Free 1200-page physics textbook, available online or
Free 1200-page physics textbook, available online or for download. I have no idea if it’s any good or not. Is anyone using this in their high school or college classroom?
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Entries for November 2005
Man trades computer tech support (spyware &
Man trades computer tech support (spyware & virus removal mostly) for sexual favors from damsels in distress (via ads on craigslist, of course). One wonders if he’s receiving sexually-transmitted viruses in exchange for his computer virus removal services. NSFW if your boss is offended by tshirts with bad puns on them.
List of the top 50 greatest indie films.
List of the top 50 greatest indie films. The top 10 includes Clerks, Reservoir Dogs, and The Usual Suspects.
A request
My friend Maciej’s server died the other day, and it looks like it cannot be resurrected. He runs idlewords.com (not working at the moment, obviously), where you may have read his piece on the woes of the Space Shuttle, the one about the Wright Brothers, or about pizza in NYC (which ended up in Best Food Writing 2005). At the moment, he’s a starving artist and can’t afford a new server or even a vanilla hosting account. Anyone out there a reader/fan/friend of Maciej’s and want to give him a little corner of your server to get his site back online? Here’s his short request:
The site rarely exceeds 1GB/day bandwidth. It would be especially handy if I could install perl modules and run perl CGI scripts, but at this point I would settle just being able to keep the archive alive.
If you want to help, email mceglowski [at] gmail.com.
Update: Ok folks, looks like he’s all set. Thanks!
Paul Schmelzer’s project to collect autographs of
Paul Schmelzer’s project to collect autographs of his (Paul’s) name from famous people. So far, he’s got scrawls from David Sedaris, Yoko Ono, Frank Gehry, and Pat Buchanan, but has been turned down by Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Scientists have extracted ice cores from Antarctica
Scientists have extracted ice cores from Antarctica that date back 650,000 years (the previous high was 400,000 years). The cores show that modern levels of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide levels are the highest they have ever been.
Prefab housing, like that designed and built
Prefab housing, like that designed and built by Rocio Romero, is growing in popularity.
50 (UK-centric) celebs share their top food experiences. (via rw)
50 (UK-centric) celebs share their top food experiences. (via rw)
Bakeoff! A Gladwell article from back in
Bakeoff! A Gladwell article from back in September on a project that used different team methodologies to attempt to create the perfect cookie: an open source approach, an approach based on extreme programming, and a traditional hierarchical team. You may be surprised which team won.
Support the EFF and the rights of
Support the EFF and the rights of bloggers by putting a badge on your site. Here’s a list of things that the EFF is fighting for on behalf of bloggers.
Introduction from Edward O. Wilson’s new book
Introduction from Edward O. Wilson’s new book on Charles Darwin’s “Four Great Books”.
Surowiecki on the differences between Europeans and
Surowiecki on the differences between Europeans and Americans when it comes to work. “But since more people work in America, and since they work so many more hours, Americans create more wealth. In effect, Americans trade their productivity for more money, while Europeans trade it for more leisure.”
Stupid phrase that I’m sure will catch
Stupid phrase that I’m sure will catch on because the TV and print media that propagates such things is brainless: Cyber Monday. “The Monday after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, when online retailers reportedly experience a surge in purchases” because everyone is back at their speedy internet connections (sans family) at work.
Update: “Cyber Monday” was created by shop.org, an organization of online retailers, as a marketing promotion. It’s only the 12th biggest online shopping day of the year. (thx randy and minuk)
The $100 Laptop being designed by the MIT
The $100 Laptop being designed by the MIT Media Lab was recently unveiled. It’s a bright green, has a hand-crank for recharging the battery, flash memory, USB ports, networking, etc. The target audience is children in third-world countries.
A growing number of business owners are
A growing number of business owners are content to keep their businesses small and manageable or keep the growth slow. “Adept at using the personal touch to lure customers from the big chains, these mom-and-pop retailers typically build their businesses to the point where they are making a comfortable living, then apply the brakes.”
Fontographer, a once popular font editing program,
Fontographer, a once popular font editing program, has been updated for the first time since 1996. (via df)
The bookselling biz
On the plane on the way back from Vietnam, I was reading this article about how bookstores are preferable to shopping for books online[1] when I ran across this quote from David Sedaris:
One thing about English-language bookstores in the age of Amazon is that it assumes that everybody has the Internet. I don’t. I’ve never seen the Internet. I’ve never ordered a book on it, and I wouldn’t really want to”
This seems almost impossible and might even be a joke, but it would go a long way in explaining how he gets so much work done. He’s got continuous complete attention while the rest of us have only partial.
[1] Which article was not very convincing since it included this passage:
[Odile Hellier, owner of the Village Voice bookstore in Paris] said that she thinks the act of buying books in a store rather than online is essential to the health of our culture.
“My fear is that while the machine society that we live in is very functional, very practical, and allows for a certain communication, it is a linear communication that closes the mind,” she said.
She said that although Internet sites perform many of the functions of a bookstore - recommending similar books or passing on personal impressions of a book - nothing equals the kind of discovery possible when visiting a store and scanning tables covered with a professional staff’s latest hand-picked selection.
I always chuckle when someone (usually grinding an axe) describes the web as so flat and with little social aspect. I love bookstores, but in many ways, shopping for books online is superior.
Michael Sippey offers some suggestions on how
Michael Sippey offers some suggestions on how web startups could benefit from how grade schools function. Snack time, gym class, field trips, and using periods instead of a calendar.
100 notable books of 2005 from the NY Times Book Review.
100 notable books of 2005 from the NY Times Book Review.
Not only is Intelligent Design bad science,
Not only is Intelligent Design bad science, it’s also bad religion. “Self-defeating and incoherent, Intelligent Design is worse than useless, not only as science but also, one imagines, for religious folks who might be attempting to understand God by working backwards from the world as their body of evidence.”
Transportation
In rough chronological order**, here are all the modes of transportation we used on our three-week trip to Asia:
Taxi
Bus
Car
Car
Airplane, Embraer
AirTrain
Airplane, Airbus 340
Taxi
MTR (multiple times)
Star Ferry (multiple times)
Ferry
Ferry
Peak tram
Ferry
Bus
Bus
Taxi
Airplane
Taxi
SkyTrain (multiple times)
River taxi (multiple times)
Van
Van
Metro (multiple times)
Canal taxi
Taxi
Taxi
Airplane (Boeing 747)
Taxi
Taxi (multiple times)
Car
Boat
Horse cart
Row boat
Boat
Car
Taxi
Airplane
Taxi
Airplane, Airbus 340
AirTrain
Airplane
Car
Car
Bus
Taxi
For those scoring at home, that’s roughly 12 different forms of transportation. That’s a whole lot of traveling. Here are a few we didn’t make use of:
Tuk tuk
Motorcycle
Motorbike
Cyclos
Long-tail boat
** Where we used something several times over a period of days, I’ve marked the first instance with “multiple times”.
Interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto,
Interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros, Zelda, etc.
Profile of Ray Kurzweil on the occasion
Profile of Ray Kurzweil on the occasion of the publication of his latest book, The Singularity is Near. “This individualistic, mechanistic ethos, his critics argue, also blurs Kurzweil’s predictive power, because it ignores all the ways in which technologies are bounded by social forces.” Gotta love his quest for immortality though.
Tickets are starting to become available for
Tickets are starting to become available for showings of King Kong, at least in NYC. They’re also doing the midnight showings the night before thing.
DMC, the latter half of Run-DMC, has
DMC, the latter half of Run-DMC, has abandoned his trademark (my) Adidas for Le Coq Sportif.
On the eve of the 15th anniversary
On the eve of the 15th anniversary of the creation of the web, James Boyle muses on how we should celebrate. “We probably would not create [the web], or any technology like it, today. In fact, we would be more likely to cripple it, or declare it illegal.”
My pal Hossein gets turned back at
My pal Hossein gets turned back at the US border after the guard Googled him, discovered his blog, and determined that his presence in the US has been a little more permanent than it should be.
MoMA is running a Pixar exhibition from
MoMA is running a Pixar exhibition from December 14 to February 6, 2006. “Featuring over 500 works of original art on loan for the first time from Pixar Animation Studios, the show includes paintings, concept art, sculptures, and an array of digital installations.”
