Brendan's shared items in Google Reader

Support of Gay Marriage Closely Linked With Age

Brock Keeling — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:10:21 PST

Unless you're a godless whore who uses contempt for a group of people to make a cheap buck, most young people are in support of gay marriage. Which means, after most of the bigots finally -- finally! -- die off, marriage equality stands a chance.

Yay, the future!

According to Andrew Sullivan, "[a] clear majority of the under-30s favor marriage equality in all but 12 states."

While "it doesn't make those constitutional amendments any easier to reverse," Sullivan adds, "it does add some perspective and may help us keep our cool."

Which is the Steepest Street in San Francisco? Hint: It’s Not Filbert

Matthew Roth — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:36:12 PST

"Look kids, Coit Tower!" Photo: jinazaki

One of my favorite memories from childhood was the first time my grandparents took my sister and me into San Francisco. We were country bumpkins who grew up on a ranch in northeastern Nevada and were mesmerized by the cacophony and tumult of the big city. My grandfather took us to all the tourist destinations of note, including Fisherman's Wharf and Ghiradelli Square, but the memory that remains the most vivid in my mind was the drive down Filbert Street.

We left Fisherman's Wharf in his old faux-wood paneled station wagon, driving south on Hyde Street, before turning east on Filbert. After the turn, just before the infamous Filbert grade started, my grandfather said, "Look, kids, Coit Tower!" He then gunned it, sending us careening over the edge of "The Steepest Street in San Francisco," sacrificing the integrity of his car's undercarriage and front-end for the sake of a good scare and the subsequent laugh.

I certainly never forgot that moment and I've used the same trick on other people who aren't familiar with San Francisco's hills. I took it on faith that Filbert was the steepest street in the city, a fact backed up by none other than Wikipedia (tied with 22nd St. in Noe Valley), which claims it to be "one of the steepest navigable streets in the Western Hemisphere, at a maximum gradient of 31.5 percent."

So it must be true, right? Wrong.

Stephen Von Worley, who runs the blog Weather Sealed, went out and measured a few other steep streets and it turns out there are several significantly slanty-er than that block on Filbert, and most of them are on the hill right behind my house in Bernal Heights.

Take Nevada above Chapman: 36 percent grade. Or his steepest: Prentiss between Chapman and Powhattan, 37 percent grade!

Von Worley writes a very entertaining essay about his quest to right the record books on the steepest streets in San Francisco, highly worth the read. Any dissenters out there have a steeper street?

Photo of Prentiss after the jump.

San Francisco's steepest street? Prentiss between Chapman and Powhattan. Photo: Stephen Von Worley

A la peanut butter sandwiches!

(author unknown) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:20:07 PST

Shared by Brendan
Me I Me I Google -> 1982 Sesame Street clip about Google.

Google doodles celebrate events and anniversaries around the world, while reflecting the personality, interests and quirkiness of Google employees. Today, you likely noticed a pair of familiar feet on the Google homepage. Leading up to Sesame Street's 40th anniversary on November 10th, we're excited to be featuring some of our favorite characters over the next seven days. Today: Big Bird!

Many Googlers grew up on Sesame Street, watching the colorful, seamless blend of education and entertainment. We're delighted to have partnered with Sesame Street to create this special series of doodles, particularly since we share the same values of education, diversity and accessibility. And here's a fun find from the crew at Sesame; they found a little known video clip of Cookie Monster singing about Google (rhyming it with bugle) way back in 1982 — 16 years before our company even existed.

So, happy 40th anniversary, Sesame Street. For those Sesame lovers out there, be sure to check back as we'll feature a different character each day.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience

Artist's golden penny found in circulation

Becky Stern — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:10:40 PST

Jack Daws made ten counterfeit pennies from gold for an art show in LA in 2007. He put one of the pennies into circulation at the airport, possibly never to see it again. Well, just last month, Jessica in Brooklyn found the penny, which is worth about a hundred dollars.

"The artwork looks like a real penny, except due to the casting process, it's slightly smaller, and because of the gold's weight, it's almost twice as heavy....Anyone interested in looking for the piece... should look for a penny dated 1970, with no mint mark."

I looked at the penny I'd found. Date stamp, 1970. No mint mark.

Seriously?! I needed more. Pennies minted in San Francisco do not have mint marks, and pennies minted in 1970 are the opposite of rare.

Next test: I took the penny to the kitchen and pulled out my digital scale. 3 grams.

Sure enough, a 1972 penny weighed in at 2 grams.

