A Windows program by the name of DVDFlick produces what might be the best error message ever:
Now would be a good time to start crying, because technically, this is the end of the world.
To give the programmer his or her due, the dialog box does go on to give quite a lot of information about precisely why it thinks the end of the world is nigh. I have no idea what a user would do with that information, mind you…
Meg Pickard's post about AmazonFAIL is far and away the sanest, most balanced account I've read of the whole sorry affair.
There's a great deal to be learned from this fiasco; not just for Amazon, but also by users1 of social media.
GHOSTBUSTERS: Unemployed college professors destroy hotel with nuclear weapons.
[...]
HALLOWEEN: Babysitter's relationship with murderer places children in danger.
[...]
LORD OF THE RINGS: Midget destroys stolen property.
[...]
RED DAWN: Despite shock-and-awe tactics, a superior occupying force is no match for a tenacious sect of terrorist insurgents.
[Via MetaFilter]
Emily Lakdawalla demonstrates why it's well worth looking closely at seemingly mundane astronomical photographs: in this case, a image of part of Saturn's ring system…
Why's this image cool? We're looking at the rings, and the long skinny finger coming in to the image from the bottom is clearly the shadow from one of the moons. But wait, this image rewards closer inspection. Let's zoom in…
Follow the link to find out what's so interesting.1
How many of these "Modernist Editions" of classic album covers can you identify?
I managed 11 out of 25: pretty poor, really.
If ever there was a Criterion Collection of "important classic and contemporary" games, perhaps they'd look something like this.
I'm old enough that I've never even heard of two-thirds of the games listed, let alone played them, so I'm sure I'm missing out on dozens of in-jokes and subtle allusions in the various designs. I don't care: I just really like some of the artwork. (Specifically this, this, this, this and – above all – this.)
[Via Fimoculous]
Statebook: what do you want to know about $CITIZEN now?
[Via Open Rights Group]
Quote of the week, from a conservative councillor from Poznan by the name of Michal Grzes:
We didn't pay 37 million zlotys for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there.
[Via FP Passport]
My favourite comment of the week, by a mile:
The principal of their Sheepshead Bay school said, "Kids actually think being a nerd is cool now."
I can't tell you how annoyed I am by this quote. It so pregnant with top-shelf American ignorance it would take an Olympic team of semioticians and literary theorists to fully deconstruct it. [...]
posted by Pastabagel at 8:00 PM on April 10
My favourite part of this interview with John Lloyd1 is the anecdote at the end about Norman Tebbit.
Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.
My favourite read of the week, by a mile.
[Via MetaFilter]
Mark Lawson meets film critic Mark Kermode:
I know about film and not really anything else, with the possible exception of skiffle.
Lawson is wrong to contend that Kermode [tends to...] over-praise horror movies
: in my experience Mark Kermode is quite hard on formulaic, predictable horror films. What makes him different from many broadsheet critics is that he's happy to give praise where it's due to horror films that try to do something different, or that simply give a particular set of genre tropes a thorough, satisfying workout.
Finally, I must observe that I'm rather taken with the notion that Mark Kermode is a Sunday school teacher. (Or not.)
The Easter Bunny donated his body to science. Funny. Sick. But mostly funny.
[Via web-goddess]
Matt Haughey: Thoughts from the bottom of a ditch after veering off the road while reading email on my iPhone while riding my road bike near a farm.
Stephen D Crocker, who was around back in 1969 when the internet was young, reflects on how the Internet got its rules:1
When CERN physicists wanted to publish a lot of information in a way that people could easily get to it and add to it, they simply built and tested their ideas. Because of the groundwork we'd laid in the R.F.C.'s, they did not have to ask permission, or make any changes to the core operations of the Internet. Others soon copied them – hundreds of thousands of computer users, then hundreds of millions, creating and sharing content and technology. That's the Web.
Put another way, we always tried to design each new protocol to be both useful in its own right and a building block available to others. We did not think of protocols as finished products, and we deliberately exposed the internal architecture to make it easy for others to gain a foothold.
[Via Memex 1.1]
Are we sure this story wasn't published a few days late?
Sainsbury's has renamed Pollack as Colin because, it said, potential buyers were too embarrassed to ask for pollack, a cheap and plentiful cod substitute. After a marketing revamp by the designer Wayne Hemingway, and extensive market research, Sainsbury's hopes colin will revitalise the market for the fish.
[...]
Image really is everything; so to help colin stand out on-shelf we've used bold, bright colours and a design that is cheekily inspired by another well-known 'Pollock' [the artist Jackson Pollock]. The new-look colin sleeve will be the star of the Sainsbury's store; we expect coach-loads to travel by land and sea to see it.
[Via The Null Device]
I'm having severe difficulty visualising Safety Cricket, a mobile phone game promoting safe sex that has reportedly been downloaded by 10 million Indians:
The game teaches young people about preventing HIV transmission while they indulge in India's favorite sporting pastime. Offered in regional languages and in low-resolution form, the game praises high scorers for being faithful to their sexual partners. Protective cricket helmets are equated to condoms.
Protective cricket helmets are equated to condoms.
How would that work in a gaming context, exactly?
[Via Net Effect]
The Lost Tribes of New York City. A simple idea,1 beautifully implemented.
Be sure to stick around for the post-credits scene.
[Via MetaFilter]
Roger Ebert has fond memories of his early years as a Chicago newspaperman:
Yes, they allowed reporters to smoke at their decks in those days. Also drink, if they could get away with it. Reporters sent Milton the Copyboy out the loading dock and under Michigan Avenue to Billy Goat's, to fetch them a drink in a paper coffee cup, accompanied by cream and sugar as camouflage. Copyboys were known as wise-ass insiders with an angle on everything, but Milton became a legend. It was rumored that he might be harboring small quantities of retail marijuana on his person. He occasionally engaged reporters on deadline with his opinions about large questions dealing with being and nothingness. He had been a University of Chicago student and still lived in Hyde Park. That explained everything.
One day an inspector from the Chicago Post Office came to our editor, James Hoge, with a puzzling discovery. Several hundred empty envelopes addressed to Ann Landers had been found in the trash behind an address in Hyde Park. With an eerie certainty, Jim called in Milton and asked him for his address. Milton, whose jobs included distributing mail, had been stealing the quarters sent in for Ann Landers' pamphlet, Petting: When Does It Go Too Far? Discussing his firing after work at Billy Goat's, he was philosophical:
Hundreds of kids can thank me that they were conceived.
[Via rc3.org]
