Embed iTunes Artwork in MP3 [script]

The great script will take all of the iTunes downloaded album art and embed it directly in your MP3. That way, your album art will never get lost or have to be re-downloaded
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/download.php?sc=embedart

Nothingness [Alan Watts]

I have always had a strong conviction for nothing. People in the west seem to dislike the idea of nothing or think of it as a starting point. Because of this, they feel threatened. This type of thinking is amateurish and unnecessary because nothing is completely separate and perfectly inverse to something. This means that you cannot have something without nothing, therefore it is not an either or, but an inherent part of life that most ignore. With this new insight, you can stop worrying about nothing and embrace it. I consider this on par with what religions considers blasphemy, because ignoring or worrying about such an inherent part of life will only create problems. And from this, I feel that many problems would be avoided by understanding this undeniable fact.

Alan has us take nothing into consideration:

Placebo Effect Found in Spinal Nerves

Another example of the power of suggestion.

Excerpt from a slashdot article: "The researchers who made the discovery scanned the spinal cords of volunteers while applying painful heat to one arm. Then they rubbed a cream onto the arm and told the volunteers that it contained a painkiller, but in fact it had no active ingredient. Even so, the cream made spinal-cord neural activity linked to pain vanish. 'This type of mechanism has been envisioned for over 40 years for placebo analgesia,' says Donald Price, a neuroscientist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, who was not involved in the new study. 'This study provides the most direct test of this mechanism to date.'"

If the body can change that significantly on suggestion alone, then to me this just reinforces the powers of other forms of suggestion that people claim work. Things like prayer, homeopathic medicine and feeling the spirit.

Ignighting Salt Water

If the efficiency ratio is right in order to get salt water to burn, this tech could revolutionize the energy industry. I wonder what the byproduct is.

Environmental Impact of Pets

From the article Save the planet: eat a dog?

The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.

Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.

The couple have assessed the carbon emissions created bypopular pets, taking into account the ingredients of pet food and the land needed to create them.

"If you have a German shepherd or similar-sized dog, for example, its impact every year is exactly the same as driving a large car around," Brenda Vale said.

"A lot of people worry about having SUVs but they don't worry about having Alsatians and what we are saying is, well, maybe you should be because the environmental impact ... is comparable."

read the full article here »

Powered Exoskeletons

There are a handful of exoskeletons out in the world. It seems that none of them are ready for public consumption. The ones I am including in this post are the ones that are looking more responsive.

I am looking forward to the day that wheelchairs and walkers are a thing of the past. These have so many potential applications.


Full body - HAL Suite by Cyberdyne


Full body - Robo Suite by Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Though the current model is a hefty 77 lbs (35 kg), researchers say they can halve the weight and put it on the market in 2011. Each suit will sale for $5,600 to $11,200.


Legs - HAL Suite by Cyberdyne


Legs - Walking Assist Device by Honda

Legs On: Honda's Walking Assist Devices from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Hofmann's Potion [film]

This documentary offers a compassionate, open-minded look at LSD and how it fits into our world. Long before Timothy Leary urged a generation to "tune in, turn on and drop out," the drug was hailed as a way to treat forms of addiction and mental illness. At the same time, it was being touted as a powerful tool for mental exploration and self-understanding. Featuring interviews with LSD pioneers, beautiful music and stunning cinematography, this is much more than a simple chronicle of LSD's early days. It's an alternative way of looking at the drug... and our world.

See more films at the National Film Board of Canada website.

Hunt for the Memristor [AI]

Currently we are stuck in a lo-fi era of AI (Artificial Intelligence) that shouldn't even be called AI. Our current systems are limited to strict sets of data and extremely specific rules in order to get decent results. Below is an excerpt from a great article giving hope to AI that would truly deserve the AI title.


========================================================

Memristor minds: The future of artificial intelligence

EVER had the feeling something is missing? If so, you're in good company. Dmitri Mendeleev did in 1869 when he noticed four gaps in his periodic table. They turned out to be the undiscovered elements scandium, gallium, technetium and germanium. Paul Dirac did in 1929 when he looked deep into the quantum-mechanical equation he had formulated to describe the electron. Besides the electron, he saw something else that looked rather like it, but different. It was only in 1932, when the electron's antimatter sibling, the positron, was sighted in cosmic rays that such a thing was found to exist.

