hello, typepad

Happy birthday Kate!

Happy birthday Kate!
Originally uploaded by gjs.

I hope it's the same Kate!

BLOOD ON YOUR ROOMBA

Turns out the US Navy is the iRobots' largest customer. I'm not surprised or particularly worried, but it's a funny juxtaposition with some other news today: US government "intelligence" is investigating Lenovo for fear that "Lenovo [could] equip its PCs so that the U.S. can be spied on." Too bad the TALON doesn't dust surfaces, because then the military industrial complex would pwn my home even more than it already does.

You can read more about iRobot godfather Isaac Asimov over on the occasionally updated snarkout.org.

Which robot do you fear more? Thinkpad or Roomba?

And I Say to Myself....

what did i do?
Originally uploaded by david.

What a wonderful world!

Birkin Still in Beta

Paging Mena Trott!

I bought this second-hand [sporran purse] in Edinburgh three years ago, and a more useful little thing one couldn't own. It's the envy of Paris. I gave up on the [Birkin] bag right away. That bloody thing. I told Hermes they were mad to make it. My one was always full and it ended up giving me tendonitis.

Jane Birkin abandons the Birkin, via Agenda Inc.
Also of interest: Tom Cruise is "still in Theta." Mena's Corner is now no longer a dinosaur feed according to NetNewsWire. Stingy Bar and Scribbling.Net remain.

Ask Mr. Computer

Hello, Typepad: What is the best way to create a secure password?

Izzle Pfaff!: Nurture it, and while being firm, treat it with respect. Most insecure passwords are the result of neglect or maltreatment. Healthy, robust passwords have a strong, loving carer behind them: be that carer, and your password will never betray you.

Dealership Corrupted

Seeing "database corrupted" on my dashboard gave me pause, until I realized that Database Corrupted was the correct behavior.

Mars Rover Update

"Our current focus is to drive like hell … and try to get [Spirit] to safe winter havens before the power situation gets really bad," said Steve Squyres, lead Mars Rover Exploration scientist at Cornell University.

Spirit is trying to get to safe ground before the Mars Winter, so its solar plates can keep it chugging along until next year. The Mars Rovers were supposed to have been long since broken down and left for dead by now, so of course this is an eventuality that Spirit was not designed for. Good luck, my rover friend!

Opportunity is out of danger, apparently on the other side of Mars. In my dreams I see them driving side by side, not on opposite sides of the planet.

The Mars Rovers have even outlasted the Space.com "Best of Mars Rover" images site, which appears broken. You can still view their top 20 rated Mars Rover images, but that's all for now, maybe until the Apache winter is over.

Triple Redundnacy

Triple Redundnacy
Originally uploaded by david.

Starbucks makes it's money by replicating the exact same experience thousands of times and analyzing customer behavior. Since Starbucks are built so close together now, I wouldn't mind a little variation. The quiet Starbucks, the no laptop Starbucks, the naked Starbucks, the business Starbucks (better wifi but more expensive coffee), and so on. Eventually, every storefront will be Starbucks, but with a different niche. There's still room for innovation in the burnt beans and hot water vertical.

Juxtapositions

CNN.com: "Federal judge says he will require Google to turn over some data to Department of Justice."

Amazon.com: "Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web."

A distributed, encrypted backup would get a lot of traction right now. Something like like duplicity or boxbackup but baked into the Operating System at the filesystem level. Sure, it's hard, but having no control over what the government does with your email, pictures and movies is even harder.

Sopranos vs. Sleeper Cell II

Anil beat me to the post [1] regarding the amazing "Mobsters vs. Arabs" CNN Poll. After reading his post this afternoon, I reconsidered the article.

56,000 votes in and more than thirty five thousand people trust the Mafia, whereas only around twenty thousand people trust an "Arab-based" company. This is "why they hate us" (tm) - because we hate them. Given the choice between an "Arab" company and the Mafia, who are infamous for murder, graft and anti-social behavior, we choose the Mafia. We assume that an anonymous "Arab-based" group is probably going to be worse than the Gambinos, Lucheesis or Gottis. That's absolutely astounding, even moreso when you consider that cnn.com readers probably lean left.

[1] In the past week, Anil scooped Ray Ozzie on cut & paste and he beat me to a CNN critique. That's pretty good!

Sopranos or Sleeper Cell?

Just when I thought Time Warner had given me the greatest gift they could possibly give me - New York 1 on Demand - my old favorite CNN raises the bar with this article that suggests that the local danger at our ports (corrupt port managers, the mob) may be as dire as the external (arab terrorists). This is Sopranos 101, people. And where are my "Arab-based ports company" email alerts?

Around 2/3rs of CNN readers are more scared of the Mob than the Arabs. Fine. I wish CNN's little social experiment was a little more controlled. What if CNN took it to the next level and offered a simlar poll item next to every piece of contraversial or bad news they posted on their web site? "Who would you rather go on a hunting trip with, Dick Cheney or the US-based mafia?" "Who would you rather host the Oscars, Jon Stewart or the US-based mafia?" and so on.

mny1tiu

My dreams are answered
Originally uploaded by david.

I like to watch The Wire, Deadwood and whatever's playing on New York 1. Customers of Time Warner Cable can now get NY1 on demand, as if it wasn't already convenient enough that they replay every story every hour.

Anil jokingly calls NY1 "The Subway Strike Channel." I'm not laughing! As gothamist and others (including the New York Times, but behind their paywall) noted, NY1's strike coverage was unrivaled. If they offered a "Best of the 2005 Subway Strike Coverage" DVD for $30, I'd buy it. I am hoping for another strike this year, even though I know that's impossible, just so NY1 can cover it again.

Barry Bonds and Hypocrisy Redux

Barry Bonds, Steroids, and Hypocrisy is far and away the most trafficed post on Hello, Typepad. Since the San Francisco Chronicle and Sports Illustrated published excerpts of an upcoming book that alleges an absurdly high amount of Steroid use on the part of Bonds and other athletes associated with Balco (including Hello, Typepad favorite Marion Jones), interest in this topic has peaked (see my measure map graph for this post, to the left) so I thought I'd just reiterate my opinion, because I'm stubborn like that.

If indeed Bonds is guilty of everything the Chronicle reporters say that he is, and more, he is at least behaving consistently. There's blood in the water around Bonds, but there's money too, and don't think for a second that reporters wouldn't be covering this story if there wasn't. We know this because it's been going on for twenty years and no one started talking about it until Jose Canseco came out with his book. What's more, Baseball didn't even have a real Steroids policy until three years ago.

The fans and press are exactly as hypocritical as Bonds himself in this case. As sad as it makes me that he clearly cheated, his behavior is a symptom, not a disease.

Zebra

Zebra
Originally uploaded by Lady Macabea.

Boy do I love this picture Adriana took on 5th Avenue in Portland this past Sunday.

We were driving around when Adriana exclaimed "WOW!" and started snapping away.

Copy and Paste

March 5: Anil Dash: Reinventing Copy and Paste.
March 7: Ray Ozzie: Rewiring the Web (Clipboard Live).

Rear View Mirror

DSC_3070.NEF
Originally uploaded by Lady Macabea.

I am sucker for mirror shots, so here's one Adriana took as we were driving out of Portland on Sunday night.

click! click! click!

click! click! click!
Originally uploaded by featherbed.

Thank you Alaina!

Good Accounting (In which I Become a Corporate Schill for American Express)

Since I started working for myself in the middle of last year, I've had to change my entire approach to how I approach and arrange my finances. I've fastidiously kept almost every receipt and missive from cable, mobile, credit card, student loan companies and anything that could remotely approach relevance come the Ides of April. Despite this, the pile of paper and impending math is intimidating, and I am constantly afraid of the mess that is my accounting "system." Since I do so much banking on-line, I'd been frustrated that my credit card companies couldn't offer me a spreadsheet of all my purchases, which would make all of this math much easier. I still get mail every week from American Express addressed to $$FIRST_NAME$$ $$LAST_NAME$$.

This week they offered $$FIRST_NAME$$ a "Year End Summary." Curious, I clicked through, and my dreams were answered. Here are all my purchases, not only in PDF, CSV or XLS, but broken down by category. I am floored! There's even an "interactive" version where you can re-categorize misfiled items, although it appears they did a great job. And they should, it's what they do!

Highs and Lows:

• $2000 in "travel" expenses, broken down into airfare, lodging, and other. "Other," the largest chunk, consists entirely of Subway and Amtrak fares. South By Southwest accommodations and three plane trips account for the balance. It would be nice if they could connect the name on the reservations, in two cases Adriana's, into the spreadsheet since I can't write off her tickets on my taxes.


• $1300 in restaurants - less than I would have guessed, but probably because it's so common to pay with cash in New York.


• $0 automobile related charge, account related charges and late fees.


• $[embarrassingly large number] in "Merchandise," the vast majority of which is mobile phone and server costs that I passed on to clients and co-workers. The rest is video games and books. Why did I make three trips to H&M in July? And Apple - wow. Just, wow. Five trips to Whole Foods: $474. Got to get that under control this year!

we*heart*prints

If you heart art, you'll heart we*heart*prints. Fantastic!

Youth Media Blogs

If you think that there's more to Youth Media online than myspace, you will probably enjoy Tricia's new blog YouMeiTI, humbly defined as "Exploring the nexus of Chinese Youth culture, Media, Technology and Information within a global context."

There's more! My friends at evc just released their long awaited curriculum for teaching documentary. And if you like that, the excellent Youth Media Distribution Toolkit is a still available.