little thoughts

+Sep.24

2008-09-25T03:48:46Z

Today, McCain’s campaign manager was found to have pocketed a half million from lobbying for Freddie Mac, Laura Bush said Palin wasn’t ready for the White House, Karl Rove agreed, McCain panicked and tried to cancel the debates, Obama asserts presidentially that Americans need to hear the candidates debate real issues and especially during crises, Americans resoundingly concur, then Bush slammed the big red “panic!” button a few dozen times, Letterman bugged, Couric stumped Palin, Fox News admitted reality, and Bush’s cabinet personally approved breaking the Geneva Conventions.

And it’s only Wednesday.

+Sep.15

2008-09-16T00:47:56Z

Over the last week McCain’s pathologic lying imbroglio has helped me straighten out one thing. My beef with television news’s coverage of politics boils down to this: balance has become the ideal instead of accuracy. Instead of wise anchors, well-versed in the issues interviewing one person and taking them to task over deceptions, we have blowhards fanning the flames between a “balance” of agenda-laden dolts. CNN, MSNBC, Faux, all guilty.

Zeldman puts it thusly,

“If you’re selling toothpaste, your claims must be vetted by legal and medical professionals. But not if you’re selling a candidate.

If you’re selling a candidate, not only can you lie about his record, but more to the point, you can lie about his opponent.”

+Sep.12

2008-09-12T05:16:46Z

Now I don’t know about you, but I for one want a president who can talk like a human being, answer questions on the fly with resounding answers, and not have to say “islamic extremists hellbent on destroying America” every other sentence.

On the other hand, watching Sarah Palin’s deer in headlights face during the debates is going to be amazing.

+Sep.10

2008-09-11T04:35:54Z

Today has been a watershed of understanding in why I have such a damn hard time writing online these days. From my ever-inspiring friend Diana Kimball knocking out the fully crystalized prose versions of the amorphous ideas sloshing around in my noggin’, to my other good friend nickd running an ax straight down the issue in his inaugural hand-spun post just like in the good ol’ days. I’m too caught up in software! I spend all this time in templating languages that prevent me from ever getting around to creating! Horse shit!

In the immediately memorable words of my other dear friend Swifty, “fuck the long tail, I want the mouth to bite me.”

+Aug.31

2008-08-31T18:25:12Z

I caught word of this printed essay by Bringhurst over at I Love Typography the other day and pretty much instantly bought the crap out of it. It’s a short essay, only 69 pages, but it’s a cohesive look at the nature of language, writing and the ways in which they convey and suggest meaning. The printing is out of this world, the cover itself is a soft texture with letterforms pressed in that invite you to trace them with your finger and feel the palpable characteristics of their parent languages. The coyly curved Q, the classical firmness of the Б, the geometry of the ᐄ, the eloquent statesmanship of the Υ.

+Aug.29

2008-08-30T00:50:23Z

Sarah Palin, the least intrinsically flawed candidate among the terrible choices for McCain and the most—by far—irresponsible choice. John McCain is 72 and has had four instances of malignant skin cancer. For the mere chance of pocketing a few votes he’s willing to bet the sake of the country against his fragile health. Two years ago Palin was the mayor of her hometown of 9,000 and now—after only two years of governorship in Alaska—she’s dangerously close to running America. This choice is low pandering, greed and shallowness at their worst.

I want much more diversity in politics but not from the untrained and uninformed hands of Palin.

+Aug.24

2008-08-24T15:22:01Z

Your daily Wikipedia-found “huh!” moment:

Tholins are large, complicated polymers of hydrocarbons and their other organic molecule buddies. While not found on Earth, they are found in the outer solar system and even in the atmospheric composition of a planet 220 lightyears away. Not per se evidence of life but a major bundle of muddy goop that extremophile life could find useful. Formed from irradiated gases, this stuff dynamically forms and turns into clumps of grossness that very well could be the first foodstuffs for cellular organisms.

Class dismissed!

+Aug.22

2008-08-22T14:48:44Z

For all the hoopla surrounding McCain’s 4, 7, 8, umpteen houses, you have to take a step back and think about the big picture behind this hair splitting. Certainly ol’ John’s handling of the question was dumb as rocks, but the useless question being bandied around is “which multi-millionaire politician has the more posh life?” And you know… this just doesn’t even matter. What does matter are their plans for breathing life back into our mortally wounded economy and you’re not going to find that out in how many houses they own (though this will help).

+Aug.21

2008-08-21T13:58:18Z

Every once in a while a surrealist bomb is published by an other straight-laced group. Today the Guardian delivers with Medium Lobster’s look at US vice president candidates. Now, say what you will about lobsters capable of transcending space and time, but I feel that even though this is Medium Lobster’s first and only article, his critical examination of the likes of Biden, Pawlenty, Galactus, Eater of Worlds, Dick Cheney and more is very astute and hard hitting.

For a less arthropodian take, NPR’s analysis is wise. Me? Just give me Richardson for hirsute awesomeness and Giuliani for schadenfreude-based glee.

+Aug.19

2008-08-20T04:52:15Z

Condoleezza Rice: “The behavior of Russia in this most recent crisis is isolating Russia, when you start invading small neighbors, bombing civilian infrastructure, going into villages and wreaking havoc and wanton destruction of this infrastructure. That’s what isolates Russia.”

Makes you wonder if they really truly don’t get the irony of statements like this.

+Aug. 8

2008-08-09T03:14:03Z

Could the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony have been anything more of a beautiful spectacle? What struck me is how much it looked like images of huge celebrations in futuristic sci-fi movies. Like a scene out of some surely-due graphics-heavy Star Wars sequel Lucas has cooking up. But seriously, the technical mastery, imagination, synchronization, everything that teamed up to pull off this opening coup de maître is utterly staggering.

Too bad that insufferable turd Costas wouldn’t shut his face.

+Aug. 7

2008-08-08T02:50:21Z

Look, guys, when they’re all “hey, let’s make a movie about Cthulhu” I need to be told! This is what needs to happen! (Oh, and do check out the video trailer opening animation, very nice stuff going on at apple.com these days). And on the same day as the Cthulhu fonts made the rounds up here on Planet Blogothon? Good fhtagn to you!

+Aug. 5

2008-08-05T16:52:57Z

By far the best thing I’ve seen all week is this Flickr account of Arabic calligraphy written with light. Brilliant, beautiful and the technical mastery required is staggering. Very interesting article on Arabic calligraphy here.

Honorable mention in best of the week: NYTimes info-graphic on Olympic medals over the years.

+Aug. 4

2008-08-05T01:09:46Z

It’s caught my eye in recent weeks that newspapers (¶ 1) and 24 hour news networks can’t help but note today’s “neck-and-neck race for the White House”. Tired sports clichés aside, it just ain’t true. Sure the popular vote may be close, but there’s a small issue with that: the popular vote doesn’t count. What matters are electoral college votes and they tell a slightly different, yet more important, story. Neck-and-not-hardly.

Polls are just polls, but it’s important to have background and trustworthy sources.

+Jul.29

2008-07-30T04:00:35Z

Tonight at my parents’, seeing my brother and family before they head home, the slides from the ’70s came out. The lives of those closest to me, in a time I can at best imagine. The seemingly episodic quality of life is an absolute trip. To see my father at an age younger than me holding my toddler brother. Them with the grandfather who died before I was born, himself then the age of this very same brother today. To them it’s all real, livable memory full of texture and aroma and the way that photographed laugh sounded. Myself, I have only the stories and notions of the details, but of course I have my own life with all of its diffused details which may one day engross my very own progeny.