ashamel

Well, that was distracting. Half through this evening's gym session, there was some story on the ABC about the Australian Synchrotron, for who I do work. I'm sure that was as good as excuse as any to stop doing those strange push-up-thingies. I didn't see my program on any of the computers they zoomed past.

We're almost at the end of our two-week trial. As suspected, the classes themselves are good, it's the after-shocks that are more of a worry.

In other remake news (via jblum), Harvey Keitel is going to be Gene Hunt. Good golly.

Sydney-siders might be interested in the Sydney Observatory's 150 years celebrations. There are various science lectures and demonstrations in the next few weeks.

It's been an odd day for the New York Times website. At the moment it features a large piccie of a platypus top and centre (for Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too), and earlier they had Steampunk fashion.

I don't think there is any particular correspondence between those two subjects, but it did lead me circuitously to this.

New game gizmo uses mind control

Freaky dude. I am amused that this sort of thing is being brought in as game technology, which is undoubtedly much more commercial than, for example, disabled support services. I can certainly see it heading in that direction soon after. Paranoia may also point out that training a machine to basically read your mind might lead to all sorts of uncomfortable to scary lie-detector-type scenarios.

(Assuming it is not yet another over-hyped and under-researched article, but it looks more or less legit from this end.)

I bought an Xbox 360 recently, my first ever console. Assassin's Creed came as a freebie, and it's a beautiful thing -- how the story goes, we shall have to see. I've also played round with a couple of other game demos, and picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic cheap (having familiarised myself with the backward compatibility list).

One very neat thing is that it streams avi video from my PC. Now, to try and stop Windows Media Centre updating itself halfway through an episode of something...

This guy protests too much, but he has some good points: Is Technology Killing Movies?

We've just seen Primer. Freaky, man.

But I'm suspicious. It is the tenth anniversary of google being registered (more or less). A couple of guys in a garage take over the world... Did they really use a search engine?

Also, I read the chapter on time travel in The Science of Stephen King today. Mere coincidence, of course. But in any sane world, would I have wandered into a video shop this week to see Steve's wacky time travel romp, The Langoliers, being played?

I think not.

If nothing else, somebody should go back in time and tell the editor to make it half the length, and perhaps make a decent movie. (The Langoliers. I don't think cutting Primer in half would help.)

The Science of Stephen King isn't much good, alas. It manages to improve after the first disastrous chapter (on ESP), but still doesn't provide a particular coherent look at either science or Steve's work. A shame because, now I think about it, there could be potential in such an odd idea.

It did manage to equate two branes colliding with a certain Buick, which was a good trick. Made me regret yet again I couldn't get any brane-eaters in All Tomorrow's Zombies.

I read David Pogue's stuff at the NY Times on a semi-regular basis (see pogueposts), and this morning he references an article on the Ansto site Blink-free photos, guaranteed. Cute.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for my latest contribution to global culture to appear. No, not All Tomorrow's Zombies or even the interview we did with the local paper two weeks ago. On TripleJ this morning they asked a lettuce farmer if there was anywhere in the Bible where God was smiting lettuce. I texted off the obvious reply and am now waiting for my mention. I may be waiting a long time.

ETA: Obviously my regular stint in the (ahem) 80s was enough radio glory for me. But I did get one of my suggestions listed in Not on DVD Corner (down the bottom). And am I the only person who is somewhat tempted by (another) revised version of Alexander? It was a mess — and an extra 40 minutes probably won't help — but it was an interesting mess.

According to Triple J news, Ethiopia is coming up to the Millennium because it is still under the Julian calendar. According to Wikipedia this is a gross simplification.

Either way, I'm mainly wondering how their computers cope.

In other news, Alice goes to court.

There is a great article in the NY Times, Unhappy Meals (rego probably required). It's all about how all the solutions to western dietary problems are just making us sicker by, surprise, pandering to big business.

In recent months I have been trying to get my health back into shape, the result being a whole lot of extra supplements — the sort of stuff the article points out (in general terms) are rather useless. But since the great majority of what my great-great-grandmother would recognise as food is liable to make me ill, I'm not sure there's a way off immediately.

I guess this is just a bit of a whinge then, but it maybe be useful to others.

I was thinking someone should make this design into an icon last week, and today I stumbled across it. I remember creating one of these things way back when, but these days it's all online: The Magic Sierpinski Triangle.