turntable / as the table turns

• I went back to the USA for the first time in 7.5 years - I had an awesome trip!
• I presented at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco
• Xero won two Webby awards
• I turned 40
• I’m sporadically Twittering
• I’m addicted to Word Scramble on the iPhone
• I’ve been on a roll reading good books with a common theme: non-fiction, history, mostly about the American northeast (where I grew up), many about epic pioneers of industry overcoming impossible odds, usually involving some element of thrilling suspense and murder
• We’re doing some long overdue renovations to our house. In the clean up, I found a box of mixtapes that I’m now dubbing to MP3. Reminds me of this article about the Walkman. Some of the tapes I found go back to my high school days!
• I still need to upload my predictions for 2009 that I presented at the start of the year. I’ve already nailed some of my biggies!
• Coming up: I’ll be speaking at WordCamp in Wellington and Web Directions in Sydney.

This demo of Parallex, a plug-in for Freebase, shows multi-faceted searches which you can visualise on a map or a timeline. The narrator snidely comments that you can’t do that on Google, but actually you can with Google Experimental, as well as the Google Visualization API. Nevertheless, it’s still pretty impressive.

Freebase Parallax: A new way to browse and explore data from David Huynh on Vimeo.

I’m going to be doing a condensed version of my Skyrize rapid prototyping in Flash workshop at the upcoming Adobe user group meeting in Wellington. Should be good fun.

Make sure to register here http://wellingtoncsug.eventbrite.com/

When: Tuesday, 3 Feb, 5.30pm
Where: Modica Group, Level 4, Anvil House, 138-140 Wakefield Street, Wellington

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Theoretically, I hold the title for ‘Visionary of the year 2008′.

How well did I do? Can I hold my title? Will Kiwis re-elect a tall poppy? Come along to this year’s Unlimited Potential ‘Blogger’s Predict 2009′ event.

Price: FREE (price includes free pizza and beer!!)
When: Tuesday 29 January 2009, 5:30pm
Where: Wellington Chamber of Commerce, Level 28, The Majestic Centre, 100 Willis Street, Wellington

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I never thought I’d see this again!

Net Cafe, a TV show in the 90’s, did an episode on music and the web with a really good interview of my old friend Dan Prothero, along with a cringe worthy interview of my brother Peter and me.

The clip of my brother and me starts 7 minutes in. Way back machine, indeed.

As a present for the kids for Xmas I came up with this idea to create a pinball machine. I wanted them to be able to design their own ramps, tunnels and traps and the boys LOVE their Lego.

I’m no builder (quite the opposite) but I found this incredibly easy to build. And it’s incredibly fun to design, play and perfect.

I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, but suddenly I’ve been reconnected to a whole bunch of old friends from high school, university, even summer camp, all thanks to Facebook. Some of these people I’d completely forgotten about, some I still can’t remember (!) and some I’d thought about every couple years and even googled, with no results.

This has created a really odd and somewhat unnerving phenomenon for me. People I considered a distant memory now tell me about their daily minutia. Friends from different parts of my life mix together in a schizophrenic cocktail party filled with small talk. Memories long forgotten are resurfacing.

To me this is interesting because it represents a generational turning point. My generation is reconnecting in a way previous generations never experienced. Long lost friends and acquaintances are reuniting from across the years and across the world.

Meanwhile, the current generation were ‘born connected’. They will always be connected, they can never lose touch. Is it a burden to carry around all that baggage? In different phases of my life I’ve had the chance to discover different aspects of my personality and form very different relationships. I wonder how that works when all the people you have ever known are observing and commenting on your every step?!

In response to some great comments in my last post about the US and NZ elections…

Auntie Helen and Cullen made some highly unpopular but incredibly smart decisions by conserving cash in anticipation of lean times ahead. Despite being labeled as lefty socialists, they’ve acted as true fiscal conservatives, while so-called conservatives wanted to give tax hand outs to people that didn’t need them.

Meanwhile, they presided over one of the best periods of economic growth in NZ history. When I arrived in NZ in 2001 Kiwis welcomed me to the 3rd world, wondering why I moved from America to scrape by on the Kiwi-Peso. Helen and Cullen don’t necessarily deserve all the credit for the boom, nevertheless Kiwis did extraordinarily well during their administration. The vast majority of people who whinged about not getting tax cuts were simply being greedy and selfish.

An esteemed colleague of mine says we need to grow the pie, not just slice it up. Helen did both. I doubt John Key will do either. Like self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives in the US, they say one thing and do the complete opposite as beautifully portrayed in this cartoon and this brilliant NY Times interactive chart.

In his speech John Key begrudgingly managed to squeeze in a few obligatory comments about the rest of the country that didn’t vote for him. But he was completely snide in his manner. Ironically, I think that’s what so many people disliked about Helen and Cullen: their manner. Many people voted based on the personalities of the candidates, not their policies.

