Darth Vader Transformer
Damnit. Another one. I haven't unwrapped the last lot yet!
That's no moon...
(via Smidigt)
« August 19, 2007 - August 25, 2007 | Main
September 1, 2007
Against Interpretation
Susan Sontag: "interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art"
uselessness
As one of the people responsible for Twitter Blocks (really it was Ryan and Tom who made it - on this project, I'm "management"), it's been interesting reading feedback to the project's launch. Tom summarized a particular strain of it as Criticism For Twitter Blocks. Go, read.
...
So we get this a lot: "Beautiful! But useless!". We've heard it in response to most projects we've done over the past few years (one exception has been Oakland Crimespotting, whose stock yokel response is: "no way am I moving to Oakland!").
By now, we're fairly accustomed to it. I've historically stayed mum, in the belief that this particular critique is best met with silence, because what is there to add? This current case rankles a bit, since a lot of those snarks are coming via Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku messages. Twitter is practically the "fun, but useless, but oddly popular" poster child of the moment, so it's ironic to see people who've taken the leap to its particular brand of short-messaged-based playtime suddenly waxing utilitarian (for example, Dave Winer). Tom argues that it's worth focusing on fun once in a while instead of just utility, monetization, and features. I'm arguing that a lot of the people crowing "but useless!" have already taken that plunge, yet lack the self-awareness or humility to see it for what it is. There are plenty of but-useless things in the world that serve as emotional bonding points, amusements, attractions, and macguffins. Practically all of social media falls under this category for me, a form of mediated play that requires a suspension of disbelief in rational purpose to succeed.
There are of course legitimate reasons to find Twitter and Blocks annoying: Blocks likes teh CPU, not everyone enjoys frequent tiny updates from people, there are jerks in any social service, Blocks has a big Motorola ad next on it, and so on. Worries about Obvious Corp.'s business sustainability and freakouts that Blocks was launched (by us) despite the presence of bugs in Twitter are not legitimate reasons.
But, since we're on the topic, I'm going to suggest that Blocks is our hat in the ring for traversing the social graph. Unlike the friends views on the existing site, the only people who show up are guaranteed to be recently active, so there's no deadwood problem. Also unlike the existing friends view, we've introduced two dimensions to show a second degree of separation, leading to regular "I had no idea so-and-so was on Twitter" moments since the first experimental layouts were done and presented one month ago. Also, it doesn't look like some suck-ass sticks-and-rocks graph.
Sufficiently useful?
NBC contradicts Apple, says shows will remain in iTunes Store through December
An NBC spokesman swings and misses in round three of the company's battle with Apple to raise TV show prices and clamp down DRM even further.
Little Snitch 2.0 Beta
David Chartier:
Little Snitch’s UI has received a complete overhaul, offering tools to search and filter rules and a new Network Monitor to watch network traffic in real time. The connection alerts—one of my pet peeves about Little Snitch—are also getting a boost with keyboard shortcuts that should make it easier to allow or deny traffic on a per-connection basis.
Worth noting: This post marks Chartier’s jump from Weblogs Inc.’s TUAW to Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop.
Utility Overrated
Jim Bumgardner: "A question like 'what good is it?' presupposes that all things must serve some common good. They must save lives, or repair toasters, or solve the world's fuel shortages, or above all, make enormous sums of money. In short, everything must have a use, and frivolity should be avoided."
Founder of Peet’s Coffee Dies at 87
Alfred Peet, founder of the world’s best coffee house chain, dead at 87.
The Original Macintosh User Manual
Peter Merholz:
I recently purchased an original Macintosh User Manual (thanks eBay!). I had seen one at a garage sale, and was struck by how it had to explain a total paradigm shift in interacting with computers. I figured I could learn something about helping make innovation happen.
Little Snitch: Network monitor gains more control with new beta
Little Snitch is a utility that squeals on apps that try to connect to the internet. A new beta version looks even better, offering more control over your Mac's network chatter.
Sun GPL's Darkstar
Sun has released Darkstar, its serverware for multiplayer gaming, under General Public License v2!
First announced at the Game Developers Conference in March 2007, Project Darkstar source code is now available for download and free use under the GPLv2 license.
Project Darkstar is the video game industry's first enterprise grade, high performance, fault tolerant and highly scalable server technology for online, multiplayer games. Project Darkstar has been designed from the ground up to handle almost any kind of online game imaginable.
From card games to full blown MMOGs, Project Darkstar is the perfect technology to get you up and running quickly, allowing you to focus on building your game, not network technologies.
Nice!
August 31, 2007
Python 3.0a1 Release
If Python 3.0 ships before Perl 6, I’m going to cry.
Greg Storey on Web Site Design Rip-Offs
“First things first, admit it: you suck. You’re a moron and a cheat.”
Webb On Warner Retirement: Let's Hope The President Listens To Him
Here's the key quote from a just-released statement on John Warner's retirement, from fellow Virginia Senator Jim Webb: “While today is a bittersweet announcement for Virginia, the nation and the...
An Open Letter to NBC re: Leaving Apple’s iTunes Store
Jeremy Horwitz to NBC:
In other words, the per-episode price people are accustomed to paying for what you show on television is “zero”, or something very close to it.
Twitter Blocks
Launched, like Q*Bert without the springy snakes.
The Trouble with Tribbles by Edward Gorey
Haven’t you ever wondered what it would have been like if Edward Gorey had illustrated The Trouble with Tribbles from the original Star Trek series? Wonder no longer! (via MetaFilter)
THE MONASTERY: MR. VIG and THE NUN: Q&A with filmmaker Pernille Rose Grønkjær (Recorded August 29, 2007)
THE MONASTERY: MR. VIG and THE NUN: Q&A with filmmaker Pernille Rose Grønkjær (Recorded August 29, 2007)
Happy Labor Day Weekend - MT4.01 Beta 2 now available
A quick note to wish everyone in the Movable Type community a Happy Labor Day Weekend, and to inform everyone that we released Movable Type 4.01 beta 2. This has been an excellent beta period thanks to everyone who has been submitting bug reports and patches to the MT team. We have managed to address a lot of issues affecting people upgrading and migrating blog content to Movable Type 4.0; plus we have made a lot of progress on addressing issues raised by developers as they continue to build some incredibly innovative plugins on top of MT. For a complete list of issues addressed in this latest release, check out the change log on the MT 4.01 Beta homepage.
We expect this to be the last beta before we officially release Movable Type 4.01 to the public. Thanks again to everyone who has been contributing to this process, your feedback has been invaluable.
YAPCEU07: Scaling with memcached
YAPC::Europe in Vienna was totally amazing. I'll post more soon but for now you can enjoy the slides to my talk Scaling with memcached: memcached is a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system used by LiveJournal, Facebook, Bloglines and others. Find out how memcached works, how to it set up and how you can scale your website. Enjoy!Read more of this story at use Perl.
Matthew Bloch
Portfolio of interactive web maps.
Warner's Retirement: A Huge Opportunity For Democrats
Now that long-time Senator John Warner (R-VA) has announced his retirement, both parties will have candidates lining up for the seat in 2008. It's the first open-seat Senate contest in Virginia since...
Et Tu, Spock?
Maybe I'm just a pushover, but I felt like there was something very charming and sweet about this video of a school project that I found on YouTube. It's a restaging of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that takes place on the bridge of the Enterprise during the time period of the original Star Trek series. Kirk as Caesar, Spock as Brutus, some Señor Wences-looking thing as the alien bad guy, and "We emptied out the garage" as set design. I love it! Especially since it features Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round", which was released well before these kids were born. (And yes, Star Trek went off the air decades before they were born.)
I find it oddly reassuring that kids today, with access to iTunes and the ability to make (pretty decent-looking!) green-screen starfield affects at home, are also still clearly having fun making goofy home movies with homemade costumes. I sure hope their English teacher gave them an A.
If you wanna see more, check out the outtakes and bloopers.
New York Post: Apple Set to Sell Ringtones Via iTunes Store
It’s The New York Post, so take it with an appropriate grain of salt. If true, though, it’s great news for Ambrosia — why pay a buck (or whatever) for each ringtone when you can spend $15 and convert any non-DRM-protected song you already own into one? This whole “ringtones are something different than songs and you have to pay for them” thing is a racket, and everyone knows it. (Via Mat Lu.)
Update: Ends up iToner works with DRM-protected songs from iTunes, too. Sweet.
Google Desktop for Mac gains spam support, 9 new languages
The Google team has updated Google Desktop for the Mac with support for nine new languages, but the more exciting news to us is that it can now ignore e-mail that has been identified as spam in Mail or Entourage.
Rooftop
4th of July fireworks-watching on Paúl's roof in Chelsea.
Executions
Electric Chair, Executions series (Figure 0049)Catherine Chalmers' executions series depicts roaches being electrocuted, hung from miniature nooses, and burned at the stake. None of the roaches in the photographs however was actually burned or executed or hung-in fact, the roaches were already dead by the time they were photographed. In the case of the gas chamber photos, the cockroaches were immobilized with carbon dioxide and woke up a few minutes later. (via)
Untitled
Ry’s post reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to post forever: The woman who says, “Your call is being answered by Audix” is named Lorainne Nelson. You can hire her to customize your voicemail shit so it sounds the real Audix. I’m going go to hire her to read transcripts of Bill Hicks routines in a Audix voice. In other news, I think ‘baby’ Jane Holzer is a real estate agent somewhere on Long Island.
Wireless Network Spam
This was a new one for me. It was taking awhile to pick up a wireless networks at MM’s apartment and then when I checked the available networks I was amazed and frustrated to find that spammers and plundered a new domain– wifi hotspots.
NYC Mac and Cheese Porn
There's good, mouthwatering food porn, and then there's Gridskipper's NYC Macaroni and Cheese Porn Gallery. Macaroni and cheese samples from ten New York restaurants are photographed in all their gooey, glistening, residual cheese-trailing glory to illustrate the wide variety of macaroni and cheese that New York has to offer. The gallery is informative, but I have a feeling the photos don't capture the tastiness that each restaurant has to offer. Gridskipper will reveal its choice for the best macaroni and cheese sometime today.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crushpad Project
We’ll admit we were both relieved and disappointed at Gary V’s announcement yesterday. We had all sorts of theories that he was going to be franchising his store to LA and converting the few but loyal Domainiacs to Vayniacs. (more…)
Catching up with One Laptop Per Child
Last weekend, the US news show 60 Minutes rebroadcast its segment on Nicholas Negroponte and his One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative. As Bruno Giussani has reported on the TED Blog, much news has emerged since that segment first aired in May:
+ OLPC and Intel have agreed to work together, not compete, to put laptops in the hands of every kid on the planet.
