At the end of last night’s Beck show at Yahoo! Hack Day, they showed a hilarious Puppetron video featuring the Beck puppets taking over the Yahoo! campus, with referrences to puppet porn and “rubbing the felt”. Our good friends at Rubyred Labs were recruited by Beck’s puppet crew to help with the production the video.
Beck was the top secret musical guest tonight at Yahoo! Hack Day. Beck and his band put on an amazing 90 minute show and even generated a mosh pit in the middle of the Yahoo! campus. Throughout the show, at the back of the stage, there was a mini stage with puppets of each band member whose mirrored actions of the real band members were projected on the big screen. I was up front near the stage and shot a bunch of photos. What a great what to end an awesome kick-off for Hack Day.
Here are more Beck photos from Niall Kennedy and Derek Powazek.
UPDATE: Check out the hilarious Beck Puppetron video of the Beck puppets invading the Yahoo! campus.
I’m hanging out at Yahoo! Hack Day, an overnight coding and camping event taking place at the Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale. Yes, geeks from all over North America will be pitching tents on the nicely manicured Yahoo! lawn. Previously, Hack Day, has been an internal event only, for Yahoo! engineers and developers, but this time the event’s host, Yahoo! Developer Network, is opening it up to the outside as well, which I think is a really smart move by them. The speaker and workshop schedule is quite impressive. Of course I’m shooting photos of this massive geekfest.
For more photos, check out the HackDay06: The Flickr Stream.
Yahoo! Hack Day drinking game: take one drink whenever someone says API
UPDATE 1: The rumors are true, Beck is tonight’s surprise musical performer at the Hack Day party.
UPDATE 2: Here are my photos of Beck’s amazing show.
UPDATE 3: Hack Day was a huge success. Yahoo!, along with Hack Day organizers Bradley Horowitz, Chad Dickerson, Kent Brewster, Jeremy Zawodny and the rest of the crew did an outstanding job with this event and have raised the bar quite a bit.
Laughing Squid (and one of our t-shirts) was featured on episode #6 of Taugshow, monochrom’s hilarious and entertaining anti talk show which takes place Vienna and is hosted by Johannes Grenzfurthner. The English language was the theme of Taugshow #6. You can watch this show on your “compuker” through the “notwork”.
The flat hierarchies of talk shows are about as subversive as NYC Democrats smoking dope. But count us out! We won’t produce a talk show. Nope. We produce a TAUGSHOW! Where people will be persons, even legal bodies. Which means: we dig it. Our guests are geeks, heretics, and other coevals. Taugshow is a tour-de-farce. A joyful bucket full of good clean fanaticism, crisis, language, culture, self-content, identity, utopia, mania and despair, condensed into the well known cultural technique of a prime time TV show.
[taugen; Viennese slang: to dig/love/adore something]
Host: Johannes Grenzfurthner
Content Manager: Roland GratzerLocation: dietheater/Konzerthaus, Lothrinerstraße, Vienna.
The Devil-Ettes, “San Francisco’s own 15-member synchronized Go-Go dance Troupe”, are celebrating their 8th anniversary this Saturday at 12 Galaxies in San Francisco.
The Devil-Ettes present…
Come Go-Go with Us!
Saturday, September 30th
Take a Trip to Go-Go Heaven, Courtesy of The Devil-Ettes!
Ready for Take Off!Join The Devil-Ettes, San Francisco’s own all-female synchronized Go-Go dance troupe, as they celebrate 8 years of go-go madness! These sparkly-horned sweeties promise a turbulent flight all night, alright! Groove to the best in 60s surf and garage, PLUS a special LIVE performance by the Winner of The Devil-Ettes Song Contest-The Fleagles!
Welcome Aboard.Be prepared for a little bouncin’ and bumpin’ with the fringe-shaking, synchronized dance routines of The Devil-Ettes-guaranteed to freak you out with their first-class sass! After we reach a comfortable cruising altitude, sit back, relax and enjoy our in-flight entertainment: a unique tribute to The Devil-Ettes by San Francisco’s surf rockers The Copper Tones, Kitten on the Keys, The Scenic Sisters, The Paper Dolls, Uni & her Ukelele, The Muddflappers, and DJ Neel Kizmiaz. We ask that you please make sure your trays are in their upright position when we introduce the Winner of The Devil-Ettes Song Contest: all the way from Los Angeles the killer thermin’ totin’ 60s style garage band The Fleagles!
