It was clear fairly immediately that the political goal of the attacks on September 11th was to undermine the American empire. Sitting here less than a quarter...

It’s hard to really take in, after all these years, that most people have no memory of the day. The majority of people in the world were either not born, or no...

I didn't think I'd keep reflecting on this day, but somehow I can't. It's been with me for most of my lifetime that I can remember, and perhaps more importantl...

I've been saying this for a few years now, but it's worth recording here for the record: It's impossible to overstate the degree to which many big tech CEOs an...

The only time someone remembered September 11, 2001 to me in the last year was when a stranger mentioned it as part of the reason he was trying to assault me...

Each year, folks ask me for predictions about what's going to happen in tech in the coming year. Generally, what they're really asking is what I hope/expect is...

Every year, for twenty years now, I've written an observance of this day. Sometimes it's for myself, sometimes it's for the small cohort of folks who've checke...

Duleshwar Tandi, better known these days as Rapper Dule Rocker, is one of the most successful and influential rappers to have ever come out of the Kalahandi di...

A while back, when I wrote out in plain words that we have a politically dominant death cult ruling America right now, I worried about the risks of saying my...

Over the weekend, we had the chance to explore the newly-opened Moynihan Station, the massive new expansion to Penn Station that's been in the works for decade...

The slogan, for people who weren’t in Manhattan that day, is “Never Forget”. The people who were not here, who were never here, call it “9/11”. But the people...

With authoritarianism at our door, the policies that progressives are driving for will be dependent on whether the fundamental institutions of democracy are pr...

A significant percentage of conservative culture in America defines “freedom” as death. This is causing a lot more problems right now than even its usual horri...

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to watch the most definitive record of Prince and the Revolution at their commercial peak, on one of the bigges...

There could be no more fitting remembrance of Prince than Questlove going deep into his catalog and spinning some of Prince's greatest works into a multi-hour...

(Warning: this will be upsetting; you will not want to read this if you are already stressed.) [This piece was written in late February 2020, before there wa...

There are kids now who are old enough to go fight in wars that were justified back when they still had their umbilical cords attached. For them, the attacks ar...

Playdate, the upcoming indie handheld gaming console from venerable software publisher Panic, is really important. But if you don't know the history of where t...

What if we had another 9/11, and nothing happened? Living in New York City, the one fantasy sport that everybody plays is real estate; we all like to imagine...

For the first decade after the attacks, I basically didn’t go anywhere near that part of downtown. A business meeting would take me a few blocks away, and I’d...

A couple of times a week, I end up walking by the World Trade Center, either the new train station at the site, or one of the new malls that’s sprung up flanki...

Jack asked us for ideas on how to fix Twitter. A coherent plan for fixing Twitter would make millions of people happier, and pick up a billion dollars in marke...

There are going to be endless think-pieces and armchair analyses about why America elected Donald Trump as its next President. But you already know why. Don’...

We’ve been saying “never forget” for so long that we don’t even know why we’re saying it. At JFK airport, panic over… nothing. On the other side of the country...

A technology community driven by values, not just profits. I’ve been part of the New York City tech scene for more than 15 years, from back when it was “Sili...

I’ve been struggling to find words to express how I feel in the week since Prince died. He’s obviously the artist that’s had the most impact on my life, and wa...

Last week I went and visited the memorial reflecting pools for the first time. I had been to the top of the new One World Trade Center, but had deliberately av...

Presidential candidate Piyush “Bobby” Jindal has said he’ll take questions over social media today. I’ve got some questions, but let’s start first with some ba...

If you’ve ever had someone say something nice about a thing you made, you know how great it feels. It’s a combination of validation, and respect, and recogniti...

Though I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, I haven’t lived there for years. So why should anybody in the state listen to me about who to vote for as their g...

In my my latest piece , I wrote about an issue that’s been bugging me for a long time: Asian American men in tech don’t do enough to speak up about inclusion...

They say the best way to see if you really understand something is to try to explain it to another person. I’ll never really understand what happened to my b...

0:00 — 0:10 In the summer of 1983, Wendy Melvoin was just 19 years old. She’d flown halfway across the country from Los Angeles for her first professional gi...

One of my recurrent ruminations of the last decade or so is a bit of reflection on my relationship with religion. To be clear: I don’t have one. I know there a...

My wife , in addition to being wise and kind, is generally made of sterner stuff than I am. This serves us both well, but the contrast does serve to elucidate...

Here's @pomeranian99 's "Smarter Than You Think", offering perspective on tech while justifying our time spent online: http://t.co/R9Fk...

I’m sick to death of this whole stupid topic, and fighting off a brutal chest cold, so I’m going to ask your forbearance on this piece; It’ll be a little less...

For a dozen years, I’ve been trying to document where I am relative to where I was, but this year I’m tired. I’m finding the weaponized grievances and the comm...

Today is New York City’s mayoral primary, where the two major parties select which candidate will represent the party. Due to my being on the board of the N...

I’ve had the good fortune to get to speak in public hundreds of times, about any manner of subjects. But I’ve never, never had the moments following one of my...

There’s been a delightful debate the last few days about how to accommodate the increasing number of people who want the experience of watching movies in publi...

Paul Graham on Unions : I wouldn’t quite call the high-paying union job a myth, but I think people who dwell on it are reading too much into it. The era...

I read my friend Brendan Koerner’s The Skies Belong To Us straight through; On its surface, this is a book that tells a riveting true (not inspired-by-true...

Mark Zuckerberg built himself a political action committee called FWD.us , and they’re diving headfirst into trying to change immigration policy as their firs...

One of the weirdest things about the tech industry is that, despite its reverence for the Cult of the Coder, pretty much the only way a programmer or engineer...

There are lots of different ways to measure how friendly a company is toward developers, and whether a tech company complies with the values that its developer...

Jamie Wilkinson is co-founder of VHX, a new streaming video platform helping filmmakers bypass the studio system to distribute DRM-free films directly to fans....

