I’m excited to announce that I’ve launched a new site. The new site is located at http://www.windows8tipsandtricks.com and will be a collection of free tutorials on the upcoming Windows 8 Operating System from Microsoft along with news and other goodies.
Check it out and let me know what you’d like to see on the site. You can also access it at http://win8tips.co for a nice and short URL.
I just wanted to take a moment today to thank all of those out there who are and who have served this great country. We all appreciate your effort, time and sacrifice and today we all celebrate the rewards of your hard work.
Thanks You!
I’m moved by art. It may be a painting, music, or video. The format doesn’t matter as much as the message and the feeling I get when experiencing the art. I was recently moved by a short film by Tommy Petroni, a 16 yr. old from L.A. His story is a fantastic view of being young. It reminds me how great life and the relationships we have are.
In what seems to be a recent trend for my posts about going green, I continue today with what I see as a really cool and hugely potential offering in the area of green energy. Not many people have heard of or know how to say or spell piezoelectric crystals, yet almost everyone at one point in time have held a Piezoelectric Crystal or PE crystal. Before I let you know what it is you’ve held I want to share a little about the PE crystal and some of its potential.
In basic terms, a PE crystal is material that when it is pressed, squeezed, or vibrated it generates a small voltage of electricity. Alone this isn’t remotely enough to generate any kind of sustainable power, but when you put them together in a collaborative environment then the possibilities start to take form. Think about the vibration that cars make as they drive across a highway. What if we put PE crystals lined underneath the road to collect all those vibrations and turn it into electricity to power the street lamps and signs. You’d still want to have a fail over form of energy to provide electricity for the roads less traveled, but its just one way PE crystals can help us use energy that is otherwise wasted.
Think of possibilities: computer fans that help power the computer, city sidewalks helping power the city, motors that help power the electronics in a car, clothing that turns human movement into charging stations for phones and other electronics in the pockets.
It all may seem a little space age right now, but all it takes is one person to put this to good use and we could have a whole new source of electricity. For more on Piezoelectric Crystals check out Wikipedia or Green Energy Help Files
Oh and now that answer to how has almost everyone held a PE crystal in our hands? PE crystals are used in electric lighters to create the electricity that causes the spark when you push the trigger down. Did you guess right? Let me know and share some of the ideas you have for uses of PE crystals in the comments.
***Update*** May 2011 – India just broke ground on a gorgeous solar-powered sports complex that will harvest piezoelectric energy from the crowds that enter its gates. See more of this great new sprts complex including rendered diagrams here: http://inhabitat.com/solar-powered-piezoelectric-sports-stadium-breaks-ground-in-india/
As a wanna be guitarist and guitar fan I had to share this little gem of a video. Orianthi and Steve Vai definitely know how to shred and do a great job of making the guitars sing on this song.
Not to long ago Mark Cuban blogged about “What’s the next and 1st big broadband Application?” and it got me thinking. Right now all these applications that are requiring huge amounts of bandwidth are nothing more than video for the most part. There is nothing groundbreaking out there. We’ve have TV blasted to us for over 70 years and even in the more recent years High Definition is quickly becoming the norm. So if anything these applications are just trying to catchup with the other media offerings we accustom to.
With the continued improvement in broadband bandwidths we’ll see more and more content brought into and out of the home and office, but why are we building/getting them now?!?
Some comments to his posting noted concerns about not building an application because of bandwidth limitations is the common thought. I’d like to address that from a different direction…if your application or product is so groundbreaking that it becomes a necessity, users will get the bandwidth to use it. The key is to not just make a bandwidth hungry app to use the pipe, but to make it so feature rich and usable that it needs that extra bandwidth.
I would love to see/build the ability to go to CNN(or any other news station) on my TV and watch the live feed or pull up any or all of the segments that I choose right there on demand.
What about a refrigerator that provides you access to the local markets and gives you instant pricing and stock on whatever you need. Even a 3G/wireless approach like the Kindle where your grocery store picks up your wireless tab for accessing their system by closing the sales right then and there at your fridge.
Those are just some of the end user potentials. If you stepped into any corporate office and looked at their systems the opportunities are endless. The efficiency of business in this global economy can improve much beyond Teleconferencing and VoIP. Imagine building prototypes live on a Surface style PC with your marketers and engineers around the world and all the same time utilizing cloud computing to calculate product wear, market share and production costs.
One thing I believe that needs to come first or at least with more broadband applications is a more widespread secure/encrypted traffic. The net is not always friendly and for something to be truly groundbreaking the user will have to share sensitive data. Encrypting all traffic on the web would increase the overhead, but give many users the confidence to utilize the bandwidth in more groundbreaking ways.
Media is always looking for the next great idea or at least the next unique idea. Well I’ve definitly stumbled across a unique one last weekend. Casey Pugh, a mind behind Vimeo has started a new project called Star Wars Uncut in which you can stake claim to 15 seconds of a Star Wars movie that you then recreate in any way you would like. After the entire movie is claimed and produced all of the clips will be compiled to create the most unique version of Star Wars A New Hope ever seen.
If Lucas Films isn’t already supporting this project they need to get their heads right and back them. Maybe help out with possible DVD production after the completion of the project. You’ve got 2000 of the most die hard fans rebuilding a classic. There is no doubt that if cultivated properly this can turn into a fantastic venture bringing old media and new media together.
Hats off to Casey and his team for coming up and executing another great idea.
Have you found another great, unique idea floating out there? Let me know.
I guess this is a perk of being a pro hockey player. All I’ve got to say on this one is sign me up. I’ll puke my guts out and love every second of it.
The first week of Free Agency is done and the landscape for next year’s NHL is starting to have a little more shape. I’m getting more and more excited about the 2009-10 campaign and Stanley Cup hopes for my beloved San Jose Sharks. To add to that excitement EA sports has posted their Game-play demo of NHL 2010. It looks like the programmers over at EA have stepped it up again. Great new features like:
-Board Control (keep that puck next to the board until your teammates can come help)
-First Person Fighting (need I say more on this? ouch! just make sure you don’t punch your TV)
-More realistic blocking of pucks with skaters hands, goalie saves and such
-More realistic crowds with booing, towel waving and more
and my personal favorite
-After the Whistle activities including white washing and roughing players up around the goalies
Watch the video and make sure to pick up your copy up for your favorite game system.
