Recently in web travels Category

Textdrive really cares...

Oh boy, how much I wish more things worked as amazingly well as the Textdrive support... I had lost three entries of this site during the move from server to server... (I had ignored tech support's warnings that I was still posting to the old server.) So I just assumed that the entries were lost and forgotten... I've just received an email containing all three "lost" entries, with pictures and all. How brilliant! Am I glad to be with Textdrive.

missing some good things...

Just woke up, just now, and it is 2AM, not 6PM as I had hoped when I went to take a short nap... and I really looked forward to seeing the amazing Elizabeth Harper last night. She performed downtown. And then right after this certainly incredible performance, at 8PM there was How To Kick People the March installment of the series of readings and speakings by the shamelessly intelligent Todd Levin and Bob Powers... So now I do not know how to feel a little happier (Elizabeth Harper's songs are really something and her voice... wow...) or how to kick people... and I am mostly kicking myself and it is after 2am and I will probably end up jet lagged tomorrow... or today?... Maybe now is a good time to travel to see another beautiful sunset I missed today over at Stoink, a barely born new photolog posted by "pyl213", who has an incredible view of sunsets over New Jersey (while others in her building think they have all the fun because their windows face towards Manhattan). I think the blog will document the ever changing look of her sunsets... (the last entry seems very sad... hmm... hope things are okay...) Maybe it is a perfect time to take a peek into the incommon. It is such a beautiful little place... and the brilliant little lists of of things on this also barely created blog remind me of my favorite lists in The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon or maybe in the Max Frisch diaries... (are lists very subtle hints at a brilliant mind?) Incommon is one of the many creations of a brilliant mind behind IN... (sorry for using the word "brilliant" so many times, but it is really late right now...) Or maybe it is time to read the archives of Ben Saunders's blog as he "takes on one of the toughest physical challenges ever; a journey that has so far defeated the world's leading explorers and mountaineers."... Hmm... Not only is this man doing something that no human has ever done before, he makes it look really rather beautiful... (it is a very nice looking site, isn't it?) Or... Hmm... let's see if there is anything good right now on my own personal dream channel... (Sleep, after all, is the poor man's drug of choice...) : )

come right in?

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Can you imagine this here were a real place? What if it were a room in which we would actually be present? Would it be a strange thing? Would I still say these little cryptic little pieces and pull out a little drawing out of a vault now and then? Tell some story that would not seem to make any sense? Would I, at the end, offer a little piece of paper that would be just titled: "You said?"... on the wall behind me would there be a slightly odd image that would change every time you entered the room? Would there be little drawers in the wall, labeled by month and year? Would there be a menue with other places to go? Some with comments, some not? Would there be rooms in the back? Hidden rooms?
And how many of us would be in this room here? What would we all look like? Would you get to see my father, with a camera, trying to record the conversation? Would there be very unexpected visitors from around the world? Or would it be a pretty similar makeup of people? Exciting? Smiling? Rushed? Curious? Happy?
Would you see me slap on the fingers of those who sneak in through beck doors and try to post comments for strange drugs, disguising them in sentences about Willa Cather's Lucy Gayheart? Would we watch as somebody repeatedly ask for directions, or for names of people I spoke about before?
How long would you stay? Would you tell others about it? Would you come again?
Will you?...

The Morning News Feature.

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The Morning News today features a gallery with 15 spreads out of my Moleskine Subway Sketchbooks. To make more sense of the drawings there was an interview, which turned out to be about drawing, subways and some points of view on New York. Some of the drawings in the Gallery have not been previously published, as they are a sample of work from various sometimes relatively recent sketchbooks.
The feature (interview and Gallery) is called "Seeds for the pen." (thank you Rosecrans Baldwin for putting up with me.)

If you happen to be a visitor coming from the above mentioned feature and do not really know what to expect here on witoldriedel.com, there are two complete Subway Sketchbooks with comments (about 75 pages each) buried in the archives of this blog. You might want to use the search function and look for "Subway" or "Moleskine"...
If you do not want to read much and would just like to look at some stuff, then just take a look at the shamelessly incomplete Catalogue section of the site. (And those with especially short attention spans, might want to take a look at the drawings; those with even shorter attention spans probably never made it this far anyway.)

Thank you so much for visiting the site. It amazes me every day how many people (and robots) choose to do so. (yey!)

The Morning News today, linked to some of my drawings in the catalogue on this site. (Wow, thank you!) It is moments like these when I painfully realize that most of my work is not here online... and an even smaller part of this small part, actually sits in the catalogue. If you just surfed in from The Morning News and are a bit confused about the lack of any more drawings... please use the search field on the right hand side of this page here and look for funny key words like: "360x360", or "111" or... "Moleskine"... and this will probably keep you entertained until the next morning... when this site will again become The Yesterday's News... and I will quietly write more about those barely visible little things between the barely visible little things...
Thank you so much for visiting... (A big thanks to all of the 80 or so Sites that have linked to me so far... it feels like you guys actually like what you see here... thank you...)

and now a little slower please...

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I admire the incredible photography of Eliot Shepard at slower.net. I think it is a beautiful project, the images are little masterpieces and having more than a thousand of them on one well designed site makes the experience even better.
I visit often, I leave amazed, to the point that I would feel silly leaving any comments... What happened just minutes ago let my jaw drop for another reason. Please click on the following image:

and now do not close the pop up window and take a look at a recent image on Slower.net.
Who would have thought that there would ever be such a coincidence of time and space... Eliot Shepard was obviously in the same room, at probably the same time, I might have actually noticed him, as we take pictures with the same camera...
Are these two, obviously related photographs a good illustration of Villem Flusser's theorems of us humans being mere operators of more and more intelligent machines?... Did not Eliot and I take the image, but did our cameras take them?...
I actually think that our photographs are very different. He managed to capture the situation better, I was really trying to emphasize the reflection...
(His composition is better...)
When did we take the pictures? How did we get there?...

oh, and the best effect is achieved when my photograph is on the left hand side... then the wall becomes a backdrop that continues through both of out photographs. Stunning.

(the morning of the panther)

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It came in a little envelope, no cage, no box, no leash... just a little, brown, bubbled envelope from Apple. Inside, four disks, a cute brochure, some legal magic spells in various languages of this our planet, some special advice to those who think they know how to bring up a kitten...
A black, shiny kitten... divided into three parts, reunited in the process of "installation"... I renamed my HardDrive "The Cage" until I had the little Panther kitten under control... and now it has me under control... Windows are flying all over the place. Expose is taking over my world. Things just went wild inside of my PowerBook, wild, my friends... The time is now being spoken to me, there are sounds in the mail application, tiny colorful bubbles with names are attached to things all over the place... wooow...
This is truly fantastic. A system should be simple enough to just be workable in seconds (panther appears to be just that,) it should be smart enough to get out of the way when not asked to perform any stunts (we are working on this, but boy, it is a fun exercise,) and it should be powerful enough so that it makes me believe that there is intelligent life out there somewhere in California... (and boy, it surely knows how to show that...)
So, am I happy with the new Panther in my Harddrive?... Yeah...
Do I totally get it?... Not yet.
Do I love the fact that I do not quite get it yet?... Absolutely...

As long as this animal does not grab me by the nec and carry me off stage, just because I made some silly mistake during installation... we will most likely be very happy...
How do I tell Expose to take it a little more easy on me here?...

What do you see?

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Some of the readers seem like the look of this blog. Some do not only like the look of it but also go so far to email me to tell me about it. (Which is always nice, of course.) It would be wrong to try to take credit for something I have not really coded, so I have to admit, again, that I might have somehow had an idea as to how the page should look, but honestly, I could not code my way out of a little brown bag (even with a yellow arrow spray-painted inside, believe me,) and so what you think looks like my work here is put together by hand, in London, by Tom. He is the one who coded the random image on top of this page, and he is the one who made some subtle changes to his older design yesterday... The stylesheet looks different now, we are still tweaking some of the colors and font sizes and things.
You will notice that I decided to drop this world map I used to have here on the page, as it was only really good in kicking people off the face of its New-Zealand-less world. Tom and I are now talking about an "about me page", a feature of the site which the shy me has kept under wraps for several years now... oh, and if I am really nice, we might actually get a little gallery section going, a place where it will be finally possible to exchange some of those seemingly unlimited edition portraits of dead american presidents into something created to increase in value. (Those donation badges on the right hand side of the page are just fakes, and very temporary...)
But until this all happens, Tom and I would like to see this page through your eyes. So please either link to a screenshot of this very page in the comment box, or if you feel more shy about your possibly exposed links, you can still email me...
So here again, credit where credit is due: Tom Flemming is the man behind the H, the T, the M and even the L of this page. Some code snippets were provided by Blogrolling, Chris DiClerico, and a mysterious visitor.
(If you contributed and I have not mentioned you here, let me know.)

