Arc: New Music Controller in Video, Detailed Q+A with monome Creator Brian Crabtree.

Alexandra Lange: What Should Food Look Like?.

TUAW’s Daily App: Strange Rain.

Urban Archaeology: North Brother Island – Riverside Hospital.

The Ambiguity of “Open” and VP8 vs. H.264.

Stuxnet Worm Used Against Iran Was Tested in Israel.

Four Loko Recycled Into Eco-Friendly Fuel.

I have been busy working on new compositions, some of which can be heard in my Recent work set. They continue to feature generative beats, synth patterns and polyrhythms. I’ve also been exploring techniques in granular synthesis, including using the new (and recommended) Density M4L and Pulsaret M4L devices, to explore the world of microsound. I have utilized some aspects of granularity in the past but hadn’t been able to pay much attention to the full scope and theory until recently. I find myself fascinated at the variety and range of tones and rhythms that come from making slight changes to the source material. I also like moving away (at least as an option) from rigid note quantization and the familiar timeline of sequence-based composing. I created a Microsound set with some recent pieces, so have a listen to hear what I mean.

I’ve been re-reading some books by Marshall McLuhan, including The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects and War and Peace In the Global Village. His work is so dense with non-traditional ideas about media and culture, I often have to take it in small doses. I am awaiting delivery of the books Microsound by Curtis Rhodes and Electronic Music and Sound Design by Alessandro Cipriani and Maurizio Giri and look forward to reading them over the holidays. (All links to books above kickback to my Amazon affiliate account.)

Happy Holidays and “Cheers, thanks a lot!”

Why I Left My Publisher in Order to Publish a Book, by Douglas Rushkoff and Secrets of book publishing I wish I had known by Mark Hurst

Ten principles for good design by Dieter Rams

Journalism in the Age of Data (video)

Ten Things I Have Learned by Milton Glaser

Top 5 Smartphone Apps for Buying Local

Getting Made The Scorsese Way

How Ink Is Made (video)

OpenIDEO

Where did the money to rebuild Iraq go? (infographic)

Penguin 75: Designers, Authors, Commentary.

Amon Tobin records The Foley Room (video).

Why the next big pop-culture wave after cupcakes might be libraries.

An archive of MTV’s ’120 Minutes’.

Handwriting and flourish art.

Ford films found in Kiwi vault.

Researchers create the world’s first synthetic cell.

Thermopower waves: MIT scientists discover new way to produce electricity.

Obama appoints Edward Tufte to advise on stimulus transparency.

A loot valued at $20 million lies off the coast of Staten Island, and Ken Hayes is on the hunt for the sunken silver bullion.

Demolishing density in Detroit: can farming save the motor city?

Whales, like trees, slow warming.

With artificial photosynthesis, a bottle of water could produce enough energy to power a house.

Books in the age of the iPad.

LastHistory graphs all your Last.fm listening.

We are all mutants say scientists.

Books to read now, from Seed magazine.

Forget design thinking and try hybrid thinking.

Human Centered Design Toolkit from IDEO.

Spirograph, spirographs, spirography.

Get your Philip K. Dick collection boxed set from The Library of America and save $30.

Researchers have imaged single molecules in unprecedented detail, showing the chemical bonds that hold them together.

Camera from Athens: the most artistic vacation photos you’ve never taken.

How freelancers can use active listening to improve business.

Functioning Form: Design at Facebook.

Design Tales: Designing a successful plastic pint glass.

Futurespeak: Shane Hope’s keywords defined.

Gary Hamel on managing Generation Y.

The evidence is growing that privately owned, consumer-driven, small-scale, geographically distributed renewables could deliver a 100% green-energy future faster and cheaper than big power projects alone.

The Sears Tower is going green.

How does our language shape the way we think? by Lera Boroditsky

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s video report from their alien adventure film, Paul

The Dirty Dozen: Top 12 Foods to Buy Organic

2009 Penguin Design Awards

Incredible 3D isometric map of Hong Kong.

Amon Tobin and the Music of ‘Infamous’ (YouTube).

The New Negroponte Switch: designing things that think they are servies and services that think they are things.

MUJI Global.

Akai APC40 Hacking Guide.

HTML 5: Could it kill Flash and Silverlight? Here’s hoping…

Design mind issue 10: Power, by frog design.

Lady Gaga wants to restore an aura of magic and mystery to the pop star.

Top Gear ‘Throughly Tests’ a Ford Fiesta (YouTube).

