everyday observations of regular people

rework. [Flickr]

jratlee — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:03:49 PST

jratlee posted a photo:

hoping this stirs the pot.

pal's cabin. [Flickr]

jratlee — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:56:46 PST

jratlee posted a photo:

i had to take my cap off. no, really.

weekenders. [Flickr]

jratlee — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:32:20 PST

jratlee posted a photo:

still got it.

my guilt, in fact, has been reduced. [Flickr]

jratlee — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:02:38 PST

jratlee posted a photo:

dinner.

to the victor, go the spoils. [Flickr]

jratlee — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:14:45 PST

jratlee posted a photo:

best.

Walking in the woods makes you smarter

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:55:46 -0500

Walking in the woods makes you smarter:

bobulate:

Seth Fischer on giving your brain a needed break, or “attention restorative theory:”

When you go for a walk in, say, the woods, you’re using a more subtle “involuntary attention” when looking at things like sunsets or squirrels. When you’re in the city, you’re always avoiding that asshole bicyclist, stepping over that pile of human poo, or spending your brain power ignoring the Rottweiler barking at you in the window. Because your “direct attention” is always focused, your prefrontal cortex is always on overdrive, and you end up not being as good at things that you need “direct attention” for, like learning at school or solving problems you haven’t faced before or resolving conflict. In other words, if you don’t take some time to look at a sunset, your brain never gets a break, and that’s not good.

Before you take a hike, see also: “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature“ or the slightly less complex, “The Cognitive Benefits of Nature.”

to everyone who asks why i don’t live in new york city, here is my proverbial middle finger/your answer.

Letterheady: Interesting Letterhead Designs

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:58:59 -0500

Letterheady: Interesting Letterhead Designs:

superamit:

This is a blog deserving of your love, biz+design fans.

tasty.

missmeyer: This is dope, kids. “How Many Billboards? Art In...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:08:27 -0500

missmeyer:

This is dope, kids. “How Many Billboards? Art In Stead proposes that art periodically displace advertisement in the urban environment [Los Angeles].” Basically, this is one of those ideas that you’ll wish you woulda thought of first. Learn more here.

love stuff like this. so much so that we did the same thing for nj at my old gig.

SXSW Guidelines For Meeting Me - 1938 Media so, i’ve never...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:50:00 -0500

SXSW Guidelines For Meeting Me - 1938 Media

so, i’ve never been to sxsw. i’m sure if i really wanted to go - i could find a reason to get down there. maybe b/c the opportunity hasn’t smacked me in the face, i’m a bit of a cynic. so much noise that any real biz opportunity is probably muted.

anyway, loren’s being both funny and pretty practical here. i’d much rather have a unique relationship with someone than try to fly to texas and sandblast a bunch of people just like me with stuff that might not matter.

soxiam: wu-tang crossing the delaware ain’t nothing ta fuck...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:44:59 -0500

soxiam:

wu-tang crossing the delaware ain’t nothing ta fuck wit’

my version of a snow day.

Dubai's 2 Million Gallon Shark Tank Is Leaking

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:33:58 -0500

Dubai's 2 Million Gallon Shark Tank Is Leaking:

So how long do you think it’s going to be until they can’t afford to keep up all this ridiculous shit they’ve built and the entire thing turns into a post-apocalyptic wasteland with lawless bandits scavenging for all of the luxury items no one is around to pay for? Should be exciting!

Danny Kahneman Talks Memory at TED Nobel-winning...

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:02:05 -0500

Danny Kahneman Talks Memory at TED

Nobel-winning econo-psychologist talks experiences vs. memory at TED 2010

the average human present? 3 seconds.

Enhanced Salsa

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:43:52 -0500

Enhanced Salsa:

But aside from making me really hungry, the video also made me think of how certain media is presented to allow for an experience, to make the technology behind it disappear. That oh-so-smooth transition from “video on a video hosting website” to “Salsa Show!” was clutch to making me view this as more than a 40-second clip about a vegetable I really couldn’t care less about and something I wanted to click away from. Movie theaters are certainly designed to be invisible, and I think physical books are as well, providing only the turn of a page as the sole interruption between the written word and the reader’s imagination. Even then, that interruption is the mark of a good book: a “page-turner.” With the boom of electronic reading devices, it’s important to keep this feature in mind; which device will allow you to have an experience with a book, to make you want that salsa and nothing else, and then give it to you?

my sister is a better blogger than i am.

War Grave (via Aerial Photography) great find by katie.

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:49:44 -0500

War Grave (via Aerial Photography)

great find by katie.

sumrtime: This too shall pass. - Ok Go so, so good. reminded...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:48:54 -0500

sumrtime:

This too shall pass. - Ok Go

so, so good. reminded me of the breakfast scene in chitty chitty bang bang.

"Regardless, Pollan’s book brought up many questions and thoughts. He speaks of the age of..."

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:12:28 -0500

“Regardless, Pollan’s book brought up many questions and thoughts. He speaks of the age of Nutritionism, a time period we are currently experiencing where reductionist science has taken food and divided it up into macro and micro-nutrients (e.g. Carbs, proteins, fats being macro and vitamins and minerals representing the micro) in order to figure out how certain things work. This boom in Nutritionism has perhaps complicated things more than not. I’m not putting down reductionist science but in this case it tends to make a bigger problem rather than a smaller one. What the studies that they do can’t measure is how different nutrients might react along with others. Different combination’s produce different results. We all know too much sugar isn’t a good thing and that it spikes insulin, but if eaten with or after eating fat, the absorption process is slowed. The division of all of these nutrients has produced “food” products that advertise a certain health claim. “Nutritionism is, in a sense, the official ideology of the Western diet” (Pollan 11). Our food has become divided and industrialized in order to fit and supposedly match the fast track of “progress” that we think we are on.”

- Alex Ratcliffe-Lee: In Defense of Food

when was the last time you saw proper MLA citation in a blog post? my fam is winning at the bloggin’ this week.

Steampunk Waterslide: 1904 | Shorpy Historic Photo...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:00:51 -0500

Steampunk Waterslide: 1904 | Shorpy Historic Photo Archive

regardless of how you feel about steampunk, this looks fun. and, i could use some fun.

Human-flesh Search Engines in China Human-flesh search engines...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:49:00 -0500

Human-flesh Search Engines in China

Human-flesh search engines - renrou sousuo yinqing - have become a Chinese phenomenon: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town. It’s crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online with offline results.

The Newsonomics of time-on-site

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:51:08 -0500

The Newsonomics of time-on-site:

$3.42 vs 10 cents. The Times is monetizing its time on site 34 times better than Facebook.

definitely click-through to this. social networks are blowing news sites out of the water in terms of time spent on site but, it seems, aren’t doing a fantastic job monetizing it.

Top 10 Best Roadtripping Songs

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:48:04 -0500

bbook:

Looking forward to summer already… can’t ya tell?

1. Sweet Emotion// Aerosmith
2. Hotel California// The Eagles
3. Love You Madly// Cake
4. Where Nobody Knows// Kings of Leon
5. Young Folks// Peter Bjorn & John
6. Run Around// Blues Traveler
7. Ramble On// Led Zeppelin
8. China Girl// David Bowie
9. Love and Memories// OAR
10. Slow Ride// Foghat

today was that day people in the tri-state started to really hope that warm weather is relatively close. you could just tell by people’s attitudes, the fact that it was friday and the fact that they decided to wear vests instead of jackets even when it was snowing (i.e. me).

btw, hell yes to slow ride!

"I feel like there’s this tension that goes on in business and especially in marketing, this conceit..."

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:32:00 -0500

“I feel like there’s this tension that goes on in business and especially in marketing, this conceit that we can take humans—you know, messy, irrational, organic—and somehow cut them open and figure out the binary, rational, predictable, money-making algorithms that determine what they do. You see all this harnessing of science, you know, whether it’s neuro-this or lie detector-that or psychotherapy-this that gets used in the service of, not helping people, but helping marketers crack the nut of what people want, where is the desire center in the brain. You know, that we can learn things about people in a way that is “true”—that is predictable and true, and will determine consumption patterns. I find the idea that we should be able to do that just fascinating, because that’s not the world of people that we live in as people, so why as marketers or designers or producers do we think that we should turn people into things that they really aren’t?”

- Steve Portigal, from a fascinating discussion transposed here. (via chrbutler) (via slantback)

left, without comment, while i - quite frankly - think about it.

The case for context

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:52:00 -0500

The case for context:

These terms I’ve been using – “intellectual framework,” “systemic information,” etc. – this is what I mean when I say “context.” I’ve pitched you on the consumer benefits of context, but information creators are also slowly beginning to come around to the long-term ROI of delivering context as well, for several reasons. For one thing, our information becomes much more valuable and much more desirable to you as your framework for understanding it becomes better. Jay Rosen has astutely noted the uptick in attention to financial crisis stories after This American Life’s Giant Pool of Money episode laid out the context of the crisis. For another thing, the success of Wikipedia and the enduring popularity of items like “The Ultimate Guide to Everything You Need to Know About Social Media” has taught us there’s a real market for context. There are also significant advertising benefits to having more sophisticated structures for information than “latest updates.” We could dwell on the “why” for a long time.

if you’re in austin - put down your phone, stop stalking that girl you saw at the bar and go to matt’s panel.

"The nearest kind of association is not mere perceptual cognition, but, rather, a handling, using,..."

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:51:36 -0500

“The nearest kind of association is not mere perceptual cognition, but, rather, a handling, using, and taking care of things which has its own kind of ‘knowledge.’”

- Martin Heidegger (via bobulate)

Alex Ratcliffe-Lee: Synesthesia

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:26:50 -0500

Alex Ratcliffe-Lee: Synesthesia:

Synesthesia (also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae or synaesthesiae)—from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), “together,” and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), “sensation“—is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to…

file under things you didn’t know about your brother.

the curving hip, the soothing shade: Almonds just a really good...

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:35:01 -0500

the curving hip, the soothing shade: Almonds

just a really good photo.