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February 13, 2010
LINK: Anil Dash on the real-time audience
Anil Dash on the real-time audienceWhen you are in an audience you see other people around you and there’s a social magic there. People band together, get excited, and things happen. Anil Dash thinks this reveals an opportunity on the increasingly “real time” web. How would sites or web apps be different if you could see who else is there with you in each moment?
Three Stacked Basketballs
Assignment for Dailyshoot 90 on 2010/02/13: “Odd or even: Compose an image with an odd or even number of subjects today, and make a photo. ”
On the Web at The Basketball Jones Show. We caught him as part of the Olympic festivities at the Granville Island Market. He's as much a comedian as juggler.
The Power of the Audience
- As I write this, the Twittersphere is going through its annual love/hate paroxysms about TED. Every year, the conference seems even more an event perfectly calibrated to inflame the bloggerati: Inarguably great presentations combined with unrepentantly exclusionary structure. A humanitarian aesthetic that shrouds a blatantly classist participation model. But what most vexes outsiders (including myself; I've never attended, though I've been invited to pay 2/3 the cost to attend one of their remote TV viewings of the event) is the sense of collective delusion that seems to overcome attendees, who fawn over even the least of the talks. It's sort of like Steve Jobs' famous Reality Distortion Field, but on more of a peer-to-peer basis. I like the idea of TED, and the people who run it, and the presentations it generates — but what's up with the groupthink?
- The New York Times reveals the teenage founder of random video chat phenomenon Chatroulette. Though the site's still new (and controversial) enough that Wikipedia's editors have thus-far decided it's not worthy of note, it's inarguably struck a chord, with a noticeably larger impact in media-fixated NYC than tech-focused San Francisco. Though the site can definitely be seen as creepy, people also seem mesmerized and intoxicated by the idea of connecting with strangers in such a visceral, immediate way.
- One of my favorite startups (naturally, part of our burgeoning NYC tech scene) is Chartbeat, which recently explained the crucial distinction that realtime analytics are not just faster analytics, they're a difference in kind from traditional static stats.
So what do these data points have in common? They're actually essentially about audience and shared experience. In the realtime web, we've focused a great deal on the latest noise. But as I said when I first wrote about the pushbutton web, what may matter most about realtime capaibilties is the user experience that's enabled. And the best use for realtime communications on the web is not to simply bring in the most recent information on a topic, but rather to make clear that others are experiencing or interacting with the same content at the same time.
There's Others Here With Us
Audiences matter. Being in an audience isn't simply about being at the same place at the same time. We act differently when we're in the presence of an audience. As audience members, we're more susceptible to being connected emotionally, expressing ourselves in uncharacteristically free ways, and forming lasting connections with the presenter, performer or content that we're experiencing.
Shy people start to sing along at concerts. Tea Party meetups start with group prayers that encourage participation from strangers who might otherwise be uncomfortable talking politics with strangers. Ostensibly unbiased journalists applaud at Apple keynote presentations. We are transformed when we're part of a shared experience.
Just as importantly, performers are elevated by the presence of the audience. I do a fair bit of public speaking, and I have obsessively watched a lot of the best performers of the pop culture world for my entire life. In studying their work, especially for artists who are significantly different between the studio work they do on a recording versus the live performances they do on stage, you can see a remarkable elevation of expressiveness and personality when they're facing an audience.
I've even seen it with bloggers and writers; Though blogging was often described (not inaccurately) as "theater for introverts" in its early days, a lot of bloggers and writers have matured into formidable public speakers as well. The first time I saw Malcolm Gladwell speak, almost seven years ago, he was an awkward and quiet presence, the very picture of an introverted writer. By just two years later, when he keynoted SXSW in support of the publication of Blink, he was effortlessly charming and spellbinding. Sure, he'd had a lot of practice. But it was clearly the interaction and attention of the audience that were drawing him out and raising his game.
Hello, Cleveland
When I create on the web today, I'm still completely isolated from the sense of having an audience. I have a couple of different (largely inaccurate or worthless) metrics about subscriber numbers, follower counts, or page views that I can look at to estimate the impact of something I've created. For a decade, though, I created posts on this blog with only a vague sense of people actually having a shared experience of reading these words. If I'm really lucky, a few friends might send me an instant message after publishing, and I'll know there was really someone on the other end of the line. Even long comment threads have the feel of the occasional straggler walking into a mostly-empty coffee shop for a few minutes: Cumulatively significant, but sparse and unpopulated at any particular moment.
That's a huge disconnect, and a huge opportunity. When I wrote my Facebook usernames post several months back, I had one of those rare moments where something I write resonates outside of the core tech community, and I could watch links to or mentions of the post roll in from Twitter and Facebook, in realtime. That sense that (what would eventually become) hundreds of people were all on my site at the same time was gratifying and rewarding in a way that felt, for the first time, just like the satisfaction I get when I know I've killed it onstage with a good presentation.
And we've misunderstood that motivation online for a long time. We deride searches for mentions of one's own work as "ego searches", implying there should be some sort of shame in looking for responses to our creativity. Services from YouTube to Twitter make it effortless to see what you've favorited from other people, but nearly impossible to measure or monitor who's marked your work as one of their favorites. Even if you can see that data, it's in an asynchronous, disconnected manner, instead of making clear which of those people were responding at the same time. Chartbeat mitigates this somewhat for me as a creator, but that doesn't help you as a reader. MyBlogLog, as ungainly and awkward as it's always been in its short life, would show some avatars for site visitors when they were on the same page. People embed live chat windows on their site so that visitors can talk to each other. But the essential experience of being in an audience isn't actually of audience members talking to one another. And while I've certainly been at movies where an excited and responsive audience improved the experience, I've absolutely never wondered if I could see a list of everyone in the audience with me, sorted by the order in which they found their seats.
Standing Room
Today's rough approximations of the right experience still fundamentally deny us the opportunity to be part of an audience together when we see something we love. Sure, we've all sent a YouTube link to a friend over instant messenger so that it could be enjoyed simultaneously, perhaps even to someone in the same room. But we're never allowed to just "look around" and see who else is there at the same time. It's part of the reason that very, very few web experiences can grab us and truly move us the way that media like movies and songs and television do.
There's a big opportunity here. I'm a better writer, blogger and thinker when I know there's an audience. (If I could see your eyes glazing over, maybe I would have edited this into a shorter post!) It could be transformative to our experience as creators if we could actually have the feeling of a real audience when we're sharing our thoughts to the world, instead of the arbitrary counts that the people selling advertising on the web have been referring to as an "audience" all of these years.
Most importantly, those of us who've had our lives transformed by the web, or who have had emotional and meaningful experiences of common connection through the Internet could have a way of sharing those experiences with a far broader audience that's familiar with the traditional behavior of audiences. I can't wait to see what becomes the equivalent of a standing ovation.
Thanks to Martin Fisch for the image.
Simplicity: Roundup of TED2010, Session 11
Benoit Mandelbrot: Bottomless wonders spring from simple rules repeated without end.
Magnus Lindkvist: We are afraid to say "I don't know."
George Whitesides: A stone is simple. But you can build cathedrals of stones.
Alan Siegel: We need to build humanity into our paperwork.
Philip K. Howard: The law must be simple enough that people can internalize it in their daily choices.
Chip Conley: Bhutan's created the ultimate export: a new global currency of well-being.
(Photos: TED / James Duncan Davidson)
"When you create a regulatory agency, you put together a group of people whose job is to solve some..."
“When you create a regulatory agency, you put together a group of people whose job is to solve some problem. They’re given the power to investigate who’s breaking the law and the authority to punish them. Transparency, on the other hand, simply shifts the work from the government to the average citizen, who has neither the time nor the ability to investigate these questions in any detail, let alone do anything about it. It’s a farce: a way for Congress to look like it has done something on some pressing issue without actually endangering its corporate sponsors.”
- Aaron Swartz: When Is Transparency Useful?
Autofollowing on Social Networks and User Privacy Becoming a Pawn in a Competitive Chess Games
Shared by Bud
This presents a great discussion of privacy and social networks. n.b., I'm sharing this from feedly which means you probably won't be able to comment on it directly from Google Buzz or even Google Reader.NOTE: For an official Microsoft statement on Google Buzz, go here. This post is a discussion of recent trends in social networking features in our industry and how they impact web users focusing on a feature of Google Buzz as a kick off point.
One of the much lauded features of the recently released Google Buzz is autofollowing which is described as “No setup needed: Automatically follow the people you email and chat with a lot”. This feature solves the what if you build it and they don’t come problem that Google Buzz faced. What if when presented with a bunch of FriendFeed-like features in Gmail, people decided that they don’t want to build another social network when they’ve already done so on places like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter? Auto-following ensured that Gmail users already had a populated network of people they were receiving status updates from once Google Buzz was launched. So from the perspective of Google, it’s a great feature.
But is the feature in the best interests of users? Ignoring some of the privacy issues of the people you email with becoming a public friends list there is still the question of whether the feature is good for users in isolation. Here’s a story; my wife is divorced and has kids from her previous marriage. This means she exchanges a lot of email with her ex-husband and his new wife around kid visiting schedules, vacations, etc. Do you think my wife would consider it a great feature if one day she started getting status updates on how her ex-husband and his new wife spend their days due to introduction of social networking features in her email client?
Those of us building social networking products have a responsibility not only to ask if a feature is good for our product but also whether it is good for our users as well. Sometimes these goals align and sometimes they do not. What we do when they don’t is what defines us as an industry.
I want to also call out some of the thought leadership on this topic that has come from Marshall Kirkpatrick over on ReadWriteWeb with posts such as Why Facebook is Wrong: Privacy Is Still Important where he discusses Facebook’s privacy changes from last year. Personally, I think Facebook cleaned up their privacy model because they used to have privacy setting based on regional networks where user data was visible to people in a geographic region (e.g. everyone in New York city or everyone in Australia can see my profile information) which is actually kind of dumb. There have been legitimate privacy issues related to such loose settings such as Rudy Giulani's daughter being a Barrack Obama supporter being visible to everyone from New York city on Facebook. With the change people with such settings were asked if they wanted their profiles to be public since they effectively were in the old model. The question Marshall Kirkpatrick brings up is whether it is better for Facebook users in such situations to be asked do you want to go from everyone in New York can see my data –> public or only visible to my friends and networks? It is clear which is better for Facebook as a service but not so clear what is better for their users with regards to their personal notions of privacy and mental well being.
Social networking has transformed the way people communicate and relate to each other in many tangible ways. However they are built on real human relationships and connections. I hate the thought that people’s relationships and communications are becoming the ammunition in a war between web companies to dominate a particular online space. We can be better than that. We must be better than that.
Now Playing: Bun B - You're Everything (featuring Rick Ross, David Banner, Eightball & MJG)
PFM/Depth Chart Update
Sorry it took so long, but this turned out to be a major update in a lot of ways - particularly on the pitchers.
If there was one type of comment that repeated frequently in the threads, it was that the pitchers looked way too pessimistic in their projections - far more so than the hitters. My first instinct was to simply accept it as PECOTA being PECOTA - the normal tendency of the group is down. There are a lot more different ways, and far less effort involved, in making a major league player worse than there are to make him better.
On further study, it may still be that, and it is possible that I’m chasing an idea the wrong way, but it is the best I’ve come up with for now. There is really only one significant change that went into this projection set from the last one - the pitchers are shown based on their 75% score, not their 50% score. I’m still trying to figure out the exact whys, but when I reran the 2008 and 2009 projections using the new PECOTA program, the best results for major league pitchers came from using a projection around the 75th percentile; using the 50th percentile resulted in large biases towards worse performance, exactly as noted in the player comments for the previous run. This effect was not found in the hitters; the best results for them did come from using the 50th percentile.
I believe that this is the result of a selection effect - that pitchers who do better than their true expectation are the ones who actually pitch in the majors; any slippage quickly results in reduced playing time or demotion to the minors (except for teams with no reserves, like last year’s Brewer rotation). While I would expect that to be true for hitters as well, I think the combination of lower margins (pitchers don’t separate from each other as widely as hitters do) and higher injury rates makes them more susceptible to the bias, and that’s what PECOTA is picking up. My worry is that while running the program in this configuration will make for better results in the major league forecasts, it will create undue optimism for a lot of borderline and minor league players - that by focusing on accuracy for a select subset (major league pitchers), I’ll degrade the accuracy for the group as a whole (all Organized Baseball pitchers). The problem does seem to have appeared with the 2009 PECOTAs; the main change between 2008 and 2009 was the inclusion of a lot more minor league players in the database, about 15 years worth.
But it does make a big difference in the performance of the model for major leaguers. Here are some results from my error testing. In each case, I have pro-rated the PECOTA projection to the pitcher’s actual innings pitched, and showing the root-mean-square error of the given component. So if I projected a 4.50 ERA, and the pitcher really had a 4.00 ERA in 180 innings, my error is 10 runs. The selection group was about 300 pitchers, chosen because they had forecasts from PECOTA and a number of other projection systems (like ZIPS and CHONE). The “new pecota” was run with all 2009 data removed from the system - it used no information that wasn’t available in February 2009.
Hits ER SO BB HR 2009 Pecota 17.45 14.95 16.30 10.37 4.66 (from 2/14/09 weighted means sheet) 2009 CHONE 15.61 13.19 16.69 10.55 4.59 2009 ZiPS 16.54 14.26 17.61 10.79 5.20 2009 Marcel 16.01 13.53 17.07 10.32 4.75 2009 new PECOTA 14.51 12.83 16.35 9.92 4.61 Running at 75% produces a dramatic improvement in hits and earned runs, a moderate improvement in walks, negligible improvement in HR, and a negligible worsening in strikeouts - and very narrowly missing a clean sweep of all categories.
Running just against the February 2008 version of the PECOTAs for the 2008 season, we get
Hits ER SO BB HR Old PECOTA 12.51 11.35 11.26 8.86 3.52 New PECOTA 11.41 10.47 11.18 8.29 3.56 This was based on 600 pitchers, who averaged a lower inning total, which is why the overall scale of the numbers comes down, but we can see that the “new PECOTA“, running at 75%, follows the same pattern as in 2009 - big improvements in H and ER, moderate improvement in BB, negligible differences in SO and HR.
It is natural to ask, then, how the hitters compare to the old PECOTA. For 2009, about 400 players, and scaling to plate appearances, the errors by each category are
H DB TP HR BB SO SB CS R RBI Old 10.91 5.26 1.92 5.20 9.59 12.08 4.71 1.86 9.55 10.99 New 9.99 5.21 1.86 5.05 10.05 12.57 4.63 1.94 8.75 10.80 With the hitters, we have an unfortunate step back in BB and SO, but improvements ranging from small to large in every other category. I’m still looking to see if I can improve those”non-event” scores, but I’ll happily take the gains.
Now, as to the depth charts themselves, I think I’ve gotten all of the free agents purged from them. A lot of the odd minor leaguers showing up on the depth charts are also gone - most of those were listed because they were the next best option the teams appeared to have in their own system, at the time I did the depth chart; as teams have signed more players, the need to reach so far down in the minors has diminished, but I’m still concerned about a team like the Twins, with no one behind Span that I’d trust in CF for more than a couple of games. Please do keep in mind that these charts are trying to look at the entire season, not just the Opening Day roster, and they are working on the assumption that injuries will happen. When they do, someone will get called up - someone who might have no shot at the major leagues when everyone is healthy. Some of the playing time projections that seem low are because PECOTA expects a player to suck, and I have a hard time believing a team will stick with him all season, regardless of how they declared him a starter early on. That will become even more true as spring training gets underway, and someone “wins” a job on the basis of a .387 spring over someone with a longer, better history of performance.
Lineup order is generally not that big a deal for me - they are notoriously changeable, and it is primarily to enhance or decrease the PA of players expected to be largely high or low in the order. When I do see a manager make specific statements about how he wants, I will work them in.Unfortunately, the changes that came in to PECOTA here has set back the production of the individual player cards. I do think the hitter card is down to one bug that I can fix today, and that the pitcher card format issues can be done by Monday if I don’t have to shovel any more snow (I live just south of the snowiest major city in the USso far this year. Those are entirely on me; I keep changing things to try and get them right.
Read: Oliver Perez, Last Season’s Mistakes, and Being Ready
In a report for Newsday, David Lennon says the Mets have paid special attention to Oliver Perez this off-season, as they feel so much of 2010 depends on how he performs.
…at least the team and the fans can agree on something, i guess…
Lennon says while the Mets believe 2009 was an aberration for Perez, they have learned from their mistakes, making sure he has committed himself to baseball by visiting Perez once a month this winter at Fischer Sports Physical Therapy in Arizona, as well as his home in Mexico.
Pitching coach Dan Warthen told Lennon:
“In talking to Ollie, I think he was embarrassed by last year…He was almost like a triple crown winner that winter, meaning he got the big contract, he got married. Mentally, he probably slipped into cruise mode.”
…thats a pretty harsh statement, and Warthen was harsh of him in Spring Training last year as well, but it’s all fair…he showed nothing that would lead us to believe he could live up to the contract he signed, and it started in Port St. Lucie last year…i’m glad to hear he has made a commitment to this team, and supposedly he has fixed his mechanics with his windup specifically, but time will only tell with him…
Perez, who is already at Tradition Field ahead of Thursday’s reporting date for pitchers and catchers, believes he is in the best shape since 2004 after reporting to Spring Training out of shape last year, saying:
“I’ve been working since September and I’ve been counting the days until Spring Training. Right now, I feel ready.”
For more on Perez, check out Lennon’s article in Newsday here.
Backstage Banter With Christian Siriano
After finishing up his show at at the Tents, we caught up with Project Runway alum and all-grown-up designer Christian Siriano backstage in the Mercedes-Benz Star Lounge backstage at Bryant Park. [Ed: check out Christian's cute BF Brad Walsh looking all-business on his cell in the background.]
Your show just ended. How are you feeling?
I am good! But I'm tired and I want to go to home, and get something to eat.
First thing on your agenda this morning?
I had a fitting with Amber Rose!
What was going through your mind?
I was excited and I thought we were ready. You always second guess yourself and look for what doesn't work, but other than that nothing too crazy.
How do you prepare yourself for a day like this?
You take lots of vitamin C and echinacea. I am not a big fan of all-nighters, we don't work past 1 a.m. because at that point everyone's tired and cranky and hates each other. I feel like it's not worth it. If you can get the dress done, don't put it in!
What's next for you?
I am looking forward to a little break but Market Week is all next week and that's going to be a process. Actually, that's more stressful than putting on a show: the buyers are the divas!
Note: The Quality of the Mets Organization
Peter Gammons, in a post to Twitter, asks: “if Jenrry Mejia, Jon Niese, Brad Holt, Ike Davis and Josh Thole are at Citi Field come August, how can the Mets organization be so bad?”
…interesting how he doesn’t mention Fernando Martinez, but i think Gammons makes a valid point, and i don’t think the Mets farm system is that bad, although it doesn’t appear to be very deep beyond the players he mentioned…i think the emphasis on the organization isn’t so much on the quality of the players on the farm, rather it’s the issues with management, the front office and decision making, and perhaps ownership as well…
…i think it’s important to point out while Omar Minaya made one major acquisition this winter, he recognized the weakness in the free-agent market this year, and was wise in not over spending on guys like Joel Pineiro, and Bengie Molina, and making trades out of haste and losing their crop in the minors…it’s not to say they don’t need their services in 2010, because there are a ton of questions these players potentially could have answered this season, but i think they are in a better position for the future by not committing too many dollars and years to mediocre talent, and it puts the players Gammons mentions in his tweet in a better position to develop and become part of the Mets future, rather than capping their potential within the organization…
New Gil Scott-Heron!
A handful of us over here in Justseeds NYC have a thing for Gil Scott-Heron, and no shit, he has his first record out in almost 20 years!!! His voice is really haggard, but pretty damn amazing...
February 12, 2010
I felt I needed to repost this
I felt I needed to repost this
Chunking, Subtlety, and Whitespace
I delayed writing about references in Perl 5 in the Modern Perl book for a long time. References in Perl 5 are useful. They have their warts. They're not as difficult as most people believe, however. Novices have trouble learning how to use references effectively because most tutorials and introductions explain them poorly.
I had to think about explanations for a long time before I found a way to explain them well.
Of course, the syntax for dereferencing gets complex very quickly—but it's also an effective example of what I've been discussing this week. Perl has a handful of subtle design consistencies that, if you understand them, help you read and skim code very effectively. If you don't learn them, you'll get lost in a sea of punctuation soup.
Consider an array reference
$monkeys_ref. You can get the number of monkeys by evaluating that reference as an array in scalar context in one of two ways:# the short way my $count = @$monkeys_ref; # the disambiguatey way my $count = @{ $monkeys_ref };The former way is shorter and more idiomatic. Anyone familiar with Perl 5 references should understand what the additional sigil means ("I want a list from the following reference"). The latter syntax has the same effect, but it means instead "I want a list coerced from the expression evaluated within this block." The difference is subtle and you don't have to understand the subtleties for this example.
Trouble arrives when you deal with nested data structures or more complex expressions, such as slices:
# error; does not work my $monkeys = join ',' @$monkeys_ref[@indices]; # works fine my $monkeys = join ',', @{ $monkeys_ref }[@indices];The first expression is problematic to parse; which takes precedence, the indexing operation represented by the square brackets or the dereferencing operation indicated by the leading sigil? The second expression works because the intended order of operation is clear, at least to anyone who understands how curly-brace grouping works with complex references.
The whitespace is unnecessary, of course, but I find that it adds clarity.
A little bit of disambiguation is necessary to help the Perl 5 parser in this case, but it also helps the reader. Students of compiler design might argue that nested expressions this complex belong on separate lines. I can imagine how this would read in a pseudo assembly language (I work on Parrot, after all). There's definitely a balance between the complexity of nested expressions and dereferencing... but this is a place where I consider the idiomatic use of Perl 5 sufficiently expressive that spreading the list slice out over multiple lines would obfuscate the intent of the code.
Certainly it's possible to perform even more complex dereferences of data structures, but when it's difficult to identify individual chunks of the desired behavior, it's time to simplify the code or the expression or the design. Even still, readability of this code does should not depend on the desire to avoid teaching novices about references.
How to Make Clarified Butter
VIEW SLIDESHOW: How to Make Clarified Butter
"Because old olive oil habits die hard."
How olive oil caught on as the must-have, nuts-and-bolts cooking fat in our home kitchens baffles me. As a fairly accomplished home cook and food writer just recently turned culinary student, I can only plead the "Everything I knew, I learned from my Italian grandmother" defense.
We used olive oil to "butter" our Italian bread, fry our meatballs, and sauté our broccoli rabe. Its green flavor and oiliness ran through everything we ate, and poor butter, as we knew it—that stiff, pale stick of Land-O-Lakes hardening away in the refrigerator door, covered in knife scars and crumbs—stood no chance.
It seemed every cookbook and cooking show host agreed, olive oil was the way we home cooks coated our skillets and browned our roasted chickens and even kept our scrambled eggs from sticking.
Why did no one (that means you, Grandma) ever let us in on the purer, more delicate and delicious all-purpose fat? I speak of clarified butter.
The main reason for cooking things in oil instead of butter is simply this: Oils tend to have a higher smoking point, so they run less risk of burning during high-temperature sautéing.
But, newsflash: When butter is clarified—the milk fats boiled out and separated, until only thick, golden butter fat remains—its smoke point is raised to, well, let's just say it's high enough to sear a thick steak or panfry a potato in. It also keeps longer than whole butter and imparts a concentrated, caramelly and delightfully nutty flavor.
How flavorful? Try this: grab three eggs and a sauté pan. Scramble those eggs one at a time in one tablespoon each of olive oil, then butter, and finally clarified butter. Taste them side by side.
There's no denying it when they hit your tongue one after another: Bitter. Creamier. Ridiculously rich and flavorful.
I still enjoy the taste of olive oil. It's lovely drizzled over a salad, mixed in a fluffy savory cake batter, or poured over roasted vegetables, steak, chicken—you name it. But once you taste your food (really taste it) with the background of sweet, toasty butter, you'll never turn back. Grandmas be damned.
About the author: "Sue Veed" is an editor at a Manhattan-based food magazine and a current culinary student who's trying to learn it all so she can cook it all. She'll take us along for the ride as she makes the journey from home cook to professional. Among things she may never master: looking natural in a chef's hat, and acting demure and acting demure whenever a pork product hits the table.
What can you learn about people by raising chickens?
One man's chickens have taught him much about "behaviour, ethics, evolution and the psychopathic nature of modern 'efficiency'"
The longer you watch chickens, the more you think of them as people rather than some strange alien species with feathers, beady eyes and a strange language. Squint a little as you watch them enact their various roles and you can see a brood of Sainsbury's retail managers jockeying to maintain position.
EaterWire: Totonno's Reopens, The Ripper Goes on Radio
[Bistro de la GareKrieger, 2/11/10]CONEY ISLAND— Totonno's, the pizza place that was shuttered due to a major fire last March has finally reopened. [Slice]
WEST VILLAGE— Bistro de La Gare, the new restaurant from two alums of West Village favorite Jarnac—including chef Maryann Terillo—opened on Wednesday. Click through to the restaurant's website to see the menu and make resys. [Eaterwire]
CELEB CHEFDOM—ABC News announces today that Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain will be hosting a five-week radio show on Sirius XM's Martha Stewart Living Radio called "Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert: Turn & Burn." Bourdain notes: "My feeling is if Martha Stewart asks you to do something, you do it." The show premieres next Thursday. [ABC]
Comment of the Week
“This is why I will NEVER buy anything from the Ed Hardy lines. None of it looks any good in the first place, and now it’s not even original ugly stuff.”–DanielleD, on Marc Jacobs trademark-infringement lawsuit against Ed Hardy.
dream homes
dream homes
The Greatness of Frank Thomas
Frank Thomas, a.k.a. “The Big Hurt,” officially retired today. However his career ended, his up-and-down (but hardly bad) 2000s makes it hard to recall his utter dominance in 1990s. I’m not going to get into the Hall-of-Fame debate about Thomas or designated hitters. Yes, we have to adjust for his defensive “contribution,” but fortunately, Wins Above Replacement does just that. The “FanGraphs Era” currently only extends back to 2002, so for some historical WAR perspective, let’s compare some career WAR numbers from Sean “Rally” Smith’s historical WAR database.
Frank Thomas 75.9
Pete Rose 75.4
Johnny Bench 71.4
Brooks Robinson 69.2
Edgar Martinez 67.2
Duke Snider 67.2
Eddie Murray 66.7To repeat: these numbers adjust for Thomas’s non-contributions on defense. If you think the players below him on that list are Hall-quality, then Thomas, who was “only” a monster hitter, should get in, too.
Enough of that, let’s discuss Thomas’s greatness as a hitter. For this, I calculated linear weights using data from the Baseball Databank. I use the same basic version of custom linear weights/wOBA that FanGraphs does, but having it on my own database just allows me to manipulate the data for stuff like this.* The linear weights (aka “Batting Runs” or wRAA) are customized so that each event is weighted properly for each season. The runs above average are park-adjusted (thanks, terpsfan). I then convert them to wins, which further reflects the relative value of a run in that season.
* There are probably some slight differences due to discrepancies in source data, different park adjustments, etc. but it’s very close. The batting runs also differ from Rally’s, since his weights are adjusted to reconcile on the team- rather than league-level. Neither is “right” or “wrong,” they are simply two different perspectives.
The top six career leaders in Batting Wins Above Average since 1955 (the first season Baseball Databank records intentional walks):
1. Barry Bonds 126.3
2. Hank Aaron 108.5
3. Willie Mays 91.0
4. Frank Robinson 89.7
5. Mickey Mantle 83.0
6. Frank Thomas 71.5Granted that good chunks of Mantle and Mays’ value came before 1955… that’s still impressive company. Among those with career numbers inferior Thomas are: Jeff Bagwell (64.0), Willie McCovey (62.8), Harmon Killebrew (60.0), Mark McGwire (56.9), Jim Thome (55.4), and Sammy Sosa (34.8).
Another way of judging impact is to compare overall career numbers with peak value in order to separate guys who just hung on. So let’s look at Thomas and two other great hitters of somewhat recent vintage and compare their career Batting Wins, their top three seasons, and the five-year continuous peaks:
Edgar Martinez
Career Batting Wins Above Average: 54.4
Career wRC+: 151
Top Three: 18.0 (6.8 in 1995, 5.6 in 1996, 5.5 in 1997)
Five-Year Peak: 27.5 from 1995-1999Mark McGwire
Career Batting Wins Above Average: 56.9
Career wRC+: 161
Top Three: 22.1 (9.3 in 1998, 6.7 in 1996, 6.1 in 1999)
Five year Peak: 30.1 from 1995-1999Frank Thomas
Career Batting Wins Above Average: 71.5
Career wRC+: 158
Top Three: 20.6 (7.1 in 1991, 6.8 in 1994 [!], 6.7 in 1992)
Five-Year Peak: 31.4 from 1992-1996 (includes 1994 strike)I included Edgar because of the recent discussions about him, and also because, while he was obviously a great hitter, I wouldn’t have thought his numbers would stand up so well against say, McGwire’s. They aren’t quite as good, but they are in the same territory. McGwire was obviously great, but I think not only Thomas’s career numbers, but arguably his peak was better, too. His five-year peak is slightly better, and though his top three seasons (or best one) aren’t quite as good as McGwire’s, his second and third best seasons are better than McGwire’s.
Moreover, both Thomas’s top three and five-year peak both included the strike-shortened 1994 season. Regression to the mean tells us that Thomas likely wouldn’t have continued at that rate, but do you think he would have hit at a league-average rate or below the rest of the season? There are a lot of “what ifs” in baseball, of course, and in 1994 in particular, as Expos fans know. But 6.8 Batting Wins in 113 games is simply astounding. And keep in mind that the AL was the more difficult league starting in the 1990s.
I’m not sure what better compliment to end on other than to say that when all three were at the top of their game(s), Frank Thomas was a more dominant hitter than Mark McGwire and Edgar Martinez.
Mattel introduces Computer Engineer Barbie
Oh hey kids! Turn down that Hannah Montana single and listen up, as it looks like Mattel is taking a walk on the nerdy side. After holding an online vote (cough, Reddit, cough), it looks like Barbie’s 125th career will be in the fast-paced and exciting world of computer engineering. We can’t wait for the line of accessories to go along with this Barbie. My pink Cisco routers, chartreuse Barracuda firewalls, and fuchsia Gig-E switches complete with leather bound installation manuals. As thrilled as nerds everywhere are sure to be that beauty has really “met the geek,” we wonder: will Barbie’s ergonomically designed office chair offset the previous generation’s breast-related scoliosis?
Is America Out of Control?
Doesn't America seem particularly out of control this week? First-graders taken to mental institutions! Bank of America foreclosing on homes that don't actually have mortgages! Dan Quayle's son running for Congress in Arizona! Movies about love with a cast of thousands that are terrible! What is going on?
Salinger
Michael Greenberg
J.D. Salinger; drawing by David LevineRereading J.D. Salinger after his death on January 27, I am struck by an improbable connection between his work and that of Jack Kerouac. Both were writing in the late Forties and Fifties, from opposite ends of the social spectrum, but with a relentless ethos of non-conformism at the center of their fiction. Salinger, however, has none of Kerouac’s easy American Romanticism, much less his patriotic celebration of the open road. Salinger’s world is one of constricted New York spaces: bathrooms, restaurants, hotel rooms, buses, a tiny obstructed table in a piano bar where one barely has room enough to sit down. The high cost of not conforming is far more palpable in Salinger than in Kerouac. For Salinger’s characters, to be different isn’t a choice but a kind of incurable affliction, a source of existential crisis rather than social liberation.
There’s no alternative “lifestyle” for Holden Caulfield or the members of the Glass family to retreat to, as there is for the Beats, no group of like-minded adventurers. Salinger’s characters aren’t after thrills. Their quest is for an impossible purity that drives them away from the workaday world, toward a dangerous, self-burying seclusion. “We’re…freaks with freakish standards,” says Zooey Glass to his sister Franny. “We’re the Tattooed Lady, and we’re never going to have a minute’s peace, the rest of our lives, till everybody else is tattooed too.”
Salinger’s subject is the burden of having these freakish standards, of being what Tolstoy called “an aristocrat of the spirit.” His freaks are the sort most people would envy—good-looking, witty, talented, well off. But they are paralyzed by their uncompromising sensibility. Franny, a gifted actress, abruptly quits the stage to seek the attainment of satori through repetitive, entrancing prayer. Acting embarrasses her. “I feel like such a nasty little egomaniac,” she tells her boyfriend. The boyfriend accuses her of behaving as if “you’re the only person in the world that’s got any godamn sense.” He wonders if maybe she’s afraid to compete. “It’s just the opposite,” says Franny.
Don’t you see that? I’m afraid I will compete—that’s what scares me. Just because I’m so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else’s values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn’t make it right. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.
Effortlessly distinguished, Franny seems the furthest you can be from a nobody; in Salinger’s world this becomes the logical reason for wanting to be one.
Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye is beset by a similar crisis of authenticity. It isn’t merely that most people are “phony”; the deeper problem is that sincerity itself is suspect. Like the members of the Glass family, Holden lives in a hell of second-guessing, in which every motive—even those behind seemingly altruistic acts—is potentially corrupt. He demands a purity that is impossible because it opposes the basic machinery of human nature. Thus, to be a high-minded lawyer, for instance, who goes about “saving innocent people’s lives,” would be tainted by the fact that you wouldn’t know
if you did it because you really wanted to save guys’ lives, or if you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the godamn trial was over…. How would you know you weren’t being a phony? The trouble is you wouldn’t.
J.D. Salinger, New York, November 20, 1952 (San Diego Historical Society/Getty Images)Intent is given equal moral weight to action, even when intent can’t be definitively known! Under the circumstances, the only solution is the renunciation of ambition itself. Salinger’s characters are like aspiring monks with no religion.
Throughout Salinger’s fiction is a highly defined, consistent aesthetic, so exacting that it negates creative action itself. In The Catcher in the Rye, a virtuosic jazz pianist has stooped to “dumb show-offy ripples in the high notes, and a lot of other very tricky stuff that gives me a pain in the ass.” The people in the club listening to the pianist roar their approval, “the same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn’t funny.” Attending a Broadway play starring the universally worshiped actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Holden remarks “…they were good, but they were too good.” The delivery of their lines was
supposed to be like people really talking and interrupting each other and all. The trouble was, it was too much like people talking and interrupting each other. If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good anymore.
Holden is instinctively postmodern, too knowing to suspend disbelief, and hyper-aware of the motif or trope that is behind every formal performance. At Radio City Music Hall “a guy came out in a tuxedo and roller skates on, and started skating under a bunch of little tables, and telling jokes while he did it. He was a very good skater and all, but I couldn’t enjoy it much because I kept picturing him practicing to be a guy that roller-skates on the stage.” To be a true artist, the performer must give up being on stage.
Near the end of the novel Holden has an elaborate fantasy of living in seclusion in a cabin in the country. “I’d have this rule that nobody could do anything phony when they visited me. If anybody tried to do anything phony, they couldn’t stay.” Holden doesn’t make good on the fantasy, but his creator did, living reclusively in Cornish, New Hampshire, for more than fifty years, in what appears to have been a state of relative contentment. According to Salinger he continued to write about the Glass family during those years. He declined to publish these books, if that’s what they are, while he was alive, disgusted perhaps with the vagaries of “ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s,” as Franny put it. He seemed to regard his literary success as a moral stain. It would be hard to think of a contemporary American writer whose personal life was more true to the ethos of his fiction.
Shaking cancer cells to death
Some scientists have developed a promising method for targeting and destroying individual cancer cells without harming the tissue around them. Tiny (like nano tiny) gold-plated iron-nickel discs are attached to cancer-seeking antibodies. The antibodies attach themselves to the cancer cells and when an alternating magnetic field is applied, the metal nano-discs vibrate and literally shake the cancer cells to death.
Since the antibodies are attracted only to brain cancer cells, the process leaves surrounding healthy cells unharmed. This makes them unlike traditional cancer treatment methods, such as chemotherapy and radiation, which negatively affect both cancer and normal healthy cells.
(thx, @richardjellis)
Tags: cancer medicine science
Google TechTalk: The Evolution of End-User Programming
End-User Programming has been a topical discussion lately in mainstream software outlets. The IEEE journal Software recently had an issue dedicated to end-user programming challenges; see Joel Brandt's Opportunistic Programming: Writing Code to Prototype, Ideate and Discover and Martin Erwig's Software Engineering for Spreadsheets. Also, a few years ago a consortium of universities formed End-Users Shaping Effective Software, which includes Martin Erwig's PLT work on bringing type systems to spreadsheets.
Recently, Google invited Allen Cypher to give a TechTalk on The Evolution of End-User Programming, which appears to be a recapitulation of his VL/HCC paper by the same name. Allen was the editor of Watch What I Do (an LtU recommended reading).
Towards the end of the talk, Allen mentions the practical issues of knowing when to use what tool, and that novice users struggle with finding the right tool for the right job. What's notable about discussion of end-user software engineering is how little attention its proponents pay to its critics biggest criticism: Security. In the IEEE Software realm, probably the most open critic has been Warren Harrison (see: The Dangers of End-User Programming). For example, Ko's 2009 ACM Computing Survey The State of the Art in End-User Software Engineering only mentions security once, in the context of designing end-user description languages for security, but does not assess how well this technique compares to techniques software engineers might employ. It seems strange that leading researchers in visual languages and end-user programming do not discuss the potential usage of object capability systems, especially as companies try to monetize a percentage of the value added by users who mash-up their service with other services.
kindle as service v. kindle as product
Andrew blogs the rumor that Amazon is going to give Kindles away to their Prime subscribers[1], and comments...
But I don't know... there's something about it that still just doesn't feel right to me. Most of my heavy reading friends love theirs (I'm looking at you Sippey). I'm buying an iPad as soon as it comes out and can see applications for it in my life all over the place. And hey, I'll happily take a free device I didn't want any time. But for some reason, I just don't see myself lustily opening that free Kindle and gleefully downloading away.
Since I was called out, I had to comment...and since I left such a long comment I thought I'd reblog it here.
My book buying habits aren't necessarily lusty, but now just more "on demand." Done with one book, pick up the next right now. I've shifted the bulk book buying I used to do on Amazon to the device... But frankly, they do a really lousy job of merchandising titles through the Kindle's on-device store -- it's a seriously crappy shopping experience.
Which makes me wonder just what the heck they're doing. This just feels like a combination of iPad fear an unnatural love for his own device on the part of Bezos. Assuming that Apple doesn't lock them (and Stanza and all the other one off ebook sellers in the app store) out of the iPad because of the iBookstore, presumably they'll have a great Kindle.app for the iPad, just like they do for the iPhone. Sure, the Kindle's probably a better reading experience outside, but unless they're sitting on some massive amount of inventory that they don't want to have to write down completely, or are thinking about their Spint data deal in the wrong way (sunk costs, anyone?) I just don't get this.
I'm not saying that they should exit the business, mind you, but that they should just rightsize it, make the product better, and realize that Kindle as a service brand will have a longer shelf life[2] than Kindle as a product brand. Amazon should look at the iPad and scream "holy crap, this is awesome -- we can have a much better selling experience on the device than we can with our slow, non-responsive black-on-gray reflective screen device. Hooray!" Instead, Bezos just wants to be Jobs.
[1] I loved Hunter Walk's tweet this morning on this: "Conspiracy Theory: Apple behind the 'free kindle to amazon prime customers' rumor to chill kindle sales pre-ipad"
[2] Pun fully intended.
Macworld 2010: Microsoft's MacBU talks Office for Mac 2011
Filed under: Macworld, Enterprise, Software, Interviews
The next version of Microsoft's Office suite, slated for arrival during the fourth quarter of 2010, has a new name, enhanced functionality, and even a more streamlined look. TUAW met with members of the Microsoft Mac Business Unit (MacBU) on Thursday to hear how the developers of Office for Mac are responding to requests from users to make it easier to work on documents across platforms.
Some of the most welcome additions to the suite from an author's point of view are the co-authoring tools (see below). These tools enable Mac users to work on Office documents across platforms and locations, eliminating issues with version control. Office for Mac 2011 will have a Presence Everywhere feature providing status updates on who is working on a document at a particular time. The suite will also connect to Microsoft Office Web Apps (currently in beta) so that any Office documents can be shared or accessed from any Internet-connected computer.
Microsoft has taken a cue from the "tool ribbon" in the existing Windows Office applications and changed the Office for Mac user interface to be familiar to Windows users, yet intuitive to Mac users. The team noted that more than 80 percent of the features used most by Office users are now located in the tool ribbon so that the users don't have to dig around to find tools.
The MacBU had previously announced that the Office 2008 collaboration application, Entourage, would be replaced by Outlook for Mac. According to the team, Outlook for Mac utilizes the Exchange Web Services protocol and is a Cocoa app, providing not only additional Exchange compatibility but also better integration with Mac OS X. Many Microsoft customers had requested that Outlook for Mac have the ability to import .PST files from Outlook for Windows, and that wish has been granted. The single database used in Entourage is being replaced with a high-speed file-based database that works well with Spotlight and Time Machine.
If you need to make sure that sensitive documents or information are not spread outside the confines of your company's email system, Information Rights Management is now built into Outlook for Mac. That essentially puts a lock on sensitive information, insuring that it isn't readable by non-authorized personnel.
Microsoft's MacBU wants to hear from you! The team has a Twitter account (@OfficeforMac), a Facebook page, and a blog, and they'd love to hear your input about this application suite. We'll be sure to keep you updated as we get closer to the release date.TUAWMacworld 2010: Microsoft's MacBU talks Office for Mac 2011 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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PHOTO: Joshua's cat gets an eyeful of Campfire.
Joshua’s cat gets an eyeful of Campfire.
Why is flying hard?
Nelson Minar on why flying is so difficult (in comparison to driving).
Cars only steer in one dimension; planes steer in two. Even a level turn is hard in a plane, you have to coordinate two controls, except sometimes you deliberately uncoordinate them. Managing engine power is harder in a plane: two or three controls in a piston, not just a single pedal. And then there's auxiliary controls you have to use occasionally: flaps, carburetor heat, fuel tank selector, etc. Even starting a plane requires carefully using four controls in the proper relationship.
My dad was a pilot and used to let me fly when I was little, like 5 or 6. It was easy in clear weather, easier than driving a car in fact...just keep it level. I actually didn't even need to touch the yoke much of the time...the plane just flew itself. When I got older, I realized that what made it so effortless was that my dad was taking care of the hard part, the 95% of flying that doesn't involve moving any of the controls. What made it look so effortless for him, even when things got tough1, was the 10,000+ hours in the cockpit of a plane, flying.
[1] Like when he made a crosswind landing in a Cessna 172 ahead of an oncoming storm which we later learned had spawned some tornadoes while running a bit lower on gas than was generally acceptable by the place's captain. He'd already attempted one landing, aborting after the wind dropped us like 10 feet in half a second while about 30 feet from the ground. The sensation of that crosswind landing -- of gliding over the runway twenty feet off the ground at ~60-80 mph while pointed about 30 degrees off axis and then, just before touching down and presumably tumbling down the runway wing over wing, straightening out for a surprisingly gentle landing -- was one of the freakiest things I've ever experienced, partly because I wasn't scared at all...I knew he'd get us down safely. ↩
Tags: flying Nelson Minar
Read: Rubin Q&A regarding Bench and Rotation
Last night on Twitter, Adam Rubin of the Daily News answered a series of questions from fans about the Mets, their minor league system, spending, the Front Office and expectations for 2010, among other things.
In talking about the Opening Day roster, Rubin said Fernando Nieve, Jon Niese, Hisanori Takahashi, Josh Fogg, Nelson Figueroa and Pat Misch will all compete to be the team’s fifth starter.
Rubin sees the back-up catcher, as well as either Gary Matthews Jr. or Angel Pagan, plus Alex Cora and Fernando Tatis as a lock to be on the team’s bench, with Chris Carter, Frank Catalanatto, Jason Pridie and Mike Jacobs competing for the final bench spot.
…it’s weird, rubin hasn’t been very active on Twitter… then, all of sudden, boom, last night he made like 40 updates, all super informative… great stuff, adam… by the way, i get the feeling rubin knows more about the Mets than some people who work there… the guy’s incredible… i know people like to joke about it, because of the incident last summer, but i do get the feeling he’d make a strong GM… i mean, he graduated from Wharton Business School, he understands every level of the game, obviously he knows how to deal with the media, and he already wears a suit to the ballpark…
To following Rubin on Twitter, go here.
Speaking of Rubin, he did a Q&A with Matt Pignataro from Seven Train to Shea, in which the two talk mostly about the Triple-A Bison and Mike Jacobs.
John Updike on living in NYC
the true new yorker secretly believes
that people living anywhere else
have to be, in some sense, kidding.
- john updike
Steve Jobs papercraft
Aww, look what Tubbypaws created: iPad launch papercraft! Wah!
And yes, you can make your own.
February 11, 2010
Math Functions in the Real World
RIT student Nikki Graziano photographs math functions in the real world. Some are a stretch but others are dead on.
[via O'Reilly Radar | Thanks, JD]
An Open Letter to Girls Who Wear Hoodies
Shared by sippeyDear Ladies of San Francisco, I was really hoping you'd figure this out on your own, that an open letter of this sort would not become a necessity, that you'd perhaps pick up a three-year-old issue of In Style from...
There's a line in here that's mine; I'm just honored to gave it included.
Tattooing One Dot for Every Casualty during Operation Iraqi Freedom
Artist Wafaa Bilal will soon be getting a tattoo that contains 1 dot [wafaabilal.com] for every casualty associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom. The full-back tattoo will be applied during a 24 hour performance on March 8th in conjunction with a fundraiser aimed at collecting $1 per death towards scholarships for Americans and Iraqis who lost their parents in the war. Kyle McDonald designed the visualization for this remarkable tattoo, which contains more than 4.000 US soldiers in red ink, and more than 100.000 "invisible" civilians depicted in ultraviolet ink.The process of visualizing the data involved a lot of research, including reconciling plain text descriptions containing GIS place names, warping the geographic coordinates to design for the landscape of the back, and distributing the deaths in an organic but respectful way.
Watch a descriptive movie about the project below.
See also the Body as a Living Pain Map.
Teach every child about food: Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish, now on TED.com
Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., 2010 TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. (Recorded at TED2010, February 2010 in Long Beach, CA. Duration: 13:22)
Watch Jamie Oliver's TED Prize talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 600+ TEDTalks.
Computational Semantics with Functional Programming
The manuscript of the book Computational Semantics with Functional Programming by Jan van Eijck and Christina Unger, as well as related software, is available online. The introductory chapters are probably going to be unnecessary for [hello, typepad] readers, but once things get going there is a lot to learn here if you are interested in formal semantics of natural language, especially in the Montague-style. And if this doesn't ring a bell - just search for "continutation" in the manuscript, and be prepared to meet old friends in a new context. via lambda-the-ultimate.org
Computational Semantics with Functional Programming
The manuscript of the book Computational Semantics with Functional Programming by Jan van Eijck and Christina Unger, as well as related software, is available online.The introductory chapters are probably going to be unnecessary for LtU readers, but once things get going there is a lot to learn here if you are interested in formal semantics of natural language, especially in the Montague-style. And if this doesn't ring a bell - just search for "continutation" in the manuscript, and be prepared to meet old friends in a new context.
If the contributing editors will neglect the duties, LtU will wither and die. Hint, hint.
Announcing Google Chart Tools
A good chart can tell a story, such as depicting when you get home on Saturday night by plotting your tweet patterns along the week.A good chart can take an elusive concept and clarify it in a visually appealing manner. This ingenious XKCD strip uses a pie chart, a bar chart and a recursive scatter plot, to demonstrate the concept of self description.
Whether you need a simple line chart, an interactive Geo Map or a complex Motion Chart , Google can help you add live charts to your web page using our Chart and Visualization APIs. Both of these APIs are free and simple to use, however they each have distinct advantages:
1. The Chart API provides Image Charts which are rendered by a Google chart server in response to a simple URL request. Image Charts are fast to render and can be easily emailed and printed. In addition to the extensive gallery of charts, this server now also provides dynamic icons, QR codes, and math formulas.2. The Visualization API provides Interactive charts which are rendered on the browser using a Google developed JavaScript library. Interactive charts trigger events, providing tool-tips and animations. In addition to a rich gallery of charts, this tool can also read live data from a variety of data sources such as Oracle PL/SQL or Google spreadsheets.We have discovered that developers occasionally need some help in navigating between the many options and distinct advantages of Image Charts and Interactive Charts, and therefore decided to bring the two APIs under one new framework which we call the "Google Chart Tools". We've accordingly renamed the APIs to Image Charts API and Interactive Charts API and created a simple side-by-side comparison page which you might find useful in choosing which chart tool is better for you.Image Chart: Oceans of the worldInteractive Chart: Oceans of the world
We hope to meet you in person at Google I/O this May. In our Google Chart Tools I/O session we plan to present many of our new features including dynamic icons, which helped us plot our version of the recursive XKCD chart below:By Michael Fink, Google Chart Tools team
‘Facebook Login’
Fascinating. ReadWriteWeb has a weblog post that ranks highly in Google’s search results for “Facebook login”. The comments on the post are filled with complaints from confused people who think that this is the new Facebook login page.
It’s funny, yes, but it’s a fascinating glimpse at just how confused many people are about how web sites and browsers work. They don’t use bookmarks, they don’t type “facebook.com” in the location field. They just Google for whatever they’re looking for and assume the first result is correct. All this argument over whether the iPad is too simple — if anything it’s probably still too complex.
How to wield a knife
A butcher's advice on choosing a knife and how to wield it. On cutting yourself:
Tags: how toI am an expert. I have sliced off thumb tips and fingernails. I have shaved paper-thin wafers of my knuckle and buried a breaking/cimeter knife an inch and a half into my forearm. If it weren't for the stainless steel chainmail "butcher bra" that Josh from Fleisher's bought me for Christmas last year, I might not be alive to write this essay, having perhaps bled out from one of the many horrible chest wounds averted by its Mithril magic.
Pictures: Snow Covered Citi Field
Here are pictures of Citi Field, courtesy of the Mets:
Thankfully, pitchers and catchers report to Tradition Field in one week.
come on over. alone. now.
come on over. alone. now.
R.I.P. Alexander McQueen
How is this possible? I was beyond devastated to learn this morning about the untimely death of one of the few true fashion world geniuses Alexander McQueen, who took his own life. McQueen was an artist and I would wait with bated breath each season to soak in his genius and radical design ideas. I am speechless. The fashion world has lost one of its greatest.
Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login
Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login:(via Zoya)
Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services. To access Facebook right now, click here. For future reference, type “facebook.com” into your browser address bar or enter “facebook” into Google and click on the first result. We recommend that you then save Facebook as a bookmark in your browser.
I will now say two things that will shock most people who know me:
- You should follow this link to ReadWriteWeb.
- You should read the comments.
Bill Gates on iTunes in 2003: "Jobs Has Us Flat-Footed Again" [Digital Daily]
The Comes vs. Microsoft antitrust case is proving to be a gold mine for embarrassing company communiques. First there was former Windows chief Jim Allchin’s 2004 “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” email exchange with CEO Steve Ballmer.
Now comes news of another exchange, this one in 2003, in which Allchin, Bill Gates and a handful of other Microsoft (MSFT) execs react to the the debut of Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes music store and wonder how the company managed to negotiate such a good licensing deal with the recording industry.
Interesting to consider in light of reports that Apple is in talks with the television networks about lowering the price of iTunes TV episodes ahead of the iPad’s official launch.
—– Original Message —–
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wed 4/30/2003 10:46 PM
To: Amir Majidimehr; Dave Fester
Cc: Will Poole; Christopher Payne; Yusuf Mehdi; David Cole; Hank VigilSubject: Apple’s Jobs again.., and time to have a great Windows download service…
Steve Jobs ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right and market things as revolutionary are amazing things. This time somehow he has applied his talents in getting a better Licensing deal than anyone else has gotten for music.
This is very strange to me. The music companies own operations offer a service that is truly unfriendly to the user and has been reviewed that way consistently. Somehow they decide to give Apple the ability to do something pretty good.
I remember discussing EMusic and us saying that model was better than subscription because you would know what you are getting. With the subscription who can promise you that the cool new stuff you want (or old stuff) will be there?
I am not saying this strangeness means we messed up – at least if we did so did Real and Pressplay and Musicnet and basically everyone else.
Now that Jobs has done it we need to move fast to get something where the UI and Rights are as good. I am not sure whether we should do this through one of these JVs or not. I am not sure what the problems are. However I think we need some plan to prove that even though Jobs has us a bit flat footed again we move quick and both match and do stuff better. I’m sure people have a lot of thoughts on this. If the plan is clear no meeting is needed. I want to make sure we are coordinated between Windows DMD, MSN and other groups.
…. Original Message ….
From: Jim Allchin
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 4:58 PM
To: Amir Majidimehr; Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Will Poole; David ColeSubject: Apple’s music store
1. How did they get the music companies to go along?
2. We were smoked.jim
Book Review: Coders at Work
This is the secret to being productive when contributing to open source. It’s very rare that you should approach a mailing list without a patch of some kind. via tomayko.com
Processing for the iPhone
The Processing Javascript library has been adapted for use on the iPhone.
Tags: iPhone Javascript ProcessingiProcessing is an open programming framework to help people develop native iPhone applications using the Processing language. It is an integration of the Processing.js library and a Javascript application framework for iPhone.
Is Heath Ledger Really Dead? Or Who Is His Identical Twin?
Heath Ledger did not have a brother (as far as we know) and so I must jump to a semi-conclusion. Is… Heath Ledger alive? Because, you guys, this fellow sitting in the Henry Street Ale House last night, at a table in the window with a girl? I have never seen anyone ever who looked so disturbingly identical to someone else. He had kinda unfortunate blond Point Break/Prince Valiant hair, not unlike one of Heath Ledger's many bad hair moments. His face seriously was identical. I know this is messed up but 1. I was not alone and the person with me was like, dude, why is Heath Ledger here? There was gasping. And 2. This was quite near the epicenter of previous Heath Ledger sightings, so it felt normal to see Fake Heath Ledger—so normal that it felt like seeing Real Heath Ledger. Have you seen this guy out and about in Brooklyn? Why hasn't Google-Face-Buzz-Space invented the terrifying face identifier Internet searching software yet so I can find him? And… well, what if it's vampire Heath Ledger? Do we have to stake him? UPDATE: Associate Editor Dave Bry saw him as well! On Grand Street, in Manhattan, yesterday—wearing a hoodie. What is going on???
Every time an engineer joins Google, a startup dies
VC returns over the last decade have been poor. The cause is widely agreed to be an excess of venture capital dollars to worthy startups. Observers seem to universally assume that the solution is for the VC industry to downsize.
For example, Fred Wilson says about VC:
You cannot invest $25bn per year and generate the kinds of returns investors seek from the asset class. If $100bn per year in exits is a steady state number, then we need to work back from that and determine how much the asset class can manage…. I think “back to the future” is the answer to most of the venture capital asset class problems. Less capital in the asset class, smaller fund sizes, smaller partnerships, smaller deals, and smaller exits
Similarly, Bill Gurley, writes:
There are many reasons to believe that a reduction in the size of the VC industry will be healthy for the industry overall and should lead to above average returns in the future.
All of these analyses start with the assumption that aggregate venture-backed exits (acquisition and IPOs) will remain roughly constant. I don’t see why we need to accept that assumption. The aggregate value of venture-backed startups, like all valuations, is a function of profits generated (or predicted to be generated). In technology, profits are driven by innovation. I don’t see any reason we should assume venture-backed innovation can’t be dramatically increased.
For example, innovation has varied widely across times and places – the most innovative region in the world for the last 50 years being Silicon Valley. What if, say, Steve Jobs hadn’t grown up in Silicon Valley? What if he had gone to work for another company? Does anyone really think Apple – and all the innovation and wealth it created – would exist if Jobs hadn’t happened to grow up in a culture that was so startup friendly? Jobs is obviously a remarkable person, but there are probably 100 Steve Jobs born every year. The vast majority just never have a chance or give a thought to starting a revolutionary new company.
Some people blame our education system, or assume that there is some finite number of entrepreneurs born every year. I think the problem is cultural. As much as we like to think of our culture as being entrepreneurial, the reality is 99% of our top talent doesn’t seriously contemplate starting companies. Colleges crank out tons of extremely smart and well-educated kids every year. The vast majority go into “administrative” careers that don’t really produce anything – law, banking and consulting. Most of the rest join big companies. As I’ve argued many times before, big companies (with a few notable exceptions) aren’t nearly as successful as startups at creating new products. The bigger the company, the more like it suffers from agency issues, strategy taxes, and myopia. But most of all: nothing is more motivating and inspiring than the sense of ownership and self-direction only a startup can provide.
Whenever I see a brilliant kid decide to join Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, or Google, I think to myself: a startup just died, and as a result our world is a little less wealthy, innovative, and interesting.
In 2010, where was Poe's secret admirer?
For 60 years, a mysterious visitor dressed in black has left roses and a half-bottle of cognac on Edgar Allen Poe's grave on his birthday - until this year, when he didn't show up.
Confused Facebook users think ReadWriteWeb is the new Facebook login page
they're searching for "facebook login" on Google, using FB Connect, and posting hundreds of confused comments
February 10, 2010
Photoblog: Block Party with Ozomatli
TED's photo editor Mike Femia digs this picture above: "It looks like an impressionist painting, but in neon lights." From the Wednesday-night Block Party on Pine Street in Long Beach, with the amazing Ozomatli (below). More pics from the Block Party >>
Photos: TED / James Duncan Davidson
Closing the Feedback Loop
Matt Haughey says Google Buzz doesn't offer an easy way for publishers to see what people are saying about their stuff. He's right; as in Google Reader and Facebook, much of the liking and commenting and sharing that goes on in Buzz happens out of earshot of the creator. I think Buzz is a fine product--a pretty predictable FriendFeed clone, really--but it does suffer from this same broken loop problem that Google Reader creates. Also of interest to other publishers, Matt's related piece on what feedback loops he pays attention to in order to learn how to make better stuff online.
Hulu coming to the iPad?
Filed under: Video, iPhone, iPad
Popular (US-only, grumble) television site Hulu is a name that comes up in just about every conversation about the iPad's lack of Flash support. Second only to YouTube's popularity, Hulu streams TV shows from several US networks, allowing for free (albeit ad-supported) access to shows that Apple's iTunes Store charges $1.99 and up to download. When people bash the iPad and claim "No Flash, no sale," a lot of them are probably really saying, "No Hulu, no sale."
All that could be about to change. According to TechCrunch, an "industry insider" has revealed that Hulu is already working on an iPad version of its site which should be ready to launch by the time the iPad is released in March. Whether this will take the form of a dedicated app or a "mobile version" of the site coded in HTML5 rather than Flash remains to be seen. TechCrunch notes that "putting Hulu on the iPad boils down to a business decision, not a technical one." Unlike YouTube, which had to re-encode a large portion of its videos for iPhone compatibility back in 2007, Hulu's videos are already encoded in the iPhone/iPad-friendly H.264 video format. The only Flash-encoded portions of Hulu that would have to change for iPad compatibility are the player itself (the "wrapper" for the video with its controls) and the ads.
Nothing official has been announced yet, of course, but Hulu's CEO has said that "Mobile is a monster - we are very bullish. We will embrace any device," and "We are very big believers in mobile and we don't think about (just) one device only." Considering that YouTube has been available on the iPhone from day one, it seems less a question of if Hulu will be available on the iPhone/iPad, but when. When that happens, a lot of that "no Flash, no sale" bias against the iPad is sure to die off very quickly.
[Via MacRumors]TUAWHulu coming to the iPad? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Photoblog: World Barista Champion
Stephen Morrissey is the 2008 World Barista Champion -- watch him in action. He's at TED in Long Beach with Intelligentsia Coffee, and some of us are a little bit starstruck.
My personal feedback loops
As a sort of companion piece to the previous entry, I figured it might help other web writers to know what tools are available to them, as well as to possibly fill in some gaps I have in my own process (I bet someone reading this knows how to find info on the things I'm blanking on).
So there are several communities I'm familiar with that might republish or comment on something I've created and they are as follows:
- tweets mentioning my username
- tweets mentioning my full name
- my tweets retweeted
- my tweets marked as a favorite
- mentions of my blog posts in twitter
- Tumblr (any mentions of my posts)
- FriendFeed (comments on my blog posts and/or tweets)
- Delicious links leading to my blog
- Google Reader
- Number of times and who shared a blog post of mine
- Any "shared with note" of my blog posts
- Times someone hit "Like" on my blog posts
- Any comments on my blog posts
- Facebook (any comments or likes on my photos, blog posts, and/or tweets)
- Flickr (any comments or favorites on my photos)
- Other blogs linking to my posts
- Google's Buzz? (mentions of my blog posts, tweets, photos, comments on them)
Now, here's my toolset.
For Twitter, I check my "mentions" within various Twitter clients as well as a search for my username "mathowie" and my full name. There's a new "your tweets, retweeted" feature only available on twitter.com itself (is it in the API yet? I haven't found any other clients with this information). I'm a bigger fan of favorites than retweets and I usually find enough info from favstar, where I look at my recent posts with favorites, but of course that's an outside service that scrapes the content and it's not complete (I've tried 2 or 3 other twitter favorite trackers and they all report different # of favorites and often show different people). The service BackTweets.com lets me track a feed of mentions of my blog URL in any tweet and it does a pretty good job.
For Tumblr and other blogs mentioning my posts, I use an old citations search at bloglines set to search all RSS feeds for my domain. I do this for several domains where I write stuff. Here's the search for my personal blog URL. I've used this tool for almost five years and it still does the trick.
I have an account at FriendFeed, and it thankfully just emails me when someone comments on anything in my feed, which is handy and direct (but could get annoying if it was more than once or twice a day).
At Delicious, I follow a network of 63 people that mark interesting stuff and sometimes my own stuff shows up there. If not, I can do a backlink search and save the resulting URL to see how many people liked it enough to save it and if they said anything about it. I wish the backlink search let me look for anything with my domain in it, but it is specific to every single bookmark but something is better than nothing there.
For Google Reader, I'm pretty much in the dark. I once tried out the Firefox extension feedly and was taken aback by the tool's overlay on my blog showing tons of Google Reader activity on every one of my posts. My initial reaction was "who the hell are all these people and why didn't I know they were talking about my stuff before?!" I'd like to see some tool beyond a special browser plugin or bookmarklet hack for aggregating Reader activity on my stuff because it's currently a blind spot.
Facebook is much the same way. Once in a great while I look at web stats and I might see a bunch of facebook.com referrers and sometimes (if it wasn't followed from their main page) I can figure out where something I wrote was mentioned. This is another feedback black hole.
Flickr offers the wonderful Recent Activity page that I loved so much I copied it for MetaFilter. It's pretty much the ultimate tool for finding what has happened with your content on the network and I hope other services are watching and following suit. I would love to see an internet-wide tool that worked like this to track stuff people have said about my writing/photos as well as any followups on comments I left on any other blog. Many companies have tried, no one has succeeded yet.
Google Buzz is another new mystery. Given people can post links there, I have no idea where, when, how or what they've said.
Conclusion
That's about it, and I know there are other communities like StumbleUpon, reddit, and Digg that might rate and/or comment on my work, but I generally don't feel like tracking them and only occasionally see them pop up in web stats.
I'm aware it may seem like I'm sitting here pushing 25 buttons like a Skinner box every hour trying to figure out if people like my stuff, but really most of this stuff is automated as RSS feeds in Google Reader, so I can just pull up GR and see that maybe two new tweets mentioned my blog, four tumblr blogs reblogged something I said, etc.
If anyone has any tips on how to track your own URL mentions in Facebook or Google Reader (or Buzz), I'm all ears.
The FanGraphs Second Opinion: Fantasy Companion
I’m pleased to announce that FanGraphs will be dipping it’s toes into the publishing world with its very first publication: The FanGraphs Second Opinion: 2010 Fantasy Baseball Companion, or for short, the 2010 Second Opinion.
First let’s get to what’s in it:
- Over 400 in-depth player profiles written by many of the FanGraphs and RotoGraphs contributors you’re already familiar with.
- Articles covering: closer situations, players coming back from injuries, sophomore players to watch, 2010 fantasy prospects, impact trades, the big questions for 2010, and something that Carson wrote, where he answers your questions before you even ask them!
- Stats & Graphs: Each player profile is accompanied by a stat box with 10 very useful stats for both fantasy and real-life player evaluation including spark graphs showing career trends.
- Team previews: Each team is previewed for next season, giving you the rundown on what to expect from a fantasy and real-life standpoint.
The book will first be available for download in PDF format late February for the low price of $7.95. In addition to the PDF, you will have access to all the information in the book on FanGraphs.com when logged in to your FanGraphs account. This information will include the written player profiles which will be integrated into the stats pages and all the articles and team previews in the book.
In addition, some of you may have noticed that FanGraphs has been contributing to ESPN Insider (ESPN’s all sports premium content) this past month with more to come. If you purchase the book and are logged in, you’ll also have access to these articles and future articles we publish on ESPN Insider, on FanGraphs.com, through March 1st, 2011.
As we get closer to the book’s release, there will be more information and sample pages available.
Bloops: Download the Free 2010 Emerald Guide
Over at SABR's website, you can download the 2010 Emerald Guide to Baseball for free:
"Edited by accomplished and acclaimed baseball historians Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer with Rod Nelson and Ted Turocy and published by SABR, The Emerald Guide distills the 2009 season down to 570 fact-filled pages that contain the pitching, fielding, and hitting statistics for every player active in the major and minor leagues in 2009. A bound version is available via print on demand at Lulu.com for $24.95. Every page in the bound edition is in the PDF."
You don't even have to be a SABR member -- you just have to fill out a form with your name and e-mail address to access the download. It's well worth it, so go ahead and check it out.
Paul Thurrott, Warming to iPad
No sarcasm intended, I’m enjoying Thurrott’s perspective on the iPad. I found this perspective intriguing:
Further unclear is why we would want to learn yet another user interface. Phones, by nature, are simple to use and limited by onscreen real estate. Laptops, of course, offer more expansive screens and more powerful capabilities. But the iPad introduces yet another UI, one that is based on that of the iPhone, of course, but one that is different and more advanced (and complex). Not as advanced and complex as a PC, perhaps. But different from both the iPhone and laptop.
The starting point Thurrott is espousing here, more or less “Let’s start with something the user will already be familiar with” sounds good, and many times it is the right approach. That’s the consistency argument for Mac software being Mac-like, and Windows software being Windows-like. But if you shackle yourself to starting with something already familiar, then the state-of-the-art is never going to make a great leap forward. This sort of thinking is why Microsoft’s tablet computers all run Windows 7.
Clearly, the way Apple approached the iPad was that of course the iPad was going to introduce a new UI. They’re really rather fearless about it, because, I think, they’re so confident in its obviousness. Unfamiliar and new isn’t a problem if the whole thing is obvious and easy to figure out.
New York Times slogans that were rejected in 1896
Media Myth Alert
The four finalists were:
* Always decent; never dull
* The news of the day; not the rubbish
* A decent newspaper for decent people
* All the world's news, but not a school for scandal
All the News That's Fit to Print was selected, of course, and it ran for the first time on the front page 113 years ago today.
Chunks and Syntax Highlighting
If I'm right—if reading source code requires identifying parts of speech—then familiarity with syntax and grammar is important to programming as an adept.
Consider Damian Conway's SelfGOL. As an experienced Perl programmer, I can pick out various pieces of the code at a glance. There's an assignment. There's quoting. That's a variable. That's a list slice.
If you've never encountered Perl before (or programming in general), you might recognize some English words, such as
die, and that's all.One of Perl's design ideas borrowed from linguistics is that "different things should look different". To novices, everything looks different.
$nameisn't obviously a single chunk. It's an English identifier and one of several punctuation symbols apparently sprinkled at random throughout the program.Good use of whitespace helps. So does the good use of parentheses as grouping constructs (though as in prose, they often get overused by novices).
One of the most subtle mechanisms to identify individual chunks floating in a sea of code is with syntax highlighting. I can't prove this. I haven't studied it in repeatable situations. Even so, I hypothesize that (modulo color choice concerns) merely highlighting different types of terms in the grammar in different ways will help novices understand how to pick out individual chunks in code.
This requires training. This demands practice. Unless you spend time reading code, you won't understand how expressions fit together, and you have little hope of understanding code. I believe it's impossible to skip this step, and thus I don't care if someone who's used C or ML has trouble reading Perl 5 code. Of course people have trouble reading when they don't know the grammar.
(Don't worry, Lisp fans. Homoiconicity—apart from additional complexity of quoting forms and reader macros—means that novices have to spend their time learning to recognize idioms and abstractions at a level higher than tokens and chunks without the benefit of patterns of chunk types as mnemonics to idioms. Then again, I think in patterns, rarely words.)
Q&A: about Citi Field, Credit Rating and Debt
Martin Z. Braun of Bloomberg wrote yesterday:
“The credit rating on $695.4 million of municipal debt issued to finance a new baseball stadium for the New York Mets was cut to junk by Standard & Poor’s because of losses suffered by an insurance company that provided a surety bond.”
…this sounded bad to me… of course, i have a difficult time balancing my check book, so i reached out to a good friend of mine, who holds a prominent position with an international accounting and consulting firm, not to mention he understands investing and finance as well as any one i know… here’s our exchange:
Matthew Cerrone: Is this bad?
Friend: It depends on your perspective. Being downgraded means that the interest rate at which you can borrow is higher (because you’re not as good a credit). So for companies that need to refinance their existing debt, or want more debt, it’s bad because now that debt will be more expensive (more interest). But if, like Citi Field, you have no need to refinance or need for more money, it pretty much doesn’t matter. It matters a lot to anyone who holds that debt an an investment (i.e., you could have bought those bonds). For the holders of these bonds, their value goes down a lot when it’s downgraded. Reason being that the bonds were issued assuming a certain quality of credit and the interest rate associated with it was based on that. So let’s say 10 percent. Now, the credit worthiness has gone down, so the bond should really pay 13 percent. But it doesn’t. So the 10 percent bond’s value comes down because it doesn’t pay an appropriate level of interest… Does that all make sense?
Matthew Cerrone: So, it’s bad for the investors (the bondholders), not necessarily the Mets?
Friend: Exactly. Unless Mets/Ownership need access to the bond market for borrowing any time soon. But given they already have a nice shiny new stadium, that shouldn’t be an issue. It’s also likely a bad thing for someone like the Nets going out to raise money for their new stadium. Again, the only way it’s bad is if you will need to go back to the market for more borrowing, either for new projects or to refinance your existing debt. Aside from those scenarios, you’re still paying the same interest payment as you used to. It’s the bondholder that’s getting screwed, as they are locked into your low rate compared to what’s fair given your downgrade.
Broken feedback loops
Last summer I wrote this quick quip on twitter about my frustrations with Google Reader and Facebook comments:
Many years ago, people started building weblog ranking lists and then weblog search engines and eventually we had a rich set of tools that let you know what someone was saying about something you posted online. At first, these were often dubbed "ego search" and there were comparisons to navel gazing that early bloggers (myself included) were known for.
Over the years I realized tracking mentions of your work across the web wasn't merely for the ego stroke, it was quite a valuable bit of feedback. In addition to the direct feedback you might get on a post through your own comments system, following mentions in Technorati, RSS search engines (I still use bloglines' citations to do URL searches of my domains), and Delicious (which offers a simple backlink search) gave a broader picture of what people liked and disliked about your work. On places like Flickr that are more about sharing photos and sometimes about the nature of learning photography, direct feedback is key to becoming better at what you do.
Today Buzz launched and I realized my annoyance expressed last July was going to get amplified again as there was yet another new channel that could chop up any piece of micro-content I've produced and let people comment, rate, and share it without me having any remote knowledge of it unless I happen to follow someone that interacted with it. It's just like how Facebook doesn't inform me that this very blog post might be shared as a link there, and maybe 7 people hit the "Like" button and maybe there are five comments on it there that I can't answer because I don't know it exists. Google Reader, as much as I love it as a tool for reading blogs, suffers the same issues.
Let me be clear this isn't an ownership issue, it's not a frail ego issue, and it's not that I don't love remixing (I do!). My point is when there are half a dozen places someone can hit a like button or mark as a favorite or leave a comment that I have no knowledge of, the feedback loop is broken.
When I think about the years I've learned to become a more concise writer and a better photographer by throwing shit online and gathering feedback, then repeating the cycle again, I'm dismayed to see all these new tools that lack appropriate feedback mechanisms that can relay information back to the original authors.
So to future application creators I ask that you simply respect the creators of content and help them improve by offering notification, search, and/or backlink capabilities so it's possible for someone to see where their creations end up. I know it's a lot easier to just consider it all "output" within your application, but the internet is a great communication medium not just for relaying information from anyone to anywhere on earth, but for also making it a dialogue between reader and writer.
Don't break the feedback loop.
Now We Are Six
6 years ago today, Flickr launched at eTech in San Diego. Team Flickr would like to thank you all for your incredible generosity — in the billions of photos and video you share daily, to the tens of thousands of groups you’ve created and participate in. Without you, Flickr would be a very white site with little colour. You are the heart of the Flickrverse. Happy Birthday!
As with previous years, we’ll be hosting a birthday party here in San Francisco within the coming months. Stay tuned for details as we get our ducks in a row.
Photo from Caterina.
Google Announces Experimental Fiber Network
Google:
We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
Famous on github
San Francisco
I'm apparently the most famous/active/influential/social/whatever developer on github who lives in and is not a github founder :)
Ma Peche: David Chang, on his pre-opening Ma...
David Chang, on his pre-opening Ma Peche set up on the Mezzanine of the Chambers Hotel lobby: "The tables and chairs aren’t the same height. The fact that we still do business there is amazing to me. It’s weird to eat a bowl of soup when it’s five feet above you." When the actual restaurant opens two floors below, Chang tells the Cuozz the restaurant will have 80 seats and may let diners reserve for special meals, as is done down at Noodle and Ssam. [NYP]
Affiliate infuriation
I’m irrationally, disproportionally offended by affiliate marketing on the internet. Early on, when Tumblr was just three people (me, David, and Marc), we had to decide whether to allow affiliate-marketing blogs.
These are the sites whose primary purpose is to drive traffic through links for which the blog publisher gets an affiliate payment, often for scammy, non-physical products like paid “how-to” ebooks. They’re easy to spot, usually looking something like this:
Best Floor Tile Reviews Blog
Did you know that the Best Floor Tile Reviews are on the internet? Let’s explore the best floor tile reviews together so I can tell you all about the best floor tile reviews. Click here to learn more about the best floor tile reviews.
The decision isn’t black and white because they don’t fit everyone’s definitions of spam. They’re usually human-created (in the same way creepy Scientologists offering stress tests in the subway are technically “human”), usually without automation tools. They’ll pass any CAPTCHA. And affiliate links aren’t always spam, such as when an otherwise non-spammy person links to a great book on Amazon with an affiliate code once in a while.
I don’t object to online commerce in general. Furthermore, I don’t object to other content that’s often lumped in with spam, such as porn. So how can I justify my hate for affiliate marketing?
I think it’s about sincerity.
Porn makes no effort to hide that it’s porn. It puts it right out there. “You wanted to see some naked people? Here are some naked people. Bam.” No ambiguity, and no attempts to trick visitors into thinking it’s something else.
Even regular bot-spam is pretty blatant. Sleazy guys write programs to spam the internet with thousands of cheap-drug offers. There’s no pretense of humanity or sincerity.
Affiliate marketing spam is much more offensive because it purports to be legitimate content. It relies on lost, naive Google searchers arriving on these pages, thinking they’re finding real content or reviews or recommendations, and being convinced that the best way to proceed is to spend a few dollars on this helpful ebook to learn more.
It’s not just commercial — it’s dishonest. Affiliate marketing is an attempt to trick people, Google, and web services into thinking that it’s real content. This inherent deception is far more offensive and reprehensible than its commerce.
i just love your tumblr themes.
i'm guessing you make them, i haven't looked into doing anything like that just yet but where would one start if they were going to do so?
thanks.
Thank you!! :)
My advice is to take a look at all of the tumblr themes available, and pick a simple one you like, and start building off of that. Its a great way to become more familiar with tumblr templating, which is insanely easy. :)
You Call that a Spray-Chart Split?
As soon as I heard about the new split data at FanGraphs I had one thought: Aaron Hill. Maybe not everyone’s first thought, but if you recall, the surprise third-leading AL HR hitter pulled his HRs like crazy. Dave C. had a post about it, you could see it over at HitTracker, and I reproduce the data for you here:
Crazy. Not only almost all pulled, but most extremely so and no HRs on pitches on the outer quarter of the plate. That one HR to right was off Joba Chamberlain on July 5th at Yankee Stadium. Thanks to the indispensable HitTracker we know that the 369-foot shot was a home run thanks to the short porch in right at Yankee Stadium and would not have made it out of any other park. So even that one opposite-field HR hardly counts, which also discounts one of his few HRs on a pitch on the outer half of the plate.So what do Hill’s 2009 spray-chart splits look like?
Hill ISO wOBA HR/FB to Left .410 .503 .443 to Center .127 .317 .042 to Right .078 .240 .013 Average RHB ISO wOBA HR/FB to Left .282 .419 .272 to Center .126 .340 .054 to Right .124 .279 .028They do not disappoint. To his pull (left) field Hill is nearly the equal of Mark Reynolds or Russell Branyan to their pull fields (the examples are pulled from Dave C.’s post about power to all fields and, to be fair, those guys are noted for their even power to all fields, but still Aaron Hill has just slightly less power to left than Mark Reynolds does). To right, though, he has much less power than the average RHB, so much so that — and remember this is the AL batter with the third most HRs in 2009 — an opposite field ball in play from Hill had the same ISO as the average David Eckstein ball in play. Yikes.
So Hill has enormous power when he pulls the ball, how does this power look as a function of where he he is pitched?
Although the pattern is not surprising I think the extent of it is. Hill’s power reaches its peak about a half farther inside than the average RHB and it only drops off slightly as you move in from there. The drop off is so slight that he has more power on pitches right on the inner edge of the plate than the average RHB has on a pitch down the fat of the plate. That is not to say I think this is his true talent; as with all stats, if we want to predict how he will do in 2010 it would be best to regress this back to average some. Still, I think it is safe to say Hill should crush inside pitches in 2010 even though it may not be to the same extent as it was in 2009.
Uppa Deck OLD SCHOOL
Night Owl posted some newfangled crap, it's time to show off some GOOD Upper Deck cards, or at least look at their peak leading into a slow decline to oblivion. In honor of the Owl, I shall attempt to define the designs.1989 Upper DeckThe Running To First Set
Very sneaky of UD to print up a card of Pettis with a mock up of the back of his card and have him hold it with the back facing the camera so we would be all like ZOMG UPPER DECK HAS CREATED A TIME/SPACE PARADOX1990 Upper Deckthe green-and-gold racing stripe set (Night Owl defined this one already)
Rick Honeycutt looks BAD ASS until you realize he's taking drink orders for the fans in club level.1991 Upper Deckthe "score from second" set (NO got this one too)
You would not believe the number of cards in early Upper Deck sets where the player is blowing a bubble. I almost did a post on just that instead.1992 Upper DeckThe Fastball Set
I think Upper Deck just tried too hard on this one. It's nice and all, but there are very, very few collectors out there who like this set best.1993 Upper DeckThe "It's All Downhill From Here Set"
The best set Upper Deck has ever done or will ever do. Period. Next.1994 Upper DeckThe Squished Little Photo Set
The first full-bleed set, the first with foil stamping. Innocence is officially lost.1995 Upper DeckThe Foil Minimalism Set
A design so good, UD recycled it in 2008. Deion says RAAAAWR.1996 Upper DeckThe Classy Foil Set
I awlwys thought the two tone foil looked classy. Until you saw piles and piles of it and it started getting cheesy. Orange foil... (shudder)1997 Upper DeckThe Wood Grain Foil SetWood grain on foil just does not look right. This card is very subtle, but someone will catch it.1998 Upper DeckThe Stealth Foil Set
UD got sneaky and added extra unnecessary foil here, including the team name. Ariel has learned to levitate and is breaking the bonds of Earth.1999 Upper DeckThe Way Too Much Damn Foil Set
Upper Deck's decline into foil madness is complete. They could have made a battleship with the amount of foil used in this set. Jeff is as dejected as I am with this set.
Maybe I should have quit after 1993...
What's going on in NY?
There are a bunch of smart, mostly young, people who work either in tech startups or inside big publishing companies who will, in a few years, form the companies that are hybrids of technology and publishing that will lead us into the future. They won't be like Google, Facebook, Twitter or Apple. And they won't be the NY Times, Time-Warner or even the Huffington Post or Gawker. But they will learn from all of them. Intuitively, I feel NY is where this is going to happen. via www.scripting.com I don't think a university involved, I think a media or software company (ideally a company that does both) will be the site of this innovation. But I agree it's happening in NY. Of course, I am biased.
Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network
Imagine sitting in a rural health clinic, streaming three-dimensional medical imaging over the web and discussing a unique condition with a specialist in New York. Or downloading a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes. Or collaborating with classmates around the world while watching live 3-D video of a university lecture. Universal, ultra high-speed Internet access will make all this and more possible. We've urged the FCC to look at new and creative ways to get there in its National Broadband Plan – and today we're announcing an experiment of our own.
We're planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone. Here are some specific things that we have in mind:Like our WiFi network in Mountain View, the purpose of this project is to experiment and learn. Network providers are making real progress to expand and improve high-speed Internet access, but there's still more to be done. We don't think we have all the answers – but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone.
- Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it's creating new bandwidth-intensive "killer apps" and services, or other uses we can't yet imagine.
- New deployment techniques: We'll test new ways to build fiber networks, and to help inform and support deployments elsewhere, we'll share key lessons learned with the world.
- Openness and choice: We'll operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we'll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way.
As a first step, today we're putting out a request for information (RFI) to help identify interested communities. We welcome responses from local government, as well as members of the public. If you'd like to respond, visit this page to learn more, or check out our video:
We'll collect responses until March 26, and will announce our target communities later this year. Stay tuned.
Posted by Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly, Product Managers
The Big Pictr
Ever wish there was an easy way to view Flickr photos in large? Take a look at The Big Pictr, an application by Magical Trevor that we found growing in the App Garden.
The Big Pictr lets you quickly view large Flickr photos in all their glory. You can even curate your own collections to share on the Big Pictr site, so that others can also admire the images, too. A handy bookmarklet makes navigating Flickr photostreams easy!
Take a look at what The Big Pictr can do:
Application by Trevor H. Various photos in the screencast and screenshot from aragost, cortto, Koo Hayakawa, Rhino and Bird, Laurence and Kevin.
Reproduce & Revolt in LA High School
Alex Bodnar and Mark Ayala, art teachers Manual Arts Senior High School in Los Angeles, used Reproduce & Revolt, the book of copyleft images Favianna Rodriguez and I edited (check it out HERE), as the basis for a mural class, and students decorated the school with images from the book. Check it out:
Flickr Developer Blog: 5 Questions for Simon Willison
My interview with Simon is up, and full of wildlife, machine tag goodness, and a couple of easter eggs as well.
suppose design office: lodge
'lodge' hair salon
'lodge' is an architectural design for a hair salon in hiroshima completed in 2009
by japanese based suppose design office. the design is composed of spacious interiors
predominantly covered in wooden furniture and wood-enclosed lighting structures.
in place of walls separating the rooms, large strips of mirrors enclose the main hair cutting
area which help give definition to the space.
waiting/lounging area
he waiting area constructed on a raised platform is equipped with high wooden chairs
and bar style counter top ideal customer lounging.
the absence of walls allows workers to communicate and permits an easier workflow.
Glitch: the video
Got an embed version, so here it is.The thing I love about this is that Glitch isn't trying to appeal to everyone. There's a distinct target market in mind: those in their 20s-30s, visual types, according to Stuart Butterfield in Daniel Terdiman's piece on the development and thinking. Explorers, Achievers and Socialisers too, probably, if you want to Bartle it a bit, and the visual-loving kind, not the text-loving kind (and avoiding the Killers entirely, by the by).
It's a perfect shot, in my mind. There's no guarantee of success, but in this crazy world of a new virtual space being launched - it seems - every other month or so, how do you stand out? Presumably by being some combination of wonderful, specific, targeted, fluid in use and growth with a dash of right-time-for-it and clever, clever people on the team.
Easy to say, eh?
February 9, 2010
Introducing percona-patches for 5.1
Our patches for 5.0 have attracted significant interest. You can read about SecondLife’s experience here, as well as what Flickr had to say on their blog. The main improvements come in both performance gains and improvements to diagnostics (such as the improvements to the slow log output, and INDEX_STATISTICS).
Despite having many requests to port these patches to 5.1, we simply haven’t had the bandwidth as our main focus has been on developing XtraDB and XtraBackup. Thankfully a customer (who prefers to stay unnamed) as stood up and sponsored the work to move the patches to 5.1.
To refresh, the most interesting patches are:
- Performance patches for InnoDB ®. Although many patches are present in XtraDB / InnoDB-plugin, the RC status of plugin does not allow to install it on product for some customer’s policies.
Important fixes are:- Diagnostic patches.
– We provide much more statistics in slow.log, i.e. execution plan, InnoDB timing, profiling info
- Different patches to help with day to day usage of MySQL ®
Two new features which not available for 5.0:
- In slow.log for Stored Procedure call you can see profiling for each individial query from this procedure, not just
call storproc()- With userstat you can get additional THREADS_STATISTICS which show similar information to USER/CLIENT_STATISTICS but per THREAD granularity (it’s useful if you have connection pool)
On this stage the patches are available only in source code, you
can get them from Launchpad https://code.launchpad.net/~percona-dev/percona-patches/5.1.43. Binaries are also on the way, and will be ready soon. We are running intensive stress testing loads on them to provide stable and quality packages.And to finalize are results for tpce-like benchmark, where I compare MySQL-5.1.43 vs percona-5.1.43.
The results made for TPCE configuration with 2000 customers and 300 tradedays and 16 concurrent users on our R900 server. The dataset is about 25GB, fully fitting into buffer_pool, so disk does not really matter, but data was stored on FusionIO 320GB MLC card.
On chart with results I show amount of TradeResults transactions per 10 sec during 3600 session (more is better)
As you see with percona patches you can get just about 10x improvement.
Yeah, that sounds too cool, but let me explain where difference comes from.As I mentioned in tpce workload details the load is very SELECT intensive and these SELECTS are mainly scans by secondary keys ( not Primary Keys), so it hits problems in InnoDB rw-lock implementations and in buffer_pool mutex contention, which alredy fixed in percona-patches ( and in XtraDB and InnoDB-plugin also).
So you are welcome to try it!
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News: Mets Sign Angel Pagan, Close with Mike Jacobs
Adam Rubin of the Daily News says the Mets and Angel Pagan avoided arbitration, and agreed to a one year, $1.45 million contract.
Meanwhile, Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com says the Mets are close to a minor league deal with Mike Jacobs, with an invitation to Spring Training.
…i remember when the Mets originally traded Jacobs for Carlos Delgado at the end of 2005 and how i thought he was going to be a good hitter at some point…he ended up hitting a lot of home runs for the Marlins from 2006-2008 but he strikes out a ton, but i don’t see why the Mets shouldn’t give him a look this Spring considering the uncertainty at the position…
Last year with the Royals, the 29 year old Jacobs hit just .228 with 19 home runs and 61 RBI with 132 strikeouts in 478 at bats.
Q&A: Stewart Butterfield on the Launch of Glitch
Last spring, after leaving Yahoo and taking some time off, Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield started a company called Tiny
SparkSpeck with four other members of the original Flickr team, and started work on a browser-based, massively multiplayer game. The product of that effort was Glitch, which TinySparkSpeck launched this week with a web site and a video highlight reel. The game is in invitation-only alpha, Butterfield said, and then this summer will be moved to open beta in preparation for a full-scale public launch later this year. In a phone interview on Tuesday, the Flickr co-founder talked about how he had always wanted to build a massively multiplayer fantasy game, about the benefits of building a 2-D game rather than a 3-D one, and about how he originally wanted to start a bank.GigaOM: Can you tell us a bit about the genesis of Glitch?
Butterfield: It’s something I’ve wanted to work on since I was a little kid. When I played SimCity — the original one, I guess, in the mid-80s — I remember always being curious what it would be like to play a game like that, where you got to play from the perspective of one little ant driving around the freeway rather than from the god’s eye point of view. It was the collective or emergent action of all the players that determined the way the simulation unfolded.
GigaOM: Did you want to start a game company right after you left Yahoo?
Butterfield: I knew that I wanted to work with the same group of people again. I actually tried for awhile to convince them that we should make a bank instead, in late 2008. That would be incredibly boring, but I think there would have been some nice opportunities to change the world on that front. But a game is just as good, and everyone else was much more interested in building a game than building a bank. I guess if you’re an engineer, banks are phenomenally boring to work on.
GigaOM: What’s your view of where the gaming industry is now?
Butterfield: I’ve been watching everything that’s been happening over the last five years. The pace seems to be accelerating. We’ve seen a lot of increased uptake of what we’ve been calling casual games, and at the same time the iPhone’s done a lot for indie game development. With the Wii, tens of millions of people are buying their first console, and of course there is the rise of social games on Facebook. All these different avenues…it’s like, letting a thousand flowers bloom. There is all kinds of interesting stuff happening all over the place.
GigaOM: Flickr also started as a massively multiplayer game called Game Neverending. How is this different from what you envisioned then?
Butterfield: Obviously in the last eight years, a huge number of things have changed. From the perspective of 1982, hardware is effectively free. But the biggest shift is that there are now hundreds of millions of people using Facebook, whereas back then Friendster was yet to launch and when it got to a million people that was a huge deal. So there’s just a lot more people online now, using the web in a social way, and that wasn’t really such a big thing before. So it’s a much better time to be working on this.
GigaOM: With all those different platforms out there, are you planning to extend Glitch into any of those other markets?
Butterfield: In the ideal future, we would like to have it be playable across all kinds of platforms. At first it will only work in a browser on a PC, but we will have companion applications for mobile — so iPhone and Android — that give you a more limited amount of gameplay but allow you to kind of interact with the game without having the whole client open. Because it’s massively multiplayer and you’re encountering other people, talking to friends or strangers, it’s tough to play without a keyboard in front of you, because that’s the way people talk. But if, for example, you’re participating in an auction, you should be able to use the iPhone app for that sort of thing; or if there’s a local election happening or some other asynchronous social interactions, that kind of stuff can happen in a mobile app.
GigaOM: Tell us a bit about the game. What are players trying to accomplish?
Butterfield: The 30-second version of the backstory is that it’s a billion years in the future and everything worked out perfectly — everyone’s enlightened and it’s peaceful and and just perfect. And of course, that’s a very unlikely future. One day scientists discover that and determine that the solution is to go back to the past and fix it so the future actually happens. Now, as everyone knows, the world was originally spun out of the imagination of 11 great giants, wandering sacred paths on a barren asteroid, and singing and thinking and humming the whole world into existence. So we have to go back into the past, into the minds of the giants and grow the world — so that the future can actually come to pass.
GigaOM: You’ve mentioned Facebook games such as Farmville and World of Warcraft. Is Glitch anything like either of those?
Butterfield: When you compare it to Farmville or any of what we’re calling social games for Facebook, they’re all single-player games with a little bit of access from my single-player game experience to your single-player game experience. You can fertilize your friend’s crops but that’s about it. If someone’s better at growing corn, for example, in their farm in Farmville, I can’t just buy their corn. There’s no economy, no real interaction; what I do doesn’t really make any difference to you. So this is what people used to call a persistent world game, a massively multiplayer game — but it’s different from most massively multiplayer games because the focus isn’t on fighting. And the reason for that is just that once you have fighting in a game, then the game becomes about fighting, and it’s really hard to fit in any other kind of significant human interaction. When it’s about getting better weapons and better armor so you can kill more impressive foes, then that ends up being what the game’s about, and we didn’t want it to be about just that.
GigaOM: Is it the type of game that takes hundreds of hours to play, like some other massively multiplayer games?
Butterfield: People can sit down and have a multi-hour game session, but they should be able to get some satisfaction out of short bursts as well — 10 minutes snuck in at work, stuff like that. It is definitely possible to wander around the world by yourself, and go exploring and — to use the game industry word, to grind — to do the repetitive tasks and level yourself up by yourself. But there are other people always there. There’s plenty of opportunities to work with people so that for example, a lot of the larger, more expensive things that you can build or develop in a new area require a group of people who have different skills and pool their resources. But there can be competition as well — economic is the most obvious, but I think we’ll see a lot of sort of tongue-in-cheek politics and even religions. Someone started the Church of Emergent Complexity back in the Game Neverending days.
GigaOM: Glitch is a bit of a throwback design-wise to the early days of 2-D, side-scrolling PC games. Why did you decide to do that?
Butterfield: It was partly a technology decision, because it’s much easier to develop in that way, and the tolerance for latency is a lot higher. But also 3-D, while it often looks beautiful, is a lot more complicated for people to deal with. Just physically moving a 3-D avatar around in a virtual world is a lot more challenging than in 2-D. If you look at something like Second Life, there are many differences, and just moving around in Second Life is a challenge for a lot of people. But everyone can sort of immediately grok the 2-D, side-scrolling, platformer method of moving and that kind of gameplay.
GigaOM: What kind of funding does Tiny
SparkSpeck have?Butterfield: We did a small angel round of $1.5 million last spring, and the bulk of that was Accel Partners, plus there were about a half a dozen angels including Marc Andreessen; Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn; Rob Solomon from Technology Crossover Ventures and the former CEO of Sidestep; as well as Brad Horowitz, who is VP of products at Google. So there has been a pretty big group of people. We’re going to be doing a Series A round sometime soon.
Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
BREAKING: NYT Finally Addresses David Paterson Sex Scandal Rumors, Says Purported Story "Doesn't Exist."
In a City Room blog post that went up at 6:07 p.m., the NYT finally addressed rumors of a brewing David Paterson sex expose. The unsigned story appears to be saying that the story -- at least as described by other publications -- doesn't exist.
Note the wording of this passage, reporting on Paterson's press conference today after being interviewed by the NYT:
Mr. Paterson then criticized the paper for not formally tackling the issue of the story everyone is talking about that doesn’t exist.
“They don’t seem to be interested in addressing it or doing anything about it — I think it’s appalling,” he said.
The story goes on to quote metropolitan editor Joe Sexton as saying:
“Obviously we are not responsible for what other news organizations are reporting. It’s not coming from The Times.”
Sexton doesn't deny or confirm anything about the story, but Paterson told reporters he was asked nothing about rumors related to a purported sex scandal.
The NYT post goes on to refer, throughout, to the story that "doesn't exist" or that "reporters don't know exist."
Sentences in the post are oddly constructed so as to refer to the story as something "no one knows exists."
For example:
One of his possible Republican rivals, Rick Lazio, has called for the article no one knows exists to be published or for The Times to say it doesn’t exist, all to clear the good name of the governor and end “the psychological warfare” against him.
How exactly can it be a story that no one knows exists? Someone must know. At best it's an awkward construction that seems intended to obfuscate the truth, which the NYT surely knows.
It's all a bit, well, existential. When the NYT says the article "doesn't exist," does it mean that the article doesn't exist at all, or that it just "doesn't exist" in a form consumable by readers? Does an article ever really "exist" at all? Does the NYT mean the story won't ever exist in the future?
Whatever it means, it appears that the NYT is trying to distance itself from incessant rumors that its story will be the sex blockbuster readers have been expecting.
The fact that Paterson was interviewed by a NYT reporter for 90 minutes today makes clear a story about the governor is imminent -- perhaps even hours away. But while its contents still aren't known, the NYT's blog post serves to further dampen expectations of a piece that could force a resignation.
iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 2 available now
Just a quick heads up to all your iPhone and iPad developers out there. The new version of the 3.2 SDK is now available for download. The Apple developer site is getting a bit slammed right now but it looks like a really exciting new update. Can't wait to start playing with it myself.
As per last time, the new beta SDK is under NDA, so please go check out the details for yourself to get further information about the changes between this beta and the last.TUAWiPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 2 available now originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Neighborhood Beefs: Dear Nolita: You Cannot and Will Not Stop Shake Shack
The neighborhood types that aren't keen on having burger exhaust fill their windows and burger-lovers lining up down their streets are gearing up for tonight's Community Board 2 meeting. There, reps for Danny Meyer's planned Nolita Shake Shack will be appearing for a beer and wine license, and a vocal minority—including the folks that live directly behind the lot—are none too pleased about the whole project. Hence the flier above.
NIMBYs, guys, buddies: there are battles worth fighting, plenty of them. But in this case, it's time to stop worrying and learn to love the Danny. Stay tuned for coverage on the meeting tomorrow morning.
· Stop Shake Shack Corner of Prince and Mulberry [Suzannah B. Troy]
· Shake Shack Nolita Coverage [~ENY~]
My Other Weblog Is A Radio
Just a reminder: I'm writing another weblog over here. It's documenting my year of only listening to music from 2010 and I would love any suggestions you have.
I like 
All about TED's 12 limited-edition tote bags
TED's legendary Gift Bag evolved this year -- it's still a gorgeous Rickshaw Bagworks messenger bag filled with goodies, but this year, by popular demand, attendees could choose their own custom set of TED Gifts to go inside it and have the bag mailed home. Which is lovely, but does set up an issue: at TED, it's just nice to have a bag to tote things in.
So we commissioned a dozen gorgeous tote bag designs from designers in the TED community -- TED2010 speaker Marian Bantjes, TEDIndia program guide designer Albertson Design, our title designer Jakob Trollback, Justin Klein from sketchcandy.com, Dave Warnke and more. Each artist was inspired by one of the 12 session names from TED (above are Albertson's take on Provocation and Discovery, with Jennifer Bostic's TED2010 graphic in between). Production of the bags was supported by Target.
On the back is the cover of the TED2010 program guide -- a grid of icons that show a few things that, just maybe, The World Needs Now ...
Below, all 12 designs. Above, photo TED / Marla Aufmuth
New Report Maps a High-Speed Rail Link For Every Major U.S. City
Image: U.S. PIRG
Now that the Obama administration has awarded $8 billion in high-speed rail grants to more than two dozen states, with $2.5 billion more coming soon, why not keep thinking big when it comes to bullet-train expansion?
That's the ethos of a new report released today by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) calling for a New Deal-like public works juggernaut that would eventually connect all major cities located within 100 and 500 miles of each other. For a look at how such a system would remake the American rail map, check out the image above.
"The first step in building the network is to set a national goal with an ambitious time frame, just like we did for the Interstate Highway System or getting to the moon," U.S. PIRG senior analyst Phineas Baxandall wrote in a blog post unveiling the report. "We can link all our major cities by 2050, if we set our minds to it."
Given the political wrangling over the deficit that continues to paralyze Washington, however, it's worth asking how an ambitious rail program would be funded. The U.S. PIRG answers that question in several ways: First, the group calls for a dedicated revenue stream for inter-city passenger rail in the next long-term transportation bill, with local investments matched by the federal government in the same 80:20 ratio that highway plans receive.
"By financing transportation projects equitably," the report's authors write, "states will be able to make rational transportation decisions based on the needs of their residents, rather than on the chances of securing a lucrative federal match."
Secondly, the U.S. PIRG aims to put government support for Amtrak -- often derided by conservatives for its reliance on federal subsidies that also benefit road projects -- in perspective. When evaluated as a share of U.S. GDP, government investment of passenger rail looks stunningly low compared with other industrialized nations. The imbalance is visible in the chart below:
(Chart: U.S. PIRG)
From the U.S. PIRG report:
To begin to dig out of that hole, the federal government should invest steadily increasing levels of funding in passenger rail. We probably cannot hope to match the $300 billion China will be investing in its high-speed rail system between now and 2020, but we should endeavor to match the level of investment provided by other industrialized nations, as a share of GDP, in their rail networks.The group does not address the lingering debate over whether all planned U.S. inter-city rail projects can truly be called "high-speed" given that many would achieve maximum speeds little better than 110 miles per hour. Still, its vision of finishing the job begun by the White House this year is likely to fire up rail advocates and give helpful new tools to local planners.
What's your work about? Are you designer, developer, other?
I’m a web designer at Six Apart Services. I do a mix of designing and coding, which was my main hobby for ten years before I started making money from it.
Annie Hall
A young-ish Christopher Walken appears in Annie Hall but his name is misspelled in the credits as "Christopher Wlaken". Were this 1990, I might have invented a eastern European backstory for Wlaken, who, perhaps, Americanized his name sometime after appearing in the film. But as we live in the future, a cool hunk of glass and metal from my pocket told me -- before the credits even finished rolling -- that the actor was born Ronald Walken in Astoria, Queens.
The future isn't any fun sometimes.
Rating: 4.5/5.0 Tags: Annie Hall Christopher Walken movies Woody Allen
Comic novelty watermelon
I'm not sure why "vaguely put out" is my default expression in these photos. Maybe it's because I'm a sullen bitch! Possibly.
That's a little more human, though I feel it fails to convey the full rotundity of my person. The light cast upon my glowing visage is extra clear and white thanks to the snow swirling outside my office window. No watermelons out there.
Nice neck creases there, champ.
People passing me in the hall have taken to saying "How are you?" and giving my middle a Meaningful Look. I am not sure what they are going for, tone-wise. There is a general tendency for it to come out as a Groucho Marx kind of leer, which is surely not quite what anyone really has in mind. "If you know what I mean, and I think you DO, watermelon."
It is conspiratorial, but I am not sure who we are supposed to be conspiring against or what we are supposed to be conspiring towards. If someone would like to conspire to replace my class this evening with a grilled cheese sandwich and a nap, though, I would not object. In fact, feel free to conspire on my behalf all you like. What have you got to offer?
SDK devsugar: Re-signing applications
Filed under: Apple
TUAW's devsugar series helps introduce developers to tools and tricks that they might not yet be familiar with. Today's tip centers on signing already-compiled and already-signed applications with a new custom signature.
A while back, I posted about a way to sign already-compiled applications with your personal credentials in order to better allow developer-to-developer distribution. By re-signing an application, it allows you to install it on any of the devices you have registered to your account at Apple without having to go through the fuss and bother of normal ad-hoc distribution. In addition, it makes it easier to develop applications on a contractor's machines, to ship them to a client, and then have them signed and shipped to App Store using the client's identity.
A basic command-line solution is as follows. It calls codesign (found in /usr/bin) to sign the application, using the default keychain item that matches "iPhone Developer". It's a handy script, especially for informal beta distributions.
#! /bin/bash
export CODESIGN_ALLOCATE=/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/usr/bin/codesign_allocate
codesign -f -s "iPhone Developer" $1
There are, however, several problems with this approach. First, it assumes you only want to sign with development (typically "Debug build") credentials. That's not going to work if you need to re-sign for distribution. (Solution? Change iPhone Developer to iPhone Distribution). Second, it assumes you only have one developer or distribution profile in your keychain. (Solution? Change iPhone Developer, for example, to iPhone Developer: Company Name to exactly match just one keychain entry.) Third, it assumes the person doing the re-signing knows how to use a command line. For that, the solution is a little more complicated.
Recently, this topic came up on a developer e-mail list that I moderate: how do you make it easier for a non-technical client to re-sign an application, normally for distribution. As a solution, I put forth the proposal that one could embed the above shell script behavior into an AppleScript droplet. After consulting with a few colleagues, and gathering their requirements, I decided to give the project a try. I built an AppleScript application that signs any application dropped onto it.
You can find a working copy of the application at my website. App Signer iterates through any apps dropped onto it, checks to ensure whether each file (or bundle, really) ends with an ".app" extension, and then attempts to sign those files using /usr/bin/codesign.
Users can choose to sign with Developer credentials, Distribution credentials, or select Other to open a prompt and enter text for keychain disambiguation. (See the screen shot at the top of this post for an example of the disambiguation dialog.) The application displays results for each application, one at a time.
Please note the following caveats:
- I make no attempt to guarantee that the app dropped onto this utility is actually an iPhone app (rather than, say a Macintosh application).
- When working with on-device keychains, the identity used to sign the application has to match the application id set forth in the Info.plist file for the application, otherwise keychain access will fail.
- This is a free application. It is offered under the BSD license. Use it at your own risk. Credit always appreciated. The open source github repository for App Signer can be found here.
- To create the application, open the AppleScript source in Script Editor and choose File > Save As > File Format: Application.
TUAWSDK devsugar: Re-signing applications originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Note: Pitchers and Catchers in Nine Days
The Mets equipment truck has left Citi Field, on its way to Tradition Field in St. Lucie.
Updated at 1:50 pm:
Link: Mets Police posts Luis Castillo Upper Deck Card
… at least it’s not the actual dropped pop-up from the Yankees game…
Abusing MySQL: The Federated Engine « mikhail panchenko
Mike, I think my head hurts.
