davidartemiw.com

dead

This site is dead. I didn’t love Wordpress or this theme.

Find me here: http://themiw.tumblr.com/ or subscribe to the feed: feed://themiw.tumblr.com/rss

bald eagles

Mark Wickens points us this morning to this video of a pair of bald eagles and their chicks in Sydney, BC.

When I was in BC last summer I saw a pair of bald eagles at Willows Beach in Oak Bay in Victoria.

I managed to get a couple of photos of the birds. Here’s how I described it on my photoblog:

Tried to speed walk nearly the entire length of the beach. Walked barefoot across stones, rocks, and jagged boulders. Came close to falling and smashing several hundreds of dollars worth of camera gear. Nearly stepped on broken glass while trying to avoid the fall. Got bug bites on my ankles that kept me from sleeping through the night for nearly two weeks afterwards. Seeing these two bald eagles in the wild at Willows Beach in Oak Bay in British Columbia? Worth every single one of those poorly thought out, risky, and painful steps.

Here are two of those photos:

(photo: “bald eagles” copyright davidartemiw 2008. Originally published here.)

(”in search of food,” copyright davidartemiw 2008. Originally published here.)

presentation design

One of the things that has captured my imagination over the last few months is presentation design. Ever since stumbling across the work of people like Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte, I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about presentation design and trying it out whenever I can.

Earlier today I came across a Google Docs presentation on the Agenda website with the bios for the current crop of candidates for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

I decided to see what I could do with the exact same information. Let me know what you think.

(DISCLAIMER: The terms of my employment require me to be neutral in this race so this exercise is not an endorsement of any candidate. All elements of this presentation were taken from the original done by the folks at the Agenda. Photos were chosen from those published by the candidates themselves and selected for resolution quality.)

chess and football

As a child, I would set up the chessboard and pretend it was a football field and the pieces football players.

will it sell a single phone?

T-Mobile has a new ad and it’s pretty damn cool.

Will it sell a single phone? I doubt it. But that doesn’t mean their message is a bad one. Life is for sharing. And there’s some interesting stuff in there about joy and contagiousness and how great it is to be alive.

Via: adliterate

oh lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

One man’s pirate, it would seem, is another man’s freedom fighter. Misunderstood victims of nasty propaganda campaigns.

Thank god for Johann Hari who sets us straight. Of pirates, he writes

They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls “one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century.”

They say this kind of thing about Hamas and others, don’t they?

what’s the carbon footprint of burning money, anyway?

The Printed Blog is an independent media outlet that aggregates user-generated content from the Internet and publishes it twice daily via print. The result is a revolutionary newspaper that reads and functions like a web feed - yet can still be enjoyed on the train or spread across the breakfast table, for an uninterrupted, pleasurably tactile experience.

The selection of content in The Printed Blog is based solely on the votes of readers and their geographic location. In such a way, The Printed Blog revolts against the top-down, ‘one size fits all’ model of newsprint, as we know it. Instead of one paper serving hundreds of thousands of people, as is often the case, The Printed Blog publishes hundreds or even thousands of highly-localized editions based on what a community declares is important to them. The papers are distributed to neighborhood pickup points in A.M. and P.M. editions, and will incorporate rapid turnaround reader comments.

If I understand correctly, I have to go online, choose what I like, wait for somebody to decide whether or not to print it, then go out somewhere to pick it up and hope I get to read what I wanted to (and could have) read hours ago.

Doesn’t Google Reader already aggregate this stuff for me? Can’t I read it on the train on my iPhone? Aren’t I already killing the earth enough using these devices?

This sounds like a reverse-engineered meatball sundae.

and on a sunday, no less

I have been the lucky recipient of some pretty insistent e-mails from a PR/GR firm trying to get me to attend an event this week in Toronto.

The e-mails have been arriving over the last few weeks. Today, I’ve received the e-mail twice. I guess they’re getting desperate as the event is on Tuesday, I think.

After getting the second one I decided to write back. Here’s what I sent them:

The subject header on this reply should probably read, “Your last chance to keep from having e-mails from your organization automatically deleted without being read.”

I’m not sure how you got this e-mail address but ok, you did.

I have no idea who you are. Also fine.

Please rest assured that I have read it. I have not yet decided to attend the event.

Sending me the exact same e-mail over and over again is not going to make me any likelier to attend the event. In fact, it is possible it might have the exact opposite effect. Because that’s what spam does. It makes me want to do the opposite. This isn’t “Simon Says.”

Spam says come. I stay home.

Spam says read. I delete.

Should I decide to attend, you will hear from me.

Now please take the time that you’ve spent spamming me and use it to click on the following links and learn little bit about more appropriate ways to start a conversation with someone and creating some real value for your clients. Assuming that’s what you’re interested in doing.

If your actual business is annoying people then keep on keeping on. You’re doing a great job.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/how-to-send-a-p.html

http://davefleet.com/pitching-tips/

http://davefleet.com/2008/09/anatomy-of-a-bad-pitch/

Any bets on whether they offer me the same consideration I gave them?

sex pistols + cece peniston = ?

Mark Vidler (aka Go Home Productions) makes the best mash-ups you’ll find anywhere.

On his latest album, Spliced Krispies, Vidler introduces Luther Vandross to REM. He gets the Stone Roses, Billy Joel, and the Byrds together for a beer, plays spin the bottle and and CeCe Peniston (remember her? I know, right?) has to kiss the Sex Pistols.

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show me all the rules, girl. i just want to get ‘em wrong.

Choke is a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It has also been made into a movie (winner of the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for work by an ensemble cast).

I haven’t read the book. Nor have I seen the movie. But I bought the soundtrack back in October and it’s excellent.

The playlist:

1. The Rules - Ben Kweller
2. Don’t You Ever - Natural History
3. Navy Nurse - The Fiery Furnaces
4. Reckoner - Radiohead
5. Sin Terror - Alap Mornin
6. Satan Said Dance - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
7. Orgasm Addict - Buzzcocks
8. No Sunlight - Death Cab for Cutie
9. Wicked - Blitzen Trapper
10. If You Feel It - Ms. Tyree “Sugar” Jones
11. Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 1 - My Morning Jacket
12. Bicycle - Shout Out Louds
13. There’s Been an Accident - Twilight Singers
14. Crystal Ship - Nicole Atkins

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