Reinke Faces Life

Designing an infinite digital bookcase
Posted: 18 Oct 2011 12:29 PM PDT

(Cross-posted on the Google Code blog)

As digital designers, we often think about how to translate traditional media into a virtual space. Recently, we thought about the bookcase. What would it look like if it was designed to hold digital books?

A digital interface needs to be familiar enough to be intuitive, while simultaneously taking advantage of the lack of constraints in a virtual space. In this case, we imagined something that looks like the shelves in your living room, but is also capable of showcasing the huge number of titles available online—many more than fit on a traditional shelf. With this in mind, we designed a digital bookcase that’s an infinite 3D helix. You can spin it side-to-side and up and down with your mouse. It holds 3D models of more than 10,000 titles from Google Books.

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Posted by Aaron Koblin, Data Arts Team and Bill Schilit, Research

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I love the ability of reading books on the IPAD.

But, I’ve lost the ability of sharing a book with others.

And, it seems that everyone wants me to pay, re-pay, and pay again for the same content.

Ain’t going to happen! Can’t happen.

Reason #1: I can’t afford to buy all that content over again. Reason #2: Some of the content I want to have (i.e., Heinlein’s Starship Troopers) is not available.

And, I still have a grip with CopyRight law. If a book is “out of print”, how is that benefiting society. And seventy or more years under “protection”.

Sorry, copyrights and patents shouldn’t last more that a decade or two. And, just putting a ribbon on the donkey’s butt should give another decade or two of lock up. We, as a society, exchange the lockup for the benefit of everyone. Where’s the benefit of an extended lockup.

Argh!

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http://lewrockwell.com/spl3/long-term-survival-tool.html

The One Long-Term Survival Tool Everyone Forgets
The Survival Mom

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We have three Kindles, and a hand cranked charger that will charge them and our MP3 player. A hand crank charger is dirt cheap, easily repaired if it breaks and takes up almost zero room (as usual, I am not affiliated with this site or product in any way, merely a happy customer). Two of the Kindles have yet more manuals on them, with duplication of the vital ones.

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I’m not so sure about the need for “entertainment” when the world is falling down around your ears.

But, I did note that Orthodox Jews have the entire Talmud, other sacred writings, and all sorts of utilities (i.e., concordances, vocabularies, dictionaries, etc. etc) on an IPAD.

Her point might be more accurately that it is possible to have the wisdom of the world on a Faraday enclosed electronic.

While technology is never cheap (i.e., matches are more expensive than Tom Hanks’ two sticks on the island), sometimes it’s “cheap” as compared to the alternative (i.e., ignorance).

imho!

I’d suggest the ipad as less “locked in” than a kindle, but that’s merely a technical opinion.

Her opinion notwithstanding, it seems like good advice.

Besides what are you going to do with your worthless fiat paper currency when it’s only value is tinder (i.e., Zimbabwe dollars)?

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http://city-journal.org/2011/21_3_the-great-courses.html

HEATHER MAC DONALD
Great Courses, Great Profits
A teaching company gives the public what the academy no longer supplies: a curriculum in the monuments of human thought.

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The canon of great literature, philosophy, and art is thriving—in the marketplace, if not on college campuses. For the last 20 years, a company called the Great Courses has been selling recorded lectures in the humanities and sciences to an adult audience eager to brush up its Shakespeare and its quantum mechanics. The company produces only what its market research shows that customers want. And that, it turns out, is a curriculum in the monuments of human thought, taught without the politically correct superiority and self-indulgent theory common in today’s colleges.

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Here’s a way to get wisdom.

<<Remember I’m a practicioner of dikw (i.e., data, information, knowledge, wisdom). Where “data” is the elemental atom of the paradigm. “Information” is data in context. “Knowledge” is actionable information. “Wisdom” is knowing the implications of knowledge. Nice to know where the world’s edge is!>>

It’s a shame that we waste children’s most productive ages for learning (imho 6-26) by follow an obsolete meme (i.e, Gooferment Skrules).

Argh!

We need to challenge the children by supplementing their education.

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http://www.impactlab.net/2011/09/04/solar-bottle-bulb-a-cheap-and-sustainable-way-to-light-homes/

September 4th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Solar Bottle Bulb – a cheap and sustainable way to light homes
in: Great New Product, Green Friendly, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News, Solar Power

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Now a simple innovation called the “Solar Bottle Bulb” is popping out of roofs and illuminating the lives of many.

Fixed into holes in a corrugated iron roof, the “bulb” is a recycled plastic bottle that contains bleached water. Bringing more light than a traditional window that can crack or leak during typhoon season, the bottle bulbs refract the sun’s rays to create 55-watts worth of light.

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Hmmm, a useful idea for any house, garage, or shed?

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http://brownlovesgreen.com/2011/09/10/clean-cars-mean-green-jobs

Clean Cars Mean Green Jobs

SEPTEMBER 10, 2011

by Lindsay E. Brown

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It’s one of my life’s great ironies; I loathe the big, bad oil companies, and yet my boyfriend and I purchase it every week. We’re saving up to change that, but it’s besides my point.

