Report from Etech on Jeff Han’s demo
Report from Etech on Jeff Han’s demo of a “multi-touch user interface”. Be sure to watch the videos linked to at the end…it’s the interface from Minority Report in action.
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Entries for March 2006
Jupiter is growing another big red spot.
Jupiter is growing another big red spot. The gas giant has been told by solar system pals to “keep an eye on it” and “have it checked out” if it gets any bigger.
Mountain anatomy
M: That sign says Killington is “The Heart of the Green Mountains”.
J: Yeah?
M: But there’s a sign in Rochester that says the same thing. Which one is the actual heart?
J: Maybe the Green Mountains are like Klingons and have two hearts?
Not a big surprise, but it looks
Not a big surprise, but it looks like Barry Bonds took all sorts of performance-enhancing drugs in the last few years of his career, including the season he hit 73 home runs.
Critics pan some Academy Award-winning films. Said
Critics pan some Academy Award-winning films. Said Slate’s David Edelstein of Life is Beautiful: “Benigni’s movie made me want to throw up.”
Gelf Magazine has an interview with the
Gelf Magazine has an interview with the Smoking Gun’s William Bastone about their expose of James Frey.
I can’t believe The Legend of Zelda
I can’t believe The Legend of Zelda is 20 years old. One of my proudest gaming accomplishments was beating Zelda without dying, using only the wooden sword.
Three years ago, Jonathan Rauch wrote an
Three years ago, Jonathan Rauch wrote an article for The Atlantic Monthly called Caring for Your Introvert, one of my favorite pieces of magazine writing ever. He recently did an interview about the piece, which is the most popular article ever posted to the Atlantic’s Web site.
This is fascinating…”sex might have evolved
This is fascinating…”sex might have evolved as a way to concentrate lots of harmful mutations into individual organisms so they could be easily weeded out by natural selection”.
Eliot Shepard has some advice for those
Eliot Shepard has some advice for those entering a photography competition…or really, on how you might go about taking a good photo.
Modernist prefab houses are all the rage
Modernist prefab houses are all the rage these days. “Designed by architects, constructed in factories and trucked to their sites, these houses had the look the couple wanted, at a lower price.” The Dwell House had a lot to do with current interest is modern prefab housing.
Kirby Puckett dies at age 45. Aw, shoot.
Kirby Puckett dies at age 45. Aw, shoot. As a local, I cheered the Twins on to their two World Series victories…I can still hear Bob Casey’s “KIR-beeeeeeeeee PUCK-it” echoing around the Metrodome.
Amanda Spielman created a brochure for Ephemeral
Amanda Spielman created a brochure for Ephemeral City which she handed out on the F Train. “The brochure — an aesthetic cross between McSweeney’s and Edward Tufte — evokes a fantasy culture where poetry and bicycle riding are exalted pastimes, and geographic features have names like Sea of Enumeration and Untold Islands.”
The intro to The Simpsons, performed with
The intro to The Simpsons, performed with real people. YouTube is almost endlessly diverting.
Wired Magazine profiles Josh Davis. Davis typically
Wired Magazine profiles Josh Davis. Davis typically gets too much credit for being controversial and too little for his work. His speeches/appearances are well worth seeking out; they’re entertaining, informative, and inspiring.
I’m surprised Crash won the Best Picture
I’m surprised Crash won the Best Picture Oscar last night, but Time’s Richard Corliss thinks it makes sense, given that the movie was about LA. I really liked Crash when I saw it back in June, so I’m not disappointed.
Want to learn how to be a
Want to learn how to be a doctor? Check out these surgery videos on Google Video.
Reading about someone watching the Oscars is
Reading about someone watching the Oscars is just as interesting (if not more) as watching the Oscars. I’m sans TV tonight but have plenty of Internet…whaddya gonna do?
Whitney Biennial 2006, through May 28 in NYC. NY
Whitney Biennial 2006, through May 28 in NYC. NY Times review. Momus describes his first day as a performance artist at the Biennial.
Bruce Cole shares his Academy Award-winning steak
Bruce Cole shares his Academy Award-winning steak cooking technique.
Update: Bruce’s technique is very close to that of Alain Ducasse…but Ducasse finishes the steak with butter and garlic. Whoa, momma. (thx, bryan)
A world map with the current locations
A world map with the current locations of hundreds of ships. Fascinating. Look at how crowded the vast Pacific is.
I recently linked to a debate between
I recently linked to a debate between Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell about health care that took place in 2000. Gladwell has recently updated his thinking on the issue here and here, saying that “I now agree with virtually everything Adam said and disagree with virtually everything I said”. (via lots of readers last week, when I forgot to post about it…was spurred into action this AM by this)
Jonathan Crowe ran an Olympics-themed weblog for
Jonathan Crowe ran an Olympics-themed weblog for Athens 2004 and Torino 2006. Interestingly, the 2004 version got a lot more traffic, but more recent one made him more money via Google AdSense. “Whether [the increase is] due to better ad block positioning, ‘better’ ads (more on-target or more lucrative), a ‘better’ audience, or simply a more mature advertising network, I have no idea.”
