This is street art in it’s truest sense. Tim Meier of Berlin has this to say about his beautiful photo “Parking Blog”:http://parking-blog.de/:
??Strange but true it became a passion for me to photograph parking lots. I spent quiet some time in these concrete colossi, so I decided to do my diploma work in photography about it as well.??
Once again, thanks to Regina over at “we make money not art”:http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/ for so many great links.
Songbird, a hatchling open-source iTunes killer
Brought to you by the Pioneers of the Inevitable, the brain trust behind “Winamp”:http://www.winamp.com/ and the Yahoo! music engine, Songbird is a new open-source ‘web player’ capable of iTunes-like music and video support AND firefox-like web-browsing. Why put the two together? I’m not exactly sure, but even though it’s still in its infancy, Songbird can already do some things better than iTunes. For starters, Songbird can support extensions that, among other things, fully integrate posting to “Last.fm”:http://last.fm or shopping at any number of online music stores. It also natively supports global hotkeys adding the functionality of “SizzlingKeys”:http://duenos.net/article/119/killer-apps-for-mac-sizzlingkeys for iTunes without installing another program. What’s more is that like iTunes and Firefox, Songbird is cross-platform compatible and free. Download the beta at “Songbirdnest”:http://www.songbirdnest.com and explore the extensions being made for it at “Windjay”:http://windjay.com/.
Previously on Duenos: “Last.fm”:http://duenos.net/article/14/melodic-match-making-on-lastfm and “SizzlingKeys”:http://duenos.net/article/119/killer-apps-for-mac-sizzlingkeys/.
Post Pandora plays to Last.fm
Real music enthusiasts have known about “Pandora”:http://www.pandora.com for a while now and just as many have accounts on “Last.fm”:http://www.last.fm. Why then shouldn’t you ‘get credit’ for the tracks you listen to on Pandora on your Last.fm profile?? “PandoraFM”:http://pandorafm.real-ity.com/ seeks to do just that, combining the long-term tracking and social aspects of Last.fm with Pandora’s unique and creepily accurate music profiles. Do both!
For those of you who’ve never tried it, “Pandora”:http://www.pandora.com is a really fun way to find new music. Entering a song or artist will prompt the software (all browser-based) to recommend further tracks and gradually a whole listening profile based on literally hundreds of musical attributes that make up what developers are calling the “musical genome”:http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml. Last.fm was one of the first subjects covered by Duenos.net “here”:http://duenos.net/article/14/melodic-match-making-on-lastfm. Also see other ways to play with your Last.fm profile with “Visual Representations of Last.fm”:http://duenos.net/article/90/visualizations-of-lastfm.
Barcelona goes bikes
Following successful programs in Amsterdam and Copenhagen (along with less successful programs elsewhere) Barcelona is investing in bicycles. The program, called Bicing, will consist of 200 (a goal of 1,500 knock on wood) bikes, accessed by a membership card at one of 14 dedicated racks. The group’s website offers online tracking of the bikes which should help with distribution. Free for the first half hour, the Barcelona system should be able to escape the main problem with free bike programs, accountability, by using membership cards linked to real money. If you can read Spanish, or Catalan for that matter, head over to “bicing.com”:http://bicing.com and learn more about it.
These sorts of community bike projects are an especially dear interest of mine because my first endeavor into public life was an effort at creating a “free bike” system at my “university”:http://uiuc.edu/. It didn’t work out, but the effort lives on in a bike co-op that is still running, “The Bike Project”:http://thebikeproject.org/. Thanks to “this article”:http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006444.html from “World Changing”:http://www.worldchanging.com/ for keeping me up to date.
All done, Amazon swimmer reaches the sea
Martin Strel, the man crazy enough to actually attempt swimming the length of the Amazon has done it. Swimming all the way from inland Peru to the Amazon delta in Brazil, he swam a total length of 3,374 miles (5,430 km). Averaging 52 miles a day in 66 days, the native Slovenian actually finished the epic swim 4 days ahead of schedule. He has also swum the lengths of the Mississippi, Yangtse, and Danube rivers. Here are links to his “personal website”:http://www.martinstrel.com/main.php?L=2 and the “Amazon swim site”:http://www.amazonswim.com/main.php, also a “BBC news article”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6536283.stm on the end of his journey.
Killer Apps for Mac – Adium
http://duenos.net/article/111/ and "SizzlingKeys":http://duenos.net/article/119/, a lot of people use Adium. This popular iChat replacement is fully customizable instant messaging program that supports AIM, Bonjour, MSN, G-Talk, etc... In fact, I have no idea what most of those icons actually represent, but you can be assured that Adium does. I've been using Adium for years and love the way that it is integrated into OS X with so many visual styles and features. The only thing missing is video support.
To learn more about Adium, go their "website":http://www.adiumx.com or to their "extras site":http://www.adiumxtras.com/. Also see other Killer Apps for Mac entries on "Sidenote":http://duenos.net/article/111/ and "SizzlingKeys":http://duenos.net/article/119/.
Virgin Earth Challenge
http://duenos.net/article/123/ a couple of days ago about the X Prize for auto efficiency, I bring you the Virgin Earth Challenge. Launched in February, 2007 Challenge prize of $25m will go to ??"whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate."??
Just like the X Prize, I hope this will provide the necessary impetus to get innovators and entrepreneurs to take the task of dealing with global warming seriously. For more about the competition, check out "the website":http://www.virginearth.com/.
Thousands mob Victoria station in silent rave
A flash mob of 4,000 dancers clogged London’s Victoria Station yesterday evening. Silently listening to the club soundtrack on their mp3 players, the mob was finally dispersed by vans of police. Here are links to “Gridskipper”:http://gridskipper.com/travel/london/flash-mob-chokes-up-the-tube-250246.php, where I found about the party underground and to “this is London”:http://www.thisislondon.co.uk and their “original article”:http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391632-details/4%2C000+flash+mob+dancers+startle+commuters+at+Victoria/.
Apparently there are some pretty cool pictures “out there”:http://flickr.com/search/?q=mobileclubbing+london+victoria&m=text.
Apple TV launched, now hacked
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/6884002/wo/nY11X6Uorly82tgqIHpQ2XMqE7L/0.0.21.1.0.8.13.0.1.0.0.0.0 has only just been launched and already it is being hacked to be, well, not Apple TV. "Apple TV Hacks":http://www.appletvhacks.net/ is a website serving the Apple TV hacking community and reading their archives, these people are fast. Already people have figured out how to "use an external keyboard and mouse,":http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/03/30/use-your-usb-keyboard-and-mouse/ "create plugins for the GUI 'backrow'":http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/04/02/create-plugins-for-backrow/ and even "run a full version of OS X.":http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/04/01/mac-os-x-running-on-apple-tv/
Thanks to "The Inquirer":http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38779 for the lead on this story.
Browser based image editing
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/ points out this amazing website that offers multi-functional, useful, and speedy image editing tools, all for free. It's called "Picnik.com":http://www.picnik.com and, while still in Beta (what isn't these days?) is actually very useful. For more about the site, I recommend reading Jeremy's "article":http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001646.php at Cool Tools, or you could just go ahead and "try it yourself.":http://www.picnik.com I was able to do this in no time at all.
