CIO of AKT Enterprises, artist manager, new media guy. Lately known as "Kevin from District Lines".

August 15th, 2012

Video

Cool! YouTube added TV static to the player’s “error” screen.

Tagged: youtubevideostatictv

October 10th, 2011

Job Creators?

Lowering taxes for the richest people in the world will not create more jobs. Seriously, that is like the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

There’s a myth that more taxes on the rich would actually make earning more money a bad thing, like your taxes would increase so much that you’d actually be making *less* money. Anyone that says this has never filled out their own tax forms because this isn’t how federal income tax works.

You only pay the bracket percentage for that particular bracket worth of income. You are taxed a certain amount on each bracket, breaking through a bracket doesn’t mean the new bracket rate applies to ALL of the money you earned, just the money in the bracket.

Now the argument falls flat on its face! More money is more money no matter what, even if the government takes a larger piece of the top bracket.

September 28th, 2011

Lion so far

It’s cool, but it’s the first time I’ve been frustrated with this many changes:

  • Digital Color Meter no longer displays hex values. No improvements whatsoever, just features taken out. Sucks for picking out hexes for web dev.
  • Autocorrect for OS X is awful. It appears to be the same as the iOS autocorrect, but the difference in how people type on the two devices is everything. Typos on iOS come from tapping the wrong key because it’s difficult to hit the right one on such a small typing area so nearest neighbor guesses make sense. Typos on keyboards (for me, at least) come from transposing characters due to hitting a key too early or late. For instance, accidentally typing “O hhello” instead of “Oh hello”.
  • Trying to compose a new email in Mail.app is so slow! I instinctively start typing the email address long before it is ready so it only catches the last few letters. J-A-R would normally start autofilling Jared’s email, but it missed the J-A and started emailing Rosie, first hit for R.
  • Crippling Pages and Numbers with this weird file saving garbage is a deal breaker, I’m switching to Office if this isn’t reverted in an update soon.
  • I tried out full screen apps but don’t see any use for it.
  • Keeping every file open in my apps is so annoying. Opening some apps takes a full minute unless I close everything individually.

It’s still a great update, but these issues will probably push me to install some tweak suite and start messing with settings that shouldn’t be messed with to get the experience back to the way I want, which is lame.

Edit: I mean Lion.

October 27th, 2010

New Square Card Reader!

 

We just got a brand spanking new Square reader in the mail (on the right) for District Lines! We’ve been thrilled to use the original (left) for the last several months.

The new one is slightly wider but not as thick. It also looks much better and has a tiny little loop for a wristband like a phone or camera. Thanks Square!

October 3rd, 2010

Mark Hoppus, Antoine Dodson, The Gregory Brothers

Check out this interview Mark Hoppus did with Antoine Dodson and Evan and Andrew Gregory (of Auto Tune the News fame). Antoine and the Gs are both District Lines clients, and it was already a treat to see them on TV again, but check out my favorite part (3m 8s into the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLSi-VJWGl0#t=3m8s

Maybe this is only cool to me but I was beyond pumped that Antoine and Mark both mentioned our company and website on TV!

Tagged: antoine dodsonthe gregory brothersbed intruderautotuneautotune the newsmark hoppusfuseblink182schmoyohoyoutubedistrictlines

September 28th, 2010

with 4 notes

MSM vs MGM

Edit: Here’s the video!
http://bit.ly/axfMeT 

Right now partners on YouTube are up in arms about a CNN interview with Joe Penna (Mystery Guitar Man). I love the sentiment but I must comment on a few things that seem out of place to me.

First off, Joe did an amazing job. He kept his cool, thought on his feet and didn’t get tricked into saying anything he didn’t want to. It is particularly tough to maintain your cool in a situation like this and he did a great job.

Now the reporter didn’t know what he was doing, that much is true. But we need to stop pretending like the mainstream media is going to understand years of community development overnight. His segment was very short, how much homework can he be expected to do for it? To him (and all of his bosses on up the line) YouTube means Chris Crocker and David After Dentist, maybe he’s heard of The Gregory Brothers if we’re lucky.

Beyond the details of YouTube and what it is vs what the MSM sees it’s important to know how reporters are. Tough questions you don’t want to answer, avoiding relevant topics, cutting you off mid sentence are all just a part being interviewed. Reporters aren’t doing their job if they don’t generate interest, so they are concerned with what they think will shake things up.

If you plan on truly making it creating content, on YouTube or otherwise, expect to have brushes with the old media here and there. When you do be prepared like Joe, otherwise you may end up getting angry, creating a bad sound byte, or giving away info you didn’t want to.

Good job Joe!

Tagged: cnnyoutubemysteryguitarmanmsminterview

April 27th, 2010

with 1 note

owl city

I’ve put off posting this forever but it is way past time. if you think owl city really sounds like the postal service you have obviously not heard any of the tons of other pop electronica artists out there, both before and after “give up” was released. the same people probably compare kanye west to hellogoodbye for using a vodcoder.

Tagged: owl citythe postal serviceindiepopelectronicakanye westhellogoodbyevodcoderautotunemusic

April 23rd, 2010

adventure time

I saw this cartoon last night, INCREDIBLE!!

Tagged: adventure timecartoon networkcartoonstvprimetime

April 21st, 2010

happy programming

some days programming can be a drag, like you get stuck on something silly or have trouble making sure data is validated properly.

but when I need to work on an API and realize they have a JSON version it makes me so happy :)

Tagged: programmingapijsonphphappy

April 21st, 2010

iPad case

just got the apple case. they got some more in and @sarahkhandjian surprised me with it. wooo!

Tagged: appleipadipad caseapple storeorlandoaltamonte