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Download Squad 22 Nov 2008 at 1:00pm Filed under: Audio, Internet, Windows, Freeware 
Back in August I wrote about Screamer, a nice portable streaming radio app. KSoft's Icy Radio offers a similar experience with a couple of nice additions.Icy Radio is completely portable - just download the zip archive and extract it to a folder. Apart from a large library of audio streams, Icy Radio includes several nice skins and streaming video support. As with Screamer, you should expect some of the included streams not to work. After all, many of these feeds come from ad-supported sites and their owners probably aren't so keen on the idea of us listening to their music without having to view their banners. The massive channel list is fully searchable and indexed by genre - more than 60 of them. Adding new stations is easy, and can be done one-at-a-time or in bulk from an XML file. Icy Radio's tabbed main window also sports a favorites list for your top channels and maintains a history of your recordings for easy playback. Built-in recording supports MP3 and OGG (you'll need to download and unzip the plugin into your Icy Radio folder first). Unfortunately, video streams can't be recorded as of version 0.5. Icy Radio is freeware for Windows only. Icy Radio streams, records hundreds of 'net radio stations originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments22 Nov 2008 at 9:00am Filed under: Productivity, Web  The basic idea behind the new time-tracking service BubbleTimer is that it's not productive to track how you're spending your time down to the minute. It makes more sense to bubble in your activities in 15 minute increments, and BubbleTimer lets you do that with one click. Once you've added some goals and gathered some data, BubbleTimer becomes a playground for info nerds.You can export your data to programs like Excel and Apple Numbers, or you can create attractive tables and graphs from within BubbleTimer. BubbleTimer is all web-based, so you can update it from anywhere. It's free to try, but if you get really addicted, you can buy a subscription for $20/year. BubbleTimer: track the time you spend on your goals originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments21 Nov 2008 at 3:00pm Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Microsoft, Freeware  About three years after acquiring FolderShare, a utility for synchronizing files across multiple computers, Microsoft is retiring the application and plans to replace it with a similar utility called Windows Live Sync. You could make the case that what's happening is Microsoft is renaming FolderShare rather than replacing it, as the new version will likely look a lot like FolderShare and have many of the same functions. But it will also have a few improvements including:
Microsoft to replace FolderShare with Windows Live Sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments21 Nov 2008 at 2:00pm Filed under: Google, Googleholic, BlackBerry, iPhone, Mobile, Web 
Welcome to Googleholic, your weekly fix of everything Google! In this edition:
Continue reading Googleholic for November 21, 2008 Googleholic for November 21, 2008 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments21 Nov 2008 at 12:30pm Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware  Earlier today we showed you how to keep your hard drive organized with tools to remove duplicate files and clean up your file and folder management system. But what if you want to just delete all the gunk you download and never use? That's what Auto Delete is for.This free Windows utility lets you automatically delete old files in a given folder. You can fine tune the settings to delete files that have been hanging out for a day, a year, or somewhere in between. Files can be moved to the recycle bin or permanently deleted. And you can choose whether to include subfolders or not. It might be a good idea to set Auto Delete to monitor your web browser's default download directory. Odds are if you haven't moved a file out of that directory after a few weeks, you're not really going to use it and it's just taking up space on your hard drive. [via Shell Extension City] Keep your hard drive clean with Auto-Delete originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments21 Nov 2008 at 9:00am Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware, Ask DLS, Search 
DS Reader Jamie wrote recently looking for some assistance, saying: I'm not the most disorganized of individuals: my music is in my music folder, etc. etc., but i have a fatal flaw. I put random stuff on my desktop, then it gets cluttered. My solution has been, in a word, poor. I put all the random stuff into a folder that usually goes by the name of misc or sort this out later. I was wondering what kind of advice you'd give for someone in this situation other than, "Get off your ass and go through it all!!" For starters, Jamie, you hit the nail on the head - but don't fret, chum, you're not alone. Though I've planned ahead far enough to partition my drives on the laptop I'm using to post this article, the D: drive is a nightmarish mess of downloads, old backups, ISO images, and other files. Let's get started by downloading your choice of duplicate file finders, like Easy Duplicate Finder or CloneSpy. Both work well, and will save time by getting rid of unnecessary files before we start organizing. For the rest of the work, we're going manual - we created our messes that way, so that's how we're cleaning them up! Continue reading Help! How do I tidy up a disorganized hard drive? Help! How do I tidy up a disorganized hard drive? originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments21 Nov 2008 at 8:00am Filed under: Web services, Social Software, web 2.0  If you've been to a tech event since SXSW in 2006, you've probably seen some kind of large monitor displaying info from the conference-goers. Often, this means Twitter tweets by attendees. Brightkite has just taken this a step further, with their own "Wall" feature. Because Brightkite is a location-based service to begin with, the wall has a built-in way to gather data. This means the usefulness of the wall isn't limited to events: you can just display it in any place (like a coffee shop, for example) and show all the people who are posting messages nearby. I love the Brightkite Wall. It could turn out to be a brilliant way to show new users what the service is all about, as well as making an interesting public installation. It also opens up Brightkite to people who don't even have Brightkite accounts: you can put the appropriate location at the top of the wall, next to the Brightkite shortcode, and anyone can text a message onto the wall via SMS. Brightkite's new killer feature is ... a wall? originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments21 Nov 2008 at 7:01am Filed under: OS Updates, Apple, iPhone  iPhone and iPod Touch users can upgrade their software to version 2.2 today. The update, which weighs in at around 250 megs, adds some highly-anticipated features. The two biggest for me are Street View in the Maps app and the ability to download podcasts from the iTunes Store. There are some smaller tweaks that you might appreciate, as well: that bug that sometimes kept messages from downloading in Mail is fixed, and you can click the home button when you're on any page of the home screen to go back to the first page.Street View on the iPhone is every bit as cool as it sounds. It looks good in landscape and is really smooth to control. I suspect it won't be long before we start seeing photos of people holding up iPhone street view pictures of the place they're standing. Less flashy, but just as useful, walking and transit directions are available in maps now, as well. If you're an iPod Touch user, you're unfortunately out of luck on Street View for now, so far it's iPhone only. Downloading podcasts was at the top of my wishlist for the iPhone (although I know a lot of you have lists of your own). It's always frustrating to finish an episode of a good podcast while you're out walking or on a train, and then wait until you get home to hear the next one. Not a problem anymore, thanks to the latest iPhone update. All in all, 2.2 offers some excellent new features. The only thing I have to complain about is the new Safari layout, which feels cramped with the address bar and the search bar smooshed in next to one another. iPhone 2.2 firmware is out, with Street View and podcasts originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments20 Nov 2008 at 6:00pm  If you do a lot of shopping at Amazon and a lot of comparison shopping or product research on Google, you might want to check out the GoogAzon add-on for Firefox. Once installed, any time you search for an item on Google, you'll also see the top search result for your query from Amazon. If a single product listing isn't good enough, just click the "see top 10 items" button and a list of 10 items from Amazon will drop down. Hovering over a link brings up an image of the product. You can also click the Share button to email a product link. Despite it's name, GoogAzon isn't limited to Google searches. It also works with Yahoo! and MSN Live. GoogAzon does appear to inject an Amazon Affiliate code into the links, so the plugin's author will likely make a few bucks any time you actually buy an item found through a GoogAzon search. But it shouldn't cost you anything extra. [via Firefox Facts] GoogAzon Firefox Add-on ads Amazon listings to web search results originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments20 Nov 2008 at 5:00pm  Long before Hulu, or even YouTube were offering online video, and long before Apple or Amazon were selling digital downloads of TV shows and feature lenght films, there was CinemaNow and MovieLink. The two sites may have been well ahead of their time, but they also never managed to get the kind of attention that newer online video sites have garnered. Last year Blockbuster purchased MovieLink for about $7 million. And this week, software firm Sonic Solutions picked up CinemaNow for just $3 million. CinemaNow has a library of about 6,000 movies and TV shows. Sonic Solutions hopes to leverage CinemaNow's technology and assetts to expand its service that allows you to download videos and burn them to DVD. [via paidContent] Online movie site CinemaNow sold for $3 million originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments20 Nov 2008 at 4:30pm  There's no question that we all want computers that boot up and shut down more quickly. While a fresh install of Windows XP might boot as quickly as 30 seconds on some computers, the more applications you load onto your computer, the