American Madness

Calling it ‘art’ is a bit of a cheat I guess. I mean, is it really art if it is just a picture taken from a satellite doing its job? There is no eye for the artistic behind the taking of these pictures and it just so happens that some one was smart enough to put the pretty ones together.

None the less, the pictures are pretty striking with some amazing colors so I figured I’d toss them up here for all to see. From EnvironmentalGraffiti we get the “30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth.” These photos are all from 2000, when NASA went through over 400,000 pictures snapped by the satellite Landsat 7 and chose what they felt were the most beautiful for display at the Library of Congress.

Are they art? Maybe not, but they sure are pretty. You can see the other 29 here. You can even download them to use as desktop wallpaper.

FinAlternatives reports:

A hedge fund dedicated to investing in the adult entertainment industry has struck a deal for iPorn, a mobile and SMS pornography provider in the works.

Beverly Hills, Calif.-based AdultVest, which claims its “online marketplace” now exceeds $7 billion in capital available for varied smutty investments, announced that its Priapus Investment Fund acquired iPorn yesterday.

I’ve no idea what the site really does (I’m not about the check it out from work!), but I’m wondering if Apple won’t sue. Wasn’t Apple planning to release the iPorn soon? I think they have it in development but have been stalled trying to get the “touch” screen to work.

(Some racy iPod gags if you search for iPorn in Google images.)

As you might have guessed I tend to go through a lot of websites each day. Most of what I find I just post here, but every now and again I find something totally random to share with just one or two people. On occasion that random item is about halfway down a page and part of the second paragraph. It turns into a bit of a pain in the ass in trying to direct people to the sentence I thought they might appreciate, a treasure hunt of sorts to fnd an amusing line.

Well, now there is The Awesome Highlighter. You enter the web address of the page you want to highlight, go crazy with the highlighter and they provide you a link that you can share with people. Here’s an example. Once some one goes to the highlighted page they can jump from one highlight to the next.

I have noticed a few “issues” with the application though. For one, I can’t seem to un-highlight items. a second is that there is a limit of 2000* characters per highlight, though you can work around that. Also some of what I highlighted didn’t show (though I would say about 98% did). Looks like they need a little tweaking, but this could be a great tool, especially for groups working together on a project.

*Thanks for clarifying Luke we corrected it 

If it hadn’t been published 6 days prior to the 1st I would assume this wasn’t for real, in fact it is so unbelievable I am just going to start off by quoting the first line: “Farmers in North Queensland are doing their bit to be environmentally friendly by investing in a tree that produces diesel.”

The U.S. is currently struggling with oil prices topping $110 a barrel (in no small part thanks to our involvement over seas, can we get a “Go Team!”?). We are fighting to convince car companies and industries that use vast amounts of oil to figure ways to cut back, like producing cars that are more fuel efficient or don’t need it at all. Australians, on the other hand, are taking a tip from Brazil and have purchased over 20,000 trees that produce “oil that can be extracted, filtered and used to power vehicles” that run on diesel.

Although it is apparently a long term investment (it takes between 15 and 20 years for the trees to mature enough and become ready to harvest for oil), though once they have matured, a hectare (100 meters square) can produce 12,000 litres of fuel a year (a bit over 3,000 gallons… or a little more then 75 barrels).

Oh and because it is a tree it is also a renewable source of energy. You can read more about the trees here. Maybe some one might want to mention this to our government.

The idea is simple: You need help now. You don’t want to wait to receive a call back. You don’t want to wait for an email response. You don’t want to create an account or provide demographic data. You want to talk to a service provider in your area right NOW!

That is the concept behind ServiceGuy, it is essentially a referral website, you plug in your needs and are giving a phone number. Let’s say you need a painter. You are given a number by ServiceGuy and when you dial it as you listen to a message, the system rings up to 25 different painters simultaneously for you. The first one to answer their phone and say they are available gets connected to you. Pretty convenient if you don’t have a whole lot of time on your hand to find a painter or a personal assistant to find one for you.

On the flip side there is no evaluation of who you are being connected to, though they are working on it (”We plan to ‘call back’ consumers who successfully connect to service providers and ask for feedback. Check back soon for more information on our rating system.”). You have no idea if Big Al’s Painting is a reputable painter or some guy operating out of his mom’s basement who used to be really good with his paint-by-numbers sets. While it might save you some time, keep in mind it is a crap shoot of the type of service you might get.

If we are going to talk about making cakes with bacon I think it only follows that we should talk about doing internet searches with Meat Loaf.

So, if you know Gypsy the musical, you know that to make it, you’ve gotta have a gimmick. Well SearchWithMeatLoaf is just that; a gimmick wrapped around a search engine (powered by Google and Ask.com).

The premise is pretty simple. It is a search engine and at random times they decide to give out Swag Bucks. If you win enough Swag Dollars you can enter the Swag store and buy some Meatloaf related products (some vinyl, a Meat Loaf etched Ipod Nano or Classic or a etched Macbook) and a ton of other prizes including classic vinyl, a Starbucks’ card, a Nintendo Wii, a year of Netflix, a Starcaster guitar and Amp by Fender, etc., you get the idea).

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I recently came across the site RCRDLBL, add some vowels and you’ve got Record Label, which is the idea behind the site. It is a chance for musicians to have their music heard and maybe make some money. As they say “RCRD LBL is an online record label releasing exclusive and completely free music from emerging and established artists.” Oh, right, and it’s all free. Personally I am downloading some Bad Brains right now. They hand select the artists whose music they are pushing

A similar site, US Trendy is doing similar stuff, but also includes a place for Fashion and Art work to be displayed, kind of an artistic collective to show off your work and maybe get discovered. Instead of the music being chosen and artists being selected to have their work exhibited, US Trendy allows folks to upload their own stuff.

Finally on the music front we have Mp3gle. Don’t ask me if it is a legal, I have my doubts. It kind of looks like it is a file sharing search engine. I am not sure the sources it is searching, but it is allowing folks to search for music and then either play it or download it. And this isn’t music by folks you have never heard of, this is brand name, big label music, the type of stuff you pay to download on iTunes. Pretty nifty if you ask me

So, it is obvious we are fans of New York Magazine. We’ve used their content (usually crediting them). They’ve used our content (sometimes crediting us).

Any-hoo, it just came across my inbox that they are doing a website re-design which will probably launch next Friday. If you’d like to see a little preview of what the new New York Magazine homepage will look like, check it out here.

According to their announcement: “the new homepage has a more consistent organization—now you’ll always know where to find whichever type of news you’re looking for, and you’ll be able to search our restaurant listings, runway galleries, and product guides more easily.”

Does anyone still remember a time when people predicted that you would be able to watch anything you wanted when ever you wanted? Any show on a whim? When we hit 1000+ channels people felt that was the way it was going to be, but it wasn’t. On-Demand costs money and there is a limit to the shows shown. iTunes wasn’t much better though had a lot more recent titles to choose from.

This year we had channels starting to ponder the iTunes model and they all started streaming most of their shows on the internet (a combination of pay-per-view and free content) though most of those streams were a bit choppy and interrupted by a ton of commercials.

Well, now we have reached a point where that any show on a whimis starting to look more like a reality- Enter Hulu. (more…)

Every now-and-then I come across a project that simply blows me away. Makes me wish I had the skills to create something of a similar nature. Unfortunately, most of these projects involve an advanced knowledge of wood working or a basic knowledge of electronics.

This one falls into the knowledge of electronics category. Maybe one day I will actually read up on and teach myself some of the basics of electronics if just to learn how to create something like this:

Much respect to Angela Yuan (though she might want to work on her website a bit)