Interesting concept. The Ambient Devices Ambient Umbrella gets weather data from AccuWeather.com. The Ambient Umbrella waits in the umbrella stand unnoticed until rain is expected, then gives a gentle visual reminder that it will be needed.
The concept behind Ambient Devices products is that some digital information should be “glanceable,” that is, the information is not worth either constant checking or having to shut off an alarm, so it vanishes into the background. Other products from Ambient Devices include Ambient ScoreCast devices that provide real-time stats and scores and the AMBIENT DEVICES Stock Orb which monitors the Dow and indicates in real-time whether the stock market is up for down.
My sister was an extra in this movie playing an exotic dancer. Probably the only scene that didn’t involve good guys gone bad pummeling people they didn’t like.
HBO has made a movie about the life of Dr. Temple Grandin, author of "Thinking in Pictures," the autobiography of an autistic woman. Dr. Grandin is an expert in animal husbandry whose specialty is humane treatment of animals in the cattle industry. The movie is a must see. Preorder Temple Grandin from amazon.com.
Starring Claire Danes, Julia Ormond, Catherine O’Hara and David Strathairn, Temple Grandin paints a picture of a young woman’s perseverance and determination while struggling with the isolating challenges of autism at a time when it was still quite unknown. The film chronicles Temple’s early diagnosis; her turbulent growth and development during her school years; the enduring support she receied from her mother (Ormond) , aunt (O’Hara) and her science teacher (Strathairn); and her emergence as a woman with an innate sensitiviity and understanding of animal behavior.
– HBO Movies, Temple Grandin
I attended a reiki share at a church in a nearby town. The fellow who ran it, I’ll call him “Paul,” told a story about a religious leader who visited from India. This leader sat in one of the chairs in the church, and Paul always told the story.
To a reiki practitioner, the chair seemed to have retained some of the religious leader’s energy. I like to call it “the God-Realized Chair.”
“Is it not in the nature of complex social systems to go wrong, all by themselves, without external cause? Look at overpopulation, look at Calhoun’s famous model, those overcrowded colonies of rats and their malignant social pathology, all due to their own skewed behavior. Not at all, is my answer. All you have to do is find the meddler, in this case Professor Calhoun himself, and the system will put itself right. The trouble with those rats is not the innate tendency of crowded rats to go wrong, but the scientists who took them out of the world at large and put them in too small a box.”
You are an Eco-Avenger, also known as an environmentalist or tree hugger. You believe in saving the planet from the clutches of air-fouling, oil-drilling, earth-raping conservative fossil fools.
“You are an Eco-Avenger, also known as an environmentalist or tree hugger. You believe in saving the planet from the clutches of air-fouling, oil-drilling, earth-raping conservative fossil fools.”
My cat turned me on to a new blog for pet owners called BlogPaws. There is some mention of a conference for bloggers, writers and pet supply companies. The first emphasis brought to my attention was the SEO aspect of writing a blog.
kittehboi.com is a fun blog, and though we make sure to mention others’ blogs, etc. for google juice, I don’t want it to end up looking like a Peruvian circus, full of multicolored flashing and dancing adverts.
The first requirement for SEO is to have content that brings readers back. I’m trying to wrap my brain around it, to come up with an idea that goes further than “funny pictures of cats.”
I have a personal interest in evolutionary psychology and neuropsychology, so my personal focus is on animals as intelligent, rational beings. Cats and dogs have the IQ of young children, but much more impulse control.
“C’mon, admit it – we all do it. Some of us talk to them as if they can actually understand us (I’m one of those).”
Did you catch that? The writer said “as if they can actually understand us.” Apparently this person has some doubts.
Eagle is EXTINCT. So what?
Dogs (and probably cats) have a Broca’s brain or Wernicke’s area, meaning they are capable of understanding speech. In practice cats have a vocabulary of around 20-30 words while dogs may be able to understand 100 or more. Animal behaviorists will tell you it’s “training.” 40 years ago human psychologists were behaviorists too, and explained all human behavior as learned responses to stimuli. How different *are* training and learning?
," the autobiography of an autistic woman. Dr. Grandin is an expert in animal husbandry whose specialty is humane treatment of animals in the cattle industry. The movie is a must see. Preorder 
from amazon.com.
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