- Strike A Light, Guv'nor
New Music Tuesday this week features new albums from CSS and model/singer/French First Lady Carla Bruni. The CSS disc sounds a little bit like late-90s alt rock, a la Garbage.
The BBC asks a dialect coach how to sound American. (Note the first comment, from a Texan: “It never occurs to us that there is such a thing as an American accent.”)
Regarding ironic cross-genre covers, e.g. Jay-Z’s intentional butchering of “Wonderwall”.
The story of the amazing Clover coffee brewer — and what Starbucks plans to do with it now that they’ve bought the company that makes it.
Related: a list of the 600 U.S. Starbucks stores that will be shut down in the next 12 months. Can anyone explain to me why Starbucks had even 12 stores in Alabama, let alone so many that they needed to close 12?
- Tue Jul 22 2008
- You Must Flickr Every Meal
iPhone 3G space madness continues to be in full effect. After selling over a million phones during the debut weekend, John Gruber reports that iPhone 3G is pretty much sold out in the U.S. It’s just as well; before the Michigan Avenue store sold out over the weekend, there were 2-4 hour lines to buy them, even on some spectacularly rainy days. Meanwhile, a post about the new iPhone OS 2.0 and third-party apps is coming to Practicalmadness later this week.
So you think you’re poor? Why don’t you find out where your salary puts you on the Global Rich List? Hint: if you’re American and employed, you’re probably in the top 15% of all human beings, even if your annual income is below the U.S. poverty line. Not that that makes paying $5/gallon for gas any less horrifying.
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If you ever meet two folks who collaborate well, who can finish each other’s thoughts, chances are they share a pattern language. When one says “lightbox it”, the other knows exactly what he means. At some point, the two agreed on what a “lightbox” was and what applying that to something meant. It might have been a project in their past, or a conversation they had over drinks. Either way, some bit of history created a shared pattern between those individuals. An inside joke you’re not privy to.
Photos from the 2008 Tour de France, going on now through July 27. So far only one rider has been suspended for doping, which (if memory serves) is an improvement over last year’s race.
Like Jesus Christ and E.T. before him, Pixar’s WALL-E is an adorable, otherworldly creature of patience and pure love sent to save humanity from itself—so it’s only natural that people are clamoring for his blood. The AV Club’s guide to the Wall-E controversies.
NSFW: Playgirl model Nicholas Ryan demonstrates the right way to hula hoop on Wii Fit.
Baby’s first internet: It’s not your job to right a wrong; just mark it ‘FAIL’ and move along.
- Mon Jul 21 2008
- We Can't Have Nice Things
I just finished speaking with a gentleman who called my office line, asking “y’all develop web sites?” Usually when prospective clients call in, they introduce themselves, tell me how they found me, ask a bit about the kinds of things I build. This guy just said, “y’all develop web sites?” the same way you’d call a store and ask them if they sell DVD players or refrigerators.
He said he needed a login page. Okay, fine, so I ask what he needs the login page for. “Uh, I just want people to enter uh, a password when they come to the site before they can look at the pages. Ah have all the content up, ah just need the lawg-in page.” This does not sound like a serious inquiry for a serious web developer of my serious caliber, but I’m willing to play along a bit. So I ask him where’s his current site, so I can take a look at it.
“Mah site’s sheefetish.com.”
“Shoe fetish?”
“Naw. It’s S-as-in-sam, H-E-E-F-E-T-I-S-H.”
“Ooookay…checking it no— okay.”This is what I saw:
I look at it, and it gives me the perfect exit strategy.
“Okay, sir, I should tell you that as a policy I don’t work on adult websites.”
“Oh. Okay. [click]”In other news, if Starbucks is hiring I am totally going back to slinging coffee. I am so over the internet.
- Tue Jul 15 2008