flashback: the official cocktail of summer (2006)

UPDATE - In advance of my announcement of the official cocktail of summer (2008), I wanted to give you, dear reader, an opportunity to enjoy the winners from previous years. Enjoy (in moderation, please).

Thanks to all of you who volunteered such novel and (dare I say) potentially lethal cocktail recipes over the last week. A few hours trapped in an airport bar afforded me the opportunity to try a number of them last night. A few additional hours of dialysis this afternoon reminded me of why this was a Bad Idea. I applaud your creativity, and welcome future submissions on all topics alcoholic and product management-y.

But through it all (and advised by notes scrawled on a moist stack of bar napkins) I was able to identify - with total clarity - the official 2006 summer cocktail.

Welcome. . .The Manhattan.

It's a classic. A. . .dangerous classic. The Manhattan is a cocktail that says 'howyadoin' while reaching for both your wallet and your girlfriend. It lures you in with its sleek visual appeal - served shaken in a martini glass with a cherry, it's murky golden hue filtering the evening light like a liquid pane of stained glass. Dangerous stained glass.

When created with one of the better bourbons (I requested - and received - one fashioned with Makers Mark), it welcomes you with a spike of spiciness shot through with a brief note of sweetness followed by a sharp jab from a concrete-filled glove. Ahh...bourbon.

It's a drink you know is hurting you while you're drinking it. It's the liquid equivalent of putting your car into reverse right after you enter the Avis car return area. You know you've always wanted to see just what Severe Tire Damage feels like. That's a Manhattan.

3/4 oz sweet vermouth (one short glug)
2 1/2 oz bourbon whiskey (four glugs)
1 dash a bitters (shake the bottle once)
1 maraschino cherry
1 twist orange peel (if you're feeling fruity - see below)

Combine the vermouth, bourbon and bitters in a shaker filled with ice. Shake the bejebus out of it, who cares about clouding the whiskey, you're a man, right? You want it to be cooold. Cold like your heart, like the love of an ill-tempered Bavarian pretzel maid. Place the cherry in a chilled martini glass and strain the whiskey mixture over the cherry.

If you happen to forget the cherry until you're about to serve the drink, and happen to rush back to the fridge in search of that 5-year old jar of cherries which you find buried behind the half-empty jar of salsa, that's OK. The drink doesn't care. The Manhattan regards the cherry like the Slim Jim regards the lettuce it passes in your small intestine. With contempt.

If you're feeling especially "fruity" rub a bit of orange peel around the rim of the glass. I can't attest for what this does for the Manhattan. But it sounds. . .nice.

I invite any Manhattan fans to join me in celebrating its victory over a broad pantheon of lesser, better-tasting, less-dangerous beverages.

You Want a Mongolian Travel Wrap

When the temperature drops outside, I mean, really drops, not this oh my it's chilly here in suburban DC but HOLY CRAP I CAN'T FEEL MY NOSE, nothing else matters but finding a way to Not be Cold. As your core temperature drops and your ability to reason goes out the window (freezes and shatters into dust), you will realize you want, no, need, a Mongolian Travel Wrap.  Oh my, yes you will.

But first, let us consider the source.

This*, my friends, is a Yak, known to clever folk as Bos grunniens.  Say hello to Mr. Yak.

Now I don't know about you, but this does not look like a docile, hey buddy, come on and grab some of this sweet, sweet hair I'm sporting here and turn it into a blanket, I'll just hang out until you're done.

No, it looks like something that would run you down and turn you into something only vaguely reminiscent of a bipedal hominid.  And it wouldn't care.

Thankfully, two bright-eyed, clever fellows named Julian Wilson and Aaron Pattillo made nice with some much heartier, yak-friendly types in Mongolia and figured out a way to separate the yak - actually, a rather large number of yaks - from their sweet, sweet hair:

Their pursuit took them back to the far reaches of the Tibetan plateau, and then north to the steppes of Mongolia, where they experienced yak wool auctions, tortuous rides in Russian made jeeps, large mugs of yak butter tea, fiery local drinking sessions of the homemade yak milk liquor archi, and, naturally, a lot of yaks. 

