Archive for 2009
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[ 1 Comment ]Posted on April 7, 2009 by admin in Technology
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009What if you could click on the objects around you for more information about them?
Imagine you’re in Rome, and by pointing your iPhone at a statue, you’re able not only to identify the statue, but also able to click on links to Wikipedia about it, and then switch to Google Maps to locate the nearest cafe for a break from sightseeing. This scenario is quickly becoming less and less like science fiction, thanks to new tools like Photosynth and Mobvis. We touched on Photosynth a while back, but they’ve more recently teamed with CNN to bring you an interesting and different way to look at the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. Unfortunately, if you’re on a Mac, you won’t be able to see how interesting and different. They say they’re working on a Mac-friendly version, but for a more cross-platform look at what these tools have to offer in the meantime, see the Photo Tourism project page at Washington University. You might also check out the short video Hyperlinking Reality Via Camera Phones (also below), which presents the concept in a simpler, more visual manner. And although the presenter and narrator step randomly into programmer gobbledy-gook, cut them some slack. At least they have the courtesy to do it in English! The project is being developed by Visual Cognitive Systems Lab, at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. This technology has amazing possibilities, but I’m also always a little leery of the possible negative uses. Imagine a more highly developed version of this that merges the tools with Google Street View (with which I’ve previously expressed some annoyance) and Facial Recognition Systems. You could literally click on the faces of people around you for biographical information. Unless of course they had an adequately-developed tinfoil hat, as I apparently do… Read the rest of this entry »
Monday Demotivators: The Mormon Edition
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on April 6, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, April 6th, 2009Our ongoing attempt to make you late for work on Monday. Now with added MORMON GOODNESS.
If you’re here for our traditional Monday Demotivators, be patient while we take time out for a spirtual message. I’m not generally one to make light of other people’s faith, but I’ll occasionally make an exception. Today is the anniversary of the repeated founding of the Mormon church. Yes, repeated; it seems they had some trouble at the beginning, and since they believe Jesus was born on April 6 (betcha didn’t know there’s a Mormon Wikipedia!), they keep starting it on the same date. I’ll let the Mormons do all the footwork. Just read their history (or watch the classic South Park episode, they hit the key facts) and that should occupy enough time to accomplish our objective of making you late on Monday. Once you’ve wasted part of your morning learning the teachings of the prophet Moroni, we’ll still be here with the annoying game links. First up: this isn’t really a game, but it’s kind of fun. Someone has devoted an entire blog to posting the amusing results of Google’s autocomplete function. It is kind of interesting that when you type “is mast” in Google’s search box, it immediately knows you’re wondering “is masturbation bad?” Which is a nice segue into our first game: The Great Sperm Race. Much like life itself, just work hard, focus, and try not to get bogged down in the slime, and at the end, you’ll wonder if the reward was worth it all. Kamikaze Race sounds like it might be exciting, but the only thing it has in common with a real Kamikaze pilot is that your death is inevitable, and the pursuit of it will require more patience and devotion than you think. Hero Hoops is like brain dead basketball for white boys. Just remember two tips: 1.) He moves like the white boy that he is, get used to it, and 2.) You can’t throw a ball if you’re not holding one. Sonny 2 makes you wonder what “Sonny 1″ must’ve been like, if this is the advanced version. You spend a ton of time getting elaborate intructions about the single simple move your guy can make when he finally does get to do something. Ultimately, you’re more likely to attack your computer for tricking you into pastimes like this. Likewise with Crow In Hell. If you have the patience, I bet there’s a game in there somewhere. On the same note, Perfect Balance Playground is a mildly amusing physics-based game, but it’s hard to figure out what the motivation really is. Here’s a whole collection of physics-based games, if you’re into that kind of thing. But we know you all prefer first person shooters, so here we go. Battlefield Heroes shows just how tough provincial Europeans really are. Every time you shoot one, they just say “Ow” in a Minnesota accent. I just want to remind you that as usual, I do this all for you. Give me a game of Pong and I’m good to go.
