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March 31, 2005

links for 2005-03-31

Posted by 12:25 AM

March 30, 2005

links for 2005-03-30

Posted by 12:25 AM

March 28, 2005

Since U Been Corporate Slides


(Since U Been Corporate Slides, originally uploaded by mathowie)

Have you seen "songs as outlines?" I couldn't help but notice the funniest ones were the ones that looked like believable corporate slides from a powerpoint deck. I couldn't get this idea out of my head and thought of some outlines for Since U Been Gone. Then I nabbed Alan's slide templates and dropped them in, and Merlin kindly added many funny suggestions to it. I bet an enterprising youngster could code up an automatic way to pull the outlines off that LJ page and into a HTML slide template like this one.

I give you: Since U Been Gone as a corporate presentation

Posted by 05:29 PM

links for 2005-03-28

Posted by 12:25 AM

March 27, 2005

links for 2005-03-27

Posted by 12:27 AM

March 26, 2005

New Feature

I jotted down a bunch of thoughts during SXSW and Etech. They're not entirely related to one another, but I promise if you read through the whole thing you'll probably pick up one new idea or trick from it.

Posted by 06:44 PM

links for 2005-03-26

Posted by 12:24 AM

March 25, 2005

SXSW 2000, milkshake media party


(SXSW 2000, milkshake media party, originally uploaded by mathowie)

The VH1 "Where are they now?" webloggger special.

Posted by 11:51 AM

links for 2005-03-25

Posted by 12:24 AM

March 24, 2005

Y! CC

Yahoo just released a Creative Commons Search that kicks all kinds of ass, drawing upon their massive database of webpages featuring CC licenses. In my tests it is returning as good or better results than the main Creative Commons search, and it's doing it instantly thanks to Yahoo's muscle.

I used to think of Yahoo as the CBS of search engines -- it's the search engine your grandma probably uses to find Murder She Wrote episode guides. But in the past few months they've really turned it around. My Yahoo continues to impress, they picked up Flickr, and now Creative Commons search is baked in. This is not your father's search engine anymore.

Posted by 09:30 AM

links for 2005-03-24

Posted by 12:24 AM

March 23, 2005

links for 2005-03-23

Posted by 12:24 AM

March 22, 2005

links for 2005-03-22

Posted by 12:24 AM

March 21, 2005

links for 2005-03-21

Posted by 12:24 AM

March 20, 2005

flickrhoo


(flickrhoo, originally uploaded by mathowie)

'tis true!

Posted by 03:23 PM

links for 2005-03-20

Posted by 12:23 AM

March 18, 2005

links for 2005-03-18

Posted by 12:23 AM

March 17, 2005

More fun with etech audio

Ev gave an amazing demo of Odeo. That thing is going to be as big (or bigger) than Flickr, I'm sure of it.

Here's the whole talk as a ogg file (my mp3 export in audacity refuses to work) and some photos of the screens on my feed (lots more I'll upload later).

Danny and Merlin's lifehacks talk was good too, here's the whole thing as an ogg file as well.

Posted by 03:51 PM

Lessig Keynote from Etech

Lessig Keynote and afterwards discussion and questions, recorded on my iTrip and very lofi (9Mb and 12Mb, respectively). I'm sure high quality versions will be online in the next few weeks, but for now there's this.

Posted by 09:59 AM

March 16, 2005

Put your apps into a COMA!

After hearing so much about Ruby on Rails at etech, I think it's time to announce my new approach to web application design:
ColdFusion On Molasses.

The marketing people tell me that it will be known as COMA and I expect an Adaptive Path article any day now, as I embark on this new revolution.

MetaFilter, my opus, is the first public application written exclusively in COMA.

Posted by 05:12 PM

links for 2005-03-16

Posted by 12:23 AM

March 15, 2005

Etech05: Cars


(Etech05: Cars, originally uploaded by etech)

Something folks have been talking about for months now: a mac mini embedded in a car dash, running an entertainment OS

Posted by 12:49 PM

Two spur of the moment zingers worth sharing

Zeldman: What's your shirt say?
Me: Please Mess with Texas
Zeldman: You know, that original slogan was for a anti-litter campaign
Me: Yeah, well, it's certainly taken on a life of its own since then
Zeldman: True
Me: It's now the official US foreign policy


Me: Kathryn, we should get going to make the Wonkette panel
Kathryn: You think it'll be busy?
Me: Imagine Malcolm Gladwell... with breasts
Kathryn: ...
Me: That's how busy it will be.

