randomwalks/dj

thoughtful piece addresses the seeming insignificance of lifestyle changes  

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org Links, on April 19, 2008 11:10 PM

Animated display of organic food company acquisitions.

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on April 19, 2008 10:26 PM

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 19, 2008 8:50 AM

How To Win: A Practical Guide to Defeating The Radical Right. Activist toolkit text from 1994: “A one-stop, do-it-yourself guide to fighting the Radical Right at the local level. In it you will find hands-on information on a range of practical matters, including how to organize coalitions, how to run an election campaign, how to work with the media, how to use polling, and how to intrepret and put to good use the relevant body of law.” See the Table of Contents. (Posted on The WELL via Gopher!)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Social Design Notes, on April 18, 2008 4:21 PM

Puckey Puckey: Jams and Outtakes, 1970-71 is very much the companion compilation to Live at the Haunted House. The latter captures Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band at the beginning of their career - Puckey Puckey follows the group at the beginning of their end.

As with Haunted House, I'm making an excerpt of my liner notes for Puckey Puckey available to ya'll but just keep in mind - this is barely a quarter of the total notes so please do pick up the CD (5000 copies only, then they're permanently gone). I touch a little bit on what makes this compilation so interesting in that excerpt but here's the basics:

The Watts Band recorded. A lot. A. Lot. Maybe it's because they had Warner Bros. dollars behind them but Wright took the band into the studio often and had them jam for hours. As a result, the amount of unreleased music - much of its rehearsal jams and the like - is beyond expectation. We're talking hours upon hours. Reissue producer Andy Zax went through and culled what he thought were the best parts.

Here's two I pulled off this two-disc set:
CONTINUE READING...



Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band: Express Yourself (alternate version) (snippet) + Jam #3 (snippet)
From Puckey Puckey: Jams and Outtakes, 1970-71 (Rhino Handmade, 2008)

Yeah folks - there's an alternate version of "Express Yourself." My face melted just a lil when I learned about that. If for no other reason, it's worth copping the comp just for this. We're not talking about, "alternate version with an extra horn." We're talking about basically a wholly different flavored recording. It's the same song, sure, but it's so much more laid-back and languid - you can feel the band just riding in that pocket on this one. Normally, I'd give you the whole song to enjoy but in this case, there's enough to tease you.

"Jam #3" is an example of the long, flowing grooves that Wright would have the band work on in rehearsal. When I say long, I mean long - this total song is over 20 min (hence why I snipped it). On the one hand, you can hear all kinds of ideas being worked on here, really ambitious long-form ideas that the Watts Band wasn't able to put out on record but you can see some connections between them, James Brown in the past, and looking forward to Clinton's P-Funk experiments.

These long sessions were a point of considerable tension within the group, certainly not the only one, but it didn't help matters and it was during this phase that the group was churning out some of their best work but also beginning to fall apart, especially as the group's success grew. By '72, with the departure of drummer James Gadson and most of the rhythm section, the Watts Band was no more.

Next in the Watts 103rd series: a monster overview of the recent Rhino UK series of Wright & Watts 103rd, Warner Bros. reissues.



And, oh yeah - there will be a giveaway at the end of all this and the mother-of-all giveaways it shall be!

Originally posted by O.W. from soul sides, on April 18, 2008 10:15 AM

We're all for Sex and the City spoilers, but MySpace comments?

Not so much.

So imagine our "oh ick" moment this morning, when the official Sex and the City MySpace left us a comment - a giant photo of SJP eating pizza that said, "Hey, it's Carrie. Need to talk about Big. Maybe over pizza?"

Maybe over our puking bodies?

Of course we'd expect a major motion picture to have its own MySpace. It's just the pretending-they're-Carrie and the leaving-pizza-comments that gets a little out of hand.

So although we're thrilled to see the movie when it finally premieres, here's what we're going to tell this silly MySpace campaign:

We're just not that into you.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on April 18, 2008 9:30 AM

After 10 years, kottke.org favorite New Green Bo (still the best soup dumplings in town, IMO) has changed its name to Nice Green Bo.

We're 10 years old, and we have so many nice customers, so we made it Nice Green Bo.

(via eater)

Update: My officemate Scott snapped a photo of the new signage during lunch.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 18, 2008 9:21 AM

La Chaim! Stock Up Now!

Photograph courtesy of mhaithaca

While bread gets cracker-ified during Passover, chosen bottles of soda get stripped of their high-fructose corn syrup and are sweetened instead with the real deal. No need to hunt for imported Mexican colas or hitch a ride south of the border for the cane sugar cola that tastes so great.

That's right: Passover Coke is here! (Or Passover Pepsi, if you're on that side of the Cola War.)

Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi make a real-sugar version around this time of year, and you can find it by looking for yellow caps on Coke bottles or white caps on Pepsi. But to be sure you really have a sweet, sweet sugariffic cola in your hands, check the cap for a "P" next to whatever kosher symbol appears (see photo).

Back Story

Because corn syrup is made from one of the five no-no grains, it's considered chametz and is therefore forbidden during Passover (along with anything made from wheat, oats, barley, rye, and spelt). The grain constraints are, of course, a nod to the Jewish exodus from Egypt; the Israelites fled in such a hurry that they didn't have time for baked bread to rise.

Enjoying Kosher-for-Passover pop of course doesn't require being Jewish. It requires a love for more refreshing, crisper cola. The eight-day pop-slurping fest—er, commemoration of the liberated Israelite slaves—starts tomorrow at sundown, but the kosher sugar-high is already available in grocery stores.

According to a forum on the beverage industry site BevNet, it's been spotted at Gelson's and Ralph's in California, Kroger in the Midwest, and a variety of Eastern European markets in Chicago and Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Related

Costco Is Selling Mexican Coke

About the author: Erin Zimmer, our Washington, D.C., correspondent, is a new media analyst and frequently writes for Washingtonian, DCist, and other local publications. While Georgetown's food columnist, she investigated the cafeteria's omelet station, Hoya coffeeshop's cultish pumpkin muffins, and what exactly the basketball players ate.

Originally posted by Erin Zimmer from Serious Eats: Main, on April 18, 2008 7:30 AM

In the Daily News, Adam Rubin explains how the Mets contacted MLB last season to investigate the Phillies for what was perceived to be stealing signs and relaying them to hitters.

…i’m betting this has everything to do with the Philly Phanatic, who looks guilty of every crime known to man…jerk…

Rubin writes, “Randolph confirmed the Mets would be on guard during this weekend’s three-game series in Philly, but surmised that last year’s attention probably has resulted in an end to any questionable tactics.”

Speaking of the Phillies, according to MLB.com, Jimmy Rollins will not play tonight against the Mets while he attends his uncle’s funeral.

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 18, 2008 5:45 AM

According to Hollyscoop, Mets RHP John Maine has a crush on Jennifer Aniston, saying:

“I just love her soft and natural, girl-next-door looks and the way she carries herself, her whole demeanor…Oh, yes, the hair.  The hair is unbelievable!  I think she just gets better looking as she gets older.”

…oh, johnny…don’t ever change, buddy…i mean, did he really say, “Oh, yes, the hair.”…dear god, i hope not…nevertheless, i totally understand the crush…who doesn’t…

On what he would do if he meets her, Maine says:

“”I’d probably be so nervous, I would trip over my feet. I guess I would take some pictures with her and give her a hug. Maybe she’ll contact me somehow and it will actually happen. Wow, how cool would that be?”

…thanks to maura for the link…i think…

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 18, 2008 5:09 AM

I fixed this post for you, jkottke.

(via kottke)

Originally posted by jeb from Modcult, on April 18, 2008 4:55 AM

Here's a very useful roundup of today's super-delegate news.

Many super-dels are unswayed either by Hillary's arguments about Obama's supposed electability problem -- but some also are unswayed by the Obama camp's argument that her high unfavorables render her problematic, too.

And despite Howard Dean's demand that the super-dels start picking sides right now, dozens of them say they feel no rush to pick sides before the voting is over.

More super-del tidbits here.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on April 18, 2008 4:51 AM

In celebration of its 30th birthday a few weeks ago Ben & Jerry's released Cake Batter ice cream. The flavor, which is a mixture of vanilla ice cream, yellow cake batter, and chocolate frosting, joins the ranks of more than 200 others the company has produced over the past three decades. From the simple (Strawberry, Butter Pecan, Chocolate Fudge Brownie) to the sensational (Bananas on the Rum, Pumpkin Cheesecake, Coconut Seven Layer Bar), there's no denying that Ben & Jerry's makes some great scoops. But I must admit, while I love ice cream, cake, and ice cream cake, I'm not a fan of cake ice cream.

Are you?

Once relegated to specialty shops like Cold Stone Creamery and Maggie Moo's, lately cake batter ice cream has been popping up everywhere from supermarket freezer sections to soft serve shacks like Smoochie's and Tasti D-Lite, the later of which has gone far beyond plain yellow to include Carrot, Red Velvet, German Chocolate, and even Angel Food Cake flavors.

I think my dislike of cake batter ice cream stems from its inherently artificial nature: not only is it ice cream flavored like cake, it is ice cream flavored like fake cake; something you might get out of a box as opposed to actually baking yourself. An ice cream cake is not a cake meant to taste like ice cream; it is a marriage of the two ingredients. Why shouldn't it work the same way the other way around? Ice cream with chunks of real cake in it sounds pretty delicious to me.

But perhaps I'm being a food snobbish grouch. There's a reason that these days the flavor is as common as Cookie Dough: people adore it. I'm curious to know how Serious Eaters feel: when it comes to cake ice cream, do you love it or leave it?

Originally posted by Lucy Baker from Serious Eats: Main, on April 18, 2008 4:45 AM

Remember that woman from the debate last night who the moderators showed videotape of asking whether Barack Obama "believes in the flag"? Her name is Nash McCabe.

I remember thinking it was sort of odd to have a couple one-off uses of ordinary voter question when it didn't really seem like it was part of the format. But I was too distracted by the general inanity of the debate to focus on this issue too closely.

Well, it turns out TPM Reader JL did give some thought. And he came up with something very interesting (see JL's post at the DrexelDems blog). He did a little googling and found out Nash is pretty popular with the traveling press now in Pennsylvania. It turns out McCabe was featured in an April 4th story in the Times which begins like this ...

Ask whom she might vote for in the coming presidential primary election and Nash McCabe, 52, seems almost relieved to be able to unpack the dossier she has been collecting in her head.

It is not about whom she likes, but more a bill of particulars about why she cannot vote for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

"How can I vote for a president who won't wear a flag pin?" Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama has said patriotism is about ideas, not flag pins.

"I watch him on TV," Mrs. McCabe said. "I keep looking for that lapel pin."

Now, it does seem like McCabe is not a fan of Sen. Obama's. And I think we can assume that it's not a coincidence that McCabe managed to show up featured in the Times and also as the sole outside questioner in the ABC debate. Presumably, a researcher for ABC or Gibson saw the piece in the Times, figured, hey, this lady hates Obama and is seriously ginned up about the lapel issue. Let's send a camera crew Obama and film her slamming Obama to his face. It'll be great in the debate.

Now, as JL noted in his email to TPM, I'm not sure precisely what's any less ethical about finding Nash at random to come on and slam Obama about whether he believes in the flag versus seeing her in the Times and saying, 'Wow, this woman clearly has it in for Obama. Wouldn't that make for great TV giving her a chance to crap on Obama's head in front of a nationwide audience?

I think there's something wrong with it. And part of it is that you usually assume that these citizen questions come from people who are at least partly conflicted about their support if not undecided. But it does reinforce my sense that the disgraceful nature of the debate wasn't just something that came together wrong, some iffy ideas taken to far, but basically engineered to be crap from the ground up.

(ed.note: Remember, there was also Tom Rooney from Pittsburgh who said he'd been a Clinton supporter up until the Bosnia flap and asked what she could say to get back his vote. In that case, this was at least someone who'd been a Clinton supporter at one point and suggested he could be again. But it's still basically, "Hillary, can you apologize to me for being a liar?" Not exactly a question. Anyone have more details on Rooney?)