On the other hand...

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Honestly... I could not code my way out of a little brown paper bag. Anybody who looks at the code of this page will notice that it is a mix of the good the bad and the really, really ugly. I simply do not know how to code.
And that CSS stuff?... Hmm... only those with strong nerves might want to look at the stylesheet of this page... (not even the site, I think... hmm... not sure.)
So it is a really big deal for me that I somehow managed to add this little miniblog on the right hand side of this entry... (Okay, Chris Tom did help a little, but not much...) It was all long overdue... where else could I share my passion for all those things everybody else is talking about... (You know, all those New York Times articles we all love to link to and the Wired articles?) or something like that...
Oh, and I also removed the "10 most recent entries" pulldown. (Please simply scroll down the page from now on.) The pulldown was a good one (Thank you for the code, Chris), but I had to keep my entry titles really short and cryptic so this page would not simply explode...
Enough now... (I still need to figure out how to allow comments on those mini entries... without blowing the fuses...)
Look dad, no hands...

about Harvey...

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This entry should have been here this morning, when wild masses of international readers clicked their way through from Shauny's Mac Moron site. Harvey, her little iBook friend (700MHz/20GB/12inch) made it back home, healthy and in one happy piece.
So what happened and what did the story look like from my side of the screen?
Shauna's iBook died somewhere around the 4th of July. The symptoms that accompanied his death were too familiar. First there was this high fever, then there was the coma, then there were the casual blackouts, then there was the death. I hoped that Harvey could be just fixed in Scotland, where he and his incredibly gifted owner currently reside, but the estimate returned for the necessary repair was just obscene, dirty, an insult to any mac lover. The authorized Mac shop in Edinburgh charged Shauna £50 or so to tell her that the repair of her little white apple friend would cost £870! Absolute insanity. This is (according to the always "happy" captain euro) about $1,400... to have a computer repaired? Maybe?
This was not about to happen, my friends. Harvey did not travel from Taiwan to Australia to Singapore to Frankfurt to Edinburgh just to be fixed for an amount higher than the price of a new model...
I asked Tom if he knew a shop in London that could fix Harvey for les than, hmm... £300... He actually found some expert, who was willing to help, but then ended up not returning Shauna's calls. (thank you very much.)
This situation was just ridiculous. I asked Shauna to ship Harvey to New York, because here were at least two places where he could get help quickly and for less than the cost of a new computer.
Harvey arrived nicely wrapped, accompanied by a little diagnosis sheet a few days later. He was about as dead as they get. He did not want to start up, did not want to even make a sound. The screen remained blank...
At least for a little while. I have spent so many years dealing with macs, I know that it is sometimes important to just be nice to them to make them come back from the dead. I complimented Harvey on his shiny surface, the blinking lights on his bottom... connected him via firewire... pushed his big button and voilá, the screen went on and the little computer opened up to me completely, showing me the content of his harddrive. (Attention users of osX, Jaguar: If you think that anything on your hard drive is protected by this "password" you use for a log-in... think again. You are just one of the folders on the drive when it boots up in target mode... the only thing that will protect you is the discrete nature of the visitor... I did not look at any files...) I powered down harvey, wrapped him back into his protective envelope and decided to bring him to Tekserve, the trusted name in Apple repairs, since before there was an Apple store in SoHo.
I arrived at Tekserve during my lunch break on the next day. My number was 84, I waited for about 30 minutes or so, just to be called in to sit across from a guy who really tried hard to look as if he knew what he was doing. Harvey did not like him at all. The iBook did not start, it did not make a sound, the "expert" created an info-sheet based on my description of the issues... He then told me that the repair would cost $360... this was the standard fee applied to all repairs that needed to be sent back to apple. I asked him if it would be cheaper for me to bring the computer directly to Apple.... and he told me that yes, this would be about 50-60 dollars less... Ahem... what an honest soul... hmm...
I signed a waiver that confirmed that I refused to have the computer repaired on 23rd street... Next stop would be the Genius Bar at the Apple store in SoHo.
(As I was walking out the door, there was a little mountain of "Harveys" (exactly the model) for $800 each... check that out, Scottish repair man...
A day later, in a different setting, we found ourselves on the second floor of the nicely smelling Apple Store. Left and right from us were parents with their little Harveys, as dead as my little buddy... same symptoms, same panic mode...
The young lady who's iBook looked more dead than dead let me go ahead of her, as I was a bit in a hurry and the Genius I got to talk to was Pax. Pax means peace, of course, and this Apple Genius was really very relaxed and not worried about things... was he a real genius? would he be able to heal Harvey?... To my great surprise... well, not a great surprise, but still, Harvey just started up. It took a tiny while, some little spinning action, a few minutes of this, a few seconds of that and Pax and I were looking at Shauna's log in screen. This is where I realised that I did not know the password. I felt as if I had stolen the computer, dragged it here and wanted to perform some apple laundry scheme... Did I mentioned that Pax appeared very relaxed throughout the procedure?... When I told him that I did not have the password... (among other things... I did a lot of nervous talking...) he just typed something on the keyboard once... twice... and then simply stated: "Oh, it was ••••••• how funny."... (Did I hear an angel choir sing hallelujah? did the "genius" logo glow? Not sure, but this Pax guy was indeed an Apple genius.) How funny indeed, this guy needed just two tries to get into Shauna's private space, on a computer which looked all bright eyed and bushy tailed to all of us. Pax, the genius, did not want to accept an obviously healthy machine. He gave me some time to crash Harvey, while he brought away some left overs from some other customer...
I tried really hard to crash Harvey right there at the genius bar, I really tried... I wanted him to break into sweat, to break down in Photoshop, to go blank, do at least pretend to be dead...just for a minute or two? Please?
He only fell asleep... nothing spectacular enough to have him stay the night at his secret home in SoHo...
Pax created a case number for me, to make things easier once I had to call 1-800-APL-CARE, the place where he would have sent Harvey anyway.
I took the little iBook home with me again. Turned him on...
dead.

I must have been the first caller at 1-800-APL-CARE the next day. The dude on the other side of the line gave me the slowest tech support experience of my life. He was so quiet, apparently staring blankly at his screen?, that I suggested that there should be some sort of sound, letting me know that he was still there...
"I hear a sound..." he replied...
allrighty then... he had my case number, I knew the resurrection of Harvey would cost $299, so what was his problem?...
I spent 30 Minutes listening to him do something close to nothing. His conclusion was that harvey had a broken LCD... I repeatedly had to tell him that the iBook sometimes happened to start up fine, with a shiny, beautifully bright display... silence...
He prepared me for a number which would be the price for the repair... we waited in silence for another few minutes... "$690"...
Oh, comoooon.... I asked him if he would mind to take a second look at that calculation and if there could be any shadow of a chance that the special $299 fee applied to this kind of incident... silence...
"In this particular case..."... he paused... "you might be right..."

Harvey's ambulance arrived on the day of the blackout. It was a very nice fresh brown box, it contained a little room made especially for harvey, he also got a little pink sleeping bag. All I had to do was put him into that compartment, close the box, using enclosed stickers, remove the shipping label, revealing the return address in Memphis... and just give it back to the AirExpress guy...
Supersimple...
I was not sure where Harvey stayed during the 2003 blackout... he definitely made it to the repair center in Memphis, then to the Apple Store in SoHo (apparently sharing the ride with some other happy macs?) and was then sent to me...
Healthy, happy, resurrected.
There was a little note enclosed, stating that real Apple technicians were able to fix harvey by exchanging three real Apple-parts... A bill would follow in a few days...
I should probably knock on imitation wood now and hope that the Apple dude on the phone actually managed to put Harvey into the $299 emergency procedure slot...
I shipped Harvey back to Scotland on the following day, last friday. The friendly people at Mail Boxes Etc. on Broadway and 96th got a real kick out of Harvey's story. In order to save Shauna from the burden of improper taxation, the lady at the store wrote a mini letter outlining what had happened to harvey and how he had been manufactured in Taiwan, bought in Australia and was now returning to his owner in Scotland. This would have been a simple happy ending to my side of the Harvey story... had he not tried to make another funny intercontinental jump. Apparently addicted to travel by now, Harvey faked a little mini trip to Shanghai, via Alaska... but only for a few hours. Despite of "delays" in China, he was able to get back to New York, just on time to be shipped to England, where he spent a day on a truck, celebrating a british bank holiday on Monday...

So now Harvey is back in Edinburgh, he is a little helper to Shauna. I am certain that he is happier now, having traveled pretty much completely around the world, at least virtually...
I wish I had had a little camera to show you all the places Harvey saw, at least under my watch (nothing dirty, just pure Apple fun...) but that's a completely different story... and we shall continue it some other time...
: )

BBC Three, yes it is.

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Three little animations for BBC Three, by Lambie-Nairn. Oh, these are going to be burned into your memory, I promise... especially the second one of the three... Terrible damage... yes it is... (thank you Tom)...
(More info Here...
Oh, wait, there is more... BBC - BBC THREE - Blobs (Holy Plastiloni.)

selfserviceworkinprogress

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My index fingers are currently pointing at two websites that are made by the same people and really look it. I am not saying that any of this is bad work (Some is actually quite excellent, it really is). It is just making me smile. (A good smile...)
Take a look at workinprogress (good, eh?) and now take a look at selfservicemagazine... (clearly related, aren't they?)
While we're at link jumping, take a look at the following site:ade hauser lacour kommunikationsgestaltung gmbh... (The toy on the homepage is cute, isn't it?) (Make sure you turn off any Pop-Up killers, as this site is just in love with Pop-Ups.) (Why, oh why?)(Why?)(pop)(up)(pop)
("alle fenster schliessen" means "close all windows with one mighty click")
Links discovered at Vier5... who knew?

jumping siteways...

A mysterious, intelligent commentator on this site, left a link to otogai.com as a reply to one of the earlier posts... The link is a really fascinating one of course, though I would again really like to understand more (any) Japanese.
The very first link in the link section of Otogai threw me into the arms of another mysterious man Han Hoogerbrugge and his insanely beautiful little site entitled NAILS (which apparently stands for "News, Archives, Info, Links and Stills"). The site appears to be a collection of little autobiographical yet quite stunningly bizarre flash animations... Brilliant. (There are some older ones.)
Wow...

Elizabeth Harper *sings*

This entry is an extension of a previous entry about Elizabeth Harper... I received her 14 track CD yesterday and it has been on constant repeat since. (Okay, tracks of it have been.) I am listening to a song called "Parlor Window" for more times now than I would like to admit here or anywhere. Wow, this is some stunning material.
I love this CD. I actually feel lucky and happy at the same time.
The songs all sound familiar to the level where I could believe that I grew up with them. Did I have my first kiss listening to one of the songs? Did we drive across America with Elizabeth Harper on repeat? Was it Elizabeth Harper I saw in concert when I was 22?... Did the DJ play her songs at KuBa or at the Krone?... Were Elizabeth Harper songs my very first downloads from the iTunes store?
Hmm... I wish all this could happen to someone... just like that... somebody should grow up with these songs. For somebody these should be the very first songs they hear.
Such wonderful music... such an incredible voice. Wow...
(I sound like a teenage fan, don't I... hmm... so now you know it.)

----

Update 8/7/2003... According to iTunes... played "Parlor Window" 60x, "Spaling" 22x, "Don Juan" 24x... all the other tracks about 15x.
I can not get "Clean Cut" out of my head... as well as little pieces of other tracks. This is an amazing album. Oh, how much I wish her success with this. But not so she can be successful, only so she can keep making more of these songs. Wow... such good material... really...

Digital Kitchen's hot...

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Oh, what deful movies over at the Digital Kitchen.
I am especially enjoying Women by Annie Leibovitz (which appears to be very much analogue, just wonderful), Analogue Artists Against Piracy (scary, isn't it?), Platinum looks quite sexy...
I still think that this Six Feet Under opener is one of the best pieces on American Television these days. (Like Crewdson in Motion.)
Oh, and something about these floating objects in The 6th Day blew a certain piece of my mind...
(But maybe because they reminded me of the Annie Leibovitz spot... and of the first time when I put a brush with paint into water?)

And now something "completely different"...
Can anybody tell me more about Microsoft Spot?, though I do know a 3:30Minutes worth of it...

Behind the typeface

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Monique TeSelle, a design loving type expert sent me the link to this quite spectacular little masterpiece: Behind the typeface:"Cooper Black", by Cheshire Dave. There appears to be only one of these little movies out there, but I would really love to see more of them. How can we convince Chesh to make more?... Maybe just email him... : )
I am going to watch it again now... Thanks Monique.

open letter to J. Kottke

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Hello Jason, your Open Letter to the New Yorker made me want to smile. Yes, the current (double) issue of the New Yorker does contain some flapping and wildly annoying ads. The one you mention is not the only one. The magazine opens with several pages of creative advertising. There is a Volkswagen Touareg ad with more images than words, there is a Crystal Cruises spread with a picture of a diamond as ship, there is one of those hand drawn Microsoft ads. Did you see the Urinetown ad right behind the Index? How about the 12 page insert for the new Audi A8 L (read: Au-di Ah Aght L) featuring other offline celebrities, like Guy Liberté, K. D. Lang, Robert Johnson, Daniel Libeskind, Narciso Rodriguez, John Malkovich, Lucette de Rugy and Bill Joy, all photographed in some quite cute ways. (this section does not quite flap around, but it uses some nicely matt heavy paper. Robert DeNiro and Monk fold out on pages 46 and 47. Page 61 has another flap attached... Microsoft also used a heavier stock to advertise their "tablet PC" on pages 81 and 82. There is indeed the very elaborate USB ad between the pages 98 and 101.
But the reason for all these design muscle flexing inserts and paper experiments is probably between the pages 108 and 109... see the best thing does not even come numbered. Do you see it?... It is an interactive piece by MINI. I Quote: :LET'S PARK IT ON YOUR DESK. Let's drag race our favorite pen. Let's blow past the tape dispenser. Let's avoid coffee spills. Let's not get pulled over by your boss. Let's get lost in the office. On a 1/56th scale - LET'S MOTOR.
Above and below this cute little line are two paper-models of those new MINI cars. They come with beautifully illustrated instructions on the back. They do not require scissors. They are pre-cut. A bliss.
So, you can probably guess what I have done. I've torn out all of the flaps and ads and things prior to the unnumbered MINI piece. I made up a little parcour (that's French, I guess?) and took my two truly mini mini-cars for a ride. (Okay, it was more of a race.)
David Sedaris is probably doing the same thing, right now, passing the sign "Now" and "Urine" at grotesque speeds. We all slow down at the leftovers of the off-road VW ad. Daniel Libeskind watches us with his contained smile.
Broom, broom, let's motor. Let's not complain that debut can indeed be also spelled début, at least according to this "website" (or Web site).
All the best from the desk of somebody who enjoys advertising and does not expect to be ever quoted in the New Yorker. ; )
Good night.

BugBear...

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Incredibly targeted virus treatment. A mail in Polish!, from GettyImages!, telling me if I could please just move the little bee a bit into the top right corner, so it goes better with the rest of the folder. Wow. I am not even sure if the virus filter that warned me about this one is part of my .mac account or my roadrunner/earthlink combination, but I am glad it happened. The virus would have probably not attacked my mac anyway, but I should probably never bet on it...
Did you get in touch with bugbear?


The attachment 1000000967700.jpg.pif with this email was found to contain the W32.Bugbear.B@mm virus and could not be disinfected. The attachment has been removed from the email. Please ask the sender to repair and resend it.
The attachment top-level-msg with this email is believed to contain a virus, but the condition cannot be confirmed, or the file cannot be disinfected. It is recommended that you DO NOT open the file until you have checked it with anti-virus software.

This message has been processed by Brightmail(TM) Anti-Virus using
Symantec's Norton AntiVirus Technology.
From: XXXX_XXXXXX@gettyimages.com
Date: Fri Jun 6, 2003 6:08:57 AM America/New_York
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Re: mini katalog


Prosze podciagnac pszczolke bardziej w prawy gorny rog, aby byla bardziej
zintegrowana z tytulem niz z reszta foldera.


**********************
This e-mail is confidential and may contain privileged information.
If you are not the addressee it may be unlawful for you to read, copy,
distribute, disclose or otherwise use the information in this e-mail. If
you are not the intended recipient ple

reinvigorated

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Hello, I just saw you come in. The squeaky door gave you away. Feel free to look around, take a seat, read some of the entries, take a look at the pictures... write some comments, enjoy.
I really saw you come in. I was watching the door this morning. The traffic to this particular page is being monitored by re_invigorate, the nicest looking traffic monitoring tool I have encountered so far. And it now has this really neat feature that allows me to watch you come in and even to see where you might be coming from. No, I do not know who you are, no worries about your privacy. I know what computer system you use, I know your screen resolution, I know something about your browser. All of these pieces of information help me make this site a little better.
Oh, and can I offer you something to drink, what would you like?

For the huge desktops...

