What do they use in the movies
What do they use in the movies when you see people snorting cocaine? Powdered sugar, baking powder, powdered milk, soy baby formula, or Ovaltine.
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Entries for April 2006
The HIPerWall at the University of California,
The HIPerWall at the University of California, Irvine is a giant monitor made from 50 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays. It’s built for science, but you just know someone’s hooked a GameCube up to it and played Mario Kart. More here.
The evolution of the design of the
The evolution of the design of the Netflix envelope. We started using Netflix pretty early on, but I don’t remember the first 3 or 4 designs.
Hollywood studios are increasingly not showing their
Hollywood studios are increasingly not showing their movies to critics before the official release. “The media world is changing, and the people they want to reach are the kids who are looking at MySpace.com and exchanging instant messages about pictures aimed at them. Conventional critics don’t matter.”
Taste of Chinatown tomorrow (4/22) in NYC. Taste
Taste of Chinatown tomorrow (4/22) in NYC. Taste a variety of Chinese food for not so much money.
Bouchon Bakery has dog biscuits with foie
Bouchon Bakery has dog biscuits with foie gras and bacon in them. Taste test verdict? “Not good for humans. Good for spoiled dogs.”
“Why do the letters of the alphabet
“Why do the letters of the alphabet occur in the particular order that they do?”
Color palette of the Caribbean
Luke Wroblewski wrote an article for Boxes and Arrows about using colors found in nature as inspiration for color palettes used in designing web sites. Unfortunately, the photos showing Luke’s examples don’t appear to be working on the site (the images have been fixed…thx, Lars), but Dave Shea published an image that illustrates Luke’s technique.
When you’re on the beach in the Caribbean as I was recently, it’s difficult for the color palette to escape your notice. I whipped up this collection of colors from some of my photos (coming soon) from Mexico:
From left to right, you’ve got the pale blue of the ocean close to shore, the light brown of the sand, the green of the lush vegetation, and the deep clear blue of the sky.
Update: A couple people asked, so here are the hex values for the above colors: 3DB8AE, FFEDD8, 396600, and 0050A2, respectively.
Long, varied, and interesting recap from a
Long, varied, and interesting recap from a participant at the 2006 United States Barista Championship. The drink he prepared for the competition (scroll to the bottom for the recipe) was called Coffee and a Cigar, a coffee drink with tobacco in it. “The tray never touches the table - ever. That’s just a faux pas that I think should result in immediate disqualification. What reason is there to place your dirty tray bottom on your clean table? None.”
Carl Durrenberger noticed some word for word
Carl Durrenberger noticed some word for word similarities between Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson’s unwritten rules (as detailed in this USA Today article about the waiter rule) and those in a book written by a 1944 book called The Unwritten Laws of Engineering. Swanson claims to have written the rules himself during his career at Raytheon.
John Gruber steps in front of the
John Gruber steps in front of the bus that is making a full-time living from your weblog. As a supporter of DF for the past two years, I wish John the best of luck.
Because of their Dollar Menu (which doesn’t
Because of their Dollar Menu (which doesn’t feature any of their recently added healthy menu items), sales at McDonald’s have risen sharply over the last three years. In the article, a McDonald’s rep calls the Egg McMuffin “a very nutritious sandwich”. I like me some McMuffin, but if you look at its nutrition info (22% of your daily saturated fat and 77% of your daily cholesterol…and a McMuffin isn’t that big), it’s hard to imagine the circumstances under which you could call it “very nutritious”.
eGullet has serveral publicly available online classes
eGullet has serveral publicly available online classes you can take, including this one on wine tasting. Looks like a great resource.
It’s easier to watch movies than to read books
This list of the 50 best book to film adaptions that I posted yesterday inspired Michael Hanscom to mark which of the movies he’s seen and which of the books he’s read. Here’s my list:
1. [BM] 1984
2. [BM] Alice in Wonderland
3. [M] American Psycho
4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
5. Brighton Rock
6. Catch 22
7. [BM] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
8. [M] A Clockwork Orange
9. [BM] Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
10. The Day of the Triffids
11. Devil in a Blue Dress
12. [M] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
13. [M] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
14. [M] Doctor Zhivago
15. [M] Empire of the Sun
16. [M] The English Patient
17. [M] Fight Club
18. The French Lieutenant’s Woman
19. [M] Get Shorty
20. [M] The Godfather
21. [M] Goldfinger
22. [M] Goodfellas
23. [M] Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
24. [B] The Hound of the Baskervilles
25. Jaws
26. The Jungle Book
27. A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
28. [M] LA Confidential
29. [M] Les Liaisons Dangereuses
30. [BM] Lolita
31. [M] Lord of the Flies
32. The Maltese Falcon
33. Oliver Twist
34. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
35. Orlando
36. [BM] The Outsiders
37. [BM] Pride and Prejudice
38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
39. The Railway Children
40. Rebecca
41. [M] The Remains of the Day
42. [M] Schindler’s Ark (aka Schindler’s List)
43. [M] Sin City
44. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
45. [M] The Talented Mr Ripley
46. Tess of the D’Urbervilles
47. Through a Glass Darkly
48. To Kill a Mockingbird
49. [M] Trainspotting
50. The Vanishing
51. Watership Down
Note: In the cases of more than one movie adaptation (e.g. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), I marked it as viewed if I’d seen any version of the movie. Also, like Michael, I have no idea why the “top 50” list has 51 items.
The company that makes Moleskine notebooks is
The company that makes Moleskine notebooks is putting itself up for sale. Says the head of the company, “Moleskine is growing very quickly and it is becoming too big for us. We do not have the capacity to follow it through.” Hipsters and GTDers ponder an uncertain organizational future. (via moleskinerie)
Ed Levine gets served a hot dog
Ed Levine gets served a hot dog at Per Se. “I’m quite sure this was the first time Thomas Keller ever served anyone a hot dog in one of his restaurants.” Let’s see if this works…I totally want a hot dog next time I’m at Per Se. (via the eater)
Rule of thumb from CEOs: forget how
Rule of thumb from CEOs: forget how people treat you, how they treat the waiter is a window to their true character. “A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person.”
Chris Ware, unwilling to compromise the quality
Chris Ware, unwilling to compromise the quality of his products, moves his ACME Novelty Library series from Fantagraphics to Drawn & Quarterly. (via waxy)
The Junk Charts blog searches for example
The Junk Charts blog searches for example of crappy graphs and charts in the media. (via do)
A fan site on MySpace for the
A fan site on MySpace for the hot UK band Arctic Monkeys reportedly sold for $2000+, although it’s unclear (because they took the auction page down) if eBay allowed the transaction to go through. Mena, how much for Ready Steadman Go?
BLDGBLOG posts a series of maps showing
BLDGBLOG posts a series of maps showing how, through the movement of the earth’s tectonic plates, North America came to its present position and shape. Full set of maps here.
Update: Mike Migurski combined the maps into an awesome movie spanning 550 million years. It’s….wait for it…..the longest movie ever made!
Henry Abbott lets us know about Flint
Henry Abbott lets us know about Flint Star, a documentary film about basketball in Flint, Michigan. “It’s amazing to watch. Six year olds who can dribble between their legs and hit a fadeaway. Dribble penetration followed by vicious alley-oop dunks. Flagrant fouls that will make you bark out loud as you’re watching the DVD in bed next to your sleeping wife.”
Time lapse videos from Vimeo, which relaunched nicely today.
Time lapse videos from Vimeo, which relaunched nicely today.
Interview with Miuccia Prada and Rem Koolhaas
Interview with Miuccia Prada and Rem Koolhaas on the occasion of the reopening the of Soho store here in NYC. In it, she rebuts the rumor that she might do a design for H&M. And 3.5 years on, Prada still doesn’t know what to do with their web site. (thx, anne)
Rumor has it that Miuccia Prada might
Rumor has it that Miuccia Prada might design some clothing for H & M.
A Manchester scientist has come up with
A Manchester scientist has come up with a mathematical formula to assess the perfection of the female derriere. “Dr Holmes said that Kylie Minogue, whose celebrated bottom relaunched her career with the help of a pair of hotpants, would almost certainly score a perfect 80.”
A list of the 50 greatest film adaptations
A list of the 50 greatest film adaptations of all time. No Lord of the Rings? Anything else missing?
John Hodgman comments on the first few “
John Hodgman comments on the first few “shuffled” tracks of his mp3 collection.
View the finalists of the Smithsonian’s 3rd
View the finalists of the Smithsonian’s 3rd annual photo contest. Here’s last year’s winners.
Recently found Gospel of Judas reveals that
Recently found Gospel of Judas reveals that Jesus asked Judas to betray him.
