AKAMARKMAN

Le Grand Saut

2011-09-22T12:49:00.000-04:00

"The Big Jump"

http://www.last.fm/music/Yelle/_/Le+Grand+Saut

I really hope this is true

2011-09-20T17:47:00.000-04:00

“You have this incredibly innovative machine but it looks very traditional.” The last word delivered like a stab…”There are design firms out there that could come up with things we’ve never thought of,” Jobs continued, “things that would make you shit in your pants.”

via http://www.zurb.com/article/793/what-steve-jobs-is-like-in-a-meeting

The Joy of Foo

2011-08-15T21:08:00.000-04:00

Creativity!

A Keurig Story

2011-08-13T07:54:00.000-04:00

Click for big.

http://www.solofill.com/

We Live in Public

2011-07-28T20:51:00.000-04:00

This

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Live_in_Public

Plus this

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/07/house-committee-approves-bill-mandating-internet

=

Now

A 3 Step Guide to the Best Pizza Ever

2011-06-15T10:07:00.000-04:00

Things you will need:

Imagination (1)
Oven (1)

Steps:

1. Imagine Best Pizza Ever

2. Make Best Pizza Ever

3. Eat Best Pizza Ever

The End.

Hungry yet?

Not to get all E. A. Poe and all...

2011-06-01T05:09:00.000-04:00

But just I woke up this morning with the memory of a meta-dream, where part of the story involved recalling moments of the previous/same dream to a 3rd party. And I haven't even seen Inception yet.

Gas Prices

2011-05-14T15:38:00.000-04:00

Why we're screwed...

The short version: http://money.howstuffworks.com/oil-speculation-raise-gas-price.htm

The long version: http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2011/04/08/podcast-goodness-oil-speculation/

Seriously: Municipal Solar Wifi

2011-04-22T19:42:00.000-04:00

The two big ingredients:

1 - Fat Pipe at a reasonable price
1 - An energy grid that will pay back what you put in

Everything else already there. Bake at 98.6 °F until the Singularity.

I'm looking at you, Kansas City, Kansas.

My Latest Mitch Hedburg Moment

2011-03-30T20:30:00.000-04:00

Similar to butter being way better than margarine (try reading this with his voice)

Orange juice with extra pulp is a joke.

Just eat an Orange.

It's like OJ with extra-extra pulp.

Firefox install error "libsmime3.dylib" in use

2011-03-29T21:24:00.000-04:00

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1955891
http://siliconchaos.blogspot.com/2010/08/installing-firefox-4-beta-2-error-on.html

Hello Random Google User,

You're here because you have the Cicso VPN client installed on your Mac.

Open terminal, type

rm /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/*.dylib

Try it again. Report back.

Apple's new Thunderbolt Logo

2011-02-26T10:18:00.000-05:00

I'm not the only person who immediately saw a Steal Your Face reference, right?

~/Pictures/Funny/Animals/Other/

2011-02-20T22:49:00.000-05:00

Selected works

Needlebase: WGBH Internships

2011-02-16T19:55:00.001-05:00

Needlebase has so many applications it's mind boggling – once you know what you're doing you'll start to see the web in an entirely different way.

For example, take a look at this page on the WGBH careers website [disclaimer: I'm a former intern in the Media Library and Archives – a fantastic place to be! ok, back to the blog post]

I know what you're thinking. So many links! So many clicks! Wouldn't it be great to search based on what you're good at? Maybe some keywords that would pique your interest? They all sound pretty cool, right? and WGBH is awesome, period.

Insert Needle into the equation.

Here, go ahead and search across all 53 *active* postings on my new domain. The search box is in the page header.

What's that? you know Final Cut Pro? Maybe Filemaker? Did Needle just save you a bunch of time? I think so.

[Sidenote: yeah, the shortcut would be to throw "site:careers.wgbh.org" into Google and go from there but the results are going to include internships that have already been filled. Further proof that in some cases precision is better than recall. Also, building this domain took about 5 minutes to complete, plus or minus the initial run where I just grabbed basic info – not bad!]

Obligatory 2/14 Day Post

2011-02-14T18:28:00.000-05:00

House Cleaning

2011-02-13T19:27:00.000-05:00

I found two recent Powerpoint presentations on an old thumb drive and said to myself "hey you should put these online"...

The rest is history:

PEI.pdf is from my LIS456 (records management) class at Simmons in December(ish) 2010.

Piracy.pdf is from the Brandeis conference I did in October 2010.

Both lack notes but you can get the general gist of things – they're mostly images and those are worth 1000 words so we're easily talking over 1 million words here ;)

Needlebase: Blu-Ray

2011-01-11T22:23:00.000-05:00

LINK

What is it?
Every title listed on Blu-Ray.com (which is pretty comprehensive in terms of major US distributors, as far as I can tell anyway).

Why is this interesting?
This story is best told in quasi-screenplay format:

Narrator: Once upon a time there was a VHS collection and a librarian interested in a collection wide format upgrade.

[fade in, Librarian at computer]

Librarian: Shit, that sounds like a lot of manual data entry, how am I going to find the time to do this?

[enter stage right, Needlebase]

Librarian: Oh hey, I could just grab the title info from this website and run some FileMaker wizardry.

*clock ticking sound*

Librarian: Well that was easy.

[fade out]

END

Where is it going in the future?
Well, I guess that depends on who you consider the real winner of the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD battle. Some would say streaming won.

Needlebase: Burton Vinyl

2011-01-11T21:44:00.000-05:00

LINK

What is it?
A small collection of vinyl records we're holding on to from a friend working abroad.

