"Creep predominant" with a "loser rising"

My friend Gillian Webber forwarded this to me and I thought it was funny enough to forward on and geeky enough to include here.

Here's the link to the original MySpace post
Tim



Tool dork loser schmuck buffoon nerd geek martian retard creep

No matter what anyone says, everyone can be labeled.

Here's a place where you can find out (and help determine) just what those labels are.

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How it works:
This webpage invites you to rate people according to 10 carefully selected chracteristics. By submitting your rankings, you evaluate the degree to which a person is a combination of a select group of negative traits:

tool, dork, loser, schmuck, buffoon, nerd, geek, martian, retard, creep

For a description of the definitions see the blog on this site:

Traits definitions

Everyone is a major and minor in something too. Thus, Charlie Sheen would be said to be "creep predominant" with a "loser rising".

A person gets a score in each category according to the percent of voters who ascribe that trait to the person. And as a final coup-de-grace, the person is given a total score. So you can see not just where someone falls, but also: how hard. You'll be suprised to find out how accurately this system pins down who someone really is.

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How to play:
Start looking through the blogs to find a person you would like to characterize. Click on the blog and post a comment with your vote of what traits characterize this person, ranking them in order of importance. (And feel free to add whatever comments you like by way of debate and explanation). We will update the blogs semi-regularly to tally the votes and display the results.

If the person you are looking for has not yet been posted for ranking, post a comment on the main profile page and tell us the name(and provide an appropriate photo if you like) of the person you think is ripe for such judgment. If we agree, we'll post the person as a blog and let the voting begin!

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A few last thoughts:

This is intended as a good-natured, collaborative game of personality analysis--a sort of Myers-Briggs of your foibles. We arrived at these ten traits by means of a rigorous weeding-out process to arrive at a perfect balance. It only takes a brief exposure to gameplay to realize that there is something magical in the way the interplay of these 10 traits manages to capture the warts-and-all essence of a person.

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Typically, people with thick skins tend to enjoy rating themselves (or hearing themselves rated) in a self-deprecating and character-building way; provided they are not rated a creep or schmuck, which is pretty hard to swallow.

The game works really well with celebrities -- especially in the quest to find the elusive person who has all 10 traits.

So far, Geraldo Rivera is the only winner in that regard.

For some more background on the game, click here

Traffic

I could read about traffic patterns and traffic management all day.

NYC MTA vs. Helvetica vs. Arial vs. ClearView

Read the New York Times article about Helvetica in the subway:

This is the movie about Helvetica called, strangely, Helvetica, why it's such a cool font and how it came about. It's available to view on demand on your computer. I love the bit where the designer tears apart advertising style of the 50's and 60's. "Any questions?"

Arial is the version of Helvetica that Microsoft includes with Windows slightly changed to make it "more readable on computer screens" supposedly. More likely it's an almost identical rip of Helvetica but is cheaper for them to include wrt license fees.

ClearView is the new font (intended for highways and the AT&T logo) that provides for fast recognition by designing each character that emphasized negative space and size differences between short and tall letters, in order to improve legibility. It's also intended to be used in upper and lower case, rather than all upper case that signs typically use, also to improve legibility.

Everyone should use ClearView - I have a free rip-off version of it called RoadGeek that I would gladly punt if the price of the commercial version came down from its current 800 bucks. I guess I'm in my small way encouraging free font-alike vendors, so, ah, sorry. I love ClearView!!

Robyn Hitchcock 'I Often Dream of Trains' program

This is the text from the program handed out at Robyn Hitchcock's performance of I Often Dream of Trains at Symphony Space in NYC on 11/22/08.

About the Artist
1952 Conceived in Stockholm.
1953 Born in London.
1956 I see a dead chicken.
1957 John Lennon meets Paul McCartney in Liverpool.
1959 I get my first plastic dinosaur.
1962 Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis; Kennedy faces off Kruschev; I start collecting beetles.
1963 The Beatles have four number one hits; I try unsuccessfully to compose an instrumental in my head; Kennedy shot dead; First Dr. Who episode transmitted.
1965 I discover H.G. Wells.
1966 I discover Bob Dylan.
1967 The Year Zero. February; Get my first guitar; October; Learn to tune it.
1969 In July, Neil Armstrong is the first man in recorded history to stand on the moon.
1970 The Beatles dissolve; I write my first song, "Baby" with my school friend Martin, who Is now a lawyer in Buenos Aires.
1972 Martin and I play the City and Guilds Art School Dance with our beat group, The Beatles; Somehow the name doesn't catch on. and we play our last gig on December 31. 1973 at the British Council. Topping the bill are Chilli Willi and The Red Hot Peppers. whose drummer, Pete Thomas. goes on to play with Elvis Costello.
1974 Nixon impeached; I move up to Cambridge looking for musicians. and play the folk clubs.
1975 Margaret Thatcher becomes head of the Conservative party; I keep playing the folk clubs.
1976 The Sex Pistols release Anarchy in the UK; I write "It's Not Just the Size of a Walnut." It goes down okay in the folk clubs, but I'm still looking for the right musicians.
1977 I find the right musicians, AKA The Soft Boys. and we release Wading Through a Ventilator in November. Doesn't quite connect with the Year Zero of Punk.
1978 The Soft Boys support Elvis Costello and nearly get a major record deal; Kimberley Rew joins the Soft Boys; Second Soft Boys single "I Wanna Be an Anglepoise Lamp."
1979 A Can of Bees released on our own Two Crabs label. Not immediately popular, but Julian Cope later describes It as a "red-hot poker up the arse of pop music"; Thatcher elected as Prime Minister; I read a lot of lG. Ballard.
1980 Underwater Moonlight, the second Soft Boys LP, is released on the Armageddon label; We get as far as New York, but dissolve the following February; Ronald Reagan elected; John Lennon shot dead In New York.
1981 I release Black Diamond Snake Role and promote it by doing nothing; Inner city riots throughout Britain; Spandau Ballet are huge.
1982 My second solo album, Groovy Decay; I promote it by doing even less except tour of Norwegian fallout shelters, playing to AC/DC fans; Falklands War guarantees Thatcher a second term; Decide to hibernate.
1983 Write lyrics for "Captain Sensible;" Sleep a lot; Unbeknownst to me, U.S. college radio stations are now massively playing our old records.
1984 REM and other new U.S. bands cite The Soft Boys and myself as influences; Meet Peter Buck outside Highgate Cat Protection league; Record first totally solo album I Often Dream of Trains; Play first live show in two years at The Hope & Anchor, Islington.
1985 Start touring U.S. with backing group The Egyptians, featuring former Soft Boys Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalfe; Booked to support REM but mystery cyst in my abdomen requires surgery which aborts tour; FegMANIA!, the first Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians LP is released; 15-minute standing ovation after our New York show at Irving Plaza; "Walking on Sunshine" is a global smash hit for Kimberley Rew's band Katrina and the Waves.
1986-1992 We sign to A&M records in the U.S.; Element of Light. Globe of Frogs, Queen Elvis, and Perspex Island all top the Rolling Stone Alternative chart.
1989 Finally open for REM on their Green tour; I play my first solo U.S. tour in the autumn.
1990 Eye, my second completely solo record is released.
1991 The Year Punk Broke. again; Nirvana chases us off the Alternative chart and the musical climate changes.
1993 Respect is the last album with the Egyptians; In Britain, the Tories are elected for a fourth term despite the deposing of Margaret Thatcher; Great debut albums from Grant-Lee Buffalo and Belly.
1994 I am now a solo act.
1995 Jonathan Demme appears in the dressing room between sets at my show near his home just outside New York. He identifies himself and offers to film me in concert; All my albums from 1981-1986, plus Eye, are re-released on Rhino records.
1996 Storefront Hitchcock, featuring myself with accompaniment from violinist Deni Bonet and guitarist Tim Keegan playing in a shop window on 14th Street in New York, is directed by Jonathan Demme; Moss Elixir is released on Warner Brothers.
1997 Labour returns to power after 18 years - or does it?
1998 Storefront Hitchcock opens at the Film Forum in NYC. Jonathan & Joanne Demme, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Michael Stipe, and Peter Buck attend. Peter and I busk outside afterwards and collect over $13.
1999 Third album for Warners. Jewels for Sophia; Tour the U.S. as part of the "Revue Against Brain Degeneration" with The Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, Sonic Boom, and Cornelius; Western planes bomb Belgrade; I introduce Storefront Hitchcock at film festivals in Australia, Sweden, Britain and the US.
2000 Tour in the U.S. as a double act with Grant Lee Phillips, doing the Grant lee Hitchcock show; A Star for Bram (companion disc to Jewels for Sophia) is the first release on editionsPAF!
2001 George W. Bush takes office; World Trade Center in New York demolished by hijacked passenger planes; The Soft Boys reform to promote the 21st anniversary re-release of Underwater Moonlight by Matador, and tour the U.S.; George Harrison dies at 58.
2002 The Soft Boys reunion album, Nextdoorland, is released by Matador; I have a cameo appearance as a sleazy rock granddad in the TV play Man And Boy; NASA plans manned landing on Mars within the next 20 years. Subterranean beds of frozen water "may make it habitable long-term;" Robyn Sings, a 2-CD set of Bob Dylan covers, is released on editionsPAF!
2003 At my 50th birthday party show in March, guest musicians include Peter Blegvad, John Paul Jones, Morris, Kimberley, Deni Bonet, and Tim Keegan. Luxor is pressed up to give away to the audience, then released on edittonsPAF! in Britain and the U.S.; U.S. and Britain invade Iraq, on the pretext of nullifying the threat from Iraqi missiles. No missiles were found. Saddam Hussein deposed; Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate, featuring Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and L1ev Schrieber is filmed over the winter in New York. I play the part of Laurent Tokar, a sinister operative.
2004 Record Spooked in Nashville with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings in downtime from filming The Manchurian Candidate. Released on YepRoc in October (and on Proper Records in the U.K.).
2005/2006 Record Ole! Tarantula in Seattle with Bill Rieflin, Peter Buck, and Scott McCaughey. Released October 2006 on YepRoc Ex Proper; Begin touring with BUl, Peter, and Scott as RH and the Venus 3; John Edginton films documentary Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Death, Food and Insects for the Sundance Channel. Premieres March 27, 2007 on Sundance in the U.S.; Kimberley, Morris, Paul Noble, Terry Edwards, and (perform Pink Floyd's Piper At The Gates Of Dawn as a benefit for Medecins Sans Frontieres at the 3 Kings in Clerkenwell, London. With this and our one-off performances of Sgt. Pepper's and The White Album, plus money raised from after-gig auctions, our fans have raised over £28.000 for MSF. These shows are all arranged and promoted by my wife, Michele Noach; Democrats regain U.S. Congress.
2007/2008 Continue to tour and record; YepRoc re-release all the old catalogue (plus extras) from the 1980s on two boxed sets: I Wanna Go Backwards (solo records) and Luminous Groove (with the Egyptians); Along with Michele and other artists and scientists, I am on the Cape Farewell expedition to West Greenland, to see the retreating ice-scape; Appear singing in Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married starring Anne Hathaway and Rosemary DeWitt; Stock market crashes.
Early 2009 New record with the V3, Goodnight Oslo, due out

iPhone apps on my first home screen

I keep my most-used apps on the first home screen on my iPhone. Here are the third party ones I store there.

Mobile News
Good functionality is that it downloads all recent AP articles. Bad functionality is that you have to download each subject (Business, Local News, etc.) manually, one at a time.

Twitterrific
Not as huge a fan of this app itself as the fact that I don't have another Twitter app on my phone. It does work and it's free, and I use Twitterrific on my desktop. But the iPhone version doesn't automatically scroll to the top when you launch it, and it has ads.

Facebook
This app gets almost everything right - it's easy to use and exposes enough useful Facebook functionality. I like that I can take and post a photo fairly easily. I use this all the time.

Instapaper
Instapaper works in conjunction with Instapaper.com to download web pages to your iPhone for offline reading. Click a special bookmarklet - which works on MacOSX, Windows or the iPhone itself - to save the web page you're viewing to Instapaper. The app then downloads the text from all your saved URLs to your phone. It's pretty neat and really easy to use.

New York Times
This app downloads most of the day's NY Times content to your phone for offline reading. The functionality is useful, convenient and saves trees; too bad the app crashes all the time and takes forever to download everything to the phone. Now that I have AP Mobile News, I hardly ever read the Times.

OmniFocus
Companion application to the desktop version. This is where I manage my GTD list. It's a good app but doesn't sync automatically, which is a pain.

CityTransit
Provides a New York City subway map, as well as online access to subway system alerts. Too bad the alert system would be much more useful if it downloaded content for offline viewing - like when you're actually in the subway system without net access.

The Weather Channel
View today and upcoming weather. It's a little more functional than the standard weather app - you can e-mail the weather report to someone else, for instance.

Commuter Bike Technology

The commute to my new job in Jersey City requires 3 trains: F to the A to the PATH at World Trade Center. The commute generally isn't bad - maybe 45 minutes all in - but I sorely miss the days when I biked to my job at UBS in midtown. I stopped after I joined Lehman because of their 24x7 business-formal dress code, and the hairy eyeballs I'd get whenever I entered the Lehman building in running or biking gear. Now that I've landed at a place where I can dress comfortably, I want to bike to work again.

I'm evaluating a couple of folding bikes: Brompton and Bike Friday. I went to bfold (in the basement of the same building I lived in when going to college), met Steve, and test-rode the bikes.

General comments:
* Folding bikes are like clown cars. Everything feels miniature, except the rider, who feels like a jackass.
* They both fold up really quickly.
* The ride is bumpier than a full-sized bike.
* You can bike pretty fast on both.
* They're very expensive.
* Folded, they feel a little bigger than I'd expected.


Brompton
Con: Made in the UK.
Con: 3 gears.
Con: All custom parts.
Con: Weak bell.
Con: Weird handle-bars with a deep dip in the middle.
Con: Heavier.
Con: Slow to assemble.
Pro: Not made in China.
Pro: Most compact fold-up.
Pro: Sturdier - metal pedals.
Pro: Additional little wheels to facilitate wheeling it around when it's folded.
Pro: Simple folding mechanism.
Pro: Securing mechanism feels more secure.

Bike Friday Tikit
Con: Not so compact fold-up.
Con: Cheaper feel - plastic pedals.
Con: Harder to carry and wheel.
Pro: Made in the USA.
Pro: 8 gears.
Pro: Standard parts.
Pro: Great bell.
Pro: Flat T handlebars.
Pro: Can be wheeled around on it's front wheel when folded up.
Pro: Heavier.
Pro: Simple folding mechanism.
Pro: Fastest to fold up.

Summer Streets in NYC

This is sorta neat. The city is cordoning off a north/south street through Manhattan to traffic. This appears to be a pedestrian nirvana of bikes, children, dolphins and whales all cavorting with one another.

Click here to read more.
Tim

I watch the Watchmen!

That shudder you felt yesterday was a giant collective nerdgasm, as the trailer for the Watchmen movie appeared yesterday.  It's available at Apple in high definition and looks pretty great.  The Watchmen was a comic published by DC Comics in the late '80s about a group of flawed, neurotic superheroes.  The story was written by Alan Moore, who wrote  V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Swamp Thing, a comic I remember buying the first issue of because the artwork was done by Bernie Wrightson.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Getting ready for the new iPhone 3G

I'm doing a few things to get ready for the new iPhone 3G. I am preparing my existing data and services; collecting relevant web sites, planning for 1 particular application that I think will change how I use it and what I get out of it, and setting up a better plan so I save some money every month. I'll cover each of these over the next couple of posts.

First, I am updating my .mac environment. Initially this was to sync my browser bookmarks so my own copies were up to date in advance of this warning regarding the service. I definitely keep my bookmarks in sync between my various computers but I use del.icio.us to centralize and share my bookmarks as much as possible. Only my iPhone requires a Safari-managed bookmark list, as much as I can figure out.

