A Lego stop-motion masterpiece from Jammy Custard for this Halloween:
Category Archives: Miscellania
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Parallax is an interdimensional platforming and puzzle-solving game. The goal in each level is to reach the exit by travelling between two overlapping dimensions through rifts. Parallax challenges the player to think beyond the spatial boundaries of traditional platformers.
Pure black and white is a difficult style. These guys seem to have nailed it.
(via Ars)
The future is boring
I’m going to start collecting corporate promotional videos that imagine a sterile touchscreen future of attractive and successful people using unlikely (but attractive) user interfaces. Starting with this new one from Microsoft:
Productivity Future Vision (2011) – Microsoft Office
In 2019, two years after desk clutter was outlawed in the US, office workers are all prescribed strong drugs to improve their focus and help them block out the distractions visible through their glass workstations. Witness the confusion of the asian worker who, while waiting for his train, briefly runs out of tasks to perform on his phone and quickly seeks out an interactive advertisement to occupy him for the next 30 seconds.
Container Bob
This curious aside is from a fascinating (if overlong) Wired article about a radioactive container that turned up in a Genoan port:
It was hardly the first fishy shipment to pass through Gioia Tauro. Famously, just six weeks after 9/11, workers there heard noises coming from inside a container being transshipped to Nova Scotia via Rotterdam. Inside, police found an Egyptian-born Canadian carrying a Canadian passport, a satellite phone, a cell phone, a laptop, cameras, maps, and security passes to airports in Canada, Thailand, and Egypt. The container’s interior was outfitted with a bed, a water supply, a heater, and a toilet. Nicknamed Container Bob, the man posted bail in Italian court and was never seen again.
(via Why Is This Cargo Container Emitting So Much Radiation? – wired.com)
Apparently he also had ‘an airline mechanic’s certificate valid for Chicago’s O’Hare and New York’s Kennedy airports.’1 He was ‘a well-dressed man’ only caught because he was drilling ventilation holes.2
Despite the ‘Container Bob’ nickname, ABC News reported at the time that he was Rizk Amid Farid, then 43.
Italian investigators say everything about Farid — his documents and claims about himself — appear to be either false or obscured. They have checked his stories with police in other countries — including Egypt, Canada and the United States — and believe none has panned out. Canadian investigators are further investigating the suspect’s background.
Though police have not said they have any direct evidence tying Farid to terrorism, he is the first person to be arrested in Italy on the basis of a new counterterrorism law passed last week in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Under the new law, he can be held for at least six months as investigators try to determine whether he is a terrorist.
A prosecutor said the stowaway had studied in Egypt and in North America to qualify as a commercial jet engine mechanic. Before leaving Egypt, however, he was believed to be working at a magazine distribution company. Investigators say he claimed to be “running away” from a powerful brother-in-law in Egypt and had traveled in the container for five days.
(via Italian Police Probe Man Found in Box – 25 October 2001 – abcnews.go.com)
PragProWriMo
Like NaNoWriMo, but for technical book authors: PragProWriMo – the Pragmatic Programmers Writing Month.
To help you along, we’re setting up a forum and a Twitter account. Follow us on Twitter at @pragprowrimo to stay up to date. Join the forum at forums.pragprog.com/forums/190 for more detailed writing advice, answers to your writing questions, and progress reports from participants. And when you finish your 60 pages, you might even get some special recognition from us.
(via pragprog.com)
Using A/B testing to find story ideas
I’ve been reading In The Plex
Earlier I read this post via Hacker News on testing startup ideas. It got me thinking about whether or not you could do something similar in your newsroom. I’ll call it A/B Testing for News Coverage™.
via Using A/B testing to find story ideas – andymboyle.com
In a nutshell: Write some spec articles, run AdWord campaigns for them, see which ones are most popular. You could get the value of this without running any ad campaigns though. All webmasters – especially those with newsy content – should pay attention to their analytics to learn what content has proved popular, what searches brought readers in, and be on the look out for spikes of interest in particular topics.
When I clicked through to read this blog post, I was expecting it to be a post about A/B testing fiction story ideas. Imagine a kind of choose your own adventure story where the author writes the opening of the story, then two or three different continuations. The most popular branch becomes canonical, and the author continues the story from there.
I doubt that’s an idea that’d appeal to many authors, but some variation of this could be a fun experiment.
Private spaces are stifling protest
Most of London’s “public” spaces are privately owned, as the Occupy protesters are learning.
At Canary Wharf recently a group of activists wishing to mount a protest were contacted by advertising company JDDecaux, which told them that the space was an “experimental advertising space” for which the daily rate was £4,750. This is a model that looks at space purely as a place for investment rather than as an open democratic forum where people can meet freely and come and go.
[…] As for the area around St Paul’s, it is owned by the church, which traditionally welcomes all members of the public. Today it seems even that is in question.
Private spaces are stifling protest – guardian.co.uk
The situation is much the same on the Internet today, where the ‘digital land’ is owned by big companies like Google and Facebook. You can stage your protests there, only if these corporate giants allow it.
Knowledge is power
Comment by Lard_Baron on reddit.com
When I was young my father said to me:
“Knowledge is Power….Francis Bacon”
I understood it as “Knowledge is power, France is Bacon”.
For more than a decade I wondered over the meaning of the second part and what was the surreal linkage between the two? If I said the quote to someone, “Knowledge is power, France is Bacon” they nodded knowingly. Or someone might say, “Knowledge is power” and I’d finish the quote “France is Bacon” and they wouldn’t look at me like I’d said something very odd but thoughtfully agree. I did ask a teacher what did “Knowledge is power, France is bacon” meant and got a full 10 minute explanation of the Knowledge is power bit but nothing on “France is bacon”. When I prompted further explanation by saying “France is Bacon?” in a questioning tone I just got a “yes”. at 12 I didn’t have the confidence to press it further. I just accepted it as something I’d never understand.