Flush with piles of yak hair, they have crafted something you can use to keep your sorry ass warm.  Brilliant.

And, they've been kind enough to share some yak facts which I, being an unscrupulous blogger, will copy and share with you:

1. Over 90% of the world's yak population of nearly 15 million lives on the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayas.

2. Lamps in Tibetan monasteries are fuelled by yak butter.

3. Yak cheese has higher amounts of heart-healthy fats than cheese from dairy cattle.

4. Yak polo, played on yaks instead of horses, was pioneered in Mongolia a decade ago.

5. The first yakalo, a cross between a yak and an American bison, was produced through selective breeding in Alberta, Canada in 2000.
6. A major use for the yak’s coarse tail hair is to create fake beards worn by actors in Chinese opera.
7. In local communities, yak bone is often made into exquisite handicrafts, including combs, buttons and ornaments.
8. The only natural predator of the wild yak is the Tibetan wolf.
9. In Mongolia yak milk is fermented in a leather pouch and distilled as a "milk wine" called archi.
10. In winter a wild yak can survive temperatures as low as - 40 degrees (C).
11. A wild yak doesn’t reach full size until six to eight years of age.
12. Amongst yaks living in the wild, births usually occur in June and a single calf is born every other year.
13. Dried yak dung is used as fuel on the treeless Tibetan plateau.
14. The male wild yak can reach up to 6.5 feet high at the shoulder and can weigh as much as 2,200 pounds. Wild female yaks are up to a third of the male’s size. Domestic male yaks are much smaller in size and weigh up to 1,300 pounds while domestic female yaks weigh up to 560 pounds.
15. Even in the below-freezing winters, yaks have been spotted bathing in lakes and rivers. This is because yak’s warm coat provides insulation through a thick outer coating of long hair and a dense inner coating of matted, shorter fur.
16. It is believed that the strength of yak wool comes from the high levels of amino acids contained within the fibres.
17. Yak wool is very resistant to static electricity meaning garments a less likely to spark or cling to the body during dry conditions.

RESPECT.

*photo by travelwayoflife, cc-by sa, from wikimedia commons, sourced from EOL

warning: worst beverage ever

I'm reluctant to name names, but if you should ever find yourself debating the relative merits of, say, a delicious carbonated fountain beverage and a "plain cappuccino" while waiting on line at a branch of our nation's (perhaps our world's) largest chain restaurant, PLEASE G_D select the delicious carbonated beverage. Because if you choose the other beverage, you will get a beverage that will give you diabetes on the spot in addition to burning whole swaths of taste buds as efficiently as if you had licked a simmering cauldron of napalm.

When asked "can you make it less sweet" we were informed "that's the way it comes out of the machine".

And we didn't even get it with the traditional garnishes of whipped cream and brownish sugar ooze (a.k.a. chocolate syrup).

It went unfinished into the garbage can around the corner.

You've Been Warned.

discovered: saddleback leather company

Readers know I'm devoted to my Belstaff Colonial Canvas shoulder bag.

But it's. . .made of canvas.

Which means it's not as durable as I'd like it to be. It suffers from wearing at friction points. It isn't what I'd characterize as waterproof. It is no friend of pointy things.

So I'm always on the prowl for well-made bags that can stand up to the sort of abuse I'm prone to subject my bags to.

Steve Derricott at Gfeller Casemakers makes lovely bags. But his range is limited to pieces that work for geologists and the like.

The nice people at Ghurka make lovely bags. But that's their problem - they're too lovely.

When Patrick Ng started publishing pictures of a bag he got from Saddleback Leather Company, I had one of those "ah ha" moments.

Go have a look and let me know what you think.

thinking: about the blessing of mileage

A friend of mine has just started a new business - a genuine wine and cigar "bar" in Brighton, Michigan. It's already getting some great press. You should go there. But that's not why I'm writing this.

I know the guy who owns it. He is, as one of my Irish ancestors would say, a mensch. Such a man as operates this genuine wine and cigar "bar" you will rarely find, even if you lift up rocks in the search for said brand of fellow.

