Thursday, May 29, 2008

Edit this Website


Having spent days of my life coding around Internet Explorer's limitations, I found this priceless.

With Firefox or Safari, go visit Steal This Footage, which contains all the tape shot for Steal This Film.

I love the mindset they've adopted! Yes, they are sharing all the footage they shot and allowing it be remixed, but how are they doing that? By letting the public edit and annotate it. No limits. It's a wide open wiki! Every page, every word is editable by anyone. No login.

This is Open Source on a different level.



On top of all of this of course is fully transcribed, searchable video clips that allow one to jump exactly to the piece of the clip of interest to you. I'm sure it's been done before, but the implementation is impressive in it's own right, but giving anyone the keys to edit, removing the producer - consumer dichotomy completely is ground breaking.

What do you call this? Open Source ____? Culture, Community, Production? I love where this is heading. I wonder how much work it takes to keep out the Trolls?

Monday, May 19, 2008

Big Cinder Butte

I'm really into goals, the more obscure the better. I'm working on climbing the 11th highest volcano on each continent. So far I've done one... but hey, it's a life goal.


For this year I've set a myself a somewhat less lofty, but still obscure goal: "climb" the highpoint in each of Idaho's wilderness areas. . Climb is in quotes because truthfully none of them are really all that difficult. Beautiful, challenging at times because one must place on foot in front of the other for more times in one day than some Americans do in a month*, but not hanging off rock faces challenging. With any luck I'll summit all the Idaho Wilderness Seven Summits before the snow falls again.


Idaho Wilderness Seven Summits
Wilderness AreaHighpointElev. (ft)
Craters of the MoonBig Cinder Butte6,515
Gospel-HumpBuffalo Hump8,938
SelwayRanger Peak8,817
SawtoothThompson Peak10,751
Hells CanyonHe Devil9,409
Frank ChurchMount McGuire10,082
White Clouds**Castle Peak11,815

* Research studies estimate the average American adult may take less than 3,000 steps a day, which adds up to roughly 34 miles, so I may be exaggerating a little, but not much. The average Texan may be more accurate. A number of these peaks will require a round trip distance greater than 34 miles, though I will span the effort across a couple days.

** Ok, so the White Clouds isn't a Wilderness yet, you got me. But it's a great climb in a great location. Plus I'll already have achieved the metric just in case it ever gets approved.


The most difficult are Class III scrambles in remote terrain, the easiest is a short skip up a petrified zit. So I started with the zit, though I did choose to go before the park opened up the roads and part of the Butte was still snow covered to make it a wee bit more interesting. I invited the folks in Idaho Mountain Recreation to tag along and two of them took me up on the offer.


Big Cinder Butte Highlights

Big Cinder Butte
Looking ahead

Big Cinder Butte
That is a really, really strange landscape

Big Cinder Butte
The mars rover has to be around her somewhere

Big Cinder Butte
A strangely habitable "summit"

Big Cinder Butte
On top with Big Southern Butte in the background

Big Cinder Butte
Red lava fingers

Big Cinder Butte
Descending

Big Cinder Butte
Red rock I took a lichen to

Big Cinder Butte
Weirdscape

Big Cinder Butte
Blue lava

Big Cinder Butte
Intestinal lava


There's more...
View Slideshow | View Photoset | Google Earth (kml)

Bogus Closing Day Festivities

I'm way late writing this up (and the next few posts). Here's some snapshots from our tailgate on the last day at Bogus, Sunday April 13th.

It was a perfect closing day. There was still enough snow to make tree skiing possible and by 10AM it was soft and turnable without too much slush spray. Perfect shorts-skiing in a cowboy hat weather. Combine tailgating, skiing and wacky costumes... what's not to love?


Bogus Closing Day
Getting breakfast started

Bogus Closing Day
A hot pink pussycat and her pimp daddy

Bogus Closing Day
Hansel and Gretel

Bogus Closing Day
My roomate finally made it skiing with me

Bogus Closing Day
Shel relaxing on the hill

Bogus Closing Day
A bumblebee and a pooch sharing a mud puddle

Bogus Closing Day
Happy braids

Bogus Closing Day
In Character(s)

Bogus Closing Day
Tim in Hawaiian Regalia

Bogus Closing Day
Winnie the Skier

Bogus Closing Day
My hat took a beating on the slopes when a snowboarder clocked me (you can barely make out the tear behind my ear)



There's more...
View Slideshow | View Photoset

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Boise Bike Week 2008

Boise Bike Week 2008
Photo over my shoulder on the tandem of the Bike Parade. My co-worker and fellow commute-by-bike enthusiast Wendy prominently placed on right

We missed the Sunday night activities, but we made it to both the Scavenger Hunt and the Bike Parade this year. The Scavenger Hunt was an absolute blast on the tandem. I was left to navigate and break traffic rules using my map geek radar to navigate from place to place while Shelly on the back of the tandem did her best to solve riddles, document our finds and point out near collisions all while remaining on board. Needless to say we do not have any photos. We finished well, in the top twenty I believe and we would have done far better if only we could have remembered that the Record Exchange was in the Hitchcock Building. This is a fact we can now not forget if we wanted (now what is the combination to my bike lock again?).

Boise Bike Week 2008
A gentleman and his little man festively enjoying the parade

Boise Bike Week 2008
The parade taking over a lane of traffic on 9th Street


We did get a few photos of the bike parade which keeps getting bigger and bigger each year. I hear a change of venue is necessary to accompany the growing tribe in 2009.

It was one of those weekends where way too much is going on it town, and you feel like you're on vacation in your own city with no time to see all the sites. The Green Expo was downtown and my friend Brian graduated from BSU and threw a fun party at his pad that evening. We were like kids at the fair running from one ride to another all weekend.

Boise Bike Week 2008
Expo-goers and their trusty steeds taking in the music and summer air

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Cuteness

Cuteness