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here’s a couple neat things and info I’ve collected this week.

First is hobnox. Most of you who know me, know I’m always rattling on about music I make with ableton live and reason. Here is a audio generation tool that is based off of a similar usability theory as reason: graphically recreate the instruments and their interaction (i.e. cables etc.). The plus side for all of you and myself is that you don’t have to install anything (until they come out with an adobe air version). Which means that you don’t have to know a whole ton about music software, just music hardware in general. If you can hook up some guitar pedals and fiddle with a beat machine, you’re there. It’s a lot of fun. My cube-mate wasted a couple hours because I introduced him to the site (sorry). So have fun. If you figure out a way to record what you’ve done (you can’t save yet) put it on muxtape and let me know about it.

Second, is just a little article for all my friends looking to get their money into the money making business. High yield savings is the first step, and this article shows you how you can figure out just how much interest your savings account is bringing in. Very helpful. Also, you’ll want a calculator. I recommend and use instacalc on a daily basis.

Well, this will be short and sweet, but here goes. I just ran into a really interesting and great way to do web2.0 politics. Its called Govit. For all the political mumbo jumbo I rant on about, this program forces me to vote on the very same issues that I rant and rave about. Not only that but it is a social network that compares your ideas to your party, your representatives, your friends and everyone else on the govit site. Like I said, this is SOCIAL people. I want all my faithful readers to get on this and sign up and friend me. I want to see how we all stack up. You can find me by searching for prodaea or my FULL name.

Some neat software and games stuff today. Politics are stupid and boring.

Wired has a great article about what really makes GTA IV a great game. I have been staving off my temptations to get the game because of the many freelance jobs I picked up earlier in the year that I must focus on and finish by the summer. Also, I’m planning a wedding, and that always trumps video games. Besides, Bully is still really entertaining to me. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the day that I can play GTA IV uninterrupted and explore the sprawling landscape of Liberty City. …sigh… Though I’m not sure how long sandbox genre games can survive without being MMO in scope. Just a predictive tidbit.

Freeware genius just put out a little ditty on a piece of software I’m planning on trying out called Xneat. I’ll let you, my faithful reader know how it goes. Its supposed to help manage your windows. We’ll see about that.

Finally, a web2.0 grammar checking site called gramlee. I’m gonna put this post through its engine to see what kind of filth it spits out. I’ll get back to you on that as well.

*edit* BUT WHOA! for gramlee it appears that you have to pay per word. Apparently real people are editing these. To that I say:

1. That’s not web2.0
2. People are so out, computer programs are so in. Get with it.
3. Also, pay-for services are lame.

***Here’s what gramlee thinks of my first 100 words***

There’s some news about neat software and games today. Politics are stupid
and boring.

Wired Magazine has a great article about what really makes GTA IV a great
game. I have been staving off my temptations to get the game because of the
many freelance jobs I picked up earlier in the year. My deadline for the
deliverables for these various jobs is this summer. Also, I’m planning a
wedding, and that always trumps video games. Besides, Bully still entertains
me. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the day I can play GTA IV
uninterrupted and explore the sprawling landscape of Liberty City.

***Funny right? I think so***

So after that little foray into the deeply political or the deeply disturbing (totally interchangeable), I’ve got some light hearted techie interests for you all.

The site Muxtape lets you upload and manage a playlist, for your friends to check out. Its outrageously simple and a fun way to spread what your listening to.

Also for those of you who love Facebook (I’m not thrilled about it), and have a million and one feeds that you update like a fiend (that’s me!), there’s BlogIt. Its a new Facebook app that will let you update your million and one blogs/feeds from one place. Its new and is lacking on the features, but it has a lot of promise.

some interesting surfing for you today. though not very exciting. I was listening to my music this morning with my awesome sony headphones when i noticed some earwax. eww. well, i was curious, so here’s some random, probably useless info on earwax via wikipedia.

also via wikipedia, by way of my brother. Fernet-Branca, a liqueur we had last night that tasted like someone mixed whiskey and gin together. I enjoyed, he enjoyed it, and come to find out, its base is a grape, with a lot of herbs and spices (not unlike gin). So good, i think i’ll be getting a bottle in the not-to-distant future.

i have been toying with idea of getting rid of this blog as a link sharing method. my commentaries, while enlightening and witty (i’m sure), can be time consuming and tedious. plus in my social web surfing way of life, i’ve come to be the generator of several social feeds (del.icio.us, etherealnation.net, flickr, digg, google reader, and several others). a while back i found tumblr, made an account, didn’t figure out what it could be useful for, and just gave up. well, in my quest to minimize my data output (more accurately, simplify) i went back to tumblr, and added in a ton of my data feeds. here is what has happened: my tumblr. sorry to say it doesn’t look like it backfills anything, so there isn’t anything posted there. but don’t worry, it will soon be waaaay too full of stuff for most normal people. so eat your hearts out (on glaring lack of privacy). similar, quicker, but not quite as nice is soup.io.

i do a lot of work with people who work with a lot of other people. do you know what this means for me? MAJOR SCHEDULING ISSUES. so i found timebridge. i’ve recommended it to the people in my life who swear that it would take a full day just trying to schedule 30 minutes with 5 busy people. and the good news is they’ve actually started using it, and so far, it’s really nice. simplified, it’s almost like a business version of evite. but, it allows for alternative date suggestions and it can put the agreed upon meeting time into your google, msoffice, or ical calendars.

and finally for a bit of science, check out nasa’s page for a neat article about a sun spot taking on the shape of the trilobite. also, here’s the video. it’s pretty intense. i mean for one thing, you’re watching the magnetic waves emanating from the surface of the sun. and for another thing, according to the article you’re actually seeing into the sun.

This is a long time coming and a really late post. I apologize. I got so busy surfing, I forgot why I was surfing - to editorialize my little slice of the web. So here’s three gems from this morning’s surf.

CNET has a decent article about search engine privacy. There’s plenty of interesting survey data linked to in the article. Search engines are basically reacting to the insane security breach AOL had last year when users could pull up all the search terms that went through AOL at a certain point in time. These privacy issues are also being addressed because, as the article points out, search histories are beginning to be used for criminal convictions.

Have you ever sealed a bacon and an egg in a sealed environment and let them rot? I haven’t. That’s why I like the internet. I can learn from other people’s experiences in a fraction of the time. Great pictures included.

Companies like FOX have equal access to wikis. Surprise? Not really. Changing articles to reflect their company in a more flattering light? Priceless. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were entire PR armies bent specifically to monitor and edit wiki articles to serve a corporation’s pleasure.

i just found this blog/zine/whatever site that keeps track of web-based apps. it is now both in my reader and in my del.icio.us and i plan on reading it frequently to learn of new and awesome apps to use on the web.

another site worthy of a del.icio.us tag, bust-a-name helps you find the domain name that you want and that is available.

i don’t usually link to lew because i typically find the articles interesting enough for myself, but rarely enamoring (or MOtR) enough to post here. this particular article addresses the quagmire that is US involvement with nuclear weapons.

Snow in Buenos Aires. I’m not too good with international weather patterns, but apparently this only happens every hundred years or so. For those who are geographically challenged: google maps.

Apparently not an uncommon thing to do, but the guy who is Harry Potter wears the same clothes everyday to fool the Paparazzi. I’m not sure how effective it is, but it at least sounds pretty clever.

GOP conspiracy theories are in the thick these days. My ole buddy santorum has been hinting about attacks on the us. now if i hinted that there would be attacks on the US in the upcoming months you can be sure as hell i’d be sent to Gitmo. I’m just sayin’s all.

and to continue my hegemony against the us, this Irish economist points out that the international community is pretty fed up with our economically retarded policies of borrowing more, spending more, and saving nothing. somebody needs to be saying it. bread and circus??? and in case you’re wondering, here’s what he means by two fingers.

