Guerrero St. community and tasting space 18 Reasons (previously featured for their membership rollout) is introducing a four part coffee series with master roasters at some of SF’s best companies. The Sunday afternoon classes are $20 a pop or $70 for all four, including:
Sourcing, terroir, and varietals with Equator Coffees (9/13)
Seed to harvest with Barefoot Coffee Roasters (9/27)
Coffee processing with Ritual Roasters (10/18)
Brewing the perfect cup with De la Paz Coffee (10/25)
I’m glad that cupping doesn’t look to be a major focus (something about the slurping sounds makes me lose all thirst). The series seems to combine a good combination of roaster lectures, hands-on instruction, and coffee prepared to perfection. Buzz buzz.
At a recent art fair I was enamored with Lorena Pinon’s Kartwheel totes when I found out (to her credit) that the designs are actually made for moms. (Some might ask why I was excited by them being machine washable and capable of carrying bottles for myself.)
The local designer uses denim and cotton fabrics to create the bags she dreamed upon the birth of her firstborn. “I wanted a diaper bag that still represented who I was and refused to conform to the available options out there like the plastic covered bags or character driven designs,” she said of the inspiration for her Kritter Kram and Sling Kram bags. “To me it was important because this diaper was also was going to be a place where I stored my cell phone, wallet and keys.” The results are good-looking (and lest you think I’m alone, Pinon said she’s taken more than a few custom orders from people who wanted them for personal and non-diaper use).
I’m excited to be working with online magazine Notes on Design publisher Scott Chappell on a Women in Design series launching this week. The Q&As will feature female graphic, information, product, and application designers, and SF-based creator extraordinairre Timoni Grone (the brains behind an upcoming document sharing site Scribd redesign and local Chromatic meetups) is the first interviewee.
You can read the full conversation on Notes on Design, and I thought Grone’s ideas for improving Twitter.com usability were particularly interesting. How would you make it better, especially if you’ve been using a mobile or external app? (I, for one, would kill the long horizontal scanning first.)
NoD: Isn’t Twitter improving because of third party apps..and is that built-in flexibility not what makes it, in part, so hugely popular?
Timoni Grone: I didn’t mean to say that Twitter could improve only if third-party apps didn’t exist. Twitter started as an SMS-based social site, and a web interface has never been their priority.
Having said that, twitter.com is currently #14 on Alexa’s top 500–so, like it or not, a lot of people are *seeing* the web interface. And it’s still a bad experience. There’s a lot of functionality that you can get in third party apps that you simply don’t have on the site, and so far as I know, there’s no reason to not include things like:
Searching for a particular user name within your followers/followees (useful for @-replies when you forget a user’s nickname)
Options to sort followers/followees
Showing reciprocal relationships (particularly in the initial notification emails)
Showing @-conversations as a thread
Direct messages in a threaded “conversation” view
Expanding shortened URLs
An easy way to view media embeds (like Twitter-based photo sharing services)
Allowing users to save favorite searches
Showing the number of favorites on one’s tweets
None of the things I’ve mentioned would, or should, fundamentally change the way the site looks or behaves now. Twitter.com has the capacity to do all these things; it simply needs to make them available in a user-friendly way.
As to whether Twitter is improving because of third-party apps, absolutely it is. The API makes it easy for developers to do great things, which is awesome for all Twitter users, because then you have really brilliant developers who want to make apps, but maybe not work at Twitter, contributing to the overall experience and raising the bar for the next generation of Twitter clients. I’m not sure that potential users come to Twitter solely because they really enjoy checking out Twitter desktop clients, but there’s no question that using Twitter is a much smoother, more enjoyable experience if you use a third-party client rather than Twitter.com.
“Don’t wish your life away,” my high school religion teacher used to say. Good advice (especially before being followed by “God doesn’t like that”), but I’m finding myself wishing that the SF Artcrank was, well, tomorrow. The “poster party for bike people” at Chrome Bags on 4th St. on October 24 promises lovingly created works that–shock of all shocks–are only available at live events across the US and Canada, not online.
Why? Besides admission being free and the $30 pieces being eye-catching, the Artcrank organizers’ description is reason enough for me: “Bikes are the world’s most fun and accessible way to get around. Posters are the world’s most fun and accessible art form.”
At the close of this week’s SoCap conference, local startup Samasource introduced the microwork website App Test as a way for skilled workers to earn money as application testers for developers on Facebook Platform. The project was developed with fbFund REV, a three-month mentorship program, as part of the company’s efforts to connect women, refugees and youth with businesses that need their online work.
Samasource founder Leila Chirayath spoke with Women 2.0 last year about her team’s endeavors to provide work in data transfer, virtual assistance, and testing services.
