December 2008
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I meant for this post to be a recap of everything that has happened this year, but quite honestly too many notable events occurred for me to even attempt to cram into a single post. Instead, I’ll leave you with the capable hands of Fimoculous and their 2008 list of best lists. I would like to say just one thing though: Obama FTW. Happy New Year everyone.
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Bayesian Reasoning
It started with a simple question posed by Coding Horror:
Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, you met someone who told you they had two children, and one of them is a girl. What are the odds that person has a boy and a girl?
I instinctively thought 50% but realized I couldn’t explain why. This problem illustrates the unintuitiveness of Bayesian probability. The reasoning supposedly goes:...
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30 Rock
Liz Lemon: This is gonna sound really weird, but, um… you need to wear a bra.
Cerie: Oh no, I… I don’t, actually. They kind of just stay up on their own.
Liz Lemon: Yeah, okay. What I’m saying is, you need to wear a bra to work if you want to be taken seriously in this business.
Cerie: Oh, but I don’t actually want to work in television. Career-wise, I’m just gonna marry rich and then design handbags.
Liz Lemon: Here’s the thing. The way that you dress, …is making some people around the office uncomfortable.
Cerie: Really? Who?
Pete Hornberger: [ducking in] Not me!
Liz Lemon: I guess it’s mostly me that has the problem with it.
Cerie: Oh, because you have, like, one of those body-image things?
Liz Lemon: No, it’s not that.
Cerie: Good, because I was gonna say, you still have a good body.
Liz Lemon: Well, …thank you, but this isn’t about me.
Cerie: Like, how’d you dress before you were married?
Liz Lemon: I’m not married, Cerie.
Cerie: Oh, for some reason I thought you had, like, three kids.
Liz Lemon: Nope. Never married. No kids.
Cerie: ’Cause sometimes you have, like, food stains on your shirt and stuff. I just assumed that it was kids.
Liz Lemon: You know what? Forget I mentioned it. You look great.
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ninjaflavor →
Another link to file under ‘Awesome Cuisine Recommendations’—this time for Tokyo, Japan. Ever since my two-week trip through Europe with Shelley, I’ve sought out dining and rooming recommendations for travelers looking for the best in a city. Ninjaflavor chronicles a non-native art director’s adventures through the heart of Tokyo, documenting great bar and restaurant finds along the way.
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24 ways →
I just discovered this wonderful resource for web design and CSS hackery. It’s based around an advent calendar concept, with 24 articles published over the 24 days in December before Christmas.
A short selection of articles:
Absolute Columns — tips on obtaining the matched height columns so often desired in web design. (by Dan Rubin)
Increase Your Font Stacks with Font Matrix — reference...
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The end of the VHS era
It’s hard for me to imagine VHS was still around two years ago, with VHS versions of movies regularly released alongside their DVD counterparts as recently as March of 2006, when the VHS release of “A History of Violence” marked the end of the VHS era.
Although production of new films in VHS has ceased for over two and a half years, there was still a thriving market in buying up old VHS films...
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Bush is back! →
…Not that Bush, although there’s a cleverly named ‘Shave the Date’ movement to commemorate Dubya’s leaving of office on January 20 with the trimming of their nether regions.
The current recession is leading women to cut back (excuse the horrible pun) on professional waxes; the writer predicts a return to a more “fuller landscape of yesteryear.”
I debated posting this as it still seems such a...
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Tumblr Awards →
The 2008 Tumblr Awards is now accepting votes for the nominated best tumblelogs. The list of nominees is a great who’s who of the best of Tumblr—already I’ve discovered a few tumblelogs worth following and a couple of themes to steal from inspire me in my attempt to design my own Tumblr theme.
I don’t know which tumblelogs I will be voting for but I hope I will get a chance to before the...
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9 Strong Reasons To Eat Slowly →
I have heard that eating slowly will satiate your appetite better so that less food is eaten, leading to a healthier lifestyle, but I never read any professional research on this belief before. According to this article, portion size and eating speed are the reasons behind the famous “French paradox”—the relatively low incidence of heart disease and obesity in France compared to the United States,...
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A Good Man
lfarm:
In New York, we all tend to mind our own business, politely, as far as neighbors are concerned. For example, I never complain when the male lovers upstairs keep me up all night. I humor the former crack addict, Anthony, from the 2nd floor with his “I’m taking this to the landlord!” crusades. And I smile genuinely each and every time I see the cute Puerto Rican mother and daughter at the...
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321. When it comes to opening presents, no one...
[via]
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AnandTech Holiday 2008 Display Guide →
When I read articles that wholeheartedly recommend 22” or larger LCD displays that retail for $170, it really makes me wonder why I’m still stuck on a 17” 1280×1024 TN display, especially one that cost me $329 back in 2005!
Times have certainly changed; TN panels no longer carry as much of a stigma as they used to as their viewing angle and color reproduction improved, and...
