TIFI

Posted by Game|Life to Wired News.

With PlayStation dad Ken Kutaragi taking home the Lifetime Achievement Award at DICE this year, there’s one achievement of his that isn’t in the list of honors: His ability to come up with amazingly insane sound bites. Just a few:

(On PS3’s price) “It’s probably too cheap.”

(On PS3’s price) “We want consumers to think to themselves ‘I will work more hours to buy one.’”

(On PS2’s tech) “Same interface. Same concept. Starting from next year, you can jack into The Matrix!”

There’s a “green line” that runs down the middle of Ohio. For points to the West of that line, it is more carbon efficient to consume wine trucked from California. To the East of that line, it’s more efficient to consume the same sized bottle of wine from Bordeaux, which has had benefited from the efficiencies of container shipping, followed by a shorter truck trip.

Via cityofsound.

Andrew Blum:

“I think we’re not too far off from recognizing that it’s a moral imperative to add density to any place with a transit stop,” believes Christopher Leinberger, a fellow at the Brookings Institution—displaying plenty of the modernist brio and contempt for the souls of cities that Jacobs fought. But I’m tending to agree. We are wedging ourselves between a rock and a hard place: between the pleasures of medium-density living (Greenwich Village, Park Slope, Toronto’s Annex) and the ecological necessity of even more density. When it comes to our homes, we are all justifiably afraid of change, especially when it feels like (or is) destruction. But we don’t often pair that truth with another oft-repeated one: Our way of life is unsustainable. In North America’s most beautiful urban places, we unfailingly fight every new tall building in the name of “quality of life” and the “character of the neighborhood.” We claim to have internalized the idea that it’s all connected, that slowing the warming of the planet is a global project, but the nature in our backyards remains sacred—often to the point, perhaps, of self-destruction.

The key question is how to keep the neighborhood even in high density living. Take a look at cities that have naturally grown with high density, like Hong Kong, and you will see it is possible.

Via cityofsound.

The BBC is in trouble, political and economic. So what do they do? Make huge cuts in personnel and spending. Problem is that nearly everyone agrees that the reason they are in trouble is the quality of their programs are not where they should be, and of course the cuts are going to doom them. Some are standing up and shouting, is anyone listening?

We have had a series of cuts which will make it impossible to do what we have done up to now if they continue in the way they are continuing… And we are told there is going to be another massive cut over the next five years. The problem is, the BBC is in a whole range of things, it has many television channels, many radio stations, an internet presence and the rest of it. Maybe we are at a time when strategic judgments need to be made. If money has to be spent on the whole digital switchover for example, and building office blocks in Salford and all the rest of it, then maybe instead of cutting everything salami-sliced, then maybe we need to make judgments about the sort of things that we do, and maybe that does involve saying, reluctantly, and I hate to say this because it has been a wonderful institution, maybe we need to say perhaps we should be doing less better.

Via cityofsound.

A chest strap (corset) with high torque servo motors and a WIFI-enabled game-console are worn as fetish object. The higher the wireless signal strength of close encrypted networks, the tighter the corset becomes. Closed network points improve the pleasurable play of tight lacing the performer‘s bustier. Thus, constituting the aether as a space of possible pregnancy, filled with potential access-points to the networks of communication. Everyday walks between home, work and leisure are recompiled into a schizogeographic pain-map which is fetched from GoogleMaps servers with automated scripts. By wearing the straight-jacket, the artist not only writes, but is at once also able to read the city code.

Via MAKE: Blog.

Posted by John Gruber to Daring Fireball.

Free online web app, converts bitmap images into vector art, and does a surprisingly good job of it. (Via Gus Mueller.)

Authors sign bad contract for 10% of net rather than usual 15% of gross, get screwed by publisher selling at cost, and then pull out this wonder:

“It suddenly occurred to us that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance.” He added: “Why is Regnery acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?”

And might this have something to do with it?

“These guys created the conservative book market,” Mr. Mowbray said. “Before them, conservatives were having to fight, generally unsuccessfully, to get books published.”

Via Gruber.

No, there are no speakers.

Via Beyond the Beyond.

Ok I hate Ze Frank, but he hits the mood of public perception about this strike about spot on.

Via Gruber at Daring Fireball.

The publishing outfit that produced LaRouche propaganda finally collapsed, and the whole organization probably will follow. Avi Klein has an interesting look back at the remarkably little impact LaRouche has had on american politics, despite the millions spent.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.