RSS Everywhere

So many blogs, so little time. If you want to stay at the top of the information food chain, you gotta read ’em – lots of ’em. And you have to do it every day. But as that list of must-read blogs grows, hunting and gathering the latest posts becomes a daily drain. You could hire an assistant to read them for you. Or tap into RSS. [Wired News

The Elegant Universe

Brian Greene’s book The Elegant Universe was turned into a 3 hour show for Nova by PBS and the entire program as well as a massive amount of supplementary content is online.

I’ve watched the first hour (in 8 parts) streaming in Quicktime… Very cool stuff and certainly gets you thinking.

When you see things as well done as this website, you realize what the potential of quality on demand content can really be. This is one of the best examples I can think of on how to maximize the experience for an audience. I missed the show when originally broadcast, but my small screen now experience far surpasses what it might have been if you only watch on TV. Amazing that PBS of all places (and I say that not to slight PBS but in surprise that none of the commercial networks have done so) is leading the charge.

I guess not having to worry about selling ads can really make a difference…

Brain pacemakers

Can you say The Terminal Man? Michael Crichton wrote about this in 1988… The idea then was that by stimulating certain parts of the brain, doctors would be able to stop a particular type of seizure that resulted in severe violence.

You gotta admit that this is a little freaky: the Washington Post reports that scientists are experimenting with putting implants directly into people’s brains. The so-called “brain pacemakers”, which provide electrical stimulation directly to different parts of the brain, are ostensibly being created to treat a whole range behaviorial and neurological disorders, but you know that eventually someone is going to figure out how use a brain pacemaker for “recreational” purposes. [Via Slashdot] [Engadget]

Convert your blogrolling.com blogroll to an RSS list and vice-versa

I just updated my existing blogrolling sidebar by exporting from NetNewsWire into Blogrolling and seriously growing the list on the right sidebar. This now represents just about every site I track and read on a regular basis.

Blogrolling.com, recently bought out by Tucows, has added OPML import and export — that means that you can turn your RSS feed-list into your blogroll and vice-versa. [Boing Boing]

Eastern Standard Tribe

I finished reading Cory Doctorow’s excellent second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe via Palm Reader Pro, which has some features that really seem worth the upgrade from free.

First – the book was great! I really like the kind of science fiction that is like 5 minutes into the future and in this case feels very real based on the situations of the characters and the world around them. Even though it is 2012, it might as well be tomorrow, if not yesterday. All the things you know about the world and how it works are very similar. The use of technology is not just for the sake of technology but threaded through in a logical way the way you might expect things to evolve in the time frame.

The Pro version of the Palm Reader software really adds some nice perks – mainly color. You might not think color would add much, but I found that by using a light brown/yellow colored background and brown type, the retinal burn from the black on white was not as severe which make the act of reading more enjoyable and easier to do over longer periods. I found myself reading in the dark the past few days while Hannah was sleeping and the change to color made a huge difference for me. In addition to color, you also get a dictionary/thesaurus, but they are not as comprehensive as you might like, though you might not have the storage on your device or expansion card either.

I would definitely recommend the book. You can read it for free electronically in most if not all formats and can certainly buy it as well from your usual sources.

Palm Reading

I finished reading Cory Doctrow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom via the PalmReader. I had not actually read any full books on screen until now and to my surprise, the experience was quite good. I was able to always have a book in hand, which gave me time on the subway or at line at the post office, where I finished reading this one.

I’ve checked out short stories and actually tried to read other longer pieces before on my Tungsten C or even my m515, but on the T3 the screen is just so much better. I like having the screen in landscape mode, which give you much more of a paperback novel feel — though a very short book.

I’m now loaded up with Cory’s latest book, Eastern Standard Tribe and looking forward to getting into it.

Business Week through Zinio

My first subscription arrived last night for Zinio and I have to say I continue to be impressed by how this works. I was able to sign up for a year of electronic delivery by filling out a quick marketing survey… usually the kind reserved for controlled circulation publications. The best part of the electronic delivery is that my issue actually arrived early. I really like Business Week and enjoy reading through it each week, but hate that it does not always arrive on Friday as I expect. In fact often times it does not come until Monday well after content is posted on the web site.

I still have yet to pay for an issue, but so far Zinio continues to be a cool way to read. Hopefully their model will continue to support my free loading.

Open Source Democracy

I’ve got a short book coming out next week in the UK called Open Source Democracy. It’s being released as a free publication, by a UK thinktank-network called Demos.

You can download the PDF version of the book, here. Please feel free to repost it anywhere you like, or to make an html version – whatever.

I’ll be doing a public talk and fundraiser for Cybersalon in London, as well. [rushkoff.blog]