Proving that there is a market in almost everything, Infinite Hoops allows you to find or schedule pickup basketball games. About 15 years and a blown out Achilles’ Tendon late for me, though.
Meanwhile, Zoomii is a slick virtual bookstore for Amazon books. Zoomii is a real world bookstore that allows you to browse through Amazon books just as if you were wandering through Border’s or Barnes & Noble. Zoomii – Virtual Bookstore for Amazon Books.
The Web is truly amazing.
Check the following out on Google Earth. Go to "Tools" in the top navigation bar, click "Options" and then the "Touring" tab. Down below, you will see "Driving Directions Tour Options. " Input the following settings:
Click "Apply" and then "OK" to close out that box, then hit the "Directions" tab in the "Search" box on the upper left side of the Google Earth screen. Input a couple of addresses in your community and then allow Google Earth to prepare the directions for the route between those addresses. After Google Earth prepares the directions, hit the play button just below the directions. Then, sit back and enjoy the ride! (H/T GoogleEarthHacks.com).
Following up on this post from awhile back, don’t tell the folks at MIT that the prospects for mankind are gloomy. Check out this MIT News article that resulted from the institute’s news office asking a collection of MIT faculty and researchers for their thoughts on the potentially life-altering technologies that are just around the corner.
Despite what the presidential candidates say, it’s not all that bleak out there, folks!
Don’t tell Ray Kurzweil that we ought to be all gloomy about the prospects for mankind. This WaPo op-ed reflects that he is downright bullish:
MIT was so advanced in 1965 (the year I entered as a freshman) that it actually had a computer. Housed in its own building, it cost $11 million (in today’s dollars) and was shared by all students and faculty. Four decades later, the computer in your cellphone is a million times smaller, a million times less expensive and a thousand times more powerful. That’s a billion-fold increase in the amount of computation you can buy per dollar.
Yet as powerful as information technology is today, we will make another billion-fold increase in capability (for the same cost) over the next 25 years. That’s because information technology builds on itself — we are continually using the latest tools to create the next so they grow in capability at an exponential rate. This doesn’t just mean snazzier cellphones. It means that change will rock every aspect of our world. The exponential growth in computing speed will unlock a solution to global warming, unmask the secret to longer life and solve myriad other worldly conundrums. [. . .]
Take energy. Today, 70 percent of it comes from fossil fuels, a 19th-century technology. But if we could capture just one ten-thousandth of the sunlight that falls on Earth, we could meet 100 percent of the world’s energy needs using this renewable and environmentally friendly source. We can’t do that now because solar panels rely on old technology, making them expensive, inefficient, heavy and hard to install. But a new generation of panels based on nanotechnology (which manipulates matter at the level of molecules) is starting to overcome these obstacles. The tipping point at which energy from solar panels will actually be less expensive than fossil fuels is only a few years away. The power we are generating from solar is doubling every two years; at that rate, it will be able to meet all our energy needs within 20 years.
I just thought I’d toss in that third paragraph for those in the oil and gas industry that believe that a period like the mid-to-late 1980’s can’t happen again. Meanwhile, light, sweet crude oil futures for May delivery settled yesterday at $111.76, a new record, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Jessica Hagy has had a smart blog for awhile. Now, she has a smart book. Barry Ritholtz provides a taste of her work. She is a very insightful lady. Enjoy
Have you checked out Guy Kawasaki‘s new venture, Alltop? If not, you should. Guy is adding categories and new links frequently, so Alltop is turning into a great launching pad for finding informative blogs on a wide range of topics. Check it out.
Check out WinkingSkull.com, a worthy counterpart to the Visual Medical Dictionary (noted earlier here) in better understanding anatomy and medical conditions.
Along those lines, did you know that “the bacteria count in the plaque on human teeth approaches the bacteria count in human feces?” (H/T Kevin, MD)
Still biting those fingernails? ;^)
When I’m going to be involved in telephone conferences with folks overseas, I am constantly wondering what time of the day it is for them. This website helps me.
On Dwight Silverman‘s recommendation, I’ve been checking out Twitter over the past couple of weeks and am impressed with it. Although people use it in different ways, Twitter is essentially a social networking and instant communication network. This interesting site called Twittervision provides a quick visual of Twitter’s power and potential. Check out Twittervision and give Twitter a try.
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