News Archives
2008
May 2009
Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud | “What I would suggest is that our idea of reading is incomplete, impoverished, unless we are also taking the time to read aloud.”
Confronting my worst nightmare | “I see 2004 and 2007, and think of Manny and Papi first and foremost. The modern-day Ruth and Gehrig. One of the great one-two punches in sports history. Were they cheating the whole time?”
March 2009
Where the Wild Things Are Trailer | I really want this to be good.
A Tribute to Discontinued Cereals | Lots of great stuff I had forgotten about. I remember really liking C3PO's.
Bionic eye gives blind man sight | Wow. Sounds like he's going to be doing a lot more laundry now, though.
February 2009
Sasha Obama Keeps Seeing Creepy Bush Twins While Riding Tricycle Through White House | “White House officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also detailed a disturbing vision experienced by Sasha, who at several points during her encounter suddenly saw the twin girls lying motionless in a pool of spilled strawberry margaritas.”
Best Picture | “I'll put it in writing: the best motion picture released last year was WALL-E.”
Remembering Gene | Roger Ebert remembers Gene Siskel on the 10 year anniversary of his death.
Coming Soon: Pepsi Throwback, Mountain Dew Throwback | Made with sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. Now if only Dr Pepper would get on board.
Gates Releases Mosquitos During TED Talk | “There is more money put into baldness drugs than into malaria. Now, baldness is a terrible thing and rich men are afflicted. That is why that priority has been set.”
January 2009
John Updike, a Lyrical Writer of the Ordinary, Is Dead at 76 | “The miracle of turning inklings into thoughts and thoughts into words and words into metal and print and ink never palls for me.”
Views From the Crowds: Panoramic views of the inaugural ceremony and parade. | More great panoramas from The New York Times.
The Impossible Project | “We aim to re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras in 2010. We have acquired Polaroid's old equipment, factory and seek your support.”
Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs about his health. | “So now I've said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.”
December 2008
Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It | “In theory, I want to support all of these fine folks. In practice, I decide to save a buck.”
The Real Bill Ayers | “The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other's behavior.”
My Favorite Book Covers of 2008 | Some great covers collected by the Book Design Review.
November 2008
Indians legend Score passes away | “His partners in the booth - Jack Corrigan, Joe Tait, Paul Olden, Nev Chandler, Steve Lamar, Reggie Rucker, Bruce Drennan, Bob Feller and others - came and went, but Score remained a fixture, calling season after season of mostly lousy baseball.”
Microsoft placing “I'm a PC” recording booths outside Apple stores | “Not to be outdone, Apple has pledged to send Justin Long to your house to charmingly condescend to you about his various abilities while still pretending to be your best friend.”
October 2008
Undecided | “To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. ‘Can I interest you in the chicken?’ she asks. ‘Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?’ To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.”
On Health Plans, the Numbers Fly | “Even the economists behind the forecasts say it makes them uncomfortable to hear candidates assert their numbers as indisputable fact, as if stating Derek Jeter’s batting average. What they are modeling, they emphasize, is ultimately unknowable.”
And Now… Opera | Opera hires Jon Hicks as Senior Designer. Hopefully they'll let him do something with that icon.
Earth From Above comes to NYC | Breathtaking photos from Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
September 2008
Demand A Press Conference! | “Until Sarah Palin agrees to a full and open press conference, she should not even be considered as a possible vice-president of the United States. What has been going on with her and access to her is an outrage to democratic discourse and the entire electoral system.”
Our position on California's No on 8 campaign | Sergey Brin: “While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.”
Wario Land: Shake It - Amazing footage! | Great preview of new Wii game.
What the 21st Century Will Taste Like | “At the table, this means our plates will be heavier on grains and greens, and meat will shift from the center of the dish to a supporting role--the role it's played throughout history in most of the world's cuisines.”
Digging Deeper | “And so what makes Microsoft’s new ‘I’m a PC’ commercials so jaw-droppingly bad is that they’re not countering Apple’s message, but instead they’re reinforcing it.”
At Hangar 17, Pieces of Ground Zero | New York Times panoramas of 9/11 artifacts being preserved for inclusion in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
Obama to Palin: ‘Don't Mock the Constitution’ | “Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years.”
Orwell Diaries | The Orwell Prize is publishing George Orwell's daily diary entries as a blog, 70 years after they were written. His ‘political’ diaries begin today.
Michael Moore To Release New Film For Free | “Slacker Uprising” will be the first major film distributed online and for free.
The Henry Ford of Literature | “Distributed discreetly by mail order, Little Blue Books disseminated birth-control information not available in small-town libraries, advocated racial justice at a time when the Ku Klux Klan influenced politics, and introduced Euripides, Shakespeare, and Emerson to people without the means for higher education.”
True Grit | Review of Annie Proulx's new book, “Fine Just the Way It Is.”
Revisiting Coen Country for Odd Men | “And more often than not, somebody gets shot in the face.”
August 2008
The Diver's View | Great spherical panorama of the Water Cube in Beijing.
Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America? | “When Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN.”
July 2008
The balcony is closed | “Now the time has come to awake from my daydream. That's all history--treasured history, but past and gone, all the same.”
10 Most Amazing Ghost Towns | My favorite are the photos of Prypiat in northern Ukraine. I'd love a chance to visit the area around Chernobyl.
Watermelon May Have Viagra-effect | “We've always known that watermelon is good for you, but the list of its very important healthful benefits grows longer with each study.”
