September 2008 - Posts
Creative writing assignment: Tell the story of anyone in this news video up to the point when this report takes place. (Alternate title to this entry was "It's not her twin it's herself!")
Speaking of writing, if you feel like your life is low on thoughtful discourse on creative process, you'll likely find these Slate author interviews enriching.Poetry with book titles
I know everyone is tittering over the Sarah Palin Disney trailer but after reading Jim Popkin's piece on her correspondence she reminds me more of Elle in Legally Blonde (and I mean that in a good way as far as movie analogies go).
Eddie Vedder makes me want to be a Cubs fan .
I'm still trying to get my head around this car technology . It tells you how fast you have to go to beat the coming traffic light and it'll change red lights to green?
The 2008 PC Builder's Bible - I've been collecting "build your own computer" links lately under the delusion that I'll actually try to build one. This looks like a comprehensive "one stop" explainer.
Web watchers are following the latest State of the Blogosphere report from Technorati. The highlight item from the first day was the suggestion that with 100,000 unique users (as opposed to page views) a blogger can make $75,000 a year - the operative word being "can" as many bloggers are pointing out is not the same "will."One picture every day for 17 years
I've seen all the futuristic architecture in Dubai but in my head it's all just concept drawings and construction sites. Seeing photos of an actual place that's actually finished (granted, they're publicity photos) brings a new reality to what they're doing over there.
The gadget blogs are buzzing about this Ferrari concept motorcycle . I think the best views are here but Luxist also has a nice gallery . I know it wouldn't happen if you were holding on and had your feet on the pegs, but it looks like the rider would slide right off the thing.
Sarah Silverman wants young, liberal Jews to go to Florida to tell their more conservative grandparents to vote for Obama. (Note: Sarah Silverman's brand of comedy is based on pushing politically incorrect or flat out offensive buttons. If you don't like that kind of humor, skip this one.)
Speaking of comedians, the Colbert/Stewart Entertainment Weekly cover was already being passed around by e-mail by the time I saw the link was also ascending in popularity.
Cool Wii commercial . You might have to watch it twice if you don't realize what's happening until the end.
Speaking of ads I appreciated, the UK's Hovis bread does a nice job here .
11 Weird and Wonderful Wedding Rings - I am both repulsed by and attracted to the idea of growing bone in a dish for non-medical purposes.
Using olives to put eyes on things isn't really a new idea, but using a straw to cut a hole and also cut the plug to fill the hole is a clever solution I haven't seen before.
The above led me to The Hungry Scientist site.
"American cell phone users are sending more text messages than they are making phone calls, according to a Nielsen Mobile survey released Monday." This makes total sense to me. My cell phone could be missing its ear speaker and I wouldn't even notice.
LeBron James loses at HORSE
The trailer for the coming Synedoche New York , the new Philip Seymour Hoffman movie. Hey, here it is in the msnbc.com player . I had heard we were going to carry more movie trailers. I guess that's begun. Cool.
Project 10100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.you retain ownership of any intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) you have in and to your submission."
Speaking of cool Google ideas, this is a clever way to compare candidates .
"Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and micro-blogging services." I think the idea is to search for yourself but it seems like it'd be a handy research tool for just about anything.
In case you're feeling down on the U.S. lately with all the Wall Street mess, take heart that we do relatively well on this global map of corruption .
It is a little known fact that Roger Ebert is bilingual. See question/answer #3 . UPDATE: Oops, watch the moving link! It's here now . (Thanks Jason!)
"Drama Level is a free service that lets you anonymously report a drama queen/king to the rest of the world."
Is anyone else's mind blown by this new Canon camera ? Full-frame, 21.1 megapixel, ISO 25600, shoots HD and SD video and an estimated body-only retail price of $2,699??
When I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year I also participated in a smaller gadget showcase press event put on by a group called Showstoppers . Since then I've remained on their mailing list and this week they had a small presentation here in New York City. I should emphasize that I'm not really a gadget reviewer. I haven't compared similar products or used them in my everyday life for long periods of time. I just like cool toys and free food and that's what they have at these things. That said, this is what stood out to me.
