Culture | Tech News

March 2010
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11Mar

Gaming Goes to the Clouds

Culture, Gadgets, Games, Hardware, Technology, Uncategorized, Web, gaming, onlive No Comments

I would use the phrase the BBC did, but I’m sick of hearing of ___ killers in general. ( I’ll believe it when I see it, y’know?) But regardless of terminology, BBC News had a very interesting little piece in their technology section this morning about OnLive, an internet-based gaming company that essentially kicks the console out of the picture. The company promises on-demand games, and high performance even on older machines and across platforms.

Chief operating office Mike McGarvey explains: “We want to take your dollars from hardware and let you spend it on software. We are a new platform and we’re building a network and infrastructure to last for the next 30 years of gaming, not the next five years.”

I really like the idea behind this–especially the availability of games on the Mac–but I can’t buy into the whole console killer concept; it’s as dead as the iPhone killer concept, even. Why? Because many news sources have very little understanding about how geeks interact with their own consoles and/or hardware. Yes, games are important. But they are not the only reason we use consoles. In our house, the console is second only in usage to our computers—and the two are connected. We stream videos, we play games, we play music, we connect with friends. I’m not a huge Microsoft fanatic (quite the opposite, really) but I absolutely love my XBox and the XBox Live network. And so does my kid.

Cloud gaming has the potential to be a great deal of fun, but the signal always fails at some point. Sure, fast is important (I bitch at DragonAge all the time for loading too slow). But when we didn’t have an internet connection when we first moved, I was still able to play. I think that cloud gaming will be a great addition to gaming, and a wonderful opportunity for developers to think out of the console. But I’m not giving up my XBox 360 anytime soon, thank you very much.

Maybe I’m being a curmudgeon and a holdover. What about you guys? I’m by no means a hardcore gamer, so maybe I’m just reacting badly. Let us know what you think about the future of gaming!

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11Mar

The LXD: In the Internet Age, Dance evolves…

Culture, Uncategorized, Web No Comments

In the following video, the LXD (the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) electrifies the TED2010 stage with an emerging global street-dance culture, revved up by the Internet. In a preview of Jon Chus upcoming Web series, this astonishing troupe show off their superpowers.

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09Mar

Google’s Translation Gets Mouthy

Culture, News, Technology, Uncategorized No Comments

Google’s translation services are making the news this week with improvements to a smartphone app which now attempts to translate voices rather than text (hopefully more accurately than in our illustration.)

The app, titled Google Translate (which is also the name of the firm’s website translation tool), is designed for users visiting a foreign country. Instead of resorting to phrasebooks or online dictionaries, the idea is to simply ask the person you are conversing with to talk into the phone. The app then attempts to recognize what has been said and then “speaks” an English translation. It can also work in reverse, translating your speech into a foreign language.

Although the app already existed and could handle text, this is the first time it has worked with speech. At the moment it can handle speech in English, Mandarin (the most common language in China) and Japanese, though other languages including German are in the works. According to the Los Angeles Times, the speech feature “works surprisingly well for translating basic phrases”.

As we noted last year, NEC is working on a similar service which involves the user wearing special spectacles, meaning that as well as hearing the translation, they can see the words as subtitles. That’s not likely to reach as wide an audience though: the spectacles, which are currently designed for making it easier for technicians to see pages from repair manuals without using their hands, cost more than $2,500 and won’t have the translation feature until next year.

The Google app improvements follow on from the announcement last week that a translation feature is to be built directly into the Chrome browser. Users visiting a webpage marked in a language other than English (or whichever language they have set as default) will be offered a one click button to see the page translated.

It uses the same technology as the Google Translate service, but doesn’t require any cut-and-pasting of either the text or the URL. The service is based around a database of 20 million words worth of United Nations documents. That’s particularly reliable as those documents have been officially translated into six languages by expert UN translators. The service has also used documents from the European Parliament on a similar basis.

(Picture courtesy of Flickr user Xiaming.)

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09Mar

Bayeux Tapestry Meme Goodness + History!

