Radio documentary on The Jewish Giant
On Monday, I referenced this famous Diane Arbus photograph of Eddie Carmel, "The Jewish Giant." BB reader Christopher Washer pointed me to a terrific Sound Portraits profile of Carmel, who died in 1972. The documentary was produced by Jenny Carchman, who first say the Arbus photo as a little girl and couldn't get it out of her mind. From the description of the program, titled "The Jewish Giant":
The Jewish Giant began with Jenny's search to uncover a story that has remained a secret for 25 years. Eddie was normal sized until he became a teenager, when he began to grow uncontrollably (he suffered from acromegaly, a then-incurable condition resulting from a tumor that had developed on his pituitary gland). According to The Guiness Book of World Records, Eddie grew to be 8'9". As an adult, the only work he could find involved exploiting his freakishness. He starred in B-grade monster movies (The Brain that Wouldn't Die), made two 45 records ("The Happy Giant" and "The Good Monster") and was billed in the Ringling Brothers Circus at Madison Square Garden as "The Tallest Man on Earth." Eddie died in 1972 at the age of 36 in Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. His coffin was custom made.Link
The Jewish Giant is a story of suffering, of not fitting in, of the body betraying itself, and of the bizarre life-twists that can subsume a family. It's a story about what it's like to be a regular person looking at the world from inside a not-so-regular body.
Previously on BB:
• Hubert's Freaks: the lost photos of Diane Arbus Link
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Western Digital’s VelociRaptor drive gets reviewed
Filed under: Storage
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Memristor — 4th Basic Element of Circuits
esocid writes "Researchers at HP Labs have solved a decades-old mystery by proving the existence of a fourth basic element in integrated circuits that could make it possible to develop computers that turn on and off like an electric light. The memristor — short for memory resistor — could make it possible to develop far more energy-efficient computing systems with memories that retain information even after the power is off, so there's no wait for the system to boot up after turning the computer on. It may even be possible to create systems with some of the pattern-matching abilities of the human brain. Leon Chua, a distinguished faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, initially theorized about and named the element in an academic paper published 37 years ago. Chua argued that the memristor was the fourth fundamental circuit element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor, and that it had properties that could not be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Grand Theft Are You Fcking Kidding Me
Susannah Breslin has a post up today about the overwrought reactions of shock 'n' horror over the sex 'n' violence in just-released Grand Theft Auto IV.
After a video of the Ladies of Liberty City began circulating around, in which men drive around, pick up sex workers and/or drive over them, shoot prostitutes standing on street corners, and get some freaky-ass, legs-in-the-air, booty-shaking lap dances, everyone got all up in arms over it.LinkThe girls at Feministing weren't having it: "It is no question that GTA is merely reflective of the bigger misogyny embedded in capitalist patriarchy, but the question is why is a game that depicts such violence towards women so popular?" (Jesus Christ, if this is what degrees in gender studies hath wrought, polysyllabic bloggers still carping about the patriarchy, please fucking stop handing them out.)
Jack Thompson nearly had a heart attack over it. (To wit: "Grand Theft Auto IV is the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio. We now have vaccines for that virus... The 'vaccine' that must be administered by the United States government to deal with this virtual virus of violence and sexual depravity is criminal prosecutions of those who have conspired to do this.")
And Rockstar got a helluva lot richer. (See: "Record Sales Expected For Grand Theft Auto IV.")
Previously on BB:
* GTA IV world record attempt tonight, next door to BBtv
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Psystar Open Computer notes, benchmarks and video
Continue reading Psystar Open Computer notes, benchmarks and video
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Why Life On Mars May Foretell Our Doom
Hugh Pickens writes "Nick Bostrom has an interesting interpretation on why the failure of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) for the past half-century is good news and why the discovery of life on Mars could foretell our doom. Bostrom postulates a 'Great Filter,' which can be thought of as a probability barrier and consists of one or more evolutionary transitions or steps that must be traversed at great odds in order for an Earth-like planet to produce a civilization capable of exploring distant solar systems."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Should Strands Apply Recommendations to Personal Finance?
Strands has been around for a couple of years now, and has made quite a name for itself in th realm of social media recommendations. Often considered a competitor to sites like Last.fm, Strands built a brand around providing a service that spanned the web and mobile devices for introducing you to new music, and more recently videos, by way of search and discovery, among other things.
So with a vast amount of funding reaching $55 million, what’s this company doing acquiring Expensr, a money-management tool?
As with many other online money management services emerging in this day and age, Expensr already had a social component to it. Acquired for an undisclosed amount, expensr’s inclusion into the Strands family will help the recommendation service branch out into new directions. To kick things off, Strands is launching moneyStrands (currently in private beta), which directly applies social recommendations to personal finance.