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Ladies and Gentlemen on osX (and with this huge new screen), let's put our hands together for:Konfabulator!.
(via Dominik Gwosdek


CoolStop.com

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Who would have thought. WitoldRiedel.com is the Coolstop's Best of the Cool Daily Pick for 02/12/03. This comes as a serious (very positive!) surprise, of course. What makes this special link much more incredible though is the glowing review that comes with it. I am touched, honored, amazed. This is such a great review. I have no words.
Also, coolstop.com appears to be quite an incredible site. Wow. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
thank you!

Hello...

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I wonder if this link will work for you.
Thank you for the link, Chris. I wonder is atmosphere.net made this clever flash tool.

Todd Levin on the 9

If you like the Subway drawings, you should read some Subway writing as well. Todd posted some excellent observations from the 9 train and others of course. Enjoy your meal.
For those who are out of town, or maybe just live on the east side: the 9 train is like the 1, 2 and 3 trains (it has a red circle around the white number and runs under Broadway and 7th Avenue), but it is a local train (to the Staten Island ferry Terminal, so it never reaches Brooklyn) and runs only during rushhour, thus it is always packed. (Now everyone knows...)

Stripey, camera, action!

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It is really fantastic to see a community spirit here on the site. And it is also amazing (though not surprising,) that readers of this daily notepad seem to be incredibly creative people. You, yes you. Thank you for surfing by with your Macintoshes and Windows machines, with your Internet Explorers and Safaris from all over the world. (Can the person who surfed here via ARPANET please stand up?)
Thank you so much for sending in your desktops and little pictures of stripey the icon-sock-dog. Most of the pictures were posted in the comment section of this entry,and Shauna suggested that Victor Stripey Hugo might deserve his own blog, just like Hugo, the ferret.
I am not sure I am as good with setting up blogs as Anna.
The reason for this entry are two animations I received today, both featuring Stripey and not posted in the comments. First, let’s dim the s as we take a look at a little dock action filmed by Deane: Here we go. A really cute animation, I think. I have no idea how he filmed such an intimare moment of Stripey the dog in his dock. I watched the movie many, many times today. (Even though I have my own stripey in my own dock.)
This evening a simply fantastic Stripey movie arrived here. I laughed out loud when I saw it. It is a masterpiece. Rob Tourtelot is the creator and once you’ll see the little flash you will understand why this man is one of the most sought after flash experts in New York. (He is more than just that, but that's more than fits into a post.) Take a look at this secretly filmed glimpse at Stripey, when he felt unobserved. Here we go. Fantastic, isn’t it?
Thank you so much for all of the pictures and animations and emails. These have been very happy days. Thank you. : )

Sweet 90 Seconds.

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Is anybody keeping track of bloggers who give up so early in the process that their sites become "monuments of 3 minutes" rather than archives of enjoyed years?
How crazy is CrazyJane?
I think, pretty crazy. She is probably still waiting for us to tell her how to make her site "as cool as other people's." Had she only left us an email address, we could try to tell her. Just keep writing, crazyjane! 90 seconds sometimes just are not enough.

Pucca *Funny Love*

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There seems to be an animation company in Korea that makes these really cute little animations. Take a look at Pucca (Funny Love) very smooth animations and a Korean sense of humor (I guess). Hope you do not mind that I took the link from your site frostymoss

the world according to josh

A great find. Josh Parsons seems to be more of a philosopher than an art critic, but hey, this is the internet, so each one of us puts it to use in one way or another. Josh looked at the world, looked at the maps of countries around the world and decided to give them grades. Some he liked, some he did not. There are various criteria. A blinking Christmas tree icon stands for a flag that he finds too busy, there is a category for too many stars, flags that make him nauseous, you get the idea, he just went out there and had an opinion. Is this whole system fair?, nah. Is it an educated commentary? Of course not. But it is funny, and he is very subjective, and sometimes what counts is any point of view. Take a look at the flags and what he thinks about them.

Mozilla crunched this blog

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Things are not looking good on this page when seen with a Netscape browser, or with opera... or basically anything but IE5 (on a mac?) This is a clear problem, I clearly caused it by poking around in the MT code, and I do not know the solution to it.
Do you know more than I do?, would you mind helping me out to find a way to fix this annoying mozilla display thingy? Thank you so much in advance. May the force be with you.

hi?, where in the world are you?

This is a test. I am not sure if I am going to keep this thing on the site. As you might probably have noticed this site is supposed to be simple and easy and simple and about content, not some fancy interfaces and distracting stuff. But how could I resist this exciting little extension, that allows you to show me (and others) where you are. It is fun. And you do not need to submit your email address, or picture. Just leave a little square. I am not sure if I will keep the map. It is just a test. Do you like it? (comment please)

souvenirs, souvenirs.

The souvenirs were basically a flop. Nobody has used them to link to the site. I made 49 but it was probably too difficult to code them into the pages. Now things are super easy:
1. go to the souvenirs page
2. grab the code at the bottom of the page
3. paste this code into the code of your page...
4. (optional) change the name of the number in the name of the file to anything from 0001 to 0049
and voilá, you have a tiny souvenir on your site. It is pretty easy, isn’t it? I even host the pictures for you. Why am I doing this? not quite sure, i just know that I want to give away so much more, but do not have time to make more right now.

And now something completely different

And now something completely different...Sockmonkey photo-story

Kicked the Calendar

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“Kopnac w kalendarz”, - “to kick the calendar”, is a slang expression for dying where I was born. I am not dead yet. It is just that I kicked out this pretty Calendar that used to decorate the sidebar of this blog. I write something every day. Actually several times a day, so the calendar was pretty useless. I know that there are fantastic ways to deal with a calendar in Movable type. (See superbe Dawn-calendar), but I am far from being skilled enough to do crazy great things like that. So for now, whatever seems more urgent made it to the top. The seven last entries, for lazy scrollers, and the archives are now officially above the fold. You want better stuff than what I have to offer? Start scrolling. Cheers.

Netscape 7

There are little bulges on the interface of the window I am am writing this post in. So much going on. I have not managed to simplify the interface yet. Is it possible at all? Oh, and the post appears in front of me as a single line of copy. There are no up and down scrollbars in the window, just one ever smaller one that allows me to sroll left and right. I am in Netscape 7. The future of the 10%? Very interesting. But it renders the blog really well. So if the elements on this page fly all over the place for you, because you love netscape, and because you use a Netscape browser to view this page, please go ahead and download the Version 7 preview and take a look at what things were supposed to look like here. Boy, I really hope this post does not appear as a single line of copy once I post it.

Hivelogic.com

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Who knew? My freshly placed wanderlust button teleported me straight to the high quality site of Dan Benjamin, the mastermind behind Hivelogic, and because chances are that the button will bring you somewhere else, I mean to a completely different corner of the web, just feel free to click on the just mentioned link. Oh, and have you heard of Jet Propulsion Labs or Infinite Machine? Well, he rents these domains... and works on POSTMASTER, which is supposed to combine the best of blogger, Radio and movabletype. And all this from one man? Wow.

What happened with this blog?

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Hello, how are you today? Yes, this is still the same blog, I just tried to simplify certain things. Add other things. No, I do not know how to code. I have no idea how I got this far.
Things that bothered me:
- this stretching of the blog. Fixed width is much better and more predictable.
- site navigation. It was buried somewhere under the archives, now it is on top.
- the header. The photograph of my plants just did not quite make sense anymore... I remembered that some time ago I wanted to use one specific drawing as a theme throughout the site. The full drawing might be a bit too much to be used as an illustration, but fragments might work quite well.
I keep the drawing on the bookshelf next to the table here (it is blue-black ink on shikishi paper).



The changes on this page here are not quite over yet, so please come back. And let me know if something does not work for you. I will see what I can do. I know that the page looks horrible in Netscape. Hmm... I should probably just go to sleep now.

A click on the random BlogSnob ad on this page brought me to SomeTHiNG...from Glasgow, I think and there, in the header of the page, was this wonderful Anne Frank Quote:
“How wonderful it is that we can start doing good at this very moment.”
Yes. And we should. Let’s.
Take a look at the entire site. I have the feeling that I will be learning a lot from this gentleman.

What makes me blush?

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The Russian contestant of the Miss Universe contest just admitted that she blushes whenever she “lies”, not what the translator said. Oh well. It does not really matter, or does it? ;)

75 clicks.

Hello boys and girls. Some old men are going to select a new Miss Universe this year again. It will be an event sponsored by our good old Donald Trump and transmitted on our good old CBS. The process will be pretty non interactive, for sure, just some channel surfing during the commercials. We all love clicking however, and you probably got here because you click. So, 75 of the candidates from 75 countries can now be clicked on here. The “article” is in German, but you might be able to figure out the very international navigation system: Check out the tiny thumbnail images, and if you like an image, use your mouse or pointer or whatever you use and click on it. (you will see a larger version of the same picture. You might have done something similar before.)
All models are dressed in bikinis or bathing suits, so I would rate the site PG. I know some surfers will be surprised that there are 75 countries that participate in this (Some will be surprised that there are still 75 countries out there). Let me know what your favorite country is. Oh, and for the very last time “Paris” is not a country and “Africa” is not a country either. No, Vatican did not participate.
Oh and one more question. After seeing Episode II. Can this competition be seriously called Miss “Universe”?

