Jason Cosper

Author: Jason Cosper

  • Going Feral

    While reading Jori Finkel’s piece in the New York Times on Machine Project’s LACMA invasion, I was struck by something that Margaret Wertheim said:

    I don’t know of any city other than L.A. with so many feral groups.

    Now while she was referring to the Los Angeles art scene, this sort of applies to the tech scene here as well. There are plenty of folks trying to make this city relevant when it comes to tech. A streamlined, less paunchy version of Silicon Valley that does yoga and drinks wheatgrass. And that’s fine. They can keep doing that. But to lift a quote from Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, “Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”

    I’m not really talking about them tho. Honestly, the most interesting shit that is going on in this sprawl is on the fringe. Groups like Dorkbot SoCal & Betalevel and meetings like Mindshare are where people are doing the really sexy, fun, creative stuff. Well, the stuff that’s worth paying attention to at least.

    Seeing as how I’ve helped foster it along, why would I exclude BarCampLA from that tiny (and rather incomplete) list above? Well, first of all, my ego isn’t that big.

    Most importantly tho, it isn’t one of those feral members of the fringe anymore. Sure, it may have been a bit of a wild dog in the past, but as time goes on, it has become domesticated. With well over 300 people wandering in and out over two days and the schedule slowly seeing product pitches, SEO talks and social media chatter dominating the landscape, it’s sort of losing some of its original charm.

    Think I’m crazy for saying that? Consider BazCampLA. A “mad science only” event, their plan is to get together about two weeks before the next BarCampLA to make sure their technical talks are well tuned and ready for the big show. From the chatter that I’ve seen, they’re sort of worried that this will be seen as a condemnation of BarCampLA. A middle finger to its participants and the Los Angeles tech scene as a whole. But totally I get what they’re trying to do — and I admire their goals.

    Frankly, I hope the BazCampers either take the schedule at the next BarCamp over by force or they end up building a framework for a better event. Like one that would make BCLA obsolete and allow me to take a vacation. Lord knows that I could use the rest… ;)

  • Nice Day For A Vote

    Last night’s rain gave way to beautiful, puffy clouds and a vibrant blue sky. The mood at my local polling place was great and everyone seemed excited to make their opinions heard. Even the people who had to file a provisional ballot didn’t complain at the extra hoops they needed to jump thru.

    If you haven’t voted yet, I hope that you will. I also hope that you’ll encourage your friends and family to get out there too. Today’s going to be a big day — and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather help make history than sit on the sidelines.

  • Tacos For Obama

    I like Obama for a lot of reasons — but when it really comes down to it, I’ll always be for a candidate who has a firm pro taco stance.

  • I Reckon

    This Gnarls Barkley cover of Radiohead’s “Reckoner” totally manages to make up for the fact that I didn’t really care for “The Odd Couple”.

  • Can’t Stop The Hustle

    Inspired by what Merlin is doing with 43 Folders, I’m taking a step back from what I set out to do with Preshrunk. Yeah, I know that I just relaunched it. No, I’m not talking about walking away from it.  It feels too good to be back to just up and stop again.

    What I’ve realized tho is that the internet doesn’t need yet another daily t-shirt blog — it needs a better t-shirt blog. Spitting back every press release and sale notice that drops into my inbox doesn’t make for compelling content. The reason people show up and read Preshrunk is because they actually care about finding wonderful tees. What’s more, people actually trust my taste.

    I know. It befuddles me too. But they seriously do. At least that’s what the feedback coming in says.

    When it comes down to it, the last thing I should be doing is running something I’m only kinda feeling. Or trying too hard to make sure people have fresh content to read when they check their feeds or hit the site. When I’m up against a self-imposed deadline, I end up putting out stuff that’s not up to par. You guys seriously have no idea how hard I’ve had to fight myself to not go back and rewrite entire entries when I read them in the morning. When you realize that you’ve turned out more than one post in the past month that reads like bad Geekologie copy — which isn’t really that great to begin with — it’s time to examine what you’re doing.

    So if you don’t see new shit up on Preshrunk daily, please know that I’m just trying to make things better rather than fall into a routine. As they say, it’s all about quality over quantity. Six months off won’t happen again tho, honest. Maybe a few days at worst. Expect a good excuse from me if that happens tho, alright?

  • History Hacker

    Ever since I’d heard about History Hacker, I’ve been geeked about it. Now, maker extraordinaire and super rad video blogger Bre Pettis, is getting a crack at the big leagues when his show airs on The History Channel this Friday at 8 PM.

    The pilot involves Tesla and his back and forth feud with Edison and has a style that seems like it was made for the ritalin set. So if the promo video above looks interesting at all, consider adding it to your DVR and checking it out.

  • Minor Threat

    Sir Ben Kingsley playing Ian MacKaye?  Why the hell not?

    Normally I’d say “that’s a stretch” — but the whole shaved head/fully bald thing actually sort of makes for inspired casting.

  • Getting Some tr.im

    While there are a lot of URL shortening sites out there, I’ve actually grown quite fond of tr.im recently.  It’s a little thin on preferences right now, but there are three things that set it apart from the other services out there: 

    Automatic Twitter and Identi.ca Posting

    Whenever you shorten a URL — thru the bookmarklet or their site —  tr.im does the standard behavior and copies the output to your clipboard.  On top of that tho, it also offers you the opportunity to sign in to your favorite microblogging platform and post the URL directly from tr.im itself.  Removing the extra steps of opening up Twitter and pasting a link into the window makes me a very happy camper.

    Zero Account Creation

    Want to save your settings but don’t want to make another account?  No worries!  tr.im accepts both Twitter and Identi.ca logins.  Saving a couple minutes of my time by not having to sign up for yet another service is rad to me in a way that words can’t quite describe.

    Click Tracking

    If you’re signed in to tr.im, you actually get stats on the number of times a link has been clicked. So if you’ve direct messaged or emailed a friend with a link and want to know if they’ve given it a look, there’s no need to bug them about it.  Just load up the tr.im homepage and see if they have or not. Simple enough, right?

    It also has the added bonus of being a super short URL that isn’t abstract like is.gd or zz.gd are. Seriously dudes, what’s up with those names?  I mean, bravo for scoring a 4 character domain. That’s a feat in and of itself.  Still, if what your site does isn’t fairly obvious from the URL, it kind of fails for most passive users before it gets out of the gate.  tr.im actually manages to be nice and descriptive without being too heavy — and that, coupled with the reasons above, is why I like it.

    So give tr.im a try and see if it integrates with your workflow.  Even if you’re a bit skeptical about something as basic as a URL shortener, you might actually be pleasantly surprised at just how well it works.

  • Bring The Ruckus

    The game has changed a lot since I launched Preshrunk in late 2004.  According to Andy at Hide Your Arms, there’s over 150 t-shirt blogs out there now — and I’ll be damned if I can actually find more than a handful that are actually readable and worth following.  Granted, there are a few “good blogs” out there — but the amount of coverage for poorly designed tees and really weak write-ups is pretty fucking dismaying.

    Anyhow, I recently found myself coming to a crossroads of sorts.  It was sparked by a bunch of mail from old, dedicated readers wondering where I’d gone.  Questioning if I’d ever come back.  Asking if I’d consider selling the site (with some pretty decent offers, I might add) or taking folks on as contributors to help get things going again.

    So I found myself asking a very simple, but poignant question.  Do I add more noise to the genre of blogging that I helped start, or do I pack it in?  The money I’d get from cashing out would allow me to fund another project I’ve been working on instead of bootstrapping it — so that was a bit tempting.

    Besides, six months without an update normally means a blog is “dead” in internet time.  And regular readers will no doubt recall that I’ve staged so many comebacks at Preshrunk that it borders on ridiculous.  But I still couldn’t leave my baby just sitting by the side of the road.  Nor could I leave it in the care of someone I didn’t know.  Kinda control freak of me, I know — but that’s always sort of been my way.

    Despite my apparent disinterest tho, I never stopped thinking about Preshrunk.  It was honestly a matter of time (and my poor allocation of it) more than anything.  I have what amounts to half a moleskine of site ideas that I’ve sketched out and jotted down on the train.  Most of them are actually implementable, too.  New weekly features!  New sites!  New ways to fold in social features that don’t involve lazily adding “Digg This” buttons!

    And they’re actually all coming.  Well, that’s the plan at least…  Right now, I’m concerned with getting content on the site and convincing people to come back more than anything.  The bells and whistles can wait until later.

    Speaking of bells and whistles, there’s a new theme up at Preshrunk now, but it’s not really expected to be permanent.  In fact, if you know a solid, affordable WordPress designer, send them my way, won’t you?  Some of the aforementioned ideas need something a bit more robust before they’re deployed.

    Even if you don’t know a theme designer tho, it’d be nice if you can show some support.  Read the blog.  Add the Twitter feed.  Spread the word.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to remind these kids where they came from…

  • Dark Knight PSA: Herpes

    If you only watch one video out of the Dark Knight PSA series on YouTube, make it this one.