slower it will boot. Things get even worse with Windows Vista which loads about as quickly as paint dries. While Microsoft and other OS makers are working to cut boot times, if you're using a current generation operating system, odds are you spend at least a few minutes every day waiting for your computer to startup and shut down.Now here's the big question of the day - if this is your work computer we're talking about, should you be paid for that time? Apparently employees at seveal companies including AT7T and Cigna have filed lawsuits alleging that they weren't paid for the time it took to turn their computers on and off each day, a process which they claim takes 15 to 30 minutes. The employees say they should be paid for their time, because they're doing other work related activities while the computer loads, while employers argue that just as often, they aren't. But you know what? It's not like the employees are lying in bed sleeping at home. It's hardly their fault their bosses installed software that takes for-friggin-ever to boot. Not that I'm taking sides in this dispute. What do you think? Sound off in the comments. [via TaxProf Blog and Gizmodo] Should you be paid for the time it takes to boot your computer? originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments20 Nov 2008 at 4:00pm Filed under: Audio, Internet, Video, Google, Web  Online video site YouTube has been offering a "watch in higher quality" option since earlier this year. But higher quality doesn't mean high definition. It simply means that the videos are encoded in a higher bit rate and if you have a fast enough internet connection to keep up, the videos look a little better. But now it looks like YouTube is starting to add some honest to goodness high definition, 720p videos to the site. Members of the Video Help forums have spotted some videos available in HD, including the popular "Where the Hell is Matt" video. Not all videos are going to be available in HD rigiht away, because most videos uploaded to YouTube aren't high definition in the first place, and because YouTube appears to be quietly testing the feature on a small number of videos. It appears YouTube is also experimenting with stereo sound for its online videos. Up until recently most videos were mono only. YouTube is hardly the first online video site to dabble in HD. DailyMotion, Vimeo, and several other video portals have been offering HD movies for a while, but YouTube is stll by far the most heavily trafficked web video site. [via Wired] YouTube experimenting with 720p HD video originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments20 Nov 2008 at 3:30pm Filed under: Audio, Video, Windows, Freeware  MiniTube is a plugin for WinAmp that attempts to find music videos from YouTube for every song in your playlist. Here's how it's supposed to work: A song starts to play, and MiniTube will automatically find the best music video available for the song and start playing it. That's the theory anyway. But the actual practice is a bit shakier. That's because MiniTube just grabs the first video it can find that roughly matches the song's metadata. That means there's a pretty decent chance you'll get the wrong video from the right artist, a video of an amateur musicians performing the correct song, or something else entirely. Sometimes MiniTube will find the right video, but if the metadata on your MP3s is anything less than perfect, more often than not, it won't. MiniTube does address one potential problem fairly well. Because the audio of the YouTube video will undoubtedly be out of synch with the audio file, you can choose to either play your audio file and mute the audio on the video, or mute Winamp and play the audio and video from the YouTube video. [via gHacks] MiniTube Winamp plugin adds YouTube videos to your playlist originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments20 Nov 2008 at 3:00pm Filed under: Fun, Google, Search, Web  We've all been there. You're working, and an instant message window pops up. It's your friend, who I'll call "Captain Obvious," and he wants to know what that new James Bond movie is called. Even if you know, why is he asking you? That's what Google is for. Instead of answering his question straight away, just say "Here, let me Google that for you." Let Me Google That For You will give your friend a step-by-step reminder about how to Google. Step 1 (type In your question) shows the question being input into the Google search box. Step 2: click search. Step 3 is "Was that so hard?" and then your friend jumps to the relevant Google results page. That ought to be a strong enough hint for Captain Obvious, but it's funny enough not to feel too mean. Friends asking you stupid questions? Let me Google that for you. originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments20 Nov 2008 at 2:00pm  Yahoo! is rolling out a new search page called Yahoo! Glue that lets you see a bunch of different sorts of search results on a single page. The service pulls data from Yahoo! News, Images, Shopping, and Answers pages. But it also draws data from third party services including lastFM, YouTube, and WikiPedia. One of the more surprising modules I found was a list of blog posts from Google Blog Search. One module that's surprisingly absent? Yahoo! web search results. The search engine will only return results for a limited number of queries right now, which doesn't make a ton of sense, since the pages are crafted by a computer algorithm, not human intervention. [via TechCrunch] Yahoo Glue bundles image, video, news, and third party search results originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments |
the thinking blog 19 Nov 2008 at 9:39pm   Oh sure, you may sit there nodding smugly but when you think about it - how well do we really know the world? Many probably know about the popular American TV show, "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader?" - but I think fifth graders are so overrated in an age of information and technology where even 2-year-olds can use the Internet. Without going any further click here to take this quick quiz and see how many countries you can you name in under 5 minutes, then come back to this post. On the other hand, keep reading if you are scared.Alright, here is a world map that could refreshen your minds. Now are you ready to take the quiz?  With all due respect to the less worldly among us, though, kids are pretty darn smart when it comes to the world we share with several billion others. For instance, how would you stack up against a cute, 2-year-old, map reading wonder named Lilly? Check out this video in which the budding scholar shows off her vast geographic knowledge: Pretty impressive, huh? She now knows over 80 countries. So whaddya think, can you do better than li'l Lilly? Keep in mind, she had no trouble pointing out island nations you might only know if you were Survivor fans. Perhaps you think she was "specially trained" for this or that she is exceptional and just a one off phenomenon. Wait till you see Krish, another 2-year-old geography whiz kid, who can name up to 90 to 100 countries when their flags are pointed out: Astounding isn't it? There are many more videos of young brains out there, but I digress, time to share a few fast facts about our ever more multinational globe:
Now that your brain cells are juiced, it's time to get jetpunked. According to Jetpunk, the average score is 53, which doesn't sound like a lot afterall. Remember, you've got 5 minutes to name as many countries as you can and you've got to spell them correctly. 300 seconds.. not a lot of time to name a lot of countries, but hey - there've been 14 editions of Survivor so you're 7 percent there already. You can do it! So, how did you score up this time? Still not good enough? Then I guess it's time you watch this video: Written by Steve Levenstein, sponsored by Jetpunk. [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 11 Nov 2008 at 12:42am [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 8 Nov 2008 at 10:29am   Irregardless, could you care less? A bunch of Oxford researchers got together and compiled a list of the Top 10 most irritating expressions in the English language. "The scholars in question keep track of linguistic mangling and overused buzzwords in a database called the Oxford University Corpus. The voluminous record keeps track of books, magazines, broadcast, online media and other sources, watching for new overused, tiresome phrases and retiring those that fade from use (or misuse)." Here is the Top 10 list they came up with:10. It's not rocket science 9. 24/7 8. Shouldn't of 7. It's a nightmare 6. Absolutely 5. With all due respect 4. At this moment in time 3. I personally 2. Fairly unique 1. At the end of the day In your opinion, what are the most irritating phrases in English? [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 29 Oct 2008 at 12:29pm  "Pictures Worth A Thousand Words" series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 24 Oct 2008 at 3:10am   Digital images of a "falling star" or a "shooting star" shows that it actually has nothing at all to do with a star! These amazing streaks of light you can sometimes see in the night sky are caused by tiny bits of dust and rock, in other words, meteoroids, falling into the Earth's atmosphere and burning up. The short-lived trail of light the burning meteoroid produces is called a meteor. If any part of the meteoroid survives burning up and actually hits the Earth, that remaining bit is then called a meteorite. At certain times of year, you are likely to see a great number of meteors in the night sky. These events are called meteor showers and they occur when the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by a comet as it orbits the Sun. These showers are given names based on the constellation present in the sky from which they appear to originate. For example, the Leonid Meteor Shower, or Leonids, appear to originate in the constellation Leo. It is important to understand that the meteoroids (and therefore the meteors) do not really originate from the constellations or any of the stars in the constellations, however. They just seem to come from that part of the sky because of the way the Earth encounters the particles moving in the path of the comet's orbit. Associating the shower name with the region of the sky they seem to come from just helps astronomers know where to look! The dust and rocks that cause meteor showers come primarily from the Earth passing through the debris stream left behind by a comet as it orbits the Sun. Usually, the Earth's orbit and the comet's orbit are slightly tilted relative to one another. So the paths only intersect on one side!
