Sunday, July 27, 2003

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/23/171534/690


Posted by MacDood
link

(1) banksy

(2) vandal squad

(3) wooster collective

(4) laussanne

(5) stencil revolution

(6) guerilla parenting

(plus, a bonus link from me to you: my favorite tag, above left).
web zen home, web zen store, Discuss (Thanks, Frank) [Boing Boing]

Introduction to the Theory of Relativity Part III: General Relativity


Posted by MacDood
link
This is the third of a series of elementary, informal, and mostly equation-free articles descibing the Theory of Relativity in physics. The series will have four installments: Part I: History This described the history of ideas in the development of relativity. Part II: Special Relativity This described Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. Part III: General Relativity This gives at least a taste of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which extends the Special Theory to cases involving acceleration and gravity. Part IV: Implications, Controversies, and Miscellany This will address implications of the Theory of Relativity, controversies both old and modern, experimental evidence, and anything else that isn't covered in the first three installments. This installment gives a taste of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It does not assume much knowledge about physics, but it does assume familiarity with the ideas developed in Part I and especially Part II. [Kuro5hin.org]

Baggies give way to jumped-up fruit-leather


Posted by MacDood
link
Who needs ziplocs when you've got airtight edible transparent food-wrappers?




With a new school year upon us, kids may soon have the chance to eat healthier and also help the environment, using something unique wrapped around their tuna, turkey or PB&J sandwiches. Edible vegetable and fruit wraps, among the latest developments from modern chemistry, could keep lunches fresher longer and be substituted for some non-biodegradable wraps, says the creator, food chemist Tara McHugh, Ph.D.
LinkDiscuss




(Thanks, Stefan!) [Boing Boing]

Analog thinking


Posted by MacDood
link
I read with some happiness today that Marvin Minsky declared Artificial Intelligence research “brain-dead.”



You’re going to think I’m weird. Maybe this is surprising coming from a computer programmer.



But listen, the only thing that makes microprocessors tolerable is that they don’t really think.



On Thursday Robert Scoble wrote about how analog thinking is Microsoft’s biggest enemy. And the biggest enemy of Linux and so on.



As I read that, I was thinking about how much I love pen and paper. And record albums. And shoes. And grass.



The analog world is made up of atoms of poetry. The digital world is made up of bits. [Inessential.com]

Thursday, July 24, 2003

Wil McCarthy's Quantum Dot books


Posted by MacDood
link
I've just finished reading two excellent books by Wil McCarthy, a geek science-fiction writer and journo. The first is called Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms. It's an exploration of a technology called Quantum Wells (and secondarily of other quantum technologies), which are tiny cages in which subatomic particles are arranged in quantities and geometries that mimic both natural and artifical atoms. In this way, you can create "programmable matter," which can be reconfigured to take on the properties of (nearly) any material, going from rigid to limp, relflective to dark, opaque to transparent, magnetic to inert, all at the flip of a nanoscale switch.


McCarthy invokes Clarke's Law (sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic) in respect of these Quantum Dots (regarding which he holds a patent that is itself a fascinating appendix to the book), and as he lays out the science and the possibilities of dots (in language eminently accessible to the laiety), there's a sense that he's onto something really important -- the kind of thing that scientists and science fiction writers will be exploring for decades to come. At the same time, there's a sense of restraint, even as he spins out wild scenaria for superconducting houses that spill heat into the Earth's crust and for computers that measure their power in ME's -- Millennial Equivalences, or "all the computing power on Earth circa 2001." He's a science fiction writer, but he's trying to be sober-sided here, trying to convey that the possibilities are real and even probable.


Which brings me to book number two, The Wellstone, a science fiction novel set in a world dressed in "Wellstone," a programmable matter built out of Quantum Wells. If Hacking Matter is restrained, The Wellstone is almost out of control. It's a boy's-own-adventure story in the tradition the juveniles Heinlein wrote for Scouting mags in the fifties, but gender-balanced, and full of utterly gonzoid, Rucker-grade speculation about a universe dominated by programmable matter and practical immortality, teleportation, and other post-classical physics technology. The novel's a gripper, fast-paced and funny and quite touching at the close. It's the perfect companion to Hacking Matter -- in fact, I think I wish I'd read it first.



