59 - What is Embroidery?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 59 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday, December 31st, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- The 40-year Mortgage and Will Smith's Quote Malfunction
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Embroidery?"
- Embroidery Books for Suggested Further Reading.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by these three advertisements:
Learn tai chi and qi gong with Pittsburgh-native Larry Tolbert. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu masters himself, sifu Larry Moves with the motion of the planet - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
"If you've been running out of storage space for all those photo's and videos on your home or work computer, here's a last-minute shopping tip, consider getting a Drobo USB storage system. With the ability to use 4 drives for up to 3.6 TB's of storage this system works well as a network-attached device when hooked up to a wireless hub like an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). The Drobo is the perfect companion to your constantly expanding PC files. Go to http://drobo.com/drobolator/ to see how much disk storage you can get from any arrangement of drives.
There are still a few days left to get a $25 discount at Drobostore.com. Through December 31 just use the code REFJENL for your instant rebate of $25 off the manufacturer's price."
Tech News:
Selena Maranjian, reporting in the Home Buying column for Fool.com, tells us that bank/mortgage companies such as Countrywide, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo and Bank of America have been offering 40-year mortgages lately, as a way to provide lower payments to purchasers of America's higher-priced homes. While these loans seem great for home-buyers, and may really help to spread the risk for mortgage CDO holders, Ms. Maranjian warns that due to the higher interest rates, the savings aren't really greater for the home buyer due to more years of paying interest instead of principle - a better way to go might be to re-finance with another ARM...just beware of those stiff conversion/refinance penalty fees!
http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/home/2007/12/28/40-years-is-a-bad-way-to-spell-relief.aspx
The Scotland on Sunday column on news.scotsman.com yesterday profiles Will Smith's awesome attitude toward work and life. Although he had a recent quote malfunction relating to a certain megalo-maniacal former dictator, his moderately austere upbringing has molded him into a working machine who still has time for his kids (involves them in the film-making process) and spouse. His most interesting quote actually relates to the whole world, and could bring us all paradoxically closer - at a certain level in Hollywood, everyone is the same color: green.
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Prince-of-all-he-surveys.3628215.jp
Tech Question: What is Embroidery?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Embroidery?" , takes us on a tour of a world she's infinitely familiar with. Do you have a world you're infinitely familiar with? drop me a line at minutetech@gmail.com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Well, okay, this is the second instance that this segment is "book news"...but books were the original form of podcasting and blogging. The books related to embroidery, which Carol spend so much time on, are "Florentine Embroidery", by Barbara Snook, (c) 1967, "The Art of Oriental Embroidery-History, Aesthetics, and Techniques", by Young Y. Chung, (c) 1979, and "Art of the Embroiderer", by Charles Germain de Saint-Aubin, translated and annotated by Nikki Scheuer. You should be able to find these books if you scour your local collection of used book stores - I love used - or "previously ownded"- book stores - they're great places to be, to browse, to support, to satiate your book addiction. :-)
Happy December 31st, 2007...and we'll talk to you next year!
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- The 40-year Mortgage and Will Smith's Quote Malfunction
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Embroidery?"
- Embroidery Books for Suggested Further Reading.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Monday, December 31, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
phyllostachys 73: Minute Tech 58 Show Transcript
58 - What is Crochet?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 58 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Thursday, December 27th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- On-Star Down, Egypt's Intellectual Property, and Mars Flows;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Crochet?"
- Books about Ancient and Modern People.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by these three advertisements:
Learn tai chi and qi gong with master-teacher Larry Tolbert. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu masters himself, sifu Larry Moves with the motion of the planet.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
"If you've been running out of storage space for all those photo's and videos on your home or work computer, here's a last-minute shopping tip, consider getting a Drobo USB storage system. With the ability to use 4 drives for up to 3.6 TB's of storage this system works well as a network-attached device when hooked up to a wireless hub like an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). The Drobo is the perfect companion to your constantly expanding PC files. Go to http://drobo.com/drobolator/ to see how much disk storage you can get from any arrangement of drives.
There are still a few days left to get a $25 discount at Drobostore.com. Through December 31 just use the code REFJENL for your instant rebate of $25 off the manufacturer's price."
Tech News:
On-Star's analog communications network will no longer function after February 18th, 2008. For some On-Star equipped cars produced as recently as 2005 the On-Star digital network is neither available nor can be upgraded to. Please make a resolution to check with your automobile dealer about this, if you have continued to subscribe to On-Star services.
On Earth, if you're planning on building a Sphinx at the end of your driveway or a Pyramid on your family's funerary plot, you may need to pass that decision by the Egyptian government. Egypt's Supreme Council of the Antiquities is copyrighting the images of the Sphinx and the great Pyramids at Giza, enabling Egypt to collect royalties (so to speak) from anyone copying any of it's museum pieces or historic monuments. This stems in part from an Egyptian newspaper in Luxor suggesting that Las Vegas' Luxor hotel pay part of it's proceeds to the central Egyptian city of Luxor, which maintains the Valley of the Kings. I wonder which country invented the wheel?
And finally, on Mars it appears that ice in the form of glaciers is forming or has formed in several areas of the polar regions. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft has imaged several regions which appear to show flowing, rippling glacial ice, with white peaks of ice. Of course, you know what speculation this'll lead to? Where there's ice, there may be residual microbial life, and where there's microbial life...well, I suppose the Earth becomes even less the center of the universe. :-)
Tech Question: What is Crochet?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Crochet?" , takes us on a tour of a world she's infinitely familiar with. Do you have a world you're infinitely familiar with? drop me a line at minutetech@gmail.com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Have you picked up any good books this holiday season? If you cannot find any around your house or apartment/flat, here are two books to look for at your local used or new bookstore for a good read.
The first is something of an antique, having first been published in 1915 with reprints in 1933 and 1943: "Countryman's Edition of Morey's Ancient Peoples", by William C. Morey and Irving N. Countryman. This interesting exploration of humanities past is full of inaccuracies in light of all the new scientific discoveries of the past 50 years....but also full of very good information and insights - it is a pleasure to read through and see some of the old pictures. The book covers pre-historic peoples up through the fall of the Roman empire. My favorite references are to translation aides, such as the Rosetta Stone, which gave a path to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the Behistun Rock, which gave a first peek into translations of ancient Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions.
The second is William J. O'Neil's "24 Essential Lessons for Investment Success." Published in 2000 by the founder of business newspaper Investor's Business Daily (IBD), "24" is a great step-by-step guide to investing in a stock market. Although geared toward the American stock market, the ideas in this book can be applied to any stock market. And, although intended as a guide to be use along with the IBD daily, the book stands very well on it's own. From "What every investor should know going in"to "Sell rules every investor should master", O'Neil covers the gamut of important ideas that anyone considering or intending to make his or her money earn more than just a passbook savings account should learn and breath...
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- On-Star Down, Egypt's Intellectual Property, and Mars Flows;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Crochet?"
- Books about Ancient and Modern People.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 58 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Thursday, December 27th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- On-Star Down, Egypt's Intellectual Property, and Mars Flows;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Crochet?"
- Books about Ancient and Modern People.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by these three advertisements:
Learn tai chi and qi gong with master-teacher Larry Tolbert. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu masters himself, sifu Larry Moves with the motion of the planet.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
"If you've been running out of storage space for all those photo's and videos on your home or work computer, here's a last-minute shopping tip, consider getting a Drobo USB storage system. With the ability to use 4 drives for up to 3.6 TB's of storage this system works well as a network-attached device when hooked up to a wireless hub like an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). The Drobo is the perfect companion to your constantly expanding PC files. Go to http://drobo.com/drobolator/ to see how much disk storage you can get from any arrangement of drives.
There are still a few days left to get a $25 discount at Drobostore.com. Through December 31 just use the code REFJENL for your instant rebate of $25 off the manufacturer's price."
Tech News:
On-Star's analog communications network will no longer function after February 18th, 2008. For some On-Star equipped cars produced as recently as 2005 the On-Star digital network is neither available nor can be upgraded to. Please make a resolution to check with your automobile dealer about this, if you have continued to subscribe to On-Star services.
On Earth, if you're planning on building a Sphinx at the end of your driveway or a Pyramid on your family's funerary plot, you may need to pass that decision by the Egyptian government. Egypt's Supreme Council of the Antiquities is copyrighting the images of the Sphinx and the great Pyramids at Giza, enabling Egypt to collect royalties (so to speak) from anyone copying any of it's museum pieces or historic monuments. This stems in part from an Egyptian newspaper in Luxor suggesting that Las Vegas' Luxor hotel pay part of it's proceeds to the central Egyptian city of Luxor, which maintains the Valley of the Kings. I wonder which country invented the wheel?
And finally, on Mars it appears that ice in the form of glaciers is forming or has formed in several areas of the polar regions. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft has imaged several regions which appear to show flowing, rippling glacial ice, with white peaks of ice. Of course, you know what speculation this'll lead to? Where there's ice, there may be residual microbial life, and where there's microbial life...well, I suppose the Earth becomes even less the center of the universe. :-)
Tech Question: What is Crochet?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Crochet?" , takes us on a tour of a world she's infinitely familiar with. Do you have a world you're infinitely familiar with? drop me a line at minutetech@gmail.com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Have you picked up any good books this holiday season? If you cannot find any around your house or apartment/flat, here are two books to look for at your local used or new bookstore for a good read.
The first is something of an antique, having first been published in 1915 with reprints in 1933 and 1943: "Countryman's Edition of Morey's Ancient Peoples", by William C. Morey and Irving N. Countryman. This interesting exploration of humanities past is full of inaccuracies in light of all the new scientific discoveries of the past 50 years....but also full of very good information and insights - it is a pleasure to read through and see some of the old pictures. The book covers pre-historic peoples up through the fall of the Roman empire. My favorite references are to translation aides, such as the Rosetta Stone, which gave a path to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the Behistun Rock, which gave a first peek into translations of ancient Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions.
The second is William J. O'Neil's "24 Essential Lessons for Investment Success." Published in 2000 by the founder of business newspaper Investor's Business Daily (IBD), "24" is a great step-by-step guide to investing in a stock market. Although geared toward the American stock market, the ideas in this book can be applied to any stock market. And, although intended as a guide to be use along with the IBD daily, the book stands very well on it's own. From "What every investor should know going in"to "Sell rules every investor should master", O'Neil covers the gamut of important ideas that anyone considering or intending to make his or her money earn more than just a passbook savings account should learn and breath...
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- On-Star Down, Egypt's Intellectual Property, and Mars Flows;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Crochet?"
- Books about Ancient and Modern People.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
phyllostachys 72: Minute Tech 57 Show Transcript
57 - What is Needle-craft?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 57 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday thru Wednesday, December 24th thru 26th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Moon & Mars Dance While the Ursids Shower;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Needle-craft?"
- Facebook, Tabloids and Baboons - "Baboon Metaphysics".
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
"If you've been running out of storage space for all those photo's and videos on your home or work computer, here's a last-minute shopping tip, consider getting a Drobo USB storage system. With the ability to use 4 drives for up to 3.6 TB's of storage this system works well as a network-attached device when hooked up to a wireless hub like an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). The Drobo is the perfect companion to your constantly expanding PC files. Go to http://drobo.com/drobolator/ to see how much disk storage you can get from any arrangement of drives.
There are still a few days left to get a $25 discount at Drobostore.com. Through December 31 just use the code REFJENL for your instant rebate of $25 off the manufacturer's price."
Tech News:
The Times of India reports that the moon, you know, the moon...that bright nightime companion to the Earth? Yes that's the one...the moon will be riding higher in it's wobbly orbit of the Earth, or higher above the Earth's equator, than it has in 16 years...or will for another 16 years. This means that the moon, street-lamp-like, will be riding nearly overhead, for those of us looking up in the Northern hemisphere, though perhaps at its lowest point in the northern sky for those in the Southern Hemisphere. Oh! and look. It has it's own companion. Mars is riding alongside the moon, and is in it's position of opposition, meaning that it's nearly directly in line with the moon, the Earth and our beloved Sun.
Yubanet.com reprints an article from Spaceweather.com, which notes how close Earth moon was to Mars on the night of December 23rd. At moonrise, the two were less than two degrees apart...very close, and this closeness made the moon in it's fullness very spectacular. Riding high with the moon and mars, though nearly totally obscured by the bright companions, were the twins and the great hunter, Gemini and Orion, respectively. On Christmas Eve, however, the two were separately by a quarter of the night sky.
Also in the heavens the last few nights was the ending of the Ursid meteor shower. Named for Ursa Minor, the "Little Dipper", the constellation out of which the meteors appear to come, this particular meteor show runs from December 17th through the 25th, with peak showers on the 22nd and 23rd. This meteor show prepares us for the appearance of comet 8P/Tuttle, which should be visible January 1st and 2nd.
http://meteorshowersonline.com/showers/ursids.html
Tech Question: What is Needle-craft?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Needle-craft?" , takes us on a tour of a world she's infinitely familiar with. Do you have a world you're infinitely familiar with? drop me a line at minutetech@gmail.com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Anna Farmery interviews Andrew Kaplan on show number 132; Andrew discusses using Facebook for connecting, marketing, advertising; discusses Beacon as an opt-in rather than opt-out service; difference between groups and pages. Andrew blogs via "Facebookenthusiast.blogspot.com".
CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks' Bob Macdonald speaks with Dr. Dorothy Cheney about the book by her and her husband, Robert Seyforth, "Baboon Metaphysics". Have you wondered about the interest of humans on those tabloid magazines in grocery store check-out aisles? Humans come by that interest in the lives of others...well...naturally. Check out www.cbc.ca/quirks for more info about this podcast/radio show.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Moon & Mars Dance While the Ursids Shower;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Needle-craft?"
- Facebook, Tabloids and Baboons - "Baboon Metaphysics".
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 57 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday thru Wednesday, December 24th thru 26th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Moon & Mars Dance While the Ursids Shower;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Needle-craft?"
- Facebook, Tabloids and Baboons - "Baboon Metaphysics".
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
"If you've been running out of storage space for all those photo's and videos on your home or work computer, here's a last-minute shopping tip, consider getting a Drobo USB storage system. With the ability to use 4 drives for up to 3.6 TB's of storage this system works well as a network-attached device when hooked up to a wireless hub like an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). The Drobo is the perfect companion to your constantly expanding PC files. Go to http://drobo.com/drobolator/ to see how much disk storage you can get from any arrangement of drives.
There are still a few days left to get a $25 discount at Drobostore.com. Through December 31 just use the code REFJENL for your instant rebate of $25 off the manufacturer's price."
Tech News:
The Times of India reports that the moon, you know, the moon...that bright nightime companion to the Earth? Yes that's the one...the moon will be riding higher in it's wobbly orbit of the Earth, or higher above the Earth's equator, than it has in 16 years...or will for another 16 years. This means that the moon, street-lamp-like, will be riding nearly overhead, for those of us looking up in the Northern hemisphere, though perhaps at its lowest point in the northern sky for those in the Southern Hemisphere. Oh! and look. It has it's own companion. Mars is riding alongside the moon, and is in it's position of opposition, meaning that it's nearly directly in line with the moon, the Earth and our beloved Sun.
