I love visualizations. Wordle makes “word clouds” out of passages or collections of text. These don’t necessarily communicate a lot of meaning, but I am fascinated by the ability of the algorithms to create beauty - the arrangements look, well, designed, regardless of input or typeface. There’s some good visual rules at play here.
Here’s my del.icio.us tags (a good way to see what I think is interesting online):
Also: The book of Ephesians.
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There’s a lot going on, for what I thought would be a quiet week. No time for separate posts, so here’s a quick list:
I got the opportunity to meet with Dan Merchant, the Portland-based filmmaker behind the new film, "Lord, Save Us From Your Followers!" He gave me some free tickets, and I'm hoping to bring our PUMP Summer interns along for a great event. It's showing at the Hollywood theater through the 18th if you want to catch it.
Andrew has done festivals recently in Cairo, Jamaica, and just the week before in Bucharest, Romania. Today he's in Myrtle Beach, S.C. for Beachfest, and there's lots going on. More later - gotta get out into the sunshine!
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I’ve been… extremely physically lazy this Winter (is it Summer already? Where does the time go...). I’m trying to get back into the pattern of regular exercise. My knee was, yes, hurting, but I’ve let discipline falter when it comes to maintaining the temple. I’ve put on a couple of pounds that are not muscle - up to 180 from my usual 170-175. The hardest part for me has been planning and logistics - getting up early to work out or plan my ride and the like.
I played b-ball yesterday at the park; my legs and knee did ok, but boy, my lungs were killin’ me (Oh, and we went swimming afterward, so we were all pretty beat by the end of the day). I barely lost at crunch 21-20 (botched the last free throw), so it wasn’t a total loss. Connor has discovered basketball, and is pretty good at sinking the layups on the 7-footer in PUMP’s backyard. His nearly limitless energy and ball-affinity is perfect for this game. I’m trying to help him come to terms with the fact that not every shot is going to go in. I used my last game as a teaching point: Daddy lost (one point!), but did his best, and still had a great time! What should I do? I should practice and get better at basketball. He gets so frustrated when he misses, or his shooting partner pulls ahead in baskets. A great lesson we can all work on, no doubt.
Since it’s Father’s Day weekend, have a look at some more lessons from our dads over at Art of Manliness.
Speaking of manly arts, I’d really love to get into some kickboxing or MMA workouts - ones that won’t leave me with a broken nose or too much mockery. Suggestions?
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The geek world waits with bated breath for the latest iBling from Teh Steve. So far: iPhone 2.0 updates - not out until July =(; games, games, games!
Following the WWDC livepage over at Macworld.
I so don’t have time for this today, but it’s a big deal for my work world.
Updated: Apple iPhone web page, new ad trailer for iPhone. Big news, for me: only $199 for an 8GB, $299 for a 16. That’s very affordable for what you get. Anyone want to buy a solid 1.0 iPhone?
This is old news, but clearing out the feed-reader means finding some forgotten gems. Robert Hodgin of Flight404 fame coded a “beauty engine” (my term) by visualizing a Radiohead track. The entire video is generated by code, with no post processing.
You can watch the low-res video, but after looking at the full-res video there’s just no comparison. Details - and there are many - emerge with the larger video that just got muddied to oblivion with the small vid.
He originally wasn’t going to enter it into the Radiohead video contest, but fans convinced him to try. He says this of his work:
Firstly, its got some mad crazy super duper beat detection going on. I reused the application I wrote to make the Goldfrapp piece but went a few steps further. I manually input each bass beat, snare, highhat, and arpeggio note, not to mention all the vocals and syllable breaks. Crazy! It took about 6 hours but I think it was the right way to do it. I would have wasted much more time than that had I chosen to do the beat detection algorithmically. But man, scrubbing through that track, over and over, marking every note… it was a carpal pain.
Readers will note I’m a huge fan of his work. I’m just fascinated when I watch music being visualized in real-time - like watching painting and music making each other, or at least synthesizing something that didn’t exist before. This is light-years beyond most music visualizers. I’m very interested in the concept of building a system - the creativity is on the front-end, and the system is sort of… unleashed on the music. In this instance, he’s manually mapping tones and beats for the software to pick up on, but the potential exists for realtime input or music analysis to fill in that gap.
Create Digital Motion is always good for some inspirational approaches and good ‘ol DIY video hacks. I’m wanting to learn Quartz Composer - a dynamic video tech that Apple makes - and plug it into ProPresenter for some realtime audio-driven animation under lyrics for worship and other gigs.
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Click through to see some photos from our Spring evening.
@Lindsey: this definitely falls in the neat-o category, sorry about that. “Write what you know” - ok, I know about tech. “Write what makes you angry!” (Po Bronson), well, maybe the next post. Just a few politics-free digital pork-puffs for the afternoon. Oh, and pretty pictures!
