Wired's Danger Room blog is having a contest to name the government's operation to shoot down this supposedly bunk satellite. I read about it at BB and thought their connection to last year's incident of the Chinese shooting down one of their own satellites was apt. I submitted the above title as my entry--vote me in and I'll let you ride the pony I'm expecting to win.
Adam Howell also dislikes Pixish's promotion of spec work, and so does the AIGA.
Via DF.
Derek Powazek has launched Pixish, a new site for bringing together artists and people or businesses who need art. The setup is apparently this: Publishers or businesses create a project for which they need art, and set a deadline and offer a prize or payment. The community votes on which is the best piece, similar to how Threadless works, and the publisher/client chooses one and awards the prize to the winner.
It's a great looking site, and Mr. Powazek has built several successful online creative communities in the past (you might say he wrote the book on the subject). I'm not sure about this one. Not being an art-creating person myself, I can't speak to this personally, but I don't know if I'd like the idea if I were. A cardinal rule as a designer is don't do spec work, don't give away free creative, and it seems to me that's what this encourages. Publishers get to see a lot of free work, and artists hope their piece can stand out among the dozens or hundreds of entries for the same project. I'll be curious to see how the site works in practice, but if I were an artist, I think I'd want a community that set the scales to benefit me as much as the clients.
That said, I know Mr. Powazek's heart is in the right place, and it's a great looking site. It's clear and friendly--I've already expended many more words in describing it than they themselves needed. Check out Derek's post about how Pixish happened and then go and get yourself a Pixish account and try it out.
Love the name BTW.
Here is the keynote address Obama delivered to the Call to Renewal"Building a Covenant for a New America" conference, from June 2006. It's from long before the campaign began, so it doesn't have the music his speeches from the campaign have had. It is nonetheless a thoughtful and compelling speech about how progressives can find common ground with people of faith.
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
Here's a transcript.
Via MeFi
For the first time ever, I can't wait to watch Fox News--I can't wait to see how they handle the reality that Romney has left the building. The right wing commentariat (to borrow Tim Russert's coinage) can't stand McCain, but they also can't seem to take Huckabee seriously, as well they should not). It'll be interesting to see which happens first: McCain making some kind of symbolic overture to the hard right, like a speech at Bob Jones University; or the Limbaughs of the right eating shit and coming out for McCain. I hope it's the latter, and again, I can't wait.
Dean Kamen, most widely known for inventing the Segway, is working on a prosthetic arm inspired by the one Luke had in the Star Wars films. I saw a video of Kamen's presentation at TED a little while back. It's a great talk--he describes what the man from DARPA asked for (the arm is being designed under a DoD contract for use by returning veterans with amputated limbs), and he remembers being incredulous and doubtful that it could be done, but the kind of language he uses to describe the design problem hints at how much he was already thinking about it.
Here is a video of a tester of the arm, whose lost both arms at the shoulder 26 years ago. He picks up car keys, stacks cups, and drinks from a stemware glass. Video
Via Make.
Larry Lessig has an excellent video describing why he supports Obama. I found it interesting that he addressed the fact that there are very minor, if any, policy differences between Obama and Clinton, and dismissed it, in the first few minutes. He spends the rest of the 20 minute video describing character differences.
Lessig also supports Obama for his specific policy positions, as he describes in this post from last November.
If you liked Obama's speeches but weren't sure if it was reason enough to vote for him (this was my situation), check out both posts.