The Ultimate Geek Travel Itinerary
ben | 23 June, 2007 11:02
So this has nothing to do with technology or gadgetry, but most definitely qualifies as geek travel. Some people follow Phish around for the summer, I have a friend who spent a couple of months following Widespread Panic. Others go on road trips, and some people will do every marathon, 5k, or triathlon within hundreds of miles of their homes. So why not tour around the country to hit every Star Trek-esque convention in the country?
There's a list of upcoming conventions (not all of them Star Trek specific) at startrek.com. So grab your Klingon phrasebook, pack your bags, and jump in your alternative-fueled shuttle-craft to hist the conferences this summer. Here's a sampling of events:
Columbus Sci-Fi Expo
July 13-15, 2007
Columbus, OHThe Official Star Trek Convention
August 9-12, 2007
Las Vegas, NVTrekTrak
August 31 - September 3, 2007
Atlanta, GA
There are events listed through the year and into 2008!
Posted in Computers/Technology, Movies, World Culture/Travel . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(0). Permalink
Short List of Fun Travel Blogs/Sites
ben | 21 June, 2007 10:33
BudgetTravelOnline.com has a list of fun travel sites here about food, gear & gadgets, hotels, and maps. Listed sites include:
Slice, sliceny.com; News, reviews, and musings on pizza, including where to find the best pieces of pie in the Big Apple.
TravelGearBlog, travelgearblog.com; Reviews of clothes, equipment, backpacks, gadgets related to hiking, camping, and other travel activities.
Hotel Chatter, hotelchatter.com; Hotel reviews from all over the world.
If you like pizza and live in or visit NYC, check out that first site! It's constantly updated and is a pizza-lover's best resource...
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Dude! UK's State of Fear
cn | 22 May, 2007 17:26
Okay, so I've been light on the political postings lately, but THIS is scary. If you care at all about government monitoring, Big Brother, 1984, freedom, individuality, personal expression, democracy, etc., etc. From BBC.com:
The UK's first police remote control helicopter has taken off.
Merseyside police are using the "spy drone", fitted with CCTV cameras, mainly for tackling anti-social behaviour and public disorder.
And you've got to visit the link, if only to see the picture of the thing!
BBC story here.
Originally found via boinboing.net.
Posted in Computers/Technology, Politics, Speeding Towards a Police State . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(0). Permalink
Irony of Technology
cn | 15 May, 2007 09:31
I love the Discovery Channel, especially now that I have the pleasure of watching DiscoveryHD - the high-def version of the channel. It has some programs that are simply amazing.
This morning, for instance, I turned on the TV and tuned to the Discovery Channel to find that Sunrise Earth was just starting. In Sunrise Earth they filmed a location with a number of cameras over a span of perhaps 3 hours from the pre-dawn darkness through full sun-up. There is no narration and there are no commercials. All you get are breathtaking shots of the subject for the day and the natural, accompanying sounds. For instance, today's show was titled 'Yellowstone's Geysers' and throughout the hour the scenes shifted from location to location within the park as the sun rose. It can be a breathtaking experience just to watch it on TV!
And therein lies the irony! I love the outdoors, love nature, am awed by its grandeur. Through the marvels of technology I can sit in my climate-controlled living room behind my computer, sipping my microwave-heated tea, and get a pseudo-experience of watching the sunrise in the vastness of the great outdoors. Yet here I am. In my living room. Experiencing what it's like to watch nature on TV. And to me it seems that I'm somehow missing something. Which is a good thing.
On the one hand, watching a show like this inspires me to get up and get going - get out there and experience it for myself...yet on the other hand, it's like a surrogate experience - now that I have a pseudo-experience of nature, why go out when I have so much work I could or should be doing?
Not to mention the fact that the show is on at 10am, so in a reality-twisting way I'm experiencing sunrise at 10am, and I'm nowhere near the arctic circle...
Regardless, check out the show on DiscoveryHD if you have a chance, if only because there aren't any commercials!
Posted in Computers/Technology, Ecology, World Culture/Travel . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(0). Permalink
Cool Video Use of Google Earth
cn | 15 April, 2007 17:33I just came across a cool video compilation of some of the stranget places on Earth, as seen through the eyes of GoogleEarth. There's not a ton of detail on the video, but it's a pretty cool use of the GoogleEarth tech. They created a motion video that flies around the globe and zooms in on a bunch of interesting places including the Montana Stonehenge, a hill in Washington state with the town's zip code painted onto the hillside. Check it out here.
