Archives > Did You Read About...

September 28, 2012

Taiwanese people's English names

March 21, 2012

Happy Birthday Big Bird: An Interview with Sesame Street's Caroll Spinney

February 13, 2012

Frank Lloyd Wright designed a dog house at the request of a boy

January 21, 2012

Lifelike Beavis and Butt-head sculptures

January 18, 2012

How Stanley Kubrick invented the modern box-office report by accident

January 6, 2012

For any woman that has ever been pregnant, some of her baby's cells may circulate in her bloodstream for as long as she lives

December 23, 2011

What the F*** is Michael Jordan Wearing?

December 16, 2011

The Old-Fashioned: A Complete History and Guide to This Classic Cocktail

August 24, 2011

The Weekly Standard has a nice piece on the history of vodka in the U.S.

July 29, 2011

NYT's annual list of the most looked-up words by its readers on its website
"Panegyric" tops the list. I had no idea what that meant.

February 21, 2011

Interesting etymology of the word "OK"

Apple's Three Laws of Developers

January 16, 2011

Singapore Airlines' inflight magazine Tiger Tales has an article on Taiwan that features a few quotes from me

December 29, 2010

NY Times profiles a man who can solve the notoriously difficult Saturday crossword puzzle in under 6 minutes

December 22, 2010

San Francisco Chronicle profiles Google's doodlers

November 18, 2010

Nicholas Kristof argues that the income inequality of the U.S. is at the level of banana republics

September 19, 2010

What to do when body parts fall off

September 10, 2010

A British IKEA let loose 100 cats Into the store to 'see what happens'

August 8, 2010

The origin of the phrase "chip on shoulder"
One of those phrases that I hear all the time but have no idea where it came from and why it means what it means.

July 4, 2010

NYT breaks down how Mariano Rivera dominates hitters with his cutter

July 3, 2010

Vanity Fair lists the 21 most important works of architecture created since 1980, as determined by leading architects, critics, and deans of architecture schools
Definitely check out the complete answers from the 52 respondents.

May 15, 2010

Bill Simmons talks Carlton Cuse
Cuse's favorite episode? It's pretty much every Lost fan's favorite as well: "The Constant."

May 9, 2010

@Google presents "A Conversation with Conan O'Brien"

April 27, 2010

El Bulli has dropped to second behind Noma in this year's World's 50 Best Restaurant list

April 25, 2010

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is coming back for an eighth season in 2011

March 29, 2010

Sanaa wins Pritzker Architecture Prize
See their Christian Dior Omotesando building on Figure/Ground.

March 25, 2010

Video sneak peek of Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop CS5
Amazing.

March 19, 2010

The hidden meaning of Lady Gaga's "Telephone"

March 17, 2010

Canon announces plan to register ".canon" as a top-level domain name
It's for a new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) registration system that's supposed to go into effect in the latter part of 2011. It's a little odd that they are announcing this more than a year ahead of time. I don't recall any other company announcing intents to register domain names.

March 6, 2010

The "Lost" cast given The Simpsons treatement

March 3, 2010

The Time's Diner's Journal takes an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the dining car operation on the mile-long train of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus

February 23, 2010

Adrià talks in more detail to Time magazine about his plans for the new El Bulli
Now he's saying maybe he'll serve 60 meals per year. I think this is getting silly, the media reporting on every idea that pops into Adrià's head as news. The current El Bulli isn't even going to close for another two years and the new El Bulli isn't set to open until 2014.

February 22, 2010

Garry Kasparov writes about the fascinating history and evolution of machines playing against humans in chess
Long, but well worth a read. I didn't realize he could write so well. I shouldn't be at all surprised, though, seeing how he's one of the geniuses of our time.

February 19, 2010

Roger Ebert's reactions to the Esquire piece

February 17, 2010

Grant Achatz's reflection on his time at El Bulli
It's a great read, but reading it just makes me sad that I can't experience it myself. I like what Bruni wrote regarding El Bulli's closing: "But was it ever really open in the first place?" It's a good piece on the madness of constantly chasing the latest and greatest in the food world.

Roger Ebert and his battle with cancer profiled in Esquire

February 13, 2010

Instead of a two-year hiatus as previously announced, elBulli is closing permanently after 2011
Adrià is replacing it with an academy for advanced culinary study. He says he's been losing €500,000 per year on the restaurant.

