Category: Interesting

If you ever lost the memory card/stick/whatever for your camera, would you miss it? I probably wouldn’t, as I offload my pictures onto my main system on a nightly basis. But what if you had a years worth of pictures on the camera, chronicling a great deal of your life, and you lost the card? What if a tech-savvy somebody found that camera card, and started a blog with it? From the site’s intro:

In my possession is one (1) memory card from a digital camera. This memory card was found in a taxi in New York City. I have no idea who the owner of the camera is.

The pictures on the memory card were taken over the course of exactly one (1) year in this person’s life, starting July Twenty-Fifth, Two Thousand and Three (07-25-03) and ending July Twenty-Fourth, Two Thousand and Four (07-24-04).

I am going to post one (1) picture here each day. As there are two hundred and twenty-seven (227) pictures, there will be two hundred and twenty-seven (227) posts. The pictures will appear in chronological order according to the timestamp accompanying each image.

As the images add up, I will attempt to assemble an identity for this unknown person. Each day’s new picture will be a fresh addition to this photographic life-documentation. Only with the unveiling of the final picture (the two hundred and twenty-seventh (227th)) will we finally have a full understanding of this person’s life over the past year – at least as far as these pictures will allow us to infer.

Further, in an attempt to present this pictorial information in a more personal manner, and also to better allow for some artistic license, I am going to pretend that I am the owner of the camera. I’ll call me Jordan, because that’s the name on my birthday cake (you’ll see).

A fascinating look into another person’s life. Link via TheDren.

I think Chris has the best idea yet:

If Pepsi and Burger King can give away a free song download with food purchases, why not the government too? Yep, when you vote you get a free song download. Hell, since this voting thing is important, give the people two free music downloads!

Sounds like a grand idea to me!

…make sure you do it in the copy room.

From the BCS to the designated hitter to sudden death overtime, here are 10 things that need to be changed in sports (along with pros and cons of each as well as audio commentary). Link via BBSpot.

“I’m a twenty-something New York escort. I love Prada, Seven jeans, and Jimmy Choos. I’m also totally addicted to Starbucks’ grande non-fat white mocha and working out” Link.

Chris has an interesting rant about how we spend a pile of time (and money, in some cases) learning things in college that we’ll never use in real life. So is Chris using his noggin?:

Biology- have I ever had to dissect a frog in day-to-day activities at work? Nope. I guess there’s that pesky thing called mold causing damage these days, but I’m still not sure if biology class really helped me understand it more.

Chemistry- I’m sure if you’re a budding terrorist then, you probably want to slap me silly for dissing the mysteries of chemical X. Okay, there’s that galvanized nail thing on copper flashing that I can mention. I guess the chems are a good thing to know.

Sorry about the lack of blogging today, as I’ve been stupidly busy with projects at home. Anyway, Barney’s really into this, but still do think it’s pretty cool.

Meteors are unpredictable. You never know, not exactly, when one will streak across the sky.

Not so on Wednesday, September 8th. At precisely 8:52:46 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), northwest of Bend, Oregon, a fireball will appear: a white-hot dot of light, brighter than the planet Venus, gliding across the blue morning sky.

This is no ordinary meteor. It’s a space capsule jettisoned by NASA’s Genesis spacecraft, returning to Earth with precious samples of the Sun, and we know exactly where it will go:

From Bend, traveling 25,000 mph (11 km/s), the fireball will streak across eastern Oregon, brightening as it descends into denser parts of Earth’s atmosphere. At 8:53:35 a.m. PDT it crosses the southwestern corner of Idaho and, moments later, northern Nevada not far from the tiny town of Elko. Finally, at 8:54 a.m. PDT, slowed to a near-halt by the capsule’s drogue parachute, the fireball will fade over Utah.

I know I’ll be looking for this! Thanks Barney for the link.

I mentioned a practice of Astroturfing (though I didn’t know the official term for it) in a previous posting. While I mentioned that it was being done heavily by Bush supporters, as a commenter pointed out, the practice is being done on both sides. Mark Glaser has a great story on OJR about the practice, who’s doing what, and why they’re doing it.

From the article:

Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: “About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He’s happy to have the work. I’m happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I’m telecommuting. Now I’m considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.”

Disturbing, and hopefully the employer(s) never find out about the practice. Link via BBSpot.