atish.net

Dear Facebook,
Let me start by saying that I think Facebook is one of the greatest and most powerful sites on the internet. I think it’s incredible how Facebook facilitates human interaction. Furthermore, I love Newsfeeds (and I loved it since day 1), however I believe that this feature has a significant bug, specifically around the “Less About These Friends” option. The problem resides around Dave McClure (I’m sure you’ve heard of him)…he’s showing up all over my newsfeed. I don’t want to remove Dave from my Facebook friends (I actually like the guy) but he’s really been clogging up my newsfeed with articles I don’t care about. I don’t want him to stop posting these items, I just want him to be my Facebook friend without the Newsfeed getting in the way.

I have informally explained this bug to one of your engineers but I am also a developer, and I know that word of mouth bugs don’t always get top priority. To facilitate the fixing of this bug, I am formally submitting all the information - please look at the attached screenshots:

Bug Name: FB-McClureBug-101
Priority: P3 (Normal)
URL: http://atish.net/wordpress/2007/08/12/an-open-bug-submission-to-facebookcom/
Project: Facebook
Issue Type: Bug
Components: Newfeed
Environment: Production
Browser: Firefox 2.0 (Windows Vista, OSX), Firefox 1.5 (Windows XP), IE6, IE7, Safari (OSX)
Reporter: Atish Mehta
Assignee: Requesting Mark Slee
Description: In my Newsfeed preferences, Dave McClure is the ONLY item in the list “Less About These Friends” (see screenshot 1). Despite this, he has gotten 5 out of 15 newsfeed spots plus a status update! (see screenshot 2).

Screenshot1:

Screenshot2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yV6ddbsLQ8

Just bought some new gear: Dave Smith Evolver. Haven’t played around with it much yet, but here’s a little ditty using the presets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qni5dNvuTs

Time lapse with some mirror effects. Watch when intoxicated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr0JH7phWVg

Ok so I’ve posted on Daft punk twice already…This is the last one.

I’m sorry to say it, but if you live on the West Coast and did not see Daft Punk in the last 2 weeks, you missed the best live show in the history of electricity. I saw them for the first time at Coachella 2006, and they were BY FAR the best act of the 2 day festival. I was constantly talking about how wonderful it was, almost fearing that I was overhyping the show.

I saw them in LA last week on Friday and then Berkeley again last night. It was not overhype. I was completely accurate in saying that Daft Punk explodes your balls (even if you’re a woman). I took some videos during both shows, but they don’t do it justice.
Huang said it well:

It was a bizarre and beautiful event, and if I ever were to in my life feel religious, it may have been during this show.

What is it that’s so mind blowing about the Daft Punk live experience?
1) The technology. As you see in the video, they have an extremely advanced lighting system. They are in a pyramid (spaceship?) that lights up, there is a screen behind them that lights up, and there are these lights surrounding the stage that flash in complex patterns, plus tons of strobes all over.
2) The progression of lights. The show starts off with simple lighting. If it’s your first time seeing them, you have no idea how complex the lights will get. Slowly as the show progresses, more colors are added, more complex lighting schemes come alive, and eventually actual pictures and videos are being displayed on what you originally thought was a screen that just flashed a single white light. See the notes below the video for the breakdown of what happened.
3) The music. Daft Punk music is fun, easy to dance to, and filled with vocoders.
4) The mixes. This is for people who know their music…I think Jason worded it best

Teasing the audience with quick samples from popular songs, mixing them in with other ones, morphing old songs into new iterations left me and the rest of the crowd stunned as you began to realize the choke-hold daft punk had on your emotions.

5) Robots. The band’s schtick is that they are robots (perhaps from outer space?). On paper, it’s actually really cheesy. Electronic musicians dressing up as robots on a spaceship pyramid? I can’t imagine any American artist trying to pull that shit. But leave it to the French to try something quirky like that.

Here’s another video I made…I included clips both from LA and Berkeley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYbs6hZ8JIU
4:09 - Very simple lighting on the stage
3:41 - They add the LCD screen at the back, with words
3:16 - Add the lights at the top/bottom of the stage, plus the rim of the pyramid
2:53 - I was just proud of the seamless video mix I did
2:36 - Interesting new pattern with the pyramid rim lights
2:29 - Crazy rainbow lights (looks really sick at 2:16)
1:48 - What beautiful strobe lights…I only experienced that effect from way back
1:29 - The pyramid lights up for the first time, single solid color
1:22 - Pyramid lights up trippy patterns
1:06 - Whoa, tron-like pyramid patterns.
:38 - Actual images of faces on the pyramid, all lights in full effect
:30 - 16 - Reslice of their best song, of course, with crazy lights. Highlight of the show for me
:15 - Space travel

Just read this in a UNIX book written in the 80’s, A Practical Guide to the UNIX System

You can use the mail utility programs to send and receive electronic mail. Electronic mail (or e-mail as it is sometimes called) is similar to post office mail except it is quicker and does not involve any paper or stamps. You can use it to send and receive letters, memos, reminders, invitations, and even junk mail.

WOW! I don’t need any paper or stamps!

I’ve been talking about doing this for about a year or so, and I finally got around to it, with some help from Putnam…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po5GQd5kkHM

A little compilation I put together from last night’s show. Maybe I’ll take some more clips @ Berkeley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPCOWtrPmtY

Man I am really happy with the phatty bass sound I got out of the Korg. I almost bought a new device because I’m running out of sounds…Also the lead line with the Kaoss Pad3 is pretty dirty, too (good thing). Ya dun’ good, Korg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3PUqaxengc