Recently in the "Found" category...
This is seriously one of the best explanations of how the banking system, and money in general, works.
Do yourself a favour and carve out 45 minutes to watch this. You’ll thank me.
One thing I like about the short flight from Seattle to San Jose is that I get to catch up on a bunch of TED videos.
Two of the videos I watched on yesterday’s flight really stood out for me:
- 18 minutes with an agile mind - Clifford Stoll gave a wonderful, eccentric talk that danced around a number of subjects and ended up with him talking about how he teaches College grade physics to 8th graders. You even get to see his glass-blown Klein bottles…
- 2008 TED Prize wish: An African Einstein - Neil Turok, a theoretical physicist from Cambridge University talked about his research and the setting up of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
Definitely worth watching. Enjoy.
Apparel I want, but cannot afford.
Brilliant. I also want this one:
Take a look around the site. Their FAQ and pitch are priceless. Well, that’s not actually true. It costs $100,000.
VC Wear. Pure brilliance.
Via Ewan:
- Change one letter in a movie title.
- Photoshop the results.
Brilliant.
Click through for the rest and split your sides…
Very funny. Respect the salesforce…
And no, I don’t believe they can be expensed…
I just received a couple of stickers from The Daily WTF. Yey! My laptop now has a new decorative item.
Never heard of the site?
Well, if you’re a developer, it’s a must-read. Amusing and sorta-instructional in a “no way I’d ever do that” kind of way.
Recommended.
Seattle Suburb Endures Growing Pains
My pal Andy just let me know about an article on NPR this morning about Kirkland and in particular Houghton (the area where we live).
It talks about the growing pains that the area is experiencing and mentions Google.
An interesting article claiming that:
…Computer Science (CS) education is neglecting basic skills, in particular in the areas of programming and formal methods. We consider that the general adoption of Java as a first programming language is in part responsible for this decline. We examine briefly the set of programming skills that should be part of every software professional’s repertoire.
Another interesting quote:
It [Texas A&M] did [teach Java as the first language]. Then I started teaching C++ to the electrical engineers and when the EE students started to out-program the CS students, the CS department switched to C++.
Definitely worth a read.
I’ve have been worrying for some time that the core programming competence of candidates coming out of colleges has been dropping over the years as the “helpful” languages proliferate and the spectrum of languages that students are exposed to declines…
What’s a pointer, again?
Worrisome.
[Tip’O’Hat to Lambda the Ultimate for the link.]
According to The Guardian, the Queen (or more likely some footman) has launched her own channel on YouTube.
The Queen has taken a bold stride into cyberspace by launching her own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube. The Royal Channel launches today as Buckingham Palace seeks to promote Britain’s monarch to a youthful global audience.
While aides were utterly convinced it was the way forward, the 81-year-old Queen - who only recently mastered emailing and had never used a personal computer until two years ago - was not immediately acquainted with the YouTube phenomenon. But after the concept was explained to her by, among others, her granddaughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie - both avid Facebook fans - she personally approved the channel’s go-ahead after viewing its contents.
I guess we’ll be watching the Queen’s Speech online this year.
Bonus points to the first person to find the Princesses on Facebook…
Looks about right to me…
[Tip’O’Hat to the wife for the link. Are you trying to tell me something honey?]
This one’s for Andy: Spray-on bacon.
‘Nuff said.
Or so says Howard:
…
BUT, I just realized I need some tickets…
To pull off tickets this year will require ultimate networking gamesmanship. Facebook is for weenies and posers when you need the real shit like Sun’s tickets.
That’s why while everyone is yacking about Facebook and now Google’s Open Social blah blah blah, you should remember that a friendly round of golf with some connected people is the way to get shit done.
Just so happens that I was golfing at Bandon Dunes with the head of Sun’s tickets. Random but relevant. Stay with me. He could give a rat’s ass about Facebook and Wallstrip and my personal blog and Techmeme. He does remember my sweet 74 that pocketed him $400 bucks…
I couldn’t agree more :-)
I agree with Tom, so I shall steal his words. One of the finest living Englishmen is now blogging.
I am overjoyed.
I knew he was a Mac addict. I didn’t realize that he was a phone addict also… To have one of the greatest writers and raconteurs of our time blogging about tech is just wonderful!
The following is from a 1967 documentary forecasting what home computing could be like in 1999.
Enjoy…
Wow.
This guy is a genius. How come I haven’t heard of him before?
Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. I’d go to see him just because of the name.
I want to see him live. Shame I only found out about him tonight. After his show kicked off in Seattle…
[Tip’O’Hat to my wife for the link]
I was just playing around with a new slideshow creator, Animoto. I imported my photos from Gnomedex 7.0 and it came up with this:
Rock! This completely takes the ideas that other products such as Microsoft’s Photo Story 3 have run with and raises the bar through the roof.
Animoto is an interesting product, from an interesting group of people:
Animoto Productions is a bunch of techies and film/tv producers who decided to lock themselves in a room together and nerd out.
Their first release is Animoto, a web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos using patent-pending technology and high-end motion design. Each video is a fully customized orchestration of user-selected images and music. Produced on a widescreen format, Animoto videos have the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.
The heart of Animoto is its newly developed Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology that thinks like an actual director and editor. It analyzes and combines user-selected images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques that are used in television and film.
Despite the buzzword and PR heavy description, it looks like they’re onto something. Man, they even have a press kit!