I can not believe that Vern did not make it into the Top three of the Viewers' Choice Marathon. What’s wrong with you people? This show is about Vern and the others. It is basically the Vern Show. (He deserves a Vern show.)
Dear foreign viewers. Trading spaces is a silly little interior decoration show on The Learning Channel here in the US. Neighbors (2+2) have the chance to redecorate a room in each other’s home. The time is limited (48 hours) and so is the budget ($1000). The neighbors get help, of course. Their helpers are there professional interior designers. Some of them are a bit crafty, like Frank Bielec, some just “convince” the neighbors of their “ideas”, like Hilda Santo-Tomas or Douglas Wilson. There are some better listeners like Genevieve Gorder and Laurie Hickson-Smith (they are really good).
Yes, and then there is Vern Yip, the guy who is my personal winner every time. His work is just very carefully adjusted to the actual needs of the situation. He has the ability to put his ego aside and just create great spaces. In 48 hours within a 48 hour budget, from coast to coast. A real hero. So no wonder I am a (tiny bit) upset that he is not in the top three shows elected by viewers to be shown as the climax of the “Trading Spaces Marathon”. Oh well. I think Vern is the man. Give him his own show! Please.
Oh, and why would I even write about such a show here? It is an addictive piece of television and there are tears and laughter in every episode and there is this voyeuristic factor too, of course. How do people live? How would they like to live? Our dwellings are obviously not always like the pictures out of wallpaper*... So this is the kind of reality show I enjoy. Yeah. Make fun of me now... (Well I am obviously more addicted to my blog than I am to the show, because the shows is on right now and what am I doing? There are Charlatans on my headphones and I am blogging away. Or am I moving type?)

stripes in the sky.

There are pink stripes in a baby blue sky this morning. It was so good to meet old friends in a dream. And I am glad that my subconscious managed to polish our edges, leading to such a harmonious conversation. Simply wonderful and good. It began about ideas in architecture and continued without end through all disciplines, all. The sky seems like a sweet extension of the world I just was lucky enough to spend a few hours in. Such innocently happy moments. A smile.

Good Morning. It is May 20th. The moment of truth. I am very happy to present twelve Photographs by the wonderful Hilary Johnson of ClutteredLife.com
Hilary sent me a selection of sweet pictures of her two beautiful children and her handsome husband (the dog was also in one of the pictures). It was not an easy choice, but I somehow managed to pick twelve images, as promised. It is a tiny story, it seems... about a sister, her wild baby brother and the happy house and a tree. Hilary experimented a bit with black and white APS film, giving the images a very interesting feeling of suspence. I tried to keep some of that mood in my selection. Enjoy. (Hope you like the selection, Hilary.)

All photographs are © Hilary Johnson. Project made possible by The Film Exchange Project

I hope AtlantaGeek has not forgotten about the project and remembered to post my images today. (Click him.)

we are top 10

Who knew, who knew. I made it to #6 on Capn Design’s Top 10 List. I would probably not really care. (You know I do care.) But I am right behind Tom Waits. I will not argue with this particular selection. I am certainly not as good as Tom Waits. Never will be. What makes me feel a bit less comfortable is that I am higher on the list that G*d-Man. (G*d!, Man!) and even higher than the author’s sister! Hmm.
I guess I should not complain. The excuse why I did not make it to #1 sounds very honest. It is my writing. It is not quite there yet. Give me some time, please. (I will never be better than Tom Waits though...)
The site also contains one of my favorite Photos on blogs: NYC Reporter can you see this natural posture, or how he holds the microphone? (please also note the traffic .)
A nice snapshot from around ground zero.

...only much better.

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I do not even know where to begin. I used to sign my name by adding a little drawing of my face as part of my signature. (Yes, it was all over my credit cards, and even in some legal documents.) I am a left handed, completely right brained person. I have a blog. I even have a T-Shirt that says “I did this.” in German. (It is actually “I was the one who did it”, or “Ich wars”)
Today somebody showed me the website of a guy, who is/does/has all of the above, except he is a funny and very smart writer.
So if you are here because you think that this blog is funny, head over to tremble - I did this, and upgrade yourself. Cheers. I will keep on drawing. ; )

movable land in movable type.

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Looks like the web is a tiny village after all. Beautiful Gardens, ideas, all bloom. It was brought to my attention today that I have a Neighboring blog. That deals with beautiful things like real plants and real places. Real movable land, not just type. I think that this is quite beautiful. I like the site. It is so and so to the point. And I like the products too. Plant carriers and soft planters. And there is also a blog. A beautiful garden. Go visit. Maybe tonight?

A3 and red no more.

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Michael Dodt just sent me a link to a great flash site of a new Knoll workstation system which will be available for order entry tomorrow. The new Knoll system is called A3, just like the German paper size. (It is twice as big as A4, and just half as big as A2). The designers of the system are Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture.
The site is supposed to be a companion to a printed brochure, but I think it does work great just the way it is. (I have not seen the printed piece, of course.) The site uses flash appropriately, as a tool to display information, not to flash it. I like that.
I sense that A3 is somehow an answer to Herman Miller’s Red. Yes, Red the URL does not seem to work anymore and neither does it seem possible to find “red” furniture on the Herman Miller site. Hmm.

A3 different link) looks like a lot of fun. It looks very intimate and quiet. It might be a tiny bit too large for our apartment but an office filled with these workstations must look like the future seen from 1999. (Bright and happy) I have the feeling that many office managers will still opt for the Swedish alternative. IKEA as the conservative choice. What a strange world do we live in.
Still sly confused about the Herman Miller move. What if I wanted parts?

Pestcards.

It is raining outside and I slept for maybe four hours or so. Today will need to be devoted to those less creative things. Getting rid of at least a portion of my Postcard collection seems like a perfect use of time. I just send about 10 pounds of postcards to the recycling bin. No worries, no important historical Documents among them. The postcards I am throwing away today are those “free” ones, the ones from M@xRacks and GoCard. I have so many of these, that throwing away three boxes does not even feel noticeable. I just used to take ten at a time. Yes, I am one of those people whom I hate myself. I was responsible for some of the good ones missing when you wanted them, maybe. But after browsing through the hundreds and hundreds of them, I think I was only responsible for the bad ones disappearing. My collection are mainly bad postcards. Some really bad. And plenty of them.

There are many more postcards at my parents’ place in Germany. A friend once gave me the half of her parents’ collection. Her Parents used to travel extensively in the 60’s, but had decided not to take any photographs themselves, just buy the postcards available in those various villages and little towns all over Europe. I remember that the postcards were quite good, but this is what I thought of my free post card collection as well.

I am not alone. Martin Parr (what a man!) has his collections of Boring Postcards and as far as I know, (or as far as I learned from McSweeney's Issue 6), Walker Evans’s collection of several thousand postcards is now at the Metropolitan... Hidden somewhere, deep inside the museum.

And now, let’s shift our minds.

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The new edition of SHIFT is out. The current issue is #066 (note the leading zero).
Taketo Oguchi brings us more de. Among other things a cover and an interview by the grand British Illustrator, Pete Fowler, father of places like MONSTERISM and also responsible for some Super Furry Animals’ looks. (Hair, or no hair).
Hey, I just discovered that * saas fee * have contributed their greeting cards to this issue as well. Moni and Alex used to be the founding members of Arosa 2000, this little gallery we had in Frankfurt/Main in Germany some time ago in the last century. (Michael Dodt was the major force who made this project possible.) So some of the places you see in the cards are inspired by real Frankfurt locations. It is a tiny world after all. Gute Nacht.

The Tadao Ando interview

I will just make it a separate, minimal post. Read the Tadao Ando interview from the current issue of Architectual Record. It is brief, billiant and to the point.

Architectual Record indeed.

One should get the Architectural Record at least once a year. For all of those who do not want to deal with yet another subscription, just spend the seven dollars on the May issue of the record. It is a really (really) good one. Yes, the website is good, of course. It is quite worth a visit too. But nothing beats the little journey into articles and interviews with Glenn Murkutt or with the AIA Gold Medal winner this year, Tadao Ando (love his work in concrete), and the unbelievably wild adventures in architecture in general. All tucked away between advertising for products like Copper or Steel.
The May issue discusses the thinking that is due for the World Trade Center site, focuses on ing, sheds on stunning stadium projects from Sapporo to Miami, the Neue Gallerie on New York’s Upper West Side and even the Chancellery in Berlin.
The issue is a great starting point for those who want to know just who is who in current streams of architecture, as it lists those who were distinguished by the American Institute of Architects 2002 honor awards. Pages and pages of pretty stunning projects. No wonder some architects feel as the ultimate artists. (So do some directors too.)
I had great fun browsing through the issue. If you can not get the magazine where you live. Expect some commentary on this site.