L is for green peppers
At lunch today, I ordered the pizza of the day, a BLT pizza. When it arrived, it was completely missing the L and had green peppers on it instead (which was apparently how it was supposed to be). That got us joking about how the restaurant just tosses random ingredients in their dishes and we amused ourselves for (probably) far too long by coming up with different not-so-tasty combinations.
We ordered the apple crisp for dessert (me: “I love apple crisp”) and digging in upon its arrival, we discovered that half of the apples were actually peaches. (WTF?) Then the waiter showed up with an iced tea instead of Jonah’s espresso — an actual mistake this time, they were for another table — but the damage was done and I was spraying apple/peach crisp/cobbler all over the place from laughing so hard about our meal from the Random Cafe.
A gigantic movie timeline that incorporates events
A gigantic movie timeline that incorporates events from tons of movies. “Who’d have thought that while Gangs of New York’s Amsterdam Vallon was killing Butcher Bill, down the road Abraham Lincoln was being kidnapped by Bill & Ted”.
Writers and editors
Upon my return to civilization last week, Greg Knauss wrote up some thoughts he had after doing the remaindered links here for two weeks. His thoughts, reproduced in full:
Over the past two weeks, David Jacobs, Anil Dash and I have attempted to reproduce (in some halting way) Jason Kottke, while the actual Jason Kottke was
in rehabon his honeymoon. The attempt, on my part at least, has been an abject failure. Or haven’t you noticed all the crappy links with “GK” at the end of them? Go-kart magazines? What the hell?Like most of the disasters I’ve had a hand in, I’ve got a theory that both explains what happened and exonerates me. Ducking responsibility sounds better if you put on academic airs about it.
The theory: There are two kinds of bloggers, referential and experiential. Kottke is one. I, now two weeks too late in realizing this, am another.
The referential blogger uses the link as his fundamental unit of currency, building posts around ideas and experiences spawned elsewhere: Look at this. Referential bloggers are reporters, delivering pointers to and snippets of information, insight or entertainment happening out there, on the Intraweb. They can, and do, add their own information, insight and entertainment to the links they unearth — extrapolations, juxtapositions, even lengthy and personal anecdotes — but the outward direction of their focus remains their distinguishing feature.
The experiential blogger is inwardly directed, drawing entries from personal experience and opinion: How about this. They are storytellers (and/or bores), drawing whatever they have to offer from their own perspective. They can, and do, add links to supporting or explanatory information, even unique and undercited external sources. But their motivation, their impetus, comes from a desire to supply narrative, not reference it.
There’s nothing here to imply that one type of blogger is better than the other. There are literally thousands — OK, hundreds… OK, at least a dozen — of both kinds that are valuable additions to the on-going conversation/food-fight/furry-cuddle that is the Internet. My point is that Jason Kottke is a very, very good referential blogger and I am a very, very bad one. And I’m sure I wouldn’t have trouble finding a link that expresses this sentiment (many, many times over, with varying degrees of vehemence), but I’d rather say it from my own experience:
Welcome back, Jason. You’ve been missed.
After reading Greg’s thoughts, Meg reminded me that Rebecca Blood had made a distinction between filter-style and journal-style bloggers in Weblogs: A History and Perspective. If you want to generalize outside the realm of weblogs, they’re both talking about the difference between writers and editors1.
At a party a couple of years ago, I was talking to Nick Denton and he was puzzled by the number of bloggers who were getting book deals and told me that “the natural upgrade path for bloggers is from blogging to editing, not to writing”. As Greg and Rebecca note, that doesn’t apply to everyone, but it sure describes what I do here. kottke.org has always been more edited than written. I’ve never particularly thought of myself as a writer (I get by, but I wish I were better), but I do pay a lot of attention to how the writing is presented and contextualized…how the overall package “feels”.
[1] And if you want to go even further out on the metaphorical gangplank here, the writer/editor dichotomy compares well to that of the musician/DJ. ↩
Nevermind…the video is fake. This is
Nevermind…the video is fake. This is one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen….graffiti artist/entrepreneur Marc Ecko tagged Air Force One. The US govt can’t even effectively guard the President’s plane…how does Homeland Security expect to do it with all commercial passenger airplanes? (via airbag)
kottke.org: #1 Google search result for “nude
kottke.org: #1 Google search result for “nude paddleball players”. (thx, jonah)
Cameratruck is a camera built out of
Cameratruck is a camera built out of a box van…essentially a giant pinhole camera. The negatives are almost three meters wide and are developed inside the truck/camera. The tour page has examples of photographs taken with the truck.
