My new Tascam Digital Pocketstudio DP-008 arrived with the UPS shipment yesterday, and I’m enjoying it greatly. It’s a self-contained 8-track recording studio that runs on batteries.
Tascam Digital Pocketstudio DP-008
(This is part 2 of a multi-part series; click here for part 1.)
This individual (and it’s just as likely to be a “prom king” as the queen) is a true social butterfly. Online media—Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter, MySpace—is just another one of many tools she uses to keep her social circle intact. While she may not have been her high school’s actual prom queen, she almost certainly still keeps in touch with her.
She’s a planner—she organizes gatherings, soccer games, poker games for her spouse, and feels involved whenever she has direct control over an activity. Whether it’s running the annual candy sale for her children’s junior high school orchestra, or putting together the annual reunion for her college graduating class, she’s an integral part.
She drives a minivan.
Waterlogged school buses in New Orleans, August 2005 (photo by Allan Campbell)
Approximately five years ago, one of the most devastating natural(?) disasters in US history occurred. Early on the morning of August 28, 2005, Hurricane Katrina plowed into the Mississippi river delta and up towards New Orleans.
The first reports seemed to indicate that the city had survived relatively unscathed. But an hour or so later, the world began to receive reports that the levees, long viewed as the weakest part of New Orlean’s hurricane defensive shield, had begun to fail, and the city was filling with water.
The story is fairly well known, but I had a small part in the midst of it. At the time, I was an engineer for Yahoo! News, and Katrina rapidly became the top story. We watched as our traffic doubled, then tripled, then quintupled our normal daily rate. And it stayed at that level, with little variance, for the next week or more.
(This is part 1 of a multi-part series.)
In keeping with my homage to William James, I suppose that this blog post should be subtitled, “A Study in Human Nature.” However, my goals are not quite so lofty as James’s; I am merely an observer, and not a philosopher, of online social activities. Perhaps a better title would be, “A Field Guide to the Social Media Participants of the Online Realm,” but even that is a bit pretentious, don’t you think?
Those of us who live in the rarefied air of Silicon Valley tend to assume, almost always incorrectly, that the “rest of the world” experiences social media the way we do. It therefore comes as quite a shock, at times, to discover that there are enormous hordes of online users who do not experience the Internet the way we do. Here are some facts about the “other half” of the online world:
Rob Michael (of the Atmos Trio) has a great video showing how he made his latest track, a cover of the Doobie Brother’s well-known “Takin’ it to the streets.” The great thing is that all the video is synchronized with the audio, so you can actually see him playing guitar, ukulele(!), bass, and MIDI keyboard throughout;
(My favorite part is the final ukulele solo as it fades out.)
It’s very creative, and it’s an insightful look into the process required to produce something of this quality. If you’ve ever been involved in professional music production, you’ll understand that much goes on “behind the scenes,” and this video gives you some insight into that.
Little bacon cheeseburger (top), regular (two patty) bacon cheeseburger with grilled mushrooms (bottom). Fries in the middle.
If you’ve been in California for more than a few minutes, someone has probably told you about In-N-Out. This venerable chain of restaurants has more rabid fanbois than Apple, and for a good reason. They sell excellent hamburgers and french fries; and that’s really all they do. They have drinks and shakes on the menu, but the In-N-Out menu was probably the inspiration for Steve Jobs’s dictum to keep things simple. There are very few options, but the quality of what they sell is exceptional.
Kodak DC20
In August, 1996, I purchased my first digital camera, a Kodak DC20. This was, in fact, one of the very first (if not the first) “consumer” digital cameras. It was well within my price range at the time, which was indeed rather limited.
Unlike today’s digital cameras, this little gem did not have a built-in LCD display, high-speed USB transfer (USB had not been invented yet), a flash, or any of the other features we consider normal. Its resolution was measured in kilopixels, not megapixels, with a maximum photo size of 320×240 pixels. It connected with the computer via a serial cable terminated with what appeared to be a 1/8″ headphone plug. There was not an electronically-generated shutter sound; instead, there was a reassuring but mysteriously mechanical “thunk” when you pressed the shutter button. It would hold approximately 20 images, even at that low resolution.