LinkDiscuss [Boing Boing]

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

QTVR Panorama: underwater wonderlands


Posted by MacDood
link

Photographer and QTVR enthusiast
Hans Nyberg
points us to a delicious new underwater panorama from Nelson Bay Australia (Link),
by Mal Yeo who created the very popular Tulamben Wreck panorama from Bali last year.

Discuss
[Boing Boing]

Plasmaplate casemod


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: Kewl photo dontchathink



In the future, all my devices will be sheathed in writhing plasma-plates like this killer casemod's.



LinkDiscuss




(via Inquirer UK)

[Boing Boing]

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Reliving Comics' Days of Infamy


Posted by MacDood
link
Cartoonists gather to remember the bad old days when critics linked crime to comic books, and self-imposed restrictions turned into kryptonite for the industry. Randy Dotinga reports from San Diego, California. [Wired News]

Thackery T. Lambshead Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases


Posted by MacDood
link
I wrote a story for The Thackery T. Lambshead Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, a forthcoming anthology of funny, faux-Victorian illnesses edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts. Other contributors include Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman and Elliot Fintushel. Every copy is signed by all contributors, and I just read through a galley and found myself laughing aloud all the way through. Here's some of my disease, "Pathological Instrumentation Disorder (The Man With Two Watches Problem)":




The patient, a Mr. Gary Warren, presented symptoms typical of extreme mental distress--elevated pulse, perspiration, acute abdomen, dilated pupils--at the Queen St. Mental Health Center, where a preliminary diagnosis of acute stress disorder was made. The patient's serotonin levels were normalized through quick trepanning, and he was entered into a course of group therapy sessions in the newly installed microgravity chill-rooms. Mr. Warren's symptoms worsened, however, despite daily trepannings. The only visible relief came when in close proximity to diagnostic equipment (EEG, e-meters, MRI/CT Scan apparatus). Even a wall-clock, a PDA, or a thermometer seemed to help.


Mr. Warren was moved to the Bertelsmann-AOL-Netscape-Time-Warner clinic and into the care of Dr. Jojo Fillipo, a specialist in media disorders. Under clinical observation, Mr. Warren was presented with a variety of diagnostic tools, beginning with those found on his person at his admission:





* A Palm Computing "Wrister" wristwatch



* A small, homemade RFI detector



* An integrated wireless appliance of baroque appearance



* A multifunction handheld medical unit, apparently stolen from a Mexican clinic (sphygnomometer, EEG, blood-sugar/HIV/Hep G/Pregnancy diagnostic)



* An elderly, analog light-meter



* A DNA-signature encoder



* A distributed location/presence device marketed to children for the purposes of playing text-based role-playing games



* An elderly "turnip"-style pocket watch--not working



* A "commando"-style knife with an integrated compass and thermometer





Devices were provided to the patient singly and in combination. Alone or in small groups, the devices produced a marked lessening in the patient's symptoms--in fact, the mere presence of devices intended to measure Mr. Warren's symptoms appeared to alleviate them. In larger groups, or in certain combinations (the wireless appliance and the location/presence-device, for example), symptoms were exacerbated to alarming levels. At one point, Mr. Warren lost consciousness for a period of three days, during which doctors defibrillated his heart twice due to unusual cardiac events.



LinkDiscuss [Boing Boing]

Monday, July 21, 2003

Sci-Fi Tech Coming to a Reality Near You


Posted by MacDood
link
"Where are the flying cars we were promised?" Avery Brooks is quite excited, and not in a good way. In a commercial for IBM, he rails about how disappointed society is because all the great technological advances we were promised a few decades ago still aren't here. No flying cars, no space travel, no giant domed cities, no anti-gravity belts, no warp drive ...aside from the remote control, mankind has not made a significant advance in technology in the last 50 years. The next 50 years promises to be different. In this article, I will examine disruptive technologies that will likely impact us in the next half century, some of which we've been waiting for impatiently, others we've barely conceived of yet. [Kuro5hin.org]

Friday, July 18, 2003

600,000 pages of historic home ec


Posted by MacDood
link
Tara sez, "Cornell University has created an archive of over 1,500 volumes (over 600,000 pages) related to home economics at http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/h/hearth/index.html . The volumes available within were published between 1850 and 1950 and are just as fun a cultural browse as they are an exploration into home economics."LinkDiscuss



