b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
Most Popular
- Historical Yearly Average Gasoline Prices
- Outlook 2003 Message-ID Insanity
- Real-time Sand Animations
- Adobe Acrobat 7
- Adobe Announces Name Change and New Product
- Largest Technology Boondoggle in Public Education History
- Yahoo! Buys del.icio.us
- Skype - Disruptive, Not Compelling
- Aluminum Christmas Tree Museum
- Network Printing Hell and windoze XP
Book Reviews
Recently
NYC -- Privacy and Common Sense
Babylon 5
RIAA -- Guardian of Universities and Higher Education
Farscape Reruns
Conversations with Dina
Saturday, April 5, 2003
Retro -- The Good Ole Days
I remember once finding a cache of cir.1960 Playboy magazines at a place I worked. I was much younger but even then I thought they were wonderful. No, not for the articles. For the art. It was classic stuff, combining sensuality and femininity with a touch of naughty humor that's a far cry from the harsh biology which innudates us today. I wish I'd kept them.But thanks to Patrick I found the retro art of Gil Elvgren. Gil did a wonderful job of capturing the innocence of a time that seems so long ago. When did we lose our taste for nuance, euphemism, and imagination?
This is probably old news,.
but for your Cartoonist it's brand new. Old Pulp cover magazines, pin ups, vintage racing photos and much more, all nicely assembled in various galleries at WorldWideRetro. [The Cartoonist] [Ye Olde Phart]
NYC -- Privacy and Common Sense
Dan Gillmor reports on an unnerving episode at a Manhattan hotel, and since I'm headed there tomorrow it caught my attention. It's hard to balance legitimate security needs and personal freedom and I'm not sure there is a perfect answer. But I am quite sure we've swung way over the line, with a power-mongering police state chomping at the bit to demonstrate just how grand their "protection" efforts are.
Driver's license? Oops. Sorry. I forgot it.
Social Security card? Sorry, never carry it.
How about my AAA card? Will that do?
privacy in hotel.Dan Gilmor: "Have you stayed in New York lately and been forced to hand over your ID for "safe-keeping" or photocopying? Or anywhere else?" [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]
Friday, April 4, 2003
Babylon 5
Great lines from science fiction characters:"What do you want, you moon-faced assassin of joy?!" -- Ambassador Londo Mollari to his assistant Vir, when interrupted during a session with a Centauri concubine (or one of his wives). Babylon 5
RIAA -- Guardian of Universities and Higher Education
I feel so much better now. That bastion of decency, that benchmark of balance, that defender of the rights of the abused and oppressed, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has filed a lawsuit to protect the networks of our universities from the dreadful scourge of students who run P2P networks.According to this press release, the University networks have been usurped by hardened criminals flouting the rights of artists worldwide and dragging network performance down to the point that simple e-mail is no longer available to poor, honest students.
This is a travesty! A travesty, I say!
As the trade group representing America's only legalized extortion racket, no one is better suited than the RIAA to recognize evil doers, or to bring them to justice. Thank God they are on the case. I will sleep better tonight.
[...] Because of the sophistication of the technology and the expertise needed to install and manage such systems, Napster network operators can't help but be aware of the copyright infringement they facilitate. Indeed, each of the accused operators has seeded his services with hundreds -- and in some cases, thousands -- of copyrighted works. And in fact, they often monitor the infringement and, in several instances, have publicly bragged about it.Given their bandwidth and high-speed connections, college computer networks are a frequent haven for illegal file-copying. As a result, many have become so clogged -- often because of file-copying by users from outside of the college community -- that such legitimate uses of the network as email or academic research have dramatically slowed. [...]
Farscape Reruns
SciFi seems to have begun showing the first season of Farscape again, running each night at midnight EST. Don't know how long they'll run it, but at least I can catch up on some of the earlier episodes I missed.Wednesday, April 2, 2003
Conversations with Dina
Great new weblog from India-based qualitative researcher Dina Mehta. It's filled with interesting insights and links to unusual sources for understanding cultural and social patterns. Dina has an ability to bridge cultural gaps and put complex patterns into understandable terms. Good stuff. Go grab her RSS feed. You'll be glad you did.
'Karass' or' Granfalloon' ... you choose.Neat piece by Steven Johnson in the April 2003 issue of Discover. Talks about two types of networks - the self-organising and social 'karass' and the more bureaucratic 'granfalloons', drawing examples from personal and corporate life. He goes on to describe the role of emerging social mapping software in detecting and mapping social networks - at the workplace in large organisations and in book-buying patterns at Amazon. Some excerpts :
"Karass is that group of friends from college who have helped one another's careers in a hundred subtle ways over the years; the granfalloon is the marketing department at your firm, where everyone has a meticulously defined place on the org chart but nothing ever gets done. When you find yourself in a karass, it's an intuitive, unplanned experience. Getting into a granfalloon, on the other hand, usually involves showing two forms of ID." [...] ["Conversations" with Dina]
Syndication
Contact
Presence
This Page was last updated: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:06:57 GMT
