Ryan Greene: Culture

Interesting Read

Mon, 06 Jan 2003 13:33:04 GMT

Interview with the Creator of Asimo.

It's really cool to see how he approached creating this robot, he approached the Vatican to get their opinion, as well as surveying Europeans. He doesn't want this to change the world, or to replace man, it exists simply to assist us in our lives. A good (fast) read.

Asimo's father.

The Daily Yomiuri has an interview with Yoshiaki Sakagami, chief engineer of Honda R&D, and the man behind Honda's Asimo robot. Along with Sony's SDR-4X, these new humanoid robots are the next wave of robotics, and are going to start showing up in people's homes within a year or two.
Read [Via BoingBoing]
[Gizmodo]

Thu, 19 Sep 2002 14:25:34 GMT

Nokia calls Wreless Warchalkers 'Thieves' [Slashdot]

"An advisory issued by the handset maker said anyone using bandwidth without the permission of the person paying for it was simply stealing."

Hmmm. What of the warchalker is one who owns the network? Here comes the FUD:

"This is theft, plain and simple," wrote Nokia in its advisory.

The company said that anyone using a company's bandwidth without permission is reducing the amount of a valuable resource available to the workers in that organisation.
The advisory was brought to light by technology news magazine Computing.
Nokia warned that if too many warchalkers log on together, the whole network inside a company could slow down.
It also said that unscrupulous spammers could use a network as a proxy to despatch millions of unwanted e-mail messages with no danger of being traced."

Ther there is the whole concept of "securing your network" that is being ignored here... requiring user IDs, passwords, etc. Actual article here from the beeb.

TANSTAAFL*

Tue, 06 Aug 2002 12:41:06 GMT

Credit Union Says A.T.M. Users Stole Millions After 9/11. Fifteen million dollars was looted from the Municipal Credit Union in New York City by its own members in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, prosecutors said on Monday. By Susan Saulny. [New York Times: Business]

The Municipal Credit Union serves state and federal employees as well as health care workers in the NYC area. When the towers collapsed on 9/11, the computers that linked to the NYCE (New York Cash Exchange) system went down as well. Instead of shutting down their ATM access, MCU decided to keep going, as a service to their members. Unfortunately, some people took advantage of that, ripping off the MCU to the tune of $15 million.

Now, the people that ignored offers to make restitution, including loans with deferred payments are being arrested. The worst case mentioned in the article follows:

One man, an employee of the Housing Authority, never had an end-of-the-month balance that exceeded $130, prosecutors said. "Nevertheless, he made 53 A.T.M. withdrawals ranging from $20 to $300 each, and charged 101 Visa purchases using his M.C.U. A.T.M. card between September 19th and October 22nd," according to Mr. Morgenthau's press release.

It continued: "The purchases were at stores including Foot Locker, Jimmy Jazz, Joy Joy Jewelry, Bronx BBQ, Hot Booz Liquor and the 216th Street motel."

Mr. Morgenthau said word of the glitch allowing the withdrawals was probably spread among friends in the various unions.

The man's account balance was a negative $10,378 by the end of October, prosecutors said.

Even though the credit union's computers were cut off from the New York Cash Exchange until early November, both organizations were able to keep track of how much money was withdrawn and from which accounts, officials said.

"There were a lot of ways to trace it," Mr. Siciliano said.

And so they did.

*There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Dysnia*

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 16:52:16 GMT

John Robb is kicking some ass and taking some names on the issue of corporate contributions to politicians. This is a huge issue, with regards to the wholesale loss of fair use rights to bad legislation.

*Term coined by Lawrence Lessig, that I read from Doc Searls

Mon, 22 Jul 2002 19:23:34 GMT

Smart Mobs article NYT on Howard Rheingold's "sm .... Smart Mobs article
NYT on Howard Rheingold's "smart mobs" anthropological investigations. Link Discuss
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:50 permanent link to this entry [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

Signs I need to switch to decaf

Sat, 13 Jul 2002 05:58:38 GMT

FCC Chief Slams TV Makers on Digital TV Conversion. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell slammed consumer electronics makers on Friday for an inadequate commitment to accelerating the transition to higher quality digital television. By Reuters. [New York Times: Technology]

The digital transition, which was designed to be completed by 2006, has been slowed in part by limited available content, potential piracy of content, and high-priced equipment needed to receive the higher-quality signals. (emphasis mine)

I've spent far too much time lusting after the HDTVs they have at the local Best Buy, and you know what? Pirating content isn't one of my plans, for the same reason that I rarely watch movies on my PC: It looks like crap. I want to see the full blown, super crisp picture that God (and the folks who made the content) intended. I don't want to have my movie hiccup because I'm getting an email, or my system is checking for an update, or my screen-saver is trying to take over. I want to see it in frighteningly crisp, clear video that is going to serve as the glue that keeps my butt in the la-z-boy and my hand in the popcorn. I want to hear it in sphincter thrumming bass that makes the windows rattle, along with my belly. I want to turn down the lights, crank the volume, and look over my shoulder when I hear a gun cock behind me in surround sound.