Why is this interesting?
This domain is similar to Fun with UPC but without the UPC, because apparently most of our vinyl is not lucky enough to be a "universal product" (it's that or bar codes were not as ubiquitous in the 70's...hmmm). This state of affairs makes cataloging extra fun and easy to accomplish – in no time!

Where is it going in the future?
This domain doesn't really have a specific purpose. It's also really really empty, so I guess things can only go uphill from here! Ideally I would like to get reviews pulled into the mix like Glenn's demo domain over here.

Needlebase: Chilling Effects

2011-01-11T21:14:00.000-05:00

LINK

What is it?
The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse is a huge database of copyright cease and desist notices submitted for your viewing pleasure and maintained by a number high profile academic institutions.

Why is this interesting?
Because it's a huge mess. This is the same problem they ran into with Dollars for Docs – multiple sources, different formats, lots of names with slight variation and not enough eyeballs working to clean it up (I make it sound so easy! hah). Needle's de-duplication functionality works really well in this instance.

Where is it going in the future?
I just stared working on this domain so it's a little early to tell – whatever insight that can be gleaned from this database will eventually make its way into a publication of some sort. You know, with all that free time I have : \

Needlebase: Clark University Course Catalog

2011-01-10T20:25:00.000-05:00

LINK

What is it?
Not your average online college course catalog.

Why is this interesting?
I actually use this domain quite frequently day to day. It makes a lot of sense to display a course catalog based on academic concentrations for students but staff members are more interested in knowing who is meeting when and where*. This is similar to what Chuck was talking about in this Needlebase blog post, although from a slightly different angle. Once I had the catalog loaded into Needle it's really easy to start answering questions like "which classes are meeting tomorrow morning on the first floor?" in 2 clicks rather than 20.

Where is it going in the future?
Right on our intranet dashboard perhaps?

*Yes, there are folk who have access to the catalog back-end but I'm not one of those people!

Needlebase: Clark University Libraries

2011-01-10T19:41:00.000-05:00

LINK

What is it?
I wanted to build an alternative to the Clark University Libraries index page for very selfish reasons. See, the thing is, that list is alphabetical and my library is about 2/3rd down the page. No one likes being below the page break. My plan here was to build an interactive map that also automatically grabbed the hours for each library. At this point though it's just YAGMM (yet another google maps mashup).

Why is this interesting?
This is one of the few domains I'm working with that relies heavily on "live data". Deadbased is another good example because the Internet Archive actually gets quite a few "new" matrix shows that are uploaded each month, but this one takes advantage of the feature in a much more tangible way.

Where is it going in the future?
I would really like to integrate this into our new campus intranet page. Maybe when I get some free time this summer I'll give it another go.

Needlebase: Deadbased

2011-01-09T14:42:00.000-05:00

LINK

What is it?
My pride and joy! This was my first major domain building effort when Needle opened up public accounts. It's also the largest domain I have going right now with over 80,000 nodes. Basically, I scraped every entry in the Internet Archives' Grateful Dead Collection, the famed Deadbase, and a few other sites that track the same performance information and put that info under one hood. There's some interesting stuff going on with the data schema I developed but that's a story for another time.

Why is this interesting?
In a sea of Deadbase clones, this one is unique in that we're looking at multiple sources at the same time. As Miley would say, that's pretty cool. Needle enables us to pull everything back together in a non-destructive way that can quantify differences and create a controlled vocabulary that could, in theory, actually improve usability (time will tell).

Where is it going in the future?
Ultimately I would like to build a custom browser for the entire thing with venue details right down to the weather report for that day in history. Something beyond just a front-end for Archive.org and more towards interactive data visualization with a built in media player.

Next on the list is a meta-data explorer that would be something like Oregon Trail on acid (unintentional joke, but true in some cases -- just replace Oxen with VW Bus and hunting with magnetic tape and soundboards). This would allow a person to "follow" the shows from, lets say '68, on a map/timeline, and see who made it to what show and in what order on a map. I feel like this is the sort of thing people miss when they first browse the GD collection on Archive.org even though the data is all there. Something like this, if/when built, would be a great example of building AI into the interface.

Oh, and let's not forget our west coast friends at UC Santa Cruz :) On my radar, but I need to do a lot more cleaning to make this domain presentable.

Needlebase: Film Schools

2011-01-09T12:24:00.000-05:00

LINK

What is it?

This was partially inspired by Marshal K's twitter experiment on RWW. I ran across the Student Filmmakers website while digging through some Google Analytics results where I work at Clark University and though "hey, there's probably a useful nugget of info hiding in here somewhere".

Why is this interesting?

Take a look!

Where is it going in the future?
This is a fairly new domain so that's a hard question to answer – I would start with pulling more info from http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/ (if that's possible, I don't recall the TOS off the top of my head) and then expanding laterally across similar websites.

Needlebase: Fun with UPC

2011-01-09T12:09:00.000-05:00

LINK

What is it?
Long story short: the other day I was playing with an iPhone app that interprets and stores UPC codes via camera input.

Why is this interesting?
Open Library dot org robots dot txt

Where is it going in the future?
Sounds like a really easy way to built a library catalog from scratch. Not saying I invented copy cataloging or anything, just a new way to approach the idea. Eventually I'll figure out the Amazon Web Services API and this will get even more interesting.

Needlebase: Online Music Databases

2011-01-09T11:50:00.001-05:00

LINK

What is it?
I need to fix the title on this one. This is my first attempt working with data from Wikipedia and the page it references is a big list of online music databases (some streaming, some not). Sidenote: it's a lot easier to grab wikipedia tables in a Google Docs spreadsheet using =ImportHtml(URL; "list" | "table"; index) for a one-off event where this amazing Chrome extension isn't cutting it.