Travel in Style.Pack your party passport and your BEST Go-Go or Travel get up, because we’re awarding a SURPRISE to the most fab outfit. Duty free and no need to declare at customs!
Your Itinerary:Saturday, September 30th
12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission Street @ 22nd St., San Francisco, CA (415) 970-9777
Doors at 8pm. Show departs at 9pm sharp!Roundtrip Ticket: Just a dozen smackers! ($12), $10 in advance
Last night at the Revision3 Launch Party I finally had a chance to meet the guys from Tiki Bar TV, one of best video blogs out there. Dr. Tiki, Johnny Johnny and Lala all flew in for the event and debuted off their yet-to-be released episode #22 on the big screen. If you haven’t seen Tiki Bar TV yet, I highly recommend making yourself a strong cocktail and work your way through the archives.
The founders of Digg just launched their new online video content company Revision3 tonight, with a massive party at Mighty in San Francisco. Special guests from Tiki Bar TV, Ask A Ninja, French Maid TV and many others flew in just for the occasion. The place was packed wall-to-wall. Between cocktails I was able to squeeze out a few photos (of which at least 20% feature Irina posing with someone).
Diggnation is Revision3’s flagship series of the new fall line-up, along with other popular shows like Systm, thebroken and Infected. At the party they showed previews of these programs, which look really great. I especially like the fact that Revision3 is creating these shows on their own terms, with full creative control and a focus on great content.
First broadcast television. Then cable television. Now, you can kill your television. Revision3 aims to prove that on-demand, distributed online content is better, faster, more effective, and better targeted to what YOU want to watch.
UPDATE: Here’s Thomas Hawk’s write-up and photos from last night.
Question:
“Dr. Hal, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
Hal’s correct answer:
Once and for all, 15 ounces (425.2 grams) during a single chucking session. That’s it– I’m not answering that one again.
For answers to questions like this and others, come out to the Ask Dr. Hal Show tomorrow night (Wednesday, September 27th) at 12 Galaxies in San Francisco. Check out the Squid List posting for the the full scoop on tomorrow’s show.
To get a feel for the show, check out Chuck Cirino’s awesome video of Ask Dr. Hal on Weird America.
ScobleShow, the new video blog by Robert Scoble, has just launched. This is the big project Robert has been working on at PodTech since he left Microsoft to join them. Every few days or so Robert will be posting a new video about internet/web technology, geeks and developers and his debut episode has a great segment called “Photowalking”, which features Bay Area photographer Thomas Hawk.
So I finally had a chance to check out Google Spreadsheets. Totally amazing. Works pefectly. I was able to import my existing spreadsheets without any problems. It has an autosave and auto refresh feature, plus you can setup sharing with others and give them view or edit access. It even has integrated Google Talk, so you can discuss things in realtime on the same page as the spreadsheet. I don’t have many spreadsheets, so this is a perfect solution for me. I no longer have to synch spreadsheets between multiple machines and I have access to them wherever I go. So long Excel. I’m one step closer to finally being done with Microsoft Office.
Next up, test out Writely, Google’s recently acquired online word processing service.
UPDATE: Safari is not currently supported.
Bruce Sterling is giving a lecture this Tuesday, September 26th at the Timken Lecture Hall at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. The talk is free and starts at 7pm.
Bruce Sterling is the legendary master of the cyberpunk science fiction genre and a founder of the Viridian Design movement, which explores radical green technologies to deal with impending ecological collapse.
Sterling has written, “Don’t become a well-rounded person. Well-rounded people are smooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their throats like a puffer fish… . Learn about the stuff that was buried because it was too experimental or embarrassing or inexplicable.”
In 2005 he was “visionary in residence” at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
Last Thursday Laughing Squid Web Hosting threw a small party for our customers at Varnish Fine Art in San Francisco. It was our way of saying thanks for their continued business and support for the 8 years we’ve been doing web hosting. Here are some of the blog posts and photo galleries from the event:
- Thomas Hawk (Amazing documentation from my good friend Thomas. Thanks!)
- Matt Mullenweg (Great to see Photomatt back in action.)
- Kristopher Tate (Kristopher had an upgrade that night, shooting with Thomas Hawk’s old 10D).
Thanks to everyone who made it out. We would also like to thank the following people for helping to make the party such a success:
- Mr. Lucky & The Cocktail Party
- DJ tOaD & DJ timmmii
- Noona for her help with stage managing and everything in between.
- Hernan Cortez for doing sound and his Run DMC Puppet Show.
- Our great door crew, lead by Lori Dorn, with help from Danielle Engelman, Babalou and Katy Bell.
- San Francisco Catering for the delicious food.
- And of course Kerri, Jen and the top notch staff of Varnish Fine Art. If you are looking for a great place for a small company party or event, or if you just want to see some amazing art, you can’t go wrong with Varnish.
- Finally I want to thank our awesome team at Laughing Squid, which along with myself includes our Chief Tentacled Officer Barry Abrahamson and our Support Ninja Jason Laskodi (who flew out from Columbus, Ohio to be at the party).
Laughing Squid: Decade 2, our big public party, celebrating our 11th anniversary, takes place on November 18th at Mighty in San Francisco. See you there!
Jason Laskodi and I are working out of Ritual Coffee Roasters today and while there I shot some photos of the PARK(ing) Day installation in front of the cafe, which is a parking space transformed into a temporary public park. It’s a really nice urban oasis and quite relaxing to sit there with a cup of great coffee. The potted plants and palms from Flora Grubb Gardens really compliment the installation.
Come over and check it out if you are in the neighborhood. If you ride a bike, the Ritual Coffee Club Bike Posse meets there tonight at 8pm.
While we were at Ritual, we ran into Niall Kennedy, who also shot a few photos of PARK(ing) Day.
Violet Blue’s first article for “Violet Blue: Open Source Sex”, her new sex column in the San Francisco Chronicle, was published in today’s paper: “Club Kiss for that thoroughly modern vibe”
Here’s Violet’s write-up on today’s launch of her column. Ryan Is Hungry shot a great video interview with Violet an hour before the article came out. Yay Violet!
Now here’s the bad news. At the very last minute, senior management at the Chronicle removed all of the outside links from her column, in fact they won’t even link to Violet’s blog. One step forward, two steps back. Will mainstream media ever get it?
Of course, because it’s me (and it’s sex), it didn’t happen without issue. At the last minute, the publisher got freaked out about my links and so (for now, I think) my column will be running without links to any of the sites or topics I’m talking about. Yeah, it’s *weird* for an online column… And dude — they don’t even link to Tiny Nibbles from my column’s page. But the Chron and I are continuing to talk about it and the topic is by no means closed.
Violet will be posting the links for each column on her blog (as she has for today’s column) until the Chronicle resolves this issue.
Regardless of this minor setback, we are extremely proud of Violet and the launch of her groundbreaking column.
UPDATE: A group of pranksers have been modifying bus shelters with unauthorized promotional posters for Violet’s new column. Here’s the first one and the second one. If you see any others, please leave let us know in the comments.
The art group Rebar, notorious for turning a parking space into a temporary park last November, is back at it again with their PARK(ing) Day call to action. Tomorrow, Thursday, September 21st, Rebar, in conjunction with The Trust for Public Land (TPL), are planning on transforming several parking lots around San Francisco into temporary public parks, including one at Ritual Coffee Roasters (7am-11pm), as well San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s own personal parking spot at City Hall (9am-1pm). Here’s a map of the route with times and addresses.
They are even planning a “Temporal Distributed Network of Open Space” deployed via bicycle.
Please join us as we transform parking spots into PARK(ing) spaces: temporary public parks in areas that need open space – enlivening the streets and improving the quality of urban human habitat.
Rebar is still looking for volunteers to help with this project tomorrow. If you want to get involved, contact them directly through their website.
UPDATE: Here are my photos of the PARK(ing) Day installation in front of Ritual Coffee Roasters.
Thanks to Niall Kennedy for the tip!
Chris Ware has created another wonderful animation for the television version of “This American Life” http://twurl.nl/og54r4 #
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