Dagens absolutte danske top blog post: Prevn prøver (igen) at score:
- Ok. Jeg er på.
- Er du sikker?
- Jeg er på, sagde jeg.
- Hvad hedder du?
- Prevn.
The storyline and images from Ghost Town sounds and looks eerily like the post-meltdown chaos of William Gibson's art imitatiing life novel "Pattern Recognition" or maybe the Ardeur comic books of the Varenne brothers. The story: A russian girl like to take high speed motorcycle rides through the all but abandoned dead zone around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site, radiation counter in hand. She's taken an eerie series of photos of the abandoned landscape and it looks exactly like some post-apocalyptic nightmare, in fact, it is a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Military checkpoints. Entire cities of completely abandoned decrepit houses. Enormous car parks of abandoned contaminated clean up trucks and abandonede contaminated helicopters - and in the middle of that a stubborn old man riding a horse-driven carriage carrying about his business, doing a little farming - just enough to get by on his own.
Nr 2 in a series of lives imitating art
via Joi Ito
Smagspolitiet er tæt på endeligt at indkredse opholdstedet for en af de ledende skikkelser i Al-Mue bevægelsen, suppe steg og is-musikeren Johnny Bonde, kendt i Al-Mue bevægelsen under navnet "Mr. Smile".
Mr. Smile er en vigtig organisator inden for lavkulturen og organiserer adskillige lavkulturgrupper, såkaldte "suppe steg og is-musikere" i små 1, 2 og 3 mands celler i store dele af Jylland. Derudover har Mr. Smile spillet en stor rolle i i etablering af adskillige internetbaserede kommunikationsrum hvor suppe, steg og is grupperne åbent tilbyder sig til at sprede det lavkulturelle budskab over hele landet.
"Vi tager truslen mod den gode smag særdeles alvorligt" udtaler Simon Wedelkopp-Spangsberg, smagspolitiets øverstbefalende i kampagnen mod lavkultur, og fortsætter: "Suppe, steg og is netværket er tæt men består alligevel af utallige uafhængige grupper som f.eks. Spar To i Galten, Jesper Hembo og Anni Filt. De er teknisk sofistikerede og bevæger sig hjemmevant på internettet."
Efter et stigende pres fra den lavkulturelle bevægelse, med bl.a. DRs TV program Musikbutikken, hvor lavkulturelle ikoner som Kandis optrådte side om side med finkulturelle kunstnere, har kultureliten senest slået igen mod bevægelsen ved bl.a. at få fjernet Keld Heick fra DR 1's programflade.
I finkulturen fastholder man at man er nødt til at sætte hårdt mod hårdt. "De lavkulturelle betjener sig af et jævnt og letforståeligt formsprog der går lige ind hos de unge" udtaler musikeksperten Svend Steenkilde-Svendsen og henviser bl.a. til Johnny Bonde's brutale gennembrudsnr. Mr. Smile (mp3 ~ et par MB). "Der er ingen svinkeærinder og underforståede meninger her, Bonde går lige i træskoene med sit lavkulturelle positivitetsbudskab".
Making the blog rounds is the plans for the worlds first randomly assembled supercomputer. Randomly assembled meaning in this case that it will be made up of just the machines of the people who show up.
This presents interesting ideas for a lot of other venues: Why don't some airport sponsor a flash mob computing event: Provide the airport WiFi link as the networking infrastructure for free. Or how about The Cinnamon Decaf Soymilk Extra Grande Moccachino Computer - made of Starbucks patron computers all over the world. Donate the time to SETI and give away free muffins with every detected radio spike.
Reports are coming in that the Bush administration will no longer protect homosexuals from discrimination in the workplace (getting fired). This right after watching a heated and interesting debat over whether (lack of) democracy in and of itself would have been a sufficient reason to fight the war in Iraq.
Like David Weinberger (from whom I stole the link) I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the details. But the story that offices within the Bush Administration is looking into the Legal Interpretation of Discrimination Statutes is correct.
Verden er fuld af henstillinger fra moderne forandringsparate kreative mennesker med henstillinger om at man endelig skal huske at sælge sig selv - det er sådan man virkelig bliver til noget. For når man først bliver god til det, så kan man blive brandet og det er først for alvor lykken.
Det er interessant hvordan sproget på den måde kan vende. Personligt har jeg svært ved at slå billedet af Alexandre Dumas' kvindelige superskurk Milady ud af hovedet når jeg hører om at blive branded, hvilket jo oprindeligt betød brændemærket. Milady solgte sig selv, og hun blev skam også branded med en lilje på skulderen for det.
Uden at lyde alt for 60-årig og venstreorienteret kan man godt more sig over den vending i sproget - at "sælge sig selv" er blevet et positivt begreb. Som en af mine venner sagde da jeg gjorde ham opmærksom på sammentræffet - "Prostitueret er endnu ikke blevet et positivt ord, men mon ikke det kommer".
Esther J., 13 ?r, Gudn?sstrand synes at "Pigen med den bl? cykel" er en god bog p.g.a.
- detaljerne
- historien
- beskrivelserne af krigen
- romantikken
Til geng?ld er hun ret utilfreds med alt det sex. Som hun skriver "Pigen med den bl? cykel er en serie p? 8 b?ger, men jeg har kun l?st op 6'eren... jeg vil dog kun andmelde de tre f?rste fordi de er de klart bedste..... indtil videre... men alts? bogen er for drenge/piger p? min. 13 ?r, fordi de i bogen knepper rimlig meget.... "
Glimrende initiativ fra Dalager: En weblog for mikrofiktion. Mikrofiktion er korte prosastykker, under en side lange i fort?llende form, som f.eks. hos Borges, Auster, Italo Calvino eller vores egen Peer Hultberg i Byen og Verden. I researchen til denne post ledte jeg naturligvis efter noen forfatterlinks at proppe p? og op poppede Dalagers Byen og Verden personindeks s? der er ikke noget tilf?ldigt i at det netop er Dalager der sponserer Mikrofiktion. Nogen vil m?ske undre sig over at jeg n?vner Borges og Auster iblandt mikrofiktionisterne, men begges ivrige korte referater fra fiktive v?rker er eksempler p? genren - og Borges er ber?mt for en bem?rkning om at han hellere ville forklare en genial id? p? 5 sider til en roman p? 500 sider, end faktisk skrive romanen. Det m? v?re selve mikrofiktionistens credo: At udelade absolut alt der kan undv?res uden at ideen forsvinder.
Hvis man skal komme med en kritik af den m?de genren praktiseres p? hos Mikrofiktion s? skulle det v?re at for mange af fiktionerne pr?ver at f? en egentlig fort?lling ud af den korte form. Efter min smag egner mikrofiktionen sig bedre som hurtige billeder, s?dan at teksterne i virkeligheden st?r mere frit sv?vende som om de var del af en st?rre fiktion som lades ukendt.
Jeg holder selv meget af genren og har s?gar blogget et stykke for noen tid siden som der derfor nu er anledning til at gentage, let parafraseret:
"I'm sorry Sir, you just lost your world privileges"
Since your name is David Nelson your rights to interact with computer systems has been revoked. If you desire to interact with any computer system that requires you to use your name, then that system will be permanently unavailable to you. You should consider yourself lucky though. There are other names out there, so powerful, that having them will lead to your immediate apprehension.
If you desire in the future to interact with anything we suggest you change your name. We should point out however that a record of a name change while adult is itself an immediate red flag to monitoring authorities. You will be watched.
Via Tim Bray we learn that the cool french form of weblogger is obviously weblogueur
Fodmusen er opfundet.
Del af en serie.
Ifølge MS Words danske stavekontrol er der noget der hedder en "tisselampe".
Del af en serie
En empirisk undersøgelse godtgør at stavekontrollen simpelthen forstår den regel for dansk at vi har fri dannelse af sammensatte navneord, så "spadepølse" er også i orden.
Man skal ikke stole på journalisters evne til at videregive præcise kvantitative data. Den før omtalte artikel fra Science har jeg fået i hænde via C-køkkenets velforbundne net af læsere så jeg nu kan meddele hvad der faktisk stod: Der stod at, givet et bestemt mål for populationsstørrelse beskrevet i artiklen, så er hhv. 71%, 54% og 28% af respektive sommerfugle, fugle og plantearter observeret i de bagvedliggende feltstudier gået tilbage. De er altså ikke udryddet men blot gået tilbage. Samtidig er andre arter gået frem, men det vigtige i artiklen er altså to ting:
- Dels er der en koncentration på færre arter
- Dels er de arter der er gået frem gået mindre frem end de der er gået tilbage er gået tilbage - det ser altså også skidt ud med forekomsterne i det hele taget.
Tallene for udryddelse er i størrelsesordenen 3% for sommerfugle (som er skrøbelige) 1% for planteliv og 0% for fugle. Tallene er skræmmende nok som de er, så det er en skam at skruen lige har fået en ekstra drejning i Wired.
