Sorry for my absence of late, but I’ve been busy. We’ve been pushing on developing our new product at InfoEther and I’m going to be moving out west of Dulles Airport to a place (pictured above) next to Oatlands Plantation.

We (myself and some friends) have been working on a 1200 sq ft garden and we’re going to be firing up the grill and enjoying the summer. I’ll be out that way in July.

The new MacRuby website is alive and kicking with a new look and feel (courtesy of me) and a nice Webby-based backend (courtesy of Rich Kilmer).

Webby is a Ruby framework that allows the user to work with model files to build a static site. We have a lot of helper methods and ERB that ends up dumped out as HTML when we run the deploy command. It’s similar to WordPress in that way, and it is a phenomenal tool for building static sites that feel dynamic. While it does support things such as HAML and SASS, we relied on good old Textile to get the job done.

The site is run without a database. It uses structs and helper methods to generate everything. For example, if Rich wanted to add someone to the “Project Team” list, he would simply update the Ruby array of people objects and the helpers loop through and make it all nice and styled. There was more info presented on this page initially, being the name, URL, focus and company affiliation, but it was simplified down for some of the presenters. The Special Thanks are handled in the same way.

We’ve been very happy to see some of the recent press about MacRuby as well. If you haven’t seen it, please check out:

Upcoming MacRuby Implementation to be Substantially Faster (at ArsTechnica)

Phil Rossi has posted a bunch of the Eden podcast at both the CrescentStation site as well as at PodioBooks. I did the soundtrack work for this and while I didn’t get to make as many pieces as I had originally intended due to schedule, it’s still a lot of exciting noisemaking with a good friend of mine. Check it out and while you’re at it, listen to his first podcast novel, “Crescent” as well.

I’ll be presenting at the DC Pecha Kucha night next Wednesday at the Corcoran in downtown DC near the White House. I’ll be presenting on the short film Meticulous made called “The Sandbox” in a 20 minute, 20 seconds per slide showdown. Hope to see you there!

Having grown up with pica sheets and crop slides with wax pencils, I come from a world of print design effectively dead with the advent of QuarkXPress, Pagemaker and InDesign. I still remember learning the rule types in high school yearbook design sessions and in some cases, I’ve recently implemented what’s known as a Harvard Rule line in a design.

What is a Harvard Rule? The old yearbook publisher I worked with defines it nicely:

A standard rule line is any printed line that is less than two picas wide. These rule lines can also add variety to your page. Common rule line weights are one, two, three, six, nine and twelve points. Rule lines are intended to unite design elements, not separate them. A Harvard rule line is two parallel lines, with one line wider than the other. Standard widths are one, three, six, nine and 12 points. When used as a border, the thin line is usually inside.

First off let’s get these terms right. A pica is 12 points. There are 72 points in a printed inch. (Sorry Windows users, someone back in the day thought 96px to an inch was better than 72. Apple is 72px/inch.) There are, therefore, 6 picas in an inch.

I didn’t want to use an image to do this, and wanted to accomplish it with html and css. Luckily, there’s an HTML element called “HR” that is a horizontal rule. These, in their basic implementation, are plain and simple ugly:

but some CSS can make it pretty:

That’s not nice to use. So with some HTML and CSS hackery, we can get something that looks a lot nicer. In your HTML, you first want to call the rule:

  <hr size="0" noshade />

Since it’s XHTML we’re using here, this is a self-closing element. The CSS for this isn’t too complex. We need to define the base colors to hide the original element. We then need to apply borders to finish the magic. You can alter the margins to space it out from other elements.

  hr {
    /* Faking a Harvard Rule */
    color: #fff;
    background-color: #fff;
    height: 2px; /* this is teh white space between the lines */
    border: 0; /* this removes left and right borders */
    border-top: 4px solid #aaa;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa;
    }
  

With that in place, we can give these unique styles and flip the lines as needed.

You can also accomplish a double rule this way:

These are all being used in the forthcoming MacRuby redesign.

Enjoy!

Many of you know my somewhat unhealthy obsession with wanting to have a farm. I think it’s a mix of growing up visiting my Grandfather’s California farm and vegetable gardening. Regardless, It might be time to take that more seriously as an occupation. Jim Rogers, who started the Quantum Fund with George Soros, was recently interviewed in Business Week and said:

I really think agriculture is going to be the best place to be. Agriculture’s been a horrible business for 30 years. For decades the money shufflers, the paper shufflers, have been the captains of the universe. That is now changing. The people who produce real things [will be on top]. You’re going to see stockbrokers driving taxis. The smart ones will learn to drive tractors, because they’ll be working for the farmers. It’s going to be the 29-year-old farmers who have the Lamborghinis. So you should find yourself a nice farmer and hook up with him or her, because that’s where the money’s going to be in the next couple of decades.

