Connect

on the left you will see the space formerly occupied by the "chat" widget has been renamed to "connect" and it should be an improvement. This widget is courtesy of Google's new friendconnect service. In a nutshell, they have this to say about it:

Google Friend Connect means more people engaging more deeply with your website -- and with each other.

That seems like a good thing to me. We'll see what happens.

More on that in video form here

The whole shebang can be found here

If this feature becomes popular, I'll keep it. If you use it, let me know.

Oops

Sorry blog, I forgot about you. I'll bein Boston for the weekend. Maybe I'll see you on Monday...

Train pouring molten metal down a hill in Russia

Why?

Why does this generation tattoo and pierce themselves? Is it an existential need to resacralize their corporeality in a "virtual" world, or are they just a bunch of f***ing idiots?

-from that verbal cartoonist over at mcsweeneys

And furthermore

I strongly feel like we should be bandying about the term "SubPrime Minister" for this guy, and any others in his shoes.

More Statistics

Some good news. "about 75% of children newly diagnosed with cancer can expect to be long-term survivors." The article goes on to explain why the dramatic change (Less than 10% 10 year survival rate a few decades ago), and it made me feel like what I do professionally may actually be helping to save lives, or will one day. This feels much more "good" than the impending doom of economic markets does "bad."

20k

Well folks, it had to happen. 20,000 visits (~31,000 page views) on this ole blog. Thanks dear readers for the good times. It should be noted, that hit # 20,000 came from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, UK and it was a search result for this blog's dirty little secret: Unicorn pictures. I still don't understand it, but I'll go with it. Again, thank you all.

interesting stat

1 in 31 Americans lives in Los Angeles County. If you don't believe me, ask Wikipedia.

Deer Tick

Deer Friends,

Deer Tick, a Rhode Island band, will make your life better, at least in the short term. Outside of the next few months is 100% up to you, here's a taste. I should also note, it kills me that the first song is a cover, and I didn't know until after I'd already fallen in love with it, leaving me with a sense of over achievement for the band. That being said, the rest is still good.

Enjoy,


SeeqPod - Playable Search

David Foster Wallace

I was very unhappy to hear of David Foster Wallace's suicide.

In a commencement address he delivered at Kenyon College on May 21, 2005 he spoke about, among other things, the mind being a good servant but a terrible master: "This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger."

It is alarming that a thinker of DFW's caliber and ability to communicate ended his life. I will miss his work, most of which I recommend.

He lived and taught near me, and I even had the chance to see him occasionally walking around downtown Claremont.

September 11, 2008

7 years later, and we're living in the wake of that fateful day. It still makes me sad, and grasping the enormity of it all seems incomprehensible.


"New York, New York" is a song written and performed by American alt-country musician Ryan Adams. It appeared on his 2001 album Gold. The song's music video, showing Adams performing in front of the city's skyline, was filmed four days before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. [Wikipedia]

SeeqPod - Playable Search

Here's the video

Brilliant!

Knowshon Moreno already has a pretty impressive highlight reel. This latest addition is pretty great.