Adam Savage is an obsessive model maker, passionate defender of maker culture, and the co-host of Mythbusters and Tested. The Details Adam Savage P...

Swirsky and Pajot are the directors of the Sundance-award winning documentary tracking the agony of indie game development. Interviewed by filmmaker Jason Scot...

Studio Neat’s first product was the Glif, an iPhone kickstand. And their second success was the Cosmonaut, a stylus for iPhone. These were followed by Frameogr...

Yesterday, my son and I were coming back home to New York City, driving past the familiar skyline and its newest additions. Like a lot of toddlers, my boy’s ob...

Considering how much conservatives and right-wing political personalities in the United States claim to hate the liberal media, it’s remarkable how much money...

I took this photo on a cool spring day twenty years ago, on the day I fell in love for the first time that would last. I’d been to New York City a number of...

I tried to solve the problem by leaving Silicon Valley, and writing software I believe in, and doing the best I can. For me it’s never been primarily about m...

Ten years ago, my friend Andre had been experimenting with an instant messenger bot that sent out news headlines; Up late on a Saturday night I got a message...

A few months ago, I introduced a blogroll on my site , making me probably the first person in more than half a decade to get excited about a blogroll. But my...

Thirty-two years ago today, I noticed that things were odd at our pre-school. The teachers had drawn the blinds closed in a few rooms and at least one of the o...

For more than a decade, an intellectually bankrupt habit of maligning new media has reared its head in traditional media outlets, perpetuating a false impressi...

In my blog here, I’m mostly a textual dude. I’ve made a few little video clips or animated .gifs over the years, but basically, I’m a writer. But today, today!...

This year, as every year, I pause for a personal ritual of observing where I am today compared to where I was, and where we all were, on this day in 2001. I’m...

By unusual coincidence, this week I had a number of different folks ask me to sign NDAs about the new projects they’re working on. It’s great that we’re in suc...

The White House tweeted that they want feedback on the Grand Challenges in science and technology that face our country. That’s not so new. But today, if you...

Just a few weeks ago I made a list of some places that I’m speaking or appearing in the coming weeks and months, and here’s an update on a few of those. I ho...

Imagine if half a million people marched on Washington, collectively broke federal law, did it in plain sight of the world’s leaders and traditional media, and...

I’m doing a number of presentations and public appearances over the next several weeks, here’s a quick chronological overview if you’d like to meet up. The...

As I write this, the Twittersphere is going through its annual love/hate paroxysms about TED . Every year, the conference seems even more an event perfect...

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, I’ll have gained another follower or two on Twitter . Within an hour, I’ll have added more followers than 99%...

A visualization of the ascent of many of the world’s youngest countries showing their independence from colonial powers (British, Portuguese, French, Spanish...

I’ve had the privilege of being quoted or mentioned in a lot of newspapers and magazines over the years, but as an minor-league word nerd, this one ranks as am...

Yesterday and early this morning, while talking about our impending move to a new apartment a few blocks away in a much bigger building (and no longer on the g...

For the first two weeks in February, I joined my family in a trip to India. Though I was born here in the U.S., we used to go back to visit family in India pre...

For the past few years, my tax dollars (and if you’re American, yours too) have been spent to detain dozens of men at Guantanamo Bay with a primary link used...

Thanks to a nice reminder from Ginevra , and a motivational post by Ta-Nehisi Coates , I got around to gathering up some videos I've been meaning to share....

I regularly use about a dozen different social web services, with dozens more that I have accounts on. Historically, I’ve used one of a very small number of ph...

Sarah Palin has been unsurprising in her criticisms of Barack Obama’s credentials and policies, fulfilling the traditional role of the vice presidential candid...

Each year, I try to write a memorial post on the anniversary, to remind myself, and as a record of where I am compared to where I was that day. As I read back...

Spin Magazine’s piece covering the rise and fall, and perhaps second rise of D’Angelo has been lingering in my mind for weeks. As you might expect, I was a f...

I’ve been a fan of The KLF since I was a teenager, and just last week was reminded of one of their most amazing stunts. This is just the first of a five-part v...

Early in my efforts to document the creative environment where great technology projects happen, I reached out to Ray Ozzie . Ray is of course a softw...

The way the Métro started its life strongly influenced signage in the stations. In the early days, a number of commercial companies ran the different Métro l...

One of the things that makes Snoop’s “Sensual Seduction” video so compelling is his outstanding use of vocal effects. Let’s take a closer look, shall we? I...

The other day, I’d been reminded about some of the most striking statistics I’d seen last year, which were from the NYPD crime stats for 9th Precinct , where...

There are a million reasons to post the video for Cameo's "Word Up", but today I am sharing this with you because it features LeVar Burton Gettin' Fu...

Theory of mind is that thing that a two-year-old lacks, which makes her think that covering her eyes means you can’t see her. It’s the thing a chimpanzee has,...

[P]erhaps the two best examples of how [religion-based food] bans have resulted in delicious and fascinating food are Jain cooking, with its ban on anything...

From Paul Ford’s “ $5 Chocolate Bar “: Brooklyn has squandered the treasures she brought with her when she burst out of her father’s brain. She’s thinking,...

Although I’ve been accused sometimes of reflexive contrariness , the truth is I’m just pretty consistent in my assessments of technology, with little regard f...

Tom Patterson , of the U.S. National Park Service, wrote a great paper five years ago on improved realism in NPS maps . There’s some very insightful analysis...

I’ve gotten a lot of really good questions (and some fantastically generous donations!) about the Donors Choose blogger challenge I wrote about yesterday , bu...

A.J. Jacobs, master of the year-long book stunt, spent a year trying to live by all the rules dictated in the Bible. As stunts go, it’s not that interesting to...

It’s the first year that the anniversary didn’t hang over everything I do. I’m still aware of it, I’ll always be aware of it, but time and distance and some...