Yubanet.com reprints an article from Spaceweather.com, which notes how close Earth moon was to Mars on the night of December 23rd. At moonrise, the two were less than two degrees apart...very close, and this closeness made the moon in it's fullness very spectacular. Riding high with the moon and mars, though nearly totally obscured by the bright companions, were the twins and the great hunter, Gemini and Orion, respectively. On Christmas Eve, however, the two were separately by a quarter of the night sky.
Also in the heavens the last few nights was the ending of the Ursid meteor shower. Named for Ursa Minor, the "Little Dipper", the constellation out of which the meteors appear to come, this particular meteor show runs from December 17th through the 25th, with peak showers on the 22nd and 23rd. This meteor show prepares us for the appearance of comet 8P/Tuttle, which should be visible January 1st and 2nd.
http://meteorshowersonline.com/showers/ursids.html
Tech Question: What is Needle-craft?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Needle-craft?" , takes us on a tour of a world she's infinitely familiar with. Do you have a world you're infinitely familiar with? drop me a line at minutetech@gmail.com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Anna Farmery interviews Andrew Kaplan on show number 132; Andrew discusses using Facebook for connecting, marketing, advertising; discusses Beacon as an opt-in rather than opt-out service; difference between groups and pages. Andrew blogs via "Facebookenthusiast.blogspot.com".
CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks' Bob Macdonald speaks with Dr. Dorothy Cheney about the book by her and her husband, Robert Seyforth, "Baboon Metaphysics". Have you wondered about the interest of humans on those tabloid magazines in grocery store check-out aisles? Humans come by that interest in the lives of others...well...naturally. Check out www.cbc.ca/quirks for more info about this podcast/radio show.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Moon & Mars Dance While the Ursids Shower;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Needle-craft?"
- Facebook, Tabloids and Baboons - "Baboon Metaphysics".
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Sunday, December 23, 2007
phyllostachys 71: Minute Tech 56 Show Transcript
56 - Are Videos the Best Communications Medium?
Good day to you all, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 56 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Saturday and Sunday, December 22nd and 23rd, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- The Sun is Coming Back and LED is Beginning to Shine;
- Are Videos the Best Communications Medium?
- Lawrence Lessig describes the Remix Generation.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
A new sponsor is the drobo:
"If you've been running out of storage space for all those photo's and videos on your home or work computer, here's a last-minute shopping tip, consider getting a Drobo USB storage system. With the ability to use 4 drives for up to 3.5 TB's of storage this system works well as a network-attached device when hooked up to a wireless hub like an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). The Drobo is the perfect companion to your constantly expanding PC files.
There are still a few days left to get a $25 discount at Drobostore.com. Through December 31 just use the code REFJENL for your instant rebate of $25 off the manufacturer's price."
Tech News:
Yesterday was the winter solstice! At 1:08 am of December 22nd, 2007, winter began for the Earth's Northern Hemisphere and Summer began for Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Surfers Village Global Surfing News provides us with the following question and answer about the Winter solstice and Christmas:
"So why is the solstice on December 21st and Christmas held on December 25th?
The New Testament specified no date for the birth of Jesus, so about 366 C.E., the Roman empire state church selected December 25th--the Roman calendar's Solstice--which was already a traditional "God's Birthday" across the empire for the many religions it contained. Having Jesus born on the Solstice also lent him credibility. It helped convert pagans to Christianity, since the new god was a version of their old god (Mithris, Saturn, Mordoc, Horus, Sol, Apollo, Osiris, etc .) Of course, this similarity to other gods of light and eternal life is truer than most Christians realize."
It's Winter Solstice today - the World's Greatest Holiday
LED lighting - where are we going with it? If you look in your local lighting store, you'll see that LED replacements for incandescent or compact fluorescents just aren't there. Christopher Palmieri reports for BusinessWeek that Laura Peak of Osram Sylvania has developed an LED products that OS calls the DOT-it, which is a small round set of three LED bulbs designed with a sticky strip on back for putting anywhere you need bright accessible lighting: in your car, your closet, your boat or your attic storage closet. The magic of LED is that the equivalent set of LED's to a 60-Watt incandescent bulb draws only 2-4 watts of juice...but the LED's are currently too costly due to the higher cost of producing them. As manufacturing and design costs come down, LED's will make more sense. As Peach says, "The price of LEDs is cut in half every eighteen months," she says. "In two years, we'll be there."
Check out LEDLights.com to see just how costly these lighting alternatives can be...but also to see the descriptions. If I could light my house with 2.5 watts per fixture, that'd be totally awesome. Next I'll be looking at NanoSolar's technology for my roof.
Also, go to Gardeners.com to see a good display of indoor and outdoor battery-operated and solar LED lighting.
Tech Question: Are Videos the Best Communications Medium?
As I said in a previous show, when I think the word podcast, I think of an audio-only show which I listen to on my iPod Shuffle. But, when Alex Lindsay of Pixelcorps.com talks about podcasts, he's talking strictly about video. The group at Pixelcorps.com has struck on the fact that producing video with today's camera and software technology is very easy, and with a little bit of training one can produce near-professional quality programming....which is exactly what Pixelcorps.com is training its staff and membership to do. Sure, you can watch television to see how NBC or Fox puts together shows, using their astronomical budgets....or you can go to OnNetworks.com or Revision3.com to see some of Pixelcorps.com's shows. These are extremely high-quality digital video episodic shows, all coming to you via the internet onto your computer.
Video, or moving pictures, can tell very big stories, as we've seen in film since Charlie Chaplin hung from a clock tower to the time that Anakin Skywalker had his unfortunate fight with his teacher Obi Wan down by the molten lava. Do you think that Mr. Chaplin actually hung from a clock tower? Do you think that the molten lava was really hot?
The word video implies moving pictures distributed via digital tape, television or computer, and in fact, wikipedia describes video as "the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion. " This, therefore is different from the original idea of capturing and processing images on a continuous strand of film in a film camera, which was the origin of the cinema film industry between the 1880's and the 1920's. But whether it was continuously hand-cranked film or modern digital images recorded to Flash RAM memory sticks, moving pictures still need to be doctored frame by frame to render special effects, to fool the viewing public into believing that a clock tower is hundreds of feet up, that giant ants are really giant, and that hot lava is really having an effect on that Jedi-gone-bad.
Where will video take us next? Is Video really the best communications medium, even with the ability to recreate special effects superbly on your PC or Mac? Or is there a better communications medium?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Yesterday, I downloaded video of Lawrence Lessig's presentation at Northeastern University Free Culture Forum, in which he talks about the freedom of writing and creating by remixing the work of others. Lessig shows a series of remixed media/video stories, retellings of various stories using remixed video and audio.
Paraphrasing Lessig:
"Anybody with a 1500 dollar computer can write in this way, changing what the television networks or newspapers spit out to us, that is becoming not the NYT democracy but the blog democracy....not the few speaking to the many but increasingly peer-to-peer, this is changing what writing is, it's writing for the 21st century, it's the same activity that has gone on since the time that pencils were first spread to the people..."
You can find these video's referenced at the bottom of the Wikipedia article about Lessig, by searching in iTunes for "Lessig" (Lessig1 and Lessig2 show up as the first two listings), or by clicking this link in the Minute Tech podcast Show Transcript.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- The Sun is Coming Back and LED is Beginning to Shine;
- Are Videos the Best Communications Medium?
- Lawrence Lessig describes the Remix Generation.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good day to you all, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 56 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Saturday and Sunday, December 22nd and 23rd, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- The Sun is Coming Back and LED is Beginning to Shine;
- Are Videos the Best Communications Medium?
- Lawrence Lessig describes the Remix Generation.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
A new sponsor is the drobo:
"If you've been running out of storage space for all those photo's and videos on your home or work computer, here's a last-minute shopping tip, consider getting a Drobo USB storage system. With the ability to use 4 drives for up to 3.5 TB's of storage this system works well as a network-attached device when hooked up to a wireless hub like an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). The Drobo is the perfect companion to your constantly expanding PC files.
There are still a few days left to get a $25 discount at Drobostore.com. Through December 31 just use the code REFJENL for your instant rebate of $25 off the manufacturer's price."
Tech News:
Yesterday was the winter solstice! At 1:08 am of December 22nd, 2007, winter began for the Earth's Northern Hemisphere and Summer began for Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Surfers Village Global Surfing News provides us with the following question and answer about the Winter solstice and Christmas:
"So why is the solstice on December 21st and Christmas held on December 25th?
The New Testament specified no date for the birth of Jesus, so about 366 C.E., the Roman empire state church selected December 25th--the Roman calendar's Solstice--which was already a traditional "God's Birthday" across the empire for the many religions it contained. Having Jesus born on the Solstice also lent him credibility. It helped convert pagans to Christianity, since the new god was a version of their old god (Mithris, Saturn, Mordoc, Horus, Sol, Apollo, Osiris, etc .) Of course, this similarity to other gods of light and eternal life is truer than most Christians realize."
It's Winter Solstice today - the World's Greatest Holiday
LED lighting - where are we going with it? If you look in your local lighting store, you'll see that LED replacements for incandescent or compact fluorescents just aren't there. Christopher Palmieri reports for BusinessWeek that Laura Peak of Osram Sylvania has developed an LED products that OS calls the DOT-it, which is a small round set of three LED bulbs designed with a sticky strip on back for putting anywhere you need bright accessible lighting: in your car, your closet, your boat or your attic storage closet. The magic of LED is that the equivalent set of LED's to a 60-Watt incandescent bulb draws only 2-4 watts of juice...but the LED's are currently too costly due to the higher cost of producing them. As manufacturing and design costs come down, LED's will make more sense. As Peach says, "The price of LEDs is cut in half every eighteen months," she says. "In two years, we'll be there."
Check out LEDLights.com to see just how costly these lighting alternatives can be...but also to see the descriptions. If I could light my house with 2.5 watts per fixture, that'd be totally awesome. Next I'll be looking at NanoSolar's technology for my roof.
Also, go to Gardeners.com to see a good display of indoor and outdoor battery-operated and solar LED lighting.
Tech Question: Are Videos the Best Communications Medium?
As I said in a previous show, when I think the word podcast, I think of an audio-only show which I listen to on my iPod Shuffle. But, when Alex Lindsay of Pixelcorps.com talks about podcasts, he's talking strictly about video. The group at Pixelcorps.com has struck on the fact that producing video with today's camera and software technology is very easy, and with a little bit of training one can produce near-professional quality programming....which is exactly what Pixelcorps.com is training its staff and membership to do. Sure, you can watch television to see how NBC or Fox puts together shows, using their astronomical budgets....or you can go to OnNetworks.com or Revision3.com to see some of Pixelcorps.com's shows. These are extremely high-quality digital video episodic shows, all coming to you via the internet onto your computer.
Video, or moving pictures, can tell very big stories, as we've seen in film since Charlie Chaplin hung from a clock tower to the time that Anakin Skywalker had his unfortunate fight with his teacher Obi Wan down by the molten lava. Do you think that Mr. Chaplin actually hung from a clock tower? Do you think that the molten lava was really hot?
The word video implies moving pictures distributed via digital tape, television or computer, and in fact, wikipedia describes video as "the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion. " This, therefore is different from the original idea of capturing and processing images on a continuous strand of film in a film camera, which was the origin of the cinema film industry between the 1880's and the 1920's. But whether it was continuously hand-cranked film or modern digital images recorded to Flash RAM memory sticks, moving pictures still need to be doctored frame by frame to render special effects, to fool the viewing public into believing that a clock tower is hundreds of feet up, that giant ants are really giant, and that hot lava is really having an effect on that Jedi-gone-bad.
Where will video take us next? Is Video really the best communications medium, even with the ability to recreate special effects superbly on your PC or Mac? Or is there a better communications medium?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Yesterday, I downloaded video of Lawrence Lessig's presentation at Northeastern University Free Culture Forum, in which he talks about the freedom of writing and creating by remixing the work of others. Lessig shows a series of remixed media/video stories, retellings of various stories using remixed video and audio.
Paraphrasing Lessig:
"Anybody with a 1500 dollar computer can write in this way, changing what the television networks or newspapers spit out to us, that is becoming not the NYT democracy but the blog democracy....not the few speaking to the many but increasingly peer-to-peer, this is changing what writing is, it's writing for the 21st century, it's the same activity that has gone on since the time that pencils were first spread to the people..."
You can find these video's referenced at the bottom of the Wikipedia article about Lessig, by searching in iTunes for "Lessig" (Lessig1 and Lessig2 show up as the first two listings), or by clicking this link in the Minute Tech podcast Show Transcript.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- The Sun is Coming Back and LED is Beginning to Shine;
- Are Videos the Best Communications Medium?
- Lawrence Lessig describes the Remix Generation.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Thursday, December 20, 2007
phyllostachys 70: Minute Tech 55 Show Transcript
55 - Are Pictures the Best Communications Medium?
Good day to you all, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 55 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Thursday & Friday, December 20th and 21st, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- New Zealand quakes, ThinkSecret crumbles & DoubleClick is Gobbled;
- Are Pictures the Best Communications Medium?
- Anna Farmery asks Mark Sanborn to describe confidence.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Show note: I've been dealing with a slight cold this week, and it'll be really evident today as it's settling in my throat. Vitamin C has been my cold-fighting diet additive for this bout - may each of you make it successfully through your respective ailments, too, this holiday season. :-) Due to the two-day delay on this 'cast, you may note that this news is somewhat dated...but perhaps you don't troll the same news feeds as I.
Tech News:
On a different part of the ring of fire from the Aleutian islands, an earth temblor has rocked part of New Zealand. The Associated Press reports that a magnitude 6.8 earthquake centered some 40 km below the surface of the Hikurangi undersea trench shook all of mainland New Zealand, causing much structural damage in Wellington, though with no immediate reports of injuries.
Seth Sutel, writing for the AP, reports that Apple, Inc. settled an industrial secrets-disseminating lawsuit with ThinkSecret.com owner Nick Ciarelli, resulting in the shutdown of the popular Apple rumor site. Having started the site in 1998 at the age of 13, Ciarelli is okay with the amicable settlement reached, saying that he'll now be able to focus more on his studies at Harvard.
Finally, CNBC reports that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has given the green light to Google's acquisition of internet advertisement company DoubleClick. Named for the action used by a computer user to open a program on a Windows PC, DoubleClick has been the target of a Google purchase bid. The FTC is reported to have said that "We have concluded that Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick is unlikely to substantially lessen competition." Google competitors such as Yahoo! and Amazon would probably differ with that declaration.
Tech Question: Are Pictures the Best Communications Medium?