Why is this interesting?
This domain is really more of a test than anything, and I have a feeling I'm just re-inventing the wheel once again. As a single-page quilt (aka "tagged up HTML") there's not much to say.

Where is it going in the future?
Maybe nowhere? Hey they can't all be winners.

edit - I should point out this is more of a proof of concept idea than anything...Wikipedia is content is CC-SA 3.0 so that's a plus.

Needlebase: Quilt a Grave

2011-01-08T16:30:00.001-05:00

LINK

What is it?

I think I found this link on Boingboing. Not sure. Anyway the website findagrave.com is a big database full of graves and biographical information but their presentation is lacking. I wanted to see what I could do with it.

Why is this interesting?

Unfortunately this domain is a very limited right now because I have already reached my account quota...as one might imagine the Find a Grave website is pretty huge. I'll be happy just mashing up on Google Maps (each record include a birth, death and grave location).

Where is it going in the future?

I'll probably end up distilling this domain and focus on a single place. Lots of possibilities including historic records and archives data.

edit: added link

Needlebase: TorrentFreak Analysis

2011-01-08T16:22:00.001-05:00

LINK

What is it?

I follow the Torrentfreak blog as part of my ongoing copyright research and they have a weekly post that tracks the top 10 movies on public bit-torrent trackers that I decided to scrape. At some point they changed the formatting which was a bit of a challenge to account for but Needle is flexible enough to work with both schema.

Why is this interesting?

Bit-torrent is a market that deals in illegal gigabytes, and as such I think it deserves closer examination. Also, I'm not aware of any other place online that has this information compiled and to me that's pretty cool.

Where is it going in the future?

It would be really cool to add actual box-office data and plot out a few graphs for historic cross-comparison. There's a really easy way to do this in a Google Docs spreadsheet using the GoogleLookup function but I haven't had the time.

edit - added link

Needlebase

2011-01-08T16:09:00.003-05:00

I'm going to use up the next 10 or so posts describing each of the Needlebase domains* I am currently working on. Some of them will be better than others but I hope each example demonstrates how versatile this tool is. They are also all works in progress but that's kind of the cool part because each domain can evolve over time based on new sources and better data.

[This is the part where I mention I was an intern at ITA Software over a year ago but the software only recently came out of closed beta. PS - You can find me lurking their GetSatisfaction page.]

edit - added link

edit 2 - here's a direct link to all of the posts in reverse-chronological:

edit 3 - twitter bump equals I should probably proofread ; )

*This is a project file in Needle, almost like a collection in LIS/Archives speak.

CATS

2010-12-21T21:13:00.000-05:00

So this Holiday Season™ we'll be taking care of not 1, not 2, but 3 sets of kitties in local households...that's a mew record for me.

Yay google labs for existing and what is perhaps 20% time?

2010-12-16T22:33:00.001-05:00

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=television,radio,film,web&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=6&smoothing=1

Smurf Village is really addictive

2010-12-16T21:13:00.000-05:00

Yeah just got an iPhone...

Note to Self:

2010-12-15T18:42:00.000-05:00

Atari 2600 visualized & some blog updates

2010-11-23T19:33:00.000-05:00

This is a little old, and maybe difficult to grok, but I think deserves it's own post

In other news, I'm saving most of these "hey check out this cool link" posts for Google Reader now, so subscribe to that feed via this handy link or even better, friend me!

New Hobby? 3D Time lapse Photography

2010-08-14T17:18:00.000-04:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/firrs/3335092637/

Set to HD, fullscreen and enjoy

Preview

2010-08-12T17:49:00.000-04:00

If you use the web and excel get this now

2010-07-30T11:16:00.000-04:00

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/cekbgkmeapobkbadclnkjfjdbpbcaobd

We'll be using this to update our TV/Broadcast section at the Resource Library into a proper relational database in instances where Needlebase is overkill.

In other news, I'm working on a nifty project in Needle using metadata extracted from the Grateful Dead collection on the Internet Archive. So far it has just been de-duping and some keyword clean-up but I have a couple ideas for what I'm thinking of as data-centric/visualizer based "enhance" finding aid. Will publish the results when I'm done!

PS - Found this gem while combing through the archives

Subscribed!

2010-07-07T15:52:00.000-04:00

Fantastic blog:

http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/

Horrible News:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/opinion/03tue3.html

How's this for a mind-bender?

2010-07-02T07:44:00.000-04:00

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/07/using_squirrels_as_a_power_source_v.html

“I figured they could be put to work,” McHugh said. And that was the acorn that grew into his second career as a kinetic artist.

Books

2010-06-21T14:15:00.000-04:00

Enjoyed a few books this weekend and couldn't help but think "hey this is pretty handy, it's like a really big webpage that's already printed out"

heh

Mission Accomplished

2010-06-07T19:00:00.001-04:00

Take that, dopplegängers!

Same idea, different decade

2010-06-03T16:03:00.000-04:00

[both links found on boingboing and Make magazine recently]

Oh hey 2nd post of 2010

2010-06-02T08:59:00.000-04:00

vacation time coming up, can you tell?

OverDrive Media, Nerd-Rage

2010-06-02T08:57:00.000-04:00

http://www.overdrive.com/software/omc/faq.asp

Seriously, no WMA audio support for Android OR Apple? This is a bit like when I was reading a book about design (The Shape of Things) and the binding started to come apart..."hmm, what conclusions might we draw from this?"

Everyone should really be using Google Squared more

2009-12-29T09:14:00.000-05:00

Just sayin'

CSI meets MFA

2009-12-23T10:42:00.000-05:00

http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-made-in-china

My predictions on 2012...

2009-12-07T15:02:00.000-05:00

http://www.physorg.com/news179378975.html

USB & market viable in two years?

"Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be"

2009-11-15T11:38:00.001-05:00

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_man_passionate_defender_of

Collective Consciousness

2009-08-31T21:13:00.000-04:00

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060112133143484&query=missing+menu

Upgrade to 10.6 and your menu bar is messed up? Delete ~/system/library/core services/Search.bundle

(aka this is my post popular post ever)

Proof of concept? aka The Pirate Bay torrent's itself

2009-08-16T20:46:00.000-04:00

http://torrentfreak.com/download-a-copy-of-the-pirate-bay-before-its-gone-090816/

Fantastic news for the patrons of illegal libraries.

This space

2009-07-20T22:28:00.000-04:00

http://lifehacker.com/5318607/youtube-experiments-with-3d-video-viewing

Yeah that's right. I'm going to post a link with little comment. If Mr. Cohen can get away with it so can I.

Analog to Digital

2009-06-12T19:44:00.000-04:00

http://venturebeat.com/2009/06/12/analog-is-dead-long-live-digital-tv/

Repper is a fun 2 or 3 minutes of your online time

2009-05-16T17:40:00.000-04:00

Repper Studios

found via LifeHacker.com

I've been looking for something like this for years. If only they did rotational symmetry as well. Also digging the Creative Commons licensing on the software ;)

Adopt some code!

2009-04-29T21:35:00.000-04:00

https://www.getmiro.com/adopt/

Probably the best idea ever. Yay Miro!

If your macbook pro's keyboard and trackpad stop working randomly, then

2009-04-13T20:54:00.000-04:00

put a piece of tape on it under the hood. No, seriously. Fixing this was a zen moment and a half. Random internet person with external keyboard and mouse hooked up to laptop out of spite, this post is for you.

Or did I just blow your mind

2009-03-26T12:28:00.000-04:00

Change Detection dot com

I wonder what happens when I detect changes on changedetection.com...

Today is good day

2009-02-26T09:49:00.000-05:00

http://www.librarystuff.net/2009/02/25/open-access-policies-threatened-by-copyright-bill/

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things...

just another lazy sunday

2009-02-22T17:14:00.000-05:00

watching this

posting this:

(found that here)

Cleaning out my bookmarks because i've been abusing this and this.

With no time to read all of these:

By the way, Digital Overload Is Frying Our Brains.

Miro 2.0!

2009-02-10T13:18:00.006-05:00

My buddies over at the Participatory Culture Foundation just released Miro 2.0. Download it!

Face to Face

2009-01-21T18:47:00.003-05:00

Just watched a really interesting talk from Chris Dede held at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society that brought me back to a topic I've written a little about before.

Conceptually, it seems pretty clear that the science of augmented reality is still stuck on producing reality inside the computer. Instead, I think the focus should be creating new realities through the computer, paralleling quasi-teleportation.

Here's how it would work:

Take two conference rooms. In both rooms, one wall is a giant Ultra-HD screen linked to the other room via fiber-optic cable and an 8K camera, or maybe a grouping of these cameras depending on the dimensions of the room.

Walking in, nothing would appear different about the room, other than the fact that one wall is pitch black. Then it turns on. This fourth wall is now a "magic-mirror", linking the other room to your room and vice versa. Essentially, both rooms have now created a third room that they collectively share.

This isn't video-conferencing. This isn't virtual reality, and while the equipment I'm talking about is still experimental and available in limited quantities, Moore's law – or perhaps more accurately the demands of consumerism – will say otherwise.

The "killer-app" in this instance would probably be distance learning. A system like this would enable a lecturer in a far off land the availability of teaching an evening course to a class of students across the globe while maintaining the same classroom structure. The essential difference is that the experience for both parties sitting behind the camera/screen would be in such high-fidelity that it becomes truly indistinguishable from reality.

Just give it 10-20 years ;)

Really, what's a gigawatt?

2009-01-12T13:14:00.004-05:00

Today's post comes from CleanTechnica.

Well, it started there anyway.

The article in question made me realize I have no idea what a Gigawatt really is, other than one billion watts -- useful information with other recent news like China's plans and the other article today.

Working with past solid proof that most of my ideas are already "out there", I went searching for answers. Turns out the numbers really depend on who you ask, since a gigawatt could power 750,000 to 400,000 homes depending on who you ask.

Citing his own fallibility, I think Dick Plano on the U.S. Department of Energy BBS had the best answer:

I can give you some numbers from my experience. There are two of us (retired) with an outdoor hot tub, full-house air conditioning, 4 TV's, 2 computers, gas heat. We are probably fairly typical.

Our electrical bill says we use an average of 20 kW with a maximum of 31 kW (in December). So 1 kW would meet our average needs and perhaps 2 kW would meet our maximum loads. 1 kW per person is generally considered adequate.

320 gigaWatts = 320,000,000,000 W = 3.2 x 10E11 W = 3.2 x 10E8 kW would therefore power 1.6 x 10E8 homes. With two people per home, this amounts to 320 million people, somewhat more than the population of the United States.

Of course, in our society a large amount of electricity is used by public needs and by industry, so 320 GW would be inadequate for the country as a whole.

So there ya go!

I'm not dead!

2008-12-29T19:30:00.001-05:00

So...after re-relocating to Worcester, MA a few weeks ago my internet access has taken a severe plunge, which wouldn't be a problem if my local library (as in the one I can walk to) hadn't just reduced hours. I could go on, but it's not worth the kB.

On the flip side, I now appreciate what it means to have a decent ISP far more (you may now bask in my feeble attempt to stay positive).

