since coming back from vacation, I've had several weeks worth of new yorkers to get through, and there have been a lot of good articles recently: one from july 23 by oliver sacks about out of body experiences, which I coincidentally read at the same time as I saw the movie tarnation. The more recent august 13 issue has an article about italian olive oil, which is often fraudulently mixed with cheaper oils such as hazelnut oil.
papers is an organizing tool for academic pdfs that looks very well-designed and useful. right now I'm using sente, but this is very pretty. not sure where I saw this, but probably at lifehacker.
Friday, June 01, 2007 ::: So lately I've finally had some time to catch up on my back issues from the new yorker. They had a very interesting profile of karl lagerfeld, and also from the same issue an article on someone whose job it is to track down trademark fraud. Mostly it seems like a rather depressing continual busting of small businesspeople, though the article also mentions a problem with fake or fraudulent airplane parts, which seems like something air passengers might find much less desirable than a kate spade knockoff handbag.
An excellent discussion of why gas prices are the way they are. seems the actual gouging occurs when prices don't go down, rather than when they go up too high.
so the other day it was a bright sunny morning as I walked down 18th street when it started raining from the only cloud in the sky, HEAVILY, while the sun shone brightly. unsurprisingly, I had no umbrella with me.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007 ::: Jenna Fischer, "Pam" from American version of the TV show The Office, explains how to make it showbusiness, which mostly includes working hard and taking every job that comes your way. via kottke.org.
consumerist links to an article about how the zagat guide has suffered from ratings inflation, and also works from low sample numbers. Judging from the DC guide, restaurants that are big fish in small ponds--located in an area without many other good restaurants nearby--also tend to receive higher ratings than they really should.
The BDLG blog, a recent weblog of note, has loads of interesting architectural links, and is beautifully laid out. Likewise Design sponge, which is more generally dedicated to all kinds of design.
Sunday, February 25, 2007 ::: since I have a new ipod, I now also have an old one which I have been meaning to use as a storage device. and lifehacker has been kind enough to direct me to some software than can make it all happen seamlessly. lifehacker as also pointed out the less pressingly useful but nonetheless whimsically interesting restaurant choice randomizer known as the wheel of food, which chooses your restaurant from a selection of nearby eateries.
last night we started watching michael gondry's the science of sleep, which is a movie that requires a lot of patience, but has some very fascinating moments. and naturally I had a rather interesting dream last night, in which I had to hand-write my email password over and over again in different handwriting styles (neatly vs messily, with or without little curlicue flourishes, etc.) -- to be handed over to a committee of of jowly middle-aged men for review and record-keeping purposes.
Thursday, January 11, 2007 ::: comps start next week, which means I had better post now if I'm going to post this month at all. So here's what I've been saving up for a while now:
