Prediction | Audio search engine

Ever heard of a song, but had no possible way of finding it? Like a non-vocal, totally instrumental song you couldn’t even remember the lyrics to, a song that doesn’t have even a single word based on which you can google it up.

Me, I’m the zen master of finding music even when the only frame of reference I have is a single word in that song or its time and place in, say, a movie or TV show (sure, the likes of IMDb and YouTube help a great deal here cos’ there’s usually people asking the same questions as I am and luckily there’s other people who know the answers to them). I SherlockHolmes that stuff down with a 100% success rate, but when it comes to finding instrumental music my knowledge dwindles and shivers away.

Sure there’s web-based tools like Songtapper that try to help people find music with the help of the space-bar and the predisposition that you actually know how the song you want to tap sounds. How accuarate their current results are I don’t really know, but a year or so ago their range only covered mainstream music.

So there’s gotta be something better than song-tapper, right? Well, atm the best I can find is VidtoMp3. When even YouTube comments can’t give me the answer I want I can now at least easily download the video’s audio as an .mp3. It’s also handy if you can’t download the audio file anywhere else…if a video with that song exists, that is. And don’t expect solid bit-rate quality either.

But I have a feeling that I’m not the only one thinking of an universal audio search engine to which I could stream that YouTube video and this search engine would go through it’s ever-growing audio database and find me the result I want. Heck, it could even distinguish between certain versions of that song, like mixes and remixes which are a dime a dozen in electronic music. Since there’s so much music going around it’s really a shame that some of it is so hard to come by. And where would this audio beast feed you ask? Well, ever since web 2.0 sites offer online music databases. The likes of Last FM, Deezer, Songza, TheSixtyOne only to name a few. Their range has well passed the mainstream and if the web has something to offer, that’s everything! Literally, EVERYTHING:) We need a Technorati for music. What you want, when you want.

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Audio | AC/DC – Rock ‘N Roll Train

Man this brings me back to the early to mid- 90’s when the likes of Aerosmith, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Bon Jovi and co. were on top of their game and rock’n’ roll dominated the airwaves. There’s also a version of the music video made in Excel, but I’m not sure whether it’s a case of weird excel nostalgia or pure experimentation. But that’s totally beside the point: this song is proof that ‘old fucks’ can still kick-ass! With ease!!!

Links: Official site | Wikipedia | Album info | Song info | Lyrics

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Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [IT] Some much needed improvements (Watch Seth Godin’s video below to get a better idea of what I mean)
• [Eco] Should They be Generation E?
• [Nature] When under attack, plants can signal microbial friends for help (amazing stuff)
  
• [Man-made] 3D Virtual Heart So Real Doctors’ Own Hearts Go Pitter Patter
• [Man-made] Seth Godin’s Tribes (great presentation on video…I really can’t describe in words how much I feel exactly, EXACTLY(!!!!!!!!!!!!!)  like Seth on this one:). Of all the futurists, he is easily the most pragmatic one!)
• [Sociology] [Psychology] Does the use of hand gestures slow language learning? (I drool over this type of empirical research data)

ENTERTAINMENT

• Not Photoshopped: Li Wei’s Astounding Action Art
• Dolls and Toys that Creep us Out
• That’s Worlds Highest Bungee Jump @ Helicopter @ 500m/1640ft
• Tuttuki Bako (after seeing the video…spechless!)
• When Robot Programmers get bored
• Improv Everywhere Creates Epic Balloon Battles Using MP3 Players (IE still rocks)

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to PBwiki. I’ve tried a couple of online wiki’s, and this one’s price-performance (for personal use, cost-zero!) is by far the best I’ve seen and used thus far. The interface is incredibly slick and easy to use and is a big time-saver. They also put strong emphasis on back-up (which you can also manually download onto your pc) and guarantee that loss of data will not occur on their watch (how much that can be trusted is of course up to you). What’s also pretty sweet is the ability to invite guests and have them look only at a particular page of your wiki and not the whole thing (so personal info and to-do lists of celebrity hotties are safe from prying eyes). Other cool features: RSS (comes in handy if/when many users update pages), downloading pages as .pdf’s, interface flexibility…

My personal thought is that every single company (even a one-man band) MUST have a personal wiki (or anything that allows fluid and user-friendly knowledge-transfer that will be put to good use) to handle the abundance of info they deal with.

One of those things that simply make my life so much easier and better! Simply a must:) For more on IT that I think is really practical and useful, click here.

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

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The future of designing buildings and other man-made structures

Oh its at least a couple of years away (mildly put) from becoming mainstream, but  the video after the jump gives a surprisingly detailed and thought-out idea of an efficient (again, mildly put) work environment and indisputably shows how technology can be an architect’s best friend. And an engineer’s, designers, you name it!

Hod do I know this? I just do…for I have been to the mountaintop:

On a lighter side, let’s look at it from a different, albeit still important perspective. A mirror of the not-so-distant future, if you willl…

Do you wanna be the I-have-a-serious-long-term-relationship-with-my-desktop-computer,-my-mouse-is-bigger-than-my-erect-penis-and-my-idea-of-exercise-is-opening-a-new-jar-of-mayonnaise bald fat fuck:

Or do you want to be the I’m-actually-psycho-but-still-take-care-of-myself-because-I-predominantly-do-my-work-standing-or-at-least-move-my-arms-and-upper-body-a-whole-lot wholesome, good looking guy like Tom Cruise:

I crossed the line with ‘wholesome’, but the question was rhetorical…or was it?

Further information on building Information modeling (BIM), especially the last paragraph of ‘BIM in the USA’.

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It seems I’ve come across my first obstacle…

It was merely a week ago that I vigorously promoted Cradle to Cradle, and with it its founding father William McDonough (a household name in this blog), whom I’ve admired and respected since the first time I saw his inspirational TED Talk…it was him who convinced me that the Next Industrial Revolution is just around the corner, it was him who showed me that a great idea has answers and solutions to more than just one question or problem (an incredible and rare feat in every respect), and it was him who truly made me realize that a mindset like his is far more potent and productive than most dare dream of.

On a side-note, it was him who singlehandedly made me strive for the same causes…

That is why it saddens me deeply to have read the following article yesterday.

Arrogance, deception, hubris, voracity …need I go on?!

As it turns out (if the article stands on firm ground, that is), Mr. McDonough is his own worst enemy, meaning that his own actions have – on more than one occasion-  cost him business deals, potentially impressive credentials/references/networking and worst of all, have set him back from his goal to ‘cradelise’ the world for the better.

I leave you with the lengthy article, which you can find here (Diigoed), I am still slightly shaken-up and have a hard time coping with the conception that the man I look up to (notice the present tense) just might have some very serious problems of his own. There’s a saying you should never meet your heroes (for these very reasons, I suppose) and I’ve always considered it healthy advice. So how should this man therefore be worth my attention and respect? Well, because I still want to pursue a life where sustainability is obtained, controlled and in the end sustained, to the point of hopefully eradicating bad design and replacing it with good intent. Bill McDonough gave birth to that pursuit of mine.

(via: TreeHugger)

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [Eco] A green New Deal can tackle depression
• [Health] Scientists uncover new gene link to male pattern baldness
• [Health] TED Talks – Dr. Dean Ornish: Healing and other natural wonders
  
• [Economy] The End of Suburbia (worth a view, especially the last 5 minutes or so!)
• [Economy] ‘We need slaves to build monuments’ (Dubai is under a lot of fire lately, more here, here and here)
• [Man-made] Long Overdue GPS Upgrade Could Save Airlines $10 Billion a Year

ENTERTAINMENT

• The Indonesian Mimic Octopus
• The Sun (mesmerizing photography)
• Flesh Eating Mutant Fish Invades Nepal
• What Is The Sport Of Kiiking? (dedicated to my beloved Estonians)
• The Aquaduct Bicycle (brilliant idea!)
• Chinese deaf girls mystical dance (how the **** do you train deaf people anyways?)

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to autumn.

