February 28, 2005

February 27, 2005

The Gates, a review

Now that I have visited Christo and Jean-Claude's The Gates four times since the opening on February 12th, I feel that I can adequately discuss my reactions to The Gates. Today is the last night for The Gates and it will be interesting to see the park after the saffron has come down.

Let me go back and talk about the opening day of The Gates. I woke up early on the morning of February 12th in order to make the trek from Brooklyn to Central Park. I had not scouted out locations for optimal unfurling viewing like some had - I wanted serendipity to reign free. As I approached the park, there was a police presence not seen since the 2004 GOP Convention and the park was teeming with people already. It was a clear sunny day as people milled about, looking for vantage points for the unfurling. On that Saturday morning, as the first gates were being unfurled, a literal cheer came up from New Yorkers and visitors alike. New Yorkers were cheering!

All questions about the artistic merit of The Gates aside, I don't believe this is their best work. The political mending which the wrapping of the Reichstag signified or the beauty of The Umbreallas far surpass The Gates. However, The Gates is a successful work of art not because of some intrinsic value, but because the orange saffron donned gates have knit this city together in ways I haven't seen before - or have seen in other cities. Sure, New Yorkers collectively commiserated about how a fire in a signal room could cause the C train to be discontinued. And New Yorkers were equally amazed about how in the world repairs estimates could go from 5 years to months, to merely a fortnight, but this is different.

On that Saturday morning of the opening, people were walking around the park, smiling, laughing, and talking to each other! Now, for those of you who haven't spent time in New York, people don't really talk to each other when out and about. It is a big city, you are always on the move, and there are just so many crazy people - your guard has to be up. The Gates lowered this guard and let people be people. It really was amazing, and something which words can't do justice. There was a vibrant feeling in the air, one which was directly tied to time and place. If you weren't in New York and at The Gates and you only saw photos or stories about them, you really have no idea what The Gates were like. This is both a positive and negative critique of the work; being so tied to time and place makes the work irreproducible and harder to critique as the years pass. The ephemeral nature of The Gates proved so successful, that if turned permanent The Gates would not be successful.

The Gates were not some pinnacle of art, but rather as a happening, The Gates was extremely successful. What will be interesting is what will remain in our collective memories. I suspect The Gates will fade from our memories much like phantoms acquired by looking at the sun; bright and fantastic in the beginning, then slowly fading to afterimage, then only a memory of the image remaining. I am sure that the first time I reenter the park, my memory will be much like that afterimage, then nothing but memory.

Let me get a bit, how shall I say, artsy on you. The Gates is a wonderful example of systemic design. Several different organizational systems move and operate throughout the park and the artwork itself. Central Park has its' topography, however natural it might be due to Olmstead's work, is a natural order of trees, ponds, hills, and rocks. Next level up are the paths: pedestrian, horse, horse-carriage, and vehicular. These come in a variety of sizes, but for all intents an purposes is standardized. A path is 10 to 20 feet wide, and the Central Park Drive is three lanes wide and the Transverses are four lanes wide. Next level up are the gates themselves. There are, as far as I can tell, three or four widths of the gates in order to accommodate the pedestrian path. Next, The Gates have an internal rhythm (spacing) of about ten feet along the path. The Gates can only be placed on the paths where there are no tree branches or obstructions around the path. Imagine a large three dimensional tube which follows each path, where obstructions enter into this tube, no gates can be placed here. This is why along a path gates disappear and reappear, seemingly at random. But it isn't random, because the design system was adhered to. This is the power of bringing together a short amount of rules/instructions which then, in turn, create a highly complex entity completely different from the host systems (the park, the gates themselves), yet intrinsically connected to the base systems and instructions.

So, farewell The Gates for three weeks we enjoyed moving through your procession.

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February 26, 2005

British Rail Decay

British Rail, originally uploaded by trudi_

A great photo from trudi_ of an old rusting British Rail car. Even in decay, the British Rail logo is amazing.

