The Washington Post confirms that Mark Felt is Deep Throat. Woodward, Bernstein, and Ben Bradlee confirmed the story as well. Woodward is writing an article about the experience to be run on Thursday.
"A sampling of what prominent film critics wrote in their reviews of the earlier 'Star Wars' films".
Improv Everywhere played a fake U2 concert near Madison Square Garden last week. The Edge was played by an Asian guy and the "band" got arrested during their final song.
Identity of Deep Throat finally revealed. Mark Felt, who was second in command at the FBI at the time, helped Woodward and Bernstein with their research into Watergate.
20 things gamers want from the next generation of game consoles. "Seriously, get rid of the crates" and "don't bullshit me about your graphics".
A first look at Google Earth, the replacement for the Keyhole mapping software. "View Railroads, Subway lines and Bus routes along with all their stops. Or select multiple locations and have Google give you directions."
Race car driver Robby Gordon says he won't compete against Danica Patrick because her small stature gives her an unfair advantage. "I guess driving around in circles must have made Gordon a bit dizzy because his reasoning sucks."
@ the movies
Primer
You think you know what's going on in this (very**) indie film, you've caught yourself up, and then Primer just throws another curve ball at you. Even without the time twisting stuff, the complete lack of flashing arrows (Steven Johnson's term for the plot clues embedded in movies and TV shows that scream "pay attention, this will be important later!") left me scratching my head at exactly what happened. Luckily, the Internet to the rescue: a Primer timeline, another timeline, and an extensive visual timeline. Oy, I still don't get it.
But that's ok because the science fictiony stuff was actually not as interesting for me as what happened to the characters in the film. I've been thinking a lot about choice lately...too much of it, not enough of it, the sudden increase in the ability to determine one's destiny by controlling choice, and the "normal" state of things where people have very little choice about anything. In Primer, the main characters find themselves in a situation where they can (almost) literally do anything they want with their lives. But instead of opening their lives up to an infinite range of possibilities, they find themselves constrained by their circumstances.
There's a fractal aspect to human existance in this way...the particular details of any one person's life may differ from those of another (older, smarter, richer, more powerful, etc. etc.), but the experience from the perspective of each individual is largely the same. Robert Frank touches on this in his essay on How Not to Buy Happiness. Having more power/money/control/experience/etc just may limit your choices as sure as being broke, stupid, powerless, or naive would.
Anyway, if you're even a little bit of a geek, I'd urge you to check Primer out (it was recently released on DVD). It's challenging in the way that Memento and Donnie Darko are, pays off in a human way like The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind does, and it gets my highest recommendation.
** Ebert correctly notes that although the film cost ~$7000 to make and that most of the principle photography took place in a garage, "the movie never looks cheap, because every shot looks as it must look." One of my favorite aspects of the film was the cinematography...reminded me of what a Kubrick film might have looked like on a similarly tight budget.
Pickup Lines Used by Mario [of Mario Bros. fame]. "Are you a magic flower? Because you are burning me up."
The blog for Me and You and Everyone We Know, Miranda July's acclaimed new movie. The most recent entries are about the film's win at Cannes.
Sparklines of landscapes of a few American states. The one for Missouri has a little arch while the Iowa sparkline is almost flat.
Welcome back, Kottke
I'm back from a week and a half of vacationing in Ireland. Aside from the frequent rain, Ireland is a beautiful country...and even the rain isn't that bad. I'll have some photos up soon (three quick photos on Flickr for now). I didn't take my computer along or check email while I was there, only thought about the web once or twice**, and didn't miss it at all. But it wasn't exactly the revelatory recharging experience that I've heard about from other people who are tethered to the web all day long and then take an extended break from it. Not exactly sure why...maybe I've honed my gear switching ability to a fine point so that whatever situation I'm in, I'm in the appropriate mental state. Or perhaps I can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Anyway, I'm back and ready to get back to work (or whatever it is that I do here).
Thanks to David and Anil for posting remaindered links while I was gone. It's fun (if a little strange) coming back to a bunch of unfamiliar content on my own site...looking forward to rolling through all their links. However if you're considering hiring either of these two fellows to help you with your blog business, I would direct your attention to the graph of my traffic over the past week at right. When those guys took over -- which day will henceforth be known here at kottke.org as "Black Monday" -- well, you can see what their reign of terror did to the number of daily visitors around here. On the other hand, they were probably too busy with their proper (i.e. paying) jobs to worry too much about posting, so they are to be commended for their attention to their duties. In either case, it's been a pleasure...come back anytime.
