While on a nighttime flight back to San Francisco from Amsterdam, Flickr user Ettubrute was inspired to build an impromptu camera mount using bags, pillows, and blankets and create a time lapse film of flying across the United States. embedded flash movie Via kottke

I’m pretend-buying this cashmere coat for Amber, created by former structural aerospace engineer Julia Lintern: Lia Lintern : all coats are made to fit and order Via NOTCouture

Stunning set of photos documenting Chinese New Year at The Big Picture.

Tom Gralish digs to find the source photograph used for Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster. Warning: if you love this poster, don’t read unless you’re prepared for some disillusionment. Via kottke

Here’s a shot of the new Presidential Limousine, custom built by Cadillac. It’s a limousine, so it’s obviously longer than a typical sedan, and looking at the picture you might notice that the roof line is a bit higher than on a sedan. Pictures can deceive. Only when you see it in context do you [...]

The headline from yesterday’s Washington Post says it all: New staff find White House in tech Dark Ages. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. … Another White House official whose transition cellphone was disconnected left a message temporarily referring callers to his wife’s phone. [...]

I lost count, but I think I just listened to “My Girls,” from the new Animal Collective album, four times in a row. The NYTimes recently featured an article about the album, produced by Ben Allen (who Animal Collective found while poring through the liner notes for the Gnarls Barkley album): [Allen] possessed only a [...]

Some good parental advice, courtesy of The Onion. Does your child like dinosaurs? Fine. Dinosaurs it’ll have to be. Learn some of those fuckers’ names. Quick tip from me to you: Most of them end in “saurus,” so you can fake your way along pretty good by just adding that to the end of a [...]

We have a new whitehouse.gov. There are many more important things to be excited about on this day, but I can’t help but feel a bit of pride about the level of technical savvy that’s moving into the West Wing.

Here’s a nice, simple collection of excellence in book cover design. Hard to imagine a site design more direct than this. Side note: I’m seeing more and more appreciation of book cover design lately; it makes me wonder if the acceleration of eBook technology is making everyone prematurely nostalgic. Via Daring Fireball.