DJs Adrian and Mysterious D
San Francisco mashup DJs Adrian and Mysterious D at the Yahoo Developer event at ETech in San Diego. I first heard them at a Nina Hagen concert, when they were the house DJs at DNA Lounge.
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08 March 2006
Brian Dear | EVDB, Eventful | ETech announcement
Brian Dear of Eventful.com and EVDB talked at ETech about the platform and site for events, and then announced a new feature: Eventful Demands. It's a way for fans and performers to communicate directly, a la ebay, about events that should happen.
Here's an example of an event sticker that you can create around a demanded event, in order to promote it and make it actually happen.
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Clay Shirky's pattern language project
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07 March 2006
Ben Cerveny at ETech
Ben Cerveny spoke at ETech about game design, and about the importance of getting users into a playful spirit, so they're more willing to explore and learn an application.
Raw notes from ETech: SecondLife
Here are my raw notes from the SecondLife presentation at ETech 06 in San Diego. I'll update this with photos of the presentation later in the day.
Not a subscription model. Users pay from $0 to $16,000 per month.
In the past 30 days, 240k items sold
5m p2p transactions
US $6.5M internal economy
US $800k exchanged
75m IM messages
Average value per transaction doubling each year
Taxes - users didn't like them, began setting their property on fire in protest. So the new user experence? Seeing angry established users ... on fire. This puts a dent in customer retention. So they did away with taxes.
Approximately 25% of user online time is spent creating items.
Scripting is necessary to give objects behaviors. The scripting language has a C-Like syntax - it's very hard. Yet 15% of users in the past ... have written scripts from scratch.
2.5M lines of code a week.
SL itself is only 800k lines of code.
Tringo - SL game that has moved to the real world. When you create something in SL, you own the IP. The creator of Tringo is licensing it for the GameBoy Advance.
Demographics of SL - most users non-technical, median age 36, gender neutral by hrs of use.
05 March 2006
Citibank ATM network pwned
According to multiple sources, Citibank is saying its ATM system has been compromised, and that the bank is locking out travelers who try to access funds from outside of the US.
The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article in February that may be connected to this. Some BofA clients find debit cards canceled. From the article: "Bank of America customers have had their debit cards canceled ... after an unnamed company experienced what appears to be a major security breach. BofA is refusing to identify the company.... BofA confirmed Wednesday that the breach in this latest case wasn't at a processing center used by the bank or any other affiliate."
Adweek has created a parody Citibank ad about the ATM fiasco.
New: The story continues:
TechWeb: The unfolding debit card scam that rocked Citibank this week is far from over, an analyst said Thursday as she called this first-time-ever mass theft of PINs "the worst consumer scam to date."
[R]etailers improperly store PIN numbers after they've been entered, rather than erase them at the PIN-entering pad. Worse, the keys to decrypt the PIN blocks are often stored on the same network as the PINs themselves, making a single successful hack a potential goldmine for criminals: they get the PIN data and the key to read it.
The victim of the hack attack isn't yet known, although some banks have pointed fingers at OfficeMax, which has denied that its system was penetrated.
Chiucago Tribune
A story in Wednesday's New York Times, citing unidentified sources, said it appeared that the Citibank debit card information was obtained through a security breach at OfficeMax Inc., the Itasca-based office supplies retailer.
OfficeMax said Wednesday that it had "no knowledge of a security breach."
ComputerWorld
Slashdot's take on the issue.
01 March 2006
23 February 2006
Newsvine invites
I have a handful of Newsvine invites to give away. If you'd like one, post a comment with your email address.
Newsvine is a news reading and blogging site that mixes AP newswire content with articles written by users. One of the interesting twists of the site is that they pay contributors a fraction of any ad revenue their articles generate. It'll be interesting to see how this model works out.
(If you liked this article, please consider voting for it on Digg)
How resumes work
Recently, on Slashdot, someone asked for practical advice on resumes, specifically how potential employers look at them. I've been on both sides of the hiring process, and so I wrote up a guide to explain how resumes, interviews, and the hiring process work.
How companies read resumes
Or, "what happens after I hit send?"
Companies can get hundreds of resumes for entry-level tech positions. The first pass someone will do with this stack of resumes is triage - eliminate the obviously bogus applications.
See, of those 200 applicants, 180 are coming from people that shotgun the same resume to each opening they find. These resumes are easy to spot because: 1) there's no cover letter, and 2) the resumes are keyword soup (C++JAVAFORTRANPL/1LISPSNOBOLPOSTSCRIPTVIC-20!!!)
So, you're in the lucky 20. You wrote a cover letter saying who you are, and you wrote a resume that focuses on the strengths, interests, and experience that you have that apply to the company and the specific opening.
