randomwalks/dj

blogging from the front lines of the war, he was the first casualty of 2008 [via] 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on January 5, 2008 9:29 PM

Politics piss me off. Everyone is too worried about keeping their job or getting a new one to bother doing what's best for their constituents. Most politicians enter Washington with the best of intentions, but a potential failure looms and their scruples go to the wayside.

"'You've got to do what's right, OK?' [McCain] told me, 'but if you want to succeed, you have to adjust to the American people's desires and priorities".

Unfortunately, the people don't always know what's best for themselves. As James Surowiecki says, crowds are smart, people are dumb. This is why I want a leader who is smart and has a mind of his/her own. I'm not so worried about aligning perfectly with their views, so long as it's close. I also don't mind if they're lacking in experience if they seem willing to turn to any of their dozens of advisers.

I singled out McCain above because, despite having very different views on social policy, I always liked him. After failing to get the nomination in 2000, he has been sucked into the robot vacuum. Sure, he'll talk off the cuff and verbally attack an audience member now and again, but he has sold out. He's just too willing to play the game.

Obama also seemed in danger of a one way trip to the vacuum. His speech at the 2006 DNC really moved me, but I was a bit turned off at the beginning of his campaign. Somehow, his advisers managed to make him boring, which is a travesty. In the last month or two, and especially at his Iowa victory speech, he's got me back into the fold. He's a real person and I love it.

Harold Washington

While this ended up being about the current election, the idea for this post came from an episode of This American Life about Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. I didn't know much about him, but the episode painted him as the rare politician who could both play the game and speak his mind.

There's plenty more to say about Harold and this episode of TAL, but an interesting statistic from Washington's original campaign is that he was able to register 140,000 new voters when his campaign thought 50,000 would be a stretch. On Thursday Democrats nearly doubled 2004's caucus with 100,000 additional voters.

Okay, to finish it off here is my favorite quote from that episode. This is what Harold had to say about Richard J. Daly, a man revered by white Chicagoans. Try to imagine anyone saying this today.

"When he says that he had hoped I'd have the good qualities of past mayors, there are no good qualities of past mayors to be had. None. None. None. None." "I regret anyone dying. I have no regrets about [Daly] leaving. He was a racist to the core, head to toe, hip to hip, there's no ding or doubt about it. He eschewed and fought and oppressed black people to the point that some thought that was the way they were supposed to live, just like some slaves on the plantation thought that that was the way they were supposed to live. I give no hosannas to a racist, nor did I appreciate or respect his son. If his name were anything other than Daley, his campaign would be a joke."

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Capn Design, on January 5, 2008 3:09 PM

blog.pmarca.com:

"...you can't believe any of the Internet measurement companies for any kind of accurate external analysis of Ning usage and traffic -- or, for that matter, usage and traffic of any web site other than perhaps the very largest.

I'm talking about Compete, Quantcast, Alexa, and even Comscore -- none of their data maps in any way to numbers or patterns we see in our own server logs and activity metrics.

This is a well-known problem in the Internet startup world and isn't discussed often enough. It's also a very complicated problem due to a whole hornet's nest of issues, including toolbar adoption, demographic spreads, technology variations, international usage, and domain mapping."

Right on.

Originally posted by Ev. from evhead, on January 5, 2008 12:31 PM

..continues to be "the turd in the Food Network punchbowl" ...

Tony, throw a little Just For Men into your daily spa routine and no one will know the difference.

Originally posted by michael ruhlman from ruhlman.com, on January 5, 2008 5:22 AM

Frustrated by differing advice, Rob Manuel at b3ta tests and documents four methods for poaching eggs, with results ranging from "I wouldn't feed this to a dog," to "It's bloody perfect." So what's the secret to making perfect poached eggs? Plastic wrap, possibly. [via David Jacobs]

Related: How to Poach an Egg tutorial video by cia_b. View all of cia_b's egg cooking tutorial videos.

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Main, on January 5, 2008 5:00 AM

Good article.

Originally posted by schneier from Schneier on Security, on January 5, 2008 4:35 AM

Enjoy.

Originally posted by John Aboud from United Hollywood, on January 4, 2008 10:29 PM

Some thoughts on whether Barack Obama will find some white voters disappearing due to "Tolerance Fatigue" aka "The Bradley Effect." Obama's win in the (very white) Iowa caucus seems like a good sign, but I don't think we should...

Originally posted by jsmooth995 from hiphopmusic.com:, on January 4, 2008 5:49 PM

A well-known ruin is crumbling. According to Roosevelt Island Historical Society president and historian Judith Berdy, part of the north wing of the Smallpox Hospital collapsed about a week ago. She writes, "The rest of the north wing especially the front is in danger of coming down any time... [The Roosevelt Island Operation Corporation] is working with TPL, the Southpoint park developers to find a way to do emergency stabilization of the rest of the building... Please encourage RIOC to do all possible to save the rest of the building."

The ruins of the Smallpox Hospital, situated on the southern end of Roosevelt Island, are a NYC landmark. The hospital was designed by James Renwick Jr. (who also designed St. Patrick's Cathedral, Grace Church and DC's Smithsonion Institution Building) and was completed in 1856. After years of being used to house patients with smallpox and other diseases and then housing nurses, the hospital was abandoned in 1950s and quickly fell into disrepair.

A 1988 NY Times article said that it would cost $7.25 million to stabilize the Smallpox Hospital as well as two other RI structures. More recently, in 2003, the City Comptroller recommended that the Roosevelt Island Operation Corporation "Abide by its contractual obligations and continue the process after the engineering study to ensure that it stabilizes the Smallpox Hospital," which the RIOC agreed to. And during last fall's Open House New York, tours were able to go inside the hospital.

Via Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York, which has an extensive section about Roosevelt Island.

Photographs from Roosevelt Island Historical Society

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on January 4, 2008 5:30 PM

The last part of this video featuring Conan O'Brien singing The Beastie Boys' Sabotage as Edith Bunker from All in the Family makes me laugh over and over and over.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 4, 2008 5:17 PM

Tomorrow's Schedule:

4:30-7:30pm: Redskins @ Seahawks.

7:00-8:30pm: GOP Debate in NH.

8:00-11:00pm: Jacksonville @ Pittsburgh

8:45-10:15pm: Dem Debate in NH.

10:30pm-1:30am: Post-game analysis by ESPN and MSNBC.

Wow!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Good People Better Rise Up!, on January 4, 2008 3:59 PM

I'm headed to Kauai (staying in Waimea) for a week of rest and relaxation and need your recommendations for some serious eats! Also curious to hear if anyone has the scoop on the local farmers' markets and what's in season this time of year.

Originally posted by Alaina Browne from Serious Eats: Posts and Comments by Alaina Browne, on January 4, 2008 1:43 PM

I forgot where I first saw this, but I actually spent the five minutes it took to watch the entire video and it really made me laugh. 

So in case you haven't already seen it, here's a video wherein Rich at FourFour proves the hypothesis that Celine Dion is f&%ing amazing:

I think Supporting Point No. 7 is my favorite.  Ah, I love me a true eccentric.

Originally posted by Krissy from art is the new religion, on January 4, 2008 1:15 PM

This piece was written by Transportation Alternatives:

On December 1, 2006, Eric Ng was riding his bike up the Hudson River Greenway. He was on his way to meet friends. He never made it, because a drunk driver named Eugenio Cidron took his life. After leaving a party at Chelsea Piers, Cidron got behind the wheel of his car and drove it on to the Greenway. Eugenio Cidron sped down the Greenway, a car-free path, for a mile at 60 miles per hour, before crashing into Eric Ng and killing him.

A little over a year ago, the government agencies that have something to say or do with the Hudson River Greenway, along with Transportation Alternatives, convened a task force to develop improvements that will reduce conflicts between drivers and Greenway users, but today little has changed on the ground. The Hudson River Greenway was never designed to have high volumes of cars and trucks crossing it. Regardless of whether or not government knew this when the biking and walking path was built, it knows it now and is often guilty of aiding and abetting the increase on driving across the path.

There are over a dozen City, State and Federal government agencies that have some say in what goes on along the Hudson River between Battery Park and 59^th Street, but no one has taken charge. On the Greenway itself, it's a jurisdictional nightmare. The State DOT designed and built the Greenway and continues to be responsible for path redesigns. The City DOT maintains and times the traffic signals along the Greenway. The Hudson River Park Trust maintains the Greenway path. The NYC Parks Department tries to ensure design consistency between this Greenway and the ones it builds and maintains around the boroughs. There are myriad groups, including the City Economic Development Corp, the MTA, the Passenger Ship Terminal, Chelsea Piers and private ferry operators (who often drive buses across the path), that weigh in on the need for driveways across the Greenway.

(more...)

Originally posted by Aaron Naparstek from Streetsblog, on January 4, 2008 12:06 PM

We kinda slacked over break when it came to checking our go-to blogs, so we missed this nugget from Racked: One of our favorite brands that we can almost afford but not quite (which makes it extra-frustrating) A.P.C. is opening up an outlet called A.P.C. Surplus on Grand Street near Kent Avenue sometime in mid-January, most likely on the 11th. We had heard rumors of said shop, and are glad to see them confirmed! According to men.style.com, the shop will "will carry customized vintage military pieces, discounted items from past seasons, and, of course, the line's signature denim products..." Photo of store (the black building on the right) via Racked.com

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on January 4, 2008 11:34 AM

The Economist on the OLPC: "This leads to the final problem that has done the most to disappoint OLPC’s fans: the hubris, arrogance and occasional self-righteousness of OLPC workers. They treated all criticism as enemy fire to be deflected and quashed rather than considered and possibly taken on board." twittered by James

Originally posted by torrez from Andre's Notes, on January 4, 2008 10:45 AM

Last year, Teen Vogue noticed that Mary Kate's favorite vintage tunic had been spun into one of her designs from Elizabeth & James.

Now that same design has landed on Carrie Underwood, prompting the Fug Girls to cry "there are times when the mighty sequin backfires."

But although we think Mary Kate looks more fashion-focused in her own design than Ms. Underwood, there's something to be said for a wholesome, whole-faced Oklahoman strutting around in the same outfit as a favored fashion waif. And she seems to really adore the dress, which is always fun to see in a smile.

So who wore it better?

The American Idol winner, or the girl whose most famous words are "You Got It, Dude" ?

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on January 4, 2008 10:37 AM

Scene: a crowded N train, just before Christmas. A panhandler enters the car--old, dirty, hunched. As the doors close he breaks into song to encourage handouts. "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...."

He finishes before the train reaches its next stop, and surveying the situation, he continues. "Sing it with me now.

"If you want my body and you think I'm sexy...."

Originally posted by David Wertheimer from Ideapad, on January 4, 2008 10:23 AM

From Rodcorp's series on how people work, here's author Philip Pullman's workspace and process.

I write three pages every day (one side of the paper only). That's about 1100 words. Then I stop, having made sure to write the first sentence on the next page, so I never have a blank page facing me in the morning.

Pullman used to work in a writing shed but gave it to a friend when he moved on the condition that the friend would pass it along to another writer when he'd finished with it. Pullman's shed reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's rotating writing room.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 4, 2008 9:28 AM

A collection of rap, hip hop, and roller-disco flyers from the 70s and 80s.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 4, 2008 8:31 AM

Someone spliced David Lynch into an iPhone commercial.

Originally posted by torrez from Andre's Notes, on January 4, 2008 8:26 AM

In the wake of her humbling loss to Obama in Iowa yesterday, Hillary is planning to start drawing sharper "contrasts" between herself and the Illinois Senator in the days leading up to next week's New Hampshire primary -- and little by little, details are leaking out about Camp Hillary's evolving strategy.

Here's a quick rundown on what we're learning:

* Hillary aides are reportedly studying whether they can hit Obama on gun control, an issue where Obama has taken a hard line that might turn off some New Hampshire voters.

* Hillary, who isn't know for frequent Q and As with reporters, made herself extensively available to them in New Hampshire today, and quickly made it clear that she would now get serious about "drawing contrasts" with her "leading opponents." This was apparently part of a concerted effort on the Hillary camp's part to prevent Obama from coasting off his Iowa victory.

* Bill Clinton will spend the next five days campaigning for Hillary in New Hampshire, though he had reportedly not planned to.

* In another effort to signal that Camp Hillary would be playing rougher in the days ahead, Hillary also said this today:

"Of all the people running for president, I’ve been the most vetted, the most investigated, and my goodness, the most innocent it turns out."

The one thing that no reporter seems to be able to nail down yet is whether Hillary's "contrast drawing" will include negative ads. The Clinton camp won't rule out their use, but no one's been able to confirm precisely what changes in ad strategy are in the cards.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on January 4, 2008 8:10 AM

Um, he’d be called a Fundu?

Originally posted by Administrator from Turbanhead, on January 4, 2008 8:05 AM

Portraits of cyclists killed on the streets of New York, Eric Ng, Keith Powell, Andre Anderson, and Carl Nacht by artist Christopher Cardinale.

Yesterday was the sentencing for Eugenio Cidron, the driver who killed bicyclist Eric Ng on the Hudson River Greenway thirteen months ago and pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter in November.

Leaving the courtroom after the sentencing, I was approached by Cidron's family. It wasn't quite what I would have expected. A young woman, perhaps his sister, gently touched my arm while the others looked at me with moist eyes and told me how sorry they were for my loss.

I took their hands one by one and said I wasn't actually a friend of the victim; I was there because, like him, I ride a bike in New York. They nodded and said they understood. We clasped hands again and went our separate ways down the corridor to the elevator and out of State Supreme Court.

Inside, in the presence of half-a-dozen armed court officers, a handful of reporters and twenty spectators -- half there for the victim's sake, half for the killer's -- Cidron had received an "indeterminate sentence" of 3½ to 10½ years, the range specified in his plea bargain.

Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal recited the by-now familiar facts. On the evening of Dec. 1, 2006, Cidron left an office party at Chelsea Piers, steered his silver BMW onto the Greenway, where motor vehicles are forbidden, and drove south for a mile until he smashed head-on into cyclist Eric Ng. Just 22 years old, Ng was "vibrant and kind," a recent college grad, a teacher, and his mother's "angel," according to a letter Mrs. Ng wrote to Cidron after the fatal crash.

A few facts were new: Cidron had driven alongside the Greenway on adjacent West Street "a hundred times," indicating that he should have known where he was before he encountered Eric coming from the opposite direction. And he was traveling at 60 miles an hour, according to the NYPD Accident Investigation Squad.

(more...)

Originally posted by Charles Komanoff from Streetsblog, on January 4, 2008 7:53 AM

I love this speech because he says, "Give it for Michelle." Give it up for ... I can not believe that he said that. I am really happy but cautiously so. Iowa is just the beginning of a long, long journey.

Originally posted by Angela Tucker from tuckergurl, on January 4, 2008 6:52 AM

Thomas Keller, in his on going quest to get promoted to God, is making some improvements to Bouchon: "...the space that was once the outdoor seating area for the bakery is now the scene of the Bouchon kitchen's expansion. Quoth our man on the scene, "I believe they are adding walk-in refrig and freezer and redoing the bathrooms. This will give them more workspace in the kitchen." Bouchon is still open but will reportedly close for a week sometime in the next month." [Eater SF]

Originally posted by BL from Eater, on January 4, 2008 6:10 AM

With her unhinged characters and uncanny timing, scene-stealing comic Kristen Wiig is this season's Saturday Night Live standout. But what's she like when she lets her hair down? In this extended interview from Radar's February issue, Andrew Goldberg finds out

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Radar Online Features, on January 4, 2008 5:15 AM

Serious Eats Mobile, the miniaturized, portable version of the food blog you love, now supports commenting on the go. Simply point your mobile device (iPhone, iPod Touch, or Opera Mini highly recommended) to mobile.seriouseats.com and log in using your Serious Eats account. Comment away!

Note: The mobile site is still in beta, so please alert us to any bugs you might find at feedback@seriouseats.com. We now continue your regularly scheduled programming.

Originally posted by raphael from Serious Eats: Main, on January 4, 2008 5:15 AM

Bar Boulud, Daniel Boulud's new restaurant and charcuterie palace on the Upper West Side, will open to the public on January 8, according to officials at the restaurant. (Recall that it is not yet open at present). Resy line: 212-595-0303. [EaterWire]

Originally posted by BL from Eater, on January 4, 2008 4:59 AM

"Hello Faran the Fashioinsta.com Staff, I just recieved a internship with Harper Bazaar, I would like to know do you guys know anything juicy like crazy editors or assistants that I might need to be aware of? Thanks." --Yesterday's favorite, and misspelled, comment from the boards... and no darling, everyone we know at HB is pretty cool.</blockquote

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on January 4, 2008 4:28 AM

This is the fourth of five predictions for 2008, expanded from the short form generated on short notice as described here.

Prediction

The short version:

PHP will remain popular but its growth will slow, as people get nervous about its maintainability and security stories.

Ambivalent, that’s me; I totally have a love/hate relationship with PHP.

Yes, ...

It’s enabled huge numbers of people to create decent Web sites without having to learn too much or try too hard; a very good thing. Also, it runs pretty fast. Plus, it’s been used to build some of the most instructive and useful apps out there, like MediaWiki and WordPress.

So I totally think PHP has earned its huge community and thriving ecosystem fair and square; good on it.

... and No

On the other hand, speaking as an actual computer programmer, I really dislike PHP. I find it ugly and un-modular and there’s something about it that encourages people to write horrible code. We’re talking serious maintainability pain.

Also, I observe a certain amount of tension involving the community and Zend. Symptoms may be observed, among other places, at hardened-php.net. I was going to drop in a wry comment about the elusiveness of “The PHP Group” who own all the copyrights and so on, and just now failed to find a pointer to the page which lists them (I know it exists, I’ve seen it), so I guess that’s self-referentially wry enough. And you have to raise your eyebrows over the course of the transition from PHP4 to PHP5.

Finally, some recent hands-on experience: a big project I’m peripherally involved with needed to include an outward-facing Wiki, and I suggested that MediaWiki was damn good stuff. They put in quite a bit of work and failed to get MW to integrate with the rest of the system. Yes, it’s a good wiki, but it shouldn’t have been that hard to make it play nice with others, and I got the impression that the PHP-ness of it was a big part of the problem.

I Could Be Wrong

At the 2006 Zend conference, Andi or Zev (I forget which) took a question about Rails and said “Ruby is appropriate for computer-science-loving people who have a puristic attitude.” Maybe that’s all there is to it.

Under My Sun Hat

I think we need to do a much better job of supporting PHP natively in Solaris and NetBeans and so on up and down the stack. But at the same time, I can’t honestly encourage people to use it for building anything new.

And I think I’m far from alone in that impression.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from ongoing, on January 3, 2008 11:00 PM

Long time readers of this blog know that I have something of an obsessive relationship with snow, a product of a largely snowless childhood in a hot corner of Texas. Simply put I love snow. It makes me a little bit crazy, so I guess I was predisposed to be a fan of Lisa Robinson’s Snowbound, photographs taken over several years of snows. Her landscapes remind us of the thrill of being the first to tread on new snow and the wonder of discovering a world made new. The understated images achieve power through subtlety which is a hard trick indeed given the challenges of shooting and of printing such images.

This work deserves to be seen in person as digital files viewed on screen don’t do the prints justice, so make the trek over to DUMBO and check out the show at the Klompching Gallery, it’s up through February 29th.

If aren’t in the New York area, Robinson’s book of the same title was cited by PhotoEye editor and photobook connoisseur Darius Himes as one of his favorite photobooks of 2007.

Tangential: And while we’re on the subject of snow and photography why not re-read Alec Soth’s snow-tagged posts. Of all the blogs that have come and gone over the years, his is the one I miss reading the most.

Filed under: photographers
Tags: photography, snow

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Heading East, on January 3, 2008 9:35 PM

So if this headline is correct then one of the sources for this supposed "special dispensation" that Verrone and the WGA gave Jay is -- wait for it -- NBC.

Thank goodness NBC is bringing us trustworthy and unbiased information about what's REALLY going on between the WGA and Jay Leno.

Not.

Look, guys, let's face it: who's the one party in this situation who has something to gain from writers

Originally posted by Laeta Kalogridis from United Hollywood, on January 3, 2008 4:23 PM

Deadline Hollywood Daily has put up a story that Jay Leno has been given a special dispensation by the WGA, or "pass," to write his monologues for his show.

