http://blaisefreeman.com Just another WordPress weblog Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:02:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm sorry, that page no longer exists (or you mistyped.) Try going to the homepage to find your way around this site. http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/game-example Wordpress is an excellent web-publishing platform. It's open-source, free, widely supported, and has excellent documentation. There are a wide range of themes. More importantly, you have a tremendous amount of room for customizing templates. This website has a highly customized tempalte. Some tips: you can make the home page whatever you ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/wordpress VenueCo-op is an experimental local events listings service. It is currently undergoing research and development. The basic concept is to work with local venues and musicians to create a database of upcoming performances. This database will be open to the public. Webmasters could build websites about local events using this database. ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/venuecoop_overview Venues input information about themselves and their events into our central database. Then, our web service organizes the information into a variety of formats for redistribution. VenueCoop listings can be used for just about anything, such as printed publications; websites specializing in local events; venues' on-line calendars; blogs; and even email. VenueCo-op ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/how-does-it-work Membership Fees. You must be affiliated with a venue in order to input information into the database. We do not offer sponsored listings or advertisements because they reduce the quality and usefulness of information. We do not charge fees to access the information either, for the same reason. Access ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/business-model Free content and open-source standards lower barriers to entry for webmasters, encouraging competition, innovation, and niche coverage. Users then benefit from better websites and organizations benefit from greater exposure. Contributors have a strong incentive to focus on quality when each entry can be used by any number of publications, websites, and ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/why-open-content A few competitors have embarked on very interesting projects, ranging from social networking to integration with other web services. Online local events is a burgeoning market, with tremendous room for growth. Unfortunately, existing local events databases are not interoperable; they cannot be accessed by the public; and they are inevitably incomplete. ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/the-competition The choice of specifications is actually less important than our model: membership fees, free access, and standardized structured listings. I say this because as an open-source project oher people will expand upon our work. Unlike most open-source projects, we have a sustainable business model for maintaining and continuing ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/the-technical-side If there was a fully decentralized method for disseminating knowledge about local events I would be all for it, but the current technology is not sufficient. In fact, VenueCoop will be an advocate for dsitributed specifications. http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/centralized-versus-distributed Instead of One comprehensive website, people should find multiple small, overlapping sites that better meet their interests and style http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/filter-theory Widgets are wonderful because they are lightweight and require less advanced programming than full-blown desktop applications. This Apple Store Event Widget could be extended with the Venue Co-op web service into a powerful local events widget. The web service would offer an ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/events-widget Remixing, mash-ups, collaborative artistry... best book ever. Victionary published an incredible art book called Neighborhood which follows the metamorphosis of a series of stuffed animals as they are passed from artist to artist across the world. The book is covered in felt and is absolutely gorgeous. At $30 from Amazon ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/neighborhood Mega-Sculpture Casts Big Shadow in Allen ArtBuilding By Betty Gabrielli / photos by Cary Foster January 24, 2005 For the last six months, Blaise Freeman’s minor—in studio art—has engaged him in the creation of a monumental project that might seem to some a far cry from his major—sociology. But Freeman sees no incongruity ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/my-dinosaur I have $60,000 in student loans. Paying them off in 15 years costs about $560/month. My total payments will be just over $100,000. Two problems arise when dealing with debt this large. One, how am I going to pay this monthly bill? Two, how will I contribute to my savings ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/debt-student-loans Give away classical music for free: classical music is mostly written by dead guys, so you don't have to worry about copyright musicians want a live audience and generally dislike the recording sessions of crummy measure by measure orchestras are being replaced by digital reproductions all over classical groups and symphonies are disappearing at ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/classical-music Sample Tracks - each musician gives a number of sample tracks for download like on myspace. Anyone can share these tracks freely, or share links to them. Band Sample Aggregator software that lets you search for musicians are download their sample tracks. Combine this Aggregator with Local Events software to create custom podcasts ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/musical-discovery Web Services are at their infancy. As of 2007, there is a substantial array of standardized tools and specifications for creating web services. Examples include SOAP and XML-RPC. "Loosely Coupled: The Missing Pieces of Web Services" by Doug Kaye, identifies many obstacles to effective web service implementation that have yet ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/web-service-challenges Lydia and I moved to Maine in January, 2007. Lydia has an internship at the Marine Animal Lifeline, which rehabilitates injured and sick seals. She sometimes has to handle the seals to clean their pools or take blood; apparently they are a handful. Lydia describes the baby seals as ... http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/maine Venue Co-op is an experimental local events listings service. I began research in 2005, flabbergasted by how difficult it is to find out what is going on around town. Newspapers are some help, but I would expect better information to be on the internet and it's just not there. http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/venuecoop The following photo set shows the development of my dinosaur, from clay model to its installation with my friends and family. http://blaisefreeman.com/posts/dino_photo_tour