February 3, 2010

Grant Achatz is opening a molecular cocktail bar in Chicago where the food will come second to drinks
An alcohol tasting menu? Awesome.

January 31, 2010

Loooong interview with "Lost" executive producers Cuse and Lindelof
Long as in over 10,000 words long. 10,000 words, but no spoilers. It's a good read for any "Lost" fan. Two things jumped out at me: 1, they're not going to explain the meaning of the numbers; 2, they're "employing a new narrative device" for the final season.

January 28, 2010

Adrià announced that elBulli will close in '12 and '13 and reopen in a different, as yet undetermined, format
2010 is already all booked and with this announcement, you can kiss your already impossibly slim chance of snagging a reservation in 2011 goodbye.

January 17, 2010

There are people living in the 200 miles of tunnels underneath Las Vegas
Reminds me of the mutants of Futurama who live underneath New New York.

December 30, 2009

Love this video interview with Anthony Mangieri talking about his pizza
Una Pizza Napoletana hands down made the best pizza I've ever had anywhere, including Italy. New York magazine's profile of him from July is also worth a read. As a New Yorker, I'm jealous that San Francisco will be its home starting March of next year.

December 20, 2009

Foreign Office Architects is to be dissolved because its husband and wife co-founders are splitting up
I guess the divorce wasn't amicable.

December 17, 2009

Google Browser Size leverages the vast user information Google collects to let you know how much of your website is visible

NY Times on Shake Shake's imminent expansion
Three more in Manhattan and one in Miami Beach. Plus, there's plans for a Kuwait franchise. Current locations average $4 million in yearly sales.

Jacob and Emma were the most popular baby names of the decade
The top names of '09 were Aiden and Madeline.

December 10, 2009

Gehry designed a hat for Lady Gaga for her performance at a benefit for the MOCA LA
Gehry designed it on his iPhone (!) and the hat was made by Prada.

Sifton claims Madangsui is the best Korean barbecue restaurant in New York in his latest Times review
I miss good Korean food as it doesn't exist in Taipei.

December 1, 2009

The Cats' House, an amazing cat-friendly modern house design from Japan

November 29, 2009

There are just over 100 people in the world serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as juveniles in which no one was killed. All are in the United States. And 77 of them are in Florida.

November 25, 2009

Massive list of 341 fish names for sushi in Japanese, Chinese and English

November 23, 2009

Photos of Zaha Hadid's MAXXI_National Museum of the XXI Century Arts in Rome

November 21, 2009

Animated time-lapse map of county-by-county unemployment rates in the U.S. since January 2007

November 11, 2009

9 h: a new designer capsule hotel in Kyoto

October 24, 2009

An 8-story gallery designed by Foster is under construction on a narrow 25 x 100 feet plot of land on the Bowery
Scheduled to complete by the spring, it will feature a giant 12 x 20 feet elevator that will double as exhibition space.

October 23, 2009

Unused water pumping station renovated into a home and studio work space

October 22, 2009

Flickr has finally added Facebook-style face tagging
What they need to add now is the ability to search out and automatically tag all untagged photos with a given face, giving you the option of confining the search to your stream, your contacts' streams, or the Flickrverse at large. And they should automatically suggest faces as you upload photos. e.g. "Is this so-and-so?" Face.com already has a Facebook app in beta that does this (minus the recognize-at-upload part).

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has a comprehensive guide to freezing all kinds of food

October 20, 2009

Serious Eats finds New York's best cheesecake
But WTF, a frozen pie from the Cheesecake Factory (the freaking Cheesecake Factory?!) and one from a supermarket are in the top five, but not Eileen's? Not sure if I can trust their broken taste buds.

Every issue of Life magazine from 1936 to 1972 is available on Google Books for free

October 19, 2009

3+1 Bedrooms, a boutique hotel with, you guessed it, 3 rooms and 1 suite, located in the heart of Old Beijing on a hutong.
By the way, is it "on" a hutong or "in" a hutong? NYTimes says "on" but "in" sounds better to my ears. I suppose either works, since hutongs are variously translated as streets or alleys. I think "alleys" when i think "hutongs" so that's why "in" sounds better to me. "In an alley"; "in a hutong".

