Entries from May 2007 ↓

Found this very useful site full of historical speeches and sounds. All af them are in MP3 format and can be downloaded and listened to on any music player that supports MP3. The best part is that they are all completely free!

Free Information Society: Historical Sounds

[Edit] Found another site with more speeches. American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches

Yesterday Engadget posted a story saying that the iPhone was behind schedule and wouldn’t make it’s release date. Engadget is a very popular blog focusing on tech news. I often read them and Gizmodo, a competing and very similar site, first thing in the morning while drinking my coffee.
Engadget based the story on an internal email they received that was forwarded from the Apple mail server. It turns out that the email was a hoax. Shortly after Engadget posted the story, Apple contacted them to deny it. Engadget quickly posted a correction. Unfortunately in the short time that the story was posted, it caused a massive selling spree on Apple stock. All because of an unconfirmed email.
Engadget probably should have confirmed the story before running with it, but it is in a cut throat market where being first makes a big difference. So it didn’t confirm before running.

This kind of thing has happened before with more traditional media, but it is interesting to note that the “new media” has now reached the same level of power. Blog sites are often looked down on for not being real news. They often are not run by people with journalism backgrounds, and don’t follow the same patterns that the more traditional media follows.
Many bloggers, myself included, do it only in their spare time. But obviously, the blog form of news has reached the same level of influence that the traditional media types have. Bloggers have largely done that by throwing out all of those same patterns and methods that make the traditional media claim blogging isn’t news.
Maybe that hasn’t always been such a good thing. Problems like the Engadget one, are much more rare (Though not unheard of) in the traditional news world. Maybe this is a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We are so eager to throw out the traditional stuffy and often stupid limitations and methods of traditional media, that we are throwing out many of the important and necessary “rules” of journalism. Bloggers should really take a hard look at some of the lessons traditional media has already learned.

Original Engadget story with update: False alarm: iPhone NOT delayed until October, Leopard NOT delayed again until January

Followup TechCrunch Story: Engadget Knocks $4 billion off Apple Market Cap on Bogus iPhone email
Followup Gizmodo story: My Take on Engadget’s 4 Billion Dollar iPhone Mistake

[edit] Engadget posted an explanation of their reasoning and process behind posting the story. It looks like they might not be as much at fault as it originally seemed. Regarding yesterday’s Apple news

Recently I’ve been wanting to upgrade my Spanish speaking skills. If you live in the western hemisphere, Spanish is growing more and more important to know. Even if you live in a non-Spanish speaking nation.
Looking at the map above, you can see that much of the western hemisphere has Spanish as a primary(darkest color) or a secondary(lighter color) language. The map comes from the Wikimedia. For a more descriptive legend follow the link: Map-Hispanophone World.

So I was pretty happy to find a list of foreign language podcasts to listen to. They have quite a few different languages. All free. So check it out.

Open Culture: Foreign Language Lesson Podcast Collection

This has to be the most idiotic, but fun idea ever. Strap a pair of carpet skates on your shoes and you can skate across the carpet in your office. If your office is anything like mine, there is a big long open area that these would work great in. The only problem would be making sure I didn’t hit the printer that is inconveniently placed half way down the hallway.

Via Random Good stuff: Faster Than Email: Carpet Skates
You can buy them at X-TremeGeek.com

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first video game, pong. Pong was developed to run on a 19 inch television by a team of engineers at Sanders Associates, a Cold War defense contractor. The simple game was the start to the massive video game industry that exists today. So if you go home tonight and play Halo on your XBox, of tennis on your Wii, remember how it all started.

Via Slashdot: Videogames Turn 40 and 1Up: Videogames Turn 40 years old

Once you have defined the up, down, left, and right positions, you can plot political leaders on a graph and compare them more accurately. The site also has a test you can take, to see where you would fit on the graph. All in all, a pretty cool site.

Check it out here: www.politicalcompass.org

ComputerWorld has an interesting article about the large numbers of status lights on our devices. Our computer towers, monitors, printers, keyboards, mice, and even speakers have status lights. On many of those devices the status lights cannot be turned off. Even if the device is turned off! I have a monitor, that has a small status light that turns on when you plug it into a power outlet. The monitor is turned off, but the status light stays on. Turning the monitor on, brightens the already on status light. Most of our electronic devices have status lights that are on if the device is on. No options are given to turn them off. On some devices, the status lights are there to let you know the device is on, or connected, or processing some task. On others, they are there only to make the device look cooler or more futuristic.

At home, my computer, router, and DSL modem never get turned off. All of the status lights on them generate a nice glow in the room where they are set up. This doesn’t usually bother me, since I don’t sleep in that room. Since that room also doubles as a guest room, it does make a big difference when people stay over. I don’t mind turning the computer in that room off for my guests, but I don’t really want to power down the router and DSL modem. So I guess the questions is, do we really need as many status lights as our gadgets have?

Via ComputerWorld: We the people demand a Gadget Bill of Lights

The picture above is of the worlds highest swing. It is 1100 feet off the ground on top of a skyscraper in Harbin city, Heilongjiang province, China. The swing sends you out over the city before swinging you back onto the top of the building. personally I hate heights. Getting up on the roof of my house, or standing on a ladder are torture. Last year I had to stand on a ladder two stories up to nail plywood over the windows of my house as hurricane protection. I hated it!
That said, I love roller coasters and sky swings. Mainly because they scare me. The adrenaline rush from the fear is great when I’m having fun. Trying to hold onto a ladder or maintain my footing on a sloped roof with that adrenalin rush is not so good. So I think if I ever got to try the swing out, I would. Imagine how scary it would be.

Via Spluch and Ananova

You might remember sci-fi movie called Minority Report, that stared Tom Cruise. I personally didn’t like the movie much, but it did have a lot of cool looking tech gadgets.
One of those was electronic billboards that would tailor their ads towards you if you looked at them. Well, a group of researchers from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada have brought us one step closer to that technology by developing a camera that can track eye movement from as far away as 10 meters. The camera is called the Eyebox2.
Roel Vertegaal the lead developer says, “it is good enough to let us know whether you are looking at a display or billboard or not,” Which means that advertisers can theoretically now track what billboards will actually generate the most attention.

Check the article out at NewScientist: Tracking billboards could give you the eyeball

I found an interesting article about the Fugate family who lived in Kentucky. It seems that they suffered from a genetic disease that caused them to have a distinctly bluish tint to their skin. The disease is called Methemoglobinemia and is caused by a deficiency of a particular enzyme. In its genetic form it is extremely rare. Both of your parents have to have a very rare recessive gene before you can inherit it. The Fugate family had the bad luck of having an ancestor, Martin Fugate, who carried the gene. Martin somehow managed to find a wife who also carried the gene. Then through excessive inbreeding amongst the local families in the hills of Kentucky, managed to spread the recessive gene to enough people that children began to be born with blue or purplish skin tones. In 1960 a doctor named Madison Cawein, heard about them and investigated. He discovered the enzyme deficiency and was actually able to temporarily “cure” several of the family members by simple injections.
I had never heard of this disease before reading the article, but I found out you can also get the disease through exposure to certain toxic chemicals.

Article on the Fugate family: THE BLUE PEOPLE OF TROUBLESOME CREEK
Wikipedia article on: Methemoglobinemia