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No, Happy Easter to YOU, Good Weekend Magazine…
Spacesuit: An Interview with Nicholas de Monchaux -
This is a fascinating interview, and I find the insights into the relationship between the redeployment of laid off NASA managers and their role in shaping the culture and execution of city planning in the 1970’s utterly remarkable.
“…[A]t Berkeley…and also at MIT, there was a summer school in 1968 explicitly organized to train engineers who had been let go from NASA for new jobs in urban administration—for NASA engineers to become city managers. You can’t underestimate the extent to which this attempt to transfer the techniques of systems management from the national space program to cities was very self-conscious.”
Pablo Picasso
Besides his masterpieces, Picasso was also known for wearing classic stripes. We love the nautical feel, especially as the days grow warmer.
Forget the clothes - this is the THE MAN.
I love most things Craig Mod writes, whether it be deconstructing the process of photographing a mountain, or here, the development of the excellent Flipboard for iPhone app. Well worth a read.
(Source: userdeck, via apostrophe9)
Who will save America from drowning in debt? -
This article by Jeremy Warner is frightening. The scale of the impending calamity is summed up in the observation that “By the end of the decade, the annual [United States] interest bill alone will have reached $1 trillion, or more than a quarter of all current US federal spending.” Amazing and depressing in equal measure.
If you want to scare yourself with statistics, go to www.usdebtclock.org. This brilliantly conceived internet graphic engenders much the same feeling you get when watching the extortion of the meter in a London taxi; at some stage, you know you are going to have to get out and walk.
Amongst much else, what it shows is the real-time accumulation of US public debt. When I last looked, this was approaching $14.228 trillion, or around 100 per cent of GDP. Higher and higher, the big number goes. America is bankrupting itself as surely as Wilkins Micawber. So extreme is the country’s addiction to debt that if nothing is done, it will surely force the wholesale retreat from the New World’s century-old dominance of international economic and geopolitical affairs. Worse, the medicine required to correct the problem threatens to be so strong that it may force that same retreat in any case.
Typophone 4 Lockscreen theme by Angelman8 on deviantART
This is one of the reasons why I will be jailbreaking my iPhone as soon as a safe JB option is released for 4.1. The typography nerd in me can’t wait.
Trentham Uniting Church Poster (by digital birdy)
Designed this for my wife, who is Minister at Trentham Uniting Church for five more days. I took this photo during the 2009 fire season, which created some otherworldly sunsets.
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What Apple did in 10 years to its main product (via TUAW)
Cool. There is still something about the industrial design of the Bondi Blue iMac that gets my heart racing. Something about signalling the death of the beige box…
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Rainbows are my son’s favourite thing. This photo of one is beautiful. Would have loved to be sitting in one of the window seats on the right of the plane…
A plane flies in front of a rainbow above the Mediterranean sea in Nice, France, on Thursday. | Lionel Cironneau/AP
I was planning to share my thoughts on the range and quality of the apps available for the HTC Desire and Android that I have installed on my phone. However, after a night of absolute frustration with the device, I decided to sit on my hands and wait until calmer heads prevailed, and discuss what I think is one of the key shortcomings with the device, particularly in comparison to the iPhone.
One of the main things that has appealed to me about the HTC Desire is how easy it is to configure. This phone will allow you to do things that you can only dream of doing on an iPhone, such as adding a wide array of widgets, shortcuts and folders to its seven screens.
Widgets allow you to access at a glance text messages, mail, calendar, RSS feeds, music, as well as social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Buzz. Shortcuts enable you to place links to information such as bookmarks, maps, and contact details on the home screen for quick access.
Folders allow you to group your shortcuts and applications into the one place, revealing their information in pop-up menus. In practice, this has meant that on my main homescreen I can have a link to my wife’s contact information, alongside a folder of my favourite contacts and my most used apps.