You're now in round 2 of triage. At this point, someone with tech experience will go through the 20 surviving resumes to pick out the best 5.
So you've made it to the top 5 - great! Now, for each of these five, an HR person (or someone filling in for this role) will either arrange for a phone interview or an in-person interview. If it's a phone interview, you should have no problem (you do have a cell phone, right? Put it on your resume so they can call you during the day).
An in-person interview during the week? What if I can't get away from my current job to interview?
When I originally posted this to Slashdot, it was in reponse to the question "they want to interview me, but I can't get away from work to do it. Will the interviewer be understanding?" I address this in the following paragraphs.
The in-person interview will take up a great deal of the company's time. Even if you're only there for an hour, you might be interviewed by eight people. That's eight person-hours of time spent on something other than coding, QAing, or running the things. That's also eight people who have to sync up their schedules to meet you!
So the HR person goes down the list of five possible in-person, and one can't come in during the week. The other four will get interviews, and if none of them get an offer, you might get called back. Alternately, if you have a stunning resume or have demonstrated an ability to walk on water, you might get to meet with the hiring manager later in the day.
My advice is for you to take a personal half-day, even if you are an hourly employee, to do interviews. Alternately, either schedule a 1hr interview around lunchtime, and be prepared to do a second 1hr if more people need to interview you from the same company, or ask for a phone interview. Companies may prefer the phone option because they can get a sense for you without spending 8 person-hours. But if they like you, you will still have to do the in-person interview later.
Last tips on getting noticed
If you want your resume to be noticed, do your homework on the company. Spend an hour researching them - what they do, who they are - and think about what *you* can do for them. With that knowledge, write a 3 paragraph cover letter about why you are interested in what the company does, and how you think you can help. Also, make a customized resume for the company that emphasizes your interests as they fit with the company (this is especially true if you have a lot of experience - it helps you focus and helps the person reading the resume to fit you into their model of what they are looking for.)
Best of luck with your search!
(If you liked this article, please consider voting for it on Digg)
Updated 27 Feb 06
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21 February 2006
How Hitchcock got his start
"It only takes a second" is an industrial safety film with 3 minutes of machine shop and construction site foul-ups, bloops, bleeps, and blunders. Very little blood, but lots of "ooh, that's going to hurt" moments.
(link via Metafilter)
Concerned #114: Friday, February 17, 2006
Concerned is a funny parody of Half-Life 2, done using the game engine and Gary's Mod. There are over one hundred strips at this point, and the writing is great. Here's a favorite of mine: You Got Frohwned
Here are some other particularly good entries:
www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2005-05-08
www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2005-07-01
www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2005-07-04
See the entire series here.
11 February 2006
New Nerf guns: Magstrike and Longshot
Cube warriors rejoice. Nerf is coming out with two new guns this Fall. The Magstrike is a ten round clip-fed machine gun with two clips, and the Longshot is a six-shot sniper rifle with a scope and bipod. From Nerf's press release:
Pump up the action with the NERF DART TAG MAGSTRIKE blaster, the first NERF rapid fire blaster with a clip reloading system! With a rapid firing air pressure system that allows kids to quickly blast foam darts at their opponents and a stock for comfortable blasting and pumping, this awesome blaster brings great fast-paced fun to the popular NERF DART TAG line.
[C]omes complete with two reload clips, 20 TAGGER MICRO DARTS, a scoring vest and VISION GEAR eyewear.... [A]vailable nationwide Fall 2006 for ... $29.99.
The NERF N-STRIKE LONGSHOT CS-6 blaster comes complete with a scope and bi-pod ... [and] reloading clip system. The NERF N-STRIKE LONGSHOT CS-6 includes two blasters, two reload clips, one working scope and twelve MICRO DARTS.[A]vailable nationwide Fall 2006 for ... $29.99.
For an idea of what the Longshot might look like, check out this cool homemade Nerf rifle, the Boltsniper FAR.
Update: I talked to Nerf's PR firm about getting images for these. They won't be available until some time in the Fall. When I get the images, I'll post them.
Update (30 Sep 06): The Longshot and Magstrike are now out. Latest info here.
(If you liked this article, please consider voting for it on Digg)
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09 February 2006
My daikon's fighting technique is unstoppable!
Everything is big in Japan at some point. Last year, it was Razor Ramon HG, this year, the unstoppable fighting daikon. The BBC has more:
"A giant radish is making the Japanese evening news headlines after it was rushed into intensive care in an agricultural research centre.
The daikon radish, a staple ingredient in Japan, became an unlikely object of public admiration when it started growing through a pavement last year.
