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Mark Frauenfelder:

Here’s a link to the free documentaries on Google Video — all 3,713 of them, including a 1978 BBC documentary of a road trip with Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman called Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision and a 40-minute documentary about Richard Feynman called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

These days, there are fewer reasons than ever to turn on the television.

Link | RSS feed

Originally by Mark Frauenfelder from Boing Boing on February 28, 2007, 8:14pm

a new way to explore statistics by representing the values of the worldwide production of cereals by the amount of grains in a tube. two glass tubes, each representing a specific country, are filled with grains by hand, hereby reversing the classical retrieval of statistics: the starting point is the actual number & not the country. one glass tube shows a specific country, whilst the other glass tube can be used for queries for additional countries to detect possible correlations.visual

see also tangible data query interface & information cocktail.

[link: fh-wuerzburg.de & fh-wuerzburg.de (more examples from this course)|thnkx Michael]

Originally from information aesthetics on March 1, 2007, 4:28pm

a beautiful & highly sophisticated “Map of Science”, constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 scientific papers (shown as white dots) into 776 different scientific paradigms (red circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers. links (curved lines) were made between the paradigms that shared common members, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms nearer one another when a physical simulation had every paradigm repel every other: thus the layout derives directly from the data. larger paradigms have more papers. labels list common words unique to each paradigm.

this image was recently published in Nature.

see also Royal Society academic papers visualization & scientific literature citation trends network diagram.

[link: didi.com & didi.com (detailed JPEG image)]

Originally from information aesthetics on March 1, 2007, 4:40pm

Strap this optical mouse made by Logisys onto your index finger and use the 800 dpi laser on any media (except reflective glass surfaces) to easily control the cursor. The desk, keyboard, wall, even your own clothes will work as a functioning surface. Even more convenient, the scroll wheel and left and right buttons are easily usable with your thumb to scroll and click through your applications. The next step is losing the USB cable it uses to connect and going wireless.

Pick it up from Xoxide or visit Logisys to find a different online retailer selling the finger mouse for around $20.

Originally posted by Tim Yu from Cool Hunting, ReBlogged by Leon Reid on Feb 28, 2007 at 08:14 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on February 28, 2007, 7:14pm

Filed under: Robots

We’re still chuckling about Asimo’s sad little tumble last year, but Anybots’ breakthrough dynamically balancing biped robot, Dexter, is no laughing matter. While he’s sans arms for now, the 135-pound, 5′10″ robot is being celebrated for the sole fact that he isn’t pre-programmed and can support his own strut — and supposedly, he’ll soon be able to run. Dexter’s partner in crime is Monty, a two-wheeled, two-armed bot with one fully articulated, 18-motor gripper hand. Driven by compressed air and controlled remotely by a human operator, both of these humanoid robots were developed with the intent to be of assistance in various household and industrial tasks.

[Via Slashdot]

Read - Anybots’ Dexter and Monty humanoid robots
Read - Video of Dexter taking shoves from Monty

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Robots will extend the life of the human being. Once we make this Earth unhospitable for us as we are, we will see a human-machine merger, and those without technology will die out while the fittest will survive. LR IV

Originally posted by Jeannie Choe from Engadget, ReBlogged by Leon Reid on Feb 28, 2007 at 07:49 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on February 28, 2007, 6:49pm

Web site StoryEvent posts an interesting method for getting large discounts on consumer electronics at chain electronics stores.

It boils down to being a good negotiator, though the tactics seem somewhat shady (but I’m a total wimp in the negotiation room, so you may feel otherwise). You indicate that you’re interested in buying a big fat warranty, then ask ask the sales assistant to lower the item’s price. Since big box electronics stores are often pushed to sell warranties, they’ll be willing to budge on the price of your item - especially if it’s got a big price tag. Then when checkout time comes, you have a change of heart on the warranty. Simple enough.

If the digg comments are any indication, this method (or similar methods) works for a lot of people. Either way, I’d love to hear our readers’ methods for lowering the cost of big purchases, so let’s hear ‘em in the comments. — Adam Pash

Originally from Lifehacker on March 1, 2007, 1:30pm

Web site Just One Club Card lets you condense up to 8 different discount club cards onto one front-and-back card, meaning your back-breaking wallet is about to go on a big diet.

Just enter the barcode numbers and choose the store for each card you want to get rid of and Just One Club Card will convert them to a printable, one-card format. Fold, laminate, and enjoy. I currently count about 100 stores in the drop-down, but if a store you need is missing, you can contact the site and ask for its inclusion or try your luck with the advanced page. We posted about a similar tool a year ago, but it appears to be dead, and Just One Club Card’s tool seems better developed anyway. If you’re not keen on getting rid of your cards, you might still consider a better method of organization. Thanks Chuck! — Adam Pash

Originally from Lifehacker on March 1, 2007, 4:30pm

Windows/Mac/Unix (Firefox): The Linkification Firefox extension converts text URLs into clickable links.

