What do you mean "what's chogger"???
If you like to blog, if you like to tweet, and if you like to play with drawing or manipulating pictures, Chogger.com is for you!
..phyllostachys.
Friday, October 24, 2008
phyllostachys 83: MC Escher Shows the Way!
Wouldn't it be cool if we could edit Chogger comic strips?
What do you mean "what's chogger"???
If you like to blog, if you like to tweet, and if you like to play with drawing or manipulating pictures, Chogger.com is for you!
..phyllostachys.
What do you mean "what's chogger"???
If you like to blog, if you like to tweet, and if you like to play with drawing or manipulating pictures, Chogger.com is for you!
..phyllostachys.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
phyllostachys 82: Collecting Thoughts
At what point do you sit back and collect your thoughts, as the maelstrom of life swirls about you?
Pick a point, any point.
I'm picking this point.
Many, many indicators are pointing in the direction that it's time to be creative again. Minute Tech podcast faded in February of this year. Blogging in many forms also faded. Twitter suffered for several weeks. And I've been in such a general malaise (more figurative than literal) that I've not put finger to key to talk to the world in quite some time.
Podcamp Pittsburgh 3 is serendipitously coming up in the fall, and we all know how involving yourself in an event, and/or planning of that event, can help to jump-start the juices. I often allow external stimuli such as Podcamp Pittsburgh to help move me in the right direction, as I realize that my internal stimuli won't always do the jump-starting.
So, here I sit. I feel that to break out of the malaise, I must begin to create an artificial structure of the ideas I'm having, and then see how that structure brings the ideas into my creativity, and the creativity then renders ideas for the world to see them.
Here's just a brief synopsis of things:
Family activities:
vacations - what are those? you mean I have vacation days? :-)
visiting relatives - they all live outside of Pgh...
ice skating lessons - lessons for the offspring, refresher for me
reading - for fun and education
driving a certain little yellow car
Self learning:
stock market - learning and growing: aapl, bcsi, mrvc, ge, sncr, etc.
WSJ - learning and observing the world
Tai Chi - learning Wu Style, attempting to keep up with both Wu and Yang
philosophy - learning in relation to tai chi, evolution, science, business, etc.
Kayaking - expensive hobby, so how easy to build one? what materials avail, besides bamboo?
Canoeing - time to repair/refurb the kevlar Adirondack Guideboat...built originally by Charles
web development - slowly learning through on-the-job the huge number of facets this encompasses
Marketing - so many facets, on-the-job
Social Media - podcasting, blogging, Podcamp, etc.
Filmmaking/podcasting - create, produce, involve, learn the art(s)
Homes:
projects: painting, trimming, cleaning, gardening, bamboo
maintenance: trimming, cutting grass, bamboo, abating wetness around the house
Sales - get old houses sold, on Craigslist, etc.
- 589 Ayers Ave., 15145
- 583 Ayers Ave., 15145
Rebuild antique barn - who to do this, at what cost?
What more? time for a few hours sleep, then more here.
BTW, partial catalysts for rekindling blogging here are the ongoing bloggings of Dawn Papuga, Justin Kownacki and Susan Courtad. :-)
..phyllostachys
Pick a point, any point.
I'm picking this point.
Many, many indicators are pointing in the direction that it's time to be creative again. Minute Tech podcast faded in February of this year. Blogging in many forms also faded. Twitter suffered for several weeks. And I've been in such a general malaise (more figurative than literal) that I've not put finger to key to talk to the world in quite some time.
Podcamp Pittsburgh 3 is serendipitously coming up in the fall, and we all know how involving yourself in an event, and/or planning of that event, can help to jump-start the juices. I often allow external stimuli such as Podcamp Pittsburgh to help move me in the right direction, as I realize that my internal stimuli won't always do the jump-starting.
So, here I sit. I feel that to break out of the malaise, I must begin to create an artificial structure of the ideas I'm having, and then see how that structure brings the ideas into my creativity, and the creativity then renders ideas for the world to see them.
Here's just a brief synopsis of things:
Family activities:
vacations - what are those? you mean I have vacation days? :-)
visiting relatives - they all live outside of Pgh...
ice skating lessons - lessons for the offspring, refresher for me
reading - for fun and education
driving a certain little yellow car
Self learning:
stock market - learning and growing: aapl, bcsi, mrvc, ge, sncr, etc.
WSJ - learning and observing the world
Tai Chi - learning Wu Style, attempting to keep up with both Wu and Yang
philosophy - learning in relation to tai chi, evolution, science, business, etc.
Kayaking - expensive hobby, so how easy to build one? what materials avail, besides bamboo?
Canoeing - time to repair/refurb the kevlar Adirondack Guideboat...built originally by Charles
web development - slowly learning through on-the-job the huge number of facets this encompasses
Marketing - so many facets, on-the-job
Social Media - podcasting, blogging, Podcamp, etc.
Filmmaking/podcasting - create, produce, involve, learn the art(s)
Homes:
projects: painting, trimming, cleaning, gardening, bamboo
maintenance: trimming, cutting grass, bamboo, abating wetness around the house
Sales - get old houses sold, on Craigslist, etc.
- 589 Ayers Ave., 15145
- 583 Ayers Ave., 15145
Rebuild antique barn - who to do this, at what cost?
What more? time for a few hours sleep, then more here.
BTW, partial catalysts for rekindling blogging here are the ongoing bloggings of Dawn Papuga, Justin Kownacki and Susan Courtad. :-)
..phyllostachys
Monday, January 21, 2008
phyllostachys 81: Minute Tech 66 Show Transcript
66 - How do you organize information? Databases.
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 65 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Saturday, January 26th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- HBO's got milk and India's going orbital;
- How do you organize information? Databases.
- Seesmic is setting itself apart by micro-vlogging.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
Pittsburgh-native Larry Tolbert, teaching taiji and qi gong. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu stylists, as well as Shaolin Wushu & Capoeira meistre's, 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.
Tech News:
As certain fruity companies are expanding their movie download and rental options in conjunction with lowering the price of their streaming device while allowing the device to operate separately from a managing computer, other established players at rushing to offer similar capabilities. Gina Keating reports through Reuters that Time Warner's HBO will be launching tomorrow their "HBO on Broadband" service that will allow subscribers to download movies and television shows. HBO's initial launch for subscribers in parts of the State of Wisconsin will, in conjunction with HBO's On Demand service, allow for people to "time shift" their viewing, that is view content that broadcasts at a certain time at some other time of the day. With HBO on Broadband, time-shifters can use their personal computers & laptops to extend the viewing beyond the living room.
Separately, another staple of our daily diet, cow-produced milk, is increasingly coming from dairies that use growth hormones in their livestock to increase the production of bovine milk. The milk industry nearly succeeded in allowing milk producers to not label whether their milk is from growth-hormone treated cows...but Lisa Stein reports in Sciam.com that the State of Pennsylvania has stepped back from a labelling ban due to pressure from consumer advocacy groups who feel that consumers have a right to know whether the milk they're buying for themselves or their families have come from cows so treated. Many consumers may not pay attention to these issues...but many more do, and wish to curtail the infusion of potentially harmful substances into their diets. Of course, they could all just switch to soy milk...but even there you're them potentially dealing with GMO's in your crop products...
And finally, India's latest endeavour for it's 45-year-old space program has been to successfully launch a polar-orbit spy satellite for Israel. Facing increasing global competition from the ESA, NASA, Russian, Chinese and Ukranian space facilities, India is seeking to provide launch services to other countries in an estimated $2.5bn market. Similar to the services provided to Israel for their 300 kg satellite, India launched an Italian satellite in April of 2007 for a fee of $11M.
Show Note: This has been one interesting week - I started a new job with a web-development and marketing software company in Pittsburgh, Elliance, Inc., and the 1st-week process has thrown a small monkey-wrench into the production of this podcast. But, as I'm a flexible kinda guy, we'll see how both the new job and the podcast mold themselves together.
Two other events occurred which could help the overall podcasting effort: Podcamp Pittsburgh 3 had it's first preliminary meeting at Pittsburgh's Creative Treehouse this past week, where I learned that Minute Lit podcast co-host Dawn Papuga has also started a new employment gig...putting her just across the river from my new job...so Minute Lit, or an evolutionary podcast could find its way to your ears. And secondly, Elliance's founder Abu Noaman wants us to "life-cast" or broadcast via the web the upcoming Elliance holiday party. Figuring out how to do this and how to promote it to the world in a way to bring the world to Elliance's doorstep is our next task. How would you do this for your company?
