I'm going here this weekend

http://www.mnstf.org/minicon44/
steampunk and panel discussions on the nature of superheroes, and Yuri's Night, and this guy (really)

today's band name:
Intelligent Balloons

from a poem by david baker

        Yet here’s
one more, curled
       like a tan seashell not a foot from my blade, just-

come-to-the-
world fawn, speckled,
       wet as a trout, which I didn’t see, hacking back

brush beneath my tulip
poplar—it’s not afraid,
       mews like a kitten, can’t walk—there are so many, too

many of us,
the world keeps saying,
       and the world keeps making—this makes no sense—
       more.

tis good: Miles Benjamin Anthony Robertson

Banana Snot Rocket

is my latest band name.

Disney Horror One Off

I was thinking about this movie, Disney's foray into the horror genre, and how it is so damn difficult for established companies to truly innovate outside of their traditional revenue stream without significant decrease in their net capital.
Sure, this gets to the same idea of a creative class and start ups as true generators of new ideas, but lately I've been thinking it might be something else that can be made culturally endemic.

Its my subjective theory of the moment that most companies gloam onto the idea that makes them successful, and by extension, their extensions of the brand follow the same thinking.

This does not mean that it has to be in the same vein, or even category as the original idea, but that it follows the same general pathway to ideation. People in the company think of the solution or creation in the same way as they did the original idea that made the company successful. This is usually reinforced as stemming from a strong brand identity-ex. the horror movie from Disney, while a failure, is a movie aimed at teens in which the protagonist is a teen who is smarter than the adults around her.

So, there are a few companies that have it easier, as they are built on the idea of ideas. That is to say, their corporate culture is one of innovation. Two compaines come quickly to mind as examples-3m has product development and Google has the internet. Even so, I imagine that they fixate on the creation of new ideas that share many of the same aspects as historic successes within the corporation. This, by and large, is probably a good thing. History is a great model for future success.

What I'm not aware of, and what may not exist, is a corporate structure that battles the cultural pathway to creation by applying principles to their brand model that ensure that these pathways can never be institutionalized. This is probably an overly complex sentence that says: freelancers- a company with a central hub of paper pushers and capital managers with a rotating axis of freelance professionals who solve each problem, and create each widget, as a one of a kind, once in a lifetime collaboration.

That model would certainly have many problems of its own, to be sure, starting with whether or not we can even truly call it a company, but at least it wouldn't get bogged down in the same predicable ways to come up with an unpredicatble solution.

haunt and boo and war and woo

touch me i'm going to scream...cause i'm obsessed with fireflies

http://www.passion-paris.com/flash.html#page=p2&video=v749

Depeche Mode. Yeah.

So. The new depeche mode song has been in my head all day but I had yet to see the video for it. Well. Hip Hip Horror. It's great. It's disturbing. Its why these guys still kick ass.

Sin Fang Bous: Good for this snowy April day

Our jobs can be so fun sometimes.

http://adage.com/brightcove/lineup.php?lineup=17988915001&title=17996146001

http://www.morenewmath.com/all/

it would be nice

if men kept falcons like they used to.

I am not in your kitchen...

ffffound

Made my day.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/wherethewildthingsare/

Sigh....really?

That says 5-7 days.

the future is...near

the applications of this are bonkers.
not sure if programmable matter differs from nanotechnology (or is a subset of the field) but as the post says, this is the stuff of nerdgasms. more than just nerds, this is the stuff that will allow us to articulate more precisely and speedily the mutations of our imaginations. this technology is like the guitar hero of design, it takes away all of the practical skills and leaves you with raw creativity.

gasp.

transience

You no longer purchase physical music. You download it.
You can now download movies in hi-def.
TV is on HULU.
You can download and play games on computers, X Box, PS3, and Wii.
Solid state computers cost 1/3 of the price by asking; who needs a hard drive?
google word, email, flickr, last.fm, pandora, etc.
Live in a city- Carshare, Zip Car, etc.
Want the latest luxury purse? Rent it.

We should be a post ownership society. We are in many regards.

According to Richard Florida in the latest Atlantic, the cities of the now and near future are no longer those that have the resource infrastructure, but those that appeal to lifestyle.
So, SF, Miami, LA, and NYC make the cut, but so do Portland, Austin, Minneapolis and Vancouver.

But while the 'creative class' is shifting and jumbling together in these regions, trading in the last vestiges of the 50's american dream- the dream of ownership- for the creative hive and sheer aesthetic value of the landscape around them- most of america is less transitory than it has been in decades.

this is over reported and under stood.

what it really comes down to is a nation of complacency. A nation that can be at war with two countries and feel no pangs, a nation that has every conceivable food option mere minutes away. really, a great nation, but one that has not needed to strive for more for too long. its lonely at the top, but its also unmotivating. and it has been this way for nearly two generations now.

all of it just makes me itch to see more of the world. to trade in physical roots for digital ones. its knee jerk certainly, but its also a throw back- nomadic- hunter gatherer and all that jazz- and its about time. about time we went back to taking care to imbibe experiences and share them with others, to see things from different angles and preconceived notions. to bump into other peoples ideas. to make a mess.

people are fully sustainable urban landscapes.

information technology is manifested in attire/personal devices.

it all means: direct path to influencing individual behavior on a mass scale.