What if fonts were people? This particularly good video from the guys over at CollegeHumor.com answers that question… don’t watch if you loathe Comic Sans. You have been warned.

Hi all–to make up for my lack of post yesterday, I’ve decided to add an extra two links to the mix today. And yes, that may have something to do with the fact that I collected quite a pile of interesting information between this week and last.

• Hulu now open to the public
  Hulu.com, the joint venture between News Corporation and NBC Universal, is out of beta–the public is now welcome to explore the site’s offerings, which are substantial (if a bit scattershot). While there are plenty of TV shows and movies that you can watch online for free with only minimally annoying commercial interruptions (certainly less annoying than YouTube’s new “lower-third”-style advertising on many of its videos), some newer shows are kept online only for a limited time to allegedly “protect DVD and Web download sales,” though I dare say that it’s unlikely that Hulu will impact either of those things given that Nielsen has determined that web video watching makes a negligible impact on TV viewing.
• Commercializing (and sexualizing) the ER
  Abercrombie & Fitch, the clothing retailer that relies on provocative and oftentimes homoerotic imagery of nude (or practically nude) college-aged boys in its advertising and in-store displays is under fire for donating $10 million to a Columbus, Ohio area hospital in exchange for naming rights to the hospital’s ER and trauma center. Critics say that the company’s overtly sexual ads somehow contradict the concept of healing. Ironically, as Jossip points out, no one said a thing when toymakers Hasbro and Mattel bought the naming rights to other hospitals. What we have here is a double-standard–there are no two ways about it. People are flustered because toys are inoffensive and cuddly but racy ads are somehow “dirty” or shameful. I have no problem with the contribution, especially since $10 million will certainly help the hospital; besides, no one is going to refer to it as the “Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Room and Trauma Center” in real life. It’ll just be “I ate some bad shrimp, I think I need to go to the hospital” like it always has.
• Fonts from The Price is Right
  I love this–someone with too much free time on his (or her) hands has grabbed stills from various episodes of The Price is Right and identified the fonts used on many of the games. It gets better–the fonts are all available as free downloads. Fun!
• Baring all on camera… and then some
  It’s no secret that the MPAA, which assigns ratings to motion pictures in the United States, has incredibly uneven standards (that’s what the film This Film Is Not Yet Rated was all about); much violence is given a pass, women aren’t allowed to “enjoy” sex, and male nudity is frowned upon. And yet The Guardian notes that in a number of new films (most of which will likely not seek a rating in the USA when they are eventually released here), filmmakers are pushing the envelope and including not only male nudity but (to put it delicately) a very obvious indication of male sexual excitement. I have to wonder if this is truly “progressive” filmmaking, mainly because I’m unable to come up with a viable reason why arousal would ever play a critical on-screen role in a film. Perhaps I’m wrong (and I’m no Puritan by any stretch), but it just seems like a “look what I can get away with” mindset.
• Dreamweaver + CSS = Eric Meyer
  Adobe Dreamweaver is more or less the standard tool of choice when designing web pages, but even with the newest version of the software, its CSS controls are woefully lacking, especially for those of us whose knowledge of CSS is limited. That’s a problem in our post-Web 2.0 world, so CSS expert Eric Meyer partnered with WebAssist to offer the awkwardly-named Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor, an extension for Dreamweaver. It appears to be a fairly useful tool for designers who are CSS-challenged, like myself, though from what I can discern I’m going to guess that advanced CSS users will likely want to make manual tweaks to the code themselves. I also wonder if WebAssist will offer upgrades once CSS 3.0 is released–if that ever actually happens.
• Do you have any purple fives?
  The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has just unveiled the newly redesigned $5 bill, which some are decrying as ugly primarily because of the gigantic purple Helvetica “5″ printed on the reverse (though to be fair that’s there primarily because the ADA requires it for the visually impaired).  By and large, though, the design isn’t bad; the purple hues are nice, and the engraving of Lincoln is very distinguished.

Now that I’ve got the blog resettled on a brand new hosting platform and things are starting to settle down around here, it’s about time to get back in the habit of posting these links on Fridays.  So here we go!

