Coding In Paradise

TiddlyWiki is a really unique spin on WikiWikis. Check it out.

Sometimes I want to mockup UIs that look good but it is hard to find complementary colors. color synthAxis " is a free online [Flash-based] tool designed to make easy that nightmare called color." Once you click on the web page click and drag the color boxes around; check out the English tutorial to figure out how to use it.

Thomas Edison's Talking Doll: "Despite several years of experimentation and development, the Edison Talking Doll was a dismal failure that was only marketed for a few short weeks in early 1890....Edison's Talking Doll was an historic step in phonograph history -- the first phonograph marketed for home entertainment, with a pre-recorded cylinder. The doll stands 22" high and weighs four pounds, with a metal body, articulated wooden limbs, and an imported Simon and Halbig #719 bisque head. The original price was $10 with a simple chemise, and $20-$25 with full dress. This was a huge sum for the time, equal to about two weeks salary for the average person. The phonograph inside the body of the doll was tiny, with a small horn pointing up toward holes in the doll's chest. Cylinders were not interchangeable. There was no spring motor so the child was expected to turn the crank by hand at a steady speed in order for the doll to recite the six-second pre-recorded nursery rhyme. (Edison was later quoted as admitting that "the voices of the little monsters were exceedingly unpleasant to hear.") Unfortunately the delicate mechanism was too fragile for rough usage, and the steel stylus caused the wax record to wear out extremely rapidly."

[By way of AlwaysOn Network]

I am an outside volunteer with the Ansari X Prize Foundation on the Media Relations team. I am trying to convince the Foundation to give out press credentials to space and technology weblogs for the September 29th Scaled Composites launch. I am a new, outside volunteer, trying to bring the organization up to speed on why blogging is important and why they should give out press credentials to bloggers; they are pretty new to what weblogs are and what is happening in the blogosphere.

In a blogosphere fashion I'm trying to ask for help from the space and technology blogging community. I have a vision of creating a community around the X Prize that is similar to what happened around the Howard Dean campaign, where the organization is turned inside out and people on the edges have the power to contribute their talents and ideas without overhead. How do folks think this would happen? If the Foundation gives out credentials to bloggers, how should it be done, what space/technology bloggers should get some, and how many should we give out? I need help on those questions since I'm not sure on the best way to do that. How would folks convince the X Prize Foundation to make blogging and bloggers important, and how would you explain it to an organization that had never heard of blogging before?

Please note that the Foundation hasn't approved giving out press credentials to bloggers; I'm just trying to convince some folks inside of the organization to do so. :)