I Love Ben Brown

I follow this dude, JimSwims on Flickr because he goes swimming...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:16:08 -0600

I follow this dude, JimSwims on Flickr because he goes swimming and takes photos of octopi and crazy worms and stuff. It is great to see how weird things look.

Today's Call With Dad

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:11:16 -0600

I called my dad to tell him about a new project I’m about to start working on. He wanted to know why his new laptops wifi menu was asking him for a password.

I don’t know, dad. Look on your wifi router!

It’s not there, he screams. I can tell he has been trying to find this password for a while already.

I don’t know, dad. Sorry!

3 minutes later, he calls back to tell me that he found the password printed on the bottom of his wifi router.

The first thing I did after launching PeoplePods was to get...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:07:11 -0600

The first thing I did after launching PeoplePods was to get working on the next version of PeoplePods. Here’s a screenshot from today’s work.

My second launch today is my very own product: PeoplePods! ...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:37:14 -0600

My second launch today is my very own product: PeoplePods! PeoplePods is a tool that makes the creation of social websites easier. Basically, you install it on your server, turn on some options, and you’ve got a custom social network, ready to customize.

I have been working on PeoplePods for 3 years, so it is an amazing catharsis to finally reveal it to the world! If you are a coder, download our developer preview (Version 0.666) and try it out!

Today, I am launching 2 new websites! The first one is a...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:09:23 -0600

Today, I am launching 2 new websites! The first one is a brand new community site for the readers of the super popular blog, dooce. It is a question/answer site built on Drupal. CHECK IT OUT!

In a few hours, I’ll announce the SECOND launch of the day… If I’m still alive!

yournewfavorite: 10/30/09 9:42 PM

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:25:04 -0500

yournewfavorite:

10/30/09 9:42 PM

Flickr’s new people tagging feature is bubbling up all...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:27:43 -0500

Flickr’s new people tagging feature is bubbling up all sorts of old photos like this one.

Adam took this photo on a day which came to be known as the HOT CHIX POOL PARTY.

My whole family, sans Alex, working together at the dinner...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:05:08 -0500

My whole family, sans Alex, working together at the dinner table, each on our own laptop.

Twins!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:03:59 -0500

Twins!

Sweet fancy moses, my wife is hottt.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:03:21 -0500

Sweet fancy moses, my wife is hottt.

This weekend, I got to see We Live In Public, a documentary...

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:07:00 -0500

This weekend, I got to see We Live In Public, a documentary movie about Joshua Harris, who is an artist who experimented with internet video and webcams in the early days of the web. In addition to creating the first internet television station, he and his girlfriend lived in a webcam saturated house — and learned very quickly how hard it is to “live in public.”

There is an interesting parallel between Joshua Harris and Justin Hall that I think warrants mention. Both were pulled into the world of living publicly because it was fun and exciting and the attention felt good. They were doing something new and fresh and different. However, the newfreshdifferent feeling overshadowed the erosion of their personal lives and their offline interactions. They quickly blew past boundaries they didn’t even know they had. The art, the science, the publicity overshadowed the question of “should I be sharing this?” And in both cases, this realization that HOLY CRAP, I AM TOTALLY OUT THERE came with a near catastrophic personality episode.

The stories of people like Joshua Harris are important to study, as more and more of us are now living in the voluntary surveillance state that he imagined in his art. It is so easy to share information with such a wide audience that I frequently wonder whether or not we share too much, with too many people, worrying too little about the repercussions of each share, but also the changes this new openness are making as a whole on our personalities.

I don’t think that twittering or posting to Facebook is the same as living in an underground bunker surrounded by video cameras. But there is that same element of newfreshdifferent that comes along with these new technologies, especially for folks who have not spent the last 10 years speaking HTML.

When AOL connected its members to the internet, Usenet and email and forums were inundated by millions of people who did not know the rules for proper behavior online. This caused lots of turmoil, and for many, brought the quality of the online experience down a few notches. What I worry about is that a similar massive import of members is being caused by things like the mass adoption of Twitter and Facebook - and none of these people have learned the lessons that Joshua Harris and Justin Hall taught us.

What percentage of these new people will have to go through the same heart-wrenching experiences to learn these lessons all over again? Does each person need to learn these lessons individually, or can they be taught? Can some of these lessons be built into the actual product design?

Technology is a wonderful thing, but without limits, without boundaries, can be incredibly dehumanizing. It is our responsibility as designers and technologists to consider these issues as we continue to build and rebuild the web.

