Changed my worldview

Watch Online

Thanks to the Bunny Blogger for turning me on to TED and their talks. You can explore them yourself if you have time (ok, I'll sell it a little more, there's a talk by Ze Frank from 2004 there too), but whatever you do, please click the linky thing at the start of this, and watch the short video. It'll probaby change how you think about the world.

Our post viewing talk, we being... well... us, turned to open data, and the amount of knowledge lying around within organisations and corporations that just needs to be made available and then visualized skillfully for a more accurate picture of the world, people, and everything else we've paid attention to as a species to emerge.

If you're tickled by the idea of open data, here's an AULA talk on the subject. The internet was heralded as starting the Information Age - but all that's happened so far is we've digitized information we mostly had already, for accessibility - wikipedia for instance. Now we need to provide all the data we have, on all sorts of topics, so we can mix and mash them into new perspectives and understandings.

Make it so.

technorati tags:AULA, TED, open data, ze frank, Helsinki, Finland, Feckless, talks

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Cars

Google-kuvahaun tulos kohteessa http://www.numberonestars.com/movies/images2/cars.jpg

Pixar now are like Disney were back in the middle of last century - they're just churning out the classics left right and centre. I went to see Cars last night, and everything was just so. Ok, maybe not the songs, but then I guess they're aimed at kids... thought I never remember liking them as a child, they felt like pandering.

Anyhoo. Everything else - perfect. The story is good, the characters are well drawn (pun intended), the voice acting is fantastic, the humour is laugh-out-loud funny. There's also an insane attention to detail that's mostly absent nowadays - one of the characters is a Porsche for instance, but she's not just a Porsche, she's a 2002 model 911 (the headlights tell all). There are little flourishes everywhere that show just how much passion everyone involved had for the project. These people really believe in what they do, and it shows. I can only hope it stays that way under Disney, and they don't try to milk all their work to date dry in a series of increasingly unoriginal franchises.

Best movie I've seen all year, go see.

Drugs

I'm suffering withdrawal - I miss my media.  It's all locked up in boxes.  I'm getting by ok with Last.fm, it's got me pigeon-holed well enough at this stage that plays me music I dig - which is especially good when the artists are new to me.  As for video, I've found succour at the ample twin bosoms of youtube and google video.  Whilst on the latter I found this:

If Drugs Were Legal - Google Video

It's a BBC production, so as you'd anticipate, the production standards are sky high.  Also, I'm beginning to think this kind of reasoned, calm, logical discussion just wouldn't be possible on US tv.  I'm purely going to what I see of US programming on said video sites, but I was particularly disgusted by the "count-down to cease-fire" concerning the Lebannon conflict - splicing the countdown over footage of new-year's in Time Square was hideous, and this was from CNN! 

Anyway, my political and moral views seems to straddle Liberal and Libertarian, so it was really interesting to see (qualified) people debate over arguements I've tried to unknot many's a late night with friends. 

technorati tags:drugs, feckless, finland, helsinki, BBC

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Designer Tea?

Wallpaper.com - International Design Interiors Fashion Travel - Design

Hype knows no bounds, it seems. Who would have thought the humble cup of tea could have been reinvented as it has been over recent years?

As a reminder that Wallpaper* is just as much about the preservation of time-honoured and quality brands as it is about pushing the product envelope, our award for the best brew goes to the wholly reliable Irish tea company, Barry’s. Why?

First, the packaging promises nothing more than a straight-talking cup of tea, but most importantly, the tea itself hails from the best plantations throughout Kenya and India’s Assam Valley. Just leave the builder’s bum to the professionals.

And thanks to Sean's recent delivery it's still what you'll get in a cup if you wander over to mine of an evening.

technorati tags:tea, helsinki, feckless, finland, wallpaper*

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Bad ping times

I live. I'm kinda homeless, relying on the kindness and trying the patience of friends, and my home computer is in a box. Thanks you Ann-Christin, Andreea, and Rosalinde, especially since your hospitality extended to cover my visiting friend Sean. Yes, I'm the sort of organised person who can't even secure a fixed abode for the duration of a friend's visit. Still, it's giving us interrailing flashbacks so it's not all bad.

Things have been hectic in the best possible way, the weather has been fabulous and we've taken advantage of and exploited it like heartless con-artists with a naive moneyed mark.

There's been surreality too, and regular readers will know that's the icing on my existential cake. There were lots of slowly moving tiny white blobs in the sky (for all our arguing they turned out to be the kites of one TimoNoko), and right now it's like some kind of surreal warzone - the smoke from massive forrest fires in Russia is blowing across Finland and blanketing Helsinki for a couple of minutes at a time before clearing off, like mischevious doorbell ringing kids.