“SuperFreakonomics” and Climate Change
Elizabeth Kolbert brings on the snark, and it’s delicious.
Everybody Loves A Smart Aleck
I enjoy Amelie Gillette’s snark from time to time, and this one didn’t disappoint. The whole situation with the television industry begs the question, “Who’s in charge around here?”
Obama-flation
George Packer on the shift in Obama’s support:
The most disappointed people I meet are under thirty, the generation that made the Obama campaign a movement in its early primary months. They spent their entire adult lives under the worst President of our lifetime, they loved Obama because he was new and inspiring, and they felt that replacing the former with the latter would be a national deliverance. They weren’t wrong about that, but the ebbing of grassroots energy once the Obama campaign turned to governing suggests that some of his most enthusiastic backers saw the election as an end in itself. The Obama movement was unlike other social movements because it began and ended with a person, not an issue. And it was unlike ordinary political coalitions because it didn’t have the organizational muscle of voting blocs. The difficulty in sustaining its intensity through the inevitable ups and downs of governing shows the vulnerability in this model of twenty-first-century, Internet-based politics.
Andrew Sullivan in response:
This is an ocean liner that was boarded by a bunch of insurgents in a dinghy. You can’t captain the liner the way you did the dinghy. But if you wonder if the liner has changed direction, look at the apoplexy of the old regime. They’re not fools. And they know they’re losing.
Incognito Browsing
I’ve been finally getting a chance to play around with Chromium the open source branch of the Google Chrome project, and have been really impressed so far. My favorite tidbit is this part of the notice when you open an “Incognito Window”:
Going incognito doesn’t affect the behavior of other people, servers, or software. Be wary of:
- Websites that collect or share information about you
- Internet service providers or employers that track the pages you visit
- Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys
- Surveillance by secret agents
- People standing behind you
David Pogue: Cleaning Up the Clutter Online
I believe I agree with the sentiment here regarding ads, especially on pages that are intended for reading.
As for Readability, I wish that it were an unnecessary tool. It is a much more difficult project to try to educate writers and designers and readers about typographic treatment on the web. It is more work for the standards makers and browser builders to devise, agree on, and implement ways for type to be treated far more intelligently on the web. But it’s worth it, because even though there are rules and guidelines to making texts more readable, writing will never be one-design-fits-all.
So, David Pogue, I know you’re listening. Take on this cause! If people are responding to you so well on Twitter, point them in the direction of something by Mandy Brown. The best way to tackle the readability of the web isn’t by trying to automatically reformat it (although it’s a good stop-gap). No! We need to raise awareness to push the community of people who write for and publish online to take the extra care to make words readable.
Thank you for your help. :)
WebKit’s Web Inspector Updates
These guys really are doing fantastic work building and refining tools that are helping to turn the web into a first-class platform.
Monsters and the Moral Imagination
I’m a little late on posting this, but it’s still worth a read. Stephen T. Asma wrote a great little piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education about our relationship to the idea of monsters and makes the case that even in a liberal world of moral relativism, the idea of the monster is a useful – and accurate – construct. Good stuff touching a lot of ground.
It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers.
Colin Nissan:
Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.
Someone’s been watching too much Sunny.
Derek Powazek on “Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists”
His thoughts on so-called Search Engine Optimization are spot on. The crux:
Remember this: It’s not your job to create content for Google. It’s their job to find the best of the web for their results. Your audience is your readers, not Google’s algorithm.
It sounds obvious, but there are still too many people contributing to the web who believe that its inner workings are magical. Success on the web, to my mind, is far more predictable than in publishing, politics, movies, etc. The only way to compete on the web is through quality.
Love Makes You Creative, Sex Not So Much
Andrew Sullivan in rare form:
I recall one marathon twelve-hour session of passion many years ago now. It was only afterwards that I realized I had barely had a single trace of an analytic thought for the longest period I could then remember. I was never happier. As I finally collapsed into my lover’s arms with the final orgasm that drained every last drop of desire or need from my body and soul, I understood for the first time why the French call coming “le petit mort”. It can be the emptying of self entirely. Which is why sex is so close at times to the presence of the divine, and reflects and incarnates God in ways few other things can so easily. We are more animal and more divine in sex than in any other activity.
John Kricfalusi’s Review Of Meatballs
For context, John Kricfalusi created The Ren & Stimpy Show. Here’s his take on the new movie based on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs:
I had a tough time sitting in my seat through Meatballs, because what was happening and who it was happening to was not remotely interesting. It’s hard to pace a story around characters with no personality.
But as a cartoonist and designer, there was enough visual interest and unique action throughout the movie that intellectually I found things to stimulate me.
It was an optimistic portent of what could be. It’s basically an undirected film – but one that allowed many of the artists to take nothing scenes and add some kind of cleverness, design and action to the formulaic events being told by the story.
This in itself is so far ahead of an overdirected film (overdirected by executives typically, not by directors that actually have a point of view or style) that stops creativity from happening every step of the way, just so that more stock plot points, filler and bad puns can happen.
I think this kind of thing is enjoyable to read not just because of how harsh it is, but because it touches on something that is really true about the current state of, in my opinion, not just animated films, but most major films. I often find myself settling for the little things in a movie that make it good, rather than expecting something more, maybe in order to seem less like a cynic and an asshole.
But the truth is, there’s a lot of terrible stuff out there, and the industry that has grown around making movies has moved it from an art form into a calculating box office science. I can only remain optimistic by holding onto my belief that the creative juices going into films have stagnated due to lack of competition. Lower production and distribution costs, one hopes, will eat away at the joint monopoly whose long project has been the reduction of creative work to “content.”
Time will tell. Quality endures, but only if it can first find life.
(via Khoi Vinh)
Debunking Dan Brown
Not really a great read either, but Michael Baigent did get me with this zinger:
An early example comes when the ubiquitous protagonist Robert Langdon arrives in Washington by private jet. In a particularly mundane exchange, he is told that he would look good in a tie. He hates ties. Suddenly the reader is treated to a history of ties involving Roman orators and Croat mercenaries. It is as if Brown wants us to think that he is a great scholar rather than a deft hand at computer searching.
Dan Brown, unfortunately, is not the only person who might be guilty of this.
(via @WolfieGoethe)
On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces
Ben Fry, introducing a spell-binding visualization of Charles Darwin’s changes over time to The Origin of Species:
We often think of scientific ideas, such as Darwin’s theory of evolution, as fixed notions that are accepted as finished. In fact, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species evolved over the course of several editions he wrote, edited, and updated during his lifetime. The first English edition was approximately 150,000 words and the sixth is a much larger 190,000 words. In the changes are refinements and shifts in ideas — whether increasing the weight of a statement, adding details, or even a change in the idea itself.
Built, naturally, using Processing.
Google’s Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars
Geoffrey Nunberg discusses Google Books in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Apparently, Google Books suffers from some pretty shoddy metadata, leading to some humorous juxtapositions and labels. Nunberg’s diagnosis:
It’s clear that Google designed the system without giving much thought to the need for reliable metadata. In fact, Google’s great achievement as a Web search engine was to demonstrate how easy it could be to locate useful information without attending to metadata or resorting to Yahoo-like schemes of classification. But books aren’t simply vehicles for communicating information, and managing a vast library collection requires different skills, approaches, and data than those that enabled Google to dominate Web searching.
The Guts of a New Machine
Came across this again while digging through the DF archives. Rob Walker profiles the then-two-year-old iPod for the Times:
A handful of familiar cliches have made the rounds to explain this — it’s about ease of use, it’s about Apple’s great sense of design. But what does that really mean? “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” says Steve Jobs, Apple’s C.E.O. “People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
(Emphasis mine.)
This idea has, I think, taken root since then, and a respect for the relationship between usability, readability, and visual character on the web in particular has really grown. And yet, some companies seem to continue to try to “copy Apple” in all the wrong ways, drawing the wrong inferences, and learning the wrong lessons.
Think about what you’re making, respect the user and the reader, and make informed decisions along the way to the best of your ability. Setting everything minimally against a white background is not the great lesson of Apple’s success. The takeaway is to place an emphasis on the user in the design process and not to underestimate the value of quality.
Enhancements to Georgia & Verdana Typeface Families Announced
I am super excited about these. Maybe if they add ligatures, lining figures, and proper small-caps to Georgia, the Webkit and Gecko teams will figure out better ways to support these things in their type implementations. Here’s hoping anyway.
Also, is it just me, or does that shot of Verdana Ultra-bold (I assume) look like it has a lot of potential? I could see that finding its way into some of my own work.
(Thanks, Cori.)
Tagged.
If you care about making websites, and you haven’t read this already, I strongly recommend and support Jack Shedd’s point of view regarding the new markup specified by HTML5.
To my ear, this is a much sharper and more clear-minded approach to thinking about the markup changes than those put forward by Zeldman and friends. The difference, I think, is that the “Super Friends” want to improve a standard that is close to being adopted to fit the way they work. Shedd wants to take a step back and say, what is the real problem here?
I respect and appreciate both methods of critique, especially with regards to something as wildly complex as Web Standards, but in this case, I have to say that Shedd is bringing up some very valid concerns, and I hope more discussion comes out of his article.
UPDATE: On further thinking about this, I feel it is necessary to clarify that I don’t mean in any way to impugn the efforts of Jeffrey Zeldman and the other members of the “Super Friends.” (I do think the name is silly, but that is surely the point.) I think it is prudent to point out that the other key difference between the two sets of critiques is that one comes from a group and the other from an individual. Shedd doesn’t have to get anyone else to agree with him before posting the recommendations and critiques that he offers, which is both an advantage and disadvantage.
Behind the Typedia Logo Design
I finally got a chance to read through the whole thing. As one commenter notes, reading through this process is mesmerizing. My favorite bit:
If you’re familiar with Bodoni and Didot, you’ll also be able to see my many departures from those faces. The very slight flares at the ends of the thin flourishes, for example, are a personal favorite detail of mine. Without them, the end of a thin stroke seems arbitrary to me, like, “well, guess it may as well end here…”. I prefer to say, “This is exactly where I want the stroke to end”—to make the last bit of ink (or toner, or whatever) to be like a punch line or dessert—kind of a little tiny celebration at the end of something joyful.
They look stunning in the finished logo.
Introducing Typedia
Jason Santa Maria introduces Typedia, which is exactly what it sounds like:
At its simplest, Typedia is a shared encyclopedia of typefaces. Think of it as All Music or IMDb for type, but created and curated by everyone.
I don’t think this man ever sleeps. (Or stops thinking about type.)
Not Everyone “Got” It
Michael Rottman for The Morning News:
In the early days of The Muppet Show, the famous bonhomie between celebrities and their Muppet co-stars wasn’t there yet.
These are great. I especially like the end.
Thanks Rebecca.
Catty-corner
Daily Writing Tips has a post about “catty-corner” and its variants.
What they’re missing, however, is the crucial connection to one of my favorite words, “cattywompus.”
via thatwhichmatter
Who Knew Sub-pixel Anti-aliasing Would be Applicable to Analog Rendering?
Willard Wigan makes tiny and detailed sculptures that would make even the greatest icon designers blush and gush.
I want to see these in stop-motion. Internet, get on that.
Hat tip: Justin.
“Domain Tasters” Get the Boot from ICANN
ICANN, keeper of domain names, allows a 5-day grace period within which a domain name may be returned gratis. “Domain tasters” take advantage of this by registering excessive numbers of domain names, throwing up advertising on them, and then leaving before they get the bill.
Now, ICANN has implemented a penalty fee for large numbers of cancellations. Johm Timmer reports:
In 2008, ICANN decided to act. It allowed domain registrars to withdraw as many as 10 percent of their total registrations; they would face penalties for anything above that. Initially, ICANN adopted a budget that included a charge of $0.20 for each withdrawal above the limit, which was in effect from June 2008 to July of this year. Later, it adopted an official policy that raised the penalty to $6.75, the cost of a .org registration; that took effect in July 2009.
The numbers dropped from 17 million in June 2008 to 60,000 in July 2009. This is fantastic news.
Hat tip: Andy Baio.
Jack Rosenthal on Soundbites and Language
Please read at least to the Dan Quayle bit.
(via thatwhichmatter)
Midnight Breakfast is Back
We’ve been trying to revive it for a few months now, but it seems to be back in full swing. Drop on by and join the conversation.
Gruber on Ninjawords’ Censorship by Apple
First off, I love the Ninjawords online dictionary, and have for some time, since I first discovered it through Wordie.
This story, however, is outrageous. The gist is that the Ninjawords developers had to remove “objectionable content” from their dictionary in order to get it published in the App Store, removing words like “ass” and “snatch.”
Take a moment to breathe that in. Apple. Censored. A dictionary.
The situation with the App Store in general seems to be showing a particularly ugly side to Apple, that I would have never expected to see so fully a year or more ago. I don’t use an iPhone, but I was happy that they came up with a model for the App Store that seemed to be so beneficial to the little guys in software development. The App Store, in theory, makes iPhone applications compete primarily on quality, not brand recognition.
But the way Apple guards its gates is madness.
NetNewsWire’s Stinkin’ Synching
I don’t think I’ve ever read something by Khoi Vinh where he seemed so mad or uncharitable. NetNewsWire really fucked up on this one.
Kernest
Kernest is one of the first good options for using embedded fonts in a website. Unlike projects like Cufón or sIFR, Kernest takes advantage of @font-face embedding, which is now supported by Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari.
One of the problems with @font-face at the moment is that Safari and Firefox support font formats like OpenType and TrueType, while Internet Explorer only supports Embedded OpenType. The usual workaround is to supply a different format depending on the requesting browser. This is exactly what Kernest takes care of for you.
Not only will it serve the right file type depending on the browser, it will only serve the font files when the request comes from a domain name tied to that particular font. Many of the current selection of fonts are free, but in order to make them available to your domain, you must activate them. Based on my brief use, this is a very simple process, requiring only a user account, and adding new domains is completely effortless.
After activating a font for your domain, you simply link to a stylesheet specific to your domain on their server. It is worth noting that there is no javascript involved, and this is as it should be.
I’ve been trying Kernest out for a few days now, and have found the experience very pleasant all around. I don’t know much about what TypeKit’s model will be like, whether they will have some fonts available free of charge, or if there will still be a charge for the service. If not, Kernest looks like it could be a great free alternative for projects without a budget for fonts.
And in the meantime, I highly recommend giving it a try. There are already several serviceable fonts on the site. I’m currently using Droid Serif from Ascender Corp.
UPDATE: I’ve since switched to Heuristica.
Mad Men Yourself
I clearly had too much fun with this.
UPDATE: I am clearly continuing to have too much fun with this.
Fox and G.E. Reach Deal to End O’Reilly-Olbermann Feud
I can’t help but be intrigued by this article.
Just the link for now, thoughts later.
The War We’d Like to Forget
I had high hopes for Ross Douthat’s column at the Times, but haven’t often found myself reading him since the move from The Atlantic. When I do take a minute to check on what he’s been writing about, he simply seems out of place. Perhaps the Times really can’t handle a conservative voice like his.
Male and female brains are hardwired differently
Dan Benjamin pulls this from John Cloud’s Time story Why Girls Have BFFs and Boys Hang Out in Packs:
Perhaps it’s evidence that evolution has programmed boys to compete within large groups, so they can learn to eliminate rivals for women — and that girls have been programmed to judge, one-on-one, who would be the most protective father for offspring.
