I’d post more videos, but the process has been slightly above my pain threshold. Here’s some from a recent dump:

A pan of Random’s installation [4.7M]

A closeup of the installation [3.5M]

A short clip from the motivational speaker skit [8.6M]

I posted a mini-review of Ryan’s show w/ the Flickr pic. There’s a second performance next Tuesday @ the Improv Olympic.

While I’m complaining about software, I’ll also mention I’ve been disappointed with Mail 2.0. Simple things like moving messages to folders aren’t exposed in Automator, the Scripts menu is gone, along w/ all my hot-keys, and my favorite extensions are all broken, with no fixes in sight. Also, the vaunted Spotlight works crappily on my 2GB mailbox (expanded in size 3-4 fold by the mbox->emlx conversion). While mail-wide searches are marginally more responsive, inbox filtering is even more useless. If it wasn’t for Thunderbird’s continued beyond-lame IMAP handling, I’d switch back (if GreaseMonkey came out for Thunderbird, I’d probably switch even w/ the retardo-IMAP).

Update on AppleScripting: I did a bit of poking around, and the Script Menu can be re-enabled via the ‘AppleScript Utility’. You’ll then want to move your old Mail scripts from ‘~/Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts’ to ‘~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail’. According to Mail 2.0’s help, you should be able to use keyboard shortcuts, but this appears to be broken (scripts that previously worked w/ the ___ suffix don’t anymore, even w/ the renamed ctrl). The documentation may be out of date, it mentions and ‘Update Scripts Menu’ option when that option doesn’t exist anymore. Here’s a coversation on the Apple support forums about the script menu funkiness.

While putting off real work, I took a couple minutes to look at what, if anything new on the OS X RSS reader front, taking a look at the latest version of NetNewsWire, Shrook, and Pulp Fiction, and Newsfire. Conclusions? They all still suck.

• the last thing I need is an another icon on my dock telling me how behind I am, RSS readers need to be stream-based, the e-mail model is retarded
• every single one of these apps offer smart lists for items, but none of them offer a way to have a way to tag/facet feeds (NetNewsWire, Shrook, and NewsFire have the ability to ‘Group’ feeds, but not to put feeds in multiple groups, or if they do, they’re treated as separate sources, so changes to one doesn’t reflect in the other)
• Not one of them has an ‘blog’ view like online aggregegators (NetNewsWire and Pulp Fiction are three-paned, w/ Pulp Fiction taking the email metaphor way too far, Shrook uses a column-style view, NewsFire uses a two-pane view)
• Tags would be nice (and solve the grouping problem)
• None of them offer useful views, like identifying top links in your feeds, tracking usage patterns, etc (the only thing I’ve seen that even begins to touch on this stuff is Chameleon). There’s so much implicit metadata to extract (but I’d settle for something that’s just has a humane UI)
• NNW doesn’t keep items indefinitely? wtf?

See also:

• ponyboy’s rant on Glassdog last year
• lmorchard’s thoughts/improvements
• jveen’s system for trying to make the best of a bad situation
  

  “I feel like I make things un-bold for a living now.”
  — Lane Becker

[A full review and video dump will be forming over the next couple of days]

In summary, Coachella kicked ass. The weather of beautiful, beyond the occasional mixing gaffes, the sound was surprisingly good, the crowds and lines were bearable, and the music… the music was awesome.

Set reviews (I took some video, but the clips are mostly too short and not metered properly, still learning to handle the T7…):