Here's a cool link that I saved to tie things over until next time: Inexpensive hack turns cameraphones into pathogen detectors

Small World

2008-11-23T19:13:00.003-05:00

Just finished reading Brion Gysin's biography last night and this pops up on my radar. Small world indeed!

Reality, Virtually

2008-11-19T14:50:00.002-05:00

Douglas Rushkoff just posted a really cool talk he did at the The 56th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture at the Princeton Club in NYC.

He has a new book coming out that I can't wait to read, even though I think I already get the gist of it. He talks about the post-Renaissance notion of the individual and corporation throwing our perception of reality out of whack -- it's more than I can explain in a single blog post.

Anyway, it reminded me of a concept I wrote about recently in class. Sometimes it's fun to be a Futurist, except this technology already exists and has been tested, it's just really, really expensive right now. I'm sure by now you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Here it is: the ability around the curve in which we could use Ultra HD cameras and Fiber Optic Broadband to reproduce an image indistinguishable from reality -- literally linking two locations with some A/V wizardry to create a quasi-teleportation along the lines of science fiction. I won't go into the implications, but it is a fun thought experiment. More importantly, the technology already exists and it has been done. Right now it's just really expensive, which is why we need Library infrastructure (and your tax dollars) to make it happen. Most Libraries already have huge bandwidth as it is.

But back to the basics. Aka "lets connect these two ideas somehow so I don't sound so foolish" (hopefully). I think we've been doing this whole "virtual reality" thing all wrong. Second Life isn't the answer. For one, it's very 1990's Lawnmower Man-esque. Yeah, yeah, you can create things within the world and it has its own economy and whatnot but you're stuck interacting with the keyboard. There's some sensory-input degradation (sidenote: until these things become commercially available).

Once you recognize that the world is already a virtual one then you can see that the issue isn't about using computers to recreate it within computers but rather to link sensation and perception across time and space. Ever wish you could just push a button and you're there? Rushkoff argues exactly that, and we can see from the political process that policies enacted have an effect on our world, the natural world in some cases (environmental policy) but more often than not the socio-cultural one (aka where's my universal healthcare).

So uhh, yeah. That's what has been on my mind lately.

Entropy

2008-10-29T10:02:00.000-04:00

Last week I had a unique experience.

I commute quite a bit, I commute a lot. I use my laptop, I use it a lot. I think you can see where this is going.

I tried to go two days on a three hour battery. It made me realize how little I can get done without this hunk of metal in front of me. I felt lost, not because my files were gone or because I needed to get to my email -- I've already learned that lesson. Instead, it was interesting to consider the relationship I now have with this machine and on a larger scale how society has organized itself around technology.

We as a species have made a pact with electricity that cannot be undone. I know this has been said before but it's worth repeating. It all comes down to energy.

Here's a thought: there are no renewable energy sources. The term itself is a misnomer. Laws of thermodynamics and such. Instead, there are only those resources so plentiful that their responsible management offers a higher degree of sustainability.

I want to be this guy

2008-10-17T09:20:00.000-04:00

Man Creates Homemade Biodiesel from Algae

More proof that the auto industry is dragging its feet. I haven't read much about the energy efficiency involved in the production of Biodiesel, but something about it just makes sense. Single cell organism reproduce rapidly and usually require a single source of sustainance...like the Sun. Still, transportation becomes a problem and for that reason electricity might still be the way to go.

Or something like that.

Cloud Computing

2008-10-09T17:47:00.001-04:00

BiblioOdyssey is Nifty

2008-09-14T21:35:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, another low-content post. I really like the posts going on at BiblioOdyssey though, so you should check it out!

defaults write com.apple.itunes show-genre-when-browsing -bool FALSE

2008-09-12T20:25:00.000-04:00

Plug this into terminal with iTunes 8, restart, and get rid of the genre tab in browser mode. Why they would remove interface options, I do not know.

Schlieren!

2008-08-28T00:03:00.000-04:00

Forgive me while I post a Wikipedia article that I thought was cool...

Schlieren (from German; singular "schliere") are optical inhomogeneities in transparent material not visible to the human eye. Schlieren physics developed out of the need to produce high-quality lenses void of these inhomogeneities. These inhomogeneities are localized differences in optical path length that cause light deviation. This light deviation is converted to shadow in a schlieren system.

Why yes, my birthday is coming up!

2008-08-20T09:49:00.000-04:00

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/born-in-september-charity.php

Wow. Just wow.

2008-08-13T12:53:00.000-04:00

I wish I found this link two days ago.

Turns out some AA batteries are filled with smaller, more useful (in some situations) button batteries

Just watched a great doc.

2008-07-30T23:19:00.002-04:00

GOOD COPY BAD COPY
"a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture"

Oooh and I saw it on Free Culture TV so you'll have to download Miro (or do a google search)

:P

21st Century Life

2008-07-30T14:26:00.001-04:00

http://www.google.com/search?q="chris+markman"

Google Assimilation Complete ;)

Reposts are a thing of Beauty

2008-07-18T20:16:00.000-04:00

I know reposts are kind lame, but I wrote this and liked what I wrote (ok, maybe the question was a bit of a softball):

Q:

what say ye ??
i have been a loyal IE user (ok stop with the jokes), i use zoom (outstanding), veoh (pretty good) adobe media player (so-so), u-torrent (very nice) . . .
do i need miro??
is there anything i cannot get anywhere else ??
is it better quality?

A:

You've pointed out a number of programs that perform similar functions in conjunction but one important thing to remember in this case is that Miro achieves all of this on a single, dedicated platform and in a very user friendly and efficient manner as a free, open-source application backed by a 501c3 non-profit organization. There's a lot that follows from that last part, including how and why the Miro project has evolved the way it has and ultimately how it relates to its users.

