Pictures of Buildings & People

Chipotle on your iPhone . . .o m g

I can't believe that certain 'people' get all bent out of shape about 'socialism' and other so, so 20th century concepts when the iPhone is dominating everything in it's Sherman-esque march to some all-Steve, all-Jobs, all the time, sea. Well, o.k., now you can order Chipotle via your iPhone - bringing the concept of insidious to a new plateau. And if any of you tykes out there have any grasp on Sherman's March to The Sea, you get points for retaining archaic knowledge as to why many 'people' in the South still have a Taliban-esque view of the rest of the country.

Feeling twitt'sh

Just a reminder : I'm feeding the blog to Twitter now - but there's a lot more on the blog since I just activated that feature. . .

A new era for type on the Web?

Boy, this has got me going. . .I'm not a coder, but if web design isn't put in jeopardy by browser limitations and crappy type, it could really be an improvement for everybody! Typekit could be onto something! All you CSS writers listen up! Slate's Farhad Manjoo explains it all.

Urban Abstractions

One of the common arguments against getting ones worldly feed from the internet is that it's too self serving, to self centered. Print, it's claimed, has the virtue of serendipity, fortuitous comings-upon of other tangents, contrary info and unforeseen illuminations. . ahem, I'm feeling all 19th century after that spiel!  But, if you're not totally nailed by your web rounds and have those open moments, you can fall from one point, to another area, to another universe. I had a great example of that, that I'll try to describe via that file protocol. I see a blurb in the print New Yorker >> I go to the New Yorker web site >> find some links >> go to said links and sources >> hmmmm, interesting >> double back, click another link and wow! In English: there was a mention of a photo exhibit at the Museum of The City New York, I go to that site, look at the artists contributions, go to a particular artist's site, but then double back to the Museum site and see something else! Urban Abstractions, the exhibit only goes to August 2, so you better hustle. I did a quick search to see if a book is available, but didn't see anything. An email will be sent regarding this. . . But from what I see of the images at the site, it's that superb, classic material that really appeals to me. . . at least! You can't go wrong with Edward Steichen and Berenice Abbot (among many others). 

but. . .why?

Because it's garish - I grabbed this epic animated gif from Wonkette, who probably got it elsewhere.

twitter cloud

I'm finding the whole situation in Iran wrenching. At least the wearing of green has been improved for me. I won't simply associate it with ritual drunks on St. Patty's day. Via a tip at Andrew Sullivan's blog, this fascinating piece of interactive digital art from NeoFormix.  Again I  think about digital vs analog; how will we keep hold of these bits of history when digital media goes through regular paroxysms, moultings, so various constructions are lost. A recent cover of New Yorker shows an alien reading a book in the ruins of NYC, sitting on a heap of LCDs, CDs, iPods, DVD player, Kindles, etc. All this after seeing a restored version of Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451, whew, I have concept fatigue.

Stand Up Philosphy

SInce we have now entered the age where political comedy has been totally justified as one of the hard truth mechanisms left to us (see The Onion, The Daily Show, The Colbert report, etc) - we can go further down that path. A few decades ago, I thought it would be a reasonable gimmick to use Mark Trail comic panels to rework poli-sci-philosophy arguments.(Hey, how about Mary Parker and Judge Worth too!) Well so much for follow through, but here is a great effort in the same vein, go check out the Nietzche Family Circus. Trenchant axioms and comedy, all in one!

O M G, can NOTHING stop the iPhone ?

Making the rounds and I picked this up at PDN - my first reaction was great, my second was the iPhone is becoming the all devouring grinding maw of the universe. The Handi 5Dmk2 lets you access info, pronto, on the new Canon 5D MII - with an upgrade to follow covering the HD video. You can just go the iTunes app store yourself and search it. Or, just go to the bottom of the PDN article. Imagine a Wall-E type future where we try to reinvent the pre-iPhone world, with only an iPhone! Wait ! With the help of the iPhone, we can be the coolest Borgs ever! [ and this is where we run screaming towards a distant hopeless horizon ].

The Darker Side of Tweets and Twitter

Following the timeless method of Comedy = Truth, Brian Unger reveals the truth behind all that Twittermania. It's true, the well informed use The Onion, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and few others.

Humility, brought to you by . . .

You Tube, of course! Take a trip down memory lane and look at the proto-web world of the 1980's. I know! I was there. YouTube is the odd historical subconscious sphere of all that ever saw the light of some kind of media generation device. So, it is a massive reservoir of humble beginnings. I worked at KRON in San Francisco in the 80s when they were a real NBC affiliate and an FCC broadcast license, was truly a license to print money! And I was in an internet news start up too! More on that some other time. Please, just don't look at this one clip, check out the others. . .