http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=1693&categoryID=204
Sun have created a 32-bit AMI based on OpenSolaris 2008.05 (with packages updated to
build 91).
Components included within this AMI are
Drupal 6.4 (in pre-configured state), Apache 2.2 , PHP 5.2.6, MySQL
5.0.x, Memcached 1.2.5, phpMyAdmin, Dtrace probes and Sample Dtrace
scripts.
This AMI is provided by Sun Microsystems and requires registration.
]]>Just discovered the Amazon EC2 Application Directory which includes such gems as:
]]>rPath
rPath and Amazon EC2 Cloud
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In Hidden Expedition: Amazon, you find a tattered map referencing the legendary Beetle Temple deep in the Amazon Rainforest. The map is your only clue as you explore cities, temples, and ruins while unlocking the secrets of an ancient yet advanced civilization. This adventure is the largest yet for the Hidden Expedition team, and the discovery of the Beetle Temple is just the beginning! Unlock the greatest secret of the Amazon with more scenes, puzzles and adventure! Good luck and bon voyage!
]]>One of the most important trends to develop in both anthropology and
archaeology during the latter half of the 20th century was the
inclusion of indigenous peoples into the larger social science
discourse (beyond simply being “subjects” or “objects”). In some
countries and in some areas of investigation this inclusive process
began at an earlier time then in others. For example, in North America
the collaborative process between anthropologists and Native Americans
began as early as 1941 (Jones and Stapp, 2008). In other places, such
as in South America, the process of including indigenous voices and
knowledge in social science research and theoretical discussion did not
begin until much later. Despite these differences in time, it has
generally been acknowledged that including indigenous peoples in the
anthropological and archaeological research process has greatly
expanded our knowledge base, data sets, and overall understanding of
the human condition. A contemporary example of this is the current
collaborative process taking place in the Central Andean region of
South America between archaeologists and local indigenous people.
In the yungas (hot valleys in Quechuan) of the eastern cordillera
Montana along the eastern face of the Central Andes archaeologists are
working with indigenous peoples in several endeavors (see the work of
Christian Isendahl and Daryl Stump for example). The Montana plays a
decisive ecological role at both the continental and global scales –
forcing the moist easterly air masses of the South Atlantic anticyclone
to ascend and release precipitation that feeds the Amazonian drainage
with nutrient-rich, sediment-laden water. The Montana provides an
important variable for Amazonian rain forest ecology, structure, and
distribution and played an important role in the growth of indigenous
peoples’ prehistoric complex societies in the lowland Neotropics, as
well as contemporary indigenous groups and cultures. But the Montana
physiography is not a homogenous slope landscape; it forms a complex
mosaic of landforms that house considerable ecological variation
principally based on differences in altitude, precipitation level, and
slope gradient.
