wowowowowowowowow.
Hot Links 
- Just another fanatical lunatic or simple-minded dude who becomes a dubious legend
- “Instruments of a Beating Heart”
- Paris is 25% public housing and 19% public commercial retail. “Our guiding philosophy is that those who produce the riches of the city must have the right to live in it.”
- NYT Best Books of the 21st Century
- Alishan Forest Railway
Tour de France: Celebrating Pedal Dancing Since 1903
Been watching the Tour de France religiously this past week. Figured it was a good year to start considering I missed 7 good ones. Don’t know anybody who watches cycling and didn’t think much of the viewability of the sport, but this stuff is actually really good. Reasons to watch:
- overly excited Versus commentators
- Contador and Armstrong getting real sassy
- great background TV
- helmets
Love Letters to Philadelphia
Ex-graffiti artist Steve Powers is returning to Philadelphia to work on “Love Letter“, a 20-block mural project that is being installed with the help of local youth who are being taught sign design and mechanics by Steve. The piece was conceived as a “love letter spanning 50 walls and roof tops to be painted in West Philadelphia facing the Market-Frankford Elevated train. The letter is meant for one with meaning for all, and in a larger sense, will be for West Philly from West Philly.”
Even cooler, the project is a collaboration with the Mural Arts Program which is one of the largest civic art initiatives in the nation. The program has produced over 2,800 murals and educated over 20,000 underserved youth in Philadelphia. The founding executive director, Jane Golden, is a lecturer at Penn, and students of her class get to work on an actual mural in the city which is awesome except that the registrar hates me and I have failed twice already to get into the class.
Roger Federer: Love Fifteen
Epic people celebrating an epic man in a sweet video. To send an insignificant-by-comparison message to Roger, visit Nike Tennis. Wish this video was brought to my attention before the last post. Also wish I came up with the phrase ‘Love Fifteen’.
The Uniform Project
Sheena Matheiken has “pledged to wear one dress for one year as an exercise in sustainable fashion” (she has 7 identical dresses for each day of the week). The dress is personally designed to be worn in three ways and the outfits are completed with second-hand accessories. More than a statement on sustainability, The Uniform Project is also a year-long fundraiser for the Akanksha Foundation, a grassroots movement that is revolutionizing education in India.
Roger Federer: GOAT
Sunday at Wimbledon produced some amazing numbers: 77 aces, 77 games, 30-game fifth set, 37 holds of serve, and at least 49 grand slam singles titles in attendance (Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Rod Laver, John McEnroe, Boris Becker).
After 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14, the world has witnessed the most astounding number: 15 grand slam single titles. Roger Federer is now without a doubt the best to have ever played the game.
And props to Andy Roddick for building a terrifying game around that serve. He is finally a player that I can imagine supporting, and this is officially Roddick’s second coming – just in time for Flushing Meadows.
Gaikai: Photoshopping on a Cloud
Streaming video games has been the new hotness in the gaming world since OnLive revealed itself in March with the the ability to stream games onto a PC at HDTV resolution from distant servers with a web plugin or a small piece of hardware. Basically, cloud gaming. I was impressed when the news came out, but not being a gamer, I lost interest. Until I found this video above. Until I watched the 10th minute of the video above. Please watch the 10th minute on the video above. Gaikai, a similar service to OnLive, is able to stream Photoshop to a browser using only Flash. And it opens in 2 seconds. Gaikai needs to think about shifting its focus away from just games. And investors should be throwing money at this company.