It seems a bit odd at first, but there are already services out there, like Redux, Facebook Beacon and others that have already begun to take such measures into consideration, to varying degrees. If media recommendations, among other types of user and consumption behavior, can be applied to search and discovery, then it can be applied elsewhere–like towards personal finance.
In an anonymous manner, you can share your financial activity in order to compare yourself to others, and learn from the aggregated data that moneyStrands is keeping tabs on. It’s quite similar to some of the social stock-picking sites we’ve seen, as well as other socially adept personal finance management tools, like Geezeo. And it wouldn’t be a Strands product if it didn’t have an optimized mobile offering as well.
With strategic investment from the global financial institution BBVA late last year, the current moneyStrands features have apparently been in the works for some time. As a result of Strands tis with BBVA, Strands will also be ensuring industry best practices. So how do you feel about being able to compare your personal preferences across media as well as spending habits under one virtual roof–Big Brother or a better road to Beacon? To what other areas of our lives will personalized recommendations be applied?
© Kristen Nicole for Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog, 2008. |
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T-Mobile to debut 3G as voice-only. No data. We’re over it.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless
Well screw us -- T-Mobile's 3G network debut tomorrow? It's going to be voice only. That's right, you heard us, VOICE ONLY. So trepidatious is this company to actually get their 3G data rollout, um, rolled out, they're launching first with kneecapped voice-only service, keeping only EDGE for those demanding data. Here's the snippet from the memo we received:"3G is the next generation of our wireless network, following our current GSM network. In this early phase of our network evolution, 3G is a new technology for carrying wireless voice calls and supporting existing data capabilities on our network. In future phases, this next generation network will power 'high-speed' (3G) products and services that connect customers in new and exciting ways. ... Inform customers who are interested in high-speed data that the first phase of our 3G roll out supports voice only." [Emphasis ours]
No word on when T-Mobile actually plans to turn on the faster data, but for everyone who was hoping he wait continues -- for those that haven't already jumped ship, anyway.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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HP creates radical ‘memristor’ technology, brains explode
Filed under: Storage
"Memristors" are one of several memory technologies that have been theorized and promised in the coming years. HP has made a real memristor, however, and the way solid state memory is created and stored could have just changed forever. First theorized in 1971, memristors are basic circuits like resistors, capacitors, and inductors. These circuits are able to store data by allowing their levels of electrical resistance to fluctuate between high and low, or 0 and 1 to a computer. Like flash memory, they retain that data without power -- except they do it all on one circuit and at the speed of D-RAM. In the end, we could be looking at a whole new kind of storage, as long as someone can figure out how to get these things onto integrated circuits. Nerds hats off, return to your fanboyism -- now.Related posts
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Last.fm Reports Coldplay Single Doing Well
Last.fm is reporting that the new single from Coldplay, “Violet Hill” is getting played about once every 2-seconds. This is of course a similar tactic pioneered by Radiohead last year, and Last.fm is reporting that its rate of play is outstripping the trend setters own song, “15 Step”.
It may be a bit disingenuous to compare the songs, let alone the bands, due to differing fan bases, and also system of release. “15 Step” was released as part of an album, while “Violet Hill” is a single, so it is far easier for someone listening to an album for the first time as they want to hear all the songs at least once, and then go back to their favorites.
Nevertheless, the apples-and-oranges comparison may be moot as Radiohead chose yesterday, the same day Coldplay’s single come out, to tell Mimi Turner of The Hollywood Reporter, that In Rainbows was “a one off”, and they have no plans to follow that release model again. This could prove to be interesting as other bands such as Nine Inch Nails have rushed into pick up the banner from the first ones to do it.
© Sean P. Aune for Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog, 2008. |
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WOW: CBS Acquires Last.fm for $280 Million
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Google Sets Sights On 3D Map of the Oceans
Several readers wrote to tell us about one of the next major projects to enter the Google-verse. We already have pretty views of the Earth and the Sky, the next target is apparently a 3D map of the oceans. "The tool — for now called Google Ocean, the sources say, though that name could change — is expected to be similar to other 3D online mapping applications. People will be able to see the underwater topography, called bathymetry; search for particular spots or attractions; and navigate through the digital environment by zooming and panning. (The tool, however, is not to be confused with the "Google Ocean" project by France-based Magic Instinct Software that uses Google Earth as a visualization tool for marine data.)"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Yamaha’s notepad / keyboard hybrid concept: a songwriter’s dream
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
[Via kanYe West Blog]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Is Ubuntu Selling Out or Growing Up?