It's not true.

We've spoken to our WGA sources, and here's what we have: The Guild talked on the phone with Jay today. They discussed the strike rules and how they apply to him. As a WGA member, he can't write anything, including monologues

Originally posted by Laeta Kalogridis from United Hollywood, on January 3, 2008 4:15 PM

Last week everyone from writers on the picket line to bored couch potatoes were abuzz with news that the late night heavyweights would be returning with all new shows. Last night was the big night (Letterman, O'Brien, Kimmel, Ferguson and Leno all returned), and both Conan O'Brien and David Letterman took the stage showing solidarity with strike beards intact. Letterman threatened to shave his later on Conan's show, saying that he'd probably be helping his New York late night pal out since he's returned sans writers.

For those keeping score, the WGA has been on strike since November 5th, with late night airing reruns immediately. While Letterman was able to work out a deal with the writers independently through his WorldWide Pants Corp. (which includes Craig Ferguson), it's unsure how long the strike will last and how it will affect regular programming (the one in the 1980s lasted over 5 months). Here's the opening monologue (including a Hillary Clinton cameo) from Letterman's show last night (all videos after the jump):

Later, as Letterman held up a pair of electric underpants, the Late Show "strike captain" interrupted and addressed "the arrogant media moguls," saying: "stop spending all your money on cufflinks, cocktails and whores...and start bargaining in good faith with the writers. Maybe then America won't be denied the joy of seeing David Letterman hold up a pair of flaming underpants." Later in the night a troupe of striking writers from other shows (ranging from The Colbert Report to Law & Order) delivered the Top 10 List (pictured below is a Conan writer with #2).

Over on ABC and NBC, Kimmel, Leno and Conan were without their writing staff and delivered more off-kilter shows. In their opening monologues Leno (who broke the rules) stated that “There are more people picketing NBC than watching NBC,” whereas Conan found ways to draw attention to the lack of scribes by improvising (spinning his wedding ring on his desk for 36 seconds). They were both picketed yesterday at their respective studios (something Kimmel addressed), but The NY Times reports that "in both cases, the protesters took pains to emphasize that their quarrel was with NBC and its parent company, General Electric, and not the hosts themselves."

The Guild will also be monitoring the content on the shows who have not yet reached a deal, and are attempting to stop guests from appearing on them. Guests (WGA affiliated and otherwise) to appear last night included Robin Williams (who didn't cross because he appeared on Letterman), Bob Saget, Emeril Lagasse and Mike Huckabee (who totally doesn't understand the strike).

The future is still uncertain, but next week will bring the return of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who have both been trying to reach an interim agreement similar to the one Letterman has. And as for those Golden Globes, they're fast approaching and currently hanging in the balance.

Originally posted by Jen Carlson from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on January 3, 2008 3:36 PM

The initial news of the legendary 2nd Avenue Deli’s reincarnation led us to stockpile Lipitor as visions of pastrami, chopped liver and gribenes danced through our heads. And when we feasted our eyes on the sneak preview of this fresser’s paradise, we could hardly wait to go and devour more of the menu.

Even though it’s been open for a little more than a week, Gothamist paused to recover from holiday feasting before hitting the deli’s new digs around the corner from Yeshiva University. Truth be told, our period of self-imposed restraint was remarkably brief. On the blustery day after Christmas we queued up behind 20 people on a line that stretched toward the corner of Third Ave. and 33 St.

We were joined by Hill Country pitmaster Robbie Richter, best known as the man behind the city’s most succulent brisket. In addition to being well-versed in the smoky arts of Texas ’cue, Richter is no stranger to savory deli delights thanks to growing up Jewish in Rego Park. A platter of triangular slices of rye bread schmeared with chopped liver being passed down the line, brightened the mood of the waiting throng. We’re still not sure whether this nosh was designed to sell chopped liver or prevent a riot.
Trying such deli standbys as a pastrami sandwich, matzoh ball soup and a more substantial portion of the ethereal chopped liver was a given, but what we really craved were gribenes, or crunchy fried chicken skin. We like to think of it as kosher crackling. Richter was also quite eager to nosh on this fried treat that owner Jeremy Lebewohl offers diners as soon as they’re seated. We’re not sure if there’s a Yiddish word for amuse bouche, but one thing is certain, there was no chicken skin to be had that afternoon.

Our chicken skin sadness was momentarily dispelled by tucking into an app of chopped liver and slurping down a matzoh ball soup whose central player was among the lightest we’ve ever had.The hefty pastrami sandwich brightened our spirits, but our jones for crispy chicken skin lingered. Warm buttery cinnamon rugelach made us forget about the elusive kosher crackling. That is until Jeremy Lebewohl approached, and we asked him what gives with the gribenes. Seems his purveyor wasn’t prepared for such an unprecedented demand for chicken dermis. Lebewohl says the deli fried up more than a thousand pounds of the stuff in its first week of business. He did assure us that he was working to remedy the situation and promised us a quart of crunchy chicken skin our next visit. While Gothamist would never hold him to this generous offer, we were heartened to learn that Lebowohl's deli take on the amuse bouche was back on offer as of today.

For some reason Gothamist thinks the 2nd Avenue Deli won't have the same problem meeting the demand for calves' feet. They’re the key ingredient in a decidedly old-school app called ptcha, a cold gelatinous concoction mixed with spices that resembles head cheese. Since the deli's open 24 hours, Gothamist might have to see if a combination of gribenes and ptcha wards off hangovers. Richter told us he'll pass on the ptcha.

2nd Avenue Deli, 162 E. 33rd St., 212 689-9000

Originally posted by Joe DiStefano from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on January 3, 2008 3:33 PM

The Village Voice's Robert Sietsema gives recommendations on where to eat in Jersey City's Little India, an area that "has bloomed like a rosewater lassi, so that now the thoroughfare and surrounding streets form a South Asian business district more impressive than either Jackson Heights or Iselin, New Jersey."

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Main, on January 3, 2008 2:30 PM

With The Wire final season premiere approaching rapidly (the episode is already on HBO OnDemand and the first two are on BitTorrent), news outlets everywhere are covering and reviewing the show. My favorite article -- because it's something different and critical for a change -- is a profile of David Simon by Mark Bowden in the Atlantic Monthly. He starts out slow with a comparison of fiction and nonfiction in telling stories:

Fiction can explain things that journalism cannot. It allows you to enter the lives and motivations of characters with far more intimacy than is typically possible in nonfiction. In the case of The Wire, fiction allows you to wander around inside a violent, criminal subculture, and inside an entrenched official bureaucracy, in a way that most reporters can only dream about. And it frees you from concerns about libel and cruelty. It frees you to be unfair.

But then you get to the part describing Simon's vindictiveness and how it has shaped him, which adds some depth to the earlier fiction/nonfiction comparison. Worth a read.

Also of note is that the full text of The Believer conversation between Simon and Nick Hornby has been put online.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 3, 2008 11:33 AM

Madison Avenue is hot and heavy for the pink dollar. In this extended gallery from Radar's February issue, we find out what exactly they're trying to sell

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Radar Online Features, on January 3, 2008 11:09 AM

Well, a Happy New Year to you!

I'm sitting here looking back on a full year of blog posts (warning, big) trying to make sense of 2007. Here's what I've been up to, in chronological order and ultracondensed form:

Oakland Crime

I hurt my back at the end of 2006, and by winter I found myself in full-on convalescent mode. It was bad: I slept on the hard floor for almost two months, could barely walk, etc. etc. To take my mind off the pain and give myself something to do, I started poking at the City of Oakland's CrimeWatch website, a classically-user-hostile government "service" displaying up-to-date, mapped crime reports. I found I was able to dissect the site, extracting details of individual crime reports for use in an improved map services. In August, we took the initial collecting and organizing work I had done in my spare time, and turned it into an actual Stamen research project called Oakland Crimespotting. Our site had a number of interface improvements to the original, and I think we raised some eyebrows in City Hall, because it took barely a week or two for them to start blocking our data collection. We got a lot of mumbly excuses about imposing too much of a load on their server (despite having just spent 8+ months happily collecting away, unnoticed), and after a month or two of wildgoosechasen, we were forced to shutter the site.

More on this below.

Prediction

My one prediction for the year was that "design" and "math" were going to move a lot closer this year, and I feel confident saying that it's been borne out. We hosted a weekly Math Club at Stamen with friends from O'Reilly in the winter and spring, I threw myself on the rocky shores of recommendation engineering for a few weeks, and we've started to see a lot of algorithmic, procedural branding and design work from folks like Moving Brands.

OpenID

In February and again in March, I posted twice about OpenID and why I'm not a fan. It's been a year, there's been a bunch of noise, and I'm still not seeing this silly standard get any traction beyond its inner geek circles. I have, however, been a close observer of the OAuth standard development process, and I think this second thing stands a much better chance of seeing some real-world adoption due to its inherent nerd-focus.

Standing Up

My good friend Bryan made me a beautiful desk, at which I work standing up 100% of the time. At first, this was a back-pain thing, but has since become a habit at home and at the office. It just feels better, and I have no intention of retiring it.

Japan

My other good friend Boris invited me to visit Tokyo for a week, which I did with great pleasure. We ate well, touristed around a lot, and ultimately made good on the excuse for my trip, new sidebar maps for Global Voices Online. These were produced with an early draft of...

Modest Maps

So much of Stamen's work focuses on geographical maps, and the only official Flash-based component out there is Yahoo's miserable Flash API. As part of the Oakland Crime effort, I started the Modest Maps project with my good friend Darren. Since March, we've used Modest Maps in a number of projects such as Trulia Hindsight, and we're on our way to a final 1.0 release of the mapping library Real Soon Now.

Digg

Digg is one of Stamen's banner clients, and as part of our Labs work in 2006, we designed a RESTful web API with them. This chugged along in an unofficial form for a while, then finally saw a public, official release in April. I'm still proud of the result and I'm happy to have worked on it.

I was also part of the process that resulted in Digg Arc, and posted a collection of in-progress screenshots here and more on Stamen's blog.

Blog All Dog-Eared Pages

Also in April, I posted a few excerpts from Marc Levinson's The Box, which transmogrified over time into a longer series of posts featuring my non-fiction reading. The format has been lightly picked up by Chris, Ryan, and adapted by Adam for what I hope represents a new twist on public reading.

