Henry shares some beautiful (a poor adjective in this instance) images from his recent trip to Colorado, where he concentrated on Lichen and of the Aspen trees.
“At first glance the colors of the skies, leaves and lichen appear to be too saturated to me, but that is the color they were.”
You’ll also find some amazing new images at Henry’s website.
I first heard about RSS at a Gnomedex in Des Moines several years ago (Chris Pirillo was an early evangelist). Since then I’ve tried Feed Demon, My Yahoo!, Blogliines, Safari… and a bunch of other news readers that I can’t recall. I just never found one that felt right for me. All the while, the list of blogs and websites I read daily kept growing. Enter Google Reader.
I really like this thing. I’m on two or three different computers in a typical day so I want/need something web-based. I like the UI for the same reasons I like Gmail. And I can already see that I’m able to scan more sites in less time.
Written last month, this straightforward account of life in Iraq by a Marine officer was initially sent just to a small group of family and friends. His honest but wry narration and unusually frank dissection of the mission contrasts sharply with the story presented by both sides of the Iraq war debate, the Pentagon spin masters and fierce critics.
Biggest Outrage — Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest Offender: Bill O’Reilly.
Best Chuck Norris Moment — 13 May. Bad Guys arrived at the government center in a small town to kidnap the mayor, since they have a problem with any form of government that does not include regular beheadings and women wearing burqahs. There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the Bad Guys put down his machinegun so that he could tie the mayor’s hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machine gun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can’t fight City Hall.
Take a couple of minutes to read the entire letter.
Dr. Everett Mobley blogs at Your Pet’s Best Friend. He started in September and his posts just get more and more interesting and informative.
Now look at your dog. Notice the parts that look wolf-like and the parts that don’t. What kind of a wolf percentage do you have? Chances are that the lower your wolf-score, the more built-in problems your pet has.
You never know who’s going to be a good blogger. By “good” I mean someone who posts frequently and writes in an open and personal voice. I confess that I find it very gratifying to play even a tiny role in helping someone get started blogging. YPBF is a must-read for anyone with a pet.
Jeff Jarvis points to examples of how some newspapers are trying to survive in the online world:
DelawareOnline is reorganizing the paper’s newsroom to be platform agnostic. A few years ago, only four people could post on the web but now 50 can and the number of web updates skyrocketed. They are a small paper and so they are not throwing staff at this; they are throwing simplicity at it: They are using iMovie and GarageBand to produce multimedia. He said that they have had four people leave because multimedia is not for them. I see that as a very good thing. Welcome to the future, newsroom. Says Paul: “There is no online department. It has ceased to exist. We are the online department. The newsroom is the online department.”
News organizations that are unable or unwilling to grasp this and make the transition will die.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Google’s plans to begin placing radio ads by the end of this year remain on schedule, contradicting recent talk within the industry that the company had postponed the project.
“The tests are going extremely well,” said Schmidt, who added Google eventually plans to employ about 1,000 workers in its radio division. [E-Commerce Times via Hear 2.0]
Recorded October 6, 2006
Radio Iowa News Director (and blogger) O. Kay Henderson heard White House Press Secretary Tony Snow doing a radio commercial on a Des Moines radio station this week and found it blog-worthy. The New York Times liked the story too:
“Just imagine, you’re listening to the radio, Tony Snow has been speaking to you as the spokesman for the leader of the free world, and then a commercial comes on with him trying to sell you a window,” Ms. Henderson said Thursday. “He introduced himself as Tony Snow, talked about the travails of remodeling projects, boasted about the 30-year history of this business and delivered the 800 number of the business, twice.”
My favorite quote from the story was by Mr. Snow: “It’s like, you don’t have the White House press secretary flacking siding.”
I suppose Kay could have done a “human interest” piece for our network but this is perfect blog-fodder. Not a big deal, just interesting. And how many reporters heard the White House Press Secretary shilling windows on the radio and didn’t think to follow up on it?
Brilliant improv by Billy Bob Thornton (Karl from Sling Blade) and John Heder (Napoleon Dynamite). If the producers of School for Scoundrels (their new movie) were smart enough to put this clip on YouTube, then they’re smart enough.
The Micro Mosquito from Interactive Toy Concepts is a tiny high-tech toy helicopter that flies like the real deal. This radio-controlled copter can soar, dive and even hover in place. Available now at Radio Shack for $70, the Mosquito is rechargeable and flies for about eight minutes on one charge. This indoor toy includes a controller and a landing pad that doubles as a recharging platform.
The entire helicopter is six inches long with rotors 6.3 inches in diameter, and weighs less than an ounce. You can launch the Mosquito from any surface — a table, a hand or the floor — and it has two beady green L.E.D. eyes for night missions. It is made to work in small spaces but is susceptible to breezes and fans, making flights a bit dangerous if the window is open. (NYT)