Archive for May, 2006

Links for 2006-05-31

Wednesday, May 31st, 2006

Seminar on “The Wealth of Networks”

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

Crooked Timber is running a seminar on Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks. The book discusses several important and interesting issues and we’re hoping that these comments will only be a start of conversations about them. The introductory post has links to all of the contributions (by Henry Farrell, Dan Hunter, John Quiggin, Eszter Hargittai, Jack Balkin and Siva Vaidhyanathan) including a response from Benkler.

Links for 2006-05-30

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

Captions sought

Monday, May 29th, 2006

My brother just sent me this picture of my nephew:

Last in has to get out on his own

My first reaction was that I laughed. The second was that I started coming up with possible captions for it (here’s one). It seems like a natural for a caption contest. I’m not holding a contest as I have nothing to give away, but I still invite you to suggest a caption, you know, just for the pure amusement, glory and fame associated with participation. As my brother kindly pointed out to me, my nephew is the one on the left, Pooh is on the right, fyi.

Museum hotel

Monday, May 29th, 2006

Recently I stayed at an intriguing hotel that is worth a mention: the 21C Museum Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. (I was unimpressed by the reservation part of the experience, but the stay made up for the annoyances incurred at that stage.)

Upon entrance, you almost have to step on the projection of two people sleeping in bed to get to the receptionists and/or the elevators to access your room. I wonder how many people who notice this just walk right across the image versus how many decide to walk around the picture. Big plastic red penguins are scattered across the building, not just in the designated museum section, but also in the hallways. I didn’t care for some of the installations (like the film about a woman and a man having a seemingly pleasant dinner judging from their facial expressions despite the fact that mice are walking all over their food), but some of it was neat (like the falling letters on a screen where the viewer becomes part of the image).

The hotel just opened this Spring. It’s a museum-hotel mix with various contemporary art pieces all over. The visit was much more fun than your usual hotel stay and it made me wish more hotels would put some interesting twist on the experience.

Links for 2006-05-29

Monday, May 29th, 2006

Dance dance evolution

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

As the resident danceoholic I have to link to this video on the Evolution of Dance. It’s been viewed millions of times so I suspect it’s not new to all of you, but perhaps some of you haven’t seen it yet.

I’m not sure if I should be proud of, embarrassed, excited, or feel pathetic about the fact that of the approximately thirty songs featured in the clip, I have definitely danced to most at parties or clubs in the past (there were 3-4 that I don’t recall). To be sure, I certainly had not used most of the moves featured on the video. I’m more confident that that part is probably a good thing.

Watching the clip is a trip down memory lane as the various moments from life rush back when the particular songs were popular at parties and clubs. For example, Cotton-Eyed Joe by the Rednex will forever transport me back to the Arcade 46 bar and dance floor in the basement of our dorm in Geneva where I spent my junior year in college. Just imagine hundreds of people in this hole dancing away to this and other songs (Macarena anyone?). Those were the days…

Links for 2006-05-28

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

Links for 2006-05-27

Saturday, May 27th, 2006

Weekend map projects

Friday, May 26th, 2006

WikiMapia

There are some exciting developments in the online map space these days. WikiMapia is a wiki approach to Google Maps that let’s you add notes and tags to maps all over. MapCruncher is a program that lets you draw maps on top of other maps (or something like that). I haven’t been able to try out the latter yet due to some of the requirements, but I’m hoping it’ll come together soon as it sounds very promising.

[thanks and thanks]

UPDATE: I finally got MapCruncher to work. It requires Windows XP and the .NET 2.0 runtime, which is not as obvious as the Web site makes it sound. Also, rendering the map (overlaying the north-side map of the Chicago El on Virtual Earth) took about 18 minutes, not the 5-10 the site suggests.

Links for 2006-05-26

Friday, May 26th, 2006

Links for 2006-05-24

Wednesday, May 24th, 2006

The Tribe

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006

An interesting short film on Barbie, Jews, identity and about a million other topics. It is so packed with material – some of which seems extremely random – that it is hard to know where to even start with any commentary. See what you think.

Your view

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006

Evanston sunrise x3
Andrew Sullivan is trying to get to know his readers by asking them to send him pictures of the view from their windows. Not surprisingly, photo-sharing site Flickr has a group devoted to this topic linking to a whole separate Web site on window views. Kevin Drum responds with a view from his window. I’m afraid on this one, I win. If you post on Flickr, tag your photo with viewfrommywindow or add it to the group and post a link here. Alternatively, post a photo on “view from where I read EBLOG”.:)

Links for 2006-05-23

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006

Links for 2006-05-22

Monday, May 22nd, 2006

Links for 2006-05-19

Friday, May 19th, 2006
  • “discussions on clinical education, justice, and legal reform” – blog out of NU’s Law School
    (tags: blogs nu legal)

10

Thursday, May 18th, 2006

Smith Graduation
Ten years ago tomorrow (19th), I graduated from college. This weekend, I’m going back to reunite with fellow Smithies and see campus again. I’ve been back lots (last time in August) so it’s not as though I don’t remember the place. But it’s always nice to have a reason to visit.

In honor of the occasion, I have posted a few photos from ten years ago.

Links for 2006-05-18

Thursday, May 18th, 2006

Itinerary

Wednesday, May 17th, 2006

Upcoming travel

Did I mention I’ve been traveling a lot? It continues. All of this is coming up in just the next week. Yikes. My plan is to be taking lots of photos at some of the upcoming events so look for updates soon after.