Stay tuned for related info on Seesmic in a few minutes.
Tech Question:
The Tech question for today: How do you organize information? Databases.
In the previous Minute Tech podcast, we talked about the oodles of information stored in computers that give us these environments to manage the computer - hard disk, memory, security, software systems, etc. - while we at a higher level do more fun things like type, crunch numbers, play games, surf networks for other information, send e-mail, manage files and collect external information. The environment is the disk operating system...and this environment is the result of huge amounts of text-based information creation, testing and storage by the global designers of computing systems. At the human interaction level, even more information is stored in the form of databases and programs that use database-like storage methods.
What is a database? A database is essentially a digital structure for holding information, just as a corncrib might store corn cobs or kernels -- though a database keeps information orderly contained such that each bit of information can be readily accessed, whereas corn in a crib can only be accessed by emptying the container and processing the contents as it empties.
When you check your e-mail, pull up your Quicken checkbook management software, run a web search engine query for images of cows, or search your document management system for all documents listed under your author code, you are using databases. Finance programs use them, search engines use them, DMS' use them, operating systems - most computer programs use some form of database.
What programs do you use on a regular basis that could contain an underlying database. Have you ever thought of your Word document as essentially a database for formatting text? That's what it is, though you only see the very high-level view. Have you ever thought as your company's website as a database? Even if your website is as simplistic as a collection of HTML pages linked together, that is a form of database, using the index.html file as the primary listing. But, if you run a business, then more likely your website really is governed by an underlying database, sometimes called a CMS, or Content Management System.
What databases do you use? Do you have questions about databases? send us a note at minutetech[at]gmail[dot]com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Hey, got my Seesmic invite earlier this week. I signed up at Seesmic this past monday morning under the username "alexlandefeld". What is Seesmic, you ask? Seesmic is a video micro blogging web app, started in San Francisco by French blogger Loic Le Meur and reaching around the world for content. What is micro blogging, you are probably wondering? Micro blogging involves the use of blogging in short snippets of text, as one does for Twitter, the ultimate in micro blogging. Twitter allows you to chunk your information in short 140-character segments, allowing users to post from the web, from their cellphones, from Facebook, etc.
Seesmic released short video's of itself starting up, video blogging the small enterprise, as a way to build interest in the micro-video-blogging idea, in the company, and to show people that video of such mundane activities could be interesting in itself. Of course, it helps that the whole company is built on blogging and creating video personalities and encouraging others to do the same. This is what sets them apart from other video sites: they're encouraging people to post short video blogs of anything and everything, including the business of life and the life of business. What could you video blog about? Remember, this social web thing is not so much about you....its about your voice in a community of voices, wherever that community may exist.
That's 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"
- HBO's got milk and India's going orbital;
- How do you organize information? Databases.
- Seesmic is setting itself apart by micro-vlogging.
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 65 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Saturday, January 26th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- HBO's got milk and India's going orbital;
- How do you organize information? Databases.
- Seesmic is setting itself apart by micro-vlogging.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
Pittsburgh-native Larry Tolbert, teaching taiji and qi gong. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu stylists, as well as Shaolin Wushu & Capoeira meistre's, 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.
Tech News:
As certain fruity companies are expanding their movie download and rental options in conjunction with lowering the price of their streaming device while allowing the device to operate separately from a managing computer, other established players at rushing to offer similar capabilities. Gina Keating reports through Reuters that Time Warner's HBO will be launching tomorrow their "HBO on Broadband" service that will allow subscribers to download movies and television shows. HBO's initial launch for subscribers in parts of the State of Wisconsin will, in conjunction with HBO's On Demand service, allow for people to "time shift" their viewing, that is view content that broadcasts at a certain time at some other time of the day. With HBO on Broadband, time-shifters can use their personal computers & laptops to extend the viewing beyond the living room.
Separately, another staple of our daily diet, cow-produced milk, is increasingly coming from dairies that use growth hormones in their livestock to increase the production of bovine milk. The milk industry nearly succeeded in allowing milk producers to not label whether their milk is from growth-hormone treated cows...but Lisa Stein reports in Sciam.com that the State of Pennsylvania has stepped back from a labelling ban due to pressure from consumer advocacy groups who feel that consumers have a right to know whether the milk they're buying for themselves or their families have come from cows so treated. Many consumers may not pay attention to these issues...but many more do, and wish to curtail the infusion of potentially harmful substances into their diets. Of course, they could all just switch to soy milk...but even there you're them potentially dealing with GMO's in your crop products...
And finally, India's latest endeavour for it's 45-year-old space program has been to successfully launch a polar-orbit spy satellite for Israel. Facing increasing global competition from the ESA, NASA, Russian, Chinese and Ukranian space facilities, India is seeking to provide launch services to other countries in an estimated $2.5bn market. Similar to the services provided to Israel for their 300 kg satellite, India launched an Italian satellite in April of 2007 for a fee of $11M.
Show Note: This has been one interesting week - I started a new job with a web-development and marketing software company in Pittsburgh, Elliance, Inc., and the 1st-week process has thrown a small monkey-wrench into the production of this podcast. But, as I'm a flexible kinda guy, we'll see how both the new job and the podcast mold themselves together.
Two other events occurred which could help the overall podcasting effort: Podcamp Pittsburgh 3 had it's first preliminary meeting at Pittsburgh's Creative Treehouse this past week, where I learned that Minute Lit podcast co-host Dawn Papuga has also started a new employment gig...putting her just across the river from my new job...so Minute Lit, or an evolutionary podcast could find its way to your ears. And secondly, Elliance's founder Abu Noaman wants us to "life-cast" or broadcast via the web the upcoming Elliance holiday party. Figuring out how to do this and how to promote it to the world in a way to bring the world to Elliance's doorstep is our next task. How would you do this for your company?
Stay tuned for related info on Seesmic in a few minutes.
Tech Question:
The Tech question for today: How do you organize information? Databases.
In the previous Minute Tech podcast, we talked about the oodles of information stored in computers that give us these environments to manage the computer - hard disk, memory, security, software systems, etc. - while we at a higher level do more fun things like type, crunch numbers, play games, surf networks for other information, send e-mail, manage files and collect external information. The environment is the disk operating system...and this environment is the result of huge amounts of text-based information creation, testing and storage by the global designers of computing systems. At the human interaction level, even more information is stored in the form of databases and programs that use database-like storage methods.
What is a database? A database is essentially a digital structure for holding information, just as a corncrib might store corn cobs or kernels -- though a database keeps information orderly contained such that each bit of information can be readily accessed, whereas corn in a crib can only be accessed by emptying the container and processing the contents as it empties.
When you check your e-mail, pull up your Quicken checkbook management software, run a web search engine query for images of cows, or search your document management system for all documents listed under your author code, you are using databases. Finance programs use them, search engines use them, DMS' use them, operating systems - most computer programs use some form of database.
What programs do you use on a regular basis that could contain an underlying database. Have you ever thought of your Word document as essentially a database for formatting text? That's what it is, though you only see the very high-level view. Have you ever thought as your company's website as a database? Even if your website is as simplistic as a collection of HTML pages linked together, that is a form of database, using the index.html file as the primary listing. But, if you run a business, then more likely your website really is governed by an underlying database, sometimes called a CMS, or Content Management System.
What databases do you use? Do you have questions about databases? send us a note at minutetech[at]gmail[dot]com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Hey, got my Seesmic invite earlier this week. I signed up at Seesmic this past monday morning under the username "alexlandefeld". What is Seesmic, you ask? Seesmic is a video micro blogging web app, started in San Francisco by French blogger Loic Le Meur and reaching around the world for content. What is micro blogging, you are probably wondering? Micro blogging involves the use of blogging in short snippets of text, as one does for Twitter, the ultimate in micro blogging. Twitter allows you to chunk your information in short 140-character segments, allowing users to post from the web, from their cellphones, from Facebook, etc.
Seesmic released short video's of itself starting up, video blogging the small enterprise, as a way to build interest in the micro-video-blogging idea, in the company, and to show people that video of such mundane activities could be interesting in itself. Of course, it helps that the whole company is built on blogging and creating video personalities and encouraging others to do the same. This is what sets them apart from other video sites: they're encouraging people to post short video blogs of anything and everything, including the business of life and the life of business. What could you video blog about? Remember, this social web thing is not so much about you....its about your voice in a community of voices, wherever that community may exist.
That's 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"
- HBO's got milk and India's going orbital;
- How do you organize information? Databases.
