Duck and Cover lives – the US Department of Homeland Security has created another set of pointless icons. Luckily, we have a professor of semiotics on hand to decode their true meaning.
(hat tip to Echidne)
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Crossing The Line
The BBC has got into the realms of online interactive fiction with Jamie Kane. The eponymous popstar – supposedly killed in a helicopter crash – is a fictional creation aimed at the same demographic as empty-headed pop fanzines: 14 to 18 year old girls. And while I think it’s a crime for the brains of 14 to 18 year old girls to be washed in this way, that’s a rant for another time.No, what’s triggered today’s rant is that I think that the BBC has overstepped the mark in creating the world of this fictitious popstar. Don’t get me wrong, I think these online interactive fictions can be a lot of fun – I remember the first time I came across the viral marketing for Speilberg’s A.I., which, from a seemingly innocuous web page for Dr. Jeanine Salla, turned into a hunt for the killers of Evan Chan via clues on web pages, emails, and even real locations.So what has the BBC done? Well, in setting up the game story, they, or a company working on the game, have apparently created a page on Jamie Kane in Wikipedia. And that, I think, is going too far. As Boing-Boing reader Chris says:I’m a big fan of the BBC and public broadcasting in general, but I think they’ve crossed a line here. This is a Wikipedia entry for a made-up pop star that’s being used as part of some kind of viral marketing for one of their "new media opportunities". It pisses me off that an organisation paid for by the British public and supposedly working to a charter to provide quality entertainment feels justified in spamming up a genuinely useful internet resource in the name of PR.To which I can only say: "Hear, hear". What really sticks in my craw is the response to Chris apparently from a marketing droid freely admitting to using Wikipedia in this way:I can’t say who I am, but I do work at a company that uses Wikipedia as a key part of online marketing strategies. That includes planting of viral information in entries, modification of entries to point to new promotional sites or "leaks" embedded in entries to test diffusion of information. Wikipedia is just a more transparent version of Myspace as far as some companies are concerned. We love it (evil laugh).On the other side, I love it from an academia/sociological standpoint, and I don’t necessarily have a problem with it used as a viral marketing tool. After all, marketing is a form of information, with just a different end point in mind (consuming rather than learning).If that is indeed a genuine comment, then all I can say is: you utter bastard – I hope that you’re first up against the wall, come the revolution.Funny, really, the furore over the Beeb broadcasting Jerry Springer – The Opera left me cold – I viewed it as a rant by religionists who lacked the wit to understand what the show was about. But this abuse of the principles of Wikipedia for me is something else entirely. It’s like spitting in the face of knowledge and learning, and that really gets to me.Leave a comment
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Perseid Watching
Well, I had some luck in attempting to watch the Perseid meteor shower last night. There was some cloud (see pictures) but fortunately it was interspersed with clear spells. There trouble is that, as you can see from the pictures, light pollution here in the Randstad is pretty awful, so it’s difficult to see any but the brightest stars. I had great difficulty in seeing the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye.I was attempting to photograph meteors, but despite taking over 100 shots, for every single one, the camera was pointing in the wrong place.There were metors every few minutes – one was quite spectacular, streaking across a quarter of the sky, and leaving a trail that was visible for a few seconds. There were also a few non-Perseid meteors, as well as the usual collection of planes and satellites. Mars, rising in the East, was also very prominent.So, all in all, not bad; but I would have liked to have captured a Perseid on film.
2 responses to “Perseid Watching”
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HelloMy name is Paul from China ,very happy to see your blog>adds me gaoyuan128@hotmail.com
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Hello, Paul, thanks for dropping by…
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The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
It’s Friday, it’s movie night at home, so I decided I would put TCTTHWAHL on the DVD player. When I saw the disc in our local DVD shop, I thought, yes, it’s like drowning in rose-coloured acid, but at some point I want to see this film again.I remember when Martin and I first saw it in a small Art Cinema in Amsterdam. After the film ended, the lights came up, but at first, no-one moved. Finally, our row staggered to its feet, but even then there came no movement to exit the row. We stood there stupified for a few seconds until a quavering voice came from the end of the row: "sorry about this, but we can’t leave because the woman at the end of the row has fainted…" We all knew what she had just gone through and immediately sympathised.It is, as the Dutch version says on the cover: "een gruewelijk mooie film" – a gruesomely beautiful film. Visually, the colour palettes are extraordinary, and the actors magnificent. Whether it’s Michael Gambon spewing obscenties or the unbearable monologue of Helen Mirren on discovering her lover has been killed – the film is a brilliant work of high art.2 responses to “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover”
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hi. you write alot.
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Do I?
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A Eulogy for Robin Cook
Robin Cook’s funeral service was held today. Gordon Brown gave a eulogy that is well worth reading and reflecting on.Leave a comment
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MSN Weather
Microsoft has released a rather nifty little add-on to their MSN Toolbar for Internet Explorer that shows you the weather for places of your choice.Mind you, like most weather forecasting, I’ve learned to take it with a pinch of salt. For example, according to the add-on, today we will be having a little light rain in Gouda, with current conditions being "mostly cloudy".Er, actually we’re currently sitting in the middle of a huge fucking thunderstorm that extends from horizon to horizon; the garden and the road outside are all but flooded, and the idea of being able to watch the Perseids tonight is further away than ever.6 responses to “MSN Weather”
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I thought I ought to mention (maybe someone twisted my arm!) that firefox has had forecastfox (http://forecastfox.mozdev.org/) for some time. It was predicting thunderstorms up here in Manchester tomorrow but seems to have changed it’s mind! Currently looks hopeful for the Perseids but with a bit of cloud.
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Robert, did you manage to see any Perseids? I had a bit of luck – see my separate post.
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Unfortunately not – I woke up at 1:30am and spent around 10 minutes outside but didn’t see any, was I a bit early? Quite a bit of light pollution here too – there was a band of cloud coming over but it was pretty clear.
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10 minutes? Ah, you’ve got to have more patience than that 🙂 The "peak" for the Perseids is spread over a couple of days, so anytime on either Thursday or Friday nights will do…
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Next time I must arrange to get dressed first 🙂 a dressing gown is little insubstantial and I’ll take a camera just to demonstrate the quantity of light pollution over here. I assume you mean until next Thursday or Friday?
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Er, no, I mean Thursday 11 August and Friday 12 August. There may be some tonight, but the peak has officially passed…
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Europe Feels the Heat?
Once again, I think I’m living in some parallel universe to the rest of the world. I keep on coming across news stories that talk about "Heatwaves" and "Droughts" in Europe. Here’s another one. As I write this, it’s pissing with rain outside my window (as it has been for most of the summer), and temperatures, apart from four days in June, have been more akin to winter than summer. Perhaps there’s a Netherlands somewhere else where everybody is sheltering from the noonday heat. It certainly ain’t where I am at the moment.Leave a comment
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Egg Babies
Perhaps it’s just me, but I find these things somewhat disturbing. I realise I’m supposed to go "oh, how cute, how simply adorable…" but try as I might, the closest I can come is eewww, take it away!Still it’s obviously a good business, one of these objects has just been sold for $338 on eBay.(hat tip to the Green Fairy)Leave a comment
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Perseid Meteors Peak Tonight
For some people, the "Glorious Twelfth" signifies the start of the season when they can blast the shit out of grouse with their shotguns. For me, however, it signifies the peak of the Perseids meteor shower. While we’ve been having abysmal weather recently, I can but hope that the cloud cover will not be 100% tonight as it has been for the past n months. If the night is clear, then I’ll be out there, watching the skies…Leave a comment
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Sir Tim Berners-Lee
There’s a good profile of Sir Tim Berners-Lee in the Guardian today. The profile fleshes out, and gives life to the man, rather than being just a dry recounting of facts like the Wikipedia entry.Sir Tim is of course the father of the World Wide Web. While the Internet itself has been around for 35 years, for 25 of those years it existed as a communications network hosting a number of different applications. Berners-Lee’s contribution was twofold:- to invent two killer ideas – the language that describes a web page (HTML) and the transfer protocol (HTTP) to allow access to the web page over the Internet.
- to make these specifications freely available for anyone to use.
It’s probably that last point that is the key to the incredible rise of the Web since the first page was put up on 6th August 1991. The specifications (HTML and HTTP) are "good enough" – in other words, they could have been better engineered. Indeed, Clay Shirky called HTTP and HTML "the Whoopee Cushion and the Joy Buzzer of the Internet". For example, there is nothing in the transfer protocol to help test for, and repair, broken links to web pages. How many times have you clicked on a link, only to find the page has disappeared?
So the form of Hypertext that we have ended up with is by no means perfect, just good enough. There was an idea for a form of Hypertext that preceded the Web: Project Xanadu, proposed by Ted Nelson back in 1960. However, Xanadu has turned out to be the equivalent of the superior Betamax video format losing out in the market to the "good enough" VHS.
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A Balanced Scorecard for the Climate
Over the last few years, the concept of the "balanced scorecard" as a means of rating the performance of a business has become all the rage. Now, the World Wildlife Fund has taken that to the next logical stage by publishing the results of a balanced scorecard for the G8 countries in respect of their performance on climate change. It accompanies the figures with an easy-to-grasp graphic of a powermeter marked into red, yellow and green zones.It will come as no surprise to learn that the US has the powermeter graphic shown as firmly in the red zone for all but one of the measures in the scorecard.The document is worth reading and is available here.(hat tip to the WorldChanging blog)Leave a comment
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Permafrost Melting
A somewhat worrying story in the Guardian today about the fact that the world’s largest peat-bog (bigger than France and Germany combined) has begun to melt for the first time since it was formed 11,000 years ago.The concern is that, as it melts, it will release methane (a greenhouse gas), and so accelerate the rate of global warming. Definitely time to think about moving to higher ground, I feel.2 responses to “Permafrost Melting”
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I’m intending to interrogate my brother on the matter when I next see him – he got back from a geological trip to Siberia yesterday (nothing to do with the report in the Guardian). I mocked a review of Colin Thubron’s Siberia when my book group read it last year – it claimed that Siberia was the new Tuscany – though it will be like the Italian Lakes.
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Robert, thanks – do let us know what your brother has to say on the matter…
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It’s Kismet
I see that Robert Wright, composer and lyricist, has died aged 90. There are obituaries in both The Guardian and the BBC web site. They both mention his partnership with George "Chet" Forrest, but what I find supremely irritating in both cases is the mealy-mouthed way that that partnership is described.The Guardian writes of Wright’s "collaboration" with Forrest in writing stage musicals. The BBC writes that Wright was the "musical partner" of Forrest, and of the pair "working together". One is left with the impression that this pair rolled into an office every day to work together on musicals and then went their separate ways back to their homes at the end of the day.I would have thought that in this day and age obituaries could be more honest. Wright and Forrest not only worked together, they lived and loved together – and they did so for over seventy years. To imply a more one-dimensional relationship than that is simply shabby. A more realistic appraisal of this couple can be found here. The opening sentence establishes the straightforward and honest tone: "For over seventy years Robert Wright and George Forrest were partners in life and art".Leave a comment
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Online Petition
Frank van Dalen, chairman of the board of the COC (the Dutch Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender organisation) has set up an online petition to protest against the hangings of the two gay Iranian teenagers. You can sign it here.One response to “Online Petition”
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bloody iranians
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Protests Over Iran Hangings
The reaction to the two Iranian teenagers hanged for being gay continues. Doug Ireland, over at the DIRELAND blog, reports on planned protests, and gives useful background information to the homophobic atmosphere that pervades Iran at the moment.2 responses to “Protests Over Iran Hangings”
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will we ever know the truth about the teen hangings??????????? i doubt it very much. Even now speculation that they were hanged at all is going round. where can pictures be to convince people that the two boys were hung and did not deserve to die this way!!!!!!
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If these pictures aren’t enough, then I suspect that no matter what evidence you had, some people would say it didn’t happen. After all, some people refuse to be convinced that man has not walked on the moon, or that the earth is older than 6,000 years. The two teenagers were not the first, nor will they be the last to die in this way, and there will always be those who say it didn’t happen (or, to my mind, even worse, will say that they deserved hanging for being gay).
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Mosquitoes Drawn to People With Malaria
You may recall that, back in April, I commented on research that demonstrated how parasites can affect the personality of their hosts.Now, New Scientist reports on a new study that indicates that mosquitoes are more likely to be attracted to people already affected with malaria. And it appears that it is the parasite that is causing this, in order to secure its onward transmission to new hosts.Another example of "who’s in the driving seat? – the host or the parasite?" Oh, and I can’t resist a book plug here for Carl Zimmer’s terrific (in all senses of the word) book: Parasite Rex. It is, by turns, amazing, fascinating, chilling, scary and downright horrifying…Leave a comment
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Caption Competition
Yep, those are knitting needles. Why are men so obsessed with size?(hat tip to And She Knits Too)2 responses to “Caption Competition”
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typical fisherman’s yarn
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Robert, thanks for dropping by. I notice your blog has an entry on Vespa photographs. Coincidentally, a friend of mine has just finished refurbishing his Vespa, and is also photographing other Vespas – so he’ll be interested in the Vespa photos – I’ll pass the URL on. Thanks
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Sad To Be Gay – Part 2
Well, I watched the programme. Akinsanya was not such a basket case as I had feared, but the Love in Action crowd were every bit as deluded as I thought they would be. Akinsanya’s problem seemed to boil down to the fact that he expected to find true love in the middle of the gayscene, with its muscle marys, drugs, disco and one-night stands. Er, sorry, David, but (a) the chances are small (but not, I grant you, zero) and (b) there’s more to life than the gayscene, and you don’t have to pretend that you’re not gay in order to find it.At least by the end of the programme he seemed to have realised that he could be a father figure to his godchildren. Perhaps now if he stops looking for true love (particularly in all the wrong places), it will sneak up on him. And to give him credit, he sussed out the LiA crowd for the bunch of religious nutters that they are pretty damn quick.Mind you, Wayne Besen didn’t exactly strike me as someone I’d like to spend an evening with either – as David said, he had his own agenda.What it seemed to boil down to in the end was the willingness of people to believe in illusions. Akinsanya believing that his happiness depended on him not being gay, and the LiA crowd believing that religion was the answer to turning gay people straight. Smoke and mirrors in both cases, but oh, how some people sincerely want to be fooled.Leave a comment
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And the Hugo Winner Is…
… for best novel: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. Well, OK, I quite enjoyed it. It kept me going until the end (which is more than I can say for many novels – e.g. Cryptonomicon). But somehow, despite the number of pages and its own bookmark, it felt, well, just a little bit lightweight. Still, I don’t have Ms. Clarke’s talent, so I shouldn’t really grumble.Leave a comment
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Dixons Ditches Film
First it was VHS recorders, now Dixons have announced that they will cease selling film cameras. It’s the end of an era.Leave a comment
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