They’re starting to get really good, but issue #9 from Maura is still my favorite.

03/11/1329th Street Publishing, publishing | 1

I am really digging the design of the now-digital internal magazine from Say (my former employer). It cribs a lot of style notes from recent online publications, but does so elegantly.

03/11/13publishing, Say Media

A short documentary about Dennis M. Hope, who sells has declared ownership of the moon and sells it one acre at a time.

03/11/13real estate, videos

While we don’t yet know if Netflix will be able to turn a profit on self-produced content, it seems pretty clear they’ll be guaranteed a hit. The NY Times wrote about how they knew House of Cards would do well.

Netflix, which has 27 million subscribers in the nation and 33 million worldwide, ran the numbers. It already knew that a healthy share had streamed the work of Mr. Fincher, the director of “The Social Network,” from beginning to end. And films featuring Mr. Spacey had always done well, as had the British version of “House of Cards.” With those three circles of interest, Netflix was able to find a Venn diagram intersection that suggested that buying the series would be a very good bet on original programming.

It’s not that Fox or Universal or whomever don’t have data, they just don’t have the same breadth of internal data that someone like Netflix or Amazon or Apple have. I really enjoyed watching House of Cards, but I’m more interested in how this model of publishing shakes up the industry.

02/25/13House of Cards, Netflix

David Friedman, proprietor of the always excellent Ironic Sans blog, has partnered with PBS to turn his photo series into a video series. The first two videos are great. I’ll be a regular watcher.

12/03/12David Friedman, videos

This story is for bowling fans and bowling agnostics alike, as it’s really about a dude obsessed with perfection and competition. It’s also really well written and one of the best things I’ve read this year.

I was reminded of the story when I saw this Kickstarter, inspired by the article, show up in my inbox. I backed it (obvs).

09/18/12bowling, sports

Damn. This is awesome. Old Spice, you are fun. [via mlkshk]

08/28/12Old Spice, videos

I just had my mind completely changed regarding Airtime. I thought the idea of a “platform for great video conversation” was unnecessary, but I would love it if I could turn on video based on what’s in the video.

I would like to be able to look at a directory of stuff. Things. A live-view of Niagra Falls. An original Star Wars movie poster. A 1976 Gibson Bicentennial Thunderbird. A living WWII Veteran. A demo of an OP-1.

Hell, I’d even love to connect to a Best Buy representative who could demonstrate the latests TiVos.

I feel a little bad about going into a Best Buy to check out TVs, but if they could let me check it out over online video, let me ask questions, and compare it to other units, then that’d be pretty fantastic. It also allows for a slightly smoother transition away from brick and mortar stores (at least until we all have 3D printers).

08/27/12

In what seems like crazy sci-fi, there’s a new type of pill that can tell your doctor whether or not you’ve taken it and the FDA just approved it.

With no battery and no sensor, it is powered by the body itself. The chip contains small amounts of copper and magnesium. After being ingested the chip will interact with digestive juices to produce a voltage that can be read from the surface of the skin through a detector patch, which then sends a signal via mobile phone to inform the doctor that the pill has been taken.

They mention that it’s not just about spying; it could also help doctors adjust dosage. A few more ideas that came to mind:

• If grandpa doesn’t take his heart medicine at lunch, ring an alarm an hour later. If he doesn’t take it in two hours, text someone.
• Implant these in vitamins (or broccoli!) and game-ify your kids health without all that pesky inputting.
• Have the sensor know drug contraindications, so people who are on a variety of pills can be warned if they accidentally ingest something that could hurt them.

[via the always awesome NextDraft]

08/20/12medicine, science

I’m a big fan of slow news. There are some things that are great to know right away, either because you need to act on them quickly or it’s fun to discuss in realtime at the web’s water cooler. This has left a lot of important stuff, stuff that may not be conducive to a rapid-paced news cycle, at the wayside. This is why I am excited about Evening Edition.

As the creators explain, it is “the perfect commute-sized way to catch up on the day’s news after a long day at work.” They provide a paragraph of text on a handful of stories that is just enough to help you understand what happened. It’s only a day old, but I lurve the concept and the first edition was tight.

Tangentially, Andre is letting the parade march by. Leaving social media can be like paddling your kayak from the center of a roaring river to the edge, but a lot of people I respect have started to consider a world away from the rapids. I’m hoping we all find some balance.

07/17/12journalism, social web

“Why did you think she needed a haircut?” ” It was almost down to her tush. If she grew it any any longer, her hair would go into the toilet and it would be gross.” You should listen because these girls are freaking adorable.

07/04/12radio

I have long thought it’d be fun to reproduce fast food ads, keeping everything the same except I’d swap the product photo with one of from a burger I’ve purchased. We all know the end result does not look the same, but this video shows how much lighting and retouching makes a difference. When you style up any old Quarter-pounder, it ends up looking pretty good.