I know him from Way Back When, and I know a little about the trip he's taken to get to where he is today.

I don't envy him that trip.

Looking at the Facebook page dedicated to his new venture there is a picture of this man, smoking a cigar, looking quite content. When I see that look of contentment on his face, I know it's something he's paid for, and paid dearly.

Whatever joys and sorrows have come his way have created a man of substance who occupies a still point in a moving world, as Eliot would describe it.

It's not the years, it's the mileage. Sorry, Indiana, I'm going to borrow that line.

He's earned that cigar. Now you need to go buy one from him so you can reflect on the benefits of the miles you've racked up.

link: the software maven

If you're a developer or a product manager who has come up through the software development ranks, you probably already know about Travis Jensen's blog The Software Maven.

What I really enjoy and value about Travis' writing is his focus on how the product development and product management roles relate (or don't relate, as the case may be) to each other over time, which is to say at different points of the software development life cycle. Each season of the product development process brings different challenges; Travis' insights into these different seasons makes for terrific reading.

So how about you take a break from the same old product management bloggy bits and explore something new. For your Added Convenience he provides a regular run down of what's interesting out on the intrawebs too, which is very helpful for people like me who tend to read all the same bloggy bits most days.

PS: I'll be coming up for air soon with news of my Exciting New Adventure, so stay tuned.

review: gfeller field notes cover

Readers of ack/nak know of my great regard for Steve Derricott's wonderful Moleskine covers. Since their debut back in 2007, they've become the must-have cover for serious note-takers who want to protect their moleskine notebooks (both large and small) in the field.

A few months ago Steve sent me a prototype of a new notebook cover he's been fooling around with, with the request to try it out and let him know what I thought of it.

The Gfeller Casemakers Field Notes cover is fashioned of the same natural kip leather Steve uses to make so many of his professional products.

It is a "soft cover" designed to hold two of the Field Notes notebooks, the first of which is secured by sliding its front cover into the cover's inner front flap, the second being secured by sliding its back cover into the cover's inner rear flap. It's simple, and it works.

Those of you who are familiar with the Gfeller Casemaker moleskine covers know that these covers start out light tan - and over time weather naturally to a rich dark brown. That's your reward for using them for a long time.

As Steve says, "details make the difference": I can tell that the sewn edges have been trimmed and the sharp edges hand-softened with an edging tool. I hope the photos can give you a sense of just how well-made these are.

It's important to mention that the Field Notes notebooks are not very thick, and they aren't particularly stiff. They benefit greatly from being wrapped in something more substantial and this case does the trick. Once loaded up with two notebooks, the ensemble has much more heft to it than if you stacked two notebooks up.

And you get the little plus of two secure little pockets you can sneak bits of paper into.

For my notebooks, I use a quad-lined notebook on the left for taking notes, and a plain notebook on the right for "bookmarks".

What can I say - Steve's got another hit on his hands. You could argue that putting cheap notebooks into a hand-made leather cover is overkill. I'll argue that if you're serious about keeping your notebooks in good condition until you can get them back to "home base", then you need some sort of cover, and there's nothing more effective and durable over the long term than one made with Old World attention to detail and quality.

Gfeller Casemakers

301 E. Bower St., Meridian, Idaho 83642

http://www.gfellercasemakers.com/

invitation: evaluate kindling with me UPDATED

I received a very nice email from an ack/nak reader last Friday:

I wanted to write because we've been following a number of sites related to product management here at Arc90 and I've enjoyed reading your thoughts on ack/nak along the way. Arc90 is a consulting and product firm based in New York City and we recently released our first product, an idea management web application called Kindling.

Since you often write about all things product-oriented, I wonder if you'd be interested in reviewing Kindling. We could set you up with a free account for 30 days so that you could take a look and give us your feedback.

We also recently started a blog that speaks to our experience with launching Kindling as a product called The Kindling Blog; it serves as a place where we link to and discuss thoughts on innovation. We're always looking for new topics for the blog, so feel free to drop me a line if you hear of anything particularly relevant.

Let me know if you'd like to guest post or review Kindling and I'll get things up and rolling.

How could I resist? So I didn't.

This morning the folks at Kindling set up my account, and now. . . we get to test it together.

"Why are you roping us into this mess? We've got enough to do."

Kindling is an "idea management application". It's not something you can test without help. Let me explain.

For product managers, market sensing is one of those things we know we have to do often and well, but it's often hard to operationalize.

Kindling offers the product manager a platform for soliciting and capturing feedback on just about any topic. If you can imagine it and express it in words, you can let Kindling manage the process of accepting, tracking and reporting feedback to whatever "it" is.

"OK, I'm sold. How do I get involved?"

UPDATE: It's too late.  The trial period for my Kindling evaluation has expired, and I'm collecting the feedback.  Thanks to all of you who participated! 

rewind: microwaving a frozen white castle burger

Motivated by the Robert Altman "homage" classic Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, my wife and I decided that we would bring a sack of sliders to my daughter's T-ball game last Friday night for an impromptu picnic. Since you always end up buying more of the damned things than you could ever possibly eat in one session, the left-overs went into the freezer, still encased in their cardboard sleeves and cozied up into slider-pairs.

Fast-forward to last night when an affliction of the "urge" struck me full-force - and I remembered that I had sliders in the freezer. Lacking any special hidden knowledge of how to release them from their vitrified state, I threw two into the microwave, hit the magic "1" button (for a 1-minute nuke) and crossed my fingers.

Sixty seconds on high (ha ha) later, I had two perfectly hot sliders with warm (but not hot) buns. YMMV, but I could see going anywhere from 45 to 60 seconds with similar success.

Advice: Anything more than 60 seconds and you'd break down the steamed patty and dissolve the onions, leaving you with hot magma and regret. Anything less than 45 seconds and you've probably have a cold wafer of suspiciousness encased between two tepid onion-scented bread handles.

(Originally posted in June of 2006 - I was much funnier then. Parenthood is reducing my mind to something very close to an over-nuked slider.)

review: belstaff colonial canvas fall08/winter09 collection

This will be a very short review to correspond with Belstaff's painfully, sadly, unwisely abridged Colonial Canvas line.

There are now only three (3) bags left in the collection - and they aren't even the three best examples of the line from previous collections. Here's what's they're selling:

756148 - Man Bag 550

756195 - Medium Man Bag

756176 - Travel Bag

These three bags are available in Black, Mountain Brown, Kaki and Panama.

Gone are the Large Man Bag and the Shoulder Bag (the two best bags in the line), as well as the Large Shoulder Bag. Long gone are the Marsupium and the oddly-named but still-cool Body Bag.

I've gone over each of the three remaining bags in an earlier review - you can read it and see some pictures here.

But in case you're too lazy to click on that link:

The Man Bag 550 lacks the heft of its larger cousins, and frankly is just too d____d small for much of anything other than a camera and a pack of gum. The Medium Man Bag, while an improvement, teases you with greater carrying power but is still too small for magazines, maybe a couple of paperbacks would fit. And the Travel Bag? It's a mess, a shaggy, buckle-and-strap nightmare that looks like a rolled-up canvas straight jacket.

It's enough to make you want to switch to Inujirushi bags.

I can't explain what's up with Belstaff. Every time I've gotten in touch with their showroom store in New York City they've been either out of stock or nearly out of stock. Their London store had few of the Colonial Canvas bags in stock when I was last there, and good luck finding any of the bags at independent retailers. These bags are popular - so why aren't they meeting demand with more variety, not less?

It's a shame. The Shoulder Bag is the finest casual bag I've ever owned. It's sturdy and spacious while still looking great. And the Mountain Brown color is fabulously understated. I had hoped to pick up a Large Man Bag. . . but I fear it is not to be.

Numerous emails to Belstaff requesting more information have gone unanswered.

Stay tuned.

stop motion: kermesse fantastique

Kermesse Fantastique, produced for Phillips, was used as a Trade Test Colour Film on BBC-2.

"Before Wallace and Gromit, before Gumby and Pokey, Hungarian-born animator and director George Pal (1908-1980) created the stop-motion shorts he dubbed "Puppetoons". . .with as many as 5,000 individually carved puppets per short." -- Amazon

Speaking of Amazon, you can buy George Pal's "The Puppetoon Movie" for $10.

