December 2011
1 post
Design as a Second Language →
July 2010
4 posts
It’s nice to meet so much of you →
“That shirt makes your armpits look great.”
In seventh grade I subscribed to the ‘tight tank top under loose tank top’ style made possible by The Gap and several trend-setting pre-teens. In fifth…
Ripples to Rocks on Mars →
Animation to Rock morph →
Figure 46a from Bedforms and Cross-Bedding in... →
June 2010
3 posts
May I have the etymology please? →
Announcer: “The word is: Welcome.”
Child from Holland, MI: “W-E-L-K-O-M, Welkom.”
Ding.
Last night, Anamika Veeramani won the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee. Ever since Spellbound moved…
I miss Tulip Time →
Thirteen hundred people dressed in traditional Dutch costume have got to be on to something.
In Mid-May, Holland, MI hosted its event of the year: Tulip Time. I’m still recovering. For the…
March 2010
1 post
squeezing into spots →
There is nothing quite like squeezing your body into a bathing suit when you’ve put back twelve packages of Peeps this season.
“You know how your father is, he won’t like that suit,” a mother,…
February 2010
1 post
Fat, marinated, and juicy. →
Come to Holland, MI where you can downhill ski in our urban city!
I was called out on my consumption orientation yesterday. I’ve eaten and enjoyed meat my whole life, but during dinner last night I…
January 2010
2 posts
flailing into foam →
Maybe next year Apolo Ohno will shave his soul patch.
I hurled my body down an icy chute yesterday in a day of luging that just might have made the entire state of Michigan worth it. In order to…
December 2009
2 posts
hedging bets →
Why is it that airplane bathrooms highlight and magnify facial blemishes better than any other environment?
I don’t mind a bit of clutter. Some may say that I have a high tolerance for piles….
the opposite of creative →
The California Department of Motor Vehicles sent me a notice to my new address in Michigan letting me know that I needed to submit a change of address form for the same new address.
I have trouble…
November 2009
3 posts
Welcome, madam, welcome. →
Palindrome visits Grand Rapids on the Going Rogue Bus.
Where is Alanis Morissette when you need her? From the windows of my apartment I can see three retirement homes, three buildings run by the…
Welcome, madam, welcome.
Palindrome visits Grand Rapids on the Going Rogue Bus.
Where is Alanis Morissette when you need her? From the windows of my apartment I can see three retirement homes, three buildings run by the rescue mission, and one scrap yard. If the perpetual haze of West Michigan would have lifted this week I might have been able to see Sarah Palin, twenty miles away in Grand Rapids. I was bombarded by...
‘Open’ is the new ‘good’ →
As I walked to my local coffee shop today, I counted.
I’m partial to one side of the street in downtown Holland, MI. I’ve tried the other side, but really, I have no interest in it other than…
September 2009
4 posts
human-sized Jell-O mold →
On a CRJ 700 (that’s high-tech airplane speak for ’small, cramped aircraft that only flies to cities in the Midwest’) if you happen to score seat 17B, the flight attendant sits right next to your…
Go blank or go home →
Lined paper makes me feel bad about myself.
I woke up this morning and decided to take on my day by watching three episodes of Greek on Hulu because I was too hungry to make breakfast. …
they do exist →
I saw some Republicans yesterday.
In fact, I saw hundreds, maybe millions. I was in the middle of an improv everywhere stunt, except the Republican canvassers didn’t sing show tunes, or…
on intimacy →
My favorite Vans have a hole.
When I moved to Santa Cruz, CA in 2002 I made sure that everyone knew I was from Massachusetts. I arrived on time, brought a bunch of sweaters and khaki pants,…
July 2009
1 post
I'm a dot →
It’s been a busy last few months, and now I’m a dot. We’re all dots. Today my dot was fairly simple. It lacked color and sheen. On Tuesday, I was metallic and iridescent. Dots can grow with time, or…
May 2009
4 posts
A new proposition. →
I had an excellent conversation today about an educational trend to deconstruct the traditional role of a principal into two (or more) positions: education director and chief-operating-officer. I am…
Pressure to be patterned? →
Pastel homes saddle up daringly close to one another on lines mirroring topographic contours. The three-inch gap between them makes you wonder what exists in the space in between. Of course, this is…
Language of patterns →
I watched the new Star Trek movie. Loved it for initiating another arc of tradition; that is, it made think about tradition again. The theatre audience applauded the film. Two things: people…
April 2009
1 post
March 2009
5 posts
This side of the Ides... →
It is hard to say how Antony would fare in the current context, as the dogs of war have slipped out of favor and we are regressing, already at war. This sooth says that we are going…
vacation / vocation! →
Task at hand: design a vacation. Is that like paint-a-pot? Do I show up with three of my girlfriends on a Saturday afternoon and pick out a blank cruise ship, gossip about boys while selecting…
Arbitroliday: colon, coffee, and underwear →
The short month of holidays is over. I ran across two the other day: one was something I imagined in my head while thinking about the other, and it turned out to be real. Whew, that was cool. I read…
February 2009
11 posts
wants to learn Amharic - what’s the best way
Confessions of a Recovering Evangelical →
I met Erika Archer at a strip mall kung fu dojo in 2002. The strip mall location didn’t indicate anything about the quality of the kung fu, but it did allow for easy access to a cheap Chinese…
7 tags
WatchA video made by Andreas Braendhaugen after John Thackara’s workshop last week. I presented at the workshop and used the crowd to work through a worldwide water self-mapping exercise. Very cool! Thanks to Jean Hsu for making the event happen and thanks to the group that chose to work on my project. So many smart people - I’m still working through all of the information you gave me.
WatchVisceral Credit Card Reader
WatchQuasi-random, user-driven, data presentation
Get out and get activist →
John Martyn is dead at age 60. I heard the news from my friend mjp6 living in NYC. On a recent trip to Rasputin, in part to support the music store industry as well as feed my own habit, I picked…
January 2009
8 posts
Interview in the Stanford Daily →
A nice piece by Max McClure about me and two of my classmates in yesterday’s Stanford Daily. How can you resist something entitled: They put the “sketch” in sketchy grad student ?
Skip this and go listen to something by Ana Egge. →
The sequence goes like this: watch YouTube video of Ana Egge performing > recall an absurd comment made by John Mayer about how great it is that, “girls get out up there and bang out a few chords”…
stairs and sentences →
Yes, today was the inauguration of Barack Obama. Sentences! Did you hear all the sentences? In addition to everything said by everyone, especially Beyonce, I found two parts of Barack’s speech to be…
4 tags
Profiled on the Stanford Engineering website →
This week a profile of me and my research came out on the Stanford Engineering website. I look like I’m half-asleep in the photo, but I describe my work and motivations well.
Catch Me if You Can →
Today I became a particle in the ether. I was an excited electron, put into uber-orbit. I wrote the above line about a month ago. I was laying on an Aerobed on a hardwood floor in LoHa (Lower…