Am I the only one who thinks these kinds of articles are idiotic? Why is Dan Benjamin linking to this, much less agreeing with it? First of all this is a story in Time magazine – not exactly a bastion of rigor. Second of all, the only thing an fMRI study like this shows is that by the time boys and girls have reached this age (8 to 17, according to Time), their brains have become “hard-wired” to function differently in social situations. This says nothing of the possibility that social factors – which, oh, by the way, have taught these kids language – have forged these “hard-wired” distinctions. But please, go ahead and assume that studies prove what you already accept as common knowledge. Take it away Dan:
This may not come as a huge surprise to parents of teenage kids, but now there’s some science to help explain the difference.
Wow.
Why Are People Waiting to Marry and Have Kids?
Part of what is appealing about Andrew Sullivan’s blog is that he has Patrick Appel and Chris Bodenner there who clearly help prepare a lot of his posts, and I imagine make the construction of the blog an actual conversation. I also like that he often posts readers’ emails in full when they make a good point, no matter what their view. Here, Patrick is filling in while Andrew is taking a break, and continues the practice of posting thoughtful emails from readers. A taste:
Domenech asks why less [sic] Americans are married with kids at my age, and the best he can come up with is that tired old socially conservative canard of uppity women and a pornography-filled society. Does he really want to know why there is a greater delay in marriage and rearing children than there was in 1970? One word: cost.
Of course, the act of posting these in such a respectful way encourages other readers to send in their own thoughtful emails.
Black & White Clock
I want one:
Digital clock: only figures, no case, only the necessary – only accurate time. Each figure has self-contained power supply and independent control, it can be fixed to any surface autonomously. A light sensor will switch the clock to an invert mode: the figures are white in the dark time of day and black at daytime.
A ‘Cap and Tax’ Road to Economic Disaster
Priceless:
The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.
Strands of American History
Christina Christoforou illustrates the hairdos of the first ladies.
Microsoft’s strange new ads for Internet Explorer
The thing is, I’d be happy if these actually got people to upgrade from IE7, IE6, or even IE5. Everyone seems to be responding to these as though Microsoft is desperate to go after Firefox and Chrome (and maybe Safari). But if you watch “G.R.I.P.E.S.” it’s pretty clear that these are at least partially an effort to get people using older versions of their own browser to get with the program.
I never said this, but these ads are actually a good showing from Microsoft.
Liev Schreiber Trivia
Along with David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and Jamie Kennedy, he is one of only five actors to appear in all three Scream films.
What an elite group.
Why are There 60 Minutes in an Hour?
Gary Wallace:
To understand the units of time we need to investigate the number systems of ancient civilizations. How did the Sumerians count to 12 on one hand and to 60 on two? What advances did the Babylonians make and how did they use this number system for measurement? And what refinements did the Egyptians make to time measurement to give us the system we still use today?
Fascinating.
Holy Shit
And just like that, I have a new to-do list.
The Joy of Less
My dad would like this. Pico Iyer lives in a “two-room apartment in nowhere Japan:”
When the phone does ring — once a week — I’m thrilled, as I never was when the phone rang in my overcrowded office in Rockefeller Center. And when I return to the United States every three months or so and pick up a newspaper, I find I haven’t missed much at all.
George Everet defends “Web Design is 95% Typography”
I hadn’t come across this companion to Oliver Reichenstein’s 2006 article about the importance of typography in web design. Everet takes it much further:
So when someone says graphic design or web design is mostly about type, they’re right. Our world is mostly about typography.
Lingering
Benjamin Kunkel:
So I am glad, honestly, to have the old world of print and film supplemented by the new world of text and video. And I’m eager to stick up for casual and often vulgar online writing and culture as long as I’m not forced to defend them in grandiose terms. The internet often gratifies my curiosity and sense of humor, no small thing but nothing to confuse with whatever it is in me—something far more deeply interfused—that is gratified by poetry, philosophy, history, modes of writing that hardly exist online. What are the native species of internet prose? Op-eds, diary entries, aperçus, allusions, screeds, and scrawls of graffiti—worthy forms but marginal and perishable like little nodding flowers along a river.
Internet Star @ Least 473 Years Old
Always nice to read about the history of symbols.
Cheney for President
Ross Douthat’s much-anticipated first turn at the NYT:
At the very least, a Cheney-Obama contest would have clarified conservatism’s present political predicament. In the wake of two straight drubbings at the polls, much of the American right has comforted itself with the idea that conservatives lost the country primarily because the Bush-era Republican Party spent too much money on social programs. And John McCain’s defeat has been taken as the vindication of this premise.
Substantively, I think he brings a needed reasonable voice to the current conservative din – without the ego of David Frum or the questionable alignment of Andrew Sullivan. However, I hope his future columns will be more focused. This one covers too much ground for 800 words.
Arlen, You Let Me Down
Meghan McCain:
And I understand how he’s been made to feel like an outcast by a small, vocal group. Still, this was an opportunity for Specter to hold his ground and set an example for progressive-minded Republicans trying to overcome one of their biggest obstacles: winning the party primaries.
Of course, this speaks to much larger problem in the GOP. We need to attract more centrist and progressive conservative voters at the primary level, so that level-headed candidates stand a chance. We need courageous Republicans more than ever. And this week, Sen. Specter turned his back.
100 Days of Obama
Charlie Rose hosts one of the most intelligent conversations I’ve heard in a long time, with Mike Allen, Jim Ellis, Jeff Greenfield, Al Hunt, Katty Kay and John Heilemann.
The WaPo’s High Horse
Andrew Sullivan:
Memo to WaPo: your days of thinking like this are over. If you don’t want to go the way of the Rocky Mountain News, wake up and smell the competition.
The Un-Rove
Andrew Sullivan on Obama’s potential for long-term impact.
The Big Cal
A small side project I’ve been working on the past couple of days: a calendar view of headline news culled from Wikipedia.
Midnight Breakfast
I think I’m going to take a little bit of a break from nscott.net to focus on Midnight Breakfast for a little while. If you haven’t seen it already, MB is a fun tumblog run by a few friends and yours truly. Check us out sometime.
Fireball: The John Gruber Story
Any chance this is real?
Automatic Kottke.org
I should consider doing one of these for nscott.net. It would include checking kottke.org for random posts every now and then.
Defying Gravity
This girl is really into musicals. No wonder Eve likes her.
Ze Frank’s Voice Drawing
This is absolutely amazing! (And for those who don’t know me, I don’t use that word lightly.)
Mr. Tweet
Billed as “Your Personal Networking Assistant for Twitter!” Looks interesting, I’m currently giving it a try.
Andy Baio is impressed.
Back Issues
Jill Lepore for The New Yorker:
The newspaper is dead. You can read all about it online, blog by blog, where the digital gloom over the death of an industry often veils, if thinly, a pallid glee. The Newspaper Death Watch, a Web site, even has a column titled “R.I.P.” Or, hold on, maybe the newspaper isn’t quite dead yet. At its funeral, wild-eyed mourners spy signs of life. The newspaper stirs!
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Errol Morris:
During the last week of the Bush administration, I asked the head photo editors of these news services — Vincent Amalvy (AFP), Santiago Lyon (AP) and Jim Bourg (Reuters) — to pick the photographs of the president that they believe captured the character of the man and of his administration.
Wake n’ Bacon
I need one of these. (Thanks, Eve.)
Textpattern CMS 4.0.8 released
Not as big a release as 4.0.7, but it can’t hurt to stay up-to-date.
I’ve said it before, Textpattern is a great piece of software. If you’re planning a content-heavy site, it should be one of your top contenders for CMS choice.
Authentic Ink
A beautiful blackletter font from Florian Schick.
Obama Signs Executive Order on Gitmo
Four executive orders regarding Gitmo and torture. This is fantastic news.
Charlie Rose interviews David Foster Wallace
I think this 1997 piece is one of the most amazing Charlie Rose interviews I’ve ever seen.
Greatness
Nicholas Lemann on what it takes to make a great presidency:
If you’re running the American government, change based on governance and politics matters a whole lot more than change based on intelligence and charisma.
