Feed Sift (07/03/2015)

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XKCD.COM -- Microdrones

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TWISTEDSIFTER.COM -- The Model Model Model Model Village

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ENGADGET.COM -- FTC airs support for Tesla's direct-to-consumer sales

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LIFEHACKER.COM -- Learn SQL with Khan Academy's New Interactive Course

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WEBURBANIST.COM -- The Void: World’s First Virtual Reality Theme Park Coming Soon

Feed Sift (04/03/2015)

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WSJ.COM -- ‘Calvin and Hobbes’: America’s Most Profound Comic Strip

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ADWEEK.COM -- Vince Vaughn and Co-stars Pose for Idiotic Stock Photos You Can Have for Free

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HOUZZ.COM -- Garden Walls: Gabion Evolves From Functional to Fabulous

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TWISTEDSIFTER.COM -- Chuck Jones’ 9 Golden Rules for the Coyote and the Road Runner

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SETHGODIN.TYPEPAD.COM -- Stupid is the brand killer

So... That Happened

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FINALLY!

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I was surprised that I actually managed to make it happen.  

Then for a little while I forgot it was there.

And then I started worrying it would somehow disappear.

I managed to go on and get a few more large squares before completely messing it up.

Now, like Homer Simpson, I see this as the perfect time to announcement retirement from 2048.

Feed Sift

Five things worth passing along...

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Everything I've Learned About Personal Finance in 10 Sentences

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Lessons from Sharknado

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entertainment

The most recent in my identity series.

I love entertaining. Well, sort of. I love it when I can make others laugh. I'm only sort of good at it because of my dry wit and sometimes using the wrong medium (something that takes too long to explain) or I misread the room (it's funny to me but not others).

I love being entertained. Or at least I wrote down "entertainment" when I first created this identity series. But the more I think about this tonight, the more I think it's about being mentally stimulated. My brain is often moving at a high speed and I allow myself to get bored easily.  Call it entertainment, or call it distraction.

I will usually add music wherever I can to whatever I'm doing. Or I'll carry around the iPad while I'm doing chores, watching something on Netflix. (Now that I have Netflix, I rarely watch TED Talks. I'm still coming to grips with what I think of that.) Or I can't stop checking my email. Or I'm reading Feedly while watching TV. Or reading a book while I walk. Or before I go to bed. Most nights I'll squeeze the equivalent of at least two hours of TV in (minus commercials) and still get 30-60 minutes of reading in, plus reading before work. And while I'm driving, I must have Waze running and either music or on the way home from work, the weather forecast, latest tech, business and general news and the stock quotes for a bunch of companies thanks to Sync. I must constantly have external stimulus.  Before I get out of bed, I'll check my email, the latest headlines from MSNBC and Feedly. I usually have 1 or 2 books in progress and at least one magazine.  While I'm shaving I'm playing a video game or watching Netflix on my iPad.

Stuck in the Middle Again

Sometimes living on the cutting edge is a bit painful.

Among other things, I received a Joss Whedon three-pack (Firefly, Serenity, Dr. Horrible) on Blu-Ray, a few seasons of Newsradio on DVD (*quick, point out the connection. Hint: I also received a Red Swingline Stapler) and iTunes gift card and several music CDs. (Hint #2: Ha. iTunes just started playing The Buffy theme song.)

But there's no one place in my house where I can consume all of these. (Without resorting to gray area technology hacks that are neither straightforward or easy.)

(*Answer: Stephen Root. Played the Principal in Joss Whedon's original Buffy, Jimmy James in Newsradio and Milton in Office Space.)

Scanning Entertainment Weekly

Oh, how they pile up. After Lori's done with Entertainment Weekly, she tosses it on my side of the bed. And I move them to a pile on the floor next to my bed. And when I clean up, only a pile on my bookshelf. Staying home sick today, I decided that my side of the bed needed some work. So, I pulled out the stack and leafed through them, mostly to add movies and books to my want to watch/read, but also a few articles were interesting along the way. (I got through 18 magazines with 26 to go.)

Yeah, some of these are about movies that have already come out, but still interesting reads.

10/17/08 - Cheeta (76) from the Tarzan Movies: It's Hard Out There For a Chimp

10/24/08 - First Look: Star Trek - movie that rocked

10/24/08 - Elizabeth Banks: Elizabeth's Golden Moment - good for her

10/24/08 - The Mentalist: Crime Pays

11/07/08 - Mickey Rourke: Mickey Roars - probably haven't seen any of his movies.

11/07/08 - A Better TV Website in Four Easy Steps

04/17/09 - Anna Farris: Do I Look Funny?

04/17/09 - Michael J. Fox: Man at Work

05/22/09 - Breaking Up With Disney - prediction: within a few years, we'll start to see efforts by Disney to offer an post-child "career track" with other fare, either from the studio or in partnership with other studios, complete with planning and everything to help prevent future Lindsey Lohans.

05/29/09 - Eminem: Inside the road to 'Relapse' - I'm a poseur who only owns one or two of his albums which I bought on iTunes

07/10/09 - Harry Potter: This Magic Moment

08/07/09 - Web Obsession: Hello, Kitty!

01/22/10 - NBC's Late Night Disaster

01/22/10 - Avatar: The New Face of Movies

01/22/10 - The Return of Pee Wee

An Entertainer I Knew

It's amazing to see someone so close to the truth but unable to actually see it. To tell stories that seem to draw so much from what he professes to reject. To draw so deeply, and to get everything almost right. To probably think the stories are his own deep dark secrets. Uncanny. And a little unnerving and possibly sad. Must continue to pray for him.

Surreal

So we were downstairs in the basement watching Shaun of the Dead. It was near the end when they were in The Winchester. Well, I had to pop upstairs to the main level and change Ben's diaper. To come into the kitchen and see the windows open -- and it was dark outside -- it gave me pause. Even though I've seen the movie several times before, I guess I was quite engrossed.

I do have to say this was the first time I'd seen it not on cable, so all the cussing was still in, as well as two other scenes I didn't care for... the specific demise of one of the characters and a cheesy little promo for a TV show. I did appreciate how they explained away three plot holes.

I Feel Better

I will, I will rock you (rock you)

Wow. Total destruction. heh heh heh

Turn on the Joost

I got my invite today to Joost. I have to say, it's pretty impressive.

If you haven't heard of Joost (juice + boost?) -- and most haven't -- it's a video distribution system that uses peer-to-peer technology to deliver full-screen video quickly to anywhere around the globe.

In English -- it acts like a cable company, offering you lots of television shows and music videos. Except it's free. And it uses the internet. It comes from the guys who made Skype and it works kind of like Napster. Everyone running Joost becomes a relay-station. The more people using Joost, the faster it gets for everyone because the content sits temporarily on your computer while you're watching it and if someone nearby wants to see the same thing, it gets bounced to them, instead of having to all sit on one central server. (Some theorize that Apple will do the same thing with iTunes and your Apple TV box -- temporarily co-opt it from time-to-time to get content out to you quickly that it thinks you might want to buy, all transparently. But that's another topic for Robert X. Cringley - link at right.)

Anyhow, I got my invitation today. It's still in beta and I'm betting that there's not a lot of people using it yet. The only computer I've got that will run the software is connected wirelessly to my network so I'm getting, at best, 11 mbps. there is occasionally some lag time before a show starts, but the quality's pretty decent on full screen and it wasn't pausing too much. Pretty impressive this early on. It will only get better as the software improves and more people start running it. Not a lot of content that interests me yet, but that's not to say there isn't a lot of content -- there is. I expect that Joost will only get bigger and bigger and will sign more and more big content deals. No more going to individual websites to watch shows on less-than-full-screen.

(The poor quality of the screen grab is my fault.)

5 Guys in a Limo

This is..umm.. hmmm... cute? It was on Kevin's blog. I would have sent you there, but he just links you on to YouTube. So I'm cutting out a few middlemen. Here you go...

New JibJab: What We Call the News

There's a new JibJab: What We Call the News... I dunno... the whole Terrance and Phillip style animation is kinda disturbing to me. WWCtN is no This Land or Big Box Mart. Still can't figure out which one I like better.

Homervolution

from Lori...

More Nerdy

Here's the Donny Osmond track from White & Nerdy.



Here's the Making Of...



And just for kicks, here's the video itself since I haven't seen it in a few days...

TV and Photos

If you're not watching Andy Barker, PI, you are really missing out. And you have no excuse, they're available for viewing on NBC.com.

I'm also looking forward to Thank God You're Here. The premise has a lot of promise. An established actor (and the promos have shown many) is dressed into a costume and then walks through a door onto a stage in front of a live studio audience. They have no idea what's on the stage, or even who. Someone on stage will utter the catchphrase "Thank God You're Here!" and then the scene will progress. Has so much promise.

In other news, I've finally uploaded February and March photos to Flickr. As always, you'll need to sign in for most of the shots of people.

Have You Met Ted?

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is a truly fascinating phenomenon. Online, it's a series of talks on all manner of things. I listened to a few today while working. It both illustrated my own ignorance while simultaneously exciting me -- I was learning about all kinds of amazing things and types of thought. Very cool. I've only scratched the surface, it'll take me some time to work through all the current ones, but some really great thought. And probably quite a few more books to add to my book list.

Here's one I found particularly interesting... One profound quote from it: "All the salvation of the world requires is the intelligent pursuit of self-interest."

I've also been listening to Relevant Magazine's podcast. They have Dan Hill, a pastor from Santa Cruz on it. He's coming out with a set of books "They Like Jesus, But They Hate Church" (for church leaders) and "We Like Jesus, But We Hate Church" (for everyone else). Sounds interesting. Basically he said that his research showed that people are really spiritual, hungry, and accepting of the message of Jesus. But so much of their view of pastors and church are fed by the bad examples in the media. And that churches have focussed so much on "community" that it's become closed to those who aren't in the church and that people are now afraid to associate with and/or share the message with those outside their circle of comfort and security. Really interesting.

And then you can't forget the Lost podcast from last week... was with the woman who takes the scripts and has to figure out how to shoot them... what settings they'll need, what kinds of technical stuff (like 17 dump trucks full of shaved ice to turn a street in Hawaii to a street in New York in the dead of winter) or an abandoned military post in Hawaii into an active military post in the middle of Iraq.

And also, I recommend the Scrubs podcasts. They stick together two people from the show (cast and crew) and they talk while watching an episode. Really fun stuff, some great insight and you get to hear the actors in a new light. I swear, it would just be awesome to have Ken Jenkins -- who plays Dr. Kelso -- over for a Scrubs marathon. He is like the nicest guy and he just laughs so hard and earnestly at stuff.

Where Did The Music Industry Go Wrong?

NEWS.COM -- An interesting piece on where the music industry went wrong, how it needs to reshape itself and how artists should respond. Interesting, but I think it puts too much back on the artist to be entrepreneur and artist. More...

I wonder if broadcast television holds a useful parallel. They say that The Cosby Show was one of the last times that America all watched television together. There's actually one later show and I can't remember which one it was, know that it was embarrassing to all of us humans. But up until that point, there was a general consciousness and pulse and you could bet that if there was something on the night before, there was a very good chance that nearly everyone saw the same thing. But as cable became available and grew and started offering watchable alternatives, the audience fragmented. But there were fewer eyes for each thing. And it became much harder to find quality, harder to get your product into people's minds.

And now radio/music's heading down the same path. We don't just have the three AM stations in town to listen to, we have CDs, satellite radio, HD Radio, lots of regular radio stations, iTunes / Napster / Wal*Mart / Rhapsody, LaunchCast and so on and so on. How's an artist to get noticed and gain a following? It's gotta be even harder, since you can't say "Tune in every Thursday at 8 pm to hear a new song from me."

To be sure, the bigger artists backed by the studios will continue to thrive, but as choice becomes more ingrained, the masses will be less and less receptive to the same regurgitated and force-fed tripe that the studios put all their weight behind.

Music and Lyrics

Saw Music and Lyrics starring Hugh Grant and that actress who looks like my friend Allison. It was a pleasant enough movie with two complaints. The first is a given -- at one point Drew Barrymore gives a look straight out of Fever Pitch Never Been Kissed The Wedding Singer etc. But we can't fault her, or even "them" for continuing to make these kinds of movies because we keep going to see them. So I guess it's not really a complaint as much as a note because she does it well or we wouldn't keep going. And besides, look at her IMDB list... she's 12-1/2 months younger than me and has credits going back to when I was 4. That's pretty impressive, and extra props for not screwing it up going into adulthood.

The second (and more legitimate) complaint is for poor make-up or the lack of special effects when special-effects are clearly called for. Grant's character is supposed to be a has-been. Part of a wildly famous pop group, he's now a slightly older has-been who performs at fairs and class reunions. But there's a well-done (aka fabulously bad) music video from his heyday you see from time-to-time. They did not do nearly enough to youthify Grant's appearance.

Otherwise, movie was fine and nice and implausible and feel-good.

Oddly, the movie was originally going to be called "Music and Lyics By" which makes more sense but is a worse title. I wonder if more of the music vs. lyrics interplay was cut, from time-to-time the writing seemed to have a High Fidelity-like reverence the part each plays in a song.