Emptyage

wired: “Hello.” The soft, froggy voice startled me. I turned...

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:33:45 -0700

“Hello.”

The soft, froggy voice startled me. I turned around to face an approaching figure. It was Larry Page, naked, save for a pair of eyeglasses.

“Welcome to Google Island. I hope my nudity doesn’t bother you. We’re completely committed to openness here. Search history. Health data. Your genetic blueprint. One way to express this is by removing clothes to foster experimentation. It’s something I learned at Burning Man,” he said. “Here, drink this. You’re slightly dehydrated, and your blood sugar is low. This is a blend of water, electrolytes, and glucose.”

I was taken aback. “How did you…” I began, but he was already answering me before I could finish my question.

“As soon as you hit Google’s territorial waters, you came under our jurisdiction, our terms of service. Our laws–or lack thereof–apply here. By boarding our self-driving boat you granted us the right to all feedback you provide during your journey. This includes the chemical composition of your sweat. Remember when I said at I/O that maybe we should set aside some small part of the world where people could experiment freely and examine the effects? I wasn’t speaking theoretically. This place exists. We built it.”

Welcome to Google Island.

"Sometime in the last decade, dogs achieved dominion over urban America. They are everywhere now,..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:05:28 -0700

“Sometime in the last decade, dogs achieved dominion over urban America. They are everywhere now, allowed in places that used to belong exclusively to humans, and sometimes only to human adults: the office, restaurants, museums, buses, trains, malls, supermarkets, barber shops, banks, post offices. Even at the park and other places where dogs belong, they’ve been given free rein. Dogs are frequently allowed to wander off leash, to run toward you and around you, to run across the baseball field or basketball court, to get up in your grill. Even worse than the dogs are the owners, who seem never to consider whether there may be people in the gym/office/restaurant/museum who do not care to be in close proximity to their dogs. After all, what kind of monster would have a problem with a poor innocent widdle doggie? It’s a dog’s world. We just live in it. And it’s awful. Bad dogs!”

- I hate dogs: They’re lounging in our offices and licking us at our cafes. It’s time to take America back. - Slate Magazine

A few years ago I would have said, “Oh, Slate. You’re so contrarian!” But after having a kid who gets regularly run roughshod over by people who just say of their terrible, terrible canine companions that won’t sit, won’t stay, won’t not jump up and knock your child over, “oh, he’s friendly, he won’t bite” I’m totally down. Word, Farhad.

"NoPa = Prospect Heights. You moved away for a few years and came back and all of a sudden there was..."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:13:00 -0700

“NoPa = Prospect Heights. You moved away for a few years and came back and all of a sudden there was a whole neighborhood that your friends spent time in that never was a neighborhood before. In San Francisco’s case, it was a neighborhood named after a restaurant. This is basically the worst thing I can imagine.”

- New York Elsewhere - The Morning News

The writer is completely and utterly wrong (and I assume, kidding/trolling, but maybe not). I say that because of a small crime I took part in, a civic misdemeanor that is still playing out.

In 1999, my then girlfriend (now wife) and I moved into a little garden apartment on Fulton between Central and Lyon. The neighborhood was then still widely known as the Western Addition—and with good reason because it was and is a part of the Western Addition. While it didn’t have the homeless issues that plagued (and plague) the Haight just across the panhandle, crime was still pretty bad. If you wanted to buy crack, it was very, very easy to do so on Central at Grove.

It wasn’t even remotely trendy, but we loved it for the old Victorians, some of the best in the city, and its central location. There were occasional all night house parties at The House of Love, complete with giant naked pileups in the front room downstairs, The Justice League and Storyville had great shows. The Fulton Street Bar was an oasis of pool tables and punk rock jukebox. It was nice.

At the time I worked for a soon to be ill-fated start up web magazine. One of my writers was Annalee Newitz. When I changed jobs there, she took my old gig editing the tabloid section. We were co-workers and pals. Then the whole thing went to shit, and we both moved on.*

Annalee got a job as an editor at the San Francisco Bay Guardian. This was back when Alt-Weeklies were still a Thing City People Read Every Week. And when it came time for her to put together the Best of the Bay issue in 2000, she asked me if I could write one of the neighborhood guides. Sure. But which neighborhood? We had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: I guess I could write about my neighborhood. The neighborhood association keeps pushing this dumb NOPA name—you know, like SOMA, but for North of the Panhandle instead of South of Market—but it’s a made up thing and nobody actually calls it that.
Her: That’s perfect. Can you get me 1000 words including four or five venue write-ups by Monday?

And so I wrote this thing about a neighborhood that didn’t really exist. It was (as far as I’m aware, and I could be wrong) the first time NoPa showed up in print on anything other than some huckster impresario’s real estate flyer. It was certainly among the first.

It was hard to find anything to write about in, um, “NoPa.” There were virtually no restaurants, and the few that existed weren’t any good. Did I want to write about the PopEye’s? No. Of the four things I wrote about, one was a corner store. That was what kind of neighborhood it was.

And then Fly Bar opened, which, for whatever reason, was popular with yuppies. The Justice League became The Independent. Little Star started serving deep dish. El Rico finally closed or was shut down by the health department and Little Chihuahua moved in. Cafe Abir opened a sushi restaurant, then a sake bar. The bar/brothel on Fulton closed. Storyville turned into an Asian fusion restaurant. The empty lot where Plaza Foods (and a very downmarket version of the original Fallettis) re-opened as an Albertson’s. The crack house vanished. Things changed. Look! It’s Papalote. It’s Nopalito. It’s Four Barrel. Would you care for some gelato, sir?^†

I remember noticing that a check cashing place had closed and was now a gallery. That was when you could really feel the money money money coming. More so than Bar Crudo. And definitely more so than when NoPa opened.

Speaking of which…

When the neighborhood was still “transitional,” and gangsters still hung out on the corner of Grove 24 hours a day, I was walking up Divisadero** when I passed a woman standing on a ladder. She was scraping paint off of a derelict bank building that had long stood empty. I asked her what she was doing, and she told me the was opening a restaurant there. This, as it turned out, was Allyson Jossel. And at the time (I believe it was 2005) opening a Fancy Restaurant on Divis—at least on that part of Divis—was anything but a sure bet. It took courage.

And while I wish I had not been priced out of that part of town, and while Divisadero Street now makes me I groan and gnash my teeth, and while I can’t stand the detestable little shits who hang about in the parklets or the polar fleece farmer’s market, and the whole scene just depresses me and reminds me of everything I hate about the city I love(d), and, and, and…

Well.

More power to Nopa for having the guts to move there when they did—albeit many years after the neighborhood took its name.***

————————————————————————-

*One of our other co-workers was a young kid just out of Berkeley who was working 20 hour days in the art department and doing all kinds of back end work for something like $18,000 a year (in San Francisco!) named Andy Baio.

**I was on my way to my rent-a-mailbox, which I had because all of our mail and packages would get stolen. It was called the Post-All Center. And although it lost its lease and shut down, you can still see it painted on the walls of NoPa, by the then up-and-coming muralist Brian Barneclo.

***Anyway. I’m sorry about whatever role I played with the name. I know that, like the gentrification of the neighborhood itself, it would have happened with or without me. But still. For both of those things: Sorry.

PS: I swear to you I’ve had nothing whatsoever to do with naming FolSoMa.

jimray: Twitter’s music app is beautiful, in that now-tiresome way apps from...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:01:04 -0700

jimray: Twitter’s music app is beautiful, in that now-tiresome way apps from...:

jimray:

Twitter’s music app is beautiful, in that now-tiresome way apps from VC-backed companies are required to be, sacrificing utility for aesthetics and looking dated as soon as it hits your neighborhood app store. That’s fine, they’ve got plenty of designers to restyle it every 18 months.

…

"All things considered, La Taqueria is offering a better burrito. But Chipotle is offering a better..."

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:28:07 -0700

“All things considered, La Taqueria is offering a better burrito. But Chipotle is offering a better burrito-based business proposition. Chipotle has better-designed spaces, with greater menu visibility and superior clarity as to what your options are. Chipotle’s lines move substantially faster. Your mileage may vary as to the merits of a prudent slim burrito vs Chipotle’s mega-calorie bomb, but in some sense Chipotle is offering a better value proposition. More realistically though if a burrito was to materialize at my desk I would want it to be a La Taqueria burrito.”

- La Taqueria vs Chipotle: Buttito summit and burrito economics.

"Maybe you were hoping for something radically new and different from a Facebook phone. If so, Zuck..."

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:26:42 -0700

“Maybe you were hoping for something radically new and different from a Facebook phone. If so, Zuck just broke your heart. But so what. Facebook never does anything new. New doesn’t matter in the blue. What matters is this: What Mark Zuckerberg announced today runs software called Facebook Home that makes it easier for people to spend more time with Facebook. And that’s all he really needed to pull off.”

- Facebook’s ‘Phone’ Is Another Triumph of Mediocrity |

The Fresh Ten Commandments: The Fresh Ten

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:33:34 -0700

The Fresh Ten Commandments: The Fresh Ten:

thefreshten:

The Fresh Ten

Recent events have made it clear that we are suffering from a broken moral compass. People today could use some general guidance.

Since the original ten commandments seem somewhat narrow and obsolete (too much focus on livestock, servants, and jealous god issues), here is a modest first draft of a fresh set.

You shall treat all people with respect regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, or national origin.

