randomwalks/dj

Command-Tab has some nice illustrations of lesser known iPod commands.

I grew tired of Googling each time I needed the correct button sequence to put iPods into their various modes, so I've put together this little interactive display. Click on one of the three darkened buttons above to display the key presses necessary to put the iPod in the selected mode. To use, Reset the iPod using the first combination, then use the Diaagnostic Mode or Disk Mode combination as soon as the Apple logo appears.

Hidden iPod Commands [Command-Tab]

 
Comment on this post

Originally from Lifehacker, on March 31, 2006 4:35 PM

I don’t know much about illustrator Yamauchi Kazuaki, but I’m really enjoying what I see. Yamauchi has a top notch sense of color, an incredible knack for design, and illustration skills that are sharp enough to kill a man… or something like that.

Originally posted by Jared from Drawn! The Illustration Blog, on March 31, 2006 4:35 PM

put your baby in a milk crate, tie a scarf to it [the crate], and drag it down the sidewalk.

Originally from serenalarogers, on March 31, 2006 4:34 PM

This morning Dav took me out for breakfast. Then he drove me to work...I was distracted on the phone as I prepared to get out of the car, but Dav frantically tapped me on the shoulder to look at the construction zone boards that are across the street from my work. Just as I peered over, I saw 2 construction men take down and carry a big board with "Dav 'heart'"....and below where that board was, there was another board with "Mie." In beautiful spray paint!

ht, he had snuck over here to spray paint that! Luckily, in the nick of time, he got me to work to see it. I ran over and took pictures of the romantic evidence, telling the construction guys they were taking down a love note.

Then when I sat down at my desk, Garth IM'd me:

nibblet: hehe "dav heart mie"
nibblet: just saw this
Kokochi: hey!!
Kokochi: you did?
Kokochi: they "just" took it down
nibblet: mhmm
nibblet: really?
nibblet: who took it down?
Kokochi: and I ran over and took pictures of the boards
Kokochi: the construction dudes
nibblet: oh, this is a different one
Kokochi: Dav drove me to work...and was going to show me...but then they were hammering it off!
Kokochi: but I saw it!!
Kokochi: isn't that the sweetest?
nibblet: This is another one ;)
Kokochi: huh?
nibblet: just walk downstairs and enjoy the fresh air for a moment
Kokochi: i'm talking about across the street
Kokochi: right?
nibblet: nope
Kokochi: oh?
Kokochi: um
Kokochi: walk outside 6A?
nibblet: yah, like you're having a smoke
nibblet: or like you're with jay while he's having a smoke
Kokochi: ok, I'll try

...

Kokochi: omg!!!
Kokochi: It's right there!
nibblet: I thought I should tell you before they took the containers back in
nibblet: otherwise, I would have left the surprise
Kokochi: i didn't see it...he had done another one across the street on the blue boards around the construction site
nibblet: heh
Kokochi: :)

My beloved husband spray painted 6A's garbage container that's right outside! [oi, are we gonna get in trouble for property destruction?? oh boy]

I love my husband.

Originally posted by Mie from Kokochi, on March 31, 2006 4:34 PM

Last Thursday marked the inaugural session of Jelly, a new semi-weekly work gathering Amit and Luke will be hosting at House 2.0.

Here’s the deal: Luke and Amit both love working from home, but they find that spending the occasional day working with others really helps get the creative juices flowing. Even though everyone’s working on their own projects, they can bounce ideas and problems off of each other and have fun doing it.

What’s Jelly? Jelly’s our attempt to formalize this weekly work-together. We invite you to come work at our home. You bring your laptop and some work, and we’ll provide wifi, a chair, and hopefully some smart people.

While you’re here, you can discuss and work with others, or move somewhere where you can work solo without distraction. It’s up to you. The goal is to give you a good, productive workday.

Our friends Ian and Jakob have already been over a bunch of times, and last week we tried a larger gathering with Ian (working on Notonomy before he left for his Gawker dayjob), Joshua Keay (worked on a really cool new OS X Dashboard widget), Amit (worked on Notonomy), Luke (worked on Joyent), Kellan (worked on Odeo), and Gil (worked on Squidoo). It was a blast.

We’ll be getting together most Thursdays, including this Thursday, March 16th. We start at 9:30ish (you can show up later) and run till whenever.

It doesn’t matter who you work for or what you do, if you think you’d benefit from working with a few other smart, friendly, creative people, email us and come to the next Jelly!

Originally posted by amit from House 2.0, on March 31, 2006 4:34 PM

Make your own commercial for the Chevy Tahoe. A few environmentally aware users have already made good ones skewering the SUV. (via)

Originally from Social Design Notes, on March 31, 2006 4:33 PM

While everyone talks about content being king, there is no doubt that design and aesthetics are a big part of what makes an audience sit up and take notice of a blog. Designers are often the unsung heroes of the blogosphere.

One Design Works for Millions of Blogs

Last year, we made our first big step in helping designers who use Six Apart platforms by standardizing the layout and structure of templates across all three of our products, Movable Type, TypePad and LiveJournal. With support for this new standard template, designers now have one set of guidelines to follow to reach the biggest possible audience. Instead of learning the details of one particular system, you can focus on what you do best: Creating beautiful, useful designs.

Since the debut of the standard templates last August, the total audience that can be reached with a single design has expanded to include over ten million blogs.

Introducing The Style Contest

In order to demonstrate the benefits of these new styles in a real and practical way, we decided to have a design contest. At the same time, three other driven and talented individuals from our community — Arvind Satyanarayan, Elise Bauer and Jesse Gardner — had the same exact idea.

So we joined forces and today are announcing the fruits of that labor: The Style Contest for Movable Type, TypePad and LiveJournal has launched! Designers: Start your browsers!

Design for millions of blogs. Or just make a few thousand bucks

Sponsored by Six Apart, Adobe and StyleMaster, this contest features over $17,000 in prizes, which includes $10,000 in cash to the Grand Prize and category winners as well as other great prizes. What's more, every qualified entrant gets discounts on some awesome in-demand design products.

The prize winners will be chosen by five excellent designers who have agreed to serve as the contest's judges: Derek Powazek, Jason Santa Maria, Kathy Scoleri and Joelle Reeder and John Allsopp.

So whether you are a designer or someone who loves a great design, The Style Contest is for you.

Acknowledgments

First, we'd like to thank all of you who use TypePad, Movable Type and LiveJournal. We at Six Apart recognize that design helps tell your readers who you are, and we want to make sure our blogs are as attractive and pleasing as our customers.

We are extremely happy and thankful to have our talented and creative judges on our team. In selecting them, we know that we've chosen people who not only understand design at a visceral level but are people who are well-respected and well-known in their field. They know their stuff.

All of us at Six Apart also want to thank and recognize The Style Contest team — Arvind, Jesse and Elise — for their Herculean efforts in making this contest a reality. They've already put in hundreds of hours in making sure this was the contest was the best it could be. Thanks to those efforts, we're sure we'll be seeing some exciting and beautiful designs.

And finally, we'd like to acknowledge you, the designers. Without you we would all still be using Comic Sans, technicolor horizontal rules, animated under construction gifs and blink tags. We thank you for rescuing us from that visual hell. This contest is for you. We can't wait to see what you come up with.

Related announcements:

• Jesse Gardner's post
• Arvind Satyanarayan's post
• Elise Bauer's post

Originally from ProNet, on March 31, 2006 4:32 PM

I’ve gotten a fair number of incoming links to my separate entries relating to MacBook Pro noises, and as I continue to make new discoveries and add new entries, I’d like users who are linking in to have a consistent target to link against. So I’m adding a new page to my site specifically to summarize my findings to date and point to other posts I’ve made. Please use this page as a link if you decide to send information about any of my MBP Noise related posts to a friend.

Thanks for reading!

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on March 31, 2006 4:32 PM

"Spotlight benefits can also be enjoyed on the commandline, and this article explains how you can take full advantage of it from inside the OS X Terminal window."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 31, 2006 4:32 PM

Paul Graham on patented software. There's too much meat in this essay to excerpt any one quote, so just read the whole thing.

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 31, 2006 4:32 PM

"In a world full of bloated, grossly over-featurized software that still doesn't do quite what you want, Blosxom is a spectacular counterexample. It's a slim, compact piece of software that doesn't do quite what you want--but because it is slim and compact, you can scratch your head over it for couple of minutes, take out the hammer and tongs, and get it adjusted the way you want."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 31, 2006 4:32 PM

The bondholders, the city, and now the NBA seem to feel there is not much they can do to help. Here's the latest from David Stern:

"Over the past six weeks the NBA has attempted to broker an agreement between the Trail Blazers and the owners of the Rose Garden to sell the team and the arena to one of several prospective purchasers that we had identified. Unfortunately, the arena owners have not offered any constructive response to these efforts and recently advised us that they are satisfied with the status quo. Accordingly, we have advised both parties that we have withdrawn from the process."

If the Portland Tribune is right that the Blazers really can't move, it's hard to imagine what options Paul Allen has left.

Thank you, Mr. Uppercut for the heads up.

UPDATE: VERY INTERESTING STUFF! Here's David Stern's full letter. He outlines that he thinks the Blazers could be sold for about $300 million, with Allen and the bondholders splitting the proceeds. If those numbers are remotely possible, this situation isn't so dire after all. There's a deal to be had here somewhere.

Originally from True Hoop, on March 31, 2006 4:32 PM

As of OGLE 0.3b, it is possible to capture texture coordinates (UV) for vertices that have them. This is enabled by the CaptureTextureCoords flag. Coupled with the fact that GLIntercept writes out to disk images for all the texture maps, this allows you to re-texture your capture in Maya with a little menial labor, eg:

This has tested to work accurately on some applications (World Of Warcraft) but on others it seems to misbehave, so it is disabled by default. I am working with Damian Trebilco, author of GLIntercept, to give OGLE the power to do this image-texture-assigning work automatically. Give it time...

Originally from OGLE: OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam R&D blogs, on March 31, 2006 4:32 PM

There's a brilliant sex column in this week's New York magazine that argues an interesting point: SMS text-messaging encourages New Yorkers to have more quick hook-ups, because it eases the emotional risk thereof. To quote: It's just the right level of intrusiveness: Your target gets the message even in a noisy bar, but unlike a phone call, it won't wake him up from a snooze in front of The Daily Show. You can successfully express interest, but texting's short format allows you to maintain an air of aloofness. And text rejection is much easier to get (and give) than struggling through an awkward booty phone call. "It's by far the best way to set up a sex date," says Kate, a 34-year-old designer in the East Village. "No worrying if your voice sounds needy or desperate or neurotic. In texts you can be blunt, erotic, funny -- all the things you want to be." Texting isn't just easy -- it's sexy too. By its very nature, texting is quick and dirty, so you can get away with MY PLACE OR YOURS? and nothing else. Plus the very private can happen in public -- call it exhibitionism for the shy. New technologies, of course, are always harnessed most aggressively at first for the purpose of porn: The photograph begat nekkid 19th-century pictures, moving pictures begat more of the same, and the first corporations to launch voice-mail technology en masse were phone-dating services like Lavalife. I'd been waiting for someone to start offering porn via SMS texting, but I clearly was missing the point. The value of texting is in mediating relations between two live people -- not delivering static ASCII smut. (Thanks to Emily Nussbaum for this one!)

Originally from collision detection, on March 31, 2006 4:32 PM

RSS died today, as its last sane evangelist walks away. -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 31, 2006 3:32 PM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 31, 2006 1:49 PM

I just put this piece up on the IFC channel. It's rough footage for a larger installation work called Assembled Cinema. Actually they vetted the piece and put it up so now there is a voting process. I'm pretty excited about this piece. If you get a chance to vote on it please do.

http://medialab.ifc.com/film_detail.jsp?film_id=1354

Civilization stands on a precipice. A series of disasters can unravel the built-up infrastructure of a country. This is the way empires fall. Water supplies dry up and cities are abandoned. Storms and earthquakes destroy food supplies and roads. Disasters are always about disruption of normal routines. Think of an anthill. The ants are busy bringing food back to the nest. You come along and destroy the hill with your foot. The ants now have to shift into emergency response to get back to normal. What had taken them a certain amount of time to build is ruined in a moment. If this happens enough times the ant colony becomes unsustainable and is abandoned. It’s every ant for himself.

Originally from post.thing.net - A lean, mean, media machine., on March 31, 2006 1:49 PM

Facebook, the Palo Alto social networking company, has gotten a lot of buzz lately. It claims to have wrapped up the college crowd, one of the more lucrative groups (long-term) for advertisers, and recently expanded to offer its product to high schoolers. We took issue with Om yesterday for relying on statistics supplied by the unreliable Alexa to show that growth in Facebook's user traffic was beginning to stall. But now Om has gotten more data to back up his argument. Word is that Facebook will shortly open its network to people beyond college, and include Linked-In type features....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on March 31, 2006 1:49 PM

It's this Saturday. All the major engines compete for the funniest prank. Keep yer eyes peeled....

(I still think the King of all these pranks was Google's Pigeon Rank...Prank for short, natch)

PS - Track all the pranks at new FM Site Museum of Hoaxes...

Originally from John Battelle's Searchblog, on March 31, 2006 1:49 PM

Over on the Babbo website there's a section of staff picks. I especially like this older one from May 20003, Spring at the Greenmarket. Though it focuses on only three items, they're three things you hear foodies talk about a lot in the spring: ramps, sweet onions, and green garlic. I haven't been to the Greenmarket in Union Square recently but I imagine it's starting to get pretty good. By the time I'm back from Mexico, I hope it's in full-on spring mode. Perhaps I'll see if I can pick up some ramps. Also when I return, perhaps I'll check out Babbo, as I've never been and that's another thing you hear foodies talk about a lot here in New York.

Originally from megnut, on March 31, 2006 1:49 PM

I don’t always agree with Scoble, but the man doesn’t have an ounce of malice, near as I can tell. I think that, by and large, he towers over the people who’ve been giving him a hard time, and I’d advise him to tune ’em out unless they’re really adding value. To address a couple just in the last week: Note to Vogels@Amazon: There’s a word for companies that base all decisions on ruthless quantitative ROI metrics: Bankrupt. I’m an engineer and value numbers, but in business, sometimes anecdotal evidence is all you’ve got, and the anecdotal evidence that blogging produces good results for some companies is pretty voluminous. You don’t want to hear it, that’s your privilege; me, I tend to want to consider all the inputs. Note to Nick Carr: This perils of blogging piece is really poorly considered. Carr introduces his lengthy list of Things That Can Go Wrong with “Last year, the San Francisco law firm Howard Rice provided a useful overview of the legal risks inherent in employee blogging”. As a thought experiment, replace the word “blogging” with “email” or “conference presentation” or “teleconference” or “sales presentation”. Or “barroom conversation” for that matter. Quick, quick, you wanna be safe, you better lock all your employees up and never let ’em say anything to anyone! The point is that qualitatively, blogging requires no new policies and introduces no new risks. If your employees are going to say stupid things in public, you’ve got a management problem and a policy problem, not a blogging problem. Note to executives who are frightened of hearing what their employees have to say, or finding out what the world really thinks about their company: Carr has done you a real favor. Just go and ask your attorneys if they think blogging is safe, and slip ’em a copy of that list, and you can rest easy knowing you’ll never hear anything uncomfortable.

Originally from ongoing, on March 31, 2006 1:49 PM

---

From the comments:

Why, if there are so many interesting things in this [Cory Arcangel] interview and also this excerpt, the discussion will always start with "I like Flash", "Flash ain't bad", "I like Flash", "it is a tool" etc?? ... i have seen this with 98% of all articles where Flash is mentioned.

Strangely, Photoshop is still out of this circle. Photoshop is also mentioned here, but never anybody jumps in and says it sucks or it is gr8 or just a tool or whatever. Actually Photoshop is mentioned everywhere and never such strong opinions as about Flash pop up.

Let's change that! Who will start?
- drx (guest) 3-31-2006 3:15 am

Allow me to say as strongly as I think you'd like to hear, I hate Photoshop. I hate its characteristic '70s airbrushed look, I hate the "bicubic mush" from resizing (your term, drx, and it's great--I'm thankful Paul Slocum told me about "nearest neighbor" resizing or I'd be screwed with these pixeled bitmaps I do), I hate all those "artistic" paintbrushes, I hate the instantly recognizable effects ("mezzotint," "craquelure"), I hate the lazy "surrealist collages" people make with Photoshop, I hate working with layers, I hate the un-intuitive interface, I hate Adobe, which has criminalized the gray area of intellectual property disputes, I hate the constant upgrades that add features no one needs (I'm still using a version of 5 that came bundled with a scanner)--I mainly use Photoshop for cropping and maybe tweaking the contrast of a photo for the blog. I hate making art with it.

- tom moody 3-31-2006 3:40 am

I also especially hate the "smudge tool."

Originally posted by tom moody from Tom Moody, on March 31, 2006 1:49 PM

chapter from the Voyage of the Beagle

Originally posted by maciej from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 31, 2006 1:48 PM

Originally from hustler of culture, on March 31, 2006 1:48 PM

I'm an idiot. Thanks to everybody who wrote in with the secret hidden on JWZ's home page. A hint: It's less a mathematical decryption problem than it is a Zawinski social engineering problem. -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 31, 2006 1:32 PM

If God does exist, is He a jerk? "The moment that Adam and Eve ate that fruit, wheels were set in motion that would ultimately result in the doom of mankind. Without some kind of intervention from God we would all be damned. God does promise to intervene, but it's like building a nuclear bomb and setting it to go off in a large city at 12:00. Then, when all of the people of the city come to you for mercy, you disarm it for them. Does that make you a hero for disarming it or a lunatic for building it in the first place? The whole thing was orchestrated to make us feel dependent upon God. That says a lot about God's character." A rebuttal. -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 31, 2006 12:33 PM

"1. There is a website that successfully argues for the existence of God. 2. Here is the URL. 3. Therefore, God exists." -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 31, 2006 12:33 PM

AP: "Just six months after the Pentagon agreed to reimburse soldiers who bought their own protective gear, the Army has banned the use of any body armor that is not issued by the military."

In a new directive, effective immediately, the Army said it cannot guarantee the quality of commercially bought armor, and any soldier wearing it will have to turn it in and have it replaced with authorized gear.

e Associated Press on Thursday the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies - including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which is usually mega-critical of the Pentagon's higher-ups, agrees with the Army this time. "The Army has to ensure some level of quality... They don't want soldiers relying on equipment that is weak or substandard," executive director Paul Rieckhoff tells the AP.

But Soldiers for the Truth contends that, "Despite all the evidence to the contrary, including [Army Program Executive Office] Soldier's own ballistic tests conducted at two Army research laboratories that irrefutably proved Dragon Skin was a superior product, the officers charged with providing America's warriors with the best protection possible continue to maintain that the Army's home-grown Interceptor OTV body armor is superior." The site also has the internal Army e-mail telling commanders to diss the Dragon Skin.

A. There may be Soldiers deployed in OIF/OEF who are wearing a commercial body armor called "Dragon Skin," made by Pinnacle Armor, in lieu of their issued Interceptor Body Armor (IBA). Media releases and related advertising imply that Dragon Skin is superior in performance to IBA. The Army has been unable to determine the veracity of these claims.

een involved in the development of Dragon Skin and the different technology it employs. In its current state of development, Dragon Skin's capabilities do not meet Army requirements. In fact, Dragon Skin has not been certified by the Army for protection against several small arms threats being encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

Originally from Defense Tech, on March 31, 2006 10:45 AM

1. There is a website that successfully argues for the existence of God. 2. Here is the URL. 3. Therefore, God exists. -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 31, 2006 10:32 AM

Leet. A disturbingly comprehensive WiIkipedia entry on l33tsp33k. -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 31, 2006 10:32 AM

If you can believe its numbers, Clean Edge, an alternative energy research group, is showing that an additional $110+ billion market will be created in alternative energies (fuel cells, biofuels, wind power and solar) over the next eight years. That's more than $13.5 billion each year. Where else in the global economy are you going to see such creation? Where else are venture capital firms going to find companies to invest in that can target a $1 billion market? Beats us. That's why Doerr & Co. are beating the drum. (Courtesy Red Herring) (Via Rob Day) ....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on March 31, 2006 8:58 AM

Originally posted by djacobs from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 31, 2006 8:58 AM

---

From the comments:

Why, if there are so many interesting things in this [Cory Arcangel] interview and also this excerpt, the discussion will always start with "I like Flash", "Flash ain't bad", "I like Flash", "it is a tool" etc?? ... i have seen this with 98% of all articles where Flash is mentioned.

Strangely, Photoshop is still out of this circle. Photoshop is also mentioned here, but never anybody jumps in and says it sucks or it is gr8 or just a tool or whatever. Actually Photoshop is mentioned everywhere and never such strong opinions as about Flash pop up.

Let's change that! Who will start?
- drx (guest) 3-31-2006 3:15 am

Allow me to say as strongly as I think you'd like to hear, I hate Photoshop. I hate its characteristic '70s airbrushed look, I hate the "bicubic mush" from resizing (your term, drx, and it's great--I'm thankful Paul Slocum told me about "nearest neighbor" resizing or I'd be screwed with these pixeled bitmaps I do), I hate all those "artistic" paintbrushes, I hate the instantly recognizable effects ("mezzotint," "craquelure"), I hate the lazy "surrealist collages" people make with Photoshop, I hate working with layers, I hate the un-intuitive interface, I hate Adobe, which has criminalized the gray area of intellectual property disputes, I hate the constant upgrades that add features no one needs (I'm still using a version of 5 that came bundled with a scanner)--I mainly use Photoshop for cropping and maybe tweaking the contrast of a photo for the blog. I hate making art with it.

- tom moody 3-31-2006 3:40 am

Originally posted by tom moody from Tom Moody, on March 31, 2006 8:58 AM

This from an interview with Robert Caro, author of The Power Broker (fantastic), and a 4 volume biography of Lyndon Johnson in the April Harvard Business Review:

As far as I'm concerned, biography is a tool for understanding power: how it is acquired and how it is used...We're all taught that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But the more time I spend looking into power, the less I feel that is always true. What I do feel is invariably correct--what power always does--is reveal. Power reveals. When a leader gets enough power, when he doesn't need anybody anymore--when he's president of the United States or CEO of a major corporation--then we can see how he always wanted to treat people, and we can also see--by watching what he does with his power--what he wanted to accomplish all along.

You see this with lottery millionaires all the time. They ditch their wife of 35 years and spend their money flying back and forth to Vegas in a Learjet with 5 hookers, a tub of 40s and a bucket of cocaine til every penny is gone. Or Michael Jackson. Or Dennis Koslowski.

This was interesting: Caro described LBJ as a pragmatist, a realist who also managed to remain an idealist. I didn't know that he had voted against civil rights again and again. He voted against it for over 20 years, because the group holding the most power in the Senate were the Southerners, and he had to ally himself with them to accrue power to himself. Then the first thing he did once he was in office was pass a civil rights bill.

Originally from Caterina.net, on March 31, 2006 8:57 AM

How to make Vegan Twinkies (via rw)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on March 31, 2006 8:55 AM

Bring Them Home Stamps. Valid, anti-war postage. For instance, for mailing your taxes.

Originally from Social Design Notes, on March 31, 2006 8:55 AM

"If you eat lunch with the same group of folks every day, eatlunch.at might help you!" I'm voting for Tacos Por Favor. They even have Mexican Coke. -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 31, 2006 2:33 AM

The Great Taco Hunt. One man's lonely but delicious quest to rate every taco in Los Angeles. -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 31, 2006 2:33 AM

Turns out the US Navy is the iRobots' largest customer. I'm not surprised or particularly worried, but it's a funny juxtaposition with some other news today: US government "intelligence" is investigating Lenovo for fear that "Lenovo [could] equip its PCs so that the U.S. can be spied on." Too bad the TALON doesn't dust surfaces, because then the military industrial complex would pwn my home even more than it already does.

You can read more about iRobot godfather Isaac Asimov over on the occasionally updated snarkout.org.

Which robot do you fear more? Thinkpad or Roomba?

Originally from hello, typepad, on March 31, 2006 2:32 AM

Happy birthday Kate!
Originally uploaded by gjs.

I hope it's the same Kate!

Originally from hello, typepad, on March 31, 2006 2:32 AM

The Blazers didn't hold a real practice Thursday, but coach Nate "Sarge" McMillan had the players come in, watch tape,...

Originally from Behind the Blazers Beat, on March 31, 2006 1:46 AM

We waste 26 million on robots no one uses.

Originally posted by mathowie from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 31, 2006 1:46 AM

Originally posted by jayirwin from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 31, 2006 1:46 AM

Originally posted by sudama from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 31, 2006 1:45 AM

Besides the always amusing browse through the SkyMall catalog, I was fairly bored and restless on the flight back from JFK to SFO, and I had the aisle, and my seatmates were popping up and down like jack in the boxes, so I had to get up every 10 minutes, and the only thing I could concentrate on was HEMISPHERES, the inflight magazine, which included an interview with David Lynch, famous movie director and director of Twin Peaks, which I loved, and who, if you haven't heard, refuses to talk about anything BUT Transcendental Meditation these days, and how it's going to save the world. Wasn't he a gun nut or something? He is an odd and funny guy:

Q: What does it feel like, this beauty through meditation?

A: It's the superhighway to the gold. People think that peace is the absence of war, but peace is the absence of all negativity. This causes negativity to go like sunlight causes darkness to go.

Q: I read that you drink lots of coffee. How much do you drink in a day?

A: I try to get 20 in.

Q: Cups? You know, there are people who say that caffeine is evil.

A: It's a funny world.

Originally from Caterina.net, on March 31, 2006 1:45 AM

No substitute for justice, but I'm glad she's getting paid.. and that The Man is taking a much-deserved L: L.A. to Pay Notorious B.I.G. Family $1.1 Million The Los Angeles City Council approved a $1.1 million payment to the family and estate of Notorious B.I.G. for legal costs incurred during the botched civil case brought against the City of Los...

Originally posted by jsmooth995 from hiphopmusic.com, on March 31, 2006 1:43 AM

Originally from Lifeblog, on March 31, 2006 1:43 AM

Originally posted by moth23 from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 30, 2006 11:28 PM

OH yeah

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 30, 2006 11:28 PM

several graphic design studies that focus on the information dashboard of the coolest car of the 80's, & its talking voice: KITT. dozens upon dozens of freeze-frame images of “Knight Rider” episodes were used to meticulously document the positions, colors & labels of buttons, read-outs & displays on the KITT console.
[juhaterho.fi|via dashboardspy.wordpress.com]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on March 30, 2006 9:11 PM

"A designer makes a dancing baby and is completely taken aback that it spreads everywhere. Or a silly video circulates all over the web. Much of that is completely unintentional. But now people are thinking, How do we do this intentionally? It's still more an art than a science."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 30, 2006 9:11 PM

In what ends up being a great post on self promotion, graphic designer Neil Tortorella tells us how to write a great proposal.

For a lot of folks, writing a proposal is often wrought with angst. Where to start? What to include? Don't sweat it. You've come to the right place. I'm going to walk you through the process so you'll be whipping out potent proposals that close the big deals.

The potent power of proposals [Inside the Marketing Mind]

 
Comment on this post

Originally from Lifehacker, on March 30, 2006 9:11 PM

So, what industry are we working in again?

We got a message from our supplier who said he'd send the stuff. He sent the stuff. But it was the wrong stuff, totally bogus, we couldn't sell it. So then he re-assured us, "no problem kids, that's fine, I'll send another batch and if it doesn't arrive in time I'll let you have some from my private stash."

Hopefully he'll bring the right, good stuff to our show tonight. Otherwise, we won't have anything for our clients.

Originally from massless, on March 30, 2006 9:10 PM

ass="caption"> This post is part of Part of the MacBook Pro Noise Series. Instead of linking directly to this post, consider linking to the series link, which includes a summary of all findings to date and direct links to the pertinent downloads that users may find useful. Thanks for reading!

In my last post on the subject of the MacBook Pro noise dilemma, I dismissed with borderline contempt the notion that “opening and closing Mirror.widget” was a reasonable workaround for the CPU whine problem. I felt pretty certain after my experiments with tweaking CPU usage that any workaround would necessarily equate to equivalent CPU usage or battery draw behind the scenes.

I may yet turn out to have been right, but I’m now using the “Mirror Widget Hack” (MWH) instead of my own QuietMBP. Why? I just got the feeling that my machine was running hotter, mooing more, and generally behaving less amicably when QuietMBP was used to alleviate the symptoms instead of the magical Mirror.widget. The damned computer feels like a wise investment when I use the MWH! I love it again (mostly). So, to all the readers who felt dismissed by my jarring rejection of MWH: mea culpa. I’m sorry.

I don’t like magic, though. At least not when I can’t understand it. I’m ready to admit that MWH does something that brings my computer into a state of calm, but if MWH can do it, surely some other piece of software, that is more convenient to run than a dashboard widget, can do the same thing. I decided to start looking carefully into what exactly happens to the computer when you apply this hack.

First of all, Mirror.widget contains no code. Well, that’s no fun! How the hell does it fix my system, then? The widget is largely implemented in the form of a special QuickTime movie “mirror2.mov” that is somehow configured to automatically reflect the incoming iSight image in real-time. Great, so I can get the same system-calming affects by opening the movie in QuickTime Player, right? Right. But as soon as I quit QuickTime Player, the noise comes back. When you close the widget, the noise stays away forever (actually until you use some app other than Dashboard that opens and then closes access to the iSight). I thought I’d try to open the widget in Safari. No dice. Even after editing the widget so it would attempt to operate despite not being in the Dashboard - it silences the noise while the movie is visible, but the noise comes back after closing the web page. Get this: even turning off the movie in Mirror Widget, by clicking the little “i” in the lower left corner causes the noise to come back. Something about the (perhaps clumsy, but beautifully, wondrously clumsy) way that Dashboard closes up shop for the widget while the movie is active causes the system to get “stuck in good mode.”

I decided to whip out Shark, Apple’s profiling tool from the CHUD toolset. I figured there must be something different about “my computer doing nothing” before and after the magic MWH. To get a fairly straightforward sample, I quiet all visible applications except Shark and the Finder. Then, with the noise blaring, I took a 2 second timed sample of “Everything.” This means all processes on the system that are using any CPU time at all for anything. Then I silenced the MBP with the MWH, and grabbed an identical 2 second sample. I did this a few times to make sure there were no statistical anomalies coloring my view of what’s going on. The difference between the two samples? Almost absofrickinlutely nothing. In fact, nothing of interest I can pinpoint after multiple sessions of sampling at different rates, over different durations, and using different sampling configuration.

The Mirror Widget is magic. I use it and love it. Be warned that as soon as you use your iSight again in another app, and then quit, the noise will come back. But other than that, I now switch my allegiance to Mirror Widget. I just wish I knew why it does what it does. Maybe somebody with more Shark skills than I can get to the bottom of this.

Update: Supporting evidence that the silence is a side-effect of a poor “cleanup” from Dashboard: opening mirror2.mov in QuickTime Player and then force-quitting QuickTime player produces the same “permanent” fix to the system. Also, opening Photo Booth (or I presume any other iSight-using app) and force-quitting it while the silence is golden will achieve the same result. Getting closer to an answer!

More: Apple’s “WhackedTV” developer sample also eliminates the noise if you add a video track in the app (defaults to iSight) and then quit. Apparently however it cleans up or doesn’t clean up upon quit is also well-suited to leaving the Mac in quiet mode.

Update 2: I decided to hack the WhackedTV example to produce the simplest possible app that can shut the MBP up and immediately quit. This would make a suitable login item, and can be manually relaunched any time the noise comes back (e.g. after using the iSight for something real). Download MagicNoiseKiller (Intel only) today!

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on March 30, 2006 9:10 PM

Dan Brown on managing incoming information (a design pattern).

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 30, 2006 9:09 PM

---

Paddy Johnson interviews Cory Arcangel:

FANZINE: In fact it was a friend, Yael Kanarek, that organized your first talk in 2001 at Eyebeam. I remember this talk because you said some rather nasty things about Flash––the crux of your argument being that you should understand how a program is built if you are going to use it, and that Flash makes everything look the same. I saw your lecture at Columbia University in 2004 online, where you appear to have changed your opinion a little. Though you don't speak specifically about Flash, you do mention that you now believe that as long as you understand software imposes an aesthetic then it is fine to work with it. What was it that made you change your mind?

CORY ARCANGEL: Well in 2001, I was still a punk basically, and just thought it was my way or the highway. This was inherited from the BEIGE days, where we kinda rolled as a computer gang, and pretty much hated anything that wasn't exactly like what we were doing. But I guess as we grew older we started seeing all this work that we loved that wasn't necessarily 100% craft aware. In fact it was the opposite. I mean look at the Internet? How many amazing crappy Flash animations are there? And those are amazing!! Also, I began to see bad Photoshop art where the artist knew it was bad and was therefore OK. So I needed to find a way to accommodate this perspective.....otherwise I would be ruling out a lot of great self aware media art that is made these days. I had to have a way to deal with that in my own set of rules...

Originally posted by tom moody from Tom Moody, on March 30, 2006 9:09 PM

Eery caricature of Harry Caray on top of his restaraunt in Chicago. Also in Google Earth news this week, an iPod-like pattern is allegedly the result of a poker bet gone horribly wrong. --dj

Originally posted by djacobs from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 30, 2006 5:33 PM

zHAUS photography has one of the best slideshow interfaces I've ever seen. Flash, no permalinks, but still beautiful and intuitive. --dj

Originally posted by djacobs from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 30, 2006 5:33 PM

A caricature of Harry Caray, the legendary announcer for the Chicago Cubs, looks up at us from the roof of his Chicago restaurant.

Caray was famous for his frequent use of “Holy Cow!” and for leading the crowd in singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. There is a good biography on Wikipedia and you can read more about the restaurant building, and its secret chambers on the Harry Caray’s Homepage.

Thanks: C. A. Daw

Originally posted by James from Google Sightseeing, on March 30, 2006 4:55 PM

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, an influential new wave composition by Brian Eno and David Byrne, is being released under a Creative Commons license. A social network for trading derivative works is also launching soon. --dj

Originally posted by djacobs from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 30, 2006 4:54 PM

Have a weekend to kill and a burning desire to become an expert in Godzilla, Italian horror or screwball comedies? GreenCine movie genre primers. -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 30, 2006 4:54 PM

From Peterme’s closing plenary at the IASummit:

“…I think that web 2.0 puts the “architecture” in information architecture. Think of an architect. They design the space. People flow through it, meet in it, contribute to it.! With that model, the bulk of information architecture currently on the web isn’t really architecture — it’s some form of hyperdimensional document organizing. We’re not creating a space that people move through, and engage with. We’re classifying material to be retrieved. But with web 2.0, we are providing an architecture — a space, a platform through which and upon which people move, contribute, and change…

…If information is a substrate running through an increasing amount of our “real-world” lives, and we believe that these web 2.0 principles are important for the future of information architecture, how do we merge the two?”

And

“as digital networked media pervades more and more of our lives, the idea of a discreet region called “cyberspace” starts to feel like an anachronism. Who here has a mobile phone on them? One that can send photos by email, for example? Well, you’re all carrying “cyberspace” in your pocket. And once that happens, distinguishing that from the “real world” becomes impossible.”

Originally posted by Matt from Blackbeltjones/Work, on March 30, 2006 4:54 PM

R. Lindley DeVecchio, who turned himself in Wednesday evening, faces a sentence of 25 years to life.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 30, 2006 3:33 PM

Originally posted by moyrad from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 30, 2006 3:25 PM

Heathcote's Uploader Almanac

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 30, 2006 3:25 PM

Finally, all those elitists who kept saying you had to be comfortable with PHP to develop a theme are telling the truth:

This document assumes basic PHP editing skills, though you probably won’t have to write and code of your own.

You probably won’t? Ah well, at least now the coders can claim they were right all along; that templates are software and shouldn’t be touched unless random question marks and semicolons hold no fear for you.

Oh, I have basic PHP editing skills, don’t worry about that, so the instructions are borderline comprehensible. I’m just sick of the goalposts getting moved all the time. For 1.2, it was all about total control through CSS and don’t touch the default template. For 1.5, designers suddenly had to deal with a dozen files rather than just one. (There was a lot of other stuff in 1.5 too, such as plugin hooks and internationalisation, but most people ignored that.) Now, for 2.0.3367whatever/2.5, we’re getting pressured into re-doing the work we did for 1.5 to incorporate their trendy AJAX crap.

If you are hosting Wordpress on a paid server and suddenly decide that you would rather have your archives displayed above your categories and recent comments at the top, you do not need widgets to accomplish this. You just need to master cut and paste. And given the huge number of themes out there and the tiny percentage which are adopted for wordpress.com, I kind of think it’s up to the admins to widgetize them rather than expecting hundreds of designers to tweak them on the off-chance that they’ll make the Chosen Few.

I mean, yeah, I have some sympathy for the view that there are too many themes out there and we don’t need any more, but for pity’s sake just say that 1.5 themes will not be fully compatible with 2.5. Not that they are ‘broken’ and ‘need to be fixed’. Theme developers are unpaid volunteers. Some of them may even have lives. They are under no obligation whatsoever to mess with a theme that worked fine a couple of months ago just to serve your addiction to trendy AJAX crap.

So let’s be honest for once about the backwards-compatibility thing: say we’re junking 1.5 and we need shiny new themes by PHP mavens. Or maybe just admit that actually you don’t need anything from people who are not Michael Heilemann, then the rest of us can stop wasting our time and switch to developing for Textpattern.

(Oh, and don’t even get me started on the bizarreness of marking up section headers as <h2> and claiming this to be the ‘most semantically correct’ way of doing things. Sidebar labels are more important than post titles? Only if you believe people’s sidebars are more important than their content. I don’t, but evidently I am alone in this.)

Originally posted by wank from wordpress wank, on March 30, 2006 3:25 PM

President Jacques Chirac is expected to make the law effective by signing it as early as Friday and will address the nation.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 30, 2006 3:25 PM

The combo rollie/backpack laptop case I bought two years back is starting to wear out, and I’ve decided that the rollie feature is not cost-effective; there are lots of times I can’t use it, and the mechanism adds weight and bulk while robbing me of space. So I’ve been poking around looking for good laptop packs (has to be a pack so I can put a change of clothes in for my frequent overnighters). David Weinberger told me that Crumpler was a hot name, and in looking at them I ran across some other interesting candidates via reviews that said “and the competition is...” The candidates are the Crumpler King Single (that website is totally trying too hard), the Tom Bihn Brain Bag, and the RoadWired Digital Daypack. Anyone out there got one of these, or want to weigh on on the subject of the ideal laptop pack? [Update: GAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I’m buried, even more people care about laptop bags than about carbonara sauce, even. I must must MUST do that comments system.] [Dear Tom Bihn: you owe the LazyWeb a couple hundred bucks worth of thanks. I just ordered a Brain Bag with all the fixings. Dear Crumpler: please fix that egregious website. What part of “don’t offend every computer professional on the planet” don’t you understand? Dear world: please stop sending me laptop-bag email.]...

Originally from ongoing, on March 30, 2006 3:25 PM

Kate turns 30 today, March 30th. Send her your best wishes!!!

Originally from iPalimpsest, on March 30, 2006 1:00 PM

For over half a decade, the front page of Jamie Zawinski's site has been hexidecimal gibberish, with the source-code comment: "mail me if you find the secret. no, you can't have a hint." I spent some time trying a few years ago, but only discovered that the contents of the page change on a regular basis, each version has 404 lines and the only consistent characters are the anchors for the links and an asterisk in the seventh position on line 330. Anybody crack it? -- GK

Originally posted by gknauss from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 30, 2006 1:00 PM

Stewart posted a photo:

Originally from Sylloge, on March 30, 2006 1:00 PM

Stewart posted a photo:

Originally from Sylloge, on March 30, 2006 1:00 PM

Stewart posted a photo:

Originally from Sylloge, on March 30, 2006 1:00 PM

The only thing *almost* as cute as real live puppies are cartoons about them. Check out Modern Pooch now!

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on March 30, 2006 11:58 AM

• 30 daytags
• 30 boxes
• 37 signals
• 43 folders
• 43 things
• 83 degrees

Update, March 30th 2006:

• 45 Fix
• 9 Cays ("cays"?)

What did I miss?

• 23 hq (thanks Andrew)
• 31 three (thanks Tomas)

Honorable Mention

• 9 Rules
• 6 Apart (thanks Adam)

Originally from tecznotes , on March 30, 2006 11:58 AM

RDB, or rhythm dohl bass, are one of the most successful asian bands in the uk, selling over 100,000 albums and touring extensively worldwide. yet, mainstream western media (or even alternative indie media) still can’t find a place for bhangra or desi, despite its obvious appeal. kuly, manj and surj singh - brothers from bradford - released their first self-titled album in 2001, and instantly aligned themselves to a generation of artists fusing bhangra with a love of american hip-hop and r’n’b. thus, a new younger fan base for traditional asian music was born, albeit in a tasty new guise.

The obvious crossover between contemporary asian and ‘urban’ music was fleshed out last year on an excellent compilation entitled ‘bhood’. described with tongue firmly in cheek by ‘the fader’ as “dirty south asia”, the album paired american, caribbean and asian artists in a series of collaborations - and whilst the project seemed like an obvious marriage, there was still room for plenty of surprises. rdb’s collab with elephant man, ‘ishq naag (love bites)’ is one of the highlights - taking cues simultaneously from both bhangra and dancehall.

[ via ]

mp3: RDB feat ELEPHANT MAN ishq naag (love bites)
mp3: RDB feat ELEPHANT MAN ishq naag (love bites) (reggaeton remix)
mp3: 4-IZE & RDB under attack
mp3: RDB & DEEMI deemi!

Originally from turbanhead, on March 30, 2006 11:58 AM

A new study suggests that South Korea has been toppled by Japan as the world's most connected country.

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on March 30, 2006 11:28 AM

I just watched the BBC demo from mix06. Stunning. But while watching it, it occurred to me that the BBC’s unique position of being publicly funded is a huge advantage for adopting new media technology, and that advertising-funded media in the States seems to be battling against these same advancements.

Since UK citizens fund the BBC (at least, that’s my simplified interpretation), it is in the BBC’s interest to make their content easily available to all (paying) citizens. In other words, DVR’s, IPTV, and video iPod’s can be embraced rather then feared. Additionally, since their funding is somewhat fixed and consistent (ie., no spiky ad revenue), it is also in the BBC’s interest to reduce content distribution costs where possible to free up money for new content creation (ie., P2P file sharing amongst their customers is a good thing since it cuts the BBC’s direct bandwidth costs.)

Where it gets particularly interesting though, is that the BBC should be in no way threatened by the idea that their viewers will be copying, re-mixing, fast-forwarding, place-shifting, and sharing the content. With no need to track ad impressions, there’s no dreaded “30-second-skip” attacking legacy business models. Surly they still need to track customer interest to know which shows to fund, but that seems a lot easier then developing content based on how lucrative a viewing audience is for advertisers.

What’s great about this situation is how well it demonstrates the connection between business models and the ability to embrace change and adopt to consumer needs. In the States, we are at risk of legislation making it illegal to watch movies on one’s computer and even more illegal to share a video with a friend. In the UK, IPTV and P2P networks might just save the country money.

Originally posted by erik from [eriksmartt.com/blog], on March 30, 2006 11:28 AM

I was so happy to finally enjoy a Spike Lee joint again.

Inside Man was very good.

Salon's Stephanie Zacharek says, "This is a mainstream entertainment designed for that forgotten movie audience, grown-ups who have brains."

I appreciated the New York he captured, the terrific actors and tight screenplay, and the directing style of Spike Lee applied to a suspenseful heist movie.

The only disturbing part of yesterday evening's movie going experience was seeing a preview for a movie about 9/11 and Flight 93. It felt so wrong to make us New Yorkers relive it. I'm not sure when we will be ready but it seems a long ways off.

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on March 30, 2006 11:28 AM

Six Apart, the startup behind the Movable Type and TypePad blog blogging software and service, is dishing up widgets. It's pulled together a directory of 33 free widgets, already ready to go from companies including music service Pandora and Weatherbug. And it's making public the APIs that it developed over the pas six weeks so that anyone can build a widget for TypePad blogs.

It make a ton of sense for Six Apart to do this. Widgets help bloggers liven up their blogs. And they help companies creating the widgets market themselves and reach broader audiences through a type of syndication.

These widgets are exactly like the ones that Apple pionnered--little bits of interactive code that can be easily dropped into any blog and can offer features like job searching or games.

With the Pandora widget, for instance, you can share use the widge to share the Pandora stations you're listening to or your favorite songs.

Originally from BusinessWeek Online - Blogspotting, on March 30, 2006 11:27 AM

''FedEx T-shirt makes you look like you are carrying a package: My friend Christian forwarded this to me as a Fashion Titicaca, but I would like to classify this as a Fashion Titillation - not b.c it's Fed Ex, but in that the designer thought about an innovative way to transform reality, portability and design. It's also a commentary on the ubiquity of the FedEx brand. "Buy the shirt, then go

Originally from Hi Tricia!, on March 30, 2006 11:27 AM

I'm off on my honeymoon for a couple weeks, so posting will be limited to a small number of items I've scheduled in advance. Nothing major, though honestly this site hasn't seen major amounts of posting in some time! Hopefully that will change after the honeymoon. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves and I'll see in a few with some travel tales and pictures. Hopefully.

Originally from megnut, on March 30, 2006 11:27 AM

Healthy bacon, anyone? Highly theoretical yet promising cloned pigs that make their own omega-3 fatty acids....

Originally from A Full Belly, on March 30, 2006 9:06 AM

interesting news buried in 10th paragraph; anyone have more info?  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on March 30, 2006 8:45 AM

badly needs an API, but brilliantly lo-fi  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on March 30, 2006 8:45 AM

me in the MSM

Originally posted by lauren_cornell from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 30, 2006 8:44 AM

pancakos!

Originally posted by sudama from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 30, 2006 8:44 AM

Tonight we launched TypePad Widgets, or as they are known on the street, TypePad Bling. From the very early days of TypePad, we imagined this sort of widget functionality -- the roots are evident in the way modules are handled in TypePad's design managment -- built into the service. It's exciting to see that the integration is finally here and that we've already got over thirty partners providing and enabling their unique services to our users. There's a lot more to come and we want to hear from others with widgets to integrate. (See the FAQ if you're interested in creating a TypePad Widget.)

As much as the term Web 2.0 is loosely thrown around, I believe strongly that the most significant characteristic of this era of development is the openess that is enabled by APIs. It's about sharing information and data and having services work well together.

Thanks go out to the TypePad team for making this happen as well as all our partners who made their widgets available for release. Our thanks, as always, to our customers for their continued suggestions and inspiration.

Originally from Mena’s Corner, on March 30, 2006 8:44 AM

Widgets aren't just for the big guys. San Francisco blogging company Six Apart announces tomorrow that its TypePad hosted blogging plaform will let users add a wide array of widgets to their blogs. The company is starting with 33 widgets, which do everything from add polls, custom search boxes and FatLens event info to their blogs. Developers can also build their own widgets. We're not sure yet what the development platform is....

Originally posted by Michael Bazeley from SiliconBeat, on March 30, 2006 8:43 AM

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 30, 2006 8:41 AM

Sex in the Syllabus. Academia's new "porn curriculum" casts a critical eye on the aesthetic, societal and philosophical properties of smut — and makes some students squirm in their chairs.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on March 30, 2006 8:40 AM

Originally from Modern Art Notes, on March 30, 2006 8:39 AM

This book paid for itself on the fourth page:

Bill points out that people like simple explanations, and love simple explanations that are partially true.

Originally from Off the Hoof, on March 30, 2006 1:16 AM

movie matrix stuff

The Movie Toolbox makes extensive use of transformation matrices to define graphical operations that are performed on movies when they are displayed. A transformation matrix defines how to map points from one coordinate space into another coordinate space. By modifying the contents of a transformation matrix, you can perform several standard graphical display operations, including translation, rotation, and scaling. The Movie Toolbox provides a set of functions that make it easy for you to manipulate translation matrices. Those functions are discussed in QuickTime Movie Internals Guide. The remainder of this section provides an introduction to matrix operations in a graphical environment.

Originally from unmediated, on March 30, 2006 1:15 AM

Ruby library for parsing all sorts of syndication feeds, with preference given to ActiveRecord for caching

Originally from unmediated, on March 30, 2006 1:15 AM

Why is the BBC getting involved in blogging? It's a question that was raised in a session I was running the other day. Followed by the comment: 'Blogging is for amateurs, and provides an easy way for them to put their opinions, however flaky, online.'

It's interesting that the comment came on the day that the Baghdad Burning blog was nominated for an award a measure of how some blogs can be credible and offer a new perspective, not often portrayed by 'big media'.
But it's not just individuals getting into blogging. Big business is there too ­ with GM, IBM, Microsoft etc. using the Internet to connect with consumers. Connecting in a way that allows consumers to enter into a dialogue.

The BBC too has just started to expand it's blogging operations. The first was political editor Nick Robinson, Paul Mason of Newsnight and the World Have Your Say programme from the World Service have recently joined him.

When the BBC already operates chat forums, message boards and community sites, and lets people add comments to some news stories ­ - so what's the point of adding blogs to the mix?

It's early days and hard to tell how blogs at the beeb may develop, but some of the ideas delegates suggested were inspiring. Blogs needn't be just personality based, but could also be built around events, or the genre of programme. They'd be more interactive ordinary web pages, provide more insight to the production process and journalistic process and more depth to programming.

It's similar to the way that big business is using blogs to get closer to consumers, big media can use blogs to engage with the audience in a more one-to-one way.

Matt

Originally from unmediated, on March 30, 2006 1:15 AM

I've gotten some feedback on my content objects post, and I'm realizing that I should expand and clarify a bunch of things.

In a world of content objects, there are no copies. There are no mp3 downloads. Special Edition DVDs are obsolete. We think we want to own this content because we've only known audio and video content in a world of masters and dupes.

The content sits online in one place and one place only. There are no intermediaries. You interface with that content by calling it up from the source server which transcodes a stream best suited for your access device.

In the master+dupe world, there are 1 million instances (read:paper copies) of The New York Times in circulation each day. In the content object world (read:online), there is only one NYTimes.com that gets 22 million unique visitors to one instance. Just think of what the world would be like if we could only view web pages through downloading pdfs. Now ask yourself why is it okay that we do this with our music?

The difference between video captured to media during the production process and your final content object is the meaning conveyed through the final edit. A content object is curated. A content object can also be inserted as a whole or in part into a playlist, making it part of a greater content object.

Content objects are neither blogjects nor spimes though they share many of their underlying ideas of and rely on a confluence of emerging network and processor technologies in order to work. Content objects are probably the close cousin of blogjects and Project Xanadu. But I need a little more time to figure out the lineage.

I used to complain that our content shouldn't be married to our objects. Now I realize that our content shouldn't be bound to their particular instances.

(Original post here. -kc.)

Originally from unmediated, on March 30, 2006 1:15 AM

kid grew up to be a game developer.  Or maybe a marketer.  Industry friends have been sending this video around all day because we've all been there (or close).  When you're my age, things might not be expressed with so much enthusiasm but the passion is definitely still there. 

Originally posted by souris from hello, nintendo, on March 30, 2006 12:32 AM

In a set from Rogério Mariano.. (Lots more eclipse photos here)

Originally from FlickrBlog, on March 30, 2006 12:28 AM

I find more than a passing similarity between:

• http://www.valleywag.com/tech/ben-brown/getting-real-with-ben-brown-158066.php

and:

• http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/01/20

A brave new world indeed.

Originally posted by alex from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency, on March 29, 2006 10:15 PM

lifeboatGoogle, the Mountain View search engine, plans to sell 5.3 million more shares, which will raise more than $2 billion at today's stock price. Among the possible things it plans to do with the money: acquisitions of other companies (see filing, page S-2). So all the Silicon Valley start-up companies out there struggling by with no revenues can cling to hope. Google may yet be your liferaft....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on March 29, 2006 10:14 PM

This is the best looking food blog I've ever seen

Originally posted by mathowie from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 29, 2006 5:57 PM

an interactive geograpical map resource which contains detailed country information for over 200 states & maps key social, economic, environmental & political issues, such as greenhouse gas emissions, corruption, landmine risk & child labor statistics.
the interactive map enables users to view an issue individually or in combination with other issues in order to illustrate the relationship between 2 or more associated topics. the tool is meant to raise awareness, providing a framework for monitoring & analyzing a wide range of complex issues that impact on society & the goals of business.
see also radial visual browser & gapminder world trends.
[maplecroft.com]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on March 29, 2006 5:56 PM

Fascinating article about how it's becoming impossible to tell 20 year olds and 40 year olds apart and the end of the generation gap. The author never gives a satisfactory answer as to why this shift has occurred though...there has to be an interesting book in here somewhere.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 29, 2006 5:56 PM

We've just released ccHost 2.0, the GPL-licensed software platform that powers ccMixter. Thanks to Victor Stone for months of mad coding (when he's not remixing) and Jon Phillips for packaging the release.

I've already blogged about two new features included in this release, remix statistics and the sample pool API, but there's much more. Check out the press release for details.

Originally posted by Mike Linksvayer from Creative Commons Blog, on March 29, 2006 4:03 PM

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 29, 2006 4:01 PM

Delicious Mona is a new, free, donation-supported service that enables you to receive RSS news feeds on your mobile device, and to easily bookmark them via del.icio.us for later reading via your news aggregator:

Free, and easy to use, Delicious Mona puts the news that matters to you under your thumb. You already enjoy your favorite news feeds on your desktop, now you can take them with you. And from within a mobile Story Player you can bookmark articles of interest straight back onto your desktop with a single mobile click.

Originally posted by Howard from Smart Mobs, on March 29, 2006 4:01 PM

As part of our recent launch of our Blogging Solutions for Business, we're holding a series of Blogging for Business Seminars in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles. In addition to speaking about the tools that we've developed that help businesses get blogging, we will be "hosting a number of speakers to talk about business blogging, present use cases from local industries, demonstrate blogging technologies and give attendees to engage us in a question and answer session." If you're interested in attending, simply fill out the short inquiry form.

Originally from Mena’s Corner, on March 29, 2006 4:00 PM

Originally from Modern Art Notes, on March 29, 2006 4:00 PM

This Google Maps mashup from AnalyGIS and SRC adds census information from the 2000 census to the Google Maps interface we already know and love.

Just put in your address and you can quickly see the population, income, and housing statistics for your area in a 1, 3, and 5 mile radius of your home.

Google Maps Census Mashup [extendthereach.com]

 
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Originally from Lifehacker, on March 29, 2006 3:59 PM

Seed-starting season is upon us which means it's time to figure what to grow, when to start it, and how. And of course, to further confuse, plants must be started at specific times and by various methods; some prefer to be direct sown outdoors, while others require some indoor prep-time before heading outside.

Originally posted by Gayla from ReadyMade Blog, on March 29, 2006 3:59 PM

NSFW: "Ad people are perverts." Nice sampling of super slick, highly sexual ads from Europe. I love the second and third ones.

Originally from cheesedip.com, on March 29, 2006 3:59 PM

This ad debuted last weekend during the opening rounds of March Madness. Within days, it became the subject of a lawsuit (which I'll explain in a moment), and it's now been pulled from the airwaves. It's really a shame the ad had to die before its time, since it's among the funnier spots to hit television in recent months.

The joy is entirely in the details. The deathly serious (or is it deathly bored?) looks on the Amish guys' faces. The fact that one of them wears a yellow wrestling helmet while the other sports a royal-blue headband. The incongruously hard-edged rock on the soundtrack. The Pegasus-like wings attached to the horses, for no apparent reason. (SLATE)

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed, on March 29, 2006 1:39 PM

I normally don't get too ambitious about April Fools' Day pranks, but the strange food possibilities always pull me in. I admit to making a veggie meatloaf layer cake iced with mashed potatoes one year.

Originally posted by Megan from ReadyMade Blog, on March 29, 2006 1:39 PM

For the record, I'm filing this as a hoax.

Earlier this year some very interesting tapes were handed to me from a long standing acquaintance of mine. The tapes originated at a Lenovo (the Chinese company that recently took over IBM Thinkpad) research facility and appear to feature test footage. When my acquaintance watched the tapes back, he found some footage that he just had to get it out into the public domain. I’ve watched the material myself and I’ve got to agree with him – it’s pretty amazing stuff.

Originally posted by Chris from Cynical-C Blog, on March 29, 2006 1:39 PM

Today is the 22nd day in March that it has rained. Please make it stop.

Originally posted by alainabrowne from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 29, 2006 1:39 PM

I’m not sure many of my loyal readers know that I’ve just returned from an extended trip to Iraq. What I found was surprising. The right-wing is right, there is no civil war in Iraq and what violence there is, is being greatly exaggerated by the media. Below is proof!


enlarge image

Look how calm, orderly and peaceful this downtown intersection in Baghdad is!

(If you don’t get the joke, see this, this, this and this.)

Originally posted by T.Whid from MTAA Reference Resource, on March 29, 2006 1:39 PM

The Versora Progression Desktop is a tool to help users migrate settings and files from Windows to Linux. Versora now supports Ubuntu.

Our favourite Mark seems quite happy with it:

“Progression Desktop provides a valuable solution to those seeking to migrate their data and settings off their Window desktops over to Ubuntu,” said Ubuntu Founder Mark Shuttlesworth (sic). “It basically allows users to take their personality profile and data with them automatically and saves a lot of time when compared to a manual migration.”

You need a license of Versora for each desktop you migrate. A license costs $29.00. So the question is, would you pay $29.00 for “somebody” to migrate your settings and files from Windows to Ubuntu? If you would, then maybe you should try Versora.

I wonder how the thing works. Would like to try it, but can’t spare $29 for the purpose of experimentation.

Originally from Ubuntu Blog, on March 29, 2006 1:37 PM

A friend sent me this link today: “Xcode Plugin for Symbian OS.” I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s the most promising OS X development solution for native Symbian apps that I’ve seen.

(Screenshots)

Originally posted by erik from [eriksmartt.com/blog], on March 29, 2006 11:50 AM

max/msp vs quartz composer, i have come full curcle here. hahaha

Originally posted by cory_arcangel from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 29, 2006 11:50 AM

Even native New Yorkers are often disoriented when exiting subway stations, so why doesn't the MTA print a little direction indicator on the pavement near the exits? Better yet, download the stencils provided here and let's do it ourselves.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 29, 2006 11:50 AM

Shopsin's is moving to Brooklyn. Wonder at the marvelous information design of Shopsin's menu or read Calvin Trillin's outing of the restaurant in the New Yorker.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 29, 2006 11:50 AM

---

"Brakin' (Remix 2--Get Me to Lee Miles Mix)" [4.4 MB .mp3]. John Parker remix of my Mac SE tune (and my mix of his mix, etc.--this has been traded back and forth a few times). Still work in process--we're still composing and editing this piece, but I like this stage.

Originally posted by tom moody from Tom Moody, on March 29, 2006 11:48 AM

fullscreen quicktime

Originally posted by cory_arcangel from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 29, 2006 11:47 AM

I've seen folks on some lefty list-servs complain that the focus on these DJs takes too much credit away from the activists who worked in the trenches making this happen. Still, heck of a story: How DJs Put 500,000 Marchers in Motion He's one of the hottest Spanish-language radio personalities in the nation. So when Los Angeles deejay Eddie Sotelo...

Originally posted by jsmooth995 from hiphopmusic.com, on March 29, 2006 9:06 AM

REST based authentication. Some of these hacks are gross, but it's nice to know that they exist.

Originally from Hack the Planet, on March 28, 2006 11:10 PM

Another deep tutorial about mdfind. So cool...

Comment

Originally from JayAllen - The Daily Journey, on March 28, 2006 11:10 PM

The Borough of Lewisham in London has launched a new program to help clean up the neighborhood with the help of the public and MMS. Everyone is allowed to download an Java application to their cell phones and then proceed to take pictures of graffiti, abandoned cars, garbage, etc. The application then uploads the photo a council who will go to the pictured spot and clean up the mess. The standard MMS fees apply for the public, but just think of how pretty the environment could be without all that nasty tagging.

MMS to Combat London Graffiti [MobHappy]

Comment on this post
Related: Nokia N93 in the Wild
Related: Toshiba v604T with TV Tuner

Originally from unmediated, on March 28, 2006 11:10 PM

The Eyebeam OpenLab is now accepting interns for a number of project areas. Positions are unpaid but receive full named credit for all work completed. All interns will work closely with one or more of the OpenLab's staff or fellows on new or ongoing projects. Interns must be skilled in their project area but more importantly they are eager to learn and take direction from their coworkers in the lab.

We are seeking interns in the following areas:

• Web Development
• 3D Graphics
• 3D Printing/Digital Fabrication
• Graffiti Research Lab
  • Web Development
  • Engineering Technician
• Senior Fellow Cory Arcangel Intern

For more information about the positions and how to apply, please go to http://research.eyebeam.org/internships

Originally from unmediated, on March 28, 2006 11:10 PM

Free one-click conversion of video files to the specific MPEG format required to copy video onto your TiVo. No messing around with demuxers or codecs required. They also have one that converts to iPod Video format.

Originally from unmediated, on March 28, 2006 11:10 PM

Techdirt: Why Aren't The Telcos Paying Google For Making Their Network Valuable?
It is true, cable franchises pay the networks for the privilege of carrying them. This is on a per-subscriber basis and allows the television networks to double dip in a sense, get per-subscriber fees as well as ad revenue.

The argument that Google makes the broadband networks valuable is true although there are a plethora of such services, no lack of content which is why the cable co.'s started to pay the networks in the first place.

There is NO WAY the telcos would fall for this (Verizon/CBS stupidity aside) on broadband lines unless they truly still envision the internet as 1,000,000 channels of TV.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think that Google should pay either. We (the consumers here) are already paying. Unless Google wants to be on the providers home page or portal there is no reason for them to pay.

I hope they do light up all of that fiber they have been buying and route around the telecos and allow me a WiFi Mesh or WiMax connection.

Originally from unmediated, on March 28, 2006 11:10 PM

If bugs give you the willies, stay clear. If not, check out some incredible macro shots of insects. These are stunning. Nature is amazing. [via Coudal]

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on March 28, 2006 11:09 PM

Originally from the real janelle, on March 28, 2006 11:09 PM

The UK/France-based Insight has just released a field guide to participatory video (PV). The guide lays out instructions through text, illustration and photography to assist amateur videographers in setting up PV projects regardless of their location.

Insight's work focuses on empowering individuals and communities to give voice to their experience by learning about the tools and processes required to direct, film, and produce videos. Much of their work involves applying video techniques to Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) practices, which encompass a broad range of local, collaborative methods for assessment and planning in communities both rural and urban.

This of course runs quite parallel to the work of Witness and other efforts to expose injustice through local, participatory video. While Insight's work goes more in-depth on the entire video-making process, their globally-applicable handbook may prove informative even for capturing more on-the-fly footage through developments such as Witness's mobile phone project, which enables citizens to document human rights violations through cameraphone recordings, as well as environmental data documentation, as Jamais mentioned with the idea of Earth Witness.

