frivolous motion: 06.2007

30 June 2007

Vacation: Posting Will Be Light

I am on vacation at the moment, so posting here on Frivolous Motion will be a bit infrequent (or non-existent) for the next several days, giving my American audiences time to enjoy Independence day free of guilt for missing a ground-breaking post, and my non-American audiences time to rejoice for being awesome.

In the meantime, there tons of great stuff in the archives. Just click a word at random in the tag cloud above and see where it takes you - could be somewhere unexpected and magical.

By Thursday things ought to be back on track.

Have a wonderful, iPhone-filled weekend!

29 June 2007

Not About iPhone

Okay, I lied.

Anyone know when they will be available through the Apple Online Store?

That’s all. Goodnight, sirs and madams.

iPhone Google Search Trends

People seem to really be grasping for reasons not to buy an iPhone.

Take a look at my referring keywords from Google Search this morning:

Notice any trends?

The only surprise for me is that someone is still considering purchasing a Zune (when is the next generation due, by the way?). Luckily Frivolous Motion has a handful of classic posts that will quickly convince her otherwise.

Bonus Google Search Tip!
If you want to search for something like above, but aren’t sure how many reasons there are, type in the following: “* reasons not to buy iphone” (don’t forget the asterisk, which acts as a wild card and tells Google to find something appropriate for that space). Also great for words within a phrase that you might have forgotten.

Twittering Paris And Celebrity STDs

A suite of Twitter tweets from earlier this week

Am I the only one who thinks it's wrong to make fun of someone for having an STD? How sick to plaster all over the paper "VD-Day" for Paris.

I mean, sure she's lame, and she's famous for doing practically nothing. But turn the glass around - what if it happened to you? Not so cool.

Same goes for anorexic girls like Nicole Ritchie. A comic today had her skeletalish trying to get into the jail that made Paris lose weight.

Making moral judgments of any kind about a disease (even one brought on by a lifestyle choice) hurts others who suffer with it in silence.

(Yup, that was me defending Paris Hilton)

iPhone Available Today (6 p.m. Local Time)

Yes, folks, in case you couldn’t tell from the rest of the internet/news/air, today is the day when the phone to change all phones for all eternity now and forever and ever amen is released into the wild.

Are you buying it?

I’m not. Perhaps only due to circumstances beyond my control. Perhaps out of restraint.

Probably the former.

28 June 2007

Getting An iPhone On Friday? Send Your Photos To USAToday

Just got this email. Thought I might pass it along.

Dear iPhone enthusiast:

Thank you for responding to USA TODAY's search for consumers who hope to buy an iPhone on Friday, June 29. For a story, I'm now looking for people who are planning to wait in line outside AT&T or Apple stores tonight or on Friday.

If that describes you, please take photos of what you see on your line -- and then e-mail your photos to us for possible publication on our website with the following information:
Your name:
City and state where you are waiting in line:
The day and time you got in line:
Please keep the the size of your attachments to 300k or less. And please e-mail your photos to: techcall@usatoday.com

Want to be removed from this list? E-mail jhopkins@usatoday.com.

Jim Hopkins
Reporter
USA TODAY
7950 Jones Branch Drive
McLean, VA 22107
jhopkins@usatoday.com
www.smallbiz.usatoday.com

Tasty Del.icio.us Links Of The Day

iPhone Week Day T-Minus-1 edition of the links:

Undress To De-Stress

or Shed Your Clothes Along With Your Burdens

It’s a surefire way to feel a little better. Just go into your room, lock the door, turn out the lights, and take it all off. Then watch TV or read or surf the web (no, please, not like that) or do something else productive or relaxing or mindless.

Just be.

Naked. Safe. Free.

Breathe deeply. Again.

Relax into yourself. Get used to the lightness. Notice the difference in your step compared to when you are clothed. What is it like to move? How do everyday things become new and interesting when done without pants and a shirt and underwear and socks? Try making a phone call. Try folding your clothes. Making your bed. Organizing your closet. Setting your alarm clock. Sitting. Standing. Walking. Pretend that you know Tai Chi. Crank up some awesome tunes. Sing. Dance. Exercise. Nap. Draw. Write.

Even the simple act of picking up a pen might change your life.

27 June 2007

It Gets Worse

Before it gets better.

Right?

Damn, I should’ve Twittered this.

I’ve Been Banned By Hartford Independent Media!

Hartford Independent Media Center’s Undercurrent blog has apparently banned me from posting on the site, after member Kevin Lamkins decided he should have the last word on the HartBeat Ensemble waste-of-time semi-pseudo-flame-war that went down yesterday.

