Social Networks

MadV was one of the first to elicit responses in YouTube. He has compiled the responses to One World in The Message, launched The “Humans” Project, and remained quite adept at sleight of hand. The YouTube Orchestra, a fully sanctioned YouTube project in which members were voted in and then coached, recently performed at Carnegie Hall:

Such projects may be a benefit of Google ownership, something to keep in mind as Google eyes Twitter. Speaking of Twitter it has gained some celebrity punch of late, e.g., Demi Moore used twitter to stop a suicide; nevertheless, I prefer less newsworthy uses, such as the London bakery that tweets to announce the arrival of fresh loaves. I have added my tweets to Sou Station (half-way down the sidebar) and have created a twitterfeed for my blog posts (dsou on Twitter). I post with twhirl, which is based on Adobe AIR, a product much more in keeping with Flash than bulky programs, like Reader (Foxit is so much better).

A number of bands, such as Radiohead with Reckoner, have fostered on-line remixing, but now Yo-Yo Ma has followed suit. Earlier this year he invited Indaba users to produce variations of Dona Nobis Pacem with the site’s own mixing board.

Realizing Ideas

I just updated to Cooliris 1.10; I love it. With the latest update you can browse pictures on your hard drive and Facebook; furthermore, Cooliris has released a version for the iPhone. If you haven’t checked out this innovative and aesthetically pleasing method of displaying images, do so.

If a few design ideas lay scattered amidst the countless pictures on your hard drive, bring some of them alive using Ponoko. Ponoko provides three methods for realizing a design: a) use their design software, b) take a photo and upload it, or c) describe it to a designer. Once you have a blueprint for your design, obtain a quote and order it. Ponoko will make it for you and even provide a market place in which to sell it. Don’t let those clever ideas, which you put on the back-burner due to perceived high production costs, grow stale, but market them.

New Interfaces

Although I have shuffled through web browsers over the years, from Nexus to Opera, I never really favoured Internet Explorer. At first I just found it inferior to Navigator, then I got annoyed when Microsoft bundled it with 98, and then I grew really annoyed when the anti-trust suit case became mired in its own complexity. (At least the EU's decision had some bite). Finally, the large number of security vulnerabilities alarmed me, the latest of which has necessitated drastic action. Although a patch was eventually released, users were actually encouraged to switch to Firefox and Opera; furthermore, this internal flaw spanned versions from 5 to 8, which is still in beta. (Perhaps, instead of updating 6 with features taken wholesale from Firefox, Microsoft should have fixed some of its legacy code.)

Fortunately, the Web constantly evolves and presents users with a plethora of options. Check out the Guardian's Top 100 Sites for the Year Ahead to discover some of them. My favorite from this list, apart from the regular standouts like Clusty, is Cooliris. This browser add-on is an image based search engine, in which you scroll through a "wall" of images to find your match, news item, or product. This approach is truly innovative and really worth trying. Other innovations, more of which should be coming, refine searches by minority or interest groups.

To escape all this check out the working model of the Antikythera Mechanism:

Rarely Learning

I am surprised by the number of failed initiatives by governments around the world in presenting digital information. Europeana, the latest to crash within minutes of launch, was perhaps the most ambitious: a comprehensive catalogue from over a 1,000 museums, libraries, and archives. Ironically, these sites fail due to the influx of traffic, except there's no denial-of-service attack. One of the first sites to fail (and never be resurrected) was evidenceincamera, which was slated to host an archive aerial reconnaissance photos from World War II. The promise of photos of D-Day landings and the Bismarck's sinking created a fever prior to launch. Although I applaud their design and conception, these projects need to be subcontracted to companies like YouTube that provide quick and reliable access to large volumes of information.

Firefoxilicious

Firefox has shattered the download record. If you haven't downloaded 3.0 yet, do it now. Firefox is bursting with new features and with RAMback works faster than ever. Note that updating your add-ons from 2.x can be a pain, as you have to do so manually and some updates for 3.0 aren't yet available; however, the inconvenience is worth it. In true Mozilla fashion the transfer of all history, bookmarks, etc. is seamless.

2% percent jazz, my favorite coffee shop, now has a live web-cam, which captures stills of the store. Prior to going, check out how busy it is and think twice before stealing the tip jar, which is stupid anyway. I'm addicted to the Monte Cristol coffee from Costa Rica these days. Try it.

Munching lotus

Today I feel like time has really passed me by. I started reading Buxton's Imaginary Greece from 1994 and can't believe I'd missed it. I haven't been smacked this hard by an academic book since Brendel's Prolegomena. His clarity is compelling, e.g., "In spite of (or because) of the fashionableness and obvious fertility of the topic [Greek myth] ... there is a residual feeling that to treat mythology as a distinct area of study ... is a gambit bound up with Theory, Methodology and The Continent, and is thus not quite sound." I also appreciate his honesty, e.g.,"I hope, in short, that the present book will reach the wider audience too. To that end I have tried to cut down the jargon with which scholars like to armour-plate themselves" (see Nimis' serious yet entertaining article on the use of footnotes for this purpose).

