March 20, 2009

James Bridle's Tweetbook, two years of tweets as a hardcover book — someone should make this a service, also incorporating your Flickr photos and blog posts (via) #

Village Voice digs up saucy clips from Bill O'Reilly's audiobook — the dangers of recording an audiobook (via) #

Protovis, visualization toolkit with Javascript and Canvas — nice alternative to Google Charts API (via) #

NPR broadcast of Decemberists' new album debut at SXSW — it's out on iTunes and streaming free on Imeem #

Justin Mason on "Quoz," the FAIL of the 1870s — the entire chapter on urban slang in 19th century London is fascinating #

Mega Man 9 Rock Medley — expertly done, from the guy who made the 32 Songs in 8 Minutes medley #

Douglas Bowman explains his decision to leave Google — "I won't miss a design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data" #

March 19, 2009

NYT's visualization of newspaper circulation declines — only six papers grew in the last three years (via) #

Microsoft's Remembering Stuff About the Internet — IE8 promo asks comedians about the early web #

Craft by Ift, graphic demo running on a 20mhz microcontroller — generating real-time video and sound signals with a $3 chip #

Dan Meth's Sitcom Map of the USA — he also did an NYC-specific map (via) #

The Ocarina of Rhyme — hip-hop mashed up with the N64 Zelda soundtrack (via) #

Study finds creditworthiness can be gauged by physical appearance — they claim the original paper is the first academic study to use Mechanical Turk #

Overly Judgemental IE6 Splash Pages — "What does IE6 have in common with a Fleshlight?" (via) #

Google Chrome Experiments — showcase of impressive Javascript effects (via) #

NYT on the rise of mistrials from jurors' Internet usage — related: Ars interviewed the juror who used Twitter in the courtroom #

Paul Ford's six-word reviews of all 1,302 SXSW MP3s — interspersed with charts and other interesting trivia about the bands #

March 18, 2009

Is The Big Picture A Bummer Today? — Alan Taylor gave my favorite talk at SXSW #

ABC News' Charlie Gibson blames students, Google, and social media for newspaper's demise — addressing a room full of college journalists, he said Clay Shirky was "full of crap" #

March 17, 2009

Toby Barlow on artists moving into Detroit's $100 homes — I can totally imagine Detroit turning into a massive artist and net nomad collective (via) #

Gizmodo's guide to iPhone OS 3.0's new features — the biggest announcement of SXSW was in Cupertino #

Trent Reznor on the state of ticket reselling and scalping — Ticketmaster could easily prevent reselling, but they're happy to take a cut #

March 14, 2009

Clay Shirky on the death of newspapers and reinvention of journalism — the single best essay on the topic I've read #

March 13, 2009

Aardvark, social search over instant message — pipes questions to friends-of-friends; works surprisingly well in my initial test #

Foursquare launches with iPhone app — the spiritual successor to Dodgeball, but with game-like elements #

March 12, 2009

SXSW 2009 Twitter Visualizer — five different visualizations, but the real-time map is particularly nice (via) #

Hark! A Vagrant — Kate Beaton's new site for her history-inspired comics #

Anamaguchi's Dawn Metropolis — NES rock band's full album with 8-bit music videos for each song #

Washington Post's horrific article about infant deaths in hot cars — Pulitzer-Prize winner journalist looks at a uniquely modern tragedy, when a slip of memory becomes fatal #

AP interview outtakes with Ricky Gervais and Elmo on Sesame Street — they have the same laugh #

Wired's untold story of the world's largest diamond heist — after six years in prison, the mastermind told Joshua Davis his story for the first time #

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon's Bryan Binkman Experiment — 23,000 followers in 12 hours; pretty geeky for network TV, featuring Engadget on Monday and Diggnation last night #

March 11, 2009

Techcrunch on Grand Central's relaunch as Google Voice — they're using speech-to-text to automatically transcribe voicemail #

279 Spore Skeletons — built with Processing using the new Spore API (via) #

Terry Cavanagh's Don't Look Back — 8-bit retelling of Orpheus in the Underworld #

Revision3 exec liveblogs someone breaking into his house — he broadcasted the ordeal on Ustream and Twitter (via) #

Aimee Mullins and her 12 pairs of legs — for some, prosthetics are no longer a disability; she can change her speed and height with augmentation #

Michael Wesch on the Livescribe smartpen in education — see the pen demo, and "pencasts" shared by the community #

Bicycle Built for 2,000 — Aaron Koblin asks 2,088 Mechanical Turk workers to sing parts of "Daisy Bell" without hearing the whole song #

The Comics Archetype Times Table — reminds me of the dessert taxonomy #

March 10, 2009

Fortunebird, mechanical bird automaton that tweets your fortune — also debuting at Etech: Lensley Automatic, the photobooth that Flickrs and tweets #

Waxy.org at SXSW Interactive 2009

Posted March 10, 2009 by Andy Baio

I’m making the pilgrimage to Austin for SXSW Interactive again this year, but no crazy Worst Website Ever antics this time. But I will be speaking at a couple events, if you want to get together:

Sunday, 3:30pm

What Do I Do With Myself, Now that the Economy Has Collapsed?

Lane Becker moderates a lineup of web geeks who started projects during the last bust, with some advice and lessons learned from our past success and failures. I’m very lucky to be on the lineup, along with the wonderful Ben Brown, Michael Sippey, and Jane Mount.

Monday, 7:30pm

The Heather Gold Show

Palmer Events Center, 900 Barton Springs Road

Every year, writer/comedian Heather Gold brings her live, interactive talk show to Austin to interview artists, musicians, coders, and writers around a theme. This year’s subject is “Something From Nothing,” a loose conversation about inspiration and the creative drive, with CD Baby founder Derek Sivers, Huffduffer creator Jeremy Keith, Adaptive Path founder/Emmett Labs CEO Janice Fraser, singer/songwriter Amber Rubarth, and me! The Heather Gold Show is a small part of the huge Plutopia EFF-Austin party, a three-stage art and music extravaganza featuring Bruce Sterling and Ian McLagan from The Faces, so should be fun. Free admission for SXSW badge holders, $10 for everyone else.

Naturally, I’ll be on Twitter and my picks for the show are on Upcoming and Sched.org. If you see me, say hi!

TED performance of Pattie Maes' wearable tech demo — like an iPhone with a projector, dangling around your neck and providing context for everyday activities #

Dan Meth's chart of sitcom house floorplans — from the creator of the Trilogy Meter #

Tetris HD — use Enter to drop quickly; the result is abstract art (via) #

Guardian UK opens API platform and Data Store — the Data Store uses Google Spreadsheets for data access #

The Morning News behind-the-scenes report of the controversial Gandhi auction — filmmaker James Otis tried to call it off after Indian protests and death threats #

March 9, 2009

The "Raiders of the Lost Ark" Story Conference — 125-page transcription of a week-long brainstorming session with Spielberg, Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan #

Rock Peaks, database of live music videos culled from YouTube — user-editable, including performances from late night talk shows #

Cam Marlow's breakdown of maintained relationships at Facebook — elaborating on his findings discussed in The Economist #