While the video is entertaining, it doesn’t make me feel better or less manipulated. The difference between reality and the ad is too great, which leads to disappointment. Of course, McDonald’s is trying to sell a product and they are going to do what it takes to maximize sales, but it’s not helpful to the consumer.

It’d be great if, just like standardized nutritional information, there was standardized product marketing. Every burger had to be photographed in the same studio; every phone had to show the same set of features; every airline had to display their average hold times and delay length. It’d be maddeningly difficult, if not impossible, but realistic expectations would make consumers happier in the long run and force corporations to build better products. [via kottke]

07/04/12advertising, business, food, McDonalds

Most web designers are familiar with the pains of creating image sprites for their icons. It’s easier with things like LESS, but still, sucks. The good folks at Oak Studios have created an icon set that is built into a font (a growing trend), which uses ligatures to insert the icons. For example, if you type “heart”, it will automatically insert the icon for a heart. Pretty smart.

06/26/12Oak Studios, web development, web fonts

In said piece, Paul tackles time, its relative value, and your control over it. He also manages to write it beautifully, which I hope you’ve grown to expect.

There are 200 of you in this auditorium. So every minute I don’t talk saves about three-and-a-third hours of human time. That’s a pretty serious ratio. Every one of my minutes is collectively 200 of yours.

It’s worth your time.

06/25/12Paul Ford

I’ll try not to give away the big reveal, but it’s a story of a hands-on CEO who benefits from doing the right thing.

I climbed out of bed, closed the door behind me, and spent the next two hours coaching Bob on how to configure the start-up options for Microsoft Windows. It wasn’t an issue with our software, but it was a problem for our customer, Bob-which made it our problem. At the end of the conversation, I thought we’d made a lot of progress. Bob was enthusiastic. I was hopeful.

The story also reminds you that successful companies are built very slowly. You’ll read that just about everywhere (except for Tim Ferriss books), but it can’t be said enough. Paying attention to details, having patience, and treating your customers like humans will almost always lead to success.

06/21/12business

Yes, it’s a time-lapse video. And yes, it is really good.

06/21/12NYC, videos

Ben Folds Five will be releasing their first new album in a decade later this year and Mr. Folds gave us an update on the progress. If you’re a fan, read his entire note. It will make you fidget with excitement.

Ben succinctly described the value in an independent release (which they’re planning to do in September) later in the post.

Just seems [that] a musical experience I hate to be in [is] the position of selling it to people who don’t care. I’d rather spend my time telling people who DO care and save the money and time. Sell fewer records probably to those who want it. That leaves more time to make new records and tour. Less ass kissing, more music and life.

It makes you wonder why anyone passionate about their craft and connecting with people would do anything else.

04/27/12Ben Folds, music

I feel like I watch far more couch gags than actual episodes these days. Fun fact: I recorded the first 8 seasons on VHS tapes using the TV/VCR+ combo in my bedroom. I had several pages listing the start time and tape number for each episode. I lost them one by one in the dorms my freshman year of college.

04/17/12television, The Simpsons

The Knicks have had some trouble at point guard. They were also coming up quickly on a deadline where they had to make a decision about players with non-guaranteed contracts. Enter, Jeremy Lin. He led the Harvard basketball team, but was not drafted by an NBA team. After floating around the team for a year, the Knicks picked him up.

In the first 23 games, he averaged 2.3 minutes and 1.4 points a game. In the last two he has averaged 40.5 minutes and 26.5 points. He’s now the starting point guard for the Knicks and the talk of the city and American Chinese/Taiwanese community. It’s pretty amazing.

His contract, potentially worth nearly $800,000, was not even guaranteed until Tuesday afternoon. So for the past six weeks, Lin, 23, has been sleeping in his brother Josh’s living room, waiting for clarity and career security.

“He has his own couch,” Josh Lin, a New York University dental student, said cheerfully.

And to make it even more interesting:

Dwyane Wade per 48 minutes: 29.4 PTS, 6.2 REB, 7.6 AST, 2.8 STL. Jeremy Lin per 48 minutes: 30.2 PTS, 6.0 REB, 11.4 AST, 2.5 STL.

— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) February 7, 2012

Woh.

02/08/12Jeremy Lin, NBA, sports

The artist Yayoi Kusama painted everything in a room white, provided every kid that visited the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane with colorful stickets, and unleashed them. You can see the results above. I think it’s somewhat engenius to have kids do it. Adults would have tried to impose some kind of order. In fact, I insist the artist do this again, but only allow adults or women or old people to affix stickers.

01/02/12art, Yayoi Kusama