This platitude is the new dead metaphor. Kottke revives and collects some previous research into one of the latest language fads, where X is the new Y. I think I’m officially over this phrase.
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Posts for Past 60 Days
Monthly Archives: October 2006
≡Small is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas (review: 3.5/5)
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
I love the jacket design Small is the New Big. Really, how could you not pick it up? And luckily, the contents of Seth Godin’s collection don’t disappoint too much.
This is one of those books I like to call “toilet books”–a collection of short, snappy sparks to get you thinking about how to be […]
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Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Thank you thank you. I love this stuff. The latest in Rebecca Blood’s Bloggers on Blogging series, an interview with Scott Rosenberg.
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Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Scott Rosenberg interviews Steven Johnson about his latest book, The Ghost Map. I liked Johnson’s thoughts on the evolution of popular theories and the role of public intellectuals. “Part of what you’re supposed to do as an educated intelligent person is try and figure out the giant weird invisible elephant in the room that nobody’s […]
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Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Some of the best Lifehacker articles and comments have been freshly collected, edited, and soon available in paperback.
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Monday, October 30, 2006
I enjoyed this one-hour documentary on Blade Runner. Two early comments that stuck with me were Philip K. Dick’s notion that people “aren’t interested in novels of ideas,” and in contrast, that “sci-fi is essentially the field of ideas.” I’ll need to ponder that one. And wow, I still love the soundtrack by Vangelis.
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Monday, October 30, 2006
An article all about matching the wine glasses with the wine inside, and the anatomy of the container itself: “The ideal shape reveals all the aromas and taste components in a particular varietal; it creates a balanced interaction between fruit, mineralogy and acidity while de-emphasizing the evidence of alcohol.” [via megnut]
≡The 9/11 Report: A Graphical Adaptation (review: 2/5)
Monday, October 30, 2006
At the least, I can say that I’m now more interested in the original 9/11 Report than I was before. I really wanted this one to be good; it was just frustrating.
Jacobson and Colón got off to such a good start with a slick 10 page fold-out timeline that tracks the four flights concurrently. It […]
≡NaBloPoMo is the new NaNoWriMo
Monday, October 30, 2006
I’ll admit that I’ve gotten a bit intimidated by National Novel Writing Month as the start date approaches. Enter my new, slightly less imposing challenge: National Blog Posting Month, where the goal is to write at least a post a day, every day, for one month. I can do that. And there are potential prizes, […]
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Monday, October 30, 2006
Since the tumult over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial back in the 80s, Maya Lin has disengaged from ideological discussions, taking a turn towards soft environmentalism. [via greg]
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Monday, October 30, 2006
This is exactly the sort of thing where Wikipedia dominates: a fresh, current article on internet phenomena and a list of internet memes. Take that, Britannica!
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Saturday, October 28, 2006
The National Press Photographers Association has posted the Best of Photojournalism 2006.
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Friday, October 27, 2006
I love these resume tips posted over at LifeClever. All those subtle, detailed changes add up so nicely you can taste it. (via jb)
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Friday, October 27, 2006
Design Observer discusses the pluralist European Union anniversary logo. Here are the top placements in the logo design competition (no, seriously). I think it’s fascinating that the “improve by including” tendency is such a natural human inclination. But synergy can backfire. Thinking more broadly, I wonder if this is a side effect of democratization, the […]
≡Opening Night at the Atlanta Ballet
Friday, October 27, 2006
I stopped by for the season opener at the Atlanta Ballet tonight. Their performance of Giselle was just wonderful. The costumes were really amazing.
A couple downers: the lady on my left who had a persistent, throaty cough. Thank goodness another audience member had some spare cough drops! The Fox was only about 1/3 full, which […]
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Thursday, October 26, 2006
Photos of computer monitors that look transparent. Windows, indeed. The technique is to photograph what’s behind the monitor and set it as the background on your desktop. There’s also ghost-in-the-machine versions and x-ray monitors.
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Thursday, October 26, 2006
A photo of a news anchor reporting on a serial criminal… uhh, security?