+ OLPC's chief technology officer, Mary Lou Jepsen, said last month that a retail version of the laptop may be commercially available by this Christmas.You can see more from Nicholas Negroponte here on TED.com -- he gave a rousing talk at TED2006, just days after he took a leave of absence from MIT's Media Lab to devote himself fully to One Laptop Per Child. Watch the TEDTalk and join the conversation >>
To contact Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project, visit the OLPC website's Contacts page >>
Posh Lands a "Major" Role
While her hubby David Beckham is nursing his bum knee, Victoria Beckham will bring home the bacon with a guest spot on super hit, Ugly Betty. After weeks of speculation, ABC confirmed the fashionista will play herself on the adorable show. Rumors has it that Victoria will be a bridesmaid at the wedding of Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) and Bradford Meade (Alan Dale).
Access Hollywood caught up with Betty herself, America Ferrera, for her thoughts on having the Posh one on her show. “She definitely belongs in the MODE world. She’d definitely be somebody that Wilhelmina is good buddies with."
If they need any help deciding on Vicki's wardrobe for the episode, I have a one word for them: poncho.
August 30, 2007
Fresh KRS Interview (You Suckas)
Just Blaze has the hookup. Gotta give him his due since we've been hard on KRS in the past, he's on point for most of this session, discussing the death of the industry and the future of the culture. Much...
digg arc history
I just posted a visual diary of Digg Arc development to the Stamen blog. Go check it out, and relive the glory...
Photo of the Day: Charlie's Fashion Beef Hot Dog
Down the block from the Serious Eats office on 7th Avenue and 27th Street is Charlie's Fashion Beef Hot Dogs where for $1.50 you can get a grilled hot dog topped with onion, relish, chili, ketchup and mustard. The life of the above hot dog was about a minute before swimming in my stomach's digestive juices. It was a damn good minute.
"“Frankly, any city person who doesn’t think I deserve a white-collar salary as a farmer doesn’t..."
““Frankly, any city person who doesn’t think I deserve a white-collar salary as a farmer doesn’t deserve my special food"”
- No Bar Code
Illustrated Guide for Espresso Noobs
For people like me, who know almost nothing about the family of espresso-centric drinks, Lokesh Dhakar's illustrated guide to espresso drink composition may be helpful. The illustrations won't help you much if you want to make the drinks, but they're great for providing a simple overview of the ingredients. [via Boing Boing]
Toy/Story
I asked one of my favourite questions on Facebook: Toys or Stories?
I got some lovely answers, which I’ve rendered anonymous to share/store here.
So far, toys are ahead, by a narrow squeak at 14 ludological fundamentalists, to story-fans’ 12. Three respondents opting for the indivisible wave-particle duality of the Toy/Story.
“Toys beget stories. It’s only the other way around when capitalism comes out to play.”
“Toys that are not attached to a story (i.e. unbranded generic toys). Not Transformer toys (or Toy Story toys, for that matter)”
“The two can never be torn apart.”
“Toys. Will Wright’s TED demonstration of Spore as a ‘montessori toy to help kids think long-term’ blew… my… mind. ‘Tis the next gen’s literacy, and potency. But I do like to submit to a good story at times. Kind of geronto-therapy, these days.”
“stories. through stories comes the invention of toys”
“Toys so long as it is old Lego not new - my own stories are better.”
“Toys! Stories come with them for free!”
“Stories! Let your imagination run wild…”
“Stories. Stories stay with you, toys end up in landfill.”
“Stories, a toy is just a story in Vinyl form :)”
“Toys…cause you can make up your own stories with them ;)”
“it all depends on which kind of toys…”
“If it were J, toys and if it were N, stories. Depending on the time of day.”
“stories!”
“Toys. Most stories are just made up anyway.”
“Why has no-one said both, surely not an either/or question - not for my two boys anyway…”
“Toys. Because you can use them to create your own stories.”
“Narrative first always. Expanding narrative through imaginative play second.”
“Stories! The merchandising deals come after the original IP!”
“Toys!”
“toys then as i like plastic things”
“You can have stories without toys but not toys without stories. Maybe that’s where Pixar started from, there are always stories that go with the toys. Epic, life-defining stories. Now I feel the need to go get more toys.”
“Stories; as they force you to use your imagination more, and that’s richer than any manufactured experience. However, a crappy DVD could be a story and a stick and ball could be a toy, and the stick would involve you using your imagination more.”
“Life is stories. Toys are the friendly characters and landmarks. (My two-year-old says Jemima Puddleduck is scary… but he then admits he’s joking. Jokes — the shortest stories around.)”
“stories are always best - and most in demand - as they require interaction and contact. that said toys enable self produced narrative in the years before writing. mind you toys are cool and provide problem solving & physical fun (blocks/puzzles/autobots)”
“Stories, because they don’t precipitate the opening of out of town warehouses branded ‘Stories R Us’”
“Oral stories because even the worst ones can be mass-produced without causing waste. :)”
“Stories. They feed the imagination and can help you turn anything into a toy.”
“Object is story. Toy is object. Toy is story.”
“story-telling toys (like the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, not Teddy Ruxpin)”
“toys: the reassuring teleology of narrative appeals only to the weak of spirit (in a nice way)”
Energy Harvesting Déerive
Informed by the mathematical random walk and the Situationist dérive, or “drift,” these fantastic roller shoes harvest energy from your motion and direct you via toe-mounted LCD on a random walk.
Fred Thompson To Skip New Hampshire Debate
As we reported yesterday, the influential New Hampshire Union Leader, a major voice of Republicanism in the crucial primary state, published an editorial challenging Fred Thompson in no uncertain...
Breaking: GOP Senator Warner To Announce Whether He'll Retire Tomorrow, Report Says
Jonathan Martin: Sen. John Warner will announce tomorrow at the University of Virginia whether or not he intends to seek a sixth term, according to two top Virginia sources. Warner is planning a 2...
but mom, lawn darts are FUN!
Since Mattel is recalling all those toys with lead, Radar Online does the public a service by recycling their "10 most dangerous playthings of all time" story. Number one on the list? Lawn darts, of course.
Redefining the dictionary: Erin McKean on TED.com
Is the beloved paper dictionary doomed to extinction? When does a made-up word become real? And could you use "synecdochical" in a sentence, please? In this infectiously exuberant talk, leading lexicographer Erin McKean looks at the many ways in which today's print dictionary is poised for transformation in this internet era. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 15:41.)
Watch Erin McKean's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Erin McKean on TED.com.
Embed this video: Use this code to run the video on your own site:
Edwards And Obama Camps Both Pushing "Hillary-Is-Polarizing" Line
One interesting subplot in Campaign 2008 worth noting is that the Edwards and Obama camps are now both pushing a similar line against Hillary -- chiefly, that you shouldn't vote for her because lots...
Transmit 3.6 comes with Amazon S3, remote URL support
Panic has released an update to the popular FTP software, Transmit. Transmit 3.6 comes with a whole host of bug fixes and improvements, but the two main features added in this update are remote URLs and Amazon S3 support, although the latter seems to be a little buggy for some.
happy year of rumi
It’s mostly [Rumi’s] romantic and spiritual poems that have captured English-speaking fans. (He’s quite popular on the wedding circuit these days.)
Washington Post: “Rumi’s Time Has Come (Again).” Previously on rW: Rumi’s “A Community of the Spirit.”
‘If There Is Something Good in the World Then We Copy With Pride’
Innovative industrial design from Nokia.
A fresh cameo cut every day…
Dont even ask, just listen and enjoy.
Only a few will actually get and appreciate this, I’m sure.
And as many times as I’ve looked at this picture over the years, I never realized Scoob is like… naked. Or are those just really odd pants and not boxers?
Kane - Don’t Know What To Call This
"Are You Talking to Me?": NYC Gives Tourists Tips!
Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a new campaign, Just Ask The Locals, "the City's first-ever five-borough marketing and advertising campaign to make visitors feel more welcome, thank them for visiting, and help them navigate New York City." The Mayor made the announcement at the new American Airlines terminal at JFK and said, "New Yorkers have always been welcoming and friendly, but not enough people around the world know it. So now we're going the extra mile to make visitors feel even more at home by offering a helpful piece of advice, an insider's tip, or just a friendly smile as they explore and enjoy all the wonderful attractions here in our City." There will be outdoor advertising, a new tourism website (here), insider tips from celebrity residents, and even a tip card with helpful suggestions. The CityRoom has the tips:
1. Call 311 or (212) NEW-YORK for all information about the city. 2. Fifth Avenue divides Manhattan into the East Side and West Side. 3. When getting directions, always ask for the cross streets (i.e. 810 Seventh Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets). 4. In Manhattan, if you walk 20 blocks north or south, you have walked one mile. 5. If the number on the top of the taxicab is lit, it means the cab is available. 6. It is customary to tip 15 to 20 percent to wait staff, bartenders and taxi drivers. 7. MetroCards work on both buses and subways, and transfers between the two are free. 8. Free wireless Internet is available at many public parks. 9. Many businesses, including pharmacies and delis, are open 24 hours. 10. Have a question about NYC? Just ask the locals, or to go to nycvisit.com.Nice, but where is the "Do not walk more than three people wide on sidewalks" suggestion?! But the City wants to remind us that tourism is critical to the city's economy, because tourism generates $24.7 billion in revenue and supports 368,000 jobs. Without tourism, to maintain the current budget, households would need to fork over almost another $1000 in city and state taxes. And the celebrity locals involved in the campaign are Robert De Niro, Julianne Moore, Tiki Barber, Chuck Close and Jimmy Fallon - all of whom we believe live in Manhattan. Jimmy suggests Pete's Tavern and Two Boots, Julianne says Piccolo Angolo is "so good," Chuck like the Frick...well, you get the idea. Do you have suggestions to tourists visiting NYC? What are they?
Untitled
I bet this little diagram could save a lot of grief in meetings where the web design team is trying to talk the restaurant out of a flash intro page or whatever.
[ via New Shelton Wet/Dry ]
August 29, 2007
2004 Twenty Rows “The Grappler” - Gary Vaynerchuk 91 pts, sold out at WL
This is one of Gary’s Wine Library monthly picks. They’re sold out. WE AREN’T! Here’s what Gary has to say:
91 Points - Gary Vaynerchuk
“The Grappler is one of the finest Red blends under $20 I have tasted out of California since the 1994 Estancia Meritage when it was $15. Huge ripe black currant and massive asian spice are both obvious on the long a complex mid-palate. the wonderful thing about the 20 Rows project is the overall stunning value these wines bring. Buy a case of this or the Cabernet and be happy for years to come.”
Check it out at our store and read our tasting notes…Grapple me now!
The August Work Ethic
Are you on vacation these last few days of August? If so then what are you doing staring at a computer screen, reading my blog?
Me, I’m at the office throughout this slow, concluding week of the summer. But if I weren’t, if I had time off, I think I’d do what I haven’t done yet all year, even on the ostensible holidays I’ve taken: fall off the grid entirely and relax properly — without telephones, without text messages, without the Internet.
We don’t do that enough in the States and I sometimes regret it painfully. European readers know what I’m talking about. Just before the calendar turns to September, the cities empty out and the shops close in a kind of workers’ solidarity like no labor strike ever seen on American shores.
