Stuff from September, 2007
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on September, 2007.
Focusing Attention with Flash
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on September, 2007.
From the “Fashion and Style” section of the New York Times comes an interesting article about… fashion: “Admit It. You Love It. It Matters.” Ostensibly, it’s an article justifying the very existence of this section of the Times. However, it comes with some very keen observations and quotes that cut to the heart of an argument I haven’t quite been able to formulate in my own busy mind:
In this video, a mobile phone salesman on “Britain’s Got Talent” sings Nessun Dorma. I won’t spoil the results, though you may have seen this one already.
An interesting introduction to the world of set designing for TV: you get 8500 square feet of space and 8 weeks during which you have to assemble a convincing (and in this case obsessively accurate) reproduction of a 1960’s office. Read more about this project at Dwell Blog - “Mid-Century Madness .” What I find particularly cool:
The Wikipedia entry about Jeremy Bentham, a 1900s “philosopher and social reformer,” proves that the British have better senses of humor than the Americans:
As requested in [Jeremy Bentham’s] will, his body was preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet, termed his “Auto-icon”. Originally kept by his disciple Dr. Southwood Smith, it was acquired by University College London in 1850. The Auto-Icon is kept on public display at the end of the South Cloisters in the main building of the College. For the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the college, the Auto-Icon was brought to the meeting of the College Council, where he was listed as “present but not voting”. Tradition holds that if the council’s vote on any motion is tied, the auto-icon always breaks the tie by voting in favor of the motion.
Time for a spot/spate/bit of recent t-shirt items I’ve seen that have the rare quality of humor and viability for personal wear.
How about a Staple Free Stapler, which attaches up to 5 sheets of paper without the need for crazy metallic staples! Amazing. As an office supply junky, I’m inclined to spring for this, as it is only $6.
Jeremy Messersmith, a Minneapolis musician who Mykala brought to my attention recently, has a good set of tunes from his latest album at his website. You can listen to his entire track “7:02,” which Mykala had been searching for. Perhaps she found it here. You can, too! If you really dig the stuff, you can purchase Jeremy’s latest effort, “The Alcatraz Kid,” for $10.
Coudal Partners brings you another entry in the series entitled “Regrets.” This film is a cautionary (and incredibly funny) personal tale about… well, you’ll have to watch.
Since you’re so interested in model railroads, maybe you should, you know, buy a model railroad.
Want to make an Old West style wanted poster? Well, Clarendon would be your typeface of choice. See it (or a very similar derivative of it) used to great effect on the tremendously well-designed site for 31Three, the design studio of Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain.
Geekologie recently featured a 360 Degree Light Field Display, which sounds pretty vanilla… what is that, a panel of LCDs that surround you? Actually, this is very exciting technology: it’s the closest equivalent to the three dimensional display we see in movies that we currently have. The technology combines a extremely fast spinning specially shaped mirror with a custom image output system to project objects in three dimensions, which you can actually walk around as if they really existed. Plus there are no special glasses required.
If you have 20 minutes, then you can watch this great video which “explains the world’s most important 6-sec drum loop.” A commenter on the video writes: “This was probably the most educational sixteen minutes I’ve spent all week.”
The Richard Mille Tellurium-Planetarium involves the most intricate gear-work I have ever seen. This extremely expensive and precise (yet also decorative) device tracks the relative movements of the Earth, Moon, Sun, Mercury, Mars, and Venus.
Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, is a very accomplished (to put it mildly) stage actor. Indeed, he is starring in a critically acclaimed production of King Lear by The Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by Trevor Nunn. I mention this all because this once-in-a-lifetime experience will be passing through Minneapolis in early October, at the newly built Guthrie Theater.
Someday, I will eat at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York. As Mr. Nice Guy points out in his post about taking his wife there for their anniversary:
The silence at tumbledry lately has been due to a wide variety of different things going on, which will all be discussed in time. The thing I’d like to focus on for now: as of last week, I am employed! Furthermore, I’m currently investigating how much I am allowed to talk about the employment in this space. Naturally, I will not ever be revealing any information remotely related to people, politics, products, etc. … or even the physical location of where I work. However, I am sure it is safe to say that I work as a contract analyst at 3M. Putting my biochemistry degree to good use should be exciting. Big changes are ahead in my life, and I will keep everyone posted as opportunities to write arise.
Imagine you’re an urban explorer journeying into the gigantic tailrace of an underground hydroelectric station that has been turned off for two years. Then, imagine you combine silhouettes and spotlights in order to photographically illustrate your exploration of the amazing underground space. Well, you would get this picture. You may visit the corresponding story page at Vanishing Point, which describes the Rankine Tailrace and Michael Cook’s journey into it.
A recent book called Devices of the Soul by Steve Talbott argues how the preponderance of technology that claims to make life easier seems to, in a fundamental sense, make life harder. That, admittedly, is a rather poor exposition of the thesis… but you need know only the general idea here. Incidentally, this book is predated by a rather more famous example of a similar philosophical exploration called The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. Basically, both works discuss the implications of “technology.” Don’t think of technology as simply computers, however. Here’s a helpful comment from the Amazon page selling The Technological Society (emphasis mine):
Way Beyond Sinful is a great magic trick based on Houdini’s “Sinful” trick. How does he get the coins in there?
I’m told these are tasty.
A fine chocolate confection: this one was filled with some sort of nutty smooth chocolate.
This is what happens when churches and cell phone towers mix.