Butterflies are free, so why aren't iPhone apps? | “What happened to the Communist paradise of each working to provide for free what he or she is able to make and receiving the like in turn from his or her comrades as was promised us by the great thinkers of the 19th century?”
Believe Me, It's Torture | Christopher Hitchens reports on his experience undergoing waterboarding.
June 2008
Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer | “It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.” Yikes.
A Master of Words, Including Some You Can't Use in a Headline | “But what came through, even as he shook his head and used one or more of the seven forbidden words to say how stupid we were, was his love of language itself and how various and evocative it was.”
The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination | J.K. Rowling's Harvard commencement address.
Natasha | The first time this short story by Vladimir Nabokov has been published in English.
May 2008
A Story from This American Life | Wonderfully animated by Chris Ware.
Einstein Letter on God Sells for $404,000 | “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”
Approaching the uncanny valley from the other direction | “I don't know about you but a middle-aged Madonna made to look 24 gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
At the bar with the Hate Camel | “Enough with the anger towards Anger. Love gets you Nora Roberts and Harlequin Romances; Anger gets you Slaughterhouse Five and Lenny Bruce.”
Hillary and Bill: The movie | “The campaign was not about political positions, but about sheer desire. Hillary wanted to win, and she ran and ran and ran until there was a kind of heroism to it. Futile heroism after a point, but that's where the story lies.”
Sprint Spending $100 Million to Kick iPhone in the Nuts (iPhone Wearing Cup) | Sprint is launching a $100 million marketing campaign for its Instinct phone.
Apple and AT&T to launch iPhone 3G a lot sooner than we think? | AT&T employees are not allowed to take vacations from June 15th to July 12th.
April 2008
The Last Meal on the Titanic | Here's what was served in the first-class dining room on the evening of April 14, 1912.
In Weak Rivets, a Possible Key to Titanic's Doom | The rivets could explain why she sank so quickly, 96 years ago today.
Roger Ebert, the Critic Behind the Thumb | “His criticism shows a nearly unequaled grasp of film history and technique, and formidable intellectual range, but he rarely seems to be showing off. He's just trying to tell you what he thinks, and to provoke some thought on your part about how movies work and what they can do.”
Life Before Death | Beautiful series of portraits taken of people before and after dying.
It’s Not You, It’s Your Books | “Now that you mention it, if I went over to a man’s house and there were those books about life’s lessons learned from dogs, I would probably keep my clothes on.”
March 2008
Japan: URL’s Are Totally Out | Interesting observation of Japanese advertising from Cabel Sasser’s recent trip.
Secret Skin | “An essay in unitard theory” from Michael Chabon.
Black Guy Asks Nation For Change | “What he really needs is a job.”
Hulu.com | Free online TV and Movies. Very impressive.
The Origin Of The iChat UI | Jens Alfke's 1997 sketch of a chat interface based on speech balloons.
Boston Dynamics Big Dog | Seriously amazing walking robot. Don't miss it on the ice.
Vain, querulous and a genius | “With her portraits of oddbods and adolescent girls, Carson McCullers has captured the hearts of generations of readers. Just don't be fooled by her apparent innocence.”
I fell in love with a female assassin | “I want to believe that she had a change of heart. I want to believe that she wasn't the cold, heartless, evil killer she appeared to be. But who am I trying to fool?”
February 2008
Garfield minus Garfield | “Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?”
Coens take on tale of alternate Alaska | The brothers will adapt and direct Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Trailer | I remain optimistic.
Flash on iPhone Political Calculus | “If Flash does turn into a major force in the mobile world, Apple can always add it later. But why shouldn't Apple push for a Flash-free mobile web future now?”
Polaroid Abandons Instant Photography | “Polaroid said it would happily license the technology to other manufacturers should they want to go on supplying the niche market with film after 2009.”
Apple //c Unboxing | Shipped in 1988 and opened for the first time.
January 2008
A Rookie Guide to Digital SLR Cameras | Mike Davidson's “guide for DSLR virgins considering purchasing their first full sized digital camera.”
How camera lenses are made | 10 minute video showing the glass cutting through final assembly.
Books That Make You Dumb | “Ever read a book (required or otherwise) and upon finishing it thought to yourself, ‘Wow. That was terrible. I totally feel dumber after reading that.’?”
The MacBook Air | John Gruber on the MacBook Air's place in Apple's notebook lineup.
MacBook Air | Pretty, but I haven't much use for it. The trade-offs for the slim design aren't worth it to me.
iPhone Webclip Icons | How to make a custom icon that will display on the iPhone or iPod Touch if someone makes a “webclip” bookmark of your site.
TextWrangler 2.3 | Update to Bare Bones great (and free!) text editor.
The Magnetic Fields: Distortion | “Distortion isn't a return to form so much as a return to content.”
The 2007 Feltron Annual Report | Nicholas Felton's 2007 year in review. Great idea, great design.
James Joyce: A Classic Review | Review of several of Joyce's works from Atlantic Monthly in 1946.
2007
December 2007
Personal Inventory: The Erotic Appeal of the Lands' End Catalog | “Who thought sixty pages of stylish-yet-practical clothing would employ models who are disturbing approximations of the lovely thirty-something woman who doesn't want to put up with your shit anymore?”
America's Favorite Architecture | Nice interface.
