RSSMix.com Mix ID 18819

Matt.

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:55:00 -0500

In 2009 I bought a Kindle mostly out of curiosity. I thought for sure I'd turn it one, flip around the store, download a book, read a few pages, and put it up for sale on Craigslist the next day. Instead, I downloaded a book and promptly read for four hours straight. Short of a full year later I ended up reading more books than I had in the last decade. It's a great device, something I can't imagine living without now, but it has always had one short coming: no comics, no trades, or graphic novels.

Long time readers will know that I normally don't gush about products in this space but my bet is that you're going to want to know about Panelfly. It's Kindle for comics and it's off to a great start. This is the kind of app that I'm hoping everyone will download, use, and support because I'd like to see it succeed (rather than have Marvel, DC., Darkhorse, etc., create their own reader). Ever since using the Kindle 2 I've wanted a comic shop in a box and that's exactly what Panelfly delivers. It's already getting more use than any other leisure app on my iPhone right now and I can't imagine how much better it's going to be on the iPad with it's faster processor and larger screen.

As a bonus Panelfly happens to be well designed and a pleasure to use. Upon opening the main menu sits on top of cover art from one of the issues in your library. This type of treatment continues throughout the Library where all of your issues are stored and initially listed by title (the list can also be sorted by publisher, author, artist, and genre). The store will be familiar territory though it should be noted that it's not a knock-off of iTunes Store but just as easy to use. Users are able to browse issues just as you would in a comic shop, by opening the book and taking a look inside. Purchasing requires setup of an account but after that it's as simple as Amazon's One-Click. The hardest part of this application will be to resist buying almost everything that comes out on a weekly basis. Thankfully issue prices are not as expensive as printed issues and there are a number of free books available. A practice I presume will keep going as publishers continue to seek new readers.

Ok, that's it. Now it's all on you. After you've downloaded Panelfly check out Robot 13, a title that will remind you of the artistic and storytelling quality of early Hellboy.

Nope.

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:59:26 -0500

This morning from Washington comes news of Obama's latest triumph over Bush Jr.:

President Obama, who pledged to establish the most open and transparent administration in history, on Monday surpasses his predecessor's record for avoiding a full-fledged question-and-answer session with White House reporters in a formal press conference.

President George W. Bush's longest stretch between prime-time, nationally televised press conferences was 214 days, from April 4 to Nov. 4, 2004. Mr. Obama tops that record on Monday, going 215 days - stretching back to July 22, according to records kept by CBS Radio's veteran reporter Mark Knoller.

This is helping right? I mean this is Change, just not the kind none of us expected? Maybe this is some kind of Chicago poker tactic?

Oh, I think I know what this is. It's called: Plain Stupid.

Out of all the campaign promises Obama made, transparency has to be one of the easiest to implement and maintain because it only requires the support of one person: himself. Sure it takes energy to perform in front of a crowd but that's the show most of this country bought tickets to see. I don't care how difficult it has been to run the country through a recession, two wars, Snowpocolypse, and a fight to change healthcare; that doesn't give any leader the privilege to hide.

None. None what-so-ever.

Lift.

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:24:28 -0500

Time for a quick history lesson about the Marine Corps Air Station Tustin:

The Air Station was established in 1942 as Naval Air Station Santa Ana, a base for airship operations in support of the United States Navy's coastal patrol efforts during World War II. NAS Santa Ana was decommissioned in 1949. In 1951, the facility was reactivated as Marine Corps Air Station Santa Ana to support the Korean War. It was the country's first air facility developed solely for helicopter operations. It was renamed Marine Corps Air Station Tustin in 1970. By the early 1990s, MCAS Tustin was a major center for Marine Corps helicopter aviation on the Pacific Coast. Its primary purpose was to provide support services and material for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and for other units utilizing the base.

Tomorrow a few of us at Happy Cog West will be hanging out in the shadows of the airship hangars. Come on by and say hi from 5-7PM over at JT Schmids. If the weather holds up we'll be outside.

Video.

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:32:43 -0500

I'm not one for writing down the product of brain activity while sleeping but once and a while the neural playback of recent events is so amalgamated that it has to be shared. So I tried that this morning, relaying the events from my dream state to the Rocket Scientist. After I was done she looked confused and then became annoyed that I had just taken valuable time out of her morning.

