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DC Exposed

One of my photos from the affirmative action protests in D.C. last December is running in DCist's DC Exposed photo show in March. Sweet!

Champagne Chairs

Voting has commenced for Design Within Reach's champagne contest -- contestants design miniature chairs from the cork, wire, and foil of no more than two champagne bottles. Some of this year's are quite elegant...

The 2007 Bloggies

The nominations for the 2007 Weblog Awards are out, and some of my old favorites are up: GapingVoid, Drawn!, Subtraction, Design*Sponge, PopGadget, and Apartment Therapy.

A few never-before-discovered (by me, that is) favorites, though, are:

Chocolate and Zucchini - a wonderful French food blog (in English, thankfully)

Tree Hugger - a sustainability-center web magazine

Make - a blog for fans of all things DIY

Have a look around -- there are finalists for music, sports, photography, entertainment, regions, &c. What else looks good?

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New York Times Ad

The first sign that print journalism is going to adapt to the web sooner than it would like:

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Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and Bad Publicity

...and don't forget the bad puns.

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Best Turndown Yet:

Me: [Elaborate request to take a stranger's photo, etc. etc. etc.]
J-School Student: Woman, I'm not a stranger, I'm in the book!
J-School Student's Friend: Uh, but you're a stranger to her.
J-School Student: But I'm in the book!
J-School Student's Friend: Listen, you really need to stop talking about Facebook so much. Nobody cares!

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Linkage

1. While a little expensive for my tastes, the official site for Gary Hustwit's film about Helvetica has put up some very elegant posters for sale.

2. Speaking of Helvetica, it tops this list of the 100 Best Fonts Ever.

3. From Worth1000 comes Apple's next product ... I'm personally a big fan of the iBrator.

4. The LA Times is being redesigned again. Good grief, let's hope for some consistency this time...

5. Only ThinkGeek.

Self Portraiture

Noah Kalina, the creator of the strangely riveting Noah K. Everyday site, brings us another self-portrait project on Flickr where he poses stone-faced with various celebrities from Paris Hilton to David Hasselhoff. I'd really like to hear how he explained the premise of that shot to Ms. Hilton...

Issue 2

eye.columbiaspectator.com

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Dear Restaurant That Decided To Start Printing My Full Credit Card Number On Its Delivery Receipt,

What.

Suddenly Paranoid,
Dani

That Guy on the Left is Definitely Asleep

Apparently, the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale's communications department posted the photo below on their website in some fit of bad marketing. An article on the photo in SIUC's student newspaper begins thus: "If SIUC's goal is to appear as a mind-numbing, third-rate university, the school's marketing machine hit a home run Thursday..."

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NYC on a College Student's Budget

Gridskipper brings you New York on $5 a Day. They're not exactly hidden gems, but it's a great idea. And that halal chicken stand is good...

First Issue of The Eye

So if you were wondering about that bizarre Stranger, no I did not walk into some sketchy strip club and start taking photos. The image was staged for The Eye, which just came out this morning. I know that it's not really keeping in line with the spirit of Stranger-A-Day, but at the very least I'd never met that particular model until January 16th...

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The second Stranger in this series who hasn't spoken a word of English. Note to self: learn how to say "May I take your photo?" in 5 different languages post haste.

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Linkage

1. Quipsologies is a broader, more general version of graphic design forum Speak Up, providing readers a place to submit links to anything related to architecture, branding, movies, and so on. Sweet!

2. Yes, it really is made out of Bic pens.

3. Following with my obsession with graffiti, the slightly improvised sub-practices of Reverse Graffiti and Green Graffiti are pretty cool (and more legal).

4. Gothamist has a wonderful post up on Doug Aitken's current exhibit on (not in) the MoMA. His video installation, Sleepwalkers, plays every night on eight screens affixed to the museum's exterior walls.

5. Linkable USB drives! What a good idea...

6. What.

JPG Magazine

(JPG is giving away 5000 free copies of Issue 7!)

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Express Security Lanes at JFK

Say "I'm not a terrorist!" for only $100 a year.

No Wonder Google's Taking Over the World

I just discovered that if you type "pi" (or "e" or "k" or "h") into Firefox's Google searchbar the actual value of the constant appears! So amazing!!

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To the Tune of "It's a Small World":

Robin: My parents were at a bakery when my dad realized the girl behind the counter was Stranger 008.
Robin: :)
Me: ...

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Viral Learning Center

Seriously? The "Institute for Creating and Spreading Stupid Movies on YouTube" actually exists?!

White Space

Mark Boulton's guide to using white space on A List Apart is a tad bit obvious, but important nonetheless.

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10 Days Left

...to submit to McSweeney's the unwritten stories F. Scott Fitzgerald contest.

Fork Bracelet!

Jewelry + stress relief all at once. What more could you want from your cutlery?