The resilient radish was then attacked last year by a mysterious assailant. The local town council has since been trying to re-grow the radish from its severed top. It now hopes to extract its seeds or DNA."
Read the rest of the story here.
08 February 2006
LEGO Technic Difference Engine
This is amazing -- Andrew Carol has made a Babbage Difference Engine out of Legos. His writeup goes into design detail and his design choices along the way. Highly recommended. Here's an excerpt:
I finally decided to explore making the machine out of identical adder units working together. Eventually a standard unit organization started to develop. Each unit would add the digit below into itself, also being able to output its own value to the unit above in a likewise fashion. Carry-in would be on the right side and carry-out would be to the left so that numbers could be read naturally left-to-right. The decision to build the engine out of interchangeable adder units was the single most important factor in the eventual success of the project.
23 January 2006
04 January 2006
Warning, No Interpretive Dance
A sign in Georgetown, Malaysia. Alternate translation: jugglers will be shot.
21 December 2005
Hello Kitty USB key from iodata
You can now get a Hello Kitty USB key from IOData.
I think I know what inspired them -- Han Solo encased in carbonite.
Hello Kitty USB key
12,000 yen
IOData Corporation
(Tip to Akihabara news for the USB key info)
Digg this story.
15 December 2005
Web 1.0 Summit: My Garage, San Francisco
Merlin Mann takes back the buzz. It's not about Web 2.0, it's about bare HTML, baby!
09 December 2005
Will Wright on success and Failure in the Sims
See my earlier post on part one of the talk.
In the second half of his talk at When 2.0, Will Wright talked about success and failure in the game the Sims. Players don't mind failure, as long as they understand why they failed.
In the Sims, as in real life, there are lots of ways to fail. The slide shows what can happen on the road to success.
The game designers spent a lot of effort illustrating the failures, and players enjoy exploring them. I thought back to SimCity and how you could have traffic jams, crime, fire, earthquakes, and even Godzilla stomping on buildings, and I remembered how it was fun to actually push the limits of the game to explore how to make things break, and then how to make them work.
Good games allow people to explore and think about things more broadly than they might have otherwise. Failure in a game world is OK, and by failing, you can make a better model of how things should work.
In the second half of his talk at When 2.0, Will Wright talked about success and failure in the game the Sims. Players don't mind failure, as long as they understand why they failed.
In the Sims, as in real life, there are lots of ways to fail. The slide shows what can happen on the road to success.
The game designers spent a lot of effort illustrating the failures, and players enjoy exploring them. I thought back to SimCity and how you could have traffic jams, crime, fire, earthquakes, and even Godzilla stomping on buildings, and I remembered how it was fun to actually push the limits of the game to explore how to make things break, and then how to make them work.
Good games allow people to explore and think about things more broadly than they might have otherwise. Failure in a game world is OK, and by failing, you can make a better model of how things should work.
07 December 2005
San Francisco street sign
San Francisco is political, and it extends to the Department of Public Works.
Will Wright's presentation at When 2.0
Will Wright, creator of SimCity and the Sims, gave a great talk yesterday at the When 2.0 at Stanford.
He described how he designs games, and how a building a model of something can help in understanding the relationships between the objects.
To illustrate this, he described the following problem. Let's say I want to invite you to my home. I could show you a satellite map of the area and let you find your way.
But
this isn't very useful. There's much more detail in the image than you need to find my place, and it gets in the way.
Instead, I could give you a map like this.
This isn't as realistic, but as a model it captures the important information and presents the relationships clearly.
When he was designing the Sims, Will started with a physical model of the environment. Little model houses on a green hilly surface with
paper streets and blue water. The physical design allowed him to think about the sort of interactions that could occur in the game, before he started writing algorithms. He said that Robert Louis Stevenson took this approach with Treasure Island. First, he drew a map of the island, with places and currents charted, and then he imagined himself at each point on the island, to see what it would be like to live there. Stevenson spent three weeks doing this before he began writing.
Will then talked about game design, and how many games (linear board games, chess, Myst, Doom, and the Sims) have topologies that a gamer quickly recognizes.
For instance, a board game like Life has a linear path, with the game state explicitly displayed on the board
.
Chess, however, has a tree-structure, where every move you make, and every counter-move your opponent makes, leads to a complex branching topology that eventually leads to an end.
Myst too has a linear sequence. You must solve a sequence of puzzles in order to proceed. Doom and other level based games allow more freedom, but this collapses at the end of the level (you can do whatever you want, but you have to kill the Boss, or get the key, and the new level starts cleanly from that point).
In the Sims, he wanted players to pursue a balanced approach to the game.
If a player pursues a solely social or material path, they eventually reach a local maxima where they can rise no further. In order to get on to a balanced strategy, the player actually takes a hit (the yellow area in the diagram represents a lower score than the light blue) before they again progress.
