08 January 2004

Indiana Jones - The Deleted Scenes #5 [London Mark] 11:56:06 PM    comment()

Space is the place. Excellent, excellent, excellent. Anne Galloway has started up a new blog devoted to space and culture, named: Space and Culture:... [Blackbeltjones Work] I started to read this site and I thought that possibly: I've had a small stroke and suddenly become alexic The site had been put through one of those amusing web translators to make it read like gobbledygook It was written by very clever people using a style of language that I have never been exposed to. By a process of elimination: I can read other things, so 1 isn't the case. I checked the URL, and it doesn't look like there is a "real" version of the site to go and look at, so 2 is out. So, it must be 3. It's the clever people, writing. I've subscribed to the RSS feed. I'm going to try to expose myself to this for a while in small, regular doses. It may broaden my mind. Or perhaps lengthen it. Unfamiliar lexical constructs and hitherto unencountered philosophical propositions? I say, bring 'em on! 11:27:44 PM    comment()

What's going on I picked up an arse-kicking set of pictures today, some of which I may post at some point. Woo. My boiler (heating and hot water) has just packed up, and it's very cold here. Boo. I still have my gym membership, so I can go and shower there tomorrow. Woo. I had a very long and very necessary telephone conversation with a member of my family, and I feel better about that. Woo. I met up with some friends today for lunch and found out that I now have two pregnant friends, as opposed to one. Woo. I found out that pregnancy may involve heaving and, indeed, full-on vomiting in public places. Boo. I also found out that, post-heave/vomit,  it's best to then continue walking as if nothing has happened. Woo. I applied for a job at a company near where I live. Woo. I saw a big (40" x 30") print of one of my pictures on the wall of a friend of mine, and it looked great. Woo. My kitchen is now not just clean, but clinically clean. Woo. It's the only part of my flat (so far) that is properly clean. Boo. But that won't be true for long. Woo. My friends are being particulary great at the moment, both in meatspace (remember the Real World? Hint: Turn around), and on the Web. Woo. I'm beginning to regret starting the whole Woo/Boo thing. Boo. But I am resolved to see it through to the end . Woo. That's it. Woo! 10:59:48 PM    comment()

Differentiation. For those who’ve been asking: Telling the Dogs Apart. [Textism] 10:18:31 PM    comment()

Naming. One thing very clearly separates exceptional developers from average "programmers:" naming... [eric.weblogs.com] 10:02:30 PM    comment()

Malcolm Gladwell on SUV's and the Danger of Learned Helplessness [How to Save the World] 6:18:10 PM    comment()

What Is OSX?. Via monkeyfood an excellent article on OSX for *nix types. Here. [little things] Worth reading for the history section alone. Ah, NeXTSTEP. Happy days. 5:20:05 PM    comment()

If MTV had a presentation software package [Ask E.T] It's a huge download, but  worth seeing (and hearing). Used well it would be amazing. Used badly... think PowerPoint plus extreme motion sickness. 5:17:02 PM    comment()

happy anniversary and good riddance. [no title yet] 8:08:17 AM    comment()

We Took Down Two Today. From testimony by Yoshio Shinozuka concerning atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China during World War II. Shinozuka was a member of Unit 731, which conducted human experiments on more than 250,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war. Shinozuka testified on behalf of a group of victims' families who sued the Japanese government, which has refused to issue an apology or to provide any compensation. In August 2002 a Tokyo district court dismissed the lawsuit and said that it had no legal basis. Translated from the Japanese by Mihoko Tokoro. [Harpers.org] 8:02:37 AM    comment()

You're Not One of Those Agitators, Are You?. The iPod Mini is *not* about being a new low-end model -- it's a new *small-end* model. It was the rumor sites that planted this idea that the iPod Mini would be both smaller and cheaper. But this made no sense whatsoever. [Daring Fireball] 1:21:29 AM    comment()

Reviewing Web Architecture: Identification. Continuing his review of the W3C Technical Architecture Group's "Architecture of the World Wide Web", Kendall Clark focuses on the the web's addressing scheme, the URI. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service] 1:03:28 AM    comment()

This is harsh. [Fortean Times] 12:48:58 AM    comment()

Digital camera + GPS Update Further to our digital cameras + GPS discussion (see the comments, too), George posts that there is already a camera that adds latitude/longitude data to the EXIF metadata of images. It's not 100% clear to me if this is GPS driven, or if the camera is using the lat/long details of the mobile phone network cell it is in when the picture is taken, but it does show there is already some progress in this area. I would like to see true GPS positioning for the camera, and full data on the orientation of the camera in space, so we know not just where the camera is, but exactly what direction it is pointing in. (Some cameras record simple landscape/portrait information, using a tilt switch. That's great, but the mosaic idea would depend on knowing exactly where the camera is pointed and its precise orientation (unless we want to depend on a lot of AI to stitch the pictures together, which is another issue)). GPS pointing is being used very successfully in other applications, notably astronomical telescopes. GPS equipped scopes are entering the consumer sphere. It would make total sense for pointing information from these scopes to already be recorded with the image during astrophotography. I may drop them a line to see if that's the case. It would be good to find an application for this already in use. Update: The trackbacks on the post that George pointed out look really interesting. I'll be looking at them tomorrow. 12:22:29 AM    comment()