The use of mobile technology, cameras and wireless networks for citizen-driven progress is a recurring theme at Worldchanging. But having the tools without understanding the techniques doesn't get us all the way there. With "Insights into Participatory Video," citizens have a chance to extract the full potential of technological tools that are increasingly accessible in remote areas of the world.

(Posted by Sarah Rich in The Means of Expression - Media, Creativity and Experience at 12:02 PM)

Originally from unmediated, on March 28, 2006 11:09 PM

The San Francisco Perl Mongers meeting on Tuesday March 28th, 2006, will feature three speakers as a follow up to the previous month's meeting on Perl integrated development environments. While I recently started following the development of the PPI refactoring editor, for this meeting I'll be presenting 30 minutes worth of Vim goodness featuring integration with PerlTidy and the Perl debugger. And also some other fun features that can make your life as a Perl developer more productive when you use Vim. Please check the SFPUG Blog for details. Hope to see you there!

Originally posted by Phred (posted by brian_d_foy) from use Perl, on March 28, 2006 11:09 PM

Every day since Leta’s birth I have read to her from the Anils of Dash. When we got this t-shirt in the mail yesterday from the wonderful people at Mule Design she couldn’t have been more excited if Elmo had hand-delivered it.

Originally from dooce, on March 28, 2006 11:09 PM

Shaking up tech publishing: "It seems that the industry standard [for authors] is something akin to 10% of the profits (which easily take 4-5-6 months to arrive), being forced to write in Word, and finally a production cycle that's at least a good 3 months from final book to delivery. That's horrible!" Building a shop "to take $19 from your credit card" and laying out books in InDesign aren't as easy as he makes it out to be for everyone, but it's a great overall point.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 28, 2006 11:08 PM

Wow! Three weeks ago I posted a modest proposal for a guerilla wayfinding campaign, painting compass stencils at the exits of subway stations for disoriented commuters.

Today at the 8th Avenue L exit I found this:

Here’s a hi-res photo someone posted to Flickr of the same compass at the Bleeker 6 exit. I found more at Astor Place and Union Square. Is someone reading this blog? And will they go all city?

Originally from Social Design Notes, on March 28, 2006 11:08 PM

Originally from megnut, on March 28, 2006 11:08 PM

Prince brings it out in me every time!! Jonah is incredulous at my finger work.

* At Meg & Jason's wedding over the weekend.

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on March 28, 2006 11:08 PM

BW Online reporter Steve Rosenbush writes that Facebook, the popular social networking service for college kids, has put itself on the block and hopes to get as much as $2 billion.

As Steve writes, it may seem like a lot of dough, but Facebook is the 7th most heavily trafficked site on the Web in terms of page views, according to comScore Media Metrix.

Update: I just read Russell Beattie's thread about this and how valuing companies through page views is a bad sign. It's back to the bad old days of the Internet bubble. But it's definitely happening. When MySpace blasted into the public consciousness last year, what it touted then too was page views. Not a good thing...

Originally from BusinessWeek Online - Blogspotting, on March 28, 2006 11:07 PM

Remix Reading is running an exhibition of Creative Commons-licensed art at the Riverside Museum at Blake's Lock in the UK from April 28th through 30th. There's an open call for submissions until April 6, so get to it! Remix Reading's Tom Chance tells us:

Anyone can submit, and we'd especially like to receive "real media" submissions (i.e. not digital art or photographs). We can help arrange international shipping of works if anyone submits them.

"A comet hits Reading" by Tom Chance, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

Originally posted by Eric Steuer from Creative Commons Blog, on March 28, 2006 11:07 PM

Beloved children's author Beverley Cleary is about to turn 90. To honor the occasion, her publisher, HarpersCollins, has designated April 12 Drop Everything and Read! Day, complete with a list of suggested books compiled by experts from Reach Out and Read, NEA, and Reading Rockets. (via rw)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on March 28, 2006 11:07 PM

Rails 1.1 is alive. It's a huge update, the biggest yet, with more than 500 fixes, tweaks, and features from over 100 contributors. It's also a triumph of extractions. Most of the blockbuster features started life in 37signals applications. A rundown:

• RJS - JavaScript written in Ruby: We initially extracted the Ajax support in Rails from Backpack. It was the first application that I used the send-HTML-instead-of-data approach to Ajax, which became the foundation for the update mechanism in Prototype. But as we increased our appetite for Ajax with Campfire, we needed more. RJS was extracted from the work to make all the JavaScript code in Campfire beautiful.
• Polymorphic associations/join models: Sunrise gave birth to both of these features as I needed to implement rich tagging against multiple classes (you can tag people, companies, entries, etc with the same tags). This an example of us sharing new features even before the founding application has launched.
• Accept-driven responses: The new Basecamp API is based upon the work I did when discovering usefulness of the accept header in HTTP and working with Jamis to built a great way to encapsulate that. Now we can have the same code easily serve Ajax-calls, API-calls, mobile clients, and more.
• ActiveRecord::Base.to_xml: When creating APIs, you usually have to expose tons of model objects as XML (like give me all the todo items for this list in XML). Marking all this XML up by hand every time is tedious. We needed something better to stay productive for the Basecamp API, so to_xml was born.
• Integration testing: Testing Campfire properly required more than Rails initially provided. How do you verify that things are working right when two or three people are chatting simultaneously? With integration testing that's easy as you can run concurrent sessions and make assertions about the interactions. Jamis extracted this from Campfire and did a great job writing about how to use it.
• Enumerable#group_by and Array#in_groups_of: How to easily partition data into chunks for presentation? These two methods were born from Campfire's transcript browser by Marcel and Sam.
• form_for, form_remote_for, and fields_for: Most of the form helpers in Rails was based around the notion that you would only have 1 form per object type per page. Sunrise quickly brought that to same with many forms for similar object types all over the place. So we extracted a new, cleaner way to specify forms and their relationship to models.

are extractions. The best ideas arise when you're squeezed between the constraints of time, reality, and a desire to be happy writing beautiful code. There was no way we could have come up with all of these new features by simply contemplating what some people might need some day.

Designing software by guessing about the future is a terrible way to arrive at something pleasant.

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on March 28, 2006 11:04 PM

A lot of familiar faces have been popping up on 24 for the last week or two--at least they're familiar if your life revolves around TV and movies. Last week's German agent Theo Stoller was played by the same...

Originally posted by Amy from Amy's Robot, on March 28, 2006 11:04 PM

Avie Tevanian to leave Apple. Long regarded as the brains behind OS X (and NeXT before it), Tevanian's unexpected departure is "too pursue other interests," and his last day is Friday, 1 day before Apple's 30th anniversary. Noted tech curmudgeon John C. Dvorak recently claimed, to much ridicule, that Apple was going to ditch OS X and move to Windows. Coincidence? Or has Steve's famous temper gotten the better of him again?

Originally posted by mkultra from MetaFilter posts tagged with apple, on March 28, 2006 11:04 PM

Video tutorial from Apple Developer Connection: “When you take advantage of Core Data, it slashes the amount of custom code you need to write in order to manage application data. Opening, saving and undo management can all be handled by Core Data, freeing you to concentrate on creating unique features for your application.”

Also see Wolf’s notes on the article.

Originally from ranchero.com, on March 28, 2006 11:03 PM

yeah, I've had days like that [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on March 28, 2006 11:03 PM

Photojojo is an email newsletter about the intersection of awesome + photography. We research great photo DIY projects, tips, and gear and bring them to you. It’s a project I’ve been working for a couple months now and I’m reallly excited to see it debut this week.

37 signals gave us a tip of the hat today, and The real janelle let the cat out of the bag yesterday, so we’re off to a good start!

Help us spread the word about Photojojo!

Link: Photography + Awesome = Photojojo

Technorati Tags: photojojo, diy, photography, photo, photo projects, 37signals, newsletter

Originally posted by Amit Gupta from Amit Gupta's Blog, on March 28, 2006 11:03 PM

Dave Liebreich detects part of NetNewsWire’s software ancestry.

Originally from inessential.com, on March 28, 2006 11:02 PM

From a Bear Stearns report on comScore data, Google continues to gain ground in search share in the US. Given all that's going on in search and related media, that's impressive. From the report, which was emailed to me:

Google now has a 42.3% share of the domestic search market (the highest since comScore starting tracking market share data), up from 41.4% in Jan 06 and 39.8% in 4Q 05.
...Yahoo's share dropped 110 bps to 27.6%, MSN share dropped 20 bps to 13.5% while AOL's share increased slightly to 8.0% from 7.9% in Jan 06. Ask market share rose to 6.0% from 5.6% in Jan 06. The marketing push behind the Ask brand likely contributed to its share gains.
Year-over-year, Google and Ask showed strong search query gain of 29.4% and 27.9%, respectively, while the other search providers in the top five declined. On a sequential basis, Google and Ask also showed the highest growth at 8.3% and 14.6% respectively.
While Google's unique searcher market share remains flat at 59.1% level from Jan. 06 (Yahoo and MSN both declined in this metric), searches per search increased to 29 from 27 in Jan. 06 and from 26 in 4Q 05.

Originally from John Battelle's Searchblog, on March 28, 2006 11:02 PM

Videos from presentations at Google, including John Battelle, Seth Godin, Antarctic meteorites, Hal Varian, and Sergey Brin. (thx, jf)

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 28, 2006 11:02 PM

1. Bachelor in a Casserole 2. The Swirling Clergyman's Lament 3. St. Sebastian's Disused Quiver 4. Dolorous Dolores 5. Gracious Knows These Trousers Bind

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 28, 2006 11:01 PM

"rsync.net provides secure, fault-tolerant, multi-homed data storage for offsite backup, disaster preparedness, remote access and personal use."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 28, 2006 11:01 PM

Originally posted by axt from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 11:01 PM

By markal.

Originally from FlickrBlog, on March 28, 2006 11:01 PM

Vegan Lunch Box has been serving up its readers a voyeristic look into the everyday Mom-made lunch of a vegan kid. It answers the burning question of what do vegans eat, while giving good tips on spicing up everyday lunches for kids (and grown ups!). One of my favorite entires is the subversion of a Make-Your-Own Twinkies kit with vegan recipes for the cake and filling.

Originally posted by Jocelyn from ReadyMade Blog, on March 28, 2006 10:59 PM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 10:59 PM

Carnegie Mellon MFA grad show

Originally posted by lauren_cornell from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 10:58 PM

blablablablabalbla

Originally posted by cory_arcangel from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 10:58 PM

Interesting interview with Jonah Peretti about contagious media, business, and web media. (thx, carrie)

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 28, 2006 10:57 PM

Some of you may know that I work at 1UP.com now producing a program called The 1UP Show. Basically, it's the beginning of an exploration of ideas I've had over the last few years, exploring them right here on GGA, and made possible now by the involvement of my friend and colleague Ryan O'Donnell. Before we got hired at Ziff Davis--and we were hired within ten minutes of eachother, funny enough--we had often sat on Ryan's balcony sketching out our ideas, dreaming of wacky things, including a puppet show about games. Yeah, that one didn't work out. Yet.

At 1UP, we got the chance to essentially do what we wanted. We knew we wanted to cover videogames on video, but we weren't sure how to proceed, since Ryan didn't like my puppets. Just kidding. We knew what we liked, and what we didn't. We tried to do a roundtable show early on, but we found it dull as dishwater--so dull that the format actually obscured the interesting conversation and the personalities.

The first time we tried to do something completely different was the one-off "Gaming to the Max" which was the video segment to complement Jeremy Parish's week-long SNES Retro/Active feature, a time warp in which we treated SNES games like current products. Yeah, it was really silly and, looking back on it, really flawed, but given our time constraints and the fact that we aren't actors the project schematic was too ambitious. We definitely learned from that.

Originally posted by jane from game girl advance, on March 28, 2006 10:56 PM

Can Hollywood make quality movies for both love and money? Not according to a lawsuit filed by the actor Randy Quaid.

Originally from NYT > Arts, on March 28, 2006 10:55 PM

qt_tools (thx hello typepad)

Originally posted by cory_arcangel from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 4:03 PM

Secret Doors [via Schneier]

Originally posted by ezrakilty from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 4:03 PM

I am not worthy.

Originally posted by ezrakilty from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 4:02 PM

just got 10.4 and havn trouble getting cron tab to generate my site,.....apple is doing weird things with crontab which is annoying. might be my crappy code though.....

Originally posted by cory_arcangel from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 4:02 PM

history of the world via movies. someone oughtta visualize this puppy

Originally posted by stamen from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 4:02 PM

"In an extreme instance, in which there is a Propervirt of less than 0.9%, the TEXT OF THE PRESENT PROSPECTUS may likewise undergo an ABRUPT change. If, while you are reading these sentences, the words begin to jump about, and the letters quiver and blur, please interrupt your reading for ten or twenty seconds to wipe your glasses, adjust your clothing, or the like, and then start reading AGAIN from the beginning, and NOT JUST from the place where your reading was interrupted, since such a TRANSFORMATION indicates that a correction of DEFICIENCIES is now taking place."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 28, 2006 8:48 AM

A British mobile software developer launched a flat-fee text messaging service that allows users to send unlimited messages for $1.75 a week. RCRNews reports. Hotxt, which describes its service as a kind of Skype for text messagers, uses the Internet to send messages between wireless users. The company is targeting its new service at 16- to 25-year-olds, claiming that a user who sends seven texts a day will save $367 over the course of a year. ... Hotxt said its service works on all Java-enabled phones on U.K. networks except from pre-paid handsets from O2 and 3."

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on March 28, 2006 8:48 AM

Originally from hustler of culture, on March 28, 2006 8:48 AM

Apparently the new Yahoo! Mail beta is out for everyone now. Mmmm rich chocolaty ajax goodness, and a way nicer interface than gmail (although gmail does handle list subscriptions better).

Still no Safari love though. Camino works fine however.

Originally from [GusMueller blog], on March 28, 2006 8:47 AM

"in that I had to buy a 2 pack of Hanes Hey Way Bikini Panties at WalMart for $6.87 yesterday. I also bought my mom a pair of slipper socks."

Originally posted by yatta from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 8:44 AM

more qtkit stuff

Originally posted by cory_arcangel from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 8:44 AM

beat takeshi made a videogame because he hates video games!

Originally posted by BigFire from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 8:44 AM

Chris on living in semi-spimeworld

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 8:43 AM

Originally posted by smartincome from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 28, 2006 8:43 AM

Today is the 2nd anniversary of our marriage in New Paltz!

Nothing's changed. I love her as much now, as two years ago, or ten years ago. But I still write "single" on my taxes.

Please visit HRC and take action. Write to your elected officials. Please support same-sex marriage.

Originally from iPalimpsest, on March 27, 2006 11:53 PM

 [Blog] From my flickr account I've created some geotags using Google Earth and tagged my flickr set with locations which now appear on a world map. My inspriation for this came from a cycling geez.

Originally posted by admin from Geotags.org, on March 27, 2006 11:02 PM

Yeah, right. Good public transportation is one thing, but where are they getting their food? Does it just magically appear in supermarkets, ior s oil involved in transporting it there? [/snark]

Originally posted by splodinvark from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 11:01 PM

HD video of the New Super Mario Bros. playing on a DS Lite. First few minutes of the game including the intro animations, a look at the overworld map, and the entire first level. Plus, Mario picks up some kind of turtle suit at the end...

Originally posted by smedly from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 11:00 PM

1998 New Yorker article

Originally posted by maciej from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 11:00 PM

via Sivacracy, March 26, 2006:

Parody is Fair Use!

The original:

The parody:

The story: here, at Greenespace:

Justin Watt, a Tar Heel living in California (and regular reader of GreeneSpace), saw this billboard and created this blog entry. He got a big-foot letter from Liberty Counsel on behalf of the billboard's sponsors. Jason persuaded the ACLU to write a powerful letter defending his right of fair use in the form of parody for social comment. Liberty Counsel has apparently backed off. This is wonderful--but how many big-foot letters end up intimidating the recipient and silencing lawful speech? Congratulations to Justin for knowing his rights and acting on them.

