digiphile

Find me @ digiphile.wordpress.com

2009-01-17T17:38:00.003-05:00

If you happen to find your way here, you'll notice I haven't updated this blog much.

That's because I was either;

A) Blogging, writing definitions, podcasting or otherwise editing content for WhatIs.com

B) I was twittering @digiphile.

I did that a lot in 2008.

I've moved over to digiphile at Wordpress.com in 2009 and don't plan on updating this blog again.

Please update your feeds, bookmarks and links accordingly.

Cheers!

-Alex

Packaging FAIL

2008-08-15T15:36:00.009-05:00

My very first personally constructed FAIL, thrown askew into the wilds of teh interwebs.

New embeddable widget from Hulu.com makes sharing shows & movies a snap.

2008-07-28T12:30:00.003-05:00

Hulu.com continues to kick ass. Hulu allowed me watch all of Firefly over the holiday break from the comfort of my parents' guestroom, saving me from the horror of their cable-less househould (Disclaimer: I don't have cable at home either, actually).

Now they're offering embeds. Here's the Daily Show:

I'm not sure, exactly, why you'd want to watch here instead of on the main site. I'm not going to worry about it; this is one more step towards a more accessible form of ad-supported online TV. Hurrah.

Enjoy some Family Guy:

Dancing on YouTube is another "feelgood" online moment

2008-07-08T16:58:00.002-05:00

Story about WhereTheHellIsMatt via A Private Dance? Four Million Web Fans Say No from Charles McGrath of the New York Times.

All in all, I vastly prefer the warm and fuzzy Internet memes much more than the excremental instances.

Sunset on Mars

2008-06-04T09:35:00.004-05:00

Thanks to NASA for posting this pic of sunset on Mars as part of their image of the day series.

(Hat tip to Laughing Squid via Boing Boing)

Fisher-ape? This vocation knows no evolutionary boundaries.

2008-04-28T11:06:00.004-05:00

My uncle sent me this shot of an orangutan spear fishing. He found it over at Ace of Spades HQ.

Video from the BBC: Flying penguins reported in the Antarctic

2008-04-02T20:17:00.005-05:00

This one premiered on April 1st, so the natural assumptions about its veracity apply.

It upholds the longstanding (and inspiring) tradition of grand hoaxes from the BBC.

Have I mentioned how much I love the i09 blog recently?

2008-04-01T16:14:00.004-05:00

Apparently I've been blogslacking. Shocking. A friend pointed out that I share posts from a io9 on my linkblog quite frequently..

Guilty as charged.

I love this blog.

Posts like their Complete Guide to Science Fiction Season just make my life easier and more deeply enriched with the scifi goodness I've known and loved for the past two decades.

Tron, Sweded

2008-03-31T12:50:00.002-05:00

My friend Snarles IM'ed me this link to Wired's Underwire blog with a video of a Sweded version of Tron embedded.

I'd watched it earlier this week but watching it again reminded me that I really should have posted it.

Geektastic. I enjoyed Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind much more than I expected to, given the New Yorker's tepid review. The website for the film, BeKindMovie.com has a similar quirky aesthetic. You can see Google sweded there, along with this helpful guide to sweding.

ZAGAT - Outtakes of the Week

2008-03-21T09:29:00.004-05:00

My sister forwarded me the following list of one liners pulled from restaurant customers quoted on Zagat. Individually, many of these are pretty funny. Collectively, they're hilarious. You can find fresh ones over on the outtakes page on zagat.com.

Thanks, sis.

[Image credit: The Times Blogumists]

***

I don't tip if I get groped.

I thought I was looking at an oil painting when suddenly it moved – it was my waitress.

Foam is not the solution.

The flagship of a fleet that needs an overhaul.

I’m pretty sure I ate cow’s udders and liked them.

The special occasion place for people with bad taste.

If only the spectacular view could fill one's stomach.

Form over flavor.

The only way the tables could be closer together would be to stack them.

The viewing beats the chewing.

Quail with figs had exactly one fig. When asked for more, the waiter replied there's one fig per customer!

If you have no personality, this is the hangout for you.

Service with a grudge.

The maitre d' made us wait to be seated, apparently for no other reason than because he could.

Primary attraction was the small wildlife wandering across the table.

The chef keeps renaming and relocating the restaurant like it’s a member of the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Service so attentive you may have to ask for some privacy.

Take a look at the staff on the way in – that’s the last you’ll see of them.

Other than having gone to hell in a hand basket, everything is just like it was before the sale.

The valet stole my cell phone and called Brazil 11 times.

What is an 'ultra lounge' anyway?

Even their 'regulars' have stopped going there.

Foie gras does not need to be put into a mascarpone cookie.

It has a great reputation among people who don't get out much.

I would rather eat sushi from a vending machine.

Great food amid a sea of shorts and black socks.

Can I vote 'ugh'?

The waiter took my order, went outside to smoke and then waved through the window.

Could someone do something about the uniforms? 1982 just called and it wants its suspenders back.

We could have lived without knowing that our waiter was 'Steven from Long Beach.'

If I wanted to be treated with distaste, I would just stay home.

Our waiter was very unattractive, and this being LA, I have to downgrade the Decor rating.

They make you walk around with a horse stick and blow a whistle. That'll teach you to tell someone it's your birthday.

Overpriced and undergood.

The food may be bad, but at least the service is slow.

It seems that the owner, the chef and I have lost interest.

My waiter was so soft-spoken I thought he was a mime.

Hard to tell if it is a restaurant or drug front.

My office comes here for special lunches, but I wish they'd stop.

The food may have been excellent, but I was choking on the prices.

Staff wanders around as if they were just beamed to this strange location.

Even the ice water had garlic in it.

The only thing healthy about the place is the exit door.

Who said it was ok to expose your chest hair while serving people their sandwiches and frozen yogurt?

The staff is charmingly incompetent.

A good place to go with co-workers you don't like.

I do wish they'd stop sticking a pine tree in every entree.

The No. 1 spot in town for crooked pharma reps to stuff fat doctors full of $50 steaks.

Once you drive through ax-murderer country to get here you are pleasantly surprised by all the people and the buzz.

It’s hard to tell where the food stops and the Styrofoam containers begin.

Suffers from delusions of adequacy.

Took a doggy bag home; the dog refused it.

If this place doesn't get you laid, nothing will.

Saves fuel bills – the heartburn will keep you warm all winter.

The immature eating the indelible.

Like a skunk, it's small, it's cute and it stinks.

Abandon taste buds all ye who enter here.

A Petri dish gone horribly, horribly wrong.

The roaches always get the best seats.

Chef's responsibility is to turn on the microwave.

They put the salmon in salmonella.

If I want a fatty sandwich served by a walking attitude, I'll go to mom's.

Grandma cooked like this, grandpa died young.

Good seafood, but the waiter should be used as fish bait.

Not what it used to be and it did not used to be much.

Duck must have had a long flight – tired, tough and took 90 minutes to arrive.

Portions so small I started laughing – prices so high I started crying.

Have yet to learn that heat is an integral part of the cooking process.

For the price, the lobster should have come via overnight express, not pony express.

'Breaking bread' should not mean you have to use the side of the table.

The quiche of death.

Should shut down the restaurant and just serve the view.

The Great Angel Oak in South Carolina

2008-03-19T21:57:00.001-05:00

[Photo Credit: Mark Regs]

Easily one of the most incredible trees I have ever seen.

The future Eiffel Tower -- another reason to visit Paris again

2008-03-19T12:22:00.003-05:00

The temporary observation deck will be made of carbon Kevlar webbing and be bolted to the existing tower, doubling the area at the available to sightseers.

Neat.

[Hat tip: iO9]

ping.fm, Tumblr, FriendFeed and getting microbloggy with it

2008-03-18T17:02:00.004-05:00

I've been twittering much more recently, in no small part due to downloading Snitter.

The latter is a brilliant interface for Twitter.

As a result of that network, I've been turned exposed to any number of new (and exciting) social media services. Each service has made its mark by allowing the user to aggregate and mix multiple feeds from blogs, podcasts, photo services and video networks.

ping.fm, which allows the user to update multiple presence applications at once, just makes my life easier. Many thanks to Chris Brogan for the invite.

I'm trying out Tumblr, after getting tumblr envy one too many times.

Joining FriendFeed has allowed me to aggregate them all together and to subscribe to and comment upon other blogger's shared feeds.

I'm uncertain whether adding more services will save me time in the end or add needed precision to winnowing the important bits and bytes from each day's information glut.

I was impressed with the ease of sign in. Online interface design has come a long way in the past ten years. I was also amused at the uniformity of the logos, adhering to the Web 2.0 design ethic.

Cyberdonkey: "Big Dog" Robot from Boston Dynamics

2008-03-17T23:03:00.003-05:00

Big Dog has been all over the Internet today. How can it not be?

The unearthly gait, buzzing operation and weirdly mammalian bounding of Big Dog are even more impressive in this outing with a payload and snowy hills to navigate.

Boston Dynamics and DARPA are well on their way to giving Skynet a hardy pet someday.

Playmobil Security Checkpoint. No, really.

2008-03-07T15:10:00.003-05:00

My friend Dana forwarded me a link to the comment page on Amazon.com listing for the Playmobil Security Checkpoint today.

That comment section is about as entertaining as anything I've read this month. Hilarious.

There are one or two serious comments about using the product to teach kids about security procedures before heading to the airport. {chuckle}

The laughs kept coming, though... guess what "Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought?"

Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science by L. Ron Hubbard
Scientology: A New Slant On Life by L. Ron Hubbard
Clear Body, Clear Mind: The Effective Purification by L. Ron Hubbard
Self Analysis by L. Ron Hubbard
Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought by L. Ron Hubbard

From this, we can gather that Scientologists love to play with plasticine security checkpoints.

