Architect Sketch

Classic Monty Python!!! I laughed so hard at the secret masonic handshake!

May They Rest in Peace!

What a week. Several prominent movers and shakers died. Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Pitchman Billy Mays. EDIT: and I'm sorry I forgot the great late night co-host, Ed Mcmahon. 'HiYoooooo'
May they all rest in peace.

iPhone Review - Shazam

Shazam has the ability to identify music by listening for 12 seconds of the music and then comparing that music with its database of music... and it does it in about 5 seconds flat! Once Shazam has identified the music, it will provide you with the artist, song title, record label, album title and art, as well as the song’s music video on YouTube, if one exists. Through Shazam, you can tag any music you find and save it for later and buy the music through iTunes.

Wickedly fast and accurate it is, however if your musical taste rests outside the mainstream then it won't be much use to you. My thinking is that in order to return results so fast, Shazam limits its database to the most popular songs... about 6 million alsaid. Now stop reading and go get it... its free.

Dirty Water? Only in Russia

Click over to English Russia and watch the video.

Sorry I'm Late

A stop motion short film shot with a stills camera in the ceiling pointing straight at the floor. There's tons of 'making of' stuff at the website sorry-im-late.com

Interesting Airport Runways

Four interesting airport runways, and their oddities.

"When engineers were looking for a viable way to extend Funchal Airport's dangerously brief runway, they cleverly opted to 'rest' the enormous structure on 180 pillars, each measuring 230ft, rather than using landfill to support the strip. The result is a unique, safe runway which now also houses a car park underneath its extension. The newly adapted runway also won the IABSE's Outstanding Structure Award in 2004."

How much Sugar?

Sugar Stack uses regular sugar cubes (4 grams of sugar each) to show what the sugars in food and drinks really look like. It is a very very sobering, scary and funny site.

The only crazy thing is the comparison to fruits and vegetables, which are rather healthy for you. Understandably, diabetics everywhere would still be interested.

Find Me That Texture!!!

So you want to see just only the textures on this blog? Well that is easy!

1. Look over to the right column, and you will find a listing of key words (Blog Labels) used throughout this blog.
2. Just click on TEXTURE and like magic, only the textures are shown.
3. Easily Done... now sit back and download away.
   

V-Ray Interactive

Real time (and fast) vray rendering within a 3DMax viewport!!! This now makes it much easier to verify lighting and textures are correct. This kind of reminds me of Vue, which also has a realtime rending window, though it is much smaller.

Updated ScanCard Review.

I've updated the ScanCard System Review I created back in 2007. It appears the company is 86ed. I'm kind of sad to see it go as I found it to be a wonderful paper organizational system. If you know anything about the company, please post a reply.

Poll - Will You Buy the New iPhone?

Will you buy the next iphone? Vote over at CrunchGear.

Shark & Kayak

Those crazy scientists will do anything.... anything I tell ya!

"Trey was just one of a team of scientists hoping to discover why a large group of great whites, which travel off southern Africa's tip during the summer, regularly swim so close to the beaches.

They decided to venture into the deep blue in the quietest and most unobtrusive vessel they could think of - a bright yellow sea kayak. Amazingly the sharks carried on as normal, giving the scientists a unique insight into their lives."

iPhone: The Music Video

Yes, the video is 2 years old, but so is the iPhone... and to celebrate today's launch of the new 3GS, here is a funny video created and sung by David Pogue of The New York Times. Now join me in song... 'I Want an iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiPhone!"

Math is Hard... in Kansas

I was watching the news last night when this chart popped up. I wasn't really paying that much attention, however my unconscious brain snapped to attention and alerted me that Political Style Mathematics was once again in full swing....

I'm 101% sure this was an error.

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Apple iPhone 3.0 Failure to Install.

Today is the release of iPhone 3.0 software. It has a slew of nifty new features, however it does not appear anyone can access those quite yet.

After downloading the new OS software, iTunes wiped my phone and installed the new OS. Yaaa! The next step is for the phone to call into Apple and to verify it is a legitimate phone and has a paying user. Well there in lies the glitch. It appears Apple didn't beef up their servers to handle the added demand, and all ya get is a friggen message saying it can't connect to the mother ship. Augh.

This is really bummer news as without that simple (and quick) connection, the phone is a dumb brick. It can only call emergency numbers and not much else. Yes it looks nice sitting on the desk, however I really expect just a bit more from my telephone. Soooo..... If you have not downloaded the new OS 3.0.... WAIT. Give Apple's servers time to cool down.

Ah well, it is Apple. They fail just as often as Microsoft, yet in a mere 2 days people will forget and we will all be singing praise to Steve Jobs. hummm... I feel a song coming on...

UPDATE: After 20 or so attempts, I finally got through to Apple and 'authorized' the phone. Now comes the lengthy sync process of re-installing all the apps, and placing the icons back into the places I like them to be. Aaahh this really is a first world problem isn't it? :) Now back to that praising Steve Jobs song I was singing.

UPDATE 2: My wife upgraded the very next day hand had no issues. Sweet!!!

Check out Dilbert.com

gadzooks!

Social Network Evaluation

Nice short article from Entrepreneur magazine on evaluating social networks and steps on how to decide to join or not join.

Fishy, fishy, fish

Great funny story over at SoaAI.

"At first, this new fish parent called her Lord Byron the Second and had grand plans for the goldfish to become a great poet. However, this fish rebelled by laying some eggs. Her name was forthwith changed to Sally, and all hopes of a creative-writing future were forever abandoned."

Orange Construction Barrel = $120 each

"Have you ever driven down the highway when there’s construction work going on and wondered who makes all the money from selling the orange barrels used to block off lanes? That’s a lot of barrels. So many barrels, in fact, that a student at NC State in Raleigh, North Carolina helped himself to three of them and constructed this most-excellent Barrel Monster.

The construction company he stole the barrels from wasn’t amused and 21-year-old Joseph Carnevale (even his name is fun!) was arrested.

According to The Smoking Gun, “Police estimated that Carnevale’s artwork caused $360 in damages to Hamlett Associates, the North Carolina construction company that owned the barrels.”

They should give this guy a medal for making modern art for the city at only $360. Hell, if they commissioned such work they would pay 10 times that amount.

Photoshop Trick - Andy Warhol

Make any photograph into an Andy Warhol work of art... in just a few steps.

What the iPhone did not get upgraded

Rumors about the iPhone were going crazy before yesterday. Some of the things we wanted were in this new little box, however some were left out... waiting for iPhone 4.0

• Story via The iPhone Blog.
• You can also read my wish list here. I got some, but not all.

$700 iPhone 3GS Upgrade? !@$#!!

Want to upgrade to the new iPhone? Plunk down some serious bucks. Via Tech Crunch...

"Better read the fine print, friends. Apple said today that the iPhone 3G S costs $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB). But that’s the price only for new AT&T customers. The price if you’re already an AT&T customer and/or are upgrading from an iPhone 3G? Try $699 (32GB), $599 (16GB), and $499 (8GB)"

Iphone Review

So Apple announced today the updated software release and the new iPhone 3GS telephone (to be released Friday June 19). Below are the specs, however IMHO the phone is a minor bump. No overwhelming technological breakthroughs, no gotta haves. The new things touted on the phone are things others have been doing for years... MMS, Video, Voice Dialing. Not really cutting edge technology... mainly catching up with the free phones.

That all said, there are new things on this phone. Here are the major items:

• Storage— The new iPhone 3GS comes in both 16GB or 32GB of storage. A nice bump.
  
• Guts — iPhone sports a faster processor and a 7.2Mbps HSDPA-compatible radio.
• Camera — The old 2 megapixel sensor has been bumped up to 3.2 megapixels and there’s still no flash. Apple also added auto-focus, better night vision and geotagging support. This is a very nice addition, though it ranks on the low end of telephone cameras.
  
• Video — This phone is all about video — 30fps video recording, video editing, video sharing… Yay.
• Compass — Yep, north be that way folks. Yay.
• Battery life — 5 hours of 3G talk time and up to 24 hours of music playback — according to Apple at least. YMMV
  
• OS — Tethering is now covered, though we still don’t know how AT&T will handle it, and the Find My iPhone feature is available to everyone, not just enteprises, yet is only available to MobileMe subscribers. Oh and turn-by-turn nav is game on… TomTom was on hand at the keynote to demonstrate its iPhone app/accessory combo.
  

That's about it. Will you get one, or stay with your current phone. Time will tell... however we should get busy dreaming about what iPhone 4.0 will have........ an on-board cookie dispenser would be a nice feature... hummmm.

Diesel Diaries with Mythbusters

I'm really excited about the new Volkswagen Jetta Diesel. The great gas mileage puts it ahead of many of other cars.

The new Diesels engines are much better than the diesels of the past. Cleaner, quieter and again, great fuel millage. Kudos to Volkswagen for launching a nationwide educational campaign on their new Diesel Jetta. They hired the people over at Mythbusters to do 'tests' on their car to show, in laymen terms, how good this new bried of engine is at fuel economy, ride, noise, power and cleanliness. In my openion, they have done an A+ job.

Conan O'Brien & Super Mario

Someone on Conan O’Brien’s staff reads the Internet! Yes, Conan addressed the fact that his set for The Tonight Show looks an awful lot like Super Mario Bros.

New Book Smell for your Kindle or iPhone

Like the digital lifestyle but miss the smell of a new (or old) book? Well Smell of Books has the cure for that.... the smell of books in a can. Just mist the spray around the room (or heck, even over your device) and enjoy clicking ... er... flipping through your digital book.

"Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?

Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.

But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.

Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book.

Smell of Books™ is compatible with a wide range of e-reading devices and e-book formats and is 100% DRM-compatible. Whether you read your e-books on a Kindle or an iPhone using Stanza, Smell of Books™ will bring back that real book smell you miss so much."

40 Great Photoshop Textures

Being a master of Photoshop means that when you see something you have a good idea how to recreate it in Photoshop. This means going through lots and lots of exercised honing the skills. Fortunately, the web has an endless supply of Photoshop tutorials. Take a look at these 40 listed out by the good people over at Vandelay Design

InfoGraphics

Information conveyed graphically (like those USA Today graphics) are called InfoGraphics Six Revisons compiled a list of some nicely composed Infographics. Here is another listing of cool InfoGraphics. I just love the look of this type of information. Very StarTrekish.

Information graphics (or infographics) are graphical depictions of data and information. By presenting information in a compact and creative approach, infographics are able to quickly convey knowledge and engage its viewers.

Google now talks with Microsoft Office Documents

Online Google documents now can import Microsoft Office 2007 docx files. Yaaaa!

Photoshop CS4

This is a bit old, however it is a nice review of Photoshop CS4.