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A list of great travel gear
cn | 14 April, 2007 12:16
Check out this list, also from about.com of good gear for those of us who spend time on the go. The list, summarized:
- Get a Great Laptop Backpack
- Best Laptop for Flashpacker Travelers
- Keychain Sized Mobile WiFi Finder
- GSM World Phones With Wifi (Skype on the Way)
- Gadget-Carrying Tech Travel Clothing
- International Electrical Plug Adaptor
- Night Writer Pen and Travel Journal
- Vibrating, Mutli-Feature, Buzzing Travel Alarm
- Traveler's Water Purifier and Water Bottle
- Safe Skies TSA Luggage Locks Secure Your Gear
Posted in Computers/Technology, World Culture/Travel . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(0). Permalink
TripTie - Itinerary Sharing
cn | 05 April, 2007 21:58TripTie is a site where people post and share their travel itineraries for other uses to reference and use for their own trips. I browsed through one user's Japan itinerary. It was pretty cool. It included the locations he visited and expandable details under each activity, the cost of each activity, a photo section, and a to-bring list for the trip. Having been to Japan, i really enjoyed the user's take on things, and I could certainly see the usefulness of such a guide for a first-time visitor or someone who lives in Japan and is looking for inspiration...
Posted in Computers/Technology, World Culture/Travel . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(0). Permalink
Knowledge for the Masses, by the Masses
cn | 15 January, 2007 23:49
Over the past months and year or so I've been watching with mild discomfort the growth of information by the masses. The most popular and well-known example of this is Wikipedia - an online encyclopedia, the content of which is all created by users of the Internet, which means anyone can submit. There are certain controls on the site, like editors who constantly check and edit submitted content, but even the editors are simply 'expert reviewers' within the specific subject (question would be, who are these expert reviewers and what are their qualifications?).
That said, I think the people at Wikipedia are doing a very solid job of quality control and they've created many stop-gaps to try and prevent flawed or inappropriate content. But what concerns me is the growth of a 'collective knows best' mentality in many circles. Even some mainstream journalistic magazines and websites are playing with inviting readers to contribute more - effectively making the journalist more like a content-chooser or moderator. ABC News recently asked users:
Witnessing the impact of global warming in your life?
ABC News wants to hear from you. We're currently producing a report on global warming and want to find out if you've seen differences in your daily environment that you think are caused by climate change.
...
Show us what you've seen. You can include video material of the environmental change, or simply tell your story via webcam. All the responses will be reviewed for possible inclusion in a two-hour special about potential global threats to humanity.
Is this modern journalism?
So why does this movement concern me? It assumes that knowledge held by the majority is in some way more accurate or 'righter'. If Columbus proposed that he world was round on Wikipedia during his time, would he have been drowned out? Perhaps.
Granted, the likes of Wikipedia might not suppress true scientific data or inquiry any more than that which occurred in general society during Columbus's time, but it seems to me that there is a strong pull towards information by the masses, which could change for the worse media, journalism, and the capacity of the general public to collect accurate data.
I recently came across a few articles addressing this issue that were quite interesting. Here's a bit from Jaron Lanier's article on Discover.com:
The Net has for the most part delivered happy surprises about human group potential. For instance, the rise of the Web in the early 1990s took place without leaders, ideology, advertising, commerce, or anything else other than a positive sensibility shared by millions of people. Who would have thought that was possible? It stands to reason, however, that the Net can also accentuate negative patterns of behavior or even bring about unforeseen social pathology. Over the last century, new media technologies have often become prominent as components of massive outbreaks of organized violence. For example, the Nazi regime was a major pioneer of television and cinematic propaganda.
Lanier has some interesting thoughts about what's going on and offers certain solutions that address the immediate issue (basically, mob thinking) and he has a much more extensive essay on the same topic here. Both are work a look.
I originally came to his essays via a short article on Scientific American's website that had a great example of how the mob mentality can truly rule Internet data.