Ah, the tag cloud. Only mostly useless, it does tell me I talk to Big Mike Lewis and of course, KristiCW.
Speaking of mostly useless, that’s what Twitter is when it’s not working. I do love their cool pix about it, though:
I really like Twitter for microblogging - quick posts that show up in my blog. It’s also great for keeping up with friends and family - enhancing real-world relationships - and I can do it from my phone. It can increase blog traffic by referring this now-additional community to your blog. Since I’ve fallen to number two in search results for my name, I better get on top of that. Update: that search put me over the top! Thank goodness.
I also like the constraints - constraints are good for you. I may try my hand at short poems on Twitter (Pwoettry?), that might be fun.
There’s been a lot of chat about Twitter and its value, the flames of which have been fanned recently by its white-hot growth in popularity. I’ve heard from lots of bigwigs asking whether they should try it; the answer is usually, “it’s hard to explain - yeah, try it. You can use it in more than one way”.
On top of all this comes frequent downtime from too much traffic. It was, at its heart, a one-day experiment in keeping people updated via SMS; it’s morphed into a community and messaging system. Lots of armchair developers are weighing in with their ideas on how to “scale”, but the fact is that this ”problem space” hasn’t really been explored before. It’s a unique beast, with many new challenges.
While the outages are disappointing, I think I’ll stick around. These technical issues will be solved with time. Whether Twitter can come up with a revenue model that works - ensuring their survival - is another chapter that hasn’t been written yet.
Excerpted from Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, via Presentation Zen.
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Spring is here - more like Summer, actually, with temps yesterday in the upper 90’s. To escape the heat, we headed up to Forest Park for some creek hiking.
The previous day, we went hiking up on Mount Tabor, where - to our delight - there was a pro bike race! Wonderful.
Today is a bit cooler. Trinity got up at 6 a.m. this morning to be my assistant on a video shoot in Vancouver. We were covering a cleanup event there for Portland CityFest. A beautiful morning. Enjoying being outside — I feel like I’ve been in a cave for a long Winter.
]]>I’ve played it fairly safe on my blog. I stick to topics that are invariably ”neat-o”, work-related (e.g. geeky & esoteric to all but a few), and a few vague spiritual toe-dippings. I really detest the heated ranting of much of the blogosphere, when it comes to politics and religion.
Yet, I’m finding… I have many thoughts and opinions that are ready to emerge from the chrysalis. I should probably journal, and keep it to myself; such would be the prudent thing. This is one lesson I’ve learned from Luis Palau, who has written many books and preached personally to millions, and has deftly avoided overt political controversy.
I haven’t learned that lesson yet. I’ve called this post a letter because I want to invoke the spirit of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, founding brothers who vehemently disagreed with each other on many topics - no small issue, the fate of the Republic - expressed in long letters back and forth over the years. Their friendships were rent and patched many times over, and were never severed completely. Their lifelong friendship defined America.
It is in that spirit that I write.
I can see how this can grow long (I have nothing on our founders’ letters), so I’ll keep it to a narrow topic, which is this: I have friends, people I love, family even, who hold differing political beliefs. So what? Who doesn’t?
Here’s what’s eating at me, when polite conversation turns to politics: some of you, particularly on the Right, seem to surround yourselves with a steady stream of extremist political preaching online, in print, and on TV. There seems to be no diversity of opinions informing your own. It’s like reading a press release from the Far Right Press, cranking out firebrand tracts by the millions. The headphones are on, and it’s only on one channel.
But sensible conservative discourse has vanished. Fox, Rush, talk radio, and the far-right blogosphere have squeezed out every drop of logic and common sense from once reasonable positions.
I try to imagine a perfect world in the minds of the far-right wing prophets you read and surround yourself with:
It’s one without dissent; that mercilessly crushes anyone that stands in our way; where swift, violent justice is more important than mercy. A nation where any voices that disagree must be evil, or insane. Conspiracies lurk behind every corner, working to undo the perfect work of the righteous Right. An earthly theocracy, ruling with an iron fist. Science is viewed not as a tool, but with the suspicion of witchcraft. Immigrants are leeches, useful only for slave labor, imprisonment, or deportation. Diplomacy is weakness; only war unending against unseen enemies is acceptable. America above all else, no matter the human cost. Torture? A tool of the state. Fear reigns - and keeps people in line.
Sound like the 1950s, or like 1984? It’s now. It’s what I hear you saying, with every political post you write.
There’s no anger like that of a jilted lover. I grew up on military bases, basking in the glow of the Reagan military build-up. I voted for Bush, not once, but twice (I couldn’t stomach Kerry, and didn’t comprehend the full ignominy of the current administration). Formerly a third-generation Republican, I changed my affiliation to Independent, so I could vote free of party baggage on issues and individual character.