Not satisfied with her reaction I decided to take things to the web wherein I run the risk of annoying even more people but as I always say: If you're riding a train wreck, go big.

It started with an early afternoon walk in a nice, quiet neighborhood. The streets were clean but not sterile. The pavement was uneven here and there where trees had decided they had the right-of-way. The sidewalk led to Main street lined with an assortment of shops and restaurants. There were people everywhere, shopping, eating, walking back to work. It was a peaceful scene of a small American town, the kind that Hollywood likes to create.

As I was walking through I noticed that up ahead a group had gathered and was growing larger. I moved closer to the commotion and saw that a woman in dirty, tattered clothing was pacing angrily in front of a store. She had a sign that looked like it had seen many months in the sun and in the rain. Occasionally she would yell angrily and make violent motions while tears streamed down her face. She talked but made no sense.

Police started to walk in from all around to take up strategic positions. The onlookers were pushed back to a safe location while they continued to talk quietly and stretch their necks for some kind of view. One of the cops started to talk to the distraught woman, making hand motions to show he meant no harm.

I pulled away from the crowd and walked over to a policeman who was standing alone. He turned out to be the Chief.

"What's going on," I asked?

"Oh, it's just another Flash developer who's down and out and blames HTML 5," the Chief replied, "we're going to try and get her to safety and hopefully recovery."

We both looked on as his co-workers inched their way forward towards the demonstrator. Their arms outstretched, they grabbed her while she kicked and cried. As they got her to calm down the crowd started to disperse and then the buzz of the alarm clock pulled instantly away from the scene, down Main street, over the uneven sidewalk, and back to reality.

Have I just foretold the future? I'm not sure, but I can tell you this much: it's time to put radishes back on the cuisine quarantine list.

Ash.

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:34:23 -0500

This morning my attention was directed to the following article at Salon Magazine:

"Obama vs. House GOP: Best TV ever. The president smoothly mocks House Republicans, in an entertaining U.S. take on the prime minister's question time."

If I could kick a website in the ding ding my foot would already be behind my back and swinging forward with all the might I could muster, toe pointed forward, poised for a sure shot.

Salon (and they're not the only ones) ought to be ashamed for stating such a smug opinion on yesterday's meeting between the Whitehouse and the House of Representatives. Yesterday we witnessed a rare event that should be celebrated with a fervent demand for an encore and another and another. It should not be treated like a simple media event wherein tallies are made and a victor is announced. The entire point of the session was to but an end to the daily soundbyte sniper hunt and talk candidly without the interruption of pundits who are paid to pour gasoline on a tire fire.

It's easy for all of us to cynical (including the media) about what was said yesterday but we can't expect politicians to change overnight. We have had such a vicious decade of division that is not going to simply go away. Like all wounds, this will take time to heal and it is on us to stop running back to our ideological bunkers to dissect what was said into triumphant taking points.

Every voter in this union should take some time this weekend to thank their representatives for participating in yesterdays Q&A and encourage them to conduct more open sessions until it becomes a routine of our political culture, a structural thread in our evolving democracy. Write to the President and write to your members of the House. Meanwhile, we should harass and snub media outlets who seek to continue opening the divide between neighbors because civil discourse would likely mean lower ratings with declining advertising revenue.

Yesterday's open door talk wasn't perfect but it was a start. Lets go team go.

Reds.

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:26:17 -0500

There's nothing worse than bland food. The only thing that trumps it are bad comedians.

Therefore, I propose that Leno is as funny as Subway is tasty.

Build.

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:05:52 -0500

To kick off a great year Cameron is doing something a bit different with his annual promotion over at Authentic Jobs. Normally I don't dedicate an entire post to such events but I do like to support a good cause every now and then.

We're calling it the Twenty Ten promotion. It works like this: Post a listing between now and January 22 and you'll receive 20% off your listing. More importantly, 10% of your purchase will be donated to Charity:Water to help bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

To participate use code AIRBAGTEN. Hire someone cool, help a village develop a source of fresh water. Win, win.

You may also join in and donate to the campaign independent of posting a listing. Cameron and the Team AJ are hoping to raise $5,000, which is enough to fund the development of a freshwater well in one village.

Bipolar.

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:51:02 -0500

The Society of Publication Designers recently did a feature on the art direction for the Riverfront Times, an alternative weekly available in the St. Louis area. In this piece they celebrate the work of senior art director, Tom Carlson.

In short, they say, "He does a lot of smart, cool work."

Carlson's best covers at Riverfront Times are complete self-creations, made with stock imagery and Carlson's own technical skills. What photography he uses on the cover is generally by former staff photographer Jennifer Silverberg, and is made-to-order to Carlson's creative direction. "My cover philosophy is object-oriented. I like to go for visual solutions with clarity and directness that render text all but unnecessary. I tend to avoid decorative type choices and use type that just is, and let the words (when we have them) do their job."

See for yourself and I think you'll agree, Tom does a lot of smart, cool work.

The article continues to offer a reason as to why Tom is able to be so crafty with his art and design.

As free papers, these weeklies are removed from the restrictions of newsstand sales and subscription renewals. With improved printing and reproduction capabilities (although their art directors would probably disagree about the quality), these papers have been able to get much more sophisticated in their cover designs, now oftentimes rivaling and surpassing other, slicker publications in their regions.

Wow, if that's the case then the Riverfront Times must love the web. I mean, if they can produce work of that caliber because they are free from the restrictions of sales and subscriptions, imagine what they can do without the shackles of printing and distribution. At a place that obviously celebrates really great design their website must glow like a thousand angels! And with Tom at the helm maybe a newspaper has finally awoken from their Adobe GoLive '99 slumber.

Oh look, as it turns out the Riverfront Times is just another newspaper that is living in the past and waiting for that Internet thing to go away and to stop bothering them. Pity.

Peanuts.

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:28:54 -0500

After all the travel I did this year I'm going to hop on Kottke's meme. Long story short, I had to endure airport security way too many times. There was a time when I was flying an average of two flights every week. That said, Jared "Travel Machine" Spool made my flight schedule look like a series of grade school field trips. Still, I've got enough free drink coupons to last for a long, long time and a handy A-List Membership card that lets me jump to the front of the line for Federal Flight Safety Processing Happy Fun Time.

Here is a list of the places I traveled to and stayed in for one or more nights in 2009.

Aliso Viejo, California ¹
Emeryville, California ¹
Palm Springs, California ²
Palo Alto, California
Pasadena, California
Walnut Creek, California ²
Yountville, California
Fort Collins, Colorado
Boston, Massachusetts ²
Albany, New York
Eugene, Oregon ²
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ²
Austin, Texas
Seattle, Washington ²
Tacoma, Washington

Sadly, I wasn't able to make my annual trip to Las Vegas in November—a problem I hope to remedy not too long after New Years.

¹ Permanent residence.
² Visited multiple times during the year.

Ketchup.

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:30:53 -0500

I bring to you a few gems from a recent interview with Garrison Keillor with Tom Peters (more like ghost interview really, apparently Tom was too busy to talk to Garrison but that's Ok it's what Mr. Minnesota says that's important here).

Thoughts on post college life yesterday vs. today:

When I started out writing for the New Yorker I was living in a farmhouse in central Minnesota, because it was so cheap. It really removed a lot of the pressure of having to sell-sell-sell. I loved it there. I was desperately lonely, but that's not a bad thing.

I was sitting in a room upstairs at a desk that was a sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood across two used file cabinets, looking at an Underwood typewriter, and typing on yellow paper. It was a contemplative life that had great, deep pleasure. I wouldn't know how to recover it today.

This, for me, is how the world has changed, that a man sits at a desk in utter silence, and the phone line is simply the phone line. Somebody calls, and you don't have to answer it. You sit in silence, and hours pass and you tap-tap-tap-tap at a typewriter. I will never, ever recover that life. It's gone forever. And the college students I know will never know that life.

On direction (and potentially management):

[Bob] Altman had the courage to remove himself a little bit, distance himself from the people in the scene, and to be a sort of reassuring, paternal presence. He gave them that freedom. You knew that all of those performers had an internal critic. He didn't need to add his own critical persona to it.

On acting in the movie A Prairie Home Companion:

When you're on the screen with Meryl Streep, you are furniture and you might as well just accept that fact.

Regarding U.S. Senators:

He was a U.S. Senator. You cannot tell these people what to do. They all see themselves as the future President of the United States.