Servers Are People Too
Hell, this even applies to the online stores, as I noticed when I went to buy dress shirts from Asole & Bottoni, a not particularly fancy Italian clothier who happens to cut reasonably handsome shirts in just my awkwardly excessive sleeve length. Here’s the message I saw when I pointed my browser at their Web shop:
Amazing. Even the servers get to kick back in August over there. We’re doing something wrong.
0.9 On The March
Last week we released Dojo 0.9, and while we’re excited at how well it performs, how easy it is to use, etc. but the proof is in the apps. In particular, Plaxo Pulse, AOL’s TinyBuddy (app here) and the new Bloglines beta are all 0.9 based and the experience really shows it. They’re all “data stream” apps, things you fire up and then leave open or spend lots of time in, and they’re amazingly useable, responsive, and useful. If you haven’t tried them out, now’s the time to give them a whirl and get a feel for how 0.9 is helping real apps rock.
Rumor: Apple's (RED) products to extend down to shuffle
Apple doesn't exactly have a lot of options on how it can bump the iPod shuffle line this year. So how about adding another color? Charity plus new colors always equals happiness, right?
Kweli Hits #2 On Billboard :: WTF?
Ya Heard?
Numbers are coming in from last week's sales have Talib Kweli's Ear Drum hitting #2 on the album chart. Yall know I'm a Kweli fan, so I'm very happy for the man.
In the past month Common, UGK and Kweli have all had their highest debuts ever. What does this all mean?
First off, some perspective. Kweli did 60,500 copies, one-sixth of what the #1 album, "High School Musical 2 did (in its second week), a shade over half of what Common did in his first week and a shade over a third of what UGK did in their first week. Those remain sobering numbers for rap music execs.
But let's also be real: Kweli also had much less than one-sixth of the promotion that HSM2 did, and probably less than Common and UGK did as well. I don't have access to what Kweli's done in his first week for his previous releases, but I suspect that the numbers are about the same. In other words, give Kweli his props for building his audience and keeping it, regardless of distribution.
(This was a theme of an interview I did with him years back. He said then, and I'm sure he still feels now, that for artists it was no longer about the kind of backing you were going to get from a label. It was about developing your base, one-to-one. This was before Myspace, before Youtube. He was prophetic.)
Industry insiders already are speculating that the chart success of Kweli, Common, and UGK this past month is all proof that hip-hop's audience is aging. I think part of this has to do with their unwillingness to trust hip-hop audiences' tastes, that people may be more down for the underground than some execs are willing to imagine.
It could also be argued that all of these artists are different, because they have enjoyed associations with bigger artists. For Common and Kweli, there's the Kanye effect, for UGK and Kweli, there's the Jay-Z effect.
But the age gap argument is probably truer than most of us would like to admit. All of these artists are in their 30s and began building their audiences in the 90s. If you follow this reasoning, UGK did the best because they were able to bridge young and old audiences the best of the three.
Plies fans aside, then, aging hip-hop audiences might be the upside in this down market. Just like in the rock market in the 80s, thirtysomethings are speaking...loudly. While their younger brothers and sisters are downloading the industry to its grave, they are actually still buying albums. Not singles, albums.
The surprising bottom line might be this: older hip-hop audiences are not actually the tail, maybe they have become the foundation of the hip-hop market. If so, radio better recognize: the first 24-hour hip-hop classics format may not be far away.
Then again, we still have a couple weeks til Sept. 11th, a date hip-hop fans everywhere have begun talking about as if it's the final cataclysmic showdown between "conscious" and "corporate". Fact is I think those terms are as stupid as Polow Da Don's views on women of color. But I'll be like everyone else on that Super Tuesday.
Check back here then...
Office Tools of Expression
One of my favorite posts that I've ever written was Excel Pile, about people's propensity for using Office tools like Microsoft Excel to track mundane parts of their lives, or even as tools of artistic expression. From that post three years ago:
[A]lmost every one of my friends has, at one point or another, made at least one Excel spreadsheet to document some arcane aspect of their lives. The number of consecutive sunny days, the types and prices of the cups of coffee they drink, or just straightforward charts about their boss's mood. There's no end to the ways one can misuse desktop applications in one's personal life.
The team behind Microsoft Office for the Mac has built a site called Art of Office around exactly this concept. I had intended, with that original Excel Pile post, to make a site (called Office Pile, actually) which would let people share and collaborate around these kinds of expressive documents, and it's exciting to see that someone has done exactly that. At Microsoft, no less! They describe the site well:
Art of Office is for Mac users pushing the boundaries of what can be done in Mac Office. Explore. Contribute. Reuse. Remix. Add your best work. Take what you like (giving credit where it's due) and make it yours.
Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo created some postcards in MacWord, Phil Torrone made a 361-slide PowerPoint deck of illegal primes, and Pixelfreak made (what else?) pixel art in Excel. I dig it.
Blog readers who liked this post also enjoyed:
- Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information, David Byrne's PowerPoint-as-art effort, released as a book that comes with a CD of the presentation. I had a chance to see the man himself present some of the slides at the book's launch,and quite enjoyed it. See also the official EEII site and a 2003 Wired story on the piece.
- Excel Pile: 130 different comments about how people use office apps in their personal lives.
- Office 2007 is the bravest upgrade ever, where I wrote about how ambitious I think the most recent version of Microsoft Office is, and inspired endless flames.
- Two posts about a press story on the recreational use of office software.
- And one to miss Leslie with: Click To Add Title, Leslie Harpold and Michael Sippey's seminal PowerPoint competition.
End of slide show, click to exit.
Fried Eggplant and a Donut Robot
Editor's note: Jenni Ferrari-Adler is guest-blogging on Serious Eats this week about her vacation in East Hampton, New York. Follow along: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
After the movie, still feeling a little burned by our meal at Wei Fun, J. and I head to Sam's Restaurant. Sam's is one of the few places that's been in the town of East Hampton for as long as I've been coming out, circa 1985, which is exactly what it looks like, and, better yet, sounds like. We go 12-inch, half-pepperoni, half-eggplant, garlic, and green olives. The eggplant ends up being breaded and fried, as in eggplant Parmesan, making me the fool who tried to be healthy and skip pepperoni only to eat a hefty quantity of fried food.
At home we are freaked out in the particular way of urban dwellers alone in a country house after a tense movie. We are used to the noises of sirens, crazy people, fighting drunks, and airplanes, but not these night noises of frogs and bugs. It wasn't Bourne—whose set-up is so specific, far-fetched, and not remotely about a couple being murdered in a country house—as much as the ten-plus previews we sat through before the movie, each one more terrifying than the last. The scenarios included: your husband is jailed in a foreign country (Rendition); your son is killed, forcing you into a life of crime (Death Sentence); and the disappearance of your little girl (Gone Baby Gone). Despite the pizza interlude, our adrenaline is high. It kind of sounds like someone is walking in the yard, or on the roof, or creaking quietly along the halls of the house itself.
J. gets out of bed and grabs a poker from the fireplace. We creep to the door that leads to the garage.
"Don't open it," I whisper.
He opens it.
"Don't go in there," I say.
He walks into the garage while I hold my breath from the doorway.
"There's nothing here," he says. We close all the doors between the garage and the bedroom.
"Don't worry," he says, "It's just animals."
"Then why did you just put the fireplace poker under the bed?"
Wednesday morning we're alive and off to find the weekly farmers' market on North Main Street. But first, a pit stop at Dreesen's for homemade donuts. Dreesen's used to be the name of the shop but now they just occupy a part of Scoop du Jour. From the sidewalk we watch the donuts fall out of the machine, which they call the donut robot. They serve them three ways: plain, covered in powdered sugar, and covered in cinnamon sugar. According to the sign on the window, they have "0 transfat." Only good old-fashioned fat. They are soft, buttery, and, perhaps best of all, warm. According to the website, they sell more than 400,000 per year. Also on their website, Alec Baldwin claims Dreesen's donuts are the reason for the popularity of the Hamptons.
At the small farmer's market, we take our time. We buy feta cheese made at Catapano Dairy Farms, brandywine tomatoes, bell peppers, a cucumber, a small red onion, and mint for the ice cream later in the week.
At home I slice the red onion into lime juice to mellow it. I char the peppers over the stove even though there is a grill right outside—city habits are hard to break. I chop everything up. I grind pepper, sprinkle salt, drizzle olive oil, and set it out on a big white plate. This is the easiest time of year to make beautiful dishes. It's only slicing and assembly.
So which is more enticing: the salad or the donuts?
Sam's Restaurant
Address: 36 Newtown Lane, East Hampton NY 11937
Phone: 631-324-5900Dreesen's
Address: 33 Newtown Lane, East Hampton NY 11937
Phone: 631-324-0465About the author: Jenni Ferrari-Adler is a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Michigan, where she received an MFA in fiction. She has worked as a reader for The Paris Review, a bookseller, an egg-seller, and an assistant at a literary agency. Her short fiction has been published in numerous magazines. She is the author of Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant. She lives in New York City.
Britney Spears Shows Her Assets
Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking... Please pull out your sick bags, conveniently tucked into your seatback pocket before you click on this photo of Britney Spears's bare behind.This snapshot was taken yesterday in Beverly Hills. Britney was reportedly wearing a pink thong but... I can't see it, so I don't believe it. I do see a whole lotta other things though.
For more Britney Spears fashion disasters, check out out Britney Spears's Daily Fashion Don'ts.
Photo of the Day: We Waited
Waited for 30 minutes, at least.
I particular like the emphasis given by the mustard underlining.
Read more reasons why people hate their servers (and vice versa) at passiveaggressivenotes.com.
Google Goes Underground
While even Google can't help out with the subway perv problem, Subway Blogger reports that they are "getting geared up to start mapping New York City Transit systems. Ultimately, you’ll be able to map a transit or subway route just like Google Maps." Sure, there are resources like Hop Stop and OnNYTurf that may end up suffering (and Silicon Alley Insider points out their flaws), but this development was inevitable ever since Google launched their Transit feature. Bloomberg reports further on this, saying "with the Google Transit online trip planner, a user enters a start and end address or landmark and gets automated directions, including schedules and transfer points. Bus ridership in Duluth, Minnesota, increased 12 percent since the Google system was added to its Web site last year, said Tom Elwell, marketing director for the local transit authority." Should we expect more crowded subway and bus rides after the launch? Who knows. Google can expect to pocket some serious ad revenue, however. Bloomberg reports that "U.S. companies spent about $922 million last year to place ads alongside local searches and maps, according to Kelsey Group Inc., a market research firm in Princeton, New Jersey. That will almost triple to $2.61 billion by 2011, the researcher says. Google probably got about $500 million in sales last year from local ads, or about 8 percent of its U.S. revenue of $6 billion, said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence in San Francisco." Maybe they can donate some of that dough to the MTA and keep mass transit fares down.
What Happens If Craig Resigns?