Read more about indigenous peoples and archaeologists collaborating in the Peruvian Amazon here.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:  AND THE BAND PLAYED ON. . ., March 1, 1999By A Customer 'No Exit'Take a bunch of New Yorkers, give them instruments and you get some theatre. The opening 'Screaming Skin' channels Joel Grey of 'Cabaret' through the ghost of Marlene Dietrich singing ska. They are here to put on a show, now listen. The next track takes up where 'the Hunter' left off except at warp speed ahead of that album. There is percussion reminiscent of one of my favorite Hunter tracks, 'Orchid Club.' The next track 'Maria' introduces us to the star, BLONDIE (Debbie, the band, you choose). No one else could have made this. The title track 'No Exit' exists seperate musically from the album up to this point yet is one of three songs which sums up "Life is Harsh." Seems the urban landscape of lost souls was material for grade B horror film references ala George Romero, including 'Dig Up the Conjo' and 'Screaming Skin' and 'No Exit'. After a unmemorable 'Double Take' we return to a streak of vintage BLONDIE. 'Nothing is Real But the Girl' could have been lifted off 'Parallel Lines.' Here we arrive midway with my favorite track 'Boom Boom in the Zoom Zoom Room'. This is like music for 'Twin Peaks', the tv show, as sung by Ms. Harry channeling Joni Mitchell. The instrumental shows off Ms. Harry's influences including the band 'Morphine' and her time well spent with 'the Jazz Passengers.' This song should be the next single. Like good epic theatre, we now come to the intermission. 'Night Wind Sent' and 'Under the Gun' is where I exit to relieve myself and refresh my drink. On second thought, I might be missing something! Any successful show knows the showstopper is at the beginnig of Act 2, so here we have BLONDIE's fresh take on their own take of the Shangri-La's 'Out in the Streets'. Another favorite although I miss the sweet youth Debbie brought to this track the first time around. With a hip-hop beat and a Bond-like influence I look forward to remixes of this track. Mix Magicians take note and blend vocals from the early edition of this track by BLONDIE. The rest of the album is a breeze for a regular BLONDIE guy like me. Perhaps there are no singles here but I love the kookiness of 'Happy Dog', and the lazy reggae of 'Divine'. The track 'The Dream's Lost on Me' include my favorite lyrics on 'No Exit' and is a swaying country rock tune. Believe me. The bonus tracks included are live 'Dreaming' , 'Call Me' and 'Rapture.' The price of the entire CD is worth the live 'Dreaming' Special thanks to Clem Burke and Jimmy Destri. A reunited BLONDIE is a trip home to your family during the holidays. 'It makes you wanna cry'. Review by 'poetwess' |
HE SAID HE LOVES ME!!! And I made it totally hard for him lol. He took me out on a hot date last night ( I chose Olive Garden cuz I loove it. He said he was going to take me some place nicer but is glad I'm easily pleased) and he started talking about why he likes me and he does this a lot so I wasn't surprised and I thought he might want feedback and of course it was all so serious, I had to liven it up a bit, so I said something funny and he was like "I'm...trying to say positive things here. Like...this is leading up to something." And I begged him to continue and then he said "And...I love you." and i said "I KWEW IT!!"... And then I said "I love you too" of course but I was totally embarrassed!!!
Anyway, it doesn't change things very much. I still want to be with him every night and I love spending time with him and figuring him out (he's a complicated man...yes they do exist.) He's a pleasure to be around.
Something else that's pretty humorous: My ex-roomy/wifey/partner in crime sent me an e-mail like we often do and she told me about one of her nursing classes. Now in this nursing program of hers there are these 2 cute boys, Josh and Robin Hood ( he looks a bit like the character, she says, "devilishy" grin and all). So here is what she sent me:
"so today when i walked into my nurisng class they had changed the
tables around so instead of rows, there were groups of tables (you know
like 3rd grade) well so anyways i walked in and the only ppl that i
kinda knew were the 2 guys (josh and robin hood) and i didnt wanna
just sit next to some random ppl. so i sat down with them hoping that
when one of my new nursing girl friends walked in they would sit with
me, so i wouldnt be the only girl. yeah no, i tried to get their
attention and say hi and those girls said hi but they went to another
table. so there i was with 1 super hottie, a cutie, and some other guy.
i felt like the skank of the classroom ha ha. i mean it was so
embarrassing. but then when we were talking and found out which clinical
groups we were in, (josh was in mine) and he was like "yes at least i
know one person, i know its sad but yall are the only ppl that i
know." so i didnt feel so bad after that, bc it turns out that we kinda
only know this like little group. so didnt feel such like a skank
anymore, but at least i got to sit with hotties and besides they are
really fun too! so i am a freakin amazon!"
