I agree with Julian about the tools not being right.

There was a lot of talking in 2005, before YouTube was launched and then before it was obvious how it was going to take over the world, about tools for online video that would make it easy for the community to grow. I was a big fan of ANT (and then FireANT). It had its limitations, but it was the only tool I knew of that focused on the social aspect of the video, rather than the TV aspect, which is YouTube’s model (although that is gradually changing into something else).

I want the kind of content you’re talking about Clintus – personal, small documentaries about people’s lives. That shit blows my mind. I watch it even when I don’t have time to post myself. There is an audience, but it feels dislocated. Watching normal TV while posting to Twitter feels more social.

I like 12seconds a lot, but I think 12 seconds is too short. Their idea of constraints is good, but the constraint is too tight, as though Twitter only gave you 50 characters – the difference between 3 short sentences and 1.

What kind of tool should we make for people who want to make and watch this kind of material? It’s not YouTube, that’s not what YouTube was ever for. It’s not blip either, I don’t think, or Vimeo, as useful as they are for hosting video. Nor is it Miro – that’s a great video player, but like blip, it’s all about watching “shows”, and that’s not what I’m looking for.

It’s NOT TV!

So I replied with an adhoc idea that could be the solution. Here is my comment:

just a thought i had even if not totally practical.

youtube + gmail

disable youtube comments.
disable video comments
disable ratings
unlist video
allow embedding and syndication

add the youtube link in your email message. the youtube player will be added/embedded as a media attachment after it is sent.

use a google group or not.

if not looking for an audience outside of those who are members of the list/group, then i am hard pressed to see why this approach would not work

@sull

Dee replied:

@sull

I like the idea a lot, but it’s important to me that videos be easily findable. I guess the group would be easy to find, so you could join in, but not really on one-video basis.

Interesting, thanks.

And my response:

indeed, that is important to most. and this can also be accomplished. for example, the RSS/ATOM feed from a google group can be parsed on a page or on many pages by multiple people…. and that would be indexable by search engines. also, a google group can be open to public for reading but not posting and that is also indexable. and of course each user can choose to embed thei videos on their own blog/site as they normally would. i dont think findability would be limited by creating this alternate more intimate community in conjunction with the standard practices of online video publishing.

Dee again replied:

yes, you’ve convinced me. It’s a great idea. In many ways (spam notwithstanding) e-mail is still the killer social media. If I want to make certain I don’t miss something I have it arrive in my inbox.

and on the Videoblogging yahoo Group Thread:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/message/78082

As I said beyond, I think this is a super idea. The more I think about
it, the more I like it. It perfectly answers elbows’s requirement of

“If you want intimacy and certain people creating certain sorts of
video, you
just have to connect with those people, get a little momentum going, and
make a
space which is sheltered enough to let the intimacy flourish.”

> i’ve babbled enought for now.

yeah, go and make your mailing list

I wanted to log this here because it is an interesting discussion – “The Video Blogger is Dead” so check the links I posted here if interested in more context. And the idea I propose, though certainly imperfect, does seem to make sense to me (and Dee and does it show us that the Internet’s ‘original’ technology (email) still serves us best? Sure, I am talking about mixing the old with the new here… and it would not be as fun if the videos were not embedded in the messages as Gmail now does with all youtube links found in the message (by default, no labs plugin needed). But I predict that many email services and client software will catch on (some have already) and certain urls will initiate rich content inside the message interface. So mailing lists, which imo are very intimate especially in comparison to broadcasting networks like Twitter, can be a smart way to have a video sharing community without all the noise and dependency on companies trying to monetize you in every and any way that they can. I know this is not totally pure of that… afterall Youtube embeds can contain ads and Gmail has textual ads. But hey… its a means to an end. Youtube/Gmail/Google will be around forever unlike say… some random person who puts up a forum on their site where you can embed video and then a year later, they decide not to renew the domain or pay for hosting or in general screw things up and the thing crashes too often etc etc. Step up from that are the new tiny startups who wither fail or get aquired and shut down or just start to suck. Email is what it is. It is decentralized. It is pervasive. It is near real-time. And you can output it all as feeds for the web if you wanted to. It is inevitable that media handling, both attachments and inline media links, in web-based and client-based apps will evolve to provide users with the experience they deserve in these modern times that inundate us with rich content. So lets give email video sharing a try. Get a Gmail account if you dont already. I know Facebook is already developing this type of stuff too. Chime in with thoughts and info on other services/products that can handle media in email messages.