Lewis Hyde and The Enclosure of Silence.

Design is the Problem: An Interview with Nathan Shedroff.

All maps advocate.

R&D 2.0: Fewer Engineers, More Anthropologists.

If you can’t buy it legally, of course you’ll download it: Staggered film releases no longer work in a global economy and are to blame for the rise of pirate websites.

How David Beats Goliath: When underdogs break the rules, by Malcolm Gladwell.

7 tips for a good portfolio.

Glitch Sequencer: Cellular automaton based MIDI sequencer.

Font Squirrel offers handpicked free fonts for graphic designers with commercial-use licenses.

LOST labels for your DHARMA Initiative needs.

Wolfram|Alpha intends to be a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.

Mega-Regions and High-Speed Rail, by Richard Florida.

Pacemaker is a revolutionizing music player and mixer with all the features you need to deejay anywhere, anytime.

Rare Book Room as an impressive collection of hi-res images of full ancient books,

Peruse pics from the First 100 Days in the Official White House Flickr Photostream.

25 years of logos from Duffy & Partners, one of our favorite agencies.

Rickshaw Bagworks’ Large Zero Messenger is cut and sewn from only four rectangles of fabric for zero manufacturing material waste.

Song of the Vine, an illustrated history of wine.

Skip Hulu Commercials with this nifty Greasemonkey script.

Five Ways To Market Yourself During A Recession.

jQuery Style is a resource for all things jQuery.

The history and cover art of science fiction published by Penguin Books from 1935 to 1977.

CR Blog has an enlightening Q&A with Adrian Tomine, one of our favorite graphic novelists. Buy Adrian Tomine’s work on Amazon. Visit his home page, Adrian-Tomine.com.

• Pretty Monsters: Stories – terrific contemporary fantasy and modern fairy tales, by Kelly Link
• The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet – collected shorts from the underground contemporary fantasy zine, edited by Kelly Link
• Ice Haven – each character is fixated on someone else, by Daniel Clowes
• Dream Country (The Sandman, Vol. 3), Season of Mists (The Sandman, Vol. 4) – more about the King of Dreams, by Neil Gaiman
• Shortcomings – longing and confusion, by Adrian Tomine
• Queen & Country: The Definitive Edition, Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3 – great action and espionage series, by Greg Rucka
• I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets! – vintage cosmic weirdness, by Fletcher Hanks
• The Best American Comics 2007 – another great collection, this one edited by Chris Ware
• Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth – the seminal work, by Chris Ware

• Listening: Monolake in the morning, Biosphere in the afternoon
• Watching: My Neighbor Totoro, Dark City (Director’s Cut), Thieves Like Us, Quiet City
• Reading: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House, Coraline, Stardust by Neil Gaiman
• Drinking: Starbucks Serena Blend Organic Coffee, Xingu Black Beer, Red Stripe Lager
• Playing: Circle Synth, AAS Modeling Collection, iZotope Ozone 3

• Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
• Akira, Vol. 1
• Elektra: Assassin
• Ghost World
• Michael Chabon Presents. . .The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, Volume 1
• Watchmen
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
• Batman: Year One
• The Hard Goodbye (Sin City, Book 1: Second Edition)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1
• The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
• The Best American Comics 2008 (The Best American Series)

Watching

Hot Fuzz (via Netflix), Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express and The Dark Knight were all terrific. I’ve found I like the combination of action and comedy in my summer blockbusters, thank you. Flight of the Conchords and The Mighty Boosh were also enjoyable.

I’m halfway into Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn on my iPod Touch. The topics of space vs. place and placemaking have interested me for a while, and this 6-part, 3-hour series is a nice intro to Brand’s book. A lot of the concepts relate to the fields of interaction-, experience- and visual-design.

Reading

I finally read the Watchmen graphic novel, in part because of all the recent buzz. I found it a bit heavy about 2/3 of the way in, but I stuck-it-out and think I appreciate it more now that I’m finished. I didn’t really care for the inking and coloring style, which seems very old-fashioned. But, its multi-threaded narrative (a single page might be alternating frames between two or three different story lines), anti-hero angle and outsider-as-Ãœbermensch themes are likely the reason for its long-term appeal (that’s my take on it, anyway).

I decided to finish the His Dark Materials trilogy, so I’m reading The Amber Spyglass. As before, Pullman’s poetic style and literary references have rekindled my interest in John Milton, William Blake, and the Imagination.

