Top 10 Best Roadtripping Songs

bbook:

Looking forward to summer already… can’t ya tell?

1. Sweet Emotion// Aerosmith
2. Hotel California// The Eagles
3. Love You Madly// Cake
4. Where Nobody Knows// Kings of Leon
5. Young Folks// Peter Bjorn & John 
6. Run Around// Blues Traveler 
7. Ramble On// Led Zeppelin 
8. China Girl// David Bowie
9. Love and Memories// OAR
10. Slow Ride// Foghat

today was that day people in the tri-state started to really hope that warm weather is relatively close.  you could just tell by people’s attitudes, the fact that it was friday and the fact that they decided to wear vests instead of jackets even when it was snowing (i.e. me).

btw, hell yes to slow ride!

technology, culture and commodities.

from joanne mcneil:

saying i write about “technology and culture” should sound like “autumn and fall” or “movies and film” but it doesn’t quite yet

me, in response:

it will, ppl don’t realize the connection yet. flip side is that those topics - together - shouldn’t be a commodity like “movies.”

this exchange was the beginning of a few blips on my radar this past weekend about the important connection between our culture/society and the technology that’s part of it.  there is a lot of face-value discussion happening across the web but few areas where we dive deep into why it matters.  people are starting to commoditize technology, especially in terms of communication.  unfortunately for them, it has to matter more.  we have to use it to change the things around us - not just slowly turn it into another crowded pile of useless noise.

for example:

• seven on seven - “pair seven leading artists with seven game-changing technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new — be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine — over the course of a single day.”

• ideas42 - (one of their projects) “When it comes to the adoption and application of new technologies, many people are misinformed about technology and its benefits.  Individuals may be misguided by a rule of thumb that results in either non-adoption or misuse.  In the Indian state of Orissa, for example, many rice farmers overuse chemical fertilizers and pesticides on their crops, due to the misperception that the greenness of their plants is positively correlated with improved yields.”

• day19 - revitalizing LA using their gifts.  bringing culture and the arts, as well as their audiences, to a new part of town.

so, a quick kudos to the people who are actually doing something good at the intersection of our culture and our technology.

fun with nicknames

cthewell:

So Tooth no longer wants to be referred to as The Situation, as he doesn’t wish to be associated with that D-bag on Jersey Shore.  No argument here.  He came up with a name designed to keep people on the edge of their seats, waiting anxiously for…The Anticipation.  I like it.  But now I’m jealous and want my own bad ass “I go to the gym, now” nickname.  I thought long and hard (that’s what she said) and since I always seem to be meddling in other people’s affairs, I think I’ll be The Complication.  Ratcliffe, I know you want in on this shit, man.  Since you’ve got an infinite amount of data at your fingertips at all times, you shall be known as The Information.  As Woogie will be spending one night a week in The Well now, we mustn’t exclude him.  Since he’s in training for a triathlon, he’ll be spending a lot of time in the gym.  And if he works hard enough, he’ll undoubtedly become The Condensation.

this made my night.

applesauce cake.

ratcliffe-lee:

tomorrow, alex heads back down to philly after break from dancing & classes.  all six of us had dinner for the last time probably until katie’s birthday in a few weeks.

mom told her story again about great grandma ackerman’s sister, who worked at grand central station as a reservations agent, memorized the timetables for the entire united states rail system.

i also whipped up some apple sauce raisin cake.  mom and pop’s wedding cake.  from the recipes of grandma eliza taylor ratcliffe (1900-1986), edited by mom and eva taylor barclay in 1993:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups applesauce (homemade or McIntosh store bought)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and a little more
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1 cup raisins
• Pinch of allspice
• No eggs

1. Preheat oven to 325o - 350o
2. Cream butter and sugar, add applesauce and spices.
3. Add flour.
4. Bake in greased and floured 13”x9” pan until cake leaves sides of pan and springs back when you touch the top.  Leave in pan.
5. When cool ice with white butter icing.

“I’m sorry, I don’t measure very much, so can’t help you too much, experience is the best teacher, do it when you are not having company. 

Lots of love, Grandma”

Aunt Eva says Grandma always put a good meal on the table even though dinner was always being interrupted by people coming by to talk to Grandpa because he was in politics.  Many evenings dinner was rushed because Grandma had to have her sons, Bob and Jackie, dressed and ready to go with Grandpa to the Preakness Farmers’ ball games.  Grandpa managed the team and Uncle Roy played on it.  Grandpa always had to have his sons along with him at the games.

nice evening with the fam.

castles in the sky.

so, flickr is pimping social gaming w/ “noticings.”  it’s a good way to up usage of their geo-tagging feature and harness the whole “omgimplayingagamebutimreallysosriouswiththischeckin” craze (10-1 this is biro’s favorite hashtag now)

He’s noticing things around him by photographing them, uploading the photos to Flickr, tagging them with the tag noticings and geo-tagging the location. Then, once a day every day at 15:00 GMT, the previous day’s noticings are pulled into their site and points are awarded. yay! The dashboard tallies the noticings and even has a nifty timer to let you know when the next import happens.

whrrl has also caught my eye now.  but maybe just b/c of some crafty copy-writing.

Unlock memberships into societies with people that have real-world patterns like yours. Have you ever wondered who else goes to the same places you do? How often? When? Find out who else is a member of your societies and share with people who have the same interests. Discover new places to go from people like you.