On writing:

As you get older, you learn how to throw it out without much thought, without much pity. You look at a piece that you've written, and you take those first three paragraphs, and you dump them. You just rip them out. Usually, that's the part that needs to be thrown out, the big windup, the big introduction. The first page almost always can go. You learn to do that without regret. I edit myself much more quickly and mercilessly now than I ever could have 20, 30 years ago.

On becoming a nation of individuals as a brand (which is a notion and product line that Tom Peters created and promotes):

I think that the decline within manufacturing in this country is a terrible loss, and a cultural loss. I don't want us to become a nation of authors, humorists, and writers of sonnets. For one thing, I don't encourage the competition. But I just think that it's a terrible cultural loss for the country, as well as an economic loss, to lose the ethics of physical work.

My father was a carpenter. He worked with his hands. He was gifted with his hands. This was a life for him that had great dignity and meaning. This should be fostered. I hope that people don't follow my lead. I am a man who, in many ways, leads the life of a ten-year-old child. It's a very immature life. You have adults around you who are steering the ship.

Of course to really appreciate these quotes you should sit down and read the entire piece.

2009.

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:02:26 -0500

We should all get medals for making it through the last twelve months, like At the End of Star Wars Medals. This has been one hell of a year, one that I don't know I would ever want to repeat again. I'm all for having change in life but it's been a tad too extreme for just about everyone I know. Thankfully, those who had to endure the loss of employment and/or a family member are on the mend and we're all looking forward to a better year.

Rather than get all wordy about the past year I decided to put all my true feelings into pixel.

Before you ask—because several people already have—here are versions for you to display on your various computer devices (wide, full, and phone).

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: On the Scene

foxnewsonline@foxnews.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:17:40 -0500

Wherever news is happening across the world, the FOX News team is there. From top headlines of the day, to the stories you'll only see at FOX News, our reporters and producers are blogging about it 24/7.

Bananas.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:55:28 -0500

Just as I'm preparing to ramp up creative production on personal work here and in other places, I feel as though I've been hit by a virtual Mack truck in the middle of a quiet street. Last week I posted a quick little jab, and you may have even seen it. Not that a huge amount of work went into that effort but it definitely took more than a few minutes to get everything just the way I wanted.

Hours after posting I noticed something I had not seen before: other websites posting my content verbatim (or in some cases with a different headline of their own choosing) with a link labeled thusly: "via airbagindustries.com". That's "via". As in, "I found the content from someplace else and are passing it through to the next person." In my day if you reposted someone else's content you attributed the source either by quoting said material, and/or posted a label that started with the word "from." I don't recall seeing this just a year ago and it makes me wonder if someone needs to change the filter in the global water cooler.

Look, I'm not Merlin Mann here. I am under no delusions that any of the posts here at Airbag are worth a plugged nickel. But the change in word usage for attributing the source of the content is rather odd and potentially problem-causing in the future. Perhaps it's not so much a legal matter (rest in peace Stephen Ambrose), but more of a how do we prevent homo sapiens from devolving back into monkeys.

Spaceman.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:28:14 -0400

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF USER INTELLECT BASED ON ANTI-PRODUCTIVITY APPLICATIONS INCLUDED IN OPERATING SYSTEMS

Yo-Yo.

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:55:34 -0400

The backseat of the car was draped in several layers of old bed sheets, towels, and "piddle pads" to help absorb what ever the cats could not hold back in their state of drugged out panic. As we had rented a car for this maneuver I suggested we let the felines have free rein, go ballistic if they wanted to. Not because I'm a freak like that, I've just always wanted to turn in a rental car that is in a state of condition that would suggest Hunter S. Thompson had come back to life and decided another drug induced road trip to Vegas was in order. Perhaps that's a lot of stress to put on some cats—here kitties, take some downers, some uppers, pee where ever you want too and pretend there are wolves chasing you inside the car while it is on fire. Instead all I got was some really freaked out pets who had shed half their weight in fur all over some old laundry. If only I was a member of a country club then I could regale Ted, Brick, and The Judge with this tale and it would come off as being more like my deranged fantasy.

