Author Archive
Saturday, March 13th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-13
Is there a translated work of literature that readers consider to actually be better than the original work? #
It's a testament to Sushi Zone that its waitresses waited 30 minutes for seats at the bar on their day off tonight. #
“[It] is in failure and through failure, that the subject constitutes itself." –Michel Houellebecq #
Tracey [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Hear Tracey Thorn’s “Oh, the Divorces!” from “Love and Its Opposite”
More than, perhaps, any other songwriter, I’ve found Tracey Thorn’s songs from the past three decades to be consistently evocative. Every album has something that ignites my memory or feeling, and her new one is no exception. Love and Its Opposite is due in May, and its first track, “Oh, the Divorces!” isn’t a pop [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General, Music by Rick
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Drawing Google Street View
This is the best use I’ve seen of Google Street View.
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Technology by Rick
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
Yanidel street photography Aperture presets
I’m a big fan of Yanidel’s photo blog of his street photography in Paris. I’ve long tried to get a similar look to his photos by decreasing the desaturation slider and then selectively increasing the saturation of colors or spots in my photos. However, I’m nowhere near as good at it as he is. I [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General, Photography by Rick
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-06
What a comeback by Finland in the Bronze Medal game! Nice to see Selanne still out there. #
Where are the technologists who oppose this personal branding trend? http://s.nyt.com/u/70p #
That was the best hockey game I've ever seen. (No, the perfect ending didn't hurt.) #
RT @paidContent Mags To Their Digital Units: Drop Dead http://bit.ly/946M3P (This is [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Adam Gopnik on Canada’s gold
I’ll be writing about Canada’s hockey victory at the Olympics shortly. In the meantime, enjoy this piece and the following line by Adam Gopnik on the subject:
Anything that depends on a single bounce or giveaway, though it can fairly be called victory, can’t really be called a triumph. But anyone who didn’t understand the role [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Monday, March 1st, 2010
I’m not a doctor but I still want to save lives
I just recalled one of my favorite quotes from anyone: Ricky Moody in an interview with the Times Book Review stated his aspiration to “save lives” with his fiction. After all, why shoot for anything less?
I still want short stories to save lives. I want people to feel about the short story the way they [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Monday, March 1st, 2010
New York in miniature
Sam O’Hare spent a week making a neat video of New York City. He shot the entire thing with consumer-grade lenses on a Nikon D3 in burst mode. He added stabilization and the tilt-shift effect in post-processing. You can find more details about the production of the video here.
No Comments » - Posted in General, Photography, Technology by Rick
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
President Obama on baseball
Why this video doesn’t have more views, I have no idea. How fun it is to hear President Obama talk about the sport.
No Comments » - Posted in Baseball, General by Rick
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-27
Why President Obama should have never said that he "hated the bank bailout": http://bit.ly/cuINEI #
I would trade legislative transparency for a health care bill. I've read Eating Animals. I don't want to see how it's made! bit.ly/9CgSCc #
Thinking about social media as a return to a pre-literate and not desirable age. #
Getting ready for game [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Why Obama was wrong to say he hated the bailout
As anyone who discussed Obama’s State of the Union address with me knows, I absolutely hated the speech’s opening in which Obama expressed his own hatred for the bank bailout. I hated it because Obama’s words seemed to me so, so untrue—or at least they should be untrue if he’s at all listened to the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-20
Why underdogs risk more in competition: http://bit.ly/98Eum4 #
"[GDP] measures everything . . . except that which makes life worthwhile." -R.F.K. #
Getting ready for South Africa: "A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern societies." #
I think I'm going to read Patti Smith's "Just Kids" and Edmund White's "Rimbaud" [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Why do drugstores and gas stations appear in clusters?
Marketplace covered the acquisition of Duane Reade by Walgreens and suggested that drugstores in New York are on nearly every corner because consumers seek convenience. That’s true, but to really understand why they are all over, you need to understand a little game theory. Presh over at Mind Your Decisions has a very simple explanation [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Listen to the new K’s Choice single “Come Live the Life”
One of my favorite albums, which I discovered by chance at FNAC ten years ago, is Almost Happy by K’s Choice. The brother and sister duo broke up and is now back together, releasing their first album since. It’s called Echo Mountain and its first single is called “Come Life the Life.” I heard the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General, Music by Rick
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Why should underdogs take big risks?
For the answer, see Jack Hirshleifer’s article, “The Paradox of Power.”
