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Web 2.0 Expo: Copy As Interface
Yesterday, Information Week picked up this quote from Erika about the trends of today’s technologies:
“Given [the controversy surrounding Google Street View] and tools like Twitter and Dopplr, and Yahoo’s Fire Eagle, I think George Orwell would be stunned by the extent to which people are embracing the eradication of privacy.”
She made that remark in a preview of her upcoming speech at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. If you’re attending the conference, make sure to check out her speech, Copy As Interface, Wednesday April 23 at 1:30pm. You’ll learn something.
UPDATE The slides are here for your convenience:
Written by Katie Spence on April 22, 2008 with 6 comments | 
I swear this is the last Battledecks recap
… but rocketboom put together an awesome highlight reel:
Written by Mike Monteiro on March 13, 2008 with 1 comments |
Battledecks
Just got back from SXSW where our “panel”, Battledecks, was a huge success. We filled the room and people had a blast. I’ll be posting the decks on slideshare as soon as we have the audio synched. For now, here’s Battledeck winner Anil Dash.
I’ll have a fuller recap of the conference once I’ve caught up on some sleep and played with my son a lot.
UPDATE: Here’s a slideshow of the Best of Battledecks:
Written by Mike Monteiro on March 12, 2008 with 1 comments |
Mule Design at SXSWi
Later this week, Mike, Erika, Brandie and I are headed to Austin, TX for SPRING BREAK SXSW Interactive Conference 2008. We will be eating lots of tex-mex and drinking lots of free beer. But perhaps more importantly we (along with Lane Becker) will be running the most extraordinary panel ever, anywhere: Battledecks II.
We’ve collected some of the finest internet folk around to compete against one another in such categories as jargon, gesturing, and point-making using the one tool that unites us all: powerpoint. There will be presentations and they will be extemporaneous. If you have a bucket list, then this panel should be on it.
We are bringing free beer tokens and other fun Mule goodies. So if you see us wondering around the halls of the conference center, please say hello!
Written by Katie Spence on March 3, 2008 with 1 comments |
Choices Are Handcuffs
…a post in which I pretend to talk about design as an excuse to get you to look at some drawings.
Back in the pre-Cambrian 90s I decided it would be a good idea to get a Master’s in Fine Art. Mostly it was a good idea because it kept me from having to get a job, and kept student loans at bay for a few more years. As anyone who’s ever gotten an MFA degree can tell you, there’s really not much classroom learning that happens. You’re basically paying someone to let you sit in a studio and do whatever it is you do.
My problem was that I wanted to try everything, and ended up mastering nothing.
Written by Mike Monteiro on February 13, 2008 with 4 comments |
R.I.P. Evel Knievel
They are lining up Greyhound buses from America to Heaven. May you jump them all.
Written by Mike Monteiro on November 30, 2007 with 1 comments |
How To Visit San Francisco
In response to my good friend, and ex-San Franciscan, Anil Dash’s post on How To Visit New York, and because we are currently in the midst of All-Star Fever (Catch It!), I present to you a guide to visiting San Francisco.
But first off, I must ask you to bear in mind that I, like many of our citizens, am not native to this place but immigrated here not too long ago. So I can vouch that, yes, many of us are weird, although not as much as we think; and no, you should not be comfortable with most, if any, of it.
Hopefully by following these short and helpful guidelines you will show up prepared and enjoy your time here. Because it really is a nice place, once you get past most of the people.
I know it’s hot where you live, but it’s cold here right now. It doesn’t matter what time of year you might be reading this; it is ALWAYS cold here. Except in October. In October it is warm for about a week. Pack a sweater, a hooded sweatshirt (known to the locals as a ‘hoodie’), some long pants, mittens and a coat. This will save you from purchasing a Blue and Yellow Fleet fleece jacket at Pier 39 and getting your wallet or purse stolen on that very cute F-line.
Oh, and since we’re talking about what to wear: please stop with the hiking boots. Yes, we have hills, but they were paved a long time ago.
