Tag: tech

tech

Check Out Squidoo

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Squidoo is a new company I heard about from Seth Godin in his lecture to Google about the future of marketing. Mr. Godin’s views about marketing dovetail with mine and if you have the time, I suggest you watch the video or read one of his books. At the end, he mentioned this new company he’s involved with so I went, signed up, claimed a page (they call them “lens”) and after reading the FAQ section, which said “a lens is one person’s (lensmaster’s) view on a topic he cares about. More specifically, a lens is a single web page filled with information and links that point to other web pages, to continually updated RSS feeds, or to relevant advertising. It’s a place to start, not finish,” I still didn’t totally get what the heck they were doing and what they were after. I did however sign up to receive daily emails and now I get it. I also love it.
A Squidoo Lens allows you to pull together information from tons of different places about a single topic you are interested in. For instance, this lens on Space Elevators is absolutely fanscinating. This lens on how to build huge cardboard castles is pretty cool too – too bad I don’t have the space in my apartment! I named my lens “Sevensquared” because I didn’t get it at first and now that I do, other than putting in info about the “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” legend, I don’t know what to do with it. This might be a blessing in disguise though as I really do need to jump start this graphic novel project.

tech

Yahoo! Mail Beta & Why I'm a Huge Geek

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When I got home from grad school last night, I logged into my Yahoo! account to read my email and saw an offer to demo the new version of Yahoo! mail that is in beta testing right now. I have been waiting for Yahoo! to catch up to Google in the mail department for a long time. Google Mail is so much better than Yahoo Mail but who wants to change their address? Google Maps & Yahoo! Maps were rolled out around the same time and they both use XML & SOAP really well to deliver a super slick interface to the user. I happily said yes and when I saw that Yahoo! has turned (and continues to improve) its clunky mail offering into a dynamic MS Outlook-like version (not sure if its AJAX or simply a great use of Flash), I started punching the air and saying “Yes! Yes! This is what I’ve been waiting for! DHTML baby! Yes!!” I then once again realized I am a tremendously large geek.
Seriously though, the new Yahoo! Mail rocks and not only that, by moving the ad that free users see from a horizontal “leaderboard” one running across the top to a vertical “skyscrapper” running along the side, they have craftily made me more likely to spend the $20 a year for Mail Plus because now I lose pixel width which makes it more difficult to read my ads. So sneaky. So smart. I love it!

movies

I Get It Now

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Okay, so I’m a little dense sometimes and didn’t exactly understand why NBC lawyers were making YouTube take down those awesome SNL video clips. I just thought they were being idiots and making potential fans angry which was the simple answer if you didn’t want to really think about it and instead just wanted to make fun of those corporate honchos who just don’t get it. Now NBC.com has a video section where you can watch those clips. Over time, NBC is hoping to create a thriving site with community features like message boards, blogs and video sharing–similar to MySpace, but around the NBC brand.
Via The Pulse

space

Throwing Out A Spacesuit

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The astronauts at the ISS are stuffing an old spacesuit with discarded clothes and a radio transmitter and will then toss it out the door into space. The transmitter will send recorded messages in six languages to amateur radio operators for several days before eventually re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and burning up. The project, called SuitSat-1, was the brainchild of a Russian ham radio operator.
Cool.
Via Phyl

tech

Comments are Shut Down Until Further Notice

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The spam barrage continues. I hope that by taking down the comments feature for a few days, the spambots will leave my little blog alone and I’ll be able to add comments back to my site. In the mean time, I am experimenting with a couple of different comment verification systems. I know that I’ve received less than 200 comments since my blog has been up but its not the amount, its the idea that someone can publicly respond to what I wrote. Now, I’ve had to change this because of fucking spammers. I hope every last comment spammer dies a gruesome death.

tech

Under Spam Attack

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My site is currently under a crazy comment spam attack. I have received over 1000 spam comments in the last 24 hours and if this continues, I am going to have to disable the comment feature which would fucking blow. All comment spammers should die a horrible death. As a short haired blond crazy woman named Susan Powter once said, “Stop the insanity!”

tech

My NXT Robot

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Lego is currently developing an updated robot kit for their Mindstorms division called NXT and I am so pscyhed to get one. I have never built a robot before, though when I was a child I dreamt of doing so and even figured out all the pieces I needed to ad-hoc acquire. While I got some of the parts, I never got the tank tread that was needed for mobility and that in a sense stopped the development in its tracks. Now, many many years later, after reading the recent Wired aritcle about this project and seeing the demo on the Lego site, I for some reason have a burning desire to build my own robot. It comes out in the fall and I for one cannot wait until the leaves start a’fallin.

The really cool thing about the development process is how Lego has tapped the hardcore Mindstorms programming community for advice, testing and feedback which in turn is actually being incorporated into the product design. The original robot kit from 2000 was not that great but a lot of talented and smart people took those limited bits to amazing heights – sort of how we put a man on the moon with less computing power than what is in a regular cell phone. Now those same people are now working with Lego to ensure that the NXT kit is friggin fantastic. This is not an open source product and project though – Lego is keeping all proprietary data and knowledge and Lego is the one making the money here but that to me, and to the developers helping, is okay. Its better to have someone to turn to do, to own the factories, to handle packaging and shipping, etc. Sort of how RedHat sells Linux in a way. Everyone is just happy that the end product will be the best that it can be because the global knowledge base has been tapped in order to make it so. I have signed up to be a Lego Mindstorms NXT Pioneer and will find out some time in February whether or not I’m picked to write article, post entries and build robots as a beta tester. I am sure I have no chance, there are only 100 Pioneers, but as NY Lotto used to say, “Hey, you never know.”

tech

The GeigerPod

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This GeigerPod, an iPod inside of a Geiger counter, is simply fantastic. I love when people hack one device and make another one out of it, like when people turned their XBox’s into Linux machines or when Chris made a rechargable iPod battery out of an Altoids tin. Check out the entire Flikr set of the retrofitted counter. I say well done JavaMoose!

Via Slashdot

ramblings

Racist Suggestions

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“Employee error” contributed to a cross-selling effort on the Wal-Mart Web site that suggested that buyers of “Planet of the Apes” DVD boxed sets would also enjoy four African-American-themed films, including biographies of Dorothy Dandridge, Tina Turner, Jack Johnson and Martin Luther King, the company said Friday.
Via Todd