That's quite naturally the question now that Senator John McCain and other GOPers are calling for Larry Craig to go. So what would happen? If a Senator resigns in Idaho, under Idaho law he gets...
New Dancing With the Stars Cast Announced
Time to get your dancing shoes all scrubbed up, as the new cast of the insanely addictive Dancing With the Stars has been announced. This year's crop of twirlers is as interesting as ever and there's plenty of oldies-but-goodies to root for in this bunch. Here's the list:
Spice Girl and Eddie Murphy baby momma, Melanie Brown
Sabrina Bryan, who's apparently a Cheetah Girl
Helio Castroneves, an Indianapolis 500 champ
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team
My girl, Jennie Garth, a.k.a Kelly from Beverly Hills: 90210
Model/actress Josie Maran
All My Children sweetie Cameron Mathison
Floyd Mayweather, the World Boxing Council Welterweight Champion of the World, and your psuedo-Evander Holyfield
Wayne Newton, who will, no doubt, have panties thrown at him
Marie Osmond, destined to be good at moving to both the Country and Rock n' Roll tunes
Albert Reed , an Abercrombie & Fitch model and this season's eye candy
Jane Seymour, of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman fame Noticeably absent from the list are Jennie Garth's ex Peach Pit bud, Tori Spelling, and Victoria's Secret supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Both girls were rumored to be taking the stage but Tori must be busy with baby Liam, while Gisele must be busy with not-Tom Brady, Jr. (um, no).
Who are your favorites from this new cast? Will you watch? Will you care enough to pick up the phone and vote? You know you will...
Farm-Fresh Street Art
The Grocer doesn't sell fresh fruits and vegetables; he just paints vibrant pictures of them and pastes them up on the streets of Chicago. You can buy some of his paintings or request a specific food to be painted on commission, but I find his work most fun when temporarily slapped on the wall of an abandoned building. Not that I'd mind having a watermelon on my wall.
Potatohenge with meat lintel
Potatohenge with meat lintel
Originally uploaded by schickr.
Google and SEO: What would "pure" search look like?
After reading many posts about Robert Scoble's video prediction that Google would be upended within four years,I finally took a look for myself.
His main point is that Google is gamed by algorithmic masters of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They have in effect backward engineered Google's search algorithm, and can tweak Web pages to land near the top of Google search results. This weakness, he says, makes Google and its algorithmic kin vulnerable to competitors who feed from human and social links, such as Facebook, the new search engine Mahalo, and Techmeme.
Scoble is almost religious in his convictions about SEOs. He calls them "impurities" in the system, and says that the new systems have "no impurities" and are "pure gold."
This reminds me of anti-lobby arguments in Washington. In effect, SEOs are very much the algorithmic equivalent of lobbyists. The rich and the powerful use them to game Google, much the way lobbyists wine and dine legislators and pour money into campaign coffers to game Washington.
The question is this: If we didn't have lobbyists, would the rich and resourceful figure out another way to influence the system? I'm betting they would. And if Google or any other search engine, algorithmic or social, figured out a way to banish the SEO crowd, I have no doubt that they'd figure out some other way to gain the upper hand. We humans game systems. That's our specialty. I guess I don't believe in purity. And I think one of Google's strengths is that users are learning to find what they want--and tune out the lobbyists.
(That said, in travel and consumer electronics I find Google results too polluted to be useful. Those are sizeable markets for SEO-proof insurgents to strike. And it's little surprise that Scoble's key example of an effective Maholo page was in HDTV.)
Breaking: McCain Calls On Craig To Resign
John McCain, on CNN just now, becomes the first Presidential candidate to call on GOP Senator Larry Craig to resign over wide-stance-gate: MCCAIN: I believe that he pled guilty, and he had the...
Ian's Shoelace Site
Fun, fashion & science in this quirky site about shoelaces. Whether you want to learn to lace shoes, tie shoelaces, stop shoelaces from coming undone, calculate shoelace lengths or even repair aglets, Ian's Shoelace Site has the answer!
bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by yatta to shoelaces howto - more about this bookmark...
Michael Arrington's CrunchFood
biting parody of Techcrunch style; "Fondue Joins the DeadPool" [via]
Rumor: iPod Hi-Fi facing end of life
With new iPods seeming all but inevitable at next week's Apple press event, will the iPod Hi-Fi quietly exit stage left? Some rumor sites think so.
Video: Columbian Village Travels via Zip Line at 1200 Feet
Quick Post
"When I was your age, I traveled 500 vertical feet on a wing and a prayer!"
http://spluch.blogspot.com/2007/08/kids-riding-zip-line-to-school.html
Ovi by Nokia
Busy right now, but wanted to let you all know that ovi.com is what's kept me away for all this time. Oh, we're not done yet, won't be for a while, but we hope to start trickling out stuff by the end of the year.
Really exciting, if you want to know.
When I get back to Finland (I'm in London at a workshop) I'll try to tell more.
For now, go read read it here:
Link: Meet Ovi, the Door to Nokia's Internet Services:
Nokia today introduced Ovi, the company's new Internet services brand name. With the introduction of Ovi, Nokia is expanding from a focus on mobile devices to offering a range of Internet services. Ovi, meaning 'door' in Finnish, enables consumers to easily access their existing social network, communities and content, as well as acting as a gateway to Nokia services.
After the storm
Today—Wednesday, August 29th—is the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. So here are a couple ways to commemorate the tragedy and help leg-up the city, which continues to hobble...
Devel::Leak::Object now 39% more evil!
Mucking around with Devel::Leak::Object at work on Monday, I managed with very little effort to locate an object "leak" (we were loading a bunch of stuff in Apache child init handlers, instead of at startup time in the parent like we should have). Immediately memory savings across 25 children? 600 meg! Multiplied by 5 boxes in the cluster. At the very least that should delay the need to add a new server to the cluster for a few months. Inspired by the quick win, I've been trying to hook D:L:Object in deeper to the Apache server, to look for more leaking cases (our web app uses enormous amounts of ram, and despite it legitimately needing a lot for certain tasks, I'm thinking there's probably much more that isn't necesary).Read more of this story at use Perl.
Webcomic spotlight - XKCD
I’m loving the nerdy stick-figure antics over at XKCD. They satisfy the wannabe code-poet in me.
XKCD was just featured as a notable webcomic in PC Magazine’s Top 100 Undiscovered Websites.
You Can't Pinch an Inch on Keira Knightley!
We all know Keira Knightley doesn't have an eating disorder -- a tabloid recently paid her a pretty penny for suggesting that she did -- but girl is thin! Here's a snapshot of her at the Venice Film Festival and there is no inch pinching going on. Are Hollywood starlets waisting away? Weigh in here.
8/29 Green Market Booty
I'm trying to make a habit of stopping at the green market on my way to work at least once a week. Lots of great stuff to choose from this morning, I filled up my bag with corn, red onion, tomatoes, fingerling potatoes, a tiny leaf variety of basil, and bok choy. Thanks to Elise, I think my corn will become part of an arugula corn salad with bacon. Still daydreaming about the rest of my green market booty...
August 28, 2007
Why Do People Paint Carbon Fiber?
From: William Jon Shipley
To: Zachary Edson [Tesla Motors]
Subject: Carbon fiber without paint?
Is there a technical reason that Teslas are painted? I'd really rather not have the extra weight, expense, and scratch-ability of paint on my carbon fiber.
Does carbon fiber look bad on its own? I think I heard [Dr. Eberhard] say something at TED about it needing a thin shiny coating on it to look good.
I'm remembering the unpainted DeLorean, and how everyone made fun of it at first, and now it's considered a classic beauty.
Frankly, I think if you're going to have a carbon-fiber body, you should show it off.
Yours,
-Wil
From: Zachary Edson
Subject: RE: Carbon fiber without paint?
To: William Jon Shipley
Wil,
There are a few issues involved with carbon fiber. I think the best way to highlight them is in a bulleted list:
- Unpainted carbon fiber is not particularly aerodynamic. Aerodynamics becomes very important to efficiency on the freeway.
- If you look at an unpainted carbon fiber body panel that has not been [treated in any way] it is not particularly attractive.
- If you want a piece of carbon fiber to look attractive when not painted it costs about 30 times more than an unattractive piece of carbon fiber.
- Once you have the piece of attractive carbon you need to seal it and clear coat it for it to be both aerodynamic and attractive.
In the end it is far lighter to use painted carbon fiber than to use unpainted metal. Very few cars have been built with exposed carbon body panels. The ones I know of were built one off for a customer with no disclosed price.
I agree that it would look great to have an exposed carbon surface on the Roadster. The cost would just be astronomical and there would not really be any gain in overall weight.
Regards,
Zak
Angelina Jolie's Latest Mission
Say what you want about Angelina Jolie (and y'all do daily), but Brad Pitt's gal pal walks the walk. The UNHCR goodwill ambassador has been in Syria and Iraq the last couple days.
In Syria, she spoke to Red Crescent volunteers, who are taking care of children of parents who register as refugees at a UNHCR registration center.
In Iraq, she visted a refugee camp, where at least 1200 people are living.
"Say, Bill. Would you rub some of this bug powder on my lips?"
"The felt is hand dyed and the details are embroidered. I added some real screws that I tarnished in vinegar. The roller rotates so that a piece of paper can be added with some typed words on it."
Trap Street Found
Oh, look: Owen found a trap street -- a fictitious street inserted by a mapmaker to trap plagiarists. A cul-de-sac present in the 2000 edition of an Oxford map disappears in the 2005 edition; Owen investigates on the ground and...
The Obama Doctrine
"Obama thinks that we should not put our own troops into Sudan not because he is opposed to taking action of any kind, but because he thinks that we have squandered our credibility in Iraq. ...it's something we should never forget when we consider going to war: that if we go to war for the wrong reasons, the casualties are likely to include not just the people we kill and those of our soldiers who are killed, but also the people in the next crisis that comes around, people we cannot help because we have thrown away our standing to do so."
Come to MX East and I will buy you dinner…or something else
Scott Berkun is, among other things, very clever. He’s offering a free dinner to anyone who attends MX East using his promotional code. So, not only do you get 15% off the registration, you get a personal gift — either dinner, a signed copy of his book, or he’ll write a blog post on a topic of your choice.
Well, that’s definitely raised the ante, and I feel obliged to at least meet it, and maybe raise it a little more. If you come to MX East, and use my promotional code FOPM, not only will you receive the 15% off the registration price, but I will also offer you a personal gift.
As dinner is already provided at MX East, I will buy you dinner either in your home city, or when you visit the San Francisco Bay Area. If connecting for dinner is too challenging, I’ll happily ship you your choice of some of the best that the Bay Area has to offer:
chocolates from Rechiutti (San Francisco), Scharffenberger (Berkeley), or Joseph Schmidt’s (San Francisco). Two pounds of Philz or Blue Bottle coffee (the latest coffee crazes in the Bay Area) Junipero Gin (from San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company) MX East has come together real well. We’ve got an amazing lineup, including:
Joshua Wesson, CEO, innovative wine merchant Best Cellars Mark Jones, Service Design Director, IDEO Irene Au, Director of User Experience, Google Khoi Vinh, Design Director, The New York Times Ryan Armbruster, SPARC Innovation Program, Mayo Clinic
and many many more!
