Seoul’s Banpo bridge has now been retrofitted with 10,000 nozzle-fountain on both sides of the bridge, turning the infrastructure into a piece of art. Nozzles move individually, and at night, it is accompanied by a light show. Here’s a video if it in action:
Happy World Vegetarian Day everybody. In case you are not aware, today (October 1st) is the World Vegetarian Day, to celebrate the beginning of the vegetarian awareness month. Yes, it is true, being vegetarian is almost like a disease that people need to be aware of. Signs include refusing meat and any animal-derived products and the need to preach to other people.
Visit the official website to learn more about World Vegetarian Day. North American Vegetarian Society has a hilarious list of things you can do to make people become aware of vegetarianism (as if people don’t know what it means) and to become the laughingstock of your family and friends. But, seriously, ask libraries to set up a display of vegetarian titles???
In case you didn’t know, today (September 19th) is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. So go dress up like a pirate (if you wish), or simply talk like a pirate and confound your friends. Several websites do have pirate-speak version such as Facebook. Join in the fun by switching your language to English – Pirate.
Here is a professional quality video, created by Eepybird, employing over 280k Post-It notes to create a multitude of paper slinkies.
With the advent of RSS feeds, it has never been easier to be updated with news and blogs. What everyone needs is a versatile, full-featured yet simple to use and possibly free RSS reader that can handle your demanding news viewing. Thankfully, Snarfer does all that, and more.
With the use of folders, you can keep your feeds organized by opting to display new items from a specific feed, a specific folder, or all the feeds at the same time. Clicking on a feed item will display the webpage in the reader without opening a browser instance.
Apart from feeds, Snarfer can also search eBay or Craigslist by setting a few keywords and the feed will be automatically updated and return relevant search results. If you’re looking for a specific product, this feature will greatly save you time.
Another great feature is synchronizing with Bloglines, which means you can access your feeds virtually anywhere by using either the desktop software or online. This way, your feeds will be up to date to your reading.
In the end, Snarfer is a great reader for all your feeds. Program doesn’t hog resources, and best of all, it is available for free.
When you have internationally traveling friends, sometimes all you want to do is to figure out where they are and where they are going. Or if you travel a lot for business or pleasure, you’d possibly want a central location and generate a RSS feed so your friend can compulsively know your whereabouts. DOPPLR.com tries to fill this niche market: however its usefulness depends entirely on your friends’ willingness to have another social network added…
With DOPPLR, you can list what trips you are going to take. Interface is incredibly simple as you type in your destination, DOPPLR will try to make the best effort to guess the exact location. For example, when I typed “Toronto”, it guessed that I meant “Toronto, Canada”, although when I typed “Turks and Caicos”, it thought I wanted to go to Khujand, Tajikistan (and I really don’t want to go there). You specify the dates of your travel, the method to get there and all those details will be saved.
The next step is to invite your friends to use DOPPLR so they can see your trips, and this is where things will be very tough for this website. It is already tough to survive in the world of social networking in the face of Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. It doesn’t look like the usefulness of DOPPLR will be lost to many. There is also a travel guide component, where users can submit what to do when you get to a destination, but the quality of submissions is limiting, and the available information is lacking. You will be better off getting travel information from other dedicated websites.
In the end, DOPPLR presents us with a solution that not too many people care about. If you really want to find out where your friends are traveling to, there are easier ways to find out (Facebook, e-mail even phone calls). And if you absolutely want to show off how much you travel the instant you update your travel plans, I have a feeling your friends won’t be so interested in you afterwards.
Official national symbols are often the source of extreme national pride. Just look at how passionate Chinese are about the Beijing Olympic Games. Canada already has many national symbols, such as our sport (hockey), our animal (beaver), our sugary confection (maple syrup) and vegetation (maple leafs leaves). There aren’t too many countries in the world with official national fruits, and this is our chance to seize blueberry as the official fruit of Canada.
So why blueberry?
First of all, it is an incredibly nutritious fruit, rich in vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin K and dietary fiber. Wild blueberries even contain anthocyanins and antioxidants that can reduce the risks of some diseases such as inflammation and cancers. In fact, blueberry is the fruit most rich in antioxidants in the world.
Secondly, Canada produces lots and lots of blueberries. British Columbia is one of the largest producers of highbush blueberries in Canada, and Quebec is the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world. Nova Scotia already recognizes the blueberry as its official provincial berry.
Join the campaign to make blueberry the national fruit of Canada (before some other country does it).
When it comes to easy-to-use and even easier-to-program universal remote, Harmony products always rank high. Logitech Harmony One is a worthy successor to last year’s 880 model, improving upon virtually all aspects.
One look at the remote and you’ll realize the button placement is more intuitive than ever before. Gone are the tiny buttons next to the screen, and instead there is a full color touchscreen (220 by 176 pixels). The screen makes using the remote even easier and even more customizable. Some of the odd shape buttons (like “A”, “B” and “C” buttons on cable box) look just like they do on the unit remote, making them easier to spot on the screen. Another great use of the screen is to customize favorite channels when you’re watching the TV. By downloading and configuring your remote to display channel logos, just press the logo and you’ll be taken to that channel. TV station logos for virtually all channels in the world can be downloaded here.
What hasn’t changed is the software. As always, Harmony One requires you to set up the device online, which means if you don’t have an internet connection, you can’t set up the remote. On the flipside, you don’t have to read through rows and rows of device codes and trying each one to find what your devices respond to. Instead, just type in the brand and the model number, Harmony website will figure out what codes to use.
Harmony One still uses activities which is another way to describe macro. Default configuration will work for most users, but the option is available for you to tweak to your heart’s content (such as delay between button presses, order of devices power on…). For example, press “Watch TV” activity and, based on your programmed devices, the remote will automatically turn the TV on, set it to the proper input, turn the cable box or other audio devices on, and even set it to the favorite default channel.
In the end, Harmony One is a worthy successor to last year’s model, and it improves upon the Harmony 1000 which also featured a touchscreen. Harmony One is better looking, with better button placement, more comfortable to hold, and features a better screen. Even the recharging dock is improved with customizable LED brightness. Chances are, you have multiple devices in your home theater setup, and Harmony One will make controlling them much easier.
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