Crickets Chirping

Ben Reed posted this story to my Facebook wall (would link to it, but ya know, that walled-garden thing is in the way).

I’ve always felt SciFi writers help guide the development of technology by ‘designing’ without logistical constraint. (See No. 4 at link below.)

Here’s the link he was talking about. It’s about stuff from the movie Blade Runner that has become real in the time since it was made. In particular, this one is about a new camera rig from Adobe that allows you to take infinitely scalable photos.*

And here’s my response, which grew too big for me to be willing to leave it in my little patch of the walled garden.**

To your point about “design”: I tend to like sci fi stories that focus more on the experience of the characters using technology to resolve larger conflicts, and less on the boring implementation details that would solve the logistical constraints to create said tools. (Unless of course those constraints are an important part of the story (such as the 1983 movie Brainstorm (classic 80s sci fi, highly recommended)), but who cares about the Tyrell Corporation’s supply chain issues?)

I believe good product designers also share the sci fi writer’s healthy disregard for the arbitrary, shifting constraints of the present. It has to be balanced for sure (compromise is a fact of life), but the focus of the story/product should be on the character/user experience.

* There have been ways to do this (almost) since the early 90s, without special optics. While images compressed using a fractal iterated function system can be “zoomed” infinitely during decompression, they exhibit strange artifacts in practice.

** Sadly, my facebook page probably gets more traffic than my blog.

A couple of years ago I ran across this disturbing ebay item:

Then more recently I saw this image used as an avatar, and when I saw it again as an album cover I had to check out the band:

Black Moth Super Rainbow - they’re actually pretty good. In the age of AutoTune it’s nice to hear a band that’s like, “fuck it. we’re going 100% vocoder” and not even front. I’ve been listening to Tobacco, one of the band’s side projects, for a couple of days now. Really digging it.

And then I saw this today:

It’s a poster for a horror movie about some Advertising guys who get lost in the woods.

Why are these images so disturbing? I get dizzy, almost on the verge of a headache, looking at them.

I’ve read that the brain has special visual circuitry set aside just for faces, so maybe these trigger something on that level, like the Thatcher Effect.

(Original photo by D.C.Atty)

Is anybody else creeped out by this ad campaign? It’s like the Quaker Oats has some kind of ulterior motive.

Follow our new breakfast overlords on twitter: @quakertalk

Shot with my minoHD - I had to get one after seeing Charlie’s.

Alex was the cameraman, and I think this was the only time I got to hang out with him on this trip.

My friend Kevin Koym was attacked by four men Friday night at 5th and Brazos in downtown Austin.

He is okay, but this event is really shocking to me because it was so violent, and so random. Kevin is one of the nicest people I know. He’s a pillar of several communities. I can’t imagine what reason these men would have to do this to Kevin in particular. Also upsetting is that this intersection is not in some sketchy part of downtown. I worked right by it for years, walked past it innumerable times at all hours of the day and night without anything like this happening.

Perhaps most unsettling to me is that according to KVUE, the crime rate in downtown Austin is three times what it was last year. WTF is going on there? In my mind, Austin is this happy, safe, friendly oasis. Are those days over? Should I pick up some pepper spray on the way out of the airport for SXSW?

True to Kevin’s style, he uses air time to spread awareness of the bigger picture instead of his own personal suffering:

Koym told KVUE, “The only reason I’m speaking out about this is, I want to see the town get safe. I love Austin. I’ve lived in Boston, Chicago, Guadalajara, Mexico, The Bay Area, Phoenix, New Mexico, Dallas and Santiago Chile, and I love Austin and I choose to be here and I want to see this town get safe.”

Kevin puts his money and his time where his mouth is -especially about improving Austin. Before this unfortunate incident, I would have expected his TV appearance to be about his work helping Austin entrepreneurs get off the ground with TechRanch or Bootstrap, or any of the other organizations he’s involved with.

I hope his attackers are caught and punished to the full extent of the law, but like Kevin says I’d also really like Austin to be safe again.

My roommate Charlie recorded this with his new MinoHD.

I think he should do another timelapse for Bay to Breakers, which runs right through that intersection. (why that might be interesting)

Austinites, other Texans: This is where I get my snack foods. If this company were public I’d buy stock.

I might share The Onion’s harsh feelings towards our outgoing commander-in-chief, but this series of articles is strange:

• Spider Eggs Hatch In Bush’s Brain
• Single-Engine Cessna Crashes Into Bush
• Bush’s Eyelid Accidentally Nailed To Wall
• Bush Dragged Behind Presidential Motorcade For 26 Blocks

I guess it’s funny, but it’s schadenfreude without a punchline, and that feels more like a satirical voodoo doll than a joke.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.