I still don’t know what “Sussudio” means exactly, but thank you Swifty for bringing Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s cover of the Phil Collins classic to my attention.
Ah, Phil Collins, wildly underrated pop genius. How I love thee. As much as I love both Kelly Clarkson’s single Since U Been Gone and Mssr Ted Leo, I would happily erase all trace of Leo’s live Since U Been Gone cover from my memory if he would only cover Sussudio. Now that would really be this week’s best thing ever.

Holy crap, why didn’t anyone ever tell me Kelly Clarkson’s new single Since U Been Gone was so good? My ears are so happy right now, you have no idea.
(As Merlin said, “It’s, like, scientifically infectious. And you can’t fight science.”)

lia: “A computer expert who killed his 76-year-old mother on 5 February appears to have skinned her before taking to the street in the dead of night wearing her bloodied flesh, it was reported on Friday.”
lia: !!!
andrew: wow
andrew: everyone knows you don’t wear white people after labor day

Siemens recently announced the digital graffiti service they’ve been working on for a while:

Post-its are exceedingly practical. They’re a handy way of letting people know if you’ve gone out quickly to shop or to lunch, or for reminding you to do things. However, you can’t stick these yellow memos in mid-air – at least not yet. But that will be possible in future with the virtual post-its from Siemens Corporate Technology’s research laboratory in Munich. Dieter Kolb’s team of specialists have developed computer programs that assign cell phone messages to specific locations. The user can leave a message, known as a digital graffito, at any geographical point. This is a kind of SMS attached to one spot. When the recipient reaches the defined point, the message appears on his or her display. Unlike the classic SMS, the message is not sent to the addressee as such, but is only activated when the addressee comes within a defined radius of the location specified for the graffito. Another difference is that, if required, the message can be read not only by one person but also by a number of cell phone users – like a real graffito plastered on a building wall. This allows a whole range of new applications, for example for special offers and advertising messages aimed at a large readership, or for making arrangements with friends.

As Warren Ellis says, this “obviously has just hideous possibilities for advertising. But the potential for art is also pretty impressive.” I agree with him and am trying to be optimistic but as the amount of spam I get in my email and on my blogs keeps on increasing I’m beginning to wonder if, you know, no one can have nice things for very long anymore.
Related (cellphone-based and to do with physical location) projects from my fellow ITP kids, off the top of my head: John Geraci’s Grafedia, Ian Curry’s Bluefish, Dennis Crowley & Co’s Conqwest, Elliott Malkin’s proposal for eRuv.
Also one of my ideas for a future iteration of 24in48 was that when people’s cellphones can send location metadata along with the MMS, it would be neat to have one of the viewing interfaces be a map of the city, updating live with the location of the photos as they arrive. Clay Shirky‘s suggestion was to see if I could tie into the Dodgeball database somehow since it stores lat/long coordinates, but that would require people logging into Dodgeball every time they move somewhere different—and there are already too many keypresses involved in moblogging for the average person. Hardware manufacturers need to get it down to just two clicks: the first to take the photo and the second to send it to a preferred email address.
(With a third to send it to any other address from your address book, of course. An informal survey of my friends who moblog suggests that long tail is at work; many of us have Flickr saved as “* Flickr” in our address books, since it’s what we send our cameraphone photos to 99% of the time and having the asterisk puts it at the top of the list and saves us the time and energy of scrolling down to find it each time. Kathryn and Matt‘s s700i phones are halfway there: they pop up a list of the last five addresses you’ve sent photos to. Which is good but not quite good enough!)

I really do feel that one of the best things Flickr has going for it is that the very talented and hard-working people who build it have great senses of humor. I mean, how many companies do you know that would change the logo that appears on their pages to something like this in the face of rumored acquisition?

Anyway, here’s Señorita Caterina on the rumors:

We talked to a guy at Business 2.0 back in November or December—that was the start of all these rumors—and we got the sense he was fishing for a story that wasn’t there.

Of course this doesn’t surprise me anymore. Reporters have quoted Stewart as saying something I said, quoted me as saying the opposite of what I said, omitted the material part of what I said and published just the subordinate clauses….

But it’s still kind of fun having all these people talking about us. Makes us feel like the popular kids at high school. Who’s dating who!!!!

A friend is someone who thinks of you when they receive a homebrow David Hasselhoff calendar in .doc format, and can’t wait to file transfer it to you over IM. Andrew is that friend for me and if you don’t have that friend, well, I’m stepping up to the plate and putting it up here for your downloading and printing pleasure: thehoffcalendar05.doc.
(Visitors to my apartment will perhaps recognize September’s pinup as being from the same photo shoot as the 8.5 glossy that graces my living room, bringing cheer to everyone who drops by.)

Players of the MMORPG Second Life have their own version of Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates! You can see more screenshots here.
[ thanks, Ranjit! ]

Amy of Amy’s Robot pointed out this afternoon, quite correctly, that “every single blessed one of the NYC-oriented blogs will feature wads of nearly identical photos of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude The Gates Central Park project starting this weekend.”
Screw ’em all! Not only did I walk to the park this afternoon, but I doubt any other damn NYC blogger is going to have a photo of their companion doing this:

Kidding aside, the fabric hasn’t even been unfurled from the gates yet and I already think The Gates is a magnificent project. I’ve never really gotten the appeal of Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s wrapping projects before, but I found my walk through the park today, under the gates and on paths I know well, very moving.
The Gates are huge, much taller than I expected them to be. But they’re just the perfect size—any smaller and they would be overwhelmed by the park, any bigger and they would be far too imposing. I was surprised by how organic they felt to me, not alien at all. Perhaps that comes from Central Park itself being a planned environment, even if it doesn’t seem that way to most people.
I liked this bit from The Gates Official FAQ (and how much do you love that it actually has one?):

The artwork is not the process of unfolding the fabric, but rather the sum total one experiences by exploring Central Park once The Gates are unfurled. Every person’s exploration will be different. That is why the artists say whatever part of the park you are in is the best part of The Gates.

Hopefully I’ll get to experience The Gates a few times in the coming days, on paths familiar and unfamiliar to me. Drop me a line if you’d like to come along!
Here’s another of my photos of The Gates, pre-unfurling:

You can see my photo set from this afternoon on Flickr; also check out photos tagged thegates, posted by myself and others.
More about Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates: page on the official Christo & Jeanne-Claude site, the comprehensive nyc.gov site. I’ve leafed through these three lovely books on The Gates: Christo & Jeanne-Claude: The Gates: Central Park, NYC, 1979-2005 (a program of sorts), Christo and Jeanne-Claude: On the Way to The Gates, Central Park, New York City (published last year, about what the artists had to do to get the project running, features sketches and interviews), and Christo: The Gates Portfolio.
More about Central Park: Wikipedia entry, Central Park Conservancy (the official site), centralpark.org (fan site).

Let me assure you that the only thing better than this photo is an infinity of it—prepare yourself to behold the true apex of animated gifs, The Hasselhoffian Recursion.
[ thanks, Alaina! ]

Many happy returns of the day to Alaina, for whom making 30 look good is the least of her gifts—she’s a delight to know and be around, and makes everything better just by being herself, even cross-continent. New York doesn’t miss you as much as I do!
Here is a photo of us from last year outside the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, only one of countless tasty places I’ve come to love that she’s introduced me to:

Kindly ignore the strange white man in the background, and thanks to David for taking the photo!