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.

A Simpler Page: designing for tablets.

Create your own generative art with Silk.

Twitter’s response to WikiLeaks subpoena should be the industry standard.

Social networks create their own regional dialects.

The mysteries of kisses.

Musical chills related to brain dopamine release.

How to pick the perfect brand name.

Composer Howard Goodall takes us on a journey into music’s underbelly, examining the four basic elements that make it work: Melody, rhythm, harmony and bass (video).

A box truck Is just a room on wheels: scenes from San Francisco’s (secret) Lost Horizon Night Market.

Once a rumor, now fact: CIA used modern art as propaganda weapon.

Wikileaks and the Long Haul by Clay Shirky.

Meet the most dangerous man in cyberspace: The American face of Wikileaks.

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization (video)

Is it time to change the way we educate?

Ancient Nubians Drank Antibiotic-Laced Beer

Panspermia theorists say India’s red rain contains life not seen on Earth

Desk-It Adhesive Notepads

Do we really desire Google to tell us what we should be doing next? Yes, but with some qualifiers, says William Gibson.

GOOD Guide to Education Innovation

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.

Apple and the politics of phoney outrage.

Modern House Numbers giveaway.

Curated hypocrisy: How Google camouflages its attacks on Apple.

Biomimicry Challenge: IDEO Taps Octopi and Flamingos to Reorganize the USGBC.

How Cul-de-Sacs Are Killing Your Community.

Polar Beer pint glasses, for fans of Lost.

88% of Lost Wallets Containing Baby Photos Get Returned: How To Use That Fact to Boost Business.

The Shirky Principle: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.”

Marvel Comics for the iPad looks rad.

The Twenty Systems project combines an audio CD of new music with a full colour 60 page book containing photos and diagrams of the electronic instruments used, along with a detailed history documenting the development of synthesisers between 1968 and 1988.

Dazzle Makeup to foil computer facial recognition.

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.

Synth Britannia and Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany are two great BBC Four documentaries, but you’ll need to find torrents to watch them, as they’re not streamable online (even to rent) due to music licensing restrictions.

On gospel, Abba and the death of the record: an audience with Brian Eno

Old cast-iron radiators, transformed for electric heat.

Far from being in a state of decay, the Y chromosome is the fastest-changing part of the human genome and is constantly renewing itself.

Tending the Garden of Technology, an interview with Kevin Kelly

The other extreme: low-alcohol beers.

Deep below New York City’s bustling streets lies a dangerous world inhabited by “sandhogs.”

The Rise and Fall of Design Within Reach.

How Robber Barons hijacked the “Victorian Internet”

Robert Henke talks with Rashad Becker about audio mastering.

Apple’s Mistake: An organization that wins by exercising power starts to lose the ability to win by doing better work.

Processing T-shirts 2009/2010.

ABC Oddity iPhone app for toddlers.

What design researchers can learn from hostage negotiators.

Christian Swinehart’s visualizations of Choose Your Own Adventure stories.

Reinventing the MBA: 4 reasons to mix business with design thinking.

Report: 237 millionaires in Congress.

Nutrition-style labels reveal companies’ social responsibility.

Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection.

The Botany of Desire: based on the book by Michael Pollan.

How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?.

Art of the arcade.

How to develop groove in your playing.

12 Greenest colleges and universities in the U.S.

Osmos has a sublime electronic soundtrack by Loscil, Gas/High Skies, Julien Neto, Biosphere, and more.

By refusing to comment on the work you show the work some respect; you allow the work to just be.

Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs

A short manifesto on the future of attention.

The mystery of Times New Roma.

Finalists for the 2009 James Dyson Award.

Lessons from slime mold: how to survive and thrive in ever-changing organizational environments.

Top twenty finalists of ReBurbia, a suburban design competition.

Growing ideas in the garden of innovation.

Photos of the last suppers of inmates on death row in the USA.

The Font-as-Service.

Bruce Handy on Mad Men.

Archaeologists are slowly unearthing the ghastly secrets of Cahokia, an ancient city under the American heartland.

We love (and wish we could afford) Aether’s jackets.

Design Ignites Change promotes and encourages talented high school and college students across the country to use design thinking and innovation to create messages for, and solutions to, pressing social problems.

Complete Yale courses now on iTunes U.

Eros, a short video by Tom Geraedts sports some awesome motion graphics.

The role of side projects in entrepreneurial success has a rich history in the United States.

A roundup of software art for the iPhone.

Travel in style with Patagonia’s MLC® (Maximum Legal Carry-On) Burrito suit bag.

Worn Free resurrects the coolest T-Shirts of all time.

The Big Picture remembers Apollo 11.

Was Moore’s Law Inevitable? by Kevin Kelly

Warp20 box set celebrates 20 years of warped goodness.

Photos of Edwardians, or “Teddy Boys”, by Ben Watts.

Mad libs official website.

OneLessOffice suite of products by Heckler Design.

Architecture of energy, by Lebbeus Woods

As the focus of design shifts from the production of finite goods to a practice of experimentation, ideas take precedence over products.

Humanoid Sound Systems releases Scanned Synth Pro for Mac.

Nokia phone charges by drawing energy out of thin air.

Brian Eno interview from Mojo magazine.

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. The ‘American Top 40′ years: Most of my exposure to new music was either from listening to popular radio, my older sister or a classmate or the occasional middle school dance.
2. The ‘Radical Romper Room’ years: Most of my exposure was from a late-night, local radio show which showcased ‘alternative rock’ and ‘modern music.’ I used to stay up long enough to start recording it on Sundays, then listen to the tape the whole week and note what I liked.
3. The ’120 Minutes’ years: Same as above, but leads were garnered from videotaping the late-night show on MTV and tracking down what I liked.
4. The ‘long haired’ years: I bought (and sold) a lot of CDs at local record stores, taking a chance on whether I would like it or not.
5. The ‘underground (aka rave/chill-out room)’ years: I acquired music as inspiration for my work — music as the soundtrack to my life.
6. The ‘post-cool/hip’ years: A lot discovered on Much Music, MTV2 and the internet — music as personal identity.
7. The ‘digital/eclectic’ years: Largely discovered on Amazon, iTunes and Usenet — music as supplement rather than center.

/musings.

A moment of listening to various songs can evoke vivid memories and take me back to former ‘chapters’ in my life. I’ve noticed that certain music delineates into distinct segments:

1. My pre-teen and early teen years (late elementary and middle school):
   Billy Joel, Journey, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Duran Duran, Lionel Ritchie, Men at Work, Michael Jackson, dance and electro by Herbie Hancock and Afrika Bambaataa.
2. My mid teens (early high school): U2, The Smithereens, Agent Orange, The Alarm, INXS, The Call, Genesis, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Vangelis, Prince, The Police.
3. My late teens (later high school): The Cure, R.E.M., Depeche Mode, New Order/Joy Division, Erasure, Clan of Xymox, Dead Can Dance and other 4ad artists, Yaz, Cabaret Voltaire, Violent Femmes, The Smiths, numerous ‘college rock’ and acid house artists.
4. My early twenties (college): Meat Beat Manifesto, Front 242, My Bloody Valentine, The Wolfgang Press, Harold Budd & Brian Eno, Steve Roach, Cocteau Twins, Hugo Largo, Bel Canto, numerous alternative, new age and ambient artists.
5. My mid and late twenties: The Orb, Orbital, Biosphere, Michael Brook, Olive, Blur, Future Sound of London, Insides, Autechre/Gescom, Aphex Twin/Polygon Window, B12, LFO, Black Dog, Warp Records artists, Galaxie 500, The Spinanes, Lou Barlow/Sebadoh, Portishead, Abra Moore, Roger Eno, LTJ Bukem, Mouse on Mars, Neotropic, Cardigans, Lamb, Hooverphonic, Funkstorung, Richard H. Kirk/Electronic Eye/Sandoz, Kruder & Dorfmeister, numerous IDM, big beat and bhangra artists.
6. My early thirties: Boards of Canada, Faithless, Amon Tobin, Blonde Redhead, Cat Power, Miles Davis, Joseph Arthur, Plaid, Lemon Jelly, Zero 7, Bent, Air, Arovane, Cinematic Orchestra, Thievery Corporation, Kid Koala, Ninja Tunes artists, Monolake, Tara Jane O’Neil, Hem, Ladytron, Lali Puna, numerous chill-out/lounge/trip-hop and indie artists.
7. My mid thirties: see my profile on last.fm.

Notably, certain ‘one-hit wonders’ evoke the most vivid memories — possibly because I listened to the hell out of and then promptly forgot about them. Now that almost everything I listen to is digital (minus the records in our basement lounge) via iPods, home and work computers, the boundaries seem to have dissolved. Perhaps in hindsight patterns will emerge…