Buy a Mac, get TextMate!
I get a fair number of letters asking me to port TextMate to other platforms (not to mention that “textmate for windows” is now in the top 5 of search phrases I receive hits for) — mostly I politely reply that I am presently not interested in doing a port (from now on though, I will just send a link to this post).
Occasionally I write a bit more, as was the case with Chris Campbell. He sent me back the image below where you can see part of the conversation (click to enlarge).
I love how Chris took the time to set this up and email me the picture. It deserves to be preserved in the form of a blog post :)
It also made me look into setting up a dedicated program for “buy a Mac, get TextMate for free” (in a way where I would still get some revenue). Unfortunately Amazon’s operating agreement for their affiliate program says:
In addition, you may not: (a) directly or indirectly offer any person or entity any consideration or incentive (including, without limitation, payment of money (including any rebate), or granting of any discount or other benefit) for using Special Links on your site to access the Amazon.com Site (e.g., by implementing any “rewards” program for persons or entities who use Special Links on your site to access the Amazon.com Site);
That is no good. At Apple I can only find a .Mac affiliate program. So does anyone have an idea about how to handle this? And preferably in a way where it could be fully automated.
Six Apart - ProNet - An Interview: Apperceptive, Boing Boing and MT4
Apperceptive is so hot right now.
The Real: Deconstructing Biggie: UPS is Hiring
Apparently Biggie's line in Craig Mack's Flava In Ya Ear Remix was a dis at the delivery service.
Barack Takes Brooklyn
Last night Barack Obama came to Brooklyn to join supporters and community members at The Marriott Hotel on Adams Street. The event was set to begin at 7pm, and for hours prior to that (even after doors opened at 5:30) crowds filled the streets around the hotel - many waiting to get a glimpse of the candidate and many just waiting to get in! It turns out the event was oversold, a reader tells us a volunteer came out and said, "Well, you know, some folks brought their grandmothers or girlfriends along, and then the Marriott changed the size of the stage so we just couldn't handle all the folks with tickets. Sorry. Give us your name and a contact number and we'll get back to you." Tickets for the “Official Brooklyn for Barack Kick-Off” were only $25, a far cry from the $1000 pricetag on the July 24th event held at the Brooklyn Heights home of Nina Collins. With a lot of support in Brooklyn, the right-leaning National Review asks if people are just too caught up in his charisma to really listen to what he's saying.
For instance, take Obama’s remarks on energy: “People are fed up with the lack of energy strategy in this country. Why is it that we’re paying three bucks at the gas tank?” First of all, who’s he talking to? Less than half of New York City residents own cars. Second, making cars more expensive to drive happens to be all the rage in this city right now.The Daily News says, "Obama was otherwise self-effacing as he looked to connect with the New York crowd by recalling his days living in a Park Slope apartment when he attended Columbia University and for some time afterward." He joked about not being able to afford to live there now...but the Park Slope babies have his back anyway. From the enthusiasm being reported today, it seems he connected with the Brooklynites just fine, gas price talk aside. And when asked why voters should vote him over Hillary, he replied, "We can pull the country together." More on last night's event here, did anyone go and not get in? Obama also stopped by The Daily Show and gave John Stewart and viewers 11 full minutes of his time. He Twittered earlier yesterday saying he was on his way there, but hasn't updated since. The Daily Show has been talking to a few Presidential candidates as part of their Indecision '08 coverage. Watch the video of Obama/Stewart (has a nice ring to it) here. Photos via Brandon Kings and Kyllo's Flickr.
Happy Hour Roundup
Hillary Clinton Gets First Announced Union Endorsement The United Transportation Union announced that it is endorsing Hillary Clinton, in what the Associated Press has dubbed "the first national...
Safari/NetNewsWire workflow
Richard Keen: “The script takes the front-most Safari URL (the current tab or window), adds this to NetNewsWire (it will be started in the background if not running) and confirms this via a Growl notification if you have Growl installed.”
Cops Confirm Owen Wilson Suicide Attempt
There are still many questions surrounding the hospitalization of Owen Wilson -- but one has been answered. Extra has obtained the Calls for Service report from the Santa Monica Police Department, which lists the reason for the 911 call from Owen’s house as an “attempted suicide.”Sources also confirm that Owen's brother Luke found him. Owen is being treated in Cedars-Sinai hospital, where he is listed in “good condition.”
Empathy and Hipocrisy
I found Nelson Minar's thoughtful look at Larry Craig's arrest to be very moving because of its deeply empathetic perspective. I find one of the things that frustrates me most about the public media sphere is the profound lack of empathy for people. Now, I don't like Craig -- I think he is a hypocrite. But Nelson took the time to think through the perspective of the person being demonized and understand and explain a very logical path to how a person arrives at the worst day of his life.
I find myself wishing more and more that we could teach people the ability to see the world through other perspectives. I think we can detest someone's hypocrisy and regret his awful decisions, and maybe even resent his beliefs, while still being sympathetic for his having been in a situation that left him with no good choices.
This is also what I was thinking about when ruminating on design and mise en place a few weeks ago. There is tremendous opportunity in being able to see through someone else's eyes.
An Interview: Apperceptive, Boing Boing and MT4
As we’ve mentioned on the Movable Type news blog, today Boing Boing, the immensely popular “Directory of Wonderful Things”, relaunched on the Movable Type 4.0 platform. There were a lot of people and organizations involved in the effort, but one of the key parts of the technology team was Apperceptive, the New York-based consulting company that has become one of the most successful members of the Six Apart Professional Network.
We asked Apperceptive’s team a few questions about their work on the Boing Boing relaunch, and got some great answers from Apperceptive principal David Jacobs and developers David Raynes and Mike Kania.
Six Apart: Okay, first: Who is Apperceptive? How long has the company been around?
David Jacobs: We were founded last year by myself and John Emerson. We were building a lot of blogs, and having fun, and we wanted to do more. Now we’re 10 people (and hiring!). Mike Kania was employee number 1.Six Apart: Wow — you’re growing really fast! And all the work you do is around blogs and social media?
David Jacobs: Yes, almost exclusively. About a quarter of our work is pure design, but always, always towards media or blog projects. And of the remaining work, another third is customizing or patching custom CMSes for folks. The remaining half is blog plugins, templates and support.Six Apart: That’s great. So, I know David and David have been fairly prominent in the Movable Type community for years, and all of you have been active in social media for a long time. But how did you get introduced to a project like working on Boing Boing?
David Jacobs: We have actually been talking to Boing Boing over a period of 5 months or so. They were on a very old version of MT, so the first project we did for them was upgrading their current database (which has tens of thousands of entries) onto the MT4 public beta and the MT 3.x version, which was the latest at the time. They used those installs to test out the tools and decide what direction they wanted to take the site.Six Apart: And they had in mind the idea of expanding to include comments, and changing the visual design?
David Jacobs: We actually weren’t sure what they had in mind; our goal was to present the platform at its best, and then answer any questions they had about what was and wasn’t possible. Because we’ve been so nose to the grindstone with some of the deep details of the project, the launch was really the first chance I had to appreciate the work that FM Pub [Federated Media] and the Happy Mutant team did to orchestrate all of these pieces - from the design, the logo, the hosting, the templates and the custom plugins.Six Apart: Okay, so once you were on board, what were everyone’s roles on your team?
David Raynes: Oddly enough, DJ had me writing plugins. :) One powers the “Don’t Miss” section on the bottom of the site.Six Apart: Nice — how does “Don’t Miss” work?
David Jacobs: The “Don’t Miss” plugin allows Boing Boing (and BB Gadget) editors to pull out Entries and Comments that they want to stick on the front page. It was intended as a service for their casual readers - if you can’t keep up with everything on the site, here are three links for you to look at. A lot of the plugin work was behind the scenes, and we’re working on some plugins to make their moderation and publishing workflow very smooth.David Raynes: Very much plugin zen (code-wise), in my opinion.Six Apart: “Plugin zen” ?
David Raynes: Very simple. Not much actual code in there. It does what it does very well and nothing more. I could probably trim it down some more, but that can come later. The backend could easily be extended to include trackbacks and, really, any other object in MT (e.g., assets).David Jacobs: What I think was cool about that process was that I took an existing (MTE) plugin we had, adapted it to MT4, edited the schema, and then handed it off to you. Then you cut the code in half and made it MORE useful, which I appreciated. Erasing code is sometimes as powerful as writing code (like any good writing).Six Apart: What’s it been like building plugins on MT4’s new APIs?
David Raynes: Now that I’m starting to wrap my head around it, I’m having a blast.Six Apart: There were some pretty specific requirements for enabling commenting on Boing Boing, what were those like?
David Jacobs: Running the risk of kissing up to our clients, I do want to note that it’s a great joy to have clients that inspire you to work harder and that have such a demanding community. Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a doing some great thinking around how healthy communities should grow, the editorial team has a very rich and uncompromising view of how the site should work, and the FM Pub tech team was fantastic. We’ve had to support a lot of in-house tech teams on this platform, and I don’t think it’s a stretch that these guys took to it more than anyone else has (of course they had some experience) and really pushed the platform in new ways. And to run the risk of talking ourselves out of work, I’m pretty sure they could have done this without us.Teresa had 20+ items that she came up with from her experience managing large communities and from her conversation with the BB editors about their goals. It was a very detailed spec - and luckily a lot of it was native in MT4. Some of the things we take for granted (permalink to comments, the ability to edit comments, and so on) are seen as top shelf features in other systems.I’m not sure how much we’re allowed to share, but it was a mix of ideas you’d expect and ideas you wouldn’t. We’ve almost met the whole list - and you’ll see some of the results in the BB comment threads very soon.Six Apart: Very cool. Is it intimidating working on a high-profile site like Boing Boing, or are you used to it?
David Raynes: Just the opposite for me at least. It was exciting rather than intimidating.David Jacobs: It’s a little nerve wracking, but it’s very exciting when it launches. It gets back to the expectations of the client and the community.Six Apart: What’s it been like working in MT4 versus your past work on MT, or on other platforms? How has it been participating in the Professional Network and working with Six Apart?
