Good Afternoon, Future of the Internet, Solar Concentrating

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Google DC Talks: The Future of the Internet

Good Afternoon

Good afternoon, I am not going to post a huge amount today. I started reading a bit of The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain. This book is about the excesses of the internet like Web 2.0, iPhones, Opensource, and various other slightly incomprehensible things. This book is attempting to suggest a practical way to deal with these things. Making these things seem practical is rather impractical to me, but it should be rather interesting reading.

I also learned something kind of interesting by following my stock, Capstone Turbine. They are working with a company called HelioFocus to develop a hot air powered turbine where the air is heated by solar concentrators. The concept is quite interesting.

http://www.capstoneturbine.com/news/story.asp?id=476

Mostly, I have been resting today and getting some extra sleep. I'll probably go drive around this afternoon a bit after I take a long nap.

Between the zinc tabs, the vitamin c, the tylenol, and napping, I sm starting to feel a lot better. My head doesn't ache as much.

I took a short drive on both the highway and the city streets. I think the car will pass inspection now. I drove down to Circuit City and looked at the computers. I still have an inkjet printer. Now, they sell these printers with a fas, scanner, copier, and printer all built into one unit for about $150.00. Also, I still don't have a flatacreen, which I can get for about $200.00. I have a big old clunky monitor. To tell you how old my computer is, there is a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive in it.

It still works. I keep on promising myself, I will get an upgrade. If I got the cheapest computer from Dell, it would still outperform my current computer. I have the patience to look for a package deal, computer, monitor, and printer as a bundle.

I do have a cable modem however. Fiber optic is much faster. I might look at Verizon which just got the right to sell fiber optic around New York.

I feel like I fell off the tracks today. I seem to be losing focus right now on this blog. I think I will be back on point tomorrow.

Driving Miss Daisy, Ordering Computer Books, Random Thoughts

Driving Miss Daisy

We showed Driving Miss Daisy, starring Morgan Freeman in the auditorium. The film was nominated for nine acadmey awards. It was kind of sad, only a few people came. The film was beautiful to watch. I haven't decided what the next film we are going to show is. One of the patrons wants us to show Angels With Dirty Faces starring James Cagney. I think we are going to go back to more classic noire films. They seem to do better than newer films. Dashiell Hammett films or Alfred Hitchcock films do well. In a way, I like the classic films much better than the new films. Many of our patrons say the same thing. They want classic actors like Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, or Gregory Peck.

Ordering Computer Books

I spent quite a bit of time this morning selecting computer books. I tried to get a lot of books with lots of visual instruction in addition to text. Peachpit Press and Teach Yourself Visually are good for libraries because they include a lot of screen captures and photographs of computers. The computer books with visual instruction are often even more popular than the For Dummies series of books.

I also looked at a bunch of different publishers, O'Reilly Media-- especially, the missing manual series which seems to be functional. I reviewed Facebook The Missing Manual earlier on this site. I also reviewed Clear Blogging. I am ordering both of these books for our library.

Just so you know, I didn't forget blogging. I made sure we had books for Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook, and Myspace. I also ordered the new Darren Rowse book, Problogger Secrets For Blogging Your Way To A Six Figure Income.

Random Thoughts

I still haven't had time to review Hot Text. But, you might have noticed the style of my post has changed slightly. This is the result of having read Hot Text. Also some items are labelled more clearly in my sidebar.

One book came in for me today that was on hold, Farewell My Subaru An Epic Adventure In Local Living by Doug Fine. This is a book about experimenting with living a green lifestyle. I hope it is entertaining and educational.

Although, it has nothing to do with books. I am happy with my choice to invest in Capstone Turbine. They recently had a very large order for hybrid electric vehicle turbines for DesignLine city buses.