He wrote:

I think we’ve done Frivolous Motion a public service here because this is probably the most hits it’s ever gotten. This is what independent media is all about. Good work, team!

Really? Is “independent media” all about swarming websites of those whose views you disagree with, attacking the writer with insults about his psychological state, Photoshop abilities, and (imagined lack of) blog traffic? Is “independent media” about attacking the messenger rather than the message? Is “independent media” about censoring an apology and attempt to clarify the situation by refusing to approve a comment? Is “independent media” about making baseless claims that an author is a “community killer” because he’s not part of your community? Is “independent media” really this petty and lame? Or is this not really “independent media” at all, and just a band of HartBeat groupies masquerading as countercultural gods in order to protect some artists who would rather confront a friend of mine about my review (yes, HartBeat did that) rather than email me directly? Hard to tell.

For the record, I’m not angry. I’m disappointed.

Even the Hartford Courant will actually print my letters.

Apple iPhone Reviews Hot Off The Presses

This morning, a couple of the fancy-schmancy real newspapers (like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal) released their respective reviews of Apple’s revolutionary iPhone. Of course, these reviews were available online yesterday. But no one reads the Web, right? Print journalism forever!

In any event, both reviews are pretty positive, and both David Pogue and Walter Mossberg lambast the AT&T network as being the main drawback of the iPhone. Nothing previously unknown was revealed, so these reviews didn’t make me say, “Okay, I’m buying it for sure now!” but hearing good stuff from a couple of the “big guys” makes a purchase a bit harder to resist.

Don’t miss David Pogue’s awesome, and pretty hilarious video review.

In other, tangential news, iPhone-related domain names are up for auction on eBay, fetching prices in the tens-of-thousands. Get yours before it’s too late!

26 June 2007

iPhone Data Plans Announced

Apple and AT&T announced the voice/data plans for iPhone today. They’re comprehensive, unlimited-data plans at pretty sweet prices - super, super tempting. Also announced - you activate your own iPhone using iTunes. No waiting for an AT&T rep to do it for you. That’ll keep the lines flowing on Friday.

Press releases:

AT&T and Apple Announce Simple, Affordable Service Plans for iPhone

Apple and AT&T Announce iTunes Activation and Sync for iPhone

Where Do You Find Inspiration?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on things that inspire you - where you look for it, what you look for, how you use it in your daily life or job or hobbies, and what happens when it’s hard to come by.

Here are a few of my own thoughts on inspiration:

I almost never find inspiration in the medium in which I am working. For instance, if I am composing music, I can’t listen to music. If I am directing a play, I don’t look at other plays. For designing a website, I tend to stay away from the Web.

I like to ask questions. What would happen if I put this Jack Daniels Burger in a song? How does the sound of the 4-train at Union Square change the design of this website? Why is the sky red?

Repetition helps. If I’m starved for ideas, I might grab an interesting piece of paper (I like yellow legal pads at the moment) and an awesome pen or marker - something un-boring, and just start writing/drawing numbers or dots or lines or letters. I’ll fill the page. I’ll count backwards out loud using roman numerals while I write forwards using hexadecimal. I will tap on my desk for half an hour. Type rhythmically and melodically on my computer keyboard into a plain text editor. Copy and paste huge blocks of text. Move my arm in a particular way for a long time. The journey always goes like this: Interest, Boredom, Fatigue, Mindlessness, Inspiration.

It is important for me to remember that everything is connected. That nothing I might be doing is in any way - nor can it be - separate from the world around me. What this means, practically, is that I can always go outside, or read a book, or take a nap, and it’s relevant, helpful, and potentially direction-changing. Distractions don’t exist if you pay enough attention.

You?

25 June 2007

What Happens When Your Feeds Disappear?

When Google Reader isn’t pulling in any of my feeds, as it is this morning, I find myself at a loss for websites worth visiting. The habit of typing in URLs has died in me, and the last thing I want to do is visit a site to see that nothing has changed. I also have little interest in being presented with stories I can’t ultra-easily skip past and mark as read.

My reading methods have changed. Reading in a feed reader is like buying a paper and flipping through pages. Reading by browsing to various URLs is like running all over town to buy (for me) 236 different papers and hoping that most of them aren’t last week’s edition.

Come on Google, I need you.

24 June 2007

Stop The HartBeat Ensemble!