When we posted about opening unlinked text URLs via drag-and-drop, a couple of reader suggested Linkification, and they were certainly right to do so. The Linkification extension turns any unlinked text URLs into clickable links so you don’t even have to know there was ever a time when the link wasn’t clickable. Add to that a robust set of preferences and this is a great little extension. Linkification is free, works wherever Firefox does. For opening wrapped links, don’t forget about AutoCopy. — Adam Pash

Originally from Lifehacker on March 1, 2007, 3:30pm

NY Times tech writer David Pogue raves about Windows Vista’s built-in speech recognition:

As I wrote in my Vista review for The Times, I don’t find it quite as accurate as my beloved Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9, which is freakishly, “Star Trek”-ishly accurate. But it’s awfully cool. Hook up a microphone headset and give it a shot.

Speech Recognition lets you not only control your PC by voice-open programs, click buttons, click Web links, and so on-but also dictate text, a heck of a lot faster than you can type.

I haven’t hooked up my headset to give it a try yet myself (first coffee, then speech recognition) but this rundown has piqued my interest. Any lifehackers out there using - or hating - speech recognition? Tell us about it in the comments. — Gina Trapani

Originally from Lifehacker on March 1, 2007, 10:30am

Firefox only: Turn your browser into a research tool with Gnosis, a new plug-in that highlights key information on sites you visit.

Using “semantic processing,” Gnosis scans a Web page for people, companies, products, locations and other recognizable info, then highlights key words and phrases with a color-coded double-underscore. Mouse over any of these highlighted items and a pop-up appears with various search/info options.

Gnosis will automatically scan certain news sites, but you can manually scan using the Gnosis sidebar (which also lets you browse items by category). This is a rather interesting tool, something that could prove useful for students and anyone else conducting research. Gnosis requires no money, but it does require Firefox. — Rick Broida

Originally from Lifehacker on March 1, 2007, 9:00am

One of Firefox’s most useful features is Quick Searches, the ability to assign a keyword to a link and pass a parameter in when you launch it - like thes useful to look up “useful” in a thesaurus.

But what about shortcuts that need more than one parameter, like comparing two stock prices? Turns out that multiple parameter keyword searches in Firefox are possible, with some Javascript magic.

After the jump, find out how to compare 3 stock symbols or pit 4 words against one another with Firefox keyword searches.

Single-parameter quick searches use the %s symbol to pass information into a link. For example, a bookmark with the keyword map might be http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%s. Type map San Diego Zoo into the address bar with that bookmark set up and poof! You’ll get a map of the zoo.

If you want directions from one place to another, you need multiple parameters, which you can have - with a little help from our friend Javascript. Use this link template to enable as many %s instances in your bookmark URL as you need (sorry for the horizontal scroll):

javascript:var%C2%A0s='%s'; url='###INSERT YOUR KEYWORD SEARCH URL HERE###'; t=''; qc=0; chunks=url.split('%s'); for(i=0; i<s.length; i++){if(s.charAt(i)=='"')qc=qc^1; t+=((s.charAt(i)==' '&&qc)?'^':s.charAt(i)); }args=t.split(/\s/); nurl=''; for(i=0; i<chunks.length; i++){nurl+=chunks[i]; if(args[i]!=undefined)%C2%A0{args[i]=args[i].replace(/\^/g,' '); nurl+=args[i]; }}location.replace(nurl,'< BR>');

ote>

Replace ###INSERT YOUR KEYWORD SEARCH URL HERE###' with your bookmark URL that has multiple instances of the %s parameter in it.

Check out some examples of useful multi-parameter keyword bookmarks. (Note: Copy and paste each of these URLs into a new bookmar and assign a keyword to launch them from the Firefox address bar.)

Alexaholic site traffic comparison (2 sites)

javascript:var%C2%A0s='%s'; url='http://www.alexaholic.com/%s+%s'; t=''; qc=0; chunks=url.split('%s'); for(i=0; i<s.length; i++){if(s.charAt(i)=='"')qc=qc^1; t+=((s.charAt(i)==' '&&qc)?'^':s.charAt(i)); }args=t.split(/\s/); nurl=''; for(i=0; i<chunks.length; i++){nurl+=chunks[i]; if(args[i]!=undefined)%C2%A0{args[i]=args[i].replace(/\^/g,' '); nurl+=args[i];}}location.replace(nurl,'<BR>');

Bookmark this and give it the keyword comparetraffic. Then, type comparetraffic lifehacker.com example.com to run it.

Google Fight (2 terms)

javascript:var%C2%A0s='%s'; url='http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=%s&word2=%s'; t=''; qc=0; chunks=url.split('%s'); for(i=0; i<s.length; i++){if(s.charAt(i)=='"')qc=qc^1; t+=((s.charAt(i)==' '&&qc)?'^':s.charAt(i)); }args=t.split(/\s/); nurl=''; for(i=0; i<chunks.length; i++){nurl+=chunks[i]; if(args[i]!=undefined)%C2%A0{args[i]=args[i].replace(/\^/g,' '); nurl+=args[i]; }}location.replace(nurl,'< BR>');

Pit two search terms against one another. Bookmark this one with the keyword fight and then try fight "Getting Things Done" Lifehacker to try it out. (Remember, multi-word values have to be enclosed in quotes.)

