Terry Gross interviews The Incredibles director Brad Bird on NPR
Terry Gross interviews The Incredibles director Brad Bird on NPR. “So, what does the director of an animated film actually do?”
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Entries for April 2005
Great list of favorite memories from Sesame Street
Great list of favorite memories from Sesame Street. I’d completely forgotten about the noo-ne-noo-ne-noo typewriter. I’m gonna be humming that all day now.
Henry Blodget goes DVD shopping in Shanghai
Henry Blodget goes DVD shopping in Shanghai at a fake restaurant. That reminds me, I should write up my Beijing CD-ROM shopping experience sometime.
The Binary Bonsai Approach to Copyright
The Binary Bonsai Approach to Copyright. Right on, brother. Preach it.
Poetry takes more brain power to read than prose
Poetry takes more brain power to read than prose. “Subjects were found to read poems slowly, concentrating and re-reading individual lines more than they did with prose.”
Cutting edge obsolete technology
I always feel a bit stupid when I purchase a movie on DVD. With networks getting faster and hard drives & flash memory prices dropping, it’s only a matter of time until a gigantic catalog of movies is available online or on USB keys sent back and forth in the mail like Netflix rentals. Things are moving in this direction already: Sony wants to create an online movie service like the iTunes Music Store and a huge amount of movies are already available online on Usenet, BitTorrent, and various P2P networks. The upshot is that all those movies I have — because the technology companies and the media companies are making it so I can’t make copies of my movies to move them from the DVDs to whatever the hell device I’m going to play my movies on in the future — I’m going to end up purchasing them all again (or worse, renting them each time I want to watch them…movie and music ownership may soon be a thing of the past if the media companies have anything to say about it). Which is great if you’re a big media company but makes me, like I said before, feel a bit stupid when buying DVDs.
Life’s top ten greatest inventions
Life’s top ten greatest inventions. Includes the eye, sexual reproduction, photosynthesis, and language.
Venture capital is flowing back into Internet companies
Venture capital is flowing back into Internet companies. “It is too early to say whether the flush environment heralds another tech investment bubble, but there are echoes of the dotcom boom.”
Quite enjoying Fischerspooner’s new album, Odyssey; reminds
Quite enjoying Fischerspooner’s new album, Odyssey; reminds me of Postal Service in parts.
Developers are using urbanist ideas to turn
Developers are using urbanist ideas to turn shopping malls into “lifestyle centers”. “They are upscale outdoor shopping areas designed to look like city streets, with an emphasis on restaurants and spaces for people-watching. They also have what planners call ‘a mix of uses’ — a bit of housing, some offices, and, occasionally, actual people living in apartments above the stores.”
The Visby lenses indicate that the Vikings
The Visby lenses indicate that the Vikings may have had working elliptical lenses centuries before they were though to have been invented. “But it seems clear that the Vikings did not make the lenses themselves. ‘There are hints that the lenses may have been manufactured in [the ancient empire of] Byzantium or in the region of Eastern Europe.’”
Google Maps and user experience
Earlier this week, Google integrated their recently acquired Keyhole technology into Google Maps, allowing the user to toggle between the abstract map view and a satellite view. The addition was pretty big news, and I was pretty excited when I saw this feature, as were many others. Matt Haughey even did a Maps/Flickr mashup in creating a memory map of his childhood stomping grounds; others followed suit.
The ability to view satellite images online has been around for years in the form of Microsoft’s Terraserver (and also on a mapping site that I can’t locate right now…I swear Mapquest let you switch back and forth between the two views, but I can’t find it), so this really isn’t anything new. Terraserver lets you zoom in/out, move around the map, and view other versions of the map (they have a topological version), and I know that many of the people who are so excited about Google Maps are familar with it. So why is everyone so excited about it?
Part of it is Google’s involvement…they draw a crowd of attention anytime they do anything these days. But it also has a lot to do with someone I wrote about a couple of years ago: it’s the user experience, stupid:
Robert Morris from IBM argued last year at Etech 2002 that — and I’m paraphrasing from memory here — most significant advances in software are actually advances in user experience, not in technology. Mosaic was not an advancement in technology over TBL’s original browser. Blogger is a highly-specialized FTP client. IM is IRC++ (or IRC for Dummies, depending on your POV). The advantages that these applications offered people were user experience-oriented, not technology-oriented.
The satellite feature on Google is no exception. They took something that’s been around for years, made it way easier to use (reposition & zoom maps without reloading, pinpoint addresses and routes onto the satellite imagery, toggle between sat and road maps, map size automatically scales to the browser window, etc.), and suddenly this old thing is much more useful and fun to play around with. Ajax is the underlying technology (which isn’t new either) for many of the notable Google Maps features, but how Google used it to make a useful user experience is the real story here.
The Culinary Institute of America offers a
The Culinary Institute of America offers a free online wine course.
Apple has launched a version of its
Apple has launched a version of its online store for mobile devices. Only in Japan for now, but may expand elsewhere eventually.