Thanks.

Related posts:

1. keeptrackof.it | Google Groups
2. Evolutions & Revolutions: Google Reader (Writer?), Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, rssCloud
3. RSS isn’t Dead… My comment

So this is interesting –

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

http://www.appinventor.org/

No, this will not reduce the need for Android Developers. Yes, this will allow for students, hobbyists and hackers to have fun and learn by creating real working apps for their own Android phone and share it with others too. They may even want or need to go further and delve into writing code too.

I think the time is ripe for a new WYSIWYG Visual Authoring Tool focused on the plethora of Android Devices that are on the market and will become even more pervasive in the coming months. We’ll even see normal computers running Android and expect to hear about Android running on just about everything you can think of. It’s great to see AppInventor being made available to more people now (it’s been developed for ~a year and used at select Universities).

I’ve been involved in discussions about Digital/Transmedia Storytelling and often we talk about HTML5 or the latest (touch screen) mobile devices and how to author more immersive and interactive works that go beyond “flat media” like the simplified default media playback experience that seems forced upon users. AppInventor is probably going to be leveraged as a powerful tool for content creators who have been discouraged by discovering the rigidness of actual application development for Android and Apple. Content creators want smoth authoring tools that are visual and logical without all the hassle. This is exciting news for many who have been eager to create for these new devices. The barrier to entry just dropped significantly. So it seems.

Developing for the mobile web is something I encourage. But that comes with its own set of problems too and it’s not a walk in the park. Ideally, AppInventor would handle both web(html5) and native app export with the proper compromises handled during and after development of the app. This would allow for cross-platform aware deployment. I’d also like to see a WebView Component so the app can wrap in a web page or full site.

I read much of the documentation tonight and though their are some missing pieces that will be missed initally and cause frustrating limitations or at least additional effort to accomplish some goals… I do think that it is fairly comprehensive and most of the bases are covered. As far as I can tell, you can build a sort of FourSquare or Loopt GeoLocation service (with geofencing func), A twitter client, media player, basic “video games” or apps with SMS and other communication utilities integrated (i.e. phone calls, email) and realtime notifications. In fact, when you look at all the built-in functionality and the forthcoming enahncements, it becomes easy to imagine the realization of many many ideas that can come to fruition quite quickly.

Then again, what to do about the spam and more innocent but still crap apps? Let them bloom! Who cares. Most of them will never invade our lives and not be submitted to app markets. For those that do end up in the Android market or other 3rd party app stores… let the reviews do the talking (or lack thereof) and expect Google to fix things up so that what bubbles up wont be the spam and crap apps that have been somewhat of a problem. Their is always going to be a fine line and I do prefer Google’s more hand-off approach to Apple’s elite authoritarian approach. Their needs to be a smart middle ground. But that my friends sounds like another blog post for another day.

So what do others think? I admittedly have not read too many articles (too bust reading the actual documentation). But from scanning, it seems like the consensus is positive but somewhat cautious too. It depends on what angle they approached this at. Since I love and respect Dave Winer, I did catch his post. Totally see his point in referencing the past. And maybe somewhere out there he there were some hyped up articles about AppInventor that made bullshit claims about the end of Android developers and 5 year olds building the next great app etc… Whatever. For those that matter, we know the deal. Dave threw some cold water on any sensationalists. I’m sure he will write again about AppInventor too. For what it’s worth, here is a more positive toned comment I had added over on his blog post:

http://scripting.com/stories/2010/07/12/anEnduserAppDevelopmentToo.html

I think with this type of stuff, you need to think about apps with some hierarchy of complexity. Sure, some apps can never be properly built with drag&drop. But many apps can be built with a predefined subset of functionality, especially when it is for a specific OS for smaller screened devices (Android Phones).

Also, it is 2010. We should expect to have simple tools to do some cool shit on todays popular mobile devices in a native way (not just the mobile web). Their comes a time when what was once laughable (your examples) needs to become a reality. Advancements in tech result in these types of mini-revolutions. Consumers usually are the ones that benefit but when creators can benefit too… it gets interesting and potentially changes everything. Spam notwithstanding, empowering creators (not just app creators but content creators) to efficiently get out their ideas without the clunky workflows, tools and processes associated with native languages and confusing SDKs and IDEs…. it can be remarkable. Think of the content creators too

So why is is more plausible today to have a so-called App Inventor app?

