Luca Hammer

dianakimball: Since I’m about to join the team at SoundCloud,...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:29:17 -0400

Since I’m about to join the team at SoundCloud, I’ve been thinking a lot about the audio I create in my life. It goes way beyond music: as much as I love recording the occasional emoji jingle, the vast majority of the audio I create comes in the form of…talking.

ENTER THE RØDE SMARTLAV MICROPHONE.

It’s a lavalier mic that plugs into your iPhone!! (And some other smartphones.)

Over the past two weeks, I’ve used my new smartLav mic to record three different talks. It goes like this:

Wear something with a lapel.

Clip on smartLav and plug it into my phone a few minutes before my talk is scheduled to begin.

Load up the SoundCloud app and hit “Record” before I go on stage.

If I’m using slides, open the Keynote Remote app to swipe from one to the next. (SoundCloud will keep recording in the background). Otherwise, slip the phone into my back pocket.

Give the talk!

Once offstage, stop the recording. Crop the extra audio at the beginning and end using the SoundCloud app’s Trim feature.

Name the track and upload it right then and there. After I gave my talk at Dev Bootcamp in Chicago a few weeks ago, I trimmed and uploaded the audio on my walk back to the train.

Uploading it right away is, for me, the most important part. Immediacy over flawlessness seems like a fair trade. Done is better than perfect, and making a habit of sharing my talks right after I give them increases the chances that I’ll share them at all.

The Røde smartLav mic is sold out pretty much everywhere online, but you can order one here with an estimated ship date of “end of July 2013.” I’ve loved mine, and I can’t help but hope that this is a habit more people will take up, too. I want to hear your imperfect words.

Imperfection is perfect.

A need writing app. https://www.hiroapp.com I love the research...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 08:37:27 -0400

A need writing app. https://www.hiroapp.com

I love the research sidebar that shows automagically stuff that could be interesting for the thing I am writing. Reminds a bit of Zemanta, hopefully it will work better.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twitteroffice/sets/72157633647745984...

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 05:43:16 -0400

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twitteroffice/sets/72157633647745984/with/5331000428/

Billions of geotagged tweets. I love it.

Great visualization how devices moved around at the re:publica...

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:33:37 -0400

Great visualization how devices moved around at the re:publica conference: http://apps.opendatacity.de/relog/

Photo

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:28:30 -0400

Interactive Twitter Network...

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:57:00 -0400

Teresa Hammerl http://lucahammer.at/visualization/colazioneAroma

Amanda Palmer http://lucahammer.at/visualization/amandapalmer

Sarah Lacy http://lucahammer.at/visualization/sarahcuda

Martin Wolf http://lucahammer.at/visualization/_martinwolf

Jana Herwig http://lucahammer.at/visualization/digiom

Felix Schwenzel http://lucahammer.at/visualization/diplix

Günter Felbermayer http://lucahammer.at/visualization/eminenz

Markus Schmeiduch http://lucahammer.at/visualization/smeidu

Roland Oth http://lucahammer.at/visualization/smtm

Michael Thurm http://lucahammer.at/visualization/michaelthurm/

Interactive Twitter Network Visualization
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/colazioneAroma
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/amandapalmer
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/sarahcuda
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/_martinwolf
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/digiom
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/diplix
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/eminenz
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/smeidu
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/smtm
http://lucahammer.at/visualization/michaelthurm

I had a great time with Python and Gephi today. Over the last days I collected social graphs of twitter users with a customized version of twecoll (Twitter API Limits can be quite annoying) and today played with the data in Gephi to finally export it as JSON and visualize it on the web with sigma.js and the export tool by OII.

I wanted to use an old domain that was just a redirect in the...

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:35:08 -0400

I wanted to use an old domain that was just a redirect in the past for new projects. So I made a simple page that also appears on all error pages (404, 500, etc.) where people find all stuff that is important to me right now with a few clicks. I wasn’t sure if I should embed one click follow for tumblr, twitter and facebook but believe it came out okay. The page loads a bit slower though. And I should maybe add the links too for people who want to see what I post first.

unionmetrics: kenyatta: With all of the Yahoo-Tumblr reporting...

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:28:10 -0400

unionmetrics:

kenyatta:

With all of the Yahoo-Tumblr reporting still going on right now it surprises me how many writers still mistake Tumblr for a “blogging platform.”

Anyone who has spent significant time on Tumblr knows that this whole “blog” thing is a front.

Literally.

70% of a given blog’s post traffic actually happens in the Dashboard. For some blogs, that percentage is even higher.

This makes things like ranking a Tumblr blog’s popularity through site traffic fairly dubious.

It also means that the value of Tumblr isn’t just in the original posts but the amplification of ideas through reblogs and the like.

This becomes apparent when you dive into Union Metrics for Tumblr and break down any given post’s reblog tree:

There’s probably an iceberg.gif of some sort that would work really well here.

(btw, the numbers in that image are from an “official” blog that I run, not my personal blog.)

Pictured below the surface: all of the reblogs.

I am in love with the new xkit 7 extension for tumblr and...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:35:56 -0400

I am in love with the new xkit 7 extension for tumblr and it’s ability to filter posts in the dashboard by type. I follow some great image heavy tumblrs but they often overshadow the great textposts. I hope tumblr adds this to their app sometime.

http://xkit.info/seven/download/

Visualization of the people I follow on Twitter. Made with...

