Travis in Berlin

NEW BLOG!

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:31:00 +0000

FYI, I'm tumbleblogging now over here: travisjtodd.soup.io

It's a lot easier than this blog. Little less time-consuming. Little less creative. Same satisfying flavor.

Sorry, but it's time.

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:04:00 +0000

Hello all,

I'm sorry I haven't kept up with this blog or podcasts lately. My life is starting to accelerate at a pace that my digital presence can't keep up with. Most notably, Grow Votes is starting to gain a lot of momentum, and we're getting really heavy into development. Therefore, I'm going to abandon this blog for a while in favor of our company's blog: http://growvotes.org/blog/

I hope that it's shed some light on German culture, travel and my time here. I may post from time to time in the future, but don't hold your breath.

Thanks everyone for following along!

Love,

Travis J. Todd

Top 10 Misused Hand Gestures

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:45:00 +0000

http://www.languagetrainers.co.uk/blog/2007/09/24/top-10-hand-gestures/

This is a great article and a must-read for anyone traveling abroad. You don't want to get caught in Germany thinking your complimenting someone's cooking but really calling them an anus.

Shopping the way it was meant to be...

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:02:00 +0000

If you go to a store in Germany, no one asks you within the first 30 seconds, "Can I help you look for something?" I worked in retail in the States and this was a company policy. In Germany it's implied that "no, you're just looking" unless you are by fact looking helplessly lost, then only reluctantly an employee will ask if you need their assistance. They really get it culturally. They were offered capitalism and got to choose the best parts and leave the others by the road side.

This cultural difference is most pointedly exemplified in a story I heard last night. It's about retail behemoth, Wal-mart. Wal-mart tried to come to Germany, but jsut couldn't figure out why people we afraid of their stores. It wasn't that they didn't like big-box discount places, they have OBI and IKEA. The problem was the people. When someone is standing at the door, smiling and welcoming every person, the Germans probably thought he was a nutcase. And when old ladies were asked if they needed help with their bags on the way out, they turned and ran, because the only people who'd ask you that in Germany are people who are trying to steal your bags.

And it's not that the Germans are impolite, it's that they're too polite. They don't feel like they should intrude into your life. You should be free to live you life in comfort without being harassed by other people. Ah, Wal-mart, proving Southern Hospitality doesn't quite cut the Senf mustard in Germany.

Podcast Update

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:38:00 +0000

Hey all. Just wanted to say that I've been working for about 3 days on Part Three of the Road Trip podcast series, and iMovie is doing nothing but crashing. Everytime it crashes it does some weird thing by sending all the movies to the trash and saving over the previous version of my movie. It's very frustrating. So, I'm going to get iMovie '08 today, snd hopefully have something for you guys soon. Sorry it's taken so long.

German Crowds

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:30:00 +0000

So, on Friday we went to see Seeed, who are an awesome reggae/hip-hop band and Berlin natives. They were welcomed home in open arms and sold out three amphitheater-sized shows in a matter of days. The show was epic, with a massive stage, costumes, set-changes and some of the most kick-ass reggae/dancehall music this side of Kingston.

This is one of many live shows I've gone to in the past month (I saw New Zealand's own The Black Seeds twice). And I've come to another cultural observation about Germans: They love going out to concerts and will do about anything the band tells them too. Like when the lead singer says "put your hands in the air!" no one is "too cool" as in America to get involved. They love to clap along, even the ones with no rhythm. They also love to buy merchandise and dance their white guy 80s moves. This is absolutely wonderful for a band, but I couldn't help thinking...

These Germans will do anything for a good showman with a microphone. Give a man a stage and a Sennheiser and the crowd wave their hands just as Simon says. It made perfect sense all of a sudden how Hitler brainwashed them all some 70 odd years ago.

America, the beautiful?

