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The Petition to Keep Michael Griffin at NASA

Brian — 2009-01-02T09:21:25-05:00

There is a petition and campaign to encourage President-elect Barack Obama to keep Dr. Michael Griffin on as head of NASA.

I’d like to add my two cents to this discussion: Michael Griffin should be run out of Washington on a rail. Possibly tarred and feathered.

The Bush appointee with seven degrees is certainly qualified to run NASA. But Griffin is most known to me, not for his choice to go back to Apollo-style space flight, eschewing reusable spacecraft like the shuttle, but for his choice to ignore the opinions and data of every climatologist and atmospheric scientist that NASA employs and publicly disagrees with the concept of Global Climate Change.

For that, he’s proven that he should not run the world’s premier science and research organization.

Here’s the pertinent section of his Wikipedia article on the issue:

In a follow-up interview to his May 31 interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep airing June 1, 2007 on NPR News’ Morning Edition, Griffin said the following:

“I have no doubt that global — that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change.

First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings – where and when – are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”[11]

Prominent climate scientists referred to his remarks as ignorant.[12] In particular, James Hansen, NASA’s top official on climate change, said Griffin’s comments showed “arrogance and ignorance”, as millions will likely be harmed by global warming.[13]Jerry Mahlman, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said that Griffin was either “totally clueless” or “a deep antiglobal warming ideologue.”[14]

Considering a Flip? Check this First

Brian — 2008-12-09T22:03:38-05:00

Buying a Flip? check out Beau Colburn’s comparison of the Flip Ultra vs the Flip Mino HD

You may have seen me complain about this on Twitter, (Beau and I went to high school together) but in reality, this post is a seriously useful resource for anyone considering getting one of those lovely Flip cameras.

Happy Birthday To Us (Again)

Jacob — 2008-11-15T09:13:08-05:00

Here is our obligatory “Happy Birthday” post. Seven glorious years of writing in fits and spurts. Makes ya wonder what’s in our future. Perhaps someday the comments (1037¹) will outnumber the posts (1103²).

We’re not dead yet!

¹ Current number of comments.

² Current number of posts.

A "Horrible" Halloween (Constructing Dr. Horrible)

Jacob — 2008-11-11T15:28:43-05:00

Organizing a costume this year was a bit of a chore. Especially when the best idea presented was given to me two weeks before Halloween… And a week before a costume party in Salem. However Dr. Horrible was too good to pass up. I relished in the stress of putting the costume together.

The majority of components were fairly easy to procure online. The only issue was expediting the shipping from so many vendors. Getting everything by Friday made it worth the extra cost. The following is exact pieces.

750 Elkskin Welding Glove – Tillman
Welding & Torch Safety Goggles — You’ll also notice they have other pieces grouped together. Though none are directly sold by Amazon.

Boss Boot, Shrimper, White, Size 11)/ProductDetails.aspx?SKU=80792

The most difficult part was the lab coat. The only (relatively) close Halloween costume out there was a bust, no one had it in stock. After falling short on some custom costume web sites I tried Ebay. Paul Pape Designs was auctioning a good quality replica. It fit perfectly and really brought the look together. They shipped it overnight and can’t be thanked enough.

Next year hopefully an idea will formulate well before the holiday. But even if I can’t decide I’ll always have the great Dr. Horrible to come back to.

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Dr. Horrible Poster

A Good Day for the Internet

Brian — 2008-11-05T09:03:02-05:00

Tuesday, November 4th, Americans participated in a historic election. Record number of voters turned out to vote. When the returns were in, people in cities across the nation took to the streets in celebration, as if their town had just won the World Series.

But a few other things happened that went almost unnoticed yesterday, that are relevant to our discussion on this blog.

First, the election of this historic figure, Barack Obama, may not have been possible without today’s Internet. The Internet has played a significant role in at least the last two elections, but this campaign was different. The level of sophistication has reached a threshold level. In technological terms, household and business bandwidth and penetration have increased significantly since 2004. This allowed more people to use the Internet to learn about the candidates, discuss their opinions, like previous years, but more so.

