Random Shapes Blog Network http://randomshapes.com A Community for Teens Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:37:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1 en http://brendino.net/2008/06/01/350/ http://brendino.net/2008/06/01/350/#comments Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:52:43 +0000 Brendan http://brendino.wordpress.com/?p=350 http://brendino.net/2008/06/01/350/feed/ The Fight Against Creationism http://nickstone.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/the-fight-against-creationism/ http://nickstone.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/the-fight-against-creationism/#comments Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:20:07 +0000 Peter http://nickstone.wordpress.com/?p=239 http://nickstone.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/the-fight-against-creationism/feed/ Opera and Opera Mobile 9.5 to Support Google Gears http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/302244177/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/302244177/#comments Sun, 01 Jun 2008 07:36:41 +0000 Thilak http://tech-buzz.net/?p=2555 opera_software Google Gears is an open source project, which allows web applications to function offline, when no active internet connection is available. It was introduced about a year ago, and so far it has done pretty well. Until now, it was available for Firefox and IE users only. Opera users were tied down to use these two browsers to enjoy offline web experience.

Finally, Opera Software has announced that they will bring Gears support for not only their desktop browser, but also for the mobile browser. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

"The forthcoming Opera Mobile 9.5 with Gears will usher in a new era for the Web on mobile devices," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "Together, these products will create new ways to bring applications to life on mobile devices. Developers will be able to use this along with Opera Dragonfly to develop and debug compelling applications for any connected environment."

This is a pretty big achievement because offline web experience is no more restricted to just desktop browsers. I’ve been using Opera Mobile for quite some time now, and this is just another reason to love it!

[via: jkOnTheRun]

]]> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/302244177/feed/ Interesting Argument About Global Warming http://geoffmyers.net/blog/2008/05/31/interesting-argument-about-global-warming/ http://geoffmyers.net/blog/2008/05/31/interesting-argument-about-global-warming/#comments Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:22:19 +0000 Geoff Myers http://geoffmyers.net/blog/?p=70
Interesting Argument About Global Warming - Watch more free videos

]]> http://geoffmyers.net/blog/2008/05/31/interesting-argument-about-global-warming/feed/ Impressions of Prague, Czech Republic http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ItsLikeBensBlog/~3/302049249/prague-impressi.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ItsLikeBensBlog/~3/302049249/prague-impressi.html#comments Sat, 31 May 2008 21:52:21 +0000 Ben Casnocha tag:typepad.com,2003:post-50656062 Pragueatnight

(photo credit)

A friend and I spent a few nights the other week in Prague, Czech Republic.

I'd heard endless good things about Prague. Truly, I don't know a person who has not liked Prague, with the most common adjective being "dreamy." It's clear why: the main old town square is a remarkable sight. Standing in the middle, to your right are enormous facades and old buildings; to your left is the Astronomical Clock. Leave the square, wind your way through cobble stone streets and you're soon at the Charles Bridge. The bridge, especially at night as pictured above, is stunning. And the views of the city from the bridge are second-to-none. Walk across the bridge and continue up the hill and you see Prague Castle, a soaring, amazing architectural construction, with stone lions jumping out the windows.

We went to the Kafka museum after the Castle -- it's very well done. By reading some of Kafka's diary entries it's clear that he was absolutely obsessed with writing. He couldn't do anything else. A sign of genius. (I read this set of Kafka stories beforehand to get oriented. A fine introduction to his work.)

Czech food is heavy (dark meat, yummy thick bread dumplings, beer) but good. Because my friend had a somewhat weak Italian stomach -- sorry Massimo, couldn't resist -- we made a couple McDonald's runs along the way, and stumbled upon the McWalk. The McWalk is like a drive-through window except it's a walk-through. Why someone would use the McWalk instead of walking in the front door is beyond me. Apparently, there are only two McDonald's McWalk windows in the world: Prague and Haifa, Israel. See my travel blog for more. Also - in McDonald's they charge for ketchup!

The Soviet influence remains. I met a business professor in Prague who told me that many officials in the current government are there because of the old communist power structure. The communist ideology still has a grip on the national psyche, he told me, and this is problematic on many fronts including efforts to stimulate entrepreneurship.

We had bad weather for our visit, and weather always makes a difference. This probably contributes to why I feel like Prague is a little overrated. Its beauty is stunning, but many parts of Western Europe have beautiful old towns, churches which inspire, cute hole-in-the-wall shops, etc etc. I'm guessing that 10 years ago, Prague was a hidden gem for Western Europe tourists willing to venture a little more east. It's changed big time. Charles Bridge teems with tourists every hour of every day. The whole old town is packed with foreigners, and the cheesy shops selling fake tourist trinkets line virtually every street. Sure, you can avoid the tourists and explore new town (which Massimo and I did and it was well worth it). But the fact remains: Prague is now a tier two tourist destination in Europe (if tier one is Rome, Paris, and London), drawing visitors from all over Europe, America, and Asia. To me, Kiev, Ukraine has more charm and is less crowded than Prague, and only slightly less beautiful.

