aquariumdrinker

The New York Times: The Flattening of Design

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 06:03:46 -0400

The New York Times: The Flattening of Design:

Justin Van Slembrouck, design director at Digg, the social news site, said that while some design decisions were made as stylistic choices, “it is increasingly being driven by mobile, where you’re designing for the lowest common denominator so you can’t load a site up with heavy graphics.” He added, “The end result, with flat design, is that it all feels less cluttered.”

two sentence Mad Men review (season 6, episode 4)

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:49:00 -0400

Don Draper doesn’t care for this whole “women’s lib” thing. The difference between ketchup and catsup: a certain amount water and blandness that makes Peggy Olsen angry.

How Bands and Start Ups Are Similar

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:53:04 -0400

How Bands and Start Ups Are Similar:

joshsternberg:

I recently met with a CEO of a Denver start-up. He was in Manhattan pitching one of the largest media agencies in the world. We crossed paths at a mutual friend’s apartment, where said CEO was crashing. We got to talking about the trials and tribulations of being a start-up; that world is not unknown to me, as I counseled and represented many a start-up when I was in public relations. As the CEO talked about what he was going through, I realized there are many parallels between start-ups and bands.

Click through to read the rest.

Gotham’s gangsters re-imagined as 1920s gangsters. Found...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 10:56:13 -0400

Gotham’s gangsters re-imagined as 1920s gangsters.

Found via Gotham’s villains reimagined as 1920s mugshots on Crave. Original on Jempix blog and inspired by these vintage mugshots of 1920s Australian gangsters.

Toothpaste For Dinner comic: google chrome friends You...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 08:36:01 -0400

Toothpaste For Dinner comic: google chrome friends

You wouldn’t understand…

Limited edition USA v Costa Rica World Cup Qualifyier poster...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:19:05 -0400

Limited edition USA v Costa Rica World Cup Qualifyier poster by Denver animator Shaw Nielsen and Denver printer IndyInk.

Only 100 were printed and they’re available (signed and numbered) for a pretty reasonable $100. Let’s hope this is something US Soccer will be doing going forward for home qualifiers. With matches coming up in Seattle, Salt Lake, Columbus and Kansas City, we could see some really nice prints.

What does this say about the state of social? I’m...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:03:00 -0400

What does this say about the state of social? I’m surprised to see Twitter so far behind Facebook. Google Plus, just getting to 100? Not so surprising. Granted, this is CBS, so the audience probably trends older, but this was taken during the selection show, so this bracket was the only game in town at the time.

jthenr-comics-vault: Happy St. Paddy’s Day, Everyone!

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 12:38:21 -0400

jthenr-comics-vault:

Happy St. Paddy’s Day, Everyone!

I’m A Climate Scientist - Extended Version (NSFW) (by...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 08:50:00 -0400

I’m A Climate Scientist - Extended Version (NSFW) (by abchungrybeast)

A definitively not suitable for work rap video from actual climate scientists.

Flashing studio lights, cheerleaders, evil oil barons, unseemly COP 16 reps and lines like, “The greenhouse effect is just a theory, sucka. Yeah, so is gravity — float away, mothafucka!” this video has gotten a bit of attention from the environmental community, but it’s entirely too raw to appeal to those still listening to the ever shrinking denialists.

Instead, think of this as a rant — a rage — from scientists who know too much about what’s really happening to our planet and see our leaders doing far too little.

markcoatney: Having done this, I can tell you that it’s not the...

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:56:19 -0500

markcoatney:

Having done this, I can tell you that it’s not the riding of the donkeys that’s impressive, it’s the cleanup.

We had Donkey Basketball at my school every year — teachers vs students and I can also attest to the heroic nature of the janitors during cleanup.

Hem - ‘Tourniquet’ (by Strange Beast)

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 17:34:58 -0500

Hem - ‘Tourniquet’ (by Strange Beast)

Bing Crosby and David Bowie have a casual chat about their...

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 16:15:15 -0500

Bing Crosby and David Bowie have a casual chat about their Christmas traditions and then start singing “Little Drummer Boy.” You know, typical Christmas fare.

(via BingCrosbyVEVO)

Jay-Z Rides the Subway, Adorably Explains Who He Is to an Adorable Old Lady

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:17:58 -0500

Jay-Z Rides the Subway, Adorably Explains Who He Is to an Adorable Old Lady:

“Oh, you’re Jay-Z? I know about Jay-Z.”

Default iPhone Ringtones Done with Acoustic Guitar

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 10:40:35 -0500

awkwardhare:

What the title said, pretty much.

I fired up GarageBand and tried to reproduce several of the default iPhone ring tones on my acoustic guitar. I stayed true to the key and tempo of the originals as closely as I could.

Feel free to download/share/distribute.