We just finished watching HBO’s broadcast of Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex tour , which I (unsurprisingly) quite enjoyed. It seems like he’s done a good...

One of my favorite posts that I’ve ever written was Excel Pile , about people’s propensity for using Office tools like Microsoft Excel to track mundane parts...

I moved back to New York City at the end of last year because of my wife’s work , and despite my love for my coworkers and the work they do. But the decisio...

In the New York Times, Jon Pareles gets it exactly right : Prince’s priorities are obvious. The main one is getting his music to an audience, whether it’s...

In technology, one of the best ideas to emerge from the world of social software is the ability to tag other people’s works and creations for our own reference...

South Asians with blood disorders only have a 1 in 20,000 chance of finding compatible marrow donors, in part due to the fact that less than 1% of those regist...

Michael Blim summarizes the news from the Supreme Court over on 3quarksdaily; I wish this had gotten the coverage that the iPhone did, or even that people were...

Following up on Indian Mango Alert Level: Orangish-Green and A Matter of National Security , some data points: The national flag of India has stripes...

As I was reveling in earlier , Indian mangoes are coming to the United States. As I mentioned in my last post, Indian mangoes had essentially been off-limits...

This one’s sublime: “ What’s your favorite kitchen sound? ” This one’s the truth, finally. The most eloquent dismissal of User Generated Discontent (or in...

Following up on Cats, Comics and Closure , Meowchat and PetSpeak (which, surprisingly, came up during a panel on race and class on Friday), and of course...

So, we talked about Gershwin’s work in inspiring the Rhythm Changes , but his signature work is, of course, Rhapsody in Blue. One of my favorite recent finds...

This is one of those “how to market a product effectively” examples that’s been kicking around in my brain for a while, I thought I’d share it. About half a de...

The exact thing you are looking for is out there on the Internet, if you just know where to look. So here are some hints. Making the connection between Gi...

I’ve been amused for weeks by 37signals marketing for their upcoming micro-CRM app Highrise because of the example contacts they’ve been using. Every...

Do you want links? Because I’ll give you some damn links, I’m not afraid of you! I’m not afraid of NOBODY! Reyhan Harmanci on the third wave of academic s...

When I first heard that Kevin Shay was working on a novel, it struck me as a little bit unfair. I know Kevin from his work with Movable Type ; as we said o...

There’s no shortage of animosity towards the mainstream record industry from its customer base, but the RIAA’s thug mentality’s become brutally obvious of late...

The sign of success in social software is when your community does something you didn’t expect. It’s easy to be cynical about new sites, especially when...

Background: Yahoo’s launched an interesting and innovative new service, Pipes, which lets users with a relatively low degree of technological expertise c...

Mike at Techdirt (that’s the popular tech news blog which actually deserves its popularity) mentions that Sony is now rewriting history , trying to take cre...

Sure, everybody’s linking to Ironic Sans’ (admittedly entertaining) Celebrity Patents , since Waxy pointed them out, but did you know Prince actually has a...

Background: I once wore a funny t-shirt for a photo that appeared in the New York Times, and a bunch of people thought it was kind of amusing, albeit juv...

Another follow-up to blood diamonds : The New York Times offers Hollywood’s Multifaceted Cause du Jour , Marc Santora’s look at Hollywood’s engagement in the...

Four years ago, I didn’t know anything about diamonds. Then I posted one ill-tempered rant about how annoying and even offensive I found the advertising for th...

Update: The fellow who asked the question actually doesn’t want to participate in the lawsuit against Cohen. Wonders never cease! On Ask MetaFilter a m...

As part of my continuing quest to create as many posts as possible with as little original content as possible, let’s take another look at my revisitation of...

On our last episode, we revisited Dan Geer’s analysis of software monoculture . Let’s switch back to true biological monocultures again. Monoculture Consider...

The upcoming release of Steven Johnson ‘s The Ghost Map served as a useful prompt for Steven’s list of the best books about plagues in the Wall St...

1. Avoided Destiny offers MP3s of most Mario Bros themes, including the Starman/Invincibility theme. I’d been looking for this for some time, and The Mushro...

In 2001, I checked in with everyone on the morning of the attacks , and then again that night before I finally went to bed . In 2002, I reflected on what...

There’s been a great hue and cry about the debate over the definition of the word “planet”, and Pluto’s recent change in status. Frankly, I think the whole...

A little more than two decades ago, popular music was under fire by Tipper Gore’s PMRC, the Parents’ Music Resource Center . Tipper was aghast at popular musi...

I launched a new design for my blog about two weeks ago, but I’d been waiting until I had a chance to shake out a few of the more egregious bugs to mention the...

Some links to celebrate Flash’s 10th anniversary. 10th anniversary of Flash Wired story on Flash turning 10 John Gay’s history of Flash Mike C...

Way back long ago, when the Internet was still in black-and-white, I read Jamie Zawinski’s report of a fire in a tire warehouse across the street from where...

There’s been an interesting wave of news since my anti-Wikipedia roundup recently, most notably Jimmy Wales’ comments about the evolution of the community...

I love YouTube, but there’s something you need to understand: YouTube just stomps around, recklessly murdering innocent bystanders. The latest casualties? Jo...

Speaking of memes from a year ago , last year I created a site called ishavingamassage.com. (That’s “Is Having A Massage”, not “I Shaving…”) The domain is a (...

My reign as most verbose Justin Timberlake fanboy on the Internet is not yet complete. Thus, some links to augment the review of “SexyBack” . The Observe...

One of the most interesting subcultures of the technology industry is that of the venture capitalists that fund so much of what’s going on. While the conventio...

Zinedine Zidane’s savage headbutt of Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final has touched on many things : Race, family, country, terrorism, sportsmanship. But...

Sometimes I see things and assume that either someone has the same sick sense of humor that I do, or else people have completely lost their sense of the absurd...

Dan posts one of this infrequent updates, titled “ A Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal “. It’s a great perspective on Dr. King’s work and legacy on the day w...