November 2007
Norman Mailer, Towering Writer With Matching Ego, Dies at 84 | “Along the way, he transformed American journalism by introducing to nonfiction writing some of the techniques of the novelist and by placing at the center of his reporting a brilliant, flawed and larger-than-life character who was none other than Norman Mailer himself.”
Notify the Next of Kindle | Chip Kidd on what effect Amazon's Kindle will have on book design.
Superheavy Armored Walking Tank | OMG! It's an AT-AT!
Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device | Amazon releases a portable reading device. Give me paper, ink and glue any day.
DUM | “So the Kindle proposition is this: You pay for downloadable books that can't be printed, can't be shared, and can't be displayed on any device other than Amazon's own $400 reader - and whether they're readable at all in the future is solely at Amazon's discretion. That's no way to build a library.”
The Future of Reading (a play in 6 acts) | Well done.
Harry Potter and the Order of Typography | Jon Hicks on the loving attention to typographic detail in the latest Harry Potter film.
Well Done: a food company annual report that has to be cooked first | “Called Well Done, the report features blank pages printed with thermo-reactive ink that, after being wrapped in foil and cooked for 25 minutes, reveal text and images.”
Norman Mailer, Towering Writer With Matching Ego, Dies at 84 | “Along the way, he transformed American journalism by introducing to nonfiction writing some of the techniques of the novelist and by placing at the center of his reporting a brilliant, flawed and larger-than-life character who was none other than Norman Mailer himself.”
October 2007
Spot the difference | The comparison is questionable, to be sure, but there is still a lot of Radiohead listening going on - without industry involvement.
Playing in Traffic | Sufjan Stevens has composed a 30-minute, seven-movement orchestral suite about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Gore Shares Peace Prize for Climate Change Work | He shares the award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network made up of 2,000 scientists.
Nick Park Announces a New Wallace & Gromit Adventure! | To be called Trouble At’ Mill and will be a return to the half hour format for TV.
September 2007
Indians claim AL Central crown | “Ultimately, to be a champion, you’ve got to overcome a lot, and our guys have.”
$100 Apple Store Credit for Early iPhone Owners | Quick and easy.
The Ringtones Racket | “The distinction between ringtones and songs is an artificial marketing construct.”
Title of new ‘Indiana Jones’ revealed | “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
An Open Letter to iPhone Owners | “Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.”
August 2007
Apple plans special event on Sept. 5th | Not much of a mystery this time around, considering the artwork on the invitation.
Fucking Yankees, Reports Nation | “You knew this was going to happen. You knew. Right when they got Clemens back, you fucking knew.”
The Boy Who Lived | Christopher Hitchens on the world of Harry Potter.
The Road to Clarity | “Looking at a sign in Clearview after reading one in Highway Gothic is like putting on a new pair of reading glasses: there's a sudden lightness, a noticeable crispness to the letters.”
Double-nosed dog not to be sniffed at | “He's very intelligent and with a wonderful sense of smell, as you might think.”
Strange Movements | “So if you want to use the keyboard the way you're used to, you won't be able to control volume without holding the ‘fn’ key, which allows you to use the special functions temporarily when they're disabled.”
To Punish Thai Police, a Hello Kitty Armband | “Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It's not something macho police officers want covering their biceps.”
Court: Man can't name filly ‘Sally Hemings’ | “A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a filly can't be named ‘Sally Hemings’ after Thomas Jefferson's most famous slave and reputed lover.”
Numbers | Long-awaited spreadsheet app from Apple
Secret New iPhone Features | A few nice features included with the first iPhone software update.
A Mystery Solved: ‘Fake Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean | Fake Steve is Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine.
July 2007
iPhone+AT&T Bill=Uh-Oh | “It's a staggeringly, hatefully complex document, designed by some Monty Pythoneseque committee in charge of consumer confusion.”
iPhones nearly everywhere, iPhone stories exceed those of Harry Potter so far | “Given that the iPhone launch is now nearly three weeks old, it is remarkable how popular iPhone stories remain even in the face of such other long-anticipated events.”
Multi-touch on the desktop | “If you're one of the people who think that a multi-touch monitor is a good idea, try this little experiment: touch the top and bottom of your display repeatedly for five minutes.”
iPhone Packaging | Lovely attention to detail on the iPhone box.
Kwik-E-Mart | 7-11 in Burbank transformed into the Kwik-E-Mart.
June 2007
iTunes now 3rd largest music retailer in US | “The MusicWatch findings are especially interesting in that 86.2% of the quarter's music sales were in a physical (CD) format, versus a 13.8% share in downloadable format.”
Wall•E | Teaser trailer for next year's Pixar release, Wall•E
Apple.com Redesign | About time. Really.
Mac OS X Leopard | Coming in October.
Safari 3 Public Beta | Now available for Windows!
Camino 1.5 | Nice upgrade to Camino, featuring session saving, the OS X spell-checker and improved “Annoyance Blocking.”
NetNewsWire 3.0 | Updated Mac-only RSS reader sports a new UI, plus a handful of other new features.
iPhone TV ads | Official release date: June 29.
May 2007
How I Spent the War | Günter Grass on serving as a recruit in the Waffen S.S.
Miranda July | Brief Interview about her new book No One Belongs Here More Than You
Twenty-four hours at The Jake | Profile of the daily operation of Jacobs Field in Cleveland.
‘MST3K’: The Final Frontier | Playing the mp3 in iTunes while playing the DVD on the same system works well. Synching the audio is pretty painless, too.
Extra-Slanty Italics Introduced For Extremely Important Words | Soderblum said that his design team is currently developing a demi-semibold typeface for writers who “kind of, but not really” want to accentuate subheadings.
Vegas machines' new jackpot? iPods | iPod vending machine.
April 2007
If You Want to Know if Spot Loves You So, It's in His Tail | “When dogs feel fundamentally positive about something or someone, their tails wag more to the right side of their rumps. When they have negative feelings, their tail wagging is biased to the left.”
Introducing Coda | “Text editor + Transmit + CSS editor + Terminal + Books + More = Whoah.”
Shiira 2.0 | New version of the Safari alternative from Japan. Open source and built on WebKit.
This American Life Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence | “The completed work is expected to be an indispensable source of information for years to come about the thoughts and tastes of bespectacled cynics prone to neuroses who are actually doing just fine.”
John Irving Remembers Kurt Vonnegut | “He was a gentleman of the old school, but at the same time he had a warmth that was really childlike. He was a very loyal and sentimental friend. And everybody who knew him is gonna miss him.”
Waiting for Manny | Profile of Manny Ramirez in The New Yorker
Writing 'always gets harder' for Michael Ondaatje | Interview with Ondaatje in advance of his new book Divisadero.
Kurt Vonnegut, Counterculture's Novelist, Dies | So it goes.
No One Belongs Here More Than You | Great web site for Miranda July's new book of short stories.
Microsoft changes tune on selling DRM-free song | So much for “naive and irresponsible”
March 2007
Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store | EMI's entire digital library now available without DRM through iTunes for $1.29 per song.
What's unique to Photohop Extended? | Quick overview of the additional capabilities of Photoshop CS3 Extended.
What We Call the News | Jib Jab skewers the news.
Fit for a king | I love that LeBron is staying in the Akron area.
I Support The Occupation Of Iraq, But I Don't Support Our Troops | “Before you know it, questions about who is and isn't going to be home in time for Christmas will be interfering with the crucial decision-making process of our commander-in-chief.”
The Show with Ze Frank ends | Final episode completes the planned year-long program
Apple: America's best retailer | “One of the best pieces of advice Mickey ever gave us was to go rent a warehouse and build a prototype of a store, and not, you know, just design it, go build 20 of them, then discover it didn't work.”
February 2007
Party Talk | “It is worse than painful to reflect on how much better off the United States and the world would be today if the outcome of the 2000 election had been permitted to correspond with the wishes of the electorate.”
I see the Death Star | Dammit. I finally got myself weaned off playing that game all the time.
The Way We Are | “Of wildflowers and weed.” New David Sedaris
Thoughts on Music | “Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats.”
The Apollo Missions 11 - 17 | QTVRs stitched from images taken during manned missions to the moon. Very cool.
Adium 1.0! | Great IM client for OS X goes 1.0
Pitch 'n' Putt with Joyce 'n' Beckett | “No, not a Milky Way, you arse!”
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows | Book 7 to be released on July 21st, available for pre-order today on Amazon.
January 2007
Traces of Ancient Village Found Near Stonehenge | The excavation suggests that there once stood a wooden version of Stonehenge built of huge timber posts.
Regarding the iPhone | “With OS X, there exists the real potential to leverage an existing platform in a whole new way.”
Wii Sports Experiment, Results! | “I outlined a 6 week game plan for myself, the idea being that I would continue ALL normal activity and eating habits, and simply add 30 minutes of Wii Sports to my day.”
Stephen Colbert weighs in on the iPhone | “You haven't engorged me Apple. I am flacid with rage.”
A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope | “Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III”
The Ultimate iPhone Frequently Asked Questions | “But what if I keep asking? Then will it be available beyond Cingular?”
Apple iPhone | Much anticipated phone from Apple Computer, Inc.
Apple TV | Previously announced device for streaming media to your tv, and it looks slick.
Welcome to 2007 | Apple tease - “The first 30 years were just the beginning”
2006
December 2006
Game over, man | “.Mac has thwarted me regularly, and saved me never.”
This is Callum Robbins. He needs your help. | Heart rending and tragic. If you can give, give.
DS Buttons | “DS Buttons are an invitation to play.”
Datsun 280z Commercial. With Steve Wozniak. | Awesome.
November 2006
In Praise of Third Place | “Because Nintendo is not trying to rule the entire industry, it's been able to focus on its core competence, which is making entertaining, innovative games.”
A Wii Workout: When Videogames Hurt | “They're reporting aching backs, sore shoulders -- even something some have dubbed 'Wii elbow.'”
Nintendo: 600,000 Wii, 454,000 Zelda Sold In First Eight Days | Impressive start for the Wii and Zelda
I just saw a Zune, and guess what? Its a piece of shit. | “Zune manages to take the very few features of the iPod and over complicate or ruin them.”
Zune oddnesses: Zune pretty in pink | And people thought brown was a questionable choice.
100 Notable Books of the Year | The New York Times Book Review's Holiday Books issue for 2006.
The Big Ideas Behind Nintendo's Wii | “Rather than just picking new technology, we thought seriously about what a game console should be.”
Installing the Zune... sucked | “Seriously though, how long is this going to go on?”
Robert Altman, Iconoclastic Director, Dies at 81 | Anti-establishment filmmaker dead after battle with cancer.
