Andrew J Cronk

jakelodwick: Today I have the honor of introducing a project...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:22:14 -0600

Today I have the honor of introducing a project that’s been in development for almost two years.

In early 2008 I talked to my friend Michael about making an album for my then-new music company, Normative. He had an exciting concept: build a musical contraption, a one-man-band “rig” that looked like a big metal box, but unfolded to reveal a platform, stool, drum kit, keyboard stand, looping pedals, and a guitar. He would build the box, then make an album that could be performed live, by himself, in one sitting. I said, Sounds incredible, here’s some money, I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

He spend 4 solitary months building the sexiest, manliest instrument I’d ever seen, a few days writing the music, and another few months recording it. The album wasn’t just ‘a bunch of songs’ but a continuous story about a boy who was born laughing and whose legs kicked relentlessly, whose movement was impossible to control, who could not sleep, whose parents “took shifts, a steady rotation of looking after him, while the other one would sleep out in the car,” drumming on every conceivable surface, pounding the parents’ belongings to smithereens, immune to adult anti-psychotic medication … an individual incapable, by his nature, of being restrained; his bombastic inner fire and innocence; his relentless and violent quest for peace, and his eventual triumph.

After wrapping the record, I asked my favorite illustrator Ira if he wanted to do something kind of… weird. Let’s not make a music video and let’s not make ‘album art’. Ira, can you make a loooonnnng illustration that scrolls across the viewer’s screen for the entire 45 minute album? He said, Sounds good, pay up and I’ll get back to you in a few months.

The months dragged on (but who cares when ART MUST EXIST WITHOUT COMPROMISE?) … And he returned with 50 feet of painstakingly, achingly detailed and imaginative, hand-drawn art. Totally original stuff — the sort of magic you only get when one brilliant person tunnels into an impossibly ambitious project for a really long time.

We stitched it together in After Effects, synched it with the music, and uploaded it to Vimeo. And now, well, here it is, you can watch this “illustrative score”, this new and beautiful thing, two single-minded visions gracefully interwoven like … like snakes having sex!

But don’t watch it now, here in the Tumblr dashboard, with the lights on, your hand on your mouse, looking for the next nano-meme to microstimulate you. When you click the link below, be prepared to invest 45 minutes with your headphones on, the lights off, seated comfortably, and with fullscreen on. This is the real deal, people, and I promise it is worth watching.

Click here to watch “MARCH 3” on Vimeo.

Nothing inspires me more than iron-clad dedication and steadfast resolve. Holy crap.

I wrote this 3 years ago about startups

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:15:51 -0600

This was never published. Really weird to look back at your old writing.

Keeping the momentum alive in your startup

Time to drop a little Physics 101 on you:

p = mv

Does that mean anything to you? The astute student will know that this is the equation for momentum:

Momentum (p) = Mass (m) x Velocity (v)

Why the letter ‘p’ was chosen to represent momentum, I don’t know, but I bet it has something to do with Greek (rho perhaps?). Anyhow, maintaining momentum is a critical part of any early phase startup. Many a good business idea has been abandoned due to lack of momentum. Why did it stop? Where did it go? I think analyzing this equation a little further can help you keep the momentum towards making your startup dreams a reality.

First let’s dissect at the Velocity part of the equation. Velocity can be further broken down to a function of acceleration and time:

Velocity = Acceleration x Time

So, by substitution we can see that the momentum in your startup can be influenced by these three factors:

Momentum = Mass x Acceleration x Time

Still with me here? If not, go hit the Algebra book and come back when you are done.

Alright, I believe the goal here is NOT necessarily to maximize momentum, but rather keep it at a healthy level. You don’t want it to slip too low, causing you venture to come to a grinding halt. But you also don’t want it to spin out of control, causing unmanageable growth and popularity (see Friendster, and hopefully not Twitter). You want to balance the three factors, (mass, acceleration, time) in order to keep the right momentum alive. So how exactly do these influences relate to startups, and how can we keep them in check?

Mass

The mass element can be thought of as the size of your startup team. Are 8 developers really needed for an initial release of most web applications? Probably not, and having too many developers hands on an early version of an app can ruin things, similar to how too many chefs can spoil the soup.

On the other hand, being the sole developer on a project can greatly reduce your projects momentum. Obviously, one developer can do an entire app (ie. Flickr), but in most cases 2-3 developers is the ideal size for an early stage venture. Besides sharing the code load, it is very beneficial to have other people on the dev team for motivational reasons. There will be times where you will want to slack, not code, or even quit. This is when the other members of the team will step in and motivate you to keep things moving. Having a sense of accountability towards each other is key.

In addition to the motivational benefits, a small dev team is beneficial when unforeseen personal events occur. Is the project development going to come to a halt when your cat dies and you are grieving for three weeks? That is when the other guys/gals can step up to keep the momentum going.

Acceleration

We have to stretch the metaphor a little to accommodate the acceleration element. Acceleration can be thought of as the energy and enthusiasm put into your startup. Obviously, you want to truly believe in the potential for success of your project, but you have to be careful not to drink your own Kool-Aide, Heavens Gate style. Along every step of the way, you must analyze the viability of your startup. Unless you plan on doing the ‘I hope we get acquired by Yahoo!’ rain dance, your startup should have some method of sustaining itself. So, as your are furvently developing it is often good to step back and review your business plan. Is it still relevant? Does anything need to be updated? Don’t be like the underwear gnomes on South Park, whose business plan went something like:

1. Steal underwear

2. ????

3. Profit!

In addition to reviewing the viability of your startup, it is also necessary to step back and look at things from an outsider’s perspective. With all that enthusiasm and energy you are pouring into the project, it is too easy to get completely wrapped up in your idea. You feel soo comfortable with it, that you assume that everyone will easily grasp the concept and understand it as well as you. It is of utmost importance to think like an actual user of your application. I think the best practice is to assume as little as possible about your users; maybe think of it as designing for the least common denominator. Just because something seems intuitive to you, does not mean that a first time user of your application will feel the same way.

Time

This one should be pretty obvious, I don’t think too much needs to be said. The speed that you release to the public is paramount if you are going to throw your hat in the internet rodeo.

However, one area that gets overlooked when trying to quickly come to market is TESTING. For some reason in internet culture it is acceptable to replace system and unit level testing with a shiny ‘Beta’ tag. I guess that we have Google to thank for the proliferation of this phenomenon, since every product they release seems to remain in Beta for an indefinite amount of time, but I really think it is a cop out for good testing (Coding horror link). There are even podcasts that claim to be in ‘Beta’……

Lately I’ve been fascinated with the concept of having different periods in your life. ...

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:56:39 -0600

Lately I’ve been fascinated with the concept of having different periods in your life. Picasso famously had Blue and Rose periods, which strongly dictated his artistic output.

I’m interested for two reasons: I’m curious as to what causes transitions between different periods. Is it a single event? A series of events? How long does the transition take?

The second reason is that I feel like I am in a characterizable period in my own life.

Can you classify a life period whilst you are in it, or only retroactively? I hope the former, because I’m thoroughly enjoying the current period.

(via hitchcock) I love how he just goes off around 3:00 after...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:38:38 -0600

(via hitchcock)

I love how he just goes off around 3:00 after previous crooning.

Dogs reacting to the Law & Order theme song.

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:59:00 -0600

Dogs reacting to the Law & Order theme song.:

(via catbird)

“This post did not just strike a chord with me, but a whole symphony.”

So I'm making this thing...

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:11:12 -0600

So I'm making this thing...:

kylewritescode:

If you are a developer or designer, this is for you. Reblog this and I’ll get you an invite.

Developer.

mischadehart: Loaded Antioxidant Berry Smoothie I absolutely...

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:47:15 -0600

mischadehart:

Loaded Antioxidant Berry Smoothie

I absolutely love this smoothie. It has no added sugar and all the antioxidants. Blackberries rank extremely high on the ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) scale, so don’t skip out on them! You can make this smoothie with any fruit you like. You can also substitute the rice milk for almond or coconut milk, but I wouldn’t recommend it! (in terms of flavor)

This recipe makes 1 serving.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of blackberries

1/2 cup of blueberries

2-4 ice cubes depending on size

1 1/2 cups of rice milk

Method:

Blend together and enjoy!

This sounds awesome. I’m going to Harvest Time tonight!

brycedotvc: This man makes his living providing charges for...

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:05:39 -0600

brycedotvc:

This man makes his living providing charges for cell phones (pay by the hour). A reminder that entrepreneurship comes in many shapes and sizes.

Business idea #2: Real-time photostream for events

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:47:00 -0600

When we were planning our New Years Party last year, I thought it would be cool if people at the party could share the pictures they were taking in real-time. I imagined it would work like this:

Take picture with camera phone.
Email, MMS, picture text it to some address.
Use projector to show slideshow of pictures received.

I hacked this together one afternoon. The result:

http://bln.kr/static/nye.html

Not bad. It actually worked pretty well at the party. For this hack implementation I used:

Tumblr as datastore. Tumblr accepts pictures sent to an email address, so I just made a slide with instructions and the input email address display every 10 slides. You can see the slideshow as a blog here: http://nyepic.tumblr.com/
The awesome jQuery cycle plugin

The whole thing is just one static HTML page, and you can view source of the page to see my entire hack javascript.

The business idea here is to create a real service out of it. This prototype was very well received and people seemed to love interacting and being on the big screen. I’ve thought of at least ten ways you could charge for this service. Charge per event (4 hour period), charge for a certain amount of photos, charge to import directly to Facebook, etc. I suppose this could work with Eye-Fi too…

Thoughts on technical implementation: I think Lamson would fit well here for receiving the emails/mms/picture texts. I downloaded it and poked around the code. Pretty exciting project.

Business idea #1: Live music reviewer

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:18:00 -0600

This is a simple idea that I’ve already seen TJ Chapman begin to develop.

start a live UStream
have people send you links to their music
review it live
charge $25 to skip the line and get reviewed next

Yes, this is similar to payola, but as long as you are transparent about the cost and benefit I see no problem. It is akin to “leveling up” in social games like Farmville.

I love that TJ Chapman is developing this on his own by utilizing 3 free services:

UStream for live video
Our company bln.kr for social music hosting
PayPal for taking payments

He has a set schedule for review shows, every Monday and Thusday, and that is critical. Last Thursday he had around 650 people tuned in. You can see past shows here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tjsdjs

The challenge for anyone else wanting to become a live music reviewer is building an audience. TJ has been in the music industry, and has a modest following on Twitter. Luckily for the aspiring reviewer there is an abundance of independent musicians who want to get their music heard and are hungry for feedback. Although, the reviewer must have a perceived value offering for the artists. Either large listening audience or music industry affiliations or something that has the potential to further the artists career.

You could also move upstream and create a service which combines the APIs of UStream, bln.kr and PayPal and charge reviewers a monthly fee, or takes a percentage of their income.

This is not a home-run and retire idea, but more of a fruitful passion play.

Photo

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:54:12 -0600

Photo

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:51:50 -0600

Photo

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:45:37 -0600

Twitter Anthem Song on bln.kr

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:11:49 -0500

Twitter Anthem Song on bln.kr

jakelodwick: (Mario voice): Here we go! I think Cocoa...

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:59:25 -0500

jakelodwick:

(Mario voice): Here we go!

I think Cocoa Programming for Mac OSX is the better starting book, unless you’ve programmed on Mac before. iPhone Developers Cookbook assumes you know a fair amount of Cocoa.

Cat Talk

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:52:29 -0500

Cat Talk

Coming To A Website Near You: Bigger, More Obnoxious Ads | Peter Kafka

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:01:33 -0500

Coming To A Website Near You: Bigger, More Obnoxious Ads | Peter Kafka:

catbird:

“Among the new units being debuted are: the “fixed panel,” a 336 x 860 panel that looks embedded into the page, the “XXL Box,” which is 468 x 648 and allows users to actually turn “pages” and watch video; and the “pushdown,” which is 970 x 428.”

Fucking morons. Stupid. Fucking. Morons.

If beating consumers over the head with a club isn’t getting your message across for you, the solution isn’t to get a bigger club. The solution is to stop trying to beat your message into them in the first place.

I think it’s time for the advertising industry to crater along with the automakers, bankers, etc. High time for them to get a fuckin’ reset and ditch all this old-school thinking.

What do you propose?

(via catbird) The opening guitars remind me of King Missile -...

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:35:48 -0500

(via catbird)

The opening guitars remind me of King Missile - Detachable Penis.

kylewritescode: I need a robust email parsing library for PHP, ideally one that can handle multipart...

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:47:36 -0500

kylewritescode:

I need a robust email parsing library for PHP, ideally one that can handle multipart and plaintext messages, deal with proper decoding, etc. Any recommendations?

I ran into a similar problem with PHP, and turned to Python. Use email.Parser.

I wrote http://lilsnaps.com in 80 lines of Python on a Saturday morning whilst hungover. Very easy.

What if...

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:30:49 -0500

kylewritescode:

What if you could sponsor a specific post on a site you love to read? Reblog your answers.

payperpost.com