Just found out, through a post on Buzzfeed, that Google Trends shows that the world is far more interested in “cupcakes” than “financial crisis.”
Cupcakes FTW.
It’s no secret that I’m a huge cupcake fan. Recently, on GigPark, I decided to recommend my two favorite cupcake-makers in the world so that more people can revel in the wondrousness of their baked goods. Here’s a quick look at them:
Sugar Baking (Toronto, Canada)
Cupcakes are definitely the “in” thing right now, and nobody in Toronto does cupcakes like Sugar Baking. (Trust me, I’ve checked.) Catherine is not only one of the most pleasant people I have ever met, but she has immense skill in blending exotic flavors to make every cupcake delectable — all at a great price.
Lola’s Kitchen (London, UK)
Tasty cupcakes and an easy-to-use website ordering system aside (and that’s a lot already), the people at Lola’s are wonderful. When I had a problem, they not only answered my question immediately, but they fixed their entire ordering system to meet my needs. Plus, you really can’t go wrong with the delicious pastel icings they use on their cupcakes.
If you order cupcakes from either of those two places, let me know — and more importantly, recommend them on GigPark. We need to spread the cupcake love.
I recently got a message on Flickr from a designer from Bruce Mau Design that proves that, despite using Tumblr to power their awesome blog, they just don’t get it when it comes to the web.
Here’s the message, unedited:
Hello Flickr Fan,
I am a designer at Bruce Mau Design. We are currently re-imagining our website, brucemaudesign.com and our images category is intended to show the breadth and depth of our work. I am tasked with the curation of 100+ images every few months.
As part of the shift from web 1.0 to web 2.0, we realize and want to capture the power of social networks and photostreams. While we often photograph our own work, we know thousands of you probably do even a better job and with a wonderfully, beautiful diversity of perspectives.
We are posting to our website images we have found on flickr containing our exhibitions, books, installations, strategy, communications, studio, and yes, bruce from your set.
If you would like us to remove your image please email me at clark@brucemaudesign.com.
We hope that our website represents a pixelated but audaciously complex view of our work and pushing design not to its greatest power but its greatest service.
Seems harmless, but there are a few massive problems with this message — and I’m not counting the poor grammar, capitalization, and convoluted language. Here’s a short list of some of them:
- He didn’t use my name, but instead referred to me as a “Flickr Fan.” My name (and user name) is clearly all over my Flickr pages, so it isn’t hard to address me by name.
- I have no photos containing Bruce Mau. I have one photo that references Bruce Mau in the comments, but none of Bruce as the designer seems to imply. Further, he doesn’t tell me what image they plan on using or provide a link to any of my photos that piqued his interest.
- He’s using my image for a commercial purpose — to pad Bruce Mau’s portfolio — when my images are clearly marked with a license that prevents commercial use. Instead of asking me to use my image, he has decided to use the image, expecting me to email him if I want it removed.
- He doesn’t provide a link to where my image is being used so that I can see the context of its use. In addition, all the images used on the Bruce Mau image gallery don’t include links back to the original photograph or any attribution at all. (A clear violation of my image license.)
I’m a huge fan of Bruce Mau’s work, which is why this blatant disregard for web etiquette, ethics, and appropriateness upsets me so much.
So here’s what I’m going to do.
Bruce Mau Design people, tell your communications directors that I’m willing to come in and run an introductory workshop for everyone in your communications department on web tools and online interaction — for free. I usually charge my clients a whole lot of money for those kinds of workshops; I’m willing to run an introductory workshop for free because I think that you’ve got the drive to do great things on the web, but just need a slight primer on how to do them.
Bruce Mau Design, the ball is in your court. Looking forward to hearing from you by email or in the comments.
(Oh, and for those of you that are reading this post and feeling generous, help me out by leaving a comment on my earlier post ‘Carsonified’ and help me win a trip to an exciting web event.)
UPDATE: I’ve had further contact with BMD, and have posted updates in my comment section. They’ve been really nice about all of this, and show a great willingness to learn.
I’m never one to pass up a fun internet meme — particularly one that is being spread by my favorite blogger Jason Kottke — so I’d like to chime in on the Onion AV Club’s question of the week:
What’s your most-rewatched movie?
Here’s my list of top 10 most-rewatched movies:
- Beauty and the Beast
- Garden State
- Cool Runnings
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Dodgeball
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Fight Club
- Edward Scissorhands
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
- The Usual Suspects
What’s on your list? And more importantly, what does it say about you?
(Oh, and if you’re feeling generous, help me out by leaving a comment on my earlier post ‘Carsonified’ and help me win a trip to an exciting web event.)
Carsonified is hosting a contest to win an all-expense paid trip to any Carsonified event, and all you have to do is write a blog post about why you want to win the prize and get 25 comments on that post.
