Archive for 2009
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[ 3 Comments ]Posted on March 16, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Monday, March 16th, 2009Four cool apps for graphically viewing your Facebook network
I’ve been fascinated with the visual mapping of networks of people ever since I ran across TheyRule.net in 2003. TheyRule is, on the surface, a fun, Flash-based way to see how the powerful and wealthy in America are connected. In their words, TheyRule “aims to provide a glimpse of some of the relationships of the US ruling class. It takes as its focus the boards of some of the most powerful U.S. companies, which share many of the same directors“. This kind of information mapping has come a long way since then (we’ve touched on Fleshmaps, Heatmaps, and Tag-clouds here before), to the extent that if you have a Facebook account, with the click of a button you can activate a variety of visual tools for sorting and viewing your network of friends. Visualiser, for instance, allows you to see how your contacts are connected to each other, and do filtering based on things like sex or relationship status. Facebook Mutual Friend Network Visualization seems to offer fewer sorting tools, but has a simple and attractive interface that shows friends as nodes that you can click on to change the focus of the network. FavMapper lets you explore a map of your friends’ favorite music, movies, and books with interactive animation, and lastly, TouchGraph Facebook Browser displays similar connections from your Facebook account, but does it based on the photos that friends have shared in their accounts.
Same Oldbama?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on March 15, 2009 by admin in Politics
Sunday, March 15th, 2009Is Obama The Next Jimmy Carter?
On occasion recently I’ve missed the simple message of terror and paranoia served up on a regular basis by the Bush administration. At least you felt like you knew where things stood. Although I got a definite kick out of the Democratic Party’s brief dalliance with making Rush Limbaugh the new GOP leader, it ultimately just smacks of politics as usual, and as a friend of mine pointed out yesterday, a candidate isn’t likely to get elected in this country unless they’re playing pretty nice with the existing (and frankly corrupt) Washington bureaucracy. All of which leaves me a little disillusioned; although my gut tells me that Barack Obama is a good man with good intentions, can those good intentions survive in the cesspool that is our nation’s capitol (and guidance from a guy like Rahm Emanuel who offers parenting advice like this), or will Obama end up being another Jimmy Carter?
Is The Wall Street Journal Relevant?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 14, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Saturday, March 14th, 2009I ran across the opinion piece Is Rand Relevant? yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, expecting something like an exploration of the question. Instead I got an Ayn Rand Institute marketing piece written by their shill, Yaron Brook (who’s also president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute). At the end of the Journal [...]
I ran across the opinion piece Is Rand Relevant? yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, expecting something like an exploration of the question. Instead I got an Ayn Rand Institute marketing piece written by their shill, Yaron Brook (who’s also president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute). At the end of the Journal piece, there’s an invitation to “Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum”. They then offer the opportunity to comment, letting you know that your comment will be reviewed by WSJ editors. Frankly, one may as well send a physical letter, given such an option. Combined with last week’s lambasting of Jim Kramer on the Daily Show, I got a fresh reminder of why corporate media is dying a slow death right now; more than ever it has become a marketing tool for special interests, and at a time when we have more access than ever to diverse sources of information. A year or two ago, I would’ve wanted to rant; now it just seems par for the course…
Kutiman Remixes YouTube
[ 6 Comments ]Posted on March 13, 2009 by admin in Music
Friday, March 13th, 2009Israeli remix artist Kutiman takes worst of YouTube and creates the best of mashups
I secretly hold dear a belief that there’s an incredible harmony at the core of the chaos that is contemporary user-generated media. Well, an Israeli artist named Kutiman proves it with his project ThruYOU. You know all those misanthropic, socially awkward musician types you might find playing music in videos on YouTube, as if they were stars in some imaginary band? Well, even they didn’t realize it, but they WERE. Kutiman did something absolutely INCREDIBLE – and I can only imagine to be mind-numbingly tedious – by sorting through an amazingly diverse collection of YouTube tutorial and demo clips, and then assembling them into mashups and grooves that are in my opinion imminently listenable. I hope this guy gets some kind of distribution deal or financial reward for this stuff. One of my faves, I M New, is featured here. The easiest way to watch them in order is at ThruYOU, but he also of course has a YouTube page. He seems like a very cool and mellow guy; just check out his version of an “about” page. He also apparently does original work; see his MySpace page. Kind of cool dubby jazzy funky grooves, but I personally think his gift is with the mashup. Read the rest of this entry »
Real Tiny Cities, Tiny Real Cities
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 12, 2009 by admin in Popular Media
Thursday, March 12th, 2009Fun with miniatures and tilt shift photography.
You may have heard of tilt-shift photography before, or at least seen examples of it. What is our fascination with tiny things? While some people spend all their time making tiny cities that are remarkably realistic, others spend all their time making real cities look unrealistic. That first link is the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg Germany, the second is an actual photo of London manipulated to look like a miniature. The best examples of this kind of work use actual optics to achieve the effect, but if you want to try your hand at it without the investment, there are plenty of tilt-shift Photoshop tutorials , and now there’s even an iPhone app. The online tool at TiltShiftMaker.com will also let you upload your own photos and add the effect. Tilt shift can be even more fun with video; the clip at left is from Sydney Australia’s Mardi Gras 2009. It was created by Sydney-based photographer Keith Loutit, who has more clips on Vimeo. One of my favorites is Helpless, in which Greenpeace activists and sand sculptors build a 17-metre sculpture of a fin whale on Sydney’s Bondi Beach to send a message to the Japanese Government in protest of its controversial whaling program. For more still image examples see this collection at Smashing Magazine .