The Top 40 Bands in America - 2006 Edition | For what it's worth. It's perhaps best to avoid the comments.
Souvenirs | Great set of souvenirs photographed at the location they commemorate.
October 2006
Top Firefox 2 config tweaks | Setting the minimum tab width is something I've wanted for some time.
Firefox 2 is out | Very customizable, as advertised. The interface changes are nice, too.
Troubadork: Twenty-five years of “Weird Al” Yankovic. | “It's one thing to go platinum. Where do you go from there? Then Weird Al calls.”
September 2006
We are unable to console one another. Is there hope? | Lemony Snicket and Stephin Merritt caught in long-distance conversation.
High on Vapor Fumes | John Gruber on Zune Wi-Fi sharing.
WiiDay | Cabel Sasser rounds up Nintendo's Wii announcements.
New Product by Nintendo for Holidays | The Wii will be released November 19th and will cost $250.
Microsoft launches the Zune! | No release date, no pricing announced.
The Empty Page Project | “The Joy and Terror of the Blank Page, Empty and Infinite, Source of Anxiety and Inspiration for All Writers, Including this One”
In the Waiting Room | “It's funny the things that run through your mind when you're sitting in your underpants in front of a pair of strangers.”
Three New Mac Ad Ideas | “Your sleek design may be more aesthetically pleasing and practical, but it falls apart immediately when used as a weapon.”
Bill Watterson's RAREST! | “Like everything else on the page, if you've got it, you're rich.”
Amazon Unbox | Doesn't work with Macs, doesn't work with iPods. Guess we'll have to wait for iTunes.
Apple Store Fifth Avenue | Virtual tour of Apple's fifth avenue retail store.
August 2006
Quinn Returns | “Quinn is an implementation of a popular falling-blocks game, which, according to the Tetris Company, must not be named here.”
Atget's Paris: Then and Now | Gerald Panter has been reproducing Atget's photographs in modern day Paris and displaying the two side by side. (via kottke)
How to read | “And please, please stop patronising those who are reading a book - The Da Vinci Code, maybe - because they are enjoying it.” Amen.
Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut | “It's like porn for book nerds. Seriously.”
Lions Gate: iTunes movie deal in place | “We also have digital delivery deals in place with Cinema Now, MovieLink, and iTunes…”
Google Analytics | Free web stats package from Google now available.
No plans to revoke Grass Nobel | The Nobel Foundation will not take the Nobel Prize away from Geunter Grass after he reveals that he served in the Waffen SS.
Nobel prize winner Grass admits serving in Nazi SS | “It had to come out finally.”
Harry Potter and the mystery of an academic obsession | “They just seem like perfectly nice, educated, middle-class women. Who write homoerotic fiction about wizards.”
July 2006
Shiira 2.0 - A Visual Preview | Review of a pre-release build of the next major release.
The Top Ten Most Beautiful OS X Apps | Lots of good stuff. CoverFlow comes in at number 3.
CoverFlow | OS X app to browse your music library by album artwork. (thx rae)
Your Own Personal Internet | “I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?”
June 2006
Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard to Explore ‘Mysteries of Pittsburgh’ | Big screen version of Michael Chabon's debut novel is in the works.
Chronicle of a death foretold ... Harry Potter author's grim hints | “A price has to be paid, we are dealing with pure evil here.”
Extroverted Like Me | “How a month and a half on Paxil taught me to love being shy.”
Great Photographers on the Internet | “If you don't care aboout your PROFESSIONALISM you are never going to get work as a pro believe me!!!”
The Injustice Collector | “Is James Joyce's grandson suppressing scholarship?”
'Unknown Weegee,' on Photographer Who Made the Night Noir | There's a new Weegee show at the International Center of Photography, NY.
Apple surpasses beer on college campuses | “Undergrads rate their iPods as more 'in' than beer”
Multi-Safari | Archived versions of Safari for web developers. They are bundled with the version of Web Kit they originally shipped with.
May 2006
Safari Tidy plugin | Tidy validation in the Safari status bar.
Robot Chicken - Darth Vader calls the Emperor about the Death Star | “What the hell is an alumninum falcon?!”
DarthBook | Greg Storey on his experience with the new black MacBook.
The BBC's latest star - a baffled cabbie | “I am very surprised to see... this verdict to come on me because I was not expecting that.”
Apple Computer wins in Apple v. Apple case | Apple Corps will appeal the decision.
Reduce OS X security threats - ignore security software | “McAfee should be ashamed of itself, for raising fears of risks that do not exist, for coupling risks to Intel chips by association - which borders on the libelous - and for encouraging the very complacency it claims to cure.”
This September: Original Unaltered Trilogy on DVD | “That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983.”
Good Journalism | Great John Gruber piece on Mac news reporting (and news reporting in general, I suppose).
Memento Mori | “I didn't think of it as a former person until Christmas Day, when Hugh opened the cardboard coffin.” New David Sedaris from the New Yorker.
Sketches of Frank Gehry | Sydney Pollack documentary on the great architect.
April 2006
Nintendo Names Its Game Console: Wii | “A Nintendo spokeswoman said it was meant to indicate that 'Wii is a platform for everyone - not just the gamer or the nongamer.'”
Chernobyl Legacy | Photo and audio essay from Magnum 20 years after the Chernobyl disaster.
Matt Groening Interview | Can't wait for the new Futurama movies.
Nintendo DS Lite Third Look | Cabel Sasser's final video review of the Nintendo DS Lite.
March 2006
Cover stories | John Updike introduces a selection of Chip Kidd's book-jacket designs.
France Weighs Forcing iPods to Play Other Than iTunes | “My gut feeling is that Apple will simply pull out of France if these amendments get through.”
Kurt Vonnegut at Ohio State - 1 March, 2006 | “So do become, and do draw badly. ...Just don't kill anybody.” I wish I would have known about this. I would have loved to see him speak.
February 2006
What if Microsoft redesigned the ipod packaging? | Well done. And very funny.
Bah Hummer | “Indie rockers reject big money from the king of gas guzzlers”
Suitable For Framing | David Sedaris and his family of experts.
Apple teases launch of mysterious, 'fun' products | New stuff next Tuesday.
Akron Residents See Their Past and Future Soaring Above the City | “People in Akron love blimps.”
Apple's ode to hackers | “Apple developers embedded a warning deep in its OS X software - in the form of a poem”
Camino 1.0 | OS X browser Camino goes 1.0.
WR-07 - A Real Transformer | Enough said.
Micro Retro A-Go-Go | 18-pixel square video arcade games.
Stop Stop Stop Hurting the Internet | “My God, they've made XP's Fisher Price look good.”
Dell bids adieu to hard-drive music players | Another iPod killer bites the dust.
A New Look for IE | Egad. It looks rather complicated. And jumbled. And ugly.
Solo Acoustic Concert from Colin Meloy | Colin of The Decemberists live on All Songs Considered.
January 2006
Toy Story 3 Cancelled | Every once in a while, its good to be wrong.
Disney buys Pixar | Can't wait for Toy Story 6.
Lit Crit 101: Colin Meloy's Reading Rainbow | “When pressed politely, he names Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Thomas Hardy among his favorite classical authors”
Annie Proulx tells the story behind “Brokeback Mountain” | “Heath Ledger is just almost really beyond description as far as I'm concerned.”
Notes On The Denial Of Perspective 02 | “Felice Varini paints (lines, concentric circles, triangles) on things (tunnels, castles, groovy interiors).”
Michael Dell Should Eat His Words, Apple Chief Suggests | “Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell.”
iWeb's HTML markup. Not so good. | Disappointing.
Behind the magic curtain | Mike Evangelist writes about the preparation that goes into an Apple keynote.
Gates unveils his 'Urge' | Microsoft announces iTunes rival.
This Is No Game | “You will never appreciate the magnificent beauty of a double rainbow, or the plainness of a regular rainbow.”
2005
December
A Life in Movies | “It's a life worth its own screenplay - the tale of a movie-obsessed boy from central Illinois who made very good.”
Bill Gates' predictions about speech recognition: a historical review | “Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.”
His Car Smelling Like French Fries, Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel | “It is called, fittingly enough, BioWillie.”
Damon, Yankees reach agreement | Idiot. (...)
Microsoft drops Mac IE | Support ends December 31st. A month later they will stop offering it for download.
RIP, iPod Mini? No way, fans say | I bought a green one when they were discontinued. Several retailers had them discounted, so I got mine for less than retail.
Screen Mimic 1.0 | “Screen Mimic 1.0 allows you to record your Mac OS X desktop and then encode that recording to a Macromedia Flash (SWF) file.”
The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web | “A practical guide to web typography”
Adobe Store | Check out the hybrid Adobe-Macromedia packaging.
Adobe Completes Acquisition of Macromedia | So long, Macromedia.
Firefox 1.5 | New version ready to download.
November
CD's Recalled for Posing Risk to PC's | Jerks. What could they have been thinking in the first place?
Explorer Destroyer | “For each person you switch, Google gives you $1, Microsoft loses marketshare, and an angel gets its wings.”
“Gravity Tractors” could outwit killer asteroids | “Maintain it for a year and that should give it enough nudge to miss the earth 20 years later.”
Another use for Apple Care | “You get great boxes.”
mTune-n | “Cordless Stereo Headset for iPod nano.”
The Book on a Graphics Superhero | “When you walk into my apartment I want you to feel like you're walking into my head.”
10 Ways to Please Us, the Customers | “But in this particular religion, there's a special circle of hell reserved for rebate cheats.”
October
X Marks the Baseball Team | “Why the White Sox aren't the White Socks.”
The Clock of the Long Now | “Everything from ethnic discrimination to wars ... would become impossible if our compassionate circles were wide enough.” Absolutely amazing.
iBelieve | “... is a social commentary on the fastest growing religion in the world.”
Dealing With an Ex-Nazi Neighbor | “Consult the History Channel listings to ensure you do not interrupt a night of nostalgia for the ex-Nazi, making him less likely to be conciliatory.”
Harlan McCraney, Presidential Speechalist | “But what people don't realize is that there is a genius behind the stupidity.”
Aperture | iPhoto Pro.
Rat outsmarts scientists,eludes capture for 4 months | They finally caught it in a trap baited with penguin meat. Poor penguin.
'Wallace and Gromit' Props Ruined in Fire | Articles from Curse of the Were-Rabbit were not among them.
Fans From Around the World Interview Bill Watterson | “For starters, I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo...”
Comfort to the Enemy | Serial fiction by Elmore Leonard.
Egypt prepares new probe of mystery pyramid shafts | “Egypt will send a robot up narrow shafts in the Great Pyramid to try to solve one of the mysteries of the 4,500-year-old pharaonic mausoleum.”
September
Instructional Ditty-O's | Oh my.
Rhymes With Ditty | “Note vague resemblance to a 50-cent Bic lighter.”
Puppy swallows 13-inch knife | And I complain about the occasional pillow or sock.
Gillette's Five Blade Folly | “If you can't get a close enough shave with 2 or 3 blades, maybe God is telling you to grow a beard.” Related: This Onion article from last year.
Lost in Katrina, dolphins 'flipping' to be found | “Eight dolphins that were swept out of their oceanarium by Hurricane Katrina have been rediscovered hundreds of yards out at sea where trainers are tracking, feeding and caring for them.”
A Gift To You From TV On The Radio | Download “Dry Drunk Emperor.” You'll be glad you did.
XML Nanny | “XML Nanny is a Free Mac OS X developer tool that provides an Aqua interface for checking XHTML and XML documents for Well-Formedness and Validity either locally or across the network.”
Ars Technica reviews the iPod nano | Turns out it's surprisingly durable.
FontExplorer X | Professional font manager for OS X. And it's free.
PDC: Internet Explorer news | “So there you have it, IE7 will be finalized by March of 2006 and it will disable ActiveX by default.”
Quark has a new identity. | Logo sort of resembles the Scottish Arts Council logo.
Windows Vista product editions revealed | Egad. Seven versions?
The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme | “This guy trashes the HIG the way Johnny Depp trashes a hotel room.”
iPod nano | Full color screen. Very small.
Mint: A Fresh Look at Your Site | Web stats package from Shaun Inman.
An Event Apart | Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman take their show on the road.
To Play Is the Thing | “When information can be gathered more cheaply and quickly than ever before, should people rely less on their hunches and more on numbers?”
Why I Don't Care About Opera | “For a web browser that is 10 years old, up to version 8, and developed by one of the inventors of CSS, I had honestly expected more.”
August
Opera 10-year online anniversary party | Free registration codes for Opera, today only.
The importance of having a designer on staff | “The interface is the product. It's the touchpoint between you and your customers.”
A List Apart 4.0 | A List Apart redesign.
Organ | Michael Chabon's personal site.
SeeSS | Excellent CSS reference Dashboard widget
Shopgirl | New Steve Martin movie, based on his book. Methinks I hear some Explosions in the Sky on the soundtrack.
Barkley heads list of overrated 'greats' | And he heads it because it's an alphabetical listing. What a crappy headline.
Decemberists to Head Elliott Smith Tribute | Portland area artists cover Elliott's songs for a CD to be released this fall.
The Riddle of the Appendix | I was just wondering about this (Feel better Rhea!).
My Dog is Tom Cruise | Funny stuff.
Introducing Mighty Mouse | You knew it would look neat when they finally did it.
Standards and CSS in IE | “I want to be clear that our intent is to build a platform that fully complies with the appropriate web standards, in particular CSS 2 (2.1, once it's been Recommended).”
July
Shiira Project gets a redesign | Very nice.
IE7 CSS Updates | “Yeah, after four years of suspense, all we get is an alpha channel.”
It's Catching | New David Sedaris in The New Yorker
Japanese develop 'female' android | “Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised”
The O Factor | “Was Owen Wilson the key to the Wes Anderson phenomenon?”
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith: The Abridged Script™ | “Must... bridge... gap... to... original... trilogy...”
The Candy Man | “Why children love Roald Dahl's stories - and many adults don't.”
A hello-and-goodbye kind of post | Dunstan calls it quits, at least for now.
Interview with: Dinosaur Jr. | Interview with the original lineup, together again.
Dress Your Shuffle in Corduroy and the iParka | Parka for your iPod Shuffle.
Shiira 1.1 | Panther support returns. 1.0 was Tiger only.
When Harry Meets Charlie | “Warner Bros. is contending with intense competition from one of the world's most antiquated consumer products: a book.”
Apple Delivers Record Revenue & Earnings | Best quarter ever.
Harry Potter and the logistical nightmare | Stacks and stacks of the new Harry Potter book in an Amazon high security warehouse.
A parrot gets the concept of zero | Alex the parrot seems to understand what “none” means.
This Boy's Life | Interview with John Irving about his new novel, “Until I Find You”
A Letter To The Terrorists, From London | Right on.
Honda unveils improved gas, hybrid Civic engines | “The system is smaller, lighter and costs up to 30 percent less than the existing version.”
April - June
Day of the comet | “If all goes well, at 1:52 am ET on July 4, Tempel 1 will run into impactor, busting a hole in the comet and revealing its inner core.”
Honda leases first fuel cell vehicle to a family | “The 2005 FCX can travel 190 miles on a tank of hydrogen and its mileage is rated as high as 62 miles per gallon.” So it has a three gallon tank?
The Lost Liberty Hotel | “Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged.”
King Kong | Trailer for Peter Jackson's remake. To me, this looks like it will be awesome.
Fuel cell cars face bumpy road despite $60 oil | “The decisive point is that these two goals - durability and costs - have to be met at the same time.”
France to host world's first nuclear fusion plant | “Power has been harnessed from fusion in laboratories but scientists have so far been unable to build a commercially viable reactor.”
Japanese robot guards to patrol shops, offices | Ummmm, Robocop? Anyone?
