peter martin (unfiltered)

This might be the most intense place on Earth. (via...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:06:13 -0500

This might be the most intense place on Earth. (via agaudi.files.wordpress.com)

oldhollywood: Jean-Louis Trintignant in The Conformist (1970,...

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:56:24 -0500

Jean-Louis Trintignant in The Conformist (1970, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci)

“Marcello is really a very complex character, searching to conform because of his great, violent anti-conformism. A true conformist is someone who has no wish to change; to wish to conform is really to say that the truth is the contrary.”

-Bernardo Bertolucci

Possibly the most visually arresting film ever made.

"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make..."

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:48:09 -0500

“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

- Roger Ebert (via Esquire)

I know it’s being referenced all over the place right now, but this interview is required reading. I didn’t realize the extent of his medical situation, given that I’ve only ever read his writing and never paid much attention to Siskel & Ebert or Ebert & Roeper, and I’m astonishingly depressed to learn how close he is to the end. I’ve always referenced his opinions when putting serious thought into a film, even in the minority of cases when I’ve disagreed strongly (his dismissal of A Clockwork Orange and insistence on Nicolas Cage’s genius leap to mind), and his career doesn’t need my stamp of approval to legitimize it…but I’d like to throw my two cents in the pile: he’ll be missed terribly, and his body of criticism will outlive us all.

Organizing for America | BarackObama.com | Road to Recovery I...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:34:59 -0500

Organizing for America | BarackObama.com | Road to Recovery

I love that David Plouffe is taking a more active role in shaping opinion/perception again. Fantastic chart.

Dark Roasted Blend: Lots of Snow!

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:55:26 -0500

Dark Roasted Blend: Lots of Snow!

I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:22:36 -0500

Goddamnit Netflix, how are you missing I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK? You have the rest of the Chan-wook Park DVDs, the vengeance trilogy on up to Thirst. Amazon is no help either, offering $30 imports through third-party sellers (likely actual pirates, in other words people who are profiting off his work)…guess I’m forced into the torrent network. Thank jeebus for Hexagon.cc.

David Bowie - Five Years

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:12:13 -0500

David Bowie - Five Years

Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:02:49 -0500

Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login:

marco:

(via Zoya)

Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services. To access Facebook right now, click here. For future reference, type “facebook.com” into your browser address bar or enter “facebook” into Google and click on the first result. We recommend that you then save Facebook as a bookmark in your browser.

I will now say two things that will shock most people who know me:

You should follow this link to ReadWriteWeb.

You should read the comments.

You can see the same effect on anything ranked highly by a Google search for “facebook login”, including this.

That comment thread is one of the more amazing things I’ve seen, and should be required reading for every web designer/developer out there. Yikes.

rocketboom: First “Legend of Zelda” Commercial Nostalgia and...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:08:00 -0500

rocketboom:

First “Legend of Zelda” Commercial

Nostalgia and comedy aside…I love the original Legend of Zelda like no other game since. I could still sit down and remember every damned screen in that game.

Should we amend the Constitution to prohibit or restrict corporate spending on elections?

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:36:18 -0500

squashed:

To me, this isn’t even a close question—but I’ll let a few people answer before I tip my hand.

(I’ll also let people do photo replies because I like to check boxes. And why not? Of course, if people respond with their feelings in picture form, it could get sort of surreal.)

To expand on my Tumblr answer to this question, I think that the debate as framed is missing the larger point - corporations should not have the same legal rights (or Constitutional protection) as individuals. The Constitution, and our entire legal system, is simply a social contract between individuals. A corporation is an artificial entity created within that legal system to confer rights upon a business organization (profit or nonprofit), and the real crime here is that the same Congressional representatives, lawyers, and interests that will trample all over the rights of the individual will rush to defend this fictional ‘corporate bill of rights’.

Corporations should have no First Amendment protection because the Bill of Rights was designed to protect individual rights. Case closed, no constitutional amendment required.

Further reading: Jim Sleeper in the Boston Globe.

Hybrowse

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:27:54 -0500

Hybrowse:

The always interesting Jakob Lodwick’s new project (is Normative dead? That interested me far more than the Odwick stuff.) This is pretty close to exactly what I’m looking for to index web content, assuming the tagging is done well. Link is to Netflix/Classics/Instant, but it’s easy enough to shift around the tags to filter content quickly and efficiently. I’ll be curious to see how this develops.

