02.20.08
Posted in Design, Media, People, Tech, Web
at 12 pm
While everyone else is getting ready for SXSW, the WebVisions board has been busy getting this year’s edition ready to go. I’m really excited that Jeffery Veen is back. His presentation (5 or so years ago) was one of the best ever and even though we usually don’t have return speakers, Veen is one of the few that I’m truly glad to hear again.
WebVisions: May 22 – 23, 2008 – Portland, Oregon
Media, technology and consumer trends visionary Lynne Johnson will join WebVisions to deliver the Thursday keynote address. Lynne is the Senior Editor and Community Director for FastCompany.com, a leading website and community for people passionate about business ideas that also offers the complete content of Fast Company magazine. She also writes a technology blog following web, media, and consumer trends for FastCompany.com, and guest blogs for techPresident and Black Web 2.0.
An internationally sought-after sage, author, and user experience consultant, Jeffrey Veen will return to WebVisions to deliver one of the event’s keynote addresses. Currently a Design Manager and project lead for Google’s Measure Map project, Jeffrey is returning to WebVisions to share his vision for the future of the Web.
At this point, WebVisions as an event runs really smoothly. We get a good set of volunteers returning each year, and my Tech Crews are always on top of things. I’m the stage manager and try to make sure that each speaker is prepared and comfortable, the audience is undistracted, and the volunteers understand that the audience members are expecting to have a great experience and we want to give them an outstanding experience.
WebVisions is incredibly cheap and for the quality of the speakers and the location, it cannot be beat. I hope you’re coming!
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01.25.08
Posted in Life, People, Web
at 10 pm
From Jock:
Lemur-Labs – Who Are You?:
It is quite possible that half of the reason that people watch the various editions of CSI can be attributed to the brilliant choice to play The Who during the opening. The selection of Who Are You? is especially brilliant. It speaks directly to the core of any criminal investigation: establishing identity.
It’s cool to listen in while the wizard makes up his latest spell… Even cooler when you get mentioned. : )
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01.20.08
Posted in People, Web
at 12 am
Ben, another suggestion on how to respond to this question…
Q: “How much does a Web site cost?”
A: “How much does a book cost?”
This usually sets the stage pretty well since people start to understand the possibility that all web sites may not be the same size, even though they are viewed through the same browser window…. This tactic has worked well for me in the past.
(I didn’t think it was that pithy…)
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09.22.07
Posted in Media, People
at 9 pm
If you noticed my Depeche Mode fandom it should not come as a surprise that I may have a bit of a Depeche Mode library. Having been an obsessive collector of Depeche Mode for a number of years (tapering off after the Ultra era), I still have quite a collection of releases, but there are a few items that have always been out of reach. One of those items recently became available:
eBay: DEPECHE MODE – STRANGE * JAPANESE LASERDISC WITH OBI
Yes, the only non-VHS release of these videos up until the DVD era. Now here’s why this is important in a Depeche Mode collection: 1) it is laserdisc, which means playing it more than once doesn’t risk destroying the media (unlike video tape), 2) it is laserdisc which means, properly taken care of, it will retain a higher quality signal than the VHS release, 3) it has entire song and cuts of other videos that are currently unavailable on DVD.
The closest release of these videos on DVD was The Videos 86->98 DVD, which had the ’single mix’ of most of the tracks (A Question Of Time, Strangelove, Never Let Me Down Again, and Behind The Wheel) which is a terrible thing, and a travesty when it comes to the NLMDA video because it cuts out NEARLY HALF of the original footage! Adding to the problem is the lack of the short inter-song connections and the the complete loss of the video for Pimpf. What makes Pimpf so special? It’s the only b-side that Mode has ever made a video for.
Strange is one of the best Mode releases, ever. Now I have it in the most pristine format ever released.
So, as of this week I finally have purchased (but not received yet) the Japanese laserdisc release of Strange, thanks to an eBay god, a friend of mine who goes by the handle “HighVelocityVav”. Vavrin, your are my hero, my fast-fingered-friend!
…And before you ask, yes, I do actually own a laserdisc player and no, I don’t even have to dig it out of storage.
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05.05.07
Posted in Media, People, Tech, Web
at 10 pm
I heard that someone got video of Michael at the wrap party for WebVisions at the Greek Cusinia. Please get in contact with me if you do. It will be the highlight of next year’s show!
UPDATE: YES!! Yes yes yes!
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04.30.07
Posted in People
at 9 pm
Angry Rage Monkey: “Welcom Ross!”
Thanks Jock! it’s nice to be… there? here?
“In cyberspace, nobody has to be anywhere, since you’re already there.”
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04.28.07
Posted in People, Tech, Web
at 11 am
So at the bottom of Jeffrey Zeldman’s entry “Comments are the lifeblood of the blogosphere” he has set up a spam blocking question: “Is ice hot or cold?”
I think this is great! I can’t wait for the Spammers to break it.
Now let me be clear that this is not some call for an all out comment spam war on blogs, since that’s already in progress.
This is about getting ‘bots smarter.
Think about it this way: Spambots are getting better and better at decoding the existing CAPTCHA images. They are getting better at pattern recognition and the idea is that if the spambot builders can improve the abillity to decode these images, then we’ve actually taken steps forward in the realm of Optical Character Recognition, a fundemental computer science problem that has never been fully worked out, although great strides have been made.
If the general CS researchers could get their hands on the most advanced CAPTCHA-busters (that aren’t using a sneaky Mechanical Turk system) they would have the opportunity to learn from the ‘bots and improve the state of technology.
That’s why Zeldmans “Is ice cold or hot?” is such a wonderful question! Perhaps we are creating an economic system that actually rewards technical innovation with advertising revenues. Sure, it’s slimy; comment spam is a horrible horrible thing to deal with.
But on the other hand, if we get some sort of leap in artificial intelligence because someone builds a bot that can 1) Identify this as a question, 2) Parse the question into a set of component words, 3) Construct a logical model of the question, 4) Work through an internal or external database of knowledge that can find the answer, 5) Present the answer in a succinct manner, and 6) Successfully bypass not just this question’s challange, but also other simple and not so simple questions, well then we’ve just made a huge leap in artificial intelligence.
I think it would be worth the trade off. Then again, this blog doesn’t get nearly as many comment spams as someone like Z. So I’ll let him do the work. Sorry Jeffrey!
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02.24.07
Posted in Life, People
at 11 pm
Richard Dawkins’ jaw-dropping talk on our bizarre universe (TEDTalks) – Google Video
” Richard Dawkins is Oxford University’s “Professor for the Public Understanding of Science.” Author of the landmark 1976 book, The Selfish … all » Gene, he’s a brilliant (and trenchant) evangelist for Darwin’s ideas. In this talk, titled, “Queerer Than We Suppose: The strangeness of science,” he suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us, because the human mind evolved only to understand the “middle-sized” world we can observe. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 22:42) “
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10.04.06
Posted in People, Tech, Web
at 7 pm
This was fun: PDX Web Innovators, though it was a bit surpriseing who showed up. Most of the people there knew of or attended WebVisions, or in the case of Tom, actually worked on my crew one year.
Ooh, and it looks like WebVisions is going to be in May this year. I hope it doesn’t conflict with other things…
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04.30.06
Posted in People
at 12 pm
Click the “more” link to see it… via YouTube.
Read the rest of this entry »
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