"But Ryan" you say "You can get than on your computer." Excuse me, did you read the second sentence of my post? I'm on a plane, a bus, whatever, fine, laptop it is. I'm at home, I want to be able to reach into my cooler, grab a cold one*, put my feet up, and enjoy. I don't want to worry about how warm my UPS is, or what cord I have trapped between my toes. I want to sit back, and enjoy the movie, and you know what? I CAN'T, because some team of industry lackeys has decided that I, the consumer, am more likely to pirate their precious content than buy it. Never mind the collection of 200 movies that I have, half of which are on DVD. Let's ignore the mountain of CDs, the cassette tapes, and the LPs. I won't even get into my rental habits because I think you get the idea. As far as these bastards are concerned, I'm a pirate, and their afraid that I'm going to use my DSL connection to try to view some grainy, reduced quality version of their works, without watching the commercials, without paying for the content that they have slaved to create in an attempt to garner my attention. God knows that they are just paying out the ass for those airwaves, Hey wait, aren't a lot of these content creators on cable? How does that work? What kind of broadcast fee structure are they under? Doesn't matter.

Simply put, Gimme. I want my MTV, my VH1, my HBO, my Discovery channel, animal planet HGTV food network jumping monkey gator catching high speed chase from a helicopter in full surround sound on an HDTV that I can watch with funky 3d shutter lenses and I want it all and I want it right now. I am your market folks, I just bought the laptop equivalent of a ferrari and it'll be here soon. I work hard and dammit, I play hard too. Get your product out, drop the freaking early adopter tax and just like Ozzy, I'll put it in every room of my house. Because if you don't folks, if you big companies drop the ball that you've been bobbling since 1994 when I first read that a standard had been agreed to in Video Toaster magazine, folks you will be well and truly fucked, because you're already losing your precious eyeballs. Most of my friends don't watch TV, and when they do it's a special event like the Super-bowl. Mostly they play games, or surf the net. Your one way conversation is more boring than a lecture from a droning college professor, and we ain't being graded for watching this one bubbah.

We're too busy working on our homes, building up our own businesses, and getting our next degrees to be bothered with you old boy. We grew up watching you and we know all of your tricks. This is why Survivor was such a hit: It broke the formula of set up and payoff, it introduced a random element into the very structured programming that you've been throwing at us for years. What's sad is that a show can now consist of nothing but homages to other things you've thrown at us and we'll think it's irreverent and new, instead of the thinly veiled retread that it knows itself to be. Bore us and we flip flip flip away from you, surfing the channels and using the remote one handed like the extension of ourselves that we know it to be.

But you can change all that. Make a better mousetrap. Give us the bigger, bolder prettier spiraling shape and we'll pick it up and call it wonderful and denounce it and play with it and love it and hate it but more importantly, we'll buy the damned thing if you'll just get it out there. The longer you sit there in your board rooms and worry about the things that we, the unwashed masses of scurvy ridden entertainment pirates, are going to do with your precious content, the less likely we are to be here to buy it when it comes out.

You're not the only game in town anymore boss, and really, you never were. And for every day that you sit back and bicker, we're going elsewhere to be distracted from how bored we are by you. Every day that you snipe, we start entertaining ourselves. Photoshop tennis is just the start, wait until home video editing hits critical mass. Then you're going to see an explosion of crazy, half baked, wild and entertaining indeciferable, beautiful madness the likes of which you've never seen, let alone approved from your office in the sky. Jackass was the first flake of snow, the first drop of rain in a torrent that is coming. We've learned at your feet, the tools got cheap, and you no longer control the means of production OR distribution. We've got peer to peer video on demand 24-7 and every time you knock out a channel, another three pop up daddy. This is the hydra all over again, and this time, you ain't got a torch Herc.

This isn't to say that you're dead, oh no, we still need heroes to watch, doing things we can't do, someone to follow for fashion and lingo. We love paying five bucks for ten cents worth of popcorn, and sitting in small seats to gather and watch what you tell us is acceptable. You tell us who to love and like dutiful soldiers, we'll follow your commands until it's time for something new to come along. Then you'll act all suprised until you can either co-opt it and drown us in it, or sic your lawyers and political hacks on it till it's dead. But that'll only last until we figure out another way to go around you. Our desire is like water, it goes wherever it can, either wearing away or going around it's obsticles, roaring when the resistance overcome, and wiping itself out when the momentum takes us too far.

*Sadly, this is either Gatorade or Poland Spring bottled water of late

(I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas today, just finished Gonzo Marketing, and am starting Hot Text. This may well explain a lot about this post.)

Thu, 27 Jun 2002 13:17:24 GMT

"Handheld Games For Grownups".

The Wireless Arcade

"They don't have fancy 3-D graphics, but video games for handheld devices stand poised to capture a huge U.S. market. Why? Because we all have to wait.

It’s game time....

Inside the conference room, a standing-room-only crowd has assembled for the “Wireless Game Summit,” a marathon exploration of the first new gaming platform in three decades....

Wireless games are played on Internet-enabled portable devices such as personal digital assistants and, particularly, cell phones. Though most of us are now familiar with the idea of getting driving directions or surfing the Web on a cell phone, the real killer app of wireless devices is games. Primitive-looking wireless games have already gained enormous popularity overseas. And bolstered by new software tools that allow game creators to deliver robust, colorful images, and by the emergence of third-generation, or 3G, cellular networks, wireless games may be on the verge of commercial success. The New York-based market research firm Datamonitor projects that by 2005, 80 percent of all wireless users in the United States and Western Europe—200 million people—will at least occasionally play games on their handhelds. In that period, the wireless-games market will zoom from less than $1 million per year to $6 billion, if the rosier estimates are to be believed.

Everybody waits: for school to let out, for planes to arrive, for dentists to see us. To the wireless-gaming industry, these unoccupied interludes in an average day are opportunities—minutes waiting to be killed with their creations. 'There are plenty of time-saving applications,' says Paul Goode, entertainment platforms group manager for Motorola. 'We’re working on the time-wasting ones.' " [Technology Review]

Remember - no one thought solitaire would be one of the most popular apps on a PC. Wireless gaming will be huge - mark my words.

[The Shifted Librarian]

There is nothing quite so satisfying as killing time playing a game on my PDA or Cell Phone while waiting in line, or on a bus, or a plane. Being able to compete while in any of the above would be even better.

Holy shades of The Diamond Age Batman!

Fri, 14 Jun 2002 17:35:03 GMT

Love and CD burners underpin Chinese samizdat. CD burners are the source of a new samizdat in China. Young women infatuated with an ideologically unsound boy-band media property are burning millions of audio CDs and VCDs of the the band's "real-life" show. They're smuggling themselves on rickety fishing boats to greet the band. They're defying Party authority, and they're doing it for saccharine love:

"When girls like us have needs, there is nothing anyone can do to stop us."

Link Discuss (via Oblomovka) [Boing Boing Blog]

Wed, 12 Jun 2002 14:01:06 GMT

A comic about the Wonder Twins, that you may or may not enjoy.

Sat, 08 Jun 2002 15:49:59 GMT

First Liposuction, Then Lions. Washington Post Jun 8 2002 6:58AM ET... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

People are going to South Africa for first rate plastic surgeons, and stay for a safari while they recover. The exchange rate between the Dollar and the Rand is something like 1/9.8 at the moment, and given that there are companies dedicated to booking such vacations at the moment, I expect this to be the new thing for those that can afford it.

If MEMS take off, and can be developed into a reliable and attractive lens replacement for those with crippling vision problems, I fully expect to see either South Africa, or any other nation that is willing to set up the infrastructure turn into a hotbed for high tech body modification, should a market for this arise.

Sat, 08 Jun 2002 13:33:21 GMT

Make Love, Not War Games. Give peace a chance, says a game developer who is bringing anti-war activism to first-person shooter games like Counter-Strike. By Brad King. [Wired News]

On the one hand, yes, we should always try to peacefully resolve our differences. On the other, it's a game, it's escapism. I play games to do things that I would never do in real life, to shoot lasers while fighting crime, to destroy remnants of the empire, to stop terrorists, to enter an unending battle, to fight Nazis, more terrorists, nasty fantasy creatures, etc. I don't need moralizing in my games, thank you. What I do need is an escape from reality. It is no different from what an avid reader does when immersing themselves in a book, or what sports fan does for the duration of a game. They tune out the world, and watch the story unfold. Only in this case, I get to effect the outcome.

Follow up

Fri, 07 Jun 2002 03:30:51 GMT

MPA shuts down video site Film88.com. The international arm of the Motion Picture Association of America shuts down an Iran-based Web site that was selling access to copyrighted films over the Internet. [CNET News.com]

Well, that lasted a long time. While the business was in Iran, the servers were in the Netherlands. MPA has authority there, so the ISP pulled the plug.

