Journal: News & Comment

Links of interest (2006-07-19):

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• Back in 1987, Jared Diamond of Pulitzer prize fame argued that the very concept of agriculture is the worst mistake humanity has ever made. Seventeen years later, in Harpers, Richard Manning made a similar argument. (Via Kottke.)
  
  
• James Chung, one of our co-op students at work, found two informative videos online today: The Science and Art of User Experience at Google (28 mins) and Jared Spool on How to Design for Branding (47 mins)
  
  
• Via Tony, a scale model mountainous landscape built as a presumably secret military installation by the Chinese government, found by people looking at Google Earth satellite photos.
  
  
• My co-host Paul and I from Inside Home Recording were interviewed by Mike Kaye of Switching to Mac recently, and the audio is now online.
  
  
• It was crazy hair day at my daughters' art camp last week.
  
  
• Channel 101's Yacht Rock (not kid-safe), just ending its year-long run, ranks right up there with This Is Spinal Tap as one of the funniest musical satires I've ever seen. It imagines a world where the Doobie Brothers, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, Toto, and others were swearing, infighting denizens of a shorefront marina, battling it out in a contest for who had the smoothest sounds. (They all cup their hands over one ear when singing a high note.) My favourite episode has Van Halen (Eddie, in this universe, is entirely mute) forcing smooth-music producer Ted Templeman into recording their first album by hypnotizing him into screaming in pain at the sound of Michael McDonald's voice. Which is something I generally do without hypnotism, by the way.

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