Download a-response-to-liberty.pdf (Justin's letter).

Posted by joy garnett on March 27, 2006 at 03:58 PM in Current Affairs, In the Media, Law, Politics, Weblogs | Permalink

Originally posted by joy garnett from NEWSgrist - where spin is art, on March 27, 2006 7:52 PM

Al Gore socked us between the eyes with his talk on global warming at TED. Nice to see that an organization that TED has supported in the past, Environmental Defense, has just released a couple of powerful PSAs (especially the second). They're predicting they'll get $100m worth of media time to run these, though I'm sure they'd take more if anyone's offering. The ads' concluding message: "There is still time". I hope this is true.

Originally posted by Chris Anderson from TED Blog, on March 27, 2006 7:51 PM

TUESDAY

The Seattle Public Library turns ya boy into SFJ.

+ Thank you to everyone who came out last night to the UW Bookstore. Toure and I say: we love you Seattle!

+ Spring has barely sprung. But the streets are talking. Millions! Here's Juan Gonzalez on the national walkouts. (And BTW, did anyone peep HBO's Walkout? Some sort of pop-cultural prophecy, loop-of-history thing. Lalo, I know you hate Eddie, but hey, you gotta admit this is kinda cool.)

And while we're at it, Paris is still burning , and it looks more and more like 1968 everyday. No doubt this will intensify the anti-hip-hop campaigns.

MONDAY

Buy this book, or steal it!

Random thoughts in between massive amounts of work while road-tripping (an expanding thread):

+ Prince's new record "3121" isn't great, but it's not bad. The lyrics are trite, certainly less interesting than "Musicology". On the other hand, the songwriting is incredible, but something's wrong with the mix. The textures are there, especially the percussion and his guitar, but they're mixed very airlessly, antiseptically, with not nearly the amount of ecentricity and experimentation the sounds deserve. How good could "Black Sweat" be with Jazze Pha working the knobs? How good could "Love" be with, say, Timbaland behind the boards? Doesn't he need the work right about now anyway?

+ George Mason is what sports is all about. Speaking of which, just began reading Dave Zirin. You must check out What's My Name, Fool? Brilliant. My new favorite sportswriter, next to Scoop Jackson and William Rhoden, and sometimes-sportswriter Will Blythe.

Originally from zentronix: dubwise & hiphopcentric, on March 27, 2006 7:50 PM

A while back we told you about how games can keep you sane.

Today we'd like to point you in the direction of a nice guide to help you get better at one of the world's great games -- chess.

What is missing here? In my opinion, something for intermediate players (or, more correctly, "advanced beginners", but let's be nice. ). Those who have no doubts about chess rules, who no longer leave pieces unprotected, or lose them because they were distracted ("where did that bishop come from?!?"), and who usually have no trouble winning a game when they have some material advantage. So, what's next? What should they do to improve? Study dozens of openings and variants? Analyze games by grandmasters? Eventually, yes. But, for now, it's too soon!

The next step, instead, should be to learn a few principles, which, though simple, quickly change your way of playing the game, because, even though you may not be aware that you're playing opening X variant Y, you know that moving this piece there is a good idea, because...

Chess: basic principles

 
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Originally from Lifehacker, on March 27, 2006 7:50 PM

Mayor Sharpe James, who entered his sixth race for mayor 11 days ago, dropped out of the race today, withdrawing his name only hours before the ballots were to be sent to the printer.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 27, 2006 7:36 PM

Could you break your brother out of here? Joliet Correctional Center was closed in 2002 and now plays the part of Fox River State Penitentiary in the compulsive watching stupidity that is Prison Break.

The prison also featured in another story of brotherly love, as it’s where Jake is released from at the beginning of The Blues Brothers.

Originally posted by James from Google Sightseeing, on March 27, 2006 6:21 PM

SF-Google (credit)No dirt on SF-Google relationship -- You've probably seen the story about all the ties between San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Google co-founders, including the Switzerland trips together on their private jet and so on. It makes for entertaining reading, and it is good that a local newspaper like the San Francisco Chron keeps an eye on these relationships. What is remarkable is how, turn after turn, the relationship stays pretty above board. Sure, Google has a bid in San Francisco to operate the city's Wifi network, and it would be unethical if the Mayor favored Google because of their friendship and any favors Google has done for him. But the Mayor turned down Google requests more often than he accepted them, has made all the proper reimbursements, and apparently isn't influencing the Wifi decision. No real dirt here. Kleiner backs mashup start-up -- Platial is a company that does "mash-ups" of Google maps with different data. Big-name Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's Omidyar Network have invested in the company, according to the NYT. We've heard that angel investor Ram Shriram (the guy who was founding investor in Google) is also involved....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on March 27, 2006 6:21 PM

Here’s a great example of using a corporate blog to explain an unfortunate product decision to customers, “Living Photoshop: Macintosh and the Intel switch“.

The blogger, Scott Byer, is explaining why Adobe isn’t going to release a MacIntel version of CS2 — the summary being that transitioning their entire development over to XCode wasn’t feasible for CS2. It’s what Adobe’s Mac customers need to hear (that there’s a significant technical hurdle which didn’t make sense for a product currently in the market), but it’s not the kind of thing that a press release can explain. In other words, it’s important information, but without bloggers, there’s no clear channel for how to communicate this stuff.

It’s also of note that the comments list (the conversation) stretches far beyond the length of the original post. The customer feedback is mixed — ranging from “You guys suck, I spent $1000 on this software!”, to “Yeah, I understand the challenge first hand. Thanks for the explanation.”

Originally posted by erik from [eriksmartt.com/blog], on March 27, 2006 6:21 PM

Then do we have an interface for you! A search for "Google careers" returns this one box integration (thanks, SV.com):

Looking for a job at Yahoo? Sorry, no one box for "Yahoo Careers"!

Originally from John Battelle's Searchblog, on March 27, 2006 6:20 PM

When I first saw the trailer for "Inside Man" I was tripping off how they only slipped in Spike's name at the very end, mad quick like how they sneak in the health warnings at the end of drug commercials.."warning:this-product-may-be-also-directed-by-spike-lee".. But their plan to go commercial with a stealth-Spike Lee joint has paid off big time, with an opening weekend...

Originally posted by jsmooth995 from hiphopmusic.com, on March 27, 2006 6:19 PM

She said it Sunday. I'm still laughing about this.

"Look, honey. I totally mashed up this shirt with these jeans."
- Mai Le (sarcastically)

Originally from massless, on March 27, 2006 6:19 PM

Greg Reinacker's Weblog: “Well, the teams are exhausted :-), but this is a HUGE multi-product release day!”

Congratulations to Nick Harris on getting Inbox 2.6 released! And congratulations to the rest of the team on all the design changes and new features!

Originally from ranchero.com, on March 27, 2006 6:19 PM

Does William Wesley know about TrueHoop? I would have bet on it, before, for a number of reasons. But now John Canzano says Wesley reads his blog.

If he's in the blogosphere reading about himself, he's reading TrueHoop.

It's also interesting to note that Wes was rooting for Memphis. Of course, Wesley is famously close to Dajuan Wagner, who went to Memphis (possibly at the urging of Wesley). Wesley's close friend, and Dajuan's father, Milt Wagner still works at Memphis.

The question now is whether or not Wesley will be advising potential lottery pick Rodney Carney.

Originally from True Hoop, on March 27, 2006 6:19 PM

You’ve heard about Nokia’s open source web browser for S60 based on Apple’s WebCore/JavaScriptCore right? I’m sure you have… but did you know that you can try it out right now? I didn’t either.

The odds are pretty good that you (like me) don’t have an S60 3rd Edition phone that can run the new browser; Fortunately, there’s a build included in the new S60 3rd Edition SDK. What you need is the final build of the SDK, which can be found here: http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,6566,034-4,00.html. (If you get totally lost on Forum Nokia, don’t forget about the Google Mini powered search: http://search.forum.nokia.com/!)

The download page defaults to the Japanese version, so make sure you change the drop-down menu to “SDK for 3rd Edition” if you want English. (Note: the “beta” version doesn’t seem to have the new browser.)

Once you install the SDK (and sadly, you’ll need a Windows machine for this), launch the SDK, wait awhile, and once the phone menu screen comes up, navigate to the “Installed” folder. In there you will find an application called “Web”. That’s the new browser!

I did some quick browsing from the emulator and took screen shots to give an idea what this new software is capable of:

Originally posted by erik from [eriksmartt.com/blog], on March 27, 2006 6:18 PM

Firemen's Favorite Vegan Recipes. "Fight Fire, Fight Cholesterol, Fight Fat." (via rw)

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on March 27, 2006 6:18 PM

impressive online data graph that shows the most-emailed photos off Yahoo News almost in real-time. see also yahoo buzz game & yahoo netrospective.
[flatfeetpete.com]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on March 27, 2006 6:18 PM

We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology...

Originally from FatBits: John Siracusa's Journal, on March 27, 2006 6:16 PM

Originally from hustler of culture, on March 27, 2006 6:16 PM

someone very great died today in new york city.

"then she promises she'll buy me everything / but all i want's for her to pin her heart to me!"

from one of my favorite love songs of all time. thank you, nikki sudden.

his brother, the great epic soundtracks, died in 1997.

Originally from serenalarogers, on March 27, 2006 6:16 PM

The Inside Firefox blog has posted tips on writing for busy people, stressing the importance of succinct writing.

It's great when people make contributions in the form of ideas and proposals, but it's even better when they're written for busy people. Here are some examples:

• Making important points up front
• Clear taxonomy of headings, and lots of them
• Writing clearly and succinctly
• No long, unbroken paragraphs or tracts of text.
• Preferring bulleted lists with clear points to paragraphs.
• Use of emphasis in formatting to make important things clear

No matter your job, chances are you have to communicate with people who aren't going to take the time to read everything you've written, especially if you tend to wax verbose. Make sure you get your points across by keeping your busy audience in mind.

What methods do you employ to ensure you're heard? Let us know in the comments or at tips at lifehacker.com.

Writing for Busy People [Inside Firefox]

 
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Related: Fight the Corporate Bull with Bullfighter
Related: Writing tips: Active voice and more
Related: Learn to write invisibly

Originally from Lifehacker, on March 27, 2006 5:43 PM

For the last couple of weeks, we've been thinking a lot about the intersection between street art, graffiti, and brand advertising. Opinions about whether brands and graffiti and street art can (or should) co-exist vary from one end of the spectrum to the other.

So an idea we have is to put together a group of informal and relaxed meetings and get togethers where brand managers, creatives at advertising agencies, designers, can meet with a group of graffiti and street artists informally over beers and share their thoughts, ideas, and vision for how both brands and artists can mutually benefit.

For us, the successful campaigns happen when brands get the details right. When they listen to, and respect, the audience that they are marketing to. When people get together and share ideas, good things happen. It's in conference rooms and presentation sessions that things seem to get fucked up. So our idea is to keep it chill and relaxed - sort of an "unconference" - a discussion - on creativity, brand advertising, and street art.

We know that not only a ton of artists hit the site each day, but also a ton of creative execs and brand managers. If you're interested in participating in the dialogue, let us know. We don't know yet exactly what the format for the discussion will be, but most likely the first session will be at our flat in New York. If it works out well, we'll also do them in cities like LA, London, Paris, etc so let us know if you are interested, even if you are not in New York.

If you're interested in particpating some how, shoot us an email at woostercollective@gmail.com (When you send us an email, tell us a bit about yourself - what you do, what city you're in, etc)

Originally from Wooster Collective, on March 27, 2006 5:42 PM

Adidas has lost the first match-up in the mounting World Cup marketing battle in the sporting goods industry.

The opening game between Germany and Costa Rica in Munich on June 9 is still weeks away, but the industry is already gearing up for its biggest ever set at world soccer's premier event.

Adidas, which has dominated previous World Cups, will sponsor fewer teams participating at this year's tournament than long-time arch rivals Nike and Puma. (CHINA DAILY, CHINA)

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed, on March 27, 2006 5:41 PM

Originally posted by sego8240 from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 5:39 PM

Open source game graphics engine, with Python scripting

Originally posted by exiledsurfer from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 5:39 PM

Stewart posted a photo:

The horse was a little sketched out, but remarkably staid given the roaring traffice, sirens, kids reaching up to touch him while shrieking, flash photographers all around (I refrained) and, of course, the insane Times Square lights.

Originally from Sylloge, on March 27, 2006 11:05 AM

The The Raleigh News & Observer reports on how prepaid plans are making it easier for the homeless to own cell phones. "Cell phones are increasingly popular among the Triangle's homeless. With public pay phones quietly disappearing and prices on cell phones dropping, many homeless people say that it just makes sense. But some social workers are concerned. They worry that the phones are an unnecessary expense that, in some cases, can be an obstacle to returning to a normal life. Schiff, 41, who has been home-less on and off for eight years, uses his prepaid Virgin Mobile phone to look for work and get messages from potential employers. "I call it networking," he said while standing in line for a free lunch at the Raleigh Rescue Mission recently. "The more people I know, the better chance I have of getting a job." Paying for minutes ahead of time solves two problems for homeless users: uncertainty about their future finances and the lack of an address where a bill could be sent. It can also help curb the temptation to use the phone too much."

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on March 27, 2006 11:05 AM

Arab News reports on a recurring and disturbing issue, cell phones ringing out during prayer time in Mosques, sometimes leading to fights breaking out. "Mini-dramas plays out day in and day out in mosques across the Kingdom, and imams like Khaled Muhammad find themselves in a constant fight against disrespectful mobile owners. And this fight is sometimes taken over by other Muslims inside the mosque, which can occasionally lead to fisticuffs.

Originally posted by emily from ringtonia.com, on March 27, 2006 11:05 AM

Austin music collectors buy Ohio record store that closed in 1970, frozen in time; don't miss the photos  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on March 27, 2006 11:05 AM

LetMeParty is a free site that allows to post to your blog (or blogs) via SMS text messaging. The service supports LiveJournal, Wordpress, Blogger, and Xanga and is provided by Nemanja Stefanovic, an Industrial Engineering student at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

You can add your blogs to your account there and it will recognize you by your phone number. So all SMS's you send to that number on the site will be posted to your blogs !

Originally posted by Gerrit Visser from Smart Mobs, on March 27, 2006 11:02 AM

Text message dating makes New York Magazine. An inside look on how text messaging is the latest technology for New Yorkers to hook up. "It’s by far the best way to set up a sex date,” says Kate, a 34-year-old designer in the East Village. “No worrying if your voice sounds needy or desperate or neurotic. In texts you can be blunt, erotic, funny—all the things you want to be.” Texting isn’t just easy—it’s sexy too. By its very nature, texting is quick and dirty, so you can get away with MY PLACE OR YOURS? and nothing else. Plus the very private can happen in public—call it exhibitionism for the shy. And it’s not just for booty callers. Committed couples across the city are texting each other into a frenzy. “It’s a great form of foreplay during the workday,” says Molly, a 28-year-old yoga instructor. “Once my mom was staying with me, so I had no way to have actual phone sex with my girlfriend at the time, but we had text sex all night while my mom and I were watching Jay Leno. She had no clue.”

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on March 27, 2006 11:02 AM

Tweaking iPod are are not something new, by these customized iPod posters definately caught our eye. The skulls fit perfectly and even the earplugs are in place with a little drop shadow. The location: Wismarplatz (friedrichshain) in berlin, germany

(thanks, wolf)

Originally from Wooster Collective, on March 27, 2006 11:01 AM

Originally from Lifeblog, on March 27, 2006 11:01 AM

let music-loving robots be your friends too (via waxy)

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 10:57 AM

Ghostface Killah "raps like a man on fire," says Kelefa Sanneh; Christian Scott's new release "amounts to a slick and ultimately toothless fusion," says Nate Chinen.

