Prof. dr. Wubbo J. Ockels is a Dutch physicist, and also the Netherlands’ original astronaut. He is a Professor of Aerospace Sustainable Engineering and Technology at the University of Delft.
TEDxAmsterdam: Wubbo Ockels from TEDxAmsterdam on Vimeo.
Ockels explains how ‘time’ is created by human beings, as a way our brains can make sense of gravity. The speed of light is constant, because it is made by us: it’s the clock by which we have calibrated our existence.
{ 0 comments }
I received several funny birthday cards yesterday, including this one from my pal David:
David knows how to make Facebook walk and talk and it’s become something of a running joke between us that I can’t work FB into my social life.
Let me say, for the record, that I willingly stipulate that Facebook is a really wonderful tool. I’ve created accounts three times now. And deleted (no easy task) them all. For me, Facebook is like going to my 10 year high school reunion. Every night.
This is where FB aficionados try to explain all the ways you can configure the service to control who you friend and who you ignore, etc. Please. This is not my first rodeo. I know a little something about how to get around online.
My most recent run at FB was solely for the purpose of trying Facebook Connect. It is quickly becoming the de facto way to log in to new social networking sites.
So I created an account (again) and added one friend (David) because it appears you have to have at least one friend. I made every feature private. At least every feature that gave me that option.
Within hours I began receiving “friend requests.” Mostly from people with the last name “Mays.” It’s unlikely they all happened to search and find this minutes-old account, so I assume the nice folks at Facebook blasted out an alert to everyone that shares my last name (“Fresh meat!”)
It’s that kind of shit I just don’t care for. So I canceled the account. Again. But I’m still getting email notifications of “friend requests.” I’m filtering those to trash.
And a final plea to you Facebookers… don’t take this personally. This has nothing to do with you. This is about me (famous break-up line). I hate it when the Group Leader says, “I’d like for you to break up into groups of four,” or “Turn to the person to your right and…”
Too good to leave in comments…
{ 2 comments }
Seth Godin uses a classic clip from the old I Love Lucy TV show to illustrate one of the key themes in his latest book, Linchpin. What happens when the factory goes away?
It brings back not-so-fond memories of the college summer I spent a couple of weeks working on an auto assembly line in St. Louis.
{ 0 comments }
More pix from this game here. Interview with the photographer here. And a really good cheerleader shot here.
{ 0 comments }
I received an email from YouTube this morning, informing me that one of my videos was eligible for their Partnership Program:
“Your video Bernard & Henry’s Tree House has become popular on YouTube, and you’re eligible to apply for the YouTube Partnership Program, which allows you to make money from playbacks of your video.”
While I have no interest in having ads on my video, I was curious how many views it had generated.
It went up in June, 2006 and has been viewed more than 22,000 times. Sort of amazing in that a) it’s just two friends talking about their tree house, b) A search for “tree house” on YouTube produced 71,000 results, and c) I did a really bad job of encoding the video.
I’m going to see if I can find the original video and re-encode. I found it. And I mixed in some clips I didn’t have before. The next work session on Henry & Bernard’s Tree House is this October.
{ 2 comments }
The White Mountain from charles on Vimeo. A nice reminder that the problems facing one tiny planet really aren’t that big a deal. More of the same.
{ 0 comments }
David Johnson (Poynter Online – E-Media Tidbits) offers some insight on how news organizations cover live events like the recent Health Care Summit:
“Big media and broadcasters can’t give lip service to social media and focus on business as usual because their audiences aren’t even listening with half an ear anymore. Instead, they’re increasingly talking amongst themselves as the tools for conversation and interaction become commonplace and easier to use. (And that audience is having a conversation that may be painful for traditional news directors and producers to hear.)
Speaking as a long-time radio guy, we always thought a wall-to-wall live audio feed was as good as it could get. My god, you got to listen to the entire debate/press conference/trial/etc live! What more could you want?
We’ll, “the people formerly known as the audience” want a lot more.
{ 0 comments }
On January 1st I turned i21. I’ve come to think of the age of your body as an arbitrary, even inaccurate, way to measure “age.”
In a study published in the Annual Report for Smithsonian Institution in 1953, scientists found that 98 percent of our atoms are replaced each year. Atoms make up molecules, which make up cells, which make up tissues, which make up organs. 98 percent of the atoms in the body are replaced yearly.
My new birthday sort of slipped past Barb so she decided to fall back on the old date (8th of March) and brought a cake and presents (massage certificate and SI Swimsuit issue) to the Coffee Zone this morning.
The cake was created by Joan at Chez Monet Bakery (next door to the Zone). She somehow managed to create icing that had the exact look and texture of the brushed aluminum body of a MacBook.
It was the best 21st birthday a boy could ask for.
{ 2 comments }
I love WordPress. I won’t bore you with all the reasons. But one very big one is: plug-ins. These are little add-on’s that add extra functionality to your blog/website. Today one of our sites needed a way to display multiple videos on a single page. I found several plug-in’s that looked like good candidates and settled on one called YouTube SimpleGallery. It’s free but I made a small donation to the developer.
I usually test plug-in’s here, to get the hang of them. If you click on the VIDEO tab at the top of the page,you’ll see a bunch of thumbnail images that –when clicked– play the video on YouTube.
You can also configure the plug-in so the video pops up in its own window.
{ 0 comments }
