— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Man, I feel like it was only yesterday that the neighborhood was hating on Zing.com, Etown, and Bigstep, Apple was the cool alternative to Microsoft, Myspace was still a hosting company, and Zuckerberg was getting his gym shorts pulled over his head.
— By Zach Perkins |
SF's finest are warming up to twitter, and thankfully their intent doesn't seem to be anything like back in 2k6 when the Isla Vista cops figured out how to use Facebook to skim the event/party listings and make underage drinking busts at my college era parties. In fact, SFPD's Richmond station twitter account is actually pretty rad.
In addition to live-tweeting neighborhood warnings and super interesting crimes you didn't think even existed (see the glued ATM keys above), it seems like their intent is to actually use Twitter as a platform to better serve the community (SHOCKER, AMIRITE?). According to SF Weekly and SF Appeal's recent coverage, the Richmond station top cop, Captain Richard Corriea, has four officers tweeting from the field and is encouraging more to do the same.
Time will tell if other SFPD stations catch on (or if the DA bitches them out via “YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR MCBAIN! I WANT YOUR BADGE AND YOUR SMARTPHONE ON MY DESK IN THE MORNING!”) and start using Twitter to do the same, but in the meantime, let's entertain some fantasy SFPD tweets.*
or…
* = No, I don't care if there isn't actually a Dolores Park or Panhandle station, this is an exercise in stroking my imagination. Sexually. Post your own neighborhood SFPD tweets in the comments.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Look guys, I know this was counter-culture and badass and stuff in the 70s and 80s, but I don't run around the Mission spraypainting “the revolution will not be printed” on derelict Chronicle boxes for the exact same reason I don't do this. If you don't want to date yourself and your grasp on technology by a good five presidencies, why not just spraypaint “the revolution will not be streamed” on the window of The Summit?
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Following on the heals of The Smithsonian announcing their upcoming “Art of Video Games” exhibit, some SF nerds are looking to build a video game museum along the BART corridor. From MADE's Kickstarter page:
The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE) needs a space in the San Francisco Bay Area. All funds raised here will be used exclusively for the rent and utilities associated with a ~1000 sq ft space near BART for 6 months to a year, depending on the rent we find. Additional funds will keep the space open longer.
A space will enable us to showcase videogame artifacts and educate the public about the artistry, craftsmanship and inspiration that go into the creation of videogames and digital works
of art.
Best of all, they want to have a bunch of old, playable games in the museum, which means this will be like Alameda's Pacific Pinball Museum, only full of Atari games that you haven't played in 25 years. The only drawback to MADE's proposal is that they are looking for the cheapest rent possible, be it somewhere on Market St. or somewhere in Oakland. So, yeah, if there's any Supervisors reading this (ha!), maybe you guys should court MADE for mid-market instead of giving Twitter a financial reach around.
Anyway, enough mid-market politics. If you'd like to see a full-on video game museum somewhere in the Bay Area, head over to Kickstarter and give 'em all your money.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
(Snapped on Fillmore St. via Alissa)
— By Jenny Wilson |
Goog's called out
Google's new Google Art Project launched on Tuesday in collaboration with 17 museums around the world to bring you masterpieces easily viewable in your living room, but failed to include any Bay Area Art Museums. The Asian Art Museum tweeted about it yesterday with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Retweeting. This dis' comes on the heels of SFMoMA's exciting announcement today of 195 works promised to its permanent collection by art luminaries such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Francis Bacon, and Gerard Richter. Pretty great for SFMoMA, and apparently not good enough for Google.
Vincent van Gogh's “The Starry Night”
Despite Google's major “fuck you” to its neighboring museums, Google Art Project is pretty legit. Google's Street View technology is now being used to bust drug dealers to bring these uber elitist museums' galleries straight to your laptop. The Art Project has selected a few masterpieces from each of the 17 museums to let viewers zoom in hella close on artworks like Vincent van Gogh's “The Starry Night” at the New York MoMA, without having a museum guard freak the fuck out on you. But if you want to do that in San Francisco, you're going to actually have to put some clothes on and pay an admission fee until Google realizes its neighbs have some pretty awesome art too.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
I realize the N Judah is quite possibly the most infuriating, crowded, slow, and self-medication demanding form of public transportation in the world, but there is absolutely no excuse for not knowing how to hold an iPhone while shooting video.
To assist us in this simple “How to hold and iPhone while recording video” tutorial, I've enlisted our 4 o'clock hour college dorm-room buddy, SpongeBob:
In the first photo, SpongeBob is hanging out in Dolores Park amongst the endless fields of flowers and skies of butterflies we've come to enjoy on a daily basis. Unfortunately, SpongeBob has downed a 40 of Olde English and smoked half a bag of grass, so he is shooting video vertically. SpongeBob should be shot.
In the second photo, SpongeBob is 'shredding mad trail' on his mountain bike. Of course, he's riding no handed so he can record some sick youtubes of his adventure. SpongeBob should win an Oscar.
Folks, crackheads will always be crackheads, but we San Franciscans can come together to teach people how to properly hold their iPhones.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
In case you get bored of looking but not touching, head over to everyone's favorite strip club that's across the street from a playground.
— By Josh Constine |
OKCupid, the free online dating service you say you've never heard of but that I saw your profile on, released some cool data the other day. That's right, cool data. It's learning time.
Basically they looked at which girls on the site got the most messages from guys. Turns out being a prim & proper, traditionally beautiful girl won't get you hit on as much as being unkempt and tattooed.
See, hipster fashion is polarizing, even amongst hipster guys. Some dudes like bangs and vintage dresses, some like neon v-necks and hightops, and some like black leather and chunks of metal in a lady's face.
Girls with this effect on men — the ones some guys thought were really hot and others thought were too strange, the ones who got lots of 5's and 1's on a 5 star attractiveness rating system, received many more messages than mainstream girls who were consistently rated a cute 4 out of 5 stars by most men.
AKA hipster chicks that guys have a wide range of opinions on get more attention than sorority girls who everyone thinks are attractive.
The reason is that guys see kooky hipster girl and think, “I'm probably the only person who digs her. There's less competition so I have a better shot. I'll go talk to/message her.” Meanwhile, guys see a barbie doll and think, “She probably gets hit on non-stop. There's no way she'd like me more than the other guys. I'm better off not even trying.”
Yeah, there's a bunch of confounding variables including the fact that the beefcake pretty boys who would message sorority girls are too busy gym/tan/laundry'ing to use dating websites.
Still, this is a win for self-expression and alternative fashion. I've definitely been following this behavior pattern my whole life. Women should take this as free license to do whatever they damn well please with their appearance.
Will these findings usher in a migration of Marina girls to the Mission? Guys, have you always subconsciously gravitated towards “different” girls? Ladies, can you confirm this theory or call shenanigans on it? 'Cause I'm not seeing too many shenanigans.
[Note: This post is not meant to objectify women. I'm a respectful appreciator, so please don't grab your pitchforks and torches.]
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Quick update following last month's news that Noisebridge, SF's only hackerspace, could be forced to close due to budgetary problems. Their treasurer, Kelly, gave us a quick update that they have since raised well-over $5,000 and will be remaining open. In fact, they are rocking a cash reserve of $16k, which alone will keep their lights on for 3 months and suggests they once again have the financial stability they enjoyed last summer. Now, before all us nerds who like to play with robot wheelchairs and leech wi-fi rejoice, do consider getting a membership to prevent such awful scares from happening again.
