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So the Internet is (was on April 3rd) ablaze with the talk of how bad URL shorteners are ever since Joshua Schachter, the guy that built and sold del.icio.us, jotted down his thoughts on them. These facts are nothing new and, I’ll bet, do not allude those that built these services. But, they see a […]

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While browsing through some of Viddler’s archives today I ran across this drawing demo by Lynne Margulies (lynnemargulies on Viddler). It is in three parts (maybe Lynne isn’t aware of Viddler’s 500Mb per-video limit). What I enjoyed most about these videos was the angle, the not-overly-produced presentation, and my ability to watch it over, pause […]

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Somewhat related to this week’s weigh in, where I mentioned habits, I found two good resources for striving to rid yourself of old habits and creating new ones. Installing a new habit and breaking an old one – an essay by Dr. Stephanie A. Burns 18 tricks to make new habits stick – A simple […]

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Naoto Fukasawa, a name I dare not pronounce around little children, is an industrial designer from Japan who decided to redesign some juice boxes to make them look and feel like their contents. I think they look delicious. Via Ainsley Drew filling in for Jason Kottke.

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As I’m finishing my re-reading of The Two Towers, and will be revisiting this grand city made in the side of a mountain in a few pages, I can’t help but link to a complete replica of Minas Tirith made of matchsticks. Via Boing Boing. Update: Turns out they’ve finished it.

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[viddler id-d136482e h-357 w-420] Random 60: Calendars Favorite on Viddler. I don’t know about you but I love calendars. If I didn’t self-impose a limit of two my wall would be filled with calendars of all types. Right now I have a stunning Hawai’i calendar hanging up (thanks to Eliza). It has photos from different […]

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I’m happy to report that I did much better during this second week of the diet than I did during the second week of the diet back in June 2006 (Wow, has it been that long already?) when I gained 3 pounds. This week I’m down another four pounds and I currently weigh 199 pounds. […]

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[viddler id-1915991c h-280 w-420] Random 60: Dear American Idol, ditch the lip syncing, please. Favorite on Viddler. I’m really sick of the group performances on American Idol. Maybe they wouldn’t be so bad if they were live performances done by the contestants – but in fact they are being lip synced. Yesterday I said on […]

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[viddler id-207549f3 h-280 w-420] Random 60: Nice weather Favorite on Viddler. Today was a beautiful day in northeastern Pennsylvania. It hit 70 degrees! Although I didn’t have the chance to go for a jog, we did get to spend some time on the porch enjoying the cool breeze. What do you like to do on […]

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I’m not very much into playing "mindless" board or card games that rely on the right card falling at the right time. Which is probably why I enjoy playing Poker so much. It isn’t about the cards at all, really. Once the game of Poker is learned, and you’ve played a few times to get […]

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[viddler id-5af73cd9 h-280 w-420] Random 60: What is your idea of a vacation? Favorite on Viddler. Vacations mean different things to everyone. For some it means a trip to the beach. A weekend getaway. Time off from work on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and your favorite Paul Newman movies. A camping trip […]

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The entire purpose of The Diet is to help myself, and everyone else on the diet, stay motivated to get to a healthy weight and stay there. Usually this goal is somewhat shrouded under the veil of a competition. But for good reason: competition usually motivates people. But that isn’t the case with everyone. Some […]

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Mandy Brown exquisitely compares reading books to both reading feeds online and cooking bread. Her final paragraph sums up her post nicely. "In our own time, I wonder if the very slowness of books makes them more valuable in the face of all the quickness around us, if their singular nature will prove to be […]

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[viddler id-c7449109 h-280 w-480] Random 60: Cheap cookies Favorite on Viddler. I love cheap cookies. The cheaper the better. They are easy to find. Walk into your local grocer and look at the bottom shelf in the cookie isle, they are typically the cookies that are at a bargain price (sometimes $1 for a whole […]

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Another fantastic entry in the journal of Henry David Thoreau (which [I’ve mentioned a few times before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=henry david thoreau)) this time dealing with being able to use "cars", or wheeled wagons, in late-March in Concord, Massachusetts. Here is the snippet from Mr. Thoreau’s March 26, 1856 entry: "They are just beginning to use wheels in […]

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Another fantastic entry in the journal of Henry David Thoreau (which [I’ve mentioned a few times before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=henry david thoreau)) this time dealing with being able to use "cars", or wheeled wagons, in late-March in Concord, Massachusetts. Here is the snippet from Mr. Thoreau’s March 26, 1856 entry: "They are just beginning to use wheels in […]