It was a great talk. I'll post more from it tomorrow.
(Digg this story and read the followup)
He described how he designs games, and how a building a model of something can help in understanding the relationships between the objects.
To illustrate this, he described the following problem. Let's say I want to invite you to my home. I could show you a satellite map of the area and let you find your way.
But
this isn't very useful. There's much more detail in the image than you need to find my place, and it gets in the way.Instead, I could give you a map like this.
This isn't as realistic, but as a model it captures the important information and presents the relationships clearly.
When he was designing the Sims, Will started with a physical model of the environment. Little model houses on a green hilly surface with
paper streets and blue water. The physical design allowed him to think about the sort of interactions that could occur in the game, before he started writing algorithms. He said that Robert Louis Stevenson took this approach with Treasure Island. First, he drew a map of the island, with places and currents charted, and then he imagined himself at each point on the island, to see what it would be like to live there. Stevenson spent three weeks doing this before he began writing.Will then talked about game design, and how many games (linear board games, chess, Myst, Doom, and the Sims) have topologies that a gamer quickly recognizes.
For instance, a board game like Life has a linear path, with the game state explicitly displayed on the board
.Chess, however, has a tree-structure, where every move you make, and every counter-move your opponent makes, leads to a complex branching topology that eventually leads to an end.
Myst too has a linear sequence. You must solve a sequence of puzzles in order to proceed. Doom and other level based games allow more freedom, but this collapses at the end of the level (you can do whatever you want, but you have to kill the Boss, or get the key, and the new level starts cleanly from that point).
In the Sims, he wanted players to pursue a balanced approach to the game.
If a player pursues a solely social or material path, they eventually reach a local maxima where they can rise no further. In order to get on to a balanced strategy, the player actually takes a hit (the yellow area in the diagram represents a lower score than the light blue) before they again progress.It was a great talk. I'll post more from it tomorrow.
(Digg this story and read the followup)
06 December 2005
Coke, soda, pop.
One of my contacts on Flickr posted this great map. It's a county-by-county breakdown of the preferred term for "soft drink."
Click through on the image for a larger version.
Click through on the image for a larger version.
When 2.0 conference
I'm at the When 2.0 conference today. In this photo, Esther Dyson is hosting a panel discussion on Time and Functionality. The speakers are Munjal Shah (Riya), Tantek Celik (Technorati), John Arenas (Worktopia), and Ben Cruz (Demand ID Systems).
Riya is doing some interesting work in applying face recognition to auto-tagging photos. Even with inexact algorithms (the best face-recognition software is far from perfect), the problem becomes much easier when you only have to deal with the hundred faces that a particular user might have photos of.
Tantek Celik of Technorati spoke about applying microformats to online organization of information. This is one of those places where a simple solution might work better than the best-designed semantic web system. Microformats are simple enough that you can use them on a web site without having to adopt XML, new publishing software, or in fact, anything beyond what you're already using.
Worktopia has a really interesting business model, providing on-demand meeting and workspace to groups that need it. Their premise is that workforces are increasingly mobile and distributed, and so traditional (fixed) office space does not serve the needs of these new workers. Instead, they occasionally need space (for meetings, kickoffs, and such) and Worktopia is aiming at the heart of this niche.
Finally, Ben Cruz of Demand ID talked about better ways of reaching people who would like to see live events. In the current reality, for many events, including live music, most tickets are not sold, but are given away in the week before the show as the promoter realizes the show isn't going to fill the venue. Promoters do this because news of a half-full venue, if it made it down the line to later tour stops, would be a self-reinforcing failure.
Riya is doing some interesting work in applying face recognition to auto-tagging photos. Even with inexact algorithms (the best face-recognition software is far from perfect), the problem becomes much easier when you only have to deal with the hundred faces that a particular user might have photos of.
Tantek Celik of Technorati spoke about applying microformats to online organization of information. This is one of those places where a simple solution might work better than the best-designed semantic web system. Microformats are simple enough that you can use them on a web site without having to adopt XML, new publishing software, or in fact, anything beyond what you're already using.
Worktopia has a really interesting business model, providing on-demand meeting and workspace to groups that need it. Their premise is that workforces are increasingly mobile and distributed, and so traditional (fixed) office space does not serve the needs of these new workers. Instead, they occasionally need space (for meetings, kickoffs, and such) and Worktopia is aiming at the heart of this niche.
Finally, Ben Cruz of Demand ID talked about better ways of reaching people who would like to see live events. In the current reality, for many events, including live music, most tickets are not sold, but are given away in the week before the show as the promoter realizes the show isn't going to fill the venue. Promoters do this because news of a half-full venue, if it made it down the line to later tour stops, would be a self-reinforcing failure.