Something I've always wanted to see is a digital camera whose video display image shows up in a pair of glasses. Have you ever seen a crowd of tourists all standing with their cameras up over their heads, slightly tipped so they can see the screen? Why can't the screen be somewhere else? I didn't see this invention at the show but the folks making the EyeClops line of toys seem to be on that track. Most specifically I liked their night vision goggles , which has ultra bright infra red LEDs on the face.
Inside in one eye is a view screen like that of a digital video camera that can see infra red. They say you can see 50 feet with the things. Interestingly, you see with only one eye. The other eye of the goggles is made to snap open to help you establish your sense of depth because I guess it's hard to actually move around when that's your only means of sight. Retail $79.99 the lady said. Looking at their site I see other toys that employ a similar idea. Their video microscope looks like basically a digital video camera with a macro lens.
I also learned that this is the same company behind Spinz pens , the pens designed specifically for spinning - not spin art, I mean twirling on your fingers. I knew it was big in Asia but I didn't realize that it's nearly a sport .
When I saw the Micro Mosquito 4x4 I asked the guy what made it different from the little mosquito helicopters that Radio Shack has been selling for years. The answer is that the 4x4 means it has four channels. If you look really closely at the picture you'll see that this thing not only has two propellers but it also has two tails. Theoretically this does amazing things to the agility while in flight. The bad thing is that when you're dealing with objects as small and as light as these, they're also very vulnerable to breezes and any imbalance in their own structure. The one below is from the same company. I think he said it's called The DaVinci. He had it weighed down so it wouldn't fly away in the small space we were in but yes, it flies. The MicoMosquito 4x4 comes out Friday. The little one not for a while. I don't even see it on their Web site yet.
The jewel of the show was definitely the Schwinn Electric Bike . Coming in early 2009, the 6 pound battery takes you 35 to 40 miles and can recharge in a half hour, good for 1000 charges before it starts to degrade. "Popular in Europe" seemed like the understatement of the night for this thing. That's the battery there on the back in the rack above the rear tire. Throttle and power meter are on the handlebars. They were quoting $3200 as the price. Their site has a fair amount of information.
I brought home for review a
Tikitag kit. The idea behind Tikitag is basically a DIU RFID system. So you can write your own program for what you want to happen when a tag is scanned by the reader device. The example the demo woman used was that she put tags on photos for her mentally ailing relative. When you pass the tagged photos over the sensor, it triggers the software in the computer and automatically uses Skype to call the person in the picture. It's not about making phone calls, it's about telling the system what to do when the tag passes the sensor. Could be inventory or customer data but what's cool is that it's not a big complicated system. It's a little sensor with a USB and some tags and a community full of open source software.
After wandering the showroom and scarfing some tortellini in vodka sauce I left the hotel and walked right into a phalanx of press and security. A guy next to me said he'd heard McCain was doing Letterman so maybe McCain was at this hotel. Never being one to walk away from a spectacle, I joined the cordoned crowd to see who the fuss was for. If I'd waited a few minutes before leaving I might have stepped into the elevator with Sarah Palin (well, of course not but that's how close the timing was). Only in New York.
(It takes to about the 24 second mark to understand what's coming. It begins in earnest at about 42 seconds.)
I have installed Twhirl and it makes a world of difference in using Twitter. Essentially it turns your Twitter account into an instant messenger. Different people feel comfortable with different interfaces but for me, perhaps because of my chat background, I like IM so this suits me well.
Twhirl isn't new but Dropbox is and though I haven't tried it I plan to install it on both my home and work machines. I've mentioned before the problems I have with doing work on my home machine and then coming in to work and having to figure out how to get the previous nights work back in front of me. (You'll recall Instapaper was one solution I was liking for a while.) Dropbox is for more than just links, you can drag photos and whole folders into the thing and it synchs up with your other machines. Actually, it's probably less about synchronization and more about Dropbox being a middle man, but the demo video looks like what I want to be able to do: on the way out to work, drag whatever I'm in the middle of into a folder, get to work, open that folder and there I am. No e-mailing stuff to myself, no plugging in flash drives. I'm going to set it up Monday so I'll let you know if how it works.
