• BBC News: Shackleton's whisky recovered from South Pole ice
  Yes, please. [via middleclasstool]
• An Entirely Other Day: Preadolescent Panopticon
  "The goal is not to prevent them from making mistakes, but to allow them to. Risk assessment, trust development, value determination, responsibility, self-direction — all of these very important skills grow out of the opportunity to explore, to experiment, to make mistakes and correct them."
• sood: Conversation with Metafilter Founder Matt Haughey
  "I spoke with Haughey this week about how he grew Metafilter from a side project into a profitable venture. In our conversation, he stressed three main things: build the site you want to use, listen to the community, and stay small."

I know next to nothing about clothing or style, but I'm learning. I have lived my entire life blissfully unaware that a conversation has been taking place around me that involves clothes. I don't mean conversations about clothes, but with clothes. People have been telling me things about themselves through their clothes and I've been completely oblivious. Through a series of odd events I'm finally starting to pay attention to this conversation.

I'm not a very social person and that's probably why I gravitated to computers. For my work I'm always hunched over a keyboard and monitor at home or in some back room far, far away from the normals. I didn't ever need to learn the difference between business and casual dress because I didn't need anything more than casual. Any time I was required to dress up I felt uncomfortably self conscious. If my own clothing choices even entered my mind they didn't rise above the level of thinking, "I like things from REI." In fact, my personal pinnacle of style has always been a shirt with buttons from REI.

Sometime last May there was a question at Ask MetaFilter (where I work, hunched) that resonated with me: I'd like to learn to dress well and look sharp... but I've got no natural talent for it. Can anybody help me figure out how/where to start? I felt like I could have written that question, or a variation of it, and I enjoyed all of the answers from the more fashion-literate members of the hive mind. I filed that conversation away in the back of my mind and didn't think much more about it.

Around that time I got serious about dropping weight and managed to lose 20 pounds by August. One day I was hunched over my keyboard coding away when Matt said, "You need new clothes." As usual, I hadn't even thought about my clothes or how they were fitting. He was right.

I was all set for a trip to REI when I remembered that Ask MeFi thread and went back to reread. In it, someone recommended a book called Men's Style so I figured it was as good a place as any to start. I picked up a copy thinking it would go directly in the trash. I found myself on a plane with the book in hand but like dressing up, I was embarrassed to read it. I needed a fake Mastering Emacs dust jacket so I could read it without feeling out of place. Men's Style was not perfectly aimed at me, but at least it gave me a sense of how much I don't know. I was fascinated by the history of standard clothing detail that I hadn't noticed before. That's when I got the sense that clothing is an ancient, continuous conversation that I have been missing.

In October, as if tapped into my consciousness, podcast personalities Jesse Thorn and Adam Lisagor started their project Put This On—A Web Series About Dressing Like a Grownup. I finally entered the target market for something style-related. Since then, following their lead, I started tuning into other daily style reads such as A Continuous Lean, Urban Weeds, The Sartorialist, Nerd Boyfriend, Sartorially Inclined, and the impossible cool.

I started 2010 with a new respect for style and I'm starting to make conscious decisions about what to wear. There's nothing wrong with my REI safe-zone, but now I realize there's a world beyond casual hiking clothes. I'm not taking part in the style conversation yet, but at least I'm slowly learning the grammar.

• decodeunicode.org
  "Unicode 5.0 encodes exactly 98,884 graphic characters on different planes...we collect information on every single character."
• Stuart McMillen: Amusing Ourselves to Death
  Cartoon intro to Neil Postman's book.

• BLDGBLOG: Nakatomi Space
  Hacking architecture with John McClane.
• nodnod: Adding straight single and double quotes to Inconsolata
  Nice Inconsolata mod that straightens out the quotes. I use Inconsolata as my programming font, haven't noticed a quote problem, but I'll give this a shot.
• Is the iPad the harbinger of doom for personal computing?
  "I think that it’s a real possibility that in 10 years, general purpose computers will be seen as being strictly for developers and hobbyists." Rafe has an important analysis of the iPad announcement. We're headed toward closed platforms.
• John Graham-Cumming: More fun with toys: the Ikea LILLABO Train Set
  He used the Processing environment to calculate the number of track layouts possible with a simple train set from Ikea. I'll have to try these! [via Daddy Types]

If you're like me you have a toddler in the house. And like me you have come to tolerate at least a few of the big names in children's media such as your Mickey Mice and your Curious Georges. TV is a rare treat in our house, but last week Eddie was sick and we were in survival mode. So we drove to the local media dispensary to purchase a distracting video disc.

