Green Robe Industries - The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. Thomas Jefferson

Perhaps it’s neither truck nor tube…

nosilver — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:11:50 -0600

Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, has put together a great little video that does a couple of wonderful things. It shows us where we’ve just been in the last 10 years, and points out how this non-televised revolution hasn’t yet begun to change everything.

The ol' boob tube isn't where it used to be

nosilver — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 16:54:01 -0500

Here's an advert that will never see any air time. That being said, it will probably be put on YouTube and be seen by every single person in it's target demographic in a matter of weeks. Which makes me wonder: Why didn't the agency just put it on YouTube to begin with? Which begs the question: What does this mean for companies like MTV that rely on ad revenue from video game manufacturers and the like? Which of course makes me think that all the ad dollars being dropped for air time pitching energy drinks are all being <ahem> pissed away. Which makes me think: If shifting distribution models forced the recording industry to start suing, when will big media companies follow suit? Look out ABC, Tivo isn't your problem

Windows Live Goes Live... In Beta

R. Josh Quarles — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:46:21 -0600

I spent some time today checking out Windows Live, Microsoft’s much talked about foray into ‘live software.’ It’s interesting in a ‘been there and done that’ kinda way. I will be interested to see how it develops, when they finally support a browser I can use, for example. The company seems really invested in the idea. I do wonder, however, if they recognize the ramifications of developing this product. It feels a little like they are adding this to their stable of products rather than recognizing that this technology undoes a lot of what has made them so successful.

How much is this blog worth?

nosilver — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 21:08:42 -0500

Interesting...

My blog is worth $7,339.02.

How much is your blog worth?

A bit of Friday afternoon levity:

nosilver — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 16:15:02 -0500

It seems that some clueless headhunter fired off an email to Eric S. Raymond yesterday asking him for his creds for possibly landing a job at Microsoft. The very thought sends me into fits of explosive laughter. However, if we take a step back for just a second this thought is an interesting corporate cultural experiment. Wouldn’t it be interesting to inject ESR into a few meetings and film the faces of the microserfs at his reaction to the points of order? (True, he would probably be fired in the first 20 minutes, if his resume even made it that far, but what a fun 20 minutes that would be.) Think of the reality tv possibilities! This might just be the sort of thing that could buy a few more years of operating capital for some savvy tv studio.

The Salvation Army Serving People in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina

nosilver — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 23:04:02 -0500

I spent most of the day watching the dread web video I blogged about in the last post. Clearly, the worst of all possible scenarios has all but happened. After 300 odd years of Hurricane parties and like named beverages The Gulf Coast has met its match. The cleanup on this will take years and cost more than anybody can estimate. I’ll be praying for the displaced. I hope we all will pony up what ever we can. It may be a small world, but much need be done before this corner will again re-enter the first world. Strange and sad how quickly the gleam of western civ can be striped from a place. May great things be born yet again from the sludge and debris of this tragedy. God is great, and doth work in many mysterious ways. Endure.

The plight of the designated stander

nosilver — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 23:06:02 -0500

It happens every time there’s major weather, in whatever part of the world. Camera crews rush in mass to be at the scene of the devastation. Hurricane Katrina was no exception. True, these events make personal brands for some. For other, (most) their names are forever branded with the stigma of being the ‘designated stander’ for whatever horrific weather events befall their geographic region. Rather than landing the coveted studio gigs, these folks are stamped with the name of ‘designated stander’ and forced for evermore to test their bravado in the face of whatever cometh. (Without the sense that God gave a goat, to come in out of the rain.) Forced to bear the brunt of both weather and the quasi-masochistic and totally inane questioning of those warmer and dryer.

Art Mobs ROCK! MoMA

nosilver — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 13:59:57 -0500

Audio guides suck! It doesn’t matter if you’re standing in the driving rain on a Salisbury Plain listening to and ‘expert’ explain that they really don’t know why Stonehenge is there, while sheep look at you like you’ve lost your mind and try to figure out why YOU are there, or you’re moving quickly at the beep to catch the next bland recap of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood at the V&A in London. Audio guides s-u-c-k! I know they have the best intentions. The sebum encrusted hunks of antiquated technology gleefully lugged through museum and art gallery by shinny faced tourists, in a variety of languages, or toted to and fro on the planes of a battlefield or bowls of a catacomb. The idea is to convey information. A prepackaged audio presentation to explain what you’re seeing while becoming infected with head lice. The trouble is that by the time the scripts are approved and translated into a dozen or so languages, the content sounds like a boring lecture that you would have been sleeping through in college. They have no spice, no humor, and no forward and backwards buttons. (Why is it that a digital audio player should weigh 2.2 pounds anyway?!?! Hello Apple! How about a ProShuffle?)

Tabbed browsing goes one better

nosilver — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 23:27:57 -0500

There have been few advancements in recent years that have enhanced the productivity of Netizens than more than tabbed browsing. Like multiple desktops, which various non Microsoft OSes have employed for years, (Hello… Redmond… Are we reaching you) browser tabs offer access to more information in a way that’s easier to manage. Here at GRI we’ve been singing the praises, and recommending to our clients, browsers that offered the option of tabs for some time. Firefox, our current favy fav of net GUI renderer, supports tabbed browsing as well as browser extensions. The truth is that tabs are old news to all but Microsoft. However, this brings us to the Life Hack of the day. It comes in the form of SessionSaver, a Firefox extension that does two amazing things: First, it has the ability to save all of your open tabs in the main browser window when you close the window. So when you open up the browser window the next time, you are right back where you started. Brilliant! 35 tabs stuffed away and out of memory quickly so you can free up that space for Counter Strike Source. The second amazing thing, and the real standout capability, is the ability to bookmark sets of tabs so you can open them up as a group. You can save things like all the administrative screens for a given site or all your financial websites etc.

See you in Seattle

nosilver — Thu, 19 May 2005 22:05:34 -0500

It’s official, both of the on air personalities of Radio Redhead will be in attendance at this year’s Gnomedex. There was some question of scheduling and previous responsibilities but it all worked out in the end. For Josh, this will be Gnomedex number four. It will also be repeat performance for Trixie. The dynamic duo will be podcasting ‘live to the hard drive’ from the conference floor. And thanks to some wise provisioning from Chris Pirillo dead laptop batteries shant be in effect. We’ll have to get the Green Robe Industry table schwag ready for these two wonders. We’ll see you in Seattle!

What has Gnomedex been in the past?
Gnomedex was born in 2001, carefully crafted by the hands of Lori Lockwood and Jake Ludington. It was supposed to take place on September 14th & 15th, 2001 in Des Moines, Iowa. These were ill-fated days, as nobody could have predicted the catastrophic event that would befall us mere days before. Still, in the eleventh hour, our coordinators were able to reschedule the proceedings a month later - and it was a complete success. The original plans changed a bit, but 350 tech enthusiasts had a great time. Speakers included Steve Gibson, Robert Scoble, and David Lawrence.