I spent all afternoon, and about $40 in cab fares, running all over Manhattan, chasing down the Sigma DP1 – the first compact DSLR camera. It was sold out everywhere. I finally caught it at the third store I went to, and it was the last one left. Yes, it was worth it.

Anyone who's ever plunked down big cash for a high-end DSLR camera knows the true cost of that investment: 15 lbs. of glass and metal hanging on your neck all day. If you've got a tripod, an assistant, and a planned shoot, a Nikon D200 is a great piece of equipment. But if you're simply out on a jaunt and hoping to capture some nice shots along the way, it's just a literal pain in the neck.

And along comes this little godsend. Encased in the Sigma DP1's diminutive body is a 14-megapixel image sensor that's the size of a standard DSLR's, and 7 times the size of a typical compact camera's. This allows it to capture much more data, and perform incredibly well in low-light conditions (which were the only conditions left for me to test it in, after I expended my sunlight hours running from store to store). The shot above (click here to view large version) was taken at twilight, at ISO 400 with no flash. The results on any other compact camera would look like pixel soup. And the depth of field achieved here, which is only possible with true aperture control, is pretty much impossible with a standard compact.

And finally, it's a magic bullet for HDR enthusiasts. The DP1 allows automatic exposure bracketing up to +/- 3, shooting a sequence of 3 shots in about a second – which makes it the perfect little instrument for capturing HDR material. And since it's got a perfectly flat bottom, if you've got an even surface and a steady hand, you don't even need a tripod to capture a nice bracket sequence.

But most importantly – if you're a point-and-shooter who doesn't care about any of the crap I'm talking about, the DP1 requires no expertise to snap a great shot.

Charlie Rose is the consummate interlocutor: inquisitive, articulate, and well-versed in a wider range of subjects than it seems possible for any one human being to be. Each episode of his show is a simple conversation, usually one-on-one, shot against a stark black backdrop, with the focus on nothing but the two intellects at the table and their ideas. Archived on this site are hours and hours of thought-provoking conversation with luminaries in every field from art and architecture (Chuck Close, Richard Serra, Philip Johnson) to politics (Kofi Annan, Bill Clinton) to spirituality (the Dalai Lama). My personal favorite is a 2002 interview with Kirk Varnedoe, former Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the MoMA, the man who made the museum what it is. Varnedoe was certainly the most articulate and passionate intellect within the contemporary art world. The interview took place at a time when Varnedoe was fighting a losing battle to cancer and was aware that he had a limited amount of time left to live (he passed away six months later). The conversation between the two men, who were old friends, begins with the subject of what makes modern art modern, but becomes a reflection on the power of art to overcome mortality.

On the left is a site for Whitevoid, a company that creates interactive installations for museums and events. The site is essentially an interactive sitemap, elegantly exploded in a gently-rotating 3D space. The interface is fluid, responsive, and highly intuitive – effectively selling the company's capabilities, even before you view any of their work.

On the right is a site by writer and performance artist Miranda July.The entire site is a linear series of simple messages, hand-written in dry-erase marker on the author's kitchen appliances. This presentation format is funny, clumsy, and deeply personal – conveying, in just a few clicks, the writer's particular brand of eccentric satire.

The approach of the first is antithetical in nearly every way to the second: polished vs. crude, high-tech vs. low-tech. But in both these cases, the medium delivers the message (Whitevoid = slick tech / Miranda July = quirky wit) so effectively that you get it, instantly and indelibly.

The tuna carpaccio at Zenkichi is fresh and tart. The miso black cod is as rich and flavorful as Nobu's, for a fifth of the cost. The sake selection covers an impressive range of choices from fruity to dry, filtered to unfiltered. But the reason to journey to this gem of Williamsburg is the exceptional interior design, which feels less like a restaurant than a set from an Orientalized David Lynch film. You wait for your table in a dramatically-lit little alcove framed by bamboo trees, with polished black rocks underfoot. Then the hostess leads you through a dark labyrinth of little cubes, each intimately lit by a japanese paper lantern. You snuggle into your cube, and the hostess unfurls a wooden shade, covering the entrance and creating a private cocoon just for you. The effect is like dining in a serene little cabin in the middle of nowhere, though you're three feet away from the next table. You peruse the menu, a fusion of Japanese and French cuisine, and summon the waitstaff to place an order by pushing a button on the corner of your table. Throughout the meal, invisible hands slip under the shade to deposit towels, remove dishes, and refill water glasses, discreetly and soundlessly.

Impeccable design, comfort in spite of tight spaces, attentive yet unobtrusive service, fresh and superb cuisine – these add up to the most memorable dining experience I've had in a while. Swing by the 'burg soon and check it out: 77 N 6th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211. And the word has gotten out, so make sure to reserve a table: (718) 388-8985.

The *Cornelius Group* graced Webster Hall last night with their "Sensuous Synchronized Show," a balletic choreography of sound and visuals. The Japanese foursome, fronted by Keigo Oyamada, played two solid hours of their unclassifiable experimental sound, a soup of of dissonance and conventional harmonies, played on electronic and traditional instruments (complete with chimes, flutes, and a theramin). The music is mind-blowing in itself, but what elevates this show beyond even the electropop Carnivale of Fischerspooner (the second-best live show ever) is the visual extravaganza. Projected on a huge screen behind the band is a dizzying series of videos by artist Koichiro Tsujikawa, using techniques ranging from stop-motion and cell animation to clip samples from old Nixon footage. Each video is timed, with double-dose-of-Desoxyn precision, to the music.