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February 25, 2005

Balance Bar

As long as we are talking about user agents changing web pages, via Rhizome comes word of the Balance Bar, which is,

...a simple browser extension programmed to allow any user to editorialize any web page anywhere on the Internet. The "Balance Bar" will literally insert your comments/article/rant directly onto whatever web page you would like to expound on. The "Balance Bar" was developed because of the increasing need to "balance" the one-sided and isolated worldview that much of our media sources produce.

This sounds very much like the WikiAlong extension for Firefox, which creates a central wiki where anyone with the WikiAlong extension can comment or annotate the website.

Applications such as WikiAlong or the BalanceBar I can get behind because they don't change the essence of the page like Microsoft's Smart Tags would have, and Google's Toolbar Autolink feature could - but doesn't yet - do. User choice and author's (good faith) wish to have their page render close to what was designed is a tricky balancing act. Both parties have to act in good faith for the social contract to work.

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February 24, 2005

The Gates, Second Life Style

Main street Gated, originally uploaded by Aestival

See the whole set of virtual gates fun

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Much Ado about the Google Toolbar

OK, so there is much gnashing of teeth about Google's new Toolbar Autolink feature which would add links to a webpage where there wasn't any. For a more well-reasoned article, check out Jeffrey Zeldman's article, Protect your site from Google’s new toolbar. For example, if there was a ISBN number, or an address, the Google Toolbar would add a link to that page when the user clicked a button on the toolbar. These links naturally go to Google sites (naturally). Oh Smart Tags, where have you been for so long? For those who didn't follow the kerfluffle about Microsoft's Smart Tags, here is an article in ALA entitled Much Ado About Smart Tags which will bring you up to speed.

Is it too much to ask that google would provide a meta tag like Microsoft did so that authors could disable this "feature?" I see this primarily as a "social contract" issue: publishers create pages for users to read via the client. The unwritten contract comes about because as a publisher I expect the client to render what I pubsh without superfluous entities.

If we were talking about a screen reader for the blind, the reader might translate the text into a different language (at the most) or perhaps into a dialect, but the reader wouldn't change the meaning of the content. Slippery-slope arguments notwithstanding, the user client has an ethical and moral imperative to render what the author has created as faithfully and with as much due credit as it can.

Do I think what Google has created that big a deal, no. But, BUT, I think it sets a bad precedent (and illustrates) that whomever controls aggregation and render tools - rules. Which - I think - we can all agree is what the web is not all about.

There are many who think that once the webpage is created, the user can access it any way she can and alter it any way they see fit. You can read some of their points in this MetaFilter Thread if you would like. Pop-up blockers, yeah! User style-sheets, yeah! I use pop-up blockers daily - they are a god-send. I'm not talking about limiting nefarious pop-ups or increasing text height for users who have sight problems. I am talking about altering content without permission. Would I really want to direct links to books from one online store which I am an associate of to another? No, because that would deprive me of revenue (the little of it at least).

Again, all that I'm asking for is a simple meta tag like Microsoft did (after much gnashing of teeth) which would allow authors to disable the "feature." Choice runs in both directions.

UPDATE 27 Feb 2005
Check out this rebuttal of the hysteria by Yoz. Good points all around; again, the Google Toolbar isn't evil, but a future application might be. But this isn't cause to freak out about the Toolbar, but to watch and see were the development goes.

Here are some Google Toolbar Screen Shots. The google links don't look that different than regular links. I wonder if you can set the link color by css. That might be a cool thing to do.

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February 23, 2005

February 22, 2005

February 18, 2005

February 17, 2005

Baby Names

baby name wizard

Check out this cool Baby Name Wizard, which you can enter in names and see the popularity of that name over time. Oh interweb, what did we ever do without you!

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February 16, 2005

I left my heart in...

I left my heart in..., originally uploaded by plemeljr

The result of our glassblowing expedition for Valentine's Day was quite successful.

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February 15, 2005

February 14, 2005

February 13, 2005

The Gates Unfurled

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The Gates, by Christo and Jeanne Claude opened today. Expect more photos. See all my photos on Flickr and all photos tagged "The Gates".

February 12, 2005

The Gates

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The Gates, by Christo and Jeanne Claude opened today. Expect more photos. See all my photos on Flickr and all photos tagged "The Gates".

