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Sunday, March 18th
Who Needs MySpace When All Your Friends Have Web Sites?
I'm lucky to have some cool friends, so I thought I'd take a second to pump them up. First, my pal and former Echopraxian Terry Osterhout has a new book out, High on Murder. Check it out on Blurb.com (which is a cool site if you haven't seen it, by the way). This is a big week for coffee genius John Roos, who is the official coffee of the Ann Arbor Film Festival. If you can't make it to the festival, at least buy some coffee on line. It's better than money (I was gonna say sex, but that would be pushing it). And last but certainly not least, Art Showcase Magazine is also sponsoring the festival. Check out their new site. They just added a blog.
Posted By: Ian on 03.18.07 @ 07:30
PM EDT [link]
Friday, March 16th
Are You Staring At My Crotch?
If you're a man, the answer is probably "yes", even if I'm a dog, horse or other mammal. In web and print design they've utilized a tool called eyetracking for some time now. It's a combination of hardware and software that tracks a viewer's eye movements as they scan a page. The web-savvy know that "usability guru" Jakob Nielsen has talked about this for awhile, but the image on the left is from a recent Online Journalism Review piece that made the important additional observation that men are probably staring at your crotch. Or boobs. Even if you're a dog. Finally science explains why so many women have to resort to the phrase "I'm up here".
Posted By: Ian on 03.16.07 @ 06:44
AM EDT [link]
Thursday, March 15th
B-U-Swastika-H
If you've been wondering what the reaction to Bush in Latin America has been (which you haven't been because One: You read the news every day, and as Mark Twain said "If you don't read the news you're uninformed, if you do read the news you're mis-informed", or Two: There's a new season of American Idol, or Three: You've been busy composing an e-mail to Bill O'Reilly), you might be surprised to note that the American news outlets haven't found it very sexy (for whatever reason) to report on the trip. Might have something to do with the fact that on many protest signs they (not in just one, but in several countries) converted the "s" in "Bush" to a Swastika. See some interesting photos here.
Posted By: Ian on 03.15.07 @ 09:30
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Wednesday, March 14th
GooTube Suit Gives Joost A Boost
It would be a little ironic if the big company (Viacom) that's partnering with the guys (Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis of Joost) who got sued for inventing Kazaa turned around and sued GooTube for basically the same offense. But I guess that's the American Way: if someone won't be your friend, SUE THEM. In any case, my bet for the "next big web video thing" has been on Joost for a while, and the recent lawsuit and partnership with Viacom should give them more exposure than millions of ad dollars ever could.
Posted By: Ian on 03.14.07 @ 07:31
AM EDT [link]
Saturday, March 3rd
Living on the Dark Side of the Moon
At least briefly. Anybody catch the lunar eclipse this evening?
Of all the unlikely sources, Fox News already has some cool photos up.
Posted By: Ian on 03.03.07 @ 11:38
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Friday, March 2nd
Fauxhemian Rhapsody
I'm either going to have to start doing things I think about doing or stop thinking altogether. Another few inches added to the height of my "Wish I'd Done That" pile: The Burg. Wired Magazine referred to it as "Friends for the MySpace set" in a recent article, but that really doesn't do it justice. It's at just the right spot in a bunch of curves. It's funny and self-aware without being condescending, snarky, or "too hip to get". It's somewhere between TV and YouTube. It's short, and short is the new, uh, long...or something. Anyway, as they put it: "We’ve made this original series for the Internet. It’s filmed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It features our friends and the bands we like. We’ve got a mild case of ADD so episodes are anywhere from 1 minute to 15 minutes long. Yes. 15 minutes. We know that’s insane. But we think you’ll like it because at least it’s not re-packaged broadcast TV or home videos of skateboarding dogs being kicked in the balls." The clip on the left is Episode 101 (the first full episode): "Cred". In a master stroke of "meta", Episode102 is called "MySpace". And yes, they have a MySpace page. I just put them in myTop 8.
Posted By: Ian on 03.02.07 @ 04:31
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Thursday, March 1st
If I Had The Money, I'd Buy One. If It Existed.
 Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; I can't tell if this product is real or not. IO2 Technology has gotten a fair amount of tech industry press over the past couple of years for their "Free Space Display". The only video footage available (YouTube clip here, and two Windows Media clips on their site) look kind of like when R2D2 projects the image of Princess Leia in Star Wars. I WANT to believe it's real, but the alleged inventor - Chad Dyner - speaks awfully cryptically about it while essentially saying the images are projected on to a fine mist. See this OhGizmo interview, in which he says things like "Basically, we are creating a thermal differential within the air and as soon as you do that, the air goes through a process of rapid condensation." Hmm. Smoke and mirrors? Their site mentions corporate clients but fails to list any, a little peculiar for ground-breaking technology that has gone public.
Posted By: Ian on 03.01.07 @ 05:00
AM EDT [link]
Wednesday, February 28th
How To Invade Boston With Mere Breadcrumbs
Okay, a few days off this week and I'm back with a post like this? My apologies. Anyway, after devising our dastardly plan for invading Boston, I think the Chinese may beat us to it. But instead of using battery-powered toys, they're going to use pigeons and rats. I make light of this, but in fact find it really disturbing. It's bad enough we create machines to do all the weird and inhumane things we do, but do we really need to create cyborg mammals?
Posted By: Ian on 02.28.07 @ 01:06
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Sunday, February 25th
Can't We Just Delete It?
Please DO NOT click on the YouTube video on the left that clearly and simply explains the concepts of Net Neutrality. Even though it's from SaveTheInternet.com, it clearly won't save the Internet, because thanks to people like you clicking on videos just like it, the INTERNET IS FULL. (Please note ironic presence of videos in linked article.)
Posted By: Ian on 02.25.07 @ 04:31
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Saturday, February 24th
Wow...
As someone who's definitely had my own ups and downs with substance abuse and going a little crazy, the recent media hubbub over Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears made me a little queasy, more than anything. I don't watch TV, so I actually had no idea that Craig Ferguson had replaced Craig Kilborn as the host of the Late Late Show, but this YouTube clip from the show blew me away. If more media people could talk about their disease/condition as honestly and comfortably as Ferguson does in his frank and civilized monologue, maybe the media could focus on things that actually matter.
Posted By: Ian on 02.24.07 @ 01:31
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Wednesday, February 21st
Fearmongering For Fun & Profit
Remember when the Red Cross was a symbol of humanitarianism and rescue from calamity? Well, they don't want you to forget. At least the calamity part, anyway. In a new billboard ad campaign in New York, they're setting the date for the next big terror attack on the U.S.: November 9th 2009. That's 11/9. Get it? Did these cats hire the White House PR department or what? (Totally unrelated: if you're driving a Mustang all the billboards look like this.)
Posted By: Ian on 02.21.07 @ 07:59
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Tuesday, February 20th
More Technology We Might Not Need...
While on a routine web shopping trip to find a Chicken-Scented Bubble Machine for my imaginary dog, I ran across something much more intriguing: Racing British Grannies! Much more stylish than their American counterparts . Plus, they'd probably be happy to help with your Boston invasion plans.
Posted By: Ian on 02.20.07 @ 02:13
PM EDT [link]
Monday, February 19th
Lucifer, you got some 'splainin' to do...
That's one of the better lines from Mr. Deity, a series of shorts on YouTube right now that features the creator of the universe as a heavy set guy with a sort of "Bay Area Media Industry Chic". I especially enjoyed Episode 2, Mr Deity and the Really Big Favor, in which Jesus (as he's receiving his assignment to go down to Earth, live a sinless life, and then get crucified) reasonably asks questions like "And sir, why can't you just forgive people again?"
Posted By: Ian on 02.19.07 @ 07:06
AM EDT [link]
Sunday, February 18th
Post Historic Retro Futures
I've always been fascinated with the idea of what future archaeologists would make of contemporary life. Images like the one at left, or maybe Elena Filatova's images of Chernobyl capture an eerie feeling of what the present might look like from the future. We can watch Reversible Destiny Lofts become Feitsuiwan Desolation Row. Koert van Mensvoort captures the idea with this image and in his book Next Nature : "Our established view of 'nature' needs reconsideration. The notions of nature and culture are trading places. Products of culture, which we used to be in control of, tend to outgrow us and become autonomous. The natural powers shift to another field. Nature changes along with us."
Posted By: Ian on 02.18.07 @ 08:48
AM EDT [link]
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