Bean

In June, our rabbit, Bean, died due to something called "bloat".

iDeNtITY

I wrote a fan letter to the London 2012 logo, the controversial branding of the forthcoming Olympic games. I continue to stand by my opinion, and I was especially happy to re-find the brand video after it was pulled from YouTube. Sadly, the Saved By The Rave Olympic Remix is gone for good. If YouTube is going to operate anything like a repository of cultural, moving-image memory, Google is going to need to step up a little and show some testicular fortitude when dealing with copyright takedowns. I'm interested in building an automagic YouTube backup system that mirrors videos to a service like Amazon's S3 and packages a simple Flash player, but where will I find the time?

API Authentication

I took a load of notes on authentication for web APIs that got OAuth on my radar.

Design Camp and Ffffound!

I also posted a bunch of notes on the idea of "design camps", in the mold of unconferences like BarCamp. A bunch of interesting commentary and answers there for sure. Oddly, this was followed the next month by my discovery (thanks Lydia) of Ffffound!, an image bookmarking service for designers. Almost wordless, almost community-free, in some ways this was the proper response to the design camp question. I still use Ffffound! constantly, but they've not responded to my e-mails.

Uselessness

"Beauty vs. Utility" was definitely a theme that I expect will be explored in greater depth by Tom at E-Tech.

Bikes

In mid-2006, Adam put the fixed-gear bug in my ear, and I bought a new bike. This past summer, I found a crusty old Univega road bike in the trash across the street, and used it to build a second bike that I very much enjoy riding.

Aging

My brother and I both hit milestones this year: I'm 30, he's 18. Holy hell.

Crime Again

Now, it's Christmas break, my back doesn't hurt, I'm back from spending a lovely few days up in Sonoma County with friends both good and new for New Years Eve, and I'm hacking on the Oakland CrimeWatch website again seeing if I can't get this guy re-launched in the new year. Stay tuned!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from tecznotes, on January 3, 2008 11:02 AM

It is the third day of the year
I’m on a train eating clementines
The woman behind me is enjoying a bucket of chicken
Which smells delicious
but she would never share
and besides, the clementines are sweeter.

Filed under:
Tags: clementines, fried chicken, trains

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Heading East, on January 3, 2008 9:36 AM

It's baaaaaack. The prospect sounds great, but the plausibility doesn't add up just yet.

Read More...

Originally posted by dchartier@arstechnica.com (David Chartier) from Infinite Loop, on January 3, 2008 9:15 AM

I wonder if anyone has used the Writers Guild of America's "Report a Scab" page to report Jay Leno for last night's monologue, which probably broke the strike rules (since Leno is a WGA member, and the WGA specifically warned Leno and Conan about their monologues).

Originally posted by Jason from Q Daily News, on January 3, 2008 8:54 AM

Photos of the construction of the park on the High Line in Manhattan. Here's an accompanying article. (thx, marshall)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 3, 2008 8:28 AM

Filed under: Hardware, Rumors

According to Apple Insider, Apple has filed a patent for a dynamic, OLED-based keyboard that will allow on-the-fly keyboard layouts via software. Each key would have a matrix of OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) that display that key's currently configured character.

Not only would this dynamic keyboard design be able to show you the effects of meta keys on standard keys, it would also allow for swappable language configurations. As a user with a bizarre keyboard fetish, I would personally jump all over this, even if it didn't have the Matias Mechanical Keyswitch.

[via Apple Insider]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Brett Terpstra from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on January 3, 2008 8:00 AM

A spokesman for Joe Biden is denying reports that the Biden and Obama camps are in talks about a possible deal whereby Biden would shift support to Obama in certain precincts.

Via Ben Smith, The Washington Post reports the following about such conversations:

A source close to the Biden campaign described a possible arrangement, now under discussion between the two camps, that could apply to certain precincts where Biden can't meet the 15 percent viability threshold, but where he is backed by local officials with the clout to move Biden supporters to Obama. In return, Biden could capture some of Obama's overflow in precincts where the Illinois senator has more than enough support to win.

WaPo quotes an Obama source confirming that the talks are underway.

But Biden spokesperson Mark Paustenbach is denying unequivocally that there are any discussions at all taking place. He sent us this:

"No discussions have taken place. We have not made any deals or arrangements. We are strong enough on our own."

We're seeking official word from the Obama camp on this. More as we learn it.

Late Update: Obama spokesman Bill Burton also just denied to us that there are any talks underway. He sent us this:

"Iowans are independent thinkers. We hope that we're everyone's first choice but if we're not, we hope that we're they're second choice."

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on January 3, 2008 7:44 AM

A pair of videos showing off Wii Fit, a balance board device for the Wii. Looks pretty interesting, although if it's marketed as exercise equipment, I fear it may not do so well. The board and a Wiimote in each hand could make for a pretty convincing skiing experience.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 3, 2008 7:39 AM

Join "My SHC Community" on Sears.com, and the company will install some pretty impressive spyware on your computer:

Sears.com is distributing spyware that tracks all your Internet usage - including banking logins, email, and all other forms of Internet usage - all in the name of "community participation." Every website visitor that joins the Sears community installs software that acts as a proxy to every web transaction made on the compromised computer. In other words, if you have installed Sears software ("the proxy") on your system, all data transmitted to and from your system will be intercepted. This extreme level of user tracking is done with little and inconspicuous notice about the true nature of the software. In fact, while registering to join the "community," very little mention is made of software or tracking. Furthermore, after the software is installed, there is no indication on the desktop that the proxy exists on the system, so users are tracked silently.

Here is a summary of what the software does and how it is used. The proxy:

1. Monitors and transmits a copy of all Internet traffic going from and coming to the compromised system.

2. Monitors secure sessions (websites beginning with ‘https'), which may include shopping or banking sites.
3. Records and transmits "the pace and style with which you enter information online..."
4. Parses the header section of personal emails.
5. May combine any data intercepted with additional information like "select credit bureau information" and other sources like "consumer preference reporting companies or credit reporting agencies".

If a kid with a scary hacker name did this sort of thing, he'd be arrested. But this is Sears, so who knows what will happen to them. But what should happen is that the anti-spyware companies should treat this as the malware it is, and not ignore it because it's done by a Fortune 500 company.

Originally posted by schneier from Schneier on Security, on January 3, 2008 7:02 AM

So, I finally read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting book especially the bit about “measuring” your “degree of separation” in the world. And it seemed especially interesting at the moment because we are worrying our way into discussions about “use” (jus) - yet again. This time we are focusing on whether certain functions on our Digital Gallery site viz. ‘embed this link’ and ‘embed this image’ are used.

(more…)

Originally posted by Barbara Taranto from NYPL Labs, on January 3, 2008 6:56 AM

THIS IS A TEST FOR IE 6 newspaper gallery test 3...

Originally posted by bnewhous from 2 Men and a Campfire - cleveland.com, on January 3, 2008 6:54 AM

Coffee Labs Roaster in Tarrytown, NY is operating on 100% renewable energy!  Although long time friends with the amazing crew up north of us in Westchester, this information came as a surprise to me during our most recent visit last Saturday.  Almost all of us do our share for sustainability, whether it’s from building personal [...]

Originally posted by Mike White from ShotZombies.com, on January 3, 2008 6:39 AM

Posted by Ginny Hunt, Google Election Program

Tonight when Iowans gather in living rooms and high school gyms to take the first step in selecting our U.S. Presidential nominees, Google and YouTube will give you a front row seat.

We're working together with local Iowan media organizations and political parties to bring you real time results and citizen-generated videos from the caucuses –- an up-close and personal perspective in the process to elect the next President.

Iowa caucus goers and out-of-state political pundits alike can upload videos of the Iowa Caucus to YouTube, giving you a direct view into this vibrant political scene. These Iowa Caucus videos can be found at the Des Moines Register's YouTube Channel and span a variety of perspectives from predictions and personal reflections to interviews and candidate analysis.

And starting tonight (approx. 8-10 pm CST), you can use Google Maps to view real-time caucus results by county. The political parties in Iowa will be working with us to publish these results to our Iowa Caucus map as soon as they come in, so that everyone can access results online when Iowans finish caucusing.

To stay on top of campaign coverage, check out the Google News Election section, where you can also find the Election 2008 Google gadget for a one-stop shop to follow the campaign trail.

Originally posted by Karen from Official Google Blog, on January 3, 2008 6:24 AM

Ed Levine visits the not-yet-opened Bar Boulud; what transpires is perhaps his most complete and total meltdown ever. Videotape: "Simply put, [charcutier Sylvain] Gasdon is making the best charcuterie Americans have ever seen and tasted on these shores... But are Americans ready for this kind of food?... Bar Boulud is Boulud's gutsiest endeavor to date (forgive the obvious double entendre), and also his most heartfelt." Exhale. Given Levine's residency on the UWS, we suggest Boulud clear a permanent space at the bar for the man. [Ed Levine Eats]

Originally posted by Lockhart from Eater, on January 3, 2008 6:00 AM

Let me begin by giving you a window into my neurosis. 

I felt like I could not make this list until I saw every film on my Movies To See list.  But if I did that, I would have gone bankrupt. 

So then I felt like I could not create my list because I had not seen No Country for Old Men or There Will Be Blood. Chances are, they are the best films of the year and how can you create a list like this without having seen those films? 

And then I said to myself:  "Wait a minute.  People who read this blog (friends and family mainly and I love all of you) do not come here because I'm Ebert or Roepert or something.  They could care less if I have not seen a bunch of these films."  Leave it to me to create pressure for myself where there is absolutely none.

So, instead of trying to cram in all of these films, I am just going to begin by saying I missed the following films that might have made this list:  No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Atonement, Persepholis, Starting Out In The Evening, The Savages, Grace is Gone, No End In Sight, I'm Not There and Zodiac.  In the coming months -- since movies suck until after the Academy Awards -- I will catch up and let you know what I thought of those films.  In the meantime, here are films that I loved in 2007.  Some are obscure and some are not so obscure:

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - This was the best movie I saw this year.  By far.  It is a completely gorgeous, moving, life affirming film.  Period.

Broken English - I thought that upon my second viewing of this film, I would see all of these flaws and it would reveal itself to me as just another chick flick.  But nope.  This film just gets better and better.  I have never seen a film get what it is like to be single in your 30s so right.  No giggly, bumbling, quirky chick.  Just a phonemenal, self sabotaging, boozy Parker Posey.  Loved it.