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:23:00 +0000

So, I've been living in Berlin now for about six months and you really get a good (well, unsettling) perspective on America from this great a distance. You start to see how identical the Bushies are running things to the Stasi of Cold War East Berlin. Warrentless wiretapping, building walls along the borders, ...

What struck me today is there is this song, that was #1 on several European music charts, peaked at #3 on the German Singles Chart and was released more than a year and a half ago. And no, it's not some crazy house music by an obscure European band. Its the song "Dear Mr. President" by American artist, Pink.

Here's a link to a video and lyrics: http://becauseimaddicted.blogspot.com/2007/07/pink-dear-mr-president.html

What struck me most about this song is that it is almost ever-present on the radio here. I could turn on the radio right now and bet I could find it, but to my disbelief, no one I talked to in the States had ever heard of it.

So, it's pretty obvious to me that the Republican-backed Clear Channel Communications, which owns almost all the big media outlets in America has had it blacklisted. I can't help imagining what would happen to someone like Vietnam War era Bob Dylan or John Lennon in a political landscape like we have today.

So, lets use our last front of freedom, the internet, and at least give it a listen and pass it to a couple friends. And while you're at it, see Das Leben der Anderen The Lives of Others.

Re: "Reply All"

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 09:36:00 +0000

Lemme get my two bits in here. If you're going to send out a mass email full of new baby photos, hilarious car accidents or cheeky men v. women jokes to a huge group of your friends/family/coworkers you're assuming your sense of humor and opinion meshes with or supersedes their's. So, you shouldn't get annoyed when one of the recipients (either inadvertently or deliberately) clicks "reply all" and forces their opinion onto the same unfortunate group of people. Such is the nature of emails. If you'd like to share a hilarious story about your weekend complete with embarrassing pictures maybe you shouldn't think about littering one's already over-crowded email inbox, but post it to your blog where you can delicately control the comments of your said friends/family/coworkers. end rant.

Bought Some Books

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:45:00 +0000

DDR Design
Originally uploaded by Travis J. Todd

Realized I haven't been reading at all like I used to in the states. So I went out and bought some novels and two design inspiration books. Click the photo above to check out what I bought and some descriptions (link to flickr).

The Todcast - Episode 10: Chapter 1

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 07:39:00 +0000

In part one of a multi-part series, we join Travis and Sofie on their whirlwind tour of Germany and Switzerland. In a rented Peugeot 307 cabrio, the two travel to Leipzig and Nürnberg enduring rain the whole way and checking out the sites. To be continued...

To Download Episode Zehn: Teil Eins Ten: Part One, ctrl+click here

Featured on On the Luck of Seven

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 07:14:00 +0000

Noel Hidalgo, of On the Luck of Seven stopped by to meet up with me and David Troy, creator of TwitterVision last week. It was a great conversation about open-source technology, coworking and the general nature of technology and the internet (ask Noel if you ever meet him about self-conscious ash trays, that'll blow your mind).

Noel is writing a book about his "open-source journey around the world documenting free culture, social innovators and global change." He's also filming a documentary and video blog along the way. Dave and I were featured in episode 10, with a little bettwr production quality than my Todcast:

http://luckofseven.com/vlog/episode10

The Fatherland?

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:22:00 +0000

Well, for a country that calls itself "The Fatherland," Germans seem to have gender roles reversed from the rest of the Western world...or at least the English.

In my ongoing observations I'd say the majority of German women I meet are really independent, self-assured and strong-willed, whereas a lot of the men seem to be emotional and passive. This matriarchal dominance seems to be a departure from what I'm used to.

This could also explain the un-manly sitting down to pee post I wrote earlier.

How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed and How to Subscribe to a Podcast.

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:36:00 +0000

This has been a long time coming and I know my parents need it as they always seem to forget I have a blog:

How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed

Firstly, What is an RSS feed?

An RSS feed (forget what the acronym means as not even the experts can agree on that) is basically a file on the internet that stores the "meaty," important portions of several articles. This basically includes the title, date published, a snippet of the text (sometimes the whole text) and a link to the actual webpage that the post is on.

Every time I make a new blog post, or the BBC puts up a new news article a new entry is added to the RSS feed with the "meat" of the post. What having a separate file for this does, is allow you to get the content of the post without having to go to the website and get all the graphics, ads, and other stuff involved with a webpage. Dial-up internet users and Eastern Bloc European Countries, rejoice!

You can find RSS feeds by this icon:

Next, How to Subscribe?

This gets a little more tricky, but bear with me. Unfortunately RSS feeds are still kind of a nerdy concept so the magic standardized crossover between computers and RSS feeds hasn't been developed yet. This means you'll need a third-party program (translation, you'll have to install something). What this program will do will allow you to put all the feeds you want to subscribe to in a single place. It's like having all the content of the webpages you visit in a single glance without having to visit them.

If, you have Firefox, congrats, you've already installed something that will read and store RSS feeds. Wherever you see that icon above or a link that says "Subscribe to My RSS Feed!" you can click it and Firefox will prompt you to "Subscribe to this feed using: Live Bookmarks." Clicking "Subscribe Now" will give you the option to add it to your Bookmarks Toolbar. If you do this, it will be place right above your browser window and you can click on the link to activate a drop down that lists the titles of all recent posts on the site. Nifty, huh?

For the Firefox users who are a bit more savvy, I recommend the Wizz RSS News Reader Add-on. It creates a nice little side panel listing all your feeds.

And finally, if you don't have Firefox (or I should mention Apple's Safari, now for Windows!, does the same thing), there are a lot of other great desktop RSS readers for download.

How to Subscribe to a Podcast

What is a Podcast?

Even though "pod" is in the name, you don't need an iPod for Podcasts. Let's get that out of the way up front.

A podcast is basically on demand radio or TV. That's a concept we're all familiar with at this point, right? You see a listing radio shows or TV shows, you click one, you can watch it right then. If you really like that series you can subscribe to it and get the whole season and every new episode that comes out.

This is the same with podcasts. The come in two flavors, audio (radio) and video (tv), and use the technology above (RSS) to tell people when a new show is posted. Best of all, they're free!

How to Subscribe to a Podcast: My way ... Or the Highway.

Disclaimer: Ok, I'm only taking one approach to this, and here's why: One: I'm an Apple fanboy. Two: All my podcasts are in m4v format. Three: I'm getting tired of typing.

Basically, if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and go get Apple iTunes. Its an amazing music player with a lot of other great features.

Once you have iTunes subscribing to podcasts is a snap. If a link is formated right (like mine) it will open iTunes automatically and subscribe for you.

Otherwise, it will bring up something that looks like the RSS feed we clicked on above. To subscribe, open iTunes, click "Advanced" in the menu bar, and then choose "Subscribe to Podcast..." This will bring up a text box called URL. Copy and paste the website address (URL) from your browser into this text box. It'll look something like this: http://www.travisjtodd.com/podcast/podcast.xml . Then click, "OK."

This will automatically subscribe you to the podcast, and once its done downloading you can view it by clicking "Podcasts" in the left hand side of your iTunes. You can even get a description of the show before you watch it by clicking the little "i" in a circle at the far right side of the window.

In Conclusion...

Try this out by clicking the links on the right of this site. And comment below if you have any questions. Merry Internetting...

Gerne

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:06:00 +0000

Here is a weird German word, Gerne (or Gern, depending on your fancies that day. Either spelling means the same thing and they're complete interchangable). This word is used to amplify a desire. For example: Ich will gerne Finanzierung für meines Projekt, Growvotes.org. I WANT funding for my project, Growvotes.org.

Now, I can't think of a word in the English language that does this. I would say "really" if the Germans didn't have a word for that also, wirklich. So, imply what cultural/historical things you want from having a word like this. I'll just leave it open to interpretation and contemplation.

