Saturday, December 30, 2006

Rahim Al Haj's Odyssey with the Oud On NPR's All Things Considered, Rahim Al Haj. When he was a young boy in Baghdad, Rahim Al Haj picked up the oud, an ancient stringed instrument that predates the European lute. He brings his oud along for a conversation with Jacki Lyden about his new CD, When the Soul Is Settled: Music of Iraq. website: rahimalhaj.com 7:02:40 PM

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Abe Burmeister on Abstract Dynamics The Second Trap. Clay Shirky on the Second Life overhype. I'm pretty partial to what he terms as "virtual reality is conceptually simple" argument. A large part of that hype I think comes not just from the simplicity, but by how easily it is for traditional marketing people to map their "real world" tactics to Second Life. To develop a web marketing campaign requires understanding of just how the web actually works. Second Life however is close enough to the real world that is very easy to just map traditional marketing tactics over. It's basically a big old baited trap for marketing people who are looking to get involved in the web, but don't quite get how it works... Perhaps more than anything the mistake is in thinking that the value of internet is about what shows up on the computer screen. In fact the value of internet is in how it functions as massive relational database, and whatever shows up on the screen at any give time is thinest of thins skins to a couple datapoints. What ultimately is funniest to me about Second Life though, is how closely it mirrors the cyberspace that William Gibson painted in Neuromancer when he coined that term. I was raised on that vision of the future the same way an earlier generation was promised jet packs and video phones. And when that vision actually became a technological reality, all I can do is shrug and turn back to the real future unfolding in completely unexpected directions. [Abstract Dynamics] 2:16:09 PM

Some Githead Now Sound Structures.. Githead Radio. [The Cartoonist] 1:29:54 PM

Science Video Science. Free Science and Video Lectures Online A nice blog collecting science videos. The most recent post on Cognitive Computing, Consciousness, Science Philosophy and Mind Video Lectures has some hum-dingers. [MetaFilter] 1:26:27 PM

Phoenix; Soul Fire Give me all of your worries, and your pain. let me soothe them all away with my flame. ...continued at Rav'Ns Realm 1:17:04 PM

Wildfire Sun Wildfire Sun. nares posted a photo: This was taken during a nearby wildfire that was creating a very large amount of thick smoke that covered the sun quite impressively. By  (nares). [SPACE.com Amazing Images] 8:07:06 AM

NASA remembers Gerald Ford NASA remembers Gerald Ford. Today, our nation mourns the loss and reflects on the legacy of our 38th President, Gerald Ford. President Ford will be remembered for his fundamental decency and his optimism about what our people can accomplish in the pursuit of ambitious goals, including the exploration of space. read more [Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet.] 7:53:03 AM

Neuronet Virtual reality to get its own network. Neuronet, separate from the Internet, to be launched in 2007 purely for virtual-reality games and business applications. [CNET News.com] 7:42:42 AM

12/3/06 on space.com Moon and Pleiades Star Cluster. nares posted a photo: The Moon and the Pleiades star cluster taken on December 3, 2006. By  (nares). [SPACE.com Amazing Images] 7:29:59 AM