A must read story. This harrowing Vanity Fair write up, The Golden Suicides , recounts the life and death of artists Duncan and Blake. Amazing yet sorrowfully strange love story. [via kottke]

cook eat fret – wonderful cooking site. I had a salmon and pesto sandwhich last night.

Reuters Best Pictures of 07

This is by far the nerdiest thing I’ve posted here. Linus on Linux

“Guess what – it’s not Linux, it’s not Solaris, and it’s not your car.

It’s you. And me.

And think about how you and me actually came about – not through any complex design.

Right. “sheer luck”.

Well, sheer luck, AND:
– free availability and crosspollination through sharing of “source code”, although biologists call it DNA.

– a rather unforgiving user environment, that happily replaces bad
versions of us with better working versions and thus culls the her (biologists often call this “survival of the fittest”)

– massive undirected parallel development (”trial and error”)

I’m deadly serious: we humans have never been able to replicate something more complicated than what we ourselves are, yet natural selection did it without even thinking.

Don’t underestimate the power of survival of the fittest.

And don’t EVER make the mistake that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That’s giving your intelligence much too much credit.”

I was walking by tonight and its absolutely lights out. It’s bizarre to walk past it and not see people hanging around outside or see the warm glow from the inside. In the end, if it was closed, is it really a shock to anyone based on the past few weeks? According to some, they’d bet their mortgage on it. I, for one, hope it doesn’t close but might need a change of ownership to keep it going. It’s a wonderful venue (despite the line of sight issues) filled with far too many great experiences. Sadly, my last show there would be the Luckies. My first show, Gas Huffer. In between those shows was a lifetime of great concerts, ok drinks, and amazing friends.

Best shows:
Carissa’s Wierd Farewell
Death Cab (1998)
Explosions in the Sky (first show there)
Spain
Versus and Cinerama
Decemberists and CW on Valentines Day

on and on…

Seattle is at a loss. I hope it finds new owners. Details are slowly finding light but you can find more here.

My new ride, coming in early 08. Let the envy begin.

Wilier was born in 1906 thanks to the brilliant idea of a trader from Bassano, Pietro Dal Molin, of building bicycles on his own account. His forge or “Steel horses” rose as a small workshop along the banks of the river Brenta, at Bassano del Grappa, and it became more and more successful by keeping up with the increasing demand for bicycles.
bq. Unfortunately, after the first enrapturing phase of national reconstruction, in the early ’50s, came the period of the economic miracle: people gave up bicycles to discover scooters and motorbike. Cycle firms suffered the damage of progress, and in 1952 Wilier Triestina had to shut down and leave its agonistic activity.
bq. Nowadays, the glorious story of this firm and of its “copper-coloured jewel” lives again thanks to the Gastaldello brothers from Rossano Veneto, who bought the Wilier Triestina mark in 1969, proud to bring again great favour to one of the best known Italian cycle houses and providing dozens of professional and dilettantish Italian and foreign teams with their bicycles.

Dickheads of the Year: 2007 – Maher, a genius, recalls the year gone by and the dickheads that ruined it. Enjoy!

- The Owls.

Air [mp3] from their last mini-LP was perhaps my favorite song in the past 2 years. They are like a pecan sandie, so buttery perfection! The harmony is like a rays of sunshine hitting your face. The lyrics are ashen heartbreak from the greatest of fires. Pure pop music. They’ve got a new album out on Magic Marker and you’re going to buy it, right? Right!

0 + 1307 Classic Pilgrim

Steve Jobs 1982 – damn he’s cool.