In the last few shows I've discussed other "bests" for a communications medium, or a method by which one person communicates with another. The human voice has been with us for millions of years; text in some form has been around for 15 or 20,000 years; audio, which we know as a mechanically recorded or electronically amplified form of the human voice, has been around for 100+ years. What about pictures?
Well, in my definition of text, I included pictures as used by story tellers to help describe a narrative, such as hunters killing the animals to be used for the evening meal and for creating sleeping blankets and tent walls. But a picture is generally used to describe something that the picture directly depicts, unlike textual pictures which can take on meanings beyond their artistic rendering. In the same sense that Helen of Troy's face launched a thousand ships, a picture can take the place of a thousand words...hence the similar saying "a picture is worth a thousand words"; a textual picture, on the other hand, is designed to be used as a character in a string of like pictures to construct an alphabetic language.
In this sense, wherein a picture can depict thousands of words, rather than being one symbol in a string to compose a word, a picture could be considered a far better communications medium than text...except for two things: it's not adaptable beyond it's usual 2D depiction, and it's only useful for those who can see it - that is, our vision-impaired brothers and sisters would have a hard time getting information from a 2D picture. But, for those of us able to use our eyes as light-gathering, shape-defining devices, pictures can communicate tons of information.
Take, for example, a picture of a flower in a vase: the picture itself will convey many meanings.
- Is it a photograph? If so, can you tell what photographic process the photographer may have used? Remember, printing a digital print on color printer is still a rendering process for a photograph...we've just made it more pedestrian, more plebeian through our everyday use of technology.
- Is it a painting? If so, of what artistic style?
- Of what form is the vase? is it representative of the artists era, or no?
- Of what form is the flower? Dried? Living? From a cactus or from an orchid?
- In what setting is the flower and vase? Is it a still life of just the flower and vase, or is it in a room or setting relevant to the painter, or relative to the idea that the painter is attempting to depict? For example, is the room a 16th century monestary, or a 24th century room on the Starship Enterprise? Either setting suggest oodles of related information, far beyond the existence of the flower in the vase.
Are Pictures, therefore, the Best Communications Method?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
I was going to wax podcastific on one of Gregory Galant's recent Venture Voice interviews...but the interview by Anna Farmery on her Engaging Brand podcast #130 with Mark Sanborn sticks way too deeply in the mud of my mind. Mark is the author of several books including the "Fred Factor" and "You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader"...and has made a name for himself in public speaking...which shines right through in Anna's interview. One interesting comment he makes about Anna is that she is skilled at looking at a subject and discerning the right questions to ask to draw out an interviewee, suggesting that soft skills like this are the unsung qualities of a leader, rather than the technical skills of building product or cracking a proverbial whip. Both Mark and Anna agree that in organizations we too often don't invite leaders to lead, but just manage. One of the qualities that can help you learn to lead is to recognize and point out to colleagues qualities about their personalities or work habits that shine, although the person may take that quality for granted. It's recognizing these qualities in others and then bringing these qualities to bear on a business situation that marks a person who can lead rather than manage, who can coach rather than brow-beat, who can direct rather than micro-manage.
In this interview about "confidence", Sanborn states that "confidence is competence coupled with certainty" - he explains this with a word picture about skiing down an expert mountain slope, wherein coupled with certainty that you'll make it to the bottom intact, you'd better have the competence to keep yourself upright on your ski's. Please listen to this podcast to learn more about how Sanborn speaks, and how well Anna interacts with him.
...
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- New Zealand quakes, ThinkSecret crumbles & DoubleClick is Gobbled;
- Are Pictures the Best Communications Medium?
- Anna Farmery asks Mark Sanborn to describe confidence.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good day to you all, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 55 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Thursday & Friday, December 20th and 21st, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- New Zealand quakes, ThinkSecret crumbles & DoubleClick is Gobbled;
- Are Pictures the Best Communications Medium?
- Anna Farmery asks Mark Sanborn to describe confidence.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Show note: I've been dealing with a slight cold this week, and it'll be really evident today as it's settling in my throat. Vitamin C has been my cold-fighting diet additive for this bout - may each of you make it successfully through your respective ailments, too, this holiday season. :-) Due to the two-day delay on this 'cast, you may note that this news is somewhat dated...but perhaps you don't troll the same news feeds as I.
Tech News:
On a different part of the ring of fire from the Aleutian islands, an earth temblor has rocked part of New Zealand. The Associated Press reports that a magnitude 6.8 earthquake centered some 40 km below the surface of the Hikurangi undersea trench shook all of mainland New Zealand, causing much structural damage in Wellington, though with no immediate reports of injuries.
Seth Sutel, writing for the AP, reports that Apple, Inc. settled an industrial secrets-disseminating lawsuit with ThinkSecret.com owner Nick Ciarelli, resulting in the shutdown of the popular Apple rumor site. Having started the site in 1998 at the age of 13, Ciarelli is okay with the amicable settlement reached, saying that he'll now be able to focus more on his studies at Harvard.
Finally, CNBC reports that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has given the green light to Google's acquisition of internet advertisement company DoubleClick. Named for the action used by a computer user to open a program on a Windows PC, DoubleClick has been the target of a Google purchase bid. The FTC is reported to have said that "We have concluded that Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick is unlikely to substantially lessen competition." Google competitors such as Yahoo! and Amazon would probably differ with that declaration.
Tech Question: Are Pictures the Best Communications Medium?
In the last few shows I've discussed other "bests" for a communications medium, or a method by which one person communicates with another. The human voice has been with us for millions of years; text in some form has been around for 15 or 20,000 years; audio, which we know as a mechanically recorded or electronically amplified form of the human voice, has been around for 100+ years. What about pictures?
Well, in my definition of text, I included pictures as used by story tellers to help describe a narrative, such as hunters killing the animals to be used for the evening meal and for creating sleeping blankets and tent walls. But a picture is generally used to describe something that the picture directly depicts, unlike textual pictures which can take on meanings beyond their artistic rendering. In the same sense that Helen of Troy's face launched a thousand ships, a picture can take the place of a thousand words...hence the similar saying "a picture is worth a thousand words"; a textual picture, on the other hand, is designed to be used as a character in a string of like pictures to construct an alphabetic language.
In this sense, wherein a picture can depict thousands of words, rather than being one symbol in a string to compose a word, a picture could be considered a far better communications medium than text...except for two things: it's not adaptable beyond it's usual 2D depiction, and it's only useful for those who can see it - that is, our vision-impaired brothers and sisters would have a hard time getting information from a 2D picture. But, for those of us able to use our eyes as light-gathering, shape-defining devices, pictures can communicate tons of information.
Take, for example, a picture of a flower in a vase: the picture itself will convey many meanings.
- Is it a photograph? If so, can you tell what photographic process the photographer may have used? Remember, printing a digital print on color printer is still a rendering process for a photograph...we've just made it more pedestrian, more plebeian through our everyday use of technology.
- Is it a painting? If so, of what artistic style?
- Of what form is the vase? is it representative of the artists era, or no?
- Of what form is the flower? Dried? Living? From a cactus or from an orchid?
- In what setting is the flower and vase? Is it a still life of just the flower and vase, or is it in a room or setting relevant to the painter, or relative to the idea that the painter is attempting to depict? For example, is the room a 16th century monestary, or a 24th century room on the Starship Enterprise? Either setting suggest oodles of related information, far beyond the existence of the flower in the vase.
Are Pictures, therefore, the Best Communications Method?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
I was going to wax podcastific on one of Gregory Galant's recent Venture Voice interviews...but the interview by Anna Farmery on her Engaging Brand podcast #130 with Mark Sanborn sticks way too deeply in the mud of my mind. Mark is the author of several books including the "Fred Factor" and "You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader"...and has made a name for himself in public speaking...which shines right through in Anna's interview. One interesting comment he makes about Anna is that she is skilled at looking at a subject and discerning the right questions to ask to draw out an interviewee, suggesting that soft skills like this are the unsung qualities of a leader, rather than the technical skills of building product or cracking a proverbial whip. Both Mark and Anna agree that in organizations we too often don't invite leaders to lead, but just manage. One of the qualities that can help you learn to lead is to recognize and point out to colleagues qualities about their personalities or work habits that shine, although the person may take that quality for granted. It's recognizing these qualities in others and then bringing these qualities to bear on a business situation that marks a person who can lead rather than manage, who can coach rather than brow-beat, who can direct rather than micro-manage.
In this interview about "confidence", Sanborn states that "confidence is competence coupled with certainty" - he explains this with a word picture about skiing down an expert mountain slope, wherein coupled with certainty that you'll make it to the bottom intact, you'd better have the competence to keep yourself upright on your ski's. Please listen to this podcast to learn more about how Sanborn speaks, and how well Anna interacts with him.
...
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- New Zealand quakes, ThinkSecret crumbles & DoubleClick is Gobbled;
- Are Pictures the Best Communications Medium?
- Anna Farmery asks Mark Sanborn to describe confidence.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
phyllostachys 69: Minute Tech 54 Show Transcript
54 - Is Audio the Best Communications Medium?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 54 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- The iPhone Tsunami;
- Is Audio the Best Communications Medium?
- Jon Morrow guest-writing on Penelope Trunk's Careerist.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
So that's how we're gonna reach 10 million iPhones in '08! You didn't think, as I'm sure I did, that the prediction meant just US sales, did you???
Daniel Del'Re posts for the TheStreet.com that Apple is shooting for an iPhone launch in Japan as it's first stop in an Asian Apple tour. Being the world's third largest economy, Japan is already a very large consumer of Apple products, so the island nation makes for an ideal place to go. Coupled with the fact that Asians are far ahead of the rest of us in the use of wireless devices in lieu of desktop PC's, Japan could be a very good proving ground for the viability of the iPhone in a heavily saturated wireless market.
Stepping back to news from the backyard, Pittsburgh start-up Panasas, Inc. has announced that, along with the University of Nebraska's new Holland Computing Center upgrading it's 1150 node cluster computer from a top-500 supercomputer to a top-20 system containing 60 Teraflops of processing capacity, Panasas' ActiveStor Parallel Storage will be added to the cluster. Panasas' system, which eliminates network bottlenecks imposed on clusters by standard NAS and SAN storage arrays by allowing for parallel access to it's own storage, will work in conjunction with systems integration from Dell, Inc., Cisco and Force10 Networks.
Finally, this just in: Japan's Meteorological Agency has announced a Tsunami alert for Hawaii due to a 7.3-magnitude earthquake centered in Alaska's Aleutian islands. The JMA said that the quake's focus was some 40 km below the seabed, and occurred at 9:30 am GMT.
Tech Question: Is Audio the Best Communications Medium?
What do you think of when you hear the word "audio"? Do you think of that awful sound blasting from your kid's radio? Do you think of the mini-cassettes that you record on at the office? Do you think just of sound that can be heard?
When I think of audio, I think of the political loudspeakers on tops of cars, driving through the streets in Back to the Future, of Charles Winchester listening to opera phonographs in M*A*S*H, of 8-Track tapes sitting nestled under car seats, and of all the podcasts I listen to on my iPod Shuffle. In short, recorded sound.
Is recorded sound the best communications medium?
But of course, radio is audio - and radio is generally live audio being played out in thousands of radio stations world-wide. Television has an audio component, and television is being played live in thousands of broadcast stations worldwide...though increasingly, like podcasts, pre-recorded video is overtaking the airwaves, the cable, the internet.
But, remember, audio, unless it's music, is accessible only to those who know the language being spoken. Music, sans words, is accessible to all...who can hear...and music with words is accessible to all who can hear...and more accessible to those who understand the particular dialect.
Of what use is audio to the hearing-impaired. Do you have friends who're hearing impaired? What communications medium do they prefer?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
I'm working up a review of recent listening's to some of Anna Farmery's Engaging Brand podcasts. In the meantime, a blog link journey led me to Jon Morrow, a twenty-something guest-writing on Penelope Trunk's blog. In his laments about having worked too hard in college to get straight A's, he references Guy Kawasaki's blog post about Hindsight...in which GK suggests, among other things, that college kids oughta spend more time on their parents dime getting more out of the college experience than just hitting the books.
What is the right blend? As an adult who didn't apply himself hard enough in college, I think that as much schooling as soon as possible is the right choice...but here're folks who got lots of schooling and are lamenting the fact. What's the right mix?
Jon Morrow, guesting on Penelope Trunk's blog: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/12/04/twentysomething-why-i-regret-getting-straight-as-in-college/
Guy Kawasaki's blog on Hindsight: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/hindsights.html
Jon Morrow, on his own blog: http://www.onmoneymaking.com/
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- The iPhone Tsunami;
- Is Audio the Best Communications Medium?
- Jon Morrow guest-writing on Penelope Trunk's Careerist.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 54 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- The iPhone Tsunami;
- Is Audio the Best Communications Medium?
- Jon Morrow guest-writing on Penelope Trunk's Careerist.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
So that's how we're gonna reach 10 million iPhones in '08! You didn't think, as I'm sure I did, that the prediction meant just US sales, did you???
Daniel Del'Re posts for the TheStreet.com that Apple is shooting for an iPhone launch in Japan as it's first stop in an Asian Apple tour. Being the world's third largest economy, Japan is already a very large consumer of Apple products, so the island nation makes for an ideal place to go. Coupled with the fact that Asians are far ahead of the rest of us in the use of wireless devices in lieu of desktop PC's, Japan could be a very good proving ground for the viability of the iPhone in a heavily saturated wireless market.
Stepping back to news from the backyard, Pittsburgh start-up Panasas, Inc. has announced that, along with the University of Nebraska's new Holland Computing Center upgrading it's 1150 node cluster computer from a top-500 supercomputer to a top-20 system containing 60 Teraflops of processing capacity, Panasas' ActiveStor Parallel Storage will be added to the cluster. Panasas' system, which eliminates network bottlenecks imposed on clusters by standard NAS and SAN storage arrays by allowing for parallel access to it's own storage, will work in conjunction with systems integration from Dell, Inc., Cisco and Force10 Networks.
Finally, this just in: Japan's Meteorological Agency has announced a Tsunami alert for Hawaii due to a 7.3-magnitude earthquake centered in Alaska's Aleutian islands. The JMA said that the quake's focus was some 40 km below the seabed, and occurred at 9:30 am GMT.
Tech Question: Is Audio the Best Communications Medium?
What do you think of when you hear the word "audio"? Do you think of that awful sound blasting from your kid's radio? Do you think of the mini-cassettes that you record on at the office? Do you think just of sound that can be heard?
When I think of audio, I think of the political loudspeakers on tops of cars, driving through the streets in Back to the Future, of Charles Winchester listening to opera phonographs in M*A*S*H, of 8-Track tapes sitting nestled under car seats, and of all the podcasts I listen to on my iPod Shuffle. In short, recorded sound.
Is recorded sound the best communications medium?
But of course, radio is audio - and radio is generally live audio being played out in thousands of radio stations world-wide. Television has an audio component, and television is being played live in thousands of broadcast stations worldwide...though increasingly, like podcasts, pre-recorded video is overtaking the airwaves, the cable, the internet.
But, remember, audio, unless it's music, is accessible only to those who know the language being spoken. Music, sans words, is accessible to all...who can hear...and music with words is accessible to all who can hear...and more accessible to those who understand the particular dialect.
Of what use is audio to the hearing-impaired. Do you have friends who're hearing impaired? What communications medium do they prefer?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
I'm working up a review of recent listening's to some of Anna Farmery's Engaging Brand podcasts. In the meantime, a blog link journey led me to Jon Morrow, a twenty-something guest-writing on Penelope Trunk's blog. In his laments about having worked too hard in college to get straight A's, he references Guy Kawasaki's blog post about Hindsight...in which GK suggests, among other things, that college kids oughta spend more time on their parents dime getting more out of the college experience than just hitting the books.
What is the right blend? As an adult who didn't apply himself hard enough in college, I think that as much schooling as soon as possible is the right choice...but here're folks who got lots of schooling and are lamenting the fact. What's the right mix?
Jon Morrow, guesting on Penelope Trunk's blog: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/12/04/twentysomething-why-i-regret-getting-straight-as-in-college/
Guy Kawasaki's blog on Hindsight: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/hindsights.html
Jon Morrow, on his own blog: http://www.onmoneymaking.com/
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- The iPhone Tsunami;
- Is Audio the Best Communications Medium?
- Jon Morrow guest-writing on Penelope Trunk's Careerist.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
phyllostachys 68: Minute Tech 53 Show Transcript
53 - Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 53 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- A Galaxy Gets Cooked, FireWire Heats Up, & Late Night Warms Up;
- Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
- What's a Ninja Crayon, and what's in a Logo?
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
Marc Kaufman of the Washington Post reports from various scientific groups that scientists have identified a huge jet of stellar matter streaking out from a super-massive black hole (which is a gravitationally collapsed star, as originally predicted by Albert Einstein) and colliding with a neighboring galaxy. Speculation by scientists is that this jet of matter will cause devastating effects to any habitable or inhabited planets in star systems in the affected galaxy. Such a jets effect on earth would be to strip away the ozone and magnetosphere, both which help protect life on earth from harmful radiation emanated by Earths stellar companion, the sun.
On a slightly different scale, Jonny Evans of Macworld UK reports that the 1394 Trade Association is expecting to ratify by February '08 a new specification for FireWire, or IEEE-1394 data transfer, which will boost existing FireWire 800 equipment from 800Mb/s to 3.2Gb/s, without a need to modify or otherwise update the existing hardware. Note that this is referring to bits...divide by eight to get the MB/s transfer speed. Travis Hudson, posting on PCWorlds blog, states that this bump up will help FireWire compete with the new USB 3.0 data transfer standard, which according to wikipedia's article on USB, is rated at 4.8 Gb/s.
And on different tangent, but related to the news about Letterman working with the WGA, Richard Huff of the NY Daily News reports that Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien are looking to return to the late night airwaves without the WGA, but with their existing production staff intact. Apparently, comedy "bits and sketches" require the input of WGA writers, so It'll be interesting to see the late night shows without such features. Can they operate without the WGA?
Tech Question: Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
By text I mean the written word...and the written word, or symbol which when written on a surface means something beyond the context of the picture itself, has been around for 10 or 20 thousand years. Think back to the cave paintings, of the warriors chasing the various forms of wildlife with spears raised or flying through the air. Those pictures tell a story, a story which is later recounted, though in different form for different cultures, on the walls of egyptian tombs, on the clay tablets of the fertile crescent and on the bamboo boards of the far east.
Writing, whether it takes the form of pictures, of hieroglyphs, of pictographs or stick figures, means something beyond the artistic quality of their rendering...but the reader has to learn carefully the context of those words as they pertain to a particular culture before proper meaning can be understood.
The same characters can be used to represent different languages: the Roman alphabet, or Latin alphabet, for example, is the most widely used character set in the world today. In addition to the base 21 characters originated in the 7th Century BC, as the Romans adapted the Cumae version of the Greek alphabet - the Romans added the letters G & Y. In the ensuing 2,700 years, the Latin alphabet has spread to all major civilizations, in competition with the Greek & Cyrillic, Arabic, Brahmic and Chinese character sets.
So, with text so widespread, is it the best communication method? We see it today on automobiles, road signs, newspapers, books, websites, magazines, musical scores, billboards, animations, video games, food containers, buildings, water towers, our clothing and our skin, the last in the form of body art. But, again, text is culture specific - ya gotta know the local dialect to know what the words are saying, and you have to know how to read them in context. So, I repeat, is Text the Best Communications Medium?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Have you heard of Ninja Crayon? Check it out here A link is in the Show Transcript.
There are many Ninja Crayon's on the web - it's a popular handle for the artistic types who like black outfits. This one was suggested to me by an acquaintance on the Pixelcorps forum as a place he could put the logo for Minute Tech....If I had one.
So, what's in a logo? That's my next crusade, simultaneous with updating the blog interface. :-)
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- A Galaxy Gets Cooked, FireWire Heats Up, & Late Night Warms Up;
- Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
- What's a Ninja Crayon, and what's in a Logo?
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 53 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- A Galaxy Gets Cooked, FireWire Heats Up, & Late Night Warms Up;
- Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
- What's a Ninja Crayon, and what's in a Logo?
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
Marc Kaufman of the Washington Post reports from various scientific groups that scientists have identified a huge jet of stellar matter streaking out from a super-massive black hole (which is a gravitationally collapsed star, as originally predicted by Albert Einstein) and colliding with a neighboring galaxy. Speculation by scientists is that this jet of matter will cause devastating effects to any habitable or inhabited planets in star systems in the affected galaxy. Such a jets effect on earth would be to strip away the ozone and magnetosphere, both which help protect life on earth from harmful radiation emanated by Earths stellar companion, the sun.
On a slightly different scale, Jonny Evans of Macworld UK reports that the 1394 Trade Association is expecting to ratify by February '08 a new specification for FireWire, or IEEE-1394 data transfer, which will boost existing FireWire 800 equipment from 800Mb/s to 3.2Gb/s, without a need to modify or otherwise update the existing hardware. Note that this is referring to bits...divide by eight to get the MB/s transfer speed. Travis Hudson, posting on PCWorlds blog, states that this bump up will help FireWire compete with the new USB 3.0 data transfer standard, which according to wikipedia's article on USB, is rated at 4.8 Gb/s.
And on different tangent, but related to the news about Letterman working with the WGA, Richard Huff of the NY Daily News reports that Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien are looking to return to the late night airwaves without the WGA, but with their existing production staff intact. Apparently, comedy "bits and sketches" require the input of WGA writers, so It'll be interesting to see the late night shows without such features. Can they operate without the WGA?
Tech Question: Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
By text I mean the written word...and the written word, or symbol which when written on a surface means something beyond the context of the picture itself, has been around for 10 or 20 thousand years. Think back to the cave paintings, of the warriors chasing the various forms of wildlife with spears raised or flying through the air. Those pictures tell a story, a story which is later recounted, though in different form for different cultures, on the walls of egyptian tombs, on the clay tablets of the fertile crescent and on the bamboo boards of the far east.
Writing, whether it takes the form of pictures, of hieroglyphs, of pictographs or stick figures, means something beyond the artistic quality of their rendering...but the reader has to learn carefully the context of those words as they pertain to a particular culture before proper meaning can be understood.
The same characters can be used to represent different languages: the Roman alphabet, or Latin alphabet, for example, is the most widely used character set in the world today. In addition to the base 21 characters originated in the 7th Century BC, as the Romans adapted the Cumae version of the Greek alphabet - the Romans added the letters G & Y. In the ensuing 2,700 years, the Latin alphabet has spread to all major civilizations, in competition with the Greek & Cyrillic, Arabic, Brahmic and Chinese character sets.
So, with text so widespread, is it the best communication method? We see it today on automobiles, road signs, newspapers, books, websites, magazines, musical scores, billboards, animations, video games, food containers, buildings, water towers, our clothing and our skin, the last in the form of body art. But, again, text is culture specific - ya gotta know the local dialect to know what the words are saying, and you have to know how to read them in context. So, I repeat, is Text the Best Communications Medium?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Have you heard of Ninja Crayon? Check it out here A link is in the Show Transcript.
There are many Ninja Crayon's on the web - it's a popular handle for the artistic types who like black outfits. This one was suggested to me by an acquaintance on the Pixelcorps forum as a place he could put the logo for Minute Tech....If I had one.
So, what's in a logo? That's my next crusade, simultaneous with updating the blog interface. :-)
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- A Galaxy Gets Cooked, FireWire Heats Up, & Late Night Warms Up;
- Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
- What's a Ninja Crayon, and what's in a Logo?
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Monday, December 17, 2007
phyllostachys 67: Minute Tech 52 Show Transcript
52 - Is Your Voice the Best Communications Medium?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 52 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday, December 17th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Twitter Takes a Break, & Pew Spews Percentages;
- Is Your Voice the Best Communications Medium?
- Minute Tech Blog Seeks Redesign.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
Twitter, the popular short-form blogging community tool which allows posts of a 140-character maximum per post and encourages people to set up "friends"communities of like-minded (or not) individuals, took a breather earlier this morning by taking the system down for a few hours to do maintenance of some sort. This maintenance is a follow-on to a Saturday evening maintenance which apparently didn't take the system off line at all. Even so, frequent twitterers were nervous about both downtimes, as the following comment testifies to:
Twitter user G-Man posts the following as a comment on Twitter's blog:
By the updated comment I'm presuming you mean twitter will be back about 3am PST. So about 1 hour from now.
Arggg, I never thought I'd miss twitter so much.
With users such as G-Man being so concerned about such a service, I think it's time Twitter considered some monetization possibilities....
In separate news, Ellen Lee of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found the following interesting stats:
36% have searched the web for lost friends, 9% have checked out dating partners online, and 60% are not worried about the amount of info that exists online about them; 47% have searched for themselves and 53% have looked up an acquaintance. As for the social networking crowd, 61% say that their profiles are open to anyone, and 38% say that they restrict profile access to friends only.
Ms Lee ends with the following: "In light of recent recommendations that job hunters not post photographs or personal information that could hurt their chances with employers, 11 percent said they have searched online for someone they were about to hire or work with."
Tech Question: Is Your Voice the Best Communications Medium?
The communications medium of choice since the dawn of time, or since homo sapiens have been interacting, has been the human voice. Long have men wooed women, parents taught their children, intellectuals argued the finer points of existence, story-tellers told tall tales, leaders cajoled their followers, followers adored or grumbled about their leaders and children played with their sticks and stones to emulate the actions of their parents, all with the power of vocalized sounds and words.
The oldest written texts come originally from spoken, or oral, traditions. Homer's Illiad and Odyssey are examples of poems which originated as spoken, or sung, verses crafted by story tellers in a particular method to allow for memorization of the basic facts and on-the-spot recitation of the narratives. These two stories are probably compilations of various stories heard by Homer and/or his predecessors about the Trojan War, the actions of the Trojans and Achaians (the Greeks) and the hero Odysseus...and of course common knowledge of the pantheistic deities that so colorfully inhabited the pre-judeo-christian mindset. Homer and his poems are from about the 8th century B.C....and the Trojan War seems to have taken place some 3-500 years earlier, around 1100-1300 B.C.
The writings of Plato are based upon the spoken "dialogues" of his teacher Socrates. The famous, or infamous, if you're worried about Socrates' ability to corrupt the minds of your young people, Socratic Dialogues were verbal discussions which Socrates developed to work through specific thought problems. These arguments and discussions were only written down later by his student Plato.
To this day, we look for primary information sources from religious, political, business and cultural leaders who speak directly to us - through speeches, sermons, discussions and story-telling. Is the human voice the best communications medium?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
When next you see the Minute Tech blogger web page, you'll see that the colors have changed, but the format looks the same. I'm beginning a long-term project to augment the page beyond it's plain-looking interface. I'm checking with friends about their suggestions, and even Twittered on the subject to see if people have suggestions of other Blogger users who may have done interesting things with their blogger interfaces - Blogger is Google's free online blogging platform, with about two dozen modifiable templates for UI design.
The blogs of the two friend I've asked are Lyrique Tragedy and The Mac Muse.
Check them out, and let me know if you have suggestions.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Twitter Takes a Break, & Pew Spews Percentages;
- Is Your Voice the Best Communications Medium?
- Minute Tech Blog Seeks Redesign.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 52 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday, December 17th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Twitter Takes a Break, & Pew Spews Percentages;
- Is Your Voice the Best Communications Medium?
- Minute Tech Blog Seeks Redesign.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
Twitter, the popular short-form blogging community tool which allows posts of a 140-character maximum per post and encourages people to set up "friends"communities of like-minded (or not) individuals, took a breather earlier this morning by taking the system down for a few hours to do maintenance of some sort. This maintenance is a follow-on to a Saturday evening maintenance which apparently didn't take the system off line at all. Even so, frequent twitterers were nervous about both downtimes, as the following comment testifies to:
Twitter user G-Man posts the following as a comment on Twitter's blog:
By the updated comment I'm presuming you mean twitter will be back about 3am PST. So about 1 hour from now.
Arggg, I never thought I'd miss twitter so much.
With users such as G-Man being so concerned about such a service, I think it's time Twitter considered some monetization possibilities....
In separate news, Ellen Lee of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found the following interesting stats:
36% have searched the web for lost friends, 9% have checked out dating partners online, and 60% are not worried about the amount of info that exists online about them; 47% have searched for themselves and 53% have looked up an acquaintance. As for the social networking crowd, 61% say that their profiles are open to anyone, and 38% say that they restrict profile access to friends only.
Ms Lee ends with the following: "In light of recent recommendations that job hunters not post photographs or personal information that could hurt their chances with employers, 11 percent said they have searched online for someone they were about to hire or work with."
Tech Question: Is Your Voice the Best Communications Medium?
The communications medium of choice since the dawn of time, or since homo sapiens have been interacting, has been the human voice. Long have men wooed women, parents taught their children, intellectuals argued the finer points of existence, story-tellers told tall tales, leaders cajoled their followers, followers adored or grumbled about their leaders and children played with their sticks and stones to emulate the actions of their parents, all with the power of vocalized sounds and words.
The oldest written texts come originally from spoken, or oral, traditions. Homer's Illiad and Odyssey are examples of poems which originated as spoken, or sung, verses crafted by story tellers in a particular method to allow for memorization of the basic facts and on-the-spot recitation of the narratives. These two stories are probably compilations of various stories heard by Homer and/or his predecessors about the Trojan War, the actions of the Trojans and Achaians (the Greeks) and the hero Odysseus...and of course common knowledge of the pantheistic deities that so colorfully inhabited the pre-judeo-christian mindset. Homer and his poems are from about the 8th century B.C....and the Trojan War seems to have taken place some 3-500 years earlier, around 1100-1300 B.C.