Thu, 06 Jun 2002 14:36:37 GMT

CNet. Internet music distribution entrepreneurs should give it up. They should focus on becomming an independent label with a lean cost structure. I agree. This should have been the model for MP3.com (or at least it was when they started out).

>>>As anyone who has spent any time with a major will tell you, these are immensely profitable businesses that have absolutely no inclination to change anything they are doing--ever. Record companies make obscene amounts of money manufacturing little silver disks, sending them out through distributors that they own, and getting retailers to push them over the counter at $16 a pop (and paying those retailers a pittance in the process). A truly great business.<<<
Frankly, this is exactly the kind of business that will continue to face consumer backlash in the new economy. They are inefficient and have erected artificial barriers to competition in order to charge excessive prices. Until albums arrive on my hard-drive at $2-3 a pop, they won't get any of my business. Nothing in between works. This may take ten years, but in the meantime I will continue to use Kazaa. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Hmmm, given how much they have been crying loss, maybe it's time that record companies get a serious audit of their books to see just how bad they are really doing.

Distribution technology and services are just ways of helping someone else sell their valuable assets, and are certainly not a basis for entrepreneurship. It's the control over the assets themselves, and not the pipes to deliver them, that will drive shareholder value in new music companies. The online distribution of music is not about technology. More than enough technology exists to produce any consumer music service you could possibly imagine. The game will really get interesting when the very heart of the music industry--the creation and sourcing of music--is challenged [Robert von Goeben on Cnet]

Given the ever lower cost of entry to building a home studio/editing suite, the money may well be in delivering the integrated systems for editing, and providing hosting to get the bands off the ground. Scratch that (hosting). Internet radio that plays indie bands, with feeds flagged by genre, date, popularity, and region, users can then hear the new thing wordwide if they wish, as well as download it if they so desire. It's been done, I know, and internet radio is under assault all over the place, but a heavenly jukebox is still a laudable goal.

Wed, 05 Jun 2002 15:47:33 GMT

The secret ingredient is no longer beef. The secret ingredient is now a mixture of love and fear of the courts.. McDonald's will pay out #6.85MM to vegetarian and Hindu groups by failing to report on the beef tallow used to flavor their french-fries. More suits are pending. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]

If you go into McDonalds, I don't care if you are ordering a salad, figure a cow is somehow involved in your eating experience.

Wed, 05 Jun 2002 02:49:27 GMT

Shiny balls of mud take Japan by storm The la .... Shiny balls of mud take Japan by storm
The latest Japanese schoolyard trend is hikaru dorodango (shiny balls of mud). Children painstakingly shape mud into near-perfect spheres, then polish them. A research scientist with an electron microscope uncovered the secret of their lustre.

In the process of making dorodango, the children demonstrated behavior that was surprising from the perspective of developmental psychology. A two-year-old child would walk behind Kayo, imitating his actions. At three, children would come up beside him and snatch his dirt. Four and five year olds pretended to ignore him out of pride, but afterwards they could be seen working with determined expressions on their faces. Children could also be found sharing information about where to find the best dirt and sand for making dorodango or even sometimes keeping such information secret. Dorodango were made famous all over Japan when public broadcaster NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.) took up the phenomenon in a program aired nationally in June 2001.

Link Discuss (via Oblomovka)
posted by Cory Doctorow at 14:01 permanent link to this entry [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

So, the nation that gave my generation an insatiable appetite for tutrtle fighting plumbers, giant monkeys, hedgehogs, and all things gadgety, has now gone all retro and is playing in the mud.

Upside:

No more Pokemon.
Kids playing in the outdoors.
Return to arts and crafts over game scores

Downside:

Less cool games for us if this really takes off
Mudder fashion: The return of toughskins.

Wed, 29 May 2002 12:44:20 GMT

The Brunching Shuttelcocks present: the Five Most Profitable Companies in the Star Wars Galaxy.

Thu, 23 May 2002 18:23:12 GMT

Killer power windows. Safety advocates say car devices pose strangulation risk for young children. [USA Today : Front Page]

While I have no children of my own, I've watched my friends and family with their kids for years. From watching them I've learned a couple of things:

You watch your kids like a hawk, and do not leave them unattended in a potentially dangerous place.
When you are tired and stressed out, please see number one.
Teach your kids to be careful around anything that is bigger than them.
See number one.
There is such a thing as kids being too quiet.