Late Update: Turns out McClatchy is on this case and has plenty of details about how ABC tracked McCabe down.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 17, 2008 7:44 PM

Just for laughs, I took a look at the schedule for the "Web Two Dot Oh Expo" that's invading my fair city next week. Oh, the Humanity.

• "Intro to Blogs & Social Media Marketing 101."
• "What's your enterprise mashup strategy?"
• "Strategic Domain Name Selection for Increasing Traffic and Conversion Rates."
  -- I think they mean "typo-squatting".
• "How to take your search engine optimization skillset to the next level, even if you're already a savvy search marketer."
  -- I'm 99.9% certain this is code for "how to MAKE.MONEY.FAST with a fake spam-blog."

Originally posted by jwz@jwz.org from jwz, on April 17, 2008 7:40 PM

Third-party applications created with the iPhone SDK will be available for sale in June. Apple has created an incredible platform here — how much will these applications cost?

From a developer’s point of view, let’s see how much potential the market holds. This will determine what a developer needs to charge to make the effort worthwhile.

As of Q1 ‘08, Apple has sold 3.7 million iPhones. I can’t find numbers for the iPod Touch, but I’m sure the iPhone has outsold it many times over, so I’m not expecting it to contribute significantly to these figures yet. Let’s just assume that the Touch will negate the portion of those 3.7 million iPhones that aren’t being legitimately used — some have been lost or broken, some have been unlocked and won’t access the iTunes application store, and some will just never be updated with the 2.0 firmware required to run the applications.

Here comes the rampant speculation. If we assume:

• 1 in 1000 iPhone owners buy your application
• You charge $10
• You pay 28% income tax on the profit, and it’s all profit after Apple’s cut
• Your support costs will be insignificant

…then you will get to keep $18,648 after tax.

Now, those are a lot of assumptions — especially the support cost. But the most important factor, and the biggest unknown, is the sales rate: will 1 in 1000 iPhone owners buy a decent application?

Move the decimal point in either direction, and it becomes very different: if you can convince 1 in 100, you get $186,480! But if you can only convince 1 in 10,000, you only get $1864… that’s not worth most people’s time to write.

And that’s an important factor: consider how long the application took to write. At 3 man-months, the 1-in-1000 figure above gives you $6,216 per man-month. Not bad.

But if you’re making a very complex application that takes two developers and six months to write, that’s only $1,554 per man-month — you’ll need to significantly raise the price or sales rate to make that worthwhile.

Now, over time, the number of iPhone owners is likely to increase significantly. Once Apple hits 10 million iPhone owners, the default scenario above earns $50,400.

The biggest and most important variable is clearly the sales rate. How many iPhone owners will use third-party applications at all? Among them, how many will ever pay money for one? Then, among those, how many will pay money for yours?

Considering this, I’m thinking that $10-20 is probably a fair price for most good, moderately complex, single-developer applications.

But it depends what everyone else does: if the majority of the third-party developers price their apps in the $5 range, and people refuse to pay for anything significantly more, many applications simply won’t be worth making. Conversely, if enough people are willing to spend $20-30 on good applications, they become much more worthwhile to write, and we’ll see more specialization and competition. The numbers could also be skewed if the iPod Touch becomes a major application-sales platform. (I don’t think it will.)

As a developer, I’m hoping people are willing to pay good prices. And I bet they will. I haven’t decided on my application’s price yet, but it will probably be in the $10-15 range. It definitely won’t be less than $10.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org, on April 17, 2008 7:30 PM

From an anonymous source close to the company, I've found myself in possession of the "Infocom Drive" — a complete backup of Infocom's shared network drive from 1989. This is one of the most amazing archives I've ever seen, a treasure chest documenting the rise and fall of the legendary interactive fiction game company. Among the assets included: design documents, email archives, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made.

For obvious reasons, I can't share the whole Infocom Drive. But I have to share some of the best parts. It's just too good.

So let's start with the most notorious — Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the unreleased sequel to Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. For the first time, here's the full story: with never-before-seen design documents, internal emails, and two playable prototypes. Sit back, this might take a while.

