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Kevin Smith has bundled his weblog up into a book of the same title, My Boring Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith. Smith’s an engaging writer about himself, family, and circle of friends; I’ve linked to his weblog several times in the past. His tale of actor Jason Mewes’ (he played Jay in Clerks) drug addiciton and subsequent rehab is especially fine. Available at Amazon or through Smith himself, signed.
A must-see for football fans: NFL TV distribution maps. Check out what football games will be on in which parts of the country.
Stats (wins, losses, probability of making the playoffs, etc.) from the rest of the MLB baseball season, played a million times. “The post-season odds report was compiled by running a Monte Carlo simulation of the rest of the season one million times.” (thx, david)
Microsoft’s Art of Office site showcases artistic creations made with the Office suite of programs…upload your own to participate.
Paul Ford is making a difference. “That barbecue sizzle? Locally raised (ten miles from home), humanely slaughtered heirloom pandas.”
Aw, man…Eliot is ceasing publication on slower.net, one of my favorite photoblogs. Ended on a great note though.
A 1993 New Yorker story by John Seabook called The Flash of Genius is being made into a movie starring Greg Kinnear. The story revolves around Bob Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper and his struggle to get the US auto industry to pay him for infringing on his patent. “There’s no question that Dr. Kearns’ wiper circuit was interesting. He had a three-brush motor, with dynamic brake and intermittent on one speed only — his system was a concatenation of a lot of different ideas. But we figured there was just no way in the world it was patentable. An electronic timing device was an obvious thing to try next. How can you patent something that is in the natural evolution of technology?”
BTW, the phrase “flash of genius” refers to a test of patentability enacted in 1941 saying that the act of invention had to be a “flash of creative genius” on the part of the inventor and not the result of tinkering. That standard was replaced in 1952 by the non-obviousness test.
Tauba Auerbach: startling starting staring string sting sing sin in i. More of her typographic work here.
Joined for Life: Abby and Brittany Turn 16 is a documentary about Abby and Brittany Hensel, conjoined twins who are essentially one physical person with two heads (as well as a few other body parts). From a review of the film by Kevin Kelly: “Endless questions ensue from this documentary about their suburban life. If each girl controls only one arm and one leg, how can they ride a bike? Hit a baseball? Swim? When they drive a car, how do they decide where to turn? And do they get one licence or two? That particular question is answered on their 16th birthday, as this film follows them to the driving test center, where they pass the driving test (both turning the wheel). Their local DMV decides to issue them each one licence.”
A clip from a previous film on the girls is available on YouTube.
Nice black and white photo of the Lava Lands in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.
It was announced in July that it was no longer possible for a human to win a game of checkers against a properly prepared machine. Checkers has been solved. Gelf Magazine looked at several other games (sudoku, chess, Scrabble, Go, etc.) to see if they’d been solved also.
Langstroth’s crucial insight — “I could scarcely refrain from shouting ‘Eureka!’ in the open streets,” he wrote of the moment of revelation — was the concept of “bee space.” He realized that while honeybees will seal up passageways that are either too large or too small, they will leave open passages that are just the right size to allow a bee to pass through comfortably. Langstroth determined that if frames were placed at this “bee-space” interval of three-eighths of an inch, bees would build honeycomb that could be lifted from the hive, rather than, as was the practice up to that point, sliced or hacked out of it. He patented L. L. Langstroth’s Movable Comb Hive in 1852. Today’s version consists of a number of rectangular boxes-the number is supposed to grow during the season-open at the top and at the bottom. Each box is equipped with inner lips from which frames can be hung, like folders in a filing drawer, and each frame comes with special tabs to preserve bee space.
So says Elizabeth Kolbert in an article about colony-collapse disorder, a bee disease that’s wreaking havoc on beehives and food production around the US. Bee space! I’m unsure whether similar research has been done to determine the proper “human space”, although the placement of houses in a suburb, tables in a restaurant, blankets at the beach, or social space in elevators might provide some clues as to the proper measurement.
But returning to the bees, a coalition of scientists working on the problem has found a correlation between bee deaths and Israeli acute paralysis virus. An infusion of bees from Australia in 2004 may also have contributed to the disorder’s development. Full details are available on EurekAlert.
Determining the amount of energy it takes to bring food from farm to table is difficult, but it looks as though shipping in food from afar is, in some cases, more energy efficient than food produced locally and that the transport energy might not matter as much in comparision to the amount of energy it takes to grow the food in the first place. “And it turns out our own part in the chain is often the most damaging, since when we drive to the supermarket, we might come back with only a few of bags of food in the car boot. Such a trip is far less fuel efficient than the one taken by that same food on its way to the supermarket in a truck packed with the assistance of load-optimisation software, which determines how to stack cargo so that barely an inch of empty space is left in the back of the vehicle.”
