The Marine Environmental Research Institute (MERI) is hiring someone with writing, technical and graphics skills at the MERI Center for Marine Studies in Blue Hill, Maine. Meanwhile this Tuesday the Bangor Chamber of Commerce is showcasing business advice from L. L. Bean, Black Dinah Chocolatiers, and yes, Shipyard Brewing Company.
Wind deadline is 18 May, requires “strong social media skills” and a laptop (sounds like an NMD student to me). Also two internships in the health sector.
Why buy your own car/CDs/power tools, when your neighbors already have loads of them?
Rachel Botsman makes the case:
http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_botsman_the_case_for_collaborative_consumption.html
NeighborGoods is already up to 2.0:
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/03/neighborgoods-kickstarter/ (Via Bruce Sterling).http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mickipedia/neighbors-helping-neighborgoods
Thanks to you, NeighborGoods has quickly become the leading online community for local resource sharing. Now, we’re reaching out directly to our members to help us take NeighborGoods to the next level.
We’re gearing up to launch NeighborGoods 2.0, which focuses on creating sharing communities for organizations, companies and and groups of all sizes.
Smartphones help:
People will ditch their cars and embrace mass transit if they have the tools to manage their commutes. Enter the smartphone … http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/iPSyBkh6X_g/ Xatori unveils a free iPhone app that enables drivers to punch in their destinations and locate outlet owners who are willing to share. http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=fa66fe847e6ccd56e61dde5770c4ffbfNow, to Find a Parking Spot, Drivers Look on Their Phones http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d9838be80c3361a169de04e52c21ba99
And Zipcar’s IPO is meteoric:
http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/vQEd37Mmv0A/ via BylineZipcar raises $174 million and sees its stock price soar a whopping 60 percent in its first day as a public company. The decade-old car sharing company, maybe the most disruptive entrant in the automobile rental space since Rent-A-Wreck, is now a billion-dollar operation.
Apr 282011
If Slashdot is to be believed, Google and Microsoft have begun an “epic” hiring war. And nude coders have never been more in demand.
“Looking for a new job? Then Google and Microsoft have 6200 roles globally this quarter up for grabs, the first salvos in a costly war for talent. Google alone will hire 6200 engineers, executives and sales staff this year — its biggest intake ever. This story details where the biggest bucks and most fun jobs are to be had and how you can apply for them. There’s even a job for an Xbox PR person — fancy being paid to play with toys all day?”
Another company hiring is AVOS, run by the founders of YouTube, which just purchased the bookmarking site Delicious: http://www.AVOS.com/jobs
Of course, different companies have different…perks.
Nude House, a Buckinghamshire computer software and naturist company, is looking for coders who aren’t afraid to let a few Cheetos fall where no Cheetos have fallen before. The company would like to become the first all nude tech business. From the article: “Company spokesman Chris Taylor told The Register: ‘As far as I am aware this is not only the first UK office job for naturists in web-coding or web-selling, but is also the first worldwide facility for naturists to earn substantial sums of money from work that incidentally provides them with the capability to work entirely without clothes.
How do photojournalists get paid if their traditional business model is drying up? A story from the front lines of crowdfunding, plus a photographer applies a technique from a New Media capstone to traverse the Appalachian Trail in four minutes.
http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/89mLw4IOQdY/ via Byline
A month after the launch of the new crowd-funding platform for photojournalism, Emphas.is, one of its users reports from the road. Belgian photographer and Emphas.is fundraiser Tomas van Houtryve tells us about the good, the bad and the future of a work in progress….
The pressure of time has been the hardest challenge for van Houtryve, “I would not recommend tight schedules where one has to juggle shooting, fundraising and a withering travel schedule. It’s been very intense keeping all the elements on track.”
Despite travails, van Houtryve sees a lot of promise. “It’s an intuitive model,” he says. “Backers have started to pose relevant questions. As my project proposal has made its way through social networks and attracted support from strangers, I’ve made some really fruitful new connections. In addition to generous funding contributions, several individuals have stepped forward with key contacts and very precise and helpful advice. I have already managed to make stronger photos due to their input. This is a pleasant shift over the lone-wolf existence.”
