Hemmings Blog on the history of New York City and automobiles:

The pairing of the automobile and the narrow, teeming, crowded canyons of New York City is endlessly fascinating. The Standard Catalog lists 334 different manufacturers based in New York City (most of which, surely, built no more than one or two cars, if any), but beyond that, the Big Apple has a history of dealerships, driving, navigation, cab riding, and automotive legislation all its own.

As Just A Car Guy mentions, 334 is a lot of manufacturers.
I love New York.

Bill Gates was interviewed on the BBC last week to talk about everything he’s up to, as well as what Ballmer is making a mess of at his old company:

When the interviewer suggested that we’re in a post-PC era, with most of the innovation happening today on smartphones and tablets, Gates replied:

“The PC is the tablet….You’ll see devices and say ‘is that a PC, is that a phone?’ The words will change because innovation is happening so fast.”

Bill, you can cut with the semantics bullshit. When someone says PC, there’s no confusion they’re talking about their personal computer sitting on their desk with a monitor, hard drive and keyboard and not their phone, tablet, alarm clock or television. We get it, everything has a computer in it nowadays, but the fact remains that Microsoft is way behind in mobile and tablet computing.
Nice evasive maneuvering.

The 8813 was built with you, the professional, in mind. It quickly and easily processes cost estimates, payrolls, accounts, inventory, patient/client records and much more. You can write reports, briefs, and proposals on the 8813′s typewriter keyboard, see them on the video screen, and instantly correct, revise, or print them.

Using the 8813, one person can process what would normally require many secretaries, several bookkeepers, and a great deal of time. And data storage takes a small fraction of the space used by previous methods.

You don’t need to learn complicated computer languages. The 8813 understands commands in English. If you want to write your own programs, the 8813 includes a simple computer language, BASIC, that you can master in a few days. The 8813 slashes the professional’s overhead. It’s a powerful time and money-saving ally. Prices for complete systems including printer start at less than $8,000.

Classic.
via Modern Mechanix

Arrested Motion on the beautiful paintings of Pakayla Rae Biehn:

As a technique derived from and almost solely reserved for photographic applications, her ability to so gracefully achieve this signature optic feel with paint and brush could be attributed to her affinity for math, her use of computer applications to break down photographic reference images, as well as her eye disorder strabismus, which imparts a double vision like effect to her sight, all touched on during a recent interview with our friend at Erratic Phenomena. The resulting work is nothing short of majestic, a whimsical mixture of soft colors, delicate focus, enchanting imagery, idiosyncratic composition, and emotional intimacy that is evocative of a nostalgic summer daydream. Illustrating an ability to overcome, if not ingeniously integrate, her visual obstacles into the creative process itself, and with painterly expertise at the core of it all, Pakayla has produced a visceral and emotive experience both distinctive and rewarding.

Michael Wolff wrote a great piece on the sad state of publishing on tablets (read: the iPad).
Here’s a few choice nuggets I loved:

But, back to Rupert. The Daily is a pure I-don’t-get-it-but-I’ll-be-damned-if-that-stops-me play (and who can stop me, anyway?). It was conceived by Murdoch himself, willed into being by Murdoch, and executed by him. A man who has an absolute belief in the medium of newspapers and almost no firsthand experience or interest in digital media–save for having sometimes to awkwardly pose next to a computer to suggest he might use one, although he doesn’t–decided to address the problem of old ways and new technology with the greatest certainty and resolve. The Daily is the result–a hopeless misreading of the form.

And:

There’s a loud, jarring, jumpy, desperate, look-at-me sense of tablet publishing–it tries too hard. It’s not just that tablet design invites people to look over your shoulder and enter your space–but it makes the reader self-conscious too. So much design, so little function. So much brand, so little purpose. Vulgar.

via FishbowlNY

I never knew this, but the term “thinking outside the box” came from the puzzle below (which I did years ago). The goal is to connect all nine dots with just 4 straight lines:

Spoiler alert: you have to think outside the box to solve this.
via PysBlog: The Creative Power of Thinking Outside Yourself

via Tangled Web Of Vice

via Tangled Web Of Vice

Business Insider: Why Successful People Leave Work Early

Try this for a day: don’t answer every phone call. Stop checking your email every two minutes. And leave work early. You’ll be astounded at how much more you’ll get done.

According to a study published in the Psychological Review conducted by Dr. K. Anders Ericcson, the key to great success is working harder in short bursts of time. Then give yourself a break before getting back to work.

The trick is staying focused. Ericsson and his team evaluated a group of musicians to find out what the “excellent” players were doing differently. They found that violinists who practiced more deliberately, say for 4 hours, accomplished more than others who slaved away for 7 hours. The best performers set goals for their practice sessions and required themselves to take breaks.

via @Richard_Florida

Forbes magazine on Pew Research Center’s new study on where big news sites get their traffic from.
Turns out The Drudge Report kicks some ass:

Facebook figures larger in the mix, driving anywhere from 1 percent (AOL News, MSNBC.com) to 7 or 8 percent (CNN, ABC News and, leading the pack, the Huffington Post). But if what you want is a real firehose of visitors, no newfangled social network can compete with the Drudge Report. The 15-year-old aggregator of links was responsible for between 5 and 10 percent of the traffic to the New York Times and USA Today during the period studied. It accounted for 15 percent of the traffic to the Washington Post, 20 percent to the New York Post and an astonishing 30 percent to the Daily Mail.

Remember too, the site is only one page.
Maybe Jason Fried over at 37Signals was right when he declared in 2008 that The Drudge Report was one of the best designed sites on the web.
via FishbowlNY

From Rolling Stone magazine, Paul Simon doesn’t like being Second to Dylan:

Simon, who has just released his new album So Beautiful Or So What, says that in his head at least, there has been something of a folk stand-off going on.

He told Rolling Stone: “I usually come in second to (to Dylan), and I don’t like coming in second. In the beginning, when we were first signed to Columbia, I really admired Dylan’s work. The Sound of Silence wouldn’t have been written if it weren’t for Dylan. But I left that feeling around The Graduate and Mrs Robinson. They weren’t folky any more.”

via The Guardian

Beautiful work by Adam Hill on his site, Velcro Suit.
via Ministry of Type

Nick Fletcher on the flaw in iOS’ Notification System:

Quite simply, the modal alerts that iOS currently uses are broken not because tech bloggers everywhere are struggling with notifications all the time, but because the iOS system fails to account for the contextual areas in which showing a notification is actually impeding your use of the device. For example: when you’re on the phone and an SMS comes in. I’ve never once been on a phonecall where, after concluding the call, knowing I got an SMS from my fiancée was more important than hanging up the call.

I’m looking forward to the next version of iOS where this is fixed. I know it’s something Apple is aware of and has every intention of fixing, but make no mistake, it’s a BIG fix. I would say it’s on par with copy-and-paste because it’s a core feature effecting every part of the operating system.
And like copy-and-paste, Apple is going to take it’s time to make sure the solution release is thought out, elegant and easy to use.

The designer who voluntarily presents his client with a batch of layouts does so not out of prolificacy, but out of uncertainty or fear.

—Paul Rand
via @mullerbrockmann (via Analogue)