Techno-induced ADD

A great piece from Time magazine on modern day workplace pressures, attention and Techno-induced-ADD.

The Future of Newspapers

Great article by Michael Kinsley on the Future of Newspapers
(via Dave Winer) and coincidentally, here's a great piece from New York Magazine on Craig Newmark and the devastating effects CraigList has had on the Classified advertising business (via Paul Kerodsky's Infectious Greed blog).

David Byrne Radio

Way cool.

Link to BoingBoing for more.

Twinkle, Twinkle

This new Celestron Skyscout looks like a pretty cool gadget for adding context and useful information to the night sky.

Way cool.

Show Me The Money!

A great article from the "Of, By and For" blog on money and Washington politics:

"Well the Abramoff scandal has DC all in a titter about who might get dragged down with him. Republicans are on the frontburner, but more than a few Democrats are feeling the heat. Most pathetic is the Democratic finger pointing, particularly in the blogs about how this is simply a Republican scandal."

"Let's get one thing straight, Jack Abramoff isn't the exception, he's the rule. Washington DC is a bipartisan pay to play place and yes it's worse than ever. For anyone to write that this is just a Republican problem is not only incredulous, but is actively seeking to insult your intelligence."

Link to "The Best Government Money Can Buy", reminiscent of a old post of mine from 8.16.05 called Business as Usual.

Louis Braille's Birthday

For those of you that missed this (on 1.4.06) it was Louis Braille's birthday... and this was Google's header graphic for that day:



Absoutely brilliant.

The Death of Net Neutrality

Reading Om Malik just now reminds me of the day I was sitting a my desk at RealNetworks in Seattle and had an epiphany:

"the value of what is flowing through the pipes, is worth way more than the pipes themselves".

Big Telco's are crapping their pants right now trying to figure out how and why their margins are going south while Google, Yahoo! and Apple's are rising -- arguably via the very bandwidth the Telcos provide. Watch them try and "double dip" consumers by trying to charge us all more for "improved quality and better delivery".

Om Malik on "The Slow Lingering Death of Net Neutrality".

Top Ten VC Lies

It's GREAT to see Guy Kawasaki blogging...

Here's a link to his post about Top Ten VC Lies.

UPDATE: and some equal time to those bullshitting, hustlers:
Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs.

Backed by Big Media?

Toronto Liberal MP Candidate Sarmite Bulte.

I've been following Ottawa Law Professor Michael Geist's posts about this story for a few days... and it's great to see Standford Law Professor Larry Lessig chime in.

Geist writes:

"Cleaning Up Copyright
With both prospective Canadian Heritage Ministers accepting copyright lobby cash (see The Sad Reality of Copyright Policy In Canada, Campaign Contributions, Tipping Point, That's What Friends Are For) and the funders making it clear that they are in the market for more (see Business As Usual), it is time to clean up copyright in Canada. The election campaign provides the perfect time to do so. The short term solution is obvious - Bulte should cancel the January 19th fundraiser and apologize to her constituents and the Canadian public."

Here's a link to Professor Geist's full post.

UPDATE: Cory Doctorow is all over this story like stink on a nervous skunk and points to some video from an All-Candidates meeting in Toronto's HIgh Park riding.

Turning Down 80 Billion Dollars

Rumors are flying that Yahoo! said "nyet" to an 80 billion dollar offer from Micorosft over the Holidays.

I wonder what the merged company would have been called. MicroHoo! ?

Link to Mary Jo Foley's terrific blog.

Mark Cuban on the Stock Market

yup, it's for suckers.

flickr High Speed Photo pool

More stuff get's "blowed up real good!" Link via digg.

New Sense of Place - The Geospatial Web

Now here's an NPR Boston Talk Show that fits nicely into my Wheel House!

"Just a decade after it became ubiquitous, the World Wide Web has made us blase about information. We assume we can learn almost everything about almost anything at the touch of a PC keyboard. But the digital revolution is hardly over.

Now, the digital realm is exploding into the physical world. They call it the "geo-spatial web." Already it means online maps loaded with information about the physical world, and someday soon, that physical world itself will be tagged and teeming with data for the asking: What is that building? Where is my dog? Who is that man?

The implications are huge, exciting, and scary and the result will be a world alive with information.

Hear about the ambitions and implications of the "geospatial web."

-- with NPR Boston "OnPoint" host Tom Ashbrook.


My observations on the segment:
* Guest Mike Liebhold (Senior Researcher: IFTF) does a great job explaining the Geospatial web.
* Host Tom Ashbrook tries to conjure up scary privacy scenarios but this is basically a non-issue.
* callers to the show are incredibly savvy about the GeoWeb!
* Lots of talk about flickr and Dodgeball.
* Mike Liebhold explains/addresses privacy issues really well.
* Good call from a commercial Truck Driver.
* Guest Peter Morville (author of "Ambient Findability") briefly discusses "open realms" vs. Teleco walled gardens.
* Mike Liebhold talks about cell devices with WiFi and vice versa :-)

Link to WBUR NPR-Boston's "OnPoint" Radio show web page with Real Audio and Windows Media streams and here's a link to a 42MB MP3 file you can download and toss on your iPod or MP3 player.

Pandora: music recommendation engine

A great music discovery tool from the good folks at the Music Geneome project:

"Can you help me discover more music that I'll like?"
Those questions often evolved into great conversations. Each friend told us their favorite artists and songs, explored the music we suggested, gave us feedback, and we in turn made new suggestions. Everybody started joking that we were now their personal DJs. We created Pandora so that we can have that same kind of conversation with you."

Well, I typed in "Dream Academy" and Pandora played "One Dream" a great song of theirs, then Pandora played "Paradise" by the Bodeans, then "Perception Room" by the Lily's, etc. etc.

Very cool tool! (uses a browser embedded Macromedia Flash player)

Link to Pandora (thanks Kevin!)

The Boss

I don't know how I missed this NPR "Fresh Air" interview when it originally aired on November 15, 2005 but here's the Boss discussing "Born to Run" with Terry Gross on the occassion of the albums 30th anniversary.

Link to NPR's Fresh Air page with the Real Audio stream and here's a link to a 40MB MP3 file you can download and toss on your iPod.

Mapping the internet

Here's what it looks like. Link via digg.

Woman marries Dolphin

I wonder which side of the Church was under water?

Link via MeFi.

Big Surf

Like, the biggest ever recorded dude...

Below is an amazing clip from this Sundays PBS "Nature" episode titled:
"Condition Black", "an episode that examines the dangerous weather system that swept through Hawaii on January 28, 1998. Surfers from around the world came to the state's famous North Shore with hopes of riding some of the largest waves ever recorded. However, the Coast Guard deemed the storm so hazardous, all access to the water was officially denied." But a small group of daring surfers made it out to a spot called "log cabin" 1/2 to 2 miles offshore in Waimea Bay. Eyewitness accounts are combined with unbelievable action footage, some of which was captured on 70mm IMAX film.

Can't say I'm too happy with the quality of the video clip or the nasty scan lines but this is truly amazing footage (8:00 mins). Hopefully it'll make you run out and catch the IMAX film called "Extreme"... or maybe just make you wax up your board :-)

Moving Big Files

A great list of resources:

"If you’ve ever had to send large files to someone and don’t have access to FTP, or the person you’re sending to doesn’t, this type of service is a fantastic resource.

Today, I have a list of 50 similar services that are absolutely free and require no e-mail registration to use. Included in the list are file size limits, download limits and the amount of time the file remains on the server for download."

-- The CreativeGuy Blog.

Link via digg.

Happy New Year 2006!

New Year's Eve From Around the World!
Way cool 360 degree panorama photos from the first few minutes of 2006 in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Minneapolis, Ljubljana and elsewhere.
[Note: Some of the panoramas also have sound]

Link via MeFi.