One is the fact that the Internet has evolved and a plethora of simple APIs exist so data in/out is fundamental to how the masses consume and create “data”. Hooking the new breed of mobile computers to this vast machine is essential, obvious and non-complicated. To the point that Drag&Drop GUI can be used to do CRUD and beyond.

Another reason is the small screen and standard set of device hooks that are most commonly used for most types of apps (Not related to 3D Video Games etc). In other words, their is only so much that a Drag&Drop GUI needs to provide to the author in order to empower them to create variations of applications and rich storytelling experiences (not just a video, audio, image but a more immersive navigation for example).

Another thought is something you have talked a lot about Dave. The loosely connected concept…. with focus on RSS + Social Status Clients. Imagine their being several if not hundreds of variations of these types of clients for your Android device that can connect to each other (p2p), suck in RSS feeds, twitter, facebook etc and imagine that if you dont like the apps avilable, you can make your own version of it and connect it to the network. Maybe eventually, that will be possible with ease

Sull

For me, I look forward to playing with AppInventor. I’ve taken the time to learn the process involved for developing on Android and though it is not rocket science by a long shot, it is clunky and not optimal for most people who are not used to the intricacies and annoyances of platform development and the associated IDEs, SDKs and WTFs. I welcome a more visually fun way to do stuff, as long as it works well enough. Hope to try it out soon.

Sull

Related posts:

1. Forget the iTunes LP, Apps are the New Album
2. Gmail, Google Groups and Youtube = Intimate Video Sharing Community?
3. Time to install Titanium and develop som…

Here is the deal. I don’t enjoy using WordPress. I never did. I gave it a chance for 12 this time. Does the job. But rather than explain it, I will just say that it is not for me. And I am moving on.

Vocal.ly may be re-purposed or I may continue to use it for blogging. But I am experimenting again with audio blogging…. voice memos from my mobile phone shared up on vocal.ly. I am using Posterous again. Always have respected that platform. Love posting via email. Built my own Posterous too. Might use that.
Or I may use Vocal.ly for another side project… A sort of Twitter for mainly voice messages and photo support and link sharing. Personal use mainly.

Or not. Might just deal with WordPress and write the occasional blog post.

Whatever happens, this is the post that acts as the official notification…. of something different, possibly. or not.

Stay tuned, always.

@sull

Related posts:

1. inspiration to blog
2. Email is Pervasive
3. wonder what it would be like if i opened…

Now i’m starting to hear about existing and proposed projects that offer allternatives to Facebook.
I’d like to know if their are others… let me know.

http://www.joindiaspora.com/
http://www.collegiatenation.com/

I’m not too interested in getting into anti-Facebook. I don’t really like the service myself and only use it to be in touch with friends who are not active anywhere else online. I manage my privacy and dont care much about what gets exposed…. i’m a twitter user and occasional blogger and mailing public list contributor so no time to hung up on privacy. But I DO like open & distributed systems more than a single company (or two) being the centralized controller of data and terms etc etc. So I support Status.net, WordPress and anything that at least has an option to self-host/multi-host nodes on the web. Its important for the simple sake of the future web…. not to make a billion people happier. Because most will always be happy with FB or the next big MainStream social network that mostly sucks.

Related posts:

1. Evolutions & Revolutions: Google Reader (Writer?), Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, rssCloud
2. When Did Facebook Remove RSS for Friends’ Status Updates? | Stay N’ Alive
3. The Open Web is on Twitter’s Tail

There was once a time… when a group of technologists digitally congregated to discuss current happenings in the industry, they would distribute the content as audio (mp3 etc) and even called it a podcast for a while.
Was that system so broken that today, as an example, the Gillmor Gang has to be distributed as video only on Youtube? First, it is largely useless for the consuming geek not to mention a waste of bandwidth. Bandwidth efficiency funny to you? Sure, it’s easy to waste water so wasting bandwidth is no surprise. Maybe once the axing of “unlimited bandwidth plans” are more a reality… we can chit chat on that one some more.

I enjoy the Gillmor Gang. But it’s not easy to be part of the audience. So when I did finally get around to catching some discourse hosted by the omnipresent (but unpredictable) geek god, I had to laugh when the visual on my screen is this:

Maybe this is intentional… but it amazes me that the Gillmor Gang has no single consistent destination and is scattered all over the web with no cohesion. The only constant is of course, Steve Gillmor. I suspect this is deliberate as a way to keep it organic and like smoke… dispersible. disposable. the Gillmor Gang gathers at will. Their should be an ad-hoc little web service that tracks when a new show is published and alert subscribers AND provide an audio extract of the damn youtube video.