(Thanks, Tara!) [Boing Boing]

Web Zen: Cartoon Zen


Posted by MacDood
link

etch-a-sketch | flea toon | walmart | unh! project |
drawn and quarterly | kevin cornell | edward gorey
web zen home, web zen store, Discuss (Thanks, Frank) [Boing Boing]

S

/opendir poetry


Posted by MacDood
link
imple and sweet, a sort of minimalist web/joke/poem/object. No Flash required, no high bandwidth required. (via Geisha) Link, Discuss [Boing Boing]

Animal Magnetism exhibit at the Exploratorium


Posted by MacDood
link
The San Francisco Exploratorium is hosting what looks to be a fascinating exhibit of art exploring human attitudes toward the animal world. Featured work includes Sam Easterson's Animal, Vegetable, and Video Project that uses footage from cameras on the backs of live animals, and the taxidermy assemblages of my friend and Wunderkammern-keeper Tia Resleure. LinkDiscuss [Boing Boing]

Teen condom ads and other odd snapshots from Bangkok


Posted by MacDood
link

A billboard in Bangkok promoting "Sweet Teen" condoms (lime, cola or mixed fruit) is one of many surreal images you'll find on this online photo gallery. Among the other snapshots of pop culture oddities and weird Thai ads: Ronald McDonald welcomes you to Thailand, and "Order a pizza and get a gay volleyball team action figure for free!"Billboard Liberation Front, where are you?
Link, Discuss
(Thanks, Ron)
[Boing Boing]

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Station Break: Fandom's Unintended Consequences


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: Where the WOMDestruction are hidden: buffyheads have em
Apparently, an ugly schism is developing in the con-going world: Trekkers vs. "Buffyheads." According to the Trekkers, they're all clean,... [TeeVee]

Carl Jung


Posted by MacDood
link
"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Barrington Atlas


Posted by MacDood
link
The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World provides beautiful detailed topographical maps of the ancient world. A mammoth undertaking in production over 12 years with 160 scholars and cartographers (with help from MapQuest) and estimated to cost over $5 million it is the largest and most accurate Ancient World Atlas ever. Composed of 99 maps (examples) the Atlas is easily available to the layperson. "If you're gripped by Hannibal and want to sort out which way you think he went through the Alps, you'll have enough of a clear landscape to do it. If you want to follow St. Paul around the eastern Mediterranean, you can." [metafilter.com]

Sad Clown


Posted by MacDood

Comment: I love what the Internet brings to light
link
"The Day The Clown Cried." Even unfinished, the breathtaking scope of it's...awfulness has for thirty years both attracted and repelled would-be producers and distributors. (script, zipped Word doc) Just the concept is startling, like some kind of hellish Sad Lib -- Jerry Lewis plays a clown in Auschwitz who leads children to the gas chambers. Harry Shearer, one of the few to see the film: "You are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. 'Oh my God!' -- that's all you can say." Can this movie ever be made? [metafilter.com]

My God, it's full of stars!


Posted by MacDood
link
Hubble Heritage Image Gallery. (Be sure to also check out the Index Listing for links to higher resolution versions of each of the images.) [metafilter.com]

America's Most Literate Cities


Posted by MacDood
link
America's Most Literate Cities - A study authored by the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater looked at factors ranging from newspaper circulation to library and bookstore penetration within the 64 largest cities in the United States. His conclusion? Minneapolis is the most literate city in the country, directly followed by Seattle and Denver. San Francisco ranked fifth, Boston 13th, Chicago 45th and New York 47th. [metafilter.com]

Rumsfeld made his own intelligence


Posted by MacDood
link
Rumsfeld's personal spy ring The defense secretary couldn't count on the CIA or the State Department to provide a pretext for war in Iraq. So he created a new agency that would tell him what he wanted to hear. Today, Salon also looks into the role played by John Bolton. Is investigative journalism now just relegated to the web? [you have to look at an ad, I believe] [metafilter.com]

Other News: "Flyborg"


Posted by MacDood
link
A computer-controlled robot balloon escapes its handlers in the U.K. [MacInTouch]

I just can’t resist...

Microsoft Wins Homeland Security Contract.

