Month: May 2011
-
Leaving Finland
Tomorrow we leave Finland, our home for the last two years. It’s always bittersweet packing up, leaving behind an empty apartment, and closing the door on a phase of your life. Today, on my last night, I am philosophical. To be honest, it was a bit rough and it’s probably best to reserve judgement on this…
-
Howl 2.0
UC Berkeley professor Ken Goldberg and documentary filmmaker (and founder of the Webby Award) Tiffany Shlain put together a modern update to Allen Ginsberg’s famous Beat Generation poem, Howl (also purportedly written in Berkeley). Yelp exhorts us all to unplug from from our endless quest for the next info-fix and, “power-down and revisit the present tense.”…
-
Seth Godin on Changes in Publishing
Seth Godin is a prolific writer and a champion for the book business. That’s why he wants to save it, but not in a format you would recognize. The Domino Project is a joint venture with Amazon to rethink the way books are, “built, sold and spread.” In a piece written earlier this week, Godin…
-
Life 2.0, a movie about Second Life
It’s been years since I have written about Second Life, the virtual reality platform which captured everyone’s attention back in 2006-2007. Lately Second Life has come up again in conversations with colleagues when we talk about the popularity of the 8-bit version of alternative reality games where you build things such as Minecraft. Second Life…
-
Spielberg does Tintin in 3D
Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson will release The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, as a 3D film in December. The posters were revealed today and the first clips are rumored to be online tomorrow. I was a huge Tintin fan growing up so I’m curious to see what happens to the characters…
-
Mikael Granlund’s Amazing Hockey Goal
Just in case you missed it. 19 year-old Mikael Granlund scored an amazing goal in last night’s hockey game putting Finland over Russia and into the final (which they eventually won). All eyes on Mikael and Finland in Sunday’s match against Sweden. Go Suomi!
-
iPhone Tracker Art
Dav Yaginuma, my brother-in-law, exported his iPhone’s location data and, using the open source iPhone Tracker modified the settings to create very fine grained view of his whereabouts. I would have thought an aggregated view such as the one above would give a strong signal to where he lives and works but I guess he…
-
View Source Parody
A derivative work surfaced the other day, helpfully linking itself to it’s source material. Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says Bin Laden is Dead, Obama Says This is Mad Magazine territory.
-
Cloud Computing through the Ages
The Network is the Computer – Sun Microsystems – 1990s Nothing but Web – Google – 2011 Two perspectives on an old idea, twenty years apart. For a humorous perspective on Silicon Valley spin, check out Larry Ellison’s schtick at the Churchill Club, “The Cloud is Water Vapor.”