If, like me, you weren't at IxDA Interaction '08 in Savannah, you might enjoy this collection of videos from the conference. I've only watched a few so far, and though some skip the slides at seemingly important parts, many are really interesting. I especially liked Doug Bolin of Avenue A | Razorfish's presentation on making the complex help system for Microsoft's Sync, but maybe that's because we've been working on a help system recently as well. [via Thomas Baekdal]

Remember why your bank is closed today, and try to forget the sad irony that roads named "Martin Luther King" often run through ghettos. We still have a long way to go (definitely true in Detroit), but I'd like to think today is a day to remind yourself of hope rather than get bogged down in despair.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up... live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

Here's the whole speech from YouTube:

MacWorld is usually a pretty fun and exciting time, when swanky new products are announced that I'll never buy. Usually it's two stupid announcements paired off with one really cool one, and then an iPod update.

But this MacWorld gave us a lot of fun stuff. At least one of those things, the overdue Google Map locator for iPhone, was free (unless you're an iPod touch user, in which case they'll extort you for $20) so I already got it. It's lovely. Now Google not only knows what I'm doing, they know where I'm doing it! Exciting.

The Time Capsule is cool, but the MacBook Air is of course the flagship announcement. Alex likens the mixed response to the release of the iPod, or at least to the original floppy-free iMac. But the floppy drive was way dead when I got my first bondi iMac. I very much doubt that real life will happen for a lot of people without an optical drive; Apple is taking a very Microsoft approach in which convergence happens fantastically and your life is totally easy as long as you drink ALL the Kool-Aid instead of picking and choosing the parts of the Apple Experience you want. I mean, why insert a CD/DVD when you can buy the album/movie on iTunes, right?

I'm sure there's plenty of speculation (there definitely is in my mind) that the recently-surfaced patent application for an iMac-like docking station that a thin laptop slides into has something to do with this. That would, of course, make things even more absolutely perfect. In fact, I could probably get behind that if the total package wasn't going to run somewhere in the neighborhood of eight zillion dollars.

And to wrap it all up, here's a video my friend sent me yesterday of David Lynch expounding on his iPhone opinions. I suppose I see his point, but here's a man who makes Movies with a capital M, whose films don't even belong on the television. I don't even like it when people are eating popcorn when I go see a Lynch movie. But the sad truth is, part of what makes David Lynch great is that he still carries around a lot of romantic notions about movies - and Stomp The Yard is not Blue Velvet. It's real sweet that the idea of someone watching a movie on a small-ass screen makes him sad, but the idea of someone watching the latest Uwe Boll movie at all kind of makes me sad, so to each his own.

Haven't blogged much lately. Too busy either working, playing music, or just dicking around in the semi-real world to dick around on the intertubes. So here's a few fun things I've looked at lately.

The decapitator. Check this mess out. A guy goes around London and replicates street ads then gruesomely removes their heads. Awesome and crazy street art.

Multi-touch whiteboard on the cheap. In case you don't follow my del.icio.us links (see sidebar) - This guy (not too surprisingly, from Carnegie Mellon) created a "whiteboard" with multi-touch capability that you can put anywhere as long as you have a projector or LCD screen and a Wii Remote, of all things. Surface what? Amazing stuff, and frankly I kind of want to try it. Also check out his rad 3D display.

Gary, Indiana: Ghost Town. I've lived here for how many years now and only recently went on my first urban exploration trip (Fisher Body Plant 21), but I've always assumed that Detroit was the King of Blight. Turns out, Gary Indiana isn't just that really smelly town on the way to Chicago, it's a nearly-abandoned empty shell. Much smaller place than here, but apparently much more complete devastation. Pictures of this kind of subject matter are a dime a dozen in Detroit, but the quality of these is really fantastic.

And finally, my new heroes, DJ Sara and DJ Ryusei (ages 8 and 5). I got nothing to say to this. Via Eliot's Twitter.

The best show ever, or at least the best one put on by socks. If you miss Sifl and Olly, check out Liam Lynch's video podcast which is just about monthly or at least when he's between Foo Fighters videos and Tenacious D movies.

I dunno, but the site says chipmunk. What do they know from chipmunks? Everyone knows chipmunks are into comic song, not drama. [via Ryan]



Update: I'm pretty sure it's a prairie dog, but regardless, Celly has sent me this gem. Them internets are fast these days.

Gutenberg making a tech-support house call. [via Barb]

I was browsing through Yottamusic's catalog today when I found, amazingly, that Rhapsody had added the bulk of Dischord Records' roster to their library. This is very exciting to me. I don't always like Dischord music enough to buy it on LP (although Dischord CDs and LPs are always $10 postage paid), and I'm sure I can just borrow it from Alex anyway. I used to grab stuff from Emusic, but I haven't been a member there for a while. So, to Ian Mackaye and his label: DRM might be a great evil of the world and enemy to music, but thanks for making your music available in all formats.

For those who don't know, this includes a glut of great mostly DC hardcore, including some originals (Minor Threat, SOA), those bands that branched out and created emo (Rites of Spring, Embrace, Dag Nasty), those that went zen (the mighty Lungfish), and those that featured the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl (Scream).

In tribute, here is a great video of Ian Mackaye ripping on the term "emo" some 20 years before its goofy resurgence. (Video description on the Youtube permalink has the transcript if you can't hear him)

How do I get Bruce Campbell to advertise for my product?

I'm crushed. My favorite seasonal treat has been truncated. [via Eliot]



Update: Upset by this? Take matters into your own hands. Behold 10,000 calories.

Not as easy a process as it should be, I'll tell you that. To be fair, Flash videos were meant to be streamed on the web. They're a beautiful thing. The internet video revolution was pretty much made possible by Flash video. Other formats are too large (Quicktime) or too crappy (Real), and they all require a mishmash of plugins that always perform differently in different browsers on different platforms. Flash video has saved us from that. But you knew that.

If you're like me, sitting in front of the computer time is working time, and you probably don't do a lot of watching clips unless Gavin links you to something about emo. Maybe you want to watch them on your Windows Mobile Pocket PC.

1. First grab the FLV. There are a billion ways to do this, 3 billion for YouTube. Online tools let you paste the URL and get a download link, Firefox extensions let you right-click and download. You pick it. If it's not from YouTube, it may take a little work, but try Safari. The Activity window generally shows the actual URL of the movie, which you can then just pop into your location bar. Browsers don't know natively what to do with the FLV, so you'll be prompted to download. Voila.
   
2. Here was the tricky part. There are plenty of options out there for converting video, but doing so with the Pocket PC in mind is not any Mac developer's forte, apparently. Coming from a DVD you're golden (thanks to Handbrake), but straight transcoding is the realm of the damned. Fortunately, I found iSquint. It's the free version of a more complete guy called VisualHub. But it does everything you need. Its preset mode (just a quality slider) is built for iPods, but open the Advanced tab and there you go -- everything you need to get good quality, small size, etc.
3. play around with bitrates, etc, but keep these things in mind: the screen on most Pocket PCs will only handle 320 x 240 pixels, and you shouldn't go beyond 15 frames per second speed, especially for underpowered phone devices like an HTC or Motorola Q.

Hope that saves someone the time I spent doing this a while ago.