Sci-Fi Hi-Fi: Weblog

Saint Etienne’s “Finisterre” on Vimeo Speaking...

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:28:00 -0700

Saint Etienne’s “Finisterre” on Vimeo

Speaking of Saint Etienne, I’ve been meaning to mention the band’s impressionistic documentary-ish tribute to London, “Finisterre”, on here for awhile now. I was a fan of the band’s album of the same name, so I bought the DVD for the accompanying movie a long time ago and proceeded to shelf it until only about a month ago, when I found it while packing for my move to New York and decided to finally watch it. It’s slow paced and not exactly riveting cinema—I kept it on while I was working on something else—but I ended up really enjoying it (particularly on the eve of my move to another of the world’s great cities) as a wonderful tribute to life in a cosmopolitan metropolis. And of course the music complements the modernist sensibility of the visuals perfectly (I especially enjoy the sequence that begins around 5:15 and the rain sequence).

I spent some time tonight looking around for clips to link to on YouTube, only to discover to my surprise that it is actually available in its entirety on the web as Plexifilm’s Movie of the Month! Check it out—it’s a great thing to put in the corner of your screen, listen to the music, and occasionally catch glimpses of London’s soul.

An Evening with RTHRTHA (via Eddie Codel) My SF acquaintance...

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:17:00 -0700

An Evening with RTHRTHA

(via Eddie Codel)

My SF acquaintance Ryan Junell did a lovely video for this great “My Bloody Valentine meets early Saint Etienne” song (that’s the best description my addled brain can think of right now) by Austin’s Octopus Project. I’m always kind of a sucker for Austiniana of the kind you see here (Barton Springs, the bats). Be sure to read the extra weird, Lovecraftian “Cliff Notes.”

via jtt: dailytypography: Futura? (via gmeadows1) If...

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:02:28 -0700

via jtt:

dailytypography:

Futura? (via gmeadows1)

If there’s one typographic skill I need to work on, it’s my Futura recognition—I too find myself constantly wondering “Is that Futura?” while I’m walking down the street.

Armstrong in the Lunar Module after Historic Moonwalk (Zach...

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:59:00 -0700

Armstrong in the Lunar Module after Historic Moonwalk

(Zach Klein)

I find this photo really striking for two reason: it’s a far more human, intimate moment than most space photos you see, and I love the quiet mood the astronauts’ medium format Hasselblad camera lends to the scene. When space exploration was classy!

iPhone Sketchpads (via Layton Duncan) My friend Robert had a...

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:34:00 -0700

iPhone Sketchpads

(via Layton Duncan)

My friend Robert had a similar idea for a rubber stamp with the layout of an iPhone screen to expedite the wireframing process, but these look like they would be just the ticket (although I’m not so sure I’m keen on the blue paper).

"The iPhone Subprime Crisis is what will happen as a result of Apple lowering the point-of-entry..."

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:36:00 -0700

“The iPhone Subprime Crisis is what will happen as a result of Apple lowering the point-of-entry price of a new iPhone while increasing the overall cost of ownership over the two year term of the contract (up to $2700!). People who thought they couldn’t afford an iPhone when they cost $400 now (falsely) feel like they can afford one when it’s $200. After a few months of heavy bills, as the “cell contract foreclosures” begin, look out for a lot of used 3G’s coming to eBay.”

- Ricky Van Veen’s GET EXCITED: The Impending iPhone Subprime Crisis

The higher cost of service was one reason I was initially resistant to the iPhone 3G (for, oh, about five minutes), and I still think the fact that the lower hardware price point that comes with it has opened the floodgates of iPhone holdouts proves yet again that people just can’t do math. Between that, and the increased hassle of in-store activation, I find myself nostalgic for the time (not so long ago) when Apple seemed to have gotten the better of the “orifices.”

Detail from a Graph of My Last Year’s Last.fm...

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:33:57 -0700

Detail from a Graph of My Last Year’s Last.fm History

(via Dennis Yang)

LastGraph is one of the most useful web visualization toys I’ve ever seen. It’s fascinating to watch the ebb and flow of my music listening habits, and see how some bands remain constant while others experience massive spikes. I’d love to see something like this overlaid with Flickr, Twitter and other indicators of what was going on in my life!

Still from Radiohead’s Upcoming Video for “House of...

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:05:00 -0700

Still from Radiohead’s Upcoming Video for “House of Cards”

(via Hublicious)

I’ve always loved the video Radiohead did for “Go to Sleep” using Massive 3D software, so I’m eagerly awaiting their latest “cameraless” promo, which apparently was done using a form of laser motion capture!

"New York is cold, but I like where I’m living There’s music on Clinton Street all..."

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:08:00 -0700

“New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.”

- Leonard Cohen (in the song “Famous Blue Raincoat”) on my new street in New York City (via Joe Maller and Pete Hopkins)

Merlin Mann and Me Jamming After “Monsters of...

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:43:00 -0700

Merlin Mann and Me Jamming After “Monsters of Podcasting”

(via Nicole Lee)

Merlin and I “treated” some late night revelers to an impromptu rendition of Camper van Beethoven’s “Take the Skinheads Bowling” after the “Monsters of Podcasting” show a few weeks ago. I don’t actually play banjo normally, but Jim Fourniadis, owner of the event’s venue (the Darkroom) had a cool six string model that’s tuned like a guitar. I want one!

Fruit Loopt (via Garrett Murray) Yes, it’s been a month,...

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:51:00 -0700

Fruit Loopt

(via Garrett Murray)

Yes, it’s been a month, but I for one still haven’t tired of mocking the many-shirted Loopt guy from the WWDC keynote.

Defending the Shack azizisbored: I have to reblog this to...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:41:00 -0700

Defending the Shack

azizisbored:

I have to reblog this to stand up for the Shack. To compare Shake Shack to the cupcakes at Magnolia is heresy. Magnolia cupcakes are not good. The Shack has the best burger in the city. The line may be bad at times, but to insult the value and taste of this delicious burger on that basis is unjustified and outrageous!

I’ll put it this way, whenever I come back to NY, I look forward to seeing the Shackburger more than most of my friends.

Right before I left New York last time, I waited in line for one last Shack Burger for an hour and a half while my blood sugar level sank so low I was ready to bite someone’s head off. During that time I certainly had occasion to think about whether the payoff was worth the wait, and, let me tell you, I’m with Aziz here: Shake Shack really is that good.

One thing that makes a Shack Burger great is the bun. Buns are to hamburgers as ice is to cocktails: most people treat them as incidental afterthoughts, not realizing that they often make the difference between an outstanding burger and a common one. Shake Shack’s potato buns are perfect: soft, not too thick, lightly toasted, contributing flavor without overwhelming the taste of the beef by giving you a dry mouthful of bread. This sounds like a simple thing, but it’s amazing how often restaurants get it wrong.

The second thing that makes Shake Shack’s burgers great is their custom beef blend, which is fatty enough to allow even their thin patties to come out exceptionally juicy. Combine that with a perfect amount of salt and pepper seasoning, and you end up with one of the most flavorful burgers I’ve ever tasted.

There are many hardships in New York life that make me question whether it’s all worth it, but the Shake Shack line isn’t one of them.

"I am not sure that it is possible for anyone brought up in the East to appreciate entirely what New..."

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:56:00 -0700

“I am not sure that it is possible for anyone brought up in the East to appreciate entirely what New York, the idea of New York, means to those of us who came out of the West and the South. To an Eastern child, particularly a child who has always had an uncle on Wall Street and who has spent several hundred Saturdays first at F.A.O. Schwarz and being fitted for shoes at Best’s and then waiting under the Biltmore clock and dancing to Lester Lanin, New York is just a city, albeit the city, a plausible place for people to live. But to those of us who came from places where no one had heard of Lester Lanin and Grand Central Station was a Saturday radio program, where Wall Street and Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue were not places at all but abstractions (“Money,” and “High Fashion,” and “The Hucksters”), New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself. To think of “living” there was to reduce the miraculous to the mundane; one does not “live” at Xanadu.”

- Joan Didion: “Goodbye to All That”

Field Tested Music: Primal Scream’s “Get...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:56:00 -0700

Field Tested Music: Primal Scream’s “Get Duffy” in Alaska

I got my lovely Coudal Partners “Field Tested Books poster” in the mail a few days ago, and, as I remarked on Twitter, it gave me the idea that I’d like to do something with essentially the same concept as FTB (which asks interesting people to write about how reading a specific book in a specific place changed their experience of both), but for music.

I definitely have some strong associations between songs and places, and one of the first ones that sticks out in mind is a very non-intuitive one: I associate the moody Primal Scream dub/jazz instrumental “Get Duffy” with a drive I took from Anchorage, Alaska to the Kenai Peninsula in the middle of the night (which, during the summer, is bright as day). As it happens, I had just bought “Vanishing Point,” the album “Get Duffy” appears on, right before my visit to Alaska, and although the wilds of the Pacific Northwest certainly weren’t what the artists had in mind when they created the song, I found, as I listened to it over and over in my half asleep/half awake state, that its dark, icy feel perfectly matched the scenery flying past the RV windows.

