blog.bernardr.com

Twitter Updates for 2010-03-16

bernard — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:49:00 +0000

When cleaning out my iTunes Library, Aphex Twin is always up on the chopping block, though it manages to survive. Sunn O))) is always safe. #
Processing TextMate Bundle ~ Home: http://bit.ly/a14byu (via @textmator) ##nerdilyAwesome #
I've never heard a reggae song that didn't make me want to listen to early Black Sabbath. #
Drug stories are boring & weak. Everyone thinks that they're Burroughs or Hendrix, but they were brilliant in spite of their addictions. #
@mondomovie Ryan Reynolds in… ANYTHING. The man irritates me to no end. ALSO: Any Tarantino performance. Brilliant autuer, not a thespian. #

Twitter Updates for 2010-03-15

bernard — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:49:00 +0000

@nevenmrgan Totally! The book's great but read the wiki (http://bit.ly/a3DosK) .Authors death & relationship to book is what's interestin'. in reply to nevenmrgan #
Wondering how much @nevenmrgan's The Gullible has to do with Roberto Bolaño's 2666: A Novel. Hm. #
Just made the transition to using TextMate. Yay @textmator! #
I love em dashes more than I will ever love a hyphen — that's just how I is. #
Creative endeavors exist in two states Done and Not Done. Sometimes you dictate what Done is, sometimes you don't. Same thing either way. #

Twitter Updates for 2010-03-12

bernard — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:49:00 +0000

DMV you are not my friend. http://twitpic.com/17zaxq #

Twitter Updates for 2010-03-11

bernard — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:49:00 +0000

Food that's bad for you is always so cheap. Whatta drag. Poison sold by the 6 pack. #
Google adds Bicycling directions. Cool. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/biking-directions-added-to-google-maps.html #
Why anyone would voiluntarily go to a place like Las Vegas is beyond me. #
It's more than a little embarassing to me that I can't readily idenitfy more than a handful of plants. Don't know genus or species. Must fix #
@madiganreads just feelin' antsy. Felt like miles needed to be run—and run they were! Two solid and evenly measured miles. in reply to madiganreads #
Mind unlocked. Cogs rolling. All of it clicks into place. Be forewarned, there is no exit sign at either end of the stairs in my mind. #

Twitter Updates for 2010-03-09

bernard — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:49:00 +0000

Raw energy burns through veins like hot streaks of nuclear neon from an adrenalized blood red sky. #now #
What's terrible is that I genuinely think that an Ardunio based "Harmonica Hero" with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, (etc.) songs would be cool. #
Find out where your cow stood whilst being mliked over at: http://whereismymilkfrom.com. (via @xenijardin) #
Recieved a really nice (possible form) email from @dropbox regarding my recent blog post. (http://bit.ly/9oXOqu) either way, it seems nice. #
My recent purchase of two boxes of Fiber One bars for four dollars secures my skinflinty geezerdom. #

Articles / LInks 03.06.10

bernard — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:10:38 +0000

On banning books and escaping from the attic…

10,000 Bullets » Yakuza Papers, The

December 2009: Mario Testino on Stephanie Seymour | vanityfair.com

Slashdot | Clay Shirky Explains Internet Evolution

The 24-Hour Cycle

Bill Watterson, creator of beloved ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ comic strip looks back with no regrets | Living – cleveland.com – - cleveland.com

Midnight Eye interview: Kinji Fukasaku

The Modern Word – Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”

How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market

Class War – Reason Magazine

Op-Ed Columnist – Where the Wild Things Are - NYTimes.com

How to say stupid things about social media | Cory Doctorow | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Google Nexus One | Wired.com Product Reviews

Interviews > Quay Brothers

(All articles read via the wonderful Instapaper.)

iPhone Apps

bernard — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:49:53 +0000

Instapaper

Easily the one of the most impressive and indespensible apps running on my phone. I read about a dozen articles a week. I accomplish this mostly via instapaper’s browser bookmarklet; a tiny button that I added to my browser. When clicked it sends whatever I’m reading to my Instapaper account. Instapaper stores it and waits until I log into my account via the iPhone app. It then magically downloads the article onto my phone, (making it accessible to me even if I’m not online) and formats the text to be easily readable on my phone. Truly Magical.

It’s great. It’s perfect. It supports folders and it keeps an archive of stuff I’ve read. My favorite app on my phone by far. [App Store Link (free) (Full Version)]

Stanza

Similar to Instapaper in that it’s a text reader for the iPhone, Stanza is probably an application that will either be struck dead or will live long, strong, and proud when the iPad is released.

Allowing you to read public-domain books on your phone as well as purchase books from a variety of book merchants, the app is gorgeous and works like a dream.

It also has a desktop companion that allows you to sync or “send over” PDF’s, or raw text files and convert them to the Stanza format; thereby allowing you to read them on your iPhone. More magic and wonder. [App Store]

simplenote

I first heard about simplenote via Daring Fireball. Gruber made me think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It really is revolutionary, but it wasn’t until Merlin Mann mentioned Notational Velocity that I really started to get cranking with it.

Essentially, simplenote is a note syncing service that replaces the ugliness that is Notes.app with an über sexy interface and design. I use it to sync grocery lists, to do’s, lists of unwatched movies, and any other bit of text I can think to throw at it.