Government communications should be helpful and clear
A submission from AIGA’s design and public policy group to the Change.gov Citizen’s Briefing Book, the goal of which is to compile the most popular idea submissions for the new administration. “Government must invest in quality graphic design and clear language for all its public communications. We need simple forms, easy-to-use Web sites, quality telephone support, and good signs and communications at public buildings.” It’s also worth browsing through the briefing book’s list of most popular ideas.
My favorite bit from the submission:
America has an extraordinary pool of design talent that is respected worldwide. For the benefit of citizens, to support American jobs, and to invest in the information infrastructure that will improve productivity over time, government should be committed to improving the way it communicates.
This is a great idea and a good cause in general. I’d love to see more action being taken like this on behalf of clear and effective communication.
Oblivious, Eh?
Gruber responds to Brian X. Chen’s Wired piece regarding Apple’s quarterly conference call titled “Apple Still Oblivious to Netbook Opportunity”:
Sounds to me like Apple’s about as oblivious to the netbook opportunity as they were to the smartphone opportunity around, say, 2006.
I, for one, hope (nay, suspect) Gruber’s right on this one.
@whitehouse_gov
WhiteHouse.gov even has a Twitter account.
In related news, Twitter activity hit a major spike during Obama’s swearing in on Tuesday.
McCain: Obama’s newest advisor?
I agree with Jason Kottke on this. The fact that Obama is maintaining open lines of communication with McCain is great news.
McCain, though it was his own fault (or that of his handlers), didn’t represent himself well during the presidential campaign and it’s nice to see that the very able Senator isn’t being sidelined because of it. Also, it’s quite savvy of Obama to seek out his support. He’s essentially buying McCain stock at a low point and will presumably leverage that purchase when that stock inevitably rises.
If you haven’t already, now might be a good time to go read David Foster Wallace’s 2000 essay on McCain.
Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time
Professor of Behavioral Science Reid Hastie:
Part of the problem at such meetings is that the leader has not set clear objectives or an agenda, and didn’t assign pre-meeting preparation tasks. Instead, the leader seems to hope that magic will occur, producing a serendipitous solution to some of the problems addressed. Of course, that doesn’t happen. As a general rule, meetings make individuals perform below their capacity and skill levels.
I agree with this to some extent, but would warn not to take Hastie’s advice to the extreme. There is such a thing as too much organization, just as there is such a thing as not enough. The trick is to find the right balance between the two so that creative sparks can fly but no one feels like they’re simply wasting their time.
“No Words That Will Be Quoted In A Hundred Years”
Andrew Sullivan responds to George Packer.
Let Us Now Set Aside Childish Things
George Packer responds to Obama’s inaugural speech.
On Day One, Obama Sets a New Tone
Off to a great start:
President Obama moved swiftly on Wednesday to impose new rules on government transparency and ethics, using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides, mandate new limits on lobbyists and demand that the government disclose more information.
I intend to watch this presidency very closely.
The country’s new robots.txt file
Jason Kottke on WhiteHouse.gov’s newfound openness to search.
Analyzing Obama’s Inaugural Speech
This is a great interactive transcript from the NY Times following the video of Obama’s stately speech this morning.
A Good Start
From the new White House Blog:
Just like your new government, WhiteHouse.gov and the rest of the Administration’s online programs will put citizens first.
The New Gothams
H&FJ have released 46 new styles of their popular Gotham font. For those not following, Gotham was the typeface used by the Obama campaign.
Welcome to the White House
The White House, in addition to having a new occupant, has a new website. With a blog. Here’s to an era of more open government.
MyFonts.com’s Top 10 fonts of 2008
They gave Museo and Museo Sans the “award for the year’s best marketing strategy.” Many of the weights are offered for free through the MyFonts website.
Gridr Buildrrr
I find myself using this more and more. Funny name. Useful site. Definitely worth a link.
A List Apart on Writing
Pretty much the best writing on writing on the web on the web. Er, the best writing on the web about writing on the web. Oh, you know what I mean.
Obama Inauguration, Lego Style
Wow. Or, as Rebecca puts it:
My feelings on this are best represented by punctuation: !!!!
A Kindle trick changes the reading experience
Now you can search for stale and overused metaphors.
The Impossible Project
From the homepage:
We aim to re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras in 2010. We have acquired Polaroid’s old equipment, factory and seek your support.
Godspeed.
What’s That Song in “Wall-e”?
“Put on Your Sunday Clothes” by Michael Crawford. I still don’t know what I think of the movie as a whole, but I love the music and the animation.
The Book Cover Archive
Everyone else is doing it. I might as well too.
Le Mépris
I love these:
Overall, what you hear not only fits (lightly) the classical genre, it can be described more accurately by the terms experimentalism and minimalism. Le Mépris comes from a Jean Luc Godard film.
We Should Have Paid More Attention
Andrew Sullivan:
Eight years ago, Will Ferrell performed Bush’s future first State Of The Union. It could stand for his farewell address as well.
1.62
Yet another new favorite music blog. I also love the design of this one.
Kottke.org Redesigned
The text is much easier to read. I’m still getting used to the border though. It definitely smacks of one of his old designs. Always nice to see some continuity on the web, especially with redesigns.
Episode Two - Garage Band
The second episode of the Fawkward Podcast is up. Take a gander.
Famous Last Nerds
Absolutely brilliant rap comedies. Don’t miss “Wassup Holmes” or “Hamlet in a Minute.” (Thanks, Cat.)
“Validation”
Really sweet short film. (Thanks, Cori.)
HearYa
Another new favorite music blog.
The Monsters of “Where The Wild Things Are”
A sneak peek at the art direction for Spike Jonze’s upcoming movie based on Maurice Sendak’s children’s book. This test footage looks a little odd though. (Thanks, Gabe.)
“The Noises Rest”
Inspiring video sketch from the makers of You Look Nice Today. This, paired with a recent re-viewing of Ratatouille. Take it away, Ego:
In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto, “Anyone can cook”. But I realize – only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.
Typecasting
Khoi Vinh on I Love Typography’s favorite typefaces of 2008:
Newzald looks like Matrix, FF Utility looks like Klavika, Soho looks like Apex Serif, etc.
Granted, I’m just being a jerk here.
He does, however, recommend MEgalopolis Extra, an interesting font with some great alternates. And free!
I’m Waking Up to …
One of my new favorite music blogs, thanks to a project Adam and I are working on.
Earth, observed
The Big Picture has some of the most gorgeous NASA photos of the Earth.
upm_insert_tab
I’ve made no secret recently of my love for the up-and-coming blogging engine Chyrp, but there’s one CMS that I always return to for major projects: Textpattern. It is absolutely my favorite CMS and just keeps getting better, even if a little slowly. What I love about it is its attention to detail and super-powerful templating engine.
Textpattern is quirky though, and takes some getting used to. One thing that sets it apart is the fact that all of its templates and stylesheets are edited through the browser and never as files. One nice thing about this is it makes it super fast – all the templates are stored in the database. However, it can get a little annoying typing in CSS through a web interface, so I always find myself installing this great plugin from Utter Plush. As the name suggests, it allows you to insert tab characters in admin textareas using some clever javascript. Very handy.
“Beauty and the Brain”
Nice recording of the first PEAT radio show. If you’re in New York, their second show is coming up on the 25th.
Palm Pre Announcement
Great introduction, but I remain skeptical until I can get my hands on one. (I was originally excited about the Foleo, so.) Warning: The demo guy uses the word “newness” a lot.
Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot
When shapes attack. (Thanks, Gabe.)
Private Ear Audio Theatre
Gabe really did a great job with the graphics for their new site.
Gruber Agrees with Tom Krazit
And I agree with them both. It doesn’t make any sense for Apple to do CES next year. But, I’ve been wrong before.
Making Modular Layout Systems
Jason Santa Maria for 24 Ways:
For all of the advantages the web has with distribution of content, I’ve always lamented the handiness of the WYSIWYG design tools from the print publishing world. When I set out to redesign my personal website, I wanted to have some of the same abilities that those tools have, laying out pages how I saw fit, and that meant a flexible system for dealing with imagery.
