from "publishing" like this blog and that this market is still underserved. However, I do think that there are some moments we all want to share and think this shift is a good direction for Radar.
It will probably get me to use it more too since I tend to be... *cough* slightly more "open" than the average person.
Read more about it on their blog.
Comment - TrackBack
This New Yorker article on light pollution makes mention of...
This New Yorker article on light pollution makes mention of the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, which is a measure of how bright the stars are in a particular part of the sky.
(link)In Galileo's time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1. Today, the sky above New York City is Class 9, at the other extreme of the scale, and American suburban skies are typically Class 5, 6, or 7. The very darkest places in the continental United States today are almost never darker than Class 2, and are increasingly threatened. For someone standing on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night, the brightest feature of the sky is not the Milky Way but the glow of Las Vegas, a hundred and seventy-five miles away. To see skies truly comparable to those which Galileo knew, you would have to travel to such places as the Australian outback and the mountains of Peru.
2004 Domaine de la Noblaie, Chinon “Les Chiens-Chiens” Cab Franc
For American palates, this will be an unusual wine. But it’s highly typical of the Chinon style of Cabernet Franc, and we think it’s delicious. Made by the precocious 24-year-old winemaker, Jerome Billard, this is a lighter bodied wine but with aromas and flavors in spades. Lots of cloves and all-spice, and black raspberries and some smokiness to it.Doggonit’, gimme some Chiens-Chiens for $16.99
Video of a Japanese game show where contestants have to clear
Video of a Japanese game show where contestants have to clear hurdles while running on threadmills. There's something Sisyphean about their task. No word on whether any of the contestants were able to take off.
(link)
Mac Rumors’s Preview of Ambrosia Software’s WireTap Studio
Impressive stuff. Stores your original recordings in a library:
Another related feature is lossless editing. No matter how many changes you’ve made to the recording, you can always go back to the original recording (at the highest quality). This feature is similar to how Apple’s iPhoto and Aperture applications work on digital photos, keeping the originals intact while you apply edits over time.
The LivePreview feature has to be seen to be believed.
Friday Shoeblogging
Those new to the blog are probably unaware of my devotion to the One Perfect Sneaker, the Converse Jack Purcell. (I still wish I'd bought these.)
I bought the above pair a couple weeks ago on eBay, but when they arrived, they turned out to be the wrong size! (The box was mislabeled. Oh noes!) Luckily the seller (DesignerAthletic) was able to exchange them for me, and my right-sized pair arrived yesterday.
Are they, or are they not, the perfect autumn sneaker? They're teal-frackin'-velvet, people! I am going to wear them with an orange corduroy skirt and a fuzzy brown sweater over a teal t-shirt and be blissfully happy scuffling through the falling leaves.*
*For those readers in Australia, I suggest buying a pair now and waiting to wear them until your autumn.
Report: Shaheen To Run Against GOP Senator Sununu In New Hampshire
Big news out of New Hampshire: A new report says that former governor Jeanne Shaheen has decided to seek a rematch against vulnerable incumbent GOP Senator John Sununu. This morning's Union Leader says it has the story:
Former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen will be a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2008, the New Hampshire Union Leader has learned.The Democratic former three-term chief executive is expected to issue a statement today addressing her political plans. While it's unclear exactly how the statement will be phrased, sources say Shaheen has decided to seek the seat held by Republican John E. Sununu, who defeated her in a bitter 2002 contest...
Shaheen, who served as governor from 1997 to 2003, lost to Sununu by a 51 to 47 percent margin five years ago after polls had shown her with a narrow lead heading into the final weekend of the campaign.
Polls show that Shaheen is already leading by landslide margins against Sununu, who's been badly weakened by his support for the Iraq War. Her entry into the race, should this report be true, adds greatly to the considerable woes facing the GOP as they ponder the Senate map for 2008.
Republicans are already dealing with the retirement of Senator John Warner, whose seat is now being targeted by popular former governor Mark Warner, as well as the near-certain resignation of Senator Larry Craig and the mounting vulnerability of multiple GOP incumbents due to Iraq. Making matters worse for the GOP, they are being forced to defend many more Senate seats than Dems are, meaning Dems will have more resources to pour into top tier races. Shaheen's presumed entry adds one more such race to the list.
10 May 2008: Pangea Day
When she was awarded the 2006 TED Prize, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim expressed a wish: a global acceptance of diversity, mediated through the power of film. (Watch her speech.)
The project is taking off, and its ambition level is spectacular. On May 10, 2008, Pangea Day, sites in New York City, Rio, London, Dharamsala, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Kigali will be video-conferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, supplemented by visionary speakers, and global musicians.
The purpose: to use the power of film to promote better understanding of our common humanity. A global audience will watch through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones. Yes, of course, movies alone can’t change the world. But the people who watch them can.
To start the process, a short Pangea Day trailer (2:30 min) has just been given front-page exposure on YouTube, inviting anyone to submit their films. Pangea is seeking films "that provoke, entertain and inspire". "Images are powerful to divide, but also to unite", says the trailer. Here it is:
September 13, 2007
blog all dog-eared pages: the structure of scientific revolutions
I first heard the term "paradigm shift" in high school (journalism camp, 1994, oh yeah). It gets used a lot these days, especially in the field of web technology, where every new web service, development framework, and business plan is a game changing paradigm shift. Curious where the term originated, I was led to Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a 1962 essay seeking to explain changes in scientific belief over time. Kuhn's central argument is that progress does not happen by slow accretion of ideas over time, but by periods of stable work ("normal science") punctuated by crisis and rapid change ("paradigm shifts"). Crises are brought about by an accumulation of problems closed to normal scientific work, and are resolved through gestalt shifts that change research agendas and dominant theories.
The book also includes a 1969 postscript that flips the impact of the book on its head a bit. I've always seen the essay's argument as broadly applicable to other fields, but Kuhn says he developed it by applying the lessons of other fields to science.
Page 208, on applicability:
To one last reaction to this book, my answer must be of a different sort. A number of those who have taken pleasure from it have done so less because it illuminates science than because they read its main theses as applicable to many other fields as well. I see what they mean and would not like to discourage their attempts to extend the position, but their reaction has nevertheless puzzled me. To the extent that the book portrays scientific development as a succession of tradition-bounds periods punctuated by non-cumulative breaks, its theses are undoubtedly of wide applicability. But they should be, for they are borrowed from other fields. Historians of literature, of music, of the arts, of political development, and of many other human activities have long described their subjects in the same way. Periodization in terms of revolutionary breaks in style, taste, and institutional structure have been among their standard tools. If I have been original with respect to concepts like these, it has mainly been by applying them to the sciences, fields which had been widely though to develop in a different way.On to the meat of the book...
Pages 2-3, on what is scientific:
The more carefully they study, say, Aristotelian dynamics, phlogistic chemistry, or caloric thermodynamics, the more certain they feel that those once current view of nature were, as a whole, neither less scientific nor more the product of human idiosyncrasy than those current today. ... Out-of-date theories are not in principle unscientific because they have been discarded.Page 5, on normalcy:
Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend most all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like. Much of the success of the enterprise derives from the community's willingness to defend that assumption, if necessary at considerable cost. Normal science, for example, often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments. Nevertheless, so long as those commitments retain an element of the arbitrary, the very nature of normal research ensures that novelty shall not be suppressed for very long.Page 20, on the coincidence of intelligibility and paradigm boundaries:
Both in mathematics and astronomy, research reports had ceased already in antiquity to be intelligible to a generally educated audience. In dynamics, research became similarly esoteric in the later Middle Ages, and it recaptured general intelligibility only briefly during the early seventeenth centrury when a new paradigm replaced the one that had guided medieval research. Electrical research began to require translation for the layman before the end of the eighteenth century, and most other fields of physical science ceased to be generally accessible in the nineteenth.Page 55, on discovering:
Clearly we need a new vocabulary and concepts for analyzing events like the discovery of oxygen. Though undoubtedly correct, the sentence, "Oxygen was discovered," misleads by suggesting that discovering something is a single simple act assimilable to our usual concept of seeing. That is why we so readily assume that discovering, like seeing or touching, should be unequivocally attributable to an individual and to a moment in time. But the latter attribution is always impossible, and the former often is as well.Page 76, on crisis and retooling paradigms:
So long as the tools a paradigm supplies continue to prove capable of solving the problems it defines, science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply through confident employment of those tools. The reason is clear. As in manufacture so in science - retooling is an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion that demands it. The significance of crises is the indication they provide that an occasion for retooling has arrived.Page 88, on introspection during crisis:
It is no accident that the emergence of Newtonian physics in the seventeenth century and of relativity and quantum mechanics in the twentieth should have both been preceded and accompanied by fundamental philosophical analyses of the contemporary research tradition. Nor is it an accident that in both of these periods the so-called thought experiment should have played so critical a role in the progress of research. As I have shown elsewhere, the analytical thought experimentation that bulks so large in the writings of Galileo, Einstein, Bohr, and others is perfectly calculated to expose the old paradigm to existing knowledge in ways that isolate the root of crisis with a clarity unattainable in the laboratory.Page 122, on the suddenness of paradigm shifts:
Paradigms are not corrigible by normal science at all. Instead, as we have already seen, normal science ultimately leads only to the recognition of anomalies and to crises. And these are terminated, not by deliberation and interpretation, but by a relatively sudden and unstructured event like the gestalt switch. Scientists often speak of the "scales falling from the eyes" or of the "lightning flash" that "inundates" a previously obscure puzzle, enabling its components to be seen in a new way that for the first time permits its solution.Pages 150-151, on generational shifts:
How, then, are scientists brought to make this transposition? Part of the answer is that they are very often not. Corpernicanism made few converts for almost a century after Copernicus' death. Newton's work was not generally accepted, particularly on the Continent, for more than half a century after the Principia appeared. ... And Max Planck, surveying his own career in his Scientific Autobiography, sadly remarked that "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die."Page 164, on choice of problem:
Unlike the engineer, and many doctors, and most theologians, the scientist need not choose problems because they urgently need solution and without regard for the tools available to solve them. In this respect, also, the contrast between natural scientists and many social scientists proves instructive. The latter often tend, as the former almost never do, to defend their choice of a research problem - e.g. the effects of racial discrimination or the causes of a business cycle - chiefly in terms of the social importance of achieving a solution. Which group would one then expect to solve problems at a more rapid rate?