** Apart from an extended conversation about RSS while hiking through some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen. You can take the boy out of the web and put him in a sheep pasture, but you can't take the web out of the boy. Or something.
The Shifted Librarian addresses the role of video games in libraries. "You haven't lived until you've seen a roomful of librarians competing against each other in Mario Kart and DDR!" (I've seen this, and it's good)
Cut your own vinyl with the VRX-2000. There was a time when I would have given up a toe for this machine.
Steven B. Johnson is still reviewing the reviewers. When authors and filmmakers ask for web site advice, I always say "early and often," don't play whack-a-mole with your audience by only blogging when you have something you want to sell. Johnson's consistent conversation is an example of how it should be done.
Evan Martin's mustache bestness sorter. Besides featuring awesome mustaches, it's a slick bit of javascript wizardry.
Jib Jab's Founder comments on the internet and viral marketing. "Everyday people are more comfortable with technology. I can’t tell you how many times we heard 'my grandmother sent it to me'. Grandmas were not emailing in 2000."
The citywide Wi-Fi reality check. The free wifi effort in Philly is beginning to hit some speed bumps.
Students blog after high school shuts down school paper for being "negative". School of Blog (featuring Jack Black) will be out next year.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. A close reading of the non-linear Prince of Persia storyline "enables an exploration of how the game's story relates to the interactive elements of its gameplay."
Block by Blog. A Guardian UK reporter walks through Manhattan with only a BlackBerry, a Nokia 6681, and RSS as his guide.
Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture
Some friends and I recently went and checked out the Little Boy exhibit at the Japan Society.
Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture explores the culture of postwar Japan through its arts and popular visual media, from the perspective of one of Japan's most celebrated artists. Focusing on the phenomenally influential subcultures of otaku (roughly translated as "pop cult fanaticism") and its relationships to Japan's artistic vanguard, Takashi Murakami explores the historical influences that shape Japanese contemporary art and its distinct graphic idioms.
It's a good exhibit, but I'm not sure it's worth the $12 entry fee. My favorite pieces were the paintings of Hideaki Kawashima, particularly Fire (depicted at left) and Smile.
The exhibition is open through July 24 at the Japan Society at 333 East 47th Street in Manhattan.
The guy who made the Mac startup sound. "I wanted to avoid a sound that would be associated with the crash. I wanted it to sound more like a 'palette cleanser'."
First Annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival. An all-day outdoor event on Saturday, June 18th
8 years ago: Top 10 secrets of a successful web site. Before there was kottke.org, there was 0sil8.
Security Awareness for Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless. Interpact's group blog documenting their switch to Apple in followup to Winn Schwartau's now infamous "Mad as Hell" article. (I bet they're all running Linux in a three months, most of Winn's beef with Sony is true for Apple as well)
Heather Champ is now "Community Manager" for Flickr. It's a role she filled on or off the payroll. Congratulations all around.
The Crazy Frog sound? That's my fault.. The BBC says "The frog is irritating to the point of distraction and back again. And yet at the same time, it's strangely compelling." The dance remix of the Crazy Frog ringtone also happens to be the #1 single in the UK. #1 single, not #1 ringtone.
Phishing Archive records forged email attempts. Update your account info now!
How to abuse Amazon's image processing system. Many wacky things can be done by customizing the URLs of images loaded from Amazon.
Explosion Causes Massive Power Outage in Moscow. No word yet on what caused the explosion, or when power could come back up. At least 43 trains and 40,000 metro passengers are stuck underground and there was city-wide gridlock as a result.
Ribbon Dancer robot
At Gel, Bruce Shapiro, artist in residence at the Science Museum of Minnesota, talked about his notion of "motion control" as an "emerging medium for artistic expression". As his website explains, motion control is a "term used to describe a variety of techniques for orchestrating the movement of machinery and objects".
One of the machines he brought to demonstrate its artistic expression was Ribbon Dancer. The willowy one-armed robot performed a routine for us for a couple minutes to a classical piece of music. Near the end of the piece, the ribbon got hung up on the lower part of the apparatus while the arm kept going with the routine, tugging obliviously on the caught fabric. The crowd gasped. For a second there, we thought the arm was going to pull the whole thing over -- not unlike the robot-like AT-AT that got tripped up by a Rebel harpoon on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back -- but Bruce stepped in to stop the machine and free the ribbon. Despite the mistake, the crowd's emotional reaction to the dancer's potentially hazardous misstep demonstrated the potential for the acceptance of artistic expression by machines.
