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A "real-life" Star Trek Enterprise that almost was

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:08:11 -0600

A "real-life" Star Trek Enterprise that almost was:

No matter how good the pitch, no matter how much support you’ve garnered, sometimes it all comes down to one person who just doesn’t get it.

Reality show "The Pitch" too real?

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:35:02 -0600

Reality show "The Pitch" too real?:

Is it just because I’m in the business, or is this reality show trailer for AMC’s “The Pitch” less than interesting? It looks like the marketing work I do every day. No doubt I’ll watch it, mostly to see how Hive (Toronto) operates.

laphamsquarterly: “I am very cold” “The parchment is very...

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 23:32:38 -0600

laphamsquarterly:

“I am very cold”

“The parchment is very hairy.”

“Oh, my hand.”

—Notes from medieval monks and scribes in the margins of their work

Our latest issue “Means of Communication” is now online. Take a break from the scriptorium to check it out!

On of the favourites that I’ve found was on a morsel of Chretien de Troyes’ Yvain (was it in Poitiers?) alongside a long and dreary passage that simply read, “Oh, God, I am so very, very bored.” I could empathize with the poor monk.

However, on another scrap alongside a litany of Plantagenet lineage, I found a mostly complete recipe using mead base, herbs and “thrice burnt wine” which I later made. It was costly but delicious. (12 pounds of unpasteurised honey yielded only a few bottles in the end.) This one was pointed out with a certain glee by a librarian who sought to inform me that not all monks were so single minded in their daily endeavours.

"The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you until..."

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:44:22 -0600

“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you until they know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”

- William Bernbach, creative advertising guru (quoted in Hey, Whipple!)

Attempting to learn Danny Boy on banjo, so I Googled a few...

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:12:01 -0600

Attempting to learn Danny Boy on banjo, so I Googled a few performances. This is by far my favourite.

You’ve done this. You know you have. (Very clever.)

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:56:31 -0700

You’ve done this. You know you have. (Very clever.)

HBR's Top Blog Posts for 2011

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:39:05 -0700

HBR's Top Blog Posts for 2011:

Great stuff at the Harvard Business Review blog, as usual. For bonus points, don’t forget to subscribe to their amazing IdeaCast podcast.

Playing with iOS5, Lion and iCloud

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 23:45:05 -0600

Upgraded both my iPhone and my iPad2 to iOS5 yesterday, and my MacBook Pro to Lion. Aside from the infuriating reverse-direction scrolling in Lion (push up to go down and vice-versa — I’m too hardwired), I have to admit that I like the whole experience. I’m assuming that I’ll have to await more iOS apps’ use of the notification system —the only thing appearing there so far with mine is Apple Mail— but it’s a far cry better than the pop-up alerts from before. (Tap tap tap tap —what was that? Oh, dammit — tap tap tap….)

Not fond of the app switching yet in iOS5, although it’s still better than iOS4: use all the fingers of your hand to swipe the app “off” one side or the other. It reminds me of a poor man’s webOS card system, the biggest differences being that you don’t actually flip between all the cards in a nice visual manner, and there’s no stacking of related/conjoined cards in a deck (e.g., the PDF viewer that you called up from the email app). Better than Android Gingerbread’s standard icon-based view, but nowhere near as nice as Honeycomb’s thumbnail views. Plus, I can’t seem to do much in the background yet, like how in Android I can download torrents, suck down podcast files, run installs, and put almost any app in the background and it still carries on, pushing out a notification when its job is done.

Still wrapping my head around the tacky faux-leather-with-stitching interface of some of the apps. Really, Apple? You don’t think that’s a wee bit tacky? Like, 6 years ago, tacky?

I haven’t played with the magazine/press shelf or the iBooks yet, since I already use platform-agnostic Zinio and Amazon for that. I don’t want to be tied into only one hardware platform.

iCloud has a streamlined web interface of mail that’s nice and clean, very Apple-like and an improvement over the last time I used Apple dotMac Mail some 3 years ago. The calendar and contacts web apps look very much like the iPad versions, and I must admit that I don’t have Pages, Keynote or Numbers on my iPad yet, so the documents online sync is rather useless for me at the moment. (Again, I like the platform-agnostic Google Apps that allows other programs, such as Docs to Go, to synchronize with it.)

