August 2007
300+ Tools and Resources For Firefox →
Mashable’s God list of FireFox plugins
American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches of the 20th... →
MP3s of 100 speeches made by Americans. [Via OpenCulture.org - just about every post there is gold]
100 Great American Speeches
American Rhetoric has compiled its list of the top 100 American speeches, all of which can be conveniently accessed as mp3 files. Most of the speeches listed here are known for their eloquence, and many for the pivotal role they played in effecting major political and social change. The compilation lets you listen to F.D.R. leading the US through the Depression ( “There is nothing to fear but fear...
Thousands of Royalty Free Photos for Download
Thousands of royalty free photos for websites, PowerPoint presentations, newsletters, forums, blogs, schools and homework in FreeDigitalPhotos.net. All images can also be used for artist’s reference, and video productions. All royalty free images may be used for commercial and non commercial work - If you use a free image on a website, you must place a text hyperlink on that website to...
A vlog Wine Library →
Wine for beginers. Is there anything the internet can’t teach us?
Architectural analysis of WoW and BFME II
McGregor, G.L. (2006). Architecture, Space and Gameplay in World of Warcraft and Battle for Middle Earth 2 , Proceedings of the 2006 international conference on Game research and development, pp.69-76.
This paper, which is very relevant to my work at the lab, is an architectural analysis of the spatial qualities of two video games: World of Warcraft and Battle for Middle Earth 2. The author...
Soldering with a graphite pencil and car battery
Here’s a weird arc-welding meets soldering hack. You can use a 12 volt car battery (or charger) and a length of graphite pencil to solder connections. The graphite is connected to one jumper cable and a length of solder to the other. Touching them both to the connection closes the circuit, heats up the connection point, and melts the solder. I’m guessing this works best if you...
How To: DIY Cintiq screen tablet
If you’ve got more time on your hands than money and you really want a Cintiq, here’s a step-by-step demonstration of how Drew Northcott hacked together a homebrew version using a spare Wacom tablet, a laptop, and a monitor. Here’s a video of the thing in action. (Thanks, Charlene!) (via Christen’s shared items in Google Reader)
Russian Book Jackets Archived by the NYPL Digital... →
Is there anything at the NYPL site that isn’t sweet? This is a link to their archive of scanned Russian book jackets. Some very beautiful design in this collection.
i love typography →
Nice little intro to serif fonts for the uninitiated. Also a great site overall for typophiles.
iconolith: How different would the US be if food...
iconolith: How different would the US be if food were priced according to the level of sustenance it provides (via Twitter / iconolith)
Computational tricycle or bicycle?
Paul Saffo’s latest column on his web notepad interestingly deal with the “bicycle versus tricycle” design issue:
“Hewlett Packard’s announcement last month of a “Retro” edition of its HP35S calculator highlights another interface that is an even greater lost opportunity — Reverse Polish Notation. Invented in the 1950s by Australian computer Scientist Charles Hamblin, RPN was adopted by HP as the...
SciVee: Pioneering New Modes of Scientific... →
SciVee is about the free and widespread dissemination/comprehension of science.
Created for and by scientists, to move science beyond the printed word and lecture taking advantage of the internet as a medium where scientists young and old have a voice.
MozBackup →
MozBackup helps back up your FireFox installation so that you don’t have to spend a whole day reinstalling everything following a catastrophic system meltdown (heaven forbid)
GPhone Confirmed?
Is the GPhone going to be a sub-$100 device that takes on the One Laptop Per Child project?
Rizzn.com, after supposedly speaking to the kind of loose lipped leaker you’d never find at Apple (they’d get fired), says that it’s not an iPhone rival but a low-priced challenger to the $100(ish) dollar laptop. It runs on a modified Linux kernel, integrates GPS and GoogleMaps and presumably aims to...
Back up your Firefox settings with MozBackup
Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Freeware A few months go, one of our computers had a major crash and we wound up having to reinstall a number of programs, including Firefox. Being the cautious types we are here at Download Squad, we had made sure to backup our bookmarks as an HTML file, so we figured restoring our settings should be a snap. But there’s also all those toolbars,...
Kogoro Kurata working on a giant, bone crushing...