The writings of Plato are based upon the spoken "dialogues" of his teacher Socrates. The famous, or infamous, if you're worried about Socrates' ability to corrupt the minds of your young people, Socratic Dialogues were verbal discussions which Socrates developed to work through specific thought problems. These arguments and discussions were only written down later by his student Plato.
To this day, we look for primary information sources from religious, political, business and cultural leaders who speak directly to us - through speeches, sermons, discussions and story-telling. Is the human voice the best communications medium?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
When next you see the Minute Tech blogger web page, you'll see that the colors have changed, but the format looks the same. I'm beginning a long-term project to augment the page beyond it's plain-looking interface. I'm checking with friends about their suggestions, and even Twittered on the subject to see if people have suggestions of other Blogger users who may have done interesting things with their blogger interfaces - Blogger is Google's free online blogging platform, with about two dozen modifiable templates for UI design.
The blogs of the two friend I've asked are Lyrique Tragedy and The Mac Muse.
Check them out, and let me know if you have suggestions.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Twitter Takes a Break, & Pew Spews Percentages;
- Is Your Voice the Best Communications Medium?
- Minute Tech Blog Seeks Redesign.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Sunday, December 16, 2007
phyllostachys 66: Minute Tech 51 Show Transcript
51 - What's the Best Communications Medium?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 51 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Saturday & Sunday, December 15th and 16th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- David Letterman seeks relief;
- What's the Best Communications Medium?
- Recent Shows of VentureVoice and The Engaging Brand.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
Bill Carter and Michael Cieply report via the New York Times today that David Letterman is seeking a deal with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) that would allow his show, and his show alone, to get off the tarmac and start flying again. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show on Comedy Central is seeking the same sort of deal. Apparently the East and West portions of the WGA are encouraging individual employers to deal with it, directly, rather than the big conglomerate studios who have always in the past dominated these negotiations...the like of GE, News Corp, Walt Disney and others. This could be interesting...
LiveScience.com reports on some very interesting stories:
Via the SciTech pages of FoxNews.com comes the story about how a thin spot in the Earth's crust may be allowing a hotspot of magma from Earth's mantle to heat the underside of Greenland's ice-sheets. If this interpretation of data collected is accurate, it could point to other non-human reasons for melting of the ice in Northern Latitudes.
From LiveScience.com's website, one interesting story is about some surprising finds pointing to advanced levels of glass-making skills present in Egyptian society about the time of Tutankhamun's predecessor, Akhenaten...around 1350 BC. Previously, glass found in the Nile valley civilizations was thought to have been produced elsewhere, but archaeologists recent rebuilt a 3000-year-old kiln that could have been used to produce glass. The archaeologist then fired the kiln and produced a credible glass ingot from local sand.
Tech Question: What's the Best Communications Medium?
Pittsburgh's local members of the online film-making and educational guild Pixelcorps.com had their December meeting yesterday at the Carnegie Science Center. The presentation given by Alex Lindsay, a founder of Pixelcorps, was an overview of the "podcast" film-making that Pixelcorps is involved in.
Interesting, when I think "podcast" I think of the simple form of audio presentation that you're listening to now. But wait. What are you watching on that little iPod Nano?
So, while it's relatively easy for me to produce this show, it may not be the best way to get information across to the masses. Think of the difference between television and radio. Which do you think provides better information? Right - television...which is why it has created such huge global industry.
Therefore Pixelcorps.com is building a corps of global technology workers who can provide expertise for writing, producing, crafting and distributing podcast video.
There are blossoming online "networks" of programming, i.e., episodic content that is pre-recorded for entertainment and education. In addition to their various audio and video podcast shows, Pixelcorps has produced the following shows:
- "PixelPerfect" on Revision3.com
- "Food Science" and "Cocktails on the Fly" on www.onnetworks.com;
So, our topics this week will be focused on the Question stated above, What's the Best Communications Medium.
Many, many people are thinking quickly and hard about how to take advantage of the coming need for communication content....are you among them?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Gregory Galant is back with an new "Venture Voice" interview, this time with Tom Perkins, of the Kleiner Perkins venture capital company. Perkins has published his autobiography, or memoir, "Valley Boy: the Education of Tom Perkins". Galant takes us, with his questions of Perkins, the book and Perkins life in general, on a very interesting trip through a fascinating slice of technology, business and Silicon Valley.
VV Show #47: http://www.venturevoice.com/
Two of Anna Farmery's most recent shows, #'s 128 and 129 of The Engaging Brand were next on my iPod Shuffle yesterday morning. The interview podcasts were, respectively, "Lessons form Non Profit for Business" and "Sound as Part of Your Brand Strategy". Once again, I've gotta listen to these again...
In 128, Anna interviews Beth Kanter, of social media blog beth.typepad.com about some of the amazing things that non-profits do for new media...to get the word out. The important thing here: nonprofits focus on getting to your emotions...whereas for-profits may focus too much of winning you over via the finance of a proposal. Much we can learn from that!
In 129, the brains of Ronna Porter and Micheal Spencer of Sound-strategies.co.uk talk about how sound can be used as part of your branding strategy. "Are you tuned in to sound" - this is the first thing you see on their website - sound...and these days the infrequent absence of sound...is around us everyday, every way. How can you use sound most effectively in your branding? Can you think of jingles or simple sounds that reverberate through your consciousness. An example was the sound associated with Churchill's V for Victory...this simple set of sounds was echo'd by Japanese school children...and yet we primarily think of the V!
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- David Letterman seeks relief;
- What's the Best Communications Medium?
- Recent Shows of VentureVoice and The Engaging Brand.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 51 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Saturday & Sunday, December 15th and 16th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- David Letterman seeks relief;
- What's the Best Communications Medium?
- Recent Shows of VentureVoice and The Engaging Brand.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
Bill Carter and Michael Cieply report via the New York Times today that David Letterman is seeking a deal with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) that would allow his show, and his show alone, to get off the tarmac and start flying again. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show on Comedy Central is seeking the same sort of deal. Apparently the East and West portions of the WGA are encouraging individual employers to deal with it, directly, rather than the big conglomerate studios who have always in the past dominated these negotiations...the like of GE, News Corp, Walt Disney and others. This could be interesting...
LiveScience.com reports on some very interesting stories:
Via the SciTech pages of FoxNews.com comes the story about how a thin spot in the Earth's crust may be allowing a hotspot of magma from Earth's mantle to heat the underside of Greenland's ice-sheets. If this interpretation of data collected is accurate, it could point to other non-human reasons for melting of the ice in Northern Latitudes.
From LiveScience.com's website, one interesting story is about some surprising finds pointing to advanced levels of glass-making skills present in Egyptian society about the time of Tutankhamun's predecessor, Akhenaten...around 1350 BC. Previously, glass found in the Nile valley civilizations was thought to have been produced elsewhere, but archaeologists recent rebuilt a 3000-year-old kiln that could have been used to produce glass. The archaeologist then fired the kiln and produced a credible glass ingot from local sand.
Tech Question: What's the Best Communications Medium?
Pittsburgh's local members of the online film-making and educational guild Pixelcorps.com had their December meeting yesterday at the Carnegie Science Center. The presentation given by Alex Lindsay, a founder of Pixelcorps, was an overview of the "podcast" film-making that Pixelcorps is involved in.
Interesting, when I think "podcast" I think of the simple form of audio presentation that you're listening to now. But wait. What are you watching on that little iPod Nano?
So, while it's relatively easy for me to produce this show, it may not be the best way to get information across to the masses. Think of the difference between television and radio. Which do you think provides better information? Right - television...which is why it has created such huge global industry.
Therefore Pixelcorps.com is building a corps of global technology workers who can provide expertise for writing, producing, crafting and distributing podcast video.
There are blossoming online "networks" of programming, i.e., episodic content that is pre-recorded for entertainment and education. In addition to their various audio and video podcast shows, Pixelcorps has produced the following shows:
- "PixelPerfect" on Revision3.com
- "Food Science" and "Cocktails on the Fly" on www.onnetworks.com;
So, our topics this week will be focused on the Question stated above, What's the Best Communications Medium.
Many, many people are thinking quickly and hard about how to take advantage of the coming need for communication content....are you among them?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Gregory Galant is back with an new "Venture Voice" interview, this time with Tom Perkins, of the Kleiner Perkins venture capital company. Perkins has published his autobiography, or memoir, "Valley Boy: the Education of Tom Perkins". Galant takes us, with his questions of Perkins, the book and Perkins life in general, on a very interesting trip through a fascinating slice of technology, business and Silicon Valley.
VV Show #47: http://www.venturevoice.com/
Two of Anna Farmery's most recent shows, #'s 128 and 129 of The Engaging Brand were next on my iPod Shuffle yesterday morning. The interview podcasts were, respectively, "Lessons form Non Profit for Business" and "Sound as Part of Your Brand Strategy". Once again, I've gotta listen to these again...
In 128, Anna interviews Beth Kanter, of social media blog beth.typepad.com about some of the amazing things that non-profits do for new media...to get the word out. The important thing here: nonprofits focus on getting to your emotions...whereas for-profits may focus too much of winning you over via the finance of a proposal. Much we can learn from that!
In 129, the brains of Ronna Porter and Micheal Spencer of Sound-strategies.co.uk talk about how sound can be used as part of your branding strategy. "Are you tuned in to sound" - this is the first thing you see on their website - sound...and these days the infrequent absence of sound...is around us everyday, every way. How can you use sound most effectively in your branding? Can you think of jingles or simple sounds that reverberate through your consciousness. An example was the sound associated with Churchill's V for Victory...this simple set of sounds was echo'd by Japanese school children...and yet we primarily think of the V!
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- David Letterman seeks relief;
- What's the Best Communications Medium?
- Recent Shows of VentureVoice and The Engaging Brand.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Friday, December 14, 2007
phyllostachys 65: Minute Tech 50 Show Transcript
50 - Mourning - What are Burial Customs?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 50 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Friday, December 14th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Mars Rovers and Orbiters find white;
- Mourning - What are Burial Customs?
- and, the Mac Blogs, & how do you brand a podcast?
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And: Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
A note for today - you may have noticed that there was no podcast yesterday, Thursday the 13th. My morning routine was altered somewhat, which jiggered my routine for the day. How do you build flexibility into your schedule, when everything must be done? :-) The delay allowed our writers to happily flesh out the notes for this mornings show.
Tech News:
Yesterday, Jeremiah Owyang, Social Computing analyst at Forrester Research, attended a breakfast roundtable at Oracle's headquarters in Silicon Valley focusing on China and Social Media. One of Jeremiah's many Twitter postings mentioned that the " Population of [the] US is 303,585,850 (census.gov)[whereas]Tencent's registered members are 715,300,000". Tencent is an internet services provider in China.
In Offplanet news, the automatons exploring Mars on behalf of mankind have unearthed (...er...unmars'd?) traces of white on the surface. Spirit and it's twin rover Opportunity have both found significant traces of a mineral called silica, which is a primary ingredient in the terrestrial production of window glass. In natural environments, silica is a distillate that comes from minerals through which water has run or steamed. Running water could be due to melting ice or precipitating moisture; steamed water could be due to volcanic activity. Either type points to the presence of once-abundant sources of water on mars. The Rover Spirit found water inadvertently by dragging a defective wheel through the soil...and then turning to inspected the upturned soil...and it saw the white silica.
Separately, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has brought out more information, through photography, about spidery veins of white that appears during Martian summer at the both poles - scientists reviewing the MRO's findings have speculated that the white is from frosty carbon dioxide snow falling from geysers of carbon dioxide jetting up from fissures in frozen CO2, activated by sun-induced melting of winter CO2 ice.
Tech Question:
Mourning - What are Burial Customs?
The most prevalent example of burial customs in the modern world are the extensive artistic and scientific reviews of the ancient Egyptian burial customs. The pyramids on the Giza plateau and other areas of the middle east are remnants of tombs built by ancient peoples in observance of their various beliefs about death and new life after death. We've seen the mummified remains of monarchical rulers, priests, and cats; we've seen buried ships, furniture and clothing sealed in vaults, either to commemorate the passing of the deceased or to provide tools to the deceased to use on whatever journey they'd embarked upon.
In modern times, we similarly entomb our dead, though perhaps not to the same extent. We have embalming and multilayer caskets; we have subterranean vaults and above-ground mausoleums; we have urns for ashes and stele, or tombstones with writing on them, for marking the place of burial. Wikipedia suggests that burial customs have been part of our society for some 200,000 years, from the time of the human diaspora from Africa, when our ancestors spread out from Africa to other parts of the world. Now, tombs and graves can be found in all inhabited parts of the world.
Qui Gon Jin and Darth Vader were both cremated, echoing traditions in India and Japan, as well as a growing trend in the west for cremation. After cremation, a small jar is all that remains, which is far smaller & easier to store than a heavy, large casket. I think we're beginning to see that the vessel in which our loved ones lived and died is merely a vessel, that their spirit lives on in our memories, in our lives, in our actions and in our hearts.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
The Mac blogs.
After hearing countless references to Daring Fireball and the Macalope, I finally decided to link over to those blogs. Now, awhile back Jeff Pulver twittered a question as to who preferred push and who preferred pull....meaning, do you prefer to go get your news, or do you want it to come to you, aggregated in a news reader? I prefer to go get it...which is why I mentioned myself as "roadkill" per John Wall's explanation of the three levels of news reader users. I like to surf news.google.com and finance.yahoo.com to find my news, and stumbling across blog posts is just part of that scenery.
So, its interesting now to see that the Macalope writes just like the way he talks on MacBreak Weekly and to see the interesting way that John Gruber's Daring Fireball breaks up each post into little snippets of links and commentary. I'm going to borrow the list of blog links from Tom Krazit's "One More Thing" blog page - see if there are Mac blogs you haven't seen yet.
What's in a name?
I'm currently using the title "Minute Tech podcast" for this daily creation about the broader meanings of technology; John Wall uses "the M Show" for his weekly ramble through news and marketing tidbits; Adam Wolf uses BizTech podcast for his short 3-minute review of various technologies and methods for small businesses; John Foster appropriately uses "Beer School" for his period show about types and methods of beer-making.
Is Minute Tech a good name? I modified the name of a previous podcast performed by me and Dawn Papuga call Minute Lit...and while that could easily have been call Hour Lit, we liked the name because of the way it sounded. I similarly like Minute Tech. Granted it's not a minute in duration, and it may not cover what the general populace considers technology...but I reserve the right to describe a broader definition. An appropriate logo and branding strategy would be good, too.
But, more to the point, a suggestion has been made that perhaps another name would be more appropriate. How about Minute Ramble? You might think that I ramble a bit, moving fluidly, or abruptly, from topic to topic. How about "Daily Digest"? One of my favorite podcast jingles is from Greg Demetrick's 365tao.net, where he intones "Digital Dharma Delivered Daily". What do you think?
