Cool ad from Apple on “…the back page of the Sunday NYT Magazine, which had an ASCII-art sillhouette of Beck’s head made up of the names of all the songs on Beck’s iPod, with some marketing copy explaining that Beck has a ginormous library of MP3s from which he loads 5GB at random onto his iPod every day. Then I opened up Kottke.org and there was a link to a PDF of the ad (minus the marketing copy), which is indeed cool.” The PDF file is here, the quoted text is courtesy of Boing Boing.
Better days
Some good news from NewsWeek, after the past couple years or so of dot-com ex- and im-plosions: according to their cover story this week, Silicon Valley is alive and well, and there are brighter days ahead.
Boy meets girl…
Why my blog isn’t more personal: Boy and girl meet at a library, sparks fly. Boy and girl go on date to see a friend of the girl’s perform. After said performance, boy and girl go back to girl’s house and have light petting session. Before next date, girl does a Google search for boy’s name, and finds his blog — commenting on her lack of ability to kiss and his disappointment in not getting more frisky. Girl is upset and talks to her friend from the performance, who writes a column about the experience. Said column ends up getting posted on MetaFilter, and people commenting on the column quickly find the blog in question. Boy find out about public disclosure of his comments when he starts getting e-mails and comments on his blog, posts his initial responses — “Holy crap“, “Double holy crap“, and “Triple holy crap“. Much discussion ensues. However, from the posts made in Boy’s blog since this thing exploded, he seems to be handling his new-found infamy rather well.
A history of Arthur Andersen
A good in-depth article from the New York Times detailing the history behind Andersen’s part in the Enron/Andersen scandal. I’m no legal or financial expert, but I can’t say that things look good in the least.
CIA anthrax connection
So — would the BBC reporting that the CIA may have been involved in the Anthrax scare be a major scoop of hard-hitting investigative reporting, or merely conspiracy theories spilling over into mainstream media?
The American brand
Having conflicting views about the U.S. — admiring its creativity, for instance, but resenting its double standards — doesn’t mean you are ‘mixed up,’ to use Mr Olins’ phrase, it means you have been paying attention.
— Naomi Klein, in an article on the branding of America, something that in many ways has far too many overtones of Wag the Dog for me to be entirely comfortable with.
Britney Underground
Apparently New York wasn’t too keen on the Britney Spears posters dotting the subway lines. Britney Underground shows off some of the graffitti decorating Britney’s ads.
Engrish spoken here
Thanks to Casey for this one —
DANGER! A dangerous toy. This toy is being made for the extreme priority the good looks. The little part which suffocates when the sharp part which gets hurt is swallowed is contained generously. Only the person who can take responsibility by itself is to play.
I haven’t laughed this hard at a website in ages. Tears in my eyes.
I got my keys!
Just got back home from picking up my keys for the new apartment. Pictures were taken, I’ll have them posted as soon as I can. Yay!
Okay, first ‘picture’ is up. I took a few moments to sketch out a rough floorplan of the apartment, so you’ll have some idea what you’re looking at when I get the pics put in. It’s a pretty rough floorplan, but I think I got it pretty accurate for the most part.
Not bad for a studio apartment — one main room, a full bath, full kitchen, and two closets, one of which is a full-size clothes closet, and even a little entryway space. I think the main room ends up being a little smaller than the single room I’m in now, so figuring out how to arrange things might be a bit tricky, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to get it all in there.
Okay — here’s as good of a tour through the apartment as I can do. Right inside the front door is a cool little delivery box, left over from when the building was originally built. Each of these boxes has two doors — one on the inside that you can see here, and another on the outside of the apartment opening into the hallway. The outside door is fixed closed now, but when these were in use, they were the drop-off points for milk, newspapers, whatever. The delivery person would open the outside door and put the goods in the box, then the tenant could take them from the inside of the apartment without ever having to open the front door. They don’t work anymore, but I thought it was pretty nifty. If nothing else, it’ll be a convenient place to store shoes.
Here’s two shots of the main room. The first was taken standing in the door looking towards the windows, and the second was taken standing in the corner by the heater looking towards the entrance. These should give a pretty good idea of the layout of the apartment. The landlord tells me that the overall floorspace is definitely larger than the place I’m in now, but since that takes into account the entire apartment, the main room itself is a bit smaller than what I’ve got now. I think the tradeoff is more than worth it, it’ll just take a bit of work figuring out how I’m going to get all of my goodies set up in here.
This is a shot I put together of the kitchen. It’s the sloppiest of the stitch jobs that I made tonight, but they’re a little tricky to do, and it should work. It seems kind of funny, but I think I’m more excited about this kitchen than anything else! A good sized sink with a drainage area built in to the right, and loads of cupboards and storage space! Plus, it’s a gas kitchen, rather than electric like the place I’m in now, so that should cut down on my electric bills (as will having a steam heater rather than electric heat).
All in all, I think I ended up with a pretty good deal. I’ve got the next two weeks to move in, too, so I don’t have to make a mad rush at anything. Too cool!