Meet the Rabbit in under 10K?

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meet the rabbit !!! is quite excellent. 10KB of fun.
Click him. he will cling to you.

Linkdup

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To be quite honest, it was ultramicroscopic where I found the mother of all links, it seems:
. linkdup. Thank you Michael.

the craziest clock.

As I was looking at links of the Filmexchange project participants, I came across this site:Tripledub with probably the craziest clock. Annoying but really funny... (worth a click)

The boy and the car catalogue.

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When I grew up in Poland in the 70’s, one of the greatest achievements for a boy was to have a collection of those shiny western car catalogues. The paper quality of these print pieces was just superior to anything else we had and there were always these glimpses of the world on the other side of the iron curtain. My parents liked German Quelle and Neckermann catalogues more, of which I only liked the winter versions, as they included toys.
Car catalogues were simply the greatest thing. They were something of a currency among us boys. There were Stamps, of course, there were cans and there were these car catalogues. And as much as there are real shares on a stock exchange, one could also deal with options. The addresses to car dealerships in the west or to manufacturers in the west were like the options for the car catalogue currency. Dealing with them was more risky, of course, since they needed more work to turn them into car catalogues, but the reward of writing a letter to one of these addresses and receiving a shiny big envelope filled with the latest models of cars was one of the greatest things one could think of. The addresses were scarce because nobody wanted to create an “inflation”. The car manufacturer would never send out catalogues to 20 boys. One for sure, two, yes, five not very likely. We knew that they were paying money to send us the advertising material and we knew that we had to offer something. The letters we wrote were a bit like love letters. We would use many colors, draw cars, maybe the company logo. (If we knew what it looked like, of course.) Some brands just did not sound real. Some addresses just sounded too risky to exchange anything for. Who would be stupid enough to write to a company called “Rover”. Rower means Bicycle in Polish, so the Rover cars were a running joke of the playground. Other names were better known. Mercedes was a clear winner. Mercedes-Benz, just the sound of the brand was worth something. I shared the address of Volvo for the address of Mercedes-Benz in Paris. Zbyszek Waskiewicz was a very smart kid in my class. His mother was a teacher, like my mom, and he was smart enough to skip second grade. His worked in France. Zbyszek would deal with trading cards of French soccer players and was able to demand exorbitant amounts for them, because nobody else had “trading cards”. It seemed pretty logical that Zbyszek would give me a Mercedes-Benz address that happened to be in Paris. I thought that maybe his brought him the address. I copied every letter of the piece of paper he gave me onto an envelope, wrote my kind request in Polish, of course, and sent out the request letter to Mercedes-Benz in Paris, France. The letter eventually came back, all stamped up. The address was a fake. Good thing that I already had my Volvo catalogues, so chances were that Zbyszek did not even get his letter back, even though my address was very real.
Later, after we moved to Germany, I only drove Mercedes. They were old cars, but only Mercedes. I sold my last Mercedes just days before moving to the US. I now use public transportation, as having a car in New York City is a bit of a silly thing. (I can see the Subway station as I am writing this.)
I walked by the Mercedes-Benz dealership yesterday. I could not stop myself but to walk in and ask for the new SL catalogue. I am obviously not the little Polish boy anymore and I did not arrive there as a crayon drawn plea letter in Polish. The Salespeople did not want to help me. They claimed that they did not have anything on the new SL. There was a waiting list of a year and a half. One lady went to the back to ask somebody, but she could not find the brochure I was looking for.
I then saw the main Manager of the branch. He asked me why I needed this particular catalogue. I just smiled, oh, just to have the really well designed piece that was made to help sell an expensive car. He smiled. He said something of a “private stack”, went to the back of the dealership and came back with this shiny big brochure of the new Mercedes SL.
I felt like the little boy in Jastrzebie-Zdrój when he gave it to me. So strange. I still like these car catalogues. (I actually also collect stamps.) I guess not much has changed. I wonder where Zbyszek Waskiewicz hangs out these days.

Droppod

It is late, it was a busy day. While I am asleep, please enjoyDROPPOD. I am usually not too crazy about sites that use plenty of bandwidth just to move around their interface, (witoldriedel.com is as simple as possible, isn’t it?), but sometimes these interfaces are fun. Droppod seems nice. I will look at it again in the morning. Please comment. Good night.

Mozco still makes great icons.

It is easy to forget that the great master of hand drawn icons, Igarashi Susumu aka Mozco, is a planner for law-related publications. So he is not officially an “artist” or a “designer”. His work is quite stunning though. Every single time.

Buckwheatminster Fuller

How did it happen that I came across this Geodesic Dome Gingerbread
. Click on the image to get the whole Spaceship Earth scoop. Funny. Thank you Diane.
(you could also make something bigger, yet certainly not as yummy.)

ideo site relaunch.

ideo, relaunched ideo.com yesterday. the site is simple and good, quite enjoyable. Their work is legendary... As we all know, don’t we?... You should also definitely read The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley. (Just try to skip the hundreds of times he mentions the invention of the apple mouse.) ; )

The other AOL

One of the websites I like returning to from time to time is the other AOL. It is AfricaOnline.com. AOL is a portal to many quite fascinating sites from Algeria to Zimbabwe. I probably like the site because it covers news that somehow do not make it to the media here in the US, even though they should.


Supposedly I am a Metafilter.
A reliable source of constantly updated cool and ridiculous links.
Keep 'em coming.

Take the What Blogging Archetype Are You test at GAZM.org
The picture is not of me. I am actually not a member of metafilter. Maybe some day. I guess it is time for me to go outside now. The sun is shining, the president flew by and I am not celebrating this first of may event correctly.

According to Justin’s Heavily commented stuff the posts on WitoldRiedel.com/MT receive and average 0.538461538461538 comments. “We need to make that pie higher”, feel free to comment. (And a big thanks to all of you who are courageous enough to post any kind of commentary.)

Focus of Energy

Chris recently reported about some eye opening martial arts experiences that remind us that there are more powers around us than we might be able to directly and easily understand. Good thing.
Chris’ description is definitely worth the click and a read.
I also like his angry description of his commute. Subways can get packed during rush hour... Maybe there should be a post just about that... Let me see...

Eeksy-Peeksy on May 1

If you would like to start your May on a bright yet educated note, head straight to Eeksy-Peeksy. His blog might be one of the most poetic out there, and today his observations from Poland focus on Snails and Great Tits (Kohlmeise in German and Sikorka in Polish.) Eeksy-Peeksy is currently in Poland.

ten18, a mysterious site...

Ten18 a mysterious site somewhere close to the center of the web. It is all about the work. And the work is of clean, high quality for high profile clients. Look at the work, click on “what’s next” and try to find out more. Hmm, we will try to find out more...

Silvia Burghardt’s poetry in motion

One more tiny post from Pixelpalais. Zwischenraum, one of several interactive flash pieces by Silvia Burghardt. This one somehow about New York, isn’t it?

an espresso post

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Neille has a Point (see the last comment for Regular, with two sugars.) , the Starbucks article was also meant in a way that Starbucks is so popular because it is an office extension of the living room for many, many New Yorkers. I know the situation has improved recently, but I remember almost renting a room that had no doors. (it had a curtain). Or this other friend lived in a room with three walls. (It was a bit like a cubicle in a fashion studio.) Another friend who now moved back to Germany once rented a room that turned out to be a bunch of walls built around a bunk bed. (What she thought was a window, turned out to be a picture of a window.) Apartments can be tiny in New York. (I know some are not, and there are many great large, beautiful ones with spectacular views). Starbucks offers this predictable business friendly environment. (I can not find this Cartoon which I think was in the New Yorker, but might have been in the HBR where three business people enter a starbucks and order a workstation and lattes.) In a city where so many are writers and freelancers and small-entrepreneurs, Starbucks is like these Airport lounges for business travelers. A controlled, predictable environment. It is much easier to meet in a starbucks or to write a story in a starbucks or to even read the paper in a starbucks sometimes than it is to do the same at “home”. And then there are the distances. When we had an office in the woolworth building I would often have freelance meetings in the starbucks across the street from city hall, because I did not need to travel anywhere, it was a quiet place and it was less than an office somehow.
So while Starbucks is turning into an office for many New Yorkers, the Gym supposedly turns into the new living room. OK, maybe more than that, but that’s another story.
I have this strong feeling that I will need to rewrite this post a bit, but I need to run now, because I finally managed to get an appointment with a dermatologist this morning. The guy was so booked, I had to book almost two months in advance. Yesterday his “automated confirmation system” called to remind me of my appointment. Really. A Robot called our answering machine and even went through all the menue choices with her. “to confirm your appointment, press one”... And so on. My answering machine was not smart enough (yet) to give the right answers. My machines will call your machines... I will probably get 3 minutes with a real human being this morning. OK, have to run.

riding her bike and blogging

Marie-Chantale Turgeon from wheniridemybike now also has a {Weblog}. Please comment on her blog, because right now I am the only person commenting... (in my lengthy, lengthy way, poor Marie-Chantale).

redd blog is up.