And I found this intriguing because there is some weird socially accepted rule that you sit with your own sex when you walk into a room full of people. It just happens is most situations. I'm more timid so I try to sit by the meekest of the group or I just don't give a rat's a$$ and I just sit where ever I want but it's usually not next to a man. Anyway, I replied to her:
"So about this class. I think it's totally Amazon of you to sit at the
boy table! I bet they like that. What guy doesn't want a girl with big
boobs and cute shoes to sit next to him? You don't deserve a table full
of catty girls anyway. You deserve a table with a white table cloth,
Red roses and big silver dishes with a bunch of hot men lying down on
them with nothing but a dinner napkin on. And then you deserve for them
to say "Bon appetit mademoiselle". THAT'S the kind of table YOU deserve."
What's going to become of the greatest hits record?
A couple of weeks ago, I ripped all my CDs to my hard drive. In doing so I uncovered several fantastic albums I had all but forgotten about, including a number of Greatest Hits discs. Among them, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Pixies, Faith No More, and Counting Crows.
While all of those are fantastic listens and were well worth the purchase price all those years ago, it got me to thinking about the current digital marketplace and how things are continuing to change. In this case, I was looking at Tom Petty albums on iTunes and realized that I could buy every song on the greatest hits package without ever buying the greatest hits. And where I could do that years ago, I would have had to buy the entire back catalog. Now, however, when I can buy individual songs online in several different locations and formats, well, is there still a need for greates hits albums?
I'm not sure there is. Let's take as an example, the aforementioned Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits. The disc has, as you would imagine, many of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers biggest hits and most popular songs. The disc also has two new (at the time) songs not available anywhere else. Now, however, not only can I buy the hits on iTunes, Amazon Downloads, and the Microsoft Zune Music Store, I can buy the individual tracks of the two extra songs as well, without having to buy the rest of the disc.
One argument for the continuing existance of greatest hits packages is that it is very convenient for those who don't want to do all the searching necessary to buy each track individually; there are new incentives being offered by iTunes (and by others I would assume although I haven't done the research) such as videos and live versions of the songs on the album. However, I don't see the greatest hits CD surviving much longer. It would seem to me that a much more effective tool these days would be for record labels and bands to make recommended playlists of their songs available in the various digital storefronts rather than spending the time and money in assembling a disc full of already released material.
But, of course, I could be wrong.
]]>Why are you loyal to certain brands/stores? What keeps you coming back?
Sponsored by Microsoft Small Business.
I would say Apple gets more of my money than anyone else. It almost wasn't to be.
I used my first Mac back in 1996 - I think it was a Performa 6300 - for work and wasn't all that impressed. The classic Mac OS (version 7 I think was the latest one) was extremely slow, I think we only used it for Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark Express.
When the iPod got popular, I refused to buy into it. Partially because what is popular in consumer electronics isn't always what is best, and also because at the time I used a PC for which Creative's software integration was second to none. I got their Zen Jukebox Xtra.
It was around the same time that, recording my own songs as a hobby, I started hearing about Mac exclusives Garageband and Logic Express being worth my attention. Not wanting to spend too much on a system I may not use, I went for the low end Mac mini system.
It was this that kick-started my love affair with Apple.
My Zen Jukebox Xtra started to show a few weird behavioural traits as I filled it - it, being hard drive based, skipped and went crazy if I walked too fast. I decided to get a flash memory MP3 player for my daily commute, and now using a Mac, an iPod Nano was the best choice. Plus Jess had one and loved it.
I have bought...
- A 1.42GHz PPC Mac mini
- A 4GB iPod Nano
- A 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro
- An 80GB iPod Classic
- A 16GB iPhone 3G
- A 500GB Time Capsule
- Numerous accessories and programs
... and been extremely happy with all of them. They might cost slightly more than their rivals in some cases, but the build quality of their hardware is superb, and their software is designed for people who don't want to dick around during set up or hunt for options in obscure menus to do simple things.
I do think the "They just work" mantra is a little inaccurate, as I have still had issues, but having used every version of Windows since 3.1, as well as different distributions of Linux, I feel I have a good grounds for comparison when I say Mac OS X is the best consumer OS out there.
