Reilly Brennan

“Computers & Medicine” from a 1991 episode of...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:02:00 -0500

“Computers & Medicine” from a 1991 episode of Computer Chronicles.

Other than the obviously cozy nostalgia that this video conjures up, I was actually really impressed with the designs of the medical hypercard program (2:00 mark, roughly). The constraints of the format back then sure created a singularity of focus. I actually think a program that simple would be quite useful today in a lot of different diagnosing applications.

missedapex: IMSA Bridgestone GTP Porsche 962, Riverside...

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0500

missedapex:

IMSA Bridgestone GTP Porsche 962, Riverside International Raceway circa 1986 (via cooltouch)

hotvvheels: 01

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:00:00 -0500

hotvvheels:

01

"You get one ride around the planet. And then you die and then the worms eat you and then it’s..."

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:00:00 -0500

“You get one ride around the planet. And then you die and then the worms eat you and then it’s over.”

- Jason Calacanis, one of my favorite CEOs, in a great classroom discussion with Penn State.

"The growth is coming from the 90 percent of the population who are not self-identified as gamers...."

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:46:00 -0500

“The growth is coming from the 90 percent of the population who are not self-identified as gamers. They are drawn into the social games because they are frictionless. They are light and they are social. You are expanding the pie. The whole world is going social. You don’t have to be gamers to play these games. Meanwhile, the recession is eating into hardcore game sales. More gamers are buying used games and doing secondary game trades. More people are simply not going to retail to buy goods anymore. It’s the same for packaged CDs.”

- Tim Chang (Norwest) in an informative interview he gave Venture Beat last fall. I just found this tonight and thought it was pretty useful as I’m trying to learn more about virtual goods and economies.

atencio: “In Cho Chabudai Gaeshi, a new arcade game from Taito,...

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0500

atencio:

“In Cho Chabudai Gaeshi, a new arcade game from Taito, the player has one very simple task: to flip over a chabudai, a short-legged round table. In Japan, the act of table flipping, or “chabudai gaeshi” is a common expression of anger among old-fashioned, middle-aged men. Cho Chabudai Gaeshi is specifically aimed at balding fathers who are perpetually infuriated with their disobedient and noisy families, but too timid to actually upend their real-world chabudais. What’s so interesting about Cho Chabudai Gaeshi is how mundane the gameplay is: The father sits at the table, pounding on it with his hands as his obnoxious children ignore him until finally, he flips it over and sends everything flying into the air, collecting points for every item destroyed in the wake of his moderately-violent outburst.”

Read more: The Publics: Videogames As Domestic Catharsis

(via overshadowed)

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:00:00 -0500

(via overshadowed)

- “Everything Fall Apart” video by Yoshi Sodeoka,...

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:11:51 -0500

- “Everything Fall Apart” video by Yoshi Sodeoka, one of my favorite digital artists who used to run the sublime Word.com and then the digital studio C404, which I had the pleasure of visiting one day about ten years ago.

Via http://butdoesitfloat.com/

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0500

Via http://butdoesitfloat.com/

Link: Getting High On Power

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:12:00 -0500

Link: Getting High On Power:

A series of experiments show that when people feel more powerful, they are more likely to hold other people to a higher standard than themselves. (The Economist)

currrzio: Ernst Haas, Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1969

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:19:21 -0500

currrzio:

Ernst Haas, Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1969

Growing up reading true crime and mystery writing will give you...

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:00:00 -0500

Growing up reading true crime and mystery writing will give you a skewed perspective on the efficacy of evil. I remember running to my mom when I was young to tell her about the way the bank robber cut through the floor in an issue of the Hardy Boys Casefiles. My mom promptly put me on a Hardy Boys diet and pointed me toward Roald Dahl.

Jean-Luc Goddard said that cinema is the most beautiful form of fraud in the world, but I think movies might have a run for their money with this deceptively evil contraption that fraudsters use to nab your credit card number. They are so well made (note even the plastic is the same color and texture) that even the best of us would be fooled. I know I would have been.

“Pictured below is what’s known as a skimmer, or a device made to be affixed to the mouth of an ATM machine and secretly swipe credit and debit card information when bank customers slip their cards into the machines to pull out money.”

From Would You Have Spotted the Fraud? — Krebs on Security Via dpstyles: mikehudack: nickdouglas

motomania: Dakar 2010

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:00:00 -0500

motomania:

Dakar 2010

Advertising positioning formula madlib, courtesy of a recent...

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:00:00 -0500

Advertising positioning formula madlib, courtesy of a recent Zara deck on a launch plan for a new line.