Meanwhile, on the Appalachian Trail photographers are documenting their trek using a technique that sounds a lot like NMD alumnus Sam Lynch’s iGlasses:
http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/uhDLuMVI0AM/ via Byline
Kevin Gallagher spent six months hiking the 2,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail. Then he compiled his 4,000 still photos taken along the way and turned them into an amazing 4-minute video travelog.
A prominent educator claims today’s college students are learning in silos, specializing too much to see the Big Picture. (Via NMD alumnus Will Seyffer)
Feb 032011
If you haven’t already bought this term’d textbooks, here are a dozen sites ready to sell them cheap.
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=868bf541f0ff969aa049c14b9bdf7534 via Byline A look at the long list of Web sites that help college students find the cheapest textbooks available.
In January Facebook staff realized that the Tunisian government had installed software that tracked its citizens in unconscionable ways. Fortunately Facebook has now repaired that glaring security hole, and returned to its usual routine of tracking its own users in unconscionable ways. Like putting your face on Starbucks ads without your permission.
Job prospects dim? You’re not the only one depressed.
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f4a965f158ec7e3398ca9b2a1b604026
Freshmen are reporting record levels of stress in an annual survey involving more than 200,000 students.
You can still profit from your college experience by following these “tips for getting student discounts long after graduation.”
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=4eaf5fe9306cce3c1f6d0345167c8719 via Byline
Here’s your chance to repurpose those sketches from that game design class.
http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/Y5YevDpmfj0/ via Byline Want to make a game? You might have a hard time finding the money if you don’t have a multimillion dollar studio. Or a trust fund. Or a rich uncle. That’s why Geoff Gibson created 8-Bit Funding, a site that helps finance indie game developers.
Record labels agree to settle a class-action lawsuit by paying songwriters $47.5 million for tracks the labels themselves pirated. Oh, and Sony et al. didn’t make the 300,000 copyrighted songs (which they didn’t own) freely available on a filesharing network–they *sold* them.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/11/0615258/Record-Labels-To-Pay-For-Copyright-Infringement?from=rss via Byline “Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc., EMI Music Canada Inc., Universal Music Canada Inc. and Warner Music Canada Co. have agreed to pay songwriters and music publishers $47.5 million in damages for copyright infringement and overdue royalties to settle a class action lawsuit. ‘The 2008 class action alleges that the record companies “exploited” music owners by reproducing and selling in excess of 300,000 song titles without securing licenses from the copyright owners and/or without paying the associated royalty payments. The record companies knowingly did so and kept a so-called “pending list” of unlicensed reproductions, setting aside $50 million for the issue, if it ever arose, court filings suggest.’”
Not to be outdone, Microsoft is trying to patent the idea of a “fan.”
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/07/2130218/Microsoft-Lays-Claim-To-Patent-On-Fans?from=rss via Byline theodp writes “A USPTO filing made public Thursday reveals that Microsoft is seeking a patent for something it calls ‘One-Way Public Relationships’ in social networks and other online properties, lawyer-speak for what’s more commonly known as being a ‘fan’ of something online. It’s unclear whether it’s a goof on Apple, but Microsoft curiously used the example of a U2 fan named Steve to explain its ‘invention’ to the USPTO. Purported patent reformer Microsoft, which has called for the US to change from a first-to-invent patent system to a first-to-file system, filed the patent application in July 2009. Microsoft is a partner with and investor in Facebook, which first established its fan pages back in November 2007.”
Maybe these old media companies should be looking at newer, “free-to-play” business models.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/01/07/2220228/emLotR-Onlinesem-Free-To-Play-Switch-Tripled-Revenue?from=rss via Byline Last June, Turbine made the decision to switch Lord of the Rings Online from a subscription-based business model to a free-to-play model supported by microtransactions. In a podcast interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Turbine executives revealed that the switch has gone well for the company, with game revenues roughly tripling. The active player base has also grown significantly in that time. Executive Producer Kate Paiz said, “This really echoes a lot of what we’ve seen throughout the entertainment industry in general. It’s really about letting players make their choices about how they play.”
Jan 122011
Ever wonder how our failing economy is staying afloat?
China is lending US gov’t money…because we gave that money to our failing banks who have used that money to pay lobbyists to stop the government from regulating their actions. Puzzled? Check out common sense economist Richard Wolff as he explains Why the Economic Crisis Deepens
Amidst the myriad reports of today’s newspapers being done in by the Internet, here’s a magazine that turned profitable by going online. To do so required its editors to think way outside the box–in fact, to aim to attack its former incarnation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13atlantic.htmlThe Atlantic is on track to turn a tidy profit of $1.8 million this year. That would be the first time in at least a decade that it had not lost money….
“We imagined ourselves as a venture-capital-backed start-up in Silicon Valley whose mission was to attack and disrupt The Atlantic,” said Justin B. Smith, president of the Atlantic Media Company, who arrived at the magazine’s offices in the Watergate complex in 2007 with a mission to stanch the red ink.
Facebook quietly rolled out face recognition in its photo service earlier this year, prompting some to speculate that Facebook users might soon get ads correlated to what they look like or where their pictures appear. But Facebook may not be the only one targeting ads according to what the lens sees. Last month Microsoft’s Chief Financial Officer for interactive entertainment let slip that Kinect’s camera feed offered his company “a bunch of new business opportunities.”
What sort of business opportunities? Well, once their system is trained on actual faces thanks to tags from its own users, Microsoft or Facebook could sell Haar classifiers to other companies for ad targeting (think X-box ads for acne cream) or the government for surveillance (think a “Total Information Awareness” database of every person ever caught on a security camera).
Of course, as new media artist and innovator Mark Daggett pointed out to me, this face-harvesting could have productive applications, such as an iPhone app that scans a crowd and displays each person’s Facebook profile above their heads. Then again, it could have detrimental applications, such as an iPhone app that scans a crowd and displays each person’s Facebook profile above their heads.
It’s a bit like The Pool, for movie studios.
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/11/18/0010208/Amazon-Launches-Online-Movie-Studio“Amazon.com is getting into the movie business by opening Amazon Studios, with the goal of using the Internet to put fresh movies on the big screen. The new Internet movie studio will allow writers to upload screenplays to its website where the global Internet audience can read them and offer feedback, or producers/directors can use them to make test movies. The test movies, which must be at least 70 minutes in length, can also be uploaded.”
As pointed out by a Slashdot commenter, Max Keiser has another model where script writers could share profits: Pirate My Film.
Keiser, a film-maker, broadcaster and former broker and options trader offers a vision of what this could really be like.http://www.piratemyfilm.com/pages/how_it_works
“The system automatically creates enough shares to match the funds request and then makes those shares available for PMF members to reserve.” Why just read and offer feedback when you could support a work from day one and perhaps share in some value.
UMaine New Media graduate Chris Bagley stepped outside of the box in 2009 when he switched from a Web-based capstone to start a local business premised on building environmentally responsible skis. The do-it-yourselfer built his own ski press in his garage and began turning out prototypes–and turning heads on the slopes. As the Bangor Daily News reports, this will be the first season his skis will be available to the general public, custom-built for both East Coast skiing conditions and to customer specifications.
Young people in their 20s and 30s seem increasingly uninterested in starting the long climb up the ladder of economic respectability. So they’re foregoing employment in favor of staying at home with their parents, moving to India, or robbing convenience stores dressed as Darth Vader.
This New York Times article reminds me of a recent story that the Italian finance minister was willing to offer cold cash to 30-something men who left their mother’s house (and so presumably contributed to the Italian economy, not to mention global overconsumption).
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=69874bd2032e732d4710b0952b1c4438They move back in with their parents. They delay beginning careers. Why are so many young people taking so long to grow up?
For those who’ve worn out their welcome on mom’s couch, India’s looking pretty good these days.
http://chronicle.com/article/What-I-Did-When-I-Couldnt/66281/“It was a bit of a shock, losing all expectations. For years—all my life, really—parents, teachers, and guidance counselors had told me that if I went to a good college and did well, I would be able to find a job after graduation that would, with a little ladder-climbing, keep me comfortable and financially secure. After I graduated in May 2009, in political science, I moved back home to St. Louis to start my career, but there simply were no jobs to be found.
“Over several months, I sent out more than 500 résumés for all sorts of jobs all over the country, but I got only two interviews and no offers.
“I couldn’t find a job, but neither could anyone I knew. Now, more than a year after graduation, most of my college friends still live at home, and many of those who have moved out are borrowing money from their parents to eat and pay rent. A few have internships, but most of those are unpaid, and few are likely to lead to jobs. Two friends who studied psychology for four years now work off the books at a sandwich shop. Another, who got her master’s in development studies from Cambridge, became a barista at Starbucks.
