Beneath the Underground

Ira Glass: On creativity

2008-07-12T18:40:00.001-07:00

Creator/Producer of This American Life, Ira Glass gives some level headed insight into professional creativity. This video is actually from the online guerrilla filmaking guide at Current.tv.

Personal anecdote: one of the first forms my own website took included a page called the "Bit Bucket" where I hosted a handful of tracks I felt didn't "measure up." Eight years later, and that bucket's much more full.

Flying Backwards: Kid with drum machine

2008-07-03T11:57:00.001-07:00

This really took me back. My first drum machine experience was a Roland drum machine, followed shortly by my own Alesis SR16. What a fun, albeit momentary, diversion.

Awwww! Factor

2008-06-21T08:35:00.001-07:00

The cutest baby picture you'll see today, courtesy of a random blog Google suggested.

A seriously great shot. That mug could sell zippers to dressmakers.

Pic of the day: Nick Small, aka "Borolad"

2008-06-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

Flickr's borolad got a top notch shot from the stage at a UK rock concert. Best viewed at fullsize.

Look at the faces!

How Salmonella contaminates tomato plants

2008-06-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes are being pulled from restaurants and markets across the U.S. after an outbreak of salmonella tied to crops originating in Florida and Mexico sickened about 170 people across the country. The FDA considers this trend of outbreaks "ongoing", and adopted a program a couple of years ago to address the outbreaks of salmonella. From the program's statement:

Most tomato-associated outbreaks over the past ten years have been traced to product originating from the Eastern shore of Virginia and from Florida; however outbreaks have also been traced to Georgia, South Carolina, Ohio, and California.

This was June of last year. The program is ongoing, according to the FDA.

I've been trying to find some good information about how salmonella contaminates plants, specifically tomato plants. Some poking about through a few search engines found this report from the NIH detailing how salmonella is transferred to plants via soil contamination. Highly interesting reading, especially if you've assumed (as I had) that people had failed to rinse their veggies and had likely consumed a fertilizer product (animal poop.) A few relevant bullet points:

Tomatoes are the most common veggie carrier of salmonella.
Salmonella will outlive a six week crop rotation (lives in plant debris after being plowed under), and can propagate with the next crop generation.
Salmonella can also contaminate carrots, radish, lettuce and parsley
Salmonella is not deterred if the plant is diseased
Most likely route of contamination is untreated water via soil. - see update below!

I'm curious about homebrew methods of testing for salmonella (is there a cool CSI style blacklight gadget I can get?) in soil; anyone have ideas?

Photo by Pete Lewis.

UPDATE #1: This study by Dr. Mansel Griffiths, Dept. of Food Science, UofG suggests that salmonella cannot contaminate a plant if introduced via irrigation- It *has* be introduced on the flowers.

Human pathogens introduced through irrigation water (drip irrigation) at the flowering stage of tomato and cucumber plants did not contaminate the subsequent fruits, though they persist on the roots of these plants. However, when E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes were introduced onto the flowers of cucumber, tomato and strawberries the subsequent fruits were contaminated.

To paraphrase, contaminated soil got on the flowers. Exactly how that occurred is anyone's guess.

Is flickr's search broken, or just interesting?

2008-06-04T05:11:00.000-07:00

Or do I just not know how to use it very well? All I wanted were some stock style photos about journalism or newsmedia. I thought I'd find some closeups of reporter's notebooks, maybe a newsroom interior or something. Searching for "journalism" brings up a hodgepodge of photos, none of which particularly suits the word "journalism."(I noticed a huge number of images returned are photos of young girls with attached text pleas for help...isn't this tag gaming a form of child exploitation?)

Unless, of course, you're Flickr. In Flickr's world, words are being redefined by the community in the form of photo tags. Some thoughts occur:

This has interesting consequences- how pervasive or "sticky" can these new definitions be? We've seen how a Fark photoshop contests can become international memes. Can redefinitions propagate similarly?
What kind of insight can we get regarding a community's relationships with certain words or ideas?
How do users game these linguistics to bring higher views to their own kind of commentary?
Is this a kind of metaspeak?

Thoughts?

McCain has already lost.

2008-06-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

This article in the conspicuously pro-White House WaPo contains a number of interesting rhetorical flourishes that if taken as true, present a bleak outlook for the McCain campaign. I've long complained about the tendency of media to impose a fiction of their own via narrative framing (see: horse race). Lately, I've turned this into a tool (kind of a contrary indicator) in an attempt to divine the inherent prejudices of the media as a whole.

