Category: Technology

All things geeky.

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Today’s Cool Video

I really like the music in this video by Graffiti Researd Lab showing LED Throwies. Well composed!

A Throwie consists of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused LED and a rare-earth magnet taped together.

From the Make:Blog comments. One commenter questions the environmental impact:

what do you think the ecological impact of peppering the landscape with a handful of lithium batteries is?

And another bemoans the waste of good electronics:

It seems a shame to have the still good magnet and still good LED slaved to a dead battery halfway up a wall.

Source [Instructions to make your own]

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Saving the Internet

Alright! Let’s hear it for Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.)! A politician that understands with the telcos are doing. Earlier I posted "Large Telcos Want To Kill The Internet". Rep. Rick Boucher explains:

Essentially, what these executives are proposing is the creation of a two-lane Internet where larger, more established websites with financial resources could squeeze out smaller, emerging websites. …

Internet2, a nonprofit partnership of universities, companies and affiliate organizations, including federal agencies and laboratories, has been studying this matter and has demonstrated that a multitrack Internet model is unnecessary to assure quality of service. Internet2 has for the past seven years deployed an advanced broadband network to more than 5 million users and has learned that in a network with enough bandwidth there is no congestion and no bits need preferential treatment because all of them arrive quickly enough to assure excellent quality, even if intermingled.

I find it somewhat sad that our speed over the last mile, that is from the switch to the house, is so slow.

In countries such as Japan and Korea, network speeds over the last mile of 100 megabits per second (mbps) are common. In the United States, our typical speed is less than 1 mbps.

Special thanks to Tom Maszerowski of My Likes and Dislikes for pointing out Rep. Rick Boucher!

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Large Telcos (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc) Want to Kill The Internet

If you aren’t following, haven’t heard, or don’t understand the news about the large telecommunications companies wanting a “tiered Internet,”

“We don’t want to replicate the cable model on broadband Internet,” Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based advocacy group focused on digital rightssaid. “We don’t want the Internet to turn into cable whereby the pipe owners decide on content and services.”

then this hypothetical conversation from 2019 should help.

Consumers should, and do, want Internet Freedom.

Net Neutrality is also supported by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, considering it (Net neutrality) one of the most pressing technological issues:

“Our open and vibrant and free-wheeling Internet is the last place where we should allow toll bridges to be erected. Every American has a stake in how this turns out.”

Ben Scott, policy director of the media reform group Free Press:

“These pricing schemes are simply poorly disguised discrimination. Requiring Internet companies to pay for high-speed access to the Internet when they’re already charging consumers for the same service means consumers will ultimately pay twice.”

“The scheme will stifle innovation and competition by effectively denying access to start-ups that can’t afford to pay for access to high speeds.”

Get ready to contact your representative!

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Gmail for your domain

So you own a domain. Technically you control a 2nd level domain. A TLD is .com .net .edu and so forth. These are controlled by ICANN but that’s a whole different discussion. Back to "so you own a domain." For instance, I have control over http://siliconholler.com/. I was able to create a third level domain to house this blog at http://blog.siliconholler.com/. With my hosting I have the ability to create email accounts that end in @siliconholler.com so that I could have info@siliconholler.com, sales@siliconholler.com, billyjoebob@siliconholler.com and so forth. But that means I’m limited to the capabilities and rules set forth by my web host and their email server. That might mean I can only have 3000 email addresses (which is the case with my kickin’ hosting at 1and1.com). What if I wanted more? At no cost! Google has introduced its beta program, by application only, to Gmail for your domain.

This special beta test lets you give Gmail, Google’s webmail service, to every user at your domain. Gmail for your domain is hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.
Gmail – 2 gigabytes of storage and search tools that help users find information fast.
Control Panel – Easily manage user accounts, aliases and mailing lists.

Note: Not everyone that applies will be accepted into the beta program. I would assume the more users your organization wants to use the more likely you will be accepted into the program.

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iTunes – the open source version

Songbird is an open source alternative to services like iTunes and Windows Media Player. Read more on BoingBoing. The names behind this are big including people who helped build Winamp (Rob Lord), Muse, Yahoo’s “Y! Music Engine” media player, and developers from Mozilla Foundation.

The app acts like a specialized web browser for music. It sees the online world through MP3-colored glasses…

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Satellite Technology Is Amazing!

If google and other services can provide such detailed satellite imagery, can you imagine what the government can do? I bet the NSA can read your newspaper at the breakfast table! From Google Maps you can see the transformer that blew out yesterday giving us a few hours of no electricity. That white line running over the road and over the blue car is the powerline. Yes! A satellite took a photograph that picked up a cable that must be no larger in diameter than a roll of film. That white dot in the trees just left of the blue car is one transformer (it’s blown out twice in 8 years) and if you continue to follow the line left (West) to the end of the street you can find the transformer that blew yesterday. Granted, it had the aid of a tree. What is remarkable is this photo has to be several years old because we have since had a new roof put on the house.

I wonder what kind of lists you get put on when the NSA sees your website in their referral logs.

UPDATE: I’ve had it explained to me that this level of photography is done by plane not satellite. Btw, apparently the link doesn’t bring you in at the maximum zoom level. So zoom in as much as you can.