I love Fridays.

Hexapus!

2008-03-03T23:42:00.003-05:00

Hi, Henry.

[Image courtesy of AFP/HO/Blackpool Sealife Centre]

History's Greatest Replies, according to Dr. Mardy

2008-03-03T22:19:00.003-05:00

This compilation is just priceless.

Some classics:

"Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee."
-Lady Astor

"Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."
-Winston Churchill

****

"What are you doing reading a Bible?" asked an astonished Thomas Mitchell, confronted by an irreligious man paging through the Good Book on his deathbed.

"I'm looking for loopholes."
-W. C. Fields

****

At a press conference, a reporter pointed out that $80,000 was $5,000 more than President Hoover's annual salary.

"Maybe so, but I had a better year than he did."
-Babe Ruth

BoingBoingTV: "Food Fight" -- an abridged history of war through food

2008-02-29T14:21:00.005-05:00

Filmmaker Stefan Nadelman's stop-animation piece provides an abridged history of war (WWII-Gulf War II) told through the foods of the countries in conflict.

Funny, sad and in no way appetite inspiring, at least on this day. Brilliant in its own way.

[Hat tip to Jon Battelle]

This spot belongs to Jebus

2008-02-26T22:56:00.004-05:00

One of the time-honored practices here in Boston is to "save" a parking space in your neighborhood once you've dug it out. A recent commercial for Boston.com poked fun at the practice, as removing a marker and parking in the spot can subject the offending vehicle to considerable danger.

Over the years, more than a few fights have broken out over moved markers, especially when multiple snowstorms make the excavated spots and surrounding mountains of salt and exhaust-laden packed snow a permanent feature of the landscape until thaw.

In recent years, Mayor Menino has created considerable foment around Boston, particularly Southie, by enforcing a 48 hour limit on markers after heavy storms.

Boston.com put up a gallery of the various markers used to save spots. Here's the one that I only with I could have seen:

Thanks, Jess Nunez, for capturing the shot.

John Cleese's Letter to America

2008-02-16T15:31:00.002-05:00

Cleese is still one of the funniest men on the planet.

His letter to America is wonderfully droll, witty and more than a little damning.

Need a laugh?

Go read it.

A paper in Nature disputes the significance of the KT boundary event:

2008-02-10T16:12:00.001-05:00

I've been loving the combined ScienceBlogs feed over the past few weeks.

Along with the new io9 blog, these feeds continue to feed a longstanding love for both science and science fiction.

Take together, they provide a great mix of what is and what could be.

Today's reading brought me to to Greg Laden's blog, where he comments at length on a new paper published in Nature that disputes importance of the KT Boundary Event in mammalian evolution. (See the abstract for The delayed rise of present-day mammals for more; full access requires registration or a trip to the (gasp) library.)

As Laden says:

The KT boundary event is the moment in time when a ca. 10 km. diameter object going very fast hit the earth in the vicinity of the modern Yucatan, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs (and almost everything else larger than a microwave). It has been suggested that this event resulted in (allowed for) the subsequent diversification of the mammals, presumably because the earlier extinction event opened up previously filled niches, into which the mammals evolved, and possibly because of dramatic climate change that occurred with this event.

One of the reasons that this study is important is that it seems to falsify this long-standing hypothesis.

This paper is thoughtfully discussed on Pharyngula and Sandwalk, and I recommend that you have a look at those sites.

I suspect some of my more geologically-inclined friends will find this interesting as well. I'm glad to see that our understanding of evolutionary history continues to, well, evolve, based upon new research.

eTrade's baby/clown commercial is still making me laugh whenever I see it

2008-02-10T15:57:00.000-05:00

Never underestimate the creepiness of clowns.

Eric Schulman's "Wiki history of the universe in 200 words or less"

2008-02-07T16:25:00.000-05:00

Brilliant. From the Science Creative Quarterly:

Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual reproduction. Fossilization. Land exploration. Dinosaur extinction. Mammal expansion. Glaciation. Homo sapiens manifestation. Animal domestication. Food surplus production. Civilization! Innovation. Exploration. Religion. Warring nations. Empire creation and destruction. Exploration. Colonization. Taxation without representation. Revolution. Constitution. Election. Expansion. Industrialization. Rebellion. Emancipation Proclamation. Invention. Mass production. Urbanization. Immigration. World conflagration. League of Nations. Suffrage extension. Depression. World conflagration. Fission explosions. United Nations. Space exploration. Assassinations. Lunar excursions. Resignation. Computerization. World Trade Organization. Terrorism. Internet expansion. Reunification. Dissolution. World-Wide Web creation. Composition. Extrapolation?

Dramatic chipmunk, meet dramatic lemur. Hilarity ensures.

2008-01-31T12:54:00.001-05:00

Fail: when things really go wrong

2008-01-30T12:44:00.001-05:00

Add another bit of Internet jargon to the my personal lexicon: fail.

From the Urban Dictionary:

"Fail: either an interjection used when one disapproves of something, or a verb meaning approximately the same thing as the slang form of suck."

Yup.

Even better, there's a new blog collecting images that catching failing in all its ignominy. Thanks, FAIL blog.

Love it. Funniest thing I saw today, by far.

YouBama and the citizen-generated campaign

2008-01-29T19:11:00.000-05:00

I'm loving Google Reader these days. I can consume blog posts, podcasts and video much more quickly and easily than ever before -- and that makes me happy. This past week, I've been able to enjoy sharing and receiving shared items with friends who are also rocking Reader within the interface. I can see the appeal of Google's approach to social networking and bookmarking.

Your email address book is effectively your network.

Your shared bookmarks become a living stream of of your online consciousness.

Facebook may aspire to be the Web's operating system -- and the recent releases of Facebook apps into the Web at large is a major step in that direction -- but Google's communication and productivity apps are beginning to be linked in ways that reveal the wisdom of the crowds in new ways.

All that aside, I discovered YouBama today through my RSS feeds and TechCrunch's post... I'll be watching those feeds too now. Online video just gained has yet another outlet, one independent from the campaign and that just received an avalanche of coverage from Tech Crunch's coverage.

YouTube still dwarfs this site, of course, along with the rest of the MSM, but it's nonetheless noteworthy to see how much control the campaign's have lost over "the message" and how enabled we have all become in sharing our own opinions.

Democracy is going P2P -- I'm loving it.

RIP, Heath

2008-01-23T00:27:00.000-05:00

From the New York Times:

In a recent interview with WJW-TV, a Fox affiliate in Cleveland, about “I’m Not There,” in which he was one of several actors playing the music legend Bob Dylan, Mr. Ledger struck a philosophical note. He responded to a question about how having a child had changed his life:
“You’re forced into, kind of, respecting yourself more,” he said. “You learn more about yourself through your child, I guess. I think you also look at death differently. It’s like a Catch-22: I feel good about dying now because I feel like I’m alive in her, you know, but at the same hand, you don’t want to die because you want to be around for the rest of her life.”

I heard Heath Ledger had died through my coworker tonight at the annual meeting, watching the news ripple through the rows as it came in through a Blackberry news alert.

I wondered -- briefly -- why the news felt more meaningful than any of the other multitude of deaths that have occurred already in this new year, here in Boston and further abroad. We've been at war now for seven long years since 2001, during which time I've always known that other human beings are encountering untimely deaths around the globe. Cancers, heart disease, strokes and respiratory diseases are part of the U.S. experience. Malaria, dysentary, drug-resistant TB and other infectious diseases are unpleasant additions worldwide. The 57 million people that died in 2002 primarily passed from a combination of those causes.

So why does his passing touch me? As a devout movie watcher, his performances entered my visual memory in a visceral and lasting way.

I never felt "A Knight's Tale" or "The Order" or "Ned Kelly" were entirely his fault; "Brokeback Mountain" and "Monster's Ball" and even "The Patriot" showed his talent in a variety of meaningful ways. I enjoyed him in "The Brother's Grimm." Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in the new Batman movie, due on IMAX this summer, now takes on the unique resonance of the young actor's last performance, where he appears to fill some large shoes occupied until now by Jack Nicholson. I'm hopeful that the laughing, brilliant maniac portrayed in the trailer.

I hope the movie is a classic. Heath certainly was.

He leaves a two year old daughter and the promise of a brilliant acting career behind.

He'll be missed.

New year, old resolutions

2008-01-03T17:46:00.000-05:00

I may be slightly behind the curve in posting a list of resolutions, but then I've had other priorities over the past week.

That being said, it was time for some housekeeping. I removed the widgets from my sidebar that were cluttering up the page and weren't adding much value to any casual user.

I've ditched the long blogroll and links to magazines, neither of which represent what reading these days. Once I switched to Google Reader, I stopped using bookmarks and certainly that list. Instead, I've simply added the blogs of friends, near and far. For those interested, my linkblog and shared delicious bookmarks are still there to be explored.

Once again, I found myself wanting to add links to the URLs of former friends and classmates. It wasn't easy to abstain. Despite myself, I still find it all too easy to click over, both because I find the writing entertaining or that I still care what's happening in their lives.

In the spirit of the new year, however, I've resolved to no longer put energy into dwelling upon sundered relationships, especially as it's long since become clear that the only evidence of them lies in my IP logs. Wherever you are in your lives and in the world, I wish you well.

Other resolutions are easier to articulate:

Exercise more
Volunteer
Tell my family and friends that I care about them more often
Write daily with passion, precision and pithiness
Pursue creative outlets in woodworking, painting, photography and Web design
See the dentist, now that I've dealt with the doctor
Better prepare my truck for offroad use and learn to get myself out of sticky situations in the backcountry
Be a better editor, whatever the medium -- sound, video or text
Read more, watch less.
Fish smarter and earlier
Be greener
Become more involved and invested in social media
Most of all, love myself and those around me; karma comes around.

I know that if I can persevere through the past year's challenges, 2008 will be a cinch. Here's to the year ahead.

Tagged, tagging and tags

2007-12-02T17:43:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I managed to get through November without posting. I have a draft that was never quite published, after a trip to Maine for an acappella reunion, and memories from a week in Maryland that deserve some time and thought. For the moment, however, I have been "tagged" by Grateful Girl, the significant other of a great friend. So... I'll use that as the impetus to get back on the personal blogging horse.

Tagging, in my world, is nearly irrevocably associated with folksonomies and tag clouds. For those that are unfamiliar with that sort of jargon, that term refers to user-assigned taxonomies, a phenomenon assessed and described with eloquence by David Weinberger in his excellent Everything Is Miscellaneous. Here, the tag is more of a throwback to the hoary days of 2002, when bloggers tapped each other to pontificate about the most recent Internet meme.

It's fun, it's friendly and I'm glad to play along.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Don’t break the chain!

1. I adore "pickle pottage sandwiches" -- stoned wheat thins, peanut butter and dill pickles - though I have them infrequently.

2. I tried to literally cross the Rubicon as a teenager and left a Teva embedded in the river back after my classmates pulled me out of the muck.

3. The first television show I ever watched was a Bugs Bunny episode, courtesy of Warner Brothers. I think it was Duck Season, and I wouldn't see TV again for years.

4. I won a pesto challenge at Star Island when I was 19 by drinking a full tureen of creamy sauce in a go, nearly two quarts. I earned a stomache ache, bragging rights for a week and five large raspberry rickies at the snack bar. Even trade, IMHO.

5. I own not one but three cast iron crepe pans, along with more than a dozen other cast iron skillets, pots and sauce pans. Go figure.

And with that, I hereby tag the following folks:

Matt
Brian
Jack
Beth
Gimpadelic (who, even if GG tagged him already, might benefit from the additional impetus.)

Why I won't be an Anchorman again soon.

2007-10-29T16:42:00.000-05:00

Stay classy, Interwebs.

The mustache contest is over! Shaven again, I feel like a new man. I even placed second, albeit in a three-way tie in a five man field. I may grow a goatee again some day -- but this particular brand of facial fur is firmly off the table.

What happened this month? A viral video mixdown, for one.

2007-10-26T16:23:00.000-05:00

October has been quite the rollercoaster. Somewhere in there, I passed 31, found myself single again and did some decent writing. I almost caught a few fish, read a great book or three, caught up with work and made time to escape to the White Mountains and the Cape. Oh, there might have been a wee bit of Red Sox baseball in there somewhere as well.

There's much more to say but....it's Friday, and blogging is not what I want to be doing. Here's a hilarious video, courtesy of Eric, to take me into the weekend.

We Didnt Start The Viral - Watch more free videos

Shadow

2007-09-27T23:44:00.001-05:00

Shadow has rarely looked so cool. Thanks, Black Mamba.

*.deity is after me

2007-09-26T21:47:00.000-05:00

SOME deity is definitely after me -- or at least it feels like it.

After working hard all morning and early afternoon, I decided to take a ride out to Walden for a swim, an incredibly attractive prospect given the 91 degree weather.

I've cycled out there at least once a month since March -- ok, not August -- and thought it would be the perfect way to clear my head and then tackle a long-standing coding project.

I wish I'd found some other way to decompress.

I went downstairs to get my bike and found the front tire flat.

I pumped it up and then drove over to the bike path, thinking I would avoid having to cycle through rush hour traffic and give my already-sore legs a break when I returned.

I geared up and pedaled all of 8 strokes before the back tube blew, sending me skidding sideways.

I broke my fall with a gloved hand (fine), knee (now sans a large swatch of flesh and skin) and my pedal.

Determined to persevere and get out to my swim, I drove back to the bike shop and then went over to CVS and bought a big bleedstop bandaid.

Patched up, I extricated the tube, bought and installed a new one and drove back to bike path, sure that I'd overcome my challenge and was still going to get a pedal and dunk.

And then I saw that my pedal had broken in half due to the force of the skid, no doubt preserving my joints but making the bike more or less unridable.

I tried to stop at my favorite BBQ place on the way home to console myself over while I iced the knee....and of course my debit card wouldn't read on their machine.

A long, hot shower later, I'm shaking my head and wondering where the bad karma came from while being thankful that I didn't wipe out in traffic or on the trail.

Frickin' hump day. My knee hurts.

Family Guy and Star Wars?

2007-09-25T13:56:00.000-05:00

I feel like I've gone to Geek Heaven.

We'll see how long these embeds stay live on YouTube.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Simpsons intro for the new season -- nice nod to the movie

2007-09-25T13:54:00.000-05:00

What can I say? I'm a fan.

What makes a true Bostonian?

2007-09-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

a.k.a, you know you're a Masshole when...

I'm a transplant to these parts, with only 8 years logged in the Bay State. And that's fine. A recent query from Boston.com to its readers caught my eye, however, and led me to some great finds on the discussion board. I'm crossposting the best here, with attribution to the users, even though I imagine the excepts might exist elsewhere.

I find these pretty funny -- and true to my own experience, limited though it may be.

Enjoy!

(From jbt)

Yes, to be a true Massachusetts resident, you have to reside, which is to say make your permanent residence, in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
To be a Masshole, however, you have to know a frappe has ice cream (a milkshake is syrup, crushed ice and milk, or malted milk if you prefer). You have to know you can go either to or down the Cape (never heard that distinction before). You would realize that any idiot who parks in the Harvard Yard is going to be towed, if not jailed.
It also helps if you know where you can get (now that Jones's is closing down) Adidas shell-toes or gazelles (or Nike Cortez), Girbauds and a Champion sweatshirt--with a plastic visor if you're feeling sporty. You have to have at least one friend named Sully. You must have owned a late-70s to mid-80s Oldsmobuick (bonus for the vinyl top). You should be acquainted with "Cold Tea" in Chinatown.
If you're hardcore, you were glad when you read this morning about Phil Rizzuto (former spokeman for predatory lending), you still have a soft spot for Joe Morgan, you never thought Johnny Most was biased, you still have something that says on it either "Squish the Fish" or "Berry the Bears", and you still are aware there is a professional hockey franchise in Boston.
One could go on forever. You can identify, without Wikipedia, the Governor who rode the T, the Governor who loved the Grateful Dead, and the Governor who commuted by helicopter. At some point, you probably were drinking a beer within 10 feet of Ray Flynn (and neither of you remember it).
You do not alternate-merge, period, and when a left-turn light turns yellow, you know that the next five cars are entitled to peel off across traffic. However, you are very skilled at navigating rotaries and 5-way intersections, and you never get confused when you are on 93 North and 128 South at exactly the same instant. For that matter, wherever you are going, you know how to get there 10 different ways without using an expressway, and if you are on an expressway, you know exactly when and where you can use the breakdown lane. At a traffic light, you beep your horn a heartbeat before it turns green.
You should be able to explain why J. Geils is the greatest rock band of all time. You should be able to spend 25 minutes typing a message on a Globe message board and feel it's totally justified, because the question is so important.
Most of all, you should be able to be cryptically profane by using phonetics. Fah. Q.

From (Sugar Magnolia)

You know you're from Massachusetts if......

1. You think crosswalks are for wimps

2. You think if someones nice to you they either want something or they are from out of town and lost

3. You know how to cross four lanes of traffic in five seconds

4. You're amazed when traveling out of town that people at Dunkin Donuts actually speak English

5. You think it's not actually tailgating unless you're touching the bumper of the car in front of you
6. You know that a yellow light means that at least five more people can get through and a red one means two more can

7. The transportation system is known as the "T"

8. You could own a small town in Iowa for the cost of your house

9. Subway is a fast food place

10. There are 24 Dunkin Donuts shops within 15 minutes of your house

11. When people talk about "The Curse Of The Bambino" you know what they're talking about and believe it too. This one is all over!!!!!!!!!! GO RED SOX!!!!

12. You believe using your turn signals gives away your plan to the enemy

13. If you stay on the same road long enough it eventually has three different names

14. Someone has honked at you because you didn't peel out the second the light turned green

15. You have honked at someone because they didn't peel out the second the light turned green

16. All the potholes just add to the excitement of driving

17. Stop signs mean slow down a little, but only if you want to

18. Six inches of snow is considered a dusting

19. Three days of 90 degree heat is definitely a "heat wave", 63 degrees is "on the warm side"

20. You cringe everytime you hear some actor/actress imitate the "Boston Accent" on TV or in a movie, if you don't have it then you're never going to get it even if you were born here

21. At the ice cream shop you call chocolate sprinkles "jimmies"

22. You can go from one side of town to the other in less than fifteen minutes and see at least fifteen losers you went to high school with doing the same thing they were doing when you saw them last

23. The person in front of you is going 70 MPH and you're cursing them for going too slow

24. You know how to pronounce towns like Worcester, Haverhill, and Cotuit

25. You know what they sell at a "packie"

26. You have never been to Cheers

27. You've slammed on your brakes to deter a tailgator

28. You still try to order curly fries from Burger King

29. You keep an ice scraper in your car all year round

30. You know at least three Tony's, one Vinnie and a Frank

31. Paranoia sets in when you can't see an ATM or CVS

32. You've pulled out of a side street and used your car to block on-coming traffic so you can make a left

33. You've bragged about saving money at The Christmas Tree Shop

34. You know what "regular coffee" is

35. You can navigate a rotary without a problem

36. You have been to Fenway Park

37. You refer to the New York Yankees as the devil

38. You feel the rest of the world needs to drive more like you

39. When someone calls you a "masshole" you take it as a compliment

40. You use the words "wicked" and "good" in the same sentence

41. You know what a frappe is

42. Saint Patricks Day is your second favorite holiday

43. You are proud to drink Sam Adams and think that the rest of the country owes Bostonians a thank you

44. You never say "Cape Cod" you say "the cape"

45. You went to Old Sturbridge Village and Plymouth Plantation in elementary school

46. You can drive to the mountains and the ocean all in one day

47. You have a special place in your heart for the Worcester Firefighters

48. You know the Mass Pike is some strange weather dividing line

49. You almost feel dissappointed when someone doesn't flip you off when you cut them off or steal their parking space

50. You actually get all the jokes and pass them on

(From Mikstah)

101 Ways You Know you're a Proud Bostonian

1 . The Red Sox World Series win was, and will always be, one of the
greatest moments in your life.

