Dolphins at play

Stolen shamelessly from Cute Overload. I could steal half their pictures, they're so stinkin' good, but I usually am able to restrain myself. I couldn't with this video, though, because it's so remarkable. The dolphins are making big hoops out of bubbles, and then playing with them!! It's amazing how they're able to make small hoops out of big hoops, and how the hoops grow!

Cool video

A Canadian photographer took 20,000 pictures and strung them together to make a movie about the environmental crisis. Even if you are of the belief that it's all hype, the movie is worth viewing purely on its technical merits.

Cell Phone Novels

This is the kind of thing you could go your whole life without knowing, unless you happened to read an article about it in the New York Times. It also seems like something you'd hear about on NPR. The number one bestselling novel in Japan last year was written on a cell phone. (In fact, five of the 10 bestselling novels were cell phone novels.) They're originally read on cell phones, where the author gets no remuneration. When published in book form, though, they can sell hundreds of thousands of copies. The top seller was even made into a movie! Crazy! And you know what has allowed this post-modern form of literature on-the-go to blossom? Japan's major cell phone provider deciding to offer unlimited text messaging as part of its monthly calling plan! It's remarkable how interconnected seemingly unrelated things can be.

The REAL Rosie the Riveter

More Flickr goodness...

The Library of Congress has released over 3,000 photos from its archives. And by "released," I mean "posted on Flickr." How awesome is that?! I predict many hours of browsing through them and marking lots of favorites.

This is a pilot program, and more images will be released soon, no doubt. (The LOC has over 14 million!) The purpose? Free labor, of course. They want Flickr users to tag the images with descriptive words, and in some cases even provide information about the photos ("Hey, that's my grandpa!") Truly a 21st century project. I love the interwebs!

Of course, there are lots of cynics who say the quality of the information will suffer due to it being supplied by any average Joe. But I think they will work out the kinks. Right now, I believe you can tag any image with any word or phrase you want. They'll have to come up with a new "voting" system whereby if a tag gets a certain number of votes, it's "verified," or something along those lines.

Things like this CAN work. Case in point: Wikipedia. Yes, it has its own issues, but the positives FAR outweigh the negatives.

And for me, a cultural history geek, this is like iTunes giving away 3,000 songs!

What happened here?

I came across some photos on Flickr (thanks to a posting on Boing Boing) of an abandoned Detroit book depository. Only it wasn't abandoned empty. It is full of materials! I'm not quite sure what happened, what the course of events was, but there's evidence of fire, and it's gotten to the point where mushrooms and even trees are growing in the piles of decaying books. Go here to see the photos, and here to read a blog posting by the guy who took them. It's really frustrating to think of all those books gone to waste.

I'm using a cool new...

I'm using a cool new tool called Jott to send a post to my blog by dictating it into my cell phone. Jott will post it automatically for me. How cool is this! listen

Powered by Jott

Curse and swear your way to a live person

From Lifehacker (which is an amazing site you MUST check out):

Many IVR (interactive voice response) systems are programmed to recognize key words. Among those keywords are frequently a list of swear words, like the FCC's dirty 7. When asked to respond, use one of those epithets and you will likely be transferred directly to a live human being.

It certainly doesn't have the relaxed sophistication of GetHuman, but if it gets the job done... as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I gave it a try this morning.

After calling a couple phone numbers with IVR systems and not having too much luck (I could have been saying anything, as long as it wasn't on their menu they were confused). But my third try did the trick. The IVR operator gave me a list of options, I said, "F*@#!" and he said: "I think you said you want to talk to a customer service agent. Is this correct?"

This strikes me as the most hilarious thing ever. I wonder if I'll ever be irritated enough to try it!

I want!!!

Polaroid digital photo printer; zero ink; 30 cents per print; size of a large deck of cards; ships Fall 2008; $149. Serious sprinkles!!


To see the little guy in action, watch this video from CES (Consumer Electronics Show). The demonstrator guy could be a little smoother (he's kind of annoying) but the last 10 seconds of the video are worth it.

Me, Wild and Crazy

Yesterday was my company's annual kickoff meeting, and it was fascinating, energizing, and fun. We heard about all the great accomplishments in 2007, and all our lofty goals for 2008. We are growing by leaps and bounds--we doubled last year, and the plan is to do it again this year. Yikes!

After the day-long meeting extravaganza, we all went to Bogart's in downtown Raleigh for dinner...and of course, drinks. I was probably the only one who didn't imbibe any liquor, as usual. But that didn't stop me from letting loose. I don't know what possessed me to attempt balancing four wine glasses on top of each other. I will claim the Everest defense: because they were there. The service at the restaurant left much to be desired, and these were unused glasses that should have been cleared away but weren't. So, anyway, I was successful, despite all of my tablemates' cries of "No way!"


If only there was a shot of 30 seconds later, when they all came crashing down. :0

Ask and you shall receive

Not long ago, I asked when the wireless home theater would be available. Well, sooner than I thought. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas this week (one of these years I've GOT to get there somehow--total kid in candy store scenario for me), Belkin demonstrated a nifty $500 gadget that lets you have all your equipment on one side of the room, and the giant TV on the other, with no wires running in between. So that means, maybe in a year or two it will be affordable to the masses!

Also revealed at CES: a new line of navigators from Garmin. These have speech recognition, which means they respond to your voice. No more typing in long addresses!