Elbert

Wow.

Andrew Johnson shares how his deep brain stimulation surgery has dramatically improved on he deals with his early on-set Parkinson's disease.

You should take some time to watch The Making of John Mayer's 'Born & Raised' Artwork https://vimeo.com/60647216

John Mayer cover art by David Smith http://davidadriansmith.com

He's posted a step-by-step walk through the project here http://davidadriansmith.com/2012/05/17/born-raised-album-cover-john-mayer/

The film is by Danny Cooke. His work is always inspiring. https://vimeo.com/dannycooke

Beauty

To thank the Sequel Pro team for their help with Coda 2, we promised to make them an icon.

Database icons are boring — always a stack of metal cylinders. Since Sequel Pro makes editing databases more delicious, we thought the database could be more delicious as well!

Philip Roth has decided to stop writing fiction

“I sat around for a month or two trying to think of something else and I thought, ‘Maybe it’s over, maybe it’s over,’ ” he said. “I gave myself a dose of fictional juice by rereading writers I hadn’t read in 50 years and who had meant quite a lot when I read them. I read Dostoevsky, I read Conrad — two or three books by each. I read Turgenev, two of the greatest short stories ever written, ‘First Love’ and ‘The Torrents of Spring.’ ” He also reread Faulkner and Hemingway.

“And then I decided to reread my own books,” Mr. Roth went on, “and I began from the last book forward, casting a cold eye. And I thought, ‘You did all right.’ But when I got to ‘Portnoy’ ” — “Portnoy’s Complaint,” published in 1969 — “I had lost interest, and I didn’t read the first four books.”

This surprised me:

Nearby was an iPhone he had bought recently. “Why?” he said. “Because I’m free. Every morning I study a chapter in ‘iPhone for Dummies,’ and now I’m proficient. I haven’t read a word for two months. I pull this thing out and play with it.” Then he corrected himself: “I haven’t read during the day. At night I read. I read for two hours. I just finished a marvelous book by Louise Erdrich, ‘The Round House.’ But mostly I read 20th-century history and biography. I lived then. I was either a child or at school or at work. It’s time I caught up.” 

Wow, I'd never seen these photos from Vietnam.

Photos by Horst Faas, Henri Huet, Sal Veder, Rick Merron, Bill Ingraham, John Nance, Nick Ut http://everyday-i-show.livejournal.com/82994.html 

Seems odd to find this on livejournal.

Syria in Ruins

While much recent media attention has been focused on Hurricane Sandy and America's presidential election, Syria's horrific civil war continues. In some places, it has worsened. Aerial bombardment of civilian neighborhoods, deadly sniper fire, brutal street fighting, assassinations, and summary executions have become the norm in Syria. Cease-fire agreements have collapsed, rebel forces remain disorganized, foreign intervention is still hamstrung, and no path to peace appears to be forming yet. Britain is now reportedly looking for options to circumvent an arms embargo in order to supply rebels with weaponry. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remains defiant, stating in an interview with Russia Today that he planned "live and die in Syria," adding, "I am tougher than Gaddafi." Collected here are images of this bloody conflict from just the past few weeks.

100,000 Stars is an interactive visualization of the stellar neighborhood. It shows the real location of over 100,000 nearby stars. Zooming in reveals 87 major named stars and our solar system. The galaxy view is an artist's rendition.

Paper is alive with color.

Color looks like a great update to FiftyThree's Paper app.

How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything

By ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL | SEP 6 2012, 3:27 PM ET

Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle

Gaiman on Copyright Piracy and the Web

Gaiman talked about how he was initially incensed about people pirating his work, but eventually came to the realization that they were actually promoting his work, and he was selling more in countries where his books were pirated.

Of all the tributes to Steve Jobs today, alongside the Standford speech ("Stay young. Stay foolish."), the grass-stained tennis shoes and others, this thought on the value of boredom seems like it should be highlighted more:

kragtbakker:

Dear Friends

This will be a slightly longer letter than common for the internet age—it’s serious stuff.

The short version is we want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will quite possibly get you arrested.