Archives > Did You Read About... > May 2005

May 31, 2005

Story about the THX sound

Direct-to-DVD fresh episodes of Futurama?

May 30, 2005

Even though everyone knew the likelihood of this happening was high, but it's still shocking: France has rejected the EU Constitution

Physicists have found a way to manipulate the spin of an electron
Wow.

May 29, 2005

The developer of the New York New York casino is planning a retail-office-entertainment complex modeled after the East Village
Slated to open in 2007 at the corner of Tropicana and Paradise, the "destination lifestyle and entertainment center" will feature, bizzarely, stuff that aren't even in the East Village, like replicas of the Meatpacking District and Washington Square Park. Wtf?

May 27, 2005

I like this iPod case

Yes, more scary sounding talk about the housing bubble, this time from NYT Op-Ed section
Main point is that the Fed replaced the stock bubble with the housing bubble in order to sustain the economy. But what's gonna replace the housing bubble when it bursts?

A little page about the Mac startup sound
I remember when they changed the chime. It was a big deal to us Mac geeks back then. Of course we were highschoolers at that time, so we were easily impressed.

May 26, 2005

ESPN's Schoenfield makes a compelling case that Shaq receiving only one MVP trophy in his career is about right

Kleinfeld, the storied bridal shop, is moving from Brooklyn to Manhattan this summer
The new 35,000ft² store will be located on 20th Street near 6th Avenue.

Ouroussoff rails against the Landmarks Preservation Commission amd its decision to approve a scaled-back expansion of the Whitney
"To them, apparently, the overreaching goal is saving what's old—as if the loss of an undistinguished brownstone parallels the razing of a beloved landmark."

The Times on the fall of Helmut Lang

May 25, 2005

Bruni gives Koi no star
His experience sounds a whole lot worse than mine. I didn't love it either, but at least the sashimi I had wasn't "gray around the edges and shockingly fishy". See my review of it.

The Post notes that Nobu 57 will open by the end of July and Tom Colicchio's 'wichcraft will open in four food kiosks in Bryant Park May 30

Nokia PC Suite updated to version 6.5

The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a modified expansion plan for the Whitney
"I don't think this is a compromise," Piano said, although he added, "It is a limitation." He had to halve the width of his entrance. The original plan looks better to me, on paper anyway.

Mr. Ugli Fruit or: How I Stopped Being Nice and Learned to Hate Fairway

Dvorak ranting about tags
He makes some rather cogent points.

Abusing Amazon's cover-image engine
This guy has figured out all kinds of ways to get Amazon.com's image engine to generate all sorts of product cover images.

NYT surveys the best hot dogs in the city
Apparently most dogs come from the same source. No wonder they all taste the same to me. Try as the article might, nothing sounded particularly drool-worthy.

NYT on the humongous malls of China

LA Times details the legal battle Sci-Arc's in over their campus

The last week of the No. 9 line

May 24, 2005

Short Zagat Survey interview with three top master sommeliers

May 21, 2005

The 50th Anniversary McDonald's in Chicago's River North area
A super-sized modern interpretation of Ray Kroc’s original outlet, with 30 feet high glass walls with point-supported panels on three sides of the building. In addition, the restaurant features mid-century modern classics like the Barcelona chairs, Le Corbusier armchairs, a Nelson Marshmallow sofa and even a Mies conference table.

Ouroussoff reviews Zaha Hadid's new central building at the BMW plant in Leipzig

May 20, 2005

The Parks Department is starting a new program where you get to have basically whatever you want engraved into one of the granit blocks in Tompkins Square Park's walkways for a mere $250
Man, I am so putting something on a paver. The question is... what?

Google launched a personalized portal version of their homepage

Electrical outlets that rotate 360°

The Japanese government is asking the salarymen to keep the suit and tie at home this summer in an effort to save on a/c usage
All public and private offices are to set their air-conditioners at 28°C, or a sweltering 82.4°F! There is going to be a lot of sweaty Japanese people this summer.

May 19, 2005

Pictures of burgers (and more) from In-N-Out's famed secret menu
Hmm... I want to try the "animal style" next time.

Weisman Art Museum has a show that features paintings, sculpture and inventive constructions by 16 of Frank Gehry's West Coast artist pals
Titled "West! Frank Gehry and the Artists of Venice Beach, 1962-1978", Gehry served as the de factor curator of the show. And need I remind you, he also designed the Weisman. So... this is a show about Gehry, by Gehry, in Gehry.

Hugh Pearlman on Jacques Herzog and his use of surface details in his and his partner Pierre de Meuron's architecture

May 18, 2005

Morimoto has a special cooking class on June 6
He'll demonstrate his take on contemporary Japanese cuisine, with sneak previews from his new restaurant in New York City. I wonder if the class is sold out? I kind of want to go!

Some tips on how to order wine in a restaurant
Don't order the second cheapest bottle on the wine list. According to the WSJ wine writers, restaurant owners will often price the wine they buy cheapest at wholesale as the second cheapest to trick the people who don't want to look like cheap bastards into ordering that one.

May 17, 2005

Starting this September, NYT will start charging $50 a year for access to eight op-ed columnists—including David Brooks, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich—and 14 news columnists
I don't think I'll be subscribing. I don't particularly love The Times' news analysis. Not for $50, anyway. I'll form my own opinions, thank you very much.

Supreme Court ruled that states must permit in-state and out-of-state wineries to play by the same rules when it comes to shipping their product directly to consumers
Opening the door for us New Yorkers to buy wines direct from wineries across the nation as Pataki has indicated his support for changing New York's law to open the state to direct shipment for all wineries (as opposed to the current situation where only in-state wineries are allowed to sell direct to consumers).