Velour sweatpants with “del.icio.us” on
Velour sweatpants with “del.icio.us” on the ass, modeled after Juicy Couture. (thx, katie)
Olympics wrap-up
I’ve got a few stories about the Winter Olympics open in tabs, so in the interest of getting rid of them:
- Photographer Vincent Laforet discusses his process in getting the photographs he wants.
- How the broadcast graphics were done for NBC’s coverage of the Olympics.
- The Nation on what went wrong with NBC’s coverage.
- Here’s the New Yorker’s take on the TV coverage.
Finally, Gelf Magazine compares Olympic predictions with the actual results. The media outlets surveyed all predicted higher medal counts for the US, but weren’t off by that much (aside from the ridiculous AP predicitons). Only NBC and Nike were surprised that Bode Miller sucked so royally.
Part 2 of the Bill Simmons/Malcolm Gladwell
Part 2 of the Bill Simmons/Malcolm Gladwell conversation is even better than part 1. They really rip into what Isiah Thomas has done as GM of the Knicks. “The mess [Thomas] is creating right now in New York will be studied by business school students 50 years from now alongside Enron and pets.com.”
DIY book publishing
37signals has published their latest book, Getting Real, as a PDF download that they are distributing themselves. After more than a day, they’ve sold over 1750 copies at $19 apiece:
That’s exciting. These numbers demolish the sales pace of our first book, Defensive Design for the Web, which was released through the traditional publisher/bookstore model. DIY publishing: There’s a new sheriff in town.
If you do the math, that’s ~$33,000 in sales in one day. I don’t know what the advance would be on a book like that, but they’ve got to be approaching it, and if/when they reach that figure, the profit margin on subsequent sales will be much higher than the royalties paid by a publishing company. Interesting experiment.
Girlhacker’s annual listing of what’s in the
Girlhacker’s annual listing of what’s in the goodie basket that gets handed out to presenters and performers at the Oscars. In the bag this year: Canadian travel, an espresso machine, olive oil, and days of free hotel stays. (via waxy)
Andy got a cease and desist from
Andy got a cease and desist from Bill Cosby’s legal team for hosting the satirical House of Cosbys videos, and he’s going to fight it. “More than anything, this strikes me as a special kind of discrimination against amateur creators on the Internet. Mad Magazine, Saturday Night Live, South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and countless other mainstream media sources have parodied Bill Cosby over the years.”
Meghann Marco, the woman who was upset
Meghann Marco, the woman who was upset at her publishing company for 1) not putting her book on Google Print, and 2) instead suing Google, has finally gotten her book listed on Google Print.
Short interview with David Foster Wallace in
Short interview with David Foster Wallace in the San Antonio Current.
Part one of a wonderful rambling email
Part one of a wonderful rambling email exchange between sportswriter Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell. Part two on the morrow. (thx, richard)
James Nieuhues’ ski report paintings
The Captain of Design himself points us to the ski trail maps of James Nieuhues. Nieuhues is a prolific fellow…he’s done paintings for most of the large ski resorts in the western US.
BurgerClub
BurgerClub is a message board for hambuger enthusiasts. NYC-centric, but includes other locales.
Fractal bacteria
Pruned has collected some lovely petri dish scenes full of fractal patterns.
Billions and billions of bacterial landscape architects pruning — no less in environments poisoned with antibiotics — other bacterial landscape architects, dead or alive, to form dazzling arabesque parterres. The self-organizing embroidery of organisms in constant Darwinian mode.
More here. See also ferrofluid.
Pre-order Subversive Cross Stitch, the book. (via hc)
Pre-order Subversive Cross Stitch, the book. (via hc)
Movie trailer mash-up: Toy Story 2 + Requiem for a Dream.
Movie trailer mash-up: Toy Story 2 + Requiem for a Dream.
Out of Sight
Or as I now like to call it, Ocean’s Ten. (Also, I like Don Cheadle a lot, but I just don’t find him plausible as either his nutball former boxer criminal role in Out of Sight or as the Cockney thief in Ocean’s Eleven/Twelve. Soderdude, find a better character for him in your next film.)
Russia plans to drive a golf ball
Russia plans to drive a golf ball off of the ISS with a gold-plated, scandium alloy six-iron into a four-year, low-earth orbit….which may actually damage the space station if the ball is not “hit out of the station’s orbital plane”. I understand this event will be debuting at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Quick interview with Nick Park about Wallace
Quick interview with Nick Park about Wallace and Gromit. I’m testing an experimental Salon feature where if you click through to an article from kottke.org, you don’t have to apply for a Day Pass to read it…let’s see if it works.
Update: Didn’t quite work for me…clicking the link took me to Salon’s front page, not to the article. I clicked the back button and tried again and it worked the second time. Anyone else have a problem with it?
Update #2: Other people are having the same problem and Salon is looking into it.
A lesson in sports uniform typography: vertically
A lesson in sports uniform typography: vertically arched lettering versus the easier-but-cheesier radially arched lettering. (via do)
A statement on art statements. “I have
A statement on art statements. “I have no way of actually proving this, but I am convinced that many photographers do not have all that stuff from their statements in their heads and then go out to shoot the photography. I have the suspicion that some of them, after having shot their photos, have a hard time writing something that can pass as a statement, because ‘I just wanted to take beautiful photos of rubble piles’ somehow doesn’t appear to be acceptable.”
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