February 2012
6 posts
“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have...”
– Print - Roger Ebert: The Essential Man - Esquire
3 tags
Readmill Book Ending
3 tags
Imposing Limits on Infinity: Reading List Feb 6 -...
What I’ve read this last week.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy by John Le Carre
“The Chameleon” by David Grann. The New Yorker, Aug. 11, 2008.
“Brutal Attraction: the Making of Raging Bull” by Richard Schickel. Vanity Fair, March 2010.
“The Pain Principal” by Richard Poplak. The Walrus, July 2011.
“Making it in America” by Adam Davidson. The...
3 tags
2011 Reads
Read in 2011:
January Freedom by Jonathan Franzen The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon (abandoned)
February Coming into the Country by John McPhee
March - April The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
May The Known World by Edward Jones
June The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
July The Big...
3 tags
Chill Signup Process
Invisible Arguments 99% Invisible
This episode of 99% invisible on the subtle design decisions oil companies and gas stations make to keep consumption of oil high without us considering that reality.
http://www.prx.org/pieces/70833-99-invisible-11-99-undesigned
January 2012
1 post
“Two sheets were soon spoiled—not because I found it necessary to
alter anything...”
– Highlighted by james in Childhood by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
November 2011
1 post
Fox News Viewers Less Informed on Major News... →
This is just too ridiculous…
September 2011
2 posts
Human Service
“Service works by the gradual buildup of sympathy through failed attempted solutions. If person X has told you to try something and it doesn’t work, person X feels slightly sorry for you. X is slightly responsible for the problem now, having used up some of your time. Person Y, however, is considerably less moved that you tried following her colleague X’s advice to no avail -...
a very simple thing
“It took me years and years to realize a very simple thing, which is that when you write fiction you’re raising questions, and a lot of people think you’re playing a little game with them and that actually you know the answers to the questions. They read your question. They don’t know how to answer correctly. And they think that if they could only meet you personally and...
August 2011
2 posts
Posting from App
This is a test post
June 2011
6 posts
“Not everything in the world needs to be laughed angrily at, you realize. There...”
– The Paris review interview with Jonathan franzen
The Heart of the Matter 2
“You must promise. You can’t desire the end without desiring the means.”
Ah, but one can, he thought, one can: one can desire the peace of victory without desiring the ravaged towns.
p. 205
The Heart of the Matter
“The lights were showing in the temporary hospital, and the weight of that misery lay on his shoulders. It was as if he had shed one responsibility only to take on another. This was a responsibility he shared with all human beings, but that was no comfort, for it sometimes seemed to him that he was the only one who recognized his responsibility.”
- p. 109
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Indy Fab Club Racer
I’m pretty cool on the idea of a ‘concept’ custom bike. There’s certainly nothing wrong with building a bike with a specific purpose in mind, but the idea of having a bike specced for one particular ride or type of riding usually smacks of a transparent marketing strategies. Let’s face it: most of us are pretty lucky to have even one custom bike, and are expecting...
3 tags
Bike of the Week: Rene Herse Sportif
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Bike of the Week: Fendered Zanconato
Another little stunner. Zanc makes some fantastic looking bicycles.
May 2011
2 posts
“The online attacks on Martin suggest that some readers have a new idea about...”
– http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/11/110411fa_fact_miller?currentPage=all
“You know, it’s forcing people to put their ideas to the test and watch a...”
– Valve’s Secret to Making Better Video Games
April 2011
4 posts
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Alex Singer Sportif
Yeah yeah, so the classic-looking randonneur style is probably getting a little tiresome, and many of these bikes are just different approaches to the same style. Over the past week, though, while reviewing Curt Goodrich’s flickr stream, I saw a picture of a little innovation for looping generator lights on the frame by using a small piece of a wire brazed onto the frame. It reminded me...
How much more we pay for stuff now than we did... →
Making the news visual
How Radiolab is Transforming the Airwaves →
“Normally a reporter goes out and learns something and writes it down and speaks from knowledge,” Krulwich added. Jokes and glitches puncture the illusion of the all-knowing authority, who no longer commands much respect these days anyway. It’s more honest to “let the audience hear and know that you are manufacturing a version of events,” he noted later.
10 Charts About Sex « OkTrends →
“We were amazed at this result—money seems to be a more powerful influence on sex drive than culture or even religion.”
Really great stuff.
February 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Bike of the Week: Toei Course Route
Such a stunner. There’s something mesmerizing about the simplicity of this bicycle. Red is usually a big turn off to me as a bicycle color, but here it overcomes its frequency. Similarly, the threaded headset, downtube shifters and other vintage touches could tip the scales to being a vintage piece. But it all hangs together: simple, functional and elegant. You can just get a sense of...
For fun instead of profit
I think, if your main reason for being in business is to maximize profitability, you must hate the work itself. We recently got in some custom-made-for-us tiddly winks made out of tagua nuts. They cost us $13 a set (of 25) and we sell them for $20 and donate the difference to charity. A profit-first business could never do that. It would miss out on the fun.
