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Cory Doctorow:

This is a great roundup of how many of which sort of domain has been taken — every combination of up to three letters in .COM is taken and there’re precious few four-character .COMs remaining. Most of these domains are “parked” and unused. The most popular domain-length is 11 characters, and there are 538 63-character domains registered, including DIDYOUKNOWTHATYOUCANONLYHAVESIXTY - THREECHARACTERSINADOMAIN - NAME.com. Also in the survey is data about how many of the names found in the US Census are taken (all the male names, all but a few of the female names and all 10,000 of the top surnames). The survey goes on and on, with data on how much of the “ILOVE_____.com” space is taken, which characters are most commonly found at the start of domain names, and so forth.

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Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on April 4, 2006, 3:27am

Originally from BLDGBLOG on April 4, 2006, 10:57am

Originally from New Art on April 4, 2006, 6:46am

Originally from New Art on April 4, 2006, 4:41am

Reuters - Tired of playing second fiddle to men in
conservative Saudi Arabia, five women decided if you can't beat
them, join them.

Originally from Yahoo! News - Oddly Enough, ReBlogged by fruminator on Apr 3, 2006 at 02:14 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on April 3, 2006, 2:14pm

[Images: All but perfect for album art, these are new photos of Jupiter's South and North poles, respectively; see also this ridiculously beautiful landscape scroll of Jupiter unrolled into a ribbon. Meanwhile, one wonders if you could actually be alone there, flying through hydrogen storms, breathing helium, reading Ovid, self-exiled... In any case, does Jupiter sound like this?].

Originally from BLDGBLOG on April 3, 2006, 11:09pm

a visualization of the textual conversations taken from the political & religious newsgroups as the isobars of a dynamic, interactive weather visualization of hurricanes. as a result, users are able to zoom in or out & skate across & through the cyclonic weather formations in order to read or be immersed in the newsgroup text.
[reconnoitre.net & |thnkx Regine!]

Originally from information aesthetics on April 4, 2006, 1:02am

Despite all the leaps and bounds of recent years, the search for a cheap and reliable live audiovisual sequencing set-up has become somewhat of a holy grail for aspiring AV-heads. Video tends to suck more machine juice than audio, and video software usually lags somewhat behind audio software advances. Still, 2006 has already brought quite a few promising advances, bundled below.

Back in the Day
As early as 1991, Emergency Broadcast Network were kicking the live AV and video album concepts. EBN co-founder Joshua Pearson is still editing pixels, and maintains an archive of EBN’s better clips, and his more recent solo material. The EBN live version of ‘Get down’ is pretty fine, nicely juggling Harrison Ford, TV cop show footage, a screeching Mariah Carey and EBN running raucous on stage. And yes, the original EBN VideoSampler (mac) is still downloadable to play AV loops with. An abundance of playful software now exists, but is mostly limited in terms of it’s scope for AV improvising. See Spanky’s Sydney-made downloadable shockwave instruments from the late 90s, and the more recent Flash based Pianographique And yes, shout-outs to the ‘Realtime-Mind-Music-Video-Re-De-Construction-Machine’ that is Scrambled Hackz, surely linked to by everybody now, and which can make interactive music video sets based on analysing beatboxed sounds. Very cool, if somewhat limited in scope. And while advanced software like Max/MSP can let you build your own AV sequencing software, it is beyond where most artists want to take their coding fingers.

Audiovisual Hardware
Pioneer’s DVJ-X1 DVD turntable helped bring DVD resolution, loopability and non-computer-crashness into the AV mix but still remains too expensive for most. More dangerously, it probably also helps the spread of mtv jukebox candy supplied by the likes of Hexstatic (when they play live in Australia ), or Eclectic Method (see video ). Why does the world need cleanly mixed music videos already on round the clock television rotation? Bringing some more noise, is the recent Numark AVM02 Audio/Video Mixer with effects, providing good hardware controls for audio and video in one mixer. Also recent by Numark, the tiny VJ01 Tabletop DVD/CD/MP3 Player which has a built in tilting preview monitor a well as pitch sliding and seamless looping. The Korg Kaptivator seems interesting, allowing up to 106 minutes of video to be mapped to 16 pads for triggering, and with a variety of effects, signal routing and live camera input etc, but is of course quite expensive also. Video gear is breeding yes, but as it lags behind with sequencing, inevitably folk be turning to audio sequencers and slaving their pixel gear to that.

Sequencing Video With Ableton Live
By no means, is the challenge to produce compelling live audiovisuals merely a technical one. The ability to sequence events however, definitely makes the job easier, and although video tools like AVdrum (audio video step sequencer and drum machine) and Flowmotion 2.8 ( mac & PC - now with trigger sequencing that can be atttached to any parameter ) do have some sequencing ability, they remain primitive in comparison to the flexibility of Ableton Live. Even AV pioneers Cold Cut are hooking up their VJAMM software with Ableton Live. Over at the vidvox software forums, Spark (UK) posted an excellent ‘how to guide’ for welding together Ableton Live’s sound sequencing software with video software and midi hardware, to create a versatile beat-synched audiovisual set-up. Says Toby ( Spark ):

“I use Ableton Live as a sequencer for the whole show, triggering the audio and video alongside the hands-on mixing within Ableton and the vj app….. I am trying to create a show that is somewhere between a dj/vj set and cinema – a fusion of music, sound design and visuals. I’m more interested in motion graphics that create an audiovisual rhythm and imagery and soundscape in harmony than see-the-dog-hear-the-dog, but there’s bits of that too.”

Fresh meat on top? A new VST plugin which enables playing of video in Ableton Live, found via Quartonian. Vidvox, the makers of VDMX and Grid Pro have been busy on the sequencing front too. With a fresh new Grid Pro beta out ( which much better harnesses OS X and the graphics card rather than CPU), they’re nearing release of a new VDMX beta. As resident coder Mr.Ray describes:

“You’ll be able to set up a “timeline” that lets you basically score an entire performance, and give the performance by playing back the timeline (timeline as a sequencer), or you’ll be able to put together a timeline like you would in a traditional non-linear editor, and render the timeline out to disk.”

Which should be good news to any ‘live cinema’ fans – such as VJ Falk who has started a blog dedicated to a new ‘live cinema project’, or Timothy Jaeger whose quite excellent and ‘live cinema’ encouraging VJ Book is now available as a cheap PDF ( review coming soon).

Tags: improvising, av, cold cut, ebn, ableton live, midi video, numark, korg, vst video, scrambled hackz, live cinema

Originally by jean poole from { { { { - - Sky Noise — >>> on April 4, 2006, 2:36am

a physical ambient visualization device that displays the amount of energy that is spend in a household. the device consists of 2 parts: a sensor near the home’s energy supply that measures how much power is consumed & a wireless display that conveys this information numerically & by brightness level. as colored lights & patterns shine through the material, the device can be used as more than just an energy monitor, for instance as an ‘intelligent’ mood light in the evenings or a ‘last check’ when leaving the house. see also power socket visualization & power-aware cord.
[diykyoto.com|via inhabitat.com]

Originally from information aesthetics on April 3, 2006, 7:29pm

There are a bunch of video sharing services out there, but Eyespot is quite possibly the first online video editor.

Like most of the other services, Eyespot lets you upload your clips and share them with friends, but Eyespot also lets you edit your video clips: trim them, mix them, and add soundtrack. You can then post your video to your blog and even send them to your cell phone, if supported.

What are your favorite video sharing services? Let us know in the comments or to tips at lifehacker.com.

 
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Originally from Lifehacker on April 4, 2006, 10:45am

Just-launched search engine Pixsy indexes images and videos from RSS feeds all over the web.

Pop in your search term and Pixsy returns image and video results in an attractive Ajaxy interface with a neat overlay displaying the image or video still, its keywords and source without ever refreshing the page. Pixsy’s feed sources have to get better - no images are returned for “lifehack” - but it’s already fantastic for cute puppy pictures and video clips.

 
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Related: Better YouTube search: Qooqle Video
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Originally from Lifehacker on April 4, 2006, 11:00am

Apple released an update to Mac OS X today, upping the latest version to 10.4.6. Reader Adam writes in:

I like running softwareupdate in the Terminal so I don’t get a popup that won’t go away reminding me I need to reboot or shut down. Running in the terminal lets me continue to work and reboot on my own terms. The command is:

sudo softwareupdate -i -a

and will install all available updates.

Fabulous. I hate having to reboot when Tiger says so. Thanks, Adam!

 
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Related: Pimp your Camino
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Originally from Lifehacker on April 4, 2006, 12:20pm

If you’ve ever been interested in learning more about Flash, Flash developer Lee Brimelow is hosting several very cool, in-depth Flash tutorials for the beginner at his web site, gotoAndLearn.

If there’s something Flash-related you’d like to learn how to do that you can’t find in the current tutorials, you can also request a new tutorial. As this is the kind of stuff you often would have to pay for, gotoAndLearn looks like an excellent resource for the Flash newbie.

 
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Originally from Lifehacker on April 4, 2006, 12:00pm

If you’ve ever had to re-install Firefox, or you’re installing Firefox for the first time on a new computer, you know it can be a pain to hunt down and install your favorite extensions. This week, I’m going to try to relieve some of that pain using previously-mentioned Firefox extension Mass Installer.

The Mass Installer extension reads a list of extension URLs from a text file and automatically installs them all in one fell swoop. Obviously that’s pretty handy, but you still have to hunt down the URLs of your favorite extensions and paste them all into a text file, and who has time for that?

To be honest… I do. So, to make things really easy on you, I’ve packaged several of the best Firefox extensions for basic use (the must-haves for any user), blogging, web development, and performance enhancement in four separate packages that you can quickly and easily install with the Mass Installer extension.

First, install the Mass Installer extension. After that it’s really easy to install the extension packs. Just go to the Mass Installer options (go to Tools -> Extensions, select Mass Installer and click Options) and enter the URL of the pack you’d like to install (see URLs below). Click OK and Mass Installer takes care of the rest. Once you restart your browser, every extension in the pack should be installed to Firefox. Mass Installer will check for updated versions of the extensions on restart, so even if the extensions get old, Mass Installer has got you covered. Simple, right?

Now lets get to the extension packs. As I said, I’ve put together four separate packages: Basic, Performance, Blogger, and Web Developer.

Basic extensions pack (the must-haves):

• SessionSaver
  THE must-have extension for anyone, SessionSaver saves your browsing session so that you can easily return to where you left off when browsing (even if you accidentally close your browser or it crashes). This is the absolute first extension I install.
• BugMeNot
  No matter who you are, you’ve probably run into a registration roadblock. The BugMeNot extension integrates with BugMeNot.com so that the registration hurdle seems more like an imperceptible bump.
• LastTab
  Makes Ctrl-Tab (Cmd-Tab for Macs) cycle to the most recently viewed tabs, mimicing the behavior or Alt-Tab.
• FoxMarks
  Quickly restore your bookmarks to exactly how you like them.

If you read Lifehacker at all, you’re well aware that there are loads of Firefox extensions out there to extend Firefox to terrific new heights; however, they’re certainly not all necessary. Regardless of what I’m using Firefox for, the basic pack contains the extensions that I want to have running no matter what.

Basic user extensions text file for Mass Installer

Performance extensions pack:

• Flashblock
  Flashblock knocks out all Flash content on a web page, allowing you to choose what flash content is loaded.
• AdBlock
  Filters ads from webpages.
• Image-Show-Hide
  Clicking a button in the toolbar or pressing Shift-Z toggles all images on a web page on and off.
• FasterFox
  Performance and network tweaks designed to make browsing faster.