2. The guy driving in front of you is going 70 mph and you're swearing at
him for going too slow.

3. When ordering a tonic, you mean a Coke.

4. You went to Canobie Lake Park or Water Country as a kid

5. You actually enjoy driving around rotaries.

6. You do not recognize the letter "R" as a part of the English language -
foreva!

7. Your social security number starts with a 0

8. You can actually find your way around Boston.

9. You know what a "regular" coffee is.

10 You keep an ice scraper in your car year-round.

11. You can tell the difference between a Revere accent and a Dorchester accent.

12. Springfield is located "way out west."

13. You almost feel disappointed if someone doesn't f lip you the bird when you cut them off or steal their parking space.

14. You know how to pronounce the names of towns like Worcester, Billerica, Gloucester, and Haverhill.

15. Anyone you don't know is a potential idiot until proven otherwise.

16. Paranoia sets in if you can't see a Dunkin Donuts or CVS within eyeshot at all times.

17. You have driven to New Hampshire on a Sunday just to buy alcohol.

18. You know how to pronounce Yastrzemski.

19. You know there's a trophy at the end of the Bean Pot.

20. You order iced coffee in January

21. You know that the Purple Line will take you anywhere

22. You love scorpion bowls.

23. You know what they sell at a Packie.

24. Sorry Manny, but number 24 means DEWEY EVANS.

25. You know what First Night is.

26. You know at least one guy named Sean, Pat, Sully, Red, Bud or Seamus.

27. McLobster? McCrap!

28. You know at least 2 cops in your town because they were your high school drinking buddies.

29. Sure there are 6 New England states, but Connecticut really doesn't
count.

30. You intentionally give wrong directions to tourists, feel bad when they drive off, but then say to yourself ,"Ah, screw them."

31. You know at least one bar where you can get something to drink after last call.

32. You're sick of the Kennedy's, but you vote for them anyway.

33. You know holding onto the railing when riding the Green Line is not optional

34. The numbers '78 and '86 make you cringe.

35. You've been to Goodtimes before

36. You think the rest of the country owes you for Thanksgiving and Independence Day. (...and they DO).

37. You have never been to "Cheers."

38. The words 'WICKED' and 'GOOD' go together.

39. You've been to Fenway Park several times.

40. You've gone to at least one party at U Mass.

41 You own a "Yankees Suck" shirt or hat.

42. You know what a Frappe is.

43. You've been to Hempfest.

44. You know who Frank Averuch is.

45. ADVANCED: You know who was once Bozo the Clown.

46. You can complete the following: "Lynn, Lynn..."

47. You get pissed off when a restaurant serves clam chowder, and it turns out to be friggin' Snows.

48. You actually know how to merge from six lanes of traffic down to one.

49. The TV weatherman is damn good if he's right 25% of the time.

50. You never go to "Cape Cod," you go "down the Cape".

51. You think that Roger Clemens and Johnny Damon are more evil than Whitey Bulger.

52. You know who Whitey Bulger is.

53. You went to the Swan Boats, House of Seven Gables, or Plymouth Plantation on a field trip in elementary school

54. Bobby Orr is loved as much as Larry Bird, Tom Brady, and Ted Williams.

55. You remember Major Mudd.

56. You know what candlepin bowling is

57. You can drive to the mountains and the ocean all in one day

58. You know Scollay Square once stood where Government Center is.

59. When you were a kid, Rex Trailer was the coolest guy around. Speaking of which...

60. You can still hum the song from the end of Boom Town

61. Calling Carrabba's an "Italian" restaurant is sacrilege

62. You still have your old Flexible Flyer somewhere in your parents' attic.

63. You know that the Mass Pike is some sort of strange weather dividing line.

64. The only time you've been on the Freedom Trail is when relatives are in town.

65. The Big Dig tunnel disaster wasn't really that much of a surprise.

66. You call guys you've just met "Chief" or "Boss."

67. 4:15pm and pitch black out means there's just 3 more shopping days until Christmas

68. You know more than one person with the last name Murphy

69. You refer to Savin Hill as "Stab 'n Kill."

70. You've never eaten at Durgin Park, but recommend it to tourists.

71. You can't look at the zip code 02134 without singing it.

72. You voted for a Republican Mormon as Governor just to screw with the rest of the country.

73. 11pm? Drunk? It means one thing: Kowloon!

74. 2 am? Drunk? It means one thing: Kelly's Roast Beef!

75. 5 am? Drunk? It means one thing: You wish you had a blanket in your back seat

76. You know that P-Town isn't the name of a new rap group.

77. People you don't like are all "Bastids."

78. You took school or work off for the Patriots first Super Bowl Win Parade

79. You've called something "wicked pissa."

80. You'll always get razzed for Dukakis.

81. Saturday afternoons meant Creature Double Feature with Dale Dorman

82. Sunday mornings meant the Three Stooges on Channel 38

83. You've slammed on your brakes to deter a tailgater

84. No, you don't trust the Gorton's Fisherman.

85. You know that Papa Gino's usually has a jukebox

86. You think Aerosmith is the greatest rock band of all time.

87. Your town has at least 6 sub shops, and none of them are a Subway.

88. You know at least three Tony's, one Vinnie and a Frankie

89. 20 degrees isn't that bad as long as there's no wind.

90. You were very sad when saying goodbye to the Boston Garden

91. Thanksgiving means family, turkey, High School football, and the long version of Alice's Restaurant.

92. You know the guy who founded the Boston Pops was Athah Feedlah.

93. You know what the Combat Zone is

94. You actually drive 45 minutes to New Hampshire to save $5 in sales tax

95. You've pulled out of a side street and used your car to block oncoming traffic so you can make a left.

96. You've bragged about the money you've saved at The Christmas Tree Shop

97. You've been to Hampton Beach on a Saturday night

98. Playing street hockey was a daily after school ritual.

99. Hearing an old lady shout "Numbah 96 for Sioux City!" means it's time for steak

100. You remember Jordan Marsh, Grants, Bradlees, Caldor, Zayres, or Ann & Hope.

101. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Massachusetts!

"digitivity denizen"

2007-09-20T11:18:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's at least a partial description of me. A denizen of digitivity.

I don't agree with everything in this story, though.

It's quite possible that more of us are hooking up because of Facebook, MySpace and Craigslist.

Not all of us are giving up the horizontal mambo in favor of Desktop Tower Defense, Halo 3, updating our blogrolls and friending old classmates.

And technology in many cases is bringing us closer together, not apart.

The Helix Nebula

2007-08-27T21:35:00.000-05:00

[In this image provided by NASA shows a newly expanded image of the Helix nebula Friday Aug. 24, 2007 lending a festive touch to the fourth anniversary of the launch of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. This spectacular object, a dying star unraveling into space, is a favorite of amateur and professional astronomers alike. Spitzer has mapped the expansive outer structure of the six-light-year-wide nebula, and probed the inner region around the central dead star to reveal what appears to be a planetary system that survived the star's chaotic death throes. Spitzer launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on August 25, 2003. (AP Photo/NASA-JPL)]

Considering Facebook

2007-08-27T16:50:00.000-05:00

At least I'm blogging somewhere, about something.

Even if this blog lies fallow. Someday, I'll catch up on the summer's hijinks.

Constructaculular! A working Lego manufacturing plant:

2007-08-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

21 days without posting?

My.

This constructigasm blew my mind sufficiently to provoke it, thankfully.

I adored Legos as a child. Hours upon hours of imagination expansion. I missed the introduction of Mindstorms, sadly, which is at the heart of much of the Lego factory above.

Coolest bit: When the completed vehicle rollw off of the ramp.

John Butler picks up a storm

2007-08-01T11:33:00.000-05:00

Just remarkable finger picking. Wonderful!

"Buttons" from Sia

2007-07-26T09:07:00.000-05:00

Like many folks, I was introduced to Sia by "Breathe Me," the utterly transcendent song that was the backdrop to the final montage for the Six Feet Under finale.

She's back, with a new song, album and a promo video that manages to be creative, quirky and a wee bit disturbing. I dig the tune. I'm not sure about the clothespins.

Homer guest hosts

2007-07-26T08:52:00.000-05:00

Even the Tonight Show has been Simpsonized. I rather like the GE poke, courtesy of Lisa's comments to her dad.

A humpback ride?

