cheesebikini?

Zimbabwe democracy and human rights advocacy group Sokwanele built a compelling Google maps hack that visualizes news reports of the election-related human rights violations in Zimbabwe.


Such a high-bandwidth service won’t enjoy much viewership in Zimbabwe, where mobile phones and SMS are the new political technologies of choice.


But the Sokwanele map is a powerful way to reach international audiences. In one glance it conveys the larger patterns of what’s going on, and it lets people zoom in and link off for more detail about individual events.


(”Sokwanele” means “Enough is enough.”)

I’m an optimist, so I’m going to assume this Dunkin’ Donuts photo is a coincidence – unlike the Bush product-endorsement shots.

Some of my best friends from New York City and San Francisco came together this weekend to rent a house at Lake Tahoe. We had 13 people at the table and Dav had a clever photo idea:

I shot the same moment from the Apostles’ point of view:

(Click the photo thumbnails to view originals on Flickr).

I’m in love with Blogotheque.net’s videos of musicians wandering through Paris.

Start with The Arcade Fire video: the whole band crowds into an elevator, plays “Neon Bible” there and emerges to wander among an enormous crowd of fans while playing “Wake Up.”

They provide Youtube-quality thumbnails, but don’t miss the luscious high-rez DivX download versions of each video.

(Thanks, Jeremy, for turning me onto this.)

“Complete” is a stretch. But these are 8 strong minutes:

Rats, I’ll be out of town when he plays Bimbo’s in San Francisco Feb. 29.

Congratulations to Peter Bober, who was just elected mayor of Hollywood, Florida.

Pete was my college roommate in Austin and one of my best friends going back to high school days in Florida. Best of all, he unseated Mara Giulianti – a notorious mudslinging, scandal-plagued mayor who sold out to shady condo developers and other unsavory interests.

Giulianti spent nearly four times more than Pete on the campaign, but the underdog toppled the 20-year incumbent.

“You have only to take that one step toward the gods, and they will then take ten steps toward you.” – Joseph Campbell

“If you take three steps toward the gods they will accidentally trample you. Then they will curse and scrape you off their boots like dog doo.” – Campbell Joseph

San Francisco coffee freaks rejoice: a new Blue Bottle cafe opened today at 66 Mint Street (near 5th and Market). And they have a $20,000 brewing device called a siphon bar that might even put the Clover to shame, according to an article in today’s New York Times.

I tried a cup of their C.O.E. Cooperativa Vasquez from Nicaragua. It was the most expensive cup pot of coffee I’ve ever had but it was delicious, and what a spectacle.

More photos.

“If you take a handful of grapenuts, and don’t add milk, and hurl them as hard as you can at somebody’s face, you can take out both their eyes, and maybe kill them. I can’t believe I spent the whole day at the hospital and they told me to go to the dentist.”

[Editor’s note: You just never hear that sort of thing in a San Francisco cafe.]

“There are no bedbugs in the forest, because there are no beds in the forest.”