Filed under: Robots
Gulp, this is not going to end well. That mechanized hand is just a piece of Kogoro Kurata’s latest “secret” creation. Just imagine a massive, bus crushing hand fitted to a fully functional, giant mech and you’ll understand our concern. Please Kogoro-san, we beg you on behalf of the children: don’t finish it! Read | Permalink | Email this |...
Google celebrates its first year of WiFi
Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Google It’s been a year since the folks at Google successfully knocked off WiFi in Mountain View California. Transmitting all those great 802.11 b/g signals to the grateful residents, businesses and visitors at absolutely no charge at all. They are still trucking along on the San Francisco wireless deal with EarthLink and the city to give...
Google GeoMaps the Book World →
Google Earth added new functionality this week that lets you search the world by geographical location and find books that reference that location. So, for example, if you open Google Earth and type âLondon,â you will be presented with numerous yellow
Unreal Meetings: Technology Review →
MIT researcher looks beyond convention for design of successful virtual meeting space.
Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch - New... →
The NYT ponders the ancestor-simulation theory
Stanford Online Writing Courses →
Stanford Continuing Studies opened registration this week for a series of new online writing courses. The courses, which start in late September, are not free. But they are taught by some of the most accomplished young writers in the US
Lake/House
[Image: A scene from a film called “Crush Collision” by artist Chris Larson. Thanks to Bill Lindeke for pointing out the project to me in relation to the previous post]. (via Christen’s shared items in Google Reader)
KEETWONEN RECYCLED CONTAINER STUDENT HOUSING
While the words “back to school” may conjure up images of new backpacks and pencil boxes, for a very lucky few Dutch students it means moving into some very hip and well-designed dorm accommodations. Keetwonen, a student housing project in Amsterdam, turns shipping containers into 1000 units and provides all the amenities a student could ever want. And aside from the obvious green usage of...
Google GeoMaps the Book World: A Little More “Gee...
Google Earth added new functionality this week that lets you search the world by geographical location and find books that reference that location. So, for example, if you open Google Earth and type “London,” you will be presented with numerous yellow book icons. Click on any one of them, and Google will show you instances where books specifically reference “London.” (In this case, I found works...
Man's XPS M1330 arrives sans OS, quality
Filed under: Laptops
We’re not sure who or what is putting these XPS M1330 laptops together for Dell, but not only are they having a horrible time of it even getting the laptops out the door, but this particular man’s shipment was just a little lacking in the quality department when it arrived two weeks ahead of the estimated ship date. The $2k+ laptop looked fine at first glance, but...
Companies blocking Facebook access
Filed under: Business, Social Software Like any other good social site out there, Facebook is on the IT’s list of websites to block. The popular social network is getting a lashing at workplaces worldwide as employers recognize how much time employees are spending on it, and the possible phishing attacks that could occur. Like YouTube, IM’s and various other time wasting websites,...
New Stanford Online Writing Courses
A quick heads up for writers. Stanford Continuing Studies (where I spend my days) opened registration this week for a series of new online writing courses. The courses, which start in late September, are not free. But they are taught by some of the most accomplished young writers in the US; they’re well reviewed by students; and you can take them no matter where you live. The courses are filling...
Roomba 560 →
iRobot Roomba 560 hands-on
Filed under: Features, Robots
We’ve been fooling around with a new Roomba 560 of our very own and we can say with some certainty iRobot’s really improved on its product. Unfortunately, that isn’t saying a whole lot; while we’ve always loved the Roomba for what it is, we’ve never been too impressed with the job it does. Still, the built-in scheduler is just such a...
Google Sky Launches - 200 Million Galaxies on Your...
No, it’s not April 1st: Google really has launched a service called Sky that lets you explore the heavens from within Google Earth. You get a 3D view of all the constellations viewable from earth, and you can explore them in 3D. 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies are included.
Amazingly, the imagery is stitched together from more than 1 million images, with contributions from the...
Unype Launches Google Earth Virtual World for...
Unype is a service that has combined Google Earth with Skype, for a socially interactive Google Earth experience. This tool is now available as a Facebook application, bringing a Google map right into your Facebook account.
You can see other Facebook users that are using the service at the same time as you, or open the Google Earth service in a new window and interact with Facebook users in...
William Gibson, Father of Cyberpunk, Reads New...