Oops: iPod classic v. semi-truck
Our iPod classic underwent an accidental stress test today, and managed to come out (mostly) alive. A MacBook that went through the same test, however, was not quite so lucky.
Edwards' Full Ad Criticizing Bush During Speech
Here's the full ad John Edwards ran on MSNBC faulting Bush during the speech:
SVNRepository.com
"We are a subversion hosting company run by and for developers. Our easy to use control panel will get you up and running with Subversion and Trac in no time!"
Tired of "Perl is dead" FUD ?
Yeah, me too. But I'm a capitalist, so I like to see what people are writing checks for. As I'm fed up with the various unsubstantiated claims, I've whipped up a little graphic of job posts on Dice that will hopefully cheer you up. I'll try to keep it updated regularly. If nothing else, it'll give us all something to watch as we're overtaken by our Ruby and Python overlords.Read more of this story at use Perl.
GameStop having to 'rethink' their shop layout
In interviews last week, Mr. DeMatteo and Bob McKenzie, GameStop’s senior vice president for merchandising, said they saw new customers as playing a more important role in their nearly 5,000 stores worldwide.
“There is a real breadth of properties now appealing to a much broader audience than we’ve seen before,” Mr. DeMatteo said.
“Honestly, we are having to retool the way we think of things in our stores in terms of merchandising, layout and also customer service because it is no longer only the hardcore gamer walking in who knows exactly what he wants.”
What, no more gum in the shabby carpet? No more fluorescent lighting? No more crappily-organised shelves, dust-covered promo boxes, crap third-party periphs piled up high?
Maybe no more sarcasm from me would be appropriate too. But it's about time coming, this stuff, I tell you what. Game shops, generally, are shocking. The only one that should be allowed to get away with it is CEX, and that's because it's geekcore.
The top 100 greatest beatdowns in history, most of them...
The top 100 greatest beatdowns in history, most of them related to sports. #1 is Secretariat's 31-length victory at Belmont, the footage of which is well worth a look if you haven't seen it. That horse so totally pours it on down the stretch that it gives me goosebumps every time I watch it. (thx, david)
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Prototyping for Designers
I was at Rich Web Experience last week and Yahoo’s Bill Scott presented a session on his recently unveiled prototyping library. It’s called Protoscript and he’s written a blog post as well. Both of these sources get technical fairly quickly so the implications may not be immediately obvious to non-programmers. Even though Protoscript is still very much a work in progress and there’s some distance between it’s current state and Bill’s vision for it’s future, the opportunities it opens up are are exciting.
The driving force behind this library is Bill’s opinion that “Prototyping is too hard for non-techies”. I wouldn’t make quite the same blanket statement but I do agree that some of the most useful, effective prototyping approaches do require developer resources or developer assistance. These technical resources are not always readily available. Protoscript shifts the requirements and ultimately will allow designers with little or no actual coding expertise to rapidly prototype in an interesting way.
The Protoscript bookmarklet allows you ‘inject’ Ajax behaviors into existing web pages. That means you can start with an html mockup or a client’s existing site as a starting point and try all sorts of different approaches. Do you have a list of items somewhere on a web page? Want to see what it would be like if they were drag and drop elements? Want to see what it would look like if you could delete list elements and have them fade and disappear? Somebody asks to see what they would look like in some sort of accordion layout? Imagine being able to run through those 3 iterations in the space of 10 minutes. Now imagine being able to do that as a designer without a developer to help you.
Being able to get by without development resources will require the completion of the GUI interface Bill envisions but even in it’s current state, Protoscript could fundamentally change work flows. A designer and a developer can sit together over a common screen run through ideas in a much more lightweight way than they currently can. Or, in other words, Protoscript shifts this type of prototyping from a multi-day email interchange with the IT department to something that feels more like sketching quickly on whiteboard.
New Gastropoda
New Gastropoda.com with permalinks AND a RSS feed = More food snark when I want it. Praise the lard!
The Paleolithic Diet "is the diet that man evolved on,...
The Paleolithic Diet "is the diet that man evolved on, the diet that is coded for in our genes". The diet consists of avoiding grains, beans, dairy, sugar, etc.; eating meat/chicken/fish, eggs, fruit, veggies, nuts, etc.; and increasing your intake of root veggies and organ meats like liver.
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Mario Unclogged: Leo Maya's Chicken with Green Sauce
Our Acapulco-born babysitter, Leo, makes some of my favorite things to eat. At Christmas she makes turkey in a dark mole with toasted sesame seeds. In winter, she makes great enchiladas with soft, never-fried tortillas and a braised beef filling with queso fresco. She makes great albondigas (meatballs) with rice and beef or pork. And this week, she took some seasoned pork and made a kind of chili or sloppy joe mix with toasted dried corn that we ate as sandwiches on toasted burger buns.
But of all the things she makes, our favorite is a killer chicken and green sauce that she makes once a week.
It's great to watch a natural cook because she does not consult a recipe—she just knows. And that's why some of the best real cooks in my restaurant kitchens are from Mexico or Latin America—they watched their families make great food from scratch every day. They simply understand that sofrito goes in first when you make a braised dish or that coaxing flavor out of something lean sometimes means to cook it very well done and chopping into small pieces and dressing it with citrus and scallions.
That said, this is the easiest thing to watch and make. She takes 2 pounds of chicken drumsticks and thighs and removes the skin and sets them aside. Then she takes 3 pounds of husked tomatillos, 6 cloves garlic, and 2 serrano chiles and places them in boiling water for 2 minutes and then drains them. Still warm, she places them into the blender with the juice and zest of 3 limes and 1 bunch of cilantro and blends until just smooth. She seasons it with salt (a lot) and then puts the sauce in a pan with the raw chicken, bringing it to a boil and then simmering it for 25 minutes. After that, she finishes it with the juice of another lime and a handful of chopped scallions.
Wowsers!
The boys eat it with warm tortillas and Frank's Hot Sauce. I even like it cold with a good splash of chipotle Tabasco for breakfast—if there's any left that is.
CocoaHeads: Objective-C 2.0
Michael Jurewitz will give a presentation tonight on Objective-C 2.0 at CocoaHeads Silicon Valley. The meeting will be in Town Hall at 7:30pm. Objective-C 2.0 is a major language upgrade coming in Leopard...
Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest radio telescope, is in danger...
Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest radio telescope, is in danger of being shut down due to budget cuts. Arecibo could run for almost two years for the cost of a single F-16 fighter jet...to say nothing of the small fraction of the cost of the War in Iraq required.
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must find out what happened next
Had a long conversation yesterday with someone about what happens to media when the only thing that's different between delivery devices is the size of the screen (small, medium, large), and the continuing power of story telling and narrative. You know, the normal "over coffee" bla bla for the pattern recognition generation.
But it reminded me that I needed to mark in the permanent record how much I'm enjoying FX's Damages. It's a great mix of over the top acting, a completely unbelievable story, delicious art direction and a fragmented narrative that is working forwards and backwards through the story at the same time. Every week I have to watch to find out what happened and what happens next. [1]
Plus, Ted Danson is brilliant. Who knew?
[1] I wonder if Tivo is collecting / sellling aggregate viewership data on not only what gets recorded and what gets watched, but how it gets watched. I can imagine a television engagement metric that measures the mean time between when a program is recorded and when it gets watched. Meaning even with the benefit of time shifting, the sooner someone sits down to make their way through a particular show, the more engaged they are.
Get Satisfaction!
Congratulations to our friends (and neighbors!) at Satisfaction on the debut of their site. We’re very pleased to be one of the initial investors in this latest venture from Adaptive Path co-founder Lane Becker. Satisfaction promises to improve customer service for just about any product or service by connecting customers with each other to answer questions, fix problems, or just get their voices heard. We’re not the only ones excited by Satisfaction’s vision: their $1.3 million initial round of funding includes investors such as First Round Capital and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and they’ve already gotten some press attention from the likes of BusinessWeek and TechCrunch.
