Marjorie is a filmmaker and I think I need some pointers from her. Among other things, she knows how to not overly compress her YouTube videos.
Below is a mesmerizing short film documenting her friend Johny Amerika's astonishing propane-fueled conflagration device which appeared at this year's Coachella Music Festival.
I've found myself talking continually about the iPhone for the past two weeks, for example this and this.
But until yesterday I hadn't had the chance to touch one.
It does change the game. The interface is simply revolutionary. And it's gorgeous.
It lacks features I use a lot on my dear N95--I can't take movies, I can't send MMS messages to other phones, and the camera is mediocre compared to my 5 megapixel Nokia goodness, but that's not the point.
The iPhone brings an intuitiveness and simplicity to mobile phones that we've never seen in the US, and really haven't seen anywhere else. Something that's been absent in most of the press coverage, though I told it to just about every reporter I spoke with, is that the success of the iPhone was a function of Apple having what looks like near total autonomy to design the device and the experience. AT&T was hands off. Mobile carriers are never hands off.
My hope is that the iPhone will shake up the market in a way that makes a lot more innovation possible, and the hoopla around the "Jesus Phone" will change the way we see mobile phones and services get marketed. It's undeniable that the mobile phone is going to become the most ubiquitous way we interact with the 1s and 0s in our life, and yesterday this trend started accelerating, big time.
But the iPhone is not all roses. I bristle at the way that Apple locks people into their technology--it's arguable that some of this is required to preserve simplicity, but often it's just about making more money and boxing out competitors. The fact that you can't use a song you've transferred to your $600 iPhone as a ringtone is just ridiculous, for example.
And the current iPhone is definitely v1. It connects to a slow data network (I know, it's the one I use). Oh, and Matt Haughey's was broken out of the box. And Kottke discovered his expensive headphones won't work, which is why a friend of mine is to lining up to buy one.
Below are a couple of short videos of the Seattle "premiere."
I think my summer travel schedule will be lighter than the Fall/Winter/Spring has been. God I hope so. The past three trips have featured delays. I flew to LA today for a meeting, expecting to get home in time to see Dia . . . awake. No dice. United's computers were borked this morning and while my flight down here went just fine, the earlier systems glitches caught up with me and have bit me in the ass. Looking now like I should crawl into my bed around 1:30am. At least I'm crawling into my own bed.
As often happens with this sort of thing my 15 minute conversation was distilled into a seven second soundbite. It wouldn't have been the one I'd have picked, but you know, it moved along the news narrative.
My brother remixed the video clip to provide the kind of psychedelic vibe you're not going to see on CNBC. Along the way he made me sound like Larry Flynt.
Her hamfisted management of health care reform, her calculated early support of the Iraq war, those sins I could have forgiven. But now her machine has selected a song by Celine Dion to be the campaign anthem? Not funny. Unforgivable.
I should just give up on the idea of having a daily schedule. Around
lunch time, our crack PR person told me an opportunity had just popped up and
I was going to be interviewed on TV.
Good thing I'd showered (Doh!), shaved (Doh! Doh!), hadn't worn a checked shirt (Doh! Doh! Doh!).
Fortunately, my gym is a couple blocks away and so with this TV thing
interrupting my planned workout I at least was able to wash up and
shave. And on the way to the studio I popped into Men's Wearhouse* and
bought a new shirt, which they pressed for me before I left the store.
Upon leaving the store I realized it would probably produce the dreaded
moire pattern, making it actually worse than the checked shirt, but whatever.
I stared at a camera and while someone in New York talked into my ear
and tried to speak in cogent soundbites for 15 minutes. We'll see if I
succeeded when the interview is broadcast tomorrow on CNBC's PowerLunch.
* My standard work uniform is jeans and a shirt of some sort. I'm happy to work in an environment that doesn't require me to wear a suit or strut around in khakis. Ick. But of course I have to often put on a more respectable costume that includes suits and nice shirts. And don't get me wrong, I like attractive clothes and I like heading into a meeting in London or New York and not feeling like a completely unfashionable dork. But I generally hate shopping. And here's where I can do nothing but rave about Men's Wearhouse. All they do all day is dress men. They don't sell underwear. They sell suits and shirts and slacks and did I mention that all they do all day everyday is dress men? It's painless and easy. The quality is good. It's not super cheap but it's not crazy extortion. They somewhat surprisingly have a relatively hip line of casualwear, which is the source of my favorite and often complemented brown leather jacket. And the stock a ton of wrinkle-free shirts which sometimes are the source of mocking when I'm in Europe ("what? no cufflinks?") but are essential to my travel wardrobe. Consider this an unpaid product placement. They rock.
Much of the past couple of weeks at work have been spent building up to today, when we some of our data was the basis of a story on the Wall Street Journal. We work hard to do good work and it's awesome to do good work that also captures the interest of the press, since that's one way we get the word out about what we do, which is all about what we know.
Today we released our first data on the iPhone, which is the most talked about mobile phone, uh, ever. That's especially remarkable given that pretty much nobody has touched the damned device. I haven't. The result of providing interesting data on a hot topic? Massive press pickup, which you can peruse below if you wish.
And no, I don't know how to pronounce the title either, but it was:
"Filmed in the townships and center of Port Elizabeth, South Africa,
'Masizakhe: Let Us Build Together' focuses on a new generation of
activists who have taken the mantel from activists before them, who
were instrumental in freeing South Africa in 1994. The past eleven
years of freedom have proven extremely difficult and the effects of
apartheid are still a reality for the majority of the South African
people, especially for Black Africans. Much of the work that these new
activists are doing revolves around building community through music,
hip-hop, spoken word, and radio. Two featured activist groups are
'Ghetto Youth Uprising' and 'S.W.A.M.' The film also looks at the
experience of some people whose communities were destroyed when they
were forced from their homes by the National Party in the 1970s. One
interviewee is JBux, a radio DJ and Hip-Hop artist who comes from the
'colored' community and is struggling with issues of identity as an
African. White and Afrikaans South Africans are also part of this
film
as they are dealing with their role and legacy in the country."
I've been posting little, owing to the following factors:
My laptop and I are have relationship difficulties. We're just not getting along. Most importantly, I can't trust it and without trust what kind of relationship can you have? We're gonna be breaking up soon.
I've been traveling more or less non-stop for months and months and am just a bit crispy. There are swaths of days coming up--4! 7! maybe even 10! in a row--when I will not be getting on an airplane and this will provide some needed, wonderful time to hang out, at home, in Seattle, with my people.
When I have been home, all I want to do is be with Dia and do things that involve plants and our garden.
Work, which I love, has demanded even more creativity and brainpower of late and this is a very good thing.
If I had had time to blog in the past week I might have offered:
An enthusiastic description of how I'd like to build something to enter in the power tool drag race with Steve & Rob
A meditation on the awesomeness of "being weird"
A discourse on the inadequacy of perfectionism
A link to a joke in the style of my favorite jokes
<sigh> Long week in New York and I can't wait to get home, unfortunately that's not happening swiftly. I'm sitting onboard Alaska #7. Been sitting here for well over three hours waiting to take off (after boarding nearly an hour late).
Hoping to be home before 2am so we at least I can get 5 hours sleep before our big early morning plant buying spree. To be followed by our plant planting spree. Likely to be followed by me collapsing in an exhausted heap.