The Bottom Line: Prague is well worth your time as something that has a bit more Eastern European vibe. But it's no longer off the beaten path and therefore contains all the annoyances of other top European tourist destinations.

]]> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ItsLikeBensBlog/~3/302049249/prague-impressi.html/feed/ Oh the interesting experiences… http://theexperiment.us/672 http://theexperiment.us/672#comments Sat, 31 May 2008 20:00:54 +0000 The Experiment http://theexperiment.us/672
So the last few weeks of school went something like this: I'd be sitting around playing video games or just messing around with friends thinking, "I should probably start that final paper/project.  It's due on [insert date here]. . . . Oh shit, that's already next Wednesday?!  Shit, shit, shit!"  An even after that realization, I wouldn't start for another couple of days, with one exception.  I started my CAD final project way early, because I love CAD and didn't really see the final project as some nasty thing that I have to get done.  Instead I just saw it as more time to play around on the computer and make fun looking things.  So I ended up finishing that pretty early and helped a bunch of people with theirs.  I also applied to become a CAD TA next semester, so hopefully I get the job and can make a few extra bucks each week.

Despite copious amounts of procrastination, especially when it came to writing my final paper for STS (I wrote 22 pages on the morning of the due date), I'd say that I finished off the semester pretty well.  I sort of got screwed over in one of my classes because I had the hard-ass TA of the class, but my GPA went up (although only by 0.01 point) this semester.  I say that's not too bad considering I just continued my lazy-ass ways.

Some friends and I went to play paintball right before finals.  I had always wanted to play paintball, but I never got the chance to up until now.  And just as you'd probably expect, I absolute LOVED it.  Yeah, sometimes it hurts like hell when you get hit but it's so much fun!  Afterwards I had some huge welts and bruises from where I had been hit and even though we went on May 2nd (or something like that), I still have a mark on my thigh from it.  That welt/bruise was all green, purple, yellow, and red for the longest time.  And now that all of the bruises are finally healed, I want to go play again!  And this time perhaps I should wear a pair of really baggy jeans so I don't get so many intense welts and bruises.

My future roommates and I have been talking a lot about money and how we're going to deal with our expense for the apartment that we're going to be living in come August.  The check for our first month of rent was put in the mail a couple of days ago, and the place will officially be ours on June 1 (yeah, that's in about 3 hours from now!)!.  Exciting, isn't it?  I'll be going up to the apartment in 2 weeks and meet up with one of my roommates there.  Our plan is to clean the place up a bit (depending on what kind of condition the place is in when we get there), and we're also going to repaint all the walls.  Everything will probably end up being an off-white/cream color, since that's nice and neutral and it'll make the place seem a lot brighter.  We're also going to be buying a kick-ass TV for the apartment.  We're thinking some sort of Samsung 40" 1080p TV.  How amazing would that be?  And hopefully we'll have a PS3 and an Xbox 360 in the living room, so the sweet TV will be put to good use.  Plus we'll probably have a surround sound system to go along with the TV.  I can't wait!

Anyways, I've only really spent a couple of days at home since I came home from school on May 9th.  Why?  I left for Boston with Chris the Tuesday after we came home from school and we were there till the Monday after that.  And then I was home for a day and then left for Atlanta, GA, (stopping in Virginia Beach, VA) with the RPI women's volleyball team.  Nationals didn't go too well for the team, but at least we had fun!  I got a nice tan in Virginia Beach, and it was a lot of fun hanging out in Atlanta.  Only after I got back from nationals did I finally have my first home-cooked meal with my family since April.  I don't plan on eating out for a while; I need to let my body detox from all the fatty, high-calorie, high-cholesterol stuff I've been shoving down my throat for months.

As soon as I got back from Atlanta this past week, I started training for a job that I recently got.  I finished the 3-day training today, and sold my first knife!  I have several more appointments tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to actually sell more!  What am I selling?  Knives.  Yes, you heard me right.  I'm selling knives this summer.

And then there's the whole drum corps mess.  Because I'm poor and need money and therefore need to work, I've dropped drum corps for the summer.  But drum corps people are/were working on finding me a job for the summer so I can make enough money to march.  I told them that even if they find something for me, I may still be unable to march.  Well, they hooked me up with an interview at an insurance firm, so I get to go do that on Thursday.  And then  if I get the job, I get to deal with this whole mess.  I have to decide if getting that job will allow me to march, or if I'm going to have a find a way to tell them that I just can't do it this summer.  So what if I get the job and still can't march?  Do I keep the job?  If that happens, I'd feel like an asshole and I'd feel like I used the drum corps people to find myself a job.  So I don't know what I'll do if I'm in that situation....

