Aloha

mashup of the two

"Apple could soon introduce the talking iPod. The device was designed with safety in mind - making it easier to use while driving, exercising, and crossing the street.

The new software will convert names of song titles, albums, and artist into speech so iPod users no longer have to look at their screen to see which song will play next. Instead they will hear what's next through their headphones."

From Apple Creates The Talking iPod, Megan Shannon, All Headline News, July 9, 2006 10:55 a.m. EST. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004160154

The culmination of Sue Lin Yee and Jeff Hawthorne's wedding afternoon was a 10-course Chinese banquet, and the newlyweds did not want the disruption of an obnoxious disc jockey or a band that didn't share their tastes. So instead of booking a band or a DJ, they bought an MP3 player.

From iPod I do's, More couples are doing own music, Mary C. Schneidau, The (Barre-Montpelier) Times-Argus, July 9, 2006. http://tinyurl.com/n772z

Spotted in Frank Ahrens, Web Watch column, in the Washington Post for Sunday, May 14, 2006; Page F07 ( Peer-to-Peer Networking For Podcasts and People

[*]Among the films available are true classics such as "King Kong" and "War of the Worlds", and a lot of much less classical films such as "Titanic" and "Pulp Fiction."

They are not just any sandals, but boxy buckled Birkenstocks, the footwear that has become synonymous with a certain type of noodge. ...

It's interesting that the Hollywood folks thought to associate "Birkenstocks" with "Vermont" ... a few years back, I did an informal of footware at UVM and Cornell. Sandalwise, UVM prefered Tevas to Birkenstocks, and Cornell preferred Birkenstocks to Tevas. At both schools, hiking boots, trail shoes, and sneakers, however were more popular than sandals. Now-a-days, I would guess that flip-flops (zori) seem to be the preferred sandal.

Credits: Coeli Carr, Thank you for instulting our sandals, New York Times, March 12, 2006. Photograph: Vance Jacobs for The New York Times, Birkenstock Arizonas.(Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/fashion/sundaystyles/12birkenstock.html)

-- E. Annie Proulx, Postcards, Charles Schriebner, New York, 1992. p. 122.

"Condoleezza Rice's missive to the EU
By Kieren McCarthy
Published Friday 2nd December 2005 09:07 GMT

"The World Summit in Tunis last month was overshadowed by the global argument over internet governance.

"Its biggest controversy came with the proposition put forward by the EU a month earlier that there be a new inter-governmental body that oversee ICANN. The US government - which currently enjoys unilateral control over the internet infrastructure - was furious and launched an enormous lobbying campaign, both public and private, across the board to retain its position.

"Most significant among all those lobbying efforts was a letter sent from the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to the UK foreign minister Jack Straw acting in the role of presidency of the EU.

"In the letter, Rice used strong language for a diplomatic missive, to stress how seriously the US administration was taking the issue and how determined it was to retain ICANN in overall charge of the internet. European diplomats privately confessed that the letter had a significant impact on their position."

Read the letter here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/02/rice_eu_letter/

Mad scientist Doc Brown powers his time machine by feeding coffee grounds and other biowaste into the DeLorean in Back to the Future.

While time travel is still in the realm of science fiction, carbon-based fuel cells are about to become science fact -- rendering a similar scenario all the more possible. SRI announced in November that it has developed direct carbon fuel-cell technology.

The process is 70 percent efficient, double that of traditional coal power plants, according to Larry Dubois, vice president of the physical sciences division at SRI.

Continues at : >Wired News: Fuel Up With Banana Peels,

Architect and designer Charlie Lazor's Flatpak House comes in flat pieces that are assembled on site to cut down on cost and environmental impact. Many prefab housing manufacturers aren't so keen on the idea of a modernist house, so Lazor went straight to the source: glass panels (clear or sandblasted), wall panels (timber, metal, hardiboard, or concrete), and other components come from different suppliers, converging only when they are delivered to the site. If a manufacturer has a local franchise, shipping emissions can be reduced further.

Lazor lives in one configuration of the 8' by 8' grid system; other possible layouts are shown in a PDF on the website. But who says you’re limited by that? The first step to designing a Flatpak house is playing about with stickers on a floorplan grid. Then you send your creation in and tell the architects about the site. Prefab it may be, but the design is initiated by you. And you might actually be able to afford it, too: the PDF also tells you exactly what will be included in the estimated $130-$145 per square foot, a comparable price to the NowHouse also billing itself as affordable modern prefab. ::Flatpak House [by KK]

Spotted in a March 2005 issue of NewsWeek Magazine, and the scarfed from a google search

Flatpak House, January 10, 2005 12:40 PM - www.fabprefab.com/fabfiles/fabzone/131FlatPak-Lazor/FlatPak%20CAT1-fabzone.pdf

Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet. Using Tor can help you anonymize web browsing and publishing, instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and more. Tor also provides a platform on which software developers can build new applications with built-in anonymity, safety, and privacy features.

Your traffic is safer when you use Tor, because communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers, called onion routers. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several servers that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it's going. This makes it hard for recipients, observers, and even the onion routers themselves to figure out who and where you are. Tor's technology aims to provide Internet users with protection against "traffic analysis," a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.

Traffic analysis is used every day by companies, governments, and individuals that want to keep track of where people and organizations go and what they do on the Internet. Instead of looking at the content of your communications, traffic analysis tracks where your data goes and when, as well as how much is sent. For example, online advertising companies like Fastclick and Doubleclick uses traffic analysis to record what web pages you've visited, and can build a profile of your interests from that. A pharmaceutical company could use traffic analysis to monitor when the research wing of a competitor visits its website, and track what pages or products that interest the competitor. IBM hosts a searchable patent index, and it could keep a list of every query your company makes. A stalker could use traffic analysis to learn whether you're in a certain Internet cafe.

http://tor.eff.org/

Wayne Buttles of Champlain College is a remote control aerial photography enthusiast. He recently posted a bunch of pictures of the Essex Junction Balloon Festival (http://campus.champlain.edu/faculty/buttles/VTBalloonFestival2005/)

A year or so ago, he posted some equally spetacular photos of Burlington Vermont - http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=236275 .

He documents his hobby at http://www.fdisk.com/rcaddict/ .

beatbox.tv

John Pasden documents a particular scene in a Chinese subtitled Hollywood film, shows where the parallel conversations connect and diverge, and then throws things open to the readers. The several dozen responses on the use of subtitles, the development of plot, and the meaning of life.

John Pasden is an aspiring linguist currently residing in Shanghai, China, studying Chinese and working for a developer of English language resources. His weblog is sinosplice.com/weblog/

"The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."

And after 53 seconds, Raakesh Blokhra, of Wayne, New Jersey, was done with his attempt to set the Guinnes Record for SMS based text messaging.

Ed Beeson, "Text messaging catches on as callers let their fingers do the talking," (New Jersey) Herald News, Friday, April 29, 2005. http://tinyurl.com/e3jtf

Isaac Mao, Shanghai, China, notes: "I have many meta ideaseveryday. They are so nano-sized, but I believe just those memes can trigger my thinking, creating and learning. I'm such a lifelong learner."

Found in Kevin Anderson, "Breaking down the Great Firewall," BBC News, Saturday, 30 April, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4496163.stm