List of Public Radio podcasts

Public radio-they may be not as boring as you think. In fact, some of the best radio programmes, in my opinion are on public radio. Being in Singapore, you probably won't have a chance to listen to many of the excellent public radio programmes on BBC or from NPR in the US. But with podcasting, you can now download many of these shows and listen to them at your own time. PublicRadioFan.com has a comprehensive list of many public radio programmes that you can listen to.

Ten Essentials for your video iPod

Need some video feed for your newly aquired 5G iPod? Podguide.tv has put together 10 essential video podcasts for you to subscribe to. Don't know what to get from the millions of video podcasts out there? Here's a good place to start.

LEGO Firefly!

Some guy called Chris Doyle has turned his LEGO bricks into Serenity! For those of you into the Joss Whedon created series called Firefly, you'd know that Serenity is the cargo ship in the series. In the picture above, you can also see that Doyle has recreated the entire crew of Serenity using LEGO minifigs. On the site, you can also see how the LEGO model of Serenity was constructed. Cool!
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List of iPod torrents

Legal or not? I don't know, but someone has put up a list of where you can get torrents of iPod formated media. It's just a list but it's a starting point...
Link

Jedi-inspired fan film in Singapore

Some guy in Singapore has created a indie sci-fi short film titled "Peaceful Knights of BuZen - Return from Corruption". The fellow who did this is Seamus Phan, and according to the press release that is on the net, he is a "net consultant, keynote speaker, and published author". Hmmm... how come I've never heard of him?

Anyway, this short is shot in front of a blue screen and is to be part of a longer 10-part series.

...a story that will eventually be an education in charity, compassion and chivalry, and about the impact of non-violence and how that can bring about greater impact than violent aggression itself. In this opening story in the form of a short film, 2 monks in a distant planet wanted to warn of an imminent danger in a galactic temple, but were turned away. The younger monk turned to evil, but was ultimately brought back to the good side by the master. In between, the story told of how the master found the apprentice as a rogue trader, and subsequently trained him in the ways of defense and meditation.

Although there's no explicit mention that this is a Star Wars fan film, there is some similarity to the Jedi philosophy in the short. Go watch it, if only for curiosity sake.
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Free Music from 50FootWave

Those of you into the alt-rock scene in the 90s will remember Kirstin Hersh and The Throwing Muses. Hersh has a new band called 50FootWave and they are offering their new EP free online under the Creative Commons Music Sharing license. Both MP3 and FLAC format is available on the site and you can also print out CD sleeves if you plan to burn them. Cool band, cool music. And it's free.
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Simplifying Your Life

There seems to be this trend of folks trying to get rid of clutter and to simplify their lives. So if you share the same philosophy and want to make your life simple, you can head down to this web site where you can read this e-book called "Live Simple: Radical Tactics to Reduce the Complexity, Costs, and Clutter of your Life". A PDF version is available for a small price and if you want to keep it simple, you can read the hypertext version for free.
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Reuters' Top 40 Pictures of 2005

A picture is worth a thousand words. Some of the most powerful images are taken by photo-journos around the world documenting some of the most important events happening today. Reuters has put together the 40 of their most important and interesting pictures of 2005. See history captured in these wonderful pictures.

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Star Wars: The Best of 2005

2005 is the year that the Star Wars movie saga comes to a close. We finally found out what and how the young Anakin turned into the most feared lord of the Empire. This year has to be considered a really important year for Star Wars and the official web site has come up with a list of the 10 best things to happen Star Wars this year. Some of the items which made the list include the release of Star Wars LEGO video game and the fever over Clone Troopers. Great read for Star Wars fans.
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Ultima V is back!

If the mere mention of Ultima brings back fond memories of the days where you spend your time fighting your way through a fantasy world where imagination prevails with none of the fancy 3D graphics you have today, you'll be glad that you can now revisit the world of Ultima. This time, it is with all the fancy 3D graphics, no less. A group of fans have remade the classic Ultima V using the Dungeon Siege engine. Called Ultima V: Lazarus, this rebirth of a classic shows how powerful a dedicated community of fans can be.
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Open Source Software for Mac

Open Source Mac is a web site that collects a number of the best OS X open source software that is available. Some of these are really gems and I would be at a lost to do some of my computing work without them.

How Narnia works

With the movie adaptation of C S Lewis' Narnia Chronicles hitting the big screen, there's a renewed interest in the wonderful world that Lewis has created. The crew at Howstuffworks.com has also got into the act and provided background information on the world of Narnia. If you think you're a Narnia expert or you're just getting into the world, here's a good place to start to find out things you don't know about Narnia.
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Roger Ebert's 10 Best Movies of 2005

It's time for top ten end of the year lists for everything. If you're a film buff, you'd be taking note of what film critic Roger Ebert is choosing as his 10 best films of the year. It's also a good starting point to pick out what are the films you need to catch before the year ends.

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Music Lessons on the Net

Want to learn music? Do it on the Net! This is a flash-enabled site that teaches you how to read music, and it even has a ear trainer to help to learn that perfect pitch. Perfect for those who want to be a self-taught musician.

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P2P on record high

Slyck News is reporting on the popularity of the P2P networks. You'd think that RIAA's actions will have an impact, but it seems that those strong arm tactics are not really working.

The RIAA may be winning over the courts and legislators, yet these victories are proving hollow. Their courtroom and legislative successes are yielding little in the way of tangible benefits as the P2P population continues to grow. If there's one message associated with the continued growth of file-sharing, it's that people continue to want unencumbered (DRM–free) access to music. Many have argued that Napster and Rhapsody, and to a lesser extent, iTunes, simply do not provide that.

It’s interesting to note the file-sharing population is continuing to march forward despite the rapid decline of the FastTrack network. As corrupted files and lawsuits continue to plague this network, the P2P population has grown aware of these concerns and taken refuge in a multitude of other communities. Smaller private networks, eDonkey2000, Gnutella, BitTorrent and Ares Galaxy have all benefited from FastTrack’s decline.

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Photoshoping a photo

We know that with digital photography, it is easy to retouch pictures. Here's a flash movie showing you the various ways that a photo can be altered. It shows a model and then how "virtual" surgery is done to make her have bigger breasts, smaller hips and even fuller lips. Bottom line? Don't believe every picture you see in magazines.

History of video games lawsuits

Not happy? Sue. Send in the lawyers, damn it! 1UP.com has a piece that looks at the history of lawsuits filed in video games history. If you legal eagles have an interest in the game battle fought in the courtroom rather than in the virtual world, read the article before you get sued.

Alternative search engines beyond Google

The wonderful Lifehacker site has a list of top 10 alternative search engines that you can make use of to find the things you want on the web. Some of the search tools on the list include Isohunt for torrent files, FoodieView for recipies, and Ditto for image search. Search and ye shall find...

2005's top Web 2.0 Apps

Web 2.0 seems to be the buzzword these days. So it's no surprise that the folks at ArticleDashboard.com has a list of the top innovative Web 2.0 apps this year. Some items on the list are items that I'm already using like Digg. Most of the others are still new and sounds like items that I should try. Web 2.0 sounds exciting.

Update: There's another top Web 2.0 apps list available on Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog. Plenty of web-based apps that you can try out, including to-do lists, online file storage, etc.

Google into searching for music

On the Google Blog, the folks at Google have announced that they are introducing Google Music. The service will allow you to key in the name of a band, album, or song and you'll get info relating to the music you're searching for. You can already do that using the normal Google searches but this helps you to narrow down the search significantly. Great for music fans.

Drum session

Caught it at Orchard Road, a bunch of drummers drumming in the festive season. And a curious uncle looking on.

Treo 650 Boots Linux!

This is another feather in the cap of the Linux OS. A hacker has managed to get the Penguin to boot on everyone's fave smartphone-the Treo 650! Pictures are included so it is really cool.