The King of Kong - I have already raved about this film here.  You just have to see it to believe it.

Hairspray - This film was my most fun movie going experience of the year!

Waitress - This film has a sad underlying theme because of the untimely death of Adrienne Shelly.  You just have to admit that to yourself.  But this film is just pure goodness. 

Once - I have friends who read this blog who will ridicule me for this pick.  I was at their house and they went on and on about how bad this film was and I, in an unusual move, did not stand up for it.  I just nodded my head.  But now I'm coming out.  I loved this movie. 

Juno - At first I thought this film was a little too "hip".  I left the theater really liking it but wondering, "Is it the hype?"  I'm not sure to be honest.  I just know that Ellen Page and Michael Cera are so adorable that I had to include it.

Lars and the Real Girl - I just think Ryan Gosling is the bees knees!  He can take a premise as crazy as this, a man who falls in love with a doll, and make you buy it completely.  This is a film about loneliness and that is what makes it work.  The ending is kind of dumb but everything before it is brilliant so I forgive.

Forever - Another film I raved about here.  Heddy Honigmann does not get enough love.  I know that stories about coming to terms with loss hit home for me in a big way and this one is no different.

Cat Dancers: A True Story - When will this film get a wide release?  I saw it at SXSW in March and man it is brilliant!  A love triangle between cat tamers.  And it's a documentary!  I know it is coming to HBO soon so you'll just have to catch it there.

Runner Up:  The Namesake - I had to give Mira some love.  I adored this beautiful movie that does not quite do the book justice but Irfan Khan's performance is a joy to behold.  I am going to put him in a movie one day.  Mark my words.

Note:  I realized that many of the films selected here are Fox Searchlight films.  What a great year they've had!

Originally posted by Angela Tucker from tuckergurl, on January 3, 2008 3:08 AM

With the arrival of a new year comes a new Zagat Survey, and with this year's edition comes a special typographic surprise: a complete redesign using our Whitney family. The indomitable Zagat team has given the fonts one of their most rigorous workouts ever, using Whitney's many special features to excellent advantage — here's some of what's inside.

Pocket guides have an especially compelling need to keep page count low and legibility high, making Whitney's compact forms a good match for the project. In its pro edition, Whitney contains a set of even-width tabular figures, which the Zagat team used for this very clear and sensible wine vintage chart, above.

Since guidebooks feature both maps and numbered lists, a set of numbered indices is often useful. Here, Zagat's heavily-automated pagination system is able to call upon the pre-built Whitney Index font, rather than demanding the intervention of a designer for every single table. (If you've ever tried to make numbers in circles yourself, you know how treacherous they can be — especially when lists spill over into double digits!)

Newsprint is an appropriate choice for a pocket guide, since it helps reduce both weight and cost, but it's an especially hostile environment for typography. To survive newsprint, letterforms need to have clear gestures and open apertures, to prevent their forms from clogging up at small sizes. And because type on newsprint can gain weight unpredictably, sans serifs with a broad range of weights are especially useful. Whitney has six weights, each of which makes an appearance somewhere in the 2008 guide. —JH

More fonts for tables, maps, and newsprint.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, on January 3, 2008 2:00 AM

Michael Pollan writes in the nytimes about the word Sustainability. Meshes well with the Eco-vis challenge winner website In Popular Terms, by Studio for Urban Projects:

The word “sustainability” has gotten such a workout lately that the whole concept is in danger of floating away on a sea of inoffensiveness. Everybody, it seems, is for it whatever “it” means. On a recent visit to a land-grant university’s spanking-new sustainability institute, I asked my host how many of the school’s faculty members were involved. She beamed: When letters went out asking who on campus was doing research that might fit under that rubric, virtually everyone replied in the affirmative. What a nice surprise, she suggested. But really, what soul working in agricultural science today (or for that matter in any other field of endeavor) would stand up and be counted as against sustainability? When pesticide makers and genetic engineers cloak themselves in the term, you have to wonder if we haven’t succeeded in defining sustainability down, to paraphrase the late Senator Moynihan, and if it will soon possess all the conceptual force of a word like “natural” or “green” or “nice.”

Originally posted by Mandiberg from Eyebeam reBlog, on January 2, 2008 1:11 PM

We've just heard from an in-the-know TPM reader that Hillary will be making an appearance on David Letterman's show tonight, which is an interesting move given that it's right on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.

The Hillary campaign confirmed the appearance to us. More in a bit.

Late Update: Asked for a comment, Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson emailed: "Tune in!"

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on January 2, 2008 11:06 AM

Thank God it's online, because it deserves to be online, if only to make it linkable, spreadable, digestible by the blogosphere. If you haven't yet, go read David Foster Wallace's introductory essay to the 2007 edition of Best American Essays. In it, he compares the task of being "the decider" on the collection of essays to the task of filtering the "Total Noise" of U.S. culture.

It's worth quoting this graf at length, where he's working through a list of the pieces he's chosen...

And yet Beard's and Orozco's pieces are so arresting and alive and good that they end up being salient even if one is working as a guest essay editor and sitting there reading a dozen Xeroxed pieces in a row before them and then another dozen in a row after them -- essays on everything from memory and surfing and Esperanto and childhood and mortality and Wikipedia, on depression and translation and emptiness and James Brown, Mozart, prison, poker, trees, anorgasmia, color, homelessness, stalking, fellatio, ferns, fathers, grandmothers, falconry, grief, film comedy -- a rate of consumption which tends to level everything out into an undifferentiated mass of high-quality description and trenchant reflection that becomes both numbing and euphoric, a kind of Total Noise that's also the sound of our U.S. culture right now, a culture and volume of info and spin and rhetoric and context that I know I'm not alone in finding too much to even absorb, much less to try to make sense of organize into any kind of triage of saliency or value. Such basic absorption, organization and triage used to be what was required of an educated adult, a.k.a. an informed citizen -- at least that's what I got taught. Suffice it here to say that the requirements now seem different.

He goes on at length and with footnotes (it's DFW, after all) about the definition of "Best" and "American" and "Essay," and then comes back to make real the challenges of dealing with Total Noise.

Or let's not even mention the amount of research, background, cross-checking, corroboration, and rhetorical parsing required to understand the cataclysm of Iraq, the collapse of congressional oversight, the ideology of neoconservatism, the legal status of presidential signing statements, the political marriage of evangelical Protestantism and corporatist laissez-faire ... There's no way. You'd simply drown. We all would. It's amazing to me that no one much talks about this -- about the fact that whatever our founders and framers thought of as a literate, informed citizenry can no longer exist, at least not without a whole new modern degree of subcontracting and dependence packed into what we mean by 'informed.'

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on January 2, 2008 7:06 AM

For the fourth year running, here are some of my favorite articles, videos, games, photography, discussions, and design pieces that I linked to in 2007. After you're done with these, try the lists from 2004, 2005, and 2006.

The streets of Portland are an ice skating rink for cars in this video.

Reconsidering the original three Star Wars movies in light of the prequels. R2D2 = top rebel spy.

Adam Gadahn's journey from rural California teen and death metal fan to a trusted member of Osama bin Laden's team of operatives.

Chris Jordan's photo series, Running the Numbers.

Michael Poliza's aerial photos of Africa. More here.

Malcolm Gladwell on Enron and the difference between puzzles and mysteries, investigationally speaking.

Smashing Telly, a collection of TV on the web, with an emphasis on documentaries and factual programs. I liked David's post on Zeitgeist and FEBLs.

Video of an autistic person describing the language she uses to communicate with her surroundings.

Good People, a short story by David Foster Wallace.

Nicholas Felton's personal annual report for 2006.

A pair of posts from Neatorama on photography: 13 Photographs That Changed the World and The Wonderful World of Early Photography.

The 51 Smartest, Prettiest, Coolest, Funniest, Most Influential, Most Necessary, Most Important, Most Essential Magazines Ever.

Susan Orlean on Robert Lang, former physicist and current world-class origami master. Here's my post on Lang.

A Line Rider masterpiece. (Line Rider?)

Kremlin Inc., a story of Vladimir Putin's de facto dictatorship of Russia.

2007 was the year of book art: Thomas Allen's pulp cutouts, Cara Barer's water-crumpled books, Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books whose spines tell small stories, and Brian Dettmer's book sculptures.

Joel Johnson's great post on Gizmodo scolding the site's writers, gadget makers, and the site's readers "for supporting the disgusting cycle of gadget whoring".

Denis Darzacq's photographs of people seemingly floating above the pavement.

Panoramic photos from the Apollo missions. These are stunning.

Michael Pollan on the rise of nutritionism. His advice for healthy eating: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Desktop Tower Defense. This would top my Ten Best Games of the Year list if I'd done one.

On Conscientious, several photographers answer the question "What makes a great photo?"

Shorpy, a photoblog of old photographs, and FFFFOUND!, an image bookmarking site. Neither is probably legal in the strict sense, but they're both great online curated galleries.

Alberto Forero has collected a staggering amount of photography and design imagery and posted it to his Flickr account.

Social Explorer, interactive demographic maps.

Hypermilers try to wring as many miles per gallon out of their cars as they can. (My post.)

Darwin's God. Are humans biologically wired to believe in God?

Dan Hill reviews Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, a film that follows soccer star Zinedine Zidane through a single game.

Minority Kart, possibly the GAGOAT (greatest animated gif of all time).

Miranda July's wonderful handcrafted web site for her book No One Belongs Here More Than You.

An article on commuting, this crazy thing that most Americans do too much of.

The graph of US home prices from 1890 to the present as a rollercoaster.

As a social experiment, the Washington Post arranged for internationally acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell to play outside a DC subway station. Would anyone notice?

The New Yorker on David Belle and parkour, the sport he invented.

Maciej Ceglowski reports on the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel.

NB: Studio's map of London constructed entirely out of type.

Trulia Hindsight, a map of property development through time.

Movies showing a closeup view of the Sun's surface.

Video footage of Joseph Kittenger's record jump from 102,800 feet up. Photo from Life magazine and a Boards of Canada music video that uses the footage.

Alex Reisner's site, especially the baseball section. (My post.)

Interview with journalist Jonathan Rauch.

The greatest long tracking shots in cinema, including those in Touch of Evil and Children of Men.

Meg Hourihan took a bunch of different chocolate chip recipes, averaged the ingredients, and made cookies from the resulting meta-recipe.

The infamous four guys humping an ottoman video.

Does the Piraha language upend the theory of universal grammar?

Vimeo's sign in page is lovely.

Tim Knowles' drawings by trees. (My post. And more.)

How a woman randomly bumped into the person that stole her identity and chased her around until the police showed up to apprehend her.

Portraits of breaking sculpture by Martin Klimas.

Photo gallery that shows families from around the world and the amount of food they eat in the course of a week.

Errol Morris' investigation of a pair of Roger Fenton photographs in three wonderful parts.

Roger Federer's conservation of energy and attention helps him perform when it counts.

Jay Parkinson M.D. makes house calls, visits with patients via IM, and is generally trying to find new ways of doctoring.

Anthony Lane's appreciation of the Leica.

Kohei Yoshiyuki's photos of voyeurs watching lovers in a Japanese park. (My post.)

A restaurant review from the NY Times, circa 1859. My post about the review and lots more from the archives of the Times.

The story of Oscar the Cat, who comforts the dying at a Rhode Island nursing home.

Portraits of bears by Jill Greenberg. More photos at Greenberg's site.

Long New Yorker profile of David Simon and The Wire.

Elizabeth Kolbert on bees and colony collapse disorder. And bee space.

Photoshopped pictures of people's faces combined.

A video round (turn on the sound).

Optical illusion: is the woman rotating clockwise or counterclockwise?

From the excellent xkcd web comic: Little Bobby Tables.

Aicuña is a small secluded town in Brazil with an extremely high percentage of albino residents.

David Foster Wallace's wonderful introduction to The Best American Essays 2007.

Video depicting several ways to melt a chocolate bunny.

Tyler Cowen on some of the opportunity costs of the war in Iraq.

Beautifully terrifying photos of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.

Standing witness to a Guitar Hero wunderkind playing the game's most difficult song on expert level.

How America Lost the War on Drugs.

God's Eye View is an art project by The Glue Society depicting four Biblical scenes as they would have been captured by Google Earth.

The best way to deflect an asteroid turns out to be reflecting sunlight on it with a swarm of mirror bees.

Paul Otlet presages the web in 1934, calling it the "radiated library" or "televised book". (More context.)

This was my favorite post of the year. I hope you'll excuse the self-link.

Oh, and maybe the best thing I didn't link to this year: Daft Hands.

Thanks for reading kottke.org for the past year. Happy new year to you and yours.

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on January 2, 2008 5:08 AM

One of the best things I saw over the holidays was Martin Scorsese's short film Key to Reserva, which Scorsese supposedly recreated from the lost pages of an Alfred Hitchcock script that was never made. It's quite fabulous and the ending is beyond sublime.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on January 2, 2008 4:22 AM

  This is not an education post, just don't waste time reading it if you think I will talk about the classroom! But I wanted to report on my five day trip to NYC with my family, and how one event restored my faith in humanity. There were six of us: my daughter, my son, my son's wife, my daughter's boyfriend, and my husband. We had a few days of wonderful museum visits, long walks, visits to Zabars and Fairway, and trouble with the local ATMs. What could be finer?
Then we went for a final, decadent meal at a French restaurant, and all piled into the elevator in my son's building to sit around for a few minutes and review memories of the lamb chops and pecan tart that had made us so happy. That was six of us in a small, NYC elevator going up to his third floor apartment.
  We clearly weren't thinking about weight, because we were nonplussed when the elevator stopped cold between floors. Whoa. This couldn't be happening to us.
  We all cracked out our cell phones and noticed no bars. (There isn't a commercial with no one in the background of a stuck elevator claiming that "no bars" exist in this type of barricaded environment. ) We rang the alarm button. Many times. Everyone was either asleep, or thinking "Someone else will take care of that annoying elevator. " We tried to push up the trap door on the roof of the elevator, and it was nailed shut. My son saw a hole in the roof and held his IPhone to it to call 311. Success. He called the police, who said they would take care of it. About 20 minutes later,  a light lit on one of the elevator buttons. (It was about 100 degrees in the elevator by then, with six of us crammed in a tight space with no ventilation.) We heard some voices. "This isn't the damn key," said someone. Someone else said he'd call the fire dept. and that we should hold tight. No more than five minutes after that the key to manually open the door was found, and smiling policemen and firemen greeted our exit up the large step to the next floor.
  "Three guesses why you were stuck, and the first two don't count," said one. Clearly, six people were too many for that elevator, even though we did not exceed the weight limit.
  As we walked into the cool air of a normal hallway, we all saw these NYPD and and Fire Dept. faces, and thought of 9-ll and the men who answered the calls for rescue, but didn't come out alive. To me they were  heroes then, and heroes again on this evening, doing their job, and enjoying a bit of a chuckle at our expense. I <3 New York.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on January 1, 2008 3:12 PM

Josh MacPhee John Brown $30 Back by popular demand!!! The Celebrate People's History poster of John Brown has been sold out for over 5 years, and at least every month someone asks me if I still have some hiding away. It seemed like a perfect excuse to make a nice big silkscreened version, and give John his due. The text is by Henry David Thoreau, and might not be what you would expect by a world-renowned pacifist. 2 color silkscreen print 19"x25" signed/unnumbered

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Just Seeds, on January 1, 2008 12:04 PM

To help those of us making resolutions this week, here is a sampling of web tools for making a difference, inspired by TEDTalks speakers:

+ Share Ron Eglash's cool math tools, for studying math via breakdancing, Latin beats and cornrow braids
+ Dive into Richard Baraniuk's Connexions, a massive repository of open-source class materials
+ Visit Phil Borges' Bridges to Understanding site, which rounds up student films from all over the world
+ Browse Erin McKean's booklist "So You Want to Be a Lexicographer?"
+ Check out the beta of Gapminder World, powered by Hans Rosling's Trendalyzer software
+ Watch video and take action at The Hub, a platform for human rights media and action -- presented by Peter Gabriel's WITNESS
+ Discuss sustainable design and materials on the Cradle to Cradle forums, inspired by the work of William McDonough
+ Learn more about Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child
+ Catch up with Majora Carter's Sustainable South Bronx -- or make a specific gift to SSBx via Changing the Present
+ Calculate your personal CO2 production -- and start helping the planet -- at the website for Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, produced by Jeff Skoll

TEDTalks is full of ideas for making change for oneself and for others -- many more than we can list here. Please share your suggestions for other TEDTalks-inspired change!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from TED | TEDBlog, on January 1, 2008 9:00 AM

I don't think anyone could have scripted this year. It was more like tumbling along in a hurricane than walking a slow and steady path. There were two big — really big — landmarks for Mac developers this year, so it's hard to pin one as the definitive event...

Originally posted by scott from Theobroma Cacao, on December 31, 2007 9:26 PM

I read 46 books in 2007, and more pages this year than in any other - a total of 16,635, which is about 1500 pages more than I read in 2003, my previous high. Reading Harry Potter had a lot to do with that, of course. I read Book 7 and then went back and reread the entire series (including Book 7 again), which accounted for about 4,800 pages in two months.

Generous friends donated a collective total of $12 a book in my reading contest this year. That means I've gathered a total of $552 for Women for Women International. This will be enough to sponsor one woman who is a survivor of war for the entire year, giving her enough to provide basic necessities to her family and get job skills training so that she can support them for the future. There will also be $195 left over to donate to the cause. Thanks to all of you who donated!

To my top 10 for 2007:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
I think many of us feel satisfied, but frustrated by this one. The uneven pacing meant that, in a sense, the book didn't really start until about page 550 or so. Despite its flaws, though, HP7 gave us most of the answers we wanted, and had the emotional impact that this epic series deserved.

Here are edits that I think could've been made to make the book even stronger than it was:

- Have Percy come back when George (or was it Fred?) loses his ear, so there is time for Percy to appropriately apologize and for the Weasley family (and us) to accept it.
- Have Kingsley's patronus interrupt the wedding before the vows are said, then re-stage the wedding in the last chapter. That would bring all the characters together one last time, and they could reflect upon all that happened and talk about their future plans. Then there's no need for an epilogue.
- Cut the camping scenes considerably.
- During the camping scenes that remain, show Hermione learning more about wandlore somehow. That way, we're not going to have these gobs of exposition in the climactic 100pp of a 4,000-page series. If Voldemort's confused about whose wand is whose, how do you think readers feel?
- Finally, Ron, Harry and Hermione should risk a trip to Hogsmeade somewhere during their camping scenes. They could have a secret meeting with Neville and Luna, who would bring them up to speed on all the goings-on in Hogwarts, and they could observe some of the remaining teachers at the Three Brooms. At least then, we'd get a taste of Hogwarts and all the characters we've spent so much time with over the years, rather than having to go cold turkey and get only the briefest glimpses of them during the battle scenes.

2. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Take White Teeth and sharpen it to a fine point, and you'll have something close to On Beauty. On Beauty brings Forster's Howard's End to modern day Massachusetts to create this wonderful story of family members each searching for their own identity. Smith obviously has enormous affection for her characters despite their limitations and foibles and, as with White Teeth, a love of humanity, with all of our confused, misguided, chaotic ways, shines through.

3. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
With its dark tone and pessimistic outlook, Jude the Obscure is the opposite of On Beauty, yet strangely, Jude could easily be the father to Leonard Bast, one of the main characters of Howard's End. Both Jude and Leonard are born into lower class England and are fatally cursed with aspirations of something higher. In Jude's case, his only desire is to go to Oxford, to be a scholar. "This," Hardy writes in 1895, "was his form of the modern vice of unrest."

4. Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
Ooooh, did I love this book! It alternates narratives between teachers in a British private boys school. One is a witty, sardonic Classics teacher who's been teaching Latin there for 60 years, and the other is a new teacher who grew up in the vicinity of the school and has held a grudge against it ever since... and intends to wreak total havoc in the school before his term runs out. It's absolutely wicked, very hard to put down, and features my favorite character of the year in Roy Straitley, the Latin teacher who rarely loses control of his students.

5. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott
Thanks to my friend Tom for lending me this lovely book. It's the true story of James Herriott during his first year as a veterinarian in rural England. It's one wonderful story after another, highlighting basic human kindness and decency and all the minor miracles he performs on horses, cows, pigs, cats and dogs as he learns his new job. It's set in the 30s; Herriott and the two brothers he practiced with continued to work together into the 1980s. There is one drawback to this book: Herriott does a lot of diving into, shall we say, the netherplaces of various animals to help them deliver their young, but you get used to it pretty quickly.

6. Citizens by Simon Schama
I clearly have a weakness for reading about the French Revolution if I'm willing to read 1,000 pages about it, which is what I did with Citizens. Citizens chronicles the disaster that was the French Revolution, in which the French overthrew the monarchy, struggled for a few years trying to come up with a constitution and figure out how to feed their starving people, and then overthrew that government in favor of something more like a police state. Simon Schama makes a convincing case that the people of France were actually worse off (both financially and in terms of basic freedoms) after the revolution than before it - especially the 40,000 who were beheaded during the Reign of Terror (which is just one year in the revolution's five year history).

7. The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown
I was deeply attached to this book, which is the story of Princess Diana as told by former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown. I'm not big on celebrity biographies, but I was drawn to this the same way I end up watching any biography on Diana that I come across on TV. (It also helped that I knew this one was written by someone who should know a thing or two about decent journalism.) This was a real page-turner for me, but I kept wondering why? What is it about Diana that is still so fascinating to me, and to so many people? And I think that, in the end, I discovered the answer.

For women, Diana is simultaneously everything we fear we are (insecure, emotionally dependent, passive aggressive, unambitious, riddled with eating disorders) and everything we hope to be (compassionate, selfless, nurturing, generous, beautiful, stylish and graceful). She is the embodiment of all of the best and worst of what are stereotypical female qualities, and we watched her evolve, right in front of our eyes, as she slowly shed some of her old, unconfident persona to become the sleek, beautiful crusader, walking confidently among land mines and lepers. Only Diana could have looked so gorgeous and sincere at the same time.

8. Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams
Another installment in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. This one included the great line: "He had the air of one who is trying to convert Fahrenheit to centigrade in his head while his house is burning down."

9. Yes, Yes, Cherries by Mary Otis
I picked out this book of short stories just because of the title alone, but it was full of lots of astute, sensitive observations, such as: "He seems like a person who once might have been caught in some sort of human snag: an addiction, an obsession, a shameful secret. A person who works hard to make sure it will never happen again. Whatever internal tear he harbors, it has been stitched tight through a willful acceptance of things."

10. The London Scene by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf + her essays on life in London = need I say more?

Originally posted by Valarie Smith from Crazed Teacups, on December 31, 2007 5:50 PM

Continuing with the fun in making our annual family holiday card, here's our 2nd. Have a wonderful new Rat year!

Originally posted by Mie from Kokochi, on December 31, 2007 3:10 PM

Movable Type 4.0 provided users for the first time with the features necessary for Movable Type to serve as a light weight content management system for web sites. It also provided a framework to developers to define their own custom asset types as illustrated through the Media Manager and Podcasting plugins for Movable Type.

Movable Type 4.1, currently in beta, takes asset management one step further by allowing administrators and author to more easily edit, tag and organize the assets within their Movable Type install. What follows is a brief overview of some of these new features.

Filter Assets by Type

As you expand upon the types of assets you manage within Movable Type, you can easily filter them to see just your Flickr photos, or your YouTube videos, or your images or your podcasts... you get the idea.

One Click Previews

When viewing your list of assets, not only does Movable Type now show a small thumbnail of each asset, but you can zoom in on the asset without leaving the page by clicking the small magnifying glass associated with each asset.

Asset Auditing

From the asset details screen you can view a list of all the pages and entries an asset is used. This makes is much easier for you to track down an asset if it needs to removed from a website, or updated site-wide. This view also shows all the permutations of the asset like the various thumbnails that have been generated for it.

Edit Assets

From the asset editing screen you can easily rename the asset, edit the description of the asset, or tag the asset to make to easier to find and re-use later.

Originally posted by Byrne Reese from MovableType.org - Home for the MT Community, on December 31, 2007 2:22 PM

Originally uploaded by yusheng.

Originally posted by joshua mack from DefinitiveInk, on December 31, 2007 11:42 AM

Filed under: Apple Financial, Apple

Will 2008 be the year of Apple? I thought 2007 was the year of Apple (and before that 2006 wasn't too shabby as I recall), but it would seem that those foolish stock dudes over at The Motley Fool think that Apple stock will be the stock to have in 2008. They point out Apple's aggressive, and successful, retail growth, the iPod and iPhone, and rumors of movie rentals in iTunes as reasons to be bullish about Apple. Not to mention that people actually like Leopard (no offense, Vista, you are trying pretty hard and we appreciate it!).

I, personally, do not own a single share of Apple but I wonder how many TUAW readers out there are shareholders. Sound off in the comments.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Scott McNulty from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on December 31, 2007 11:30 AM

For his last Gawker post, Choire Sicha pens a recent history of New York City, 2000-2007.

Over the last month, I have read the Metro section from each issue of the New York Times -- starting in mid-2000 and ending with today's paper. Here's what I learned.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on December 31, 2007 9:53 AM

The mathematics of well-balanced stacks of blocks. When I was a kid, I would make stacks like these for hours on end...constructing buildings was dull in comparison.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on December 31, 2007 8:37 AM

The year in buzzwords from the NY Times. Written by Grant Barrett of the excellent Double-Tongued Dictionary.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on December 31, 2007 7:13 AM

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team

It's that time again, the end of a year - time to tote up Google's blogging activity for the last 365 days. First, a few bits of data about this particular blog:

• Number of posts this year: 300
• New product announcements: 15 (not counting our April 1 release)
• News about upgrades and additions to products: 87
• Announcing products in more languages and countries: 30
• Acquisitions: 12
• Unique visitors: 6,738,830 (for 8,655,830 visits)
• Languages: 511 (preferred language configured on computers)
• Top non-Google referrers: Yahoo, Digg, Slashdot, Fark

Beyond these basics, this year saw many more posts on privacy (9), accessibility (10), and energy and the environment (11). We blogged a good deal about Google's people and culture, our various offices around the world, and the pastimes and passions of Googlers (26, including 2 recipes). We talked about healthcare issues that challenge consumers (5). There were competitions including Google Code Jam and events for developers, educators and others (29). Through YouTube, there has been much political activity (7) in the U.S. as well as in Australia.

The posts that elicited the most reaction in terms of views and linkbacks include:

- the much-discussed "Gphone" news
- our thinking about the upcoming FCC spectrum auction
- what the OpenSocial APIs could mean
- how a black screen might not save energy
- announcing the Knol test project
- building your own Google homepage

Of course, there's more than business to write about. We celebrated National Gorilla Suit Day, deconstructed the Valentine's Day doodle, and then a snake went missing.

As for the Google family of blogs, there's been lots of growth this year: 42 new ones launched, for a total to 83 active company blogs. Increasingly, Googlers want to quickly and regularly convey product news and updates to various constituents, and blogs are a great way to do that. Among the most popular of this newest crop are the Gmail blog (nearly 1.5 million unique visitors), the Orkut blogs (in English - 3.5 million uniques; and Portuguese - 8.8 million), and Google Lat Long, with 824,000 unique visitors, which covers everything geographical. In addition, readers can now turn to new product blogs including those for Google Finance, Google News, and Mobile. Reflecting keen interest in activity outside the U.S., the YouTube blog had the greatest number of comments for its June post about the fact that YouTube is available in 9 more countries, followed by the August post announcing InVideo ads.

On the ads side: there are now 6 more non-English blogs for AdSense publishers (French, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Chinese). The AdWords team opened blogs for Brasil and the Netherlands, Japan now has its own Analytics blog, and there are now German and Chinese versions of the popular Webmaster Central. (The most popular ads-related blog is the one for Analytics, with nearly half a million unique visitors, followed by closely Inside AdSense and then Inside AdWords.)

To keep current and share their work, developers got a raft of new blogs, too, including those focused on APIs for YouTube, Checkout, Gears, Mashup, and Gadgets. Needless to say, there are now also blogs for Android and OpenSocial.

Two new country blogs, for the Czech Republic and Australia, went public, to talk about all things Google in their regions. Yet more readers congregated around the new Public Policy and Google.org blogs, as well as one dedicated to online security and malware.

Despite all this activity, and the fact that a growing number of companies also host corporate blogs, the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki (a collaborative project begun by Wired Magazine and SocialText) indicates that even today, just 46 of the Fortune 500 companies (about 9%), have active public blogs produced by company employees that focus on the company and its products. Let's hope in 2008 that number goes up. We think such blogs can serve users, journalists, critics, investors, and fans more effectively and directly than more traditional approaches. Apparently, so do 41,395,926 people around the world - the number of visitors to all of our blogs this year.

Originally posted by Karen from Official Google Blog, on December 31, 2007 6:35 AM

Our 22nd Huggacast, and last one for 07, features a tour of Brompton’s Factory with Will Butler-Adams, Engineering Director. Brompton is the London-based designer and manufacturer of the Brompton folding bicycle and related accessories.

I posted earlier this month on riding a Brompton with their tech specialist, Rory Ferguson. The video features a discussion of all the parts that go into a Brompton, welding, wheel building, and assembly. The bike shown at the end, folded by my desk, is the one I brought home. It’s a new model with a rear frame clip and a snappy 2 speed drivetrain.

Notes

• Download now for iTunes, your iPod, iPhone, and subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.

• Huggacasts are available in the iTunes podcast directory.

• The audio sample is Time is Tight, The Clash - Single — Super Black Market Clash.

Originally posted by DL Byron from Bike Hugger, on December 31, 2007 5:19 AM

Mayor Bloomberg is bringing his bottom-line approach to governance to the issue of poverty; specifically, where is the poverty line and who is below it? The Mayor is dissatisfied with the current federal standard for judging who is poor and who is not, which is based on the cost of groceries to feed a family. The current federal standard is 42 years old and criticized by many as totally off-base and outdated, especially since it discounts other costs of living, such as rent, utilities, and childcare.

Bloomberg, who made his fortune delivering information to financial decision makers, wants to use more information to create a truer picture of poverty levels. Now he wants more inputs factored into the poverty line and others around the country are hopeful that he succeeds. A research director at the National Conference of State Legislatures said “Because it is New York City adopting it, it could be a big step forward. As it starts generating reports and data, others will be interested and you will get more momentum.”