For lidt over et år siden kunne man I Information læse Claus Brylds idiotiske meninger om vores nutid. Bland de begreber han slyngede omkring sig var naturødelæggelsen. Måske fortjener det endda at stå med stort: Naturødelæggelsen. I den sammenhæng det forekom var det et tåbeligt og overfladisk mærkat til karakteristik af en politisk modstander, men interesse for miljøets velbefindende er naturligvis legitim, Bryld, Lomborg og andre politiserende referenter til trods. I den forbindelse er en nylig artiken på Wired News interessant. Den gennemgår en artikel i Wired som er en studie i Science om udviklingen i diversitet af fugle-, plante- og insektliv i Storbritannien over de sidste 40 år.
Det viser sig at chokerende 71 % af de sommerfuglearter man kendte for 40 år siden i Storbritannien i dag er udryddet (jeg forstår artiklen som om det er "arter" og ikke populationsstørrelser; men det kan være forkert - jeg har ikke adgang til artiklen.) Det er virkelig et brutalt tal. Fugle- og planteliv har klaret sig bedre men stadig er der en voldsom tilbagegang over de 40 år.
Det man egentlig gerne ville have var en kurve over forløbet så man kunne se om der er en stadig acceleration af tilbagegangen eller om den er jævnt fordelt over de 40 år.
I den forbindelse hoppede jeg forbi Science for at se om der stod lidt mere - stor var min overraskelse da jeg kunne læse at:
Jeg var overhovedet ikke logget ind jeg surfede bare forbi. Er det en bug eller en kombination af smart location detection, marketing og dansk statslig service?
The 802 series of wireless data protocols is about to get a new member dubbed WiMAX. The key point about the new standard is dramatically improved reach to the point where covering cities with fast wireless becomes very simple.
3G is doomed. Telephone companies based on a "voice" business model are doomed. Telephony that does not just travel on the open worldwide data network is doomed.
First manufacturing, next paper peddling, then callcenters and now the outsourcing to India has begun also for writing as CNET's builder.com moves some of its freelance writing budget off shore. The English language is probably the biggest success in open source history. Free to use, free to extend and a worldwide standard for the exchange of information.
English actually replaced another language, Latin, as the market leader because of latin's closed source origin within the catholic church. People didn't really like the terms of use of catholicism so in the 1500's open source alternatives to catholicism started springing up and with them the Latin monopoly for knowledge exchange started splintering. In it's day (which outlasted catholic dominance by hundreds of years) Latin was no less global: Scientific journals were published locally, translated into Latin for distribution across Europe and then republished in the other countries in their local language.
Caveats: (<- see how some parts of Latin lives on even in English. Something for the lawyers to look into)
When I say that Latin was global, I mean of course that it was used all over Europe.
The fact of translation of scientific journals is anecdotal. I need to document that somehow. Watch for updates.
...David E. Malloy of the Herald Dispatch for this, Ironton, impressive Ironton area display - Ironton - of local news. Would you all please say "Ironton" one more time:
Man reports shotgun fired at his Ironton mobile home
IRONTON -- The following information was obtained from Lawrence County Sheriff?s Department reports:
A 38-year-old Ironton area man reported Friday a 30-year-old Ironton area man fired a shotgun into his trailer.
Sheriff?s deputies arrested Ronnie L. Faulkner, 30, of 29 Township Road 229, Ironton, on a felony charge of discharging a firearm at or into a dwelling and a misdemeanor charge of using weapons while intoxicated.
How is it possible, even thinkable, that Bill Clinton's unwillingness to answer completely unjustified questions about his sexlife (yes I know he was giving testimoy at the time) can cause him years of political trouble, turning him into a lame duck president for a considerable time, whereas a consistent rhetoric of lies from all senior members of George Bush's staff for over a year only threatens to cost Bush the election. I realize George Lakoff has an explanation but I still can't comprehend how half a nation could be so happy to close its eyes on so obvious, consistent and wide ranging deception.
There is no scale to lies apparently. The importance of the lie does not scale with the consequences of it.
At the same time these people are quickly stealing free speech - no courts involved - Doc Searls follows this scandal closely and eloquently.
Just saw the fascinating Stone Reader - a documentary by Mark Moskowitz about the search for a long forgotten writer and the story of his only book, "The Stones of Summer".
The film looks and sounds like a reenactment of one of Paul Auster's plots, more specifically the plot of "The Locked Room" from The New York Trilogy: Like in Auster's book(s) it unfolds as an obsessed search for something, an elusive bit of Americana, a search for the creator of some obscure but significant cultural artifact. Like Auster's books it is told in the first person by the obsessed searcher himself (of course he is a man) and varies between reflections on writing, interviews with people found on the trail of the lost creator, and beatiful images from all over USA as our protagonist travels all over the place to follow even the most obscure clues in search of his long lost dream. Even the title of the quasimythical book, "The Stones of Summer", and the name of its author, Dow Mossman, have an Auster ring to them.
Apart from the captivating story of a brilliant writer who simply stopped writing (Auster again!), Moskowitz himself has one of the finest moments when he walks around his living room talking to the camera while he is putting away rolls of film. He comments on the footage he is storing and says "This is the interview with so-and-so. I haven't even seen it yet although you probably have - because in the film we will have shown that by now". The mixing of different times; that of creation with that of watching is another Auster touch.
As some of the commentary I found points out, the film does however have the little problem that we feel cheated a bit by Moskowitz self-conscious search:
Moskowitz’s quest is, fundamentally, a bit dishonest. He claims to exhaust all his resources — he even visits the guy who designed the jacket for Mossman’s book — but he avoids the best sources like they were bill collectors. In Iowa City he finally connects with William Cotter Murray, who was Mossman’s advisor at the University of Iowa and one of several people to whom The Stones of Summer was dedicated. Murray tells him casually that Mossman lives up the road in Cedar Rapids. You might think that Murray should have been one of the first people the filmmaker contacted, and you’d be right.
But as the commentary continues, this is easily forgiven, if for no other reason then because the story is so enjoyable.
Incidentally, that last quote was found on Culture Snob - which looks to be a very nice website on the kinds of culture us snobs tend to like - they even have a piece on The Locked Room.
Microsoft's iPod killer sounds very much like an N-gage style failure:
The Creative player weighs in at 330 grams (11.5 ounces) -- roughly three times as thick as an iPod and roughly twice as long to accommodate its television-quality color screen.
OK, so it's a subnotebook you can't really use for anything other than playing media. Why not just get a subnotebook then. It sounds like something that only sounds like a good idea but really isn't.
...was the nice comeback marquee of the Epworth United Methodist Church after Mel Gibsons slash'n'pray epic.
The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation is in charge of an enormous cross ministerial effort to define a coherent plan for digitizing the rather large Danish public sector. This is the true definition of programming in the large: thousands and thousands of jobs are being redefined as part of this effort since a digitized public sector is a chenged public sector. Obviously no central office could possibly hope to design the entire framework for this kind of system with any level of detail but nonetheless the strategy is being defined and documents on it have been published.
The top down focus is wisely on document standards, security standards and openness (as in the ability to review public data on yourself). The large consultancies must be salivating.
Via Gotzeblogged.
Justeren found this little gem: A CBC TV news report on this brand new thing the "word processor".
A related gem is Rob Pike's humongous (43 MB) Blit demo. Blit was an early generation windowing system with all the features we expect: Windows, menus and a mouse.
As recently commented on, Bruce Eckel is busy criticising the Java Generics proposal. In a recent post he takes a step back for a very good discussion on Static, Dynamic and Latent typing and how these various styles of typing serve to improve programmer productivity. Good stuff.
Along the way a reference to a short note by Martin Fowler on directing versus enabling approaches to development. These terms will soon become standard references in software literature.
And through more fortuitous linkage this brings us to a very readable interview with Ward "Wiki" Cunningham.
Regeringen er med den bebudede forårspakke begyndt at reagere klassisk socialdemokratisk på den fortsatte arbejdsløshed ved at pumpe en masse kapital ud i folks lommer allerede i 2004. Pengene kommer dels fra nogen fremrykkede skattelettelser. De vil utvivlsomt give nogen fremrykkede besparelser på finansloven for 2005 til efteråret, men det er selvfølgelig sjovere at holde festen først og betale regningen bagefter. Det mest skumle i forårspakken er imidlertid af man holder en pause i indbetalingerne til Den Særlige Pensionsfond. Det kan kun karakteriseres på en måde: Det er en yderligere skævvridning i generationsregnskabet. Forårspakkens præmis er at folk ikke blot sparer pengene op i stedet men faktisk bruger dem nu, og det er skidt for opsparingen og manglende opsparing påvirker især de unge.
Det er nogenlunde ligeså skummelt som da den tidligere SR regering hævede beskatningen af pensioner istedet for at gøre det rigtige og gøre op med de dødsdømte velfærdsydelser som f.eks. efterlønnen.
I DR's roundup af økonomers kommentarer er der ingen der kalder indgrebet fornuftigt eller nødvendigt. Istedet akrakteriseres det som en kortsigtet reaktion på dårlige meningsmålinger.
Ligesom der hvert efterår starter et nyt kuld børn i skolen hvorefter aviserne flyder over med historier om farligt høj fart i nærområderne og stræberforældre, så udkækkes der også hvert 2-3 år en ny generation af selvfede. I modsætning til skolebørnene arbejder de selvfede imidlertid tit på aviser så de får lov at beskrive sig selv. I de sidste ihvertfald 25 år er selvfedmen blevet karakteriseret på samme måde, som en gruppe der er
- ny
- ung
- global
- intellektuel
- kreativ
- selvbevidst
- succesorienteret
- glad for kaos, forandring, kommunikation, etc
I 80erne var det yuppies, og de skildredes primært som livsstilsfænomen, selvom betegnelsen i virkeligheden kom af yuppiernes beskæftigelse, young urban professionals. I 1991 hed de symbolanalytikere hos Robert Reich. Hos Reich er det en karakterisering set udefra af en række nye erhverv som Reich (korrekt og yderst fremsynet) postulerede ville udgøre hovedvægten i den økonomiske vækst i de moderne, rige sen- og postindustrielle samfund. Reich er økonom og hans karakteristik af symbolanalytikerne beskriver dem udelukkende som en ny produktiv klasse af medarbejdere og slet ikke som livsstilsfænomen.
Nogenlunde samtidig med Reich dukker vores helt egne Kaospiloter op med total fokus på kommunikation og netværksorganisering og den tankegang rider på en bølge op gennem boomet i 90erne. Undervejs når det at koge fuldstændig over for Rolf Jensen der proklamerer at symbolanalytikeren er blevet til symbolskaber i The Dream Society.
Så presser en krise på, men nu efter en kort pause er de selvfede nu tilbage med en let omskrevet gang Robert Reich i The Rise of The Creative Class. Såvidt man kan vurdere på den dybt overfladiske karakterisering den nye bølge giver af sig selv er der intet nyt under solen pånær en væsentlig ting:
Fra en beskrivelse af klassen som overskudspariaer (yuppies) via nyttig elite (symbolanalytikere) til netværkskultur (KaosPilots som det vist hedder) er vi nu nået til selvfedme som livsstil. I TROCC er selvfedmen blevet en livsfilosofi man skal indrette og optimere sit liv efter (du optimerer forhåbentlig dit liv? Ellers er du håbløst bagude). Det er ressourceguides med Alt for Damerne quizzer der skal give dig svar på spørgsmål som "Er din by kreativ nok til dig?" "Hvor kreativ er din virksomhed?" "Er DU kreativ?". Quizzerne har nogenlunde samme ambitionsniveau som en horoskopbaseret datingquiz i det dameblad. Tag f.eks. denneher quiz. Tåkrummende platituder om åbenhed, virksomhedskultur, flad organisation og alle de andre bannerbegreber vi har hørt til bevidstløshed op gennem 90erne.
Denne totale trivialisering af ideen om symbolanalytikeren, og bevægelsen i det offentlige billede af denne type medarbejder fra en kynisk ydre karakteristik af noget nyt og fremmed til en ny genre selvhjælpslitteratur for en nu ret bred (middel)klasse af symbolanalytikere demonstrerer selvfølgelig for os hvor god den fredsommelige økonom Reichs observation var midt på rejsen. Om kort tid vil symbolanalytikerquizzen faktisk stå i Alt for Damerne - ligesom HK og voksenuddannelsescentre over hele landet arbejder hårdt på at skabe omstillingsparate generalister der er klædt på til videnssamfundet.
Skypes rejse op ad teknologihypekurven n?ede et nyt vigtigt punkt med nyheden om at firmaet har erhvervet sig 115 mio kr venturekapital. Tim Drapers udtalelser om at Skype er "det st?rste siden Hotmail" minder mig om noget en CEO her i nabolaget engang sagde om noget andet. Man skal nu nok have v?ret der.
Penge aside s? deltog jeg for leden med Justeren i en test af Skype gruppesnak og det funkede rigtig godt. Det skal integreres bedre med nogen apps og med almindelige telefoner, men s? er det ogs? en klar vinder.
Well, sort of. You all remember of course the magical game Relate-a-zon, where you had to navigate Amazon's related items space to get from A DeWalt drill to American Psycho. Adventurers in Relate-aspace soon learned some of the features of the landscape as summarized in the FAQ. Among the observations making the game easier is the existence of hyper jumps - special products that create a relation between otherwise unrelated neighbourhoods in relate-a-space. In the space of books these special gateway links are the subject of an article in New York Times. I found the link via Jon Udell.
