Disqus - Latest Comments for usbofb

Re: Concept: Your Very Own Personal TED

usbofb — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:16:37 -0000

Actually quite right pointing that out -- at the time of writing this blog post way back when, hadn't heard about BIL, though a few people I've talked to have brought it up since. Definitely think the way they're approaching democratizing the TED experience and frame of thinking about issues is awesome, though there's a few logistical changes I'd love to experiment with on XOR.

1) Eliminating the unconference angle that appears in BIL -- securing people way in advance to put practiced, keynote-type talks together and curating it specifically to a small group of speakers.

2) See how well it scales -- have a site that aggregates nice, well-formatted talks the way that TED does from the actual conference, but leave it open for people to contribute in the same vein.

Re: Lab Report: Tithing In the Interest of Awesome

usbofb — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:08:29 -0000

That'd be an awesome model of doing it. Like IdeaBlob but not for businesses. It'd be awesome event with some kind of on-the-fly mobile feature. We should def talk sometime.

Re: The U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches

usbofb — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:15:33 -0000

My favorite is the shockingly lame debate over the titling convention for Weird Al's newest album:

"For this CD by "Weird Al" Yankovic, a dispute about whether "outta" should be capitalized spawned lengthy threads on the admin noticeboard, as well as accusations of abuse, and page protection. Arguments focus on whether "Outta" is a preposition, whether it's relevant that it's not shorter than five letters, and whether the way the title is spelled on the actual CD is more important than our manual of style. Until a naming convention change, Straight Outta Lynwood may be SOL (or SoL)."

Re: The U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches

usbofb — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:08:11 -0000

Those blasted kids!

Re: Carving Out A Free Culture Agenda

usbofb — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:47:02 -0000

Definitely agreed! Have you seen the move towards putting together conditions for the Open University with the Wheeler Declaration? Would love to coordinate on it -- SFC over here in Cambridge has been working over initial criteria recently.

Re: The Next Two Weeks: Bon Voyage!

usbofb — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:12:09 -0000

Dangerous times ahead.

Re: Happy National Elevator And Escalator Safety Awareness Week!

usbofb — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:02:20 -0000

MYTH: If an escalator is standing still, it is just a set of stairs.

TRUTH: Not at all! Escalator steps are not the correct height for normal walking and should not be used in that manner. The risk of tripping and falling is increased

SO INFORMATIVE

Re: The U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches

usbofb — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:02:58 -0000

FATALITY

Re: Feature: Tim Hwang Drinks The Entire Berkman Coffee Supply For You (Election Edition)

usbofb — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:07:38 -0000

Yoneda. You are a credit to the force. Can only push about 4-5 cups a day now, any more and I feel like I'm going blind. Will have to try the French Roast next time around, though!

Re: The Kimball Hwang Kimball Hwang Hwang Show

usbofb — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:03:51 -0000

Hey whoah! That's an awesome idea! Turns out we're in the works for doing our very first episode right now, will have to consult with Diana and see if we can't get that set up...

Re: Maslow's Organizational Hierarchy of Needs?

usbofb — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:58:50 -0000

Marketing people are so terrifying. Does it end up working socioeconomically? So like, poor people are most susceptible to this kind of persuasion, rich people have their basic needs fulfilled, so they're weakest to that kind of persuasion?

Re: Why I Followed You Back On Twitter

usbofb — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:57:57 -0000

Phew! That was close.

Re: The U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches

usbofb — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:07:58 -0000

Oh man. Dessert Flavors?

Hell. Yes.

You are so on.

Re: Boston Tech, Meet The Information Superhighway

usbofb — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:48:03 -0000

Yeah, I agree. Especially now that it looks like we'll really be making it a monthly thing, I'm thinking about putting together a site or a blog or something for it. Stay tuned...

Re: The U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches

usbofb — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:24:20 -0000

Maybe! Will have to take a quick peek tomorrow while I'm hanging around the office.

Or maybe they come from The Island. That would fit with the futuristic outlook of the Keurig pods. And painful lack of content.

Re: Pro-High Fructose Corn Syrup PSAs

usbofb — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:11:45 -0000

Definitely. On a reassess -- I admit these comments are accurate to the highest degree. Apologies! My ~5 minutes of linking = not good for assessing quality contributions on Wikipedia. Will be more careful next time.

That being said, I definitely think the ads reframe the debate in a pretty negative way. The "boyfriend" and "party attendee" characters are effectively just straw men, essentially designed to kill the stigma of high fructose corn syrup. But, as you mentioned, the question isn't whether or not one is worse than another -- that isn't the debate that should be taking place. It's the quantity of these things that are being put into things.

Re: Pro-High Fructose Corn Syrup PSAs

usbofb — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:24:17 -0000

Badass.

Re: Feature: Tim Hwang Drinks The Entire Berkman Coffee Supply For You

usbofb — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:54:52 -0000

Blends? Blends? My mind has just been blown.

This blog feature could get really, really complicated.

Re: Feature: Tim Hwang Drinks The Entire Berkman Coffee Supply For You

usbofb — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:52:22 -0000

Not sure, going to have to get around to checking at some point. It's sparse, so dunno -- in the very least, I'm not averse to making a pilgrimage out to BC1 to enjoy the Keurig.

Also -- coffee shots -- let's do it.

Re: The Hwang Hwang Hwang Show

usbofb — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:27:47 -0000

Great comment! Thanks!

Re: The LBT Project: I Wish There Was More Dino Fighting

usbofb — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:34:55 -0000

Yeah, tread with care. As Antiques Roadshow teaches us, you never know when your vintage David Hasselhoff Burger King bobblehead will end up being historically important.

Re: Carving Out A Free Culture Agenda

usbofb — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:29:23 -0000

In total agreement with everything that's been said here: time isn't a luxury here, and Free Culture needs to come out with a solid agenda and set of goals for 2008-9 next year. Another year of inactivity nationally would be pretty unacceptable considering the big challenges that we're seeing emerge in the hardware/software ecosystem.

Will be posting and coordinating further as we get into next week.

Re: Carving Out A Free Culture Agenda

usbofb — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:21:57 -0000

Totally interested in this. Mako, when you proposed it, did you have a draft of what explicit goals you were shooting for? Would be interested in snagging a draft copy of this to read over and potentially raise the issue again. It's time for it.

Re: The Land Before Time Project: Introduction

usbofb — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:11:22 -0000

There's no doubt it's pretty mysterious. I mean, the Beethoven series (featuring the big obnoxious dog) is now up to the fifth entry in the continuity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Go figure. Something about the kid's market for movies perpetuates bloated numbers of sequels. Probably that kids are dumb, but that's testable hypothesis.

Re: I Love The '08s: Cuil and Beating Google

usbofb — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:41:26 -0000

Haha, true -- economic theory as always to the rescue. I think the real question, as you pointed out, ends up being one of market preferences. So what I guess becomes the real battleground is: how do we make people care about data portability?

I've been thinking too that there's another potential solution to Google's fate: government intervention. As they begin rolling out more powerful web app office applications and potentially head into the mobile market, the eventual likelihood that some kind of antitrust case gets pulled in either the US or EU seems pretty likely. Though judging by the Microsoft case, this might not end up creating too big of a problem for them.