Friday, October 29, 2010

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They Regress the Error - Boing Boing

Tiny catapult for throwing pies at bees

INSANE. Humans are WEIRD.

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Map: What's Next for the Westside Subway? - LAist

It blows my mind.
I find it hard to get excited about a train that will take 10 or 15 years MORE to build. I mean if it was going though the alps or under the channel or 300 mph or maybe across the country. But this is going 10 miles or something, doesn't even go all the way to the ocean and a few hundred rich white people are bitching they don't want a tunnel under their precious homes so the rest of us suffer? This from the city that brought you Chives Ravine and the watts and King riots.

Where is our anger at having to sit in traffic for 10 more years, 20 more years? Wasting resources? at a few people making the stations less convenient.

Maybe I will miss LA less than I thought.

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AFP: Everest summit wired up with Internet

Everest summit wired up with Internet

By Subel Bhandari (AFP) – 9 hours ago

KATHMANDU — Climbers at the top of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, will now be able to make video calls and surf the Internet on their mobile phones, a Nepalese telecom group claims.

Ncell, a subsidiary of Swedish phone giant TeliaSonera, says it has set up a high-speed third-generation (3G) phone base station at an altitude of 5,200 metres (17,000 feet) near Gorakshep village in the Everest region.

"Today we made the (world's) highest video call from Mount Everest base camp successfully," Ncell Nepal chief Pasi Koistinen told reporters in Kathmandu on Thursday.

"The coverage of the network will reach up to the peak of the Everest," he added.

Climbers who reached Everest's 8,848-metre peak previously depended on expensive and erratic satellite phone coverage and a voice-only network set up by China Mobile in 2007 on the Chinese side of the mountain.

The installation will also help tens of thousands of tourists and trekkers who visit the Everest region every year.

"This is a great milestone for mobile communications as the 3G high speed internet will bring faster, more affordable telecommunication services from the world?s tallest mountain," said Lars Nyberg, chief executive of TeliaSonera, which owns 80 percent of Ncell.

The 3G services will be fast enough to make video calls and use the Internet, said the company, which also claims the world's lowest 3G base at 1,400 metres (4,595 feet) below sea level in a mine in Europe.

A total of eight base stations, four of which will run on solar power, have been installed in the Everest region with the lowest at 2,870 metres (9,400 feet) at Lukla, where the airport for the area is situated.

Company engineers braved low temperatures and winds to set up the infrastructure.

Mountaineers hailed the launch as ambitious and helpful.

"The erratic and expensive satellite connection that many times does not work for days will be replaced with this service, making it possible for all climbers to keep in touch with their organisers and family," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a member of the International Mountain Protection Commission.

"This will also be helpful, possibly, when there is an accident or an expedition mishap," he added

Despite the installation in Everest, telecom services cover less than one-third of the 28 million people of Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world.

TeliaSonera said it planned to invest 100 million dollars in the next year to ensure that mobile coverage increases to more than 90 percent of the Himalayan nation's population.

The 3G network on Everest puts TeliaSonera ahead of state-controlled Nepal Telecom, Indian-owned United Telecom and China Mobile.

Around 3,000 people have climbed to the Everest summit since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to conquer the peak in 1953.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

It gets harder and harder to "escape" on this little rock we all call home.

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Herd in Iceland - The Big Picture

nifty, even better if you like the horses.

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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Adventures of Unemployed Man 1 | The Adventures of Unemployed Man | Mother Jones

This is clever, and depressing.

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Gallery - Putting the craft in spacecraft - Image 1 - New Scientist

Old Weather - Our Weather's Past, the Climate's Future

Introduction

Help scientists recover worldwide weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I. These transcriptions will contribute to climate model projections and improve a database of weather extremes. Historians will use your work to track past ship movements and the stories of the people on board.

Illustrations_1
1. Follow vessels
Illustrations_2
2. Digitise pages
Illustrations_3
3. Get promoted

Put your love of the computer, internet and old sail ships to use to help understand the climate. Oh and its almost as fun as posting on Facebook.

