In Plattsburgh, New York, an hour or so from my Airstream's current resting place, the guy who may turn it into a shiny space age retro podcasting studio.
He does need to update his website, though.
Here's a happy customer's blog showing Colin's work.
Even crazy ideas have a pedigree. Here are some good photos of the StoryCorps Airstream trailer, one subliminal inspiration for our future podcasting studio. Ours will be funkier. Our trailer is about 30 years older.
StoryCorps Mobile StoryBooth in Indiana
Last week they invested in solar thermal, this week they are looking at enhanced geothermal.
Google eyes Israeli geothermal firm Ormat | Green Tech - CNET News.com
Green, yes. Technology, yes. But we will also have a shop in the new building for good old machines and tools. Here's a throwback we love.
Introduction to Letterpress Printing
Here in New York:
And their next class:
The Center for Book Arts - Letterpress I: Hand Typesetting
Hulu looks like the next step. Here's a good series from the Sundance Channel for which I would never have paid Time Warner extra money.
Hulu - Power: Big Ideas for a Small Planet
In the new Girls Club building, we will want a monitoring system to track energy use and efficiency. Here's one of the best I have run across, and the Oberlin College implementation of the system.
Lucid Design Group | Building Dashboard® - Civic/Non-profit
Oberlin College Campus Resource Monitoring System - Building Dashboard
(thanks to Richard Leigh at Community Environmental Center for the pointer to his alma mater)
EcoSecurities founder says carbon markets work | Green Tech - CNET News.com
Point Grey Research Inc. - Spherical Vision Products - Ladybug2
From Paul Bourke, the man who invented the technique of spherical mirror projection for hemispherical dome projection.
After seeing a beautiful fractal display in the UNM dome, I've been surfing graphics sites for tutorials. This one has some useful fractal experiments, including one that can be done with four shiny Christmas balls.
And a freeware fractal generator for OS X:
endlos - a multi-threaded fractal generator
Another:
FractalWorks
Good blog of Quicktime VR and panoramic photos.
And another blog of the same:
Starting to take baby steps to making dome movies. Might be fun to preview in a Sketchup dome, as done in this site.
Good site for sky images, pre-formed for domes ( a bit low resolution for the real thing?):
These electric cars are the closest to being useful and acceptable in the looks department of any I have seen. Might actually be on sale soon.
Click More for an email response to one person's inquiry about the cars.
am the President of Green Vehicles and I wanted to respond to your email personally. I have been working for close to 3 years now to develop electric vehicles that are reliable, practical and affordable. My team and I have been working “under the radar” because we wanted to guarantee 100% accuracy to our claims…No hype and no exaggerated promises. I decided long ago that I would not promote the vehicles until I knew that my goals could be achieved.
Our first working prototypes were completed approximately 1 year ago. We tested the prototypes vigorously and made significant improvements in terms of safety, power and functionality. The vehicles are now ready for the American market.
The vehicles utilize the world’s most advance large format lithium battery packs and battery management systems as well as 20 kw – 30 kw AC motors with full regenerative braking. My team of American designers and engineers have engineered the power plant that will go into the vehicles. The structural steel safety cage was designed by Impact Engineering of San Jose California. We will utilize the labor and assembly efficiencies of China. The final QA testing and approval will occur at our San Jose facility.
The vehicles will require very little maintenance. No tune ups, smog checks, oil changes, spark plug replacements, etc. Just service your brakes and tires as recommended. Our lithium battery packs will be monitored by the world’s most advanced battery management system. You will know if there is a problem with any particular battery or if there is a charging or discharging issue. We expect 2,000 cycles for our battery packs (5 years of service on average). Our technicians will be available to you via telephone (same way you would call in for technical support relating to your favorite electronics device). We will also carry and ship replacement parts directly to you or to your local technician. Our detailed user manual will allow your local technician to diagnose and repair any problem you might have. Our 1 year bumper to bumper warranty will cover any defective parts. And yes….we plan on training local technicians as to the few problems that might occur to these very simple and reliable vehicles.
The first production vehicles will arrive in July of this year. We are taking orders now with a 10% fully refundable reservation fee. Alternatively, you and other potential buyers can wait to test drive the vehicles in California by the middle of July. We anticipate leasing as well as selling the vehicles.
Our R&D and Service Facility in San Jose, CA. will be open to potential dealers starting in July of this year. Our other locations will be listed on or website within the next few days. We are currently enrolling new dealers throughout the country and the world and we anticipate that we will soon have a dealer in your area. We will be able to ship the vehicles directly to our customers so you do not need to wait for a dealership to open in your area. If you are interested in opening a dealership in your territory, please check back in with our website shortly and fill out a dealer application.
Our website was just updated yesterday and it will be updated again in a few days. You can print the spec sheets on each of the available vehicles. Please check back in periodically. We hope to be able to deliver a vehicle to you that will amaze you and make you feel good about your decision. We thank you for considering Green Vehicles.
Best Regards,
Ehab Youssef
391 dams in China were damaged in the recent quakes and pose a hazard to populations nearby.
China says troops rush to plug dangerous cracks in dam - Yahoo! News
A simple new app in the "Google Mac Playground", to record using the built-in camera on a Mac and upload to YouTube. Video diaries, comments, flames. Or carry your laptop around as our friend Barry does, to give a tour of your house.
Official Google Mac Blog: Vidnik
Brilliant short film by David McConville, with voiceover by Alan Watts. We saw it yesterday in Albuquerque in the ARTS Lab dome, as it is meant to be seen.
ONS-ntsc.mov (video/quicktime Object) 34.7MB
A week in New Mexico seeing old friends just flew by. The last hour we were there we managed to visit David Beining and get a glimpse of fulldome programming at his lab. Looking forward to the Domefest that he is organizing in Chicago in early July.
ARTS Lab: The Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory
Great tutorials and links from ARTS Lab: ARTS Lab HOW
And getting bigger - to surpass airlines by 2020.
Data Centers Are Becoming Big Polluters, Study Finds - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog
Obama losing white support? No.
Clinton losing black support? Precipitously.
The Field » Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on White Votersť Is Fiction
And uglier.
5 Minute, Dirt Cheap Multitouch Pad - HacknMod.com - Amazingly Cool Hacks, Mods, and Projects.
From Eyebeam in New York, a low cost Multitouch system. We'll do it. Yep.
GroundReport | Indiana | Candidates Help Indiana Newspapers Steal Live TV Market
So I've shot in 1280X720 30P XDCAM format on the Sony PMW-EX1, transferred to Final Cut as mp4 using the XDCAM Transfer app from Sony (actually a rewrap from mxf to Quicktime), edited, exported a movie of the whole piece, then converted that in Quicktime player to AppleTV format for a smaller file and frame.
Along the way I brought old DV footage into the HD cut by converting the digitized DV to HDV with a crop on top and bottom to create the new aspect ratio. To do that I used Compressor. The HDV drops right into the otherwise XDCAM mp4 sequence in Final Cut.
And I took several WMV clips shot in movie mode on a Canon still camera, and (Compressor) converted those to a 1280X720 frame, with better results than I expected.
In a side project, I needed to convert some XDCAM HD raw footage to DVCPRO50 in standard definition and aspect, for delivery in SD. That clipped the sides of the frame off and transcoded the file - again in Compressor.
Now I need to use DVD Studio Pro for the first time to create a widescreen DVD that will play well on a normal DVD player and be shown on a 42" plasma display. In HD.
Here's my first stop to make sure I understand widescreen anamorphic DVDs. Then I'll find the settings for DVD Studio Pro.
The Ultimate Guide to Anamorphic Widescreen DVD for Everyone!