Thursday, November 15, 2012
TechShop
Have you heard about TechShop? If not, you should know. The first rule of TechShop is not that you do not talk about TechShop, although like that other famous club, it is badass. TechShop is to quote their wesbite, "a vibrant, creative community offering access to tools, software and space... a playground for creativity."
From the Clarion Content's observations, all this and more were true. It is an all-in-one, do-it-yourselfers club with every tool that you could imagine. For one reasonable membership fee of $83.25/month, you can use it all.
Laser cutters, plasma cutters, a wood shop, welding, a C & C plasma table, a forge, a vacuum former, a paint spray area, an electronics lab, a metal and machine shop, lathes, routers, every basic hand tool you can imagine, a conference room you can use, a photobooth, a kitchen where members built the cabinets themselves (with the on-site equipment), and a high performance computer lab where each of the twenty plus machines is loaded with anywhere from $25k northward worth of design and engineering software.
To say is an inventors paradise is hardly overstatement.1
The Clarion Content and our friend, filmmaker and correspondent, Ned Phillips, were given a wonderful, free tour of TechShop Raleigh/Durham last month. The magnificent madcap list of machines and stuff we rattled off above is hardly comprehensive, some of what our generous and patient guide was saying simply washed over us in waves of data.
We did note that there are only six TechShops in America and one of them isin Durham correction "minutes from Durham" (three in CA, one in Austin, one in Detroit, for those of you scoring at home). We also caught the part where he said, he had personally moved from Brooklyn to Durham. TechShop employees seemed remarkable happy, stoked to be doing their jobs. Our tour guide's official job title is, "Dream Consultant." How good does that sound for work? How close are these folks to the nexus where the boundaries of free play and work mesh into the beauty of invention?
TechShop offers classes (in fact, mandates classes for new users) on all of its machines and equipment. Word is, if you know what you are doing, it is not hard to get certified to use the machines, and if you are a beginner, it is a great place to learn.
We were told that there is a hardcore cadre of inventors who use TechShop to make prototypes. We met and will have a longer feature on one such inventor, Luis Freeman, owner and president of Plastibot, a 3-D printer company. Freeman is an engineer by trade, in person he is a creator, a designer, and a teacher. It was while we were filming Plastibot's 3-D printers that we heard about TechShop. Plastibot built the acrylic cases for their printers at TechShop.2
There are, according to our Dream Consultant, also a bevy of tinkerers, hobbyists, folks dabbling beyond their day job, as well as a number of younger members who use TechShop. Overall current membership numbers are between 350 and 400 total. The hours of operation are extensive, Mon-Fri 10am to midnight and Sat-Sun, 10am-10pm, makes it feel like you can go in, almost any time, seven days a week, ninety-four glorious hours of machine and tool heaven.3
The Clarion Content's editor, given books before blocks as a child, hasn't mastered tools more complicated than the screwdriver and the hammer. But for those of you who have, TechShop will blow your mind. It is an unbelievable community resource.
They are holding an open house all day today, Saturday, November 10th. And if you can't make it today, free tours are available any time TechShop is open.
Notes
1Some members use TechShop as their business address, shipping and receiving packages here, holding meetings in the conference room.
2We also noted, smart folks abound, that immediately adjacent to TechShop's facility was the Roth Brewing Company making and selling "Beer for the Masses." It looked like a popular watering hole for the local creative talent.
3TechShop was remarkably clean and well-maintained, would even go so far as to say it was nearly pristine.
From the Clarion Content's observations, all this and more were true. It is an all-in-one, do-it-yourselfers club with every tool that you could imagine. For one reasonable membership fee of $83.25/month, you can use it all.
Laser cutters, plasma cutters, a wood shop, welding, a C & C plasma table, a forge, a vacuum former, a paint spray area, an electronics lab, a metal and machine shop, lathes, routers, every basic hand tool you can imagine, a conference room you can use, a photobooth, a kitchen where members built the cabinets themselves (with the on-site equipment), and a high performance computer lab where each of the twenty plus machines is loaded with anywhere from $25k northward worth of design and engineering software.
To say is an inventors paradise is hardly overstatement.1
The Clarion Content and our friend, filmmaker and correspondent, Ned Phillips, were given a wonderful, free tour of TechShop Raleigh/Durham last month. The magnificent madcap list of machines and stuff we rattled off above is hardly comprehensive, some of what our generous and patient guide was saying simply washed over us in waves of data.
We did note that there are only six TechShops in America and one of them is
TechShop offers classes (in fact, mandates classes for new users) on all of its machines and equipment. Word is, if you know what you are doing, it is not hard to get certified to use the machines, and if you are a beginner, it is a great place to learn.
We were told that there is a hardcore cadre of inventors who use TechShop to make prototypes. We met and will have a longer feature on one such inventor, Luis Freeman, owner and president of Plastibot, a 3-D printer company. Freeman is an engineer by trade, in person he is a creator, a designer, and a teacher. It was while we were filming Plastibot's 3-D printers that we heard about TechShop. Plastibot built the acrylic cases for their printers at TechShop.2
There are, according to our Dream Consultant, also a bevy of tinkerers, hobbyists, folks dabbling beyond their day job, as well as a number of younger members who use TechShop. Overall current membership numbers are between 350 and 400 total. The hours of operation are extensive, Mon-Fri 10am to midnight and Sat-Sun, 10am-10pm, makes it feel like you can go in, almost any time, seven days a week, ninety-four glorious hours of machine and tool heaven.3
The Clarion Content's editor, given books before blocks as a child, hasn't mastered tools more complicated than the screwdriver and the hammer. But for those of you who have, TechShop will blow your mind. It is an unbelievable community resource.
They are holding an open house all day today, Saturday, November 10th. And if you can't make it today, free tours are available any time TechShop is open.
Notes
1Some members use TechShop as their business address, shipping and receiving packages here, holding meetings in the conference room.
2We also noted, smart folks abound, that immediately adjacent to TechShop's facility was the Roth Brewing Company making and selling "Beer for the Masses." It looked like a popular watering hole for the local creative talent.
3TechShop was remarkably clean and well-maintained, would even go so far as to say it was nearly pristine.
Labels: Durham, technology
Organic Transit is taking it to the streets
by Ned Phillips
In downtown Durham, a small group of highly skilled professionals are quietly building the future. Across the plaza from Major the Bull, behind a deep green facade, is an old furniture showroom. Inside there are vehicle schematics and diagrams on the walls. White marker boards are colored with carefully laid out business plans and there’s a workshop area with enough tools to turn on any grease monkey. The leftover furniture has been used to make tables and workspaces, recycling what was once forgotten into something practical and useful. The paint peeling from the immaculate ceiling and the vast spaciousness of the interior remind me of the Ghostbusters firehouse, historic with a touch of shabby-chic.
Organic Transit HQ, #309 East Chapel Hill St, Durham, photo by Ned Phillips
pictured here, Alix Bowman, Director of Strategy, photo by Ned Phillips
This is home of Organic Transit and they are taking their own crack at saving the world. Organic Transit stands on the literal cutting edge of personal transportation; their vehicles are velomobiles with a solar powered battery, filling the much-needed gap between automobiles and bicycles and potentially revolutionizing the way we get around our urban environment. And while Organic Transit seems to have arrived at just the right moment, the road here has been years in the making.
For CEO Rob Cotter, the Organic Transit seed was planted back in the early 1980s in southern California, when Cotter was working with the International Human Powered Vehicle Association. As Vice President of the land division, he interacted with many of the top minds and designs in the field, witnessing single rider vehicles traveling at highway speeds; 55 and 65 mph. Aside from working with BMW and Porsche, he put on the first solar car race in the United States, lectured at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, acted as a consultant for bike sharing in New York City and served as creative director for an international multimedia company, which he credits with teaching him the marketing and public relations side of things. And while it’s been a long journey to Organic Transit, Cotter hasn’t forgotten any of it--- posters and early designs from his SoCal days decorate his Durham headquarters.
The concept of a high tech but efficient, cool but inexpensive vehicle that has the ability to be mass-produced is something Cotter has been working on for quite a while. After years of exchanging designs and ideas with colleagues on the west coast, Organic Transit built their first prototype, called the ELF, in 2010. The exteriors are TrylonTM, a composite of acrylics and a version of ABS plastic. The molds for the plastic body were created at the inventors’ D-I-Y hub, TechShop. The body panels are now being locally manufactured in Eastern North Carolina. The interior of the ELF is almost entirely off the shelf bicycle parts, save the specially designed frame and assembly parts, four of which are in the patent process, with another four or five heading that direction.
CEO Rob Cotter, photo by Ned Phillips
Cotter describes the design of the ELF as closer to an aircraft than an automobile. Decreasing air drag, streamlining and smoothing of components are just some of the concepts applied in the ELF’s design. The riders have the choice to pedal their own way, or use the solar energy stored in the battery pack, which can carry a rider up to 30 miles. The prototype contains a CVT, or continuously variable transmission, a technology used in windmills that provides easy and efficient gear shifting. Current design allows the ELF to carry 350lbs plus the rider. As to its other advantages over a standard bicycle, you have weather protection, lights, visibility on the road, power to get up hills and you can’t fall over and skin your knee.
pictured here and above, Brent Alexander, Logistics team, photos by Ned Phillips
The company already has other designs in development, including a cargo model called the TruckIt, which can carry up to 800 lbs plus the rider, as well as a sleek sport coupe body style. The idea is that eventually, all these body styles will be interchangeable, as well as having customizable interiors, doors, floors and shelves. Organic Transit is already using materials that will be used in future auto production and while the ELF’s exteriors are almost 80% recyclable, the company is moving towards using bioplastics, bamboo, hemp and seagrass. In addition, Cotter has employed local mobile application designers to create apps for speed and calorie monitoring and hopes to hire 35 more people to work in green jobs within the next nine months.
