Tour De Warehouse: nycbikes is famous

The guys at NYCbikes fired up the hype machine and blew out a ton of merch from their secret wharehouse location this last weekend. Check out this video...

statement and evidence

both of these came to my attention this morning:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/01/18/MN73840.DTL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQnLCpiZAQI

collaborative geodata/mapping

http://cholmes.wordpress.com/2006/08/19/why-isnt-collaborative-geodata-a-big-deal-already/

he mentions the high cost of GIS software as one reason there is so little 'social' action on the MAPPING front...

I think that is a very valid point... but it is 1 side of the real issue of 'accessibility': this stuff is fiscally, intellectually or usability...ty complex...

Google and Sketchup is a good start, but is sort of a gimmick... the 3d models make a map sexy but hardly add to the important aspects of accuracy and 'indigenous knowledge'

when we hit the ease-of-use of CHAT and BB/forums we'll see some really 'interesting' community supported Geodatabases

style vs. substance

It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules. After he has learned, by their guidance, to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, let him look, for the secrets of style, to the study of the masters of literature.

the last paragraph from the forward to William Strunk's The Elements of Style. This was kindly recommended to me by a professor in a Masters program that I am considering. She actually suggested the whole book, but I was blown away by the universal truth of this paragraph. So what did I do when confronted with a most excellent passage... Steal it and stick it on my blog.

enjoy.

than

a sentence cannot start with the word "than".

it is impossible.

excellent point, bad analogy

The Post Money Value: Developer Management - Toilet Seats

I am somewhat of a sucker for good analogy... almost to the point of distraction. This one where some Venture capital hotshot explains why lazy developers should be publicly humiliated, isn't quite up to snuff...

But he makes a really good point. Too many developers (myself included) think that nobody else knows about user interface or information architecture. Wrong... its a subjective thing and if the dogs won't eat it, it might as well not have been made.

Video Proof! The Bush Pilot Spills All About Why The Prez Fumbles!

Dvorak Uncensored � Video Proof! The Bush Pilot Spills All About Why The Prez Fumbles!

this is really well done..

very funny explanation of Bush's real controller

a man after my own heart.

MacMod - Your Mac Modding HQ

this guy put a macMini (media center) inside the new 'stubby' Millennium Falcon toy. My son has this toy and it is cool... but with a MacMini stuffed inside and hooked up to a TV, it is way more cool.

"organ harvesting"

Boing Boing: China harvests Falun Gong organs, says Canada MP's report

argh...!

technorati tags:china

oh the serendipity... my new favorite site

UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

What are the chances... Dubai, again... I think maybe I should move there. I love this site. It just barely scratched the surface of it but I have to admit I'm hooked. I went there expecting a silly site, but what I found was so much more. I am being somewhat sarcastic but not really, there is something about it... I am confused by this site. I will explore it more fully and report back.

Perhaps it reminds me of some of the innocence of those first few years months days hours of the World Wide Web. When I felt the power and potential of self-published information.


Or maybe I just want to own an exceedingly rich, tiny country ;)

Us vs. Them

the experiment has little real-world applicability due to there being so many more variables involved in real conflicts - on the worldwide scale, for example.

Damn Interesting » Not Your Average Summer Camp

I have long held that the Human animal (more specifically, his delicate ego) requires a sense of seperation, and sense of boundary between my self and my environment. In a social context this very same algrythm extends from "me vs. my environment" to "us vs. the environment". And the heavy reliance on humans means that the most important factor in (nearly) any environment is the "other humans" in that environment. Hence, "us vs. them".

This study is an interesting illustration of that. I pulled out that specific line becuase it really irked me. What a pointlessly obvious thing to say about a scientific expirement. The commentor (critic) apparently missed the point about how the only way to model this sort of stuff in a full scale environment was to wait for it to happen in the real world. Which is (a) not financially or logistically feasible and (b) a little too late to be of any use.

technorati tags:psychology, social

The CraigsList Ad... HowTo ;-)

Everyone is giving advice these days so I might as well.

I complain a lot about selling things online but that is really out of fear that I might get some BOZO that thinks I am BestBuy and they can complain and return the merchandise.

This has never actually happened to me... therefore I must be an expert at this online sales stuff.

So here are my tips on avoiding BOZOs when selling online.

• Take an actual picture for the ad, a cell phone camera works great... but a stolen catalog picture is no good
• Write a description from your perspective. Don't just paste in the specs from the manufaturer's website.
• Don't assume that the buyer has the same familiarity with the product that you do. If a "superdrive" means that it burns DVDs then say "it burns DVDs"
  
• Explain WHY you are selling it. (optionally express a bit of honest regret)
  
• be personable, but clear and confident in your writing style. Not too polished and not to sketchy, this is the equivalent of a garage sale or a newspaper ad.
  
• don't say OBO... everything is an offer already! and inviting low-ball offers will just lead to frustration. Handle low-ball offers on an individual basis.
  

Above all, don't gouge... more specifically be reasonable. If you have realistic expectations about what something is worth, you have a much better chance of walking away having had a positive, (hopefully) mutually beneficial transaction.

In this case I paid $1350 + tax for the powerbook 7 months ago. I used it EVERY day since then. Do I really need to get $1200 for it!?!! Be fair and everybody wins. Plus it won't hurt your Karma any, or your Whuffie

</ rant >

technorati tags:whuffie, craigslist, sales

SOLD!!!!

well, my trusty PowerBook is SOLD...




So I post the ad and 2 pix to CraigsList and within a half an hour I get this:

Hello,

I saw your product on craigslist and i will like to know if you
still have it for sale and the working condition get back to me as
soon as you get this

Linda

followed closely by:

Hello,

I'm interested in your listed item and i will be paying you via MO or Check and i will also be responsible for the shipping expenses myself, pls reply me with your name and address for the payment .

Thanks

So I change the ad to say I don't want to ship it. I want to meet at a local coffee shop and they can pay me ca$h or PayPal.



Next I get a low ball:

Love that powerbook! I aint rich either so I have $700 that I can do today.
Please dont be insulted.. if you dont want to accept thats cool.

Thanks and have a good one.

which I think is tooo low, but I don't hate the 'playa' (but I do hate this game).

My response... I'll keep his info and get back to him if NOBODY wants the actually pay for the thing. To which he replies, offering me cash and a guitar. Which I consider for a surprisingly long 20 minutes.

Luckily I am saved by a REAL human, who recognizes that I have low-balled this thing to move quick and he simply says:

hi i will buy it if it checks out
i can meet you this evening
call me
917XXXXXX
my name is roy (fake name)

So I packed it up and headed for Starbucks...

an hour later... a few dollars in my pocket (at least until I send it off to AMEX ;) and a little weight off my shoulders. The gentleman who bought it was a decent guy and this whole experience (so far) has reminded me that the bark of selling things online is usually worse the the BITE!

this desk ain't big enough for the two of us

I did it again... I jumped in early, not unusual for me. Had to have the new INTEL powered macBook (or as I have seen it called "blackBook"... anyway this has to go!!!... I am doing my usual friend's network price which is a few duckets less than the eBay/Craiglist price...

I didn't really blog the "switcher" experience... but suffice to say, I switched!!! and I can't see going back too soon. As a matter of fact I "switched" without even fully switching. I was still heavily dependant on m$ entourage and dreamweaver (which I used as a text editor!!!, I'll blog about this seperately ;o)

so if you know anyone looking, put em in touch with me... I don't expect it to be hard to get rid of a slick 12 mac, in this neighborhood... but one never knows.

technorati tags:forsale, powerbook

Mad Max or Dubai?

Just How Fast in Dubai Growing?


Call me crazy, but I LOVE this image from Dubai circa 1991. Click thru for a comparison to a much more recent page. Talk about rapid growth!!!

technorati tags:dubai

don't believe what you see

Checker Shadow - Planet Perplex


"A" and "B" are identical and color, hue and brightness. This really blows me away. It is a great reminder that our minds aren't always "honest" with ut. Sometimes it tells us what it thinks we want to know.

technorati tags:truth, illusion, optical

my new favorite podcasts

eBiz VodCast is a weekly video podcast covering e-commerce web site design and management.

eBiz VodCast iPod Video

These guys are so totally normal... a few years ago this info would have cost $700 at a half-day seminar. The idea that "if it is easy, maybe we don't have to charge for it" is really catching on.

speaking of GREAT podcasts (vidCasts??) GeekDrome

These two guys are so familiar... I can't even judge the "quality" of it... I feel like I am sitting in my rented house in Orlando, back in the day when my roomate attended FullSail. We'd pack the house with geeks... film geeks, digital media geeks, 3d modeler geeks, audio geeks... We'd watch StarWars on laserdisc, fill the keg and fire up the grill, set up the amps and drums and rock out... or just geek out on the multitude of computers...

man... those were the days...
Then again so are these...

50 ways to be a better designer

05 KEEP YOUR BRAINSTORMS REALLY SHORT “When coming up with ideas it’s essential to bounce ideas around with a colleague, but the secret is to keep the brainstorms as short as possible, otherwise they’ll get stale. It’s better to have a couple of smaller sessions than a single mammoth session.”SUPPLIED BY: JASON ARBER

Computer Arts - 50 ways to become a better designer

I love this idea... I'd like to see an 8 minute timer for these sorts of things. Not only does it keep discussions short but it keeps people honest,  focused and humble... knowing that our natural tendencies aren't always "correct" is good for a work environment. Especialy when working hard and doing a good job... Arrogance and short-sightedness can really create unusable applications.

Pixel Corps

These guys a relly great... a collective of digital artists... doing software development, education and outreach in the digital media arena

Alex Lindsey, one of the top dogs over there, is a regular on TWIT
as well as the primary host of This Week in Media a good media centric industry podcast.

check out the videos of this software they developed, in action... BijouBullet... it creates 3d environments out of moving images...for only 399.

technorati tags:3d, software, pixelcorp

I'm in love with a $135 font

All common monospaced fonts have hinting imperfections from 9 to 12 points and above.All but Pragmata.

Pragmata™, designed by Fabrizio Schiavi

staring at code all day can make one crazy... but mannnnnnn ooo mannnnn.... she's a beeeeeeeYoooot!!!

technorati tags:fonts, pragmata

more than animal but not better...

DevilDucky - The Little Girl Giant
This is soooo totally creepy... I IM'd it to a friend who googled it and sent me the link to more info

so it is some European troupe... and the best part is that there "performances" consists of

the animal or giant arrives in town and lives its life, going about its business for a few days. Extraordinary interactions take place between passers-by and the performance; residents become enchanted with the activities of these miraculous beings and begin to follow their every move. By the end of the performance, huge crowds gather daily to watch the latest episode in the life of the visiting creature.

I am mesmerized by this... If only we (humans) concentrated MORE on art like this... and less on hating eachother over money... and oil... and God...

also check out we make money not art

I don't go for the "Burning man" stuff so much, I think it has something to do with the glorification of the individual vs this GIANT GIRL wich isn't about any "person" but involves great love and skill from many people (artists).

** side note... while grabbing that URL for the Burning Man link... I notices "REGISTRATION DEADLINE APPROACHING"... did I go to the wrong site? that doesn't seem like message relating to a temporary autonomous zone

technorati tags:art, burning

human food

The Last Angry Young Man: Monkey Chow Diaries: Day 5

If we can keep the Internet free from over-regulation... there is nothing to worry about ! What an amazingly funny, intruiging, disgusting, thought provoking, philosophically rewarding, sad, scientific hour and a half I just experienced. Better than any film I've seen in a long time. Bravo anonymous Internet publishers. This is the real thing... and a great idea too, I hope one of these tech darling angel investors backs this guy when he decided to make a good tasting version of human chow

Go Rilla attention network

So... bizness model: pay $n dollars (or cents) for each phonecam image uploaded to a service containing evidence of a 'GoRilla board". A GoRilla board is a single computer in a retail environment that has been co-opted for the purposes of displaying a campaign-specific web page.

e.g. A new soap promises to be "so good, it will even work on your teenage son, almost." A advertainment/viral site is created with a zany and inviting visuals (http://www.noncorporate-sounding-url.com/). Hordes of web savvy nerdlings hit the stores setting this page as the current page AND preferably the homepage. They then snap a pic and email the pic to our servers. The servers record the 'tag' (using some rudimentary image processing, backed up by random human checks) and the 'GoRilla agent' gets 'credit'. Credit is either cash or BETTER YET product from a catolog created out of the various GoRilla partners.

Improv Everywhere Mission: Best Buy

Improv Everywhere Mission: Best Buy
these folks are awesome, sadly this is another example of things that really ruffle feathers in a post 9.11 world. Keep it up, this is part of freedom. We need to find ways to get over our fear. I say "our" in the least complicitous way possible. It isn't my fear, but it is my country. I was afraid on 9.11 when I ran out of work and begged a gypsy cab to take me home to the Lower East Side where my VERY pregnant wife was sleeping thru the whole thing. I didn't know how far the smoke fire and rubble was going to reach. Nor did I know that it was 'over', mission accomplished. I ended up running the last portion and when I finally got home I nearly collapsed from the stres. But once the initial panic subsided I began the process of coming to terms with the new reality. Most New Yorkers have long since accepted this and are not interested in the GOP's frantic fear stirring. I repeat keep it up, we need to entertainment.

$105k in free software... subEthaEdit

SubEthaEdit from CodingMonkeys
BLOGZOT 2.0 on MacZOT.com
MacZOT and TheCodingMonkeys will award $105,000 in Mac software... if we can get enough people to blog about it.
I am new to Macs and this program is one of the things I love about Mac Software... very robust, intuitive and.... weird...
I mean not in a bad way... My cohort and I were working on a spec doc for an upcoming project and he said... "this is what SubEthEdit is for" I said "what's that?"

he said... "you don't know...?"

well you get the point... I downloaded and installed the trial and within minutes we were co-editing the SAME document.
Incredible...

and a bit strange... ;)

but certainly disruptive and quite capable of changing the game...

Illusion of agreement - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

truth

Illusion of agreement - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

NASA - The Virus From Outer Space

NASA - The Virus From Outer Space

NASA partners with Pokemon to explain the science behind a new character.

This is AWESOME... Too many educators look at pop-culture as the OTHER THING KIDS DO. In my reality pop-culture is the language, the Petri dish wherein learning takes place. The context of a child's life must be embraced not ignored (or scorned). Bravo NASA !

Street Wars Water Gun Assassination Game - Gizmodo

Street Wars Water Gun Assassination Game - Gizmodo

It is really sad that this sort of stuff is so dangerous nowadays. I really think that large scale games like this can serve a great purpose in our ever-more Internet laden lifestyles. I have often pondered something like this. A way to mainstream the Live Action Role Playing idea. In my minds eye the game is much more complicated; syndicates, gangs, safe houses (where you'd eat lunch), rankings, money... the whole kit-n-kaboodle.

I guess it'd be like Fight Club meets Colonial Williamsburg meets The Matrix

(April) Fools !!!

It seems that everyone is obligated to put some April Fools on the web. As I catch up on the days news I am bombarded with silly, well intentioned misinformation. What nobody seems to understand is that with the rapid pace of search engine web crawling... This stuff isn't going away.

It is polluting the information-space. How many of these post will be removed or edited on April 2nd top reflect the 'obvious'-ness of the date that it was posted. Very few I imagine.

On the other hand, why am I so snobby to think of the Interwebs(sic) as some stronghold of truth and knowledge, perhaps it is a communal place for humans to be.... Human.

Perhaps a place for egalitarianism, democracy and personal freedom to flourish, but certainly a place to make jokes, and express not-quite-fully-formed opinions (case in point).

I have often said the most important thing to keep in mind when using the web for gathering info, beware! Be aware that _they'll let anyone post stuff on the web_

So I guess April Fool's web antics serve a valuable purpose, by randomly poisoning the accuracy of web content, we insure that future use will be tempered by the critical thinking that is required for good judgment.

Slashdot | How Hot Would a Light Saber Really Be?

Slashdot | How Hot Would a Light Saber Really Be?

this is what makes slashdot so great. The real science, the humor, the tireless rants about how wrong the whole thing is. I love geekdom. It is a strange thing (to me) that we (geeks) are now so vogue. I may be of the last generation that had to deal with the stigma of being into this sort of stuff. I wonder whether that bodes well for 'geekdom', since my other avocation was 'skate-rat' which had a considerably higher barrier to entry that then geek crews of that time, while the geek crowd didn't enjoy any of the celebrity that came with being able to wield a skateboard. There really was a price to be paid for being 'geeky' which may not be the case anymore, thus increasing the number of geeks and potentially lowering the overall quality of geekiness.

What am I talking about?

Fly for free - April 1, 2006

Fly for free - April 1, 2006


This future is looking better everyday. I have always said I'd gladly sit on a coca-cola colored seat to watch a movie for free. It is about time we started getting paid for our attention. My attention-space ain't free.

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

look out world... here comes the flood ;o)

safari = nader

running Apple's Safari browser is like voting for Ralph Nader. You are really taking market share AWAY from the only real competitor to m$ Internet Explorer's dominion over the web.

Get Firefox

Or get one of the PowerPC optimized version G4, G5

Or get Camino and change your reported useragent to Firefox


Get in the game...

m$ attacking Linux with Patents

Ballmer, Bemused - Forbes.com
m$ cannot be allowed to slow the proliferation of linux. The future of open computing (and thereby the future of open society) depend on free, open, uncontrollable software. We are living in dangerous times. The Orwellian future has not yet been prevented. If free/open software isn''t given the time to mature and create the open and secure internet as it needs to be to protect those who inhabit it, we will have to depend (for our freedom) upon the ineptitude of corporate smallminds and the cunning of teenage nerdowells.

diets and healthy living

36 hours days

things like this kill me, this guys is totally anal about diet and sleeping... of course he can squeeze an extra few hours... for me... just trying to track the stuff he already knows about his own life would add DAYS to my DAYS... where's the self-help for slacker-coders... I agree with the waking up at the same time... but after that I realized that I was wasting away my day, reading this...

"Take my advice, I ain't using it"

The state of media...

I have to admit I am likingn Media at the moment...

Not big media... not independant media... just media... MY MEDIA...

I have an iPod, I listen to PodCast, I watch VidCast

I have a DVR I "tivo" Monster Garage, Jon Stewart, Power Rangers and Survivor (my favorite)

When I miss an episode of survivor (TimeWarner DVR ain't perfect) I go to CBS.com and 'rent' it: $1.99 for 24hours... and watch it on my 17 Sony laptop... looks great...


one complaint... The VOLUME problem...
Not the volume of media... but the VOLUME of THE media... wether experiencing media on a iPod, PPC, PowerBook, Vaio, Plasma TV or my work desktop with 1 speaker...

headphones or no headphones...

I am constantly reacting to drastic volume changes, much to the chagrin of my ONLY two ear drums.

oh well... still I am pretty happy with Media....

except some the the children's programming ;o(
but that's another post...

code

I spend my days writing poetry that only computers can appreciate.

See if they would just go ahead and figure out anti gravity this would not be such a problem!!!

that all depends on HOW they do it.

i mean gravity is a pervasive force... do we NEGATE it... by somehow warping spacetime around us so that we are "hovering" in which case haven't we also removed ourselves from enertia as well...

which might have the unfortunate side effect of leaving us sitting still while the Earth spin rapidly beneath us while it shot away at a terrifying speed on its course around the sun...

OR do we reverse gravity (locally) like a repulsor magnet so that by adjusting the level of reversal we can elevate or descend at will...

and what about moving once we are free of gravity...

I think my personal ideal would be to somehow alter my own density (or is it MASS) so that I "weigh" 5 or 10 grams... or 5 or 10 lbs... thus allowing me to "fly" be flapping my outstretched palms, pushing against the air.

I want to swoop and dive and veer...

I read an article once about how during the crucial (and fleeting) instants right after a big bang, when energy is coalescing into matter... the pace of cooling actually is almost random... but that the point where spacetime cools to a certain point... the "resolution" of existence becomes static... meaning the distance that a proton orbits a nucleas becomes hard-coded into "physics"...

so in other (earlier/alternate) universes an atom may be 3 inches across. But the rules still apply...

IF we could bend/break spacetime and gain access to these alternate dimensions we wouldn't match the resolution...

we'd be too densley (or too sparsley) packed... our mass wouldn't match our displacement.

perhaps this explains strange matter... is it neuons that are paired particles at great distances... either way, are we simply inhabiting 1 level of a fractally defined super-verse, the next level up sees our solar systems as atoms...

what this has to do with antirgavity. I have no idea...

work

I just did a search for "work", since it seems to be all I do. Interesting...

I expected a definition out of physics... I seem to carry around a definition for "power" that is "the ability to do work"...

But the kind of work I am called to do, often requires far more time than it does power.

I wonder what it says about rest

multi(tude of) media

Listening to a podcast and writing a blog entry doesn't work...

I am officially statistically insignificant

1,099,410 my rank on Technorati...

side note: Why does blogger.com's spell checker not recognize "technorati"... the absence of industry specific dictionary customizations has bothered me since I first noticed that Microsoft Outlook didn't recognize "JavaScript" (this was at least 9 years ago).

Commercialization of 9/11 (or not)

I have been hearing rumblings of a couple of movies that are coming down the pike about the attacks on 9/11/01. Having mixed feelings about the inevitable exploitation of 9/11/01... I mean the "news" media has been exploiting it since it happened.

I actually (at the time) disagreed with the decision by the Spiderman 2 producers to pull the scene (from a trailer) where a helicopter is trapped in a web between the twin towers.

But I digress, the focus of my rant today is a hotels.com commercial that I had the unfortunate
timing to witness:
full frame shot of a postcard. A beautiful sandy beach edged by wonderfully bright hotels. A woman's voice seems to be lauding the scene "all these wonderful hotels..." and she drops the postcards and we see the view out her hotel room, where her husband stands peering out at the scene. A giant construction site rimmed by traffic and grey buildings. "And you choose THIS one." the wife finishes with a typical edge of complaint to her voice.

It seems like a funny little commercial... but the fact that it is "GROUND ZERO" really squashes any jovial identification that we are supposed to feel for these people (especially the complaining wife).

I don't often get "outraged" (even though I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where "outrage" is a requirement) but this sorta pissed me off...

Enough that I stopped what I was doing (signing up for a new voicemail-to-email service ) and researching Bayesian filtration (for purposes other than spam).

now back to our regularly scheduled apathetic, self-centeredness

THE MISSING LINK

short and sweet... to quote a one-eyed, spinach eating sailor.
"I've had all I's can takes and I can'ts takes no more"

it is very bad practice to intentionally link insignificant words.

I am no stickler or grammar or even sentence structure, when it comes to writing on the web. But this is supposed to be hypertext... not hyper-non sequitur

CUT IT OUT...


please

Promises promises, can reality keep up with hype

I seem to be commenting on mass-media more and more, maybe I am just noticing it more. Being between projects, I guess that is the downside of down-time.

~FADE IN~
Slow pan of an unrealistic mountain vista. It appears to be a ski lodge atop an impossibly steep mountain.

An impressively animated downhill skier is barreling down a wooded slope. A deep voiced narrator explains just how cool this guy, this mountain, this bright blue sky is.

A woman skis up beside him... He gives her the nod... At this point it could be any shiny beer ad. The kind where pretty, 20-somethings (1 male and 1 female) compete as equals. Showing off the passion and respect that each of them posses for eachother and for themselves. The screen is fairly gushing with self-esteem.

Then they meet up for a lo-carb beer. Where they resort to the culturally expected male/female relationship of humorous scorn and aloofness.

I digress, anyway...

This woman (the impressive skiier) transforms into a razor-wielding robo-cyber-babe, and slashes at our hero with her 3 foot, forearm-mounted blades. He manages to avoid the unprovoked attack, as they both careen thru crystalline columns of ice. Then a hairpin turn (through a rocky tunnel) and the floor drops away... a 30m gap, a mid-air slash with those 3 foot blades that just misses. Our hero lands and rides away. The razor-wielding, cyber-robo-babe isn't so lucky. She comes up just short (as presumably all would-be attackers do against our fearless hero), smashing into the edge of the gap. The shattered fragments of girl-metal barely fade from view before we are presented with the official Winter Olympics Logo...

This was an ad for the Olympics!

I understand the US Army playing up the 'cool-factor' to raise recruitments.

But the Olympics, specifically downhill skiing doesn't need this. This ad is doing more damage than good. The "Super-G" doesn't need the XBox treatment to be cool.

Downhill skiing was EXTREME when EXTREME wasn't cool... Especially in the 70s, or whenever the helmets and aerodynamic body wear came in.

Is this a sign that I am "getting old". If I were 10 years old would I see this commercial and then be disappointed by the actual event? or are kids filtering this kind of uber-shiny crap at their retinas.

Perhaps they are, perhaps my media tastes are maturing (staying the same while new stuff changes).

Oh well,

You know what, if they actually implemented that sort of stuff in the Olympics I'd be all for it. I am not a purist when it comes to sports. I think we are ready for the next gen of reality-tv, action sport madness. The sort of stuff the Japanese have been doing for 20 years.

I gotta stop now.

when it turns against us... it is bad!

Just watching a movie... Drum Line typical script... some nice drum solos.

Anyway, the protagonist is at a low point, not having learned to read music... he was kicked off the band after provoking a fight with another band at homecoming. Blah blah blah... So he receives a package in the mail. His dear father (with whom he has a somewhat typically strained relationship) breaks the most heinous of laws in all the land (keep in mind this is a major studio driven motion picture). He send his son a package containing STOLEN MUSIC.

The audacity of this criminal mastermind. He premeditatedly (is this a word!?) went to a STORE and bought BLANK audio tapes. These tapes were CLEARLY sold for the purpose of recording ones child's first words, a teenage garage band's first jam or other similarly precious moments. However, this MADMAN figured out a way to use these innocent devices in combination with his (purportedly) legally purchased, commercial audio recordings. No doubt he rigged some illegal contraption to transfer the artist's property from the legally acceptable media onto these tapes.

He then ACCURATELY labeled them, not even trying to cover up his crime.

isn't this enough!!! no, he then proceeded to abuse the Postal service by mailing this contraband to his son.

How can the government sit idly by while this travesty is allowed to occur.

How can people of good conscious sleep at night knowing that this sort of thing is going on at our colleges???

BTW: the old jazz tapes reinvigorated the kids waning interest in his studies, and he became the hero he was destined to be. And he started to see his father as a human being ;o) awhhhhhhhh

F the RIAA, serioulsy!!!

I ain't saying music should be stolen... but something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
When the LAW and TECHNOLOGY are used to protect those with money and power from those without it.
Don't believe the hype, a few token ROCK STARS does not a starving artist make. There are STILL revenue streams for people who want to make music for a living.

Every bubble must burst


p.s. it is a good thing Disney hasn't made a movie about Hamlet or I'd be sued for quoting that line.

Google's still cool...

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060120-105609

not that they won't some time in the future, but for now Google has shown a capacity not seen before in a company that size. Restraint and respect for the consumer. Perhaps it is part of a marketing strategy to reassure those with privacy concerns. I mean how better to gain 'street cred' than by going up agains a government intrusion of our privacy.

And the demand from the government, give us the log files for EVERY SEARCH and every RESULT... "every"

wtf... if the government wants to know where the HTM (harmful to minors) material is, why don't they crawl the web... It would be difficult, but not MUCH more difficult that parsing every log file from the top search engines. MSN and Yahoo already caved btw...

I believe usage statistics is a commodity item owned by the consumer/user... I think we need a government that understands this. A government that will stand up to the silly corporate mentality, where fear of liability cause injustice and harsh treatment of individuals. They put their faith in a process, in hopes that it will protect them from making a wrong move.

Well, giving up the records was the wrong move... MSN doesn't own my usage stats, they are not their's to seel (or give away).

Looks like my recent perusal of other search technologies just ended. Google has shown themselves (again) to be the only guys on the block that know what is going on.

power to the users...
down with the MCP...

new york, new york... everyone is famous

FAME
I saw Russel Simmons today... after work... I think he was coming out of JivaMukti Yoga center (near Crunch on Lafayette)...
I recognized him immediatley but took a while to put the name with the face.

HOUSING
I just watched an amazing commerical wherein a serious New York real estate broker is chatting up a refrigerator box... I wish I had my tv capture card working... I'd post it... anyway she says ".. light-industry, oh look now its residential..." as she pulls it away from the garbage heap. "southern exposure and a.. " moving the box, slightly rotating it ".. and a river view..."

It looks like it was shot somewhere on the west side, between 20th and 40th st. Kinda Meat Packing disrtict...

I guess the point was to call our attention to the 35k homeless living in NYC.

COMMUNICATION
I left my cell phone at home today ;o(
Tried to call Julie, had to buy a water to break a dollar. The payphone's 1,4 and 6 keys didn't work.

TRANSPORTATION
it took me 20 minutes to get home. I don't have a car ;o)

and I thought work was tiring

I just finished 2 seperate bids for 2 different jobs that I pretty much had BEFORE I wrote the bids. But I couldn't skip this part of the process, because it is WHEN and HOW I organize my thoughts. And hopefully set up the expectations, both the clients and my own.

However, it really is exhausting. Mentally shredding a potential project to its core to determine (without doing the work) what work will be required, takes nearly as much energy as doing the work.

And then there is the actual bid, the DOLLAR FIGURE. Experience can tell us how long something takes... it can even tell us where the client may come back and change their mind. If one has enough experience, the hidden complications can be guessed at with a reasonable accuracy... but that doesn't change the nerve wracking nature of commiting to a large amount of work over and extended period of time.

And there is the intangibles,
is it fun?
is it new?
is it exciting?
is it easy?

when all is said and done, will it have been a worthwhile venture...
for me, for the client?

does it have a bit of a soul?

if you don't think that these projects can contain some bit of soul, then you will never get anything out of what I write. You might as well stop now... and certainly you won't be interested in hiring me ;o)

so the bids have been written, pdf`d and emailed, and now I rest... the "i" of the storm

truth... from a guy who knows (Joe Rogan)

mp3 of life

this is the host of "Fear Factor"... who knew...

12" powerbook (apple) REFRESHED !!!

I am typing this on my sleek new 12 inch apple powerbook. I haven't abandoned my roots, but I might. I had a heckuva year last year. Lot of work, lot of late nights... this tiny little computer is my way of changing things up a little... it is all the same things, but completely different. I will attempt to blog about it to the degree that I am frustrated or elated with the change...

so far... I am impressed with the build quality, though not as much as I thought I would be. Does that make any sense?

it could be that I bought it at the SOHO apple store, "refreshed" meaning someone already bought and returned this particular computer (within 14 days) and was docked a 10% restocking fee. Which (coincidentally) is exactly the discount I recieved for buying it "REFRESHED" ;o)

I thought it fitting since I purchased this with the intent to REFRESH my interest in my OS... I spend a LOT of time staring into these machines... I might as well like doing it.

they've won

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/48338

The US army is not allowing soldiers to use personally purchased body armor. I would agree with this if things were different. If we NEEDED to die for ideas. If honor could actually be obtained by killing a dangerous enemy. Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing about this war. War happens. We aren't yet beyond war, but when our military (perhaps the most reasonably dominant in Earth's history) is being pushed around by liability attorneys... we have lost something.

multi-media

I just happened upon a essay on NPR's website, "I Believe", a series that has apparently been around forever but I just discovered. Anyway, Penn (of Penn and Teller fame), in his usual style attempts to indicate that believing God does NOT exist is the only intelligent way to go. He even goes so far as to slam the notion that God may be something OTHER THAN a white haired Christian guy. In another post I'll wax philosophic about God (the perceptible God, anyway) being the immutable laws of physics. The "rules" or logic of creation, are potent enough... relative to my infinitesimal capacity to create change in my environment... oops I am doing it, aren't I.

I actually like Penn, and appreciate his sort of cynical intellect, what I found MOST interesting was that for no reason at all I clicked on the audio link and then followed along with the text version of the essay (as it was read by Penn himself). I followed along word-for-word... and it worked... I actually slowed my reading to stay sync`d with the reading. Why did this impressed me!? I can only guess that it is due to the fact that I have been unable to get audio books to 'work' for me. I wander off and miss stuff. The tools aren't up for quickly stopping... more importantly a quick 'jump back to where you stopped paying attention' button.

24 hours of life, everyday

I carry a PocketPC phone, always on EMAIL, Voicemail, and Internet. I snap pix and upload them to textamerica on the go and get 200 page views and 12 comments before I even get home and hour later. I 'SSH' into the servers at work and move files around, updating the production web servers, from the top of the Guggenheim. I run a custom SMS app so I can more readily thread the conversations (its in beta, and the developer has disappeared). A 3rd party Instant Message client makes it look like I am at my desk no matter where I am. The java based GotoMyPC allows me to log on to my machine at work while taking my lunch break to walk 35 blocks for a quick meeting with a client. I wake with the son (actually, I wake after my wife takes the eldest off to school). I work till somewhere between 2 and 4am... I try to get by on green tea at least once a day, the rest of the day it is black coffee, luke warm so I can drink it without burning myself. My primary machine is a 17" sony laptop with 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution (basically a 24" monitor crammed into 17" inches) . I run Apache, outlook, trillian, photoshop, Flash IDE and I might listen to some mp3s (more likely watching a vidcast). I work a full time job, own and manage a 3 family home, and run multiple, concurrent freelance projects.

The point is that I just gave up 2 hours of my life to watch Pauly Shore's "son in law".

That's how I roll...

(only slightly embellished, more accurately it has been time-shifted, compressed... its been Tivo'd)

too much news

So I am experiencing this phenomenon lately wherein I've subscribed to nearly 40 news feeds... and now I no longer surf the web... all the news comes to me... well not all of it... which is the weird part. When I had to go out and get the news... I felt like I knew where to look, like I had a sense of what was going on. I'd see the same story in a few different places and eventually feel "full". But now I devour the news, 100 articles at a time and when its over I feel like I know what there is to know from the news... but I ain't satisfied. The difference is important, technology is NOT about "efficiency and effectiveness". It is about facilitating the goals of people... Individuals and the collective.


iFutility...

blogging, who needs a topic

Guy Kawasaki has been blogging and friends and old friends alike have been slamming him. The reason this is an issue for me is that I have (self-centered) contempt for notoriety. Obvioulsy, it is because (not too thinly veiled) I feel as though I deserve notoriety as much as the next guy (no pun intended). The truth is, I don't really believe that I deserve the fame, I think as a westerner I equate 'credit' with 'accomplishment' and I want to accomplish.... Something.

Anyway, my point is... That I swallowed my pride and subscribed to Guy's blog, hoping that in that small act of humility I would 'see the light' about why people talk about him (and his ilk). So a week into my newfound humility I am seemingly bombarded with a bunch of posts from people who are saying about Guy all the things I said about him NOT EVEN KNOWING HIM.

What am I to do, oh woe is me... The agony of being right!?

So, Guy Kawasaki is an over-inflated, self congratulating, used-to-be. Who isn't ;o)

He may or may not have anything valuable to say. I am always saying the web changes every 2 years so anyone with more than 5 years experience doesn't know what they are talking about anyway.

But I am wrong...

I must be since I've been pluggin away at the WWW since 1994, but wait... aren't I blogging RIGHT NOW in an attempt to regain some of the excitement and newness of the early web.

Don't I want to write an AJAX / Web 2.0 / Community driven / Aggregator / location aware app (with requisite developer API), just like I had to write that 'shared contacts/groupware app' in all Javascript back in 1997?!

Or the way I *HAD* to use frames when Netscape started supporting it.



Truth be told, I am writing this BLOG because I am a writer. I am many things, but in the end (i hope) that I am a writer. Scripts, code, narrative, blog posts whatever.

And (like a NYC kitchen faucet) one must let the dirty water run to get to the clean stuff...

Steve's Job

Well, I am literally exhausted from 'experiencing' MacWorld and the announcements that came out of Steve Job's keynote. And all I did was watch it on the web.

30 years since Steve and Woz started all this. I gotta say, he is a better speaker than most CEO's. I really don't understand why they parade these suits out at the big shows (ehem: Sony), they'd be better off scouring the company for the 1 guy that actually believes the crap they are spouting. I think that is what Job's does. He believes ! Mostly in his own press, but seriously, it may be the reality distortion field but I think there is a real mandate at Apple. Whether they live up to it is not the question (right now). I personally think it is a mistake NOT to take on hardware partners (hint: Sony Vaios) for their operating system. But all in due time.

So saying that Apple (as Jobs) has a real vision, a real mission does validate that vision (since the validity of a vision is tested against whether it is a LIE or not. BUT... Why so closed...

By necessity? I don't know. It occurred to me that (aside from a Vision) the major difference between Job's Keynote and Gates Keynote (at CES last week) is that Gates spent the time trying to convince us of a future in which information flowed easily and happily from producer to consumer, and from producer/consumer to producer/consumer, and from refrigerator to cell-phone to car to office workstation.

A lovely future to be sure.

What Jobs showed us was a (very strict) way fully utilize all the promises of the CURRENT internet. Seriously, NOTHING NEW !!! NOTHING...

But (if you have a .MAC account and all the latest Apple hardware and software)...

It just works...

every time one of my prejudices falls away, Apple hands me another pill to swallow "dude, the red ones only REALLY works if you take it with 2 greens, a bit of this Alaskan red-hair, and a few swigs of Steve's hooch...


sounds appetizing

The real danger of Google

I am NOT a paranoid.

I don't like when people substitute "worry" for critical thinking. Nor do I appreciate a good conspiracy theory just because it cast a negative light on something I already don't like. I say this because I have noticed a hint, just a whiff... of anti Google sentiment of late. The blogs, the podcasts, even the main stream media... It's getting to be that the only acceptable hopeless fanbois are those of Steve Jobs. I digress.

Google is dangerous. Not for there innovation. Not for there size. Not for there efforts to index the web. Not for the information they collect on each an every one of us. Privacy is a myth, accept that. If anything Google has (and will) lead the way towards you and I being paid for the inevitable invasion of our privacy. The way they have made many tiny web content provider (bloggers) a couple extra bucks using google ads. They will do the same for
syndication of web usage statistics (of course this requires a slightly more enlightened congress, but that is coming). Again, I digress...

Google is dangerous because...

Every good idea that hasn't yet been tested by the market (sorry for the jargon) will first see light of day in a Google log files. Let me paint a scenario for you:

Mike has an idea... Candy popsicle sticks... It is so genius he can't believe nobody thought of it before. He starts choosing the color of his first two Porsches. He tells a few coworkers. Several of them don't believe that nobody has ever done it. Whether he begins to doubt himself or he just wants to begin the process of developing the idea. His first stop is Google... a search for "candy popsicle sticks". Mike crosses his fingers HOPING he doesn't get and good matches.

(In our hypothetical situation, we'll suppose that he doesn't find anything)

Meanwhile, back a the lab... Google labs, that is. Joey is running the monthly reports including one titles: "probable upcoming patents". This simple report would consist of unique search strings. Think about that for a second. Given the MILLIONS of search strings entered into Google each day, how many are unique. I don't mean unique on THAT day, I mean unique. Not even "akjsdh kasjdh" is going to be unique. But there are some that unique, and those are the good ones.

obviously, not all of them will be future patents. Some would be really obscure, mistaken literary references. Others might be fictitious aboriginal delicacies of the Mukka Lukka tribe. I assure you they would all be VERY interesting.

common sense... everybody's doing it...

a post by Guy Kawasaki, got me thinking... common sense dictates that 'those who cannot do, teach'. A gross generalization, that demeans many in the teaching profression. BUT... perfectly, legitamate in the realm of HowTo books/tapes/seminars, etc...

Example: "How to make a million in real estate" - answer: write a book called 'how to make a million in real estate'. and sell a few hundred thousand copies. Or tour the states and do high priced seminars aimed at unsatisfied daily-grinders.

My co-worker and I laugh about this scenario all the time. It seems ludicrous how many people claim to be able to teach us something that IF they could do themselves they certainly wouldn't be teaching it to us.

Which is why I subscribed to Guy Kawasaki's blog, he has already DONE IT and now he is blogging about it. I am a bit skeptical, but intrigued nonetheless. I've been hearing about this guy for years and now I'll get to see for myself. I will say that I am not impressed by people who worship at the alter of Apple. I won't go too deeply into this but don't get me wrong... I'd love a 12" powerbook, but I am a geek, and I like gadgets and there's are nice, but there are nicer... My hardware needs are more specific than they offer.

Oh how I'd love to dual boot my 17" Sony Vaio (1920x1200 screen), but that's another post.

The heart looks like fist wrapped in blood

my lisfestyle this last year has left an indelible mark on my sleeping pattern. Knowing this and yet NOT willing to take the responsible, adult action. I deal with it, try to live with it. Anyway, I stay up too late. Tonight I decided to watch a movie, or is it FILM. In this case I'll use the latter; "Closer" starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and the always amazing Clive Owen. This guy is my idea of a british Steve McQueen. A real bad-ass, and in this film it turns out that is the everyman - as hero. I won't ramble about the film, except to say that I LOVE to be blown away by a film that I had little or no previous notion of. In this case I should have heard about it, btu I am far too busy to track films. The point I did want to make is that it is really a rare occurance when the good guy wins. I mean we see his shllowness and a bit of the dark side of the good doctor. Nobody's perfect and even those with a strong moral compass can cause pain in those around them. But when the self-centered artsy type has lost his girl (to her husband, the doctor). He is standing in the doctor's office soaking wet and begging for her back. The artsy guy says "you don't know anything about the heart" and the hard working, good doctor growls "have you ever seen a heart, it looks like a FIST wrapped in BLOOD!" At this point the dialogue had drawn me closer to the tv so I could hear better and this truth just rang through me. I hope it sticks, the heart is a fist, a muscle, to be strengthened by excercise. The only exercise a heart gets is forgiveness.