dirtypotato.com

progress

Thu, 01 May 2008 13:05:51 -0800

Google street view rocks... ...except when a large truck is in the way.

"cognitive heat sink"

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:03:41 -0800

Clay Shirky is a guy that I used to follow going back about 6 years ago. He introduced me to the idea of the semantic web, and I loved the way he wrote. Then something happened and he seemed to stop writing on his blog or his commentary became uninteresting to me for one reason or another. I haven't heard or seen Clay speak until now. In his talk last week he mentions a few numbers that startled me. Americans spend 200 billion hours watching TV every year. We spend 100 million hours each week-end watching *just* the advertisements. Talk about lost productivity. Imagine if this time was directed at contributing to the web. As Clay puts it that would be 2000 wikipedia projects a year. I've had some free time recently, and I've spent the majority of it trying to manage the ideas that have been coming to mind. Some people say that the current web application craze is about to bust. I think it's just starting up. There is room, and there will be users for new web apps in every nook and cranny of society. I would be really interested to see what would happen if we used the 200 billion hours or "2000 wikipedia projects" of time lost a year to focus on new web app development. The results could be pretty amazing. This guy is web all the way, and I love him for it. Two of my favorite quotes from the video: "Desprate Housewives essentially functioned as a type of cognitive heat sink dissipating thinking that otherwise might have built up and caused society to overheat." "Here's what 4 year olds know: a screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for."

mewzically

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:22:47 -0800

For the past hour or so I have been playing with the Yahoo! Blog Remix application released yesterday, and while the application is in alpha I still have been having a very pleasant experience. It provides a new way of browsing the various music blogs out there in one place, and let's you read the editorial while listening to the track chosen for the post. It also has some tools that allow you to add tracks that you hear to a playlist which you can publish. The playlist from my session resides here, and with the magic of the Yahoo! Media Player you can enjoy the music from the comfort of your browser as you read this post.

embedded video in feed

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:42:33 -0800

I'm having some issues with my videos embedded in my feed. The post previous to this one show's a Yahoo! video How-To in bloglines instead of the video I had embedded, but the correct video displays on my site just fine. If anyone else out there is using feedburner, and knows how to correctly embed videos let me know. If you were confused by my last post...you can check out the video that was meant to be embedded in the feed here: http://dirtypotato.com/2008/01/electro_music_weirdness.html

electro music weirdness

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:24:48 -0800

Last night I joined a group of folks over at pyramind for a little show n' tell. A demonstration of the new features of MaxMSP took up most of the evening, and a few lightning talks ensued. One of the talks was from Craig Latta about a smalltalk based livecoding project which resembled early text based adventure games. Craig pulled up a terminal window and began typing commands in natural language that ended up in a simple sequence with a kickdrum, high hat and a note or two. Ge Wang was up next, and gave a demo of his mobile phone orchestra (video below). In the initial frame in the video it's Ge Wang in front of the projector with a phone, the two guys in the back both have phones. Later in the video I pan over to another guy to the right, and another to the left making a total of five people in the orchestra. I'm not entirely sure what was going on to make those strange sounds, but I believe that when Ge was signaling a number with his hand everyone in the "orchestra" would hit the appropriate number on their phone which would result in a new tone. It kind of reminded me of monks...

starting the year off right

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:34:26 -0800

This feels like it's going to be a big year. Not exactly sure why. I just know a lot of things have changed for me, and those around me. I'm not so into new year resolutions, but I've decided to take one this year. Make smarter decisions. I have relied on instincts for most of my decision making throughout my life, and I have vowed to change that going forward. I have an internal rule set for what "making smarter decisions" means to me, and it leans heavily on execution; from the smallest things in life to my largest goals. So far so good; I completed my first project of the year with my nephew. We created an ipod charger that uses AA batteries, and it's built inside of an altoids tin. This was a project that I purchased from the MAKE store called MintyBoost. Check out the full photoset on flickr.

old grapes

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:02:30 -0800

I just finished reading an excellent book all about the process of making wine from growing the grapes to picking them and producing the final drinkable wine. I'm into making a lot of different fermented foods from pickles and sauerkraut to kimchi and sourdough. It's amazing the transformation that different fruits and vegetables can have by just using salt, sugar and time. If you are a wine drinker this will give you greater appreciation for wine, and greater understanding of grapes and regions that wine comes from. From Vines to Wines

for your enjoyment

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:07:19 -0800

nod @ ionic from force theory

broken dream

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:35:24 -0800

A little over two years ago I found a structure in Brooklyn that filled my body with inspiration: http://dirtypotato.com/2005/10/broken_angel.html A year after that the building caught on fire and my heart was broken: http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/10/10/clinton_hills_broken_angel_burning_.php Since the building caught on fire Brooklyn officials ordered the residents out of the house, and threatened to take down the building: http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/10/16/who_will_fix_broken_angel.php Chris Wood the son of Cynthia and Arthur Wood has appealed to the community, and the city to help his parents dream live: http://www.flickr.com/photos/onebadapple/sets/127493/ Andy Hawkins made a short film about broken angel, and showed some of the family's work in a gallery which proceeds of would go to help restore the building: Chris Wood's latest update was from July of this year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/onebadapple/923035933/ I have since moved from NY to the other coast, but I am home for three weeks at the end of the year. I am planning on visiting the site, and snapping some more photo's. For some reason this project really touches me, and I hate to see the dream dying. Follow Chris Wood's flickr blog for more updates.