I honestly thought there was no way it could be "the" penny. The chance of it being found seemed too great. The chance of my having found it seemed to great. Still, I went to the website of the Seattle gallery that represents Daws, Greg Kucera Gallery, to see if any further information was available, any sure tell that I had indeed found not only the penny, but a really good story as well.

Check out the full story at The Stranger.

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The Font Kingdom: Search, Explore, Create, and Download Fonts for Free

Orli Yakuel — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:07:20 PST

Being a blogger, I often find design elements on the web for my posts or my blog in general. It’s becoming a very common experience for bloggers to know a thing or two about web design. I’m guessing it is the web that taught us to be quasi-designers by offering us lots of easy-to-use tools that help us create just about everything we need: photo-editing, widgets, logos, buttons, and yes, fonts as well. Fonts are a big focus of the Web2.0 era—they are now bigger, cleaner and smoother, especially when it comes to logos.

Can you imagine Techcrunch’s logo looking like this? It’s all dependent on font choice. (in case you were wondering BTW, Twitter’s font is mostly Pico created by Maniackers Design)

Regardless of the fact that the web makes it easy for everyone to be more creative (i.e., logo above), it becomes a paradise for designers themselves who seek new tools & inspiration. So whether you’re a professional graphic designer, or an amateur web publisher this list of font tools might come in handy (eventually).

myFontbook is an online font viewer and manager based on the font available on your computer. It allows you to organize your font collection and gives you all the tools you need to do so. Once you open the demo, myFontbook will render all the fonts in your computer, and display them together in an easy to view mode. While all the files are actually open, it makes it easier to browse through them and see the fonts in several sizes. You can also make lists of fonts, tag & favorite the fonts that you like best. The font viewer renders your entire font library super fast. Just compare the rendering time to other font management tools. And there’s nothing to install—it works from your browser. If you want to save all your activities for later use, you’ll need to register. But don’t worry, it’s free.

With BetterFonts, an online font database, you can quickly preview and download thousands of fonts. Navigate the massive collection by alphabetic order or browse the fonts by their categories. You can change the preview text of your desirable font and instantly download it for free. Although the site provides an impressive list of fonts, for the quality ones you’ll need to pay. But they have a deal of a 500-font package for $2.77. Please note that there’s no preview of the font list in advance—which might be a risky deal if you want something in particular (but then again, it’s cheap).

Most of us usually use only one font (probably Arial), ’cause unless you’re a designer, you don’t give much thought to fonts. But hey, there’s a world of fonts out there that is just waiting for exploration, and FFonts is a good site to start with. FFonts has a huge font library and it allows you to navigate easily, and download any font for free. All the fonts on the site are listed on the left side menu for easy access, and clicking on a font gives you information plus a satisfying preview of the font. Overall, the site hosts more than 10,000 fonts!

If you don’t find anything you like, and are still looking for that special font to make an appearance, you are more than welcome to create it yourself with FontStruct. Sign into the service and with FontStruct’s font-building tool & editor, you’ll be able to create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks. Once you’re done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.

You can share your creations with the world or save it for yourself, but FontStruct actually encourages you to share your fonts with others, this is why they’ve created a gallery where people can share and discuss fonts, and download them for free. A quick look at the community taught me there is a lot of going on there—definitely worth the visit if fonts interest to you.

Fawnt is also one of the largest free fonts archives on the web today. With a pleasant design and an easy to use navigator, you are one step away from finding the perfect font. Browse the fonts by category or alphabetically, or use the search function. All the fonts have large and customizable previews, and character maps. Be aware though that while all of the fonts in Fawnt are free, they might have some restrictions. Some may be free for personal use, others for commercial. When you visit a font link make sure to browse the page for any fine print or usage terms.

With 62,000 fonts, Myfonts has the world’s largest font database. Not only can you search for fonts, explore everything in their gallery, and download the fonts to your computer, you can also find fonts based on a picture with their service WhatTheFont. Simply upload a file, or specify a URL, and myFonts will find the font used in the picture you uploaded (or at least, give you some close alternatives to this font). If you’re a designer, I’m sure you can see how important a service like this can be to the industry.

myFonts recently released a great iPhone app that does the same thing and helps you find a font while on-the-go. You can snap a photo with the app, and save it to your gallery. For iPod users, you are asked to upload a file from your iPhone gallery, then myFonts will process and optimize the photos and provide you with the font’s details.

Finally, it allows you to receive or send the results by email. For a free & direct download click here.

Another free iPhone app is FontGenie – The app displays all available fonts on your iPhone and allows you to keep track of ever-changing font families and their font types.

