Marc Ecko, hip-hop fashion entrepreneur:

The president is the leader of this country. His highest order of responsibility, arguably, is to protect our freedoms, and the first among those is the freedom of speech. That’s why I tagged the president’s plane.

The video here.
The whole thing was a prank, but a good one. Marc Ecko is the people’s eccentric millionaire. He wouldn’t waste his money on silly round-the-world hot-air balloon trips. He’s busy faking large airplane logos.

I still think my idea for a Nintendo controller style cell phone is a good one, but where I dream, others execute. Behold: the Nintendo controller ipod Shuffle.

LED Throwies are an innovative form of street art. Watch out for kids in baggy sweatshirts at your local radioshack. Concept an innovation are as important as aesthetics in street art. Why not explore new mediums? Other favorites: All City Council and of course, Bansky.

These photos of old computers on CNET show that some of the early computers actually had pretty nice looks (a couple of the ones pictured, not all). Today’s computers are almost always just a box. Innovation today is Apple making a box with rounded corners. Where did we go wrong?
I think the early years of a technological innovation are the most varied design-wise. There is no model to copy, no standards to comply with, and no established consumer expectations. Some of those early cars looked pretty cool too – a lot more than than the five basic shapes you see today.

See also: last year’s lantern.

A 1.6 ghz Pentium M Jack-O-Lantern. Silly me, still using tea lights to illuminate my pumpkin.

amaztype is a neat, though strangely useless, interface to amazon.com. It uses amazon web services to layer a creative interface over amazon’s massive rich database of products and their relationships. Musicplasma (now liveplasma) does the same thing, and you can hear Jeff Bezos speaking about why this is cool on ITConversations.

Last week I checked out the latest exhibit at the MFA: Speed, Style, and Beauty: Cars from the Ralph Lauren Collection. The exhibit is heavily advertised around Boston, and there’s no reason it won’t be popular. First of all, people love classic cars. When you put them in a museum you get the addition of the art audience. Finally, you get to cash in on the fact that the cars happen to be owned by someone whose name is also a famous brand (Mr. Lauren happens to own the cars, his clothing designs have nothing to do with the exhibit).
Going to a car show is a little bit out of character for me (as is betting on sports, which I did the same day), but I enjoyed the exhibit. Least impressive was the McLaren F1. This car will whisk you and two friends to a top speed of 240 miles per hour, and you’ll look ridiculous getting there with the steering wheel right in the middle.
The wide variety of shapes and styles reminds me of just how innovative designers can be, and how disappointing it is that almost every modern car looks exactly the same.

Here’s what’s in my bag. What makes this interesting is not an individual bag, but the comparison of over 280 bags currently using the whatsinyourbag tag at Flickr. It’s participatory art and anonymous bag snooping at once.

Everything in Boston is a little smaller than its New York counterpart. Boston has shorter buildings, a slower subway, and much… much smaller art exhibits. The Somerville Gates.