31 outubro 2008

Tendências de hoje

Google:
1. iowa hawk
2. phillies parade live
3. 6abc.com
4. 6abc
5. lzr racer
6. wpvi
7. chase
8. comcast sportsnet
9. nbc10
10. mayan word for golden snake

Twitter
:
Happy Halloween,
#magpie,
#flylady,
Sarah Palin,
Hallowe’en,
Joe,
Trick,
Sterek,
#nanowrimo,
Phillies

Halloween

Best Video Game Pumpkins & Jack-O-Lanterns

Top 5 Halloween Costumes for a Geek or Nerd

Noites com Lua, Vénus e Júpiter


Halloween Sky Show: On Oct. 31st, the crescent Moon will sneak up on Venus for a close encounter of startling beauty. [...]

On Nov. 1st, Venus and the Moon emerge from the twilight side-by-side, Venus on the right, the Moon on the left [...]

The show continues on Nov. 2nd with Venus, the still-slender crescent Moon, and Jupiter arrayed in a broad line across the southwestern sky [...]

Nightfall on Nov. 3rd reveals the Moon transported to Jupiter [...]

As hard as it may be to believe, these nights of dark beauty are just a hint of things to come. The real show begins one month after Halloween when Venus, the Moon, and Jupiter converge on a tiny patch of sky no bigger than the end of your thumb held at arm's length: sky map. Dec. 1st is the best night to look, even better than Halloween.

30 outubro 2008

Uma visão da crise

O difícil jogo entre políticos e jornalistas

Journalists cry foul as politicians put the boot in: Half-time brought no respite in the ill feeling between the two sides and early in the second half the referee brought hostilities to an abrupt end.

His decision, which came after 55 minutes, with the score 6-2 for the politicians, was sparked after a Glasgow Labour councillor reportedly ran the length of the field and brought down a journalist. This triggered a general melee with some reports of punches being thrown by players on both sides.

Afterwards, according to sources, one politician who went into the opposition dressing to try to say “no hard feelings” was shown the door. A post-match lunch for the two sides turned into a rather one-sided affair when only one journalist turned up.

Wassup?

Who's behind the "Wassup 2008" Obama ad? Not Budweiser. The man with the answers? Charles Stone III, the director of the original “Wassup” commercial and the movie Drumline (and the guy who answers the phone in the first frame of the video). He decided to make it about two weeks ago, he told me, with a crew of about 50 volunteers (all professionals working pro bono). They put it together in 9 days.

It was all possible, Stone says, because Budweiser never owned the rights to the idea. He’d originally made it as a short film independent of the brand, and Budweiser had only leased the rights, paying a mere $37,000 for five years of use. Back then, people gave him a hard time about the low price. Now Stone, a diehard Obama supporter, says it’s more than paid off. “That I’m able to use an idea distributed by a huge company, who made a lot of money off it, so that now when I put out what I want to say, it’s recognizable, and it sparks -- that’s worth $1 million to me.”

Os dois vídeos:

A ler [actualizado já depois dos comentários]

Rogério Santos sobre esta entrevista a Chris "Cauda Longa" Anderson (e, já que estamos nos gurus, "Fechem os jornais")

[act.: Revenue Crisis: Here Come The Pro Accounts: Sorry Chris, but free is out again.

Thank economy-wary investors like Sequoia Capital, which terrified its portfolio of startups with a "RIP Good Times" earlier this month. Startups "need to become cash flow positive," Sequoia declared. They must recognize the "need for profitability." "Cash is king."

Sequoia isn't the only VC firm preaching the precepts of profit, so startups are starting to return to a business concept many thought had faded into the past -- asking customers to pay for things. Namely: Pro accounts, plus accounts, premium features, enterprise editions, and white label versions.]

Michael Kenna

75 milhões de dólares para biólogos interessados em evitar a reprodução de gatos e cães

The Michelson Prize and Grants in Reproductive Biology are international and open to any entity from any country.

