The local telephone company defines happiness on their bill envelopes. View a larger image of the envelope »
the tao of telecom
Author: Steven Garrity
blind progress in the visual sciences
I think the logic goes something like this:
Premise #1:
1995 was better than 1985Premise #2:
T2 was better than TerminatorConclusion:
The higher the number, the better.
While I worry that much of what is happening in the world is powered by such logic, my concern today is more specific.
I read an article on News.com about upcoming software for the 3D Internet. I can’t wait to try to convince some online stamp store that they don’t need 3D walkthroughs of their stamps. It’s hard enough convincing people that they don’t need a cartoon at the start of every site.
Of course, there are good potential applications for the third dimension in computing, but as the ultimate computer weenie, Jakob Nielsen, says (roughly paraphrased) 3D is not always an efficient mode of navigation on a computer. For example, think how easy Quake or Doom would be if you just looked at a 2D map from above and click on the bad guys you wanted to kill.
* The first premise is subjective, but the second premise is clearly true.
the internet advertising industry board of self gratification
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is not a regulatory board as you might think, but an association of internet advertisers making recommendations for themselves. Their latest recommendation: make banner ads bigger.
robots: fast as hell, still not so great with context.
The following email was sent from Network Solutions in regards to a domain name update request. I was aware that robots were sending emails, but I had thought we were still a few years away from the robots actually writing the emails themselves.
At least the robot was polite enough to wish us “Best regards”. Thank you, robot, but I don’t appear to be the first to have trouble with you and your “solutions”.
Thank you for responding to our Notify Template. Because you
omitted information from line 1a, we cannot act on your instructions.At the bottom of this e-mail, we’ve added the Notify Template with
our original information intact. In order for us to execute your
instructions, please follow these steps in this sequence.
- Hit the Reply button in your email program. Attention AOL users:
see below* before proceeding.- In line 0a, enter the Guardian method you chose
when you set up your contact record.- Based on what you entered in line 0a, make the
appropriate choice for line 0b:
- If you entered Mail-From, leave line 0b blank.
- If you entered Crypt-PW, put your plain text password in
line 0b.- If you entered PGP, leave line 0b blank, but be sure to
sign the template with your PGP private key.- If you agree with the modification request in its entirety,
reply to this email by inserting Y or YES on line 1a.
OR
If you disagree with the modification request, enter
N or NO on line 1a.- Do not remove the version number or alter the template in any
other way.- Hit the Send button in your e-mail program.
Best regards,
Network Solutions Registrar
help@networksolutions.com*AOL software prevents you from simply replying to this message.
Instead, follow these steps:
a) Highlight the entire message
b) Click on the Reply button
c) Return to step 2, above.====================
xxxx00
=======================
drop that number!
For the seasoned weblog readers, this is be second hand old news, but I couldn’t help but post it.
Apparently a mathematician stumbled across (suspicious, I know) a prime number (seen below) that when written in hexadecimal format forms a Zip file that contains the DeCSS information (the now infamous DVD decryption software).
The obvious joke here is that no court could seriously render a number illegal (I’m not so confident in the legal systems of the world).
Other humorous versions of the DeCSS include a Mircrosoft wizard who will tell you a story containing the code (wacky plugin and download), the DVD logo itself rendered from the code, and my personal favourite, the code written in plain English.
The Number:
485650789657397829309841
894694286137707442087351
357924019652073668698513
401047237446968797439926
117510973777701027447528
049058831384037549709987
909653955227011712157025
974666993240226834596619
606034851742497735846851
885567457025712547499964
821941846557100841190862
597169479707991520048667
099759235960613207259737
979936188606316914473588
300245336972781813914797
955513399949394882899846
917836100182597890103160
196183503434489568705384
520853804584241565482488
933380474758711283395989
685223254460840897111977
127694120795862440547161
321005006459820176961771
809478113622002723448272
249323259547234688002927
776497906148129840428345
720146348968547169082354
737835661972186224969431
622716663939055430241564
732924855248991225739466
548627140482117138124388
217717602984125524464744
505583462814488335631902
725319590439283873764073
916891257924055015620889
787163375999107887084908
159097548019285768451988
596305323823490558092032
999603234471140776019847
163531161713078576084862
236370283570104961259568
184678596533310077017991
614674472549272833486916
000647585917462781212690
073518309241530106302893
295665843662000800476778
967984382090797619859493
646309380586336721469695
975027968771205724996666
980561453382074120315933
770309949152746918356593
762102220068126798273445
760938020304479122774980
917955938387121000588766
689258448700470772552497
060444652127130404321182
610103591186476662963858
495087448497373476861420
880529443
the grave dangers of not having a car stereo (and owning a Moxy Früvous cassette)
It happened quite innocently. I think someone mentioned an author’s name, or said something that sounded like W.P. Kinsella as we got into my car. 