- Seesmic is setting itself apart by micro-vlogging.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Friday, January 18, 2008
phyllostachys 80: Minute Tech 65 Show Transcript
65 - How do you organize information? Computers.
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 65 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Friday, January 18th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Batteries Get A Charge Out of Silicon Nano-wires;
- How do you organize information? Computers.
- and, Stephen Hawking's Popular Book Moves Forward in Time.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
Pittsburgh-native Larry Tolbert, teaching taiji and qi gong. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu stylists, as well as Shaolin Wushu & Capoeira meistre's, 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.
Tech News:
Using silicon nano-wires as the anodes in new batteries instead of graphite, Stanford University researchers have been able to give a tenfold increase to average battery life. Alex Serpo, for CNet News.com reports that Stanford's Yi Cui and colleagues have found that their new silicon nano-wires will swell up to 4 times their original size when "charged" with lithium ions, with out fracturing like earlier generations of silicon nano-wires. Graphite apparently, perhaps due to it's tightly bound carbon crystal lattice, restricts the amount of energy that can be stored. With this new discovery, the MacBook Air could potentially go from 5 hours of battery life to 40 or 50 hours of battery life. I suppose this could be extended to the automotive industry as well, propelling the world further out of the clutches of fossil fuels.
A tenfold improvement in battery life?
Now, if you think that the age of discovery has ended, and just about all the new things to be discovered have been, from silicon nano-wires to string theory, from the iPod to Data's emotion chip...I submit that you're just plain wrong. As we scale our ability to observe, save data, economize on energy and teach more and more of our children to think for themselves, we constantly discover new things throughout all the facets of life. Take asteroids, for example. A Slashdot posting tells us of a group of three Racine, Wisconsin high school sophomores who, using a remotely controlled astronomical telescope in New Mexico, compared a group of photos snapped of the night sky two nights in a row, and have discovered what may come to be named "2008 AZ28". This asteroid, with about a 5-year solar orbit, is part of a class of celestial objects that, giving no light of their own, are about 10,000 times fainter than anything you can see in the night sky with your un-aided eyes. Telescopes snap photos of various parts of the night sky, and researchers, including high school students, compare successive photos to see if any movement can be detected in objects, and, if so, what the moving objects might be.
Tech Question:
How do you organize information? Computers.
For some 50 or 60 years, humans have been moving beyond manual and mechanical methods of calculating numbers to using digital electronic machines called "computers" to compute various mathematical problems. Little did mathematicians know that raw number computation would give rise to storing vast amounts of human knowledge in binary format.
Now, I'm not talking here about re-creation of humanities published works on such sites as Gutenberg.org or Google's book project, but rather the constant creation of computer programs which humans have been producing for decades to enable the storage of those books, to ease the use of the computers themselves, and to ease the ways in which programmers control the internal circuitry of the computers. These "programs" are basically human-language methods for translating human ideas into binary bits that machines making billions of on-off on-off on-off switches per minute can understand.
When you hear of a computer operating system such as Windows 95, Linux, OS 2, BSD, Vista or Leopard consisting of millions of lines of code...this code is essentially all originally hand-typed information that humans have used to create usable environments within the realm of computers. These usable environments are created, therefore, by text-based information that humans have converted from human-language to computable binary (or assembly) language.
This moves way beyond the reason for books. Books store information that humans have designed to be stored in books. That's the sole purpose of books, magazines, pamphlets, etc. -- to store information that humans don't want to commit to memory and also want to disseminate to a broad swath of their contemporary fellow humans. Although this books stored information may be said to store all sorts of different worlds within them...these worlds only come to life when humans read the books (listen, etc.) and translate the words or symbols into mental images.
In computers, however, the stored information is already embodied as images...this therefore is the logical next level to which human information storage must push: storing immense amounts of computer-world-building coded text to generate images which will transmit all sorts of information to humans, other computers and perhaps off-world entities.
The next time you use any sort of computing device to access your bank account, read a copy of Plato's Dialogues or write down your thoughts for the day in 140 characters or less...take a moment to think about the humans who have come before you, writing the underlying code that allows you to interact with that computer. Where can this thought take you? Where will it take all of us?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
I've recently been listening to an unabridged audio book of Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow's A Briefer History of Time, a 2005 update to Hawking's 1985 blockbuster book about physics, quantum theory, black holes and time. This new book takes on the historical ideas of the original book, but packages them with the understanding of newer theories, such as string theory. String theory is a new attempt to move closer to the battle that Albert Einstein had been fighting....to seek to find a "unified theory" in which we could see how his General Relativity, which explains the macro universe, can sync with Quantum Mechanics, which explains the atomic/sub-atomic universe. The forces which hold the parts of an atom together do not seem to coincide with the forces which hold a solar system or a galaxy together. Also, the sci-fi attempt to use faster-than-light travel and "transporter" technology is intriguing...but how close does it come to reality? A Briefer History of Time brings us far closer to understanding all this stuff. Why is this important? Without Quantum Mechanics, we wouldn't have nuclear energy and microprocessing computers. Without a unified theory, we won't have a more complete understanding of the universe in which we live.
That's 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"
- Batteries Get A Charge Out of Silicon Nano-wires;
- How do you organize information? Computers.
- and, Stephen Hawking's Popular Book Moves Forward in Time.
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 65 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Friday, January 18th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Batteries Get A Charge Out of Silicon Nano-wires;
- How do you organize information? Computers.
- and, Stephen Hawking's Popular Book Moves Forward in Time.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
Pittsburgh-native Larry Tolbert, teaching taiji and qi gong. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu stylists, as well as Shaolin Wushu & Capoeira meistre's, 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.
Tech News:
Using silicon nano-wires as the anodes in new batteries instead of graphite, Stanford University researchers have been able to give a tenfold increase to average battery life. Alex Serpo, for CNet News.com reports that Stanford's Yi Cui and colleagues have found that their new silicon nano-wires will swell up to 4 times their original size when "charged" with lithium ions, with out fracturing like earlier generations of silicon nano-wires. Graphite apparently, perhaps due to it's tightly bound carbon crystal lattice, restricts the amount of energy that can be stored. With this new discovery, the MacBook Air could potentially go from 5 hours of battery life to 40 or 50 hours of battery life. I suppose this could be extended to the automotive industry as well, propelling the world further out of the clutches of fossil fuels.
A tenfold improvement in battery life?
Now, if you think that the age of discovery has ended, and just about all the new things to be discovered have been, from silicon nano-wires to string theory, from the iPod to Data's emotion chip...I submit that you're just plain wrong. As we scale our ability to observe, save data, economize on energy and teach more and more of our children to think for themselves, we constantly discover new things throughout all the facets of life. Take asteroids, for example. A Slashdot posting tells us of a group of three Racine, Wisconsin high school sophomores who, using a remotely controlled astronomical telescope in New Mexico, compared a group of photos snapped of the night sky two nights in a row, and have discovered what may come to be named "2008 AZ28". This asteroid, with about a 5-year solar orbit, is part of a class of celestial objects that, giving no light of their own, are about 10,000 times fainter than anything you can see in the night sky with your un-aided eyes. Telescopes snap photos of various parts of the night sky, and researchers, including high school students, compare successive photos to see if any movement can be detected in objects, and, if so, what the moving objects might be.
Tech Question:
How do you organize information? Computers.
For some 50 or 60 years, humans have been moving beyond manual and mechanical methods of calculating numbers to using digital electronic machines called "computers" to compute various mathematical problems. Little did mathematicians know that raw number computation would give rise to storing vast amounts of human knowledge in binary format.
Now, I'm not talking here about re-creation of humanities published works on such sites as Gutenberg.org or Google's book project, but rather the constant creation of computer programs which humans have been producing for decades to enable the storage of those books, to ease the use of the computers themselves, and to ease the ways in which programmers control the internal circuitry of the computers. These "programs" are basically human-language methods for translating human ideas into binary bits that machines making billions of on-off on-off on-off switches per minute can understand.
When you hear of a computer operating system such as Windows 95, Linux, OS 2, BSD, Vista or Leopard consisting of millions of lines of code...this code is essentially all originally hand-typed information that humans have used to create usable environments within the realm of computers. These usable environments are created, therefore, by text-based information that humans have converted from human-language to computable binary (or assembly) language.
This moves way beyond the reason for books. Books store information that humans have designed to be stored in books. That's the sole purpose of books, magazines, pamphlets, etc. -- to store information that humans don't want to commit to memory and also want to disseminate to a broad swath of their contemporary fellow humans. Although this books stored information may be said to store all sorts of different worlds within them...these worlds only come to life when humans read the books (listen, etc.) and translate the words or symbols into mental images.
