Category Archives: tech

Robots are better at space exploration than humans.

Posted on May 28, 2008 by kfarr

As many close friends can attest, I dream of the future human colonization of planets in our solar system and beyond. Ah, how I stew in the romance of this idea. After doing some math prompted by lively debate on … Continue reading →

Posted in econ, tech | Tagged automation, colonization, colony, costs, exploration, explore, explorer, fly, investment, jet, jpl, land, lander, mars, nasa, outer, output, phoenix, planet, propulsion, red, return, robots, rover, space, surveyor, usa | Leave a comment

Last.fm + iPod = Profit?

Posted on May 14, 2008 by kfarr

Last.fm is a top-rate music streaming service that suggests music based on your previous last.fm plays, songs you play in iTunes (“scrobbling”), and songs your friends like. But, it’s frustratingly tied to your computer. You have to listen to via … Continue reading →

Posted in internets, media, tech | Tagged app, apple, applet, based, browser, cast, classic, download, feed, flash, ipod, itunes, last.fm, mac, mp3, music, online, pc, pod, podcast, rss, scrobble, scrobbler, scrobbling, stream, streaming, tied | 2 Comments

Driving

Posted on May 9, 2008 by kfarr

Sunday was a busy day in the City, Monday was busy enough as usual, but Tuesday early morning was dead. It was very difficult to get orders and I was afraid I would go home with less than $100 take-home … Continue reading →

Posted in happiness, taxi, tech, work | Tagged 2-way, 2-way radio, bathroom, break, broadcast, cab, cabbie, central, channel, channels, dispatch, dispatching, driving, duplex, emotions, experience, feelings, full-duplex, graveyard, half-duplex, handheld, happiness, kma, living, living wage, mcdonald's, mic, motorola, night, order, pee, psychology, psychotherapy, radio, san francisco, sf, shift, starbucks, stories, story, tales, taxi, tips, transmission, uhf, urine, vhf, wage | 1 Comment

Finally, I see a relevant advertisement on Facebook.

Posted on April 8, 2008 by kfarr

So, Facebook knows my favorite TV shows, my favorite authors, my favorite music, my zip code, telephone number, gender, age, work history, education history, friends and personal pictures. Given all this information, you’d think that Facebook would be able to … Continue reading →

Posted in internets, marketing, tech | Tagged ads, advertisements, agencies, agency, book, capital, digital, face, facebook, fb, funding, internet, internets, media, nbc, office, online, over, overvalued, shows, spending, tech, the office, tv, valley, valleywag, valuation, valued, vc, venture, zuckerburg | Leave a comment

Making a complex customized Django form template? Remember to include form.non_field_errors!

Posted on April 4, 2008 by kfarr

This drove me crazy for about 30 minutes. If you’re making a heavily customized form template with Django, the newforms documentation suggests this format: But, if you do any sort of non-field specific (form-level) validation, those validation messages won’t be … Continue reading →

Posted in internets, tech | Tagged 0.96, attribute, dev, django, error, field, field specific, form, form wide, form-level, form.as_ul, form.errors, form.errors.all, form.field_errors, forms, forms.ValidationError, level, message, new forms, newforms, non, non-field, non-field-specific, non-specific, non_field_errors, python, release, specific, svn, validation, validationerror, validator | 13 Comments

Google makes a better online ad manager. (Oh, and it’s free.)

Posted on March 13, 2008 by kfarr

When I worked in ad agency land, one of the most excruciating parts of my job was working with poor, poor web interfaces to accomplish relatively simple tasks. This was severely magnified by our lack of bandwidth which slowed down … Continue reading →

Posted in internets, marketing, media, tech | Tagged ad, agencies, agency, ajax, app, as, asp, banner, click, client, cpm, display, double, doubleclick, end-user, experience, flow, google, html, interface, lamp, manager, mysql, online, php, process, process flow, server, service, software, software as a service, ui, user, web | 1 Comment

A great intro guide to version control

Posted on February 29, 2008 by kfarr

Through work on a pet project I’m getting quite a crash course on making a web app with guidance from my friends Jay and Steve. Jay has rightly pushed version control upon us so we can start working like real … Continue reading →

Posted in internets, tech | Tagged about, app, command, control, cvs, dev, explain, explanation, guide, info, information, intro, introduction, learn, sub, sub-version, subversion, svn, tutorial, version, version control, versioning, visual, web | Leave a comment

Nintendo keeps DS fresh, mixes it with spectator sports.

Posted on February 8, 2008 by kfarr

I really like my Nintendo DS. I’ll admit, though — I waft in and out of regular DS play as I beat or get tired of games. There can be big gaps before I find another game that re-ignites my … Continue reading →

Posted in marketing, tech | Tagged ad, ad age, advertisement, baseball, console, ds, dual, field, fit, games, handheld, input, mariners, nintendo, safeco, screen, seattle, spectator, sports, statistics, stats, stylus, touch, touch screen, video, video games, wii, wii fit | 2 Comments

MSFT eating YHOO is about display ads, not search.

Posted on February 4, 2008 by kfarr

Okay, we all know the big news: Microsoft wants Yahoo. In fact, it has been the only topic visible ‘above the fold’ of The New York Times’ tech page for the past few days. Michael Krasny whipped out a KQED … Continue reading →

Posted in internets, marketing, media, tech | Tagged acquire, acquisition, ad, advertisement, agencies, antitrust, banner, business, buy, display, equity, goog, google, government, media, merger, microsoft, msft, offer, policy, purchase, regulation, shares, stock, tech, yahoo, yhoo | 2 Comments

Satellite TV: How did it start?

Posted on January 26, 2008 by kfarr

And now for something from the archives. Here’s a paper I wrote in March 2004 for Herb Terry‘s excellent history of telecommunications course about the initial failed implementation of direct broadcast satellite — the precursor to the miniature dishes many … Continue reading →

Posted in media, tech | Tagged abc, allocation, broadcast, broadcaster, broadcasting, c-band, cbs, commission, communications, comsat, comsat/stc, consumer, dbs, delivery, direct, direct broadcast, dish, fcc, federal, frequency, home, ku-band, media, nab, nbc, network, rca, regulation, satellite, stc, tci, television, tv, usci | 3 Comments

Category Archives: tech

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