A list of the best and worst
A list of the best and worst cookbooks to give people for Xmas (or Kwanzaa or Hanukkah or Festivus).
Rize
I wanted to like Rize a whole lot more than I did. The subject matter was fascinating, but the documentary itself was a little sloppy, especially near the end (e.g. by the way, white and Asians krump too). But I caught four seconds of the video for Madonna’s first single off of her new album (Hung Up from Confessions on a Dance Floor) on MTV Asia the other day and there was Miss Prissy. Seems that Madonna wanted David LaChapelle to direct the video but he declined.
Deadprogrammer is taking 100 different photos of the
Deadprogrammer is taking 100 different photos of the Empire State Building; he’s up to 30 or so.
The evolution** of spam
The 419 Nigerian spammers are getting smarter. This letter I received the other day offered URL references:
Dear Friend,
I am Larisa Sosnitskaya and I represent Mr. Mikhail Khordokovsky the former C.E.O of Yukos Oil Company in Russia. I have a very sensitive and confidential brief from this top (oligarch) to ask for your partnership in re-profiling funds US$46 Million. I will give the details, but in summary, the funds are coming via Bank Menatep. This is a legitimate transaction. You will be paid 20% as your commison/compensation for your active efforts and contirbution to the success of this transaction.
You can catch more of the story on This website below or you can watch more of CCN or BBC to get more news about my boss.
http://www.mosnews.com/mn-files/khodorkovsky.shtml
http://www.mbktrial.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3213505.stm
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/11/041.html
http://www.nndb.com/people/633/000025558/If you are interested, please do indicate by providing me with your confidential telephone number, fax number and email address and I will provide further details and instructions. Please keep this confidential as we cannot afford more political problems. Please do send me your response as soon as possible via my personal email :[email protected] OR [email protected].
look forward to it.
Regards,
Larisa Sosnitskaya
Seems like pretty good evidence to me…where do I send the check?
**That’s right, evolution. Sit on it, Potsie.
Mirroring the progression of diaries and graphic
Mirroring the progression of diaries and graphic design, scrapbooking, the practice of arranging and decorating photos in albums, has gone digital. Personal desktop publishing anyone?
Works by Chip Kidd (from Chip Kidd:
Works by Chip Kidd (from Chip Kidd: Book One) will be on exhibition at Cooper Union through Feb 4, 2006.
Amazing paper sculptures by Peter Callesen (more here).
Amazing paper sculptures by Peter Callesen (more here).
Heading home
Even though it seems like we just got here, our Asian adventure is drawing to a close. We leave this morning for the eastern seaboard of the United States (via the North Pole, I think). I’ll likely have a few more posts about our time here (including photos) over the next week or so. Posting on Monday and Tuesday will probably be a little shaky as we travel, deal with jet lag, and rediscover bowel movement regularity.
Starting tomorrow, eGullet will be hosting a
Starting tomorrow, eGullet will be hosting a week-long conversation with Ruth Reichl.
Lunchtime in Saigon
We had a couple of notable lunches in Saigon. The first was at Quan An Ngon. The owner of this establishment found the best street food vendors in Saigon, offered them a steady wage, and brought them all under one roof to form a restaurant[1]. When you arrive (and after waiting for 10 minutes or more at this busy place) and are shown to your table, you pass the various cooks preparing their street specialties. The waiter was super-quick in taking our order so we didn’t get too good of a look at the menu, but we managed to have an excellent lunch.
A couple of days later, we checked out La Fenetre Soleil (the link is in Japanese, but the photos are good). As you probably know, France ruled Vietnam for about 100 years and the influence can be seen in several aspects of life there. La Fenetre Soleil feels quite French (circa 1940), mostly due to the architecture of the building and the deliberate styling of the proprietors. There are a few tables, but we sat in two ridiculously comfortable stuffed chairs and lunched on banh mi with cold drinks. A very cool place to chill out and have a small meal or a drink…comfortable enough to lounge for hours.
[1] A great idea, BTW. I wonder if such a thing could work in NYC?[2]
[2] Or some other city somewhere else. I live in NYC so I spend a lot of time (publicly and privately) wondering if things I notice elsewhere could work where I live.