Alas, Kermesse Fantastique is not on it. Amazon reviewer Michael Osborn from Seattle, WA details the contents of the DVD as follows:

What you are getting on this DVD is actually TWO MOVIES FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!
First, you get `The Puppetoon Movie' which was a theatrical release in 1987. It was a labor of love written and directed by Arnold Leibovit and was born out of the highest regard for George Pal's marvelous Puppetoons from the 30's and 40's. It opens however with a somewhat inept Gumby skit wherein Pokey and Arnie the T-Rex proceed to initiate Gumby into the world of George Pal by sitting him down and showing him some Puppetoons. I advise you to skip this chapter and launch right into the second through the tenth chapters which are nine Puppetoons conveniently divided by chapters:

*1. The Little Broadcast (1943) and The Big Broadcast of '38 (1937)
*2. Hoola Boola (1938?) and South Sea Sweethearts (1938) for Horlick's
3. Sleeping Beauty (1935) for Phillips
4. Tulips Shall Grow (1942)
5. Together In The Weather (1946)
6. John Henry and the Inky Poo (1946)
7. Phillips Cavalcade (1934-9?) for Phillips Radio
8. Jasper in a Jam (194?)
9. Tubby the Tuba (1947) The last Puppetoon short made.

*Puppetoons 1 and 2 (unfortunately) each consist of two Puppetoons edited and spliced together! -why? The other ones have their logos and credits removed in an attempt to create a cavalcadesque Puppetoons show, somewhat disappointingly shorn in effect.
All of the Puppetoons were made before television was invented, when the movie theater was the true pinnacle of the dream vision manifest experience, although there were radios in practically every home. George Pal financed several of his Puppetoons by funding from clients who were basically paying to have their products' recognition foisted on an unsuspecting movie-going public. These advertisements were shown before feature films, and they were nonetheless successful because they used a soft sell approach with the product not appearing until late in the film, and even then it was almost a parody of itself.
Phillips Radio Manufactures was one of the first companies to utilize Pal's films for advertising. Radio was the "TV" of the time. Different kinds of music from around the world provided a perfect backdrop for Pal's animation, which works wonderfully when set to music. Horlick's Malted Milk was another one of Pal's many advertising clients. The product was a "tonic" which would make the drinker "energetic" almost like Popeye and his spinach.
'The Bonus Puppetoons' is the second movie and alone is worth the price of the disk! It is probably more of what you may actually be looking for. It is twelve uncut Puppetoons complete with titles and logos. Three of these Puppetoons (4, 6, and 11) are complete versions of ones cropped in 'The Puppetoon Movie' and all twelve are crisper and clearer too. Definitely satisfying.

1. What Ho, She Bumps (1937) for Horlick's
2. Bravo, Mr. Strauss (1943)
3. Olio for Jasper (1946)
4. Phillips Cavalcade (1934-9?) for Phillips Radio
5. Jasper's Derby (1946)
6. Hoola Boola (1938?)
7. Ether Symphony (1936)
8. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (1936)
9. The Magic Atlas (1935) for Phillips
10. Jasper and the Haunted House (1942)
11. The Big Broadcast of '38 (1937) for Phillips
12. Ether Ship (1934) for Phillips, (made with beautiful glass models!)

Plus: A very interesting and long interview with Puppetoon Studios animator, Bob Baker!

If you find you have to learn more about George Pal and get a copy of The Puppetoon Movie, Amazon has combined the Arnold Leibovit documentary, "The Puppetoon Movie" and Pal's first film "The Great Rupert" in a 3-disc set for $27.

(Discovered at the Secret Fun Blog)

winner: the official cocktail of summer (2008)

Devoted readers of ack/nak will remember with great fondness the two previous winners of the ack/nak "official cocktail of summer" award. Those of you who are not quite as devoted will require links to help you remember how to mix the perfect Manhattan and a never-perfect Chupacablahblah.  Please review them for context.

For 2008, the competition was fierce.  Many new cocktails were attempted, not quite as many were perfected, but all were consumed and evaluated.  My apologies to guests who participated in the evaluation process, a process which was not always as enjoyable as I had hoped it would be.  I am especially sorry for those of you who participated in the extensive evaluation of the Paloma, and I hope your recovery is coming along nicely.

But in the end there can be only one.

In 2008, the official cocktail of summer is. . .

The Caipirinha.

Sweet Jesu in a Birch-Bark Canoe, this is a drink that demands respect.  Forged from an unholy alliance of limes, sugar and poorly-refined automobile propellant, this Brazilian classic will deprive you of a variety of senses and a measurable quantity of your cognitive capacity.  Good news, you will be unlikely to come down with a case of scurvy after one of these, so you've got that going for you.

The main culprit in this cocktail is cachaca, a traditional Brazilian beverage that like most clear distilled liquors comes in a variety of strengths, from "smooth" to "sort of smooth" to "don't get it on that paint" to "industrial solvent".

 

If the Manhattan gives you a sense of what severe tire damage feels like, the Caipirinha introduces you to Mr. Great Big Sumo Guy.  As he's falling from a third story window.  On you.

 

An Asian Lime, halved, cored and sliced into four segments.  These aren't the round ball limes you see at the check-out line at Binny's.  These look more like lemons.  Make sure to cut off the ends.

1 teaspoon of demerara sugar

3 nuggets of crystalized ginger

2+ ounces of cachaca

Ice

Place the lime slices in a thick-bottomed glass.  Sprinkle the sugar on it, and drop in the crystallized ginger.  Muddle the piss out of it.  Really, just wail away at this until you've got a barely-recognizable organic paste.  Aim for "can't quite tell if there's sugar in there".

Fill the glass with ice, right up to the top.  Fill the ice-filled glass with cachaca.

Pour into a cocktail shaker and shake, shake, shake, senora, shake it all the time.

Decant back into the glass, make sure you don't have to drive anywhere, say goodbye to your loved ones, and enjoy.

The people at Leblon have prepared a nice tutorial on how to make one of these devils, but it won't taste as good as the one I've described for you here.  The crystallized ginger delivers an additional flavor note that I really enjoyed, in addition to an end-of-drink challenge to see if I could find the wee little ginger bit buried at the bottom of the glass. 

I've tried this with a variety of cachachas, and I'm enjoying Leblon right now.  I think.

review: heirloom by tim stark UPDATED

If you have ever grown tomatoes in your garden, you know the heartbreaks of blossom-end rot, of wilt, of bugs, of too much and too little rain, of weeds and critters. You've endured and persevered because you know that there is no taste in the world like a fresh-picked tomato, and you'll put up with no end of misery for that brief moment of bliss you experience when you bite into a real one.

And if you've ever grown tomatoes you've probably considered growing them from seed. And if you've considered growing them from seed, you've contemplated trying your hand with an heirloom variety or two because honestly, there has to be something more tasty than those cookie-cutter hybrids.

Tim Stark's Heirloom is not a how-to book. It doesn't deliver tips and tricks. What Tim has written is a Kitchen Confidential for the supply-side of the modern foodie revolution. It is a book you need to buy and read and not lend out.

It is an important book because it describes the slow but inevitable process of becoming so many of us encounter in our lives. Living as a freelance writer in Brooklyn, the story begins with Mr. Stark deciding to start 3,000 heirloom tomato seedlings in his apartment and then transplanting them into the shaley ground of his run-down family farm in eastern Pennsylvania.

Reading Heirloom you can experience that same relentless arc that Tony Bourdain described in his first (and best) book - it's no surprise that Tim became a farmer the same way it was no surprise that Tony became a cook. He exposes his rookie mistakes, the odd personalities of his pickers, the petty cruelties of his fellow farmers, the manic drives across I-78 to the City, and above all, his love for what he does.

The scene of Tim at the farm auction is especially poignant, as is his description of the caretaker who kept his family property from sliding into weedy ruin during his childhood. You experience the life of someone who shows up at the back door of the restaurant with baskets of impossibly fresh produce, the same raw materials that make celebrity chefs possible in the first place.

You get the real sense that this is not a guy with a fat bank account and a rock-solid roadmap; he made it up as he went along, learning and persevering and ultimately succeeding.

And all for tomatoes.

UPDATES:

A terrific interview with Tim Stark can be found here.  Thanks Kevin!

Last night (8/17/08) at 7:16pm eastern time I got a visit from a viewer from Saylorsburg, PA through a "heirloom, tim stark reviews" Google search. This morning around 8:30 I had a nearly 30 minute visit from someone at Random House who went directly to this page. Connected? I hope so! Who knows, ack/nak readers, this could be my big chance at stardom. Or more likely, I brought a smile to the author and his publisher. I'd be very happy with the latter, they deserve it.

And if you want to see what his Eckerton Hill Farm does in addition to tomatoes, check out this video:

talkingpics: the iphone's first real research app

I've been paying close attention to the applications being developed for the iPhone in the hope of finding a few that take full advantage of the device's unique strengths.

I found one today. Dan Rockwell's article iPhone's first real research app for Lextant reviews an app called TalkingPics that allows you to take a picture an annotate it on your iPhone.

Big frickin' deal, you might say. Dan responds:

Big frickin’ deal, eh? Well, yes, actually it is. There’s no other app on the iPhone that does this, and more importantly, it’s not as cumbersome as traditional audio and video capture methods. It’s a great way to capture what the participant is talking about, and then provide additional context to that image — what’s right or wrong about a product; what needs attention in a store; etc. Simply take a picture, and then record an audio snippet describing it.

For the researcher presented with lots and lots of information, the ability to synthesize visuals and audio annotation is a powerful tool. And as Dan notes:

As an added bonus, TalkingPics also lets you audio annotate locations on a map, which makes it easy to connect who said what where.

So if you were on a walking tour of a city, saw something neat and wanted to take a picture of it, mark it on the map and capture your thoughts about it all in real-time, TalkingPics allows you to do that.

I think this app has value for everyone with an iPhone, not simply the research-inclined.

discovered: tenser, said the tensor

Fans of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man will recognize the phrase "Tenser, said the Tensor" immediately.

But you may not know of the irregularly updated but particularly entertaining and often fascinating blog of the same name.

The author describes himself as. . .

. . . a graduate student in Linguistics, having recently completed my MA and currently working towards my Ph.D. My undergraduate degree was in Computer Science, so my focus is computational linguistics, but I'm also interested in syntax, typology, psycholinguistics, and, um, everything else. Clearly, some focus is required.

On the topic of "everything else", the author relates:

Basically, I spend a lot of time yammering at my wife about things that don't interest her—she's been cultivating a very realistic expression of glazed disinterest that she pulls when I go on (and on...) about, for example, the problem of maintaining continuity in long-running multi-author works like comic books and television shows. It's taken several years, but I've finally taken the hint, so I plan to write about that stuff here.

Believe me, I can sympathize.  Whenever I get to prattling on about product management, my wife slips into an attentive fugue state in which she is capable of nodding, smiling and a few keywords like "really", "can you explain that some more" and "you know, I think I smell something burning."

So let's summarize.  Tenser, said the Tensor brings together:

Languages and Linguistics,
Japanese and Japanese Animation,
Science and Science Fiction,
Comedy and Comic Books

and a number of other topics.   What's not to love.  When you visit his blog (Which You Will) pay particular attention to the right-hand sidebar where you will find a lengthy list of links on the topic of Linguistics in Science Fiction.  Wow!

reader request: (short) books on leadership

An ack/nak reader and over-all good guy dropped me a note last night.  I will now share it with you.

I'm being asked to step up my leadership effectiveness at work (a minor promotion prompted this comment from my superior), perhaps you know of a (short) book to help me out? 

 I'll offer my USD$0.02 on the topic - I'm counting on the rest of you to chime in with your favorites.

First of all, congratulations. A promotion of any sort is a good thing, especially when it brings with it an opportunity to do something new.  

So you're being challenged to use people resources to achieve results. Neat.

And you're asking for advice on how to be good at it.

