first casualty of 2011

2011

it's clear now that the way into the future is fogged over like a morning in the presidio. our mandate thus is to hope for the best, be ready to change course midstream, mix metaphors without compunction, keep calm, and carry on.

happy new year!

timelapse blizzard!

michael black's timelapse video of the blizzard of 2010 is pretty sweet, especially how the clock keeps rising up.

the streams and creeks of the sea

Everythin' we ever knew about the movement of the sea was preserved in the verses of a song. For thousands of years we went where we wanted and came home safe, because of the song. On clear nights we had the stars to guide us, and in the fog we had the streams and creeks of the sea, the streams and creeks that flow into and become Klin Otto ... There was a song for goin' to China and a song for goin' to Japan, a song for the big island and a song for the smaller one. All she had to know was the song and she knew where she was. To get back, she just sang the song in reverse.

anne cameron, daughters of copper woman

papa palheta

detail

Attention to detail, like most facets of truly good design, can’t be (and never is) added later. It’s an entire development philosophy, methodology, and culture.

marco arment

marco arment is the man behind instapaper, an application i use more than almost anything else on my iphone and ipad. instapaper's sole inexplicable design feature is the trashcan icon in the ipad interface. when pressed, it shows only an archive button which sends the article to the archive; no other action is possible.

a) trash ≠ archive, b) why have a 2-step button push when just one would do?

update, march 2011: after talking this over with hammer, who thinks there is a subtle, behavior-changing motivation behind the decision, i remain unconvinced.

the motherland

where i've been since last thursday night, after a diverting couple of days passing through miscellaneous airports. but a total of 14 hours in assorted forms of transit = 14000 words of fieldnotes transcribed (on which, perhaps, more anon), so maybe that was a good thing. because it is the cool season here in the motherland, i only have the feeling of a post-it note (i.e., sticking to everything i touch) 18 out of every 24 hours. leather upholstery is not advised for these most moist and tropic climes. here is a preliminary report from the front.

1. congratulations!: to isaac and hwa, my cool cousin and his cool wife. their nuptial chariot was a volkswagen bus tastefully festooned with satin ribbons, which should tell you something about how they roll. the obligatory multicourse wedding dinner was prosecuted at jing, an ultrafancy chinese restaurant co-owned by his new brother-in-law that looks out over the water at the sands, a new and massive casino-hotel. this small dinner couldn't have been further from the usual hundred table affair with the cold dishes entering a hangar-sized room borne aloft by a small army of unhappy-looking waitstaff wreathed in clouds of fog. the band was great and moved seamlessly from the air-conditioned salon to the open-air dining area outside; they did chinese oldies (teresa teng and her ilk) for the dignitaries inside, and jazz standards (of the ella and louis variety) for the unwashed masses without. i saw cousins i hadn't seen in over a decade, and one of them sang for us for the first time in years. it was nice.
2. caffeine update: papa palheta, where i met minz and julian for coffee. it's a tiny shop on a sleepy stretch of bukit timah road just cityward of newton, with mostly outdoor seating. it roasts its own beans and you pay what you think the coffee's worth. the espresso drinks were good (5oz lattes, nothing but glass and ceramic = good sign), but the v60s were questionable. but these are minor quibbles because what are the odds of finding genuine coffee nerds and a halfway decent latte on my second day back?
3. congratulations again!: wedding dinner number two for isaac and hwa, this time at raw kitchen bar, in the old firehouse on upper bukit timah road. i was glad to have worn my ironic shirt, for there were many hipsters, architects, and musicians in attendance, and also a whole barbecued pig from which much in the way of crisp and burnished skin was extracted. most people left around 11.30pm, and then we closed two hours later with a little bit of a hoedown and quite a bit of scotch. that was nice too.
4. greetings, salutations: tytus, two year old son of randall and sharon, who tried without success to stab me with a plastic fork at lunch. well-met, no hard feelings, and i hope you enjoy the stuffed ernie, the stuffed hermit crab, the stuffed wiener dog, the stuffed shark, and the stuffed serpent. they are a little dusty but it's nothing a washing machine can't fix. 
5. overconsumption: hyang to gol sounds like an exclamation or a directive but really it is a korean restaurant beloved of the korean embassy, at which minzhi now works. having been exposed to much korean food in the last year, she is now on a mission to share the love. yen, sulon, and julian came too, and there was both too much and not enough kimchi. because we were crass yokels, the management served us insulting bowls of rainbow sprinkle covered mango ice cream, followed by bowls of a subtle and pellucid ginger tea, each with a sliver of red date and a pine nut floating serenely within.

