Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

TED and Photosynth technology

TED is a great website that contains video, talks, and themes on Technology, Entertainment, and Design. This particular story has some amazing technology from a start up purchased by Microsoft and now part of the labs division. I ended up installing Photosynth myself and played around with the examples of photos that literally can be zoomed in and assembled into 3d pictures. Imagine what this will do when we can make our own collections across the web. Worth a watch!

TED | Talks | Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo (video)

After this I proceeded to browse around TED, and stumbled upon an artic explorer Ben Saunders who told his journey of trekking solo across the North Pole. Something never done before from one side to the other. Fascinating and motivational from a great speaker.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

June 12th - I heart my wikipedia

Recently I've changed my Firefox home page to the Wikipedia homepage. There is so much information there and everyday it changes. I love it because maybe I learn it's Independence day today in the Philippines, read the top news stories, or dive into a topic that is randomly generated to learn more about.

Today, this photo got me. I'm not one to get nostalgic about London, but I do get nostalgic about my travels. At 15 years old I traveled abroad for the first time to England with my soccer team. This was one of my favorite sites in London and this photo captures the serene beauty of Big Ben and Parliament - quite the contrast of the hustle bustle streets that surround it on the other side.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Are you kidding me? Blatant graffiti-er and the fashion police

Walking back from the dentist today (no cavities, thank you very much) I saw something that really made me wince. Right there on a crowded downtown union square street corner (Geary and Stockton) at 3pm, some short punky guy is personalizing the public bus with a purple etch-a-sketch marker. I can't figure out what it says of course, but that's the point of graffiti isn't it? The most remarkable fact was that about 5-10 onlookers were just STANDING there watching him!

As I walked past the stopped bus, trying to figure out why no one was saying anything, the punky guy jogs up to the front of the bus, and proceeds to add more graffitti! It was apparent this guy wasn't concerned about onlookers, or getting caught. I yelled to the bus driver (it was a packed bus so but his door was open), "there's a guy out here de-facing your bus!." Here's the kicker - he didn't get out! Before I could say anything else to yell at the guy (he was 5'4" and pseudo-meek despite his weak facial hair configuration) he jogged off down the street.

After this incident, I walked away dumbfounded. Why didn't I try to stop him? Why didn't I say "our" bus? Why did all the other on-lookers turn a blind eye and deface public property, that will be cleaned with all of our tax dollars? I think he might have believed me if I said freeze and read him his rights before placing in the fake call to book him. Then I thought even if I could've reported him, there were no police around to even tell them about it. One never sees police downtown unless you hang out in the tenderloin and witness crackhouse bust-up. The really sad part is, and I kid you not, the only police I saw were literally two women dressed as "fashion police" in front of Virgin Megastore on Market St. Dudded up in pretty navy uniforms, there were doing their diligent duty handing out brochures for make-up. You know it's a real crime when the only cops you can find are the fashion police.

Seriously people, we need to take action and not let punks like this guy ruin the city.

Fortunately, at least there's a site you can blog about your pet-peeves for incidents just like this: Act Locally SF .
This is part of mayor's Gavin Newsom's website: Act Locally. It would be great if he read these. At least you can add your own 2cents or learn more about what else could be improved in our fair city.