Tip of My Tongue: Find that word you've been thinking about all day but just can't seem to remember.
posted by Miko on Jun 27, 2009 - 26 comments

Graphic Design Is: 50 Designs About Graphic Design
posted by The Whelk on May 9, 2009 - 26 comments

"If I make enough money now, I can quit and do what I really love later." "If I just think hard enough, I'll finally figure out what I want to do with my life." "I know people in this career path lose their souls, but I'll be different." "What if I try a new career, and it turns out I don't like it?" Po Bronson tackles some of the thoughts that keep people from pursuing a career they would really love. The article (one-page version) is based on his New York Times bestseller, What Should I Do With My Life? The writing is several years old, but the question seems to spring eternal.
posted by vytae on Jun 26, 2008 - 195 comments

We're drowning in quirk. It is the ruling sensibility of today’s Gen-X indie culture, defined territorially by the gentle ministrations of public radio’s This American Life; the strenuously odd (and now canceled) TV sitcom Arrested Development; the movies of Wes Anderson; Dave Eggers’s McSweeney’s Web site; the performance art, music, and writing of Miranda July; and the just-too-wacky-to-be-fully-believable memoirs of Augusten Burroughs. It’s been 20 years of beneficent, wide-eyed gazing upon the oddities of our fellow man. David Byrne probably birthed contemporary quirk around 1985— halfway between his “Psycho Killer” beginnings with the Talking Heads and his move to global pop—when he sang the song “Stay Up Late”: “Cute, cute, little baby / Little pee-pee, little toes.” (As it happens, Byrne appeared on July’s recent book tour.) Jon Cryer’s “Duckie” Dale in Pretty in Pink came a year later, and quirk was on its way.
posted by psmealey on Sep 5, 2007 - 176 comments

This strange mixture of meanings and symbols confuses me. maybe it's just that some of the ideas are confusingly named.
posted by StrikeTheViol on Aug 4, 2007 - 34 comments

The meaning of life.
posted by bobbyelliott on Apr 23, 2006 - 103 comments

The Meaning of Life according to various rather famous people (Dennett, Fukuyama, etc). I'm watching the Dennett video at the moment and it starts rather weakly, but, by midway through, is rolling along nicely. With topics like "being good without god" and "the anthropic principle" it struck me as relevant to a couple of recent askmefi threads.
Dennett: [pause] i guess i'll say it again, more slowly...
(oh, and the player interface is rather delicate - give it time to load and click play a few times...)
posted by andrew cooke on Oct 1, 2004 - 17 comments

This has a value in our profession, and it doesn't have to do with scale at all. It has to do with the actual meaning of a house.
posted by alms on Sep 9, 2004 - 8 comments

The Name-O-Meter: How's Your Name Been Doing Since 1900? How does it rank in the Top 1000? Is its popularity waning or increasing? Disappointed either way? Look up what your name means to help find out why.[From Parenting.com, via top-ranking Nutcote. More Inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Apr 20, 2002 - 40 comments

The Meaning of Life and, of course, The Meaning of Life, Part II.
posted by swift on Nov 5, 2001 - 9 comments