(This movie and it’s director, Ondi Timoner - who also directed DIG! - are currently touring around the country. Right now the film is showing here in Austin and in San Francisco at the Roxie. Go while you can!)

What a busy weekend!

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:04:00 -0500

Ate breakfast at Blue Dahlia cafe. Had terrible coffee.
Went to 12 out of the 14 homes in the AIA Homes Tour.
Got drunk with Laughing Squid.
Ate Torchy’s Tacos with Laughing Squid.
Drank coffee at Once Over with Laughing Squid.
Saw We Live In Public, about which I will blog tomorrow.
Visited The Highball, Alamo Drafthouse’s new bowling alley/karaoke bar/cocktail lounge/diner. Lost $1.00 in quarters trying to play their broken skeeball machine.
Trimmed by tomato plants back so they don’t get too tall
Tested the new gutter I hung last week. It works! Totally worth stepping on a piece of metal and slicing my foot off.

OH, and:

ate a chocolate-rimmed waffle cone filled with frozen custard.

yournewfavorite: 10/11/09 10:34 AM

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:26:35 -0500

yournewfavorite:

10/11/09 10:34 AM

Hanging with LaughingSquid

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:00:24 -0500

Hanging with LaughingSquid

Today's Call With Dad

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:11:46 -0500

He is amazed that people think Glenn Beck is smart, and has some sort of special understanding of things. “It’s a special understanding, all right!” says dad.
People don’t answer their phones anymore, so you can’t do random digit dialing surveys anymore.
But you could recruit millions of iPhone users to be study participants with their fancy phones!!! He wants to know why I didn’t think of this and become rich?
And why didn’t I go to stay in school? and go then go to MIT?
And then something about measuring stuff with cameras in your mouth.
“Could you tell me everything you ate over the last week?” “Tacos.”
My dad suggests something that we then describe as “tantamount to slapping Glenn Beck in the mouth.”
“You’ve never heard of Joshua Bell?”
And then five minutes of my dad narrating Rachel Maddow to me with commentary.
And then, rambling about how Pynchon is very interesting. Very interesting! He finds it interesting.
This is verbatim:
- And then, this other book about Alexis Sawyer. He’s a French guy. He became a cook, you know. A chef in England. And the British could not cook at all! They are terrible at cooking. They still are, I think, if you look at Ramsey’s kitchen nightmares. He came up as a big big chef and became like the first celebrity chef. He developed sauces that were commercialized. They’re like the Hines of England. He became rich and famous and that kind of stuff, but he was never accepted by the you know you know upper crust because a mere chef couldn’t be an equal to these upper class English twits. This is the time of Dickens, Charles Dickens. So first he decides to open up a soup kitchen, so he did that. And he developed the gas stove that was used by the British army up until the Gulf War. And then the Irish Potato Famine happened, and he opened a soup kitchen over there. And he went out and worked with Florence Nightingale.

Our fall garden is off to a great start, with the summer peppers...

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:44:38 -0500

Our fall garden is off to a great start, with the summer peppers about to give up a second harvest, 2 varieties of tomatoes finally doing well after the long hot summer, and chard and collard greens sprouting everywhere! I am very excited.

The 8 Smuggest Robots

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:47:34 -0500

The 8 Smuggest Robots:

Adam linked Topless Robot a few days ago, and I have been thoroughly enjoying it ever since. Star Trek, robots, comics, and all the weird fun stuff that I was obsessed with at 13, and am still obsessed with at 31.

"The poll asked: “Should Obama be killed?” It offered four choices: No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he..."

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:19:35 -0500

“

The poll asked: “Should Obama be killed?” It offered four choices: No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.

…

According to a source, the Secret Service has contacted Facebook and asked them to take the poll down. And, indeed, it’s already down.

”

- Why did the secret service have to ask Facebook to remove content that is clearly an incitement to violence against our president?

Secret Service Investigating Facebook Poll Asking Whether Obama Should Be Killed | The Plum Line

metaficionado: Also I like the cup on the sticker on the cup on...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:47:21 -0500

metaficionado:

Also I like the cup on the sticker on the cup on the cup.

In the last few days, about 20 new peppers appeared on our 6...

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:14:00 -0500

In the last few days, about 20 new peppers appeared on our 6 pepper plants. They were super good the first time around. I expect they’ll be a bit sweeter this time since it’s cooler now.