I really enjoy Stumble Upon and the concept behind it. Bumbling along I've found so much richness. Late last year, I found Rumi. Wow! 2007 was designated the International Year of Rumi by UNESCO and in commemoration of this event Coleman Barks wrote Rumi: Bridge to the Soul. This book has wonderful translations of 99 poems and an excellent introduction. My favourite line in the book is from Saladin's Leaving: "Like the moon you turn a grainfield silver."

I also found Californication. I can relate so well to Hank. I could be that character, sincerely stumbling along in the journey of manhood, though I haven't published a book, don't own a Porsche, and definitely don't have women throwing their phone numbers into my car. Oh the fragile artist. Damn those expectations. The journey can be very hard. Nevertheless, it's all worth it. You get the feeling and the vibe. You carve out a place of acceptance. Of all those people who claim to know you, only a handful ever does. The only question is whether you count yourself among them.

The show is also an introduction, for me at least, to many cool covers of songs, e.g., Rocket Man by My Morning Jacket and Paranoid by Gus Black.

Mayan bliss

Right now I am sitting in the Solstice Cafe on the bottom of Pandora enjoying a cup of Mayan Hot Chocolate, a perfect balance of spice, sweet, and smooth. Although I can't escape the gravity of 2% for long, I intend to enjoy many more of these. Pausanias, a geographer/travel-writer from the 2nd C. A.D., is my surfing subject. Lately, I've been tuning my wife's Asus Eee PC, a totally cool ultra-compact notebook for $400. If you order it on NCIX they throw in a 4 Gb memory card. Although the machine is straight forward for a Linux machine it doesn't handle WPA very well. Thankfully the eeeuser.com wiki has an entry on advanced WPA configuration that worked well for me.

Mozilla bliss

Years ago I left the relatively obscure but satisfying browser-world of Opera (over the years it has developed unparallelled compatibility with hand-held devices) to support Firefox, a browser with much press and a gaining share against the Windows-embedded Explorer. I still can't believe America did not arrive at this conclusion (as the EU did) in its anti-trust case. A distaste for Outlook's control also formed this decision as I gladly switched to Thunderbird, Firefox's compliment. Despite incorporating a number of add-ons (Adblock Plus and FoxyTunes, although I now frequently use the first-class iTunes Companion widget, are my favourite), the Candian-English Dictionary, and the Google Canada Search Engine to Firefox, until yesterday, I had not done the same for Thunderbird. The need for reminders to check my budget status (I am a chronic over-spender) led me to ReminderFox. With this add-on every time I open Thunderbird a frame pops up with the reminder, "Today's reminders: ...; Upcoming reminders: December 1 BUDGET". You can modify it to suit your necessary level of annoyance. From searching for this program I found Signature Switch, which not only allows me to turn on or off my signature, but also to choose from many. My favourite is the Fortune Cookie which randomly selects from a number of signatures. This program requires some HTML know-how, but can be relatively easily figured out by consulting the fragmented help-pages (my only criticism).

Steve Tilley

I came upon a column he wrote in 24HRS.CA on November 2 which was hilarious: "The closest I've ever come to experiencing gadget sex is when I was oohing and aahing over a robot dog at a Sony product showroom in Tokyo and it tried to hump my leg." He continues that if gadgets could mate he would have the Sony Ericsson W580i and the HTC Touch do so to produce the ultimate cell-phone, "I would happily get some scented candles, a Barry White album and a nice hotel room [for them]." He ends this entertaining review with, "They come from different worlds, these two phones, and their ill-fated love would probably end in tears. But man, they'd have some great looking kids."

I would have liked to provide a link for this review but the 24HRS.CA website is centred on the latest issue and one can only find random access to their back issues through Google. Their Canoe.ca search sucks and did not return the above article neither did the link www.canoe.ca/canoe/blog provided on the print version for his blog work. The site definitely needs some work.

Fever

Renovations and upkeep have filled my waking hours lately, so it has been a while since I blogged. I have run the gamut of emotions watching the World Cup Finals : despair, anxiety and elation. My genetic makeup comprises of 50 percent Dutch (25 percent Dutch-born, 25 percent Chinese immigrant) and 50 percent Scottish. Since China and Scotland never make it to the Finals, the Netherlands is my team. Now I mostly watch games feeding and distracting my two year-old daughter to keep her away from the TV. I used to visit Holland quite regularly as a child and recall the severity of punishment if my brother or I breathed too loud during a game. Now, when I watch Holland I hardly breathe, since they never score that insurance goal and give their opponents too many chances during the last 15 minutes of play when their chances of scoring would be slim. Whew! I will be even tenser on Wednesday when they play Argentina, who has just come off a 6 goal win against a team that Holland only scored one goal against. So far, the FIFA rankings do not match performance, since the Czechs lost and both Holland and Brazil have not played to their potential (the top 3 rated teams).

I am very excited about the remaining 3 African teams that have a chance to proceed. Tunisia is ahead 1 to nil right now (Joga Companion Rules!!) against Spain and a victory today will help them greatly. Ghana has the best chance; if they can beat the USA by more than one goal they will proceed, due to Italy's poor performance yesterday. If Mexico loses against Portugal, a possibility, and Angola defeats Iran, a high probability, then they will proceed. That would be awesome for a team that just earned their first World Cup Finals point by holding Mexico to no goals.