29 November 2005
24 November 2005
TOW AWAY. NO PARKING.
On Flickr's Guess Where SF group, "the earthling" posted this grea Tow Away picture.
Flickr now has Guess Where NYC, Guess Where LA, Guess Where London, Guess Where SF, and even a group I started, Guess Where Berkeley.
I love these groups. People submit pictures they've taken of local unusual and recognizable places; the other members then try to guess where the pictures were taken.
Following the SF group, and occasionally posting a picture or a correct guess, has made me pay more attention to the city. Now, when I walk down a street, I'm looking for interesting images and also for places that someone might have posted to the group. I notice the details and colors of buildings and alleys.
Flickr now has Guess Where NYC, Guess Where LA, Guess Where London, Guess Where SF, and even a group I started, Guess Where Berkeley.
I love these groups. People submit pictures they've taken of local unusual and recognizable places; the other members then try to guess where the pictures were taken.
Following the SF group, and occasionally posting a picture or a correct guess, has made me pay more attention to the city. Now, when I walk down a street, I'm looking for interesting images and also for places that someone might have posted to the group. I notice the details and colors of buildings and alleys.
23 November 2005
Just an ordinary BART commuter
I took this picture a few months ago on BART on one of the trains out of San Francisco. This guy was asleep and had an electric lawnmower. He must have gotten on before San Francisco, maybe in one of the stations south of the city. I can't imagine him pushing this mower into the Powell St or Montgomery stations.
They say that AJAX is in great demand
AJAX is the hot programming buzzword right now. It's a good way to create a responsive application without putting too much burden on either the client or the server.
In the tech world, the term AJAX is used so heavily, I'm sometimes surprised to see it in other contexts.
In the tech world, the term AJAX is used so heavily, I'm sometimes surprised to see it in other contexts.
22 November 2005
Clawing at my ears
So this seems innocuous enough. But then, go to the mp3s
and listen to her cover of AC/DC's "Back in Black" (mp3)
10 November 2005
07 November 2005
US Tech Productivity to drop precipitously
Amazon now lists a 212 DVD set of every Star Trek movie and TV show ever made released on DVD (no Star Trek Animated Series for you). It goes on sale Nov 15.
For people who call in sick for a 24-hr marathon or a convention, this release is going to be a serious blow to their accumulated personal days. Amazon doesn't list the total number of hours, but it's got to be over 100hrs of Star Trek goodness (and badness, lest we forget Star Trek V).
04 November 2005
FEMA director emails during New Orleans crisis (pdf)
A congressman published some of former FEMA-director Michael Brown's emails during the crisis. Here's an exchange between Brown and one of his people on the ground (pdf):
From: Marty Bahamonde
Date: Wed Aug 31
Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical. Here some (sic) things you might not know.
Hotels are kicking people out, thousands gathering in the streets with no food and water, Hundreds still being rescued from their homes....we are out of food and running out of water at the dome ...
Brown's response? "Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?"
Oy.
Full email here: brown.emails.pdf (pdf)
03 November 2005
Free the Dictionary
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of the Wikipedia spoke at UC Berkeley this afternoon. Wikipedia is now the largest encyclopedia. In terms of number of entries and number of words, it is larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Encarta combined, and has more readers than the web sites for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, the LA Times, combined.
The Wikipedia runs on 120 servers across multiple data centers. The main one is in Florida, with the others in the Netherlands, France, and South Korea.
All of the hardware is managed by volunteers, with no formal schedule and no hierarchy. All coordination is done via IRC -- whoever's on takes part. In an emergency, the admins have each other's phone numbers.
Like most open-source projects, there's a core set of users who do most of the work. 615 users (0.7%) account for 50% of the edits. I believe 0.7% means of all editors. Anonymous users account for 18% of all edits.
Wales says that one of the key features of the Wikipedia is real-time peer review. The recent changes page is watched by hundreds of people daily, and users have created tools to monitor these feeds and automatically detect likely problem edits.
He then talked about the decision-making process, pointing to the Votes for Deletion page. While users "vote" for whether or not to delete a page, the vote is actually a dialog where they come to an understanding of whether the page has merit or not. The vote isn't automated or formally counted -- there's no 2/3rds majority rule -- instead the process is flexible and reasonable.
Wales says that almost every programmer who sees this wants to automate it, but doing that would lose the human dialog and community while at the same time making the process easier to game.
The Wikipedia runs on 120 servers across multiple data centers. The main one is in Florida, with the others in the Netherlands, France, and South Korea.
All of the hardware is managed by volunteers, with no formal schedule and no hierarchy. All coordination is done via IRC -- whoever's on takes part. In an emergency, the admins have each other's phone numbers.
