State Of The Art

“Robert Natkin discovered his calling at age 17, in Chicago, when he opened a book and stumbled on the intense abstract art of Paul Klee. He was stunned by the beauty, the color harmonies, and the “music” in Klee’s work.” And decided to rip him off. Behold – the mural at the Newscorp Building (formerly Celanese Building):

Apparently people pay Mr. Natkin to do this sort of stuff. This only shows that corporate art today ain’t what it used to be. Here’s a mural from the former Eastern Airlines Building (currently bleakly called 10 Rockefeller Plaza ):

Starmagic


There used to be a little novelty store near NYU called Starmagic. I think I bought a deck of Tarot cards there, and some slinkies over the years. Then it disappeared leaving only an empty shell of a room with weird conduit pipes hanging from the ceiling. Seeing it empty at night made me realize how tiny that store was and how crammed with silly-space-age-glow-in-the-dark-made-in-China-tchockes it was. Goodbye, Starmagic.

What Up?


Urban Dictionary is an awesome slang recourse. Thanks, , you non-blogging bastard. Before I used to go to Everything2 for all slang related research. But Urban Dictionary is so much better.

For instance there I learned that usage of “word” as affirmation probably originates from “the word of God.”

Monitor 451 or Ixnay on the X-ray

What I always thought to be just dirt on my screen or glasses, turned out to be a burned in picture of the login screen. Modern monitors are supposed to turn themselves off after a period of time, didn’t they? I thought that the login screen in NT used to jump around like a screensaver? Apparently not so.

A friend from the Fair and Balanced Network told me over lunch that the reason network logos are usually 3-d and rotating is because people used to get rather nasty burn-in on their TVs with static logos.

This got me thinking — what kind of statistics are out there about radiation exposure in programmers? I spend about 8 hours a day in front of an electron gun directed at my face and chest. And I’ve been having salivary gland troubles for a while. People worry about stupid cell phone microwaves. Monitors shoot X-rays. Now that is scary.

I am thinking now of buying a couple of flat panels for home and work. As expensive as it can be, it’s probably a good idea.