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A very interesting talk by food guru Michael Pollan, the author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma. It’s long, but it’s worth the time…

Last night was the first meetup for the New Work City coworking group. If you are not up on the whole coworking idea, basically a few people are trying to rent out shared office space so that different NYC-based freelancers can have a place to work. This space would be affordable and designed so that you are not isolated from the other people at the office. You are not necessarily working together on things, but you are surrounded by people who you (ideally) would be able to talk to about ideas, network with, ask for help, and maybe grab a beer with after work.

Right now the idea is in it’s early stages- they are still trying to find a space (there are some great candidates), figure out what people are looking for, and the big hurdle is finding enough people to ensure that the space will be able to pay for itself. Obviously office space in midtown Manhattan (the proposed area is between 34th Street and 14th Street, between 5th and 8th Ave.) is expensive, plus taking on a lease requires considerable money down as well as serious risk (or at least the potential of risk) for whoever signs it.

Anyway, there are tons of details and serious hurdles to the project, but it’s a great idea, and something Manhattan could definitely use. Right now they are looking for people to step up and commit so they will have some assurance that the numbers will add up by the projected June 1 move-in date.

One of the organizers, Tony Bacigalupo, sent out an email to everyone, giving some more information if they have not been following the coworking scene. Here are some excerpts:

1. What you can do now
As we discussed in the meeting, the best thing everyone can do to help at this point is spread the word. We need to hit a critical mass of interest in order to be able to get the space open, and I know that the interest is out there. So if you know anyone or any resources you can tap to reach people who’d be interested in New Work City, send them our way!

We’re working on the letters of commitment we discussed last night. We’ll keep you posted on that. This will be the most important; if we can get enough people to demonstrate their commitment to the space, we’ll be in great shape.

2. Links
* Jelly - Casual coworking in someone’s living room, once every Friday or so.
http://jellynyc.pbwiki.com/JellyBrooklyn2008-4-18 http://jellynyc.pbwiki.com/JellyBrooklyn2008-4-25

* CooperBricolage - Cafe-based coworking community based in Gramstand in the East Village.
You can show up anytime; there will be people there, some of whom are in the community and some who aren’t (we’re working on better identifying who’s who…stay tuned on that)
If you use Twitter, you can follow CooperBricolage here: @coobric
You can also see who’s broadcasted when they’re going to be at CooBric here: http://cooperbricolage.pbwiki.com/cooperBricolage+Signin+List

* Williamsburg Coworking at The Change You Want To See - A membership-based coworking space in Williamsburg. If you live in the general vicinity or are looking for a creative coworking community to join right now, you should check it out!

Photos of the “Balcony” space we looked at last night, this is the space we currently are hoping to get.

So it’s a great concept, and some people are really into it, but it (as always) comes down to the money. For $500 a month (the price of a full-time desk) you can’t get your own office but you could continue to work from hope and from coffee shops (most of which have free WiFi and don’t mind computer users camping out). Additionally, that $500 monthly could probably get you an extra bedroom in your apartment if you don’t mind the working-from-home thing. You’d lose out on the dedicated work space, conference room, office atmosphere, and camaraderie of your coworking peers, but it’s not an easy call.

Anyway, I’ve been looking into coworking for a long time and this is the first one in Manhattan that is worth considering. If you are the type of person that absolutely can’t work from home then it could be an amazing opportunity but if you are used to the pleasures/pitfalls of being a home-based web worker then it’s about balancing the benefits of working around (and potentially with) some very cool people with the fact that you are paying to commute.

I’m weighing my options and strongly considering it. I like to keep business expenses to a minimum when possible, but the thought of working around other people is intriguing. I’m not sure that I am interested in getting into midtown every day (maybe 20 minutes each way), but I am definitely not about to rule it out.

I’m pretty late to the BioShock party, but it’s been on my “To Play” list since well before the release. I’m getting a bit tired of big-name FPS games, but was really excited about this one. So much so in fact that I held off on buy into until I knew I would have the time to give it the proper attention.

As it turns out, BioShock is as good as everyone says it is. The game is beautifully designed, the game play is excellent, and the RPG elements clearly set it aside from every FPS of the last few years.

Unfortunately, the game is insanely unstable. As in, I am about five or so hours into the game and it has probably crashed about 50 times on me. This seems to be a widespread issue with the PC version, especially with Nvidia graphics from what I have read. I have the newest version with new graphic drivers and a system that is more than powerful enough to handle the game, but it just keeps crashing.

I’m trying to work with 2K’s tech support team.

Right now I am playing on a notebook with 3GB RAM, Intel X7900 processor, and Nvidia 8800 GTS M graphics, on Vista. Before calling 2K I made sure to shutdown any unnecessary programs/services and clean up the startup.

So far I have tried playing the game in DX9 mode with no intro (-dx9 -nointro). These have allowed me to get games up up to an hour here and there but I’ll have to restart about five times before I get lucky enough to get one of those.

I just entered Fort Frolic and at this point the game is unplayable. I’ve given it about 15 attempts, but every time the game crashes under a minute. I’ve tried a number of variables as to the in-game settings, but none seem to help.

Currently I am waiting to hear back from 2K. On my first call with them they just said to run “msconfig” and kill any unnecessary startup programs. I have been waiting about four hours on my support ticket with the advanced team on the next fix, so hopefully I’ll hear back from them tomorrow.

Update 4/12/08 - So no progress, actually things have gotten worse. This seems to be related to the Fort Frolic level, but now the game is crashing every few seconds and it actually corrupted a save file. I did get about an 30 min game out of the system by playing at the lowest levels on every setting at 800×600, but now even that is not working.

2K’s support staff had two tips (that is after an initial phone call where they said to make sure and shutdown any background processes or extra startup programs):

First Ticket:

Hello,

To further assist you with your issue we require you to send us a DXDIAG report from your computer. To do this:

- Hold down the Windows key on the keyboard and press “R”.
- Type “dxdiag” and click OK.
- This will open the DirectX Diagnostic Tool.
- Click the Save All Information button at the bottom.
- Save the file to your Desktop with the name “dxdiag.txt”.
- Attach the file to your reply to this email.

With the information contained within the DXDIAG report we will be able to investigate your issue further.

Second Ticket:

Try running the game in DirectX 9 mode. To do this, go to the Windows Start menu, click on Games in the right-hand column, right click on the Bioshock icon and select “Play DirectX 9″.

Third Ticket:

Hello,

To run the game in Windows Compatibility mode.

- right click on the shortcut for the game.
- left click on Properties.
- click on the Compatibility Tab.
- tick the box called “Run this program in compatibility mode for.”
- select a version of Windows to run the game in.
- click on apply.
- click on ok.

Then, do the following:

1. Delete all temporary files from your system.
WIN9X/ME
Navigate to C:\Windows\Temp and delete all files in this folder.
Win2000/XP
Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\*Your User Name*\Local Settings\Temp and delete all the files in this folder.
You may need to turn on the ability to view hidden files and folders to do this. To do so, double click My Computer, then click Tools and Options. Then click View and select the option to view all hidden files.

2. Close down all background tasks.
To do this click Start, then Run, then type MSCONFIG and click OK. From there click on the tab marked startup.
For Windows XP users click the button marked as Disable All, then click Apply and Close.
For Non Windows XP users, please remove the ticks from all of the boxes apart from the below four and then click Apply and close.
LoadPowerProfile
ScanRegistry
SystemTray
TaskMonitor
Once this has been done, please reboot the computer and then try the game again.

I am still tinkering with the registry and I might start to experiment with driver versions. I am going to try it on a few different computers as well, though I’ll have to find a way to move my save files over…

Update 4/13/08: No word from 2K yet (it’s the weekend), but I have had some modest success in getting Bioshock running.

I got tired of waiting for help and took a pretty big step and moved to the newest Vista 32 drivers from LaptopVideo2Go. These are modded drivers and INF files specifically built for notebooks and it’s an incredible resource if you want to do some tinkering.

Next I started trying to isolate the game settings to see what was causing rhe problem. It seems like Bioshock is only crashing and freezing when the game quality settings are on medium or high. So keeping them at their lowest points and playing the game at 1024×768 seems to get me a relatively stable environment. If I do this and the game survives the first save, map screen, and store screen then it is generally good to go for as long as I want to play.

The game will crash if there are any interruptions though. For example if I accidentally hit caps lock or the Windows button the game will lock up and I will not be able to get back into it from windows. The good news though is that the gameplay is improved overall and the game will not nearly freeze every time I use the camera (which was happening before).

So for a few days now Starbucks has been saying that they would have some very big news at noon (EST) today. Before anyone even had a chance to get interested news broke that is was an “everyday blend” of drop coffee.

I’m not a Starbucks fan, but I live in Manhattan, so there is one about two blocks from my apartment. I made the trek down there an arrived at 12:01pm, looking forward to the crowds of people and screaming fans who were eagerly awaiting the Pike’s Place roast. As it turns out my local Starbucks, which is normally packed was almost empty (I think due to some maintenance this morning) and rather than some sort of event it was just the same old. The person behind the counter did inform me about the new blend, which I ordered (medium, for $2.11) and promptly left with. Apparently there are a few NYC tasting events, but this was clearly not one of them.

So far, lot of hype, very little delivery.

As for the Pike’s Place roast it’s OK. Actually I like it better than typical Starbucks coffee but it still falls far short of the overpriced boutique coffees that we New Yorkers spend our weekends tracking down (Cafe Grumpy, Think, Abraco, etc). The flavor is still very Starbucks, that is to say over-roasted and on the bitter side, but it is slightly more mellow than the typical Starbucks cup and you can almost get hints of flavors aside from “roast”.

The good news is that the people at Starbucks (I hesitate to call them baristas) will be making the coffee fresh every thirty minutes (including grinding it) so you can expect it to be the fresh coffee in the store. This should make some difference (the grinding more than the thirty minutes part), but don’t expect anything dramatic.

Verdict: If you have to go to Starbucks, this is probably the thing to get. If you live in any city or reasonably sized town, there are probably better options available to you. That said, this is a big step for Starbucks in the freshness wars. The next big move is when they get those Clover machines in stock.

Okay, it’s 9:30pm at night and you just got home from a dinner. You worked a full day and did some reading when you have a chance but you have a few hundred items to get through if you want to stay on top of today’s news.

Do you:

1 - Read it all. [ RSS is a critical way to stay on top of news! ]

2 - Poach the best, read it, can the rest.

3 - Save it for tomorrow.

4- Read the work stuff, delete the fun stuff. (Over 4b, the converse.)

4 - Mark all as read. [If it's important you'll find out about it sooner or later.]

Any replies would be greatly appreciated.

That’s right… Guiness Cupcakes!

Also, this post is in the process of being (Yahoo) buzzed so definitely vote for it! I think we are all interested in seeing what Buzz is capable of.

If you are running Flash v 9.0.115.0 with Firefox 2.0.0.1.2 on Windows XP there is a chance that Flash is not working properly. You will know this because Flash videos (youtube, etc) will play for about two seconds, with no sound, and then just stop. Flash will function normally in Internet Explorer though.

This is a problem with Flash. The word is that it should be updated with the next version.

If you want the full explanation, read this thread. I just did, and I don’t recommend doing so.

If you want the fast and dirty way to fix it, here goes:

1) uninstall flash

2) install flash 9.0.47.0. Here is the page if you want it…

2a) you’ll have to reinstall Flash again for IE (but now that Firefox works properly again, you won’t really need IE will you?)

That’s it. Flash should work, but you will have an old version. When the next version comes out you might want to muster up the courage to upgrade, but bookmark this page just in case.