Today, we’re opening the Public Data Explorer to your data. We’re making a new data format, the Dataset Publishing Language (DSPL), openly available, and providing an interface for anyone to upload their datasets. DSPL is an XML-based format designed from the ground up to support rich, interactive visualizations like those in the Public Data Explorer. The DSPL language and upload interface are available in Google Labs.

—Official Google Blog: Visualize your own data in the Google Public Data Explorer (via harrisj)

The other day, my pals at Put This On1 released their fourth episode about grooming, which covered the fine art of wet shaving. It was a great episode, you’ve no doubt seen it already.

I’ve been a happy and proud wet shaver (as we say in the biz2) for a few years now and would definitely encourage you to ditch the overpriced cartridges in your five-blade monstrosity for a razor that your granddad would recognize. But how?

At Classic Shaving3, of course. I’ve bought lots of shaving gear from these guys, both for myself and as gifts, the selection is amazing, service prompt, pricing right and shipping free (if you order $100 worth of stuff).

For starters, I recommend a razor like the Merkur “Long Classic”, which will feel a little more natural if you’re coming from something like a Mach 3. Merkur also makes blades, which are nice, but I like Feather blades from Japan myself – they have a reputation for being incredibly sharp and last a good long time.

You’re gonna want a brush and badger is the only way to go. You can spend some serious cash on a brush, as much as $200, but I haven’t had much reason to complain with the $30 one I’ve been using for years. Take your pick. Even if you decide to stick with your Mach 4 Turbo whatever, using a brush and a high quality soap will dramatically improve the quality of your shave over that aerosolized goop they try to sell you.

Mugs and bowls come in all shapes and sizes, I currently use a pewter one that’s pretty shallow that I really don’t love. I honestly don’t know why I haven’t picked a nice wooden or plated one with a handle, just lazy I guess.

Then there’s the soap. This is going to be a matter of personal preference. I recommend something with a subtle, masculine smell – I like sandalwood myself. A cake of soap will last you months and set you back all of $5. I like to switch it up with a variety of shaving soaps and creams, like Cremo-Cream, Musgo Real or Sharps, all of which work just fine with that badger brush.

Make sure you finish with a lotion, something with a little scent is fine – just enough to share with that special someone, not the entire block. This gel aftershave from Sharps is nice, these days I go with something a little fancier.

A few other things you might not have thought of: an alum block and/or a styptic powder is great for sealing small nicks and cuts. A stand will keep your brush dry and help it last. Your handsome mug deserves its own towel.

The upfront cost on all of this kit is definitely going to be more than another $30 for another 12-pack of jet propulsion blades but your shave will be better and you’ll be shaving like men were meant to shave.

I’ll note, quickly, that I’m a supporter of Put This On, having backed their Kickstarter project, but I don’t get any money for it or anything. ↩︎

No one actually calls themselves a “wet shaver”, much like how no one says “in the biz”. ↩︎

The folks at Classic Shaving don’t know me, have never paid me a cent and don’t even have affiliate links. I just like what they do and I’m happy to offer this unsolicited endorsement. ↩︎

Twitter is asking volunteers to translate their mobile app into other languages

This is absurd and wrong. The company has a multi-billion dollar valuation and has been hiring “biz devs” left and right. Apparently, they can hire teams of people away from google and other Silicon Valley companies to hand-hold inane Hollywood stars but they can’t actually pay people to translate their app into Arabic.

Twitter wants to think of itself as the center of a revolution in communication but they aren’t willing to put up the money to actually do it. That’s shameful and wrong.

Doing my blue jumpsuit duty to let you know that the latest Put This On is live and it is wonderful.

The man already said NC was number one so maybe you need to shut your mouth, JT.

That he doesn’t specify means he clearly meant the vastly superior Lexington style.

sloganeerist:

Prolly need to shut the fuck up then, dontcha think, Sha Na Na?

Rahm Emanuel visited the Chicago Everyblock office today. His tweets from the event were inspired.

In 2011, one large segment of the population, the roughly 16% of Americans who are unaffiliated with any particular religion, remains completely unrepresented on Capitol Hill. Not one of the 435 members of the House of Representatives or one of the 100 senators serving in the 112th Congress lists his or her religion as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.”

—So, does this mean that American atheists and Hindus don’t have to pay taxes?

This strikes me as exactly right. My only nit with Readability’s new payment sharing plan is that I wanted a little more control over who I gave my money to. Sometimes, I’m only clicking the Read Now button because the layout of your site is crap, which I don’t necessarily want to reward with my hard earned nickel.

This fits with my current flow and lets me dole out my micropayments in kind.

Instapaper now has a full blown API

And an intriguing business model: the full API is available to all developers but only users who pay for the $1/month subscription can use those features in the apps. Sounds good to me.

See that?

That’s a Kevin Cornell illustration1 for an article I wrote for A List Apart. I’m pretty proud of that.

It turned out really differently than when I started, much more proscriptive than I’d hoped, took me way too long2 to finish and seriously had to try the patience of the entire staff, the wonderful Carolyn Wood most of all. But there it is, a real thing, live, at a URL I hold in the highest regard, alongside a fantastic design article.

Like a lot of web nerds of a certain generation, I cut my teeth on A List Apart. Zeldman and crew taught me so much of what I know about working online. Beyond just the facts or the techniques (I still consult the classics like taming lists), being a regular ALA reader gave me a framework for thinking about the web, how it works, how people work on it.

These days, largely owing to being in the right place at the right time, I get to call Jeffrey and others like Ethan and Ryan and Carolyn not just colleagues but friends. I’m pretty proud of that, too, and happy that they let me give just a little bit back.

With a sly self-reference ↩︎

Seriously, I checked the git init date – last August! ↩︎