Apparently people have been going nuts with the BBC API BBC’s RSS feeds. The BBC Backstage blog (“Use our stuff to build your stuff”) is currently blowing my mind just a tad. Bayesian news filtering! BBC.icio.us! Extract names and places from stories! News maps galore!
All of it is hella beta, but also scrumptious. Why is the BBC so awesome?
Kevin Drum just wrapped up an excellent five-part series on peak oil and its portents. If your eyes aren’t already glazed over, take a read.
For its 80th anniversary, The New Yorker is releasing a DVD collection containing every single issue of the magazine — cover, ads, articles, cartoons, everything. Only $100.
Umm, can every publication in the world do this immediately, please? (Via Kottke.)
I feel pretty confident that Gnomz.com will change your life.
Regarding our recent discussion on suburbs and cities, here’s an interesting article from Joel Kotkin debunking many of the “creative cities” ideas that have been so popular in the wake of Richard Florida. (Suburbs vs. urbs roundup: Tim | Terrance | Kevin.) According to Kotkin:
The renaissance of American cities has been greatly overstated–and this unwarranted optimism is doing a disservice to cities themselves. Urban politics has become self-satisfied and triumphalist, content to see cities promote the appearance of thriving while failing to serve the very people–families, immigrants, often minorities–who most need cities to be decent, livable places. The myths that have grown up surrounding the urban renaissance are now often treated as fact. As an urban historian who lives in a major city, I believe that recognizing these myths for what they are is a critical first step towards the redemption of urban America.
Related: Peak oil doomsayer James Howard Kunstler and natural capitalist Amory Lovins have a go at the question of whether the ‘burbs end with a bang or a whimper. The resultant thread on WorldChanging is better.
I was reminded of this the other day, when I wrote a story about sex ed:
The other day I realized, as a cold claw of pure fear squeezed my frantic heart, that I have been working as a video clerk for ten months.
The immortal first line of True Porn Clerk Stories, one of my favorite no-longer-updated blogs that’s an awesome read from start to finish.
If this works, then the blog Tricks of the Trade will have contributed a true service to mankind:
There is a better way to remove a price tag from a gift than trying to peel it off with your fingernail. Place a piece of tape over the sticker and rub it with your finger, leaving an end to pull on. Then rip the tape off like you would a band-aid, and the price tag will go with it.
Did Olde English make the Web rounds when I wasn’t looking? ‘Cause some of their stuff is hilarious.
Apparently back in February The Guardian put up an 8-page Joe Sacco comic from Iraq. It’s a 37-meg PDF download, to forewarn you, but it’s a quick, interesting look at the war through a keen set of eyes. It’s not as good as his Pulitzer-winning effort in Palestine or his reporting in Eastern Europe, mostly because he’s embedded with the troops this time rather than speaking with civilians, but it’s probably different from any other Iraq war coverage you’ve seen. (Via MadInkBeard.)
In 1947, Raymond Queneau wrote the same simple story about a man on a train 99 different ways. The book Exercises in Style became a bestseller in France, and its English translation is in its second edition. (You can find it here in French.)
This year, Matt Madden wants to do the same thing with comics. His forthcoming book, also called Exercises in Style, retells the mundane tale of a man on a late-night trip to the fridge in 99 different incarnations. A preview of the book is available on Madden’s Web site.
I love the way this little storytelling gimmick fuels the imagination. The way you can spend lifetimes thinking about how meaning shifts in each quarto of a Shakespeare play, flipping through a few of Madden’s exercises can make his nothing little characters come alive in your mind. As you move from drawing to drawing and note the changes in perspective or tone, you can imagine rich interior worlds. In one variation, the trip to the fridge is frightening. In another, it’s fantastical. If you’re like me, by the time you’ve clicked through just a few, you begin to understand the fridge-goer as a character on some deep existential quest.
But my favorite thing on the site is a variation submitted by one of Madden’s guest artists, S