Kevin Twohy

"Hot sauce must be hot. If you don’t like it hot, use less,” he said. “We..."

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:00:12 -0700

““Hot sauce must be hot. If you don’t like it hot, use less,” he said. “We don’t make mayonnaise here.””

- Maker of Sri Racha Hot Sauce in response to his suppliers’ complaints that his sauce was too spicy

The Marble Answering Machine

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 02:15:34 -0700

The Marble Answering Machine

Don’t adjust your web browser, this isn’t a corrupted photograph...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 09:13:07 -0700

Don’t adjust your web browser, this isn’t a corrupted photograph of a fine piece of Italian furniture. In actuality this cabinet was created by architect Ferruccio Laviani to look just as you see it, like a wavy digital glitch. Titled the Good Vibrations Storage Unit the piece will first appear at Italy’s annual interior show Fratelli Boffi. I’d love to see it from a few different angles, but incredible nonetheless.

(via @poisson) (via Good Vibrations: An Intricately Carved Cabinet Looks Like a Digital Glitch | Colossal)

Sight

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:13:07 -0800

Sight

future-drama: Charles and Ray Eames for Polaroid, 1972

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:41:46 -0800

future-drama:

Charles and Ray Eames for Polaroid, 1972

yanuncatebajasporno: I N F I N I T U M

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:20:11 -0800

yanuncatebajasporno:

I N F I N I T U M

johnpoisson: wnycradiolab: endomusia: This Thermometer Lets...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:19:31 -0800

johnpoisson:

wnycradiolab:

endomusia:

This Thermometer Lets You Actually Feel The Temp Outside
The Cryoscope Haptic Weathervane, created by Robb Godshaw of Syyn Labs, conveys the temperature by allowing you to experience it. Syncing with Wi-Fi to online weather reports, you can touch this aluminum cube to actually feel the outside temperature rather than simply reading about it through numbers or whimsical sunshine icons.

Unnecessary, sure…but awesome.

Fantastic.

Hauntingly Beautiful, Wildly Low-cost Solution to Clearing...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 09:31:46 -0800

Hauntingly Beautiful, Wildly Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

"Earlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no..."

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:06:38 -0700

“Earlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no instruction. “I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch … powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,””

- Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves | MIT Technology Review

If Apple can take liberties with Braun industrial design, why...

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 01:11:30 -0700

If Apple can take liberties with Braun industrial design, why shouldn’t Braun borrow a few tips from Apple marketing…

(via Braun Japan goes sexy and simple with their website | The Fox Is Black)

"Legend speaks of a sandwich—very discreet, somewhere—a sandwich well-concealed and..."

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:01:31 -0700

“Legend speaks of a sandwich—very discreet, somewhere—a sandwich well-concealed and expertly invisible. A sandwich so secret that its most vocal defenders absolutely doubt its existence. And they cite this prevelant doubt as the only actual proof of its existence. Sure, but do they have to say it with such skepticism? The only tangible proof was uncovered some years ago when an advertisement appeared in the Aberdeen Examiner. A mail-order cassette titled Sounds of the Secret Sandwich. A cassette which was largely blank, save for a brief conversation at 23’10”. A little child says, “Dad, dad!” and the wind is blowing. Then, this raspy voice says, “What is that? Are you wearing a beret?” The kid says really loud, “WHAT??” And the older voice says, “That’s cute, come here, show me, what is that you’re wearing on your head?” And there’s some movement and the kid is quiet, the wind dies down and the older voice says, “Oh, sure, I know what this is—it’s a—uh—it’s a dead bird.” So, I have my doubts about the validity of this recording.”

- _why’s Estate - The Secret Sandwich

"In the same day of interviews you might meet some smart 19 year olds who aren’t even sure what..."

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 22:23:00 -0700

“In the same day of interviews you might meet some smart 19 year olds who aren’t even sure what they want to work on. Their chances of succeeding seem small. But again, it’s not their chances of succeeding that matter but their chances of succeeding really big. The probability that any group will succeed really big is microscopically small, but the probability that those 19 year olds will might be higher than that of the other, safer group.”

- Black Swan Farming

"Long before the actual city of New York, the city of New York existed in the mind of its creator. In..."