…

A “footstream” is a digital record of the places a person goes in the real world. Capture your experiences by posting multiple photos and notes to your check-in. They’re auto-grouped by place for easy sharing through Facebook and Twitter. Discover fun facts about your social relationships with the places you go. Think about the places you regularly visit. How often have you been there relative to your friends? Where do people go next? What neighborhood and types of restaurants do you frequent most?

we’re starting to build castles in the sky, folks.  when will it be centralized?  how?  will the service with the biggest footprint win?  or the best way to solve the problem.  i’m tired of jumping/using multiple services.  some have all my friends.  some i use for just one thing.  some have better functionality than others.  i don’t want to sit-out until it’s all sorted-out but i’m starting to itch for the remote to turn off the tv.

blogs are in season.

people who don’t like blogs or haven’t read them before should just start reading after thanksgiving into about feb.  everyone just lists out their best posts in an effort to mentally clean house and steal pageviews from anyone trying to hide from their family.  think about it.  look at all the blogs you read.  they’re all compiling “best of the year.”  everyone else did the work for you already.

maybe i’ll start doing that.  just seasonal blog reading.  it’s summer?  no, the blog isn’t ripe yet.

confirmed.

friends,

i’ll be traveling next week to our nation’s capital for business and pleasure.  thanksgiving with family, watching family perform and an awards luncheon.  from the district, i head to ann arbor but that is brief.  i’m back in the office on the 4th.

i’ve been to washington several times and have done the requisite tourist attractions.  what is worth my time that is off the beaten path?

Intent - and how to “Like” it

superamit:

gustafalstromer:

Hoan Ton-That is one of the smartest people I know. Earlier today we spoke about how the social gaming/virtual goods companies could save the incentivized offer industry which have had a bad week.

The offer industry is built on the concept of product bundling. Andrew Chen wrote a great post about here so wont go into the details.

In search marketing we’ve learned that the magic term “Intent” is the key to how most of the value is being created for someone like Google. By capturing the intent of a person who is out to buy something you have the power of directing traffic of huge value. How do you carry intent over to other sites where we’re not searching? It’s hard but here is an idea:

Amazing has something called “wish-list”, basically a list of books or products that I’ve saved on Amazon that I might buy sometime in the future. There could be many reasons why I’m putting something in my wish-list but one of them is certainly that I might buy it in the future. Compared to any book on Amazon the intent captured in my wish-list has a much higher value for Amazon. Basically Amazon have captured and saved my intent for the future.

In my opinion it’s crazy that this isn’t something that is being used on other sites, especially e-commerce sites . If I was able to “Heart” or “Like” products on any e-commerce site and they were able to save those “intents” for the future they’ve created value for my next return.

The big idea here is to capture someone intent and link it to a specific user. I think there is a huge opportunity with the mysterious Facebook Open Graph API to do just that. And it doesn’t have to be the same thing as with the beacon-fiasco. Imagine I’m on Etsy, I find something pretty and click “Like”. Etsy is connected with facebook and my (possible) intent is shared with my friends. Privacy-issue? Possibly, but the value of sharing something I like to facebook is probably larger for most users.

Value created for Etsy? Duh.

Facebook should start sharing Intent over the social graph and enable the “Like” function for everything on the web.

Here are some stuff I would “Like” if I could:

• http://blog.airbnb.com/stay-in-the-costa-rican-white-house

• http://www.amazon.com/Audacity-Win-Lessons-Historic-Victory/dp/0670021334/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I10NKD5T6CVBIR&colid=BYJ1NXGDESBF

• http://www.myspace.com/kaffibarinnights (great bar in Reykjavik)

A universal Facebook like button that shares a line to your newsfeed would be awesome.

At the last FB dev brouhaha they talked about expanding the social graph to objects outside Facebook. Is it possible to build a widget that displays a button on any page to “like” it? (This would add a one-liner to your stream, and presumably save that like info on the site.)

slowly, but surely, appeal for universal taxonomy and function is growing.  i do this ad-hoc now.  most of my social actions are funneled through my facebook feed, show up on this site (or in its feed), etc.

friendfeed is great but no one uses it.  hopefully, this social graph expanse being talked about and that friendfeed technology are somehow connected.

OTA HDTV is awesome

mikehudack:

I canceled my cable a few months ago. I didn’t regret it for a moment… until I wanted to watch the Yankees in the ALCS. Justin suggested I get an antenna. It seemed silly. I got one. Over the air HDTV is fantastic. The picture — and even the sound — is much better than cable’s HDTV. It’s fantastic.

I kind of feel like I upgraded from 720p to 1080p. I didn’t. I just bought a $40 amplified antenna.

re: earlier about the set-top media model. i’ve been doing this since ‘94. all major metro area networks (nationwide) broadcast an HD signal. anything else, you can either download or stream. well, anything else worth watching.

Simulmedia

zachklein:

I recently learned about a fascinating data-driven company called Simulmedia. They buy raw data from set-top box companies like Tivo and analyze it. Among many other things, they learn when a user watched what and and for how long. With a set of millions of users, they identify viewing patterns and can predict with certainty how receptive you might be to one television program given that you voluntarily watch some other one.

What’s interesting is their business model. Instead of selling the clean data back to the networks like we’d expect, they go back and ask, for example, “How many viewers would you like us to deliver to Mad Men?” Then they take the network’s own marketing assets, like a 15-second trailer, buy commercial slots on other networks, and target the viewers of specific shows who they know will be receptive to Mad Men. In turn, they get paid for the uptick they promised.

New media bounty hunters. I’m very impressed.

very smart.  in other news, this past week’s mad men was indeed very good (as everyone says it was).  however, all of the data this company is hedging its bets on had nothing to do with me - i downloaded the season from itunes.  so, kudos to optimizing an aging business model?  i’m sure they have big plans for when people start to ditch tv in general - well, let’s hope.