John Massengale is a “recovering architect,” author (New York 1900, Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890 - 1915), and started a popular New Urbanist internet list. He also publishes a weblog called Veritas et Venustas. I like his “Name this Town” photo albums. I didn’t have much luck. Here’s a hint, this one is in the Northeast.
Speaking of urbanism and the Northeast, I’d like to give my mom and sister a big Texas shout-out for their recent NYC trip’s goal of not only shopping, dining, and taking in shows, but also to “walk the neighborhoods.” They explored downtown neighborhoods like SoHo, TriBeCa, and others. It sounds like The Shops at Columbus Circle at the new Time Warner building are pretty spectacular. Cool photo of the circle…
April 6th, 2004
You see the little orange boxes labled ‘XML’ everywhere. Or maybe there is a cryptic link, such as the one at the bottom of this page, that reads ‘RSS’. This has to be one of the more widely confusing trends to hit the web in a while. It is actually not even clear what RSS stands for. RDF Site Summary? Really Simple Syndication? Or maybe it stands for Rich Site Summary.
Jason Fried posed an interesting challenge to the readers of Signal vs. Noise: “Explain RSS in 10 words or less…” My favorite response: “Yet another over-hyped internet technology that fails to deliver.” But the truth is, RSS is actually useful and is here to stay. Currently you must download a “news aggregator” to have headlines and story summaries come to you. I imagine future versions of browsers and email clients will have RSS functionality built in (and probably call it something less techie).
Soon RSS will expand its role. For example, when you subscribe to your favorite skate shop’s newsletter it will magically appear in the “RSS” area of Outlook or IE. The marketing people don’t have to constantly fight to get their newsletters past subscribers’ spam filters and the end-user will never receive the newsletter unless they actually subscribed to it.
Now if I can just figure out what the hell a pingback is.
April 2nd, 2004
Yo. I said yo! Are you ready for a phat new pack of cigarettes? Are you tired of your brand’s played out, wack packaging? Then get wit this, son. Kool be rocking some dope new cigarettes. Tha Kool Mixx Special Edition cigarettes got tight-ass grafix. We talkin’ dudes reprezentin’, DJs on tha 1s & 2s, and party people just doing they thang. Nah mean, kid? Still not convinced? Awight. Check it. These stixx come with flavas like Caribbean Chill and Mocha Taboo. And the best part… When you buy two pax, u get a a free “stick radio” with tiny ear plugz.
Of course, Brown & Williamson denies any attempt to target black youths. “That is simply not our objective, and we would not want that,” lies Marketing VP Ludo Cremers.
April 1st, 2004
« Newer Posts
The students at Yale dress down and slouch like those at IIT, but their surroundings engage them differently. While Koolhaas’s buildings make them look out of place–somewhat ridiculous–as if amiable but clueless barbarians inhabited the constructions of a vanished great civilization. At Yale the students and the architecture are at odds. But there is a chance that the architecture will prevail; that over time some of the students will sit straighter, dress more fittingly, converse and socialize in a more sophisticated manner. The buildings engage in a civilizing mission, and the young learn to respect the mastery of their predecessors. 