My grandparents will be visiting later this summer, and then I'll be flying to California the day after they leave so I can visit my fantastic boyfriend Chris.  I'm so excited!  Chris, if you're reading this, I miss you!

Anyways, I have to do my laundry right now.  Why do I find myself in need of doing laundry all the time?  I feel like I always need to do laundry even on the day after I've done all my laundry....]]>
So the last few weeks of school went something like this: I'd be sitting around playing video games or just messing around with friends thinking, "I should probably start that final paper/project.  It's due on [insert date here]. . . . Oh shit, that's already next Wednesday?!  Shit, shit, shit!"  An even after that realization, I wouldn't start for another couple of days, with one exception.  I started my CAD final project way early, because I love CAD and didn't really see the final project as some nasty thing that I have to get done.  Instead I just saw it as more time to play around on the computer and make fun looking things.  So I ended up finishing that pretty early and helped a bunch of people with theirs.  I also applied to become a CAD TA next semester, so hopefully I get the job and can make a few extra bucks each week.

Despite copious amounts of procrastination, especially when it came to writing my final paper for STS (I wrote 22 pages on the morning of the due date), I'd say that I finished off the semester pretty well.  I sort of got screwed over in one of my classes because I had the hard-ass TA of the class, but my GPA went up (although only by 0.01 point) this semester.  I say that's not too bad considering I just continued my lazy-ass ways.

Some friends and I went to play paintball right before finals.  I had always wanted to play paintball, but I never got the chance to up until now.  And just as you'd probably expect, I absolute LOVED it.  Yeah, sometimes it hurts like hell when you get hit but it's so much fun!  Afterwards I had some huge welts and bruises from where I had been hit and even though we went on May 2nd (or something like that), I still have a mark on my thigh from it.  That welt/bruise was all green, purple, yellow, and red for the longest time.  And now that all of the bruises are finally healed, I want to go play again!  And this time perhaps I should wear a pair of really baggy jeans so I don't get so many intense welts and bruises.

My future roommates and I have been talking a lot about money and how we're going to deal with our expense for the apartment that we're going to be living in come August.  The check for our first month of rent was put in the mail a couple of days ago, and the place will officially be ours on June 1 (yeah, that's in about 3 hours from now!)!.  Exciting, isn't it?  I'll be going up to the apartment in 2 weeks and meet up with one of my roommates there.  Our plan is to clean the place up a bit (depending on what kind of condition the place is in when we get there), and we're also going to repaint all the walls.  Everything will probably end up being an off-white/cream color, since that's nice and neutral and it'll make the place seem a lot brighter.  We're also going to be buying a kick-ass TV for the apartment.  We're thinking some sort of Samsung 40" 1080p TV.  How amazing would that be?  And hopefully we'll have a PS3 and an Xbox 360 in the living room, so the sweet TV will be put to good use.  Plus we'll probably have a surround sound system to go along with the TV.  I can't wait!

Anyways, I've only really spent a couple of days at home since I came home from school on May 9th.  Why?  I left for Boston with Chris the Tuesday after we came home from school and we were there till the Monday after that.  And then I was home for a day and then left for Atlanta, GA, (stopping in Virginia Beach, VA) with the RPI women's volleyball team.  Nationals didn't go too well for the team, but at least we had fun!  I got a nice tan in Virginia Beach, and it was a lot of fun hanging out in Atlanta.  Only after I got back from nationals did I finally have my first home-cooked meal with my family since April.  I don't plan on eating out for a while; I need to let my body detox from all the fatty, high-calorie, high-cholesterol stuff I've been shoving down my throat for months.

As soon as I got back from Atlanta this past week, I started training for a job that I recently got.  I finished the 3-day training today, and sold my first knife!  I have several more appointments tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to actually sell more!  What am I selling?  Knives.  Yes, you heard me right.  I'm selling knives this summer.

And then there's the whole drum corps mess.  Because I'm poor and need money and therefore need to work, I've dropped drum corps for the summer.  But drum corps people are/were working on finding me a job for the summer so I can make enough money to march.  I told them that even if they find something for me, I may still be unable to march.  Well, they hooked me up with an interview at an insurance firm, so I get to go do that on Thursday.  And then  if I get the job, I get to deal with this whole mess.  I have to decide if getting that job will allow me to march, or if I'm going to have a find a way to tell them that I just can't do it this summer.  So what if I get the job and still can't march?  Do I keep the job?  If that happens, I'd feel like an asshole and I'd feel like I used the drum corps people to find myself a job.  So I don't know what I'll do if I'm in that situation....

My grandparents will be visiting later this summer, and then I'll be flying to California the day after they leave so I can visit my fantastic boyfriend Chris.  I'm so excited!  Chris, if you're reading this, I miss you!

Anyways, I have to do my laundry right now.  Why do I find myself in need of doing laundry all the time?  I feel like I always need to do laundry even on the day after I've done all my laundry....]]> http://theexperiment.us/672/feed/ tweet: The Happening looks hella scar… http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bryanculver/~3/301641859/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bryanculver/~3/301641859/#comments Sat, 31 May 2008 03:16:18 +0000 bryan http://bryanculver.com/tweet-the-happening-looks-hella-scar/ The Happening looks hella scary.

]]> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bryanculver/~3/301641859/feed/ You Aren’t Criticized for Things You Fail to Try http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ItsLikeBensBlog/~3/301618603/you-arent-criti.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ItsLikeBensBlog/~3/301618603/you-arent-criti.html#comments Sat, 31 May 2008 02:33:42 +0000 Ben Casnocha tag:typepad.com,2003:post-50638784

 A subtle but powerful insight from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, via this Q&A in Portfolio:

One of your big initiatives, a search engine called A9, fell flat. What happened? If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table. Companies are rarely criticized for the things that they failed to try. But they are, many times, criticized for things they tried and failed at.

 

Did you ever get criticized for some­thing you tried that worked out? When we pioneered customer reviews, it was incredibly controversial. I got letters from publishers saying, “You don’t understand your business. You make money when you sell things. Take down those negative customer reviews.” We’ve never done anything of real value that wasn’t at least a little bit controversial when we did it. But if you want to be a pioneer, you have to be comfortable being misunderstood.

]]> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ItsLikeBensBlog/~3/301618603/you-arent-criti.html/feed/ Thanks to the good folks at Live Nation I will be at the MTV Movie Awards this year. Watch it live… http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/micvskyeno/~3/301506967/36616653 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/micvskyeno/~3/301506967/36616653#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 21:27:00 +0000 vskyeno http://vskyeno.org/post/36616653 MTV Movie Awards this year. Watch it live on Sunday June 1st around 7ish and see if you can spot me! I will probably be escorting the guest. Any messages you want me to pass on to Megan Fox or Will Ferrell, let me know bitches!! ]]> MTV Movie Awards this year. Watch it live on Sunday June 1st around 7ish and see if you can spot me! I will probably be escorting the guest. Any messages you want me to pass on to Megan Fox or Will Ferrell, let me know bitches!! ]]> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/micvskyeno/~3/301506967/36616653/feed/ Pay to Stream Movie Service Coming from Amazon http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/301404519/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/301404519/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 17:50:42 +0000 Thilak http://tech-buzz.net/2008/05/30/pay-to-stream-movie-service-coming-from-amazon/ At the ongoing All Things D conference, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com has announced that within next couple of weeks, Amazon will launch a pay-to-stream movie service. More details on this service are not available right now, but he said that it will be separate from Amazon Unbox (which is a video download service).

I’m left with several questions like how much it will cost to stream a movie. Whether or not new titles will be available for streaming? This seems like Amazon’s bet to beat Apple in sales figure, but in the end it all depends upon the pricing and titles. I personally prefer downloading, rather than watching a streaming movie, but if streaming works out to be cheaper, then I’ll certainly ditch downloading. Kindle might eventually go color and have movie streaming added to its feature list! How does that sound?

[Via: Gizmodo]

]]> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/301404519/feed/ Mozilla Aims for Guinness World Record http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/301428446/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/301428446/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 17:39:11 +0000 Thilak http://tech-buzz.net/?p=2554 While Firefox 3 is on its way, Spread Firefox team is preparing to set a Guinness World Record for the most number of downloads in 24 hours. The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 has not been disclosed yet, but you can help them set a record by pledging to download Firefox 3 on the "Download Day" (which coincides with the release date of Firefox 3).

So far 340,411 people have pledge to download Firefox 3. The current record for most downloads in 24 hours is non-existent, so they’ll set the record no matter what! Campaigns like these are held to promote a better web browser, rather than anything else. Last time, they celebrated World Firefox Day which followed by Friends of Firefox campaign.

Just to make sure you don’t miss it, they’ll probably shoot you an email reminder on the download day. To participate, you just need to download Firefox 3 on the same day. Please remember that only completed download counts. Like always, you can help them to spread the word by placing their banners on your blog, profile page or even in your email signature. They have a special certificate that can be printed for you to celebrate and show off your participation!

]]> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Tech-Buzz/~3/301428446/feed/