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Another fantastic entry in the journal of Henry David Thoreau (which [I’ve mentioned a few times before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=henry david thoreau)) this time dealing with being able to use "cars", or wheeled wagons, in late-March in Concord, Massachusetts. Here is the snippet from Mr. Thoreau’s March 26, 1856 entry: "They are just beginning to use wheels in […]

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Another fantastic entry in the journal of Henry David Thoreau (which [I’ve mentioned a few times before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=henry david thoreau)) this time dealing with being able to use "cars", or wheeled wagons, in late-March in Concord, Massachusetts. Here is the snippet from Mr. Thoreau’s March 26, 1856 entry: "They are just beginning to use wheels in […]

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Another fantastic entry in the journal of Henry David Thoreau (which [I’ve mentioned a few times before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=henry david thoreau)) this time dealing with being able to use "cars", or wheeled wagons, in late-March in Concord, Massachusetts. Here is the snippet from Mr. Thoreau’s March 26, 1856 entry: "They are just beginning to use wheels in […]

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Another fantastic entry in the journal of Henry David Thoreau (which [I’ve mentioned a few times before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=henry david thoreau)) this time dealing with being able to use "cars", or wheeled wagons, in late-March in Concord, Massachusetts. Here is the snippet from Mr. Thoreau’s March 26, 1856 entry: "They are just beginning to use wheels in […]

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Another fantastic entry in the journal of Henry David Thoreau (which [I’ve mentioned a few times before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=henry david thoreau)) this time dealing with being able to use "cars", or wheeled wagons, in late-March in Concord, Massachusetts. Here is the snippet from Mr. Thoreau’s March 26, 1856 entry: "They are just beginning to use wheels in […]

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[viddler id-20a6d41 h-357 w-420] Random 60: Holding onto wishes Favorite on Viddler. Do you hold onto wishes, or things, too long? I do too. There are boxes and boxes worth of stuff floating around in our apartment that I wish I could use, learn to use, or have the hope of using in the future. […]

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I’ve wanted to have a bird feeder on one of our windows for a while. I’ve looked a few times for one and somehow turned up empty handed. Last week Eliza returned from a shopping trip with a $1, suction cup powered, bird feeder for our window! Thanks Eliza! This morning at 8:30AM I hung […]

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The first full week of the new diet effort is over and done with. The response from this round has been great. I really like having family and friends join in on trying to get healthy. It helps me stay motivated and focused on my goals and I hope that I help others do the […]

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Dave Caolo on TUAW, who is apparently from Scranton, remarks on statements made by Blockbuster’s Vice President of Digital Entertainment Kevin Lewis that Blockbuster will be offering content through Tivo soon and maybe through Apple’s AppleTV (or iTunes). I like his opening paragraph: "On a January day in 1981, my sisters and I experienced unbridled […]

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[ad#Adsense: Horiz 468] [viddler id-839cf217 h-357 w-420] Random 60: Penmanship. Favorite on Viddler. How is your penmanship? My penmanship is little more than chicken scratch. Since I’ve started writing more I’ve been practicing my penmanship. It is slowly getting better but I have a long way to go. Here are some tutorials that I’ve followed, […]

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LAPP, or Light Art Performance Photography, are long-exposure photographs of people playing with light in different ways. The site is in flash, and I’m still linking to it. That should tell you something. (via Coudal Partners)

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[viddler id-da2e49dd h-280 w-420] Random 60: Are you camera shy? Favorite on Viddler. Do you find yourself shy around cameras? Maybe you have no trouble chatting with your friends at bars but the second someone takes out a camera, you find yourself hiding? Today, we explore why that is with Donna DeMarco, Vice President of […]

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Some of us in the "community" space think about these topics every single day. Seldom do we get a good soapbox to talk about them. Laura Brunow Miner, editor in chief at JPG Magazine, did on A List Apart in her brilliantly detailed yet simple piece entitled Coaching a Community. "In the end, we’re talking […]

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Great how-to article from Simply Recipes on how to soften butter quickly. I guess jamming it into the microwave for a few seconds isn’t really ‘softening’ butter, it is more like melting butter.

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You may have seen me quip about MarsEdit the other day on Twitter. Really, though, it is an excellent piece of software that should be given a go by anyone that writes a lot. I’m spoiled by a rich-editor in WordPress, that saves drafts automatically and even has multiple revisions, and so I’m sticking with […]

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Quietube, which I linked to the other day, removes all of the cruft from around videos on sites like YouTube and now Viddler and Vimeo. Here is an example of what the result looks like with a recent episode of Wine Library TV. When I saw Quietube I immediately recognized that, well, some people just […]

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[viddler id-5c5b7c71 h-357 w-420] Random 60: Doing what you love, not what you’re good at. Favorite on Viddler. Please consider [sharing this on Twitter](http://twitter.com/home?status=Watching today’s Random 60 by @cdevroe: http://cdevroe.com/videos/r60-do-what-you-love/). Thanks. I often find myself doing things that I really like to do, even if I’m not particularly good at them. Art, for me, is […]