Originally from NYT > Arts, on March 27, 2006 3:03 AM

Because of Microsoft's past success, keeping Windows working with existing software is becoming increasingly difficult.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on March 27, 2006 3:03 AM

Originally posted by anselm from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 2:06 AM

cute logo

Originally posted by anselm from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 2:05 AM

Lindsay Lohan: tagging up the walls again:Lindsay Lohan managed to show her amazing tagging skills while attending the Marc Jacobs / Blondie party, though this time she managed to keep her hatred of Scarlett Johansson and the C-word off the wall. Perhaps she penned a goodbye message to Ryan Adams? Technorati Tags: graffiti, lindseylohan, tag

Originally from Hi Tricia!, on March 27, 2006 2:05 AM

Paris Hilton Doesn't Change Facial Expressions:: She really doesn't, we checked. Paris should not feel too bad, because Lindsay Lohan doesn't change facial expressions either. Here's the original video from ytmnd. Technorati Tags: facial , parishilton, puppy

Originally from Hi Tricia!, on March 27, 2006 2:05 AM

a large set of morphed world maps, conveying a rich set of datasets, ranging from the predicted world population distribution in 2300 (134 trillion), over to rail passengers (average of 358km travelled by people per year) & alcohol & cigarettes exports.
see also world processor & worldometer.
[shef.ac.uk]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on March 27, 2006 2:04 AM

Rallies supporting immigrants have brought crowds that have astonished even their organizers, including more than a half-million demonstrators marching in Los Angeles.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 27, 2006 2:04 AM

Originally from TeacherTalk, on March 27, 2006 2:04 AM

Google's Sinofication: Chinese holidays presented with the appropriate Chinese calender dates and astrological signs.
Source: PostShow

Technorati Tags: google, sinofication

Originally from YouMeiTI 有媒体, on March 27, 2006 2:04 AM

TVMAO.COM: Before any of you get excited, the reference to "mao" is a transcription of the word for cat: TVMAO is a website that has plot summaries for more than 50,000 shows on more than 300 channels in China. Some sociologist could probably mine it for some funny data, but what I'm concerned about is: why Garfield!? Thanks PostShow!

Technorati Tags: china, channels, reference, television, tv, tvmao

Originally from YouMeiTI 有媒体, on March 27, 2006 2:04 AM

Originally from the real janelle, on March 27, 2006 12:35 AM

Originally posted by anselm from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 27, 2006 12:02 AM

its all there

Originally posted by fruminator from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 26, 2006 10:57 PM

Researchers said that they had created pigs that make their own omega-3 fatty acids, but for now the benefits are theoretical.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 26, 2006 10:56 PM

In a typically idiosyncratic talk that could be subtitled "State of the Onion 9.3", Larry Wall offers yet another way of examining the state of the Perl language and its community of users and coders. This time he addresses the concepts underlining Perl - and his own view of the world - alphabetically, treating his audience to insights that manage to be simultaneously humorous and thought-provoking.

Originally from ITC: All Programs, on March 26, 2006 9:17 PM

bbum’s weblog-o-mat: “Of all the programming languages I have learned, there are two that have consistently made me feel stupid. Prolog and AppleScript.”

Originally from ranchero.com, on March 26, 2006 9:16 PM

Erica Sadun, MacDevCenter.com: “Take Quartz Composer, for example. It’s a free utility that can bring new life and interest to your iMovie projects. In this article, you’ll learn how to use your own pictures to create a simple but flashy animation.”

Originally from ranchero.com, on March 26, 2006 9:16 PM

I was having a conversation with Matt the other day about how people are saying it's a great time to start a company. We both did the skeptical cocked eyebrow thing: it's a terrible time to start a company, especially here in the middle of it all, in the Bay Area. Why?

1. Everybody else is starting a company. It's crazy. Every single person who leaves a tech company isn't going to Microsoft or Google or Apple or whatever, they're going to a startup. Trying to operate in this environment is crazy. I'm getting late-onset ADD from trying to keep track of them all, and it's impossible to get attention for your product amidst all the buzz (er, noise).
2. Your competition just got funded too. You've got $5 million in the bank, and they do too. Their VCs want them to succeed every bit as much as your VCs want you to succeed. This gets you into a horse race, which no one wants: it's exhausting and expensive.
3. Talent is scarce again. Hell, I want to find someone to write a little bit of PHP for Wench.com and I can't find anyone (Hey if you are a PHP webapp builder and have some spare cycles, email me at caterina-at-gmail). Everyone's gainfully employed, and fielding several offers.
4. You can't operate in obscurity anymore. We started our company in 2002 when nothing was getting funded anywhere and everyone was still licking their wounds from the big bubble bang. Nobody cared about us except us. We were in Vancouver fer crissakes. But we were able to focus on finding and connecting with the people who mattered most: the customers, the users, the community. You get more done when no one's looking over your shoulder.
5. Web 2.0 isn't all that. Hello?. I don't think there's a rising tide lifting all boats here. I don't think Web 2.0 is the magic bullet some people seem to think it is either. It ain't the features, it's that AND the business. Tagging was a great feature, no doubt. But Flickr was at break even -- about to tip into the black -- when we were acquired.
6. There's too much going on. Every night there's a Mashup get together, or a TechCrunch party, or it's Tag Tuesday, or SuperHappyDevHouse or SXSW or this conference or that conference. And this stuff is fun. It's a real community. But all of these things are great by themselves, but terrible in combination. I see some entrepreneurs in photos from *every single event*. Who's talking to the users, writing the code, tweaking and retweaking the UI? It ain't the Chief Party Officer.

some great products & businesses out there, and I am advising few of them (Bunchball, Now Public-- in Vancouver!) which is great. And here's some great advice from Mike Tatum of CNet. But I had this same stay-out-of-the-water-there's-sharks feeling circa 1998. Maybe my hype antibodies are just kicking in.

UPDATE: I've turned comments off. I was talking here about consumer-facing Web 2.0 companies based in San Francisco and the Valley, which bears repeating. Given that 9 out of 10 companies fail, I just think the odds are getting worse.

Originally from Caterina.net, on March 26, 2006 9:15 PM

At big companies like Yahoo!, our ever-loving parent, there are all kinds of crazy processes to enable decision making and prioritization, planning and budgeting, resource allocation and what gets focus now and in the coming years.

This manifests itself in powerpoint 'decks', and spreadsheets, long meetings, dashboards ... all kinds of things; some valuable and some not so much. Among them is coming up with the vision and mission statements.

Coming up with a plainly understandable articulation of Flickr's vision was initially something I saw as annoying. The best place to store, sort, search and share your photos? Sunsets, Babies, Kittens, Flowers? Argh. This was time we could be spending fixing stuff, or added needed features.
 

But after thinking about it for a while, the vision was obvious:

Eyes of the World

That can manifest itself as art, or using photos as a means of keeping in touch with friends and family, "personal publishing" or intimate, small group sharing. It includes "memory preservation" (the de facto understanding of what drives the photo industry), but it also includes the ephemera that keeps people related to each other: do you like my new haircut? should I buy these shoes? holy smokes - look what I saw on the way to work! It let's you know who's gone where with whom, what the vacation was like, how much the baby grew today, all as it's happening.

And most dramatically, Flickr gives you a window into things that you might otherwise never see, from the perspective of people that you might otherwise never encounter. This photo taken during the riots in Paris, titled March 23, 2006 - 18:08, from Hugo* is a fantastic illustration of that:

I came across it after browsing the CPE tag, after following a link from a blog post entitled "France: Youth ignore newspaper requests for protest photos; turn to Internet. The message of the article was that even the biggest French newspapers haven't been able to get readers to send in their photos, but a real time, street-level view of the protests in Paris was flowing into and out of Flickr. These four from Gonzale are another look:

The same day I read the blog post above, the BBC ran a story titled Belarus protesters turn to internet. Anti-Lukashenko protest went largely unseen inside the country since the state controls most of the media, but people on the streets of Minsk were able to show their fellow citizens what was happening:

photos by by2006 (left) and yesfuture on (right)

* * * * *

And, of course, there are a near-infinite number of other things going on all over the planet at any given moment (the page which shows the latest uploads is great to watch and reload every few seconds). There's just so much. The world has a lot of eyes — here are an assorted dozen photos uploaded today:

It's funny that a corporate strategy exercise can bring things so sharply into focus. And it's overwhelming to think of the sheer magnitude of photos captured, people contributing, viewpoints shared, stories told, connections made, places represented. It really is the eyes of the world.

For more:

• Hugo*'s outstanding Demonstrations set.
• The la france brule-t-elle ? / is france burning ? group
• The Global Photojournalism and Photojournalism group pools.
• The Manifestations contre le CPE group
• by2006's photos tagged with Беларусь (Belarus)
• yesfuture's photos from March
• The sunset, babies, kittens, flowers photos above from snowriderguy, Bridget x3, JMZawodny and vsz, respectively
• The dozen at the bottom were found while exploring
   

Originally from FlickrBlog, on March 26, 2006 9:15 PM

"It's a bad time to start a company". Amen. It's kinda what I was getting at in this post..."if you're buying low and selling high, the time to buy optimism was two to four years ago, not now".

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on March 26, 2006 9:15 PM

The LoremoGreen technology is piping hot right now. The buzz filled the ballroom at the Cleantech Venture Network conference yesterday in San Francisco Some 500 people attendees (double the number at the previous conference, or so some people told us) crammed into the room when John Doerr and John Denniston, partners at the respected Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, gave their talk about the pressing need for new technologies and policies to save the planet from pollution and global warming....

Originally posted by Matt Marshall from SiliconBeat, on March 26, 2006 9:13 PM

"Muddiness is not merely a disturber of prose, it is a destroyer of life, of hope: death on the highway caused by a badly worded road sign, heatbreak among lovers caused by a misplaced phrase in a well-intentioned letter, anguish of a traveler expecting to be met at a railroad station and not being met because of a slipshod telegram. Think of the tragedies that are rooted in ambiguity, and be clear! When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair."

(i'm revising.)

Originally from serenalarogers, on March 26, 2006 9:13 PM

Contrary to the predictions of many a moron, Apple’s lead in the digital music player market is stronger than ever.

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on March 26, 2006 9:13 PM

Mark Dalrymple: “The Seattle Xcoders showed some home movies of me giving a talk to my Local Linux User’s Group, made a couple of years ago, about debugging with gdb. I figured I’d list them here for anyone that is totally bored out of their skull.”

Originally from ranchero.com, on March 26, 2006 9:13 PM

For reasons that will be obvious to anyone who reads this blog, I'm not the sort of person likely to write an article bemoaning how kids today are tuning out of normal social interaction by listening to their iPods all day. But for those of you who are working on just such an article, I've got a tip -- one of you should borrow the phrase that iTunes uses to announce that it's finished loading up your iPod with music: "OK To Disconnect." What kind of message is that sending the youth of America?

E. M. Forster is no doubt rolling in his grave...

Originally posted by stevenberlinjohnson from stevenberlinjohnson.com, on March 26, 2006 9:13 PM

Wired has an excellent new special issue on video games edited by Will Wright that's worth checking out in full. I have a little essay that just went online a few hours ago, though I've been getting a lot of mail about it already. It's called "When Virtual Worlds Collide":

But virtual reality has failed to conform to forward-looking visions in one crucial respect. We don't live in the Matrix, but in the matrices. Your World of Warcraft persona can't visit a Stonehenge replica in Second Life. You can't impress an EverQuest elfin hottie with Jedi skills honed in Star Wars Galaxies. If you want to buy an Ultima scepter with Therebucks, you'll have to exit both worlds and consummate the transaction on eBay.
Because the current metaverse evolved largely out of videogames, it makes sense that it should be composed of fiefdoms - after all, you wouldn't expect a Grand Theft Auto crack dealer to drop in for a barbecue with the Sims. But there is reason to believe that the divided metaverse is merely a transitional phase, and that its component worlds will coalesce.
All virtual worlds require a communication protocol that lets you talk with other people, a software platform that lets you build things on top of it, and a currency that enables trade. These three elements share one thing: a gravitational pull toward a common standard. Think of the diversity of the PC marketplace in the early 1980s: the Apple II, Radio Shack's TRS-80, IBM's PCjr, the Commodore-64, the Atari 400/800 series - they all ran different operating systems or flavors of Basic. Ten years later, however, Windows held 90 percent of the market. Email followed the same pattern. Diverse and incompatible standards - CompuServe members could only email other CompuServe members - gave way to a common platform that allowed everyone to connect.
The logic of convergence may be even stronger in the metaverse...

Originally posted by stevenberlinjohnson from stevenberlinjohnson.com, on March 26, 2006 9:13 PM

Originally from The Mobile Andrew, on March 26, 2006 9:12 PM

I just watched the Kid Rock Behind The Music. I am not ashamed. It was good. And I don't even like his music.

Originally posted by Angela Tucker from tuckergurl, on March 26, 2006 9:12 PM

"It's a bad time to start a company" (Caterina Fake)

I've just arrived in Vancouver for the IA Summit, where I will be on a Sunday panel with Gene Smith, Dan Brown, and Michal Arrington (I will be the one running back and forth along the net, picking up wayward tennis balls). The topic of our conversation is Web 2.0, and what it means for information architects. This comes somewhat hot-on-the-heels of Peter Merholz calling out Web 2.0 poster-company 37Signals for their "shallow views and rhetoric", in response to a swipe at information architecture from the Getting Real PDF file, and I have been informed that a lot of information architects are worried about what Web 2.0 means for their employability. What skills will transfer, does user-created content mean no one needs to be told how to choose section titles, etc.

Caterina Fake's post detailing the reasons why it's a shitty time to start a new venture (everyone else is doing it, talent pool is finite) is a ray of hope for me, because one of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 for me personally has been "Low Hanging Fruit". There are a million companies with similar-sounding names and logos all running a mile-a-minute trying to solve easy problems: calendars, word processing, drag and drop, time-and-milestone trackers. Web frameworks Rails, Django, and TurboGears are optimized for these tasks, and process dogma Getting Real assumes that anything which takes more than a week to dream up, prototype, and release may very well not be worth doing.

If all the coders and designers are exhausting themselves implementing known solutions to solved problems, who's paying attention to the big questions? This feels like the natural home for the IA Summit crowd: people comfortable imposing order on chaos and tackling big tasks. I say this more from a position of reverence than experience, because I'm definitely missing the experience of long-term, many-faceted projects at the moment. There's so much fast-turnaround, race-to-market work in the world right now it's making my head spin, and not in a good way.

It's an auspicious time to Go Big.

Originally from tecznotes , on March 26, 2006 9:12 PM

During a rhetorical argument with a blank piece of paper, Karinthy Frigyes resigned himself to what is called 'literature': telling everyone what, on an individual basis, nobody is interested in. Elsewhere:

Nem mondhatom el senkinek,
elmondom hát mindenkinek.
I cannot tell anyone, so I tell everyone.

I wonder why the opportunity for anonymity in blogging is not seized upon by all and sundry. Geoffrey Chaucer hath a blog. Maybe Karinthy should get one too.

As a child, I could never quite decide how to colour this in:

Canterbury Tales woodcut, 1484

From now on, Lady Upgrade aspires to something approximating this:


Blank pieces of paper are truly terrifying. I'll go and buy a pen, then.

Originally from the lady upgrade project, on March 26, 2006 9:11 PM

Bill Gates gave the opening keynote at last week's Microsoft Mix06 conference, featuring Aber Whitcom from MySpace (which uses SQL Server) and Ashley Highfield from the BBC. The speech ended with a dicussion between Gates and Tim O'Reilly, followed by...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on March 26, 2006 9:11 PM

You've heard about YouTube's issues with NBC. It seems the words copyright violation have scared them into a stupor, as now several bloggers are complaining, and even calling for a little civil disobedience.