Knoblauch

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:23:00 +0000

Jörg, my room mate, asked me today if I feared vampires because I eat so much garlic.

TV/Radio Police

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:27:00 +0000

Democratic Socialism is a strange animal. It definitely has it's ups and downs (but I'll let Michael Moore explain those to you).

One bizarre thing in Germany, though, is that there is a TV/Radio tax. Now I haven't met anyone who actually pays it, yet, but apparently you have to pay a tax for every TV or Radio you own, and possibly, now computers. The tax doesn't go to the provider, as in America, but to the individual.

It stems from the state providing free TV and Radio, and on one hand it's nice they're only taxing the people who are using it but on the other...well, no one likes being taxed.

In my case though, the TV tax collectors have been coming by for the last couple of days and knocking on my door. I don't let them in. One, because I don't have a TV. Two, because I don't even understand the TV or Radio here. Thirdly, and most importantly, I don't feel like using my meager German skills to convey that to them.

The Todcast - Episode 9

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 11:14:00 +0000

In this episode Sofie, a couple of her friends and me go to the Carnival of Culture in Berlin. The Carnival of Culture is a big parade celebrating the diversity of Berlin. It's also a place and time to drink exotic cocktails, and in our case, they were free (pays to know the bartender).

It rained most the day than cleared up, but it wasn't without it's bizarre sights, sounds and lack of sobriety. Also, Sofie wishes to apologize in advance to my parents for her drunkeness. ;)

To download episode Neun Nine, ctrl+click here.

Summer Trips

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:27:00 +0000

The summer is for vacationing (at least that's the European mentality), so I've scheduled a couple trips around this continent in the summer months.

July Road Trip to Switzerland.

Sofie found a great deal through ADAC which is like the AAA for Europe. We've (hopefully) booked a BMW 1 series to cruise down to Switzerland in the first weekend of July. If Hertz can't for some reason swing the BMW for us, we'll get a similar car with navigation.

We'll be visiting Sofie's cousin on the border of Switzerland and Germany on Lake Constantine, attending a memorial ceremony for her uncle (who passed away a couple months ago) and then driving through the Alps to Bern for the Swizzeridoo, the international didgeridoo festival.

Should be fun. Always an American dream to tear through the autobahn in a BMW, right?

USA v. Sweden

August 22nd, the USA Men's National Team plays in Sweden in an international friendly, a rematch of the US's first international match 91 years and 2 days prior. It's a quick, cheap flight from Berlin to Göteburg, Sweden. So, a couple Amercians and me are planning to just hop up there for the match and come back in the morning.

future of television

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:30:00 +0000

I wrote a long reply to an email from my uncle Mark about answering his query to the future of internet television and thought it was worthy of sharing with everyone:

Ah, internet TV, well it is the way of the future I predict and right now options are just beginning to appear. From what I've seen thus far though, is that with price comes quality. I mean, there's a reason that HBO costs so much extra and that's because the quality of television is so much higher. But there are some options:

Some interesting things are, of course, Apple TV, which allows you to stream downloaded content to your TV from your PC. It also now has built in youtube functionality. It can also be hacked to run a full Mac OS, which makes it the cheapest Mac desktop on the market ;)

Next is iTVN which is what I predict TV will look like in the future. It's TV over your broadband connection
Unfortunately now their selection is kind of limited but they offer some interesting things like a la carte ordering. It's also the cheapest way I've seen to get Setanta Sports.

There's been a ton of buzz about Joost. Unfortunately it's not in public beta yet, so you have to be invited to download the program. It seems to have a big selection, but this runs into the problem I mentioned earlier in that it's not all the major channels/programs you're used to. You kind of have to let go of your traditional view of TV, like CNN, NBC, ABC, etc...the old giants.

*Edit: Since writing this email I got an invite to Joost and checked it out. It's a BEAUTIFUL program with a SLICK user interface and really does come through on everything it promises. Some downfalls are the lack of real quality entertainment and mainstream shows, but I have faith their channel listing will steadily grow (it may also be limited because my IP address is coming from Germany and I think you need different rights to distribute worlwide). The other problem is it only runs on intel-based macs, which mine is a Power PC, so I had to load it up on Sofie's iBook. Maybe it's time to buy a new Mac, eh? If you want an invite, drop me a line and I'll hook it up.

And then for the slightly more grey market. If you want to watch some shows or movies (in low-quality) streaming over the internet, theres AllUC.org and TV-links.co.uk. If you want something a little higher quality (and in a little darker grey market) there's bitTorrents. ISOhunt and Pirate Bay are some huge bitTorrent search engines.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I've been doing a lot of searching for this sort of stuff in order to keep up with my american shows...

Congrats USA

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:26:00 +0000

Just quickly, I want to congratulate the USA Men's National Soccer Team on reaching the Quarterfinals of the Gold Cup. Well done lads. Keep it up!

The Todcast - Episode 8

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:18:00 +0000

Ok, this is the first episode post-hard-drive-crash so forgive the poor quality and limited content as I try and recover my webcam drivers and lost files. I also lost Final Cut Pro so I may need to make a new intro.

This episode was recorded a few weeks back, but chronicles Stephan and my experiences getting into, enjoying, and drunkenly leaving a G. Love and Special Sauce Concert in Berlin. This was Stephan's first time seeing G. Love and he was blown away. Every other day he tells me what an amazing show it was. (this was my 3rd time and..well..likewise)

To download episode Acht Eight, ctrl+click here.

PS- I say a couple naughty words in this one. Sorry Mom.

The Darby

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:33:00 +0000

Nate, a fellow American expatriate and Chelsea supporter, has invented a great drink with a classic name. You can order it especially at our local English-speaking dive, Hairy Mary's:

The Darby
2 oz. Maker's Mark Bourbon
Ginger Ale
1/2 Lime, squeezed and placed in glass.
Ice cubes (if you can find them in Europe in the Summer)

Simple, yet effective, and damned tasty. It's basically a bourbon highball, but the key ingredient is the half lime.

Hard Drive

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:21:00 +0000

Hey everyone.

My computer's back, with a blank hard drive. Yes, that means I lost everything that was not backed up onto my external (THANK YOU DAD FOR THAT FOR CHRISTMAS!!! What incredible foresight).

So, it's taking me a bit to really figure out what I lost. I do know that most my photos from the beginning of 2007 and a lot of my music is gone. That means if you have some photos I took or basically anything that documents my whereabouts and activities in the early part of 2007 I'd love to have 'em. (Guess I really should take Jason's advice and open up a flickr account, huh?)

I do have some videos recorded from the weeks before/during/after The Great Hard Drive Crash of 2007 (as I like to call it) so I'll be making some small podcasts out of those. Although, along with my data I lost all my programs, including Final Cut Pro, Flash and my webcam drivers so it's making this a little difficult.

Alright, stay tuned, and help me out if you can!

Culture Shock Moment

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:01:00 +0000

German guys sit down to pee. All of them. Honest.

Stephan and I have come to the hypothesis that it has something to do with the design of most German toilets. They have a shelf that sometimes makes a mess with a strong stream from a distance but if you have another idea let me know. It's a mystery.

Hard Drove Into The Ground

noreply@blogger.com (travisjtodd) — Mon, 28 May 2007 10:11:00 +0000

Just in case you haven't heard, my hard drive has died. So, thats why I haven't been online much or there hasn't been a new podcast. I guess my over-worked machine finally gave up.

It's getting repaired for free (since I made the best decision of my life and bought the Apple Care extended warranty). But I do have to fork over 200 € to recover the data and files if Apple won't front the bill like they should (and previously said they would).

So, hopefully in the next week I'll be back full force. Have a great Memorial Day statesiders!