But this year we had much improved social tools to motivate and organize voters and volunteers. The official campaign website listed no less than 16 social networks they were active on. We had wide-spread text messaging and services like Twitter distributing precisely timed messaging directly to people’s phones. This was the first truly mobile-enabled election in the United States.

One thing the Obama campaigned used their Twitter account for was notification of live streaming web broadcasts of their candidate’s many speeches. I think this was a key breakthrough for campaigns. Prior to this, it was difficult to see a candidate deliver an uninterrupted, unfiltered, un-sound-bitten speech. In a world of 24-hour new networks, this is the next step.

Not only did they stream their live speeches, but then they archived them for any-time watching on their site, and they also made excellent use of YouTube as a distribution service. I’m on record for saying I hate the term “Web 2.0” but the things that people lump under that title… almost all of them contributed to the victory of the Obama campaign.

But the most interesting part is yet to come.

Mr Obama is a savvy fellow. He knew he had to build upon the groundbreaking technological grassroots (the so-called “netroots”) movement of the 2004 Howard Dean campaign. Luckily, Governor Dean is the current chair of the DNC. The people who backed Governor Dean never stopped developing and helped build Mr. Obama the most effective campaign in American history.

After this amazing integration of technology and human get-out-the-vote machinery, will an Obama campaign move forward with making the White House more open to citizen involvement? Don’t forget, Sen. Obama was behind the legislation that created USASpending.gov a public website that allows citizen to see how the budget is being used.

Mr. Obama supports net neutrality. Also, Mr. Obama will be the first President with an iPhone.

Lastly, one other thing remarkable happened yesterday. Broadband in the United States got a huge shot in the arm when the FCC OK’d the Unlicensed Use of Television White Spaces.

If that means nothing to you now, it will. WiFi makes use of unlicensed radio spectrum to provide wireless, fast Internet in small spaces. The so-called “White Spaces” may have the same effect, except it will cover the same territory of broadcast television signals. That’s huge.

In all, yesterday was a good day for America, democracy and technology.

Netflix Now Streaming to Macs (beta)

Brian — 2008-11-02T16:00:41-05:00

Good news for Mac users who are Netflix subscribers, or thinking about becoming one. After over a year of PC-only Windows Media-based “Watch Instantly” video streaming from Netflix, they have now put streaming to Macs and Windows via Silverlight 2.0 into public beta.

Of course, I signed up for the beta instantly and tried it out right away. Here’s what I found.

I selected the first episode of season six of CSI: Miami, “Dangerous Son” to watch on my Mac mini*, which is connected to our 26” HDTV via DVI-to-HDMI. I chose CSI: Miami because of its use of fast, vivid imagry. The color saturation is artificially inflated like no show I’ve ever seen. The style of cinematography is full of fast cuts and fancy, whiz-bang transitions. The sound moves from quiet dialog to loud sound effects and lots of thumping music.

The results were mixed. The color came through as strong as it does when we watch it in HD. The audio was good, not amazing, but plenty good for streaming. However, the fast moving video was not good. This is always the challenge to test video with because it stresses the encoding (it’s very hard to compress fast moving imagery) and the playback hardware (hard to compress means more data per second needs to be processed to keep up with the motion).

Most of the video, that didn’t exhibit fast pans, or speeding objects, looked good. It did not look as good as an iTunes SD TV download, which is the standard I would compare any online video to, (as it is excellent) but it was good enough. However, watching an hour or more of video that had a lot of action would not be enjoyable.

I left this feed back in the comments of their announcement blog post, because I couldn’t find an official beta feedback option. I look forward to seeing if the video improves.

The only other video I can compare this too that was powered by Silverlight was the Olympics. I watched the two hour men’s mountain bike race from Beijing, which also exhibited some fast panning. I believe that quality was a little higher, though it’s been two months since I watched it, so my memory may not be perfect. But I’m sure I would have remembered a speed issue.