Drop me a line - I need mail! :-)
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Mars Rovers and Orbiters find white;
- Mourning - What are Burial Customs?
- and, how do you brand a podcast?
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 50 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Friday, December 14th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Mars Rovers and Orbiters find white;
- Mourning - What are Burial Customs?
- and, the Mac Blogs, & how do you brand a podcast?
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And: Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
A note for today - you may have noticed that there was no podcast yesterday, Thursday the 13th. My morning routine was altered somewhat, which jiggered my routine for the day. How do you build flexibility into your schedule, when everything must be done? :-) The delay allowed our writers to happily flesh out the notes for this mornings show.
Tech News:
Yesterday, Jeremiah Owyang, Social Computing analyst at Forrester Research, attended a breakfast roundtable at Oracle's headquarters in Silicon Valley focusing on China and Social Media. One of Jeremiah's many Twitter postings mentioned that the " Population of [the] US is 303,585,850 (census.gov)[whereas]Tencent's registered members are 715,300,000". Tencent is an internet services provider in China.
In Offplanet news, the automatons exploring Mars on behalf of mankind have unearthed (...er...unmars'd?) traces of white on the surface. Spirit and it's twin rover Opportunity have both found significant traces of a mineral called silica, which is a primary ingredient in the terrestrial production of window glass. In natural environments, silica is a distillate that comes from minerals through which water has run or steamed. Running water could be due to melting ice or precipitating moisture; steamed water could be due to volcanic activity. Either type points to the presence of once-abundant sources of water on mars. The Rover Spirit found water inadvertently by dragging a defective wheel through the soil...and then turning to inspected the upturned soil...and it saw the white silica.
Separately, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has brought out more information, through photography, about spidery veins of white that appears during Martian summer at the both poles - scientists reviewing the MRO's findings have speculated that the white is from frosty carbon dioxide snow falling from geysers of carbon dioxide jetting up from fissures in frozen CO2, activated by sun-induced melting of winter CO2 ice.
Tech Question:
Mourning - What are Burial Customs?
The most prevalent example of burial customs in the modern world are the extensive artistic and scientific reviews of the ancient Egyptian burial customs. The pyramids on the Giza plateau and other areas of the middle east are remnants of tombs built by ancient peoples in observance of their various beliefs about death and new life after death. We've seen the mummified remains of monarchical rulers, priests, and cats; we've seen buried ships, furniture and clothing sealed in vaults, either to commemorate the passing of the deceased or to provide tools to the deceased to use on whatever journey they'd embarked upon.
In modern times, we similarly entomb our dead, though perhaps not to the same extent. We have embalming and multilayer caskets; we have subterranean vaults and above-ground mausoleums; we have urns for ashes and stele, or tombstones with writing on them, for marking the place of burial. Wikipedia suggests that burial customs have been part of our society for some 200,000 years, from the time of the human diaspora from Africa, when our ancestors spread out from Africa to other parts of the world. Now, tombs and graves can be found in all inhabited parts of the world.
Qui Gon Jin and Darth Vader were both cremated, echoing traditions in India and Japan, as well as a growing trend in the west for cremation. After cremation, a small jar is all that remains, which is far smaller & easier to store than a heavy, large casket. I think we're beginning to see that the vessel in which our loved ones lived and died is merely a vessel, that their spirit lives on in our memories, in our lives, in our actions and in our hearts.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
The Mac blogs.
After hearing countless references to Daring Fireball and the Macalope, I finally decided to link over to those blogs. Now, awhile back Jeff Pulver twittered a question as to who preferred push and who preferred pull....meaning, do you prefer to go get your news, or do you want it to come to you, aggregated in a news reader? I prefer to go get it...which is why I mentioned myself as "roadkill" per John Wall's explanation of the three levels of news reader users. I like to surf news.google.com and finance.yahoo.com to find my news, and stumbling across blog posts is just part of that scenery.
So, its interesting now to see that the Macalope writes just like the way he talks on MacBreak Weekly and to see the interesting way that John Gruber's Daring Fireball breaks up each post into little snippets of links and commentary. I'm going to borrow the list of blog links from Tom Krazit's "One More Thing" blog page - see if there are Mac blogs you haven't seen yet.
What's in a name?
I'm currently using the title "Minute Tech podcast" for this daily creation about the broader meanings of technology; John Wall uses "the M Show" for his weekly ramble through news and marketing tidbits; Adam Wolf uses BizTech podcast for his short 3-minute review of various technologies and methods for small businesses; John Foster appropriately uses "Beer School" for his period show about types and methods of beer-making.
Is Minute Tech a good name? I modified the name of a previous podcast performed by me and Dawn Papuga call Minute Lit...and while that could easily have been call Hour Lit, we liked the name because of the way it sounded. I similarly like Minute Tech. Granted it's not a minute in duration, and it may not cover what the general populace considers technology...but I reserve the right to describe a broader definition. An appropriate logo and branding strategy would be good, too.
But, more to the point, a suggestion has been made that perhaps another name would be more appropriate. How about Minute Ramble? You might think that I ramble a bit, moving fluidly, or abruptly, from topic to topic. How about "Daily Digest"? One of my favorite podcast jingles is from Greg Demetrick's 365tao.net, where he intones "Digital Dharma Delivered Daily". What do you think?
Drop me a line - I need mail! :-)
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Mars Rovers and Orbiters find white;
- Mourning - What are Burial Customs?
- and, how do you brand a podcast?
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
phyllostachys 64: Minute Tech 49 Show Transcript
49 - Mourning - What is the Obituary?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 49 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Laser Etch that Holiday Gift;
- Mourning: What is the Obituary?
- Bre Pettis provides interstitial music.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
The holiday gift-giving season is very fast approaching. Assuming you've already shopped, have you thought about how to adorn that gift? Are you going to just wrap it and present it to the giftee .... or will you get it laser-etched? That's right, laser etched. One of the new technologies to come out simultaneous with products that have firm metal casing is laser etching, which can be used to put something as simple as a persons' name or something as complex as a realistic photo of the Starship Enterprise on the casing of a laptop computer, MP3 player or some other device which can fit within the confines of the laser-etching machine. Check out adafruit.com or etchamac.com for more information on this wacky, but fun, service. There's also a youtube video titled "Leah Culver Laser Etches Her Macbook Pro".
Agam Shah of the IDG New Service reports through InfoWorld that The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, recently recognized the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 personal computer with a meeting of the minds between notables Steve Wozniak and Jack Tramiel, former chairman of Commodore International. Three newsworthy items is that Apple tried selling Commodore on the idea of selling the Apple II computer, which Commodore declined in favor of it's Commodore 64 computer, that the 64 initially sold for $599, which price was subsequently reduced to $199, and that Microsoft's Bill Gates tried suggesting $3 per machine for Microsoft Basic...but eventually accepted Tramiel's offer of a $25,000 flat fee.
Tech Question:
Mourning - What is the Obituary?
An obituary is a written description of a deceased person's life activities, generally designed to be published in a newspaper posthumously. This biographical description differs from the standard "death notice" in that it describes the primary and secondary activities that the decedent was known for during life. The death notice, similar to what I posted in the two previous episodes about Anne Macmillan Landefeld and Barbara Ann Huey Schilling, will just be an announcement of the death, survivors and very pertinent details about the procedures surrounding the funeral and family arrangements.
Wikipedia relates that obituaries are often written ahead of the decedent's death, specifically if the person is well known. The New York Times acknowledged in 2006 that it has some 1200 pre-written obituaries on hand. One item it ensures is to identify the submitter of an obituary - accidental or prank-related premature submissions of obituaries can evoke claims that "news of my demise are greatly exaggerated".
How would you write your obituary, or that of a famous person? Would they differ enormously? My spouse suggested "She died" would suffice...but will her loved ones want much more? Did your mother or father do nothing throughout their lives, or did they do great things for people, help with many ventures, raise great kids, walk a million miles for their respective causes? Everyone did something great - don't be afraid to sing praises of the deceased - this is, perhaps, the last chance to let people know what they did, unless biographies and other tomes are already extant about the person's life. Don't let "she was just a housewife" or "he just shined people's shoes" stop you from writing a glowing obituary - that person who died mattered to somebody - exclaim to the reading public why that person mattered.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Bre Pettis, creator of the I Make Things series of video casts, to be found at IMakeThings.com and BrePettis.com, has released to the artist public a series of audio snippets from his films, so that others can use them in their own films or podcasts. I've made use, interstitially, of three snippets for transition music in the Minute Tech podcast. One of the things I gleaned from listening to The M Show, Marketing Over Coffee and Financial Aid Podcast is the use of specific themes music snippets for the artificial spaces between show elements.
How do you feel about interstitial music? Do you like what I've used?
One note about this podcast: as I publish a transcript every show to the phyllostachys.blogspot.com blog, if I say something that you don't understanding, please link on over to the transcript to see if I was just slurring the word, or if the pronunciation is different than you've heard before. BTW, the word "phyllostachys" relates to a family of bamboo - the phyllostachys group has a groove in the culm on alternating sides as you run up a culm, feeling between the internodes.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Laser Etch that Holiday Gift;
- Mourning: What is the Obituary?
- Bre Pettis provides interstitial music.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 49 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Laser Etch that Holiday Gift;
- Mourning: What is the Obituary?
- Bre Pettis provides interstitial music.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
The holiday gift-giving season is very fast approaching. Assuming you've already shopped, have you thought about how to adorn that gift? Are you going to just wrap it and present it to the giftee .... or will you get it laser-etched? That's right, laser etched. One of the new technologies to come out simultaneous with products that have firm metal casing is laser etching, which can be used to put something as simple as a persons' name or something as complex as a realistic photo of the Starship Enterprise on the casing of a laptop computer, MP3 player or some other device which can fit within the confines of the laser-etching machine. Check out adafruit.com or etchamac.com for more information on this wacky, but fun, service. There's also a youtube video titled "Leah Culver Laser Etches Her Macbook Pro".
Agam Shah of the IDG New Service reports through InfoWorld that The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, recently recognized the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 personal computer with a meeting of the minds between notables Steve Wozniak and Jack Tramiel, former chairman of Commodore International. Three newsworthy items is that Apple tried selling Commodore on the idea of selling the Apple II computer, which Commodore declined in favor of it's Commodore 64 computer, that the 64 initially sold for $599, which price was subsequently reduced to $199, and that Microsoft's Bill Gates tried suggesting $3 per machine for Microsoft Basic...but eventually accepted Tramiel's offer of a $25,000 flat fee.
Tech Question:
Mourning - What is the Obituary?
An obituary is a written description of a deceased person's life activities, generally designed to be published in a newspaper posthumously. This biographical description differs from the standard "death notice" in that it describes the primary and secondary activities that the decedent was known for during life. The death notice, similar to what I posted in the two previous episodes about Anne Macmillan Landefeld and Barbara Ann Huey Schilling, will just be an announcement of the death, survivors and very pertinent details about the procedures surrounding the funeral and family arrangements.
Wikipedia relates that obituaries are often written ahead of the decedent's death, specifically if the person is well known. The New York Times acknowledged in 2006 that it has some 1200 pre-written obituaries on hand. One item it ensures is to identify the submitter of an obituary - accidental or prank-related premature submissions of obituaries can evoke claims that "news of my demise are greatly exaggerated".
How would you write your obituary, or that of a famous person? Would they differ enormously? My spouse suggested "She died" would suffice...but will her loved ones want much more? Did your mother or father do nothing throughout their lives, or did they do great things for people, help with many ventures, raise great kids, walk a million miles for their respective causes? Everyone did something great - don't be afraid to sing praises of the deceased - this is, perhaps, the last chance to let people know what they did, unless biographies and other tomes are already extant about the person's life. Don't let "she was just a housewife" or "he just shined people's shoes" stop you from writing a glowing obituary - that person who died mattered to somebody - exclaim to the reading public why that person mattered.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Bre Pettis, creator of the I Make Things series of video casts, to be found at IMakeThings.com and BrePettis.com, has released to the artist public a series of audio snippets from his films, so that others can use them in their own films or podcasts. I've made use, interstitially, of three snippets for transition music in the Minute Tech podcast. One of the things I gleaned from listening to The M Show, Marketing Over Coffee and Financial Aid Podcast is the use of specific themes music snippets for the artificial spaces between show elements.
How do you feel about interstitial music? Do you like what I've used?
One note about this podcast: as I publish a transcript every show to the phyllostachys.blogspot.com blog, if I say something that you don't understanding, please link on over to the transcript to see if I was just slurring the word, or if the pronunciation is different than you've heard before. BTW, the word "phyllostachys" relates to a family of bamboo - the phyllostachys group has a groove in the culm on alternating sides as you run up a culm, feeling between the internodes.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Laser Etch that Holiday Gift;
- Mourning: What is the Obituary?
- Bre Pettis provides interstitial music.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
phyllostachys 63: Minute Tech 48 show transcript
48 - Mourning: What Are Your Customs?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 48 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Le Web launches Social Media in France
- Mourning: What Are Your Customs?
- and, Chris Brogan suggests paper cut-outs to educate.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Special Note for this morning: on the same day that my mother passed away, as I learned the next day, the mother of a good friend died. Please remember Barbara Ann Huey Schilling, wife of Fritz and mother of Tom, Anne, Jonathan and Kathryn. Simply sad that two awesome mothers should pass on the same day....but happiness prevails.
Tech News:
The French new media conference, Le Web, has launched in a Paris Suburb. Entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur, founder of web San Francisco start-up Seesmic, is co-hosting Le Web 3.0 Tuesday and Wednesday of this week with his wife, Geraldine. While intended to be a Web 2.0 conference, I've seen it described on Twitter as a tradeshow hosting 1800 people in three buildings - but that doesn't detract from it's importance as a communications tool for the European community: the issues in our modern society are many - the Internet and the excitement surrounding it's use must not obscure the issues, but rather make it easier to discuss and resolve them.
So, while reading yesterday's WSJ this morning, I was shocked and interested to see an article about Larry Bell and his Michigan Brewery, Bell's Brewery. At Thanksgiving in Cleveland, while shopping at a Wild Oats grocery store in Beachwood, I found a six-pack of Bell's Expedition Stout. The fact that I found this at a popular grocery store is a testament in part to what this WSJ article references...that small breweries are increasingly attempting to find distribution paths around the entanglement of the 1933 Prohibition laws that primarily restrict breweries to sell through distributors. Here in Pennsylvania, although the regulations are slowly giving way to reality, we still have to primarily purchase beer in cases of 24 cans or bottles at specific distributors stores, versus the relatively liberal policies of Ohio or West Virginia, where beer and liquor can be had at any (or most) grocery stores and convenience marts. Hopefully Pennsylvania will soon see the light - I'd love to see specialty beers like Bell's selling in the local Giant Eagle.
Tech Question:
Mourning: What are your customs?
