TED Talks — Ideas Worth Spreading

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Jerry
2 months ago
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There is this remarkable conference that is held in Monterey, California once a year. It is the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference — otherwise known as “TED.”

TED brings together shockingly compelling speakers and listeners to discuss more or less everything under the sun. The moniker for the conference is “Ideas Worth Spreading.” And…well…that moniker is pretty much right on target.

I’m writing this post to let you know that these lectures are are now available in podcast and streaming forms.

If you have not found TED yet, please add it to the list of replacements for that mindless sitcom on which you waste your precious time. In fact, these lectures are really so compelling that I am sad only that it has taken me so long to discover them.

So, without delaying you further from experiencing that which I have found addictive, I provide the following taste and encourage you to move on from there.

UPDATE: Here is another from 2006.

UPDATE: Here is Al Gore’s new slide show — from 2008:

Pangea Day Banners

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by
Jerry
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Family and Life
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From now until May 10th, this website will be running banners for Pangea Day. Sometime soon, I will write a real post on the event and even possibly propose to host a gathering at our house. However, right now I am exhausted from working way too hard and can’t think any straighter than to encourage you to check out their site. I know that Paula and I are already way too booked for that weekend (she with the Berkeley Opera performance and all), but I will find some way to make the time as it certainly looks to be a worthy devotion of that scarce resource. More later, but in the meantime, two very different tastes….

Paula’s Upcoming Schedule

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Jerry
2 months, 3 weeks ago
in Family and Fun
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I have been meaning to write this post for quite a while. But, alas, I have not had the time. So in an effort to avoid having “best get in the way of good” I will resign myself to the fact that this post will be less than complete…far less.

TOMORROW (Friday, February 22, 2008), Paula will preform at “Video Games Live” at the San Francisco Masonic Center (http://videogameslive.com). This is an offshoot of her recent work for Lucas Arts’ Gaming Unit as a background singer. Previously, sound for video games was limited to synthesizers, then came real instruments and then came real singers pretending to be instruments. The effect is fairly impressive. Well, to that end, the Friday performance will highlight this fusion with full orchestra and full choir in performance that includes laser light show and video game images (motion rather than still). While I cannot attend myself, I am told that it is expected to be quite a performance. A “trailer” for the event follows at the end of this post. You should go if you can.

Next Month (March 15, 2008, 8pm) Paula will be preforming the Durufle Requiem with the Ohlone Chamber Singers at the Gary Soren Smith Center in Fremont, CA.  If you have not heard the Chamber Singers previously, you are definitely missing out.

In May 2008:  Paula will be preforming in Berkeley Opera’s production of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges.

In June, 2008:  Paula will be preforming with a San Francisco Choir at the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  More info on this event later.

Here is the Video Games Live Trailer.

Total Eclipse of the Moon — February 20, 2008

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Jerry
3 months ago
in Fun and Life
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The Americas and Western Europe will be treated to a total eclipse of the Moon next Wednesday night (February 20, 2008).

There is not much to write on the topic of a total eclipse of the Moon, so I will leave that job to others…and merely encourage you to “look up.”

Timing of the eclipse is shown below (all times Eastern Standard Time). Enjoy.

tle2008feb21-ests.GIF

Successful Jailbreak of an iPod from 1.1.3

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Jerry
3 months, 2 weeks ago
in Fun and Life
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So here is a quick note to elaborate what is shown in updates on other posts.

My iPod is out of the Firmware 1.1.3 jail, DRM (Nikita) works and my recently purchased $20 apps are happily working away right next to the “installer.app”.

I used these instructions.  I would commend those that use the instructions to read them all the way through before doing anything.

Also, I must note that the “install.sh” program that I ran in Terminal terminated with errors (something about “failure to create a directory”) and I had to do a hard re-boot of the iPod to get it restarted.  If you have the same experience, I will recommend this….before you do the reboot, wait for at least 15 minutes after Terminal announces that you have been logged out of your iPod.  And then, don’t panic if you see the grey Apple logo for a long time on your iPod….it will go away AFTER a number of minutes (5-10?).  In any event, the instructions worked for me…and if at first they don’t work for you…try them again…following every single step.

Thanks to the dev team and to the drafter of the instructions.  Great work all!