That is all.

Related posts:

1. Gmail, Google Groups and Youtube = Intimate Video Sharing Community?
2. Forget the iTunes LP, Apps are the New Album

Man, its tough being a middle class poor boy. Yeah, I work from home and make a decent salary. My wife owns her own Maternity boutique (2+ years). I make sure not to live in or too close to NYC and chose to stay upstate in Poughkeepsie. I have had only one child who is about to turn 6. I have a new boy due in June. My wife and I are extremely frugal. We have some bad weeks where we eat out way too much etc. But we are very frugal, no doubt.
I am a Technologist. I am 35. That means in my life, I have been both a programmer and manager and business development and marketing and other roles that require solid tech savviness.

And more than not, I am broke.

This frustrates me to no end. I’m talking my entire adult life…. a struggle to survive. As a child, I experienced life as “well off”. Some of it was not real. But much of it was legitimate good old american welloff! Fancy house, cars and so on. In my college years, times were tough. My father lost a lot of money multiple times. First time was on Black Monday. That did not destroy us but certainly brought us down a few notches. And over the next decade, a series of bad investments, bad luck and just stupidity really boiled it down to an ugly goo. During that time, I also became aware of a devastating hidden attack on my existence in society.

I am a victim of Identity Theft. What is worse, and probably more common than I would like to imagine, I was victimized by my own father.

So, I started out my adult life in very deep debt. I cannot begin to explain how this can effect you. Such a struggle to start out in this wild world all fucked up like that. Not even being able to open a simple checking account, for example. And even my marriage, which came some years after initially being confronted with this life obstacle, was deeply burdened as we came to terms with the barriers to entry as a legally bound partnership when one of us is so terribly scarred by unpaid debts and pathetic credit scores and harassments by collection agencies. All thanks to my father. I never got a chance to fuck it up on my own.

We declared bankruptcy. I made my mother cover the legal fees. I no longer spoke to my father but the word was that he disagreed with that. Asshole. Eventually, we got normalized. Actually had decent credit scores and the whole lot. Bought a house. Sold it less than 2 years later. Made $50k. Bought another house. Try to keep credit card usage under control and always keep up with payments. You know the drill. We are living the American Dream. Ha!

So, it has been a tough road. But others have had it much worse than I. I know that. I also know and am witness to so many who have it so better than I do. Friends who inherit money and careers and assets or who inevitably will at some point in the future. They surround me. Sometimes it bothers me but mostly its just a contrast I can refer to in order to stay in tune with my own situation. Good for them. Good for you.

Of course, I also am a struggling thirty-something who has to deal with economic and government turmoil. What some call a recession and others call a depression and still others just call it fucked up. It is fucked up.
I am a technologist…. getting older but still young minded. But am surrounded by an ocean of others in my field. And every month for the last 4 years I face the possibility of my current employment ending. And now, a few months before my second child arrives, I feel that ending approaching more than ever. Not so lovely. As I will quickly fall behind and eventually lose my home if I don’t rebound swiftly. Granted, historically, I am a quick rebounder. But those were different times. And their are opportunities out there. But many just not fitting for who I am today nor paying what I deserve nor located where I want to or have to be. That filters it down quite a bit. And the outlook becomes dark. And career changing starts to bleed into my thoughts. And how funny that is to me.

A few days ago, I got dinged for $130 in overdraft fees because my checking account was drained. That slowly but surely caused a heated argument in my home… venting frustration. The usual slinging of bullshit.
Today, i got a little buffer in the form of selling a domain name that i’ve held onto since 2006. Turns out it was worth it. And now I have some breathing room. And that’s how it plays out around here.

Sull

Related posts:

1. RSS, Twitter, People, Power And The Negligent Tech Bloggers
2. Health Insurance Company Scamming Me
3. i died, sort of.