Microsoft admits critical flaw in nearly all Windows software. [Inessential.com]

Random Numbers Key to Encryption


Posted by MacDood
link
Comment: read all about it in Cryptonomican

How two math geeks with a lava lamp and a webcam are about to unleash chaos on the Internet. Tom McNichol from Wired magazine reports. [Wired News]

Sunday, July 13, 2003

Kitty


Posted by MacDood
link
Randomcat.co.uk - Bring your own kitty jokes. [metafilter.com]

20 lies about Iraq


Posted by MacDood
link
20 lies about Iraq. The independent chimes in on the falsehoods and exaggerations both leading up to and after the war. [metafilter.com]http://www.macmerc.com/news/archives/958

Saturday, July 12, 2003

Trading on fear


Posted by MacDood
link
Trading on fear
"But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship ... That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Nazi Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering [metafilter.com]

'No real planning for postwar Iraq'


Posted by MacDood
link
'No real planning for postwar Iraq' "The officials didn't develop any real postwar plans because they believed that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops with open arms and Washington could install a favored Iraqi exile leader as the country's leader. The Pentagon civilians ignored CIA and State Department experts who disputed them, resisted White House pressure to back off from their favored exile leader and when their scenario collapsed amid increasing violence and disorder, they had no backup plan.



Today, American forces face instability in Iraq, where they are losing soldiers almost daily to escalating guerrilla attacks, the cost of occupation is exploding to almost $4 billion a month and withdrawal appears untold years away."



Bring 'Em On! [metafilter.com]

cool online comic-poem: Spectacular Attacks


Posted by MacDood
link

An online graphic short, in Flash. View the online comic here, read the poem text (html) here,
Discuss (Thanks, Susannah!
[Boing Boing]

Thursday, July 10, 2003

Other News: Major Windows Security Hole


Posted by MacDood
link
Noting that one is "critical", Microsoft documents three new Windows security holes. [MacInTouch]

Tunisian blog dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui's case returns to court


Posted by MacDood
link
Zouhair Yahyaoui is a 35-year-old Tunisian blogger and journalist who's currently serving a two-year jail term -- under what supporters describe as extremely harsh, inhumane conditions -- for criticizing the Tunisian government on his website. His case returns to the highest Tunisian court this Friday, July 11. Supporters are hoping for a new investigation of his case, saying that the original trial was unjustly conducted, serving effectively as a state formality before imprisoning him for political reasons. The jailed blogger recently engaged in a hunger strike that lasted over 35 days, and last month was awarded first "Cyber-Freedom Prize" by Reporters without Borders, which works to raise awareness about human rights abuses against journalists around the world.



Fiance and campaign organizer Sophie Elwarda tells BoingBoing:

"Following on from the information communicated by his solicitor Mr Abdelwahab Mataar, who was representing him, Zouhair Yahyaoui's case will pass in front of the highest court this Wednesday 11th July at 9.00 am.
The highest court will investigate the file to determine if the tribunal has done there job correctly of not. And they will therefore evaluate the manner in which this justice has been delivered. There are currently 2 possibilities, confirmation or cassation, if the judgement is confirmed, that would indicate the end of any judiciary proceedings, in case of cassation the affair will again go before the court of appeal for a new
investigation."

Link to RSF website with more information about Yahyaoui's case and the Cyber-Freedom Prize, Link to Yahyaoui's "Tunezine" blog (now a "Free Zouhair" support website), More background, previous BB post (1), (2). Discuss [Boing Boing]

Kasky v. Nike: False Advertising vs. Freedom of Speech


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: Bring out your Nikes
Everybody probably remembers how in the 1990s a hot topic was sweatshop-manufactured apparel. Activists highlighted working conditions for workers producing goods for companies like Nike. Marc Kasky sued Nike in 1998 under an unusual California law that allows any private citizen to sue a corporation on behalf of the state. He claimed that Nike made misleading and/or false statements intended to avoid consumer boycotts of its products, and these statements qualify as false advertising under California law. Nike responded that its claims about how working conditions and wages have improved were protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of the freedom of speech, and that whether or not those statements were true, misleading, or even outright falsehoods is irrelevant. [Kuro5hin.org]

