Links for 2006-03-16
Thursday, March 16th, 2006-
looks potentially interesting albeit expensive
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in memoriam two Smithies from the same family
Archive for March, 2006
Links for 2006-03-15
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006Links for 2006-03-14
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006-
YASNS – Yet Another Social-Networking Site
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don’t ask why I happen to come across this now
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chat about the Web site you are viewing in real time with other visitors
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quickly translates English, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese and French
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compare two files to see if they are different
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got to 15.5 seconds
Links for 2006-03-13
Monday, March 13th, 2006-
track where visitors are clicking on a page
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download embedded videos by copying URL into KeepVid text form
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list/rate favorite (or not) TV shows and episodes; I’m not sure what the point is just yet, I think for now I’ll stick to Yahoo! TV
Links for 2006-03-12
Sunday, March 12th, 2006-
in alpha for now, and it shows
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– sent to my numerous close friends who are about to have babies
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NBC showcases viral video favorites – the part that’s unclear is how they will know what else to add without letting people post videos on various video-sharing sites.. intriguing
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digg-like site for multimedia content
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online calculator that keeps a history of previous calculations; the site also has a helpful conversion tool (for all sorts of measurements including weigth, volume, distance and also currency conversion)
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ajax spreadsheet program – create Excel-type files and share with others who can edit them
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online spreadsheet creation & editing, sharable, ajax (after a quick try, iRows seems to be more user-friendly regarding the availability of some features I tried)
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by my3cents.com, a consumer advocacy site
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Seinfeld locations on GMaps
Links for 2006-03-11
Saturday, March 11th, 2006-
social planning/calendar system
Links for 2006-03-10
Friday, March 10th, 2006-
gives rss feeds to sites without feeds
Links for 2006-03-09
Thursday, March 9th, 2006-
YAOAC – Yet Another Online Ajaxy Calendar
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I haven’t downloaded it, but it looks intriguing
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Great idea! (Unfortunately, one of my grocery store card numbers is coming up as unrecognizable.)
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create your own drawsing (painting) sketch and then post it to the gallery, fun!
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my response to Illustration Friday’s insect theme with an artpad sketch
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weekly suggestion for creative activity; post your contribution on your blog and link to it from this site
Links for 2006-03-08
Wednesday, March 8th, 2006-
video on drawing a horse cartoon
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it’s about usability and skill
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tool for editing pictures online; allows saving to different formats or directly to your Flickr account (yay!)
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mini flag logos
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track packages
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track packages andmap them on GMaps
How-to videos
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006Via Lifehacker, I found a helpful video on how to peel potatoes without too much trouble. Not wanting to pass on a recommendation without having tried it myself, I dutifully boiled a potato to test the method. It worked great! Note that the water at the end doens’t have to be ice water, it’s enough to put the boiled potato in some cold water.
While we’re on the topic of how-to videos, if anybody missed the instructions for folding a shirt, it’s also worth a visit. I found it harder to follow than the potato-peeling guide though. It may help to look at this piece as well to figure out what’s going on. I haven’t made this technique part of my everydays, but depending on your current method you may decide differently.
Links for 2006-03-07
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006-
YAFR (Yet Another Feed Reader)
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hosts small short content Web pages that are super easy to put up
The big screen
Monday, March 6th, 2006There seemed to be quite a bit of focus at the Oscars on the advantages of watching a movie on the big screen (that is, in a theater, not your big screen TV at home). There were several references to this point, including comments by the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the host of the Oscars. We got to see a clip illustrating the importance of the big screen. The clip had scenes from various big action movies such as The Ten Commandments (Moses parts the sea) and Star Wars (some starship scene).
I certainly understand the upside of seeing movies on the big screen (and not just from the profit-oriented point-of-view, but also from the viewer’s perspective). However, I don’t understand how it helps to make this argument in a situation where most of the people watching your clips are viewing them through their TV sets at home. Was the point to show us scenes that would look particularly unimpressive on the small screen, but remind us how impressive they would be on a big one? They were well-known scenes that we know are impressive so how is this supposed to get us to run out and watch movies in theaters?
Links for 2006-03-06
Monday, March 6th, 2006-
brief history of Flickr
Links for 2006-03-05
Sunday, March 5th, 2006-
man loses home after partner’s will is ignored due to only having one witness signature when two are required in the state of Oklahoma; very sad story
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video on YouTube
Links for 2006-03-04
Saturday, March 4th, 2006-
interesting temperature control travel mug
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transcription services
Links for 2006-03-03
Friday, March 3rd, 2006-
create your own virtual dancer, very cool
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includes helpful videos of basic steps
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for shelter
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organizer (calendar, to-do lists, etc.) for a family.. or it seems a small group of people whatever their affiliation
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dealing with missed deadlines in academia
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another media cataloging service (I have too many accounts at this point so I didn’t even bother creating one)
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be careful (read the comments), but it does work if done carefully
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track comments
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“the social guide to beer” – I personally don’t care for beer, but those who do may find this of interest
Ping pong reloaded
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006I started playing ping pong again a few weeks ago so I may appreciate this more than most, but I don’t think you have to be a practitioner for it to be worth a look.
While we’re on the topic of ping pong, check out this massively multiplayer online pong game. It’s not so much that it’s hours of fun (it’s not), what’s intriguing is that people come up with and create these things.
If all this has gotten you in the mood for some pong then try king pong [requires Shockwave]. It’s a pretty good version of a game that probably has hundreds if not thousands of variants.
I guess at this point I should probably include this here: 
.
Thanks to Geeked for the Ping pong link and Waxy for the MMOP link. I found King Pong all by myself (well, with a little help from a search engine).
Dress optional
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
A propos gender, I wanted to say a few words about some recent photo interests. A few months ago I decided to start taking pictures of gender signs. The most obvious location for these is restroom doors. I haven’t encountered any awkward situations yet running around public bathrooms snapping photos, but I can imagine eventually I may get some curious glances.
The purpose of this exercise is to see what are the core essential elements that the designers of such signs decide will be enough to distinguish between men and women. We are all used to the stick figures, with and without the skirt (or would that be a dress?). But how about the more innovative approaches? In the Hungarian Parliament, the emphasis on the signs seems to be on differences in hairdo while the signs in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences emphasize some facial feature variation (lips vs moustache) in addition to hairdo distinctions and some differences in clothing. (It would be interesting to know the date of these two pairs of signs, I guess I didn’t do adequate research.) In other cases, the focus is on how men vs women tend to go about their business, but sometimes the distinctions are not completely obvious (these tend to be some of the most intriguing cases).
I have compiled my photos on the topic into a set on Flickr. More interestingly, I also started a public group on Flickr (a pool of pictures to which any other Flickr member can contribute), which has led to the addition of some great photos from others, for example: this Ken and Barbie pair at the Shirn museum in Frankfurt.
The rule for the photo pool is simple: post images that have both the male and female symbol (either in one or two pictures) and give some description of where the signs are located in case others want to find them. I welcome contributions! Join the trend, don’t be shy to whip out your camera next time you spot a pair of gender signs.
Eventually, I could see this project leading to.. well, perhaps not a coffee table book, but maybe a bathroom book?
Links for 2006-03-02
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006Evanston sunrise
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006I live in such a beautiful place.:) (And yes, I know I posted an entry with the same title a year and a half ago. What can I say, the beauty remains.)
