new bookmark

foundtrack posts a new mixtape (mixzip?) every month.

plus you can still download their archives - i'm liking november at the moment.

scarf season

beautiful evidence

i attended a seminar today given by edward tufte. i had lunch with my friend ashish, and ended up describing the course as "how to make really good charts," which doesn't quite do it justice. the course was about the effective visualization of data, something i think we all deal with in one way or another. i should probably make up a graphic or something to demonstrate how cool this seminar was, but instead i'll just rely on my usual text and scans (have i learned nothing?!)

one concept that tufte pioneered is that of sparklines - tiny, work-sized graphics that fit neatly into text and convey more information than a word, in less space than a traditional graphic. tufte is all about high information resolution, and these little "datawords" can increase the informational content of text significantly. or, they can be used in sets of small multiples, to convey large amounts of information in small spaces.

some examples

apparently the sparklines were inspired by galileo's original text describing saturn's rings. galileo incorporated drawings right into the text.

(very) rough translation: saturn looks like this XXXXXX; when saturn is blurry, it looks like this XXXXXXX .

brilliant!

news year's day

vivian in her kitchen

special friends, indeed

but before i go...

why did the


cause i finally got my lazy ass to the lab to pick up some film!

gobble.

sacramento bound

and i'm itchin' to get on the road

see ya!

i just realized why the sudden war between los angeles and chicago

(other than the presence of julie)


it's the olympics!

given that hosting the olympics would be a zoo, and i probably won't even be here in 2000-a-billion (or whenever the games are), i'm still totally rooting for los angeles.

i should also note that its not just LA and chicago in the ring - there's a bunch of international cities (like prague and tokyo) also in contention.

via curbed LA

and on a totally un-olympics (but chicago and LA) related note, the history channel sponsored a really cool design competition to envision the future LA, NYC and chicago. you can check out the winning designs here.

my photo files are all stuck on my old computer and my scanner doesn't work with my new computer and my film isn't back from the lab yet

i'm far less visual lately.

i heard on NPR that today is officially the most depressing day of the year

i'm planning on wallowing, how about you?

if you insist on a good mood, please see the post below.

cute overload!

the fun never stops in economics

my professor assigned this as part of our homework the other day.

never. stops.

not bad to hear when i'm 6 months away from graduating

urban planning is one of fast company's 10 'hot jobs' for 2007.

urban planners: the career of the future

via curbed la

right back at ya, viv

vivian and i have webcams. we can show each other clothes, condition our hair, meet each other's friends.

i've finally found my teleportation device.

reconstructing memory

i joked before that the loss of my old computer was like losing a piece of my brain. the thing is, i wasn't really joking. i have a new computer now, and it's simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. it’s like a blank slate. my old computer was teeming with little bits and pieces of my life from the last three years - music, photos, writings, school assignments, emails...some of them were corrupted, some fractured and some hidden. some things didn't work right, some things had viruses and many had fallen into disarray. but it was mine. i knew how it worked and where to find things and what my limits were.

now i have this new computer, and its really up to me to decide how to compose it - what to bring over from my old computer and what to leave behind. this is good because i can pick and choose the music i actually listen (or want to listen) to, i can wade through the photographs and only bring the ones i truly want to keep and i can leave three-year-old finance assignments on my external hard drive. its a chance to organize and reconstruct my brain, without all the useless bits and corrupt files - to streamline. i'll free up memory and everything will run a bit better.

but its sad, too. there were some great things in that computer that i'll surely forget to bring over, or that won't mesh with my pc to mac transition. my physical brain's amnesia will invade my computer brain. and its the consciousness of this reconstruction that i find terrifying. we all do it, i know, but i don't like the idea of reshaping my memory. as imperfect and wonderful and painful as it is, i like it that way: as it is.

the ballad of katie and amanda

one day katie and amanda were sitting on the couch. they were very good friends.



katie was a little gross sometimes, but amanda loved her anyway.



on this particular day, something strange started to happen.
at first they thought it was funny...



but when katie grew two heads



they got scared!



eventually katie's heads grew back together.
although she never looked quite the same again,



they lived happily ever after.



the end

Tag of Four

via ryan

Four jobs I've had:
1. Sticky bun server
2. Ice cream scooper
3. Speakers Bureau Coordinator
4. Phone bank at a credit card company

Four places I've lived:
1. Wilmington, DE
2. Florence, Italy
3. Claremont, CA
4. Brooklyn, NY

Four favourite foods (at the moment - this is always changing):
1. grilled sandwiches
2. banana bread
4. shrimp
5. seared ahi

Four movies I could watch over and over (actually, I don't tend to watch movies repeatedly, unless lots of time has passed. but if I did):
1. Annie Hall
2. Kicking and Screaming
3. Spirited away
4. One Crazy Summer

Four TV shows I enjoy:
1. Lost
2. Project Runway
3. Heroes
4. Top Chef

Four places I've traveled:
1. Sao Paulo, Brazil
2. Innsbruck, Austria
3. Kiluaea, Kauai
4. Jinotepe, Nicaragua

Four places I'd like to visit:
1. The Sahara Desert
2. Shanghai, China (I guess I've technically been there, but not in the last decade)
3. Buenos Aires, Argentina (in the works!)
4. Reykjavik, Iceland

Four websites I go to daily (not counting blogs/social network sites):
1. Chowhound
2. Epicurious
3. LA Times/New York Times/BBC News
4. Curbed LA

Julie, don't hate me - but this one's all you!

he may be a republican, he may be an actor, and he may be kind of preposterous

but at least he has vision.

the nitty-gritty will inevitably have tons of unforeseen problems, but i love the idea of sweeping change. we need it - we need something.

damn

apparently my car is so well designed, that it is actually more fuel efficient to keep the windows closed and the A/C on than to open the windows and mess with the aerodynamics and wind flow.

damn, car.

5 little-known things about me

tagged for a meme by miss v

1) there exists somewhere in the world a video of my entire family wearing wigs and lip syncing 'groove is in the heart' against a psychedelic green screen background sometimes in the early 90's. it has been lost to the mists of time. it is my holy grail: i must find it. guess who sings lead.

2) i just bought a robot.

3) i recently found out that my dad and i share apocalyptic paranoia fantasies - i've stocked my house with gallons of water, tons of canned foods and a crank radio, and he's planting a subsistence garden in hawaii - 'just in case.'

4) i can only stay awake during scary movies - everything else puts me to sleep.

5) i recently dreamt of being attacked by shapeshifting zombie pillows (i think this may be connected to number 4)

julie, this one is all you!

incommunicado

my computer won't turn on. something happened between hawaii and los angeles and it just won't even talk to me. this is kind of like losing access to part of my brain. i'm not too worried - i think all the memory is still there, i'll probably just need some new hardware. but for now, i'm using an old computer and having a hard time posting regularly on a surrogate digital brain.

never fear, though. i'm still here, all is well and go beav!

oops

we've created a monster!