(And in a somewhat more disturbing demonstration of the dancer's representation of life, when Bruce stopped it at the end of the routine and began to walk off the stage, it began to twitch awkwardly from some stray electrical signals, a death rattle of sorts. Bruce leapt back on stage and pulled the plug; the twitching abruptly stopped and the arm fell slack atop the metal shaft, like he'd killed it.)
Jennifer Steinhauer on Modern Preschooling. "The notion of standards are coming down almost to the embryo. We are not allowing normal, creative, interactive play. We are wanting kids to sit down and write their names at 3 and do rote tasks that are extremely boring at a young age."
Contagious Media Showdown. I've browsed through most of the sites by now. The brainfreeze video left the strongest impression, my head hurts just thinking about it. And don't forget there's only 10 days left to see Contagious Media at the New Museum in Chelsea.
"Can't Stop Won't Stop" as the best book of the year. And Jason Toney can judge; This is part of his 52 books in 52 weeks project.
Doctor Who
Since giving up cable TV three months ago, I've gotten into the habit of watching old episodes of Doctor Who on my computer. They're cheesy as all hell, but I still love them, especially the Tom Baker-era ones. When my sister and I were growing up, we'd watch them on the local PBS station on the weekends with my dad. They were usually shown on Saturday nights or at noon on Sundays. We'd have popcorn with the late-night viewings and lunch (usually hotdish or tuna hotdish**) with the Sunday afternoon ones. Occasionally they'd have Doctor Who marathons with several episodes back-to-back over the course of the day...loved those. We also had several dozen complete episodes on videotape to watch when PBS pre-empted them with something else.
It's hard to tell how much of my current affection for Doctor Who I owe to those weekends with my dad & sister and how much is due to the show itself. Not that it matters much...I just watch and enjoy and think about those good childhood memories with the Doctor.
** Hotdish, the food of my people, was also our shorthand for my dad's hamburger hotdish (hamburger + tomato sauce + macaroni + spices + (optional) onions & mushrooms). Tuna hotdish was basically canned tuna + Campbell's cream of something (mushroom?) soup + macaroni shells + S&P + a bit of grated cheese on top. Hotdish purists might argue that these dishes were not hotdishes at all because they were prepared on the stovetop and not baked in the oven, but who are they to mess with my fond childhood memories?
How the brain comprehends sarcasm. Because we all need a diagram to understand the concept.
KITTENWAR. This is what the internet was made for.
Robin's best of E3. The most interesting games are for the only next generation console that's actually shipping - the DS.
Ken Jennings returns in to Jeopardy. During sweeps, they have the Ultimate Tournament of Champions.
Homebrew Nintendo DS Development. "I'm brand new to developing on this, never having developed on the Game Boy Advance before, so hopefully this will provide information useful to other 'brand new' people." I often find the best documentation is written by new developers.
Nike iD asks 20 bloggers to make sneaker designs. And they're asking bloggers to vote for their favorites.
From 2001, Nike iD disallows "sweatshop" on sneakers. Jonah Peretti, who sent the emails, runs The Contagious Media Project now
The Institute for Interactive Journalism. The University of Maryland's J-Lab highlights and awards creative communication of news online.
Get your @budweiser.com email address. Now Gmail needs to start a brewery just to keep up.
Treemapper for Excel. very cool, but only works on Excel for Windows
New York City Abandons Plan To Ban Photography In Subways. The NYPD says that officers will continue to investigate any suspicious activity.
Theo Jansen and his beach animals
Two people got standing ovations for their presentations at GEL. The first was Barry Schwartz for his talk on The Paradox of Choice. The second person, who gave the most fascinating presentation I've seen at a conference in a long time, was inventor/artist/mad scientist Theo Jansen. For the past fifteen years, Jansen has been creating (growing?) "beach animals" made from commonly available tools like plastic tubing, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, hose, tape, and all sorts of other stuff. Wired News did a pretty good article on Jansen earlier this year:
Jansen is evolving an entirely new line of animals: immense multi-legged walking critters designed to roam the Dutch coastline, feeding on gusts of wind. Over the years, successive generations of his creatures have evolved into increasingly complex animals that walk by flapping wings in response to the wind, discerning obstacles in their path through feelers and even hammering themselves into the sand on sensing an approaching storm.