The Michelson Prize in Reproductive Biology
$25 million for innovation in non-surgical sterilization for cats and dogs
The Found Animals Foundation offers a $25 million prize to the first entity to provide to Found Animals a safe, effective, and practical non-surgical sterilant for use in cats and dogs.

The Michelson Grants in Reproductive Biology
Up to $50 million of grant funding available for research directed to achieving this goal
The Found Animals Foundation will provide up to $50 million in grant funding for promising research in pursuit of a safe, effective, and practical non-surgical sterilant for use in cats and dogs.

Privacidade no Flickr


User Privacy Settings By Geography: A Flickr Study: Red spots note users who have photo sharing turned off (private), green shows users who have photo sharing turned on (public).

The results are fascinating. The US is widely public except for users who seem to be hovering around Utah, and varies by state. Europe, by contrast, is largely private, and more so as you move north. The Middle East is wide open. South East Asia is mixed. India is private.

28 outubro 2008

A partir de Abril de 2009, provavelmente


The Monitor Ends Daily Print Edition: After a century of continuous publication, The Christian Science Monitor will abandon its weekday print edition and appear online only, its publisher announced Tuesday. The cost-cutting measure makes The Monitor the first national newspaper to largely give up on print.

O problema das falsas confissões

The case for videotaping interrogations: Of the 220 wrongful convictions in the U.S. that have been overturned based on DNA evidence, nearly 25% involved a false confession or false incriminating statements, according to the Innocence Project. In each of those cases, DNA proved that the confession was false.

Threats and coercion sometimes lead innocent people to confess, but even the calmest, most standardized interrogations can lead to a false confession or admission. Those who are mentally ill or mentally disabled may be particularly vulnerable, but anyone can be dazed when confronted by police officers who claim to hold unshakable evidence of one's guilt. Some confess to crimes because they want to please authority figures or to protect another person. Some actually come to believe they are guilty, or confess to do penance for some unrelated bad behavior. Innocent people come to believe that they will receive a harsher sentence -- even the death penalty -- if they don't confess.

Destaque? A partir dos 5.30m...

Ironia à francesa: na luta contra a pirataria, quem ganha são os ISPs?

Répression des internautes ou rémunération des artistes? Contre l’avis du Parlement européen, qui à voté le 24 septembre 2008 à 88% en faveur d’un amendement réaffirmant qu’aucune restriction à la liberté d’information et d’expression ne pouvait être imposée sans décision préalable des autorités judiciaires, la ministre de la culture Christine Albanel a exposé, ce mardi 21 octobre, devant la commission des affaires culturelles du Sénat, les principes de la loi Création et Internet. Ce projet de loi sera présenté le mercredi 29 octobre en urgence au Sénat, et prévoit d’instaurer la «riposte graduée», processus par lequel une autorité administrative, la Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet (Hadopi), pourra couper jusqu’à 1 000 accès Internet par jour, sur requête des ayants droit de l’industrie culturelle. Un projet jugé «monstrueux» par l’association de défense des consommateurs UFC - Que choisir, qui s’étonne que la France légifère seule, en parallèle et à l’encontre des décisions européennes [...]

Pour les usagers d’Internet soupçonnés de n’avoir pas su empêcher que leur accès au Web serve à mettre à disposition une œuvre protégée par le droit d’auteur, l’Hadopi appliquera des sanctions allant de l’avertissement écrit à la suspension de la connexion, pour une durée variable d’un mois à un an, cependant que le titulaire de la ligne incriminée continuera de payer l’abonnement à son fournisseur d’accès.

Obama ganhava

If the World Could Vote

Pior que no pós-11 de Setembro

Prime Numbers: Change Is in the Air: More airlines around the world have gone belly up this year than in the aftermath of September 11. Airlines have simply met their match in the high price of oil. Nothing short of a complete overhaul of the industry—fewer carriers, fewer flights, and far higher prices—will keep the world flying.

Foto-arquivo holandês no Flickr




Dutch National Archive photos on internet: The archive will also be posting photographs taken during the First and Second World Wars, as well as images of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) and the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

Indeciso?

Designate: Simply give designate a question, enter some options and designate will decide for you.

27 outubro 2008

Bush é mais Obama do que McCain (na linguagem gestual)


Everyone Has a Unique Body Signature: The moving bar chart shows a comparison of the motion signatures of Senator Obama, Senator McCain, and President Bush as the computer is collecting data.

50 anos de NASA





Top NASA Photos of All Time: 50 indelible images from the first 50 years of spaceflight

O absurdo

Economist Sorry for Comparing Bankers to Persecuted Jews: One of Germany's leading economists, Ifo research institute president Hans-Werner Sinn, has apologized for comparing the current criticism of banking managers in the financial crisis to the persecution of Jews in 1930s Germany. His comments had provoked a barrage of criticism. [...]

Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn had told Berlin daily Tagesspiegel in an interview published on Monday: "In every crisis, people look for someone to blame, for scapegoats. During the global economic crisis of 1929 as well, no one wanted to believe in an anonymous systemic failure. Then it hit Jews in Germany, today it is managers." [...]

On Monday Sinn responded to the criticism by writing an open letter to the president of the Central Council of Jews, Charlotte Knobloch, apologizing for his remark.

"I in no way intended to compare the fate of the Jews after 1933 with the current situation of managers. Such a comparison would be absurd," Sinn wrote.

Poladroid


This version is BETA but really works. New features will be progressively added.

26 outubro 2008

The sky is scrolling


This page allows you to see how the sky is scrolling past our camera during an observation.

25 outubro 2008

Música @ Noteflight

Compose and arrange music online, wherever you are
Share written music with your friends, band, students, teachers
Embed music notation in your own web pages or blog

Do all this and more with Noteflight

24 outubro 2008

Enterrados em dados e números corrigidos

The First Disaster Of The Internet Age: To be clear, the Internet has done many important and useful things for the world financial system. Earnings calls are available to all comers, not just analysts; electronic trading has driven commissions to near zero; trading can happen wirelessly from anywhere at any time. Investors can track stock picks and stock pickers on Web-based scoreboards. These innovations were long overdue. But by accident, the Internet was also an enabler of the current credit crisis. It brought us together, but it also did the reverse, creating communities with narrow affinities. These are often echo chambers where people can find others like themselves—scrapbook makers or train-spotters or builders of exotic new products for the now $668 trillion (not a misprint) derivatives market.

At the same time, in making information free, the Internet has buried us in data, keeping most people from seeing the building credit storm. Rather than turning the world into a global village of empowered investors, the resulting data fog helped some Wall Street wiseguys hijack the global economy as easily as playing videogames—with instant messages and trillions of dollars in complex derivatives.

600,000,000,000,000? It's a number no one questions, but the size of the derivatives market is not as shocking as it looks: The total world market value of derivatives—the money these promises are actually worth today—is more in the neighborhood of $15 trillion. That is still huge, slightly larger than the U.S. economy.

[negritos meus; ambos os textos merecem leitura na íntegra]

Clássicos



Franz Schubert - Symphony no. 8 'Unfinished' 15-10-08
Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony no. 2 16-10-08
Felix Mendelssohn - Symphony no. 4 'Italian' 17-10-08
César Franck - Symphony in D minor 18-10-08
Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 1 19-10-08
Antonin Dvorák - Symphony no. 8 20-10-08
Camille Saint-Saëns - Symphony no. 3 'Organ' 21-10-08
Jean Sibelius - Symphony no. 2 22-10-08
Anton Bruckner - Symphony no. 8 23-10-08
Johannes Brahms - Symphony no. 2 24-10-08

Starting on October the 15th you will be able to download a free recording of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra every day. The recordings are available until the 24th of November 2008.

