Entries for February 2006
My pal Judith lost her camera on vacation in Hawaii and tried to make the best of the situation by starting a project using other people’s Flickr photos to reconstruct a trip journal. Now, a family has found her camera but won’t give it back to her because they don’t want to take it away from the 9 yo kid that found it. “We can’t tell him that he has to give it up. Also we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card”. The dishonesty displayed here is maddening.
Wes Felter calls for the ass fact-checking of William Safire over the latter’s article in the NY Times about blog jargon and he’s not wrong. Wes correctly notes the etymology of “weblog” and “blog” and hopefully the people responsible for things like the AP Style Guide, English dictionaries, and influential columns like On Language will, at some point, do the 20 minutes of research necessary to convince them and the unwashed journalist masses that “blog” is not and was never short for “web log”.
Safire also gets tripped up on where the word “blogosphere” came from. While William Quick’s usage in 2002 popularized the term, Brad Graham first used the term in 1999.
Check out all of the chrome in the new version of Outlook. Good grief. Even the veracity of the emailer’s claim is questionable.
Beautiful people commit less crime. “Other studies have shown that unattractive men and women are less likely to be hired, and that they earn less money, than the better-looking. Such inferior circumstances may steer some to crime, Mocan and Tekin suggest.”
If you’re running out of travel ideas, perhaps you need to read 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. (via nelson)
…Jotspot, Frappr, Yedda, Writeboard, Kanoodle, Memeorandum, SuprGlu, 43 Things, Findory, Clipmarks, Wayfaring, AllPeers, Zoozio, Ziggs, Wink, Reddit, Digg, Gumshoo, Ta-da List, Wikipedia, Pubsub, Ookles, YubNub, Bloop, FeedBurner, Bloglines, Gabbr, Gcast, Blinkx, Openomy, Riffs, Myspace, Pandora, LookLater, 30 Boxes, Rollyo, Squishr, Plazes, Noodly, Wondir, Protopage, Blummy, Jots, Vizu, Del.icio.us, Tagyu, Writely, Simpy, Gtalkr, Truveo, EgoSurf, Mozy, Quimble, Basecamp, Squidoo, NewsVine, Clipfire, Lookster, Netvibes, Facebook, Goowy, Yelp, Magnolia, Technorati, Gmail, Feedmarker, Mercora, StumbleUpon, and SpinSpy all have in common?
They’re all web sites. The truth was staring us right in the face all this time.
ps. Damn Movable Type and its restriction on the number of characters I can put in the title of a post. varchar(255) my ass.
People are changing how they spend their money, opting for buying experiences rather than things. “Just as we moved from a goods to a service economy, now we are shifting from a service to an experience economy.” (thx, malatron)
Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery is set to open in the Time Warner Center on March 6. They’re going to “serve various breads, pastries, and cookies of the highest quality” as well as “sandwiches, salads, soups, and even hand-made chocolates”.
Some big brands like Coke, McDonald’s, and Disney are growing more unpopular with “global teens”. “What applies to young people is ‘Did it break? And did my friends say it was cool?’ [It’s an] opinion process that goes on through IMs and text-messaging, and it applies to everything from movies to cargo pants.” (thx, stan)
How to choose steak at the supermarket. “If the words ‘chuck’ or ‘round’ are in the name of the steak, it will need to be marinated and then slowly cooked in liquid to be tender.”
“If I were told that I had one last meal before I died and then I was given the choice between a super chic 15 course degustation meal cooked by Thomas Keller, Tetsuya Wakuda, Ferran Adria and Joel Robuchon and a perfect cheeseburger, the choice would be easy. I’d pick the burger without a moment’s hesitation.”
The Remembering Site is a place to create and share personal histories. The questions the site asks when recording your rememberances are quite extensive (here’s a sample biography/history)…what a great way to record the details of your life for your family and loved ones.
A collection of “stupid nude calendars”. I confess that I found this while looking for photos from the racy curling calendar…but I came away empty-handed. (Only slightly NSFW.)
