Sacre Moo!

Thunder Chicken on Vimeo (via Vimeo)

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:38:42 -0500

Thunder Chicken on Vimeo (via Vimeo)

First Political Item to Make Me Smile This Year

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:14:23 -0400

Even in dirty campaigns such as this one, where half-truths, obfuscation and exaggeration abound (from both sides, mind you), when you challenge the voting public to judge your opponent by what is known of him, you show respect for your audience, your opponent, and the political process. When you do as the McCain campaign has done in these more dire of their campaign days—challenge your audience to judge your opponent by what is not known of him—you show a profound disrespect for humanity.

Let’s give a name to this meme, the implied answer to the question posed by the McCain campaign. Let’s call the meme “Obama is a terrorist” for simplicity’s sake. Of this I’m sure: the McCain campaign is run by smart people who wouldn’t be where they are were it otherwise. The McCain campaign knows that Barack Obama is not a terrorist nor a terrorist sympthaizer, that claims of his faith in and practice of Islam are without any legitimacy, that his ties with people whose past can be characterized as radical are based on nothing other than community building and never destruction. But the McCain campaign knows that there are fringe elements of its audience who don’t know this. And so they allow themselves the luxury of suggesting it by merely posing a question.

Granted, I believe that when McCain asks the question, “What don’t we know about Barack Obama?” his intentions are not to imply that Obama is a terrorist. On the contrary, I believe that McCain is decent enough to have been negatively surprised by the reaction his question received from an audience member in this clip from a rally in New Mexico last week. I believe that when McCain himself asks the question, he intends to simply convey the message that to many, the details of Barack Obama’s policies may be obscured by the magnetism of his personality (which, in itself, is a legitimate suggestion).

But the question, posed with a slightly different and increasingly common intonation, exploits that most dangerous of all human tendencies: to fear the unknown.

Let me be perfectly clear: challenging voters to judge a man based on the unknown is an outright appeal to ignorance.

UPDATE: This, via John Dickerson, is uplifting.

Photo

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 18:37:08 -0400

"I think the way to “solve” the problem of procrastination is to let delight pull you instead of..."

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:23:44 -0400

“I think the way to “solve” the problem of procrastination is to let delight pull you instead of making a to-do list push you. Work on an ambitious project you really enjoy, and sail as close to the wind as you can, and you’ll leave the right things undone.”

- Good and Bad Procrastination (via toddprouty)

hiring a designer is not like dating

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:24:22 -0400

Also true for freelance developers.

nikography:

juliaallison:

Caveat up front: we can’t pay a lot, and for that, I am deeply sorry. But we will work out some compensation, and we’d love to establish a relationship going forward that could turn into something more. It’s like dating. Try ‘em out for a bit: see if you like us, see if we like you, then maybe we’ll get serious and you can meet our parents and shit.

no, it’s not really like dating at all.

it’s more like you’re paying for someone’s skill (that they’ve already invested a lot of time in) and their additional time spent doing your shit instead of say, having fun or doing their own shit.

it may be like dating for you, but it’s like business for us.

Something Else

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:20:18 -0400

I started this today with a friend.

buzzandersen: (via aja) A brilliant update of the WWII-era...

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:32:01 -0400

buzzandersen:

(via aja)

A brilliant update of the WWII-era British Ministry of Information poster. Good advice in these scary times!

Scenes from Rio de Janeiro - The Big Picture - Boston.com The...

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:08:40 -0400

Scenes from Rio de Janeiro - The Big Picture - Boston.com

The Big Picture is an amazing place to hang out and see pictures. Excerpt note from this set: A French photographer who identifies himself as JR is exhibiting portraits of women whose loved ones were killed by police as part of his project entitled “Women are Heroes.”

And speaking of science...

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:12:00 -0400

Slightly related: It makes me sad when people of one faith or another are portrayed as being anti-science, but mostly it makes me angry because there is a lot of evidence to support that charge. What is the deal there, faith-people? Do we know how God works? We call the act of gravity on an apple science, but a speedier-than-expected cancer recovery a miracle. Is there a difference? Is the hand of God less evident in gravity, and is science and medicine of no use to disease? Of course not. Its all miracles. And its probably all science too.

Go outside. Eat an apple. Thank God for it, if you want. Admire the natural, scientific order that brought it about, if you want. You’ll only strain a muscle trying to divide the two.

Making the Hippo Dance

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:08:11 -0400

Making the Hippo Dance: This appetizer/extras bit from RadioLab is really worth a listen. I’ve never heard a show by them that I didn’t like, but this one deals directly with the idea of making something that you care about (science, in this case) interesting and compelling to others through story and a little elbow grease.

Changes

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:29:28 -0400

OK listen, I’m trying something new. I have de-coupled my Twitter feed from this blog. So if you want to see all that inane 140-characters-or-less stuff, see http://twitter.com/saintlukas. I will do my best to make it entertaining and worth the 5 seconds each post takes to read. Frankly, Twitter would be more fun for me if more of my friends used it, but they don’t and so I may be in my latter days over there.

If you want to see things that I am reading, watching, listening to, or writing that provide me with creative inspiration, or the kick-in-the-pants to go do something awesome, you are in the right place.

I’ve got this idea bugging me lately that I could remove a few things that are distractions or diversions, and make more room for being awesome. Or making things that delight me (and perhaps others?). Rather then “I’m doing this to kill time because I’m awake at night” I’m trying to shift into “now that I have time, what steps can I take towards that crazy dream of mine.” Me? I’m trying to write 100 songs so I can perhaps write a few good ones, and then get them out to the world. I have other dreams too, but this one is getting its chance for a while.

Maybe you can do the same (dream, and work, not write 100 songs, unless that’s what you want).

One person who seems to be on a parallel course with my summer’s worth of thinking is this guy. Check it out. Then go do something awesome.

Unless you’re being paid to do so (another thought for later), don’t just kill time. You don’t get enough of it as it is.

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and..."

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:44:27 -0400

““This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.””

- “Written by Guthrie in the late 1930s on a songbook distributed to listeners of his L.A. radio show “Woody and Lefty Lou” who wanted the words to his recordings.”

Woody Guthrie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"As a matter of fact, if nobody wrote any songs from this day on, the world ain’t gonna suffer..."

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:16:25 -0400

“As a matter of fact, if nobody wrote any songs from this day on, the world ain’t gonna suffer for it. Nobody cares. There’s enough songs for people to listen to, if they want to listen to songs. For every man, woman and child on earth, they could be sent, probably, each of them, a hundred records, and never be repeated. There’s enough songs. Unless someone’s gonna come along with a pure heart and has something to say. That’s a different story. But as far as songwriting, any idiot could do it.”

- Bob Dylan: The Song Talk Interview

1991. He’s written a few since then also.

I prefer to only have 3 rows of iPhone app icons on each page, makes it easier to swipe to other...

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:38:08 -0400

I prefer to only have 3 rows of iPhone app icons on each page, makes it easier to swipe to other pages, and looks way less crowded.

How about if I shake the phone during a call it sounds like I’m strangling the person on the...

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:44:26 -0400

How about if I shake the phone during a call it sounds like I’m strangling the person on the other end?

That’s cute, they posted this in the Gigs:Talent section of Craigslist...