bookofjoe

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:

By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:

By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more:

With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty:

A master's degree deepens that specialty:

Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:

Once you're at the boundary, you focus:

You push at the boundary for a few years:

Until one day, the boundary gives way:

And, that dent you've made is called Ph.D.:

Of course, the world looks different to you now:

So, don't forget the bigger picture:

Keep pushing.

By Matt Might.

[via Milena]

Plug Guard

From the website:

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Insulate drafty outlets with these foam-insulated replacement covers to increase energy efficiency and save on heating/cooling costs.

Covers have spring-activated doors that slide up or down for plug-in and automatically close when plug is removed.

Easy to install with just a screwdriver.

Fits standard outlets.

Plastic.

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Set of 2: $12.99.

Keith Moon Reborn

Where does it say you have to look the same the second time around?

The post up top from I Can Has Internets (catchy, what?), titled "This Drummer Is At The Wrong Gig," speculates that the band is "playing some sort of wedding or bar mitzvah — they're certainly a hired band."

[via Mark Hall]

Giant Salad Tossers

"It's like having a giant pair of helping hands."

When the gang's coming over and you're gonna make one of your legendary salads, so much lettuce you need to pick the entire patch, that's when it's time to call in the reinforcements.

Don't be fooled by the catalog illustration up top, which demonstrates a yard application: "Lets you gather and dispose of those raked up leaves or grass clippings quickly and easily."

14.5"Ø.

$9.99.

Credit Card-Size Bluetooth Keyboard for iPad and iPhone

I'll take one.

From the website:

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Features:

• Easy to use

• Plug and play

• Backlit keyboard

• Tailor-made for iPad and iPhone

• Works as a remote control for your iPad or iPhone

• Full function keys (F1 to F12), Tab and Ctrl+Alt+Del keys

• Multimedia key (Play, Pause, Next, Previous, Mute, Volume Up, Volume Down)

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$32.

Keel's Simple Diary

"The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on."

From the publisher's catalog:

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Q. Why Simple Diary?

A. There are three reasons why most people, although they have tried, won't keep a diary.

1. Not every day is very eventful.

2. It actually takes a lot of discipline to write.

3. In retrospect, many find what they have written embarrassing.

Here are three things Simple Diary can do for you:

1. Entertain the mind.

2. Help you focus.

3. Keep you company.

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Green, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Red or Brown.

$10.20.

Boo Davis, Alt-Quilter Supreme

Yesterday's New York Times Q&A between Davis (above) and writer Penelope Green began conventionally enough with the usual short background bio but then veered off into a very amusing and droll semi-confessional, from which excerpts follow, along with exemplars of her work.

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Boo Davis likes to say that she makes quilts "just like your metal-loving, half-blind grandma would." An Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica and all-around thrash-metal fan from way back, Ms. Davis, 36, became an alt-craft darling by using traditional quilting techniques to create head-banging designs featuring skulls or a devil horn’s hand sign, under the label Quiltsrÿche.

Has Slash or any of your other heroes bought a quilt?

Let’s just say that I haven’t exactly cracked the code on the quilting business model. Two years ago, I was contacted by the wife of a band member of Slayer. I designed an angel of death pattern, and I’m still waiting to make the quilt. The quilts I have sold break down to sweat-shop wages, though when it comes to heavy metal quilts, I don’t mind doing charity work for Satan. However, it would be nice to figure out a way to pay the mortgage on my hovel and buy some Amy’s frozen dinners at the end of the day.

Tell me about your hovel.

It’s a condo. My quilt studio is my dining room. This book was a bit of a suicide mission, I have to say. It was a journey into madness unlike no other. I’m lucky if I can make one quilt in a year, and for the book I did 12 in three months. I quit my job to do this. I had worked for 10 years as a designer at The Seattle Times. It was a huge leap of faith. I didn’t have a dime saved. I took out a loan and got pretty wildly into debt. You know, as a creative person I’m prone to melancholy, and I was just shuffling around my apartment. But I think the gamble might have paid off.

What would you like to do next? Would you work in other media?

I’m not interested in other media. The appeal of quilts is that they are usable pieces of art. To me, when a quilt ceases to be cozy or if it’s so precious it has to be stuck on a wall, it’s not of interest anymore. Anything outside of classic cotton, that’s just crazy to me.

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Davis's book, "Dare to Be Square Quilting," comes out on August 31, 2010.

Please buy a copy and help keep her in Amy's frozen dinners.

And what could be more appropriate than celebrating Follow Friday the 13th by hopping on board the Quiltsrÿche Twitter cluetrain?

Gaetano Pesce x Melissa: Customizable Shoe

Jill Singer's August 9, 2010 New York Times T Magazine blog post follows.

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Before there was HGTV, there was Gaetano Pesce, the legendary Italian architect and designer who once espoused the joys of D.I.Y. in a column for French Elle and actually made good on it. His 1972 Golgotha chair, part of the permanent collection at MoMA, was the first of his many forays into the world of mass customization: its Dacron-filled seat assumed different shapes depending on who sat on it. Now, another clever bit of personalization: Pesce’s new shoe for the Brazilian company Melissa — an ankle bootie composed of interconnected PVC circles, whose form can change at the whim of its owner with a swift slice of the scissors. Cut once, and the boot becomes a bootie; cut again, and it’s a ballet flat, a peep toe, a sandal or even a flip-flop. ‘‘This is the future of mass production,’’ Pesce says. ‘‘With the technology we have today, we can give people something that is half done and ask them to finish it.’’

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Apply within.

[via Milena]