2007-07-24T12:15:00.000-05:00

Credit: Lori Mazzuca, Kauai, Hawaii, USA

[link]

BigDog Quadruped Robot: I don't want to pick up after this one

2007-07-17T13:20:00.000-05:00

I'm not afraid to say that this thing scares the s--t out of me, even while I think it's really quite amazing at the same time. Bruce Sterling (easily one of my all-time favorite sci-fi writers) wrote about his impressions a bit more eloquently:

Yeah, yeah, I know -- some boondoggle Pentagon robot. Where's the zillion-dollar spare parts? But look at the insane way this lurching mongrel picks its way through mud, sharp rocks, and snow. And those horrible little hooves it has, and its bandage-wrapped black-zombie legs... and that irritating whining noise it makes. I don't see it "running and jumping," but it's so cheap-looking and pig-ugly that it looks entirely convincing -- twenty years from now, tech-savvy global-guerrilla marauders will be strapping IEDs and AK47s onto these things and unleashing them on remote mountain villages.

Eeek.

Oh no! The Internet Crashed! All Data Lost!

2007-07-12T10:26:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Onion. Just when I think you can't get any funnier, you go and do...

This.

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Rattouille & Brunch at Wimbledon

2007-07-08T11:52:00.000-05:00

If I'm watching any television on Sunday morning, it tends to be Meet the Press, Face the Nation or other Sunday morning gabfests. Watching NPR commentators Juan Williams and Maura Liasson square off with Barnes and Kristol from the Weekly Standard under the watchful eye of Britt Hume on Fox News, however, was a new and not entirely unwelcome addition to the weekly spincycle.

It floors me to note that how long I stayed on Fox News -- but there it is.

Much better, however, was the epic and superlative battle between Nadal and Federer this morning. A 5-set championship battle between the two best players in the world? A++ tennis? Spellbing. Federer is, more or less, the kind of tennis player I dreamed of being growing up, before the small issues of talent and coordination kicked up. I'll always love the game but the sorts of shots he's able to make, looping around the net or located in the only four square inches over the net that would escape his opponent's racket is just mindboggling. The grace that he approaches hitting each shot with is extraordinary, reminding me of the swing of Tiger or Ted or MJ's jumpshot. Beauty.

The unexpected tennis-fest follows on a brilliant Saturday. I caught up with the remainder of the spring cleaning left by a departing housemate, primarily organizing, doing laundry & dishes, gardening, stowing gear from the sojourn to Maine and generally getting settled in again. I shaved three weeks worth of beard -- always rejuvenating for me -- and celebrated with a walk around Fresh Pond, dinner on the patio at Jose's, a fantastic local Mexican restaurant with expertly executed authentic dishes, followed by G&Ts on the back porch. I was lucky to find spectacularly good company for my summer evening, a stroke of random luck that's still sinking in.

We caught the late show of Ratatouille at Fresh Pond, walking through Dennehy Park on what can only be described as sultry summer evening.

Pixar recaptured and rekindled the same spirit that drew me in with Toy Story, raising the bar yet again for digital detail and dazzling with whirling, twirling shots that left me a bit breathless. I loved it. I loved the reflection of the streetlights in the textured granite sidewalk, the bright copper showing in the scratches on the patina of the well-used pans in the kitchen and the fur of the rats themselves, a marvel of autonomous fibers animated in an utterly realistic way. It took an artist's eye to raise my appreciation of all of those elements to another level -- I was a fortunate soul to have one next to me. Two of 'em, in fact.

Ben Bird's characteristic flair for sweet, universal humor was on display throughout.

For this cook and foodie, the theme of the movie itself was probably the biggest treat. I'm looking forward to attempting that presentation of ratatouille myself sometime soon, though the smoker and grill are calling to me more than anything else these days.

I'm about to bike out to Walden and swim, hoping to escape the load of the 90+ degree humid blanket of hot air that is suffocating Cambridge.

Ah, summer.

SUCH a happy camper this morning.

Meebo widget madness

2007-07-06T17:03:00.000-05:00

Ok, it's not exactly madness. I did decide, however, after observing the coolness of the embedded chat widget on a bunny-loving friend's blog, that I wanted to jump on the Meebo bandwagon.

Geeky covetousness, I am your huckleberry.

So far, I like it.

If anyone wants to chat me up, go for it. I hope you have something inspirational or revelatory to impart, though that's probably asking for a lot.

This is why David Pogue remains my favorite geek reviewer

2007-07-06T16:35:00.000-05:00

Just in from Springfield...

2007-07-05T17:07:00.001-05:00

I've been a Simpsons fan since the first moment I saw them on the Tracey Ullman show, so it's no shock to anyone that the upcoming movie has me a bit excited.

I just had a bit of fun over at the Simpsons movie site creating this "avatar." Pure goofy pleasure.

Placeholding, in the absence of my favorite places

2007-07-05T16:42:00.000-05:00

If you're not careful, life can spiral into all sorts of places that don't get properly documented.

Trips to NYC to see old friends get married that blend into epic efforts to race the dawn and tide back to the southwest coast of Massachusetts, only to fall asleep on the beach and become dreadfully burned.

A two-week sojourn in Maine, poorly initiated by a bout of bronchitis but culminating in an all day fest of smoking ribs over applewood, sea kayaking and log home caulking.

Cavorting with porpoises and seals in between, while marveling at how many books I seem to read in the absence of a high-speed Internet connection.

Fishing and porch sitting in NH, gazing out at the White Mountains while dreaming up all new ways not to catch trout. And removing ticks. Lovely, that.

Unexpectedly losing a housemate. And now, perhaps, gaining a new one, similarly interested in outdoorsy pursuits and much better versed in biological study.

Unaccountably taking very few pictures of the places that instill in me a sense of deep, visceral contentment in Maine and New Hampshire, though to be fair I have hundreds of the very same vistas from the past decade.

It was surreal to be back in Boston after a few weeks away north, bearded amidst the unshaven (instead of the inverse at the beginning of the trip), surrounded by friends instead of family, buildings and bridges instead of trees and ocean, digital diaries replacing analog scribblings.

If I wasn't sure of how happy I was to be back before, however, two nights of seeing old friends wiped away any reticence, as we moved from a patio BBQ to a rooftop high above Back Bay to cheer and sing as the fireworks exploded above our heads in a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, a 22-minute limbo that left me hoarse, dazzled and exhilarated.

I'm running out to see the Transformers soon, or I'd offer more context on all of the above. Seeing Live Free or Die Hard at the Criterion Theater in Bar Harbor has left me well-primed for more blockbustery goodness. And robots. Lots of wonderful, transforming, spectacularly-animated robots.

The Turbo II: Autoparts + Hacking Wizardy = Inudstrial JukeBox Nirvana

2007-06-12T16:56:00.000-05:00

SO farking cool. A plywood boombox made entirely out of junkyard auto parts and one man's very creative and handily executed vision.

I guess this homage makes me an official MAKE geek. Shocker, that.

(Hat tip: BoingBoing)

The Pale Blue Dot:

2007-06-06T16:18:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Eric, whose gmail status message turned me on to Pale Blue Dot, a film by George Fu. Go watch it. It's that good. You'll need to download a DivX video player plugin for your brower, which is somewhat irksome if you're on a low bandwidth connection, but worth it for those blessed with broadband.

The short is less than six minutes long, but that's more than long enough to deliver a a moving narration from Carl Sagan that puts humanity and our small planet in the kind of perspective that perhaps only an astronomer can.

When that narrative mashed up over a montage of dozens of the most iconic moments from the history of film and popular culture, c'est voila:

Transcendence. Or something approaching it.

Jonathan Coulton covers Baby Got Back

2007-06-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

Can you turn "Baby Got Back" into a lovely, acoustic tune with folksy overtones? Apparently -- Coulton brought a smile to my face as I worked away this afternoon. While I still prefer Codemonkey, add this to the canon.

Love 2.0 (the Key): Geek meets Web

2007-06-05T13:24:00.000-05:00

If you a) understand the lyrics and b) think they're hilarious, you too just might be a geek. Thanks for the laugh and the smile, Jonny.

95 Days Later

2007-06-04T16:05:00.000-05:00

Three months on, I'm still getting to know Cambridge and my new neighbors. On the whole, it's been as welcoming and smooth a transition as I could have wished for, much less hoped for or expected. I'm wrote this post from the congenial atmosphere in Paddy's, a local fixture since 1934. The regulars are a mix of the backbone of the city, so to speak, policemen, firemen, tradesmen and repairmen, with veterans and old salts sprinkled liberally throughout. The pub itself has some of the old country feel about it, as decades-long friends and neighbors but rounds more often than single bottles or pints, though the florescent lighting is a bit harsh.

The presence of a storied local is one of many net positives in the move. The other side of the ledger isn't clear -- the cost of food and housing aren't negligible here and may be unsustainable in the long run -- but on the whole I'm sure I made the right choice when I moved here from Roslindale in the beginning of March. While I miss the Arnold Arboretum, Shadow and Roberta, my (new) roomate's dog, have been running around Fresh Pond a couple of times a week, which amounts to about four miles and change. These days, it's going faster and without much of a pause, a sign that I might actually be returning to some semblance of physical shape. Shadow is game, after he gets through marking at the beginning of the circuit or dropping off the inevitable deposit at the bank, so to speak, though I notice that he's perhaps lost a step in his smooth gait to match the increasing grey around his muzzle. He'll be seven in August, no longer the muscle-bound bolt of black lightning that I adopted five years ago this May.

I took three significant steps towards residency on Friday as well, acknowledging "on paper" what's been true in reality for a while: I signed up or a library card at my local library, just three blocks away, paid the excise tax on my truck and visited City Hall to secure the golden ticket that is a Cambridge resident parking sticker.

A parking pass, library card and taxes; I'm on my way to residency, anyway.