Rob Neyer Baseball: Notes and Observations
Because you’re a savvy, go-getting sort of reader, you very probably came across Craig Calcaterra’s announcement about a fortnight ago that not only has the very famous Rob Neyer (a) formed a partnership with Diamond Mind Baseball, but that he (i.e. Neyer) (b) was/is arranging a league of elite baseballing writers to promote it.
First off, I want to say: If this move constitutes “selling out” on Neyer’s part, it must be the best, most nerdly case of selling out ever (although, I concede that it depends on how much Wallace Shawn has received in the way of royalties for his My Dinner with Andre action figure). Allow me to announce it here and now: I am willing to lend my name, likeness — whatever — to almost any product, provided the Scrilla Factor (SF, for short) is sufficient.
Follow the money trail, indeed.
The original lineup for what’s being called the Rob Neyer Media League has changed slightly — Messrs Glanville and Posnanski have both recently, and somewhat bizarrely, broken their wrists while washing their pickup trucks — but the idea is the same.
Viola (team name in parentheses):
*Craig Calcaterra, Famous Blogicator (Matewan Massacre)
*Gordon Edes, Boston-Area Newsman (Sons of Ring Lardner)
*Rany Jazayerli, Constantly Aghast Royals Fan (The Process)
*Bob Keisser, Resident, The City They Call Long Beach (The Write Stuff)
*Jonah Keri, Twin-Maker, etc. (Montreal McGaffigans)
*Barry Koren, Owner/Operator, Diamond Mind (A Team of Their Own)
*Richard Lally, Actual, Real-Live Bookwriter (Park Slope Muggles)
*The Man Himself, Sabermetric Evangelist (Wabash Mashers)
*Norm Wamer, Radio Giant (Hall of Wamers)
*Josh Wilker, Dream-Maker, Love-Taker (East Randolph Kerouacs)
*Charles Wolfson, A More Differenter Owner/Operator of Diamond Mind (Pittwater Dolphins)Moreover, in what appears to have been a terrific accident, Neyer has invited yours truly to the awesome, nerdly dance party. (I won’t dwell on it, but it appears as though Neyer’s invite appeared in my inbox at the very moment his judgment was almost definitely being impaired by narcotics.)
The league has just finished its draft, so there’s only so much to say about it at this point. Still, here are some observations from a week or so of noodling around on the site:
*If the message board comments at the site are correct, the salaries for each player are pretty carefully calculated to represent their (i.e. the players’) true talent levels. Therefore, it’s tough to go all Andrew Friedman and exploit market inefficiencies — especially when one of the other owners in your league is, like, BFF with Friedman himself.
*That said, it’s possible to manufacture inefficiencies with ballpark selection (and maybe some other ways I haven’t realized). To that end, I’ve chosen Fenway Park ca 1914-1918 as my home field. As you can see by means of this long, nerdy list of park effects, Fenway has the lowest home run factor (22) of any available park.
That being the case, I’m constructing a team of pitchers with low HRA+s (that is, below average in home runs allowed relative to the league) and batters with low HR+s (that is, below average in home runs hit relative to the league). Obviously, that won’t make for a great combination when we (The New Enthusiasts, that is) visit U.S. Cellular next Monday, but it’s excellently suited for our home field.
*One player I’ve drafted, and who would undoubtedly command some attention for All-Time All-Joy Team consideration is Oliver “Ghost” Marcelle. Marcelle is one of the elite defensive third basemen in the Diamond Mind system (one of the few who qualifies as Excellent defensively). He was also one of the best — and most interesting — Negro League players ever, it seems.
But don’t take my word for it! From Wikipedia:
In a strange incident in the late 1920s, Marcelle’s teammate Frank Warfield reportedly bit Marcelle’s nose off after the two got into a fight, when both men were playing in the Cuban Winter League. Bill Yancey, another teammate of Marcelle’s, said, “What got [Marcelle] out of baseball, he and [teammate] Frank Warfield had a fight in Cuba [probably in the winter of 1927-28, over a dice game] and Warfield bit his nose off. He was a proud, handsome guy, you know, and then he used to wear a black patch across his nose and he got so he couldn’t play baseball anymore.”
*User jaxxr, whom I contacted through the site because he seemed to be a knowledgeable fellow, was super-thorough and -patient with me in explaining how much certain of the ratings (defensive range, outfield arm, running) translate into run value. Thank you very much, sir!
Intel, Micron announce 25nm NAND flash production
Intel, Micron announce 25nm NAND flash production:You’ve probably glossed over the boring headline and aren’t even reading this, but it’s a lot more important than it sounds for the computer industry and computer users.
This is the tipping point for SSDs to become mainstream.
Currently, good SSDs (the bad, cheaper ones generally aren’t worth buying) are small and expensive. Intel’s excellent X25-M series, the gold standard, is about $450 for 160 GB.
SSDs based on this 25nm flash are likely to offer 160 GB in the $200 range and 320 GB in the $500 range.
It’s hard to overstate the performance gains that SSDs offer. It’s not the sort of incremental, you’ll-notice-it-5%-of-the-time gains that new CPUs usually offer.
If your computer feels slow, it’s almost definitely the hard drive’s fault.
If you’re waiting a little longer than usual for a popular website to render its Dashboard or show you an encyclopedia page or tell you which of your old high-school friends have gotten fat, you’re probably waiting for some hard drives in a server somewhere.
Nearly every slowdown of modern computer usage is caused by a very fast computer that’s sitting around doing nothing while it waits for its hard drive to move its heads.
Seek time is the delay required for the drive’s heads to move to the requested location on the disk, stabilize, and start reading or writing the data. Most hard-drive delays are seeks, not big sequential transfers1.
Ten years ago, the best consumer-class hard drives had seek times in the 12ms range. Today, most good drives are in the 8ms range. Got that? In a decade, we’ve made huge gains in nearly every other aspect of computer performance, and hard drives are much faster than they used to be. But seek time is still very high, and is still the bottleneck for everyday computer performance.2
SSDs — these tiny, laptop-hard-drive-sized boxes that have no moving parts and emit no noise and cost only $450 for 160 GB today — have an effective seek time of 0ms.
Zero.
Seeks become effectively free. (Technically, they do take some time. But it’s well under 1ms and close enough to zero, relative to hard drives, for the sake of argument.)
Imagine if nearly every computer slowdown vanished. That’s what it’s like using a good SSD.
And it’s very likely that, in 2010, SSDs will finally reach mainstream-friendly prices and capacities.
I’m incredibly excited about this. Say what you will about my geekiness or overenthusiasm if you’ve actually made it all the way through this post, but the first time you use a computer with an X25-M, you’ll be this excited, too.
Average people don’t realize how little of a hard drive’s performance is bottlenecked by the maximum transfer rate, which is why new interfaces always advertise their sequential-transfer rates. USB with 60 MB/s vs. Firewire 800 at 100 MB/s vs. SATA at 150+ MB/s. It doesn’t really matter — when you’re waiting for seeks, which is most of the time, you’re lucky if the drive transfers more than 10 MB/s. There’s a great car analogy here with the everyday relevance of top speeds if you want to make it. ↩
What makes ridiculously expensive, 15,000 RPM server-class hard drives worth their cost to server admins is the reduction in seek times down to the 5ms range. They’re worth a huge price premium just for that. ↩
Barry Bonds and Splits
Anytime a new offensive statistic or function is added to the site, I tend to gravitate to Barry Bonds’ page to see what the outer bounds look like. The splits function is no different.
For instance, did you know that in his 268 high leverage plate appearances Bonds was walked intentionally 58 times. All told, Bonds walked in 42.2% of his total plate appearances. When he did hit, his ISO was a ridiculous .360. That’s good for a 1.354 OPS and a .524 wOBA. I don’t know if people will reference these numbers in 200 years after reading up on baseball history (folklore by then) and how Buck Showalter walked him with the bases loaded, but if they do, such a factoid should help to create understanding, if not acceptance.
Even the immortal saw the typical platoon advantage, which is to say that the left-handed Bonds was superior against righties. A .492 wOBA against them versus only a .480 wOBA against lefties suggests the Giants wasted a golden opportunity for a platoon. Bonds was more discriminatinh when it came to hitting the ball hard in certain directions. He hit the ball well to right (.524), center (.513), but not nearly as well to left (.394). Of course, a .394 wOBA is nearly .020 points higher than Evan Longoria’s career wOBA, but this is Bonds we’re talking about. Unacceptable, Barry.
Somehow he hit more home runs at home (one more, to be exact) than he did on the road. This came in light of nearly 40 fewer plate appearances at home, too, and while playing in one of the more homer-constricting parks in the National League. Oh, and this, well, this I just have to replicate in full These are Bonds’ 2002 month-by-month wOBA figures:
April: .563
May: .509
June: .536
July: .514
August: .607
September/October: .530A .509 wOBA was a down month for him. Goodness gracious … goodness gracious.
If-n-Oof
Here’s a panel from Brian Chippendale’s upcoming 650 page tome, If-n-Oof, due out in June.
Ideas are crazy. It’s about a seven-mile ride to the comic store from where I live, and every week I bike there. Something about that trip helps me solve problems with If ‘n Oof. I ride with a sketchpad and stuff, and it’s literally like turning the tap on. I can’t even tackle anywhere near the amount of ideas I have. There’s too many goddamn ideas! It’s killing me! Not that I’m trying to say “I’m the most creative person in the world!”, but somehow, I can tap into ideas. Maybe it’s the same idea over and over again turned upside-down on its head, but they’re killing me sometimes. I’m drowning in ideas. Help me!
All The Instruments Agree
This is an essay written by Eric Triantafillou that is included in Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today. Eric wrote the piece as a provocation to political printmakers, asking all of us to think deeper about what we do, and question whether it is accomplishing the things we think it should or we want it to. I find it challenging and valuable, and want to post it here in hopes of starting a broader discussion. Please give it a read and chime in. I know a number of artists that have read it and have questions and conflicts, so here's the place to raise them!:
All The Instruments Agree
Eric TriantafillouThe façade of a now-defunct police station in San Francisco’s Mission District is plastered with street art. It is a visual cacophony of posters, flyers, stencils, paintings, drawings, and the hand-scrawled responses of passers-by. A remnant of the housing struggles that began in 2000, today this wall is a public commons that transmits information about everything from legal rights workshops to communist party meetings and yoga classes; also occupying its surface are corporate ads cloaked in DIY lino-chic. It is also a screen onto which people project thoughts and feelings about the world they fear and visions of the one they want.
From a distance, all these competing images and ideas side by side create an uneasy harmony, like a Jackson Pollock painting—a kind of abstract social expressionism. Up close, reading the messages, you see a lot of contradiction and tension, evidence of the wall’s messy and contentious evolution. The tactile beauty of the wall is immediate, and yet you realize that this wall is not just a space; it also reveals a history—it is a process in time. But what kind of process? Is the wall a representation of a public and participatory experiment, or its actualization? Is the wall a truly democratic space in a society that only claims to be democratic? Do these disparate images and contradictory ideas illustrate the diversity of our social, cultural, and political perspectives?
We could view this form of public communication not as constituting a consensus, but as proof that we can have dissensus and yet still coexist. After all, no one has to listen to or agree with anyone’s opinions; they simply need to tolerate them being expressed. Any idea, any image, can simply be covered over by another, ad infinitum. We could celebrate the wall as a bastion of diversity and dissent, a toehold in a society whose public space is increasingly privatized and controlled. But we also have to recognize that the wall can represent a norm for controversy in a society that has not found a way to resolve its conflicts, a society that easily recuperates the meaning of experiments like these and then sells them back to us as aesthetic commodities.
The book you hold in your hands is also a kind of wall. At one time or another, many of the images in this book have appeared in public spaces across the U.S. and other countries. Like layers of time, these images have been peeled off the palimpsest and placed next to each other on the page. These juxtapositions are both powerful and problematic. Like the wall in the Mission, this book represents a diverse cross-section of ideas and practices that together form a loose aggregate that we could call “left political art.” However, viewing all these images next to each other can give the appearance of political unity when there may actually be none.
As printmakers, most of us produce our work with an understanding that we are contributing to and continuing the tradition of politicized printmaking that Deborah Caplow discusses in her essay—a tradition that began with Goya in the early nineteenth century. I often think that we are more preoccupied with continuing this tradition than with asking why the promise it holds out—the promise of universal emancipation—remains so elusive. Our need to be constantly busy, to always be making more, is endemic to the activist compulsion to keep a movement alive, with little sense of what we are moving toward or why. I would go so far as to say that we, the producers of images that are meant to represent social conflict and its antidotes, may actually be complicit in prolonging, as opposed to fulfilling, this broken promise. How could this be?
The graphic art of dissent over the past century and a half is an endlessly twisting, impossibly varied, and fantastically inspired and inspiring maze of imagery. Yet within this multiplicity of signs, symbols, and slogans there are clearly many that are used again and again. The images of past struggles comprise a kind of inventory of left visual tropes that are continuously recycled. New generations of makers adapt the images of previous generations to the social conditions and aesthetic sensibilities of the present. This is in part what it means to operate within a tradition. Images of the past are re-used in order to commemorate them, to create symbolic continuity, to inspire new social movements with the knowledge that they are rooted in the past, to prevent historical amnesia.
Left graphics regularly portray the relationship of social forces as a conflict between two sides: Us—children crying, clenched fists, crowds amassing, plants growing, doves alighting—versus Them—bombs falling, smoke stacks spewing, barbed wire, prison bars, skeletons. In nineteenth-century France, left political cartoons frequently characterized the bourgeoisie as a parasite that sucks the blood of the workers. Many early anarchists and socialists believed that if the workers—whom they believed produced all the wealth—could rid society of the bourgeoisie, they would finally be free. In the history of left political art, this opposition is played out again and again in expressions like “Capitalists need workers, but workers don’t need capitalists.” It is probable that in a society in which workers controlled production there would be a more equitable distribution of material wealth. But I don’t think it helps to think of capitalism as something that some people do and others don’t. We are all subjects of the same socioeconomic system. The captains of industry and finance are no less dominated by this system, regardless of the fact that they benefit more, than the billions of people with far less. We are all bound to a system characterized by a blind march toward profit, one that must constantly revolutionize or perish.
In early 2000, during the housing crisis in San Francisco that was caused by the new Internet economy, I produced the image Cleaner, Brighter, Whiter Tablecloths. An ironic jab at the hipsters who were moving into the neighborhood, it refers to the ethnic bleaching of the city’s predominately lower-income Mission District. The image portrays the immediate reality that was visible in the streets, representing gentrification as an opposition between those perpetrating it and those fighting against it. Representing the “gentrifiers” makes it unnecessary to represent those fighting against gentrification; the latter are implied. If as a viewer I don’t identify with what the symbols in the image signify, I am against them; I am one of us. And since we tend to affirm symbols of resistance as authentic expressions of suffering, joy, and indignation, we rarely question the thinking or the politics that are bound up with these symbols.
Cleaner, Brighter, Whiter Tablecloths only mirrored the way things appeared on the surface: young, white, urban professionals move into a “Latino” neighborhood, driving up real estate values and disrupting the sense of community. This conception reinforces the idea that capitalist society operates and can be understood through binaries like gentrifiers versus indigenous residents. What gets lost is the understanding of gentrification as a consequence of a socio-historical dynamic that shapes the actions of everyone involved: the venture capitalist who invests; the politician who frames the change as the natural course of economic development; the planning commission that rezones the neighborhood to pave the way; the banker who lends; the property owner who borrows to flip a condo or the first-time home-buyer who takes out a mortgage she can barely afford; the developer who controls the building trades or the independent contractor who hires cheap immigrant labor; and the community coalition attempting to get a temporary moratorium on the construction of market-rate housing so a few lower-income families can stay in their homes a little longer. The image of colonizing yuppies in search of authentic cultural interaction flattens this complex set of actors and interests into an easy-to-digest call to action. The more complex challenge of addressing gentrification and anti-gentrification struggles as systemic, as part of a process in which capital moves in and out of the built environment—the spatial component of capitalism’s necessity to continuously accumulate and expand—is something these symbols cannot communicate, and, in fact, obfuscate.
What is driving capitalism’s imperative to continuously accumulate value and increase that value? Is it old-fashioned human greed or something else? Why does gentrification specifically, and capitalism more generally, appear as a struggle between two opposing sides? Exploitation and social conflict are real and ever-present. But the socio-historical dynamic that structures all relationships, a dynamic that has become increasingly abstract over time, is concealed when it is understood through simple oppositions. This dynamic is rooted in the contingency and symbiosis of all social forces, classes, and interests. To reduce it to a conflict between good and evil does not help explain how this dynamic mediates social life, its origins, or how it has changed over time.
If we continue to express our politics as either choosing to do good or choosing to do bad, we will continue to think of the problem as one of being, as something in us, and not as a relationship between us. Good decisions by good people do not alter this dynamic in any fundamental way. Our focus on the ethical or unethical character of capitalist development, expressed in symbols of altruism versus greed, implies a politics of technocracy (an increase in social services here, a tighter regulation there), but also has the effect of closing off possibilities for more radical politics. Reform that ameliorates immediate material conditions strengthens the dominant thinking that our socioeconomic system is fundamentally sound, that it just needs some tinkering around the edges.
What if our images could do more? What if they had the potential to be radical, to go to the root, to try to represent the relationship that is hidden behind the binary idioms of our tradition? What if we were able to know what determines, and to clearly express, that which is truly wrong with capitalist society? As negative as our thinking and our images might become, they would point toward what is right and better.
At the same time artists are working through problems of representation, we must also think about how we produce images. What are the contexts in which our images are made? Who are the images for? Are they just preaching to the converted? If Cleaner, Brighter, Whiter Tablecloths was problematic as an image, the context in which it was made—as part of a larger effort to mount a visual response to what was happening in San Francisco’s Mission District—had far more potential. In 2000, some fellow printmakers and I began making posters about displacement and evictions. One of the places where we put them was on the old police station wall. Our group, the San Francisco Print Collective, became the propaganda wing of a neighborhood coalition that had come together to fight gentrification. SFPC members were united by the idea that art is an incredibly powerful tool when rooted in a social movement. We didn’t always agree with the political positions or tactics the coalition adopted, but we shared a common goal. The SFPC’s images and messages were composed by multiple voices within our collective, but when they hit the streets they spoke with one voice. Our work’s constant visual presence in public space helped communicate to others what was happening in the neighborhood. It also inspired and motivated people in the movement, inextricably linking our effectiveness and longevity to the wider community’s struggle.
Artists of the past organized large-scale unions and popular fronts in response to the social conditions of their time. Although these forms of organizing shouldn’t be ruled out, they haven’t materialized in the present. Many artists already work in small collectives, organizing themselves around shared affinities, social values, mutual support, and resource sharing. This doesn’t mean that as artists we automatically share a common political vision because of our backgrounds, a certain temperament, the media with which we work, or our relationship to other social actors and institutions. But what if we did? What if, instead of letting this book or the Mission District wall represent our differences—our pluralism—we began to work towards articulating a shared commonality?
I advocate that we, left printmakers, develop a set of shared goals, and use our powerful ability to intervene in public space, to create new ways of thinking and new meanings that refuse the dominant ones, and to develop tactics that can help us achieve those goals. The voices in this book and on that wall give the appearance of unity, of a unified opposition to capitalist society. But on closer examination, you can see fissures, fractures, and contradictions. If we began to organize ourselves, to create spaces for collective reflection and political education, I think we would find that ideologically we are very atomized, and that many of us would rather remain this way because the concept of unity (and all the past failed attempts at it) means a loss of individual freedom.
The collective articulation of a set of goals (which in and of itself would be an incredible undertaking) would necessitate an in-depth analysis of all the practices we’re engaged in. It would mean that we would have to confront the fact that some ways of thinking and some practices are probably better than others, as instruments for achieving our goals. This doesn’t mean it is wrong to make images that advocate that we “Support the troops, send the politicians to war” or “Knit for the revolution.” But it does mean that if these are the kinds of stories we tell ourselves and we attempt to fashion a politics out of them, we may not be getting any closer to our goals. In their broadest sense, these goals would have to involve creating the social conditions in which someone’s desire to make whatever she wants, to think and act as she sees fit—without being dominated by time, space or someone else—will have been gained for all.
The wall insists on an encounter. It wants to be used. But it is a space that gestures toward something beyond itself. It is not an end. It is a process of becoming. At the same time we create spaces of dialogue and public commons, at the same time we continue our tradition as the archaeologists of dreams and the farmers of inspiration, we can realize the force of unity that lies dormant in our fractured and individualistic practices. Let’s investigate our own thinking. Let’s look at our practices. Let’s collectively reflect on the images we make, and how and for whom we make them. Let’s ask if they could do more—if they could reveal the abstract barbarity of our social reality, and still incite and inspire us. As long as our goals are based on an intransigent desire for total social freedom, we have nothing to fear.
Eric Triantafillou lives in Chicago where he teaches and writes. He cofounded the San Francisco Print Collective and Mindbomb, a collaborative political activist art group in Romania.If you are interested in the book this essay came from, which includes two other full length essays, 200 color reproductions of political prints, and a dozen short pieces of writing by printmakers, please check it out HERE.
Oh my goodness (fans self)
So IndigoTangerine left a comment here last week asking if knew that this blog was mentioned in a book called Breakfast At Bloomingdale's. Which, um, no, I didn't! But it is!
