Jason Griffey

Here’s an interesting ‘net phenomenon that I hadn’t picked up on yet: Woot!

Evidently, it’s a sort of niche commercial site. The kick is that they sell one thing, every day, starting at Midnight, at really good prices. When they sell out, they’re done for the day, that’s it, no more stuff. One day, an MP3 player. The next day, a remote control car. But just the one thing, and just for 24 hours (or until they sell out). Sometimes they have 50 of something, sometimes 1000.

This is the sort of commercial enterprise that could ONLY exist on the ‘net. I think it’s a brilliant counter-point to the we-sell-everything superstores like Amazon.

I’m in the New York Times!

Ok, so it’s just my name, and it’s in like 10 point font, and in an ad. But it’s still cool….especially since it’s for Firefox. Anyone else listed? If so, you might wanna snap up a poster.

How many famous names can we spot in the ad? I’ve already noticed Cory Doctorow‘s name in there…anyone else that you see?

…one huge fscking leap backwards for Alabama, that most maligned of the Southern States (well, ok…Mississippi certainly counts as well).

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – A judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to his wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold.

Yes, you read that right. Ten Commandments. On. His. Robe.

*sigh*

Clearly we have real issue with this whole “seperation separation of church and state” in AL. One more time for those in the back row:

“As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion…” – George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 4 November, 1796

I knew about this tradition, but hadn’t seen pics in awhile.

A ‘Krampuss’ holding a torch parades through Munich’s inner city, December 12, 2004. Young single men will wear the traditional attires known as ‘krampusse’, consisting of animal skins and masks, with large cow-bells to make loud and frightening noises, and parade through the city. They follow ‘Saint Nicholas’ from house to house in December each year to bring luck to the good and punish the idle. REUTERS/Alexandra Winkler

Jean pointed this out on her blog, and I felt so strongly about it that I decided to add it here just for good measure. Spend the money where it will make some difference. I’m even more pleased with my Costco membership now that I know this.

The teaser trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is up, and I’m not quite sure what I think about it. The sets and such look spot on, but there’s something….just not sinister enough about the take on it. The couple of times where Wonka talks during the trailer just aren’t filled with the same darkness that Wilder put into the role. Wonka was a scary, scary man in the original film, and I’m not sure I get that from the teaser.

Then again, perhaps this is just the happy get-the-kids-in-the-movie trailer. But I hope that Burton and Depp haven’t gone too silly with it, because that would ruin the balance of the story.

I had no idea.

Google Zeitgeist

Google Suggest is a Google interface that “suggests” what you are looking for as you type. It does so using:

algorithms use a wide range of information to predict the queries users are most likely to want to see. For example, Google Suggest uses data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers.

I did notice some interesting results when challenged with “naughty” language. Evidently “blow job” is a perfectly acceptable term, since as I enter “b-l-o-w” it suggests “blow job” to me. But “fuck” doesn’t give any results…contrary to expectations. Neither does “sex” or “anal,” but “f-e-l-l” gets “fellate” as a suggestion. “B-u-t-t” gets lots of suggestions for things, but “b-i-t-c-h” doesn’t. “F-e-l-t-c” gets “feltching” as a suggestion, so I can only assume that it’s the Seven Dirty Words that are somehow depreciated in the results. “M-o-t-h-e-r-f-u” gets me “Motherfunkers” as a suggestion….somehow, not the mostly likely result.

I’ve emailed Google about the limitations, and will post the result as soon as I get one.

..give me one of these things! We are inching closer and closer to real-life Anime these days. We’ve got working replicas of Kaneda’s bike from Akira…what Anime/Sci-Fi t3ch would all my readers like to see? I’ll put in one vote for hoverboards and lightsabers, but only for their Darwinist capabilities. 🙂

The Toyota iFoot This 2-legged, mountable robot was developed for three-dimensional mobility, with the ability to navigate staircases. The passenger climbs on and drives with a joystick. Toyota will present this proposal for a new type of mobility at EXPO 2005 AICHI, JAPAN.

Of course, once this is a reality, we’re only a step away from Nanny and Orphan Maker. Watch out, kids!

Paul Jones pinged me today to let me know that one of his current students is doing some research into Blogs and Ethics. While it looks like it’s pretty heavily geared towards “Blogs as Journalism” I thought that some of my esteemed readers might have something to say. Here’s the summary from the site:

I am a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. I am researching ethics in the blogosphere, and I am using this blog to gather the opinions and insights of active bloggers. I invite you to answer the following questions by publicly posting your comments or by e-mailing me at mgkuhn at email dot unc dot edu.

It’s an interesting take, in that he breaks down the first three questions into the philosopher who first popularized that particular twist on ethics: Rawls (Stakeholder), Ross (prima facie Duty), or Kant(Absolute Duty). The last couple of questions are more personal, focusing on the function and purpose of blogging for you.

I’ll hold off on questioning why he stuck with those three, out of the hundreds of ethical styles, and simply say: go comment! I’ll reflect on the types, and comment in a bit, after I managed to lay aside my humanist ethics for awhile and put on these other coats.