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Thursday, October 26, 2006
BoingBoing tells us that you can search through all of Enron’s e-mails with the Enron Explorer. Most of it is what you’d expect–memos, corporate talk, weekend plans. But there are some gems: “why the heck am I getting all the crap on this one….I’m not the one who came back to the table with puke […]
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Thursday, October 26, 2006
Blik makes decals for your home, because wallpapering is just too much of a pain. They can also do custom lettering.
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Wednesday, October 25, 2006
A cool new version of the periodic table. I don’t know what was wrong with the old one. A little ungainly, sure, but it has served loyally for decades.
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Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Some lucid comments at 43 Folders and at Lifehacker on how to make more convenient filenames, so you can avoid mish-mash titles like “thing-2 finalFinal! v3 (with new changes) 05b.psd”.
≡Thinking out loud on outside.in
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Steven Johnson announces the birth of outside.in, “an attempt to collectively build the geographic Web, neighborhood by neighborhood.” It’s in the early stages (may I please have a link to “home”?), but I’m thinking it could be very cool.
Once you spend a decent amount of time online, especially if you’re a blog reader, you realize […]
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Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Really, the only reason you shouldn’t be using Firefox is because Firefox 2 was released today. Get it while it’s hot.
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Monday, October 23, 2006
Here’s a comprehensive, though not unbiased, guide to electronic music. It touches on the early cerebral, experimental works from guys like Iannis Xenakis, to James Brown and the early days of house, to today’s niches like downtempo, trance, Europop, and speedcore. Cool.
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Monday, October 23, 2006
In the latest issue of Wired magazine, a long feature about the ‘New Atheism’.
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Sunday, October 22, 2006
Alan Nelson links to a sweet collection of photos from the Hubble space telescope. I’m glad we got that lens fixed.
≡Understanding Comics (review: 4.5/5)
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Understanding Comics is both an excellent treatise on comics and a working example of the form. Scott McCloud explains the medium within the medium–highlighting one of the unique strengths that comics have.
McCloud makes the argument that comics fill the gap on the scale that has purely representational images on one end (visual ‘high art’), and […]
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Sunday, October 22, 2006
The Cover Browser allows you to (wait for it)… browse the covers of thousands of comic books.
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Sunday, October 22, 2006
The friendly folks over at Worldchanging have a shiny new book coming out in a couple weeks: Worldchanging: A User’s Guide.
≡Ordinary People (review: 4.5/5)
Sunday, October 22, 2006
“The problem of connecting is partly that of fitting mood with opportunity.” Judith Guest’s book was such a pleasant surprise. In a nutshell, it’s about a family dealing with tragedy, focusing on that odd relationship of individual and family. Nothing new there, but the writing is so tight and so focused. What I really like […]
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Sunday, October 22, 2006
Music video for Bjork’s tune, Bachelorette. Great song, great video. Directed by Michael Gondry, who was in charge of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I enjoyed very much this weekend. [via waxy]
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Saturday, October 21, 2006
The Rest is Noise reminds us that Steve Reich turned 70 this year. Do yourself a favor and read up on Reich. The wikipedia entry gives a good start. For your listening pleasure, I’d recommend that you find, and subsequently purchase/ download/ rip/ obtain his works Electric Counterpoint, Clapping Music, Proverb, and Six Marimbas as […]
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Saturday, October 21, 2006
Visualizing Meaning is a project among scholars at Cornell, who were asked, “Of the many charts you have seen in your life, which has been the most important, remarkable, meaningful, or valuable?” [via rebecca’s pocket crediting seat 1a linking to infosthetics]
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Thursday, October 19, 2006
Shaun Inman points to As Slow as Possible, John Cage’s composition which is now the longest musical work ever in the history of concept art. It’s still going on right now, and will for proceed for, oh, 600 years.
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Thursday, October 19, 2006
Great Zeldman post and excellent comments about Web 1.0 versus Web 2.0.
≡Envisioning Information (review: 4/5)
Thursday, October 19, 2006
After finishing up Beautiful Evidence, I was impressed enough to check out one of Edward Tufte’s earlier works. Envisioning Information is mostly targeted to the display of complex, multi-dimensional data within the constraints of our merely 2-dimensional presentation media like paper and computer screens.
While I really liked it, it was missing some things I really […]
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