Clampants

Running Through The Sprinkler

All Leave A Trace

This is certainly one of the most amazing things i've seen:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

[via The Long Now]

Summertime

Rock the vote! Manbaby 08!

In a "is this my legacy? is this my 15-minutes?" moment, big Miles and baby me have made it to ManBabies:

GET MORE AT ManBabies.com!

Thanks to Paul for the heads-up.

A discussion over breakfast

Good Podcasts (5/12/08 - 5/16/08)

AstronmyCast has an uplifting duo of shows out over the past few weeks: The end of the solar system (mp3) and the end of everything (mp3)...SPOILER ALERT: it turns out she's actually a guy (and we'll all be dead or as close to it as possible as bits of information itself take an infinitely long time to interact with one another).
More upbeat, CBC Radio's IDEAS interviews inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil (mp3). A good introduction to Kurzweil's body of work, his thinking, and his ideas on the singularity.
The Long Now Foundation puts Niall Ferguson & Peter Schwartz on stage to debate "Historian vs. Futurist on Human Progress" (mp3). Really, my first impression of Mr. Ferguson...who is a weirdly persuasive and charismatic speaker who holds ideas I'd normally assume i'd oppose (for instance, I found his talk "Why America Need McCain" - he is a foreign policy adviser to John McCain - oddly...interesting? But not THAT compelling...but at least worth a listen.)

Stymied By Macho Culture

With Rotorglow's help, i've started a new awesomely-important blog: Band Names Taken From News Headlines (rss). It's totally awesome. I don't want to be the only one laughing at its genius, so...subscribe. Or something.

This is Soggy Louisiana...peace out Boston!

Refreashing East Village Radio

The past month or so has seen the demise of two of my favorite East Village Radio shows (and radio shows in general), Robot Radio and The Nerd Tank...I think everyone moved to Berlin. Snff.

Visiting EVR, I found several new (or unknown to me...it seems like EVR merged with Brooklyn Radio) shows to sort of fill those voids (along side The Let Out and Authentic Shit):

Body Control (with Bruce Tantum)
Other Music (with Other Music Djs)
GBH (with Too Manly Djs a.k.a. Maxameleon and Sam L. Jaxxxson)
The Big Cover Up (with Small Change)
Turntable Lab Radio (with Snack and SMISH)
Underground Awakening (with Jason Charles)

Filling The British Wit Void

Filling the British Wit Void (a proper noun) left when Ricky Gervais' podcast went behind the paywall (and, admittedly, I lost track of it...maybe it is free again? or done with?)...I finally got around to listening to an episode of John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman's "The Bugle" for the Times Online...

"Comprising news, sport, comment, analysis, other stuff, and our unique audio crossword, The Bugle is the newspaper of the future, before the future actually happens."

And I couldn't more highly recommend it. They had me hooked with the suggestion (from episode 26, "Food, Non-existent Food!") that since wealthy countries are now burning more and more food for fuel, perhaps a solution to the global food crisis is for the poor to learn to eat wind and sun.

Slim Pickings At The Book Sale

This morning Miles and I went up to the local library book sale...slim pickings, and Miles was more interested in a precariously-balanced hand-cart than browsing musty not-that-old paperbacks. What did I pick up you may probably not be asking?

A bunch of Clifford, Curious George, and Maisy Mouse books
Alona Frankel's "Once Upon A Potty"
Keith Haring's "Ten"
"The Funny Book" (which sure is funny!)
A 1968 Signet paperback of Milton's "Paradise Lost & Paradise Regained"
A 1960 Bantam paperback collection of "The Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy"
A sweet 1970 paperback of Franz Kafka's "The Trial"

Miles loves Tolstoy, and I do love myself a good potty book.

And that's all right with me.

Sammy Johns' "Chevy Van"

Probably the best thing I have ever seen on the Internet.

(The very end is NSFW, but in a blurry, 1970's Vantastic kind of way)

Great Podcasts - 4/29/08

If you listen to a single podcast all year, make it this Thomas Friedman speech, "Green Is The New Red, White & Blue" (the talk itself seems to only be available through iTuned here). I don't think Friedman needs any introduction (if he does), but this talk is a good introduction to his ideas on the complex issues (and context) surrounding the "green movement" and the dire state of the globe as we plunge towards a global warming tipping point. It can be chilling (paraphrasing: if we were to, say, want to shift towards nuclear power to offset US carbon emissions by the year 2050 [which is the, predictions say, "point of no return" for CO2 levels at current emission levels], we could have to bring on line 1 plant per day for the next 30 years)...but there is also a sense of hope in his reasoning and holistic understanding of a mind-numbing problem.

(via OpenCulture)

Miles On The Deck

One of my new favorite pictures:

Miles On The Deck (Early Morning) - 01 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Good Podcasts (4/14/08 - 4/18/08)

ReadWriteTalk's first Semantic Web Gang panel (mp3) - "This new Semantic Web Gang will be a regular monthly show, tapping into insights on the news of the moment from some of those at the forefront in bringing the Semantic Web vision to reality."
Lunar Design talks "Design of Future Things" with Don Norman (mp3).
For some reason, i've recently been drawn to the writing of Richard Price...in this discussion from the Commonwealth Club, Price reads from his latest book, Lush Life, and discusses the myriad issues that arise in a changing city (mp3). Never having read any of his work, I am excited to read the copy of "Clockers" I picked up from Paperbackswap...and he's a great speaker. I highly recommend this. And I need to start watching The Wire...which has been languishing on our Netflix queue for ages.

deeeee!

When it is request that he smile for the camera, Miles responds with a toothy "deeeeeee!"