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

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Let the games begin…

As I’ve mentioned, I’m shifting my focus into graduating (asap, prefferably;)), and I’ll be posting the material I gather as I go along. I haven’t fully fleshed out my project yet, but here’s my inspiration and hopefully my guidelines:

William McDonough: The wisdom of designing Cradle to Cradle | 22:00

Waste=Food | 49:00

Links: William Mcdonough | Cradle to cradle

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [Eco] It’s Not about Polar Bears Anymore
• [Nano] One small wall crawling step for a bottle of coke, one giant leap to Spiderman-like wall crawling
• [Future] Saving the World Through Game Design
• [Economy] Financial crisis simplified (a whiteboard presentation) (detailed info here)
• [Man-made] Robot suit for rent in Japan to help people walk
• [Astronomy] 50 Consumer Technologies Developed by NASA in the Last 50 Years

ENTERTAINMENT

• The Indonesian Mimic Octopus
• The Quietest Place on Earth – Orfield Labs
• MadTv – Kim Jong IL Crazy Parody
• Pictures Galore: 15 Epic Water and Ice Formations and Phenomena, 7 Spectacularly Skilled High-Speed Photographers, Fantastic Plastic: 20 Essential Works of LEGO Art
• The former President wants you to know exactly where he stands… (kind of old, but Clinton’s never looked more convincing:)
• Wacky human inventions from 1930’s (brilliant…ROFL’d through half of it)

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to priorities. On the top of my list is to graduate before my birthday next year and I’ve already noticed my interest in the last two weeks or so (when I started) has noticeably shifted from all the things that interest me to only (well…mostly, but it’s a start!) those that I’ll be needing to graduate.

My topic, in case you’re interested: a sustainable zero-energy – or if possible even plus-energy (and notice how informational the article is) – residential area in a city (probably and preferably Ljubljana). Why? Because I strongly believe that starting the next industrial revolution is the only (for the time being, at least:)) way to successfully maintain and continue our lifestyles without any serious consequences; both to the abundance of options we have at our disposal as humans, as to, of course, mother nature.

…and someday who knows, you’ll might even quote me on this;)

Till then, I’ll leave you with another quote, a brand new one as a matter of fact…not exactly the bedtime story I had in mind last week:

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
- Richard Feynman

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)

Video | Faen!

Wanna know why the Norwegian word for FUCK is so cool? After this video you will most likely die a happy person, because your questions will all be answered!

Random stuff I found this week (cos I’m too lazy to post everything in separate posts)

USEFUL STUFF

• [IT] Revealed: The Internet’s Biggest Security Hole (old but effing relevant nonetheless!!!)
• [IT] Why is almost half of Google in beta? & Google Patent Could Kill Off Cellphone Contracts
• [Nano] Carbon Nanotube Manufacturing Breakthrough Could Mean Bye-Bye Steel
• [Health] TED Talks - James Nachtwey: Use my photographs to stop the worldwide XDR-TB epidemic (this year’s TED prize winner)
• [Astronomy] Where Do Satellites Go When They Die? (crazy stuff!)
• [Psychology] Musicians use both sides of their brains more frequently than average people

ENTERTAINMENT

• Show Me Your Genitals 2: E=MC Vagina (the sequel to that retarded yet somehow much needed song about female genitals:P)
• Man Uses Remote Desktop to Catch Laptop Thief, Watch Porn Remotely
• The Coolest Fruit On Earth (gollum wants the precious!)
• Stressed Plants Produce Aspirin-Like Substance
• Riding the Caspian Sea Monster (great stuff about ekranoplans…Exactly!)
• An Engineer’s Guide to Cats

WEEKLY TRIBUTE
A small tribute to recession.Thank FSM it’s only hitting the U.S. Oh wait…
Personally lovin’ it, cos:

• people thought they knew what was going wrong, but luckily nobody gave a fuck because they knew better. And boy were they right!
• everybody (except idiots) knows that 700,000,000,000 is a nice, strong, round number (…doh!) and the U.S. government knows why they had to pass the bill to get the cash. (from 6:40 on)
• 7 is also the number of years the U.S. has been out of the spotlight since their last great global contribution started, so it was about time they got back into the news. This time they really outdid themselves, put their heads together and brought something even more positive to the table. God bless America.
• recession is the easiest and cheapest dieting regime there is…by far!!!
• women are clueless when it comes to economics, so nobody ever cares what they have to say
• we finally get to have our very own modern up-to-date economic bedtime story of the 21st century. Nighty night, sleep tight, don’t let the recession bugs bite.

TO BE CONTINUED…? Naaah, this’ll be over before McCain becomes prez and Palin proves dinosaurs were put on Earth to test our faith to FSM. Santa’s gonna bring mighty nice gifts this Christmas, so I’d start spending bigtime if I were you!

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(via: all the usual and unusual blogs and sites that I’ve got in Google Reader)