Note: I've pieced together this history from emails and notes from the Infocom Drive. I haven't contacted any of the people mentioned, so if you're a primary source or authority, please get in touch so I can make corrections.

Update: Don't miss the comments section. Infocom alumni Dave Lebling, Steve Meretzky, Amy Briggs, and Tim Anderson all comment on the story, Zork co-author Marc Blank helps correct an error, and writer Michael Bywater provides an alternative view of the events.

Continue reading... 

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Waxy.org, on April 17, 2008 6:40 PM

We love vertical farms, the idea of food being grown right in the city, it doesn't get any more local than this. New York magazine asked four architects to dream up proposals for a lot on Canal Street and Work AC came up with this. “We thought we’d bring the farm back to the city and stretch it vertically,” says Work AC co-principal Dan Wood. “We are interested in urban farming and the notion of trying to make our cities more sustainable by cutting the miles [food travels],” adds his co-principal (and wife) Amale Andraos. Underneath is what appears to be a farmers market, selling what grows ...

Originally from TreeHugger, ReBlogged by GOOD on Apr 17, 2008 at 09:35 PM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Eyebeam reBlog, on April 17, 2008 6:35 PM

A hallway at the San Francisco Tennis Club has a bunch of early photographs of San Francisco, including this one (snapped with my iPhone; apologies for the perspective and quality) of the west side of The Embarcadero in 1913.

What I love about this photo (and it's probably hard to see here) is the billboard for Owl Cigars, with the reversed mirror image type. When you quickly walk by the photo of the billboard you do a double take, and I spent a few minutes confirming that this wasn't some weird artifact of the photo itself. (The photo didn't appear to be doctored at all.) The effect of this as a massive billboard must have been something. I'm no student of outdoor advertising, but while I can definitely remember plenty of instances of seeing trompe-l'oeil effects in billboards, I don't think I've seen something as "simply stunning" in a long time.

My colleague Sean Williford pointed out that The Standard Hotels does something related with their logo, turning their simple typeface upside down.

I love both of these -- simple twists that force the casual observer to stop, spend a bit more time processing what they're seeing and become memorable because of their simplicity. That said, if everyone started flipping their type around, everyday life would be more than a bit annoying.

Who else has done this kind of thing well?

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on April 17, 2008 3:53 PM

RealScoop's software analyzes statements made by public figures in audio or video and plots the results on a scale of believability that runs from believable to highly questionable.

RealScoop uses advanced emotion-based voice analysis technology to rate the believability of people's statements.

For instance, here's Michael Vick apologizing for holding dog fights, Eliot Spitzer resigning the governorship of NY, and Bill Clinton's infamous "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" statement. The Clinton audio and associated metering is really pretty good...it spikes in all the right places. (thx, john)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 17, 2008 2:55 PM

Michael Ruhlman, on the potentially best foie gras ever: "Eduardo Sousa, a farmer in the Extremadura region of Spain is, according to chef Dan Barber, raising geese that bear the best foie gras the chef's tasted. The critical part of the story, though, is that Sousa does not force feed the geese. He apparently lets their inclination to gorge themselves, once required for migration, take care of the fattening and simply makes sure they have all they want."

Originally posted by Raphael from Serious Eats: Main, on April 17, 2008 1:45 PM

Eduardo Sousa, a farmer in the Extremadura region of Spain is, according to chef Dan Barber, raising geese that bear the best foie gras the chef's tasted.  The critical part of the story, though, is that Sousa does not force feed the geese.  He apparently lets their inclination to gorge themselves, once required for migration, take care of the fattening and simply makes sure they have all they want—nuts, olives, etc., but no corn.  This suggests of course that farmers who force feed their geese and ducks are simply controlling what the ducks would do naturally and that the folks who want to prohibit the production and sale of foie gras on the grounds of animal cruelty have one less leg to stand on.
    I never thought they had any leg to stand on if they argued only that the practice of gavage were inhumane but were happy to buy boneless skinless chicken breast and beef tenderloin from America’s meat factories.  The foie gras farms in the United States, notably Hudson Valley Foie Gras, tend to be models of humane, safe, small-scale farming. Here’s Bourdain’s excellent account of the no rez trip to the farm.
    But Barber’s story (first reported last week in Lancaster Farming and which I read via A Hunger Artist), is a good one nevertheless.  Barber said this foie gras was the best he’d ever eaten and that the experience was revelatory, “the best culinary experience of my life.”  Repeat: the best culinary experience of his life.  Are we likely to taste any of this at Blue Hill anytime soon?  Not likely.  When Barber asked about buying Sousa’s foie gras, Sousa, clearly a quirky farmer, replied, “Chef’s don’t deserve it.”
    So enough with chefs banning foie from their meat-filled menus (clearly a marketing-driven decision, at best--and nothing wrong with that, but let's call it what it is), and enough with city counsel grandstanding and the like to legislate its ban (most recently defeated in Maryland).  And thanks Dan Barber for another great story.

(Skawt's comment reminded me of this hilarious exercise in human discomfort and stupidity. thanks again to delgrosso.)

Originally posted by michael ruhlman from ruhlman.com, on April 17, 2008 1:10 PM

Great idea for a book. Currently at #64 in Amazon’s bestsellers list.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on April 17, 2008 12:46 PM

 

Submitted by Eric Britton:

Here's a thought experiment for you. If you and I hate to see lots of parked cars dumped on city streets for which we have other and a lot better uses, should we love it when we see lots of parked bikes? Or might that be a sign of some kind of deeper systemic inefficiency to which we could usefully give a thought or two?

How do you feel when you see hundreds, or thousands, of bikes parked in one place? As a sustainability and bike person I always in the past found it a combination of wonderful, hopeful, and somehow vaguely scary. (And just about always for the very big lots or structures, extremely ugly.)

But now that I know a bit about shared city bikes, I look at them in an entirely different way. Now, above all, they give me a great feeling of waste. Unnecessary waste.

(more...)

Originally posted by Brad Aaron from Streetsblog, on April 17, 2008 11:34 AM

In a post to The 10 Spot Blog for SI.com, Pete McEntegart lists 10 reasons why Shea Stadium is better than Yankee Stadium, while questioning why Yankee is getting more fanfare in its final season than Shea.

…if the Yankees get more coverage, it isn’t going to make me tear up any less when Shea Stadium gets torn down…if reporters and pop culture are more obsessed with the ground that Babe Ruth stood upon, i can understand…however, i am far more interested in the ground that Tom Seaver and Jesse Orosco stood upon…to each his own…

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Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on April 17, 2008 10:44 AM

Six Apart continues to break down the walls around social communities.

Yesterday Six Apart announced the availability of a Facebook application (yes you read that correctly) called Blog It. The TypePad-powered service enables Facebook users to make posts in Facebook out to any number of blogging tools.

Here are a couple of links covering it:

• Six Apart launches Blog It, a cross-platform blogging application for Facebook
• Six Apart’s ‘Blog It’ Turns Facebook Into a Fire Hose

Six Apart CEO Chris Alden wrote up a good summary on his blog here.

Of course, there are those who are less than impressed or dismiss it as irrelevant, but then again Six Apart acknowledged there are shortcomings that they will be addressing. After all, this is a 1.0 release

I think it’s still pretty slick though.

Originally posted by Timothy Appnel from Code / Appnel Solutions, on April 17, 2008 10:41 AM

1. High Times magazine's editors have chosen their favorite spots to counteract the munchies. Included are: Katz's Deli, Two Boots, Doughnut Plant and Veselka. In related news, Sunday is 4/20. (via NY Metromix) 2. It's your Earth Day. Here in New York City we have so many variations (Earth Week, Earth Night, Earth Fair, etc.) that we had to google it to find out the real deal. FYI: It's April 22. 3. Bush to Pope: "Awesome speech!" 4. $5,000 gets you two tickets to the Eric Clapton concert at the Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida, on May 5th plus two nights at their hotel, a Rolls Royce to and from the airport, dinner for two and a bottle of Cristal. 5. Sean Schwartz, the owner of Halcyon Records in DUMBO tells Time Out New York: "I just spent a week in Miami for the annual Winter Music Conference and I did not see a single DJ play a vinyl record." April 19 is National Record Store Day and the few stores that are left will be celebrating with concerts, giveaways, etc. 6. Last date for today: May 8 is the Third Annual Brooklyn Blogfest. Festivities will take place at the Brooklyn Lyceum (270 4th Ave., Park Slope) at 8 p.m.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on April 17, 2008 10:29 AM

This might be my favorite news article correction ever, from my old school paper, the Columbia Spectator:

CORRECTION: This submission misstates that one Dalai Lama admitted to having sex with hundreds of men and women while knowing that he had AIDS. Additionally, the submission misstates that many monks participated in the dismemberment of female bodies. In fact, there is no factual evidence to substantiate either of these claims. Spectator regrets the error.

I mean, that's just awesome. Nice work there, editors...

Originally posted by Jason from Q Daily News, on April 17, 2008 9:54 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on April 17, 2008 8:42 AM

Photography of Star Wars characters in contemporary urban settings. (Pardon the stupid Flash interface...click on "series" to see the photos.) (via vitamin briefcase)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on April 17, 2008 7:25 AM

frankie_guasch writes "Finally, it's here and it works with Perl 5.10! http://apache.org/dist/perl/mod_perl-2.0.4.tar.gz"

Read more of this story at use Perl.

Originally posted by brian_d_foy from use Perl, on April 17, 2008 7:10 AM

We’re putting together the details now for our next Hugga event in Portland, the land of bike culture and Creative Capacity. The event is scheduled for May 21st to coincide with Webvisions. Just like we did at SXSW, we’re going to ride and then meetup at a pub for a reception with a raffle, giveaways, and schwag o’ plenty.

Recommendations on the ride and pub?

Photo uploaded by stop.down.

Originally posted by DL Byron from Bike Hugger, on April 17, 2008 6:58 AM

Continuing from yesterday's look at the soundtrack to the creation of Lotus Notes, we can look more at the physical space where it was created. For contrast, I also throught I'd start looking at some of the responses I'd gotten from Jeff Bezos about the same questions.

Interestingly, when it came to the music or movies that were playing while he was first creatiang Amazon.com, Jeff's answer was succinct: "I don't remember." Maybe I might have done better to focus on what books he was reading. But when it came to describing the actual workspace, Jeff remembered a lot more details:

A garage enclosed so it was converted into a room. Whiteboard with long list of priorities -- didn't change much. Door desks. Costco swivel chairs. Big orange extension cords draped across the floor just about everywhere.

That sense of a chaotic but comfortable space is echoed in Ray Ozzie's description of the early offices at Lotus:

it began in a small office (actually an old home converted to an office) we rented in 12/84 in Littleton, MA.  The office was mainly just one big room for the three of us.  I founded it in December, and my co-founders Tim Halvorsen and Len Kawell joined me from DEC in January.

We used IBM PC AT's as our dev systems, which were released just as we were starting to work.  Even though our office was Spartan, we bought the best hardware available and tricked it out as best we could:

• a "massive" second monitor ("Genius" I think) - 1024-by-something monochrome portrait mode
• a removable iomega Bernoulli disk drive, so we could do builds, archive things, bring them to Cambridge where our partner lotus was located, etc
• we replaced the crystals on the motherboards to get 8mhz out of the computers, rather than the stock 6mhz
• sytek 2mbps (I think) LAN card
• a state-of-the-art newfangled "laser printer" - an apple laserwriter - that we all shared

You get the idea.

We went to a used furniture store and bought the CHEAPEST crappiest (but strong) fold-out tables, with strong/comfortable chairs.

We spared no expense on massive whiteboards that covered the walls.

Pierre Omidyar's description of the workspace where eBay was created is no less evocative:

Definite clutter. I worked primarily out of our spare bedroom that I used as an office. I had some sort of computer desk that had multiple Macs in various states of use or disrepair. I also used a Mac laptop, a Powerbook Duo among other models I think. Later I very reluctantly switched to a Toshiba laptop and Windows, because the Mac OS wasn't keeping up with the cutting edge back then. (A non-Mac hiatus that lasted until 2001 I think.) I had a wireless internet radio thing hooked up to it so I could access the Internet mobile. I used post-it notes on the monitor of my desktop Mac or in the laptop, but no whiteboards. It wasn't until I got an office that I started using a whiteboard. I like whiteboards, but the markers smell funny.

In each case, it's gratifying how familiar this combination of clutter and creativity feels to any of us who've ever pulled an all-nighter to get a product launched.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on April 17, 2008 6:26 AM

• Bush Calls for U.S. Carbon Emissions to Plateau by 2025 (Dot Earth)
• Bay Area Businesses May Soon Pay Fee for Producing Greenhouse Gases (NYT)
• Bronx Toddler Hit by Car; Cyclist Killed by Delivery Truck in Manhattan (Post)
• More Delays and Overruns for PA's Lower Manhattan Terminal (News, NY1)
  
• Sander Discusses MTA Sustainability Plan (NPR)
• NYCT Takes Low-Floor Bus Model for a Spin (City Room)
• Red Hook Bike Commuting Plan Gets Hearing at CB6 Tonight (Post)
• Gov Island Advocates Try to Improve Access, Build a Constituency (City Room)
• Silver Won't Release Tax Returns, But His Opponents Have (Daily Politics)
• Car Talk Bros. to Ponder 'Car of the Future' on TV (Wheels)
  

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on April 17, 2008 4:59 AM

Let me add one more thought before signing off. I don't think this debate will have much effect on the direction of the race. In fact, I've learned from past (often bitter -- yes, his initials are AG) experience that the candidate who wins on points in a debate often doesn't come out with the best result.

What I didn't like about the debate, though, was the debate itself. Not only were most of the questions on partisan gotchas and frivolous points. But more importantly the questions upon which the candidates were pressed the most were ones that presumed the correctness of Republican agenda items, sometimes explicitly so -- on taxes, capital gains taxes, gun rights, Iraq, etc.

There are issues like health care, and whose proposal will achieve universal coverage; some question about the credit crisis; perhaps some question about Iraq that presupposed that getting out is a necessary objective -- like, noting ways that each has hedged on their promises to leave Iraq, rather than a question, the subtext of which was 'what will you do when the serious people tell you we shouldn't leave'; something executive power -- a legitimate questions since presidents are seldom willing to renounce powers grasped by predecessors; the environment; perhaps, what will these candidates actually do -- concretely -- to crack down on executive branch corruption since Democrats have made such political hay of the issue at President's Bush's expense; perhaps a single question on the environment?

Do these questions presuppose concerns and priorities of Democrats? Yes, sure. But then, this was a Democratic debate. If they'd wanted Hannity to moderate, I'm sure he would have made himself available.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on April 16, 2008 7:44 PM

Jeff Jarvis has published an essay on the new ecosystem for news publishing. He says that too much discussion about the future of news is “press-centric” and that it forgets all the other sources that people draw upon for news including our peers, search, links, original sources, companies and the government. As he looks at the sector, he publishes a new process for news (above) and says:

The notion that news comes in and stories go out — text and photos come in and paper goes out — is an artifact of the means of production and distribution, of course. Now a story never begins and it never ends. But at some point in the life of a story, a journalist (working wherever) may see the idea and then can get all kinds of new input. But the story itself — in whatever medium — is merely a blip on the line, a stage in a process, for that process continues after publication.

…In this new ecology, I think newsrooms will need to be organized around topics or tags or stories because the notion of a section is as out of date as the Dewey Decimal System… Stories and topics become molecules that attract atoms: reporters, editors, witnesses, archives, commenters, and so on, all adding different elements to a greater understanding. Who brings that together? It’s not always the reporter or editor anymore. It can just as easily be the reader(s) now.

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » The press becomes the press-sphere

Originally posted by Piers Fawkes from PSFK, ReBlogged by GOOD on Apr 16, 2008 at 09:53 PM

Originally posted by Piers Fawkes from Eyebeam reBlog, on April 16, 2008 6:53 PM