Gnr8

A stylish mix of form and function; scupture and light. Generate is also an alternative source for the Ambient Orb should ThinkGeek be out of stock.

Surrounded by Art

A very impressive project to emerge from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is CANVAS (Collaborative Advanced Navigation Virtual Art Studio). It’s a 3-screened, back-projectioned portable virtual-reality open-lab for research and teaching projects by faculty in the fine and applied arts at the University. CANVAS is a space for creating and presenting computer-assisted multi-dimensional projects. CANVAS is based on the University of Illinois' CAVE™ technology and runs on the SYZYGY grid-operating system. SYZYGY is open source and is downloadable here. It runs under windows, Linux, and MacOSX.

I want a CAVE. It should be very inexpensive. I also want a flying car. And a pony....

Slashdot Dicks

Check out the recent SF Bay Guardian article by Analee Newitz entitled SlashDot Dicks. It's mostly an "I'm a feminist and am not afraid to piss and moan about it over half a dozen paragraphs"* story, however she does conclude (quite rightly) that *any* topic on Slashdot brings out all sides of an argument. The great thing about the Slashdot moderation system is the fact that well thought out, constructive posts get modded up, while the trash gets promptly slammed down. You can always rely on Slashdot for a well argued set of points. You may not agree with all of the posts -- but you can learn a lot.

(* and no, I have nothing against feminists -- only about people that whine about any topic.....)