He announced last week that he’s leaving Happy Cog. He also recently discussed the possibilities of the “end” of print. He’s definitely one of those designers that marks the transition from print to web – he’s obscenely talented with both.
New Google Favicon
Check it out.
Apple at CES next year?
I’m skeptical, but it would be interesting to see how this would change CES.
(Thanks, Alex.)
Gruber’s Macworld Expo 2009 Predictions
Good list, as usual. I agree with this part in particular:
At the top of my personal wish list: improvements to iMovie and Pages. I see the logic behind Apple’s decision to scrap the old iMovie and start over from the ground up with iMovie ’08. But I find iMovie ’08 downright confusing. The difference between “events” and “projects” seems muddled, and it’s a clumsy tool when it comes to actually editing clips together to make a movie. As for Pages, I would love to see it gain additional professional-caliber typographic controls (including better support for OpenType fonts).
Pinup
My newest theme for Chyrp. It’s way to specific for anyone to use it, right?
I think I may leave it as the default theme for the Chyrp Themes site.
Richardson Out
I really should pay more attention to the news. I didn’t even know there was a scandal brewing. First impression: this is a real shame.
“No! You can go back to your, what do you call it, your Google, and you figure out all that.”
George H. W. Bush, when asked to elaborate on his son’s failures as President. Go to the link to watch it, it’ll make more sense.
“Anger”
I don’t really speak French, but these songs by the Tiger Lillies are a great find, especially “Anger.” Give them a listen. (The photo’s fun too. I bet they’re great to see live.)
Happy New Year
Not suitable for those with faint constitutions. (Thanks, Eve.)
The Ballmer Peak
Good to keep in mind when programming on New Year’s Eve.
Area Woman Becomes Republican Vice Presidential Candidate
Somehow I missed this report from Wasilla, Alaska.
Gel Videos
Added to the “to watch” file. (via Kottke)
Noelani Pantastico
One of the best personal dance websites I’ve ever come across. (Thanks, Alice.)
Dan Rather’s Lawsuit Against CBS
Rather was fired the day after the 2004 election for airing an allegedly false report about Bush’s attendance at the Texas Air National Guard. Rather’s reasons for filing suit are valorous:
“CBS broke with long-standing tradition at CBS News and elsewhere of standing up to political pressure,” says Rather. “And, there’s no joy in saying it, they caved … in an effort to placate their regulators in Washington.”
Fight the good fight.
Ten Rules for Web Startups
This seems like a good list. And it comes from Evan Williams of Blogger and Odeo and Twitter fame. (Make sure to take note of number 11.)
Tabbed Breadcrumb Navigation
This is a really neat idea for sites that are “deep and wide.” See it in action over at Yahoo Food.
Harold Pinter, 1930 - 2008
He made a great contribution to theatre:
The playwright Tom Stoppard said that before Mr. Pinter: “One thing plays had in common: you were supposed to believe what people said up there. If somebody comes in and says, ‘Tea or coffee?’ and the answer is ‘Tea,’ you are entitled to assume that somebody is offered a choice of two drinks, and the second person has stated a preference.” With Mr. Pinter there are alternatives, “such as the man preferred coffee but the other person wished him to have tea,” Mr. Stoppard said, “or that he preferred the stuff you make from coffee beans under the impression that it was called tea.”
The Education of Robert Kennedy
Times columnist David Brooks encourages young people to study Greek tragedy.
(My dad had this article lying around the house and read it to us today.)
The Ten Days of Newton
Olivia Judson:
Some years ago, the evolutionist and atheist Richard Dawkins pointed out to me that Sir Isaac Newton, the founder of modern physics and mathematics, and arguably the greatest scientist of all time, was born on Christmas Day, and that therefore Newton’s Birthday could be an alternative, if somewhat nerdy, excuse for a winter holiday.
(Thanks, Elfie.)
“Still”
Gorgeous ballet piece choreographed by Laszlo Berdo, one of my sister’s teachers when she was at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet.
Broken Windows
With Santa climbing down millions of chimneys tonight (how does he get into homes without them?), it seems appropriate to offer this classic 1984 Atlantic piece up as holiday reading.
Literary
I’m on a roll — here’s my second theme for Chyrp. (I’ll start updating this site again more frequently soon, I promise.)
Chyrp Themes
I just put out Bubbles, my first theme for Chyrp. Take her for a spin.
Darren Aronofsky
As interviewed by Keith Phipps at the AV Club about The Wrestler:
AVC: You’ve changed your style radically with each film. Why so many radical shifts?
DA: Well I’ve been joking that if Madonna taught us anything, you’ve got to reinvent yourself. I think it’s important as a filmmaker, as any person working in the arts, that you’ve got to try new stuff and challenge yourself and take chances. I’ve tried to take a chance with every film I’ve done—I’ve never done it the easy way, and I think that’s because that’s what excites me, is making as big a mountain as I can in front of me, and just trying to mount it.
As Kottke puts it:
Toddler or not, I’m getting out of the damn house to see this movie.
Glad? Well, Yes
Hendrik Hertzberg on Malcolm Gladwell:
So what if whatever startling thesis he happens to be advancing doesn’t always apply to every situation? Isn’t it enough that he provokes thought and gives pleasure?
After Credentials
Paul Graham discusses the decline in the importance of credentials as predictors of success.
The course of people’s lives in the US now seems to be determined less by credentials and more by performance than it was 25 years ago. Where you go to college still matters, but not like it used to.
What happened?
Is a Netbook a Cheap Laptop?
Gruber:
The innovation isn’t that it’s a new product category. The innovation is that people are now willing to make trade-offs against performance. For the entire history of the PC industry, computers have been too slow, so trade-offs were made in favor of faster CPUs: higher prices and heavier laptops. But today, for many common tasks, the type of CPU you get when you build a $400 lightweight laptop is fast enough. That’s the breakthrough.
Seed Conference
Old, but I just love the design, and Alex reminded me of it.
Bigger Government = More Prosperous Country?
More from James Surowiecki. Just subscribe to his blog already.
News You Can Lose
James Surowiecki on why the newspaper industry is failing. Too many great points to single out just one, so just go read the damn thing. (It’s the Financial Page of The New Yorker for Christ’s sake.)
(as always, via Andy Baio)
Not all touchscreen phones are created equal
MSNBC’s Scott Taves discusses the differences between resistive and capacitive touch screens. Good introduction for those like me who don’t know much.
(Thanks again, Alex.)
Flipped Types
Jon Tan on the differences between print and web typography:
Sometimes, flipping things around can be a useful mental exercise. It can raise a wry smile. An idle comparison between print and web typography was one of those times.
(Thanks, Alex.)
Consider the Philosopher
James Ryerson on David Foster Wallace as a philosopher:
Wallace was especially concerned that certain theoretical paradigms — the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever trickery of postmodernism — too casually dispense with what he once called “the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community.” He called for a more forthright, engaged treatment of these basic truths. Yet he himself attended to them with his own fractured, often-esoteric methods. It was a defining tension: the very conceptual tools with which he pursued life’s most desperate questions threatened to keep him forever at a distance from the connections he struggled to make.
Twistori
Interesting Twitter app. Mostly I like the elegant design. (via Neil Makhija)
The Response to Newsweek
Andrew Sullivan responds to Lisa Miller’s cover story that makes the religious case for marriage equality, and the reactions that have followed:
And in the end, a Christianity resistant to truth and terrified of love is the real objective disorder.
Bang
One of the most insightful and eloquent things I have ever read of John Gruber’s:
Consider the Big Bang. One moment there was nothing, except for everything condensed into a single infinitely dense point. Then, one minuscule sliver of a second later: the universe. Nothing was yet formed, all the true work of forming stars and galaxies remained ahead, but the framework, the laws of physics, were set, and the rest was thereafter inevitable.
This is what everyone contemplating a new creative endeavor craves: that in the moment it turns real, to get it right. To frame it in such a way that the very act of framing propels the project toward an inexorable destiny.