In terms of a public address system, tumbledry is really only a whisper in a gigantic stadium, drown out by the slightest clamor anywhere else. As such, I have never really intended to announce trends or write on the cutting edge of anything — if such writing does see the light of day, it is only because my interests coincided with that which was in vogue. This limits the scope of tumbledry and makes it merely a personal conversation with folks about my life and the things from it I choose to record. In the case of this entry, I feel an urgent need to express my infatuation with an album I ran across (courtesy of Mykala). Knowing that the whisper will be drown out doesn’t make the recommendation feel any less important.
The website iLounge has a 5+ year tradition of a journalistic approach to Apple iPod news; their reviews, articles, and regular news updates are completely devoid of snarkiness, instead focusing on facts and well-written leads. In short, they’re a well respected resource for Apple news. However, their review entitled “Apple iPod touch (8GB/16GB)” did nothing but attempt to reinforce the iLounge opinion that the iPod touch is a “downgrade” from the iPhone. Preoccupation with iPhone comparisons caused iLounge not to miss the boat, but miss the harbor on this one:
The Eyeshirt is the worst iPod accessory product ever made. Mykala: “How much more lame can you be?” Watch the priceless commercial.
In the past five years or so, I have experienced a recurrent and surprisingly urgent need to “figure it out.” It must be that the changing scenery and conditions of my young life cause me to attempt to assure myself I’m on the “right” path. As a result, I’ve taken a simultaneous keen yet shallow interest in philosophy: as if a cursory overview of the topic would yield the viewpoint for which I search. The Weepies sing that, perhaps, “this is not your year.” However, if I was to take guidance on life from media, it would not be that particular song (great though it may be). I would, in fact, take inspiration from the most profound (and, incidentally, most existential) comic I have ever read. That would be this strip of Zippy the Pinhead published on my Mom’s birthday, the 16th of September:
The plastic sure is a distraction. Plus, it looks as though someone took a bite out of the chip, even though it is in a sealed bag.
Nils wrote this comment in January of this year. Given our recent discussion about life choices and comics, I think it’s appropriate to bring out his well-articulated viewpoint:
I think that we have to learn to deal with uncertainty for the time being. We’re 21 for christ’s sake, the possibilities and choices that lay ahead of us are virtually endless. The problem is that high school and college have not primed us to deal with the unknown. There has always been a set track that we have been required to follow and that track pretty much ends with college, I think. We should all be prepared for unforeseen conflicts and always have back up plans because you never know how things will turn out. I’ve been thinking a lot about post graduation lately and I have thrown together a few scenarios for myself: stay with TV and pursue jobs in TV market, move to LA and attempt the film industry, join the peace corp, or move to Norway and do something (read: I have no clue). I think can live with those options.
Less sweet than sugar, but still usable on food: erythritol.
From the article: “It is 60-70% as sweet as table sugar yet it is virtually non-caloric, does not affect blood sugar, does not cause tooth decay, and is absorbed by the body, therefore unlikely to cause gastric side effects unlike other sugar alcohols. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeling requirements, it has a caloric value of 0.2 calories per gram (95% less than sugar and other carbohydrates), but some countries like Japan label it at 0 calories.”
Since it’s cooler out, the chocolate is not very soft — this makes pyramid construction difficult.
VideoETA says that The Namesake will be released on November 27, 2007. When that date comes, you should see this movie. For those who have no idea of what I am talking about, the Chicago Sun-Times had a good review when The Namesake was first released in the US.
Now we travel to this link: MoCo Loco: Anti-Theft Bike/Car Device. There, you’ll find that you can prevent theft of your new mode of transportation by applying fake rust, scratch, and dent decals that are stunningly realistic.
But then your new mode of transportation appears to be rusted, scratched, and dented.
2:37 into Bloc Party’s song This Modern Love from their 2005 Silent Alarm release is one of my favorite moments in music from the past couple of years. There’s just this massive wave of sound and emotion coming through the speakers when the melody is torn down to it’s essentials; the whirlwind tour through major chord harmonies by overdubbed voices sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.
More “daily” pictures on their way soon, I just haven’t gotten them edited down off the camera yet. Hang in there!
I’d like to visit Fraser Island someday. You see, it has these super ultra blue lakes that are kept free of just about any growing things as a result of their high pH level. (I learned that on The Savvy Traveller). Wikipedia continues about the lakes:
Lost my watch from Mykala a couple days ago. Kept thinking it would pop up some place I hadn’t looked or hadn’t thought of. I checked my gym bag 15 times, and went through my backpack at least that many. The bizarre thing was, the links on the watch make a very distinct sound when you move them — much like a muffled version of the “tink” produced when a bead falls down a rain stick. What I mean is, it’s a difficult sound to mistake for something else.
Highly dissimilar viewpoints don’t bother me — in fact, I love a good intellectually interesting debate. What does bother me, however, is those who passionately latch on to worldviews with which they are only superficially familiar. In arguments, these people’s only defense consists of sputtering emotionally charged strings of words whose meaning they haven’t investigated and logical fallacies of begging the question, burden of proof, irrelevant conclusion, and verbosity.
The idea behind this seven picture series is to confront the sometimes harsh reality of fall using the bright, stark imagery that on-camera flash photography is known for. Instead of softening the colors by shooting wide shots of forests and sunsets, we take a close, unblinking (mildly depressing) look at the season.
Leó Szilárd, an important member of the Manhattan Project, was quite an interesting character. While he was politically active and had a tendency to be extremely blunt with such dealings, those aspects of him are not what I’d like to share. First, from the Wikipedia article (emphasis mine):
Now then, if this isn’t the coolest commercial I’ve seen in the past 12 months. You see, they made NYC into one of those labyrinth maneuvering board games, and then sent a car through it. Behold, the car commercial itself.
Hi, my name is Alex Micek and this is my website. Sometimes I post boring things here. This is one of them.
