Interested in the real and synthetic environments and the precarious line between them.
Montage-a-google Fun!
Topic: Miscellaneous
8:13 pm EDT, Mar 16, 2007
"Montage-a-google is a simple web-based app that uses Google's image search to generate a large gridded montage of images based on keywords (search terms) entered by the user. Not only an interesting way of browsing the net, it can also be used to create desktop pictures or even posters."
MIT To Put Its Entire Curriculum Online Free Of Charge
Topic: Technology
6:47 pm EDT, Mar 14, 2007
On Tuesday, school officials revealed plans to make available the university's entire 1,800-course curriculum by year's end. Currently, some 1.5 million online independent learners log on the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) site every month and more than 120 universities around the world have inaugurated their own sites for independent learners. MIT has more than 1,500 course curriculums available online to date.
Just saw this on Film Four tonight (UK TV chanel)... very interesting, but 50 minutes isn't even near long enough if you've read Paul Sammon's excellent "Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner". Interviews with everybody involved except Harrison Ford and Sean Young of course, who hated each other's guts during the making of the film. We even see Philip K. Dick before he died - what a paranoid bloke he was! And even, for the first time ever, a look at the deleted scene where Deckard visits Holden in hospital. If you look you'll see the set for that scene was from Alien.
It's amazing visiting the buildings Ridley Scott used to make his future vision of Los Angeles. In the daytime they look NOTHING like Scott's sets, particularly the Bradbury Building in L.A., used for the final battle... when you see the before and after shots it really brings home what a genius of visual style Scott is.
Most shocking is that whilst all of the people have obviously aged in the last 20 years, Joe Turkel (Eldon Tyrell) hasn't aged a day! Hmmmm...
For anyone that hasn't read Paul Sammon's book, you'll be amazed at the problems encountered making this film, a true up-hill struggle. But Blade Runner still remains one of the best American movies of all time.
Ridley Scott admits this is one of his best films, and millions of cult fans worldwide agree. A true original...
This video makes fun of modern newbie computer users. It's from a show called Oystein & Meg (Oystein & I) produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting television channel (NRK) in 2001. The spoken language is Norwegian
A Periodic Table of Information Visualization Methods
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:26 am EST, Jan 11, 2007
Via raphkoster.com:
"This is geek heaven. A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods is a triumph of cool infodesign in and of itself. It’s a periodic table, where each element is instead a means of visually displaying information. Naturally, as in the real periodic table, “elements” are clustered based on similarity. It’s done via pop-ups, which perhaps Edward Tufte might disapprove of… but I could probably fiddle with it for hours."
a free and open educational resource (OER) for educators, students, and self-learners around the world. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership.
It began as a covert guerrilla action that spread virally and eventually became a revolution.
What is it?
At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical -- if risky -- experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.
They are going to do this not only at corporate, but also at the retail outlets.
