From the NYTimes:

In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.

This piece by Matt Taibbi on Rollingstone.com makes me feel angry and helpless:

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

From The Huffington Post:

Amid throngs of bankers arguing that new regulations should not impede on financial “innovation,” Volcker pushed back, blasting Wall Street’s increasingly complex financial products as useless to economic growth. In what seems to have been a shot at exotic securities, he named the ATM cash machine as the most successful financial innovation in the past 20 years, the Times reported.

A little late to post this, but my copy of The Feltron 2008 Annual Report arrived a few weeks ago.
…and it is lovely.

Who gives a shit if Obama’s speech is good? We all know he’s an amazing speaker.
How about we focus on how he presides over this country?
You know, how he actually does his job, not on what he wants to do.

Looks like Adidas is doing creating some fun microsites. Hit their fun landing page and start exploring.

This is true. America™ is a brand.
As George Carlin has said, this country was bought and sold a long time ago.

I’m a little late on this, but Razorfish dropped a new site not too long ago (thanks vb).

It’s not often you see design from the political realm influencing design within the artistic realm, but that’s what Obama has done (by hiring talented people from the artistic realm):
influencer:

Influenced:

The picture you see above is my third V-Moda Vibe Duo headset. It most likely be the last product I buy from V-Moda.
Let’s start from the beginning.
I bought my first generation iPhone in late January 2008. Knowing well the shitty quality of Apple’s included earbuds, I decided to get the only other headset that (at the time) had an inline microphone – the V-Moda Vibe Duo. Having a headset with a microphone is crucial when you have an iPhone as the iPhone doesn’t have the loudest speaker and it’s not comfortable to hold to your ear (what mobile phone is for that matter?).
Let me note that I read through a few dozen reviews on the Apple Store website prior to making my purchase. There were five or six reviews describing V-Moda headsets that broke after a short time. I decided I’d give V-Moda the benefit of the doubt and buy their product (that’s how much I hated Apple’s included earbuds). Perhaps these people got a bad batch.
My first pair of V-Moda’s lasted about three months before they stopped working for me. What I mean by this is that they stopped producing sound. Completely.
When this happened I went onto the V-Moda website and followed all the instructions for returns (I’m OCD about keeping recipes and boxes, especially for electronics). I wasn’t happy I had to pay for shipping, but other than that, it was cake. My new headset was delivered to me within about three weeks. Perfect. Great job taking care of your customers V-Moda.
This second headset only lasted about a month before one of the earbuds came apart, only the wire holding the speaker to the earbud base. Also, there seemed to be a short in the base of the cord where the headset jack connects to the iPhone. Depending on how I bent the wire, it would flicker from stereo to mono sound from the left earbud only.
I repeated the return process above and received another pair promptly.
I’m a few months into my newest headset and everything is working fine, but I don’t think I have the trust in the V-Moda brand to buy another product from them. I respect V-Moda for doing the right thing and not arguing my return issues. They were real and don’t seem to have been the only one with issues.
I wish V-Moda the best and hope they resolve their quality issues. When they’re working, the Vibe Duo headset is a great product.

Microsoft doesn’t seem to know the difference between interesting experiments and consumer-ready software.
Below is a screencast of Windows 7, demonstrating a shake gesture. When you grab a window bar and shake it with your mouse it minimizes all the windows behind it.

As Chris Rock said in reference to being a single parent, “Just because you can do something don’t mean it’s ta be done!”
A shake gesture is very appropriate (and fun) interaction model for something like a mobile phone. For anyone who’s used the Facebook App for the iPhone, you might know that in order to refresh the results of a given screen, all you have to do is shake your phone. Navigating to the refresh button that’s only a few dozen pixels big takes much more concentration and time than simply shaking the phone. In short – a shake gesture on a mobile phone simplifies actions.
A shake gesture on a desktop experience makes no sense and doesn’t simplify anything for the user. The shake “innovation” is good – it’s it’s implementation that doesn’t work.
Microsoft has seen how Exposé works on OS X, why don’ they just weakly copy that, like they usually do?

My mother scoffed at the idea that Obama is “this generation’s JFK”.
If this Acceptance Speech doesn’t move you, then you’ve got a problem: