I learned a few weeks ago that Haloscan is shutting down and I'm going to lose all of my comments from the last seven years (so if you want to go back and reread them, now is the time). Today I learned that Blogger is shutting down FTP publishing (the system whereby my blog posts are hosted on my own site instead of Blogger's), which means this blog is going to cease to function in about a month. I'm going to hold off posting here until I figure out what to do about it. I may just archive this blog and start a new one.
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Thursday, April 2
Defining "Predation"
"Unfortunately, youth don't have the same judgment as adults," she said, "and often, adults don't have the same technical savvy as the youth."
That seems to be a fairly decent summary of one of the issues in this case and the larger issue of the underage voluntarily producing media that falls under the umbrella of child pornography. I think everyone (except of course the teenagers involved and actual sexual predators) would agree that this is not a good thing, a self-destructive whim much in the same vein as binge drinking or drug use, likely saddled with the concomitant themes of peer pressure and a search for acceptance. As well, I'm sure there are adults on the receiving end of these exchanges who are fully accountable to both ethical standards and legal statutes who *should* be appropriately culpable.
I can't, however, help but find the idea of charging the minors with possession and distribution of child pornography, with its associated penal consequences and its basically forever stigma of "registered sex offender," to be out of line with the intentions of the statutes that make those charges possible: catching "predators" and preventing them from harming other children. Just as we don't charge the suicidal with attempted murder or the self-harming with assault (but rather provide counseling and psychiatric care), it seems unwarranted to impose a harsh punishment on a child for "preying" on herself when counseling and education seem a much more productive course. The acid test is the question of whether she poses a threat to other children, now or in the future. I would hope the legal authorities take the time to ask that question.
I would gladly stand in line for a runway show if the models were sporting a formal Tommy Hilfiger Sword and a puce Kenneth Cole Fusion Reaction Jetpack.
That's my favorite quote of the day today. I wonder why. :)
An introduction to the "Daft" viral world, for those of you left out. Daft Punk is an electronic music band that has been around since the early 90s (most famous in the U.S. for the songs "Around the World" in 1997 and "One More Time" in 2001). Also included on the 2001 album was a song called "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," which most of the U.S. missed. It was re-released as a live version in 2007 (where I found it on iTunes) and subsequently bastardized into a hip-hop song by one of the numerous rappers I can't tell apart (where it saw wider U.S. airplay, so if you heard that version first . . . I'm sorry).
The "Daft" viral videos took off in mid-2007, beginning with the original "Daft Hands." The videos are an example of musical kinesthesiology, of a sort; the motions of the performers create the lyrics of the song, and as the lyrics speed up, the performers speed up into more intricate patterns. This works because the song has a grand total of 19 words, and several of them share most of their letters (our/hour, ever/never) which lowers the total number of letters required even further.
"Daft Hands" was the original and most popular (with something like 28 million YouTube views). It spawned dozens of "hands" copies (all of these start slow, by the way; the impressive choreography isn't until later in the song).
It was followed about four months later by "Daft Bodies," which featured two women with silver boxes on their heads (which were later parodied in numerous other viral videos). A plethora of other "bodies" videos appeared not long after.
The next step, of course, was multiple people. A rugby team did a presentation of it and posted it online, followed by a student council somewhere (which has my favorite choreography):
I find the interplay of music and motion and the translation of motion into music an interesting subject and I think this is a good example of it. I'd have done a choreography like this in school as a presentation.
Just in case you needed something to make you feel smart today:
I don't necessarily disagree with her point (that we've polluted our environment to the point that the effects are noticeable), but perhaps the specific details of the pollution should be left to people with slightly more training in the scientific fields.
For the man who has almost everything, nuclear-grade duct tape (perfect for patching up nuclear power plants . . .) at 97% off list price. I'm even more amused that the most closely related item in the "things people buy after viewing this product" section is a Rubik's Cube.
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Tuesday, December 16
Here There Be Dragons
I'm sincerely hoping none of my family and acquaintances are still using the pox upon humanity known as Internet Explorer (I've installed Firefox on all of my family's computers, so if any of you are using IE you're in big trouble), but if by some odd chance you are, you need to stop. Now. This is as good a time as any to switch to Firefox (or Safari or Chrome or what have you). Just trust me on this one.
Points to Cris for pointing me to Kina Grannis. Grannis is a "Web 2.0" musician, someone who has embraced the Internet as a component of her art rather than simply a way to distribute it. While she has released a few CDs to iTunes, her biggest presence is on YouTube, where she releases a new homemade video each week, featuring either an original song or a cover and concluding with several minutes of "video blog," where she updates her fans on what's going on in her life, answers questions and rambles in general. The effect is that her music and personality come packaged together, in addition to spotlighting a path that is open to any aspiring musician.
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Saturday, September 20
Digital Fingerprints
I'm not the only person engaging in befuddled head-scratching over Microsoft's most recent spate of confusing television advertisements.
- First came the egregiously expensive $300 million Seinfeld ads that supposedly helped "humanize" the company by showing comedian Jerry Seinfeld and "the man" Bill Gates interacting with "normal people" in a shoe store and moving in with a "normal family" for a week, but actually ended up showing Gates to be a pompous ass who complains about leftovers and tips poorly, and nothing in the ads related in any form whatsoever to Windows Vista. The third completed ad was shelved without being released.
- Then came the "Mojave Experiment," where short clips of "real customer interviews" being shown what was supposedly a new operating system called "Mojave" but which in reality was Windows Vista demonstrated that people think the operating system is "neat" or "cool" if it's shown out of the context of its readily deserved criticism. Of course, the commercials don't actually show what the customers are seeing on the screen and offer no rebuttal to the reasons people have downgraded back to XP or labeled Vista as seriously flawed, and more importantly the customers see Vista running on a state-of-the-art laptop that can actually run Vista properly, not a much cheaper "standard" laptop that most people buy or already own.
- Most recently, Microsoft launched its "I'm a PC" ad line aimed directly at Apple's popular-if-snobbish "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" commercials. Notably, they don't say "I'm Windows Vista," which does nothing to brand this as a Windows commercial and may actually just be free advertising for Dell. And most interestingly of all, the ads were made on a Mac, something Microsoft tried to hide as soon as it was discovered.
All in all, Vista has become a significant embarrassment for Microsoft, with 60% of corporate companies indicating no plans to upgrade to it and most PC dealers bundling it with an option to downgrade to XP. This for an operating system that will be officially two years old in January. But all of that aside, Microsoft's schizophrenic advertising has become so muddled that it's likely to have no impact at all on Vista's adoption. Sure, Apple makes expensive hardware and dips well into the "pretentious" vault on a regular basis, but at least its commercials are understandable.
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Tuesday, September 16
Editorial Review
Yahoo's front-page news had this wonderful gem as a "featured article" today. Your car may be covered in bacteria? Guess what, *everything* is covered in bacteria, and most of it is harmless (or even beneficial). My god. There are more bacterial cells than human cells in your body and 40 *million* cells in a gram of soil. Bacteria make up an enormous percentage of the world's biomass. We've been coexisting with them for hundreds of thousands of years; I highly doubt you're suddenly going to catch some fatal bacterial infection from your dashboard in your lifetime. Why bother scaring people with figures they're not going to understand out of context?
And just to add insult to injury:
". . . a study finding the typical car has 283 different types of bacteria present in every square centimeter (square inch)."
Yeah, one square centimeter is 0.155 square inches. So not only do we think people aren't smart enough to know what a centimeter is (which is actually possible), we also "help" them out with incorrect information. Go science and math standards in the U.S.! Yay!
Courtesy of Cris, a somewhat-cheesy-at-first-but-it-gets-better homemade video to my favorite Daft Punk song (the version without the crappy rap lyrics over it). This also helps explain one of the scenes in the new Weezer video that I didn't get before.
This seems like an oddly specific Web banner. Are there a lot of people who read Web comics who happen to run fishing tournaments and who are also looking to start Web sites? The peculiarity is only enhanced by its placement as part of a triptych banner of unrelated ads; the other two were for an HDTV and a once-a-month birth control implant.
Sometimes I think scammers would do well to hire a good (albeit ethically loose) proofreader to polish the nonsense they distribute. There seems to be no shortage of people on the Internet offering to clean up resumes, Web sites and other published material, although I do admit that the quality of these services is somewhat suspect until the results are displayed. Hopefully, they would know not to put exclamation points into a missive supposedly originating with a major corporate entity (and could polish out the missing articles, because nothing says "this wasn't penned by a literate English writer" like "If you are not customer").
Perhaps of more importance than appropriate business-style grammar and format, though, is the give-away involved in announcing that, even though the e-mail is going out to all Chase customers, if the recipient isn't a member of Chase Bank he or she can ignore (again with the exclamation point!) the e-mail in its entirety (bolding mine in the picture). Very polite. Not particularly bright.
Seriously, where is the doctoral-candidate-in-English mastermind writing these things on the side for pizza money who actually understands how to write to the audience and make it look realistic?
For the past few weeks I've been watching various sites for Canon lens deals so I can upgrade from my current walk-around lens. On Friday the following ad popped up on the local Craig's List board:
"Canon EOS 5D 12.8 Megapixel w/ EF 24-105 Kit- $1100"
Right of the bat this seemed odd to me. The poster was advertising it as "like new," having only used it for "50 shots" before deciding he didn't need a full-frame camera. The language in the ad actually showed some degree of knowledge of cameras, but at the same time he's asking $1,100 for a nearly $3,000 camera. The lens alone is worth what he was asking for the package.
So I passed. I did forward it to Lisa with a joke about how I'd give her my XTi for free if she'd buy me this one, but other than that I forgot about it.
On Saturday afternoon it was still there, and I finally broke down and sent a query about the condition and original purchase point (no harm there). As usual, I used one of my "throw away" e-mail addresses so in case it *was* a scam I could just junk the e-mail address when I started receiving spam from it. No response came on Saturday, and within about three hours the ad was removed from Craig's List. I figured the seller had found a buyer and removed the ad to keep from receiving further inquiries.
Fast forward to this morning (Monday), when I receive the following:
> -------Original Message------- > From: Robert Armes > To: [my throw-away craigslist.org address] > Subject: Canon EOS 5D 12.8 Megapixel w/ EF 24-105 Kit- $1100 > Sent: 14 Apr '08 13:14 > > Hi there, > > I still have the Kit. But the thing is that i'm in the U.K. for my > school ( i have the gear with me), if you're still interested in the sale > please let me know and maybe we can work something out . So drop me a line > if you're up for grabs! > Thank you! > > > Robert Armes > 420, Prescot Rd, Old Swan, Liverpool, Merseyside L13 3DA > United Kingdom > Ph: 44 20 3014 7453
Alarm bells. First off, he didn't answer any of my questions. Second, he's suddenly in England, two days after advertising on an Omaha posting board? For school (a long-term obligation)? Why even bother to advertise it here? Third, now we're talking shipping charges, which defeats the purpose of Craig's List (local buying and selling) and introduces the potential for scams and fraud.
So I Googled his name and a few other pieces of information from the e-mail. It took less than 15 seconds to come up with a Flickr discussion board with posts from people who have received the exact same offer (using the same name and address) on the Craig's List boards of Seattle and Chicago. Some of the contributors to the board pursued it further than I did and had received instructions for sending payment through a faked-but-authentic-sounding shipping company.
Just a reminder that things that sound too good to be true probably are.
To most people, the lines of code that make up a computer program are meaningless symbols. To make computer threats more "personal," digital artist Alex Dragulescu has used the code of a variety of viruses and spyware programs to render unique three-dimensional images that add a "face" to the programs' names. His next project, an even more interesting venture, will use a person's blog and other online projects to create a three-dimensional "picture" of that person's online life.
