June 2007
(2007-05-31) postcards hidden in waikiki
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
May 2007
Freight Train Collision
Camera view of two freight trains colliding, shot from the engineer’s cab side view.
(via Andy’s Blog)
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Caravan
Duke Ellington
Thelonious Monk
More performances of Caravan by Les Paul, Nat King Cole and Arturo Sandoval after the jump. Les Paul
Nat King Cole
Arturo Sandoval
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Eye Direction and Lying
It looks like I’m going to be experimenting with this on coworkers for the rest of the day.
So can the direction a person’s eyes reveal whether or not they are making a truthful statement? Short answer: sort of. But, it isn’t as simple as some recent television shows or movies make it seem. In these shows a detective will deduce a person is being untruthful simply because they looked to the...
Pie charts representing the flags of the world's...
Pie charts representing the flags of the world’s nations…the area of each color on the charts corresponds to the percentage of that color used in the respective flag. I’ll take this opportunity to again maintain that Rem Koolhaas’ barcode flag for the EU is, technically speaking, wicked awesome. (via colourlovers) (link) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Map of Manhattan made up of the countries of...
Map of Manhattan made up of the countries of origin of its residents. (via strange maps) (link) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
We Are All Just Guessing.
Nobody knows shit.
mp4 (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
List of cognitive biases. "Mere exposure effect -...
List of cognitive biases. “Mere exposure effect - the tendency for people to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them.” See how many of these you exhibit while reading things on the web! (link) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
One of the causes of feature creep in products...
One of the causes of feature creep in products like consumer electronics is that when customers are making purchase decisions, they’ll likely choose the one with the most features. “But, when they were asked to use the digital device, so-called ‘feature fatigue’ set in. They became frustrated with the plethora of options they had created, and ended up happier with a simpler...
Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project,...
Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books project, photographs of book spines arranged to tell short stories. (link) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
A "story map" distributed to guests of a wedding...
A “story map” distributed to guests of a wedding that shows the possible occupational, relational, and recreational relationships between guests to be used as a conversational cheat-sheet. Reminiscent of Mark Lombardi’s network maps. Better larger. (via gulfstream) (link) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Closeup videos of the sun. The bottom one is...
Closeup videos of the sun. The bottom one is especially mesmerizing. (link) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Passing the gravy.
www.indexed.blogspot.com (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
One Sentence
True stories in one sentence. (Kind of like Post Secret)
I went to a party the day we had an abortion, it made me feel good not having to be a parent.
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
The Unintended Consequences of Hyperhydration
Health-conscious Americans consume 30 billion single-serving containers of bottled water a year. Supporters of new bottle bills are trying to figure out what to do with all the plastic. (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
john ratcliffe-lee: ahh, twitter through facebook. pretty much time to delete myspace. finally! gearing up for the weekend and looking forward to it. beers (via Twitter / john ratcliffe-lee)
john ratcliffe-lee: someone/thing sold my cell phone number. i received my first text message spam and 1-800 call from nancy drew movie marketers. bastards. (via Twitter / john ratcliffe-lee)
john ratcliffe-lee: mmm, traffic. the weekend is so close. cant wait to get out on the water this summer. (via Twitter / john ratcliffe-lee)
James Surowiecki on feature creep
David Pescovitz:
In this week’s issue of The New Yorker, James Surowiecki, author of the instant-classic Wisdom of Crowds, looks at feature creep and why we’re terrible at predicting what we really want out of a product. From his essay:
You might think… that companies could avoid feature creep by just paying attention to what customers really want. But that’s where the trouble...
1976 video of The Saints performing "Stranded"
Mark Frauenfelder:
Bedazzled is running this excellent video of 70s punk rock group The Saints performing “Stranded.”
Wikipedia:
The Saints are an Australian rock band, formed in Brisbane in 1974. They are considered to be one of the first and most influential punk groups. By 1975, contemporaneously with the Ramones but on the other side of the world, The Saints were employing the...
Thomas Friedman: "I think any foreign student who...
Thomas Friedman: “I think any foreign student who gets a Ph.D. in our country — in any subject — should be offered citizenship.” Extend that to those who enrich our country in other areas (Bjork, Yao Ming, Rem Koolhaas) and I’m in. (The whole article is behind the Times’ paywall — I didn’t even read it — but I thought that one line was pretty...
PBS "Now": Can US entrepreneurial know-how save...
Xeni Jardin:
PBS “NOW” new media producer Joel Schwartzberg says,
On Friday, May 25 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW travels to Kenya to investigate an enterprising idea: franchising not burger and donut shops, but health services and drugs in rural Africa. American businessmen are teaming with African entrepreneurs to spread for-profit clinics around the country in the...
Should I Invest in “Forever” Stamps?
Absolutely Not!:
Since 1971, postal rates have increased more slowly than the actual inflation rate, as measured by the U.S. Consumer Price Index. So, despite the numerous rate hikes over the last 36 years, stamps have actually been getting cheaper. The 20-cent stamp from 1981, for instance, would be equivalent to 45 cents in today’s dollars—which makes today’s rate 10 percent cheaper than it...
Frugality: For Nearly Free, Man Eats Almost Only...
Have you heard of Matthieu Laurette? From 1993 to 2001, he fed and cleaned himself by buying almost only products with “Satisfied or your money back” or “Money back on first purchase” items, then filing the rebates or writing to the companies and saying he wasn’t satisfied.