Now if I only had 7 figures to buy the acreage…

Back in 2005, we released a short film called The Sandbox. My sister and I produced it and it was directed by our high-school friend Kory Juul. Kory got it up online at the IMDB site and you can now watch the full film online.

About week ago Facebook changed its Terms of Use. Their Corporate Counsel, Suzie White, announced this on the company blog and explained what they had done and why in their minds the changes were necessary. This massive sweep up was to consolidate various documents into one central document and to “simplif[y] and clarif[y]” the terms and information contained therein.

They didn’t have to provide notice, but they did, and for that, I applaud them. You don’t have to agree to the terms, and they are non-negotiable. Use implies acceptance, and says so in the first paragraph of the Terms. If you don’t like that, you can go elsewhere.

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change or delete portions of these Terms [of Use] at any time without further notice. Your continued use of the Facebook Service after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of the new Terms.

The new Terms document has some serious issues with the way it handles content that users upload. “Content is king,” as the old dot-com era adage states, and without content, Facebook wouldn’t really be all that. Why do we return to Facebook? Why do people spend inordinate amounts of time locked into the site?

Content.

We return to read about what our friends and family are doing. We check out their pictures from vacation. We comment back and forth over the most inane status messages. We used to engaged in Scrabulous tourneys, but of course, that was a copyright infringement. I’m sure something has replaced that in the past months.

So content brings eyeballs, and Facebook sells advertising to those eyeballs. That is how and where Facebook’s income stream resides. Advertising. Without content, that advertising stream would dry up. We post content and Facebook places advertising around it. We find that to be okay because the service is free and actually works pretty great. That seems to be a fair trade. I’ll look at the ads on occasion and might even click on one.

The Rub

So what happens with the content you post? Facebook, according to their new Terms, for all intents and purposes, owns it.

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.

This is the problem with contracts. Legalese and contracts are written in order to protect the interests of the individual (be it a person or a corporation, which is seen as an individual under the law) from legal issues. Contracts are supposed to stop people from going to court. Usually, these contracts are negotiated between two parties. When one term dictates the terms and you must accept (e.g. a software license, terms of use, etc.) you have what is, in effect, a contract of adhesion.

adhesion contract n.(contract of adhesion) a contract (often a signed form) so imbalanced in favor of one party over the other that there is a strong implication it was not freely bargained. Example: a rich landlord dealing with a poor tenant who has no choice and must accept all terms of a lease, no matter how restrictive or burdensome, since the tenant cannot afford to move. An adhesion contract can give the little guy the opportunity to claim in court that the contract with the big shot is invalid. This doctrine should be used and applied more often, but the same big guy-little guy inequity may apply in the ability to afford a trial or find and pay a resourceful lawyer.

The Consumerist and the Cnet have both taken the company to task [ 1 | 2 ] over this and it got the CEO to come out in an attempt to put out the fires. Mark Zuckerberg posted on the corporate blog saying that Facebook would never do anything of the sort and they just wanted to make sure they could deliver things appropriately to other users. The problem is that what Mark says here is not legally binding. The parol evidence rule clearly states that no matter what a party to a contract states verbally, the written contract is the determining factor. The Terms of Use, constituting the contract between you, the user, and Facebook, are the only things that matters. Let’s look at some examples:

The Musician

Effectively, as a musician, if I post an mp3 on Facebook of Juniper Lane’s new song “Don’t You Give Up”, and it becomes a big hit, Facebook can make money off that and I can’t say squat about it. Although, if it were a big hit, I’m sure my record label would take Mr. Zuckerberg, et al to the bar in short order and have more paperwork filed in the first 24 hours than most people see in their lifetime.

The Photographer

Let’s use a more common example. You’re a decent photographer. You take a picture. Facebook likes it. They use it commercially. You’d get paid right? Nope. That nifty little phrase “including commercial or advertising” covers them in that. You’re simply out of luck. All for uploading a picture via Facebook to show your friend.

The Reality

Most of us aren’t a record label, or Facebook, or have deep pockets for legal fees. We’re people. In modern courts, it comes down to paperwork. A friend of mine, working as a paralegal in downtown DC, described it as “it’s not who’s right, but he whole files the most paperwork that wins.” With things such as “boxcar discovery”, where a side will deliver, in effect, a warehouse of paperwork to go through, it’s almost impossible to take on a company like Facebook. WHile this can go in both directions, Facebook could simply bury a Plaintiff in an excess of paper, unending in the reply to simple requests for production.

So my challenge to you, Mr. Zuckerberg, et al: Say what you mean, exactly, in your terms of service. Strike overreaching phrases such as “including commercial or advertising” and remember that those people you have as your users provide every penny of your current valuation. Start driving them away, and you may have larger problems than content lawsuits on your hands.