Untold thousands of trees have been chopped down, chewed up and smooshed into paper, printed with words, and turned into books on this topic. Leadership is one of those Great Big Ideas, right next to Cheese Moving.

There are two short books on the topic of leadership I've read and enjoyed lately that benefit from being a) short and b) short.  Oh, and they're both fables.  So sue me, I like fables.  And did I mention that they're short?

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni.  His "five dysfunctions" - absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results - are easy to spot, and curiously straight-forward to address, as they build on each other in a progressive way.  Translation - nothing good will happen in the absence of trust, so work on that first before you start working on the others. 

The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg and John David Mann.  This slim little book is chock-full of hackneyed dialog, stock characters straight out of central casting, and features an ending that will remind you of a Disney movie.  But I loved it for the simplicity of its message - the key to success (sorry, "stratospheric" success) is. . .  I won't spoil it for you, but you can probably already figure it out from the title.  I carry this book around with me and dip in to it on a frequent basis.  No kidding.  It's 144 pages of goodness.  

So there are my two short books.  Others like The West Point Way of Leadership by Col. Larry R. Donnithorne (ret.) can wait for another day. 

wordle: more information than you require

Using your scary-good powers of inductive reasoning on this image will allow you, dear reader, to reverse-engineer and subsequently enjoy an exclusive excerpt from John Hodgman's new (and still unpublished) book, More Information Than You Require.

To get you started, the Wordle word cloud suggests that "Mr." should appear quite a number of times in your reverse-engineered text of the aforementioned exclusive excerpt.

OK. . . . go.

link: the evil muse

I have earned, for better or worse, a bit of a reputation as someone acquainted with the world of blogging.

Yes, I know, quelle surprise.

I've even been known to set up blogs for friends on occasion. Nothing too difficult, mind you, just your garden-variety Blogger freebies.

One such request came through recently, and I'm happy to report that this new blogger has posted his very first post.

Such an occasion warrants some link-love, so without further ado, may I present The Evil Muse.

Enjoy. Leave him some comments of encouragement, because if all goes well and he continues to post, I promise you some good reading will come of it.

It will also be interesting to see just how many widgets and gadgets he chooses to use on his blog, because as we all know, one of the great joys (and perils) of blogging is an over-weening fondness of novelty.

metacomment: foxworthy on emerson on olberman

Let me begin by saying that I like hearing from you, dear reader.  I read your comments, your email messages, your Twitterings, your smoke-signals.  I read everything you send me.  Because, you know, Reading is Fundamental.

And because occasionally one of you will drop something cool on me.

In reference to a post of last evening, Sensei Jim weighed in with the following:

I know Olbermann is a practiced speaker, but something happens towards the last couple minutes. Reminded me of one of my favorite R.W. Emerson quotations, taken from his personal diary (below).

"The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief; it agitates and tears him, and almost bereaves him of the power of articulation. Then it rushes from him as in short abrupt screams, in torrents of meaning. The possession by the subject of his mind is so entire, that it ensures an order of expression which is the order of nature itself, and so the order of greatest force and inimitable by any art. And the main distinction between him and other well-graced actors is the conviction communicated to the hearer by every word, that his mind is contemplating a whole, and inflamed with the contemplation of the whole, and that the words and sentences uttered by him, however admirable, fall from him as unregarded parts of that terrible whole, which he sees, and means that you shall see."
--- (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1845)

Shazam!

discovered: fur tv

According to Variety,  FurTV "centers around three puppets who share a flat in the human world and spend their time drinking, fighting and trying to chat up girls."  The pilot (which aired on BBC2 in 2004) won a BBC Greenlight Award for new comedy in 2003 and a Golden Rose for best pilot in 2004.

Of all the clips and bits I've been able to find, this one is pretty representative.   Be warned though - this show makes Greg the Bunny look like the Dick Van Dyke Show.  Turn your volume down if you're viewing this in the office or at home with the wee bairns running about.  Or if you're offended by what SpongeBob calls "spicy language".

FurTV is currently airing on MTV One in the UK.  You can view episodes 1 and 2 at the FurTV homepage.