Archive for November 6th, 2013

Dig if you will the picture.

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

Daring Fireball had two links yesterday to stories about the shutdown of Everpix.

I hadn’t heard of Everpix, either, but Gruber praises it pretty highly: “Everpix is how photo storage should work.” It might have been something I would have tried, if I had known about it. But I’d never seen even a mention of it anywhere until Gruber’s posts yesterday. This might explain why they are shutting down.

Everpix sponsored the DF RSS feed twice this year, which is how they first came to my attention.

I guess that demonstrates how effective sponsoring the RSS feed of a notorious Yankees fan is. Seriously, why were they not advertising on places like the On Taking Pictures podcast as well?

I don’t want to rub it in. It is sad that these people are losing their jobs and their money, especially if Everpix is all that and a bag of chips. But I do want to note one other thing from one of Gruber’s linked articles:

…Everpix became a finalist at the competition. (They lost the $50,000 first prize to Shaker, a bizarre kind of Second Life-meets-Facebook social network that raised $15 million and hasn’t been heard from in a year.)

Here’s the Shaker website.

Shaker creates online venues where you can host events of different kinds for just about any size of audience. From live-stream music events to networking events and conferences.

What differentiates this from, say, Second Life? A lack of giant dicks?

Here’s their blog. Enough said.

They got $15 million out of investors for this? I have got to work harder on schemes for separating fools from their money. Hmmmmmm…maybe a cross between Groupon and Second Life?

Edited to add: Ooooooh! Ooooooh! I know! Warcraft meets Google Offers! You kill monsters, and when they die, they drop special offers like “$15 for $30 worth of food at Mom’s“!

VC investors, the email address is on my contact page.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Photography | 3 Comments »

Banana republicans watch: November 6, 2013.

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

Politics depress me. In general and in specific. (I’m not sure how I feel about the Astrodome being declared dead.)

But there is at least one bright spot. Voters in the bankrupt municipality of San Bernardino threw out several elected officials in a recall election.

Those given the axe:

  • “Longtime councilwoman” Wendy McCammack. This is interesting because Ms. McCammack was also the top vote-getter in the San Bernardino mayor’s race. However, there were a total of 10 candidates, and she got “just under” 25% of the vote. I wonder how many of the eight other candidates are going to throw their support to her, and how many will support “Carey Davis, an accountant and political newcomer”.
  • City attorney James Penman. City attorney is an elected rather than appointed position? Interesting.
  • Robert Jenkins, “charged with more than 30 felony and misdemeanor counts related to allegedly posting ads on Craigslist for sex partners and directing them to a former partner and another man”.

I haven’t been giving much attention to the Angela Spaccia/Bell trial. Most of what I’ve seen in the LAT has been the usual back and forth we’ve seen in the other trials: “City council approved!” “Did not!” “Did too!” “Rizzo’s a big poopy head and it was all his fault!”

(There have been a few amusing bits I missed covering. Among them:

(Former city attorney) Edward Lee said that even though his name was on most of the contracts, he did not recall signing them, raising the possibility that his name was forged or that the papers were slipped to him in a stack of other documents that required his signature.

The contracts in question being those for Spaccia and Robert “Ratso” Rizzo. This is interesting: while I can’t find the story now, I do recall reading that former Bell finance director Lourdes Garcia slipped contracts for Spaccia and Rizzo into stacks of other documents that were signed blindly by city officials.)

Things are getting a little more interesting. Randy Adams, the former police chief of Bell, is testifying for the defense today. You may remember former chief Adams from such hits as “I’m looking forward to see you and taking all of Bell’s money?!”, “Hire me and give me my disability pension“, and “I don’t know why he is not a defendant in this case”.

Note to self: stop off at grocery store on way home, stock up on popcorn.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 6, 2013.

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

Charlie Trotter, “celebrity” chef and PBS cooking show host.

NYT. Chicago Tribune. Sun-Times.

I never ate at a Trotter restaurant, though I did watch some of “The Kitchen Sessions” on PBS. I think you can make an argument that Trotter was among the first, if not the very first, in the new wave of “celebrity chefs”. My perception is that he was in the public consciousness earlier than Thomas Keller or Grant Achatz, for example. Certainly I was aware of Trotter before I’d heard of Anthony Bourdain (who I’d argue isn’t really a “celebrity chef”, but that’s a digression).

But it also seems that he struggled in the new environment. I remember this NYT profile from 2011 that claimed “Mr. Trotter hardly seems to figure in the national food conversation anymore.” And last year, he closed his restaurant, stating that he wanted to pursue graduate degrees in
“philosophy and political theory”.

He was 54 years old, which seems awfully young to me. I don’t have any evidence to support this theory, but I wonder if he knew his time was short and wanted to wind things down gracefully.

Edited to add: tribute from Jonathan Gold in the LAT:

What you took away from the meal was precisely what Trotter meant you to take away. I think he may have even anticipated the grilled Polish dog I ended up getting at Weiner Circle on the way home.

Posted in Clippings, Food, Obits | Comments Closed