Oppa Jackman style!
[Source: PSY]
“The Sound of Cylons” [Music Video Parody]
Speaking as someone who has Starbuck’s tattoo on her upper back (thanks, Loki!), I have to say that my friend Jennifer has won the internet for the day, by showing me this parody of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” with a BSG influence.
So Say We All, Jenn!
[Via YouTube]
Trolling: “Facetious not Malicious”
Down under, a war is being waged on the trolls of cyberspace. For the last few months, the Australian media has put the Internet trolling subculture under the media spotlight, in an attempt to bring down what most view as a despicable pastime.
However, there are those who are self-proclaimed trolls who care to challenge the current popular opinion of their regular hobby. Jaime Cochran is a 20-something, female professional, who’s (fairly) articulate. She doesn’t exactly fit the stereotype of what we’ve thought trolls to be huh? That is – she’s not a misogynistic teenage boy, pumped on red bull, bored with life, not getting laid enough and a general miser of a human being. But she still calls herself a troll – and still enjoys making people angry.
She claims that trolling is an artful form of entertainment. She calls it a “way of evoking a reaction.” And she finds it hilarious when people get upset over issues that she considers banal (such as their taste in music). Check out the video of her interview on The Age.
But the war against trolling was instigated from some quite serious consequences from this sort of behaviour – such as Charlotte Dawson who ended up in hospital over a trolling incident. And her father having to watch his daughter’s tribute page get mauled by a bunch of trolls – who just found it funny.
Cochran and the other trolls involved in the interview on SBS’s Insight quickly claimed there was a difference between what they do and what those trolls do. Those are evil trolls who are, in their opinion, simply bullies.
Trolling, in Cochran’s opinion is something she does to make “people laugh, and maybe think about things differently.” She believes that what she does is “harmless fun” and that the evil trolls are “downright mean and cruel” while she is the type of troll that would “put some thought into what [she’s] doing.”
But where do you draw the line? When does something become trivial? I feel that walking the trolling path is walking a dangerous one. I’m all for intelligent debate, but when you start purposely looking for fights over meaningless things, I would think that that sets you at a very precarious edge. And when you fall off that edge, you start hurting people in ways that are cruel and malevolent, though you may not see it that way at the time.
What do you think? Have the ‘evil’ trolls besmirched the good name of trolling for those who are just in it for a bit of fun? Or is the whole culture a bane on cyber-society that should not be tolerated?
[Via The Age]
Cosplayer Chronicles – Episode 3: The Chainmail Chick
Here is the third episode of the Cosplayer Chronicles series, featuring “The Chainmail Chick” by our pals @ Distractotron.
Previous Episodes:
Raspberry Pi Lovers Share their Projects
Last night around 50 people gathered in a science park to watch a man switch on a lamp.
Fortunately this was very much a case of the process being more important than the outcome. This wasn’t a group of yokels getting their first exposure to electricity, but rather Bristol’s latest “Raspberry Jam” event, a showcase for owners of the Raspberry Pi computer to show off their products.
As we’ve previously covered, the Pi is a computer that fits on a circuit board a little bigger than a credit card. It costs from as little as $25 and although you’ll need to add peripherals to its various outputs to do much with it, it is a fully working PC. Both its low cost and small size are designed to inspire creative thinking about ways to use the technology. Events like the Jam are designed to answer the question many new Pi owners have: what exactly can I do with it?
First to speak at the Jam event was Chris Wallace, who explained how he is trying to use the Pi on his boat. He says that although boats often use a wide variety of electronic data systems, they aren’t always practical to consult. Storing them below deck means constantly having to run back and forth to check them, which can disturb people sleeping below (assuming the bleeps and flashes of the equipment hasn’t already woken them. However, it can be difficult to see screens on deck during wet and windy conditions, not to mention the water can play havoc with them.
Chris is thus working on adapting the Pi to take this data and relay it through the eSpeak tool in Unix so that the crew can get the data in audio form. He noted that this idea could be further adapted to use in kayaking where checking a screen is completely out of the question. He’s also looking at a way to incorporate the data broadcast over VHF radio to avoid collisions.
The next speaker, Arthur Amarra, was making his return to the Jam, having previously covered his attempts to use the Pi to control a robotic arm (a project inspired by his own limb being in a sling.) This time he demonstrated his attempts to use the Pi to modify a lamp to be voice controlled. It’s a clear example of something that has little practical purpose in this form, but does help expose some of the problems and workarounds when working with machines like the Pi.
