If you happen to be in Maastricht April 12-14, why not go to Design Recast (more)? It's free and has a great line-up. In fact, if you were in Maastricht on those days and did not go, you'd likely regret it after.
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Astonishingly good orgami (love the Ungulates) by Vancouver's Joseph Wu (via this MeFi thread).
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I recently re-read an old Fernando Flores article in Fast Company (that was January 99?) as a prelude to a micro-bookclub re-reading of Disclosing New Worlds Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity. The article is a glimpse to some serious power and if you've never read it, I say: read it.
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Email snippet:

>Are you aware that you were described as a twit in a
>national British newspaper on Saturday?

So, now, of course, I am curious: do you have a copy of last Saturday's Guardian? (This bit, apparently, isn't online.)

Update: Many thanks to the interconnectedness of Matt Webb, I have a scan of the column in question. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get called out on a more embarrassing bit of pretentiousness (G-d knows I've done better than that) but such is life. At least the Dutch think that Brits calling out twits is a compliment (is that a lyric already?)
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In the February 18-25 New Yorker there's a fine article on the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is quoted as saying:

“I'll tell you, the hardest job of a black preacher is to preach the funeral of an insignificant negro,” he told the congregation. “Most folks shouldn't even have a funeral. Most folks should go straight from the morgue to the cemetery. Because most folks ain't done nothing we can talk about. Bought you a nice house. Who cares? We'll sell you house as soon as you die. The only thing that will matter two minutes after your gone is if you did something for someone other than yourself.”

I've never much cared for Rev. Sharpton, but that is certainly something I can get behind. The first half of the article gave me a much deep understanding of (and even some sympathy for) Sharpton.
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I never saw The Adventures of Action Item until today. (Thanks wonderchicken.)
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While I make diagrams in the office, other people post good things. Like the winning photographs from the 2001 Visions of Science Photographic Awards on kottke.org. Or Judith on memory palaces (Feb. 12 entry). Or the not-archived-on-npr.org-for-legal-reasons[23MB] mp3 of Gene Simmons being interviewed by Terry Gross which Eric somehow got a hold of and made available (Feb. 11 entry) — get permalinks people!

I have to say more about the latter. The interview is a great study of conversational breakdowns and awkward pauses. Simmons was obnoxious and seemed profoundly insecure about talking to an intellekshual like Gross, while Gross seemed extremely threatened (and flustered) by Simmons’ sexual attitudes and history. At one point, where the topic has moved away from sex, Simmons claims that he is merely encouraging her to “get out in the world and see what everyone else is doing.” And her immediate unprovoked response is “Having sex with you?” That's Terry Gross saying that.

On the other hand, Simmons’ responses were full of dumb stuff, which he was constantly try to cover up, belying his braggadocio beautifully. For example:“ ... sort of similar, but more industrious— industrial! ‘Industrious’ means, sort of ambitious. Industrial. In strength.”

Or, showing off his prodigious vocabulary: “ ... two guys from the intelligensia— which is not the intelligence service.” or “... equilibrium — which is a big word, come to think of it, just like gymnasium. This is NPR, that's why we're using good words.”
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As Hesiod says*:

First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth,
The everlasting seat of all that is,
And Love.

Happy Valentine's Day sweetheart —I lean and hearken after you.
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Martin Kurylowicz (remember him, Rog?) gives some insight into the activities of the superconductivity group at the UBC physics dept:

What our lab does for fun, [15.1MB .mov] usually involving liquid nitrogen inside a sealed pop bottle.

Your tax dollars at work!
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Epinions sent me a notifcation that the (now, sadly, defunct) magazine The Sciences had a new review (because I asked for such notifications when I wrote a review of the same magazine back in Oct. '99 — tempus fugit!). This was the summary of the new review that got mailed to me:

Pros: It's enigmatic science, constituting a conspicuous morceau of art to pullulate an ultramontane, uncomformable denouement.

Cons: The mental pabulums are immoderately transient and are enumerated among a capacious prodigality of sciences.

Bottom line: Anyone who desiderates a science magazine with an artistic aurora, The Sciences falls underneath your prospection. While detaining multinominal Scientific fields, the articles also amalgamate other frustums of society.

Almost makes me desiderate that on a T-shirt.
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Gail and Dean in Love. This was my favorite part of the article, because it was about me:

Stewart Butterfield, one half of that couple, says: “I do tend to think that all my corresponence is particularly sparkling.”

Caterina Fake explains what took place in their e-mail missives: “Stewart promised me a 15-per-cent increase in my over-all happiness per annum, compounded biannually. He offered to make a PowerPoint presentation, outlining the benefits that would accrue to me. He even got his ex-girlfriend in Boston to e-mail me a testimonial.”

Hmm. That's some pretty serious non-sequitur to those who don't have context. (By the bye, I am like 3-4 years ahead on the Caterina happiness front.)
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Milo's 100th i.am.bald installment is a digital clock replica built out of border styles. Elegant! Simple! Brilliant! (Presumably Win/IE only.) Milo is the most consistently interesting DHTML coder I know. Congratulations on 100! ( —and enter the 5k this year, damnit.)

(And sorry to those of who how don't know or care a lot about javascript and html. You must be nonplussed; oh well.)
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beebo.org (about) is an exemplary personal site (I hadn't been there for a long time — maybe since the rankings died? but the link from c.net sent me over today.)

The owner has an interest in Samuel Pepys (pr. “peeps”). Once I spent the night at Magdalene College (pr. “maudlin”) in “Pepys rooms”. (Not the Bibliotheca Pepysiana, but just a room in the first court that has a lot of Pepys' personal and family stuff in it.) And, for breakfast, I ate a little box of Fruit Loops which were kept in a heavily engraved wooden box which Pepys used to store personal papers.

And that's all I have to say about that.
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A Bitter Film (via Newstoday)
While we're at it, America's Most Wanted's composites of what Osama Bin Laden might look like in disguise (via Leon Blackwell who just wrote in to tell me that I had a broken link. That it is even possible to get links wrong points to a design flaw in the way we made the web. Or I am too lazy. Something like that.)
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I never use the word “nuanced” but I always mean to, which is too bad, because it is a great word. Better than plain old “subtle” or “complex” because it sort of straddles the space between them and conveys exactly what I mean when I say awkward things like “complex and subtle”.

Also, last year I saw a guy with a T-shirt that said only "Eschew Obfuscation" on the front. And wow did I think that was great! A Google search for "eschew obfuscation" gives good results for a random surf ...

!

[15 minutes passes]

Haha!
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See?
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First: that was awesome!

Second: so, yes, I get that you all like that photo of the tire tracks. Thanks! I appreciate it! And you might know, if you have listened to me for a long time, that I have a complicated and ambiguous relationship to the idea of “intellectual property” (it's theft!). That's what all these comments were about —Eric testing the bounds of my stance on this issue.

What you probably don't know though (because I've never actually said, just meant to) is that you can take whatever photos you see on this site and use them for whatever you want.

(I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know what you were doing with them, and I still “assert the moral right to be identified as the author of the work” but if you don't let me know or don't credit me, that's ok too.)

So, here is a zip of all the tiretrack-heart snapshots (2.3 MB). Go nuts. But note that they really are snapshots —I was in the middle of doing something else and merely borrowed a camera) and these are the jpegs as they came out of Haig's camera.

Third: these three pictures, by Derek Odegard, which you probably can't steal, are really awesome. (I love that kid's face!) I also love the way the photos are presented on Derek's personal site (I'm looking at it on Win2k/IE6 — it may not be as snazzy if you are using a different browser).

Fourth: sorry I wasn't back sooner. I can be more interesting now.
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