Culture, Humor, Uncategorized, bayeux, internet, memes No Comments

Mental Floss has a brilliant overview of one of my favorite memes: the Bayeux Tapestry meme. I first came across the Bayaux Tapestry in college, and then I had no idea it held such hilarious possibility when brought to the Internet masses. I remember seeing a humorous take on the Bayeux on Fark years ago, and likely found it far funnier than most people, having studied it (medievalism win!). Still, Mental Floss’s article is pitch perfect.

Some quick facts about the Bayeux Tapestry:

- It measures 70 meters/230 feet long

- It was completed in the 1070s, likely within a decade of the Norman Invasion.

- It depicts the Norman Invasion of England, as well as other political events leading up to it

- Technically it’s embroidered cloth, not a tapestry. A tapestry is woven together as one piece, whereas an embroidery is embellished on top of cloth.

- The piece is chronological and reads much like a long comic book. Figures appear and reappear during the progress of the narrative throughout.

- While no one is certain who commissioned the work itself–possibilities include Bishop Odo, William the Conqueror’s brother; Queen Matilda, William’s wife; and Edith of Wessex–it’s generally accepted to be the work of renowned Anglo-Saxon seamsters.

- The thread is wool, the cloth is tabby-woven linen. The now-famous color pattern includes many local dyes, according to Wikipedia, in “shades of terracotta or russet, blue-green, dull gold, olive green, and blue, with small amounts of dark blue or black and sage green.”

- Haley’s comet makes an appearance, helping to date the piece, not to mention adding a sense of foreboding to the story.

- It is written in Latin, with Anglo-Saxon flavor here and there.

- A handful of mysteries surround the piece, not to mention theories explaining its true purpose. There are missing panels (making up about 7 yards of lost material) and panels near impossible to decipher, including one of a clergyman beating a woman. Throughout the cloth are marginalia, symbols and descriptions which are still difficult for historians to understand. Some have posited that there are underlying anti-Norman messages throughout, as well. Medieval conspiracy theories, ftw!

And now for the funny. As Mental Floss points out, you can even make your own at the Historic Tale Construction Kit, which may be my favorite new site.

[via Mental Floss, Wikipedia]

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09Mar

Too Tired for Sex?

Culture, Uncategorized No Comments

Sleep deprivation is certainly a common ailment for geeks, probably because many of us take advantage of the nighttime hours to catch up on our geeky doings, like… debugging a particularly nasty line of code, or raiding Icecrown Citadel in World of Warcraft, or (if you spent the last month like I did) catching up on a few years’ back episodes of Lost.

Not that this is news, really, but the New York Times has assured us: you are not alone! According to a new study by the National Sleep Foundation, 1 in 4 Americans who are married or living with someone spend a lot of their time just too tired for sex.

Of course, we also know from other research that geeks are great in bed, so maybe that makes up for the sleep deprivation. So what about you guys? Do you think you have a healthy sex-to-sleep-to-[insert geek activity here] ratio?

[Image Source: flickr (CC)]

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06Mar

Breaking News: The “Star Wars Kid” – Where Is He Now?

Culture, Uncategorized, Web No Comments

His image is now the stuff of legend: Ghyslain Raza, the Star Wars kid, aged 15, got the attention and ridicule of the Internet—especially its geek contingent—when footage of him wielding a golf ball retriever and fending off a horde of invisible vicious enemies surfaced. Granted, we geeks were a little less harsh. But unfortunately for Ghyslain, the sudden—and often cruel—Internet fame was far from intended. His performance became an Internet phenomenon after four of his schoolmates uploaded his video for the world to see. It has since inspired thousands of remixes. By November of 2006, the video had been viewed over 900 million times.

But now that eight years have passed, have you ever wondered what happened to the famed Star Wars Kid? Here’s a bit of a timeline to fill in the years since the video went public:

In July 2003, Ghyslain’s family filed a $250,000 lawsuit against the families of his schoolmates, mainly to pay for psychiatric therapy for their son due to the derision he received at the hands of a very unforgiving public. Although the suit was dropped in April of 2004, it was settled out of court.

However, these days, Ghyslain certainly is having the last laugh. After climbing what must surely have seemed like an insurmountable mountain, he is currently completing his law studies at Montreal’s McGill University and recently took a position of president of Patrimoine Trois-Rivière, an organization that aims to defend Trois-Rivière’s historical real estate against the city’s frenetical urban expansion. The Force is surely strong with this one.

So, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation someday—your most private fantasies aired to the world (something which is becoming more and more likely in this age of instant news and technology)—consider Ghyslain’s amazing journey. Though things may seem desperate, though you may feel as if the whole world is laughing at you, there is always hope at the end of the tunnel. And through hard work and persistence, it’s attainable for anyone. Here’s to you, Ghyslain.

For nostalgia’s sake, here are a few of the best remixes of the famed Star Wars Kid. We hope that someday Ghyslain can smile when he sees these, too. Because really, he’s just one of us.

The Drunken Jedi

Star Wars Kid- Agent Smith Fight

[Via Branchez-Vous (French) | Picture Credit: Sylvain Mayer]

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05Mar

The Science Behind Washing Dishes, or Washing Dishes the Geek Way

Culture, Science, Tips and Hacks No Comments

Dishwashing (or washing up, depending on your location), while a calming and meditative time for some, is not everybody’s idea of fun. But fortunately it offers two factors which should appeal to any geeks: science and logic.

Whether you’ve been taught by a kindly relative, discovered it from trial and error, or resorted to a Google search, you likely know that washing dishes effectively requires hot soapy water. But why is this, and why does cold or clear water not do the trick as well?

The key to the soapiness in this situation is that you are not usually tackling dirt (as with laundry) but specifically oils and grease. Most of the active components of dishwashing detergent (also known as washing up liquid) are surfactants, a contraction of “surface active agent”. Put simply, these are made of molecules which have a hydrophilic head, meaning it is attracted to water, and a lipophilic tail, meaning it is attracted to grease and oil.

These molecules then form into tiny balls known as micelles (pictured right) in which the hydrophilic heads form the surface of the ball. As the micelles form, come apart, and then reform, the lipophilic tails grab on to the grease and separate it from the surface of the item being washed. This makes it much easier to then remove the grease from the item with a dish brush.

Why hot water? It’s partly because some of the components of detergent are more soluble at hotter temperatures, and partly because the heat helps melt some of the fats and grease. (Of course, hot water also has other benefits such as being more likely to kill any bacteria and meaning your crockery and cutlery will dry quicker.)

With the science taken care of, the next step is the order in which to do the dishes. While you could just do them in whatever order you can reach them, the true geek way is to find the method which cuts down time and motion, while maximizing the results as you go, and ideally using the minimum amount of water that does the trick. The key is to remember that the water will naturally get dirtier as you clean, which affects its ability to clean items as you go on — but the point at which this becomes a problem depends on exactly what you are cleaning.

Your mileage may vary, but my assessment is that the most efficient method is to begin by scraping off any large remnants of food from all your cutlery and crockery, then filling any particularly greasy pans with hot water to soak. Then, rather than muddle through, start by arranging the things to be washed into piles, arranged in this order of proximity to the sink:

•   glass
•   cutlery
•   cooking utensils (wooden spoons, ladles, etc)
•   crockery
•   other ceramics
•   plastics
•   metals

Then add some detergent to the washing up bowl and a couple of inches of hot water, sloshing the bowl about as you do to create a lather. (Whether you scientifically need the lather appears debatable, but it does create a useful visual guide to how much detergent is left in the water.) If you have particularly delicate glass, you may want to start with warm rather than piping hot water.

For each pile, wash it and add it to an upside down pile besides the sink. When the whole pile is done, turn on the hot tap again and pass each item under the tap to rinse it before placing it in a right-way-up pile on the other side of the sink. Stop the tap when you’re done and then wipe each item (or put them on a drying rack, depending on your preferences.) Then move on to the next step.

Using this method means that you don’t waste any water while rinsing as it’s all collected in the bowl. You’ll note the depth of the water increases quite neatly in line with the items being washed getting bigger. You should also find that the items you wash later are more resistant to becoming streaked by any greasiness that has built up in the water. However, you should still replace the water completely if it either starts to feel tepid or if the bubbles have disappeared completely.

Of course, that’s just my take. If you’ve spotted a flaw in the science, or think you’ve got a more efficient way of doing things, please do let us know in the comments section.

[Illustration courtesy of Flickr user lsgcp]

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04Mar

Put a Spark into your Presentations with Ignite

Culture, Uncategorized, Web No Comments

If you’ve sat through many presentations, you’ll know there are two common problems with them: over-long ones, and others where the speaker pauses and plays about with his Powerpoint slides before explaining each one in excruciating detail.

