Welcome BoingBoingers. :) I hope you like my site. Please come again.
Gauntlet Suspends Two Editors Over Racy Image
The Gauntlet is the student newspaper at the University of Calgary. It just happens to be the same paper that my brother worked as the Photo Editor while he went to school there (2001-2004). Controversy is nothing new to student newspapers, but today I read about some misdirected anger.
Two editors are being suspended without pay because they allowed an article to be published which was accompanied a photo of a nude woman. The woman had paraded through the U of C food court completely naked except for a chain mail bikini as part of a student union sponsored sexual health awareness event.
In a response published in the Gauntlet by News Editor Dale Miller, one of the suspended, he defends his actions by explaining that the outcry should be directed towards the ones creating the event, not the ones reporting it.
“The performers were hired by the SU to put on the show, they chose their own outfits and performed in a public environment, in front of both media and the University population,” said Miller.
“I didn’t try and shock you by allowing these women to walk around naked, the SU did. I merely reported it, and brought the controversy to the larger student population.”
To top it all off the student portrayed in the picture has demanded that the Gauntlet be shut down. She feels the picture violates her rights in some way – never mind the fact that she was the one willingly prancing around naked in public and that the Students’ Union allowed participants to chose their own outfits. Seems like she may just want to jump on the controversy band-wagon. Maybe she’s trying to run up publicity for her night job as an exotic dancer; all I can say is “talk about someone giving mixed messages”.
Maid of Honor Privilige For Sale
There is a couple from Calmar, Alberta (small town west of Luduc) that has put “the opportunity to be their maid of honor” up for auction on ebay.
From the site:
We had asked my good friend to do this honor, but unfortunately, because of financial difficulties (she lives in a different province) she can no longer afford to attend. We had thought on asking someone else, but we do not know anyone else in the province that we would like to ask. We then thought that we would like to give someone the chance to do this that may not otherwise have the chance!
My Salt Lake Tribune Interview
Yay! Today The Salt Lake Tribune published the article about backmasking in which I was interviewed.
Enter “backmasking” into the Google search engine and nearly 9,000 sites pop up. One of them is “Stairway to Heaven: Backwards” (https://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm ), a site established by Jeff Milner, a 25-year-old student, part-time lifeguard and bed salesman.
“As a kid, a cousin of mine told me he took his ‘Stairway to Heaven’ record and played it backwards hearing some kind of satanic message,” Milner says. “I never had a chance to hear it myself… Then when the technology came along to do it on the computer, I jumped at the chance.”
He copied the song from the 1971 Led Zeppelin album onto his hard drive, then used the Windows Sound Recorder application to reverse it. He found what sounded like lines about the devil.
Update: I’ve posted the complete contents of the Salt Lake Tribune backmasking article in the comments.
Darkon
The preview documentary you are about to watch is about, Darkon, a game for “live action role players” (Wikipedia Entry).
Welcomed to Google AdSense
Yay! I just received an email informing me that jeffmilner.com has been accepted as a Google ads and AdSense provider. That does mean there will be ads on the site but I’m hoping that since they are from Google they will be relevant and mostly unobtrusive. It’ll be good to bring in some revenue to help pay for the site since I’m pretty much strapped. Hopefully I’ll be able to do that.
Flickr.com Purchased by Yahoo!
Flickr.com, my favorite way to share photos, has been officially purchased by Yahoo. Some of the changes include:
- Both free and pro accounts will have more storage and uploads
- The cost for pro accounts will be less
- Yahoo Photos will get a lot of Flickr features but they will remain separate entities
- Current Pro Account holders will get something SPECIAL! (it’s a secret)
As for changes in the way Flickr is run they claim that the company will be continuing on the path it’s on.
We’ll be working with a bunch of people that Totally Get Flickr and want to preserve the community and the flavor of what is here. We’re going to grow and change, but we’re in it for the long haul, with the same management and same team.
If you haven’t tried Flickr yet, then what are you waiting for? Go check it out!
Video Game Censorship
Check out these ridiculous content changes throughout Nintendo’s history. It’s fairly interesting just skimming the article and “reading” the pictures.
Logo Designer Interview
“The Sneeze” interviews FedEx’s logo creator Lindon Leader. Did you ever notice the secret arrow in FedEx’s logo?
The Blind Fragging the Blind
Wired reports about a new wave of games that cater to the needs of blind gamers. Audio games are appearing in all genres, from multiplayer role-playing games to action-adventure titles, science fiction thrillers, racing games, and puzzle games.
The popular first-person-shooter Quake was even turned into a purely audio experience by All in Play, a company that produces games for both blind and sighted players.
“It was basically a technology prototype to show that even in more graphically inclined games, anything is possible,” said Jeremie Spitzer, co-founder of All in Play.
I had a friend growing up whose younger brother is blind. You wouldn’t have known it for how great he was at the Nintendo version of Street Fighter II though.