Check out this image of Obama’s inaugural speech. It’s a 1400 Megapixel photo. This allows you to do some ridiculous zooming in. You can even check out Bush’s sour face. Pretty cool. Here’s the article where the photographer explains how it was done. Click on the photo below to see the sweet details
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A new feature was released today from Google called Google Latitude. It’s allows you to post your location onto Google Maps and to see your friends’ locations. It’s done using GPS and other technologies (Gears, etc.) and works really well. Here are some thoughts i have on it
First, I like the way it looks and works. The interface is extremely simple. Entering in info is done inline and the interface is definitely not cluttered with too many bells and whistles. Adding and viewing friends is also braindead simple. Overall, it’s a snap to use
It’s a social app but it’s different than a social network. For instance it’s (a) only really useful for people you know, (b) more interesting for people you live close to, and (c) limited to only location information. It’s only a map. Again, very simple
Not everything is great though. One thing i don’t understand is why they force you to access it (on the web) through iGoogle. I have a homepage already and see no other reason to go to iGoogle. That’s annoying and i wish it had it’s own site like Google’s Calendar, Reader, Maps, Mail, etc. Also, I also wish it would use my profile from other Google products. It seems now that i have a different profile for Gmail, Calendar, Orkut, FriendConnect and Reader. Why can’t there be just one?
Since i’ve had a iPhone, i’ve become much more aware of the usefulness of my location. When this information is layered onto web services, those services can become much more useful. I like this new app because it shows that there’s a whole other layer (location) that is just starting to be explored. I can imagine many applications starting to layer in location and serve information based on this. Ad targeting, ticketing, messaging, groups all change when this is added.
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I got tagged in Facebook to do one of these lists. I really enjoyed reading some of my colleagues and some of my old friends from high school so i thought i’d put one together.
The rules are that once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged or however many you want. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
Here are my items:
1. I don’t like fruit (with the exception of apples) and i’m happy that my sister’s the same way. It makes me feel less strange.
2. I tend to get around. I’ve been to 49 states and hope to get to the final one, Mississippi, sometime soon. Since college, I’ve lived in Virginia, New York, Washington DC, Boston (sort of), and now Los Angeles.
3. I have no toenails on my 2 little toes.
4. I was born in NY, then moved to CA, then moved to Texas before i finished my youth in Minnesota.
5. I grew up in Minnesota. When i moved east in 1996, i felt like a Midwesterner. I then lived on the east coast for 11 years. When i moved to California last year, i felt like an Easterner. After a few years here, who knows who i’ll be.
6. i’ve never broken a bone. I attribute this to my love of milk.
7. I love the extended Lewis Family clan and feel so fortunate that i have such great cousins, aunts and uncles.
8. When i was younger I used to dress up like a ninja and wonder around in the woods with my brother.
Continue reading “25 Random Things About Me”
I would like to call to attention a post written today about my new favorite player in the NBA. Let me ask you this question:
if you take:
Which rookies over the past 100 years do you think would be in that list? I’ll give you a hint: 2 of the top 10 are rookies this year. At number 9 you have Greg Oden. He’s ahead of Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Another 2008-2009 rookie, however, is currently third all time. He’s ahead of Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Oakley, Buck Williams, and Bill Walton (trailing only Clifford Ray and Larry Smith, who were three years older in their rookie years than the guy I’m talking about). It’s, of course, Kevin Love.
It’s strange considering:
Kevin Love’s total rebounding percentage is greater than his age, which just about never happens. He’s only 20, but he grabs 21.3 percent of the rebounds while he’s on the court. He’s also smaller and less athletic than a lot of the players he’s competing against for those loose balls. And he’s best known as a passer
Whatever it is, it’s amazing to see Love haul in offensive board after offensive board. Even more amazing to think that he’s only 20. The article is good as it describes his mentality when playing. Check it out and Go Kevin Love and Go T-Wolves!
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Toby and i have been debating and discussing what new media will look like. His post today inspired me to lay down some of my thoughts. A lot of my thinking stems from this article in The Atlantic and Fred’s Post about his reading habits.
The Atlantic post described how the NY Times is dead. With $1 billion in debt, a $400 million dollar loan due in May and only $46 million in cash on hand, it is going down. Even with the $250 million it got yesterday, it cannot continue to exist the way it is. No newspaper can. My beloved Star Tribune declared bankruptcy last too and that’s the beginning of the trend of all papers.
Why are they failing? Because the business model is wrong. They are trying to do too much. They cover things that are commodities. It’s as if every online music service tried to build an mp3 store to compete with iTunes and Amazon. They don’t because those work great. Newpapers try to cover every story: national and international news, sports, entertainment, etc. The local newspaper doesn’t need to cover most of they reports on today because their paper is not going to be the place where the public finds that information. When user’s get online, all of this news is available in other places, for free and in a better, deeper format. For instance:
If a paper is covering any of these on their own, it is a losing proposition. What’s left? The only thing is see is local news. I think local papers should focus on local news because everything else is a commodity. Even bloggers will be able to fill the gaps left by major journals.
Toby talks in his post about the Huffington Post which i think is a piece of the puzzle but it’s only interesting because they are trying to be a news portal. And i agree. In my mind, most “papers” will shift online and instead of reporting the news, they will be filtering it. And if they don’t, they will die. They better hurry up too, becuase places like the HuffPo are trying to get there first. You can already see how this is happening. Filters are already part of people everyday lives the same way a paper used to be. Technology aggregation and filtering is done at Techmeme, sport aggregation and filtering at ESPN, and news filters like CNN can replace almost any newspaper’s news coverage.
I’m not the only one who thinks this way. More evidence came yesterday when ESPN announced a partnership with TrueHoop to place NBA blogs in their site because they know that they can’t cover everything. You can see how techmeme is the “paper” of choice for Michael Arrington from TechCrunch. He writes:
TechMeme is another four-year favorite. It is the blogosphere’s daily newspaper, and one of the sites we use most often in seeing how stories develop.
Will papers become local news sources? I think that’s all that’s left for them. But they better hurry up because local blogs like LAist.com and DCist.com are already attacking this niche and doing a better job than they are.
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There’s a new book by Seth Godin called “Tribes” which talks about the startup culture and out-of-the-box thinkers. Two interesting parts of the book are the parts about followers and the parts about Leaders.
A good question exists talking about the difference between employees and followers. Employees show up each day and do their tasks whereas a follower is someone who is following a calling. Followers work because they believe not because they are told to do so. Great companies illustrate this. You can see people flocking to Facebook and Apple because those companies inspire. They don’t recruit but spread gospel. It’s interesting.
This relates directly to the talk about Leaders. The following characteristics were thrown out in the book:
- Leaders challenge the status quo.
- Leaders create a culture around their goal and involve others in that culture.
- Leaders have an extraordinary amount of curiosity about the world they’re trying to change.
- Leaders use charisma (in a variety of forms) to attract and motivate followers.
- Leaders communicate their vision of the future.
- Leaders commit to a vision and make decisions based on that commitment.
- Leaders connect their followers to one another.
Makes me think about how i interact with my coworkers and how i behave at work. Some people are better than others at finding a vision and staying focused on it. What do you think? Is this hard for you to do? Do you know some people who are particularly good at it?
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I saw Clint Eastwood‘s latest movie, Gran Torino, last weekend and really liked it. Clint played an over-the-hill retired Detroit autoworker who is sour. He’s pissed off at the lack of respect displayed throughout society and his family and his bitterness creates some pretty funny moments.
I also was able to read this month’s Esquire magazine which features Clint. In this article you hear Clint describe an earlier time when kids had it rougher and people weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty.
Some of his quotes:
we were always moving. Redding. Sacramento. Pacific Palisades. Back to Redding. Back to Sacramento. Over to Hayward. Niles. Oakland. So we were constantly on the road, and I was always the new guy in school. The bullies always thought, Here’s this big gangly guy. We gotta take him on. You know how kids are. We gotta test him. I was a shy kid. But a lot of my childhood was spent punching the bullies out.
My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.
We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?” In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on.
I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.
I’ve been hit from Clint from all sides. After i read the article, i then heard an interview of him on NPR where he talks about his Dirty Harry days and how he actually enjoys playing characters that are very different from him. The mp3 for that interview is here.
I will say that i think Gran Torino is one of his better movies. Not as good as Million Dollar Baby but still pretty solid.
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I went to fill up yesterday at this gas station in West Hollywood on the corner of Olympic and Robertson and was amazed what i saw.
This place has the following:
All in all it’s pretty impressive for just a standard gas station. You can read more about what BP is doing at thegreencurve.com
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I read a great little post by Lizard about her morning. It is a great depiction of the pain of waking up and the joy of finishing. It takes a while to learn that there’s nothing as rewarding as getting up to run. It always delivers. Liz’s morning:
• Get up
• Whine
• Go back to bed
• Get back up. Shiver.
• Whine
• Brush teeth. Look for running clothes
• Be filled with love that the Boss has washed my running clothes
• Stub toe. Curse.
• Look for socks. Find one. Victory!
• Remember that you need two socks. Damnit!
• Find second sock. Sock #2 is different thickness than sock #1. Debate how much this will bother me while running.
• Decide “A lot”, look for different sock.
• Fail at finding new sock, suck up the different thickness socks.
• Reach for caffeinated Gu.
• Discover lack of caffeinated Gu. Curse.
• Look for gloves. Find gloves. Rejoice!
• Look for Ipod. Remember have not charged iPod in 4 days. Curse.
• Attempt to tie shoes while wearing gloves. Fail. remove gloves, tie shoes. Leave house
• Step outside. Note that it is raining. And cold. Curse.
• Go to start watch. Notice that you forgot watch. Curse
• Begin to notice how pretty everything is all covered in fog
• …until the second running step when it becomes clear that water on the streets is turning into big sheets of ice.
• Run slow so as to not slip. (yeah. That’s it. That’s *exactly* why I run slow)
• Notice that ass has frozen and seems to be bouncing independently from my body.
• Bitch about ice on ground.
• Suspend bitching once sun rises and I notice how pretty the National Mall looks.
• Resume bitching when submerge foot in big puddle.
• Dream about the wonderful DC Spring weather, and the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, conveniently forgetting that I am allergic to the cherry blossoms and will in no way be able to run while they are in bloom.
• Be annoyed that socks are different thickness and one shoe is looser than the other.
• Round the end of the Mall over by Lincoln. Look up at Abe, look at slick steps covered in ice and puddles leading up to Abe, and give him a wave, promising to visit him later.
• Get cold. Start to run faster to warm up and get home.
• Send The Boss mental thoughts consisting of “Make breakfast and coffee…make breakfast and coffee…’
• Stop running fast. Pant.
• Get home.
• Give The Boss a big sweaty kiss despite the fact that he did not get the mental message of “coffee and breakfast”
• Hop in warm shower and think to self “I love running”
• Smile when I realize: I actually meant it. I DO love running.
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This is a great little post about how Porshe made over 7 billion Euros through it’s manangement (and manipulation) of VW’s stock. It’s quite clever.
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