In computers, however, the stored information is already embodied as images...this therefore is the logical next level to which human information storage must push: storing immense amounts of computer-world-building coded text to generate images which will transmit all sorts of information to humans, other computers and perhaps off-world entities.
The next time you use any sort of computing device to access your bank account, read a copy of Plato's Dialogues or write down your thoughts for the day in 140 characters or less...take a moment to think about the humans who have come before you, writing the underlying code that allows you to interact with that computer. Where can this thought take you? Where will it take all of us?
Podcasting - Blogging News:
I've recently been listening to an unabridged audio book of Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow's A Briefer History of Time, a 2005 update to Hawking's 1985 blockbuster book about physics, quantum theory, black holes and time. This new book takes on the historical ideas of the original book, but packages them with the understanding of newer theories, such as string theory. String theory is a new attempt to move closer to the battle that Albert Einstein had been fighting....to seek to find a "unified theory" in which we could see how his General Relativity, which explains the macro universe, can sync with Quantum Mechanics, which explains the atomic/sub-atomic universe. The forces which hold the parts of an atom together do not seem to coincide with the forces which hold a solar system or a galaxy together. Also, the sci-fi attempt to use faster-than-light travel and "transporter" technology is intriguing...but how close does it come to reality? A Briefer History of Time brings us far closer to understanding all this stuff. Why is this important? Without Quantum Mechanics, we wouldn't have nuclear energy and microprocessing computers. Without a unified theory, we won't have a more complete understanding of the universe in which we live.
That's 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"
- Batteries Get A Charge Out of Silicon Nano-wires;
- How do you organize information? Computers.
- and, Stephen Hawking's Popular Book Moves Forward in Time.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
phyllostachys 79: Minute Tech 64 Show Transcript
64 - How do you organize information? The Book.
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 64 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Google Crunches Petabytes daily;
- How Do You Organize Information? The Book.
- Dawn Papuga & the Stage Representation of Scar.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
Pittsburgh-native Larry Tolbert, teaching taiji and qi gong. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu stylists, as well as Shaolin Wushu & Capoeira meistre's, 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.
Tech News:
And you thought that Google was an advertising company, or a search engine? Behind the scenes, Google is really a massive storage provide and number cruncher, storing 10's of gigabytes of data for each of 100's of thousands or millions of individual e-mail account holders, crunching 10's of petabytes (1 petabyte equals 1000 terabytes or 1,000,000 gigabytes) of internet pages, mapping pictures and blog posts on a daily basis...and developing in-house talent to manage, program and scale the monstrously large enterprise. Note: I don't use the term monstrous to imply monstrosity, but rather to suggest the huge scale of this computing undertaking. Tim Finin reports on UMBC's equity Research Group's site that Google fellows Jeffrey Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat have posted an ACM paper about the MapReduce programming that they've helped develop for Google to handle the Petabytes of data being crunched by Google's computers daily. The MapReduce programming models are a way for programmers to handle huge dataset's on cluster computer systems, which utilized large numbers of similar computers to compute information in parallel, store data in parallel storage and distribute computing needs across hundreds or thousands of computers. Note that while this amount of data processing may seem overwhelming and totally out of touch with the needs of the normal computer-user...this type of power will soon be in the hands of consumers as PC computing power increases, our world-wide interaction with other's digital photo and video content increases, and our ability to navigate virtual and real worlds through the eyes of computers increase. All this power, parallelization, distribution and storage will be needed to manage our daily stream of information.
Today is the day we've been waiting for since January of 2007 - Steve Job's keynote speech at MacWorld 2008. Stay tuned to your favorite rumor site, such as engadget.com, macnn.com or macrumors.com (and many others) for live minute-by-minute coverage...or stream Mr. Job's keynote direct from Apple's website after the event. Note that as Apple improves the way we interact with the real world by helping us capture it digitally in image, video, song and blog, our compute needs and data storage needs increase exponentially.
Tech Question:
How do you organize information? The Book.
Moving beyond the single or collective data processing capabilities of the human brain, humans turned to physical records of information too tedious to retain in memory, such as the number and type of livestock in a herd, the number and capacities of jugs of wine, olive oil or grain in the communal store-rooms or the epic stories & ideas been produced by store-teller's, prophets, seers and scientists.
When people began learning to mark down information, perhaps originally making dots or lines on stones, pieces of wood or in mud tablets, then began to realize that if a system of organization of these markings was developed, they wouldn't have to remember everything in their minds, freeing them up to do more interesting things than just remembering all the boring details. They could turn to arts, sciences, sports, skilled trades, romance and dining...and even develop ruling and religious classes of people. All of these activities can generally only come about if the tedious information is catalogued in some way, although certainly many people for many thousands of years had trained themselves and others to become human data storage devices, learning to catalog, file and search information in mental structures.
The main problem with brain-held information, though, is that it goes away when the person dies, and if not all information from that person has been committed to somebody else's memory, then the original information is lost. Hence the need for written records: information continuity. Once written records were devised, languages had to be adapted for longevity and recording materials had to be adapted for survival through generations of librarians, readers and subsequent writers.
I've discussed books in previous podcasts, so I won't go over them again. Next we'll talk about ways in which 20th century humans have moved beyond storing information in books.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Oh my gosh, no sooner did I post that book reviewer Dawn Papuga had posted a recent book review of Sebastian Faulks' Engleby on her lyriquetragedy.blogspot.com book-review blog, she posted yet another review...this time of the stage adaptation of Disney's The Lion King. Ms. Papuga states that while the set's, costumes and characterizations were excellently implemented, the stage implementation of the crucial character-developments of the story itself left something to be desired - check out her blog post at http://lyriquetragedy.blogspot.com to see just how she analyses this important modern story of a young person's coming-of-age challenges. In the end, Ms. Papuga is absolutely correct in her estimations that obsessive viewing of the animated film version of the story by millions of young people should allow for inclusion of the more adult themes in the story in the stage version, rather than removing them due to a young stage audience.
That's 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"
- Google Crunches Petabytes daily;
- How Do You Organize Information? The Book.
- Dawn Papuga & the Stage Representation of Scar.
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 64 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Google Crunches Petabytes daily;
- How Do You Organize Information? The Book.
- Dawn Papuga & the Stage Representation of Scar.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
Pittsburgh-native Larry Tolbert, teaching taiji and qi gong. Having studied with Chen, Yang and Wu stylists, as well as Shaolin Wushu & Capoeira meistre's, 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.
Tech News:
And you thought that Google was an advertising company, or a search engine? Behind the scenes, Google is really a massive storage provide and number cruncher, storing 10's of gigabytes of data for each of 100's of thousands or millions of individual e-mail account holders, crunching 10's of petabytes (1 petabyte equals 1000 terabytes or 1,000,000 gigabytes) of internet pages, mapping pictures and blog posts on a daily basis...and developing in-house talent to manage, program and scale the monstrously large enterprise. Note: I don't use the term monstrous to imply monstrosity, but rather to suggest the huge scale of this computing undertaking. Tim Finin reports on UMBC's equity Research Group's site that Google fellows Jeffrey Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat have posted an ACM paper about the MapReduce programming that they've helped develop for Google to handle the Petabytes of data being crunched by Google's computers daily. The MapReduce programming models are a way for programmers to handle huge dataset's on cluster computer systems, which utilized large numbers of similar computers to compute information in parallel, store data in parallel storage and distribute computing needs across hundreds or thousands of computers. Note that while this amount of data processing may seem overwhelming and totally out of touch with the needs of the normal computer-user...this type of power will soon be in the hands of consumers as PC computing power increases, our world-wide interaction with other's digital photo and video content increases, and our ability to navigate virtual and real worlds through the eyes of computers increase. All this power, parallelization, distribution and storage will be needed to manage our daily stream of information.
Today is the day we've been waiting for since January of 2007 - Steve Job's keynote speech at MacWorld 2008. Stay tuned to your favorite rumor site, such as engadget.com, macnn.com or macrumors.com (and many others) for live minute-by-minute coverage...or stream Mr. Job's keynote direct from Apple's website after the event. Note that as Apple improves the way we interact with the real world by helping us capture it digitally in image, video, song and blog, our compute needs and data storage needs increase exponentially.
Tech Question:
How do you organize information? The Book.