There are other, less tangible benefits to the move as well. Proximity to the Minuteman Commuter Bike Trail at Alewife, running all the way up to Bedford. A ten minute walk to Porter Square's T stop, shopping center, restaurants and music venues. A quick exit to Route 2 outbound or onto 16 to go into the city. A reasonable Chinese restaurant, Lucky Garden, a mere block and a half away, with creditable versions of any number of tasty dishes. The Fresh Pond shopping center only a walk -- or blink of a bike ride -- away through Dennehy Park, where the inexpensive if average-sized wonders of the cinema await, along with the paycheck-devouring aisles of Whole Foods. The young Indian brothers who run the convenience store next door that embody laid back ease and good humor. The library around the corner or the Hi-Rise Bakery a few blocks beyond that.

That laundry list, of course, ignores my luck in roommates or the cool twenty-somethings that inhabit the floors above me, along with the dog-friendly backyard, storage and laundry in the basement.

Karma comes around. I'm sure that with time other black marks may emerge. For now, I'm more than content to meet new neighbors, watch the vegetable garden explode out of the ground and pots in the back garden and make the most of the opportunities that now lie within walking distance.

I can't say the adjustment to single life has been easy. There's no doubt that the choice to move to Huron Village, as some realtors have taken to calling the neighborhood, has made the transition less painful.

Cantabridgianity, here I come.

700 pounds of wild boar sausage, anyone? [update -- no thank you]

2007-05-27T00:06:00.000-05:00

Jamison Stone, 11, holds the .50 caliber pistol he used to kill a wild hog weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail near Delta, Alabama on May 3, 2007.

If confirmed, that would be even bigger than "Hogzilla" in Georgia a few years ago.

That is one BIG feral pig.

UPDATE: I just listened to a NPR news story that really, really bugged me. It turns out that the gigantic pig pictured was no wild hog at all. He was an immense pig raised elsewhere, on a farm, purchased and then shipped to this game preserve where he was released four days prior to this hunt. The previous owners of "Fred" have come forward, first to protest that this was not a wild boar and also to note that allowing a boy to shoot the animal eight times with a pistol was neither humane nor particularly sporting.

I'm really more sickened by the episode than anything else, including any part I had in glorifying the youngster's achievement. While it's no different, in practice, than the release of farm-raised trout for anglers to catch in stocked ponds or the seeding of grouse or pheasants for hunters to shoot on other game preserves, in both cases I imagine the sportmen paying the animals more respect with quick, merciful deaths.

(AP Photo/Melynne Stone)

Angelina Jolie gets geotattooed

2007-05-24T13:28:00.000-05:00

According to this story in the Daily Mail, Angelina Jolie has geotagged herself in a rather permanent way.

Lockets of hair just don't cut it in 21st century celebrity, apparently.

The coordinates of the tattoo on her arm, above, represent coordinates in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Namibia, and Vietnam, each string of characters representing the location of birth for one of her four children.

I admit it: I think this is pretty cool.

At home in Huron Village: In Search of the Perfect Fish Taco

2007-05-23T12:04:00.001-05:00

There may have been a fish taco extravaganza in my backyard Monday night.

I love cooking like this. I took inspiration from both new neighbor's tastes and the newfound return of balmy weather to Boston and lept in to the creation of the perfect grilled fish taco.

I surfed through a few dozen Googled recipes and culled out my favorite combination of ingredients. There wasn't any one that was perfects, so the recipe that follows is definitely both a mashup of styles and original.

In my experience, for a truly memorable meal, most of the effort happens on the front end in planning, shopping for and choosing your ingredients. 1/4 planning, 1/4 ingredient selection and shopiing, 1/4 prep and 1/4 actual cooking. Maybe even less on that last fraction, when presentation occupies some portion of that as well.

Anyway, I started with choosing the fish itself. Local wild bluefish and some very fresh monkfish and tilapia were all quite affordable and held together well on the grill. Preparing the fish was simple. I placed all of the filets in a Pyrex pan and slathered them in safflower oil, citrus salt and pepper. I cut up a Vidalia onion into thick discs and de-seeded the jalapeno, added both to the fish in the dish and set them the pan aside, out of reach of the ever-present Roberta. She's quite the chowhound.

After that, the sous chef de jour and I got to work prepping the rest of the groceries.

Those included, first and foremost, a dozen soft corn tortillas for soft tacos and another dozen hard corn taco shells. I've always hated hard tacos that break when you eat them, so I planned to enfold the hard shell with the soft to avoid taco in the lap. That worked out well -- especially when I melted cheese and added grilled, chopped onions between the layers.

While I could have liked to have had avocado, I couldn't find any suitably fully ripe ones at the market.

Even without it, the essential fish taco I wanted included the following:

chopped red cabbage seasoned with soy, mirin, pumpkin seed oil and S&P
minced red onion
roasted sweet corn
chopped cilantro and diced scallions
sour cream
salsa

The corn prep was satisfyingly easy. I just de-silked the ear, retaining the husk, and then soaked it in water. When grill was ready, I put it on to steam. Easy, simple and tasty. I sliced the kernels from the cob; this is definitely a new favorite way to eat corn.

The finished fish taco, with two layers of corn tortillas, grilled sweet onion, melted chedder/jack cheese, sour cream, red cabbage and onion, cilantro, salsa, scallions and key lime juice was one of the better scratch dinners I've done recently.

Economical, too. I fed five people and had enough for two more today.

While there was a brief concern as the gas grill failed to get up to full strength, I actually preferred using the pot-bellied Weber with charcoal briquets. I like the taste more and the loving attention required speaks to me on some fundamental level. It may be about the fire -- pyromania of a modest sort has been with me since the very earliest age.

Snow gets full cred for plating and inspiration, some sweet sous cheffery & most definitely for the photography above. And helping with the dishes.

Here's to 278/280 Walden -- I like the new digs.

RIP Cutty Sark

2007-05-21T12:34:00.000-05:00

My uncle pinged me first thing this morning with the sad news about the burning of one of the world's greatest maritime treasures, the Cutty Sark.

It's a shame the whiskey named after her isn't top notch. It's a blend (and not my favorite) but probably still much better than what the Cutty Sark's sailors drank.

Like the Royal Navy, maybe I'd feel better if I drank a pint of grog or more every day myself.

I was glad to read that the Cutty Sark's metal skeleton did not buckle in the heat of the blaze -- and that firemen preserved her figurehead. She may be preserved yet.

It's extraordinary to think back the days of epic tea races as the clipper ships scudded across the world's oceans, coursing over the waves. . . how else to explain a trip from Australia-to-Britain in as little as 67 days? Under sail?

According to Wikipedia (ahem), the Cutty Sark's best run, 360 nautical miles (666 km) in 24 hours (an average 15kt, 27.75 km/h), was said to have been the fastest of any ship of its size.

Viva windpower

Video: Italian Calvin and Hobbes

2007-05-17T07:35:00.000-05:00

Calvin and Hobbes. Animated. In Italian. I don't think Bill will be thrilled to see his work used by yet another unauthorized party...but this is, as is noted in the comments, a labor of love. It might just squeak in under "fair use" -- but I doubt it. Either way, the animated short is a delightful trip down memory lane. I adored Calvin and Hobbes as a kid. Still do, really. Whenever I mention to a friend that something will "build your character," it's a direct homage.

xkcd: A wonderfully oddball map of the online world

2007-05-02T12:03:00.000-05:00

Link

Best kitty-video ever: Even kittens can use a mac

2007-04-15T18:37:00.000-05:00

Absurd cuteness.

Brings new meaning to "ease-of-use" though, eh? I wonder how the screen looks after those tender attentions. I have no doubts about whether this feline Q&A specialist might pull of a similar demo on a Wintel machine: nada.

Quarantined 01

2007-03-30T13:47:00.001-05:00

Vote Different

2007-03-19T22:37:00.000-05:00

I'm still woefully behind in posting here -- and for the few that are still checking the feed, I apologize -- but I did see something sufficiently provocative today to warrant a quick upload.

The blogosphere has been going a little batty (moonbatty, perhaps?) about a mashup of the iconic original 1984 Mac commercial and Hillary Clinton's online fireside chat. The video was made by an Obama supporter (shocking) and while I'm reticent to entirely endorse either candidate (I prefer Bill Richardson to both on a number of levels, frankly) the impact of this political ad/statement/art if undeniable.

I hope it's the first of many such mashups, on both sides.

Splogged

2007-03-09T21:07:00.000-05:00

Hi folks. Sorry for the long break. Much, much more to come. The short answer for my hiatus from blogging?

Blogger flagged this as a splog and blocked me from posting.

Oh, and I moved to Cambridge. That may have occupied a few hours here and there...

Like I said, more to come. Friday night calls.

YouTube = the new CSPAN?

2007-02-22T22:46:00.000-05:00

Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine reports:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s blog — note how that rolls off the keyboard — has been putting up video of representatives floor speeches against the war. That’s fascinating enough but get how they are posting the video: via YouTube. Here is Pelosi’s own YouTube user page.

C-SPAN has been the place to get source information on video: watch and judge for yourself. Now YouTube can take over that role and not just for limited official events but for source video anywhere. [crossposted at PrezVid]

This really is quite extraordinary. I'm sure my friends are tired of me blathering on about the Craigslist generation or the YouTube election -- but here we are. We're more wired than ever before, with the Edwards campaign on Second Life and the first presidential commercial (thanks, Mitt -- we'll all stop "dithering now") popping up there for embedding nearly simultaneously with its entrance onto the broadcast airwaves. The fact that the Speaker of the House is posting speeches from the floor of the House of Representatives (or more likely, one of her aides) strikes me as a significant step towards transparency. In other words, YouTube is good for more than just macaca moments. Such engagement in new media might even grab the attention of those who have turned off and tuned out from network news and newspapers, nearly en masse. I hope so. There are so many important stories out there.

Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni

2007-02-22T21:33:00.000-05:00

While trying to catch Patagonian toothfish (aka Chilean Seabass), New Zealand fisherman caught...this.

(AFP/National Science Museum/File)

450kg of giant squid. That makes it the largest squid ever landed.
Let the calamari jokes begin... While a true kraken has yet to be pulled forth, it's not hard to imagine a 30-foot long cephalopod like this absolutely terrifying Irish monks, Vikings or Maoris navigating in small coracles or dugouts.

Larry Lessig video articulates his vision for free spectrum and the Internet

2007-02-19T21:50:00.000-05:00

Lessig remains one of the most brilliant minds I've ever encountered in print and now in video. Code and The Future of Ideas remain a turning point in my education in open source, DRM, copyright and intellectual property. Great stuff.

Geektastic: Gollum and Smeagol Sing a Barry White Duet

2007-02-19T21:39:00.000-05:00

So funny and yet so deeply distubing. I love it -- and not just because I read LOTR half a dozen times before the age of 12. Thanks for the link, Xeni.

Unbelievable wheelchair halfpipe tricks

2007-02-14T22:10:00.000-05:00

As someone who retired from skateboarding seriously at an early age (ask me about my fake tooth) these wheelchair tricks are slightly mindbinding. I love that these guys are still thrashing in any way that they know how -- and doing things I'd never imagined possible in a wheelchair.

Cartoony Gates vs. Jobs Goodness

2007-02-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

Ok, so there's some inconsistencies and maybe twisting of the record here and there....but this is reasonably funny at the times to geekily inclined.

Video of Iguazu Falls

2007-02-14T21:56:00.000-05:00

1.5 miles across. 13 million liters per second of water moving over the falls. Unbelievable natural beauty. Yep, this one's on the lifetime visit list.

WSJ Video: Natural language search

2007-02-12T22:19:00.000-05:00

The Wall Street Journal has now hopped into the online video world in partnership with Brightcove. Notably, they've made it possible (and easy) to get embed code to place their content into, say, a blog. The selection isn't exactly wide nor deep -- but it's a start.

No Faustian Bargain Here

2007-02-11T19:19:00.000-05:00

Harvard has named its first female president in its 371-year history, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, a historian of the Civil War South.

While I can imagine that the task of taking on a university with 12 schools, a 30 billion dollar endowment and 3 billion dollar operating budget is surely a daunting task for the (former) dean of Radcliffe (80 employees), I bet she's woman enough for the challenge.

In the wake of Larry Summers, this is an especially powerful statement, and one that should confirm to the world that opportunity at the highest levels is increasingly, if not wholly, available to every qualified American.

4.3 miles

2007-02-11T00:48:00.000-05:00

I haven't run as far, as fast or as long as I did this afternoon since last July. The ankle injury I sustained walking on the bottom of a lake in Maine has finally healed to the point of being able to go trail running. Shadow and I ran out and up to Arnold Arboretum, tracing the perimeter of the preserve far onto the JP side before looping back. 3/4 of the way up Peters Hill, I flagged, walking the rest of the way before collapsing down to let my heart rate return to normal in the winter sun. Shadow didn't approve at all of the layabout approach to exercise, so after an insistent whine, we jogged down to the orchard groves and I cajoled him into lying down on the cold grass. I managed to run about 50 yards before he ignored my hand motions, coursing over the ground past me like a black streak. He's lost a step since his prime but can still outrun me in a blink when he wants to. Shadow was pretty beat after we got home, flagging as we ran home. though to be fair it's been a long time since he's run 4.3 miles either.

Transition

2007-02-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

I have no idea what the next 30 days will hold.

Now, while that technically isn't completely true, it's not exactly the converse, either. I've taken a faltering step in new direction, though the path is still unfolding.

I'd like to think that watching all Six Feet Under would have taught me that long ago, but here we are in 2007, more than a year since Sia's Breathe Me took us out of the final episode. That moment remains a sobering, beautiful resolution to a brilliant series, a reminder that we all die, sooner or later.

This song still chokes me up when I hear it.

It really took my uncle's passing last year to drive the point home, however. Memorizing the following words from the Bard long ago, in sixth grade, certainly didn't imprint that reality on my heart or outlook.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

--From Macbeth (V, v, 19)

I suppose, at 30, I'm finally conscious of my own mortality.

Prank you very much for the viral marketing infection.

2007-02-08T23:14:00.000-05:00

Inspiration strikes at the oddest times.

I spent a little over two hours last night after work pranking the open cubicles of the two coworkers who foiled me earlier this week.

Before:

After:

I think most folks were pretty amused.

Both pranks will have to be disassembled tomorrow. I'll need to remember the cord for my drill, as only one battery is charged for the DeWalt cordless drills I used to assemble the frame. I'd hate to run out of juice at a crucial moment as I take down.

I'll admit, I was proud of myself. Months of apprenticeship actually paid off in efficiently designing, planning, shoppping, measuring, cutting and then framing the armature. I'd like to think the creativity was always there, as this is just the sort of somewhat outrageous stunt I'd imagine pulling at age 10. The difference is that I've got access to power tools, a car, ladder and 6-foot frame to haul everything about and put it together. The will was certainly always there.

I'm glad I got it out of the way last night, too. Today was an intense, on so many levels. You never know what life will bring, whether it's sickness in your family, natural catastrophe or a winning lottery ticket. Or, you know, an 8 x 16.3 foot plastic tent over your desk.

UPDATE: The quarantine victim managed to take considerably better pictures of the prank than I did, perhaps because my digital camera is nearly five years old. Go E!

Dancing Sushi People?

2007-02-07T00:35:00.000-05:00

All I can say is that Japan is a very different place -- and I can't wait to visit. I'm not sure I'll ever look at sushi in the same way again.

Steve Jobs on DRM and the future of music

2007-02-06T23:21:00.000-05:00

In the "Thoughts on Music" that Steve Jobs posted on Apple.com , the man perhaps in the most powerful position in digital media has weighed in, quite personally, on the DRM debate. He maps out three possible directions for the future of digital mediation and intellectual property protection.

1) Continue the status quo, with competing schemes from Apple, Microsoft and Sony.

2) License FairPlay (the Apple DRM scheme) and cede control over that proprietary encryption scheme.

3) Abolish DRM entirely. In such a world, "any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."

What's the best direction? It's hard to see the major multinationals releasing their content in the way Steve describes in his utopian vision, though I cautiously agree that open formats would be in the best interests of both artists and consumers alike.

I thought the following facts were, if true, somewhat staggering, though of course he had asserted as much beofre in the keynote when he announced the iPhone. What follows the iPod sales numbers and purchases, however, is a much more interesting revelation:

Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats.

I can say that's anecdotally true. The vast majority of music in my collection is from the CDs, tapes, mixes, burned CD-Rs and LPs that previously constituted (and still do, to be fair) the bulk of my music collection before the iTunes store ever entered the picture. These days, on the Nano at least, most of the space is full of podcasts.

Guilty displeasures

2007-02-06T23:11:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the last night of first round auditions for American Idol. I'm glad. I haven't seen it all this year -- not even close -- but the parts of it I have caught have far too much of the judges laughing at the contestants. I know that the system is rigged to filter for the far ends of the talent distribution curve, that the audience is tuning in for both the awful auditions and the transcedent ones. I like the latter -- I like thinking [damn, the girl/guy can sing ] -- but the bad ones veer far too close into cruelty. Eh. Like I said, I'm happy to turn my attention elsewhere.

I did notice an ad for downloadable ring tones of awful auditions, the first time I'd seen the promo. Ick. I can't wait to be around when those enter the teenage population.

Foiled at work

2007-02-05T14:57:00.000-05:00

Best practical joke I've seen in a long time -- and it was played on me.

Retaliation is in process....

Update: Here's the complete set to admire on Flickr, posted by the perpetrators.

My favorite Superbowl spots, courtesy of YouTube

2007-02-04T23:30:00.000-05:00

Go YouTube. This page of Superbowl ads is a thing of viral marketing beauty.

My favorites?

6. Snickers

5. Rock, Papers, Scissors -- Bud Lite
One of the first commercial was also one of the best.

4. Coca-cola

Give a little love and it all comes back to you. How Lennon.

3. Wittiest title nominee: Connectile Disfunction (Sprint Mobile Broadband). The commercial isn't otherwise remarkable but that initial cleverness sold me. Mostly.

2. The K-Fed National Insurance ad. Tough call, but seriously, what other ad is generating more buzz?

1. The Robert Goulet appearance in Emerald Nuts actually made me LOL. There it is.

The worst? I love Garmin products, but this was just a mindblowing waste of 2.6 million dollars:

Ditto for SalesGenie:

Like the 2000 Superbowl ad season but perhaps even worse.

Update: Gizmodo posts on the SuperBowl ads more extensively -- and with awards, no less. GizFunny. Of note is that the iFilms render and play much more smoothly, IMHO.

Update II: The lonely GM robot was sadly overlooked. Score another one for anthropomorphizing our machines.

Update III: Embarrassment descends. I've been given a scathing dressing down for overlooking the Blockbuster spot that has some priceless neoLuddite humor that provoked a belly laugh. I don't know how I forgot to include this....too much time fussing over crab cakes, clearly. I think I even prefer this over Goulet.

Sunday morning, over hard

2007-02-04T14:02:00.000-05:00

A friend posted the first comment on digiphile this morning. Thanks! After writing back, I realized my response would make a perfect armature for a post.

My weekend has been very up and down. I saw Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" at the Huntingdon Theater on Friday and then went to Betty's Wok and Noodle, both of which were really wonderful experiences. I need to see more live theatre.