In so doing, I also picked up a .mac family pack so that my girlfriend and mom could back up their desktop data easily. Now backups are running at my mom's once a month and both their addressbooks, calendars and bookmarks are backed up centrally.

Photostitching software for MacOSX

Photostitching software provides a way to create a single panoramic photo from photos of partial  sections of the full scene.  Some cameras come with panorama functionality built in; Canon has excellent on-board ability, however the Panasonic Lumix FX7 I have does not.  In fact, other than its small size, it's not a great camera - terrible noise and so-so color reproduction.

I tried PTGui but found the interface to be pretty crude and not very Mac-like.  In fact, it is a cross-platform application, however simple Mac things like drag-and-drop don't work the way they should on MacOSX.

I don't have Photoshop - it's possible that it has  a photo-stitching mode, but at whatever-hundreds-of-dollars it costs, I'll never know.

I wanted something that would work well with iPhoto.

I ended up purchasing DoubleTake which is very easy to use, accepts drag-and-dropped photos from iPhoto, and costs $24.95.  I  posted my first  panorama photo on flickr.  The  results  for a very quick-and-dirty run look really good.  With some work I can warp the images to fit better  (where the lower edge of the car don't meet well in the merged image).

Feeling collars

There's an article about the possible suicide of Manchester police chief Michael Todd where a colleague says "He wanted to get out there, he wanted to feel people's collars."  What a vivid image, this guy itching for the stiff feel of someone's - anyone's - starchy collar in his firm grip.  Or did he just enjoy running his hands lightly over them.  I hope the ghosts in the "bottle of spirits" found next to his body didn't rise up and feel his collar.

Her Space Holiday new (to me) disc

I just picked up The Telescope, a CD of Her Space Holiday rock that was released only in Japan. The jacket is a book, with a short story called The Telescope, as well as the disk and some postcards by the Japanese artist PCP, or real name Heisuke Kitazawa. He does sometimes ornate, psychedelic tableaus, other times spare portraits, like Groove Design figures done by hand.

Resetting the Apple Express

Now that I've hung an Apple Extreme network hub on my network - my cable modem is now connected to the extreme - I can start doing things with it.  First, since it has actual Ethernet ports, I can connect my Apple Mini to it and use it as a Leopard server; Leopard server requires a local Ethernet port.  That local network is bridged to the wireless network that the Extreme also serves, so my computers and devices can see each other and the net.

However I've moved the Apple Extreme up to another floor, so service for the Apple TV downstairs is spotty, and re-inputting the WEP password is a continual pain.  I'm going to try adding an Apple Express to the mix and see if it will act as a bridge or repeater for the network, but operate downstairs next to the Apple TV, with the goal of reducing the timeouts and resets.

I'm in the reset stage of reconfiguring the Express.  Here are the instructions (from Macworld):

Soft reset: Plug the Express into power, launch Network System preferences and choose Airport from the popup.  Click the TCP/IP tab and choose Using DHCP from the Configure menu.  Press and hold the device's reset button for 1 second.  The light will flash yellow and you'll have 5 minutes to make changes before the Express reverts to its previous configuration.  What a pain in the ass.

Hard Reset

With the Express plugged in, hold the reset button for 10 seconds.  The LED will flash green and the device will reset.

Factory Default

Unplug the Express and hold the reset button.  Whilst still holding reset, plug the device in.  Keep holding until you see the LED flash four times.  Release the button to reset the device. 

Getting used to Getting Things Done

I work at a job where I am bombarded by a steady stream of e-mail.  They're almost all project and task related - I tend to not be directly responsible for projects, instead delegating the responsibilities to managers who work for me.  Although I have fairly bad memory and lose track of some tasks, I  am reactive  and able to make quick decisions.

I read about a task management methodology called Getting Things Done or GTD.  It's described in this book by David Allen and is a method of task management that groups tasks by context in which they should be performed (things to do when you're outside, tasks to do at the computer, etc.)  I've read a bit of background in lifehacker.org and 43folders.com,  which are both big GTD sites.  It's geeky enough that I picked the book up,  applied its structure to my Outlook at work, and am trying it out.