sneedle flipsock

23 July 2004: Alice underground

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This week:

 

Silly stuff

For soccer fans, a new song about Ninjas and Lasers and Gold. (Requires Shockwave/Flash) (thanks, Trevor)

For the faithful, Brick Testament: Bible stories illustrated in Lego, with helpful content ratings for Nudity, Sexual content, Violence and Cursing. (Thanks to Neroli, Eric and Yun-Joo)

For the guys: a must-buy book, "The Secrets of Attracting Beautiful Women by Success On The Job". Comments flipsock friend Trevor: "Look out girls!! When I get this I'll have ALL the secrets." Health warning: thigh-slapping guffaws can cause injuries. (thanks, Trevor)

There are more mobile phones than people in Sweden. (thanks to Fraser, who doesn't have a shoephone)

Wheely Willy, a wheelchair-bound chihuahua winning hearts in Japan. (thanks, Danielle)

Noodle Heaven, a cool tool for combining music with 3D images. Noodle Heaven is a startup company; to use the tool you must login and download the application to your computer. You'll need lots of bandwidth. If you want to use more than the single free Peter Gabriel demo track, you also need to pay for the songs. But hey, it's art you can play with, and that's gotta be a good thing. (thanks, Danielle)

Real art or fake? Test your artistic appreciation eye by spotting which paintings are famous masterpieces and which were painted by amateurs. (thanks, Rebecca)

23 July 2004 | top of page

Now I'm worried

"In the 16th century, Ulric Fugger, chamberlain to Pope Paul IV, bought so many books that his family had him declared insane."

<panicked>They don't do that any more, do they?

[deep, calming breath]

But seriously...

"...in the 14th century, Edward III swapped 80 oxen for one illustrated tome, thinking that he'd pulled off a royal deal. These days President Bush, hardly known for bibliophilia, brags that he doesn't even read newspapers."

After surveying 17,000 Americans, the National Endowment for the Arts concluded that people are reading less 'literature' than they used to. Carlin Romano responds to the "Reading At Risk" report:

"Headlines like 'Fewer Noses in Books' or 'Literary Reading Declines in America' may... distort the more profound finding of 'Reading at Risk': that literary reading, like all reading, may not be so much in quantitative decline as shifting from a recreational to work-oriented activity full of challenge, difficulty, and potential achievement. Such a shift would hardly warrant the report's judgment that 'literature reading is fading as a meaningful activity.'"

22 July 2004 | top of page

Glad to have you here

This year Duke University will give all its new first-year students their own iPod, preloaded with timetables, orientation information and other helpful stuff. (via BoingBoing)

21 July 2004 | top of page

All your passwords are belong to someone else

Wired magazine reports a growing number of web sites "are demanding that readers give up some of their personal information -- like e-mail addresses, gender and salaries -- in exchange for free access to their articles. The publishers say they need this information to make money from advertising. But anecdotal evidence and online chatter suggest readers are annoyed with the registration process. Some readers enter bogus information, while others are looking for ways to bypass the registration roadblocks."

Most newspapers don't use encryption or other security measures to protect you, so the more you recycle a password the more likely a newspaper site (like the New York Times or The Age) will leave you vulnerable to hackers.

Cory Doctrow observes "that no one can possibly keep track of a thousand passwords for a thousand websites, which means that these sites undoubtably contain recycled passwords... This is a potential disaster if that NYT password is also a sensitive one somewhere else: it's a case of really callous disregard for user privacy and security."

Doc Searls points to another problem for registration-only newspaper sites, specifically the NYT: blocking human users from your site also blocks search engines, and that means when people google for "Iraq torture prison Abu Grahib" the NYT's coverage appears 295th in the results list, gazumped by other media, mainstream and otherwise, that expose at least some of their archives on the web. So much for the self-proclaimed "newspaper of record".

21 July 2004 | top of page

Cool, relevant, edgy science writing

The Maxim of science magazines: Seed.

21 July 2004 | top of page

Graf review of BBC Online

Sneedle Flipsock has many times linked to Martin Belam's blog, currybet. After the Graf report on the BBC's online activities, Belam's job changed a bit. He already has some ideas for the BBC's home page. Subject to a review of their 'public value', some online services will disappear. The Graf report also criticised the use of Real Media as the default streaming/download format.

Belam also comments on the BBC's response to the Graf review:

"...there is no doubt in the mind of the senior management at the BBC that two-way digital dialogue is the way we are heading [in our online services], and the way they are committed to heading... We aren't building bbc.co.uk for us or the web community, we are building it for the UK's public. What doesn't look cutting edge outside of the BBC is sometimes the leading edge inside the BBC."

19 July 2004 | top of page

Alice underground

A Dutch university student has scanned an original manuscript for Alice's Adventures Underground, Lewis Carroll's precursor to Alice in Wonderland.

Gift of the animator (and the motion-control camera): how vehicles in an open-air car park became traffic moving around an MC Escher labyrinth of roads.

via BoingBoing | 19 July 2004 | top of page

Ker-splat

When the Shoemaker-Levy comet crashed into Jupiter, astronomers and physicists had their first good view of how a largeish lump of rock behaves when it encounters a planet with atmosphere.

Another way of understanding the possible effects of an asteroid colliding with Earth is to create a small-scale model of such an impact: researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have filmed a marble-sized steel ball dropping onto loose, fine sand. The experiment demonstrates how sand can act like a liquid, and gives us some ideas about how on a larger scale rocks could act like sand.

19 July 2004 | top of page

Confusion in Boston

What's the difference between a science fiction convention and an annual gathering of politicians? The organisers of the 2004 WorldCon have obviously gotten tired of FAQs from confused Democrats members, and have compiled some helpful answers:

  • We're not $10 million over budget. We don't even have a $10 million budget.
  • Our promises for the future are supposed to be fiction.
  • You don't have to donate thousands of dollars to us (though we wouldn't complain)—we'll give you a high-level appointment to work for us for free!
  • The media will not outnumber the attendees.
  • Thoats and banthas are more interesting animals than donkeys and elephants.
  • The folks wandering around with walkie-talkies are likely to be helpful and friendly.
  • The slogans on our buttons are actually funny, and many of them are about cats.
  • No one will be kissing babies except their immediate families and friends.
  • When we talk about "skull and bones" it's probably in a discussion about paleontology.
  • When we sling mud, it's probably in a workshop on making alien pottery.

via BoingBoing | 19 July 2004 | top of page

Language, language

Corante asks whether "search engines are training us how to talk to them", omitting common words like 'the' and 'of'. Text messages, instant messaging and search engines "are all beginning to speak the same language — one stripped to the minimum number of signifiers in order to communicate. And thus language heads into becoming a code, not a world."

First, language has always been a code. The word 'rock' is not, per se, a rock. It's a code that signifies I'm referring to that lump of heavy limestone in your hand.

Second, the elision habit developed before search engines: cast your mind back to your earliest memories of paying attention to the news on TV. Typically at the start of a news bulletin or a new item, the newsreader will give you the headline, sans verbs and often also without personal pronouns or definite/indefinite articles.

In turn, the TV practice evolved from the lingusitic style of newspaper headlines.

Where does it end? Might we perhaps continue condensing our conversational language to the extent of (say) Latin, where one hardly ever needs a pronoun, conjunction or article?

I’m guessing “yes”, but it’ll take several more generations before this kind of conciseness becomes the norm.

via David Weinberger's JOHO blog

As we noted in May, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been clamping down on any broadcast material that could be considered offensive. Congress is considering allowing individual fines up to US$500,000. For commercial broadcasters, that amounts to a slap on the wrist with a wet hanky. For 'public' broadcasters, ever hungry for government funding and donations from the public, one FCC fine could be enough to sink a station or network.

PLUS:

16 July 2004 | top of page

Cultural tourism: who owns cultural history?

"With China's economy expanding and tourism growing even faster, insiders and outsiders worry that China will not take the time and trouble, or have the resources and expertise, to preserve its rich cultural heritage. Much has already been lost." (New York Times login = flipsock, password = sneedle)

Saudi Arabia sees cultural tourism "as a means of promoting peace, cooperation and the preservation of cultural diversity as a catalyst for sustainable development." The kingdom's Supreme Commission for Tourism has surveyed 6000 sites and deemed 1657 as "rich in terms of their tourism potential."

Almost four centuries after Miguel Cervantes's death, the Royal Shakespeare Company will give the world premiere of his play Pedro the Great Pretender. Says professor emeritus Jack Sage of London University, "Spanish scholars also say it's his best play. But they also say it is not performable."

In case you were wondering, pop culture legend Lou Reed is happy for other people to remix his songs: "I just started saying to the record company, 'Look, I really, really love what they are doing.' I think that my record company was a little taken aback but, genuinely, if I could make that type of music then I would. If I could master the equipment then I would love to."

16 July 2004 | top of page

Art and the critic

Arriving in his new home, art critic Nate Lippens got a frosty reception from Seattle's arty cognoscenti. It made him re-evaluate his role and goals as a critic:

"Art doesn't need a writer. It does need a viewer. And that's where I will write from: What does it look like? Why am I looking at it? What is it doing and does it succeed? ... My allegiance, as it were, is to the reader, to the layperson. Can I really recommend that show? Separate of connections, pedigree, social life--is it good?"

Seattle's art gallery curators may feel safe enough to give the newspaper critics a hard time. Their colleagues in Seattle's museums are in a more precarious position: funding is scarce but there's immense pressure to expand both premises and collections.

16 July 2004 | top of page

Colours of the Southern Cross constellationColors of the Southern Cross

For the last couple of weeks, at around 6.00 am as I'm leaving for work, I've looked south from my hilltop driveway and seen the Southern Cross like an upside down kite, its point almost touching the horizon, as though the kite is about to crash into the blackness of Bass Strait.

The view from Namibia is a little bit different, particularly if you play with your camera's focus to reveal the colors of the different stars in the Southern Cross constellation. Beautiful.

16 July 2004 | top of page

The retraction that shouldn't have been needed

Scientists can be wrong about their data, wrong about their hypotheses, wrong about their interpretations. "[F]ormal retraction of an interpretation is almost without precedent... The surprise... is not the retraction, but that the data were even interpreted as demonstrating a possible link [between MMR vaccine and autism], that the interpretation was included in a paper drafted by 13 people, and that it survived the rigorous refereeing and editorial processes of the Lancet."

16 July 2004 | top of page

Perhaps I've read too many crime novels...

There's a new Internet worm Out There, similar to the Bagel worm that disrupted thousands of workplaces and (?) millions of computers earlier this year.

(Actually, it's In Here, too. M'colleague Janet in the next cubicle got infected this morning, along with a couple of dozen other computers elsewhere on campus.)

The new worm:

  • copies itself to folders on your hard disk that have the phrase shar in the name--a phrase common in folders created by common peer-to-peer (file-sharing) applications like KaZaa, Bearshare, Limewire, etc.

  • avoid sending itself to e-mail addresses that end with @hotmail, @msn and @microsoft--it's being uncommonly polite to the software giant.

  • avoids sending itself to e-mail addresses that start with bugs@, help@, info@, postmaster@ --presumably so that your local IT helpdesk doesn't hear about the worm until it's too late for your computer.

  • puts new .exe files into directories with shar in their names. The new files have names that suggest you're either collecting porn, ripping DVDs or trying to crack or illegally copy software from Microsoft, Opera and Adobe.

Conclusions? Well, this is where my consipiracy ganglion starts twitching. Based on the above, it seems to me that this new worm:

  • targets people who share music and video files

  • is being uncommonly polite towards Microsoft by *not* trying to infect machines owned or run by that company

  • is leaving traces (filenames) on your machine that could easily be misinterpreted by a non-geeky manager

Is this possibly the first case of a worm being created and released by a supporter of digital rights management?

MacAfee has more details about the worm, and updated DAT files to help Virus Scan identify and delete the worm from your computer. Don't delay, install today.

16 July 2004 | top of page

 

2004 flipsocks:

17 Dec: the sock has flipped
10 Dec: anything anywhere any time
3 Dec: instant flattery
26 Nov: the steamroller of branding
19 Nov: fried v rice
5 Nov: the page with no name
29 Oct: and then there were none
22 Oct: filled with naughty laughter
15 Oct: get souls and disconcert the public
8 Oct: ooh, aah, ooh
1 Oct: pinch and a punch
24 Sep: design is the new art
17 Sep: footsteps of Aeneas
10 Sep: slow art, viral aesthetic
3 Sep: I can see your house from here
27 Aug: forever blowing bubbles
20 Aug: jargon for the digital age
13 Aug: beautiful plumage, the Norwegian blue
6 Aug: brokenated terribility
23 Jul: Alice underground
16 Jul: color-coded
2 Jul: for so long treated as nouns
25 Jun: looking for love, echidna-style
18 Jun: joy-to-stuff ratio
11 Jun: fun's fun but a girl can't dance all night
4 Jun: pink dinosaur
28 May: two people every minute
21 May: incompitnce [sic]
14 May: zygomatic smile
5 May: mailbox
30 Apr: bananaguard
23 Apr: mmmmmWAH!
15 Apr: playtime
8 Apr: googlewhack
2 Apr: we wish to inform you...
18 Mar: daffy dills
12 Mar: echo chamber
9 Jan: refund profologies

 

Also on this site:

about this site
home page

articles:
who is geoffrey ebert?
testing for the fun factor
chicken at the (higher education) crossroads
crawford's theory of interactivity
froghunting
home-page real-estate wars
the eagle has landed

listmania:
must-reads for web people
recent reads
pop-culture quotes

neology:
they shoulda been words

recipe:
lemon and rosemary risotto

reviews:
Written In Blood by Chris Lawson
The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams

Without whom (web):

frankenstein journal (Chris)
tbn97 (Troy)
webster's encyclopedia [sic]
science playwiths (Peter)
neroliwesley.com.au (Neroli)
Fraser
Jonathan
Maverick IT network consultants (Rick)
Look! There's a castle! (Brent)
Cairns Corporation (Gerald)
Homosapien Books (Julie and Bruce)
Southern Sky Watch (Ian)
Panda's Thumb (Ian again)
ABC Science-Matters (official)
science-matters (unofficial)
chisig
Bovios
Disinfo.com (Alex Burns)
Lee Battersby
Little Malop Gallery
Digest of Usability Resources and News (Dey)
WooWooWoo (Andrew)

 

 

Without whom (also):

Ramona P Lovechild
Dombardo
Katherine with a K
Katherine (no relation)
Catherine
Teresa
Corey
Claire
Claire (no relation)
Helsbels
Iain
Toby and Jann
Andrew
Paul, Warren, Dr K and The New Reality
Stephen
Tania
Trevor

 

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. Site created 30 May 1999. Home page URL http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/flipsock/