Marimba

Blues

Piano Riff

Alarm

Doorbell

These are .m4r ringtone files, ready to be synced with an iPhone. Safari will play them inline if you just want to preview.

Do, or do not. There is no why.

Alex Morgan, so deadly… Your 2012 U.S. Soccer Female...

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:25:15 -0500

Alex Morgan, so deadly…

Your 2012 U.S. Soccer Female Athlete of the Year. (via US Soccer)

Sweet morning on Flickr.

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 13:39:38 -0500

Sweet morning on Flickr.

What Simpson’s Uno Looks Like to a Six Year-Old...

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 17:52:00 -0500

The Cards

"Sleepy Beer Guy"

"Angry Waiter"

"Bert"

"Screaming Grandpa"

"Weird Hawaiian Girl"

"Angry Farmer"

"Weird French Dude"

"Funny Headphone Girl"

"Donut Policeman"

What Simpson’s Uno Looks Like to a Six Year-Old Who’s Never Seen the Show
(Click photos for slide show and captions)

Captions:

“Sleepy Beer Guy”

“Angry Waiter”

“Bert”

“Screaming Grandpa”

“Weird Hawaiian Girl”

“Angry Farmer”

“Weird French Dude”

“Funny Headphone Girl”

“Doughnut Policeman”

Did Facebook Give Democrats the Upper Hand?

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 07:52:12 -0500

Did Facebook Give Democrats the Upper Hand?

if you believe in data, you know obama's going to win

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 06:58:00 -0500

From Nate SIlver: This is not a tossup:

Friday’s polling should make it easy to discern why Mr. Obama has the Electoral College advantage. There were 22 polls of swing states published Friday. Of these, Mr. Obama led in 19 polls, and two showed a tie. Mitt Romney led in just one of the surveys, a Mason-Dixon poll of Florida. …

Although the fact that Mr. Obama held the lead in so many polls is partly coincidental — there weren’t any polls of North Carolina on Friday, for instance, which is Mr. Romney’s strongest battleground state — they nevertheless represent powerful evidence against the idea that the race is a “tossup.” A tossup race isn’t likely to produce 19 leads for one candidate and one for the other — any more than a fair coin is likely to come up heads 19 times and tails just once in 20 tosses. (The probability of a fair coin doing so is about 1 chance in 50,000.) (Emphasis mine.)

From The Washington Post: it’s better to have “ors” than “ands:”

If the president were to carry Ohio — and he continues to hold a narrow lead in public polls there — he could win an electoral majority by adding Virginia (13 electoral votes) or Wisconsin (10) or Colorado (nine), or by winning Iowa (six) and New Hampshire (four). (emphasis mine)

If Romney does not win Ohio, his path to victory would have to include Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin and either Iowa or New Hampshire. But if he does capture the Buckeye State, he could become president by taking Florida and Virginia and then just one other contested state. (emphasis mine)

In other words, while there’s a lot of attention being paid to Ohio, both candidates still need other states to win. On Obama’s map, there’s a lot of “ors,” but with Romney — even with Ohio — there’s a lot of “ands.”

From Real Clear Politics: Pennsylvania is NOT, I repeat NOT, competitive:
Go ahead and hit the link above right now. Over the last seven polls, Obama’s lead in Pennsylvania has ranged from a tie (more on that in a second) to +6 and his current average is +4.1. With the exception of two polls from the same firm (can you say “outlier?”), Obama hasn’t been behind or tied in the Keystone State since February. It is not a competitive state.

Romney is making a last-ditch effort to campaign in Pennsylvania because he needs to expand his avenues to victory — see “ands” vs “ors” above — but it’s not a competitive state now and it won’t be on Tuesday.

From The Denver Post: Republican and Democratic political scientists agree: it’s Obama:
Nine different maps from nine different political prognosticators predict an Obama win with electoral counts ranging from 281 electoral votes to 332 votes. What’s particularly striking about these maps is how many states Obama can lose and still win.

So there’s the data. You can believe it, or you can can believe Romney aides that say they have secret data that shows them winning in Ohio and competitive in Pennsylvania. But to believe them, you have to not believe in data, but instead have simple faith in Republican operatives. Given that choice, I’ll go with data every time.

New York Times Pay Gating Nate Silver’s 538 Forecast It...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:00:43 -0400

New York Times Pay Gating Nate Silver’s 538 Forecast

It looks like The Times is trying to make some bank on the popularity of Nate Silver’s 538 election forecasts by adding a pay gate over the portion of the forecast that shows the chances each candidate has of winning. This is the first time I’ve seen The Times add a pay gate to a feature on a page, rather than the whole page. It’s also the first time I’ve seen them create a pay gate that can’t be circumvented by deleting the Identification key at the end of the URL.

I have to tip my hat to the Grey Lady because this is a pretty damn clever way to get people to pony up for a digital subscription. At the same time, I’m really annoyed because I need to know Obama’s chances of winning right now.