there are 12 posts from June 2008

June 27, 2008

aspen music festival on medici.tv

If you’re a classical music fan, about this time every year you’re probably jonesing for a trip to the Aspen Music Festival. I was lucky enough to be there for a weekend several years back, and the combination of the setting, the students and the stars turn it into something really special. (My sister is lucky enough to be there all year round, since she works for the festival as an admissions officer.)

Though it’s not the same as being there, this year they’re streaming a slew of concerts from this week’s slate on medici.tv, which is a beautiful site from Medici Arts that offers a program of high quality video of concerts from around the world. Definitely worth checking out.

June 26, 2008

liz phair on guyville

Liz Phair’s made a new documentary about her 1993 landmark “Exile in Guyville,” timed with a reissue of the album. New York Mag’s Vulture has a great interview with her, and as the father of two daughters whom I’m doing my best to raise as strong, vocal and opinionated young girls (and me arguably being one of those “guys”) I absolutely loved this particular bit… 

It was interesting to learn from the documentary that you were pretty surrounded by guys on the making of Exile.
I really was in Guyville. When I went back to the documentary, the one unifying thing with the guys is, they all talk a really long time, and then I get a tiny little word in edgewise. They were all like, “This is what’s good,” “This is what you should like,” and I was like, [sing-songy] “fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you.”

The documentary’s bundled with the CD version of the reissue – you can pick it up at Amazon and other fine retailers, I assume.

June 26, 2008

little rips in the urban fabric

Roberta Smith in the New York Times on Eliasson’s water falls: “The experience of Mr. Eliasson’s artful addition to the urban landscape depends on everything around it — the city’s changing pace, light and (real) weather. And on you. The falls can be looked at from near or far, alone or in groups, on foot or bike, from boats and bridges, in snatched glimpses on the move or staying-in-place contemplation. They fake natural history with basic plumbing, making little rips in the urban fabric through which you glimpse hints of lost paradise and get a sharpened sense of Whitman’s, the one you already inhabit.”

June 25, 2008

djokovic on losing

Sure, Tiger has his knee problems, but here’s some cross-sport support for the kernel of truth in his Nike ad about mental toughness, Wimbledon third seed Navat Djokovic on losing to unseeded Marat Safin.

In the end, this is another reason to show to the people that this is a very mental game. … Even though you are feeling great in certain moments and feeling a lot of confidence and motivation, everything can blow away in a second if you are mentally not ready and prepared for the challenge. Today, I had just a block, a mental block.

June 24, 2008

One reason why DonorsChoose works so well

DonorsChoose is an incredible organization, using the web in a powerful way to connect individual donors with teachers to help address “the scarcity and inequitable distribution of learning materials and experiences in our public schools.”

They do an awful lot of things right on their site, but the thing I love most are the messages that are sent from the teachers whose projects you’ve funded. This message came from a project I helped fund with a small donation to bring art tables to a classroom in Northern California. It’s a simple, straightforward way to help connect the dots between the gift and the kids it impacts.

It’s summertime, and teachers are getting ready for next year’s classes – why not find a project to fund?

June 24, 2008

my head just exploded a little

Check out the video of processing.js running inside a TiddlyWiki.[1] (Learn more and get your own.)

[1] I’ve always hated the term “TiddlyWiki” because it’s so twee it hurts. No, I don’t have a better alternative, and this post really isn’t about the tiddly-ness, it’s more about the processing-ness.

June 18, 2008

upgrading your television is too hard

So I’m in the market for a new television.  This should be a good thing – I love television, I love watching television, and I’m looking forward to a bright, shiny future in widescreen HD.  But instead, it’s become a decision-making nightmare.

Our current setup is pretty simple:  plain vanilla cable (no digital, only up through channel 72 or whatever), piped into a Series 2 TiVo, and then to a big Sony CRT trinitron.  But what I’ve discovered is that if I want to upgrade, I basically need to upgrade the whole kit and kaboodle.

