*Michelle's Mental Clutter*: technology

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Art imitates Academia

That's right... Even in video games like the Sims Social, they apparently make you write historiographical essays!!

Venice in Vintage Science Mags

It's always a hoot to look through old issues of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, and with Google Books you can now do just that! But what do you get if you mix an eternally medieval city with eternally hopeful futurists? You get these mags' interesting take on Venice! Through their pages, you see the 20th century slowly but surely arrive to the canal city (or not, as sometimes the case may be...)

As you can see from the pictures, the articles ranged from the ridiculous (at left) to the strangely poignant from World War I below.

For more on Vintage Venice, see my post over at Metafilter...

T.E.D.: Day One Talks (Distilled and Hyperlinked)

Biotech CEO Juan Enriquez discussed what he saw as the future of human evolutionary development, in which we would use bio-technology to pre-design our own future evolution (making homo sapiens - he said - into homo evolutis). His conclusions were based on the fact that, among other things, we're already growing replacement body parts in labs.
Military strategist P.W. Singer presented his investigations for his new book, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, including the 12,000+ robots which are doing battle right now on the ground in Iraq, current military robotic projects in the works, and what might be the strategic and philosophical implications of non-human robotic warfare.
David Hanson of Hanson Robotics demonstrated his research on getting robots to emulate human emotional expressions, and even suggested that an eventual potential development of introducing empathy into AIs might be one approach to the ethical dilemmas posed by Singer in his previous talk.
In a very much publicized talk (in which he unleashed a hoard of mosquitoes on the conference goers), Bill Gates talked about the challenge his philanthropic foundation faces in trying to eradicate malaria. (Video already available here!)
Tim Berners-Lee imagined taking even further his original concept of the World Wide Web and using it to render useful raw data fully public and “linkable” by everybody
Al Gore updated his 2006 presentation of the Inconvenient Truth slideshow by reporting about the disappearance of the Artic ice cap.
Yves Behar and Forrest North of Mission Motors debuted the Mission One high performance electric motorcycle, the top speed of which is 150 mph!
Nandan Nilekani discussed the globalization implications of what he called India's "demographic dividend," in which it will soon become the only young country in an increasingly aging world.
Sustainable business pioneer Ray Anderson explained how, after he read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce, he decided that business what the only institution large and pervasive enough to change the status quo of the "take, make, waste industrial system," and went on to reduce his company's carbon emissions in his successful carpet tile business by 82% in 14 years, all while doubling profits.
Marketer Seth Godin argued that mass marketing is out, but marketing to “tribes” or fostering specialized communities of people with shared interests is where it’s at in order to really “change the world”.
Filmmakers Yann-Arthus Bertrand and Jake Eberts each premiered clips from their own soon-to-be released gorgeous nature documentaries.
MIT Media Lab researcher Pattie Maes debuted a prototype of an internet sixth sense which would give real-time updated information which would be literally directly projected unto products, places and persons, all without the user having to modify his or her behavior to access it. (Plus, she suggested provocatively, it might be potentially implantable in the brain within a decade!) Check out the embedded video below!

Other blog coverage of TED's first day can be found at...

Via White African:

Via My Heart's in Aggra:

Shout it from the mountaintops!

But now you can even call it in when you do...

When you call the "Telemegaphone" number above in Norway, your voice is recorded and then played over the mountains, hills, vales & fjords below. So, go ahead and give it your best yodel!

(via The Presurfer)

Getting Ready for Venice (or Just Summer!): "How To Save Your Wet Cell Phone"

Dropped your phone in the canal? I haven't (yet) in Venice, but my Venetian hubby has! (Of course, he was rowing at the time, so that's a pretty good excuse...)

The good folks at SquareTrade Warranty just sent an email though that seems incredibly useful! Enjoy!!

(Or, should I say, I hope you won't have to!!!)

So you went swimming with your cell phone again, or accidentally spilled Gatorade on it. Hey, it happens, but there are ways to recover from the Red Dot of Death if you're fast enough. Get it out of the water and remove both the battery and the SIM card. Dry everything off, and then wait. And I mean wait... (read more here!)

Free Software Giveaway of the Day!

As they say in Italy, "I know my chickens!" (That is, in English, "I know somebody like the back of my own hand"...)

In the land where, according to Uncle Henry's, it's often free for the taking if you can haul it away (lots of stuff, but usually manure and - I swear I am not making this up - "special needs cats"), my Mainer chickens - as well as some friends farther afield - just love "free"!

That's why you can't beat the Free Software Giveway of the Day! Each and every day (for 24 hours and for 24 hours only!) you can download and install (the only catch... You must install the software during the stated giveaway period!) FREE, FULL versions of programs you'd otherwise have to pay as much as $100 for! And they give away all kinds of different programs, but it's particularly good for various multimedia applications!! (Plus games at game.givewayoftheday.com...)

What's the giveaway for today? (And check back... It'll automatically update every day!)