Il fait beau dans le métro.

Ryan sent me this video this afternoon, and it's too good not to share.

It's (quite obviously) a promotional video for Montreal's subway system, produced in 1976. My favorite part is when the three dancers flash the little girl the creepy smile. Fantastic.

I think we could/should do something similar in Charlottetown to promote our transit system. "You'll be feeling jolly when you ride the trolly"?

No? Okay.

Duplex Beat.

My desk at work is just around the corner from the office printer. Occasionally, the designers need to run off dozens of pages at a time. After the printer gets going, it gets into a fairly steady rhythm and turns the printer into a drum machine. I captured this beat today:

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If there's any DJ's out there that want to work this into their next set or remix, please do.

Trying out the new @Posterous iPhone app

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Shortly after setting up my first Posterous blog, I hit the app store looking for an official iPhone app for use with the growing platform.

There wasn't one, and I soon realized that the iPhone essentially ships with all it needs for posting to Posterous: Mail. I was satisfied, stopped thinking about it, and blogged from my phone via email, just like Posterous' creators intended.

Yesterday, however, Posterous launched an official iPhone app. And it is with said app I write this post right now.

It's decent. The UI seems good and it offers a couple of features you can't get when posting via email (or at least not easily), such as the ability to toggle geotagging or autopost, the ability to view or delete previous posts, and the ability to create a new blog.

That said, it's lacking some features that posting from email allows, such as embedding attached files other than photos or video (such as audio recordings from the iPhone's default voice recorder app), the ability to save drafts (can't seem to find it here), and the biggest one for me: horizontal keyboard. I type almost everything on the horizontal keyboard when I can, and to be honest, my hands are feeling pretty cramped as I finish this post.

Overall, the app's not bad. Since I'm managing three Posterous blogs at the moment, I can see myself using quite a bit. That said, when it comes to posting, I think I'll follow Posterous' original intention and stick to Mail.

Reply from @Netflixhelps about Instant Queue feature in Canada.

This afternoon, I asked the helpful folks on the Netflix support Twitter account when we'd see the instant queue feature in Canada. This is what they said:

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Personally, I find this terribly frustrating. Since signing up for the Netflix Canada trial last week, I've noticed dozens of films that I'd like to watch and want to come back to. At the same time, I've searched for dozens of films that aren't available for streaming in Canada, so really, searching is in no way a replacement for being able to flag a movie as one you'd like to come back to.

Rachel and I can foresee ourselves as being heavy Netflix streaming users, although the lack of an instant queue (or equivalent) would make this a bit of a pain. I suspect we'll end up with a pad of paper beside the remote that will serve as an alternative to something that should be built into this service from day one.


Sent from my mobile device.

Some things change. Some things stay the same.

While deadlining on a project this evening, I glanced down to the space on the desk beside my computer. Things look a little different there than they did a few months ago.

 

Along with my headphones and harddrives and phone were a couple of Claire's soothers and a cloth of hers (part of a set which conveniently reminds you which day of the week it is). She was hanging out in her swing beside me as I edited video, watching my hands go from the keyboard to the mouse and watching the screen as the images flicked by. I like to think she's learning to edit.

Life is good.

The Wilderness Downtown: an Arcade Fire interactive music video.

This is, without a doubt, one of the coolest music videos (if you can even call it that) you've ever seen.

Wildernessdowntown
The Wilderness Downtown is an interactive video/music/software mashup by Chris Milk, featuring We Used To Wait by Arcade Fire. You start by entering in the street address of where you grew up, and go from there. 

I won't give anything away. Give it a shot and see for yourself: http://thewildernessdowntown.com/

RIP Turok

My parents came home to find this voicemail on their phone one day back in October. It came from a Newfoundland number.

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The laughter in the background, along with the fact that there is no dog on our street named "Turok" suggests that, perhaps, they were pulling our leg.

Starry night

About a year and a half ago, I attempted some astrophotography for the first time. Nothing fancy: I just set my camera to a 30 second exposure and pointed it towards the sky. It yielded some interesting results, so I've been meaning to have a go at it again ever since.

Last night, I took the camera out on to our little Stratford-apartment balcony, and pointed the camera towards Charlottetown. This is what I got.

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I'm going to try some more this week, as we head out to the country for a few nights.