Sousveillance Culture @ Luna Lounge
via Rhizome:
Sousveillance Culture panel with Amy Alexander, Jill Magid and Hasan Elahi, moderated by Marisa Olson
Saturday, September 15, 2007
2:30pm - 4:00pmLuna Lounge
361 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718.384.7112Rhizome is organizing a panel in conjunction with Conflux, on sousveillance, the practice of watching from below (sous-) rather than above (sur-). A diverse group of artists whose work engages surveillance will explore the cultural and political implications of sousveillance, which tends to be discussed as empowering when manifest as a "taking-back" of cameras or the rising-up of "little brother," but which also unfolds in an era of increased self-surveillance, encouraged by both the government and the culture of participatory and 'transparent' media. Panelists include artists Amy Alexander, Jill. Magid and Hasan Elahi, and moderator Marisa Olson, Editor and Curator, Rhizome.
Using this Coke banner from ESPN to pretend that a large
Using this Coke banner from ESPN to pretend that a large sporting event is wishing you all a Good Year.
Bugs Are Magic Tricks
Spot-on analogy from Steven Frank:
A good bug, I mean a really good, pound-your-head-on-the-desk-for-a-week bug, is exactly like a magic trick in that something impossible appears to be happening.
Poll: Best Dem On Iraq Is ... Hillary
Is Hillary Clinton's 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq War hurting her with Democratic voters? Not one bit, according to the latest round of Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg polling of key primary/caucus states — and if anything, she's actually viewed as the best Democrat to end the war.
Hillary wins easy victories among Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina on this question: "Regardless of your choice for president, who do you think would be best at ending the war in Iraq?" Hillary scores in the mid-30's in all three states, outpacing Barack Obama by over 15 points in all three states, with John Edwards in third.
And among voters who said the Iraq War is the most important issue to them, Hillary still leads the pack: 30% in Iowa, 32% in New Hampshire, and an astonishing 63% in South Carolina.
A possible explanation could be that despite her 2002 vote for the war, Hillary Clinton is consistently viewed in polls as the best experienced top-tier Democratic candidate.
iTunes movie rentals round 2: 30 days, $2.99
Rumors of movie rentals coming to the iTunes Store are back, with unconfirmed details and empty hope. Still, it sure would be cool and could give the Apple TV a whole reason to exist.
Olive oil was the most adulterated agricultural product in the European Union
In 1997 and 1998, olive oil was the most adulterated agricultural product in the European Union. Is it possible all the EVOO we're using is really soy oil and canola oil with industrial chlorophyll? The New Yorker takes a fascinating look at the issue.
comments are open
A Farm Grows in Midwood
Of all the places for a tornado to touch down in Brooklyn it had to be the backyard farm the Manny Howard, a college classmate, was building. His very funny, and touching article about the experience in New York Magazine this week.
Pasta Strike in Italy
Italian consumers associations are asking their countrymen to boycott pasta today in a largely symbolic effort to draw attention to the rising costs of noodles.
As is the case with most of these food-price stories these days, biofuel production is being blamed for the high cost of durum wheat, more of which is being diverted into ethanol-making.
Says the BBC: "Pasta is a national dish in Italy, with each Italian eating on average 28 kg (62 lb) of pasta every year."
And perhaps the most apt analogy was the one I just heard on BBC World Service radio: "An Italian without pasta is like an American without hamburgers."
Photograph from iStockphoto.com
No Caricatures
No Caricatures. “Finally got a response from the well-meaning art director, on January 5: he’d had a chance to meet with the editors, who liked the piece a lot, but there was just one small problem, the [New York Times] op-ed page has a new policy...”
The eyes have it
Climbed the Great Wall of China today, and found this, at the top spot where you have to stop as the wall goes no further (for tourists, anyway).
Our world is very dysfunctional, sometimes, eh. There's just something so very wrong about this picture...
Normal life resumes Monday, where I take up my post at Channel 4, and where I'll be back in GMT for the foreseeable. Lots of good stuff lined up for the autumn, too. I'm looking forward to it :-)
Two ears long
Ollie has been growing at a tremendous rate, and he's now as long as two ears of late summer sweet corn. Will he be as round as a pumpkin by Halloween? Only time will tell.
comments are open
Mark Warner Announces Candidacy For Senate
Former Governor Mark Warner (D-VA) has announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate, seeking the seat of retiring GOP Senator John Warner. "I've decided the way I can contribute the most to getting our country back on the right track is to serve in the United States Senate," Warner says in an online video:
Warner has put up the beginnings of a campaign site, MarkWarner2008.com, though as of yet it only has his announcement video, a contribution page, and a sign-up sheet for future updates.
American Idol Judges: "We Want Britney!"
Britney Spears is, somehow, still in demand.American Idol judges, Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson, told Fox News that they are serious about taking Britney under their wing.
We have decided we can bring Britney back," Simon said. "We are serious. We plan to buy her underpants, get her bigger shorts to perform in and get her away from her stupid friends." The reality show gurus think there is still hope for the pop tart.
"MTV ratings are up and all we're hearing is Britney, Britney, Britney!" Simon said. "She can turn it around."
"We always have time for Britney, we love her," added Paula.
"We'd love to take care of you Spears!" Randy chimed in. "We will make you a superstar again!"
It warms my heart, dawg, that all these people are throwing Brit a line. Use your brain, Britney -- bite!
Timbaland on Britney Spears: "She Needs to Apologize"
Remember when we were all excited that Britney Spears was working with Timbaland and her ex, Justin Timberlake, on some new music? Well, Timba says that they were in the process of putting something together, but, shocker coming, Britney ruined it. “It’ll never happen. Nah. It could’ve, but it won’t,” the producer told MTV News. Timbaland says that Britney got all huffy with him and JT, who offered to help the troubled starlet out of her dark days. “She needs a story,” he added. “She has no comeback story. That’s the problem. She has to have a team. She needs to come back with Justin doing records; [then we’d see headlines like,] ‘She went back to her ex and she’s making smashes.’ [But instead she got] so big-headed and [was] like, ‘Screw you, screw you, I don’t need nobody.’ ”
Listen up, Britney -- Timbaland will still work with you! All you need to do is apologize.
“She should humble herself and make a phone call and say, ‘I’m sorry.’ She knows what she’s sorry about,” he said. “She needs to say, ‘I was wrong,’ and it’ll definitely move forward. … That’s all she has to say.”
For the love of Sean Preston and Jayden James! Say it, Britney! Say it!!!
How Do You Eat Your Bagel?
Anytime people gather to discuss one of the most pressing issues of the day—what is the most proper and delicious way to eat a bagel—heated (pun intended) arguments ensue. So I have decided that we are going to settle it once and for all, right here on Serious Eats, with the first and probably last Serious Eats Bagel Debate. As you are about to hear, there are many subtle nuances to this freighted issue.
First let's define our terms.
In the New York Times I wrote:
A bagel is a round bread made of simple, elegant ingredients: high-gluten flour, salt, water, yeast, and malt. Its dough is boiled, then baked, and the result should be a rich caramel color; it should not be pale and blond. A bagel should weigh four ounces or less and should make a slight cracking sound when you bite into it instead of a whoosh. A bagel should be eaten warm and, ideally, should be no more than four or five hours old when consumed.
A few more bagel stipulations from my Times story:
Bagels do not need six ounces of cream cheese on them. They only need a schmear. Cream cheese made without guar gum is optimal, but it is hard to find. (You can still find fine natural cream cheese at the Fairway markets and Russ & Daughters in New York, and Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, Mich., makes a great, larger curd cream cheese that is available by mail.) On the subject of salmon, it should be Nova, and it should be sliced to order. A good bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon does not have to be toasted, as contrast with the fat and salt will be provided by the crunchy crust of a properly made bagel exterior.
But a buttered bagel should almost always be toasted, so that you get that great, rich melted butter taste. Better yet, you can achieve the same effect if you buy your bagels fresh, still warm from the oven. No toasting needed!
I wrote this a few years ago, but I feel compelled to update and expand my bagel findings.
A bagel that is not fresh out of the oven, that is at least six hours old, does need to be toasted, whether it is going to be buttered or topped with cream cheese, nova or both. Otherwise it will be too hard. A bagel that has been sliced and frozen obviously needs to be toasted when brought back to life.
Badly made bagels that have not been boiled and baked, like those awful rolls with holes they incorrectly call bagels at places like Dunkin' Donuts, Au Bon Pain, Panera, and McDonald's, must be toasted to have even a remote chance at being tasty and satisfying. A Starbucks bagel also needs to be toasted.
Outside New York City, where I have eaten bagels in at least 25 states and six countries, it can be difficult to find bagels that do not have to be toasted. Montreal has a fascinating bagel tradition. Its very small bagels are made in a wood-burning oven and sweetened with honey. They do not need to be toasted if they are eaten within four hours of being purchased (why anyone would wait that long is beyond me). After four hours, Montreal bagels join the ranks of need-to-be-toasted bagels.
I have made many pronouncements here. But as Serious Eats is an eatocracy, I would like to hear others weigh in on this important topic.
September 12, 2007
Short Letterpress Documentary
Beautiful typography, unfortunately narrated by and starring some smug fucks.
From Me to You
After raising the possibility of a Subtraction.com Email Newsletter last month, I did some hunting around at the various email list services out there and settled on two main contenders: the well-regarded Campaign Monitor and the similarly capable Mail Chimp. They’re basically comparable, though I admit that I felt compelled to give the latter a try first because, well, chimps are just cuter than monitors.