It's hard to know where to begin in talking about what's so cool about Jansen's beach animals. They're evolved for one thing; he worked out the optimal 11-piece leg using evolutionary algorithms on a computer but now prefers to race his animals on the beach and "breed" the most successful ones together, taking the best bits from each to make their offspring better. His animals have legs, muscles (pneumatic pistons within the plastic tubing), stomachs (plastic bottles for storing air), and nerves (collections of on/off values that work pretty much like logic gates).
And watching the videos that Jansen showed...his animals were so organic and lifelike as they moved under their own power across the beach. He's got a few of the videos on his site, but for some reason, the best ones he showed at GEL are not among them. To see evolution happening like this, a clumsy, imprecise process of trial and error that nonetheless produces beautiful and organic results, it was a real treat.
Lawrence Lessig takes on his childhood abusers. The story is harrowing, but Lessig and Hardwicke's bravery is inspiring.
The Participatory Culture Foundation: TiVo on your desktop. The latest from Downhill Battle. Broadcast Machine is the best interface to BitTorrent I've ever seen. They're looking for open source coders to help finish the DTV viewer.
Manhattan's Chinatown Pressured to Sell Out. "In a strange way our problem is the people of China," said Wong, who was born in Hong Kong and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. "They can make it cheaper. Their factories don't demand payment until the textiles are delivered -- we can't compete with this."
hello, nintendo: Nintendo's Long Tail. "There's a long tail of consumers and a long tail of producers, and I think that next year Nintendo is going to introduce the two to each other in an entirely new way."
Repeat after me: giving your music away is good for your career. DJs Minus Kelvin and Pat Chilla the Beat Gorilla got a deal producing the music for America's Next Top Model by posting Creative Commons licensed remixes on ccmixter.org.
Nintendo builds free Wi-Fi network in Japan. The pessimist in me thinks that Nintendo won't be able to pull off free wifi and a free Voice over IP client, but DS owners can dream.
Elves and Hobbits in Russian Woods. "Carrying a realistic-looking wooden elven saber might get you in trouble with the law if you can’t explain yourself."
Jeff Jarvis quits his job to consult about blogs. Which is basically the same thing as getting paid to blog full-time.
Gone fishin'
I'm off on vacation -- a real vacation without my computer and everything -- for a few days, so the pace around here will be a little slower for next week or so. I've got a few entries set up to post while I'm gone so you'll have something to read. I've also enlisted the help of David Jacobs and Anil Dash to post remaindered links while I'm away. Thanks guys! See the rest of you in a few days; I'll have photos and hopefully be well-rested and re-energized and all that jazz.
Some great tips on grilling. "And if you think this takes a lot of time and concentration, you're right. There's time enough for socializing later. Do you want to grill an excellent steak or not? Okay, then. Concentrate."
Twelve ways to think differently. "Twelve methods that will exercise parts of your brain that rarely get it, and make you more creative and better able to understand the world."
Mr. Sun goes to Revenge of the Sith with his youngling. "Why didn't Obi-Wan finish off Anakin? That weakness of the mind cost millions of lives. Put down the coffee, Master Kenobi -- coffee is for closers."
Concise roundup of yesterday's Google Factory Tour. "Google is readying a software package called Google Earth, which is a Google-ized version of Keyhole, an astounding 3D mapping program from a company that Google acquired. It includes some built-in searching features that let you do things like see driving directions rendered as photographic flyover animations of actual the route you'll take."
Some good thoughts from Paul Ford on the recent announcement from the NY Times about their TimesSelect offering. "The web should serve the needs of its users, not the needs of a few hundred advertisers. If that ends up costing money, so be it; this medium is not inherently free."
The public choice economics of Star Wars: A Straussian reading. "The core point is that the Jedi are not to be trusted".
@ the movies
Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith
Warning: there are some major spoilers in here if you haven't seen it yet.
As a life-long Star Wars fan (but not fanatic), I flat out loved Revenge of the Sith. Before the 20th Century Fox theme song started, the only expectation I had was to finally find out the details behind Anakin's transition to the Dark Side, Padme's death, Luke and Leia's birth, and the near-extinction of the Jedi...everything that tied the somewhat lame prequels to the beloved trilogy of my youth. But as the movie began, I was surprised at how into it I got...I haven't been that absorbed in watching a movie in a long time. Sure there were some rough spots (mostly dialogue related, unsurprisingly), but since the feelings I have about Star Wars are in alignment with how Alan feels, they were largely irrelevant. It's much closer in feel to the original movies than the more recently filmed ones.
