A few links

I came across a few interesting things tonight that I thought I'd share with you.

Aptera.com

The first is a vehicle they are planning on making in California. Reservations are being taken now; the site lists an expected price tag of either $26,900 or $29,900 depending on the model you purchase. I like the look myself, but I can see this not being widely popular. Also, it's expensive.

P2pays.org

Pollution Prevention Pays is the North Carolina government's recycling website with all kinds of information on how to recycle just about everything. I ended up here looking for ways to recycle defunct electronics; this site has information on how to do just that and a whole lot more.

StoryofStuff.com

An interesting site that outlines where the stuff that we love to buy comes from, how it is manufactured, distributed and, ultimately, thrown away. I haven't watched the entire clip that loads up when you go to the website, but the introduction was pretty interesting. I'm sure the rest will be good as well.

iRiver Clix 2

I thought I'd include a fun link as well. This is a video review posted by Jenn of Pocketables.net on YouTube. This looks like a great little mp3 player. Lots of interesting features and abilities. I confess kind of sort of wanting one. It might just be what Christmas money goes to. If you like this little gem, you can purchase it on amazon.com and directly from iRiver (the manufacturer) as well.

personal post

Today we hit a deer on the way to our yearly family christmas party. Looks like the little bugger did about $3500 dollars worth of damage to my car. Of course, the deer ended up dead so I think we got the better end of the deal. I was asleep at the time so I can't really say for sure how it happened; dad tells us some fool of a deer leaped out a cove of woods and right into the car. Luckily I was the only one injured in any way. According to the P.A. that saw me I have some spasmed muscles to tend to. A few xrays, two minor prescriptions and about 20 minutes later I was back on the way to the Christmas party.

It was really a great party and I am glad we were still able to go. There were several looking back events that I enjoyed very much, including a touching story my mom wrote about the Santa Clause and Mrs. Clause that used to come and hand out presents to everybody. Also included was a video montage that my aunt put together from videos she had taken during these events going back as far as 1986 I believe..maybe it was '87. It was a real treat to see what we all used to look like. After that we watched a slideshow of pictures taken at my cousins wedding, which enjoyed a good deal having been unable to attend the ceremony myself.

All in all a great night. Now if I could just get my back to stop hurting...

Updates for the day

Well good news today everyone, Nokia released a final version of OS2008 for the N800, along with an update for the N810. Of course, not having an N810, I´m not personally overly excited by that second part. However, the update to the 800 version is quite good. The browser seems even snappier than before. New icons and backgrounds are much appreciated. Maemo has also made available several new wallpapers. Aside from not being able to update/reinstall applications I was enjoying on the beta this has been a good update. I´m sure once everyone has satisfied their need to be most current (and I was one of those people to be sure) I´ll be able to get back some of those favored programs. I miss my Battle Gweled :)

On a different note, there was talk today on NPR, I believe on All Things Considered, about treating waste water such that it could be put back into the drinking water system. There was a lot of ¨Eeeewwwwwws¨ and ¨That´s disgusting...¨ from people listening to the show. Even one of the hosts said she was no longer thirsty after hearing the report. Let me give my take on the subject: get over it people. Waste water is already held to stricter standards than your drinking water is. The water that comes out of a waste water plant (so long as it is properly run) is far cleaner than the surface water sources from which many municipalities draw their water. There really wouldn´t need to be too much done in order to make the water that exits a waster water plant potable. I think people ought to look past their silly beliefs and actually consider these kinds of conservation efforts. Our present water supply in much of the United States, to me, makes contemplation and implementation of these sorts of measures requisite.

Fun link of the day: Sweet Daddy D! [link NSFW]

Try a little harder

Or perhaps, try in the first place. I have seen many SUVs in the past weeks and it dawned on me that each one is choking the planet a little bit. I´d like to say that´s an overstatement, but those foolish things guzzle down gallons of gas and spit out CO2 at an aweful rate. Why is it that Suzy homemaker has to have a Suburban to cart the kids around (or whatever the newest, biggest thing is in I-need-a-bigger-vehicle-than-you world)? What is she toting around? Apparently people aren´t too worried about the price of gas either. Perhaps having an SUV has become an even greater status symbol than before, as it now has a certain ¨I have enough money to pay for this 12-mph white elephant, and don´t you wish you did too?¨ quality.

