An ebook I somehow missed: Cybook. Link.

Seeing the light for the first time since 1960—bring forth the sunken medieval Spanish city. Link.

Newfound spider named after Neil Young… Why? I just don’t know—I’ll have to ask Lucy. Link.

The prices of newspaper companies are going down down down. Maybe someone will realize their worth is in human capital. Hopefully that same someone will no how to convert it into something more viable as well. Link.

EXTRA

Interesting analysis of Tweet as a news source with regard to the earthquake in China. Link.

Interesting piece in the New York Times regarding the divide of the sexes in Saudi Arabia. Link.

Here it comes… the first documented genetically modified human embryo. Link.

Got this from Read/WriteWeb: Brand Tags add tags to brand logos and it publish them in a tag cloud around the logo. Link.

Though a few days old: Barnes and Noble heart Zinio. I do like Zinio’s product (digital magazines) quite a bit, but their pricing structure for publishers is terrible. I am hoping that in the next six months someone will merge a digital magazine format with current or future e-ink reader. Then, I think, things will start to change. Link.

The Vatican’s documents through history: From the interrogation of Galileo to the document that kicked Martin Luther out of the Catholic Church and changed Europe forever. Link.

Voice-to-skull weapons web page removed by the US Army. Why was this even online? So many questions… Link.

Sorry. I accidentally hit send … you know … I sat on my phone DURING A BATTLE IN A WAR ZONE! Link.

The Economist’s take on Xerox’s reusable paper. Link.

Though I haven’t posted in a little while, other than the now-Daily Toast, I wanted to get this down before I forgot:

The more I read (consume is a better word) every bit of commentary and editorial about the democratic nomination in the US, the more I feel I’ve seen this before.

The MTV movie Election with Reese Witherspoon echoes what is going on down south. One, determined and hard working, on every school club, running against a popular rival, who can cruise on equal footing with the burn outs, jocks, geeks, and freaks in their high-school student council election. The unifier vs. one who will not give up to the point of destroying everything around.

Read the description of characters from Election taken from Wikipedia and see if you can match them up with the personalities in the primaries:

Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Enid Flick is an ambitious student determined to win her school election. She believes in hard work and ambition. Her drive can be attributed to her desire to be better than other people and she shows contempt for those who have wealth and popularity but don’t appreciate it. Her contempt leads her to be malicious to her competitors, and to violate her own ethical standard by lashing out against Paul Metzler in spite of all his hard work and dedication.

Matthew Broderick as Jim McAllister is a teacher who truly enjoys educating. His passion is with his work and the study of ethics. He cares about his students, but has contempt for those whose ambition gets in the way of their humanity. In spite of his lofty moral ideals, his contempt for Tracy renders him unable to live by his own ethical standard.

Chris Klein as Paul Metzler is a kind, generous, and extremely popular star athlete running in the student election. His inherent fortune, popularity and high ethical standard serves as the foil for both Tracy and McAllister, since he has what both of them strive for but cannot achieve. His generosity and kindness eventually contribute to his electoral defeat.

A) Howard Dean B) Barack Obama C) Hillary Clinton

Jack and his new ride. Who said we didn’t see this coming? 1978, right after the first oil crisis. Link.

Self-publishing, -printing, and -selling online through Pothi, an Indian startup. It doesn’t look like they have much traffic yet, but a nice simple concept that could work. Link.

Wow. The Centre Pompidou has almost 60,000 pieces of art online. There is a ton to search through—I wish they had a feed-stream or something to encourage browsing. Link.

I don’t know if I missed this, but Google has an archive search, that lays out a timeline for a searched item. I do love my historical-graph thing-a-ma-bobs. Here is a search for: e-ink. Link.

Lego is fifty years old. Link.

Relating to the potato famine link I listed few days back, “To avoid future price increases, he’s considering acquiring a big walk-in freezer and stocking it with a year’s worth of pork,” from a piece on rising prices. Link.

I cannot believe this article headline was not a well planned joke, “Great tits cope well with warming,” from the BBC. Link.

Buyers guide to maps of Antarctica. Link.

Whhhooowww. Colours. News. Swirling. Interesting but maybe pointless news reader: Spectra. Link.