NYTimes Travel features three restaurants in Singapore that are reinventing the city's traditional food culture

October 15, 2009

For his first NYT restaurant review, Sam Sifton awards two stars to Daniel Boulud's DBGB

41 Cooper Square by Morphosis

October 14, 2009

Facebook headquarters by Studio O+A

October 12, 2009

Full-length Toy Story 3 trailer

October 10, 2009

The Times reports on Aronia de Takazawa, a tiny Tokyo restaurant with two tables, no signs and incredible food
The WSJ also wrote about this place almost exactly a year ago. Tokyo really is an endlessly fascinating foodie town. (restaurant website)

NY Times has curated a massive list of 100 user-recommended hotels in 14 European cities that are under $150 a night

I.M. Pei has been named as the recipient of the 2010 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture

How to cook the perfect boiled egg

October 9, 2009

Serious Eats finds New York's best bagel
Bagel Hole in Brooklyn is declared the ultimate victor.

October 6, 2009

"Unboxing" of an official Apple offer letter to prospective employees
Also see: the welcome package to new employees once they accept the offer.

Condé Nast to close Gourmet

October 3, 2009

Flickroom, a great looking Flickr browser

October 2, 2009

The ThinkPad name was inspired by an actual notepad that IBM used to give away

September 25, 2009

Gorgeous movable indoor fireplace

September 23, 2009

The Big Picture covers yesterday's crazy dust storm in Sydney

September 20, 2009

The Michelberger Hotel, a new budget hotel in Berlin housed in a converted factory building
Looks great. Rates start at €59 per night.

September 19, 2009

Top 10 hotels for under $19 a night

September 16, 2009

Pascal Barbot of Paris's l'Astrance cooked at Momofuku Ko on Sunday

September 8, 2009

Wha????!! Shake Shack is planning seven new branches in Dubai and Saudi Arabia

August 27, 2009

A series of typefaces based on the work of famous architects and designers by graphic artist Chris Labrooy
They're all great, but I particularly like the Frank Gehry one.

Latest images of The Shard, a mixed-use tower under construction at London Bridge in London, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop

August 20, 2009

The trailer for "Extract," the latest film from Mike Judge

August 17, 2009

Diller Scofidio + Renfro have won a competition to design the Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro

August 12, 2009

Eleven Madison Park has joined the exclusive list of NYT four star restaurants
The other five on the list: Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Jean Georges, Eric Ripert's Bernardin, Masayoshi Takayama's Masa, Thomas Keller's Per Se and Daniel Boulud's Daniel.

August 10, 2009

In the depths of northeastern India, bridges are grown from the roots of a species of Indian rubber tree
Incredible.

August 8, 2009

Eater's official Sam Sifton dossier

Free parking isn't really "free"
The cost of building all that parking is reflected in higher rents, more expensive shopping and dining, and higher costs of home-ownership. Those who don't drive or own cars thus subsidize those who do.

August 5, 2009

Sam Sifton is the next food critic of The New York Times

July 24, 2009

Craig Ferguson on why everything sucks

July 7, 2009

NY Times has an article on the glass used in the Sears Tower protruding glass box observatory I mentioned a couple of days ago

Ouroussoff's essay lamenting the likely destruction of Kisho Kurokawa's Nakagin Capsule Tower
It's been "likely to be destroyed" for a few years now and it's still languishing there. See my photos of this building.

July 2, 2009

Incredible software video stabilization technology
Watch the video. Amazing stuff. Can't wait for this to be commercialized.

July 1, 2009

Sears Tower has installed four glass bays that poke out from the building on the 103rd floor, giving the illusion of standing on air a few feet outside the building

June 8, 2009

Bender's back, baby! Comedy Central has ordered 13 new episodes of Futurama!

June 6, 2009

Ouroussoff reviews Cooper's new building by Thom Mayne
Looks great. I can't wait to check it out when I go back to NYC.

WSJ Photo Journal: Homeless and Online in San Francisco

May 21, 2009

A Field Guide to Freeway Interchanges

May 17, 2009

NY Times story about Daniel Boulud opening his first casual restaurant on the Bowery
Apparently this has been big news in New York. Sigh, I'm really starting to miss home.