William Gibson, who launched the cyberpunk genre with the 1984 classic Neuromancer, hasn’t lost any steam. Pattern Recognition, published a good 20+ years later, won wide praise in 2005. Now, he’s come out with Spook Country, and it’s currently #66 on the Amazon bestseller list. Below, you can catch Gibson reading from his new work in Second Life. What can be more fitting?
Also, you may want to...
IOGEAR: Digital Scribe →
Digital pen without special paper or table requirements. Does require Windows Vista OS
Vernor Vinge interview →
Links to an interview with Vinge about Rainbows End and a few others on his view of computers, freedom, and privacy… and his thoughts along with Doctorow’s on the Singularity
IOGEAR's Digital Scribe lets you ink up any PC
Filed under: Peripherals
We’ve seen quite a few digital pens come and go — and just like several other models relegated to history’s dustbin, IOGEAR’s Digital Scribe is a two-part affair consisting of an “ordinary” pen that tracks your movements and sends data to a USB receiver. Unlike those others, however, the Digital Scribe doesn’t require any special...
Alex Wright | Glut: Mastering Information Through... →
What do primordial bacteria, medieval alchemists, and the World Wide Web have to do with each other? This fascinating exploration of how information systems emerge takes readers on a provocative journey through the history of the information age.
Rhymed Code » 1001 WordPression Loops →
The Loop is the heart and soul of WordPress. The following are a few models of how the Loop could be applied to a WordPress installation.
Iconfinder →
Icon search engine that includes license info for each download
The Digital Tipping Point: The Wild Ride from...
Publisher’s Weekly announced last week that Lars Brownworth, a New York high school teacher, will publish with Crown (a Random House division) a new book that covers “1,200 years of Byzantine history, examining the culture’s forgotten role in preserving classical thought, connecting East and West, and building modern Western society.” It’s expected to hit the bookstores in early 2009. There’s lots...
Maciej Duczynski photography →
Great HDR (high dynamic range) photographs. Thanks to Brian Faust from http://www.denyingphoenix.com for the tip.
Dominos now accepting pizza orders via SMS... in...
Filed under: Cellphones
If you thought ordering pizza online was the best thing since Deep Dish, you’ll be delighted to know that the next logical step in getting pizza to your mouth with minimal effort is here… if you reside in the UK, that is. Reportedly, Dominos is now allowing customers surrounding its 470 UK-based locations to place their orders via SMS, and this move comes after...
Body powered circuits developed by Fraunhofer...
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wireless
Our favorite German researchers over at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed “entire electronic systems” capable of operating battery-free from body heat alone. The picture above shows a wireless transmitter powered by the human hand. The 200 millivolts required to drive the device is supplied by a thermoelectric generator (TEG) which extracts...
Google Apps Education Edition Becoming More Widely...
Google has announced five new universities that are using the Google Apps Education Edition. We mentioned the Google Apps Education Edition here as well, when the service was offered up for use by non-profits. The University of North Carolina Greensboro, Clemson University, University of Texas San Antonio, Kennesaw State University and Arkansas State University will be using Google’s web-based...
Asus Eee PC pricing and release dates loosed: less...
Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops Take it for what you will, but a forum jockey over at Eeeuser claims to be up on the hubbub regarding the release details of the Eee PC for the US. According to the poster’s “high ranking manager” source within ASUS North America, three models of the Eee PC will ship. Of these, two will ship to the US in late September: a $269-$299 model with...
BoxOver DHTML/Javascript Lightweight Tooltips
BoxOver uses javascript / DHTML to show tooltips on a website. Implementation of the tooltips, however, requires no knowledge of DHTML or javascript. There are many tweaks which can be set to customise it to your needs by setting through a tag’s “title” attribute. Some of them are very useful. Specifies the header and body text of the tooltip
Specifies CSS class for styles to be used on tooltip...
The Caffeine Database →
Just how much of the good stuff are you getting?
Death by Caffeine →
How much caffeine would it take to kill you? Now there’s no excuse for not knowing. Nothing like a handy calculator of death at your fingertips.
Google Cheat Sheet (Version 1.06) →
y’Everything handy about Google at your fingertips. Remember they’re not evil.
Researchers develop bendable, paper-based battery
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Nah, the researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute won’t be crowned the first to develop a flexible (or paper-based, for that matter) battery, but their minuscule prototype “is an integrated device, not a combination of pieces” as others typically are. The battery uses “paper infused with an electrolyte and carbon nanotubes that are...
