# 
Thu Sep 09 09:14:11
They'd like to buy your vote
Or get you to register to vote. Or raise awareness about voting. Or something. Whatever their reason, the people over at Hot or Not have launched the Vote or Not sweepstakes and are giving away $200,000 - $100,000 to the winner and $100,000 to the person who refers the winner. So while it is important that you go and sign up, it is even more important that you do so by following this link: http://mp3e6e.VOTEorNOT.org.
Also, hey, while you are there, you can register to vote if are not already registered. Even if you are not the type that usually votes, or aren't planning on voting this year you should go ahead and register. This way, if something inspires/infuriates you on Election Day, you at least have the option of going down and casting your ballot.
# Tue Sep 14 21:29:42
Picasso didn't low-level format his canvas - discarded painting recovered
Great article over at Salon about an entire painting (not just sketches) found under the "Rue de Montmartre". Thanks to x-radiographing, 500 pixel-per-inch scanning and the eyedropper tool of Adobe Photoshop there will now be an exhibit of the Rue de Montmartre and a digital representation of the painting under it.
Extrapolate this out a few decades: "Scientists were able to clone the famous author from some DNA found in an old museum exhibit, then read a previously unknown manuscript directly from the atoms in his brain."
Media are alive. They find ways of springing back to life after years of laying low.
# Wed Sep 22 08:00:11
Hiptop 2
I've been using it for a few months, but the hiptop 2 (in the form of the Sidekick II from T-Mobile) is officially available to the public today. Engadget sums it up nicely in this review.
As always, you can check out pictures I take with the phone over at my moblog.
# Wed Sep 22 09:33:55
Thinking my thoughts
A bit from a draft speech by David Weinberger caught my eye:
We publish stuff that gets its meaning and its reality by being read, viewed or heard. An unpublished novel is about as meaningful and real as an imaginary novel. It needs its readers to be. But readers aren't passive consumers. We reimagine the book, we complete the vision of the book. Readers appropriate works, make them their own. Listeners and viewers, too. In making a work public, artists enter into partnership with their audience. The work succeeds insofar as the audience makes it their own, takes it up, understands it within their own unpredictable circumstances. It leaves the artist's hands and enters our lives. And that's not a betrayal of the work. That's its success. It succeeds insofar as we hum it, quote it, appropriate it so thoroughly that we no longer remember where the phrase came from. That's artistic success, although it's a branding failure.
This is very relevant to some thoughts I've had lately and a new site/project I am working on, and hope to launch sometime after Halloween and before Xmas :)
# Thu Sep 23 09:55:37
MIDIocre
If were ever in a trivia contest and got the question "what is the state song of Maine," and in a moment of panic bluffed "State of Maine Song" you would be totally correct!
"And tho' we seek far and wide
Our search will be in vain
To find a fairer spot on earth
Than Maine! Maine! Maine!"
Is that last "Maine!" really necessary?
There is also a MIDI file on that page that sounds like something you might hear while riding a carousel at the state fair. I'll have to dig around for an mp3.
Anyone have a favorite state song?
# Thu Sep 23 18:02:40
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
You want to spread your message, your idea, your words, your thoughts around the nation. Who better to help you than the USPS? They don't even have to know they are helping you. (quicktime w/ sound)
# Fri Sep 24 19:22:18
The Secret Lives of Barcodes
A post over at Boing Boing talks about a couple of toys that used bar codes as seed to create tribes of monsters and/or as a basis to do battle with other barcode-scanning toys.
I think it's a great idea, but I imagine when it came time to actually, you know, sell the toys, they weren't flying off the shelves. The problem being that it's hard to sell barcodes as something cool to a kid. And the names didn't exactly help. While an improvement on "Barcode Battlers", "Scannerz Commander" still had that lame "swap the s for a z and the kids won't know how tragically unhip we are" vibe about it.
Also mentioned in that post is "Monster Rancher" which was a step up, using music CDs as the seed instead of bar codes and having a better name, which explains why I at least vaguely recall hearing about it.
The next logical step is a system based on RFID tags. What's great here is that the kids don't ever have to know where the seeds/monsters/creatures originate. They'd unpack the device (some smallish RFID-aware blob, with a screen), from its box and instantly they'd be presented with a core group of seeds - input based on whatever RFID tags happened to be close enough when they activated the device. For a while, they'd be able to accept/reject potential inputs for a while. Eventually their core group would mature to the point they they had to actually defend themselves from new inputs. They wouldn't need to know it was the RFID tags creating the inputs, but they would learn quickly that everytime their parents dragged them into the GAP it would be like their core group was being attacked by the Borg.
That's just the first generation device. For the second generation, this functionality would be integrated into your cellphone.
Having typed all that in a stream-of-conscious moment, I must now retire from my day job and build this device.
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