So I’ve got a new favorite t-shirt brand:

They’re called Barking Irons on the Bowery.
From their Wikipedia page:

The name “Barking Irons” comes from a 19th century slang term for pistols. The term was created by gangs of youths that haunted New York’s infamous Bowery. The Bowery, a theatre district for much of the century, was a critical proving ground for indigenous American culture in the 19th century. Uniquely American art forms such as tap-dancing, minstrel shows, and vaudeville theatre all gained popularity in the Bowery theatres of the time.

Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve become more and more interested in the history of New York. It began in earnest after seeing Gangs of New York and realizing my Irish ancestors on my father’s side came to to New York not long after that film takes place. Since then I’ve read books and watched documentaries on the city – most recently Secrets of New York on NYC TV.
These shirts are fueling my continued curiosity of the city.

What’s great about these shirts is each of the collections they’ve put out are themed on a particular aspect of New York history.
barkingirons.com

Watch CBS Videos Online

So Microsoft began running two commercials featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates a few weeks ago. These ads were the beginning of their $300 million campaign to promote Microsoft and Windows Vista – although calling it a damage control campaign is more accurate. I liked the spots. They were funny. They didn’t do much to make a meaningful point, but I wasn’t expecting MS to.
MIcrosoft has now stopped the ‘Jerry & Bill’ abruptly and are now doing an “I’m a a PC” concept – playing off of the personified PC/Mac characters in Apple’s commercials from the last 1-2 years.
Huh?
I’m surprised at the inelegant campaign transition considering MS’s ad agency of record is Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
I worked at CPB down in Coral Gables, FL for a few months in 2007 during their big campaigns for Volkswagen (Unpimp Your Ride, etc) and I can attest to the fact that it is a very solid company and capable of producing amazing work – from banner ad campaigns, to TV spots to viral marketing. Prior to getting the $400 million Volkswagen campaign, CPB had a $40 million contract with Mini Cooper and also produced amazing interactive and print work.
Which brings me to my point: an ad agency is only as great as the company who hires them.
This idea derives from what they say in technology – a computer is only as fast as it’s slowest processor.
Microsoft is Crispin’s slowest processor.

Environmentalists get on my nerves. Not because their ideas aren’t good, it’s just their attitude.
From iPodNN:

Apple has made yet more environmental progress with its latest iPods, but still has more to accomplish, claims Greenpeace.
…Greenpeace also praises Apple for aiming to phase out toxins by the end of 2008, and increase recycling by 2010, but suggests that there is still room for improvement. The group notes that it is comparatively easy to eliminate PVC and BFRs from handheld devices, because they require less power, and therefore produce less heat. It is Macs, Greenpeace says, that are the true challenge, and Apple would be an industry leader if none of its computers used the chemicals.

Fine, Apple needs to improve their efforts.
Then I don’t want to see any Apple computers in any Greenpeace offices.
No iPhones, no iPods, nothing that can kill the environment.
They should all move over to IBMs or Dells or HPs – I’m sure those are much more environmentally friendly. Hey! And there’s tens of millions more Windows machines out there too! YAY!
I wish these people would be realists too – save the planet for the people, don’t just say you want to save ‘the environment’.
It’s like George Carlin said, the planet has been here for billions of years, the planet is fine – the people are fucked.

WOW. (thanks victor)

Dr. Egon Spengler: There’s something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don’t cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, “bad”?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That’s bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

There are a few websites and blogs I enjoy in their entirety because of their fine design and craftsmanship. I type in their URL, and I absorb the site – from the words to the typography to the grid system.

Besides those few exceptions, I get most of my online fixes through Google Reader. I subscribe to RSS feeds of all my favorite sites and periodically check my Reader throughout the day (my wife is always amazed when I come home in the evening and I know about all the news they’re broadcasting). Text & image. No frills. Hey, that’s why it stands for Real Simple Syndication. 🙂

Whenever I come to a story that is intriguing, I’ll star it for later. There are 2 reasons that might star an article. First – it looks interesting, but I don’t have that time at that moment to read the entire entry (if it looks long). Second – the entry is more than just a witty post. It’s important and says some profound things that I might want to read and reread over, and perhaps write about on this site.

Now my Google Reader (who will be playing the part of the Batman in this movie) has a new sidekick – Instapaper (read: Robin).

Instapaper works in two steps. First, when I come to a story I want to read later, I click on the Instapaper ‘Read Later’ link in my Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar (think del.icio.us 1.0). Second – I launch the Instapaper application on my iPhone and click ‘Update’ and it caches my pages so that I can read them later. Especially when I don’t have an Internet connection in the subway.

So what Instapaper has done is provide a nice compliment to Google Reader. It won’t replace Reader, it’s just offloaded some of the work of starring items. These stars weren’t even accessible underground anyway without Internet anyway.

If your online consumptions follow a similar pattern as mine, I suggest you look into Instapaper (and an iPhone/iPod Touch if you don’t have one yet). Instapaper Google Reader

Below is a screenshot from a story on CNN.com about Hurricane Gustav.
The image becomes much more entertaining once you read the caption.

*image disclaimer – color/contrast edited from original page & image

THAT’S what I call a DRINKER!

So I keep seeing headlines about the iPhone’s “killer app”. Does it exist? Which one is it?
BusinessWeek writes about The Search for the Killer iPhone App.
Over at TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld takes on this topic in his article, iPhone Apps: One Month And 60 Million Downloads Later. But Not One Of Them Is A Killer App.
I’m glad he figures out the answer to this question of what the killer app(s) is(are).

And I’m not the only one who thinks that these apps are going to hit a saturation point real soon. And then it will become clear that the killer apps on the iPhone are the same as on your computer: email and the browser.

There’s a few ways I could answer this question.
One answer is that the iPhone itself is the killer application. The way Google Maps integrates with Contacts which integrates with Calendar which integrates with Mail which integrates with Photos and Camera.
The fact that I can get an email from my friend Bryan, click on his name, get taken to his contact page, select his mobile number to call him, and while I’m on the phone with him, click on his address to find out where his apartment is, and then go back to his contact page to get the URL to his site so I can read his most recent entry.
That’s the killer app for me. All of it. Together.
The other way I could answer the question is – the App Store is the killer app.
To reference my first answer above, the iPhone has solved integrated communications. Every other app is just along for the ride and will be inherently derivative, only able to tap into the various Core Services (email, browser, maps, media playback) and since the App Store is the gatekeeper to all the apps, it’s the most popular application, by design.
Now that I think about it, ‘The App Store’ is a very appropriate name, since what you’re getting with most of the apps is just that – an appetizer.
The iPhone is the whole meal.
UPDATE: iPhonic also has similar thoughts on the killer app topic too

From TED.com:

Cards that fly all over the table, spill onto the floor, and disappear beneath a laser beam. Welcome to the chaotic and flabbergasting magical world of Lennart Green, grand master of close-up card trickery.
…Swedish card trick maestro Lennart Green has been baffling audiences for years with card tricks that seem barely under control. In 1991 he won the grand prize in close-up card magic from the International Federation of Magic Societies (FISM), sometimes called the “Olympics of magic.” He might’ve won it in 1985 also, except his act of seemingly impossible cardplay fooled even the judges.

Jam3Media (via ChangeTheThought)

NYTimes.com does it again with a great data visualization on the Olympics: