Friday, November 29, 2002

Wacky/gorgeous online gallery of burning matchstick art. Artist David Mach creates sculptures from the colored heads of matches, then sets them on fire [...] Link Discuss (thanks, Jeff!) [Boing Boing Blog] 10:25:37 PM

Arthur Koestler. "The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards." [Quotes of the Day] 10:14:59 PM

Stock-bubble as Big Con. Commenting on the WSJ's revelation that analysts and investment banks colluded when evaluating stocks, Dan Gillmor writes: The wink-wink, nudge-nudge culture of Wall Street in the late 1990s wouldn't have given this e-mail a second thought. After all, didn't everyone know that the investment bankers were in bed with their supposed "analysts" of companies paying them millions in fees? [...]  In traditional "Big Con" grifts, the roper and the inside man work to convince the mark that by participating in some bit of harmless larceny, he will become immensely wealthy. The mark gets sucked into the scam and is eventually fleeced of every cent he can lay hands on. Con artists say, "You can't cheat an honest man," because every mark believes that he is participating in a scam -- and he is, only it's not the scam he thinks he's participating in. An honest man, with no interest in ripping off a bank, or a betting parlor, or a rich, foolish stranger, or a small stock-exchange, will never be roped and never be suckered and never lose a nickle to the players. [...] Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] This would explain a great deal. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, it's easy to say we were all silly and unrealistic, but clearly there was more to it.  When the folks who are supposed to be "in the know" are telling you how it is, and you aren't one of the ones "in the know", you tend to want to believe what they say. So, what happens now? 10:14:08 PM

Ubiquitous [computing|work]. Glenn Fleishman has written a sad and wonderful piece about the subversive flipside of ubiquitous connectivity: ubiquitous work. He wrote it in response to this very good Infoworld column, but his piece is better. [...] When my uncle worked at HP in the 80s and 90s as a manager, they tried to get him to take a very early personal computer home, and he refused. He knew they would demand that much more work from him on top of his long hours. (Ah, the days, when you could turn down a computer.) To quote a popular phrase at Amazon.com after my time there: you can work long, hard, or smart; pick any three. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] I think the key thing here is the difference between those who are entrepeneurial, and those who work for the man. In the case of the former, they are typically "working" in one form of another all the time anyway.  It's the nature of it.  Mobile technologies enable these folk to unstring themselves from their desks and do what they have to do wherever they might be. In the case of the latter, mobile technologies can definitely be a problem.  They become tools for "the master" to steal even more time from them than is already so.  Forget the 55 hour/week salary-(wo)man job, which is bad enough.  With laptops and wireless messaging, the immortal corporation can suck away even more of their personal time away, with no additional cost to the company. 9:48:20 PM

Lunar casino slated for Vegas.  The Moon is a 10,000-room lunar-themed sci-fi casino planned for construction in Los Vegas. It looks like it will be cool in a kind of instant-obsolescence, 1939 Futurama/1955 Tomorrowland/Toffler goofy-futuristic kind of way. Link Discuss (via New World Disorder) [Boing Boing Blog] 1:30:27 PM

Barbie gets a blog. Madison Avenue has discovered blogging and given Barbie her own blog. As Ishbadiddle notes, she's not listed on NYC Bloggers -- yet. 11/7/2002 Who "New"? Went to visit Chelsea at the flea market today. The booth next to hers had some fab jewelry. I'm usually into buying "new" but this is the kind of stuff you just can't find in a store. Way cool. My god, it must suck to be the Barbie blog ghost-writer. Link Discuss (Thanks, Ishbadiddle!) [Boing Boing Blog] I had a negative reaction to this at first, but when I thought about it, I realized this kind of thing has potential.  Blog fiction (bliction?). To date, most blogs that I know of are effectively non-fiction (perhaps memoirs?).  Why not a blog where the content is in fact fictional and contrived.  In this example, it's fairly obvious that the content is fictional, as few past the age of 10 would believe there is actaully a real Barbie that is writing all this.  However, this could get even more interesting if the fiction were not so obvious.  Or perhaps if it was on the edge of what was reasonable, with just enough outlandishness to create a sense of doubt among the readers. 1:29:21 PM

Sychip offers SDIO Wi-Fi: Devices with Secure Digital (SDIO) slots should shortly have full Wi-Fi access available through a Sychip chipset and reference design. The SD slot is found in Palm and PocketPC models as well as cell phones and other devices. [80211b News] One of these cards, a palm PDA, and a few software tools would make an excellent, portable war-walking device. 1:09:05 PM

High-velocity money in a small world. Where's George: Enter the serial numbers of the bills in your wellet and find out if any other whackos have previously handled your ATM food-stamps. Annotate your wallet's contents with "WWW.WHERESGEORGE.COM" and get email everytime "your" money is handled. Race your bills around the world and realize just how goddamned dirty money really is. Track high-velocity money as it circumnavigates the globe. Link Discuss (Thanks, JC!) [Boing Boing Blog] I seem to recall seeing this before a while back, but I had forgetten about it.  Glad Boing Boing posted it and reminded me about it. I wonder what happens when the day comes that every bill has a smart tag in it, such that readers placed in strategic places could pick them up and truely know how much money you have on you and where every dollar has physically been.  Ooo, that's scary!  Even cash wouldn't be anonymous.  1:06:58 PM

PC-in-lunchbox.  Beautiful casemod: putting a mini-PC in a tin Batman lunchbox. The only way to improve it would have been substituting a vintage Roy Rogers lunchbox for the louche modern Batman. Link Discuss (via /.) [Boing Boing Blog] 1:01:46 PM

Disemvowelment: anti-troll-countermeasure. Teresa's been dealing with a message-board troll in a new and highly amusing fashion: she lets his posts stand, but removes all the vowels: h! Y trn m n whn y tlk drty lk tht Trs bby! Bt, srsly flks, nd t tk th hgh rd (rmmbr ths nw: gt bnnd fr llgdly cllng smbdy stpd (whch knd ddn't sy ths mkng m qstn hs llgd dtng prwss...)pls cntrst nd cmpr wht sd, sn t b pstd vr t nn Rmblngs whn gt spr mnt, t Ms. Trshy Mth vr hr. Jss. nd yh. 'll tk n ll thr r fr f yr rdrs. fr llsn Wbdrlnd nd Wrblggr Wtch ths wll b n msng Dy t th Bch... Link Discuss (via Making Light) [Boing Boing Blog] This is a somewhat clever way to deal with an impotent loser who has invaded your online community. 12:59:28 PM