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September 10, 2002
“The Tsunamii.Net Crush Server is currently online live from the Millbank Gallery in London! Watch as the webserver counts itself down before it activates the industrial crusher attached to it, bearing 150-tonnes of brute force onto itself and terminating its existance. Check out the details on the Tsunamii.Net website or visit the webserver directly at http://195.195.81.5.
(Thanks S. Lamb)
Jacob Shwirtz blogs a response to my question “What did a faithful person see when he/she saw that attack on the World Trade Center.” From a Jewish point of view, according to Jacob, we didn’t see God and Satan arm wrestling….well, Jacob describes it better than I.
J. Thomas Vincent points us to the PromoGuy’s suggestion that we begin our remembrance of Sept. 11 by turning off the media for the day.
Yahoo has eliminated the email account for a long-term user, the Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace. From its home page, LMNO4P seems to be your basic community lefty-pacifist vigil-attendin’, Pete Seeger-singin’ peace group. According to the group, Yahoo says the account was turned off and the mailing list was deleted because the group violated Yahoo’s service agreement, but Yahoo won’t tell the group what its violation was. Yahoo does say that accounts are only terminated in response to complaints.
In a display of subtle, pre-emptive anti-Semitism, the group says: “We think Yahoo! overreacted to a complaint by someone who disagrees with our politics, especially our public support for peace & justice in Palestine,” although it has no evidence of this. When in doubt, let’s blame the damn Zionists.
It’s bad enough that Yahoo is censoring groups it doesn’t like, worse that the groups seem innocuous, and worst that it’s denying any accountability. You might consider moving from Yahoo before it decides it doesn’t like what you have to say, either.
The Veepers technology from Pulse3D animates a still photo of a face and adds the sort of mouth movement familiar from the movie “Babe” (you know, the talking pig) synced up with a voice track. The results are somewhere between laughable and ghoulish, especially after the talking head has finished and remains staring at you, randomly bobbing and twitching.
Seeing it for yourself requires a small download. There’s an example here.
It was just a few days ago that I suggested ways for The Sopranos to jump the shark. And today, Steven Van Zandt is quoted in the paper — stealing my idea — saying that it’d be just swell if Bruce Springsteen were to make a guest shot.
By the way, the Sopranos home page is nicely done. I like the incidental artifacts, including the cover of Silvio’s lost album. All the site needs is a way for us viewers to talk with one another.
At TheOldComputer.com you can download old TV commercials advertising computer and video games, back when sprites were sprites and there really was no reason to add color to Pong.
September 9, 2002
More goodness from Dan Gillmor. In a column about what we can do to make our homeland more secure, he says that broadband is central to securing our information infrastructure since it allows data to be distributed rather than clustered in cities. (He also comes up with some crackpot ideas about using renewable energy, conserving, etc. Those West Coasters are just so nutty! )
Dan Gillmor writes up the presentation Scott Bradner — one of the people who has shaped the Internet from the beginning — gave at the stealth conference I was at. Scott’s presentation was brilliant and Dan synthesizes it perfectly. If you care about what really made the Internet into what it is, this is must reading.
Dan also points to some pretty durn funny UI humor.
From another reading list comes this quote from a study about ebooks:
COLLEGE STUDENTS GIVE E-BOOKS MIXED REVIEWS
In a study on learning and the usability of electronic books (compared to printed books), the Center for Information & Communication Studies at Ball State University found little difference in test results among students who used two styles of GemStar eBooks and those who used traditional text books. Still, 100% of students who used the black and white style eBooks and 50% of those who used color eBooks said they would not recommend their use to others. Students found such tasks as moving from page to page, finding a specific chapter in the text and searching for a certain word too tedious to pursue. Other mechanical difficulties were related to the small, irregularly shaped screens and incidences of glare on the screens. In addition, users perceived that they retained less information than they would have had they read from a conventional paper textbook. In spite of the general negative perception, the researchers concluded that eBooks — especially color versions — have some potential as a device for college students, once further studies and refinements have been made. (Ball State University 23 Aug 2002) http://publish.bsu.edu/cics/ebook_final_result.asp
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