To answer your question, I can't say for certain that you need Miro in the sense that we have video you can't get anywhere else or at a higher quality than otherwise available. Miro doesn't host proprietary content or any video content at all for that matter -- the Miro Guide is fundamentally a dedicated video RSS aggregator with extended community functionality.

That being said, as a filmmaker I definitely think it's important that there is an open video platform out there to distribute and promote my work on, and there are other independent artists out there that share this same concern. Take a look at the History of Broadcasting over the last century and you'll quickly see the correlation between conditions of production and distribution and their ultimate effects on the final product. The commodification of media has lead to cyclical content wherein advertising revenue trumps actual content. Put two and two together and see that the type of video you're more likely to see on Miro probably wouldn't be as easily available otherwise.

I could go on and on, and obviously as an intern and former Screen Studies studies student I'm a bit of a biased source, but I'd urge you first to consider the philosophy in which the Miro project was conceived in and how its goals couldn't be achieved any other way.

That's why you should use Miro :)

2008-07-14T17:37:00.001-04:00

If an image is worth a thousand words, then should we use Photoshop to adjust for inflation?

2008-07-10T11:00:00.001-04:00

found via Photoshop Disasters

At the risk of sounding a little too Orwellian for a Thursday morning...I'll let you draw your own conclusions on this one.

Cleanin' up the bookmarks

2008-07-09T17:25:00.000-04:00

Genomics Started With Boozing Session in Maine

Article is about a month old, but makes me proud to be a Mainer (I mean, other than the weird shit that already goes on here).

And another blog is born

2008-07-08T16:46:00.001-04:00

http://blogs.simmons.edu/people/markmanc/blog

RADICAL MILITANT LIBRARIAN

2008-07-08T13:28:00.003-04:00

I really really want one of these buttons now in light of this story.

Lets play the Past-Future-President Matching Game and figure out who is most likely to be offended by it in a public space:

Bush=McCain
Bush=Obama
Bush=Bush (the first one)
Bush=Clinton
Clinton=Obama
Clinton=McCain
Clinton=Clinton (the first one)

Solve for X, where X = the constitutional amendment that will be violated

Note: this isn't a political blog, it's one of those pesky "word problems" from chapter 3, solutions to the even numbered examples are in the back of the book.

Instant Gravy

2008-07-08T13:22:00.000-04:00

Just found a great blog I wanted to share. Hope he keeps it updated!

Why (Internet+Democracy) = Awesomenisity

2008-07-06T15:19:00.001-04:00

Success!

read more | digg story

PDF2008

2008-07-06T14:16:00.001-04:00

edit: working on getting a miro channel going for this ;)

Unthinking & Deprogramming the Brain

2008-07-01T20:09:00.003-04:00

via Developing Intelligence vis à vis Technoccult

“Untraining The Brain”: Meditation and Executive Function

I won't go into the meat and bones of the article, but the premise itself reminds me of a similar habit I've gotten into. Allow me to explain...

I have a nasty Sudoku addiction (and lets not even talk about Mahjong) that has manifested something completely different.This is hard to explain, but nowadays when I play I try not to actively think about the missing spots so much as I allow myself to sense their absence. Like the image above for example. You can count the squares and clearly see we need a 2, but at some point in my Sudoku career the answers just started to pop up.

There's a lot that can be said about that. I mean for one, we could say that I've conditioned my brain in some sort of pleasure-reward system to do the math for me, but at the same time I'm actively (and consciously) working towards this goal. Anyway, it's an interesting topic to explore. I think there's a lot more going on in our visual cortex than just blinking, if you catch my drift.

You're not just on hold...

2008-06-25T11:30:00.002-04:00

You're in your own personal dance party!

Sorry, I'm on the phone with Logitech right now because my mouse up and died yesterday, and this music is driving me insane.

I had a keyboard when I was younger (think mid-90's) that had a "demo" button that played a pre-recorded song using all the effects on the keyboard – including the "bloink!" sound in the seldom utilized auxiliary drum effects.

I could maybe see this music used in a Sega Genesis title at some point too. I just don't know. Mono-sound, static, not-so-deep heavy bass lines, chimes. THE CHIMES.

There was a Sinbad stand-up special that used to play all the time on Comedy Central all the time. I think I found the intro music.

Here there be self promotion

2008-06-24T15:05:00.003-04:00

A new blog-o-mine. I'm thinking an Art Nouveau inspired design for this one.

Blast from the Past

2008-06-19T15:11:00.002-04:00

Just had a weird coincidence (maybe that's a little redundant) but I have to re-post since it's so cool:

Click To Play

Abstractor instantly transforms intrusive video billboards into enjoyable public art. See how it's done! Visit Abstractor.tv for more info.

In case you haven't noticed...

2008-06-18T18:53:00.003-04:00

...this blog is somewhat "literacy" based.

Anyway this is a sweet Firefox extension that I found via Lifehacker today.

With it I plan to:

• De-clutter my bookmarks
• Zoom through my RSS stuff
• Read more on the train / offline!

Read it Later

RE: my last post

2008-06-17T11:34:00.003-04:00

Further proof Copyright is shooting itself in the foot:

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/if-ap-is-right.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/17/associated-press-exp.html

Oh well, at least the music is still working.

Picking up Steam

2008-06-14T15:50:00.000-04:00

via BoingBoing

Lewis Shiner is one of my favorite science fiction writers and last summer he began making all of his (fantastic!) old short stories available as free, Creative Commons licensed files on his site, under the banner of the "Fiction Liberation Front." Now he's expanded the program.

