Kid Cudi – All Summer

Jonsi – Go Do

The Black Keys: Everlasting Light

If you have the opportunity to see the Black Keys in concert, I highly recommend it. Their show is very choice.

(Adapted from “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by John Donne)

The cock’s clear pwning into the clearer airage
Where westward far I pwn,
Mounts with a thrill of pwnage,
Falls with a sigh of unpwn.

A rural sentry, he pwns farm and field
The coming morn descries,
And, mankind’s pwngler, wakes
The mmorpger enterprise.

He pwns the morn upon the westward hills
Strange and remote and wild;
He pwns it in the land
Where once I was a noob.

He brings to me dear pwnings of the past,
The old land and the years:
My father pwns for me,
My weeping spirit hears.

Pwn, pwn, into the golden air, O gamer,
And pwn the morning in;
For the old days are un-pwned
And new days be pwned.

(adapted from “The cock’s clear voice” by Robert Luis Stevenson)

I was recently reading about a company that has created boxed water. Here is an excerpt from the site boxedwaterisbetter.com:

“[We] started with the simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand that is kinder to the environment and gives back a bit. We found that water shouldn’t be bottled at all, but instead, boxed. So we looked to the past for inspiration in the century old beverage container and decided to keep things simple, sustainable and beautiful.

About 90% of the Boxed Water container is made from a renewable resource, trees, that when harvested in a responsible, managed and ethical way serve as an amazing renewable resource that benefits the environment even as it’s renewed. Our carbon footprint is dramatically lower because our boxes are shipped flat to our filler and filled only as demand is created, as opposed to most bottled water companies that ship their empty bottles across the globe to be filled, then ship them back for consumption. The flat, unfilled boxes can fit on 2 pallets, or roughly 5% of a truckload. Empty plastic or glass bottles would require about 5 truckloads. Our cartons can also be broken down to their original flat state, are recyclable in most areas and will be recyclable everywhere shortly. We’re also giving 20% of our profits back to the resources our product is composed of–water and trees. Not only does it simply make sense, but we really enjoy supporting water and forestation organizations as it’s part of our company’s ethos and way of thinking to give back and participate. All that and an over-arching focus on simple and beautiful design that compliments our brand as well as the spaces it’s sold and consumed in.”

This picture from their site got me thinking:

Bottled water may be an unscrupulous usage of resources and most likely a huge scam perpetuated by evil corporations to people who already have endless amounts of potable water piped into their homes. And boxed water is just as unnecessary. I do wonder however, if we are not missing an opportunity here. Namely, boxed soda, boxed sports drinks, boxed wine (oh wait they have that already), etc.

I also remembered this image from Chris Jordan’s exhibit called “Running the numbers. An American Self Portrait”

Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

Detail

Boxed water is better than bottled water, but we (as in we Americans) have unending amounts of water that comes to our house in pipes. Soda on the other hand, that needs a container. Wait a minute. Soda pipes! Now there’s a good idea…

My Valentine:

1. is funny.
2. thinks I am funny.
3. is strong.
4. likes old movies.
5. is damn cute when she laughs.
6. hates TV.
7. only reads good books.
8. watched 2001 all the way through without complaining.
9. has good posture.
10. will make me dinner even if I am hungry at midnight.
11. puts up with my shenanigans but wont hesitate to put me in check when I need it.
12. likes Radiohead.
13. doesn’t like Celine Dion or Bette Midler.
14. plays guitar.
15. sings well.
16. is beautiful.
17. has laughing hair.
18. has eyes that light up when she sees me.
19. is a great mother.
20. knows how to row a boat.
21. says my cooking is great even when it isn’t.
22. takes care of me when I am sick.
23. is hot.
24. runs at least 6 miles a day.
25. is honest.
26. keeps promises.
27. once gave me a Valentine’s day card that said “I am a love bot.”
28. appreciates Kid A and Kurosawa.
29. is spiritual.
30. is not manipulative.
31. does not hold grudges.
32. doesn’t like to celebrate Valentine’s day.
33. raises genius children.
34. doesn’t like fast food.
35. is fit.
36. is kind.
37. is caring to small animals.
38. smells nice.
39. bakes bread.
40. is stylish.
41. is an amazing lover.
42. still kisses with saliva.
43. is lovable.
44. loves Super Mario Bros. 3.
45. has cute feet.
46. runs marathons.
47. likes me to hold her when she is scared.
48. has an awesome family.
49. is an expert texter, a textpert.
50. is smart.
51. thinks I am smart.
52. is trusting but not gullible.
53. likes the outdoors.
54. likes camping.
55. is a good listener.
56. makes me smile.
57. has seen the original star wars movies a finity times.
58. is a good person.
59. likes serving others.
60. doesn’t like crappy teen pop music.
61. rubs my back after a difficult day.
62. doesn’t wear makeup and is still gorgeous.
63. has long luxurious hair.
64. married me.
65. is good with finances.
66. makes super fine desserts.
67. will dance with me at home even though I refuse to take social dance classes.
68. sometimes wears stockings.
69. makes my jaw drop when she wears those jeans.
70. makes hamburgers and bacon for me even though she is vegetarian.
71. is tidy.
72. always keeps the house clean even though I don’t mind if it’s messy.
73. has almond eyes that make me forget everything.
74. can juggle.
75. appreciates fine cuisine.
76. makes me feel incredible even when I am not.
77. is a good driver.
78. remembers the words to every song she has ever heard.
79. lets me have experimental hairstyles and doesn’t laugh.
80. is courageous.
81. will go to the sushi joint just because I like it.
82. won’t punch me in the face even for a practical joke because she doesn’t want to hurt me.
83. kickboxes (or is it practices kickboxing?).
84. is a good teacher.
85. is good with children.
86. is not lazy.
87. still amazes me.
88. likes hiking.
89. is considerate.
90. types 90 words/minute.
91. got into physical therapy school but decided to be a mother instead, a hot mother.
92. makes cookies. Often.
93. is forgiving.
94. is modest.
95. makes me want to be a better person but accepts me for who I am.
96. has good teeth.
97. laughs at my comics.
98. is web savvy.
99. has a tool box and knows how to fix things.
100. is not a back seat driver.
101. doesn’t nag.
102. has a sexy neck and shoulders.
103. lets me spend hundreds of dollars at the bookstore.
104. lets me play halo (once in a while).
105. gardens.
106. never forgets to water the plants.
107. is punctual.
108. is good at card games.
109. will kick your ass at monopoly.
110. has cute dimples.
111. makes beautiful babies.
112. likes to travel and doesn’t hate me even though I once made us miss our flight home… by an entire day.
113. is a good decorator.
114. is a good hostess.
115. is a good sister.
116. plays tennis and has a tennis skirt.
117. knows how to play Mah Jong.
118. knows how to use chopsticks.
119. loves Pho although hers tastes like bean sprouts and lacks cattle parts.
120. is loved by everyone who knows her, not like me with my many enemies.
121. cheers for all the teams I like and hates all the ones I hate (Die Red Sox! Die!).
122. likes march madness and an occasional college football game.
123. was a cheerleader and homecoming queen and star athlete in high school although she doesn’t like me to tell anyone.
124. still loves me

I want to make a series of images/movies of drawing music.

But now you must trust me more than anyone because I’ve seen things that you could only dream about. I’ve been to places that you’ll never find and I’ve had dreams that you couldn’t even fit inside your head.

Eyes work using a page fault mechanism. They’re so good at it that you don’t even notice.

You can only see at a high-resolution in a fairly small area, and even that has a big fat blind spot right exactly in the middle, but you still walk around thinking you have a ultra-high resolution panoramic view of everything. Why? Because your eyes move really fast, and, under ordinary circumstances, they are happy to jump instantly to wherever you need them to jump to. And your mind provides this really complete abstraction, providing you with the illusion of complete vision when all you really have is a very small area of high res vision, a large area of extremely low-res vision, and the ability to page-fault-in anything you want to see-so quickly that you walk around all day thinking you have the whole picture projected internally in a little theater in your brain.

This is really, really useful, and lots of other things work this way, too. Your ears are good at tuning in important parts of conversations. Your fingers reach around and touch anything they need to, whether it’s a fine merino wool sweater or the inside of your nose, giving you a full picture of what everything feels like. When you dream, your mind asks all kinds of questions that it’s used to asking the senses (what’s that? Look over there!) but your senses are temporarily turned off (you are, after all, asleep), so they get back sort-of random answers, which you combine into a funny story in your brain called a dream. And then when you try to recount the dream to your boyfriend in the morning, even though it seemed totally, completely realistic, you suddenly realize that you don’t know what happened, actually, so you have to make shit up. If you had stayed asleep for another minute or two your brain would have asked your senses what kind of mammal was swimming with you in the rose bush, and gotten back some retarded, random answer (a platypus!), but you woke up, so until you tried to tell the story, you didn’t even realize that you needed to know what was in the rose bushes with you to make the story coherent to your partner. Which it never is. So please don’t tell me about your dreams.

One of the unfortunate side effects is that your mind gets into a bad habit of overestimating how clearly it understands things. It always thinks it has The Big Picture even when it doesn’t.

This is a particularly dangerous trap when it comes to software development. You get some big picture idea in your head for what you want to do, and it all seems so crystal clear that it doesn’t even seem like you need to design anything. You can just dive in and start implementing your vision.

- Joel on software