The initiative is very much in Bloomberg's style of governing. Frequently frustrated with inaction on the federal or state level regarding issues like the environment, and now poverty, Mayor Mike just takes matters into his own hands and forges ahead. A cynic might say that redefining poverty levels simply serves to funnel more federal aid to New York City, but supporters of his initiative claim it's in line with his pledge to reduce poverty by any means, including paying poor people to behave differently.

Originally posted by Dave Hogarty from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on December 31, 2007 5:06 AM

After more than 15 years and $14.8 billion, Boston's Big Dig project officially ends today.

A study by the Turnpike Authority found the Big Dig cut the average trip through Boston from 19.5 minutes to 2.8 minutes.

Given the number of people moving through the area each day and how much time is saved, $14.8 billion doesn't seem like such a huge amount.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on December 31, 2007 4:00 AM

Speaking of product design, today’s convalescence (bad head cold) meant I could gorge on the DVD for the documentary Tilt and it’s copious extras.

The movie focuses on the development of Pinball 2000, an attempt by Williams to salvage a dwindling market for its pinball games. I found out about the film through Khoi’s post from last July (definitely worth reading), and, as one who plays the silver ball, thought it was worth a shot.

The movie itself is quite short, barely over an hour in length. It probably serves best as a Harvard Business Review-like case study in product design, development, marketing, and strategy. What’s most interesting is how Pinball 2000 accomplished nearly everything it set out to do (and in a remarkably short period of time), and Williams killed its pinball business anyway. In an interview (MP3) with the filmmaker Greg Maletic, radio host Faith Salie introduced the film by saying, “You’ve probably heard the saying, “Innovate, or die.” But what happens if you innovate and die?”

As Khoi points out, there are plenty of tasty bits for those of us interested in experience design. Most of that is in the trove of extra material provided, including in-depth discussions of the process of designing a pinball game, the different styles that different designers have, and how these designers were very much aware of not just the playability (which was paramount), but feasbility from a cost, engineering, and maintenance perspective.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend this film to those who aren’t interested in pinball. From a filmmaking standpoint Maletic had two big strikes against him — focus on a niche product (pinball companies were happy to build 5,000 of a product), and a story that, at the time of release, was 6 years old. Maletic never makes it clear why this is an important story that overcomes its nicheness and its age, so it’s really only interesting to pinball devotees. But, as he explains in the commentary, he tried very hard to make a movie that appealed to a non-pinball audience, and so he watered down some of the interesting discussion of design and technology, forcing interested parties to scour the extras to get all the meat off the bone.

My Negative Nelly-ism notwithstanding, Maletic is to be congratulated on producing a quality doc on what must have been a shoestring budget, and pretty much all on his own (he even rendered the animations in the film). It turns out he’s an active blogger with a passion for entertainments of all sorts — amusement parks, pinball, movies. He’s currently working at Bunchball. (What the hell is with the Bunchball website? When Bunchball first launched, it seemed to be about social games. Now it’s about “engagement,” “web catalytics” and “making your site sticky,” all kinds of hideous marketing-ese that obscures just what on earth they are about. Oop. There’s the Negative Nelly again.)

Originally posted by peterme from peterme.com, on December 30, 2007 8:37 PM

Examiner Column for December 31, 2007.

    2007 is out and 2008 is in. We are used to thinking of things in binary terms: the best and the worst, winner and loser, out and in. Journalists print their top lists of everything, including sports figures, performances, books, films, and vacation spots. As we slot and tabulate, there is no room for the color grey—everything is black or white.

    This same binary mentality exists in many students’ minds. My daughter works for a museum outside of Detroit, and when she took a high school group for a tour, they wanted to know what paintings were “best”; as one student put it, “which one gets the ribbon and the cash award?”

    I have spent many years trying to discourage students from seeing things as either good or bad, worth reading or not. Are all books lovable? No. But that doesn’t mean books you don’t love can’t be intellectually stimulating. Are all main characters admirable? No—yet many, like Jane Austen’s Emma and Dr. House on the popular television series, are worth getting to know for their wit and intelligence.

    Popular culture would have us believe, however, that there’s no time for the ambivalent character. What about the work of art that doesn’t win the ribbon and the cash award, yet makes you think? The road to every cash award—Nobel, Pulitzer, Oscar—is paved with losers that become classics. And don’t forget the unappreciated artists who died in penury and whose works now sell for millions.

    So my New Year’s Resolution for 2008 is to try to sell the color grey. I would like students to approach Hamlet realizing he is a difficult young man—confused and self-centered—a bit like a friend they love despite his flaws. And the glory of James Joyce’s “Dubliners” is not that the characters are good in any sense of the word, the glory is in the way they paint a portrait of humanity that holds true for any country and any generation: deeply flawed, self-destructive, yet capable of redemption.

    The novel my students absolutely “get” may help sell grey areas. “Bel Canto,” by Ann Patchett, is a new addition to my curriculum, and has been the only book my students read without the help of Spark Notes. It tells the story of South American terrorists who take a group of people hostage for several months. Nothing could be clearer: terrorists bad, hostages good.

    But by the end of the novel when the inevitable we have been dreading takes place, both terrorist and hostage have been humanized and shown in all their grey glory. Our initial binary judgments are not so accurate anymore.

    For 2008, I hope my students will look at the wonderful, but pause to ask themselves if it’s too good to be true, and I also hope they will regard the second best, and even the hopeless, with a measure of respect that allows them to appreciate their strengths.

    People, books, art, and life are not all as black and white as we would like them to be. It would be a great lesson to be able to teach students to appreciate the grey.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on December 30, 2007 6:34 PM

Dave Dribin’s terrific overview of the distributed version control systems Git, Mercurial, and Bazaar. Don’t miss his follow-up: “Why I Chose Mercurial”.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on December 30, 2007 11:57 AM

John McCain has another spot up in New Hampshire, responding to Mitt Romney's ad that attacked him over illegal immigration. The ad has two points — that Romney is being disingenuous, and that McCain himself has learned some lessons on the issue, and won't be bothering grassroots Republicans over it anytime soon:

"Before I can win your vote, I know I have to win your respect," McCain says. "And to do that, you know I'll always be straight with you. And on this issue, I've learned that we've got to restore trust in government, and secure our borders."

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on December 30, 2007 11:37 AM

There's an interesting article in January's Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience about a brain injured patient who has a curious form of simultanagnosia - the inability to perceive more than one object at once.

In this case, he also seemed unable to report more than one attribute, like colour or name, at a time, while looking at the object.

Simultanagnosia: When a Rose Is Not Red.

J Cogn Neurosci. 2008, 20 (1), 36-48

Coslett HB, Lie G.

Information regarding object identity ("what") and spatial location ("where/how to") is largely segregated in visual processing. Under most circumstances, however, object identity and location are linked. We report data from a simultanagnosic patient (K.E.) with bilateral posterior parietal infarcts who was unable to "see" more than one object in an array despite relatively preserved object processing and normal preattentive processing. K.E. also demonstrated a finding that has not, to our knowledge, been reported: He was unable to report more than one attribute of a single object. For example, he was unable to name the color of the ink in which words were written despite naming the word correctly. Several experiments demonstrated, however, that perceptual attributes that he was unable to report influenced his performance. We suggest that binding of object identity and location is a limited-capacity operation that is essential for conscious awareness for which the posterior parietal lobe is crucial.

This is particularly interesting because it relates to a key question in understanding consciousness, known as the 'binding problem'.

The brain deals with different parts of perception (for example movement, colour, light-dark differences) in different parts of the brain, yet when we perceive an object, it all seems to be integrated into one conscious experience.

For example, our experience of an object's colour and movement never seem to be 'out of synch'. How this happens is the essence of the binding problem.

This case report is of someone whose brain injury seems to prevent 'binding'.

Looking at what brain injured patients can no longer do and matching this with the damaged areas can give us a clue to how the brain works because "you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone".

Strictly speaking, this is called the transparency assumption in cognitive neuropsychology but I call it the Joni Mitchell principle as the quote is a song lyric of hers (I got this from a student essay I once marked so thank you insightful mystery student!).

In this case, the patient suffered damage to both sides of the back of the parietal lobes because of a stroke ("bilateral posterior parietal infarcts"), suggesting the parietal lobes might be key in binding perceptual elements for consciousness.

Unfortunately, I can't get to the full-text of the paper yet, so I'm not sure what insights the authors themselves have offered. Still, a fascinating case.

Link to PubMed abstract.

Originally posted by vaughan from Mind Hacks, on December 30, 2007 10:00 AM

From Anima Sound System's (a Hungarian band) show from the Sziget festival, Budapest, August 4, 2004. Az Anima Sound System 2004 augusztus 4- From Anima Sound System's (a Hungarian band) show from the Sziget festival, Budapest, August 4, 2004.Az Anima Sound System 2004 augusztus 4-i, Szigetes koncertjebol.http://www.animasoundsystem.com/http://www.sziget.hu/fesztival (more) (less)

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anima+sound+system

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Originally posted by Jay Allen from david’s Neighbors, on December 30, 2007 9:54 AM

Michael Bay is remaking The Birds. I could just throw up my hands in horror and stop there.

Watched this with J. It's been hyped to death over the summer as the biggest action movie in town, and it did turn out to be an explosive collision of boy's own casual sexism, twisting metal and terrible editing.  I like to think that I pay close attention when I'm watching films, but a lot of the time the sequence of shots was just missing that key something - namely any logical progression. So viewers get to play fill in the blanks while the story as a whole works itself out - two teams of confusingly similar looking alien robots who can disguise themselves by assuming the form of Earth technology arrive. Rather disappointingly no one transformed into an evil kettle or kindly hovercraft. They battle it out over a black cube thing and the fate of humanity. The humans prove themselves worthy of annihilation several thousand times ("Hey! There's a big giant metal alien fight coming! Lets hide in the middle of the most densely populated area we can find!"). Good triumphs but at the high cost of potential sequels.

The transforming thing was good but you'd have thought they could have come up with one exciting car chase between a host of extraterrestrial high powered vehicles. They might as well as assumed the form of dingies. Complete tosh.

Originally posted by Josie Fraser from A Girl & A Gun, on December 30, 2007 4:47 AM