R. Kelly’s Happy People!...

It’s like they chose the onstage talent at this event just to appeal to me ! ![Rock Your BillG.jpg]https://cdn.glitch.global/71e5579f-aba0-499a-b200-01549a2a...

Lots of people in both the music/media and technology businesses are obsessed with beating Apple’s work on the iPod and iTunes. With the CES show being this we...

I’ve been fascinated by the increasing popularity of radio stations that are using automated programming from a very large playlist of songs. Most of these are...

I can’t see the date anywhere today without just stopping, freezing in my tracks. It surprises me it’s still that close to the surface, even after four years....

The WWL radio interview with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin has made me angrier than anything I’ve seen in the aftermath of Katrina. I’m the type of person who’s...

Paul Scrivens has been doing a great job of leveraging his brash personality and formidable talent to make a name for himself, especially in the design world....

This New York Times story about some archaeological discoveries in East Jerusalem is interesting for a few reasons: A political agenda masquerading as a reli...

I think I’d read the same paper as Jeffrey , and thought the same thing as Andre . The only thing worse than bad news is when bad news isn’t even newsworthy...

I don’t have any words that can offer anyone in the U.K. true consolation or any thoughts that can undo what’s happened today. But those of us who were in New...

I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass along the NYTimes story on MTV Desi from last week. There’s a lot of different reactions this prompts from me, but perhaps the...

Considering how many people have sent me the link, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass along MJ is OK! . $25 seems a little steep for a t-shirt, but the designs su...

Brad? Seven . Jason? Nine . Jeffrey? Ten . Jakob? Ten . Thanks, guys!...

I am thinking of creating an award for each week’s best display of intellectual dishonesty. That’s not people who are lying, but rather people who are delibera...

I was reading the  TIME interview with Dave Chapelle , and the way he’s tripping, it reminds me of the (first) time Prince retired from making music. Right wh...

Okay, this is a  pretty funny record review . Although I figure people who are still in their "listening to NIN" phase would enjoy the record....

The problem with having principles is then they get tested and you have to do things that you don’t want to. For example, Robert Scoble ‘s gathered up a lot o...

I was really depressed by the comments on this post that Robert Scoble made until I read the comment by Mobile Jones , who I think stated the point perfectl...

Lots of times I say it doesn’t matter if you get credit if your idea succeeds, because if you believe in it, you probably care more about the idea than your ow...

Nine years ago , the web didn’t look that different....

Now that Jay has confessed to listening to Will Smith, I can too. First, there’s a few things to know. I still hold out hope that Will’s going to make a grea...

Back again for the sixth consecutive year, it’s the Panda Joke ! A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down, and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pu...

As always, a useful perspective from Rebecca , this time on Eason Jordan: It is a collision of expectations that is at the root of the whole incident. The...

I learned that half of all bankruptcies in the United States are caused by medical bills , courtesy of Rebecca’s link . I wish I had learned this from John K...

If I were Vanessa Williams, I think I’d be damned bitter about Paris Hilton’s popularity....

Given the reports from Stan (with updates ) and Jay , it seems like my fears are confirmed: Some parts of the hip hop community feel that Indians are good...

Good to see Michael keeping his spirits up at holiday time....

The Voyager spacecraft had their famous galactic greetings on board, with the map offering detailed instructions for any aliens who wanted to invade Earth, the...

I think the media inaccuracy witch hunt is reaching its zenith. (Or perhaps its nadir.) Brian Williams is being slammed for saying that there are no black me...

In what’s become an annual holiday tradition at Michael’s Neverland Ranch, the cops turned the joint upside down again . Ho ho ho!...

When Star Wars fans wanted to use elements of the Star Wars universe in their fan films, even incorporating story or character elements from unreleased films,...

New York Changing is a fascinating then-and-now series of photographs showing how Manhattan has changed over the last century. Thanks to Jason for the link...

Man, I hate it when people get full of themselves and think they have power that they don’t. Especially when it’s over trivial things. I don’t care much abou...

You want me to ROCK YOUR BODY? Huh?!...

This just in: geeky white guys with blogs like indie rock ! Me? I like music made by machines and/or black folks. Call me crazy....

…I still don’t miss living in your backwards-ass bastion of superstitious idiocy . Just wanted to let you know....

Today’s song of the day? Under Pressure . Sigh....

Instead of Rocking the Vote, disappointed Kerry voters can just sit around and wait for the baby boomers to die . As a side bonus, we’ll also get to stop hear...

Via Nick , ten things the Chinese do better . They forgot to mention soup dumplings....

In what may be a first for media of any type, at any time, I have found a positive review of Under the Cherry Moon . I love the movie, but I still think t...

I hate to contradict Ken Mehlman’s desires, but I think, instead of flooding the web with assertions that a candidate won after the vice presidential debate,...

Dear New York, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there today. I feel guilty that I couldn’t be present to observe. I had to look up the weather there to find out it wa...

I do not understand why, in the Bay Area, where it’s never really that cold and nobody ever dresses up formally, they have two coat hooks by every seat on th...

To the guy who just rolled by my window booming Chubb Rock’s "Treat Me Right": Thank you!...

I’m starting to reconcile myself to the fact that I actually still enjoy a number of R. Kelly songs, but it is while listening to his exhortations at the begin...

One of this site’s annual traditions is that I post the Panda Joke each year when I’m away for SXSW . So here goes: A panda walks into a restaurant, sits...

Just a quick note to my few friends in Spain… I had my first chance to visit your beautiful country last year, and though I didn’t get to Madrid, I did get to...

What if Microsoft shipped "Linux for Windows"? On Friday, Microsoft released a free download of Windows Services for Unix version 3.5, a signific...

I guess the beginning of a new year is when you’re supposed to look back and be reflective. Looking at my weblog, the thing that’s most striking to me is that,...

I finally got around to seeing Finding Nemo this weekend. It’s pretty good, not great, but I suppose I’d appreciate it a lot more if I were a parent. In summ...

