A very interesting study on videogames

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_perry_on_videogames.html

Inventor of directional sound

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_things.html

A rather successful inventor discusses his invention that can be used to direct sound in a particular direction and not just everywhere. Really smart, and most insightful!

Ted Talk – flower shaped solar energy devices

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bill_gross_on_new_energy.html

I thought I’d share a few talks I’ve been watching on TED. I’m quite interested in solar power in the sense that figuring out how to use its energy better would massively change what we are able to do as a planet.

Things requiring massive amounts of energy, like getting water for living and agriculture in Africa need to rely on solar power. For a realistically efficient rollout of power all over africa, solar is the way to go. Conventional power stations and systems will take decades but solar power can be far more localised. When night falls, obviously power is lost, but the gain during the day is immense.

With regard to that link, its a guy who has come up with a design using computer simulation for an extremely cheap system of mirrors which track the sun concentrating the energy on a small Stirling Engine. They hope it will be feasible for both the residential home and the commerical arrays (sun farms, is that a term?).

preemptive strike on the death of operating systems – web apps

Needing to syncronise all our devices, it is only a matter of time before people start switching to web based applications and storage. Just very recently I’ve started to sync my desktop calender with an online calender.

Obligatory jab. The boffins at Microsoft would need to find a simple yet secure way to access files remotely. I really can’t seem them achieving this with the mess they’ve managed to make of Vista. The Myth of the Infinitely Fast Machine. Achieve something that works fast on an old machine then it’ll be great on the modern powerhouses we use to wile away the hours on youtube.

Today, I found my way back to Worth1000, a website devoted to high quality photoshop contests. The guys behind that site have come up with some great looking web based applications they are grouping together in aviary.com. Touchingly, each is named after a bird. They’ve got photo and image editing, including vector images. Such is the high standard, they even have an app called Toucan devoted entirely to helping people develop their own colour palettes.

I’ll hopefully look into the apps individually in greater detail soon. I’ve got offline equivalents to compare them to.

Innovatively, (as far as I’m aware), they’ve included in their terms, a summary at the side explaining the legal speak in layman’s terms – including smileys . I hope this catches on – the summary that is, not the smileys. Generally, it is my practise to scan the terms of websites, but it really only gives you the gist of things.

Free currently, hopefully permanently, and in beta. Hopefully they won’t charge for this in future either, but I do see they want you to pay to try and sell your stuff in their marketplace. Fair enough. It stops people putting junk up for sale and stuff might actually sell.

Since it is web based, they can probably offer extra stuff really cheaply – or make plenty profit on top themselves. A reasonable subscription for more features would perhaps be cool – although I’m perhaps just not yet aware of all the features.

Looking forward:

its simple enough even kids can use it, and they don’t need to bother with installing yet more applications on the family computer

the guys behind this know what they are doing, even offering well written lessons in how to draw stuff on their blog

they are setting a great precedent, where any competitors will really have to step up to the plate and produce something really special (perhaps the boffins and brainiacs at Microsoft finally breaking into the web?!)

Please share your thoughts and experiences with web applications.

Amish spreading the Gospel

BBC documentary with an amish guy who has been excommunicated for prayer meetings, bible studys and singing the hymns in english. He (unlike the amish), wants to share the gospel. Both extremely insightful and interesting. Well worth a watch!

A rather daunting task.

A proper big quiz on the bible!
296 questions,
183 terms to define,
and 31 practical application questions at the end.

I would have started already, but it is rather big.

“A man’s ‘free’-will cannot cure him even of the tooth ache, or of a sore finger; and yet he madly thinks it is in its power to cure his soul.”

Singing

I’ve been watching quite a few videos of a vocal coach who is rather good. I signed up on his website and found a few videos on it that are rather helpful. Building up lots of tips.

I was singing and recording my singing this evening, and got a split second of beautiful vibrato. Sadly I only discovered it sounded so nice when playing it back afterwards. Most peculiar.

A friend suggested humming and getting your lips to tingle from the vibrations. A cool sensation, that gives a cool sound if you can keep it like that while opening them and belting out!

Vocal frys? Seem to be quite good. Will need to look into them further.

Broken gate to field in winter

Broken gate to field in winter

Originally uploaded by fear_nessie

Some people will take photos of anything!

Photo of a section of a tree

Photo of a section of a tree

Originally uploaded by fear_nessie

I quite liked how the colours turned out for what was just a quick shot that nothing was expected of. Could have been better framed perhaps.

The Cookie Thief by Vallerie Cox

A great poem with a lovely ending!

“The Cookie Thief”
by Vallerie Cox
A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
With several long hours before her flight,
She hunted a book in the airport shop,
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.
She was engrossed in her book, but happened to see,
That the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be,
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag between,
Which she tried to ignore, to avoid a scene.
She read, munched cookies, and watched the clock,
As the gutsy ‘cookie thief’ diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, ” If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye!”
With each cookie she took he took one too.
When only one was left, she wondered what he’d do.
With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh,
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.
He offered her half, as he ate the other.
She snatched it from him and thought, Oh brother,
This guy has some never and he’s also rude.
Why, he didn’t even show and gratitude!
She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate,
Refusing to look back at the “thieving ingrate.”
She boarded the plane and sank in her seat,
Then sought her book which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise,
There were her cookies in front of her eyes.
If mine are here, she moaned with despair,
then the others were his and he tried to share.
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief!

Thanks to Kryna for this one.