A super cool idea is to actually create a font with your own handwriting, so you’ll be able to insert it wherever you need to place your signature on the web. Luckily, Fontcapture took the idea and made it possible, which means you can create your handwriting font right now if you want to, all you need is a printer and a scanner.

How it works: First, you need to download the font template, print it, fill it in with your own handwriting, scan it and upload it to the site. Then you’ll be able to preview and download the new font to your font library, located on your computer.

Abstract Fonts is not very different than the other font directories suggested here but it has a very convenient interface. Abstract Fonts lets you type in text to view font examples, opens a unique menu for each font which summarizes the information you need to know about that font, see the character map, and display users’ comments. Abstract also gives you the ability to see similar fonts, which I think is an absolutely brilliant addition.

Last but not least, here’s something to look for in the future:

Typekit, a new font editor will offer designers more control over fonts on the web.

Today, almost all Web fonts are protected by copyright, and very few of them allow for linking via CSS or redistribution on the web. Typekit has been working with foundries to develop a consistent web-only font linking license.

Typekit will give you access to their protected library of high-quality fonts. You’ll just need to add a line of JavaScript to your markup, tell Typekit what fonts you want to use, and then craft your pages the way you always have. Except now, you’ll be able to use real fonts.

There’s still not enough information about this new service but based on the above, Typekit might definitely change web design. Unfortunately, the site is in closed beta (invitation only) so designers make sure you sign up for an invite. Meanwhile, check out the full list of fonts already available at Typekit. Also, Typekit has some interesting investors: Evan Williams, Ron Conway, Caterina Fake and True Ventures.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

"Greatest Tiki Bar on Earth" to Open December 8

Jay Barmann — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:41:08 PST

Martin Cate, the man behind Smuggler's Cove, has announced that the long awaited grand opening of his Hayes Valley Tiki experience will be December 8. The bar's going to feature cocktail recipes from all the great Tiki bars, and will likely have more of an updated spin on things than the much beloved Tonga Room, which may or may not survive a developer's wrecking ball.

Smuggler's Cove will be opening in the former Jade Bar space, complete with indoor waterfalls and such, and we personally can't wait.

Exclusive: Google Has Acquired Gizmo5

Michael Arrington — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:30:55 PST

Last month Skype was in talks to acquire VoIP startup Gizmo5. It was a perfect backup plan in case all that IP litigation didn’t work out. – Gizmo5’s SIP infrastructure could theoretically replace Skype’s proprietary P2P back end.

After the Skype settlement, though, Gizmo5’s strategic value to Skype sort of plummeted. In the meantime, Google bought them, say multiple sources with knowledge of the deal, for around $30 million in cash. The deal is done, say our sources, and will be announced shortly.

Gizmo5 is a good fit with a number of Google products. Google Talk allows voice calls between users but has no PSTN link to allow incoming or outbound calls to real phones. Gizmo5 does this well already.

And Google Voice is a great VoIP and phone identity service, but they have no endpoint for calls. Gizmo5, which by the way already integrates with Google Voice, is a soft phone end point for Google phone users. In other words, you will be able to make and receive calls to your Google Voice phone number from your computer.

This looks to me like Gizmo5 will be the glue that puts Google Voice and Google Talk together into a single product. And that product looks a lot like a Skype competitor.

Gizmo5, which was founded in April 2003, has raised $6 million to date, plus an unspecified amount from founder/CEO Michael Robertson. Prior to Gizmo5, Robertson gained notoriety with his founding of MP3.com and later MP3tunes (which has led to big music suing both the company and himself personally).

We’ve reached out to Gizmo5 and Google for comment.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Visualising the Guardian Datablog

david — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:08:39 PST

I’m doing a regular weekly visualisation for the excellent Guardian Datablog, the front-end for an amazing library of statistics and data, lovingly hand-gathered by The Guardian.

My first post is about Deadly Drugs.

There’s been a furore over here in the UK about the dangers of illegal drugs. The Government has sacked its most senior drugs advisor, Dr Professor Nutt, after he claimed cannabis was no more harmful than alcohol. And that horse-riding, and specifically ‘equasy’ (Equine Addiction Syndrome) was riskier than taking ecstasy. (Statistically he’s correct. His study here.).

Anyway, digging at the numbers behind his statements and how drugs are reported in the popular press, I found some stuff I didn’t expect about drug harms.

Check out the article on The Guardian blog for detail and data. You want both right?

Dick Towel

Kevin Montgomery — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:45:04 PST

Proof It’s Always Sunny is probably the best show ever made.

I absolutely cannot wait to watch people rolling around Dolores Park with these bad boys on.