GeoLocation-Based Services, Media, Games…. They are buzzing this year.
We mainly hear about Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp and Loopt as leading the pack of dozens of other similar services/apps floating around. I’m not really interested in talking about what they are exactly…. I mean…. they are social networks. Some are persistent and some are disposable. But they all are GeoAware at the core. The idea is to reward people for going to places (check ins) and to observe the activity of other people so that you can meet-up IRL or passively socialize or benefit from reviews and tips. Shit like that. Most include obvious gaming mechanics to make it more fun and so that an incentive platform exists for businesses to tap into. You get points, badges, rewards which translates to special offers based on your achievements. Ok, I said I didn’t want to define them here but there you go…. that’s at least the gist of what most are doing today.

As a user, I initially pointed out that these services were not interesting to me and did’nt provide enough fun to keep me engaged. Granted, I work from home about an hour north of NYC so I’m not the target audience. But when I am in the city or out and about… I’ve found the imperfections in these services to cause the necessary simplicity to be lacking. For instance, I am at a place but the GeoDetection thinks I am a few hundered meters away and cannot check in…. or I can check in manually but might need to create the place first. And then once I do check in, I get my points/badges but am left with wondering why I just bothered. Granted, it’s very dependent on the place in order to have good metadata and user activity/input to view… And many of these services just don’t have a large userbase, especially outside of big cities. I get that… Like I said, its targeted towards the early adopting urban geeksters. That includes your everday teens and twenty-somthings as well as older tech-minded conference-attending social-media folk. So where’s this going? Here’s what Silicon Valley Insider Dave McClure thinks:

Without financial incentives or discounts, there is absolutely no reason on god’s green earth to “check-in” for your stoner cousin, your luddite penny-pinching aunt, and certainly not your clueless grandmother. they could give a rat’s ass about your stupid little iPhone app with the pretty pictures and clever auto-discovery that barely works while draining the hell out of the battery… that is, until you give them $5 off their next beer or 5-dollar foot long…. at which point guess what?

HELLO, MAINSTREAM CONSUMER MARKET!
via http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2010/04/checkins-are-coupons.html

Sure, we can rocket launch the core issue of sustainability and monetizable questions and stack it up against the Mega Corporations. Let’s face it, today it’s not easy being the next big thing when so many markets are being covered by just a few monster companies… and ultimately, you get bought out or burned out. So are these LBS’s paving the way for Facebook and Twitter and Google and Apple to get in and do Location right or do they have the right kind of momentum behind them now, making deals on Main St. and connecting with users in fresh new ways that maybe the big guys don’t know how to do anymore with their spunk-diluted feature-bloated services?

Whatev.

We can speculate all day. But let’s bring it down a notch. Fuck Location Wars. Yeah I know, Foursquare and Co get assimilated and/or die. Location features are commodities anyway. It will all be pervasive. Everything from web pages you’re on to email messages you send to the places you walk by or shop at or eat at…. “Share Location?” “Save this choice?” I suppose I’m getting into Ubiquitous Computing and Context-Aware Pervasive Systems, GeoFencing and so on. But their is absolutely no denying the fact that things are heading this way…. Location is such a core component of the future of our connected culture. Pervasive! And it’s not so boring to think about once you get past the cute little check in apps with delightful badges and the ability to be considered a Mayor of a place. Booyah!

Personally, I have been having fun researching GeoLocation Technology and how I can apply it to my own ideas in gaming and the socialsphere. Even if I personally wouldnt play a game I conjure up…. it’s great fun to scheme and so many new services with friendly developer APIs make building prototypes feasible and inviting innovation. So as a creative developer, I have to admit that I am sold and want to play in this sandbox. I suppose a more realistic discussion on Location Wars is not to consider what the Behemoths are going to do but instead to look at what Zynga is doing and the success of casual social games like Farmville that leverage FaceBook, Twitter etc to reach the largest audiences.
My point is, their are a lot of opportunities in Location-Based Services that blend gaming, marketing, socializing and consumerism. And their will not be any exclusivity among businesses… platforms will/do exist to integrate “offers” into your service/app/game just like any other advertisement.

To end this rant…. Yeah, “Check In” has been at the heart of the hype. But soon, you’ll be able to “Check Out” a lot more!

Related posts:

1. feedburner was an appropriate name
2. content packaging tech explosion — Lucas Gonze’s blog
3. RSS, Twitter, People, Power And The Negligent Tech Bloggers

We’ve spent hours on phone to deal with this mysterious administration error with bank proof etcetera. I wish I could honestly say that this is unbelievable. But I have heard these stories before.