I recently renewed my driver’s license, and I of course checked off the organ donor box because I’m a big believer in recycling in general and there just seems...

I’ve never been mugged. I grew up in a town where the impression of New York City was basically either "That place you go to get mugged." or "Th...

Well, looks like I didn’t choke to death in a pool of my own vomit . That ‘s good news....

Some extraordinarily kind and generous soul sent me The Encyclopedia of New York City from my Amazon wishlist for my birthday tomorrow, but neglected to iden...

I am really, truly, inordinately excited about the fact that I’m going to see Justin Timberlake perform this week, especially since it’s not the crappy arena t...

Just a quick note to everybody who’s emailed. Thanks for checking in and I’m fine. I wasn’t in Manhattan when the lights went out. Daily links will resume on M...

No, seriously. Stop it. I have had enough. I was at a diner this morning having breakfast and a couple who appeared to be in their late 60s were sitting at t...

I’m listening to the (12 years old!) track “Latifah’s Had It Up 2 Here”, and my mind is thoroughly boggled that the interceding years have left the Queen as an...

Today I had a Patrick Swayze song stuck in my head. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in all of human history....

It seems, as in years past , an annual summer tradition has returned to Manhattan. No better way to celebrate the end of the Month of Rain than with this sar...

shhh! typepad is thinking!...

I have brought sunshine to Gotham with my weblog! Huzzah!...

Just wanted to leave myself a placeholder about the exceptional Gel Conference I attended today. Haven’t had a chance to write up my notes yet, (I’m so used...

Given the fact that the area I was born and raised in is the area that elected Rick Santorum , it suddenly becomes much easier to explain why that part of Pen...

Someday all the former isolationists, these strident libertarians, who have suddenly seemed to have grown a global conscience these last few weeks and started...

One of the things that troubles me about my daily routine is that we seem to have devoted a disproportionate amount of our culture’s scientific resources to th...

One of the recurrent ideas that surfaces in science fiction and in the predictions of futurists is an always-on record of a person’s life. Typically, it’s pres...

DID YOU KNOW? One of the easiest ways to tell just how bad the Wall Street Journal sucks as a newspaper is because, despite its name, it reads like it was wr...

So tonight, while we were walking around in Chelsea, I swore that someone shouted my name at my from across the street, but I didn’t see anybody. I’m too lazy...

Here in Manhattan, they have a statue of Gandhi in Union Square Park , and I was kind of hoping they’d have a little plaque that said, "He drank his own...

So I got a copy of another extremist " manifesto " today, this one by a bunch of anti-American idiotarians who just don’t seem to understand the ba...

Since I’ve already started to get a good number of people emailing and asking questions in regards to the Media Matters segment on weblogs, I thought I shoul...

It seems that the conventional wisdom right now is that liberals need an answer to the rising success of conservative media pundits, in order to get their me...

I had this one on the Daily Links already yesterday, but I’m still curious: What happened to Southern Partisan ‘s website ? All the content is gone, though...

Regular readers may remember an unpleasant contretemps a while back with regards to the Little Green Footballs weblog . Well, being of the mindset that one...

Since I work at a newspaper, I try to scan the headlines from time to time to find stories that are newsworthy enough for us to link to. Every once in a while,...

You know, Bill Gates had a public appearance next to a giant inflated condom more than 24 hours ago, presumably with a dot on his forehead as he’s been wearing...

Another in my occasional series of great emails sent to our customer service address at work: From: [Name Redacted] Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 2...

I wasn’t going to write about it, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about it, so maybe writing it out will get it out of my head… I’m surprised just how affect...

Hey, everyone, it’s my last post on all this foolishness . I’d like to get back to the fun stuff. First, a tremendous thank you to everyone who’s emailed, lin...

I realized sometime on Monday that it was gonna happen. Too many people reading it, the Network Effect had been triggered, and I was expecting an email any min...

Congratulations to Ben and Mena on Movable Type ‘s one year anniversary and the release of MT 2.5. Amazing that they’ve gone in one year from launching a...

We get the best random emails to the webmaster account at work. Today’s: Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 5:49 PM To: Webmaster Subject: comment I p...

Nick claims (archives are broken, follow the first link. Yay, Blogger!) “the earnest left urges its members to blog more to demonstrate political commitment...

Dave says that RSS is a syndication format, nothing more. And that it has nothing to do with RDF. I am just curious, why does Dave get to make these decisio...

I was born and raised outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A few weeks ago, an editor of The Patriot-News , the local paper, asked me for my thoughts regardin...

My initial post about the attacks from last year, for those who are searching for the link....

The drums, of course, are beating. The Anniversary is coming up, and everyone is insisting not just that we remember, not just that we mourn, but that we do it...

Over at Starmama’s, a eulogy for the sidin’ scene , mourning the passing so eloquently that you feel like you were there yourself. Exceptional writing about t...

Understand this: I am an unapologetic Michael Jackson apologist. I was that guy, the one still holding on to hope. Michael Jackson has had a third child, app...

The attacks last September had a lot of victims, both in the obvious, literal sense and in the countless numbers of us who have suffered smaller losses. I’d co...

Given what we know about the criminality of many of those involved in the worldwide diamond market, can we start throwing red paint on people wearing diamonds?...

you gotta be the curtain puller…...

Headlines we’d see, if the world were fair: Post-Mortem: The Dirt on Neal Travis...

A Network World story entitled Blogs finding fans in business world alleges that Phillip Windley, Utah’s state CIO, is testing weblogs in a business environm...

Should’ve seen that coming....

Meg makes the arugment in Blogging for Dollars that the weblog world needs professionally paid webloggers in order to advance past the labor-of-love ghetto:...

I went to buy a sandwich tonight and the young muslim boy behind the counter was making a concerted, but not entirely successful, attempt not to laugh as he as...

Sometimes friends ask me why I make geeky things, or spend my free time programming on little projects that I never show to anybody. And the reason is because...