An interesting graphical comparison of the top 100 pages returned for a search on Yahoo and Google. The mixing is brutal: Some top 10 pages on one engine only make it into the top 70 on the other. The first page on Yahoo that is not in Google's top 100 is number 10. The first page in Google's top 100 that is not in Yahoo's is nr 9. Do search engine optimizers gete paid by the engine or by the traffic improvement by the way?
(via David Weinberger)
The Roskilde Festival is going to be insanely great: I have only seen David Bowie once and that was on a less than great greatest hits tour circa 1990. The Pixies have reformed and will be there. N*E*R*D - the funkiest outfit since back when Prince was still great in the '80s - will be there. The Hives I've been meaning to check out for a while. And we get to pay our illicit respects to DJ Danger Mouse. As a bonus I get to acquaint myself with Danish acts Blue Foundation (link currently broken) and Under Byen.
p.s. What's up with Basement Jaxx? Aren't they at Roskilde every year?
I recently bought the 1999 album The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips and find it absolutely brilliant. Brilliant melodies and a brilliant sound and both with a level of variation that is entirely uncommon.
I don't know why I missed out on The Flaming Lips back when they made this great album. I seem to recall from reviews that they were constantly reviewed in the shadow of their own camp classic "She Don't Use Jelly".
[UPDATE II: Bruce Eckel adds criticism of the same type on the new Java Generics]
I would like to add some points to the famous Why I Am Not A Java Programmer. My number 1 objection to Java is that java programming carries a basic philosphy of "Nothing but Java" and all the Java projects I have ever had to use has carried that philosphy with them in the extended philosphy "Nothing but our stuff". Everybody is making "Extensible Frameworks" but they never use the other guys frameworks. Case in point: The Eclipse IDE does not, on first install, when initially opened provide something as simple as a "File Open" in the file menu. If your resource was not created with Eclipse it does not exist. I realize that of course you can open your files but the fact that you have to think to do it is a serious alarm bell against any further use.
I simply cannot accept that I cannot casually use Java/Eclipse. Netbeans is better in this respect but only marginally so.
I like things that were created to work well "bottom up", an IDE starts as a source editor and then attaches functionality to that. It should never be the other way around.
[UPDATE: One more thing: From an environment where design patterns are second nature there is a peculiar absence of facades: So many simple tasks can only be accomplished by composing a number of highly abstract components (If you know Java you all know the examples from basic file I/O via XML APIs on to various J2EE apis). From an implementation stand point that is the way to play, but the lack of facades makes everything look horribly complicated even for simple usage scenarios]
I realize these complaints are not new - If they are being adressed by a new wave of Java API's do let me know.
Yes, I know there is Jython - but that is because of Python developers willing to adapt. Yes, I know there's BSF but that's just another framework. Yes, I know there is support for hooking in native API's but come on, you know that you're guilty.
The series of "Just..." jokes usually made about my friend and coworker Morten Just has been stolen by the only half-Just Justin Hall. Presumably he did this for the first quite a while a go.
Peter Jacksons pitch for the filming of Lord of The Rings as imagined by David Weinberger:
I'd like to film one of the most beloved and jealously protected literary properties in history.As far as I know he actually didn't have the audacity to suggest more than 5-6 hours - the studio upped the ante from 2 to 3 films. Also, we've all now seen the elaborate visualisations of various scenes made to prove to the studio that Jackson could pull it off. Whether the films actually came in on budget I don't know. Presumably one could tell pretty early on in the shooting that Jackson was on to something.I'd like to turn it into a sword-and-dwarves epic that will run somewhere between 9 and 11 hours.
I plan on shooting the largest, most complex battle scenes in history. And you can trust me based on my work in Heavenly Creatures.
We'll have to invent the most convincing CGI effects ever. In fact, the pivotal character will be made entirely of pixels. And you can trust me to bring true humanity to the art of digital acting based on my breakthrough work in Meet the Feebles.
A work of this scale will require marshalling 25,000 people over the course of several years. And I think I proved my ability to do so with Valley of the Stereos.
Could Safri Duo possibly suck more than this.
The cheesy music is topped by the cheesy videos and the videos are again topped by the unbelivably bad song lyrics. I can't really recall anything that is significantly lamer than rhyming "world" with "girl" and repeating this ad nauseam.
We all know about the problems of the Mars Rovers, but it turns out that driving a robot on Earth isn't that simple either. The problem of control is quite simply immense even for simple easily goal defined tasks like going from A to B. As long as unknown subgoals are the main feature of a problem, current robotics has no answer.
Wired News covers the EFF proposal for radio style licensing we previously mentioned
I realize my track record is less than perfect - I like conspiracy theories only a little less than the next guy - but isn't guilt by association a particularly right wing tactic these days. Obviously in the 70s everybody was throwing guilt around like it was in infinite supply but these days all the major guilt trips are orchestrated by conservative forces. Let's (partially) list some popular guilt by association tactics:
Iraq ~ Islam ~ Terrorism ~ 911
Howard Stern ~ Breasts ~ Nipples ~ Janet Jackson ~ "Is the entire family sexually depraved?"
Gay married couple - Homosexual couple - Sexually depraved - Unamerican
Open Source ~ Noncommercial ~ Socialist ~ Unamerican ~ Unconstitutional
File Sharing ~ Noncommercial ~ Unamerican
VOIP ~ Noncommercial ~ Unamerican
Europe ~ Unamerican
- the list goes on and includes some cloudy argument why basic human rights do not apply to Taliba soldies imprisoned at Guantanamo by the american military.
All of the above are examples of something linked to pure evil by association. In the topmost case there is actual evil also - but that does not make the guilt by association strategy politcally defensible.
Maybe its just the American bias of the internet but I find that all of these issues - many of which are really American interior politics - are increasingly important for Europeans as well because they are so clearly attempts at turning all politics into values, and because the goverment of the world's only superpower is willing to act on and support any of these cases with complete disregard for whether these shallow arguments will prove viable in the long term. In all of the above cases the value based attack on the opposition are simply performed to get something done today with complete disregard for how that may be written up in future history books. One has to assume the republican administration is betting that the victor will get to write those history books.
What are the European equivalents? For IP rights we have the exact same issues, but for most of the other issues we have nothing on the same scale going on. I think it is safe to say that pan-europaeism is the reason for that: Through the EU systems the various European governments are under the scrutiny of the the other governments and the EU itself is under the scrutiny by all the governments. That makes for indecisive government with unclear democratic autority at its worst but it also makes for very public disagreements and therefore a very strong indirect public control.
Giv mig et A og et B, og så skal jeg fortælle dig hvordan du limer A på B.
via pollas.
Nr 2 i en serie.
Eric S. Raymond has published a leaked SCO memo describing a recent investment in SCO as hidden Microsoft funding of the Linux IP rights lawsuit. The memo has been confirmed as authentic according to ESR's website - but obviously SCO's people are nuw busy disputing the accuracy of the information despite acknowledging the memo. It seems entrely implausible that a discussion as given in the letter - a consultant argues over what fee he should earn for bringing in the Microsoft money - would go on at all if nobody at SCO thinks this is the service the consultant has provided.
This is just appalling if true. A 100 mio$ exercise in abusing the legal system with bogus lawsuits against the opposition. In fact this is so bad that I'm surprised SCO and MS is not controlling this in a different way through the argument along the lines of "We at MS share the belief held by SCO that open source is a threat to the American way of life so we're offering our economic assistance to beleaguered SCO so they can fight the unamerican, property invading behemoth that is IBM". We've certainly heard a lot about those teenage commie Chinese renegade, open source slackers/hackers you're entrusting your vital business information to when you use open source software.
(Coverage of the whole story in Wired)
[UPDATE (The Register also comments wrapping up some dissenting commentary indicating that the plot involving Microsoft simply does not add up]
[UPDATE II: MS actively denies these rumours]
Baggrunden er vistnok en tragisk historie med nogen tilskadekomne b?rn. Men overskriften som den st?r er det smukkeste nonsens jeg har set p? Tekst-TV l?nge.
Yesterday Swedish Television aired Live Forever a documentary about the brit-pop scene of the 90s and by extension of the much hyped "Cool Britannia" the colourful, vibrant and world dominating cultural scene of the UK in general and London in particular in the mid-90s. The center of it all were some interviews with the Gallagher brothers (of Oasis), Jarvis Cocker (of Pulp), Damon Albarn (of Blur) and many others I am currently forgetting. The images capture the attitude and style of the mid 90s brilliantly. It is a bit odd to see a nostalgic rockumentary about something that happened only 6-7 years ago but that's what hypernostalgia is all about I suppose. The interviewees come off as variably bored (Damon Albarn and maybe Jarvis Cocker), annoyed (Damon Albarn), interested (Noel Gallagher) and plain simply stupid (Liam Gallagher). Liam Gallagher's most interesting commentary comes when he's asked to comment on Jon Savage's opinion that he at times looked rather androgynous. First of all the interviewer has to explain the term - which of course threatens to to throw Liam into a fit "Is he saying I looked like a girl?". The interviwer hastily retreats until Liam at the end comments something of the order of "I pay attention to the way my hair looks. You've got to have great hair when you're the lead singer in a band".