Eric "the Redd" Feliciano started his blog today. Get ready for the real real look behind the scenes how this city works. Looking forward to reading all about it, Redd!...

Links of the day

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Ok, I can not hold it back anymore. Here are some places I visited today... preshaa-robots and I got their link from guigalaxy who’s link came from the pseudoroom. And then there was MUROI's Art Factory and this: Ra's Page and all of this happened because of Pixelpalooza 2002.

pretty old... (or pretty young...)

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Mememe, all about me.... Here is the truth about my age:

You said your birthday is 12 / 20 / 1969 which means you are 32 years old and that you were:

27 years old when Princess Diana died
(and I remember watching the news in my tiny Apartment on 73rd street, in complete disbelief)

25 years old at the time of Oklahoma City bombing
(I know this will sound completely horrible, but for some reason this horrible tragedy did not make the news as much in Germany as it did in the US, so I could not quite relate as much. I obviously lived in Germany at that time.)

24 years old when O. J. Simpson was charged with murder
(This one was a very US specific phenomenon. German Television just gave us tiny glimpses of it.)

21 years old when Operation Desert Storm began
(I lived in the Bettina Strasse in Offenbach and the Planes would fly over our city because of the proximity of the Frankfurt Air base. If was pretty scary. War felt very close. A bit too close. I was an art student at that time)

19 years old during the fall of the Berlin Wall
(I remember driving in my old Mercedes in the middle of a rainy night, when the news hit the airwaves. I cried. I cried immediately and for a long time. We had escaped from Poland in 1981 and I had just refused to serve the Western German Army, because I did not want to be in a conflict in which I might have to shoot at my former friends and family. Among other reasons, of course. It was just a very personal thing. The world was about to change. It was a very big event for me. I remember driving into East Germany a few weeks later, a bit in disbelief that it actually happened)

16 years old when the space shuttle Challenger exploded
Saw it live on Television. And it was heartbreaking. I do not think I really understood.

14 years old when Apple introduced the Macintosh
I remember this one quite well. A friend’s brother bought one as soon as they came out. He had an apple IIe before that. I had an atari600XL and loved it.

13 years old during Sally Ride's travel in space
I do not remember.

11 years old when Pres. Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr.
We were in Poland, I think... It was shocking but it was ok that the president was so protected. I had no idea.

9 years old at the time the Iran hostage crisis began
It was a big story on the news. But I was more interested in other things, for sure.

6 years old on the U.S.'s bicentennial Fourth of July
An event not global enough to shake the Airwaves for a 6 year old in Poland.

4 years old when President Nixon left office
I was too young to know. I only remember the following presidents. I thought it was really cool that one of them had the name of a car. I was a kid, you know.

2 years old when Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot
I had just written my first novel... No wait... Not really... Do not remember this one, of course...


Taken from Boy the Bear's Age Gauge

Nothing But The Truth

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How much more New York can I stuff into this Blog? To tell you Nothing But The Truth, not much. This blog has been spotted by the radar of a journalist of Deutsche Welle, Konstantin Klein. Konstantin’s primary blog has linked to this site, which makes me quite happy, because his Blog is written in German. This might make some of us happier than others, but I feel encouraged to start a Zweitblog in Deutsch.
If you read German, you should definitely get to know Nothing But The Truth, as it is not only written in German but also with this unique German sense of humor.
If you really want to find out all about it and can not read German yet, try the English version which should be called Nichts als die Wahrheit. (which now actually makes me get the joke, as it means “Nothing but the Truth” and at the same time almost:“Nothing as the truth”. See, quite a brilliant guy.) How does he manage to write several blogs in two languages and make them look so great, and get it all together? Only time will tell. Sehr Beeindruckend. (Very impressive.)
Worth a visit, worth a link. I am adding Nothing But The Truth to my daily information sources.

Heatherandtinylittlepenis.com

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Today everybody seems to be linking to Heather Havrilesky’s Salon article with the appropiate title: One ring to rule them all. This comes as no surprise, as she is the one who made suck.com’s writing so funny and who now runs one of the very best blogs ever written, the one with the embarrassing URL (tinylittlepenis.com, thus the title of this post), the one and only rabbit blog. So just imagine a writer of this magnitude writing about the show of the moment, The Bachelor on abc. She gets the angle right, she spells it out. She creates “wedding porn”, she made me laugh. She made me laugh by writing in a style Karl Marx would have been proud of, a style so dense and complex it feels like reading a collection of new mathematical formulas at times. I know it is me. I know that I am far from mastering this language of the most abundant vocabulary, so I do not want to complain.
Heather’s great accomplishment in the article is to translate certain aspects of Americana which I am still only able to observe with my jaw dropped, quite surprised how this place with these rules can call itself the “land of the free”. A German friend once said, (and I am quoting him, because quoting myself just feels narcissistic this second): “We do not date in Germany, we have relationships”. Can you imagine?
What is going on in America, why do people even agree to this strange square dance called dating?, what is it all about?, the first date, the second date, the third date. The first base, the second base, the you know what. All the rituals seem so scripted. When watching the last episode of “the Bachelor” (unbelievable, but I actually watched it...), it became clear again, that there is this reality track to the life of some young Americans and then there is this scripted straight from television emotional track, which just can not be real, it must have been bread in General Hospital, or on All My Children. Dr. Phil?, can you translate in your rude, simplistic way? There is so much talk about feelings and emotions, and love, while it all feels like nothing more but the build-up for the next commercial break, a shopping break, some other gender pre-programmed break. The language that can be used to express anything in American English can be intensely beautiful and very complex. What some use as the language for their inner most feelings to themselves, internally, is just this bland, pidgin English, a mutilated NeoVictorian zombie.
Remember the jokes about the Taliban dating scene that made their rounds on the web during the high time of anti foreign infotainment? Have you seen Barbara Walters being amazed that women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive and the 20 Minute Commentary on how one of the students she interviewed did not want to shake her hand because she was a woman? (Mind you, she was not surprised that he was able to explain exactly why he did not want to shake her hand in perfect English).
How free are women in America really? Is the ability to drive really instantly freedom? Is the ability to choose over a vast amount of cosmetic products really the peak of liberation? How far are we really if many of the most intimate thoughts many American women might have today are scripted by the writers of the large Entertainment networks. (Male thoughts are often scripted by owners of small entertainment Web-sites.)
I remember growing up in Poland, when the only advertising in the streets were the red banners on bridges, promising the completion of the five year plan and the grand campaigns to celebrate the 1st of May and the anniversary of the great October Revolution. But the minds of people seemed to go against the grain. There was a freedom in the heads of at least the people I knew. Something that ultimately led to the Solidarity movement, and to the liberation of Poland, the demolition of the Berlin Wall. The totalitarian systems rarely owned the souls of their people. It might all have looked pretty scary from the outside, but we had some really creative fun.
The “freedom” as we now know it, seems to be a sugar coated set of rules written onto the very thin membranes of the inner parts of the soul. There will be generations after us that are going to laugh about us, (unless Laughter will become unaffordable, of course.) I promise.
This post is getting out of hand, isn’t it? I am not organized enough as a writer to make my idea clear.
I guess the core of freedom is that I am able to write all this, that I am able to publish it, and that the only reaction I might get from doing so will be an angry email, or some tiny comment, and not 10 years in prison. So God bless America for that.
As far as emotional freedom goes in America, I sometimes get the Angst that is not much of it left in the open or anywhere. Maybe the American dream does not leave room for tender love and care (unless they are a music trio)... Maybe the economy just urgently needs to breed consumers, not people. Maybe this is the price that some of us need to pay in order to live in a place that can be open 24/7 7/11 with overnight delivery, free shipping, no tax...
Hmm... As I am writing this, somebody has lit some 50 candles in their bedroom across the street... Maybe it is all just some strange vision I am having. Do you date?, what are the mating rituals where you live?, how would you describe the emotional state of your surroundings. As most readers of this blog seem to be email harvesting robots, the answers might not appear as comments below this post.
And one more thing... The German model is certainly no solution, neither is the Polish one and we should all be glad that the Taliban does not allowed to oppress women in Afghanistan, for sure.
Thank you Heather Havrilesky. You made me write all this really strange stuff. I am going to now just link to your blog and stick to the things I know something about. Nothing. : )