What to call it. Before you get here you should realize what ‘here’ is called. Your safest bet is just referring to it as ‘San Francisco.’ White collar tech workers who moved here during the dot com boom like to pass off as locals by cringing when you refer to it as ‘Frisco’, but honestly, that’s what the oldest of the locals call it. If you consider yourself an ultra hip individual you can refer to it as ‘The City’, but please never ‘San Fran.’
Don’t rent a car. You’ll spend your entire visit trying to park it. Take BART from the airport. It’s carpeted! And if you wanna go to the Mission, or Downtown, or the East Bay BART will do you right. If you’re going elsewhere, though, you’ll have to take MUNI. MUNI is awesome if only because it manages to unite the entire city in our hatred towards it.
We have gay people. Don’t be afraid; they’re not the weird ones. The nice Police Officer you asked for directions last night? Yeah. His name is Bob, he has a cute wife named Cindy, who also has a girlfriend named Pam, and they both share a transgendered robot lover named Chris, but only on Wednesdays and depending on Cindy’s cycle because she’s trying to get pregnant so the Chinese girl they adopted last year and named Satchell will have a friend to play with. They all met because they’re part of a Spiritual Raver society. No, not THAT Spiritual Raver society, the one that splintered off from that one.
All the good food comes in tubes. Get yourself to The Mission for a good burrito. Make it ‘super’ and don’t pay more than $7. Please don’t pick and choose what goes in it, just let them make it. And please don’t ask them how spicy it will be, they’ll know from your Blue and Gold Fleet fleece jacket to make it mild.
And speaking of eating; remember the vegetarian hippie you made friends with that first year in college because he always seemed to have a big sticky ball of hash to share? And remember how you took him home for Thanksgiving and your Mom spent the entire meal trying to convince him that turkey wasn’t meat because it isn’t beef? Well, most of us are vegetarians. We’re happy to invite vegans into our home because, hey, more ice cream for us! And we’re curious about the raw food eaters and like to tease them about whether sun tea is actually cooked or not, but we’re a little afraid of the freegans if only because we don’t want people going through our garbage and finding our copious amounts of porn.
We have no homeless people. Thanks to our lovely mayor’s Care Not Cash program homeless people are now obsolete.
It’s expensive here. If a local tells you how much their rent is they do NOT mean yearly. This will shock everyone except New Yorkers who pay even higher rents for the privilege of showering in their kitchen.
And most importantly; people here greet each other differently than in other places. Growing up in Philadelphia, when you were walking by someone and you happened to make contact you were both expected to nod towards each other. It wasn’t exactly friendly as much it was an ‘acknowledgment’ that neither was going to hurt the other one. When I moved to Austin I was completely thrown when I nodded at someone and they replied with a hearty and friendly “Hello there!!” I’m guessing that wherever you’re from the typical greeting might be somewhere in between those two.
In San Francisco, should you make eye contact with someone and either nod or say hello, you should expect them to turn their head slightly away from you, turn their nose up a bit and pucker their mouth as if you’ve just inserted a small lemon into it. Try to remember that they don’t mean to be rude, they’re just thinking of the excellent gas mileage they’re getting on their Toyota Prius.
(Photo by the great Scott Beale.)
Written by Mike Monteiro on July 9, 2007 with 29 comments |
Why Tony Soprano Doesn't Die
Over the years David Chase has masterfully lulled us into thinking Tony was a lovable shlub only to have him viciously curb-stomp someone. We’re left feeling guilty for having fallen for Tony’s broken-soul act. That says as much about our own gullability as it does Tony’s viciousness.
Killing Tony is just way to convenient. It’s an easy way out for all of us. All of that guilt relieved…
Not gonna happen.
Written by Mike Monteiro on June 7, 2007 with 3 comments |
Free Comic Book Day
Get yourself to your local comic book store tomorrow. Among tomorrow’s free comics is Unseen Peanuts, the first Peanuts comic book in 40 years.
Written by Mike Monteiro on May 4, 2007 |
RIP Wally Shirra
Wally Shirra, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, and the only astronaut to fly in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, has passed away. He was 84.
Written by Mike Monteiro on May 3, 2007 with 1 comments |