Note that one of the best meteor showers, the Perseids, happens in August. "Peak time" is when you are likely to see the largest number of meteors per hour. It occurs in the middle of August and it can be quite spectacular to see! source [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 22 Oct 2008 at 2:08pm   In compiling past and current research, it has been determined that thousands of identified animal species have demonstrated homosexual behavior. "Homosexuality has been observed in more than 1,500 species, and the phenomenon has been well described for 500 of them," according to Petter Bockman, project coordinator of the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum's exhibition display. "Against Nature?" Let's look at some specific examples. Monkeys (both Old World and New World) use sex as a tool to solve struggles between each other. Unlike humans, they do not have any sexual taboos; nor are they concerned with age or numbers of partners. The only practice that is "disallowed" are sexual unions between mother and son.It appears as though almost all Bonobos (Pigmy Chimpanzees) are bisexual. They mate like wild and they commonly express their joy by screeching. 66 percent of all females partake in active homosexual relationships. The females of Japanese Macaque packs have strong connections between each other and during mating seasons they accompany each other as temporary lesbian partners. They demonstrate the sexual bonding between each other and then chuckle to show that they have received pleasure. Male macaques also perform homosexual acts but not among other pairs. They prefer one-night stands. They are male after all! =)   Although it may be hard to believe, American Bisons perform more homosexual intercourse than heterosexual intercourse. The females only have a relationship once when they are on heat, but bulls have homosexual sex multiple times during this period and mating among young males is 55 percent more likely to be with other males. Homosexuality is also apparent among dolphins. The Bottlenose Dolphin is known as a species which experiences a homosexual period of time and is reputed for this characteristic. Males have oral sex between each other: one dolphin caresses the other dolphin?s penis with his nose and they also rub their penises upon each others? body.Homosexual behavior is equally common among Giraffes and they even stroke each others necks for 1 hour before mounting each other. It has been observed that %5 of male Giraffes partake in homosexual activity at any given time.   Kob Antelopes experience lesbian sex twice every hour (wow!) and 8 percent of their activities during mating is homosexual orientated. One female approaches the other female from behind and touches the other female by lifting her leg between the other antelope?s legs. 25 percent of all Australian Black Swans are homosexual and the activities between such pairs can last years. During this period a male may partner another female but then the other male may chase her away after she has laid her eggs. Sometimes homosexual couples may steal the eggs of heterosexual couples or even claim the nest for their own.Additionally, Walruses have a time frame when they are involved in homosexual activities. When males reach the age of 4, they reach sexual maturity and up to that time may have experienced many homosexual encounters. Older males are bisexual because they mount females during mating season and spend the rest of the year in homosexual endeavors. Not only do they rub their bodies against each other; they hug and fall asleep together.  Amongst male Grey Whales, homosexual orgies (group sex) are quite common: 5 or so partners perform sliding movements, race around each other, squirt water and rub their penises against each other.  A surprise awaited scientists most prominently in the activities of the beautifully colored Guianan Cock of the Rock which lives in the mountains of South America. Almost 40 percent of males were homosexual and only a few of them mated with females.  When asked why animals engage in homosexual behavior and/or activity, Linda Wolfe, head of East Carolina University's Department of Anthropology replied, "You can make up all kinds of stories: Oh it's for dominance, it's for this, it's for that, but when it comes down to the bottom I think it's just for sexual pleasure."[ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 20 Oct 2008 at 2:01pm [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 19 Oct 2008 at 12:45am   What is the meaning of open source software freedom? The interesting thing is that these open source software are written by many people without any expectations (financial at least). I'm starting to think that so many people from so many different countries have never before actively cooperated and shared like this before.There is a site called Ohloh which can be seen as a portal that follows the progress of open source software. Usually every open source project is accompanied by interesting statistics and predictions. These statistics shows how many lines a code is composed of, how many active developers there are, what language the software was written in and many more bits of information. Yet I find the prediction part most interesting. This prediction shows what the total cost would be if the project was re-made from scratch. This prediction is based on the COCOMO model. The predictions showed many compelling values. Moreover these predictions imply that developers should gain a yearly income of 55.000 dollars! Here are some total costs of some of the most popular open source projects so far