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Thoughts on Malcolm Gladwell & Sociology
Malcolm Gladwell questions why genius is so often equated with precocity in a fascinating New Yorker article. This is only one of a series of articles Gladwell writes on our sociological problems, another being one that delves into knowing which school teachers or quarterbacks are great before actually hiring them. It turns out that the school teacher and quarterback hiring predicament is...
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Sideways
Maya: [asking about Miles’ unpublished manuscript] What’s the title?
Miles: “The Day After Yesterday.”
Maya: Oh. You mean… today?
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Noby Noby Boy →
A brand new game from the genius behind Katamari Damacy. I’ve watched the released gameplay footage but can’t figure out what the heck the game is about, but I have tremendous faith in Mr. Takahashi since the Katamari Damacy series is just amazing. Can’t wait until it’s released!
[via]
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Cookie secret ingredient? Great butter. →
I love reading articles that profile seemingly simple and mundane subjects that are actually nuanced and complex. I never knew butter’s melting temperature is only three degrees away from its optimal mixing and creaming temperature, or that the butterfat emulsion breaks down and never returns when melted. If I ever bake cookies, I’m going to keep this article in mind. I will never take butter for...
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Designers opting out of Fashion Week at Bryant... →
The annual Bryant Park Fashion Week show is having some occupancy issues with three major designers pulling out, citing economic concerns. Seems coincidental with Apple recently announcing their last year at the annual Macworld Expo. This news is unsettling; there doesn’t seem to be much faith in the economy.
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Tumblr’s bookmarklet
I only recently discovered Tumblr’s amazing bookmarklet for posting on your tumblelog. It has pretty much everything from the Dashboard version except for minor features like custom URLs and post preview, but it has the awesome ability to autofill details from the page you opened the bookmarklet on. Images are automatically linked, URLs are filled in, and selections are placed in the appropriate...
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Improve your writing
squashed:
Be concise.
Revise mercilessly.
Read more.
Write more.
I’m doing the first three but I’m guilty of slacking on the fourth point. I revise compulsively; the worst time was when I figured out how to type real quotation marks [these: “ ” instead of: " "] and apostrophes on Windows and went through every single one of my entries and changed out all the retard quotes even though...
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MGMT — “Time to Pretend”
I know I’m a little...
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Does She Love You? →
Wonderfully written. Pity it’s so short; I love this slightly whimsical, New Yorker-esque writing style. [via]
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Random thought #1
You must be relatively good looking to get away with taking an ‘ugly face’ photo. So many people don’t understand this. I look back at some of my older Facebook pictures, see the wretched faces I used to make in them and wonder why I didn’t just hang a sign around my neck that says “DORK. DO NOT DATE.”
More random thoughts to come. This new series stems from my realization that this...
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Sol Sender, creator of the Obama logo, interviewed →
…Sender tells the story of conception and birth of the Obama ’08 logo, including the strategy behind it, developmental concepts and finalist designs for the identity not chosen by the campaign.[via]
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Sorry for the string of undeniably immature posts over the last couple of days. I could blame the depressing nature of the dwindling winter sunlight or the difficulty in designing a completely homegrown Tumblr theme, but I just needed some laughs and FAIL Blog delivered in aces. Back to your regularly scheduled programming soon.
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“Maybe that is why it is Halfway Inn… because it doesn’t fit. I think this should...”
– Comment on FAIL Blog.
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“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it...”
– Blaise Pascal: Lettres Provinciales (1657) [via]
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[Insert Thumbnail of Boobs Here] →
Great article about the new changes happening at YouTube recently, specifically their reasoning for changing thumbnail generation from easily-gamed ‘25/50/75’ video points to an algorithmically-generated one. Predictably, the partners and wannabe partners who manipulate thumbnail generations are outraged and incensed over the change. There’s also mention of YouTube now algorithmically...
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I’m so spoiled by Tumblr’s dashboard feed. I never visit anyone’s actual tumblelog anymore—the feed view is plenty for nearly everything.
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8-bit Jesus: Christmas chiptunes →
Geeky and Christmas-y, I love it. [via]
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How They Shot ‘The Godfather’ →
Behind-the-scenes look at the filming and casting of what is arguably the greatest Mafia movie of all time. I need to watch The Godfather trilogy in the recently remastered “Coppola Restoration” box set. 720p/1080p or bust! [via]
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Just caught up on this week-old Tara Michelle Tumblr debacle, thanks to Hoyin. It’s a lot stupider than I had imagined. I’m not going to link to any of this mess (“Tara Michelle” deleted her tumblelog anyways) because I don’t want to validate or prolong this trainwreck. It just makes me realize no matter how web-savvy and “connected” the userbase, the same old cattiness and immaturity still exists...
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Renovation
It’s time for that long-awaited redesign of this blog. For months I had in my mind a sketch of how this design will look, but with no real hands-on CSS coding experience, it’s going to be a long uphill battle. I can save a lot of time (and heartache) by adopting an existing layout, but I stubbornly want to code the entire shindig by hand—for bragging rights or whatnot—and it will start very...
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“Tumblr must be Latin for “I don’t have to tell you where I found this.” As...”
– @jkottke