A User's Guide to Time Travel


Posted by MacDood
link
All it takes is a grasp of theoretical physics, control of the space-time continuum and maybe a ball of cosmic string. By Michio Kaku from Wired magazine. [Wired News]

Chernobyl to Get New Sarcophagus


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: I so trust the Ruskies, it's a generational thing
A European bank says it will give Ukraine millions of dollars to build a new shield over the gaping hole in Chernobyl's nuclear reactor. The Ukraine minister in charge of the covering says not to worry about its condition. [Wired News]

Baseball player hits Italian Sausage character with bat


Posted by MacDood
link
Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon smacked one of the Milwaukee Brewers' sausage mascots with a bat Wednesday when the mascots were running by the dugout in between innings. The Italian sausage and another character, a hot dog, tumbled to the ground. Simon was arrested, booked, and ordered to appear in the DA's office today. I love sports. LinkDiscuss [Boing Boing]

Incredible Hulk is well-hung?


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: Well that's just...incredible
According to, er, The Sun, a six-year-old girl won a plushie Hulk at a fair and later noticed a bulge in his purple shorts. She undressed the not-so-jolly green giant only to discover that the doll is anatomically correct. LinkDiscuss(Thanks, Gil!) [Boing Boing]

Hypothetical Disney ride movies


Posted by MacDood
link
Comment: for you disneyphiles, I'm waiting for the sub ride



Andy Baio has whipped up some nice posters for future hypothetical movies based on Disney rides, in the tradition of Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion.



LinkDiscuss



(Thanks, Andy!)




[Boing Boing]

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Pirates - Image and History Links


Posted by MacDood
link
Avast, ye scurvy dogs! It's the pirate image archive! Here there be dozens of period prints of privateers! Highlights include monk riding, pirates forcing a man to drink to excess, and, of course, a fine selection of actual pirates. Craving more rich pirate booty? Visit The Pirate's Hold, The Pirates Site and, a personal favorite, The Pirates of the Spanish Main. Yar! [metafilter.com]

Poogle?


Posted by MacDood
link
Poogle? I was was bored so I started with bloogle and did several more until I came across this. [metafilter.com]

Photoblog your life


Posted by MacDood
link
Sept. 11, 2003: Photoblog your life
"I've been thinking about September 11th. I've been thinking about the United States response - The Patriot Act. Invading Afganastan & Iraq. Death. Fear. Oppression.



It seems to me that this is NOT the America I want the world to know. So I propose a blogwide Photoblog your Life day on September 11th. Take your camera with you. Take pictures. Show the world your life. Show the world your daily delights. Show the world that we choose life, happiness and freedom."


[via Big Pink Cookie] [metafilter.com]

Tweedledum, Tweedledee, and active intermediaries


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: some great techno-babble

The nascent Web services industry has so far focused mainly on the technical implications of these active intermediaries. They do make it vastly easier to integrate systems that pass around packets of self-describing data. But the reasons for this go beyond the regularity of XML data and the ubiquity of tools that can parse, search, and transform it. XML data flows fundamentally alter the political landscape of IT, shifting the locus of control away from the service endpoints and into the fabric of the network itself.
... [Jon's Radio]

Food Industry Mulls Dropping Obesity-Linked Trans Fats


Posted by MacDood
link
It has long been thought that to avoid obesity and heart disease, the important kind of fat to watch out for is saturated fat (which mostly comes from animal sources)1. Hence the split in nutrition information labels between saturated fats ("bad") and polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats ("good"). However, over the last decade or so, scientific evidence has been mounting that a different category of fat - consumed in far greater quantities today than in past centuries due to changes in mass food preparation - is actually just as dangerous, if not more dangerous than, saturated fats. Trans fats have been fingered as a major culprit in America's bourgeoning obesity problem, in increasing the risk of heart disease - and they are possibly also a factor behind childhood allergies, asthma, and other conditions. [Kuro5hin.org]

WiFi to be banned in the Phillipines?


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment:
The Phillipines' spectrum policy doesn't allow WiFi.




AS far as the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) was concerned, commercial wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) services, and even Bluetooth use, was still "illegal" in certain regions in the Philippines, including Metro Manila, an official of the regulatory body said over the weekend.


