telescreen.org

Gleam, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

Currently sorting through a massive backlog of photos to edit and upload. I'm about two weeks behind schedule. (One problem with continuous-shooting cameras is that you wind up with a LOT of pictures to choose from.)

This is from a couple of weeks ago, when I went planespotting near LGA.

Attackin, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

I can't believe I made a lolcat.

Oh, the shame.

How long does it take to get 873 people out of an Airbus A380?

Well, in a nighttime evacuation test a while back, Airbus staged a simulated evacuation to answer just that question:

And it turns out that YouTube is a treasure trove of fascinating geek porn A380 test videos, including:

• landing in a 40-50 knot crosswind;
• a tail strike on takeoff;
• flushing the toilets, sending sewage through the pipes at 130 mph; and
• testing the brakes.

I also found this interesting time-lapse video of the assembly of an A380.  (I love that the YouTube category for it is "How-To & DIY", by the way.  If you manage to put one of these things together in your garage, let me know.)

What it's like to travel with the pope.

When an electronic device goes "tango uniform", it's usually a good idea to reboot it.  (This applies to more than computers, or rather: microprocessors are in so many things nowadays.  Even the videotape machines we have at work do better when you reboot them periodically.) 

Check out an early instance of this...except the tricky part was doing it in space.

Shearwater, one of my very favorite bands, has re-released last year's amazing record Palo Santo in updated and partially re-recorded form.

Check out The Ascent of Palo Santo, which showcases band members' commentary and some sound clips by way of explaining the changes and articulating their philosophy.

Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY takes a turn and muses about Pac-Man.

WTF?  I know it's NewsMax, but check out the truly execrable writing in their profile of Ann Romney.

There's an uncommonly well-written profile of Al Gore in last week's Time magazine.  It's worth your time.

John Updike gets it exactly right.

Great campaign ads from Bill Richardson:

Ken Nordine in concert, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

"Ken Nordine, yea I know that guy, I heard his voice 1000 times, he's the guy in the bus station that says "go ahead I'll keep an eye on your stuff for you," and you see him the next day walking around town wearing your clothes. He broadcasts from the boiler room of the Wilmont Hotel with 50,000 watts of power. I know that voice, he's the guy with the pitchfork in your head saying go ahead and jump, and he's the ambulance driver who tells you you're going to pull thru. He's the guy in the control tower who talked you down in a storm with a hole in your fuselage and both engines on fire. I heard him barking thru the Rose Alley Carnival strobe as samurai firemen were pulling hose. Yea he's the dispatcher with the heart of gold, the only guy up this late on the suicide hotline. Ken Nordine is the real angel sitting on the wire in the tangled matrix of cobwebs that holds the whole attic together. Yea Ken Nordine, he's the switchboard operator at the Taft Hotel, the only place in town you can get a drink at this hour. You know Ken Nordine, he's the lite in the icebox, he's the blacksmith on the anvil in your ear."

--Tom Waits


Chicobangs, Pyrimyd, B. and I went to see the great and amazing Ken Nordine perform an ultra-rare concert as part of the High Line Festival.

It was incredible.  Afterwards, we met him, and he bemusedly signed a DVD to me...which is appropriate, as "Vidiot" comes from a 1956 recording of his.

I'm seriously considering cancelling my not-very-old subscription to JPG Magazine.  It's the friendliest, funnest, most winsome magazine out there (plus the photography is really really good.)  Founders Heather Powazek Champ (who also started the Mirror Project and works at Flickr) and Derek Powazek did a great job of fostering a real community, not just a subscriber base.  They created a friendly, homey, you're-among-a-small-group-of-interesting-people vibe.  (Read their letter from the editors that appeared on their website for a good example of this.)

Now, I wonder how much longer that vibe will last, now that JPG publisher Paul Cloutier has, in Derek's words:

removed issues 1-6 from the JPG website, removed Heather from the About page, and deleted the “Letter from the Editors” that had lived on the site since day one. Paul informed me that we were inventing a new story about how JPG came to be that was all about 8020. He told me not to speak of that walk in Buena Vista, my wife, or anything that came before 8020.

Here’s where the whole “not lying” thing comes in. I just could not agree to this new story. It didn’t, and still doesn’t, make any business sense to me. Good publishing companies embrace their founding editors and community, not erase them. Besides, we’d published six issues with participation from thousands of people. There’s no good reason to be anything but proud of that.

Derek's full blog post is here, and is well worth a read.  Heather's also posted about it here.  (And for general discussion, there are threads at Flickr and MetaFilter.)

When will these money guys learn that the reason people buy into a community -- the reason that people love a community -- is something that has to be earned?  That it's about things like attitude and trust?  And that if you deep-six those elements suddently, you run the very real risk of failure, because you're jeopardizing what makes your community special, and turning it into just another website.

Is 8020 within their rights to do this?  Sure.  But that doesn't mean that I have to want to be a part of their community (or, more to the point, send them my money) anymore either.

Man, US Airways' website sucks.  And, they've had a few versions of their website over the years, but they've had one thing in common:  they all suck.  Why is it so difficult for them to put something together that a.) makes sense, and b.) works?

So the other day, I try to book tickets.  I get an error message when I hit "Purchase", and it says to retry it.  I try it again, same result.  I call their support number for their website (which it says to call after retrying), and talk to a tech who says that my problem is that I'm using Firefox, and that their website "only works with Internet Explorer."  (!) 

