Fun hack to get rid of things like your Safeway card: WalletCards on iPhone
Why is it that I don't have an original Xbox? Becuase Gina over at Lifehacker has a tutorial on how XBMC turns your Mac into the ultimate media center.
Trying out this Mac application that acts as a front-end to your Gmail data: Mailplane 2.0 beta.
Downloadable version of an interesting Getting Things Done series over at the Tools for Thought blog: A Pattern Language for Productivity.
Portfolio is reporting that Apple and HBO are close to a deal to bring HBO shows to iTunes. The big news? Supposedly, HBO will be allowed to do variable pricing, which Apple has refused to do in the past. Give me The Wire!
How have I been unaware of the spectacular politics math geekery at FiveThirtyEight.com?
Nokia's got a GPS sports tracker application in the N95: Here's my lunch ride just now.
Ten years ago today: Kerry Wood strikes out 20 Houston Astros. A month later, I was interviewing him for SI for Kids.
Over at NY Magazine, Kurt Andersen asks If Barack Obama Is Out of Touch With America, Is the Media Too? Smart column.
This week, The New Yorker has an 8,000 word profile of my friend Grant Achatz, the chef at Alinea restaurant in Chicago. As a magazine editor, and as someone who's written about Grant in Wired, it's interesting so read this story. The big difference between this and when I wrote about Grant first is that Grant has gone through an unbelievable battle with mouth cancer.
Three days later, a head-and-neck surgeon at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, not far from the restaurant, examined Achatz. He was surprised to see a man with advanced cancer show up for an appointment with his business partner. The doctor explained that the standard treatment would be to remove two-thirds of the visible portion of Achatz’s tongue and sew a piece of tissue, probably from his arm, onto the remnant. Achatz would have a natural-looking tongue, but it would have, at best, limited sensory function. He might even need a tube in order to eat. Achatz says he thought at first that the surgeon was joking: “I’m, like, C’mon, this is 2007. You guys don’t have this figured out by now? It’s, like, barbaric. C’mon, there’s got to be an alternative treatment.”
Achatz and Kokonas left the appointment stunned. Though it was only 10 A.M., they went down the street to a Mexican restaurant and ordered margaritas. Kokonas could already sense that Achatz was not going to let anyone cut out his tongue. Kokonas said, “Let’s attack this like we attacked the restaurant.” He began Googling, looking for an option other than surgery.
It's definitely worth a read. Mentioned several times in the book is the Alinea cookbook, which I'm writing some pieces for. In fact, I'm hoping to finish my final edit today. Weird how timing like that works, huh?
So, Buzz Bissinger wrote probably the best sports book of all-time, Friday Night Lights. If you only know the movie and TV series, you owe it to yourself to read the book, because no one has ever captured the importance of sports in small communities, and the ways it can break down and lift up people. Too bad that last night he revealed himself to be a bully, a troglodyte, and a jerk. If you haven't seen it, he was on Bob Costas's HBO show with Will Leitch, the editor of Deadspin, in what was supposed to be a "discussion" of blogging in sports.
The first words out of Bissinger's mouth to Will were, "I really think you're full of shit," and then he went on a minutes long tirade and rant about the evils of blogging, and how they're debasing our discourse and culture.
You can watch the full segment here.
It's sad to see a hero behave like such a tremendous ass. I can only imagine that Bissinger sees a world that he's on the wrong side of, that confuses and scares him, and that the only reaction he can come up with is to try and destroy it.
Will, who I've never met but respect greatly, was clearly set up here. Bob Costas framed the entire issue to put him on the defensive, and then tried to get the other guests to bury him. Will, to his credit, didn't sink to Bissinger's level, but simply tried to have a discussion. Later, he posted his take on the experience, which is worth reading.
Bissinger, Costas, and the traditional media are, I suppose understandably, trying to protect their world. But that world is changing, and they can either change with it, or get out of the way. I just wish that people I admire didn't reveal themselves to be not just wrong, but cruel as well.
Ben Fry's map of the US, constructed just from the streets in the country. Amazing how the roads define the territory.
If you're dual booting your computer, you might want to check out NTFS-3G, a driver to mount Windows NTFS drives from the Mac OS.
The Onion's AV Club has up a great primer on Elvis Costello, part of a fun series that has also covered Alan Moore and The Rolling Stones, among others.
So, what do you think? Interesting to strip away all the color, right? Let me know in the comments.
Can you tell I'm thinking about typography? 5 Principles And Ideas Of Setting Type On The Web, from my new favorite design site, Smashing Magazine.
Shame on Microsoft. Their "PlaysForSure" DRM scheme, which they pushed for years as a good solution for consumers, will be turned off on August 31. That means that songs you bought will still work, but if you change computers, or hardware, you'll be out of luck. This, my friends, is why DRM sucks.