Wikipedia has a decent overview of the primary global mourning customs, those for Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, the world's primary religions. From what to wear, how many days/months are appropriate for mourning, whether to wail or not to wail, if you can perform religious duties or not during the period of mourning, whether you can re-marry or not within a particular time, what colors of dress are appropriate and how to handle the national flag.
Interestingly, in my immediate family cremation is the standard, and this is the standard for one of the worlds most populous nations, where space for burial is perhaps not quite as abundant as it is in the US. Also, apparently my mother liked the 23rd Psalm, which begins (and this was a psalm which I remember memorizing as a youth):
The Lord is my shepherd, I shal not want.
He maketh me to rest in grene pasture, & leadeth me by the stil waters.
Do you know what your customs are...or do you learn them as you go when a death occurs. I suspect that this is the case for most of us, as death customs are not an everyday subject of discussion....unless you happen to be an Egyptologist. But think about it - what are your customs? What do you feel comfortable with?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Chris Brogan, podcamp co-founder and social media, at his self-named blog talks about new ways to introduce people to social media. For those of us not familiar with them, and I count myself in that group, Chris points us to educational video's by an organization called Common Craft. The outfit describes various concepts such as "Understanding blogs", "Understanding RSS" and "Social Media" using what they call "Paperworks" - essentially paper cut-outs animated through the video medium to illustrate somewhat complex or arcane ideas, in a way an average Josephine or Alex could understand.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Le Web launches Social Media in France
- Mourning: What Are Your Customs?
- and, Chris Brogan suggests paper cut-outs to educate
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 48 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Le Web launches Social Media in France
- Mourning: What Are Your Customs?
- and, Chris Brogan suggests paper cut-outs to educate.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Special Note for this morning: on the same day that my mother passed away, as I learned the next day, the mother of a good friend died. Please remember Barbara Ann Huey Schilling, wife of Fritz and mother of Tom, Anne, Jonathan and Kathryn. Simply sad that two awesome mothers should pass on the same day....but happiness prevails.
Tech News:
The French new media conference, Le Web, has launched in a Paris Suburb. Entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur, founder of web San Francisco start-up Seesmic, is co-hosting Le Web 3.0 Tuesday and Wednesday of this week with his wife, Geraldine. While intended to be a Web 2.0 conference, I've seen it described on Twitter as a tradeshow hosting 1800 people in three buildings - but that doesn't detract from it's importance as a communications tool for the European community: the issues in our modern society are many - the Internet and the excitement surrounding it's use must not obscure the issues, but rather make it easier to discuss and resolve them.
So, while reading yesterday's WSJ this morning, I was shocked and interested to see an article about Larry Bell and his Michigan Brewery, Bell's Brewery. At Thanksgiving in Cleveland, while shopping at a Wild Oats grocery store in Beachwood, I found a six-pack of Bell's Expedition Stout. The fact that I found this at a popular grocery store is a testament in part to what this WSJ article references...that small breweries are increasingly attempting to find distribution paths around the entanglement of the 1933 Prohibition laws that primarily restrict breweries to sell through distributors. Here in Pennsylvania, although the regulations are slowly giving way to reality, we still have to primarily purchase beer in cases of 24 cans or bottles at specific distributors stores, versus the relatively liberal policies of Ohio or West Virginia, where beer and liquor can be had at any (or most) grocery stores and convenience marts. Hopefully Pennsylvania will soon see the light - I'd love to see specialty beers like Bell's selling in the local Giant Eagle.
Tech Question:
Mourning: What are your customs?
Wikipedia has a decent overview of the primary global mourning customs, those for Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, the world's primary religions. From what to wear, how many days/months are appropriate for mourning, whether to wail or not to wail, if you can perform religious duties or not during the period of mourning, whether you can re-marry or not within a particular time, what colors of dress are appropriate and how to handle the national flag.
Interestingly, in my immediate family cremation is the standard, and this is the standard for one of the worlds most populous nations, where space for burial is perhaps not quite as abundant as it is in the US. Also, apparently my mother liked the 23rd Psalm, which begins (and this was a psalm which I remember memorizing as a youth):
The Lord is my shepherd, I shal not want.
He maketh me to rest in grene pasture, & leadeth me by the stil waters.
Do you know what your customs are...or do you learn them as you go when a death occurs. I suspect that this is the case for most of us, as death customs are not an everyday subject of discussion....unless you happen to be an Egyptologist. But think about it - what are your customs? What do you feel comfortable with?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Chris Brogan, podcamp co-founder and social media, at his self-named blog talks about new ways to introduce people to social media. For those of us not familiar with them, and I count myself in that group, Chris points us to educational video's by an organization called Common Craft. The outfit describes various concepts such as "Understanding blogs", "Understanding RSS" and "Social Media" using what they call "Paperworks" - essentially paper cut-outs animated through the video medium to illustrate somewhat complex or arcane ideas, in a way an average Josephine or Alex could understand.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Le Web launches Social Media in France
- Mourning: What Are Your Customs?
- and, Chris Brogan suggests paper cut-outs to educate
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Monday, December 10, 2007
phyllostachys 62: Minute Tech 47 show transcript
47 - Mourning: Are you being Creative?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 47 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday, December 10th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Atlantis grounded until January
- Mourning: Are you being Creative?
- Early adopters, Google Reader and roadkill.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Special Note for this morning: my mother Anne Macmillan Landefeld, died this past Saturday, December 8th, at 10:20 pm, so this weeks podcast question will be focused on mourning and the various facets of mourning in human society. It's important to move on, but it's also important to remember.
Tech News:
Priyanka Joshi, reporting from New Delhi under the by-line GIZMOGEEK, published in www.business-standard.com, describes a brief exchange of questions and answers with Ajay Adiseshann, managing director and founder, PayMate. One question and answer goes like this:
Q: Describe a wacky application you have fun experimenting with.
A: The entire suite of i-applications on my Apple Macbook Pro, including iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD and Garage Band, to name a few, can keep me engaged for hours. Moreover, the level of integration between these is so seamless that you sometime wonder why others just don’t get it.
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?leftnm=lmnu9&subLeft=&autono=306890&tab=r
The American Space Shuttle Atlantis' flight to the International Space Station has been delayed until January due to conflict with flight paths from the North Pole. It seems that Santa and his band of merry elves have been doing too many test flights, more so than usual in advance of global warming, and have asked NASA to hold off until after the busy holiday package-delivery season. NASA has agreed, and chose to put out the news that a fuel sensor problem is to blame.
On the market front, as Apple continues it's orbital maneuvers, here are a couple of small fry to consider: Riverbed Technologies and Blue Coat Systems. Go to finance dot yahoo dot com for more information.
Tech Question:
Mourning: Are you being creative?
About one and a half months before dying, my mother asked me something which I didn't expect to hear from her, something which she'd never asked me before. She asked if I was doing something creative.
As a point of fact, I was just starting this podcast, so I was able to answer in the affirmative, although she wasn't quite sure what I, in my usual effusiveness, was talking about.
Are you doing something creative? Something your mother could look at with pride, knowing that her kids are working hard to get their minds wrapped around something other than the mundane? Think about it. Let me know what you're doing.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
On Marketing over Coffee this past week, John Wall and Christopher Penn were discussing Google Reader. John was stating that he has three classifications of people: Those who use Google Reader for managing the blogs they follow, those who use an earlier technology, having read blogs far longer than the normal netizen ....and those who are effectively roadkill, who haven't the foggiest idea what Google Reader is, and perhaps don't use a reader at all.
Okay, then. Using that definition, I'm roadkill. :-) I don't use a reader for reading blogs via their RSS feeds...which is probably why I'm short on my understanding of the whole RSS thing. I prefer to find blogs as they come across my path, rather than following the ongoing writings of 300 individual bloggers.
Is this silly? What do you think? How do you follow blogs?
I'm considering changing the name of this podcast - some listeners feel that "minute tech" isn't accurate...that "minute ramble" is more to the point. What do you think? We may structure a contest out of this.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Atlantis grounded until January
- Mourning: Are you being Creative?
- Early adopters, Google Reader and roadkill.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 47 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday, December 10th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Atlantis grounded until January
- Mourning: Are you being Creative?
- Early adopters, Google Reader and roadkill.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Special Note for this morning: my mother Anne Macmillan Landefeld, died this past Saturday, December 8th, at 10:20 pm, so this weeks podcast question will be focused on mourning and the various facets of mourning in human society. It's important to move on, but it's also important to remember.
Tech News:
Priyanka Joshi, reporting from New Delhi under the by-line GIZMOGEEK, published in www.business-standard.com, describes a brief exchange of questions and answers with Ajay Adiseshann, managing director and founder, PayMate. One question and answer goes like this:
Q: Describe a wacky application you have fun experimenting with.
A: The entire suite of i-applications on my Apple Macbook Pro, including iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD and Garage Band, to name a few, can keep me engaged for hours. Moreover, the level of integration between these is so seamless that you sometime wonder why others just don’t get it.
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?leftnm=lmnu9&subLeft=&autono=306890&tab=r
The American Space Shuttle Atlantis' flight to the International Space Station has been delayed until January due to conflict with flight paths from the North Pole. It seems that Santa and his band of merry elves have been doing too many test flights, more so than usual in advance of global warming, and have asked NASA to hold off until after the busy holiday package-delivery season. NASA has agreed, and chose to put out the news that a fuel sensor problem is to blame.
On the market front, as Apple continues it's orbital maneuvers, here are a couple of small fry to consider: Riverbed Technologies and Blue Coat Systems. Go to finance dot yahoo dot com for more information.
Tech Question:
Mourning: Are you being creative?
About one and a half months before dying, my mother asked me something which I didn't expect to hear from her, something which she'd never asked me before. She asked if I was doing something creative.
As a point of fact, I was just starting this podcast, so I was able to answer in the affirmative, although she wasn't quite sure what I, in my usual effusiveness, was talking about.
Are you doing something creative? Something your mother could look at with pride, knowing that her kids are working hard to get their minds wrapped around something other than the mundane? Think about it. Let me know what you're doing.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
On Marketing over Coffee this past week, John Wall and Christopher Penn were discussing Google Reader. John was stating that he has three classifications of people: Those who use Google Reader for managing the blogs they follow, those who use an earlier technology, having read blogs far longer than the normal netizen ....and those who are effectively roadkill, who haven't the foggiest idea what Google Reader is, and perhaps don't use a reader at all.
Okay, then. Using that definition, I'm roadkill. :-) I don't use a reader for reading blogs via their RSS feeds...which is probably why I'm short on my understanding of the whole RSS thing. I prefer to find blogs as they come across my path, rather than following the ongoing writings of 300 individual bloggers.
Is this silly? What do you think? How do you follow blogs?
I'm considering changing the name of this podcast - some listeners feel that "minute tech" isn't accurate...that "minute ramble" is more to the point. What do you think? We may structure a contest out of this.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Atlantis grounded until January
- Mourning: Are you being Creative?
- Early adopters, Google Reader and roadkill.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
phyllostachys 61: Minute Tech 46 show notes
46 - What is Sledding?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 46 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Friday, December 7th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Morgan Stanley, Atlantis and the Evil Empire;
- What is Sledding?
- and, Seeking Stylistic Cues from FAP and BizTech.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
1st, I'm only going to say this once...today: invest for the future. No matter what your income level, get a day job, whether volunteer or for pay, and start saving whatever you can for some point in the future.
2nd, assuming you're along the road in investing for the future, I only have two hot stock tips: Apple, Inc and Morgan Stanley. Apple is at it's 52-week high, but could be considered cheap; Morgan Stanley is at it's 52-week low, and is in a painfully situated industry...but Morgan Stanley is well situated for the future.
Well, yesterday I reported that Space Shuttle Atlantis was headed into Earth orbit...and but for a faulty fuel sensor, it would have. While filling tanks with the more than 500,000 gallons (2.2 million litres) of cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen that the shuttle uses for it's 8.5 minute boost into orbit, a fuel sensor problem cropped up, causing the flight to be scrubbed and rescheduled for lift-off on Saturday, Dec. 8th.
The Evil Empire seeks redress on the loss of it's Death Star. Well, okay, I mean the other Evil Empire...the one associated with Bill Gatus of Borg. According to a story by Paul McDougall of InformationWeek, and I quote:
"Microsoft has asked the designers of a low-cost Linux laptop intended for children in developing nations to redesign the system so it can accommodate its Windows XP operating system."
"In a move sure to provoke controversy, Microsoft wants the designers of the XO laptop, available through a non-profit initiative called One Laptop Per Child, to add a port through which the storage capacity required by Windows XP can be added to the system."
"The XO currently runs on a Red Hat Linux operating system. Making the laptop compatible with XP would give students in poor countries access to "tens of thousands of existing educational applications written for Windows," said James Utzschneider, a Microsoft general manager, in a blog post Wednesday. "
End of quote.
Oh, phew! I thought for a minute there, Microsoft was seeking to wrest control away from that upstart Linux. But, no, they really are a big microsoftie and seek to give the poor kids of the world access to oodles of educational bloatware.
Tech Question:
Okay, now we get to the heart of the matter. What is Sledding?
Perhaps you think this question was covered in the previous show's question of what is Tobogganing...and perhaps we put the cart before the horse on that one. Quite simply, sledding is the act of using some technologically advanced tool, like a flat piece of wood or an animal hide, to speed one's descent down any snow-covered hillside.
An interesting excerpt from wikipedia on the subject says that "Modern sledding began in St Moritz during the early 1870s when British visitors with more time than activities began to experiment and play around with boys delivery sleds ... for recreation at the dawn of winter resorting in winter climes."
Are they kidding? Modern sledding began when homo sapiens boys noticed that the bear furs being used by neanderthal boys had much better ride characteristics than the deer hides that they'd stolen from their own parent's cave. The homo sapiens boys begged and pleaded with their dads to get similar furs, which of course would be far warmer for mother (the maternally supported sales pitch) and would be far easier to catch than a deer (the paternally supported sales pitch). After being artfully convinced, the homo sapiens dads realized that just taking the bear skins was easier still, which they did just after they convinced the neanderthal dads that a big herd of wooly mammoth elephants had just passed north of the valley, headed into the woods. The neanderthal families were not heard from again...and the homo sapiens boys scored awesome snow-riding furs!
Also, although implied by all the cool sledding implements you can pick up at your local superstore, or watch the use of in the Winter Olympics, these examples by no means prohibit the use of ingenuity to get one from the top of a snow covered hill to the bottom, while avoiding rocks, trees and other sledders. Many a sledder has found that simply flopping on his or her back may provide and excellent alternative to sliding on their feet, or if they can steal a plastic tray from the school cafeteria, awesome times will be had by all.
Safety equipment is certainly recommended when sledding. I recommend helmets, gloves and scarves for children and thermos' of hot cocoa, coffee or apple cider for the parents. Any other equipment is strictly optional. :-)
Podcasting - Blogging News:
So, I mentioned yesterday that I listen to my own podcasts, using them as a memory repository, so see what I was thinking in the past, or how meagerly I may have introduced a story which now screams to be told in more detail. Well, I'm also listening to my past podcasts for stylistic reasons:
What is it about the content or method of presentation that grabs me or makes me yawn?