So I saw a production of The Pueblo by the HartBeat Ensemble on Saturday evening in Hartford, CT. Though it carried a ticket fee, The Pueblo is a work-in-progress, to be premiered in its final form in February. I can not in good conscience allow this to happen. It is a work that must be stopped at all costs!

Quite simply, frankly, and soberly, The Pueblo is perhaps the worst atrocity to hit the stage since, well, I can’t think of anything that compares to it in terms of sheer bad-ness.

Blurb:

The Pueblo, a dual language, multi-cultural play that explores the changing politics of Latin America and how that affects people in North America. Known for such socialist leaders as Chile’s Salvador Allende and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Latin America now has a new wave of such socialist leaders as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Michelle Bachelet of Chile, and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua., who see themselves as “leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution.”

United States officials have called them “dictators who abuse power and manipulate their citizens.” The Latin American leaders have called the Bush administration, “the devil” and “imperialist.” Set in a fictional South American country, The Pueblo incorporates these themes at its core.

At once insulting, spine-tingling, vomit-inducing, and suicide-provoking, The Pueblo mixes together what HartBeat calls “experimental” elements such as puppetry, movement, text, and music. If text in the theatre qualifies as an experiment, then this just might be kindergarten science class, in which students do experiments to learn what floats and what sinks (guess which this show does). As experiments go, having puppets on stage is on par with sticking drosophila in a jar with no holes for air and starting a stopwatch.

Lest HartBeat be chastised merely for failing to understand what constitutes experimentation, it should be said that these elements add absolutely nothing positive - indeed, they contributed quite a bit to the total, irreparable heap-of-scrap-masquerading-as-play that was presented. Yes, I am including the text in this claim. The entirety of the play was multilingual - a mix of English and Spanish that can not, respectfully, be called Spanglish. When each sentence is a 50/50 mix of both languages (as in “I want to comer el pollo y el arroz”), with certain phrases repeated in both languages (“I am your president. Soy tu présidente.”) might more aptly be called Manglish. I am fairly well-versed in both languages, but the absolute inanity with which the dialogue was constructed rendered much of it completely incomprehensible (particularly that which was speedily, tone-lessly, and far too often rhyme-ish-ly, talk-sung by the guitar-strumming Narrator).

One extreme moment of translation left me with my mouth agape, wishing I could have the last 45 minutes of my life back so I might sit outside staring at a tree and enjoy what was a glorious northeastern summer evening. Read this translated line from a familiar play and tell me if you see anything wrong:

O Romeo, Romeo. Dónde está mi Romeo?

In case you don’t know a spot of Spanish, “Dónde está” is asking where. Hmm, okay, except Shakespeare would shoot you in the face for misinterpreting “wherefore” so grossly. Wherefore means Why.

Regarding The Pueblo, that, after all, is the question.

Except it’s no more of a question than if I had been playing Hamlet in this production. Of course I would choose to end my life. Immediately, and with no reservations. Which brings me to the conclusion of this review - a bit of a request, a plea to the greater greatness of humanity, which is to help me help the world by Stopping The HartBeat Ensemble.

The instructions are simple. Go to this website and take the survey about The Pueblo. Give them some extremely low scores, feel free to copy and paste admonitions from this post in the answer spaces, and if you’re feeling awesome (and you should, after all) toss in a link to this post with the words “I saw your show and agree wholeheartedly with this review. Please consider canning this production and ceasing the making of theatrical work forever. In the interest of humanity and in order to come closer to attaining your company’s mission of enacting positive social change, please stop. Immediately. Thank you.”

That is all. The Pueblo is playing again next weekend if you’re masochistic.

23 June 2007

Tasty Del.icio.us Links Of The Day

Just a couple links for the weekend. Make sure you check out the 20-minute-long iPhone guided tour on Apple.com. Lots of info, and a pretty innovative marketing move masquerading as an educational video.

22 June 2007

My Cell Phone Is Toying With My Emotions

This was supposed to be a story about Fate.

And how Fate would lead me to buy an iPhone next Friday against my will.

It had all the right elements - tragedy, depression, desperation, serendipity - but then things kinda got screwed up. And now I can’t use Fate as my excuse for standing in line for hours to purchase a device that I don’t even really need and costs more than my first car. Okay, the word first was unnecessary, I admit.

Here’s the story, anyway. No longer about Fate. But about something important enough for blogging, I guess.

Last night I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone. My Samsung Trace (t519), to be precise. This is typical. She hangs up first and I hear the do-do-do-do arpeggio of disconnection. This is not typical. I usually end the call first, or at least pull the phone away from my ear before hearing that. I press my end key anyway - it’s a reflex - and, well, nothing happens. I don’t mean in the “of course nothing happened because you pressed the end key and it was already ended” kind of way. Pressing the end key always does something - there is feedback. This did nothing. Dread set in. I pressed another key - nothing. Another - nothing. I tried out the key combo to “unlock” the keypad - nothing. I mashed at buttons in disbelief. The screen went black (power-saving function). I freaked out.

Then more things went wrong. I couldn’t find - anywhere - my old phone. My brother’s only spare phone is an unlocked (dammit!) Cingular. I had an idea: why not try to call myself. Luckily we still have a land line, even though it is almost never used, and the call went through. My phone rang. But I couldn’t answer it. Defeated, I ended the call.

I searched online and found one relevant result - a poor soul who experienced the exact problem. He said that he could turn his phone on after removing the battery, but nothing else. I removed the battery, put it back, turned it on (yep, it worked), and then nothing. The buttons still refused to work, and One Missed Call (from “Me”) greeted me like a mean person greets you.

So I did the only sensible thing - I called T-Mobile. Here’s where some magic comes in: I immediately got connected to a real person - a very nice, loud, pleasant, understandable, male voice (who later told me he had friends in the military ages ago who took him to Prospect Park - just down the road from me - how nice!). And he was helpful. I explained to him all the steps I took (making my story seem a little less panicked, of course, and he checked to see if my phone was under warranty. For a second I hoped it wasn’t - an irrational dream of turning this awful experience into something beautiful, an excuse to buy a gorgeous iPhone. But it was covered, and he asked me a few more questions to confirm my eligibility for a replacement (“Is the screen cracked?” “Is there water damage?” etc.), then read some blah blah blah stuff and assured me that by Tuesday I would have my new phone (this is the expedited - $15 shipping option). Good service from T-Mobile. Made a bad night better.

I plugged in my phone to charge overnight for the hell of it.

This morning, it worked. Damn.

21 June 2007

Where I’m Getting My iPhone

If I get an iPhone. Yes, it’s still a question.

Pics of the 5th Avenue/47th Street NYC AT&T store follow below. As you can see, the brand switch (from Cingular) is nearly complete (still some orange, but no more Cingular name or logo), and AT&T is really using the release of iPhone as a vehicle for switching over. There’ve been guys working outside this store for weeks now - shining the brass, taping and untaping glass, setting up displays. These pictures are from yesterday, which is when I first noticed the presence of the AT&T logo instead of the Cingular one. Today, there’s a small iPhone display inside the store. Nothing fancy. Just a poster that says they’re getting it on June 29. It was creepy enough for me to be taking pictures yesterday (a guy on a ladder gave me a really weird look), so I decided to hold off until things are completed and/or I’m standing in a line with blue velvet ropes.

Notice the “display” they had up yesterday. If Steve Jobs saw that he’d have a stroke. Hell, I nearly went insane myself over the hyphen - let alone the capital I, which absolutely kills me every time I see it in newspapers and magazines (can’t they figure out how to begin a sentence without using the word “iPhone”?).

Pics, as usual, taken with my Samsung Trace T-519. Creative Commons “Do whatever the heck you want with them” license applies. My generosity overfloweth.

Bonus pics of my roommate (Gregory Polin) looking like a badass because he’s on IMDB, and me attacking a huge piece of meat because that’s what I do (apparently). It was really awesome (Becco).

Tasty Del.icio.us Links Of The Day

Zeldman’s article linked below is awesome. Required reading since I intend to riff off it in the near future.

New York Newspaper Double Take

Wow. Do the New York Post and New York Daily News share design teams?

Yesterday’s editions of the ubiquitous city tabloids sported covers way too similar to be coincidental. Well, okay, perhaps it was coincidental, but it’s still pretty insane.

What’s The Deal?
The two big stories (apparently) were Mayor Mike Bloomberg leaving the Republican party and Hillary and Bill Clinton making a YouTube video spoof of the much-loathed Sopranos finale. The covers pretty much speak for themselves. Both are laid out with more or less the same grid, and feature the big stories in exactly the same order. Both use pretty much the same still frame from the video (the same stock images being found in both papers happens all the time, but these are just different enough to wonder how they were obtained). Both use the wording “Mike’s Move,” with the News adding the descriptor “Big” for effect. Both, most obviously, create a visual pun with the logo for The Clintons (using the typeface from The Sopranos and flipping the R over to make an L).

Which One Is Better?
Despite the similarities, the News emerges as the clear winner in this battle of the Cover Wars. Reversing the type (white on black) in the Bloomberg section creates a much stronger contrast to what’s above the fold - the Post’s cover just feels weak in comparison. Additionally, the News displays a more subtle and effective treatment of the logo pun, setting the word “The” in smaller type above the more important “Clintons,” rather than keeping it the same weight like the Post (The News’ treatment is also more faithful to the original). The News picked a stronger photo of the Clintons - more tightly cropped and better color - and the Post’s Bloomberg “badge” (which reads, “No really, I swear I’m not running”) is just, well, stupid.

These two papers typically fight bloodily for the hottest cover of the day (as do amNewYork and Metro, the morning freebies) because there’s little else that distinguishes them, so it’s odd to see them run such similar pages. It’d be interesting to know the how and why and when behind their cover decisions, but I imagine they keep such knowledge fairly closely-guarded. One thing I still can’t quite wrap my head around is the decision to lead with the Clinton story, which is about nothing more than Hillary’s campaign making a video, and releasing the winner of her “theme song” contest. That story is such non-news that I’m surprised even these typically-seedy publications found value in it, much less deciding to make it their top item.

But I guess New Yorkers love The Sopranos (or did, before the finale). Maybe that’s all the justification needed.

20 June 2007

Tasty Del.icio.us Links Of The Day

The Sky Is Falling Edition

100 Reasons Not To Buy An iPhone

Yeah, this is painful for me, too.

Price - $499 or $599 with a 2-year who-knows-how-much data plan.
AT&T - Which wireless company sucks the most? Some say it’s these guys.
EDGE - Instead of faster 3G technology. If you don’t have Wi-Fi hotspots, you’re kinda screwed.
No Flash - This means it’s not the “real” make-you-have-a-seizure Web.
No Java - This has something to do with coffee but I don’t really get it.
No iChat - I guess some people still aren’t cool enough to use GMail.
iTunes Lock-in - Oh wait, I forgot you don’t pay for your music.
No Keyboard - This means it’s hard to type.
Screen - It will be hard to see in daylight.
No Office - Lack of MSWord makes me cry.
No Real Apps - Because I, unlike most people, actually know the difference.
Smudges - My fingers are way greasy.
Scratches - I can’t keep my keys away.
No Games - Well there’s that rumor about Nintendo, but otherwise, what am I supposed to do with this thing?
No Song Sharing - You mean the Zune is better than the iPhone?
Ugly - I don’t like shiny.
No Mirror - Can’t really take emo self-portraits now can I?
No Yahoo Maps - Because even though Google Maps is better, where’s the choice? Fascist!
aka Jesus Phone - Uh...discrimination against Jews.
I’m Fat - Okay, I’m not, but what if you are?
Only 4 or 8 GB - My por...ahem...my music collection is much too large.
Viruses - I can browse to a site that could infect my iPhone, and when I sync it to my PC I’ll get a virus. Sure, I could avoid that site like I do on my home computer, but still!
No Wi-Fi Downloads - I absolutely MUST be able to listen to Shakira at a moment’s notice!
I Have A Phone - It was only $30 and works just fine.
I Have An iPod - It’s an 8GB Nano and works just fine.
I Have An Internet - So there.
Touch Screen Sucks - No one has ever made a good touchscreen. No reason to think they’d start now.
Apple’s Never Made A Phone - WTF do they know? Nokia, Samsung, etc have been making phones for years now and they still suck - how could Apple possibly do better?
I Use T-Mobile - Switching to AT&T costs money.
No Internet Underground - Taking the subway to work means no online access when I’d most want to use it.
Lack Of Tactile Feedback - Means I can’t text while driving. Cause that’s a good idea.
Sealed Battery - I can’t change it myself. Lame.
Too Big - I like my itty bitty Nano, thank you very much.
Ajax Sucks - It is the scourge of the Internet
The Zune Is Cooler
The Zune Is Cooler
The Zune Is Cooler
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The Zune Is Cooler
The Zune Is Cooler

Got any more? I need someone to pull me back. I’m afraid I can’t resist on my own...

19 June 2007

Tasty Del.icio.us Links Of The Day

Link time! Dive right in.

Media Consumption Contradictions

A brief look at my inconsistent, contradictory, amazing, (and typical?) patterns of media consumption:

I have not purchased a CD or DVD for myself in years
I buy books for myself all the time from Amazon
The only magazine I buy in print is The New Yorker (though I read Wired, The Nation, and Food & Wine because we get subscriptions to them at my apartment)
I read the free, trash- and ad- filled amNewYork newspaper in print most weekday mornings
I buy the Sunday New York Times about every other week in order to read the Magazine, though it is available in its entirety online
I sometimes “borrow” my neighbor’s copy of The Wall Street Journal
I read hundreds of articles from over 200 sites in Google Reader daily and skim even more
I subscribe to blog feeds readily when linked to from a site I already read - but almost never when a site hits the front page of Digg
I use Del.icio.us to keep track of what I’ve read rather than to find new things to read
I can’t, for the life of me, get into StumbleUpon, though the concept is awesome to me
I watch pirated movies on occasion, but have never pirated one myself
I have a $10-a-month subscription to EMusic
I only watch non-infringing content on YouTube, but I viewed the first 45 minutes of Michael Moore’s Sicko on Google Video yesterday
I pay to go to concerts every so often, but only see theatre that is free
I have yet to read one of my 700+ PDF books all the way through
I finish perhaps 1/3 of the books I buy from Amazon
I am eagerly awaiting the release of the final book in the Harry Potter series
I go to the movies about three times a year
I watch an average of two movies a week
The TV channel most frequently watched in my apartment is NY1, a 24-hour local news channel that
I never listen to the radio
I haven’t listened to music on my iPod for the last three weeks
Anytime I watch TV, I am also surfing the Web
The only television shows I actually pay attention to are reality shows
I haven’t purchased a video game since the days of the Sega Genesis
I do visit promotional, product, and corporate websites mentioned in television commercials

What the heck does this all mean? What about you?

18 June 2007

Does Steve Jobs Have A Tragic Flaw?

Is Steve Jobs a tragic hero?

Wiki says,

Aristotle once said that "A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall." An Aristotelian tragic hero must have four characteristics:

Nobility (of a noble birth) or wisdom (by virtue of birth).
Hamartia (translated as flaw, mistake, or error, NOT an Elizabethan tragic flaw).
A reversal of fortune(peripetia) brought about because of the hero's Hamartia.
The discovery or recognition that the reversal was brought about by the hero's own actions (anagnorisis).

Some other common traits characteristic of a tragic hero:

Hero must suffer more than he deserves.
Hero must be doomed from the start, but bear no responsibility for possessing his flaw.
Hero must be noble in nature, but imperfect so that the audience can see themselves in him.
Hero must have discovered his fate by his own actions, not by things happening to him.
Hero must see and understand his doom, as well as the fact that his fate was discovered by his own actions.
Hero's story should arouse fear and empathy.
Hero must be physically or spiritually wounded by his experiences, often resulting in his death.
Ideally, the hero should be a king or leader of men, so that his people experience his fall with him.
The hero must be intelligent so he may learn from his mistakes.

A tragic hero usually has the following sequence of "Great, Good, Flaw, Recognition, Downfall."

A tad scary to consider, but appropriate, with just over 10 days until the release of the much-hyped (perhaps all-time most-hyped) iPhone, as well as this lengthy and perhaps flawed profile of Mr. Jobs in New York Magazine. The similarities between Steve-o and Aristotle’s conception of the “Tragic Hero” are striking, especially at this point in the Apple CEO’s life and career. Will the iPhone be the downfall of this great man? Will his insistence on control and unflinching devotion to his corporate and product philosophy lead to his demise, and to the destruction of Apple?

Nah. Everybody knows that Aristotle is full of crap.

Seriously. Everybody.

Die Web 2.0, Die.

Web 2.0 is dead and I have killed it. Right here, right now. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 million from a wussy-Valley-V.C. The beast lie slain in a digital heap of bits and bytes and asynchronous server calls. This is no phoenix - there will be no rebirth, no emergence from its own ashes. For the future to come, there must be a revolution. There must be a drastic departure - a sharp turn away from the sins of the past.