We must not forget that these software are only a chosen few. Hence the tip of the iceberg. I think this is very profound situation. What do you think? [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 17 Oct 2008 at 8:53am   The cultural production is overwhelmed with the discussion on intellectual property and piracy. That's actually true only to a certain extend. The cultural production of the intangibles is, but the design of the tangibles is not. So far. The architects and product designers does not suffer from insomnia for the reasons that some musicians and filmmakers do (not to mention all the international music and film corporations, but some of the artists on the other hand take advantage of the situation just quite great. Examples are all the musicians at Jamendo as well as creators of The Corporation. Unfortunately designers' calmness might not last too long. What if you wake up one day to find out that the virtual model of your newly finished building (or just marketed piece of furniture) is available to be downloaded for free at Bit Torrent and it was downloaded few thousands times already? Some would say that you should be quite happy. It's a good design - few thousand downloads in few hours in not a common thing. But I wouldn't be surprised if you would feel the opposite asking where the heck will I get money from now?Microsoft's Photosynth might herald a whole new kind of debate in the design world. It's an online software (for Windows only) which creates a 3d virtual model out of a set of pictures in order to display as a continuous 3d scene. The direction of it's development might however become focused on the 3d model itself. "Synths constitute a whole new kind of trouble", one might say, but only if he or she is not familiar with the channels of cultural production suitable to web 2.0. The mistake of intellectual property holders of the intangibles should not be repeated in relation to the tangibles. The designers need to begin with licensing under CC and publishing work in order to harness collaboration, so that it simply doesn't make much sense to copy it illegally from the 3d model/photo. We should simply chase the technology advancement with adaptation of our business model. Since Kurzweil, we know that technology develops exponentially. It might not be an easy thing to do, but it also means that we should start doing it right now. Some companies such as Ponoko are working to achieve this goal (and there are even companies like Genometri, who specialize in online design solutions), but my point is that we need a much broader debate starting at the arts and design universities (to which, as far as I know the topic is yet completely unknown). Article by Michal Piasecki. Michal writes many times a week about design in the era of Web 2.0. Submit your thoughts - click here![ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 16 Oct 2008 at 6:12am   Finding an apartment in one of the world's most expensive cities is a grave matter, but some savvy renters in Tokyo have more than a ghost of a chance of finding prime digs ? they seek to rent where someone else bought the farm. Imagine lying awake at night in your new apartment, restless and not yet accustomed to the usual night noises. Your mind drifts, then settles on the great deal you got on this place ? and WHY you got it. A creak; a sigh; is it just the evening breeze, or something more sinister? If you're not an insomniac now, living where a suicide - or worse, a murder - has occurred just might make you one. The flip side? Who needs sleep when you're paying only ¾ of what you normally would?  The so-called suicide discount is an unwritten rule adhered to by most Tokyo real estate agents and doubtless by realtors worldwide. In Japan at least, the law compels real estate agents to make potential tenants aware if a death occurred in the unit being offered. One small catch is that the law applies only when the unfortunate event concerned the occupant immediately previous, but as one realtor admitted, "Even if we didn?t, neighbors would certainly tell new residents about the gruesome details."While few people can completely shrug off the fact their new abode has a questionable history, it's likely everyone expects a substantial cut in their rent as a result. "I definitely agree that there is a suicide discount," stated a local Tokyo real estate agent. "Late last year we bought an apartment for a client where the previous owner had committed suicide. In this case the discount over normal market prices was about 25% even though the apartment had been completely remodeled and a purification ceremony had been held by the local shrine." Seems like Tokyoites have more faith in the power of the yen than in the local ghostbusters!  