That said, I’ve passed on both of them for the time being. Instead, I took the cheap route and opted for the built-in announcement list functionality provided by Dreamhost. Say what you will about Dreamhost’s spotty uptime record and sluggish performance, but they offer a terrific feature set for one-person Web empires like Subtraction.com. Their fairly complete if unglamorous set of tools for mailing lists, publishing software, ecommerce and other digital empire-building endeavors are really easy to set-up, and they come at no additional cost.
My Blog, Your In Box
Anyway, I digress. The point is, for this exploratory first step into the world of email newsletters, I figured why not make do with what I’ve already got? If the Subtraction.com newsletter turns out to be a big hit, I’ll move over to one of the two aforementioned services. For now, though, you can subscribe right here (or on the Subtraction.com home page) and get signed up straight away.
Subscribe to the Subtraction.com Newsletter
SubmitEach newsletter will come soon after the end of each month, with the first one arriving in October. In it, I’ll summarize the activity here from September, recapping the posts I’ve written and the nature of the commentary. I’ll also include news about my upcoming speaking appearances and other projects, including general updates on A Brief Message (but not recaps of each of the posts on that blog).
Rich Mail, Poor Mail
Many readers are probably wondering if I’ll be sending the newsletter in pure, ascetic plain text or in the more luxurious but in box-polluting HTML format. Good question; I don’t yet know the answer. I’ll be tinkering around with HTML experiments in the coming weeks to see what I can come up with. For now, though, I know that everyone who subscribes will receive the same newsletter as there will be just one format — at least for October and probably the next several months. I don’t have the time to prepare two versions right now, at least not before I really have a handle on how it will be received, what readers find useful, how easy it will be to produce, etc.
That’s all a little tentative, I know. I readily admit this is a shoestring operation if ever there was one, and I’m probably not doing as good a job as I can of selling this thing. The way I look at it, it’s a learning process, and I’m hoping a good number of you will come along with me as I learn. Insofar as I discover things that I think might be interesting or useful for you to read about here, I promise to blog about it. I also promise I’ll make it as interesting as I can. And I promise not to spam you.
Even though a Rubik's Cube has about 43 quintillion (that's 43000000000000000000)...
Even though a Rubik's Cube has about 43 quintillion (that's 43000000000000000000) possible configurations, it's been proven possible to solve a cube starting in any one of those configurations in 26 moves or less. "Most researchers believe that just 20 steps are enough to solve any Rubik's Cube, but no one has proved it yet."
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Welcome A380
The brand new Airbus A380 visited Hong Kong last week. Despite the bad weather, people were up early to get a closer look at the airplane.
Photos from lukas.jenkner, stfbfc and Chris Chu.
Novak: GOP Could Lose Five Or More Senate Seats Next Year
Robert Novak's latest: "The decision not to run by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) now raises to five the possible losses of Senate seats by Republicans. Democrats also are targeting Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) for a sixth seat. If 2008 turns into a Democratic landslide, Senators Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and even Mitch McConnell (R-KY) could be in danger."
Bowling Comes Back to Brooklyn with The Gutter
The first bowling alley to open in Brooklyn in (we can't even believe this) nearly 50 years is about to open up! The Gutter is new...but the feeling old. Brought to you by two of the same people who brought you Barcade, expect a similar vibe. There's a Schlitz globe spinning over the shoe counter, vintage bowling items adorning the bar, old lamps throughout, and even some TVs with rabbit ear antennas. You won't find flashy flatscreens displaying your scores and advertisements hanging above the lanes. The scoring machines are straight out of the past, and the only advertisements are on the pin clearing machine. Those ads are likely for establishments in a town far far away, however -- as the equipment was all purchased from an old bowling alley in the midwest. Some more fine details: the bar overlooks the lanes, there are no league nights, the bathrooms are unisex, and the bar is stocked with good beer (you can get pitchers too) and spirits. Located at 200 North 14th Street just west of Berry in Greenpoint, it's near Automotive High School -- but you can rest assured this is a 21+ establishment. Regular Hours: Monday-Thursday 4pm to 4am; Friday-Sunday 12 noon to 4am. How much money you'll need: $4 shoes, $6 games Monday-Thursday, $7 Friday-Sunday For groups of 4 or more: $48 per hour during the week and $56 per hour on weekends Cash only for bowling, but credit cards accepted at the bar for alcohol
The Gutter opens THIS WEEKEND with limited hours: Saturday 8pm-4am and Sunday 5pm-4am. Better stretch that bowling arm! Photographs by Tien Mao
Fallingwater Animation
A beautiful movie featuring the famous Frank Lloyd Wright building Fallingwater.
A brief history of programming languages from the September 1995...
A brief history of programming languages from the September 1995 issue of Byte magazine. Amazing how many of these languages are now extinct or otherwise not widely used...and that Perl, PHP, Java, JavaScript, etc. didn't make the list.
Update: I corrected the above statement about Perl et. al. not existing and modified it to read that they didn't make the list. Perl, Ruby, nd Java all existed in one form or another in 1995. (thx to everyone who sent this in)
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Exporting the iPhone
Canadian Dave Shea, on the SIM unlocking hacks for the iPhone:
If you’re an American iPhone owner, you probably still remember what June 29th felt like. To a lesser degree, that was what today felt like for the rest of the world.
Bourbon's Back
As if you needed an additional reason for having a drink or two this month, by official decree of the U.S. Senate, September is National Bourbon Heritage Month.
Bourbon was first declared “America’s Native Spirit” in 1964, and the spirit certainly inspires thoughts of handsome old Colonels rocking on the porch while sipping mint juleps and sniffing the fragrance of the magnolia trees on summer afternoons (we’ll ignore the whole doing-shots-of-Jim-Beam-in-a-frat-bar thing for now). And what could be more all-American than a whiskey that claims the rolling hills of Kentucky as its birthplace, and lists names such as Elijah Craig, Jim Beam and Pappy Van Winkle among the giants of its long history? (Okay, we'll ignore rye whiskey for now, too.)
Last month’s Senate recognition comes on the heels of the announcement by Beam Global -- the massive liquor conglomerate that produces Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Knob Creek, Booker’s and many other bourbons and assorted liquors -- that 2007 is “The Year of Bourbon.” After the industry was crippled by Prohibition and hobbled by dwindling consumer interest in the 1960s and '70s, bourbon sales eventually recovered and are now booming both domestically and globally, helped by the popularity of super-premium bourbons and single-barrel whiskies such as those mentioned by Camper English last week in the San Francisco Chronicle. With assistance from events such as the Kentucky Bourbon Festival (taking place this week) and attractions such as the American Whiskey Trail, bourbon distillers are appealing to dedicated connoisseurs and curious tourists alike.
Vodka may still be king of the back bar, but it comes as good news to spirits aficionados that Kentucky’s home-grown spirit is gradually catching up. Are you a part of bourbon’s renewal? Are you a single-barrel sipper during the cool of the evening or a die-hard Beam-and-Coke kind of drinker? Or do you equate bourbon with Snuffy Smith’s corn squeezin’s and steer clear of the sector altogether? Let’s hear it.
About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.
Los Angeles Times: Food Critics Not So Anon Anymore
Though much hand-wringing was done about the waning anonymity of food critics last month and in various publications (including here on Serious Eats), Regina Schrambling manages to write a new take on the issue in the Los Angeles Times by going big-picture and surveying all the recent unmaskings.
In the article, Schrambling (Gastropoda) points to instances of food critics either getting outed (Craig LaBan, Philadelphia Inquirer; Jonathan Gold, L.A. Weekly) or outing themselves (blogger-cumnewspaper critic Danyelle Freeman; legions of food bloggers who don't necessarily try to hide their mugs). Google, she writes, has led to a new openness, though Schrambling doesn't really opine too much on whether that's good or bad, instead gathering the thoughts of those affected as well as critic Gael Greene and Los Angeles restaurateur Eric Greenspan.
I like Listphile combines some of the best of wikis, platial,
I like Listphile combines some of the best of wikis, platial, and 43 things. Also noted is that the most interesting lists so far are being made by Steve. I would also guess that Steve is Steve de Brun the founder. What's nice about this is that he has a vision of the way the product can be used and is creatively demonstrating it. I like the concept that your profile is the lists you make and on which you contribute.
Dave Airlie: "So about 30 minutes ago AMD's Matthew Tippett and
Dave Airlie: "So about 30 minutes ago AMD's Matthew Tippett and John Bridgman handed me a CD containing the initial 2D specs for M56 and rv630 without any NDA."
Graph of the movie poster colors of the top-grossing movies,...
Graph of the movie poster colors of the top-grossing movies, from the brightly colored G-rated movies to the dark and fleshy NC-17 films.
(link)
the battle of lyric and grace
Kevin Fanning chronicles the battle of Lyric and Grace. Worth quoting at length, if only to convince you to click through, dammit.
As the girls grappled high above the mean streets of New York, the bloodthirsty crowd gathered online, each side supporting their champion by decrying the other side as being retarded, the comments written all in caps. The event was sponsored by Google and TechCrunch, although no one was entirely sure how that’d happened. Amidst the flurry of impassioned commenting and trolling, there were murmurs here and there, vague details about similar situations from the recent past. Some said that the two boys whose births had been the first ones announced on Flickr and del.icio.us had died in a car crash in San Francisco, in a game of Chicken gone horribly wrong. Someone remembered the story of a girl who had committed suicide recently; hers had been the first birth announced on MySpace, but no one had ever noticed. And wasn’t the Pownce kid in juvie?