And all good things, they say, never last ....

From the NY Times, Bollywood Farce: Indian Actress and Family Are Detained : “We were enjoying the flight and we were all very excited,” she said. “we wer...

I don’t usually like to write about current events, and I like even less to agree with Ted Rall, whom I usually perceive as forming his opinions prior to viewi...

I just want to get this disclaimer out of the way, so I don’t look like a sellout or something when the time comes: The evil robot alien overlords who are goin...

Happy Birthday, United States of America. And thank you....

Terrific interview of Cornell West on the Tavis Smiley Show where they discuss an event Prince is hosting at his studios in Minnesota, including not just mus...

The other night, I paused to look back over my shoulder at the stars in the sky, and I created the Big Bang : Using a light source and an arrangement of m...

Because he’s the king of such things, George gives me a definitive talkin’-at-the-movies article with Kathy Wilson’s Shut Up, Already, Damn! (bonus points...

Quite possibly the best news I’ve heard in ages, and one that gives me hope for the eradication of an affront that has tormented me since I was in grade school...

The most satisfying thing about my job is getting to work with very talented writers. From Laura Conaway’s " Baby Outs Me " : But the day those n...

Ugh, if I had known that it was going to get stupid and boring so quickly, I’d never have mentioned my thoughts on movie-going and culture . But then, every d...

If, like most sensible people, you’ve been a regular and dilligent reader of my site for the past several years, you know that one of my recurrent fascinations...

From time to time I like to look at the news, the current events, and try to understand what all the different factions are arguing about. Now, as I understand...

Quite an amusing scolding for us all, courtesy of Peter’s father: What Peter seems to mean is that he lives in a world of easy electronic communication,...

A note to The Morning News : To quote the late, lamented Michael Jackson, “You rock my world.” Why now, again? For pointing out NYC Vans . Much obliged....

Bryan at JunkYard Blog mentioned a similarity in the photos of the John Doe #2 suspect from the Oklahoma City bombing and Jose Padilla. I caught a reference...

Doing what weblogs do best, bringing a personal voice to public events: One of the two weblogs at the Providence Journal , Subterranean Homepage News , has p...

I am somewhat confused, as I try very hard not to keep up with the news these days, but if I understand correctly, our allegedly conservative chief executive i...

I overheard a man shouting into his cell phone on the corner of 4th and Broadway: “You’re a giant! Stop complaining! Make it happen!”...

Seattle’s Waterfront 2002-1907 : Two panoramic photographs of the waterfront of Seattle, Washington, taken from the same vantage point – 105 years apart....

I’ve been following the progress of " Devil’s Playground " for a few months now. It’s a film about the Amish coming-of-age period called rumspringa...

Bill Maher , talking to Larry King about the opportunity for Americans to change: [T]his past week the news was filled once again with Gary Condit and sha...

I had heard about this fire on the TV, when it was still breaking news. And somehow, I knew that those 2 kids were gonna end up under Jason ‘s care. They di...

Momentum’s building against the copyright and control fascists. We’ve already seen it from the consumer side. And the efforts from the side of the creators and...

“ It confuses me, because my mom and my grandparents and my parents have been teaching me to be a virgin and to stay away from marriage and boys. “ Eh, don’t...

From United States v. Thind , 261 U.S. 204 (1923): It may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reache...

So, uh, yeah. Metafilter ‘s gonna be down for a little while. Like until Sunday, or when Jason gets back. Whichever comes first....

The tiny school district where I went for my entire education has been the scene of six unusual student deaths in the past few months. The disparate causes o...

Umm, to everyone forwarding me the MP3 of the prank call to the Village Voice about placing a personal ad, thanks, but I got it . Since I work at the Village...

A striking photo essay on The 9-11 Marines [ offers some scenes from boot camp for a few women who enlisted last fall.]( offers some scenes from boot camp for...

I had been wondering for a while what Nathan Myhrvold’s company Intellectual Ventures was up to. MIT’s Technology Review spills the beans . It appears to b...

I am, right now, having more fun than you. And now? We’re just about even. But wait…. now , again, I am having more fun than you. Life is good! So, I’m off...

So, with my usual incredible discipline, I updated the KICK! website, a mere month and a half after the event took place. Enjoy....

Oh, and I try to avoid current events because the news makes me cry, but if Enron and Global Crossings and, probably, Arthur Andersen can get (effectively or e...

I just got back from a two and a half hour show where Prince led a band consisting of, at various times, George Clinton, Maceo Parker, Larry Graham, ?uestlove...

A lot of times my friends stop me and ask me why I carry my man purse all the time. I tell them it’s because it makes it easier to keep my camera with me whe...

The highest ideal of the Internet, for me, is to use all this technology and magic as a tool for communication. Taking theory into practice, we find sites like...

From pocho.com : This year’s Scammy Awards, the world of music’s top honors, featured the highest level of invisibility of top Latin talent ever. Even wit...

I just heard fighter jets fly by overhead. I haven’t heard that at night since September. Haven’t even thought about that since I saw some back in November whe...

" [Bill Clinton] becomes an invisible white man. He becomes a black man in the pews. " Civil rights leader Joseph Lowery, discussing Clinton’s comfor...

There is nothing better than a reminder of how blessed I am. My good friends whose pregnancy was so reassuring and inspiring to me a few months ago just an...

Interweb technology mastermind Andre Torrez is beloved by the web cognoscenti for many reasons. Among them, Nutshell . It lets you search many sites easily,...

I love James Brown for the music, for the influence, for all the things he’s been to so many people. But part of his irresistible charm, to me, is his intrinsi...

From the Mirror Project, a view from the footbridge that used to lead to World Trade Center building number 7....

Sign you are not the "bad boy" in the band: You start crying when you get arrested . According to The Smoking Gun : “The cops arrested him, p...

As soon as I voice my objections to various awards and accolades, people start winning them . I bet that guy’s hung like a horse....

