Ch-Ch-Changes – Week #3
By Brian | January 18, 2012
Welcome back to Ch-Ch-Changes. Here is the puzzle for Week #3:
See if you can spot the EIGHT things I changed in this iconic album cover:
One point will be awarded for each correctly identified change. Answers will be posted on Monday morning.
Good luck!
Categories: Ch-Ch-Changes | 5 Comments »
I’m Reading Life Signs, Captain!
By Brian | January 17, 2012
Perhaps the coolest announcement at this year’s Consumer & Electronics Show (CES 2012): a $10 million prize to the first person who invents a Tricorder:
The rationale behind the latest X Prize, known as the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, which was announced at CES today, and which will award a $10 million bounty to the first team that can create “a mobile platform that most accurately diagnoses a set of 15 diseases across 30 [patients] in three days.”
It’s very cool, but they should have gone for a transporter – then more people would have attended next year’s show. ;-)
Categories: The Future is Now | 158 Comments »
Ch-Ch-Changes: Solution – Week #2
By Brian | January 16, 2012
Welcome back to Ch-Ch-Changes. It’s time to reveal the solution to the Week #2 puzzle:
The eight changes to this picture were:
- The men are sitting over Chicago, not New York
- Man on the left is holding a Dunkin’ Donuts box
- Fourth man from the left is wearing a necktie
- Sixth man from the left is holding a MacBook
- Eighth man from the left is holding a cup of Starbucks coffee
- Ninth man from the left is holding the New York Times from the day Osama bin Laden was killed
- Tenth man from the left has a Nike Swoosh on his hat
- Twelfth man from the left (man on the right?) is Babe Ruth
Congrats to all who guessed correctly. The scores after two weeks are as follows:
| Player | Correct Answers |
| Ilya | 13 |
| Konstantin | 11 |
| Michael Weinmayr | 10 |
| Jeff Porten | 6 |
| Joe Woods | 5 |
| Harlan Freilicher (via Facebook) | 4 |
See you next Wednesday! And remember – next week, comments will be moderated, so you can all guess independently of each other!
Thanks for playing…
Categories: Ch-Ch-Changes | 193 Comments »
Ch-Ch-Changes Update: Comment Problem SOLVED!
By Brian | January 14, 2012
Eureka!
After copious feedback from my small but loyal audience, I believe I’ve solved the “I can see everyone else’s answers so why bother guessing?” problem with my latest Photoshop contest.
WordPress has an available plugin called Comment Timeout by James McKay. It’s simple enough – it enhances WordPress’s built-in “all comments on or all comments off” functionality by allowing the administrator (that’s me) to specify an age at which posts no longer receive comments. But more importantly (to me, anyway), it allows me to override the setting on a post-by-post basis.
So, I’ve set posts to “timeout” at zero days old (i.e., immediately), which sends all the comments to moderation. But for all non-photoshop posts, I can override that setting with one-click at posting time. So now, most posts on this blog will allow (encourage!) comments as they always did, and the Photoshop contest posts will send them to my moderation queue. I’ll leave them hidden until I reveal the answer to the puzzle, and then people can click back & see what everyone else’s guesses were.
Problem solved!
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 102 Comments »
Ch-Ch-Changes – Week 2
By Brian | January 11, 2012
Welcome back to Ch-Ch-Changes. Here is the puzzle for Week #2:
See if you can spot the EIGHT things I changed in this iconic photograph:
One point will be awarded for each correctly identified change. Answers will be posted on Monday morning.
Good luck!
Categories: Ch-Ch-Changes | 9 Comments »
Ch-Ch-Changes: Solution – Week #1
By Brian | January 9, 2012
Welcome back to Ch-Ch-Changes. It’s time to reveal the solution to the Week #1 puzzle:
The five changes to this picture were:
- The colors of the stripes on the American Flag were reversed (White <-> Red)
- The reflection in the astronaut’s helmet was changed from the photographer on the moon to the earth
- The astronaut is wearing a Star Trek communicator on his right breast
- The astronaut is wearing an iPod Classic on his right sleeve
- The moon rover has a Lexus logo on its hubcap
Congrats to all who guessed correctly. The scores after one week are as follows:
| Player | Correct Answers |
| Michael Weinmayr | 5 |
| Joe Woods | 5 |
| Ilya | 5 |
| Konstantin | 4 |
| Harlan Freilicher (via Facebook) | 4 |
See you next Wednesday! Thanks for playing…
Categories: Ch-Ch-Changes | 4 Comments »
The Best of TED: Massive-scale online collaboration
By Brian | January 8, 2012
Here’s another installment of my Best of TED series, in which I share talks from the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference that have struck me over the years as particularly insightful or fascinating.
Today’s installment is from Luis von Ahn, a member of the team that invented the Captcha system, which helped websites like Ticketmaster and Amazon ensure that the person buying the product was, indeed, a person. Today, these sites use something called ReCaptcha, which shows the user two words instead of one. If you don’t know why, then you’ll find his talk fascinating. You’ll also learn how the same technology can help you learn a foreign language, while at the same time, making digital content available to people all around the world . . . . for free.
Categories: The Best of TED | Comments Off on The Best of TED: Massive-scale online collaboration
Through the Filters – George Harrison & Friends
By Brian | January 5, 2012
Someone in my Facebook feed sent a link to this classic video. It’s entitled “George Harrison & Friends,” but I’m 99% sure it’s the jam session for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony that year. I saw a TV special years ago, hosted by Paul Shaffer, in which he described the impromptu performance. Apparently, Shaffer wanted everyone at the event on stage at once, and Billy Joel suggested I Saw Her Standing There, which he had performed on piano in the past. The resulting jam not only had Ringo Starr and George Harrison re-creating their original tune, but also some fantastic combinations (like Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen singing into the same mic).
Today’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame jams are much more rehearsed (and tame) by comparison, probably due to the various electronic requirements that many of today’s musicians have before they can go on stage and make music. That, or their inflated egos. Or perhaps today’s crop of musicians just aren’t as talented as the older folks? Maybe all three…
Anyway, whatever the reason(s), enjoy the good ol’ days:
One last comment: this video is a great jumping off point for some serious YouTube surfing, if you’re into that sort of thing. The “related videos” list that YouTube provides includes several live collaborations as well as some classic Beatles performances, and I’m sure each of those videos has some great related videos as well. Happy surfing!
Categories: Through the Filters | 1 Comment »
Ch-Ch-Changes – Week 1
By Brian | January 4, 2012
Welcome to Ch-Ch-Changes. Here is the puzzle for Week #1:
See if you can spot the FIVE things I changed in this iconic photograph:
One point will be awarded for each correctly identified change. Answers will be posted on Monday morning.
Good luck!
Categories: Ch-Ch-Changes | 6 Comments »
Best & Worst of Tech – 2011
By Brian | January 2, 2012
‘Tis the season for “Best of” and “Worst of” lists, I guess, but I found these lists from CNET pretty thought provoking:
The Top 5 Tech Winners of 2011
5) The Amazon Kindle Fire
4) The MacBook Air
3) The iPad 2
2) The iPhone 4S
1) Motorola Droid Razr
The Top 5 Tech Disappointments of 2011
5) Electric Cars
4) iCloud
3) Chrome Books
2) 3D TV
1) Non-iPad tablets
Read beyond the break for my thoughts on these items, as well as the embedded CNET Videos…
Categories: Tech Talk | 3 Comments »