New stuff! For me, at least.

http://www.geekradio.com/

I have been listening to a lot of KPFT 90.1 on the drive to and from school, and it's a pretty interesting radio station. You hear a lot of different views on a pretty wide variety of topics--environmentalist issues, poverty issues, technology talk, political issues, black issues, hispanic issues, international news (including the BBC, local news, and Democracy Now)... even though I agree with very little of what is said, it's interesting to hear all of the different points of views. And, it's nice to hear liberals on air rather than the conservative tanks of AM radio (who are often as misinformed, but are more likely to also be angry... I guess peace, love, and harmony-type conservatives are hard to find).

Anyways, Geek Radio is one of the shows on KPFT, and I thought it might be useful or interesting for some people to know a little about what the local tech scene is like.

I also listen to houston public radio whenever they have the news on, but that's nothing new.

Although I haven't owned a Nintendo system since the SNES, I do fashion myself a Nintendo fan. Their upcoming Nintendo DSi sounds to me like they've found a way to capture some of the iPod Touch's market space. Now, if only they offered free apps... on the other hand, I love the SD card slot.

And, Google has releaesed Google Latitude. Now you can let your friends know where you are, and meet up with them if they're in the area. I think it's a pretty neat app, but no one I know uses it yet.

DON'T PANIC

Apparently, there's a betting pool for the existence of God. Somehow, I don't think that will settle the debate.

The New York Times used 96 pt font to declare Obama's win this past Tuesday. Apparently, this font size is extremely rare in NYT's history (5 confirmed times, at that link). The other times they decided to use that size are interesting... I wonder how people would rank these events in the all-time most important events in history (since the inception of NYT, of course), to see if people would agree with the Times.

In another story about the intelligence of nature, we might be able to learn about traffic congestion from ants, and how to solve traffic jams.

Mr. Feddersen tells us that we shouldn't be worried about the outcomes of elections--they're probably very good, since they represent aggregate knowledge among the voters. Trust the voters? Whether or not I agree with the most recent win of Obama, I don't think Feddersen took into account the past eight years, or media spin.

Speaking of the election, Krugman shows an interesting map of how much more Democratic or Republican the country voted. 

Researchers have made very tiny solar cells--a quarter the size of a grain of rice. It's possible to spray it onto surfaces, or to make a paste out of it and apply it to anything, apparently.

More and more books!

I've been excessively busy, so I haven't been able to update this as much as I'd like. Still, I found a news article that I just couldn't resist sharing with anyone.

Google and a number of authors and publishers have recently settled a lawsuit. Google will now be able to scan and share with the general public out-of-print books still under copyright.

Under some conditions, of course. But I'm not the only one who thinks this is awesome, am I? I'm hoping for out-of-print textbooks, personally. How about old gaming books? Old comic books? Graduate level textbooks can be hard to find. This greatly expands the possible library of Google Books.

I wonder if Google has or will have books of sheet music. That'd definitely revolutionize the industry.

Something off-beat.

Statler and Waldorf weigh in on the current political situation.

A silly website with silly graphs.

Enjoy!

Google Link Dump

Google Chrome Development Channel.

Gaudi, Google audio indexing (primarily politicians at the moment).

10 videos about Google.

In Quotes, find out what a number of people think about a number of issues (primarily politicians).

Knol still doesn't have a decent article on Economics.

Project 10 to the 100. Come up with a great idea and $10 million goes to fund it.

Google Moderator. Vote on what would be a good question to ask a Google Engineer, a presidential candidate, and more.

Chrome tips.

Chrome about: pages.

Google's 10th birthday.

And, now a couple non-Google things, since I've been trying to figure out how to boost my wireless signal. 1, 2.

Future techs

I was doing light reading on Moore's Law, and stumbled upon Wikipedia's list of emerging technologies. Gotta say, some of those would be pretty cool, but that list is seriously lacking. Still, it's neat seeing a list of cool stuff.

Hurricane Ike

Well, I was out of power for over 30 hours. Houston's been knocked down, but not out.

Useful links.
UH emergency site.
Ready.gov (for Texas)
Do you qualify for FEMA assistance?
Channel 2 has a lot of useful information.
On the CenterPoint website, they have a handy list of maps to tell you which areas are without power. I have a handy link to the most current one, if you ask me for it.
Here's a website with lots of news, divided into part of town (such as Fort Bend). Hurricane Ike Resources from OneStorm. That's a good use of a blog, if you ask me.

Google

Chrome videos.

Chrome critique.

Blogoscoped, which covers a lot of Google material, linked me to weird Google search results (some don't work anymore, I think).

Picasa has a cool face tagging feature, now.