Posted in Fashion, Humor Tagged: Not in the Mission but still wicked awesome

Grocery Store Musical

swissmiss — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:56:09 PDT

For Improv Everywhere’s latest mission, six undercover actors burst into song in a grocery store in Queens. Three minutes and lots of silly choreography later, they returned to their roles as shoppers and stock boys. The mission was filmed with hidden robotic, lipstick, and wearable cameras. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with on their site.

The Beatles, flowcharted

swissmiss — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:19:54 PST

Originally uploaded by LoveAllThis.

(via bobulate / coudal)

Afternoon Palate Cleanser: Upright Citizens Brigade's "Obamacare" Ad

Jay Barmann — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:10:47 PST

We know we're preaching to the converted here (for the most part), and we probably should have caught this semi-gruesome spoof ad by NYC's Upright Citizens Brigade (which once gave birth to Amy Poehler) before Halloween. But here it is, nevertheless, because it still gives us a chuckle, and everybody's in a political mood today anyhow.

roflseal

(author unknown) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:57:27 PST

Shared by Brendan
Too bad its not a ROFLOLRUS

That's Rather Hideous: Christmas Comes Earlier Every Year

Andy J. Wang — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:45:58 PST

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

Looking for a nice "contemporary" house to settle in, perhaps in the Outer Richmond? Move along. You've seen enough. Although, to be fair, the interior of this "absolutely stunning remodeled single family house in the most desirable neighborhood of San Francisco Outer Richmond" actually has nothing remotely comparable to its front face. What gives?
· 410 45th Ave [Redfin]

Buffett's Bet on Trains

(author unknown) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:55:36 PST

From NYTBuffett's Bet on Trains

Warren Buffett is betting big on railroads. He started buying Burlington Northern Santa Fe in 2006 and then made investments in Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern. On Tuesday, his company, Berkshire Hathaway, announced the purchase of the 77 percent of Burlington Northern it didn't already own for about $44 billion (along with the assumption of $10 billion in debt). It is Berkshire's largest acquisition.

It has been a long time since railroads were central to America's booms, bubbles and busts. What does Mr. Buffett's investment in trains say about prospects for the economy? How can his role be put in historical perspective?

Nice discussion ensues.

An imperfect list of obsolete

swissmiss — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:57:28 PST

Obsolete, an encyclopedia of once-common things passing us by.

(via bobulate)

$40K DARPA "find the balloons" social networking challenge

Sean Michael Ragan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00:00 PST

Starting on December 5, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will award $40,000 to the first registered team to correctly report the location of ten eight-foot-diameter red weather balloons distributed randomly across the continental United States. From the challenge website:

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the role the Internet and social networking plays in the timely communication, wide area team-building and urgent mobilization required to solve broad scope, time-critical problems.

Personally, I think 99 red balloons would've been better, for marketing purposes, than 10. I guess that would take way too long. [via Hack a Day]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in News from the Future | Digg this!

Judge Busch Could Block New Bike Lanes Through March 2010

(author unknown) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:28:17 PST

Shared by Brendan
This is getting silly.

Judge Busch could partially lift the injunction for now, allowing the city to paint sharrows but not bike lanes. Flickr photo: BikePortland.org

The injunction that has hung like a pall over San Francisco's efforts to improve bicycle infrastructure for the city's growing number of bicyclists will remain for at least another ten days, and could continue in partial or full form until March 2010 or beyond. A judge today delayed decision on lifting the three-year-old bike injunction, instead ordering both the city and Mary Miles, attorney for Rob Anderson, who first sought the injunction, to submit additional materials by November 12. The judge could then lift the injunction completely, lift it partially for sharrows and bike racks but not bike lanes, or uphold it until a 2010 hearing on the city's environmental review of the bike plan.

Today's hearing came two months after the City Attorney's office filed a motion to lift the bike injunction, arguing the city had met all its legal obligations by completing an exhaustive environmental impact report (EIR) on the bike plan, which was approved by the Board of Supervisors and the MTA Board this summer. Bicycling advocates had hoped Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch would lift the injunction today, clearing the way for the MTA to begin rolling out the 45 bike projects recently approved by the agency's board.

The injunction was first implemented when Miles sued the city for failing to complete an EIR for the bike plan, which the MTA had treated as a series of discrete projects.

Deputy City Attorney Kristen Jensen argued before the court that a hearing on the adequacy of the EIR, which Miles is seeking, should be dealt with separately. "The burden shifts to the petitioners once the EIR is presented," said Jenson. "The lens through which the court must look changes dramatically."

Jensen also cited the rising number of injuries to cyclists in the past two years, which she said was unexpected even given the rising popularity of cycling, adding extra urgency to lifting the injunction. "The city has been unable for the last three-plus years to do virtually anything for the safety of bicyclists in San Francisco," Jensen said. "The city needs the ability to start making the city safer."

"The rule is the public entity goes ahead while the review goes on," Judge Busch told a courtroom filled mostly with MTA representatives, reporters, SFBC staff and Rob Anderson. Busch said his concerns were mostly procedural: Can he dissolve the injunction and then order the MTA to reverse bike projects if he later sides with the plaintiff's weak contentions the EIR doesn't comply with CEQA?

Miles argued that the court does need to first certify the adequacy of the EIR before lifting the injunction, and that an eventual hearing, perhaps in March 2010, would be pointless since the city would likely implement most of the plan by then, perhaps irreversibly.

When pressed by the judge on what projects the city plans to go forward with immediately, the City Attorney's office replied that the MTA plans to first move first on painting sharrows and installing bike racks. Deputy City Attorney Audrey Williams Pearson said the MTA has determined it can paint 20 sharrows, install 5 bike racks and stripe 400 feet of bike lanes per day. The City Attorney's office pointed out that bike racks and sharrows don't require the removal of traffic lanes, so they would be less likely to impact traffic before a final hearing on the EIR in March 2010.

Proposed new bike lanes across the city. Image: SFBC

The judge asked the City Attorney's office to submit a four-to-five-page declaration by this Friday detailing the MTA's likely immediate activity on bike infrastructure if the injunction is lifted before a March hearing. In addition, on November 12, both sides will present the judge with short briefs on whether they believe the court would have the legal authority to reverse any new bike infrastructure installed before the March hearing, if it finds the EIR is inadequate (which is seemingly unlikely.) The judge also asked both sides to agree upon a schedule for the EIR hearing by November 12. The City Attorney's office said it could submit a brief by this Friday instead, but Miles cited her busy schedule with another case and requested the additional time to complete the brief.

It's possible the judge would neither completely lift nor entirely preserve the injunction after the November 12 briefs are in. He suggested the possibility of a partial lifting of the injunction, perhaps allowing sharrows and bike racks but not bike lanes to be installed, for instance, until the March 2010 EIR hearing.

Despite dashed hopes for an end to the injunction today, the SFBC's Andy Thornley remained optimistic about the hearing. "The line of questioning we were hearing today indicated that he is considering whether there is a way to relieve the injunction partially or totally with an eye to the reversibility of these change," said Thornley. "It's just paint, it's just bike racks, and I think the judge in his questioning is indicating that he would be open to some relief to the injunction, because we can always erase them. That would be at the city's risk, of course."

While the additional delay is a significant disappoint to the city's bicycling advocates, the City Attorney's filing this Friday could provide an interesting view into the MTA's timeline for rolling out the bike plan projects - and a hint of whether Judge Busch's apparent preference for reversible projects could influence that timeline.

Raccoons Line Up To Ride San Francisco MUNI Bus

Scott Beale — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:01:04 PST

photo by Plomo Media

San Francisco Citizen directs our attention to Plomo Media’s awesome photo of a raccoons queuing up for a bus on the MUNI #18 46 Ave line at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

via Troy Holden

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.

Rental Goats Clear Brush Better, Beat Cosmonauts in Space Race

zachfrechette — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:30:48 PDT

Do you remember that anecdote about how America spent millions of dollars developing a pen that our astronauts could use to write with in the zero-gravity vacuum of space, and when the Russian were confronted with the same problem they simply gave their cosmonauts pencils? The kernel of usefulness in this anecdote—as it relates to this current blog post—is that sometimes there are solutions to problems which are much simpler and cheaper than we expect. (And that Russians are clever, but we beat them to the moon anyway, and signed our names on it with indelible ink.)

With that in mind, take a look at this: brush-clearing goats! That’s right, rather than spending tons of money and time on diesel-powered machines, filing the proper permits, and administering dangerous herbicides, the Seattle-based Rent-a-Ruminant organization will loan your a team of 100 goats for all your brush-clearing needs—all at a very modest rates.

As Serious Eats explains, the benefits of goats are numerous: they eat just about anything, they can work on uneven ground, you don’t need permits to use them, and they can clear a quarter-acre in about three days. What’s more, they—ahem—naturally fertilize wherever they go. And of course, they make delicious cheese. In short: better for the environment, the community, and your budget.

If you’re not convinced, check out the before picture above, and the after pictures below. I’m sold.

(Thanks Jordan!)