March 2010
2 posts
WatchWeb design clients in real life. This is why no one lets me talk to the clients, because people actually do this shit.
February 2010
10 posts
WatchBest TED Talk I’ve seen this year.
Michael Paul Smith Recreates His Home Town With...
Awesome images. If you didn’t know they were models you’d never guess it. Disappointing lack of Ford trucks though…(via Laughing Squid)
WatchDon’t you hate it when reality beats the crap out of idealism?
The World as a Hologram
This is the sort of thing that’ll make you do a geniune, Keanu-Reeves-in-The-Matrix style “woah.”
If this doesn’t blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic...
“You have a generation — in the next evolutionary stages, the child of...”
– Frank Schirrmacher, via Nicholas Carr
After the iPad
This is what computers should be.
But what’s up with the white dude in the Steven Seagal shirt there at the end? That should definitely not be part of the future.
January 2010
6 posts
Did aliens play a role in Woolworths?
Nice parody of bad science writing; via Ben Goldacre.
Roger Ebert is Turning into Proust
From his latest post:
I dreamed. I was reading Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, and there’s a passage where the hero, lazing on his river boat on a hot summer day, pulls up a string from the water with a bottle of orange soda attached to it and drinks. I tasted that pop so clearly I can taste it today. Later he’s served a beer in a frosted mug. I don’t drink beer, but the...
Hey, Chris Anderson, You're Still Wrong
The long tail, does not exist and never will exist anywhere except in Chris Anderson’s mind and accompanying carefully selected statistical data. The reality is, unfortunately, lot more like this:
“A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a...
December 2009
12 posts
Question:
why are most of the speakers at Le Web speaking English?
Fake Steve Jobs Destroys AT&T
By far the best thing Dan Lyons has done with Fake Steve Jobs in a long time. Regarding AT&T’s suggestion that iPhone users should cut back on their network usage:
Point of the talk was, when you’re lucky enough to create a smash hit product — when the stars align, and the hardware is great and the ecosystem is great and the apps are great and the whole experience is great, and...
Google's Eric Schmidt Wants to Watch You Pee
Google’s Eric Schmidt recently said: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
It’s a classic defense of Orwellian monitoring, but I love Bruce Schneier’s response:
Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we’re doing nothing wrong at the time of...
New David Foster Wallace Short Story
All That, in The New Yorker
“I hear people talking about going on a vacation or something and I think, what...”
– Cormac McCarthy (WSJ interview)
Fugazi Onstage
Awesome compilation of Fugazi stage banter. Favorite line: “what else can I do for you, you little mtv generation piece of shit?” via Snackfight.
WatchNew Zealand Book Council: Going West
November 2009
8 posts
Roberto Bolano on criticism...
M.M.: Have you shed one tear about the widespread criticism you’ve drawn from your enemies?
R.B.: Lots and lots. Every time I read that someone has spoken badly of me I begin to cry, I drag myself across the floor, I scratch myself, I stop writing indefinitely, I lose my appetite, I smoke less, I engage in sport, I go for walks on the edge of the sea, which by the way is less than 30 meters...
1 tag
August 2009
2 posts
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April 2009
1 post
March 2009
11 posts
20 ridiculous complaints made by holidaymakers →
My personal favorites:
“No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled.”
“On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food at all.”
Curious Expeditions: Border Crossing Inside a Salt... →
One of the most delightful border crossings in the world is from Austria to Germany, underground, through a salt mine. The area surrounding Salzburg, Austria is peppered (salted?) with show salt mines, opened to those of us in the public who are fascinated by the only rock we eat. We here at Curious Expeditions firmly believe, however, that the only salt mines worth visiting must include the...
Academic Earth - Video lectures from the world's... →
Like Hulu, but with smart people talking about things that matter.
Learning To Love You More →
Learning to Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher
DIY Cartography with Isotype →
A look at the very beautiful Isotype pictographic language. Created in the 1930s, Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education), is an awesome looking way to display visual data. Something tells me the folks at Good Magazine are well aware of Isotype.
Clay Shirky on the Future of Newspapers
Clay Shirky on the future of newspapers:
Print media does much of society’s heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case. This coverage creates benefits even for people who aren’t newspaper readers, because the work of print journalists is used by everyone from politicians to...
Finding the Charm of Cross-Country Rail Travel →
Pretty good piece on cross country train travel. Worth a bookmark for the links at the end of the article which highlight some famous train trips around the world.
How the Crash Will Reshape America →
If there is one constant in the history of capitalist development, it is the ever-more-intensive use of space. Today, we need to begin making smarter use of both our urban spaces and the suburban rings that surround them—packing in more people, more affordably, while at the same time improving their quality of life. That means liberal zoning and building codes within cities to allow more...