BEATNIK INDUSTRIES, a BREAD
BOWL of IMAGES and GENERIC ASPIRIN
August 26th, 2009 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
Chicago, Illinois. August 8, 2009.
Depth of field is the term used to describe those circles of least confusion that appear to the human eye to be in focus. When we do qualitative research, finding the appropriate depth of field or range of focus is one of our first challenges. When faced with complex family [...]
June 10th, 2009 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
San Diego, California. July 10, 2009.
If I had a gun for every ace I have drawn / I could arm a town the size of Abilene. / Don’t you push me baby, ‘Cause I’m all alone / And you know I’m only in it for the gold.
All that I am asking is for ten gold [...]
May 11th, 2009 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
Chicago, Illinois. March 16, 2008.
An Act to amend the first and second sections of the act entitled “An act to authorize the Board of Education of the incorporated village of Wapakoneta, in the county of Auglaize, to borrow money and issue bonds to build a school-house, or additions to the school-house in said town.
Section 1. [...]
March 13th, 2009 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
Chicago, Illinois. December 12, 2008. Talking to a very clever young person, you do not stick at hard words; on the other hand, you do not seek mystery. In the course of that meeting that never happened, that meeting whose scene remained inside Leopold, she would have told what she had done without looking for [...]
October 11th, 2007 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
As I said earlier, it was a shame the race was cancelled. I still had a great time, though. See the rest of my dad’s marathon pictures here.
February 21st, 2007 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
Link the first.
I was searching for a ZIP code aggregator, and came across this fun piece of coding out of MIT. Go ahead, play around with the ZIPDecoder. Put in your ZIP and watch the map constrict to show your area. No matter what anyone says, there is some logic to the post office.
Link the [...]
January 29th, 2007 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
Some time ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Robert Ballard, the man who discovered the ships the Titanic and the Bismarck and who was responsible for finding chemosynthetic bacteria on the ocean’s surface – thus ushering in a new era of exploration on the seafloor.
We talked about pushing the limits of human exploration, about [...]
October 6th, 2006 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
After a morning of grinning and bearing it – or, if you prefer, grabbing our ankles and saying ‘thank you sir may I have another!?’ – by putting up with fake Southern hospitality, we swung through Tupelo, Mississippi, on the way to Alabama. If you know your history of The King, you’ll know that Elvis [...]
May 30th, 2006 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
Some people want a bodyguard. Others want a personal servant. After some deliberation, I’ve decided I’d like to hire a 60-year-old Brooklyn Jew as my assistant.
We started a round of golf on Sunday morning with three of us, so the course added a fourth to round out the group. We had the pleasure of meeting [...]
May 29th, 2006 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
As much as it pains me to say it, I might actually like the state of Tennesee.
I have no idea how this is happening. Based on my experiences last summer, I used to think the place was populated by twangy rednecks listening to country music. But on a business trip a few weeks back, I [...]
May 5th, 2006 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
Given the amount of information we as modern consumers have available at nearly every moment of every day, there’s only one sure-fire way to disconnect from every other human being on the planet: Move into a new apartment.
Your mail doesn’t arrive for a few days. Same for your newspapers. Cable hookup is a far-off dream, [...]
April 27th, 2006 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
Your appearance is a direct invitation for judgment. So, inviting strange looks and stares – honestly, without really considering the consequences of my actions – I went and shaved my head. With a razor. Skinhead bald.
Taking such a drastic step in one’s appearance radically alters the projection you give to the world. Suddenly strangers were [...]
November 9th, 2005 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
I spent last evening as an observer in a marketing class at the University of Chicago. Another prospective student was with me and, while I didn’t know him, we seemed to get along. We were making idle chitchat – god forbid we should speak to the other students – and eventually I asked what [...]
November 1st, 2005 | by nick | published in Nouns: People, Places, Things.
There once was a man slated to pick up a rental car for a business trip. After filling out the necessary paperwork at his local Enterprise, the kindly employee gave her verdict with all the seriousness of a cancer diagnosis:
‘We’re putting you in a Nissan Altima,’ she said.
‘Does it have a CD player?’ our [...]