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

June 30, 2005

Slide show of food porn shots from some of the fanciest Parisian restaurants
One of these days I gotta try a Parisian 3-star restaurant.

Ouroussoff appraises the new Freedom Tower design
"Somber, oppressive and clumsily conceived, [it] suggests a monument to a society that has turned its back on any notion of cultural openness. It is exactly the kind of nightmare that government officials repeatedly asserted would never happen here: an impregnable tower braced against the outside world."

June 29, 2005

Hugh Pearman talks about the "40 Under 40" architecture show at the V&A in London

China's limited reserves of architects and Big-Bang-like explosion of its cities are forcing building designers to work harder and faster than their Western counterparts
"Photoshop allows us to make collages of photographs—this is the essence of [China's] architectural and urban planning," says Koolhaas. "Design today becomes as easy as Photoshop, even on the scale of a city."

June 28, 2005

Ouroussoff reviews the East River esplanade master plan
I hadn't realized that Richard Rogers is involved in this.

iTunes 4.9 is out
Features integrated podcasting support, as expected.

June 27, 2005

The Chicago Tribune praises Gehry's Millennium Park as it approaches its one-year anniversary

LA Times reviews Eisenmen's "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe"

June 25, 2005

Video of Tom Cruise's appearance on Friday's Today show with Matt Lauer where he got all pissy
I know he's a Scientologist, but he really sounded like a cultish nut-job here.

Interview with Morgan Spurlock, the woman who lost weight on a 30-day Micky D's diet and made a documentary about it as a counterpoint to Super Size Me

June 24, 2005

Guide to expiration dates for 77 foods, beauty products and household goods

June 23, 2005

Libeskind is trying to stay relevant in Ground Zero with an Op-Ed piece in the Times today

June 22, 2005

NYT on how the black market for stolen credit card numbers and identities works
Not sure how accurate it is, but an interesting read nevertheless.

Martha worked at the Shack during lunch yesterday

The Rent Guidelines Board approved increases of 2.75% for one-year leases and 5.5% for two-year leases
Lowest hikes since 2002. Last year, the increases were 3.5% for one-year leases and 6.5% for two-year leases.

June 21, 2005

Unsurprisingly, Tokyo is the world's costliest city
The rest of the top 25 is interesting though. Osaka is second and London is third. Hong Kong is 9th. New York is all the way down at number 13.

Hilarious profile of Chodorow in the Times
He called himself a "lesbian trapped in a man's body" when he talked about how he is misunderstood. I also loved the backhanded compliments by Danny Meyer and Drew Nieporent.

June 19, 2005

Berlin is the third most visited city in Europe
With 13m visitors, edging out Rome, but still far behind Paris (30m) and London (60m).

June 16, 2005

Kodak will discontinue production of black and white paper at the end of this year

How they measure track & field sprints

Modernist furnitures are fetching insane prices at auction

June 15, 2005

Nice guide to the myriad of options available in Foobar 2000
Foobar 2000 is a great audio player. I use it to play single files when I don't feel like loading iTunes.

Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer PowerToy for Windows XP
Supports Canon and Nikon RAW files. 48mb download! For an image viewer? No, Microsoft doesn't make bloatware at all...

Slate on Lucas and Spielberg's friendship and rivary
"George makes his visuals come to life through montage," [Spielberg] said. "That makes him unique in our generation, since most of us do it instead with composition and camera placement." A superb bit of faint praise—like one painter praising another for his "unique" method of applying paint with his knuckles, rather than the more traditional brush. Heehee.

June 14, 2005

Instructions for a homemade air conditioner for $25 in parts from the Home Depot
Ah, Canadian ingenuity at work.

June 10, 2005

Ben Afflect likes to "fruit basket" Kevin Smith
I don't know why, but I'm laughing way too hard at this.

Cringely thinks Intel is going to buy Apple

June 9, 2005

Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years is all grown up
You might not want to click on this at work.

June 8, 2005

Lots of photos of Zaha Hadid's BMW Plant in Leipzig

Today is Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday

NYT article about BBQ joints in NYC
The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party returns to Madison Square Park this weekend.

June 7, 2005

Manhattan apartment prices still at record highs
The median price for all sales in Manhattan that closed last month was $750,000, which was 23% higher than the median price for May 2004. Average price also reached a new high, at $1,276,202, which was 34% higher than the same month a year ago.

I want to train my cats to use the toilet
This system looks like it might work.

New York City ranked 221st out of 240 cities across the nation on the total crime index

NYT gives Richard Serra's new installation at the Guggenheim Bilbao a rave review

June 6, 2005

Images of Enrique Norten/TEN arquitectos' winning Guggenheim Guadalajara design

NYT surveys some top Madrid restaurants that looks to the great Ferran Adrià as their muse

I didn't realize Krispy Kreme is in trouble

June 4, 2005

News.com is reporting that Apple will announce on Monday at the WWDC that it is transitioning to Intel chips
Monday can't get here faster.

Scoop Jackson has a wonderful piece on Shaq for ESPN.com's Page 2

June 2, 2005

"Appoggiatura"—a melodic tone—was the winning word in this year's Spelling Bee
2nd place finishers (it was a tie for 2nd) couldn't spell "trouvaille", meaning windfall, and "roscian", meaning skilled in acting.

George Mikan died yesterday at the age of 80

Woodward's story on how Mark Felt became 'Deep Throat'

The great St. Marks/Mark’s Place punctuation debate solved

This site lets you comparison shop amongst all the international Amazon sites to find the best deals
Sometimes it's cheaper to buy something from Amazon.uk, for example, even with the international shipping charges added, than to buy the same item from Amazon.com Stateside with the free shipping. Probably works best with import CDs or books. [Thanks, Rajiv!]

AppleInsider is reporting that iPod photos will get Tetris in the next update
Plus some new transitions for the slideshow.

A "digital clock" made from candles

The New Yorker will publish its entire 80-year archives on a DVD this fall
The $100 collection, titled "The Complete New Yorker," will consist of 8 DVDs containing high-resolution digital images of every page of the 4,109 issues of the magazine from February 1925 through the 80th anniversary issue, published last February.

June 1, 2005

A behind-the-scenes look at the operations of Shake Shack

The Post explains how they were scooped

Google Earth looks awesome

Herman Miller is about to market a voice scrambling device that makes it impossible for a listener standing nearby to eavesdrop on a conversation
Yes, that's Herman Miller, the furniture company. Makes sense, actually, since this device is intended to function as a substitute for walls and acoustic tiling.