I don’t think that John Key is the worst person for the job. Brash and English would have been far worse. And it’s not like he’s as evil and devastating as Bush. However, I don’t trust Key. He has contradicted himself far too many times - in shamefully transparent maneuvers to secure votes, never as genuine epiphanies. He brings no new ideas to the table, every idea he has is either old thinking from the bygone century or stolen from Helen. He has no nuance, he see things as black or white, good or bad, and therefore responds with blunt instruments when surgical precision is required. To add insult to injury, he’s partnering with ACT, a party with a truly primeval worldview.

In a time when world leaders, particularly key allies like the US and Oz, were undermining the fundamental tenets of democracy and raiding their economies for the benefit of corporate profiteering Helen defiantly and vocally opposed these tyrants. She defined New Zealand as a bastion of independent spirit and thoughtful leadership in a world gone mad. A special place of enlightened people.

Now that these same allies have finally come to their senses and leapfrogged ahead with brilliant leadership, NZ has arbitrarily reverted to choosing a mediocre, unoriginal, uninspired leader who has no true convictions and no real direction.

It’s a damn shame.

On the one hand: immeasurable pride…

I’m still wrapping my head around Obama winning, even though I called it back in January. It’s been incredibly inspiring to see him make it happen. He is a master. He hit every note exactly right. There has not been a more inspiring candidate in my lifetime. I never thought there would ever be a politician as focused, smart and inspiring as Bobby Kennedy was. Even Obama’s family has the beauty and aura of the Kennedy’s. I’m loving and savoring every second of it. I still can’t believe it’s actually happened.

I highly recommend these two photo galleries of Obama: The big picture and this campaign photo journal.

It has changed my view of the ‘old country’. I swore that if John McCain won I wouldn’t go back to the US, even to visit. Now I’m actually looking forward to visiting. I haven’t been back since moving to NZ in 2001, so it’s going to be quite a trip when it happens.

On the other hand, total disgust…

On this end of the world we also had an election. It was the polar opposite to the US election. I predicted that Helen would squeak by, but even she seemed tired of Helen. She had no more fire in the belly.

So New Zealand elected an investment banker as Prime Minister. Wow, that’s really moving in the right direction. You know, because if there’s anyone you can trust to manage this economy it would be an investment banker, right?

John Key’s acceptance speech was sickening, especially compared to the vision and eloquence of Obama’s acceptance speech. I know New Zealand has issues with tall poppies but he was just a dickhead. All he could talk about was winning. He didn’t have anything to say about the country or about the challenges we’re facing.

Helen Clarke made me so proud to be Kiwi. She was deadly smart, passionate, with a holistic view of the country and the world.

John Key is the opposite. He has only one concern - money. And that blind focus on money is useless when it comes to leading a country. Joining forces with Act, a far right party of small minded Luddites, proves what a backwards and clueless turn this country has just taken.

The smartest thing John Key did was adopt every one of Helen’s policies during his campaign. His whole platform was “I’m the same as Helen, but prettier.” With Helen gone he’s going to be at a complete loss for ideas and way out of his depths. Which means things are about to go tits up in New Zealand.

One journalist wrote that New Zealand voted for change for change’s sake and that the voting public “just got bored”.

It’s sad, but painfully true. That’s been the attitude of so many people I’ve talked to.

It’s a strange twist for me to be so extraordinarily proud of the way America voted and so disgusted by the way New Zealand voted. Very strange feelings, indeed.

Four years ago I got in deep shit with my internet provider. My only way of keeping up with the 2004 election was downloading torrents of the Daily Show and my monthly bill went from $50 to $1400 (not that I paid those extortionist fees - let’s just say the provider settled out of court).

Jump ahead to the current election, four years later. Now I watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report via the internet directly on their respective sites. I got to see the debates on YouTube and MyDebates.org. I get to see the SNL clips and other news clips on blogs like onegoodmove.org and CrooksAndLiars.

For some reason I thought that I would stay dispassionate about this election. My feeling is that whoever wins America is far too morally bankrupt and corrupt to change in any significant and meaningful way. Red or Blue, the differences are really not at all “fundamental” as Obama/Biden love to say.

They say that the election should be a giveaway to the Democrats. What they decline to factor in is that this year the candidate is a black guy with a terrorist-sounding name. That’s the major reason why he doesn’t have an insurmountable lead. That and the fact that most American’s have such warped values: elite is bad, thinking is dangerous, violence is good, science is mythology, mythology is truth.

If Obama does win, clearly it will be an important milestone in American history. It will offer the world a glimmer of hope that America might actually be willing to confront its demons and maybe even conquer them. If he loses, it really will be the downfall of the US. I’m pretty convinced that if he loses it would cause race riots, and rightfully so. If it did cause riots then the only hope is that it might spark a full scale revolution.

Win or lose, I’m so incredibly proud of Obama. He has been working his ass off, looking out for best the interests of the “average” American, standing up for his convictions with complete clarity, honesty and determination. Unlike any politician from the past 20 years*, he wants to be President to unite the world, to make it a more fair and decent place, not simply to be leader of the “most powerful nation on earth”. (* if you rule out Nader as a politician).

I can’t wait for November 4th, but if I really search my soul I probably don’t want it to end. I think that this election has been one of the most gripping, revealing and admittedly entertaining.