November 2010
1 post
5 tags
Oxymoron of the week: fundamentalist atheists.
In his review of Michael Krasny’s new book, “Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest”, Reza Aslan joins the chorus of those who draw a parallel between religious fundamentalism and “the new Atheism”. Let’s get this straight: Atheism cannot be fundamentalist. Fundamentalism is the belief that sacred texts (e.g. the Bible or Quran) contain divine truth and...
October 2010
1 post
5 tags
An addendum to Stephen Fry's musings on language
Stephen Fry is certainly right in attacking the pedantry of the grammar police and usage purists but he’s touching on a different phenomenon when talking about the verbing of nouns. For the most part this verbing takes place in the corporate world and is done for the purpose of creating jargon. Corporate jargon is a major source of new coinages and seems to be in an arms race to stay...
September 2010
1 post
July 2010
1 post
June 2010
1 post
May 2010
2 posts
February 2010
2 posts
January 2010
1 post
“…any legislative moves with this Democratic party and this Republican party are...”
– Andrew Sullivan (via azspot, dalasverdugo) (via marco)
December 2009
2 posts
WatchLike Merlin I am a Mike kind of guy, but then I’ve always been a little bit country. As for the “finger picked electric figure” I’m pretty sure that’s a banjo; like the one that Peter is almost certainly not really playing in the video.
merlin:
The Monkees - “What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round?” (1967)
I’ve always been a “Mike” kind of guy. And, although my...
September 2009
3 posts
“Every time I visit San Francisco I ask out loud “Why don’t I live...”
– David Byrne in the WSJ Online
July 2009
5 posts
How To Pretend You're Riding a Fixie
So you live in San Francisco and ride a bike but it’s got gears and brakes and can go up and down hills. Don’t you wish you rode a fixed gear bicycle like all the cool kids? Of course you do! Here’s 7 ways to satisfy your fixie urge without having to shell out for a new set of wheels. 1. Stand and pedal even when you’re not going uphill. 2. Don’t wear a helmet. 3....
Entertaining yes...
I can’t help feeling that airlines have given up on effectively providing safety information during their safety videos. I wasn’t able to pay attention to any of the instructions in the Air New Zealand video below and have the same experience with Virgin America’s video which is so cute it’s difficult to pay attention to what’s being said. Sure, these videos are...
“To those who still deludedly think they prefer Star Wars over Ghostbusters, all...”
– Caitlin Moran in the Times
“When I am working on a problem I never thing about beauty. I think only how to...”
– Buckminster Fuller
This brings back memories - but in Italian.
Posted via email from So Much Stuff | Comment »
June 2009
6 posts
It's the Smoke!
Posted via email from So Much Stuff | Comment »
sexistentialcrisis.com →
I found this blog and it’s a new favorite. Smart, funny and yes – sexy. Sexy seems to be everywhere now, I mean it’s something that people aspire to in a way that I never considered for myself. I always wanted to be intelligent, respected, even cool; but sexy? I guess I always assumed that some people were and some people weren’t and that’s all there was to it. But...
“…don’t get me started on the [Nobel Prize] academy, whose prejudice...”
– Roger Cohen in the New York Times
Koko Taylor R.I.P.
I had the pleasure seeing Taylor perform a couple of times when I lived in Chicago. Queen of the Blues is a tough title to live up to but I don’t think anybody would dispute it in her case. Posted via email from So Much Stuff | Comment »
Posting from Textmate
Browsing through the Textmate bundle repository I saw a Tumblr bundle and had to give it a try. Just fired up a new textmate file using the Tumblr template posted directly from within Texmate. Will be pretty impressed if this works.
May 2009
0 posts
Jon Stewart's Extended Interview with Cliff May
The interview with Cliff May was not shown in its entirety on the Daily Show but can be seen online. One more reason we love the web. I’m a big fan of Jon Stewart but not of his interviewing style; he spends less time asking the tough questions than he does giving his own answers. Nonetheless, this is a great interview, mostly because Cliff May is able to present a cogent and reasonable...
March 2009
2 posts
This is how to Talk about Technology
Obama’s White House has employed the internet in ways not imagined by previous administrations. It’s too early to tell if this will be effective but one thing is for sure: Obama knows how to talk about what he’s doing. Check out his video clip explaining his “Open for Questions” project. It’s clear what he’s doing and why and doesn’t get caught up in...
