Archive for 2010

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Google Earth’s GeoEye & 360Cities 3D Panoramas

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 4, 2010 by admin in Technology

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Being constantly under surveillance has never been so much fun.


Here’s a quick preview of 360 Cities
with -appropriately enough – Dead
or Alive as a backing track

Do you ever get that funny feeling that someone is watching you? Well if not, you should. We’re getting closer every day to full time coverage of every location on the planet. Between things like the 4.2 million CCTV cameras in England, the way Google has you covered from your desktop to the sky, and the members of 360Cities obsessively creating cool 360 degree panoramas of the planet (see their blog for the latest views), it won’t be long before there truly will be nowhere to hide. Especially with tools like PhotoSynth to put the info all together. You may or may not find this kind of coverage invasive, but you know what? It’s really kind of FUN too. You may have read that Google made a deal with spy satellite company GeoEye last year to gain a competitive edge over Microsoft, Yahoo and other satellite image search providers. What you may not realize though is that the satellite can capture objects 16 inches across from 423 miles up in space! Don’t worry, Google isn’t allowed to use those images, only the NGA and men of integrity with security clearances like Dick Cheney are. And your secrets are always safe with the US government and politicians named Dick, right? In any case, the upside of all of this is that Google has been showing off the images on their Google Earth GeoEye pages. Even if you’re not stunned with the images, it’s a blast pretending you’re shooting the opening titles for a James Bond film by zooming in and out from the Earth, from an orbital view to street level in seconds. Likewise with the 360 Cities panoromas; some of the images aren’t so thrilling, but moving around in them is an entirely new experience, and a cool one at that. See a sample below. Read the rest of this entry »

Why I Don’t Care If The Health Care Bill Passes

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 3, 2010 by admin in Health & Wellness, Politics

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system. But the Health Care Bill certainly will present someone with a bill.

When I’m in a hospital room, I usually have a
hard time telling which way the blood is flowing.

I feel sorry for Barack Obama. Not only will history likely blame him for the long tail of the bank failures and bailouts for which the Bush administration was actually responsible, it will also likely blame him (because of the passage of the health care bill that has divided the country recently) for the continued malignancy that is our decrepit, bloated, and corrupt “health care system”. I put that phrase in quotes because I believe that – as the late Walter Cronkite once said – “America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system“. While a bunch of Democratic congressmen who have nothing to worry about regarding their health care plans sit around patting themselves on the back for passing a health care bill that has supposedly been the dream of generations of Democratic politicians, the fact is that things won’t change for many, and we’ll still be left saddled with the most expensive and least effective health care in the developed world. The bill does NOTHING to fix what any intelligent person sees as the fundamental problem; it might in fact worsen it. Whether you describe the problem as being a result of government meddling and insurance, or as patient overuse of treatment because insurance will pay for it, or as a result of doctors requiring malpractice insurance, you will notice the word “insurance” keeps popping up. The fact is that the mind-boggling arrangements for billing and payment that exist today would be IMPOSSIBLE without the insurance industry supporting its piece of what really is an incredibly elaborate and blatant ponzi scheme being pulled off by an industry and a profession that operates under the ultimate smokescreen: an illusion of benevolence Read the rest of this entry »

Start The Resolutions Without Me

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 2, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

The new year is a great time to make a new start, but use some smarts. And of course, don’t make resolutions for other people. Unless they’re Karl Rove.

With a current national debt of over 12 trillion dollars and with 67% of Americans classified as overweight, I guess it’s fitting that two of the most popular New Year’s resolutions are to lose weight and get out of debt. Why people don’t think of these things the other 364 days of the year perplexes me somewhat, but I must admit I’ve occasionally wished I were Chinese American, so I could have two rapidly consecutive chances to start the year right. I generally get by okay these days with one New Year though, and without making New Year’s resolutions. At least in the conventional sense. I typically review the year that’s ending and plan for the one ahead in a goal-oriented fashion. I also try to make my own resolutions, and not other people’s. I’ll make an exception in Karl Rove’s case though, since this year he felt compelled to make a list of resolutions for all of Washington and none for himself. Here you go Karl, it’s a short list, but will be nearly impossible for you to conquer: 1) Shut up. You’re a smart and influential gay guy, but your intelligence and influence benefit nearly no-one, and 2) Come out of the closet. Instead of getting all weak-kneed and lap-doggish around men of power in Washington, trying doing it at the gay bar once in a while. You’ll be a much happier guy. But I digress. If you made some last minute resolutions, especially in a champagne-induced stupor, rethink things. The basic psychology behind what works and doesn’t work with resolutions is covered quickly in this PychCentral.com piece, and for some thought-provoking ideas for more sustainable approaches to personal change, check out 6 Ways to Start the New Year Doing Instead of Dreaming at DumbLittleMan.com. Personally, I have two broad goals for the year; one is to simplify my life in the interest of being more at peace, and the other is to find a better balance between income and personal reward in my work. These two concepts help me frame a lot of other strategies in my ongoing activities in a positive way. So what about you? Any plans, hopes, dreams, or resolutions for the new year? Read the rest of this entry »

2010 The Year Is Bound To Be Better Than 2010 The Movie

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 1, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, January 1st, 2010

But don’t let that stop you from watching it as you nurse your hangover on the sofa.

Since one of America’s traditional New Year’s Day pastimes is vegetating on the sofa and watching really bad movies as you recover from a brutal night of partying, this New Year, consider tracking down a copy of 2010, the movie. Sure, you can watch the world end in 2012 in 2010 (March 2nd, to be precise), but why not watch a world begin when a movie ends now? Those last few sentences will make total sense if you watch the movie. I experienced a profound disappointment when 2001 rolled around, and we weren’t using e-ink to read magazines or riding Pan Am shuttles to an orbiting Hilton as depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I’ve since adjusted. But I was a little curious as to how the movie 2010 had depicted the future. To their credit, they got a couple of things right (mostly by avoiding showing many everyday devices) but in other ways they were way off. Yes, Jupiter’s moon Europa may have life, and governments still lie and cheat and manipulate scientists’ gullibility, but in the film they still have the US and Russia in a cold war, teetering on the edge of nuclear conflict because of a blockade on Honduras. Who’d have guessed that just five years after the movie was made, the Berlin Wall would come down, and an era of Glasnost would begin? The everyday technology they *did show in the film was a little hit or miss in terms of accuracy. The laptop Roy Scheider’s character uses on the beach isn’t too far off, but the only desktop monitors in the film look sort of like bulky 70′s TV’s that have been restyled by Apple (which is, in fact, probably what they are). The arrival of a thinking, talking computer is still years away in real life (except our artificial intelligence program here on Dissociated Press) so it was perhaps appropriate that the one in the film is the size of an antique china buffet. And it was a little preposterous that the scientist in the movie rebooted the original HAL 9000 in minutes; I’ve spent longer waiting for XP to boot after a crash! All in all, the film is a mixed bag, with some decent acting, scripting, and shooting (although the cinematography looks almost childish in comparison to Kubrick’s 2001) that suffers a bit from 80′s overtones. The counterpart computer to HAL, for instance, is a girl named SAL; scientist Heywood Floyd’s house has dolphins swimming around in indoor pools, and there’s an overall feeling of having borrowed props from the Alien set. But this is just the perfect thing to watch on the sofa with a screaming hangover! Read the rest of this entry »

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