AlexGr notes an article by Jeff Gould where he says " Sometimes I wonder whether Ubuntu is really an open source software company any more. Yes, yes, I realize Ubuntu is not a company at all but a free Linux distribution, GPL'd and open source by definition. But still, the Ubuntu distro is sponsored by a traditional for profit company. The answer that has recently emerged to this question is, "yes and no." Yes, of course, because Ubuntu's web site promises that the distro "will always be free of charge, including enterprise releases and security updates." But Ubuntu the enterprise ecosystem — understood as the collection of desktops and servers running Ubuntu in a given organization — is not."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Today at Boing Boing Gadgets
Today at Boing Boing Gadgets we started off the morning by looking at some zombie robots who like to eat brains. From there, it was straight to serious gadgetry: AT&Ts plans to subsidize the 3G iPhones, a look at a WiFi detecting watch, a tiny wireless camera perfect for covert perversion, a video game controller that claims to work on psychic reverberations and the workstations of the rich and tasteless.
We also rounded-up our 1k Competition Entrants... those works of genius from our readers in 1024 bytes or less. A bottle of Marilyn Manson's new absinthe was broken open, with much reminiscing about similar beverages quaffed in bars of yore. And then Rob broke out Photoshop and created this incredible image of cyborg Steve Jobs with his face ripped off, to celebrate a vintage Japanese automaton's refurbishment.
Also: the cutest Alien vinyl figurine ever.
Link
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Picnik Chooses Tribal Fusion for Integrated Ads
Picnik has done a lot in the past few months, like make its services readily available for integration amongst other social media-sharing sites, embark on global growth, seek out additional revenue through peripheral products and make all of its services free, in the ad-supported kind of way.
That’s a lot going on, especially as Picnik is striving to stay competitive in the web-based photo editing space. So to help it do so, Picnik has chosen Tribal Fusion as its new ad network. As part of Tribal Fusion’s Brand Certified program, Picnik even gets special treatment and additional advertising opportunities within Tribal Fusion’s network.
This also gives Tribal Fusion an opportunity to strut its stuff, in terms of its vertical advertising capabilities, where it really shines. The types of ads you’ll be seeing as a result will include things like custom skins used for background images, and other floating ads. In providing this type of integrated advertising option, Tribal Fusion and Picnik leverage both of their own strong points and make the ads part of the content with which end users are interacting.
Given Picnik’s demographic and spreading popularity within Facebook and MySpace, such marketing certainly seems better than a simple banner ad, and fits better with Picnik’s distributed access across the web as well.
© Kristen Nicole for Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog, 2008. |
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Chelpa Ferro’s foosball table is seriously wired for sound
Filed under: Gaming, Household
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IFPI, Childnet Offer Guidance For Proper Downloading
The recording industry group known as the IFPI, one with international support from some 1400 companies located all around the globe, has come to terms with a hard truth. No, it hasn’t caved to the pressures of the peer-to-peer crowd. That war is still very much in play. Rather, they understand that children are quite impressional young individuals, and can really absorb things like sponges, good and bad.
So while kids’ minds are still moldable and accepting of all sorts of information, the IFPI is taking the liberty to propagandize or educate them on “legal and safety issues surrounding online music,” according to Nate Andersen of Ars Technica. The international charity Childnet, in cooperation with the recording industry collective, has produced a music download guide that addresses all the right and wrong ways to purchase and manage their content. Oh, and they so wish, parents can sit down for a lesson, too.
Aces. To start, the guide will first be distributed in the UK and Singapore, and will later be sent off to 21 other countries. And, yes, because the technical specifics might fly right over the heads of many of today’s iPod-contained youth, they’ll be pressing adults to show succeeding generations how to convert word to action. Which may seem tedious at first, but take into account the added time spent with the kids, and it’s all good fun in the end.
First, of course, childrens’ elders will have to do some of their own brushing up on what’s legal and what’s not. But all should know that the guide is simply a convenient part of the overall effort to have citizens all across the world play it straight when it comes to consumerism. So before you go out a BitTorrent spree, pick up a copy of the IFPI’s guide. You may just think twice about your frustration with copyright law and various measures to protect what is absolutely, positively not yours to own. At all. Ever.
© Paul Glazowski for Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog, 2008. |
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Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:
Pirate Bay Takes Over Anti-Piracy Domain. A Major Hack?
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Yahoo! China Found Guilty of Copyright Infringement
Playing CDs On Your Computer is a “Privilege”
Warner Music Group: Going the Way of the Dodo
Rumor: Google Considering UK Wireless Bid
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