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Stopped in at Beltown Pizza last night after a long bus ride from the East side. ''Let's see what's in the By-The-Slice window'' I suggested. ''If you see something you like, we'll get a few slices. Otherwise we'll go home for dinner.' I didn't recognize the toppings myself, but she picked out a sausage, gorgonzalo, artichoke pie. So we got 3 slices and a fresh squeezed orange juice.

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  • Bill Gates’ Plan for Fixing the World

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    Interesting perspective on Bill Gates' world-saving strategy >>>

    It’s been more than a year since Bill Gates stepped down from day-to-day operations at Microsoft to focus on his philanthropic efforts through the Gates Foundation.

    In that time, Gates has traveled the world (in the past week alone, he’s been in China, India, and today, New York), strategizing the best use of his enormous fortune and that of his foundation, which, also includes $31 billion of Warren Buffett’s money.

    Tonight at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Gates shared a progress report of sorts in an interview with Matthew Bishop of The Economist, which also included some broader questions from the audience.

    What Gates Is Trying to Do

    Rather than spread his money over dozens of causes, Gates is focusing on a few specific issues, where he hopes his hands-on approach and vast resources will make a significant difference. In his case, those causes include providing necessary medicine and equipment to help stop the spread of disease, finding vaccines for the likes Malaria and AIDS, and improving education, both in the US and around the world.

    As for how he measures the success, at least on the healthcare side of things, it’s pretty simple: fewer people, especially children, dying. Gates is optimistic that the problems he’s focusing on can be significantly aleviated or outright solved within his lifetime. He doesn’t see an AIDS vaccine within the next 10 years, but thinks it’s possible within the next 20. He thinks by 2025, there’s a good chance that no one will have to die from (though the disease will likely still exist) Malaria.

    Gates executes in these areas by talking to scientists, deciding where to invest, and hoping that in the long-run, some of those investments pay off in the form of successful vaccines and cures. He says this isn’t dissimilar to his work at Microsoft, where investments in things like speech recognition and robotics wouldn’t yield any tangible bottom results for many years, if at all. Here’s a map of where the Gates Foundation has issued grants to scientists around the world:

    Even more related to Gates’ history in the technology world, his vision for education revolves largely around online universities, where lectures would be available to all, and anyone can complete coursework and receive the same accreditation as someone who attends a four year university. In this area, Gates believes we’ll see significant progress within the next 5 years.

    Gates said if he could, he’d like to be able to use some of his resources to fight terrorism and nuclear proliferation, as well as rid African nations of corrupt governments. However, he doesn’t believe he’d be effective in those areas.

    On Philanthropy and Getting Involved

    Bishop asked Gates about comments that the Microsoft founder had previously made about the relative stinginess of some of those in a position to give major amounts of money (i.e. – the Forbes 400), as well as the role that the financial crisis has played on philanthropy. Gates jokingly said that last he checked, the people on that list are still in a good position to give, but it’s not his interest to go recruit people into philanthropy.

    Looking around the globe, Gates is optimistic that emerging markets like China and India, where vast amounts of wealth are being created amongst the super rich, will eventually become #2 and #3 in the world in philanthropy, behind the US.

    As for those of us without billions of dollars to spare, Gates believes the best way to get involved is with a similar approach to his, albeit on a micro scale. His theme can be summarized as ridding the world of inequality – which for regular people, means finding an inequality that you care about and doing what you can to help, first locally, and then if you can, on a wider scale.

    Selective Sound Bites

    Asked if he thinks that two of the world’s richest men (him and Buffett) working together creates the lack of a competitor in philanthropic efforts akin to the likes of Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs from his Microsoft days, Gates says “the fact that Malaria kills people makes it a bit worse than what those guys did.”

    Moving on to the financial crisis, Gates offered a couple interesting pieces of commentary:

    (1) He’s not so sure the government should have a role in running private companies like AIG. For example, he thinks the whole “sales trip to the spa” fiasco is a perfect example not necessarily of corporate excess, but of why the whole thing is a dicey relationship.

    (2) He thinks the pay limits imposed on Wall Street were the biggest thing that’s ever been done to increase executive pay. Why? Because they’re simply finding other ways to compensate executives, like with stock options.