Like most open-source projects, there's a core set of users who do most of the work. 615 users (0.7%) account for 50% of the edits. I believe 0.7% means of all editors. Anonymous users account for 18% of all edits.
Wales says that one of the key features of the Wikipedia is real-time peer review. The recent changes page is watched by hundreds of people daily, and users have created tools to monitor these feeds and automatically detect likely problem edits.
He then talked about the decision-making process, pointing to the Votes for Deletion page. While users "vote" for whether or not to delete a page, the vote is actually a dialog where they come to an understanding of whether the page has merit or not. The vote isn't automated or formally counted -- there's no 2/3rds majority rule -- instead the process is flexible and reasonable.
Wales says that almost every programmer who sees this wants to automate it, but doing that would lose the human dialog and community while at the same time making the process easier to game.
01 November 2005
The photo so nice, they had to print it twice
Alan Greenspan is so photogenic, not only does he makes the covers of Smart Money and The Economist, but it's the same photo.
I can hear the editors doing the "D'Oh!" smack now.
I can hear the editors doing the "D'Oh!" smack now.
25 October 2005
If Chaucer wrote the lyrics to Shaft
A Townie's Tale: "Wha be tha blake prevy lawe
That bene wantoun too alle tha feres?
SHAFT!
Ya damne righte!"
More here.
24 October 2005
EX: A vocabulary for describing former relationships between people
Insane specification, or RDF geekery? You make the call.
The other week, I found RELATION: A vocabulary for describing relationships between people. It's a proposed language, in full RDF glory, with definitions for "siblingOf" and "knowsInPassing" and helpful examples of encodings in HTML.
I passed it along to a few friends, and one of them, who runs the Questionable Utility Company created "EX: a vocabulary for describing former relationships between people".
noLongerOrientedTo -- property
No really, I'm glad our relationship helped me realize that I'm really gay/straight/furry/celibate. Because you're great! And if something so good didn't make me happy, it must have been something about me. It's not you, it's me.
More here.
16 October 2005
Cassette belt buckles rule
In the Flickr discussion of the bgirls pic in my previous post, several people thought the gold cassette belt buckle was particularly hip.
I tracked down several sources for this crucial fashion accessory.
First, there's Billabong, with a lovely die cut and embossed cassette belt buckle of some random metal for under $10.
Then, there's the White Trash Boogie Cassette Buckle for $17. Note to aspiring bboys and bgirls, do not purchase fashion items with the words "WHITE TRASH" stamped on them.
Never content to leave well enough alone, the same source has a Cassette Player Belt Buckle. OK, now that's cool, but only if I can play my Devo mix tape while walking around the office.
Finally, Urban Outfitters lists a discontinued recycled cassette buckle. For the DIY crowd, they include a picture that shows how it's done.
I tracked down several sources for this crucial fashion accessory.
First, there's Billabong, with a lovely die cut and embossed cassette belt buckle of some random metal for under $10.
Then, there's the White Trash Boogie Cassette Buckle for $17. Note to aspiring bboys and bgirls, do not purchase fashion items with the words "WHITE TRASH" stamped on them.
Never content to leave well enough alone, the same source has a Cassette Player Belt Buckle. OK, now that's cool, but only if I can play my Devo mix tape while walking around the office.
Finally, Urban Outfitters lists a discontinued recycled cassette buckle. For the DIY crowd, they include a picture that shows how it's done.
Human beatbox flutist
This is somewhere between wonderful and weird. I was looking at this picture of two bgirls and searched on the "Fillmore Rocks," the name of their crew.
From this, I found Tim Barsky's page. He's associated with Fillmore Rocks. He's a human beatbox and flutist, and he does both simultaneously. Check out his video (mov) or his mp3.
More wonderful weirdness is here on his downloads page
08 October 2005
It's made of people!
Stewart Butterfield (Flickr) gave a presentation at Web 2.0 in which he used the line "Web 2.0, it's made of people." He said he got this from Ross Mayfield.
Stewart asked the audience if anyone knew where the phrase originated.
From my seat, I said "soylent green".
Here's the soundclip of the original use.
Stewart asked the audience if anyone knew where the phrase originated.
From my seat, I said "soylent green".
Here's the soundclip of the original use.
Teens and online shopping
During the teen panel at Web 2.0, the interviewer asked this panelist "do you buy shoes online?"
She said "no, I'd go to True in the Haight."
For most of the panelists, the web wasn't a place to shop. And when they did, they used comparison shopping tools like Froogle. There was almost no mention of Amazon.com, and only some reference to eBay.
She said "no, I'd go to True in the Haight."