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:10:22 -0400

Visualization of the people I follow on Twitter. Made with twecoll and Gephi.

Austria and Germany, mostly people who tweet in German are very well connected but they are still clearly separated. In red the startup scene, strongly interconnected but with few connections with the German scene.

The nodes that are farther away from the rest have many followers but follow few people.

Next I would like to see how the graph changes if I add interaction data like mentions and maybe tweets in general. Maybe even add a third dimension to show more data. But first I have to figure out how to reliable track mentions over a week.

New tumblr post chooser. Looks like Path set a new standard. I...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:36:04 -0400

New tumblr post chooser. Looks like Path set a new standard. I like it. Fast and easy.

Network visualization of more than 2000 German bloggers for my...

Fri, 17 May 2013 02:02:51 -0400

Network visualization of more than 2000 German bloggers for my project http://blognetz.com (soon launching in English)

Is Marissa Mayer About to Buy Tumblr for $1 Billion?

Fri, 17 May 2013 01:40:07 -0400

Is Marissa Mayer About to Buy Tumblr for $1 Billion?:

I’m not sure how to feel about this. I like some things that Mayer says and does. Yahoo is still one of the big players and thousands of smaller ones are built upon some of their APIs. Even Apple uses their weather API.

The big question is what tumblr gets out of the deal. Do they need cash? Integration into other services? More ads? I don’t see any benefits yet but I may be wrong.

Taking Down Disqus Comments

Fri, 17 May 2013 01:29:00 -0400

stoweboyd:

I am finding that Disqus style comments are increasingly out of step on Tumblr. The overwhelming majority of interaction here is native Tumblr reposting, likes, and replies.

If you are a Tumblr non-user, I suggest you get an account and try it. Here’s a post where I describe how rich the ‘inside view’ is at Tumblr.

If you’d like to chat with me about something posted here you can try @stoweboyd on Twitter, click on the ‘contact me’ or ‘ask me anything’ in the right hand margin.

I never thought about it in that way. I am a big fan of comments. On the other hand it is true that most of the conversations are happening elsewhere. Facebook is probably on top of the list and has the big problem that I can’t access most of the interactions because they are happening outside of my reach on private profiles.

When I still used WordPress I tried different approaches to get at least the public interactions, mostly twitter, back on the page. But it is really hard, because the replies to a tweet with the link are more important than the tweet with the link itself and harder to get. Maybe I can find or create a solution that shows such things similar to the interactions like notes and likes on tumblr.

Maybe I have to accept that the things that happen around my post are temporarily and it’s not possible to archive everything. Tumblr itself will change and one day all the notes and reblogs may be gone. That isn’t much different to self hosted blogs that go down one day. Because the author doesn’t care anymore, went on or even died.

Best music video. Ever. from the first music video until...

Mon, 13 May 2013 04:45:26 -0400

Best music video. Ever*.

*from the first music video until today, 13.05.2013.

Free responsive tumblr themes

Sun, 12 May 2013 08:40:46 -0400

I spent hundreds of hours creating and customizing themes for my WordPress blog. When I started my English blog and choose tumblr for it, one of the reason was to tinker less with the system and more with the content. And it worked. Until now. I want something responsive and minimal. Here is the selection I made over the last days. I probably will switch around between them for some time until I am able do decide which one I like best. If you know other great themes, let me know.

Ashly

I love the focus on typography and how it makes all post types look great. Only the blog title is a bit too similar to the post titles.
Ashly by jxnblk

Bricolage

Similar quality with regard of readability but with a distinctive header.
Bricolage by stijnc

Euphony Responsive

Based on the CSS grid framework Melody. It needs some work. Especially the fonts. And I don’t like the like button.
Euphony Responsive by soumybag

svbtle tumblr theme

It’s complicated. The svbtle design is really good but I don’t want my blog to look like it is part of the network. I think it could be a great base for a custom theme, but I don’t have the time to customize it right now.
svbtle tumblr theme by Matteo Roversi Alternative: tm-svbtle

Banshee

Probably the most advanced theme. Though there isn’t much minimalism left. It looks great on all screen sizes but it could be more calm.
Banshee by nicoplv

Nocturnal

A good mix between minimalism and features.
Nocturnal by monstr92

The Pragmatist

I don’t like the colors. But the theme has many nice parts.
The Pragmatist by texburgher

Change. Always.

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:53:57 -0400

I needed some distractions. Wanted to learn new things on the side. Then it exploded and now I have to rearrange things.

#blognetz

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:48:57 -0400

#blognetz:

The weekend project grew even further and we just launched it’s website. Over 100 signups in the first hour. Right now we focus on german speaking blogs but are open to making it international.

Interaktive Visualisierung Österreichs Blogger

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 04:02:48 -0400

Interaktive Visualisierung Österreichs Blogger:

Another weekend project. This time I built an interactive visualization of Austrian bloggers. The description is in german, feel free to ask me any questions.

First I just wanted to play around with the new Vine embedding...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:52:58 -0400

First I just wanted to play around with the new Vine embedding code. But then I built a simple search engine.

It fetches vines from Twitter and therefore allows all search operators that work there too.

I hope you like it.

http://www.2-blog.net/projects/vine