Quartz City

• Perian - A swiss-army knife for QuickTime
  (tags: video software mac.os.x)

In 1969 the US Senate had a hearing on funding the newly developed Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The proposed endowment was $20 million, but President Nixon wanted it cut in half because of the spending going on in the Vietnam War. This is an video clip of the exchange between Mr. Rogers and Senator Pastore, head of the hearing. Senator Pastore starts out very abrasive and by the time Mr. Rogers is done talking, Senator Pastore’s inner child has heard Mr. Rogers and agreed with him.

[youtube]3Sd7TcVH670[/youtube]

The Optimus Mini Three looks kinda cool - a three button keyboard with tiny organic LCD screens as the buttons. Sure it’s gimmicky, but it, er, pushes all the correct nerd buttons.

If I had one though (and this is completely contingent about there being Mac drivers for it - which don’t exist yet), I’d program it to display a random selection of display graphics from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I always dug those screens in the background that displayed cryptic status reports for “ATM” or “NAV.”

• iCraig - Software - Geotagger
  Geotag your photos with this AppleScript droplet that accesses GoogleEarth
  (tags: applescript geography mac.os.x maps photography google)
• Clear Sky Clock Homepage
  Predictions for evening clear skies for amateur astronomers
  (tags: astronomy weather)
• Morse Resource
  Page of more code related tools and a morse podcast
  (tags: radio audio podcast)

I’ve had a variety of jobs over the years: fax machine repairman, auto deliverer, corporate spy, and various combinations of IT wrangler and network garbage collector. Couple months ago I added “television extra” to the list and here I am as “fifth guy from the left” (the tall one with his right arm in the air) in last night’s episode of Cold Case.

• RSOE HAVARIA Emergency and Disaster Information Service
  Real-time map of “global situation events” - biohazards, epidemics, earthquakes, tornadoes, accidents, etc.
  (tags: graphics maps visualization world news)

Go to the Guinness Book, find the section on “world’s largest/best/whatever domino fall” and rip it out because very other domino fall you’ve seen is crap compared with what Tim Fort does.[youtube]LLRYo4V3HB8[/youtube]

Dick Destiny notices that the CIA has been running recruitment advertisements on television, specifically King Of The Hill. I’ve seen the same commercials… running on VH-1’s The Drug Years show.

Apparently their irony sense is still impaired, or VH-1 has a better sense of humor than I thought.

• The Top-Secret Warplanes of Area 51
  (tags: aviation conspiracy history military nevada)
• ForteTwo
  A directory of highways with the route number “42″
  (tags: highway)

Scrubbles goes through his iTunes library looking for “the indestructibles” - songs that have been done by at least three different artists and hold up enough that folks keep them around. Looking through my library, I find:

“Alone Again Or” (Love, The Damned, Calexico)
“As Tears Go By” (The Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Nancy Sinatra)
“Codeine” (Buffy Saint-Marie, Gram Parsons, The Barracudas, Spiritualized)
“Goldfinger” (Billy Strange, Shirley Bassey, Man… Or Astroman?)
“It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry” (Bob Dylan, Kooper/Bloomfield/Stills, Robyn Hitchcock)
“Misirlou” (The Cardinals, Freddy Martin, Harold Grant, John “Bucky” Wilkins, Woody Herman, Dick Dale)
“More Than This” (Roxy Music, Robyn Hitchcock, 10,000 Maniacs)
“Ode To Billie Joe” (Bobbie Gentry, Lee Hazlewood, Popdefect)
“When The Levee Breaks” (Memphis Minnie, Led Zeppelin, Kristin Hersh)