Brian Dear, a former regular on The Well has launched EVDB, the events and venues database. EVDB, Inc. helps people find relevant events and share their discoveries with others. We’re building a worldwide repository of event and venue data that the whole world can use. Our goal is to help people discover all kinds of […]
Archives for March 2005
March 30, 2005
Sloppy work
This is why people distrust Quark XPress on Mac OSX (via Macintouch): [Kalani Patterson] Our tech dept has verified the following: Installing Quark 6.1 on a 10.3.x system (I can’t speak for other versions) results in thousands of changed permissions. We captured a logfile from such a repair, which weighed in as a whopping 9.9MB […]
March 29, 2005
The Supremes: MGM vs. Grokster
In the next 24 hours, there will be a lot of press coverage about today’s argument at the US Supreme Court in the MGM vs. Grokster case. Let’s just see if any corporate or commercial or mainstream media coverage is as good as this blog entry. For some reason, I doubt that “objective” journalism will […]
March 29, 2005
Google code base
The idea that Google has just one code base for everything they do is mind-boggling.
March 24, 2005
Laptop illusions
Good idea. Set your background image to a photo of what’s behind it. Result: An apparently transparent desktop.
March 24, 2005
Best lego kit ever
You must see these videos: M-TRAN II auto-reconfigurable robot ‘Each block can rotate 180 degrees around the link that connects it to its mate, and each module contains a magnet that can be switched on and off, enabling it to connect to other modules in the system. Genetic algorithms allow the robot to discover new […]
March 21, 2005
Seasonality
Here is yet another fantastic software application from a small (one-person) firm. Seasonality from Gaucho Software is a $25 desktop weather application. Who cares, you say. After all, weather.com does that for free. But weather.com is slow, and filled with annoying chartjunk and ads. You have to load lots of pages (read, advertisements) to get […]
March 21, 2005
How do zip codes work?
I’m back from vacation. There’s prolly some stuff to write about from the last week. In the meantime, if you ever wondered how the US zip code system works (or like cool data-driven Flash apps) check out Zipdecode. Oh, and turn on the zoom function.
March 10, 2005
Free Month of Netflix
If you’ve been thinking about trying Netflix, here’s a free month offer for new customers: – – – – – – – – 1 Month FREE DVD RENTALS FROM: Michael J. EXPIRES: 3/23/2005 (Quantities are limited.) Michael thought you might enjoy the Netflix DVD Rental Service and has sent you an invitation to try Netflix […]
March 10, 2005
Walter Murch
Walter Murch at Transom.org. From Jay Allison’s introduction: “If you work in sound or film, you will come to know the name Walter Murch by your colleagues’ tone when they say it. This is the man responsible for movies you remember for the dance between sound and picture–he shaped them both–The Conversation, The English Patient, […]
March 9, 2005
Scent of A Robot
Really choice live action/animated rap video by Pete Miser. Language and visuals are work-safe, but the concept probably isn’t.
March 8, 2005
Why Feel Righteous About All The Bad In The World?
I heard someone was annoyed that tsunami relief collection boxes were being taken down too soon. And I thought of a product opportunity! We should make a big electronic wall-sized display of the Top 100 “current disasters.” It can be ranked by number dead, with arrows up and down for increasing or decreasing trends (like […]
March 8, 2005
Taste of New England
Sitting at home Saturday night, watching “Ray” with some friends. [Insert erudite comment about the awesome fantastic movie.] Into the table lamp next to me flew a cluster fly. Everyone could hear the boink! hitting the lampshade. > Me: “First cluster fly of the season!” > Lynne: “Good, means it’s warming up.” > Me: “Mud […]
March 1, 2005
Catallaxis
Daniel O’Connor recently launched “Catallaxis – The Integral Economics Weblog.” Today’s post, A Crisis of Vision, is a draft introduction to his forthcoming book. It’s a very good summary of the current economic dialectic, and seems quite reasonable and balanced. Long, but worth the read.
March 1, 2005
Four Days on Rails
Since we’ve been pimping Rails, why not point to this helpful toolbox. “There have been many extravagant claims made about Rails. For example, Curt Hibbs’ Rolling with Ruby on Rails claimed that you could develop a web application at least ten times faster with Rails than you could with a typical Java framework… The article […]