June 2010 Archives

Justin E.H. Smith in 3quarksdaily writing on nationalism, Of National Character: "And this brings me to my second main concern here, beyond the jockeying by superpowers for hegemonic clout in the world, namely, the differential ways different nations relate to air-conditioning... In some parts of Nigeria, mobile phone technology seems to be largely important as a new means of transmitting hexes. In the Balkans, as in 'Central Europe', something they call air-conditioning certainly exists, but not in the same way it does in the finely chilled banks and supermarkets of my Central Californian youth."

Adam Greenfield on What Apple needs to do now: "The iPhone and iPad, as I argued on the launch of the original in 2007, are history's first full-fledged everyware devices -- post-PC interface devices of enormous power and grace -- and here somebody in Apple's UX shop has saddled them with the most awful and mawkish and flat-out tacky visual cues. You can credibly accuse Cupertino of any number of sins over the course of the last thirty years, but tackiness has not ordinarily numbered among them."

The Knotty Yarn on Commodification, Branding and the Overall Fuckery of Blogging: "I've been uncomfortable with personal branding (as it relates to blogging) from the get go. I was invited to moderate a panel at BlogHer last year; there was a pre-conference meeting for moderators and presenters. Everyone was asked to stand up one by one, introduce themselves, and tell everyone about their blog. Most people stood up and, without hesitation, declared their place in the world of blogging. "I'm a life blogger." "I'm a mommy blogger." "I'm a political blogger." By the time it got around to me I had no idea what I was supposed to say. "Hi, I'm Danielle and, I don't know, I seem to write about my vagina a LOT." "

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Sun 06.27.10 - Happy Birthday to Erika a few days late!

My fave quote from Rant #1, US vs Them? American wireless industry, come meet me at Camera 3:

But no, Americans consumers get crippled versions of the cheapest lousiest phones you can find. Why is it that an Apple 'innovation' of a Forward Facing Camera is somehow radical in the USA? We've had these forward facing second cameras as standard features on essentially all 3G phones in Europe and Asia and Australia and Latin America and.. for Heaven's Sake, in Africa! I was the person flown in to place the first 3G video call on the continent of Africa when Vodacom of South Africa opened its 3G network for developers - and I used a forward facing second camera on that 3G phone - and this was in ...2004! Shame on you American carriers! That you haven't bothered even to bring this international standard to Americans and we have to wait for an outsider like Apple to bring it (now obviously, they do it on their Facetime proprietary solution, and can you blame Apple for that? You ruined yet another opportunity). The best phones? Isn't it time you joined us in the 21st Century and let American consumers enjoy what the rest of the world expects as normal.

My fave bit from Rant #2, Serious reply to CTIA Steve Largent - he's cruisin' for a bruisin':

In Japan, on just one carrier, NTT DoCoMo, there are today over a million content partners, application and service providers. When did they pass that 100,000 level? in 2004! You think Steve Largent that this is a sign of innovation in America in 2009? You are literally 5 years behind Japan - a country only a third the size of the USA in population. Shame on you! But I know the app store argument is fun to make today, eh? So you admit that the carriers can't do this level of creativity, it takes the outsider - like Apple - to do it. Thats exactly what I argued. So, one, I defeat your argument that the USA is 'innovative' because of the Apple App Store - but you then admit that the 100,000 in December 2009 and most of the 240,000 today (Apple having 225,000) is because of Apple who could not deploy these on the carrier systems, and had to develop its own app store. You are helping me prove my point that the carriers in the USA are dinosaurs, Steve.

The internet, the blogosphere, and the mobile worlds are all the richer for Mr. Ahonen's rants. Put Tomi on your RSS feed, it is always a good read.

Rebecca Blood wrote on "The Slow Web" today:

The Slow Web would be more like a book, retaining many of the elements of the Popular Web, but unhurried, re-considered, additive. Research would no longer be restricted to rapid responders. Conclusions would be intentionally postponed until sufficiently noodled-with. Writers could budget sufficient dream-time before setting pixel to page. Fresh thinking would no longer have to happen in real time.

Go read her article and the cinema post that inspired it.

I am only occasionally interested in blog posts, be it writing them or reading them, that are apart of the hyper-fast web, what has happened right now - usually if it about an earthquake that just happened or a revolution (like Iran last June). I particularly dislike the echo chamber of tech/mobile blog posts that happen within 30 minutes of a press release or a keynote from a company executive.

((yawn))

But blog posts that are written after one has considered the subject, looked at various sides, actually held the device in one's hand, mused on events & filtered them through experience, thought about the repercussions, and then write an informed opinion piece - now that is good slow web.

Mon 06.21.10 - At the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, today was/is Midsummer, but here in the mid-latitudes (33N), today at 4:28am PDT marks the beginning of the summer season, or the summer solstice.

Now, the specific 33N mid-latitudes that I live in is the greater Los Angeles basin area, of which June 20/21st marks the end of the June Gloom season (May 1st - June 30th) and the start of the Mostly Consistently Sunny Season but before the start of the official Fire Season (Sept 15th - Oct 31st). Thus, Summer in other people's worlds.

Me, I am not so much of a fan of the season known as Summer, and I am even less a fan of the late Fire Season. I like my mostly consistently sunny season to be Dec 21st - March 15th. I like my sun to come with sharp, crisp chilly weather, not sweltering, stagnant hot weather.

I will leave the love of the hot to the folks of the higher northern latitudes who have a real winter and thus summer is a treat or to the folks of the equatorial latitudes for whom summer is year around and any drop below 68F/20C is FREEZING.

So how, some way, I will figure out how to spend Midsummer to late October north of the 55th parallel line next year. Some how, some way.

And to the rest of you, Happy Summer!

Photos of the USS Gridley Open House taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

One of the oddities about living a block away from a U.S. Navy base is that one never gets to go on base, there is a lot of open land, one is not allowed to take photos of anything behind the Navy chain link fence, and Naval ships come and go weekly from the dock in the Anaheim Bay.

Yesterday, Sat 06.19.10, I was driving home from taking Scruffy to Dog Beach, I saw a sign announcing "Open House" at the Seal Beach Blvd entrance to the Anaheim Bay dock area of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. I quickly turned in and asked the nice young lady in camoflague if the open house was for anyone or just for folks who had tickets, she let me know that it as for anyone.

I drove the block home, parked, rounded up my Mom and Magnolia, left Scruffy in the apartment, and off we walked over the Navy Open House. It was fun. I really like touring factories, monuments, dams, and large equipment (like a Navy destroyer).

The best part was having Magnolia along for the tour of the USS Gridley (aka #101), as a 4 year old is really the best person to share one's own childlike joy of such things with. Thanks, to my Mom & Magnolia for being willing to go on the spur of the moment tour of the USS Gridley.

As a side note, I would like to say that all the Navy folk who take shore leave in Seal Beach should wear their uniforms, as all the personnel looked lovely/handsome.

Ah, Ireland, you break my heart, but today I am greatly heartened on your behalf. It is truly extraordinary in the true sense of the word to have a conservative prime minister to apologize to the people of Northern Ireland.

"What happened should have never ever happened."

"On behalf of our government, indeed of our country, I am deeply sorry."

Thank you, Mr. Cameron. Thank you, Lord Saville and all the investigators and staffers of the report commission. Thank you to all of the witnesses, survivors, families, officials, army folk, and others who gave testimonies and interviews for this matter to be parsed out.

The Saville Report

News, Video, & Commentary:

BBC : Bloody Sunday report published

The New York Times : Cameron Calls N. Ireland Killings 'Unjustified'
Video of Cameron's Apology For 'Bloody Sunday,' and Footage From 1972

The Irish Times : "On behalf of our country I am deeply sorry" - British prime minister David Cameron

The Guardian : Bloody Sunday report: 38 years on, justice at last

Making Light : "Both unjustified and unjustifiable"

Metafilter : After 38 years, the truth

I have begun to hate all the blog posts and articles that are titled for SEO points using numbers plus the general idea.

It is like a bad internet loop of The Nails' "88 Lines About 44 Women" going over and over and over again.

Most of the time the posts in question are fluff pieces and while they lure you into reading them with promises of real information or that you will read a point by point soundly reasoned and argued opinion piece, no, one gets fooled.

Fooled into thinking that the writer/ blogger actually had something to say.

Fooled by the numerals into thinking the piece would be use sound rhetoric and be factual.

But no usually they have one or two good idea-ettes per 10 numbers and the rest are puffed up to reach the other 8 or 9 points to lure more traffic and diggs to their site.

On the Left: 1950s/1960s photo from the Huntington Beach archives, On the Right: 2010 photo taken today by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Sun. 06.13.10 - Yesterday while researching my blog post on the century of oil wells & pumping in Seal Beach & Huntington Beach, California, I found the above left photo of oil wells as seen from the Huntington Beach Pier taken in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Today, I decided to drive down the pier before sunset and try to find the place the photo was taken and take another photo, on the right. The original must have been taken from the mid-pier lifeguard tower due to the angle, and I did not have access to the tower, so I took it from the place the ladies the in the original stood.

I wanted to have the photos show how much HB has appeared to change in the last 50 years, although underneath not as much. There is still oil being pumped in between and around the million dollar ocean view homes.

As I drove out of the parking lot just north of the pier, I decided to take a video, see below, as I drove north up Pacific Coast Highway to narrate both as a visual and verbal history what I know of the land between the Huntington Beach Pier and the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

There is still some visible oil pumping and drilling, but much of it is now hidden or expensive homes have been built over the capped wells. As one drives north on PCH from the HB Pier towards Bolsa Chica the oil rigs, wells, pipes, and tanks along the roadside become more visible to the watchful eye. Then as the road descends into the Bolsa Chica wetlands, the oil wells and pipes become highly visible on three of the four sides of the wetlands.

Please do read yesterday's blog post, On Offshore Oil, if you are wondering what I am talking about.

Photo taken this morning at Dog Beach by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

I have grown up in beach communities in Southern California to a surfing / beach volleyball mad family. Much of my memories & lessons of childhood revolves around sun, sand, a fierce ocean, jellyfish stings, riptides, and tar.

From my earliest memories, nail polish remover was for getting the black sticky tar off one's feet and it wasn't until I was older that I learned about enamel nail polish. As a child, little patches of tar washed up on the beach was objects of play, much like the ocean's version of play dough mashed up with silly putty. Except it only came in one color, black.

The landscape of my childhood is one of oil, oil rigs, oil donkeys/seesaw horsies, offshore oil islands & oil platforms. Southern California was just a string of Spanish missions and land grants running cattle until the discovery of oil and water. The offshore oil seeps and onshore tar pits of Los Angeles are thousands/millions of years old. Onshore and offshore oil made this town. William James Mullholland made sure that there was water for this town in the 1920s.

All my life there has been a give and take, sometimes shove and push, between the needs of the people and their need for oil to run a modern life in a semi-desert and the needs of the land and environment in California. For all of our "Land of the fruits & nuts" or "The Left Coast" or hippie environmental tree hugging, we here in California, and by California, I mean all of us, not just LA, but SF and the Central Valley, etc, we all rely on the wonders of the oil economy for our automobile based lifestyle, for our water to be pumped from the Sierra Nevada mountains, for our modern homes, the plastics that make our computers and devices, and on the list goes.

Yes, here in the western US, we have most of our electricity coming from hydropower and in the deserts of SoCal we are developing big solar farms, as well as big windmill farms in the passes between our mountains. But, a big but...

Both in SoCal and NorCal, we have built our cities on great ports with large docking for oil tankers, we have refineries that convert the oil to gasoline and other products. We build over the land that once contained many oil rigs and oil donkeys pumping oil out for our consumption, now we cleverly hide them with buildings. Or we take the rigs down, place them offshore, angle the drilling to pump into the same area, and then build million dollar homes over the land that has been soaked in oil for the last 100 years. Funny, those patches of land have some the highest rates of cancer in SoCal. Not so funny for the folks who bought the houses and let their children play in the backyards.

Layers of history. Layers of landscape. Layers of industry. Layers of suburbia. Layers of city over desert. Layers of tar washed up on the beaches.

Esther, Emma, Eva, Edith, Elly, Eureka, plus two more between Seal & Huntington Beaches and Catalina Island. I know their names, I am fond of them. Every couple of years one can surf the sand bar near Esther. Eva and Emma are just off of Dog Beach (see photo from this morning at the top). The big noisy diesel powered supply boat pulls out of the Seal Beach pier to run supplies and employees to the all the E's. Sometimes, when you are walking your dog early or late, you see dead tired, oil smeared men in dark work overalls carrying backpacks and hardhats as they walk down the pier to a waiting car on Ocean Ave coming home from a set of shifts on the E's.

I actually love Esther and Eva. I think they are lovely ladies, so gracefully raising from the Pacific Ocean only a mile or less off the coast. I love their bright white girders, their lights at dusk and night, and at 5am when I hear the supply boat take off from the pier, while the gunning of its engines wakes me up, I smile thinking of those men in their overalls going out to one of the ladies to bring up the crushed organic remains of 100s of millions of years old diatoms giving their ancient selves for our smog and melting glaciers.

Coal with enough time & pressure becomes diamonds, diatoms with the same time & pressure become black liquid diamonds.

Romantic pftuffle!

By age 9, I had learned that the lovely buildings on the islands in the Long Beach bay weren't modernist apartments for the terminally hip, but disney-esque facades for the oil rigs, platforms and pumping bound for Terminal Island. To this day, I still wish they were apartments for people and not for long dead diatoms.

If tomorrow Esther or Eva's wellhead blew out, the fix would be simpler than a deeper offshore rig as both of them sit on continental shelf that is less than a hundred feet in depth between the ocean floor and the top of the platform, possibly a bit more in Eva's case. Yes, it would be a tragedy, yes oil booms would be placed at the entrance of the Anaheim Bay and at the entrance of the Bolsa Chica wetlands to protect the precious Seal Beach & Bolsa Chica wetlands, bird & fish hatcheries. But there are already permanent floating booms at the Bolsa Chica wetlands, as they are still pumping oil on 3 of the four sides bordering the fish & bird protected areas. The wild lands have been in terse congress with the oil lands for many many years.

I haven't written about the DeepWater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf Coast yet, as I have been appalled at our collective hubris to think we could drill at depths of over 5,000 ft and horrified at the scale of the environmental disaster. All of my romanticism of the strange mix of industry and oil with the land has completely flattened and atomized by the magnitude of disaster that has been occurring in the Gulf of Mexico for the last 6 weeks.

I am horrified and saddened. Every time I see photos of birds or turtles encased in oil sludge and dying, I cry. I am not sure what else to write as my words are no sop to the enormity of tens of thousands of barrels of oil gushing from a high pressure wound in the ocean floor nearly a mile below the surface.

May this disaster be the catalyst to cause us to break up with our 150 year romance with oil, stop going back for more, and move on to sustainable forms of energy even if they are less sexy and more expensive than oil. Maybe it is time for humanity to return to a collective worship of the sun, the wind, and the waves rather than the vengeful mistress of black, black oil.