Edgardo Cabarios, director of the common carrier department of the NTC said that the body was still drafting guidelines to regulate commercial Wi-Fi activities and boost their deployment and development in the country.

"I think (commercial Wi-Fi) services have to stop because it is against the law," he said.

LinkDiscuss [Boing Boing]

Gigantor Marine Corps robot will kick civilian ass


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: I am robocop, there I am to disperse this crowd
Roland Piquepaille writes:



A new unmanned robot with lots of weapons will be used as soon as 2007 by the Marine Corps to control angry crowds, reports the Honolulu Advertiser from Camp Smith, Hawaii. "The 4-foot-tall, 1,600-pound concept vehicle recently was demonstrated at Camp Smith, launching dozens of smoke rounds downrange that could have been tear gas, or stingball and flashbang grenades." The Gladiator should be availble by 2007 for about $150,000 apiece. Look at this summary for more details including the scenario of the demonstration and the kind of weapons carried by the Gladiator. The Marine Corps also has a story about this robot, "Gladiator flexes its muscle on Camp Smith," which carries additional photographs.
Discuss [Boing Boing]

Going Wireless in the Wilderness


Posted by MacDood
link
An eco-tourism company is constructing a wireless network in the frozen wilds of Canada so visitors can upload photos and Web surfers can watch polar bears. By Charles Mandel. [Wired News]

BBC: Hi-tech babble baffles many ....


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: bring on the babble I say , wifi this!
BBC: Hi-tech babble baffles many. [Scripting News]

Monday, July 7, 2003



QTVR: 4th of July fireworks from Empire State Building


Posted by MacDood
link
Photographer and QTVR enthusiast Hans Nyberg says:

"Hi, Xeni -- Photographer Jook Leung took on a very hard task here. He had to shoot the images for the panorama handheld, as he was not allowed to bring his tripod up at the Empire State Building. The guards said it was for security reasons. Taking handheld panoramas is one of Jook Leung's specialties, but the low light made this especially difficult to do."

Link to 4th of July Fireworks from the Empire State Building, Discuss
[Boing Boing]

The Internet is Shit Dot Org


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: well, I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion
"We need to stop saying how wonderful things are. We need to openly, truthfully and respectfully admit that the internet itself, in almost all of what's been done with it, is shit." (07-06) [Cruel Site of the Day]

Landis's "Falling Onto Mars" online


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: It's short so just read it
Geoff Landis's Hugo-nominated (and very good) (and very short) short story, Falling Onto Mars, is online in a variety of formats (and the Hugo ballot closes shortly!).




The people of the planet Mars have no literature. The colonization of Mars was unforgiving, and the exiles had no time to spend in writing. But still they have stories, the tales they told to children too young to really understand, stories that these children tell to their own children. These are the legends of the Martians.


Not one of the stories is a love story.


In those days, people fell out of the sky. They fell through the ochre sky in ships that were barely functional, thin aluminum shells crowded with fetid humanity, half of them corpses and the other half little more than corpses. The landings were hard, and many of the ships split open on impact, spilling bodies and precious air into the barely-more-than-vacuum of Mars. And still they fell, wave after wave of ships, the refuse of humanity tossed carelessly through space and falling onto the cratered deserts of Mars.



LinkDiscuss



(Thanks, Geoff!) [Boing Boing]

Distributed fan-translation of Potter 5 into German


Posted by MacDood
link

Comment: Read here a item funny but rare
A group of German Harry Potter enthusiasts are working to collectively translate the English text of Order of the Phoenix into Deustch. (Machine translation below)




Over 1.000 HP fans want after the translation of HP, succeeded
well, tape 4 also the new factory: "HP and the order OF Phoenix"
translate together, because English actually so with difficulty at all
is not.