The Brokeback Mountain humor industry is in full swing these days, but I thought this one was pretty funny: Weekly Grocery Lists for Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, Summer 1962. (via lia)
Earlier today I posted a link to Frank Bruni’s new food blog over at the NY Times. At the same time, I added a comment to this post about how restaurant reservations work here in NYC. I went back to see if there was any further conversation and my comment had been deleted (or had otherwise disappeared). Not such a good start. I’ve resubmitted the comment…we’ll see how long it lasts.
A look at the special Valentine’s Day dinner that White Castle offered yesterday. Tablecloths (well, not cloth exactly), candles, menus with a scripty font, table service, and a crystal candy dish. Awesome. More photos on Flickr.
NY Times food critic Frank Bruni has a new blog where he’s going to write about some of the stuff that happens during his eating week that doesn’t make it into the newspaper. Here’s the intro post.
Church of the Customer takes a look at how a Northern California restaurant called Cyrus competes with The French Laundry in attracting local customers, particularly those from wineries with big expense accounts for entertaining clients:
1. Match your competitor’s exceptional quality.
The food at both restaurants was cooked perfectly and beautifully presented. Both delivered flawless service. By matching the quality of its better-known competitor, Cyrus removes the primary barriers of opposition.
2. Allow your customers to customize.
The French Laundry offers three prix-fixe menus of nine courses each. Cyrus allows its customers to choose their number of courses and the dishes.
Local competition still matters. You usually think of restaurants like The French Laundry as competing on a national or international level. Over the years, Keller’s flagship has made several short lists of the best restaurants in the world. But as this article demonstrates, having to compete for the same pool of local customers can drive competitors to achieve a high level of excellence, higher perhaps than they would have achieved without that competition, and that excellence could lead to wider recognition. Even companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Amazon who compete on a global level and don’t interact with their customers face-to-face still have to vie with each other for local resources, particularly employees.
Christopher Hitchens takes Garrison Keillor to task for slamming Bernard-Henri Levy’s take on the US, American Vertigo. I’m patiently waiting for someone to take on Hitchens on Keillor on Levy on America.
Presenting the Bible’s Book of Genesis in rap songs. For instance, the song for Genesis 21 — which tells the story of Isaac and Ishmael — is Big Poppa by Notorious B.I.G.
CNN International redesigned their on-screen graphics. You can see the definite influence of lo-fi web design here…those screens look like a web site. I’d love to see these in action.
Update: A UK firm called Kemistry did the work.
Camino, a web browser for the Mac, finally goes 1.0. It seems like 5 years have passed since I switched away from Camino. I loved it then and I’d switch back in a second if had the features of and was being developed to the extent of Firefox or Safari. (via df)
Interview with David Remnick about the revitalization of the New Yorker and what exactly it is that makes that magazine unique. “My principle in the magazine - and I am not being arrogant - is that I don’t lose sleep trying to figure what the reader wants. I don’t do surveys. I don’t check the mood of the consumers. I do what I want, what interests me and a small group of editors that influences the way of the magazine.” (thx, george)
Through an improbable series of clerical errors, I am scheduled to participate in a “keynote conversation” about professional blogging with Heather Armstrong at SXSW in Austin, Texas next month. Armstrong, so the story goes, got fired for blogging at work and was rewarded with a loving husband, cutie-pie daughter, photogenic dog, several television appearances, hundreds of media mentions, and a new job — talking about poop all day — that supports her entire family. And so but by the way, she’s also headlining the entire SXSW Festival along with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Neil Young. Which makes me approximately chopped liver. When I told Meg about the headlining thing, she said, “boy, that conversation had better be good”. Pressure’s on, Heather.
To sum up, a piece of chopped liver will be having a chat with a nice lady from Utah next month about blogging for groceries. Should be fun.
How to fold a fitted sheet perfectly. We’ve been having a bit of a problem with this in our household lately, so this is helpful.
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