Tag Archives: learning

learn to be a photographer. a flash mob mini photo lesson

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[this was originally posted on my tumblr, but thought I'd add it here too, just in case!]

hello internet friends, especially those of you in the NY area!

cherry blossom season is approaching at the brooklyn botanical garden and I wanted to throw this idea out there:

let’s meet up at the brooklyn botanical gardens either this weekend or next (depending on the blossoms, of course!) and take photographs. Kind of like a photowalk, but for photo newbies and pros alike!

for those of you who have a camera you’d like to get acquainted with or just want an excuse to go out and take photos, now’s your chance! i’ll be willing and happy to show you the ropes, answer your questions, give you some tips, whatever.

here’s how it’ll work:

i’ll be keeping an eye on the cherry blossom report. when it’s at a point that will be moderately photogenic, i’ll send out an email/tweet with a date and time to meet up.

just show up. bring a camera. and if you don’t have a botanical gardens membership, some money for admission.

we’ll go around, take photos, learn stuff, make friends, and hopefully stay moderately warm!

interested? sign up for the email here: http://eepurl.com/c_bZU

hope to see you there!

P.S. in case you don’t know me all that well, here’s some of my photography and my flickr

Getting to 10,000

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Today 101in365 reached its 10,000th completed goal, which I think is a pretty big deal. The site that I kind of pieced together with my limited PHP skills and some help from friends has helped people complete 10,000 of the goals they set out to accomplish this year. There are just about 35,000 locked goals on the entire site which means that the average user is about 1/3 of the way through with their list. Pretty amazing.

Getting to 10,000 was not easy. It’s been a lot of trial and error and thankfully our ever-patient users have stuck with me as I used them as my guinea pigs for experiments in motivation, community, and social design. I thought I’d take a step back to really think about what I’ve learned getting to goal #10,000 and perhaps ponder some possible changes to the site to hopefully get that next 10,000. Or even better: 100,000. Here goes:
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Cool Stuff: Free is Free!

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Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired and the man who made The Long Tail into one of the most used phrases of the Web 2.0 era, has a (relatively) new book out called Free: The Future of a Radical Price.

I’ve had the book on my to-read list for a few months now, but as part of one of my “money management” resolutions, I’ve decided to only buy books if absolutely necessary, especially considering the number of unread books sitting on my bookshelf at the moment and even more especially considering the fact that there is a branch of the San Francisco Public Library about 2 blocks from my apartment. It’s rather ironic, but absolutely fitting that I wouldn’t buy a book called Free. I’m glad I waited, though!

Yesterday, as I was browsing through the iTunes store looking for podcasts, I stumbled across this one. It’s a podcast of Chris Anderson reading the book! Why they chose to call it a podcast instead of an audiobook is an interesting question in itself, but that’s not the point. The book is free. Download it.

I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s pretty interesting in a Freakonomics meets the Internet sort of way. It does have a lot of real-world, offline examples, especially in the history of the Free model, so it’s not entirely tech-centric. From what I’ve heard so far it’s definitely worthwhile. There is a print version available too, if you prefer page turning and dog-earring.

Not sure if I’ll do any sort of review of the book once I’ve finished listening to it, but I thought it was a pretty nifty find (it is a $22 book after all!). If you’re into techy/culture/sociology types of books, almost all of Lawrence Lessig‘s books are also available online under a Creative Commons license with more coming soon. I haven’t found any free audio versions of them (or any other good books) yet, but if you have, let me know!

Enjoy!