Anybody reading really like peeling fruits and vegetables by hand? This is a job destined for machines. When I first spotted Rotato in the store I thought: hey, that looks like a lot easier way of peeling potatoes, fruit and vegetables. And at less than $9 at Wal-mart, it seemed worth a try.
The only assembly required with Rotato is screwing on the handle. Then you position the target fruit or vegatable on the bottom spikes that rotate when you turn the crank. A spike on the top is used to hold the other end in place. Turn and peel. Easy, huh?
Not so fast. We found the razor blade that the instructions warn not to touch becomes hopelessly clogged with peels forcing you to stop the peeling process and very carefully clean off the razory tip. Also Rotato didn’t peel the top or bottom of the granny smith apple tested, only the center portion and left noticeable varying gaps in the peel depth. It was kind of tasty eating the peels of the insides. That might be one handy use for Rotato: peeling thin pieces of the inside of the apple and dehydrating.
I decided to try an orange for Hmmcast #177 (hey, remember those?):
Scary Google search fact: searching for harpies, results in a sponsored link result for herpes.
Searching Live and the spiffy new Yahoo search do not offer a similarly creepy sponsored result. What are harpies? In Greek mythology, Encyclopedia Mythica™:
Harpies were described as beautiful, winged maidens. Later they became winged monsters with the face of an ugly old woman and equipped with crooked, sharp talons. They were represented carrying off persons to the underworld and inflicting punishment or tormenting them. Those persons were never seen again.
And then sirens of harpies on a cold October afternoon.
The first thing I thought of was the Tablet PC when I saw Sketchcast as a delicious popular post in my RSS reader this morning. With Sketchcast you can share drawings with or without voice all through a pen-friendly Flash interface in the browser (Firefox or IE). I made a mockup of Hmmcast #174 entirely using Sketchcast. Unfortunately it’s not available in HD or as a download so I don’t think this will be the ‘official’ Hmmcast #174, which is one disappointing aspect of Sketchcast. Accordingly, not releasing this at the 4:20 publish time.
Here’s what my very first effort — complete with a few errors — looks like (if you can’t see the object embed in your reader, clickthru on this post to view from the website):
The Sketchcast fine print
Also, it’s only for personal use licensing unless written permission from Sketchcast is obtained per the Sketchcast Terms of Service:
(v) You agree not to use the Website for any commercial use, without the prior written authorization of Sketchcast;
Delving deeper into the Sketchcast TOS we learn what rights you give up with anything produced using Sketchcast:
For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to Sketchcast, you hereby grant Sketchcast a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, and display the User Submissions in connection with the Website and any of Sketchcast’s, and its successors, assigns and affiliates, business and operations, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.
So basically, Sketchcast can take your work, no matter how long you’ve worked on it, and use it to promote Sketchcast without any additional permission needed from you, the publisher. This isn’t too unusual in the video world these days (publishers, check your favorite video site for similar language). The licensing goes further though, allowing anybody to remix and mash anything you publish through Sketchcast:
You also hereby grant each user of the Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms and Conditions. The above licenses granted by you in User Submissions are perpetual and irrevocable.
Not terribly useful for groups desiring privacy
It’s too bad Sketchcast couldn’t allow publishers to choose the licensing of their choice. I’m curious if more fun type sketches and less serious ones will fill the site? Looking around at what’s there so far, it’s a mixed bag. In general, I like it, and it could be useful for quickly sharing ideas — just not very private ideas, unfortunately — with others. If they add a private groups feature, it would be handy for sharing sketches with project ideas that groups aren’t ready to share with the whole world. Then again, I think there are a few whiteboard apps out there for other programs.
Haven’t written about my Tablet PC experiences as much in the third year of ownership and recently passed the 1,000 day mark as being a Table PC owner. However, it was nice this morning to see an online application where the Tablet PC shines — in Firefox too, another rarity of sorts.
There are two languages that would come in handy if you live in the United States and like to travel to neighboring countries: French (for Montreal and Quebec, Canada) and Spanish (Mexico).
Our middle son is currently taking Spanish and when I saw the language learning site trymango.com this morning, he was the first person who came to mind. Could this help him with his Spanish studies? I signed up and took a peek inside.
But first, a hat tip to Jay at Dumb Little Men who also shares two additional resources at the end of his post for learning foreign languages for free: FSI Language Courses and the foreign language podcast collection from openculture.
Signing up for Mango (oddly it’s not called Try Mango, it’s called Mango) involves only your email address. Why does a site like this need your email address?
Privacy Policy: We will NOT sell or provide your email address to any third party. We will only use this email address to authenticate your access to the Mango Language application and provide you with update information. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Authenticating access with email only is hopelessly insecure, but we aren’t trading military secrets or stock information, so maybe this is cool. The first email address sent thanking me for signing up, however, did not provide unsubscribe instructions (CAN SPAM compliance). The site is too new to have a rating from SiteAdvisor yet, so we have to take this one on faith.
Mango is a flash-based learning environment with voices that are clear and hover overs with your mouse to indicate the pronunciation of each word. After showing you a few common sentences, the system will test you by giving you the English word and seeing if you know how to say it in the language you chose.
Today’s Hmmcast #173 takes a look at the language learning process, particularly the importance of repetition.
BTW, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve fallen off the 4:20 schedule a bit this past week. I’m still working through the wonders of HD video. Things should be back to normal the first week in October. Hang with me and it should be worth it — at least visually — no matter what resolution you view the show at.
Some may think Warhawk is a Halo wannabe, but there are some interesting elements that lend to different strategies by being able to pilot an airplane. Take your fight to the air or keep it on the ground. It’s kind of fun sending missiles after people on the ground. Once Halo 3 comes out in a couple week, people probably won’t be talking about Warhawk any more, but in the meantime this title is fun playing.
A lot of great memories go with Fatal Fury Special on the Neo Geo. I vividly recall receiving the package with the Neo Geo system. Had to special order it through one of those mail order places. It was like $700 just for the system and most games were $150 each. With today’s release on Xbox Live for 400 Microsoft Points it seemed like a bargain by comparsion.
Unfortunately, SNK didn’t do much to touch up the graphics or gameplay on the Xbox 360. At 1080p the game doesn’t even stretch the full length of the TV. The sounds seemed to have been ported faithfully. You can be the judge in today’s Hmmcast. I made the time 4:20pm for this post, but it is actually being posted much later.
One of the things Blip.tv offers video publishers is the opportunity to upload a trailer. I thought long and hard about the perfect trailer to describe the weekday Hmmcasts. Here’s my first effort. It’s not videoed in stone and a different one could be produced. Interested in feedback, do you think this accurately captures the essence of the Hmmcast videos to date?
Update 4:55pm PST: Seems like the Flash version of the trailer somehow hosed the video at Blip. I’m in the process of replacing. The downloads are fine.
Remember my problem with bees building hives (#152) in our eaves? I learned that rubbing soap under the eaves (#153) would deter the bees from rebuilding hives. I tried it out and over a week later it’s time to see if it actually worked.
How about that, a green-friendly way to keep bees away from building hives on your house.
Behind the Hmmcast
Viewers will notice a dramatic video quality improvement in today’s Hmmcast over most previous ones (download and compare to last Thursday’s Hmmcast). I’m also working on providing video for other formats besides the web and iPod.
Since this Hmmcast experiment began at the beginning of the year I’ve been primarily focused on the content and not on the video quality. This weekend we bought a new HD camcorder and are trying out new video editing software which ratchets up the video and audio quality significantly. I’m using Blip.tv which supports sharing multiple formats and seems to fit my future multi-format plans like a glove.
Still trying to figure these new tools out so please bear with me the next week or two. I’m excited about the possibilities of taking the Hmmcast to the next level in video and audio quality and sharing with the internet world at large.
Oh, and yeah this wasn’t actually posted until like 6:15pm PST, not 4:20pm as the post date/time says. I’ve made it 4:20 for consistency sake, but your readers aren’t broken.
PSP .mp4 (480×272) 
iPod .mp4 (640×480) 
Windows .wmv (1480×1080 HD)
