Only a few days ago, the iPod Touch came into my life. I wish I could be sarcastic and critical about it, but honestly, I can't. Because the hype? It's real. This tiny machine is everything it promises to be, just about. And also it is my new best friend.
However, I'll (try to) spare you the gushing, and focus on one thing I've noticed. The Touch comes sans Apple Mail and Notes, even though it could easily support those clients. The reason for this odd disjunction is, most likely, an effort at product differentiation. The Touch has got a brower, which is handy, but lacks some of the fancy Apple integration of the iPhone. I think this is because we're supposed to think of the iPhone as the Real Deal, and the iPod Touch as a Pale Imitation. As long as the iPhone comes hitched to an exorbitant data plan, though, you can bet I'm rooting for the "underdog." If my iPod had Apple Mail, I would probably go ahead and use Apple Mail. BUT, since it doesn't, I've fled straight into the arms of...Google.
Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar and even Google Notebook are all gorgeously optimized for mobile viewing on the iPhone/iPod Touch. I've been accused of being a bit of a fangirl, and I can't vouch for the quality of other mobile platforms (like Yahoo's) one way or the other, but seriously—you've really got to see these sites to believe them. Side-effect? Google starts to feel an awful lot like the secret OS of the iPod Touch Internet World. Something to think about.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
The Fire Hydrant's Siren Song
I'm toying with the idea of taking a picture a day in 2008. See, right now, there are about 3.65 days a year when I take a hundred pictures, and 361.35 days a year when I take none. This is ridiculous! Especially since the 365 pictures I end up with are in no way representative of my year, and are in fact more representative of the fire hydrants and pieces of litter with which I became particularly enamored during 2007. Which is to say, not representative at all.
But resolution time is fast approaching, and you know what? I like resolutions. They are similar to goals, except more grandiose.
Fast-forwarding ahead to a year of pictures, though, I have already identified one loophole that I'm just going to go ahead and snip in the bud. (Yes. Snip in the bud.) For at least the month of January, my daily picture is required to contain a human. Those fire hydrants and pieces of litter are tricky, right? Bewitching, you might say. Also, patient and good at holding still. So, to all my friends and family members, I am apologizing in advance. If you start seeing a lot more flashes in January, it's not the paparazzi. It's just me, resisting the siren song of the fire hydrant down the street.
But resolution time is fast approaching, and you know what? I like resolutions. They are similar to goals, except more grandiose.
Fast-forwarding ahead to a year of pictures, though, I have already identified one loophole that I'm just going to go ahead and snip in the bud. (Yes. Snip in the bud.) For at least the month of January, my daily picture is required to contain a human. Those fire hydrants and pieces of litter are tricky, right? Bewitching, you might say. Also, patient and good at holding still. So, to all my friends and family members, I am apologizing in advance. If you start seeing a lot more flashes in January, it's not the paparazzi. It's just me, resisting the siren song of the fire hydrant down the street.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Sound Unheard: 2007 in Music
When I started college, I decided that I was done with music. With buying it, anyway. All through high school, I worked downtown at city hall every day after the last bell, scanning maps of sewers. And all through high school, I spent almost every penny I made on CDs. After work, see, I'd walk past this record shop called Underground Sounds, and, well...you know the rest. On the bus home, I'd tear the plastic off and read the liner notes. In my closet, glassy cases clamored for space. When I left home, everything I didn't sell stayed behind. I just wanted to see if I could make do.
Two and a half years later, I'm here to report that it hasn't been easy. Mostly, I've just coasted on my high school favorites, watching with dismay as my iTunes collection becomes less and less relevant. I've bought a few songs, a few records, here and there. But I've really missed the blind excitement that came with ripping the plastic away and reading lyrics for future songs, sound unheard.
Fortunately, 2007 was the year when music made sense again, thanks to sites like last.fm, imeem, and emusic. Part of me still wishes I could spend dozens of dollars on plastic-wrapped CDs, but part of me is just astounded by how much music is out there to be had, and how easy it is to find it now.