****

Follow-up Post: Following the Huntington Beach Oil Trails, a Tale of Two Photos

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Thurs 06.10.10 - Dinner with Thomas and Erika at La Dijonaise Cafe at the old Helms Bakery complex in Culver City. T&E were very patient with me as I snapped many photos trying to get the timing right of the flashing Helms Bakery neon sign.

The sign would rotate between a blank stage, a blue "Bakery", a blank stage, and then the red "Helms". The whole rotation of the four states/stages would take a little over 3 seconds but not a full four. I would wait for the blue stage, count 3 seconds, press the shutter and hope for the N86 snapping during the red stage.

I finally got the photo I wanted after the meal had been cleared away and we were finishing our wine. The meal was lovely.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Wed 06.09.10 - Sorry if things have been a little quiet around here at Black Phoebe lately, but I have been quiet. I have been working on finishing up the tiny details and loose ends on several work projects and have been so immersed in the finishing that I have not had a lot of things to say or write about here.

I do have two halfway finished mobile blogs posts for you all, I just need to find some time and mental space to complete my thoughts.

Mostly, thought I have enjoyed the final ends of the projects and taking photos while out and about on walks with Scruffy. The act of observing the little details both in code and image is what the last month has been about for me.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Tues 05.08.10 - The magnolia tree sapling that got completely ran over and trapped under the runaway Volvo back in late March has now rebounded and is actually blossoming rather than dying as the city workers predicted it would do. It still has Volvo scars, but is thriving.

Go, little magnolia tree, go.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Mon 05.07.10 - I had a 9am meeting this morning with a long term client who is very fond of Scruffy, so we sat in her backyard while we discussed redesigning her business' website and Scruffy set himself nicely up on a pillow.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86 camera.

Sat 06/05/10 - The much beloved friend of many years, Taco Bill, aka Bill Payne, is moving to Bremerton, WA with his family for his new US Coast Guard, so Kim & Jeff Roth threw Bill, Storm, Ridge & Nicholas Payne a lovely going away party.

Back in the day (mid-90s), most all of the fellows in the photos where roommates or Glamis/River friends with my brother Joe and Bill at the Orange & Bay street house in Costa Mesa, thus all the photos of my brother.

Tonight's party was the equivalent to going to a high school or college reunion that is populated with the folks you liked. It was very good to see Bill & his new family, Mikey Bruce, and others doing so well even though we are all 40 or so now. ;o)

Heartbreaking. I truly hope that the Iranian people prevail and not the regime. One year later and no change of the regime, even more heartbreaking.

The Guardian on the making of the 'For Neda' documentary.

Amongst bloggers in recent years there has been a decline in single author generalist blogs, be they professional or personal, and an increase in single subject blogs. Amongst tech bloggers, there has been a great deal of single brand blogs.

As a generalist semi-profession, semi-personal, semi-photography, semi-commentary blogger, I am always amazed when a person can keep a regular single subject blog up for longer than 2-3 years. Most of the personal bloggers I know have burnt out and then gotten reinvigorated by looking at different facets of their lives or by moving on to new passions. But what is a single subject blogger or even worse a single brand blogger to do when they are burnt out on that subject or brand?

Dan Carter of WorldofNokia.co.uk decided to close his blog this week. Dan writes:

"After what has been a up and down 2 years I am announcing that World Of Nokia will be closing it's doors for the final time on 5th June 2010 when the site will no longer be updated.

Both myself and Christian would like to thank you all for your support shown since day one and for everyone who has helped build the site up with comments, links or advertising,

Seeing as this is the final post I thought it only right to explain the reason behind the closing of the site and to be brutal its the fact Nokia have stopped being as creative as they once were not that long ago. The N95 was a modern masterpiece with the exception of the poor battery life but since then there has been a total lack in creativity

Nearly every phone launched until the new C/X series was a small update of the phone it was surpassing which itself was only a few months old (just how many versions of the 5800 and N95 did we really need??)
...