February 11, 2005

The Gates

The Gates, originally uploaded by bitpuddle

So tomorrow The Gates by Christo and Jeanne Claude open in Central Park (8:30AM - be there or be square!) which will run for 16 days. This even will be the most photographed and blogged happening in New York City. Evidently, hotels are fully booked for the next fortnight, and the city is expecting a flood of tourists from Asia and Europe clamoring for some Christo and Jeanne Claude goodness. I have to admit, I am getting caught up in all of the excitement. I have primed all of my photo equipment, scouted locations, and will be renting some specialty lenses for the event. I plan on going there early tomorrow for the sunrise and unveiling. But mostly I want to see how The Gates changes the Park and the people around them, and how the work changes over the 16 days. Hopefully it will snow during the 16 days so that there is a stark contrast between The Gates and the Park. I might get my wish, because next weekend they are calling for snow.

Follow along with everyone's photos via the Flickr tag The Gates, read The Gates Blog, and keep in tune here for The Gates updates.

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Gizoogle Shizzle-Speak

I still don't quite understand the popularity of Snoop Dog's Shizzle-Speak - you know, fo'Shizzle my'Nizzle - and all that. I was directed to Gizoogle which will translate any page in Shizzle Speak. Cue Cease and Desist order from Google over Gizoogle. As things go, there are actually multiple Shizzle-Speak translators out there. Check out Ask Snoop.com, which has a large sneering Snoop greeting all the white people wanting to translate webpages into Shizzle Speak. For example, let's translate the most wonderbread-white speech in the last month, the 2005 State of the Union. Here is the gizoogle translated SoTU speech translated by Gizoogle:

THE PRESIDENT: Mr , niggaz, better recognize. Motherfucka Vice President Cheney, memba of Congress, fellow citizens:

As a new Congress gatha, all of us in tha elected branches of government share a bootylicious privilege fo' sheezy: We've been placed in office by tha votes of tha thugz we serve. And tonight that is a privilege we share wit newly-elected motherfucka of Afghanistan, tha Palestizzles Territizzle Ukraine, n a free n sovereign Iraq. (Applause.)

Two weeks ago, I stood on tha steps of this Capitol n renewed tha commitment of our nation ta tha straight trippin' ideal of liberty fo' all . Yippie yo, you can't see my flow. This messin' I wizzy set forth policies ta advance tizzle ideal at home n around tha world n we out.

I don't really know which is funnier, trying to imagine Snoop Dog addressing Congress, and the Congress' reaction to Snoop, or the President speaking in Shizzle-Speak. Either way, ratings would be higher.

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DHS can murder you over a fence

GOP passes House bill, the RealID Act (H.R.418) which would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security "the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws he determines necessary to construct barriers and fences." Read more from The Stakeholder and from the Prospect's Jeffrey Dubner.

It isn't hyperbole - that's right, if SecDHS wants to build a security fence anywhere he can take the land without due process, use child labor, make different races use different wash-rooms or violate civil rights, and even murder people because the GOP has given the SecDHS a waiver of "all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section." Ain't that nice. Oh, and the GOP made sure to strip the Judiciary any review powers.

The only good thing is that when this bill gets into conference, the Delay-picked conferees will totally change this bill to something different (that isn't what the Conference Committee is supposed to do). The bad news is that the new bill would probably be more evil than it is now.

Here is the section:

  • Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 … is amended to read as follows:

  • "(c) Waiver. —

  • "(1) In general. — Notwithstanding any other provision of law,
    the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive,
    and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole
    discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.

  • "(2) No judicial review. — Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court shall have jurisdiction —

    • "(A) to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1); or
    • "(B) to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision."

Nice to see the rule of Men has finally trumped the rule of law.

UPDATE
Jeffrey Dubner has more on the waiver.

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Ice plates

Ice plates, originally uploaded by lexo

Lex took a photo of the frozen Hudson River - I always love watching the Hudson freeze over.

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February 10, 2005

Wexner Center

Wexner Center, originally uploaded by plemeljr

I uploaded some old photos of the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio. Checkout the whole set of photos.

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David Cross Loves BootyShotz

David, originally uploaded by rollerboogie

OK, so this one needs some explanation. Pirate Booty is a type of potato chip-like brand. The eponymous Merlin Mann was involved (or started) Booty Shotz.com, where you would try to get people to pose with a bag of the aforementioned Pirate Booty bag - like Ben Folds. Now there is a BootyShotz Flickr Group.

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February 9, 2005

L&O Lesbians

sweetchuck: Man, sucks to be a lesbian on Law and Order.

the grubbykid: Why?

sweetchuck: Well, lesbians are either getting fired, or, they are being sent to jail for killing men of the women they are stalking.

the grubbykid: Yeah, what's up with that?

True - what is up with L&O's current obsession with Lesbians? And what, no Falafel or loofah references from a character who was obviously based upon Bill O'Reilly?

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Toronto Subway Buttons

photo by striaticToronto Subway Buttons - Photo by striatic

No Hipster Buttons but awesome nonetheless, photographer extraordinaire striatic bought a set of the Toronto Subway Buttons and arranged them in a replica map. These buttons represent the distinctive tile-pattern found in each station. You can buy the buttons here and they only cost CDN$45 (which is about US$36!) which includes shipping. How cool would this be on a wall, nicely framed? I'll answer that question - it would be awesome.

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February 8, 2005

Picasso Light

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A light at the Hudson Hotel

February 7, 2005

Birthday Company

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Dining out at superb restaurants with loved ones is a perfect way to celebrate occasions

Gigapixel Camera

photo by Graham FlintOne of the Gigapxl Cameras - Photo by Graham Flint

Graham Flint, a physicist by trade, has created a camera which is rated at 4 Gigapixels and is currently developing a camera with higher resolutions. Damn, my digital camera is around 4 Megapixels - Flint's camera has over 1000 times resolution than my camera! Flint uses surplus military equipment and specially made lenses to achieve his high resolution. Flint uses 9"x18" roll-film housed in surplus military spy camera film back. He then uses high-end scanners from Leica to digitize the film negative, often compositing multiple images together for increased resolution and depth.

Flint should talk to this guy, Clifford Ross, who we talked about here. Both inventors use similar technology and similar format sizes, but attack the problem from different angles - Ross uses a series of mirrors to gain a high degree of sharpness while Flint uses exceptional lenses. It's just like the difference between Newtonian/Reflector Telescopes and Refractor Telescopes. Boy, it would be interesting to listen to their conversation.

It would be interesting to see what the limits are in terms of resolution - I wonder whether or not there is a wall where film, digitizing, and human eye limitations will make advancement difficult. I doubt such a wall exists, since resolution is only component of the technology behind cameras. Similar advances in lenses would increase resolution and sharpness - think of a perfect lens manufactured in zero-gravity. Or a series of nano-sized mirrors comprising a Newtonian/Reflector-type camera or telescope where each reflector is controlled by an individual servo to create ultra-sharp images. Better living through chemistry, indeed.

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February 6, 2005

February 5, 2005

February 4, 2005

February 3, 2005

Privatize This!

So now that the State of the Union Farce is over and the destruction of social security commences, lets take a look and see how we will end up. By the look of things - not very well. According to the Center on Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, using the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's numbers, the CBPP analyzed the Graham/Bush Social Security Privatization plan. This was outlined last night and in a background press meeting last night. Here is a fancy table from the CBPP (Table 2 for those playing at home) which sums up the privatization matter thusly; look in column 1 to see what decade you were born. Look to column 2 to see what Social Security benefits you are guaranteed under the current system. Column 3 is the benefits when the highly disingenuous "bankrupting" of Social Security happens. Finally, what everyone wants to know, column 4 lists the benefits (best case scenario) if the President succeeds in privatizing Social Security. Finally, the last column is the difference. See for yourself:

Decade BornScheduled Benefits
(what you get now)		Payable Benefits
(what you when ss is "bankrupt")		Privatization PaymentsDifference
1940$14,900$14,900$14,840-0.4%
195015,20015,30013,994-8%
196015,50015,50012,742-18%
197017,70017,70012,841-27%
198020,50019,70013,097-36%
199023,30018,10013,104-44%
200026,40019,90013,092-50%

So get this: even if we believe the President that Social Security will be bankrupt in 2040 (it won't be) I still get the same exact benefits! But if we privitize and destroy Social Security, I (any everyone my age) will be out $5,000. Cool! Let's privitize and pump anywhere from $1 trillion to $4.5 trillion in transition costs so that everyone in my generation gets our benefits cut by 27%. What a great idea! I hope that people on the President's Bamboozlepalooza aren't fooled.