"In the network economy, ever-less energy is needed to complete a single transaction, but ever-more..."

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:00:00 -0500

“In the network economy, ever-less energy is needed to complete a single transaction, but ever-more effort is needed to agree on what pattern the transaction should follow.”

- Kevin Kelly in his New Rules blog. Read the rest of what he has to say.

loudpop: Mr. Badvia flickr

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:00:00 -0500

loudpop:

Mr. Bad
via flickr

The value of slow

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:00:00 -0500

The value of slow:

Via Adam Morath

What's On Your Desk? With Joe Case

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 10:52:00 -0500

Note: What’s On Your Desk? is a series of interviews with friends who are doing interesting things. The dialogue always starts off the same way, by asking the subject to describe their workspace. The third in our series is with Joe Case, the director and photographer living in Los Angeles. I met Joe when we were roommates in a study abroad program in college and we quickly became friends. We went on to live together in the Corktown section of Detroit after school, where our next door neighbor was a working dominatrix. Yes, those were interesting times. Joe’s ability to actively manage the work/life balance always impresses me and his endless well of creativity is inspiring. He’s probably the most levelheaded friend I have; in an alternate universe he would be a well-qualified bomb defuser for the FBI.

1. What’s on your desk?

Currently on my desk is an assortment of nomadic gear. The center of it is my very loyal G4 powerbook which has held up surprisingly well for its age. It still handles video editing and After Effects after all this time. Next to that is an M-Audio firewire audio interface with some Alesis monitors plugged into it. 4 external hard drives that have traveled with me a lot. One crashed and I am hoping to revive it because it wasn’t backed up. One more smaller hard drive with my last film on it, a beginner’s German book, some German flash cards from the 50s or so (they contain all these really archaic social references and phrases). A wire “inbox” basket, a David Lynch postcard from his artwork exposition at the Cartier foundation in Paris, with some special words from a special person on the back, a sunglasses case, Spring 09 issue of Filmmaker magazine, a can of orange air therapy spray from Trader Joe’s, a usb hub, pens, sharpies, an aluminum water bottle and a slew of post-it notes which are a mix of script notes and personal philosophy reminders.

2. You’ve lived more places in the last year than anyone I know, from Paris to Los Angeles. How do you manage to focus on getting work done with that much mobility? It seems like it takes months for me to get my desk sorted out, or maybe that’s just the excuse I give myself.

Mobility isn’t really the issue, it is more a lack of home base. Most of my work before was based in mobility - traveling and shooting, etc. Which I love of course, and then I had the home desk where I would do more personal work. But I can’t say I am good at mobile multitasking, if that is the right term. When I go somewhere, I am pretty absorbed into my surroundings and getting my mind to do anything else than explore the environment is tough. For example, once I said yes to go to Serbia for a fashion assignment while dealing with another deadline for a writing thing. I never say no to visiting a new place. We get to this new fantastic place and everyone goes to dinner, but I say I have to stay back to finish this thing. It just felt unnatural and I had to force myself. I am looking out of the window at this street filled with strange Russian cars I had never seen before, and I just wanted to walk across the street and buy a water to see what the people in the store looked like. Meanwhile I am getting text messages from the other photographer I was working with saying “you should have come to dinner, the chicken is insane and endless, and the girls are ridiculously hot and friendly.” When I travel I always take my stuff thinking I am going to get some other work done, but I never do. I just get too caught up in where I am.

That said, staying productive during a huge relocation like I had is nearly impossible. I didn’t get any real work done for months after I moved to LA because I didn’t have a desk or home base. I was staying with friends, and house sitting, etc, just bouncing around. Couldn’t get a damn thing done because I didn’t have a private place I could leave my stuff and come back to everyday. I need a place where the work stays, and I can leave and come back to it. Otherwise it just all floats away. Especially because my biggest task now has no clients or deadlines, so self discipline is absolutely essential and a skill I am working hard to improve on. But nothing really got done until I had a room with desk in it and a lock on the door that was all my own.

3. At what point do you feel at ease and ready to do your work? Do you start your day with email or try to plow through some tasks first?

Preparing to be ready to do your work is a delusion. Distraction is the most addictive and insidious drug there is. I know, I am an addict and deal with it constantly. I think the only way to do it is ruthlessly shove everything off the desk except the task and just tackle it. My most productive hours are very early morning. Once the world wakes up, I am out getting high on distraction like most people. My best routine is to get up really early (6am-ish), go for a walk perhaps, make coffee and just start plowing. Get through your essential work by like 9-10am. Problem is, it is tough to keep that routine.