In 1971, Leon Chua had that feeling. A young electronics engineer with a penchant for mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, he was fascinated by the fact that electronics had no rigorous mathematical foundation. So like any diligent scientist, he set about trying to derive one.

And he found something missing: a fourth basic circuit element besides the standard trio of resistor, capacitor and inductor. Chua dubbed it the "memristor". The only problem was that as far as Chua or anyone else could see, memristors did not actually exist...

...read more

What do physics symbols mean?

The site Sixty Symbols has some great videos that explain the origin and meaning behind those criptic looking symbols used in mathmatic equations for physics.

View more in Quick Look

OS Xs Quick Look feature is an awesome addition (10.5 Leopard and above). In the Finder view on a mac, just select one or more files and press the spacebar to get a quick preview of the file(s). The downside is that natively, OS X only supports the most common file formats available. The good news is that people have made plugins that extend Quick Look to support other formats!

I gathered the most useful Quick Look plugins for me and zipped them up here, so you don't have too hunt them down. Check here find more Quick Look plugins.

My Quick Look Bundle (zip of bundle)
• BetterZip - Compressed files (ZIP, SIT, TAR, GZip, BZip2, RAR, 7-Zip, CPIO, ARJ, LZH/LHA, JAR, WAR, CAB, ISO, CHM, RPM, DEB, NSIS, BIN, HQX, DD)
• BrushView - Adobe Photoshop Brushes
• Entourage - Entrourage 2008 emails
• EPS - EPS files
• ColorXML - XML files
• FLV (you will also need the quicktime plugin Perian to view FLVs)
• Illust - Adobe Illustrator files
• ColorCode - Most script / code files (see all formats supported)

Installing Quick Look Plugins:
1. Unzip them to the folder ~/Library/QuickLook.
2. Restart the Finder by typing Command+Option+Esc, select Finder and click the "restart" button there.

Wee See [baby entertainment]

When your talking to a baby, they probably just see abstract shapes and hear trippy sounds. So it's no wonder why these videos are designed for entertaining babies. Visit the official website to learn more: www.weeseeworld.com

1 of 2

wee see - collection one from Rolyn Barthelman on Vimeo.

2 of 2

wee see - collection two from Rolyn Barthelman on Vimeo.

Are you open-minded?

A great introduction to open-mindedness that blazes by at top speeds. I found this helpful.

Open-mindedness
Uploaded by totocacapouet - Explore more science and tech videos.

Electricity Explained [GE 1942]

Part 1 of 2


Part 2 of 2

Crisis of Credit [animation]

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

The paradox of choice [TED]

Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

Pro Tools 8 [tips & tricks]

Professional video tutorial (1 hour):
An extensive Pro Tools 8 video tutorial that is only $10 from www.Multi-Platinum.com is a really great resource to learn more.


Additional online video tutorials:
Overview - http://www.vimeo.com/1872172
Midi Editor - http://www.vimeo.com/1932414
Score Editor - http://www.vimeo.com/2121604
Zooming 1 - http://www.vimeo.com/1587043
Zooming 2 - http://www.vimeo.com/1587189


Tips & Tricks:
At the bottom of this post is a list of the most common and useful key commands and tips (for me) for making Pro Tools 8 efficient to use.


The twisting knife of Digidesign:
It took hitting some walls to realize these things:
1. There is no built-in metronome. In order to make one, you have to create a new track for it, and add a plugin that generates the clicks. As I understand it, this is a legacy practice from the old mixing console days. One benefit to it is that you now have the power to change the volume or have multiple types of metronomes for various parts of a track. This is great when your recording quite and loud parts together, since mic's pick up the click track in headphones in a quite recording.
2. If you use an external drive, it must be a firewire hard drive that is formated with Mac Extended Journaled.
3. You must use Digidesign or M-Audio hardware when ever you use Pro Tools. Unlike every other DAW like Logic, you can't just hang out and edit your mix without being plugged into an external sound card of some kind. If you do need to move around, M-Audio is a better choice for the price.
4. Mbox is not the same as M-Audio.
5. M-Powered Pro Tools only works with M-Audio devices and Pro Tools LE only works with Digidesign/MBox devices.
6. What am I missing? Got any others you can share with the group??