Also did anyone hear the Democrats yelling "NO!" when the President talked about Social Security bankruptsy! But of course those to the right of me call this scanelous. Boo-hoo. In 1995 Congressional Republicans booed President Clinton during his State of the Union address and 20 left early before the President finished! You want to know what they were so mad about? President Clinton had the nerve saying that the government had a moral responsibility to help Americans! Hare dare he. So let's recap: yell "NO!" at a patent dishonest remark versus booing and walking out because government should be an agent of good? Give me a break!

From the Stick (the DNC war room) comes the GOP history of Booing:

1999: Republicans Booed Clinton's Entrance
Many Republican lawmakers gave him a cool, though not impolite, reception. There were a smattering of boos when Clinton first entered the House chamber, but they were quickly drowned out by applause. Some Republicans barely applauded, or refused at all to clap. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) were conspicuously silent. [Boston Herald, 1/20/99]

1998: Republicans Booed Clinton's Medicare Proposal
Clinton's health-care initiatives, chiefly in the form of a medical bill of rights, found support on both sides, especially his attack on managed-care health-care plans. ... Clinton's proposal to expand Medicare to allow Americans as young as 55 to buy into the system drew shouts of "no" and some boos from Republicans during his speech. [Chicago Tribune, 1/28/98]

1997: Republican's Booed Clinton's Opposition to the Balanced Budget Amendment
The Republican response was far warmer than perhaps any of Clinton's previous four State of the Union speeches. Time after time, Republicans jumped to their feet to join Democrats in applauding the president. Only once did they unmistakably and collectively show their disapproval--when Clinton spoke disparagingly of a GOP-sponsored constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Many Republicans hissed and some booed. [LA Times, 2/5/97]

1995: Republicans Booed Clinton and Walked Out During Speech
The upheaval wrought by the Republican election landslide was visible throughout the president's State of the Union address - from the moment Speaker Newt Gingrich took the gavel to the striking silence that often greeted Clinton from the GOP. At one point, Republicans even booed. About 20 of them left as Clinton went on and on for an hour and 20 minutes. [AP, 1/24/95]

UPDATE - 03 FEB 2005
Here is a great graph from the Congressional Budget Office (via Kevin Drum illustrating the disaster that is the Graham/Bush plan which is labeled "CSSS Plan 2" on the graph. I wonder what the first plan looked like:

graph

Private Accounts actually make the system worse - nice "crisis." This just shows that this fight isn't about "helping" Social Security - it is about destroying it. The GOP has been trying to do this for 70 years, and is on the verge of accomplishing it.

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February 2, 2005

Groundhog Day

bush and the groundhogphotos by the associated press

Does anyone think that today's combination of Ground Hog Day and President Bush's State of the Union address proves unequivocally that both irony and the perfection of timing in the universe exists? President Bush's speech tonight will most likely be a rehash of fear mongering and half-truths we saw three years ago, only this time the terrorists are in Social Security - with the added bonus that we certainly won't be going to Mars this year.

While the President speaks, how many will feel like Bill Murray - trapped - living the same day over again? With the President's speech codes about Social Security Privatization, expect a speech with much bluster but no content and no chance of happening. Just like his Inauguration Speech, which was full of bluster, his inner-circle will "leak" to the press in the upcoming weeks that the President really didn't mean what he said (this actually happened). So when the President was talking about Freedom, he actually meant FreedomTM. Which, as we all know, doesn't mean "hey, lets export freedom around the world." But rather means, "hey, let's try to give ourselves political cover for invading Iraq when we knew damn sure there were no WMD's." Think of Mr. Bush's public talking points as a giant "Presidential Sike Psych!" Watching his speeches this way is magnitudes better to your constitution.

I for one, will probably not even watch the President's imitation of "Ground Hog Day" preferring the original.

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February 1, 2005