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:19:42 -0700

“Long before the actual city of New York, the city of New York existed in the mind of its creator. In this dream city, there lived an ordinary man. (Ordinary in the sense that only dream people can be. Which is to say: Extraordinarily plain for a very wispy, immaterial person.) This man drew no attention to himself. He walked in such a way that he completely complied with crowds. His height was such that he was constantly overshadowed, though always present. His home was situated in a place where no one would ever look and his street address consisted of an imaginary number, such that it didn’t translate from the dream into the mind. It is common for such people to live this way in a dream, and it is most orderly of him to do so. This ordinary man concealed a great secret from the mind of his creator. This secret was called the Berkowitz Manuevre. You know enough about it now, so please go away.”

- _why’s Estate - The Berkowitz Manuevre

"When people are myopically focused on fighting, they lose sight of everything else. They begin to..."

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:46:22 -0700

“When people are myopically focused on fighting, they lose sight of everything else. They begin to look very much like their enemy. The skinny kid bulks up. He becomes the bully, which of course is exactly what he had always hated. A working theory is thus that you must choose your enemies well, since you’ll soon become just like them.”

- http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/23250566538/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-12-notes-essay (via johnerik)

I was on the way to a meeting yesterday when I walked right past...

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 11:13:38 -0700

I was on the way to a meeting yesterday when I walked right past this little grey box strapped to a light pole, at about knee level. I did a double take after thinking to myself “that thing looks like it’s designed to attract as little attention as possible.”

The only identifying marks were the “eco-counter” label, and a tiny serial number. After some ethically grey internet sleuthing, I found this URL: http://public.visio-tools.com/?ECO07111540, which corresponds to the box. This little grey box at Fell and Scott streets, designed to be invisible in plain sight, is counting/recording/aggregating every bike that passes it, and sending the data wirelessly back to a server somewhere for someone to look at.

The same company makes similar models to count pedestrians, by measuring small fluctuations in temperature caused by your body heat as you walk by. They’re good enough to detect two people walking closely together. They make counters that are designed to be buried under dirt paths, hidden inside of posts, and all other variety of camouflage.

There are at least dozens of these around San Francisco. Maybe hundreds. I’m totally fascinated by them. Who is paying for them? Who’s looking at the data?

Our city has a private API.

"I once knew a woman who interned at a magazine where she wasn’t allowed to take lunch hours out,..."

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 14:46:00 -0700

“I once knew a woman who interned at a magazine where she wasn’t allowed to take lunch hours out, lest she be urgently needed for some reason. This was an entertainment magazine whose raison d’être was obviated when “menu” buttons appeared on remotes, so it’s hard to see this pretense of indispensability as anything other than a form of institutional self-delusion. More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.”

- The Busy Trap

All glory comes from daring to begin.

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:17:45 -0700

All glory comes from daring to begin.

"Google, on the other hand, is Google and its undead shambling… but damn, it’s also Project Glass,..."

Wed, 30 May 2012 14:16:47 -0700

“Google, on the other hand, is Google and its undead shambling… but damn, it’s also Project Glass, and those cars that can drive themselves! Google is getting good, really good, at building things that see the world around them and actually understand what they’re seeing. In this context, Google is not the company’s most strategic project. That distinction goes to Glass, to the self-driving cars, and to Google Maps, Street View, and Earth: Google’s detailed model of the real, physical world. Maybe in twenty years we’ll think of Google primarily as a vision company—augmenting our vision, helping us share it—and, oh wow, did you realize they once, long ago, sold ads? Like Nokia’s first business selling rubber boots. Project Glass is a cool idea burdened by a supremely dorky device but possibly powerful enought to overcome it. Vision isn’t yet central to Google the way that pictures are central to Facebook—but lift your eyes and look out into the middle distance. It might be soon.”

- Pictures and vision

MIT Creates Amazing UI From Levitating Orbs

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:06:42 -0700

MIT Creates Amazing UI From Levitating Orbs

"When talking about Zuckerbergs most valuable personality trait, a colleague jokingly invokes the..."

Mon, 07 May 2012 18:26:27 -0700

“When talking about Zuckerbergs most valuable personality trait, a colleague jokingly invokes the famous Stanford marshmallow tests, in which researchers found a correlation between a young childs ability to delay gratificationdevour one treat right away, or wait and be rewarded with twowith high achievement later in life. If Zuckerberg had been one of the Stanford scientists subjects, the colleague jokes, Facebook would never have been created: Hed still be sitting in a room somewhere, not eating marshmallows.”

- The Maturation of Mark Zuckerberg — New York Magazine