As always, I’m fitting-in some readings Joseph Campbell and design wisdom nuggets for good measure .

Making

I’m happy to be working again on a Mac Pro at my day job. Mac OS X Leopard is lovely, and I’m pleased to have my favorite apps on-hand: Adobe CS3, Evernote, Transmit, Coda, Adium, Quinn (shhh). Still, thanks to bloody ActiveX in some of our web-based tools, I’m probably going to invest in Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion. Ah, compatibility.

After finishing-up some recent music sketches, I’ve decided to take a break from sequencing for a bit. Every few years I feel like I’m making the same tracks as before, so I dream-up a new challenge. Do/don’t call it a side project! My intention is to record with the acoustic instruments we have around the house—guitar, ukulele, oboe, violin, trumpet, piano, drums/rattles/shakers/toys to name a few. I’ll probably still arrange and mix-down using Live. I have no idea where this project will take me—but that’s the idea, innit?

Anyways, cheerio.

A project of the Open Source Applications Foundation and led by Mitch Kapor, Chandler was meant to revolutionize desktop PIM software by eliminating the ‘silos’ that separate email messages, contacts, calendar events and to-do tasks and enable peer-to-peer sharing of such information (as opposed to being proprietary and locked-in to a central server, ala MS Outlook and Exchange).

Along the way, Rosenberg delves into the bigger picture of software development by reviewing its history and thought leaders, differing ideas on organization and project management, methods of information sharing and collaboration tools, the open-source and free software movements, contemporary programming languages, modular and object oriented programming concepts, user interface design challenges, coding and quality control issues, and much more.

One of Rosenberg’s main points is that “writing software is hard,” and business leaders, project managers and programmers often make the same universal mistakes in trying to solve numerous recurring problems. The fluid nature of the Chandler project led to turnover in personnel, time constraints, conflicting specs and shifting goalposts. Through compromise and lowered expectations, the early promise of Chandler gave way to a very different product.

Writing a book about a dynamic, no-end-in-sight project posed a problem in the end, and Rosenberg had to wrap up the book before the OSAF team could arrive at a stable, ‘dogfoodable‘ release. Still, his writing is excellent throughout the book as he alternates between the issues of the Chandler project and the larger software industry. It’s to Rosenberg’s credit that he would zoom out right when I was starting to feel bogged-down by Chandler’s constant setbacks. Having read numerous books on computing and design topics, I found plenty of new ideas, undiscovered details and fresh connections throughout Dreaming in Code.

As of this writing, the Chandler project continues to inch toward a stable preview release and its promise of free form personal information management and revolutionary software.

1. If I wanted to give away my email and personal info in exchange for a discount, I’d order from Amazon.com, where the discounts are often better, the selection is far greater and I get something in exchange for the diminished privacy (e.g. reviews and recommendations). Plus, my order can be delivered wherever I want it to go.
2. I’m in their store because I want the experience of browsing, discovering and perhaps even reading excerpts of actual books. Or, I’m looking for a gift I need right at that moment. And, I’m willing to pay a bit more for not being hassled while I take my time or when I’m ready to leave.
3. I don’t want anything else crammed in my wallet, thank you.

These big boxes shouldn’t be trying to compete with Amazon on price or selection but rather on delivering excellent customer service and an enjoyable retail experience—both of which they’re failing at because they’re hawking their member discount card when I just want to pay and leave. The last time I was at  Borders, the cashier actually said “Gheez, people suck. No one wants to sign up for these today.” I replied, “No, we don’t ‘suck.’ We just don’t want the effing card.”

The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design by Marty Neumeier. With its brilliant ideas, concise writing, abundant illustrations, modest dimensions and length, this book was nearly perfect for me; wonderful concepts, writing and execution: Excellent.

Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices by Christopher Locke. This book is a continuation of ideas from the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto, which Locke co-authored. In a nutshell: in this internet age, organizations need to take cues from gonzo journalism (which defies the convention of ‘objectivity’); they must connect with their audiences by using real voices to tell real stories, which come from real people: Great.

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. This marketing classic makes a number of important points about the art of positioning your brand in the mind of your audience; many of the companies and examples seem outdated to me, but the general ideas still ring true: Great.

The Art of Innovation : Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm by Tom Kelley. Filled with anecdotal evidence of IDEO’s greatness but short on any groundbreaking details, this book reads more like a vanity project than a springboard to innovation. An enjoyable, casual read: Good.