I’m no Liberal Leftie, either. Much stinks about the traditional positions of the Democratic Party. They’re both dirty, as far as I can tell. Here’s an example of how I feel when trying to choose a party: Which is worse - killing thousands of innocents in an unjust war, or embracing personal rights over the precious lives of the unborn? Who can say which is more evil? It’s like a gunman holding my family hostage and asking me to choose which child should die first. Both parties hold positions that I detest. The statement, “I can’t see how someone can be a [insert party] and call themselves a Christian” is fallacious to the core.
It’s always been this way in our country - Federalists and Whigs, states-rights vs. federalism - we’re divided at birth. We’ve found new topics to disagree on. At least, a two-party system is stable - take a look at any multiparty democracy and see how long coalition governments last.
This, I can deal with. I can accept that politics are dirty, and still participate. Churchill said, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government – except all the others that have been tried”.
I can even accept that I’m wrong: persuade me, show me, teach me. I’m still figuring out my positions on things. But please, use valid examples, not just the ones from your fringe extremists. Go a whole month without writing a single logical fallacy - learn ‘em, tape them to your monitor. Read not only opinions from the Right, but also from the Left. Listen to those who disagree with you, and treat them with respect, no matter what. Back up positions with reason and rationale, instead of base personal attacks and guilt by association. Use the scientific method where applicable; pray to the Lord Almighty where science and reason ends and faith begins.
I want real, honest discourse, like I had with my old friend Tony the other night, who I’m sure disagrees with me in most things political. But he listened respectfully. He challenges me without attacking me, and doesn’t plug his ears when he doesn’t like what I say.
It’s late; I gotta sleep; I’m sure to invite some strong words with my flame-bait here. But if you do start your flamethrowers, bring also Reason, Respect, and Logic. I’ll listen if you will. And remember: I love you anyway. This is just politics, it’s not eternal, so keep it in perspective.
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For some reason, I’ve been thinking about putting on a block party on my street this Summer. I’ve never done one, but a few recent conversations I’ve heard about neighbors and community got me thinking about it. I’d love to get to know my neighbors, increase neighborhood cohesion, and use it as a tool for evangelism.
We could just do it through PUMP, but I want to meet 6th Avenue more than 8th. Both would be great, but I visualize starting here.
A few ideas: Bring in Little Mike (huge & friendly guy, lives nearby) for barbecue; ask various neighbors personally about the idea; get Good Neighbor Pizza to participate; get various music from people and DJ it for a little bit of everything. I debate closing off the street - would I need to talk to the city or police about that?
Have you ever put one on? What worked, and what didn’t? Did it have any effect on the neighborhood? Was it worth the effort?
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It’s hard to find good news these days. ONN reports: “Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film” Click through for the video report.
Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film
My wife has been an excellent and dedicated blogger for several years now. Her skills have grown, as have her audience. We both agree that it’s time to take it to the next level - a custom blog at a domain of her own.
I have some ideas, but I wanted to put it to you.
Update: Some great feedback in the thread - probably the most-commented post yet. Some more questions: what about photography? Should that be front-and-center, or “below the fold” and out of the way?
This has become a hybrid discussion of my site and Kristi’s potential site. Which is okay - just interesting! Thanks for the feedback!
What kind of features would you like to see? Examples might be, “a list of the latest comments”; “a link list of sites you read”; “more photos”; “more on topic x or y”; “easier search and getting to archived posts”; or, “more RSS feeds, like comments and stuff”. I’ll start: “an iPhone-compatible version!”. The content is really up to her - I’m trying to figure out a feature set. I can build pretty much anything with Expression Engine.
One thing I’m looking at is how to roll together these disparate “content pools”: Flickr photos, del.icio.us links, conversations and Twitter posts into one main page.
Another way to put this: what sites do you really like? Any world-class blogs you like? What web trends are hot?
You Blogger.com people: would you post on a blog, if it’s not a Blogger.com blog? My goal is to make it as easy as possible, but I get relatively few comments on my blog. I’ve never discovered whether it’s that people aren’t interested in what I’m writing about, or if it’s confusing or difficult to add posts. Mine’s more work-oriented; Kristi’s all about human interest and keeping up with friends & family.
]]>Metadata (data about data) I know - in my profession, it means information about how an image was shot. I guess “MeatData” is important when one wants to see if the steak is still worth grilling.
From Cineform, the makers of the fine Cineform RAW codec for video editing:
There’s nothing like Active MeatData! Sounds tasty. Don’t you love mocking others’ mistakes? Related T-shirt. Metadata is murder!
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