As a community that embraces local business, entrepreneurship and the importance of self-sustenance, Durham is an ideal home for Organic Transit. Here, visionaries such as Cotter and crew were able to get going through the Bull City Startup Stampede and draw on the ever-expanding network of resources in the Triangle. Organic Transit has already built working relationships with and gained the support of Alliance Architecture and Duke University’s Nicholas School for the Environment, two Durham institutions that share a similar view for the future.
And that is a vision of clean efficiency, Cotter says his team has a moral imperative to work hard and fast. Few things are polluting our Earth as quickly and as badly as our transit structure. At stake are all sorts of issues from personal health to climate change. It’s also financial: having thousands of dollars in your pocket at the end of the year versus handing your money over to large oil companies with their own selfish interests. People are moving back into cities and need new transportation solutions. Gas is expensive. Parking takes up too much space. Traffic is inefficient. Organic Transit takes the position that with human power and solar power, we can do what we need to do, within a reasonable limit.
Organic Transit already has 400 international pre-orders for the ELF, from places as far away as New Zealand. Within the next month, expect to see the first Beta wave of vehicles on the streets of Durham. For Organic Transit, Rob Cotter dreams of a “depot” model- franchised, decentralized, manufacturing cafes in urban downtowns. A community place, where you can have a coffee and visit with neighbors as your vehicle is assembled. It then rolls right out the front door and into the world. Standing in the downtown headquarters, I feel it happening. Children peek through the large windows excitedly at the drawings and prototypes. People stop to take photographs of the recycled furniture sign. Friends pop in to say hello and offer encouragement. I imagine an espresso machine over by the lounge area. Rob tells me they will be having a party soon, to celebrate the launch, here in the workspace. All of a sudden it feels like the future is now.
In downtown Durham, a small group of highly skilled professionals are quietly building the future. Across the plaza from Major the Bull, behind a deep green facade, is an old furniture showroom. Inside there are vehicle schematics and diagrams on the walls. White marker boards are colored with carefully laid out business plans and there’s a workshop area with enough tools to turn on any grease monkey. The leftover furniture has been used to make tables and workspaces, recycling what was once forgotten into something practical and useful. The paint peeling from the immaculate ceiling and the vast spaciousness of the interior remind me of the Ghostbusters firehouse, historic with a touch of shabby-chic.
Organic Transit HQ, #309 East Chapel Hill St, Durham, photo by Ned Phillips
pictured here, Alix Bowman, Director of Strategy, photo by Ned Phillips
This is home of Organic Transit and they are taking their own crack at saving the world. Organic Transit stands on the literal cutting edge of personal transportation; their vehicles are velomobiles with a solar powered battery, filling the much-needed gap between automobiles and bicycles and potentially revolutionizing the way we get around our urban environment. And while Organic Transit seems to have arrived at just the right moment, the road here has been years in the making.
For CEO Rob Cotter, the Organic Transit seed was planted back in the early 1980s in southern California, when Cotter was working with the International Human Powered Vehicle Association. As Vice President of the land division, he interacted with many of the top minds and designs in the field, witnessing single rider vehicles traveling at highway speeds; 55 and 65 mph. Aside from working with BMW and Porsche, he put on the first solar car race in the United States, lectured at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, acted as a consultant for bike sharing in New York City and served as creative director for an international multimedia company, which he credits with teaching him the marketing and public relations side of things. And while it’s been a long journey to Organic Transit, Cotter hasn’t forgotten any of it--- posters and early designs from his SoCal days decorate his Durham headquarters.
The concept of a high tech but efficient, cool but inexpensive vehicle that has the ability to be mass-produced is something Cotter has been working on for quite a while. After years of exchanging designs and ideas with colleagues on the west coast, Organic Transit built their first prototype, called the ELF, in 2010. The exteriors are TrylonTM, a composite of acrylics and a version of ABS plastic. The molds for the plastic body were created at the inventors’ D-I-Y hub, TechShop. The body panels are now being locally manufactured in Eastern North Carolina. The interior of the ELF is almost entirely off the shelf bicycle parts, save the specially designed frame and assembly parts, four of which are in the patent process, with another four or five heading that direction.
CEO Rob Cotter, photo by Ned Phillips
Cotter describes the design of the ELF as closer to an aircraft than an automobile. Decreasing air drag, streamlining and smoothing of components are just some of the concepts applied in the ELF’s design. The riders have the choice to pedal their own way, or use the solar energy stored in the battery pack, which can carry a rider up to 30 miles. The prototype contains a CVT, or continuously variable transmission, a technology used in windmills that provides easy and efficient gear shifting. Current design allows the ELF to carry 350lbs plus the rider. As to its other advantages over a standard bicycle, you have weather protection, lights, visibility on the road, power to get up hills and you can’t fall over and skin your knee.
pictured here and above, Brent Alexander, Logistics team, photos by Ned Phillips
The company already has other designs in development, including a cargo model called the TruckIt, which can carry up to 800 lbs plus the rider, as well as a sleek sport coupe body style. The idea is that eventually, all these body styles will be interchangeable, as well as having customizable interiors, doors, floors and shelves. Organic Transit is already using materials that will be used in future auto production and while the ELF’s exteriors are almost 80% recyclable, the company is moving towards using bioplastics, bamboo, hemp and seagrass. In addition, Cotter has employed local mobile application designers to create apps for speed and calorie monitoring and hopes to hire 35 more people to work in green jobs within the next nine months.
As a community that embraces local business, entrepreneurship and the importance of self-sustenance, Durham is an ideal home for Organic Transit. Here, visionaries such as Cotter and crew were able to get going through the Bull City Startup Stampede and draw on the ever-expanding network of resources in the Triangle. Organic Transit has already built working relationships with and gained the support of Alliance Architecture and Duke University’s Nicholas School for the Environment, two Durham institutions that share a similar view for the future.
And that is a vision of clean efficiency, Cotter says his team has a moral imperative to work hard and fast. Few things are polluting our Earth as quickly and as badly as our transit structure. At stake are all sorts of issues from personal health to climate change. It’s also financial: having thousands of dollars in your pocket at the end of the year versus handing your money over to large oil companies with their own selfish interests. People are moving back into cities and need new transportation solutions. Gas is expensive. Parking takes up too much space. Traffic is inefficient. Organic Transit takes the position that with human power and solar power, we can do what we need to do, within a reasonable limit.
Organic Transit already has 400 international pre-orders for the ELF, from places as far away as New Zealand. Within the next month, expect to see the first Beta wave of vehicles on the streets of Durham. For Organic Transit, Rob Cotter dreams of a “depot” model- franchised, decentralized, manufacturing cafes in urban downtowns. A community place, where you can have a coffee and visit with neighbors as your vehicle is assembled. It then rolls right out the front door and into the world. Standing in the downtown headquarters, I feel it happening. Children peek through the large windows excitedly at the drawings and prototypes. People stop to take photographs of the recycled furniture sign. Friends pop in to say hello and offer encouragement. I imagine an espresso machine over by the lounge area. Rob tells me they will be having a party soon, to celebrate the launch, here in the workspace. All of a sudden it feels like the future is now.
Labels: Durham, energy policy, Ned Phillips, technology, vehicles
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
Interesting links: a technology story
Regular readers know that the Clarion Content likes to send you off to the interesting links we find, but don't have time to write about at length... You can see old posts here (scroll down past this piece).
Today, we have a fresh batch of technology related links, hot off the interwebs.
The first one is about something we had never heard of, picosatellites. Picosatellites are super tiny satellites, usually not much more than 10 cm in length and 2 lbs. Yet, according to the Economist, thanks in large part to smartphone technology pushing miniaturization, the tiniest of sensors have been developed and are on-board, mini-accelerometers, mini-barometers and, of course, cameras.
These super tiny satellites have already performed biological experiments, been used as earthquake sensors and conducted propulsion tests. Launch costs are steadily dropping, from $40k last year to $20k this year. And they don't need dedicated launches, they can ride along on large satellite launches as ballast. Student teams are already building their own satellites for launch. Check out this DIY build your own personal satellite book. And read the whole picosatellites article here in the Economist.
We suppose this link is only tangentially high tech, but did you know that Honduras is selling land to private concerns to build and run their own cities.
MKG Group, a tourism and hospitality consulting company, out of France, has agreed to a three city deal. MKG will not only get to construct the city, but make the laws. The city will be governed by something similar to Texas law, popular for its laissez faire approach to business regulation. The experimental city will have no taxes on income, capital gains or sales. MKG will invest $15 million to begin building basic infrastructure.
Not everyone is happy with the planned development, Fox News quotes a petitioner to the Honduran Supreme Court as saying, "the prospect of setting up a charter city, with its own laws, [that] is sovereign to itself and doesn't have to pay taxes, is a dubious one at best. It'd be tantamount to inviting pirates to come in and have free reign to essentially raid the country's resources/riches."
Proponents, using Hong Kong as a comparison, say the city will raise Honduran income levels and bring as many as 200,000 new jobs.
Wow!
How far outside the proverbial box are those two concepts? Could our third and final technology link possibly bring that level of paradigm-shattering to the table?
How about that scientists are once again debating the reality of a "warp drive?"
Harold "Sonny" White, of NASA's Johnson Space Center, said in September that the warp drive, previously seemingly requiring an impossible amount of energy, could be powered by something about the size of Voyager 1, the 1970's space probe.1
White and his colleagues have begun experimenting with a laser interferometer that instigates micro versions of space-time warps. The goal is to achieve an effective speed of about 10 times the speed of light. Read the whole story here at Discovery.com.
Notes
1Voyager 1 is still kicking ass and taking names.
Today, we have a fresh batch of technology related links, hot off the interwebs.
The first one is about something we had never heard of, picosatellites. Picosatellites are super tiny satellites, usually not much more than 10 cm in length and 2 lbs. Yet, according to the Economist, thanks in large part to smartphone technology pushing miniaturization, the tiniest of sensors have been developed and are on-board, mini-accelerometers, mini-barometers and, of course, cameras.
These super tiny satellites have already performed biological experiments, been used as earthquake sensors and conducted propulsion tests. Launch costs are steadily dropping, from $40k last year to $20k this year. And they don't need dedicated launches, they can ride along on large satellite launches as ballast. Student teams are already building their own satellites for launch. Check out this DIY build your own personal satellite book. And read the whole picosatellites article here in the Economist.
