Diamond Head:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Walk Don’t Run:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks Scott for introducing me to them.

Here’s a video of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco done with a DIY tilt-shift lense:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is the first video I’ve seen using tilt-shift and it’s kinda interesting to see. Thanks to Scott for pointing it out.

This video is from Inspired Bicycles. Be sure to visit them for further details and other videos.

All previous entries and blog listings and posts will automatically redirect to the correspoding blogpost and hopefully RSS feed here.

There may have been a comment or two that was lost but feel free to re-comment.

There will likely be a couple changes here and there as I get thing working to my liking so please bear with me as I work through some of these fun new toys at my command. If you notice anything that is broken please let me know!

Thank you for your patience.

Here is Kacie’s description of her Tweenbots:
Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

Here is a short video showing the little guy in action and some of his helpers:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Be sure to check out her site for more information about her social experiment and how people reacted to the robots.

Today is Engadget’s 5th anniversary! They are the premier stop for keeping up with the latest gadgets. They cover iPods and laptops all the way up to 108″ TVs and robots. Anything and everything electronic that makes you go “oooooo!”

The other thing happening today that you’ll want to look into is The Daily Cup of Tech doing a string of posts detailing 24 free apps that are extremely useful as part of his 24 in 24 series. These are some great apps to take a look at and at least bookmark for later consideration.

I like animation. As such, many friends have recommended Avatar: The Last Airbender to me. I have resisted this in part because I have particular tastes when it comes to animation – Believe me… that’s a whole different post about the advantages and disadvantages of animation as a story telling device versus as a children’s colorful distraction. You can see I have opinions, and I had put Avatar in the later category because of its marketing and presentation by Nickelodeon. Luckily, enough people whose opinion I trusted said I’d like it that I gave it a shot and my only disappointment was that it took so long for me to watch it.

I highly recommend this show even if you aren’t a big fan of animation – though I understand some people just can’t take animation seriously… I feel sorry for them. If you are a fan of good storytelling I think you’ll like this series. It is a bit saccharine at times – it is a cartoon aimed – but it also treats the audience like they have a brain. I’m impressed. I hope more cartoons take this approach.

Also, there wasn’t a single fart joke in the entire series. Not one. No wonder people think it isn’t an American cartoon.

Oh… they are also making a live action movie with M. Night Shyamalan and the original creators working together to make a trilogy (the series is broken up into 3 parts so it makes sense). Hopefully that will work out okay.

There really is no denying that Bill Gates is the ultimate example of someone creating a startup and making it big. Bill is really the reason why computers are so common in homes today. It is also good to see that he is leaving Microsoft to help run one of the largest charitable foundations, which he founded, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Good luck Bill … and thanks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Weezer just extended quite a few 15 minutes of fame.

In the mean time, here are a couple quick topics I noticed recently:

• If you sync any devices to Outlook (like Blackberry, Palm, Smartphone, etc) then you know that duplicates happen. Outlook Duplicate Items Remover is a good answer to this problem and it’s free.

• If you have a Mac and a large collection of movies, books, games or music then Delicious Library 2 is a great way to catalog that collection. The latest version was just released and it has loads of new features and updates (Leopard only though – but you can still buy the older version which is still a great program).  This program is one of the main reasons I love my Mac.

• O’Reilly has released Google Apps: The Missing Manual to help you get a handle on all those new and exciting Google online applications. It includes chapters on Google Docs, iGoogle, PageCreator, GMail, Google Calendar, Google Talk and even a chapter or two about the business uses.

• Firefox 3 RC1 (Release Candidate 1) is rocking on PC and Mac.  I used to prefer Safari over Firefox 2 on my Mac because FF2 was slow and icky, but I’ve fallen in love all over again and it isn’t even the final version. I’ve been using it on my PC and Mac for a few weeks now and couldn’t be happier.

• If you like keeping up on the latest movie releases – especially their trailers – head over to First Showing.  They have done an excellent job of keeping me up to date with the latest movie trailer releases and upcoming release happenings.

• Tropic Thunder looks like it may be funny – but this short clip from MTV Movie Awards of Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, and Jack Black trying to make a viral video is definitely hilarious.

Don’t forget that you can also follow me on twitter, but I hope to get a more regular posting schedule up and running soon. Thanks for your patience!

UPDATE: Firefox 3 RC 2 just arrived. It is available at the same link.

The clip keeps getting yanked from the different hosting services so catch it while you can.

This is what happens when you lack chopstick control. Please practice with your chopsticks so this tragedy can be avoided.

There are few things that have come to mind I thought I’d let you know about.

Apple released a large update to their Leopard operating system.  Lots of fixes and tweaks.  Be sure to run Software Update again after installing because there is a graphics update as well.  Also, open Disk Utility (from Utilities folder in Applications) and run the “Repair Disk Permissions” on your system hard drive.

WHDb.com released an article with the top 50 proprietary programs that drive you crazy and their open source alternatives.  I don’t necessarily agree with some of their “top” picks, but the list is pretty complete. I suggest you check it out when you get a chance.  It is mostly Windows centric, but there are a variety of Apple apps on there as well.

I’ve been using twitter regularly lately and I think I’ve finally settled on a desktop app.  It is called Twhirl and does all the things I liked in the other programs I tried and none of the usual irritations. It will run on Windows and Mac using Adobe AIR (AIR will be coming to Linux soon). If you have a Blackberry, I recommend TwitterBerry. You can find me on twitter here.

Steven Brust has written a short story based in the Firefly world called My Own Kind of Freedom. It is free to download under Creative Commons and it is a nice added episode to the Firefly world.  Yes… the entire crew is in it. It’s a pretty good read and since it’s free you really can’t complain can you? I think it is a worthy addition to the rest of the canon.

Starbucks is leaving T-Mobile and moving to AT&T for their wireless services in their billions of coffee shops.  Current T-Mobile customers will still get 5 years of usage while AT&T broadband customers will have free access to even more wireless locations.  AT&T Cellular customers will be getting the same benefits soon.  Check here for current AT&T wireless hotspots around the world.

It looks like Blu-ray Disc may come out the winner in the HD Disc format wars. Two more big players are backing Blu-ray.  Best Buy and Netflix have both stated that they are backing Blu-ray.  Netflix will no longer refresh their inventory of current HDDVDs and Best Buy will be recommending Blu-ray over HDDVD.  Ars has the details about this latest development in the “format wars”.

As always – if you are looking for distractions, check out My Pownce or the feed to the right. Watch the Delicious bookmarks at the right too as interesting sites I find will end up there as well.

So it wasn’t too boring… was it?

I’ve spoken about Child’s Play before as well as referencing Ars Technica regularly. Well, they’re working together to help provide some Holiday cheer.

As an incentive to promote Child’s Play, for every $5 you give to Child’s Play, Ars will put your name in for a drawing to win some dang cool prizes. Check out Ars Technica’s article for the details or just visit childsplaycharity.org to donate a bit to someone’s happiness.

Have a happy holiday!