One curious point brought up by a Tokyo real estate company owner was that young women are the most typical renters of apartments with shady histories. "Men, rather than women, tend to be superstitious and think the place will be haunted by the victim or something," he stated. Women are also well-connected with the online real estate scene. "They exchange information on the availability of such places and what the rent is likely to be with each other online."I don't know about you, but nothing says "bad karma" more than moving into an apartment whose last resident dies un-naturally. It's a plot used in many a movie, most recently "1408" the number of a horrid hotel suite where 56 met their deaths, one after another in the grisliest of manners. Save money? I'd prefer to save my life. Article by Steve Levenstein from Inventor Spot. Submit your thoughts - click here! [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 15 Oct 2008 at 6:02am   We are pleased to announce that we overcame the technical difficulties and are back to regular publishing of posts on eccentric topics. As you might already know, we've also been publishing interesting posts from guest thinkers in the past such that The Thinking Blog went multi-author about 10 months ago. One of our regular contributors, Steve Levenstein, who also happens to be the Japanese Innovations Writer at InventorSpot, is now an Associate Editor here at TTB - bringing the craziest ideas from where else but Japan! Here is Steve in his own words:I live in Canada and I?m married to a lovely and charming Japanese woman. Between our visits to Japan, watching Japanese TV at home and listening to my wife for more than 15 years, I?ve really gained an appreciation for the many ways Japan is different from the rest of the world. Some of the best things about Japan and Japanese culture, though, are their embrace of modern technology and the effortless way they have made the latest gadgets & gizmos a part of their daily lives. Especially interesting are the ways that Japanese sensibilities have affected the design of the gadgets, such as the need for ?cuteness? and, as you well know, the power of high status as exemplified in ?Born Rich?. Stay tuned for his new post tomorrow and let's all welcome Steve to his new 'second' home at TTB! [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 13 Oct 2008 at 2:58pm [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 26 Sep 2008 at 6:32pm We are not gone, just having some technical problems. Will be back soon with a bang![ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 19 Aug 2008 at 7:35pm via[ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] 7 Aug 2008 at 2:10pm   Botanically, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant: therefore it is a fruit or, more precisely, a berry. However, the tomato is not as sweet as those foodstuffs usually called fruits and, from a culinary standpoint, it is typically served as part of a salad or main course of a meal, as are vegetables, rather than at dessert in the case of most fruits. As noted above, the term "vegetable" has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term. This argument has had legal implications in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables but not on fruits caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the controversy in 1893 by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304)). The holding of the case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, and the court did not purport to reclassify the tomato for botanical or other purposes other than paying a tax under a tarriff act.Due to the scientific definition of a fruit, the tomato remains a fruit when not dealing with US tariffs. Nor is it the only culinary vegetable that is a botanical fruit: eggplants, cucumbers, and squashes of all kinds (such as zucchini and pumpkins) share the same ambiguity. [source] Editor's Note: Tomato is a great source of Vitamin C with 100 grams (3.5 oz) containing 13mg, serving 22% of daily intake recommendation for adults. Speaking of personal experience, when I get the common cold I eat two mid-sized tomatos -- instantly my nose stops running and I get well (miracoulously) the next day. Highly recommended fruit vegetable whatever it is!  BONUS: Caption me! =) [ If you are reading this, so will everyone else. ADVERTISE HERE! ] |
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