BeyondChron: San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily News » TNT Presents Community-Based Solutions for Public Safety
Two residents of the Hamilton Condominiums on O’Farrell Street called for an increase in police presence to deter crime. But Luis Barahona of the SRO Collaborative said that police are only a small piece of the larger puzzle and that simply increasing t
bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by stamen to sanfrancisco tenderloin - more about this bookmark...
Wilber's Barbecue on Serious Eats
I wrote about my recent trip to Wilber's Barbecue on Serious Eats. It is some mighty fine barbecue, and I miss it dearly.
TypePad, Movable Type gain iPhone admin dashboards
Blogging on the go just became a lot sexier for iPhone owners, thanks to new TypePad and Movable Type dashboard UIs that offer access to all the primal admin and posting needs.
Yahoo Design Innovation Team
"Will they become the true competitors of Stamen?"
● Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages by Alex Wright
So, whoa. The commonly accepted wisdom is that Vannevar Bush's seminal As We May Think, published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1945, was the first time anyone had described something like the modern desktop computer and the World Wide Web. Not so, says Alex Wright in Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages (@ Amazon). A Belgian chap named Paul Otlet described something called the "radiated library" -- or the "televised book" -- in 1934:
Here, the workspace is no longer cluttered with any books. In their place, a screen and a telephone within reach. Over there, in an immense edifice, are all the books and information. From there, the page to be read, in order to know the answer to the question asked by telephone, is made to appear on the screen. The screen could be divided in half, by four, or even ten if multiple texts and documents had to be consulted simultaneously. There would be a loudspeaker if the image had to be complemented by oral data and this improvement could continue to the automating the call for onscreen data. Cinema, phonographs, radio, television: these instruments, taken as substitutes for the book, will in fact become the new book, the most powerful works for the diffusion of human thought. This will be the radiated library and the televised book.
Sweet fancy Macintosh, if that's not what we're all doing right here on the web all day.
Much of the section in the book on Otlet was first published by Wright in a Boxes and Arrows essay called Forgotten Father: Paul Otlet. Wright's extensive online bibliography for Glut should keep you busy for a few hours when you're done with that. (I wish all the books I read were accompanied by such bibliographies.) I'll also recommend a related read and one of my favorite technology books, The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage (@ Amazon):
It points out the features common to the telegraph networks of the nineteenth century and the internet of today: hype, scepticism, hackers, on-line romances and weddings, chat-rooms, flame wars, information overload, predictions of imminent world peace, and so on. In the process, I get to make fun of the internet, by showing that even such a quintessentially modern technology actually has roots going back a long way (in this case, to a bunch of electrified monks in 1746).
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my televised book.
(More about this book...)
Wilber's Barbecue
A trip to down to North Carolina to visit my family was the perfect excuse to pay a visit to Wilber's Barbecue. Wilber's hasn't changed much if at all in the 26 years I've been eating there. Growing up, we'd stop at Wilber's on our way down to the beach on summer weekends and order barbecue, slaw, and bread (hush puppies) from the takeout counter. I didn't realize it at the time, but we were eating some of the best barbecue in the country and, in my opinion, the best Eastern Carolinastyle barbecuewhole hog smoked over an oakwood fire, chopped and dressed with a peppery vinegar sauce.
Wilber’s Barbecue is such a well-loved barbecue institution that the city of Goldsboro grandfathered it into its new air-quality controls. Owner Wilber Shirley can continue to burn wood in his pits, but when he dies, the restaurant must convert to gas cooking.
I left Raleigh with my dad and my husband around 4:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. Our final destination was Morehead City, but the only thing I had on my mind was our stop at Wilber's, just about at the halfway mark in Goldsboro. Due to some heavy traffic and a detour to visit the Nahunta Pork Center, it was a little before 6:00 p.m. when we arrived at Wilber's.
We beat the dinner rush, so we decided to by-pass the takeout counter in favor of table service and grabbed a seat at one of the red checkered vinyl tablecloth covered tables. A pitcher of sweet tea, a cruet full of vinegary barbecue sauce, and the usual condiments were already on the table. Our waitress brought us menus, a basket of hot hush puppies, and took our drink order: 2 sweet teas, 1 unsweet. Wilber's hush puppies are worth a mention as they are some of the best of their kind. A little bit sweet and not too mealy.
We were short one, or else we'd have ordered the family dinner (all you can eat barbecue, fried chicken, and sides) so instead we all ordered the "Pit Cooked (Oak Wood) Barbecue Pork Plate" for $7.00. Along with the barbecue, it comes with coleslaw and potato salad. Waitresses bring out plates from the kitchen already plated with sides and drop them off for barbecue at the takeout counter. I watched hungrily as our plates made their way from the kitchen, to the takeout counter, to table.
What can I say. Wilber's is still as good as ever. The barbecue is a perfect blend of all the tastiest hog bits with a nice smoky flavor, and a spicy tang from the vinegar sauce. The perfect bite consists of a little bit of barbecue and a little bit of coleslaw, followed by a sip of sweet tea. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The potato salad is sweet and mustardy and while not my favorite I appreciate its homemade flavor. We finished things off with some " 'nana pudding," a fine example of the classic Southern dessert.
Wilber's (and Ed Mitchell) is the reason I was happy to become a charter member of the North Carolina Barbecue Society, but in case you need a second or third opinion I brought some Wilber's barbecue and coleslaw back to New York for the Serious Eaters. Adam Kuban, Kansas City barbecue lover and member of the Kansas City Barbecue Society declared Wilber's "the best barbecue I've had in New York City." Ed Levine, lover of all things pork, says "In an era of gas smokers and pre-fab barbecue, it is a pleasure to come across Wilber's, where the smell of the wood-burning pit permeates everything, even the cash register."
Wilber's Barbecue
Address: 4172 US Highway 70 E, Goldsboro NC 27530 [map]
Phone: 919-778-5218
URL: wilbersbarbecue.com
September 11, 2007
Links from August 27th through September 11th
Links from August 27th through September 11th:
- irc it (ii) - A filesystem-based IRC client (handy if you want to `tail -f` an IRC channel.) Thanks Matt!
- Best4c - Web based charting application (basic Visio stuff)
- Developer Knowledge Base - Taking web applications offline with Google Gears -
- YouTube - Content Aware Image Resizing -
Photo of the Day: Mexican Sour Cucumber
I wish this was a photo of a bite-size watermelon (I bet they're growing them in Japan), but it's actually a mexican sour cucumber. From what I understand, these are as sour as they are cute.
Free iPhone unlock supposedly pending (Updated)
The iPhone Dev team has been working hard on a free iPhone unlock, and has allegedly made a breakthrough this evening. It's not available to the public yet, though.
Apologies
Pardon their dust: The upgrade to MT 4 has broken much of my site, and my host, Pair is working (slowly) to try to figure out how to fix all the problems. In the meantime, they upgraded my server, and that has broken the commands that call my stylesheets, so the entire site is now coming to you in glorious, unstyled HTML. At least I'm able to update again....Update: Hoorah! Styling back in place, thanks to the very helpful folks at Pair Support. Now, on to the rest of the problems....
The Electric Table
Quick Post
A UK company built a table with outlets placed along the edges. More sexy, fewer wires on the ground.
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/09/table_with_electric_outle.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890
Quick comparison: N800 v. iPod touch
We take a look at the iPod touch, based on what we know as of right now, as compared to the Nokia N800 Internet tablet to see whether the touch might be able to measure up as an Internet tablet itself.
Gearing Up
Those of you who read the first pages of Everything Bad Is Good For You know that I was freakishly obsessed with baseball, and particularly baseball statistics, when I was a young kid. In the last few months, our just-turned-six-year-old has gotten equally obsessed with baseball, which of course is why I had children in the first place -- so I could shag fly balls and talk about the Yankees with someone. (I kid, but only slightly.)
But there's a twist here, and the twist is that while our son is definitely intrigued by the stats side of baseball, the fact that he can only read about thirty words (among them, naturally: Jeter, A-Rod, Red Sox) has limited his stats obsession, though he devours the sports pages every morning. His big obsession right now turns out to be gear. It started innocently enough when we got him a glove and uniform for his Pee-Wee baseball team this spring.
Five months later, things have gotten somewhat out of control. Every time we head out to Prospect Park for a quick game of catch before dinner, this is what we absolutely, positively MUST bring or else the whole trip is off:
1. Three gloves (one extra for his little brother)
2. Three bases and home plate.
3. Pitcher's rubber. (God forbid whoever is pitching should just stand in between first and third base without actually standing on the rubber.)
4. One batter's helmet. (I talked him down from two, arguing that with three players, no one was ever on deck, and besides we're playing with a soft baseball so we don't even need helmets at all.)
5. Shin-guards for whoever is catching.
6. Soft baseball hats for all players.
7. Baseball.
8. Two differently weighted bats.
He also insists on wearing his green and white baseball socks from his Pee-Wee uniform, pulled all the way up to his knees, which, when combined with normal clothes, has a distinctly lederhosen kind of look.
I should say, though, that yesterday we got into a pickup game on the Meadow, and one of the other kids was not only in full uniform, but was also wearing batting gloves and cleats. What a freak, right?