Moving beyond the single or collective data processing capabilities of the human brain, humans turned to physical records of information too tedious to retain in memory, such as the number and type of livestock in a herd, the number and capacities of jugs of wine, olive oil or grain in the communal store-rooms or the epic stories & ideas been produced by store-teller's, prophets, seers and scientists.
When people began learning to mark down information, perhaps originally making dots or lines on stones, pieces of wood or in mud tablets, then began to realize that if a system of organization of these markings was developed, they wouldn't have to remember everything in their minds, freeing them up to do more interesting things than just remembering all the boring details. They could turn to arts, sciences, sports, skilled trades, romance and dining...and even develop ruling and religious classes of people. All of these activities can generally only come about if the tedious information is catalogued in some way, although certainly many people for many thousands of years had trained themselves and others to become human data storage devices, learning to catalog, file and search information in mental structures.
The main problem with brain-held information, though, is that it goes away when the person dies, and if not all information from that person has been committed to somebody else's memory, then the original information is lost. Hence the need for written records: information continuity. Once written records were devised, languages had to be adapted for longevity and recording materials had to be adapted for survival through generations of librarians, readers and subsequent writers.
I've discussed books in previous podcasts, so I won't go over them again. Next we'll talk about ways in which 20th century humans have moved beyond storing information in books.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Oh my gosh, no sooner did I post that book reviewer Dawn Papuga had posted a recent book review of Sebastian Faulks' Engleby on her lyriquetragedy.blogspot.com book-review blog, she posted yet another review...this time of the stage adaptation of Disney's The Lion King. Ms. Papuga states that while the set's, costumes and characterizations were excellently implemented, the stage implementation of the crucial character-developments of the story itself left something to be desired - check out her blog post at http://lyriquetragedy.blogspot.com to see just how she analyses this important modern story of a young person's coming-of-age challenges. In the end, Ms. Papuga is absolutely correct in her estimations that obsessive viewing of the animated film version of the story by millions of young people should allow for inclusion of the more adult themes in the story in the stage version, rather than removing them due to a young stage audience.
That's 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"
- Google Crunches Petabytes daily;
- How Do You Organize Information? The Book.
- Dawn Papuga & the Stage Representation of Scar.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Monday, January 14, 2008
phyllostachys 78: Minute Tech 63 Show Transcript
63 - How do you organize information? The Brain.
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 63 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday January 14th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- An Einstein Ring is Not a Berliner;
- First in a Series: How Do You Organize Information? The Brain.
- Recent Posts by Three Prolific Bloggers.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
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.
Tech News:
This is not a CES report...but rather from the American Astronomical Society, where a team of astronomers have found a double Einstein Ring, an astronomical phenomena based on the effect of gravitational lensing predicted by Albert Einstein in 1912. Einstein's idea of sources of extreme gravitational attraction, such as a galaxy, a massive star or a black hole, bending the light of more distant stellar objects was identified by him in 1912...though 24 years later in 1936 he suggested that humanity would never have the resolving capability to see such an effect. Now, due to very high power telescope-based cameras, such as that employed by the Hubble Space Telescope, hundreds of examples of gravitational lensing have been observed, including this most recent instance of a double Einstein ring. A double Einstein ring is a lensing of two distant stellar objects by a single closer object - in this case, astronomers have determined that the foreground galaxy producing the light-bending spectacle is some 3 billion light years distant from Earth, the inner ring is a galaxy some 6 billion light-years distant, and the outer ring is from a galaxy 11 billion light years distant. This is an enormously unusual finding...and makes one think about observers in those two more distant galaxies observing our Milky Way galaxy similarly lensed by the intervening objects.
http://presscue.com/node/38728
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_ring
Separately, and closer to home, David Biello of sciam.com reports that certain Acacia trees in the East African savanna's prefer to have animals foraging on them, and flourish more readily with the foraging incursions. Trees protected by an electrified fence have less foragers ravaging the trees, which one might assume would let the tree survive better...but these trees actually then harbor a different type of ant. The ant species inhabiting a tree seem to make a difference, as does the foraging: the ant species on the foraged acacias are attracted by the sweet tasting sap produced by the foraged trees...and in turn help to protect the trees from too much foraging by swarming over the foraging animals, acting as bodyguards to the trees. Without the foraging, however, the sap is not produced, and the protective ants aren't as likely to house themselves there, leaving room for a different type of ant that interacts with bark-boring beetles, contributing to slowly killing the trees. Stress in a biosystem, it appears, continues to produce life-giving results.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=of-ants-elephants-and-acacias
Tech Question:
How do you organize information? In this new series of explorations, I'm seeking to review and find ways that we all organize information. I'm embarking on a new information-intense career move, and I'll need all the help I can procure for managing disparate types of information so that I can service clients better with an ability to support older systems, help troubleshoot newer systems, and help to identify ways in which their situations can be improved. In order to do that, I seek to find ways of organizing information for myself, so that I can enjoy the process rather be overwhelmed by it.
The primary tool for organizing information has for millions of years been the human brain. We store information in brain-based repositories, calling up all sorts of informational bits from our memory matrix with all sorts of methods. Our brains are running our extraordinarily complex bodies while we learn to speak, spell, perform arithmetic, visualize, plan and implement. For many thousands of years the humans that have excelled have learned to utilize their brains for information storage, calculation, interaction and complex planning. Only relatively recently have human begun to rely upon tools for storing information outside of their brains. From the times that humans learned to paint in caves and scratch markings in stones, we've been involved in a race with information storage degradation, our ability to remember crucial bits of information and time.
Outside of the human brain, the single most powerful information storage device has been group storage, in which human's share information in such a way that information is spread throughout a populace, across many generations, allowing for that information to survive from one time period to another, from one fall to the following spring, through one dry season to the next, from one time of wellness to the next, and from one human life to the following.
Humans store information in groups, culturally, through stories, songs, instrumental music and instructional methods. Stories and songs allow for cultural, religious and practical details to be passed from one generation to another. Instrumental music helps to pass information and teach complex thought processes. And instructional methods help to teach others how to do practical things, from relining a packed dirt house floor & re-roofing the thatched roof to catching a rabbit or devising protections from marauding wildlife. These instructional methods are different from stories and songs in that they convey more immediate, more "practical" information, but they may overlap with the stories and songs in the ways in which they're transmitted, depending on the ingenuity of the teachers or instructional leaders.
Next, we'll touch on the initial ways in which humans have sought to store information outside of brains and collective consciousness.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
With the closing of the Consumer Electronics Show and the near-term opening of the MacWorld event, blogs and news sites have been on fire with rumor-mongering, relating to what new technologies Apple, Inc. has to reveal to us. Meanwhile, business and social media bloggers are moving along with their own agenda's, their own ideas, their own social directions.
Just to review a couple recent postings:
- Chris Brogan on his eponymously named blog is doing a series on the "Five Starter Moves" for using audio and video within the enterprise; (www.chrisbrogan.com)
- Jeremiah Owyang details his 10 suggestions for startups that are targeting enterprise businesses; (www.web-strategist.com)
- Book reviewer Dawn Papuga reviews Sebastian Faulks' Engleby on her lyriquetragedy.blogspot.com book-review blog.
That's 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"
- An Einstein Ring is Not a Berliner;
- First in a Series: How Do You Organize Information? The Brain.
- Recent Posts by Three Prolific Bloggers.
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 63 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Monday January 14th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- An Einstein Ring is Not a Berliner;
- First in a Series: How Do You Organize Information? The Brain.
- Recent Posts by Three Prolific Bloggers.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
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.
