March 19, 2009

He's invisible, that's what's the matter with him.

I never thought that I would be so bent out of shape by a free web service failing me...but bent out of shape I am.

The run-down is this:  about five days ago, I decided it was time to change my Twitter user picture...and after much consternation (did my current photo delete?  what's going on?), I was left with...nothing.  An empty square, identified only by my full name.  On some page, it seems as if my photo has been updated, on others, and in any instance of my Twitter feed, I appear blank...an invisible man.


"An invisible man can rule the world. No one will see him come, no one will see him go."

It is honestly a miserable turn of events (compounded by the fact that hundreds...probably thousands...of other users are experiencing the same thing...and Twitter has been working to resolve this, it seems, for over a month now). 

I mean, this is my identity!  I hyperbolize a little bit...but from all the hype of "Twitter as a brand tool," woe be the brand that actually wants a picture.  How can I manage my "own global microbrand" if the services offered to me are...poor?

The kicker is my new user photo is totally lame, anyways.

Clampants | 11:23 AM

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February 27, 2009

Epic Raver Dubstep

If there was such a thing as epic raver dubstep, I think this track would fit the bill: La Roux - In For The Kill (Skream Remix) (mp3).  Pitch black, 4am, tired as shit...and around 4:10 banks and banks of lasers arc through the grime.



Yeah.

Clampants | 02:55 PM

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February 17, 2009

In which Parenthood is fraught

http://wondermark.com/490/

The always wonderful Wondermark today fed into my paternal fears...not twelve hours after I spent a little too much time looking around to see if Spiderman and His Amazing Friends was available on DVD for Miles to watch (because, of course, the new Spectacular Spiderman cartoon is a little to hip and edgy, and what he really needs is the poorly-animated, badly-thought-out adventures of Spiderman and his friends, Firestar and Iceman...who I doubt, seriously, would be friends).

So yes, I am trying to give my son my own childhood.

Or, I could give him an anachronistic childhood even I don't recall.

Clampants | 10:15 AM

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February 11, 2009

Bon Iver - Flume (Live @ 89.3 The Current)

I don't often listen to words with lyrics (or by dudes with guitars), but I was pretty blown away by Bon Ivers' "Flume" (as heard on Giles Peterson's 1/15/09 Worldwide show).  I found a live performance he put on at the studios of 89.3 The Current (YouTube)...and pulled the mp3 out for your listening pleasure:

Clampants | 12:48 PM

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December 14, 2008

What I Learned From The Complimentary Copy of the Financial Times' "Fine Times: How To Spend It Special Celebration Issue" Table of Contents

(With due respect to Minor Tweaks)

• There is a "growing pressure to develop farmed caviar that's as delicious as the wild stuff"
• Velvet is a "sensuous fabric that's adding a decadence to men's daywear"
• "Diamonds now have more glimmer than glitz"
• There is "hot competition to buy cool, classic Aston Martins"
• The pocket watch is making a "21st century comeback"
• The heel has been declared "the latest focus for fancy footwear"
• Hong Kong has a "hip beating heart"
  

Clampants | 06:17 PM

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Tokyo Awesome List - Non Cars

(I'm going to be updating this as the mood strikes me)

• Uniqlo (I'm sure that's like saying The Gap is cool, but hey)
• Hakuhinkan Toy Park
• House Wellness C1000 Lemon Water
• Capybara-san
• The crows (I think they are awesome...but I guess they are a smart and territorial problem...which is being address by bees)
• Yatter-Pelican (from Yatterman)
• Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo
• The prevalence of R&B-esque smooth hits playing everywhere I go
  

Clampants | 03:24 AM

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Tokyo Awesome List - Cars

(I'm going to be updating this as the mood strikes me)

• The taxis (so clean and shiny and awesome)
• The trucks (so clean and shiny and awesome)
  
• The surprising number of Isuzu Piazzas (Impulses)
• The Toyota Yaris RS
• The Honda Stream
  
• The Honda dog
  
• The Honda Elysion
• Nissan Cubes (on the road)
• The Nissan Pino
• The BMW 1-series 5-door
• The fact that Dodge Magnums are all over the place (and done up nicely)
• The Bugatti Veyron parked outside the hotel
• Kei Vans
• The Mazda Demio
• The Mazda Scrum wagon (so vantastic!)
  

Clampants | 03:21 AM

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December 10, 2008

MC Squared

Clampants | 02:05 PM

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December 08, 2008

New England Auto Show - 2008 Edition

Yesterday, several of us made it out to the New England Auto Show, which, in context of the global crapconomic poo-out and "big-3 pleading to stay alive," was a funny choice of activity.  But I have been idly (or actively) mulling getting a new car (if, as my wife asks, a meteor were to strike my Protege5 in the driveway).

Overall, it was a decent affair.  The new(ish) Boston Convention Center is a massive, sprawling thing...the becarpeted main exhibit hall was a clean and bright change from the Bay Side Exposition Center's flea-infested abandoned bowling alley je ne sais quoi.  Company displays were, as reported, definitely toned down...gone were the angle rotating pedestals of never-to-be-produced 8,000HP concept vehicles...the only glitz I recall see (besides the cordonned-off Bently and Ferrari stalls) was a Ford robot (?) and an upturned GMC chassis.  The sales people were hovering as usual...but they were easilly sent on their way with a distracted glance at the next display.

What were my take-aways?

• Dashboard dashboards dashboards.  Companies seem need to focus more attention on the dashboard...where one rests one's eyes 98% of the time you interact with your car.  All but the highest end Volvos and Audis had this wrong wrong wrong...and we outdone by things like the Nissan Versa and Hyundais.  The "nubby hard black plastic" lobby must be powerful...barely beating out the "sharp unfinished edges" lobby.
  
• I was thouroughly underwhelmed by the Scion Xb
• I was thouroughly underwhelmed by the Audi A3 and A4 (including the Avant)...something about the interiors of these cars seemed so...puffy.  Like all the interior panels with 1/2" too...puffy.  Very cramped.
• If I had no materialistic self-image yearnings, I would absolutely buy a $17,000 Nissan Versa over an Audi A4.
• The new Nissan Maxima has a fantastic interior, but looks a bit like the 25-lb potato that was recently unearthed.
• I really really want to like Hyundais...they are inexpensive, well-made, efficient, solid cars...that are so unbearably boring.
• I, apparently, missed gawking at Stephen Tyler as he had a lunch of, I presume, $6 nachos.
• $67,000 for a Chevy Tahoe "Flex Fuel" mess is stupid.
• The Chevy Cobalt SS may be fast, but it is embarassing.
• The new Mazda6 is big and "flabby" (via Chris), and gets distressing mediocre gas mileage.
  

The car I was most impressed with was the VW Jetta TDI Sportwagen.  I came for the diesel, but stayed for the panoramic sun-roof!

Clampants | 11:48 AM

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November 20, 2008

What I've Been Listening To - Finale

I haven't posted in ages (AGES, I say)...but in case you're wondering where all my uninteresting podcast/listening recommendations have gone, i've moved them over to huffduffer (a clever microblogging service designed to create your own podcast of, well, podcasts).

So, feel free to visit me at:  http://huffduffer.com/Clampants

Or, subscribe via RSS or in iTunes.

Clampants | 10:19 AM

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September 16, 2008

The Bestiary

I caught a fascinating episode of PRI's (always-fascinating) To The Best Of Our Knowledge entitled "The Bestiary" (mp3)  The show ran amok in the wilds of myth, fantasy, pseudo/possibly-real, and the unbelievably weird, rare, and endangered.  Some highlights:

• The kappa, Japanese water sprites known for "passing gas" or kidnapping and eating children, can be dispatched and appeased in two ways:  first, when confronted by a kappa you should try to take advantage of its sense of ettiquette...it will be forced to return your deep bow with one of its own, which will in turn drain the pool of water that sits atop its head, weakening it.  Secondly, you can befriend a kappa by a generous gift of cucumbers (of note, this is why cucumber sushi is called kappamaki).
• The EDGE (Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered) of Existence Project "...highlights and protects some of the weirdest and most wonderful species on the planet.  EDGE species have few close relatives on the tree of life and are often extremely unusual in the way they look, live and behave, as well as in their genetic make-up.  They represent a unique and irreplaceable part of the world’s natural heritage, yet an alarming proportion are currently sliding silently towards extinction unnoticed."  This is an astounding collection of amazingly unique and adapted creatures.

Clampants | 08:23 AM | Comments (0)

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September 15, 2008

What I've Been Listening To (9/8/08 - 9/12/08)

This week - books!

• Junot Díaz (of Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" fame, which I enjoyed) reads "Flaka," a new short story, at a recent appearance at Harvard Square's Brattle Theater. (mp3  |  via The Boston Phoenix)
• Paul Auster (of "Travels In The Scriptorium" fame, which I also enjoyed) reads 40-minutes worth of his new book, "Man In The Dark," which, while seemingly similar to Scriptorium, sounds as though it continues his magically bleak and compelling voice. (mp3 | via KQED's The Writers' Block)
• Neal Stephenson reads a short bit from his new book, Anathem (video | via The Long Now Foundation)
  

Clampants | 08:19 AM | Comments (0)

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September 11, 2008

Tweeting Birth and Twittering Toddlers

Found today:

Valleywag - Oh God, She's Tweeting Childbirth
"At 4 cm. Epidural is in. Doing well."

NYTimes - Twittering From the Cradle
"Call it convenient. Call it baby overshare. But a host of new sites, including Totspot, Odadeo, Lil’Grams and Kidmondo, now offer parents a chance to forgo the e-mail blasts of, say, their newborn’s first trip home and instead invite friends and family to join and contribute to a network geared to connecting them to the baby in their lives."

As Kat points out, there is a fine (sad) line between this an sending emails as your dog ("I wuv my walks.  I wuv dem!  Woof woof!").  Though, as with most things, Minor Tweaks' Fiddler's "Off Leash" column gets this right.

Clampants | 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

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September 08, 2008

Chevy Volt: Pre-production cool to production lame

I was honestly excited about the Chevy Volt...mainly because the prototypes looked, in my opinion, pretty rad:



But that design has morphed into this ugly Corolla-blob:

Clampants | 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

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August 22, 2008

What I've Been Listening To (8/18/08 - 8/22/08)

WNYC RadioLab's Robert Krulwich speaks to Columbia physics professor Brian Greene (he of string theory) about multiverse theory, the concept of infinite, and Imelda Marcos' shoes.

In infinite universes, it blows my mind (but happily, in infinite other universes, I totally get it and smarty-pants Prof. Greene is scratching his head...and in probably a handful of other universes, I am a chicken with a mustache).

[Mp3 | via Thoughtwave TV]

Clampants | 04:50 PM | Comments (0)

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August 20, 2008

Like Father, Like Son

The #1 song in the US on my birthday was The Four Seasons' "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)"...the #1 song in the US on Miles' birthday was Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack."

Trust me when I say there is something incredibly awesome about this fact.

"You know I didn't even know her name/
But I was never gonna be the same"

"If that's your girl you better watch your back/
Cause she'll burn it up for me and that's a fact"

Clampants | 09:31 AM | Comments (0)

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August 19, 2008

What I've Been Listening To (8/11/08 - 8/15/08)

• Maurice Franklin discusses the latest plans (aspirations) of the space elevator (via John Udell's Interviews with Innovators). More on the space elevator.
• Ted Chiang's short story "What's Expected of Us" over at Starship Sofa (mp3 | via BoingBoing)

Clampants | 02:02 PM | Comments (0)

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August 14, 2008

An Augmented Reality Metaverse

This kind of stuff (and thinking) gets my brain all atwitter (and this sort of co-opted, always-on, overlay-manic, robust-yet-still-fragile augmented reality is what I liked most about Vernor Vinge's "Rainbow's End")...

Open The Future: Making The Visible Invisible

"It seems likely to me that an augmented reality world that really takes off will out of necessity be one that offers freedom of use closer to that of the Internet than of the iPhone. Top-down control technologies will certainly make a play for the space, but simply won't be the kind of global catalyst for innovation that an open augmented reality web would be. An AR world dominated by closed, controlled systems will be safe, but have a limited impact."

[via Bruce Sterling's always-great Beyond The Beyond blog at Wired]

Clampants | 12:52 PM | Comments (0)

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August 13, 2008

What is this EYE ARR ESS?

I just received a great phishing email:

----------------
Internal Revenue Service <refund@i-r-s.org>

The Secure Way to Receive Your Stimulus Payment

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a Stimulus Payment. Please submit the Stimulus Payment Online Form in order to process it.

A Stimulus Payment can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your Stimulus Payment, please click here ["here" links to "lynchburgpolice.org"]

Note: For security reasons, we will record your ip-address, the date and time. Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.

Regards,
Internal Revenue Service

Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved.
----------------

I assume was written by some big slobbering aliens hovering above the Earth in a little UFO...after they had received a few static-y transmissions about something called the "I R S" which may or may not be in the "U S A," but they do know that they should be courteous at the end of any letter.

Clampants | 04:52 PM | Comments (0)

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August 12, 2008

@@Facebook

Since the new facebook was launched I had been having strange and annoying problems with it: I could access a direct link to a facebook page, but if I clicked any links (say, to my profile home, or an application) the page would pretend to load and then go nowhere. Reloading within the browser would be the only way to "get" to the clicked link. This was happening in the Firefox installs I had at home (Mac) and at work (Win).

It seems this was/is a pretty common problem and tied directly to the Ad Block Plus add-on. Long boring story short, I've found that if I add either of these exceptions to ADP:

@@http://www.new.facebook.com or @@|http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/*/ads/$script

...Facebook actually works.

Anyone know of a way to actually block the ads (right column) within Facebook?

Clampants | 09:34 AM | Comments (0)

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August 01, 2008

Police Blotters

I forgot how awesome police blotters are:

Peabody: "At 3:50 p.m., a technician at Borash Veterinary Clinic was hit in the head by a dog and passed out. She was taken to Lahey Clinic."

Peabody: "A Keys Drive woman said her boyfriend took her curtains and one shoe from each pair at 10:22 a.m. Officers arranged for them to meet at the police station to exchange items."

Marblehead: "At 11:13 p.m., firefighters rushed to a Beacon Street property for an alarm call, then spent several hours trying to reset a sprinkler system."

Beverly: "At 12:57 a.m., police sent home people who'd been allegedly fighting at a Cabot Street Laundromat."

Salem: "A man complained to police that, the day before, his ex-wife had come to his daughter's day care, screamed at him and slapped his face."

Salem: "A Howard Street resident told police that the day before a scruffy man knocked on her door looking for 'Bob,' but no Bob was there. The man returned soon after to continue his unsuccessful search for Bob."

Clampants | 02:23 PM | Comments (0)

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The Large Lexicon Collider

Some great terms/concepts associated with the Large Hadron Collider:

• Tracker Outer Barrel (the restaurant at the end of the universe?)
• The Globe of Innovation (an Orwellian office of copyright control?)
• Time Projection Chamber (a neo-meta-hyperbaric chamber?)
• ATLAS Magnet Toroid End-Cap (release the flavor!)
• Underground Experimental Cavern (morlocks!)
  

Check The Big Picture for some utterly amazing pictures of the thing. I want one.

Clampants | 02:07 PM | Comments (0)

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July 31, 2008

Extracting Audio (mp3s) from FLVs

I'm a podcast junkie. Listening to lectures, radio shows, conferences, talks, interviews, readings, etc makes my commute...palatable...enjoyable, even.

Recently, i've been stymied by the migration of many interesting discussion and conferences from audio (mp3) podcasts to video archives. This is fine and well, and I understand the reasons for this...but I just don't consume videos (i'm not going to watch a video in my car, and i'm not with-it enough to have a decent "viewing internet videos at home" setup)...and most times, the videos in question are either "Person at podium" or "talking head with skype headset," meaning, terribly pointless to watch.

Anyways, I found a fairly decent way to pull mp3 audio files out of download FLVs (Flash video, which is the format many video collections are saved as). The usual caveats apply - this probably isn't that new and there probably are hundreds of other (better?) ways to do this...but here goes:

1. If you don't have it, download and install the Adobe AIR runtime.
2. Download and install RichFLV (a free, light, pretty rad Flash video editing tool).
3. Download the (Flash) video of your choice. You can do this manually (root around in the source or linked media of a page...or, if you're lucky the site you're downloading from actually provides a simple "download" link), but i've been using an app called Orbit Downloader...it is kind of un-slick and makes me feel kind of bad about using it, but it gets the job done somewhat expiditiously if not intuitively (and can pull out all files from a page, not just Flash videos...which is cool but also makes it feel like overkill for my needs).
   
4. Open the downloaded Flash video in RichFLV.
5. Within the Export menu (screenshot), select "Audio (mp3)" and...voila, audio file (maybe of note: the exported mp3 lacks any metadata, so that may need to be added if you're so inclined).

I've been briefly looking at ways to extract audio from other video formats (like mp4)...but haven't had much luck in finding a solution that doesn't feel like "just enough additional work to be annoying."

Clampants | 09:21 AM | Comments (0)

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July 30, 2008

Miles' Big Week

After starting the visit off with a tumble out of his crib (which led to a failed attempt at moving to a "big boy bed"), Miles had a big week with Grandma.

On Monday they took a trip into Boston to hang out at a pool:



...and take a swan boat ride:



And yesterday, they went to a beach in Gloucester:

Clampants | 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

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July 28, 2008

No groove, no balls

Probably one of the better, doper (if I may say so) tracks i've heard in long time, Matias Aguayo's "Minimal" on, of course, Kompakt...from Boomkat:

"Taking a well aimed pop at the overcrowded and omnipresent techno
style, Aguayo sidesteps the genre's conventions by including a full on
vocal line ripping the piss out of music with "no groove, no balls"
over a slinky Latin disco new wave type backing rhythm that should
definitely be finding favour on the most self aware floors around. The
dry-as-fuck fun doesn't stop there though, Marcus Rossknecht's remix
beefs up the bassline and the disco elements but sticks faithfully
close to the original..."

Be sure to listen to Marcus Rossknecht's mix. The guitar!

As heard at around 49:00 into this Dailysession mix from Minimen.

Clampants | 08:57 AM | Comments (0)

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July 23, 2008

Take a ____ with Google Maps

Google maps recent release of walking directions as an option is pretty cool, but I believe they could expand the idea a bit more...here are some direction options I'd like to see:

• Moseying
• Ramblin'
• Fleeing
• Rampaging
• Staggering
  

Clampants | 12:15 PM | Comments (0)

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July 21, 2008

What I've Been Listening To (?? - 7/20/08)

• Pantha Du Prince @ Bar Americas (Mexico - 03/06/08)
• Neal Stephenson - Science Fiction as a Literary Genre (via ForaTV) - "Speculative fiction thrives because it is idea porn"
• Chris Carlsson - Nowtopia (mp3, via KUOW) - "...there's a creative social revolution going on, but not on the job...hobbies and side projects are where the real work is being done."
• Richard Feynman - In Conversation (mp3 via abc.net.au) - His first story recalling how his father taught him to think critically is pretty powerful.
  

Clampants | 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

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July 11, 2008

Bread Lines

Replacing mentions of "iPhone" or "3G iPhone," (or similar) with the word "bread" in today's big "news" story:

• Live! From the Fifith Ave. bread line (CNNMoney)
• $200 for a spot in the bread line (C|Net)
• Want bread? Get in line. (Washington Post)
• Dispatch from an all-night bread line (SeattlePI)
• Eager Customer Snags First Place in Bread Line (Wired)
• Bread line in downtown Chicago dampened by foul weather (Ars Technica)
• The bread wait in Portland (C|Net)
• Expect a Long Wait in Line for Your Bread (bMighty)
• Hundreds Line Up In Anticipation of Bread (NY1)
  

Clampants | 02:27 PM | Comments (0)

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July 07, 2008

My long-weekend checklist

(with admiration of and apologies to Minor Tweaks)

Contract debilitating fever hours after leaving work on Thursday.

Amaze friends with feverish falsetto cover of the B-52's "Roam" on Rockband.

Find that, despite the name, "chills" do not make humid days at all bearable.

Gently and lovingly crunch front end of car into large concrete step at end of driveway.

Recover fully from weekend fever just in time for work on Monday.

Clampants | 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

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Awesomeness Accelerator

Tim O'Brien interviews Brian Cox (an experimental physicist with the University of Manchester) about the Large Hadron Collider...the hugely awesome particle accelerator switching on at the end of the summer...in a great introduction to the science behind (and expected from) the project.

The full transcript is up here, and you can also download the interview as an MP3 from that page.

Cox also takes some time to address the fears that the LHC is "Satan's star gate" (a must-watch!) and the potential source of universe-devouring black holes as "the biggest pile of shit that I've ever heard in my life."

Clampants | 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

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