We suppose this link is only tangentially high tech, but did you know that Honduras is selling land to private concerns to build and run their own cities.
MKG Group, a tourism and hospitality consulting company, out of France, has agreed to a three city deal. MKG will not only get to construct the city, but make the laws. The city will be governed by something similar to Texas law, popular for its laissez faire approach to business regulation. The experimental city will have no taxes on income, capital gains or sales. MKG will invest $15 million to begin building basic infrastructure.
Not everyone is happy with the planned development, Fox News quotes a petitioner to the Honduran Supreme Court as saying, "the prospect of setting up a charter city, with its own laws, [that] is sovereign to itself and doesn't have to pay taxes, is a dubious one at best. It'd be tantamount to inviting pirates to come in and have free reign to essentially raid the country's resources/riches."
Proponents, using Hong Kong as a comparison, say the city will raise Honduran income levels and bring as many as 200,000 new jobs.
Wow!
How far outside the proverbial box are those two concepts? Could our third and final technology link possibly bring that level of paradigm-shattering to the table?
How about that scientists are once again debating the reality of a "warp drive?"
Harold "Sonny" White, of NASA's Johnson Space Center, said in September that the warp drive, previously seemingly requiring an impossible amount of energy, could be powered by something about the size of Voyager 1, the 1970's space probe.1
White and his colleagues have begun experimenting with a laser interferometer that instigates micro versions of space-time warps. The goal is to achieve an effective speed of about 10 times the speed of light. Read the whole story here at Discovery.com.
Notes
1Voyager 1 is still kicking ass and taking names.
Labels: interesting links, technology
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Facebook, we told you so
The Clarion Content has followed Facebook's contortions and claims not to violate its users privacy with bemused distaste for years. Somehow, we have cynically disbelieved their wide-eyed innocence. Perhaps, because, the evidence is so massively against them.
A reminder of what Facebook is really all about... the Benjamins
Yesterday, the Financial Times of London reported that, "Amid growing pressure for the social networking site to prove the value of its advertising, Facebook is gradually wading into new techniques for tracking..." [and mining data]. They noted that Facebook is working with a controversial data gathering company called Datalogix that connects Facebook users' links and clicks to in the store, as well as on-line purchases.
This is the more complex second-level data mining that privacy advocates have long warned about Facebook possessing. Their ability to connect tracked on-line habits with a massive database of off-line behaviors is unprecedented in the personal computing era.
Facebook's dance partner in these dastardly deeds, Datalogix, has customer shopping data from seventy million American households gathered from loyalty card programs they administer at thousands of retailers, grocery and drug stores. Datalogix matches identifying information associated with those frequent shopper cards against emails and personal information that is used to establish Facebook accounts to build its matrix of personal data about users.
Naturally, Facebook's head of Measurement and Insights, Brad Smallwood, assured the Financial Times that the emails and other identifying information of its users are made anonymous by collecting it into groups of people who saw an ad and people who did not.
Of course, why would one assume Facebook would do any less than the right thing.
In another not so shocking development, Facebook users are automatically included in the advertising data mining conducted by Datalogix. They cannot directly opt out through their Facebook account. Instead, they must go to the Datalogix website, for which Facebook has a link posted deep in its help center.
A reminder of what Facebook is really all about... the Benjamins
Yesterday, the Financial Times of London reported that, "Amid growing pressure for the social networking site to prove the value of its advertising, Facebook is gradually wading into new techniques for tracking..." [and mining data]. They noted that Facebook is working with a controversial data gathering company called Datalogix that connects Facebook users' links and clicks to in the store, as well as on-line purchases.
This is the more complex second-level data mining that privacy advocates have long warned about Facebook possessing. Their ability to connect tracked on-line habits with a massive database of off-line behaviors is unprecedented in the personal computing era.
Facebook's dance partner in these dastardly deeds, Datalogix, has customer shopping data from seventy million American households gathered from loyalty card programs they administer at thousands of retailers, grocery and drug stores. Datalogix matches identifying information associated with those frequent shopper cards against emails and personal information that is used to establish Facebook accounts to build its matrix of personal data about users.
Naturally, Facebook's head of Measurement and Insights, Brad Smallwood, assured the Financial Times that the emails and other identifying information of its users are made anonymous by collecting it into groups of people who saw an ad and people who did not.
Of course, why would one assume Facebook would do any less than the right thing.
In another not so shocking development, Facebook users are automatically included in the advertising data mining conducted by Datalogix. They cannot directly opt out through their Facebook account. Instead, they must go to the Datalogix website, for which Facebook has a link posted deep in its help center.
Labels: Ethically questionable, technology
Monday, September 17, 2012
Centerfest triumphant
Durham's 38th annual Centerfest Arts Festival returned to the streets with a triumphant explosion of culture, art, music, and food. Saturday afternoon the streets of Durham were packed with people like your editor has, quite literally, never seen previously.
The Clarion Content's photobooth pictures will be up soon...
Special thanks to Dolly's Vintage for lending us the cool props that made it happen.
The Durham Arts Council press release reported over 24,000 folks attended the two day festival, a tremendous increase from the last few years when Centerfest had been shunted out of downtown, first to Durham's Central Park, and then relegated to the parking lot beyond the downtown YMCA.
This year the festival returned to the downtown loop. Traffic was blocked off. The streets were full. The mass of humanity on East and West Chapel Hill Streets in the middle of Saturday afternoon looked more like the Manhattan subway queue at rush hour than our Durham. The cultural renaissance is in full swing. But it beggars the question, and some of our long time Durham residents will have to help us here, when were the Durham streets last that full?
Your editor has lived in Durham a little over twelve years, and we have never seen that many people inside the downtown loop. We asked a variety of passers-by at the Clarion Content booth, but nobody had an answer. Dear readers, please do weigh-in, what event, what moment last saw downtown Durham packed with that many people? An estimated 17,000 on Saturday alone.
While you ponder that, we will try to hit some of the highlights of an amazing weekend, beyond the fabulous crowds of people, who were out reminding us how much Durham loves itself.
Of course, the visual artists were tremendous, 130 of them from across the state and around the country set up shop. Jean Yao, a basketweaver from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was selected by the Merit Award Judges as the Best in Show winner this year and presented with a $1,000 check. Melissa Lowery, a jeweler from Zebulon, NC, won the people's choice award.
The newly fashioned Creative Community expo was outstanding. It is one thing to hear that Durham is among America's best cities for start-ups and has one of its strongest creative communities, it is another to see it demonstrated en masse.
The Durham Arts Council deserves a lot of credit including this important element of our town's cultural depth. We met Plastibot, a company run by Luis Freeman, which has developed an amazing three-dimensional printing technique using extruded plastics. They were making, right on the street, everything from bracelets to miniature statues from a printer. It was developed as an open source project, and Freeman told us the practical and scientific applications are nearly endless, including doing things like printing 3-D models of human organs from MRIs and other scans so that doctors can simulate surgery before they even begin to cut someone open.
We also re-met the folks from Organic Transit, who were rolling around in there wildly efficient vehicles. These Organic Transit Vehicles, or OTVs, are a new class of velomobile fusing solar power with elements from bicycle and car design. The Clarion Content will have full article coming soon from Ned Phillips. We heard that thirty new vehicles will be on the production line as of October.
We also got to talk to the people from Wanderful, who have in partnership with our friends over at Open Durham, created an app for exploring our downtown. As regular readers know, Open Durham is an amazing repository of Durham photos and Durham history. We were glad to see the word about this terrific website and founder, Gary Kueber, being spread further.
The music was also outstanding. Our booth was set-up just across from the main stage in Major the Bull's plaza so we got to groove all weekend. In the middle of Saturday afternoon, with a wall to wall audience, Peter Lamb & the Wolves had us all swaying to their funky tunes. They are veteran Durham musicians, led by front man Stephen Coffman, with other names you know from Durham's The Beast, and the sweet, dulcet tones of The Art of Cool's Al Strong.
Saturday evening was capped by local Durham sensations, LiLa, who had crowds of young and old dancing to their Durham themed hip-hop~ska fusion. Folks were, as is the norm at LiLa's shows, quite literally jumping up and down as they belted out a chorus of, "Hip-hip, hooray!" Were we celebrating the band? The festival? Durham? It didn't matter, joyful delirium reigned.
Also noticeably well-received by the crowds was a Saturday morning performance by The Durham Jazz Orchestra and a Sunday morning jaunt from the Freylach Time Klezmer Band, who began wishing the crowd a joyful, La Shana Tova and ended with ecstatic dancing in the plaza.
Of course, the Young People's Performing Company was a hit. Though years and years of Centerfest, the YPPC has been a constant and an incubator of talent. Many of the twenty and thirty-somethings at the forefront of this Durham cultural renaissance did time in the YPPC in their formative years. The enthusiasm for their performances remains as high as ever.
And the Bouncing Bulldogs1, blew people away as the crowd surrounding them in Major the Bull's plaza got deeper and deeper. It is no coincidence that the sign reads, "World Champions" on the side of their gym. Watch for five minutes and you knew you were in the presence of world-class talent. These jump ropers hopped, leaped, back-flipped, break-danced, did combos with two, three, four, even six people simultaneously. Cirque du Soleil has nothing on these kids.
Keep in mind as this litany goes on and on, all of this was available for a $5 donation!!!
If there was any criticism the Clarion Content could offer of this fantastic event, it would be that coordination with local merchants, especially the restaurants could have been a little better. More than once, we were asked by out-towners, or maybe folks who live out in the burbclaves around Southpoint, where to eat. This was while we were surrounded by the Durham restaurant scene that is being written up everywhere from the New York Post to the Boston Globe.
Perhaps instead of trying to sell local businesses on sponsorship, next year the Durham Arts Council can sell the restaurants on a being in separate map page of the Centerfest festival's guide. Said guide, while a great way to find the visual artists and figure out the band's schedules, hardly mentioned the restaurants, who could have been featured and maybe even sold ads. The restaurateurs we spoke with still enjoyed bang-up sales weekends. The beer garden at the festival was a HUGE hit with attendees.
Ultimately, this coordination stuff was small potatoes for a Centerfest weekend that was amazingly triumphant.
A grateful thank you to all of the Centerfest VOLUNTEERS!!!
Remember the Durham Arts Council runs this thing with a full-time staff of less than ten.2
The crowds in the streets were delighted. The festival was a hit. Without exception, everyone we asked felt a tremendous surge of Durham pride. There is a reason why, nationwide, they are mentioning our culture, our arts, our music, our innovators in the same sentence with the cities that led the 90's, Seattle, and the 00's, Austin.
In a demonstration of just how deep our culture runs, while thousands were jamming the streets3 to enjoy the 38th annual Centerfest, we heard rave reviews and tales of a packed house, at the simultaneously scheduled opening of The Cookery's Front Room.
Notes
1Our apologies for continually mistweeting your name.
2The Clarion Content says hip-hip hooray for and to Sherry DeVries, Margaret DeMott and Lindsay Gordon at the Durham Arts Council. Kudos to you ALL. It was fantastic.
3It should be duly noted, in large part due to rainy weather, Sunday's second day crowds were only about a third of the booming attendance on Saturday.
The Clarion Content's photobooth pictures will be up soon...
Special thanks to Dolly's Vintage for lending us the cool props that made it happen.
The Durham Arts Council press release reported over 24,000 folks attended the two day festival, a tremendous increase from the last few years when Centerfest had been shunted out of downtown, first to Durham's Central Park, and then relegated to the parking lot beyond the downtown YMCA.
This year the festival returned to the downtown loop. Traffic was blocked off. The streets were full. The mass of humanity on East and West Chapel Hill Streets in the middle of Saturday afternoon looked more like the Manhattan subway queue at rush hour than our Durham. The cultural renaissance is in full swing. But it beggars the question, and some of our long time Durham residents will have to help us here, when were the Durham streets last that full?
Your editor has lived in Durham a little over twelve years, and we have never seen that many people inside the downtown loop. We asked a variety of passers-by at the Clarion Content booth, but nobody had an answer. Dear readers, please do weigh-in, what event, what moment last saw downtown Durham packed with that many people? An estimated 17,000 on Saturday alone.
While you ponder that, we will try to hit some of the highlights of an amazing weekend, beyond the fabulous crowds of people, who were out reminding us how much Durham loves itself.
Of course, the visual artists were tremendous, 130 of them from across the state and around the country set up shop. Jean Yao, a basketweaver from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was selected by the Merit Award Judges as the Best in Show winner this year and presented with a $1,000 check. Melissa Lowery, a jeweler from Zebulon, NC, won the people's choice award.
The newly fashioned Creative Community expo was outstanding. It is one thing to hear that Durham is among America's best cities for start-ups and has one of its strongest creative communities, it is another to see it demonstrated en masse.
The Durham Arts Council deserves a lot of credit including this important element of our town's cultural depth. We met Plastibot, a company run by Luis Freeman, which has developed an amazing three-dimensional printing technique using extruded plastics. They were making, right on the street, everything from bracelets to miniature statues from a printer. It was developed as an open source project, and Freeman told us the practical and scientific applications are nearly endless, including doing things like printing 3-D models of human organs from MRIs and other scans so that doctors can simulate surgery before they even begin to cut someone open.
We also re-met the folks from Organic Transit, who were rolling around in there wildly efficient vehicles. These Organic Transit Vehicles, or OTVs, are a new class of velomobile fusing solar power with elements from bicycle and car design. The Clarion Content will have full article coming soon from Ned Phillips. We heard that thirty new vehicles will be on the production line as of October.
We also got to talk to the people from Wanderful, who have in partnership with our friends over at Open Durham, created an app for exploring our downtown. As regular readers know, Open Durham is an amazing repository of Durham photos and Durham history. We were glad to see the word about this terrific website and founder, Gary Kueber, being spread further.
The music was also outstanding. Our booth was set-up just across from the main stage in Major the Bull's plaza so we got to groove all weekend. In the middle of Saturday afternoon, with a wall to wall audience, Peter Lamb & the Wolves had us all swaying to their funky tunes. They are veteran Durham musicians, led by front man Stephen Coffman, with other names you know from Durham's The Beast, and the sweet, dulcet tones of The Art of Cool's Al Strong.
Saturday evening was capped by local Durham sensations, LiLa, who had crowds of young and old dancing to their Durham themed hip-hop~ska fusion. Folks were, as is the norm at LiLa's shows, quite literally jumping up and down as they belted out a chorus of, "Hip-hip, hooray!" Were we celebrating the band? The festival? Durham? It didn't matter, joyful delirium reigned.
Also noticeably well-received by the crowds was a Saturday morning performance by The Durham Jazz Orchestra and a Sunday morning jaunt from the Freylach Time Klezmer Band, who began wishing the crowd a joyful, La Shana Tova and ended with ecstatic dancing in the plaza.
Of course, the Young People's Performing Company was a hit. Though years and years of Centerfest, the YPPC has been a constant and an incubator of talent. Many of the twenty and thirty-somethings at the forefront of this Durham cultural renaissance did time in the YPPC in their formative years. The enthusiasm for their performances remains as high as ever.
And the Bouncing Bulldogs1, blew people away as the crowd surrounding them in Major the Bull's plaza got deeper and deeper. It is no coincidence that the sign reads, "World Champions" on the side of their gym. Watch for five minutes and you knew you were in the presence of world-class talent. These jump ropers hopped, leaped, back-flipped, break-danced, did combos with two, three, four, even six people simultaneously. Cirque du Soleil has nothing on these kids.
Keep in mind as this litany goes on and on, all of this was available for a $5 donation!!!
If there was any criticism the Clarion Content could offer of this fantastic event, it would be that coordination with local merchants, especially the restaurants could have been a little better. More than once, we were asked by out-towners, or maybe folks who live out in the burbclaves around Southpoint, where to eat. This was while we were surrounded by the Durham restaurant scene that is being written up everywhere from the New York Post to the Boston Globe.
Perhaps instead of trying to sell local businesses on sponsorship, next year the Durham Arts Council can sell the restaurants on a being in separate map page of the Centerfest festival's guide. Said guide, while a great way to find the visual artists and figure out the band's schedules, hardly mentioned the restaurants, who could have been featured and maybe even sold ads. The restaurateurs we spoke with still enjoyed bang-up sales weekends. The beer garden at the festival was a HUGE hit with attendees.
Ultimately, this coordination stuff was small potatoes for a Centerfest weekend that was amazingly triumphant.
A grateful thank you to all of the Centerfest VOLUNTEERS!!!
Remember the Durham Arts Council runs this thing with a full-time staff of less than ten.2
The crowds in the streets were delighted. The festival was a hit. Without exception, everyone we asked felt a tremendous surge of Durham pride. There is a reason why, nationwide, they are mentioning our culture, our arts, our music, our innovators in the same sentence with the cities that led the 90's, Seattle, and the 00's, Austin.
In a demonstration of just how deep our culture runs, while thousands were jamming the streets3 to enjoy the 38th annual Centerfest, we heard rave reviews and tales of a packed house, at the simultaneously scheduled opening of The Cookery's Front Room.
Notes
1Our apologies for continually mistweeting your name.
2The Clarion Content says hip-hip hooray for and to Sherry DeVries, Margaret DeMott and Lindsay Gordon at the Durham Arts Council. Kudos to you ALL. It was fantastic.
3It should be duly noted, in large part due to rainy weather, Sunday's second day crowds were only about a third of the booming attendance on Saturday.
Labels: Art, Durham, music, Pop Culture, technology
Thursday, September 13, 2012
The Escapist Expo: Durham’s Geek Cred on Display
The Escapist Expo: Durham’s Geek Cred on
Display
by: BETH MANDEL
People often talk about Durham becoming
the next Austin, Brooklyn, Seattle or Portland.
When doing so, they point to the fact that you can get coffee delivered to you by bike, that we have a thriving local food scene, and that we have three of our own breweries. They talk about our up and coming
fashion scene, our amazing hip-hop artists and sculpture artists, our
zero
commission gallery, and our abundance
of hipster bars. All of these elements
are indubitably required, part of the irreducible cultural stew that constitutes
a “hip city.” In Durham, we pride ourselves on this mix: a little pinch of
this, a little dash of that, some basics, some stock, a few surprises and voila, delicious outcomes.
Despite all this Durham pride, one ingredient that rarely manages to make the limelight is our thriving gaming
culture. As geek becomes more the norm
than the outlier for youth, the cities where the next generation chooses to
settle and build their lives (and the resultant economies) will definitely need
things like game development and computing jobs, geek culture, and access to
games (both to purchase and play with others).
And Durham is growing gaming culture in spades.
If you’re looking for proof, just check
out this weekend’s upcoming Escapist Expo
– the first gaming convention of its kind to make Durham home, hosted by
TheEscapist.com.
In addition to panels featuring some of our amazing local game development talent like InsomniacGames, Dice Hate Me, and Epic Games, as well as local geek culture connoisseurs like Wired Magazine’s “Geek Dad” writer Michael Harrison, Escapist Expo is also importing some of the best participants from the broader US and overseas. WotC D&D creative manager James Wyatt will be among the speakers, as will our favorite fellows from north of the border Graham and Paul, and Escapist fan favorite limey Yahtzee Croshaw. We even hear tell that one of the creators of Boardgamegeek.com will be attending.
In addition to panels featuring some of our amazing local game development talent like InsomniacGames, Dice Hate Me, and Epic Games, as well as local geek culture connoisseurs like Wired Magazine’s “Geek Dad” writer Michael Harrison, Escapist Expo is also importing some of the best participants from the broader US and overseas. WotC D&D creative manager James Wyatt will be among the speakers, as will our favorite fellows from north of the border Graham and Paul, and Escapist fan favorite limey Yahtzee Croshaw. We even hear tell that one of the creators of Boardgamegeek.com will be attending.