Tech News:
This is not a CES report...but rather from the American Astronomical Society, where a team of astronomers have found a double Einstein Ring, an astronomical phenomena based on the effect of gravitational lensing predicted by Albert Einstein in 1912. Einstein's idea of sources of extreme gravitational attraction, such as a galaxy, a massive star or a black hole, bending the light of more distant stellar objects was identified by him in 1912...though 24 years later in 1936 he suggested that humanity would never have the resolving capability to see such an effect. Now, due to very high power telescope-based cameras, such as that employed by the Hubble Space Telescope, hundreds of examples of gravitational lensing have been observed, including this most recent instance of a double Einstein ring. A double Einstein ring is a lensing of two distant stellar objects by a single closer object - in this case, astronomers have determined that the foreground galaxy producing the light-bending spectacle is some 3 billion light years distant from Earth, the inner ring is a galaxy some 6 billion light-years distant, and the outer ring is from a galaxy 11 billion light years distant. This is an enormously unusual finding...and makes one think about observers in those two more distant galaxies observing our Milky Way galaxy similarly lensed by the intervening objects.
http://presscue.com/node/38728
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_ring
Separately, and closer to home, David Biello of sciam.com reports that certain Acacia trees in the East African savanna's prefer to have animals foraging on them, and flourish more readily with the foraging incursions. Trees protected by an electrified fence have less foragers ravaging the trees, which one might assume would let the tree survive better...but these trees actually then harbor a different type of ant. The ant species inhabiting a tree seem to make a difference, as does the foraging: the ant species on the foraged acacias are attracted by the sweet tasting sap produced by the foraged trees...and in turn help to protect the trees from too much foraging by swarming over the foraging animals, acting as bodyguards to the trees. Without the foraging, however, the sap is not produced, and the protective ants aren't as likely to house themselves there, leaving room for a different type of ant that interacts with bark-boring beetles, contributing to slowly killing the trees. Stress in a biosystem, it appears, continues to produce life-giving results.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=of-ants-elephants-and-acacias
Tech Question:
How do you organize information? In this new series of explorations, I'm seeking to review and find ways that we all organize information. I'm embarking on a new information-intense career move, and I'll need all the help I can procure for managing disparate types of information so that I can service clients better with an ability to support older systems, help troubleshoot newer systems, and help to identify ways in which their situations can be improved. In order to do that, I seek to find ways of organizing information for myself, so that I can enjoy the process rather be overwhelmed by it.
The primary tool for organizing information has for millions of years been the human brain. We store information in brain-based repositories, calling up all sorts of informational bits from our memory matrix with all sorts of methods. Our brains are running our extraordinarily complex bodies while we learn to speak, spell, perform arithmetic, visualize, plan and implement. For many thousands of years the humans that have excelled have learned to utilize their brains for information storage, calculation, interaction and complex planning. Only relatively recently have human begun to rely upon tools for storing information outside of their brains. From the times that humans learned to paint in caves and scratch markings in stones, we've been involved in a race with information storage degradation, our ability to remember crucial bits of information and time.
Outside of the human brain, the single most powerful information storage device has been group storage, in which human's share information in such a way that information is spread throughout a populace, across many generations, allowing for that information to survive from one time period to another, from one fall to the following spring, through one dry season to the next, from one time of wellness to the next, and from one human life to the following.
Humans store information in groups, culturally, through stories, songs, instrumental music and instructional methods. Stories and songs allow for cultural, religious and practical details to be passed from one generation to another. Instrumental music helps to pass information and teach complex thought processes. And instructional methods help to teach others how to do practical things, from relining a packed dirt house floor & re-roofing the thatched roof to catching a rabbit or devising protections from marauding wildlife. These instructional methods are different from stories and songs in that they convey more immediate, more "practical" information, but they may overlap with the stories and songs in the ways in which they're transmitted, depending on the ingenuity of the teachers or instructional leaders.
Next, we'll touch on the initial ways in which humans have sought to store information outside of brains and collective consciousness.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
With the closing of the Consumer Electronics Show and the near-term opening of the MacWorld event, blogs and news sites have been on fire with rumor-mongering, relating to what new technologies Apple, Inc. has to reveal to us. Meanwhile, business and social media bloggers are moving along with their own agenda's, their own ideas, their own social directions.
Just to review a couple recent postings:
- Chris Brogan on his eponymously named blog is doing a series on the "Five Starter Moves" for using audio and video within the enterprise; (www.chrisbrogan.com)
- Jeremiah Owyang details his 10 suggestions for startups that are targeting enterprise businesses; (www.web-strategist.com)
- Book reviewer Dawn Papuga reviews Sebastian Faulks' Engleby on her lyriquetragedy.blogspot.com book-review blog.
That's 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"
- An Einstein Ring is Not a Berliner;
- First in a Series: How Do You Organize Information? The Brain.
- Recent Posts by Three Prolific Bloggers.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Thursday, January 10, 2008
phyllostachys 77: Minute Tech 62 Show Transcript
62 - What is Tatting?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 62 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Thursday, January 10th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Trading CES for MacWorld;
- Minute Tech Guest Carol Burrows on What is Tatting?
- Career Anchors - Discovery Your Real Values.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
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.
Tech News:
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has been the hot topic this past week, with the MacWorld conference at San Francisco's Moscone Center following hot on its heels next week. Apple, Inc. is the focus of both.
Much to the chagrin of the PC world, the electronics world has been lit on fire by competition with Apple's iPhone, Apple's purported Touch tablet, Apple's purported Flash notebook PC, and the very real release this week of Apple's 8-core Mac Pro and Xserve computer systems.
And how is this affecting Apple's stock price? It should be sending it through the roof once again...but recessionary thoughts and geopolitical fears are gripping the markets, so Apple's hot air balloon will take a bit of time to rise through the morass.
Robert Brodie, posting on CNBC's Rapid Recall online column, with an article titled "Trading the Technorati", says that the market declines of Apple, Google and Research in Motion are occurring "during a time that's typically strong for tech." Brodie suggested staying away from Tech...but suggests that Corning is a potential buy, as they will be producing the glass for all those 103-, 108- and 150-inch plasma displays, the last of which was just released by Panasonic.
Tech Question: What is Tatting?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Tatting?" , takes us on a tour of a world she's infinitely familiar with. Do you have a world you're infinitely familiar with? Please send me a note at minutetech@gmail.com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
In every surf through the web I come across many streams. Check out "dotnetaddict.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com" for Kevin Hoffman's blog posts on Windows and Mac programming. I came across this when linking to his post about the Apple Developers Connection, an org for learning to program in Cocoa and Objective-C for the Leopard and iPhone platforms.
Every moment, it seems, that I'm away from podcasting or blogging, I'm thinking, thinking, thinking of ideas, concepts & implementations. I want to create, create, create...but only so much time in the day exists for reading, surfing, thinking, creating, interacting with your kids/family/peers, working, commuting, editing, perusing, considering, and, of course, consuming and eliminating.
I'm changing "jobs" shortly...and this whole spirit of change grips me like a vise-grip:
- why change,
- how to change,
- is change a static thing or a continual thing,
- how can I change,
- how can you change
One cannot begin to contain all the energies swirling...but one can reach out to help others. A recent e-mail to a colleague, about ways that he could engender his own career change involved the following thought process.
"[A friend] asked me to return a wine book...and I mentioned that I have lots
of books [through which I'd have to search for it]...so many, in fact, that some I've never seen before. I just
now came across a book called "Career Anchors - Discovering Your Real
Values", by Edgar H. Schein. It's a very interesting study (from MIT)
on how to identify the strengths in what you like to do within
organizations, and how to move forward once you've identified these
things.
Here's a thought: you seem to have a huge "lifestyle" orientation.
Consider developing guides to the Ohio Valley for those people who do
recreational boating and/or who ride ATV's. Such guides could
initially involve having a website with a blog and/or wiki, and could
include maps and social networking themes (linking, photos, videos,
etc.)...since people who get outdoors like to network socially! This
could be "huge", if you consider pursuing it.
Just developing this sort of thing, whether "for the public good" or
for profit, will get you noticed in ways you cannot possibly
predict...I guarantee it!"
This e-mail message follows a lament by a colleague about how job changes by others seem to be leaving him in a static situation. My desire is to change this perception of his about his situation - the possibilities really are endless, one just must think outside the proverbial box.
Would you agree?
That's 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"
- Trading CES for MacWorld;
- Minute Tech Guest Carol Burrows on What is Tatting?
- Career Anchors - Discovery Your Real Values.
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 62 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Thursday, January 10th, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Trading CES for MacWorld;
- Minute Tech Guest Carol Burrows on What is Tatting?
- Career Anchors - Discovery Your Real Values.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
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.
Tech News:
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has been the hot topic this past week, with the MacWorld conference at San Francisco's Moscone Center following hot on its heels next week. Apple, Inc. is the focus of both.
Much to the chagrin of the PC world, the electronics world has been lit on fire by competition with Apple's iPhone, Apple's purported Touch tablet, Apple's purported Flash notebook PC, and the very real release this week of Apple's 8-core Mac Pro and Xserve computer systems.
And how is this affecting Apple's stock price? It should be sending it through the roof once again...but recessionary thoughts and geopolitical fears are gripping the markets, so Apple's hot air balloon will take a bit of time to rise through the morass.
Robert Brodie, posting on CNBC's Rapid Recall online column, with an article titled "Trading the Technorati", says that the market declines of Apple, Google and Research in Motion are occurring "during a time that's typically strong for tech." Brodie suggested staying away from Tech...but suggests that Corning is a potential buy, as they will be producing the glass for all those 103-, 108- and 150-inch plasma displays, the last of which was just released by Panasonic.
