Category Archives: Somebody should do this

Toward A New Funding Model for Theater

Ever since jotting down a few observations on theater’s crappy business model, I’ve found myself mildly obsessed with finding a solution to the problem of funding theater.

Why?

I’m not sure. Because I love it, I guess. Because although I’m not convinced the arts are strictly necessary, I am convinced they’re one way we make [...]

Steal this idea: iPhone Pedometer

An idea I don’t have time to pursue right now:

The new iPhone SDK, which gives developers access to the accelerometer, should make it easy to write up a little iPhone pedometer application.

Just tell the app your stride length, turn it on, slide the iPhone in your pocket, and away you go. A friendly display [...]

TinyURL.com as public record

For all the brouhaha about Internet search companies maintaining the secrecy of their customer’s surfing history, there is one company that publishes their customer’s online habits for all the world to see: TinyURL.com
Go ahead, type a random string into TinyURL and see what people have tiny-ized. For example, apparently whoever created tinyurl.com started [...]

Bird Calls…Of Science!

Back at UNC, I took a class on information visualization. The subject covers all kinds of interesting questions:

How do you categorize data before you choose a way to visualize it? (Is it in two dimensions? Three? Is the data nominal? Ordinal? A ratio?)
What are you trying to see [...]