Architecture - does it have to be buildable? Zaha Hadid [note: please excuse the skip-intro, the coverpage and other relics of 2001 webdesign] doesn't think so, she is just as happy designing something so far out there that you go "wooow". Practical? Nope. Art? Most probably.
But then again, judging from what you actually can build - "two sloping steel structures in our design could be connected only at dawn. They would be exposed to different solar heat gain due to their relative positions on the ground and would be most likely to share the same temperature after cooling off overnight." (Beijing Manifesto - actual article linked on the page; 5,2 mb pdf download... or just get the mag!!!)
... being all artsy just might not cut it anymore, with advances in cad and general engineering it, just about anything can be made in some way or the other.
On a different slope - TV-related software; XMLTV is a "standard" way of describing TV schedules in XML - making it easier to use PC-TV-DVR solutions in place that they haven't been rolled out (or without paying a premium every month)Kind of neat, provided you can get your local listings converted to the right version, and seeing how most local newssites also do TV listings it should be a rather trivial transform. Note to self; try to convert some and update post...
Update: no need to make it, "backends grabbing TV listings for Canada, the USA, the UK, Germany, Austria, Finland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Denmark, Japan, Sweden, France, Norway, Portugal (currently down), and Romania" (main XMLTV site)
Boxes and bits you can get from Sage TV or beyond tv amongst others.
And then finalyy, Sony is at it again, trying to kick some life into the minidisc franchise, with the new Hi-MD walkman, up to 1 gb/disc... size/price as opposed to Muvo2 and iPod Mini as yet to be announced over here, but i'm guessing that with a recorder and 4 discs the total cost will be a bith higeher. So, I still want either a mini or a muvo... maybe for my birthday? To me from me :-D