Minimalizing Accountability, Bit By Bit

Has anyone noticed that in the blogosphere, the phrase "New Year's Resolutions" has become synonymous with "Resolutions That Other People Should Fulfill"?

Linkage

1. Diego Bauducco's Pictobrowser allows you to create slideshows of your Flickr photos. Above are some shots from the Malibu Lagoon.

2. Apparently, Cisco already patented the product "iPhone." Oops.

3. Speaking of the iPhone... can't wait for the real thing?

4. In response to a Business Week story called "Jammin' Like Crazy At Goldman," a blog smugly entitled "Leveraged Sell-Out" came up with a post about what i-banking really looks like. Thank god he's joking.

5. This video of an artist turning watercolor blobs into little cartoon characters is wonderful.

6. Understandably, I've become fascinated with various somethings-a-day projects. I've come across a few interesting examples, including Avid Liongoren's Project 365 (with drawings instead of photos), Paris Daily Photo, and the mp3-a-day 365 Days blog.

"Frustrated By Math, Student Stabs Her Teacher"

It must have been a really hard proof.

They Could Also Use A Suggestion Box

Flickr would greatly benefit from allowing users to select/modify what portion of their photos shows up in the square thumbnails. So many cropped heads! Gah.

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Amy Arbus

Amy Arbus' book of NYC street photography from the 1980s are beautiful and are a better example of what I'm trying to accomplish with stranger-a-day.

Le Corbusier Fan?

Now you can buy 40,000+ of his plans on a 16-DVD set for only $9,500.

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I Would Have Flunked Him, Too

Now, while I admit there's some legitimacy to this former Duke lacrosse player's anger, seeing as the girl his team was charged with raping suddenly forgot whether or not she had actually been raped (which also makes you wonder whether she was either making it all up to begin with or paid off), you are not going to convince me that 1) a class called "Politics and Literature" is not completely subjective or that 2) an "F" merits a $60,000 lawsuit. Someone should just read his final paper aloud to the jury and let them decide whether he deserves to fail or not.

A Promise

One day, I'm going to enter.

iPhone

Really, there's nothing else to say about the iPhone. In addition to the obvious cellular capabilities, it doubles as an iPod, runs the current Mac operating system, has a 3.5 inch display with a resolution of 320 x 480 (160 ppi!) that can be turned sideways for e-mail and general web use, has a 2 MP camera, and is, well ... amazing.

But is it worth $500?

Let's reconstruct what gadgets would be required to perform a similar set of functions:

Blackberry 7130C - $199
E-mailing, web browsing, calendar, and contacts just like the iPhone -- except the iPhone runs Safari and loads the full (scrollable & zoomable) website, instead of a trimmed down alternative.

4GB iPod Mini - $199
Same amount of storage -- except the iPhone really acts as a video iPod.

Nokia 3250 2MP Camera Phone - $219
Pfft.

...I'll let you decide for yourself.

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Wooster Collective Memorialized

For New Yorkers who didn't have to time to brave the lines for the few short days that the Wooster Collective was open, Graffiti Archeology has put up an extensive website layering the evolution of 11 Sprint Street over the past few years.

Gardens in a Petri

These have been circulating for a while now, but Pruned's photo posts of "Gardens in a Petri" (also here and here) are stunning (and fractal!). Who knew bacteria could be so pretty?!

R = V/I

Only ThinkGeek would sell earrings made from resistors...

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No More Broadsheet?

I really don't know about the WSJ's new look...

(On a different note, News Designer is a pretty good blog, and features a nice selection of links to "Today's Front Pages.")

Piven Portraits

Hanoch Piven's cutesy mixed-media portraits of various politicians and artists are simple but oddly accurate. Seen above are, of course, Larry King, Bill Clinton, and Marilyn Monroe. Check out his recently-started blog for more images.

Saks Redesign

The designers over at Pentagram completely overhauled the old Saks logo by cleverly redrawing the 1955 text logo in a black square, dividing the square into 64 parts, and rotating and rearranging the mini-squares to create unreadable but still rather elegant patterns. It's a nice change from a series of unmemorable cursive logos. Check out the Saks site for a Flash demonstration.

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Coming Soon...

dan.iella.net

(I'll miss my old server, but I can't keep up with British pricing.)

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Just A Year?!

Not to over-simplify matters or anything, but:

1. Teenager has seizure on subway platform.

2. Teenager falls off of platform.

3. Train approaches. You know, one of those stainless steel ones where each car weighs 73,900 pounds.

4. Guy with two little kids present jumps down on top of teenager and pins him under oncoming train.

5. Mayor Bloomberg awards Guy with city's highest honor, the Bronze Medallion.

6. Donald Trump gives Guy $10,000. Various other donors set up a scholarship for his children, &c.

7. MTA gives Guy one year's worth of free subway passes.

...Is it just me, or does the MTA seem a little stingy after this guy managed to erase one notch on their "annual fatalities" list?