I didn't hate the Seinfeld Microsoft commericials but I agree the point of them was a little difficult to discern. I do, however, really like these new ones that are apparently going to replace the Seinfeld ones.
I just added this as an update to yesterday's post but since it looks like it could be a new story on it's own I wanted to surface it here. Someone claiming to be the person who hacked Sarah Palin's e-mails posted a confession/explanation of sorts on a message board. The message was deleted but not before there were grabs taken and the username and the associated e-mail address were noted. At the time (long, long ago, yesterday afternoon) the thinking was that it would surely be a dead end because how could the guy be so stupid as to post that long confession and use something that could be so easily traced? I should add a note of caution here that as far as I know, no one has been charged and of course the person who owns that address is being investigated because it's an obvious lead. But at the same time, it appears that the hacker may actually have been that stupid. I'm sure there are a lot of people blogging it but I clicked Gateway Pundit .
Something that didn't occur to me that of course makes sense is that Internet justice in a case of invasion of privacy will be a complete and thorough invasion of privacy. I expect this will not be pretty.
In the Light Bot game you program the robot to make it move. A nice level of challenge without being too discouraging.
Am I crazy or does the alligator in photo number 6 look kind of happy? I actually tried to use the Bird's Eye View in Live Maps over Gilchrist, Texas to see if I could find the house in photo #11 but I can't make it out. I did learn from a colleague where Jeff Ranieri was standing when he shot this video . If you've got two monitors you can pan Google street view at the same time he pans his camera for a before/after perspective.
Speaking of using Google Street View to explore the real world, Google Street View goes mobile
Speaking of new stuff from Google, they launched audio indexing . The software can translate the audio in YouTube clips and offer that translation to search. That's cool in itself but if the thing can understand audio, why am I still typing into it? Is it time for the audio revolution?
Speaking of audio, I was watching the Bandcamp video here when I saw the adjacent link to this cool Droste effect video . From the Flickr category I saw the mention on this photo of GIMP plugin MathMap . (Reminder: GIMP is a free open source photo editor.)
Mr. and Mrs. Vader computer generated art . Each photo links back to a gallery of the artist on computer generated art site called CG Hub .
If Wikipedia was a college professor...
How to switch back to the old Facebook layout if you hate the new design.
The Bike Of The Future: Vetrix Electric Super Bike - Yes! All this talk of electric cars is making me crazy. Why not put a battery in a motorcycle to introduce the technology in a much lighter form? Vetrix already produces a "maxi-scooter" so how far away can a proper motorcycle be?
The anti-theft lunch bag is a brilliant idea. I bet you could do something similar with food coloring on the bread itself.
YouKnowster lets you make your own "You know you're ... when/if..." lists.
Ninja cat comes closer while not moving!
Ze Frank has updated his memory game . Funny how the basics are so satisfying.
The new Sticky Note Experiment video from the Diet Coke & Mentos guys.
Company to help content owners "monetize" illegal content - Assuming the "monetizing" isn't completely obnoxious, this could be a great idea. Instead of yanking illegal clips from YouTube, the clip automatically pulls in an appropriate ad. Everyone wins.
Differences between liberals and conservatives and the foundations of moral psychology . Nearly 20 minute video but contains interesting ideas. The temptation to personalize or politicize what he's saying may undermine its value but it's good food for thought as a context.
More than 20 million homes have cut the cord on landline phones - Wow, that is way more than I would have guessed. We hear about this more often lately because every time a poll comes out someone points out people with cell phones instead of landlines can't be reached by pollsters. I'd always dismissed that as an academic argument but wow, 20 million.
