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Old Honda Civic, originally uploaded by noeljackson.

An old honda civic in beautiful condition, found in Ferndale Michigan.

Note: This is an article written a few months back.

I don’t drink… Often. Of course, socially, it’s, to me, a necessary evil. Every six months or so, I’ll have a drink. (Then again, I haven’t had a drink in over a year…) Usually, to remind myself how disgusting it is. That is just my personal opinion. Some love their ale or spirits.

But, stumbling from city to city, to country, to town, you meet lots of people. And conversations are spoken that startle you.

Recently a friend of a friend recited to me the details of his first encounter with heroin - he swore he never did it again. He said, “it’s not that it’s bad, but that it’s so good… just utterly indescribable. I mean, just man, it’s not even possible to put into words.”

Another friend of mine swears by Ambien, and takes it every night before bed.

And, I see a pattern in the acquisition and use of drugs as something to cure what we call, “The Human Condition.” Anxiety, panic-attacks, fear. Some of us call it life.

The more I grow up, the more I notice that in some facet or another, everyone is trying to tame their human condition. Chocolate, sweets, hugs, sex, heroin, pot, electronics, vitamins, healthy food, running. We all, subconsciously, or not, are in a perpetual state of altering our state of consciousness.

I take my daily dose of vitamins, heart medication, and 150 oz. of water for the day, to alleviate my symptoms of dysautonomia. I feel better doing it.

This is all related to the recent death of a 102 year old scientist and experienced psychedelic user, Dr. Albert Hoffman: the inventor of LSD. He used it continuously until his death, at the ripe old age of 102.
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Some nice Helvetica usage. A poster for a movie coming out entitled “Blindness.”

Peace Sign Window, originally uploaded by noeljackson.

Monotone, the theme eight6 (that’s me folks) developed in conjunction with Automattic is now available for download.

Head on over to Wordpress.com to download Monotone v1.

I wrote this a month or so ago, and never published it.

We live in amazing times. Just amazing.

The internet has blessed us all with the power to communicate with each other. It took a while, but we finally realized that the internet doesn’t have to be all about cats and animated gifs. Even though, those are still two very popular topics.

Not just geeks are on the net anymore, either. I just learned, Kanye West has a blog… and it’s probably actually HIM blogging on it! Not to mention he has a Vimeo account (”suck on that Flickr,” says Vimeo founder j/k)! BTW, Kottke, who I rubbed the wrong way many years back, alerted me to all this, on his unimaginably popular blog.

After watching this video, how can you not love the internet?

We’ve finally learned that there is more to life than “me” and that the “we” is what makes the world go round.

The internet does have a heart. It enables us to do some really amazing things.

Recently, along with Coudal Partners, 37Signals, Metafilter, Happy Cog, Iconfactory, Core77, Daring Fireball, Emma, Business Brickyard, and skinnyCorp, I got to help kids benefit from your filthy gambling habit. My design studio eight6 donated $1000 to buy some books for kids, by matching your donations.

I’ve always been unnaturally excited to help others. Being able to do that through my work, is gratifying. eight6 is heavily focused on helping the world and it will always be a core part of who I am and what my company represents. It sounds “deep,” and kind of corny. But it’s pretty simple. We build and design things (usually websites), using design to clarify communication and in return, help make good things happen.

In the next few months I’m going to be launching a program to help loving geeks help the world become a better place, just by doing what they do. Sounds interesting? I think it is. It will be an experiment, but an interesting and, hopefully, a fruitful one.

• I met Jacob at a bar with my friend Ryan.
• I went to Kiki De Montparnasse while in NYC this past month, with my friend Leigh. (perhaps both links) NSFW (depending on where you work)
• Joseph Querio has some amazing artwork, that I picked up at my local comic shop Detroit Comics
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• Randomly found: MIND CONTROL TECHNIQUES AND TACTICS OF THE New World Order
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• Web 2.0 fails to produce cash. Can I say “I told you so?” [via Hugh]
• Wordpress is 5. I can’t believe it. I recall having a conversation with Matt when he was working on extending b2 to Wordpress… I so wish I saved that chat transcript. What young geeks we were.

Seriously, awesome.

Originally uploaded by ext212

Bucminster fuller was a man of great integrity and ideas, most notably for creating the first geodesic home - he was a visionary, far far ahead of his time. Currently I’m reading a few of his books (all simultaneously). In searching, curiously for houses, I came upon this:

• Brian Cox: What really goes on at the Large Hadron Collider

• Bruce Schneier, a famous cryptologist — or at least as famous a cryptologist as cryptologists are likely to get in this century — once described attempts to make digital bits uncopyable as “trying to make water not wet.”

• dripbook is an interesting portfolio app/site.
• The biggest jerks, Wikipedia style.
• Khoi Vihn using keynote as a utility layout tool.

• 

  This is the first glimpse at my newest creation.