Since 2006 I’ve been using one of those “little” long distance phone companies that you’ve never heard of. I’m very happy with it and can recommend them to you.
They charge 2.5 cents per minute day or night. I haven’t noticed a single problem with them… No dropped called, no fast-busy signals, no poor line quality, no hidden fees, no membership charges. They are just great.
My long distance telephone bill went from $15-20 per month to $4-7 per month.
You should sign up for this long distance telephone service.
I’d appreciate it if, when you try them, you tell them I sent you. I get something like 5% of whatever your phone bill is. Here is how to sign up:
- Go to DialECG.com
- Click on “Order Now” under “ECG Long Distance”
- Enter your info. Please enter my phone number as a referral. It’s 415 – eight two one – 3321.
Their in-state toll rate depends on what state you live in. Look on their website for your state. Some states are inexpensive ( California is 3.9 cents/min) and some are more expensive (Idaho is 14.2 cents/min). I don’t know what competing rates are like in your area so look out for it.
Went to this last night. It was cool. They said a video of it will be on fora.tv really soon. Fora.tv looks cool too….. “There are brilliant ideas, expressed everyday in public discussions and events, all over the world. Don’t miss them”
Fire Arts & Burning Desires
Flame as a creative medium with Burning Man fire artists
02 Nov 2007 from 6:30 PM to 10:30 PM Pacific Time
Practical Information:
Location:
730 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111
map| directions| parking
Cost:
Suggested donation $10
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In partnership with:
LEONARDO
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In collaboration with Burning Man and Leonardo Journal, swissnex San Francisco presents an evening symposium entitled “Fire Arts and Burning Desires” with presentations by several Burning Man fire artists who will discuss the use of their work with fire as a creative medium.
From a pyrrhic highlight to a transcendent interaction, when is fire an appropriate part of a sculptural statement? How to use fire in a safe way for both the artist and the audience? Get a peek behind the scenes of the creation of previous Burning Man fire art spectacles.
Fire Arts & Burning Desires is hosted by swissnex San Francisco and presented by Burning Man and Leonardo Journal, who recently collaborated in publishing an exclusive collection of essays and photographs on the Fire Arts of Burning Man (LJ Volume 40 issue # 4).
Speakers attending the symposium will include Crimson Rose (The Fire Goddess), The Flaming Lotus Girls, (TBA), Bill Codding (The Burninator), Wally Glen (The Zen Fire Garden), Lucy Hoskins (Satin’s Calliope) and DaveX who will discuss the safety parameters of working with fire in an artistic way.
For fore information or questions please contact event producer Louis M. Brill.
Program
6:30pm: Registration and aperitif
7:00pm: Introduction by Louis M. Brill, swissnex San Francisco and Leonardo Journal
7:20pm: Symposium starts
8:50pm: Q&A
9:15pm: Networking and finger food
10:00pm: Doors close
corneredcat.com – An excellent guide to shooting for women… and men.
womenandguns.com/wfn/somany.html – A good buying guide for female shooters. Check out the rest of the site too.
pistolprowess.com/Choosing_a_Pistol.htm – another gun buying guide
calguns.net – a good discussion forum for guns in California
gunbroker.com – The eBay of the gun world.
I was looking for a handgun that was:
- popular (easy to find parts for)
- relatively inexpensive
- a grip my girlfriend could handle as well as I
Springfield XD 9 – good (and pretty) except the grip is too large. The runner-up.
Beretta 92FS – What I ended up with :-)
tommysgunpack.com/ – holsters
dragunov.net/bay_area_ranges.htm Bay Area shooting ranges
http://www.sightm1911.com/ a site for the 1911 handgun
I don’t like Flickr because all the photos are … over there. They aren’t on people’s servers that can be backed up to personal archives. In time, all links to all content break.
Here’s a good way to save Flickr images back on your own computer. I tried Downloadr but it kept crashing on me.
flickrdown
And here is a local copy of the same (of course)
I was going to do a whole write-up on Maker Faire 2007 but there’s just not enough time in a day. Here’s what I’ve got…
HatManDo – a game system where participants move their characters on the screen by moving their bodies around a grid. They wear a hat with LEDs on it that are seen by a camera high up. The creator writes “send me your comments nye2 -at- email dat com”
.![sp_a0268.jpg sp_a0268.jpg](http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sp_a0268.thumbnail.jpg)
Puppy Mover Monorail – geeky cuteness.![sp_a0274.jpg sp_a0274.jpg](http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sp_a0274.thumbnail.jpg)
Make your own Handheld Animated Butterflies – by Roger Sonntag. He came in from upstate New York to show these off. It uses an electromagnet to shoot butterflies or rings up a pole. The butterflies are actually pretty neat.![sp_a0277.jpg sp_a0277.jpg](http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sp_a0277.thumbnail.jpg)
![sp_a0278.jpg sp_a0278.jpg](http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sp_a0278.thumbnail.jpg)
Charlotte put on this workshop in August. It was well attended and everyone enjoyed it… even the man who learned some male belly dance moves!
![sharlotta-of-the-desert.png](http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/sharlotta-of-the-desert.thumbnail.png)
At Burning Man, under the man there were a couple preachy signs. Here’s my favorite.![cell-phones-kill-gorrillas.jpg](http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/cell-phones-kill-gorrillas.thumbnail.jpg)
Sorry it’s hard to read. I lost my digital camera at the Albertsons in El Cerrito on my way to Burning Man so all I had was my emergency film camera.
I thought it was ludicrous at the time but it got me thinking a lot.
The problem is: cell phones need a metal called tantalum to make their tiny capacitors, the largest supplies of tantalum are in the Democratic Republic of The Congo which is a fairly lawless place and gorillas and miners are treated poorly there.
Read it for yourself.
I created and submitted a video for the VIDA 10.0 international competition with help from my friends.
VIDA 10.0 is an international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines, such as robotics and Artiftcial Intelligence.We are looking for artistic projects that address the interaction between “synthetic” and “organic” life”.
In previous years prizes have been awarded to artistic projects using autonomous robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation, and works that highlight the social side of Artificial Life.
You can make the video below play full-screen by clicking one of the buttons on the toolbar.
local version:
The video is available on Youtube as well. https://youtube.com/watch?v=pZpcGwWfRBE
A high quality version can be downloaded here (mpeg4, 1kbps, 74megabytes)
A (0.5 gb) DVD quality version of this video is also available for the asking.