While I am all for making things safer for kids, my generation (Gen X) and those that preceeded us (the rest of the march of human history) got by OK without what I call the "Nerfing" of the world. I am not saying that we should do away with handrails, and grounded outlets and airbags, but rather that life requires a certain amount of vigilance, as well as common sense in order to make sure that we survive as long as possible.

Tue, 21 May 2002 12:46:24 GMT

Japanese threatened with extinction, minister says. [Netscape News]

Due to declining birth rate. Great headline though.

Mon, 20 May 2002 14:58:12 GMT

NYT. Microsoft's Xbox plans focus on social gaming. For many reasons this is going to be a massive $1 b flop. The PC is the device connected to the broadband connection in all US homes. Most of the PCs that are connected don't have a home network. The only way to shoehorn this into the home is to sell a home server with a built-in wi-fi hub (Homestation) and connect the Xbox to that network as a satellite device. This is putting the cart before the horse. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

This is something that I had not even considered, I take it as a given that people who want it have a broadband connection. This is not the case, as both writers I know of and people I know will gladly tell me. I once worked for a company that paid one of it's programmers ISDN bill every month because the town he lived in had neither cable modem nor DSL service.

Further, I just taught myself how to run cat 3 phone lines as well as coax, and will be learning how to crimp my own cat5 this weekend from a friend. While I consider these to be vital skills for any self respecting homeowner, (or in my case, renter) I forget other folks are not as hands on. Wiring up a network is no mean feat, and is also a skill that the average platform gamer probably does not have.

Sun, 19 May 2002 15:55:35 GMT

When Backyards Were Laboratories. How the decline of "tinkering" contributes to scientific illiteracy in the United States. By Henry Fountain. [New York Times: Science]

TInkering is key, and while my brother and I certainly did or share of tinkering (boy do I ever miss the old, two volume version of "The Way Things Work") in our day, and I hope to have a yard big enough for for them to play with technology, and learn a lot along the way.

Thu, 16 May 2002 14:38:19 GMT

Ask Higgins.

I agree with Ryan about Desk Set (and what librarian doesn't love that movie!), but database access is an interesting topic. There's no way individuals could afford to subscribe to multiple databases on their own, but pooling resources through tax-supported libraries is an ideal solution. Granted, most libraries aren't going to subscribe to LexisNexis, but most subscribe to at least one database, if not more.
So the key is indeed having the access to the information. My home library is relatively small, but they offer residents free access to four databases. Illinois residents are lucky enough to have a State Library with some foresight and vision, and the folks there provide free access to several FirstSearch databases for every Illinois resident. So if your bot can hook into your local library and it has stored your library barcode number, Higgins would be able to complete his assigned tasks rather easily. :-)

[The Shifted Librarian]

Last night I was discussing the role of social institutions with a friend, and I pointed out that the advantage of belonging to an institution (vs doing it on your own) was one of leverage. You have a broader knowledge base to pull from, you have have a greater network to call on with regards to knowledge that may be otherwise inaccessable, and you simply have more resources at your disposal than you would otherwise have available.

Now, what if a town needed to have access to a set or records, and instead of having them accessable only at town hall, allowed townspeople to get to them either through the local library or via the town's homepage (login required)? In the case of my old hometown, there are several reference companies located there, and It would be a great boon if they allowed the local schools and libraries to have access to their systems.

Wed, 15 May 2002 12:52:40 GMT

World: Researchers to study how children interact with their Aibos. 05:44 ET - Ananova [NewsBlip.com]

They are studying how the elderly interact with the robots as well. While this will likely have no impact on what Sony is planning to do with the robots, it is good to see that someone is looking into this.

Tue, 14 May 2002 14:02:31 GMT

Off the Reservation, Onto the Dealer's Lot. As enterprises like casino gambling have transformed the economic power of tribes, Indians have become respected, even feared, business rivals. By Danny Hakim. [New York Times: Business]

At issue: The Reservations are tax free entities, and local businesses feel threatened by that fact, they want a level playing field.

Comment: I think the government has done enough harm to the tribes of this nation, let's not be cruel and get the IRS on them.

Wed, 24 Apr 2002 01:11:55 GMT

World: Father 'gave son cocaine during PlayStation sessions'. 09:56 ET - Ananova [NewsBlip.com]

While I am all for kids playing video games with their parents, this is going way too far.

Tue, 23 Apr 2002 16:28:35 GMT

Dog Bites Website [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]

Gurrilla* marketing of a book by it's author, his explanation and motivations for doing so. Interesting use of the tech that is available to push your product.

*This is not to be confused with Gorilla marketing which is what happens when a movie comes out and ends up selling it's soundtrack, toys, sheets, fast food franchise tie ins, etc.