Brother, Could You Spare Some Fictitious Capital?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on April 5, 2009 by admin in Politics
Sunday, April 5th, 2009Money really DOES grow on trees. Just be sure to get there before the worms show up.
I think it would be a great investment in the fictitious life I lead. My imaginary friends and I promise to spend it well. Lately, because of the fact that it seems the average working person’s grandchildren are going to be paying to support the offensively luxurious lifestyles of today’s investment bankers as their fortunes plummet, there’s been some buzz about the term Fictitious Capital. Marx is typically credited with defining the term, so the idea that a banker can arbitrarily say “See this simple sheet of paper? It’s worth A MILLION DOLLARS!” is generally accepted as a healthy anti-Communist activity. But wait! What’s this? Apparently Thomas Jefferson described the problem when Marx was less than a year old! It seems to me any child would understand that there’s something intrinsically wrong with creating value out of nothing, but the fact is, children don’t build cities, nations, and their infrastructure. This piece on econ professor Michael Perelman’s blog rounds up a few nice anecdotes from the 19th century which point out the virtues of imaginary money. For example, a hotel owner in Chicago explains to a visiting businessman why he should accept the “wildcat notes” in circulation: “…On this kind of worthless currency, based on Mr. Smith’s [the issuer's] supposed wealth and our wants, we are creating a great city, building up all kind of industrial establishments, and covering the lake with vessels — so that suffer who may when the inevitable hour of reckoning arrives, the country will be the gainer…” Apparently, there’s a built-in assumption about free markets that they didn’t tell most of us about, which is that capitalism is really just a big game of musical chairs; you just don’t want to be the one standing when the music suddenly stops!
Luxury Buses For The Rich, Dumpster Diving For The Rest Of Us
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on April 4, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green
Saturday, April 4th, 2009I’m either going Freegan or getting a job with Twitter
In my effort to live a greener lifestyle, I can’t decide whether to become a dumpster-diving freegan or get a high-paying job in San Francisco. We touched on dumpster diving back in June 2008, when the concept seemed a little far-fetched for the average American. Apparently though, things are getting tough enough that it’s becoming an acceptable lifestyle. It’s interesting to me, however, the way American society remains curiously stratified even when “going green”. While some people are literally dumpster-diving for dinner, others can only be encouraged to take the bus if it has wifi, leather seats, and a hostess. Although my irritation with Liberal Elitist Crybabies was momentarily aroused by the article in that last link, I dug a little deeper and was a little impressed with the strategies of the Bay Area company Bauer’s Intelligent Transportation. The inclination of course, is to snark at how hard it is to pry an aging yuppy from their BMW, but the company is in fact tapping into a market that otherwise probably WOULD keep driving their car around as the sole occupant, so let’s give them that much. They’re also putting some energy into awareness-raising , and have clearly defined plans for emissions reductions . And of special concern to people like me, yes, they even have the “short bus” option (26MB Video). Not to be confused with a Yuppie Short Bus. Read the rest of this entry »
Is Your Virtual Life Better Than Your Real Life?
[ 6 Comments ]Posted on April 3, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Or: Why I’m Probably Getting Married On Facebook
Tell me if you’ve noticed any of the following in your behaviour over the past couple of years: You no longer bother remembering phone numbers, you just put them in your phone. You’re talking to a friend about a movie, can’t remember the star, and turn to Wikipedia or the IMDB. Someone has seemed annoyed that you actually phoned them instead of texting or “Facebooking” them. You can’t seem to get into books like you used to. You’ve joked that you have a disorder because of your poor recall or attention. Nicholas Carr has written a few articles addressing this topic, including Is Google Making Us Stupid? in the Atlantic Monthly, and Computing The Cost in The Sun Magazine. This topic is nothing new, this 1998 Science Daily article touches on it. And the book iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind