March 2004

Flickr’s creators are interesting people so I thought I’d check it out and sign up. They describe Flickr as a real-time media-sharing community. Looks interesting! Here’s my mostly-empty-for-now profile.

Howard Dean launched his new project today, Democracy for America. I’ve spent about 15 seconds on the website. It’s about all I can give it right now. What an amazing eyesore of a website. As a Dean supporter during his campaign, I was interested to see what he’d be up to next. I’m so disappointed. There were over 600,000 supporters and no doubt a lot of those people are talented unemployed or underemployed web workers. Not that Joe Trippi’s Change for America website is any better. What are they thinking?

I borrowed Michael’s camera to take a few photographs while I was in Austin for SXSWi. The collection is in my photo album over at capricious.org. The unofficial SXSW blog has a lot of photos, too.

I didn’t do much with the audio blogging thing (1, 2, 3) like I had thought I might do the past few days. A couple people recorded something Monday, late at night on the rainy streets of Austin. I was welcomed back to Boston tonight with a bunch of snow. Makes me look forward to the next SXSWi all over again. Pictures coming soon.

My pal Sarah endorses this idea; but maybe she’s just being nice. Since Zippy (my notebook computer) is not feeling well enough to attend SXSW, I thought I’d do some audio blogging with my mostly-as-yet-unused audblog account. So, I was thinking of asking people to blather on for up to 2 minutes with the only requirement being to say “My name is (insert name here) and I approve this message.” It’s the phrase that all the presidential campaign television ads need to include. Sarah suggested I bring a stopwatch with me so I can let people know when they have 15 seconds left to talk. She’s always thinking. I figured if nothing else, it’s an excuse to go up to someone if I’m feeling otherwise shy.

In my little dreamworld, it would be great to somehow get a minute or two with Joe Trippi and the guys from MoveOn.

I recorded two (1, 2) audio blog posts on January 20th at the 2am Howard Dean Rally at an airport in Portsmouth, New Hampshire when he got back to New England after the Iowa cacus. The recordings are from the crowd about 20 feet away from Dean.

It’s probably not the end of the world. But then again, logic doesn’t always feel relevant. Dreamhost seems to be having some problems today so my email has been down for a while. I’ve read mixed reviews about their web hosting service but until today I can’t even remember the last time I was without email since moving my websites back to them in 1998. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t hurry up and fix it!

Update: It’s working again. Yipppeee.

John “Halcyon” Styn wrote a mini-essay today about blogging and what it means to him. Whenever I hear/read someone talk about weblogs and blogging, the first thing that comes to mind is “blah blah blah”; but this one is good! I can relate to what he’s saying.

Being a blogger doesn’t mean you use a certain type of content management software…it means you embrace the web as the greatest communication tool in the history of our species. A true evolution. It means you understand that your words and ideas can be GLOBAL.

And that with a voice that can be heard around the world, you could never be powerless.

You could never be truly alone.

South by Southwest, host to this month’s music, film and interactive festivals in Austin, set up a community blog on March 5th for Interactive Festival participants. It’s using the weblog publishing system from InkNoise. There’s an RSS feed, too.

This is an alert to friends, aquintances and whomever else passes by my website. You’ve got plans in May at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston the evening of Tuesday, May 4th. My favorite Norwegian singer-songwriter, Sondre Lerche, is headlining a tour in support of his new album, Two Way Monologue that was released yesterday. The Paradise is the best mediumish sized venue around Boston to see a band. Sondre is headlining this time around with a full band. Good times! The video for the tune “Two Way Monologue” is online, too. It’s hilarious. And a good song, too.

Here’s what Sondre had to say about the new collection of tunes. The typos are his.

“This record is good. But it will most certainly take some time to get into. I guess that’s some kind of cosy warning. I knew this when I made it, but forgot it when I had finished it and was finally into it myself. Then I rediecovered the fact just now when I played it for friends. It’s a grower. Of course, folks may like it or not, but let it grow and it’ll open you up. If it doesn’t after 20 spins, you may very well be excused and should perhaps concider another artist. I respect that.”