cubicle17 | a tumblelog by Bill Israel

I may not be a huge fan of the scotch, but I could watch this ad for Johnnie Walker over and over again. Oh, and if you’re a behind-the-scenes kind of person, there’s an interview with the director that’s worth a quick read.

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Using StickyScreen to keep myself on task is meeting with mixed success. Perhaps I don’t like my tone.

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Stephen Von Worley mapped the location of every McDonald’s in the Lower 48 states.

Sad: the farthest you can be from a McDonald’s in the Lower 48 is 145 miles by car. Sadder: I expected it to be less than that.

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This car needs no introduction (but here’s one anyway):

Mercedes-Benz has finally revealed spiritual successor to one of the most famous — and instantly recognizable — cars it has ever built. Although it is officially called the SLS-AMG, it will, like the car it pays homage to, be known as the Gullwing.

“I find this sound quality [of MP3s] stuff both fascinating and ridiculous. It’s like the pixel resolution of digital cameras: higher numbers are better, but that discussion always pushes the actual photography to one side, somehow.”

— Jonny Greenwood in an interview with Sasha Frere-Jones

“If there was an airline that flew more passengers than anyone else, but lost money on each one, would we call it a success? If there was a restaurant that served more people than anyone else, but lost money on each meal served, would we call it a success? If there was a store that sold more product than anyone else, but took a loss on each one, would we call it a success? […] Then what the hell is going on with the coverage of our industry?”

— Jason Fried in “The Bar for Success in Our Industry is Too Low”

'Reading Rainbow' Reaches Its Final Chapter

Reading Rainbow comes to the end of its 26-year run on Friday; it has won more than two-dozen Emmys, and is the third longest-running children’s show in PBS history — outlasted only by Sesame Street and Mister Rogers.

My first two reactions, in order, when I saw this story:

Holy crap, I can’t believe they canceled this show!
Wait, they were still making new episodes of Reading Rainbow?

The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine

Perhaps it’s not the most novel observation, but it is an interesting look at the direction a lot of tech has taken lately:

The world has sped up, become more connected and a whole lot busier. As a result, what consumers want from the products and services they buy is fundamentally changing. We now favor flexibility over high fidelity, convenience over features, quick and dirty over slow and polished. Having it here and now is more important than having it perfect.

idsgn: Know Your Type

Need a quick primer on the history of those fonts you see everywhere? idsgn’s “Know Your Type” series has you covered:

…the “Know Your type” series, where we will take a look into the origins of some of the most commonly used typefaces in design today.

The posts are short but informative, and are more about the type’s history than its features (so knowledge of type jargon isn’t necessary). There are five installments of the series so far, starting with the venerable DIN (also linked above), followed by Verlag, Futura, Gotham, and Clarendon (a personal favorite), and I’m curious to see what’s next. (via Kitsune Noir)

Vacation Reading

While on vacation, I tend to do a lot of reading. Usually I read books, but this vacation was spent doing so little that even reading a book took too much time and energy (seriously, it was awesome). I did, however, get through a few things in my Instapaper queue during one of the rainy days, and these were worth sharing:

The Cocktail Renaissance

We’ve forgotten where we came from. The names of many cocktails survive, but what they are sits in a realm of hazy inexactitude. The highly reputable drinks writer of the Wall Street Journal not long ago implied that “fresh orange slices” were essential to an Old-Fashioned, which may have been true during Prohibition with the rotten liquor, but wasn’t when the drink was born and isn’t today.

Perhaps you should read this one closer to 5pm so your desire to track down a killer cocktail can be more easily fulfilled. Lucky I get to work from home these days, eh?
Kind of Blue

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which was released 50 years ago today, is a nearly unique thing in music or any other creative realm: a huge hit—the best-selling jazz album of all time—and the spearhead of an artistic revolution.

Hands down one of my favorite albums period, and I like it even more now that I know why it was important.
While My Guitar Gently Beeps

While over the years there has been no shortage of Beatles merchandise, some of it crass, the decision to release the game on the same date as the new CDs is, as well as an irresistible marketing tactic, a signal that the game is meant to be an authentic part of the band’s canon […]. The Beatles are positioning themselves to once again play a significant role in the evolution of popular music — this time by embracing interactivity.

If the Beatles are your bag, and they’re most definitely mine, this combination behind-the-scenes/history lesson should prove interesting. I rarely jones for the release of a video game, but I can’t wait for this one.