A cornucopia of unique business cards - See anything you like, Mykala? I liked two of the dentist ones—the one with floss threaded between teeth at the bottom, and the other with an embossed impression of teeth. Fun!
Nothing like putting the cart before the horse.
Neigh!
1983: Stereophile’s jubilant review of the first CD player - You see, when the compact disc came into the consumer space, it was a pretty big deal. An entire host of problems were completely eliminated:
… the sound was so opulently gorgeous it almost defied belief! It was a total incarnation of the perfectionist’s wildest dreams: rich, velvety, airy, awesome, liquid, yet incredibly detailed. There were none of the analog disc’s problems. No marginal mistracking, no subtle VTA-error distortions, no disc-resonance smearing, no feedback-induced low-end boom or mud, no ticks or pops or pressing grumbles even at the highest listening levels. And there was no analog-tape flutter or modulation noise or transient-rounding or print-through or hiss.
I don’t know what much of that means, but I do know that the Sony CDP-101 was a big deal when it arrived. I think it’s hard now to understand what a massive jump in sound quality it was.
The father of the father of Engadget - Peter Rojas eulogizes his father, the man who inspired his passion for gadgets and technology. A heartfelt, moving, piece of writing. The paragraph that struck me most:
What always amazed me about him was how multifaceted he was. He was an intellectually curious physician living in a small town who had traveled the world, read at least a book a week up until he died, could continually kick my ass in Scrabble even though he didn’t learn English until he was 23, and knew practically everything there was to know about classical music, Spanish wines, and French cinema. All I wanted to be when I grew up was as smart as my dad.
Sometimes, when you’re job searching, you are looking up businesses and their locations in your area. Then, you find yourself Google Mapsing Hawaii, specifically the spot where you vacationed last…
Yes, there it is, 484 Kuhio Hwy, Kapaa, Kauai, Plantation Hale: Best Western. For being a Best Western, the place was very very clean, had a great view, and a very good concierge service. The thing that was coolest for me, coming from Minnesota, was that the hallways had no walls at the end. It was just stairs protected by the overhang from the roof. So, each morning when you stepped out of your room, there was a gentle Hawaiian breeze blowing through the hallway.
I know what you’re thinking, “Hey Alex, how do I get business cards that don’t stink?” Well, first you’ll want to design them in Photoshop, using a high DPI (300 or so), preferably in a vector format, should you want to resize that beautiful logo you just made for your burgeoning business. Now, I can’t make vector art (I haven’t had the time to learn), so you can get away with a 300 DPI version of whatever your logo is. I cheat a bit and use elements of type combined in a novel way to generate my logo, which makes it “vector” in a way. However, the “wicked worn look” has to be redone at each resolution. Anyways.
You have two options. First, you can have your card printed out by a good printshop. I used Overnight Prints when I first tried business cards (they weren’t really for a business, but for practice, etc.), but I have heard really great things about 4by6.com. 4by6 sends you a free sample of their different paper finishes. This way, you can judge if you want double sided glossy, single sided glossy, or a matte finish on your business cards. I’d go this route if you want simply want nice cards. We’re working on this for Mykala right now (professional-level choreographers such as herself need professional-level cards).
However, if you want to go over the top with fantastic, blow ‘em away business cards, then it’s not a matter of photoshop wizardry… oh no, you’re going to have to emboss them. There is precisely one shop I know of who does this, and boy are they committed to quality. Here’s SimpleBit’s business card, which was printed by this shop. The name of the place is Dependable Letterpress.
I specialize in fine, digital letterpress printing, catering to graphic designers and design professionals. I like to approach a job with a collaborative frame of mind and an artisan’s sensibility. I choose to strictly be a job printer so I can focus on printing efficiently and at extremely high standards.
I haven’t gotten a quote from them, nor will I do so any time soon, as I’ll need a legitimate reason down the road (say, a dental practice ;) to merit superfine quality business cards. Hopefully, though, this will inspire someone to try out the letterpress method. People will keep your business card just because it is so great. (Oh, and don’t forget the paper).
Improving the 2012 Olympic’s logo - One look at the London Olympics logo, and you’ll understand why it could use some improving. This little summary showcases an idea that combines the visual identity of the Royal Air Force with that of the ubiquitous olympic rings. It won’t be used, but it’s brilliant.
On a whim a couple of weeks ago, I decided to ratchet up my running distance. I’m doing ten mile runs now at around eight and a half minute pace. This isn’t bad, though I recently heard my cousin Tim threw down a half marathon (the Gary Bjorklund) in 90 minutes, which raises the bar. Anyhow, the first time I got back from this run, nearly dead, I drank a lot of water. But that’s not the point of the story. I then went to the basement and mapped the run out on Gmap-Pedometer.com. This yielded the picture below.
Now, I continued running this route for the past few weeks, but only recently noticed something incredibly useful. The distance from my house to a nearby intersection (at top left) is exactly 1 mile. Why is this useful? Because of the way the country roads are set up (on the right side of the run map). Between each road, it’s one mile. So, on that big country mile square, there are mile markers built in at the corners, and at the midpoints on each side of the square. Now, I haven’t started carrying a watch or anything (I don’t own a suitable digital running watch), but if I did, this simple fact would make mile clocking incredibly easy. As an added bonus, the hills on this course above have a great swing to them, giving the run an interval feel. That is, for every couple of miles, there is a 100-150m vertical change, giving ye olde leg strength a workout, in addition to endurance training. The biggest downside to this route is the location of the only public bathroom along it, which intimately factors into a tale for another day.
Sometimes you need a Wikipedia whiteboard - “I’ve got some Sharpies in a drawer in case I need to lock it from editing.”
Over at Unicorndog - This made me laugh out loud: “Happy Father’s Day to those of you who are dads, or have dads, or may be dads but are waiting on paternity tests.” We should engineer a commenting system over there.
Edit: This was originally titled “Over at Unicorncob.” I have no idea why.
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