I’ve never seen a episode of Family Guy: I think I caught part of an episode during a run on Channel 4 years ago, but it didn’t strike me as anything special, and certainly not on a par with The Simpsons or Daria or King of the Hill or Futurama. Even so, I’ve got to admit that this clip featuring a trip into a famous 80s pop video is very, very nicely done.
[Via Apropos of Something]
Waw An Namus is an enormous extinct volcano in Libya. This Google Maps image of that particular corner of the Sahara desert shows not just an enormous ash deposit downwind of the volcano but also, as you zoom in, a rather unusual and striking array of colours in the midst of all that ash. (I’m not sure whether the colours are due to the ash or the stretch of desert the ash happens to be partially covering.)
[Via Google Sightseeing]
I’d heard of Hour 25, a radio talk show about science fiction which has been running on noncommercial radio in Los Angeles for some thirty years now, but I didn’t realise that the show was available online.
I spent some time today listening to an interview with Terry Pratchett from late last year; with an hour to talk, the format allows plenty of space for an author to relax and ramble on about much more than their latest book. The web site has audio of shows going back to 2000 (not to mention some readings of classic SF and fantasy stories), so I think I know what I’m going to be listening to over the next few nights.
[Via MetaFilter]
I think I’m going to enjoy working my way through the archive of PartiallyClips if this is anything to go by.
[Via Websnark]
The War on Terror As Viewed from the Bourne Shell:
$ cd /middle_east $ ls Afghanistan Iraq Libya Saudi_Arabia UAE Algeria Israel Morrocco Sudan Yemen Bahrain Jordan Oman Syria Egypt Kuwait Palestine Tunisia Iran Lebanon Qatar Turkey $ cd Afghanistan $ ls bin Taliban $ rm Taliban rm: Taliban is a directory $ cd Taliban $ ls soldiers $ rm soldiers $ cd .. $ rmdir Taliban rmdir: directory "Taliban": Directory not empty $ cd Taliban $ ls -a . .. .insurgents [...]
Hideously geeky, but very nicely done.
[Via Blog.org]
Slate’s Explainer column, prompted by a review of the pilot episode of Over There, Stephen Bochco’s new drama about a platoon of American troops on active duty in Iraq, answers one of those questions you didn’t really want to know the answer to: Can your legs keep running if your torso gets blown away?
Students at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have created Kobito, a bizarre yet oddly hypnotic augmented reality system: a bunch of invisible dwarves push a tea caddy around a breakfast table, and you can push back. And no, this is not a video game: it’s done on a real breakfast table with a little help from magnets, a camera tracking the movement of the tea caddy and a display to reveal the position of the dwarves.
When I look at the pictures of the system in action and watch the videos, I can’t help noticing that the kids using the system have a tendency to get bored with pushing things around and start trying to squash the dwarves. Presumably it’s just a matter of time until someone turns this concept into the next big thing in gaming.
[Via Collision Detection]
The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang is one seriously odd structure. The angular, windowless building looms over Pyongyang like something that just popped up one dark and stormy night. Probably having crossed over from a nearby hell dimension…
[Via the null device]
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey explained. It’s not really the explanation, of course - more a tenable interpretation of some of the film’s high points in the form of a really nice Flash animation.
It’s perhaps a tad longer than it needs to be, but that’s arguably a tribute to the stately pace of Kubrick’s film.
[Via MetaFilter]
Software developer Eric Sink thinks geeks who set up in business struggle because “Geeks understand market competition about as well as men understand women.” Happily, he’s found a way round this mental block: explain business principles in terms of something geeks can understand, namely games:
Sorry!
The game
Sorry! is a family board game produced by Parker Brothers. Each player has four “pawns”. The goal is to move all four of your pawns from a starting point to the finish. Each turn, you draw a card and move one pawn the number of spaces indicated on the card. (Sorry! is a registered trademark of Parker Brothers.)The principle
In order to move a pawn into the finishing area, you have to draw the exact number you need. If you are 3 spaces away and you draw a 5, then you can’t move. The effect of this rule is that every game of Sorry! ends up being close. A player can get way ahead, but they almost always slow down at the end as it takes them several turns to draw the card they need to win.How software is similar
In software product competition, things are often set up favorably for the other players to catch up to the leader. By nature, the leader usually has more things slowing them down.
- Version 4.0 of a software product often happens more slowly than version 1.0.
- You have to implement special support for backward compatibility with your previous releases.
- You have to implement the features your customers want instead of the ones your prospective customers want.
- You have to be careful not to break things when you are making code changes. You never want version N to be worse than version N-1.
The small ISV working on version 1.0 doesn’t have all this baggage to carry around.
In fact, I think I’ll just over-generalize and say it like this: The older your product is, the slower your development is.
Good stuff, regardless of whether you’re a geek with a good idea or merely an end user with an interest in how the software business works.
It turns out that the Clowns of America International have a Code of Ethics:
The Eight Clown Commandments
- I will keep my acts, performance and behavior in good taste while I am in costume and makeup. I will remember at all times that I have been accepted as a member of the clown club only to provide others, principally children, with clean clown comedy entertainment. I will remember that a good clown entertains others by making fun of himself or herself and not at the expense or embarrassment of others.
- I will learn to apply my makeup in a professional manner. I will provide my own costume. I will carry out my appearance and assignment for the entertainment of others and not for personal gain or personal publicity when performing for either the International club or alley events. I will always try to remain anonymous while in makeup and costume as a clown, though there may be circumstances when it is not reasonably possible to do so.
[…]
Who knew?
[Via Exclamation Mark]
Steven Johnson has a suggestion for Senator Hillary Clinton, who wants to spend US$90 million to investigate the effects of videogames on youngsters:
Dear Sen. Clinton:
I’m writing to commend you for calling for a $90-million study on the effects of video games on children, and in particular the courageous stand you have taken in recent weeks against the notorious “Grand Theft Auto” series.
I’d like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids — a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.
I’m talking, of course, about high school football.
I know a congressional investigation into football won’t play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2. […]
I suspect Johnson isn’t holding his breath…
Or, as Gary Farber put it, heh…
[The article goes on to enumerate some of the arguments that I gather Johnson puts forward in his latest book about the benefits of video games, in terms of players learning to assimilate, evaluate large quantities of information, master complex rules and formulate winning strategies. I’m not convinced on the basis of this article alone, but I’m sufficiently intrigued to look out for the paperback release of the book so I can find out whether Johnson can persuade me of his case.]
[Via Amygdala]
If you’re in the UK, please consider signing up to this pledge:
“I will create a standing order of 5 pounds per month to support an organisation that will campaign for digital rights in the UK but only if 1000 other people will too.”
Danny O’Brien’s post explains how such a relatively small sum could be the start of something big:
Half our problem in the UK right now is that the press just don’t have anyone in their address books that they can confidently call about on these issues. As Rufus said, most of the time they just run music industry press releases as news. The biggest lesson for me with NTK was that your best way to influence the agenda, and generate support, is to generate stories, and point people to the right experts. Just having someone at the end of a phone, handing out quotes and press releases, and pro-actively calling journalists to make sure they know what’s going on, putting them in contact with all the other orgs in this area in the UK, is half the work.
[Via plasticbag.org]