Travis Vocino Experiments in Art, Science & Technology.

This snazzy list of recut movie trailers was sent to me today. For the most part, they’re remixed comedies made into horror movies. Props to editing as an artform.

Enjoy. Continue reading Recut Movie Trailers…

Jerry Yang is out (alveterzane). Travis Vocino is in. Let me first say that it’s great to be here and I hope you’ll all support me in my new position. My blog posting frequency may suffer slightly but I’m sure you can understand that.

We’ve invested in interesting projects like Flickr and Del.icio.us but we haven’t really utilized them. This definitely needs to be looked at. Where are these products in the market? In spite of the fact that new photo sharing sites are being developed and aggressively marketed by old school photo companies like Fuji and Kodak, Flickr remains a leader. That’s a testament to the usability and friendly history of the app. Let’s capitalize on that and start integrating it into other services and hardware.

Where is our Disney Themeparks photo integration? We should own that market, we’re the leader.

The same can be said for Del.icio.us. There are a lot of bookmarking sites. I don’t know about you but I still hold my allegiances with Del. We can do better. Our apps are simple and smart. Why isn’t our ad word platform being utilized on these sites?

Just like Twitterific has advertising from The Deck, we should be leveraging API support from all these Del.icio.us desktop bookmarking apps and creating new tools that work better. A well-funded, sleek and easy to use app will generate loyal users that are willing to either pay for it or be happy to check out some well-placed advertisements.

Application developers that use the YUI should be contributing to a growing community of loyal Yahooligains. Let’s reward these people. Let’s expand on it and reward developers that use any Yahoo tools — integrate our ad structure, integrate our services, etc. We have an opportunity to be the leader in having the bleeding edge development community working for us — for free. Let’s grab it.

We have all these tools, unique applications, and solid infrastructure yet they’re siloed off and thus the development communities surrounding them are in their own silos. This needs to change.

Who is creating the Yahoo blogging application which integrates your Yahoo mail account, your Flickr account, your Del.icio.us account, Yahoo Maps, cool YUI hacks and more.

It could be you. Let’s reinvent Yahoo together.

I have a recurring event in iCal called “Get a haircut you stupid fuck!” Every month it reminds me to stop working, get in the car, head down to the salon and sit there for an hour so that I might look half-way presentable again.

The problem is, I rarely make it on time. I’m a chronic procrastinator as it is and haircuts are no different. I usually miss the schedule by at least a week. This isn’t really because I can’t stand the essence of haircuttery or because I don’t have respect for the fine art of trimming people’s mops. Nope. In fact, more power to them, damnit.

No, my problem is with time allocation. I feel like I can’t possibly afford to sit in one place with no access to anything for such a huge block of time. For the amount of tasks being accomplished, I might as well be asleep. This seriously bothers me. It’s a waste of time according to my brain and you would think my it would have more respect for my hair, being in such close proximity.

It wouldn’t be such a brutal standoff if not for the fact that my stylist loves to chat. While I can understand the need to not have a creeping awkward silence stretching the entire session, it does contribute to the lack of productivity. Primarily because she seems to stop actually cutting my hair when she reaches a climactic point in the story she’s telling — which is about every 10 minutes.

To me, this is unacceptable. Either because of my mild OCD or because it makes sense. In either case, it contributes to the usual state of my hair — out of control.

After hours of research and thinking on the subject — mostly thinking to myself while she was talking — I have come to the conclusion that there are only two possible options.

One. Let’s install some flat screens and wireless keyboards instead of some shitty pointless mirrors in front of the chairs. What’s wrong with that? We’re busy people and we have things to look up, YouTube videos to watch, Tweets to Twitter. This seems like a homerun of a business plan if you ask me. Someone should get on this immediately.

Two. Create a race of self-aware autonomous haircut robots with a comb for one hand and a Flowbee® for the other.

There’s a new marketing campaign from Microsoft, apparently after the failed Gates-Seinfeld “buddy film” commercials, called The Mojave Experiment.

Here’s the theory: Get together a focus group of some computer-illiterate everyday people who usually use XP (because all they do is look at their local newspaper’s website and check their AOL mail). Show them a demo of Windows Vista before it has any Spyware, bloated anti-virus and firewall upon firewall applications. The result, apparently, is they think it’s some new next-gen operating system that they just have to get their hands on!

Continue reading The Mojave Experiment: For Idiots, by Idiots…

As I watched the sparky Katie Couric interview our savior from witchcraft Sarah Palin, I couldn’t help but drift into a state somewhere between concern and frustration and depression. (Spoiler: They don’t make out at the end).

Then I thought, it’s likely a dream. It was 3:00 in the morning (watched it on TiVo, of course) and I had a flight the next day. Stress levels were higher than normal. This was all likely just some kind of weird dream I was having because I forgot to pee before I went to bed — right?

Continue reading Sarah Palin and Katie Couric Don’t Makeout at the End…

During this campaign I’ve probably heard “liberal media” more times than I could conceivably count. Especially in regards to Sarah Palin.

We’ve seen the nonsense about keeping her away from the evil media and there’s no one that can tell me with any honesty that they’ve really learned enough about her to be confident she would be a good president.

Give me a break. The media asks questions, they screw points toward their agenda — so what? The point is you’re there. If the media is constantly saying things that you feel don’t represent your positions correctly, then what is the solution? Do nothing? Boycott the media?

Continue reading Enough with the Liberal Media Bullshit…

“Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”
– Barack Obama

“I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and glocal warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs-including my own-on nonbelievers.”
– Barack Obama