I had hoped that after graduating and having a job for a while that I would be able to purchase a smart fortwo; plans have changed and I´m certain that won´t happen now. Why you ask? It´s not as if I drive a behemoth; I drive a little white ´04 Civic. No, I want a Smart so that I can in a little way offset the vehicle purchasing habits of my fellow Americans, knuckle-dragging fools though they may be. I have changed my light bulbs to CFLs and turn off most electrical appliances when I can, unplugging others when that is feasible. There are other things I would perhaps consider if it weren´t for the fact that I live in a rental house. 1/2 flush toilets come to mind. I´m also trying to find a relatively cheap low-flow showerhead. There are some that are around 1.8-1.5 gallons per minute, and with the water problems we´re having in North Carolina that´s highly appealing.

When will people start to wake up and make some changes in their wretched routines?

And to close out, have a look at this interesting mp3 player I came across today. Not a contender in the looks department, but cool nonetheless.

Back to the technics

Okay, so I'll have to go back to being a bit of a gadget geek. I just flashed my N800 with the beta OS2008 available from Nokia. I have a mac so it was a little harrowing. Hell, at one point I thought I had bricked my new toy, and that made me a very sad and angry panda. However, after a few moments of rest, my tablet decided that it would in fact turn on again and complete the upgrade. I'm pleased so far. Web browsing is a lot more enjoyable. Youtube.com actually loads up in a decent time frame and the videos from it are pretty darn good considering. I can only hope that the flash support will improve as time goes on. Perhaps when the official 2008 is released it will be more gooder. Yes, more gooder.

I haven't tried video on it yet. I'll give that a go here in a bit and see how the videos I have already converted to play work out. There is new codec support in OS2008 so I might be able to get better looking vid on here. Only time and the desire to geek out some will tell :)

That's all for now. Have a good one!

Study Break

I'm taking a break from studying to give my brain some time to relax and so that I can post something on here. Still working on what it is this blog should be about...so far it's been about tech, specifically the Nokia internet tablets. My N800 is shipping now, so I'll post something on that later when it actually arrives.

I don't want to talk about techy stuff for this post though. Let's give musical instruments a go. For instance, have you ever heard of a Guqin or a Guzheng? These are ancient stringed instruments from China. There are variations of the two in surrounding Asian countries, but I have been unable to find videos/music clips of these with music that I enjoy listening to. So I have stuck with the Chinese instruments. In a completely different vein from these two strings is an instrument that was recently developed in Switzerland in 2000. It's called a Hang (pronounced hung), from a word in the local dialect meaning 'hand'. In manufacture and sound it resembles steelpan drums of the Caribbean, though the method of playing differs, resulting in compositions that are quite unique from those of steelpan. It is a difficult and expensive instrument to procure, which is perhaps why groups of the instrument are not played together as is often the case with steelpans.

Here is a collection of some videos I have found on YouTube showing off the three instruments I have very briefly talked about above, as well as other traditional instruments that intrigue me. I'm sure it would take you a while to view all of them, but if you have a few minutes check out one or two of the clips. Hopefully you'll enjoy them as much as I have. À Bientôt!

##s for you sir

Okay, so I had ordered an N810 but it was taking a long time to ship. You guys out there are out geeking me to the order button. The unexpected (and unwanted)extra time gave me ample opportunity to evaluate my purchase and I decided that I didn't really need the extras that the N810 offers over the N800.

So I canceled my order.

I decided instead to order the N800. Hopefully it will ship soon, although there again I'm late to the party of this round of ordering. I'm considering buying some of the other small internet capable devices in the nearish future, and seeing if I prefer any over my NIT. Certainly most of you have heard of Archos and the EEE; beyond that we'll see. Some of the other options are pricey as far as me and my situation are concerned. I'll keep looking around, though, looking for interesting solutions.

No I will not get an iPhone. I love Apple, but not their phone :/

Let me know if you guys know of any other options.