You may have heard about the scandal that an Mtv reality show taping left the natural setting of the show in shambles but did you know there is such a thing as the Tree Climber's Coalition ?a new kind of something that they cannot make any sense of ." According to Femia's Law of Schlocky Science Reporting, whenever scientists admit they can't explain something we are free to speculate not only about the explanation but also the implications of any imaginable hypotheticals. And so it's my duty to report that the mystery object has been speculated by some to be an alien race of life farmers, returning to seed-planet Earth to restock supplies before heading back out into space to spread life through the galaxy. Should this possibility prove correct, they're going to be pissed when they find out we're all out of Tasmanian Tigers.
The Internet has blessed us with the original recording of that John McCain interview in which he appears not to know the leader of Spain. Sorry, but I'm giving this one the "non-scandal" stamp. That lady is wicked hard to understand. Maybe he should have asked her to repeat herself but I could barely make out what she was asking and I had the notes in front of me.
At this point the Palin e-mail hack story is probably mainstream enough that I don't have much to add. It's interesting to note that, as Bob Sullivan warned about a few weeks ago, the common suspicion is that the password was obtained through research, not decryption or other kind of technical hacking.
I also notice Bob's report from earlier this month about some of Palin's SS# being revealed . That's not really a big crime but it makes me think back to when she was first announced as McCain's running mate and everyone was fighting about whether she'd been vetted. Almost immediately someone had copied photos from her kids' MySpace pages and I remember thinking that she must not have known the announcement was coming because her family didn't have time to set their accounts to "private." But maybe living our lives online is too new for there to be such a thing as a "digital lockdown" performed on a person suddenly entering government life.
It's funny to see Gawker bearing the brunt of so much pro-Palin rage for posting the contents of the hacked mail account. They were hardly the only place to find that material. NOTE: If you click that voicemail link, put on your headphones, it's curse-laden.
More compelling will be whether there's any follow-up with Ctunnel on who actually did the initial hack and whether they can be caught.
UPDATE: Gateway Pundit is blogging the heck out of the tracking of the hacker.
Also, Obama's G-mail was hacked.
I know, the player doesn't fit the blog column. The video still plays though.
No big themes today, just what I clicked:
The best line in that Kanye West freak-out video is when the cop says, "Kanye West attacked you?!?"
Speaking of that, TMZ also interviewed its own camera man about the incident and it's interesting to hear Harvey Levin openly talking about the decision to show the camera man's face and whether to edit the interview.
Speaking of media transparency, Wired is showing the behind-the-scenes of how a story is produced for the magazine.
Speaking of analyzing news stories, Every Moment Now: Obama vs. McCain - It compares the quantity of news coverage of both candidates over time in a neat little chart. As you click deeper it breaks down the coverage into frequency of word use and other analyses.
Net-talking toaster to burn news onto bread - News on food is the future.
Two guys put on nice clothes and "ride some gravity." - Sickness. Reminiscent of that one we saw recently of the guy with the wheels on his hands and feet. Might be best watched from the middle when they do their second run. The video feels faster.
The Gentleman’s Guide to the Calling Card - I actually do carry calling cards separate from my business cards, but they're pretty boring compared to these. I used to carry blank business cards because it seemed like I was always needing some quick paper to jot a site or e-mail address.
Amazing tattooed pigs - I've heard of tattoo artists using pigs for practice (oranges too) and I've seen the occasional piece of flash on a pig, but this is above and beyond.
The new James Bond (Quantum of Solace ) trailer is out.
I scored a 30 at 11:30 p.m. on this color vision test . I'm going to see if I score differently when my eyes are better rested.
Search the popularity of your surname on the world map . Like the Baby Name Voyager but on a map instead of a timeline. See also, NameTrends .
The first clip of the
ABC News Sarah Palin interviews is spreading like wildfire and has to do with what she said in a video at the graduation ceremony of something called the Masters Commission.
The actual full clip is here and comes from this
list of Webcasts from the Wasilla Assembly of God . I haven't been able to check the source video (see the June 8, 2008 entry) because I get an error that the server is maxed out but I have no reason to doubt its authenticity.
Has the large Hadron collider destroyed the world yet?
How 'bout now?
OK then, just keep an eye on these Web cams inside the facility and let me know if you see anything of concern.