Older article in the Economist about eating
Older article in the Economist about eating in Vietnam. I wonder if the black market food (sea turtle, tiger, bear, porcupine, etc.) is still available.
Meg recaps our daytrip to the Mekong
Meg recaps our daytrip to the Mekong Delta. If you go, partake not of the rice and banana wines. Holy antifreeze, Batman!
The walking wounded
During our almost-three weeks in Asia, I suffered some gastrointestinal discomfort from too much soda in a bag and then a weird neck injury where I twisted it the wrong way and it just hurt really bad (and now I can’t really look at anything that’s not directly in front of me), while Meg sliced her foot open on some glass and got sick (not the bird flu…probably). All this is in addition to our tired & sore feet from three weeks of hardcore walking.
Then this evening we’re strolling to dinner and I smacked my head into a metal box hanging off of a pole I totally didn’t see (the pole or the box…see my head motion problems above), which actually knocked me off my feet and flat onto my back on the pavement. Luckily, everyone within a 25-foot radius heard/saw this[1] and came right over to see that I was OK (I was), which kinda made it worse because of the embarrassment factor but was also very nice because everyone was so friendly/concerned. The gentleman whose slab of pavement I had horizonatally deposited myself onto produced a tissue and a green liquid of some sort, which I dabbed near-but-not-on the welt on my head just to be polite because of my concern re: the liquid’s antiseptic qualities. After I collected my wits, Meg and the shopkeeper brushed me off, got me standing, and we continued onto dinner, a little slower and more in the middle of the sidewalk. I’ve gotta say, as much as I’ve enjoyed our trip, I’m happy to be heading home to some familiarity.
[1] The sound that a crowd makes when something strange/bad happens in its vicinity is univerally recognizable no matter the language or culture.
Caught in the rain
You know how when everyone knows something you don’t know and after a little bit you get a funny feeling that you know that they know something but you still don’t know what It is and you end up with your palms outstretched and your shoulders slightly hunched generally feeling like a dope while everyone chuckles at your ignorance? Getting caught in a tropical rain storm is like that, except that instead of everyone chuckling at you, you just get massively wet.
I was out walking the other day, heading to the travel agency to arrange our daytrip to the Mekong Delta. People generally don’t walk large distances in Saigon like one might in NYC. The sidewalks are crammed with motorbikes (motorbike parking lots are right on the sidewalk instead of dedicated structures), people selling things, and cracked or otherwise uneven pavement. But old habits die hard, so I was out walking.
All of a sudden, there was a flurry of activity. Motorbikes started driving all over the sidewalks, routing around the traffic jam that had developed in the intersection. The sidewalks cleared. I was a bit too busy trying to negotiate the sidewalks with all the motorbike coming at me and from behind me for me to register that something was afoot — it was only afterwards that I put it all together. Then it started to rain, just a sprinkle at first. A man selling something out of a basket by the side of the road produced a plastic poncho seemingly out of nowhere, slipped it on, covered his basket with a plastic bag, and quickly took off around the corner, leaving his basket there on the street.
And then it really started to rain. Big huge drops falling fast. I looked around and found myself on one of the few streets not lined with awninged shops so I sprinted for cover under a tree. The traffic was as thick as ever, but I noticed that as soon as the rain started, all the motorbike drivers and passengers magically had ponchos on. Stupid prescient locals. Meanwhile, my tree was not up to the task of stopping a torrential downpour. Already soaking, I sprinted for a nearby (thankfully unoccupied) pay telephone, above which was a small awning, just big enough for one skinny kid from Wisconsin.
Ten minutes later, the rain slacked enough for me to run the remaining 100 yards to the travel agency. Dripping like a wet dog all over their floor, the woman asked me, “you get here by taxi or walk?”
“Walk,” I replied.
She shook her head in pity. Turns out there’s another reason why people probably don’t walk much around here.
Actor Pat Morita passed away at age 73.
Actor Pat Morita passed away at age 73. Rest in peace, Mr. Miyagi.
Another benefit to being in Vietnam is
Another benefit to being in Vietnam is that they have pretty good French food here.
Khoi Vinh from Subtraction is currently in
Khoi Vinh from Subtraction is currently in Vietnam as well, blogging and taking pictures.
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