You shall not kill, assault, nor intimidate with threats of physical violence.

You shall not rape, sexually coerce, nor intimidate with threats of sexual violence.

You shall cultivate intellectual curiosity, be open to new ideas, and respect the scientific method.

You shall not cheat, nor cheat others out of what is rightfully theirs.

You shall not lie, deceive, nor spread lies about others.

You shall not steal, that is to say take or use what rightfully belongs to another person in a manner that causes harm. (Stealing is a trickier concept than it once was. How do you say yes to Fair Use and no to software patents?)

You shall keep your promises.

You shall not waste natural resources nor pollute the shared environment.

You shall take responsibility for your actions and their consequences.

Clear?

Great. Re-post this everywhere and maybe it will sink in.

"We would love publishers to provide standardized, portable ad formats that will effectively monetize..."

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:51:21 -0700

“We would love publishers to provide standardized, portable ad formats that will effectively monetize their content in mobile readers. That’d be awesome. To see if that’s viable, we’re going to do a round of conversations with publishers to figure out whether they’ve actually already got something workable (for example, the ad units that accompany mobile web versions of their content, or that some ad platforms have inserted directly into RSS outputs), or whether we should join together to build and implement something new that’d work not only for Digg, but all the other mobile reading apps out there.”

- In Which We Consider Digg’s Mobile App - This Blog - Andrew McLaughlin :: Blog

"Shut up, all of you. Go away. You are complicit in one way or another in a giant crime containing..."

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 12:10:41 -0700

“Shut up, all of you. Go away. You are complicit in one way or another in a giant crime containing many great crimes. Atone in secret. Wash the blood off your hands in private. Because there were people who got it right. Anthony Zinni. Eric Shiseki. Hans Blix. Mohamed ElBaradei. The McClatchy Washington bureau guys. Dozens of liberal academics who got called fifth-columnists and worse. Professional military men whose careers suffered as a result. Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets around the world. The governments of Canada and France. Those people, I will listen to this week. Go to hell, the rest of you, and go there in silence and in shame.”

- Iraq War Anniversary New York Times - Pleased To Be Shutting The Piehole Now - Esquire

"Unfortunately money does play a role. We got into SFFS and will take our spot. Anyone can google us..."

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 22:41:54 -0700

“Unfortunately money does play a role. We got into SFFS and will take our spot. Anyone can google us and see the price of our house and what my husband does for a living. It’s all public info. Also, SFFS shared several times that they are embarking on a large capital campaign (for scholarships to middle school) and we expect we’ll need to donate around $15-20 K in excess of tuition ($26 K) to support it. They didn’t give us a number, but I talked with other similar families at SFFS and that’s what we’re budgeting. When schools embark on new capital campaigns (as Live Oak is also doing, where we also got in), they especially need on large donor families. It’s reality and not unfair as we fund some cool campaigns for the school that everyone benefits from. Don’t forget Friends is the school where one family alone matched their $10 m fundraising campaign to renovate the current building. SFFS has always relied on very rich families and prob will for some time as they keep introducing new capital campaigns (build out of new floors, scholarships for middle school). The reality is that it is not a middle class school, and neither is Live Oak. LO and SFFS are no different than Hamlin or Town. If you want a private school where regular middle class and yuppies go (versus filthy rich), go to Kittredge or Alta Vista.”

- Independent school letters: The SF K Files

Sigh.

Flying Falcon Infant Car Seat Carrier I love you Amazon

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 23:36:00 -0700

Flying Falcon Infant Car Seat Carrier

I love you Amazon

"Matt Honen joins Mike and Leah to discuss whether anything is really private online"

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:31:34 -0700

“Matt Honen joins Mike and Leah to discuss whether anything is really private online”

- If it’s on the internet, it’s on the internet. - Let’s Make Mistakes - Mule Radio Syndicate

"I’ll be damned if The Atlantic dies with my generation, if all that is left of it when I leave..."

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:01:44 -0800

“I’ll be damned if The Atlantic dies with my generation, if all that is left of it when I leave is some moldering books and cold servers.”

- A Day in the Life of a Digital Editor, 2013 - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic

My professor assigned your Generation X article as a reading assignment. Very interesting to read something from that point of view! Also interesting to know it's my parents' generation. Anyway, have a great day!

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 10:36:40 -0800

Oh My God.

For Journalism

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 09:14:39 -0800

For Journalism:

jimray:

Some of the smartest people working in data journalism today are going to teach you their secrets. Journerdalists from NPR, ProPublica, The New York TImes, The AP, The Spokane Spokesman Review, and more will show you how to build a modern news app. Twenty bucks gets you started, a crisp benjamin gets you the whole course.

On its own, this is a great thing, I want it to do well, and I hope they can help educate the next round of hacker journalists.