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Where The Wild Things Are looks great. I’d have more to say but I don’t want to take up too much time as I believe this trailer will be getting removed from the Web as soon as the leak has been seen. Like the guy on I Watch Stuff said: "This film looks like warm […]

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id Software recently released Wolfenstein 3D for the iPhone. This is fantastic news. The game that started the entire first-person shooter genre is now on the iPhone. But there is more. id is releasing the source code for the game. (See link at the bottom of this page.) And John Carmack, the brains behind nearly […]

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Pat Dryburgh, my dieting nemesis, wrote up what I think is a thoughtful approach to his diet. He explains how he measured his current caloric intake and then researched what his intake should be. He also explains how he is planning to lose 1-2 pounds per week by simply eliminating 500 calories per day. This […]

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Glims for Safari is a input-manager hack (I think) that enables a few ‘nice to have’ features. First, it adds favicons to tabs. I am not sure about you, but the new tabs (when you have a lot of them) are really hard to tell one from another. This helps. It also does things like […]

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You’ve probably seen this elsewhere already… but this is just like Readability in that this small bookmarklet removes all of the cruft around YouTube videos leaving you with just the video to watch. Quietube. Great name too. Update: I figured I’d provide an example link.

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[viddler id-7eba55b5 h-357 w-420] Random 60: Reading. Favorite on Viddler. In this fast paced, Twitter-powered world it seems like all we do is consume shorter, and shorter bits of data. First it was blog posts, now it is micro-blogging with services like Twitter (I’m cdevroe by the way). I believe reading books can really slow […]

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The FAIL meme strikes again! This time it is my friend Albert Yee, whom [I’ve mentioned before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=albert yee), that is setting up a fail blog for SEPTA (or the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority). He aptly calls the site SEPTA fail. He’s looking for help too. So if you deal with SEPTA on a regular basis […]

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Related to Growing Sentences with David Foster Wallace: Shaun Inman nails it. "This is how I design. This is how I code. This should really be how I write." Word Shaun, word.

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My friend Tony Green, whom [I’ve mentioned before](http://cdevroe.com/?s=tony green), has done an excellent job covering his experiences at Philly Beer Week 2009. I’ve always had aspirations to attend this event in Philadelphia and have yet to make it. So I live vicariously through Tony. Thanks for the coverage Tony!

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[viddler id-c77e0a5c h-357 w-420] Random 60: What to do about Flickr? Favorite on Viddler. I’ve been a Flickr member since mid-summer 2004. I’ve been a Flickr Pro member for nearly as long. Yet, now that my Pro account has expired, I’m wondering if I will renew my subscription. Why? I think Flickr is great. The […]

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Guess who’s back? Back again! The Diet is back, tell some friends! You read that right. The Diet is back. And, like a Phoenix, it is back in a whole new way once again. Sort of like last time, what started out as a friendly challenge between a few ended up becoming something much larger, […]

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This is an excellent post by the hardest working blogger Jason Kottke, who just so happens to be a big David Foster Wallace fan, about writing from a book by James Tanner, whose book is ironically entitled Kicking Ass Being the Result of One Man’s Fed-upped-ness With ‘How to Write’ Books Not Actually Showing You How to […]

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[viddler id-5db033e0 h-357 w-420] Random 60: Coffee. Favorite on Viddler. Soooo you’re having a cup of joe, some mud, an expresso, a Starbucks, or maybe you just call it coffee. No matter how you take it, how you like it, or what you call it – we’re all addicted to it. Recently I switched to […]

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[viddler id-329a6f7 h-280 w-480] Random 60: HD TV – The choices are endless! Favorite on Viddler. In the market for a new TV? You’ll be going HD. But what to buy? LCD? Plasma? DLP? How big? 30-something? 46? 47? 50? 50 ? What about the hrz? 60? 120? I don’t know about you, but the […]

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Date taken: February 10, 2009. In the lobby of Ben Franklin TechVentures is this neat piece of metal/art of the Ben Franklin logo. Viddler is annexed in this building.

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[viddler id-b365dbdf h-357 w-420] Random 60: Can not find writing paper in stores! Favorite on Viddler. I know that writing letters is at an all time low – but is it so ‘unpopular’ to write that writing paper should be absent from the store shelves? I went to a few stores and not only didn’t […]

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Party time is over, so I feel it safe to write a formal, public request for some of the things I really need from Brightkite. I realize that some of the things I’m going to ask for are probably not that high a priority for Brightkite, but I thought that by making a list like […]

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