Google Trends (2 terms)

javascript:var%C2%A0s='%s'; url='http://www.google.com/trends?q=%s%2C%s&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all'; t=''; qc=0; chunks=url.split('%s'); for(i=0; i<s.length; i++){if(s.charAt(i)=='"')qc=qc^1; t+=((s.charAt(i)==' '&&qc)?'^':s.charAt(i)); }args=t.split(/\s/); nurl=''; for(i=0; i<chunks.length; i++){nurl+=chunks[i]; if(args[i]!=undefined)%C2%A0{args[i]=args[i].replace(/\^/g,' '); nurl+=args[i]; }}location.replace(nurl,'< BR>');

Compare the usage patterns of two words using Google Trends data.

Google Maps directions (start address, destination address)

javascript:var%C2%A0s='%s'; url='http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=%s&daddr=%s'; t=''; qc=0; chunks=url.split('%s'); for(i=0; i<s.length; i++){if(s.charAt(i)=='%22')qc=qc^1; t+=((s.charAt(i)==' '&&qc)?'^':s.charAt(i)); }args=t.split(/\s/); nurl=''; for(i=0; i<chunks.length; i++){nurl+=chunks[i]; if(args[i]!=undefined)%C2%A0{args[i]=args[i].replace(/\^/g,' '); nurl+=args[i]; }}location.replace(nurl,'< BR>');

Get directions from Google Maps using a directions keyword and your starting and ending points, ie, directions "San Diego, CA" "San Francisco, CA"

Yahoo! Stock price comparison (2 stock symbols)

javascript:var%C2%A0s='%s'; url='http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=6m&s=%s&c=%s'; t=''; qc=0; chunks=url.split('%s'); for(i=0; i<s.length; i++){if(s.charAt(i)=='"')qc=qc^1; t+=((s.charAt(i)==' '&&qc)?'^':s.charAt(i)); }args=t.split(/\s/); nurl=''; for(i=0; i<chunks.length; i++){nurl+=chunks[i]; if(args[i]!=undefined)%C2%A0{args[i]=args[i].replace(/\^/g,' '); nurl+=args[i]; }}location.replace(nurl,'< BR>');

For more on quick searches, check out Adam’s previously-published article, Firefox and the art of keyword bookmarking. — Gina Trapani

Originally from Lifehacker on March 1, 2007, 8:00am

The 6V8 weblog loves Last.fm, Macs, and keyboard shortcuts - and so decided it would be nice to control the Last.fm player via the keyboard without switching applications.

The method involves installing a freeware application from Griffin called Proxi, which is designed to give you more control over a lot of Griffin peripherals as well as Mac applications. In this case, the author details how to set up Proxi to control your Last.fm player from either the keyboard or using a Griffin AirClick remote. The instructions could be clearer, but with a little effort it’s doable. Last.fm lovers should definitely give this a try. — Adam Pash

Originally from Lifehacker on March 1, 2007, 12:30pm

If you’re at all familiar with Strunk and White, you know that excessive use of adverbs - words that end in -ly - isn’t a sign of strong writing. All of us writers struggle with sentence-weakening generally’s and relatively’s at times, but now there’s a Greasemonkey script that highlights adverbial transgressions on the web automatically. (Whoops!)

Once it’s installed, The Ly Detector Greasemonkey script takes a yellow highlighter to adverbs, like obviously and previously to help web writers stay on their non-adverbial toes. The Ly Detector’s great for bloggers who are trying to improve their skills with the quill - or just those who want to make fun of them. After the jump, the script download, and some more details of how this works.

The Ly Detector Greasemonkey script

Version: 0.2
Released: February 28, 2007
Last updated: February 28, 2007
Author: Gina Trapani
License: GNU Public License

What it does: Highlights adverbs that appear in the text of a web page, as shown:

Installation: Requires Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension to run. Click on the The Ly Detector User Script to install.

Known Issues: Not all words that end in -ly are adverbs, like family, apply, and only. I’ve excluded some words (like those) from the highlighting function, but I’m sure there are dozens more. If you see the script highlighting a non-adverb, let me know in the comments.

By default this script is enabled on Lifehacker, Gizmodo and Gawker. To enable it for your web site, use the Greasemonkey preferences pane to customize the URL list it’s enabled on, as shown:

Disclaimer and caveats: Not all adverbs are bad all the time. This tool is for entertainment purposes only. I personally am a deeply flawed writer (see?) who makes dozens of mistakes on this very site every day, so I’m in no position to preach good writing habits. This script is as much for me as it is for you.

Backstory: The Ly Detector sound familiar to you? That’s because I published it in bookmarklet form on my now-defunct personal site back in 2004 BG (Before Greasemonkey). If you don’t want to go the Greasemonkey route, drag and drop this bookmarklet link to your toolbar:
[— Gina Trapani