Posted by 10:28 AM

March 13, 2005

links for 2005-03-13

Posted by 12:23 AM

March 12, 2005

Fun with perception

I just got off the weirdest plane flight. It started in line to get my ticket. The guy two people in front of me was checking his bag and casually leaned down, picked up a wastebasket and began to hurl into it. Odd, but it happens to all of us, sometimes.

After I got into the plane, I noticed Mr. Hurl was two rows in front of me and soon after we started off, his sickness continued. But before the vomit vapors could reach me, I couldn't help but notice the plane filled with the most pungent of other bodily vapors. It didn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out the nervous sweaty guy looking all around across the aisle was probably to blame. After just a few more minutes passed, the beverage carts began rolling and the woman in front of me, trapped from the bathrooms at both ends by carts, decided to change her baby's diaper on the seat immediately in front of me. No lie.

These seemingly random, everyday things combined into a sort of "perfect storm" that resulted in the worst case of stink plane I've experienced. I wondered if I could survive the next two hours.

But something amazing happened soon after. A flight attendant manning a cart pulled out a big bag of Foldgers brew, poured half a water bottle through the unused coffee grains and into a stack of paper towels. She then took these coffee-grain soaked towels and walked the length of the plane several times, wiping the sides and undersides of the luggage compartments. Suddenly I was whisked away from the bowels of the stinkiest plane on earth to the tasty hills of columbia. I could swear I saw Juan Valdez picking coffee beans out the window below.

The flight wasn't that bad from there on out. My hat's off to flight attendant's MacGuyver-esque skills in saving us from hours of smell torture.

Posted by 02:19 PM

Me and Malcolm


(Me and Malcolm, originally uploaded by Ben Brown)

Ben Brown, starfucking

Malcolm Gladwell, slumming

Posted by 10:28 AM

links for 2005-03-12

Posted by 12:22 AM

March 11, 2005

links for 2005-03-11

Posted by 12:22 AM

March 10, 2005

Is Gmail registration open to the public?


(gmail, originally uploaded by mathowie)

Today was the first time I ever noticed a gmail signup pitch on google.com. Maybe they've opened it to all finally?

Posted by 03:29 PM

March 09, 2005

This week's best thing ever

Kelly Clarkson, the first American Idol winner, has a breakout hit called "Since U Been Gone" that you've probably heard. It's totally addictive and I think may just be this year's Hey Ya. Even my indie rock friends all adore the track (even Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing fame puts it in his top three favorites).

So when word got out that indie rock legend Ted Leo covered it, we searched and searched and a bounty was even offered. Eventually, it was found, at UGO.com. Worlds colliding!

I ripped the audio from the streaming video file on their site and here's the song: Ted Leo doing a cover of "Since U Been Gone" (192kbps, MP3)

It was worth the search and the wait.

Posted by 12:10 PM

Wrens promo out

I was happy to see Kathryn's documentary project just released a preview.

Merlin turned me onto The Wrens a year or so ago (and it looks like he'll be opening for them next month), and I've grown to love their music. The preview gives a good insight into the band and really does start to tell the story that basically boils down to "The Hoop Dreams of indie rock."

Congrats to the crew on getting this out.

Posted by 11:31 AM

links for 2005-03-09

Posted by 12:22 AM

March 08, 2005

links for 2005-03-08

Posted by 12:22 AM

March 07, 2005

The efficiency of markets

1). I've been meaning to pick up a copy of Blink ever since it came out, because I'm a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell's writing. But then I thought...

2). Ever since I heard him talk about his work, I would prefer hearing the new book rather than reading it, so I...

3) Searched and searched for a paid, downloadable audio version. Surprisingly, there was none to be found on iTunes or Audible for this best selling author, so I eventually...

4). Broke down and purchased the unabridged CD set for about $10 more than the book, and I had to wait several days for it to show up via UPS, and now...

5). I am importing the tracks into iTunes, one CD at a time, with barely any metadata since CDDB knows little about the discs. The process has taken me about 90 minutes to get through, loading and ejecting discs one by one, while I work on other things.

Posted by 05:56 PM

Blogspot is hurting America

Blogspot is currently broken. While it always aimed to be the place to get a free weblog, it has been the subject of various exploits and gaming.

Case in point: yesterday I got a porn spam that slipped through since the from: line was set to my own email, and amid the garbage text was a URL on blogspot. This URL:
http://trampling-high-heels3169.blogspot.com/

If you go there and check it out, it pretty much as the exact same text as the spam, but the URL leads to the spammer's real target site.