While much hay has been made over the media's seeming "free pass" to McCain on many, MANY issues, I believe this article, IF TRUE, betrays a change in the winds for McCain. Put simply, it may turn out Obama sells more papers than McCain. If that's the case, McCain cannot count on the media in the way the GOP has over the last eight years.

A few paragraphs in, WaPo reports:

Two McCain aides said his speech was the beginning of a "great debate" on the direction of the country. It will be followed quickly by a television ad campaign aimed at reinforcing McCain's core message: that Obama's sweeping rhetoric offers little real promise of changing the political culture in Washington.

If McCain's "core message" is "the other guy's a dunce", he's already lost. Not that his campaign actually believes or operates in this manner, but if "the media" takes this narrative to heart, McCain is stuck operating a "negative" campaign. Further, he's perpetually on the defense. As JC Watts famously said: "If you're explaining, you're losing."

Another kind of analysis displays the comical attempts of journalists to imbue their writing with a sense of motion, by employing "action verbs" (not as redundant as you'd first think). This is done by comparing the subject with the attached verb. A few examnples:

McCain wasted - McCain began - McCain said - Obama spoke - McCain began - McCain said - McCain explicitly rejected - McCain highlighted - Obama honored - Obama said - Obama mocked - McCain said - McCain decried - etc, etc.

What leaps out at me is the usage of "said" versus "spoke". "Spoke" seems to conjure a sense of purpose and precognition. "Said" is so broad and general as to be bereft of any distinct meaning, other than it doesn't quite carry the poise of "spoke."

These are only cursory reactions to what I'm reading. To be clear, I certainly have my own political biases (not a McCain fan, that's fer sure!), but I'm incensed that I still cannot depend on the US press to provide anything useful.

What say ye?

Today's Million Dollar Idea

2008-06-03T05:26:00.000-07:00

Google Calendar, Farmers Almanac, Google Analytics.

As more people adopt local gardening to stave off spiking food prices, a tool like this would be absolutely critical for high-yield gardening. Imagine your calendar with a planting schedule based on your geographic location, time of year, etc, and the ability to track your yields and other stats over time (and compare with historical data) in Analytics.

Imagine: your cell phone beeps and says: "Time to plant your corn seedlings, and flood your onions."

DCLugi: My Defining Song

2008-05-27T03:27:00.001-07:00

Sounds so eerily familiar......

Cashed Checks

2008-05-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

"The rise of check cashing places is directly tied to the growth in illegal immigration. How do you think illegal immigrants manage their finances? They can't open bank accounts because you need SSN's to do that. But they have bills to pay like anyone else. So they have to go to check cashing places where the cash they have or the checks they receive can enter the financial system. If you think of the money they collect for work as "illegal", this is how that money gets laundered."

via a MeFi comment.

TED: Rethinking the Music Video

2008-05-07T01:22:00.000-07:00

G4TV and Rockband: Can you actually learn to drum?

2008-04-24T18:14:00.001-07:00

There are a million ways to fake this, but if its' true that G4tv's "Attack of the Show" host Kevin Pereira actually learned to play this song on Rockband, well, let's just say sliced bread better watch it's back.

Haste Economy

2008-04-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Net Product:			$ 3.99
Tax:			$ 0.00
P & H:			$ 6.95
Total Order:			$ 10.94

Sometimes in my daily haste, I'll simply miss a glaring stupidity. In this case, I paid $7 to send a $4 piece of plastic two thousand miles across the continent.

In a more perfect world, the name-brand manufacturer of this particular plastic would have simply forwarded the order to local supplier, rather than ship across the country.

If you're looking for someone to blame for this week's perpetual increase in gas prices, start with me.

But for one week only.

Brain Dump: embedding fonts in OpenOffice PDF's

2008-04-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is little more than a brain-dump post relating to OpenOffice Writer, True Type fonts, and the PDF encoder.

I happen to make frequent use of the PDF creator in OpenOffice. One issue I've run into a few times, however, is the rendered PDF's will not display the correct font. When I open the PDF, I find the font hasn't even been embedded, and some kind of substitution (usually MS Arial) will occur. Most frustrating, this occurs with one of my favorite fonts, Adobe's Myriad Pro.

It turns out the issue is related to the way PDF files handle fonts, specifically, fonts that are not freely shared, and not embeddable. Myriad Pro is one of these fonts.

