January 31, 2006
Badger, Badger, Badger (Wikipedia)
badger badger badger, originally uploaded by Gimpi
I've talked about Badger, Badger, Badger before - what? You've never head of the awesome flash video Badger, Badger, Badger, before?
Go - check it out and come back.
OK... you back?
Badger, Badger, Badger isn't what I want to talk about, at all.
What I want to talk about how hilarious WikiPedia's Badger, Badger, Badger article is. To whit:
There is some contention that rather than "Badger" the words are actually "Badgers", plural. However, the most common belief is that "Badger" is in the singular. (It is also possible that the song switches between the two.) Stanzas 2—4 contain only eleven repetitions of "Badger" rather than the regular twelve due to a beat being skipped between the mushroom scene and the badger scene. The sound between the beats is thought to be either an intake of breath or the indefinite article "a".
The audio doesn't match up exactly with the visuals. This becomes plainly discernible after 30 minutes of continuous playing. At this point, the audio is at the twelfth "badger" in the first line while the visuals show the mushroom. Over the next few hours, the visuals continue to play faster than the audio, achieving maximum separation at 4 hours 12 minutes. Thereafter the gap begins to close, and becomes synchronized again at about 8 hours 30 minutes. This process continues cyclically.
emphasis added
I want to know who exactly could watch Badger, Badger, Badger for 4 hours 12 minutes to ascertain maximum separation
, much less the 8 hours 30 minutes to see the resynchronization.
I salute you fine gentleman for wasting over 8 hours of your life in pursuit of Badger, Badger, Badger trivia!
Big Sweatty Men v. Puppies II
Mika watching the "Puppy Bowl", originally uploaded by Azulina
Last year Animal Planet brought us Puppy Bowl, three hours of puppies playing around with stuffed footballs in a "stadium" - can't... resist... puppies... Now they are set to bring us Puppy Bowl II (even more puppies) this Sunday, February 5, 3-6 p.m. This year, Puppy Bowl will feature a half-time show consisting of, you guessed it, kitty half-time show with adorable bundles of energy playing their hearts out!
I can just imagine the Animal Planet program management:
How are we going to compete against the Super Bowl?
I have no idea!
Fuck it! Let's play hours of puppies playing football!
Too... much... cuteness... bring out the Cute Overload!
January 24, 2006
Secrets Revealed
Secrets Revealed, originally uploaded by plemeljr
Strange - with today's roll-out of high-er resolution Google Maps places which previously were obscured, pixelated, or blanked out now stand in their original form.
In doing research for an upcoming trip to Washington D.C. to visit friends, I naturally started wandering around the D.C. area on Google Maps, and naturally (thank you L'Enfant) drifted over to the people's house. You might notice the Old Executive Office buildings flanking the White House and the Oval Office itself. All of these items were blanked out in the previous version. You might also want to check out the Russel Senate Office Building, the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the three House Office Buildings - all previously redacted (more Capitol fun here). You can also check out the Pentagon cafe in the center of the Pentagon - also previously redacted.
All this goes to show that the conventional wisdom of restricting maps (information) almost never works.
But the results sure are pretty to look at.
January 20, 2006
Has Flickr Handed Records over to the DoJ?
I'm sure you are aware of how Google is fighting a DoJ attempt to gain search records in order to make a case that online searches revolve around porn. Well, duh. The Web is the sum of all human knowledge, plus porn. Additionally, as Daniel Drezner states, "...DOJ is being unbelievably lazy."
What I'm concerned with, is that Flickr is part of the Yahoo! family which has released info to the government:
The Justice Department asked a federal court this week to force Google to turn over a trove of information on how people use the Internet. A subpoena, first sought over the summer, seeks activity on Google's search engines for a single week, a request that Google says could lead to identifying millions of people and what they were looking at.
The government, which says its request will not result in identifying individual computer users, wants to use the information to resurrect an online pornography law shot down last year by the U.S. Supreme Court. It wants to search Google queries to see how often users inadvertently run across sexual material.
The Internet's rise has raised issues of whether users would be vulnerable to electronic eavesdropping of all kinds, but Google's stand represents the first big public face-off between the world's leading search engine and the government....
Yahoo, which has the second most popular Internet search engine, acknowledged Thursday it has complied with the government on a "limited basis."
I think it goes without saying how bad a precedent this is, especially in light of a photo-sharing site. It is not clear what information from Yahoo! has been turned over, and there is no reason to worry - yet. What Y! needs to do is transparently document what was turned over. And what the DoJ needs to do is not request information from search engines, but as Dan also points out, hire an independent social scientist to conduct research about this topic - because I would like to know also. My sense is that it is harder to find than conventional wisdom states, but infinitely easy if you are looking for it.
I contacted the Flickr people about this, but haven't gotten any response yet. When they do, I will post their responses below.
January 16, 2006
We Have a Dream
Martin Luther King Jr. By Alexander Austin, originally uploaded by yngrich
As has been my custom, in honor of the great Martin Luther King, Jr., who not only spoke out for rights of African Americans, but for peace in general, here is the link to the transcript I Have A Dream. Additionally, for 24 hours only, here is the recording of I Have A Dream *[mp3] - all 16 minutes. This is for educational and non-commercial purposes only.
I am featuring this for 24 hours because it is still copyrighted by the King family, but I believe that this monumental speech denouncing all hate and warmongering in the world deserves to be in the public domain. Rev. King's message is the most succinct voice for peace that graced America in the last fifty years.
* As per custom, the speech has been taken down. It is a pity that the King Foundation withholds this wonderful speech from those who want to hear it.
January 13, 2006
Best Blond Joke Ever
While Ben says that this will cause eternal damnation, by far, this is the Best Blond Joke Ever.
January 12, 2006
Raising Cain
Everyone should check out the PBS special, Raising Cain about the difficulty boys have growing up in today's world. Here is a short blurb of the film:
America's boys are in trouble. They are the most violent in the industrialized world. Many are unable to express their emotions. On average, boys are doing worse in the classroom than they were 10 years ago.
When I first heard about this piece, my liberal knee jerked quite hard about why girls weren't included in this special. But after watching the piece, I came to understand that this was in the same vein as an earlier PBS special called Girl Wrestler about (well) young girls wanting to wrestle.
Raising Cain is quite good about moving from addressing infant boys all the way up to teenagers, in a wide-spectrum of class, and wealth. Two things surprised me about this show: the first was a study showing that girl toddlers are quite calm when their mothers leave them for short periods of time, while baby boys instantly get upset. It shouldn't have been a surprise: boys emotion parts of their brain don't fully form until later in adolescence.
The second surprising moment was during a segment about a youth who attends an all-boys school in the LES: the boys were playing patty-cake during lunch. I immediately started laughing about that, but then had to stop myself; what a great moment! Kids were being kids without some BS cultural baggage about who should do what. Sending youngsters to single-gender schooling sounds more and more appealing.
I am looking forward now to PBS running a similar program about young girls, and their difficulty growing up in this world. It would be interesting to see how divergent it is, and what the experts think are the big issues for young girls (and women) in America.
The year in cities
Following the meme,here's my 2005 in cities:
- New York City* (photos, flickr)
- Columbus, OH*
- Mountainville, NY (photos, flickr)
- Cincinnati, OH
- Miami, FL*
- Key West, FL (flickr)
- Cleveland, OH
- * multiple visits on non-consecutive days
Didn't get around as much as I would wish, but financial considerations made travel difficult. Perhaps this year things will change?
January 11, 2006
First Goatse
DSC03258.JPG, originally uploaded by mrneutron
Fun with Flickr Tags: First Goatse (work safe) - photos of people viewing Goatse (work safe) for the first time.
Ahhh, Internets how I love you!
January 3, 2006
September 11th Video Archive
The Sphere, originally uploaded by plemeljr
Interesting article about immediate media reaction to September 11th which mentions an archive of all networks reaction that morning located at some org called The Television Archive (televisionarchive.org).
The problem is that the link provided does not work and forwards you to the Internet Archive. The closest thing I could find on the Archive was a 9/11 Chronology - Source Material (2004) and Historical/Research 9-11 video, 68 min, unedited (2001). Both of these files seem to be digitized from VHS tapes and (ehem) are not the videos you are looking for.
I am sure that this archive exists somewhere, but it is quite hard to find where to contact Mr. Paul Iorio to follow up on the location of this archive. Hopefully a dispatched email will point us in the right direction.