Shutterthumb

It might be a late post, since he posted it more than a month ago, but Greg Storey posted some quite great New York pictures on his site:gregstorey.com Just click on the large blue field and take a stroll through New York. I really like the pictures and I really like the presentation. Impressive job.

brushstroked

There are some really nice personal sites out there. You probably own one, don’t you? Well, this morning I came across the site of Melanie Goux. The site is called brushstroke.tv, and it is called .tv, because she is one of those Television design people, just as I used to be years and years ago. I could not find samples of her work on the site but what I found were exciting links and hints and opinions. And it feels good, because she seems to be in a good place, heading in a good direction, so I have one more place to visit in the morning. I like the site. And I really like the little opening animation in the upper left corner. Good motion graphics sensibility packed in just about a second. Excellent. One more little thing... What I wanted to do for a long time and what she does really well is to host little exhibitions of her friends’ work. Watch this space for some development in this direction. I also wanted to have a little gallery here with some of the works we were able to collect over the years. There is some art here by people like Thomas Demand, Betti Lauck, Madelon Galland, Alex Katz, Julia Oschatz, Ray Charles White, Alex Hefter and even a tiny drawing by A.R. Penck... (currently lost somewhere in the apartment...) Am I going off on tangents again?, let me make some new posts... Melanie Goux has a great site...

k10k is back

Kaliber10000 is back in a browser near you (for a few days now), as reported by Mike K. Novak, from the in-between, the good content site from Canada.

Taschen size Wallpapers

TASCHEN Verlag just posted a series of fun and funny wallpapers for your computer needs. (Your are using a computer, aren”t you? They also published a 13MB pdf magazine, which is have not tried out yet, and a screensaver, which is not really worth the hassle. Natascha Merritt gives us a steamy window. Over and over and over again. I have a folder in the lower right corner of my screen for this one. Sorry. The wallpapers are preety nice though. Enjoy... (until I post some here...) ; )

Assisted Computing Facility

Jørgen just sent me the following link: Assisted Computing Facilities. I hope he is not trying to tell me something. Do I need to move to one? Have good fun reading the article. It is about time that somebody links to something else than this golfer kissing this trophee.

RMxxx

Nathan Jurevicius, the ingenius australian illustrator recently shared the following link:RMX. It is about time to share it here. All good. My snapple cap Real Fact #1 (!) was that Golfish have an attention span of 3 seconds. What was I writing about?... Oh, feeling a little sick...

What does “MA” stand for?

Well, how about 1800 Mess Away?. Messies Anonymous is an organisation that accepts major credit cards. If you manage to find yours. Quite a fascinating organisation, with a German Division. The German site however, is a mess.

Eeksypeeksy ads this site to his links!

This is quite an exciting moment for me here (mind you I had a whiskey or so too much tonight, so I might be more honest than even the usual moomin self) Eeksy-Peeksy added this site to his "look" links, which is exciting because there are not many "look" links, and because loobylu is also among the links. So I feel quite special tonight. Eeksy-Peeksy seems to understand, speak, and even write Polish, which is quite fascinating, because Polish is not among the easier languages and so seeing somebody write in Polish, even though she/he is not Polish is quite rare. Eeksy-Peeksy also has a great Blog, which you should definitely check out. All the best. (I am afraid of the sober tomorrow)... Thank you for linking E-P.

Round and round and round we read.

Today, W. Bradford Paley went live with his TextArc.org. The site allows users to see Texts in polar coordinates and it slices and dices texts to sort them, or better their words according to their importance or frequency in the text? This allows user to see some of their favorite classics from a completely new angle, which is always quite refreshing. If you would like to get a quick overview, try this page. Matthew Mirapaul of the New York Times explains everything quite nicely in his article which was also published today. Read it here. (I will probably need to work on this post, as it does not give away as much information as it probably should.) Is everybody as tired as I am?

Moomin made me do it.

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Dear therapist, instead of posting a resume on this website, I will probably just link to the original superhero of my childhood: Moomin. I always wanted to be like him, more than that, I always wanted to stay like him. Here we go. Am I admitting too much?

Another scary piece of news.

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The top linked story on Blogdex today saddens me and scares me at the same time. Saudi ambassador to Britain glorifies suicide bombers in poem published in Arabic daily. I understand that the use of language in Islamic culture is differnt than the western understanding of language. But by any means, this seems like another horrifying facet or an enormous problem. Or am I missing something? I do not think I really understand enough to elaborate any further. I just somehow feel helpless.

A collection of internet Hoaxes.

On the next page of the same New York Times, an article by Sam Lubell: How Hoaxers Save on Stamps, or Don't Believe Everything You're E-mailed. A deful compilation of internet hoaxes ranging from funny to scary. I also did not know that there is a scambusters.org. Let’s visit them too. (I also think that they might need a new logo sometime soon.)

Blame the monkeys...

Quite a fascinating little article in the New York Times this morning. Tom Zeller helps us to Blame the Monkeys. The article contains an open letter by Marcel, the vice chair of S.I.M.I.A.N. (Society for Improving the Monkey Image and Name). I am glad this did not make the front page of the paper, especially not today.

Chris Ashley writes about Blogs

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A nice article by Chris Ashley, IST–Interactive University, about Weblogs (blogs). You probably know the article, but now you can read it again. Here.
As we continue to focus on the little things... I like how the article handles Links, in a very academic manner, by turning them into footnote links. Following the links might not be quite as comfortable, as it requires an extra click, but the text looks much more complete when printed, doesn’t it? (Did I mention that I do not have a printer? I am running a truly paperless office here.)
A nice quote from the concluding sentence of the above article comes from Kevin Kelly:“The Web Runs on Love, Not Greed”. I really hope it does again. I guess we should be thankful the bubble burst.

Chris is blogging again.

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chris has finally updated his blog. There are some exciting new Shockwave links there on April 12th. Fascinating. Will need to try them all and then report.

(Ya eto) Loobylu, a wonderful blog.

And as we stay in Australia for a bit, please direct your attention to one of the best blogs of any continent: Loobylu, by the Australian Illustrator, Claire Robertson. A beautiful little blog. All exquisitely illustrated. A real diary. Loobylu sounds like the Russian word for "I love" and I love what loobylu looks and feels like (not that I would like my blog to look like hers, I just think it is very appropriate = great). I have the feeling Claire Robertson also uses Movable type. I will try to ask her. Oh this is really good stuff, thank you N.!

Men are from...

Just in case you would like to see what is happening on Mars. On the Themis (thermal emission imaging system) of the Arizona State University has some nice fresh pictures of Mars. (Can not see any men in the pictures, to be honest.) Some of us with printers and plenty of paper might even print out the bits and pieces and build their own red planet. (Red paint sold separately.) Quite an interesting source.

WebcamNights.

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webcamnights.tv - ZDF.online We were just talking about creating a similar interface for Weblogs. Where would most of the activity be? Where in the world are the most bloggers and type movers? San Francisco? New York?, Jastrzebie Zdrój probably not. (I had to add this one, just to find myself in the search results of the city where I grew up.)

Blogging issues

blogger basically does not work for me now. I have no clue where all the data goes. It does not go onto the site. Hmm... It is 3:23 am. going to sleep now.

Ok, the process has begun.

Ok, the process has begun. I am going to transfer the site to TheBook.com. $10/Month for basically two hosted domains and all the other features... How could I resist?
If there will be any disruptions in the Blog or other site services, it is all my fault.

MegWay

We all know Segway or Ginger, or It. And we all know that the device claims to make walking a new experience, while it actually makes standing a new experience. Enter Jason Kottke¹s: Megway Transporting Human. While the idea of Megway might not be all that new, we all know it works. It has been tested for thousands of years and it is safe and very user friendly. It even works for the visually impaired. I worked for the Goethe Institut in Frankfurt in 1995. One of the foreign students was 100% visually impaired and I sometimes worked as his eyes. His hobby was running. So we arranged for him to be in the runners club (he is member in runners clubs all over the world). He used an earlier version of Megway (runners clubs all over the world have Megways available for the visually impaired, just ask) and he would use it without a helmet and hold on to it with just one hand. But he was fast, and he was perfectly safe, even at very high speeds. (He was generally even a faster walker than I am.)
So I like Megway very much. I would like to get one myself as soon as they become widely available to the public. Until then I will dream of all the places I could go to with my Megway.

Chris1 squirrel story is great.

Chris¹ squirrel story is great. The things that happen to this man and his castle. I really hope the squirrel is doing fine.

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