9:08 pm

This fatality (no photograph without something or someone) involves Photography in the vast disorder of objects—of all the objects in the world: why choose (why photograph) this object, this moment, rather than some other? Photography is unclassifiable because there is no reason to mark this or that of its occurrences; it aspires, perhaps, to become as crude, as certain, as noble as a sign, which would afford it access to the dignity of a language: but for there to be a sign there must be a mark; deprived of a principle of marking, photographs are signs which don’t take, which turn, as milk does. Whatever it grants to vision and whatever its manner, a photograph is always invisible; it is not it that we see.

In short, the referent adheres.

Roland Barthes on each photograph's relation to its referent. (#)

7:45 am

Everyone born after Ghostbusters 2 just blends into one huge, apple-cheeked, nubile symbol of my mortality.

Jon Stewart, from a Daily show rant addressing Olympic gymnasts – and more generally, all the young dudes. (#)

6:16 pm

Messaging platforms like IM and SMS are defusing the idea of location as a hurdle to accessing content, it’s true. But somewhat unwittingly and paradoxically, they’re also tethering themselves to individual clients, to physical hardware with unique stores of data. When the data on a device is the only copy of its kind, its location is more important than ever. Until these services have an IMAP-like solution, they won’t truly be able to liberate us from location, or be as useful or as powerful as they can be.

Khoi Vinh, arguing for an extension of the concepts that drive IMAP email to other messaging protocols. I love the idea of IMAP for SMS. (#)

12:57 am

I never want to forget that something’s fried.

Jeffrey Steingarten, commenting on a dish prepared by Bobby Flay for Iron Chef America. (#)

12:42 pm

When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.

Sen. John McCain describing his stance on net neutrality. (#)

5:31 pm

Change the yellow labels, change the caption and you change the meaning of the photographs. You don’t need Photoshop. That’s the disturbing part. Captions do the heavy lifting as far as deception is concerned. The pictures merely provide the window-dressing. The unending series of errors engendered by falsely captioned photographs are rarely remarked on.

Errol Morris, filmmaker and writer for the New York Times, on the amazing suggestive power of words + photographs. (Via Boing Boing.) (#)

3:29 pm

I never liked the idea of the “for Dummies” or the “complete idiot’s guide to” book series’, but their sales success have certainly demonstrated that plenty of people identify with being a dummy or a complete idiot. Self-deprecation is fine, just realize that there’s a dear line between embracing your own ignorance and ensuring a prophesy of certainty.

David Hansson, partner at 37signals and co-creator of Ruby on Rails. (#)

12:03 pm

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Albert Einstein. Or: Inspiration isn't magic. (Via Chris.) (#)

9:32 pm

When you embed a Google map on your web page, you don’t download a bunch of map images from Google and stick them on your server, you link to Google which then serves up the maps to registered domains. The same approach can be applied to fonts. Font foundries could license their fonts for embedding and serve those fonts only to registered websites, using their own hosted system or via a trusted third party.

This way foundries can provide designers and their readers with a legal way of embedding fonts, removing the need for uploading font files to multiple web servers, and of course make some extra income in the process. Think about it – foundries can sell their fonts twice this way – once to the designer and again to the readers.

Richard Rutter, arguing for the acceptance of @font-face embedding by font foundries. (#)

11:20 am

Love is not the last room: there are others after it, the whole length of the corridor that has no end.

Yehuda Amichai, from "Near the Wall of a House." (Via Lena.) (#)

6:08 pm

Anyone who grew up near the ocean knows that the curative powers of salt water are both expansive and mysterious. Everything from poison ivy to a common cold is quickly and remarkably aided by swimming in the ocean. We’ve known this our entire lives.

When we got to college, our Midwestern friends derided the college infirmary’s ubiquitous prescription of a salt water gargle for nearly every malady. Sore throat? Gargle this packet of salt in warm water. Sinus headache? Gargle this packet of salt in warm water. Herpes? Gargle, slut.