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The electric vehicle (EV) industry is bringing automotive production back home and creating jobs. With the technology for EVs steadily improving, and gas prices volatile, consumers are more interested in EVs than ever before.

Our economy and our citizens will not only benefit from domestic production, just like we did way back when, but also in the production of powertrains, batteries packs, and other components.

*** and ***

The Chevy Volt is another fine example of a hybrid-electric car that’s creating jobs for Americans. In the past year, GM has invested nearly $1 billion in electric vehicles. Their investment of $270 million on an electric motor plant near Baltimore, Md., will create more than 200 green-collar and managerial positions, along with hundreds of assembly-line jobs when the plant starts production.

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If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Electric cars are not the solution. At least not yet; who knows what the future will hold. In the meantime, there are two type of “green people”. The watermelons, for whom green is about control of people. And, all the rest who are dreamy idealists.

Economics, that dismal science, tells us that there are resources that are scarce. There are different political systems for allocating them. Free market capitalism, which is not what is practiced in the USA, has been shown to equalize opportunity while spreading benefits in a complex calculus that makes everyone roughly equally happy / unhappy. When Gooferment leaves people to their own devices, magic happens. Stuff (wealth) gets created. Up out of the masses yearning to be free comes immense benefits. Our “poor” are far better off than the “poor” of the past. Our “poor” are far better off than the “poor” in third world countries.

While your love affair with electric cars is “cute”, the economics are not there. Despite Gooferment putting its giant “thumb” on the economics, electric cars aren’t solving folks’ problems. Are not “satisfying their needs”. Hence, they spend their limited wealth of the stuff that does. This begs the question that if the Gooferment had stayed out of the problem and there was a true need, maybe other solutions would have been created. But we only have what we have now BECAUSE the Gooferment preempted that development in its conceit that it KNOWS what the right answer it.

The electric car is an Edsel that no one wants. It’s expense, even with the Gooferment subsidy. It’s limited in range and useful lifespan. It’s new and therefore assumed to be “buggy”. And, had the characteristics of a “lifeboat” (i.e., limited range). And, it’s usefulness presumes and “refiling” infrastructure that isn’t there (i.e., “gas” recharging stations). Over and above that, even if they could be recharged at home, where does that juice come from? Coal fired plants! Also, in an accident or at the end of its useful life, what happens to that battery.

No, electric cars are an idea who’s time has not come yet. If it ever does. I’m sure a lot of fat old white guy injineers are working on the problem hoping to hit it rich. But till then you’re left with the mean old nasty oil companies who make life good and imho get excoriated for doing so. (They really don’t earn that much money when you look at the investment.) And, those oil companies are really fictions for a lot of employees and pensioners.

Sorry, TANSTAFL. You want today’s benefits; it comes to you on oil.

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GM is Gooferment Motors. Don’t get me started on this idiocy. How many dollars have been wasted on picking this pig? Start with the robbing of the bond holders. Argh!

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http://www.geekosystem.com/japanese-wind-power/

A CLEANER GREENER CITY
Japanese Innovation Could Make Wind Power Cheaper Than Nuclear
Fukushima Kyushu University wind lens wind power
by Eric Limer | 11:18 am, August 31st, 2011

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Wind lens construction and installation, compared to constructing additional pylons windmills, is trivial, and while the extra toll on turbines could require more maintenance, it is again trivial compared to building more windmills. In short, wind lenses could make wind energy a possible alternative to traditional power sources instead of just a supplement like it is today.

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Interesting for two reasons:

Directly, if wind power can be made equivalent to nukes, then why wouldn’t we do it. It’d be cheaper.

Indirectly, why is this significant work being done in Japan? Where are the scientists and engineers in the USA?

Argh!

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/business/in-internet-age-postal-service-struggles-to-stay-solvent-and-relevant.html

Postal Service Is Nearing Default as Losses Mount
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: September 4, 2011

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The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.

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An idea who’s time has past?

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http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-internet-archive-tries-to-get-digital-copy-of-every-web-page-printed-book-20110825,0,6876833.story

“Internet Archive” Tries to Get Digital Copy of Every Web Page & Printed Book

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Robert Miller is director of books for the archive, he’s helping bring Khale’s vision to life. Miller says that since he was a boy, Brewster yearned to recreate the ancient library of Alexandria, said to house 20-30% of the world’s knowledge under one roof.

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An amazing accomplishment.

How do they handle “copyright”?

http://openlibrary.org/

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14717695

31 August 2011 Last updated at 04:44 ET
Tests show fastest way to board passenger planes
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

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The most common way of boarding passenger planes is among the least efficient, tests have shown.

The best method has been the subject of study for years but now various approaches have been put to the test.

Boarding those in window seats first followed by middle and aisle seats results in a 40% gain in efficiency.

However, an approach called the Steffen method, alternating rows in the window-middle-aisle strategy, nearly doubles boarding speed.

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Not likely that the airlines will change.

And, “We, The Sheeple” will not comply.

I still like my idea of treating people like cargo. Load the plane like the cargo pod. In “long coffins”! Slide the pod on and off the plan.

In the old days, luggage was handled by hand. Now cargo goes in pods.

Why not people?

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