And, as an aside, the 10 worst commutes in the US, according to one measure. No one should be surprised that Houston made the list.

D&D & Other Interesting Things

The Harbin Snow and Ice Festival is pretty neat. Those are massive ice sculptures!

This blog was originally to talk about my roleplaying musings. In that vein, WotC has some neat articles on airships, alchemy, and traps. Just had to mention.

And here's a Cato Institute article on global warming.

First Houston, then the World

The stadium for the Houston Dynamo has a chance of getting funding! Somehow, TIRZs don't seem like a great idea, but that's a subject for a different blog. Still, I'm excited about a new stadium for the Dynamo.

You can also now use free wi-fi around certain parts of Houston's downtown. It's still quite spotty, but hopefully things go well.

A finally, a cool Google site that shows you pictures from around the world.

More to come later, I'm sure.

I like this blog.

The Houstonist might be my new favorite Houston blog. I wonder if they want an economist to contribute his perspective (though, I could've announced the Houston Restaurant Week way before they did, thanks to Ms Cleary's blog... though I guess the credit would go to her). Hey, Houstonist! Look at my other blog and drop me a line if you like my local musing (though, they're currently more diverse).

Food tripping.
Local art.

Obama, international news, local news, and energy

Conservative University of Chicago law school professors apparently say good things about Obama--they might even vote Democrat this time 'round. Maybe. (h/t Mankiw)

China's getting ready for the Olympics.

Scary story about the Venezuelan murder rate.

Brazoria county has outdated levees? I guess that's not something we hear about in the city.

I recently saw two neat things. One is a device that draws water from the air and turns it into filtered water, with no electricity. Brilliant idea, and it should be sent to Africa. The other was a Science Channel show on alternative energies--new solar panels, solar plants, wind mills, and cities that use new alternative energy technology to produce all of its own energy. Nice. Texas should look at this new wind mill design before they build those new wind mills.

Neat links

I like word clouds, I don't know why.

This is this blog, as seen by Wordle.

Also, a CNNMoney list of best places to live. I'm always dubious of these lists when they have cities smaller than 50,000. But, I like the interface of this, too--you can edit the parameters.

The world's a mess

Zimbabwe needed help well before the recent elections, why wait until now to speak up? Politicians always wait until it's too late.

Google Reader has cool new features. And here are easter eggs around the internets.

In other news, I've been having severe computer issues. Bleh. At least EN World has neat things to report. And, Venezuelan soccer news is mixed. Beat Brazil 2-0 in a friendly, but drew and lost the next two World Cup Qualifier matches... those are the important ones.

Out of the office

I'm in Seattle at the moment--that's my current excuse for not being around at the moment--but I wanted to drop in and mention some of the latest news from Zimbabwe (this is actually from Sunday). In my opinion, this may be the worst news of the year. This may serve to perpetuate violence towards thousands, if not millions. And just when there may have been a glimmer of hope for so many people... then again, Mugabe had been actively working to crush that hope.

Since then, there have been just a continuate of what you might expect from Zimbabwe. The opposition presidential candidate seeks refuge in a foreign embassy, fearing his life; Mugabe's goons raid the opposition headquarters, and so on.

Interesting things to keep in mind

I've said this before: continue watching Zimbabwe news. It's so interesting, and terrible at the same time. It's like watching a train crash. Mugabe warns of violence, if he loses the next election. How can you lead a country like that? It's shocking, and indicative of Zimbabwe's current state.

Gotta say, love the Wii. Glad they're selling so well, so consistently, so long.

I never expected to worry about shower curtains.

Catholic bishops speak out against embryonic stem cell research again. EDIT: I thought it was important to include this bit from the article to clarify and emphasize that they're against embryonic stem cell research...

They said the church had no objection to use of stem cells from adult tissues and umbilical cord blood. Nor do they oppose other research that "involves no harm to human beings at any stage of development."

By the way

I'm still around.

Google now has Google Health in beta. Yay for more free applications and open standards!

And, the fourth edition of D&D recently came out. Can't wait to get a look at that. I don't who to link for that, it's all over.

In other news, the Japanese economy just can't get off the ground... the article is confusing, though. If their concern is that prices are high, shouldn't they raise interest rates to slow inflation? They're not raising rates, so their concern is presumably low investment, but the article doesn't seem to reflect that. They're a little too tight on policy for my tastes.

I urge everyone to follow Zimbabwean news, though it's of particular interest to me, as it portends to me the future of Venezuela.

Speaking of which, Venezuela beat Brazil in soccer for the first time ever! 2-0! I just hope that Venezuela's World Cup qualifier match against Uruguay on Saturday goes well (though, it's admittedly unlikely due to such a new coach).