In this humble writer’s opinion, some don’t
miss panels include Friday’s “Building Worlds in RPGs,” “Everything You Wanted
to Know About D&D Next,” and the sure to be entertaining “Return of the
Sequel 2.”
On Saturday, there are several great panels lined up that cater to specific audiences, such as “How to Run a Small Gaming Business” and “Crowdfunding Revolution” as well as “Raising Geek Kids.”
And lest you think there are no panels for mere geeks and not gamers, think about checking out “Publishing Science Fiction and the Internet” or “Cosplay Tips”, the latter of which is sure to have some of the best dressed attendees showing off their creations.
On Saturday, there are several great panels lined up that cater to specific audiences, such as “How to Run a Small Gaming Business” and “Crowdfunding Revolution” as well as “Raising Geek Kids.”
And lest you think there are no panels for mere geeks and not gamers, think about checking out “Publishing Science Fiction and the Internet” or “Cosplay Tips”, the latter of which is sure to have some of the best dressed attendees showing off their creations.
Beyond panels, activities on offer
include an outdoor laser tag arena, the famed American Classic Arcade Museum
from Laconia, NH, a cosplay contest, console tournaments, and tons of freeplay
areas for all manner of tabletop games, be they RPGs, boards, or cards.
There’s something for everyone, so
Durhamanians (and all North Carolinians) are highly encouraged to attend! Help
the geek and gamer culture of our area keep growing!
See more at their official website Escapist Expo.
See more at their official website Escapist Expo.
And stay tuned, we’ll be back on Sunday, in these pages with full
coverage and tons of pics, so cosplayers in particular keep an eye out for us
all weekend!
Labels: Durham, Pop Culture, technology
What you need to know about the new iPhone 5!
Special to the Clarion Content from guest columnist, Neil Berman, Helper-in-Chief at TheONbutton Computer and Technology Services.
The new iPhone 5 will be available for pre-order on September 14. Here's what you need to know about Apple's latest iPhone:
Weight loss challenge
The iPhone 5 is lighter than the 4S while offering more battery life. Expect the iPhone 5 to look shinier than the 4S due to the new manufacturing techniques used in its glass and metal construction.
I can see clearly now
The screen on the iPhone 5 has grown to 4 inches compared to 3.5 inches on the 4S. It's still a retina screen, which means unmatched text and image precision.
Brainpower
The main brain of the iPhone 5 is twice as fast as that of the 4S, so it should react faster to your finger presses.
Speaking of snapping...
The rear camera has been improved and the front facing camera now offers HD video capture for more detailed FaceTime calls.
Dock connector
As expected, the iPhone 5 has a new dock connector. It can be conneted to older 30 pin iPhone and iPad accessories using an adapter. Dedicated iPhone 5 accessories, like speaker docks, are likely to hit the shelves in time for the Holiday Season.
Listen up!
Earbud are out, earpods are in. Apple has redesigned its famous white headphones to make them more comfortable.
Cell networks
Verizon, AT&T and Sprint will all get the iPhone 5, and it will now offer 4G LTE data speeds where available.
I'm reaching for my wallet...what's the damage?
The iPhone 5 ranges from $199 to $399 depending on storage capacity. The 4S will drop to $99 and the 4 will be free. The 3GS is history. All prices are based on a new two-year contract.
How do I get one?
Pre-orders in the US for the iPhone 5 start on Friday September 14 and the first batch should be delivered on September 21, which is when the iPhone 5 will be available in stores.
Click here to read the original article at TheONbutton.
Neil Berman, Helper-in-Chief, TheONbutton
Labels: technology
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Smart Couponed
Your editor is a devout Ben & Jerry's consumer. It is Chocolate Fudge Brownie every single time without fail when the old ice cream bug strikes, which is mas o menos weekly.
Tonight for the first time in eons, they were out. Careful searching was performed, there were indeed multiple rows of Peanut Butter Cup, it was not that somebody had moved a container over and blocked the Chocolate Fudge Brownie row. Nor was it hidden behind the nearly frost covered Boston Cream Pie in the nether reaches of the top shelf.
Thus well and truly denied, your editor moved on to the rarely used, in fact not pulled out of the bag in as many as three years, back-up plan. (Note: Ben & Jerry's stocker inventory person must be pretty good, though one might safely wager Chocolate Fudge Brownie1 is one of the topselling flavors.)
The back-up plan is Haagen-Dazs plain chocolate, a rich and creamy concoction in its own right.
Off to the self-check to ring out. Where, lo and behold, no sooner than the ice cream had been scanned and the VIC card had been run, a Haagen-Dazs $1.00 off coupon printed out. How very quick of those data storing, data mining, monkeys monitoring our purchases. After 120 consecutive pints of Ben & Jerry's, our fair customer tries Haagen-Dazs. Let us make sure we reward him and encourage him to come back with a $1.00 coupon good all the way though November. Smart. Shady, but smart.
Notes
1Let the record show although this keeps coming up every time we google one of these Ben & Jerry's flavors, we really had no idea it was going down like that, no pun intended.
Tonight for the first time in eons, they were out. Careful searching was performed, there were indeed multiple rows of Peanut Butter Cup, it was not that somebody had moved a container over and blocked the Chocolate Fudge Brownie row. Nor was it hidden behind the nearly frost covered Boston Cream Pie in the nether reaches of the top shelf.
Thus well and truly denied, your editor moved on to the rarely used, in fact not pulled out of the bag in as many as three years, back-up plan. (Note: Ben & Jerry's stocker inventory person must be pretty good, though one might safely wager Chocolate Fudge Brownie1 is one of the topselling flavors.)
The back-up plan is Haagen-Dazs plain chocolate, a rich and creamy concoction in its own right.
Off to the self-check to ring out. Where, lo and behold, no sooner than the ice cream had been scanned and the VIC card had been run, a Haagen-Dazs $1.00 off coupon printed out. How very quick of those data storing, data mining, monkeys monitoring our purchases. After 120 consecutive pints of Ben & Jerry's, our fair customer tries Haagen-Dazs. Let us make sure we reward him and encourage him to come back with a $1.00 coupon good all the way though November. Smart. Shady, but smart.
Notes
1Let the record show although this keeps coming up every time we google one of these Ben & Jerry's flavors, we really had no idea it was going down like that, no pun intended.
Labels: food, technology
Monday, September 03, 2012
Interesting Links
It is the return of an old school Clarion Content feature, Interesting Links and Links of Interest. You know, just in case you had not found enough ways to waste time on the inter-webs yourself. We have a few more places to kick it, read something you did not know, see something you had not seen, maybe get a laugh.
To see old Interesting Links posts click here and scroll down past this one.
Our first two links are about transit. We were going to go with a good news/bad news dichotomy. So what do you want first? The good news or the bad news?
Presuming in favor of your innate optimism, we are going to go with the good news first. India’s Tata Motors is working on a revolutionary new car, the Airpod. It runs on air. No kidding. It is part of Tata's line of super cheap nano cars that they hope to market and sell all over the less developed parts of the globe. They are built with pneumatic motors that use pressurized air to drive pistons. In May, the motor giant announced that it had completed the “first phase” of the Airpod cars, successfully testing out the engines in two vehicles. Its tank can hold 175 liters of air. Filling it up will cost about a dollar and get you 125 miles. Awesome!
Read the whole story here. Special thanks to a young reader from Pennsylvania for sending this our way.
The next transportation story is not such a happy one. But, it is important, especially if you are wondering why America doesn't have diddly for high speed rail, while all kinds of other countries do.1
It is the same corruption, bureaucratic raj and systemic morass that is dragging down the rest of our economy. Stephen Smith offers up a fabulous expose in Bloomberg News. Here are a few of the nuggets. If the first segment of Manhattan’s Second Avenue subway opens on the current schedule in 2016, it will have only taken seventy-five years to get'er done. (Not a typo.) Smith says on average American mass transit projects cost as much as five times as much as similar work in Europe and Asia.2
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is spending $3.8 billion on a single subway station at the World Trade Center designed by Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish architect known for his costly projects. If New York could build subways at the prices that Paris and Tokyo pay, $3.8 billion would be enough to build the entire Second Avenue subway, from Harlem to the Financial District.---Bloomberg
Our next link falls more into the "What's grosser than gross category?"
Answer? Winning one of those storage wars, bidding on abandoned, rent unpaid storage units, and finding a stash of crudely preserved human organs inside, including hearts, brains and lungs, as a guy did in Pensacola, Florida last week. Most of the body parts found were not labeled, including a heart found in 32oz convenience store cup filled with formaldehyde. The AP reports the previous owner of the storage unit was Dr. Michael Berkland who worked for the state of Florida as a medical examiner. Find the rest of the story here. (Icky.)
The next one is actually an NPR story featuring a regular Clarion Content contributor, Storey Clayton, author and illustrator of Duck and Cover, director of the website The Blue Pyramid and in his day job, the Rutgers University debate coach.
In this article, he and Cornell University director of forensics, Sam Nelson break down the five most common argumentative fallacies likely to be seen this campaign season: Argumentum ad verecundiam, the appeal to authority, post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning "After this, therefore because of this..." the familiar, argumentum ad hominem, "name-calling," and the rest of the lot.
In each case, they include explanations of what they mean, why they often work and an example from both presidential candidates. It is funny and an eye-opener. Read the whole story here.
One final one to blow you away. In case the military-industrial complex had drifted out of your subconscious; this will snap you back. Check out this article about the newest nano-drones from Lockheed Martin.
Notes
1No, you can't simply keep blaming President Obama. It is more nuanced than that.
2The French rail operator SNCF told the California High-Speed Rail Authority that it could cut $30 billion off the project’s $68 billion estimated price tag!!! Repeat, the French.
Labels: Ethically questionable, infrastructure, interesting links, Politics, Pop Culture, technology
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
What we have heard, July 2012
We heard...
that the NC Cow Parade and Round up will hit Durham with as many as 100 life sized cows on August 18th...