After years of hearing murmurs about last.fm, I finally got on board this fall. And: wow! It didn't take long for me to realize that last.fm radio stations actually had better songs than my very own iTunes account. Last.fm introduced me to Bishop Allen, Voxtrot, and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Incidentally, last.fm also introduced me to the mesmerizing and self-indulgent nature of personalized music widgets. See album quilt below:
Imeem. Well. Let's just say the music companies have caved. Since illegal is apparently the new normal, they're scrambling to get teenagers and *cough* college students to accept a framework they control. By signing on to a platform that lets anybody stream any song for free on demand. Uh...thank you, record companies? Anyway, since imeem is advertising-supported, it's a little bit of a hassle to click around it. Because, you know, the more clicks it takes to get from place to place, the more advertisements you have to sit through to get there. But it definitely delivers on the music front, and I've started using imeem to delve into bands that I find through last.fm.
Sidenote: I seem to remember actually paying for a little service called Rhapsody once upon a time, whose business model was scarily similar. Except instead of Free, it was Definitely Not Free. Hmm. Good luck, Rhapsody!
And emusic. I guess I signed up for emusic long, long ago, and then promptly forgot about it. Then a few days ago, I get a "please come back to us, we will give you 75 free songs!" message. Well! 75 free songs! Now that was a legitimately good offer. And wouldn't you know, it was an amazing feeling to cruise through the emusic site and recklessly click "Download All" on albums I'd never heard, take the plunge with songs I hadn't diligently researched, and seal the deal with songs I'd wistfully hoped would come up in my last.fm streams. On iTunes, even when I buy a song, the 99 cent barrier is enough to make me fret over how much utility I'll get per pop hook. Which is just ridiculous. And then there's the iTunes DRM, which I try just to not think about. On emusic, songs are DRM-free=awesome. Also? Instead of trying to measure utility per pop hook, I can actually just experience it. What a concept!
So now, here I am again. iTunes is full of songs I'll actually listen to. My head is full of music that I can't get out. And I'm full of excitement for this new year and the music it might bring. I'm so looking forward to the blind excitement of diving into my future, sound unheard.
Two and a half years later, I'm here to report that it hasn't been easy. Mostly, I've just coasted on my high school favorites, watching with dismay as my iTunes collection becomes less and less relevant. I've bought a few songs, a few records, here and there. But I've really missed the blind excitement that came with ripping the plastic away and reading lyrics for future songs, sound unheard.
Fortunately, 2007 was the year when music made sense again, thanks to sites like last.fm, imeem, and emusic. Part of me still wishes I could spend dozens of dollars on plastic-wrapped CDs, but part of me is just astounded by how much music is out there to be had, and how easy it is to find it now.
After years of hearing murmurs about last.fm, I finally got on board this fall. And: wow! It didn't take long for me to realize that last.fm radio stations actually had better songs than my very own iTunes account. Last.fm introduced me to Bishop Allen, Voxtrot, and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Incidentally, last.fm also introduced me to the mesmerizing and self-indulgent nature of personalized music widgets. See album quilt below:
Imeem. Well. Let's just say the music companies have caved. Since illegal is apparently the new normal, they're scrambling to get teenagers and *cough* college students to accept a framework they control. By signing on to a platform that lets anybody stream any song for free on demand. Uh...thank you, record companies? Anyway, since imeem is advertising-supported, it's a little bit of a hassle to click around it. Because, you know, the more clicks it takes to get from place to place, the more advertisements you have to sit through to get there. But it definitely delivers on the music front, and I've started using imeem to delve into bands that I find through last.fm.
Sidenote: I seem to remember actually paying for a little service called Rhapsody once upon a time, whose business model was scarily similar. Except instead of Free, it was Definitely Not Free. Hmm. Good luck, Rhapsody!
And emusic. I guess I signed up for emusic long, long ago, and then promptly forgot about it. Then a few days ago, I get a "please come back to us, we will give you 75 free songs!" message. Well! 75 free songs! Now that was a legitimately good offer. And wouldn't you know, it was an amazing feeling to cruise through the emusic site and recklessly click "Download All" on albums I'd never heard, take the plunge with songs I hadn't diligently researched, and seal the deal with songs I'd wistfully hoped would come up in my last.fm streams. On iTunes, even when I buy a song, the 99 cent barrier is enough to make me fret over how much utility I'll get per pop hook. Which is just ridiculous. And then there's the iTunes DRM, which I try just to not think about. On emusic, songs are DRM-free=awesome. Also? Instead of trying to measure utility per pop hook, I can actually just experience it. What a concept!
So now, here I am again. iTunes is full of songs I'll actually listen to. My head is full of music that I can't get out. And I'm full of excitement for this new year and the music it might bring. I'm so looking forward to the blind excitement of diving into my future, sound unheard.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Runet and the Plight of the Transnational Hipster
Over the summer, while I was immersed / (submerged) in Russian at Middlebury, I did a project about the Russian internet. This was a great project, because it basically consisted of me playing around on the internet and then writing about it.