I don't know about you, but when I make DVD purchasing decisions I rely on specialists to find quality: the critics. I don't have to watch hundreds of hours of children's programming when the voice of critics can be distilled down to their essence on the DVD packaging itself. And what better review is there than, "A Roller Coaster Ride of a Movie!" Faced with all possible choices, we picked up what the critics lead us to believe was an action packed adventure with Thomas the Tank Engine called The Great Discovery, containing that very blurb at the bottom:



I was looking forward to sharing an afternoon of singing British children and roller coaster-like adventure with my son until I got a closer look at that packaging at home:



You might be thinking, "Oh! I wonder what well-respected children's magazine this critic Topham Hatt writes for?" Let me burst your media bubble: "SIR" TOPHAM HATT IS A CHARACTER IN THE SHOW! It's like quoting Yoda to sell The Phantom Menace: "Like this movie, you will!"

We haven't watched The Great Discovery yet, but I'm sure it'll be just fine. Maybe Sir Topham Hatt keeps his acting hat walled off from his editorial hat. Seems like a fairly blatant conflict of interest to me though.

• Matt Kirman: Google Closure Compiler TextMate Bundle
  A nice way to integrate Google Closure with TextMate. The trick to using it is selecting the file to compile from the TextMate Project Drawer.
• Closure Compiler Service
  Google hosts a web version of their in-house JavaScript compiler/minifier. How did I not hear about this?

This site has a new look! I had some rare free time last Sunday morning so I changed the colors and made up a new header image. I haven't been posting much here beyond my delicious bookmarks, but I'm hoping this new look will help motivate me to post more.

Here's roughly how it worked. I started with the Sea of Japan palette at Color Lovers:



Then I flipped through a couple design books and stock art for inspiration. Here are a few that were sources for the new look:




I also stumbled on an antique compass image I liked in a Google Image search. Then I threw all of these into a blender, added Futura, and pow—new header. So thanks to those sites, books, and designers for inspiration. I'm not sure how this will get me blogging again but at least this is a non-automated post.

• PEG on Tech: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
  Excellent analysis of the difference between Posterous and Tumblr. "Posterous is an engineered product, while Tumblr is a designed product." [via Emptyage]

• The Rumpus: Anonymous Facebook Employee
  A peek behind the curtain at Facebook with an anonymous FB developer.
• Anil Dash: Remembering Brad L. Graham
  "...Brad's work was altogether more messy and funny and human and passionate and complicated, just like the man himself. I can offer no more succinct summation of the man than that he was a good man and a good friend, profoundly funny and profoundly kind." Anil shares some memories of Brad.
• Alex Payne: Don't Be A Hero
  "...the hero is the most damaging person on a team, particularly on a team that’s supposed to be writing high-availability or otherwise mission-critical software." Interesting analysis of team dynamics. [via jessamyn]
• Technology Review: How Google Ranks Tweets
  "One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation." Amit Singhal on how Google ranks Tweets for real-time search.
• Lindsay Robertson: The Do's and Don'ts of Online Publicity
  Rules for PR folks who want to work with bloggers. "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE means FOR IMMEDIATE DELETE."

• Fimoculous: 30 Best Blogs of 2009
  Hey, blogs still exist. What do you know? This is a great list, and a good reminder that the best of the web is still delivered in chunks longer than 140 characters.

• io9: When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?
  I had this reaction to Avatar too, glad to see io9 spend some time explaining this problem. Hadn't made the Dune connection, that's spot on. [via mathowie]
• jwz: A special treat for the ten year anniversary of Y2K...
  argh, burned by this on my personal mail server.
• Jeffrey Friedl’s Blog: Source of the famous “Now you have two problems” quote
  Regex snark traced back to Unix snark.

• PVRblog: The Decade of DVR
  Matt's final post to PVRblog: a recap of the rise of the DVR and quotes from famous web folk talking about the impact of TiVo et al on their lives.

• Wired How-To: Stir natural peanut butter easily
  I need to try this. [via boingboing]
• No two snowflakes alike?
  Fun article about the ubiquitous Zapf Dingbat snowflake. [via torrez]

• J.D. Roth 2.0: Oregon Weather Rules-of-Thumb
  J.D. has some good Oregon weather rules that sound right to me. I guess it really is eight months of rain, wow.
• Microsoft: Log Parser 2.2
  Another SQL-based log analyzer from Microsoft.
• Steve.org.uk: asql
  This handy tool lets you query apache logs with SQL. (Had to install on Ubuntu.) Much handier than awkward awk commands for me.