- grant petersen from rivendell...
“The Internet creates the illusion that things will always be there, that there...”
– Pitchfork: Resonant Frequency: Resonant Frequency #71
Organized Crime: The World's Largest Social... →
Interesting piece on the flow of illicit money around the world.
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Toei Randonneur
Toei is a shop in Japan making bicycles in the traditional French cyclotourist style. They can seem precious at times, but they seem to consistently nail the traditionalist style without being gaudy or ostentatious. There’s an understated craftsmanship and attention to detail that are immensely appealing.
January 2011
9 posts
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Ira Ryan City Bike
I am not always one for bespoke city bicycles. I love the idea of packing my belongings on my bicycle and using it to get around town are appealing to me, but the idea of having one specially made for the purpose - and then using it to run errands and lock outside, which would be better performed by a $200 5th-hand vintage bike - makes me cringe. I live in New York, and I’m anal about...
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Pegoretti Luigino
I’m not always the biggest fan of Pegoretti paint jobs: they’re interesting and I appreciate the desire to try something new, but my preferences run much more towards simplicity, less is more, understated, etc, etc. Nothing against them, just not always my thing
This Luigino, though, has that combination of elements that appeals to me: classic with modern components, functional,...
4 tags
Snowed In
Aside from some shorter ride during my visit to Ohio and a between blizzards commute, January has been a bad month for biking. It’s not the cold, or the wind: those I can handle. It’s the mounds of frozen snow and road slush I’m wary of. The weather hasn’t hovered above 32 for long enough to melt the snow back off the roads, and every time it starts to look promising,...
3 tags
2010 Reads
Read in 2010:
January
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
Clockers by Richard Price
Raymond Carver: Collected Stories by Raymond Carver
Paris-Roubaix: a Journey Through Hell by Phillipe Bouvet
Stitches by David Small
February
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman
Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein
Pastoralia by George Saunders
March
Everything...
Winter Riding: Color Me Jealous
Got out briefly this morning, but illness has kept me off the bike for a week now. This picture makes me yearn to get out there, cold weather or not.
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Kirk Fixed Randonneur
Nice example of a (well-loved) Kirk Fixed Gear Randonneur with a custom front rack.
December 2010
1 post
10 Best Data Visualization Projects of the Year –... →
Something to reference in the future.
November 2010
5 posts
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Goodrich Sportif
I’m not always the biggest fan of red bicycles, but this is a stunner regardless of color.
Usage is like oxygen for ideas →
Usage is like oxygen for ideas. You can never fully anticipate how an audience is going to react to something you’ve created until it’s out there. That means every moment you’re working on something without it being in the public it’s actually dying, deprived of the oxygen of the real world.
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Townsend Grass Track
I’m not normally one to extoll the virtues of track bicycles or fixed gears, not because I don’t recognize their aesthetic appeal, but moreso because I don’t have personal experience with either. While I have loved commuting and even doing long rides on a single speed, both practicality and lack of extra space in my apartment have caused me to skew towards having 2 bicycles...
4 tags
Bike of the Week: Tournesol Sportif
Beautiful, practical, classic and modern, this bike is a great example of what Tournesol is capable of.
Full set here
Tournesol
6 tags
Bike of the Week: Jonny Cycles Fixed Commuter
Nice Fixed Commuter with all the practical details nicely accounted for. Sadly, Jonny Cycles stopped taking orders last year.
Full set here
October 2010
4 posts
5 tags
Fall Cycling
Getting ready for a weekend of biking with a buddy this weekend, thought I’d prepare with some images taken from my recent weekend cycling through Westchester, Dutchess County and Connecticut.
5 tags
Bike of the Week: Goodrich Bicycles
Beautiful sportif from Curt Goodrich, a true modern master with a wide range of experience and expertise.
I may need to rename this blog “stem porn”.
Curt Goodrich
Bike of the Week: Rex Cycles
Couple of nice photos of this bicycle from Steve Rex. Looks much like something I’ll soon be hoping for.
Couple of nice photos of this bicycle from Steve Rex. Looks much like something I’ll soon be hoping for.
These are, obviously, different bicycles, but the execution is similar enough to make them something of a pair.
Rex Cycles
September 2010
5 posts
5 tags
Bike of the Week: Toei
Beautifully colored Toei, owned by a man with quite a few stunners in his stable, judging by his photos. Toei bicycles sometimes get a little too close to precious for my tastes, hewing exactly to the French cyclotouring style of Rene Herse and Alex Singer bicycles from the ‘golden age’. And, don’t get me wrong, they’re beautiful bicycles. But they don’t always...
“His argument boils down to the fact that information is no longer scarce on the...”
– So, is the argument then that individual pieces of information don’t retain significant value, but their resonance and liquidity do? If we’re no longer placing value on the individual piece of information, the unique and personal insight, but instead on the number of connections that...