Some of my Flickr pics, here.

Wacom recently released a (somewhat) affordable version of their Cintiq drawing tablet, which allows you to draw and paint directly on the screen. Today we picked up the smallest version, with a 12-inch screen.

After playing with it for an hour, I can safely say that I don't regret a penny I spent (though I'll have to get that back by selling some stuff on eBay!).  If you're like me, your greatest enemy is yourself – and you often find yourself paralyzed, pen poised above paper, terrified of screwing up. The Cintiq frees you of that neurosis, while retaining the tactility, immediacy, and joy of drawing on paper.

And that means you can work more freely, and much faster -- I did the above sketch in about 15 minutes, maybe 3 times as fast as my pen-and-paper productivity.

The Cintiq won't make you a better artist.  If you tend to draw guns that look more like hairdryers, as I do – well, you'll still draw hairdryers. But at least you have the freedom to draw increasingly more gun-like hairdryers, without wasting an entire pad of paper.

My Kindle finally arrived. The blogosphere is awash in reviews, so I'll keep it short: the device itself is a 4 out of 10 for industrial design. It's clunky to hold, inelegant to use, and ugly to look at.

Nonetheless, I love this thing. So it's not the industrial design accomplishment that an iPod is, but that almost doesn't matter. What drove the iPod's success isn't the device itself, but iTunes: a cheap, fast, always-on distribution system for content. And that's what Amazon is doing with the Kindle.

Here are two visions of a better future with the Kindle:

Futurevision 1: The Endless Book
With its pre-paid EVDO connection, the Kindle gives a book infinite extensibility via hyperlinking. In the middle of muddling through a book on string theory, you might realize, as I did, that your grasp of quantum mechanics isn't so hot either, so you'll want to stop and read a quick "Heisenberg for Dummies" guide before you move on. That's an opportunity for the publisher of the Dummies guide to make, say, two bucks. And for Amazon to keep squeezing revenue out of you, after your initial book purchase. With that kind of financial incentive, I can see the future Kindle editions of many books being laden with hyperlinked cross-sell opportunities. And we ain't even talkin' advertising, yet.

Futurevision 2: The Infinite Army of Librarians
Another unexpected nugget of coolness is the Ask NowNow feature, which must be the first consumer application of Amazon's great crowdsourcing experiment, the Mechanical Turk. You can submit any question and expect 3 well-researched answers from  human beings, within 10 minutes. It's the portabilization of the Sunday/Mahalo trend: humans are still the best search engines. The Ask NowNow "staff" is currently composed of the Mechanical Turkers –– people scattered all over the internet, making 5 cents per answer. (I'm one of them, but I've been derelict in my Turking responsibilities.) In spite of the fact that these "research librarians" are an untrained bunch, their sheer numbers mean that statistically speaking, you'll get at least one solid answer. If Amazon can sustain this model and find a good way to monetize it, it would be an amazing proof of the power of crowdsourcing.

On the whole, the Kindle is amply worth the $400 price tag – not because of the device, but because of the content services and where they're headed. But that same price tag might be a barrier to the proliferation it needs, in order to become the paradigm-shifting force that the iPod has been. Amazon needs to realize one thing: the device itself needs to feel like it justifies the price tag. If they manage to create a device that's as smart and elegant as their content system, this thing will change the face publishing – and make books sexy again to the Xbox generation.

I'm a digital media geek who likes to say things like "Print is dead." But Penguin's new "Great Ideas" series forces me to eat my words. These little paperback gems are printings of a small catalog of landmark works of philosophy  – I picked up Kirkegaard, Machiavelli, Marcus Aurelius, Rousseau, and Plato – and each one is designed with a loving meticulousness that is rarely lavished on the humble paperback. The cover designs, which mostly rely on elegant  typography (none of the usual crappy stock images of marble busts), are letterpressed – letterpressed! – into a wonderful ivory coverstock with a cold-press texture like watercolor paper.

Academic publishing has long been a godforsaken bastion of terrible graphic design – poor typography, stock images dating back four decades, all printed onto cheap, smudge-prone paper. Being both a philosophy major and a graphic designer, I've often been pained that the books dearest to my heart are so offensive to my eye. I'm glad to see that a publisher is finally giving these great thinkers the handsome faces they deserve.

Micah Ganske chooses only the most banal of subjects for his floor-to-ceiling paintings: a young couple standing in front of an SUV, a hatchback abandoned in a flood. These lackluster subjects are treated with an incredibly meticulous process that verges on mania. Ganske's method is totally unique, and of his own invention: he stains unprimed canvas with highly diluted acrylics, applied meticulously with fine brushes. The resulting milky colors and razor-sharp detail look like the product of a 4-color-process print, yanked out of the printer before the 4th color pass is complete.

Viewing each work is like swimming through a Notre Dame built of vanilla pudding, the exquisite meticulousness of the technique contrasting weirdly with the flat blandness of the subject.

On display at Deitch Projects, 76 Grand Street, through Nov. 3.