There are days and times when all the inspiration I can find is to read about “ What’s Going On ” and then listen to the album, front to back. It’s all the i...

You know, on December 11th , I almost posted an “all-clear” notice, that it had been three months and the rest of the world could go back to hating New York C...

And, for the record, the fires are finally out ....

Yesterday 20,000 Canadians came to our city to wish us well . I know I’ve made many jokes at the expense of Canadians here, but I owe it to the half-dozen peo...

Just in passing, a quote from George W. Bush: “ The best way to keep the peace is to redefine war on our terms. ” He said that on February 13th of this year....

Anybody wanna tear the roof off with me? Next Wednesday ....

The groupie Lance mentions ? It was me....

This narrated photo essay of a western journalist’s trip through Pakistan and Afghanistan was moving enough to make me break my self-imposed rule of not keep...

Thirteen is my friend: I picked up a respirator, as my little surgical masks are not equal to the onslaught of dust I kick up in my manly work. I had fou...

I know, I know. A month gone by. And still, that fucking smell everywhere. It’s like my own telltale heart, it’s a damned spot what won’t out. I’ve always thou...

And now for a bit of time travel: There was a high school in Mississippi that used to have two separate homecoming elections, with two kings and two queens. Th...

Outside my office today and yesterday, the wind had shifted again. It still smells like That Tuesday when I leave work. The smell also lingers, appropriately,...

I really, honestly, truly woke up this morning wondering if it was Friday. That can not be a good sign....

I saw the same scene at Union Square that Jeffrey did . I was there to meet a friend for dinner last night. I went early, to see what was happening there. The...

Quote of the week , from Rep. John Cooksey, (R) LA: “If I see someone come in and he’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt around that diaper on his h...

With the birth of a new Star Trek series less than a week away, I have to provide some links of interest. I have only a casual appreciation for the whole Tre...

I have my very first webcam shout-out! Mena tells it like it is in this picture ....

So it’s not something I guess I should say right now, but I never liked those towers. Their only purpose, I said, was to help orient oneself when getting out a...

Go read this letter from Tamim Ansary on Caterina’s site. Go read it now and tell your friends. Then read about Usman Farman’s experience . Read it and te...

There’s still so much more that I can’t deal with… I just came back in from outside, and I popped up the window with my webcam to check if it works now. And I...

Fight the hoaxes: Give people real information . If you thought I was livid about spam from friends and co-workers before , you can probably imagine my res...

I’m back at work. It took longer for me to get here to the East Village from the Upper East Side than it did for my co-worker to get to Manhattan from Philadel...

So I guess today will be the day when everything changed… I have had so many of the same conversations over and over. I want so badly to think of something e...

Thank you so much to all of you who have messaged, emailed and called. (Or tried to.) I am physically fine, as are all my family members and immediate friends....

So I’m still pretty shell-shocked. I got tired of the incessant TV buzz, and said “enough of this, I have to go out and get some fresh air, clear my head.” I w...

Even though I hadn’t seen it, I gotta give props to Joe’s rant from a while back. Especially since it leads to Forward Garden . Enjoy....

In honor of India’s Independence Day , my sister had emailed my dad about his recollections of Independence Day as a kid. His reply: I do remember the fir...

And didn’t Saima say she was supposed to be back by now?...

Okay, let’s go all the way back to the Anti-Mac interface . It’s been, believe it or not, five years since you first read it. And, of all the good points, the...

In an auspicious sign , this morning I finally managed to start off my month by saying Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit . (In what is probably a regional variation,...

So we went sailing today on Long Island Sound. A beautiful day, a perfect way to spend the day off. The recurring motif that I’ve been hearing from people all...

IsDickCheneyDeadYet.com ???...

Taking press nothing to its next logical step, Jason Freeman has made a Tellme voice remixer that will take your Shakespeare quotes and sing ’em back to...

Looks like I’ll be helping out with this program , thanks to the kindness and good graces of Zeldman ....

Those of you who’ve talked to me recently know that, for the past few weeks, my uncle has been visiting the U.S. for the first time in his life . He, like mos...

I do not live in " the land of the debutantes " no matter what anyone says. It’s kind of an accident that I ended up in this neighborhood at all....

While pursuing some very important research on crush videos, we found the following quote: At a news conference in Southern California, [Mickey] Rooney sta...

I want the red robot shirt so bad, it aches. Must… not… spend… money…...

Maggeh pull-quotes Misterpants with the following: Hey, you know how people sometimes hoot. Like at a rock concert or whatever, someone might go, “whoo...

Feelin’ ugly today. Just to share the gloom, among the many things I’ve learned today, I found out that George W. Bush, the President of These Here United St...

I know the last thing that the world needs is to have people pushing ads at each other, but I’m going to break my own rule and link to the Lucky magazine thea...

On the way to an interview today, a group of young girls across from me on the subway were talking about this school bomb threat . The remarkable thing about...

I’ve been thinking a lot about the world of technology recently, mostly where we’ve gone wrong. Part of it is sour grapes and bitterness on my part; I used to...

Joost is a Michael Jackson fan. He has a fan site called The Livin’ Legend . One day, Joost and his friends decided that they were such big fans that they wou...

Using the latest technology, with all of the amazing advances in efficiency in production and distribution, keeping one 100 watt light bulb lit for one hour ta...

I forgot. Sometime about 50 years ago or so, a bunch of Internet companies made a site called GetNetWise . Under the auspices of the non-profit Internet...

I said on September 15, 1999, that you could " expect tons of Anil-related content to unveil itself here shortly… " and I added the link to my about...

Just a reminder: George is a very good writer . That is all....

Note to those who might judge me harshly for some uncouth behavior in Texas: Yesterday I was literally Walking In Memphis, yet you have recieved no Mark...

Do you know why he shares his names with Jesse James ? Because he shoots so well . I did many things during my trip to Texas. I don’t know if it’s because...