The fight between ‘real’ content and blogs. Link.

iRex releases a new consumer ebook reader and writer tablet. I want one of these right now. Link.

This bakery is down the street from my friend’s house — a good morning bagel scene. The honour system is fairly interesting. I talked to the owner a few months ago: the cost of keeping up employees to accept payments (the traditional method of running a business) is technically more than any possible theft cost and there is a net gain in revenue with the honour system. Link.

New(ish) meta search engine. I typically rely on Google, but this one presents the search results in a very digestible format. Link.

Christiaan Postma’s clock is quite mesmerizing. I am impressed with the designer’s take on the concept of time reading. Link.

The break-even point may be upon us already - Penguin will publish ebooks simultaneously with their ‘regular’ print titles. They are also working on e-publishing their 5,000 title backlist. Link.

An interesting online outfit called Smashwords. I haven’t delved into the site too far but they are promising a place where “authors and their audiences come together to interact in ways never before possible.” Link.

My favourite document/book sharing service, Scribd, is looking for the most interesting hard drive. Link.

The shoe bike via Boing-Boing. Link.

More on Google’s venture into TV advertising. Link.

Online Apple computer museum. Link

Carbon footprint of Discover magazine. I am still trying to find the footprint for an e-book reader. Link.

BONUS: Xerox’s reusable paper. I found this a little while ago, but Engadget has a much better series of photos of how this stuff actually works. Link.

Cool interview with the head of Xerox PARC labs — an important technology trendsetter. Link.

Baby birds babbling. Baby birds babbling. Baby birds babbling. Link.

Discussion of the book jacket design for the reissuing of my favourite book, 1984. Link.

Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times has been producing some good editorials lately. Here is the latest, with comment to come in my next full-length post. Link.

Top gadgets wanted by Wired readers. Excellent picks. Link.

How to manage your email — I need this and you do too. Link.

I forgot about this… Design your own Lego creation with a CAD type interface, then Lego will send you the pieces. Awesome. Link.

Interesting article about Will Wright, designer of the Sim City series. I am eagerly awaiting his next game, Spore, coming out soon. Link.

Brushing off some history: The Last Missing Romanov found. Link.

An interview of concept artist Daniel Dociu on BLDGBLOG. Skip the interview and look at the images. Most will amaze. Link.

Interesting piece on Bobby Kennedy: a discussion of his life after his brother died… “at least I’m at peace with myself.” Link.

Great site design. www.topographics.com.

Directory of Obsolete Skills. My personal favourite: “Editing AUTOEXEC-BAT And CONFIG-SYS To Get As Close As Possible To 640K Of Free Memory.” Link.

The Schwerbelastungskörper. Link.

Nothing really unexpected but Google Adwords will be coming to a TV near you. The giant is trying to make local cable TV advertising more affordable. This foray into the technicolour world of TV should scare the crap out of many in the ad agency world. Link.

The Wabot-2: organ-playing robot. The video is enchanting. Link.

In the last issue of Portfolio I came across a small article about the lack of progress on the Martin Luther King Jr. monument in Washington. Among the discussions of committees and funding issues was this:

“One person who is on schedule: sculptor Lei Yixin. He could begin chiseling the slain civil rights leader’s likeness into granite this summer. When finished, the statue will be cut into pieces, shipped from China to Washington, and reassembled.”

This was the final blow to my typical nonchalant attitude to foreign imports and outsourcing. Toys, clothes, chemicals, cars, and everything else under the sun, are imported from China and various other countries where the cost of labour is cheaper or other efficiencies can be found knocked me in the gut. I typically view outsourcing as an economic issue, not an ethical one. As a Canadian I would usually stake or little concern about which nationality chips King’s likeness into rock—either Chinese or American—but this instance spurred an immediate reaction that is still playing in my mind.

(more…)

Old-fashioned consolidation of media, or new method of reading? News aggregators. Link.

The rising price of rice. Nothing to see here folks. -ehmm- Potato Famine. Link.

Mathematical Lego Sculptures. Need I say more? Link.

New favourite blog: The Magazineer.com. How to read The New Yorker in ten easy steps. Link.