The performance pack should come in handy for those of you who don’t like all that messy multimedia screwing with the speed of your browsing. The extensions included in this pack are intended to make browsing with Firefox as snappy as possible, minimizing bandwidth use.

If you’re working with a dial-up connection, check out Gina’s excellent guide for surviving a slow internet connection for more tweaks after you’ve installed the performance package.

Performance extensions text file for Mass Installer

Blogger extensions pack:

• Signature
  If you’re sick of typing the same HTML mark-up or the same signature at the end of every post, the right-click Signature extension is a life saver.
• Auto Copy
  Every time you select the text you’re heading straight to Ctrl+C anyway; Auto Copy lets you skip that step.
• How’d I Get Here
  As a considerate blogger, I’m sure you include your via links. However, if you’ve forgotten from whence you came, How’d I Get Here will remind you.

This one’s for all you bloggers and web writers out there. Most of these extensions came from Gina’s excellent Turn Firefox into a web writer feature, with a couple added extensions that make my life writing on the web a lot easier. (Unfortunately a few of the extensions from Gina’s web writer post, namely Scribe, Spellbound, and Resizeable TextArea, aren’t compatible with Firefox 1.5.)

Blogger extensions text file for Mass Installer

Web Developer extensions pack:

• Web Developer
  Adds a toolbar and menu with an incredible slew of useful web dev tools.
• IE Tab
  Lets you load a page in Internet Explorer embedded in Firefox - very useful for testing pages across browsers.
• ColorZilla
  Eyedropper tool extraordinaire ColorZilla lets you grab a color from any page and more.
• MeasureIt
  Handy ruler tool that lets you easily size up you page.
• Greasemonkey
  Though useful in several other contexts as well, Greasemonkey can be a great way to try out scripts when you’re developing.

There are several excellent extensions available for the web developer, but I’ve included just a few essentials that I like to have in my web dev toolbox.

Web Developer extensions text file for Mass Installer

In the end, these packs should help cut down on the time it takes you to get started with a new Firefox installation without having to hunt down all the necessary extensions every time. Since I use most of these extensions, I’d probably install all four packs, then remove any excess extensions. It’s a lot easier to remove a couple of unwanted extensions from a list than it is to get every extension one-by-one. If you’d rather do the same, here’s an extension pack containing every extension listed above:

Combined extension pack

Let us know what you’d add or remove from the extension packs, as well as what other packs you might put together. Obviously these packs will may be incomplete for many of you (I tried to avoid making the packs too bloated, keeping them as universal as possible), so they’re probably missing out on a couple of extensions you rely on every day to operate.

If you want to add your own extension pack to the comments, please send your text file to tips at lifehacker.com. We’ll host it, send you the link, and you can let us know what you chose and why in the comments. If you haven’t got a comment invite, we’ll send one your way.

Adam Pash is an associate editor of Lifehacker. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

 
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Originally from Lifehacker on April 4, 2006, 12:30pm

We do go on about “less is more”- which we define as the principle that good design can lead to more efficient use of materials and less consumption of resources with no sacrifice in utility.This TreeHugger doesn’t usually do bags but rarely do we see such topological wonders as in the work of Conphorm- “These handbags are made from 2 layers of industrial wool felt with a zipper sewn around the edges. When open, the piece lays completely flat. When zipped, the piece turns into an organic 3-dimensional form. Comes in 4 sizes: wallet, purse, clutch, and carry. Felt is grey and zipper tape comes in orange, green, grey, and blue.” Minimalist, mathematical and marvelous. ::Conphorm via ::Josh Spear

Originally by lloyd from Treehugger on April 4, 2006, 7:33am

The ultimate grow-your-own—the grass armchair. Here is the answer to those tricky design problems—where to put the garden chairs, what kind to buy, will they get rusty, be comfortable, be green, look good….The grass armchair is available from Purves & Purves, a furniture design shop. It’s a flatpack, do it yourself kit, consisting of a 14 piece corrugated cardboard frame and a package of grass seeds. It starts to grow after just 10 days. First decide on the best location for it—at the back of the garden so you can enjoy it in peace, or at the front so that you can watch it grow. But it can’t be moved so be serious about this. After you assemble the cardboard frame, you fill it with 240 litres of soil ( supply your own), sprinkle the grass seeds over it, and water it daily. Watch it grow. And enjoy. ::Purves and Purves