I’d say that this post was my entry for the contest, but in all honesty, getting 25 comments on any post on this blog would be a bit of a stretch. So while I’d appreciate it if you could leave a comment so that I can qualify for the contest, I’m not forcing you to comment if you don’t feel as though you have anything to say. The comments on i tell stories are for you, not for me.
I do, however, want to tell you why I’d love to go to another Carsonified event.
Last year, I had the opportunity to attend the Future of Web Design conference in New York. There, I met some wonderful people, saw some amazing speakers, and learned a whole lot.
The highlight of the conference, however, was not the speakers or workshops or even the parties. It was meeting one of my heroes — someone whose work continues to inspire me on a daily basis — after a session: Bronwyn Jones.
I’m not going to gush about Bronwyn here because I do enough of that already. Instead, I want to thank Ryan Carson and his team for facilitating that connection by creating an event where influential people in the industry (like Bronwyn) can interact and exchange ideas with common people like me.
That’s the real reason I want to go to a Carsonified event: to connect with people I would normally never have the chance to interact with on a regular basis. That golden ticket sure would be nice.
Most of you know that David Foster Wallace died this past weekend at the young age of 46. Most of you that know me well are also aware that Wallace was one of my favorite contemporary authors — his collection of short stories, Oblivion, remains my favorite short story collection of all time.
I have no personal stories or anecdotes to share about David Foster Wallace. All I have is the appreciation of his work, of his mastery with words, his storytelling genius.
I can not say that I will miss Wallace — I have no personal connection to the man himself. I do, however, have a deep connection to his work, and I can say that I will miss future manifestations of mastery and genius. It is always sad when someone so talented leaves us; what would be even sadder is if his passing does nothing but paralyze us in our own creative pursuits.
Last week, I had the chance to hop in a cab and have a pretty good conversation with Roger, an independent taxi owner-operator in Toronto who told me all about the legal battles and tension in the city’s taxi industry.
Before that conversation, I was completely oblivious to any kind of struggle happening between taxicab operators in Toronto. I’ve shared some of my conversation over on the Metronauts blog:
“If this situation gets sorted soon, the entire city will benefit. More business means more opportunity for independent cab drivers, means a better economy, and means better fares and a better experience for the people that actually ride in my cab. Also, we won’t be wasting all that gas going to the airport and coming back empty. That’s got to be bad for the city. It’s already smoggy enough as it is.”
You can read the whole post over at the Metronauts blog, which has also featured some other amazing posts in the past few weeks. If you’re not already reading it, head over there and subscribe.
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) wrapped up yesterday, which means I now have some time in my life to post to this site. And to sleep. Thanks for sticking around during the lull.
A few thoughts on TIFF this year.
A lot of you have been asking, so here’s a list of ten films that really stood out for me at the festival:
Thirty-seven feature films and twenty-three short films later, I’ve come to the conclusion that this year’s festival — when it comes to the quality of the content — was good, but not great. Media outlets around North America are being quick to decry TIFF08 as a weak festival, but I wouldn’t go that far.
Sure, there weren’t as many Oscar standouts, and sure, the festival seemed to be catering more to Hollywood glitz and glam than smaller inspired filmmaking, but there were still many excellent films that screened at TIFF that audiences won’t get to see anywhere else.
I won’t keep talking about the festival here because you can check out all my coverage on blogTO, where I wrote a daily festival update and also reviewed film. Check out the blogTO TIFF08 section for more updates from me and all the other people covering TIFF for the blog.
Oh, and for those of you that have seen Lymelife and liked the music in it, co-writer Steven Martini gave me a copy of the demo CD for The Spaceship Martini (who did the music in the film) and it’s all kinds of awesome. Get me to play it for you next time you see me.
Heading in to work this morning, I saw yellow buses filled with students heading back to school for the fall. Which got me thinking about homework.
Homework, as I knew it in middle school and high school, was a completely backwards concept. Class time was always spent in solitary activities like reading textbooks and listening to the teacher drone on about a particular subject; homework, on the other hand, was usually collaborative or required some kind of interaction and exploration.
Here’s what I’m thinking I’d do if I ever became a high school teacher:
I’d record my lectures in short bits (12-15 minutes each session) with accompanying visuals and let my students download them as video clips that they can put on their iPods. Class time would then be used for question & answer sessions, engaging discussions on the content they had already consumed, and group projects where collaboration and face-to-face contact was important.
In that model, homework would cease becoming a chore that got graded and scared students. Instead, it would be a form of preparation for students who would then come to a classroom environment that focused on their interaction with the content rather than simply the content itself.
Maybe I’m just being an idealist here. Do you think my model for instruction is feasible? Have you heard of any other similar teaching techniques?
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