November 2008 - Posts
Remember a million years ago when George W. Bush won his second term and Kerry supporters world-wide were utterly shattered and Kerry supporters in America felt particularly responsible for their candidate's loss and apologized to everybody?
(There was a "we're not sorry" counterpoint site as well, but it appears to have expired.)
I was wondering if there'd be a McCain/Obama version this time around and was reminded this morning to share Ze Frank's genuinely heartwarming 52 to 48 project.
What reminded me was this site from Italians appalled by the remarks by their president about Barack Obama's "tan."
Feeling somehow similar: 700 newspaper headlines from around the world on the day after the election.
This blog claims to be the source for the Fox News item on Palin not knowing that Africa is a continent, not a country. More interesting, however, is the question of whether the author of that blog even exists. "I had no reason to believe that someone would invent a persona, a blog, a foreign policy institution, a video with a fake Iraqi television station, a press release, and an organization or email entity to send out said press release." There's something about creating a false identity for the purpose of hoaxes that appeals to me on a Bruce Wayne/Peter Parker level.
Photojojo has a 90 degree adaptor for your camera lens for sale for 50 bucks. Even though I'm sure this works and I'm not above taking a surreptitious shot once in a while, there's something about this that bothers me. Not on a moral level; I'm not a good enough person to be bothered by sneakiness, but on a sportsmanship level. The challenge of street photography and candid shots is part of the art.
We've seen impressive "20 Questions" type artificial intelligence before, but the way this thing guessed Han Solo seemed pretty miraculous.
"Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you're fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences." It's a nag app.
Maybe it's just in my particular echo chamber but seriously it seems like every time I walk past a computer screen it's playing the puppy cam.
Slate does with CNN's hologram what you were already thinking when you saw it (think Obi Wan Blitzer).
I'm not sure why CNN's came out kind of Star Wars looking when the technology can produce pretty real looking results. I remember when there was a lot of excited noise about it back in August. See 1:10 in the video linked here. Richard Branson does it with more style at :30 here.
(OK, here's how it works. I'm still not clear if that means it's actually a topogram instead of a hologram. Seems like if it's dependent on pre-planned camera angles it's not a hologram.)
Obama's first presidential Web site
Speaking of Obama Web sites, for the Maddow show I put up a vote and Newsvine page for her viewers to talk about what Obama's priorities should be. Turns out there are a few other sites that had the same idea. See Fix This Barack and White House 2.
Super Obama World - It's Mario but with Obama. I wish I could say I played it well enough to tell you what happens in the later levels but sadly I suck.
Kottke compares red/blue maps from news organizations but what you've really been waiting for is that set of scaled red/blue maps that includes the purple map and the Spider Man map.
The most thoughtful thing I read about the passage of the gay marriage ban in California is from the Volokh Conspiracy blog yesterday. He does a nice mix of honest analysis and personal reflection. To be honest I didn't care much about this story until I starting reading some of the human reaction from people who feel they've had a right overtly taken away. Maybe it's my X-Men fandom, but this really resonated with me: "Today, they have no idea whether they have just been divorced by their fellow citizens."
The joke here is to flip through the "more images" slide show. I'd love to have heard the discussion of whether that room is a selling point or not.
Did you see the new LED bulbs?
