Giant Torayan

Miles would like this Giant Torayan "ultimate child's weapon."

"...it sings, dances, breathes fire, and follows only those orders given by children.

If unavailable, the diesel-powered Rocking Mammoth will do.

"Anyway You Choose To GIve It (Playgroup Remix)"

Just heard The Black Ghosts' "Anyway You Choose To Give (Playgroup Remix)" on the latest Fader Crew show and, goddamn, is that a badass track...check it.

Good lord, is that a great track.

gDiapers demo at Whole Foods April 29

Kat is holding a gDiapers demo at the Whole Foods Market in Woburn MA this Sunday (April 29)...information over at upcoming.

I will be in attendance manning Miles...so if any of you have babies (or know someone who does) and are interested in learning a bit about gDiapers (Miles' flushable, compostable diapers of choice), you should stop by.  There will be schwag to give away, as well.  And Miles might barf in my face.  Diapers and slapstick!  And another reason to post this picture...



The specifics:

When:
Sunday, April 29, 2007, 3:30 PM 

Where:
Whole Foods Market
400 Cambridge Street
Woburn , MA 01801
781.376.9600

Description:
You're invited to an afternoon meetup with Kat to demo gDiapers, a new flushable diapering option.

gDiapers are designed to keep your baby dry and comfortable and the earth a little happier. The gDiaper system consists of colorful "little g" pants, a waterproof liner, and a flushable insert. After changing, the flushable can be flushed down the toilet, tossed in the trash to decompose, or composted.

Kat will provide some information about how they work & how to use them, and demonstrate the fitting technique on cute baby Miles. We'll meet in the cafe area where we can sit, have some coffee, and let the kids hang out.

Machinima

My friend Albert, currently tearing it up down at Parsons, recently just has a successful opening for his (and his Team Vacancy's) Machinima installation at the Chelsea Art Museum.

"This spring, Parsons The New School for Design will present The Sims™: In the Hands of Artists, an exhibition exploring the world of Electronic Arts’ popular video game, The Sims, April 19-May 12, 2007, at the Chelsea Art Museum. Works on view by students in the Communication Design, Design and Technology, and Illustration programs at Parsons will range from machinima (using a game engine to produce animations or films), physical computing, interactive media, and three dimensional printing to painting, drawing and even toy design. The exhibition is organized by Parsons Communication Design and Technology Department with support from Electronic Arts (EA). An opening reception will be held on April 19, 6-8 p.m. and is free and open to the public."

More on the team's "52 E 7th St" project at Albert's portfolio site.

U IN BIG TROUBLE NOW

I can't get enough of the LOLcats...I LOL'd and ROFLCOPTER'd all over the place

WAIT I WILL HELPS YOU TEYP!

So old, yes, but so good. Neko is built for this (STOP! I IS BUILT FOR LAZURS!)

The Cassini Mission to Saturn

I just listened to a recording of Carolyn Porco's Pop!Tech talk on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn...and was literally in awe at what she was describing.  Even though I was only listening to her describe the mission's up-close brush with Saturn's iconic rings (comprised of house- to dust-sized particles all in perfect equilibrium), the flowing methane-mud lakes on the surface of Titan, and the spewing ice-geysers on Enceladus...I was in complete rapt awe.  I really can't describe it (besides the fact that I've been on a bit of a "wow, aren't we small and insignificant" tear lately).

Her point that the touchdown of the Huygens probe onto the surface of Titan should have be greeted by ticker-tape parades across the globe (" The Huygens probe plunged into a planetary atmosphere farther away from Earth than any other deep space probe has gone before. It was the first spacecraft to land on a moon in the outer Solar System.") but instead was met with one-page news stories for one day is not to be overlooked.

Explore more at the official mission page.

Free CFL From Home Depot on Earth Day

Home Depot is giving away a free compact fluorescent lightbulb on Earth Day (April 22).  Home Depot also seems to have set up some big new "Eco Option" push (more on Eco-Option from Treehugger)...might be worth checking out...

Ecto Test

I am currently testing out the Ecto "desktop blogging" tool for OSx. So far, this looks pretty amazingtasticawesome.

Paperback Swap

Over the weekend, Kat and I signed up for an account over at paperbackswap.com...and so far, I think it will be a really great resource.