One inevitable conclusion: you really have to want to invest in this ecosystem if you want to make the most of it. Unless you’re running a Mac full time on the desktop (me, I use Linux 80% of the time), have purchased and used mostly iWork (which isn’t available outside a Mac), and only use iOS devices (me, I use Android phones and tablets most of the time, with an occasional foray into my iPhone, iPad2 or HP webOS TouchPad), you’re not going to get the full benefit of this holy Apple Trinity of iOS5, Lion and iCloud.

More thoughts later as I dive in.

A bite of the Apple

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:36:35 -0600

So, we didn’t get the big iPhone 5 release for which the whole world seemed to be holding its breath. The iPhone 4S is more of the same, just with a bunch of improvements. I have to pity the Tim Cook in a way. Steve Jobs is a tough act to follow, and he didn’t really have the big oomph in his pocket to haul out and impress everybody. Despite the emphasis on things like the dual processor and the new 8MB camera (both of which have been pretty standard lately on Android), the IOS5 and the iCloud bits were actually a bit more intriguing, at least to techies like myself. It addresses almost all of my major issues with iOS4. The iPhone 4S hardware, complete with its (to me) tiny screen, has absolutely nothing that might make me step away from my Galaxy S2 (which already has a great camera and a hefty dual processor) .

iOS5, though, I’m eagerly anticipating. Sunday night, I went so far as to declare this an iOS week. I haven’t touched my iPhone 3GS or my iPad 2 for nearly a month, and I was getting a little worried about my ability to keep up with the Mobile Joneses. However, the lack of true multitasking, interprocess communication (e. g., “open this link in…”) and especially notifications have had me ready to pitch them at the wall. I think I’ll give up on iOS4 and just wait for iOS5 to drop next week. Sounds like a plan less likely to drive me to fits of frustration.

So, back to My S2 and my Xoom for now….

Firebird X: a computerized guitar

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 00:13:26 -0600

Firebird X: a computerized guitar:

Okay, this has officially intrigued the computer geek and the (earnest but terrible) guitar player in me. Wonder if I can root the thing? Though at that price, I’d just be tempted to pick up a high end classic analog guitar. Or three.

TechCrunch: How to enable Facebook Timeline

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:46:05 -0600

TechCrunch: How to enable Facebook Timeline:

Did this last night. It seems I’m in the 20% that like it, but I don’t tend to embarrassing posts.

New and improved Google+... now with less testosterone!

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:53:11 -0600

Now that we’re getting the great washed masses joining (that is, the non-nerdic) I’m curious how the Google+ dynamic is going to change. Last I heard before the opening-up, G+ was 80% male. Perhaps now it’ll smell less like an all-night D&D session. (Apologies to any females reading this that have played D&D, but if you were blackmailed into playing by a boyfriend or brother, you know what I mean.)

[How to] Add a Google+ Quicklist to the Unity Launcher in Ubuntu | OMG! Ubuntu!

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 05:27:29 -0600

[How to] Add a Google+ Quicklist to the Unity Launcher in Ubuntu | OMG! Ubuntu!

The Commodore 64 is back – and it’s running Ubuntu | OMG! Ubuntu!

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:12:37 -0600

The Commodore 64 is back – and it’s running Ubuntu | OMG! Ubuntu!:

Any old-timers like me looking for some (old-timer) geek cred?

"Optimized For Honeycomb" Apps List

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 06:36:16 -0600

"Optimized For Honeycomb" Apps List

A best friend’s sister gets called up on stage to play...

Mon, 09 May 2011 20:00:06 -0600

A best friend’s sister gets called up on stage to play with Paul Simon, a night she’ll never forget. Reaction is priceless!

Ivan Cobenk on Kevin Bacon - Delightfully creepy stalker video...

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:57:27 -0700

Ivan Cobenk on Kevin Bacon - Delightfully creepy stalker video to advertise Logitech’s Google TV.

Archie Andrews reinterpreted for modern world. Incredible...

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:30:07 -0700

Archie Andrews reinterpreted for modern world. Incredible weekend fan project.

Chris Brogan: An Insider’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:12:24 -0700

Chris Brogan: An Insider’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette:

“I receive a lot of questions about various points of etiquette with regards to social media. I also observe instances where I wish people knew some of the more common etiquette, because they seem like wonderful people, who maybe have made a mistake because they didn’t know better. To that end, I thought I’d give a brief set of ideas around social media etiquette. You’re very welcome to add to these in the comments. There will be a mix of do’s and don’ts, and remember this above all else: you’re doing it wrong.”

Old Spice voicemail generator

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:21:03 -0700

Old Spice voicemail generator:

Why, yes, I am on a horse. Thanks for calling.