Author Archives: blaise

openstreetmap

Scott Mor­ri­son post­ed a good arti­cle today in the Wall Street Jour­nal about our hire of Steve Coast, Open­StreetMap’s founder, and our announce­ment a week ago that we’d be shar­ing aer­i­al imagery with OSM.  Open­StreetMap, in case you don’t know, … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in maps | Tagged , | 7 Comments

radial stripes

The brand design for Vic­tro­la Cof­fee on 15th is beau­ti­ful: There’s a sense of con­fec­tion about it.  It prints nice­ly, it exudes a Capi­tol Hill-ish steam­punk sen­si­bil­i­ty, and it rhymes with those radi­al­­ly-striped teacup designs which are so much more … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in appearances | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

rudy’s

On the sub­ject of things that land pre­cise­ly on the beat, I’ll men­tion Rudy’s Bar­ber­shop.  There are 7 in Seat­tle, 5 in LA and 2 in Port­land.  Thanks to Abra for turn­ing me on to these guys. My opin­ion of … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in appearances | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

homage to sartorialist

Fash­ion” as an indus­try is inti­mate­ly con­nect­ed to brand mar­ket­ing, and in this sense seems almost by con­struc­tion self-negat­ing.  If you’re being sold a “look”, then it’s not your own, and there­fore you’re a con­sumer, not a pro­duc­er.  Just as … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in appearances | Tagged | 4 Comments

seafood risotto

The blog seems like a bet­ter, more per­ma­nent repos­i­to­ry for recipes that mat­ter than the scraps of paper float­ing around our kitchen.  The fol­low­ing is from a note I print­ed out almost 10 years ago, attempt­ing to recon­struct an impro­vised … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in food | Tagged , | Leave a comment

solar/freedom

Per­verse­ly, or per­haps guilti­ly, after putting a knife in Ian McE­wan in a pre­vi­ous post, I felt com­pelled to read his new book, Solar.  Pol­ished it off recent­ly while wait­ing for my new note­book to sync doc­u­ments.  This comes on … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in books | Tagged | Leave a comment

on the beat

I found my heart quick­en­ing in exhil­a­ra­tion today as I lis­tened to the White Stripes’ “Can­non” on the bus, from their first album.  It’s Son House’s ren­di­tion of “John the Rev­e­la­tor”, piped through the dark met­al of Zep.  These guys … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in music | Tagged | Leave a comment

wsj

Now that the Wall Street Jour­nal pro­file has final­ly post­ed, I can share the pic­tures I took with my phone of the beau­ti­ful “map room” set the pho­tog­ra­phy crew built in a hotel near work for shoot­ing the por­trait.  (This … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in maps | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

zero history

Recent­ly fin­ished William Gib­son’s new nov­el, Zero His­to­ry, dur­ing the no-elec­tron­ics phase of a plane’s ascent to 30,000 feet.  It feels like I’ve read half of this book dur­ing take­offs and land­ings. I have a soft spot for Gib­son.  A … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in books | Tagged | Leave a comment

ten thousand things

Last Fri­day brought an unex­pect­ed sur­prise.  Ear­li­er in the week, Michelle Ger­ling had accost­ed me in the mid­dle of a con­ver­sa­tion about GPS traces and aer­i­al imagery at the Vovi­to cof­feeshop in Belle­vue, where a cou­ple of us were rude­ly … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in books | Tagged , , | Leave a comment