These half-n-half celebrity face mashups are unsettling. “The right half of a face has to be from one celebrity and the left half from another.” The Bill/Hillary and the Cruise/Holmes ones are especially good.
Timelapse animation of the moon going through a full lunar cycle. Wobble wobble wobble wobble. More info here.
Photographs of girls with meat hair. No further description needed, I trust. See also the meat-themed art of Victoria Reynolds.
Update: More meat art from Pinar Yolacan. (thx, jen)
Apple may have announced their ringtone strategy for the iPhone (30-second ringtones cost $1.98 to make and you must purchase songs through the iTunes Music Store), but Ambrosia Software’s iToner utility lets you make ringtones from any mp3 or acc audio file with a simple drag/drop, all for $15 (free 30-day trial). iToner seems like the clear winner here.
Update: The just-released new version of iTunes (7.4) makes iToner ringtones invisible to the iPhone. Ambrosia is working on an iToner update. (thx, jim)
New web site for Hoefler & Frere-Jones, the noted and celebrated typeface designers, including a weblog. Subscribed. Oh, and the browser fonts of choice for the meticulous duo? “Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans, Verdana, Georgia, Helvetica, Arial” (thx, jonathan)
Filmmaker Errol Morris is writing a blog for the NY Times about photography. It’s supposed to be Times Select only and therefore behind the Times’ stupid paywall, but I can get to it just fine for some reason. His most recent post concerns the confusion over the identity of the hooded man in the iconic Abu Ghraib photograph, which topic Morris is researching for S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure, his upcoming film about the prison and the events that happened there.
Muji announces their NYC Soho location…it’ll be on Broadway just south of Grand. The store opens in November 2007 and will carry furniture, appliances, clothes, and a bunch of other stuff (food?).
Update: No food and no cafes. (thx, armin)
Action films tend not to age well. Raiders is a happy exception. Expertly paced, a trait not shared by many contemporary films, action or otherwise.
As those of you who love slow pans over black and white photography are already aware, Ken Burns has a new documentary coming out on PBS on Sept 23. The War “explores the history and horror of World War II from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who became caught up in one of the greatest cataclysms in human history” in 7 episodes spanning over 15 hours. A 26-minute video preview is available on the PBS site and the DVD is already available for pre-order on Amazon.
Before the 2007 season started, mathematician Bruce Bukiet’s mathematical model predicted the NY Yankees would win 110 games this year…they might win 90 based on their current pace. Related: check out how the team salary vs. performance graph is shaping up as we move into the last few weeks of the 2007 season.
A handy chart comparing various film sizes. Large format 4x5 film contains 15 times the information as 35mm film. Even Canon’s new $8000, 21 megapixel, professional-grade digital camera still has a 35mm-sized sensor. (thx, jake)
Update: Jason sends this note along via email: “If you’re curious about digital vs. film resolution comparisons (which can get complicated), here are two links that might be of interest”: Understanding image sharpness and 4x5” Drum Scanned Film vs. 39 Megapixel Digital. Christian emailed a link to Film is digital and digital is analog.
What with the newborn taking up much of my days, I didn’t have too much time to watch TV this summer. I did catch a few shows, however.
Ninja Warrior. This is my new favorite show to truly zone out to. It’s an obstacle course competition program from Japan called Sasuke, repackaged by the G4 network for an American audience. This YouTube video — featuring my favorite Ninja Warrior competitor, fisherman Makoto Nagano — should provide you with a decent taste of the show. Wikipedia has more information than you probably want to know about the program. Time/place: G4, all hours of the day (but officially 6pm & 10pm ET).
Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? See Idiocracy. See also Miss Teen South Carolina. I couldn’t click away fast enough. Time/place: not even gonna tell you.
Deadwood, season one. Finally got around to checking this out after many recommendations from friends. Big fan so far, through 10 episodes. Gem Saloon owner Al Swearengen is one of the best TV characters in recent memory. Aside from the obvious — Wild Bill, Calamity Jane, and Deadwood itself — I was surprised to learn that many of the characters, events, and establishments in the show actually existed and took place, including Swearengen, E.B., and the Gem. I imagine there’s an extensive discussion on the web somewhere about how much the show deviates from recorded history, but I’m staying away for now for fear of spoilers, having already made the mistake of learning of Wild Bill’s story arc in a book about the Wild West. Time/place: HBO2 is currently rerunning season one at 8pm ET. Also available on DVD, anytime.