A contest to find the meanest review.
A contest to find the meanest review. What, no Dale Peck? A review of his got him a smack in the face…
Typographica identifies all the fonts in the
Typographica identifies all the fonts in the font-o-riffic opening titles for Thank You for Smoking.
This is great…Kyle MacDonald started with
This is great…Kyle MacDonald started with a single red paperclip almost a year ago and is trying to trade up to a house. He’s made 10 swaps so far and is currently offering one year of free rent in Phoenix.
Online TurboTax as a text adventure game. “
Online TurboTax as a text adventure game. “I should write up a complete walkthrough to solve Tax Return 2006 in as few moves as possible.”
Jakob noticed an interesting effect…if you
Jakob noticed an interesting effect…if you take two copies of the same video, play them side-by-side a few frames out of sync, and do the cross-your-eyes thing that you do with stereoscopic images, you’ll see the video in 3-D.
The Deck
Starting next month, kottke.org will be joining The Deck, a “creative, web + design professionals advertising network” consisting of Waxy.org, 37signals, The Morning News, Coudal Partners, Daring Fireball, A List Apart, and now this site. Here’s the announcement. I am honored for kottke.org to be associated with these fine sites.
Functionally, this means that a small ad (120x90 pixels) accompanied by a bit of text will appear on (nearly) every single page of the site beginning May 1. If you’ve been paying any sort of attention over the past few years, you know I’m not a big fan of advertising and putting ads on kottke.org was almost the last thing on my mind. From the perspective of the reader/viewer, ads are often pushy, irrelevant, redundant, deceitful, insipid, or just plain poorly done. But advertising can also be useful when it communicates clearly, is relevant to its audience, doesn’t attempt to mislead, and lets the product/service in question sell itself. An artfully done advertisement can raise the boats of all concerned: the advertiser sells more products, the reader/viewer is informed of useful or appealing products and services, and the content provider is able to feed and clothe her family.
In the past few years, mechanisms for the delivery of advertising have evolved outside the purview of traditional advertising agencies. Two of the better efforts I’ve seen are Google’s AdSense (simple, straightforward, highly relevant (most of the time anyway)) and small ad networks like The Deck (high quality, considered, relevant). For instance, here’s The Deck’s policy on accepting ads:
We’re picky about the advertising we’ll accept. We won’t take an ad unless we have paid for and/or used the product or service. Sell us something relevant to our audience and we’ll sell you an ad.
That’s a pretty sweet deal for advertisers and readers alike. In the past, I’ve dismissed advertising without experiencing it from the perspective of the content provider. By giving The Deck a go on kottke.org, I hope to gain a better understanding of the issue and fulfill my desire to keep doing kottke.org as a (nearly) full-time endeavor.
Review of Why? by Charles Tilly, in
Review of Why? by Charles Tilly, in which he examines the four kinds of reasons people offer as explanations for things and under which situations they are used. See also an October 2005 interview with Tilly.
Ironic Sans has an ongoing series of
Ironic Sans has an ongoing series of posts about animated Manhattan; that is, depictions of Manhattan in animated films and shows. So far he’s covered The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Tom & Jerry.
Demographic charts for New York City using
Demographic charts for New York City using data from 1790 to the present.
Book blog starts Fibonacci poem fad, i.
Book blog starts Fibonacci poem fad, i.e. the writing of poems where the number of syllables in each line is dictated by the Fibonacci sequence. “Poets are very, very hungry for constraint right now.”
Gladwell’s reading Game of Shadows (which alleges
Gladwell’s reading Game of Shadows (which alleges that Barry Bonds took steroids) and proposes that record setters like Bonds, Flo Jo, and Bob Beamon should be subjected to a high degree of statistical analysis before their records should be allowed to stand. (followup)
Kevin Ray Underwood, suspected of killing 10-year-old
Kevin Ray Underwood, suspected of killing 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin, wrote an entry on his blog the day after Bolin disappeared and the day before he was discovered and arrested. His Blogger profile is here: “If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner?”
Update: Here’s Underwood’s Amazon wishlist.
Update: His MySpace page is “undergoing routine maintenance”. Riiiight. (But a recent post survived.)
Update: Some speculation in the comments on Underwood’s latest post that his interest in atheism and evolution was a contributing factor in the killing.
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