One of Patrick Hughes’s many cool 3D paintings, “Paradoxymoron, currently hangs in the basement of the British Library, in London. For those interested in having a look at other pieces by Mr. Hugues, be sure to visit his official website.
Hughes’ work is full of irony. By creating a world solidified into perspective he makes pictures that come alive before our eyes. In the myth of the sculptor Pygmalion makes a stone woman, whom Aphrodite brings to life as Galatea. Hughes makes wooden lumps of space and you bring them to life by looking at them. It is sculpted painting, solid space.
In the wake of the Tiger Woods scandals, a new iPhone app named TigerText allows you to send and receive text messages which can’t be traced later on. Or at least that’s how the story goes, but that story isn’t quite accurate.
The app doesn’t actually involve sending SMS messages over the phone network. Instead, the messages are sent exclusively through the app itself, meaning both the sender and recipient must install the software to get them. (The app itself is free and includes up to 100 messages in the first 15 days. After that the sender pays $1.50 for 250 messages or $2.50 for unlimited messaging.)
Of course, adulterous spouses could buy a package of messages for their secret lover, though whether that will be seen as a sweeping romantic gesture may be open to question.
The message never actually exists as such on the recipient’s phone. Instead, it is stored on the servers of the company running the service. They automatically wipe it after a time set by the sender, ranging from one minute to five days. After, this it becomes completely inaccessible, so if either the sender or the recipient wants to look back longingly at it later, they’ll have to take a photograph of the screen.
The theory is that even if it’s by legal action, the company would be unable to hand over any details of messages as the records would no longer exist. It does keep call records (who sent a message to who and at what time) by default, though these can also be set to be automatically wiped.
It’ll be interesting to see how this theory is tested in the event that people use the app to cover crimes of more interest than adultery to the authorities. Certainly an ISP that took a similar approach to e-mails wouldn’t find itself too popular with the security services.
The creator of the app told Time that the name of the app had been chosen before the Woods stories broke and that it is just coincidental. (He doesn’t explain where the name did come from, though a company FAQ says it is because tigers are difficult to track and also that it launches in the Chinese year of the tiger.)
He also explains that the motivation of the app is to increase privacy and allow users more leeway when they text something they later regret and would prefer there was no record.
When I stumbled on this this morning, I though that it would be another poorly composed amateur nerd-themed song, but boy was I wrong. Dave and Brian‘s “The Dork Anthem” has to be one of the most awesome music video I’ve listened to so far this year.
I only have one problem with the name of the song… I mean, have you looked up the definition of “dork” recently?
USA pejorative slang for a quirky, silly and/or stupid, socially inept person, or one who is out of touch with contemporary trends. Often confused with nerd and geek, but does not imply the same intelligence level. [Source: Wikipedia]
Maybe they should have named the song “The Geek Anthem” instead? It would certainly have sounded a bit less derogatory that way, wouldn’t you say?
Whatever you get when you combine games, Star Wars, and Lego construction has to be awesome. When it’s big and useful, it’s doubly awesome! Stefan built a foosball table completely from Lego bricks and manned it with Star Wars minifigs, for Mocpages.
This is my original LEGO Star Wars Soccer Table, it’s fully playable. Two games have been played on this table – I lost both against my son, but the Empire will strike back.
I’m not sure how many of you are aware that even though most of [GaS]’s contributors and readers come from the United States, this blog is actually being managed from Canada, more specifically from the region of Montreal, Quebec. So to help out the local geek community, I decided to officialy sponsor one of Montreal’s first big multi-disciplinary geek festival, GeekFestMTL.
Even though the festival’s organizational comitee is mostly French, GeekFestMTL is addressed to people who speak both of the province’s official languages: French and English.
If you speak French, you can check out the festival’s official site here, and for people living in the region of Montreal who do not speak la langue de molière, more details about the event can be read via this blog post (excerpt below.)
The festival will take place on March 6 (10AM to 6PM) and 7 (10AM to 7PM), 2010, at SUPINFO – École supérieure d’informatique, located at 752 Sherbrooke Street West in Montreal (easily accessible from McGill metro station) (Google Maps). All types of geeks are invited, but there is nothing stopping non-geeks from participating in the event!
Montreal is the perfect city for any geek festival. The city already hosts many of them, each one more interesting than the last. We are not trying to replace other festivals. We simply want to create a new type of enjoyable gathering.
How will we accomplish this? The idea of GeekFest is to create several smaller festivals/activities featuring different categories of geeks, all under the banner of one large festival: GeekFest!
Since this will be the first GeekFest, we will be focusing on the most common types of geeks: Apple Geeks, Computer Geeks, LAN/Gamer Geeks, Music Geeks, RPG/Board Game Geeks, SciFi Geeks.
Of course, the idea is to represent as many types of geeks as possible. We are thus working with various organizations, businesses and volunteers who will teach us more about geek varieties throughout the festival. Our long?term goal is obviously to increase the number each year!
We have planned plenty of activities to entertain all our visitors: a Geek Orchestra, a LAN Party, Video presentations, different kinds of Geek competitions and debates, Cosplay, a RPG area, an xBox lounge, a Retro-Gaming section, a CodeFest, a Geek Food competition, and so on.
Will you be there? Of course you will!
For those attending who wish to meet, I’ll be present (picture of me) at the festival on March 6th, from around 11AM to 3PM.
I also have 1 free ticket to the event to give away, so if you’re interested, please send me an email using the contact section of the blog’s top menu bar.
The Poetry of Reality is John Boswell’s fifth installment in the Symphony of Science series. The video features 12 scientists and science enthusiasts, including Michael Shermer, Jacob Bronowski, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Jill Tarter, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, Carolyn Porco, and PZ Myers, promoting science through words of wisdom.
In the wake of the Tiger Woods scandals, a new iPhone app named TigerText allows you to send and receive text messages which can’t be traced later on. Or at least that’s how the story goes, but that story isn’t quite accurate.