For most of the panelists, the web wasn't a place to shop. And when they did, they used comparison shopping tools like Froogle. There was almost no mention of Amazon.com, and only some reference to eBay.
07 October 2005
Scott Cook on the secret of Intuit's success
Take something complex, and make it simple. It's sounds so obvious, but great businesses like Intuit have been built on it. Certainly, simplifying the US tax process isn't easy, but when you can do it, you get a huge and loyal customer base.
Bram Cohen, BitTorrent's creator, on the Internet OS
Bram talked about the Internet Operating System (a big buzzword) and the overwhelming unsolved technical challenges it faces, ranging from OS misfeatures in the most common platforms, to hardware, to little things like entire states going offline due to power outages (how does a distributed OS deal with that?).
Mena Trott of Six Apart at Web 2.0
Mena Trott talked to John Battelle at Web 2.0 about how Six Apart got started and how they're doing now. They set out as a services platform and now have around 10m in VC funding.
Sergey Brin of Google at Web 2.0
Sergey Brin was a surprise speaker at Web 2.0. John Battelle interviewed him and asked, if Google is now really a portal site, among portals it's #4. Does this make Google the underdog?
Sergey responded that Google's cafe probably is in the top 100,000 and that there's room for improvement.
It's pretty clear -- others want to measure Google as one thing, while Sergey views it as another.
Sergey responded that Google's cafe probably is in the top 100,000 and that there's room for improvement.
It's pretty clear -- others want to measure Google as one thing, while Sergey views it as another.
06 October 2005
Philip Kaplan of ... Adbrite!
I met Philip Kaplan of Adbrite at Web 2.0 in San Francisco. Philip's mantra for Adbrite is openness - ad buyers know what they're getting and what Adbrite is doing, and site owners have more control over what gets placed on their property. Compare this to Google's Adsense, where no one really knows what's going on, and the whole thing is supposed to be secret (Google forbids site owners from sharing performance details).
I first met Philip shortly after he started Fucked Company, and I still have his autograph ... on a Pets.com visitor parking sign.
05 October 2005
Mashups session at Web 2.0
The topic of this session is "Mashups, what's the business model." But we all really wanted to see the cool mashups. Some of the neater ones:
Analygis, Google Maps Mania, Yahoo maps mashups, Ebay + Google Maps, SimplyHired, London terrorism maps, and Trulia real estate search
Analygis, Google Maps Mania, Yahoo maps mashups, Ebay + Google Maps, SimplyHired, London terrorism maps, and Trulia real estate search
Data on the move: Web 2.0 session
The panel for "Data on the Move" talks about the data - what it can tell us, who has it, and some of the issues around using it and making it available.
Musicbrainz
Musicbrainz is a free and vetted source of information on music and bands. It's the non-evil alternative to Gracenote's CDDB. Here, Robert Kaye, one of the prime movers behind Musicbrainz talks at the Microformats session at Web 2.0
Tomi, Tom, and Esther at Web 2.0
Tomi Pierce, Tom Gruber, and Esther Dyson at the Web 2.0 conference. We talked about organizing information by time and place and how to give users a sense of order and narrative to all the things they might want to see.
Web 2.0 discussion
Kaliya Hamlin, Danah Boyd, and two others meet outside the Web 2.0 morning sessions at the Argent Hotel in San Francisco.
01 October 2005
Search & Destroy and Kenka, St Mark's Place, New York City
I took this picture while traveling in New York. I walked around the East Village and St. Mark's Place and found this. Upstairs is Search & Destroy, a punk rock clothing and accessories store. Downstairs, with the weird raccoon-like statue (a tenuki) is Kenka, an Izakaya-style neighborhood Japanese restaurant. I had never seen one before -- it's neither a sushi bar nor a tempura / noodle place. Instead, it's a kind of casual get together with friends and have a good time restaurant. They have lots of odd appetizers, beer, and you get a cup of sugar at the end of the meal and pour it into a cotton candy machine. How cool is that?
I was in New York for a wedding and reception earlier in the day, and found this restaurant after getting some amazing pierogies at the wonderful Veselka, just a few blocks away, so there was no way I could fit another meal in. Next trip, though, I will certainly come here.
I was in New York for a wedding and reception earlier in the day, and found this restaurant after getting some amazing pierogies at the wonderful Veselka, just a few blocks away, so there was no way I could fit another meal in. Next trip, though, I will certainly come here.
02 June 2005
How to replace the spindle motor on a Panasonic DVD-S35
Two years ago, I bought a Panasonic DVD-S35 dvd player. Nice features and cheap as anything.
18 months later, the player died.
Being a resourceful kind of guy, and having a lot of experience fixing things, I thought I'd take on this challenge.
