Nah, I’m just screwing with y’all. Here are some guys with sub-machine guns on Segways.
Via imagethief, there are two additional galleries of hardcore anti-terror action. Visit both for flamethrower hilarity and the sudden urge to shout “Look out! He’s got a planter!” and make gun noises.
So I redid my website today. Check it out and let me know what you think? Is wenge a better wood for a header than bamboo? (I couldn’t find any really good birch) Do you really hate that font? Want to know how I did that fade thing?
It might break, so let me know if it does, kthx.
Edit: I think I’m going to replace that menubar with an accordion. The fade-toggle is was neat, but I don’t think it providse enough feedback above the fold.
Man, WalMart is so in the future right now. A vivid color element, bright ultra-modern sans? Please tell me that the wet floor effect and a Web 2.0 price stickers are next.
Since they dropped the hyphen-surrogate star from their name, can we stop writing it all stupidlike in the papers? (I’ll leave it to the comics readers to sort out the visual vocabulary of the hollow-pop symbol.)
Via Coke’s supercoolplacesyoushouldvisitblog on Posterous*, we get Modern Toilet.
Go ahead and let that sink in.It’s a restaurant (chain!) in Taiwan where you eat food surrounded by decor from the uh … convenience room.
That’s right. I’m back from blog silence with poop joke in tow. Follow the link for tightly coiled frozen yogurt and a link to the restaurant’s website which has a subhead that entreats “GO PEE-PEE OR GO POO-POO?”
* (Also, Posterous looks pretty neat. If they have an API, it might make a neat WordPress add-on. Sure, I signed up for pudding, but every time I want to post, it’s down – wft.)
I’m coming up on four years owning a RAZR, and I’ve hardly had problems with them. Except for the slow-ass UI. But I’ve also babied it fairly well. I can count on one hand the times I’ve dropped my phone onto a hard surface. Why? Because I know they’re made of marzipan.
This is my second year owning my current phone. During that time of long days at work and countless weekends of drinking, I don’t think I’ve dropped it once.
Today I dropped it twice on hard surfaces, the battery popped out and everything. I fully expect the front screen to stop functioning or the SIM card to shatter, or something. But it works just fine. So has today been lucky or unlucky?
So what’s been keeping me busy today? I just started reading about the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis because … nevermind. Freakin’ Wikipedia.
Anyway, Pruitt-Igoe is absolutely fascinating. It was designed by the guy who designed the World Trade Center and the Pacific Science Center (as well as some other crap), and its unique design features backfired so fantastically, it marked the most epic fail of modern architecture and social theory.
It was described as a city of despair that made the slums it replaced look wonderful by comparison. Its demolition – a mere 20 10 years after it was constructed – was featured in Koyaanisqatsi in an eponymous sequence depicting urban decay. So if you find yourself as bored as Tor is today, go get your read going. Or, you can get ahead of the nerdery curve with the PDF of Creating Defensible Spaces.
(Also, I think I deserve props for spelling Schadenfreude correctly the first time I tried.)
Edit: One of the highlights of Creating Defensible Spaces has to be the caption on Pg. 73, which discusses “fear maps.”
I’ve really been trying to avoid media-watcher posts, but I can’t help this one. I blame Kaci.
There were some grumblings recently about the AP issuing a takedown letter (boom legalshot!) to people who quote AP stories. The poster-child is parody blog The Drudge Retort, which the AP got pissy at for quoting 39 words.
What does the AP stand to lose from people quoting their stories – especially if the quoters provide a link. The AP is a non-profit funded by its members, right? So what’s the revenue they’re losing?
I’d argue that it’s in the bloggers’ best interest to link back to the original sources. Why? Bloggers like to share and they certainly want the extra exposure of perhaps being picked up by a newspapers’ blog or political wrap-up.
But what really bugs me is that the organization that is responsible for making news a commodity is now freaking out because it is being treated as such. AP headlines and video are plastered on every site. AP wire fills the A sections of metro dailies. But it’s all crap we saw on TV or read online last night and little of it is relevant to the reader. (Don’t get me started on how awful the writing can be.) This lowers reader interest in the content, which lowers advertising revenue.
Anyway, irrelevance brings us back to the AP’s fair use policy. I hope this doesn’t stand up to any serious legal challenge because it sets a bad precedent. Will people be able to revoke use of written statements if the derivative work pus them in a bad light? Can a reporter be sued over quoting an e-mail or a speech?
The AP has done enough to ruin American newspapers, let’s just hope that this is posturing. After all, they’ve had their ridiculous fee schedule up for quite a while.
My answer is as it has always been: Regional papers should form their own story-sharing groups al a OhNO and vote with their wallets when it comes to national and world news sources.
Please regard the Photoshop Disasters (via BoingBoing, but don’t read too far down for post spoilers). Wow, so Photoshopped, right? How is that guy’s elbow in front of Tiger Woods while his face is behind the golf club. That photoer must have Lucy-Grade ‘Splainin’ to do, right? This image appeared in WaPo’s Express tab and was pounced upon by the hungry echo-chamber.
Deep in the Boing Boing comment thread, a chap from Express links the following image and this Getty gallery and the dark truth comes out. The cropping and color correction (read: blow everything the fuck out) in the Express image serves to ruin the contrast between the two subjects. Sure, it’s very subtle, but you can tell. And the cropping removes feet, which puts our perspective way out of wack. And let’s not forget that depth of field decreases as focal length increases. Notice the earlier photo with the subject more out of focus.
My judgement is that this was bad on Express for editing the photo too hard.
But here’s the rub: They really can’t spare the space on a big, beautiful photo because they’re targeting letter (or half-letter?) paper. They also run across the problem of differing output on the client side, which I guess means they have to aim for the strongest color reponse possible.
Then, of course, the question: Is editing for the clientside an ethics issue?
Ring Ring.
“Fuckhellpiss,” I go for the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi there. I’m looking for a man who’s supposed to work at a store down on 4th Plain. Is this the right number.”
“Uh … I’m sorry. Do you have a name?”
“That’s kind of the problem.”
“A description perhaps?” At this point, I’m just curious.
“An older gentleman with one leg.”
“…” I struggle valiantly to keep my composure. “No, I’m sorry. That doesn’t sound like anyone here.”
I promise I don’t spend time searching for items tagged “fail” on Amazon, but I did run across this.
Finally, a guide about how to win at failing. I am so putting this on my wish list.