It starts harmless enough, I am looking at an online calendar solution we can use rather than get everyone on Google's calendar, and I have been pretty excited by recent developments like Evdb.com (eventful.com).
http://www.hipcal.com/ - just bought by Plaxo to boost their calendar engine.
which is pretty close to this one, I hear is also good calendar app. http://30boxes.com/
Then, suddenly from one blog to the next I am linking away tangentially following themes around and around till I have managed to discover about 10 different companies and websites that are kicking ass and deserving of more attention (by someone other than me!)
http://www.onetruemedia.com/ - online video editing
http://www.thebeststuffintheworld.com/ - What do you think is the best stuff in the world?
http://voo2do.com/ - advanced task and priority management for busy, ambitious individuals
http://www.tractis.com/ - negotiate and execute contracts online
http://solutionwatch.com/ - awesome site to keep tabs on
http://microformats.org/wiki/implementations - something to watch for when we do use a calendar tool on Centerstage!
http://www.fluxiom.com/features/ - digital asset manager, all online.
Next time I get a developer, they better already know about this one... http://script.aculo.us/
http://stikipad.com/features/ - personalized wiki in a box.
http://browse.ning.com/ - build your own social apps?
which I found on first glance at this site, which I can see will become a resource for more time lost in the future... http://web2.0awards.org/?short
oh, yeah. this all started because I got notification that I am a beta tester for Ether, which I think I have a killer idea for.
http://www.ether.com/CommunityServer/blogs/ether_blog/default.aspx
Oh boy, I'd love to hang out with these guys for a day and record everything. Makes my clapper-meets-lights and stereo connected to video look pretty damn primitive. Which it was, but had a nice effect at the time (1994).
Glad to know their favorite feature is "party mode" though! It is still about making tech serve your dorm room fun...
Freshmen automate dorm roomSasha Brown, News Office
May 24, 2006Little by little, freshmen Zack Anderson and R.J. Ryan, residents of East Campus, have turned an ordinary, standard-issue dorm room into something extraordinary: a fully automated pad.
Gone are the light switches and glaring fluorescent lights of a typical dorm room. Anderson and Ryan's room has several lighting schemes, remote web access, voice activation, a security system, electric blinds and more.
Their own website is here: web.mit.edu/zacka/www/midas.html.
The MIT article about them is here: Freshmen automate dorm room - MIT News Office
and I copied the MIT Article in whole as the extended entry...
...
Little by little, freshmen Zack Anderson and R.J. Ryan, residents of East Campus, have turned an ordinary, standard-issue dorm room into something extraordinary: a fully automated pad.
Gone are the light switches and glaring fluorescent lights of a typical dorm room. Anderson and Ryan's room has several lighting schemes, remote web access, voice activation, a security system, electric blinds and more.
The two roommates were perfectly suited, according to Anderson, who had extensive mechanical experience, while Ryan had done many programming projects. Together, they created a vision for their room:
"We wanted full dorm-room automation," Anderson said. "I have always wanted to do something like this."
With the touch of one red button, their dorm room becomes a rave. The lights go out, the blinds close, the displays read, "feel the energy" as a voice repeats the same phrase over a deep bass beat.
Called party mode, the rave also features a sound-activated strobe light, laser light show, fog machine, black lights, revolving disco light and much more. Although they can only squeeze roughly 10 people in their room, Ryan and Anderson like to keep their door open during dorm social events with party mode in full swing.
The party mode function is so popular that when Anderson posted a video of the room on Youtube.com, a video-sharing web site open to the general public, there were more than 120,000 views from around the country.
Anderson and Ryan call their system a "Multifunction In-Dorm Automation System" (MIDAS). Everything in the room can be controlled with just the touch of a button or a couple of voice commands, from the window shade to the closet light and stereo.
Anderson and Ryan had more than parties in mind when they designed their room. During relax mode, soft music plays and the lights dim. During sleep mode, the lights shut down completely while soft music plays. Study mode brings the lights back up and plays music that will not distract.
The loft beds have a direct view of the small black-and-white televisions that monitor the hallways.
A camera hidden inside an empty can above the entrance to Ryan and Anderson's room serves as a security system so the two always know who is at the door. But they did not stop there.
The room also has a custom alarm system with motion detectors, a fingerprint scanner for deactivation and a revolving siren light. If the siren and light are activated, Anderson receives a text message. "It prevents break-ins," Anderson said.
All of the room's controls can be tweaked remotely from a computer with Internet access. Cameras in the room allow both Anderson and Ryan to monitor the room when they are away. "We could be in China and still see what is happening in this room," Anderson said.
Asked if their neighbors mind, Ryan said with a laugh, "They are actually happy with it. This is the perfect dorm for a project like this."
The two roommates will be parting ways next year, so they are planning to disassemble the room and divide their work. Although no college students have hired them yet to build something similar in their dorm rooms, they have had some interesting offers.
"People have asked if they could buy the whole system," Anderson said.
For more information, visit web.mit.edu/zacka/www/midas.html.