Originally by Bonnie from Treehugger on April 4, 2006, 3:24am

The Bush administration wants us to sell 300,000 acres of public lands to fund rural schools and county governments in 35 states and, maybe, pay off some of our national debt. I don’t think I need to explain the short-sightedness and absurdity of this: we can find alternate solutions to pitting kids against precious habitat. In Montana, sportsmen and environmentalists are bucking the preservationist vs. recreation stereotypes and working together on the issue. After all, public lands not only protect vital habitat for bears, wolves and trout, but they belong to all of us. Should they really be sold off, for instance, to developers to build second and third houses for those who want to own a little piece of paradise? We should feel lame if we let our busy lives get in the way of speaking up about this. Learn more here; contact your Senator or Representative. As my bear biologist friend wrote to me, “This proposal has the potential to do more damage to the natural environment and change the landscape of this country than perhaps any other in our lifetime.” Via Angela Klinefelter. ::

Originally by kyeann from Treehugger on April 4, 2006, 8:20am

Headed by architect Eric Bigot, the driving concept behind ZenKaya is to make building a house as simple as buying a car. Once you have the house, the design is such that your lifestyle will be compact and simple as well; the studio unit is 3.4 meters wide by 6 meters in length; their system is expandable up to a two bed, two bathroom-sized home. Overall, simplicity combined with customization is the name of the game at ZenKaya — “a headache-free process with cutting edge design,” they call it. They want the design, production and delivery process to be as efficient as possible, leaving more time, money and energy to enjoy living. ::ZenKaya via ::Land+Living

Originally by Collin Dunn from Treehugger on April 4, 2006, 12:23pm

Herman Miller has teamed with San Francisco-based uber-designer Yves Béhar to bring the world what they think is the next generation of interior lighting. Leaf is a combination of LED technology, engineering and design; “a fusion of technology with humanity,” according to Béhar. Its unusual design allows for direct or ambient light from the same source — kind of like a bunch of LEDs on a dimmer switch. “Leaf is designed to give the user a spectrum of choices to express light’s magical and sensory variations,” says Béhar of the light’s ability to produce warm-to-cool colors with a simple touch control. Leaf has been developed according to Herman Miller’s Design for the Environment protocol, emphasizing sustainable processes, materials and recyclability; overall, Leaf’s LEDs consume less than 12 watts of power, carry a lifespan of over 60,000 hours at full power, and cut energy use by 40 percent comparent to compact fluorescent lights. Officially unveiling will occur at ICFF next month, and Leaf will be available from Herman Miller retailers and dealers by July. ::aptbroadcast via ::MoCo Loco

Originally by Collin Dunn from Treehugger on April 4, 2006, 11:30am

Its been a real pleasure while visting Delft to meet some of the students from the HRG and listen to a number of interesting papers over last week but more on that later. In the mean time heres some pictures from the Node.London which I took part in on Saturday showing off my virtual datascape project CLAVE.

Since I’m more interested in building physical interactive spaces it was only developed as virtual testing software for building physically transforming spaces but eventually it gained a life of its own and became a piece in itself. In its current state, I use it as a piece of VJing software.

What was really great was that I was able to use a lot of video footage of the previous acts on before me to help generate my own performance which included the awesome work of Stanza, Lectrolab and the really quite rubbish cyber-wrestling between arcangel vs. subculture DONT ASK.

Cyber-wrestling!… I think I’d have prefered some Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior.

I’d just like to say a bit thanks to all who helped make the event happen in particular Atty for inviting me to present my work.

Originally by Ruairi from Interactive Architecture dot Org on April 3, 2006, 7:20pm