May 2009
85 posts
WatchTerre Natale
(I kinda want to start a blog called FuckYeahDataVis)
The Real Time Web is a Beautiful Distraction →
These media play off of a very real psychological factor known as operant conditioning, the addictive need to return over and over in hopes of a reward. The ability to pay attention, focus and strategically disconnect will be a winning discipline of the next generation.
WatchThis is mostly so I can come back and watch it bit by bit.
Panoravideo →
by Dimitre Lima.
“I was convinced that the line between reproduction tools and design would blur...”
– Muriel Cooper
“Reading on the web is almost certainly affecting the way we process information,...”
– “Your brain is an index,” The American Scene (via mappeal)
Oh dang, Bruce posted his own photos from his time... →
I used to think ladies wearing heels while biking was pretty epic, but Italy has desensitized me.
Same goes for fruity eyeglasses. If you’ve got bad vision, then you’ve got semitransparent neon plastic wrapped around your face. No arguing. It’s like everyone here is an SF designer who’s trying too hard.
Old dudes cycling in full suit+tie are still slightly special.
11-hour days are par for the course
And Actionscript 3 can burn in hell. Not being able to dynamically assign text sizes above 128 pt is a pretty ridic bug, and it’s been around since 2004. It boggles the mind.
The Mud Tub →
dirty interface
“A small town is a vast hell.”
– Argentinean proverb
Things I wished I had packed
alarm clock
small washcloth for shaving
a couple more t-shirts
claritin+eyedrops
guess what i heard on the radio this morning you...
Every time you use a bidet, a redneck gets...
They’re everywhere here, but they appear mostly unused.
Using Mechanical Turk to interpret data scraped... →
I’m still embarrassingly bad at the mote of mental arithmetic required to see 16:15 as 4:15 PM.
Of ATMs, iPhones, and 9/11 →
Here’s a good example of the erosion of civil liberties and “playing the 9/11 card” for the non-Americans here. I didn’t do a very good job explaining it last week.
Just Landed →
The idea is simple: find tweets that contain ‘Just landed in…’, parse out the location they’d just landed in, along with the home location they list on their Twitter profile, and use this to map out each trip.
So it turns out
I’ve eaten raw horse meat several times without knowing it.
Gripes
The flat where applicants are hosted is old and cavernous. The windows rattle noisily every time a car drives by, or when a person walks down the hallway, or when someone’s heart beats—constantly, in other words. It is a terrible place to be hungover.
Every morning I wake up with two or three new bug bites. The jury is still out on the mosquitoes-or-spiders debate, but this morning’s...
A First
I had an extremely detailed dream in which I purchased and (lovingly) ate a burrito a couple nights ago. I think I’ve been eating too many kebabs in Treviso. They’re making me miss awesome Mexican food.
(For curious San Diego residents: it was La Posta. Yeah.)
mmm, preservatives
Before I jumped on the 1:45 1/ (the slash is important) bus to Fabrica today, I grabbed some lunch (to go) because the cafeteria wouldn’t be open. The refrigerated lasagna I got in the “packaged food for lazy assholes” section tastes like it was made out of Spaghetti-Os. Good to know that shitty food is shitty in the same way everywhere.
About one-third of the Fabricanti have rolled onto ‘campus’ today, happily comparing hangovers and notes from last night. Funny to see cheerful people at work on a Saturday.
ps: I am barefoot and eating paprika-flavored pringles.
Eyercize →
Rapid Serial Visual Presentation
Watch
WatchAmoeba timelapse
Traffic should flow like water: from tributaries, to rivers, to the ocean.
Content should flow like blood: from the heart, to arteries, to capillaries.
WatchFabrica is starting a video podcast series. Kingston went first.
Fabrica firewall blocks all attempts at torrent transfers, and there’s no internet in town. Deal-breaker?