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Wednesday, January 16
Purpose-Driven
I found an interesting article yesterday on the transformation from paper- to electronic-based information channels and how traditional information establishments (libraries, newspapers, encyclopedias, etc.) are failing to adapt. The author presents the idea (one with which I agree) that the traditional establishments are confusing what they do with what they're for (the difference between selling physical newspapers and providing a summary of information in a convenient method that consumers find both appealing and trustworthy). I think a good example of this is Omaha's local paper, which is substantially behind in its adoption of technology. For several years the World-Herald's Web version consisted of a password-protected, poorly navigable electronic copy of its print version (accounts were free, but still a hassle), which meant no one I know used it (it was impossible to forward it on by hyperlink or e-mail and you had to know enough about an article to search for it if it didn't appear on the front page). The real killer, though, was that the site had no "personality"; it was a straight dump of the paper version, with an implied feeling of "we'd prefer you buy the physical copy, but since you aren't going to do that and this seems to be expected, fine, here you go." In an information sphere where a specific newspaper doesn't have an exclusive lock on material, readers have no incentive to return to that site (it doesn't help that they use pop-up advertisements; horribly unprofessional).
The same concepts hold for all other content providers. Music companies are clinging to CD sales as though their actual purpose is to sell CDs, as opposed to distributing the material an artist produces to people who are interested in hearing it, even if that doesn't involve a CD. The purpose of libraries isn't to loan books; it is to provide access to the "printed" works (in whatever format is most convenient) of an author to people interested in seeing that author's work. The fact that the book has been the most convenient method of doing that for a few centuries doesn't mean libraries should define themselves as "book lenders"; that's a fast lane to obsolescence in an information sphere. You can also see this in the switch from film to digital photography; I have a box of photos I took before my first digital camera, collecting dust in my basement, where no one sees them, and 1,500 digital photos with descriptions and searchable tags online, most of which have never been printed but have been seen by dozens of family members, friends and strangers around the world. I still have a camera, and I still show the results of my photography to people, but the information channel in between the two is radically different from what it was 15 years ago (because my purpose isn't to make photographic prints; it's to share my art with people).
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Friday, December 28
For the Geeks, a Silent Moment
Even though I switched to Internet Explorer after college and then to the far-superior Firefox a few years ago, it's still sad to see the official "death" of Netscape Navigator, the browser I and most other early Internet adopters used to explore the World Wide Web in the mid-to-late nineties. It's like hearing an old friend has passed on.
In the sun, that is. People can quit teasing me about my stunning vampire-like complexion and OCD-esque avoidance of sunlight now. It's bad for you, all around. :P I'll get my Vitamin D from my food.
On a completely unrelated note (although also gleaned from the morass known formally as "the Internet"), this is fantastic. Pachelbel would have loved it.
And on yet another completely unrelated (and extremely geeky) note, Harley sent me this today. I'd imagine "steampunk" isn't a term familiar to the majority of the audience, but it's one of my favorite fiction genres (a fact easily gleaned from my near-obsession with the Myst game series and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura).
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Wednesday, March 14
Kilopost
This entry marks my one-thousandth post. In the words of Kyle, "go me." To celebrate, I'm making it an "open comment" entry. If you read this, post a comment (even you lurkers who never post). ;)
Are You an Internet Addict? Symptoms to watch out for:
1. Lying about how much time is spent online. Pass. I've never lied about my online time. I suppose the fact that I live alone factors into that.
2. General decrease of physical activity and social life. Neutral. This supposes a pre-existing social life; I've actually done more with friends this year than in previous years, a result of having a house rather than a cramped apartment. Physical activity is another story. I've not decreased, but I've not increased as much as I'd like, either (although not for online time reasons).
3. Neglecting obligations at home, work, or school to spend time online. Pass. I'm good at obligations. I've yet to skip one to be online.
4. Spending too much money on computer equipment or Internet activities. Pass. Amazingly, the last money I spent on computers was the Lightscribe drive I bought 10 months ago. I guess I did update Norton, but it was reluctantly. I suppose I should take this again after I shell out $2,000 for a Mac.
5. Feeling a constant desire to be online when they're away from the computer. Pass. I like being online, but I routinely skip it when I visit my parents.
6. Going online to escape real world problems. Hrm. Neutral/fail. I do spend a lot of time talking to people online rather than meeting people in person.
7. Disregarding the emotional or physical consequences of being in front of a computer all day. Pass.