A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff
Boing Boing’s roundup and time-line of Sony’s horrible anti-customer technology. I enjoyed listening to the NPR’s report on the same topic.
Sony BMG’s Global Digital Business President Thomas Hesse downplayed the recent DRM fiasco saying he objected to terms such as malware, spyware and rootkit. “Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?” he said.
The other day cartoonist Scott Adams wrote his thoughts about the Intelligent Design / Evolution debate (part 1).
Apparently it caused quite the stir. His response:
Wow. A lot of people read my blog entry on Intelligent Design and interpreted it to mean I believe it. I guess the part where I say I don’t believe it wasn’t sufficiently clear.
That’s why I don’t like to leave my office.
Here is the entertaining follow-up where Adams goes after an “evidently highly educated scientist”: Intelligent Design / Evolution debate (part 2).
I found this helpful site full of tips on how to clean anything. At first I was skeptical, but after reading a few, I’ve discovered there are some really good tips there. For example the site explains how to clean:
That’s just a few of the many entries in the interior category!
An inventor by the name of Howard Stapleton has developed a high pitched audio device called The Mosquito designed to deter teens from loitering outside shops.
From the Times Online article, “Can a shriek in a box see off troublesome teenagers?”:
It emits a piercing, high frequency sound that is audible only, in 90 per cent of cases, to people under the age of 20. While teenagers are forced to run for cover, most adults remain oblivious.
Stapleton said he came up with the idea after reading how hearing levels changed with age.
I wonder if the device will have the unintended consequence of making the stores that use it a target for vandalism or theft. Whereas before the stores only had trouble with loitering teens but after installing these devices, it seems to me anyway, they are only asking for real trouble.
Update: The New York Times has an article about The Mosquito.
Check out the opening title animation (18MB QT) from the live action film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
The images have a very flat graphics art feel but the animation brings them to life; It’s almost eerie the way abstract shapes, their textures, and the motion are blended together.
I hope you enjoy my quick roundup of interesting links:
My cute nephew Ryker. He wasn’t grumpy as it might appear. He was curious about the folks above him calling his name and competing for his attention meanwhile distracting him from “the playing” to be done.
A very good friend of mine once wrote me a beautiful note that had this quote from Violeta Parra. “Don’t cry when the sun is gone, because the tears won’t let you see the stars.”
A clever fellow going by the moniker of TehDiplomat has created a playable version of Risk that uses Google Maps satellite images for the board. At present all players have to sit around the computer taking turns but apparently he is working on a multiplayer version.
(via Waxy links)
I’ve been working at the university for a little under three weeks now. I like the work, I really like the fact that I’ve learned a lot about CSS programming and sometimes I find myself just cruising away at the code and then notice it’s lunch time or the end of the day. I hate pulling myself away when I’m in the middle of some great break-through.
Today for example I learned how to implement random image headers on the top of some of the pages I’ve been fixing up. The About Lethbridge page, for example, has both the new random image code and it also integrates an embedded google map that has the University marked in relation to the world. It’s pretty cool stuff – at least it gives me a feeling of accomplishment anyway.
I usually try to post links that I think the majority of my audience will appreciate and somehow I don’t think I have a lot of web programmers visiting my site but I guess you never know. Anyway I’ve found the following tips for webmasters from the W3C very interesting and helpful in my attempt to make better webpages.