I call up their main reservations line and try to book the identical ticket and get told that I'll be charged a $10 fee for doing it by phone rather than booking the tickets online.  The rep tells me that it's no big deal, and he'll waive the fee.  I try to book the ticket, and it won't go through, yet again.  (I know I have enough money in my account, and I know that my card works -- 10 minutes before I tried booking with US Airways, I booked the return leg of the same trip through Continental with no problems whatsoever.)  The rep asks me several times if the verification code on the back is correct.  I read the entire card number + verification code to him several times.  He asks me if I'm sure the verification code is what I'd told him.  I tell him yes.  He gets a bit peevish and asks me again.  I tell him that I'm holding the card in my hand, and offer to e-mail him a digital picture of the front and back of my card if he'd like.  He tells me "That won't be necessary, sir."  I ask him what will be necessary to book the tickets, because there's obviously something that's not working. 

So we're at an impasse.  The rep holds my reservation, though, for 24 hours so my seats are locked in, even if I haven't ticketed the reservation.

Later that day, after work, I try again from work using IE this time.  Same result, multiple times.  I call up the reservations line again, and get quoted the same price + the $10 talk-to-a-human fee.  I tell the rep that the other rep had waived the fee.  (Fortunately, I remember the name of the first rep, as the next question is "Who told you that?"  I love it when customer service people ask that question.  Makes me feel like a valued customer.)  My rep puts me on hold to go check with his boss.

While I'm on hold, I pull up Orbitz again.  I find the identical flight for $10 less than the original quoted price (i.e., $20 less, if you factor in the talk-to-a-human fee), and book it -- using the same card -- with no problems.  The rep comes back from talking to his boss or whatever, and I ask him to cancel, because every single time I try to book through US Airways directly -- whether it's to maximize frequent-flyer miles or to get a better fare, or what -- it's always a pain in the ass.  I've had a US Airways frequent-flyer number since I was six years old (true!  I was grandfathered in from the Piedmont Airlines program) and can't stand to deal with the company directly.  So the guy cancels my reservation, and I get the ticket cheaper and with much less hassle through a third party.

(Um, I dunno why I just told you all this.  Blowing off steam, I suppose.  Thanks for your indulgence.)

I never knew quite how deaf people make phone calls (at least, pre-SMS or IM/IP relay.)  Here's a good explanation of how relay services work.

DRAW ME, originally uploaded by Matthew Baldwin.

From the fertile mind of Matthew Baldwin.

Dave Barry in the NYT Book Review:

"It’s impossible to concentrate fully on your e-mail when you’re distracted, especially by animated dolls shrieking about international understanding."

Canadian author Yann Martel ("The Life of Pi") is sending Canadian PM Stephen Harper a different book every fortnight for as long as he stays in office.  (Here's his explanation of why.)  Accompanying each book is a letter to Harper, expounding on the themes of the book and outlining why each was selected. 

2007 being what it is, of course, Martel is posting his letters to Harper on What Is Stephen Harper Reading?, a kind of slow-motion litblog that's well worth five minutes of your time every two weeks.

Check out Bill Clinton's Times crossword puzzle.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.  The Times gets it absolutely right:

It’s come to my attention that some people believe martinis are made with vodka. I hate to get snobbish about it, but a martini should be made with gin or it’s not a martini. Call it a vodkatini if you must, but not a martini. Gin and vodka have as much in common hierarchically as a president and a vice president. Vodka can fill in for gin from time to time and might even be given certain ceremonial duties of its own, but at important moments you need the real thing.

Indeed.

This, by the way, conforms with Rule #10 of Vidiot's Grumpy, Snobbish, And Cantankerous Yet Ironclad Rules of Drinking.

So go check out that Times article; the panel (which includes Libation Goddess Audrey Saunders of the Pegu Club, the finest cocktail bar in New York and possibly on planet Earth) taste-tests several gins in the form of Martinis.

(My girlfriend, an extraordinarily patient and kind soul, doesn't even roll her eyes anymore at my liquor cabinet...which contains three gins at the moment:  Plymouth, Hendrick's, and Bombay Sapphire.)

There is something about a martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow martini;
I wish that I had one at present.

There is something about a martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth --
I think that perhaps it's the gin.

(Ogden Nash)

I think I'll have one tonight, as a matter of fact, when I get home from work.  Plymouth gin, I think, with Noilly Prat and Regan's Orange Bitters.  Mmmmmm.  I can hardly wait.

NOTE:  This post was composed yesterday morning -- as I was putting it together, the cable went out and I couldn't post it.  So it had to wait until now.

But, in the intervening time, Chico and I paid a visit to the Pegu Club, where we had many fine gin-based libations, including a Corpse Reviver No. 2 mixed by Audrey Saunders herself. 

(As she served up the drink, Audrey asked me "You know what your garnish is?"

"Lemon peel?"

"No, your hangover", she quipped with a grin.)

Bliss, I tell ya.

A message from the past...

In a 1958 episode of "Leave It To Beaver", there was a very brief shot of a prop letter onscreen.  Of course, with DVD playback and freeze-framing ability, you can now closely examine things that were never meant to be scrutinized.  Here it is.

I found this to be utterly charming, somehow.

Thanks, Dethroner, for featuring my chicken stock recipe.