This isn't really about Web culture but since I have the links handy and I know some folks are like me and like to have a mental map of locations in the news, I'll share. With all this "Bridge to Nowhere" talk I finally bothered to look up just how nowhere the place is . The idea was to connect the town of Ketchikan to the airport across the Tongass Narrows. As I understand it, part of why the price tag was so big was because the bridge had to be high enough to allow ship traffic to pass under it.
What I can't quite make out on the map is the "Road to the Beach" which is the name describing the road that would have led to the bridge had it been built but instead just leads to the water's edge and stops. I don't know the date of Google's last pass over Alaska so it's hard to say if there's anything to see of the road project even if I knew where it was exactly. UPDATE: Found it. Here's a very useful pdf map of proposals and alternatives to "the Bridge." (Via )
The Knik Bridge , what they're calling "the other bridge to nowhere," at least has Anchorage at one end, so while it may appear to go nowhere, at least it comes from somewhere. (I've never been to Anchorage but on the map it looks like somewhere.) Poking around the Knik Arm we get a sense of Anchorage's proximity to Palin's home town of Wasilla .
Alaska also has a "Road to Nowhere" (not even to the beach?) project which is a little harder to get a sense of, but basically the idea seems to be to connect Juneau to one or two towns to the north, Haines and/or Skagway . I'm using the "terrain" view on Google Maps because part of the difficulty of the project is dealing with some steep cliffs and other awkward ground.
Useful in putting this together was this list of Alaska mega-projects . NOTE: It is not a neutral source. It's handy in that it describes the projects but it opposes all of them. My goal here was just to get a sense of "where" in my head when hearing about these things. Their value to Alaska is a much more complicated question than the political ping-pong ball of federal pork spending.
Hurricanes as seen from orbit - See if you're not suddenly and mysteriously aware of your belly button after viewing these.
Speaking of bad weather, do you need an umbrella today ? (So far I've used it one day and it has a 100% accuracy rating.)
McCain is Obama-rolled . (Think Rickrolling mixed with the Bush Sunday Bloody Sunday viral video.)
RNC in a minute
Speaking of the RNC, one thing I didn't get a chance to point out about the online reaction to the event was all the protest photos and video. Protestors were not only able to organize with new Web tools but were also able to report on events which were otherwise completely ignored by the mainstream media. The Uptake took the leading edge in this regard, going so far as to use Qik to stream live video from the streets of St. Paul.
I saw an item about ffwd , a new site being described as Last.fm for video, which means you watch the videos you like, skip the ones you don't and the site gradually learns your tastes so you enjoy viewing better tailored to what you want to see. To chose a ScamSchool clip to start things off, thinking it was something about consumers. Turns out it's all bar tricks. Fun!
Of all the McCain/Palin visual comparisons I've seen , the Battle Star Galactica the Tigh/Roslin comparison is the most uncanny.
The clothes that got me laid - Not terribly graphic but obviously an adult theme. I don't think this is a spam/marketing blog but it sure could be . This isn't a spam/marketing blog but if my business was selling clothes I'd be pretty excited to see such a well executed demonstration of how to bring attention and context to a product. (Of course, as we saw with the rogue JC Penny ad , sex doesn't always sell when it comes to retail clothing.)
As long as we're talking about sex, Fleshmap is mostly a collection of infographics about body parts and the attention they receive. NOTE: Some of the graphics display "unsafe" bare parts.
The Hitch suction cup belt - The idea is to stick yourself to vehicles to get a free ride. I'm not sure this is a much better idea than standing on a skateboard and holding onto the back.
ElectraFlyer-C electric mini plane makes flying cheaper than driving
Designer unveils 'flat-pack' hybrid car - The company also offers plans for building your own stuff , though it's not clear if they'll sell you parts you can't get yourself.
I don't know what it is with concept car links. It seems like they're everywhere . I guess the Web's answer to high gas prices is a lot of really stimulating futuristic designs. I'm not complaining.
