:: Pacific Puzzleworks :: BB
Archive for December, 2006
Lee Krasnow - Puzzle Maker
21 Dec 2006
Work Below Your Means
[Work] below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.
-Pablo Picasso
:: 37 Signals
20 Dec 2006
Kevin Kelly - True Films 2.0
If you’re not already overloaded with factuals, Kevin Kelly just released a book of his reviews of his favorite documentaries and educational videos. This would be a great book to have if you are a Netflix subscriber.
Its available for free on-line, but I’d rather have the book:
- PDF or Lulu
- Amazon - available in a few weeks
20 Dec 2006
Watch Great Documentaries On-line for Free
Documentaries and video presentations are my favorite way to learn. In an hour, with no effort, you can get a basic overview and know what to explore further. I’ve been planning to tell about where I watch them, but today BoingBoing beat me to it. They suggest searching Google Video for:
There’s also about 30,000 videos at:
Those are all great ways to find a ton of videos, but it’s still hit or miss. Any kid with a video camera can put together some fairly convincing nonsense, so to avoid filling your head with mush you have to research who made the movie and try to decide if you can trust them. These have the advantage of editorial review and tend to be consistently high quality:
- Charlie Rose (these used to cost $.99, but I just noticed they are free now)
They aren’t all documentaries, but they are all educational. If there are more that should be included let me know.
Updates:
I’ll keep adding to this list on the Recommendations/Videos Page in the Menu. Bookmark it there. If you bookmark it here, you’ll miss out on all the great stuff people tell me about from now on, and the rest of us will laugh at you behind your back.
20 Dec 2006
How We Were Conned into Buying Diamonds
In 1982 the diamond market was in upheaval. New large deposits were being discovered. Prices were plummeting. The price of a 1 carat flawless investment diamond fell from $60,000 to $6,000 in five years.
In that climate Edward Jay Epstein wrote a book chronicling the story of De Beers: how they carefully controlled both the supply and demand for 100 years. The book is The Diamond Invention. You can buy it used for $145.61 or read it for free at his website.
He also wrote an article summarizing it for the Atlantic. If you’ve ever felt the pressure to buy a diamond or hoped to receive a large one, read this article. It is the textbook example of how we are manipulated to create a market for something we don’t need.
:: Edward Jay Epstein|Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?
20 Dec 2006
Paris’ New Tram
I think this is what urban trains should be:
- It mixes well with pedestrians and bikes because it is slow - 14 mph max.
- The stops are only a block apart.
- It is quiet.
- The floor is low. You barely have to step up.
- The tracks are flush with the ground so you don’t trip on them.
- In a lot of places, pedestrians can cross the tracks anywhere, so the tracks don’t divide up the City.
- A lot of the track bed is planted with grass.
Brilliant
This Paris tram uses overhead power. In Bordeaux (above), they use a third rail to supply power from ground level and avoid the overhead power lines. Only 8 meters of rail are powered at a time so that only the section covered by the tram is energized.
19 Dec 2006
Free Online Disk Space
I’ve been trying out Mozy. You can backup 2 GB on-line for free, or for $4.95 per month there is no size limit. Signup is quick. The interface is intuitive, and it keeps itself out of the way, only transferring data when your computer is idle.
The potential downsides are:
- You have to trust Mozy not to misuse your data, or avoid backing up your� top secret stuff.
- The transfer speed is slow compared to a local network, but you can set it up to run in the middle of the night. That’s what I do, so speed isn’t a problem.
The rumored Google GDrive is supposed to go further, allowing you to use their servers as a network drive. Speed will obviously be an issue there at current transfer speeds.
::Mathew Ingram|Here Comes the Virtual Harddrive
17 Dec 2006
Green Venture Capital
Kleiner Perkins is famous for funding Amazon, Google, and Netscape. Now they have put a substantial portion of their capital to work in green energy investments. From an interview in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal:
WSJ:
As of last spring, Kleiner said it planned to set aside $100 million for cleantech investments. Where does that stand now?
Ray Lane:
We’ve doubled it. The way we think of it half our resources (main stream investments, not including special funds) are going to green tech right now.
They are also awarding $100,000 prize every year to companies that make significant advances in green technology. I love the prize idea in general: #1, #2. However, this one doesn’t seem to be very effective for spurring innovation. To do that a prize needs to be very large and be rewarded for a specific goal that’s stated up front. This seems to be designed for spurring press coverage.
17 Dec 2006