You won’t often hear me say nice things about Europeans. I don’t actually have any real negative feelings towards them; I just feel particularly American when...

Drubbing (n.) drub’-bing: Being defeated 23 to 5 in Tank-Pong Complex Maze ( Game 7 ) in Combat . Especially true if it features an 11-to-1 run at the beg...

Quick take on Action Engine , whose product got blurbed on the news wires today: They make software to translate web-based interaction, especially transacti...

So you all know I got canned, and most of you know it wasn’t on the best possible terms. But I’m a nice guy, so I helped out my ex-boss, who was looking to hav...

I can’t express in words how excited I was a few weeks ago when World New York came back. I’m still getting used to the new layout and discussion features, a...

My friend Jon, who doesn’t have a blog, but probably should, emailed me this PDF file recounting a little history of the Lomax recordings , in response to the...

I’ve always chided myself for being far too passive about social protests, but this concept is a protest I can truly get behind....

Oh, I forgot to mention: The Beast has reawakened ....

Nobody tell my mom about this , okay? Thanks....

ACTV claims that Disney stole the idea for enhanced TV from them . The problem is, these guys are nuts . I met them when they came to our office, and they se...

Dan says "The New York Times ponders the future of web advertising, suggesting that traditional web banners will soon be replaced with pop-up windows, i...

Does anyone want to see the picture of me and Al Sharpton in front of my office building? Anyone..? No? Okay....

I’ve been getting hype from the record label about Nelly Furtado for months, so I had mostly ignored it. But it turns out she seems pretty cool. I can see th...

How Kozmo Works . Read it while they’re still around....

There is just some unremovable sheen of scumbag that clings to Larry Ellison . Stop me if I’ve said this before, but I find it strange that people in this i...

Okay, now Gore gets my vote ....

Odd… MSN’s eshop agreed to include epinions reviews on their site, but apparently they’ve only managed to sign up 9 members under their affiliate program ....

In case you’re too high to figure out how to sync it up yourself, TCM is simulcasting The Wizard of Oz & Dark Side of the Moon . (Pink Floyd will be on th...

Cam says : On any given day there are between three and eight million people in the NYC metro area. Yesterday, while in a bookstore in the Upper West Side...

Peter said I’m an idiot : Calling all New Yorkers! You are an idiot if you live or will be near Manhattan tomorrow (June 3) and do not attend Excavating...

Let me just say this… I found out a few weeks ago that Prince was changing his name back from the symbol. I was hoping it wasn’t true, but seeing the press con...

From a brilliant list , I found that I must put this on my to-do list: …a web page [devoted] to World News Now, Kevin, Thalia, Bill, Shielah, Nissan, Ok...

If he loses, can the plaintiff get the chair ?...

Of course Jason has to trump my every discovery… he says Vindigo is even better than X-Man. Of course, I wouldn’t know, I don’t actually have a Palm. A...

Indians writing about Indians blogged by an Indian. I feel so ethnic ! Is this the point where I admit that I can’t even read the language that my name is...

In the immortal words of R. Kelly, I believe I can fly ....

This story’s got it all: The web empowering a struggling culture, the traditional powers seeking to keep the newly-digital workers down, and some really expen...

I really like Rhode Island, might even move their someday. But it’s nice to know that the next time I visit, I’ll be greeted by a friendly face ....

Now this is a truly bizarre and convoluted story . And don’t get me wrong, I’m as anti-Scieno as the next guy, but shouldn’t the Germans be working a litt...

A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down, and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun, and shoots the waiter dead. As the panda stands up to...

Nice to see some hard facts to back up what we’ve known all along: Asian Scientists Hit a Ceiling ....

I can’t believe World New York is closed down. What a great site it was, I will miss it terribly. Thanks, Grant ....

It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right, just Beat It . (Thanks, Cam !)...

A clever little quote from my partner in crime Helen: (Speaking of G.W. Bush) " He just seems like yesterday’s politician, doesn’t he?" I thought...

When I was about 8 years old, I used to spend a lot of time on my Commodore 64. I was pretty adept with the thing, but there were some things that were still...

My hero ....

Oh please, oh please, oh please . Let’s not let those damned Martians win this time....

Yikes! An elevator at the Empire State Building (where I work) plunged 40 stories today. Can’t wait to hop in there tomorrow!...

It’s incredibly cold, and I wanted to experience some of the futuristic convenience that the web promises to deliver (literally), so I went to Kozmo.com and...

From the Daily News , more proof the Apocalypse is nearing: Hanson at the Apollo? You’re not dreaming. The teen group will be at the famed 125th St. lan...

From Bird on a wire : Ew. How about I just give you $39.99 a year to stop appearing in movies? Or at least to stop playing leading men? I’m serious. How...

An interestingly eventful day yesterday, as winter used to bring 6 inches of snow to the area, but we woke to 6 inches of mud . Sadly, I was too occupied wi...

Why do I hate professional athletes for the most part? Let’s ask the Atlanta Braves’ John Rocker : “The biggest thing I don’t like about New York are th...

From Getting It : Now one of cell-phonedom’s most annoying novelty rings has been sampled for an anti-cell phone CD released last week by dance act Soli...

Coincidence? Right after Columbine, the WB cancelled their episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because of parallels in the high school violence theme. Now, s...

So for every "rule" of web design, there are of course necessary exceptions . I hate animated GIFs for the most part. I hate pointless uses of brigh...

The harsh realities of the capitalist free market . Or, "Art vs. Commerce, Chapter LXXXII". Despite my fondness for independent record stores, (or s...

While traveling back to Pennsylvania today, I had occasion to reflect on a recurrent observation of New Jersey that I have every time I go through the state....

Returned to Pennsylvania for the weekend to pick up some stuff (my other computer, clothes, etc.) The interesting thing is that not one, but two roadside pro...

Actually, it’s technically very early on 21st July, 3:45a to be exact. That bastard Prince made us wait 5 hours until he showed up. In my opinion, of cours...