You're no one if you're not on Twitter
Rap about world's largest science experiment becomes YouTube hit
The first thing that came to mind following the Large Hadron Collider rap is a recent Sherlock Holmes (Wassup Holmes ) rap I saw on YouTube. Without overlooking the burgeoning Nerdcore hip-hop scene , my thought is that the Web is enabling more entertaining academics. Even simple things like this Homopolar Motor Instruction Video creates a degree of enticement that I don't remember from science class.
"Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers." They then form a smart swarm and gather intelligence on human behavior before enslaving us all and turning Earth into their own utopian mecha-planet.
Coolest iPhone app I've seen yet, the iHologram .
The Animated GIF Appreciation Society
100 Free Online Ivy League Highly Selective School Courses You Should Take Just for Fun - "Taking" these courses varies in richness depending on the school and even the individual. In some cases it just means the professors uploaded their handouts and notes.
Something bothers me about the accusation that Barack Obama has no significant legislation in the Senate to his credit. Actually what bothered me in the past is that this point is usually made by an Obama opponent asking, "Can you name one piece of legislation Obama got through the Senate?" And the TV host or pundit being questioned is too poorly informed to have an answer. So the implication is that Obama's done nothing.
This, of course, is not true. And beyond the weak preparation of the TV media, what's bothered me most is that I
can name one piece of legislation Obama's had a hand in and, at least on the Internet, it is part of a relatively famous story. What's more, it actually came up last night at the Republican National Convention, apparently completely unnoticed in the glare of Palin's performance:
The Coburn-Obama Transparency Bill a.k.a.
The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 .
Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard chairwoman and vociferous McCain advocate mentioned this in
her address to the convention : "In his first year in office, he [McCain] will subject every government agency to a top to bottom review and post the results on the Internet for all Americans to see."
That may be the easiest promise for McCain to keep from his whole campaign because to a large degree, it's already done. In 2006, Barack Obama and Republican Senator Tom Coburn introduced legislation to put the government's business in a free searchable public online database. The idea was that by granting the public access to how federal money is doled out, legislators would be loath to make secret sweetheart deals with lobbyists and local interests.
I'm not enough of a historian to know how connected associated events were at the time, but the again-famous "Bridge to Nowhere" story was still fresh in the headlines,
Lawrence Lessig was drawing a lot of attention to the idea of "open government," and bloggers were making history with the
collective research and
activism for which they're now so famous.
From my perspective as a Web observer, the way the story played out was that this bipartisan Coburn-Obama legislation, heralded by political bloggers as part of a public access revolution, was being blocked by one or more anonymous senators through a tactic called a "secret hold." (Apparently in the Senate it's possible to block legislation without having to reveal yourself as doing so.)
Bloggers wouldn't stand for that however, and launched a campaign to flush out the mystery bill blockers by calling their senators individually and getting them to declare publicly their position on the bill and whether they were responsible for the hold. As the
process eliminated suspects it was eventually revealed that
Democratic Senator Robert Byrd and
Republican Senator Ted Stevens (the man behind the Bridge to Nowhere) were responsible for the hold. Upon being exposed, the holds were lifted and President Bush
signed the bill into law . The result was
USASepnding.gov , "Where Americans can see where their money goes."
Senators Obama and Coburn have continued to work on the project,
introducing the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008 (
S. 3077 ). It isn't very pretty to read but looks to be mostly about improving the site's features and function. In my amateur reading it appears to set deadlines for compliance throughout 2009 or, as Ms. Fiorina puts it, the new president's first year in office.
I should point out that Fiorina is not wrong for describing the bill as a promise from John McCain. Not only is this a bipartisan project, but McCain's name is
mentioned prominently in the paperwork :
By Mr. COBURN (for himself, Mr. OBAMA, Mr. CARPER, and Mr. MCCAIN): S. 2590. A bill to require full disclosure of all entities and organizations receiving Federal funds; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Obama may have greater ownership of the bill (lengthy
audio here , brief
CNN interview here ), but given
McCain's history on Web issues , his involvement in something that casts the Web as a public utility is remarkable enough.
I don't know very much about Obama's activities in government. I only know this one small thing because it was part of a larger online drama, but that's all I need to know to suffer significant cognitive dissonance from the emphasis at the RNC that Obama has done nothing, has not reached across party lines and has no record as a reformer. In this one act he's done all three and with the cooperation of the Republican candidate to boot.
The Web is still awash in Palin discussion and parody. I can't even try to keep up with it (heck, I can't even muster the emotional strength to deal with comments in yesterday's post) but I have clicked a few noteworthy items -in no particular order or fairness:
Moving on...
"Enter the newest piece of Army gear: the Non–Line of Sight Launch System, already nicknamed '
missiles in a box .'” It's like calling in an air strike without needing to bother the Air Force. Point your laser and the missile comes at your command.
(Speaking of Popular Mechanics links, did you know that Popular Mechanics has an
online motorcycle riding club ?)
Speaking of motorcycles,
holy yes yes yes yes ! Is this really a wearable motorcycle or is it some kind of promo for that new Tron movie? This post has a
photo of the inventor .
As long as we're on two wheels,
unique bike photos .
The incredible tribal fashion show inspired by Mother Nature - Here's a
further gallery , though I can't figure out how to get there from the site's home page so I can't tell if there's more.
This is what they call the
"red band" trailer for Zack and Miri Make a Porno . In this case, the red band means it has (
NOTE )
unbleeped F-bombs and some sexual themes (but no actual nudity). I've noticed the movie generating a lot of hype but haven't paid very close attention. Now I see why it's expected to be such a funny hit.
Speaking of upcoming movies, did you see
Cher may play Catwoman ? Yes, I had the same reaction at first, but once I re-swallowed the vomit in my mouth I realized she could really be awesome in this role.
This
Flickr love connection is a little corny but makes more sense when you look at their photos.
His and
hers .
A relatively random Commuter Click:
George Orwell: Politics and the English Language - Even though he's speaking to a very different time, the things he says about writing and word selection are maybe more appropriate than ever. It's a little dense and not really a pleasure read so I wasn't going to mention it here but I'm amazed at how much it has stayed with me as I write and edit every day since I read it a week ago.
(After note: No one here in the cube farm caught the reference in my headline today. Anyone?)
The funny thing about the story of Sarah Palin's daughter being pregnant is that the Web was full of Palin pregnancy rumors and that wasn't it. The actual rumor, sparked, as far as I can tell, by this now-deleted Daily Kos item had Sarah Palin faking her pregnancy to cover for her daughter's pregnancy. What's ironic is that the most objectionable part of the story - the bald accusation that a teen's belly is actually a baby bump - turned out to be nearly the only true thing about it.
To be clearer, the matter has been settled as false in the minds of everyone still paying attention.
Using the kind of reverse scientific method (a.k.a. utterly unscientific method) found often in Web conspiracies, the cover-up theorists were using photographic evidence to support their theory rather than looking at ALL of the photos and then drawing a conclusion. Ultimately the photos Palin actually looking pregnant did surface.
What's great about this story is that it's a case where using "how do you explain" as a reason to come up with your own explanation simply doesn't work. How do you explain that she's not showing in those pictures? How do you explain her taking an ill-advised plane flight when her water had broken? How do you explain that even her closest staff members didn't realize she was pregnant even at seven months?
It turns out the explanation for all of those is the simplest one: it happened.
What's more, not everyone was unable to notice her pregnant state, and said so at the time like the telephone kind ).MySpace photo captions suggest that Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter is already married to the father of her unborn son! Gasp!
I've seen a few people try out loud to remember who that guy was during Katrina who live streamed from downtown New Orleans, powered by a generator and defying calls for evacuation. The specifics are a little hazy in my memory but I'm pretty sure that was the Interdictor - and the live stream is back. Watching it now, it's basically two guys drinking and goofing around, occasionally remarking on changes in weather conditions. I think the idea is that we'll eventually start to see things get hairy. One of the guys, Greg Ledet is also updating a blog.
