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One Red Paper Clip guy now has a year in Phoenix

This blog chronicles one man's journey trying to barter and trade from one red paperclip all the way to a house...

He is currently at one year free rent in phoenix.


read more | digg story

HOLY! Riya searches your photos and recognizes who is in it

If you are like me, you have a ton of unnamed, undescribed, photos from many many years.
There seems to be alot of hype around a technology that might just help us recognize all the faces in those pics semi-automatically. Its called Riya.

Riya states its goal as enabling us to "find every digital photo in the world."

Riya uses face recognition and search technologies to
1) grab all your photos from ur computer or online sources like flickr
2) allow you to identify people in ur photos
3) identify those people in all your other photos (and in everyone else's photos for that matter).

So if I am reading correctly,
1) every photo in the world will be shared and
2) the software will be able to recognize all people and objects in the photos
3) anyone in your network will be able to search for anything or anyone in the whole network's photos

HOLY CRAP!! potentially one of the niftiest things I've ever heard of.
Right now, its only in alpha testing. And only like 10 people have seen it work outside the company. So the jury is out on how well it works still.

What if this can now help you identify those random people in the background of your photos!! What if you find that someone you just met is randomly in one of your childhood pictures! The possible scenarios could be freaky!! Could you upload your yearbook photos and names and find where all your classmates have gone? What about incriminating evidence??? hmmm there better be a bachelor party tag.

Collage from Picasa2

This is the output of a neat little feature in Picasa2 (a google picture organization software). It creates a collage (like seen above) of a selection of pictures. This is a collection of my pics from Vietnam.

I highly recommend Picassa to organize your pics. Its very simple and the interface is amazing. It makes viewing and browing a large number of image folders really fast and easy. 

Preview Yahoo Mail with Firefox extension

For all you firefox lovers...
I found this neat little extension that lets you preview a Yahoo email with out navigating away from the message list. Download it here.

This is spose to be a big feature for the new Yahoo Mail Beta thats coming out. But you can get it right now :)

Here is a screenshot.

Flikr For Videos... YouTube!

Not much more I need to say here... Definitely check it out.
www.youtube.com

The Long Tail

I've been seeing the buzz phrase "the Long tail" alot lately, so I decided to try to figure out what the heck it was...

Its best explained by examples.
The long tail is the yellow portion of the graph to the left...

The concept says that the demand for "niche" items, not found in traditional brick and mortar stores due to their low volume of sales, is as big or greater than the demand for "hit" items. If inventory and distribution costs can be substantially reduced, then the total profits will be greater for these niche items.
Online retailes like Itunes/Apple, Netflix, Amazon are beneficiaries, since their inventory are stored centrally and/or distributing the items can be done digitally, minimizing costs.

I also think alot of people use this phrase to refer to the niche group of consumers (or products they buy) that are going to be loyal repeat customers due to the selection of products that can't be found elsewhere. Finding this business "sweet spot" is seen as one of the keys to long term success of a new company.

Here is the Long Tail article from Wired Magazine that started it all... well worth the 5 page read. It offers a bunch of interesting examples and ideas.

Here is Chris Anderson's (the author) blog on Long tail. Offers a good aggregation of links on the left of other smart people's ruminations about applying this concept to industry.

Great way to share large files

I've been looking for a good way to share videos taken from my digital camera.
The files end up being like 10 to 20 mb... too large to email.
But I found this site called www.YouSendIt.com while looking for a job.
(How come I find so many cool sites while "looking for jobs?")

It is so super awesome! I'm so giddy :) And of course its free.

• This site has one simple form (only 3 required fields to fill out)
• No sign up or registration required for anyone
  
• You can send files up to 1GB
• Once you submit the form the file is uploaded to their servers and a link to the file is generated. An email is sent to the people you request with the link and a message you write. The link stays active for 7 days. You can even just IM the link to someone.
  

Whats the catch?

• So far there is NONE! I have no idea how they make any money other than a small ad on the page confirming your file was uploaded.
  

If you can figure out how they make money, please tell me. Also feel free to send me good music or movies to check out (of course only the legal ones ehhem ;))

Alot of time on my hands

I've been doing alot of surfing the internet lately due to my new found unemployed and bored status. So I've decided to do something a bit constructive with my findings and blog em for the rest of yall... enjoy.

Been thinking about starting a business lately...
This site (SpringWise) is a monthly newsletter that profiles new interesting business ideas from around the world. Goes into reasons why these ideas might be striking. Def gets your mind going.

Finding NEW music you might like...
Tired of the same 5 songs on the radio? this site (Pandora.com) suggests songs you might like by creating a radio station for you based on 1) a song or artist you like and 2) the Music genome project (a project to analyze 10,000 artists and what makes their music tick).

• Cost:10 hrs of free play then 36$ per year. $36 is kind of steep IMO I'd pay around 20$,
  
• This thing is cool, has an awesome interface. Suggestions are pretty good. Lets you say "like it" "Dont like it" and then updates the station list.
  
• Typed in Kanye West > got "Get By" by Talib Kweli. > Created a station for that song and got
• Remind My Soul by Akrobatic
• Robbin Hood Theory by Gang Starr
• But also got some Ja Rule Ashanti shit too
  
• Limitations:
• Wish you could preview the songs coming in the suggestion list.
• Can only forward a certain number of songs every hour (due to some licensing crap)
• Have to buy songs from ITunes or amazon still.