Tech Question: What is Tatting?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Tatting?" , takes us on a tour of a world she's infinitely familiar with. Do you have a world you're infinitely familiar with? Please send me a note at minutetech@gmail.com.
Podcasting - Blogging News:
In every surf through the web I come across many streams. Check out "dotnetaddict.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com" for Kevin Hoffman's blog posts on Windows and Mac programming. I came across this when linking to his post about the Apple Developers Connection, an org for learning to program in Cocoa and Objective-C for the Leopard and iPhone platforms.
Every moment, it seems, that I'm away from podcasting or blogging, I'm thinking, thinking, thinking of ideas, concepts & implementations. I want to create, create, create...but only so much time in the day exists for reading, surfing, thinking, creating, interacting with your kids/family/peers, working, commuting, editing, perusing, considering, and, of course, consuming and eliminating.
I'm changing "jobs" shortly...and this whole spirit of change grips me like a vise-grip:
- why change,
- how to change,
- is change a static thing or a continual thing,
- how can I change,
- how can you change
One cannot begin to contain all the energies swirling...but one can reach out to help others. A recent e-mail to a colleague, about ways that he could engender his own career change involved the following thought process.
"[A friend] asked me to return a wine book...and I mentioned that I have lots
of books [through which I'd have to search for it]...so many, in fact, that some I've never seen before. I just
now came across a book called "Career Anchors - Discovering Your Real
Values", by Edgar H. Schein. It's a very interesting study (from MIT)
on how to identify the strengths in what you like to do within
organizations, and how to move forward once you've identified these
things.
Here's a thought: you seem to have a huge "lifestyle" orientation.
Consider developing guides to the Ohio Valley for those people who do
recreational boating and/or who ride ATV's. Such guides could
initially involve having a website with a blog and/or wiki, and could
include maps and social networking themes (linking, photos, videos,
etc.)...since people who get outdoors like to network socially! This
could be "huge", if you consider pursuing it.
Just developing this sort of thing, whether "for the public good" or
for profit, will get you noticed in ways you cannot possibly
predict...I guarantee it!"
This e-mail message follows a lament by a colleague about how job changes by others seem to be leaving him in a static situation. My desire is to change this perception of his about his situation - the possibilities really are endless, one just must think outside the proverbial box.
Would you agree?
That's 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"
- Trading CES for MacWorld;
- Minute Tech Guest Carol Burrows on What is Tatting?
- Career Anchors - Discovery Your Real Values.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
phyllostachys 76: Minute Tech 61 Show Transcript
61 - What is Knitting?
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 61 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Axiotron Releases the Modbook Tablet Mac;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Knitting?"
- and, My Single New Year's Resolution.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
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.
Tech News:
Not since the time that Gene Roddenberry showed us Jean Luc Picard brandishing a small tablet computing device in his Captain's Ready Room onboard the Starship Enterprise has a tablet device been so eagerly awaited and sought after. Aside from Apple's purported (or reported) movie download service, which is expected to be announced at MacWorld 2008 in a few weeks, fans are eagerly seeking either the expected Mac tablet and/or the expected Flash-RAM based Macbook computer. Either would be an excellent addition to Apple's lineup...and the two may be combined in one product.
Leading up to this, however, website MyiTablet.com reports that manufacturer Axiotron is planning on demoing their "Modbook", which is a rebuilt Macbook Pro with a Wacomscreen digitizer to create a workable tablet. At $2290, this platform is design for the graphics professional who will work on his or her artwork directly onscreen. The Modbook was released for purchased as of December 31st, 2007 within the US and Canadian markets. Interestingly, the Modbook adds a built-in GPS device to the standard Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro platform.
MyiTablet.com's story
Tech Question: What is Knitting?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Knitting?" , 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:
For the new year I will be embarking upon a wonderful journey of learning and self-discovery as I take on more fully the world of web-design and social media. Follow me as I try to sip from the fire-hose of information provided by web peers such as Justin Kownacki, Anna Farmery, Jeremiah Owyang, Dawn Papuga, Chris Brogan, Christopher S. Penn, Karen O'Brien, Laura Athavale, a.k.a., Pistachio, my wife Jenn, Abu Noaman and so many more. My sole New Year's Resolution is simply to produce 300+ more podcasts.
Can I do this? Can I keep up the pace? Can I learn to streamline the workflow? Can I work with you and others to continually learn, continually improve, and continually seek to be humble in the face of the infinite? Stick around and see. :-)
That's 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"
- Axiotron Releases the Modbook Tablet Mac;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Knitting?"
- and, My Single New Year's Resolution.
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 61 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- Axiotron Releases the Modbook Tablet Mac;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Knitting?"
- and, My Single New Year's Resolution.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you by:
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.
Tech News:
Not since the time that Gene Roddenberry showed us Jean Luc Picard brandishing a small tablet computing device in his Captain's Ready Room onboard the Starship Enterprise has a tablet device been so eagerly awaited and sought after. Aside from Apple's purported (or reported) movie download service, which is expected to be announced at MacWorld 2008 in a few weeks, fans are eagerly seeking either the expected Mac tablet and/or the expected Flash-RAM based Macbook computer. Either would be an excellent addition to Apple's lineup...and the two may be combined in one product.
Leading up to this, however, website MyiTablet.com reports that manufacturer Axiotron is planning on demoing their "Modbook", which is a rebuilt Macbook Pro with a Wacomscreen digitizer to create a workable tablet. At $2290, this platform is design for the graphics professional who will work on his or her artwork directly onscreen. The Modbook was released for purchased as of December 31st, 2007 within the US and Canadian markets. Interestingly, the Modbook adds a built-in GPS device to the standard Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro platform.
MyiTablet.com's story
Tech Question: What is Knitting?
Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows, on "What is Knitting?" , 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:
For the new year I will be embarking upon a wonderful journey of learning and self-discovery as I take on more fully the world of web-design and social media. Follow me as I try to sip from the fire-hose of information provided by web peers such as Justin Kownacki, Anna Farmery, Jeremiah Owyang, Dawn Papuga, Chris Brogan, Christopher S. Penn, Karen O'Brien, Laura Athavale, a.k.a., Pistachio, my wife Jenn, Abu Noaman and so many more. My sole New Year's Resolution is simply to produce 300+ more podcasts.
Can I do this? Can I keep up the pace? Can I learn to streamline the workflow? Can I work with you and others to continually learn, continually improve, and continually seek to be humble in the face of the infinite? Stick around and see. :-)
That's 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"
- Axiotron Releases the Modbook Tablet Mac;
- Minute Tech guest Carol Burrows on "What is Knitting?"
- and, My Single New Year's Resolution.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
phyllostachys 75: Minute Tech 60 Show Transcript
60 - Greetings and Salutations to 2008
Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 60 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- iJustine, iPod, iRentals and iStocks;
- 2008: The Year of Health, Wealth, Religion and Work;
- Learning to Tune the iWeb RSS Settings.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by these sponsors:
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.
Tech News:
dbtechno.com reports the following out of New Delhi: "The tiny iPod media device has slowly led to the demise of many of the music stores and venues across the United States. Many people feel that the lessening of music stores can be traced to the ability to download and record music on the portable iPod devices. But will the same thing happen to movie rental stores?"
Interestingly, dbtechno chose a picture of Pittsburgh-native Justine Ezarik holding her iPhone - she has become the unofficial spokeswoman for all things Macintosh...and now all things iPhone, so it's quite fitting that dbtechno would use her picture.
dbtechno on iPod
Related to dbtechno's question about movie rental stores, of course, is the news that News Corp's 20th Century Fox is entering a movie-download-rental agreement with Apple, just as Wal-Mart is exiting the movie-download-rental market. First, I ask you, what hope did Wal-Mart have in the business? Secondly, what hope have Blockbuster or Netflix now that Apple is jumping into the fray, with their AppleTV already in many homes? This by the way, could be the year that AppleTV gains some respect.
Jim Ritter, Health Reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, reports on a University of Chicago study that suggests that those of us who are sleep deprived run the risk of diabetes as someone who is not sleep-deprived but has 20-30 pounds more body weight than we do. Ritter reports that two primary risks for diabetes are obesity and aging; that getting more "slow-wave" sleep is better, and that young people tend to get 80-100 minutes of slow-wave sleep, while the late-middle-aged get often not more than 20 minutes of slow-wave sleep, which is the most beneficial for the body.
