clue free

Yet another DEVO-hat logo: oFono, a joint venture between Intel and Nokia to create an open source mobile telephony stack. Considering the parties involved, the site is surprisingly anemic. Maybe they just don’t want to lay out the cash. Open source panacea in effect, y’all.

Intel wants to be sure it has a horse in the mobile device race, and Nokia… well, seeing how anemic the Ovi store is versus the install base, Nokia seems to be adopting a shotgun approach to the future. Ordinarily, you could cut the big fish some slack while it got its act together (see: Microsoft discovering the Internet.) The problem is that it’s up against big fish Microsoft, Apple, Google, RIM, and the little guppy that could: Palm. Right now, Nokia can’t afford to pull another 3650 out of its ass.

Catching up on a massive backlog of DVDs. It’s striking that, as 50-something nerds from Ohio, Jerry and Mark still out-BladeRunnerJapanNanotech the apes from Polysics.

What’s the deal with all the energy domes lately? Are we looking at the new swoosh?  Was DEVO 30 years ahead of their time (again)?  We did have a primate running the country for eight years–not four–after all.

This from the Brandthropology manifesto:

We believe that to be globally successful, it is as important to know how to devolve a brand’s equities as it is to know how to evolve them.

Those responsible have kind of a cute flash-based site.

Some days, it feels so good to be a web geek. Earlier this week, I [two years late] discovered jQuery, a JavaScript library. It takes most of the pain out of making your fancified whiz-bang Web 2.0 pages go, go, go. Even better than that, their logo is based on the DEVO energy dome (their former tagline being “new wave JavaScript”.) I get the feeling they won’t end up getting sued over it, unlike some megacorporations.

Today, I find this:

Ajaxorized has released a GPL licensed image manipulation script called Phototype. Phototype is a client/server-side library, based on prototype, which provides image manipulation functionality. On the server, it uses the PHP/GD framework to render the image. While the client is an interface that makes these features easily accessible in JavaScript, including the ability to chain effects.

Phototype supports: image rotatation, resizing, flipping, drop shadows, effects, grey scale, captions, as well as an addChuckNorris() method [for all you Walker, Texas Ranger fans]

DEVO last night, and now this on The Cellar this morning. This giant ball balances the Taipei 101 skyscraper as it sways due to winds and earthquakes.  Similar counterweights have been used in other skyscrapers, including Citigroup Center.

Click through for video proof that it’s sweet deep inside.

(Photo credit: winkshot)

Just got home from the DEVO show in Williamsburg. They can still put on a great show, even in their 90s and in a different time zone. What a treat to hear Secret Agent Man live — if only they’d played Wiggly World…

Completely overshadowing the thrill of seeing my first favorite band, though, was meeting up with Paulyboy and then Bunche, and then seeing the looks on their faces as they recognized each other, former friends-of-best-friends. It warms the cockles, dunnit?

It’s a small and tiny world. And wiggly, too.