The holidays are fast approaching, and with them hopefully a bit of down time to hang out recharge your batteries, visit with family and friends, and curl up with a good book or two on a cold winter’s night. To help you out if you’re looking for something to read I thought I’d start with a suggestion or two…
Maybe, you’re thinking, I’m not the sort who has family or friends, in fact I’m a curmudgeon and this whole holiday thing is clearly just an excuse for crass commercialism. Perfect book for you? The Epicure’s Lament I just finished it, if you like food and anti-heroes this one’s for you.
Need something a bit more uplifting with a ghost story twist? Jonathan Carroll’s newest book, The Ghost in Love is full of completely bizarre twists on the traditional boy dies, ghost of boy meets girl, story.
I just picked up but have not yet read The Man Who Loved China but all indications are that it will be right up your alley if you’d like to learn more about the inventions and technologies from China and a man from the west who made it his life to understand the middle kingdom.
Ok, on to the links… Happy Happy, joy joy to all!
————Top Five—————-
1. This guy is good.
2. The Onion explores our world.
3. I think this represents someone with way too much time on their hands and a smattering of off the shelf technology. It makes me wonder what will happen when just about anyone can build just about anything (JAAB JAAA!)…
Surely the day is coming (before we all just upload ourselves and become vegetables) that making will be too easy. What would the world look like if 90% of us were like Caractacus Potts?
Yes that’s an Ian Fleming book with a screenplay by Roald Dahl (which explains the more disturbing parts of the film).
4. Zliders, pen drags across displays, and rolling pen moves. Or why don’t we use the other dimensions much (beyond x and y) when we design interactions… this reminds me of the curious fact that not many people did posters or any sort of graphic designs with arcing text on a path until illustrator made it so easy to do and then we had then entire new wave movement, horrendous ellipses everywhere, and the emergence of desk-top published newsletters that made our eyes bleed (of course you’ve been able to use the Z dimension for touch apps for at least 20 years but the cost of entry has dropped precipitously). Who will define this next set of paradigms and what manner of horrors will we face between here and there? Stay tuned.
5. New York Times has a year full of ideas for your review…
——————-The Rest——————
Why I don’t live in Japan…
A little Barry White, a warm fire, and the sweet smell of Burger King… No there is absolutely nothing good about this link and if you keep trying to make sense of it it just gets sillier.
Of course laptops will soon have more than one screen…
The mixtape du jour. This one goes out to the man with the orange belt and absolutely no grasp of current musical trends.
Hard for me to pass up this picture…
If you haven’t seen “The Evil Dead” movie series, you’re missing very bad but somehow good stuff. If you’re not faint of heart, watch the trailer for the new Evil Dead Musical.
And on the disturbing but creative front, Gnarls always has something heartfelt to say…
Ok, to help clear your mind after that last barrage of evilness, a little holiday music…