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Forgot where I ran across this, but I was reminded today of the typeface Champion Script Pro, “the most advanced and powerful script ever made. Developed over a period of two and a half years, each one of the 2 weights is loaded with 4253 glyphs (now 4280 glyphs).” What does that mean? It means the typeface is programmed to dynamically adjust glyphs to complement each other in a given word. All for just €175.

Nicholas Kristoff:

[Quoting Melissa Harris-Lacewell.] “One of the things fascinating to me watching these responses to Jeremiah Wright is that white Americans find his beliefs so fringe or so extreme. When if you

I’m loving the clever remixes of old-school games at Retro Sabotage, brought to my attention by the fine folks at Grand Text Auto.

By now, the A.R.G. has had a long and storied history stretching from The Blair Witch Project to Cloverfield. The classical model of the A.R.G.: someone notices a name in a movie trailer, or a website on a television show; they look it up online, and they suddenly find themselves holding a piece in a narrative jigsaw puzzle. Others stumble into the puzzle, they form a community, and the game is afoot. Piece by piece, the players fit together a picture that helps them solve whatever mystery the game’s creators have spun.

One big drawback: if you stumble into one of these games late, catching up can be a chore. As far as I know, A.R.G.s haven’t exactly been a model of thematic coherence or narrative deftness; it’s not like catching up on a TV show or a comic book. The chase and the unfolding mystery are the fun. So unless you have worlds of time to devote to chasing obscure clues, the game might not hold much allure for you. These are the main reasons I haven’t been able to get into any A.R.G.s yet, despite my being an utter nerd.

But I find that idea — a fictional narrative kidnaps a piece of our reality and draws us into it — delicious. What I want is for a series to use the Internet in a way that fully blurs the edge between reality and the series.

Read more…

Adrian, Wilson and co. have launched Everyblock, a mashup of several information sources down to the block level for different cities (currently Chicago, New York and San Francisco). The site is very pretty, especially the maps, and as you would expect, there’s fun data hidden beneath every click. But it’s otherwise hard for me to evaluate how cool it is, since I don’t live in any of the included cities. How about it, residents?

Update: One surprise … no RSS feeds? (Except this one.)

Update 2: Rex reminds me … Poynter Online interview w/ Adrian (which is how I found out it launched).

With ample and heartfelt apologies to Franklin Christenson Ware. (Bookslutty.)

There’s a giant eyeball monster in Super Paper Mario that tracks you in every direction as you move around a room and shoots laser beams at you. To defeat it, Mario has to flip into 3D mode and run around and around it until it tries to shoot, gets confused, and implodes.

Eyeball monster = media pundits. Mario = ’08 Presidential candidates. It’s fun to watch.

Oh, and btw: Speaking of life imitating Mario, Andy Towle’s right. The video for Janet Jackson’s new single “Feedback” is so Super Mario Galaxy.

Chris Anderson does a back-of-the-envelope carbon footprint calculation for an issue of Wired vs. the same issue online. The results surprised me. (Of course, it being Chris Anderson, it’s certainly not as back-of-the-envelope as it comes off; he drops some mad knowledge in the commentz.)

Over the past year, I have successfully acquired five Wiis at retail price; I felt this was notable enough for a blog post.

Wii #1: Purchased 11/06, for a vita.mn contest. Camped out in front of a Target in beautiful Red Wing, MN, at 4:45 a.m., behind Jan, Peter, Elaine, Philip and Sam, in front of a group of about 50. When we finally got the golden tickets (to come back and get a Wii), me and four of the others went to Denny’s while we waited for the store to open.

Wiis #2 & 3: Got a call one random Sunday afternoon in August from my coworker’s boyfriend, who saw some Wiis sitting on a shelf at Target. Drove to Target, picked up one for me and one for my nephews/niece.

Wiis #4 & 5: Purchased from Amazon mere seconds after receiving text messages from WiiAlerts.com. One is for a vita.mn contest, the other is for a friend’s wife to give to a friend for Christmas. Big ups to WiiAlerts; it totally works.

Just returned from a concert I’ve been on tiptoes for all week: Richard Hawley, at one of Minneapolis’ most intimate, acoustically divine little bars. And it was just perfect. The impeccable, impossible clarity of Hawley’s baritone surrounded everything in the room. And each of his songs is a gem. The tiny crowd lapped up every moment of the performance. To the SF folks, he’s coming your way in five days. Highly recommended for a chill night out.