Digg users will have already seen this post, which recounts what happened when an apparently well-meaning Digger left a comment that looked too much like spam for some other Diggers' liking. (Digg is a list of annotated bookmarks that vie for popularity as users vote either for (digg) or against (bury) them. A rich ecology of posted comments emerges in the process.) Long story short: a monumentally buried comment and lots of crank calls, according to the hapless "spammer's" web site.
[if the syntax of this quote doesn't quite make sense to you, the article explains the context a bit more].
JR Minkel, the author of this article, takes a more middle of the road (ie: less radical) stance on the general issue.
Personally, I think the issue is a reflection of the declining prominence of science and scientifically-arrived-at data in our culture, the current administration (and many past ones) being a leading force in the attempt to quash the data, the experts, and the objective minds in favor of anything that supports the favored agenda.
Posted in Computers/Technology, Education, Ethics . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(0). Permalink
Geek-Fun
cn | 11 January, 2007 21:18
If you live in or around Toronto and you weren't at Wireless Toronto's inaugural Hacknight, you ain't livin'! Wireless Toronto...
...is a not-for-profit group dedicated to bringing no-fee wireless Internet access to Toronto. Our aim is to encourage the growth of wireless networking and to build community in interesting and innovative ways.
So Wireless Toronto goes around Toronto promoting and helps organize and set up free WiFi hotspots throughout the city and they decided to start a more outwardly geek-social branch of what they do (and their site has a list of free wifi in the city...). As reported by torontoist.com:
they're starting a series of group tech-project hacknight get-togethers. Beer, wires, routers, cordless drills...you get the idea.
Tuesday was the first part of a grander project to build a wifi backpack:
"We’re building a wifi backpack, which we’ve affectionately called the WiFi Roach Coach (long story). It’ll be a battery-powered WRT54GL and Rogers/Bell/Inukshuk pre-WiMax modem providing connectivity. (It’s a NextNet Expedience RSU-2510-AV.) This’ll allow us to set up an instant Wireless Toronto hotspot anyplace where we can get a (pre-)WiMax signal. It’ll be especially useful to provide wifi coverage at events."
Yup--a hotspot in a backpack!
These hacknights, which will be held at InterAccess from here on in, are open to any and all interested parties.
How cool is that? When I read the news I often begin to get lost in the horror of the mainstream media so when I run across news of people doing stuff like this, I love it! The more people that are out in the world getting together to do something creative, stimulating, and social, the better off we all are.
As a note, though it's called Hacknight, they're not doing anything illegal - simply hacking together a geek-cool techno-tool. I may just have to make a road trip to Toronto to sit in on a session!
Posted in Computers/Technology, Inventions . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(0). Permalink
Souped-Up Office!
ben | 31 December, 2006 14:01
So as a bit of a Merry Christmas to myself I've upgraded my office a bit over the past month, party for tax reasons (it's all deductible!) and partly because I get fewer and fewer things for Christmas that I actually find useful...I'm not complaining, but as I change, certain members of my family fail to notice and I fail to communicate to them clearly any particular changes.
For instance - I am a vegetarian (including no sea food), which I've mentioned to the family a few times...and I got a couple of pounds of smoked salmon for my birthday. Also, being 29 and in relatively good shape, I haven't grown much in about 9 or 10 years, yet I for some reason received a bunch of clothes in the size of Large...which I've never worn. All this I find more and more amusing as time goes on and I think it would be a bit boring to get everything I ask for and in my size for Christmas, so I'm thankful that the family gets somewhat forgetful. It's always a surprise. One close family member gets my sister perfume every year for Christmas and every year, on Christmas day when she opens the inevitable perfume, she reminds the person that she wears perfume perhaps twice a year...yet the perfume keeps coming!
Anyway, on to my office upgrades...I purchased a new Hanns-G HW191D Widescreen 19-inch LCD Flat Panel Monitor at the beginning of the month to replace the old big-ass Dell box monitor, which I would plug into my laptop at home that had to be shoved into the corner to fit in the office and I had to twist my body awkwardly to use it. It's quite nice.
I also replaced the corded mouse with a cordless mouse and keyboard by Belkin - not the nicest available but it does the job, though sometimes the keyboard can't quite keep up with my typing and both the keyboard and mouse buttons are somewhat loud.
