cocolaco

2009-07-10T23:16:00.003+10:00

voice memo

2009-06-28T01:18:00.002+10:00

Yacht rock, from Wikipedia:

"Yacht rock" is a name for the popular soft rock that peaked between the years of 1976 and 1984. Significant "yacht rockers" include Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross, and Toto. In the musical sense, yacht rock refers to the highly polished brand of soft rock that emanated from Southern California during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In part, the term relates to the stereotype of the yuppie yacht owner, enjoying champagne and smooth music while out for a sail. Additionally, since sailing was a popular leisure activity in Southern California, many "yacht rockers" made nautical references in their lyrics, videos, and album artwork, particularly the anthemic track "Sailing" by Christopher Cross. Yacht Rock music is commonly described as, "A little bit better than elevator music!"

2009-06-27T12:45:00.003+10:00

moar from miaf! - my favourites from thursday night:

#1 Nice day for a picnic

(so wonderful, hypnotic, reminded me of giantheads (unfortunately only two videos left of theirs))

#3 El Empleo

(bleak picture, great story)

#2 Naturebreak: Roommates

(amusing)

2009-06-25T00:15:00.003+10:00

the melbourne international animation festival (miaf!) is on this week. i think a foreign cat would say, "miaf, miaf." i'm not sure where-from-foreign.

i adore miaf. i go to the 'international programs' of around 12 short movies. it's random, and some are fantastic and some are hum-ho.

my favourites from last night:

#1 Aanatt

(a whoosh of colours and shapes (usually i don't connect to the abstract ones but this had something-something))

#2 I am so proud of you

(i didn't much like the drawing style, but the story vibrantly reminded me of tralfamadorians)

#3 Volgens de Volgels

(beautiful)

2009-06-12T11:35:00.001+10:00

michelle made a website for chaz. it's pretty much one of the best websites on the internet.

2009-06-08T21:58:00.001+10:00

alphabetised storytime.

2009-06-07T13:56:00.002+10:00

why is is that, when you have coffee in the morning on a workday, it stimulates and awakens, but when you have coffee midday on a weekend at home, it has an entirely soporific effect?

2009-06-04T11:41:00.003+10:00

look. i've bun busy. but i'm looking forward to google wave and project natal and mifi, and i'm thinking that google squared will end up providing much better comparison functionality that bing will ever have. no i am not linking to bing. but enough about me! how are you today.

p.s.

I imagine that there are as many pitfalls to defining and explaining Wave as Westinghouse and Edison found when trying explaining the concept of the electrical grid to the masses. You plug a light bulb into the socket and the crowd oohs and aahs and assumes that Electricity is all about illumination; it’s a marvelous way of producing light without the open flames or soot of candles and oil lamps. Technically that’s true, but it misses the point.

2009-04-21T12:54:00.003+10:00

first hunch API - try searching for:
internet
posture
happy

2009-04-21T12:23:00.005+10:00

Timmy is in the slammer, and Alice is ashamed.

All of this could have been avoided by following the simple rules of Facebook etiquette.

Don't be bungleheads like Alice and Timmy.

Have good Facebook manners and the Electric Friendship Generator will be more fun for everyone.

videos like this have been done a bunch of times, but i dig this script. Facebook Manners and You.

2009-04-20T23:06:00.003+10:00

Re: hunch - i'd be interested in knowing which users skipped the same questions as me. because there have been some questions ("what would you take to a desert island...", "do you care more about your online persona or 'actual reality'...") that i'm allergic to answering.

in other news, attending a talk tomorrow night by the founder of mag nation at the hive. haven't been to one of their events before. we'll see. not that you care. you just flounce on in here, expecting the world, !!!

edit: my favourite topic on hunch so far: do i dare to eat a peach?

2009-04-19T23:03:00.004+10:00

watched good night, and good luck again. now that looked like a good TV news program. are there any current TV programs that attempt to educate on complicated issues?

edit: so far, Frontline (PBS) and Horizon (BBC) have been recommended.

2009-04-19T19:18:00.003+10:00

when i was in school, advertising in my mind was "making people buy stuff they don't need or want." advertising was the antithesis of all my imagined futures. in career class, we took quizzes to try and figure out which jobs would suit us. there were no clear career paths for me.

but if i could speak to careers teachers today, i'd say, "don't forget to tell the kids that entire! new! genres! of jobs are being created each year." and advertising now can be about helping people find information that they're actually already looking for. i pretty much love what i do. anyway, hush!

2009-04-16T13:19:00.002+10:00

milla jovovich is driving her car. it's a two door mercedes. a car passes hers. she sees the man driving.

milla jovovich parks her car, later on, and goes into a coffee shop. the man whose car passed hers is in the shop, and he says, "hi, milla." he says some more things, but milla's attention wanders as she reads the menu boards and scans the shop counter for gingerbread men. she loves gingerbread.

the man stops talking and the pause indicates that he's waiting for a response. milla says, "sorry, i was distracted." the man winks and says, "to sum up, want to go out with me some time?" milla says, "not really. it's sweet that you speed and you don't care about speed, or injury, or death. but i'm just here looking for coffee."

so there's that.

