I can't believe that none of the architects surveyed for Gridskipper's list of the ugliest buildings in New York [via kottke] included this hideous pair from W 42nd Street.
I mean, really, these are the ugliest buildings ever. And I know I'm probably almost alone here, but I sorta like the Hearst Building. Once the base gets its NYC grime back it'll look totally legit.
I'll admit I'm late to the LAN party on the Yahoo! pipes tip—pipes looks like it could be highly useful if I ever get a chance to sit down and fuss about with it.
One of the most talked-about pipes-related developments is badger, the adorably named widget factory that spits out dummy-proof javascript badges for any rss feed. Badger's nice—fun color options and a pretty good interface for choosing them and all—but I'm a little surprised at the sheer level of excitement over it, since rss to javascript converters have been around for awhile. As far as I can tell, Badger's main accomplishment (aside from a better interface and a much better name) is routing the feed through pipes.
Are we all really that excited about a way to make Yahoo! foot the bandwidth bill? Maybe if kenspeckle had actual traffic I'd learn to care about such things.
In the meantime, help yourself to a kenspeckle badge!
update: Errr, my badger badge stopped loading. The javascript it ran on threw so many validation errors that I decided to just take it down. But you can still get your own kenspeckle badge if you'd like.
Inspired by my newly blogging feline friend's scrumptious link lists, I've decided it's time to freshen up my own.
First on the agenda? Top New York Food! I could make a more extensive list, but these are the places that I just can't stop going back to.
Manhattan
Brooklyn
What did I miss?
Gothamist teased us with the promise of brand-new N trains back in August, but I guess the "one-month trial" took a bit longer than the MTA (or nycsubway.org, for that matter) expected.
Today was my first time even seeing a shiny new R160—not to mention actually riding in it. I must have gasped audibly in surprise when it came into the station, but all of my fellow passengers looked so blasé that I was too embarrassed to whip out my real camera and had to settle for this very low-quality camera phone pic (not that pictures I take with other people's nice new cameras turn out any better, but hey).
The fresh-off-the rack N trains are a lot like the current 4/5/6 and 2/3 trains, but with a much flashier LED display that customizes itself according to the actual route of the train instead of being pre-set to the "standard" route and contains a weird video inset which claimed (I think?) that the R160s somehow offer a "smoother ride" than the old trains. They also have this eerily soothing female voice announcing the stops instead of the automaton man who barks at me every morning the 6.
I just hope an R160 takes me in the other direction tomorrow morning. When my N pulled into 59th Street/Lexington, the old-school train headed downtown across the platform looked very sad and dingy indeed.
Don't worry, your favorite girl who rakes in about $0.005/month from her own AdSense script isn't about to get all hypocritically anti-advertising like last time (although I could probably split hairs about the difference between overwhelming outdoor ads and text ads so hard to notice they (sigh!) never get clicked if you really wanted me to).
I just happen to think that light criticism (brought to you by The Anti-Advertising Agency and Graffiti Research Lab, and brought to me via Stay Free Daily) makes for some mighty fine street art, and I hope I get to see it live and in person some fine night. We'll leave it at that:
Greg Patillo must have the strongest diaphragm in the known universe. I used to play the flute and I can assure you, this would not be easy.
I liked this version of the Inspector Gadget theme (how much would I have once totally killed for Penny's watch?) even better than his cover of the Super Mario Brothers theme that everyone's talking about.
Go, go Gadget Embrouchure!
Embedded video doesn't work in RSS so you'll have to go to the actual post.
Kenspeckle must be looking sad lately, because Hebrew posters weren't the only tip someone sent me yesterday.
I also got a link to the Compendium of Lost Words at The Phrontistery (also home to the International House of Logorrhea) from Alberto (who also blogs in English here).
Kenspeckle is part of the International House of Logorrhea, but not the Compendium of Lost Words, which has very strict membership requirements, including:
1. The word must have a header entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
2. The word may not appear in its proper English context on any readily accessible webpage.
3. The word must have been used in Modern English.
4. The word must not be a simple variation in spelling of another word.
These rules raise the natural question of what happens when rabid bloggers and wordie addicts put these lost words all over their blogs and wordie lists—do the Compendium's rules necessarily write its own oblivion when people find out about it?
Luckily The Phrontistery faq states that words that have been picked up here and there by people who read the site don't have to be removed. So I don't have to be guilty about creating a compendium favorites list on wordie, including (but not limited to):