“Some are applying to grad school just to have something to do, but the prospect of racking up thousands more dollars in student debt is crushing. The rest are still looking, sending out résumés, going to career fairs, volunteering for experience, and networking. Some have given up. We are a whole generation graduating into a job market that has no room for us.
“So I moved to India.
“Two years earlier, I had spent a semester abroad in the Nepali-speaking regions of northeastern India, learning the language and culture through a fantastic study-abroad program at Pitzer College. In India, I met Pema Wangchuk, editor and publisher of Sikkim NOW, the most popular local English-language daily newspaper in the state of Sikkim. A couple months into my job hunt, I sent Pema an e-mail asking if he knew anyone who might be interested in hiring a young, enthusiastic American college graduate. “We’d be quite keen to have you here,” he wrote back.
“After lots of e-mails and late-night international phone calls, I got on a plane and went. I had been unemployed for eight months.
“My arrangement with NOW is informal. I help out doing a little photography, a little feature writing, and a lot of copy editing. Native-level English proficiency is a rare skill in much of the developing world. I take garbled press releases from local nongovernmental organizations and government departments, and equally garbled correspondent reports from remote districts of the state, and fix the punctuation, syntax, usage, and spelling to turn them into real news stories.
“I also write feature pieces for our `Sunday edition, interviewing NGO’s about their projects and local experts about social trends. I’m learning a lot about reporting, writing, and running a small newspaper, not to mention life and politics in northeast India and Asia in general. I suspect I am getting more intimate and comprehensive journalism experience here than I would in almost any internship, temp position, or entry-level job that I could have found back in the States.
“In exchange for my work, Pema found me a flat to stay in and arranged for my meals. The cost of living here is so cheap that, with my room and board taken care of, I can live comfortably on around $10 a week. If I were back in the United States, even with the most austere lifestyle, I would be costing my family far more than that by just eating their groceries, running their utilities, and burning their gas….”
And if India doesn’t pan out, there’s always a trusty light saber.
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/07/23/1310207/Darth-Vader-Robs-Long-Island-Bank?from=rss via Byline Apparently the destruction of the second Death Star has stretched the Galactic Empire’s coffers so thin that Lord Vader himself is robbing banks. From the article: “Impotent Rebel Alliance security forces tell Newsday (paywall) that Vader marched into a Chase bank in Setauket around 11:30 a.m. today. Brandishing a completely unnecessary handgun—as he had the power to choke the oxygen out every teller’s throat—the fallen Jedi demanded cash.”
Oct 152010
William Gibson’s last three novels (starting with Pattern Recognition back in 2003) are essential reading, in my opinion, for anybody who’s into New Media these days. They’re all set in the modern day, though the characters are decidedly sci-fi– hackers, marketing execs (hackers of a sort), graphic designers, fashion designers, filmmakers, and so on–generally controllers and creators of information.
So, on one level these books (and I sincerely recommend you start with Pattern Recognition) serve as commentary on our jacked-in, post 9/11, etc., society, but on quite another, more immediate–and I think gratifying–level Gibson just uses these themes as an occasion to produce some incredibly focused, almost morbidly precise writing. The density of his prose can be a little daunting at first, but once you get into the swing of things it’s quite good. A little vacuous at times, definitely show-offish at others, but on the whole simply delightful.
A bit like wine-tasting perhaps–the kind where you have to spit out the wine after a few seconds. It’s ridiculously good sometimes–the prose seems almost calibrated to induce a kind of lyrical hypersensitivity in the reader–but on the whole it lacks heart, and leaves one feeling not a little empty.
Reviews:
P.S. If you’re into fashion, Gibson’s descriptions are basically candy. Finely textured, gunmetal-black candy.
350.org has launched a glocal event–locally engaged, globally networked–to send a message to our political leaders that we want to work for positive life-affirming goals for our communities and families.
You can see two local Orono events as well as nearby events on the map
Still Water Permaculture Guild launched their own event described below:
EVENT
9 October 2010 – 10:00am – 2:00pm
Learn sheet mulching techniques for both Apple Orchard guilds, and raised beds.
Giga Pudding – Cannibalized from Boingboing, natch. I thought this a rather awesome example of advertising as art. And btw, does this pudding come in a bucket or something?
Mmm… Bucket of pudding… [Homer Simpson salivating noises]…