Apperceptions

Blogger Tag - 5 Things

OK, Josh Leo tagged me and so now it's my turn:

1.  I was a cub scout.  My friend Ronnie sent a letter to JFK, inviting him to our Blue & Gold dinner.  One of his aids sent us a nice rejection note.  Here's a picture.  I think he went to Dallas instead.

2.  I love working with ceramics, especially Raku.  I used to build kilns.  Here's a video of a piece I made back in high school.

3.  When I was 12, my friends and I used to "cut" through the KonTiki Motel's parking lot on our bikes.  Our parents told us never to do that.  Once, when all the other kids cut through the lot, I went around the "safe" way.  I got hit by a car.  I received a small settlement.  Through the miracle of compound interest, it grew to pay for one year of college.

4.  I started out as a studio art major in college.  Then I went into photography.  Then psychology, then social-psychology and then mathematics.

5.  I was thrown out of the boy scouts.

Ok, now I gotta go find five people to tag: Dave, Alicia, Chris, Tyler and Bill.

Rachel's Summer Spin - BlogHer

My friend and associate Rachel Toole has created a fun and interesting mash-up video post around the BlogHer event that "we" are all going to on July 30th.

Who are "we"? Outhink and Apperceive are helping and sponsoring several people coming to BlogHer and the SpinFlow meetup dinner afterward for vloggers and "like minded people" as my good friend Dave Toole puts it.

He's doing a lot to help people like Ryanne Hodson, Jay Dedman, Michael Verdi, Rene Amini, Alicia Shay, Rachel Toole and myself to come and participate in these two great events.

Click the pic to view Rachel's video.

As part of our work together for Outhink, I suggested that Rachel post to her vlog about the upcoming BlogHer event.  I also suggested that she make a video without a camera this time and to make use of images from Flickr that had an appropriate Creative Commons license.  I suggested images of women working, sharing or collaborating.

One of the things I find most interesting about this video is the choice of music.  We did not have time during my short visit to Outhink last week to discuss this and so she made her own choice.  Personally, I love it  This was a song from my youth and I had no idea she even knew about it, much less liked it.  I love that a woman has taken this message as a symbol of her own empowerment.

Women of the world are uniting and collaborating around this great event and it has stirred the passions of Rachel Toole and others.  We need more women to blog and vlog.  We need more people to support their efforts.

New Blog: I, Reporter

"Inspiring, guiding, and educating citizen journalists and the news organizations that work with them."

Link: I, Reporter.

The RichardShow Screencast

Richard made a screencast of ANT. 

All day long I've been griping to the Yahoo Videoblogging Group about the troubles with Archive.org accessability and the Apple Quicktime Fast Start option.

So I went to watch Richard's latest gift to humanity and guess what happened!

It's like waiting for that client call or meeting. 

I hate it.  I hate it.  I hate it.

So I made a screencast of Richard's screencast.  What else could I do?

I love the RichardShow.  I love Scratch Video.  I love ANT (FireANT). 

Thank you Richard.  Thank you Charlene.  Thank you Josh, Daniel, Erik, Jay and Ryanne.

Click the pic to view the vid.  Better if you use ANT, because this is a bit large (10 minutes, 36MB).

"Unconscious" Bias at Work

The connections one makes through blogs often lead to some interesting people.

I found some thought provoking questions about the notion of gender bias in this post by Elisa Camahort -- one of the co-founders of BlogHer -- in her "worker bees blog".

Seems like lots of people are reading Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink".

Link: Worker Bees Blog: "Unconscious" Bias at Work.

New Project - New Blog

I am excited to be working with my friend Rachel Toole.  She is home from NYU for the summer and we are collaborating to document the process of implementing SpinFlow principles at Outhink, Inc.

Yes, Outhink.  Everyone can derive value from more SpinFlow training and discipline.  Like Tai-Chi or a martial art, SpinFlow requires study and practice.  There are no colored belts, but clearly there are masters and there are people who have a passion to create and wish to spin and flow media with ease.

So how are we doing it?  First we are establishing modern networking lines of communication between us and, to that end, we have created a pair of blogs (mine's a vlog, hers will be soon also; others may follow).

Much of our discussions and activities will revolve around using SpinXpress, ANT and vlogs.  You can find all the details and my first video related to this on my new vlog.  Rachel is free to do whatever she likes with her blog and I think it's already very interesting.

You are invited to observe and participate through the comments, we are very interested in your feedback and value quality interaction.

Rachel's Summer Spin blog.    My Spin Summer 2005 vlog.

Blogumentary = Chuck Olsen

Wow!  I just found something amazing!  I found a complete duplicate of my "zzzzzzzz-list" of bloggers that I used to read but no longer find relevant.

Even more amazing is the fact that the list is also the list of bloggers who appear in a so-called documentary called "59 bloggers".

What's most amazing is that the "former Hollywood executive", John Hart, who seems to be behind the "59 bloggers", has attempted to usurp the name "Blogumentary" which was first coined by Chuck Olsen of Secret Vlog Injection long before Hart showed up on the blogging scene. 

What's worse is that Hart has responded rudely to Chuck's polite requests to try and work the matter out.

Luckily the "59 bloggers" documentary may never see the light of day as it appears that funding is lacking for this project.  This guy's so desperate that he has apparently threatened legal action against Chuck.  Hopefully potential sponsors will realize the potential backlash of bad publicity that will no doubt ensue.

This is not true collaboration and I have no intention of supporting or viewing "59 bloggers".

I do look forward to Chuck's truly collaborative and honest "Blogumentary".

Please email John Hart at john.writer@gmail.com and urge him to show a little respect and to consider interviewing a more interesting set of people. 

Aside: Even Lessig is on the "zzzzzzz-list" these days.  I must admit that his name came up for consideration as a keynote speaker recently and everyone involved agreed that he seemed to be going on about the same old things these days  Pass.  We get it Larry, you're preaching to the choir.  Perhaps he's trying to get the chior to sing?  I dunno.  Check out my "Promises, Promises" playlist on WebJay for my favorite Larry Lessig mash-up.

Have you ever noticed how often it says "comments will be re-enabled soon" over at Creative Commons?  Weird.

Individual-i

I just found this banner in the sidebar of a site that Raymond had mentioned in a recent post to the Yahoo Videoblogging Group.  Interesting site.

Today, the rights of individuals are being eroded: by government, by corporations, by society itself. This icon — the Individual-i — represents the rights of the individual...

I like this alternate image too:

Comparte tus archivos con tus amigos con SpinXPress

Too cool!  We recently posted SpinXpress on downloads.com and something unexpected happened: we got A LOT of new users from Spain.  Go figure.  Not sure why Spain over anywhere else (other than that they are so cool over there, of course - I love traveling in Spain).

i just noticed (via a Technorati search on SpinXpress) this posting about the product on a Spanish language blog.  Too cool!

My spanish is a little rusty, but the post and comment seem to be mainly informative and say that we are like Grouper, except on the Mac too.

Thanks folks!

Link: Comparte tus archivos con tus amigos con SpinXPress.

More on Biz Cards

Several people said that posting my biz cards on the blog was a good idea.  I read Hugh McLeod, so it seems obvious to me.  I've even turned them over and drawn a cartoon on the back.  For a great must read by Hugh on Creativity, click here.

Actually, I apologize if they come off as spam - that is not my intention, although I do appreciate the side effect.  Please do call if you are interested in sponsoring Apperceive projects. 

In particular, Outhink has encouraged us to find additional sponsors for spinflow (I like that because it helps distribute costs, allows faster growth and provides for more voices contributing to the conversation).

We are always in need of additional funds for under writing open-source content creation and publication by creative professionals that is centered around the fine art of moving digital media.

I'll write more on this later, but the basic idea is: companies waste tons of money on advertisement and other forms of marketing hype trying to create content that is of value to the people they want to market to.  I believe that it is better to find creative people who are already so passionate about their work that they are doing it regardless of funding or whether it is their "job". 

I want to find sponsorships (patrons, actually) for these people do what they are already doing (or what they are planning to do, which could very well be new things too - often is).  Then encourage and help them to publish their work in an open source manner or at least under creative commons licences.  Ask their permission to showcase their work and establish yourself as a contributing member of society.  You will see great returns.  In particular, we can elevate the level of the conversations we are having.

I know that these are not new ideas and many have circulated on the net for some time.  I am starting to find these writings and appreciate them.  I hope to go deeper into this and have started to write up an overview of all of this, but for now my ideas are a blend of what is pouring in through the RSS feeds and from the intense experiences and interactions that I am having as we actually explore this approach to how we work with and help each other find our passions.

Anyway, so no more cards for a while.  Except that I am interested in creating some more interesting, fun and viral cards.  Mailart comes to mind at the moment.  I see stamps and stamps (both kinds).  I'll post more if I go off in that direction.  It is interesting, but a low priority at the moment.

Moment to moment...

"Day to day, day to day" - Hello?

Changing Habits

I was just looking over my news feeds it seems that everything falls into just a few buckets:

• xLogs (mainly videoblogs, almost entirely by individuals, with occassional collaborative outbursts - dtlq.vlog, momentshowing, ryanne, backinblakk, secret vlog injection and many more)
• audioblogs (IT Conversations, "Copy, Right?", Staccato, HawaiiUp, Marvin Suicide, etc.)
• spiritual leaders (Hugh MacLeod, Seth Godin, Cathy Sierra, etc.)
• creative professionals (creative bits, bitch that codes, mezzoblue, etc.)
• web services (archive.org, flickr, del.icio.us, WebJay, etc.)
• good zines and news (o'reilly digital media, Rocketboom, etc.)
• other (I won't tell you what's in here right now - but if you keep reading this blog then you'll eventually find out)
• the "zzzzzzz-list" (the last stop - just about any "A-lister" I used to read, plus Gizmodo, Engaget, etc.)
• the Thunderbird Trash can (let's not go there).

The problem is that I've gotten so busy working on great projects (with great people) that the only bucket I consistantly keep up with is "videoblogs".  The are worth it.  They really deliver the content I want to see.  The rest, which includes some of my most beloved favorites are beginning to fill up with unread posts.  That means that:

most of my blog roll is naturally evolving into xBlogs or the dreaded "zzzzzzz-list"

Hugh MacLeud draws it better than I can say it at gapingvoid.com.

Just Google It

Or Wikipedia it.

Someone recently asked me why I don't use as many links as I used to.  One reason is that I like focusing on the content and only providing links to items I really want to draw attention to or for search engine havesting.

Otherwise, I figure all the extra links just add noise and, besides, I imagine that you know where to find it on your own.

Experiencing xLogs

Fear and loathing on the road to DLA heaven...

I regularly enjoy several xLogs (webLogs, audioBlogs, vlogs, clogs, plogs and more).  However, certain aggregators tend to push us into using only one form of interaction unless we make a real effort to engage with xLog content and creators.

If we are not careful, these aggregators could end up turning into little more than information TV's, keep people on the couch.  On the other hand, aggregators also have the potential to become to link us into quality conversations.

Marc Canter has spoken wide and far about the wonders of digital lifestyle aggregation, but we rarely talk about the challenges associated with it.  We need to address these issues in more detail.  Nothing comes free; everything has ramifications.  People need to discuss both the benefits and the costs associated with the adoption of new technologies.

On the benefits side for aggregation, many folks remember the "old days" when we were bookmarking and trying to remember to visit each blog on a regular basis, depending on the output of the author.  I tried to maintain daily, weekly and monthly bookmark folders and del.icio.us tag categories full of blog bookmarks.  What a chore!  And what a horrible (and sometimes delightful) feeling of realizing I had fallen behind on some blog that I had forgotten about or that had slipped through the cracks.

But not no mo! Now I've got RSS feeds coming outta my ears.  I love it. Now I am automatically kept up to date on all my favorite blogs.  I use Thunderbird and ANT mainly.  RSS Digest and Feedburner are also important tools.

Then came the big wave.  A flood of information began flowing through me, I felt like something out of a sci-fi book.  Terminal Man. I loved it, but also could see that there was impending overload as my feeds grew into the hundreds.

Note: People who complain about too much email should not even consider newsfeed aggregators.  It will only make your life worse.

Out of necessity, I adopted the newsreader's code of ruthlessly weeding out content that was not highly relevant to me.  Many of the feeds had an occasional good post, but for the most past, many were just full of noise.  I wanted something more after the initial "rush" of reading so many new blogs.  I was not really looking for "news", especially so much news about other blogs.

Then the "zzzzzzz-list" was born.

Many of the so-called A-listers have become just mildly interesting news regenerators and commentators.  Busy to become the "new" journalist, many have also become less and less personal, except for their opinions, of course.  Most seem to love writing about the long-tail, but are they really trying to address any element of it?  It does not seem so.

If you really want fresh and hot news, then join a mailing list.  It'll blow your mind.  I recently joined the videobloggers mailing list.  Wow!  Talk about a conversation.  That deserves a separate post.

Next came ANT and I caught the videoblogging bug.  Both sides.  Watching and creating.  More importantly: watching, reacting, communicating and creating.  Even collaborating.

I love ANTs Not TV.  In fact, I have almost completely stopped watching broadcast television.  Ok, so I still like to watch one or two old time shows on cable, but I almost always miss them because I'm doing something else.  Did someone say "get a Tivo"?  That won't help me unless it comes with the extra daily viewing time necessary to watch more than I already am.  In a way, Tivo achieves this remarkable feat by allowing people to skip unwanted segments.  This is not the issue, however.  TV is not an xLog.

The issue is that I tend to NOT "read" the vlogs that I "watch".  This is generally ok for Rocketboom or Ryanne's, but Raymond deserves a good watch AND a good read as well.  And if you're not careful, you'll miss one of his interesting snapshots.

Similarly for renegade, backinblakk and many others.

This is not a slight on ANT.  ANT is a truly wonderful application and it provides a handy button to visit a video's associated blog and make a comment.  But that's not the same as experiencing all that the creator's have to offer.

I have the same problem with new Internet Archive postings.  OurMedia helps to some degree by bringing together the works posted to archive.org under the umbrella of a blog and forum based community.

So I have to make sure that people like this are in all of my aggregators.

As a result, I am now going back and reviewing many of the old vids and podcasts and finding their xLogs to see what other wonderful things they are saying or doing and, most importantly, to interact with other xBloggers.

And me, I am an xBlogger too. "x" in the sense of what xBase was to dBase. "x" as in Malcolm X, "an unknown quantity, variable".  Today it is a text post, tomorrow a video and something else the next day (perhaps a greenthing).

What element of the long tail am I addressing?  Above all, I am an artist and so that means to me that I must define my own nitch.  Do I want others to find it interesting?  Of course.  Do I want to make money from it?  Not necessarily.  Do I want money?  I want the freedoms that I think it can help me obtain.  Is this xBlog a vehicle for that?  It might be, but it's not what drives me.  Making art from applications is what drives me at this moment.  RSS, blogs and video are all just paints on the palette.

Recently, I 've been experimenting with a new kind of blog.  Instead of a blog written for either a large or a small audience, these are written for the smallest audience possible (other than just yourself - a diary).  I have started to create blogs for just one person.

I'm sure many others have done this. This is even a bit of a return to an old medium for me.  Many years ago, I created ad-hoc web pages expressing my feelings when courting my wife.

Now I have a blog for my wife.  Not about her. For her. It's not secure or protected, but it is not publicized either.  From time to time I write short thoughts and post them for her to read.  In this case others can read it, but they are anonymous to us.

I also write private blogs for some CEO's.  In one case, I coordinate a blog that is written by several people for one person.  We post items to it and produce a "personal" on-going report where the CEO can communicate and interact with the group.  In this case, the CEO is not an author.  They make comments.

Talk about long tail.  You're own personal zine.  Not just filtered and aggregated for you, but actually written with you in mind.  Now that's personal service.

The point is, we are constantly experimenting with new ways to communicate and express ourselves, especially through xLogs.  Aggregators, while good at blending, often remove the individual flavors of the contributors.  We need to work on maintaining our interaction with content creators and not just becoming voyeurs (at least not all the time).

Shot a video. Write a poem. Paint something. Make music.  Tell a story.

And then please go over and check out someone else's xLog and interact.


Addendum: Raymond is thinking about similar things. 

Woops!  Just got a Technorati post that renegade has also written on this topic.  She shares many of the thoughts that go thoughts that go through our minds when creating content.  She also shares some of the changes that have occured in her linking behavior that I have notice too (see post on just google it for a related thought).

What's On Your Palette?

One of the main ideas voiced in the online video conference the other day was the need for "one click videoblogging".  Michael Verdi and Ryanne Hodson have put together a great resource at freevlog.org, but more will be required if it is to be accessable to a far greater number of people (MV and RH are doing that too! They are constantly thinking of new ways to take videoblogging to the people).

But it's still a long chain of skills and tools one must master in order to vlog, from OurMedia to Feedster and more.  Most people will just want to shot, maybe quick edit on the camera, maybe transfer to their computers for more post processing, but then easy publication (note I did not just say "upload", I want the whole thing: upload, storage, feeds, publicity, etc. all in "one click").

It seems to me that ultimately more people will vlog than blog.  I think most people will ultimately find it easier to express themselves with video than with written words.  Right now, the distribution barrier is higher for video, but I think that will change.

Obviously, many of us will use every media type we can for expressive purposes, but I think that, just as with television, most people will find the video the first "weapon of choice".

Luckily, there are many "weapons" in our "arsenal" to choose as appropriate.  I do prefer a tools metaphor, so let's say "tools in our toolbox".  Or perhaps, the "paints on our palette".

What's on your palette these days?  What are your friends and family doing?  Are you influencing them with your blog or vlog?  Do they like what you are doing?  Do they know?  Do they care?  Do they want to do it too?

Green Thing

I just found out about the Green Thing and need to send off an email to Renegade to ask for a piece to use in making something fun with the new Sanyo Xacti C5 that we just ordered the other day on eBay.

Here's the greenthing Technorati tag.  Click on it to see more green things.

I wish more people I knew read Kathy Sierra's posts

Too many companies (large and small) are adding new features to products when they should be fixing bugs. 

I wish some of the people in charge would spend a little time reading the Creating Passionate Users weblog.  Kathy has a great pair of articles on "Easter Eggs".

BlogNashville Sells Out?

Again, it looks like another blogging conference is selling out.

I don't mean that a lot of people attended.  In fact, the meeting rooms didn't look too packed to me from the videos I've seen.  What I do mean is, remarks from the likes of no less than J.D. Lassica indicate that the conference seemed a bit too centered on one topic:how to make money from your blog.

Adam Shostack's seminar looks like it was popular, but not enough to warrant hanging out like a good conference usually does (in my experience as a lecturer).

It's sounds like going to a writer's conference only to find out that people are mainly interested in how to get a book or tv deal.

That's not surprising, really.

Paul Chaney, a marketing-type who could use an about page, blogs in his impressions that this conference was good for exposure to lots of media and political blogs, but that the conference was not done the way he would have done it.

Ryanne has posted some great videos she and Jay made at the conference.  Unfortunately, the videos mainly highlight the degree to which so many people just don't get "vlogs".

Even Dave Winer comes off looking like a bit of a Luddite.  I hate to admit he and I are about the same age.  Is the same thing happening to me?  Probably.  It certainly sounds like his session would have put me to sleep.

It seems to me that Northern Voice was the last great blogging conference.

Meanwhile, Tripp Millican is videoblogging his life!

Addendum: It appears that Dave Winer rubbed quite a few people the wrong way and one of the more heated encounters was recorded by people making a documentary called "BLOG".  Here is a great cartoon sketch; click it for more info.

Apperceptions.org, SpinFlow.org and Outhink.blogs.com

These are some of my favorite blogs of course.  As is Seth Godin's and a whole list of others.  I've been thinking about writing up a post about the best blogs I read and Seth has posted the challenge: It's national tell-a-friend-about-blogs week!.  So what better excuse?  Here are the ones that I enjoy the most:

Creating Passionate Users
Fractals of Change
Jon's Radio
Seth's Blog
Signal vs. Noise
Staccato
Ryanne Hodson's Vlog
Michael Verdi's Vlog
RocketBoom Vlog
SpinFlow

Seth has a great list on his blog.  I like the SVN site so much, I decided to adopt their pleasant green (#393) color choice for this blog.  Now if just ten friends read read this blog, I'll have met the challange. 

Speed Jamming

I just re-mixed a nice little post of Mitch Ratcliffe's for SpinFlow on collaboration and "Speed Jamming".  Please check it out.

From the sidelines: From A-list to zzzzzzz-list

Ha!  I knew someone would like this.

Link: From the sidelines: From A-list to zzzzzzz-list.

Sure getting lot's of hits from the recent trackbacks to Seth Godin's blog entries.  And the links from Ryanne, Ian and karmagrrrl ... thanks you guys!  Ahhhh, digitial presence!  While you're looking, please do check out SpinFlow.

Seth's Blog: Hello?

I wonder if Seth knows that his comments are turned off?  I tried leaving one yesterday, but had to blog it here instead.  Great story about Edison and the phrase "Hello".

Les Blogs or Less Blogs?

Is it just me or did the whole Les Blogs thing fizzle big time (at least to North Americans)?  Sure there's lots of news about it, but it seems like the whole thing made no real splash at all.

I think the problem is the so-called "A-listers".  Not blogging.

Lately, I have been moving more and more "A-list" bloggers into my "zzzzzzz" folder in Thunderbird.  This is where I put the ones that I used to like, but am finding less and less relevant each day.  I only check the "zzzzzzz" folder once a week or so and clean it out about once a month or so.  Everyone else, I keep up with.

Sometimes I get so fed up with a blogger that I actually enjoy booting the feed into the "zzzzzzzzzz" folder.  Take that!

I really love it when I can pull someone out of there (Paolo is the only one so far).

I keep wanting to take Joi Ito out of the "zzzzzzz" list, but can't seem to justify it.

Zawodny seems to have lost his cool back at the sky gliding camp.  Now he just bitches half the time and makes excuses for Yahoo and himself.  To the "zzzzzzz" list.

I'd take Dave Winer out if he'd just stop putting markup code in his titles.  Jeez.  What a geek! (he sent me an invite to Yahoo! 360 though - thanks Dave - I like your writting when it's legible).

Now I guess I'm bitching.  Oh well, you can always put me on your "zzzzzzz" folder or just hit delete.

I hope BlogNashville goes better (it should, there are better people there, like Jay Dedman - oops, Dave Winer is presenting at the same time) but I think the "blogging" thing is over (not writing them, just the "real" conferences).  $50 says that even the 2006 SXSW will be so "last year".  Any takers?

Addendum₁: Jeez! Some jerk weenie jerk left a trackback, linked here, misquoted this blog and then credited the wrong person.  Apparently this is the organizer for BlogNashville!  I hope he/she handles details better in the real world than they do in the blogosphere.  Trackback deleted! I'm not even gunna link to the offending page :P

Addendum₂: I changed "jerk" to "weenie" because they apologized and corrected the name, but only put quote marks over a single word I said, taken out of context.  Jeez!  I hope this guy checks out some of the journalism vs. blogging sessions.

Addendum₃: Now he's complaining that I called him a "jerk" inspite of his self-admitted lack of attention to detail.  He does have excuses though.  ("Excuses? Reasons? They are all the same to me." - General Arturo Salazar)  On the other hand, some of his other readers are also complaining about his misrepresenting their words too.  So I gues he's promoted back to "jerk" again.  I still hope it's a great conference for all who go.

Addendum₄: I'm standardizing on seven z's in "zzzzzzz-list'.  I added a new category.

Seth Godin

I had been meaning to write a post about a Seth Godin experience that I had recently, but one of his blog posts today gives me a second reason.  Regarding today's post:

Interesting Question: what happens in viral marketing when people identify with the wrong brand? 

Case in point: The Beverly Hills Hotel is a venerable institution that can be identified with bungalows, whereas the Beverly Hills Hilton is just a big brand hotel chain down the street that nickles and dimes you for every little "service".

Moral: we're not all mavens with respect to everything.

Especially me...

I have been enjoying Seth's newsfeed and blog for some time now and his name and work has become a familiar one to me.  I have even mentioned him to others and have certainly emailed links to his posts to old school marketing folks I seem to constantly meet (my favorite is "shortcuts").

Much of what he and Malcolm Gladwell have written has resonated with me.

The recent "Seth Godin" experience that I referred to was this...

The other day, I was thinking about something pretty deeply and my vision fixed on a point ahead of me.  I have a small rack of little reference books on my desk, filled mainly with those O'Reilly quick ref's and a gadget manual or two.

All of a sudden it occurred to me that I was staring at the words "SETH GODIN", running sideways down one of the books.  I thought "What is this doing here?" and suddenly I remembered that "Unleashing The Ideavirus" was one of those Amazon "Better Together" offers back last year when I pre-ordered Gladwell's "Blink".

In that moment I realized that I must have accepted the additional book (probably because I was gunna have to wait several more months for Blink and probably because I had just finished the Tipping Point and wanted more viral marketing exposure).

I recall browsing Seth's Ideavirus book when it arrived and liking a lot of what it had to say.  I must have then placed it in the reference rack with the hope of reading more later and then forgot about it (and him) for several months (it's probably better to keep a book like this in the john, it will get read much faster).

So, here's a case where the author's blogging did not cause me to purchase the book (but I'd love to take a look at his "liars" book - i have too much to read these days and so I don't just order everything I think I want like I did back in the boon days).  But Seth's blog (blogs actually, I think he has at least two) certainly do promote Seth and his ideas.  And now I can't wait to read more of Ideavirus.  It's a wonderfully vicious cycle.

I love finding treasures already in ones own library.

Finally, the pieces fall together.  I need to pay more attention to people's names, especially in this attribution crazed world.  I had a professor in college (Ky Fan) who used to hammer us about that.  We could often state and prove very complex theorems, but couldn't tell you who first wrote them and when.  In spite of my rigorous academic upbringing, I still wonder sometimes how important this really is.  We all stand on the shoulders of giants, but then, so do they.

We live in a world gone "attribution" mad.  There's even a licence for it now.  I wonder what would happen if, as a University instructor, I were to license all my handouts and materials (and even the course content itself) with a Creative Commons "attribution-shareAlike" license and then sued all my students that did not adhear to the licence over the course of our lives.  What would happen if I added the "non-commercial" or "no derived works" options?  Personally I am beginning to think that "intellectual property" is an oxymoron, but this is a subject for another post.

At least now I know who wrote "Unleashing the Ideavirus". 

Thanks Seth!

Brinkster Bouncing Mail Again

And then there are those who grow and their service just goes down the tubes...

Well, another great day on Brinkster.  People are calling and telling me that emals to the Brinkster based account are bouncing.  I can see it here too.  Luckily, I've started to migrate to some better providers, but it will take a little more time (I've decided to try multiple providers, they are getting so cheap and I have enough domains and paranoia to warrent it).

The great quote of the day from Brinkster support monkey Jason (do you think they use they're real names?) was:

"We work constantly to resolve any known issues with the email services."

They must have they're hands over they're eyes, ears and mouths.

Videobloggers Project

I've been fortunate to work with some very talented people lately.  Here is a post on SpinFlow that I wrote about one of their projects.  Watch the video they made about a videoblogging workshop that they gave in NYC.

Katsup

Just a short 'katsup' note.  I'm so busy with SpinFlow related projects that I have little time for blogging.  Things are definitely starting to spin and flow with respect to our Outhink sponsored projects.

I had a great interview with Metrov on friday.  He's a multi-talented and insightful digital artist living in Goleta, California.  He graciously invited me over to his studio and we had an interesting conversation about his work and moving digital media.  I'm putting together a complete writeup for SpinFlow.

I've also been trying to get back into the groove with Internet Archive Tonight and have been adding significantly to the playlists at WebJay.org.  Check out the new Lounge playlist.

Speaking of music, hop over to Hideout for a great source of legal tunes.  Hideout is a radio show with "drops of 30 minutes of music featuring selections made by Brazilian DJs".  Don't expect too much Samba here, the last show highlights some hot rock and roll bands.  This is a nice Blogger site and you can use your own favorite media player or the embedded flash one if you are player-less.

I took a walk with Alicia yesterday in the Ventura River Preserve and just got so fired up by all the sounds that I have started to play more with my old Olympus D1000 digital recorder so that I can start an "Ojai Sites and Sounds" weblog (anyone want to help?) where people can visit to just take a break and listen to birds, horses, streams, parades, children's laughter, etc.  Click the picture of horseback rider to view a Flash-based slideshow of the pics.

The good news is that the D1000 seems like a great little portable recording device.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a driver for the Olympus CA1 PCMCIA flash card reader that works with Win2K (this is weird, as I have another, similar, reader for my camera and old pda flash cards that works fine without installing any special drivers).  Oh well, I can always go from recorder's mono headphone out to a computer's stereo line in.  Joy.  Sort of defeats the point of capturing things digitally.  Anyone know how I can make Win2K recognize the Olympus CA1 flash card reader?  Does it work under XP?  I guess I can look into buying a new reader that handles flash memory cards and the newer and smaller SD ones used in my new iPAQ pda/phone.

Ok, back to work.  I have aggregators to tame and lots of video tasks to get to (I learned how to do pic-in-pic and simple text videos in Quicktime last night - fun, but it takes way too much time from my programming).  I need a 40 hour day, not week. 

RSS Feeds for Videos

Hmmm.  I just tried to see if the RSS feed for this blog would work in ANT.  Nope.  Ant indicated an error downloading and parsing feed.  I've done this before successfully for webjay feeds, but not a TypePad blog. 

I was thinking about using Feedburner anyway as it will be useful for the new SpinFlow site.  Perhaps it will work better.  I notice it's use on other sites and I hear you can get good stats too. 

Ok, so more stuff to learn and do trying to get my message about SpinFlow out to you. I'll make notes here as I resolve things.  I'll probably have to learn more about RSS enclosures or something like that.

This is what SpinFlow is all about: helping to remove the barriers to self expression.

Yahoo! 360

Dave Winer was kind enough to pass on an invite to me and so I'm checking out this new Web 2.0 service.  It has mail, blog, photos, contacts, friends, calendar, IM, etc.  Anyone want an invite?

Public Service Announcement - Now Hear This

Does the power of this go to everyone's head?  I had to do this for some silly reason. 

I actually recorded this a few weeks ago when I got the iSight webcam, but I did not finish editing and producing until tonight. 

Does that still count for for videobloggingweek2005? Here's 4 of 7.  I promise to get back to more serious stuff soon.

Kanoe Kam

Ok, so I have to make one with a cat.  Here's 3 of 7 for videobloggingweek2005.

Kanoe is a very clean cat.  She takes a bath before going outside in the rain.

Our first "mobile" video and a little drama.

SpinFlow Vision Part I

While hoping and waiting to hear from Ryanne, I decided to make another video.  Have I joined for videobloggingweek2005? Only time will tell.  I'll need another five more videos.

This one begins to explain the vision for SpinFlow, a community that we want to build to address "moving media for creative professionals".

Ryanne sent back the nicest email.  I'm stoked.  This may seem redundent now, but what the heck. Click to play.

Creating Passionate Users

I recently discovered the "Creating Passionate Users" weblog and I am so much the better for it.  Most of the articles are by Kathy Sierra, who has an interesting and eclectic background in software and web development.  Also a member of the "Head First" team of book authors, she has a witty and irreverent style and perspective.  I  particularly enjoyed today's post "One of us is smarter than all of us", along with the related earlier post "The Power of One."  I highly recommend reading this weblog for it's fresh ideas, but also entertaining presentation.

I have yet to read any articles by the other team members, but I definately intend to check out their book on patterns.

LA Zen Zoo

Gordon Gould of Weblogs, Inc. and I got together at the Zen Zoo tea cafe in Brentwood for a fine meal and some great conversation about the future of blogging, tagging and Web 2.0. 

In addition to some delicious teas, Zen Zoo has a nice Dim Sum selection that we sampled most appetitiously.

With all the recent storm damage, Brentwood is about a two hour jaunt down The Pacific Coast Highway from Ojai.  I took the convertible, of course - too much fun!  No freeway hassels (until you try to come back to Ojai - the main road in is still down to one lane) and the majority of the drive is beautiful (mainly the ocean and the costal mountain range).

Brentwood and Santa Monica are about the only places in LA that I really enjoy visiting anymore, although I still now a few places downtown that are still worth a pilgramage to whenever possible.

Paunch, beard, glasses.

I noticed this old entry on Lucas Gonze's blog today.  Does anyone know what they are talking about?

(I was trained as a Mathematician, actually).

Jim says:

There is a certain group of 50ish computer science types that all have the same paunch, the same beard, and the same glasses. What will my generation look like? 

Lucas' Answer: Paunch, beard, glasses.

Little Things and Old Lessons Relearned

It's always fun to notice the little things we do that end up mattering to someone.  Last night, Gordon Gould of Weblogs Inc. stopped by and was prompted to write a great little post about SpamPoison, an item in my sidebar.  Then Gordan linked back to me, which is just too cool.

When I started this weblog, I was certainly influenced by other people's blogs.  Being a developer, I tended to look first at the "toys" that blogs had and then the content.  I was originally more interested in how people created and used weblogs than I was in actually writing one (that has all changed, now content is important to me and I find a desire to express myself). 

WooHoo!

I'm stoked.  One of my WebJay playlists topped 100 hits (wow!) and made it to the home page popular listing.  Oops, my fifteen minutes of fame is up; i've already dropped from fourth to seventh place.  I better keep that content fresh!  Here's a piece I pointed to this morning from the Internet Archive.  It's in my derivative works playlist.

Off By 1 Error?

I noticed another oddity with Technorati today.  When I search for "apperceptions", one of the entries (the second at this time) indicates "2 links from 1 source" but when you click on that link, you see a listing of three items and the phrase "3 links from 2 sources".  Hmmm.

On the good side, I see that the extra item is someone who put a link to me on his blog (thanks!).  However, I see from my stats that the bulk of my traffic comes from Google searches and trackbacks.

Free Plublicity

If the old adage "any publicity is good publicity" is true, then could it be the case that a bunch of well known bloggers (Ito, boyd, Ratcliffe, others) have been prodded into referencing and linking to a certain messaging company lately?  Using Cease and Desist letters like this reminds me of the first email spam back in 1994.  Now wait a moment, wasn't that done by a pair of lawyers? 

Psych 101

I enjoy Ben Hyde's posts but I'm a bit dismayed by the number of common misconceptions appearing in his column this morning.

First, I've always been amazed at how many people do not understand the meaning of "negative reinforcement."  I hear people use it as a synonym for "punishment" all the time.  Here is yet another example of someone who seemed to miss the intro lecture on operant conditioning. 

OK, one more time: if it's reinforcement, then that means it will strengthen the behavior.  Positive reinforcement is when you introduce a pleasantly perceived stimuli and negative reinforcement is the the removal of a noxious stimuli (e.g., that could be me in this case ;p). 

Second, Ben also states "You get normal distributions whenever you have long series of random binary success and failures".  I won't even go into this one, but let's just say that the myth of the normal distribution is still alive and well, even if B. F. Skinner is not.

R.I.P.  Burrhus, some of us remember you well.  We also remember that many classic simulations and studies from the 70's relied not only on false assumptions about distribution shapes, but also on the "minimally tested" uniform number generator (URAND) that was distributed to so much of the academic community.

Addendum: Ben must be editing live (I confess, I do that too at times) as the statement about normal distributions seems to have disappeared from the front page.  Oops, now it's gone from the archive page too.  Good choice!

ANT (Ant's Not Tv)

Here is the feedback I sent to ANT after using it for a few days:

"I love it.  I have had no problems what so ever.  Great install.  My biggest desire so far is (1) be able to  sort playlist and feeds (by name, date, etc) and (2) allow for easy import from del.icio.us (or directory when it is available) and (3) allow playing downloaded files in proper date order (i.e., if I download file1.mov and file2.mov and file1 was published before file2, then I have to rearrange the order of the files in the playlist if I want them to play in the proper order).  Item (3) could be effected by (2) if downloaded files where added to playlist in the proper sort order (i.e., if sorted by date ascending, then new files would be added to the end of the playlist in proper date order and playing "down" the list would play them in the correct order.  Hope all that makes sense and is helpful.  Thanks for a great product."

They say a Windows version (Linux too) is coming soon.  According to Jay Dedman over at Momentshowing, the name ANT is "a funny play of the GNU" (GNU's Not Unix) phrase.

Welcome

Ok, we got several new blogs up and running today (this one, my comedy one and a couple for Outhink).

Here are some links to my other sites:

• Apperceive.com
• app.etitio.us
• I've also set up a new blog for my comedy writing.
• My bookmarks on del.icio.us
• Outhink internal weblog (login required)

Technorati Profile