• Filtering the news
  BuzzFeed recently posted about the beta of a news “filtering” service called Persai.  The system pushes content to you based on topics that you specify (for example, you could set up a Persai feed on something like “smoked salmon,” though why anyone would want to do this is beyond me), and whenever the service comes across an article or piece of text that it thinks is relevant, it will push it out to you.  By giving the system feedback (”accepting” or “rejecting” articles), the system will in theory learn over time what is relevant to your interests and what isn’t–kind of like a baby AI-bot.  I like the concept, though I wonder, where does the content come from?  I would assume that there is a search engine involved somewhere under the hood, but then again maybe the content comes from a selection of “curated” links.
• Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle
  This is one of those “only on the Internet” memes that is truly viral–a guy whose wife is passionate about cycling recently got involved heavily in the Obama campaign. He would tease her by saying that “Barack Obama is your new bicycle,” and randomly decided to turn the joke into a fortune cookie-like website that displays one of sixty-some odd phrases following the presidential candidate’s name.  And, of course, copycat “x Is Your New Bicycle” sites have sprung up for Steve Jobs, Ron Paul and others.
• Post-strike television production calendar
  The New York Times has posted a detailed list of when favorite television shows on all of the major networks are supposed to be coming back on the air, now that the Writer’s Guild strike has been over for a couple of weeks.  All I’ll say is that the sooner that Ugly Betty is back on the air, the better.
• NBC abandons traditional TV seasons
  In other strike-related news, NBC has decided to shake things up by largely discarding the standard television season and roll out new shows year-round.  This is much more in line with the British model (though not quite), which makes far more sense to me–rather than having “seasons,” the BBC, for example, will order a “series” of 8+ episodes, which can then air just about anytime.  If the show is a success, it orders more; if it’s a failure, there’s no great loss because they’ve only paid for 8 episodes, and the show can still be put on DVD to recoup its costs somewhere out towards the end of the Long Tail.

Hello from Portland, Oregon! I’m on the West Coast for the next week or so for work… it’s going to be busy the next few days, but before I rush off to my assignment for the evening here are four links that I’ve picked for you this week.

• Living a paperless existence
  The New York Times discusses how one can live largely without using paper at all and even includes a handy diagram of a hypothetical home showing the technology that replaces your recipe books, CDs and albums and more. I can only manage to reduce some of my consumption of paper–I scan and then shred all of my bills and statements and such, but I’ve switched back to a paper calendar and can’t seem to control my urges to buy pens. It’s important to remember, too, that electronics can fail, but a piece of paper can’t.
• Black-out message tape
  Here’s a product that I really want though I’m not exactly sure why… it’s “message tape” printed in the patterns of LED displays. You use a black marker to black out the “LEDs” or “segments” that you don’t need, and voilà, there’s your message! I like this item mainly because it is an example of truly good design–it fits a variety of applications and yet it’s simple enough that anyone can use it.
• Nudity and advertising
  AdRants recently posted a scan of a Mexican advertisement for Mia Lingerie that was… well, fairly shocking–it was basically the top half of a naked woman whose nipples had been Photoshopped out. It’s certainly an eye-grabbing advertisement (no puns, please!), and the message comes through loud and clear, but you’d never see such an ad in the USA in light of the relatively prudish and Puritanical rules that govern “indecency” in the media in this country. (I imagine that a photo of a nude mannequin would probably fly, though.) My question–is it a good thing that media indecency, even in such a mild form as this, is so tightly regulated here? Or is there a certain point at which it just becomes oppressive and ridiculous?
• Dogs = Big ratings!
  FishbowlNY notes that puppies (e.g., the “Puppy Bowl”) and dogs (e.g., the Westminster Dog Show) equal big ratings.  Seems like eyeballs gravitate to man’s best friend even on a screen.

My apologies for the late post, but I spent the bulk of yesterday writing a chapter of my thesis. That said, I have some particularly interesting links this week. Enjoy:

• Designing for consumers
  After fumbling with what sounds like a half-dozen different badly designed digital photo frames, New York Times technology columnist David Pogue points out the primary reason that companies like Apple and Google–companies that focus on design–do so well. A revealing article indeed, especially if you’ve never really given much thought to the ease of use of various products.
• The Feltron Annual Report
  While it’s certainly lovely to look at, and I applaud Nicholas Felton’s gumption for actually creating it for the past several years (especially since you can buy a copy of it, if you feel so inclined), I don’t quite see the point of the “Feltron Annual Report,” which documents such banal things as average cab fare for the year prior or his five most frequented restaurants. It does highlight for me, however, how poorly I document my own life, though I can’t help but think that I don’t really need to remember how many bus trips I took in 2007, and I don’t especially care what album I listened to most in iTunes. If anything this is an artifact that can–and should–promote discussion about memory and the concept of self-documentation; it reminds me, in a few ways, of Gordon Bell, who is feeding every detail of his life into a “surrogate brain” with the end result being that he never wants to forget anything. That may be a fine goal for Mr. Bell, and perhaps for Mr. Felton, too, but I know that there are plenty of things that I would prefer to forget.
• Recording a remote podcast
  Here’s a good how-to post explaining how to create a podcast between two people that are in different places using Skype, GarageBand, FTP and Call Recorder for Skype. Very informative if you want to start a podcast with a buddy who may not be in the same state or even country.
• The business of tech support
  Amazingly, technical support services outside of those offered by computer manufacturers is estimated to be a $300 million industry, especially with the advent of Microsoft Windows Vista. So what do the experts, such as John C. Dvorak, recommend? “I advise everybody to buy a Macintosh because Apple products are the easiest to use. If you own a PC, you have to find a local nerd, a kid, maybe a relative [to fix it]… That’s the only solution.”