I remember pondering the idea of communicating with my neighbors via SSID (wifi network name) in the recent past. It actually may have been way back during Startup Weekend DC (around Oct. 2007) while we were brainstorming new ways to meet the people that share your locale; neighbors in apartment buildings etc. Well yesterday while I was trying to wifi-up a new device in my apartment I noticed a SSID in the list I’d never seen before - StreetSpirit.
the wifi list from my couch in Denver, CO
In seventh grade, the song ‘Street Spirit‘ was my second favorite track off a Radiohead album called the Bends. It closed the record and I’ve had multiple conversations with people agreeing that it was maybe the most mysterious track they had created at that time. To me it was always (musically and chronologically) a lead in to the record that put them on the map - OK Computer. Street Spirit is a classic B-side that Radiohead still plays live.
Anyway, I started to think about how I really don’t know many of my neighbors - I’d like to know more of them. Of course there are a brazillion Radiohead (and Steppenwolf?) fans out there. But that one of my neighbors is potentially such a big Radiohead fan that they’d name their SSID after a B-side - I want to meet them.
After reading this post over at The Next Web, I decided to try and interact with my neighbors via SSID to just experiment. Instead of delivering cookies and shaking hands I was going to create an SSID that would hopefully catch their eye. Unfortunately I don’t share much (that I know of yet) with my local peers. I had to think of something we’ve all encountered or experienced to initially relate to them. Then it hit me, laundry! There are no washer/dryer hookups in the units of my building as it was built in the early 1900’s. Our basement laundry room machines cost $3.25 per load and from my experience that’s pricey for Denver. Am I wrong?
Answer me Kenilworth Court on Downing St. in Denver and let’s start a bulletin board via SSID.
I’ll be attending Ignite Boulder this Wednesday (Oct. 29th) on the CU campus. Andrew Hyde is known for putting on great events for entrepreneurs and techies in the Denver/Boulder area.
“Ignite is a night of presentations on a variety of topics, with a twist. Each presentation has 20 slides, that automatically advance after 15 seconds. It is a worldwide movement, and Boulder is hosting their own October 29th.”
I remember seeing this quote when I was 11 years old. ‘Grunge is dead’ printed right on Kurt Cobain’s t-shirt in a photo taken with his daughter. This was my first exposure to what is at it’s core called modern punk culture. It was the epitome of cool then. He just didn’t care; and not caring was sweet. Hipsters still do and will always be fighting the battle of who could care less. But back in the 90’s not caring was in the mainstream for reals. Apathy was truly popular. Then one day, out of the blue, the trend was dead right? Not really.
I think for some grunge died the day Walmart started selling flannels and ripped jeans. For others it was the day bands like Silverchair blew up among middle-schoolers like myself at the time. For me… it was today. Anyone that knows me well knows I love 90’s alternative rock. It had a significant impact on me as a musician. I’ve been keeping it alive in my friend circles for as long as I can remember. Here are the two big recent events that drove the final nail inches deep into the coffin. Goodbye my love.
Chris Cornell the lead singer of Soundgarden (my favorite grunge band with currently no dead members) is working with Timbaland and it doesn’t sound grand. Checkout the thirty second clip of ‘Long Gone‘ and hear for yourself. As Stereogum wrote, the title of the song describes his career better than the music itself. The track ‘Watch Out’ sounds like a Gnarls Barkley rip. Chris Cornell successfully growing in a genre like this really seems like a bit of a stretch.
Scott Weiland (the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots) can’t sing anymore. I know it’s debatable whether or not STP is considered a true grunge band, but here’s how I see it. They carried that early/mid 90’s alternative sound through the late 90’s mainstream while the others were dropping. And man, were they tight. It appears that drugs have ruined yet another great musician.
Now if you will excuse me I have to go meltdown my 24k gold version of Nevermind (which is more rare because it doesn’t include the secret song) for some extra cash. I’m trying to scrounge enough together to buy this.
At first I judged the whole fixed-gear bike craze. I didn’t get it. Caught myself asking, ‘why would you not want brakes?’ etc. They make sense for messengers, but that’s because messengers ride all the live long day. Those guys/gals need something that is easy and cheap to upkeep considering the miles endured. Over the past three years I’ve changed my opinion though. A few buds of mine have jumped on board and I’ve noticed something cool…
People who purchase fixies (especially cycling newbs) genuinely get more into bikes. They understand how to better repair them and ride more often. The hype around fixies kind of reminds me of the 1960’s VW bus craze. The buses were inexpensive (especially when purchased used) and really easy to learn and fix up. Many people (mostly hippies) knew how to take apart the engines and find replacement parts. Like fixies, the buses had their own specialized purpose which is what caused them to standout. They could hold a bunch of people and allowed for cooking or sleeping unlike the average car of the era. Like the VW bus, fixies teach the ‘hip’ how to repair and better operate their main form of transportation.
As we cut back on fossil fuels and watch bikes roll back into the limelight, I’m having fun seeing friends getting passionate about their bikes. I still don’t own one; maybe I’ll give in soon. Wondering if single-gear bikes are stolen less often than multi-gear? Are thieves turned off by them due to the learning curve behind riding them?
First, what is Twitter? Indeed it’s a micro-blogging platform. Quick updates can be sent to the service via a few different mediums (Text message, IM etc.). Subscribers can then consume the updates using their own medium of chose (RSS, API etc.). For most users the experience lands somewhere between a chat room and a blog. It’s often used to serve two separate purposes, 1) group communication and 2) personal publishing.
Here are some real world ‘group communication‘ examples I’ve contributed:
Comment (Describing my feelings to a specific person)
Response (To a friend who had asked about my lunch plans)
Self expression (I’m a huge Nirvana fan and therefore thought Spain’s TRL was actually good)
Remember that these two forms of communication aren’t by any means new to the internet (mIRC, BB’s etc.). By definition, there are shifts in trends and fads. This all makes me wonder as the spammers crawl in, will Twitter be used more for communities or publishing? My gut sense says the latter as it generally serves up higher grade content.
For the first time in my life I started experiencing good ol’ average back pain during college. My brother Kirt, who was then working at a running store, explained it might have something to do with my battered sk8 shoes. The summer of graduation I took some of my newly found cash and went on a hunt for the perfect pair of shoes.
They had to be…
Very supportive as well as comfortable
Work well for walking and/or running as needed
Colorful and unique
Cheap
Considering ‘cheap’ was at the bottom of the list, I chose the New Balance 991. Considering ‘colorful and unique’ was just above ‘cheap’, I selected the green ones. That day I ordered six pairs from an outlet store in Chicago and haven’t looked back since. Ever seen anyone else with these shoes? I love ‘em.
Somehow we got into hockey. Even though my family lived in a suburb near Nashville Tennessee we made the best of our situation and signed up with the local league.
All of a sudden our weekends were filled with long smelly car rides and frigid ice rinks. Of course there were benefits; lessons in teamwork and discipline etc. I think it was really smart of my parents to encourage the competition and camaraderie provided in the sport. I was really lucky.
Last week my father was celebrated for providing the same opportunity to other Tennessee youth. They named the local high school hockey trophy after him; I’m really proud. And who knows, maybe I’ll use ‘Hine Cup’ as my next band name.
I remember receiving a portable boom box for Christmas when I was six. It was bright red with blue speakers and a yellow handle. The front read ‘My First Sony’ in white. Even though dad’s big stereo in the living room sounded better, my little red one seemed more fun. The buttons were all big and it came with a cheapo mic for quick recording. It was simpler.
As of two weeks ago I became a Mac user. I’m starting to realize this machine really works for both basic and advanced users. The OS provides tools that my grandparents, my engineering buds and everyone in between would enjoy thoroughly. It’s just simpler.
Here’s a picture I took of myself and Greg Hine while showing off Photo Booth.
On Monday my picture was revealed in two different newspapers. One article brought a smile to my face, the other one actually hurt my feelings at first. In the morning the Washington Post wrote a glowing article covering Startup Weekend DC. Monday night the Westword, Denver’s prime music mag, wrote a not so nice review of a Dualistics performance.
When I’m in a good mood , I try keep in mind that ‘not so good times’ may be on the horizon.
As you may recall I attended the first Startup Weekend in Boulder just last July. A group of over 50 people created VoSnap, an application that allows friends to quickly vote on things. Even though the product didn’t launch on time, the weekend was great and I made friends. This time around, for whatever it’s worth, the Washington DC team was able to get their product launched by Sunday night.
HolaNeighbor.com allows neighbors to better organize their physical locale. Want to borrow a cup of sugar? Need to set the date for your next block party? Maybe it can help. The developers really did well considering the time constraint. Their code even looked clean. I was proud of the user experience team for not limiting their creativity around feature sets while properly monitoring feasibility. It can be tough working in an environment filled with Alpha personalities. DC seemed to somehow make it gel. Being published in the Washington Post was the cherry on top of an already excellent weekend.
The Westword on the other hand brought me down a bit. I’m not used to such harsh words. All in all I realized the writer doesn’t really bring up the music at all, and that’s what we’re all about. We throttle hard towards tight grooves, not so much towards stage antics. In the end, I’m still smiling.
Over the past four of weeks I’ve been frequently visiting Mint.com. Although it took them the first two weeks to support my Frontier Airlines MasterCard, I feel they had me up and running fairly quickly considering they are hottest thing since Jose Canseco.
Mint.com allows everyday folk to connect to their personal banks, pull down their transaction information and see ways to save money. It also shows spending statistics just like Dad’s old Quicken 95. With over 3000 banks available for the pulling, Mint.com has already reported on over two billion dollars to 50,000 plus users.
It’s a good site. It looks great and the information is useful. Thanks to Mint I found out that I could be making (saving?) hundreds more in interest if I rolled my good ol’ savings account over to eTrade. Done. I’ve also found that I’m eating lunch out a lot less after staring at those web 2.0 pie graphs each morning. Man I spend a lot on lunch.
I wish Mint.com would send me an SMS when I hit a specified dollar amount for a certain category (such as restaurants) in a given month. They have something very close to this, but I want even more control.
UPDATE: I’m using Mint.com less and less. A bit time consuming to manually categorize each transaction.
