Continuing last week's theme of Jason finding extremely exciting, anything that presents typical linear information in a cool, revolving circular format, I present to you: Tag Galaxy
(via Reddit)
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Friday, May 30
Friday Fun Link - Flickr Tag Galaxy (May 30, 2008)
by
Jason
on Fri 30 May 2008 11:49 PM CST
Thursday, May 29
Google X: A Tribute to OS X
by
Jason
on Thu 29 May 2008 07:05 PM CST
Here's some love for you Mac people out there...
What if Google modeled its interface on the OS-X one? I like it and am thinking of changing my default search to this one. Seriously. Wednesday, May 28
Myers-Briggs and Facebook: Match Made In Heaven?
by
Jason
on Wed 28 May 2008 07:21 PM CST
Okay, maybe not but the Facebook MyType application is the first application I've installed on Facebook in a *long* time.
I'm not sure what I got in high school but I think every time I've taken the test (official or an unofficial variation) since then, I've gotten ENFP. Here's a summary of what that personality type is like: ENFPs are initiators of change who are keenly perceptive of possibilities, and who energize and stimulate through their contagious enthusiasm. They prefer the start-up phase of a project or relationship, and are tireless in the pursuit of new-found interests. ENFPs are able to anticipate the needs of others and to offer them needed help and appreciation. They bring zest, joy, liveliness, and fun to all aspects of their lives. They are at their best in situations that are fluid and changing, and that allow them to express their creativity and use their charisma. You can go to my Facebook profile to see the whole write-up if you're interested. Or why not add the application and try it yourself?Tuesday, May 27
What Not To Do On A First Date...
by
Jason
on Tue 27 May 2008 05:47 PM CST
Reddit (nice redesign by the way!) had a post about the 15th anniversary of "True Romance", a film that bombed in its initial theatrical release but has gone on to be a cult-classic due to a classic Quentin Tarantino script, a star-studded line-up (Brad Pitt does more with a quickie cameo than any actor in history) and perhaps one of the single best dialogue scenes in the history of film:
So that reminded me of a funny story (well, depending on your point of view. It may also be considered embarrassing, sad, pathetic, selfish and/or tragic.) Back in 1993, I was a newly graduated, gainfully under-employed twenty year old. A female friend of mine (let's call her Amy) mentioned that a friend of hers (also female, just to be clear) thought I was funny and wouldn't mind if I called her (let's call the friend Brenda). This was a very rare occurrence so I, of course, froze up and did nothing. Amy proactively arranged a double-date (conveniently with a friend of mine she was interested in - let's dub him "Chris") and Brenda & I. That newly introduced couple spent two hours groping each other while a forgettable movie played on the VCR and they helped the term "love seat" live up to its name. Brenda and I sat on a nearby couch and both wished we were anywhere else in the world. The next day, Amy called. "Brenda really likes you but she's painfully shy. You need to make the first move. Call her and ask her out to a movie." Wait, a second! I'm painfully shy too. How come she doesn't call me? She started this! But I was a realist and that seemed like a rational thing to do. I called. Brenda said yes. Plans were made. A movie! Brilliant. Which one? We left that to be decided, happy to just get through a very brief, very awkward conversation. There was one small wrinkle. I'd recently been introduced to the wunderkid that was Quentin Tarantino by a friend who was at the time and remains to this day, much cooler than I shall ever be. The introduction to Tarantino came in the form of a film called "Reservoir Dogs" which literally took my breath away. I couldn't wait until something else from the same director arrived. I didn't have to wait long. I read a movie preview in the newspaper (remember them?) that said Tarantino had a new film coming out. He didn't direct this one but it was his script. Good enough for me! So I picked up Brenda and instead of suggesting the latest Meg Ryan opus, I mentioned that there was a film called "True Romance" that she might like. I mean, the title was "True Romance". How bad could it be? We went. We held hands. The film was brilliant. It was also pretty much as bad as I never imagined it would be. Vulgar. Violent. Racist. Sexist. It had perhaps the most offensive scene of male on female brutality I'd ever seen until the final rape scene in "Monster" (which had caused one friend to leave a theatre, puke on the sideway and never return, her absence unexplained to all, including her husband sitting beside Shea and I, until the next day!) Brenda was quiet on the drive home. Surprisingly, she invited me into her living room. I couldn't help but notice the complete set of Disney VHS tapes stored neatly beside her TV. Needless to say, we did not extend the evening into an exploration of each others' tonsils. To make a long story short, there wasn't a second date. (Okay, I'm lying for the sake of the story. There actually was if you can believe it!) But unfortunately any hope we had for a relationship was pretty much dashed in the Mexican stand-off of bullets and blood that "True Romance" showered on her Snow White and Cinderella tastes. I have no idea where Brenda is today (hmmm, I wonder if she's on Facebook? [Puts on stalker hat]) but given the choice again, I think I'd have made the same decision. I probably love that film more today than when I first saw it 15 years ago. Oh, and the real funny part? The last time I saw Brenda, she was making out on a dance floor...with my friend Chris. Not shy at all! Monday, May 26
Kiva.org
by
Jason
on Mon 26 May 2008 10:09 PM CST
Kiva is a web site that helps facilitate micro-credit loans to entrepreneurs around the world. (As always, Wikipedia has more information about this organization if you're interested.)
Shea got a Kiva gift certificate as a Mother's Day Gift and is helping two people: Ruth Celenia Santana Morales who sells clothes and jewelery in the Dominican Republic and Umedjon Nurov who raises beef cattle in Tajikistan. One of the coolest things about the site is that once the loan is repaid (the loans have a 99.7% repayment rate) you can either withdraw it or turn around and loan it to someone else. I first heard about Kiva via the Bill Clinton book, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change The World. There are various other organizations out there that are similar to Kiva but which have different approaches and cater to different needs, groups, countries and so on. Heifer International is one I heard about via Cenobyte for example. Sunday, May 25
Saturday, May 24
"I Hate Hate" - Jason's Pick For Song of Summer 2008
by
Jason
on Sat 24 May 2008 10:43 PM CST
If you're a music fan, one of the rules is that there must be one song each year that becomes your Song of Summer.
Criteria for a successful Song of Summer include originality, catchiness and general sense of fun. Ability to play the song about eight zillion times in a row, preferably in a car without a roof or at least with the windows all down is a must. I think I've got my pick for this year... (via PopBitch newsletter which helps me feel like I'm still living in England even though I no longer know about 98% of the people they talk about) Friday, May 23
Friday Fun Link - Spectra Visual Newsreader (and Some Thoughts on Some Other, More World-Changing Future Technologies) (May 23, 2008)
by
Jason
on Fri 23 May 2008 11:39 PM CST
Spectra is a new visual news reader from MSNBC. I haven't played around with it much but it looks cool, mostly because the news spins in a circle instead of the old-fashioned columnar approach. Whoo-hooo!
On a much broader scale, I've recently come across a couple lists predicting of technologies that will change the world put together by groups that know a thing or two about cutting-edge technology. IBM has posted their second annual "Five in Five" list and MIT's "Technology Review" journal has posted their list of "10 Emerging Technologies for 2008". What's especially cool about the MIT list is that you can click to past lists going back to 2001 (excepting 2002 when their super-secret crystal ball technology apparently broke down) to see if their predictions have come true yet or not. Here's the 2001 list and I won't be so presumptuous as to pretend I have a clue as to where the world is at with most of these (or even what some of them mean!). Brain-Machine Interface Flexible Transistors Data Mining Digital Rights Management Biometrics Natural Language Processing Microphotonics Untangling Code Robot Design Microfluidics But some, like data mining and DRM are definitely ones people involved in the information world are struggling with now. One final thought...my own bold prediction for the future. At some point in the very near or not so near future, people will begin to wear a small recording device that constantly captures the video and audio of every moment of their lives. This will be stored by some sort of advanced system (think Google on crack - voice recognition, natural language processing, high level artificial intelligence) that allows people to search for pretty much any type of information about their lives instantaneously: "what did I have for lunch in that cafe in Montreal in 2009?", "where did I leave my sunglasses?", "how much have I spent on gas in the last 12 months?" I recently heard about U of T engineering prof Steve Mann during Michael Ridley's presentation at the SLA conference and he's been on this path for, oh, almost thirty years already. I also came across an article (which I didn't bookmark and can't find now but maybe it was in Wired?) about somebody else who was doing something similar - wearing a computer that could OCR things he looked at like his hotel and flight reservation then transfer it into a database for easy retrieval later. I think there was also a web site that performed this function for him or that was trying to do something similar for people mentioned in the article but again, can't remember the name of it. Not keyhole.com but maybe something like that? [Edit: Found it. Twine.com] Oh, and I'll also predict that the natural reluctance people feel towards this privacy-destroying, possibly society-altering device will be no different than the acceptance rate for any other new invention. [2008-06-29 - Edit #2 - I don't think Twine was what I was thinking of. Here's the article from Salon about someone using a technology called Evernote that I think was what I was looking for originally. And while I'm adding stuff, here's a story about how new technologies will eventually allow us to add 1 TB of data on a thumbdrive. Doesn't this sound exactly like I what I'm talking about: ""All the current limitations in portable electronic storage could go away. You could record video of every event in your life and store it."] Thursday, May 22
Where You Sit in A Classroom and What It Says About You
by
Jason
on Thu 22 May 2008 02:38 AM CST
I don't do a lot of posts that earn the "libraryschool" tag anymore but this one seems appropriate. I was both a "back row" and an "against the wall" type student but also tended to sit furthest from the exit which means I'm "too cool for school", sensitive and apparently committed (assuming people who sit nearest the exit are uncommitted.) In reality, where I sat just meant I liked to have a perch that allowed me to view the entire room in case anybody decided to make any sudden moves!  I know this is only a humourous cartoon but I think somebody could get a lot more mileage out of this idea - perhaps as a full blog post. I'll leave that to others to attempt as my memories of what your seat position in a classroom might mean have long faded. (via Reddit whose comments reveal that law schools often have assigned seating. Didn't know that...)  Wednesday, May 21
The Quest for Every Beard Type
by
Jason
on Wed 21 May 2008 11:11 PM CST
As you may have noticed in the Flickr pics from Pace's birthday, my "winter beard" is gone ("winter beard" being a very loose definition - some years it doesn't appear until January as happened this year, some years it sticks around for pretty much 11 months as I think was the case while I was at library school.)
Anyhow, it's always a bit of a minor milestone when the beard either begins or ends and so this site which records one man's quest to attain every beard type struck a chord. Like him, I often take the ritual "shaving of the beard" as an opportunity to try a five-second version of "hey, what would I look like with a fu manchu/goatee/soul patch/mutton chops/etc."? Unlike him, I will not be posting photos of my experiments! (via Reddit) |
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