And to think at that point we were only as far as Kettleman City. A place that exists solely because someone realized it was a good place for people to pull over and do something other than drive themselves further off the flat earth and into the type of mind numbing sheer boredom that encourages people to drive faster than you really should in effort to shave a few precious minutes off your total drive time. Perhaps if I had stocked for the road trip properly I could have enjoyed the trip but no amount of Pringles or Svenhard's Horns A Plenty would have taken my mind off the fact that I had to power through eight hours of pavement. Thankfully I did not have to endure this journey in something like a Honda Civic otherwise I would have jumped the hybrid vehicle off the road and into Harris Ranch wherein I could have Duke Boy'd a few doughnuts, knocked over a few filet mignons on hooves, and prepared myself for a thirty-day summer vacation at the local lock-up. I had to dig down deep and bring forth and remember my training as a Cub Scout to power through the rest of the bang-hammer-to-the-head drive up north. All that time planning, designing, carving, painting, assembling, and racing that Pinewood Derby car finally paid off.

It is different living up here, among the real Obama voters—not like those posers down South who plastered an Obama/Biden '08 sticker to the back of their Hummer—the real kind, not the limp-wristed H2 that General Motors churned out like Rock Crack Cocaine for the masses of The Sopranos Compete Set owning, suburbanized short men. The big difference, thus far, has been the weather and the constant noises that remind you that you do have neighbors. Some good, some who are aggressively auditioning for the next season of COPS, like the gentlemen I saw being cuffed by no less than five "po-lice" while on my way to the market. Hopefully that was nothing more than a little casual racial discrimination and he's now at home, like me, sitting comfortably in a nice chair and bitching aimlessly into a glowing screen.

As if migrating office, home, and my own Siegfried and Roy show wasn't enough excitement for the week, I had to fly back down to Southern California days later to meet with a potential new client. This is ironic, you must understand, because I moved up North so the Rocket Scientist and I could cut down on all the flying we have had to endure in the last two years. I now know that it doesn't take a full hour to get to SFO at 5:30AM on a Sunday morning. Who knew? I can't tell you how much fun it is to wake up with the world's melting pot with the sounds of vacuum cleaners and the smell of eggs and bacon wafting throughout terminal—everyone looking like how the other person feels. There is no joy in traveling between the hours of 10PM and 6AM. None.

I spent the night within visual range of Los Angeles County's largest fire on record. From my hotel room I could see flames as tall as buildings lashing about trees and shrubbery that hadn't committed a single act of violence in their lifetime. The view was nothing short of spectacular and I found it disturbing that more people weren't pining for a view of an event on a magnitude that only comes along every one-hundred years or so. Shame on them, sitting in their cafe's, pretending as if the fireman killing hellfire just up the road was nothing more than another cloudy day.

Here at home—the new home—we have a man-made miracle occurring a mile (as the crow flies) from where I sit now. As I write this hundreds of people are performing an engineering feat that should be considered a small wonder of the world—altering the route of a major bridge by moving hundreds of tons of road and steel to the side while a new path can be slid into its place. It's invasive surgery on a major artery of commerce and connectivity. The grandeur and scale of such ambition leaves me feeling silly for stressing about constructing digital experiences, none of which, that I know of, ever put anyone in harms way or had so much risk involved. I am glad to be here, to watch from the shore as progress is being slid into place.

This weekend we'll continue to settle in and add to the mountain of boxes and wrapping paper that is slowly starting to resemble the base of Devil's Tower. With any luck we'll have it removed by recyclers before I start to think it's really important and develop this need to head to Wyoming because I don't know that I can put another hundred miles on my car without seriously going out of my mind. In the meantime the cats and I will be at home, adjusting to all the new sounds. Eventually we'll be able to get through the day without hiding under the covers.

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Team Washington

foxnewsonline@foxnews.com — Wed, 13 May 2009 02:43:05 -0400

Read news from Washington.

NEW POST: GretaWire

foxnewsonline@foxnews.com — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:19:16 -0500

FOX FAN FIRSTHAND: Janice Dean, Weather Machine!

foxnewsonline@foxnews.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:42:25 -0400

If your browser does not automatically redirect you, please click here

NEW POST: E-Mac's Stock Watch

foxnewsonline@foxnews.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:30:10 -0400

Breaking down the latest from Wall Street with insight you can't get anywhere else.

IN THE GREENROOM: In the Greenroom!

foxnewsonline@foxnews.com — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:03:52 -0400

Love Alisyn on FOX & Friends? Get MORE of the morning show you love on Alisyn's blog!