I've been wrestling with (and by "wrestling" I mean "thinking about very infrequently") how to handle a limited amount of bookshelf space, coupled with the a desire for more books...plus the knowledge that most books we have will probably never be read again.

I had tried several ways to "move my books on," mostly through selling them on ebay or Amazon. For a while I was trying to set up swaps through BookCrossing, but the process (at least when I last attempted it...probably years ago) was too painful: if someone wanted one of your books, you had to nose through their selection and see if, by chance, they had anything of interest to trade with you.

I was happy to see that Paperbackswap (which my fingers always want to type "paper back swamp") is much more automated. Basically, you post books for the whole of PBS to potentially pull from...if some user has one of your books on their wishlist, they are alerted and they can choose to request it from you. In transacting books this way, you earn "credits," which go towards you requesting a book in turn.

In the course of 2 days, we've mailed out 3 books we will never read (you have to foot the media-rate postage), and i've got the hardbound "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" trilogy on the way.

I have to say that the interface is pretty...daunting (there seems to be an insurmountable amount of buttons, tabs, and weirdly expanding "don't click back or you'll lose your place" widgets), but overall, I think it is pretty cool.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment.

On a day that started out with the news that Kurt Vonnegut Jr. had died, I can rest assured that if we, as a race, don't blow ourselves up (in one "bad afternoon"), there's a good chance we'll experience a singularity ("...self-accelerating technologies will speed up to the point of so profound a transformation that the other side of it is unknowable. And this transformation will be driven by Artificial Intelligences (AIs) that, once they become self-educating and self-empowering, soar beyond human capacity with shocking suddenness.") or perhaps a "Golden Age" ("Humanity catches on that the magic ingredient is
education, and engages the full plasticity of the human psyche,
empowered by hope, information, and communication.") culminating in unfathomable changes 50,000 years down the line (thank you Vernor Vinge).

What I am saying is:  thanks to the Open Culture blog, I uncovered that The Long Now Foundation now has a working podcast feed to send their mind-bending lectures to each and every one of you.  And I urge you to listen in to each and every one of them.

Copycat Baby

For the first time, Miles is copying our behavior. Got home from work, and Miles and Kat were sitting in the living room. Kat tells me that Miles was making raspberry noises after she was, so I tried it:

Me: Phbtttttttttttt
Miles, turning his head, pauses slightly: Phbtttttttttt

It was so great.

Roast a person

Looking to spice up my tuna salad, I turned to Google. Despite its suggestion, I stuck with roasting a pepper. I think person might compete with the tuna.

Ted Talks 2007, filtering in...

I am pleased to see that the TedBlog (the blog of the Technology, Entertainment, Design [TED] Conference) is beginning to filter in talks from the 2007 conference...in your standard audio/video options, plus high-res 480P video.

They've started with three big talks:

2007 TED Prize winner James Nachtwey - "First, as he says: 'The frontlines of contemporary wars are right where people live.' Street violence, famine, disease: he has photographed all these modern WMDs. Second, when a photo catches the world's attention, it can truly drive action and change."

2007 TED Prize winner E.O. Wilson - "he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; and yet we're steadily, methodically, vigorously destroying nature."

2007 TED Prize winner Bill Clinton - "Bill Clinton says he's trying to build a better world to hand to his daughter. Unequal, unstable and unsustainable, our world must correct its course, and private citizens ('like me') can be powerful forces for change."

(Subscription options here.)

Tangentally, this talk from Sir Ken Robinson (from Ted2006) is one of the best talks on the state of education i've heard:  "In this talk, he makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for
creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than
undermining it."

New del.icio.us FF extension

I just installed the new del.icio.us Firefox extension...and it seems like a nice update, with more powerful organization options and a general shot of robustiness (the new sort options are...tremendous).

"The biggest change is that we now integrate all your bookmarks right in the browser.  From the new sidebar you can sort and search your bookmarks instantly, view tag intersections, and even modify your bookmarks.  The new toolbar is also great - you can select what tags you want to see in your toolbar, show all the bookmarks with a given tag, and even view your bundles.  Of course, livemarks and keywords are both fully supported."

WMC 07 Audio Streams

Sorry, had to edit this: It was annoying to have this auto-play every time clampants loaded. Click this, instead.