Rarindra Prakarsa

23 outubro 2008

Caras e vozes


FaceResearch.org allows you to participate in short online psychology experiments looking at the traits people find attractive in faces and voices.

20 outubro 2008

Lawrence Lessig, novamente

In Defense of Piracy: Copyright law must be changed. Here are just five changes that would make a world of difference:
Deregulate amateur remix:
Deregulate "the copy":
Simplify:
Restore efficiency:
Decriminalize Gen-X:

Superpapel

Superstrong 'Buckypaper' Could Be Dream Material: Buckypaper is 10 times lighter but potentially 500 times stronger than steel when sheets of it are stacked and pressed together to form a composite. Unlike conventional composite materials, though, it conducts electricity like copper or silicon and disperses heat like steel or brass.

O que aconteceu ao medalha de prata?


The other man on the podium: When Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave a gloved Black Power salute on the Olympic podium in October 1968 it sent a shockwave through sport. But what happened to the other man on the platform?

Porque vai aumentar o roubo de telemóveis na Grã-Bretanha

Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones: Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

17 outubro 2008

Ainda a economia das hiperligações

Mainstream News Organizations Entering the Web’s Link Economy Will Shift the Balance of Power and Wealth: If news orgs like the NYT, Washington Post, and hundreds of newspaper sites start linking to news and other content around the web in a big way, on their front pages (as the NYT plans) and across their sites, it will have a HUGE impact on the web’s link economy. These news orgs may have been slow to realize how linking drives content distribution and allocates attention and advertising wealth. But now that they’ve figured it out, they can completely disrupt the balance of power.

Fotos de discos

Word Magazine readers have been busy building this map showing where iconic album cover photographs were taken.

16 outubro 2008

E não se pode modificá-los?...

10 reasons why newspapers won't reinvent news

1. Newspapers' core audience still doesn't want change, but they're aging and they like a product that nobody else wants.
2. The culture of newspaper management is a dysfunctional relic of a low-bandwidth, monopoly era.
3. The culture of newsroom leadership contains a fatal 20th century flaw: A fundamental belief that equates all new trends with dangerous "fads."
4. No budget for research, development or training means most newspapers can't see what's coming, don't have the necessary tools for survival and couldn't use those new tools effectively anyway
5. Newspapers don't "own" enough creative technological expertise [...] to constitute a viable tech infrastructure.
6. Inertia, uncertainty and toxic paralysis rule most newspaper companies.
7. Individual ad-reps still make more money selling print ads than Web ads.
8. Newspapers have already lost one of their key selling points: Social currency.
9. The connection between quality and profitability has been broken irreparably.
10. Finally: Newspaper companies hate modern journalism.

Há outras alternativas mas...


Convert LPs Into MP3s: What You'll Need
* LPs
* Turntable
* Preamp or A/V receiver
* Computer with a line in audio jack
* RCA-to-stereo cable
* Audio Recording Software

Relógios em leilão, hoje, incluindo um de Einstein

15 outubro 2008

O mapa da crise

Lembram-se do Chrome da Google?


Calculated from data from 53295 unique web sites on Clicky Web Analytics


Novamente

The revolution of paperless paper (in Plastic Logic)

Gadgets do ano

Top 10 Most Brilliant Gadgets of the Year:
Microsoft Photosynth
Spore
Amazon Kindle
Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
Craftsman Nextec Multi-Saw
Potenco PCG1 Power Generator
Nissan Around View Monitor
M-Spector Digital Inspection Camera
Intel Atom Processor
Caroma Profile Smart Dual Flush Toilet

Contra-acção industrial

Campaigner calls for end to unpaid work in the media: Last week a Canadian newspaper called for journalism students to do the work of its reporters in the event of industrial action.

Meanwhile in the UK, freelance campaigner Mark Watson entered the next phase in his campaign to end such practices, in particular employing journalists on an unpaid basis under the guise of work experience.

Watson, whose own background is in television work, last week submitted his proposals to the Low Pay Commission, which will release a report on working conditions in the media next year.