The Onion 2056 | Wow. They put a lot of effort into this one. Lots of funny stuff.
Lee Friedlander retrospective | June 5-August 29, 2005, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Seed of extinct date palm sprouts after 2,000 years | “It feels remarkable to see this seed growing, to see it coming out of the soil after 2, 000 years.” Very cool.
David Sedaris in the flesh | Interview with David Sedaris. And this additional piece from the same interview.
both via Kottke
The Force Behind Star Wars | George Lucas interview from 1977.
Turbulence | “Why don't you get your toenails done, buy yourself a nice pair of cutoffs, and spend some quality time with your husband.” David Sedaris piece from The New Yorker.
Slurpee iTunes promotion | Mmmmmm. Slurpee.
The Daughters of Freya | Serialized mystery delivered via email at random times each day over the course of three weeks.
Dolphin moms teach daughters how to use tools | “Dolphin mothers in Western Australia teach their daughters how to use a sponge to forage for food.”
Apple and Intel, The Day After | Todd Dominey on Apple using Intel Processors
Apple launches iPod recycling program | “Customers who return a music player to one of the company's 100 retail stores across the United States will get 10 percent off the purchase of a new one.”
Download all nine of Beethoven's symphonies performed by BBC Philharmonic | First one will be available June 7th
Wallace And Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit | QuickTime trailer for the new Wallace and Gromit movie
Will Intel open Pandora's Box with Mac Mini twin? | “Taking a second crack at the living room, Intel today showed off a concept PC that closely resembles Apple Computer's Mac Mini.”
Talk about Futurama Direct to DVD | “Options reported to us include one or more Futurama movies in case of a go-ahead.” Sweet!
iRobot co-founder comes clean | Our Roomba is pretty cool.
The citywide Wi-Fi reality check | Concerns about Philladelphia's citywide Wi-Fi deployment.
Ground Rules for the Windows-Macintosh War | Amen.
Loud, Proud, Unabridged: It Is Too Reading! | I find myself agreeing with both sides
Darth Vader Made Me Cry | “Well now, Honey. He is the Imperial Dark Lord…” via Airbag
Voyager 1 reaches solar system's final frontier | “Voyager 1 has gone through a region known as termination shock, some 8.7 billion miles from the Sun, and entered an area called the heliosheath.”
The All New Netscape Browser 8.0 | Based on Firefox. No Mac version.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | QuickTime trailer for the new Harry Potter film
Michael Dell puts $99.5M in Red Hat | “Billionaire chairman of No. 1 PC maker places big bet on Microsoft competitor.”
IBM backs Firefox in-house | “By supporting Firefox internally, IBM is also furthering its commitment to open-source products based on industry standards”
U.S. scientists create self-replicating robot | “As the new robot begins to take shape it helps to build itself.” Neat!
Swiss wrap glacier to slow ice melt | “The fleece-like material, hard to distinguish with the naked eye from snow, will reflect the rays of the sun.”
A demonstration of H.264 encoding | “The H.264 codec blows the doors off of the previously best-in-class Sorenson 3 codec.”
Tut Was Not Such a Handsome Golden Youth, After All | “Teams of artists and scientists, using computer scans to reconstruct the face of King Tut, say he had buck teeth and a long skull.”
Importing audio book CDs into iTunes | Good stuff. I especially like the part about joining the tracks. Didn't know it was that easy to do.
The Webby Lifetime Achievement Award: Former Vice President Al Gore | “Setting the record straight on one of recent history's most persistent political myths”
Time Travelers to Meet in Not Too Distant Future | “The odds of a time traveler showing up are between one in a million and one in a trillion.”
The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster | Journal of Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith and Servant to His Supreme Excellency the Emperor Palpatine.
'Daily Show' Personality Gets His Own Platform | The Colbert Report
Video in Tiger | John Siracusa on Core Video and QuickTime 7.
Internet Explorer no longer bundled with OS X | And even better – “the ubiquitous Microsoft web fonts -- Verdana and Georgia -- are included.” Phew.
Extra! Extra! Tiger Headlines Roar! | “Apple's Tiger Slays Microsoft's Grazing Longhorn, Leaving Bloody Entrails Strewn All Over OS Marketplace.”
QuickTime HD Gallery | “However, you'll still need a G5 system to display so much media.” Playback isn't so smooth on the old G4.
Shiira 1.0 released | For Tiger only (0.9 is available for OS X 10.3).
Tiger Leaps Out in Front | Walt Mossberg on Tiger
From Apple, a Tiger to Put in Your Mac | David Pogue on Tiger
huh? | “We do stuff” | via What Do I Know
Adobe, Apple marriage: 'We're in it for the kids' | Doesn't make it sound like a happy relationship, does he?
Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Adobe's 'FAQ' Regarding Their Acquisition of Macromedia | John Gruber on the Abobe/Macromedia merger.
Adobe to acquire Macromedia | Wow.
Look Sharp. Feel Sharp. Be Sharp. | Second article on shaving in 2 days. I'm finding these interesting because shaving is such a horrible chore for myself, as well sucks. I have to admit, I'm intrigued.
How to get that perfect shave | Is there really such a thing?
El papa's Got A Brand New Bag | via Airbag
One Hundred Years of Uncertainty | “... the reality entailed by quantum mechanics was a reality Einstein couldn't accept.”
Tunes for the Freewheelin' George Bush | “What, exactly, is on the First iPod?”
