Section 6 on Joe's Best Friend Application:
April 13, 2009
6.1 What is a pajama jammy jam?
6.3 What is Martin Lawrence's best film?
(a) House Party
(b) House Party 2
(c) Bad Boys
(d) Bad Boys II
(e) Black Knight
(f) National Security
re: Photographs (and their web interfaces)
April 12, 2009
[I'm trying something new here. I'm going to respond to someone's blog post assuming they read my blog. This is what blogs do, anyway, isn't it? I think maybe by doing this I'm becoming a better blogger! Yeah, that's it.]
My friend Lin Swimmer from Uncle Ofay's Good-Times Story Corner just posted about photographs, specifically photojournalism that appears on the web. He criticizes:
My only complaint is that we are still in a transitional period where not everyone is utilizing Flash gallery presentation to optimize slideshows for the web.
I couldn't agree more. Have you checked out The Boston Globe's Big Picture? In addition to the beautiful photography, the site (refreshingly) does not use flash for its galleries. It just sticks a lot of big photos on the page. While your NYT example is probably one of the better flash galleries I've seen, I'll take Big Picture's simple no-flash approach over it any day. I hate having to figure out a new interface all the time. (Not to mention the fact that most flash interfaces ignore the "Back" button in web browsers, the occasional loading issues, or the many other arguments against Flash. Hell, the phrase "hate flash" gets 14 million hits.)
The New York Times has several awesome people making great use of the internet. From Khoi Vinh's elegant (and standard-setting) grid-based layout of the entire site, to those in charge of the charts (interactive or not), to, well, just about anyone working on the website in general... they get it. I personally love On The Street with Bill Cunningham, where a sweet old guy narrates photos of style trends.
Back to the photo gallery interface issue, I do like how Burn lets you expand the images to nearly the full screen, but that's about all I like about the interface. (The photos, though! Oh wow. You should have told me about this the instant you discovered it, my friend.)
But my favorite galleries? Those that easily let me download all the images quickly, so that I can use my own choice of software (either OSX's built-in Quick Look or Marc Wandschneider's JustLooking) to view the images.
I posted too soon.
March 24, 2009
I should have finished the article before posting! Later, in the Calloway article, is this fact:
In 1986 Calloway appeared at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)'s WrestleMania 2 as a guest judge for a boxing match between Rowdy Roddy Piper and Mr. T that took place Nassau Coliseum.
Wow.
My favorite moment of today
...was reading the following sentence in Cab Calloway's Wikipedia entry:
In 1941 Calloway fired Dizzy Gillespie from his orchestra after an onstage fracas erupted when Calloway was hit with spitballs. He wrongly accused Gillespie, who stabbed Calloway in the leg with a small knife.[citation needed]
It's got everything! Spitballs, stabbing, and a citation needed!
Does anyone listen to anything other than WFMU?
March 15, 2009
...as far as internet radio goes, I mean. Sure, maybe you listen to Washington Heights Free Radio, but (obviously*) I already do too. So, when WHFR isn't on, I typically listen to WFMU. Sometimes, though, I need something else. So, then I listen to KFJC (which I know only due to the WFMU/KFJC April Fool's prank where they switched websites and streams), dublab, or SomaFM: cliqhop idm. When none of those will quite cut it, I'll check out BassDrive, another SomaFM channel (Space Station Soma or Drone Zone in particular), some DI.fm channel (d'n'b, breakbeats or minimal house, please), or SKY.fm Roots Reggae.
But I need more. I have various other sites bookmarked, but none of them are consistently good. Hell, some of them aren't even consistently on air from day to day. And there are too many strictly themed stations that have no real DJs. I'd love for more consistently good freeform radio stations with live DJs, like WFMU or KFJC. So, any ideas? Maybe a kick-ass local-to-you college station?
* My resumé (modestly?) lists me as the Technical Director of WHFR. (Shameless plug time!) If you don't already listen to my show, you should. It's on WHFR at 3pm each Wednesday, or you can download the archives from the website.
Worlds Collide, McNulty Is Nowhere In Sight
March 09, 2009
My apartment just got done watching The Wire. We loved it. It was my second time through.
At the same time, I just got done watching Season 3 of Star Trek:Deep Space 9. Uggg. If I had any other sci-fi show to watch instead, I wouldn't have made it this far.
Now, imagine my surprise when I saw the following in one of the last season 3 DS9 episodes:
Rawls a Bajoran! This really explains a lot about why he was such a douche as Deputy Ops.
The Problem With Unemployment
March 08, 2009
The problem with unemployment, as I understand it, is that delectable gets redefined to mean "the muffins available at the grocery."
In my defense, they have such flavours available as double chocolate (incredibly rich and moist) or pistachio (with awesome green-on-the-inside colouring).
Another Attempt To Apologize Which I'll Probably Regret
Apologies for my ranting in the last post. To make up for it, I'm going to share with you my guiltiest pleasure of late.
Honestly, I'm as surprised as you are that my guiltiest pleasure right now isn't Star Trek:Deep Space 9. Believe me, that's guilty. But guiltier still: this video for Lykke Li's song Breaking It Up:
I don't know. I really like it. It's taken me a while to accept that I like it, too, but now I know that I do. Let's be honest here... it's full of awesome: weirdly cute foreign girl, strange-but-trendy clothing choices, heavy eye makeup (I'm a sucker, I know), slow-mo dancing, haziness... It takes several aspects of some other guilty pleasure videos (Moloko's Forever More (or, hell, even Familiar Feeling) and Paffendorf's Crazy Sexy Marvelous) and adds even more guilty-pleasure-ness to it, and a quirky song. But all those things aren't what gets me. No, what really gets me, each and every time, is the little stupid awkward tired dancing scene that happens around 2:40. (Fine, and the eye makeup.)
Also, since I'm on a roll here, I might as well admit that her whole damn album is a pretty big guilty pleasure.
Piracy Funds Terrorism; Piratebay Thwarts Terrorism
March 06, 2009
First, I want to give a shout-out to the MPA and the RAND Corp. for titling a report Film Piracy, Organized Crime, and Terrorism. Simple, to-the-point, and utterly ridiculous. I'm honestly jealous I hadn't thought of that title first.
As I understand it, the report is yet another attempt at taboo-izing film piracy. While I'm not necessarily supporting the illegal act of pirating a film, I am quite disgusted with the methods they are using to fight the crime. Perhaps some terrorists are, in fact, funded by film piracy. Does that mean that all the proceeds from pirated videos go to terrorists? Not by a longshot. A similar report could be made about the terrorists' favorite foods. Let's assume for the sake of argument that terrorist eat a lot of pizza. Therefore, pizza is bad! Outlaw pizza! Or maybe terrorists are generally poor. So outlaw poverty! If you're poor, you must be a terrorist!
Whatever the factual basis for a "piracy funds terrorism" report, the real problem is not the piracy, but the terrorism itself. If we actually manage to cut off the funds from piracy, terrorists will find other funding. They're not going to say "Oh, damn. No one's buying my shitty copies of Paul Blart: Mall Cop... I guess my faith in Western civilization is restored. No need to blow shit up anymore." (Actually, now that I think of it, that might actually restore my faith in Western civilization...)
Tangentially thinking, an argument could be made that by downloading pirated video for free via a bittorrent-based filesharing (like Pirate Bay) one is actively depriving terrorists of their funds! Terrorist would have to be horribly stupid to continue pirating films if there isn't any profit in it, right? So I say we should all do our part to help stop terrorism by downloading movies. You see, it's OK now, just so long as we don't pay anyone for it.
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