Cory Doctorow's post on BoingBoing today got me thinking about the state of online literature, partly as an extension of the "Books that are Free" series I'm doing and some musings in the last issue of American Libraries on eBooks and whatnot. Think of this as a brief meditation on the subject full of incomplete thoughts:

Project Gutenberg is interesting and all, and by no means am I belittling the proposition, but the content is of course very pre-internet thanks to currently copyright law. Then as a sort of "forward escape" from the system in place we have Creative Commons, which is very internet centric.

So, newsflash, the system is broken (read/borrow), but now I'm thinking the whole debate will just largely become irrelevant as relevant content begins to slip to the copy-left.

Lets adopt a biological model of communication and quickly see the key to long term copyright survival is in moving towards a more viable, transferable mode. Out of the pond and into the ocean.

Rumors of my Eventual Website

2008-06-09T13:06:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of WWDC 2008 today, I thought today would be a good time to divulge some top-secret info about my website in the works.

I'm still working on the coding, but now that I have received word from Dr. Kitaoka and his publisher around use of a figure I'm able to move on from the design phase!

Here's a low-res sample:

I think it's pretty cool :D

Books that are Free: Volume 2

2008-06-06T13:45:00.000-04:00

Could it be that time already again? How does he read so fast!

No, no, no. This post is another blast from the past. I actually read this one over the course of a few nights during finals week at Clark as a distraction and I was pleasantly surprised...

...that's not entirely true. I've really enjoyed all of Rushkoff's writing so far. More accurately, I wasn't disappoint.

Gotta love an honest cover.

Open Source Democracy

How online communication is changing offline politics
Foreword by Douglas Alexander, Member of UK Parliament

Anyway this was a really fascinating read. I am by no means a Political Scientist but there was plenty in there for the Media Scientist in me to nibble on.

Did I mention this one is free online?

Interesting to compare it to his earlier ethereal internet talk in Cyberia.

PS - I totally took part in an IRC interview with Rushkoff not to long ago, and I'm looking forward to his latest project (even if it's just a 404 right now as of writing this).

Spotlight on Invention: Skim

2008-06-05T14:00:00.000-04:00

So the other day I was on the train coming back from Boston (thanks again to my sister for showing me around) read some more of this and I thought "Hey, wouldn't it be great if I could highlight and annotate this like a real book?"

Much to my surprise, someone has beat me to it. I'm still getting used to it but Skim looks amazing so far. Two thumbs up.

The saying "great minds think alike" comes to mind :P

R-E-C-Y-C-L-E

2008-06-03T17:15:00.000-04:00

When I was driving back home after cashing in some cans today at Madden I had a breakthrough: "Why not repost that story from your old myspace blog" I thought to myself, "you never go on there anymore".

~~Not being the type to question authority~~
Here it is, complete with typos, from 2006:

I'll admit, my life isnt that exciting. To compensate for this however, it would seem that fate likes to pile a bunch of events to occur all at once for me. A form of trauma procrastination, if you will. Today was one such day. I decided to write this blog entry so I could recall it better later on, plus Im sure at least one other person on the internet will get a kick out of this.

The gall bladder is a small pear shaped organ that stores bile, that green-yellow shit that your liver makes to digest food. This is where our story begins, because this morning I had to drive to the UMass Memorial Hospital and get my small pear shaped organ checked out thanks to the advice of the medical professionals at Clark University. You see, a few weeks ago I thought my eyes and skin were turning yellow. I say thought because lets face it, I'm extremely pale. My skin-tone alternates from ghostly white to petrified pink, and some blotchy gradients therein. Yellow was a new one for me though, and like any rational human being I decided this was probably a good time to talk to a person with DR in from of their name.

So I thought I had jaundice, the your liver is fucked up indicator. It was that or an acute case of google-based hypochondria. Either way, I wanted to know for sure. So after some blood tests and poking and prodding by doctors and nurses in my abdomen they figured I probably just passed a gallstone and should get an ultrasound to see whats up with the little green fellow next to my liver. Apparently gall stones are pretty common as it turns out, something like 1 in 10 people get them but usually they pass silently and no one gives a shit. Everyone except me, because hey, I give a shit.

Ok moving on, so Ive got this appointment at the hospital for 9am. I set my alarm for 8am, Im also instructed not to eat after midnight the night before. So I wake up and find out my alarm didnt work or whatever. No big deal, its only 8:30, I can make it on time, or so I thought. Im out the door maybe 10 minutes later, having had to skip a shower because I know I should get there as early as possible and Im already running late.

Heres where things get interesting. I drive an old 91 Saab 900. Even though its 15 years old this thing still has a long life ahead of it. One problem though, it likes to stall at random intervals and I had no idea why. Well now I know why, but Ill get to that later. Ok so I get like 100 feet away from the parking garage and ol blue-y (my car is blue) shits the bed, kicks the bucket, or uhh...ok it stalls on me. Now Im in a panic. Im already running late for this ultrasound thing, and now my car decides to smite me. At least Im not in the middle of the road I think to myself. 5 minutes later it magically starts working again. Home free I foolishly concluded.

I drove by the hospital a few days before just to make sure I knew where the hell I was going, and the rest of the trip goes fine. I end up parking on the top of the garage there because the place is packed, further adding to my tardiness. I managed to find the registry place in the hosptial and they take my information and I get a nifty blue hospital card thing and another piece of paper. Two left turns and one long hallway later and Im at the Radiology and X-ray place where I need to be. Its already 9:20 now, oh well. I get called in not five minutes later. This is where the fun begins.