Quote of the Day: Reese Witherspoon Wears Panties
A Brief Message, Briefly
AIGA Executive Director Ric Grefé has written a powerful piece for us over at A Brief Message. It’s a timely reminder for today, the sixth anniversary of September 11th, in which he encourages designers to take advantage of the unique opportunity we have to effect change in the world. I found it to be stirring and quite inspiration, and I think it’s well worth reading. Plus there’s a beautiful illustration by Viktor Kohen, a true master of the medium, that quite remarkably interprets Ric’s words.
Also, in case you missed it, last Thursday, we ran a terrific Message from Debbie Millman about design and beauty, which was illustrated by the singularly talented Felix Sockwell. As it happens, Felix will be appearing for AIGA New York tonight at the first of this season’s Small Talks. He’ll be joined on stage by Peter Bell and Herman Miller, Inc.’s Steve Frykholm to talk about how they collaborated together on that company’s “Be” product line. I’ll be there and please say hello if you’ll be too — though unfortunately it’s sold out if you don’t have tickets already.
Okay, I promise not to alert you here every time we post updates to A Brief Message. For now, you’ll just have to forgive my continued excitability; we’re having a lot of fun on this project.
Blackfriars’ Marketing: Why a Million iPhones in 74 Days Is Better Than You Think
Carl Howe has a good point:
Everyone is focusing on estimates of about 700,000 iphones sold over 74 days. But in reality, iPhones were very hard to find for nearly 21 days of that selling period! I’ve included a (admittedly very rough) movie showing iPhone availability at Apple stores during the first month of sales. Suffice it to say that if you wanted an iPhone during the period between July 1 and July 21, you had to be either lucky or determined to get one, because most Apple stores were out of stock of them.
What's Your Favorite Local Cheese?
About the author: Jamie Forrest publishes Curdnerds.com from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife, his daughter, and his cheese.
American Artisan Cheese Plate. Counter-clockwise from left: Point Reyes Blue, California; Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen Blue, Vermont; Uplands Cheese Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Wisconsin; Bellwether Farms San Andreas, California; Cato Corner Hooligan, Connecticut; Haystack Mountain Red Cloud, Colorado; Nettle Meadow Kunik, New York; Vermont Butter & Cheese Coupole, Vermont
Ed's post from yesterday got me thinking about locally made cheeses, and how lucky I am to be in New York City, close to the prolific cheese-producing areas of the Northeast. The Hudson Valley is filled with cheesemakers, and more open up every year. Coach Farm in Pine Plains, New York, has been around for almost 20 years and makes wonderful fresh and aged goat cheeses, as well as goat milk and yogurt.
Relative newcomer Nettle Meadow Farm in Thurman, New York, makes an amazing triple cream Camembert-style cheese called Kunik that's buttery-rich, tangy, slightly grassy and is made with goat's milk and Jersey cow cream.
There's also Sprout Creek Farm, Mecox Bay Dairy, Three Corner Field Farm—all are producing excellent cheeses all within about 200 miles of New York City.
New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts are also home to a good many artisan and farmstead producers. New Jersey's Valley Shepherd Creamery makes fantastic French- and Spanish-style sheep's milk cheeses and sells them regularly at the Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Also occasionally at this farmers' market is Connecticut's Cato Corner Farm, whose raw cow's milk cheeses are complex and delicious (their Hooligan is one of the best washed-rind cheeses in America). Great Hill Dairy in Marion, Massachusetts, near Buzzard's Bay, makes one of the few raw-milk American blue cheeses. And of course if you count Vermont as local to New York City, you open yourself up to almost 40 more farmstead cheesemakers.
The Northeast isn't nearly the only great American cheesemaking region either. The Midwest, which includes the great dairy state of Wisconsin, is home to some incredible artisan cheesemakers such as Uplands Cheese Company and Carr Valley Cheese. There's even a Wisconsin-focused cheese blog called Cheese Underground.
The Pacific coast is also home to many artisan cheesemakers. California is poised to overtake Wisconsin as largest cheese-producing state in the country and is home to Cypress Grove, makers of the incredible Humboldt Fog. Beecher's Handmade, in Seattle's Pike Place Market, makes Beecher's Flagship Reserve, an aged Cheddar-style cheese that was runner-up for the Best in Show award at this year's American Cheese Society Competition. Like Wisconsin, the Pacific Northwest also has a blog dedicated to following its many artisan cheesemakers.
So, Serious Eaters, what are your favorite local cheeses? If you don't know whether there are any cheesemakers near you, pick up a copy of Jeffrey Roberts's new book, The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese, which features listings of more than 350 small producers.
● True Films by Kevin Kelly
A collection of the best 150 documentaries as determined by Kevin Kelly. Kelly's got good taste in movies -- or at least it jibes with mine -- and True Films is a fine guide for those looking to introduce more documentary films into their media diet.
(More about this book...)
Chain consistency at the local Starbucks
There is only one Starbucks that I visit with any frequency, and it's one near my old apartment and around the corner from my gym. Over the years, I've thought about why I don't mind this Starbucks and I chalked it up to a familiarity with the staff. Last week I stopped in after my first visit to the gym in two months (yay!) to discover that it had been closed for a remodeling. And what I found was a completely changed store. Apparently the renovations entailed an update to the latest Starbucks concept in interior design.
As I stood there in line, taking in the rug, gold gilt mirror, and plush armchairs in one corner, and the mid-range restaurant upholstered booth in the other, I realized what had made this Starbucks different: It had developed the worn familiarity of a local coffeehouse. The few armchairs were shabby, the tables were always haphazardly arranged. The counter was banged up and the doors were chipped wood in need of attention. It was great.
But now it's got that circular Starbucks lighted sign in its window. They've redone the whole counter, changed where you pick up your drink, and installed a microwave so they can sell those wretched breakfast sandwiches. It's now just another Manhattan Starbucks. Everything that gave it its own identity and authenticity is now gone, and I haven't been back.
Ever since I've been thinking about if it's even possible to have an authentic experience at a chain. In order for the chain to succeed, it needs consistency both in product and in branding. This one, until recently, offered the consistent chain product. But the branding, at least in terms of store interior, was missing. Now that it's been restored, the spirit of the place is gone. I know consistency trumps authenticity when it comes to chains. It was foolish of me to develop feelings for that Starbucks because it seemed different than the others. Different can't survive when global sameness is the goal.
comments are open
John Turturro, Director
Hardly content with his career as one of the most fascinating actors in the business today, John Turturro continues to make his mark as director of a growing catalog of boldly independent films. His searing debut, Mac, drew deeply from his experiences in a Brooklyn family cast adrift after their father’s death. Six years later, Turturro reveled in his love for theater with Illuminata, which Salon called “a heartbreakingly beautiful tragicomedy about art, love and artifice, with a script of rare humor and complexity.” Fast forward seven years to 2005, and, like clockwork, Turturro finished his most wildly imaginative project, Romance and Cigarettes, produced by the Coen brothers. Unfortunately, the Hollywood distribution system lacks Turturro’s regularity, and it’s taken another two years for this heartfelt and hilarious picture to appear in America. (A run at Film Forum begins tonight.) Gothamist recently spoke with Turturro about the film, the entertainment industry, and his hope to hatch a Big Lebowski spin-off with the Coens. How long has the idea to make this movie musical been percolating? Well it wasn’t necessarily a musical; there were just some songs that were in my head that were very dear. I would say that it gestated in my head for… I don’t know; it’s been a long time. There was a conversation I had with my dad once about cigarettes, and then later on after he passed away I was working on Barton Fink. I really started typing it up when I was working on Barton Fink. I typed a whole bunch of stuff [on the set] and then I put it way. But I kind of thought maybe there’s something actually here – because I wanted to be actually working on something when they were filming me. And I just kept adding to the pile and about ten years later I sat down and organized all my notes. I was kind of talking through it with someone who is a producer and he said it sounded really interesting and encouraged me to take a shot at it. So after O Brother Where Art Thou? and four other movies that year I took a year off, did some more thinking about it, and then it just kind of wrote itself. As the title indicates, cigarettes play an important role in the film. Is any of the smoking a reflection of a personal experience with smoking? Well my father died of lung cancer and I know a lot of people who have. But for a certain generation that was associated with romance. Certainly for people from the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. That was the thing it was associated with, certainly in cinema. And Frank Sinatra used to sing and smoke. So it really comes from that generation.
Is Daniel Radcliffe a Sex Symbol?
I'm not a huge Harry Potter nut. I started reading the series this summer and it's been slow-goin' -- I'm only on book two. (I blame all the gossip sites and magazines that I "have to" read for work.) As for HP's biggest star, the one and only Daniel Radcliffe, he recently turned 18 and he's suddenly being touted as some type of international sex symbol. Details mag must agree -- they threw him in a vest, greased him up and put them on their cover. I've also has a number of people I know make remarks about his "sexy." And no, that's not a typo. Just borrowing Diddy's term.
Daniel has a new, non-Potter movie coming out called December Boys, so he's back on the red carpet and making the talk show rounds for his first big non-Potter flick. Here are photos taken earlier today in Sydney at the premiere. What do you think: sexy or sweet boy? Weigh in.
For more on the Potter kidz in real life, check out Harry Potter: Then & Now: My, How They've Changed.