Can’t help noticing that an excellent use of this type of Netflix filtering would be the Netflix apps on Boxee/Roku/PS3, etc. Zach Klein’s work over there would make a Boxee mashup the most obvious choice.

The Black Keys gig poster (via ollymoss.com) More Olly Moss...

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:56:33 -0500

The Black Keys gig poster (via ollymoss.com)

More Olly Moss love. This guy’s the best.

thedarkspark: ckck: Pennsylvania Station, New York City, circa...

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:46:51 -0500

thedarkspark:

ckck:

Pennsylvania Station, New York City, circa 1935.

Photograph by Berenice Abbott.

My love for this building is a recurring theme.

The shift from the spectacular Penn Station to the Madison Square Garden / “new” Penn Station basement is particularly jarring. So depressing to think of what was lost in the name of “progress” in this case, especially considering how much more pleasant* it is to take the train from Boston to NYC in these “suburban airport, be-there-2-hours-before, TSA-insanity shoe & underwear threat” days.

* OK so it’s stupidly expensive, especially Acela, but train is still the best way to travel…Bolt Bus as the inexpensive alternative.

Just wanted out to point out that the Vimeo app for Boxee is...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:21:54 -0500

Just wanted out to point out that the Vimeo app for Boxee is fantastic.

Synchronicity

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:10:41 -0500

I love when stuff like this happens…as I was trolling through Barnes & Noble’s website looking for stuff to spend a $35 gift certificate, I settled in on Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy in a Criterion set.

Haven’t seen any of them, been on my to-watch list for a while, etc…ignoring the fact that this the $72 price tag left me more than halfway short on the cost (and that I’m moderately employed at best at the moment), I added it to my cart and figured I’d let it stew there for an hour or so before placing the order (good trick if you’re an impulsive yet forgetful buyer with ADD, though I can’t even fathom how many times I’ve checked out of Amazon with shopping carts several magnitudes more expensive than planned because I forgot about the movies/books/camera equipment that I had added in the weeks beforehand).

Anyhow, I then navigated over to Netflix to see if I could find something relatively short to watch and still be in bed before midnight…and this was their recommendation to me:

So I guess the real question is…is this just a matter of coincidence/seeing patterns where there are none? Or is Netflix spying on my B&N/Amazon/etc cookies/web history and adjusting their recommendations to suit my browsing habits??? INQUIRING (PARANOID) MINDS NEED TO KNOW!!!!!

theopie: (via quietbrava)

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:01:31 -0500

theopie:

(via quietbrava)

The Abbadons (via Peter Martin Photo) Probably my favorite of...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:19:00 -0500

The Abbadons (via Peter Martin Photo)

Probably my favorite of the bunch, cause of the way Matt fits into the background perfectly. Really, really dark red light at the Old Court, so I had to play a lot of games with these RAW exposures to get anything decent.

The Abbadons (via Peter Martin Photo) from Saturday...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:17:36 -0500

The Abbadons (via Peter Martin Photo)

from Saturday night’s show.

"I spent about 30 minutes on Friday night on Chatroulette (very NSFW). You push the start button and..."

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:56:55 -0500

“I spent about 30 minutes on Friday night on Chatroulette (very NSFW). You push the start button and you’re instantly in a video chat with some random person. During my session, the average “chat” lasted about 5 seconds and I observed several people drinking malt liquor, two girls making out, many many guys who disconnected as soon as they saw I wasn’t female, several girls who disconnected after seeing my face (but not before I caught the looks of disgust on theirs), 3 couples having sex, and 11 erect penises. In a Malkovichian moment, I was even connected to myself once…and then the other me quickly disconnected. In short, Chatroulette is pretty much the best site going on the internet right now.”

- Chatroulette (via Kottke)

This paragraph killed me. I’ve never seen a better description of the internet.

Electrelane - Take the Bit Between Your Teeth My Stereolab...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:44:53 -0500

Electrelane - Take the Bit Between Your Teeth

My Stereolab obsession also extends to bands that sound like Stereolab.