I wish we had French cars here in Canada, there’s got to be a market for cars that are unapologetically comfortable and stylish, even if they aren’t the fastest or sportiest things out there. I mean just look at it, mon dieux! I love fast cars maybe more than most people but some days it’d seem like a no brainer to trade it all for something from the utopian future of the Renault design team. I mean just imagine the drudgery of a long boring day at the office* and imagine opening the doors (if you can even call them that) and seeing this:

So in summary, Renault please make this – and then sell it here. It’s the kind of kool aid I so wanna drink, maybe swim in even.

Oh ya, and the roof is a single panel of red glass too. Hawtness.

* (not that I’d know what working in an office is like, but office buildings are pretty common in Canada too, so I’ve heard)

More pics and details over at WIRED

If you’ve never seen photos taken by Tilt-Shift lenses you’ll really enjoy the “CityShrinker website”:http://www.cityshrinker.com/. I don’t really feel like explaining the specifics of “how TS lenses work”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_shift (nor do I really know), but they really have a cool effect on photography – particularly the long range kind. One day, when I’m rich maybe, I’ll really enjoy one of these myself, they certainly do seem like a lot of fun.

(one of my favorites from “CityShrinker”:http://www.cityshrinker.com/)

Looking for fun, original desktop wallpaper pictures is sort of a faux hobby of mine ; it’s something that can be really tricky, especially as sites and sources like deviantart or pixelgirlpresents (which has honestly gotten pretty weak lately) are very hit and miss. Which makes this is pretty cool. The dude behind the design blog Kitsune Noir solicited contributions for desktop pictures from some really talented artists and will be presenting a few each Wedsnesday. If this week’s wallpapers are indicative of the awesomeness to come, especially the 3rd one, there’ll finally be a good reason to look forward to Wednesdays – besides for the fact that it’s kinda close to Friday.

Being a university student, stuck like a pig in cement mistaken for mud, in the make-believe world of ‘enlightened’ academia and those oh-so-familiar discussions of globalization, the topic of America: “international police” inevitably pops up. Most of us don’t seem to have any strong feelings either way, but there’s always those stereotypical guys and gals preaching about how much we should revile them for their foreign policies, greedy corporations, arrogance, fat-asses, and anything in between. Of course there are plenty of great things Americans do, positive things internationally, cool inventions and innovations we all use today.

But I could never go to America. Whether on an flight switchover or driving through, life isn’t long enough for those two hour checkins even without the anal cavity searches. I can’t be bored. I have no ability to deal with it.

It’s why I can’t bring myself to care about religious services and all those other associated social events. Sitting cross-legged on a mat someplace listening to someone less interesting than a stamp prattle on for hours about how everyone should live for everyone else, I’d feel pieces of my sanity start to shed one by one until the trickle turns into a monsoon and I’m debating how quickly faking death will get me on the first stretcher out of there. Don’t get me started on the mindless chanting. Besides that though, I’m pretty content with being labelled Hindu; we have some pretty cool stories (with monkeys!), great art, architecture, and festivals where people walk on hot coals and dance around with sharp metal needles and stuff rammed through their skins.

Give me 15 minutes of walking as an alternative to waiting in a long line and i’ll sprint. Give me a car that’s not really practical, not really safe, with an engine that sings and fizzles and crackles and made by someone who isn’t an accountant. Give me sex that’s wild, dirty, nasty like it’s the last time you may ever have it. Give me color, noise, sound and fury, even when it’s not ‘efficient’ or just plain scary. Flawed is interesting, imaginative is interesting, so is difference and passion.

When people used to tackle me about my habit of falling asleep during class or maybe while they were talking (in one embarrassing case), There was a time when I would apologetically explain that I probably suffered from some kind of Attention Deficit Disorder that I just couldn’t help. But you live and you learn when shit happens. And maybe the most important thing is that even if you live to be 195, life will always be too short. So fuck that ADD shit, I don’t need to apologize being bored by the boring by saying it’s my fault.

It’s like in Jeet Kune Do, the martial art that is much more than just fighting: take only from life the important things, and remember the rest like you remember the last time you used the
toilet.

*flush*

On the mac there are plenty of apps for time management and keeping track of what you need to do in the day. Being a terrible procrastinator I’ve probably tried them all.

Oftentimes the simplest solutions are the best, so what I’m proposing is a tiny app that lives only in the OSX menubar (or Windows toolbar) and changes color during the day depending on how close you get to a specified time.

Usage of the app would be super simple:

• In the preferences, there would be a field to define a start and end time. In this case, the start time is 7pm and the end time is 12pm. For many people this could be the start of the workday at 9am to 5pm, or whenever it is that you’ve decided to commit yourself to a task/project.

• The other field would be to define a start and end color. In the example above, yellow is the start color and red is the end one, as the time period elapses the color transforms along a simple linear gradient from start to end color.

• Maybe an option for a beep or growl message when the timer is done and you’ve arrived at your end color

And that’s it! I have no idea how to program for OSX, but if anyone thinks it’s a great idea and it’s simple enough and would like to program it please go right ahead :D

What do you think?