The Putty!!! SO MUCH PUTTY!!!

I love Silly Putty, but this is a bit over the top!

From Digg:
What do you do when you work for google and you get bored? Order silly putty of course!

read more | digg story

Internet vs. literacy

Naomi S. Baron has an interesting article on how our ever growing ability to search for specific bits of information out of literature is leading to a culture that does not value the works that information comes from. In other words, why read the book if a synopsis or a google search will do. My favorite line is that this generation is "aliterate -- they know how to read but choose not to."

Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat - New York Times

I think this NYT Opinion piece really sums up the correct view of DRM on music. You're only hurting your business if you keep people from spreading the music. The more people can listen to artists' work the more likely they'll buy it and more importantly... tell their friends. Don't miss the discussions of this article over on Slashdot and Digg.

The End Of Copyright

I like this story!

From Digg:
"I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end of a major era in world history. It may take fifty years, it may take a hundred, but the age of copyright is drawing to a close. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's inevitable."

read more | digg story

Kintiko.net

I finally broke down and got my own web host. I got a free domain in the deal, so I'm proud to give you kintiko.net for all your small web project needs. I've got lots of space and fun server side scripting options. If anyone needs a web page made for them, pass along my name. If I have the time, I'm only asking to put a few Google AdSense ads on the pages.



I think that is a pretty good bargain.

Marc Cuban: Print Piracy Solution

Music piracy isn't as bad as print piracy on the web, according to Marc Cuban. His solution to the print piracy problem... a new business model.

read more | digg story

TViX: Hard Drive Multimedia Player

This is the US distributor for a nifty little device that can play your pictures, music, and movie files on your TV. It accepts any IDE HDD, and connects via USB2 (Firewire version available too). Plays most formats Divx, Xvid, Mp3, Ogg, and even ripped DVDs in ISO format.

read more | digg story

Livio De Marchi: Sculpture in Wood

Some pictures of this artist's works made the rounds at work. This stuff is just amazing. Now I need to find the guy that paints those neat street paintings.



From Digg:



Livio De Marchi's Wooden sculptures and artworks, alot of very intresting ones come in the floating versions of cars such as the Mercedes 300 SL, Ferrari F 50, Jaguar 1937, and even the infamous.... Volkswagen Beetle (for shame Livio!)



read more | digg story

How Bob Iger Saved Network TV

Mark Cuban's take on how Bob Iger, by putting ABC shows on iTunes, has saved network TV.

read more | digg story

Video Games Live

The show's program will include music from the following videogames performed live: Mario, Zelda, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Warcraft, Myst, Castlevania... and a classic arcade game medley featuring games from Pong to Donkey Kong.

read more | digg story

Orson Scott Card Reviews Serenity

One of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, reviews Serenity (one of my favorite movies). I think he sums it up nicely thus:



"I'm not going to say it's the best science fiction movie, ever."



"Oh, wait. Yes I am."


read more | digg story

Serenity

Now I put this post on the Paw, but it is worth repeating.



Went to the movies last Saturday and saw Joss Whedon's Serenity. As a fan of the original Firefly series, there is no way I couldn't like this movie. The thing is, this is a great film just on its own merits. Even those not into scifi flicks can probably find something of value in Serenity.



Anyway this isn't nearly as exciting as the BABY announcement, but I feel I should do my part in spreading the good word about Serenity. So check out the trailer, see what other people are saying, and go see the flick. You won't be disappointed.

Dvorak: Decentralize and Network the Federal Government Now

Here's an article from my favorite curmudgeon, John C. Dvorak, on how we should get our federal reps out of Washington and back home where they belong.



From Digg:

Some years ago I was flabbergasted when Congress banned the use of laptops by U.S. reps. Now it's time to completely virtualize Congress, letting the representatives and senators work from within their districts instead of living and working in Washington, D.C....


read more | digg story

Gmaps Pedometer

Another discovery found through digg.com. This "Gmaps Pedometer" allows you to plot out a precise path on a Google map. Using this and some fuzzy math I've determined that I spend approximately $10 a day for the privilege of driving to and from work. That's around $200 a month, oh the joy!

PlayStation 2 Trackball Controller

The wife just got Star Wars Battlefront for the PlayStation 2 and I found the controls horrible compared to the PC version. Well if a trackball could be added to the controller it would solve all my problems with FPS on the PS2.

--This is my first submission to digg.com!

read more | digg story

Dance of Fools

Yes, my wife and I have been watching Dancing with the Stars. We took dancing lessons last fall in preparation for our wedding, so our interest in the show is understandable. We've been fans of John O'Hurley and his dancing partner Charlotte since we started watching about halfway into the series.

The final was tonight and it turns out we've got another Twenty-One on our hands. John and Charlotte didn't win even though they got straight 9's in both dances. The other couple got an 8 and two 9's during their first dance... then managed to get straight 10's on the second.

Excuse me?

No one had gotten even one 10 up to that point, and here they get 3? I could even tell they screwed up lots during that last dance, and I can't even remember those classes we took. I'm sorry I thought this was supposed to be a competition... turns out it was a afternoon TV special about an soap opera star learning to overcome adversity. I don't even care about who won... but this was the most blatant example of a fixed show I've ever witnessed.

I may as well have watched a touchy feel good Disney movie... oh wait I just did!

BrickJournal - the magazine for Adult Fans of LEGO

http://www.legofan.org/brickjournal/

Becky Blog

My friend since forever... okay, High School... has just entered the Blogiverse. Go and check out the currently entitled Critical Mass.

PS: This isn't her first Blog! I set one up for her years ago... but Blogger wasn't so spiffy back then.

DIGG the TWIT

I'm trying my hand at a little podcasting... sans the ipod.

The old Screen Savers gang from the defunct TechTV channel have created an online audio show. They're referring to it as This Week In Tech... i.e. TWIT. One of the guys who is stuck on G4 now, started his own online show called systm. It's short but pretty neat.

If I can find enough interesting feeds I can burn them to rewritable CD and have something worth listening to on the way between work and home.

Also from the same guy doing systm... is digg, which is kind of an improved Slashdot. On this site your peers and friends help promote stories to the front page (unlike Slashdot where it is up to the moderators or Taco). Haven't fully checked it out yet, but it looks quite compelling.

Honeymoon

Star Wars Weekend May 29, 2005

Class Final Projects

Here's the list of links to all the final projects from my class, including my team's entry.

ABITDEEP


Digital Dames


High Resolution


JEPE Gurus


RGB3s *My Team*


Screaming Pixels


Bits to Byte

Now I just have 8 article summaries and a 2-5 page paper to do, isn't that just wonderful.

Games

I'm finding that, save for the odd Star Wars game, I can find plenty of fun games on SourceForge.net.  For instance, one of my all time favorites from the old DOS days was a game called StarControl2.  Now thanks to the Ur-Quan Masters, I can play it again and wallow in the nostalgia!

Class Project

Working on my class project, trying to get a
web page
to load an XML file.

UPDATE

Moved the school project to my own server so I could play with PHP 5. Rebuilt the XML functionality in about 10 minutes, which took days to get right in JavaScript. Check out the class project if you have the time, and feedback is welcome.

Feed Your Brain With Flash

I've come to the conclusion that the best way to learn and keep up a skill is through games. I'm not talking about big complicated games, but small simple flash based stuff. It's the equivalent of flash cards, only taken to the modern interactive level.

There's another conclusion I've come up with. My brain no work so good no more. Specifically, when I was a lot younger I knew something about music notes and could even do some math in my head. Reading notes off a sheet of music is not my forte any more, and I ain't so hot at math either.

So what's an old time gamer to do? Well find some games to help me practice this stuff of course! For math I stumbled across Add It Up. A bit of searching was required for my music education, but I finally found some games for sight reading that work pretty good. Now if only I could find some more games for learning Spanish!

SLIS 5715

Taking another class up at UNT. This time it is digital imaging, which should be fun. Here are some important links for the class, as a convenience to me.

Topics in Digital Imaging for Information Professionals

Course Description

Textbook

Digital Imaging for Photographers by Adrian Davies and Phil Fennessy,
Focal Press

Required reading

1. 
   
   The Next Stage: Moving from Isolated Digital Collections to Interoperable
   Digital Libraries
   by Howard Besser (First Monday, Volume 7, Number 6, June 2002)
   
   



2. 
   
   IMLS: Publications & Resources: Publications, A Framework of Guidance for
   Building Good Digital Collections
   
   



3. 
   
   Free Virus Protection for Home PCs Travis Brown, Benchmark Online, Volume
   5 - Number 6, June 2002.