Naturally (or so it seemed at the time), this caused my three tone-deaf friends and I (also tone-deaf) to try to impress each other with our knowledge of the lyrics of Moxy Früvous’ Bargainville album (“W.P. Kinsella” being a lyric from the tune My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors). If you have never heard of this group or song, you might think that I was making it up. I am not.
As it turns out, our ability to recall the lyrics from the album was indeed impressive. So, here we were, four heterosexual men, driving and singing loudly and poorly. After My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors, we segue into The Gulf War Song, The Drinking Song, Fell In Love. It’s important to note that of all music to sing badly, harmony-laden a cappella is particularly bad.
Let me clarify something. If you don’t know me, you may be thinking, ‘well, I’m sure he and his jolly friends enjoy singing to each other all the time’. This is not at all the case. Like you, we don’t often break into song with a group of friends. I’m sure, on occasion, we each sing out loud when alone in our respective vehicles, but never when together. That would be weird.
Anyhow, that’s exactly what we did in this case. We broke into song. And not just any song. Practically the whole Bargainville album (or at least 30 second samples of each track). It got me thinking, the odd event that it was. Moxy Früvous rules.
Moxy Früvous. You have to at least give them credit for the ‘u’ with the dots on it. That’s not easy to pull off. Think of Montley Crüe. They deserve more credit than that. If all that comes to mind when you think of Moxy Früvous is King of Spain, then I hereby call into question your Canadian citizenship and loyalty to the Queen.
Bargainville is a fantastic album. It is Moxy Früvous at their best. Self-aware, goofy, smart, and good. Oozing with Canadian-ness. Fell In Love is a good a Canadian song as any penned by Bruce Cockburn or Leonard Cohen. If you know the album, revisit it. If not, keep an open mind, get a copy of it on cassette, leave it in your car for two years, and I assure you that you will not be disappointed.
Coffeepot for Masochists.
Have you ever pushed on a pull door? Have you ever stood waiting for an automatic sliding door to open, only to find out it’s a window? Are you sick of the blinking 12:00 on your VCR? Rise up against the tyranny of bad design!
I recently finished reading Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. It was an epiphany. It’s a nice feeling when someone coherently articulates your half-baked thoughts. Isaac Asimov’s endorsement on the book jacket sums it up well (if I ever write a book, I sure hope Isaac Asimov endorses it):
“We are all victimized by the natural perversity of inanimate objects. Here is a book at last that strikes back both at the objects and at the designers, manufacturers, and assorted human beings who originate and maintain this perversity. It will do your heart good and may even point the way to correcting matters.”
geeks need to know what to buy and when
For those of you interested in technology news the options are many but most are seriously deficient. One hand, you have sites whose news consists mostly of cut and pasted press releases and those who kiss the feet of Microsoft. On the other hand, you have the whining anti-everything hacker-wannabe sites.
For those in the middle, try The Register. This British tech news site seems to be written by actual human beings capable of sarcasm. One recent headline about the earthquake in Seattle read:
Gates: the earth moved for me
Billy Boy’s speech interrupted by God
the people have spoken. they said: shut up.
Earlier this week I asked for some feedback on the phenomenon of using TV to relax and the moral repercussions (seeing as your TV watching time is being resold). The good levelheaded readers of aov have responded and each response is very much appreciated.
The consensus (how many people to do you need to have a consensus?) seems to be that, like most things, there is nothing inherently wrong with watching TV. It all depends on what you watch and why you watch it. While this is certainly the case, I still think Neil Postman is right when he points out that TV is incapable of serving as the medium of coherent public discourse. But I guess that’s not the point of TV, is it? Don’t think I’m a pretentious preaching critic. I’m not sure I have any constructive criticism. I’m just thinking out loud and interested in the thoughts of others.
The feedback I received was encouraging on a few fronts. Firstly, the half-hour of TV I was complaining about was quickly put to shame by the amount of TV most people watch. Also, several alternative methods of relaxing were also suggested, some more interesting than others (use your imagination).
Bottom line according to the readers seems to be: Don’t watch it if you don’t want to. I don’t think I can argue with that.
discover new music via Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs used to play the part of the passionate visionary quite well. Watch the made-for-tv movie Pirates of Silicon Valley for an interesting and apparently accurate summary of the Steve Jobs / Bill Gates stories (beware of VERY bad dialog).
Now, watching Steve Jobs at the latest MacWorld Expo, he comes across like a
tired old salesman (I know, I know, that’s what he is). I’m not sure which is worse: Obviously believeing the hype you spin, or obviously not believing it.
That said, a new ad for the ugly new iMac (which will sell zillions, thanks to the Walmart Effect: tacky sells) features a fantastic song called Sunburn by the British band, Muse. I hadn’t heard them before, but I should have.