Why Google+ Is Doomed

Some good insight from Farhad Manjoo:

[A] social network isn’t a product; it’s a place. Like a bar or a club, a social network needs a critical mass of people to be successful—the more people it attracts, the more people it attracts. Google couldn’t have possibly built every one of Facebook’s features into its new service when it launched, but to make up for its deficits, it ought to have let users experiment more freely with the site.

[Update: Nick Bilton brings up a good point: Even if Google+ fails to compete, it is unlikely to die anytime soon]

Dance, My Esmeralda

As I mentioned in my discussion of my new Beyerdynamic headphones, I’ve recently been diving back into my old music to re-experience it again under better circumstances. Here’s something that I just unearthed:

One of the most significant things I got out of my high school education was getting introduced to the French musical Notre Dame De Paris (thanks Mme. Girondel!) . I don’t think I fully appreciated at the time, but the production featured top-notch production values, spectacular choreography, and most importantly, beautiful music.

The musical concludes with Quasimodo crouching over his precious dead Esmeralda, imploring her to dance and sing once more, insisting that he’ll join her once more in the after life. To me, the musical presents a stunning meditation on the whims of fate. The deformed Quasimodo is forced to watch as his love is destroyed by forces beyond his control. None of us get to choose the hands we’re dealt and sometimes we can’t even control how they’re played. That’s the ultimate tragedy.

The English translation just doesn’t do this song justice. It’s times like this when only the beauty of French can fully convey the splendor of emotion that is being felt here. Even back then, I grasped how achingly beautiful this song is. Give it a few whirls. Maybe you’ll feel the same way.

If you’re interested in checking out the musical, I would recommend this version of the MP3 album. Every song in this thing is spectacular.

The Beyerdynamic DT 880 Headphones – A Brief Review

On the recommendation of Marco Arment, I decided to invest in Beyerdynamic DT 880 headphones. When I purchased them on Amazon, they cost $225. Prior to this week, I’ve never spent more than $30 on a pair of headphones. So why the extravagance?

More and more, I find myself spending a lot of my time listening to music that I buy online. But more importantly, I find myself wondering what I’m missing. A lot of work goes into producing any album, and by playing them back on cheap-o earbuds or crappy speakers, we’re cheating ourselves out of the sonic fullness that we’re paying good money for. So I made the decision to splurge on one good set of headphones, rather than opting for an endless supply of generics.

After one day of use, I can safely say that the Beyerdynamic DT 880 headphones will change the way I listen to music. Not only are they super comfortable, they make my music sound amazing and bring out nuances that I just don’t hear through my speakers, and certainly not my earbuds. I was particularly impressed by how they render classical music, all of which sounds gorgeous. The day I got these, I spent more time listening to music than I had in the previous few weeks combined. My only regret is that some of my music from years ago was encoded at a lower MP3 bitrate than was optimal; time to go back into my old CD collection and do some ripping!

They are not meant to be used in a work-place as they are somewhat “open,” meaning they are designed for sound to leak out the sides. Anecdotally, I can say that the sound leakage is negligible, but I still wouldn’t use them in public. Instead, used strictly for private listening, these headphones will reveal things about your music you never thought possible.

Highly recommended.

The Quest for the Perfect Run

The NYTimes, on the search for an injury-free way of running:

We were once the greatest endurance runners on earth. We didn’t have fangs, claws, strength or speed, but the springiness of our legs and our unrivaled ability to cool our bodies by sweating rather than panting enabled humans to chase prey until it dropped from heat exhaustion. Some speculate that collaboration on such hunts led to language, then shared technology. Running arguably made us the masters of the world.

So how did one of our greatest strengths become such a liability? “The data suggests up to 79 percent of all runners are injured every year,” says Stephen Messier, the director of the J. B. Snow Biomechanics Laboratory at Wake Forest University. “What’s more, those figures have been consistent since the 1970s.” Messier is currently 11 months into a study for the U.S. Army and estimates that 40 percent of his 200 subjects will be hurt within a year. “It’s become a serious public health crisis.”

Wedding Photography Is a Dangerous Game

Maybe I don’t want to get into this industry after all…

[O]ne groom, disappointed with his wedding photos, decided to sue. The photographers had missed the last dance and the bouquet toss, the groom, Todd J. Remis of Manhattan, said.

But what is striking, said the studio that took the pictures, is that Mr. Remis’s wedding took place in 2003 and he waited six years to sue. And not only has Mr. Remis demanded to be repaid the $4,100 cost of the photography, he also wants $48,000 to recreate the entire wedding and fly the principals to New York so the celebration can be re-shot by another photographer.

Dan and Priscilla’s Wedding

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles. While there, I worked with Stephen Tobolowsky to put the finishing touches on our upcoming live show. I also had the opportunity to photograph Dan Trachtenberg’s wedding.

Dan and I have been friends for a couple years now (he’s guested on the /Filmcast a few times, always to great effect). It was an honor to capture images from his big day with his bride Priscilla, who looked absolutely stunning in her wedding dress. The wedding took place at Marvimon in Los Angeles. Beautiful location, great food, amazing people. I could not have asked for a better wedding to shoot!

Here is a video I put together of the festivities. It is my first attempt at assembling a video slideshow out of my photos. Hope y’all enjoy it:

The Wedding of Dan Trachtenberg and Priscilla Hernandez from David Chen on Vimeo.

Amazon’s Kindle Weighs More When It’s Loaded with Books

Does the Kindle weigh more when it’s loaded with books? A fascinating answer from the NYTimes:

“In principle, the answer is yes,” said John D. Kubiatowicz, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.

“However,” he said, “the amount is very small, on the order of an atogram,” or 10–18 grams. “This amount is effectively unmeasurable,” he went on, since even the most sensitive scales have a resolution of only 10–9 grams. Further, it is only about one hundred-millionth as much as the estimated fluctuation from charging and discharging the device’s battery. A Kindle, for example, uses flash memory, composed of special transistors, one per stored bit, which use trapped electrons to distinguish between a digital 1 and a 0.

The Arrogance of Aaron Sorkin

I love Aaron Sorkin, but Nathan Rabin’s hilarious, exhaustive takedown of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip completely nails what’s wrong with the show (and with Sorkin himself):

[F]ailed television shows come and go; why does Studio 60 obsess us so?
The answer has a lot to do with arrogance. In premise and execution, Studio 60 was a work of unbearable, overweening arrogance. It began with making the lead character of Matt Albie both a clear Sorkin surrogate and a writer so ridiculously romanticized even M. Night Shyamalan might say, “Get over yourself, dude. You’re a fucking writer, not Jesus’ younger brother, the one God really likes.”