Saturday, I slept gloriously late and then worked up a sweat chipping the ice glaze off the steps, cars, sidewalks, end of the driveway and everywhere else it coated. I even managed to take the greyhound for a run in the arboretum afterwards, losing my wind 3/4 of the way up Peters Hill. I'm still getting back to decent shape, but I was glad to get some sun and break a sweat. Today, I accomplished that rarest of Sunday morning deeds, reading the NYT Sunday edition cover to cover. I have to admit, I skimmed some sections a bit (Sunday Styles?) but the feat stands. I never manage to do that anymore, though doing so brings me the warm and fuzzy glow of feeling informed, if only through the Grey Lady's lens.

Tons of great articles to note from today's paper, including:

"Sharp Bits," about how restaurant blogging is changing the industry. Great work, though it would have been funnier entitled "Sharp Bytes."
This so doesn't below in the Styles section, though to be fair as section cover story it gets great play on the section devoured by status watchers dying to read the wedding announcements.
"Taking Books Far and Wide, on the Road Less Traveled By" about the important role of a bookmobile in the rural Southwest of the US, providing a kind of mobile library to isolated resident.
"You've Seen the E-mail, Now Buy the Art," which details how emailed JPEGs have let to art shows that sell out ahead of time in 3 minutes, not three hours, along with worthy questions about what this means for the future of art, speculation and shows in a digital age.
"Wireless Internet for All, Without the Towers," Randall Stross's latest essay on "Digital Domains." I hadn't read about Meraki before, which "contains a WiFi router-on-a-chip, combined with the same microprocessor and same memory that formed the heart a Silicon Graphics workstation 10 years ago" that allows the creation of a low-cost, ground-level P2P wireless mesh networks an alternative to muniWiFi or WiMax. Neat.
Finally, "In Elder Care, Signing on Becomes a Way to Drop By" covers the iCare, a product that represent a growing trend towards the inversion of the Big Mother concept, allowing family members to use digital technology to keep an eye on elderly parents. This trend can't be overemphasized, as we're well on our way to watching each other constantly with cheap webcams, portable GPS technology, remote biolevels sensors and browser-based monitoring systems. A brave new world, indeed.

In all of this, I'm reminded of the central role that great newspapers still play in our world. Bloggers, by and large, comment, link, critique and fact check like no other collective consciousness in history but have yet to produce anything like the smorgasboard of exceptional journalism I read today or linked to above. The Old Grey Lady may have her faults (WMD, Judith Miller and Jason Blair come to mind) but she's as relevant as ever, as long as this kind of writing makes its way onto her pages.

My foodie juices are about to get aflowin as I head over to Cambridge to prepare for a culinary bonanza with a friend. He's been brining his pork loin for days; I'm ready to prepare some authentic MD backfin lump crab balls (albeit with Thai crab, but whatever - I can't afford $45/pound) with a cilantro aioli (my grandmum would not approve), braised BBQ country style ribs and a shot at creme brulee, which I've finally got a decent blowtorch for...should fun, along with that whole "football" and advertising extravaganza thing...

"BrewTube"

2007-02-04T00:17:00.000-05:00

NYTimes writers are getting pretty cute with article titles -- but then, we all have to these days. This "BrewTube" article from the pages of the Old Grey Lady's magazine is once again well calibrated to the moment. It will arrive on the doorsteps of readers preparing to watch the SuperBowl of ads (along with Da Bears and the Colts), at least one of which was completely crowdsourced.

Bud.tv, however, is neither cute not a joke, though there are funny things to be found there. In effect, Anheuser-Busch has created its own online cable network, though for now pretty interface houses commercials, trailers and little else -- promises of enhanced content and shows are still coming soon.

If this campaign works for them, I imagine this accelerate the trend of companies creating online communities of users, customers or clients as a means of building both brand awareness and loyalty.

I think it will take much more than this for me to prefer a Bud over a Guinness, Belgian or homebrew.

VIdeo: Web 2.0 neatly explained

2007-02-03T23:03:00.001-05:00

Brilliant.

Watch YouTube inside of Google Reader

2007-02-03T00:53:00.000-05:00

Steve Rubel posted about an announcement from Google that he calls "significant." I think he could be guilty of understatement, but let his words speak for themselves.

Earlier this week Google made a significant change to Google Reader. You can now watch videos from dozens of sites without having to leave the reader. This means you can set up a RSS search feed, from say YouTube, and watch them all as a playlist in reader.

What Google didn't mention is that if you have the Google Reader widget on your Google Personalized Homepage you can actually watch all of these videos right within the page itself.

Page views? What page views? If no one is actually visiting your site, how do you monetize and sustain your business model? Creating meaningful social media metrics will be quite a challenge in this age of feeds, where content can be stripped of much of the branding, advertising or even authorship by a feed browser like Reader or Sage. I think it's about influence. At least, that's what some wiser blogging heads than I seem to believe.

Update: I subscribed to the most viewed feed from YouTube and then zipped over to Reader. Sure enough, the embedded Reader widget on my Google homepage now will pop up a window with a YouTube video embedded and playable within it. Cool.

Hubble's extraordinary eye

2007-02-03T00:39:00.003-05:00

My uncle emailed me this story about the failure of the main camera of the Hubble telescope this week.

This video montage gives some small justice to the gift NASA and its scientists offered to humanity.

WorldMap Live Storm-Worm Virus Replay

2007-02-03T00:39:00.001-05:00

This is really astonishing. I wish we could zoom in more to various areas -- Google Earth mashup, anyone?

Looking out at the vista

2007-02-02T17:31:00.000-05:00

I should really start by apologizing for the title of this post. I've been completely saturated in Microsoft's launch of Vista this week and couldn't help the foul play on words.

That being said, I really do feel like I'm looking out over some extraordinary unexplored country, as I look out at the coming year. I've been rapidly and powerfully drawn to making and consuming online video this past week, both for work and for fun. As a result, I may have "cheated" more than a little bit by posting video instead of any grittier or more serious thoughts or comments on what I've experienced or felt recently.

There's just too much, really. Life just seems to accelerate when you're not looking. I can't believe it's already February.

At the top of the list should be the fact that I'm an associate now, with no trace of assistant anything in my title. I like that. I like that the word means much more than one thing. One can associate sounds with experiences, smells with memories or ideas with people. It's a fully loaded word. I'm a fan.

I caught myself describing my state of being to my mum on Thursday as "exhausted but high functioning." I've apparently absorbed too much psychobabble along the way.

That being said, it's accurate. I'm writing, editing, interviewing and reading as much or more than I have in a while, and generally at a much higher level. What a shock: I love being an editor.

I'm even starting to get back into better shape, stopping by the health club to check out the facilities on the way home last night and breaking out the free weights for the first time in months.

My only real complaint is that I wish I were reading more books and being more creative with photography, painting, poetry and woodworking. Blogs, magazines and newsprint seems to take up far too much of the bedside table and work downcycles these days. After reading Jeffrey Toobin's engrossing tale of Google's moonshot, however, I did head over to Google Books. I hadn't been there in a while. Seeing Dad's book was a reminder, however, of how much is lost on screen. The feel of the paper, the spareness of a poem on the printed page, even the smell of a new book is lost completely in the scanning. Minor quibbles next to the creation of the world's largest pool of information, of course, but I do enjoy slipping a thin volume into my pocket when I board the T. It beats reading it off my MDA, certainly, though I'd like get my hands on a Reader again for more than a few minutes.

It also bears mentioning that making new friends, in and outside of work, is deeply satifying. Many of them are now aware of this blog, so for once I'm picking more words more carefully. I think there will always be a part of me that will mourn the absence of former friends that I thought I might have for life, along with the cascading actions that led to the end of those relationships. It's taken me much longer than I care to admit to move on.

I'm kindly reminded by the friends I still have, thankfully, that it's out of my control. They've made their decisions. All I can do is try not to make the same mistakes and be kinder to others and, in the end, myself. Life is too short and bitterly unfair to do otherwise.

I think 2007 is going to be transformative, if the first 33 days are any clue.

Bill Gates on the Daily Show

2007-01-31T15:29:00.001-05:00

I love the unexpected departure at the end. A real-life, interview version of a crash? Ah, the irony.

What is a 3D PDF?

2007-01-29T23:07:00.001-05:00

MAKE demonstrates how to make a potato gun.

Mashup of U2's Window in the Sky

2007-01-29T22:36:00.001-05:00

There's some remarkable editing at work here. Provocative. I felt surprisingly hopeful and then saddened, inspired and wistful by turns.

Charlie Rose - Warren Buffett: The Man - Part One in a Three Part Series

2007-01-29T20:46:00.001-05:00


This Charlie Rose interview was one of the few broadcast journalists with access to Buffett and Bill Gates when they announced their historic philanthropic partnership. Buffett is engaging.

Darfur: Our Choice Too

2007-01-29T20:08:00.001-05:00

Fareed Zakaria's piece for PBS on Darfur is well worth the 6 1/2 minutes it takes to watch.

Hans Rosling debunks a few myths about the developing world with some spectacular graphics.

2007-01-24T17:33:00.001-05:00


Rosling is professor of international health at Sweden's world-renowned Karolinska Institute, and founder of Gapminder, a non-profit that brings vital global data to life. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 20:35)

Chomsky vs Buckley debate from 1969

2007-01-20T17:09:00.000-05:00

Part 1:

Part 2:

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for the link. I like YouTube more and more each week.

The iPhone as 21st Century Swiss Army Knife

2007-01-20T16:48:00.000-05:00

Sacha Baren Cohen gives the best acceptance speech I've seen in a while

2007-01-16T23:18:00.000-05:00

Tom Hanks is James Bond

2007-01-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

Speaks for itself. F--cking brilliant editing and conception.