Archive for February, 2005
Who’s Looking Down On You?
Posted by Chris Jefferies in Technology on 02/19/2005
My friend, Ray Lear, sent me an image of Berkeley from space and I recalled that there is a web server called www.terraserver-usa.com. Click on the image to see an image I downloaded from the web of our house on Stanford Avenue in Kensington just North of Berkeley. You can zoom out and see the surrounding area on this page.
Here are some other locations you might want to visit. See if you can guess where they are.
| Location | Longitude (E/W) | Latitude (N/S) |
|---|---|---|
| Bellaire | -95.46322 | 29.71955 |
| California | -122.88421 | 38.47927 |
| Brenham | -96.46366 | 30.14890 |
| An Observatory | -110.77179 | 45.27747 |
| Sixmile Creek | -110.74392 | 45.23781 |
| Big Mesquite | -102.83257 | 29.40853 |
| New Jersey | -74.30104 | 40.70246 |
| Houston | -95.53934 | 29.78756 |
| La Posada Hotel (more…) | -110.69637 | 35.02268 |
| Soldier Meadow Hot Springs | -119.22488 | 41.36079 |
| Black Rock Mystery | -119.19528 | 40.76147 |
| Lake Catherine & Banner Peak (more…) | -119.19128 | 37.69640 |
I want my MTV… and my remote… and my iPod… and my TiVo
Posted by Chris Jefferies in Technology on 02/15/2005
Christine Rosen talks about what she calls Egocasting. It’s a play on the concept of selective consumption of various media like what an iPod, or TiVo might provide. I’m clearly on the egocasting track and I like it, but she makes some good points against this attitude.
Excerpt:
“What is true of the television set is also true of its most important accessory, the device that forever altered our viewing habits, transformed television programming itself, and, more broadly, redefined our expectations of mastery over our everyday technologies: the remote control. The creation and near-universal adoption of the remote control arguably marks the beginning of the era of the personalization of technology. The remote control shifted power to the individual, and the technologies that have embraced this principle in its wake—the Walkman, the Video Cassette Recorder, Digital Video Recorders such as TiVo, and portable music devices like the iPod—have created a world where the individual’s control over the content, style, and timing of what he consumes is nearly absolute. Retailers and purveyors of entertainment increasingly know our buying history and the vagaries of our unique tastes. As consumers, we expect our television, our music, our movies, and our books “on demand.” We have created and embraced technologies that enable us to make a fetish of our preferences.”