Once you get on the distraction train, you are on it for the rest of the day. Your mind is already on that path. Checking a little bit of email, cruising a blog, perusing the news all seem like harmless little things that you can jump back to your work from, but your focus is already compromised. You’re done. You think you can get off the train whenever you want, but you can’t, it is non-stop service to the end of the day and a dull guilty feeling for not having gotten enough done.

Of course when I say “you” I mean “I.”

4. One of the facets of your working life I find most interesting is that you’ve done so much personal work for your own film and multimedia projects and also a lot of client work, yet all of it ties together. How do you manage to keep clients happy while also putting your own fingerprint on things? Seems like a tough balance

Hmm. That is a tough one to nail down. That line is hazy. I think the majority of my work thus far has been personal work. I think they tie together in that I have always been motivated from the exploration standpoint, whether that be subject matter, technique, etc., or the really just having a new experience for myself. If it is something I haven’t seen or done before, that always warrants a yes response. So whether I am doing it for me or for someone else, that exploration element can be there and has been the motivating factor. The other side of that is that after I get the exploration reward, I tend to leave it behind, which has resulted in a lot of fragments. I have generally lacked or haven’t paid too much attention to the feedback and reaction aspect, which I think is crucial as it helps give you a picture of your fingerprint. You go through those phases of saying “yes, this is what I do, this is who I am, it is awesome,” and then “what the hell do I do? who am I? I got nothing to offer.” The creative waves. The exploration motivation gave me a lot of experiences which are creative material. Now I am going through all these fragments and things and piecing them together again to give myself that necessary image of my creative fingerprint. This is actually something I am dealing with quite a bit right now as my move to Los Angeles was for the purpose of building a more lucrative career, so the client side of it is quite important and you have to know what you offer.

One thing I know certainly doesn’t work is trying to figure out what people want and mold yourself to that. I have done that and it always fails. Conformity is death, but that pressure is always whispering in your ear. I think if you are in a creative field and you actually have creativity, then that is what you have to offer and that is what people want from you. They want your fingerprint on things. So I don’t really see the balance issue. I think the way to success is knowing what your fingerprint is, and being confident in that product. As soon as you start to compromise that, you become less desirable. I mean, your job is to be the creative person. People hire you to tell them what works and what is good. It sounds messed up, but it’s not. Once you start asking “What do you guys like, what do you want, I can do whatever you guys need,etc.” then all of a sudden you aren’t the creative person. Of course, there is a collaboration. Clients come at you with a need and a destination. Your job is to get them there how you know how. So, I think fingerprint is what makes clients happy. But maybe I have been living in a charmed world of personal work, ha ha!

5. I think the notion of “knowing what your fingerprint is” is right on the money. Your fingerprint is something that you receive on your first day on earth. Going back to that is pure, without alternative and entirely yours. What advice would you have for people who are starting out who are looking to find their fingerprint?

Well, I think your fingerprint is only visible in the rear view mirror. So to discover it you just need to start covering as much road as you can. You need to be open to wherever that goes and not hold on to some rigid idea of “what you do.” I think people confuse what they want to do with what they actually do, and this is the first big trap on the road to creative endeavor. You simply cannot define yourself and your fingerprint by what you plan on doing or what someone else does. You need to explore. You need to put yourself up against different backgrounds. You need to fail forward. You need to explore dead ends, have things crumble, pick up those pieces and use them on something else. You need to identify the people you admire then rip them off to see how their stuff feels. You need to just chug through a lot of things. Then you need to be ready and open to the results, whatever those may be, because they will probably surprise you and they might not be as sweet as you imagined. And then you need to not identify with that, because it is in the past. A fingerprint is something that is left behind. It is evidence that someone was there. Which leads to a more operational definition than a stylistic one. You can’t predict exactly what it will look like, but you know you will leave it behind and it won’t look like that of anyone else.

Maybe “knowing what your fingerprint is” is not the right phrasing. Knowing that you have one is paramount, and you must have confidence that it is valid. I know that I have dealt with “fingerprint insecurity” - that feeling that what you do isn’t anything unique and all that, but that is a movement killer and creativity is movement. You need to keep moving to find out what it is you do.

More Joe Case: Joe Case Showcase

nevver: via

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:26:49 -0500

nevver:

via

Charting the mobile future

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:49:43 -0500

The Mobile Internet Report

Among other tasty morsels:

“Reduced usage friction via better processing power + improved user interfaces + smaller form facter + lower prices + expanded services = 10x more devices”

“The high-level riddle is: will the next stage of mobile internet develop in a fragmented / open way (a la desktop internet) or will it develop with leading / closed platforms as the mainframe, minicomputer and PC era did?”