Pax Arcana, from a funny article on the benefits of the neti pot. (#)

11:43 am

Experiences are like movies with several added dimensions, and were our brains to store the full-length feature films of our lives rather than their tidy descriptions, our heads would need to be several times larger. And when we wanted to know or tell others whether the tour of the sculpture garden was worth the price of the ticket, we would have to replay the entire episode to find out. Every act of memory would require precisely the amount of time that the even being remembered had originally taken, which would permanently sideline us the first time someone asked if we liked growing up in Chicago. So we reduce our experiences to words such as happy, which barely do them justice but which are the things we can carry reliably and conveniently with us into the future. The smell of the rose is unresurrectable, but if we know it was good and we know it was sweet, then we know how to stop and smell the next one. 

Daniel Gilbert, from his book Stumbling on Happiness. It's a terrific book. Or: I've begun the process of reducing the book to the word "terrific." (#)

10:41 pm

Architects are an important part of my existence. They call me at eleven at night and say they just got off work, am I hungry? Listen, it is practically midnight. I ate hours ago. So long ago that, in fact, I am hungry again. So yes, I will go. Then I will go and there will be other architects talking about AutoCAD shortcuts and something about electric panels and can you believe that is all I did today, what a drag. I look around the table at the poor, tired, and hungry, and think to myself, I have but only one bullet left in the gun. Who will I choose?

I have a friend who is a doctor. He gives me drugs. I enjoy them. I have a friend who is a lawyer. He helped me sue my landlord. My architect friends have given me nothing. No drugs, no medical advice, and they don’t know how to spell subpoena. One architect friend figured out that my apartment was one hundred and eighty seven square feet. That was nice. Thanks for that.

Colin Kloecker, from a damn funny piece on the idiosyncrasies of architects. (Via Anthony.) (#)

10:52 pm

Do not use the bouncer as a catapult.

The manual for a baby bouncer Meg and I just bought. No clues given as to what we'd be catapulting. (#)

9:58 pm

The example I always give of a high-frequency, low-semantic-content phrase is, “Hi, how are you?” As a greeting, it’s not really a request for a health-status update, but a formula that says something like, “I confirm your presence. Channels for communication are now open. We may have a conversation, or just go our separate ways after acknowledging one another’s existence, but without exchanging actual information.”

Dennis Baron, professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois. (#)

9:41 pm

[I]t is important that you not hold initial ideas too precious. For if you do, it becomes easy for all of your further trials to somehow lead back to that initial idea, no matter how inappropriate it may later be proven to be. Yet it is likely that these facts will be lost on you.

Andy Rutledge, of Design View fame, on the risk of holding too tight to first ideas. (#)

10:13 am

A snowclone is a particular kind of cliche, popularly originated by Geoff Pullum. The name comes from Dr. Pullum’s much-maligned “If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z.” An easier example might be “X is the new Y.” The short definition of this neologism might be n. fill-in-the-blank headline. 

Erin O'Connor, keeper of snowclones.org. I love the concept. Jeremy Keith has suggested an especially good one. (#)

11:10 am

Imaginary work is always easier to do than real work. It is much more attractive (being more quickly done) and once you see the imaginary work, it can be very difficult to identify the real work it masks. People estimating imaginary work often assume they have all the facts in hand when making their estimates, which assumption leads them to believe that there is no “big technical hurdle” preventing its implementation.

Jamis Buck, programmer for 37signals, on the public's tendency to underestimate the time and effort required to develop even the "simplest" features. (Via Gruber.) (#)

3:45 pm

Apple, through its marketing and visual design techniques, is manufacturing an illusion that merely buying an Apple makes you part of an alternative community. But the technology they use is explicitly chosen to divide people into separate digital cells, and to position Apple as sole warden. When your business depends on people paying for the privilege of being locked up, the prison better look and feel luxurious, and the bars better not be too visible.

The Free Software Foundation, commenting on the precedent Apple is setting by walling off software development for the iPhone. Can't say I disagree. (Via Lifehacker.) (#)

6:26 pm

You’re in love. Have a beer.

Anung un Rama, better known as Hellboy, dispensing drunken relationship advice to his good friend Abe Sapien. (#)