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How should I live my life
Ira Glass, in an interview with Marc Maron:
There’s this thing that Keith, my mentor, used to say, where he says, “A story, if it’s working, is always an answer to the question, ‘How should I live my life?’”
What an interesting lens.
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If I built iPhone apps, this is what I’d build
Thanks to built-in GPS and compass sensors, many modern smartphones have a very good sense of where they are in the physical world. And when connected to a service like Google Maps, it’s easy to get directions to almost anywhere.
But sometimes, isn’t GPS precision just a little too perfect?
Sometimes, don’t you wish your phone would give you only a vague sense of where your destination is?
Introducing ThatAway, the first mobile navigation app that’s only marginally better than asking a Magic 8 Ball for directions.
Tell ThatAway what you’re looking for, and it displays a single arrow indicating the general direction of your destination. Nothing more. Nothing less. Forget maps, turn-by-turn directions, and accurate positioning. Just a single vector, pointing in (maybe) the right direction.
Under the hood, ThatAway uses your iPhone’s GPS and compass to accurately calculate your position and orientation. Then, it uses our patented Navigation Obfuscation Processing Engine (NOPE) technology to “sorta get that wrong.” ThatAway hooks into the powerful Google Places API to identify your intended destination. Then, every fifth time you use the app, it “picks wrong.”
If you’re looking a mobile navigation app that’s more like asking a drunk tourist for directions, try ThatAway.
ThatAway: Pointing you in the right direction. Sort of.
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The Sweat at The Cameron House on November 13
Update: Apparently, we’re playing a rock show immediately after a play. So the show will start around 10 (not 9, like the poster says).
Yes, it’s true. I’m still in the rock and roll band called The Sweat. We’ve averaging about 1 live performance per calendar year, and 2010 is no exception. We’re playing Toronto’s historic Cameron House on November 13.
There’s a Facebook event, and even a poster. If you’re in Toronto, I’d love to see you at the show.
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Zombie Apocalypse
Though it’s not strictly speaking a Hallow’een song, I still thought I’d share “Zombie Apocalypse” by Craig and the Collaborators, the occasional novelty band/recording project I’m involved with in Halifax.
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Zombie Apocalypse
What do I do now?
What do I do now?
Zombies came and ate all my friends.
I’m so lonely
I’m so lonely
Will their hunger never end?
Chris grew up just down the road from me
We went to school together since grade three
But I killed him with a shovel
Zombies ain’t your friends no more
INSTRUMENTAL
I’ll admit that parts of this apocalypse are good
I never have to brush my teeth even though I should
I don’t have to wait in line at the DMV
Instead I spend my waking hours running from zombies
I had tickets to see Weezer
The zombies’ timing couldn’t be worse
Zombie Weezer wasn’t very good
Though they still played “Say It Ain’t So”
If there’s one thing that you all should know
When you’re fighting zombies all alone
What do we do now?
What do we do now?
Zombies came and ate all our friends
Pack a suitcase
Find a broadsword
Broadswords don’t need bullets to work
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Archiving GeoCities: my full interview with Jason Scott
About a year ago, Yahoo shut down GeoCities. Before the site was shuttered forever, a group called the Archive Team decided to grab as much GeoCities content as possible. They got almost a terabyte, and now plan to release it all as a torrent.
My CBC Radio tech column this Tuesday will be about GeoCities, The Archive Team, and web ephemera. As research, I interviewed Jason Scott of textfiles.com, one of the minds behind the Archive Team.
Due to time restraints, I usually only play short clips from my interviews on-air. But this was so interesting, I asked Jason for his permission to post our whole chat on this site. He agreed, so here it is (runs 58:12): [audio:http://blip.tv/file/get/Dmisener-JasonScottInterview888.mp3]