You want to get it right because getting it right can make everything easier thereafter. But really, it’s because getting it wrong can be devastating. You might wind up putting thousands of man hours of work into a project that was doomed by a decision that was made in a second at the inception.
After that moment of conception, what it is, however nascent, however raw, becomes part of the process. You’re adding to it. Changing it. Removing parts of it. But there is an it, where before there was not. There’s something magic and magnificent and frightening about that part in the creative process before there is an it, when you decide just what it should be.
Philosophy Bites in iTunes Best of 2008
Congratulations to David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton. I’m an avid (if infrequent) listener.
Is This Your Paper On Single Serving Sites?
“Yes.” Ryan Greenberg analyzes and discusses so-called “single serving sites.” I haven’t had a chance to read the full piece yet, but I love the design, and the idea is great.
Mr. and Mrs. Right
Great essay in Vanity Fair by Bob Colacello on Pat and Bill Buckley:
William F. Buckley Jr., the intellectual force behind the modern American conservative movement, and his fashionable wife, Patricia, may have seemed to be a study in contrasts—Auntie Mame and the Absent-minded Professor, Pericles and Cleopatra—but those who knew them best understood how in tune they were mentally, morally, politically, and romantically. As Kissinger noted at her memorial, “Theirs was one of the great love stories of our time. The combination of Pat and Bill brought about a binary reaction that perhaps only a nuclear physicist could explain.” One of the clearest signs of the depth of their affection was the fact that each called the other by the same nickname: Ducky.
Ignoring the Market
James Surowiecki on the odd behavior of the Republicans during the process of determining the fate of the auto industry:
It’s quite a time for the G.O.P. to decide that actually the market doesn’t have a clue.
A conversation with Tom Friedman
Nice conversation between Charlie Rose and NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman. He was also profiled in the New Yorker in November, but unfortunately the article is only available to subscribers.
His talk with Charlie Rose gives a good idea of his thoughts and opinions on a wide range of current issues. A great watch.
Not My Gorilla
John Gruber basically gives the “fuck you” to Internet Explorer users. I tend to design the same way as he does these days:
I have no idea whether the DF Paraphernalia store is even legible under IE, because I didn’t even bother to check. It almost certainly doesn’t look “right”. I crafted the CSS using Safari, then checked it in Firefox, and I called it done.
Neither this site nor Midnight Breakfast have been checked in IE. At least, not by me. As Gruber puts it:
There are a lot of people who’d be a lot happier if they stopped worrying about other people’s 800 pound gorillas.
Midnight Breakfast
“Hi. We exist now.”
Google Zeitgeist 2008
Guess who was the number one riser? (via John Gruber)
The end of GM?
Free Exchange on the failed auto industry bailout:
This is not a huge surprise. It’s still possible that something will come out of the legislature, but it’s difficult to see how anything other than some sort of bankruptcy gets past Senate Republicans. The interesting questions, then, are whether GM was being honest when it said it couldn’t get through December without $4 billion from the government, and what will Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson do when Rick Wagoner comes to them saying that he needs TARP funds immediately or GM will declare bankrupcty then and there.
It’s hard to imagine that Mr Paulson will turn GM down after the Lehman business, particularly over the matter of $4 billion or so, but stranger things have happened.
Dylan Thomas Reads to Dr. Dre Beat
As my friend Rebecca points out, it actually works. (via brothercyst)
The Flowers Personified Illustrations
My friend Cat is working on an essay about floriography and found this neat electronic transcription of an 1847 book The Flowers Personified. These scanned illustrations from the book are delightful.
Chris Glass
Great new find. (Thanks, Rebecca.)
Kiss of Deaf
Reuters reports:
A young woman in southern China has partially lost her hearing after her boyfriend ruptured her eardrum during an excessively passionate kiss, local media reported Monday.
(Thanks, Molly.)
Machines that Almost Fall Over
By artist Michael Kontopoulos. Watch the video. (via Adam Stepinski)
Car Genetic Algorithm
I could watch this for hours. Andy Baio found it in the comments of this Reddit link. From the author:
This is a GA I wrote to design a little car for a specific terrain. It runs in real-time in Flash.
The fitness function is the distance travelled before the red circles hit the ground, or time runs out. The degrees of freedom are the size and inital positions of the four circles, and length, spring constant and damping of the eight springs. The graph shows the “mean” and “best” fitness.
Pretty cool stuff. Says a lot about how many iterations genetic algorithms take. This one is fairly simple and still takes a few hours.
Live Stills from Sleeping Beauty
Just found this great collection of photos through Cartoon Brew, part of Google’s Life archive. My favorites are the stills of Maleficent. The actress reminds me of Emil Jannings’ Mephisto in Murnau’s Faust.
Sketchy Comedy
Speaking of Pulitzers, Nancy Franklin asks for one in her piece on “30 Rock” in this week’s New Yorker (“Yoo-hoo, Pulitzer Prize committee, over here!”). I definitely agree with her central point:
The show’s true claim to fame, and a reason never to miss an episode, is Alec Baldwin, whose comic magnetism is so strong I’m surprised it hasn’t caused weather disturbances. He doesn’t steal scenes; he makes them rise and shine. Baldwin has to know how good he is, but he wears it lightly, and you actually take pleasure from how much pleasure you’re taking from his performance—just as you do, say, when Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby sing that put-’er-there-pal number “Well, Did You Evah?,” in “High Society.” They know that we know who they are, and Baldwin knows that we know who he is. And yet he plays well with others, and allows the star of the show to be the relationship between him and Liz.
Pulitzer Prizes Expand to Include Web-Only News Outlets
Joe Strupp in Editor & Publisher:
For the first time, the Pulitzer Prizes will accept submissions from online-only news outlets, but require that they be “text-based” submissions from news organizations that are updated at least weekly and include original reporting.
Don We Now
Nice video by Jules Skloot. She was a dance grad student while I was at Sarah Lawrence. She basically only does amazing work.
Picturing Business in America
The dot drawings that you see all over the Wall Street Journal are apparently called “hedcuts”:
In the spring of 2002, The Wall Street Journal donated a group of hedcuts, representing some of the United States’s foremost business leaders of recent years, to the National Portrait Gallery. These portrait drawings, based on photographs, attest to The Journal’s interest in the “primacy of the individual in both political and social systems.” Dedicated to preserving American history by collecting portraits of women and men who have significantly influenced our culture, the National Portrait Gallery welcomes this gift, which helps to chronicle the history of business in our nation.
This exhibition explores the development, the technique, and the implications of these illustrations. It also explores the biographies of a number of individuals whose unique contributions to American business and culture the Journal has reported during the past quarter-century.
Narcissus Places a Personal Ad
This Short Imagined Monologue from McSweeney’s by Matteson Perry is the secret to my recent auditioning successes. Let’s hope it holds up tomorrow as well. I take the liberty to make a couple of cuts:
I’ll start with a little bit about myself. First off, I’m handsome. Very handsome. So handsome, in fact, that people have called me “beautiful” and “gorgeous,” terms typically reserved for beautiful women. That’s how good-looking I am. Whatever. I don’t want to get into which term of beauty best describes my attractiveness, but, rest assured, you will not be disappointed. (I know I never am.) When you first see me without a shirt, you will probably lose your breath a little bit, as if you had just fallen into cold water. Don’t worry, this is normal. Get used to it, because I don’t wear my shirt much. If I had to name my best asset, I’d probably say everything. My calves are like perfectly cooked turkey legs, you could use my chin as a straight edge while working on a blueprint, and my skin is the color of a perfectly roasted marshmallow. Dozens of people have gotten “lost” in my eyes (I include myself in that count), so consider yourself forewarned! I’ve been asked by more than one child to be their new daddy. (Don’t interpret this to mean I like kids—-I’m just saying I’m way more handsome than a lot of fathers.) My interests include gazing into lakes, pools, mirrors, freshly waxed cars, shop windows, metal elevator doors, the back of a spoon, and most anything else that’s reflective. Once you see me you’ll understand. I like to think of myself as pretty laid-back and down to earth. I love to travel. My favorite food is pizza.