The hype, the beta, the usability errors in the guise of a “release early, release often” mantra, the rounded corners, the shiny tables, the nonsensical “Our original name was taken so we re-spelled it” domain names, the social networking site for xxxxxx, the social bookmarking xxxxxx, the video sharing xxxxxx, the it might not be quite legal but sign up anyway we care about your privacy xxxxxx, the business model? hah!, the Ajaxified, Flashified, Scriptified, Ruby-on-Railsified, Adsense-supported, made possible by your generous donations, content-lacking, MySpace ripoff (could you not find a better site to base yours on?!), start pages, tagging schmagging, long tail, pseudo-wannabe-innovation, Googlebait, oh please oh please Google buy my product please oh please I love and worship you and somehow think I have made something better than your engineers and how could you pass up buying this product that doesn’t even work but don’t blame me it’s just in beta and we couldn’t afford to do usability testing so we’re pretending to let some serial-joining geeks have some super-exclusive private access so they’ll do all the bug-testing for us and blog about it all for free and then our servers will explode because everybody on the world wide net was conned into thinking that private and exclusive meant awesome and so tried to sign up on the first day and we couldn’t do anything about it because we were busy drinking beer and watching Diggnation rather than coding and buying servers and paying attention and actually learning from the mistakes that everyone else has made a dozen hundred thousand million times.

It’s over for me. Dead. Gone. I’m done. I’m ready for a Web that actually works as advertised. A Web that lets people actually communicate with one another. A Web that lets you own what you post and read what you want to where you want to. A Web that lets you decide when you want to see an advertisement, and when you want to hear sound, and when you want to sign up, and when you want to destroy all traces of your account. A Web that departs from the metaphor of pages - that understands it is not print - that a web page is not like a newspaper page or a magazine page or a book page. A Web that is not so full of bugs and holes and 500, 501, 503, 404 errors. A Web that I can use and find value in without giving away my email address and remembering a password and whether your stupid site disallows special characters or requires numbers or is case sensitive. A Web where A-listers don’t bitch and moan about hierarchy in the publishing world in one breath and in the next uphold that same hierarchy by being stingy with links in order to protect their “authority.” A Web less intent on replacing things, and more on making things better. A Web that is non-restrictive, that doesn’t lock me in, one made by and for people, not machines. A Web that remembers when I ask it to, and forgets - really forgets - unless I tell it not to. A Web that is accessible, standards-compliant, usable, but not afraid to take risks. A Web intent on offending, alienating, polarizing, politicizing, persuading, teaching, inciting. A Web with a point to make, however contradictory. A Web with a story to tell, not just news to report. A Web where people aren’t afraid to comment or participate - where the geeks and early adopters aren’t self-righteous assholes ready to scream NOOB the minute someone asks a question. A Web of people and ideas and art and culture and poetry and connection and love and desire and experimentation and guessing and trial-and-error rather than corporations and greed and money and Truth and property. A Web kinda sorta maybe a little bit more like this. A Web less like a cloud and more like the rays of the sun. A Web that feels more friendly because it’s made up of my friends. A Web I can believe in. A Web I can trust. A Web that is fun. A Web in which it’s okay - even awesome - that Everything is Miscellaneous, because it is, and it should be, and it’s better that way.

It’s coming - I can tell. Something insanely awesome is just now peeking over the horizon. I can’t wait.

Die, Web 2.0, die.

15 June 2007

Tasty Del.icio.us Links Of The Day

Don’t miss the groundbreaking link at the end of the list!

When Will Marijuana Be Legalized In The US?

Earlier this week, my roommate (who’s fond of question-games like this) asked me, “What year do you think the first state will legalize marijuana for non-medical use?” I don’t recall what I guessed (though it was later than his prediction of 2009), but now that New York is poised to become the 13th or 14th state in the US to legalize it for medical use - in blatant violation of Federal law - he might be on the right track.

What do you think? Will this ever happen? When? And which state will be the first?

Question For iPhone Naysayers

Will an iPhone naysayer explain to me how this device won’t completely change the face of the mobile market when a model is released next year (or the year after) that:

Is pink
Is $200

14 June 2007

Tutorial: How To Remove A Background In Photoshop

Everyone asks me how to remove a background from a photo using (usually a pirated copy of) Adobe Photoshop. I start to talk, “Layers palette blah blah, duplicate blah, add a layer mask blah blah, pen tool blah blah lasso blah soft-edged brush blah blah levels blah blah curves blah clone stamp blah burn dodge blah high-contrast photo blah blah blah blah blah...” and the eyes glaze over (which I can see even over the phone, believe me). So I’ve done a ton of thinking and completely honed a simple, fast, and ultra-high-quality method of removing the background from a photo so you can replace it with something awesome.

Three simple steps:

Send the photo as an attachment to kevin@frivolousmotion.com

Mail a $25 check to the address contained in my reply email.

Receive a .PSD file with the background removed (and new one added for extra) in your email inbox (usually within a week).

See? Easy as pie! Tell your friends.

I’m serious. Don’t attempt this on your own.