The Wire, seasons one, two, and three. Everyone dogs on season two of The Wire (relatively speaking), but after a second viewing, it’s right up there with one and three for me. Collectively the best program ever shown on TV, case closed, next topic, I’m not even gonna discuss that with you. G.O.A.T. However, up for debate: despite being everyone’s favorite character on the show (but not mine), Omar Little is actually the least realistic character on a show defined by its realism. A gay thief/killer/felon who doesn’t swear and adheres to a personal code of conduct? Come on! Time/place: BET is showing episodes of season three on Thursdays at 9:30pm ET, but edited for content and with commercials. Which is like viewing Titian’s nudes with all the naughty bits pixelated out and a “Sponsored by AXE Deodorant Body Spray” banner draped over it. Just get the DVDs…beg, borrow, or steal if you have to.
Planet Earth. A highly recommended nature series that originally aired on the BBC in early 2006 (with David Attenborough narrating) and jumped to the Discovery Channel earlier this year (with Sigourney Weaver narrating). We caught several episodes on Discovery HD, which is a spectacular way to watch the series. My favorite scenes depicted the symbiotic relationships that develop in the wild: snakes and fish hunting together, dolphins and birds herding fish, spiders diving for prey trapped by pitcher plants. NY Times review, Washington Post review, detailed Wikipedia entry. Time/place: Not on TV in the US anymore, as far as I know. Your best bet is on DVD or, if you have an HD player, get the full effect on HD DVD or Blu-ray. Get the Attenborough-narrated version if you can. Oh, it looks like there’s a few highly pixelated complete episodes of Planet Earth on Google Video…get ‘em before they get taken down.
Some Infinite Jest fashion notes: an Enfield Tennis Academy tshirt from Neighborhoodies and…
Was the designer of Infinite Jest’s book cover influenced by the color palette of the Nikes that Andre Agassi wore in 1991? Compelling visual evidence is available at lonelysandwich.
My friend David Galbraith just launched a gadget site called Oobject. The gadgets are organized into hierarchically ordered collections and you can vote on the position of a particular gadget within the collection. Two of my favorite collections are the iPod knock-offs and revolting gold gadgets (it’s interesting that gold makes technology look vulgar and therefore cheap).
Oh, and David’s Smashing Telly is still cranking along nicely. I wish I had time to watch all the shows featured recently.
Ellen Ugelstad’s photo series depicting people and their shoes. The midsections? They are not needed.
I’m a light Etsy user, but Lost Mitten has a great store: Super Mario Bros drink coasters, Katamari Damacy buttons, Bob-omb needlepoint patch, etc. I’m a proud owner of a set of Bubble Bobble coasters. She takes custom orders, will reissue sold items, and all her stuff is 20% off until Thu. (Know of any good Etsy stores? Share them in the comments.)
This is interesting. The PGA offers a non-traditional pension plan for their players that depends on how they perform throughout their careers. Tiger Woods, who performs quite well, could be eligible for almost $1 billion for his retirement if he keeps playing and winning. Billion. Wow.
Apple is holding a special event today at 10am PT to announce a new product. Or something. No one knows exactly what but it seems to have something to do with music. Popular guesses include a 3G iPhone, a different iPod nano, a touchscreen iPod, and the availability of the Beatles entire musical catalog on iTunes. MacWorld, Engadget, MacObserver, and ArsTechnica (among others) will have live coverage.
Update: Jobs announced 99-cent ringtones, new colors for iPod shuffle, new form factor for iPod nano (fat vs. thin), renamed the iPod to iPod classic, introduced new iPod touch (basically the iPhone without the phone), new mobile iTunes Music Store that will work on iPod touch and the iPhone, odd partnership with Starbucks…click to buy currently playing songs in the store and free wifi for iTMS purchases (how about free wifi, period?), and the 8GB iPhone now costs $399. !!!!! I guess Apple’s plan on that was 1) gouge all the early adopters, and then 2) reduce the price to sell iPhones like crazy.
Trailer for In the Shadow of the Moon, a documentary that “brings together for the first, and possibly the last, time surviving crew members from every single Apollo mission that flew to the Moon along with visually stunning archival material re-mastered from the original NASA film footage”. BOY HOWDY! Here’s a review of the film from Ad/Astra, the magazine of the National Space Society.
Show creator David Simon talks with author Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, etc.) in the The August 2007 issue of The Believer. The entire interview isn’t available online but one of the three best bits is:
My standard for verisimilitude is simple and I came to it when I started to write prose narrative: fuck the average reader. I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell.
Simon goes on to talk about the overarching theme of The Wire: the exploration of the postmodern American city and the struggle of the individual against the city’s institutions. Many of his thoughts on that particular subject are contained in this Dec 2006 interview at Slate. But in talking with Hornby, Simon draws a parallel between these city institutions and the Greek gods:
Another reason the show may feel different than a lot of television: our model is not quite so Shakespearian as other high-end HBO fare. The Sopranos and Deadwood — two shows that I do admire — offer a good deal of Macbeth or Richard III or Hamlet in their focus on the angst and machinations of their central characters (Tony Soprano, Al Swearingen). Much of our modern theatre seems rooted in the Shakespearian discovery of the modern mind. We’re stealing instead from an earlier, less-traveled construct — the Greeks — lifting our thematic stance wholesale from Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides to create doomed and fated protagonists who confront a rigged game and their own mortality.