Arthur explained that the system works much better since the last Pi firmware update, which improves the audio input options via USB: for the demo he used a Playstation Eye as a microphone. In future he plans to try using a Bluetooth microphone simply to free up another USB port. While the system does currently switch on the lamp (admittedly after a few attempts), the speech recognition isn’t yet refined enough to cope with the difference between “lamp on” and “lamp off”, so voice control doesn’t yet switch off the lamp. Perhaps the most impressive and/or terrifying part of the engineering involved is the plastic casing Arthur used to integrate the Pi connection into the lamp’s power supply without exposing users to the 240 volts that come from European mains sockets.
Finally Phil Atkin showed his progress in creating an electronic synthesizer using the Pi (pictured on top.) The project, which originally began on a PC with a dual core A9 processor had to be redesigned more efficiently to work on the Pi. Phil says a particular problem is that ALSA, the main sound facility on the Pi, can easily take up to 50% of its processing power.
According to Phil, the project’s main difficulties have been in the software programming rather than the hardware. The sheer potential complexity of the various effects and filters in the synthesizer meant that in the original design it would have taken “10 times as long as the universe has existed” to demonstrate each potential combination for three seconds. That’s now been cut to around two days.
The hardware involved costs a total of £17.59 (around US$30) and includes a 3.5 inch monitor, a router box, a tin that used to hold mints and a piece of plywood. Phil’s long-term plan is to produce a commercial synthesizer kit for Pi users and he’s in contact with Martyn Ware, formerly of the Human League and Heaven 17, both known for their synth-based music in the 1980s.
Lenovo’s Mega Touchscreen PC (and TV?)
Windows 8 is coming and it’s bringing with it touchscreen computing. Of course, touchscreen computers aren’t anything particularly new – I believe HP has had one for ages. The difference is that the actual system is going to be built for it – Windows 8 is going to be designed for touch screens.
And Lenovo is ready for it with the IdeaCentre A720. According to this woman at Wired, the computer is looking like it’s pretty tip-top shape.
Sleek and sensible design. Fully adjustable screen can be laid flat, and the IPS panel offers great viewing angles. All the entertainment necessities are here, including Blu-ray, HDMI in/out and a TV antenna jack. One of the best touchscreen all-in-one PCs available ahead of Windows 8?s launch.
Even the gripes she DOES have don’t seem particularly awful (except perhaps the price point – $2,100 is a lot of money):
Display resolution is a bit low for a 27-inch screen. Performance doesn’t quite match the price. Bundled peripherals are uninspired.
Though I suppose if you’ve gotten used to a retina display on a 3rd generation iPad, you might be a bit dubious about low resolution.
One of the things I love about this girl’s review of the product is that she got tired playing Fruit Ninja on it – as in her arms started to ache. She lives a good life, doesn’t she? Having to play games on her giant touchscreen PC till her arms hurt in order to write an article about it. Sounds good to me!
From how she describes it, it seems that the TV-PC is just waiting for Window 8 to come out to get the full functionality out of the television. But regardless, she seems to believe it’ll be a hit.
What do you think? Touchscreen TV-PCs or is this just one of those gadgets for people with too much money?
[Read the full review on Wired]
The 140-Character Novel: Famous Authors Try Their Hands at Twitter Fiction
Hemingway made famous the six-word story with his oft-quoted “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” But is ultra-brevity a form we can expect to see more often now that being on Twitter is more popular than not? The Guardian rounded up 21 famous authors and asked them to give the 140-character story a go.
Hari Kunru gives a good short-form thriller:
And Helen Fielding shows strong with her micro-tale of marital woe:
But as Simon Armitage notes, perhaps this project isn’t worth the effort:
There are 18 more where this came from, but for me the results are mixed. Read the rest and decide for yourself, but before you go, let’s play a game: Drop your own 140-character story into the comments. I have a feeling that you guys can convince me that there’s a better way to do this.
Editor’s Note: FREE SHIRT TO THE BEST STORY (As decided by me!)
LEGO Releases ‘TMNT’ Sets!
While April O’Neal, Casey Jones, and Bebop & Rocksteady are clearly lacking, the rest of the gang is all here!
NOTE: Only Leonardo, Michelangelo, Dogpound, Foot Soldier, and The Krang are currently available in the $60 “Shellraiser Street Chase” set. Raphael,Donatello (who was always my favorite), and the rest will be available in future sets.
[Via Gizmodo]