1Jason

thanks for the shout-out, noah.

November 8, 2006

2Jecklin

What a shock. My man Joey Harrington actually didn't look too bad out there. Harrington was awesome at Oregon, that's why I will always have affection for the guy and was glad to see he will now have at least one game to look back on.

I'm still holding out hope for the guy.

November 8, 2006

3amber

congrats on the Media Magazine piece! I read it as soon as it landed on my desk. The piece on Renegade was great, and the entire article was really inspiring. I think ideas have always been currency, but the nice thing about them is that if you're truly imaginative, it's hard to run out of them, but that thought is always in the back of everyone's (at least my) mind. There's a really funny part on the Michel Gondry director's series dvd where he talks about a dream where he had an idea, but Spike Jonze had the same one, or something to that effect. So i guess even the most creative minds worry about petty stuff like that. anyway, it was a great article :)

November 8, 2006

4Josh

I left a loooong comment over at Mr. Gallant's blog, but I liked this quote from his post

- You can practice anything and get better at it. This holds true for abstract things such as your understanding of time, and the act of practicing itself.

I was thinking exactly that a couple of years ago. It's amazing that one aspect of the human animal is that if we keep doing something, almost involuntarily, we will almost always get better at it. Enjoyment has almost nothing to do with it too, I think—maybe you get better at something faster if you like to do it, but I am sure there are a ton of people out there who hate their jobs and can still perform the actual functions superbly. (Whether they do is another question, but I bet they can.)

Blogging not only changes you, but it can offer a record of change, too. I think websites' life spans tend to be pretty short, but it's feasible that starting around now, some people will have records of their daily activities from now until they die. Maybe it's not that different from keeping a paper journal, except that it's public. I dunno. I guess the best way to find out will be to wait and see.

November 8, 2006

5Josh

Oh, I just reread that comment, and I feel like "I was thinking exactly that a couple of years ago" makes it sound like I was really ahead of the curve or something.

All I meant was that, strangely, I can remember exactly where I was standing when that thought occurred to me. And it happened a couple of years ago. ;-)

November 8, 2006

6Chartreuse

The link to the New York dollar was interesting. Being new here I find the costs for everything crazy. Nice to see it wasn't my imagination.
And congrats on the article. That rocks.

November 9, 2006

7Noah Brier

Jason: You're welcome.

Jecklin: It's funny, I was actually a Joey Harrington fan when he was in college too (I went through a very short-lived Oregon fandom that was mostly based on their uniforms I think). He didn't win the game on Sunday, though, the Bears lost it.

Amber: I know what you mean, it's hard not to feel sometimes like your well has run dry. I personally think it's directly related to how much you've been taking in: Sometimes the less I consume (music, movies, reading, walking, whatever) the harder it is to be inspired. Does that make sense? I happen to have just seen that Michel Gondry DVD and it was nice to see that someone that creative was still a regular person.

Josh: That's really interesting, what do you think will happen as a result of that record? I know for me I'm able to go back more easily and find things I was thinking about. That actually makes it easier to find new ideas because I don't need to waste my time searching all around for the spark. In a way it creates a kind of feedback loop,

Chartreuse: Thanks. And no, you're certainly not crazy, this city is crazy expensive.

November 9, 2006

8Josh

I think it'll get more interesting if the technology ever advances to the point where it's automated and a little more objective—I mean, instead of just having a plugin on your sidebar that shows what you're reading while you're writing about where you went and what you had for lunch that day, what if there were some kind of continuous record, a stream of data tracking what you were reading, how long you read for, what you did afterward, what your heart rate was, etc., etc.? Blogging may be a really primitive form of this—or at least, blogging may pave the way for something like this by helping to popularize digital-media usage to the point where companies are forced to adopt protocols that interface cleanly with one another.

Now, whether that kind of personal data-tracking would be a good thing is another question. ;-) But on the flipside of the normal concerns about privacy is the notion that, if we had some kind of continuous picture of just one person's day-to-day life, I suspect we'd see some interesting and surprising patterns. And once we could compare lots of people's pictures, I bet we'd see even more patterns. It could turn sociology and psychology into something closer to real sciences!

(Well, that got a little far out there, huh?)

November 9, 2006