2009-04-02T16:51:00.007+11:00

melbourne had its first ignite last night: igniteweb. the introductory talk by steve(?) someone, defining & introducing the ignite concept, was superb. punchy.

i was also inspired by mike bailey's "building a bushfire charity website in 24 hours" - he contacted a group who were trying to find homes for misplaced pets and offered them technological assistance to sort through 10,000 emails (which translated to about 4,500 people offering help & feedback) and they accepted.

another great talk was daniel donahoo's "we can't afford a generation gap". my interpretation:

there are new communication channels, and if you're not using them you won't be able to communicate with some people who are (e.g. kids using skype - if grandma learns skype, she can talk to them, but they might not be willing to phone her or write her).
have a heart. reach out and teach other people how to use technology. everyone and anyone.

//

our housewarming is this saturday night. come along or file a noise complaint. (aside: i was surprised at how many people on hunch said that they had phoned the police to file a noise complaint!)

//

update: i made my aardvark questions more specific and detailed today, and received some good answers in return. more effort, more gain. i guess that's the go.

//

on the hunch blog, there are some interesting initial tidbits of analysis:

If a person says "I like to fit in and be in tune with those around me" — they're more likely to get the "switch to a Mac" result, but if they say they like to be perceived as unique and different to make their own mark — it's correlated with sticking with a PC! Mac users are not really thinking different after all, but following the herd. ...

Some other interesting things: People who believe in alien abductions are more likely to blame Nancy Pelosi for the financial crisis, and people who eat more often in restaurants than at home read Paul Krugman’s blog Conscience of a Liberal.

2009-03-30T20:04:00.005+11:00

update: so far aardvark has been frustrating. the main problem i've found has been lazy answers. for example, when i asked, "anyone have word of mouth recommendations for holiday accommodation in Byron Bay NSW?" i received back two answers that quoted a website URL for hotel reviews. the same URL. so i understand that i can add detail to my question like, "please note, i'm asking for a personal recommendation from someone who has actually stayed somewhere that they enjoyed," and, "please note, i know how to use teh google and have already searched review sites." but that gets kinda tiring.

anyhow, now i'll try out hunch for a few days and see if it's any better. so far i've mostly only played with hunch's THAY (teach hunch about you) profiler. but one question i asked was "what car should i buy" and out of the 4 results, 2 were cars that i had definitely considered, 1 was a car that i hadn't considered but now i will, and 1 was a car i don't like. so that's pretty good.

but hunch is all about profiling you and then predicting your tastes. i wonder how it will cope with one of The Human Problems: we change our minds, our preferences progress, we are fickle critters.

2009-03-25T15:06:00.006+11:00

when was the last time you saw a website/webservice that:

learns & improves
consumes & remixes data from multiple sources
offers services & data for remixes by anyone
allows users to provide their own services & data so others can remix that too
allows users to own and control their services & data
has transparency
is useful
speaks on a personal level to its users
trusts its users

?

(aside: i enjoyed bruce sterling's what comes after post.)

2009-03-19T13:04:00.003+11:00

i like how you can say on aardvark, "let me know when someone tells the answer to that person's question, cuz i wanna know the answer too" by writing LMK.

LMK, people.

2009-03-18T17:24:00.000+11:00

best CSS zen garden.

2009-03-16T01:06:00.003+11:00

after SXSW in 2007, i gave a talk at work, summing it up. i highlighted twitter. "it's startin' somethin'." i wonder if i went to SXSW this year, if i'd be coming back talking about aardvark. and i wonder if it will take aardvark two years to break mainstream, like twitter. and i wonder what the "startin' somethin'" will be at next year's SXSW. wonder wonder wonder. i aim to be there.

anyway, two potentially interesting events coming up. ignite and trampoline. will be sure to report if they are anywhere between champagne comedy and solid gold.

Monaco Video E10

2009-03-07T23:37:00.003+11:00

p.s. i had the most fun the other night at the ruby suns & of montreal show.

2009-02-20T14:01:00.004+11:00

the project i've been working on has been featured in springwise and readwriteweb. alas, i wasn't involved in the project conception, but i built the site and i'm providing the social media support for it.

it's been truly cool to see how many people seem to have joined twitter especially for this - and how they've met fellow writerly-types along the way.

Monaco Video E9

2009-02-17T22:46:00.002+11:00

2009-02-17T15:05:00.005+11:00

2009-02-14T11:48:00.003+11:00

Friend, come on, I said. Get off the couch. It's time to do something with your life. Be a man, get a job, pull your socks up. There's no time for lying about. Don't let life happen to you, let you happen to life. Sure, it doesn't make sense, but that's what it's all about. Think about the future. Think about what you've done. Is that how you want to be remembered? Only your maker can judge you, and you are your maker. Make history. Make it fast and make it last.