There is still good in the world:
Even with the draconian tactics that Digidesign employs, the good things outweigh the bad (what it feels like to be mad and relieved at the same time).

After watching these tutorials and practicing the key commands for half a day, I was more fluid within Pro Tools in one day than I ever was in the year I used Logic. Not only was I faster at the basics, but the track comping features & midi editor themselves are the best ones I have ever used.

===============================================================
===============================================================

All Key Commands
http://www.keyxl.com/aaac31a/263/DigiDesign-ProTools-7-keyboard-shortcuts.htm


Main Edit Window
Cmnd+E Separate Region at Selection
Cmnd+H Heal Separation
Cmnd+Shift+Selection Insert Silence
Option+A Zoom to fit all horizontally
Cmnd+Option+Ctrl+Down Zoom to fit all vertically
Cmnd+] or t Zoom in
Cmnd+[ or r Zoom out
F6+F7 or F7+F8 Smart selection tool
Cmnd (while dragging) Temporarily disables grid mode
Cmnd+Shift+E+selection Insert silence (make sure SHUFFLE & GRID mode are on)
Cmnd+Shift+L Toggle loop playback selection (temporary)
Ctrl+Cmnd+P Toggle loop playback selection (fixed). The right facing arrow that appears at the top of the timeline at the loop start point can be moved to pre-roll before the loop starts.
Cmnd+= Show / Hide Mixer Window
Shift+M Mute selected track(s)
Shift+S Solo selected track(s)
Shift+R Record enable selected track(s)
Ctrl+Option+minus Toggle track view volume
Ctrl+Option+Cmnd+Right / Left Cycle to next / previous track view
Ctrl+Up/Down+Track selected Change height of selected track
Ctrl Toggles audio scrub tool on
P Move selection to previous track
P+Shift Grow selection to previous track
Semi-Colon (;) Move selection to next track
Semi-Colon (;)+Shift Grow selection to next track
Tab Jump to next start / end point on selected track. This is really great for cleanup when having to edit many crossfades or start and end fades.
Option+Tab Jump to previous start / end point on selected track
Tab+Shift+Left / Right Grow selection to next start / end point
Option+Tab+Shift+Left / Right Grow selection to next start / end point
Cmnd+G+Select multiple tracks Create Mix/Edit group for multiple tracks
Cmnd+Drag transport controls Re-arrange controls in header
Click on bottom part of track region overlaps to use crossfade tool
Click on upper right / left of track region to use the quick fade tool. Adjust quick fade types in Preferences / Editing.


Playlist Editing (Track Comping)
Main Edit Window commands from above apply
Ctrl+Cmnd+Click Track Header Show / Hide playlist(s) on selected track(s)
Ctrl+Option+V+Selection Promote audio
Cmnd+G+Select multiple tracks Create Mix/Edit group for comping multiple tracks at once (eg: drum tracks that have separate tracks for each mic)


Midi Editor
F6+F7 or F7+F8 Smart selection tool
Cmnd (while dragging) Temporarily disables grid mode
Double Click on note Add / Subtract midi note with predefined length
Double Click and drag Add an array of predefined midi notes
Cmnd+Click+Drag on note Change note velocity
Option+Click+Drag on note Duplicates note
Ctrl+Shift+Click on note Slice / Heal note


Mix Window
Option Click on section title Hides sections: Inserts A-E or Sends A-E
Right Click on I/O output Rename Bus or I/O

Our loss of wisdom [Barry Schwartz TED]

Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for "practical wisdom" as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.

Storytelling Tips [Ira Glass]

Ira Glass from This American Life talks about how to do storytelling.

Storytelling #1


Storytelling #2


Storytelling #3


Storytelling #4

How to eat sushi

Some of this seems to be a bit slapstick, but most of it I have seen referenced in other examples for how to eat sushi in Japan.



Japanese

Pattern Tap - Interface Collection

This site collects and allows other to contribute images of interface elements. The thinking is that the best stuff shows up here. Currently there isn't a whole lot, but I'm sure it will only grow. Cool resource.


Visit PatterTap.com