the holiest of users

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:06:36 -0800

Amazon seems to think that I'm Christ ;)

do not wait -- do it now

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:45:48 -0800

New royalty rates for internet radio are going into effect on Sunday (7/15). If you enjoy internet radio or if you are a musician do something now: savenetradio.org Pick up the phone. You can read the rest of this post while you are on hold. Taken from KCRW's recent e-mail:

IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED FOR THURSDAY, JULY 12TH Greetings, Time and options are running out for Internet Radio. Late this afternoon, the court DENIED the emergency stay sought on behalf of webcasters, millions of listeners and the artists and music they support. UNLESS CONGRESS ACTS BY JULY 15th, the new ruinous royalty rates will be going into effect on Sunday, threatening the future of all internet radio. We are appealing to the millions of Internet radio listeners out there, the webcasters they support and the artists and labels we treasure to rise up and make your voices heard again before this vibrant medium is silenced. Even if you have already called, we need you to call again. The situation is grave, but that makes the message all the simpler and more serious. PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES RIGHT AWAY and urge them to support the Internet Equality Act. Go to http://www.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/alert_9738601.html to find the phone numbers of your Senators and Representative. If they've already co-sponsored, thank them and tell them to fight to bring the bill to the floor for an immediate vote. If the line is busy, please call back. Call until you know your voice has been heard. Your voices are what have gotten us this far - Congress has listened. Now, they are our only hope. We are outmatched by lobbying power and money but we are NOT outmatched by facts and passion and the power of our voices. Again, please go to http://www.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/alert_9738601.html to find the necessary phone numbers and make the call today. Thank you, The SaveNetRadio Campaign

lovely!

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:22:57 -0800

Taken from Mark Hurst's Good Experience newsletter: http://www.1-click.jp/ Earlier today I fell upon a Kwik-E-Mart right out of the Simpsons. I enjoyed a Buzz Cola, and pink dough nut for breakfast. It's been a good day.

keep it short

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:40:22 -0800

I recently picked up a book titled Bit Literacy after reading about "achieving emptiness" on one of the blogs I read. The book is an interesting and easy read so far, but I'm not done yet so I'm not yet going to say that I recommend it. While reading it I got inspired to write this post because of something that Mark Hurst says in the book on "Creating Bits":

"To be clear, the goal of brevity isn't to conserve computer memory, or somehow to go easy on the "plumbing" in the network. For all but the biggest files, there's plenty of bandwidth to transmit them across the Internet, and plenty of hard drive space to store them when they arrive. Hardware today is powerful and abundant, and it's getting more so all the time. What's scarce is the time and attention of the people who are receiving the message. A bit-literate message, in any form, is respectful of that scarce resource. This means: - When writing an e-mail, be short and to the point. - When displaying photos, only show the best ones - never duplicates or bad shots. - When creating a website, make sure the point of that site is clear from the first glance of the home page. There are many other kinds of bit-based messages for which the same rule applies. In all cases, the constant question should be "Is this necessary?", asked at every level: "Is this paragraph necessary? This word? This pixel?" The bits in any message - whether textual, visual, or otherwise - should be as few as necessary to deliver the message."

I have followed this exact way of thinking for years out of sheer frustration from receiving e-mails that are pages long which really could have been boiled down to a few sentences. Always I hoped that with my brief responses that the verbal diarrhea offender would get the hint and begin to trim down the e-mails to be sent. I am glad I am not the only one who thinks this way, and on that note I will end this offensively long post.

just noticed this

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:37:21 -0800

A few good friends of mine were in town during the Oscars for a film that they scored called Jesus Camp. They put together a nice little re-cap of the week on their site, but I didn't notice it until now. The amount of information that I consume a week (which pales in comparison to some people) is enormous, but if I can't consume the RSS feed it's almost guaranteed that I won't see it unless it is brought to my attention. I gotta get these guys a feed!

want joost?

Wed, 09 May 2007 09:28:15 -0800

If you have been looking for a Joost invite drop me a line in the comments, and I'll hook you up. If you haven't heard of or seen Joost go check it out, and then come back and drop me a line in the comments for an invite ;)