We heard...
that all newer cellphone pictures have location embedded in the meta-data that accompanies the photo file, and that this information is what made Instagram so valuable to Facebook...
We heard...
that Matt Kelly's new tapas place, Mateo's is getting ever closer to open in the old Book Exchange location...
We heard...
that there is a new stop light going in at Hope Valley Road and Cornwallis Road, near Foster's Market and Guglhmpf...
We heard...
that Outsiders Two is opening in August...
We heard...
that Shalom Educating for Peace, a Durham connected Rwanda based NGO, was awarded a Global Peacemaking Award from the International Public Policy Institute...
We heard...
that a new farmer's market has opened in South Durham... in the Greenwood Commons Shopping Center, #5410 NC55, Durham, Saturdays year-round from 8AM---12PM
Please email corrections, clarifications, rants and denials to clarioncontent at gmail dot com
We cannot guarantee everything we hear is true. But we promise you, if we write it, we heard it---and you didn't say, please don't print it.
Labels: Durham, food, heard, technology
Monday, July 30, 2012
Durham Culture dot com
The Durham Arts Council and Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau have partnered with EverWondr, an online events network, to produce a fabulous new events calendar of Durham Arts and Culture. It will be at www.DurhamCulture.com.
Those of you familiar with the clunky old calendar will fall out of your chairs at the difference and improvements. The imagery is dynamic and appealing. The style is classier, much more becoming of a city experiencing the cultural renaissance that Durham is. The event submission process is supposed to be considerably easier, too.
The Durham Arts Council is sponsoring a training session this coming Monday, 6pm at the Arts Council on Morris Street, to teach artists to learn how to use the calendar for themselves. It is an incredibly powerful tool. RSVP for the free session here.
Durham Culture.com allows members of the arts community to host a free webpage where they can post contact information, upcoming events and images, as well as audio and video clips of their work. This kind of centralized locus for information about the Durham Arts community is an excellent guerrilla marketing opportunity for those who might not otherwise have the budget to create a website or the drawing power that the collective assemblage will.
Of course, as with any calendar, the massive task is keeping it up-to-date.1 The Durham Culture dot com calendar fights that battle through crowdsourcing. If anyone and everyone can post to the Durham Arts and Culture calendar, then the responsibility for keeping it updated falls to the community collectively.
How very Durham of us.
Notes
1We fight the battle here with our own calendar.
Those of you familiar with the clunky old calendar will fall out of your chairs at the difference and improvements. The imagery is dynamic and appealing. The style is classier, much more becoming of a city experiencing the cultural renaissance that Durham is. The event submission process is supposed to be considerably easier, too.
The Durham Arts Council is sponsoring a training session this coming Monday, 6pm at the Arts Council on Morris Street, to teach artists to learn how to use the calendar for themselves. It is an incredibly powerful tool. RSVP for the free session here.
Durham Culture.com allows members of the arts community to host a free webpage where they can post contact information, upcoming events and images, as well as audio and video clips of their work. This kind of centralized locus for information about the Durham Arts community is an excellent guerrilla marketing opportunity for those who might not otherwise have the budget to create a website or the drawing power that the collective assemblage will.
Of course, as with any calendar, the massive task is keeping it up-to-date.1 The Durham Culture dot com calendar fights that battle through crowdsourcing. If anyone and everyone can post to the Durham Arts and Culture calendar, then the responsibility for keeping it updated falls to the community collectively.
How very Durham of us.
Notes
1We fight the battle here with our own calendar.
Labels: Art, Durham, technology
Monday, July 23, 2012
Did You See Me Catch that Foul Ball?
Long time readers know how the Clarion Content has a hankering for good guest columnists whenever and where ever we can get one. In fact, we are getting ready to introduce two such features when we debut the new blog format.
We will be running a "Vox Populi" reader submitted column, on any topic you would like. Amaze, delight, shock our audience. We dare you. And similarly, we will be accepting your Durham picture submissions for a special regular feature.
Our guest writer, today, is a fiction raconteur who fancies this popular new format of the moment, called flash fiction. A brief bit of razzle-dazzle and you're done is their modus operandi, super short fiction.
In this piece, our guest author has seized upon one of the Clarion Content's favorite topics, baseball. A flash fiction piece about baseball in the future, we know, we know, you all are already probably thinking: no umpires, electronic scorekeeping, et cetera. This author strikes out in a totally different direction.
Did You See Me Catch that Foul Ball?
by: A. I. Wright
I work for a company that sells clips of people who catch foul balls. They make good money.
We have the interns record and then electronically mark the telecast of every Major League Baseball game each time a fan catches a foul ball and their face is visible for at least two seconds. Surveys have shown most people won't buy unless their face is on for two seconds.
Then, thanks to some excellent facial recognition software and a little data mining deal with one of the big secondary ticket broker sites, pennies per name, we are able to email them an offer to purchase the clip. We will upload it on-line to our site, licensed by MLB, for one fee or we will email them a video file for a slightly larger fee.
You would be amazed how many foul balls there are in fifteen Major League Baseball games a night. Unfortunately, on a lot of them, we don't get the money shot. Next year, we are not only going to get the telecast feed, but the game film from all the other camera angles, too. It should double or triple the available number of clips, and thus revenue.
Cha-ching.
The sublime part is most people don't even ask these days how you connected the foul ball footage to their email address to make them the offer. And ninety-eight percent of those that do ask, we are able to put off with a simple, "Your tickets."
What a wonderful world.
We will be running a "Vox Populi" reader submitted column, on any topic you would like. Amaze, delight, shock our audience. We dare you. And similarly, we will be accepting your Durham picture submissions for a special regular feature.
Our guest writer, today, is a fiction raconteur who fancies this popular new format of the moment, called flash fiction. A brief bit of razzle-dazzle and you're done is their modus operandi, super short fiction.
In this piece, our guest author has seized upon one of the Clarion Content's favorite topics, baseball. A flash fiction piece about baseball in the future, we know, we know, you all are already probably thinking: no umpires, electronic scorekeeping, et cetera. This author strikes out in a totally different direction.
Did You See Me Catch that Foul Ball?
by: A. I. Wright
I work for a company that sells clips of people who catch foul balls. They make good money.
We have the interns record and then electronically mark the telecast of every Major League Baseball game each time a fan catches a foul ball and their face is visible for at least two seconds. Surveys have shown most people won't buy unless their face is on for two seconds.
Then, thanks to some excellent facial recognition software and a little data mining deal with one of the big secondary ticket broker sites, pennies per name, we are able to email them an offer to purchase the clip. We will upload it on-line to our site, licensed by MLB, for one fee or we will email them a video file for a slightly larger fee.
You would be amazed how many foul balls there are in fifteen Major League Baseball games a night. Unfortunately, on a lot of them, we don't get the money shot. Next year, we are not only going to get the telecast feed, but the game film from all the other camera angles, too. It should double or triple the available number of clips, and thus revenue.
Cha-ching.
The sublime part is most people don't even ask these days how you connected the foul ball footage to their email address to make them the offer. And ninety-eight percent of those that do ask, we are able to put off with a simple, "Your tickets."
What a wonderful world.
Labels: fiction, Guest columns, technology
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Interesting Links return
The Clarion Content loves to turn to our interesting links posts when something crosses our desk that we don't have time to examine in a full article. We appreciate when you the readers send us, the cool, the interesting, the outlandish and the different. Check out old Interesting Links posts here (you will have to scroll down below this one).
For this week's edition, our initial link is of both scientific and historical significance. The first man made object in our recorded history is about to leave our solar system. Voyager 1 is about to be the first space craft in our time to enter interstellar space.
Voyager 1, a sixteen-hundred pound space probe launched by NASA and Cal Tech in 1977, is now 11.1 billion miles from Earth and entering the heliosheath, the outer most edge of the solar system. Read the whole story here at The Bunsen Burner.
Next up, something a bit more low tech, but equally unbelievable. Token sucking. That's right, you read that correctly, token sucking. We saw this on William Gibson's Twitter feed. Gibson is a favorite Clarion Content author. His Neuromancer is just as ground breaking and dramatic today as it was twenty-five years ago.
Token sucking is an old school crime according to the New York Times, fortunately/unfortunately, it is over, as the New York Subway System eliminated the last of its physical tokens about eight, nine years past. Token sucking works like something like this,
Following about as low tech a crime as we have heard in some while, we have a couple of high tech tip links for you. First, "Five Killer Strategies for Brands Engagement on Pinterest and Linked-In" from Social Media Today. So many companies are wondering what they should do with their social media presence once they sign on, here are some good suggestions.
The second tech article from Kathleen Holmlund, a digital media strategist, dissects search engine optimization techniques for your Word Press site. If you use Word Press, it is worth the read. Check it out here.
Finally, even the main stream Man has gotten wind of crowdsourcing. The Economist breaks it down here with a take from the staid business world that is fascinating for its more measured, reasoned take that stands in strong contrast with the hyperbolic fan-dom on crowdsourcing which often simply assumes, a priori that it is paradigm changing.
For this week's edition, our initial link is of both scientific and historical significance. The first man made object in our recorded history is about to leave our solar system. Voyager 1 is about to be the first space craft in our time to enter interstellar space.
Voyager 1, a sixteen-hundred pound space probe launched by NASA and Cal Tech in 1977, is now 11.1 billion miles from Earth and entering the heliosheath, the outer most edge of the solar system. Read the whole story here at The Bunsen Burner.
Next up, something a bit more low tech, but equally unbelievable. Token sucking. That's right, you read that correctly, token sucking. We saw this on William Gibson's Twitter feed. Gibson is a favorite Clarion Content author. His Neuromancer is just as ground breaking and dramatic today as it was twenty-five years ago.
Token sucking is an old school crime according to the New York Times, fortunately/unfortunately, it is over, as the New York Subway System eliminated the last of its physical tokens about eight, nine years past. Token sucking works like something like this,
"The criminal carefully jams the token slot with a matchbook or a gum wrapper and waits for a would-be rider to plunk a token down. The token plunker bangs against the locked turnstile and walks away in frustration. Then from the shadows, the token sucker appears like a vampire, quickly sealing his lips over the token slot, inhaling powerfully and producing his prize: a $1.50 token..."Wild. And that was before the Great Recession. Read the whole article here.