Home Pages and Navigation
The folks at Plumbline Studios just posted an article a few weeks ago, Just Click the Logo! which argues that web sites should to the home page from a logo image and not include an explicit “Home” link in the navigation. I’ve worked with Plumbline a few times and respect the work that they do but in this instance I have to disagree with them. The article is in response to...
February 2009
1 post
What I Love About Blogs
Okay, so this dude writes a blog post about Safari 4’s top tabs (which I hate) and in passing mentions the interface of my favorite web development tool, Coda. Then this other dude who actually was one of the developers of Coda responds, in his own blog, about how the said interface was probably a bad idea but they’re trying to fix it.
Best of all, I agree with what everybody had to...
December 2008
1 post
A Little Extra Marks a Major Change at the NY...
The New York Times has added a feature called Times Extra to its website. Khoi Vinh gives a nice rundown on his blog but what’s really amazing about this is how this moves the Times closer to a fully exploiting the website as a medium. Basically, Times Extra adds related links to certain stories, and many of those links come from the Times’ competitors. The image I’ve included...
November 2008
7 posts
Break the tyranny of the Mac Default Browser with...
Bloody Brilliant.Posted by email from So Much Stuff (posterous) | Comment »
Google + Life Magazine = Awesome
Images from Life magazine from the 1860s through the 1970s now fully searchable in Google Images. Add ‘source:life’ to any google images query to search within the Life magazine database.
Posted by email from So Much Stuff (posterous) | Comment »
Did You Know?
Posted by email from So Much Stuff (posterous) | Comment »
lynchPhone
Here’s a man who knows how to use a well placed profanity. Posted by email from So Much Stuff (posterous) | Comment »
The Adventures of Burn-E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoTT4WBZ-30&fmt=18
My All Time Favorite Track
Somebody asked me a few months back what my favorite song is. I couldn’t answer that question, but I can say what my favorite track is: Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Rogers recording Blue Yodel #9 in 1930. Both of these men were giants. Louis Armstrong, the man who elevated jazz as musical style and the trumpet as one of its most powerful solo instruments; Jimmy Rogers, the father of country...
A New Hope →
October 2008
1 post
WatchThis is just one of the tricks that Cruz [cruzapp.com] has up its sleeve. I think I have a crush on this app. I’ve been with a lot of browsers (Safari, Firefox, Opera, Camino, Flock) but this one is somehow….different.
September 2008
6 posts
Tumblr on your iPhone →
“I’m not leaving. I’m sticking around to see the collapse of...”
– Overheard outside coffee shop in Noe Valley
“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition,...”
– John McCain on Healthcare for Contingencies Magazine
Cell Phone Users and Polls by Nate Silver →
Service Rules →
Another great article by David Rodnitzky on Search Engine Marketing Thoughts blog. I agree that customer service is the key differentiator for online retailers.
McCain's Voice Mail to Palin →
Who made you the #%!! king of #%&@! mountain?
August 2008
1 post
Location Aware Twitter Apps on the Iphone
One of the major features of many iPhone apps is location awareness. Thanks to the GPS of iPhone 3G or wifi/hotspot triangulation of the original iPhone, apps can use the location of the iPhone to add value to their functionality. All three twitter apps available in the iTunes App Store are location aware, although they have different ways of using locations. I’m going to compare the...
July 2008
1 post
I'm quoted on 43 Folders →
Okay, it’s just my Tweet (as inertiaBen) shown in an image with a bunch of others. But it’s on 43 folders dude!
May 2008
1 post
Great Last Movie Lines
1. Some Like It Hot “Nobody’s Perfect” 2. Chinatown “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown” 3. Casablanca “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 4. The Big Lebowski “Say, friend - you got any more of that good sarsaparilla?”
April 2008
1 post
Evernote & GTD
I’ve been using the new beta of Evernote for a little while and have been giving thought to how to use it as a tool for implementing GTD. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far: The Basic Idea Getting Things Done is essentially based on keeping lists, notes, folders and a calendar. Evernote has no calendaring but can quite easily behave in a way analogous to the other units of...
March 2008
3 posts
Skitch →
Interesting new image capture app w/ sharing service.