David Jacobs: Most of our contact was with FM Pub’s team, and they did a fantastic job of measuring out the different constituencies and shielding us - keeping us focused on the work. I can’t say enough good things about those guys. :)David Raynes: For MT4 vs prior MTs, I have to say it’s been invigorating and refreshing. Not that prior MTs were bad or stale or anything like that, but the injection of new toys to play with and reenergizing of the development community has been very motivating.I’m once again tempted to try and keep up with Arvind. :) I think I now spend more of my free time writing plugins than I did when I wasn’t writing them for a living.David Jacobs: Well, Mike, you built some alt-tmpl [alternate templates for MT’s user interface], and having the site being branded as Boing Boing from end to end is important.Mike Kania: This is true, I customized some of the comment / templates to adapt them for the Boing Boing look & feel. Which was REALLY easy to do, I must say. It’s nice to be able to quickly modify some templates, drop them inalt-tmpl, and have a whole new look while still using the MT functionality.Six Apart: Well, this work is really impressive, and David we’re thrilled to see your new plugins for displaying statistics on the MT4 dashboard show up in the Movable Type Plugin Directory. Thanks for your time.
Thanks to the whole crew at Apperceptive for taking a moment to speak with us, and we’ll be keeping an eye out as their newest projects get off the ground.
Breaking: Larry Craig Speaks Out About Men's Room Arrest
GOP Senator Larry Craig just gave a press conference in Idaho that was broadcast on CNN just moments ago. His key quote: "I am not gay. I never have been gay." Craig also said that he "overreacted"...
When Anchors Hook Up
Since the spring, the Post’s Page Six gossip column has for some reason been following the strange saga of the love life of Long Island native and Philadelphia television anchor Alycia Lane, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Liz Cho. It has, of course but it has provided some strange entertainment since May when the tabloid revealed that she had sent e-mails containing private photos of herself to NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen that were discovered by his wife, ABC Sports reporter Suzy Shuster. Yesterday, Page Six informed us that the twice-divorced Lane, who works for the CBS owned station in Philadelphia, is now linked to WCBS anchor Chris Wragge offering up photos of them walking the same (SAME!) dogs, albeit not together or at the same time or even showing shots to compare dogs. Wragge, as you may or may not know is currently separated and heading towards a divorce from his wife, former Playboy playmate and Swedish Olympian Victoria Silvstedt. The two anchors are rumored to be traveling together extensively despite a WCBS spokesperson denying the rumors. The Post however got friend-of-Lane and Inside Edition reporter Trish Bergin to say the pair was headed out to the Island, "I've known Alycia and Chris forever. I'm having a bunch of TV friends over for a barbecue. No big deal, though." The Post even gloats, “The source said Wragge reached out to Lane after reading about her saucy exploits in Page Six.” Now given her 2004 appearance on the Dr. Phil show to talk about her first divorce, we are starting to think that she may be doing these attention grabbing things to get on the national radar, or at least the radar of the number one market. Photo illustration of Chris Wragge and Alycia Lane by author.
Fun with the iPhone accelerometer
now with source code!
Google Web Toolkit: Towards a better web
Posted by Bruce Johnson and Dan Peterson, Google Web Toolkit team
We're very pleased to tell you that the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is no longer in beta as of today's release of GWT 1.4. For Java developers who have used GWT to create high-end web applications over the last year, this may not seem all that surprising. But if you haven't yet heard the story behind GWT, this seems like the perfect time...
If you've been in the technology industry for a while, you probably remember when enterprises and software vendors had to think pretty hard about whether to develop locally-installed desktop applications or web-based browser applications. These days, whether you're building mashups, gadgets, or full-blown applications, it's a no-brainer: the browser is the delivery platform of choice. However, users expect more from the up-and-coming generation of web applications than the simple click-and-wait of yesterweb. And if you're a web developer, you know that this requires AJAX, the cluster of technologies including JavaScript and dynamic HTML that can make browsers do backflips.
But the stark reality of AJAX applications is that, although they can deliver sexy features and great usability, they are unusually hard to engineer. Browser quirks and the anything-goes nature of JavaScript will inevitably frustrate even the most dedicated developers and add risk to your schedule with every line of code written. If you do eventually manage to construct a complex AJAX application that works, you're likely to find that maintaining it over time can be a major challenge. And all that doesn't even scratch the surface of testing, optimizing, securing and internationalizing your application. (If you are currently working on an ambitious AJAX project and haven't yet come to this conclusion, please re-read this post in six months when you're further along!)
We've learned a lot from our experiences building web applications, and we're happy to share the tools we've created. Google Web Toolkit is an open source project that helps Java developers harness the richness of AJAX in a cross-platform, web-friendly environment. The magic trick is that GWT cross-compiles Java source code into standalone JavaScript that you can include in any web page. Instead of spending time becoming JavaScript gurus and fighting browser quirks, developers using GWT spend time productively coding and debugging in the robust Java programming language, using their existing Java tools and expertise. Naturally, GWT is also a great way to easily take advantage of the latest-and-greatest Google APIs and browser enhancements, such as Google Gears.
In addition to making debugging far easier, GWT's unique compilation-based approach to AJAX has the nice property that it rewards developers for good software engineering practices. Java source code that is clear and organized can be easily optimized by the GWT compiler, which is a nice antidote to the frequent hack-and-slash approach that's all too common in JavaScript development. As your application grows, the GWT compiler begins to pay off in even bigger ways. Unused code is automatically removed so that scripts are smaller and pages load faster. Complex code can be automatically coalesced and simplified. Most importantly, because the Java language is statically typed, many common errors can be caught during development rather than production. You can observe the high-performance results yourself in GWT's sample Mail application.
Technical details aside, GWT makes it easy to develop fast, friendly web apps that users love — which is, after all, the point.
Download GWT 1.4.
Schulze/Webb Copyright
"The brief was set by the BBC, and there was a progressive clause in the contract: S+W do the thinking, produce communication material and present to the project team there; the BBC can use any of the ideas without restriction, but we retain copyright on the report itself."
Poll: New Yorkers Prefer Hillary Over Rudy...To Handle Terrorism!
As you've probably heard by now, Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 performance was a Masterful Display of Churchillian Resolve, and as a result, Rudy the candidate should now be seen as a kind of cross between...
Poison (1991), Todd Haynes
I've loved Haynes since Superstar, but never seen Poison, and I've got to admit I was slightly taken aback by Mark N's audacious choice of date movie.
It turned out to be a good thing, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it on an ad hoc date basis - check whether the person you're interested in likes Foucault first. The film's made up of three inter-cut stories - Horror, Homo and Hero shot in three genre delirious styles - 1950s sci-fi, queer cinema and documentary, with Genet credited as co-writer. The film looks at sexual stigmatization, debasement and perverse desire (or maybe desire made perverse), but manages to be very funny, touching in places, as well as pretty repulsive. The closing scene to Homo - a technicoloured flashback to the protagonists memory of a gang rape reenacted in spit and rose petals - has got to be one of the most disturbing I've ever seen.
Norman Bryson, Todd Haynes's Poison and Queer Cinema (spoiler warning)
Boing Boing redesigns with comments
and a new gadget blog by Joel Johnson
WTF?!
apparently, this cat sits on you, then you die two hours later. Unclear whether the cat can see the future or is made of poison.
[ via strangemaps of course ]
West Nile Spraying in Washington Heights
If you live in Washington Heights, you'll want to stay indoors tonight. The Health Department will be spraying pesticide as a preventive bid against the West Nile virus. The Post reports that the spraying (of Anvil 10+10) will be at Trinity Cemetery between 8PM and 6AM. While there are no reported cases of people with the West Nile virus yet, the Health Department has been spraying parts of Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island this summer. Here are some tips from the Health Department:
• Use an approved insect repellent containing DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus. (Products containing oil of lemon eucalyptus should NOT be used on children younger than three.) Use these products according to manufacturers’ instructions. • Make sure windows have screens, and repair or replace screens that have tears or holes. • Eliminate any standing water from your property, and dispose of containers that can collect water. Standing water is a violation of the New York City Health Code. • Make sure roof gutters are clean and draining properly. • Clean and chlorinate swimming pools, outdoor saunas and hot tubs. Keep them empty and covered if not in use; drain water that collects in pool covers. • Report dead birds or standing water by calling 311 or visiting http://www.nyc.gov/health/wnvLast year, the first case of West Nile was on Staten Island. And two years ago, some people contracted West Nile through organ donation.
DiNapoli to MTA: "Talk of a fare hike is premature."
In an announcement that surely pleases voters, State Controller Thomas DiNapoli released a report saying the MTA should think again before raising its fares and tolls. DiNapoli said that the MTA hasn't made enough internal budget cuts yet to warrant an increase in fares and tolls. The proposed increases in fares and tolls is 6.5% in 2008 and another 5% in 2010. With the MTA set to vote on the fare increase in December, DiNapoli's report says the vote is premature because it comes before Governor Spitzer's 2008-09 budget and before the findings of a commission on congestion pricing. The budget and congestion pricing both affect MTA's funding. In his report, DiNapoli says:
"The MTA should put New York’s commuters first. Before the MTA asks for more money from straphangers, it should develop a coordinated strategy with the State and City to balance its operating budget and to finance the next five-year capital program. The MTA has taken some good first steps to develop a long-term plan for its future fiscal health. But talk of a fare hike is premature. The City is trying to reduce congestion and encourage greater use of mass transit. Any fare increase should be the last piece of a comprehensive plan, not the first."MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin says they've already taken what DiNapoli said into consideration, but the agency still needs to raise fares. While the MTA will probably ignore DiNapoli's input, there's one thing that stands out in the comptroller's findings: "The MTA saved only $12.3 million from management actions planned for 2006, which is just 41 percent of its target savings." If the MTA is going to raise fares, it would be nice to see them at least meet their own targets for savings before passing the buck on to commuters. You can read the full report from the Comptroller's office here (136kb .PDF file). Earlier this month, City Comptroller Bill Thompson also released a report saying that the MTA doesn't need to increase fares. Cartoon by Mikhaela Reid via flickr
Catastrophic MagSafe Failure
Just when you think you’ve seen just about every kind of computer bug: Catastrophic MagSafe Failure from bbum.
Imaginary buttons for real web-services
I’ve been using last.fm for a long time, and I’m a fan.
However, there’s one thing I find annoying, which is sometimes it seems to ‘fixate’ on a particular track by a particular artist and heavily-rotate it until it drives me crazy.
While I probably like the artist, and originally liked the track before I got sick of it - I have one option - to ban it.
Instead, I’d like to propose a ‘Snooze’ button for last.fm radio streams, that allows me to ‘rest’ the track or artist for an appropriate amount of time. (Illustration below with sincere apologies to the excellent last.fm design team)
Perhaps the amount of time the track ‘rests’ for based on my usage stats - but that could be presumptuous and annoying.
Better then to use a pattern that’s pretty well understood - a quick pop-up showing a few different ’snooze’ options exactly like you get in PIM and calendaring software.
It wouldn’t negatively impact my rating of that artist necessarily, just give me a chance to come to the track with fresh appreciative ears a little (or a lot) later.
While I’m on the subject… And I’ve got photoshop open… Perhaps there’s room for an extra feature in upcoming.org too…
Dean Kamen previews an extraordinary new prosthetic arm, on TED.com
Inventor Dean Kamen gives a 5-minute talk about the extraordinary prosthetic arm he’s developing at the request of the US Department of Defense, to help the 1,600 "kids" who've come back from Iraq without an arm (and the two dozen who’ve lost both arms). Kamen's commitment to using technology to solve problems, and his respect for the human spirit, have never been more clear than in this deeply moving clip. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 05:41.)