  • I need to go from basic cable to digital cable.  So OK, it’s more expensive, I get that, but there’s also some sort of box involved.  With a new remote.  And I’m pretty damn sure that that won’t work with our TiVo.
  • So then I need some sort of TiVo device – preferably a real TiVo device.  But an HD TiVo is insanely expensive, and I keep hearing something about cable cards, which some people hate and some people love.  Also, I hear now that you can DVR functionality directly in your cable box, but that the UI sucks. And frankly, the whole point of TiVo is the UI.   
  • Then there’s the screen itself.  Plasma or LCD? I’ve discovered that you can’t just Google said question, because the rate of change is so high that any article comparing the two technologies is pretty much out of date by the time it gets transmitted down the Intertubes. And a visit to your local electronics retailer doesn’t really help, since they’re all mostly LCD now, and they’re all lined up side by side by side, which I suppose in some platonic world should aid in the decision making process, but actually just confuses the hell out of you.
  • Oh, and 720p or 1080p?  I keep hearing more p is better, right?  

So basically right here my decision-making ability goes straight to hell.  Because not only are there decisions to make on all of these axes, there’s also the process of executing on said decisions, and timing them right so that I’m not out of luck without any television for two or three weeks.  (What happens if Comcast delivers a digital cable box before I have the flat screen?  Or vice versa?  I’m at risk of missing an entire summer of America’s Got Talent!)  And right here is where I marvel – frankly, upgrading to a new computer is a much simpler proposition than upgrading your television.  (Just buy the fastest chip, most RAM, and most storage you can afford.  What else do you need to know?)

You’d think that the folks who have the most to gain from this transition – the cable companies – would want to make this decision process easy. But they’re too focused on trying to sell combination voice + internet + television services to make it easy for me to upgrade the service I have to something better…and to guide me through the process.

All I want is to be ready for Season 5 of Lost.  Because if next season Claire’s gonna be all Jacob’s-cabin-happy in a “I just got high and found the stash of chocolate chip cookies” kind of way, then I need to experience it in all of its HD glory. Seriously, any help / advice on how to make this transition is welcome. (And yes, I know this is a ridiculous problem to have, in the grand scheme of all problems to be had.)

June 18, 2008

key lesson: act fast

I continue to be super excited for Jen Bekman and what she’s doing with 20x200. I just clicked through on today’s message about the latest piece from James Rajotte titled Auditorium, and the 200 run edition of the smaller piece had already sold out.  (Damn!)

June 12, 2008

we're living in the future

“The agency started dumping thousands of floating plastic balls into Ivanhoe Reservoir – the dwarf sibling next door to Silver Lake Reservoir, the neighborhood’s crown jewel – to protect the drinking water supply needed for summer. The water needs to be shaded because when sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe’s water, the carcinogen bromate forms, said Pankaj Parekh, DWP’s director for water quality compliance. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, he said, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix.”

(Photo from Flickr, story from the LA Times)

June 11, 2008

oh thank god

It was about time.

Strawberry Shortcake was having an identity crisis. The “it” doll and cartoon star of the 1980s was just not connecting with modern girls. Too candy-obsessed. Too ditzy. Too fond of wearing bloomers. So her owner, American Greetings Properties, worked for a year on what it calls a “fruit-forward” makeover. Strawberry Shortcake, part of a line of scented dolls, now prefers fresh fruit to gumdrops, appears to wear just a dab of lipstick (but no rouge), and spends her time chatting on a cellphone instead of brushing her calico cat, Custard.

In other words… “The Princesses have been kicking us in the ass while those God awful Bratz girls have been kicking us upside the head, so people we have to do something… I know, let’s give her a cellphone! That’ll make it all better.”

June 11, 2008

infectious!

Kudos to Tim Roberts on launching Infectious, his new company which brings easy-to-apply car art to the masses. They’ve got simple icons, accent kits, hood pieces, door kits, side kits and full car customization kits – all installable by normal humans.

Tim first told me about the idea for this company a few years ago (before he was at Odeo, I think?) and I’m really excited to see it come to life. Their site is super fun to explore, and I can imagine all sorts of interesting ways they could drive more artwork into their catalog. Their blog is great, and Michael Arrington had a post a couple of weeks ago with some video of just how easy it is to install the stickers on your car.

Now, to figure out just the right way to spice up the boring gray hybrid…

June 09, 2008

on stage

Holy cow, what a blast.

Huge kudos to Ray Marshall, who built the app and did a tremendous job running the demo; and also to Stephane Delbecque, who’s our mobile product manager. I’m incredibly happy for the team – amazing work! (Wanna come work with us? We’re hiring!)

And just how massive of an ego does it take to link to the keynote and tell you to “fast forward to about the 30 minute mark”? I guess we’re finding out right about now.

(Many thanks to Megan Frost of Cute Overload who snapped this pic from the second row!)