In search of the perfect cup
With the help of San Francisco’s Blue Bottle Coffee, CHOW explains why it’s so tough to make a good cup of espresso, the importance of fresh beans, home roasting, and why you should never freeze your beans (video).
teabyrd.com my adventures
Sunday roundup
From the New York Times’ TimesTalks series (podcast available), The Ethicist’s Randy Cohen discusses ethics in society. Specifically, he explores the importance of circumstance and personal character on ethical conduct. The session runs about an hour: mp3 (32.3mb)
Deleting iTunes tracks - I’ve always wondered if it was possible to delete iTunes tracks permanently while in a playlist. It turns out a quick key command works. Highlight the track(s) to be deleted, and hit Option + Command + Delete. The track(s) will be removed from both the playlist and your Library. [from theAppleBlog]
ASME’s top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years
Wally Woody’s 22 Panels that Always Work - Framing fun
Winnie the Pooh (Vinni Puh) in Russian - Drawn! highlights a re-imagined and beautifully redrawn telling of the Winnie the Pooh stories. [from Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog]
Charlie Rose
The Charlie Rose site announced big changes back in January, and I may have missed the addition of new content during the past month or so. The new Charlierose.com is loaded with thousands of hours of new and archived interviews.
The efforts that have gone into this unprecedented venture are truly remarkable. For over a year dozens of individuals have worked in partnership with Google to archive over 4,000 hours of Charlie Rose programming. They’ve broken shows into individual segments, created pictures and collected biographies for guests.
…
What we now bring you is a collection of 8,000 segments, over 6,000 guests and 3,600 program hours that currently date back to the 1994-1995 season of the show.
A few highlights: Scorsese on Kubrick, Michel Gondry on Eternal Sunshine, Robert Altman, Wim Wenders and Ry Cooder on Buena Vista Social Club, Colbert. Dive into the archives by searching for guest or browsing by topic.
Monday roundup
A series of four 55 minute films shown on Channel 4 TV in the UK in early 1992. To say this was the best and most intelligent analysis of improvisation to be screened on UK television is probably unnecessary: it has in all likelihood been the only televised programme on this form of music-making.
From cityofsound
Inbox Zero: managing the e-mail overload.
Get started with Merlin Mann’s (of 43 Folders) talk (~ 1 hour video) at Google, and then move on to his ongoing series on dealing with that time-wasting inbox.
design|snips: collecting good design
blueprint - a css framework. I was out of the country when this was released, and it could be extremely useful for web designers.
It gives you a solid CSS foundation to build your project on top of, with an easy-to-use grid, sensible typography, and even a stylesheet for printing.
Found over at Subtraction (includes an interview with Olav Frihagen Bjørkøy)
The Bruce Springsteen MP3 Bootleg Index: “The most comprehensive collection of Bruce Springsteen songs, shows and compilations.” Make sure your hard drive is ready before you start browsing the amazing collection of live shows.
Return to posting
You may have noticed a slight drop in posting frequency over the past few months. I was fortunate enough to travel through Europe for a couple weeks, and I’m finally back and recovering from the crippling jet lag.
Surprisingly, free wi-fi wasn’t as easy to come by as expected while abroad, so my email and RSS inboxes are overflowing. I’ll be busy for the next few months, but I’m planning on setting aside some time for the site, so you can expect semi-regular updates.
Schama’s “Power of Art”
Simon Schama’s Power of Art: Flipping through the channels to watch a movie the other evening, I happened to stumble on the first episode of this BBC series airing in the US on PBS. With 8 episodes, the series looks at Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Rothko.
Despite the somewhat hokey reenactments scattered throughout some of the episodes, Schama offers excellent commentary and a thorough discussion of the symbolic, biographical, and historical importance of the artists and their work. The New York Times reviews:
“Power of Art” succeeds not because of the power of the chosen masterpieces but because Mr. Schama masterfully weaves engaging mysteries around each artwork.
For more on the series, check out the BBC’s website, PBS’s site (full of video clips from each episode), and the extensive Intro pdf.
Tuesday roundup
Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency - Don’t miss The Washington Post’s 4 part series on the Vice President.
Imperfect Sound Forever - How records have gotten “louder” over the years and why this trend isn’t exactly a good thing.
Looking for some great online cooking resources for beginners? 101 Cookbooks and Cooking for Engineers.
Deep keyboard cleansing
Can a dishwasher be used to clean a dirty keyboard? Coudal sets up a test experiment and documents the results with the aid of a fancy “waterproof” dishwashercam. See if it works.
Covering “The Weight”
Old Crow Medicine Show joins Gillian Welch and David Rawlings for a stunning rendition of The Band’s classic “The Weight.”
Good Copy Bad Copy
First aired on Danish TV last month, Good Copy Bad Copy is an hour long documentary discussing the current state of copyright and culture. The film explores multiple issues surrounding copyright by looking at topics including the takedown of the PirateBay servers, the burgeoning Nigerian film industry, and the ever contentious issue of remixing and licensing.
Here’s the trailer, but I suggest you grab the torrent and download the entire documentary here. If your harddrive is feeling a little full, you can just watch the film over at Google Video.
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