the taco binder

isaac and hwa

talk about a strong opening. congratulations y'all.

best croissant of 2010

this maison kayser croissant and an apparently unlimited supply of skytime yuzu are about the only benefits of a long layover in narita.

it's been too long

rapid prototyping: ipad stand

49 minutes + razor + gallon jug = flatpack ipad stand. clearly, i'm not the first person to think of this, nor even the 8th person to think of something similar.

social loafing

11/29, 8pm: fun with joints

jeremy's second speaker bailed on him, but he knows i'm always good for a disquisition on joints. so join us next monday at middlesex on mass ave in cambridge for nerdnite's november edition. come for david craft's talk about urban foraging, stay for my talk about joinery.

david craft: “city hauls: foraging for wild plants and other foodstuffs within the city limits” 

me: “fun with joints: what you probably want to know about how wood gets connected to more wood and other things”

monday 11/29, 8pm
middlesex (map), in central square
315 massachusetts ave
cambridge, MA
$5

all the details at nerdnite.

clover

the bespoke option

on this recently concluded visit to dc, it was my good fortune to meet and then have some tremendous drinks with jake parrott, the tongue responsible for much of the selection available at ledroit (thx lex). jake makes stock in 50-gallon batches, which often indicates seriousness of intent.

• at the passenger, the bespoke option threw up a cynar sour fizz (dry, floral, bitter, perfect but grey and ugly in the glass).
• at proof, the jabberwock, a savoy classic. the original formulation includes caperitif, a south african aromatized white wine which is no longer available. adam bernbach modified the drink by replacing the caperitif with cocchi americano and it is mighty tasty. (manzanilla, tanqueray 10, regan's orange bitters, cocchi americano, orange twist.) 

but the gibson introduced me to a stirred classic which may be the best drink i've had this year.

• the bamboo. an old school classic, now almost never ordered. manzanilla, dry vermouth, orange and angostura bitters, orange twist. dry as a bone, floral, aromatic, citric, with a salt breeze in the back. this is a brilliant drink.

when the bartender can see into the depths of my soul and understand what i really mean when i say "something dry, herbal, floral, aromatic; bitter and citrus are both acceptable," i get to discover the bamboo and the champs elysees. chief among the many pleasures of the bespoke option is the revelation of previously unknown deliciousness.

nov 17, 6.30pm: design for community and interaction

this week, i'll be doing a short talk followed by a discussion with a small group of people involved in dfe:x.

the topic is design for community and interaction, and the session will be a brief discussion of 1) design as a process rather than an outcome and 2) the importance of problem-finding and value-identification in good design process. in the context of community and interaction design, i'll also throw in some thoughts about 3) why it is important to approach the design of complex social systems with design processes that are oriented toward probabilistic (rather than deterministic) outcomes.

kawan says it is open to all, so come if you'd like. the details:

dfe:x, design for community and interaction
wed, nov 17
6:30-7:30pm
MIT Building 4, Room 146 (map)

minibar

chinatown coffee co.

single macchiato, novo anyetsu from nekempte, ethiopia. roses and raspberries everywhere.

penn quarter, 68F

the depths

conclusion to an interesting day

the horror

popcorn at 6200fps

originally from modernist cuisine

Posted via email from flavourcountry

natural

that happy grace which is the last thing the skilled actor shall capture—the natural grace which goes with perfect unconsciousness of observation.

kenneth grahame, the wind in the willows.

bad things that could happen

Posted via email from flavourcountry

parallel parking

Posted via email from flavourcountry

maloof studio, anderson ranch

early evening, late august 2008, snowmass. everyone else had left for a much-needed break at the end of the summer.

thinking makes it so

there is no good or bad material, what makes the difference is its right and adequate use.

willy guhl

cold salad for a hot planet

august 10, 2010. RH 89%, 94F.