Following about as low tech a crime as we have heard in some while, we have a couple of high tech tip links for you. First, "Five Killer Strategies for Brands Engagement on Pinterest and Linked-In" from Social Media Today. So many companies are wondering what they should do with their social media presence once they sign on, here are some good suggestions.
The second tech article from Kathleen Holmlund, a digital media strategist, dissects search engine optimization techniques for your Word Press site. If you use Word Press, it is worth the read. Check it out here.
Finally, even the main stream Man has gotten wind of crowdsourcing. The Economist breaks it down here with a take from the staid business world that is fascinating for its more measured, reasoned take that stands in strong contrast with the hyperbolic fan-dom on crowdsourcing which often simply assumes, a priori that it is paradigm changing.
Labels: economics, interesting links, Politics, Pop Culture, technology
Monday, June 25, 2012
Alan Turing's Birthday
It was the late, great, Alan Turing's birthday this weekend. Turing was a polymath and a genius from whose mind spawned the connection to binary logic that enabled the computer to move from concept to reality. He made computers happen. Turing also contributed the test that is still used to determine artificial or machine intelligence.1 He broke the Axis's secret codes and helped turn the tide of World War II. He paved the way mathematically for both chaos and complexity theory.
My what British teeth you have, Dr. Turing...
Tragically, one of the great minds of the 20th century was hounded and harassed until his untimely death at the age of only forty-two. Don't let anyone tell you that prejudice is anything but societal self-sabotage.2 Read some of what this man accomplished and ask yourself what else he might have done for the world if he hadn't been stigmatized, derided and attacked for his sexuality.
Inane.
Gay is not an insult.
Notes
1At the Clarion Content this weekend, we saw another great example of how machine intelligence fails to match human intelligence at the most fundamental levels. Shazam, one of our favorite iPhone apps, struggles with classical music recognition. Shazam is genius when it comes to looking up pop tunes. Hold your phone up to the music playing and it can identify the artist and title track almost every time. But it is not intelligent like a human, it does not recognize tunes. Classical music kicks its proverbial butt.
For example, the ditty playing is the 1812 Overture, if Shazam knows that particular version by that particular orchestra, bam, it has your back and can identify it just like a top-40 tune: the 1812 Overture by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
But if it does not know that recording, it is not intelligent like a human, it does not know the tune. It cannot say, well, that is the 1812 Overture or Beethoven's 5th Symphony, even though I, Shazam, can't identify who is playing it, the music, the notes are quite familiar. No, for the binary machine it is all or nothing. No nuance. No AI.
2Prejudice is societal self-sabotage.
My what British teeth you have, Dr. Turing...
Tragically, one of the great minds of the 20th century was hounded and harassed until his untimely death at the age of only forty-two. Don't let anyone tell you that prejudice is anything but societal self-sabotage.2 Read some of what this man accomplished and ask yourself what else he might have done for the world if he hadn't been stigmatized, derided and attacked for his sexuality.
Inane.
Gay is not an insult.
Notes
1At the Clarion Content this weekend, we saw another great example of how machine intelligence fails to match human intelligence at the most fundamental levels. Shazam, one of our favorite iPhone apps, struggles with classical music recognition. Shazam is genius when it comes to looking up pop tunes. Hold your phone up to the music playing and it can identify the artist and title track almost every time. But it is not intelligent like a human, it does not recognize tunes. Classical music kicks its proverbial butt.
For example, the ditty playing is the 1812 Overture, if Shazam knows that particular version by that particular orchestra, bam, it has your back and can identify it just like a top-40 tune: the 1812 Overture by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
But if it does not know that recording, it is not intelligent like a human, it does not know the tune. It cannot say, well, that is the 1812 Overture or Beethoven's 5th Symphony, even though I, Shazam, can't identify who is playing it, the music, the notes are quite familiar. No, for the binary machine it is all or nothing. No nuance. No AI.
2Prejudice is societal self-sabotage.
Labels: Ethically questionable, science, technology
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Summer Tech Tips
Special to the Clarion Content from guest columnist, Neil Berman, Helper-in-Chief at TheONbutton.
Summer's coming y'all! The weather is warming up nicely here, so here are my Summer technology tips to help you get the most out of your vacation, or staycation...
"Honey I forgot to print the flight confirmation!!" Don't worry, it's probably in an email on your smartphone, along with your hotel confirmation, rental car details, camera app, music collection, newspaper app, weather app, sudoku game...and phone app (yes phones still make phone calls!). Your smartphone needs juice to keep your Summer running smoothly! Invest in a portable charger because Great Lakes, national parks and beaches are notoriously lacking in wall outlets. Here's a solar model which can charge all manner of fancy gadgets. Other models charge up a portable battery from a wall outlet or an in-car charger. Approximately $20-50 from various retailers.
Oh how we miss CD multiplayers! You could spend a whole afternoon programming it with a playlist of music from five CDs before a party! Fortunately Apple gave us Airplay which will play a playlist from iTunes on your computer to every room in your home. One of the specialities at TheONbutton is setting up AirPlay enabled homes; it's the simplest, most reliable and cost-effective way to get wireless music throughout your home. Plus you'll wow your friends when you pull out your iPhone or iPad to control your entire music collection. All you need is iTunes, a $99 Apple AirPlay music receiver in each room connected to speakers. An iPhone, iPod touch or iPad acts as the remote control. Get in touch for more info.
Hmmm...technology and the great outdoors don't always mix so well. Dust, sunlight and soda spills are all bad news for our favorite laptop! Fear not, fresh air fans can still enjoy working outdoors with a rugged laptop that is designed to have a daylight readable screen, be more resilient to the elements and withstand the occasional minor drop to the floor. In fact that also sounds perfect for families with small children! Check out Dell's Latitude ATG range, which is a hardened nature-ready version of Dell's popular Latitude E6420 laptop. You can even boast to friends that it meets military specs for dust, temperature and other environmental tolerances.
In my recent talk at the Chapel Hill Leads Group about safeguarding data, "Sleep Well At Night", I held up a small Lenovo ThinkPad pin-pad protected backup drive. A great feature of this external hard drive is that its contents are always encrypted and easily accessible without the need for special software. It also has a built-in USB cable and travel pouch for convenience. A good choice if you like to carry a copy of important files when away from home or work. If it gets lost or stolen, then the only way it can be used is if someone reinitializes the drive, which will cause the contents to be completely wiped. Neat. Lenovo ThinkPad 750GB Secure USB hard drive, $199.99 from Lenovo.
Neil Berman is the owner of TheONbutton in Durham, which helps clients with computers, websites, smartphones and audio-visual technology at home and at work. Neil founded TheONbutton because he loves technology and understands that not everyone feels the same way! Neil previously spent twelve years in the corporate IT industry with Deloitte, Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank. TheONbutton serves business and residential clients across the Triangle area and can be reached at 919-695-3899 or by email at contact@theonbutton.com.
Summer's coming y'all! The weather is warming up nicely here, so here are my Summer technology tips to help you get the most out of your vacation, or staycation...
Don't let your smartphone lose its mojo
AirPlay: The new CD changer for Summer parties
If you can't go on vacation, work outdoors
Backup your data, especially before traveling
Labels: Guest columns, technology
Friday, May 25, 2012
Facebook, it's all good
Wait, what, Facebook sucks?
Like no way. I can't believe it.
All right, extract us from our dreamy Valley persona and perhaps we can believe Facebook stinks, after all we have been writing about the ways they have been screwing their users for years. As the Los Angeles Times notes, "[Facebook has] what is widely regarded as the world's largest cache of personal data — a treasure trove for businesses looking to reach their ideal customers."
Your info is for sale.
Unfortunately for investors in Facebook, the company has not figured out how to make money on all that data it owns. As the Wall Street Journal notes, "[Facebook] revenue fell 6% in the first quarter. Profit fell 32%. [2012]" As any Facebook user can tell you, no one clicks through on the ads. Corporate America, still slowly extracting their heads from their proverbial bums, is just coming to terms with this reality. General Motors recently pulled all of its ads from Facebook, saying it wasn't seeing a return on its investment. A recent AP/CNBC poll found 57% of Facebook users say they never click on ads or other sponsored content and another 26% said they hardly ever click through ads.1
And when the Facebook posse fishes for ways beyond traditional advertising to exploit its massive network, nearly one billion users, it often ends up running afoul of the law.2 For example, Facebook is still trying to settle a lawsuit regarding what it called 'sponsored stories.'
Beginning in 2011, Facebook let brands pay to retransmit users' activities to their friends' pages. So that, if someone clicked the "like" button for a corporate brand, the activity would show up as a "sponsored story" on their Facebook friends' pages. Sued for using its account holders images and likeness for commercial activity without their permission, Facebook is settling out of court without admitting wrong doing reports The Seattle Times.
Facebook's anecdotal popularity could hardly be lower among our peer group. Witness the hue and cry when Facebook bought popular photosharing service Instagram. The instantaneous reaction was, 'that sucks' and 'say goodbye to Instagram' and 'sh*t, how do I take my photos down.' The polling data backs up what we are hearing, the same AP/CNBC poll we cited above found 59% of respondents said that they had little to no trust in Facebook to keep their information private.
Facebook's fastest growing demographic of users is now the least technologically savvy, old people. It is rapidly gaining users in the fifty plus age set. And as we know, nothing makes something 'uncool' to youth than a bunch of old folks digging on it.
Facebook's footprint is far too big for it to go away completely, or even to collapse like MySpace, but it would not surprise the Clarion Content at all to see it lumbering down the dead end paths to irrelevance followed by the likes of once untouchable internet behemoths AOL and Yahoo.
As we have stated many times before, it is our contention that the internet's primary purpose is not simply to be a better sales tool than television.