No Comments » - Posted in Baseball, General by Rick
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-13
Of course, pubs stagger release dates. If you want the cheaper, more portable edition, you gotta wait. Why should ebooks be any different? #
Why would I ever vote for a gubernatorial candidate who wants to run California like a business? #
"In what way do technological systems have moral characteristics?" http://bit.ly/d9unn1 #
Anyone know how to search [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-06
Why isn't the Twitterverse reviving the #amazonfail chorus over the bookseller's dropping all Macmillan titles? #
Is Amazon nudging people to do the right thing and buy from independent bookstores?! http://nyti.ms/b0RKgS #
Amazon/Macmillan standoff is over. Now, stop licensing eBooks to readers and start selling them! #
Why haven't many people pointed out that the iPad can handle [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Friday, February 5th, 2010
Buy Atul Gawande’s new book, just not an Amazon
Macmillan ran an ad for The Checklist Manifesto in yesterday’s New York Times and took a shot at Amazon. Cheap?
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Friday, February 5th, 2010
On Facebook
Charles Petersen’s article, In the World of Facebook, in the New York Review is probably the best essay I’ve read about any tech company in the past year or so.
No Comments » - Posted in General, Technology by Rick
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Y-3 Spring/Summer 2010 ad campaign with Zinédine Zidane
This is awesome.
No Comments » - Posted in General, Photography by Rick
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Awesome, heartbreaking David Foster Wallace interview from 2003
Get ready to give 90 minutes of your life right now.
Get the Flash Player to see this video.
var swf = new SWFObject(“https://media.dreamhost.com/mp4/player.swf”, “mpl”, “478″, “253″, 8);
swf.addParam(“allowfullscreen”, “true”);
swf.addParam(“allowscriptaccess”, “always”);
swf.addVariable(“file”, “http://www.gen-o.com/dfw_conv.flv”);
swf.addVariable(“image”, “http://www.gen-o.com/dfw_conv.jpeg”);
swf.write(“v7484″);
2 Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Because your MacBook should look like a real book
Clearly, you want the BookBook from Twelve South.
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Technology by Rick
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-30
A few photos from the GF1 of @josepharthur at @rickshawstopsf on Tuesday: http://gen-o.com/shorturl/jasr #
The Formula For Perfect Parallel Parking…fun, but no help to this parker. -More at http://npr.org/122880263 #
These coaches' challenges seem like a bad idea! #
I feel like I felt in 2006 while rooting for Zidane in the World Cup final, hoping Favre can [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Friday, January 29th, 2010
Responses to Salinger
Over at the New Republic, Gish Jen asks, Why Do People Love Catcher in the Rye?
Meanwhile, the New Yorker’s Book Bench blog has collected remembrances and responses from several people, including Wes Anderson, Dave Eggers, and Joshua Feriss. The New Yorker’s Lillian Ross has also unearthed some photos she took of Salinger during the 1960s.
James Barron, [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Friday, January 29th, 2010
News from New York bookstores
Vanishing New York collects some news on a shake-up in Manhattan bookstores: Biography Bookshop in the West Village, which you might know because it’s across the street from Magnolia, is moving. Left Bank Books, which has a wonderful selection of collectible and signed editions. Finally, Skyline Books in Chelsea is closing.
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Save Kepler's by Rick
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Why the iPad buzz doesn’t matter
A lot of people are saying a lot of things about the iPad. It’s revolutionary! It’s too compromised to be useful! It lacks important features like a phone, multitasking, camera, Flash support, etc. What’s certain to me is that the reactions—pro and con—are pretty much meaningless right now. I was trying to think last night [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Music, Technology by Rick
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
How to recover erased .RW2 and other RAW files from SDHC cards
I recently lost all my GF1 photos from my SDHC card. After shooting about 70 photos, I put the card in a USB reader and it appeared to be empty on my computer. There are several free programs that will recover JPEG images from cameras’ memory cards, but recover RAW files—especially those from non-Canon/Nikon cameras—can [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General, Photography, Technology by Rick
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Reactions to the iPad
Adam Gopnik and other New Yorker staffers responded to Apple’s iPad announcement.
No Comments » - Posted in Baseball, Books, General, Music, Technology by Rick
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-23
RT @EliseBlackwell: Ted Genoways on the contemporary lit mag landscape: http://tinyurl.com/ycs79gd #
Now Curt Schilling is going to kill the healthcare bill?! Hasn't he done enough damage already? http://s.nyt.com/u/rFH #
Took the GF1 to a show by @josepharthur earlier this week. Photos here: http://gen-o.com/shorturl/jasr #
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Joseph Arthur at Rickshaw Stop or the GF1 and concert photography
I took my GF1 to a show by Joseph Arthur earlier this week, and although the noise at 1600 ISO is considerably higher than that of any dSLR, it held up reasonably well. I also tested out Panasonic’s EVF live viewfinder for the first time. Unfortunately, it is small, low resolution, and not particularly good. [...]