Short. Imagined. Monologue. Perfect.
Mumbai After the Smoke Has Cleared
From The Big Picture. I have no words.
Is the Gender Gap Narrowing?
According to The Boston Globe:
Men are losing jobs at far greater rates than women as the industries they dominate, such as manufacturing, construction, and investment services, are hardest hit by the downturn. Some 1.1 million fewer men are working in the United States than there were a year ago, according to the Labor Department. By contrast, 12,000 more women are working.
This gender gap is the product of both the nature of the current recession and the long-term shift in the US economy from making goods, traditionally the province of men, to providing services, in which women play much larger roles, economists said. For example, men account for 70 percent of workers in manufacturing, which shed more than 500,000 jobs over the past year. Healthcare, in which nearly 80 percent of the workers are women, added more than 400,000 jobs.
Gay Marriage And The GOP
Andrew Sullivan on the Prop 8 voting breakdown:
The trouble for the GOP is that this is one of very few issues on which Asians, Latinos and blacks vote for them. But it reinforces the identity of the party as primarily that of white, less educated fundamentalist voters. I’ve no doubt there’s a place for such a party in American politics. I also have little doubt it will never be a majority.
History in the Making
At least David Denby offers a powerful performance by Frank Langella in the upcoming Frost/Nixon to look forward to:
Langella has mastered the rumbling voice with its occasional touch of animal growl. He leans forward as he walks, almost apelike as his arms hang down; he gets Nixon’s heaviness of bearing, the awkwardness, the grotesque sentimentality, and also his power, the dangerousness even in retreat. This man notices many things, including any eccentricity of dress, any hint of weakness in his opponent, and he’s cagey about offering signs of friendliness—an anecdote, a bit of personal advice—that would make Frost falter.
But you can really tell all that from the trailer.
The Existential Clown
Nice little meditation on Jim Carrey by James Parker in this month’s Atlantic. Be sure to catch his video commentary.
The Moment
According to the site, “The Moment is a blog that spans the T Magazine universe of fashion, design, food and travel.” How did I never find this before?
It’s Alaska!
Gabe’s brilliant take on the Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin. Wonderful animation. He’s getting good at this stuff.
Instapaper Feedback
Aaron Lammer:
[T]hank you for creating something that encourages, rather than replaces, thought.
Couldn’t agree more. (via Cameron Hunt)
Prop 8 The Musical
Great cast. Short and sweet. Very funny. Made it all the way from Andy Baio to Rachel Maddow. (And may I just say – I love Neil Patrick Harris.)
Python 3.0 Release
Looking forward to giving this a spin when I have a chance.
Super Obama World
Pure brilliance. (Thanks, Beth.)
The Grid System
Looks like a great resource for those interested in the use of grid systems in graphic design. (via John Gruber)
Give Me Something To Read
Marco Arment put this together as a collection of “selections from among the most frequently bookmarked articles on Instapaper,” his excellent tool for bookmarking longer articles for later reading.
Mathematica Image Processing
I don’t understand a word, but the images make this look really cool.
The Black Diamond
Beautiful shot of the view from Copenhagen’s Black Diamond library. My sister is currently studying abroad there and goes to the library to work. Jealous? Me too.
SNL’s Take on Arianna Huffington
Actually pretty decent.
Fawkward Podcast Beta
In which Adam and I rip the Blackberry Storm a new one.
The Fly and the Eye
Inventive little short film, sent in by Gabe Aronson.
Apparently Since Monday
YouTube went widescreen on the 24th. Gotta say it makes the old 4:3 stuff look even douchier.
Chicken Head Tracking
I can’t help it. Since when is YouTube widescreen? (via Andy Baio)
Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
Mitt Romney(!) in the New York Times:
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
Wow.
The Wrestler
Aronofsky’s upcoming movie looks really intriguing. Great cast. Yes, that includes Evan Rachel Wood.
Private Ear Audio Theatre
Not quite done yet, but I wanted to show off this design anyway. My friend Gabe did the wonderful graphics, and I set the text. I’m pretty happy with how the site has turned out so far.
Joe the Grave Digger
Andrew Sullivan:
It hit me the other day what he is. He’s the comic relief in the fifth act of a Shakespearean tragedy. Think the grave digger in Hamlet. Alas, poor McCain. I knew him, Horatio.
Let’s hope.
The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace
David Lipsky has a great profile in memory of David Foster Wallace. (via Kottke)
The Rove Realignment
Ryan Sager thinks the Republican Party is splintering into big-government social conservatives and fiscally conservative social moderates.
Red Sex, Blue Sex
Margaret Talbot discusses trends in sexual behavior among teenagers and maps the differences in family dynamics between red and blue states. The gist: abstinence-only education doesn’t work, and blue families have a lot to say about building successful marriages.
Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation
Edmund L. Andrews reports.
George Packer on the End of an Era
I haven’t been alive long enough to fully understand the long-standing trends of conservatism and liberalism in this country, but Packer’s opinion rings true to me:
The conservative movement was driven by the single unifying idea that government is the problem, not the solution. It attained and kept power through the highly successful political strategy of dividing the country into the hard-working, America-loving, God-fearing majority and the minority of élitist liberals who wanted to tell the majority what to do. What’s happened to that idea and that strategy over the past few weeks?
I think the simple answer has little to do with the current campaign and everything to do with the botched leadership of the past 8 years. In addition to needing to be called out for their war crimes, Bush and Cheney need to be called out for their utter disregard for true American values and reckless thwarting of the ideals that make America run.
Tiny Tim on Fresh Air in 1996
Shortly before he died on stage in 1996, musician Tiny Tim did an interview with Terry Gross. For a brief interview, it’s an interesting profile of the man, as he reflects not only on his way of thinking about his life, but shows how he really finds a way to embody all the music that he clearly has a passion for. His knowledge of music is stunning, and his description of new music as belonging to the young is apt and succinct.
Is Apple Becoming a Phone Company?
Gruber thinks so.
The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys And The Shrub
In 2000, Rolling Stone sent David Foster Wallace to report on the McCain campaign. His profile is a fantastic read and full of insight into the political feelings, especially among younger voters, of the time. (I think… I was 15 at the time.) This passage about leadership is particularly striking to me today:
Obviously, a real leader isn’t just somebody who has ideas you agree with, nor is it just somebody you happen to think is a good guy. A real leader is somebody who, because of his own particular power and charisma and example, is able to inspire people, with “inspire” being used here in a serious and non-cliché way. A real leader can somehow get us to do certain things that deep down we think are good and want to be able to do but usually can’t get ourselves to do on our own. It’s a mysterious quality, hard to define, but we always know it when we see it, even as kids. You can probably remember seeing it in certain really great coaches, or teachers, or some extremely cool older kid you “looked up to” (interesting phrase) and wanted to be just like. Some of us remember seeing the quality as kids in a minister or rabbi, or a Scoutmaster, or a parent, or a friend’s parent, or a supervisor in a summer job. And yes, all these are “authority figures,” but it’s a special kind of authority. If you’ve ever spent time in the military, you know how incredibly easy it is to tell which of your superiors are real leaders and which aren’t, and how little rank has to do with it. A leader’s real “authority” is a power you voluntarily give him, and you grant him this authority not with resentment or resignation but happily; it feels right. Deep down, you almost always like how a real leader makes you feel, the way you find yourself working harder and pushing yourself and thinking in ways you couldn’t ever get to on your own.
Don’t you wish you could inspire people? I think Obama might be able to.
A Boy’s Life
Moving and thought-provoking piece on transgender children by Hanna Rosen.
Quirky serifs aside, Georgia fonts win on Web
I’ve referred to this several times, but it’s worth a re-link. Georgia was commissioned by Microsoft and designed by Matthew Carter in the mid-1990s. It has been a runaway success as one of the first major typefaces designed specifically for the screen. Much of its popularity is owed to Microsoft, who released the font for free through its “Core fonts for the Web” collection, making it one of the few serif fonts available to web designers.
