The Spin Cycle |
Artificial Intelligence | March 4, 2009
Some people have claimed the Internet may wake up one day and tell us to get a real job. If the Internet itself doesn't wake up then there will at least be a few living things that find their way on to it.
Wondering what I'm talking about - check out some of these amazing visual constructions which are based on real life data from worms, viruses, trojans and spyware code - the closest things to living organisms the web has yet seen.
The series is: Malwarez by Alex Dragulescu
Anyone else think these are amazing?
Information Technology | February 27, 2009
I've known about the issues with Ma.gnolia's epic fail for a while now but it so fascinating to see 2 big sites crumble (Journal Space being the first) in as many months. I could only imagine how heart wrenching it would be for the people working behind the sites. In many ways it demonstrates extremely well the dangers for users in relying on the cloud.
A lot of data may have been lost but sometimes it's nice to have a tidy of house and start again fresh and clean. The cloud may be dangerous in regard to data loss but I think we are becoming way to dependent on the massive amounts of data we are trying to hoard. We only do it because we can - not necessarily because we actually need to.
Music | February 26, 2009
The Music Industry (or rather the Recording Industry) shaped music as we know it today. It was technology that gave the Industry the power to do what it did. Basically they were the leaders in:
Music before this time was only ever seen on a small scale. It would be families or small groups of people celebrating one another's company and the freedom of expression. On a slightly larger scale there were stage performances but due to the lack of substantial amplification of the sound (due to lack of technology), the crowd intensity could only ever reach a certain limit.
Fast forward through the years to the realm of something like the dawn of the Beatles and you are dealing with the raw energy of music piped straight through to millions via TV and radio. And not only that but this same magic could be purchased and enjoyed through the beauty of a recorded medium.
What an Industry! Essentially it tapped into something primal, turned it into something exclusive and turned it into a product which resulted in a billion dollar Industry and shaped the musical form for the western world.
Fast forward a little bit more... say today for instance. The Recording Industry is still making loads of money but there is a massive shift. And the shift has been going on for some time. Some could even say even right back to the 70's with introduction of cassette tapes. But today the shift is an even starker contrast.
The Pirate Bay is battling in court attempting to uphold the ideology of the massive shift of power the music industry is facing. The people of the western world have adopted there own distribution and media format of music leaving one less reason for a Record Industry. The other technical strength they've held is the power of sound engineering and the recording process itself. Nowadays any kid with a laptop and a passion can match the efforts of the Industry. Purists may snark but some of the best albums I own are lo-fi. Hence we can scratch another requirement off the list.
So, what's left for the Industry. Oh that's right, to operate as a filter. Why would I want only one filter? Why do I even need a filter. Good news travels fast and the word of mouth is faster than ever.
I think that's everything. The only thing left to say is, thank you Industry for the heights of Hendrix and the crap from Britney Spears. We the people now claim back the music!
This one goes out to TPB - good luck guys!
Science | February 24, 2009
I remember taking biology at high school but all I can consciously remember about it was the view of the school yard out the window. That's not to say the classes were dull, I had a great teacher. I think the whole idea behind biology just didn't fascinate me very much at time. No doubt my mind was elsewhere.
Biology stirred up in me recently when I started thinking about dolphins (as you do). I knew that they are supposed to be highly intelligent, possibly more so than us. I also knew that they are mammals...
So, I've got a general idea of what a mammal consists of but I wasn't quite sure how that idea ends up as a creature swimming in the ocean.
If Wikipedia is good for something I knew it would be up for this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans
As it turns out, the ancestors of dolphins spent a fair bit of time on land. So much so they had legs and pretty much looked like an over grown rat (illustrated above).
It's pretty amazing to think we and dolphins were one when we came out the oceanic ooze on to dry land. They hung around for a while but liked the wet stuff so much they just had to go back!
I think that's pretty damn cool.
Information Technology | January 15, 2009
I know that Apple could have easily bundled these headphones with the iPod Touch (2nd Gen) but chose to hold them off so they could cash in on and extra $30 bucks but they do create plenty of reason for celebration. With them, you now have a decent mic that allows you to squeeze out a little bit of extra funtionality for things like voice recording and voip calls!! Now, all that is needed is a decent Skype iPhone app so Fring can be flinged and we no longer have to deal with the extra hop delays.
Information Technology | January 14, 2009
I don't know what happened. I wandered away from the app store for a few weeks. I come back and my password no longer works. Now, I didn't think my memory was that bad but I entered the password 3 times and got locked out. WTF? Anyway, I had to hook the thing back up the iTunes (which is rare for me) and I tried it again - no love.
Eventually I concluded the password for my apple account was going to have to be reset. Once that was done all was sweet. It was like there was never a problem.
I figured I must have changed the password doing something else through the Apple site - I don't remember what. At least I'm pretty sure it was me...
Science | January 11, 2009
Just wrote an article about the possiblity of the Earth being classified as a star. It seems like a pretty crazy idea but when you look at the facts there is a case to be made for it.
I feel that the biggest argument to say we are not a star is simply because we do not radiate so brightly. Another is that we only radiate significant amounts of radiation due to human activity.
First of the two arguments is an argument about quantities which is always going to come up against some sort of grey area. The second argument , on the other hand, ignores the fact the we as humans shouldn't be so quick to think we are seperate from the world we've spawned from. How are we not to be considered part of the Earth?
We'll I guess that's a whole other debate.
Luke is the CEO of Flickspin Media and Editor-in-Chief for the Flickspin writing community. He's a software developer with a passion for web technologies and Internet cultures.
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"But from heart to heart you will never create. If from your heart it does not come."