Other than Apple, my spending habits are as you'd expect of a 28 year old guy with a decent job and no kids - my clothes all come from GAP, Old Navy and band merchandise stands; I drink Starbucks; I eat a lot of Subway and Chipotle; I get a lot of my entertainment items from Amazon.com. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
Even though book trailers have been done since COS Productions first premiered Dark Symphony by Christine Feehan in 2003, it's considered a relatively new market.
Partially because of the technical requirements to make them - although they can be made with Windows Movie Maker or any other simple editing program, it takes a high quality video to get real notice. Partially because the expense - as I've been saying here, the market that can benefit most from these book videos is the small published market, which has trouble affording them. Although over the span of an author's career, the initial investment in a book video will be highly justified.
So the question is - where's the best place to promote your book video once it's complete? We know YouTube can get views, but it's not your target audience. You can pay for advertising it on a number of smaller sites geared at niche markets, which may be worthwhile, but it's always a question of risk - is it worth the investment? Especially after you've purchased the video.
The answer is: Amazon! Your Site! Your MySpace!
Three places most likely to get you immediate sales. And it's easy to do!
1) Amazon
What better place to have an advertisement to sell your book, than to someone who's actively looking to BUY a book? If you get someone to land on your book's page at Amazon, and you have a high quality (preferably Way Out Sortie - hah) video on your book's page... You just sold another copy. Not to mention whatever word of mouth it generates. To place your video on Amazon.com, you need to sign up for the AuthorConnect (available through your books page on Amazon - and it has to be a print book. E-books sold on Amazon are not available for AuthorConnect yet). Once you've signed up for AuthorConnect, had your publisher verify you are the author, you can create a blog entry and "Upload your video" to your blog. This allows it to show up right on the book's page. Excellent!2) Your Site
Whether you have two visitors a week (mom AND dad), or you have thousands of visitors a day, posting your book video on your site ties all your branding and self-promotion tools together. Your site is (hopefully) already geared to send potential readers flocking to the nearest book store to purchase your masterpiece. Now, you have a video that will dazzle and delight them for 1:30 to 2 minutes and leave them with tears of joy in their eyes, and credit card in hand. The easiest way to place your book video on your site is to simply take the "Embed" code from YouTube's page and copy and paste it where you want it in your HTML pages. It takes access to your HTML code (through FTP or a control panel) to change, but it's not rocket science. Just skip the boring stuff at the top, find where your text is, and find a nice gap to paste it into. Viola!3) MySpace (or..uh... yourSpace)
Of course we want to promote ourselves on MySpace. It isn't called Social Networking for nothing. This is real easy. If your producer already uploaded your video, just search for it by name to find it. Once you click on the video, there's a link on the right-hand side that says "Add to my Profile". Click on that, and you're the proud owner of a multi-media rich MySpace page! If your producer didn't upload the video, simply go to MySpace Videos, and follow the easy-to-use instructions to select the video file from your computer (MySpace supports about 6 of the most common formats), and wait patiently while it's uploaded. It will take a little bit to be converted and made live, but once it is, you can find it under "My Videos" link at the top of the page.That's a start! Three of the best places to market your Book Video and get your promotion going. I'll be following this up soon with some additional places that focus entirely on book videos and teasers, and also other ways to promote your video - like, through your publisher!
For more details, or to check out some of the wicked videos being produced by Way Out Sortie, head on over to http://www.wayoutsortie.com today!
]]>This morning the Today Show had a great story about John Carter, a former U.S. soldier and now rancher that is trying making farming in the Amazon an environmentally sound business. Check out his organization Allianca da Terra. Here's a quote from their mission statement:
"Alliança’s main objective was to fill a leadership vacuum left between the trenches of the environmental movement and the production sector."
What do you think? Is this enough?
Here's the piece from Today (originally from Nightly News)
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
Noticed the above quote on today's flip desktop calender. Loved it.
See more photos tagged: Deep in the heart of the Amazon, (umm...err... ok.. At play in my backyard, then!)
Read more about this story at www.LaraHoward.com.
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