Pub no cinema

Capas alteradas


14 outubro 2008

13 outubro 2008

Portugal atrás dos Estados Unidos mas à frente do Reino Unido

So which country has the soundest banking system?
1. Canada
2. Sweden
3. Luxembourg
4. Australia
5. Denmark
6. Netherlands
7. Belgium
8. New Zealand
9. Ireland
10. Malta
[...]
40. United States
[...]
43. Portugal
44. United Kingdom

Profundidade

copyright and property of Sean McHugh

Tilt shift lenses enable photographers to transcend the normal restrictions of depth of field and perspective
.

Ver também The Long Way There

12 outubro 2008

Jogo

every second counts: the ultimate waste of time game

Apanhados de 12 de Outubro

2006
Good Blog Writing Style: Write in inverted pyramid style

É o cliente, estúpido!

2004
A brutalidade dum governo perigoso: "O governo só será "duro" numa área, a única que Santana conhece a fundo e que sempre significou o seu ganha-pão político: os "media". Estes são tempos tenebrosos para o país.
E o PS, será alternativa? Cautela também com ele.

Qual é o maior defeito da imprensa hoje? Não gosto de falar no geral [...] mas nas sociedades ocidentais o maior defeito dos jornais é ou a sua submissão ao poder ou, às vezes, acreditarem que podem eliminar o poder, e que o poder são eles.

11 outubro 2008

Jogo

The eyeballing game: The best way to figure out how the game works is to simply play it.

Hoje


International Action Day "Freedom not fear - Stop the surveillance mania!"

Apanhados de 11 de Outubro

2007
Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself

2006
War blamed for 655,000 Iraqi deaths: Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003

2005
E não estão preocupados? Average age of newspaper readers: 55

José António Saraiva sai do «Expresso» [para] assumir um novo cargo de coordenação editorial no grupo Impresa. [...] Henrique Monteiro é uma forte hipótese para o substituir.

2002
Developed countries should not impose ethics on other countries

Why the innocent confess falsely: Perhaps because the falseness of the "facts" confessed to has less importance during the interrogation than the need to confess in order to regain the favor of your interrogators.

FBI Memo Details Pre-Sept. 11 Sloppiness: FBI agents illegally videotaped suspects, intercepted e-mails without court permission and recorded the wrong phone conversations during sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations, according to an internal memorandum detailing serious lapses inside the FBI more than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks.

10 outubro 2008

Cartas na era do email




Return to sender: Artist puts Royal Mail to the test
Harriet Russell decided to lay down a challenge to her postmen and women with a series of brain-teasers

Boa pergunta, com resposta

If we're in the midst of a financial collapse, why aren't executives jumping out of office buildings? [via]

E uma ajuda (obrigado, Tito) e outra reflexão pouco lúdica: Capitalism Has Degenerated into a Casino.

Motores de beleza


IS the woman pictured on the right more attractive than the woman on the left?

Semzines

Magazines win lawsuit against file-sharing website: A collective of magazine publishers from America and Britain has been successful in a copyright lawsuit against a website that invited users to upload and share entire scanned issues of magazines. [...]


Mygazines is still operating - but all the titles involved in the lawsuit have now been taken down.

Estrela

Serrano

Veneno

Apanhados de 10 de Outubro

2007
Na era do email, já é possível personalizar os selos de correio mas...

2006
Depois dos rumores dos últimos dias, está finalmente confirmado: o Google vai comprar o YouTube

2003
O Abrupto volta à análise muito própria sobre jornalistas.

2002
Invasion of the Robo-Editors: Automated news services aren't entirely new. [...]
But none of these sites is really out to eliminate the traditional editorial function.

Do we really need to have copyright? As the high court reviews an extention in the number of years of ownership, consider social and economic costs.

José Sócrates, Cavaco Silva e Ferreira Leite nos blogues (nos últimos mês, dois meses e semestre)