Not only that, but the legitimate expenses I owe are way more than I ever imagined. Ambulance not covered ($1600). Hospital Admission not covered ($500) and several copay costs for all the various tests they wanted to do on me. We’re looking at nearly $3,000 that is not covered and we pay $550 a month for health insurance since the small startup company I work for does not provide benefits (after almost 4 years but thats another story).

Middle Class America is so fucked!

Related posts:

1. Twitter Tools for WordPress

http://www.salmon-protocol.org/salmon-protocol-summary

Related posts:

1. Google Reader + CommentAPI
2. A Good Day for RSS and the Open Web
3. “The Atom Publishing Protocol is a failure” by Joe Gregorio

Well…. of all the requests I have received to edit my wiki page on crowdfunding (http://crowdfunding.pbworks.com/), this one has me confused as to how to respond.
Suggestions?

Related posts:

1. A Million High Fives — Soap Box Included

it should be obvious why 140 is the limit but the real question is why is it STILL the limit for ALL tweets? A magority of twitter users are using computers and either the website or a client app to tweet…. or if a mobile device, more and more are using phones with data plans that are able to do email and transfer files and browse the web etc etc. Within 2 years, most people with have “smart phones” and SMS will not be used for social messaging. Though SMS will always have a place and be useful, it certainly is not and will not be the sole technology for social messaging. That time has come and passed.

So though Winer may have phrased things awkwardly, the question is valid. Why limit people to 140 characters today? Why not have a logical interface that once 140 characters is reached, a little note appears that sais the message is no longer SMS compatible, do you want to continue? That’s literally all that is needed to appease all users. Most dont know what SMS is or care about it when they are using Twitter. It is 2010, not 2006.

With that said, maybe their still is some intrinsic value in the limitation. For a while I enjoyed it myself. Of late, the novelty has worn off. When i have more to say, i dont want to feel like i am nosiy or spammy by having several successive tweets to finish my thinking. I need to go long sometimes. Why can’t i just do it in one post using just Twitter? I think the time has come to examine the limitation and I think Twitter will eventually follow Facebook and Buzz etc by allowing larger posts and having SMS compatible posts as an optional feature that is seamlessly integrated into the user experience.

@sull

Related posts:

1. RSS, Twitter, People, Power And The Negligent Tech Bloggers
2. RSS isn’t Dead… My comment
3. Twitter and the Case for Web Hooks « John Herren’s Blog

The target audience were obviously Artists. The nice thing about the word Artist is that it can blanket a range of people who involved themselves in the culture of creatives. Whether you make clothes or websites… This was intended to be a juxtaposed community that would eventually, if success and logic were clear, expand to more cities around NY and beyond.

Their was organized structure with intention for official Collaborative Projects that would financially assist both the community and the AJ Project as a whole. Performances, Films, Merchandise etc…

And the Web would allow for community cohesiveness where so much content and media assets and profiles and resources and project collaboration tools would be available. Remember, this was 10 years ago. Though it would not have been the first online collaborative space, it was certainly a time of early and innovative thinking and experiments where many software solutions were coming out of University Labs and not startup companies. A time when blogs were unknown and the web was more saturated with Message Boards or sloppy web sites (GeoCity etc).

It was very ambitious and forward thinking and required deep dedication of a core team with excellent people skills in order to get the momentum it needed to have success that would make it possible to complete the early phases. This core team was very difficult to form. I ended up trying to solely do too much and unable to influence local businesses to share their space as part of my lofty concepts.

Over the years, I used the domain artistjoint.com for related purposes and made a second attempt sometime in 2003-2004 period. But mostly, nadda.

And today I received a reminder to renew the domain, 10 years after I registered it. That sparked this blog post:

And also i stumbled upon a noteworthy thread in Google Buzz today:

http://www.google.com/buzz/ericrice/dmcby6qYSTy/Empty-but-for-sale

This comment stood out as it closely resembled the thinking of The Artist Joint as local active and vacant theatres were the main target for acquiring/sharing space:

History aside, today I am still very interested in the future of IRL Spaces that cater to not just consumers of media but to creators of all kind to intermix and commingle and collaborate…. and casually drink and eat and relax… and showcase and perform and speak and influence and teach and cowork. Multifunctional spaces that can be leveraged for income and are not
“fixed” in appearance and layout…. but that can be useful to rent out for conferences and various events as needed. Even a place to rent Media Rooms where you can watch the big game with friends without taking over your living room to your wife’s displeasure

It’s an interesting discussion, still.

