Photographer David Friedman put together a short documentary on the ‘father’ of the video game, Ralph Baer. His wife died to in 2006, but he continues to tinker and invent is his home laboratory. “What else am I going to do? I need a challenge.”, he says. I love how he’s an engineer by trade, but sees himself as an artist:

I still get a big charge out of making something work. I write the hardware, I push the button, I download it into the microprocessor… and it works. Ahhh, beautiful!

I’m basically an artist, no different from a painter that sits there and loves what he does.

Would you ask a guy who’s been painting his whole life why you’re still painting, why don’t you retire? Retire to what?! Stop painting? This is insane.

via The Atlantic

Abdel Ibrahim reviews the HTC One X for The TechBlock:

When it comes to Android, though, my second in-depth experience wasn’t any less jarring than the first. Despite my time in the trenches with ICS on the Galaxy Nexus, HTC has slapped on so much paint with Sense that I often struggled to find my way. And what I recognized I still didn’t like. Granted, I cut my teeth on iOS devices, which pride themselves on simplicity, but I refuse to believe Android couldn’t be more user friendly. For all its options, there’s too much clutter. But if you can look past that or are accustomed to Android, I have little doubt you’d love the HTC One X.

Translation: If you’re cool with messy, shitty experiences you should love this phone.
Talk about Android apologists.

Maurice Sendak, dead at 83
via The Atlantic via Drewbot

Influencer: Francisco Goya, The Shootings of May 3, 1808

Influenced: Yan Pei-Ming, Exécution, Après Goya, 2008

via Cool Hunting

Shawn Blanc says his iPad is now is laptop. Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac agrees and even wrote his latest book all on an iPad.
To be clear, Blanc used to be a print designer and now writes full-time on his own site. I understand how it’s possible to be a writer and use just an iPad for work.
For me, I’m a web designer and rely heavily on my laptop to be productive. When I travel, it’s with 3 devices – my iPhone, my iPad and my MacBook Pro. While I am more senior at this point in my career and don’t find myself doing as much heavy lifting in Photoshop and Illustrator, I still need to use them.
I would love to reach a point where I just need to carry my iPad, but I still work on the farm and I need a truck (see also here).

Apparently in 1911 Dr. T. Kennard Thomson proposed to expand New York into its adjacent waters for a grand total of 50 square miles.
From Big Think:

By Dr Thomson’s estimates, enlarging New York according to his plans would cost more than digging the Panama Canal – but the returns would quickly repay the debt incurred and make New York the richest city in the world. He then goes on to describe how he would reclaim all that land. The plan’s larger outlines: move the East River east, and build coffer dams from the Battery at Manhattan’s southern tip to within a mile of Staten Island, on the other side of the Upper Bay, and the area in between them filled up with sand. This would enlarge Manhattan to an island several times its present size.

Here is one of his proposed expansion maps:

via thisisnthappiness

Arnold One-Liners by Kyle Kargov.
Why he’s not selling these, I don’t know.

via Public School

I might have left New York City, but it doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy it from the left coast.
From the Bureau of Common Goods in Brooklyn comes Made By Hand (via arainert):

A project from the Bureau of Common Goods, Made by Hand was created out of the belief that the things we collect, consume, use, and share are part of who we are as individuals. For example, the food that we eat says something about each of us, as do the tools we use and the chairs we rest on. Objects that surround the space we dwell in tell stories, and not just about us. Where did they come from? Who made them? How were they made?

Each film aims to promote that which is made locally, sustainably, and with a love for craft. Based in Brooklyn, the project takes its influence from the handmade movement here and elsewhere. We hope you find the spirit of it inspiring.

I just watched their film on writer turned knife maker, Joel Bukiewicz. Pretty awesome – both the film and the knives Joel makes by hand (obviously).
I’m seeing more and more examples of a return to the analogue in our digital, multi-touch world. It’s the resurgence in letterpress printing in the last 10 years. It’s the Edison light bulbs I see in boutiques and restaurants and homes. It’s services providing locally produced and chemical-free foods. I see it in everything on Etsy. I see it on Kickstarter. I see in the the wooden iPhone and iPad cases made by Karvt.
People are craving all things hand made more than ever.
The Internet continues both reinvent and dismantled entire industries, but there’s one thing it can’t do – make things by hand.

Hillman Curtis died on April 18th. He was a talented, passionate creator.
Here’s a 4-minute documentary he did on himself a few months ago.
The funny thing about Hillman is I never thought much of his web design work. It wasn’t great. It was clean, and organized and a lot of work went into it. But there wasn’t passion.
His passion came out when he stepped behind the camera and began making his short films and documentaries on other talented creators like Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, Lawrence Weiner and Joshua Davis.
It was when he started making his films that I started paying attention to him.
I’m happy he found his true calling before he died.

6 May 1937, Lakehurst, New Jersey

A Ferrari 250 GT SWB

via Flickr via Motoriginal

Daily Exhaust is not my full-time job. This means many of the links I find daily I stash away in my Instapaper account and either take a while to get posted or sit around too long and go obsolete. Technology links are the most time-sensitive and usually go stale the quickest. Links focused on creativity, innovation and design usual stay fresh — or get better with age, like wine.
The good news is at this point, I have a whole wine cellar of tasty links and time to start posting them.
Instead of dumping them on this site all at once, I’ll be queueing them up to be posted in the coming weeks.