I’m driving home yesterday, and what do I spy by a Google Street View car heading down the A.C. Expressway. Now, I recognized it from the back almost immediately, because I’d read about/seen pictures of what the camera device looks like on top (slightly different versions do exist).
Right now, the Southern NJ area is totally missing Street View options, but it looks like that is about to change. As you can see from this quick regional picture, anything outside of Philadelphia/NY is totally devoid of street view data.
So what did I do? I made sure to follow the car ALL THE WAY TO PHILADELPHIA (ok, so yesterday was the official CAPS LOCK DAY, but gimme a break). I passed it and drove on both sides of it. I noticed the computer inside, with a flat screen monitor positioned facing the driver, a Google sign on the side of the car, and California license plates. So hopefully when the images are posted, anyone using the street view will see me driving my car the whole way.
I’m not worried about the privacy issues, and to be honest, if GM catches you picking your nose as you walk down the street, you deserve to be laughed at.
Anyway, there’s my brush with technology and digital legacy.
Now Playing: Seven Nations – Seven Nations – Scream
The basic theme of Prototype This is that the four hosts, Terry Sandin, Zoz Brooks, Mike North, and Joe Grand take their combined skills and use each episode to conceive of and craft some entirely new design, product, or technology. The end result? A full season of prototypes that are off-the-wall, entirely practical, and everything in between.
If you have Discovery, great. If not, if you want to view some episodes on your own time, check out their website where you can watch videos and full episodes. They need to build up their Full Episode list, as right now it’s only Jon & Kate Plus 8, Prototype This and It’s Me or the Dog — but they have PT, which is obviously my point to this whole entry.
Alot of the clips will still keep you busy for hours though, as there are several exclusive clips for web viewers up there for all the Discovery, TLC and Animal Planet shows, including one of my favorites Dirty Jobs, which recently started its 5th season.
Now Playing: Cammy Blackstone and Leo Laporte – Munchcast August 2008 – Munchcast 41: Aloha
I meant to tell you about his upcoming show on the History Channel, but totally forgot about it. That is, until I realized that the premiere episode is tonight. So I figured I’d remind all my friends at the same time, in case this is something that they are interested in.
It airs tonight at 8PM.
Here’s what Bre has to say about his show, as well as a trailer for the series:
My TV show pilot called “History Hacker” airs this upcoming Friday at 8PM and Midnight on the History Channel. I’m the host of the show and I check out inventors in history and take a hands-on look at their inventions. I need your help to make the show go from a pilot to a real TV show.
The pilot is all about Nikola Tesla and the war of the currents between Tesla and Edison. In the show I learn how to blow a neon tube, explore wireless electricity and build an AC generator from a bike. I also go to Boston to visit an MIT space lab to see how the principles that Tesla pioneered are being applied to space propulsion.
The look of the show is awesome. The folks at History gave the producer, director, and director of photography permission to take my DIY style of making videos with lots of jump cuts and direct talking to the camera and push it forward into a longer format. It doesn’t look like anything else on TV.
Math5 (math5), this is for you as my closest scientist….
Periodic Table of Videos is neat beyond belief. Martyn Poliakoff, a professor at the University of Nottingham, and video journalist Brady Haran, put together a periodic table where each elements is a link to a video about that element!
It’s heartening to see chemistry in action and that people can actually have fun doing science! If only this were the way science is taught at school …
“Kevin Kelly has an interesting post about an archive designed with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 -10,000 years to serve future generations as a modern Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta disk contains analog ‘human-readable’ scans of scripts, text, and diagrams using nickel deposited on an etched silicon disk and includes 15,000 microetched pages of language documentation in 1,500 different languages, including versions of Genesis 1-3, a universal list of the words common for each language, and pronunciation guides. Produced by the Long Now Foundation, the plan is to replicate the disk promiscuously and distribute them around the world in nondescript locations so at least one will survive their 2,000-year lifespan. ‘This is one of the most fascinating objects on earth,’ says Oliver Wilke. ‘If we found one of these things 2,000 years ago, with all the languages of the time, it would be among our most priceless artifacts. I feel a high responsibility for preserving it for future generations.’”
How freaking cool is that? The modern Rosetta stone has unlocked so many secrets of ancient civilizations through the language barrier, its amazing to believe that future generations will have it so much easier. Click the link on the excerpt or follow this link for the full article.
On a related note, I just finished listening to Axis, book 2 of the Spin Trilogy by Robert Charles Wilson, and I highly recommend both books (the second sequel, Vortex, is not yet published).
Here’s a brief summary:
Spin details Earth’s response to an artificial membrane placed around the planet which selectively blocks and filters incoming electromagnetic radiation, blocking out the view of anything beyond minimal low Earth orbit. The novel is told in first person, from the viewpoint of Tyler Dupree. Tyler is a close childhood friend of Jason and Diane Lawton, twins of E. D. Lawton (a wealthy industrialist who makes his money from the developing aerostat business). As children, Jason, Diane, and Tyler witness the dramatic arrival of the “Spin”, as the phenomenon comes to be known, when the stars suddenly disappear one night as they are looking at the sky. Initial experiments show that the membrane is permeable, allowing space probes to pass through, but that time outside passes at a highly accelerated rate, 3.17 years per Earth second, or roughly 100 million years per Earth year. Thus within a generation, the surrounding solar system will age 4 billion years, and Earth will be destroyed by the expanding Sun.
Now can you imagine having a tool such as this digital Rosetta stone after 4 billion years of evolution?
Now Playing: Paul Thurrott with Leo Laporte – Windows Weekly September 2008 – Windows Weekly 75: Paul Amok
You get to upload your own mp3, choose the amount of cowbell and/or Walken you want in the mix, and the website adjusts the tempo and timing accordingly.
Now, recently, one of our friendgeeks hadn’t even watched the video, I need to make sure you’ve got a link to that too.. just so you *understand* what it’s all about.
@sarahlane's lip smacking on The Social Hour is getting really bad. I know it's tough, but it's part of being a voice professional to fix it 2011-11-17
#Microsoft #Xbox In 2011, their customer service department doesn't have the ability to call another department and speak to a real person 2011-11-06
#Microsoft #XBOX has the worst customer service I have dealt with. 60+ days to resolve stolen account and they cannot fix it. 2011-11-06
Is wondering if customer service at @PC_Gamer will ever answer my email regarding stolen Caitlyn codes in its latest magazine. 2011-10-12
Leo talked about #syncmyridepodcast and it sounds really interesting.. Wonder if it will become a standard? 2009-11-14
I’m driving home yesterday, and what do I spy by a Google Street View car heading down the A.C. Expressway. Now, I recognized it from the back almost immediately, because I’d read about/seen pictures of what the camera device looks like on top (slightly different versions do exist). 
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I voted for Prell to go back to the old glass bottle. Then I became deeply cynical. ( about voting )
