randomwalks/dj

david posted a photo:

Originally from david's Photos, on February 25, 2006 11:39 PM

david posted a photo:

We rode home with Mark. Our friend Jason was also with us this morning but we did not photograph him.

Originally from david's Photos, on February 25, 2006 11:39 PM

Even after two more decades of Lynchian eccentricity and sensual derangement, "Blue Velvet" looks as odd and as beautiful as ever, and it's still a shock.

Originally from NYT > Arts, on February 25, 2006 11:39 PM

Originally from Tuberaider Video, on February 25, 2006 9:28 PM

Frederico’s spot-on when he says that Flickr’s frequent error messages are a lot easier to deal with because they seem human:

How many times have you seen Flickr fail? I have seen it happen quite a few times, but something behind the “Flickr is having a massage” message, shown whenever someone tripped on a few cables, keeps me comfortable - it lets me know my photos and those of my friends, are in good hands. It will all be okay, even when something has clearly gone wrong.

I like Flickr’s (and I paraphrase), “Whoah Nelly, hold your clicks! The server’s running HOT right now!” error message which is WAY more effective than “HTTP 500 Internal Server Error.” Just goes to show a little editorial goes a long long way.

The human side of the web applications [WeBreakStuff]

Originally posted by Gina Trapani from Spun, on February 25, 2006 9:28 PM

I've been looking for new ways to customize my personal TypePad site. Laura from TypePad Technical support recently posted a great how-to for creating your own favorite icon, or favicon, in TypePad. Then, one of my favorite TypePad bloggers, swissmiss, linked to the Favicon Generator, where you can upload any image and it's changed into a favicon, making it even easier to personalize your TypePad blog.

Originally from ProNet, on February 25, 2006 9:27 PM

a breath of fresh air to hear this; Ian Rogers agrees  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 25, 2006 9:25 PM

It's has not been that hot here surprisingly.  The sun shines all the time and I am very, very tan but today it is pretty hot.  Just had to mention it.

I am leaving South Africa today.  I am sad to leave Cape Town but ready for the next adventure.  It is sad to leave the group really.  We finished the house and had a dedication ceremony for the owner, Zanele.  She is such a sweet and amazing woman.  Her whole family is so kind and serene.  I'll miss building their house and eating their lunches.  We made them flower boxes and a framed picture of all of us who built the house.  One day I will post pictures but uploading pictures takes time and time is money which I am low on right now.

Oh, an update.  My passport was returned.  My cash was gone but who cares.  I told on the rude woman at the hostel who tried to act like it was my fault for someone breaking into my room and stealing from me.  It felt good and her boss was horrified.  He did not even know my bag was stolen.

I feel like I should be more sad because I am leaving so many great people but I am not.  All of the friends I made at Habitat I will keep in touch with.  I feel confident about that. 

My time at the internet cafe is wrapping up so I'll go.  I'll post when I arrive in Rwanda.

Originally posted by Angela Tucker from tuckergurl, on February 25, 2006 9:25 PM

Dr. Larry Brilliant, the new executive director of Google’s new philanthropic projects, will recommend an early-warning system to the Technology Entertainment and Design “TED” conference now underway in Monterey, California. The system would identify and prevent the spread of infectious diseases and other disasters. WIRED NEWS Technology reports an announcement will probably come this Thursday. WIRED explains that a major industy effort is being called for:

"The best thing the TED community can do is to take our servers and search engines and venture capital and build something that can last forever that has international independence," Brilliant said. "The goal is to have the earliest possible warning of all bad things. Specifically that we find the first cases of pandemic bird flu, the first cases of new diseases like SARS or bioterror and we contain it with early response."

will be involved in the early-warning project, Brilliant said, adding that hundreds of Google employees, including engineers, are prepared to help set up the system. But he said his first step will be to recruit support from other companies and foundations, beginning with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The GPHIN uses an internet crawler to scan 20,000 websites in seven languages for events and chatter recorded online on blogs, news sites and other outlets that point to the early outbreak of diseases. Brilliant envisions a system that, with the help of companies like Google, Sun and Microsoft, will scan 20 million sites and deliver information in dozens of languages.

Originally posted by Judy Breck from Smart Mobs, on February 25, 2006 9:24 PM

Someone named “Ingy döt Net” (who turns out formerly to have been Brian Ingerson of Perl and YAML fame) wrote me in response to that AJAX Upside piece, pointing to Jemplate — A Template Toolkit for Javascript. It looks profoundly clever. Hold on... Ingy is legally changing his name to his domain name. Well, OK then. [Update: Jeremy Dunk writes to point at the TrimPath JavaScript Templates engine].

Originally from ongoing, on February 25, 2006 9:24 PM

The people over at Eyebeam recently launched a new tool, entitled Maya 2 Google Earth. It's an open-source, cross-platform tool that allows you to export 3D models as a single Google Earth Placemark (KML) file. The project was inspired by the Open GL extraction utility OGLE (also by Eyebeam), which allows for the capture and re-use of 3D geometry data from 3D graphics applications running on Microsoft Windows.

Some of the potential uses for Maya2GoogleEarth are:
-Remix or augment city architecture, with your own creations
-Extract your in-game character with OGLE and bring them into Google Earth
-Design buildings and then show them at their correct geographic location

They've even stated that the first person to have Godzilla attacking Tokyo will have it posted to the site.

The image above are of gnomes from MMP online game WoW implemented into Google Earth.

TAGS: Future, News, Google, 3D, Gaming,

Originally from Cool Hunting, on February 25, 2006 9:23 PM

Flo Design's Flat Table was inspired by synesthesia (a sense of "seeing" a color when hearing a sound, for example). The table top has an LED light source which shifts colors based on environmental changes. Eri Nagashima is the designer behind Milan-based Flo Design.

Featured at the Cologne International Furniture Fair at the Design Spotter booth.

TAGS: Design, LED, Furniture,

Originally from Cool Hunting, on February 25, 2006 9:23 PM

Outside of the quotes, photos and impressions you find here on the TEDblog, we're fortunate this year to have at least two TEDsters liveblogging the conference in great detail. For extraordinary real-time analysis, take a look at the blogs of Ethan Zuckerman, of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and Bruno Giussani, who produced TEDGLOBAL last summer. Their posts and others are also include in the feed to the right..

Originally posted by June Cohen from TED Blog, on February 25, 2006 9:22 PM

Via an entry on CDC at Wikipedia:

“It was after the delivery of the 6600 that IBM took notice of the new company. At the time Thomas J. Watson, Jr. asked (paraphrased) ‘how is it that this tiny company of 34 people (including the janitor) can be beating us when we have thousands of people?’, to which Cray quipped ‘you just answered your own question.’ “

[Thanks JR]

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on February 25, 2006 9:22 PM

Originally from Susan's Nutrition Weblog, on February 25, 2006 9:21 PM

This CS Monitor article, Control of creativity? Fashion's secret, is over two years old, but resurfaced recently into my field of awareness. It contains this gem:

For virtually all players in fashion, some form of derivation, recombination, imitation, revival of old styles, and outright knockoff is the norm. Few denounce, let alone sue, the appropriator for "creative theft." They're too busy trying to stay ahead of the competition through the sheer power of their design and marketing prowess.

There seem to be two factors that make the fashion industry impervious to the kinds of intellectual property rigamarole plaguing the content industries: high speed and discernment. For the fashion world, creative cycles are measured in months, and any designer spending time pursuing creative rip-offs by others is probably falling behind on their next season's line.

Fashion appreciation also seems to require a high degree of perceptual subtlety and historical awareness. You don't just waltz into the haute couture industry without a deep understanding of the effect of small decisions and the web of aesthetic influences among competing designers. The entire industry is founded on the idea that there is a crucial and fundamental difference between a dress you see on the runway and one you see at the TJ Maxx. The former gains credibility and distinction by the presence of a near-identical latter, the same way that quoting another musician or filmmaker confers status on the source of the gesture.

The saddest aspect of Big Content's lawsuit blitz is the complete banality of the material they are defending, its utter and complete worthlessness. The total creative bankruptcy of these industries makes a nitpicking IP-based lawsuit culture necessary, because there's nothing else of value to defend. I suspect that their zeal to squash any artisic form or distribution method which doesn't pay tribute to traditional cartel privileges results from a deep realization of how useless their industry is in the face of genuine culture and spontaneous creativity.

Rant off.

Originally from tecznotes , on February 25, 2006 3:31 PM

In anticipation of US President George Bush's visit to Hyderabad, India, Muslim religious leaders have formed a committee to coordinate the campaign and use SMS and e-mail services to spread the message that President Bush poses a threat not only to the Muslim world, but also to others who do not like the domination and monopoly of the US. [via Rediff]

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 25, 2006 3:31 PM

david posted a photo:

Originally from david's Photos, on February 25, 2006 3:30 PM

Six Apart created Moveable Type and TypePad, and bought LiveJournal. Now it's "working on a new product, codenamed Comet, that will start beta testing this quarter," according to co-founder Mena Trott, talking to BusinessWeek Online reporter Reena Jana. There are...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on February 25, 2006 3:30 PM

The "architecture of participation" is a key theme in the evolution of location-enabled services. Paul Levine - General Manager of Local for Yahoo! - reveals how his company is encouraging users, merchants, developers, and publishers to participate in Yahoo!'s local services and contribute to a grand strategy of expanding the sum of human knowledge.

Originally from ITC: All Programs, on February 25, 2006 3:29 PM

All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing? (Asks Fox News)



From the Cheney Administration's (corporate) Goebbels. Just posting this for posterity. David Asman, the twit with the yellow tie, is the classic dweeb who couldn't get a girlfriend in high school and had to join the chess club and still burns with resentment. Bush, a spoiled but powerful bully, is the perfect person for him to support.

Originally posted by tom moody from Tom Moody, on February 25, 2006 3:29 PM

While in Los Angeles earlier this week, Jake Dobkin spotted some sweet Banksy pieces on Melrose. You can see more here on LAist.

Originally from Wooster Collective, on February 24, 2006 2:27 PM

I just established the ogle-3d tag on Flickr for people to post cool photos/pics/renders of things they have done with OGLE. Do it up!

Originally from OGLE: OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam R&D blogs, on February 24, 2006 11:37 AM

Vyatta is a San Mateo company comprising a stealthy group of developers who have been building an open source router to challenge San Jose networking giant Cisco. This morning it has opened itself to the public. Here is a press release we got last night (downloads file). As usual, when it comes to things telecom, Om beats us to the punch, and has already offered superior analysis here in his Business 2.0 piece. No one is safe anymore, Om makes clear in his additional blog post:...

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on February 24, 2006 11:35 AM

yatta posted a photo:

To clarify: Frumin speaks about the use of OGLE in Second Life to the Second Life Future Salon in Second Life.

Originally from eyebeam - Everyone's Tagged Photos, on February 24, 2006 9:33 AM

eyebeam posted a photo:

nyc!

Originally from eyebeam - Everyone's Tagged Photos, on February 24, 2006 9:32 AM

3D displays that hover in midair have been a staple of science fiction for decades; after all, who can forget the hologram of Princess Leia in the first Star Wars? Now, Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has developed a method of projecting three-dimensional images in the air.

The system reflects laser light off of mirrors, and focuses that light into a point in the air using a plasma emission phenomenon.

The technology remains experimental, so there is no estimate of when it might appear in the marketplace.

Source: Minding the Planet

Originally from FutureWire - futurism and emerging technology, on February 24, 2006 9:32 AM

We don't have TV here in the hiphopmusic hobbit hole, but sources tell me there's a commercial running now that uses Public Enemy's "By the Time I Get to Arizona" to promote the PGA Tour. Can anyone help eradicate what remains of my sanity by confirming this? I never thought anything would top the "Revolution Will not be Televised" Nike...

Originally posted by jsmooth995 from hiphopmusic.com, on February 24, 2006 9:31 AM

Frumin speaks about the use of OGLE in Second Life to the Second Life Future Salon in Second Life.

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 24, 2006 9:31 AM

Another sweet use of OGLE, posted semi-anonymously to the forums. Someone named Karl out there has used it to capture a molecular model that they made using the open-source molecular modelling tool PyMol, and then texture, light, and re-render using Lightwave. Looks great if you ask me:

Originally from OGLE: OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam R&D blogs, on February 24, 2006 9:31 AM

Linklogged, but worth mentioning repeating verbatim in the main blog since it's damn cool. We're having a SXSW party! We booked I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness! Kick! Ass!

That is all, continue on.

Originally from random($foo), on February 24, 2006 9:31 AM

Last month, seventy-three year old video art pioneer Nam June Paik passed away, leaving behind a large body of influential, risk-taking work. This Saturday, New York's Electronic Arts Intermix will present a 12-hour screening of the legend's videotapes, dating from 1965-2000. The program will include better-known pieces like Paik's early 'Electronic Fables' and his more recent 'Analogue Assemblage,' but will also include rarities like his TV collages made in collaboration with major figures such as Joseph Beuys and John Cage and the 80-minute '9/23/69: Experiment with David Atwood.' Paik was among the very first to experiment with video as an art form, in an era when 'media' was redefined to mean both 'the media' and artistic 'medium' in the same instance. His Fluxus-based performances, installations, and recordings often contained humorous pop elements, while remaining very politically savvy. At their core, Paik's works were always radically experimental, with the forward-thinking artist who anticipated the modern internet in coining the term 'electronic superhighway,' constantly pushing boundaries of form in ways that inspired generations of electronic artists. The EAI video retrospective is organized to begin with Paik's more recent work and roll backwords to his earliest projects. Taking this trip back in time will no doubt present glimpses into the future of future of media art. - Marisa Olson

http://www.eai.org/eai/02_06_paik_pr.html

Originally from Rhizome.org Net Art News, on February 24, 2006 9:31 AM

Wayfinder GPS software works on the N70 and now there's CoPilot Live available according to MobileBurn.

Originally from Nokia N70 Blog, on February 24, 2006 9:30 AM

The Implicit Association Test [1] is a sorting task which reveals something about our automatic, non-deliberate, associations [2].

The part of the test which betrays our automtic associations is a combination of two simpler sorting tasks. Both simple tasks involve sorting words and pictures into categories which are assigned to the left and right (by pressing the E and I keys, which are on the left and right of your keyboard). One task is to sort words (like 'love', or 'failure') into the categories 'good' and 'bad'. The other task varies depending on what you want to detect automatic associations about. In the 'race IAT' the task is to sort pictures of the faces of white americans and the faces of black americans. The race IAT isn't the only version, but it is the most (in)famous (you can also do the IAT on fat vs thin, arab-muslim vs non-arab-muslims, for different US presidents and in many other variations). The compound task involves sorting both words and pictures to the left and right where each side has two categories assigned to it - so 'good' and 'black american' on the left, and 'bad' and 'white american' on the right, for example.

What the IAT test does is compare your times for sorting good words when the 'good' side is also the 'white' side to when the 'good' side is also the 'black' side (and vice versa for sorting bad words, and for sorting white and black faces to the good and bad sides). By doing these comparisons the test can detect any evaluation of 'white' or 'black' as positive or negative that is affecting your time to classify the words or faces to the correct side. So, for example, if you take significantly longer to sort good words to the 'black' side than you do to the 'white' side then the result is an automatic preference for 'white americans' over 'black americans' [3]

What the Racial IAT indicates is that most Americans have an automatic preference for whites over blacks. Two things are important about this. First it isn't really clear what mechanisms lie behind the effects found in the test ('Voodoo' is one suggestion!), nor is it clear what they mean [4]. Second, the automatic preference shows up for most people, even in those who consciously express no race preferences and even in many black americans.

Now where did this automatic preference come from? It certainly can't be deliberate attitudes, since the bias shows up in people (including many black americans) who have explicitly anti-racist attitudes. Some suggestions have been made, like they are the residual of previously held explicit attitudes, or the result of a 'cultural bias' (whatever that means) [5], but I think a strong, and more likely causal [6], possibility is that that these preferences are the result of systematic exposure to particular associations (i.e that white = good and black = bad). Associations can become established in memory merely by the repeated co-presentation of two things (conditioning), there doesn't need to be any logical connection between the two. So if on television the adverts for flash cars and happy domestic scenes always feature white folks and the the crime shows more often have black folks as the bad guys you're going to absorb those associations.

The researchers running the project imply as much in an answer in their FAQ

...it is very possible to possess an automatic preference that you would rather not have (and the researchers who developed this test are convinced that they, too, fall into this category). One solution is to seek experiences that could undo or reverse the patterns of experience that could have created the unwanted preference. But this is not always easy to do. A more practical alternative may be to remain alert to the existence of the undesired preference, recognizing that it may intrude in unwanted fashion into your judgments and actions. Additionally, you may decide to embark on consciously planned actions that can compensate for known unconscious preferences and beliefs."
(My emphasis).

The interesting thing for me about the hypothesis that these automatic preferences develope from repeated exposure to particular associations is that you do not need to believe the associations on any deliberate level, nor do you need particularly to pay attention to them, all you need to do is to have them as part of your environment. In that way our Implicit Associations reflect a part of our minds which belongs as much to the environment of our experience as to ourselves - and, additionally, is as much common to everyone who has shared our environment as it is unique to our individual minds.

And this relates to advertising. Adverts are ubiquitious. Advertising shapes the statistical content of the stimuli we are exposed too, however much we decide to give ourselves certain experiences. Does the IAT give us a glimpse of the consequences we reap from an unclean mental environment? [7]

References below the fold

[1] You can get all the research papers here. How wonderful

[2] I nearly used the word 'unconscious' here but couldn't quite bring myself to. I'm afraid that if i say it three times the ghost of Freud will appear!

[3] e.g. here or here

[4] Here's one example of an intepretation

[5] The residual of childhood preferences? discussion at cognitive daily. Review Article Sources of Implicit Attitudes (2004)

[6] That's the problem with much psychology research. You can find factors associated with some phenomenon, but it's far hard to find what is truly causing it

[7] Guardian article about the clean mental environment movement

Originally from Mind Hacks, on February 24, 2006 9:30 AM

GQ is about to push its men's magazine franchise into the quickly growing world of wireless media, according to Business Week. "On Feb. 27, the Condé Nast title will announce the launch of a new service called GQ Mobile, providing text messages to readers via their cell phones. Starting in the March issue, GQ readers will be invited to sign up by using their cell phones to send a text message with "GQ" to GQMAG (or 47624) Once enrolled, GQ Mobile users will start to receive original content developed for the digital mobile service. It may include information about events, private sales, shopping nights, and giveaways. ... GQ sees new ways to market to its audience -- and reap additional advertising revenue in the process. Privately held Condé Nast says GQ has 854,000 subscribers and 4 million readers. Nearly all of them have cell phones, and 89% of those use text messages.

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 24, 2006 9:30 AM

Originally marketed to repair old tennis shoes (which it does very well), this industrial strength rubber cement has many, many purposes.

I had a problem with the trim falling off of my second Mazda Rx-7, so I went around the car and pulled off all the trim and re-glued it with Shoe Goo. I never had the problem again. Through all kinds of weather and at very irresponsible speeds, the trim was still on the car after the vehicle was used up, wrung out, stripped of parts for my third Rx-7 and sold to a salvage yard for scrap metal.

Goop makes several other varieties that are supposedly specialized for different applications, but after trying them I keep going back to the original.

-- Justin Belshe

[Note: Apparently "Shoe Goo" is not a trademark. Several products from differing manufacturers use the same name, in very similar packaging. The link below is to the source which Justin Belshe used. Beware of imitations!]

Shoe Goo
$7
George's Shoes

Originally from Cool Tools, on February 24, 2006 9:28 AM

When Erika Thereian changed to a black-skinned avatar in the online game Second Life, she found that some of her friends no longer sought her out, certain men assumed she was sexually promiscuous, and that some people just don't like black folks. "Well, I teleport into a region where a couple people [are] standing around. One said, 'Look at the n***** b****.' Another said 'Great, they are gonna invade SL now.'" (both via rw)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 24, 2006 9:28 AM

Cameron Sinclair is an architect whose unorthodox organization, Architecture for Humanity, shuns television coverage, refuses to put AFH or donor names on the buildings he builds, and makes his building designs available to anyone who asks, for free. "People don't realize that the largest humanitarian group in the world is the US military. They do more help around the world than most people realize. Where's the PR for that?" Cameron Sinclair, architect and founder of Architecture for Humanity.

This year, TED is granting him $100,000 and the chance to present one wish to conference attendees: To build community that actively embraces open source design to create innovative and sustainable design to improve living standards for all.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 24, 2006 9:28 AM

Inspired by Kottke's retirement from professional bloggerdom, here are some quick back of the envelope calculations on what it would take to earn Kottke-style scratch as an ad-supported blogger (instead of one supported by 1,450 micropatrons).  You can use this as your guide to whether you should quit your job and join the New York Magazine aspirational set.

• Jason pulled in $39,900 from his campaign.  Let's throw in an extra $100 for a nice decent meal out to celebrate the end of your hard-blogged year, and put up a revenue target of an even $40k. 
• You're a blogger, not a sales person.  You're not hooked in with the cool kids, so The Deck ain't for you.  Your skill set's more in line with "copying and pasting JavaScript into my sidebar," so you go AdSense all the way.
• For arguments' sake, we'll say that you're able to pull down a $1.75 effective CPM (over the course of the year you average $1.75 in revenue for every 1,000 page views).  There is absolutely no guarantee that you'd actually be able to hit that; a healthy number for  a community generated content site could be targeted at $1 (especially after Google's cut).  But for argument's sake we'll say that over time your editorial integrity drives to something just this side of an automated blogbot, and you start targeting your content at things that people actually pay good money to advertise next to.

OK, here comes the hard part.  Math!  $40,000 at $1.75 per 1,000 page views means that you'll have to do north of 22.8 million page views in the year, or 1.9 million monthly, or approximately 64,000 a day.  Think you have it in you?

It doesn't take a math genius (like me!) to know that this calculation is highly influenced by the eCPM you think you could earn; if you think I'm off, post your calculation in the comments.[1]

[1] Obvious and transparent tactic to drive additional page views.

Originally posted by sip from this is sippey.typepad.com, on February 23, 2006 11:45 PM

How to cook and eat an artichoke. Did you know that 100% of the U.S. crop is grown in California?...

Originally from A Full Belly, on February 23, 2006 11:24 PM

a visualization of tags present within an arbitrary live XML/RSS feed by showing a matrix of corresponding images taken from the Flickr image database. see also flickrfling & tagnautica.
[anoptique.com|thnkx Olivier]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 23, 2006 11:22 PM

silly 2002 April Fool's article predicts the future  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 23, 2006 11:22 PM

Adam Gopnik just emailed me to tell me that, for some strange reason, a debate that he and I did for the Washington Monthly on the Canadian health care system six years ago has now been resurrected on various blogs. I just took a look. Here's one of my favorite comments: "Very like their roles at The New Yorker, Gopnik is the voice of bourgeois sense, and Gladwell of extravagant, contrarian sensibility." (I'm not sure Adam would be as happy with that descriptor as I am). In our debate, Adam vigorously defended the Canadian system, and I attacked it. But wait! That was six years ago! I've now changed my mind. I now agree with virtually everything Adam said and disagree with virtually everything I said. In fact, I shudder when I read what I said back then.

Originally posted by malcolmgladwell from gladwell.com, on February 23, 2006 11:21 PM

Originally from Tuberaider Video, on February 23, 2006 11:21 PM

malcolm gladwell gets a blog!

Originally posted by mathowie from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 23, 2006 11:20 PM

looks like NZB indexes and forums instead of Usenet feeds  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 23, 2006 11:19 PM

"FileChucker is an AJAX-based web application that lets you accept file uploads on your own website. It's simple to install (just one file), packed with features, fully configurable, nice looking, and very handy for when you want to share files with anyone."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 23, 2006 11:19 PM

This is the kind of news that precedes some very tough negotiating with someone. William McCall of the Associated Press is reporting that Paul Allen's people are saying the Blazers are in dire financial straits, "all options" (presumably selling or moving the team--or at least threatening such things) are on the table, and most chillingly, these are problems they intend to fix now:

Allen, a Microsoft co-founder, has lost more than $12 billion on various investments in the past decade, and his NBA team has been hemorrhaging money for much of that time.

f his interest in the Rose Garden Arena, the home of the Blazers, after the company that ran it, Oregon Arena Corp., declared bankruptcy.

Conn told AP that Allen has decided it is time to cut his losses with the Trail Blazers _ or find a new way to finance the team.

"No business person could justify these kinds of losses continuing," Conn said.

He said Vulcan has invested $600 million in the team and the arena since 1988 but has yet to see a profit.

Conn also said the arena lease "is recognized as one of the worst in the NBA."

In a comparison with the Key Arena lease for the Seattle SuperSonics, Conn said the Trail Blazers receive no revenue for suites, clubs, courtside seats, game concessions or parking.

The Sonics, by comparison, receive 40 percent of the revenue for suites, 60 percent for clubs, and 100 percent for courtside seats, game concessions and parking.

NBA Commissioner David Stern recently told AP that he considered the Seattle lease "the least competitive lease in the league, which is a decided economic disadvantage."

But Conn said the Blazers' lease is "far worse" than the Sonics' lease. I can't believe the billionaire geniuses who have made all the decisions for this team most of my adult life are now going to play the victim card of all things.

If not the owner, then who is responsible for all this?

And, are you telling me that you have less faith in the future of this team than I do?

Paul Allen seems like a smart guy, and an interesting guy, but clearly he's not someone who knows how to run a successful businnes, despite starting with the advantage of billions upon billions. Most of his businesses are full-time dreams (and it's not like I'm stodgy; this is coming from a guy who founded and runs a blog agency, for crying out loud).

But, I mean, one of his other big businesses is space tourism.

He's like an NBA player who negotiates a massive long-term contract, and then gets bitter as hell in its final years because it seems like they could have done better. Should have thought of that when you signed in the first place! The Rose Garden contract sucks? Who created it? The fans don't love the team? They loved it before you came along.

My feelings about Allen are complex. I have loved having a hobbyist owner lavish excessive millions upon the team, the great sugardaddy spoiling us all rotten with lottery picks all those years. But his part-time passion, his being based in another city (or on a yacht), his billionaire's recluse, his weird fraternizing with the likes of Geena Davis, and his non-take-charge attitude that allowed all sorts of shoddiness--those are enough straws on this camel's back that I just simply won't tolerate any whining from this guy.

Paul Allen, you don't like owning the team? Sell it. You like owning the team? Then stop whining, roll up your sleeves, and fix it.

UPDATE: The Oregonian has more: seems like this is all about getting tax dollars.

the team is approaching state and local government at a time when purse strings are tight and fan support for the struggling team is low. The team also faces a potential public relations challenge in persuading government officials to consider giving any financial assistance to Allen, the seventh richest man in the world.

ing to be a question in the public's mind," said Dennis Howard, a professor with University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. But "there's a lot of other wealthy owners out there for whom the community has been very generous with public support."

A team spokesman declined to comment Thursday on whether Allen might move the Blazers from Portland if he doesn't receive the help he is requesting.

So far, the team has remained tight-lipped about potential partnership scenarios. In meetings with Kulongoski, Multnomah County Board of Commissioners chairwoman Diane Linn and Metro president David Bragdon, the team has offered updates of its financial situation. They also discussed the economic benefits the Trail Blazers and Allen's now-defunct Oregon Arena Corp. which previously owned the Rose Garden - have provided to the community, Blazers and government spokespeople said.

The team also broached the topic of working together in a public-private alliance, although no specifics were discussed, said Trail Blazers spokesman Art Sasse. This is modern model of sports financing laid bare: billionaires asking for handouts. It's unfair to single out Paul Allen in this--it happens in practically every city, and it's lousy. If only voters across the country could all agree not to pay, then every city could still have teams--just with lower expenses. Instead, there's always another city (Oklahoma, step right this way!) ready to step in with the cash.

By the way, if Paul Allen really wanted to work the "woe is me" PR strategy, he'd be better off not threatening to move the team (which implies value), but to shut it down entirely and declare bankruptcy. If that were on the table, he'd be making headlines, and people would really believe he was serious about the money troubles. But since it isn't on the table, I think it's safe to assume that we're all just going to twiddle our thumbs until he curls up on the yacht and start writing checks again.

One last point: I find it amusing that his spokesman said no business person would put up with the kind of losses he has sustained. Wait, it's a business now? When did that start? Because he has been running the Blazers like his shiny new toy--one indulgence after another for most of his time as an owner. He only even made budget a concern at all in the last few years, after he had already signed the papers to doom the team's future income by signing away all the stadium-based revenue streams. That was bad business that is not the fault of taxpayers.

Originally from True Hoop, on February 23, 2006 11:19 PM

Originally from Tuberaider Video, on February 23, 2006 10:59 PM

The kottke.org that could have been

Originally posted by mathowie from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 23, 2006 1:40 PM

Originally from Google Blog Search: ted2006, on February 23, 2006 1:40 PM

By Jason Quick The Oregonian Ruben Patterson on Thursday said he has been traded by the Trail Blazers to the...

Originally from Behind the Blazers Beat, on February 23, 2006 1:39 PM

Originally posted by inkdroid from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 23, 2006 1:39 PM

New tests reveal that a death mask found in a ragpicker's shop in 1842 may — or may not — be a likeness of Shakespeare. (The article features a picture of the mask.)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 23, 2006 1:39 PM

The competition to find an illustrator for Yann Martel’s Life of Pi has narrowed down the entries to a shortlist of 15 candidates. Each artist will submit 3 more images before a final winner is chosen in April. Shown here is the previously-blogged Tomer Hanuka.

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration Blog, on February 23, 2006 1:38 PM

Download Fritz Lang's 1927 classic Metropolis , I have the restored version on DVD and it really does deserve it's status as an all time classic.
via Bibi

Posted to Art

Originally from Stunned, on February 23, 2006 1:38 PM

Project Pad is a project to build a web-based system for media annotation and collaboration for teaching and learning and scholarly applications.

Originally from unmediated, on February 23, 2006 1:37 PM

Story-sharing using instant messengers, VOIP, and image sharing applications.

Originally from unmediated, on February 23, 2006 1:37 PM

If you are in the DC area, be sure to check out the Wall Snatchers show which opens tonight at the former Georgetown Staples Store on 3307 M St. NW. Put on by Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran the show is an exhibition of graffiti and street art from Boston, Florida, New York and Washington curated by local artist Kelly Towles. Featured artists include Bask, Eon, Faile, Mister Never, Nick Z and Tes One. The show runs through March 26th.

Mural by Faile

Originally from Wooster Collective, on February 23, 2006 9:38 AM

When I saw these in a commercial during the Super Bowl I thought finally, an ad that actually influenced me to buy something.

Mine arrived yesterday from Staples and they are everything I'd hoped they would be. The same great Sharpie ink and point, but no more cap to hold on to or put down and lose or forget about.

What the great engineers at Sanford have done is create a minuscule hinged door that operates entirely within the instrument's barrel, opening and closing like a submarine's hatch.

-- Joseph Stirt

Retractable Sharpie
$12 for set of 8
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Sharpie

Originally from Cool Tools, on February 23, 2006 9:23 AM

TrackBack is one of those technologies that seemed so right at the time it was invented, but which has fallen far short of its potential. We use TrackBack here to track who links to SiliconBeat. But we also spend a fair bit of time playing whack-a-mole with TrackBack spammers. It's gotten so bad that many bloggers have given up on the concept. Not so the inventors of TrackBacks. Ben and Mena Trott, who originally created TrackBacks for their Movable Type blogging tool and the blogging community at-large, want to resolve the issues around TrackBacks and pinging. They're suggesting a TrackBack Charter and a standard. More info here and here....

Originally posted by Michael Bazeley from SiliconBeat, on February 23, 2006 8:16 AM

Part I: reblogging some stuff

Josh Kinberg on unmediated: NBC sends YouTube Take-Down Notice for SNL Lazy Sunday

Of course, some people think that YouTube should be congratulated for their copyright infringing practices. Here's what Xeni Jardin says about it on BoingBoing:

Boing Boing: NBC nastygrams YouTube over "Lazy Sunday"

This isn't like another television network broadcasting the skit without permission. YouTube is a service through which individual fans can share stuff they're nuts about with others. NBC issuing a C&D to YouTube makes about as much sense as NBC sending attorneys to the homes of every blogger or Livejournaler user who posted a link to a torrent somewhere

Sorry, Xeni, that's completely wrong. In the same blog entry where YouTube responds to the take-down notice they also say:

YouTube is now serving up more than 15 million videos streamed per day- that's nearly 465M videos streamed per month

So how exactly are they different from a TV network? How are they exempt from the laws and standard practices of the industry?

Part II: explaining it

Josh Kinberg is the main writer above. Josh is a co-founder of the videoblogging subculture and co-creator of FireAnt, a videoblog aggregator. Josh is arguing against YouTube from a lightnet perspective. He's an activist for internet video which is native to the internet, meaning the partipatory kind.

Xeni Jardin is the blogger he's responding to. Xeni is a contributor to BoingBoing, an important blog whose digital politics are from the P2P period. These political ideas center on defending unauthorized distribution.

Both Josh and Xeni are part of the bleeding edge, and not long ago it would have been very surprising to see such a stark difference in their views. What this exchange shows is that lightnet is a new fault line in digital politics. Is the work at hand about samizdat, as Xeni thinks, or about participatory media, as Josh thinks?

I have personally been blown off with gusto on this issue by members of the samizdat wing who felt that lightnet is either collaboration in the Vichy mold or just plain pussy. These ideas are new, counterintuitive and have near-zero visibility outside of the participatory media movement.

Originally from unmediated, on February 23, 2006 8:16 AM

a tool for visualizing how regular expression engines use 'finite-state automata' to match regular expression patterns against text. a finite state automaton is model of behavior composed of states, transitions & actions. a state stores information about the past, i.e. it reflects the input changes from the system start to the present moment.
the graphs are based on a 'pattern', which shows the regular expression. the 'input' is the string that is visually matched. as users type into the input string. the color of this string indicates whether it’s a complete match (green), a partial match (blue), or a non-match (red). [osteele.com|thnkx Angus]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 23, 2006 8:15 AM

Flow, mentioned in the previous post, has a lot of great anecdotes & items of interest. Viz:

• To lure recruits, into the Turkish armed forces, the sultans of the sixteenth century promised conscripts the rewards of raping women in the conquered territories. (p. 17)
• Early ethnographers have described North American Plains Indians so hypnotically involved in gambling with buffalo rib bones that losers would often leave the teepee without clothes in the dead of winter, having wagered away their weapons, horses and wives as well.(p. 62)
• There are natives of New Guinea who spend more time looking in the jungle for the colorful feathers they use for decoration in their ritual dances than they spend looking for food. And this is by no means a rare example. (p. 76)
• The culture of the Dobu islanders, as described by the anthropolgist Reo Fortune, is one that encouraged constant fear of sorcery, mistrust among even the closest relatives, and vindictive behavior. Just going to the bathroom was a major problem, because it involved stepping out into the bush, where everybody expected to be attacked by bad magic when alone among the trees. The Dobuans didn't seem to "like" these characteristics so pervasive in their everyday experience, but they were unaware of alternatives. (p. 79)

Originally from Caterina.net, on February 23, 2006 8:13 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 23, 2006 8:13 AM

I've just found an article from defunct Canadian digital art and culture magazine HorizonZero that traces the history of electronic music generated from human EEG recordings.

In the late 1960s, Richard Teitelbaum was a member of the innovative Rome-based live electronic music group Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV). In performances of Spacecraft (1967) he used various biological signals including brain (EEG) and cardiac (EKG) signals as control sources for electronic synthesizers. Over the next few years, Teitelbaum continued to use EEG and other biological signals in his compositions and experiments as triggers for nascent Moog electronic synthesizers.

ef="http://www.horizonzero.ca/textsite/flow.php?is=15&file=7&tlang=0">Link to 'A Young Person's Guide to Brainwave Music'.

Originally from Mind Hacks, on February 23, 2006 8:13 AM

Can I get an amen? An installation featuring an acetate pressing of a well worded spoken piece about copyright law, creative commons, culture and even advertising from the perspective of the history of the now ubiquitous Amen Break featuring audio samples of songs and artists from the well known to the unusual. Please feel free to use this archive.org mirror of the video indicated on the project description page with the entirety of the audio of the acetate at archive.org. (34MB MP4/Quicktime, majority of video portion consists of various views of the turntable, but the audio is quite good.)

Originally posted by loquacious from MetaFilter posts tagged with copyright, on February 23, 2006 8:13 AM

I wonder what it would take to commission one of these and have all of one's actual, real-life possessions turned into a scratch-off wall poster.

"Designed by Ross Cooper & Nic Woodley. The poster is decorated with over 400 hand-traced silhouettes depicting everything from a private jet to a garden gnome. The ‘scratch-off’ ink can be removed to reveal everything you have ever... loved, lost, created or destroyed. If you have ever played a lottery scratch card then you will be able to make this poster unique."

http://www.everythingihaveever.com/ Everything

Originally from Beyond the Beyond, on February 23, 2006 8:12 AM

I have a show of new stuff at Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in Paris. The opening is the 23rd (7ish), and I will also be doing a performance on Friday the 24th at 7pm. The show includes 3 things, a taken apart war game called Mig-29 Fighter and Clouds (seen above), a new video called "Colors" (hard to explain,...involves the movie Colors with Sean Penn, Robert Duvall,.....), and also a new thing called "Old Friends" (yep, a hack of the Simon and Garfunkel Live at Central Park DVD, reagganged with new chapter markers)......ANYWAY, but the real point of the show is that all 3 works are digitally dup-able so check back here in a few days, cause I am going to upload the "Don't Touch My Computer Home Users Guide" a PDF I made on how to recreate all the works in the show...awesome, maybe cu there!.........

Originally from Cory's Web LOG , on February 23, 2006 8:12 AM

From biou comes these images from Athens. You can find more on the paralirima blog

Originally from Wooster Collective, on February 23, 2006 8:11 AM

I blogged a while back about "why conservatives hate MP3 players" -- the folks on the cultural right who think personal audio-players seal young people into self-involved bubbles of existential onanism, in which they pay no attention to the world around them. Now it turns out this debate has arisen in the winter Olympics! Apparently, this year's young Olympians love their iPods so much that many listen to them while they're competing. The US snowboard team has even wired their uniforms to accomodate iPods, with iPod-sized pockets, speakers in their hoods, and control panels on their left sleeves. The music, says snowboarder Dustin Majewski, helps him stay in the zone: "It enables you to focus on what you're doing without actually focusing, if that makes any sense," he told the Baltimore Sun. "You're not over-thinking, and that's the best way to perform the harder tricks and maneuvers." That description is both hilariously incoherent and oddly spot-on. I think he's trying to describe the sense of "flow" -- being so joyously immersed in a task that the rest of the world seems to drop away: Perfect concentration without any sense of effort. But as it turns out, not all trainers and athletes think music has this sort of effect, as the Sun story goes on to report: "I'm not certain it's such a good idea" to listen to a music player during events, said Mike Jones of Dundalk, the president of the Baltimore Ski Club. "When you're doing aerials and everything, you have to concentrate and focus on positions. On a day when it's cloudy, you don't know whether you're looking at snow or sky, and distractions can be very dangerous." In fact, Spyder -- the company that sponsors the alpine ski team -- didn't rig its Olympic uniforms with iPod-ready wires in part because of safety concerns. "The skiers are racing down at 40 miles an hour," said Laura Wisner, a company spokeswoman. "You are in a completely different realm. It would not be a good time to listen to your iPod." (Thanks to Yishay Mor for this one!)

Originally from collision detection, on February 23, 2006 12:10 AM

Complex mathematical concepts are difficult to teach, so textbooks frequently try to explain things by referring to everyday phenomenon. But textbooks are often pretty culturally specific, so it's hard to translate them from one country to another -- or even from one cultural group to another. A textbook written using farm examples from rural Idaho ain't gonna cut it with kids in New York who've never even seen a tree, and vice versa. So the trick is to find relevant culture that also represents high-end math. Such as ... cornrow hair braids. Some educators realized that cornrows were a great example of fractal geometry, and developed some software that illustrates how it works. Ron Eglash of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute wrote about it on his web site: Each braid is represented as multiple copies of a "Y" shaped plait. In each iteration, the plait is copied, and a transformation is applied. The series of transformed copies creates the braid. In the above example, we can see the original style at top right, and a series of braid simulations, each composed of plait copies that are successively scaled down, rotated, and translated (reflection is only applied to whole braids, as in the case where one side of the head is a mirror image of the other). One of the interesting research outcomes was that our students discovered which parameters need to remain the same and which would be changed in order to produce the entire series of braids (that is, how to iterate the iterations). (Thanks to Yishay Mor for this one!)

Originally from collision detection, on February 22, 2006 10:41 PM

Originally from Google Blog Search: ted2006, on February 22, 2006 10:18 PM

Governors Island is an ideal laboratory for exploring competing desires to preserve the past and embrace the present.

Originally from NYT > Arts, on February 22, 2006 10:17 PM

Originally from WFMU's Beware of the Blog, on February 22, 2006 10:17 PM

david posted a photo:

If you don't know, now you know.

Originally from david's Photos, on February 22, 2006 9:30 PM

Yesterday's New York Times reports that NBC Universal asked YouTube, a free video-sharing site, to "remove about 500 clips of NBC material from its site or face legal action under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act."  NBC's request followed the soaring popularity and frenzied cross-posting of "Lazy Sunday," a rap video featuring Saturday Night Live comedians Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg.  "Lazy Sunday" is currently available on two sites -- it is free on NBCs site and costs $1.99 on Apple iTunes.  From the article:

Julie Summersgill, a spokeswoman for NBC Universal, said the company meant no ill will toward fan sites but wanted to protect its copyrights. "We're taking a long and careful look at how to protect our content," she said.  

We asked Berkman Fellow Wendy Seltzer (founder of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, former staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and now a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School) some questions about this issue:

Question: Wendy, you blogged this morning that, "I'm sure NBC lawyers need no reminding that unlike trademarks, copyrights do not need to be policed to retain their validity."  Could you explain why copyrights do not need to be policed in order to retain their validity?
Wendy: Sure, the confusion often comes about because copyright and trademark are two very different kinds of protection, sometimes lumped together as "intellectual property."  Copyright is the author's right to prevent unauthorized reproduction or public performance of a work (among other rights).  It can be exercised at any time, and is not abandoned by a lack of enforcement.  That means copyright holders are free to pick and choose their targets, to stop only those whose appropriation is causing them harm.
Trademark, by contrast, is the right to protect a brand as a source-identifier.  If a trademark holder let others use the mark for commercial identification, so "Saturday Night Live" was no longer associated with NBC's show but with any Saturday night TV, it would no longer serve that function.  (In practice, very few trademarks are lost to abandonment or genericide either).  

Question: If that's how copyrights are protected, how should copyright holders respond to situations like these?
Wendy: The first question should always be: "Is this hurting us?" and the second, perhaps, "will publicity around a takedown demand hurt us more?" (see Chilling Effects for examples).  If a copying isn't hurting the copyright holder, there's no reason to stop it.  If it starts to hurt, you can always object later.  (The overly cautious lawyer might send a letter saying the current activity was authorized under a temporary, revocable license.)

Question: You comment that NBC "seems to be shutting down its own best advertising."  Why is this the "best" form of advertising for NBC?
Wendy: In this case, it seemed the video's circulation online was driving more people to watch SNL on television, (and likely encouraging them to watch it live so they could have the first crack at talking about new episodes with friends) -- attracting viewers especially among the young, connected demographic advertisers want to reach.  People were making websites, t-shirts, and remixes, and all were helping to build an audience for whatever the Lonely Island team did next.  Now, searches on "Lazy Sunday" turn up references to the takedown well ahead of NBC's site.

Question: What does this tell us about tomorrow's world of advertising? What are the rule set changes?
Wendy: Media today are competing for attention.  While it may be hard to predict what will attract attention, savvy marketers should embrace it when they find it.  NBC could have asked YouTube for an acknowledgement and link to NBC's website, for example, if they wanted to bring people back to the network's pages and tie the video to the television experience.

Originally from Berkman News, on February 22, 2006 9:28 PM

Originally posted by fakebanana from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 22, 2006 9:28 PM

david posted a photo:

I took this picture by accident on Wed 22/02/2006 13:53.

Originally from david's Photos, on February 22, 2006 9:28 PM

Rhizome is awarding a handful of small grants for Internet-based art projects: Deadline is 1 April 2006, awards range from $900-$3000.

Originally from see art / make art, on February 22, 2006 9:27 PM

La Cocina is a San Francisco-based non-profit community kitchen who's purpose is to assist micro-entrepreneurs become economically self-sufficient in part by providing them fully-licensed, affordable kitchen space. I first learned about La Cocina when I heard this NPR piece. Via...

Originally from A Full Belly, on February 22, 2006 5:38 PM

I got this email, subject “Enterprise Server Spotlight”, that was sorta kinda from InfoWorld, and it took me to a Web page that was sorta kinda InfoWorld, and the whole sequence was very disturbing. [Update: InfoWorld responds; “Never ascribe to malice...” as the saying goes.]...

Originally from ongoing, on February 22, 2006 5:36 PM

Daring Fireball: “The file name extension in this case is a lie. The file is not, in fact, a JPEG image. It’s a shell script. And so when it is ‘opened,’ it’s opened by Terminal because of the ‘usro’ resource, and the shell script is run.”

Originally from ranchero.com, on February 22, 2006 5:36 PM

This has been the worst, most flagrantly implausible season of 24 yet. Where to begin? Kiefer docilely going along with terrible plans designed by inept leaders, that moronic storyline from last week about the nerve gas in the mall,...

Originally posted by Amy from Amy's Robot, on February 22, 2006 2:24 PM

Thriftcraft is a new website devoted to reusing vintage and recycled materials, as well as to the thrill of the thrift store hunt. Hillary is a prolific crafter, so if you’re looking for some inspiration while in the secondhand store, keep an eye on this site.

Originally posted by Megan from ReadyMade Blog, on February 22, 2006 2:24 PM

"Thankfully, the short-term workaround is fast and simple: Safari > Preferences > General tab > uncheck the 'Open "safe" files after downloading' checkbox." (Gee, with so many OSX 'viruses' out there, maybe I won't install OSX86 on my Dell.)

Originally posted by yatta from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 22, 2006 2:24 PM

Sheridan animation student Brandon Scott has a wonderful sense of colour and light…. beautiful stuff!

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration Blog, on February 22, 2006 2:24 PM

BMW x Josh Davis?! Also, updates at NoPattern, and check out the sweet work of Von.

Originally from KALIBER10000, on February 22, 2006 2:24 PM

Sunday’s Observer featured an in-depth profile by Rachel Donadio of Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink.

“With a writerly verve and strong narrative powers, he leavens serious social science research with zany characters and pithy, easily digestible anecdotes.”

Gladwell’s publishing success – Tipping Point has sold 1.7 million copies in N. America and Blink has sold 1.3 million – has led to a lucrative career as a public speaker for which he is apparently now paid about $40,000 per lecture. On top of that he’s also a columnist at the New Yorker.

“Gladwell’s dazzling arguments ultimately offer reassurance. Indeed he seems a contemporary incarnation of a recurring figure in the American experience, one who comes with encouraging news: you can make a difference, you have the capacity to change.”

Update: Malcolm Gladwell has a blog; via Marginal Revolution.

Link to book tickets to see Malcolm Gladwell in conversation with Robert McCrum, The Observer’s literary editor, on Weds 15 March at the South Bank Centre in London.
Link to profile as it appeared in the NY Times before the Observer.
Link to first audio clip from the interview.
Link to 2nd audio clip.
Link to 3rd audio.

Originally from Mind Hacks, on February 22, 2006 2:24 PM

A nice collection of drawings by the world’s most famous Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci, can be found waiting for you at the Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci site. The drawings include medical studies, scientific diagrams, and of course — flying machines.

(via Eastern Blot)

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration Blog, on February 22, 2006 2:23 PM

A month ago I was thinking that the plot of land directly under GMaps' default center could be valuable real estate. "Coffeyville might seem like the middle of nowhere. But if you use Google Maps, the small town is the very center of the universe."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 22, 2006 2:23 PM

Magnetic Memory: A Day-Long Video Tribute to Nam June Paik Saturday, February 25, 2006 10 am - 10 pm Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) 535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10011 (212) 337-0680 Please join EAI in a celebration of the videotapes of visionary artist Nam June Paik, who died last month at the age of ...

Originally from see art / make art, on February 22, 2006 11:13 AM

Einstein Chronology for 1905

Originally from Sylloge, on February 22, 2006 11:13 AM

a textual analysis visualization of keywords mentioned during famous speeches (ranging from G.W.Bush to W. Churchill). the visual display breaks down the rhetoric, takes the words out of context, & treats them at face value in order to analyze the breakdown of content. each group of metaphors (e.g. decline, controversy, war, imagination) is color-coded, & sized based on frequency. see also parsing state of the union. [iamsapp.ca]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 22, 2006 11:12 AM

One year ago today, I asked the readers of kottke.org to become micropatrons and support my efforts in producing the site for a year. Over the course of three weeks, people generously sent in their financial support[1], giving me enough to pay my salary for the entire year[2] and not have to bug you about it every few days.

So the year is up and I've been trying to think about what to say on this occasion for, oh, about six months now, but I'm undecided even now. I guess I'll start with the important bit.

I'm not going to be asking for contributions again. Part of it has to do with the reasons outlined at the bottom of this post. I haven't grown traffic enough or developed a sufficient cult of personality to make the subscription model a sustainable one for kottke.org...those things just aren't interesting to me.

The other big reason is that my life has changed a lot in the past year. Growing a new business with a novel (or at least challenging) business model requires lots of time and energy to build the necessary momentum...basically approaching it with a startup mentality: long hours, work on the weekends, less time to spend with family and friends, making work the #1 priority, etc. My (unstated) intention from the beginning was to approach the site as a startup, but along the way life intervened (in a good way) and I couldn't focus on it as much as I wanted to. The site became a normal job, a 9-to-5 affair, which meant that I could keep up with it, but growth was hard to come by.

So what's going to happen with kottke.org? I'm not quite sure at this point. In the short term, it's going to be taking a back seat to some other things going on in my life. Longer term, who knows? I might look for other ways to fund my efforts on the site or maybe it goes back to being more of a hobby. But there will be posts and links and other things here almost daily, just like there have been for almost 8 years now.

And that leaves approximately everything else, if anything, unsaid. If you're curious about something related to the end of the micropatron experiment, send me an email with your question. I'll choose the most interesting and/or representative ones and post my responses to them in a future entry. I'll give special consideration to questions from micropatrons. Or post your thoughts to your blog, send me a link, and I'll compile those as well. And as always, your feedback is appreciated via email. (And sorry in advance if I can't respond to your questions individually, although I'll try my best.)

[1] Again, thanks to everyone who contributed for their support. In this age of ad-supported media, it means a great deal to me that you felt strongly enough about kottke.org to support it directly. I'd also like to thank Eyebeam, the companies and people who contributed the fund drive gifts, thelist, Jonah, and Meg for their help and support.

[2] Since everyone and their uncle has been asking, about 1450 micropatrons contributed $39,900 over the past year...99.9% of that coming during the 3 week fund drive.

Originally from kottke.org, on February 22, 2006 11:12 AM

Me & mY Sis.

In this photo, two cellphone screens contain two halves of a single word / phrase (”I LO / VE U”) - a digital friendship charm between sisters.

This didn’t require special software, and the phones aren’t linked as in a multi-monitor desktop - each phone is simply using a related graphic as its wallpaper. However, as we see in the real and imagined screen interfaces of the future, harmonized or sympathetic devices are becoming a big deal - small devices, loosely joined. In addition to various forms of smart mobs, loosely linked digital accessories are entering the arts in examples as disparate as pervasive gaming and proximity response fashion accessories. SMS, Bluetooth, and RFID tags are the common channels of communication for devices that don’t just shake hands, or pretend to speak, but enter into actual dialog.

This dialog might occur coorperatively, like TileToy, or synergistically, like Furbies… or even antagonistically, like Needies. The interactions of most digital toys seem to be modeled on either pet play dates or else Balanese cock fights, however. Even when the topic system is extremely complex, the result resembles chatter more than dialog.

There have been some interesting (and humorous) experiments with connecting two chatbots so that they talk to each other. What would happen if we carried chatbots around inside our digital devices? It might be interesting if our virtual pets gradually evolved towards becaming dramatis personae. Then I could bring my “Grace” cellphone program - and you could bring your “Tripp” action figure…

…and when Trip said “I love you,” Grace might respond “Just saying that doesn’t make everything better.” Tripp says “What have I done now?” and we’re off.

Originally posted by Jeremy Douglass from WRT: Writer Response Theory, on February 22, 2006 11:09 AM

Over at Secunia, they're reporting that the "Open 'safe' files after downloading" feature in Safari has a nasty downside as shell scripts can be executed via single clicks.

They've built a test which opens Calculator and, yep, it's exploitable. For Safari 1.3 and well as 2.0.

It might be a good idea to just turn off the "safe files" download feature (in the Preferences menu) until a patch is released by Apple.

Originally from massless, on February 22, 2006 1:12 AM

Karl Auerbach: What Would Happen To The Internet If ICANN Were To Vanish? Not much, so let's just kill it and not replace it with anything.

Originally from Hack the Planet, on February 22, 2006 1:10 AM

Michael Roberts: The Villain in the ICANN-VeriSign Struggle is the U.S. Government.

Originally from Hack the Planet, on February 22, 2006 1:09 AM

Originally from kathryn yu dot com, on February 22, 2006 1:00 AM

The iTunes Billion Songs Countdown is bringin' out the nrrrrds: they developed a widget, published stats, wrote a Java applet, and even hacked a more accurate counter than Apple's (which by all appearances, seems to be to be rigged!)

Originally posted by eener from MetaFilter posts tagged with apple, on February 22, 2006 1:00 AM

In the spirit of community activism, today we are launching a new social movement: The Amy's Robot Subway Vomit Campaign™. MTA Service: NYC Transit Subway Category: Complaint Date/Time of Event: 02/13/2006 06:00 PM Location of Event: 42nd Street A/C/E Downtown...

Originally posted by Emily from Amy's Robot, on February 22, 2006 12:58 AM

Originally from Google Blog Search: ted2006, on February 22, 2006 12:58 AM

a national organization for professional women in the visual arts

Originally posted by lauren_cornell from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 22, 2006 12:58 AM

Originally posted by lauren_cornell from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 22, 2006 12:58 AM

Originally posted by lauren_cornell from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 22, 2006 12:58 AM

Since 2003 a company called Technical Video Rental (basically Netflix for how-tos) has been renting out instructional videos on everything from painting to knifemaking to swimming to woodworking. Recently they’ve added more functionality to their website, including customer reviews and a personal rental history so you don’t rent the same thing more than once…unless [...]

Originally posted by Adam from ReadyMade Blog, on February 21, 2006 4:04 PM

My list of Firefox extensions continues to grow, and since I’m pretty happy with the installed set, I thought I’d share the list. Here goes:

• Adblock — Filtering ads is pretty much mandatory functionality for me.
• Adblock Filterset.G Updater — Makes Adblock work if you don’t want to write the filtering rules yourself.
• ColorZilla — Adds an eye-dropper color tool for looking up RGB values of colors in a web page.
• del.icio.us — The bookmarklets worked fine, but the extension makes posting pages to del.icio.us even easier.
• Dom Inspector — Not incredible useful for debugging, but occasionally it helps.
• Download Statusbar — Moves download status to the status bar instead of a pop-up window.
• FireBug — The new kid on the block of web debugging tools. Great integration with the browser.
• Greasemonkey — Enables page rewriting. See userscripts.org for ideas.
• Performancing — In-browser blogging. Not as nice as MarsEdit, but handy for quick posts or posting from my linux box.
• SessionSaver — I have a love/hate relationship with this extension. It’s great when it recovers a browser session after a crash, but it tends to load a strange set of pages when it happens.
• Tab X — Puts “close” buttons on each tab (ala Safari.) Makes life easier for me.
• Tab Mix Plus — Extensive tab preferences and session recovery.
• Venkman JavaScript Debugger — Elaborate JavaScript debugging environment.
• Web Developer — A swiss-army-knife of developer tools.

I’m also running the GrApple (Classic Pro) theme.

The list of available Firefox Extensions grows so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up. I generally find out about new extensions from LifeHacker, but if you have one that you love, I’d like to hear about it!

Originally posted by erik from [eriksmartt.com/blog], on February 21, 2006 4:04 PM

I met my friendly local Pom delivery man at the market this morning and he introduced me to these new Pom Teas. Currently available in Pomegranate Black Tea and Pomegranate Lychee Green Tea (the better of the two), they come in glass containers that you can reuse as glassware (if you don't mind the Pom Tea logo on them). Not a bargain at $3, but if you like pomegranate you'll enjoy these. The delivery man said these have been out a week or two and will ramp up in time for spring/summer 2006. We couldn't find any other information on Pom's site, so keep an eye out for these at your local market.

TAGS: Food, Tea,

Originally from Cool Hunting, on February 21, 2006 4:03 PM

Debate between Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik on the health care systems in the US and Canada. "Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell have both lived in Canada and developed strong feelings about socialized health care -- pro and con."

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 21, 2006 4:03 PM

The fashion industry doesn't try to control its creativity the way that the music and film industries do. "The fashion world recognizes that creativity cannot be bridled and controlled and that obsessive quests to do so will only diminish its vitality. Other content industries would do well to heed this wisdom."

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 21, 2006 4:02 PM

Check out Mozilla Bug #313441. Lots of juicy stuff: security risks, open source goodness, RSS 2.0 ambiguities bleeding down into RSS 1.0. Bloglines being, uh, a little slow to catch up. And Atom being the solution. My favorite quote: “If you need to use the character ‘<’ in a feed title, which Bugzilla absolutely does, you have exactly three choices: be invalid and work, be valid and fail, or, the *only* real choice, use Atom instead.” It works for some other people who really care about security, too. But maybe the security’s just a sideshow; the real benefit of moving to Atom would be to avoid the annual RSS food-fight.

Originally from ongoing, on February 21, 2006 4:02 PM

The Participatory Culture Foundation just launched the Windows version of their internet video player (formerly called DTV) today, and renamed their platform Democracy, which includes tools for playing, broadcasting, and sharing net videos. Like FireANT, which also recently had a big upgrade, Democracy Player makes it pretty easy to subscribe to feeds and browse through videos you've downloaded. What's great about the Democracy solution is that it's very easy to create new channels for other people to watch. You can use their Video Bomb to make your own channel with links to videos anywhere - essentially allowing anyone to curate a found video blog like Rocketboom's (great and fun) Apollo Pony, or collect all of their own videos in one place, like someone at the PCF nicely did for the brilliant ladies of The Variety Shac. You can also use Broadcast Machine to host and create your own video blog or channel, complete with torrent creation to ease the bandwidth on your server.

The whole platform's so well-thought out and easy to use that it's a near miracle that this is an open source project by a non-profit foundation, considering the enormous amounts of money and attention lately focusing on this space, and on sites like YouTube and Google Video, and the Video Bomb front page already stands up very well against those sites in terms of sheer time wasting value (personally, I already prefer it).

It'll be interesting to read what people say about this over the next week or so; until then, it's definitely worth checking out on your own.

Originally from shey.net reblog, on February 21, 2006 4:02 PM

"At the moment, the existing microformats seem like a solution to a non-problem. Humans have no trouble extracting meaning from context, whereas machines must be told. If machines must be told the type of content, microformats are actually a way to help machines, not humans." Specifically, the machines sitting in Technorati's colo facility, I imagine.

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 21, 2006 4:02 PM

The head of the US copyright office has accused Congress of making a mistake by extending the length of copyright in America, calling the term "too long," and saying that Congress made a "big mistake."

Originally posted by exiledsurfer from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 21, 2006 4:02 PM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 21, 2006 4:02 PM

textually.org has been on fire recently. If you like cell phones & mobile technology, be prepared to lose your afternoon! Some highlights: San Jose art museum to offer guided tours over cell phones, library reminders over sms, man's corpse phones home (as his coffin was being lowered into the ground!), sms boom leads to digit damage (3.8 million people now complain of text-related injuries every year!), Prague hospital announces death by SMS, and mcomic makes it easy for independent comics to distribute their work over SMS.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 21, 2006 2:31 PM

Dr. Oliver Sacks' editor just sent over this photo of Dr. Roger Hanlon (left) with Dr. Kubodera, the researcher who first filmed the giant squid Architeuthis.

Yup, he's the man who angered the squid.

At the recent cephalopod conference in Tasmania, participants presented Dr. Kubodera with a shirt of his own.

Originally from Off the Hoof, on February 21, 2006 2:08 PM

Lawrence H. Summers's decision came after several weeks of agitation by the faculty over the resignation of a dean.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on February 21, 2006 2:08 PM

the Excitebike scene is lovely [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 21, 2006 2:07 PM

Reggie officially announces Twilight Princess delay.

Originally posted by Rob Drimmie from hello, nintendo, on February 21, 2006 1:31 PM

[Digital Media Minute] The GeoRSS Google Maps API Extention is a simple way to  create  a Google Map using the GeoRSS extension to the RSS standard.  The API extension is simply a small JavaScript library and is very easy to implement.

Originally posted by admin from Geotags.org, on February 21, 2006 1:27 PM

 [Minimalist Weblog] Geobloggers combines Google Maps and Flickr to associate photos with locations. Make Magazine gives instructions on how you can participate.

Originally posted by admin from Geotags.org, on February 21, 2006 1:27 PM

Originally from hustler of culture, on February 21, 2006 1:26 PM

Originally from lifeblog, on February 21, 2006 1:26 PM

It turns out they’re holding what’s advertised as “the first ever 100% Ruby on Rails event in the world” right here in Vancouver, April 13-14: Canada on Rails. I’ll go for sure. Given the enthusiasm that built up around that PHP piece, I’m thinking that a comment system for ongoing is inevitable, and maybe RoR is just the ticket. [Snicker... the URI of the registration page ends in .php].

Originally from ongoing, on February 21, 2006 1:26 PM

I should really buckle down and try writing a PHP app because, at the moment, I have an attitude problem. I know that IBM now officially loves it, and Tim O’Reilly’s been charting the upcurve in PHP book sales, and everyone’s saying that Oracle’s going to buy Zend. If you want your ears bent back, have a listen to Zend CEO Doron Gerstel; he’ll tell you that half the websites in the world are powered by PHP and that there are 2½ million developers and that the war is over and PHP won. So here’s my problem, based on my limited experience with PHP (deploying a couple of free apps to do this and that, and debugging a site for a non-technical friend here and there): all the PHP code I’ve seen in that experience has been messy, unmaintainable crap. Spaghetti SQL wrapped in spaghetti PHP wrapped in spaghetti HTML, replicated in slightly-varying form in dozens of places. Everyone agrees on PHP’s upsides: it’s written for the web, it’s easy to deploy and get running, and it’s pretty fast. Those are important advantages. And I’m sure that it’s possible to write clean, comprehensible, maintainable, PHP; only apparently it’s real easy not to. But PHP has competition, most obviously Rails; and don’t write the Java EE crowd off, they’re not stupid at all and they’re trying to learn the lessons that PHP is trying to teach. So PHP has earned everyone’s respect by getting where it is, and Sun should reach out to it more than we have. But in the big picture, it feels vulnerable to me. [Wow, I regret not having comments. There’s been some first-rate discussion in email and on other blogs. On this occasion, I’m going to create a virtual comment section by posting the good ones here.] [Lots more comments: Hatch, Nolan, Maurus, (indirectly) Minutillo.]...

Originally from ongoing, on February 21, 2006 1:26 PM

Updated Six Apart, the creator of blogging products like Moveable Type and Typepad, has raised $12 million in a third round of venture capital, according to IDD Magazine. Intel is rumored to be in on the deal. (Update: Om is sleuthing the deal.) There's also a discussion about how Wall Street doesn't look ready to take any of these so-called Web 2.0 companies to the public market anytime soon. This follows lots of gossip Friday night at the Techcrunch party about whether there is a bubble now in the Web 2.0 world. Robert Scoble, the Microsoft blogger, took of his shirt in the cold for a "naked" conversation, and writes afterward that there is indeed a bubble. At former Tribe CEO Mark Pincus' party, last Thursday night, the bubble was also dominating discussion. Someone said, about all the financings, but no IPOs: "There's a lot of foreplay going on, but no one goes home to have sex." The answer is yes, there is a bubble, because......

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on February 21, 2006 1:26 PM

Aiming to put together "a children's canon on which people might like to draw", The Royal Society of Literature asked top children's authors for a list of 10 books every child should read before they leave school. Here are the 7 resulting lists, including ones from Philip Pullman and JK Rowling. These lists are erudite enough that they would make a good year's reading for any adult, and it would be fun to read them one list at a time to try to extract the message each author was trying to get to the children. Of course, everyone likes Ben Okri's list of "10 1/2 Inclinations" the best. ("1. There is a secret trail of books meant to inspire and enlighten you. Find that trail.")

I don't know. 10 books isn't very many. What have they left off? (via mc)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on February 21, 2006 1:24 PM

The Best Advice I Ever Got is a collection of illustrated nuggets of wisdom collected by Penelope Dullaghan (the woman who brought us Illustration Friday).

Originally posted by Johnny from Drawn! The Illustration Blog, on February 21, 2006 1:24 PM

Nikon has added seven new digital cameras to its Coolpix line.

Originally from Macworld, on February 21, 2006 1:23 PM

Aesthetics of Information Visualization

"Beyond the technically challenging questions of how data can be mapped are the questions of why one should map the textual or numerical into the visual. By asking why, this chapter provides an art historical and philosophical context for understanding information visualization projects undertaken as artistic research. Specifically, the question to be addressed concerns the formulation of an aesthetics of information visualization: What is the critical, artistic value of works in information visualization? Aesthetics, as a field of inquiry, examines issues of sensation and perception and seeks to understand why something is – or why some group of people finds something to be -- emotionally, sensually moving. What is beautiful, ugly, awe-inspiring, emotionally overwhelming, scary or comforting? (For a contemporary overview of the field of aesthetics, see Michael Kelly (editor), Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, 1998.) So, to inquire about the aesthetics of information visualization is to investigate the judgment used to decide what about the work is valuable, according to the senses or, in general, the body..." From Aesthetics of Information Visualization by Warren Sack. [via Rhizome]

Originally posted by jo from networked_performance, on February 21, 2006 1:23 PM

New Channel for Communication

Aperture is a facade installation with interactive and narrative displaying modes. Consisting of an iris diaphragm matrix, the facade's surface with its apertures' variable opening diameters is enriched by a dynamic translucency, that creates new imagery as well as a new channel for communication between inside and outside.

Working on the topic "intelligent surface/sensitive skin" for the Digital Media Class at the University of the Arts Berlin, concept and prototype were conceived by Frédéric Eyl and Gunnar Green. Support by Professor Joachim Sauter and Jussi Ängeslevä [via CULTURETV]

Originally posted by jo from networked_performance, on February 21, 2006 1:22 PM

New Media Showcase with the New Media Caucus of CAA

b>Date and time: Thursday, February 23rd 3 to 5 p.m. Featured artists: Roberto Bocci, Margot Lovejoy, Maurice Methot, Gwyan Rhabyt, Jack Toolin (C5); Co-presented by: The Department of Visual and Media Arts, School of the Arts, Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies of Emerson College and New Media Caucus, College Art Association

Location: Little Building, Emerson Room, 2nd floor, 80 Boylston Street, Boston, MA. Directions from the Hynes Convention Center: Take the Green Line subway("T") from Hynes/ICA station to 3rd stop (past Copley and Arlington), the Boylston station. The Little Building is across the street.

Originally posted by jo from networked_performance, on February 21, 2006 1:22 PM

A text messaging reminder service has been launched by LincolnshireÂ’s library service to let borrowers know that their items are ready for collection. "When you reserve a library book, talking book, CD, DVD or video you can now choose to be notified by text message , a service which is free of charge. [via eGov monitor]

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 21, 2006 1:22 PM

• Scientist earmarks planets most likely to contain extraterrestrial life

Originally from News of the dead, on February 21, 2006 10:46 AM

Mobile telephone text messaging has become so popular in Britain that millions of users now suffer injuries to their thumbs and fingers because of their love of keeping in touch, according to a survey for Virgin Mobile, reports Reuters. ... "Thirty-eight percent more people suffer from sore wrists and thumbs due to texting than five years ago and 3.8 million people now complain of text-related injuries every year".

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 21, 2006 10:46 AM

AT&T and Cingular are launching a new Nokia 6682 handset today, reports the NYTimes which includes software that links the phone to the AT&T- Yahoo Web portal or a personalized My Yahoo page. "This means that any address, e-mail message or instant message sent from your phone can also be sent automatically to your personalized Yahoo page on a computer, and vice versa...

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 21, 2006 10:46 AM

Flowchart art involves lines of flow between pages, lexias, or, in the case of comics, panels. Common examples of flow include both multilinear plot branching and the arrangement of monolinear elements - as was previously discussed using examples of flowchart art in the work of Scott McCloud, Chris Ware, and Craig Robinson. After receiving some excellent suggestions of further examples, I have some thoughts on types of flow - including aleatory (random) flow, inaccessible (hidden) flow, and procedural (performed) flow. The examples are Scott McCloud (again) and his “The Story Machine,” Tym Godek’s “My Life with Pets”, Tragic Lad’s “Bunny and Cantelope,” and Jason Shiga’s “Meanwhile.”

Scott McCloud’s “The Story Machine” is a grid map of hundreds of small iconic symbols connected by trails. The Machine flows in all directions, and “reading” done by rolling a four-sided die and moving north, south, east or west through the grid. The purpose is “a random idea-generating device along the lines of various surrealist games and devices,” with a sequence of symbols inspiring and constraining the author “by throwing an endless series of conceptual curve balls to stimulate unpredictable turns of thought.” Like other surrealist games and conceptual art pieces, The Story Machine is as much the specification of a process as it is an actual text - McCloud doesn’t provide the final Machine, but instead publishes a few sample swatches and encourages people to create their own. Some related techniques of visualizing constrained story structure were recently discussed by Christy Dena in Designing Story DNA.

Tym Godek’s “My Life with Pets” is a classic parallel timeline - multilinear reading only in the sense that you experience each simple line simultaneously, and jump in parallels between them. The story, in as much as there is one, lies not along the lines but between them - in the lateral jumps between the ownership, births, and deaths of pets and how these relate to the central timeline of Tym’s relocations, educations, marriage etc. Godek’s “My Life with Pets” is read across the lines, not down them. From this example and from the earlier observation that Robinson’s “What If” is browsed, not read, we can see in general that flow lines don’t simply dictate reading paths. Reading happens both along them and across then.

Tragic Lad’s “Bunny and Cantelope” uses the flow of trails across a large canvas for some interesting effects - in one example to mimic the motions of a chase scene, in another to create a parallel distraction, where the reader is tempted to jump the tracks and skip off the officially indicated flow (an urbane dinner conversation at a restaurant) and over to more exciting fare (a fight scene in the kitchen). Tragic Lad’s flow somewhat resembles Scott McCloud’s use of trails in “Porphyria’s Lover” to add a spatial rythm (rather than plot branching, as in McCloud’s “Carl”). On the other hand, Tragic Lad’s parallel tracks somewhat resemble Chris Ware’s “Jimmy Corrigan” - not so much in style, as in their assumption that branches are not alternate possibilities, but sets of parallel occurances distributed across space and time. Like Jason Shiga’s “Meanwhile,” certain sections are unavailable unless you “cheat” the trails system - either by jumping the tracks to investigate unlinked nearby panels, or else by reading backwards from where two branches merge.

Jason Shiga’s “Meanwhile…” uses a tubular, unidirectional trails to map a complex plot-branching narrative. This involves a complex graphic vocabulary - available option trails generally leave the borders of a panel as open tubes, and arrive in another panel as closed ones. A selection trail may encircle an object within a panel to indicate a choice, or it may bifurcate arbitrarily midway at a dot. Designed for print and later adapted to the web, “Meanwhile” trails move between pages using a system of tabs - a trail runs off the page at the edge location that indicates which tab to turn to, and the trail arrives on the page from that location.

“Meanwhile” uses flow in a wild variety of ways. Flow branches along moment-to-moment transitions, such as flipping a coin or hesitating by a medicine cabinet. Flow dramatizes the passage of time, as when a panels interflow with the second-by-second countdown of a digital clock readout. Flow stages complex interactions, as when the reader is invited to enter a password by “entering” the digits in combinatoric explosion of choices. This procedural flow may also increase the complexity of the flow path in order to make choices significant - for example, the process of ‘entering’ one of twelve possible codes is made more significant by making the process of tracing the code path to its conclusion a difficult, time-consuming tangle. Flow sounds easy, but it can be serious work - in the sense of Espen Aarseth’s “ergodic” conception of cybertext.

While flow can cause difficulty, it can also create impossible choices, unfollowable trails, inaccessible pages, and unreachable panels. That is, unreachable in theory - while some panels can never be reached by following Shiga’s trails, they are read nonetheless. As just one example, on one page, two panels that say “End” are connected by a single tube, cut off from the rest of the story’s flow. What do these panels mean on the page? Is the flow of these endings “next to” the main story in the way that cats and dogs parallel Tym Godek’s lifeline in “My Life with Pets”? Or is it an invitation to jump the tracks and just end, like the track-jumping in Tragic Lad’s “Bunny and Cantelope”? These techniques indicate all the ways in which flow does not create reading sequences, but instead suggests them. Reading against the flow happens too, and some of the most interesting experiments with flow are not just specifying it, but making counter-flow artful as well. Shiga provides plenty of that - but more on Shiga’s work later.

[Thanks for suggestions from Andy Baio, Tim Tylor, Neil, Bryce]

Originally posted by Jeremy Douglass from WRT: Writer Response Theory, on February 21, 2006 10:46 AM

File under bizarre. An undertaker director faces criminal charges after organising a funeral service for a man who was still alive, reports News.com.au. "As Bogoljub Topalovic's coffin was being lowered into the ground, his daughter's mobile phone rang. She was surprised, and then happy, to receive a call from the supposed corps who was wondering why none of his family had been to visit him that day. It seems a nurse, keen to claim the commission paid for information about new deaths, had mistakenly noted down the wrong name when ringing the funeral home. The funeral staff then collected someone else's corpse.

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 21, 2006 10:46 AM

I’m using iWeb, and I like it. There I admitted it. Forgive me, web purists, but this is really nice.

It might be surprising to hear. I co-wrote a book on Movable Type: so what am I doing reverting my site to one built with software with such limited functionality, that produces such nasty code? Having fun, that’s what.

I still use Movable Type. Indeed, I make half of my living with it - as you’ll see in a week or so, one can do amazing things with the software. But that’s just the point: I spend my working day knee-deep in <MTThis> and <MTThat> and hand-coding templates into a fully compliant, accessible, structured data storm of web 2.0 microformats and Ajaxian scripting. I’ve spent all week converting wireframes - pixel perfect, gorgeous wireframes from three *very* good designers - into cross-browser compatible works of markup art, and I’m tired. I just want my words and pictures to look nice. Life’s too short to customise one’s templates for the eighth time.

Yes, the code is clunky. Yes, the URLs bring me out in hives. No, there are no comments. But there’s also no messing around, very little time wasted between knowing what I want on the screen and producing it, and no trouble at all in administering it. I publish to a local folder, and rsync takes care of the rest. Somethings I want to customise, others I just want to get the hell out of my way.

The whole thing is frictionless - and frictionless tools are what I want this year.

Originally from Ben Hammersley's Dangerous Precedent, on February 21, 2006 10:45 AM

Stewart posted a photo:

A forgotten snack at 21st and Valencia.

[Good! I finally fixed the crazy color profiles problems I've been having. Now I have some re-uploading to do.

UPDATE: Nope. Still not right. Argh! Stupid computers.]

Originally from Sylloge, on February 21, 2006 10:44 AM

Stewart posted a photo:

Originally from Sylloge, on February 21, 2006 10:44 AM

A gamasutra news deals with the future of gaming according to Nokia (Jani Karlsson). It addresses the n-gage experience and what they learnt form it.

The basic learning is that experience is everything. Experience is the key. Not features for features sake, not power for power’s sake - but always leading with the experience, with what the user actually wants and enjoys.
(…)
GS: So… you can talk about the future of N-Gage?

- that’s all about expansion, into the smartphone areas.

GS: So, there’ll be an N-Gage smartphone?

JK: I wouldn’t go that far. There’s going to be a platform. There hasn’t been a brand announcement of yet.
(…)
I think our responsibility is two-fold. One is to enable the content industry in exploiting the mobile market as effectively as they can. On the other hand, being the leader in our field we need to lead by example - By focusing on the areas that may not make the most financial sense at the moment, but are essential for the evolution of mobile gaming and entertainment.

Richer content convergence in games versus other interactive entertainment - tied in with the community features.
(…)
[About innovation related to peripherals:]
we are always looking for new innovations in the design side. Like the N Series devices are utilizing the video capabilities, and the N91 is really simplifying the music experience. So I can definitely see possibilities where there are more gaming orientated devices
(…)
Do you think mobile phone games exist in a different consumer cultural space, and if so, do you think that gap is going to continue to exist?

JK: I would say that the gap is both closing and widening at the same time. The performance power of the soon to market devices is really catching up on the console performance. But at the same time, the expansion of the user experience means we need to cater for the current mobile gamer being really light content. That content would really look out of place on a PSP - but on a mobile phone, the quick fix is totally viable.

Why do I blog this? this interview gives some interesting highlights about how Nokia people sees the mobile game future: platform convergence (smartphones), cultural and market convergence (the mobile game industry catches up the console game industry, eventually…), new input/output capabilities (related to music interface for instance)…

Originally posted by Nicolas from pasta and vinegar, on February 21, 2006 10:44 AM

An article by Techreview mentions the fact that MIT MediaLab is going to be “more focused”:

venture capitalists no longer readily throw money at “vague” projects, and government funding is drying up. Today, 70 percent of the lab’s annual budget of around $35 million comes from corporate sponsors, with whom they must forge ever-closer ties. Since corporate benefactors want practical technologies, the Media Lab has to strike
a balance between meeting sponsors’ needs and maintaining its traditional philosophy of open-ended research.
(…)
These challenges now face a new director, Frank Moss (…)
Moss says: “What has changed over the past seven or eight years is that simply coming here and rubbing shoulders with very smart, creative people is often not enough for our sponsors. They need us to help them make a connection between all the wonderful creative work we have here and problems they have.”
(…)
“I think we’re all entrepreneurs, but I’m coming from a commercial environment. I think the reason MIT went in that direction is that in many ways running an academic research lab in today’s world requires a keen understanding of the sponsors and what their needs and wants are”
(…)
“I think in the next 20 years we’re going to see tremendous advancements in using technology to deal with lingering social problems — delivering health care, dealing with aging, education — things that go beyond the digital lifestyle we enjoy today. The lab
is going to be looking at how we can use existing or new technologies to make a big difference and solve social problems.”

Well… he brings out some questions about research/innovation… and some issues…

Originally posted by Nicolas from pasta and vinegar, on February 21, 2006 10:44 AM

"Audible plans to announce on Tuesday that it will start selling episodes of Gervais' show beginning with a new "season two" collection of episodes, which will begin next week. Audible will charge $1.95 per episode or $6.95 for the season,...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on February 21, 2006 10:44 AM

I'm currently enjoying reading the Brain Ethics Blog that aims to discuss the consequences of brain science amd the ethical issues that arise from it.

It is run by two Danish neuropsychologists, Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy and Martin Skov, who give their own take on the current hot topics of mind and brain science.

The most recent post, analysing a recent study that claims to have made inferences about cognitive evolution from a brain scanning experiment, particularly caught my eye as an insightful look into a recent controversial finding.

Link to Brain Ethics Blog.

Originally from Mind Hacks, on February 21, 2006 10:44 AM

Treacherous Machetes. Could there be a more promising name for a two-man band with the capacity to effectively instill feelings of panic, frustration, paranoia and yes, treachery in its audience? To make a very enjoyable, but ear-deafening experience into a...

Originally posted by Peter Konefal from Media, Technology and Society, on February 21, 2006 10:43 AM

If you’re reading this blog via RSS, you’re missing out on pretty pictures. Like this one.

My new lens really is very nice. I took this standing half a mile away.

Originally from Ben Hammersley's Dangerous Precedent, on February 21, 2006 10:43 AM

Favorite new word (this week): snowclone, a description of "a type of formula-based cliche which uses an old idiom in a new context". Like "____ is the new ____", "____, now more than ever", or "all your ____ are belong to us". (via anil)

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 21, 2006 10:43 AM

Decent article about blogs (a rarity these days) from the Financial Times. "Each blogger was his, or her, own printing press, spontaneously exercising their freedom to criticise. Which is great. But along the way, opinion became the new pornography on the internet."

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 21, 2006 10:43 AM

my work area, alone:

bikini knit by gwen, 2000.

agency audit kicks off this morning. before the trip masses of papers loose, old, signed, unsigned, left by the last clinic director's team, clues of instability, hope, someone who'll someday rise above, resist picking who.

i'm vincent d'onofrio, opening old cases wrapped in rubber bands, combing the poor handwriting of psychiatrists for a missing traumatic incident, or a missing strength (child spends hours in bedroom studying tattoo magazines), a telephone number -- no way! still connected! imagining the "DUN DUN!" music and the screen blacking out w/ words, "xyz psychiatric hosptial, NY" helps motivate me.

flying, stomach quivering, sweating, 4 airplanes, i read Holes, by Louis Sachar. primo kids lit. & there's a sequel.

axt's quilt idea: "if i ever make a quilt i'm going to call it "upstairs neighbor" and drench it in cigarette smoke extract. squeezing its corners will emit distinct sounds: possibly, "fuck me! fuck me!," the sound of boxes dropping on the floor at 2am, non-stop pacing, and this distinct combination of running and 'not-your-ex' giggling."

Originally from serenalarogers, on February 21, 2006 10:43 AM

david posted a photo:

Originally from david's Photos, on February 21, 2006 10:42 AM

I like that some mobile phone companies are using designers and sound artists to create unique content. London based Universal Everything have created a number of ringtones that fuse audio and visuals together. Motion Garage is a series of tones for the Japanese market; “the movies display the physical energy of the sound, created using waveform analysis software”. Leave No Trace is a series of 6 ringtones created for a Nokia snowboarding event, only available for download via bluetooth at the event.

Originally from Pixelsumo, on February 21, 2006 10:42 AM

An oldie but a goodie. Altzero is what Squidsoup call ‘navigable spatial music’. These series of works inspired me to work on Echo Chamber last year.

Altzero is a collaborative multi-user web based audiovisual virtual space. altzero is an attempt to elucidate the inner workings of electronic music: as a listener can see each component of what they are listening to, they can begin to decode the music, to understand its underlying structures. These 3D navigable soundscapes are distributed through the website, as well as a physical installation, and altzeroCompose, that allows you to create a soundscape yourself.

View an explanation video / Visit Website / info on Soundtoys.net

(compose your own soundscape and upload)

Pixelsumo likes Squidsoup.

Originally from Pixelsumo, on February 21, 2006 10:42 AM

The bag check area at the Strand bookstore,NYc, has about 120 cubbies. Phones left in the bag there are going off regularly, the employees are now used to it. Improv Everywhere, the New York City scene-makers known for causing...

Originally posted by Regine from ringtonia.com, on February 21, 2006 10:41 AM

JotForm - "The first web based WYSIWYG form builder."

Originally posted by exiledsurfer from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 21, 2006 10:39 AM

"It seems to me that the world would be a much better place, and that people would be much more rightly popular, if they talked less. Because so little of what most people say is actually worth hearing. "

Originally posted by alainabrowne from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 21, 2006 10:39 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 21, 2006 10:38 AM

Imapix at Work
Originally uploaded by lefion.

Inspired by the US team's curling success, surveying work has begun on a curling ice in Prospect Park, hopefully to be finished before next winter.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 20, 2006 6:31 PM

Exciting new Web 2.0 product: JusFlam is "the social network for people who enjoy Jesus, and flames, and rotating stuff". The beta seems to be down at the moment...it's throwing a "due to overwhelming server load, that is due to underwhelming development methodologies and system architecture, due to limited resources, due to limited business direction, due to giving away a complex web service for free with no feasible plan for revenue generation besides 'getting bought by google or maybe yahoo', we are unable to process your request at this time" error.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 20, 2006 5:55 PM

If you, like me, installed kubuntu-desktop to try it out, then afterward, you must have noticed that when you boot up, the kubuntu splash screen appears with “kubuntu” in blue (instead of the Ubuntu brown) while the computer is booting up.

While this is not a major problem, it is a minor irritant, since you will have to field questions from people regarding why you use kde instead of the superior gnome. Even if it is not a problem, I found a solution, and so it deserves to be called a problem, just so I can write an entertaining article regarding how to fix this.

To get back your familiar Ubuntu usplash image and screen, do a:
$sudo update-alternatives --config usplash-artwork.so

Now you will get to answer a question regarding whether to use the Kubuntu, Ubuntu (or if you have it installed xubuntu) - desktop usplash imag. Select the one you want and rest at ease.

For those who don’t want to muck around with the terminal, may I suggest a quick read of the galternatives article I authored previously?

P.S. Regular Daily readers might like to know that an article on this site got dugg. I apologize for not having published anything since then - was busy reinstalling Ubuntu on a machine, and life interfered, too.

Originally from Ubuntu Blog, on February 20, 2006 5:54 PM

We've been fans of the Amazon Web Services blog since it launched on TypePad last year, but it's not just because we love the technology and APIs that the site shows off. It's because of its cute, fuzzy nose.

In addition to the usual promotion of web services that you'd expect, the AWS blog does a great job of introducing the more human side of the team behind the tech. Need proof? Just take a look at the recent post introducing Rufus, the preeminent four-legged member of the AWS team. Often times discussions of technology and related topics can seem a bit dry; A team blog offers a great way to show that there's some personality on the other side of a website.

Just like similar TypePad-powered tech blogs by the teams behind web services such as PayPal, Salesforce.com, Flickr, and del.icio.us, the Amazon Web Services blog does a great job of telling the story of both an interesting set of web technologies and the even more interesting people (and dogs!) who build them.

Originally from ProNet, on February 20, 2006 3:59 PM

I've been meaning to blog about this for... well, forever. It's one of my favorite things from the late, great Suck.com: the Shiny vs. Useful chart.

BIG IDEA OF THE MILLENIUM

People like shiny things.

SHINY VS. USEFUL

It's the Big Idea to end all Big Ideas: Each and every person, place, or thing in the universe can be judged based on its location on this one little scale!

Originally from pseudorandom, on February 20, 2006 3:59 PM

Originally from Google Blog Search: ted2006, on February 20, 2006 3:59 PM

User-generated content can thrive when only a small portion of the audience contributes.

"There are a couple of interesting points worth noting. The first is that we don't need to convert 100% of the audience into "active" participants to have a thriving product that benefits tens of millions of users. In fact, there are many reasons why you wouldn't want to do this. The hurdles that users cross as they transition from lurkers to synthesizers to creators are also filters that can eliminate noise from signal. Another point is that the levels of the pyramid are containing - the creators are also consumers."

Originally from unmediated, on February 20, 2006 3:55 PM

Oil prices rose 2.6 percent today after violent attacks by militants shut down nearly a fifth of Nigeria's oil production.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on February 20, 2006 2:33 PM

McDonald's Corp. faces at least three lawsuits claiming the fast-food giant misled the public after it acknowledged earlier this week its french fries contain milk and wheat ingredients.

Debra Moffatt of Lombard, Illinois, seeks unspecified damages in a suit filed Friday in Chicago. Her attorney, Thomas Pakenas, said his client has celiac disease, which causes gastrointestinal symptoms set off by eating gluten, a protein found in wheat. (CNN)

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed, on February 20, 2006 2:32 PM

Digital Lifestyle has shot some videos and created a video review (vBlog) of the N70.

Check it out here.

Originally from Nokia N70 Blog, on February 20, 2006 2:32 PM

No prizes for identifing this animal in Houston zoo, Texas - it’s an elephant!

Thanks to Artemis and Dave Garcia.

Originally posted by Alex from Google Sightseeing, on February 20, 2006 2:32 PM

the indelible open street maps project

Originally posted by anselm from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 2:08 PM

Introducing Joyeur, the Joyent weblog.

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on February 20, 2006 2:08 PM

Rob at Cockeyed is building a photographic height/weight grid, effectively a catalog of people's body types. Description and call for entries here.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 20, 2006 2:08 PM

DIY projector with a disposable camera.

Originally posted by negatendo from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 1:26 PM

That's the kind of feedback that gets you up in the morning!

Originally posted by djacobs from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 1:26 PM

Originally from Lifeblog, on February 20, 2006 1:25 PM

Khoi Vinh is hiring several full-time positions for the design group that he leads at the New York Times. If you’re a visual designer, information architect, or design technologist looking for a gig, you can check out the job descriptions he posted at Subtraction.

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on February 20, 2006 11:35 AM

Originally from Susan's Nutrition Weblog, on February 20, 2006 11:35 AM

Like the players, I'm pretty ambivalent about the whole All-Star weekend thing. But it's still basketball:

• Video of every dunk from the dunk contest, which is really worth watching for Andre Iguodala's alley-oop off the back of the backboard, and of course Nate Robinson's leap over Spud Webb. Then catch up on the judging controvery.
• Dwyane Wade didn't practice and beat LeBron James in the insert-sponsor-here skills challenge.
• The big German/Texan won the three-point contest.
• Some guy set a world record by dribbling for more than 26 hours straight. Clyde Drexler said "nice handle."
• The East won the All-Star game thanks to a Pistons and LeBron inspired comeback. LeBron James won his first All-Star MVP.

Originally from True Hoop, on February 20, 2006 11:34 AM

The BBC has an interesting article that points out: "In 2013, copyright in the sound recording of the Beatles' first album expires, as it will for recordings from Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and other performers of the same period." No...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on February 20, 2006 11:34 AM

Coco:

I went to Gyoza Tengoku (Gyoza Heaven or Gyoza Paradise or whatever) on Friday with friend. It was first time I had big gyoza, I enjoyed it very much! Of course I had chuhi too, it plused my happiness.
We ordered cheese, vege and shrimp. All of them were good. I want to try garlic sometime, but maybe everybody on way to home will hate me. heh.It is located about 7mins from Tachikawa station. English menu is available.

you can see duty hour here. http://www.geocities.jp/gyoza1059/

Originally posted by Coco from Metroblogging Tokyo, on February 20, 2006 11:33 AM

What joy - I can finally see where I've gone wrong in Level 8-3 thanks to Ian Albert

Originally posted by guardiangamesblog from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 11:33 AM

My favorite Winter Olympics coverage is this correspondence being posted several times daily to Slate. If this is what the NBC coverage was like, it might actually be entertaining.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 20, 2006 11:33 AM

De La Soul do Parrappa?

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

Precinct, Danish, Squirrel

Originally from Ftrain.com, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

Packing up leads me to think about interfaces and garbage.

Originally from Ftrain.com, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

My pal Judith lost her camera on vacation in Hawaii and tried to make the best of the situation by starting a project using other people's Flickr photos to reconstruct a trip journal. Now, a family has found her camera but won't give it back to her because they don't want to take it away from the 9 yo kid that found it. "We can't tell him that he has to give it up. Also we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card". The dishonesty displayed here is maddening.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

Adult Diaper Sales Soar in China: Alongside food and fire crackers, Chinese are adding a new item to their lunar New Year shopping: Adult diapers. Sales have soared ahead of the holiday as travellers prepare for long trips home aboard trains so crowded that even the toilets are jammed with people. The problem arises from the need to sell twice as many tickets as there are train seats to accommodate the crush of travellers. Those without seats must find some place - any place - to put themselves, including in overhead racks, between cars and in the usually stinking toilets.
Link

Originally from monochrom, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

HBO has launched one of the first marketing efforts to use Google's map technology to promote "The Sopranos."

Originally from NYT > Technology, on February 20, 2006 9:30 AM

IndiaÂ’s leadership in global outsourcing may be in jeopardy unless it increases its supply of skilled workers, according to executives gathered in Mumbai for an industry meeting.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on February 20, 2006 9:30 AM

Washington Post accidentially exposes their anonymous botnet hacker with photo metadata [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 20, 2006 9:28 AM

In my previous essays on the topic of deploying Rails applications, most notably Deploying Rails with Apache 2, I've been lukewarm on running FastCGI-based applications on Apache. Indeed, the most stable setup I've found is to proxy Rails-based requests to a separate lighttpd instance. However, there's one technology that I haven't yet worked with much to run FastCGI-based applications under Apache: mod_fcgid. This weekend, I changed that. [essay]

Originally from James Duncan Davidson, on February 20, 2006 9:28 AM

a Canadian couple found the Flickr fan's camera, but won't give it back [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 20, 2006 9:28 AM

Aaron says I need to work on my slug sentences, and I agree. On reflection, I suck at writing almost any kind of sentence. I guess I shouldn’t expect slugs to be different.

For a couple of years I’ve been akwardly saying things like “and I would suspect that JavaScript is the most successful scripting language ever” or “I don’t really have any hard numbers, but JavaScript seems incredibly successful as a language”. Note all the hedging.

What I would like to know is this: on what axis is JavaScript not the most successful scripting language of all time? Can some other language beat JS in:

• implementations of a ratified language spec (scheme? lisp? do they even “count”?)
• interpreters deployed (Forth is in every Apple and SUN bios…can that possibly beat the distribution of IE, Firefox, and Safari?)
• lines of code written for said language

Perhaps KSH and/or bash would win? I’m curious to know if anyone can think up other strong contenders.

Originally posted by alex from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency, on February 20, 2006 9:28 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 9:28 AM

The BBC has a launched a new mobile service called BBC Springwatch to record the signs of Spring. [via Smart Mobs] "Record the signs of spring while you're out and about. If you spot a species and text its keyword [e.g. ladybird, butterfly, bee, etc.] ... your mobile will tell us the location and date..."

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 20, 2006 9:28 AM

Japanese company Konami will issue this summer a curious LCD-based portable game in which the player "raises" virtual characters by giving them a "steady diet" of music:

"When the game, called Otoizm, is connected to a MP3 player, various characters appear according to the type of music being played.

The game classifies music into 19 types, and the growth and type of character produced changes according to the type of music it listens to. More than 30 kinds of characters can be created."

Via Nikkei.

Originally from we make money not art, on February 20, 2006 9:27 AM

a relational visualization chart showing the branches & connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map. train lines denote different music styles (e.g. pop.soul, reggae) & are directional according to time, branch lines represent sub-genres (e.g. rock divides into grunge & psychedelia). stations represent music artists, so that key stations naturally are linked to the most eclectic artists. see also music similarity map & artist similarity visualization & music plasma.
[guardian.co.uk (pdf) & guardian.co.uk|thnkx Rajio]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 20, 2006 9:25 AM

Rothco has been hooking up military and civilian customers with their camouflage gear since the 1950s. We're fans of their classic sneakers, and find their camo flask appropriately discreet for outdoor sippin'. The camo socks are another favorite.

A camo flask and a pair of hi-tops (men's size 8 only) will be given to the first CH reader who sends us the correct answer to this question: Andy Warhol painted many camouflage portraits, all of which were commissioned except for self-portraits and those of which person? Send your guesses to us here, and mention camo flask or camo sneakers in the subject.

Update: Thanks to all of the CH readers who wrote in. The correct answer according to DPM, our trustworthy guide to all things camo, is Warhol's friend and fellow artist Joseph Beuys.

Rothko products are available from these online retailers.

TAGS: Design, Sneakers, Alcohol, Socks, Camouflage,

Originally from Cool Hunting, on February 20, 2006 9:25 AM

These amazing sketchbooks by the one known as Johnny Hardstaff have just been added to his site.

Originally from Protein Feed, on February 20, 2006 9:24 AM

Originally from Wooster Collective, on February 20, 2006 9:24 AM

Cat in a Saucepan
Originally uploaded by Lady Macabea.

Easy.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 20, 2006 3:31 AM

Roger Ebert - Dwarfs, Little People and the M-Word (xhtml)

I am an actor that you have reviewed neither favorably nor unfavorably in two different movies: one was "Death to Smoochy," the other "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her." I have absolutely no objection to you trashing a film or lauding it. I do object to the use of the word 'midgets' in your review of "Death to Smoochy."

Too lazy/busy to blog today, so I offer you this classic Roger Ebert meditation on height and bigotry.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 20, 2006 3:31 AM

This video is illegal.

YouTube received a take-down notice from NBC regarding the SNL Lazy Sunday video. That was sure a long time coming. Here's what YouTube says on their blog:

NBC recently contacted YouTube and asked us to remove Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday: Chronicles of Narnia" video. We know how popular that video is but YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders. You can still watch SNL's "Lazy Sunday" video for free on NBC's website.

This response from YouTube must be firmly tongue-in-cheek. They "respect the rights of copyright holders"?! Give me a break. There's tons of infringing content all over YouTube. There's no way they could possibly plead ignorance here (they even hired the brother of one of the SNL sketch writers to be their "director of community" soon after they struck gold with this clip)... its clear that the video was infringing from the moment it was posted onto the site. Its an entire clip from SNL, not an excerpt, and certainly not fair use. Its got an NBC watermark on it.

At what point was YouTube given permission to re-broadcast this video to millions of viewers through their website? Its not like this was file sharing amongst a few friends, this was re-broadcasted on a video portal site to millions of viewers. This is like CBS recording Saturday Night Live and then airing it the next day... and everyday after that for weeks. YouTube quite obviously benefits from video plaigarism of this sort all the time... but then again they're not alone.

This clip was all over the internet. It was also on CollegeHumor.com, and yanked from there by Google Video (obvious from the CollegeHumor watermark, so its a copy of a copy on Google). It was probably on several other video hosting sites and portals (there's a lot of them out there now), as well as on several personal websites.

NBC later released the clip as a free download on iTunes (its now $1.99), and they offer it for free viewing on their website (only for PC users with Internet Explorer).

Of course, some people think that YouTube should be congratulated for their copyright infringing practices. Here's what Xeni Jardin says about it on BoingBoing:

This isn't like another television network broadcasting the skit without permission. YouTube is a service through which individual fans can share stuff they're nuts about with others. NBC issuing a C&D to YouTube makes about as much sense as NBC sending attorneys to the homes of every blogger or Livejournaler user who posted a link to a torrent somewhere

Sorry, Xeni, that's completely wrong. In the same blog entry where YouTube responds to the take-down notice they also say:

YouTube is now serving up more than 15 million videos streamed per day- that's nearly 465M videos streamed per month

So how exactly are they different from a TV network? How are they exempt from the laws and standard practices of the industry?

Originally from unmediated, on February 19, 2006 8:59 PM

A nice simple idea: get text from project gutenberg and turn it into a poster design.

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 8:58 PM

John Canzano is talking about William Wesley again, this time in conjuction with Oregon phenom Malik Hairston:

I asked the GM if the fact that Hairston is close with William "Worldwide Wes" Wesley would help get him drafted. The GM said he didn't think that would be a factor. I asked because it's clear Wes pulls a lot of strings in basketball. Including the one that got Kenny Payne hired as an Oregon assistant two years ago when the Ducks badly wanted Hairston.

This William Wesley crusade is beginning to feel a little bit like a witch hunt. We get it - he's a player. --dj

Originally from True Hoop, on February 19, 2006 8:58 PM

Originally posted by alainabrowne from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 5:40 PM

Originally posted by alainabrowne from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 5:40 PM

a live news feed aggregator featuring auto-tagged & filtered news stories from NPR (National Public Radio), augmented with different forms of data visualization. the homepage features an animated map-based feed with circles denoting the popularity of the different news story tags. in addition, the individual tag pages contain interactive timeline graphs. see also what's up news map. [reverbiage.com]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 19, 2006 5:40 PM

david posted a photo:

I like the three things we noted independently on this photo.