For me personally it was great at these years were happy years in an equally amazing university environment in downtown Copenhagen, and British style and British music really was the look and feel of that time even in Copenhagen.
The SCO protection racket to force companies to pay a license fee for Linux has been accelerated as the first lawsuits against Linux-users (not distributors) got filed.
Meanwhile SCO has made no progress in making their complaint against IBM seem reasonable. In fact, in an extremely boring article on Groklaw a guy named Warren Toomey chronicles the history of a few of the files SCO claims has been copied verbatim to ther real roots. The probable root turns out to be Minix header files. Linux famously based Linux on Minix and got into a much celebrated flamewar with Minix creator Andy Tanenbaum on the relative merits of the two operating systems. Even more damaging to the SCO case is Toomey's documentation that copying from the UNIX source files in question was widespread as early as 1978 making the notion that IBM recently and illegally contributed the contents to Linux seem even more bogus.
En stakkels weblogger, Keld Bach - der ligesom Wired News og et hav af andre nyhedskilder har dækket mashup fænomenet The Grey Album og der heraf afledte webprotestfænomen Grey Tuesday er nu havnet i den danske arm af den skændige internationale "vi sagsøger hvemsomhelst" kampagne på grund af dette indlæg. Keld Bach har ikke engang deltaget i Grey Tuesday - bare omtalt fænomenet. Og det kan jo simpelthen ikke passe at man bare ved at linke til netaktivister uden iøvrigt at have opfordret nogen til ulovligheder, ved endda direkte at have gjort opmærksom på at der er et problem omkring lovligheden af The Grey Album; at man så stadig skal modtage advokatbreve med besked om at cease og desiste og vedgå sin skyld. Er I blevet fuldstændig sindssyge? Hemmeligheden er i den grad ude. Der er ingen beskyttelse af nogensomhelst art i den slags chikane. Og i øvrigt er man nødt til at have et retssystem der skelner mellem handling og reference også selvom nettet gør den forskel svært gennemskuelig.
[Disclaimer: Bortset fra links til Keld Bachs weblog (som jeg fandt på blogbot.dk) optræder kun links i denne post som blev fundet på Google ved den mest naive søgning på info om The Grey Album - det kan et barn finde ud af. Der er ingen yderligere spredning af nogetsomhelst i at foretage den research. Enhver påstand af den art er dybt tåbelig)]
The EFF's campaign for radio style licensing terms for file sharing continoues. The EFF proposes a license form where a collection agency charges a resonable use-based for music (or other copyrighted) file sharing and in return file sharers get freedom to download and share without risk of litigation.
Perhaps we should simply start a collection in escrow and then see if we can find a record company to take the bait, err.. money.
What an on over the top great question! Read Charles Wright's answer to the question in The Charles Wright Interview. Charles Wright will be known to the funkateers among you as the singer on the amazing "Express Yourself" (with the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band).
Among the other amazing questions asked of Wright you will find:
"Do you think there was a conspiracy to destroy Black music in the 70's ..and was the government involved ? "
Charles Wright: "There was/is definetely a conspiracy. I think it is more racial than political. BUT there actually both quite the same aren't they ?"
It seems there is a conspiracy theory on the poisoning of black music.
On a non-political vibe a little later in the interview:
"Who do you see in today's r&b market as being the keepers of the flame in the true r&b spirit ?"
Charles Wright: "Unfortunately, when they gave us the electric drum, everybody went for the okay-doak. I personally feel that I am fighting a loosing battle but I've invested my money strictly for that cause."
That's so sad and very true.
Here's a new conspiracy theory for you:
American 20$ bills now contain RFID tags. The site sourcing the story triggers all conspiracy theory alerts and the exploive evidence given for the presence of the Radio Frequency Identifier is apparently phony: There's a metal strip in the 20$ bill approximately at the explosion point [According to the accompanying slashdot thread this may not even be true - I really wouldn't know - it's been a while since I had a 20$ bill in my possession being a Dane, living in Europe and all]
BUT, the government is considering the idea.
I am still unsure as to whether RFID tags are produced completely unique or just unique per product, but as far as I can recall theres a 96 bit identifier space so completely unique tags are certainly possible in theory. That of course means that all 20$ bills would then be "marked bills" traceable forever. Bad news for bank robbers - and for the first unsuspecting perfectly lawabiding citizen tracked for no reason through this new tracking mechanism.