• Boom Bip – even though we got to Indio early, we ended up not getting to the festival grounds until the show was almost over, which is too bad because what we did catch was very good. From what I had read/seen, I was expecting something very electronic, but it turns out that the set had a surprisingly guitary (live-band) post-rock sound going for it. Boom Bip is kicking off a NA tour. He’ll be in LA @ the Echo w/ Fog on the 26th
  • 16s of Boom Bip [5.6MB]
• Nic Armstrong and the Thieves – Nic Armstrong’s fuzzy retro sound seems like it was made for sunny afternoon festival gigs, and sure enough, it came off great on the outdoor stage. There was lots of room and the grass was still in good shape, so Dan and I broke out the hackeysack for a couple songs
  • 7s of Nic Armstrong [2.7MB]
• Buck 65 – Buck 65 is a Nova Scotian folk-hop w/ some real underground credibility and some critically acclaimed albums. Unfortunately, his stuff on stage just wasn’t working for me, and was pretty underwhelming on the main stage.
  • 14s of Buck 65 [5MB]
• k-os – an interesting contrast is k-os, another Canadian rapper, who absolutely rocked the Gobi tent. If he ever makes his way down to LA, I will definitely be showing up
  • k-os Hit the Road Jack call/response (w/ Crabbuckit) [10.4MB]
• M83 – I love the albums, and this was one of the few sets that I camped and moved up on (it was early in the day, in the same tent after k-os). I was sort of surprised that this as a live-band act, which for the most part worked, although sometimes when the sequencing took over duties, it seemed to deflate some of the energy… I can’t really explain it, just that, while I wasn’t disappointed, despite digging the music, I’m not sure I got all that much out of the live version.
  • M83 laptop rockin’ [5.7MB]
  • M83 guitar rockin’ [3.5MB]
• Snow Patrol – for a couple weeks last year I was completely obsessed with these guys. So, hmm, they played a lot of the songs I liked on their old albums, and they debuted some new songs (nothing grabbed me though). Maybe it’s just that chewed-bubblegum thing, but their live set definitely didn’t grab me at all, and seemed to get worse as it went on. Anyway…
• Tiga
• Jean Grae
• Wilco
• Weezer
• Sage Francis
• Secret Machines
• Bloc Party
• Chemical Brothers
• Spoon

• Diplo
• Autolux
• Jem
• M.I.A.
• The Futureheads
• The Arcade Fire
• New Order
• Aesop Rock
• Pinback
• NIN
• The Faint
• The Prodigy
• Bright Eyes
• Black Star

Bands that I missed that I heard were good:

• Keane
• Cafe Tacuba
• Gram Rabbit
• Gang of Four
• Dresden Dolls
• British Sea Power

I also took a few photos, but I’ll be the first to admit that they aren’t very good or interesting. Mediaeater’s photoset is much better (some great crowd-shots too). I’m still looking for someone who bothered to shoot interesting pictures of the festival itself (it’s easy to get caught up in snaps of the bands).

Coachella fun tips:

• Park from the south and thumb your noses at the lemmings waiting in line. Suckers! (Go down Jefferson or Jackson until 52nd Ave and head into Madison, Monroe, or if you don’t mind walking a little extra for getting out extra quick, park off of 52nd)
• If you get there early (before 1-2PM), you should get through the lines in 10-15min, you’ll probably also catch some suprisingly good bands you’ve never heard of
• Bringing a bag is worth it
• Sound is surprisingly good far back, so if you’re not going to ‘camp’ for a fav band, it’s just as good to hang back, wander, and take it all in
• If you can carry it (w/ the aforementioned bag) buy water in volume. It’ll save you line-hassle and towards the end of the day the water they sell isn’t cold anyway)
• For crowded tents, be sure to try the far side of the tent for better luck.
• For the main and outdoor stages, you’ll be surprised how much room is on the sides
• Sprint has awesome reception at Coachella, is much less likely to drop, and has solid SMSing (some friends on other services intermittent problems sending)
• When leaving at the end of the night, use the exit before the entrance (there’s major rubbernecking leaving via the entrance)

I haven’t really organized who I’m meeting up with except for transportation and housing, but here’s a list of the acts I’m going to try to catch. (argh, the Doves have pulled out)

On Saturday:

• Boom Bip, 12:30-1:20
• Evil 9
• Buck 65, 1:55-2:40 (alt: Nic Armstrong, 1:40-2:25)
• k-os, 2:35-3:20 (alt: Radio 4)
• M83, 3:40-4:30 (alt: Ambulance LTD, 3:35-4:20)
• Snow Patrol, 4:15-5:05
• Keane, 5:30-6:20 (alt: The Kills, Immortal Technique, Jean Grae)
• Wilco, 6:45-7:35
• Weezer, 8:00-8:50
• Sage Francis, 8:45-9:30
• Bloc Party, 9:30-10:15
• The Chemical Brothers, 10:20-11:50, (alt: Mercury Rev, 9:50-10:35, Amp Fiddler, 9:45-10:35)
• Spoon, 11:00-11:55

On Sunday:

• Shout Out Louds
• Sloan (alt: Gram Rabbit, Diplo)
• Autolux, 2:45-3:35 (alt: The Perceptionists)
• Matthew Dear, 3:00-4:15 (alt: Jem, 3:05-3:55)
• M.I.A., 4:10-5:00
• The Futureheads
• Beans (alt: Miss Kittins, Tegan and Sara)
• The Arcade Fire
• Aesop Rock
• New Order
• Pinback (alt: British Sea Power)
• Nine Inch Nails
• The Faint
• Bright Eyes (alt: Black Star [Talib Kweli + Mos Def], 10:40-11:40)

Hey, what do you know, here’s a Coachella Lineup Rundown (linked to the last part which has links to the earlier parts) if you’re trying to figure out what to catch.

Hostnames for my machines:

• optimus
• chrome
• brick
• deedee
• dexter
• jack
• hack
• ack
• mainframe
• hamutaro
• muffins
• moo

potentially good/clever hostnames:

• syn
• ping
• uptime
• downtime
• wintermute
• forum3000
• somad
• cube
• marvin

Some other lists:

• RFC 1178 – Choosing a name for your computer
• Hostnames! – list of hostnames and categories
• Computer Name Themes
• Top 72 Cool Server Hostnames

As of 3:58:27 today I made my last student loan payment as a big lump sum, a bit over 4 years ahead of schedule.

It wasn’t that much to begin with, but it still feels good not owing nobody nuthin’.

I watched Kung Fu Hustle this afternoon at the Bruin. It’s the best movie I’ve seen this year. It’s directed by Stephen Chow, and has the impeccable comic timing you’d expect. Yuen Wo-ping (w/ an assist by Sammo Hung) does loads of astounding action choreography (which again, isn’t unexpected).

What for me was unexpected was the sheer amount of cinematic joy in it. The visual creativity (the film-speed play is the best I’ve seen), the direction, the genre-absurd (but inspired) twists and turns, and the crazy kinetic energy of it all kept me smiling through the whole thing. It really blew my hair back.

I’ve been insanely busy and tired (hmm, are those two connected?), so I’ve been a bit behind in putting up some video from my trip (and from my T7). I’ll post some more later, but for now, here’s a 22 second (28MB!) 640x480x30fps video that shows what the quality of the video can be (this is in ‘Fine’ mode. The ‘Standard’ mode is much more reasonable).

OK, and here’s a short clip w/ Mark Allen in standard mode (11s @ 640x480x25fps, 3.9MB, 354KB/s data rate). I believe that half of the videos I’ve taken now have either VO of me talking about the video capture or of people asking me about it:

So here’s the skinny on the T7:

• Love the form factor, it’s an incredible carry-everywhere camera
• Still blown away by it’s video capability
• Screen is ginormous and insanely clear/bright, good in all but the brightest daylight
• Bootup in about a second, zero shutter lag
• Starts getting pretty noisy at 200, tops off at a very noisy 400 ISO
• Amazing that it’s a 3X optical lens, but poky @ 3.5f-4.4f
• Battery life is a bit low, a few hundred shots, or less than an hour of w/ video
• No zooming while recording. Boo-urns

Worth it for $500? You bet. Only thing that would be better is if it had wi-fi or 3G support for instant uploading.

Jason has a write-up on some recent postings on /. about The future of Spotlight and OS X. All good stuff, but one of the more interesting bits:

What’s next? We’re going to find new ways of attaching automatic metadata

I’ve been banging on the drum of capturing implicit metadata for a while now, and I’m glad that that’s on the roadmap. Ah, metadata. What fun.