I mean, CAN'T WE??
Therefore and forthwith, BC+D wishes a Happy Holiday and a totally brilliant New Year... to you, your loved ones and the exotic animal of your choice.
*platypii?
Okay, so it's mild in the Tdot and we have no reindeer, llama or platypus* but we can still rock out the year-end Christmas-stylee, can't we?
This ad is great for two reasons. 1) Captain Morgan finally has some edge... like a real pirate... or a rock star, and 2) White Stripes, baby!
Jawbone is set to release a new "revolutionary device" called "Up" in the coming weeks. It's a wristband + app that tracks your activity, your inactivity (by alerting you that you've been sitting too long and need to get up and DO SOMETHING, DAMMIT!), your sleep and your meals. The wristband costs $100. The app, as I understand it, is free.
I've downloaded a few different activity/workout apps myself thru the years, although I rarely use them. Mostly I find that I'm 3/4 of the way through a nice bike ride and suddenly remember that I meant to track and log this one as a "workout". Oh well, next time...
At any rate, this Jawbone thing got me thinking - and not because I have anything against Jawbone mind you (I love their headsets), but this whole 'tracking and logging' thing is way out of hand.
I mean, it's like our entire lives are now plotted, planned and executed online. I need to logon to tell the twitterverse that I'm about to enjoy a cup of coffee, and now I have a wristband to confirm that I'm drinking it (and tell me I'm a lazy-ass while I'm doing it)?
My point is... what ever happened to spontaneity - when you could go for a bike ride BECAUSE YOU LIKE RIDING A BIKE? Now you have to gps the route, log the start and end times, measure your pedal cadence and elevation gains and losses, and count your calories burned.
It's like people don't do anything for the enjoyment of doing a thing anymore. It all has to be recorded, like we're a bunch of pro athletes, training for a freaking Extreme Sports Olympiad. Or maybe it's feeding a need to see our lives as meaningful and important. ("I'm not just wasting time. I'm doing a workout!")
I'm not about to uninstall my workout apps because it really is helpful to be able to track your fitness efforts, but I balk at the idea of having every second of my free time micro-managed by a piece of software. It's funny too, because when I first read about this wristband idea, I thought about the wristband that I've been wearing for years now. It reminds me to stay active, and eat right, and to appreciate good health while I have it, and it only cost a buck.
Livestrong Motivation
Humber River. October 2011
I rigged up a fishing net and a plastic bag to the the HMS iAyeFloat this morning and paddled off down the river in search of trash. Look what I found!!
That's not the half of it (or the quarter, or an even tinier fraction) I'm afraid.
This was my first time out there, trash collecting and I only scratched the surfacest of surfaces. For one thing, I had to practice my trash-collecting M.O. I bought the fishing net specially for this purpose and it's a matter of paddling up to a piece of garbage, and snagging it without losing the paddle or getting too much mud in the boat or (GROSS!!!) on me.
For another thing, since I have an inflatable boat, I have to be careful about getting too close to shore in some spots, for fear of punctures. But all in all, I'd say it's a pretty good haul for the first time.
It's hard to know how much more I'll be able to do this year as the river freezes over during the winter, but I fully intend to continue with this little project next year.
In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to you, Humber River!!
I don't really "get" dance, but this is pretty cool. Gaga is part creative expression, part physio-therapy, and no, it has nothing to do with the pop singer.
Another entry from those indefatigably creative minds at OK Go. This one's a nice little HTML5 vid that lets you become part of the video. Just send a message and watch...
Note: View it in Chrome
Old Spice introduces the New Old Spice Guy, Fabio who wastes no time challenging old Old Spice Guy to an internet duel
I made this whacky little video tutorial and posted it over on youtube. Seriously, it's whacky. I was fiddling around with Flash and illustrator and thought it would be fun (HAHA) to do a cartoon style animation. I've never done any type of animation before, in fact, I've never put together more than a few seconds worth of flash "footage" at one time, ever, so I couldn't resist the challenge.
I can now safely vouch for the truth of the phrase "ignorance is bliss". Animation is a LOT of work!!
At any rate it's done and uploaded (see link below), but this post isn't about the actual video so much, as about what I learned, in the process of getting the damn thing uploaded to youtube.
During the testing phase last week I discovered that when I exported the Flash file to QuickTime (video format - .mov), for some reason the audio wasn't exporting with it. The only other available file format for Flash on a Mac is .swf and youtube doesn't accept .swf files. WTF Flash? Seriously? A little quality time with google confirmed that I wasn't the only one with this problem but I still couldn't find a solution, although one enterprising dude had suggested making a QuickTime screencast of the animation and uploading THAT file. When I tried it, I ended up with a .mov file over 300 mb, which took over 2 hours to upload, and when it finally did upload, it was so badly corrupted that it was unusable. That's when I checked the Share options in QuickTIme (10.0) and here's what I did... I exported the screencast .mov file to "Share with iTunes", then dragged the resulting mpg from iTunes to my desktop and uploaded THAT file to youtube. The mpeg was 13 mgs or so and took less than 5 minutes to upload. I still haven't found a workaround for that initial file format issue, so I ended up creating the screencast of my original Flash file. I expanded the Flash stage to 300% and closed all the pallettes and timeline, so that the animation filled the screen as much as possible. If you try it, remember that the screencast will record the audio in your file with your built-in mic, so turn off the tv and try to keep the kids and pets out of the room, during recording! This method worked fine for my purposes. Your mileage may vary, of course I'll admit it's a bit of a convoluted fix, but it did work... and frankly I couldn't stand the thought of all that work going to waste just because Flash is a stupid, stupid application. Screen Captures & An Intro To Mac Terminal