China's Real Wonders

I was looking at Digg and I found this great collection of photos of some of the cool things you see in China. I have seen a few of these sorts of things in person and a number of others which I will have to track down photos for.

Here are the images.

Play Blogger

Recently a little thing for looking at recently uploaded Blogger images was put forth. It is called Blogger Play and has a few controls to mess around with. If you like images this seems like a good way to find interesting blogs. I was actually surprised that more of the images were not interesting. In any case, it is a funny little thing.

The Hole in my Soul

There is a hole in my soul somewhere in Seoul.

I miss so many things at this point. Good food, good speakers, movies, sun, real winter, rain, thunder, chairs, desks, a house, pets, swimming, working hard, not working at all, China, the USA, the world, and some great Koreans.

I think there are so many things to miss but only one or two of them actually matter.

modo 301

Today I started messing around with the new version of modo which happens to include animation features. It is a fair bit faster and has some great new snapping tools. As usual I would like to convince everyone to use modo, it is just that good. 

Searching for Reading

Yesterday the much loved Google released an in line search with some parametrization into Google Reader. It is all AJAXy and stuff so things are good.

Yesterday also, however, Google Reader cleaned all my unread posts which put my on the verge of tears as I had quite a few really great things saved to read some where. In any case now my I have a clean slate to work from.

On another note Google Docs has added some interesting auto fill tools into Spreadsheets. One of the things they have added, which I think is really smart is a tool that uses Google Sets to find its elements when doing an auto fill. I think this is a great use of goggles services. I hope to find a good way to utilize this new tool. They also added some other stuff for programmatically referencing RSS and XML feeds but I have not played much with it yet.

Music for God's Ears

So I was reading around the previously mentioned 6moons website when I came across a listing of some of their favorite tunes. The list is not too long, perhaps about 65 albums, but it is enormously varied and eclectic. If you are interested in this sort of thing, take a look at some of the tracks I think there is something in there to make anyone swoon. 

Here is a direct link. Most can be found on Youtube for a preview and at least some of them can be bought as iTunes Plus tracks if you want a little clearer listening. 

I Love Audio Technica

For the past few years I have been using Audio Technica ATH-EW9 Sovereign clip on headphones and I must say I really am happy with them. They have lasted me well and sound really brilliant with incredible clarity for their size and an easy to drive design, capable of working with even the puniest of portables. 

Recently however, the left phone has started to fail due to a whirring issue. Of course I can probably fix it and will try to do so as soon as possible, but in the mean time I have been looking into all sorts of future solutions and alternatives for my next set of phones. After spending some time looking and reading a lot of 6moons reviews among others I have decided firmly that I will go with Audio Tenchinca once again with either their ATH-W1000 Sovereign, the sealed can older brother version of my current clip-ons, or the ATH-D1000, similar in stature but not appearance to the W1000's, a set of cans with an optical input and an on board custom DAC. I am very happy that I have not had to stoup and buy a set of Sennheiser and I will hold out on getting a set of top end Grado's until I have some extra money. 

Anyone who wants to buy a set of Audio Technicas should go to Audio Cubes, a direct importer from Japan. 

Pecha Kucha

This is movement to present large sets of content in a short time. It is based on 20 communicative images displayed for 20 seconds each. Quite simple.

More interesting is the immense community enveloping this technique. People all over the world have taken this technique and turned it into regular events with a few presenters and some drinks in an evening. Even my current place of stay, the tiny town of Melbourne Australia, has such meetings.

Here you can find some info about the Melbourne event this Wednesday.

Images and Math

Recently an interesting imaging thing has been going around. A technically simple way of resizing images while maintaining their core content. Here is a online example. The original paper can be found here but you have to read them all to find out which one it is. 

I really love graphical math.