I swear that every week is an NPR pledge drive. I know they say they only do it a few times a year, but every time I feel like one just ended. Every time my response to the whole affair is, “if you really want me to pledge, give the option of paying my way out of this radio hell you call a pledge drive.”
I think the technology has come far enough that they could. I connect to WNYC through a web stream anyway, and I like my local channel (especially Soterious Johnson). I would easily pay $50 if they provided me with a unique stream that had a maximum of 1 connection and expired when the pledge drive ended. This stream could default to national programming when they’re yammering on about matching funds and special offers. I’m guessing that there would be a whole bunch of people just like me that would pay to make the pain go away.
Brad Fitzpatrick and the Google Open Social team have released a Social Graph API to query the social relationships available on public web content. More in the blog post.
Every year during MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP), Professor Patrick Winston gives a wonderfully reflexive and recursive talk about giving talks titled How to Speak. This lecture provides some useful speaking heuristics, especially if you’re in the business of helping people learn. This year the talk will be given Friday, Feburary 1 at 11am in room 6-120, but for those not in Boston, you can watch his 1999 performance in full (albeit a tad bit out-of-date):
The Echonest, a startup out of the Media Lab located in Somerville, MA, just launched an Audio Analysis API which processes MP3s and returns an XML document with a number of features including tempo, loudness, time signature, fades, timbre and a whole lot more. These can be used in a number of different cool demos that they are providing as reader exercises
Mr. Fogg will be discussing the class today an open PARC forum titled, Facebook applications, mass persuasion, & world peace. The talk is 4-5pm at the George E. Pake Auditorium. It should be a pretty engaging discussion.
Metafilter has released the metadata for all of their sites, including comments, favorites and contacts. I think it’s excellent that they are taking the time to do this, and hopefully a few academics will recognize the value of such a compact, influential community that has amazing historical data. (via waxy)
WhileThe Hudsucker Proxy is not one of the Coen brothers’ most lauded films, but I have always though of it as an amazing movie about the unlikely sources of innovation. It wasn’t until I read about Richard Knerr’s death that I realized the affiliation the movie has with Knerr’s real life, namely the invention of the Hula Hoop, Frisbee, and other circular toys of mass appeal. In fact, the Hula Hoop suffered similar ups faced in the Hudsucker Proxy:
In the first year, Wham-O sold as many as 40 million hoops; by 1960, 100 million, a mark no other toy had ever reached. After too many households had two or three of the hoops, the fad evaporated, leaving Wham-O marooned on a mountain of tubular plastic. Total profit: only $10,000, a result of business inexperience and millions of unsold hoops.
Richard Knerr was certainly an unlikely source of innovation, and I am positive that the world never saw the Frisbee or Hula Hoop coming. I think the Hula Hoop discovery scene is a great interpretation of the process of diffusion, and a fitting homage to Mr. Knerr’s amazing inventions:
When going to dinner on a Saturday in New York, one only has a few options: eat early, eat late, or eat at home. Last night we were confronted by Williamsburg Saturday-night economics, four restaurants in a row with over an hour wait, and I was reminded of a story that I read ages ago entitled Pocketful of Dough. The author, Bruce Feiler, is paid by Gourmet magazine to bribe his way into restaurants:
Curious, I hatched a plan. I would go to some of the hardest-to-penetrate restaurants in New York armed with little more than an empty stomach, an iron-clad willingness to be humiliated, and a fistful of dough. Most people (including the editors of this magazine) assumed I would get turned down at half the places on my list. “You’ll never get into Daniel,” said one. “Union Square Cafe?!” said another. “Forget it.”
My plan was to show up between 8:15 and 8:30 on varying nights of the week. I would go with a different companion each night. I would try to get a reservation by telephone that afternoon and go only if I were turned down. And I would carry a twenty and a fifty in my left pocket, and a hundred in my right pocket. I did have an incentive: I could eat at any place I could successfully finagle my way into.
What results is a classic piece of journalism that I cite at least twice a year. That is to say, I am only referring to it, not a practicing bribe-maker. Since the cat has been out of the sack for over 7 years now, I wonder what effect Bruce Feiler has had on wait times in New York? Next time I go to Williamsburg on a Saturday night, I will definitely bring some dough and report back on the timeliness of this technique.
I was surprised the other day when I stumbled onto Barack Obama’s Facebook page and discovered that he actually filled out his music tastes:
Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder,
Johann Sebastian Bach (cello suites), and The Fugees
I think that given the task of coming up with a more inclusive list, I don’t think I could come close. Some pop culture researcher must have consulted. Seriously, who would be offended by anything on this list, and everyone probably identifies with something.
Some of his other tastes:
Movies: Casablanca, Godfather I & II, Lawrence of Arabia and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Books: Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Moby Dick,
Shakespeare’s Tragedies, Parting the Waters, Gilead (Robinson), Self-Reliance (Emerson), The Bible, Lincoln’s Collected Writings
This is the personal weblog of Cameron Marlow, research scientist at Facebook. You can find a comprehensive list of content in the archives, or you can simply search using the box above.
