Those crazy herring-chokers live in really cool converted seed silos.
(Via BoingBoing.)
Categories
Tag: Technology
Grab a standard American business card. Now, get a pair of scissors and trim the long side of the card by 20%. That’s all the space you need to hold over 1,000 songs, plus audio books, podcasts and photos if you buy Apple Computer’s newest iPod model, the gorgeous and sleek iPod nano.
This latest iPod was publicly revealed yesterday at a razzle-dazzle marketing event orchestrated by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. But I have been testing a nano for the past few days, and I am smitten. It’s not only beautiful and incredibly thin, but I found it exceeds Apple’s performance claims.
WSJ:
In an age of high-tech, real-time gadgetry, it’s the decidedly unsexy ham radio — whose technology has changed little since World War II — that is in high demand in ravaged New Orleans and environs. The Red Cross issued a request for about 500 amateur radio operators — known as “hams” — for the 260 shelters it is erecting in the area. The American Radio Relay League, a national association of ham-radio operators, has been deluged with requests to find people in the region. The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for hams to help with its relief efforts.
(Via Hit & Run.)
Woman snaps photo of NYC subway pervert and posts it on flickr.
Will this loser meet the same fate as the Korean dog poop girl? One can only hope.
(Via Dana.)
Google has launched an instant messaging and Web calling (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service. It’s called Google Talk.
CNN story here. SearchEngineWatch story here. Related NY Times backlash story: “Relax, Bill Gates; It’s Google’s Turn as the Villain.”
A 12-year-old girl dialing a wrong telephone number sent Taiwanese security officials scrambling after the ambassador from Swaziland was threatened with death, officials said yesterday.
Officers in the Shihlin District of the Taipei City Police Department yesterday established after investigations that the matter was the result of a misunderstanding.
It turned out that a 12-year-old ethnic Chinese South African girl intended to make a phone call to a friend to request her to return her iPod, but she accidentally dialled the number incorrectly.
Unaware of this, the girl used abusive language while speaking with what turned out to be the Swazi ambassador.
Ambassador Njabuliso Gwebu told police she was warned that “you will die” in the late-night call to her official residence on Aug. 3, an official at the Swaziland Embassy said.
After checking phone records, police traced the owner of the phone, an ethnic Chinese South African businessman. It turned out that his 12-year-old daughter had been using the phone regularly and made the threatening call that night.
(Via The Taipei Kid.)
I am a passionate believer in the importance of Web design usability. Web sites, more than anything else, should be easy to use. Simple. Straightforward. Focused. No bells and whistles.
In my work as a Web strategist for nonprofits, I often argue for Web usability from an aesthetic and functional standpoint: people like the way simple Web sites look, and such sites communicate information more efficiently than cluttered ones. Web sites that are visually initimidating are frustrating to navigate.
But needlessly fancy Web design also has financial implications.
I was talking to my buddy Benny C. last night, and the subject of a gourmet rice pudding restaurant in New York City (yes, you read that right) came up. Our pal David Z. visited the place and sent their link around to us the other day and raved about it.
So Benny, being a foodie, went to the restaurant’s site and tried to place an order for some $50 worth of rice pudding. Note that I said tried — the joint’s awful Web site, which features music and dreadful flash animations, was so complicated that he couldn’t figure out how to buy their pudding — and Benny’s a very smart guy. But he got frustrated and gave up.
Think about that. The restaurant, which I’m sure provides an excellent product, went from having a complete stranger evangelize them — our friend sending their link around and talking them up — to losing a $50 sale and the future business of a potential customer. And all because whoever built their site was more concerned with coolness than effectiveness.
It’s a shame, if you ask me.
Thnk god. Txting rulz. Mre ppl shld txt. I luv it.
WSJ: “Text Messages Sent by Cellphone Finally Catch On in U.S.”
But seriously, I find it funny that teenagers and young adults today, who older people assume to be dumbed-down by too much TV and video games and too few books, are much quicker to adopt reading/writing-based media like texting and Web surfing and email and instant messaging and blogs. Newer technologies that older people might naturally associate with mindlessness are nevertheless based on reading and writing, not talking.
…with custom chrome emblems.
(Link via Kottke.)
(Personally, when I go shopping for bling, I go straight to this site. Don’t hate the playa hate the game.)
This satirical Onion story about a guy who finally caves in and buys a cell phone reminded me of an article I saw in The Economist last month.
For all of the talk about PCs and the digital divide, mobile phones, the piece says, are crucial for economic development in the poorest parts of the world:
Mobile phones have become indispensable in the rich world. But they are even more useful in the developing world, where the availability of other forms of communication—roads, postal systems or fixed-line phones—is often limited. Phones let fishermen and farmers check prices in different markets before selling produce, make it easier for people to find work, allow quick and easy transfers of funds and boost entrepreneurship. Phones can be shared by a village. Pre-paid calling plans reduce the need for a bank account or credit check. A recent study by London Business School found that, in a typical developing country, a rise of ten mobile phones per 100 people boosts GDP growth by 0.6 percentage points. Mobile phones are, in short, a classic example of technology that helps people help themselves.
The main stumbling blocks: 1) the steep prices of handsets, and 2) taxes on phones and services.