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Year 2007

Entries 10 Total

One Last 2007 Story

Dec 31, ’07 11:45 PM

In lieu of my traditional end of year posts, I instead offer an anecdote I offered a friend when summarizing my year, one that was left out of the relevant post:

On September 9th, around 3 PM, I went on the Cyclone at Coney. It was the last day that Astroland was going to be in existence; I had already seen the Zipper get driven away. In an effort to get the ride finished sooner (always hate the lines!), I opted for the last car – which I would be sharing with someone else. Someone considerably larger than me.

Sure enough, I had forgotten everything I had ever been told (NEVER RIDE THE LAST CAR) in a wave of nostalgia.

The first 30 seconds were fantastic, even as my back was reeling and my chest was crunching into the bar as we free-fell over and over again. Then we hit a sharp turn and my seatmate slammed into me, nearly breaking my ribs. It wasn’t much fun anymore, it was just pain – so I braced myself to avoid a repeat, and held on for the remainder of the ride.

I got off, collected my bag – cursing myself for deciding to lug all of my lenses and a monopod with me that day. It hurt enough to nearly bring me to tears, but not nearly enough to have me call an ambulance. At the same time – that was going to be my closing memory on Coney Island? I was livid in my pain – walked onto the beach, shot a 270° panorama, and hobbled to the train home.

It would hurt to breathe for the next week, and the pain would continue for about three weeks – and I think it ended right around the time they announced that, surprise, Astroland will be open again next year!

2007 is all right there – the joy, the pain that makes you wince, the regret and the stupid dramatic twist at the end.

Rollercoaster of a year, indeed.
Comments (1)

Frigtards

Dec 20, ’07 10:07 AM

I’d like to revisit a post from last year, entitled “Three Little Words“, where I tried desperately to shake people from the cocaine-style addiction the Apple faithful have to rumor sites.

The trajectory of rumor sites is simple: first, they get a handful of successful predictions while they have a source. They get linked, often by the blogs I referenced above, for somehow nailing their predictions. Their traffic spikes, ad revenues go through the roof. Apple Legal C&D’s them (or sometimes sues), and the legal fight becomes the news for a while.

While the fight is going on, the accuracy of the site starts dropping. Rumored products never appear. Keynote predictions go under 50% accuracy. Wrong information is attributed to “last minute decisions” or sometimes just edited down the memory hole.

Eventually, the traffic drifts to another site, because they’ve started the same trajectory.

Think Secret is on the downward part of this trajectory.

I would give admonitions at this point, warning people away from there, but really, I would rather people stopped putting their faith in any rumor sites.

Think Secret’s trajectory has finished fifteen months after I wrote this, and not with a poor Ryan Meader-esqe whimper, but with a settlement.

Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides. As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and Think Secret will no longer be published. Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret’s publisher, said “I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits.”

Now, given that Apple fans seemingly know everything, you would think they’d know that a “settlement” is an agreement that both sides reach. As in, Ciarelli has agreed to shut the site down. As in, Apple did not “win” any legal action to force it closed. They proposed a settlement, and Nick took it.

TUAW, how you doin’?

And how stupid is Apple by forcing this through, killing their most ardent fans? This company is more and more acting like Microsoft. A new Evil Empire. Call them the Evil Twins from now on…! The suits and lawyers has taken over.

TechCrunch, how about you guys?

This is really disgusting that a company who claims to be the morally right choice(I think there was some advert they released ages ago about being different) Is actually far more evil than microsoft chooses to be. Seeing the way that they are behaving regarding shutting down this site and the way they act to restrict competition on the iphone and itunes, makes me glad that they are not the dominant player in the market. Microsoft may be bad, but they are definitely less evil than Apple.

Slashdot, what’s up?

So now corporations will determine what independent press is able to say or shut them down? Our news is already skewed enough as it is by the various corporate news outlets who cater to this and that political party.

Macworld, let me hear you!

How cool is it to bash a college kid? His site has to come down because Steve Jobs is mad? How is it that corporate secrecy is more important than this kid’s first amendment rights? I hope this gets a lot of press.

sigh.

For a more analytic, less finger-pointing overview, try The Shape Of Day’s ‘Think Secret Is Dead’.

Comments (2)

Six Things I Discovered From Flickr Stats

Dec 13, ’07 7:33 PM

Today, Flickr started offering statistics for Pro members; those of you with Pro Accounts can turn it on immediately. I turned it on this afternoon, and now that all my stats are loaded, some of the many oddities of my Flickr photostream have been explained.

  1. The #1 search referral from Google’s traditional search to my Flickr photos is “my pokemons let me show you them“, of which at press time I am ranked #2. Oddly, I do not have similar ranking for the ‘correctly’ spelled “my pokemans let me show you them”.
  2. On the other hand, the #1 search referral from Google Image Search is for “jamie bell“. This is amusing because people are presumably searching for the actor from Billy Elliot/King Kong, and not the bassist for The Go! Team. (“pokemans” is #2, for whatever that’s worth.)
  3. None of my 2,665 photos are untagged.
  4. One of my photos has never been viewed. I’m unable to figure out which one.
  5. I am the #1 search result on Yahoo for “new haircut“. I never before understood why it had so many views, but now it makes sense, I suppose.
  6. My dismissive photo of a Mr. Six sign, taken at Six Flags Great Adventure, is the primary photo for the Wikipedia entry for Mr. Six. I feel used and slightly disgusted.
Comments (1)

Thoughts on Southland Tales

Nov 30, ’07 1:27 AM

It’s been about five hours since I left the screening for Southland Tales.

Southland Tales is the much maligned second film from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly. It (somewhat famously) was ripped to shreds by critics at Cannes 2006 – Roger Ebert described it as “the most disastrous Cannes press screening since, yes, ‘The Brown Bunny’”. Forced back into the editing room, ST has been cut down slightly, and put into limited release this month to the sound of even more critical shredding. It’s currently holding a polarized 33% on RottenTomatoes.

I cannot begin to describe the plot. The best approximation would be to read the film’s keywords listing from IMDB, which I will reproduce here:

alternative timeline, anti conformity, apocalypse, apocalyptic, big corporation, blackmail, conspiracy, doppelganger, dream like, dystopic future, ensemble, fourth of july, friendly fire, future noir, government corruption, heat wave, ice cream truck, kidnapping, marxism, metaphysics, near future, nuclear weapons, political, porn star, riot, satire, split personality, surveillance, time travel, zeppelin

My initial impression, upon the credits rolling, was that it is the most gloriously incomprehensible movie to come from someone not named David Lynch I have ever seen. And I’d like to stick by that, if you don’t mind – it feels like a Lynch film, certainly more parts Mulholland Drive than parts Eraserhead.

I’ve certainly found RottenTomatoes to be wrong before, but I’ll be honest: there exists a significant chance that you could hate this movie. It is, as many reviewers on both sides of the fence pointed out, a mess. There exists a significant chance you’ll dislike it. It’s not mainstream, and possibly not even acceptable enough for the “underground”.

But, to remain honest, I did love it. Even amongst the mess, I found reasons to laugh, to be afraid, to cringe, and to smile. Within the busy backgrounds and near sensory overload lay extra jokes, bits of story lines, and small details for those paying attention. It is a movie that, in some small way, rewards NADD.

To tweak a line from the Boston Globe, it is a messy movie for our messy times. And for that, I recommend Southland Tales.

Comments (0)

Old Man Simmons

Nov 16, ’07 10:54 AM

Via mikey-san, excerpts from Billboard’s Gene Simmons: college kids killed music biz:

IT HAS BEEN NINE YEARS SINCE WE’VE SEEN A NEW KISS ALBUM. ANY PLANS TO GET BACK INTO THE STUDIO?

The record industry is in such a mess. I called for what it was when college kids first started download music for free — that they were crooks. I told every record label I spoke with that they just lit the fuse to their own bomb that was going to explode from under them and put them on the street.

There is nothing in me that wants to go in there and do new music. How are you going to deliver it? How are you going to get paid for it if people can just get it for free? I will be putting out a Gene Simmons box set called “Monster” — a collection of 150 unreleased songs. KISS will have another box set of unreleased music in the next year.

The record industry doesn’t have a f—ing clue how to make money. It’s only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there’s no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They’ve got freckles. That’s a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit’s mask.

Doesn’t affect me. But imagine being a new band with dreams of getting on stage and putting out your own record. Forget it.

BUT SOME ARTISTS LIKE RADIOHEAD AND TRENT REZNOR ARE TRYING TO FIND A NEW BUSINESS MODEL.

That doesn’t count. You can’t pick on one person as an exception. And that’s not a business model that works. I open a store and say “Come on in and pay whatever you want.” Are you on f—ing crack? Do you really believe that’s a business model that works?

SO WHAT IF MUSIC JUST BECOMES FREE AND ARTISTS MAKE THEIR LIVING OFF OF TOURING AND MERCHANDISE?

Well therein lies the most stupid mistake anybody can make. The most important part is the music. Without that, why would you care? Even the idea that you’re considering giving the music away for free makes it easier to give it away for free. The only reason why gold is expensive is because we all agree that it is. There’s no real use for it, except we all agree and abide by the idea that gold costs a certain amount per ounce. As soon as you give people the choice to deviate from it, you have chaos and anarchy. And that’s what going on.

Don’t worry, Gene. Very few people have any interest in pirating your music.

Related reading: Prince is batshit insane. As is Elton John.

Comments (0)

Blacktree Goodies

Nov 6, ’07 10:24 AM

Quicksilver: now open source.

Wildcard: now available.

Comments (0)

Tutorial: Easy Archiving for Gmail IMAP

Oct 31, ’07 11:33 AM

Long overdue update: There was a post here explaining how to mess with your iOS settings to get the Mail application to “archive” instead of “delete”, as some people prefer one behavior over the other.

As of iOS 4.2, this tutorial is completely unnecessary, as there’s a setting to choose whether you want the now-default Archive method, or a regular old delete. You can find it in the main account settings for your Gmail account:

I have nuked the previous tutorial, as it was confusing and useless in light of Apple engineering out a better option.

Comments (3)

Never Have I Been More Proud To Be A Cornellian

Oct 30, ’07 1:08 PM

Stephen Colbert was in Ithaca over the weekend, and my love for the man just grows and grows.

Moving on to Cornell students, he said, “You people get more of your news from me and this guy named Jon Stewart than from any other source. Who thinks that I am news?”

After a smattering of applause, he asked, “Who thinks I’m not news but gets their news from me anyway?”

When the crowd roared, Colbert scoffed, “And this is the Ivy League! Shame on you! I make shit up all the time!”

So awesome.

Colbert, who is running for president in South Carolina, announced that, under new sponsorship, his campaign would be the “Hail to the Cheese Nacho Cheese Doritos Stephen Colbert 2008 Campaign.”

“I will be as good for this country as Doritos are for your body,” he said.

And what about a campaign slogan? He suggested, “Don’t just waste your vote — waste your vote on me.”

SO awesome.

Comments (0)

Doing It Right

Oct 29, ’07 5:15 PM

Red Ninja

Grip Like A Vice

Sam Dook

Jamie Bell

Tools of the Trade

Last night, The Go! Team rocked the ever-loving shit out of Brooklyn.

Comments (1)

Trent Reznor Is Now A Free Agent

Oct 9, ’07 1:02 AM

Posted at 10:15 AM, 10/08/07, on nin.com:

hello everyone. i’ve waited a long time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now nine inch nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. i have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as i see fit and appropriate. look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. exciting times, indeed.

Insert reference to The Hand That Feeds here.

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