How does that function? Everyone, which wants to go through, selects a
section section (usually 5 pages), and mailt the own translation 1 to
4 weeks later to Harry up German community back; if the translation is
useful, then one gets as thank-beautifully gradually the translations
of the others Mituebersetzer inside zugemailt;


The project is absolutely non commercial and is to make above all the
fun involved;



LinkDiscuss




(via Kottke) [Boing Boing]

Reflections on Independence Day


Posted by MacDood
Comment: Happy 1984. It is the 100th birthday of George Orwell

link
I think Independence Day is a good day to reflect upon the fact that my once great nation is getting ready to murder its prisoners of war. President Bush has selected six prisoners from the war in Afghanistan to stand trial in secret "military tribunals", at which they may face the death penalty. One of the hallmarks of our justice system is the requirement that the accused must be permitted to confront the witnesses against them. Yet, when classified evidence is presented in these "tribunals", the proceedings will be closed to the defendants and their civilian attorneys. They will be allowed military attorneys who will be permitted to participate in the classified sessions, but these will be appointed United States military officers, who can hardly be expected to be representing the interests of the accused. [Kuro5hin.org]

Saturday, July 5, 2003

Rene Descartes


Posted by MacDood
link

text


Posted by MacDood
link
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Bob Dylan


Posted by MacDood
link
"If the point is sharp, and the arrow is swift, it can pierce through the dust no matter how thick." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Happy July 4th!


Posted by MacDood
link
Happy July 4th!



Two years ago today I posted a list of cool American people and things. Probably the only time you’ll see Rosa Parks, the Federalist Papers, and Iggy Pop all on the same page. [Inessential.com]

Emailing Ourselves to Death


Posted by MacDood
link
The NYT attacks the idea of time-slicing and multi-tasking and ubiquitous connectivity, arguing that always-on people (ahem) are junkies for the adrenaline rush of juggling a peak load, where one slip means disaster, like jet pilots or extreme sports afficianados, and that they (er, we) get less done as a result of our divided attention.


Well, I don't have anything other than my own experience to go on, and no empirical measurements of that, but I've been multitasking since I was a child, and I feel that I'm very, very productive. It's true that I have a panicky terror at the thought of being bored, but at the same time, I would argue that my five-things-at-once always-connected way of being is a successful adaptation, not a harmful addiction.


Neil Postman argues that due to telecommunications, our attention-spans have been debilitatingly foreshortened, and he convincingly illustrates this by comparing the reasoned and lengthy rhetoric of the Lincoln-Douglas debates with the soundbite-driven Reagan-Dukakis (?) debates.


The experts cited in this piece seem to be arguing the same thing, along the lines of, "That danged Internet is so slippery and fluid, it's taken away peoples' ability to watch television."


When do we stop lamenting a change like this and start looking for the value of the new trend? When do we start examining the upsides of fluid and multifarious attention, rather than popping off reactionary warnings about the dangers of being "addicted" to communications?


When do we get to consider the benefits of living with one foot in the Net and the other in meatspace?




Dr. Hallowell and John Ratey, an associate professor at Harvard and a psychiatrist with an expertise in attention deficit disorder, are among a growing number of physicians and sociologists who are assessing how technology affects attention span, creativity and focus. Though many people regard multitasking as a social annoyance, these two and others are asking whether it is counterproductive, and even addicting.


The pair have their own term for this condition: pseudo-attention deficit disorder. Its sufferers do not have actual A.D.D., but, influenced by technology and the pace of modern life, have developed shorter attention spans. They become frustrated with long-term projects, thrive on the stress of constant fixes of information, and physically crave the bursts of stimulation from checking e-mail or voice mail or answering the phone.

"It's like a dopamine squirt to be connected," said Dr. Ratey, who compares the sensations created by constantly being wired to those of narcotics — a hit of pleasure, stimulation and escape. "It takes the same pathway as our drugs of abuse and pleasure."

LinkDiscuss [Boing Boing]

The Declaration: Read it again for the first time


Posted by MacDood
link
You know, this is a pretty subversive and excellent document right here.




When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

LinkDiscuss [Boing Boing]

Modern/traditional Japanese scrolls


Posted by MacDood
link




Patricio sez, "These are hilarious reinterpretations of Japanese engravings with the old time designs mixed with American pop culture elements."LinkDiscuss




(Thanks, Patricio!)




[Boing Boing]

Silence of the Lambs fan-musical


Posted by MacDood
link
An anonymous correspondant writes, "Two wayward film school grads (brothers) have translated Silence of the Lambs into a series of multiple-gut-bursting songs, including the rollicking number 'Are You About A Size 14?' and the introspective 'Put the Fucking Lotion in the Basket!' The whole album is downloadable as a self-promo."Link (Not Safe For Work)Discuss [Boing Boing]