    Gates’ Closing Advice

    It’s hard to imagine a Bill Gates Q&A without someone in the audience asking for his business advice. And, sorry to tell you, there’s no cheap and easy secret to becoming a billionaire.

    Instead, Gates’ advice is not much different than that you’ve likely heard from countless other successful entrepreneurs: don’t fit the business to an economic opportunity, but find something you have a passion for and do it. Gates says that when he founded Microsoft, he was passionate about software, had been doing it for the better part of his life, and at the time, didn’t completely realize the enormity of the economic opportunity.

    In Case You Missed It

    Earlier this year at TED, Gates touched on many of these same themes, while also offering the Web a memorable video moment by unleashing mosquitoes into the audience. It’s definitely worth a watch:

    Tags: bill gates, microsoft, philanthropy

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Flickr user AMagill has built himself an orientation-aware video camera and supporting software that enables a number of cool user scenarios: orientation-corrective imaging, cumulative environment mapping, and just plain fun!

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JimJarmusch

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photos, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”

Source: take your pick.

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  • Welcome To The Company, Here's Your 1980s Cubicle [Image Cache]

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    OHMG: If only I'd had this cubicle to store these toys when I owned them as a kid >>>

    Don't get me wrong, I think the 1980s were fantastic, great music and all, but I'm not so sure that I'd want to be put into a truly old-school cubicle like this on my first day on the job.

    I'm told that a fellow was led into this retro cubicle the day he started work at a new company. No ideas about which company it was and whether they ever brought him back into this decade. [Imgur —Thanks, Matt!]


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  • HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists

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    Good How-To (& Why) on Twitter's new List feature >>>

    lists-birdThe just-launched Twitter Lists feature is a new way to organize the people you’re following on Twitter, or find new people. In actuality, though, Twitter Lists are Twitter’s long awaited “groups” feature. They offer a way for you to bunch together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to. That’s because Lists aren’t just static listings of users, but rather curated Twitter streams of the latest tweets from a specified set of users.

    In other words, you can create a list that groups together people for whatever reason (the members of your family, for example), and then you can get a snapshot of the things those users are saying by viewing that list’s page, which includes a complete tweet stream for everyone on the list. Lists allow you to organize the people you’re following into groups, and they even allow you to include people you’re not following.

    Why Would You Use Lists?

    list-page

    There are many reasons for creating lists, but here are a handful of ways that you could use the Twitter Lists feature. What other ways are you using Twitter Lists? Let us know in the comments.

    Create a Group – Because Twitter Lists create grouped tweet streams of the people that are on them, you can use Lists to organize your tweeps into groups based on anything you want. For example, we’ve created a list of everyone at Mashable. By viewing or following this list, you easily see what all of Mashable’s employees are tweeting about. You could do the same thing with your co-workers, family, or friends, or just group Twitter users based on location, subject, or anything else you can think of.

    Recommend Cool Tweeps – One of the other intended purposes of Twitter Lists is to allow people to recommend other users to follow. You can create a public list of people you think other Twitter users should follow, then anyone else can visit that list and follow the people on it (or follow the list).

    Follow People You Aren’t Following – When you follow a Twitter List, you’re not actually following every user on the list, but following the entire list — those users’ tweets aren’t added to your main stream. You can then visit that list and view its tweet stream. That’s why you can also use Lists to follow people without really following them. For example, if there are users whose tweets you’d like to follow, but whom you don’t necessarily want in your main Twitter stream (perhaps they tweet too often for your liking), you can add them to a list and then check up on their latest tweets every once in a while by viewing your list.

    Creating a List

    list-new

    Creating a new Twitter List is a simple process. When logged into Twitter you’ll see a new “Lists” section right below the search box in the right side navigation, simply click on the “New list” link to begin creating a new list. After you click on that link, a window will pop up asking you two questions.

    create-list

    First, you’ll be asked to provide a name for your list (i.e., Family, Web Tech Tweeple, etc.). The name is also used for your list’s URL, which will be “twitter.com/username/list-name.” You’ll also be asked if you want your list to be public or private.

    Public Lists – These lists can be seen by anyone, and anyone can follow them. Public lists are ideal for lists of recommended follows.

    Private Lists – When Twitter says private, they mean private. Only the creator of private lists will be able to see or subscribe to them — not even those on the list can see private lists. That means, for example, you could create a list of your competitors and keep an eye on them without them being any the wiser.

    Once you’ve clicked the “Create list” button, you’re ready to add users. After you create a new list, you’ll be prompted to search for people to add to your list, but there are really two ways to add users to lists. First, you can add users from their profile page, by clicking the lists button and checking off the lists you want to add them to from the drop down menu. You can add a single user to multiple lists.

    add-to-list

    The other way to add people, is from any “following” page (i.e., by clicking on either the “Followers” or “Following” links from any profile). You’ll also see the lists button next to users that appear on these pages, and can add anyone to your lists by clicking on it.

    You can add yourself to your lists by visiting your profile page. Keep in mind that each list is currently limited to 500 people, and users may create a maximum of 20 lists. These limitations could change in the future.

    Managing Lists

    list-of-lists

    Both the lists you’ve created and the lists you’re following will appear in the “Lists” section in the right-hand navigation of Twitter. Private lists will be denoted by a small “closed lock” icon. When you click on you a list, Twitter will load up the tweet stream of those on the list in the main body of the Twitter page — this is similar to how Twitter displays search results.

    delete-list

    You’ll also see a link to “View list page.” Clicking on that link will bring you to your list’s dedicated page. This is what other people will see when they visit the page if your list is public, with one major exception: in the top right corner you’ll see links to “Edit” or “Delete” your list. The delete link is self explanatory, while the edit link allows you to change the title of your list, or change its public/private status.

    To remove users from your list, follow the same procedure you used to add them, but this time uncheck the box next to the list you want to remove that user from.

    Finding & Following Lists

    listorious

    When you follow a list, it will show up in the “Lists” section in the right-hand navigation of Twitter. Following lists is a great way to keep tabs on tweets from a large group of people without needing to add those people’s tweets to your main stream. Here are some of the ways you can find lists to follow.

    People You Follow – When you visit the profile page of anyone on Twitter, you’ll be able to see any of the public lists they have created, or any of the lists they follow. (NOTE: you may have to click “View all” to see every list if the person has created or is following a large number of lists.) You can also see any of the lists that person appears on. Checking out the lists that your friends have created, follow, or appear on, is a great way to locate lists you might be interested in.

    Listorious – Listorious is a third-party site that maintains a categorized directory of Twitter lists. You can search or browse through lists by category, and find the most popular lists.

    TweetMeme Lists – Readers of Mashable will be familiar with TweetMeme, which exposes the most tweeted links on Twitter and powers the “retweet” buttons on all of our articles. Just like it does for links, TweetMeme also finds the most tweeted about Twitter Lists.

    Once you find a list you want to follow, click the “Follow this list” button to follow the list. You can unfollow a list from the same page by clicking on the “Unfollow” link.

    Lists You’re On & Blocking Lists

    listed

    Twitter shows you how many public lists you appear on. Clicking on the “Listed” link on your profile, which appears next to your follower and following numbers, will bring you to a page that shows you every list on which you appear. Your lists page has two tabs: one that shows the lists that are following you, and one that shows the lists you’re following/have made.

    your-lists

    If you find yourself on any lists you don’t particularly want to be on (like a list titled, “Jerks,” for example), you can remove yourself from that list by blocking its creator. Just be aware that blocking a person on Twitter means that person can also no longer follow you. Blocking is not permanent, however, and can be undone.

    You can block someone directly from the list page, by clicking on the “Block [username]” link, which is located on the right navigation menu in the “Actions” section.

    How are you using lists? Let us know in the comments.

    More Twitter resources from Mashable:

    - 6 Incredible Twitter Powered Art Projects
    - HOW TO: Do Good on Twitter
    - 10 Most Extraordinary Twitter Updates
    - 6 Gorgeous Twitter Visualizations
    - 10 Ways to Find People on Twitter

    Reviews: Mashable, Tweetmeme, Twitter

    Tags: how to, List, Lists, twitter, Twitter Lists

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Terminator: I Aint Gonna Be Back!
Terminator: I Ain't Gonna Be Back!