Comparable to Sliverlight is Flash streaming video, which powers Hulu.com. I have not watched action-packed video on Hulu, but I have watched a couple episodes of Saturday Night Live, and I also believed it’s video quality was a bit better. I basically forgot I was watching Internet video. I don’t forget that when I watch quality Flash video from places like YouTube.

I still think Netflix has work to do, but I’m encouraged at what they’ve produced thus far. Besides, I get to watch it for free with my $11/month account. I can’t be too critical.

For reference, here are my Mac mini specs: 1.83 Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, Safari 3.1.2, Silverlight plug 2.0, OS X 10.5.5, Comcast cable connection tested at 18.4 Mbps (! – I pay for six! That may be burst speed, not sustained, but still impressive. I’m still investigating, but probably due to their DOCSIS 3.0 network upgrade.)

[All the comparison video I mention above was watched on the same setup, full-screen.]

Big News: SMC is Live!

Brian — 2008-10-19T18:22:37-05:00

Big news! The other day my good friend Howard Rheingold flipped the switch and the public web site for our project, the Social Media Classroom went live to the world!

The free (open source, no cost) software is combination of social media tools for use in education. It is designed to install right on top of Drupal, a popular open-source content management system.

I did a good deal of research and wireframing of many of the interfaces and interactions that happen in the software. It was a valuable educational experience for me design wise.

We got wrote up on Read Write Web.

I did not have as much time as I would have liked to donate to the project. My day job, grad school and my new baby boy all made my time scarce. I feel there’s a lot more I could do for the project, design wise, if I can find a little time… oh, time.

Special thanks to Sam Rose for all his hard work!

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Logo of the Social Media Classroom

Women in parkour

Jacob — 2008-10-16T14:16:45-05:00

It’s great that women are involving themselves with parkour, a discipline utilizing both strength and agility. It’s an amazing activity, the boys shouldn’t get to have all the fun.

“She’s not intimidated by the fact that she is often doing parkour with 100 other guys,” he said. “She never slacks off from doing whatever it is that the men do. She’s simply not afraid to be herself.”

From Kottke.

Don’t forget to check out District B13. A great action movie that includes a lot of parkour and stars its founder, David Belle.

Wired on Weird Al

Jacob — 2008-09-30T10:50:12-05:00

Who doesn’t love Weird Al? From buying Even Worse from a kid in fourth grade to watching UHF this past Saturday for the millionth time. Al has always been a constant stream of funny.

Wired has an article about him in this month’s issue. They ponder his ability to stay fresh and recount some of his ups and downs throughout the years.

“Back in the ’80s, ‘Purple Rain’ would be number one for half a year,” Yankovic says. “You still have Top 40 radio now, but it’s 40 different stations. There aren’t many hits that everybody knows, and there aren’t many real superstars. That makes it more difficult for me.”

1 image accompanies this post, it is...

Weird Al

On Ambient Intimacy

Brian — 2008-09-06T22:58:17-05:00

I know I’ve posted articles about Twitter before, but this one is a must read. Clive Thompson in the New York Times Magazine discusses the Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. This guy really digs deep into the world of what’s becoming to be known as “ambient intimacy.” Talks about both Twitter and Facebook. Interestingly, I’ve met some of the people in this article, both online and off!

I’m going to do a piss-poor job writing a thoughtful blog post about it, so instead, I’ll give you a lengthy, choice quote instead.

In essence, Facebook users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. Why?

Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye. Facebook is no longer alone in offering this sort of interaction online. In the last year, there has been a boom in tools for “microblogging”: posting frequent tiny updates on what you’re doing. The phenomenon is quite different from what we normally think of as blogging, because a blog post is usually a written piece, sometimes quite long: a statement of opinion, a story, an analysis. But these new updates are something different. They’re far shorter, far more frequent and less carefully considered. One of the most popular new tools is Twitter, a Web site and messaging service that allows its two-million-plus users to broadcast to their friends haiku-length updates — limited to 140 characters, as brief as a mobile-phone text message — on what they’re doing.

I only wish a few more of my geographically dispersed friends would pick up Twitter. It’s so much more efficient than Facebook for keeping up with each other, though Facebook has the edge for richness.

Red All Over

Brian — 2008-08-30T13:51:04-05:00

Talk about the Red camera has really shaken up people in video circles. If you haven’t heard about it, and especially if you have, you’ll really want to read the biography of the RED camera that Wired has written.

You may be interested that Red was founded by the billionaire founder of Oakley optics, Jim Jannard. It winds up that he’s a passionate and fascinating figure, not unlike a Steve Jobs, who is entirely driven by innovation and making the ideal solution. He has been intimately involved in the design and construction of the product.

A good read. Plus, check out the bottom line of Red’s web site.

Benjamin Button Has A Curious Graphic Novel

Jacob — 2008-08-27T12:34:10-05:00

You’re probably aware that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is being made into a movie (with Brad Pitt no less). But you might not be aware of its original form as a short story. And that, as usual, Hollywood has veered off in their execution.

Surprisingly Kevin Cornell, illustrator of A List Apart articles, is the visual side behind a graphic novel treatment of the tale. The images he shares on his blog are gorgeous. I can’t wait to get my hands on this book in October.

From i love typography

1 image accompanies this post, it is...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Hardcover

Over analyzing things out of frustration: Mummy Edition.

Jacob — 2008-08-04T10:57:22-05:00

Saturday was a lovely day. After an afternoon at Connecticon and a lovely dinner with some “awesome” friends we attended a showing of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Whoops.

I’d like to preface this by saying I didn’t run screaming from the theater or attempt to jab Twizzlers into my eyes. There are worse movies in existence. But I spent more time laughing at this movie than with it. Pretending this movie can be spoiled, spoilers follow.

You may have seen yeti being showcased in the previews on TV. Well there are a few of them, and they’re good guys. Yes, two protagonists can speak Yeti (Brendan Fraser, Rick, marvels at this himself) and ask for some hairy help. While the yeti run around in weak CGI pummeling the Dragon King’s minions I hit my breaking point…

During the tussle a yeti kicks a soldier over an entryway. He checks with another yeti who throws up his arms signaling a successful field goal… What?! This is taking place in 1947. How would a creature out in the Asian wilderness know anything about American Football? He could not have seen it on the barely existent television. I doubt he came to the States to watch it live. Wasn’t it derived from rugby? Are you telling me that the yeti actually invented the sport and Mr. Camp took it from them?

My suspension of disbelief only goes fairly far. And the new Mummy movie broke it. Broke it hard.

BBC: Drummers as Fit as Footballers

Brian — 2008-08-04T00:01:09-05:00

“Footballers can normally expect to play 40 to 50 games a year – but in one 12 month period, Clem played 90-minute sets at 100 concerts.

“Footballers find playing a Champions League game once every two weeks a drain, but these guys are doing it every day when they are on tour.

“It is clear that their fitness levels need to be outstanding – through monitoring Clem’s performance in controlled conditions, we have been able to map the extraordinary stamina required by professional drummers.”

Well, wonder if this why I’ve always been reasonably fit.

A hour in concert could burn between 400 and 600 calories, he said.

People have made a habit of calling drummers a lot of things over the years. But “athlete” is a new one. Through middle and high school, it wouldn’t be unusual for me to play for one or two hours nightly, after school. Sometimes this was after playing a sport, too.

Dr Marcus Smith, from Chichester University says I was healthy when I was playing often. Clearly I need to get back into that habit.

Where I Rant About a Poor Experience with Comcast Self-Service

Brian — 2008-08-02T21:22:26-05:00

I went to Comcast’s web site tonight to attempt some web self-service. I realized that after my most recent TiVo difficulties, that once I got the software re-installed that a few video settings were still running on their defaults, which weren’t the proper settings for my HDTV. When it dawned on me why all my HD channels were letter boxed, I dug back into fix them. When I got to where I needed to change the setting, I couldn’t recall whether I was supposed to use 720i Fixed or 720i Hybrid. I remember researching this in the user manual for the box, but thanks to our office becoming a nursery, there was no way to find that manual without hours of digging.