UPDATE Facebook has decided to revert to their old Terms for the time being and established a public working group entitled the Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities group. THis already has over 30,000 members but sadly already has drivel in the discussions of “Can someone give me one logical reason to believe in God?”

For those of you who don’t know, I started working at InfoEther last fall as their UI/UX/Design guy. One of the floating projects I had been tasked with was the redesign of the InfoEther company site. In light of getting me back into Ruby on Rails, they also decided that I should be the one to code it.

The site is done and up and will probably expand as we have time and new things happen. Now it’s off to work on wireframes for our new product.

You can see the site at infoether.com.

For those of you who didn’t know, I have a Masters in Architecture. I strayed from the path when I worked at RTKL as a 3d animator and designer right after college. I’ve done things here and there, but mainly still focused on the 3d rendering side of things [ Meticulous Portfolio ].

My high school civics teacher contacted me to ask if I would be willing to work with her son, Robert Eccleston, as an “architect” on a design for the Virginia Public Safety Memorial. I was ecstatic to be able to work on something like this again and, over the Christmas holiday, met with Robert in Williamsburg and dove in on the project. He had the maquettes started and we finished the plaza plan that day. From there we got the maquettes scanned into 3d models and I built the rest of the plaza in Maya. Render forth and this is what we had.

We submitted this yesterday and will find out in 3 months if we make the next round. Fingers crossed!

I designed a mockup for Waldo earlier in 2008 and today it launches on Richmond Sunlight. Erik Kastner did the HTML/CSS sexiness for it.

For those of you not familiar with the Sunlight projects, they are sites dedicated to increased transparency in the legislative process. This particular site focuses on the Virginia General Assembly. For more information you can read about the Sunlight Foundataion.

Check it out live: Richmond Sunlight

So looking back at my list from 2008, there’s some stuff that’s still ongoing, like the Rotoscope record. Oy veh. One day, I swear.

1. Exercize

Check. Started with InfoEther and we go twice a week to a personal trainer. Oh yeah!

2. Be prepared

Not really something to check off, just more of a mindframe shift. Getting there.

3. Clean out the junk in these boxes I haven’t seen in a year

About half of them are done. The rest are in the storage unit. So clean out the storage unit is what this has become.

4. Expand the Balcony garden

Boy did I ever.

Going to give it a whirl again this summer with some variations upon the plantings and a bit more cyclical to get it all working right. Also, continuing on canning the stuff (Jalapeño Jelly FTW!)

5. Learn to shoot (yes, a weapon)

Slightly untrue, as I’ve know how to shoot a rifle since I was ten. But I went and took a class from a Secret Service instructor via the NRA here in Northern Virginia and have been enjoying going to the range every once in a while. A fun sport for sure!

6. Relax

Fail.

Here’s the list for 2009:

1. Zero the debt (except for college loans)
2. Finish the Rotoscope record. For serious.
3. Get in shape and stay that way
4. Maintain a more positive attitude
5. Read 2 books a month

I know those are nebulous and wimpy but whatever. I’m just happy I survived the last half of 2008.

The second Victoria’s Secret video using Juniper Lane’s songs is up on YouTube. This one features an instrumental of our song, “Take Me Home”, which has also been seen on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight and MTV’s The Hills.

Two of our songs from the album Wake From Yourself are being used in one of the online promos for Victoria’s Secret fashion show. It’s pretty disturbing and awesome to hear “Memento” and “Follow Me” with supermodels talking over them. A guy could get used to this.

Phil Rossi is a long time friend of mine who I’ve jammed with over the years in his outfit, The Bad Habit. He did a podcast novel last year entitled “Crescent” that did really well and you can still get for free from iTunes. Dark Sci-fi theme.

He’s started a new one, and I’m helping him score it. Eventually, when it’s all done, I’ll collect the pieces and put it out as a record. Here’s a snippet from the first episode that we’re working on right now:

Eden Appears (mp3, 3.6MB)

More to come!

Freddy and I produced a track for Honor By August for the Alternative Addiction sponsored compilation entitled An Alternative Christmas. We did all the recording in the studio in my apartment and it was mastered by Dave Harris at Studio B Mastering in Charlotte.

You can hear the song on the Borealis Studios myspace page.

For those of you who may not know, I acquired a kitten at the farm that we frequent a little after Leanne passed away. I’ve finally gotten photos of Smokey and the sibling cat, Bandit, up on Flickr.

Smokey and the Bandit

As Tom Bridge says, “The Cuteness… it burrrrns.”

NSA Eavesdropped on Americans, Journalists in Baghdad | Two whistleblowers came forward to allege that “it was common practice at the NSA facility [in the Green Zone] to not only record the phone conversations of ordinary Americans with no connection to terrorism, but to single out the exchanges that were somehow novel or salacious for sharing, ridicule, and general discussion.” Your tax dollars at work. How long until this happens domestically? My money is on that it already does happen here.