It's been a few months since we checked in on the great movie franchise Terminator ('Terminator' Producers Implode Just Like Their Movie Did). It seems like McG's directorial deathblow really and truly has destroyed the future menace we all thought was impossible to avoid.

It seems now that Skynet's rate-of-return after the fourth installment has fallen so low that its production company, Halcyon, can't pay back the loan it took to acquire the rights to the franchise needed to make the movie. Skynet, and all those computers that run it go on the auction block soon.

Wither not, John & Sarah Connor and Klye Reese. If Joss Whedon's offer to buy you for $10,000 doesn't satisfy the bankruptcy judge then you can always live on in the indestructable format of print: comic books!

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  • HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists

    Shared by Digittante

    Good How-To (& Why) on Twitter's new List feature >>>

    lists-birdThe just-launched Twitter Lists feature is a new way to organize the people you’re following on Twitter, or find new people. In actuality, though, Twitter Lists are Twitter’s long awaited “groups” feature. They offer a way for you to bunch together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to. That’s because Lists aren’t just static listings of users, but rather curated Twitter streams of the latest tweets from a specified set of users.

    In other words, you can create a list that groups together people for whatever reason (the members of your family, for example), and then you can get a snapshot of the things those users are saying by viewing that list’s page, which includes a complete tweet stream for everyone on the list. Lists allow you to organize the people you’re following into groups, and they even allow you to include people you’re not following.

    Why Would You Use Lists?

    list-page

    There are many reasons for creating lists, but here are a handful of ways that you could use the Twitter Lists feature. What other ways are you using Twitter Lists? Let us know in the comments.

    Create a Group – Because Twitter Lists create grouped tweet streams of the people that are on them, you can use Lists to organize your tweeps into groups based on anything you want. For example, we’ve created a list of everyone at Mashable. By viewing or following this list, you easily see what all of Mashable’s employees are tweeting about. You could do the same thing with your co-workers, family, or friends, or just group Twitter users based on location, subject, or anything else you can think of.

    Recommend Cool Tweeps – One of the other intended purposes of Twitter Lists is to allow people to recommend other users to follow. You can create a public list of people you think other Twitter users should follow, then anyone else can visit that list and follow the people on it (or follow the list).

    Follow People You Aren’t Following – When you follow a Twitter List, you’re not actually following every user on the list, but following the entire list — those users’ tweets aren’t added to your main stream. You can then visit that list and view its tweet stream. That’s why you can also use Lists to follow people without really following them. For example, if there are users whose tweets you’d like to follow, but whom you don’t necessarily want in your main Twitter stream (perhaps they tweet too often for your liking), you can add them to a list and then check up on their latest tweets every once in a while by viewing your list.

    Creating a List

    list-new

    Creating a new Twitter List is a simple process. When logged into Twitter you’ll see a new “Lists” section right below the search box in the right side navigation, simply click on the “New list” link to begin creating a new list. After you click on that link, a window will pop up asking you two questions.

    create-list

    First, you’ll be asked to provide a name for your list (i.e., Family, Web Tech Tweeple, etc.). The name is also used for your list’s URL, which will be “twitter.com/username/list-name.” You’ll also be asked if you want your list to be public or private.

    Public Lists – These lists can be seen by anyone, and anyone can follow them. Public lists are ideal for lists of recommended follows.

    Private Lists – When Twitter says private, they mean private. Only the creator of private lists will be able to see or subscribe to them — not even those on the list can see private lists. That means, for example, you could create a list of your competitors and keep an eye on them without them being any the wiser.

    Once you’ve clicked the “Create list” button, you’re ready to add users. After you create a new list, you’ll be prompted to search for people to add to your list, but there are really two ways to add users to lists. First, you can add users from their profile page, by clicking the lists button and checking off the lists you want to add them to from the drop down menu. You can add a single user to multiple lists.

    add-to-list

    The other way to add people, is from any “following” page (i.e., by clicking on either the “Followers” or “Following” links from any profile). You’ll also see the lists button next to users that appear on these pages, and can add anyone to your lists by clicking on it.

    You can add yourself to your lists by visiting your profile page. Keep in mind that each list is currently limited to 500 people, and users may create a maximum of 20 lists. These limitations could change in the future.

    Managing Lists

    list-of-lists

    Both the lists you’ve created and the lists you’re following will appear in the “Lists” section in the right-hand navigation of Twitter. Private lists will be denoted by a small “closed lock” icon. When you click on you a list, Twitter will load up the tweet stream of those on the list in the main body of the Twitter page — this is similar to how Twitter displays search results.

    delete-list

    You’ll also see a link to “View list page.” Clicking on that link will bring you to your list’s dedicated page. This is what other people will see when they visit the page if your list is public, with one major exception: in the top right corner you’ll see links to “Edit” or “Delete” your list. The delete link is self explanatory, while the edit link allows you to change the title of your list, or change its public/private status.

    To remove users from your list, follow the same procedure you used to add them, but this time uncheck the box next to the list you want to remove that user from.

    Finding & Following Lists

    listorious

    When you follow a list, it will show up in the “Lists” section in the right-hand navigation of Twitter. Following lists is a great way to keep tabs on tweets from a large group of people without needing to add those people’s tweets to your main stream. Here are some of the ways you can find lists to follow.

    People You Follow – When you visit the profile page of anyone on Twitter, you’ll be able to see any of the public lists they have created, or any of the lists they follow. (NOTE: you may have to click “View all” to see every list if the person has created or is following a large number of lists.) You can also see any of the lists that person appears on. Checking out the lists that your friends have created, follow, or appear on, is a great way to locate lists you might be interested in.

    Listorious – Listorious is a third-party site that maintains a categorized directory of Twitter lists. You can search or browse through lists by category, and find the most popular lists.

    TweetMeme Lists – Readers of Mashable will be familiar with TweetMeme, which exposes the most tweeted links on Twitter and powers the “retweet” buttons on all of our articles. Just like it does for links, TweetMeme also finds the most tweeted about Twitter Lists.

    Once you find a list you want to follow, click the “Follow this list” button to follow the list. You can unfollow a list from the same page by clicking on the “Unfollow” link.

    Lists You’re On & Blocking Lists

    listed

    Twitter shows you how many public lists you appear on. Clicking on the “Listed” link on your profile, which appears next to your follower and following numbers, will bring you to a page that shows you every list on which you appear. Your lists page has two tabs: one that shows the lists that are following you, and one that shows the lists you’re following/have made.

    your-lists

    If you find yourself on any lists you don’t particularly want to be on (like a list titled, “Jerks,” for example), you can remove yourself from that list by blocking its creator. Just be aware that blocking a person on Twitter means that person can also no longer follow you. Blocking is not permanent, however, and can be undone.

    You can block someone directly from the list page, by clicking on the “Block [username]” link, which is located on the right navigation menu in the “Actions” section.

    How are you using lists? Let us know in the comments.

    More Twitter resources from Mashable:

    - 6 Incredible Twitter Powered Art Projects
    - HOW TO: Do Good on Twitter
    - 10 Most Extraordinary Twitter Updates
    - 6 Gorgeous Twitter Visualizations
    - 10 Ways to Find People on Twitter

    Reviews: Mashable, Tweetmeme, Twitter

    Tags: how to, List, Lists, twitter, Twitter Lists

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  • Gallery: Fall day in Vancouver

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    Glorious autumn colors on display in Vancouver, BC. >>>

    Sun photographer Ward Perrin took his camera down to Stanley Park to capture the colours of fall.

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Boston.com has published an amazing series of photos of the key development milestones of NASA's new toy: the Ares I-X Rocket. It started small, was tested in pieces, then assembled and "grow'd up to go up!" .

Launch of the Ares I-X - The Big Picture - Boston.com

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  • Star Wars Yoga

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    Fittest Fighting Force in the Galaxy: Yoga Jedis >>>

    yoga.jpg

    LOL. The online yoga instruction site YogaToday.com is offering a Star Wars-themed yoga session this week. The video promises to illustrate the "galactic connection" between asanas and Star Wars. No costumes, alas, but I do believe those are Leia-buns on the head of yoga instructor "Princess Neesha Zollinger," at left. (thanks, Paul Sixta)


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