It turns out this DVD player has a known weak point, the spindle motor. This is the motor that spins the DVD. The motor tends to start flaking out after 12 to 18 months of use. The symptom is that, one day, some DVDs won't play, and eventually, DVDs aren't recognized at all because the motor can't spin them up to a speed where the optical head to read the data.
So, most of you might toss the player at this point and move on. I did not.
I tracked down the part number for the spindle motor (Panasonic RXQ1016A Spindle Motor Ass'y) and ordered it from PartStore.com.
I got the part after having looked at disassembly instructions for a similar model dvd player. It looked like I'd have to open the case, undo two screws, put the unit back in, and hit play.
I was so, so wrong.
First, the DVD-S35 turns out to be a particularly fiendish unit to work on. So I tracked down an on-line copy of the service manual at a Russian service manual database.
Now, a service manual for this player is part fact, and part fiction. Fact: there are a few codes you can enter to see how worn out the player is. Fiction: parts are replaceable.
Getting the case open wasn't hard, but getting to the spindle motor assembly required taking out approximately: five ribbon cables, seven normal screws including two fiendishly tight jeweler's-type phillips screws, three springs, two axles, one gear, two plastic holder pins, two boards, and four solder points.
Yes, Panasonic uses solder as a structural element.
This was the case from hell. I spilled blood opening it. Following the disassembly instructions, it became clear that I was the first person to QA these. The instructions were obviously wrong in a few places.
Eventually, I removed the four solder points. I pulled the first plastic holder pin.
I pulled the second of the plastic holder pins.
The head snapped off.
Gah. Enough is enough. I curse the day Panasonic put their good name on a disposable home DVD player.
And I promise never to try to repair a $35 DVD player again.
Until the next one breaks.
Update: The replacement is a Yamaha DVD-5750. It's built like a tank and has been around long enough (over a year) that people have had enough time to really beat on it and review it. I am quite happy with it.
06 May 2005
Finish line
Three sprinters for Houston at the 2005 Golden Bear Invitational at UC Berkeley.
Sprinting at this level is measured in hundredths of a second, and relaxing even a half-step early can mean missing a qualifying time or record.
The runner in the center has crossed the finish and is decelerating. The runner on the left is a few steps from the finish and concentrating on following through to the end of the race, while the runner on the right is crossing the finish and checking to make sure he's done before he slows down.
Sprinting at this level is measured in hundredths of a second, and relaxing even a half-step early can mean missing a qualifying time or record.
The runner in the center has crossed the finish and is decelerating. The runner on the left is a few steps from the finish and concentrating on following through to the end of the race, while the runner on the right is crossing the finish and checking to make sure he's done before he slows down.
29 April 2005
Speed
Elizabeth Mayeda, a Cal distance runner, warms up before 3000m race.Track meet at UC Berkeley on Cal Day, 16 Apr 05.
After the sprint
After the sprint. I took this at the UC Berkeley 2005 Golden Bears Invitational. The rest of the set is here.
I photographed the Men's 200m sprints and the Women's 3000m distance race.
I photographed the Men's 200m sprints and the Women's 3000m distance race.
24 April 2005
Looking for Miranda Kathleen Tufts
I'm doing some research into my family history. I'm looking for Miranda Kathleen Tufts and her mother, Myra Jane Conerly Tufts. The only information I have is that they once lived in Bexar County, Texas. Myra Jane is the mom, John Marshall Tufts was the dad, and Miranda is the daughter.
If you are Miranda or Myra, or know them, please let me know.
18 March 2005
Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales, of the Wikipedia, spoke at O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego earlier this week, and I got a chance to talk to him afterwards.
He's very down-to-earth about his project. It's not about technology, it's about being nice to people and encouraging them to participate.
I've been contributing to Wikipedia for two years. When I first started, I made a half-clued edit. Another user, rather than flaming me, thanked me for contributing and showed me what to do next time. Two years later, I'm still contributing.
Jimmy said that most of the edits come from between 600 to 1000 users. At my rate, I'm probably in the top twenty-thousand in terms of contributions.
But it's not about rank, it's about the outcome. Plus, he was nice to me. So I'll keep contributing.
He's very down-to-earth about his project. It's not about technology, it's about being nice to people and encouraging them to participate.
I've been contributing to Wikipedia for two years. When I first started, I made a half-clued edit. Another user, rather than flaming me, thanked me for contributing and showed me what to do next time. Two years later, I'm still contributing.
Jimmy said that most of the edits come from between 600 to 1000 users. At my rate, I'm probably in the top twenty-thousand in terms of contributions.
But it's not about rank, it's about the outcome. Plus, he was nice to me. So I'll keep contributing.
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