Over the past 2 years just concentrating on Nokia, all the phones ended up feeling pretty much the same due to the tired Symbian OS which only now on the new Symbian 3 due out in September has some chance of doing well. In fact when talking to Christian tonight about the Nokia N8 he said

"its too far off for me and runs Symbian which is putting me off"

"

In response, I commented:

"Dan,

May I make a recommendation? Keep the domain name, you never know what the future will bring AND don't just put your writing effort into someone else's site, but get your own blog and write about what you love right now.

With your own blog about whatever, there is no pressure to blog about a certain brand or even about mobile, but whatever you love.

Good luck!

smiles, jen ;o)"

All commentary about personal branding aside, I do think if one is a passionate person and is interested in observing the world around one or creating a space online, then having a string of single subject blogs or writing for a string of group or contribution blogs may end up being frustrating both for the blogger and their readers.

I will advocate my 2nd Law of the Internet in this case - "Own your Own Stuff".

I encourage anyone who has graduated from or wants to graduation from occasional posting blogger.com or wordpress.com to get their own domain, of which does not have to be in your name but can be an idea or conceptual name, and then set up a self-hosted blog in that domain and blog. Blog about whatever.

If this week you want to blog about mobile and Nokia or Apple, then blog about it. If next week or month or year, you are super passionate about Peruvian butterflies, then pay your domain registry & hosting and keep blogging be it about Apple, butterflies, politics, relationships, brands, travel, underpants, or whatever.

Put own your own creativity and consolidate it into one place, and if you must use tech tricks such as tags, categories, and .htaccess files to drive the SEO traffic to your new generalist blog.

Why? As a gift to your regular readers. People subscribe by RSS or Google Reader or Feedburner, etc, and they will want to keep reading you. Treat your regulars well, give them a consistent RSS or Atom feed.

Also as a gift to yourself. Allowing your own intellectual and creative curiosity to grow and flourish by the ability to explore new ideas over time rather than be limited to a single subject or brand.

Earlier this year, James Burland, a creative from the UK that I admire greatly did all but shutter his "Nokia Creative" blog to move on to his "iPad Creative" blog. While I love James' various passions for creating on the devices he is most excited about right now, I would love to see him for the long term not commit to a single brand, even if it drives more traffic in terms of SEO, but instead have one central blog of James' thoughts on how to create with [_______insert name of device_______]. Otherwise in 5 years' time, where will some of his best pieces be?

Ok, my inner Micki Krimmel will now argue to me that none of this matters to the reader, they don't care and technology will solve the problems of aggregation of all of our content for the reader to find over time. Someone else may argue that in 5 years time, James won't care about the iPad but will think his blog about it is a quaint relic of a different time.

Be that as it may, one of the great breakthroughs of the internet age is that if we want to, we can all be creative producers, so why not set up our own channel that is not dependent on one idea, subject, or brand, but instead a channel / blog / site that allows one to grow in one's passions and creativity over time and still allows the readers to consistently follow and participate.

Dan, I hope you set up your own space that allows you to blog about whatever suits your fancy right now without apologies and allows those of us who read your writing to continue to follow you, even if it is sporadic.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

The question of the day at the Ladies Luncheon yesterday is what would you do for your career, any job, that would be a job that you loved and you are good at?

Our answers ranged from 2 personal shoppers, 1 prostitute, 1 mattress tester (aka professional napper), 1 movie reviewer, and 1 travel photographer.

Given my last blog post about a very passionate 15 year old who is determinedly working towards her dream to dance in the Bolshoi Ballet, regardless of your age, circumstances, and current employment situation, what would you do that you love and be good at?

Me, all jokes aside about being the first professional camera phone travel photographer, I would love to be on a team that is creating camera phones or is creating software for camera phones and I would be good at it.

And you? Do tell.

Watch the video.
Read the Story: Young Americans Embrace Rigors of the Bolshoi
Look at the slideshow.
Be encouraged.
Be challenged.