Amazon is trying out a new design
Amazon is trying out a new design for their book detail pages. It’s about time…I was just complaining to someone the other day about how cluttered their pages have gotten.
NASA may be cutting Voyager’s funding, but
NASA may be cutting Voyager’s funding, but the Mars rovers got 18 more months of funding. I can’t believe they’re still going…they were each only supposed to last 3 months!
Interview with Amazon’s most prolific book reviewer
Interview with Amazon’s most prolific book reviewer. She’s up over 8600 reviews and reads 4-5 books per day.
Great review of The Modern, Danny Meyer’s
Great review of The Modern, Danny Meyer’s new restaurant in the MoMA. Andrea Strong is quickly becoming a favorite restaurant reviewer.
Article on the WWW from 1995, when the Web was new
Article on the WWW from 1995, when the Web was new. “The newest segment of the global Internet, the Web lets users wander by clicks of a computer mouse among thousands of custom-designed multimedia documents stored in linked computers.”
Dabblers and Blowhards, or Why hackers are nothing like painters
Dabblers and Blowhards, or Why hackers are nothing like painters. Maciej takes issue with Paul Graham’s non-technical body of writing.
Voyanger funding may be cut just as
Voyanger funding may be cut just as the craft is reach the edge of the solar atmosphere. “Virtually nothing is known about this boundary…where the sun’s magnetic field and the solar wind give way to interstellar wind.”
Can you patent a peanut butter and
Can you patent a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without crusts?.
On Sony’s “not invented here” problem
On Sony’s “not invented here” problem. “A quarter century later, Sony is still pursuing its own obsessions, but it hasn’t produced anything like the Walkman for a long time. Today, Sony is known for floundering into new markets, not for creating them.”
Lifehacker interviews Merlin Mann about 43 Folders
Lifehacker interviews Merlin Mann about 43 Folders. It’s a life hacking mash-up.
Jack Shafer (favorably) reviews David Foster Wallace’s
Jack Shafer (favorably) reviews David Foster Wallace’s Atlantic Monthly article on talk radio.
Pick two
I’ve always liked the old designer’s adage of “good, fast, or cheap, pick two”. That is, a project can be completed quickly, it can be done cheap, and it can be done well, but you need to choose which two of those you want. If you want a good project done quickly, it’s gonna be expensive. Fast and cheap? It’s gonna suck. In his talk at SXSW, Jason Fried outlined another pick two scenario clients need to be aware of: “fixed scope, fixed timeframe, or fixed budget”. Here are some more variations:
Elegant, documented, on time.
Privacy, accuracy, security.
Have fun, do good, stay out of trouble.
Study, socialize, sleep.
Diverse, free, equal.
Fast, efficient, useful.
Cheap, healthy, tasty.
Secure, usable, affordable.
Short, memorable, unique.
Cheap, light, strong.
In considering these sets of trade-offs — accepting that they are cliches and therefore both overly general but also fairly accurate across a range of diverse situations — two questions come to mind.
- Why is “pick two out of three” the rule? Why not “one out of two” or “four out of six”? Or is “pick two out of three” just a cultural assumption?
- Is there some underlying scientific or economic relationship here? What do the situations in which “pick two” logic applies have in common? In clumsily casting about for an appropriate explanation/metaphor, I considered the triangle (all interior angles add up to 180 degrees), thermodynamics and entropy, Boyle’s Law, Hooke’s Law, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (although that’s a “one out of two” thing), Ohm’s Law, and Newton’s Second Law of Motion, but none seem to fit well.
I’ve poked around a bit online looking for discussions of “pick two” systems and have come up empty. Anyone have any ideas about this? Any good resources to check out? Something tells me I’m missing something obvious here. (Or onto something interesting.)
Trailer for Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary
Trailer for Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary about ballroom dancing kids. “Gentlemen, where’s my tango face?”
Google Maps now has an option to
Google Maps now has an option to switch to a satellite view. Holy crap, try the zoom!
We’re living in a crazy world when
We’re living in a crazy world when a former Vice Pres. of the US launches a TV news station and explains what he’s up to in terms of video blogging. So, this TV I’ve been hearing about…it’s like blogs?
Internet ad firms are using Flash to
Internet ad firms are using Flash to track people who delete or don’t accept browser cookies.
The people behind the DVD
The people behind the DVD. On the making of DVDs and how it’s just as or even more important than the release of films in theatres.
Watching TV in bed with an iSight,
Watching TV in bed with an iSight, or “a webcam is basically a light cable with a wormhole in the middle”. Matt, take a picture of Vega for me as it flies by.
Adobe Ideas Conference
I’m at the Adobe Ideas conference today, so posting may be a little slow. Or non-existant because this is the first conference I’ve been to in, oh, 4 years that doesn’t have wifi available to the attendees (I had to retreat to Bryant Park for lunch to soak up some free wireless). For all the talk about connectivity during the keynote, there isn’t much evidence of it so far. :(
Anyway, Adobe announced Creative Suite 2 today, as rumored. One feature that got the crowd oohing and aahing was the Vanishing Point tool in Photoshop. It lets you map the perspective out on an image and then place text, images, etc in the proper perspective on that map. Perhaps some more later when I get to a connection again.