I think most of you know that I'm a dictionary editor in my "day job", but when I was working for OUP I was also an "acquiring editor," which meant that I noodged, nagged, harangued, and otherwise coaxed books from ideas to publication. I have a shelf of books in my house that I can point to and say "I midwived those" (and in some of them I can point to the acknowledgements to prove it). Occasionally, when I am having a bad day, I go look at that shelf and I say to myself: "Thoseare
some
mighty
kickass
books
that
wouldn't be here if I hadn't helped." (I'm even prouder of those books than I am of my
own.)
So anyway, of *course* I ordered this one. I may even put it on the same shelf!
February 8, 2010
♥ Magic Mouse
The Magic Mouse* is the most satisfying new Apple product I’ve bought since the first-gen iPhone (the 3G’s great, too, but it was an upgrade, not a revelation). It just works — and it makes my three year old iMac feel like a brand new machine. All the vertical scrolling you do on sites—especially ones with an endless scroll like the Tumblr Dashboard—feels so satisfying with a little finger swipe, while the two-finger swipe is just fun. Our old Mighty Mouse was nice, but I was getting so sick of the little nubby roller ball, and rolling it around upside down every time it stopped working, which was almost daily.
$70 feels like too much to pay for a mouse—but it’s the main thing you touch when clicking around the web, which is mostly what I do on my iMac, and how often can you get what even Uncle Walt calls “a revolutionary product” for under $100?
* mouse pad completely unnecessary, even on a shiny countertop like mine. But it looks nice.
Standards are the links of the Social Web
Mike Arrington wrote a plea for better social software on Sunday:The online social landscape today sort of feels to me like search did in 1999. It’s a mess, but we don’t complain much about it because we don’t know there’s a better way.
Everything is decentralized, and no one is working to centralize stuff. I’ve got photos on Flickr, Posterous and Facebook (and even a few on MySpace), reviews on Yelp (but movie reviews on Flixster), location on Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla, status updates on Facebook and Twitter, and videos on YouTube. Etc. I’ve got dozens of social graphs on dozens of sites, and trying to remember which friends puts his or her pictures on which site is a huge challenge.
What enabled Google to solve the search problem was a common standard for expressing pages and the links between them, so that they could index the webpages and derive a metric for which ones were more important. They didn't do this by replacing the web with a structured database that they curated, they worked with the standards in use to make sense of it.
To solve the social conundrum we need the equivalent - agreed standards in widespread use so that we can generalize across sites. Fortunately, we have these. We have OpenID and OAuth for delegated login; we have XFN, other microformats and Portable Contacts for public and private people connections; we have Feeds and Activity Streams for translating social actions between sites.
This enabling social infrastructure means that we'll be able to have a new generation of sites that enhance our web experience through social filtering without our connections being centralised in a single company's database.
Once we get used to the experience of being able to delegate login, personal connections and activity updates, we'll look askance at developers who insist we create yet another profile and invite all our friends by email to experience their site; it'll be like a website without links.
Chunking and Programming Languages
Some of my biases are transparent. For example, I believe that many of the complaints of Perl's "unreadability" are from people who've never bothered to learn how to read the language. You often see this from people who say "Sigils? Pfft. They're useless—mere syntactic noise!"
Linguists may disagree.
One of the early inventions in written language was punctuation. In specific, adding spaces between words (and even vowels, in some languages... yes, my history studies have come in useful while programming) makes documents easier to read. The same goes for punctuation. It's easy enough to write sentences with ambiguous meanings, depending on where you put a comma to delineate logically separate clauses. (Languages with greater riches of declensions and tenses and numbers and other forms are more flexible in word order, but they do retain some degree of poetic license. It's not all meter and rhyme scheme however.)
The basic idea behind all of these ancient inventions is that "Communicating is difficult enough without verbal and body language cues. Making different things look different helps."
To read source code, you have to be able to identify nouns and verbs. You have to be able to group related items and ideas while not grouping unrelated ideas. You need to be able to identify separate expressions as well as idioms.
One reason assembly language can be difficult to read is that its regularity (op arg1, arg2 or op arg1, arg2, arg3) precludes skimmability. That may sound odd; if you're reading code, why do you need to skim code, but it's important. Programming encompasses so many small details that you must understand the code in the small in the context of the local component as a part of the system as a whole.
Uniformity of syntax means that you have to rely on cues external to the source code or patterns of repeated details within the source code to indicate structure.
I have the same problem reading Lisp code, with its homoiconicity; the shape of the code gives me few cues as to what's different between sections of code. As well, Python's use of vertical whitespace to end blocks means that my eyes slip off of the end of logical blocks and I can't tell what happens where.
A lot of that is familiarity and personal preference (or quirks of the way my brain works). Some of that is the effect of deliberate design decisions.
If you embrace the idea, like Perl does, that different things should look differently, you reach some interesting conclusions. I don't think you can learn Perl effectively without understanding those conclusions, at least at an intuitive level. I'll write about that next time.
Richard Crowley: OpenDNS MySQL abuses
“INSERTs contains values that are pre-sorted in PRIMARY KEY order to avoid deadlock … To delete old data, a new table is swapped into place using RENAME TABLE … MySQL is still a pretty heavy hammer.” Beautiful.
Estimating Hitter Platoon Skill
I don’t think I’m all that different from most fans who glance at stats — when I see them, I automatically view them as a player’s real talent. But one thing I’ve taken away from my reading of baseball analysts far more intelligent than I (granted, that’s not a very high standard), is that there’s an important distinction to be made between observed performance and true talent. Past performance should certainly inform how we estimate future performance. But it isn’t enough on its own. One of the most important tools for estimating true talent relative to observed performance and its sample size is regression to the mean. A good place to start reading with reference to the current discussion is The Book.
One bad habit many of us might get into it looking at the platoon splits of two players at the same position, one with a career wOBA of .390 vs. RHP, the other with a career wOBA of .400 vs. LHP, and thinking, “Wow, that platoon would be almost as good as Ryan Braun!.” It isn’t that simple. As in most other things, regression shows us that the distance from average is closer than it appears. Technical explanations aside, I’ll simply summarize what is relevant for estimating platoon skills.
How much we regress depends on the variation of skill in the relevant population. The less variation there is, the more likely deviations from the mean are random occurrences. Practically speaking, left-handed hitters display more variation in platoon skill than right-handed hitters, so in estimating the platoon skills of left-handed hitter, we use less regression.* According to The Book, we regress lefties’ platoon skills against 1000 PA against LHP of league average splits for left-handed hitters, and righties against 2200 PA against LHP. This means that when hitters have less than 1000/2200 PAs vs LHP, we estimate their platoon skill to be closer to league average than to their observed platoon performance. In practical terms, it also means that for righties, we’re usually save in assuming they have near-average platoon skills.
* Switch-hitters display the most platoon skill variation as a population, but that is a can of worms for another day. The Book writes that after 600 career PA against LHP, one has a pretty good idea of a switch-hitter’s platoon skill.
Some concrete examples might help. For my league average, I’ve taken MLB-wide splits from 2007 to 2009 from Baseball Reference and converted them to wOBA. This is just going to be a very basic demonstration, as, e.g. I wasn’t able to exclude pitchers from the splits, or remove switch-hitters, or leave out steals, weighted, and so on, but I think it will give the general idea. From 2007 to 2009, the average wOBA split for left-handed hitters was about 8.6%, and for right-handed hitter, about 6.1% (following The Book [I think], I use a percentage split to avoid potential logical absurdities and to reflect the reality that better hitters usually have larger splits.
We’ll begin with everyone’s favorite example of a “big splits” guy: Curtis Granderson. For his career, Granderson is a .358 wOBA hitter. However, while he has hit a robust .380 vs. RHP, in 685 versus LHP, he’s been 2009 Yuniesky Betancourt with a .270 wOBA. That’s a whopping 110 points of wOBA difference, about 30.7% in observed performance.
But remember — skill is closer to average than it appears. Regressing Granderson’s 685 PA of 30.7% against 1000 PA of league average (8.6%): (.307*685+.086*1000)/(685+1000), indicating an estimated platoon skill of 17.6%. “Centering” the split is a bit of a challenge, but I weighted it by the number of PAs the player has against LHP in his career (for Granderson, about 23.7%). For Granderson’s split, then, I have +4.2% vs. RHP, and -13.4% vs. LHP. Applying this to his 2010 CHONE projection of .359 wOBA, we’d forecast his 2010 wOBA against RHP as .374, and against LHP as .311. .311 is below average, but it’s far better than .270, and given Granderson’s skill in the field, you’d be hard-pressed to find a right-handed platoon partner that would offer an overall advantage to just playing Granderson. You’d also need a pretty good right-handed bench bat in order to overcome the “pinch-hitting penalty” when hitting for Granderson.
For a right-handed example, let’s use Ryan Garko, recently acquired by the Mariners as a platoon 1B/DH. Garko has career wOBA of .347, .332 vs. RHP in 1229 PA, and .382 vs. LHP in 485 PA — a 14.4% difference. But he’s a righty, so we regress toward 2200 PA of the average (6.1%): (.144*485+.0611*2200)/(485+2200) for an estimated platoon skill of 7.6%. Using the CHONE projection of .345 wOBA, we’d estimate Garko to be a .338 hitter versus RHP, and .364 versus LHP. That’s a good hitter versus lefties, and while the .338 isn’t great for a 1B/DH, it isn’t as if he’s useless against RHP.
Before I call it a post, I thought it would be interesting to quickly estimate the platoon skills of two players who have “reverse” splits for their careers.
Right-handed hitting Matt Holliday has a career wOBA of .400, but has hit .402 vs. RHP (2793 PA) and and .377 vs. LHP (845 PA), a -6.3% split (negative indicating “reverse”). After regression, we get a 2.7% estimated platoon skill. Given CHONE’s .389 wOBA forecast for Holliday, we’d estimate his skill as .387 wOBA vs RHP, and .397 vs. LHP. Not quite a “reverse,” but you don’t really want to “burn” a ROOGY against Holliday, either.
Colorado’s Ian Stewart has a career .337 wOBA, .334 vs RHP (655 PA) and .346 vs LHP, a -3.6% split. After regression, it comes to a 6.7% split. Given CHONE’s .358 wOBA forecast, we’d expect Stewart to his around .363 vs. RHP and .339 vs. LHP, a nice split for a lefty, but not a reverse one.
Like all forecasts, these are estimations (and crude ones, at that). To be more thorough, we’d have to assign confidence intervals/reliability scores. We’ simply trying to minimize our error. But keep in mind that splits in the retrospective mirror are almost always smaller than they appear.
[Note: After completing this post, I realized that Tom Tango had already posted about this on his blog, using Granderson as an example. D'oh. Fortunately, my results are almost exactly the same]
authentic imitation and the ipad
Via Kottke comes info about deckle edges, the imitation in modern books of what sliced pages would look like. Which makes me wonder just why the iPad -- with its faux bookshelf and its faux page turn isn't going all the way to having the user cut the edge of the virtual page with a virtual knife before being able to turn it.
Balls of mud that shine
I've posted about hikaru dorodango a couple times before but they're always worth another look. Dorodango start out as sloppy mud balls but through careful shaping and polishing with dirt and sand, they end up perfectly round and shiny. Here is a particularly beautiful and unusual example, made some yellow soil in New Mexico:
That totally looks like leather! Here is a more traditional (and shiny!) example:
Both of these were made by dorodango artist Bruce Gardner. Here's some video of how the balls are made:
This video is good as well but if you want to create your own, these detailed directions will be a better guide.
Tags: hikaru dorodango how to
davidkaneda: Panelfly, a beautiful comic book app for the...
Panelfly, a beautiful comic book app for the iPhone, has announced their plans to support the iPad. They’ve already mocked up a great selection of screens—each showing incredible attention to detail and level of innovation for a yet unreleased OS.
(via Soup)
Note: Pitchers & Catchers in 10 Days
According to Brian Costa of the Star-Ledger, “The Mets’ equipment truck is scheduled to leave for Port St. Lucie tomorrow at 11 am.”
Lady Gaga Auctioning Costume for Haiti
Whether you want to be a monster like Gaga or a humanitarian a la Angie, Charity Buzz's latest offer is a win-win.
Lady Gaga is auctioning off her Gary Card-designed skeleton corset (shown) on the site. The money raised will go to Oxfam International, benefiting the victims of Haiti's earthquake.
The bid is currently at $5,000, which is $3,000 over the estimated value, but it's for charity, so keep bidding!
Think about it: Can you really put a price on lip-syncing "Bad Romance" in Gaga's own corset?
Haiti - Lady Gaga - Oxfam - Bad Romance - Caribbean
Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home
2009 was filled with so many wonderful cookbooks but Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home has to be one of the most eagerly anticipated and well-received. Right now it's sitting happily on Amazon's best seller list alongside other media sensations of 2009, including the Twilight Saga, Sarah Palin's biography, and the latest from Dan Brown.
Not bad for a cookbook written by a chef who doesn't double as a television personality.
Thomas Keller has been making his presence known since he took over the Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry. Winning international accolades and three Michelin stars, Keller helped transform his unique style of American cooking into something that was taken seriously not only here but all over the world.
Even if you haven't had the pleasure of dining at The French Laundry or Per Se, chances are you've seen or heard about his playful signature dishes, Oysters and Pearls, and Coffee and Doughnuts.
After years of fine dining and indulgently epic pre-fixe menus Keller decided to open a restaurant that served the simple comfort food he enjoyed cooking on his days off. Ad Hoc started out as an experiment, a temporary casual restaurant that served simple family-style meals, a dining experience more similar to eating at home than at a restaurant.
This temporary project was so successful it became a full-fledged restaurant with rotating weekly menus and dishes to fantastically well-received that the next logical step could only be publishing a cookbook.
Ad Hoc at Home is filled with recipes for the dishes served at its namesake restaurant, including that incredible Fried Chicken that was good enough to warrant a make-at-home mix. Similar to other cookbooks written by restaurant chefs for home-style foods, the recipes accessible but punctuated with tips and techniques that only come from years of cooking behind the line.
Keller keeps the book plenty lighthearted with informative and oftentimes hilarious photos of himself in front of a blackboard, reminding you to let your meat rest and professing his love for the saucing spoon.
This week we are going to share some of Keller's favorite home-style meals with you. Keller's Michelin-starred signature dishes might not lie within the pages of Ad Hoc but you will find delicious, approachable recipes that are entirely doable and have no need for fancy restaurant-style equipment. It's going to be a week of haute comfort food from America's most talked-about chef and I for one can't wait to get cooking.
Win 'Ad Hoc at Home'
Thanks to the generous folks over at Artisan Books, we are giving away five (5) copies of Ad Hoc at Home this week. All you have to do is tell us about your favorite neighborhood restaurant in the comments section below.
Five (5) people will be chosen at random among the eligible comments below. We're sorry, but entry is only open to residents of the U.S. and Canada. Comments will close Monday, February 15 at noon ET. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
How to Ditch GoDaddy (Redux)
Last year's trashy GoDaddy SuperBowl commercials annoyed me enough to switch domain registrars; this year's just confirmed I made the right decision. If you want out, here's what I posted about it last year:
Yes, I knew that popular, cheap domain registrar GoDaddy always used sex to sell their services, and yes, their bullying upsells always bugged me, but yesterday’s Super Bowl ad shot my “Stop doing business with GoDaddy” to-do to the top of my list. But where to transfer to? I polled my Twitter friends on which registrars were the best alternatives. Here’s a spreadsheet of the full vote tally; turns out the least expensive, top vote-getter was Namecheap.com.
Been very happy with NameCheap ever since, and their "Not happy with your current registrar's advertising methods?" switching coupon code, SWITCH2NC, still works. Sorry, Danica: I like looking at beautiful people, just not at Hooters.
Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone) -- By: Daniel Foster
This is, by all reports, an actual billboard on I-35 in Wyoming, Minnesota:
Authentic imitation
The way that books used to be printed, the reader would have to cut open each page with a paper knife before it could be read, every page a tiny gift from the writer.
The printing happened on large sheets of paper which were then folded into rectangles the size of the finished pages and bound. The reader then sliced open the folds. Paper knives, variants of letter openers, were used for this purpose.
The deckle edge on modern books is an imitation of what those sliced open books looked like.
Tags: books
Also There's A Long Malcolm Gladwell Thing About Booze? Screw You, This Day!
Um, Adam Gopnik kind of liveblogged the Super Bowl? No matter. NOTHING can take away my joy over the Saints' victory.
Read: Bobby Valentine is the Obvious Next Step
The most obvious next step for Bobby Valentine is Flushing, says Bob Klapisch in a report for FoxSports.com.
According to Klapisch, “Jerry Manuel has two months, at best, to prove he can reverse the Mets downward spiral, which began all the way back in Game 7 of the 2006 NL Championship Series.”
Klapisch feels one long losing streak could get Manuel fired. “Question is,’ he asks, ‘would ownership have the guts to re-hire Valentine?’
…i want to give Jerry Manuel the chance to be successful, and i wish him the best… but, if he does end up being fired, i think i made myself quite clear, last October, here, that i want bobby to be his replacement… i know some people will like the idea of doing a total 180–degree turn from manuel with Wally Backman… but, i just can’t see wally getting promoted so soon… i mean, backman’s Cyclones do not play their first game until mid June… so, backman in Queens during 2010 doesn’t seem to make sense…
…as i explained in October, to me, valentine is more than a manager, he’d be a shift in brand, a change in the type of player acquired, etc., and it would have to part of a larger organizational shift… and, i’m not sure the Mets are ready for such a bold move, though they should be…
…by the way, thank you, klap, for the shout out in your report… much appreciated…
Updated at 12:25 pm:
Anthony L: Klap is right, would the Mets even hire Valentine? Or is it a pipe dream?
Matthew Cerrone: Frankly, I don’t think such topics are being talked about over there, as they have faith in Manuel and, obviously, think he will be successful this season. That said, from what I can gather, Ownership still thinks very highly of Valentine, and so, in the event the team is looking for a new manager, I do think he would be seriously considered.
'Earning' curve
The number of city workers pulling down $100,000 or more jumped more than tenfold in the last decade, largely because of hefty raises won by schoolteachers and principals. Figures compiled by the mayor's Budget Office at the request of The Post show that just 2,059 employees broke...
Bar of the Week: Belgian Room
We all experience it at some point in our lives: Who am I? Why am I here? What gives my life meaning? Oh the angst and torment of the existential struggle. But isn't it kind of comforting to know that bars go through it too? Case in point, the Belgian Room. The recently re-opened spot started as the Belgian Room, tried a Latin theme on for size for a month or few, and ultimately realized it had to go back to its roots. A coming of age story if I ever heard one. But the identity crisis doesn't seem to be over yet. The drunken monk statuettes and beer signs galore give the front a more casual pub feel in front (as does a digital jukebox with ads involving scantily clad ladies) but once you make your way to the back, unexpectedly bouncy white banquettes, framed vintage beer ads, and sleek wood panels create a decidedly lounge-y atmosphere. Fortunately, the one thing the Belgian Room seems absolutely sure about is its beer. Its mile-long list of Belgian bottles on offer is the bar's showpiece, and its tap with Delirium Tremens ($9) and Maudite from Unibroue (pronounced "unibrow"; $7) isn't half shabby. And $2 off all beers until 8pm should help you figure out exactly what you're doing there, if not the meaning of life.
Belgian Room
121 St. Mark's Place
(212) 533-4467
Photo from www.newyorkontap.com.
Beautiful planetary posters
All nine of the planets in our solar system are represented in these wonderful posters by Ross Berens.
Pluto. Never forget.
Tags: design Pluto Ross Berens space
From the blog of Terry Richardson
Celebrity photographer Terry Richardson has a blog to which he posts quick snaps. Sorta like everyone else on the planet except that oh, there's Kate Moss and there's Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and there's Justin Theroux and there's Doutzen Kroes and there's Tracy Morgan.
Somewhat NSFW in places.
Tags: photography Terry Richardson
Ticket Servers: Distributed Unique Primary Keys on the Cheap
(re-published from the Flickr Code Blog
This is the first post in the Using, Abusing and Scaling MySQL at Flickr series.
Ticket servers aren’t inherently interesting, but they’re an important building block at Flickr. Among other things they are core to topics we’ll be talking about later, like sharding and master-master. Ticket servers give us globally (Flickr-wide) unique integers to serve as primary keys in our distributed setup.
Why?
Sharding (aka data partioning)) is how we scale Flickr’s datastore. Instead of storing all our data on one really big database, we have lots of databases, each with some of the data, and spread the load between them. Sometimes we need to migrate data between databases, so we need our primary keys to be globally unique. Additionally our MySQL shards are built as master-master replicant pairs for resiliency. This means we need to be able to guarantee uniqueness within a shard in order to avoid key collisions. We’d love to go on using MySQL auto-incrementing columns for primary keys like everyone else, but MySQL can’t guarantee uniqueness across physical and logical databases.
GUIDs?
Given the need for globally unique ids the obvious question is, why not use GUIDs? Mostly because GUIDs are big, and they index badly in MySQL. One of the ways we keep MySQL fast is we index everything we want to query on, and we only query on indexes. So index size is a key consideration. If you can’t keep your indexes in memory, you can’t keep your database fast. Additionally ticket servers give us sequentiality which has some really nice properties including making reporting and debugging more straightforward, and enabling some caching hacks.
Consistent Hashing?
Some projects like Amazon’s Dynamo provide a consistent hashing ring on top of the datastore to handle the GUID/sharding issue. This is better suited for write-cheap environments (e.g. LSMTs), while MySQL is optimized for fast random reads.
Centralizing Auto-Increments
If we can’t make MySQL auto-increments work across multiple databases, what if we just used one database? If we inserted a new row into this one database every time someone uploaded a photo we could then just use the auto-incrementing ID from that table as the primary key for all of our databases.
Of course at 60+ photos a second that table is going to get pretty big. We can get rid of all the extra data about the photo, and just have the ID in the centralized database. Even then the table gets unmanageably big quickly. And there are comments, and favorites, and group postings, and tags, and so on, and those all need IDs too.
REPLACE INTO
A little over a decade ago MySQL shipped with a non-standard extension to the ANSI SQL spec, “REPLACE INTO”. Later “INSERT ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE” came along and solved the original problem much better. However REPLACE INTO is still supported.
REPLACE works exactly like INSERT, except that if an old row in the table has the same value as a new row for a PRIMARY KEY or a UNIQUE index, the old row is deleted before the new row is inserted.
This allows us to atomically update in a place a single row in a database, and get a new auto-incremented primary ID.
Putting It All Together
A Flickr ticket server is a dedicated database server, with a single database on it, and in that database there are tables like
Tickets32for 32-bit IDs, andTickets64for 64-bit IDs.The Tickets64 schema looks like:
CREATE TABLE `Tickets64` ( `id` bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, `stub` char(1) NOT NULL default '', PRIMARY KEY (`id`), UNIQUE KEY `stub` (`stub`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM
SELECT * from Tickets64returns a single row that looks something like:+-------------------+------+ | id | stub | +-------------------+------+ | 72157623227190423 | a | +-------------------+------+When I need a new globally unique 64-bit ID I issue the following SQL:
REPLACE INTO Tickets64 (stub) VALUES ('a'); SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID();SPOFs
You really really don’t know want provisioning your IDs to be a single point of failure. We achieve “high availability” by running two ticket servers. At this write/update volume replicating between the boxes would be problematic, and locking would kill the performance of the site. We divide responsibility between the two boxes by dividing the ID space down the middle, evens and odds, using:
TicketServer1: auto-increment-increment = 2 auto-increment-offset = 1 TicketServer2: auto-increment-increment = 2 auto-increment-offset = 2We round robin between the two servers to load balance and deal with down time. The sides do drift a bit out of sync, I think we have a few hundred thousand more odd number objects then evenly numbered objects at the moment, but this hurts no one.
More Sequences
We actually have more tables then just
Tickets32andTickets64on the ticket servers. We have a sequences for Photos, for Accounts, for OfflineTasks, and for Groups, etc. OfflineTasks get their own sequence because we burn through so many of them we don’t want to unnecessarily run up the counts on other things. Groups, and Accounts get their own sequence because we get comparatively so few of them. Photos have their own sequence that we made sure to sync to our old auto-increment table when we cut over because its nice to know how many photos we’ve had uploaded, and we use the ID as a short hand for keeping track.So There’s That
It’s not particularly elegant, but it works shockingly well for us having been in production since Friday the 13th, January 2006, and is a great example of the Flickr engineering dumbest possible thing that will work design principle.
More soon.
Using, Abusing and Scaling MySQL at Flickr
(re-published from the Flickr Code Blog
I like “NoSQL”. But at Flickr, MySQL is our hammer, and we use it for nearly everything. It’s our federated data store, our key-value store, and our document store. We’ve built an event queue, and a job server on top of it, a stats feature, and a data warehouse.
We’ve spent the last several years abusing, twisting, and generally mis-using MySQL in ways that could only be called “post relational”. Our founding architect is famously in print saying, “Normalization is for sissies.”
So while it’s great to see folks going back to basics — instead of assuming a complex and historically dictated series of interfaces, assuming just disks, RAM, data, and problem to solve — I think it’s also worth looking a bit harder at what you can do with MySQL. Because frankly MySQL brings some difficult to beat advantages.
it is a very well known component. When you’re scaling a complex app everything that can go wrong, will. Anything which cuts down on your debugging time is gold. All the of MySQL’s flags and stats can be a bit overwhelming at times, but they’ve accumulated over time to solve real problems.
it’s pretty darn fast and stable. Speed is usually one of the key appeals of the new NoSQL architectures, but MySQL isn’t exactly slow (if you’re doing it right). I’ve seen two large, commercial “NoSQL” services flounder, stall and eventually get rewritten on top of MySQL. (and you’ve used services backed by both of them)
Over the next bit I’ll be writing a series of blog posts looking into how Flickr scales MySQL to do all sorts of things it really wasn’t intended for. I can’t promise you these are the best techniques, they are merely our techniques, there are others, but these are ours. They’re in production, and they work. I was tempted to call the series “YesSQL”, but that really doesn’t capture the spirit, so instead I’m calling it “Using and Abusing MySQL”.
And the first article is on ticket servers.
Sci-Fi Surrealism & Ink Nerd
Really, this excellent piece by Paul at Old School Tattoo in Bellingham, Washington had me at "AT-AT," but this collector's idea to make it unique by incorporating elements of Salvador Dali's recurring spindly-legged elephants is pretty awesome. Ink Nerd has migrated to TypePad. It's an excellent blog! There are some seriously nerdy tattoos on that blog. Think triceratops, twenty sided die, etc. then get nerdier. When you find yourself at Mario as a Jedi (light saber and all) you're still not at the nerd end. via thisboelterfamily.typepad.com
A Sports Team Won A Sports Trophy Last Night And People Were Happy
I was once again struck by the complete absurdity of sports fandom last evening when I heard someone behind me (actually, it was Awl pal Meghan Keane) saying, "I think that's the most excited I've ever seen Alex Balk in my life."Tracy Porter had just intercepted the ball, essentially ending the game and giving the New Orleans Saints their first ever Super Bowl championship, and I had performed a vertical leap which was astounding both because of my lack of agility and the extremely rare display of emotion expressed therein. I say "extremely rare," but the fact is I was not very far removed from a massive and embarrassing display of fist pumping (I know) when the 2-point conversion was ruled valid a few plays earlier.
And that's the thing. It is completely illogical for most people to get so animated about a sporting event, even one as COMPLETELY AMAZING as this was. I had no money on the game. I am not a resident of New Orleans. I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the Saints organization. But in those moments—and even still right now, although that may have more to do with the fact that a significant amount of alcohol remains in my bloodstream—there was absolutely NOTHING ON EARTH that was more exciting. Hopefully we all have something in our lives that can occasionally give us those sharp bursts of pure joy. I guess it is harmless enough that there's no reason to be ashamed of it, but, yeah, I was pretty much a kid for the entire second half (I was a regular foul-mouthed adult during the first half.) When you think of the ridiculous lengths people go to to celebrate an event like this—hell, look at the ridiculous lengths people go to just for the ads—you have to believe there's some larger, animating purpose to it.
But who knows? Maybe I'm just another schmuck. That said, there's is no happier schmuck this morning than I. Except maybe for the guys who actually played the game. Probably.
[Oh, yeah, right, a deal's a deal. Kim Kardashian, will you marry me? Don't worry about hurting my feelings if your answer is no. I'm just SO DAMN HAPPY.]
February 7, 2010
zoom transitions
There's something really nice going on in this series of zooms around San Jose Ave and 280. I like the introduction of layering as the details move into focus:
Comments (1)
for the life between buildings
City of Sound's Dan Brown has a long, thoughtful piece on the iPad. There's much worth quoting; I'll just snip this little bit:
As software becomes a service, data resides in the cloud, various forms of wireless connectivity coalesce over the city, and yet face-to-face physical connection becomes more important than ever, a device like the iPad becomes obvious. The cloud is the connective tissue between these spaces, the software provides the platform for interaction with information, the tablet is the tool, and the forum is the city.
Go read (or Instapaper if you must) the whole thing. (And art geeks will appreciate the "Apologies to Bill Viola" bit.)
siri was worth the wait
I've been hearing about Siri for a while -- a friend works for the company, and the app's been in development for a long time -- but it was absolutely worth the wait.
Siri is young and, like a child taking its first steps, may be awkward at times. Siri may occasionally misunderstand things you ask it to do even within its range of understanding. Nonetheless, Siri will improve quickly by getting to know you better and understanding a broader set of tasks. In fact, right now, Siri’s learning how to handle reminders, flights stats and reference questions. Our vision is that, over time, you’ll trust Siri to manage many personal details in your life - from recommending a wine you might enjoy to managing your to do list.
Since Apple won't let users customize what's triggered with a long press of the iPhone's home button, they should just buy the company and turn this into the default Voice Control app.
Reblogged from duplo (who wrote, “Cuter than the Puppy...
Reblogged from duplo (who wrote, “Cuter than the Puppy Bowl”) and about 400 other people. Gavin said it best, though:
How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl Ad Came Together
How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl Ad Came Together:NY Times’ Bill Carter’s got the whole story: “The spot was shot last Tuesday afternoon, under the strictest of secrecy which involved both Mr. Leno and Ms. Winfrey flying in surreptitiously to New York, and arriving incognito at the theater, while Mr. Letterman was in the midst of taping his show for that night. It also involved Jay wearing a disguise: hooded sweatshirt, glasses and faux mustache. If you happened to be on Broadway between 53rd and 54th street last Tuesday about 4:15, you might have seen a man fitting that description slip into the theater by a small entrance under the marquee.”
Kwedit sounds cute but really isn't.
“That Kwedit score will go with you,” Mr. Sorochak said, “so, long run, if Kwedit is successful, that becomes the de facto virtual credit score, like Experian’s and the other FICO scores.”
via www.nytimes.com
The cloying name should already set off alarms and the article only gets more disturbing. I can only imagine the fights when parents refuse to give their 11 years old money and force them to declare bankwuptcy and a life of bad kwedit ratings.
FanGraphs Splits
For a couple years now I’ve wanted to get better splits up and running on FanGraphs, but other things have taken priority. We’ve had Lefty/Right and Home/Away splits in the graphs sections for almost four years, but never have there been any tabular splits.
In the player pages, there’s a new section called “Splits”. It’s right next to the season stats tab:
Give it a click and you’ll have access to Lefty/Righty, Home/Away, Monthly, Batted Ball, Location, and Leverage splits, with the full selection of stats from the “Standard”, “Advanced” and “Batted Ball” sections.
You can then browse the splits by individual season, comparing one split to another, or you can take a look at the career tab, where you’ll be able to see how a player has fared in a particular split over time. If you just want to see the career total lines, you can collapse the individual season by clicking on the “Show Season Splits” button.
Splits are currently available for all Major League players dating back to 2002. As always, if you have any feedback, or notice anything’s not working as expected, just let me know.
Oh Hell Yes
Oh, there'll be more on this tomorrow from the straight man, if he doesn't die from excitement and alcohol poisoning tonight, but meanwhile, let us officially give a big HELL YES to the Saints win tonight at the Bowl That Finally Deserves To Be Called Super. It's sure nice to see New Orleans get a little attention after a few years of deadening quiet! (This, by the way, is what it sounds like inside a New Orleans household. Right???) Still, because this is America, tonight everyone's a winner! (Even losers from Indiana.) Everyone's a winner, that is, except anyone who wants to pay for sex in Miami tonight to celebrate.
um, ms. winfrey? are you ok?
Steps were takes [sic] to contact Ms. Winfrey, who agreed immediately, Mr. Burnett said, and then Mr. Leno. Mr. Burnett said he spoke with Mr. Leno’s executive producer, Debbie Vickers. “She asked if this was for real and then she laughed for about 10 minutes,” Mr. Burnett said.
via mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com
I'm a bit frightened by the idea of Oprah Winfrey laughing for TEN MINUTES STRAIGHT. Also, how much do you think CBS paid Leno?
A Real State?
If Gov. Paterson has to resign maybe we just put Spitzer back in and pretend the whole thing never happened?
Minimalist Star Wars travel posters
Love: minimalist Star Wars travel posters by Justin van Genderen.
Posted by John Martz on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: Design, Justin van Genderen, star wars
Amazing HTML5 paint app
Sorry Adobe Flash, your days are numbered.
Palin's Cheat-Sheet
I was too busy tapping away at my laptop to notice this little high-school trick. Having mocked president Obama for using a TelePrompter - not long after he made mincemeat of Republicans with no such TelePrompter at their retreat - she had to scribble down her priorities as president on her palm for the truly tough-as-nails Q and A she had to endure for ten minutes or so last night.
Written on her hand:
"Energy" "Budget [crossed out] (Cuts)" "Tax" "Lift American spirits" My favorite detail is "[Budget] Cuts". Which just about sums up the real Tea Party agenda on spending. But it also suggests that she was told in advance of the questions she would be asked, one of which was what would be you priorities if you were elected president? Now think about this: she had to write on her hand her priorities as president.
I stand by my belief that none of this matters to the people who support her, and that she remains a very potent, content-free and destructive force in American politics.
But remember too that even before her Glenn Beck interview, she was furiously Googling the Empire State Building in case she was asked any obvious universally known facts about it, and before her debate with Biden, she was buried in little post-card notes on factual basics that most Americans know - but she, of course, didn't.
My live-blogging of this riveting event - and a brilliantly delivered speech full of nothing but slogans, pandering and zero policy specifics - can be read here, here and here.
Marketing with Data
I was honored and excited to present on the topic of Managing, Measuring, and Marketing with Data for the MidemNet Academy last week in Cannes, France. I crafted the presentation to be more of an educational tool, which shares data from our Topspin direct to fan marketing campaigns and related best practices. There are links in the presentation to other resources and third party sites that are pertinent to the topic of marketing artists with data. Many thanks to Adam Bates and Vivek Agrawal on the Topspin team who mined all the data in this presentation.
The full presentation in its slide form is below. It reads better in full-screen and even more so if you download it in Powerpoint or PDF.
The point I highlight in the presentation is to approach your first direct to fan campaign as more of an investment in data gathering to understand your fanbase and less of a silver bullet for overnight marketing and distribution success. With each subsequent campaign you’ll gain more intelligence on the unique dynamic you have with your fans. This will lead you to formulate more compelling offers for your fans and drive higher conversion rates over time as you become savvier in your segmentation and target marketing.
At Topspin we approach our data gathering efforts from a funnel perspective where we baseline and improve each of the following variables in a direct marketing campaign:
The original vision for our Topspin product is based on this approach. The idea is to get your artist into as many eyes and ears on the web as possible and get prospective fans to play or share your media. This level of engagement converts those impressions into permission marketing relationships, which ultimately translates into recurring revenue from your fans.
As you think holistically about the funnel, conduct your direct to fan marketing campaign systematically through a series of scientific experiments to increase each of the variables above in every subsequent campaign:
- State your hypotheses or goals
- Craft your offers to meet those goals
- Collect data
- Measure your performance
- Optimize your campaign
- Repeat successes, iterate improvements, and constantly experiment
This process should be circular in that you’re frequently re-starting the cycle for constant hypothesizing, measuring, and optimizing based on your previous campaign data.
The goals you set will depend on whether you’re prioritizing on fan acquisition for emerging artists or monetization for established acts. It’s helpful to define these goals from the beginning in a clear, quantifiable way so you have something to benchmark against.
When crafting offers marketers should consider their artist as a brand with many products to serve a variety of customers. These range from new prospective fans who want to hear the music for free before pulling out their credit cards to hardcore fans who place a premium on collectibles from their favorite artist. The best practice we’ve realized is to authentically connect with your fans and give them a range of tiered offers that will generate more revenue and margin for the artist than just selling the same product that’s available in all other channels.
Here’s some interesting purchase data that show how fans consume offers from Topspin artists and how it breaks down in revenue:
It’s clear that including physical goods in your offers will increase your overall revenue. Our average revenue per transaction at Topspin is over $20, and it’s $50 for some branded artists who follow best practices. This is significantly higher than other digital channels where fans are buying a track or two at a time. Here’s more Topspin data to reinforce the point of higher priced goods driving more revenue for artists:
As you can see, slightly more than half of the transactions at Topspin are under $10, but they only account for 17% of the revenue. In fact, offers priced $25 and over, which include physical items represent the majority of revenue. The hope is that you take these data insights and plot your own demand curve to serve your spectrum of fans.
Once you’ve crafted offers to meet your goals, you need to collect data, and there’s no better tool available than Google Analytics. It’s free, simple to use, a universal standard, and offers third party integration. Our Topspin purchase flow has integrated with Google Analytics so you can see those transactions as ecommerce metrics reported in your artist’s Google Analytics account.
Google Analytics lets you identify sources of traffic to your website and offer page. More importantly you can assess how this traffic converts to new emails and active paying fans. Here’s a Topspin Knowledge Base article on tracking website conversion by source traffic. Google’s Analytics is a powerful platform for measuring the effectiveness of all your online marketing activity. We recommend using Google’s URL Builder to create unique order page URLs for more granular tracking in your campaign. Here’s a more comprehensive and detailed Topspin Knowledge Base article on Tracking Sales and Conversion by Marketing Activity. You can use your own stats on traffic and conversion to project demand for your direct to fan campaigns. If you do not have a handle on your own traffic or conversion rates, here are Topspin averages across across a variety of channels for you to jump start your own projections:
According to the above data, email has the best conversion followed by direct traffic, and search. Given the lower rates of conversion across third party sites, it’s important to drive your fans directly to your offer page at every opportunity. In order to demonstrate this point, we depicted the difference in conversion of an artist broadcasting their video on YouTube vs. their own direct to fan video player on Topspin where they control the redirect which goes straight to the fan offer page:
Both video players performed equally well on click-throughs at a 10% rate, but since the YouTube player redirected fans to the YouTube video page, there was a 100x difference in purchasing conversion since fans had to click one more time on the YouTube video page to get to the artist’s offer page. By using your own video player and directing fans straight to the offer page, you can be assured of higher purchasing rates. Of course, you should definitely have your videos on YouTube as it’s a destination site for music discovery, but when it comes to your own website or social networks, you should broadcast and encourage sharing on your own players since they lead fans directly to the destination of your choice, specifically your offer page.
After the data is collected, you’re in a position to measure performance across channels. The goal is to identify the major drivers of conversion and prioritize on those channels that show the most promise in acquiring active paying fans. You can compare your performance against Topspin’s revenue distribution across all our artists and fans:
It’s no surprise that email is the highest driver of revenue at Topspin followed by direct traffic and Google search. What’s enlightening is that MySpace is still holding strong as a source of revenue compared to the much publicized growth of Facebook and Twitter. It will be interesting to revisit this analysis in a few months to see if Facebook and Twitter increase in share over time.
As soon as you get a sense of your campaign performance, it’s time to optimize. Focus on SEO since it’s imperative that your artist name and offer page are at the top of the search results given the volume of traffic and revenue generated by the search engines. You want interested fans coming immediately to you without being diverted to a third party site. A great web resource for SEO tips and best practices is the SEOmoz Blog. Another good resource is Rank Checker, which tells you where your artist site or offer page ranks in search results for different key words.
Now to touch upon one of the most exciting data topics for me personally: understanding the metrics for the new music business. We’re just scratching the surface in figuring out how to measure success for marketing artists online, and here are a few one-off stats from some of our campaigns. Topspin’s goal is to establish norms around these metrics to let you assess your own performance around indicators like these.
The first is the Play to Purchase ratio. When David Byrne and Brian Eno released Everything that Happens Will Happen Today, they released a streaming player with full-length streams, which was embedded far and wide. This proved extremely effective in that 1 in 5 plays led to a purchase in the first few weeks of the campaign. I would consider this highly successful, and since their average transaction prices was over $15 , that means each play was worth about $3.
A metric from the Fanfarlo campaign that signaled strong performance was their ability to acquire fans at a rate of 49 fans per 1000 impressions of their widgets. This included both new email opt-ins and purchasers. We found this number to be extremely high compared to our paid advertising tests, where we purchased inventory across music services to acquire email addresses at less than 1 per 1000 impressions (0.7 per 1000 to be exact). Fanfarlo’s widget impressions from Topspin may have been lower in volume, but they were FREE and 70x more effective in acquiring emails and paying fans.
“Dispersion” is the artist’s ability to get picked up and embedded in other websites. David Byrne and Brian Eno’s streaming widget was embedded in about 160 blog sites, and Fanfarlo’s streaming and email for media widgets were embedded in more than 248 sites. Once again, great metrics for widgets that ultimately directed fans back to their artist order pages.
Another mind-blowing Fanfarlo data point was their Shares to Sales ratio at 1.1. It means that for every one person who shared, more than one person purchased. This most likely had to do with the exceptional quality of their music, their fanbase of tastemakers who influenced their own audiences to buy, and their offer price of $1 for their campaign during a 3 week promo. The data has shown that Fanfarlo’s campaign worked wonderfully and is a great case study on viral promotions for an emerging artist.
These are just a few of the interesting metrics we’re getting our heads around at Topspin. We’re at the beginning phase of the direct to fan era, and as I said in my talk, I feel that we’re all in this together in figuring out what works and what doesn’t. I’m hoping the data in this presentation will help you generate more insights, which can ultimately be shared back with the community at large. Feel free to join us in the Topspin Green Room to share your ideas or ask questions.
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