Related posts:

1. Gmail, Google Groups and Youtube = Intimate Video Sharing Community?
2. keeptrackof.it | Google Groups
3. RSS isn’t Dead… My comment

iTunes sucks but I do like Genius feature. Their should be a way to share your Genius Playlists. Since their is not… I screenshot it and shared it here

Related posts:

1. Motorola Calgary live photos: Verizon’s second Motorola Android device : Boy Genius Report
2. Apple iTunes LP and iTunes Extras for Developers
3. Some Notes On iTunes LP · Jay Robinson

I have had powerful self-induced experiences in my life. But this natural blackout… which comes down to a lack of oxygen to the brain… this direct effect that amounted to me losing a gap of my life, even if only a short gap…. it seems to have had the deepest impact even compared to extremely powerful chemical reactions that my brain has experienced in the past. To lose time and have no memories makes me feel violated. No control. Vulnerable. Powerless. And the persistent thought that when its over, its over. Shutting off a light. Circuit closed.

Now going into this, I was not a believer in anything in particular about what happens after we die. I am not religious at all. I don’t even put much time into thinking about Atheism or Agnostic tendencies. I dont need those labels either. Based on my time here and willingness to experiment over the years, I’ve tended to think that their is a vast pool of energy and that it is possible to become a part of that pool when we die. But that too can be the same as what we perceive as a dark and lonely nothingness. If we don’t carry with us any bit of our consciousness and memories and emotions, then energy or not… it does not seem to be anything to get excited about.

Being at peace with such realizations is our best chance. Being fulfilled with your life, everyday.

So, I am 35 and though something serious happened to me, it appears I am mostly healthy. I will be seeing additional doctors to continue observation and testing. Whether or not what happened to me is classified up there with more life threatening health issues, the experience as a whole is still something that forces me to reflect about the stuff that confuses, amazes and haunts us all until our end.

No related posts.

This and many more points are what makes blogging difficult to commit to. With that said, it’s also OK to take breaks and come back with fresh ideas.

This post is essentially me logging in upgrade WordPress and several plugins and deal with spam comments etcetera.
So I might as well post something, right? The question is…. what will I post next?

Related posts:

1. Time to move on yet again
2. thinking about what my next (macro)blog …
3. I’ve been increasingly using this blog …

Related posts:

1. Apple Storms Hollywood «The TNL.net weblog
2. Some Notes On iTunes LP · Jay Robinson
3. Forget the iTunes LP, Apps are the New Album

Related posts:

1. HTC Dragon Pics?
2. Android 2.0 screenshot walkthrough : Boy Genius Report
3. App Inventor – Visual Authoring Tool for Native Google Android Apps

Related posts:

1. GillmorGang2009.09.10.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)
2. Mac OS X Automation: Services
3. Twitter and Facebook Investment Terms and Game Plans – ReadWriteStart

Related posts:

1. YouTube – Nokia N900 demo of Pixelpipe
2. Nokia N900 preview – My-Symbian.com
3. Verizon Youtube Channel – Droid Demo

This ending was not just an easter egg for the obsessive reader who didn’t mind skimming every page looking for telltale words. Instead it’s hard to miss in even a casual riffling. A two-page illustration showing what could only be paradise (or perhaps a theme park) leaps out as the only spread in the book without any text. Flipping to the page before brings you to 101, where you discover that your curiosity has been rewarded. You have found the planet, not by following the constraints of the system, but by going outside of them – a fitting moral to the story and an encouraging reminder that any game should be a starting point for the imagination, not the end.

Related posts:

1. MAFF day — Lucas Gonze’s blog
2. Jason Shiga Describes His Newest Book Meanwhile

Related posts:

1. YOURLS widget released | FoOlRulez
2. mlug2009.mov (video/quicktime Object)
3. Domain Mapping » WordPress MU plugin

http://www.nikonfestival.com/

Related posts:

1. “RateItAll Now Lets You Submit Reviews …

Related posts:

1. Twitter’s New ‘Lists’ Feature Finally Introduces Grouping, Offers An Alternative To The SUL
2. On Language – Avatar – NYTimes.com
3. The Quest Continues for a Tablet PC – NYTimes.com

Related posts:

1. Motorola Droid mailers go out, scare children : Boy Genius Report
2. Motorola Droid Unboxing/Preview Video – Leakdroid
3. What makes a video ad viral? iDon’t. Droid Does.