girl eat machine.

The product of collective madness. Follow the money? Pfft. How bout Follow the HONEY, amiright?

I love the physical sensation that comes when you are literally struck by an idea.

This woman’s Halloween costume is so inspired — Ben-Day printing. It’s brilliant. Click through the image for more shots of make-up preparation.

It’s about time I used it. So far, the only complete album is one from this past Fourth’s trip to Minnesota. (Lutsen, Grand Marais, and Minneapolis for any of you mid-westerners lurking out there.)

Feels good to share:

This past July, I was sent to West Virginia to look into the role of government data in the explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine.

Then I made a movie:

Oh, hey. I have a blog.

And today I went to the City Paper’s infamous Crafty Bastards art show. Ran into some great local artists and clever out-of-district bastards folks…but as I review all the cards and notes and pictures I took earlier, I’m enjoying Ryan Berkley’s art the most:

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This little lady went to space with her friend, parachuted back down to earth, and later gave birth to six puppies, one of whom became the grandpuppy of John F. Kennedy. And all I’ve done today is the dishes.

Speaking of great new transit maps, this weekend’s design/greennerd blogosphere has turned up a gem:

I, for one, am 100% comfortable with a mass transit themed meme. The more people appreciate the cultural tropes of subway travel, (one hopes) the more attachment and value people invest in the system. (Again, we hope.)

So far there are U.S. highway and cosmos maps riffing on the metro. To get a better peek at Sam Loman’s interpretation of the body, you can click the image above. (When you land, be sure to take a stroll around the data visual goodness that is Information Aesthetics.)

Do you know what you should read right now? Jonathan Lethem’s essay The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism.

Lethem doesn’t just pen a worthy and beautiful ode explaining and celebrating the culture of sharing — that is Our Culture, or to be even clearer, all culture — he also includes a Surprise of Genius Proportions. (So, my Skimming/Half-Reading Kin, if you really want to know why this is such a great read, you’ll just have to make it through to the end.)

I know “Long Form” articles can be a struggle in the World of a Thousand Browser Tabs, but whether you’re an old copyleftist or someone still trying to wrap your head around “this whole free culture thing,” take the time to treat your mind by clicking here.

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated… (John Donne)

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Some coworkers passed along a link to this incredible portrait of the US rail system as told by Amtrak. Cameron Booth, the map’s creator offers some insight about his project:

Presenting the latest in my series of transit-styled diagrams, the entire Amtrak passenger rail system in the style of a subway map. Surprisingly, I haven’t seen another take on this anywhere else on the internet, but I guess it is a fairly monumental undertaking (Good thing I’m the patient type!). Every last station is shown, the result of a lot of research on both Amtrak’s official site and Wikipedia. This version has all station names and route information listed.

You can read more about the map on his blog.

As for what this says about Amtrak, well, either this confirms that Chicago is the center of the universe and New England is the only bastion of society left in a chaotic and drifting world — or that we have to do a heck of a better job reaching out to the central United States. I know large tracks of the West are farmlands and that people and cities tip towards the water, but that’s no excuse for investing too little time into exploring more thorough connections of rail system. Although Amtrak may consider these low-populations density areas a suck on their revenue, there are bigger things at stake than making profit. When we leave areas with a lower populations density without access to public transportation, what we’re doing is further isolating the isolated: both in belief systems, limited employment options, their dependence on cars, and any number of other things a progressive can whine about.

So, let’s see some public encouragement for more rail development. Amtrak may not be ideal — it’s a monopoly, it’s subsidized by the government, it’s the best rail service, it’s the worst rail service, it’s the only (national) rail service — but its rails give great foundation for sensible expansion with smart urban development. Let’s hope $8 billion for high-speed rail projects the Obama Administration allocated from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will do (at least some of) that.

Is “stronger” copyright “better” copyright?

According to Arstechnica, one way to answer this question is ask another: “not whether some change [to copyright law] would produce less money for rightsholders, but whether some change would remove incentives to create. Has file-sharing reduced creators’ incentives?”

Given the results of their recent research study, Arstechnica turned to Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard and Koleman Strumpf of the University of Kansas for insight. Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf are a little biased:

The publication of new books rose by 66 percent over the 2002-2007 period. Since 2000, the annual release of new music albums has more than doubled, and worldwide feature film production is up by more than 30 percent since 2003… In our reading of the evidence there is little to suggest that the new technology has discouraged artistic production. Weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society.

There are unarguable flaws with Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf’s evaluation of their study –

(1) just because music and movie sales didn’t crash doesn’t necessarily prove that weak copyright had a positive impact so much as it didn’t have (as great a?) negative impact;(2) that the French music industry can more empirically show damage as a result of copyright in a similar market (of course, the French music market is smaller than the American market, which continues to throw it’s weight – and sales – around Europe…);(3) even Ok Go, a band that just split off from EMI to make their own label where they could make their own music and publish it the way they want without restrictions acknowledges smaller, newer bands are still dependent on the major labels for support and distribution — and who are the people that lose money in peer-to-peer sharing? Not Rhianna….(Link to come.)

The particulars of this particular study aside, it’s good to see the press (we can call Arstechnica “the press” right? ….Right?) digging at such a meaty thesis: is “stronger” copyright “better” copyright? In the next few months, especially as ACTA considerations rise, we need to make sure that this question makes it into the minds of as many people as possible.

Quick sketch from last week’s viewing of an incrediblely thought-provoking film.