Watch Dean Kamen's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances, including Kamen's 2002 talk on inventing and giving.
Read more about Dean Kamen on TED.com.
Embed this video: Use this code to run the video on your own site:
Alyssa Milano Supporting Her Lovahs?
In Las Vegas yesterday, Alyssa Milano modeled baseball caps by Twins Enterprise, a licensee of her own fashion line, TOUCH. And I thought she was wearing caps representing all the teams she's had boyfriends on.Silly me -- there would be way more hats.
Election Central Morning Roundup
Larry Craig Steps Down From Romney Campaign Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) has left his position as a Senate liaison for the Romney campaign, a key leadership position he'd had since February, after news...
Warner Bros' giant move into games
They've had enough of licensing out their characters, Warner have.
Media colossus returns to games publishing with plans to become a billion dollar division within five years
Speaking exclusively to MCV, senior VP of worldwide sales and distribution Ron Scott revealed that plans are in place to take back Warner licences like Superman, Batman, Harry Potter and The Sopranos.
And there's more: they're also operating out of London, they're going to headhunt like crazy, and it's not going to just be all movie spin-offs, either. This is good news! Methinks a contingent was probably at this year's Hollywood & Games, mm-hmm.
Having already released two ‘test run’ titles in the US, Warner recently set up shop in London and now has plans to self-publish in the UK and Europe.
But the aggressive push isn’t just reliant upon its existing IP – Warner also plans to cherry pick the best original IP and development studios.
At Least the Pizza's Good
You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”
--Spokesperson for the New Haven Mayor, on arresting some beer club germans
We Heard That Who, Too!
Many a music fan out there in MeFitown and beyond was delighted with and intrigued by that now-vanished website, Dylan Hears a Who! It featured backing tracks that captured, with an astonishing believability, both the sound and the feel of Highway 61-era Bob, not to mention an uncannily good Dylan vocal imitation. And of course, as is now legend, "Dylan" was singing lyrics straight out of the wonderful works of the good Dr. Seuss. Well, back in April Salon magazine broke the story of the very, very talented individual who put the whole thing together. Those for whom this is old news please forgive me, but it's news to me, and I can't find any notice of it here at MeFi, so, here it is.
Nintendo DS adverts on the tube.
Nintendo DS adverts on the tube., originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.Sometimes you have to grudgingly admire the nous of advertisers/marketers.
Reaching out to non-gamers by making a piece of gaming hardware seem appealling by
- avoiding all the games industry marketing cliches
- making it look (superficially) like a generic advert for pharmaceuticals / insurance / beauty products.
- advertising a boredom-destroying device on the tube where people are bored, by giving them something quite dense to read about said boredom-destroying device.
I have yet to see a rash of Nicole Kidman-a-likes on the Central Line however…
August 27, 2007
Now Fully Cooperating with Google
If you’ve ever used the built-in site search on Subtraction.com then, well, my apologies. Believe me, I was fully aware that searching this site via that creaky old CGI script was more or less the equivalent of mailing in a question to the Library of Congress and checking your mailbox every day for a reply after working in the fields. That is, it was slow search. I just didn’t have the means to fix it.
All that’s changed, because searching this site is now powered by the brute, irrepressible and undeniable force of Google. They’re a little company on the West coast that specializes in helping you find stuff on the Interweb. And they’re quite good at it too, so the results should be pretty satisfying. Give it a spin; you’ll notice a bajillion-fold speed increase. Now all you have to do is figure out what you’re going to do with all that extra time.
Search Me
This change for the better was made possible by Google’s pretty good and relatively new Google Co-op program, which allows everyday users like you and me to create custom search engines for our sites. Unlike previous tools from Google that offered similar custom search engine functionality, it’s actually possible to manipulate the look and feel of a Co-op engine’s results display so that it aesthetically matches your own site.
Right: Results oriented. The new Subtraction.com search results display, courtesy of Google.That is, it’s possible to do that to an extent, as you must still use a handful of relatively simple controls on Google’s Web site in order to effect your manipulation. It’s better than what was functionally available before — if you try a search, you’ll see that the results are reasonably in line with the look of Subtraction.com — but it’s far from a completely manipulable tool. It’s not altogether easy to affect low-level change on the results’ typography, for instance, which is something I’d really like to do.
The State of Search
Slowness aside, I had a fondness for the old, built-in site search provided by Movable Type. It allowed a much higher level of control over the results display, and its method of breaking out results according to one’s various blogs — so that if your installation of Movable Type powered four blogs, for instance, it would group results from each blog together — made for some pretty useful results, all things considered.
I’m a realist though. And there’s no denying that over the past half-decade, the reality of search has become Google. Which is to say that when a user of a Web site enters a search term into a search field — just about any search field, regardless of where on the Web it is — the expectation for the nature of the search experience is the Google search experience.
Users now expect results to be returned as quickly as Google’s results, expect them to be displayed in a simple, unadorned manner like Google’s, expect them to be as relevant as Google’s. It just doesn’t make sense to be in the search game on your own anymore, to attempt to provide a competitive product to Google’s when people can just go straight to Google themselves. Why fight it?
Incidentally, this is the advice I offer anyone looking to improve their search, whether it’s a Fortune 1000 company, a startup, an individual blogger or even my own employers. Unless you’re really prepared to compete with Google in terms of financing, engineering and experience design, I say just get out of the search game altogether and let Google handle it for you while you focus on what only you can do — and Google cannot.
Now that’s taken care of, it’s time to do something about the painful slowness of my comment submission form.
Irene Au - Bay Area’s Stealth User Experience Leader
For the longest time, not that many people working in experience design had heard of Irene Au. Which was surprising, considering her background — she began at Netscape when it was going strong, then spent 8 years at Yahoo, building one of the sharpest UX teams in Silicon Valley, and is now Director of User Experience at Google.
In the last year or so, Irene has become much more public. She spoke at our first MX Event (in an interview with Jeffrey Veen), and appeared on a panel at SXSW (which you can listen to here.) Irene’s insights into what it takes to build a successful experience design practice within large, fast-paced (and mostly technology-driven) organizations are definitely resonant, as this blog post demonstrates.
We’re excited that Irene is once again joining us at MX East, where she’ll be speaking solo on what it takes to elevate the practice of design within organizations so that they can deliver great experiences to the world. As always, use promotional code BLOG to get 10% off the registration price.
The People’s 311
The People’s 311 is a public photo pool documenting non-emergency 311 conditions throughout New York City. We encourage citizens to post photos here of dangling traffic signs, illegal advertising, dead or dying street trees and the like, along with thei
Happy Hour Roundup
Big Fire Fighters Union Backs ... Chris Dodd Ben Smith reports that the International Association of Firefighters has decided to endorse Chris Dodd for president, rather than one of the current...
rb_07_aug_27c
story links: rb field correspondent ruud elmendorp covers a rare press conference held by joseph kony, leader of the lord's resistance army (l.r.a.)
joanne
Photo of the Day: Giant Ice Cream
I'm so glad Robyn is going to be back in the office tomorrow so she can find good Photos of the Day. I'm spotty at best and just end up teasing Robyn by posting photos from her own Flickr account.
Past the jump, a bonus PotD.
[Note to Robyn: DO NOT CLICK PAST THE JUMP. You will ruin the surprise we have for you here at the office.]
OK. The bonus PotD lies below. You'll have to scroll a bit to get to it. I'm only doing this so that Robyn—if she has clicked or is reading this in an RSS reader—does not see the photo right away.
Keep scrolling ...
Keep scrolling ...
Some more ...
Robyn, if you're still scrolling, stop now!
The rest of you, keep scrolling ...
Robyn: STOP NOW. If you ruin your own surprise, we're going to stick you with the TPS Reports for the week ...
OK, here it is, your moment of Zen:
The giant Robyn picture we made while she was away on vacation from this image, using the Rasterbator web app. Sorry that the image quality is so poor, but you get the idea.
If you're reading this, Robyn, you BETTER act surprised tomorrow morning.
Common featuring Lily Allen "Driving Me Wild" Video
New video Drivin' Me Wild from Common's "Finding Forever" album, with Lily Allen on the hook ad Kanye West behind the boards. Also check behind the scenes footage here. via realtalkny Common featuring Lily Allen "Drivin Me Wild" Video
Common - Drivin' Me Wild (feat. Lily Allen)
Kanye West Cameo on Entourage
Kanye West keeps the promotion machine rolling for his new album "Graduation" with a cameo on Entourage, meeting up with the hip-hop kingmaker Turtle. I thought Entourage was slipping in the first half of this season but it's been picking up a bit in the later episodes.
Mahalo Funnies
Someone named “C.K. Sample III” emailed me with an invite to try something called Mahalo, which I gather is a hot subject among the A-listers. I was on a boring telecon, so I fired up Firefox and gave it a try. Hey, it said “Mahalo's search results only include great links.” The results are hilarious.
Mahalo is a Firefox thingie that adds both sidebar and toolbar clutter. It watches what you type in the search window and gives you its own version, so you can compare. I tried a few:
Search Mahalo Top 3 Tim Bray Tom Brady
Gisele Bundchen
Bridget MoynahanAtom Publishing Protocol VoIP
Skype
JajahLauren Wood Elijah Wood
The Lord of the Rings Film Series
Dominic MonaghanGidon Kremer Krispy Kreme
Doughnuts
CoffeeSun Microsystems John Doerr
Sumant MandalAudiophile Audioslave
Rage Against The Machine
SoundgardenThere’s some upside here: I’d never seen a picture of Gisele Bündchen before.
On the other hand, it did an OK job on “DRM”, “Stardust”, and “Vancouver”.
Report: Hillary Is Not "Unelectable," And The Polling Data Prove It
Does Hillary really have an "electability" problem? The charge is thrown around with a startling degree of recklessness by our pundits, who more or less base this assessment on little more than the...
Leopard builds edging ever closer to GM
Some visual polish has been added to the latest developer seed of Leopard, as well as noting a new recommended testing procedure. Leopard is almost ready to make its debut to the world.
FOXNews.com - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Resignation Prompts Strong Reaction - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum
"Alberto Gonzales is the first attorney general who thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth were three different things." in the morning he'll forget he's not attorney general anymore
Owen Wilson's Statement
I don't know why I feel so sad about this Owen Wilson thing. He just seems like such a happy go lucky cat, ya know? After all, he's the friggin' Butterscotch Stallion. But I think it just goes to show that everybody has problems -- rich or poor, celebrity or commoner, team aniston and team jolie. That's how it goes.
Here's the statement Owen's peeps released to TMZ.com:
"I respectfully ask that the media allow me to receive care and heal in private during this difficult time."Done! Get well soon, BS.
