If you haven't been keeping up with the Google / Verizon Net Neutrality debate that's been going on this past week I suggest you take some time to read this WIRED article that gives a good bit of history on the topic and what the new partnership is striving for. It is, to say the least, a pretty unfavorable writeup in respect to Google's position on the "compromises" they've made in their proposal. The two upsides to the article are: 1) Google and Verizon don't make the rules, the FCC does - so no matter what they propose, it's not really up to them. 2) Google is an 'open' and smart enough company to know when to back pedal and reconsider their positions.

I'm all for creating an environment that nurtures development and progressive technology but I refuse to believe the only way for that to happen is to have a pay-to-play style cellular data stream.. those two concepts just don't play ball in my mind.

HTML5 Boilerplate - a new rock-solid default for HTML5 development. Lots of pre-written code to get your HTML5 pages going quickly and easily.. just from a quick browse you can tell this is a superb resource to have at hand. Lorem Ipsum text is great for mocking up designs can get a little boring after awhile. Why not try and sneak a little Fillerama text in there - that is, filler text culled from Futurama quotes. They aren't exactly cohesive thoughts but it never hurts to have "Zoidberg" in your mock text. Via Will. Font Deck appears to be another repository of typefaces that can be deployed in your websites with new CSS3 font-face markup. Sort of like the Google Font Directory or Typekit.

I think I just may have to purchase this Morphix Icon Set. Aside from having a lot of useful iconography inside - battery status, mobile devics, social networks, etc. - there are a number of playful icons that would be nice to have at hand. I mean, I can't tell you the number of times I've needed a Pizza Slice icon and didn't have one handy.. no longer!

I really think this collage of 35 Space Helmet Reflections should be fleshed out into a much larger single serving website that features a constant stream of such images.. I really don't think I could see too many of them. I'd submit a still from this to help keep the ball rolling.

A new 7" from Dent May is available for pre-order at Forest Family Records. Aside from being worthwhile just because it's Dent May, the artwork is by Will Bryant and the first 500 copies come on "soft lavendar vinyl." What? Oh, and the b-side - "Eastover Wives" - is a breezy bit of greatness augmented by some quality saxophone. You can download both tracks from the release here.

There's not much I can say about this beyond the original. What an incredible thing.

“i came upon twin fawns in the display case of a mom and pop toy and science store in kansas city, missouri. it took me two years to win the trust of the shop owner and save the money to buy them. a taxidermist spotted a dead deer by the side of the road. he stopped to properly dispose of the body and realized she was pregnant. he opened her and found near full-term twin fawns, he removed and preserved them.

deer rarely have twins and the taxidermist retained the uterine gesture of their bodies. i built them a vitrine with a light blue base. their prematurity exaggerates the delicacy of an incredibly sweet thing. the points of their hooves, the length of their lashes, the spots of their hides, nose to small nose in an ur-cartoonish realism … viewers’ eyes trick them into believing the fawns are breathing. the tragedy of beauty is its transience.

the twins live forever in their own demise. they are sleeping beauties. they have been muses since i first saw them …

we dress death in lilies and bronze the names of our dead sons on walls. we erect altars of toys and hold candlelight vigils to express hope. my twin fawns sleep endlessly on their baby blue block in my studio. the twins never opened their eyes yet their wondrous fatality evokes an acceptable alternative to death.”

peregrine honig

I don't even care that the story comes from an artist featured on Bravo's Work of Art.. it's compelling regardless.

via Jeremy.

Remember when Twitter first blew up and a lot of people said it was a useless void of inane blurb style updates? Turns out if you cull enough of that blabbering together you can determine a halfway decent view on the general populous opinion for many things - such as movies. Enter FFlick - a movie review site where all the percentages are based on a weight system from Twitter users giving their regular updates. Even if you don't agree with the numbers coming back you can at least use the site as a personal archive of movies you've discussed.

The idea behind forthcoming web software Collage is a noble one - circumvent censorship; particularly the kind brought about by government bodies. The method it uses is brilliant - hide articles in trusted image sources such as Flickr through the technique of Steganography. This New Scientist article has an easily digestable take on the idea. The software debuts on Friday, August 13th and will, presumably, allow people to try it out. Governments will either be forced to block the entirety of the Internet to prevent their citizens from gaining certain bits of information or give in to the idea that information is going to find its way. Like I said, a noble idea.

Via Ryan.

This article on a new virus that's been making the rounds is a fascinating combo of natural curiosity, social engineering and cleverly malicious code. Basically, code is written into a PNG file and the user is instructed to resave the image from MSPaint as an HTA - which uncompresses the code and allows it to run as an HTML Application. The most interesting part, to me, is that the damage is self inflicted - your own curiosity is your downfall.

I'm traveling today. As such, no pretty posts should be expected. I'll update more once I'm all settled in. Here's a few things to keep you occupied.

• Explaining 4Chan to a judge - moot has to testify during the Sarah Palin hacker case and explain all sorts of horrible internet terms.
• Paint by Numbers - Social Malware - a virus that infects your computer by social engineering; all the leg work is done by you, to you. Via waxy.
• Euphoria - truth.
• Christopher Hitchens on Mortality - a fairly difficult to watch but interesting interview with Christopher Hitchens on his recent bout with cancer.
• Radiolab presents Words - if you don't get it at first, stick with it.. you will.. and it's totally worth it.

Nice bit of diversity in the photostream of Alexander Zhuravskiy; collages, photography, a load of designs and a good deal of artistic expression. I'm partial to the various art pieces but I love a familiar music poster as well..

Via Gathering Finds.

While I may not be entirely into the ideas proposed I fully support the sentiment behind this post - Google needs to get back on track with being an informational tool developer. Google Buzz? Google Wave? Google Social Networking? Meh - all pale in comparison to the allure of a fully robust Google Docs in my opinion.

All this craziness with Verizon is because of their involvement in the mobile market with Android. There's also all that user tracking they've got their hands in. Who knows what other deals they may seek out once their social network launches and they see a way to choke Facebook traffic.

Obviously the employees at Google are incredibly smart folk and are capable of developing a myriad of great applications but I've felt that for some time now they've really been spreading themselves too thin. It'd be nice if they'd focus on what they do best - it was obviously a profitable endeavor before.

If you somehow managed to miss this story yesterday about JetBlue employee Steven Slater freaking out on a customer, deploying the emergency exit chute, nabbing two beers and fleeing back to his house - you should stop everything you're doing and read it immediately. Granted, he might face some jail time for his behavior and it's ridiculously over the top but none of that makes the actual events any less entertaining.

Sharpie reinvents the writing utensil wheel with the brand new Liquid Pencil. You can write out a bunch of notes, erase them like a pencil and then, after 3 days, the ink sets permanently. If ever there was a sign that the future is now, this is it.

From the same crew that brought the Interwebs Uncrate comes the curated video source Devour. It's a clean, simple and straightforward link to what they consider the worthwhile Best Of Youtube. The site is setup to work on mobile devices and all the videos are HD. They even strive to omit the baseline of web videos - cats and failed skateboard tricks (but not entirely). It's a way to cut through the cacophony of web videos and, personally, it's already been bookmarked.

• PHP Profiler - easy to use tool to see how fast your server is performing. Daniel and Jack discovered that a shared Dreamhost server was actually performing better than one of their Private Servers. Scary.
• Tweet Images - huge thanks to JamieDubs for the heads up on this service that allows you to grab Twitter avatars from a simple image URL instead of querying the Twitter API.
• HTML5 Reset - a new set of page templates and code structures to get you coding in the proper HTML5 way. Embrace the future?

Over the weekend I ran across this article on Alex Bogusky - the ad man responsible for the likes of Burger King's Subservient Chicken among other things. It is a fascinating read as it seems to tell his whole story - his start in advertising, his rise to the top, his dominance in the field and his recent complete departure from his work to focus on tasks he finds more worthwhile - projects such as taking the advertising industry to task for pedaling products to children that are rather unhealthy. I thought it was a fascinating read in and of itself but I just caught wind of Bogusky's reaction via Zach Klein and can't stop reading his inline commentary. I wish more people would respond to articles on themselves in this manner.. it really helps to add some perspective to the writers spin on things.

Long story short - read the article and then be sure to read the inline responses.

I've been following comedian Michael Ian Black on the Twitter for awhile now but he just launched a new Tumblr account this weekend - Black is a Stallion - that I recommend keeping an eye on. There isn't a ton there yet but items like The Least Loved Children's Stories or this Zach G / Showalter clip are an excellent promise of things to come.

I shouldn't love it. I should embrace the act of laying out letterpress designs by hand (when the occasion arises). But this Letterpress font does a decent job of faking it.. who am I to argue with that? It's not perfect and I doubt I'd find myself in a scenario where I needed to quickly lay out a faux letterpress design but it's good to know that there is a quality option out there in case I did.

You may have caught this over in the oft neglected "Music News" sidebar but in case you didn't - please take a moment to check out the new TV Torso record, Status Quo Vadis. The band has put the entire album up on the ole Bandcamp for streaming and digital purchase as well as provided a link to pre-order the 12" version of the album. Having listened through the record a number of times already, I can easily endorse both decisions. Oh, and while you're over there be sure to snag the Days of Being Wild and Black Mask 7"'s.. they're free, come with bonus songs and equally enjoyable.