Here’s why this is capital-I-Important, though, and why you might consider pitching in even if you’ve never considered an opportunity in the highly lucrative field of data journalism¹. We are awash in “data”, some of which seems important, but most of which is so much flotsam. Data is powerful if we can translate it into information but it can also drown us if we just let it wash over. Or if we let corporations control it or use it to bully our cities and towns, or let governments get away with misusing it, or we just accept anecdote or conventional wisdom as truth.

The tools for working with all of this data are out there. There has never been a better time to dig into all of the numbers and systems that intersect with our lives every day. You can literally spin up a server for basically nothing and build a web app that real people can use. If you’ve ever had an idea for something that can better inform people about the world they live in, a hundred bucks and a few hours of your time will help you build it.

Places like NPR and The New York Times are always going to have smart folks working for them on the big stories, but they can’t be everywhere. We can, though, and with the right tools, we can be just as powerful.

actual lucrative career mileage may vary. The good news is, you’ll be able to sleep at night knowing you helped make the world a better place. ↩

"In the months ahead, we intend to reimagine everything about the Wired experience—we’ll revamp our..."

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:14:00 -0800

“

In the months ahead, we intend to reimagine everything about the Wired experience—we’ll revamp our tablet apps, retool our website, reinvigorate the magazine, refresh our conferences, and rethink our approach to the mobile and social web. We’re going to add new features, deliver new reader experiences, and revisit just about every aspect of this storied enterprise. And we’re bringing you with us.

If anything, our plan is to produce stories and designs that break the rules more aggressively than ever. Seven years ago, when I served as creative director of Wired, I practiced something I called Wrong Theory: Every page we produced had to contain some element that violated the conventions of traditional magazine design. The results were sometimes jarring, but the pages were always more compelling for their trespasses. It was a bit like that Seinfeld episode in which George decides to do the opposite of whatever his instincts tell him—a strategy that gets him a new girlfriend and a job with the Yankees.

I can’t tell you that every experiment will work out as well as it did for George. But I can promise you change. If you believe that change is good too, then you’re in the right place. This is going to be fun.

”

- Let’s Blow Some Stuff Up

I’m genuinely fucking excited to blow shit up.

(Er. Also I may be more profane than Mr. Dadich.)

"Here’s another example: Vine is a video service without a play button. This was intentional. Old..."

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:07:52 -0800

“Here’s another example: Vine is a video service without a play button. This was intentional. Old things are beautiful, but new things should look, well… new. That’s why Vine doesn’t have a play button. It also doesn’t have a pause button, a timeline scrubber, a blinking red light, or dials and a brushed-metal finish to give you the impression that you’re using a dusty video camera.”

- Blog — Vine

"This future doesn’t just kill the operating system, browser, and search as we know it — it changes..."

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 13:46:11 -0800

“This future doesn’t just kill the operating system, browser, and search as we know it — it changes the meaning of “computer” as we know it, too. Whether large or small (e.g., a smartphone), a computer’s main function in the near future will be tuning in to — as a car radio tunes in a broadcast station — the constantly flowing global cyberflow. We won’t care much about the computer devices themselves since we’ll be more focused on the world of information … and our lives as attached to it”

- The End of the Web, Computers, and Search as We Know It |

"But Apple might not be the right behemoth to use as a benchmark for Amazon’s recent performance. In..."

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:04:09 -0800

“But Apple might not be the right behemoth to use as a benchmark for Amazon’s recent performance. In 1994, Walmart’s net sales topped $60 billion for the first time, the neighborhood that Amazon’s playing in today. A decade later, Walmart’s sales had nearly quadrupled to $256 billion. Last year, Walmart’s sales clocked in at just south of $444 billion.”

- Amazon’s Growth Looks Like Wal-Mart in the 1990s — But Even Better

"Based on a forensic analysis going back months, it appears the hackers broke into The Times..."

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 09:45:31 -0800

“Based on a forensic analysis going back months, it appears the hackers broke into The Times computers on Sept. 13, when the reporting for the Wen articles was nearing completion. They set up at least three back doors into users’ machines that they used as a digital base camp. From there they snooped around The Times’s systems for at least two weeks before they identified the domain controller that contains user names and hashed, or scrambled, passwords for every Times employee. While hashes make hackers’ break-ins more difficult, hashed passwords can easily be cracked using so-called rainbow tables — readily available databases of hash values for nearly every alphanumeric character combination, up to a certain length. Some hacker Web sites publish as many as 50 billion hash values. Investigators found evidence that the attackers cracked the passwords and used them to gain access to a number of computers. They created custom software that allowed them to search for and grab Mr. Barboza’s and Mr. Yardley’s e-mails and documents from a Times e-mail server.”

- Chinese Hackers Infiltrate New York Times Computers

The big problem was passwords.