Ten go in! One comes out!

For Nerd Nite 1.2 I am going to settle once and for all who the best Doctor is, at least until Matt Smith becomes the Doctor starting April 4. In the spirit of March Madness I have constructed a bracket and have seeded the Doctors based on how many stories aired in their reign.
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Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 – 7:30pm
UMD Alumni Composer Concert
UMD Weber Hall
Adult $8 • Senior $7 • Student $5 • UMD Student $3 • Alumni $2

This is new classical chamber music featuring a real PDD’er!

The concert features the music of 4 umd alumni composers: Robert Linnemann, Ryan Rapsys, Nick Mroczek and James Gould. All of the pieces are lyrical, varied and entertaining. Every composition is a world debut! The Gichigami Piano Trio is the featured group, but the umd woodwind quintet and other small ensembles will also play.

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Catching up on some of my favorite tech blogs this morning and found this familiar face headlining a post on Gizmodo. 

Duluth, Minnesota
But wait! Patrick Garmoe, public information officer of the Google Twin Ports Initiative laughs sheepishly as he explains Googlefest, an event that is one part rally, one part carnival and all parts enthusiasm for the promise of Google Fiber. In the midst of bands, choirs and other entertainment, “We’ll be shooting a movie with real actors and a Hollywood director and live-streaming the event to impress Google,” Garmoe says. The new initiative comes on the heels of Deluth mayor Don Ness’s own stunts. In a spoof video proclamation that in honor of Google, all first born males would be henceforth named GoogleFiber and first born females would of course be Googlette. Also, he literally sunk to a new low in the brutal battle for business. He jumped into the freezing waters of Lake Superior. Hizzoner, perhaps you’ll be deterred from further lunacy by these extremely gnarly Google Image results for “frostbite.”

[Google Twin Ports]

Google biking. Very rad.

Anyone else got it this morning?

Twin Ports Digital Champion:Tagging and Geo-Locating: Noob to Pro

Click here to see the location of this training in Google Earth

The organizers of the Twin Ports Google Fiber Initiative want to teach you how to start taking pictures and video, and posting those items online with special tags. This is a very simple and tangible way you as an individual can help show Google how cool this area is, and why the company should set up a test site here.

Who: Everyone who owns a still camera, a video camera, or a smart phone.
What:Training on uploading pictures and video online, to help the Google Twin Ports Fiber Initiative.
When: 5:15 p.m. Thursday 03/04/2010
Where: Zeitgeist Center for the Arts, Superior Street Lobby 222 East Superior Street, Duluth, MN 55802

This training will be for ALL SKILL LEVELS and will be an excellent opportunity to meet and talk with people working on this project.

After the training , feel free to socialize in the Zeitgeist Arts cafe’.

Maybe this isn’t really a local enough topic for PDD, but given the earlier post on whether we’re vulnerable here to earthquakes, a Yahoo news story today seems interesting and relevant. The Chile quake apparently may have shifted earth’s axis, and made earth days slightly shorter. And this has happened before with big quakes, too.

Reminds me, too, of a Harper’s article from 2000 about dam building. There’s a quotation in that article that says: “The planet accommodates 40,000 large dams–dams more than four stories high–and some 800,000 small ones. They have shifted so much weight that geophysicists believe they have slightly altered the speed of the earth’s rotation, the tilt of its axis, and the shape of its gravitational field. Together they blot out a terrain bigger than California.”

So, any thoughts–think we’re headed towards shorter Perfect Duluth Days due to earthquakes and dam building?

Thursday, March 18 · Triple Rock Social Club

Leslie and the LYs with Christopher the Conquered

Report by Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Kelleher

I’m in the mood for funny … so Paul Lundgren’s Happy Hour better be funny … dammit.

What: Paul Lundgren and poet Ryan Vine share the stage
When: Tonight @ 6pm
Where: Teatro Zuccone

Think about showing up. Paul’s mom would like it if you did.

Saturday Feb. 27 at 9 p.m. at Hell Burgers in Canal Park.

Come see the rising stars of the Twin Ports music scene: Turbo Rathvon, Wyatt Famous, and Fearless Moral Inventory! No Cover!

The mayor of Duluth is ready to throw his city’s hat in the ring for a new Google experiment to test ultra-high speed Internet access.

MPR’s Steven John talks to Don Ness about his city’s plan.

As explained in this post, Perfect Duluth Day experimented with threaded comments for a few days. The benefits of it seemed to be outweighed by the complications of it, so the experiment is now over and comments are back to working like they used to.

Since previously threaded comments are now unthreaded, we hope it won’t create too much confusion to readers who haven’t been following along.

Those of you who are regular PDD readers may have noticed that the comments have changed to allow threading — so you can respond directly to one comment rather than having it appear several comments below the one it is relevant to.

PDD administrators turned this function on today to see if it works good or crappy. We might get rid of it right away. We might keep it and tweak it to work better. So try not to fall in love with it or hate it too much.

Here’s a press release we’ll be sending out about our intent to explore Google’s offer to bring gigabyte speed broadband to an entire community.  There are many unanswered questions and any application may be a long shot, but it would be a game-changer for Duluth.  I think it’s worth putting our best foot forward and see what happens…  If you want to help out, check the bottom of the post.  See you around…  Don

Mayor Don Ness has indicated the City of Duluth’s intent to pursue a partnership with Google to bring fiber-to-home connections to city residents.  Google plans to select a community to test ultra-high speed connections at more than a gigabit per second later this year through a competitive process.

The following is a statement from Mayor Ness on the city’s intent:

We want Duluth, Minnesota to be at the forefront of a new gigaband revolution in America.  For America to be competitive into the future, we need to be aggressive at investing in our data infrastructure.  To unfairly paraphrase Tip O’Neill “All bandwidth use is local” – Google’s community initiative will be a powerful tool to demonstrate the positive impact of local broadband improvements.

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Do any PDD regulars do KVSC Trivia weekend in St. Cloud? It begins Friday. Care to be a source? Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about? See kvsc.org. You can listen online and then bug the station into getting a Twin Ports simulcast in 2011. Then we form the PDD trivia team and take home the honors: A beat up trophy and your team name in the paper.

The Boomchucks will be playing live at 5 pm today (thursday 2/11) at the Electric Fetus record store, then later at the fitgers brewhouse at 10 pm!   www.myspace.com/theboomchucks

Google just announced that it will be choosing one or more locations to put in a ultra high-speed broadband service to a community to serve as a test bed.

This could potentially bring millions of dollars to our area as well as spark a lot of new business to be formed on the back of this service.

Help promote Duluth as the test site for Google’s new 1 GB fiber.  Here is the nomination form.

There is also a Facebook group that has been started to try and promote this idea across the Northland.

Previously unseen amateur video of Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

How about the iDon’t care.

U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says prisoners can no longer play Dungeons & Dragons in prison, because it “promotes gang-related activity“.
The only thing hazardous about D&D are possibly the 4-sided dice if you happen to step on them! I think activities like this are harmless, and could provide an alternative to prison gang culture (and it uses math!). Some of my coworkers think that if you’re in prison, you shouldn’t be allowed to game. I think everyone can agree that despite what Jack Chick tells you, D&D is not a gang. Thoughts?

A physics lab deep below Minnesota’s Iron Range may have uncovered the first terrestrial evidence of dark matter.

New amazing fake meat!

Animal rights group Peta said: “As far as we’re concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there’s no ethical objection.”

Boy Finds Own Real-Life E.T.

Boy Finds Own Real-Life E.T.

Christmas City of the North Parade

Time to get your Parade on!

Christmas City of the North Parade 2009  is tomorrow night Friday, Nov. 20 at 6:20.

Weather forecast: 40 degrees / Partly Cloudy

Free parking downtown at these ramps and meters free after 5:00 pm:

Fitger’s
Tech Village
Shoppers Auto Park
Lake Superior Plaza
Fourth Avenue Auto Park
Wells Fargo Bank
US Bank
Fond-du-Luth Casino

The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source Community has to offer.  It will become Canonical’s eleventh release of the distribution and will likely be supported until April 2011.  With this newest release, Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, you will notice differences ascetically, and there are also underlying differences in the nuts-n-bolts of things.

I’m not going to make this a technical review, I’d just like to get down to the fun.

I thought it would be a good idea to get some people together for a Release Party for the northern Wisconsin/northeastern Minnesota area to celebrate this fantastic release.  Bring your friends, family, coworkers, even your boss!

Here’s some details:

• Friday, November 6 th, 2009
• 7pm-10pm? (or whenever)
• The Shack @ 3301 Belknap St. Superior, WI 54880
• You don’t have to be 21 to attend
• Wear your Ubuntu gear if you have it, bring laughs, stories, experiences, and prepare to meet some new people
• There is a restaurant if you’re hungry, also soda and a bar (if you’re over 21)

Please click here for a map and RSVP form.

I hope to see you there!

-Anthony Hook

I am looking forward to the movie “2012″ coming out next month. I’m glad they didn’t wait until 2012 to release the movie, cause, you know.
Someone has compiled a list of 22 possible ways for the earth to end in a couple years. My favorites are “Rise of the Machines” and “Time Travel Error.”

While watching the trailer for the movie, I noticed they’re not forgetting to save the giraffes, not something I would have put on my short list to save.
I invite you to consider:
1. What do you think is the most likely way for earth to meet its end in two years?
2. What stupid thing would you try to save if you got a seat on a secret government ship?

Gather ’round for a spooky reading of “The Monkey’s Paw” at Glensheen on October 22, October 23, and October 24 at 7 p.m. A special flashlight tour of the mansion is included, and the evening concludes with refreshments and a guided discussion  of W.W. Jacob’s 1902 tale. $25 – $33. Reservations online or by calling 726-8910.

October 16-17, 23-24, 30-31 7pm

Midnight show on Halloween, too!

Staged at The Venue at Mohaupt Block in the Duluth’s West End.

It’s splatter, it’s comedy, it’s Splat-stick entertainment!

$15 per person
$25 for limited Splatter Zone seating!

Call (218) 213-2780 for tickets and information. (more…)