2009 October | Idle Musings

Archive for October 2009

Frank Lloyd Wright Keeps It Simple Stupid

In Design, Video on Oct-29-2009 with
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In this video from Ken Burn’s documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright notes that the actual drawings for the famous Falling Water house were done in less than three hours.


Douglas Adams BBC Documentary

In Technology, Video on Oct-18-2009 with
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In 1992 Adams made a 50-minute “fantasy documentary” for BBC Two about hypertext and virtual reality called Hyperland. His vision of the future of the Internet, a “virtual space” is pretty darn neat.


My New Favorite Online Application

In Technology on Oct-18-2009 with
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I’ve tried just about every do-to list and/or project management tool out there. From Outlook ‘07 to Google Calendar to Basecamp. But I have to admit I find maybe the most simple of the bunch, Remember The Milk, serves my needs the best.

Remember The Milk is as intuitive as possible and the clean and simple interface makes managing tasks almost fun. It couldn’t be easier to set priorities and due dates in seconds. You can share your list with other users, export to a number of calendar apps, or publish via a RSS feed.

And one of the things I enjoy the most, it has an extensive set of keyboard shortcuts that makes it lighting fast. Finally it allows you to receive reminders via email, SMS, and instant messenger (AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype and Yahoo! are all supported). Oh did I mention it is free.


News Story Of The Week

In Humor on Oct-17-2009 with
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Via the Onion:

NEW YORK—According to a report published this week in American Journalism Review, 93 percent of all newspaper sales can now be attributed to kidnappers seeking to prove the day’s date in filmed ransom demands.


Defying Gravity: ABC Get With The Program

In TV on Oct-16-2009 with
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ABC’s sci-fi show Defying Gravity was about my favorite new show of the year. But after eight episodes they canned it with almost no notice. I get that TV is about ratings and therefore ad revenue. And Defying Gravity’s ratings were subpar for its Sunday time slot. But WTF. Why not put the rest of the shows on Hulu or their  site? Throw in as many ads as they want, but let me see how the darn series was intended to end. If channels want me, in the day and age of the DVR, to invest eight hours supporting a new show don’t leave me hanging like this.


Chutzpah Award Of The Week

In Miscellaneous, Politics on Oct-15-2009 with
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The New York Times is reporting:

Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.


The Little Soldier Girl

In Culture on Oct-14-2009 with
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Just a heart breaking photo of  four-year-old little girl saying goodbye to her father as he prepared to ship off from Fort Dix to Iraq. As they got into formation to literally march off to war the commanding officer just didn’t have the heart to tell Paige she had to let go of her father’s hand. Her mother took the pic.