Laurette then leveraged being a skinflint into an art project, Produits...
Report: Microsoft building apps to personally...
Xeni Jardin:
Microsoft is “developing software that could accurately guess your name, age, gender and potentially even your location, by analysing telltale patterns in your web browsing history,” according to an item in New Scientist: Link. (thanks, Chris) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Man who claims FBI is after him puts entire life...
Xeni Jardin:
Snip from a Wired feature by Clive Thompson:
Hasan Elahi whips out his Samsung Pocket PC phone and shows me how he’s keeping himself out of Guantanamo. He swivels the camera lens around and snaps a picture of the Manhattan Starbucks where we’re dinking coffee. Then he squints and pecks at the phone’s touchscreen. “OK! It’s uploading now,” says...
Pride of Lions vs. Herd of Buffalo vs. 2...
A battle between a pride of lions, a herd of buffalo, and 2 crocodiles at a watering hole in South Africa’s Kruger National Park while on safari
(via Metafilter)
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Passive-Aggressive Note Blog
The link of the week imo:
Passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers.
(via Boing Boing)
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever
From Wikipedia:
Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will...
Smorgasbord of vintage African TV ads
Xeni Jardin:
I recently spent about a month in several West African countries (I’m typing this now from Central America). During my short stay on the continent, I became obsessed with local TV commercials. I believe you can learn a lot about any culture through its ads. I taped a bunch of stuff in hotel rooms, and will blog clips sometime soon — but for now, I wanted to point to...
Bacteria for data storage
David Pescovitz:
Japanese researchers are developing methods to store data as genetic code in a bacteria’s DNA. As a proof-of-concept, Keio University professor Masaru Tomita and his colleagues translated “E equals MC squared” and “1905,” the year Einstein published his theory of relativity, into the T, C, A, G genetic code and inserted it into a living bacterium....
A $300 Million Dollar Empire from Buying Domain...
From CNN.com:
Kevin Ham leans forward, sits up tall, closes his eyes, and begins to type — into the air. He’s seated along the rear wall of a packed ballroom in Las Vegas’s Venetian Hotel. Up front, an auctioneer is running through a list of Internet domain names, building excitement the same way he might if vintage cars were on the block.
As names come up that interest Ham, he occasionally...
Alex Reisner on Baseball
An information design lens on the sport. (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Street Installations
clever outdoor art, soon to be appropriated by ad agencies [via] (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
● Song of summer 2007?
Is there a song for summer 2007 yet? Something along the lines of Crazy in Love in 2003 and, what, Since U Been Gone in 2005…a song that comes to identify the summer to a wide variety of people. There’s been some discussion of this question, but no definite answers yet. I’ve heard MIMS’ This is Why I’m Hot in a wide array of contexts…might be a contender, but...
Sleeping through a gunshot
David Pescovitz:
Michael Lusher of Huntington, West Virginia was asleep yesterday morning when a bullet hit him in the head. He woke up four hours later surprised to see blood dripping from his skull. From the Associated Press:
The bullet that struck him was one of five that someone sprayed across his mobile home and truck at about 4:20 a.m. Sunday, (Campbell County police officer R.H.) McQuaid...
How Hitler Became a Dictator
From LewRockwell.com:
The day after the fire, Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to issue a decree entitled, “For the Protection of the People and the State.” Justified as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state,” the decree suspended the constitutional guarantees pertaining to civil liberties:
Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free...
Religions ranked by number of adherents. 1....
Religions ranked by number of adherents. 1. Christianity 2. Islam 3. Nonreligious. (link) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Obesity infographics for several countries, the...
Obesity infographics for several countries, the percentage of population older than 15 with a body-mass index greater than 30. That USA man is really fat. (link) (via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
Reporter interviews people hanging out instead of...
Mark Frauenfelder:
Chris Colin, a writer for the SF Gate, was curious about the people he sees hanging out in coffee shops during the day, so he interviewed them, and asked them why they weren’t working. It turns out there are a great many reasons why the people weren’t working. Not wanting to work seemed to be the most popular reason of all. He reported his findings in a piece called...
Disney World's underground tunnels
Cory Doctorow:
Here’s a tidy little explanation of the “Utilidors” — the secret tunnels under the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. I once got a tour of these, when I was working on Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which has some of its action there in the Stygian depths of the Disney utility corridors.
At the top of the map is the tunnel entrance. As a cast member,...
Popped Water Balloon Filmed at 80x Slower Than...
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
History of the Term, “White Trash”
A good read that turns fascinating when it discusses the Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell which dealt with eugenical involuntary sterilization.
The term white trash dates back not to the 1950s but to the 1820s. It arises not in Mississippi or Alabama, but in and around Baltimore, Maryland. And best guess is that it was invented not by whites, but by African Americans. As a term of abuse, white...
“drama llama A person who randomly throws their drama on others, in the same way...”
– Urban Dictionary: drama llama
john ratcliffe-lee: people, both real and fake, are pissing me off tonight. i’m hardly a religious guy, but i am a firm believer in karma. watch your backs. (via Twitter / john ratcliffe-lee)
Attention: Lunatic Atheists and Their Lawyers
From here.
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)
The Napkin Drawings
A photoset on Flickr:
A series of drawings and quotes on napkins put in my daughters’ lunches for jr. high and high school every day over a 5 year period.
(via Monkeyfilter)
(via john’s shared items in Google Reader)