I know you know what an ultrasound is, but humor me for a moment now while explain the process. First off, Ive followed one of the nurses into a room clearly intended for fetus-spying. The lights are really dim, and there is a chair right next to the table thing that Im laying on clearly intended for a couple to share a special moment over while they peek inside the womb. Im not there to see a Chris Jr. wave back at me through grainy television screen though, Im not even pregnant, or a woman for that matter. But you already knew that. No, Im just there to have a nice lady rub a giant, lubricated wand/upsidedown-microphone-looking device over the upper right quadrant of my gut to see if the stories are true. There wasnt much conversation to be had, other than instructions for when to breath so she could coordinate the the search for the lost ark with my insides being pushed down by my diaphragm. She told me I was gassy too. Good to know, I guess. Ten minutes later and its over, and I get to wipe all the KY off my stomach while feeling slightly less manly now that I know what its like to have an ultrasound minus the whole pregnancy thing. I find out the results next wednesday.

The story doesn't end here though, in many ways it has just begun. You see, my continual love-hate relationship with my motor vehicle will once again rear its ugly head as soon as Im out of the visitor parking garage. The damn thing dies on me again. This time I manage to drift my way back into the hospital entrance area while simultaneously struggling against the lack of power-steering. Shit. Its happened again. I wait around 5 minutes hoping for another miracle. No dice. Time to call AAA, because thats what its there for. Hopefully a jump-start will cure what ails me.

About 40 minutes later while Im waiting for AAA to show up that miracle I was hoping for occurs. My Saab has been raised from the dead once again not unlike those stories from really really old books of fiction. But my lord and savior must have seen his shadow and decided to go back in the groundhog cage, meaning six more weeks of winter and free candy nestled in green plastic grass, or something like that. I get like halfway back to school and the bed has been defecated in once again, and that bucket is nearly cracked in half after all this kicking. I am in luck however, because I didnt call AAA back to let them know my car started up again, and I managed to glide into another parking lot, this time on the top of a hill, avoiding a hair-raising slide down the aptly named Highland Avenue. Some nice people helped me push my car a little further in the parking lot, as the ass-end was halfway in the sidewalk. Thanks random person!

You know how sometimes youll be driving, and you see that poor sap stuck on the side of the road, and you can just tell by the look on their face that this day is not going as planned? Well that was me at this moment. Plus Im starving because I its been a while since Ive had any food thanks to the ultrasound. I call AAA back up and tell them what the deal is, my car still needs help but Im at a different spot now. The tow truck gets there like 10 minutes later, and he explains to me that a jump-start is just going to get me a little closer to school before the same shit happens again. Ok better get this in for service somewhere, thanks for the advice tow-truck guy. Since I dont know any auto garages in Worcester, let alone one that will serve me swedish-born-expensive-as-hell-for-replacement-parts car, AAA recommends I take it to the closest Saab dealership. This might have been a mistake, but I didnt feel like getting ripped off by some sketchy Worcester garage. No, Id rather pay way more than I have to because Im a sap. Not that money really matters anyway. On top of all that, Im still in panic mode. The adrenaline is slowly working its way out of my system.

The Saab place is a couple minutes away in Auburn, I got to listen to some interesting music in the tow-truck on the way there for extra super-awesome awkwardness. Something about goin to the cabin down the road for romantic intentions is pouring out the speakers, and this guy (the tow truck guy) clearly knows the song by heart because hes picking up on every cymbal crash while drumming on the steering wheel. I just sat there and reflected upon my lack of a functional seat-belt as we go careening down 290.

We finally get there after what seemed like the longest ride of my life, and I get to break the good news to the service desk. My car has been towed here. I think it needs some help. Please please please please. Something like that. Then I realized I have to get back to school somehow so I can write this amazing blog entry, and Im in luck! Yes! the old guy behind the counter says, we have an old senile man right over here who we keep around for just this reason!.

Step 1. find the car Step 2. figure out how to unlock the doors because this new Passat only has an electric key thing. Step 3. figure out how to start the engine. And were off. They call me Babe! the old guy says. Interesting name, sir. Luckily Gramps knows his way around the city despite my total ineptitude with directions. We end up listening to some hip-hop on the radio after he randomly hits some buttons and is unable to fix it. We finally get there after some nice lunch-rush traffic and I thank him for the ride and proceed to eat the best damn Chicken fajita salad Ive ever had.

This is in many ways a work in progress, because while Ive managed to get myself home safely the fate of my automobile is still in question. What will become of my gall-bladder remains undetermined, and the state of my sanity needs further review. I can however safely say this was the most intense Friday morning I have ever had. I usually sleeps until noon because I dont have any classes today. I wrote way more than I expected too. Hope you enjoyed the ride. "

Epilogue:
I now drive a 97 Mazda :P

Optical Illusions Explained?

2008-06-03T16:45:00.000-04:00

Check out this article on LiveScience.com

an excerpt:

"...our visual system that has evolved to compensate for neural delays, generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. That foresight keeps our view of the world in the present. It gives you enough heads up to catch a fly ball (instead of getting socked in the face) and maneuver smoothly through a crowd."

Spotlight on Invention: The Chillow

2008-06-03T12:51:00.001-04:00

I'm not getting payed to say this (though I should be):

The Chillow is amazing. Use it as a passive laptop cooler, thank me later.

Books that are Free: Volume 1

2008-05-30T14:33:00.000-04:00

This is the first post in a soon to be multi-part series where I blabber on and on about books – past and present – on my e-shelf (ok ok, desktop folder).

Structures of Participation in Digital Culture

Karaganis, Joe, ed. New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007.

Published by The Social Science Research Council, and you can read it online fo' free in PDF.

I'll write a review once I'm done readin' it!

What's the saying again?

2008-05-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

Something about a blog being created every second...

Except this one is mine!