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Factual errors in Wikipedia abd Britannica: Almost a tie.

The scientific magazine "Nature" has compared 42 articles in both the encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Experts in their field were given the task to check for factual errors. To the surprise of nature, both encyclopedias were containing similar amounts of errors, at least for science related articles. Interesting... maybe traditional print is just on par with the collaborative effort of Wikis?

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War video made in ASCII

ASCII art is pretty neat. ASCII video is even better. This is a music video-like piece of flash animation made with ASCII and it's all about war. With the rocking Rammstein track, it's pretty cool.

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iPod fan bumps iPod mini to 8GB

The now-defunct iPod mini tops out at 6GB. However, this guy has changed that and upgraded his iPod mini to 8GB. Well, if you're into DIY and are not worried about the warranty of you device, follow the links to perform your own iPod surgery and give your mini more storage space.

Save American Edit

Update: Okay, Dean Grey Tuesday is here and if you want to grab your copy of the excellent mashup of American Edit. Head to the link below to get it. Help save mash-up and creativity in music.

American Edit is an excellent mash-up album that has been given the cease and desist order by Warner Records. However, Dean Grey, the creator and his fans are not taking it lying down and are going to do a Dean Grey Tuesday thingy on 13 Dec 2005 in protest of the record label's action. Read more about it on the linked website and support real creativity in music.

We hope to mobilize the online Mash-Up community by organizing a simple one-day organized event. Participants would be asked to post the American Edit album online for 24 hours only starting on Tuesday, December 13, at 12:00AM. Doing so is not intended to be a mass organization of music piracy but, rather, one single display of the consumptive power of the mash-up and home remix community in the hopes of encouraging the labels, publishers and artists who are curious about the mash-up community to consider giving the high quality productions of "illegitimate" music a legitimate consideration as a promotional avenue for all music.

Writely - Word Processor on the Web

The web allows you to do plenty of things. I've mentioned that you can edit photos and images using a web-based image editing tool called PXB8.COM. Now you can even do editing of documents on a web-based platform. Writely is a web-based word processor that you can use to do your text editing. You do have to sign up before you can start working on your novel online. With text and images covered, will we soon get a web-based Excel?

List of free online games

Games? Free? Sounds good to me. On the Goodexperience.com site is a list of games that you don't have to pay for that you can play online. Having fun without spending a dime is always good.

Free adverts

This is such an ingenius way to get eyeballs for your ad. I wonder how much those guys are paid for holding up the fake newspaper for.

More music CDs that will compromise your PCs

It seems that the DRM-related problem of Sony-BMG has exploded. Now, it seems that not just disc with the XCP protection system but those with the MediaMax protection are also affected. This seems to be a bigger problem as there are more CDs with MediaMax, including really popular artistes like Sarah McLachlan and Avril Lavigne. The link below contains a list compiled by EFF on affected CDs. You can also read more about this problem on a FAQ on EFF. Damn... the music labels are screwing with us and our PCs.

DJ Riko's Christmas mix album

How about that? Here's another disc of Christmas music from the mash-up community. This time, it's DJ Riki doing a platter of his fave Xmas tunes that are quite rare and surprising. Check it out if you're looking for alternative to standard Christmas tunes. Also don't forget to check out the other mash-up disc we've mentioned called Santastic by dj BC.

Copyright Free Movie Torrents

BitTorrent is used not just for dubious video, there're plenty of legal videos available on the Net too. A great example is this Public Domain Torrents site which offers a great range of classic and B-movies where the copyright of the movies have expired. iPod versions of these movies are also available on the site.

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When Grand Theft meets Lego

What if there's a version of Grand Theft Auto made using LEGO bricks? Then it'll probably look like the video in the link below. Pretty awesome stop motion done there. With Star Wars LEGO made into a game, we can always dream of Grand Theft Auto LEGO, can't we?