A friend recently returned from a anti-spam conference and said someone gave a demo of a spamming tool. They showed how it grabbed a zillion email addresses from a database, started churning out the email while hopping from one free open proxy server to another, and one curious last step was to automatically create a new blogger account, create a new site on blogspot, and load the email text from the spam as an entry. The last step was to raise the search engine position for the spammer's site and message and was completely automated.

When folks are using a blog host for spam and it becomes a key feature of automated spamming tools, I think it's time to fix it.

How about adding a captcha at the very least, to thwart those doing automatic script-based spaming of blogspot?

Posted by 05:24 PM

March 05, 2005

links for 2005-03-05

Posted by 12:21 AM

March 04, 2005

YHBT

I've been on Declan McCullagh's mailing list for the past 3-4 years and when I saw him pimping his article about a possible blogging crackdown from the FEC, I had a strong feeling everyone was being played. The title and lead-in are finely crafted to rile most any blogger, be they right or left in political persuassion. The concept of blogs as regulated speech also seemed a stretch and I had to keep in mind that Declan, though I like him for the most part and love his mailing list, is a libertarian that wants to see completely unregulated speech and spending. Every six months or so Declan sticks his neck out and is shown to be incorrect. Then a few months pass and people forget, then another crazy headline shows up one of his articles. He's really good at writing headlines that make people talk, it's just that accuracy doesn't always follow.

I'm glad to hear from James that my first impression was likely right, and this is much ado about nothing.

Blogosphere, you have been trolled.

Posted by 12:43 PM

links for 2005-03-04

Posted by 12:21 AM

March 03, 2005

links for 2005-03-03

Posted by 12:21 AM

March 02, 2005

When bad copyright law hurts good singers

My one reality TV show indulgence is American Idol. I accidentally caught an early episode during the second season and I haven't missed one since. During the two years I've watched it, I've long wondered why singers choose the songs they do, since song choice is everything in the competition and frequently folks seem to choose from a fairly narrow pool. At one time I thought that maybe they could only sing songs that 20th Century Fox had the rights to, or that labels were friendly with.

idol.png
(51 sec, 17Mb mpeg2)

Tonight, during the voting off phase, a contestant let slip that they do actually have to deal with song rights clearance, right up to the moment the show airs. Watch the clip to catch the explanation, and how the chosen song didn't work out. She was voted off the show moments later.

I know there are rights built into music law that anyone can do cover songs, but I suspect that's only for recordings, not performances, and the rights holders of songs have a say whether their song can be sung on a national show or not. It's a shame because often you'll see someone do really well in the audition phase where they seemingly can perform any song they want, then flounder on stage when limited to the cleared song pool. Aloha was a pretty good singer, but I guess performance rights can get in the way.

Posted by 11:23 PM

links for 2005-03-02

Posted by 12:21 AM

iTalk


(iTalk, originally uploaded by mathowie)

I've had my new iTalk unpacked for about five minutes and I'm amazed by how simple it was to use (just click into place, and push to record). Playback is easy and you can even use it as a small, tinny speaker.

It's crazy to think you can store something like 20 hours of your own recordings with this and my mind races when thinking of how I would have used this technology when I was in college (napster could have been loaded with lectures, not music). I'm also thinking it could serve as a pretty cool way to record Kay and I talking about the upcoming baby for later (much later) playback.

Imagine how freaky it would be to hear a recording of your parents from 20 years ago, debating what to name you, talking how much you kick everyday, and how much they're looking forward to meeting you.

update: this is exactly what I'm talking about. A great use of available technology.

Posted by 12:11 AM

March 01, 2005

The elusive Make

I've been hearing nothing but rave reviews for Make in the past two weeks, but I haven't seen one yet, and it's not for a lack of trying. Here's the response so far to my requests of "Do you carry the new magazine called Make?":

Powell's Technical Bookstore (last week, in Portland): "Hmm, never heard of it. It's by O'Reilly? Huh, we should carry it but I haven't seen anything about it"

Borders Books (last night, by PacBell park): "Nope."

Fog City News (hip newsstand in SF, today): "We've had several requests for that, but we don't know who is distributing it so we can't even order it."

Stacey's Bookstore (SF, half a block from Fog City, today): "No sign of it as far as I can tell. Try the newsstand down the street."

I tried to subscribe a couple weeks ago, but the page spit out an error when I forgot to check off a select box, and it refuses to accept or submit my card now. Ugh.

update: turns out that you can only order it from Amazon, at least for the first printing. I heard about the new issue on so many blogs I just assumed you could find it on a newsstand, but I guess folks just got freebies or subscriptions directly from O'Reilly.

Posted by 11:39 AM

links for 2005-03-01

Posted by 12:21 AM