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POPSHow to Hitchhike Across the Globe Without Leaving Your Living Room The 360° World Atlas DVD lets anyone with a computer become a virtual hitchhiker, no packing or neck-craning required. Creator Everen Brown does all the hard work for you. He jets around the globe, lugging a 40-pound bag full of 600 rolls of film past airport security, and picks a picture-worthy spot. Then he takes one of the world’s last Globuscope rotational cameras (no longer in production), holds it over his head (sometimes he lies on his stomach), and waits (sometimes for hours) for the right shot. When he sees it, snapping the picture takes only a second. The lens rotates full circle, so you get to see what’s across from the Taj Mahal’s minarets too. Once Brown develops the film, he embeds the images into an interactive atlas ($69.95, www.360atlas.com) that shows off head-turning views, panorama style.
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POPSMusic Video Games Account for 32% of Industry Growth in '08 It seems that everyone dreams of the fame and fortune of being a rock star. Even as a young boy and adult I use to take guitar and even trumpet lessons looking to embrace those dreams of being on the road, carefree and playing to thousands of fans. As I got into video games I acted out the dreams of being a hero in games like metroid,starfox,legend of zelda just to name a few. Then all of a sudden comes guitar hero and rock band. These games have become so popular you would think that it was the beatles first trip to the United States playing on the Ed Sullivan show. Every major department store that you go into these days you will see a video game display with 3 or 4 kids playing with a virtual guitar throwing down on the many different standard rock songs that these games have to offer. Who knew that being a rock star in your own living room would become so popular.
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POPSIs our universe fine-tuned for life? The Anthropic Principle Under Scrutiny Adams selected a range of possible values for each of these constants, then put them into a computer model that created a multitude of universes, or a virtual "multiverse". Each universe within the multiverse used different values for the three constants and was subject to slightly different laws of physics. About a quarter of the resulting universes turned out to be populated by energy-generating stars. "You can change alpha or the gravitational constant by a factor of 100 and stars still form," Adams says, suggesting that stars can exist in universes in which at least some fundamental constants are wildly different than in our universe.
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POPSThe Intelligent Egg The ramifications are enormous as we imagine homes that customize themselves to us and our needs. Adjusting temperature, music, lighting, and putting a pot on boil are all things that could be done automatically. Taken a step further we look at intelligent environments, where the home is constantly monitoring our health and safety, and is prepared to respond quickly. An intelligent home of the future may also ask us what time we want to wake up when we hit the sack. A plausible prediction is that these intelligent environments and or ambient intelligence will take away many of our chores and allow us to focus on productivity, learning, and leisure. They may stream customized interactive information that serves to create a nurturing environment. Differing from ubiquitous computing, it would allow us to create an intimitate connection with technology.
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POPSWhite poverty in South Africa This belies the tainted history of exploitation by whites on blacks in Africa. I can imagine that a great percentage of these disenfranchised group would have been former Civil Servants, police and Armed Forces. The Real Estate industry is all but destroyed. Many of the whites, especially those from Portuguese extracts, have been in Southern Africa for 500 years. There pot of gold was the endeavour, the hard work and pure grind of existing in such a hostile environment. The turned nations into a virtual paradise, created stability and a place worth living in.I will always remember the last words said to me by my domestic. "Iche, I don't like Black Africa. No good, Boss." He ought to have known, he is a Malawian. If David Cameron really wants to know Africa, go talk to Jackson or the poor Whites. Better still, stay at home and solve the problems of the poor Brits.
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POPSVirtual Unreality (Part 2) Looking from the perspective of a futuristic, perfect virtual reality, we are forced to question the very essence of our existence. What is the point of living if a utopia is provided for us? Once the superficial shell of reality is peeled from us, what is left of the human soul? What are the common denominators of our existence? The virtual world paradigm opens up our eyes to the limitations of reality, and shows us the true essence of what it means to be human.
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POPSIt feels nice to become a part of a social networking site The faces and the icons provide us with the warmth which only comes with the sharing of happiness, the comments, the follow-up comments, and then the follow-up of the follow-up comments. It’s interesting, spectacular, amazing, and feels absolutely wonderful!
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POPSI Need a Virtual Break... No, Really. This movement to unplug appears to be gaining traction everywhere How about turning off the screen one day a week? “Living a good life requires a kind of balance, a bit of quiet." Unplug yourself once in a while. I am a total addict and the first thing I do in the morning, is to check emails too, while having my morning coffee. Being offline is almost unthinkable, even for a day, but I will work on it, starting tomorrow... or maybe the next day. :oops:
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POPSStagflation - 1970's Déjà vu
As Yogi Berra once said, "This is like deja vu all over again." 1970's economy looms over us once again. Stagflation in the 1970s The term "stagflation" -- an economic condition of both continuing inflation and stagnant business activity, together with an increasing unemployment rate -- described the new economic malaise. Inflation seemed to feed on itself. People began to expect continuous increases in the price of goods, so they bought more. This increased demand pushed up prices, leading to demands for higher wages, which pushed prices higher still in a continuing upward spiral. Labor contracts increasingly came to include automatic cost-of-living clauses, and the government began to peg some payments, such as those for Social Security, to the Consumer Price Index, the best-known gauge of inflation. While these practices helped workers and retirees cope with inflation, they perpetuated inflation. http://economics.about.com/od/useconomichistory/a/stagflation.htm
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POPSSchneier on the SANS Top 20 Vulnerabilities Need to proxy connections to the Internet and STRICTLY limit where people can go. Unfortunately, there is very little desire to do this and many are willing to accept living in a compromised environment. At home, I have been modifying each machine's 'HOSTS' files ('There's no place like 127.0.0.1'), using K9 Web Content filtering, and recently been using OpenDNS to limit where my users (family) can go. Also, I have killed MSIE and have forced all users to use Firefox with the NoScript enabled. I have played with a virtual proxy that works well (especially when configured with 'Hosts', K9, OpenDNS, Antivirus, and FW blocking of all other hosts besides the proxy. When I figure out how to do the failover piece to keep the availability at 99%, I will implement it for good. Nothing is full-proof, but I sleep better at nights! (Thanks to RF-NCNF for the OpenDNS and NoScript tips!).
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POPSThe Facebook betrayal - users revolt over advertising sell-out Would Clipmarks ever be so crass? If what Clippers clipped and popped was content analysed, it would be a gold mine for marketing companies. Do Forbes know this? Such an analysis would be very useful and ethical of the individuals names were stripped from the data. Marketers and pollsters would still get a unique picture of what people are interested in.
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POPSVirtual Playerz This is a game discussion forum were all gamers can chat about their favorite games while also trading their virtual assets. Users may also play in the arcades, watch/upload free movies, and more!!
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POPSTimes rehashes sim story The Times reported this story several years ago, but the topic (with the emergence of Second Life and Ray Kurzweil's predictions for the Singularity), seems even more relevant today. Perhaps the only question is whether we are already in the Matrix, or are destined for it.
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POPS, MVI - Music Video Interactive - worth checking out? Couldn't clip the full info, goto http://www.mvimusic.com/ for more... Interestingly, the Canadian Prog-Rock band 'Rush' will be the first to have their music out in this format. Their new album 'Snakes & Arrows' is the debut album for the MVI format.
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