A Must See
Ms. South Carolina answering a question at the Miss Teen USA pageant. This made me day.
Its not just a blogging tool anymore
More and more people are making the switch to Movable Type or choosing Movable Type for their next big web project because people are beginning to see that MT4 is not just a blogging tool anymore. In actuality It is very capable web site management tool with its:
- Built in support for pages
- Ability to allow users to manage image, audio and video content
- Extensible Asset Management System
- Centralized management capability of multiple blogs and web sites
These features are helping businesses see how Movable Type 4.0 can be used to replace large bulky Content Management Systems at a fraction of the cost.
And nothing illustrates Movable Type's content management capabilities more than the community's most popular plugin: Custom Fields. In fact, when asked the question, "if you could have one and only one plugin installed in Movable Type, which would it be?" more people indicated Custom Fields, or the ability to add custom fields to a blog than any other plugin. Which shows, Custom Fields is not just for businesses because it allows anyone to build the web site they need, not the web site we think they need.
Before we started development on 4.01 we asked Arvind, "what can we do in MT 4.01 to make Custom Fields better?" He immediately gave us his wish list and we got to work. So now with the beta of 4.01 out the door Arvind has finally released Custom Fields 2.1 beta 4 so that others can start using, testing and witnessing for themselves the power of Movable Type 4.0.
linking open data
If it isn’t already, put the Linking Open Data project on your radar. It’s a grassroots effort to make large data sets available on the web. These aren’t just tarballs sitting in an FTP directory either–they’re URL addressable information resources available in machine readable format. A few weeks ago Joshua Tauberer announced the availability of the US Census as close to 1 billion triples. If you like data and the web the discussion list is a wonderful place to watch these data sets getting released and linked together.
Crop
Crop, a programming language for crop circles
[ via delicious ]
Owen Wilson Hospitalized in Possible Suicide Attempt!
This is so out of nowhere. Owen Wilson was hospitalized Sunday night, after his brother Andrew allegedly found him with his wrists slit, next to an empty bottle of pills. People.com is reporting that Santa Monica police issued a statement saying officers responded to a "medical assistance call" at Owen's house on Sunday."The person was transported to a local hospital where they are being treated," the police statement said. Later in the evening, Owen's brothers Andrew and Luke, as well as his parents, were seen at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.
The National Enquirer editor-in-chief told Perez Hilton that when Andrew found him "both of Owen’s wrists were slashed superficially and Owen had taken an overdose of pills." Owen is said to be in stable condition, as of now.
We're not usually inclined to believe the Enquirer, so we'll keep you posted as the details of the story unfold, but this is so shocking!
iDive 1.8
About iDive
Is a digital video shoebox…for your DV tapes and for all your QuickTime movies. It will turn any assortment of disorganised video files into an instantly accessible digital video library. Finding a clip hidden amongst hours of footage will never again be a problem.
Intuitive concepts such as people, places, events can be dragged and dropped onto your footage to simply, and quickly annotate your shots. A stunning visual timeline gives you that extra perspective on time and allows instant selections based on capture dates.
Featuring extensive export capabilities, iDive is designed to become your DV editing application’s best friend, by offering easy navigation, innovative visualization and turbo-charged search facilities.
August 26, 2007
"As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event."
Most of my (two or three) regular readers know I'm a huge Dahlia Lithwick fan, so it'll come as no surprise that I think her latest missive is pretty freaking amazing. Stemming from when, in 2004, two West Virginians were thrown out of a state-government-sponsored event (attended by the President) when they deigned to show up with anti-Bush T-shirts on -- and then were handcuffed, booked, and put in jail -- Lithwick then takes a look at our current Administration's history of preventing any dissenting voices from attending official White House events. She concludes with a look at the actual White House advance manual for such events, finding that it appears to have become the official policy of the United States to only allow those who are supportive of the Administration to be within earshot of the President. I guess, if nothing else, it explains how clueless Bush is that many of us out here disagree with him... but it's a sad statement nonetheless.
Markdown Scripts For MarsEdit
Drew Thaler has put together a pair of scripts for streamlined use of Markdown in MarsEdit, when the blog server is not configured to automatically process Markdown for presentaton.
With Drew’s scripts, you can write a post entirely in Markdown, then easily convert it to HTML before sending it to your weblog. He also provides a reverse script so you can edit existing posts by first converting them to Markdown, editing them, and converting them back before republishing. Nifty!
This is a really cool example of a MarsEdit user taking good advantage of the scripts menu to extend the application’s functionality. As you might imagine, I get a lot of requests from users who want to see a particular feature added to MarsEdit. I love it when the feature can be sort of “prototyped” as a proof of concept with AppleScript. I could see functionality like what Drew has put together being incorporated into the standard distribution of MarsEdit at some point. As development moves forward for 2.1 and beyond, I am going to aim for making the app even more user-extensible, because that’s where the most exciting ideas comes from. It’s ideal when users can not only come up with the idea but also implement a working example!
If you’re interested in Markdown but not using a weblog server that supports it natively, Drew’s scripts might make a nice addition to your MarsEdit configuration!
Oakland's Woes
"There is randomness to the violence that makes any type of strategic approach increasingly more difficult. So much of the violence is unprompted. ... Law enforcement is better equipped to address feuds between rival gangs than an argument in the fast food drive thru that leaves someone dead."
Holding a Program in One’s Head
Paul Graham:
Mathematicians don’t answer questions by working them out on paper the way schoolchildren are taught to. They do more in their heads: they try to understand a problem space well enough that they can walk around it the way you can walk around the memory of the house you grew up in. At its best programming is the same.
Doing More With Less
iMovie ’08 is perhaps the most polarizing product Apple has released in years.
California Gardens - Salvia microphylla berzerkeley
haha, bezerkeley!
BooseyTones
BooseyTones "Classical ringtones for the discerning phone"
"Being the world's largest publisher of classical music, Boosey & Hawkes can draw from an immense catalogue of music by such distinguished 20th century composers as Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Britten, Adams and Reich.
Previous centuries are represented by a host of venerable composers, from Handel to Tchaikovsky. After replacing Nokia's Gran Vals with a truetone version of Adam's Short Ride in a Fast Machine, dedicated followers of classical music (read: boomers) will also be pleased to swap standard cellphone wallpapers with a photograph of a pensive Prokofiev, or an engraving of Mozart's dapper silhouette. "
[Trendwatching via CoolBusiness]
Seen in Vienna
Seen in Vienna
Originally uploaded by schickr.11:44 13 July, 2007 Image 515
Seen in Vienna
Seen in Vienna
Originally uploaded by schickr.17:18 12 July, 2007 Image 503
Lovely demi-tasse at Noir et Rouge, Budapest
Lovely demi-tasse at Noir et Rouge, Budapest
Originally uploaded by schickr.16:32 11 July, 2007 Image 483
The Melting Pot Changes
Time Out New York’s issue this week is about race in New York City. It looks like the Asians are taking over!
Two weeks back, the headlines trumpeted this eye-popping statistic: Due to cost of living, African-American communities are fleeing New York City, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, their population dropping by more than 40,000 in the past six years. Meanwhile, groups identifying themselves as Hispanic or Asian saw bumps of 90,000 apiece over the same period—a sizable increase.
What’s that got to do with you, Mr. and Mrs. C+ in Social Studies? Well, you gotta wonder: How’s all this cultural and ethnic shifting going to affect the way you live? Will Brooklyn become predominantly Muslim or Hindu, as Indians and Pakistanis inhabit more ’hoods? Will the Bronx become primarily Latino? Can Manhattan—which just saw a rise in Caucasians—get any whiter? Most important, will groups continue to self-segregate, and what will that mean for the city?
- Manhattan The white population of Manhattan jumped 5.3%. Blacks? Down 4.2%.
- Bronx The group that self-identifies as Hispanic or Latino bumped up 14.5%.
- Queens The Asian population rose 13.9%, while white, black and Latino numbers fell.
- Brooklyn Asians also rose in Brooklyn, by 16.3%, but also growing are whites, with a 2.2% increase.
- Staten Island The Asian community jumped 36.6% but it’s still dwarfed by Richmond County’s whites.
[ via ]
reBlog Sources
Search
Archives
- April 1, 2007 - April 7, 2007
- March 25, 2007 - March 31, 2007
- March 18, 2007 - March 24, 2007
- March 11, 2007 - March 17, 2007
- March 4, 2007 - March 10, 2007
- February 25, 2007 - March 3, 2007
- February 18, 2007 - February 24, 2007
- February 11, 2007 - February 17, 2007
- February 4, 2007 - February 10, 2007
- January 21, 2007 - January 27, 2007
- January 14, 2007 - January 20, 2007
- January 7, 2007 - January 13, 2007
- December 31, 2006 - January 6, 2007
- December 24, 2006 - December 30, 2006
- December 17, 2006 - December 23, 2006
- December 10, 2006 - December 16, 2006
- December 3, 2006 - December 9, 2006
- November 26, 2006 - December 2, 2006
- November 19, 2006 - November 25, 2006
- November 12, 2006 - November 18, 2006
- November 5, 2006 - November 11, 2006
- October 29, 2006 - November 4, 2006
- October 22, 2006 - October 28, 2006
- October 15, 2006 - October 21, 2006
- October 8, 2006 - October 14, 2006
- October 1, 2006 - October 7, 2006
- September 24, 2006 - September 30, 2006
- September 17, 2006 - September 23, 2006
- September 10, 2006 - September 16, 2006
- September 3, 2006 - September 9, 2006
- August 27, 2006 - September 2, 2006
- August 20, 2006 - August 26, 2006
- August 13, 2006 - August 19, 2006
- August 6, 2006 - August 12, 2006
- July 30, 2006 - August 5, 2006
- July 23, 2006 - July 29, 2006
- July 16, 2006 - July 22, 2006
- July 9, 2006 - July 15, 2006
- July 2, 2006 - July 8, 2006
- June 25, 2006 - July 1, 2006
- June 18, 2006 - June 24, 2006
- June 11, 2006 - June 17, 2006
- June 4, 2006 - June 10, 2006
- May 28, 2006 - June 3, 2006
- May 21, 2006 - May 27, 2006
- May 14, 2006 - May 20, 2006
- May 7, 2006 - May 13, 2006
- April 30, 2006 - May 6, 2006
- April 23, 2006 - April 29, 2006
- April 16, 2006 - April 22, 2006
- April 9, 2006 - April 15, 2006
- April 2, 2006 - April 8, 2006
- March 26, 2006 - April 1, 2006
- March 19, 2006 - March 25, 2006
- March 12, 2006 - March 18, 2006
- March 5, 2006 - March 11, 2006
- February 26, 2006 - March 4, 2006
- February 19, 2006 - February 25, 2006
- February 12, 2006 - February 18, 2006
- February 5, 2006 - February 11, 2006
- January 29, 2006 - February 4, 2006
- January 22, 2006 - January 28, 2006
- January 8, 2006 - January 14, 2006