In some spots, even though I knew how things eventually turned out, I was still hoping that things would go another way. When the Emperor was trying to turn Anakin to the Dark Side, I held out hope that he wouldn't make that choice. I didn't want to see the Jedi slaughtered. When Yoda went to face the Emperor, I wanted that little guy to kill him. When Anakin and Obi-Wan faced each other at the end, I was hoping that somehow Obi-Wan would convince Anakin to step back from the Dark Side. But none of that happened and I was sad when it didn't...which was the biggest surprise for me, that sadness. Somehow, Lucas made a real old-fashioned tragedy here; he actually made the evil Darth Vader into a sympathetic character. At the end, when the Emperor tells Vader -- newly clothed in his now-familiar black suit -- that it was his own anger that killed his wife and Vader broke free from his bonds and screamed at the universe, suddenly he didn't seem so evil and imposing. Instead, you saw a small boy, manipulated, confused, and destined to spend the rest of his life inside himself, knowing that he destroyed everything and everyone he loved and having made his uncomfortable bed, that he would now need to lie in it.
The top 100 movie voices. Peter Sellers should really be higher on the list.
David McCullough's 1776 and the tension between academic historians and popularizers. Also apropos to the scientists vs. pop science writers argument I've been hearing lately re: Blink and Everything Bad is Good for You.
As one gets smarter, how you use your memory changes. "Verbatim memory is often a property of being a novice. As people become smarter, they start to put things into categories, and one of the costs they pay is lower memory accuracy for individual differences."
Locket is the best Dashboard widget yet. "Locket is a Dashboard widget that provides an ambient monitor for a single iChat user on your buddy list. When the person is available, the locket opens. Otherwise, it is closed."
How to order food in a restaurant
When you're out to eat with friends and family, it can be challenging to decide what to order off the menu. There are often too many choices on the menu, everything sounds good, nothing sounds good, you're unfamiliar with a particular type of cuisine, you'd like have what that woman over there is having but you don't know what that is, etc. etc.
Luckily, a group of authors has recently released a series of pop science books focused on solving this particular problem. Here are some lessons on ordering food from those books:
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Glance quickly at the menu and order whatever catches your eye first. Spend no more than 2-3 seconds deciding or the quality of your choice (and your meal) will decline.
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
The key to ordering a good meal in a restaurant is understanding the economic incentives involved. Ask the server what they recommend and order something else...they are probably trying to get you to order something with a high profit margin or a dish that the restaurant needs to get rid of before the chicken goes bad or something. Never order the second least expensive bottle of wine; it's typically the one with the highest mark-up on the list (i.e. the worst deal).
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
Take the menu and rip it into 4 or 5 pieces. Order from only one of the pieces, ignoring the choices on the rest of the menu. You will be happier with your meal.
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
Poll the other patrons at the restaurant about what they're having and order the most popular choices for yourself.
Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson
Order anything made with lots of butter, sugar, etc. Avoid salad or anything organic. A meal of all desserts may be appropriate. Or see if you can get the chef to make you a special dish like foie gras and bacon covered with butterscotch and hot fudge. Ideally, you will have brought a Super Sized McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal into the restaurant with you. Smoke and drink liberally.
Clive fills us in on Greg Gillespie's belt buckle knife. Don't miss the video...it's pretty damn funny.
Cringely on the future plans of Microsoft, Apple, and Google. MS is shipping their own PC, Apple is pushing into video on demand, and Google is building a massive supercomputer with the help of their customers.
A guide on how to speak gangsta. "I give yous props for dat phat ride man" means "I give you thanks for the good ride my friend". And don't miss the step-by-step instructions for high fiving someone.
Merriam-Webster has compiled a list of words that aren't yet in the dictionary, but are in widespread use anyway. "cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway".
Google's famous chef is leaving the company. It must be hard to cook free lunches when you're so filthy, stinking rich.
John Battelle has some interesting thoughts on the NYTimes' move to charge for some of its content. "The Times stated reason for doing this is to diversify its revenue mix, and I buy that logic. It's scary to be totally leveraged over advertising."
Interview with the guy who came up with "flash mobs". Flash mobs "turned into a sprawling, global fad practically overnight--and then largely faded away almost as quickly as it appeared".
