Westminster Abbey

A few huge, beautiful pics of the interior of Westminster Abbey on the day of the royal wedding. What a gorgeous setting.

Thought for the Day 2.0

Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. "I write only when inspiration strikes," he replied. "Fortunately it strikes ever morning at nine o'clock sharp."

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle

Grief

Read the story here.

Thought for the Day 1.0

If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step toward pursuing his or her dreams, every shrink in the directory would be out of business. Prisons would stand empty. The alcohol and tobacco industries would collapse, along with the junk food, cosmetic surgery, and infotainment businesses, not to mention pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and the medical profession from top to bottom. Domestic abuse would become extinct. as would addiction, obesity, migraine headaches, road rage, and dandruff.

—Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle

BikeShare—Hopefully Coming to Every City

The largest metro BikeShare program is in Paris, but a similar program has been implemented successfully in Washington, D.C. Read the full article here.

He Is Risen!

How Great

Undoubtedly the highlight of the Academy of Country Music "Girls' Night Out" concert: Vince Gill and Carrie Underwood. Matching what may be the purest voice in country music with a guitar virtuoso and singer like Vince Gill is quite a combination.

(My old computer wouldn't have been able to keep up, but if you have one that can . . . choose 1080p in the resolution selector in the lower right, and full screen for a knock-out version of this song.)

And purely in the interest of passionate performing, I'm adding this duet by Ronnie Dunn and Jennifer Nettles—I don't think there are two singers anywhere that make you believe they are singing something that's painfully true more than these two. Until I checked, I didn't realize this song was written by the amazing Patty Griffin -- on her A Kiss in Time album.

Scary

Does this guy remind you of somebody you know? Not likely. He's (it's) a robot created at National Taiwan University. I wonder if, one day, it will be hard to tell the living from the non-living.

Uh, I Have to Be Going Now

Hmmm—Vine Ripe Tomatoes

I snagged this picture from an Atlantic article on migrant workers unions in Florida, etc. (Lost the link to the article and couldn't find it searching Atlantic's site.) I'm only posting it because it's a great illustration of modern commercial agriculture: picking tomatoes when they're green and rock hard, then gassing them, etc., to bring them to maturity when it's time to sell them. If you look on some of the leaves, you can see white residue from some sort of spray. Toxic? Non-toxic? I don't know. But the whole picture is very unappealing. Compare that picture with a bright red organic tomato at a farmer's market picked red off the vine the day before. Or better yet, one pulled five minutes before you slice it, picked from a tomato plant in your own yard.

How Is This Different from a Laptop?

I'm on record as saying that the laptop's days are numbered; that the "pad" computer will replace the ubiquitous lapper. (Not soon, obviously, but eventually.)

And maybe not as soon as anybody thinks given this iPad ad. It's for a device that does three things: provides a keyboard for the iPad; holds the iPad upright for typing; provides a protective cover for the iPad. Hey -- how is that different from a laptop?!

Okay -- I get how the iPad is different. I just found it amusing that folks are buying iPads and also devices that turn their iPads back into the laptop they used to use.

Meaning Through Music

Paul Simon's new album, So Beautiful or So What? received a 5-of-5 stars review from Christianity Today. In fact, there are so many references to God and spirituality in the songs that, in a video about the album, Simon says Paul McCartney came backstage after hearing the songs at a concert and asked Simon, "Aren't you Jewish?" There have always been a lot of references to God in Simon's songs, as well as Sting's. In neither case do I know what that means to them personally.

Moby has always been identified as a "Christian" of some sort, and this song ("The Day") from his new album (Destroyed) supports that contention—about the victory of good over evil.

The music video:

Moby explaining more about the making and meaning of the song:

The 12 Worst Cars on the Road

Forbes.com has a survey of the "12 worst cars on the road" drawn from a number of performance-reliability studies. Might'ave known -- the car I've been thinking about the last couple years -- the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited (pictured) -- is on the list. Oh well -- good reason not to spend money.

Related articles, courtesy of Zemanta:

• •2011 Jeep Wrangler
• •Project Kahn's silver Jeep Wrangler looks ready for urban assault, not much else
• •Report: China suspends Jeep Wrangler importation over safety concerns

Beauty and the Beast

Pros call the Paris-Roubaix six-hour bike race "The Hell of the North" because of its bone-rattling, filling-loosening ride over cobblestones. This gorgeous video was shot on a 4,000-frames-per-second camera allowing for high-def slow-motion that is starkly beautiful. If there's a way to find beauty in the belly of a beast, this is it: (read the full account of the video here)

Beautiful Signs of Spring

Gorgeous photos of spring unfolding all over the world. 

Saying the Same, Only Better

(Thanks to Robert in Atlanta for this link.)

Back Porch Groove Music

I don't know of these artists -- Raphael Saadiq (and here) and his ax-man, Rob "Fonksta" Bacon -- but I've rarely heard two guys produce this kind of groove with just two guitars. And it's mainly Rob Bacon -- the amount of music he produces from his Taylor guitar is astounding -- and so effortless. Shot at NPR headquarters, I take it -- cool setting for a concert. Gotta love the Blues Brothers look -- black suits, sunglasses. I also love that he had to ask the [I'm guessing mostly-white] NPR staff-audience to clap along. Just sayin' . . . :-) But thanks to NPR for making this available! (I would not have been able to watch this at 480p, full-screen on my old computer. But now that I can -- wow -- like watching a concert on DVD. NPR shot this beautifully.)

My Favorite Video

This is one of the coolest music videos I've seen: singer-songwriter-ukulelist (yay, ukes) Sophie Madeleine starts to sing one of her amazing songs and is "joined" by fans doing their own version of her song. Very cool -- and great song! Every time I watch this I see new things. People are so funny!

A Little Embarrassing

This is a great exercise in Middle East geo-politics. An interactive exercise in identifying the countries most in the news of late. There were quite a few (all the "-stans") I couldn't place.

Is This a Good Idea?

A new iPhone (and soon Android) app will soon allow hundreds of your "closest friends" (whether you know them or not) to see any photos and videos you take with your phone.

The app is called Color and works like this: As soon as you open the app, you'll start receiving on your phone photos and videos of other Color users within 150 feet of where you are -- in a crowded bar, for instance, where you're looking to meet people. You can annotate a comment to someone's photo and use it as an intro to a conversation, etc.

The app was created by a smart tech guy with a couple other very successful startups under his belt (one purchased by Apple, the music service LaLa), and he's received big-time venture capital support as if this is going to be the next new social networking phenom.

Of course, you don't have to turn Color on -- then no one can see your pics/videos and you can't see those of other Color uses. But how many people are going to resist? The same number who resist looking at train wrecks, is my guess.