Check out Merlin’s workflow for a starting point on this. [App Store Link]

Dropbox

I’ve been using dropbox for about a week now, and I think I really like it. There are a couple of PDF’s that I like to keep handy so I’ve uploaded them to my dropbox account and they sync to my phone. Boom. That’s it. That’s all I use it for, and it works great.

According to the fine folks at dropbox it does other stuff too. Like let you watch video you send to your dropbox, or listen to any audio file you send to your dropbox. I admit that’s all freakin’ awesome stuff but it kicks so much fanny in my one little department I don’t think my tiny human brain would be able to comprehend all that other fancy jazz. So for now I’m sticking to simple PDF syncing. [App Store link]

moleskinery^†

I’ve been using this since it was a jailbreak app. It’s changed quite a bit since then. I don’t know if it’s gotten better, but I do feel that my use of it has diminished.

If there are any strong points, it’s the folders. You give me folders and I’m almost always happy. Developing a structured hierarchy for workflows is always a good idea and more apps should take that into consideration. Especially since the all of the structure is within the app now and not spread out where a user might want it ¹.

The ability to hammer out some text when I’m not near an internet connection (either Wi-Fi or 3G) is really important to me², and it’s delivered that for the most part – except when it hasn’t. There have been times when I’m about twenty to thirty words into something and then — zap — the app just crashes. With no autosave this can really hurt. Bad. It keeps me from using the app with confidence and hinders what I use it for and how often I use it.
[App Store Link]

1. The argument about whether this is a feature or a bug is an old one by now among nerds. I dunno, I could go either way on this one. On a mobile device it seems really nice to have all of your text files to be opened by one app. Then again, sometimes there’s something that you want to do to an image file and need more than one app, but your file is locked in. Good or bad it’s the way things are (and will most likely stay).

2. No, I will not use Notes.app. Mostly, because of that stupid font that it uses. It’s also locked into Apple’s pretty little universe and it adds a couple of steps to my workflow to get it out. So, nope, no notes.app for me.

† While gathering the links for this app I noticed that the url for moleskinery is no longer working. I think it’d be safe to assume that this app is no longer supported — and it’s not even in the iTunes Store anymore, so there you go.

Articles / Links 02.06.10

bernard — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:48:03 +0000

Why Haiti Matters

Interviews > Mike Watt: A Man With A Bass And A Van

Robert Louis Stevenson – Wikipedia, th Why Haiti Matters

James Ellroy details his search for love in Playboy — latimes.com

SteamPunk Magazine » SPM’s Professor Calamity Arrested

John Ruskin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coffeemaker – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ENUM: Dragging telephone numbers into the Internet Age
How to run, meditate, and not get hurt – Boing Boing

Who would want to be an architect?

How to Destroy the Book, by Cory Doctorow | theVARSITY.ca

Independent Lens . A SAD FLOWER IN THE SAND . John Fante | PBS

Catcher in the Rye author JD Salinger would not be caught in the public eye | Books | guardian.co.uk

Check Mate: Apple’s iPad and Google’s Next Move – O’Reilly Radar

Apple gives every other reader reason to be nervous with iPad :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Andy Ihnatk

How to run, meditate, and not get hurt – Boing Boing

(all articles read via the wonderful instapaper)

Articles / Links 01.26.10

bernard — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:43:55 +0000

Interviews > Marcus Nispel

Goodreads | 10 Questions with James Ellroy

Steampunking Technology | Print Article | Newsweek.com

Rushkoff on his new alternate reality game – Boing Boing

Serendipity: Leon “Whitey” Thompson, “Last Train to Alcatraz.”(1988)

LAist Interview: Bob Zmuda - LAist

Interview with Director Werner Herzog - TIME

Jaiden’s Weaver

The Great Game Designer Boing Boing

Leon Thompson — wrote of Alcatraz

Werner Herzog Q&A – News – Film – Time Out London

A candid chat with Ira Glass | NewsHouse

Fitzgerald, Hemingway And The Sun Also Rises LiteraryTraveler.com

BME: Tattoo, Piercing and Body Modification News » Lead Story » Working-Class Cyborg

Beatles: Rock Band – The fabricated four

Interviews > Patton Oswalt: Big Fan

Celebrating John Fante « Zócalo Public Square

With a Little Help: Can You Hear Me Now? – 12/7/2009 – Publishers Weekly

(all articles read via the wonderful instapaper)

Contractors Working in Iraq and Afghanistan

bernard — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:42:16 +0000

Recently the Hammer Museum, as part of their Hammer Conversations series hosted an event titled Patriots for Profit: The Rise of the Corporate Warrior. The event included an appearance by a personal hero of mine Robert Young Pelton.

Coincidentally, while listening to some episodes of NPR’s Fresh Air, I discovered two interviews on the the same topics. Namely, military contractors (Blackwater, Executive Outcomes, etc.) and the healthcare issues and treatments of those issues of non-military / civilian contractors and sub-contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The latter of the two conversations was especially interesting, as it attempts to answer questions about how we treat Americans who have been in conflict zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly injured, but did not serve as military personnel. Also fascinating is the question of health coverage, and who takes care of the people that may have incurred injuries while contracted by US military.

While the conversation is not currently available via the Hammer’s podcast, I assume that it will be up soon.

The Blackwater conversation can be heard here, as can the discussion with journalist T. Christian Miller, author of Disposable Army on civilian contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan can be heard here.

UPDATE:

The video as well as the podcast download for the Corporate Warrior’s podcast can be found at the Hammer’s Watch+Listen site.