Abortion: What Is The Role Of The Father?

In a recent post about abortion, something came up in the comments that I’ve found interesting and troublesome for quite some time - the role of the father in deciding whether or not to abort a fetus (child, if you’re so inclined).

Ben said, “the father's place in an abortion decision is a debate people have” and Missa replied with, “Tell me about it. The boy and I had this debate once. There was screaming and crying. I still think the mother's right is absolute.”

What do others think? How much say does the father have? How much should he have? Have you talked about this with your significant other like Missa has? What happens if the father wants to abort and the mother gives birth anyway - is he responsible for child support (have there been any court cases like this?)? Do things change in the context of marriage? With age? Is the woman’s right absolute and does it hinder the pro-choice cause to admit otherwise? Other thoughts?

iPhone Apps Already Hitting The Web

Pete Mortensen of Wired (and Digg, and many other websites) are reporting the very first applications being developed for iPhone. There is an alternative interface for reading Digg, a glorified grocery list called OneTrip, and, of course, a Twitter app called iTweetr.

Fifteen days before the launch of this product - a mere three days after the WWDC keynote - and we are already beginning to see innovative and hot-looking programs being written for a device that pretty much no one has ever touched. I stand firmly behind this post and this post. What an exciting time to be a web designer/developer.

13 June 2007

Tasty Del.icio.us Links Of The Day

Woo Wednesday!

Why I Love My Girlfriend: Reason 8,567,402

Her answer, when asked to choose between and child and a kid:

The goat.

12 June 2007

Web Development For iPhone Is Fucking Brilliant

Excuse the profanity - I had a revelation.

Millions of children (yes children) are learning, working with, and experimenting with the exact technologies used for development on iPhone - HTML and JavaScript - every single day.

They know all about embedding code for widgets and videos, and many of them are teaching themselves to edit and customize the code on sites like MySpace. Sure, most of their efforts amount to slice-my-eyes-50-ways-with-a-razor-blade levels of awful, but that’s not the point. What matters is that this group of youngsters - a group who, you’ll recall, hasn’t breathed a single breath in a world without Internet - is not afraid. They’re not afraid of code, of RSS feeds, of uploading, downloading, syncing, embedding, linking, SMS-ing, clicking, dragging, poking, or any of the other myriad methods of interaction developers have spent years trying to teach reluctant users. This group is not reluctant. They’ve spent their entire lives in front of screens and they just get it, and more and more they are dirtying their hands playing with all the gooey stuff that exists beneath the interface - like tags and elements and variables and feeds.

This is the first generation in the history of mankind that knows how to program a VCR.

Think about that. It’s true, even though many of them probably have no clue what a VCR is.

The reason that making the web the main development platform for iPhone is brilliant is because every one of these millions of children can develop for it. Sure, their apps will never be Google-level, or even Adobe-level, but they’ll still be apps. There is a huge business in widget-making right now - companies that make it easier for the kids to customize and embed - and iPhone will literally explode that ecosystem. Therein lies the ultimate value: hyperpersonalization.

With a pretty much infinite number of available URLs - every single user can control a multitude of ultra-customized widget-type applications, pulling and sharing data from Facebook, MySpace, news sites, blogs - even music and video from the web. Each app/widget gets its own page. Everything talks to everything else. Complete personalization is only a synchronized Safari bookmark away. And it won’t matter if their web is ugly - I can just as easily make mine non-ugly.

iPhone has the potential to go viral (as they say) in a huge way. The power to develop - previously in the hands of the few - is now, quite literally, at the fingertips of millions.

Postscript: Price, schmice. Trust me on this. I’ve got my pixel ruler out and ready.

More iPhone here.

Leopard Quick Look And QuickTime Pro

A quick question about Mac OSX Leopard’s new Quick Look feature:

If you can “preview” (read: watch) a video in full screen using Quick Look, does that mean QuickTime Pro is being phased out?

Because that’d be cool. Not that I use QuickTime for full-screen video since I have VLC Player and am testing Joost, but still - it’d be cool.

(Yes, I know QTP offers other functionality for the cost, but many people I know have paid for it or considered paying for it solely for the full-screen experience.)

EDIT: It figures that the instant after posting this, I caught this TUAW story in Google Reader, about a rumor that the next version of QuickTime won’t need Pro to play full-screen.

Tasty Del.icio.us Links Of The Day

The first two are awesome and the rest are great, too. Make sure you don’t skip Daring Fireball’s hilarious Brushed Metal dialogue.