Posted by sinergi at 01:19 PM
Well it appears that many great schools are starting to share their academic masters via webcasts. How fun to be able to audit a class remotely!
Thanks to Crooked Timber for the tip. What an interesting multi-author blog... wow!
The University of California Berkeley has run a trial program this past semester that makes webcasts available from around 30 courses. (MIT also has had some course videos and other material available for some time.) They also have special lectures and events available here. The courses range from Art 32, “Foundations of American Cyberculture”, to EE 240, “Advanced Analog Integrated Circuits”, to Psych 130, “Clinical Psychology”. There is one philosophy course – Phil 7, “Existentialism in Literature and Film” by Hubert Dreyfus. His course has 27 lectures; each appears to be a little over one hour. Video is available for many of courses, but not Dreyfus’s.
Crooked Timber » » Berkeley Webcasts
The University of California Berkeley has run a trial program this past semester that makes webcasts available from around 30 courses. (MIT also has had some course videos and other material available for some time.) They also have special lectures and events available here. The courses range from Art 32, “Foundations of American Cyberculture�, to EE 240, “Advanced Analog Integrated Circuits�, to Psych 130, “Clinical Psychology�. There is one philosophy course – Phil 7, “Existentialism in Literature and Film� by Hubert Dreyfus. His course has 27 lectures; each appears to be a little over one hour. Video is available for many of courses, but not Dreyfus’s.
oh, a step forward for Positive Media in the film industry... Hearing that the book Fast Food Nation is now a movie with an all star cast is a very interesting idea. Since Richard Linklater directed it, I cant imagine I wont love the execution too.
was originally posted here:
ABC News: 'Fast Food Nation' Hits Burger Culture
What is the book about? Here is a blurb:
You are what you eat. But do you really know what you’re eating?Britain eats more fast food than any other country in Europe. Rates of obesity and food poisoning spiral upwards, but it seems we just can’t get enough of those tasty burgers and fries.
This myth-shattering book tells the story of America and the world’s infatuation with fast food, from its origins in 1950s southern California to the global triumph of a handful of burger and fried chicken chains. In a meticulously researched and powerfully argued account, Eric Schlosser visits the labs where scientists re-create the smell and taste of everything - from cooked meat to fresh strawberries; talks to the workers at abattoirs with some of the worst safety records in the world; explains exactly where the meat comes from and just why the fries taste so good; and looks at the way the fast food industry is transforming not only our diet but our landscape, economy, workforce and culture.
Both funny and terrifying, Fast Food Nation will make you think, but more than that, it might make you realize you don’t want a quick bite after all.
'Fast Food Nation' Hits Burger Culture
Burger Culture Dissected in the Movie 'Fast Food Nation' Being Featured at the Cannes Film Festival
By DAVID GERMAIN AP Movie Writer
CANNES, France May 19, 2006 (AP)— Are we the consumers or the consumed? The Cannes Film Festival entry "Fast Food Nation" examines an America hooked on mass-produced conformity in its eats and just about everything else.
Adapted from the nonfiction best seller by Eric Schlosser, the film version creates a fictionalized narrative weaving together multiple characters. They are links in a food chain whose climactic question is "Do you want fries with that?"
With a cast that includes Greg Kinnear, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Bruce Willis, Avril Lavigne and Catalina Sandino Moreno, the film follows the travails of a fast-food monolith called Mickey's as it copes with findings that its hot new burger, "The Big One," is tainted with cow feces.
"Fast Food Nation" traces that scenario from the restaurant counter all the way back to the crowded pens where cattle are raised in assembly-line precision, including a gruesome slaughterhouse sequence that could put the heartiest meat-eaters off animal flesh for a while.
Shot at a Mexican slaughterhouse, the scene features graphic footage of cows being killed and butchered. The bloody imagery was necessary given the film's message, said director Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Schlosser.
"I think that's a reality everyone needs to know," said Linklater, who directed "School of Rock" and "Dazed and Confused." "We've become very separated, very divorced from where everything comes from. We have this delusion in our head: Oh, there's this healthy little farm somewhere and they grow vegetables and they have a couple of chickens and a cow."
"Fast Food Nation" is scheduled to debut in U.S. theaters this fall.
As filmmakers first approached Schlosser about a movie version, the expectation was that it would become a documentary. When the author hooked up with Linklater, it was Schlosser who suggested they transform it into dramatic form.
The result is a far-flung tale that meanders from the boardroom of Mickey's to the U.S.-Mexico border, where immigrants cross illegally and find hazardous work in the company's meat-processing plant, which is prone to mutilating accidents with machinery.
Schlosser said he hopes there will be a follow-up documentary someday based on "Fast Food Nation," but that the spirit of the book initially was best served in a fictionalized adaptation.
"It was a very bold idea. It was not an obvious idea, and I feel as though the film's made completely independent of the Hollywood system, and therefore could have some integrity. All the documentary ideas somehow felt like there would be compromises," Schlosser said. "So the most unlikely way to approach the book ultimately felt like the truest way."
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.