Video of Thom Mayne talking about his recent work for the GSA
Part 2 here.

Trump will offer his own design for a rebuilt 111-story "World Trade Center" at Ground Zero at a press conference tomorrow
Okay, I'll admit, I'm curious to see what kind of tacky monstrocity he has up his sleeve. And even more curious to see what kind of public support (if any) it will generate.

May 16, 2005

Hilarious trashing of Episode III by Anthony Lane of The New Yorker
Contains a spoiler.

A.O. Scott of The New York Times thinks Revenge of the Sith is not only the best of the recent trilogy, but ranks alongside with Return of the Jedi
That's in spite of "Mr. Lucas's (remarkable) indifference to two fairly important aspects of moviemaking—acting and writing."

May 14, 2005

This week's NYT Magazine is all about modernist architecture and its preservation
Lots of interesting articles.

May 13, 2005

Flickr switches from Flash to DHTML for displaying photos
Yay! Their heavy use of Flash was my biggest complaint about their service. The photos just load too slowly with Flash, and sometimes not at all for me. Sometimes, the two dots would just keep moving back and forth, slowly driving me insane and nothing ever comes out.

NY Times has a timeline on the High Line and how fancy photography, graphic design and celebrity serendipity trumped railroads, landlords and a swamp of government agencies
And somehow Kevin Bacon is involved too. The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon applies to architecture, too, apparently.

LA Times architecture critic reviews Koolhaas' Porto concert hall
He prefers Gehry's Disney Hall. Incidentally, I just saw Disney Hall and I have to say it is perhaps Gehry's best work to date (surpassing even Bilbao).

May 12, 2005

Dia plans to move from its Chelsea location to the Meatpacking District at the entrance to the High Line

Bruni gives Todd English's English Is Italian no stars
"Service at English Is Italian was too often sloppy and occasionally inexplicable. On one of my visits, a bartender held an empty wineglass up to the light, frowned at the profusion of visible fingerprints and other smudges on it, then filled it with Chianti anyway and handed it to me."

Morimoto is set to debut a chain of moderately priced Asian-themed eateries across the United States
Going mass market, eh?

The co-chefs of Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar will leave next week to open their own restaurant in Louisiana

An edited selection of personal letters written by Richard Feynman

Bruni on the state of avant-garde cooking in the United States
Basically it's still in its infancy and pales in comparison with El Bulli. Reminds me of how much I want to go experience Ferran Adrià's cooking.

May 11, 2005

Ouroussoff reviews Eisenman's Holocaust memorial in Berlin

May 8, 2005

Photos of an abandoned amusement park in Japan
Browse around the site for more photos of abandoned structures of all kinds in Japan. [Thanks, Rajiv!]

May 7, 2005

The Bleecker Street 6 Train station is finally getting fully integrated with the B, D, F and V lines at Broadway-Lafayette Street
I hadn't realized that this was the only station among the 468 stations in the system where only one side of the line allowed transfers.

May 6, 2005

The Donald disses Libeskind: "The design for the Freedom Tower is an egghead design, designed by an egghead, which has no practical application and which, frankly, didn't look very good."
Trump added, "I've gotten great reviews on my buildings. I'm somebody who believes strongly in great architecture and this [the Freedom Tower] was a design that is just not a good design." These comments are so funny I can't even think of anything to say to make it funnier.

May 4, 2005

An architect is urging colleagues to boycott designing prisons

Yale Architecture includes developers as part of its program
While learning to deal with clients is undoubtedly extremely important to a successful architecture career, would having to think commercially from day one of your education impede your growth? I'm just asking as I really don't know what to think of this. Or maybe unbeknownst to me, I've been brainwashed by the Cooper method. I wonder what architects think of this. Anyone?

MaxSight, performance-enhancing contact lenses developed by Nike and Bausch & Lomb

Bruni gives the Modern two stars
"The chef, Gabriel Kreuther, who worked at Atelier in the Ritz-Carlton, can and does dazzle. But he seems at times too strenuously determined to do that, producing some dishes that are overthought and overwrought and others with lofty pedigrees but curiously flat effects."

Bruni bitches about confusing Manhattan restaurant restrooms

Orson Scott Card's OpEd peice on Star Trek's cancellation
Claims Lost is the finest science fiction TV series of all time (?!).

Stephen Colbert is finally getting his own show, The Colbert Report
He's by far the best thing about The Daily Show. Without him, the show wouldn't be all that funny. Is it me or is Jon Stewart just not that funny? I particularly dislike his little show opening bits.

May 3, 2005

The power of the Bruni... chef at Alain Ducasse axed over the lost of a star in the The New York Times review
It's pretty incredible how much sway the NYT review holds. And fairly ridiculous that a restaurant of that level switches personnel basically based on one man's opinion.

Blog from a guy who used to be the lead researcher for Baseball Tonight
Good blog.

2005 James Beard Award winners
Mario Batali is best chef, Per Se is best new restaurant, Danny Meyer is best restauranteur and Joseph Bastianich is best wine professional.

Not so ugly smoke detectors

China offers Taiwan pandas
Pandas really are the best thing about China. Or rather, the only good thing about China. Too bad they are wielded as political weapons by the Communist government.

Excerpts from remarks made by Buffett and Munger during Berkshire Hathaway's stockholder meeting

May 2, 2005

NYT looks at the huge discrepancy in prices fetched at auction of works by male versus female artists

May 1, 2005

Japanese art collector made Christie's and Sotheby's play Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide which should sell his company's $20 million art collection
What's more, this is apparently not unusual in business deal making in Japan. Those wacky Japanese crack me up.