How could improve either delivery or production to make the show better for the listener?
And, how can I improve things such that I'm expanding my own skills and techniques?
These are the three primary questions running through my mind as I listen to my shows. These are now also the questions I ask as I listen to the shows of others.
Two examples of shows I'm listening to for stylistic cues: Christopher S. Penn's Financial Aid podcast and Adam Wolf's BizTech podcast. Chris, who is the CTO of the Student Loan Network in Boston, MA, has produced 684 daily podcasts about the ins and out of student financial aid in specific and finance, technology & marketing in general - FAP's shows average about 12 minutes; Adam, as the owner of Cellcon Consulting in New York City, has produced 26 weekly BizTech podcasts - BizTech shows run about 3 minutes, 15 seconds.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Morgan Stanley, Atlantis and the Evil Empire;
- What is Sledding?
- and, Seeking Stylistic Cues from FAP and BizTech.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 46 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Friday, December 7th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Morgan Stanley, Atlantis and the Evil Empire;
- What is Sledding?
- and, Seeking Stylistic Cues from FAP and BizTech.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
1st, I'm only going to say this once...today: invest for the future. No matter what your income level, get a day job, whether volunteer or for pay, and start saving whatever you can for some point in the future.
2nd, assuming you're along the road in investing for the future, I only have two hot stock tips: Apple, Inc and Morgan Stanley. Apple is at it's 52-week high, but could be considered cheap; Morgan Stanley is at it's 52-week low, and is in a painfully situated industry...but Morgan Stanley is well situated for the future.
Well, yesterday I reported that Space Shuttle Atlantis was headed into Earth orbit...and but for a faulty fuel sensor, it would have. While filling tanks with the more than 500,000 gallons (2.2 million litres) of cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen that the shuttle uses for it's 8.5 minute boost into orbit, a fuel sensor problem cropped up, causing the flight to be scrubbed and rescheduled for lift-off on Saturday, Dec. 8th.
The Evil Empire seeks redress on the loss of it's Death Star. Well, okay, I mean the other Evil Empire...the one associated with Bill Gatus of Borg. According to a story by Paul McDougall of InformationWeek, and I quote:
"Microsoft has asked the designers of a low-cost Linux laptop intended for children in developing nations to redesign the system so it can accommodate its Windows XP operating system."
"In a move sure to provoke controversy, Microsoft wants the designers of the XO laptop, available through a non-profit initiative called One Laptop Per Child, to add a port through which the storage capacity required by Windows XP can be added to the system."
"The XO currently runs on a Red Hat Linux operating system. Making the laptop compatible with XP would give students in poor countries access to "tens of thousands of existing educational applications written for Windows," said James Utzschneider, a Microsoft general manager, in a blog post Wednesday. "
End of quote.
Oh, phew! I thought for a minute there, Microsoft was seeking to wrest control away from that upstart Linux. But, no, they really are a big microsoftie and seek to give the poor kids of the world access to oodles of educational bloatware.
Tech Question:
Okay, now we get to the heart of the matter. What is Sledding?
Perhaps you think this question was covered in the previous show's question of what is Tobogganing...and perhaps we put the cart before the horse on that one. Quite simply, sledding is the act of using some technologically advanced tool, like a flat piece of wood or an animal hide, to speed one's descent down any snow-covered hillside.
An interesting excerpt from wikipedia on the subject says that "Modern sledding began in St Moritz during the early 1870s when British visitors with more time than activities began to experiment and play around with boys delivery sleds ... for recreation at the dawn of winter resorting in winter climes."
Are they kidding? Modern sledding began when homo sapiens boys noticed that the bear furs being used by neanderthal boys had much better ride characteristics than the deer hides that they'd stolen from their own parent's cave. The homo sapiens boys begged and pleaded with their dads to get similar furs, which of course would be far warmer for mother (the maternally supported sales pitch) and would be far easier to catch than a deer (the paternally supported sales pitch). After being artfully convinced, the homo sapiens dads realized that just taking the bear skins was easier still, which they did just after they convinced the neanderthal dads that a big herd of wooly mammoth elephants had just passed north of the valley, headed into the woods. The neanderthal families were not heard from again...and the homo sapiens boys scored awesome snow-riding furs!
Also, although implied by all the cool sledding implements you can pick up at your local superstore, or watch the use of in the Winter Olympics, these examples by no means prohibit the use of ingenuity to get one from the top of a snow covered hill to the bottom, while avoiding rocks, trees and other sledders. Many a sledder has found that simply flopping on his or her back may provide and excellent alternative to sliding on their feet, or if they can steal a plastic tray from the school cafeteria, awesome times will be had by all.
Safety equipment is certainly recommended when sledding. I recommend helmets, gloves and scarves for children and thermos' of hot cocoa, coffee or apple cider for the parents. Any other equipment is strictly optional. :-)
Podcasting - Blogging News:
So, I mentioned yesterday that I listen to my own podcasts, using them as a memory repository, so see what I was thinking in the past, or how meagerly I may have introduced a story which now screams to be told in more detail. Well, I'm also listening to my past podcasts for stylistic reasons:
What is it about the content or method of presentation that grabs me or makes me yawn?
How could improve either delivery or production to make the show better for the listener?
And, how can I improve things such that I'm expanding my own skills and techniques?
These are the three primary questions running through my mind as I listen to my shows. These are now also the questions I ask as I listen to the shows of others.
Two examples of shows I'm listening to for stylistic cues: Christopher S. Penn's Financial Aid podcast and Adam Wolf's BizTech podcast. Chris, who is the CTO of the Student Loan Network in Boston, MA, has produced 684 daily podcasts about the ins and out of student financial aid in specific and finance, technology & marketing in general - FAP's shows average about 12 minutes; Adam, as the owner of Cellcon Consulting in New York City, has produced 26 weekly BizTech podcasts - BizTech shows run about 3 minutes, 15 seconds.
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Morgan Stanley, Atlantis and the Evil Empire;
- What is Sledding?
- and, Seeking Stylistic Cues from FAP and BizTech.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
phyllostachys 60: Minute Tech 45 show notes
45 - What is Tobogganing?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 45 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Thursday, December 6th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Intel's Penryn and ESA's Columbus make debuts;
- What is Tobogganing?
- Listening to my earlier shows...for enjoyment.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
Intel's Penryn Chip, which has entered production at Intel's Chandler, Arizona fab facility, may make it's debut at the Consumer Electronics Show and/or MacWorld in upcoming January 2008. Writers and bloggers have been speculating for months that the next device to make it out of Santa Job's Cupertino workshop will be a subnotebook with solid-state Flash RAM drive, meaning no spinning disk, allowing for immediate boot up of the notebook computer. That could be cool...though my notebook is immediate bootup now: Apple has the sleep mode which works extremely well - I seldom actually shut the machine down. The subnotebook rumors, by the way, include thoughts about a potential iTouch device, which, similar to the iTouch iPod and iPhone, but larger, would be a true Star Trek-like handheld computing device.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Steve Jobs was inducted into the California Hall of Fame last night by Gov Schwarzenegger last night, along with 12 other "visionaries and trailblazers". There's a web cast of the induction event in Sacramento, at a link here in the show notes: http://www.gov.ca.gov/multimedia . Interestingly, Jobs shares the spotlight with such luminaries as Elizabeth Taylor, Tiger Woods, Milton Berle and Dr. Jonas Salk. Hmmm, I though that Pittsburgh claimed Jonas Salk? I guess ya gotta glom onto famous names wherever and whenever you can.
Finally, as reported in an earlier show, Space Shuttle Atlantis is lifting off later today to deliver a science experiments module from the European Space Agency. The 11-day mission will allow astronauts to attach the module & deliver French astronaut Leopold Eyharts, who will inaugurate experiments on the Christopher Columbus module. The ESA's module was originally slated for a 2003 launch, which was long delayed by the re-entry disintegration of the Columbia space shuttle. In 2008, an ESA robotic spacecraft is set to dock with the ISS, as well as two Japanese modules, which will be delivered by space shuttle flights.
Tech Question:
What is toboganning? Interestingly, wikipedia's entry focuses on sled & sleigh variants which my mental image does not show as toboggan's. In my childhood memories, a toboggan was 100% the wooden or plastic sled which curls up in front, allowing for multiple people to sit together for a nearly uncontrollable ride down a snow hillside. In fact, as wikipedia does describe, the toboggan would be wooden slats fastened together, perhaps 10 or 12 2-inch slats, with a steam-bent front, curled in a J-shape, with a rope fastened to the front to allow both for basic steering, but primarily for pulling the Toboggan back up the hill. In Cleveland, where I grew up, we'd go to Shaker Height's Thornton Park, which had the highest sledding hill in the immediate vicinity. Very awesome, very icy, very steep, very cold, very fun.
I suppose this type of device for developing break-neck speed down a snowy slope might fall into the sledda-non-grata category for safety-conscious parents...but it sure is a vastly fun experience for all involved.
According to wikipedia, the Olympic bobsled is a type of Toboggan...but I'd think that it is more akin to a dog sled or horse-drawn sleigh, in that it has four rails under the body, allowing for traction on snowy or icy terrain...which in the case of the bobsled is an artificial course set up for the purpose of producing a harrowing race against the clock. My palms sweat at the mere thought of hurtling down such a course....though it is in essence a very controlled experience. :-)
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Do you remember the admonitions to Killashandra Ree, in Anne McCaffrey's Crystalsinger to record memories, as the very long life of a crystalsinger causes memories of past life to fade quickly? My podcasts are seeming to be a great way to record not only past tech news, but also how I thought about those things, interpretted them and put them into words. I've been enjoying going back and listening to my past Minute Tech podcast shows, which I've burned to CD for easy listening anywhere, partially to see what I didn't talk about in great enough depth and partially to see how I may not have had the right information, so that I can elaborate in another show. For instance, I mentioned Asberger's (sp?) syndrome, as referenced on the Infinite Mind radio show...I need to elaborate on that, since I gave absolutely no information on that particular podcast.
This is a great reason to blog, podcast or vidcast. Current generations complain that previous generations did not document their lives, giving the younger ones a sense of history, of where they came from, of what their forebears thought about the world. Now with these forms of expression they'll be inundated, for good or ill, with these vast amounts of artistic output. How will they catalog it all...how will it all be assimilated by future generations?
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Intel's Penryn and ESA's Columbus make debuts;
- What is Tobogganing?
- Listening to my earlier shows...for enjoyment.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 45 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Thursday, December 6th, 2007
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Intel's Penryn and ESA's Columbus make debuts;
- What is Tobogganing?
- Listening to my earlier shows...for enjoyment.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:
Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.
And:
Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.
Tech News:
Intel's Penryn Chip, which has entered production at Intel's Chandler, Arizona fab facility, may make it's debut at the Consumer Electronics Show and/or MacWorld in upcoming January 2008. Writers and bloggers have been speculating for months that the next device to make it out of Santa Job's Cupertino workshop will be a subnotebook with solid-state Flash RAM drive, meaning no spinning disk, allowing for immediate boot up of the notebook computer. That could be cool...though my notebook is immediate bootup now: Apple has the sleep mode which works extremely well - I seldom actually shut the machine down. The subnotebook rumors, by the way, include thoughts about a potential iTouch device, which, similar to the iTouch iPod and iPhone, but larger, would be a true Star Trek-like handheld computing device.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Steve Jobs was inducted into the California Hall of Fame last night by Gov Schwarzenegger last night, along with 12 other "visionaries and trailblazers". There's a web cast of the induction event in Sacramento, at a link here in the show notes: http://www.gov.ca.gov/multimedia . Interestingly, Jobs shares the spotlight with such luminaries as Elizabeth Taylor, Tiger Woods, Milton Berle and Dr. Jonas Salk. Hmmm, I though that Pittsburgh claimed Jonas Salk? I guess ya gotta glom onto famous names wherever and whenever you can.
Finally, as reported in an earlier show, Space Shuttle Atlantis is lifting off later today to deliver a science experiments module from the European Space Agency. The 11-day mission will allow astronauts to attach the module & deliver French astronaut Leopold Eyharts, who will inaugurate experiments on the Christopher Columbus module. The ESA's module was originally slated for a 2003 launch, which was long delayed by the re-entry disintegration of the Columbia space shuttle. In 2008, an ESA robotic spacecraft is set to dock with the ISS, as well as two Japanese modules, which will be delivered by space shuttle flights.
Tech Question:
What is toboganning? Interestingly, wikipedia's entry focuses on sled & sleigh variants which my mental image does not show as toboggan's. In my childhood memories, a toboggan was 100% the wooden or plastic sled which curls up in front, allowing for multiple people to sit together for a nearly uncontrollable ride down a snow hillside. In fact, as wikipedia does describe, the toboggan would be wooden slats fastened together, perhaps 10 or 12 2-inch slats, with a steam-bent front, curled in a J-shape, with a rope fastened to the front to allow both for basic steering, but primarily for pulling the Toboggan back up the hill. In Cleveland, where I grew up, we'd go to Shaker Height's Thornton Park, which had the highest sledding hill in the immediate vicinity. Very awesome, very icy, very steep, very cold, very fun.
I suppose this type of device for developing break-neck speed down a snowy slope might fall into the sledda-non-grata category for safety-conscious parents...but it sure is a vastly fun experience for all involved.
According to wikipedia, the Olympic bobsled is a type of Toboggan...but I'd think that it is more akin to a dog sled or horse-drawn sleigh, in that it has four rails under the body, allowing for traction on snowy or icy terrain...which in the case of the bobsled is an artificial course set up for the purpose of producing a harrowing race against the clock. My palms sweat at the mere thought of hurtling down such a course....though it is in essence a very controlled experience. :-)
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Do you remember the admonitions to Killashandra Ree, in Anne McCaffrey's Crystalsinger to record memories, as the very long life of a crystalsinger causes memories of past life to fade quickly? My podcasts are seeming to be a great way to record not only past tech news, but also how I thought about those things, interpretted them and put them into words. I've been enjoying going back and listening to my past Minute Tech podcast shows, which I've burned to CD for easy listening anywhere, partially to see what I didn't talk about in great enough depth and partially to see how I may not have had the right information, so that I can elaborate in another show. For instance, I mentioned Asberger's (sp?) syndrome, as referenced on the Infinite Mind radio show...I need to elaborate on that, since I gave absolutely no information on that particular podcast.
This is a great reason to blog, podcast or vidcast. Current generations complain that previous generations did not document their lives, giving the younger ones a sense of history, of where they came from, of what their forebears thought about the world. Now with these forms of expression they'll be inundated, for good or ill, with these vast amounts of artistic output. How will they catalog it all...how will it all be assimilated by future generations?
Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"
- Intel's Penryn and ESA's Columbus make debuts;
- What is Tobogganing?
- Listening to my earlier shows...for enjoyment.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
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