Archive for January, 2006
eStarling Wi-Fi RSS Enabled LCD Frame
Jan 13th
Finally somebody has made something I've been looking for a long time: The wifi/web-enabled LCD picture frame.
It's called the eStarling Wi-Fi Gmail / Flickr Enabled LCD Frame. Here's how it works:
- Hang the sucker in your house (needs to have WIFI)
- Using some software, configure it to
- Receive email (strange as that may sound)
- Receive an RSS newsfeed (Flickr, the photo album site, is a popular one)
- Then send it photos and, voila, it appears in the frame.
Pretty cool, huh?
The NetFlix of Video Games
Jan 6th
I just stumbled upon a great new service: GameFly. It is a service that lets you rent as many video games as you want for about $20 a month. It works like NetFlix: You get two out at a time and receive them by mail. When you are done, you send it back (in a free mailer) and get the next one in your queue. You can keep it out as long as you want.
Ogg Beats MP3
Jan 5th
When people think of digital audio, you think of MP3: The motion picture group’s layer-3.
But, there are other formats in town: AAC, WMA, MP-4 and many others.
One of the most interesting ones is Ogg Vorbis. Not only is it completely open source (and free of any restrictions), but it also sounds better. One of the best features is that it corrects a huge mistake that is implicit with MP3: Cannot handle gapless audio playback. So if you want to listen to that great live album or Pink Floyd CD, you have to absorb a little skip in the music. My personal tastes in music side towards the electronic/dance music realm. The whole art of it is in the seamless transition between one track to another. MP3 doesn’t handle this problem. Ogg does!
Try out ogg. You won’t go back.
The New Jew Review
Jan 3rd
Hanukkah is really a minor Holiday in the Jewish religion. Think of it as really a rememberance of history than a truly religious/spritual experience.
So, why does everyone know about it? Because it happens during Christmas, the biggest gentile holiday of the year. To cantilever it, Jews, especially American Jews, express themlelves by, making Hanukkah bigger than it really is. If Christians get one present (for one day) then Jews get 8 presents for the eight days. Lights in the windows, holiday cards, there are even Hanukkah albums! All this for a Holiday that is not mentioned in the Torah (the Old Testament).
What’s going on here? Well, it’s something called the New Jew.
Matisyahu Rocks
Jan 2nd
I’ve recently gotten into Matisyahu, the Hasidic Reggae Superstar .
Don’t laugh. He’s really a Hasid (a very religious, traditional Jew). And really sings Reggae music in the spirit of Bob Marley, Burning Spear, and other great stars.
It seems like it’d be shlocky, almost a gimmick, but it isn’t. Reggae has always been steeped in spiritually, blurring the lines between Rastafarianism and sprituality.
