details of a global brain
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Adobe GoLive CS2 Try-out
I had a look at the try-out version of Adobe GoLive CS 2 – and it didn’t even get much of a chance from my behalf. It is ridiculously slow. It needs 10 seconds to switch from a layout view of a HTML document to the source view (on my 1.33 Ghz G4 PowerBook). The…
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Crisis or not
Now watch closely what is going on here: On one side Claude Mandil (head of IEA) and Klaus Töpfer (head of the UNEP) warn about global energy crisis due to the dependence of oil and the latest development on the oil markets. On the other side OPEC moves to calm fears by re-iterating that tey…
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Katrina & the end of oil
Michael Ruppert on August 28th: Katrina’s landfall on August 29, 2005 may well be remembered as the beginning of the collapse of the American Empire. It could also be remembered by future generations as the day that Mother Earth declared full-scale war on the human race. And in a later article: What is not being…
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Civil courage
MoveOn.org is running a site where people can offer housing for the evacuees. And there are entries like this that are kind of amazing: We can provide a family of five or six a place to stay while rebuilding is complete. WE WILL PAY FOR YOU AIRPLANE TICKETS, WE CAN OFFER WORK AND WE WILL…
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Document/window sharing in next iChat?
ThinkSecret.com is spreading the roumor that Apple might introduce a new iChat version with sharing. It is the #1 request I have for iChat: it would allow possible to give remote presentations. Yes, there are other applications that had this feature for years (like NetMeeting), but iChat was the only application that actually worked for…
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Hydrogen is no solution
Yesterday I saw a TV report on hydrogen cars. What they did not say (again) and what many people don’t get: it will not solve the peak oil issue. Hydrogen is not an energy source – it is a way to store energy like a battery. The fossil fuel will be consumed in the energy…
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Deforestation via Google Maps
Google Maps offers an unprecedented view on the deforestation of the Brasilian rain forest. I wonder what on the mind of the Brasilian government to allow this amount exploitation.
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Flick off!
Since it’s start in 2002 Flickr has seen an enormous success. Flickr’s design is clean, lean and simple – giving room for the stars of the show: the photos and photographers. Something fundamental about the Internet: stuff like Flickr is not hip because of their interface design. They are hip because of their independence, their…
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Google Talk
A lot of rumors about Googles new instant messaging application last week: today Google Talk was released. It’s possible to log into Google Talk with any Jabber-compatible Instant Messenger (because it uses the XMPP protocol). But while they use Jabber as technology it does not connect to the existing Jabber servers around. That is really…
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Google Maps via Flash
Paul Neave shows how to integrate Google Maps with Flash. Amazing! This example shows the power of Web APIs combined with a cutting edge interactive tool like Flash (you even can rotate the maps via the compass wheel). Now he just needs to find a way to allow people to seamlessly replace the DHTML application…
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Dynamic Speedometers
The Stanford HCI Group is working on car dashboards that discourage drivers from speedig. They’ve put some of their early brainstorming results online.
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diggnation.com
I found these guys being kind of fun to watch. I got this from DTV, but they’re publishing their videos through different feeds. Basically they’re just reading & commenting on stories users have rated high on digg.com – but they’re really into this. If they keep on doing that the next 50 years they probably…
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Ruppert: Crossing the rubicon
»Crossing the Rubicon« claims to be the second largest selling book about the attacks on September 11th after the official Kean Commission report. Michael C. Ruppert (who is running the website fromthewilderness.com) summarizes the claims he is making in this book: In my book I make several key points:1. I name Vice President Richard Cheney…
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Peak oil ads: No easy answers
Everybody needs to understand peak oil. Chevron started a campain called “Will you join us”: Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oli is over. What we do next will determine how well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in…
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Technorati’s devils triangle
Molly Holzschlag has an interesting report of her visit at Technorati. She has some technological insights and especially some words about tagging blog posts for Technorati. There is an animation (20MB) showing the growth rate of tag usage in blogs.
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Topical podcast day
If you are from Germany and you’re considering creating a podcast one day then maybe you should look out for Monday, 29th of August: there will be a podcast day about the german re-election in september. I just learned that some people have founded a Association of German Podcasters…
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BBC Extras
If you liked The Office you might want to see Extras – a new comedy show by/with Ricky Gervais. The main idea: it swaps the roles of stars and extras so that the extras are the stars of the show and the stars are the extras (kind of). But anyway without the stars appearing as…
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Upgraded!
YES! My DSL connection was just upgraded to 6MBit/s downstream. It’s amazing that these speeds are available for consumers for affordable flat rates. I remember a comment made by Derrick De Kerckhove in the final panel of a 4th doors of perception conference about »Speed« in 1996: No body is complaining about the television being…
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DenkWerkzeug 2005
Actually I wanted to join the 2nd DenkWerkzeug meeting in Karlsruhe (organized by Heiko Haller) tomorrow but I can’t make it. I would have been glad to discuss strategies for knowledge tools and possible approaches for a PKM introductory course. Better luck next time…
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Pace, Timing and Rhythm in Information Architecture
Andrew Dillon in December 2004 joined the group of thinkers that question simplistic approaches to effiiciency of communication that ask for speed instead of pace: Is there a temporal aspect to interaction that we should acknowledge? Surely there is a pace that leads to the best fit for each of us between tool and task,…
Got any book recommendations?