Um...
Anyway! So there I was, hanging out on Runet, when I noticed something. The main defining feature of "Runet" is that it's written in Russian. That's it. That's the only thing required to gain admission to this nebulous and somewhat imaginary "neighborhood" of the Internet. But the Russian that's written actually comes in two flavors: Russian in Cyrillic characters (the word "Runet" in Cyrillic looks like "Рунет") and Russian in Latin characters.
Okay, you say. Not a problem. As long as Russians can read it, more power to them, right? In fact, Russian transliterated into the alphabet that English-speakers know so well seems almost cosmopolitan. Like, "sure, I learned English, but I prefer to use a hip amalgamation of my native tongue and your funny little letters which happen to be on all keyboards ever."
Except, it's not just the Russians who have to read these super-hip interlingual amalgamations. Search engines do, too. And search engines aren't exactly transnational hipsters.
When I was writing my own transliterated Russian this summer, actually, I did notice that Gmail would pick up on the Russian even when it wasn't in Cyrillic, and feed me back ads in Cyrillic Russian. However, this could be accounted for by the fact that some human knowledge goes into determining AdWords. Russian advertisers, especially in the States, are definitely aware of this interlingual phenomenon, and probably bid on AdWords written in both alphabets.
But purely algorithmic search engines run into difficulties. They're textual creatures, after all—especially when so much of the transliteration is informal and purely phonetic, i.e. not systematized. When half of Runet is written in one alphabet and half in the other, how do you search both simultaneously?
I never did solve that conundrum this summer. But I was reminded of it today by this article over at Google Blogoscoped about Yamli, a "transliterator" for Arabic-language web pages, which will transliterate Arabic written in English letters to proper Arabic script, and then feed that transliteration into a search engine. I agree with Google Blogoscoped that we're still pretty far from the ideal—a smart search engine that would understand all of these nuances and search in both the original letters the transliterated ones at the same time. I don't know if that's feasible, but I do know that the tenuous identity of Runet will be fragmented further if search engines, magical portals that they are, don't learn to recognize the unity of languages that just happen to be written in a couple of alphabets.
Um...
Anyway! So there I was, hanging out on Runet, when I noticed something. The main defining feature of "Runet" is that it's written in Russian. That's it. That's the only thing required to gain admission to this nebulous and somewhat imaginary "neighborhood" of the Internet. But the Russian that's written actually comes in two flavors: Russian in Cyrillic characters (the word "Runet" in Cyrillic looks like "Рунет") and Russian in Latin characters.
Okay, you say. Not a problem. As long as Russians can read it, more power to them, right? In fact, Russian transliterated into the alphabet that English-speakers know so well seems almost cosmopolitan. Like, "sure, I learned English, but I prefer to use a hip amalgamation of my native tongue and your funny little letters which happen to be on all keyboards ever."
Except, it's not just the Russians who have to read these super-hip interlingual amalgamations. Search engines do, too. And search engines aren't exactly transnational hipsters.
When I was writing my own transliterated Russian this summer, actually, I did notice that Gmail would pick up on the Russian even when it wasn't in Cyrillic, and feed me back ads in Cyrillic Russian. However, this could be accounted for by the fact that some human knowledge goes into determining AdWords. Russian advertisers, especially in the States, are definitely aware of this interlingual phenomenon, and probably bid on AdWords written in both alphabets.
But purely algorithmic search engines run into difficulties. They're textual creatures, after all—especially when so much of the transliteration is informal and purely phonetic, i.e. not systematized. When half of Runet is written in one alphabet and half in the other, how do you search both simultaneously?
I never did solve that conundrum this summer. But I was reminded of it today by this article over at Google Blogoscoped about Yamli, a "transliterator" for Arabic-language web pages, which will transliterate Arabic written in English letters to proper Arabic script, and then feed that transliteration into a search engine. I agree with Google Blogoscoped that we're still pretty far from the ideal—a smart search engine that would understand all of these nuances and search in both the original letters the transliterated ones at the same time. I don't know if that's feasible, but I do know that the tenuous identity of Runet will be fragmented further if search engines, magical portals that they are, don't learn to recognize the unity of languages that just happen to be written in a couple of alphabets.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Electro, the Smoking Robot, and Other Stories from the 1939 New York World's Fair
Why, hello there!