Why we shouldn't pay that much attention to the box office gross. "Ticket sales from theaters provided 100 percent of the studios' revenues in 1948; in 2003, they accounted for less than 20 percent." And he doesn't even mention inflation...Gone With the Wind is still the highest grossing film in history when you adjust for inflation.
Whatever happened to the subjects of Diane Arbus's photographs?. CNN's Anderson Cooper was that weird looking baby?
How to turn a block of Antarctic ice into a giant neutrino detector. "To turn the ice into a telescope, all you have to do is drill an array of 80 holes half a meter across by 2.5km deep using a very powerfull jet of hot water. Then lower a string of 60 optical detectors into each hole before they refreeze, conect them up to some powerful computer analysers and you are good to go."
50 Things to Do with Your iPod. Besides listen to music with those white earbuds.
Secret Wall Tattoos. People are removing art from hotel room walls, creating their own art on the wall beneath, and then replacing the art of top of it for others to discover at a later time.
50 Fun Things to Do with Your iPod
In the four years since its introduction, the iPod has proven to be a versatile little device. Despite a relatively closed architecture, hackers have found their way in. Content creators and software makers put information at your fingertips when you're on the go. Would-be designers have added to the fashionable stylings of the now-ubiquitous white ear buds. Hardware makers and enthusiasts have augmented the iPod with new add-on gadgets.
For fun, I've compiled a bunch of hacks, add-ons, accessories, and such. Here are 50 Things to Do with Your iPod (besides listen to music with those white earbuds).
Anthony Lane slams Revenge of the Sith in the New Yorker this week. "The general opinion of 'Revenge of the Sith' seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, 'The Phantom Menace' and 'Attack of the Clones'. True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion." Ouch.
If you haven't yet, the Diane Arbus exhibition at the Met is worth checking out. Open through May 30.
McSweeney's list: "Tools or Actions in Photoshop That, Were They Applicable to Real Life, Would Prove Useful at Various Stages of a Relationship". Difference Clouds, heh.
Steve Leveen suggests that people stop finishing books they aren't enjoying. Compares books to wine, says that we should "taste" a variety of books and only "drink" the ones we really like.
FAQ: How Real ID will affect you. So nice that they snuck it in on a completely unrelated bill like that...I don't remember that aspect of gov't being explained in that Schoolhouse Rock song about the bill.
New iPod ad features some poppin' and lockin'. And I'm pretty sure David "Elsewhere" Bernal is in there somewhere as well. Finally!
Summer movies 2005
Reader peter vanDerbeek has gone above and beyond the call of duty, producing a 2005 summer movie calendar (in iCal format) from the entire NY Times listing with details about each film, and links to the full NY Times review and movie trailer on apple.com (if available). If you're a movie fan and have calendaring software that supports the iCal format, this is a great resource. If your calendar can't import iCal files, you can still view this calendar on the web in HTML format. Thanks, peter!
Man supposedly caught cheating with Cameron Diaz responds to the press coverage on his weblog. "I told my wife, 'One of the reasons this is so stupid is because you know that if I was hooking up with [Cameron Diaz] you'd have been the first one I high-fived.'"
Video for a kids version of Since U Been Gone. There's nothing awesomer than this. The slow-mo crowd reaction shots, a tiger doing a David Lee Roth jump split, kids shouting during the chorus....are you kidding me? None more awesome!
Victoria Reynolds paints meat. Meat as subject, not meat as canvas. Very strange and cool.
Fairness in journalism
There's an interview with author Michael Pollan (he wrote the highly regarded The Botany of Desire, which I have yet to read) on AlterNet. The teaser indicates the piece is all about food and the environment, but most of it ends up being about journalism, including this good bit:
I think perfect objectivity is an unrealistic goal; fairness, however, is not. Fairness forces you -- even when you're writing a piece highly critical of, say, genetically modified food, as I have done -- to make sure you represent the other side as extensively and as accurately as you possibly can.
Many blog evangelists point to the success of blogs, many of which are about as far from objective as you can get, as evidence that objectivity isn't required in telling a story, sharing a viewpoint, or in the search for truth. But it's important to keep Pollan's thoughts about fairness in mind before we throw the fairness baby out with the objectivity bath-water. So be subjective, but be fair also...you'll find you may get more mileage out of your arguments that way.
Flickr switches from Flash to DHTML/Ajax for displaying photos and notes. You can now also put links in notes, which, damn, my mind just blew.