AppScout posts a little article about a webapp called 71 miles. I haven’t been able to check it out for myself, but it looks promising.

If you’re going to get a new cellphone, you may want to check out exPhone to find good directions on how to donate or recycle your old cellphone.

Also in the cellphone sphere of the webernet, check out cellswaper. You can sign-on and swap around your annoying contract to either get a shorter one or get rid of your old one.

Freak out about oil? Freak out about water? Just freak out because humans will destroy the earth? I dunno, but here’s a couple articles about 1) running out of water and 2) stop drinking bottled water.

A really boring article about yawning.

Hilarious blog entry about Iranian news reporting that 1)the US (implied) is using squirrels to spy on Iran and 2) that

Maybe, Imam will use UFOs to attack his enemies.

Now, I’m not saying this is a valid source (note the massive attack of popup ads), but it is at least entertaining.

I’ve probably blogged about this before but, the open sourced cellphone has begun selling developer editions for 300$ or so. I’ll be keeping my eye on this over the next couple of years. I’m not sure but as far as I know this is the first example of a commercially available opensourced hardware/software object.

while i’m still skeptical about carbon output issues, makemesustainable is a neat take on social webbing that let’s you calculate your carbon footprint and take practical steps to reduce it.

Here’s a great list of web2.0 web applications that let you do day to day computing from anywhere. so far, i stick with google docs and keep it simple. other webapps that i enjoy regularly are moneytrackin’ and instacalc.

Great page of information on all the thought that should go into acquiring a credit card from the federal reserve. a must read for financial hopeful’s like me.

in hong kong a gym is beginning to add electric generators to the treadmill equipment to create the electricity for the building. this isn’t a new idea i’m sure, but this is the first i’ve read of anyone actually doing it.

a man in georgia kills a bear by throwing a log at it while protecting his son. he gets a ticket for not securing his campsite. sweet irony.

is apple really going to be able to deliver on the battery life of the upcoming (THIS WEEK) iphone? slate delves into how they may have made this happen.

youtube is seemingly becoming a more legitimate media outlet, signing on a reality tv show for ad revenue sharing.

pretty interesting article (from the sound of it. i haven’t read it entirely yet, but i’m about to) on class differences becoming a factor in which social engine you use (facebook vs. myspace). i use virb for my band, and myspace for exposure, facebook for friends, and linkedin for business. i’m connected baby.

a wal-mart ethics fiasco? they have ethics?

a fun little flash game teaching kids - and politicians - how to gerrymander. maybe some kid will have the sense to make a libertarian district or fifty.

i like british news, it’s witty and informative, and specifically not american news. so when they say their people have a problem with liver disease, that doesn’t include me right? i did a quick tally of drinks this week:

• Monday: beer at guitar hero night ~ 1 drink
• Tuesday: Dinner with Sarah ~ 2 drinks
• Wednesday: I really don’t remember what I did on wed. but I’m pretty sure I didn’t drink anything ~ 0 drinks
• Thursday: Bowling ~ 1 drink
• Friday: Father’s Day ~ 2 drinks
• Saturday: Sarah’s parents were in town ~ 4 drinks
• Sunday: apres driving range nightcap ~ 2 drinks

So tally tally tally and bam! 12 drinks in a week. Am I damaging my liver. I don’t know. Does anyone know?

and finally, quite possibly more interestingly, Isaac Newton throws in his opinion on the end of days. note that the title of the article says that the world will definitely end in 2060 according to Mr. Newton. THAT’S NOT WHAT HIS LETTER SAYS AT ALL YOU TARDS. their own article clearly states

“It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,” Newton wrote. However, he added, “This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail.”

I guess all that matters is that you get people to read your stupid site. GREAT JORB. meh.