A fellow Medill alum wrote about a new photographer in our midst: Roxana Marroquin has landed in the City by the Bay after working as a staff photographer for Time Out NY (for which she became skilled at being able to deliver shots under any conditions). In addition to portraits and food images, Marroquin creates fine art and says that there’s a complete split between her digital and traditional work. I like both.
I’m most excited for Indian Summer in SF, largely because it makes for great riding. One of the best cycling events (or events, period) I took part in last year was the Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program Revolution ride in Sonoma, an annual benefit to support the Berkeley-based disability sports organization’s programming. The non-profit offers sport, fitness and recreation programs, including wheelchair basketball, power soccer, and goalball (I didn’t know what it was either, but I’m pretty amazed).
After getting passed by multiple kids and Paraolympic athletes last September, I was so inspired that my parents are coming out this year to volunteer as outriders. On the 26th, Team Bonkers teammates and I will do the 50, 65 and 100 mile rides, and we’d love to have you join or support us. There are still a few ride spots available (you can write to revolution@borp.org), and tax-deductible donations can be made here: http://www.regathon.com/cgi-bin/regathon.cgi.
Your thoughts, words and miles are much appreciated. This organization kicks butt and I’m grateful to have your help in supporting their great work.
Sure this is an SF blog (soon to also be found at TheSanFranista.com), but there’s no reason admirable art on the other coast can’t get a nod from time to time. After all, it’s not everyday you get a note about “a vintage ice-cream truck turned mobile art space,” but then, not everyday is the debut of Mister ArtSee. The mobile arts lab is to serve as a traveling home to installations, sound-pieces, performances, and visual art following its September 10 introduction at NYC’s Half Gallery.
I’m eagerly awaiting a look at artist Elliott Arkin’s completed hybrid, which he describes this way: “Like a Swiss-army knife, Mister ArtSee will be equipped with numerous extensions—a platform stage, video projectors, a podium—with the ability to fold out and open up to facilitate such projects. The design seeks to achieve maximum versatility and world class artistry to fulfill the mission of bringing information and contemporary art to the areas it visits, especially neighborhoods, schools, playgrounds, parks and public spaces not typically served by traditional art institutions.”
Art-Z, the group behind the project, plans to unveil the fully functional version next April on National Arts Advocacy Day. I hope they’ll take a nod from the Weinermobile and start offering rides around the country in advance (in the name of arts education, of course).
With its well-curated exhibits and remarkable photo collection, the Museum of the African Disapora in SOMA should be an ideal location for the Project Heart event next Friday to benefit the International Cardiovascular Health Alliance’s disease prevention efforts in Ghana. I’d heard that cardiovascular disease was the main cause of death worldwide, but I hadn’t thought about the fact that billions of dollars annually get passed along to countries that are often ill equipped to cover them. In an effort to do something about it, a friend is helping fundraise for a mid-September trip to Elmina, Ghana, for a team of physicians, public health professionals, outreach workers, and educators. The September 11 event is a better chance to learn more, but I’m impressed with the organization’s efforts to provide communities with cheap and effective tools that could prevent up to 80 percent of the disease:
ICHA volunteer clinicians will train health workers at the Elmina Urban Health Centre, a local clinic that serves over 50,000 patients. Health workers will be taught to quantify risk of cardiovascular events, to promote stringent lifestyle modification, and to administer medications. ICHA’s community outreach volunteers will work with local community leaders to establish population-wide community initiatives including culturally appropriate campaigns for diet modification and exercise groups.
Put video cameras in the hands of four young Stanford grads and watch what they do with them (create highlights of the university’s research efforts with beautiful cinematography, to start). Former students of the school’s Persuasive Technology Lab are putting their interest in human psychology and filmmaking into practice for pay in the form of 30 to 90-second video documentaries for the SF company Songline.
The brief documentaries (micro-docs?) the company creates to showcase individuals talking about the impact of their work is an interesting approach to using technology to incite people to take action. At the SoCap conference this week, project partner Keenan Newman told me about the organizations that have commissioned Songline’s video production, including the Music Mural and Arts Project and Facebook Fund. (The best use I’ve seen is for visual donor outreach to young alumni. What better way to make chemical engineering lab innovations intriguing?)
Guerrero St. community and tasting space 18 Reasons (previously featured for their membership rollout) is introducing a four part coffee series with master roasters at some of SF’s best companies. The Sunday afternoon classes are $20 a pop or $70 for all four, including:
Sure this is an SF blog (soon to also be found at TheSanFranista.com), but there’s no reason admirable art on the other coast can’t get a nod from time to time. After all, it’s not everyday you get a note about “a vintage ice-cream truck turned mobile art space,” but then, not everyday is the debut of 