Georgia has been lucky, but from an aesthetic point of view, I personally think it deserves its accolades and widespread use. It is truly a great screen font, and has held up incredibly well as anti-aliasing has become the norm. I still wouldn’t use it much for print work, but it is my go-to typeface for any of my web work that needs a strong readable serif.
The Final Debate Is Up
On Hulu. They’ve had excellent election coverage.
Final Debate Reax
More Sullivan… this time he gathers a variety of reactions to tonight’s debate.
Book Covers
Awesome collection of book cover designs. (Thanks, Gabe.)
Why I Blog
Andrew Sullivan at his best. One of my favorite bits:
You end up writing about yourself, since you are a relatively fixed point in this constant interaction with the ideas and facts of the exterior world. And in this sense, the historic form closest to blogs is the diary. But with this difference: a diary is almost always a private matter. Its raw honesty, its dedication to marking life as it happens and remembering life as it was, makes it a terrestrial log. A few diaries are meant to be read by others, of course, just as correspondence could be—but usually posthumously, or as a way to compile facts for a more considered autobiographical rendering. But a blog, unlike a diary, is instantly public. It transforms this most personal and retrospective of forms into a painfully public and immediate one. It combines the confessional genre with the log form and exposes the author in a manner no author has ever been exposed before.
Love the photo of him, and really enjoying the new design of the site. Much more readable, and with a lot more character.
Twitter Election Coverage
I love innovative ideas. This is one of the most fascinating ways of, as Twitter puts it, “gathering public opinion” that I think I’ve ever seen. Something about it just feels very futuristic.
On a design note, I love that the feed pauses when you hover over it so that you can click on something.
Brads
I just spent like an hour racking my brain and then 20 minutes searching the internet for these stupid little things I couldn’t remember the name of. They’re pretty handy when you need one.
Dr. Horrible in HD
Still great.
The Modern’s Other Renovation
Andrew Blum on Matthew Carter’s 2003 refresh of Franklin Gothic for MoMA.
NodeBox
The more I explore this site, the more I love the work this group is doing.
Lacuna
(n) : a small opening; a small pit or depression; a small blank space; a gap or vacancy; a hiatus; an absent part, especially in a book or other piece of writing, often referring to an ancient manuscript or similar
Google Chrome Comic
Interesting stuff. Looking forward to trying this out.
The Impending Moustache
Just saw these guys perform yesterday night. Great use of dramatic performance for comedic effect.
Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech
Another great speech from an inspiring Democratic National Convention.
Breaking Down the 10-Meter Dive
More cool diving material from the NY Times:
John Wingfield, the head coach of U.S.A. Diving, explains U.S. diver David Boudia’s technique from the 10-meter platform.
The Diver’s View
The NY Times has a nice 3D view of the Water Cube in Beijing from the top of the 30M dive. I can’t even contemplate jumping off something that high. (via Kottke)
Imagining the Tenth Dimension
The companion site to Rob Bryanton’s new book Imagining the Tenth Dimension has an interesting video about, er, imagining the tenth dimension. (via Sadie Lou)
My Big Fat Straight Wedding
Andrew Sullivan has a Comment piece in this month’s Atlantic, discussing the importance of the language of California’s new marriage law. Here’s the shift he thinks the new law embodies:
The premise used to be that homosexuality was an activity, that gays were people who chose to behave badly; or, if they weren’t choosing to behave badly, were nonetheless suffering from a form of sickness or, in the words of the Vatican, an “objective disorder.” And so the question of whether to permit the acts and activities of such disordered individuals was a legitimate area of legislation and regulation.
But when gays are seen as the same as straights—as individuals; as normal, well-adjusted, human individuals—the argument changes altogether. The question becomes a matter of how we treat a minority with an involuntary, defining characteristic along the lines of gender or race. And when a generation came of age that did not merely grasp this intellectually, but knew it from their own lives and friends and family members, then the logic for full equality became irresistible.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
I just can’t help it, I have to link to this, available free on Hulu. Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day are excellent in it, and Nathan Fillion delivers a super-creepy superhero. My favorite songs are the opening and closing of Act II and the next-to-last song of Act III. Great stuff.
What Makes for a Good Blog?
This blog meets none of Merlin Mann’s criteria.
Oh, Snap
Jason Santa Maria exclaims his new Polaroid SX-70 in yet another beautifully art-directed post. Somehow when I look through his new posts, I get a queasy feeling like the whole setup he’s got is a house of cards getting ready to come tumbling down. I just hope the Internet Archive is keeping up with him.
Is Linking to Yourself the Future of the Web?
Interesting piece by Tim O’Reilly. Of course, he ends the article by linking to a Google search page… (via John Gruber)
Ninjawords
Speaking of words I like, I found the online dictionary Ninjawords in 2006 when I discovered Wordie, the social network for pedants and grammarians. Ninjawords has since become my favorite general-purpose online dictionary. (At school, I use the OED when I want to see some etymology.) Ninjawords is light on features, which itself is its greatest feature next to its speed. I personally like the lookup history, which makes it easy to see what words you’ve looked up recently. Great for, among other things, reinforcement when learning new words.
Blather and Lather
blather
(v) : to talk rapidly without making much sense
(n) : nonsensical or foolish talklather
(n) : the foam made by rapidly stirring soap and water
(v) : to cover with lather
I don’t know why, I just love the word blather.
The Joy of $8 Gas
Joel Stein in the LA Times:
If the U.S. were to slowly jack up gas taxes until we’re in the $8 range, life would be better. We’d not only be safer and have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions, we’d probably be happier too. Studies show that the only thing that consistently increases personal happiness is social interaction; high gas prices have led to real estate prices falling faster in suburbs and exurbs than in cities, so we may soon have more content downtown-dwellers. Those same studies show that the thing that makes people least happy is commuting, and telecommuting is way up this year. We could use the tax revenue to fund public transportation. And we’d go back to the days when driving a car was a way to show people what a rich jerk you were. In other words, we would no longer need SUVs for that.
(via Big Contrarian)
Lightning in Slow Motion
Fascinating slow-motion video of a lightning flash. You can actually see the changes in light intensity as the electricity surges. (via Andrew Sullivan)
Roger Cheng on the Gap Between Web-based and Desktop Office Software
I agree with the major points of this article; I think most online office-oriented tools aren’t currently much more than proof-of-concept. We use Google Docs in our editorial process at Sadie Lou. Collaboration is clearly where these web apps shine.
No review of online word processors is complete without a mention of Buzzword, an excellent Flash-based app – probably the best I’ve ever seen. My money is currently on Google Docs however, which seems to continue developing in great strides.
I still think Textile’s the shit.
(via Khoi Vinh)
Clear Links to Current Page with Unobtrusive JavaScript
Handy little javascript (that I’m now using) from Jonathan Snook, back in 2004.
Marvy Le Pen
A bunch of these came in the mail today. Wonderful pens if you tend to have small handwriting.
Against Anti-Foundationalism
Elliott Earls (interviewed here by Steven Heller) discusses the craft of typeface design.
Top Ten Psychology Videos
Psych Central with links to online videos about various psychology topics. I’m still on the first one, given by the author of An Unquiet Mind, but the whole set looks worth exploring.
Birthday Type
Another nice edition of Sunday Type from ILT. The Linotype video is an especially neat find.
Tell Me A Story
Robert Krulwich of Radio Lab gives an excellent commencement address at CalTech about the power and importance of attempting to communicate science stories and truths to non-science-minded people.
TypeCulture Academic Resource
I came across this great online resource the other day full of essays and short videos related to typography. I’ll be exploring the essays in particular over the next few weeks.
Comestible
(adj) : suitable to be eaten; edible
(n) : anything that can be eaten; food
I was absolutely convinced the word for this was combustible. Oh well.
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
Jason Kottke examines the strikingly modern readability of a book published in 1499.