The tribe has spoken
Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 5:50 PM by Will Femia
So You Think You Can Be President? This proposes putting presidential candidates through a reality show of fictional but relevant-to-the-job challenges. Viewers (voters) learn about candidates from their performance on the show instead of the current clearly flawed system to stump speeches, debates and media coverage. How many times have you watched survivor and thought, "Even if this guy doesn't win you know he's going to be flooded with corporate recruitment offers after this display of problem solving and management skills." Well, I always think that. If you don't like this idea, do you have a better one for getting a real sense of a candidate's character?
Speaking of unconventional reality shows, The Next Internet Millionaire looks like the Donald Trump show but the winner partners on an Internet venture.
Chad Vader does Chocolate Rain - hysterical.
The answer to the question of how Google expects to make money from YouTube is revealing itself. "Semi-transparent animated 'overlay' ads" will appear at the bottom of sponsored videos.
Speaking of Google, the Web based Google Maps will now be embeddable like YouTube video.
Speaking of new Google maps features, Google Earth is adding Google Sky - I just installed it and it works really easily. There's a button in the program that switches to the sky and the scroll and zoom around just like you do with the terrestrial map.
Speaking of getting a feel for space, the scale of the universe described in familiar metaphors.
Upon reading that the underground cities of Cappadocia, Turkey will outlast nearly everything else humans have constructed on Earth, this blogger does some extra legwork to learn more about the place.
"Deezer.com is now the first global website for music on demand with no restrictions: listening to all kinds of music is now free, unlimited, legal and accessible to all Internet users via a Web browser." Without having to sign up for anything I was able to search and listen to a full length song. I had some buffering slowness but that was corrected when I gave the player some time to get ahead of itself. It even automatically played the next song on my search list. What's the catch here? Is this possible because it's based in France? Apparently they do pay out a portion of their ad revenue to artists. Checking the TechCrunch review, it sounds like I've got it right. The one thing I haven't found yet is how to link to an individual song. UPDATE: Found it.
Moan My IP - Nerdiest idea ever. A "sexy girl" moans the numbers in your IP address. Visually safe for work but it's sexy moaning out loud, so that part might not be work-safe.
My kid could paint that - My understanding about kids and art is that they have an innate sense of balance and composition. My old art teachers would always bemoan the practice of teaching kids to circle off a corner of the page to indicate the sun. A semi-circle in the corner is a compositional no-no and as such, kids don't come up with that on their own.
New Advice: Don't Sit Up Straight - I was just reading a piece about how sitting saggy at work contributes to flabby abs. The advice I'm always happy to follow is that squirming is good for muscles, blood flow, calorie burning and to the extent it makes you look up from the screen, your eyes.
"CafeMom, a no-frills social network site for mothers, has raised $5 million in funding."
"Urban Ecological Subversion: The Art of Guerilla Gardening in Public Spaces" Wow, I didn't even know this had a name. someone has been attaching coffee can planters on fences and sign posts in my neighborhood and I've jokingly called it "plantfiti" but I had no idea there was a such a thing as Guerilla Gardening. (Here's a Digg mirror of the site in case it's down.)
"Arsebook is an anti-social utility that connects you with the people YOU HATE."
Folks are interested in a new Microsoft idea called Tafiti. It's the search engine with some interactive Silverlight features. I played with the site but since the point is to use the tools (the search engine is the same) watching the On10 clip was more informative.
Also drawing attention online is the announcement of HD Flash. "In other words, the quality of video has been substantially improved from the previous version of Flash Player 9." Thoughts naturally turn to both content and displays.
Speaking of Flash, Photos with Flash are superior to those without Flash.
Internet Commenter Business Meeting - The meeting participants act like blog/message board commenters (but not Clicked commenters, of course). NOTE: Coarse language.
"Montana Senator Max Baucus says he wants free college tuition to be offered for students majoring in math and science." That's straight out of one of those "...and the Pentagon had to hold a bake sale" bumper stickers.
The DeLorean will be back in 2008. "Square nose, gull-wings and all" for nearly 60 grand.
Also via Jalopnik, Australians have apparently come up with a new version of the one-finger salute.
Beloit College's mindset list for the class of 2011 - It's a list of what the world looks like (or doesn't look like) to this age group. Prepare to feel ANCIENT.