Update on Alinea chef Grant Achatz from the WSJ
From August 31 comes this update on Alinea chef Grant Achatz from the Wall Street Journal. A team of doctors at the University of Chicago are trying to "cure the cancer using an atypical method of treatment" rather than the standard approach that could cause Grant to lose his sense of taste. Continuing wishes for a speedy recovery, Chef.
● Oscar the Cat
Oscar the cat lives at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Oscar possesses a peculiar talent...he knows when the residents there are going to die and curls up with them for comfort before they pass.
Making his way back up the hallway, Oscar arrives at Room 313. The door is open, and he proceeds inside. Mrs. K. is resting peacefully in her bed, her breathing steady but shallow. She is surrounded by photographs of her grandchildren and one from her wedding day. Despite these keepsakes, she is alone. Oscar jumps onto her bed and again sniffs the air. He pauses to consider the situation, and then turns around twice before curling up beside Mrs. K.
One hour passes. Oscar waits. A nurse walks into the room to check on her patient. She pauses to note Oscar's presence. Concerned, she hurriedly leaves the room and returns to her desk. She grabs Mrs. K.'s chart off the medical-records rack and begins to make phone calls.
Within a half hour the family starts to arrive. Chairs are brought into the room, where the relatives begin their vigil. The priest is called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged, instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandson asks his mother, "What is the cat doing here?" The mother, fighting back tears, tells him, "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath. With this, Oscar sits up, looks around, then departs the room so quietly that the grieving family barely notices.
Chris Jordan’s “Running the Numbers” — go see it in person!
Okay, so this isn’t really wine related, but this is a brief follow-up to our earlier post on wine consumption and its environmental impact. However, we thought we’d let all you LA folks know that you can see the images we referred to in person, at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery, for the next few weeks. We saw the exhibit on Saturday and were blown away. The Cans Seurat image is astonishing. Check it out at 6150 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, 90036. Then head to Bodegas DeCordova for a glass of wine.
Poll: Mark Warner Crushing The GOP In Virginia Senate Race
A new Rasmussen poll shows Democrats are overwhelmingly favored to pick up the seat of retiring Senator John Warner (R-VA), if they can get former Dem Governor Mark Warner (no relation) to run. Mark Warner beats Congressman Tom Davis by a margin of 57%-30%, and tops former Governor Jim Gilmore by a 54%-34% margin.
Rasmussen also has Virginia looking like a swing state in next year's presidential race, with a definite chance of a Democratic win. Hillary Clinton is beating Rudy Giuliani there 44%-41%, and edges Fred Thompson 46%-44% — results that are within the margin of error. Dems have not carried Virginia since the Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964.
● Where did that number come from?
Meg and I were getting ready to go out to breakfast at some obscenely early hour on Sunday morning. I retrieved a pair of jeans from the floor.
J: Hey, there's some change in these pants.
M: Breakfast is on you, then.
J: Yeah, if we're going to eat, like, 68 cents-worth of breakfast.Then I reached into the pocket to find out how much was actually in there...from some purchase I don't recall making. 68 cents exactly. In olden times, that would have been taken as a harbinger of something, that virgins would need to be sacrificed on mountaintops to appease the gods. Meg shrugs and says, "you should post that to your blog."
Also, Grey Dog on University has the best hash browns I've ever eaten.
Braille Graffiti In Paris
More from The Blind here.
Three's Company for Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel
Though Jessica Biel was nowhere to be seen during the MTV VMAs, after her man, Justin Timberlake, accepted all of his awards and did all of his dancing, Jess was there to wipe his brow -- and so was his mom!
Justin reportedly skipped all of the after-parties to hang with his main women. The threesome had a quiet dinner with friends at Tableau restaurant in the Wynn Las Vegas's Spa Tower. According to a fellow diner, Justin and Jess smooched a bunch and "were so lovey-dovey. They were always touching and being very sweet with one another and in front of Justin's mom."
Um, AWKWARD!
After dinner, Justin and Jess opted to call it a night instead of heading out to any of the festivities. Hopefully Justin's mom partied with the others or retired to her own room.
Title of the upcoming Indiana Jones film: Indiana Jones and...
Title of the upcoming Indiana Jones film: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
(link)
Kanye West Boycotts MTV
Tough guy rapper, Kanye West is throwing a tantrum because he didn't take home any of the five VMAs he was nominated for, but he's hiding behind the guise that MTV "exploited him.""I wasn't mad that I just didn't win any awards," Kanye told New York's Z-100. "For me, [MTV] made it seem like performing on the main stage was a bad thing, and the suites were just so great. It was my dream when I made 'Stronger' to open up the VMAs with a real power performance.
"And I just feel like I got betrayed by them," the rapper continues. "I feel like they tried to make it seem like I was so into everything that was going on in the show."
He also jumps to Britney Spears's defense, saying that the network used her, as well.
"They exploited Britney in helping to end her career," Kanye said. "When Britney was opening, near the end, I felt so bad for her. I said, 'Man, it's a dirty game. This game will chew you up and spit you out.'"
Kanye has vowed to never work with MTV again, but is sure that he'll still come out on top.
"I have a connection in the fans' heart that the press can't stop," he said.
Here's my personal note to Kanye:
Dear Kanye,
Go cry to your momma. Or put your binky back in and SHUT UP.
Thanks,
Tracy
Awesome GCC Literal Suffix Bug
The setup:
$ cat bug.c#include <stdio.h>static float f(float x) { printf("f() called\n"); return x + 1;}int main (int argc, const char *argv[]) {#if TYPO float y = f(42f);#else float y = f(42.f);#endif printf("y: %f\n", y); return 0;}Let’s build+run it normally:
$ gcc -o bug bug.c && ./bugf() calledy: 43.000000OK, let’s insert the typo:
$ gcc -DTYPO=1 -o bug bug.c && ./bugbug.c:10:14: error: invalid suffix "f" on integer constantOK, still in the land of the sane. Now let’s add a couple of flags Xcode 2.4 normally adds for a Debug target,
-archand-fasm-blocks:$ gcc -arch i386 -fasm-blocks -DTYPO=1 -o bug bug.c && ./bugy: -1.999849Lovely bug, isn’t it? When targeting Intel and CodeWarrior-style assembly blocks are enabled,
42fis no longer recognized as a syntax error.It gets better. The entire statement hosting the errant literal just disappears. It’s as if you never even called it. Notice
y’s wonky value on the last run: it was never initialized and just holds randomish memory.Turns out not all literal suffixes have expose the bug, only the following ones:
a b c d f g k m n o p q r s t v w x y z. Sigh.
September 10, 2007
Open Komodo! Huzzah!
It’s somewhat inexcusable of me to not have blogged about the release of Open Komodo.
Very few of the Web IDE vendors seem to really “get” the web, and along with the folks at Aptana and Panic, the ActiveState bunch have impressed the hell out of me with their constant support of Open Source, deep understanding of why webdev sucks, and what they can do to fix it.
It’s exciting to see Komodo, one of the few editors that has ever tempted me away from vim (even if for short spells), open up and make real steps to being “The Open Web’s Eclipse”.
visual graffiti archaeology
a powerful, visual time-travel interface, devoted to the study of graffiti-covered walls as they change over time. the core of the project consists of a timelapse collage, made of photos of graffiti taken at the same location by many different photographers over a span of several years. most of the photos were taken in San Francisco, New York, & Los Angeles over a timespan from the late 1990's to the present.[link: otherthings.com (application) & otherthings.com (blog)]
JSON::Tiny?
Alias writes "Someone that I've been talking to about YAML::Tiny in email asked my opinion on CPAN's JSON modules, and whether or not I had any plans to write a JSON::Tiny as well. I replied at the time that I had no idea, since I had never really taken a good look at JSON-related modules before, and I only created ::Tiny modules where ALL the existing options were either bloated or XS-based, and there was a genuine need for a ::Tiny module.Read more of this story at use Perl.
Helvetica the Movie Starts its Run at IFC Center on Wednesday
Quick Post
They've also got director Gary Hustwit, editor Shelby Siegel, Michael Bierut and Tobias Frere-Jones coming in for Q&As.
http://www.helveticafilm.com/blog/2007/09/10/new-york-city-tickets-on-sale-now/
The Economist about the geoweb
The Economist’s tech quarterly has a good piece about the geoweb called “The World on Your Desktop”. Although nothing is really new here, the description gives a good overview of the current state of the industry.
As usual, expectations are high:
“At the same time, the incorporation of satellite-positioning technology into mobile phones and cars could open the floodgates. When it is available, simply moving about one’s neighbourhood can then be tantamount to browsing and generating content without doing anything, as demonstrated by a company called Socialight. Its service lets mobile users attach notes to any location, to be read by others who come along later. Taken further, the result could end up being a sort of extrasensory information awareness, annotation and analysis capability in the real world. “When that happens”, says Mr Jones, “then the map is actually a little portal on to life itself.” The only thing that can hold it back, he believes, is the rate at which society can adapt.“
But:
“Since the beginning of last year more than 20 geospatial firms have been the targets of mergers and acquisitions, with Google, Microsoft and ESRI among the buyers. But it is not quite time to declare the dawn of Web 3.0. For one thing, consumer geobrowsing does not make any money. “
Why do I blog this? the article is very interesting and I can imagine that E. readers need this sort of update but I don’t understand why the author does not put things in more perspective. It’s been now 5-10 years that people, start-ups, academic labs and big companies are working on this topic and the failures or problems are scarcely discussed. Or, when something is discussed it’s the lack of business model. But there are tons of other issues: granularity of information, relevance of these systems in people’s lives and habits, reliance on certain (seamful) infrastructures, etc.