Update: got a better look at CS 2…looks pretty sweet. Looks like Adobe has learned quite a bit from Apple: Bridge does for design assets what iTunes has done for music files (and, with lesser success, iPhoto does for photos); namely it abstracts the file structure away (mostly) and gives the designer all kinds of views/tools with which to keep track of your work. This is something one needs to spend time with to fully gauge the impact of, but from what little I saw, Adobe has done a great job with Bridge. (And it reads RSS!!?!) I know Apple is heading in this direction with Spotlight, but I’ve decided that I never want to see the file system ever again…just give me views into each type of data or project that I’m doing, tools to manipulate that data, and let the OS worry about where it’s storing things.
Photobloggers take note, Photoshop CS has been updated with photographers in mind. The Spot Healing Brush hides blemishes with a click or two. Three new filters deal with noise reduction (woo!), lens correction, and “smart” sharpening (superior to the current Unsharp Mask). There’s new features for mainpulating RAW images and also an exposure filter for non-RAW images, with an f-stop range of -20 to +20 (how’s that for overkill?).
QTVR panorama of people mourning the Pope
QTVR panorama of people mourning the Pope in Saint Peter’s Square.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen had a
Bill Gates and Paul Allen had a company before Microsoft called Traf-O-Data.
Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back
I know it’s kind of pointless to review some of the most re/viewed movies in history, but I’m working my way through the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD and I haven’t seen them in awhile, so I’m putting down some thoughts anyway.
Something that struck me while watching Empire is that every time I see a Star Wars film, I catch something I missed the previous 50 times. I generally chalk this up to my not paying close enough attention or forgetting that I actually caught it the last time around**. But I also think, begrudgingly, that Lucas is a little smarter than I give him credit for and the first three movies are more complex than they seem.
The novel thing this time around for me occurred during Luke and Vader’s first meeting in Cloud City. I never noticed that Vader isn’t trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side to join him and the Emperor. He wants Luke to help him overthrow the Emperor and they’ll rule as father and son. And then that sets up all sorts of weird shifting alliances and intrigue between the three of them…the Emperor is trying to play Vader and Luke off of each other, Vader is trying to keep his true goal a secret from the Emperor and might have to kill Luke to do so, and Luke’s trying to fend off both of them and keep his own secrets (Yoda, his sister). I mean, it’s not The Godfather, but it’s not bad.
** This happens to me all the time, especially with shows like Law & Order. I can’t remember a single episode from start to finish, which means I can watch them over and over again and always be surprised about what happens at the end.
“Hotelling’s law is an observation in economics
“Hotelling’s law is an observation in economics that in many markets it is rational for producers to make their products as similar as possible”. This explains a great deal.
Maybe the reason that Neanderthals went extinct
Maybe the reason that Neanderthals went extinct is their lack of trading prowess. “Trading would have allowed the division of labour, freeing up skilled individuals, such as hunters, to focus on the tasks they are best at.”
How do we close the digital divide
How do we close the digital divide in the third world? Distribute mobile phones..
New hypothesis claims that black holes don’t
New hypothesis claims that black holes don’t exist and are in fact “dark energy” stars. Could help to explain the universe’s missing mass.
Unexplained effects during solar eclipses and with
Unexplained effects during solar eclipses and with the Pioneer spacecraft may indicate non-constant gravitational, er, constant. Pendulums speed up during solar eclipses.
Getting design done
Jeff Veen has a good post describing his working method in approaching design and how it has a lot to do with the inspiration that occurs after stewing in lots of collected data:
This leads me to believe that doing research in web design — for me at least — has more to do with Method Acting than ethnography. Robert De Niro used this technique as he prepared for his roll as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, spending a month pulling late night shifts as a cab driver. He did this not to mimic those in the profession, but to be able to react on screen in a way that they would. Applied back to design: Rather than figure out how to design for your audience, design for yourself after becoming like your audience. At that point, I find, snap decisions become good decisions.
The piece is a summary/continuation of his How to Inform Design talk at SXSW, which struck a nerve with me when I heard it because I’d always felt a little strange (insecure is probably a better word) working in exactly the way Jeff describes. Everyone else, with their mountains of data, carefully crafted use case scenarios, iron-clad five step design processes, personas, and strategic analysis made my off-the-cuff process feel a little inadequate. Several years ago, I figured out that a significant part of a designer’s job was to (somehow) come up with the correct solution for a given problem and then sell that decision to the client. For me, like Jeff, the solution would usually arrive fairly late in the game after I’d been soaking in the problem for 90% of the available time. But like he says, you can’t sell client services with that approach, which is why you need to sell all the fancy sounding stuff and just get it done right however you can.
Man buys huge fish in Chinatown market
Man buys huge fish in Chinatown market and sets it free in the East River.
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