The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition | Really, truly, one of the best new bands I’ve seen since MuteMath. From Melbourne, Australia. As Tom Bridge said in a conversation with me, “It has a great urgency to it. I MUST ROCK. IT CANNOT WAIT. ROCK!”

Honey Can Help Fight Sinusitis | Well, certain types, and it’s limited to petri dish testing. It goes to show that Mother Nature really makes the best medicine.

The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget | Just a great feel-good story about an old lady and a cab driver. It’s the little things we do that make a difference.

Mad Men Illustrated | A great group of images of illustrated scenes from Mad Men. Well done art! (via .sara)

Consumers not waiting for Automakers to Install Plug-in on Hybrids | This shows the obstinance of Detroit on getting with the program. When people are moding hteir cars so much in order to increase mileage, it might be something to look into…

No-Tech Hacking | Security is often focused on firewalls and digital encryption and randomized passwords. This is a great look at how non-technical issues can often do you in, how situational awareness is paramount, and how you car, dress and haircut can tell someone more about you than you care to let on. (Defcon talk by Johnny Long)

Typography for Lawyers | Or other clients who just don’t seem to get it.

Grocery Items rise 10.5% from Last Year | Maybe food will be the next hot market. Of course, most of these things aren’t storeable, and these hikes all seem to be related to costs of inputs on the agricultural end as well as transportation costs.

The Palins’ un-American Activities | Since Sarah Palin is pounding so hard on Sen. Obama regarding his weak link connection to Bill Ayers, Salon’s David Talbot hits back with some great points. If you read some of the statements of the founder of the Alaska Independence Party, of which her husband was an active member for years, you’d be a bit shocked: “My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.” So who’s the anti-government terrorist now?

McCain Loses His Head | Conservative commentator George Will calls out and rips McCain on his recent campaign activities calling him disconnected.

Global Electoral College | The Economist combines polls taken worldwide to see who would be President if the world could vote. It’s a decidedly blue map.

Ciny McCain Says Obama Runing ‘Dirtiest Campaign’ Ever | Yeah. I’m not sure what planet the Senator’s wife is living on, but I have three words: Pot. Kettle. Black.

‘Perfect Storm’ Could Give Dems ‘Magic 60’ in Senate | I’m not sure this would be good, as I think consensus building generally makes for better long term laws. However, after the disasterous years of the Republican Control of the White House and Capitol Hill, we’ve got a lot of crap to undo.

Walking a Fine Line | McCain did come out and try to push this back on Friday, but they should never have let it get this far out of control.

So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out “terrorist.”

And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out “kill him”, though it’s not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn’t seem to matter.

These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.

Garabage Pail Kid version of Sarah Palin | This is just funny. I’d actually like to see someone do all four candidates up this way.

Make Believe Maverick | A relatively biased (especially in the tone of the writer) view of McCain. Strip away the hype and take it for the facts and it’s pretty interesting in regards to the underpinnings of McCain.

Berlusconi Says Leaders May Close World’s Markets | The Italian Prime Minister would like to suspend the markets for a short time in order to “rewrite the rules of international finance.” Well, the problem I see is that you have debt. And not only people but governments living excessively outside their means. Fiat currencies not backed by gold and you basically have a bunch of paper that people say has a certain value. When that paper gets traded at 20 times its value, it’s only a matter of time until that becomes untenable. And it is going to correct. If they keep the markets from sinking further in number, they do it in actuality through inflation. Just look at Zimbabwe, Argentina, etc. to see where this could end up for us.

AIG Draws Fire for Executives’ $440,000 Post-Bailout Retreat at Posh California Resort | Shock. Amazement. Bewilderment. The government bails you out because you screwed up and what do you do? Fix it? NO. You go on a fscking resort and pay for $6 diet cokes on the company (now taxpayer) dime. These people should have their personal assets taken from them to pay back the 85 billion (or part of it) and get a pittance of a salary to fix it. Or they can just quit. Or they can go to jail. I like door number three myself. “Executive Douchebag? meet Bubba. He likes men.”

Jim Cramer: Get Out of the Market | Jim Cramer recommends that people get the heck out of the market if you plan on using that money in the next five years. We heard something similar from our USAA advisers about 6 months ago when this all started to rumble with the sub-prime debacle. But this is going mainstream. Will this affect a sell-off of large proportions?

Settlement Day Approaches For Derivatives | Derivatives are really the 800 lb. Gorilla in the corner that everyone’s been ignoring. If these things go, get ready for fun.

Is This A Replay of 1929? | No. And that’s a relief. Newsweek’s Robert J. Samuelson talks about the differences and similarities between now and the Great Depression. Also see The End of Prosperity, Time’s look at similar concerns.

Worst Case Scenario Is Approaching Rapidly | The European Union is in chaos as certain countries jump out of step to secure their own domestic banking accounts.