• kottke: Google DNS
  Why is Google offering DNS? "...they want to speed up people's Google search results."
• Daring Fireball: OpenDNS Founder David Ulevitch on Google Public DNS
  Google takes aim at OpenDNS and John Gruber calls their response "Pure FUD". I agree, but any move Google makes has big repercussions. Distributed infrastructure is good.
• Insane Theory: A new chart type for ColdFusion
  Nice article about tapping into the Java chart component with ColdFusion to access chart types CF doesn't support.

• Anil Dash: The Web in Danger
  Anil collects more thoughts on the coming storm of apps vs. open web. "This, for me, is a social issue, a cultural issue, and a political issue, not just a technological issue. Perhaps we need to speak of it that way more often, to make the stakes clear."
• Tim O'Reilly: The War For the Web
  "...it's time for developers to take a stand. If you don't want a repeat of the PC era, place your bets now on open systems. Don't wait till it's too late." Tim O'Reilly on the coming platform storm. [via anil]

• Move Your Home Folder Off Your SSD Boot Drive in OS X
  Ransom Note Typography has instructions for moving your data to another drive. I'm preparing now for a boot SSD drive.

• Creston Electric Instruments: Galaxie Green Custom
  Even though I haven't played a guitar for over ten years, apparently I haven't completely lost the gear fetish. Damn, this is a hot guitar.

• UI Stencils: iPhone Stencil Kit
  You might need these stencils to go with your Notepod for sketching out iPhone apps.
• Put This On - Episode 1: Denim
  Entertaining debut episode of Put This On, fashion for men like me who know nothing about fashion.

• First & 20
  "A Collection of iPhone Home Screens." I found this a while back but couldn't remember the name or how to get back to it because the keywords are saturated. My Google-fu was hot today, and I'm bookmarking for future reference.
• StringEscapeUtils (Commons Lang 2.4 API)
  This Java class is full of helpful functions for escaping and unescaping strings, and it can be used within ColdFusion (if you're into that).
• NYT: The New Antiquarians
  "Cultivating a Late 19th-Century Style at Home." This seems to be an IRL manifestation of that thing.
• Ask Metafilter: Name This Aesthetic
  Aha! This answers a question I didn't even know I had, but I've been unconsciously wondering. I thought this "look" came from the image-collecting Tumblr crowd. But apparently it's a thing IRL.

• How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
  I find myself referring to this classic by Eric Raymond frequently. I can't believe I haven't bookmarked it already.
• PeteLumbis(dot)org: Net Neutrality
  If you wonder why people care about Net Neutrality, take a look at this image. It's going to give me nightmares. [via torrez]

• The Economist: The velvet glove
  "It turns out that milder sanctions can be swifter and more certain." Interesting article in the Economist about alternate strategies for curbing crime.
• GitHub: briancollins's nice_find
  A TextMate plugin that provides a better "find within project" feature. Nice!

• Photoshop Mobile iPhone App
  This is the best photo-editing software I've found for the iPhone. And it's free.
• Circle Into Square: Everybody Knows You're Not from Here
  A nice interview with Josh, including some thoughts on being a MeFi moderator. "...the enthusiasm from other folks on the site to collaborate and make it all work was just stunning and cemented for me somewhat the reality that this was a community and not just a bunch of nerds yelling at each other on a website."
• John Resig: Google Groups is Dead
  A serious warning about using Google Groups for public discussion. [via ginatrapani]

• Jon Udell: A literary appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database
  "What I didn’t appreciate, until I finally unzipped and untarred a copy...is the historical scholarship scribbled in the margins of this remarkable database, or document, or hybrid of the two." [via MetaFilter]

• Macintosh Performance Guide: Installing a Solid State Drive (SSD)
  Nice detailed instructions for installing a SSD in a Mac. I have an older Mac Pro, but it sounds like it's worth the hassle. [via mathowie]
• Disney to give back money parents spent on Baby Einstein videos
  "The Walt Disney Company has acknowledged that Baby Einstein does not teach anything nor does it promote better brain development in your infant. In the face of the scientific research, they are offering a full refund to any parent who has bought a Baby Einstein DVD in the last five years." [via briansawyer]