Sidebar Pwned
So for some reason, the sidebar in my blog is not displaying. I tried upgrading to Wordpress 2.2.3 but it hasn’t helped. Only the barebones Wordpress theme is working, so I might switch to that until I figure out what’s going on.
Archive for Technology
Photosynth Technology Preview
I meant to post about our recent trip to Breckenridge, but I’ve gotta talk about this. Microsoft isn’t the slow technology giant it once was and this a perfect example of some of the research they’re bringing to the public. Photosynth can take collections of photos (of, say, like a famous landmark) and map the photos out in 3D space for you. The best part is the interface is smoothly animated and intuitive. Check it out:
If you’re using Firefox, you may get a “installing” page and not much else. This is because you have to allow labs.live.com to be a trusted publisher that you can install software from. There should be a yellow bar near the top of the page, telling you that the software was blocked. Click on the button on the right, and put labs.live.com in the “Allow” list. Then refresh the page.
I hate mix tapes
Ipods and other digital music players are great, because they bring your music collection to the digital age. But they’ll never kill radio, as some people suggest. Why? Because people, like me, are lazy.
We want others to tell us what’s new or what’s good, so don’t have to always make mixes and playlists or constantly fiddle with our music players to find a good song. I would rather listen to a station that plays the kind of genre I like and have them decide what makes a good mix. That’s where radio comes in. However traditional radio has always been ad-infested and too mainstream, sticking to the 80-20 rule like white on rice.
Things are starting to change, though. Services like XM and Sirius have been great, and one could call them the next logical step in the evolution of radio. You can now listen to niche stations that would have never made it to traditional “mainstream” broadcast, thereby starting to break the 80-20 rule. However, the 80-20 hasn’t been eliminated, it’s been merely shifted down to individual stations. Go find the 80’s radio station, and you’ll find that the station will still play the more “popular” 80’s tracks.
What if you controlled exactly what kind of music you wanted to listen to? Internet radio, which used to just be like satellite radio, is starting to harness the social part of the net. Free services like Pandora and Last.fm let you provide artists or songs you like and they will compile a personalized playlist just for you, by analyzing the characteristics of your preferred music and by what other people with similar tastes are listening to. On Last.fm, you can even mark other users as friends and it’ll keep track of what they are listening to! It just doesn’t get any better than that, people. Go check them out:
