I wonder if it also does a good job insulating?

by Zach Dischner

Olympia’s City Hall getting a green roof
[Via All Today's News - Sightline Daily]

For starters, the roof is literally turning green. Workers prepared beds of soil Wednesday on the roof of the building so they could plant beds of small green plants called sedums. The roof is becoming environmentally green as well. The Washington-grown plants are intended to soak up rainwater so that most of it stays on the roof, rather than running off, collecting contaminants and draining into streams.

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Some questions. Capturing water is great, especially from runoff. But I wonder what these roofs will do to the heating efficiency of the building? White roofs are being suggested to lower the heat retention of the Earth. What effect will a green roof have?

Another step towards the end of iOS dependence on wireless carriers

by ashish_sharma_ait

Apple’s iPad coming to AT&T and Verizon stores on October 28th
[Via AppleInsider]

Both AT&T and Verizon announced Thursday that they will begin selling Apple’s iPad in their brick-and-mortar retail stores on Thursday the 28th, with the latter offering the device in conjunction with its MiFi mobile hot spots.

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The iPad will be able to communicate with others via Facetime (I guess without videos to begin with but you know that is coming). I would expect the iPod Touch would work similarly. With either, you would have the ability to be independent of any particular carrier for phone and data.

Using a MiFi would mean you could search for the best deal to get access if WiFi is not available. But with White-fi around the corner, you may not even need that.

Then Apple could sell iOS devices without having to depend on any carrier. No need for 2 year contracts and we could all talk without needing to pay anything other than data charges, if that.

Who else is positioned to do this? Every other company making cell phones is joined to the carriers at the hip. Only Apple could give us independence for the tyranny of the carriers.

It may take a few years but I think the hegemony of the wireless carriers in the US is in decline, due to Apple.

‘Cut the Rope’ is the best new game for iPad

by Seldom Scene Photography (was Old Dog Photo)

[Via MacSurfer's Oped]

Holy feathered kerfluffles! The foul-tempered fowl of “Angry Birds” have been unseated from their perch atop Apple’s App Store charts by … an adorable monster with an insatiable appetite for candy.

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I have had this game for a couple of days and it has to be the most addictive game in a long while. Even if you play the $0.99 iPhone version on an iPad. BUt the more expensive HD iPad version is simply beautiful.

It uses real physics, meaning you have to know how balloons behave when you pull them or how elastic cords rebound as you cut them.

Not only does the game have a huge number of these puzzles to solve but it also keeps track of your speed on each level. So you can always try to do it faster.

Usually when you get to the hard levels on these sorts of games, it can be pretty frustrating. But it is so easy to start over that you can easily scrub a try when you screw up.

He makes such a sorrowful sound when you don’t get the candy to him.

And some of the levels are really tricky. Not just because they require you to cut the rope at just the right time but you have to do everything in the right order, which is not immediately obvious.

I’m just about done. When they come out with more levels, I will buy those too. This is one game I hope the developers get quite a bit of money for. Over a million downloads so far is pretty cool.

[Listening to: Their Names Escape Me from the album "Their Names Escape Me (Single)" by Spock's Beard]