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Lyrics are not legal too

Seems like after going after the copying of music, the record companies are going after the copying of lyrics. If you're a music lover, you'd know that listening to your fave tunes and reading the lyrics sheet is a totally heavenly activity. With the added support of lyrics display on iTunes, listening to music and reading the lyrics is easier than ever. Plus, some smart developers have released a number of freeware that lets you easily search and pull down lyrics. Well, the record companies are going after them too. The popular pearLyrics has got a cease and desist letter from Warner/Chappell Music Limited to stop development of this software. Sadness...

Windows In Your Pocket

Okay, we know that you can put Firefox and a few other useful apps on a thumbdrive. You can also probably squeeze in a Linux system in one of these portable babies. But what about the most common OS on this planet? Tom's Hardward shows you how you can cram a bootable Windows XP on a flashdrive. Amazing but true.

Porn? Not really...

Galumpia has a bunch of pictures that are cropped to resemble close up of porn pictures. But when you expand the pictures, that're not really porn. It's pretty amusing... and goes to show what cropping a bunch of pictures can distort your perception.

Putfile bans Singapore after hanging

The recent issue about Singapore hanging the Australian for drug smuggling has generated some attention, and some tech sites have gotten into the act. In fact, the file upload site, Putfile.com, has disallowed it's services to those in Singapore because of that. Is that really necessary, and does it even matter?

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Wookieepedia - A Star Wars Wiki

With Wikis harnessing the power of the community to create useful information, it's no wonder a Wiki for Star Wars has appeared. Called the Wookieepedia, it contains everything you need to know about the cannonic movies and its extended universe. If you know something, you can even contribute and share your information. It's a Star Wars resource even Chewie will be proud of.

Roll dice with LEGO

Too lazy to roll those dice when you're playing games? Some smart guys from GameByEmail have put together a machine called Dice-O-Matic made from the ever useful plastic LEGO bricks. According to the site, this puppy can crank out 20,000 dice rolls a day. That's plenty enough dice rolls for anyone, I bet.

Converting video to iPod

Converting video to be played on your 5G iPod is not that difficult if you're using a software like Videora iPod Converter for Windows machine. However, understanding how this freeware works and trying to find out what settings work best can be a pain, since the documentation is so sparse. Thankfully, the folks at Twelve Black Code Monkey has done a comparison of the different settings and placed it in an Excel file. Useful when you're deciding how you want to encode your video for viewing on an iPod. Nice.

Free Music Download List

Who doesn't love free things? Instead of financing the major music labels in their quest of suing music listeners and adding to their coffers, why not look for songs that are free on the Internet? The author of gHacks has compiled a list of the best free music download sites on the internet. The list contains about 40 sites that offer legal music downloads to their visitors. Say together... free music is good...

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PXN8.COM - Edit photos online

Sometimes you need to edit some pictures but you don't have a photo editor installed on your computer. Well, you can now make use of PXN8.com. This is an online photo editing application. Basically, you can select a picture, and then do things like cropping, resizing, rotating, and even apply some effects, like blur, lomo, sepia, etc. It is even integrated with Flickr and you can upload your edited pictures to your Flickr account! Amazing.

Christmas mash-up album

If you're sick of listening to the standard Christmas music every year, why not try something different this holiday season? Top notch masher dj BC has compiled an album of great Xmas mashups called "Santastic: Holiday Boots 4 Your Stockings". Go grab this album, complete with CD sleeves that you can print out, and spread some smashing Christmas cheer.

Free iPod video content

Looking for something to watch on your brand new 5G iPod? Other than getting them from iTunes Music Store and other less official sites, you can head down to FLiXPO, a site that offers video clips ranging from film trailers, funny ads, indie videos and even games machinima. And yes, they're all free... as in free beer.

Scrabble using L33T Tiles

This must be the perfect gift for geeks who love word games. L33T Tiles are replacement tile sets to be used with Scrabble and other word games. If you use these tiles, you're of course expected to use the net slang known as leetspeak. The website even offers a dictionary for those who would like to confirm that the words used actually exist online. So stop using regex and pwn someone with words for l33t folks, woot!