Finally, and most recently, I purchased one of those kneeling chairs that's good for your back, similar to this one on amazon.com, but less expensive.
I never thought I would ever ever ever get one of these, but I was killing time at an office store with a friend waiting for them to bring a table out from the back and was trying out chairs. I tried this one out and, whamo! I was hooked. I've used it for a few hours on end without any real soreness or stiffness. I actually highly recommend it if you spend a lot of time at your desk.
Posted in General, Computers/Technology . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(0). Permalink
Old Media, New Media, Transparency and People
cn | 18 December, 2006 12:45
At Buzz Machine, Jeff Jarvis has a great viewpoint on a post the editor of Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson, has on his blog - The Long Tail, about what he calls 'Radical Transparency'. Jarvis writes:
I do think the truly radical transformation would be to stop looking at the magazine as a thing — a product in print or online — but as a community, for that is what magazines really are and always have been: people who rather around the stuff they all like or need. See my earlier blather on the notion here. The point is that what you really want to do is open the windows on either side of your house and let the people standing around talk directly to each other, with or without you. You do your job, still, creating some stuff that people want to gather around. But then you enable them to share more. And now you have a new role — helping them. So you end up bigger than a magazine.
A few bullet points on Anderson's ideas (found in full here):
- Show who we are
- Show what we're working on
- "Process as Content" - editors note: not a juicy as it might sound to some of our readers...
- Privilege the crowd
- Let readers decide what's best
- Wikifiy everything
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Tom Glocer - Reuters CEO - Trust in the Age of Citizen Journalism speech
cn | 13 December, 2006 12:18
There's a pot on Tom Glocer's blog that has the transcript of a very interesting speech he gave at the Globes Media Conference in Tel Aviv this week. It's a great speech, examining both the pros and cons of the rise of widespread, accessible internet media and the growth of the ability of the everyman to reach the world and spread his message. Here's a clip from the speech:
The couch potato has found a voice and is off the sofa – you’ll find him on YouTube, MySpace or Facebook.
At Reuters we announced last week a groundbreaking agreement with Yahoo, parent of Flickr, to encourage amateur photographers to tag and submit their photographs to Reuters – to put them to work as super stringers.
For me the advantage of the Internet is just that. It’s about the return of the conversation, something we lost with the advent of mass broadcast communication.
The ancient Greeks regarded dialogue as the most effective means of communication- a two way conversation – a Socratic dialog at its best. The development of print, and more significantly television, dampened that conversation. It replaced it with a one-way broadcast model.
The world we live in today is one in which everyone is a consumer, everyone a distributor, everyone an aggregator, everyone a producer.
We live in the era of the two-way pipe.
News organizations must realize everyone is both a potential partner and competitor. A 19-year-old sitting in a dorm room cranking out gossip, a well-established journalist blogging for her news organization, or a respected academic all have equal right to have a voice. Whether they have an equal voice is another matter.
For too long the public has been a face without a voice, a simple and unheard recipient of media reports, television footage and news pictures. The internet has changed all that, giving access to all voices on all sides of any debate.
The speech goes on to discuss a number of media transparency issues and the potential dangers of the use of technology in different types of media, specifically photography.
This brings up an issue that Glocer doesn't directly address, but does tangentially touch upon with his discussion of transparency - how do we know what to believe?
In this age where anyone can develop a massive following and produce 'information' that can propagate at the speed of light around the world and be picked up by every major and minor news outlet on a global scale and the major media outlets have a history, at least recently, of questionable fact-checking, how do we determine what is reality-based data and what is rhetoric, propaganda, or simple fiction with the intent of misleading?
Posted in Computers/Technology, Ethics, Politics . Comment: (0). Trackbacks:(1). Permalink
An Amazing List of Best Posts of the Year on Wired Mag Blog 27B Stroke 6
cn | 06 December, 2006 15:53
At 27B Stroke 6 (I have no idea what that means!), a blog at the Wired Magazine site, they ran a list of their best posts of the year and the posts touch on some very interesting and often disturbing issues of the past year.
The list includes the exposure, and continuing denial of, massive computer virus issues at the Department of Homeland Security, major flaws with the security of airline ticketing, and the warrentless wiretapping issue with a look at the problem from a very clear and data-oriented viewpoint.
Take a look a the list and links to corresponding articles here.
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