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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Monday, October 18, 2010

Progressively Worse? : NPR

Photographing The Newest Man-Made Marvel : The Picture Show : NPR

These are amazing photos. I saw the bridge in person twice, and it took my breath away it was so high and graceful. I encourage anyone in the area to see it. Oh and the Damn is pretty neat too.

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

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Looks fake but i think it is real.

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The Online Photographer: Why I Needed an iPad (and You Might Not)

Interesting take on things. a laptop AND an iPad, seems heavier. I am having some luck with just an ipad for photos and bloging, but file management is still primitive on the iPad with the small squares for choosing photos being the worst offenders, why O why can't i just have a "column view like "mail" or an interface like "flipboard"?

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Thoughtware.TV - Water Droplet Bouncing on a Superhydrophobic Carbon Nanotube Array

Amazon.com: NASA Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual: 1969 (including Saturn V, CM-107, SM-107, LM-5) (9781844256839): Christopher Riley, Philip Dolling

I am not in an acquiring mode right now, but if I was this would be on my list. I mean you never know when you might need it.

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Monday, October 11, 2010

A North Korean anniversary and debut - The Big Picture

What struck me about this photo essay, the double chins, and the fact that the uniforms of the soldiers are ALL loose and baggy.

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The green city that has a brain - tech - 11 October 2010 - New Scientist

This is great, about time we stopped talking about these things and tried implementing them. I will have this to my itinerary of places to see.

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Short Sharp Science: Gliding spaceship brings space tourism closer

Awesome. One thing i noticed about this is the whole contraption, plane and rocket seem a bit awkward looking, but in a way that some insects can look awkward, not in a bad way but in an "adapting to a new environment" kind of way. Still it is the more lever (read cheaper) way than the brute force of the government sponsored rockets and shuttle.

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FFFFOUND! | tumblr_l04ka2lcwg1qzxzwwo1_500.jpg (JPEG Image, 450x338 pixels)

Its not procrastination, it's work to sleep like this.

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7 Reasons to Love L.A. - LAist

Welcome to Post 10/10/10. How to Interpret 10/10/10 aka 10-10-10; Sunday, October 10, 2010. And a Metaphysics Experiment

So it this good or bad? I'm still breathing so good?

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XKCD Updates Its Map: We No Longer Live In Actual Countries But Digital Ones

Google Tested a Car that Drove Itself on Hollywood Boulevard and in Santa Monica - LAist

Los Angeles in Maps Written by Glen Creason, Contribution by Joe Linton and Morgan P. Yates, Foreword by D.J. Waldie - Rizzoli New York - Rizzoli New York

Los Angeles in Maps

Written by Glen Creason, Contribution by Joe Linton and Morgan P. Yates, Foreword by D.J. Waldie

  • October 19, 2010
  • Hardcover
  • Reference - Atlases
  • Rizzoli
  • 9 x 10-9/16
  • $50.00
  • $60.00
  • 978-0-8478-3391-7

About This Book

An illustrated cartographic history of the City of Angels from the colonial era to the present. Los Angeles inhabits a place of the mind as much as it does a physical geographic space. A land of palm trees and movie stars, sunshine and glamour, the city exists in the imagination as a paradise; of course, the reality is much bigger than this. Through seventy reproductions of seminal and historic documents, Los Angeles in Maps presents the evolution of this almost mythical place. Maps featured include historic Spanish explorers’ charts from as early as 1791, as well as more recent topographic surveys, tourist guides, real estate maps, bird’s-eye views, and more. Like the course of the Los Angeles River, the book winds through essential terrain: the discovery of oil, the rise of Hollywood, the streetcar system, Los Angeles Harbor, earthquakes, sprawl, and splendor.

About the Author

Glen Creason is map librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library and co-curator of the landmark exhibition L.A. Unfolded: Maps from the Los Angeles Public Library.

D. J. Waldie is the author of the California Book Award–winner Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir.

Joe Linton is an artist, writer, and activist living in Los Angeles.

Morgan Yates is corporate archivist at the Auto Club of Southern California and works in Los Angeles.

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