The historical pattern on the internet3 has been when an organization tries to disguise its intentions, yet its ultimate and evident goal is 'Sell, sell, sell,' users eventually react with distaste, moving on to nimbler, more entertaining, less fiscally obtrusive sites that have likely yet to figure out their own revenue model; see Twitter, Pintrest, Tumblr, et al.
Facebook's huge public offering, the one that valued the company at upwards of $100 billion, marked a beginning all right, the beginning of its decline.45
Notes
1Not a math major, but 83% of your users hardly ever or never click through ads? What are you selling? The Brooklyn Bridge, you don't say...
2We are not referring to its monopolistic practices, although it is blatantly in violation of existing anti-trust laws in America.
3To date the internet has proved itself fairly well able to be lateral in its ability to adapt around and/or subvert existing hierarchies.
4They do have nearly a billion users so this fall may be glacial at first, but momentum in the internet age is a brutal leveler this is not the Roman Empire, Facebook's power is far more virtual.
5All predictions offered with heaping handfuls of salt.
Like no way. I can't believe it.
All right, extract us from our dreamy Valley persona and perhaps we can believe Facebook stinks, after all we have been writing about the ways they have been screwing their users for years. As the Los Angeles Times notes, "[Facebook has] what is widely regarded as the world's largest cache of personal data — a treasure trove for businesses looking to reach their ideal customers."
Your info is for sale.
Unfortunately for investors in Facebook, the company has not figured out how to make money on all that data it owns. As the Wall Street Journal notes, "[Facebook] revenue fell 6% in the first quarter. Profit fell 32%. [2012]" As any Facebook user can tell you, no one clicks through on the ads. Corporate America, still slowly extracting their heads from their proverbial bums, is just coming to terms with this reality. General Motors recently pulled all of its ads from Facebook, saying it wasn't seeing a return on its investment. A recent AP/CNBC poll found 57% of Facebook users say they never click on ads or other sponsored content and another 26% said they hardly ever click through ads.1
And when the Facebook posse fishes for ways beyond traditional advertising to exploit its massive network, nearly one billion users, it often ends up running afoul of the law.2 For example, Facebook is still trying to settle a lawsuit regarding what it called 'sponsored stories.'
Beginning in 2011, Facebook let brands pay to retransmit users' activities to their friends' pages. So that, if someone clicked the "like" button for a corporate brand, the activity would show up as a "sponsored story" on their Facebook friends' pages. Sued for using its account holders images and likeness for commercial activity without their permission, Facebook is settling out of court without admitting wrong doing reports The Seattle Times.
Facebook's anecdotal popularity could hardly be lower among our peer group. Witness the hue and cry when Facebook bought popular photosharing service Instagram. The instantaneous reaction was, 'that sucks' and 'say goodbye to Instagram' and 'sh*t, how do I take my photos down.' The polling data backs up what we are hearing, the same AP/CNBC poll we cited above found 59% of respondents said that they had little to no trust in Facebook to keep their information private.
Facebook's fastest growing demographic of users is now the least technologically savvy, old people. It is rapidly gaining users in the fifty plus age set. And as we know, nothing makes something 'uncool' to youth than a bunch of old folks digging on it.
Facebook's footprint is far too big for it to go away completely, or even to collapse like MySpace, but it would not surprise the Clarion Content at all to see it lumbering down the dead end paths to irrelevance followed by the likes of once untouchable internet behemoths AOL and Yahoo.
As we have stated many times before, it is our contention that the internet's primary purpose is not simply to be a better sales tool than television.
The historical pattern on the internet3 has been when an organization tries to disguise its intentions, yet its ultimate and evident goal is 'Sell, sell, sell,' users eventually react with distaste, moving on to nimbler, more entertaining, less fiscally obtrusive sites that have likely yet to figure out their own revenue model; see Twitter, Pintrest, Tumblr, et al.
Facebook's huge public offering, the one that valued the company at upwards of $100 billion, marked a beginning all right, the beginning of its decline.45
Notes
1Not a math major, but 83% of your users hardly ever or never click through ads? What are you selling? The Brooklyn Bridge, you don't say...
2We are not referring to its monopolistic practices, although it is blatantly in violation of existing anti-trust laws in America.
3To date the internet has proved itself fairly well able to be lateral in its ability to adapt around and/or subvert existing hierarchies.
4They do have nearly a billion users so this fall may be glacial at first, but momentum in the internet age is a brutal leveler this is not the Roman Empire, Facebook's power is far more virtual.
5All predictions offered with heaping handfuls of salt.
Labels: economics, Predictions, technology
Friday, April 13, 2012
Delete those Instagrams
Time to delete those Instagrams, dear readers. Instagram, a mobile phone to mobile phone picture sharing app, was bought by Facebook for a billion dollars this week. This means not only will Instagram's cuddly indie status go away. Right now, nobody sells Instagram's users' personal details to advertisers, but also that Facebook owns every photo you every put on Instagram in perpetuity.
Instagram has 30 million users, Facebook probably figured it was worth a billion dollars for the photos alone. Say goodbye to private photos.
Facebook is, of course, pandering to Instagram users' privacy concerns. But as Facebook users know, that is all it is, pandering and claptrap.
As NY Times tech blogger, Jenna Wortham, put it, "Its [Instagram's] ability to let its users delicately toe the line between public and private gave us a little breathing room from the all-pervasiveness of Facebook...The sale of Instagram brings a harsh reality into focus, the realization that the secret rooms or private spaces online where we can share, chit-chat and hang out with our friends are...next on the shopping list for a company like Google, Apple or Facebook."
Sad day, for social networking. At the Clarion Content, we are looking forward to the next lateral innovation around this monoliths.
Instagram has 30 million users, Facebook probably figured it was worth a billion dollars for the photos alone. Say goodbye to private photos.
Facebook is, of course, pandering to Instagram users' privacy concerns. But as Facebook users know, that is all it is, pandering and claptrap.
As NY Times tech blogger, Jenna Wortham, put it, "Its [Instagram's] ability to let its users delicately toe the line between public and private gave us a little breathing room from the all-pervasiveness of Facebook...The sale of Instagram brings a harsh reality into focus, the realization that the secret rooms or private spaces online where we can share, chit-chat and hang out with our friends are...next on the shopping list for a company like Google, Apple or Facebook."
Sad day, for social networking. At the Clarion Content, we are looking forward to the next lateral innovation around this monoliths.
Labels: photos, Pop Culture, technology, twitter
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The Heiress App-arent?
LA has never competed with Silicon Valley for dominance in the tech sphere. Which is why this LA-centered news is so puzzling. Apparently Lisa Brennan-Jobs, long denied daughter of Tech-God Steve Jobs briefly involved herself in Frequency, an LA startup that developed a video app for iPads. Given Lisa's potential connections to Apple itself, one wonders why she didn't just work with the Apple Mother Ship if she was interested in developing new software. Perhaps she took on this project to prove something to her deceased father? Perhaps she did it to claim some kind of family legacy?
Whatever the reason, it seems to contradict the little that we know of her. Take this account from Apple Insider:
When asked why she didn't follow Jobs' footsteps and pursue a field in computer science, Brennan-Jobs said that her father was lucky to have found something he truly loved that he could do 24 hours a day. She adds that Jobs dissuaded his children from entering the computer field because he saw that they were more multi-faceted, where Apple was a more "one-dimensional" endeavor for him.Perhaps this was something Lisa felt she needed to get out of her system. Perhaps she felt that this sort of intellectual exploration would lead her to learn more about herself. Perhaps this was a lark inspired by LA-based friends of Lisa's and her role wasn't particularly critical. Who knows? But, for the time being, Apple fans have a new Jobs-inspired toy they can look forward to.
"So he encouraged us to follow our dreams, [and] I had big shoes to fill if I wanted to go into science," Brennan-Jobs quips.
Download Link here-- http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/frequency/id465034728
Labels: Guest columns, Pop Culture, technology
Monday, February 27, 2012
Farmigo: Local farming hits Social Media
Launched a little over six months ago Farmigo is a sign-up platform for farmers to find local consumers, consumers to find local farmers and consumers to find each other. Like so many recent internet innovations, layers of middleman are removed in one feel swoop. It is peer-to-peer produce, if you will.
The idea for Farmigo is a social media platform for discovering, signing up for, and sharing Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) programs. CSAs are groups where enrolled members of the community agree with farmers to purchase a certain amount of produce, and then pick that food up at local dropoff points at regular intervals. For example, some CSA's in the Durham area deliver food to be picked up at the Farmer's Market. CSAs have been around for ages and the Clarion Content knows more than one person enrolled in such a program.
But as we understand it, the difficulty for both farmers and foodies has been the information bottleneck, finding each other. A little Google searching revealed a site where one can find North Carolina CSAs locally, see here. Farmigo plans to aggregate this information.
Who needs or wants more intermediaries between you and your food. Less middlemen, means less time on a truck, mean less gas used, means less pricey, and closer means fresher, too, all while supporting the local economy.
An interesting idea to be sure!
Farmigo operates with a similar methodology to Google search, information of available is increasing powerful and relevant as more people use the site.
Read more about it here.
Labels: Durham, food, technology
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
A social network for young Entrepreneurs
What's up next in social networking?
Every once in a while, you say something around the office, in the course of batting about ideas, and it catches fire. This is one of those cases. The Clarion Content's editor/publisher mentioned to our lead web programmer, and resident young genius, Javier Sandoval, that there is a dearth of professionalism in young people today, especially when it comes to networking.
We ruminated on how it seems odd for a generation tied to Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, but for all the socializing these kids do on the internet, they do not use it for traditional business networking and collaboration purposes. Sandoval, himself a mere seventeen, does not stand still when he hears a good suggestion.
He and his team are attempting to develop what they call a Linked-in for teenagers. They hope to develop a platform for young entrepreneurs to network, brainstorm, and collaborate. The tentative name is Pentaplate. They have submitted their idea to a Facebook based venture capital-seed money contest, The Next Teen Tycoon. The winners of a public vote receive $4,000 in start-up capital.
You can vote here at www.vote.pentaplate.com
Please do!
Voting continues through Friday, February 24th.
Labels: technology
