A couple of days ago, hakaber uploaded an old Atlanta map to Flickr and in my “why’s it so damn hot at midnight?” phase I thought it would be cool if it was overlayed with a current street map from Google…
So I did…
Man, how much nicer (and quieter) would Atlanta be without a big, stinking 12+ lane interstate running through it? On second thoughts, it would be nicer, but I doubt it would be quieter…
Originally uploaded by FLC.
Introducing the Nintendo Wii, formerly the Nintendo Revolution. Uhhhh? Nintendo Wee? Or Nintendo Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
SCI FI Channel announced the development of Caprica, a spinoff prequel of its hit Battlestar Galactica. Caprica would take place more than half a century before the events that play out in Battlestar Galactica. The people of the Twelve Colonies are at peace and living in a society not unlike our own, but where high-technology has changed the lives of virtually everyone for the better.
The BBC unveiled radical plans to rebuild its website around user-generated content, including blogs and home videos, with the aim of creating a public service version of MySpace.com. No, not a MySpace clone… Thought the ability to download BBC shows up to 7 days after airing sounds interesting.
As valued TiVo subscribers, we got an email from them pimiping the new Series 2 DT (dual tuner).
Ohhhh, black and shiny, always a nice combination, but as nice as the prospect of a dual tuner standalone TiVo box sounds, we’re gonna wait till the Series 3 DT HD model comes out later this year… But that said, if I didn’t have or I wasn’t fussy about HD, and they offered us the 180 hour version I’ve read about over the current 80 hour one, I’d be on it like a fly to shit! Seriously…
I mean, we have a 40 hour one, which is more like 20 hours as we record at high quality. Giving us an 80 hour (which would be more like 40 hours) AND the ability to record two shows at once really wouldn’t make much difference, if anything we’d watch more TV.
Yes, we’ll wait on the Series 3…
According to anonymous film industry insiders Apple has been asking studios to include iPod video content on Blu-Ray discs. This is actually a pretty sweet idea, I mean Blu-Ray discs holds about 50GB and a 2 hour movie in iPod format is about 600/700mb, there is more than enough room to share the two.
Google Maps has been given a few big updates recently and, as a result, my old hometown is now viewable in high resolution…
It only took them a year to do this, so that’s progress I guess… I’ve already done my Flickr Memory Map based on an aerial photograph I put together from a whole bunch of little ones back in 2001, but it’s still interesting to go over some of the places I used to go on a regular basis, strange it’s now been nearly 2 years since I left there.
The most bizarre thing is there is a weird “object” outside my old family home.
Seriously, what the deuce is THAT?
Google Maps is renamed back to, ummm, Google Maps. Did you even know they renamed it Google Local when they merged it with Google’s local search? True that, double true…
Here’s your Monday morning nugget of pure joy, brought to you by elected officials…
For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA’s restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.
The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.
Smith’s press secretary, Terry Shawn, said Friday that the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 is expected to “be introduced in the near future.”
“The bill as a whole does a lot of good things,” said Keith Kupferschmid, vice president for intellectual property and enforcement at the Software and Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C. “It gives the (Justice Department) the ability to do things to combat IP crime that they now can’t presently do.”
Oh dear… Want to know how they rationalise this?
During a speech in November, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endorsed the idea and said at the time that he would send Congress draft legislation. Such changes are necessary because new technology is “encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft,” Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, “quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities.”
Did you get that?
Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, “quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities.”
Ahhh, that old chestnut… Works every time.
It’s been a quiet day, apparently everyone, and I do mean everyone thought it would be a fun day to go to our local Costco store, something that I really couldn’t handle, so while I wait for the newest episode of Doctor Who (in about 2 hours it’ll be available to watch on my iPod, modern technology huh?) to download, I thought I’d have a little fun here…
I’ve played with the idea of changing the WordPress generated 404 page for a while, especially to match my silly little tagline about being served up by a Commodore 64… So I did (yes, I was that bored) but apparently it only works on Firefox or Mozilla based browsers, as IE reverts to it’s 404 File Not Found default.
Just for reference, the old 404 was the same as when a search came up empty…
Alas this doesn’t come up that often, so it’s a nice little treat for you if it does.
Making a more tasteful MySpace. Mike Davidson “hacks” up his MySpace space to make it more aesthetically pleasing, proving there is indeed hope for MySpace yet. You can see the results here. [via]
Smashing Pumpkins to reunite after 6 years. It’s official, The Smashing Pumpkins are currently writing songs for their upcoming album, their first since 2000. no release date has yet been set, but the band plans to begin recording this summer. [via]
Here’s a story about a guy, a guy who’s been a lifelong customer at a bank in the UK called Abbey National… Anyways, he’s currently being hounded across the Atlantic for the grand total of £422.21 ($752.68) that’s been mounting up for the last 2 years, during that same time period the bank it’s self has paid close to £20M (approx $35M) on not one, but two rebranding efforts.
The top logo was their logo from the dawn of time till late 2003/early 2004, the middle one was introduced then at a cost of £11M ($19M) and lets face it, it sucks, I can only imaging how much it would cost to print as a letterhead. Thankfully I only came into contact with this once, my current bank issued visa card. then in mid 2005 it was bought by the Spanish bank, Banco Santander which then brought on another rebranding to bring it’s self in with the rest of that company… No doubt at a cost to customers like me, well not like me as I’m barely a customer remember, but thats a moot point.
So fast forward to today and I’m on the phone to them, getting past around like a hot potato all for the sake of £422.21, and no one apparently wants to take my money to pay off the outstanding debt and close the account. Grrr… The only plus point (if it can be considered that) is after 2 years of asking, I’ve finally managed to get my mailing address changed to my US one, something I was told was not possible, so I was using my mothers UK address, an address I’ve never set foot in. I’m just hoping that my outstanding debt doesn’t end up screwing with her credit rating.
This one fits in between the top and middle one, though I’m not sure of the timeline of when it began.
Six hours, that’s how long my 3rd interview at an unnamed company lasted yesterday… Seriously, has anyone had an interview last anywhere near as long? I was mentally beat by the end of it, I was physically shaking a little too… I just hope it all comes together, I mean, they’ve been nice enough to wait the months it took for me to get a work permit and social security number, so that must mean something, right? Plus if you get invited back for a 3rd interview, it must mean they like me, right?
Oh well, now I wait, the only bad thing about yesterday was wearing a pair of shoes I hadn’t worn since my wedding day. I wore them on that day for hours on end with no ill effects, but now I get bad blisters on my heel after 30 minutes, and on the walk from the MARTA stop to the office, I felt them burst… Not fun, thankfully the people interviewing me were sympathetic and gave me a few band-aids to cushion the pain but once I got home (7 or so hours later) I was able to survey the proper damage, burst blisters the sizes of a dime.
This is exactly why I wear sneakers all the time…