Originally from david's Photos, on February 19, 2006 4:50 PM

brian_d_foy writes "The San Francisco Perl Mongers will hold a demonstration of several Perl IDE's on Tuesday, February 28, 2006: Matisse Enzer's Two Alpha blog has the details. The demo will include Emacs with perlnow.el; EPIC/Eclipse; and ActiveState's Komodo."

Originally posted by brian_d_foy from use Perl, on February 19, 2006 4:50 PM

AJAX groupware Joyent is now available as a hosted service or an appliance. I'm in favor of having everything in-house where I can lay my hands on it, but when the stuff in question costs big bucks a service would be a great way to try it out. Meanwhile AJAX groupware Zimbra has hit version 3.0 even though the company only de-stealthed in October.

Originally from Hack the Planet, on February 19, 2006 4:50 PM

Six Apart, the creator of blogging products like Moveable Type and Typepad, has raised $12 million in a third round of venture capital, according to IDD Magazine. Intel is rumored to be in on the deal. There's also a discussion about how Wall Street doesn't look ready to take any of these so-called Web 2.0 companies to the public market anytime soon. This follows lots of gossip Friday night at the Techcrunch party about whether there is a bubble now in the Web 2.0 world. Robert Scoble, the Microsoft blogger, took of his shirt in the cold for a "naked" conversation, and writes afterward that there is indeed a bubble. At former Tribe CEO Mark Pincus' party, last Thursday night, the bubble was also dominating discussion. Someone said, about all the financings, but no IPOs: "There's a lot of foreplay going on, but no one goes home to have sex." The answer is yes, there is a bubble, because......

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on February 19, 2006 4:49 PM

Former neocon theorist argues that the ideology that won the cold war has come to threaten peace. "The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them. What American foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a realistic Wilsonianism that better matches means to ends."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 19, 2006 4:49 PM

I think we have finally reached the apex of user generated content.

Offensive on many levels -dj

Originally posted by yatta from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:58 PM

Originally posted by inkdroid from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:58 PM

digg it!

Originally posted by mathowie from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:58 PM

Originally posted by josiahmiller from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:58 PM

"This video is not playable in your country."

Originally posted by negatendo from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:57 PM

a screenshot of a new message in Outlook 12 beta [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 19, 2006 2:57 PM

Monday Night -- 02.20.06 -- Trevor Paglen -- Tracking the CIA's Torture Planes

1. This Monday:

What: Presentation / Discussion / Trevor Paglen
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor (directions)
When: Monday Night 02.20.2006 @ 7:30 Pm
Who: Open To All

We are happy to have Trevor back and we hope you will be able to join us for what should be an interesting evening and discussion.
_______________________________________
2. description
N4467S:
Tracking the CIA's Torture Planes
Trevor Paglen

In order to sidestep international laws against torture, the CIA currently uses a fleet of unmarked airplanes to kidnap, "render," and "disappear" suspected terrorists. The CIA takes these people to a clandestine network of prisons in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Poland, and Romania: places where they can be tortured.

Because the CIA uses civilian (rather than military) aircraft for these "black" operations, they leave a publicly-accessible trail of flight logs, registration papers, and other legal documents. These paper trails are filled with forgeries, lies, and cover-stories, but nevertheless contain important clues as to who the "real" people behind these operations and unmarked planes might be.

One of these planes is a Boeing 737. Its tail number is N4467S. It is the property of a company called "Keeler and Tate Management," incorporated by a man named "Tyler Edward Tate." Mr. Tate does not exist.

Over the course of this presentation, we will navigate through the fog of misinformation surrounding Mr. Tate. We will visit the street addresses of his front companies, observe the airfields that his unmarked plane frequents, and introduce ourselves to some of the flesh-and-blood individuals who may have penned his name

_______________________________________
3. Links:

Trevor Paglen http://www.paglen.com/

"Spying on the Government" - An article from the SF Bay Guardian. http://www.sfbg.com/39/31/cover_spying_on_the_government.html

The Federation of American Scientists's Area 51 page
Global Security - Military analyst John Pike's site http://www.sfbg.com/39/31/cover_spying_on_the_government.html

_______________________________________
4. Links – Trevor at 16beaver

Monday Night --Experimental Lecture with Trevor Paglin -- 06.30.03
http://www.16beavergroup.org/events/archives/000252.php

Monday Night 08.08.05-- Trevor Paglen -- The Secret Bases: Exploring the Pentagon's "Black World"
http://www.16beavergroup.org/events/archives/001583.php

Trevor -- The CIA's torture taxi
http://www.16beavergroup.org/mtarchive/archives/001763.php

Rene -- Journalisms -- Interview with Trevor Paglen -- The Black World of the Military -- 08.15.05
http://www.16beavergroup.org/journalisms/archives/001612.php
_______________________________________
5. About Trevor

Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is writing a doctoral dissertation about the spatial aspects of military secrecy.

His projects deliberately blur the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines in order to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched, ways to interpret the world around us.

Paglen's artwork has shown at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art (2003), U.C. San Diego (2004), the California College of the Arts (2002), the LAB (2005), and numerous other arts venues, universities, conferences, and public spaces. He is a contributing editor to the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest and develops tactical media projects with the prison-abolitionist group Critical Resistance. Paglen’'s writing has been published in Blu Magazine, the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, Art Journal, and will be included in the upcoming collection Inhuman Geographies/Spaces of Political Violence (Routledge, 2006).

Paglen holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.F.A. in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Originally posted by joy garnett from NEWSgrist - where spin is art, on February 19, 2006 2:57 PM

There's a new trailer up for A Scanner Darkly. This one seems to capture more of the actual tone of the movie, rather than try and portray it a some kind of 'Techno Thriller'. Check it out.

Note: A nice tidbit from the Honorable Jeff Gorvetzian:

Trivia note: The title 'scanner darkly' usually is regarded as a reference to the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13, 11):
When I was a child, I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man, I put away
childish things. For now we see through a
glass, darkly; but then face to face: now
I know in part; but then shall I know even
as also I am known.

But the truth is, Paul got it from Plato (in the Phaedrus):

For, as has been already said, every soul of man has in the way of nature beheld true being; this was the condition of her passing into the form of man. But all souls do not easily recall the things of the other world; they may have seen them for a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly lot, and, having had their hearts turned to unrighteousness through some corrupting influence, they may have lost the memory of the holy things which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them; and they, when they behold here any image of that other world, are rapt in amazement; but they are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they do not clearly perceive. For there is no light of justice or temperance or any of the higher ideas which are precious to souls in the earthly copies of them: they are seen through a glass dimly; and there are few who, going to the images, behold in them the realities, and these only with difficulty. There was a time when with the rest of the happy band they saw beauty shining in brightness-we philosophers following in the train of Zeus, others in company with other gods; and then we beheld the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence, before we had any experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we beheld shining impure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the body, like an oyster in his shell.

Originally from News of the dead, on February 19, 2006 2:57 PM

"I created a Roomba communication API in Java and a GUI in Processing that shows a top-down iconic view of the Roomba universe."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on February 19, 2006 2:57 PM

I'd been following Judith's story of her lost camera with great interest until the latest update shocked me:

"Well," she said, "we have a bit of a situation. You see, my nine year old son found your camera, and we wanted to show him to do the right thing, so we called, but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him."

Judith's not the mob justice type of person, but if ever there were a good reason for a bunch of nosy curious bloggers to track someone down and make them do the right thing, this would be it for me.

I feel bad for a kid whose parents are that lost and misguided.

Originally from Anil Dash, on February 19, 2006 2:40 PM

Product Manager ISO Movable Type users who wish for something more from their comment/ping email notifications.

So the Movable Type team is looking at revising the application's comment and ping notification emails for the next version. We've definitely heard a number of ideas of how these could be made better and I also have my own opinions, but I'd like to hear what you would do to make them as useful as possible to you. I'm talking specifically about email notification here, but if you have thoughts about other methods of notification, by all means feel free to add that as well.

Go crazy in the comments with your wildest desires. Don't be constrained by implementation or what we've done in the past. We may not be able to do everything, but your feedback can certainly head us in the right direction.

Originally from JayAllen - The Daily Journey, on February 19, 2006 2:39 PM

Judith lost her camera and then it was recovered, sort of.

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:39 PM

Merrill Lynch has published a note on Sony's PlayStation 3 that prices the parts at an estimated $800*, including $230 for the Cell processor and $350 for the Blu-ray drive. That's just the bill of materials, and doesn't include the...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on February 19, 2006 2:39 PM

In a city known for its revolving door of young professionals, many a mobile phone number proves that home is where the cell is.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on February 19, 2006 2:39 PM

Three, talented individuals are about to bring you The Style Contest which will pit talented designers against one another in a CSS Zen Garden-style contest to see who can offer up the best designs for using Six Apart's unified templates (compatible with Movable Type, TypePad and LiveJournal).

And yes, there will be excellent prizes.

Kudos to Jesse, Elise and Arvind on what looks to be an awesome show of talent.

Originally from JayAllen - The Daily Journey, on February 19, 2006 2:39 PM

Originally from Stupidfool.org, on February 19, 2006 2:38 PM

look at Biggie!

Originally posted by kick_out_the_internet_jams from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:38 PM

Thanks to Lars for all of these Youtube videos !!!

Originally posted by kick_out_the_internet_jams from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:38 PM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:37 PM

Last night I watched the movie The Princess Bride for the 137th time.  It just never gets old.  While the entire star-studded cast of The Princess Bride (Billy Crystal, Robin Wright, Christopher Guest, Peter Falk, Wallace Shawn, Carol Kane, Fred Savage) is uniformly fantastic, it is hard to imagine a better role for Mandy Patinkin ("My name is Inigo Montoya . . . you killed my father . . . prepare to die!").  And, yet, I recently learned of the ultimate role for Tony Award winning vocal powerhouse Patinkin.  With any luck he will reprise the role of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride on Broadway.

That's right, word has it that William Goldman, the author of the book The Princess Bride, and Adam Guettel, 2005 Tony Award winner for his music to Light in the Piazza, are teaming up to bring The Princess Bride to Broadway.  Guettel has Broadway in his blood -- he is the grandson of Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame) and the son of Mary Rogers (of Once Upon a Mattress fame).  And Goldman's storytelling credentials are hard to beat -- he penned the screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All The President's Men, Marathon Man, and, of course, The Princess Bride.  The combination should be fantastic.  I know I'll be heading to New York as soon as The Princess Bride opens on Broadway.

Originally posted by David Hornik from TED Blog, on February 19, 2006 2:37 PM

Wes Felter calls for the ass fact-checking of William Safire over the latter's article in the NY Times about blog jargon and he's not wrong. Wes correctly notes the etymology of "weblog" and "blog" and hopefully the people responsible for things like the AP Style Guide, English dictionaries, and influential columns like On Language will, at some point, do the 20 minutes of research necessary to convince them and the unwashed journalist masses that "blog" is not and was never short for "web log".

Safire also gets tripped up on where the word "blogosphere" came from. While William Quick's usage in 2002 popularized the term, Brad Graham first used the term in 1999.

Originally from kottke.org, on February 19, 2006 2:37 PM

excellent interview on the history, media coverage, and a potential followup [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 19, 2006 2:36 PM

The Pantheon in Rome was originally built as a temple to the seven deities of the seven planets in the Roman state religion, but has been a Christian church since the 7th century. It is the best-preserved of all Roman buildings and the oldest important building in the world with its original roof intact.

Brandon Rowan from Rome says:

It has a massive hole at the top and it lets in sunlight. It is not glass covered, but there are drainage holes in the floor for rain. It’s amazing how bright it is. There is always a massive light circle on the floor. You have to visit this if you go to Rome.

Thanks Gerhard, Frank & Brandon

Originally posted by Olly from Google Sightseeing, on February 19, 2006 2:36 PM

Originally from WFMU's Beware of the Blog, on February 19, 2006 2:36 PM

I was watching the CBC's sunday report today, and of course, the legacy of Sharon's departure from the Israeli prime ministers office featured largely in that shows broadcast. Sharon's condition remains doubtful. The hemorrhaging in his brain from a severe...

Originally posted by Peter Konefal from Media, Technology and Society, on February 19, 2006 2:36 PM

Problem Summary

A product or website needs to present ratings and reviews with a variety of informational elements.

Unlike the other patterns released today, this pattern is a pure information architecture pattern. It describes what informational elements belong in a user review.

The pattern can be found at: Architecture of a Review.

Tags: patterns, yahoo developer network, yahoo design patterns, information architecture, design, ratings and reviews, ratings, reviews,

Originally posted by Bill Scott from Yahoo! User Interface Blog, on February 19, 2006 2:36 PM

Problem Summary

A user wants to quickly leave their opinion on an object, with minimal interruption to any other task flow they are involved in.

One excellent design principle to follow is to allow the user to leave a light footprint. This means encouraging light-weight actions for engagement by providing invitations. Instead of the user having to go through several steps to rate a movie or a news article, invite them to simply click to rate. The Rating an Object pattern is an excellent example of this principle.

The pattern can be found at: Rating an Object.

Tags: patterns, interaction, input, yahoo developer network, yahoo design patterns, direct manipulation, , patterns, rating, interaction, user generated content,

Originally posted by Bill Scott from Yahoo! User Interface Blog, on February 19, 2006 2:35 PM

shawn's using this

Originally posted by stamen from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 19, 2006 2:35 PM

The GameCube has taken over a prominent role in my life again thanks to Chibi Robo. I've been dying to get my hands on this title since the original US release date last fall was delayed. It was finally released last week and my expectations for the game have been met over and over. Besides pretending to be a tiny robot dragging an electrical plug from my butt, the thing I like best about Chibi Robo is that, like Animal Crossing, there are no specific goals or levels to complete. I can take my time to explore my surroundings and do whatever I want. The sense of scale and crude renderings are charmingly reminiscent of Katamari Damacy. The excellent sound design makes the chores easier to do since the accompanying music and sound effects are such great fun to listen to.

Chores have never been so much fun! The downside of the game is my dog is now cursing me for leaving dirty socks and empty boxes all over the floor of my real house since all my time is being invested in yet another virtual home.

Originally posted by yi from hello, nintendo, on February 19, 2006 1:30 AM