Posterous has been a great blogging tool these past 2 years. It has for the most part gotten out of the way and just allowed me blog. That's what I liked about it. Recently it's turned into something else - I'm not quite sure what. They seem to have buried the 'Create Post' button a few clicks deep and seem to be repositioning themselves as some sort of social network. That's too bad. I hope they get back to what made them great - making it easy for non-techies to blog.
The new blog is all home-brew - no WordPress or MovableType for me. I'll write more about how the new blog is made soon on - you guessed it - the new blog.
More than one year on and Minecraft still delights. This game is something really special. Playing multi-player with the kids has revealed new depths of fun / imagination.
Archery in Minecraft (this was Sean's idea, I made the target)
Platformer in Minecraft (this is Sean's game - he's a big Super Mario fan)
Kate's Rollercoaster challenge.
Playing hide-and-seek in The Moonlit Maze.
All of these games were created within the game. The Moonlit maze is my creation, all other games were made up by the kids.
"Sure" I said, trying my hardest to sound like I didn't care. It was July 1997 and I was on my first assignment to Cupertino. I had been working in Apple over a year and this had been my first trip to the U.S. My first time in America, Silicon Valley and Infinite Loop. Some of my team were friends of Guy's. Guy Kawasaki wasn't the Social Media maven he is now, he was still working at Apple and hadn't yet founded Garage.com. Guy was part of Apple folklore - the only Apple Fellow (at the time) who wasn't a software or hardware engineer, and he already had a couple of books under his belt. Was I going to turn down a chance to have lunch with Guy Kawasaki at Cafe Mac ? No way!
So we had lunch. Which was nice. We munched on burgers and curly fries and chatted about the latest movies, technology and parenting (which I didn't have much to say about at the time. Side note: this was the first time I had ever heard someone use the word 'parenting' - I had never heard 'parent' used as a verb before). Guy has a magnetic personality and I was a little star-struck. After lunch we all headed back to his office (I had read The Computer Curmudgeon so Guy offered a copy of his latest book). We entered a tall building - the tallest on the campus - all the executive offices were located here. I headed for the elevator in the lobby but Guy stopped me. "Let's take the stairs." he said.
While ascending the stairs, Guy explained that recently-returned Steve Jobs' (he wasn't even interim-CEO at the time - his company: Next had just been bought under Gil Amelio's rule) office was located here and that no one used the elevator for fear of having to share it with Steve who would grill them on what they were working on. Steve Jobs had only been back at the company a matter of weeks but his reputation was formidable. In July 1997, even before he had turned Apple around and brought it back from the brink to where it is today - the biggest company in the world - Steve Jobs was feared and respected. Although diminished in health, today his power and influence can be felt far beyond the confines of that executive building in Cupertino.
I wish I'd taken the elevator. It would have been worth it.
A brilliant collection of Tiny Tower citizens. It takes real skill to create these sprites and still make each character instantly recognizable. Stewart Curry has done an amazing job here. My 5 year old instantly recognized each one. Also check out his other Bitizen characters at http://irishstu.com/stublog . Looking at these I was reminded of Susan Kare and the work she did at Apple on the famous Moof sprite. Pixel art is hard.
It would make a good Mad Men spin-off TV show no? Don Draper is transported to the present day, where he must learn about the new social mores and rules of marketing and advertising in a social-media age.
You can just imagine his reaction when asked what his Facebook marketing strategy is...
Everytime I see a big brand-name with one of those stupid facebook urls like http://facebook.com/nike this is what I picture in my head...
... the willingness of big companies to subjugate their brand to Facebook is perplexing. Don I bet would take a dim view of Facebook advertising. I bet marketing execs will soon look back on this time and wonder what they were thinking.
Eventually Steve Jobs will no longer be CEO of Apple. Anyone who thinks this is no big deal and that Apple will stay on course once he's gone needs to see this...
I began work in Apple at the start of 1996. Jobs was still at Next and Apple hadn't yet acquired Next. This was one of the videos new recruits watched during induction. Safe to say this would not have been made under Jobs' watch. Jobs killed the clones shortly after returning to Apple. I hope Jobs can stay CEO at Apple for as long as possible.
I've been pairing movies in my head for a long time. When I was 11 years old I went to see a double bill of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' and 'Mary Poppins' in the Odeon cinema in Dublin. An unlikely double bill - I know. If I were running a small cinema, here's some double bills I'd show...
The Matrix // Office Space
The protaganist in each movie seeks to find escape from his humdrum 9 to 5 cubicle-dwelling existence. Both movies were released within a year or two of each other. One is science fiction, one isn't. The same, but different. The only question is, which would you show first?
Fight Club // American Beauty
The protagonist in each movie seeks to solve that age-old problem: How to be a man. Both movies were released within a year of each other. One is violent, one isn't. The same, but different.
RoboCop // Wall Street
The protagonist in each movie finds himself the victim/tool of 80's american capitalism. Both movies depict the rotten core at the heart of american capitalism. Both movies were released within a year of each other. One is science fiction, one isn't. The same, but different.
You get the idea now. Two movies, released within a short time of each other, with similar themes but different approaches.
I spent this afternoon at the Taste of Cork food festival in Fitzgerald Park. It cost us €30 euro to get in to the festival. That €30 didn't include any free food. Once we paid for the privilege of entering the food festival grounds, we were gouged at every turn. We won't be going back.
The warning signs were there but I ignored them. First there was the entrance fee. €30 euro for two "early-bird" tickets should have raised alarm bells but I went ahead anyway. I figured, well - it must be something really special if they're charging such a high entrance fee - right? Wrong.
The next warning sign was the special 'currency' the stalls use, called 'Corkers'. You don't pay cash at the stall, instead you use these vouchers called corkers. Cute huh? One euro is equivalent to one Corker. I guess the reasoning behind this is obvious and I should have seen it. After all it's easier for exhibitors (Artisan Ice-cream and hot-dog vendors) to look you in the eye when asking for 3 'Corkers' in exchange for a tiny scoop of Ice-cream as Baldwin's Ice Cream did. If the goal of Taste of Cork was to promote local food producers I'd say they've done a terrible job. Thanks to today's experience, I am pretty certain Baldwin's Ice Cream will never get another cent from me. Seriously, if you are a cork-based food producer, what business have you exhibiting at this festival? The high entrance fee left a bitter taste for many people (some unfortunate souls had to pay €25 euro at the gate). If you want to show-case your produce, don't do it here. From what I heard, the costs for exhibitors was high - I don't know how true that is but passing on that cost to your customers is not the best way to get a foot-hold with consumers.
It is pretty galling to be charged €30 euro entrance fee then asked for €6 euro for two measly scoops of ice cream. This is the Taste of Cork experience for me. We spent a total of €70 euro today and this is what we got for it:
Entrance into Taste of Cork food festival. 2 Bottles of still water: 2 Scoops of Ice cream: 2 portions of Fish & Chips (these were 'Artisan' portions so it was one finger of battered cod and half a dozen chips) + 1 portion of calamari 1 box of 9 mini-cupcakes (you couldn't buy them singly) 1 glass of Prosecco white wine.
€70 euro for that lot. What a fucking rip-off. Needless to say, I won't be going back.
The video is choppy and very low quality. It's a NASA computer animation from 1980 and the only sources I could find were low-res youtube versions. Really not optimal but hey, nothing's perfect.