But instead of the old gods, The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomics forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no reason. In much of television, and in a good deal of our stage drama, individuals are often portrayed as rising above institutions to achieve catharsis. In this drama, the institutions always prove larger, and those characters with hubris enough to challenge the postmodern construct of American empire are invariably mocked, marginalized, or crushed. Greek tragedy for the new millenium, so to speak.
The NY Times still deals in the Shakespearian and tells us the story of Donnie Andrews and Fran Boyd (thx, nirav), whom Simon and The Wire co-creator Edward Burns introduced to each other. Andrews was the inspiration for the popular Omar Little character on the show and Boyd was depicted in a previous Simon/Burns collaboration called The Corner. The Times also has their wedding announcement.
And finally, some news about season five. Sadly, instead of 12 or 13 episodes, the final season of the show will only consist of 10 episodes. The shooting of the final episode wrapped on September 1 and the season will premiere on Jan 6, 2008 (both facts courtesy of a Washington Post article about the end of the show). The season 4 DVD should be out a month or two before that. Two actors from Homicide: Life on the Street (based on a book by, you guessed it, David Simon) will appear in the final season: Clark Johnson (who also directed the final episode) and Richard Belzer, who will reprise his Homicide role as Detective John Munch.
Jen Bekman updates us on how Carson Systems is doing on their efforts in gender diversity for their conferences. A: Much better. Whereas their Feb07 Future of Web Apps event had only one woman speaker, their upcoming London event features eight women. See also: gender diversity at web conferences statistics from Feb and Bekman’s list of women speakers for your conference.
After two months of paternity leave and mostly not posting, I’m resuming work on kottke.org today. It’s been wonderful getting to know my son and gaining some much needed perspective, but I’ve missed doing the site too…9.5 years on and there’s so much yet to do. So here we go.
Two quick notes.
1. I’ve saved up several links found while on leave…they’ll be trickling out to the blog for the next few days. Apologies if you’ve seen them before (some you probably haven’t), but if you’ve been paying attention, kottke.org isn’t a place for the exclusively new and fresh. There are several other sites out there for that; they function excellently but I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with much of the blogosphere that whatever is newest is interesting to the detriment of everything else. Bollocks to the new.
2. Several people have inexplicably assumed that since I’m now a father, kottke.org is going to turn into some kind of daddyblog, and furthermore asserted that they’d like that not very much. Rest assured, not going to happen. I’m sure I’ll make occasional mention of the family, but don’t look for posts entitled “Umbrella Stroller Buying Guide” or “How to Buy Gender Neutral Clothing for Your Newborn (A: Don’t Try, This is Nearly Impossible)”. For those who want Ollie, Ollie, Ollie all the time, may I suggest checking out my Flickr stream for the occasional photo.
Today’s NY Times covers virtual book tours, the increasingly popular practice of book authors touring blogs instead of touring the non-virtual bookstores of the US and staying in non-virtual and expensive hotel rooms. From the article’s midst:
[Booktour.com] was founded by Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired and the author of “The Long Tail”; Adam Goldstein, a 19-year-old sophomore at M.I.T.; and Kevin Smokler, a publishing expert credited with creating the first blog book tour. That was for “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by the science writer Mary Roach, in 2003. Since then, Mr. Smokler said, “It’s become de rigueur for public relations to include blogs and online media as part of regular touring.”
kottke.org was one of the tour stops for the Stiff book tour (here’s the entry) but I also participated in the first blog book tour more than a year earlier, for a book called Rainy Day Fun and Games for Toddler and Total Bastard, written by Greg Knauss and published by So New Media, a small publishing concern lovingly run by Ben Brown and James Stegall and now, sadly, defunct. The Rainy Day Fun… tour was the inspiration for Kevin in putting together the later tour. Not sure why the Times indicated otherwise.
And if you want to go back before most people were aware of these blog thingies, author M.J. Rose recalls participating in a virtual tour circa 2000:
So the NYT finally did an article on Author blog tours, which if memory serves, some of us have been doing for a quite a long time… in 2000 I did one that included Salon and BookReporter.com and a few other places that updated regularly and operated the way blogs do even though then we didn’t call them that.
Update: So New Media is still going strong…just their old domain is no longer working. (thx, greg) And hey, Rainy Day Fun and Games for Toddler and Total Bastard is still available ($5!) and still funny. I’m planning a re-read now that I’m a total bastard and soon-to-be toddler wrangler.
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