Technology-enabled blasts from the past

Wow. As technology continues to advance, it seems to circle us back around at the same time. Yesterday Thomas, my significant other who can be a bit of a Luddite, finally set up a Facebook page, and freaked out when he saw how many people from his past are on there. "So THAT's where everyone's been - at this party I was invited to but kept blowing off..." For those of us who have been reconnecting with people through social networks, dating services and the like for years, it's easy to forget how mind-reeling it can be.

But then today I stumbled across Rumblefish.com, a "music licensing and sonic branding" company based out of Oregon. I'm always on the lookout for quick and easy (and quality - those are hard to find) online production music resources for promo reels, spots, etc., so the promise of iTunes type store for pre-cleared production music was worth a look. Right on the home page was a Featured Album called by a band called Tokyo Vogue. TOKYO freaking VOGUE - it couldn't possibly be the same local San Francisco band I used to follow back in high school could it? The Japan/ Duran Duran emulators, whose singer Eamon used to work at the carpet place up in Marin where my parents once shopped, with whom I got to talking about music (and of course I had a slight crush on), which is how I discovered them in the first place? Who used to play afternoon shows at Wolfgang's? Clicking through to the song list, I realized immediately from the titles that it was indeed the same. And of course being able to immediately listen to some of the tracks with a simple click of the play button sent me right back there - ah, nostalgia.

Join me now, if you care to, in the wayback machine...

http://www.musiclicensingstore.com/bin/Search2?Keywords=tokyo%20vogue

First mobile, now this!

The folks over at LinkedIn have apparently been busy beavers! First the launch of a true mobile version about a week ago (m.LinkedIn.com), now a complete redesign of the site layout, plus
status updates a la Facebook! Need to poke around some more, but at first glance I love it - the taskbar on the upper left and recap of connections just below that alone are a massive improvement in usability; going to the 3-column format and having questions & jobs in that right-hand column are also big pluses, bringing a lot more content up to the top in a clean and functional manner.

This feels much more like a dashboard for this account to me now, whereas before I found myself tabbing all over the place to accomplish the various tasks I use LinkedIn for. Bravo!

My favorite retail promotion

Saks has been doing this great "Spend Some, Get Some" promotion for a couple of years now. It's a clever way to use what's basically a discount to encourage loyalty. Not only do they drive customers into the store or to the site on these select Thursdays to buy, but they also ensure they will come back again by providing the discount in the form of a gift card for a future purchase or to give to a friend. Brilliant!

Twitxr photoblogging - my new solution?

Currently experimenting with Twitxr.com Beta, a new photo microblogging platform which offers cross-posting to Facebook & Twitter, as well as geolocation (well, apparently unless you're successfully using a hacked iPhone with their software, you must manually enter your location, but it's still pretty cool). You can post from your (i)phone, via email or via their website form. Since TextAmerica went under and took my 2-year mobile photoblog with them (gah!!), I'm hoping this will be my new solution, and have integrated the RSS feed on my home page.

If nothing else, it's an easy way to get mobile photos uploaded to Facebook if you're not using one of their supported carriers, which has been a real frustration (I still love T-Mobile anyway).

• TechCrunch review
• Laughing Squid review
• Facebook App

Cow Tipping is a mythical sport

Ah, physics. Interesting timing, given that we're going to see Dr. Stephen Hawking at the Paramount in Oakland tonight!! Thanks to MA for the tip...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1858246,00.html

The Times

November 05, 2005

Cow-tipping myth hasn't got a leg to stand on
By Jack Malvern

IT IS the kind of story you hear from a friend of a friend — how, after a long night in a rural hostelry and at a loss for entertainment in the countryside, they head out into a nearby field.
There, according to the second-hand accounts, they sneak up on an unsuspecting cow and turn the poor animal hoof over udder.

But now, much to the relief of dairy herds, the sport of cow-tipping has been debunked as an urban, or perhaps rural, myth by scientists at a Canadian university.


Margo Lillie, a doctor of zoology at the University of British Columbia, and her student Tracy Boechler have conducted a study on the physics of cow-tipping.

Ms Boechler, now a trainee forensics analyst for the Royal Canadian Mounted Corps, concluded in her initial report that a cow standing with its legs straight would require five people to exert the required force to bowl it over.

A cow of 1.45 metres in height pushed at an angle of 23.4 degrees relative to the ground would require 2,910 Newtons of force, equivalent to 4.43 people, she wrote.


Dr Lillie, Ms Boechler’s supervisor, revised the calculations so that two people could exert the required amount of force to tip a static cow, but only if it did not react.

“The static physics of the issue say . . . two people might be able to tip a cow,” she said. “But the cow would have to be tipped quickly — the cow’s centre of mass would have to be pushed over its hoof before the cow could react.”

Newton’s second law of motion, force equals mass multiplied by acceleration, shows that the high acceleration necessary to tip the cow would require a higher force. “Biology also complicates the issue here because the faster the [human] muscles have to contract, the lower the force they can produce. But I suspect that even if a dynamic physics model suggests cow tipping is possible, the biology ultimately gets in the way: a cow is simply not a rigid, unresponding body.”

Another problem is that cows, unlike horses, do not sleep on their feet — they doze. Ms Boechler said that cows are easily disturbed. “I have personally heard of people trying but failing because they are either using too few people or being too loud.

“Most of these ‘athletes’ are intoxicated.”