Speaking of remembering back to Katrina blogging, I was poking through the Clicked archives from then to see who else from those days might be blogging Gustav. GulfSails is sticking it out again. Eric Berger's SciGuy blog is storm tracking again with an eye for the folks in Houston.
And while I'm mentioning looking through the Katrina blogging greats, there was one single photoblog that stood out in my mind beyond the others: Operation Eden . I had to dig a while to find it in my post from September 28 but I'm glad I did because it lives up to my memory of it and frankly you'd be well advised to start with his September 2005 archive page and work your way through. The photographer is Clayton James Cubitt, and while his Operation Eden blog is pretty much idle (with the only recent new item being an anniversary post the other day), his Tumblr blog is rich with Gustav info and Twitter stream is rife with links and personal insights. Not as visually arresting as his photoblog but powerful in its immediacy none-the-less. NOTE: You may see other Cubitt links in his bio or elsewhere. Be aware that many of his professional and artistic photos are sexual in nature, or may contain some nudity. If you're a grown-up and can handle these things, his work is a valuable lesson in light and perspective.
During Katrina, so many people were displaced so quickly that finding anyone after the storm passed was sheer chaos. News sites, msnbc.com included, set up massive databases where people to log in and report there whereabouts or else post names of people they were looking for. I can tell you from experience it was a pain to police for bogus entries (if I had a nickel for every time I deleted George w. Bush from the missing persons list...) but so heavily trafficked that I'm confident it was a valuable resource to some people. So it's nice to see FEMA setting up an official such system on their own this time around, called the National Emergency Family Registry and Locator System.
The New Orleans Metblogs page has some reporting from hold-outs. It's funny to see how many media people are doing essentially the same thing I'm doing to score bookings for various talk shows:
" I’ll be doing Q-and-As this evening and early tomorrow morning with BBC-Ireland and with an Australian network (thanks Joe). I was also interviewed today by the Miami Herald and by Warren Levinson of the AP. Ari Shapiro of NPR also ate here (twice!) today."
Rick Sanchez over at CNN is feeling no shame about booking straight from his Twitter stream (nor should he feel any shame, that's the point of the thing.)
That link to Sanchez is him pitching to The Oil Drum blog, which is doing a fascinating job monitoring damage projections of the oil facilities in the Gulf . I imagine that'll transition to actual damage assessments once the storm passes.
First band of Gustav arrives in New Orleans and wow that is a really literal band.Craigslist feeds for Gustav housing and support . I haven't mentioned Pipes in a while but it's a really great way to build little Web apps if you don't have the time or ability to code it yourself.
BlogOfNewOrleans.com currently has a lot of accounts of evacuation gone wrong but there's at least one contributor still in New Orleans so it'll be good to check back with the new day's light to see how things look.
Weather Underground has this pretty wicked map .
Gustav resources online
"Blackwater is compiling a list of qualified security personnel for possible deployment into areas affected by Hurricane Gustav. Applicants must meet all items listed under the respective Officer posting and be US citizens. Contract length is TBD."
(via this entry on the military/security support for the Gulf region)
I was trying to watch local video for a while but since I'm also surfing around I can't really watch so I switched to WWL radio which was listed as "news/talk" on this big list of New Orleans radio stations. (Note the lightning bolts mean they have online streams.)
Last one to leave, take the entire company with you :
Today, all of the company's approximately 50 PCs and servers are backed up to a main server, which is then backed up to a 1TB USB-connected drive that goes out the door with the last employee who is evacuating in the event of an emergency, he said. That employee also takes an "emergency box" that includes additional DVD backups.
Here's an amazing collection of Gustav tracking maps . Somewhere out there, someone whose job it is to design these just fell off his chair into a puddle of his own drool at the sight of such a thorough review.
On my "to read" list:
It turns out just a few days ago there was something called
The Rising Tide conference, a gathering of New Orleans bloggers.
Tangentially related, world-famous street artists Banksy recently visited New Orleans for the Katrina anniversary. Via this blog with its fascinating little story about the graffiti scene there . Meanwhile, Banksy is moving across the south I guess because it looks like he hit Birmingham, Alabama as well .
