Jeff Gardner

Internet Curation

Jeff — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:59:03 +0000

According to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, we are creating as much information every two days as we did from the beginning of human history until 2003. Yeah, that's a lot of shitty YouTube videos, terrible photos on Flickr and mundane, boring blog posts. Unfortunately mixed in with all that noise is a lot of beautiful, awe-inspiring and important stuff as well. The problem is how do we separate the wheat from the chaff.

As the creation of information across the internet accelerates (and don't worry, it will keep accelerating) curation becomes more and more important. Google can do a great job of finding and indexing everything indiscriminately but when it comes down to enjoyment of the internet and the dissemination of timely information we need human beings to actively search out and highlight the signal from the background noise. Keep your eyes open, this will be one of the next big trends across the internet. But don't take my word for it, Just check out these examples:

Devour

Around 25 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. It would take you approximately 1700 years to watch all those millions of videos. So good luck trying to find something worth watching on your lunch break.

Devour is here to help. Using a scientifically technologically artificially intelligently awesomely robotically humanly system (we hand-pick every video on the site), Devour sifts out the best videos and posts the well-curated collection every weekday. Fewer cute kittens, fewer skateboarding nutshots, fewer tween heart throbs, and lots moreawesome.

Devour's about us page

Kottke.org

I believe that when people talk about solving problems with technology, what they're usually talking about is solving problems with design...which is to say, the application of psychology in a visual & functional context. I prefer red wine to white, movies to films, jeans to khakis, vanilla to chocolate, Pixar to Dreamworks, the subway to taxis, nonfiction to fiction, and Safari to Firefox.

Kottke's about page

And just to show you what good curation can deliver, here is one of the gems on Devour right now:

Click here to view the embedded video.

How to explain technology

Jeff — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:29:08 +0000

This is how to explain technology to lay people. No numbers, no milliseconds, nothing but a potato gun, a tesla coil and some paint. Awesome.

Wonderfully Blunt

Jeff — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:37:30 +0000

This article from Drawer is great. Its no nonsense, hit you over the head with a 2×4 bluntness makes you cringe, laugh and pray that you don’t unwittingly fall into the hack category. Good reading.

The Newness

Jeff — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:49:34 +0000

Yup. I’ve gone and done it again. The site is redesigned – only this time it’s not just a redesign, I’ve combined my blog with my photography site (formerly http://jgardnerphoto.com). Why, you ask? A good question.

My photography site outdates my blog by at least a few years and from the beginning I’ve always used Flash galleries to show the images. But I hate flash. I think it’s a pain to work with, a pain to use (from the casual browser’s position) and a pain when it comes to updating the photo albums. So my photography site would get updated once every year and a half or two years. Not often enough. Simply because I was too lazy to redo all the flash galleries. So there you have reason number one. Galleries without flash.

I have enjoyed writing my own personal blog (even if most of my energy is going into Beans on Tour right now), but having two separate sites to keep up and to change and update just became a chore (which is why the photography site got tossed to the wayside). So I have combined the two sites into one WordPress installation. Now I have the ease of use and the extensibility of WordPress and no excuses to keep both sites (which are now one) up to date. Reason number two, one site.

Reason number three is pretty trite but important. I love a good challenge. On Monday Gina and I are moving to Italy. Big change, lots to do, but I wanted to get the site updated before we arrived because I knew it would never happen otherwise. So upon arriving home from Buenos Aires last weekend I challenged myself to build a new WordPress theme and launch the new site before we left again for Italy. Reason number three, challenge.

Ta-da. There you have it. I hope you like the new site and keep your eyes on the Galleries because I will be adding many new galleries over the course of the next month (with lots of travel shots!).

What is a netbook good for?

Jeff — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:02:17 +0000

One word. Traveling. I’ve seen so many netbooks while here in India and I’m positive that I am going to see a lot more in Thailand. There are two very simple reasons for this: it fits in your bag and if it gets stolen you’re not out $1000+. Now if I could only get one to start running OS X.

Traveler tip: Virus protection for your USB thumb drive

Jeff — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:27:39 +0000

I’ve been using a lot of internet cafes recently. A lot of internet cafes and a lot of different computers. Viruses are rampant – and not just the poo causing kind. I use a mac, so most of these viruses are harmless but its always good idea to try and keep foreign files off your machine as much as possible. The owner of the guest house that we’re staying at here in Rishikesh clued me into a really clever way to help keep viruses off your computer when you’re moving your USB thumb drive between your laptop and local internet cafe machines (most of which have at least one virus). It works like this:

1. Open a new text file with your favorite text editor. I use TextMate – I highly recommend it.
2. Leave this file blank and then save it as autorun.inf
3. If your using a mac right click the file and click “Get Info”, if you’re on windows click “Properties”, change the permissions of this file to not allow anyone to change it. Lock it down completely.
4. Copy this file onto your USB thumb drive and then delete from your local machine (it conceivably could cause boot up issues).

When a virus installs itself on your thumb drive it also tries to update or write a new autorun.inf file. This is the file that actually allows the virus to run itself and wreck havoc on your machine. However if the file already exists and it has locked down permissions the virus won’t be able to do anything.

And by the way, if you’re ever looking for a nice place to stay in Rishikesh, Pyramid Cafe, up the hill in Laxman Jhula, is a wonderful place with a great restaurant.

The virtues of living out of a bag

Jeff — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:41:08 +0000

It’s been 4 years since I spent any significant chunk of time traveling. I’m back on the road again, with Gina this time, living out of a bag and loving every minute of it. It’s been a wonderful reminder that life becomes more simple when we strip things away. The stuff that we “can’t live without” quickly becomes superfluous and even the small amount that you are carrying with you in your bag seems to become grossly unnecessary. Point in case – I just went rifled through my bag looking for something and found that I hadn’t even worn half the clothes that I brought with me. Half! It’s good to reset your idea of what is necessary every now and then.

If you want to follow along with us on our travels we’ve been keeping posting to Bean on Tour, our travel blog. You can also see photos at my flickr account. But just for good measure – here are a few of my favorites.

Central Park, NYC

Four mile creek state park, Outside of Niagara Falls

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Lower Yellowstone Falls

Summit of Buck Mtn., Tetons

J. Gardner Photography Refresh

Jeff — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:20:50 +0000

I’ve finally updated my two year old photography website design. I’m still working on getting some new photos up but I’d love to hear what people have to say about the design!

On another note, Gina and I are setting out on our road trip (the first month of our six months of traveling) this weekend. We’ve spent the week moving out of our apartment in Blacksburg and sorting through all the stuff that we’ve accumulated over the years. I’ll be happy to be living out of a bag again soon! Keep an eye out here for pictures along the way. You can also follow our adventures at http://beansontour.com

Ueli Steck is Crazy

Jeff — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:22:42 +0000

I present my evidence. Speed Solo on the Grande Jorasses, by quite a difficult route.

Bar Tape dot Net

Jeff — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:39:04 +0000

Very cool, very well made documentary following Team Cervélo through the season. So good.