links for 2005-12-01
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Art, Illustration, and ideas. One of the most fun and inspirational sites I’ve come across in a long time.
Sometimes as creative people we need a little diversion to help inspire us. Keri Smith has found a great way by creating a list of things to do. Here’s the first 33:
Keri Smith
1. Go for a walk. Draw or list things you find on the the sidewalk. 2. Write a letter to yourself in the future. 3. Buy something inexpensive as a symbol for your need to create, (new pen, a tea cup, journal). Use it everyday. 4. Draw your dinner. 5. Find a piece of poetry you respond to. Rewrite it and glue it into your journal. 6. Glue an envelope into your journal. For one week collect items you find on the street. 7. Expose yourself to a new artist, (go to a gallery, or in a book.) Write about what moves you about it. 8. Find a photo of a person you do not know. Write a brief bio about them. 9. Spend a day drawing only red things. 10. Draw your bike. 11. Make a list of everything you buy in the next week. 12. Make a map of everywhere you went in one day. 13. Draw a map of the creases on your hand, (knuckles, palm) 14. Trace your footsteps with chalk. 15. Record an overheard conversation. 16. Trace the path of the moon in relation to where you live. 17. Go to a paint store. Collect ‘chips’ of all your favorite colors. 18. Draw your favorite tree. 19. Take 15 minutes to eat an orange. 20. Write a haiku. 21. Hang upside down for five minutes. 22. Hang found objects from tree branches. 23. Make a puppet. 24. Create an outdoor room from things you find in nature. 25. Read a book in one day. 26. Illustrate your grocery list. 27. Read a story out loud to a friend. 28. Write a letter to someone you admire. 29. Study the face of someone you do not like. 30. Make a meal based on a color theme. (i.e. all white). 31. Creat a museum of very small things. 32. List the smells in your neighborhood. 33. List 100 uses for a tin can.
She’s a great artist also so be sure to check out the rest of the list and her illustrations.
Buyer beware, a car lot in Norfolk Conneticut is testing a new way to make sure you pay, an electronic system designed to only let you into your car when you make a payment.
USA Today: A new gizmo is upping the odds that even the most hard-knock customer will come up with the car payment. Hooked into the ignition system, the gadget comes in a handful of versions with one common conclusion:
No pay, no start.
It’s worked wonders at Norfolk’s Patriot Auto Sales, where nearly every car that drives off the lot is outfitted with a PayTeck Smart Box, a system that hands over a five-digit code in exchange for each payment. Come due date, the car won’t crank until the customer punches the code into a palm-size keypad wired into the dash.
Man, and I thought pay toilets were bad.
If you live in the Central Valley and take the drive over the Altamont frequently now’s your chance to speak up. BART officials who are looking at future routes into the Valley and are looking for your input.
Stockton Record: Bay Area transportation officials are working on a 50-year blueprint for future transit systems, including possible Bay Area Rapid Transit extensions, expanded commuter train service from the Central Valley and better bus systems.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is looking for ideas from Valley residents, who are encouraged to attend a series of workshops over the next two weeks. A Modesto workshop is planned Tuesday.
The workshops come just a few months after the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission, which owns and operates the Altamont Commuter Express, decided to move ahead with plans to study new routes for the commuter rail service, including a train from Modesto to Sacramento.
That service would accommodate as many as 10,000 Modesto-to-Sacramento commuters, officials have said.
Christmas time is here and with it scores of people shopping online. But if you’re shopping for a new camera this holiday season it’s buyer-beware as this blogger found.
Thomas Hawk: “I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again.” “I’m an attorney, I will sue you.” “I will call the CEO of your company and play him the tape of this phone call.” “I’m going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you.” “You’d better get this through your thick skull.” “You have no idea who you are dealing with.”
These are all direct threats that I received today from an individual who identified himself as Steve Phillips, the manager of PriceRitePhoto in Brooklyn, New York when I called to inquire about my order with them. My crime? Telling him that I planned to write an article about my unfortunate experience with his company regarding the camera order I had placed with him yesterday.
Be sure to read the rest of the article. It’s very interesting. The operator of the business in question has even taken it upon himself to call the bloggers boss.
For all those people with the “Get Firefox Now” links on their blogs:
Do you realize Google AdSense will pay you to have the very same link on your blog?
Cnet: Google will also pay AdSense participants in the U.S. $1 for every person who downloads the Google Firefox toolbar via referral and was not a previous Firefox browser user. In July, Google released a Firefox version of its toolbar, a browser add-on that incorporates spell check, search and other features. Previously the toolbar only worked with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
Dude, go for it!
One of my favorite extensions for the newly released Firefox 1.5 is the Extended Statusbar. Extended Status Bar modifies the little bar you see at the bottom of your browser window to show you the number of loaded images, bytes downloaded, average download speed, time it takes to load the page, and the percentage of the page loaded. Pretty handy I think
If you’re interested in the Extended Status Bar you can find more information at addons.mozzila.org or at the Extended Status Bar home page.
Tags: firefox
It seems some German researchers have uncovered some interesting new evidence on why we routinely wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off.
Psychology Today: Jan Born and fellow researchers at the University of Lubeck in Germany have discovered what may be the first biological evidence for the curious ability to wake up at will. Anticipating the time you want to rise seems to trigger the release of hormones normally secreted by the body in times of stress. About an hour before you’ve planned to get out of bed, these secretions increase in preparation for the “stress” of waking.
There’s a great article this morning over at All About Linux about Ubuntu Linux. I’ve tried several different distributions of Linux and Ubuntu is by far my favorite. It’s easy to use, easy to learn, and fun to play with. Here’s a snippet from the post.
All About Linux: Ubuntu is fast on its way to becoming a peoples OS. I have always wondered what is it that makes people embrace Ubuntu over other Linux distributions. After some pondering, it struck me that the USP (Unique Selling Point) of Ubuntu is its user friendliness. Ubuntu is a distribution targeted at the non-techie crowd - those that want to get their job done and not spend time tinkering with the OS. And consequently, the developers at Ubuntu have bundled simple easy to use GUI front end tools to achieve common system administration tasks. Here I have put together 10 things in Ubuntu that make a new user’s life that much simple. I used Ubuntu 5.10 to aid my observation.
Possibly one of the funniest things I’ve read in the last 10 minutes, Chris Caines wrote a great column on how to stop sounding like a computer n00b. This is definitely worth wasting a few minutes reading. My favorites are number 3:
3. Only have one of four types of Desktop Background
Real people do not have pictures of their family, pets, football team or where they went on holiday as their desktop and they certainly don’t have any of the ones which come with Windows.
and number 9:
9. Don’t stick your tongue out when you’re browsing web sites
Time and time again, this little sucker gives people away. When you’re concentrating, lots of people involuntarily wave their tongue around like it’s trying to escape. The last thing you want people to think is that you’re concentrating on trying to use the Internet.
Enjoy. [Go There Now]