It's been a blur around here. I spent the past week researching and writing an epic term paper on chubbiness and consumerism among young teenage girls during World War II. And yes. It was exactly as crazy as it sounds.
...I love history.
Speaking of history: something brilliant happened this week in my RSS feed reader. Everything I love converged at a single point on the Internet, and that point was this 55-minute promotional film for the 1939 New York World's Fair.
And yes. It is exactly as amazing as it sounds.
Haven't had time to watch the whole thing yet, but I'm inclined to save it for a rainy day. Just listen to this description, courtesy of the Prelinger Archive of ephemeral films:
My discovery of this outstanding contribution to society was all thanks to the Prelinger Archive's RSS feed, which notified me of its appearance. And, considering that the film is stored online at the Prelinger Archive and that it involves the 1939 New York World's Fair—i.e. my favorite world's fair of all time—I do believe it connects to not one, not two, but three of my posts from November.
It all feels almost too fortuitous. At this point, the Prelinger Archive might as well just go ahead and upload an operating time machine. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Because, honestly? I don't see how else they're going to follow this act.
It's been a blur around here. I spent the past week researching and writing an epic term paper on chubbiness and consumerism among young teenage girls during World War II. And yes. It was exactly as crazy as it sounds.
...I love history.
Speaking of history: something brilliant happened this week in my RSS feed reader. Everything I love converged at a single point on the Internet, and that point was this 55-minute promotional film for the 1939 New York World's Fair.
And yes. It is exactly as amazing as it sounds.
Haven't had time to watch the whole thing yet, but I'm inclined to save it for a rainy day. Just listen to this description, courtesy of the Prelinger Archive of ephemeral films:
This drama illustrates the contribution of free enterprise, technology, and Westinghouse products to the American way of life. The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair pits an anti-capitalist bohemian artist boyfriend against an all-American electrical engineer who believes in improving society by working through corporations. The Middletons experience Westinghouse's technological marvels at the Fair and win back their daughter from her leftist boyfriend.Did you hear that? It's the sound of my heart skipping a beat.
Memorable moments: the dishwashing contest between Mrs. Modern and Mrs. Drudge; Electro, the smoking robot; and the Westinghouse time capsule.
My discovery of this outstanding contribution to society was all thanks to the Prelinger Archive's RSS feed, which notified me of its appearance. And, considering that the film is stored online at the Prelinger Archive and that it involves the 1939 New York World's Fair—i.e. my favorite world's fair of all time—I do believe it connects to not one, not two, but three of my posts from November.
It all feels almost too fortuitous. At this point, the Prelinger Archive might as well just go ahead and upload an operating time machine. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Because, honestly? I don't see how else they're going to follow this act.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Igloos and Insects
In the tiny hours of Saturday morning, my friend Rachel told a beautiful and hilarious story about building an igloo at 13. With instructions from the Internet. A few minutes later, she said, "Oh, and I finally set up my blog today!"
2+2=5?!
I told her that, obviously, the igloo story had to be her first post. And sure enough, here it is!
It is wonderful.
The reason it's wonderful is because this one story, the story of building an igloo with instructions from the Internet, so perfectly captures who Rachel still is today. I can see little 13-year-old Rachel scooping parabolas out of ice, and it's clear that even if she's a little wiser and older, and even if she wouldn't build an igloo today, there's a part of her that will always want to.
Her igloo story made me think about growing up, and how growing up should really mean becoming more of the person you've always been. When I was four years old, I went outside in the middle of the night to live with the insects. There was no way I was coming back in. Stubbornness, starry-eyed dreams, wild imagination: I dearly hope those things will never change.
2+2=5?!
I told her that, obviously, the igloo story had to be her first post. And sure enough, here it is!
It is wonderful.
The reason it's wonderful is because this one story, the story of building an igloo with instructions from the Internet, so perfectly captures who Rachel still is today. I can see little 13-year-old Rachel scooping parabolas out of ice, and it's clear that even if she's a little wiser and older, and even if she wouldn't build an igloo today, there's a part of her that will always want to.
Her igloo story made me think about growing up, and how growing up should really mean becoming more of the person you've always been. When I was four years old, I went outside in the middle of the night to live with the insects. There was no way I was coming back in. Stubbornness, starry-eyed dreams, wild imagination: I dearly hope those things will never change.
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