Dodd Hits Obama And Hillary, Demands Clarity On Iraq
In today's response to the Petraeus testimony, Barack Obama said he'd only support future Congressional measures on Iraq that started withdrawal immediately, but he stopped short of saying he wouldn't back something without a date-certain for withdrawal.
That's not good enough for the Dodd campaign, whose communications director, Hari Sevugan, has just emailed over this challenge to Obama by name and to Hillary by implication:
While we are glad that Senator Obama has called for a change of course in Iraq, he isn't clear as to what he will do to make that happen, or when.Rhetoric and highly nuanced statements are not going to end this war -- strong leadership and clarity will...We urge Senator Obama, and all the other candidates in the Senate, to state clearly and directly whether or not they will support Iraq legislation if it does not include a firm, enforceable deadline to begin and complete the redeployment of troops from Iraq.
Not clear why he's naming Obama but not Hillary, but nonetheless, Dodd's aggressive insistence on a date-certain for withdrawal has won him plaudits among bloggers and antiwar activists, and this will likely win him more.
Science Fiction
A couple weeks old, but worth reading: Cory Doctorow excoriates Science Fiction Writers of America for issuing takedowns on his behalf, without his permission, against sites hosting his books, with permission (under CC licenses).
Meanwhile, Cory blogs about another author’s science fantasy trilogy released under a CC license and is writing a column in Locus magazine on why SF writers should use CC.
One of the blog reactions to Cory’s SFWA kerfuffle Letting Crazy People Set Intellectual-Property Policy (citing other recent examples of “craziness” as well). Of course with Creative Commons you can set your own non-crazy policy. That’s not science fiction.
MobileSafari-Optimized UI for MT 4
Great work from Brad Choate and Walt Dickinson at Six Apart. I’m upgrading to MT 4 just for this.
Misshapes Ends, Hipsters Divide
Some might say it's the end of an era, others may ask: "What's Misshapes?" -- either way, the weekly party ended this past weekend with Pulp's Disco 2000 providing the sonic fade-out. The NY Times reported on the party, its attendees, its hosts and someone named Tommy Hottpants. The mood on the last night seemed to be celebratory, and the party-goers already have new plans for their Saturday nights. Mr. Jeremy Lipkin, a 23-year old gentleman from Williamsburg, declares: “The new hot party is the dinner party." Will all hipsters instantly transform in to New Victorians? Well, at least they can reminisce about their glory days by flipping through the Misshapes coffee table book. Meanwhile, over at The Post, Joey Arak announces an "all-too-real, increasing divide between Manhattan hipsters and Brooklyn hipsters." Apparently the once singular group of "hipster" has split (someone should really start charting this species), though both temporarily coexisted on the former's turf that last night of Misshapes. The rivalry, we're assured, didn't result in violence, or even a Sharks vs Jets dance-off -- but we're guessing some rolls of the eye and up-down looks were given. DJ Mike Nouveau explains the greatest difference in these two groups is that one shops at Barneys, the other at Beacon's Closet. What did our own Jeff Baum have to say about it? "Brooklyn hipsters are about the whole lifestyle. They have their own parties and events. Anyone who can afford to live in Manhattan these days and has the audacity to act poor and troubled is doing it for show." Brooklyn Hipsters: 1, Manhattan Hipsters: 0.
One more reason to buy an iPhone
For a long time now I have been one of those iPhone hold outs that insists on waiting for the next generation before taking the iPhone plunge. But today could be the tipping point for me and many other Movable Type users like me.
Today we are happy to announce Movable Type for the iPhone and iPod Touch, made possible through a plugin developed by Brad Choate that makes use of the design developed by Walt Dickinson for TypePad. The plugin works by installing an alternate template set that is automatically used in place of the primary Movable Type user interface when the application is accessed via an iPhone or iPod Touch. The integration with Movable Type is totally seamless.
Walt has done an amazing job creating a truly thoughtful user experience. He certainly had the option to just boil down the application to a smaller, more browsable version of itself. But he didn't. Instead Walt designed the ideal user experience for iPhone from scratch. He created custom graphics, layouts and entirely new screens for the application in order to make this plugin feel like a completely native iPhone application.
The plugin, and its design, is completely free and open source. It is available through our plugin directory or from code.sixapart.com.
Profile of designer Josh Davis on Apple's web site. "The...
Profile of designer Josh Davis on Apple's web site. "The most complex print I've done had 120,000 layers in Illustrator. The printer called and said, 'How did you do this? How long did it take?' And I said, 'Oh, five minutes.'"
(link)
Movable Type 4.01 Release Candidate 1
Last week we released Movable Type 4.01 Release Candidate 1. This release contains a number of fixes, but a couple in particular that we feel we should highlight for our users:
- A fix for an XSS vulnerability that affects blogs in which the primary Movable Type application is hosted on a different domain then their blog. The vulnerability results from a commenter name of an authenticated user that contains apostrophes. For users who host their blog and application on different domains, we ask that you please upgrade to 4.01 when it is released.
- A fix for a low-level bug that affects Movable Type's data abstract layer called Data::ObjectDriver. In this bug, any page within the application or on the published blog that needs to compose links to the next and previous entries in a sequence of entries, will result in Movable Type querying and pulling from the database more entries then is technically necessary. This has an adverse affect on performance and memory utilization during publishing operations and page load operations. This bug has the largest impact on large blogs with thousands of entries. For users with blogs of this size we strongly recommend you upgrade.
The rest of the bug fixes are relative minor, but significant to the many, many people who reported them and worked with us to resolve them. A special shout out to Tim Appnel, Michele Neylon, Bud Gibson and a number of our ProNet conrads in Japan who for their detailed bug reports and help in fixing a number of different users and developers.
Finally, we expect to release one more release candidate for Movable Type 4.01 in order to incorporate some final translations that did not make the last release candidate. On the bright side, I suppose we have a good excuse for the missed translations: Maarten Schenk, who is responsible for translating Movable Type into Spanish, German, Dutch and French has been a little busy lately; as Maarten just welcomed his third child into the world. Congratulations to Maarten, his wife, Klaartj, Fien and of course Anna!
Cadaeic Cadenza is a 3834-word story by Mike Keith where...
Cadaeic Cadenza is a 3834-word story by Mike Keith where each word in sequence has the same number of letters as the corresponding digit in pi. (thx, mark, who has more info on constrained writing) Related: The Feynman point is the sequence of six 9s which begins 762 digits into pi. "[Feynman] once stated during a lecture he would like to memorize the digits of pi until that point, so he could recite them and quip 'nine nine nine nine nine nine and so on.'"
(link)
音レボ (Otorevo.jp)
House, MD on Evolution
As spotted on a commercial for the new season of House:Cutty: Where did you come from? House: Apes . . . if you believe the Democrats.
Should Apple Burn Its Economics Textbooks?
Perfect analysis on the iPhone price cut from Steven Levitt:
By starting high, you get as much money as you can from those who really want the product, then expand the market at the lower price point.
Hmm … that sounds exactly like what Apple just did with the iPhone. They brought it out at $599, sold one million iPhones, and then dropped the price to $399 after two months, in the hopes of selling nine million more this year.
So why did this strategy blow up in Apple’s face, leading them to offer a $100 coupon to the early adopters, many of whom remain irate despite the rebate?
What economists (and Apple too, I guess) ignore is that consumers hate it when companies follow practices that look like they are designed to maximize profits.
Creating iPhone Ringtones With Fission
Paul Kafasis:
Using Fission, you can crop audio down to your desired snippet, fade the ends in and out, and save, all in just a few clicks.
hello bloggyblog.
i've missed you so.
George Legrady’s talk at LDM
A good talk I will miss next week at the lab: “Aesthetic & Cultural Perspectives Through Data Visualization” by George Legrady on September 12th at EPFL in BC101 at 4:00pm:
“The lecture will trace the intersection of data organization and visualization in a number of the artist’s projects such as “Pockets Full of Memories” (Souvenirs plein les poches) inaugurated at the Centre Pompidou, and “Making Visible the Invisible” a public arts commission for the Seattle Central Library, and the Global Collaborative Visual Mapping Archive (GCVMA) cellphone visual archive exhibited this summer at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC. These projects consist of visualizations generated by custom designed software that dynamically organize data.“
George Legrady is Professor of Interactive Media at the UCSB. He holds a joint appointment in the Media Arts and Technology Graduate Program, and the Department of Art. His current research addresses data collection, data processing methodologies, and data visualization presented simultaneously in interactive installations and the internet. He is Co-Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Interactive Digital Multimedia (IDM) Program at UCSB.
Acorn Plugins
Oh, and plugin information (in python and objc) is right here: http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/plugin.shtml.
I know a bunch of developers read my blog- so if you've got any suggestions to add to the (very small at this point) API, let me know!
September 9, 2007
Speaker's Self-Deconstruction
Matt Webb of Schulze and Webb criticizes his own recent speaking habits, all benefit.
Finding value in .Mac
Although the subscription service was recently upgraded, at $99 a year .Mac hardly seems like a bargain. However, you can find value in the sum of .Mac’s parts, and not at $99 a year, either.
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