I have a lot of examples of this sort of song/place association I could cite, but this particular example is notable because I actually have video that essentially shows what I was seeing while I was listening to the music. I decided to finally dig it off a firewire drive in my closet and post it as sort of a kickoff to the “Field Tested Songs” concept (which we’ll probably continue, under a different name, on the Attacked by Jackets music blog I sometimes contribute to).

P.S.: Look for a few shots toward the beginning of my brother Bobby as a little kid.

Obama & McCain Reps to Debate via Twitter

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:00:00 -0700

Obama & McCain Reps to Debate via Twitter:

(via amyyy)

I’m sorry, but this time the webcocks really have gone too far. It’s all well and good for them to conduct their own masturbatory discussions via “twebinar” (however face punch inducing that term may be), but the presidential election is actually important, and conducting a debate via Twitter seems like a depressing acknowledgement that the soundbite is now the fundamental unit of American political discourse. Not only that, but the very fact that they suggest people follow along using hashtags (those most webcock-ish of Twitter mannerisms) on Summize underscores the out-and-out awkwardness of the enterprise. I’m convinced that someday experiments like this will be remembered as embarrassing, fumbling attempts on the part of politicians to “get hip” to the new media. Neil Postman must be spinning in his grave.

West 14th Apple Store Poster (via IFO Apple Store) I’m...

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:43:00 -0700

West 14th Apple Store Poster

(via IFO Apple Store)

I’m pretty much obsessed with the swag that Apple gave out at the opening of the West 14th (Meatpacking District) Apple Store last December—especially the brilliant map of Manhattan made up of iPhone screens. If anyone knows how I could get my hands on one of these, or one of the cool subway signage shirts they also gave out, drop me a line (buzz at this domain)!

(via jtt) Richard Harrington’s photo set of an abandoned...

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:32:00 -0700

(via jtt)

Richard Harrington’s photo set of an abandoned NASA trailer near Bishop, CA is so right up my alley, appealing as it does to: my love of the California desert, my fondness for lost and abandoned places, and my 1980s space program nostalgia.

Full Moon Fever Instead of taking a taxi home from my...

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:55:00 -0700

Full Moon Fever

Instead of taking a taxi home from my brother’s place tonight, I decided to walk the distance from the SF Civic Center, through Hayes Valley (where I took the above photo), up Haight Street, and into Ashbury Heights before heading back down to the Haight. Since I had my camera with me and it was a full moon, I decided to take some photos along the way.

I’ve always said that what makes San Francisco such an interesting city is that it has so many oddball nooks and crannies that most visitors never see, and Ashbury Heights, the neighborhood in the hills between the Haight and the Castro, is a prime example. It’s full of big old mansions and antiquated 1920s buildings, and can feel amazingly eerie at night. I lived up there briefly when I first moved to San Francisco, and it’s still one of my favorite places in the world to just wander around alone with a camera, enjoying the creepy vibe—especially when it’s foggy (which it often is).

Someday I’d love to do a photo project of San Francisco doorways (particularly in Ashbury Heights and Corona Heights) at night. There’s just something magical about them. Perhaps the shots I took tonight will be a good start.

Justin Williams: Definitely the highlight of the Keynote for...

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:02:00 -0700

Justin Williams:

Definitely the highlight of the Keynote for me.

Agreed: I thought it was hilarious that I, my brother Bobby, and John Gruber all ridiculed the Loopt guy’s double polo shirt in rapid succession during the keynote. And, of course, it immediately made me think of this.

Tycho Playing My WWDC Party (via Bobby Andersen) My brother...

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:28:00 -0700

Tycho Playing My WWDC Party

(via Bobby Andersen)

My brother Bobby posted a few great photos of the uber-talented designer/musician Scott Hansen (aka Tycho) playing at my annual party for Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference last night. I wish I had had more time to take Scott’s performance in, but, of course, I was too busy talking to all of the interesting people. Thanks to everyone who came out for making it the best year yet (the absence of the taco truck and tamale lady notwithstanding), and to my sponsors: Golden%Braeburn and NewsGator.

(Update: I just noticed that Scott posted on his blog about the performance, so I thought I’d link to it here for completeness.)