dzhugashvili over at digg.com says, “Processors are typically compared by their performance alone, but the folks at The Tech Report have put together an extensive comparative article that ranks 16 AMD and Intel chips based on how much bang they offer for your buck. The results may surprise you.”
AT&T Quietly offers $10 DSL Plan
cirelo over at Digg wrote, “Without any sort of fanfare, AT&T Inc. has started offering a broadband Internet service for $10 a month, half the price of its cheapest advertised plan” (in some states).
Photosynth Technology Preview
I’m not often amazed by technology, but every once in a while, I see something that truly amazes me.
More than thirty years ago, as a photography student, I attended at lecture called “Critics Criteria.” A.D. Coleman was on the panel, as was one of my teachers at the University of California Extension, Joan Murray.
One of criterion that they discussed was how a photograph “extended my own vision.” Those photographs made you see in a different way. I remember Greg Heisler‘s photographs did that for me. The Photosynth Technology Preview also does that.
If you think that Microsoft is evil and just a gigantic, slow moving entity (and even if you don’t), you should take a look at Microsoft Live Labs’ Photosynth Technology Preview. Unfortunately, you need Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista and a hefty video card to try it on your own computer, but if you meet the system requirements, it’s worth looking at.
If you’re using a Macintrash or you just want to watch a video of this technology, this is a YouTube video of the demo at the TED (“TED – Technology, Entertainment, Design, an invitation-only event where the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration ” – a hoity-toity* moniker if I ever heard one) by Microsoft Live Labs Architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas.)
*my friend James Drake
BMW Bavaria WordPress Flickr Photo Album Plugin Mashup
I haven’t been a user of Flickr, but since I see it referenced so frequently (Scoble talks about Flickr and Zooomr all the time, and he’s a professional), I thought I’d see how Flickr manages images.
Since I started using WordPress v2.2 and got all widgetized (Geez, look at my sidebar), I found Joe Tan’s (of Silas Partners) Flickr Photo Album for WordPress.
Mr. Tan generously released the plugin under the GPL, so all I had to do was get an API from Flickr.
I uploaded a bunch of photographs that the shop took of the surface prep of our BMW Bavaria.
When we bought our BMW, we thought it was a relatively “rust-free” example. But living on a peninsula that is hanging out in the Pacific Ocean has a negative effect on steel.
I had trouble keeping the exterior paint shiny. I bought a Makita 9227C 7″ Variable Speed Hook and Loop Polisher/Sander and numerous compounds, Meguiars Medium and Fine Cut cleaners, and various waxes. It took a lot of effort to make the car look good, but it would last about a week – the paint was shot.
As the shop, J & J Auto Body and Paint Refinishing in Monterey, started surface preparation for the painting the car, the car’s paint history started appearing.
When they started sanding, they found several layers of paint. They recommended bare metal sanding ($$$$). The sanding revealed previous repairs all along the left side of the car (body filler).
J & J also did some metal fabrication to repair a rust hole in the rear window frame and the corners of the doors.
June
I need to write a post for June. When Google crawls my site, if there isn’t an entry for the current month, e.g., http://www.lesliewong.us/blog/2007/06, I get a “not found” error that says this is a URL from my site that Googlebot had trouble crawling.
So I’m making a June entry now.