Both those problems go out the window in a format being celebrated across the planet this week. Ignite is a presentation style designed to make it easy to share ideas and passions through three simple rules: presentations are fixed at five minutes, they all have exactly 20 slides, and each of these slides are automatically displayed for 15 seconds.

The idea is that the format forces speakers to boil down their ideas into a clear and focused structure, using illustrative slides which convey concise messages: with just 15 seconds to display and explain each point, there’s no room for waffling. The speaker also needs to have a pretty strong idea about what they are talking about in order to keep to the rhythm and avoid getting thrown by the slides advancing.

The concept was developed and first tried out in Seattle in 2006 (having been adapted from a Japanese idea called Pecha Kucha) but is now used for events worldwide. While Ignite events can take place anywhere and at anytime, being locally organized, this week (March 1 through March 5) has been classified as Global Ignite Week, with at least 50 events taking place as far afield as Jakarta, Brisbane and Nairobi.

Event organizers are encouraged to film the talks and upload them to both online video sites such as YouTube and the Ignite website. The general principle is that all events should be free to attend and are being run on a voluntary basis, with the speakers being unpaid and motivated by their desire to share knowledge. (As the movement’s slogan has it: “Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

So what do people talk about at Ignite? Anything and everything, as long as it fascinates and excites the speakers, and hopefully the audience. But here’s a sample of some previous talks:

The secret underground world of Lego

I Speak Klingon: Love 101 for Uber-Geeks

Should you quit your tech job and join a rock band?

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03Mar

Wednesday Geeky Pics: Geeky Hats

Culture, Humor, Uncategorized No Comments

This one’s kind of self explanatory, folks. When you’re feeling geeky, put on your geek hat. Here are a few to choose from…

Mudkip, I choose you! (It should be noted that the Poke-fan in this picture isn’t afraid of getting bird flu, he’s just being anonymous). – icantcu (CC)

Hacker in training. Considerably more constructive than giving a kid a fireman’s hat. – wiphey (CC)

This helm has +20 geekiness. – mrtea (CC)

As we’ve learned from previous crafty pic posts here, everything is better with Space Invaders. – mmoroca (CC)

GOOMBA! Quick, someone stomp on its head! – xamonster (CC)

Brief and to the point. – kulp (CC)

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03Mar

HBO Says Winter is Coming: A Game of Thrones Heads to TV

Culture, Music & Movies, News, Uncategorized No Comments

It’s been a while since I was this excited about a new television show with swords. I mean, granted I enjoy Legend of the Seeker but I can’t say it’s exactly, um, the highest quality out there. Sure, the fight scenes are amazing, but I’m admittedly not the biggest Terry Goodkind fan in the world.

George R. R. Martin, however, is another story altogether. I won’t go into a long, glowing, gushing diatribe about how much I love Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series (you can thank me later) but I will say that it changed everything about how I view, read, and write fantasy. It had a greater impact on me than the Lord of the Rings in that respect.

Since I heard whisperings about the new television series, based on Martin’s A Game of Thrones and put together by HBO, I’ve been cautiously optimistic. It’s gritty, brutal, brilliant storytelling that seems catered for good television (not surprising considering Martin’s background in television). However, I’ve learned to be disappointed, especially when it comes to things I love on television (see: Firefly, Deadwood).

The best news so far, aside from Sean Bean and Peter Dinklage starring in two integral roles in the series, is that the first season has been officially picked up by HBO (as if there was any question… but still). Did you hear me squee from over there? Yeah, thought so. Let’s just hope that in this difficult economy HBO can balance budget with ballast, and we can leverage the series’ popularity with some decent numbers in the ratings for some staying power.

Not to mention, they’ve also released one kickass picture. More, I say. More! I want to see the Stark kids in full costume; I want some swords and armor! I demand it. And some ships. And maybe a Kraken.

Ahem.

That said, if for some reason you’ve never read the series, you really ought to. Granted, the series isn’t finished yet (a rather sore spot among some of the fans out there, I should point out), but even so it’s worth having your own vision before the television imagines it for you!

[Via The Hollywood Reporter]

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