Jim Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times
And finally, one stock tip for 2008: Apple, Inc. That's all I'll say. Whether you're short or long is your decision, but read this Fool.com article on why Apple. Fool on Apple
Tech Question: Greetings and Salutations for 2008
Now why would I say that 2008 is to be the year of Health, Wealth, Religion and Work? I just think that these four areas cover many of our thoughts, hopes and plans for the future. As any new year begins, people list things. Here is a list of methods for Setting Goals, from Christoper S. Penn's Financial Aid Podcast, #704:
Setting Goals for the New Year + Originally part of the goma-kan, a Tendai Buddhist ritual + Figure out your goals - specific, measurable, with deadlines + Write them down + Figure out what external resources you will need to achieve your goal or goals + Determine what external factors will stand in your way + How will you get around them? + Figure out what internal resources you will need to achieve your goal or goals + Determine what internal factors will stand in your way + How will you get around them? + From your goals and meditations, create a timeline and plan to achieve your goals + Find a way to create a task that helps you achieve your goal every day and execute it without fail + Measure frequently and allow for slippage + Learn more about this ritual’s origins from master instructor Stephen K. Hayes
Financial Aid Podcast
Shel Isreal, blogger at GlobalNeighborhoods.net and co-author with Robert Scoble of "Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers", penned these New Years resolutions. I'm repeating his resolutions, as I just have one...and feel that I fit quite neatly within his resolution #3: 1. Be more humble than anyone else. Be less competitive. 2. Blog more. Consult less. Screw the mortgage. 3. Suffer fools. Usually you can learn something if you listen anyhow. 4. Know when it's my turn to shut up and listen. 5. Go to Tweet-enders to cure this $#@&*& addiction. 6. Do more video, lot's more. 7. Spend an entire week with family at Tahoe, connecting twice daily maximum. 8. Remember departed friends & remember life is for a limited time only. Exercise. Smell roses Spoil grandkids. 9. Let communities define themselves. That's where the crowd wisdom comes in. 10 Rejoice. For George Bush will leave office shortly after the next New Year.
Global Neighborhoods
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Check out Jeff Pulver's Social Media Sunrise messages on Seesmic - on the dawning of this new year, he has cheerful things to say, against the backdrop of beautiful Miami skies. Jeff Pulver's Sunrise message
Just a couple of items about MInute Tech podcast:
I noticed at a friends house yesterday, that when you hit the subscribe button on the Minute Tech blog, iTunes only pulls down the most recent five episodes. Thinking this to be an RSS setting, I perused Apple's iWeb support pages, and found that you can have a max of 50 postings in the iWeb RSS, so followed the directions for altering that in iWeb. If you're so inclined (as the mp3's are on the blog site), delete your iTunes listing for MInute Tech and resubscribe after this show - you should see the most recent 50 shows. I suppose a custom RSS service would allow for more than 50...
That friend, Danny Sleator, has his own podcast - a recording of an actual public affairs radio-show - and blog at www.leftout.info. Danny has a much simpler workflow than do I - he actually hand-edits his xml RSS feed. In watching and communicating with others, we learn new ideas, new techniques.
Check out Danny's efforts at Left Out: Independent, Reality-Based Radio
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"
- iJustine, iPod, iRentals and iStocks;
- 2008: The Year of Health, Wealth, Religion and Work;
- Learning to Tune the iWeb RSS Settings.
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 60 of the Minute Tech podcast -
coming to you for Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:
- iJustine, iPod, iRentals and iStocks;
- 2008: The Year of Health, Wealth, Religion and Work;
- Learning to Tune the iWeb RSS Settings.
---------------
Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by these sponsors:
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.
Tech News:
dbtechno.com reports the following out of New Delhi: "The tiny iPod media device has slowly led to the demise of many of the music stores and venues across the United States. Many people feel that the lessening of music stores can be traced to the ability to download and record music on the portable iPod devices. But will the same thing happen to movie rental stores?"
Interestingly, dbtechno chose a picture of Pittsburgh-native Justine Ezarik holding her iPhone - she has become the unofficial spokeswoman for all things Macintosh...and now all things iPhone, so it's quite fitting that dbtechno would use her picture.
dbtechno on iPod
Related to dbtechno's question about movie rental stores, of course, is the news that News Corp's 20th Century Fox is entering a movie-download-rental agreement with Apple, just as Wal-Mart is exiting the movie-download-rental market. First, I ask you, what hope did Wal-Mart have in the business? Secondly, what hope have Blockbuster or Netflix now that Apple is jumping into the fray, with their AppleTV already in many homes? This by the way, could be the year that AppleTV gains some respect.
Jim Ritter, Health Reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, reports on a University of Chicago study that suggests that those of us who are sleep deprived run the risk of diabetes as someone who is not sleep-deprived but has 20-30 pounds more body weight than we do. Ritter reports that two primary risks for diabetes are obesity and aging; that getting more "slow-wave" sleep is better, and that young people tend to get 80-100 minutes of slow-wave sleep, while the late-middle-aged get often not more than 20 minutes of slow-wave sleep, which is the most beneficial for the body.
Jim Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times
And finally, one stock tip for 2008: Apple, Inc. That's all I'll say. Whether you're short or long is your decision, but read this Fool.com article on why Apple. Fool on Apple
Tech Question: Greetings and Salutations for 2008
Now why would I say that 2008 is to be the year of Health, Wealth, Religion and Work? I just think that these four areas cover many of our thoughts, hopes and plans for the future. As any new year begins, people list things. Here is a list of methods for Setting Goals, from Christoper S. Penn's Financial Aid Podcast, #704:
Setting Goals for the New Year + Originally part of the goma-kan, a Tendai Buddhist ritual + Figure out your goals - specific, measurable, with deadlines + Write them down + Figure out what external resources you will need to achieve your goal or goals + Determine what external factors will stand in your way + How will you get around them? + Figure out what internal resources you will need to achieve your goal or goals + Determine what internal factors will stand in your way + How will you get around them? + From your goals and meditations, create a timeline and plan to achieve your goals + Find a way to create a task that helps you achieve your goal every day and execute it without fail + Measure frequently and allow for slippage + Learn more about this ritual’s origins from master instructor Stephen K. Hayes
Financial Aid Podcast
Shel Isreal, blogger at GlobalNeighborhoods.net and co-author with Robert Scoble of "Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers", penned these New Years resolutions. I'm repeating his resolutions, as I just have one...and feel that I fit quite neatly within his resolution #3: 1. Be more humble than anyone else. Be less competitive. 2. Blog more. Consult less. Screw the mortgage. 3. Suffer fools. Usually you can learn something if you listen anyhow. 4. Know when it's my turn to shut up and listen. 5. Go to Tweet-enders to cure this $#@&*& addiction. 6. Do more video, lot's more. 7. Spend an entire week with family at Tahoe, connecting twice daily maximum. 8. Remember departed friends & remember life is for a limited time only. Exercise. Smell roses Spoil grandkids. 9. Let communities define themselves. That's where the crowd wisdom comes in. 10 Rejoice. For George Bush will leave office shortly after the next New Year.
Global Neighborhoods
Podcasting - Blogging News:
Check out Jeff Pulver's Social Media Sunrise messages on Seesmic - on the dawning of this new year, he has cheerful things to say, against the backdrop of beautiful Miami skies. Jeff Pulver's Sunrise message
Just a couple of items about MInute Tech podcast:
I noticed at a friends house yesterday, that when you hit the subscribe button on the Minute Tech blog, iTunes only pulls down the most recent five episodes. Thinking this to be an RSS setting, I perused Apple's iWeb support pages, and found that you can have a max of 50 postings in the iWeb RSS, so followed the directions for altering that in iWeb. If you're so inclined (as the mp3's are on the blog site), delete your iTunes listing for MInute Tech and resubscribe after this show - you should see the most recent 50 shows. I suppose a custom RSS service would allow for more than 50...
That friend, Danny Sleator, has his own podcast - a recording of an actual public affairs radio-show - and blog at www.leftout.info. Danny has a much simpler workflow than do I - he actually hand-edits his xml RSS feed. In watching and communicating with others, we learn new ideas, new techniques.
Check out Danny's efforts at Left Out: Independent, Reality-Based Radio
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"
- iJustine, iPod, iRentals and iStocks;
- 2008: The Year of Health, Wealth, Religion and Work;
- Learning to Tune the iWeb RSS Settings.
Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.
Interstitial music by Apple & Bre Pettis
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