It wasn’t until years later I saw it written down that the penny dropped.
The Lake District
It’s been a while since I’ve exercised the old shutter-finger. These were taken back in July, and I only just got around to processing them. More on Flickr.
Continue reading
Daylight Saving Time explained
There’s a lot more to changing clocks than I realised – and even more good reasons we shouldn’t bother:
Every year some countries move their clocks forward in the spring only to move them back in the autumn.
To the vast majority of the world who dosen’t participate in this odd clock fiddling – it seems a baffling thing to do. So what’s the reason behind it?
(via blog.cgpgrey.com)
Tools for the zombie apocalypse
I generally despise product placement, but a survival tool company and a zombie apocalypse show seem like a natural fit. Witness Gerber’s Apocalypse range, perfect for defending against The Walking Dead.
Terms that have different meanings for scientists and the public
| Scientific term | Public meaning | Better choice |
|---|---|---|
| enhance | improve | intensify, increase |
| aerosol | spray can | tiny atmospheric particle |
| positive trend | good trend | upward trend |
| positive feedback | good response, praise | vicious cycle, self-reinforcing cycle |
| theory | hunch, speculation | scientific understanding |
| uncertainty | ignorance | range |
| error | mistake, wrong, incorrect | difference from exact true number |
| bias | distortion, political motive | offset from observation |
| sign | indication, astrological sign | plus or minus sign |
| values | ethics, monetary value | numbers, quantity |
| manipulation | illicit tampering | scientific data processing |
| scheme | devious plot | systematic plan |
| anomaly | abnormal occurrence | change from long-term average |
Table from Communicating the science of climate change – physicstoday.org
(via Scientists are from Mars, the public is from Earth – blogs.discovermagazine.com)
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It was also very cool to hear more about the new Hackspace Cardiff (@HackspaceCDF) from Mark Heseltine, who talked at Dorkbot about the new digs and some of the possibilities the new community could have.
While I’m no hardware geek myself, I think it’s fantastic that such a place exists in Cardiff.
Dorkbot Cardiff #4
I don’t know if it’s the same in other Dorkbots, but Cardiff’s skews heavily towards projects where technology meets art. These can often leave me a bit cold, feeling that I understand how the artist has done something, but not really why.
I did rather enjoy this documentary about Paul Granjon’s Oriel Factory robot exhibit however.
Perhaps it helps me that the messages about recycling and using clean energy seem clear and important in this exhibition. Plus, it looks like a lot of fun!
Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011
So long Steve, and thanks for all the things.
National Novel Writing Month
Every year I toy with the idea of participating in NaNoWriMo. I don’t consider myself a good writer, but I have lots of ideas for stories and characters. I think I would enjoy the cathartic aspect of just trying to churn out a novel NaNoWriMo style:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Maybe. Maybe.
PressPausePlay: Download the documentary about our new digital culture for free
PressPausePlay, an award-winning documentary about our new digital culture, premiered at SXSW earlier this year. It is playing at film festivals and you can buy it on iTunes, Amazon, and other digital pay sites. If you don’t want to pay for it, you can now download it via a torrent for free. This free option was essential to the filmmakers. As Seth Godin says in the film, ideas that are free spread faster.
(via Buy This Movie Or Legally Download It For Free: Your Call – techcrunch.com)
I haven’t seen this yet, but I expect this will be something that all aspiring content creators will need to watch.
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.
UPDATE 2011.10.22
I finally around to watching this, and found it to be very lightweight. It was inspirational to see so many people working in cool workspaces on personal projects though.
I had a hard time taking these two seriously though:
Terra Nova vs. Outcasts
I watched Terra Nova last night, and I noticed plenty of similarities with the BBC show Outcasts that was on earlier this year:
It is the distant future, and Earth has become inhospitable, forcing humanity to send a small number of humans to a distant world/our distant past in a last-ditch attempt to preserve our species.
Jim/Cass is a man with a complicated past who wasn’t even supposed to be a part of the colony, but he earns the trust of the stern and experienced base commander and is given a position of responsibility as a part of the security team.
He quickly learns that although this world is beautiful, it is also deadly and holds many secrets. Some of the colonists have already split from the main group and formed a dangerous faction with an unknown agenda.
There are more similarities and differences between Outcasts and Terra Nova, but I doubt either show was influenced by the other directly, instead drawing their inspiration from the same old tropes. Both shows have an angsty teenage character who feels abandoned by their parent, for example. The Terra Nova producers don’t seem to have any shame either, hiring the canonical Colonel Badass.
Terra Nova isn’t exactly terrible, just it’s a very expensive re-tread of the usual.
Rabbit Island: Bought on Craigslist, turned into an artist community with Kickstarter
In February of 2010, Rob Gorski (NYC) and Andrew Ranville (UK) purchased a 90 acre island on Craigslist (seriously), 3 miles off the coast of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. They recently ran a Kickstarter which was funded to facilitate their plan to build an Artist Residency on the island. This island is virtually untouched as it stands. Rob and Andrew are breaking ground this summer to build a single small cabin which will house resident visual artists, musicians, and writers. Best Made Co. threw ‘em some gear too.
(via coldsplinters.com)
I fantasise about projects like this.
New Minecraft mob: Snow Golem
Got frustrated with AWS, so I made a new mob! :D http://imgur.com/ADYrx?full
It will be craftable, is friendly, and throws snowballs at enemies. Also melts in hot biomes.
Also, they spread snow by walking around. Nice.
One of the best things about Minecraft is how publicly the game is being developed.
halfblog.net 