Links from the Gregg Zone!

1) Well it looks like we have survived TU24 last Tuesday. That means we can start planning what we are going to do in the future. I ran across something on the net that has me daydreaming about a future vacation. It seems there is a company in France planning to build something called a manned cloud. Essentially, it is a 700+ foot long blimp shaped like a whale, with a luxury hotel for a gondola. Complete with restaurants, library, fitness room, and spa. There will even be a sun deck on the top of the helium-filled envelope. Wow! Can you imagine having cocktails at sunset, on top in the open air at about a thousand feet in the air, or how about stargazing with a nightcap before retiring for the night? Check this out it is very cool. http://www.dezeen.com

2) This next site reminds me of something I saw when researching Craigslist. There are groups that do public stunts, like a hundred people accumulating at a mall, everyone entering as individuals mingling with the crowd, then on cue they all start barking like dogs, or something. They just do it for fun; I remember reading an old Sci-Fi book about the concept of flash crowds. The premises was based on teleporting booths, like a phone booth, you could just dial your self any where you wanted to go, every time something was happening on the news, large crowds of people would teleport to the scene. This site is about a group that stages events using groups of people, the one featured here was a couple of hundred people freezing on cue,for five minutes at Grand Central Station in New York. There is video of people’s response, interesting how the uninformed public reacted. http://www.improveverywhere.com/

3) This site covers some of the subjects discussed on the show, I am not sure if it is news to the group, but I decided if some of you are unfamiliar with it I should post it as a source of information. Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Oxford University’s Internet Institute are leading this initiative with the support of several prominent tech companies, including Google, Levono, and Sun Microsystems. Consumer Reports WebWatch is serving as an unpaid special adviser. They are a “Neighborhood Watch” campaign aimed at stopping “badware” on the net.http://www.stopbadware.org/

4) This is another “Geek” site I ran across I remember Jack talking about the MacBook Air, so when I saw this I thought it would be a good fit here. The title sort of says it all “Man buys MacBook Air, pulls it apart, takes pics. There is a link to ifixit’s step-by-step disassembly, complete with pictures and instructions, I guess handy if you need to replace the battery. http://www.reghardware.co.uk

5) Have you wondered where the Dot-com pioneers are now? I ran across this article thought it was something that you might be interested it, who is still around, who has disappeared, and who bought who. http://www.webware.com

6) The last one is about the plans to bring broadband to the entire United States; the article is quite current from Jan. 31, 2008. Talks about just how far behind the curve the U.S. is in relation to the world, when it comes to broadband. Discusses what we need to do, and why we are in the situation of loosing ground, what it will mean for our future. The article seem to me to be a must read on the subject, so take the time to check it out. http://arstechnica.com/