I thought to myself, “I remember seeing a QuickTips PDF on the TiVo portion of Comcast’s site. Maybe they have all the user manuals there too! That would make things much easier.”

Instead, I got caught in a loop on this page I couldn’t escape. The service page said I could write an email to their head honcho of support, so I did. This is the part where I ranted.

Greetings Rick,

I came to your site for self-service support, but got caught in a endless login loop. I click “cable TV” then “DVR service”, then it asks for my address, which I supply. But instead of being then dropped into the DVR section, I’m dropped out at some other location and I’m totally lost. Once I find the option for support buried in some side sliding fly-out navigation after a couple minutes, it drops me back at the main support area. I press “Cable TV” a second time, then “DVR service” a second time, and guess what? It asks for my address, again! My cookies are on, so it should remember my info from last time, but no. I figure I’ll try to be helpful and use the bottom option of signing in to my account instead, hoping that’ll be more sticky. But then it tells me my account “cannot be accessed at this time” Oh yeah? Why not? And what time will it be accessible? If not when I need help, then it’s not going to do me any good.

However, I can “read a letter from Rick.” Will that tell me the proper video display setting on my TiVo? 720i Hybrid or Fixed? Kinda doubt it. I’m sure that letter makes the site’s internal stakeholders feel good, but how about the customers who this site is supposed to be assisting. No offense, Rick, but seeing your picture doesn’t help me find the user manual to my DCT3416-I!

Even this cute little email form is broken, below the “How can I help you?” heading, the text wraps below this text field I’m typing in. (Safari 3.2.1) And lastly, I don’t really want to be called by Comcast about my message. If I wanted any reply, I’d want it via email, since I’m sending you an email. If I wanted to talk to someone, I would have called. But instead, all I can do is give you my calling instructions. Since I don’t have a home phone, I’m sure you’ll call when I’m at work! (UPDATE! spotted no where near the giant heading “Tell us about you” is a pre-filled text field at the top of the faux email form is “From: Type Email Address” where I can enter my email address! Well, sure, I’ll fill it in, now that I now know it’s not part of the decoration wrapping the page.)

Oh dear. Sometime, Comcast, you get so close to providing a satisfying experience, but then there are these cracks in the veneer that expose the fact that I’m still dealing with the cable company. Now that’s Comtastic.

[PS-I’m not trying to be a jerk here, just I’m very frustrated. If you can’t tell I work in the field of user experience (I met one of your experience designers just a few weeks ago, even) and I go off when I get really frustrated. If I can’t figure out your site, how’s my Mom going to manage? Hopefully, buried in all of my venting, you can find something of value in this rant.]

Really, it’s hard for me not to come across as a jerk, sometimes. Often, even. I get wound up, and then out it comes. And yes, I realize the initial glitch with my location info was just that, a bug.

There’s some good work going on inside Comcast, so far as web design. There are also some really good techs that I’ve come across, too. Almost everyone I’ve talked to on the phone has been exceedingly friendly. Their executive relations team contacted me after my last blog rant, and they were effective too. Now they have some good press because of their push into the social media space for support, with Frank Eliason, famous for his work on Twitter.

They’ve got the beginnings of some very good things. It makes it that more painful when they stumble.

Re&#162;ently

The Petition to Keep Michael Griffin at NASA

Considering a Flip? Check this First

Happy Birthday To Us (Again)

A "Horrible" Halloween (Constructing Dr. Horrible)

A Good Day for the Internet

Netflix Now Streaming to Macs (beta)

Big News: SMC is Live!

Women in parkour

Wired on Weird Al

On Ambient Intimacy

Red All Over

Benjamin Button Has A Curious Graphic Novel

Over analyzing things out of frustration: Mummy Edition.

BBC: Drummers as Fit as Footballers

Where I Rant About a Poor Experience with Comcast Self-Service

Re¢ently