Originally posted by Brittanie from MetaFilter posts tagged with copyright, on March 26, 2006 9:11 PM

part of the deal here is to knock out quick projects from conception to fruition and share them. that white bean-shaped footstool? the one i was gonna buy and recover? pssshhh. are we comfy with "the c word" here? becuz antique shop lady wuz TOTALLY out. the condition of our white footstool was poor. i personally witness her rotting in the rain and snow, when nobody bothers to bring her inside. this morning i came for her with cash, to bring her to you, to share. but while a fool and her $ are easily parted, larogers spends seven hours in a honda showroom negotiating in one-dollar increments with a sexy former basketball player used-car salesman named mike.

ok, ambiguous motivation.

anyway i pointedly left and shot cross the street in plain sight and negotiated for gorgeous, ass-polished piano stool, above left. i will make a seat cover for it though because, it's actually been badly repaired, on the seat, but i don't want to refinish the ass glow; i want it to live, beneath a vibrant cover. project: begin.

speaking of vibrant, meet XXX public access channel 21 personality, fighting for equality in the science laboratory facilities of local schools. note, behind right shoulder, darts, on face of anonymous education administrator. every show, there are more darts.

whoops -- XXX -- photo removed. will post why some other day.

and thus my friends, is today's post on the subject of sewing and murder.

Originally from serenalarogers, on March 26, 2006 9:10 PM

Caterina Fake has a peculiar list of reasons why starting a company today is a bad idea. I say it's never been a better time to start a business. You know, the kind that develops a product or service and asks money for it.

Yes, it's a bad time to start a company on VC diesel, using me-too technology, flaunting your non-existing goods, doing tagging because it's cool, and spending all your time partying. Guess what? That was never a good idea.

I know we've been beating many of these drums to death, but here goes a recap of six reasons why you should start a business today:

1. You don't need VC diesel to get your motor running. Working nights or putting money aside to run full-time for three months is enough to get off the ground if you have a great idea and enough passion to make it matter.
2. You can actually charge money for valuable services. People have never been more willing to part with their credit cards to pay for services that improve their business or their life. You don't need to spend aeons and cumbaja meetings pondering HOW TO MONITIZE?! when all you need is a service worth paying for.
3. You don't need mainstream tech to make a dent. No wonder you have a hard time finding people if you're only looking at the mainstream tech circles. You're competing for talent with all the risk-averse insurance companies of the world. We picked Ruby early and used Rails to get access to the cream of the crop. People bustling with passion to develop using tools they love.
4. You don't need to live in San Francisco to make it big. Or rather, if you want to make it big, don't live in San Francisco. You'll get sucked in to the myths (you need VC!) and drowned by the parties. Most of the worlds talent does not live in that tiny spot of land. I developed the Basecamp, Backpack, Tada List, and Writeboard from Copenhagen, Denmark. And we have one of the greatest developers I've ever met in Provo, Utah. While the rest of the company is in Chicago and New York. The Rails core team includes people from Germany, Canada, Austria, and all over the US.
5. You don't need a swarm of worker bees to take off. Of course its hard to find 10 or 20 great people by tomorrow, but you don't have to. We're entering a golden age of small teams capable of doing big things. Just get a band of three together and you're good to go for v1. Using modern tools and simply doing less software means that having more people is likely to slow you down rather than speed you up.

Thus, I believe it has never been easier to build a great business for the web, if your intentions are to simply be profitable and please a constituency of passionate users.

But yes, I agree with Fake that its getting harder to create a company with the intents to play the Web 2.0 Lottery. There can only be so many winners and if you're relying on Google or Yahoo to buy you out, you might want to pick a coupon for the powerball while you're at it.

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on March 26, 2006 9:10 PM

david posted a photo:

Originally from david's Photos, on March 26, 2006 9:10 PM

Today a fellow blogger asked me to pimp his post. Since it's only two lines, I figure I can take a break from my busy schedule of, uh, drinking and stuff, and help a brother out.

So I did the Challenge problem in Chapter 4 of Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, Second Edition . I've come up with two different "solutions".

Solution 1: "Screw retain counts"

- (IBAction) reportCharacterCount: (id)sender { NSString *inputString = [inputField stringValue]; [outputField setStringValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ has %d letters.", inputString,[inputString length]]]; }

Solution 2: "I'm a good boy"

- (IBAction) reportCharacterCount: (id)sender { NSString *inputString = [[NSString alloc] initWithString:[inputField stringValue]]; [outputField setStringValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ has %d letters.", inputString,[inputString length]]]; [inputString release]; }

For pedagogical reasons, could someone tell me what the difference is between the two? And if possible, which one is better?

(As you can probably guess, my very first solution consisted of version 1 with a release, which brought me to the debugger in a hurry.)

The short answer is the difference between the two is that the second one wastes time and memory to no good effect. There are several problems with the second one: for example, if you really wanted a immutable copy of a string, you should just use [[inputField stringValue] copy] and not -initWithString:, because the latter always allocates a new string, whereas the former will just return the same object with an increased retain count if the original string was already immutable. Now that's fast!

But, in fact, there's no point in doing this copy of the inputField's string, for two reasons. First off, when you call -setStringValue: on outputField it's really the field's job to make sure it holds on to a immutable copy of the string you've passed in, so it's going to call -copy or do something similar itself. (It's true there were bugs in early versions of NeXTstep where sometimes mutable strings would be retained or returned instead of immutable ones, but those are mostly ironed out now.)

Secondly, and more importantly, you're not actually passing this string directly to your output NSTextField, you are generating a new, autoreleased string in your +stringWithFormat: call, which has the inputField's stringValue as a sub-string. Now, leaving aside the actual implementation details of +stringWithFormat:, it's a given that it will somehow keep an immutable copy of any strings you pass into it. Otherwise, honestly, nothing in this damn system would work.

Less code is better if it's functionally the same, and the second implementation is absolutely no safer in any way. Even if you were, say, messing with multiple threads at some point, so the value of inputField could change during your action method, both implementations would be failures, so there's really no conceivable situation in which the second implementation is better.

Also, what's up with that blank line at the beginning of your methods? Seriously, that isn't helping anyone.

Finally, I should point out both implementations are really non-optimal in the post-10.3 world: what you should really do is bind the 'value' inputField to a new instance variable in your controller in Interface Builder (say, NSString *inputString;), and then bind outputField's 'value' to your controller with the path of, say, 'outputString', then write the following:

Solution 3: Bindings

+ (void)initialize; { [self setKeys:[NSArray arrayWithObject:@"inputString"] triggerChangeNotificationsForDependentKey:@"outputString"]; } - (NSString *)outputString; { return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ has %d letters.", inputString, [inputString length]]]; }

Admittedly, this isn't really less code, and in fact it change the semantics of your app: eg, it doesn't require you to send the action to populate the outputField. But bindings are generally the way you should code these days; if you find yourself using target/action, or otherwise manually pushing or pulling values to or from controls, think hard about using bindings instead.

Originally from Call Me Fishmeal., on March 26, 2006 9:09 PM

yatta posted a photo:

Photogs wait for their victims during a space rental @ Eyebeam 3/23/2006.

Originally from eyebeam - Everyone's Tagged Photos, on March 26, 2006 9:09 PM

Doesn't this say it all?
Photo Credit: SCHA-LA on LA Indymedia

Reports are 500,000 in today's Gran Marcha in Los Angeles to protest the Immigration bill! (LA Times headline is here.

Yes, it's spring. And the youth are getting restless.

Thank you to Sister Rosa for the Indymedia link.

Originally from zentronix: dubwise & hiphopcentric, on March 26, 2006 9:09 PM

On our way to other things the Google Reader team decided to open up sharing of labels. Basically you can have a page in Reader that will splice together feeds you choose. Or it can splice just single posts or entries that you tag, er, label. That page also has a feed. There are a number of really interesting ways to use it, I think.

Clips

With sharing in Reader you can put a clip of items anywhere you control HTML. They can use a theme or have styles applied via CSS. The clip feature is popular. Some examples:

• Quantlogic
  
• Matt Deegan
• Philip's Photos
• Flower armor (Chinese?)
• Jeremie Berrebi
• daze fuze
• Presna-online
• the drowned man
  
• applied luck
  (the randomness of city living - it turns out we were at the same Frank Black show recently)

Starred items

You can also have a "starred items" page to show stuff you want to share with someone (or with everyone). Here's my starred items.

All about "you"

Another use I've been thinking of for shared Reader information is as additional profile data. I've styled a couple of Reader clips to show my recent recommendation and reading data on the about page for this blog.

Then there's my Me Roll. Feed services like ours owe a lot from others' pioneering of these uses (e.g. Feedburner's) and I've found using splicing for this kind of avatar-as-feed has been immediately gratifying. I am considering pointing my auto-discovery link to the feed for my "me" label instead of this blog's feed. There's a steadily increasing amount of feed-serving out there so features like this help push the barrier to splicing nice and low. I'm not entirely sure what belongs in a "me" feed, however. Flickr photos, sure. My moblog, yup. My normal blog, of course. But what about the comments feed on my Flickr photos? My del.icio.us feed? My upcoming.org feed? Hmm.

Oh, and "me roll"? Laurence coined that term and he's immensely proud of it since it's his favorite phrase ever and he claimed that people would build cities around it and has monogrammed it onto all of his v-neck cardigan sweaters which is his favorite type of clothing. (Entire sentence after "that term" is a lie.)

What should we call a "me" feed?

Some technical notes

For the Javascript-adept it might be interesting to note that we're delivering clips in Douglas Crockford's JSON format and using callback wrapping to work around the same-origin policy which hampers similar efforts via the XmlHttpRequest object. (It should just be named HttpRequest, shouldn't it true believers?) Want more information about it? Check out the writeup by Simon Willison about the excellent Yahoo! APIs which have JSON as an alternative output format.

For further reading: check out Mihai's post where he points out that we were very close to being syndication bozos by missing the highly appropriate source element in Atom. Can't remember if it was Ben or someone else standing over my shoulder pointing to the spec on my monitor as I muttered, "crap, we're idiots..."

What in the world is being referenced by the post title?

Originally from massless, on March 26, 2006 9:09 PM

The brain is incredible.  The human capacity for perception, reason, logic -- the sheer processing power inside our skulls -- is, well, mind-boggling.  But as incredible an organ as is the human brain, it is fallible.  Even the "geniuses" we'll hear from at TED2007 have imperfect brains.  Take, for example, human memory -- we all forget things.  Even Ken Jennings ultimately lost on Jeopardy (but, sadly, not until he had already dispensed with my brother Josh).

The certain fallibility of human memory has been the life's work of James McGaugh, a brain researcher at the University of California at Irvine.  Which is precisely why, according to a recent story on ABCNews.com, Dr. McGaugh is so intrigued by a woman called AJ who came to him seeking an explanation for her monumental recall.  For any given date over her lifetime, AJ can remember the day of the week, the weather, personal and historical events, you name it.  Her memory so exceeds that of any individual's memory documented to date, that AJ has left researchers stumped.  They have found no explanation for her incredible recall.  In hopes of better understanding AJ's database like brain, the UC Irvine researchers begin a comprehensive set of brain scans on AJ in the coming months.  I certainly look forward to reporting what the researchers discover.  That is, of course, if I can remember to check back on the story.

Originally posted by David Hornik from TED Blog, on March 26, 2006 9:08 PM

Visualization of Internet Ownership

From CIO: What is this ball of colors? It is the North American Internet, or more specifically a map of just about every router on the North American backbone, (there are 134,855 of them for those who are counting). The colors represent who each router is registered to. Red is Verizon; blue AT&T; yellow Qwest; green is major backbone players like Level 3 and Sprint Nextel; black is the entire cable industry put together; and gray is everyone else, from small telecommunications companies to large international players who only have a small presence in the U.S. If you click on the map it will take you to much bigger version complete with labels that tell you the address of many of the routers.

Read the post at Blogs.CIO and download the Internet backbone map (PDF).

Originally posted by jesse from networked_performance, on March 26, 2006 9:05 PM

I have always been a great fan of Vim editor. The very same versatile editor created and maintained by Bram Moolenaar. Over a period of time, I have been so comfortable with using vim including its various enhancements over the original vi editor that I have made it the default editor for all the editing purposes - be it writing a letter, a document or for coding. But on hindsight, my attraction

Originally from All about Linux, on March 26, 2006 9:02 PM

Earlier this month I lamented that we didn’t have much of a process for donating computers to projects that are doing good things. We seem to be making some progress on that, for example the T2000-tryout program seems to be running a lot smoother. But that’s not all; for example, an X2100 showed up Friday on the doorstep of Nexenta, as in GNU/Solaris. I think that this kind of thing is a complete no-brainer and hope that we manage to do more of it.

Originally from ongoing, on March 26, 2006 8:59 PM

David says it's a great time to start a business, as long as you're not playing the Web 2.0 Lottery  

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on March 26, 2006 8:53 PM

I’m late to the party on this, but as one of its co-founders notes in passing, the photo sharing site Flickr is fast becoming an easy way to find photos of major protest events in wired urban areas. See for instance, protests this week against the CPE in Paris or the election in Belarus. See also this December 2005 story on MoveOn’s use of Flickr or the 1,430 photos tagged “RNC.”

If Web 2.0 is made of people, an easy use is a kind of grassroots media. Though the corporate-owners of such Web frameworks are certainly willing to take down images that “may offend” or hand over the goods on users. (via)

Originally from Social Design Notes, on March 26, 2006 8:53 PM

Cool new Matthew Barney trailer...

Originally from KALIBER10000, on March 26, 2006 8:52 PM

"No Cool Hunting. There is a terrible inclination only to report the things that are really, like, cool. But lots and lots of trends are not cool at all. They just happen to be a new building material. In my opinion, cool hunters are quilty of a fatal confusion between what they know about the world and what they wish to be true about themselves. They study novelty in order to make themselves more cool."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 26, 2006 8:50 PM

"FeedSpool, simplified syndication feed poller and spooler. The basic idea of FeedSpool is to handle many of the up-front details of syndication feed aggregation, while being as ignorant as possible about the feeds themselves."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 26, 2006 8:49 PM

"The feed filter that doesn't know much about feeds ... the main idea behind this feed filtering kit is that I'm not parsing and reconstituting feeds at the format level. Instead, I'm diving down to the XML level with SAX filters. Having finally realized the meaning of Must Ignore, this was a particularly interesting realization to me..."

Originally posted by Michal Migurski from tecznotes links, on March 26, 2006 8:49 PM

A group of university researchers said that they had created cloned pigs that make their own omega-3 fatty acids.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 26, 2006 8:48 PM

The president and chief executive of Craigslist.org, Jim Buckmaster, ended up at the company after posting his résumé - where else? - on Craigslist.org.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on March 26, 2006 11:38 AM

It could be the single most incomprehensibly wrongheaded decision of the century: allowing cellphone use while in flight.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on March 26, 2006 11:38 AM

Twenty years after "She's Gotta Have It," Spike Lee, the onetime outsider, is a go-to director. It's time to give those early films a second look.

Originally from NYT > Arts, on March 26, 2006 11:36 AM

Al Jazeera, the most ambitious television network start-up in recent years, will launch an English-language offspring in late May.

Originally from NYT > Arts, on March 26, 2006 11:35 AM

In Austin, Tex., the five firefighters of Team C at Firehouse 2 now eat vegan.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on March 26, 2006 11:35 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 26, 2006 11:34 AM

EasyUbuntu is an easy to use script that gives the Ubuntu user the most commonly requested apps, codecs, and tweaks that are not found in the base distribution - all with a few clicks of your mouse.

Originally posted by finn from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 26, 2006 11:34 AM

quicktime 10.4........QTkit. Yep, i am back to the thing of trying to make a movie by scratch. I did this years ago blabla, but it was a crappy hack. now i am trying to do it again. YUCK!

Originally posted by cory_arcangel from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 26, 2006 11:34 AM

Originally posted by cshirky from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 26, 2006 3:04 AM

Originally posted by cshirky from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 26, 2006 3:04 AM

Originally posted by anselm from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 26, 2006 3:04 AM

"...being popular is a good thing" - jp

Originally posted by lauren_cornell from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on March 26, 2006 3:03 AM