Apparently, a font-maker can decide whether or not they want their fonts to be embeddable. If they choose "no", OpenOffice's PDF creator will (correctly) honor that wish, and embed a substituted font.

If you're on a Microsoft operating system, I'd suggest using only MS fonts in documents that are destined for PDF. There are a bazillion embeddable TrueType fonts available.

Ironman is going to be a movie.

2008-04-16T00:41:00.000-07:00

Wildly Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

Last summer's hit trailer is finally going to be made into a movie.

Flight 404: Solar

2008-04-10T03:44:00.000-07:00

Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 on Vimeo.

An explanation of how this was put together is found here.

10 years ago (or more), MTV ran a program called "Liquid Television" that would feature clips of computer generated graphics and animations. Watching "Solar" ignited that same feeling of....newness.

Jaw...drops open: Lydia Van De Meer

2008-04-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

Drum machine impresario David Haynes is jamming some nice grooves with his group here. As I'm watching I'm completely taken by the bass player.....great, skills. Just...yum. I mean that musically, of course. Is there more of her?

Oh yes, there is.

Covering Eric Benet's "Just My Way." More on her YouTube channel.

A house is sold.....LIVE!!!!

2008-03-31T17:48:00.001-07:00

The NorCal real estate market is so bad, the mere occurrence of a home being sold warrants a live, on-scene news feature out here.

Why, oh why can't we have a better press?

Piano on fire.

2008-03-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

The Explosion Is Big

2008-03-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Hip hop music describes the plot of "Predator."

Pharmaceuticals in our drinking water.

2008-03-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

This just in: Municipal drinking water supplies across the nation are contaminated with pharmaceutical drugs.

The reason has to do with the fact there are no easy, legal ways to dispose of prescription medications. Most people flush them down the toilet.

These molecules are problematic for municipal suppliers. Water treatment facilities are not required to screen these substances, and don't. Medicine manufacturers and dispensaries are not required to provide disposal services, and don't. (In some cases, such services would be prohibited by Federal Law.)

Remember, most manufacturers of bottled water are simply buying municipal supplies (read: tap water), so it's not too far a leap to suppose our nation's bottled water supply is also contaminated with pharmaceuticals.

According to today's revelation, Concord California (has so far) tested positive for sulfamethoxazole and meprobamate. Sacramento does not test it's water supply for pharmaceutical contamination.

Music Library: Fast Forward

2008-02-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

New cue in the library: Fast Forward.

Is Google Reader a keylogger?

2008-02-20T11:38:00.000-08:00

A recent post on the Google Reader blog got my attention:

The "j" key (which takes you to the next item) is perhaps the most well-known keyboard shortcut. However, there are many more keys to press, and I was curious to see just how much they were tapped in Google Reader. A quick analysis later, I came up with a simple top-10 list, and I thought it would be fun to share. The units here are "milli-Js", where 1,000 milli-Js are equivalent to all the presses "j" received.

The chart that follows is presumably generated by sniffing the keystrokes of Reader users. Google goes on to say:

Partly based on the data we gathered, and in our quest to make Reader as keyboard-accessible as possible, we've actually added a few more with the latest release.

A few questions:

Can Google log keystrokes in other open tabs (Firefox?)
*DOES* Google log keystrokes in other tabs? URL's?
What other properties does Google track keystrokes? Gmail? Blogger? Does Google know what I'm posting to my blog before I click "Publish?"
Can Google's data be used as evidence, exculpatory or otherwise ("My client is innocent, your honor, as Google shows him at home pressing 'J' in Google Reader at the time of the murder.")
Is my own keylogged activity open to me?

Google's response, of course, is that they're only using this data to analyze the usage of their Reader product. And for most Google employees, this may actually be true. History has shown, however, that every tracking feature that can be (ab)used, will be (ab)used.

Next Nature

2008-02-20T00:16:00.001-08:00

Absolutely mind bending look at the relationship between "nature" and "culture" (both in quotes because the way the concepts are used in this presentation), specifically how closely related they are (in essence, our culture is our natural environment).

One highlight is the short film "Metallosis Maligna" which looks at a future where the human body completely assimilates metallic implants. Incredibly creative. (Incidentally, I was fascinated to notice the film's opening score is eerily reminiscent of my own piece, "Declining Light.")

In other news, the inventor of the Segway has a new prosthetic arm device, called the "Luke."

Next Nature, indeed.

Pathway Foods!

2008-02-18T14:13:00.000-08:00

An insanely clever take on advertising.