http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_losb8jYfqM1qz7lxdo1_500.jpg

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_losb8jYfqM1qz7lxdo1_500.jpg
http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_losb8jYfqM1qz7lxdo1_500.jpg

Fenestration

So much gown to go around

Shades of turquoise

That famous gate

Point Bonita

Grid

Well (intersections)

Mendel's Room

North Beach Streets

Today's Google Doodle is a gently animated Calder mobile in honor of the artist (who would have been 113 today if he...

Today's Google Doodle is a gently animated Calder mobile in honor of the artist (who would have been 113 today if he were, say, a tree, or giant tortoise, or something else that actually lives that long), and is charming in its subtle movements.

It comes to rest shortly after the page loads, but if you click on it, you can set different parts of it into motion, and they will drift for quite some time. It's nicely done.

"Now House liberals have hit on a fun new way of emphasizing this point: They are sending a letter today to every...

"Now House liberals have hit on a fun new way of emphasizing this point: They are sending a letter today to every House Republican asking them to raise the debt limit. Only the letter wasn’t written by House liberals. It was written by Reagan himself."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/dear-house-republicans-raise-the-debt-limit-for-your-hero-ronald-reagans-sake/2011/03/03/gIQARRv3PI_blog.html

Charts! Charts! Charts!

Charts! Charts! Charts!

Originally shared by Judd Legum

FACT: Taxes are at their lowest level since 1950. We have a revenue problem. http://thkpr.gs/ozbEko

I just watched the keynote presentation from last month's Apple WWDC, which, for me, is what I imagine it is like...

I just watched the keynote presentation from last month's Apple WWDC, which, for me, is what I imagine it is like for Catholics who actually like the Pope* to watch him give Easter Mass at the Vatican for Catholics. (*Footnote: I know primarily "recovering Catholics.") And I'm not even especially fanatical: while I had an Apple clone in my youth, I didn't, um, convert as an adult until OS X, because in my heart of hearts I will love UNIX forever, and always had a crush on NeXTStep, and that is what it is under the shiny silver frosting.

Anyway, this was the keynote that crossed the line from 'I love these people who know that computers are a means to an end, and they are focused on delivering that end' to 'holy crap, I lived long enough to see the future.'

They keynote is probably longer than Easter mass, no one was wearing funny hats, and the backdrop wasn't palatial. But the fact that Apple is the first to say, 'yes, actually, if you take a photo on your phone, our infrastructure can put it on all of your other net-connected devices almost simultaneously without you even thinking about it, and we'll do the same with your documents, and anything else you're working on...' Not a camera maker, not a website, not a lifestyle service, but Apple... THEY HAVE EXCEEDED MY EXPECTATIONS.
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/11piubpwiqubf06/event/

I wouldn't say it confuses vegans to make gelatin from yeast modified with human genes.

I wouldn't say it confuses vegans to make gelatin from yeast modified with human genes. I would say it grosses them, and everyone else, out.

The idea of ethically produced gelatin is "nice," I suppose, but there are already other plant-based thickeners and binders available that don't require so much heavy science.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/18/human-derived-gelatin-spares-the-livestock-confuses-vegans/

Men in cars are so friendly!

Men in cars are so friendly! Today I was informed by a man in a car (with his girlfriend, who was trying to turn invisible) that (a) his girlfriend thinks I am hot, (b) it is mutual (not having seen his girlfriend, I think he means something else), and (c) marriage could be a possibility (for some combination of us).

Golly.

This is one of my favorite Neistat Brothers bike films: brothers riding a 1976 Schwinn bike and a Ducati motorcycle...

This is one of my favorite Neistat Brothers bike films: brothers riding a 1976 Schwinn bike and a Ducati motorcycle compete to see who can get to an intersection in downtown NYC first.

Sure, it is played for humor, but as a gal who has PASSED A LAMBORGHINI WHILE BIKING ON HER ROAD BIKE, I can tell you there is truth in this: it's not about the speed of the machine, it is about living in a city with lots of other people on the move. A Lamborhini (or a smoking hot Ducati) loses its advantage when the average street speed drops below 20 mph.

(Note: the original video is no longer available; this is repost with different music than I remember.)

Agapanthus and asphalt

Reflected metro

Blue to peach

Special touch to my (brief) commute home today: hearing BART announce that certain stations here in SF were closed...

Special touch to my (brief) commute home today: hearing BART announce that certain stations here in SF were closed due to "civil unrest."

Inspires headbanging on the posh bus to the office.

Inspires headbanging on the posh bus to the office. Also: irrational fantasies of space battles. But doesn't most good industrial music? I think so.
http://youtu.be/EiqFcc_l_Kk

News flash: I enjoyed "Tron Legacy.

News flash: I enjoyed "Tron Legacy." But I'm concerned that you kids can't come up with your own stuff to rip off later. I mean, you have to start some time, okay? New ideas: I know they are scary, but they are so worth it. And then you can claim them, rather than just making cover versions and sequels. Think about it, okay?

Also: I like Bruce Boxleitner in soft-looking white hair and glasses. A lot. Is this wrong? It doesn't feel wrong.

More than a bud vase of hydrangeas

I ordered a bookcase a few months ago from a fancy store, and now my mailbox is filled with House Porn.

I ordered a bookcase a few months ago from a fancy store, and now my mailbox is filled with House Porn. Catalog after catalog of dining rooms the size of restaurants, filled with impossibly clean matching furniture, decorative objects, carpets so fluffy you might become lost in them, and art whose sole purpose is to provide something in the room with one spot of color that matches your decorative candelabra/ottoman/monogrammed seat cushions.

My home could look like this if I gave a designer my entire income and took an apartment somewhere else where I could actually store my stuff and LIVE.

These idealized, posh interiors remind me of a photo essay I read about, which appeared to be a collection of candid portraits of families in their excessively furnished houses, but the odd thing was that price tags were hanging from every surface. The photos were actually of artists who would sneak into Ikea and other shops in their pajamas and pose for photos while tucking their kids into the model beds in the model bedrooms when the staff were distracted; they would bring coffee mugs and newspapers and pose in the kitchens as if they lived there, etc., and after the photo shoot, would leave before anyone noticed.

I would probably feel like I was sneaking in somewhere I didn't belong if my house looked exactly like the Crate & Barrel catalog homes do.

Is there anything more convenient than joining a social network to which I already have more than 2200 photos posted?

Is there anything more convenient than joining a social network to which I already have more than 2200 photos posted? I don't think so! ;)

For the wind

Independence